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‘Fleishman is in Trouble’ hits FX Thursday. Just don’t call it a Jewish series, says its creator.
(JTA) — From Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s point of view, her best-selling 2019 novel “Fleishman Is in Trouble” wasn’t all that Jewish. She’s a little perplexed by the deluge of press junket questions about its Jewish essence.
“It’s funny: I don’t think of it as a Jewish book. I know people do,” she said.
Brodesser-Akner, a journalist famous for her sharp celebrity profiles, is now the showrunner of the book’s star-studded TV adaptation, an 8-episode FX series that debuts on Hulu on Thursday. In the story, Toby Fleishman (played by Jesse Eisenberg) is a 41-year-old Jewish hepatologist who has recently divorced Rachel (Claire Danes), his ambitious, icy, blonde theater agent wife. Early on in the story, Rachel disappears in the middle of the night, leaving Toby with their two children and a truckload of resentment. Toby, who had a nebbishy and romantically insecure youth before marrying Rachel, is now drowning in the sexual bounty of dating apps.
On Zoom, Brodesser-Akner was speaking a few days after the show’s blowout bash at Carnegie Hall and Tavern on the Green, an iconic Central Park restaurant. “I’ve never been to an event like that. It was 600 people,” she said. It sounded like a scene that could have been plucked right from “Fleishman,” which is set on the extremely wealthy Upper East Side, and in which the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood are at odds with the ambitions and personal longings of its middle-aged characters.
Brodesser-Akner, 47, who was both adrenalized and a little frazzled, had to balance the premiere with parenting duties — she’s a mother of two boys, ages 15 and 12. “I’m still picking sequins from my teeth.”
As a writer, Brodesser-Akner likes to play with the power of subjectivity, and she built “Fleishman” on it. Though the story begins as Toby’s, it eventually morphs into a “Rashomon”-esque take on the divorce and what really went wrong in the Fleishmans’ marriage. The story is narrated by Libby (Lizzy Caplan), Toby’s friend from their year abroad in Israel. A former men’s magazine writer, Libby is now a lost and frustrated stay-at-home mom in suburban New Jersey (and a stand-in for Brodesser-Akner). Adam Brody steals scenes as Seth, an immature finance bro and another year-in-Israel friend with whom Toby reconnects after the divorce. (His presence is a homecoming of sorts for those of us who spent our tween years watching him play a different Seth in “The O.C.”)
“I don’t think of it as a Jewish book,” says Taffy Brodesser-Akner.
Brodesser-Akner pieced together the story’s Jewish elements: a doctor named Fleishman, a bat mitzvah, Friday night dinners, a year abroad in Israel, a few jokes about Jews being bad at home repairs (which is the subject of a very funny scene in episode six between Toby and Seth). There are a few insidery details that she fails to mention, like a fake Jewish sleepaway camp called Camp Marah, which sounds like the real Camp Ramah but roughly translates to “Camp Bitter” in Hebrew. Does all this add up to a “Jewish” story?
“I read ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen, and it mentions Christmas I think 47 times. I read ‘Crossroads’ and it’s about the family of a youth minister. But neither of those is ever called a Christian book. This is called a Jewish book. I don’t object to it being called a Jewish book. But to me it’s mostly an American story. As a writer and as an observer of the culture, I think that calling this a Jewish book is proof of the answer to an old question: are Jews considered Americans? And the answer is no.” She threw in her characteristic meta analysis: “So now you have a very Jewish profile. How Jewish is that, Sarah?”
The self-aware comment is a good reminder that although her responses may be unguarded, she has not forgotten that she’s on the record. A name in New York media, Brodesser-Akner wrote for GQ and is now a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, having profiled Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke and Tom Hanks and written about the Joshua Cohen novel “The Netanyahus,” the television show “Thirtysomething” and much more. She inserts herself often into her writing, not to make it about herself, but to remind the reader that every profile is by nature filtered through the lens of the writer crafting it. Her writing is searing, self-deprecating — so raw it’s still bleeding and often quite funny.
