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2022 was a big year for Jews in the arts. Here’s what happened on screen and stage.
(JTA) – Once more for the record, Dave Chappelle: Jews don’t actually run Hollywood.
But anyone paying attention to pop culture in 2022 saw a lot of Jewish creativity. This year saw several big, distinctly Jewish releases across multiple media, ranging from acclaimed movies to popular TV shows to theater, books and viral TikToks. And amid endless debates over who has the right to tell (and be cast in) Jewish stories, it was notable just how many of the biggest pop-culture events of the year fervently embraced Jewish identity.
Here were the biggest Jewish cultural releases of 2022:
Growing up Jewish at the movies
From left to right: Paul Dano, Mateo Zoryna Francis-Deford and Michelle Williams as fictionalized members of Steven Spielberg’s family in his film “The Fabelmans.” (2022 Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment)
Two of the year’s big art-house film releases were autobiographical portrayals of their directors’ Jewish upbringings. In “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg’s account of how he became a filmmaker, a teenager in 1950s America navigates a fracturing Jewish family and antisemitism at school. And in “Armageddon Time,” James Gray’s retelling of his Reagan-era childhood (with appearances from the Trumps), a Jewish family in Queens, New York tries to assimilate into the WASPy upper class — while their young son brushes aside the needs of his Black friend.
‘Tár’ and teshuvah
While the families in “The Fabelmans” and “Armageddon Time” were obviously Jewish, Cate Blanchett’s monstrous fictional conductor in “Tár” was not — which made it all the more surprising when the film not-so-subtly incorporated several Jewish themes into its story of artistic success and karmic retribution. The acclaimed drama looks to make big inroads this awards season as it gives audiences a de facto Hebrew lesson.
A ‘Rehearsal’ for living Jewishly
Miriam Eskenasy, a cantor and Portland-based Hebrew and b’nei mitzvah tutor, had a pivotal moment in HBO’s meta-reality show “The Rehearsal,” created by and starring Nathan Fielder, left. (Screenshot)
Gonzo comedian Nathan Fielder staged elaborate simulations of everyday life in “The Rehearsal,” a new HBO series that proved to be among the buzziest TV shows of the year — and whose late-season pivot to discussions of Jewish parenting caught just about everyone by surprise. As the Internet lit up with conversations about Miriam Eskenasy, the Hebrew tutor Fielder hired for his fake Jewish son, JTA spoke to Miriam herself about the various questions of Jewish identity explored by the show.
‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ under a microscope
The latest Ken Burns PBS history documentary, relaying how the United States responded to the horrors of the Holocaust both on the homefront and in wartime, ignited a fierce national reckoning over America’s historic treatment of Jews and outsiders. Burns and his Jewish co-directors told JTA they hoped to communicate an important lesson to the country about antisemitism and xenophobia that could challenge America’s founding myths.
TV had Jewish conflicts, with heart
Laura Niemi as Beth Strauss and Steve Carell as Alan Strauss in “The Patient.” (Suzanne Tenner/FX)
Narrative TV saw storylines about Jews clashing with each other and bonding with unexpected allies. FX/Hulu’s thriller “The Patient” dug into an inter-family divide between Reform parents and Orthodox children, even as the show weathered criticism for its casting of non-Jew Steve Carell as a Jewish therapist. Another Hulu show, Ramy Youssef’s “Ramy,” entered its third season with a storyline set in Israel and an Orthodox Jewish supporting character — notable for a series that focuses on a Muslim American protagonist.
A Nazi gold train on ‘Russian Doll’
Natasha Lyonne’s time-hopping Netflix series returned for a second season this year, reaching deep into the past to find Lyonne’s protagonist Nadia unearthing generations of Jewish trauma in her family. It all culminated with her exploration of a Hungarian “gold train” filled with treasures the Nazis supposedly looted from the country’s Jews during wartime. Lyonne was drawing on real-life Holocaust history for the plot, suggesting that Jewish inherited trauma remains with us to this day.
‘And Just Like That,’ some uncomfortable Jewish jokes
HBO’s “Sex and the City” follow-up was largely viewed by fans of the original as a fascinating trainwreck. Jewish viewers saw something else: a throughline of bizarre Jewish jokes, from a midseason flirtation with a Holocaust denier to a season-finale “They Mitzvah” that ultimately didn’t happen.
‘Funny Girl,’ serious cast conflicts
Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice during the opening night curtain call for the musical “Funny Girl” on Broadway at The August Wilson Theatre in New York City, April 24, 2022. (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
A classically Jewish Broadway show became the centerpiece of the year’s messiest backstage drama. “Funny Girl,” the hotly anticipated revival of the biographical musical about Jewish comedian Fanny Brice that initially launched the career of Barbra Streisand, debuted in spring to sky-high expectations. Lead Beanie Feldstein told JTA that taking on the role of Brice was “incredibly meaningful for me as a Jewish woman.” But following poor reviews and ticket sales, Feldstein exited with gusto — and was replaced by Lea Michele, the “Glee” star with Jewish ancestry who’d spent much of her career openly pining for the role of Fanny.
Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt’ puts the Shoah on stage
While Tom Stoppard would make just about anybody’s shortlist of the world’s most influential playwrights, he had never before explored his Jewish background onstage — until this play. Stoppard’s sprawling new historical drama, featuring a massive cast depicting several generations of Austrian Jews before and after the Holocaust, was Broadway’s most hotly debated play this year — and, he told JTA, its themes of assimilation and lost Jewish histories are ideas he found to be rich and poignant.
Non-Jewish authors explore Jewish legacies
Two seismic novels this year dealt in controversial ways with traumatic Jewish history, both written by European non-Jews. The Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarchuk delivered the English translation of “The Books of Jacob,” a 1,000-page doorstopper steeped in the tale of false messiah Jacob Frank, while Irish author John Boyne delivered “All The Broken Places,” a sequel to his infamous Holocaust fable “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” — as he defended the first against charges that it was implausible and tone deaf.
Jewish comedians stuck out their shtick
Ariel Elias makes her TV debut on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Oct. 24, 2022. (Screenshot from YouTube)
Stand-up comedy could be a scary place for Jews this year — see the aforementioned Dave Chappelle controversy. But a new generation of Jewish jokers still found ways to assert themselves, whether it was Ariel Elias parlaying a confrontation with a heckler into a very Jewish “Jimmy Kimmel Live” set or Ari Shaffir’s YouTube special about leaving Judaism, but not his Jewishness, behind. The New York Jewish Week was among the sponsors of a “Chosen Comedy Festival” that drew 4,000 people to Coney Island for a night of unapologetically Jewish standup by the likes of Modi, Jessica Kirson and Elon Gold. Meanwhile, British Jewish comic David Baddiel opened up a giant can of worms by playing it straight with his TV documentary “Jews Don’t Count,” based on his book about the ways he believes progressive circles have disregarded the scourge of antisemitism.
The Miami Boys Choir lit up the Internet
The Miami Boys Choir went viral on TikTok and Twitter, creating a new generation of fans of the Orthodox pop group.
(Screenshots via Twitter, TikTok/Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)
If you recently found yourself moved to tears by clips of Orthodox boys singing harmonized Hebrew pop songs on TikTok, you weren’t alone. The Miami Boys Choir became a breakout viral sensation this fall, with millions of newly minted fans celebrating their besuited swagger — and a few of the group’s alums getting in on the fun, too. MBC’s success was welcomed by Orthodox Jews in every corner of the Internet, who often feel sidelined or misrepresented by their depictions in popular culture.
A new Museum of Broadway is a Jewish hall of fame
An exhibit space at the Museum of Broadway evokes the scenery from the Mel Brooks musical “The Producers.” (NYJW)
Delayed by COVID, the Museum of Broadway finally opened in the heart of New York’s Theater District. And while it doesn’t go out of its way to center the Jewish contributions to the Great White Way, the work of Jewish composers, lyricists, playwrights, producers and choreographers is everywhere, from exhibits dedicated to Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim to tributes to Mel Brooks, Tony Kushner and the late, great cartoonist Al Hirschfeld.
Other Jewish stories from 2022 now available to stream:
13: The Musical (Netflix)
Ahed’s Knee (VOD rental)
American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow (PBS)
The Calling (Peacock)
Cha Cha Real Smooth (Apple TV+)
Heirs to the Land (Netflix)
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (VOD rental)
Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage (Disney+)
Image of Victory (Netflix)
Jackass Forever (Paramount+)
Last Flight Home (Paramount+)
Ridley Road (PBS)
Shababnikim (Chaiflicks)
Yosi, the Regretful Spy (Amazon Prime)
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Forverts podcast, episode 7: Purim
דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט שוין אַרויסגעלאָזט דעם זיבעטן קאַפּיטל פֿונעם ייִדישן פּאָדקאַסט, Yiddish With Rukhl. דאָס מאָל איז די טעמע „פּורים“.
אין דעם קאַפּיטל לייענט שׂרה־רחל שעכטער פֿאָר אַן אַרטיקל פֿונעם אַרגענטינע־געבוירענעם ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט דניאל גלאַי, „ווען מײַן מאַמע און מומע האָבן זיך אַרויסגעגנבֿעט צום פֿאַרבאָטענעם קאַרנאַוואַל“, וואָס איר קענט אַליין לייענען דאָ און אַ צווייטן אַרטיקל פֿון איציק גאָטעסמאַן, „ווי ייִדן האָבן געפּראַוועט פּורים אין מיזרח־אייראָפּע פֿאַרן חורבן,“ וואָס איר קענט לייענען דאָ.
