Put me down for outrage

Adam Brody is not a rabbi. This should not need to be said. He is an actor who plays one on Nobody Wants This, the wildly popular Netflix series that has generated plenty of conversation and controversy about Judaism, interfaith relationships, conversion, Jewish women and what it means to take religious commitment seriously.

Brody plays Rabbi Noah Roklov, a rabbi committed to his vocation and his community. He is not simply Jewish by background or cultural affiliation. His Judaism is central to who he is and to the life he has chosen to lead. Then he meets Joanne, a non-Jewish woman, and they fall in love.

The tension at the center of the show is not simply whether two attractive people with good chemistry will end up together. It is whether love can overcome or somehow accommodate religious incompatibility. Noah is forced to wrestle with what his relationship means for his rabbinate, his community, his family and his own understanding of Jewish continuity.

Joanne, in turn, has to confront something our culture of romantic comedies does not always handle particularly well: loving someone does not make everything else about that person disappear.

Noah comes with commitments. He comes with a tradition, a community, obligations and a history that began long before Joanne walked into his life. If she wants to build a life with him, she has to understand that Judaism is not simply a quirky collection of foods, holidays and overbearing relatives. It asks something of him. And being with him may ultimately ask something of her. That premise has been controversial from the beginning.

Some viewers have celebrated the show for presenting a rabbi as romantic, funny, desirable and fully human. Others have criticized its portrayal of Jewish women, its treatment of conversion and the suggestion that Jewish commitment inevitably stands in the way of romantic fulfillment. Still others have appreciated that the show allows religious differences to be real, that Judaism is not merely an ethnic backdrop Noah can discard when it becomes inconvenient.

Whatever one thinks of the show, Noah’s Judaism is relevant. In fact, the entire premise depends upon it.

If Judaism were merely incidental to Noah’s identity, there would be no conflict. Joanne would not have to contemplate conversion. Noah would not have to wrestle with what their relationship means for his rabbinate. His family and community would simply be colorful supporting characters in an otherwise conventional romantic comedy. But the show asks Joanne, and, by extension, the audience, to take Noah’s Jewish commitments seriously. 

And we did. We put Brody down as Rabbi Noah.

Not literally, of course. We know how television works. But successful performances blur boundaries. For millions of viewers, Brody became the face of a certain kind of American Judaism: warm, funny, accessible, imperfect, romantic and deeply human.

Then Brody asked us to put him down as something else.

In an interview with GQ, Brody was asked about the war in Gaza. His answer was unequivocal: “Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.”

“Put me down.”

“Put me down for genocide.” The line is ludicrous because its construction is so absurdly casual: put me down for anchovies, put me down for the aisle seat, put me down for the 7:30 reservation, put me down for genocide. Brody compresses the distance between the enormity of the accusation and the breeziness with which such accusations can now be made, as though genocide were merely an option on a ballot and the largely uninformed public were being invited to vote on it.

But “put me down” carries another meaning here. Many viewers had already put Brody down for something very different. We had put him down as Rabbi Noah. Of course Adam Brody is entitled to his opinion. But audiences are entitled to react to it, too.

Playing a rabbi does not require Brody to adopt the politics of the Jewish community. There is no single Jewish politics to adopt. Jews disagree, often loudly, about Israel, Gaza, and the decisions of the Israeli government. Nor does portraying a rabbi make Brody a spokesman for Jews.

But there is something striking about the juxtaposition.

Week after week, Nobody Wants This asks its non-Jewish protagonist to understand that entering a relationship with a deeply committed Jew requires taking seriously the history, obligations and sensitivities of the community he inhabits. The show, to my recollection, never talks about the Israeli conflict. 

And then the actor who so convincingly embodies that character steps outside the show and chooses one of the most morally and legally charged words imaginable to describe Israel’s conduct. There is a difference between criticizing Israel, criticizing its government, advocating for Palestinians, demanding an end to war, and alleging genocide.

“Put me down.”

It is such a casual construction for something so grave.

And maybe that is the part I cannot shake.

Because genocide is not just another political adjective. For Jews, the word carries historical memory that cannot simply be detached from the people whose attempted annihilation helped give the term its modern meaning. Today it is also a specific legal allegation being fiercely contested in international courts and public debate, with real-life implications for Jewish people and Jewish communities around the world.

Brody can believe the allegation is justified. Others can believe it is profoundly wrong. But nobody should pretend the word is weightless.

And that is where the fictional Noah and the real Brody collide in an uncomfortable way.

Nobody Wants This asks Joanne to learn that loving a Jew means understanding that Jewish identity cannot be separated neatly into the pieces she finds appealing and the pieces she finds inconvenient. History comes with it. Peoplehood comes with it. Memory comes with it. So does disagreement.

Perhaps audiences work the same way. We know Brody isn’t Noah. We know actors are not their characters. We know the person who puts on a rabbi’s clothes for Netflix gets to take them off at the end of the day and speak entirely for himself.

But performances create associations. That is their power. When the next season of Nobody Wants This appears on Netflix, viewers will once again watch Brody stand in Jewish spaces, speak Jewish words and wrestle with Jewish belonging.

And some of us will hear something else in his voice now. Adam Brody asked us to put him down as believing Israel is committing genocide. We should not soften the words he chose. They carry weight, and they will inevitably shape how some viewers hear him and view him from now on. But he cannot entirely control what happens to the other place we had already put him: in our minds, in our living rooms and on our screens as Rabbi Noah.

Adam Brody is not Rabbi Noah. He never was. The strange thing about a great performance is that knowing that does not necessarily make it any easier to see the difference.