“I wrote the book the way I would write a profile, just like I always do. But this man doesn’t exist,” she said.
RELATED: 5 Jewish places that inspired Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’
We had tried to meet in person near her home on the Upper West Side, but by the time she was available, I was in Tel Aviv, placing us along the Israel-New York axis on which “Fleishman” is set. When Toby suddenly calls Libby to tell her he’s getting divorced, he catapults her into memories of their early twenties in Jerusalem. Those thoughts make Libby miss the possibilities of her youth, the ones time has ruthlessly and inevitably extinguished. Eventually her longing for her past becomes so overwhelming that it threatens her marriage to her menschy and patient husband, played by Josh Radnor. (For more longing-for-younger-days while in Israel content, Brodesser-Akner wrote a Saveur essay about vegetable soup in Jerusalem — her Proustian madeleine. Interviewing Brodesser-Akner from my friend’s apartment in Tel Aviv, a city where I lived in my twenties, I found the theme of longing for the past hit almost too close to home.)
Part of the reason Brodesser-Akner doesn’t think the “Fleishman” story is all that Jewish is that she doesn’t feel all that Jewish — at least not relative to her mother and sisters, who are aligned with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement and live within a few blocks of each other in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
“I don’t think any writer has ever gotten it right,” she says of her Jewish background. “They say I was raised Orthodox. It’s interesting because it always makes me look like the black sheep in my family, when really they are. I’m exactly how I was raised to be until I was 12.”
After her mother, a secular Israeli, and her father, a Conservative Long Islander, divorced, her mother put Brodesser-Akner and her sisters in Jewish school. Some Jewish observance trickled back to her mother, who ended up going the Chabad route.
“My mom had never been inside a synagogue until the day she married my father. Now that is what we call ironic,” Brodesser-Akner said.
Brodesser-Akner’s two sisters followed, and her mother eventually remarried and had another child, the only sibling born into a religious household.
“The thing that made me a journalist was being raised in a home where, at age 12, I was relegated to observer. I had to learn how to understand other people’s points of view. And now that’s what I do,” she said.
Despite their religious differences — Brodesser-Akner attends an Orthodox synagogue but sends her children to an unaffiliated Jewish school and says she wakes up “every morning with new ideas” — the author is very close with her family, and her sisters were at the “Fleishman” premiere.
“They were at the premiere of my perverted sex show,” she joked with a laugh referring to the Hulu series, which features some sexual content as Toby explores the post-divorce New York dating scene. “They show up for me and I show up for them. I have my challenges with it, but I think their challenges must be greater. They never say this to me, but they must think that my life is comparatively…” She looked away thoughtfully, trying to find the right words. “They must think my lifestyle is comparatively less worthwhile. But we really love each other.”
To Brodesser-Akner, the most Jewish show on television is “The Patient,” which she calls “the best show I have seen in 100 years.” And that’s not because it (like “Fleishman”) is on FX. “I’m not that kind of interview!” she said.
Lizzy Caplan plays Toby’s friend Libby. (FX Networks)
“It’s the most Jewish show in all of the Jewish ways. It grapples with a Jewish prisoner; with the difference between a Conservative Jewish female cantor whose son becomes ultra-Orthodox — I’d never seen that on screen. It was kind of the only relatable Jewish matter I’ve ever seen. People ask me if I’ve watched ‘Shtisel.’ And I always say, I’m in the 47th season of an ultra-Orthodox family drama myself and not really interested!” She laughed. “But also I think of the other Jewish matters on television, which are adapted memoirs of people who were ultra-Orthodox and now aren’t. It’s like no one can imagine religious people being happy in their lives. And that’s really shocking to me. My family is very happy.”
Brodesser-Akner wound up with her dream cast: she had a list of five actors — Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Josh Radnor and Adam Brody — and no backup plan. She noted the fact that viewers have seen them grow up on screen as one reason they were right for the roles. For many, watching Caplan, Eisenberg and Brody sit across from each other in a diner will feel like a camp reunion, the fulfillment of a Jewish television fantasy they never knew they had.
“One thing that we were trying to get across is ‘how could it be that I am this old when I was once this young?’ And the fact that you have a memory of Claire from ‘My So-Called Life,’ or Jesse from ‘The Squid and the Whale’ — that does so much of the work of the show without writing a word,” Brodesser-Akner said.
Besides Danes (who plays the only main character with a non-Jewish parent, whom the book makes clear she resembles) the lead actors are all Jewish — a notable fact in a time when Jewish representation on screen, and who should be allowed to play Jewish characters, is the subject of continued debate.
Last month, New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum, who is Jewish, tweeted, “There is a simple solution to the question of whether various non-Jewish actors are allowed to play Jews & that is to ask me.” Brodesser-Akner responded to the tweet, writing “[Non-Jew] Oscar Isaac in Scenes from a Marriage is the best ex-ortho I ever saw on screen!”
About casting Jewish actors, Brodesser-Akner noted a legal issue rarely mentioned in the representation debate: one can cast based on looks, but it’s illegal in the United States to cast based on religion. She took this very seriously.
“I spoke to [‘The Plot Against America’ director] David Simon about it and he said, ‘They’re actors. You let them act.’ And I agree with that. The question that I asked myself was who was perfect for it?” she said.
Even if Brodesser-Akner rejects the claim that “Fleishman” is a definitively Jewish story, wasn’t she consciously playing with some Philip Roth-inspired Jewish archetypes? Toby the nice Jewish doctor, the devoted, idealistic dad who’s also self-righteous, horny and insecure.
No, she insists she wasn’t. But also Philip Roth is so ingrained in her that who’s to say? And isn’t the question flawed in the first place?
“All I can say is that I am made out of Philip Roth. I’m so formed by his books. I actually would say that you have a bias in the asking of your question, in that you’re Jewish too. And you also are made out of Philip Roth books since you’re a writer. Again, that goes back to the same question as ‘are we American?’ To me, Toby is not ‘a Jewish guy.’ He’s just a guy! He’s the kind of guy I know! I was just trying to be myself.”
“Fleishman is in Trouble” premieres its first two episodes on Hulu on Nov. 17. It will release each of its six remaining episodes weekly on Thursdays.
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The post ‘Fleishman is in Trouble’ hits FX Thursday. Just don’t call it a Jewish series, says its creator. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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London Cafe Owner Features Face of Alleged Hamas Operative on Outdoor Chairs
Demonstrators attend the “Lift The Ban” rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
In London, a restaurant which has fashioned itself as a hotspot for anti-Israel advocacy has put forth a new provocation with the decision to feature images of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian pediatrician and neonatologist who was allegedly a key figure in facilitating Hamas’s terrorist operations, on the backs of chairs facing the sidewalks.
On Monday, Heidi Bachram — a Brighton, England-based, pro-Israel writer and social media personality with more than 51,000 followers — shared a video on X of Shakeshuka, a Palestinian eatery, showing off the face of Abu Safiya.
“Shakeshuka guy put the face of a Hamas Colonel on chairs outside his cafe in London,” Bachram posted. “This place is a five-minute walk from a popular Jewish restaurant. He’s despicable.”
The accompanying video shows owner Haleem Kherallah standing outside of his establishment, a self-described “Palestinian Kitchen,” with images of Abu Safiya attached to the backs of wooden chairs with woven seats.
Shakeshuka guy put the face of a Hamas Colonel on chairs outside his cafe in London. This place is a five minute walk from a popular Jewish restaurant. He’s despicable. pic.twitter.com/G5OplXSvYB
— Heidi Bachram
(@HeidiBachram) December 29, 2025
The restaurant declares itself “a home, a hub, a heartbeat.” At the top of its homepage, a large video features readings from Palestinian activists and poets.
“Over the years, Shakeshuka has become more than a space, it’s a community,” the website states. “A gathering point for authors, artists, activists, filmakers [sic], changemakers, and everyone who stands with Palestine, united in their voice, their creativity, and their commitment to justice. In these walls, conversations have sparked, connections have grown, and the fight for peace has been held with strength, dignity, and hope.”
The restaurant’s homepage describes ShakeShuka as “the brainchild of Haleem Kherallah from Palestine” and explains how he draws inspiration “from his mother’s cherished recipes and the bountiful fresh ingredients found in Palestine.” ShakeShuka calls itself “a unique dining experience in the heart of London” and “the first Palestinian restaurant in the city” which offers that with “every bite, diners are transported to the authentic tastes of Palestine.”
In June, ShakeShuka attracted attention for its anti-Israel advocacy when video emerged of customers celebrating during an Iranian missile attack against Tel Aviv.
Kherallah “operates as a Palestinian activist, making it shocking that such an establishment exists in central London,” Dr. Amira Halperin, a professor at the University of Nottingham who researches terrorism, said at the time, according to Israel Hayom.
Halperin described how “walking into the restaurant just one day after the terrorist attack against two Israeli diplomats in Washington felt like entering a Hamas command center.”
“Gaza photographs and anti-Israel messaging covered the walls,” Halperin observed. “Tables displayed Palestinian flag colors alongside ‘save Gaza’ slogans. One image promoted an ‘Apartheid Free Zone’ campaign connected to the BDS movement. The owner actively participates in Cage International alongside attorney Fahad Ansari, who represents Hamas in legal proceedings seeking to remove the organization from Britain’s terrorist list. Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, directs the case and advises the legal team.”
Advocating on behalf of Abu Safiya has become a popular cause in the pro-Hamas support network around the world. On Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement calling on the Trump administration to “demand” the Abu Safiya, describing him as “the Gazan doctor who walked toward Israeli tanks in an iconic video, and who has been held for one year without charge or trial after being kidnapped by Israeli forces.”
Last December, Israel arrested Abu Safiya and several other people while conducting a raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military was fighting Hamas terrorists. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it arrested Abu Safiya because he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.” The IDF also insisted that the hospital has been used as a “command and control center” for the Palestinian terrorist group.
The following month, a new report citing terrorists’ confessions revealed Israeli hostages were held in Kamal Adwan hospital, where the Israeli raid had uncovered a sprawling network of terrorists operating within the hospital’s walls, leading to the detention of over 240 Hamas terrorists, some of whom admitted that the facility was used as a base for Hamas operations.
Israeli forces also discovered that Abu Safiya was actively complicit in Hamas’s terrorist activities. As interrogations of detainees progressed, it became clear that the doctor was more than just a passive observer — he was a key figure in facilitating Hamas operations, according to Israel. Despite his alleged involvement in the group’s actions, however, an international campaign emerged since then to call for his release, a movement spurred by his media appearances throughout the war.
“We realized that the person at the heart of it all, the one organizing the terrorism and Hamas activities within the compound, was the hospital director himself,” Lt. (res.) D., a field investigator in military intelligence, told Israel’s Channel 12 news in January, referring to Abu Safiya. “The world must understand that there is close and clear cooperation between the medical team and the senior leadership of the terrorist organization: they cynically exploit our desire to avoid harming the helpless and use the medical platform to establish a base for terrorism.”
Terrorists inside the facility reportedly distributed grenades, mortars, and equipment for ambushing IDF troops.
On Saturday, the Qatari network Al Jazeera uploaded a video of Abu Safiya’s son pleading for his father’s release. The House of Thani monarchy in Qatar has long funded Hamas and offered safe harbor to Muslim Brotherhood leadership.
On Dec. 22, the Middle East Monitor published an op-ed by Adnan Hmidan, chair of the Palestinian Forum in Britain, declaring that Abu Safiya deserves the title of “Hostage of the Year 2025.”
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Somaliland already operates as a de facto state. So why is Israel’s recognition of it so controversial?
Last week, Israel became the first nation in the world to recognize Somaliland as a country, prompting global outcry and an emergency meeting of the United Nations.
The de facto state on the northern coast of the Horn of Africa has long operated independent of Somalia, but before Israel’s announcement, its sovereignty had not been officially recognized by any UN members.
After the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime in Somalia in 1991, Somaliland declared independence. The breakaway region has its own democratically elected government, military, currency, license plates and passports. It is often lauded for bringing relative stability to the region, with a record of peaceful transfers of power, though it is still only rated “partly free” by Freedom House amid crackdowns on journalists.
Somaliland also benefits from relative social cohesion, with the Isaaq clan comprising the majority of the population— a factor which has contributed to its stability in a clan-based society, according to Seth Kaplan, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who has researched Somaliland.
Somalia, however, considers Somaliland to be part of its territory, and slammed Israel’s recognition as an “illegal act” that undermines the region’s stability.
Is the recognition illegal?
There is no international law that bars countries from unilaterally recognizing a state. But countries generally consider international norms, including deference to the preservation of existing borders so as to prevent cascading secessionist conflicts.
The African Union has been especially committed to this principle, adamant that post-colonial borders remain intact to avoid instability and ever-changing lines.
“Any attempt to undermine the unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Somalia runs counter to the fundamental principles of the African Union and risks setting a dangerous precedent with far-reaching implications for peace and stability across the continent,” Nuur Mohamud Sheekh, spokesperson for the African Union, wrote in a statement.
In Somalia’s case, its border disputes trace to the late 19th century, when the north was governed by Britain as British Somaliland, the south by Italy as Italian Somaliland, and the area that is now Djibouti by France as French Somaliland. In 1960, the British and Italian territories gained independence and united to form the Somali Republic.
In Somalia, tens of thousands of people protested against the recognition, many waving Somali flags. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also called Israel’s move to recognize Somaliland illegal.
At the same time, there is no blanket ban on recognizing breakaway states that challenge existing borders: Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and more than 100 UN member states, including the United States, recognize it. Serbia does not, nor do five European Union countries, which have cited concerns that recognition could embolden separatist movements within their own countries.
Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to the UN Tammy Bruce accused the international body of applying double standards when it comes to unilateral recognition, noting that several countries have independently recognized Palestine as a state without triggering emergency UN meetings.
Somaliland’s bid for recognition is bolstered by the fact that it already functionally operates as a relatively stable, autonomous state, according to Kaplan. It meets many of the widely cited criteria for statehood, including a permanent population, a defined territory, and an independent government.
“In general, I support those norms of not recognizing breakaway states,” Kaplan said. “But if there’s one country or one state in the world that deserves it, this would be the one place.”
Israel’s goals
For others, resistance to Somaliland’s independence appears less driven by objections to Somaliland’s sovereignty than by opposition to Israel’s goals in the region.
While Israel’s exact motivations remain unclear, Kaplan said the move seems intended to secure a strategically important foothold in the Horn of Africa. As part of the recognition, Somaliland has agreed to join the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Muslim-majority nations.
“From the Israeli perspective, this is going to be a base that it can leverage to get a better handle on Yemen, as well as anything that Iran or other rivals of Israel might be doing in the Red Sea,” Kaplan said.
There is also fear about ulterior Israeli motives, with Israel having reportedly contacted Somaliland about sending Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza to the region. Somaliland denied that such a discussion took place.
Even in Somaliland, some residents expressed disappointment that the long-awaited recognition came from Israel of all countries, though most coverage has depicted scenes of celebration.
“It would be less controversial if Ethiopia or the UAE had done it,” Kaplan said. “But for the people of Somaliland, you can understand why they might be happy with this decision by the Israeli government.”
The post Somaliland already operates as a de facto state. So why is Israel’s recognition of it so controversial? appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Call for Division’: Australian Muslim Council Sparks Outrage Over Push to Block Israeli President’s Visit
People stand near flowers laid as a tribute at Bondi Beach to honor the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on Sunday, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) has come under widespread scrutiny after seeking to block Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia to commemorate the victims of the Bondi Beach massacre, a move that Jewish leaders have denounced as a “call for division.”
In a press release, ANIC called on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to revoke next month’s invitation for the Israeli leader to visit Sydney, where he intends to honor the victims of the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration that killed 15 people and injured at least 40 others.
ANIC accused Herzog of being “implicated in widespread war crimes and breaches of international law” amid Israel’s defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, adding he should not be “welcomed or afforded legitimacy” in Australia.
“The president is directly implicated in grave war crimes and acts of genocide against the Palestinian people, including the mass killing of civilians, the destruction of Gaza, and the expansion of illegal settlements,” the Islamic body wrote in a post on X.
“While ANIC stands in solidarity with the Jewish community and mourns the victims of the horrific Bondi terrorist attack, accountability and justice must not be compromised,” the statement read.
ANIC Statement on NSW Protest Legislation and Invitation to the President of Israel
The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) is extremely disappointed and expresses serious concern over the NSW Government’s new legislation introduced following the Bondi terrorist attack,… pic.twitter.com/ZW6MhVnIDc
— Australian National Imams Council (@ImamsCouncil) December 26, 2025
With Herzog having already accepted the invitation, Albanese is now facing growing pressure and criticism from politicians and Jewish leaders to oppose ANIC’s call to block the Israeli leader’s visit, planned for early next year in a show of solidarity with the Jewish community.
David Ossip, president of the New South Wales (NSW) Jewish Board of Deputies, condemned ANIC’s latest statement.
“It’s so disappointing to hear calls for division just as Australians want this to be a time for unity,” Ossip said in a statement.
“Australia has been attacked, and its citizens have been slaughtered on the beach. Many countries, quite rightly, want to show their solidarity with us at this time. Let them,” he continued.
In its statement, ANIC also denounced the NSW government’s new laws that expand police powers and curb protests in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre, describing the demonstrations under scrutiny as “an act of solidarity for Palestinians.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that peaceful protest … has any connection to the Bondi terrorist attack,” the statement read.
“ANIC is concerned that the legislation conflates lawful, peaceful protest with terrorism and acts of violence … increases social division rather than strengthening cohesion, and threatens fundamental democratic freedoms and rights,” it continued.
As the local Jewish community continues to grapple with a shocking surge in violence and targeted attacks, the Australian government has been pursuing a series of firearm reforms, including a national gun buyback and limits on the number of firearms an individual can own.
Last week, NSW passed its own legislation further restricting firearm ownership, granting local police greater powers to limit protests for up to three months, and outlawing the public display of flags and symbols associated with designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas.
In the aftermath of the Bondi beach attack, Australia’s rabbis urged Albanese to establish a federal Royal Commission into antisemitism — a formal public inquiry empowered to investigate, make recommendations, and propose legislative measures to also address the issue.
“We have sat with grieving families. We have visited the injured. We have stood with children who no longer feel safe walking to school. We have watched members of our communities withdraw from public spaces, universities, and civic life out of fear,” the Rabbinical Association of Australia wrote in a letter.
“We are demanding nothing less than the banning of [anti-Israel] marches and demonstrations, and the criminalization of the phrases ‘death to the IDF,’ ‘globalize the intifada,’ and ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ This is not an abstract concern. It is a lived reality,” the letter added, referencing three popular chants among anti-Israel activists that have been widely interpreted as a call for violence against both Jews and Israelis.