צו הערן דעם פּאָדקאַסט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
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How Christian Zionism explains Mike Huckabee’s expansive view of Israel’s borders
In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee went viral for claiming that Israel has the right to control much of the Middle East based on the Bible — what may have been one of the clearest expressions of Christian Zionism by an American diplomat.
In the interview, which took place during Carlson’s recent visit to Israel, Carlson, who has routinely questioned the U.S.-Israel dynamic, asked Huckabee about whether he believes Israel has the right to all the land God promised the Jews in the Bible. Citing scripture, Carlson described the territory as stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, “essentially the entire Middle East.”
Huckabee replied, “it would be fine if it took it all,” but clarified several times that Israel is not seeking to do so, stating: “They’re not asking to go back to take all of that, but they are now asking to at least take the land that they now live in, they now occupy, they now own legitimately, and it is a safe haven for them.”
Later in the interview, Huckabee referred to his remarks as “somewhat of a hyperbolic statement” and subsequently took to X to say that his comments were edited and taken out of context by Carlson. He said that Carlson had asked him “as a former Baptist minister about the theology of Christian Zionism.”
While Huckabee’s statements on Tucker Carlson may not have aligned with official U.S. policy, they were consistent with the theological worldview he has articulated for years — one rooted in Christian Zionism, a movement that sees the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. For some believers, the modern state of Israel is viewed as a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus. Many adherents cite the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis — “I will bless those who bless you” — as a theological mandate to support Israel. Others frame their support less in apocalyptic terms and more in the language of shared “Judeo-Christian” heritage.
While Huckabee is the first evangelical Christian to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel, the Christian Zionist movement he is part of has a formidable political and financial infrastructure within the United States and has become a major force in the U.S.–Israel relationship.
Growing Groups
Christian Zionism has been one of the most reliable pillars of pro-Israel sentiment in American politics for decades. A 2025 survey by the Pew Research Center found that seven in ten white evangelical Christians has a favorable view of Israel, compared with approximately half of Americans who have an unfavorable view. Another study found that U.S. evangelicals are as supportive of Israel as they were before the Gaza war.
Israeli leaders have openly acknowledged that support. Ron Dermer, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and a close advisor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once called evangelicals “the backbone of Israel’s support in the United States.”
That support goes far beyond positive sentiment. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which Huckabee has been affiliated with, says it has raised $3.6 billion for Israel since 1983, with 92% of its donors identifying as Christian. In 2023, the organization raised more money than AIPAC or the ADL. Another major organization, Christians United for Israel, founded in 2006 by Texas pastor John Hagee, claims 10 million members, a figure larger than the total Jewish population of the United States.
A 2018 investigation by Haaretz estimated that evangelical organizations raised between $50 million and $65 million from 2008 to 2018 for projects in the West Bank.
The movement has also maintained a physical presence in Jerusalem. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem was founded in 1980 after several foreign embassies left the city in protest of Israel’s declaration of Jerusalem as its capital. The embassy hosts annual gatherings during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot that draw thousands of evangelical pilgrims, and it funds assistance programs for Jews who wish to immigrate to Israel, emergency aid, housing for Holocaust survivors, and other initiatives.
The Christian Broadcasting Network, an evangelical news network that reaches millions of viewers worldwide, operates a dedicated Jerusalem bureau that “offers a biblical and prophetic perspective to the daily news events that shape our world.”
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and Arkansas governor, has long existed within this ecosystem and is one of Christian Zionism’s most visible public figures. He has said that he has visited Israel over 100 times and was among the evangelical leaders who advocated for President Donald Trump to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, a decision widely celebrated within Christian Zionist circles. In 2018, Huckabee laid ceremonial bricks in the settlement of Efrat as a symbol of support.
He has also made controversial statements regarding the West Bank, stating in 2017, “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Personal theology vs. diplomacy
During Huckabee’s Senate confirmation hearing, Huckabee described the U.S.–Israel relationship as “not geopolitical” but “also spiritual,” stating that “to deny that would be to make it very difficult for us to ever understand how to go forward in a relationship with them.” He also acknowledged that while he had previously supported the possibility of Israeli annexation of the West Bank, his duty as ambassador would be to carry out the president’s policy rather than set it.
His interview with Carlson hearkened back to that moment and the tension between Huckabee’s role as an ambassador and his personal convictions.
The Trump administration has repeatedly stated that the United States does not support formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank. That position is tied in part to Trump’s effort to expand the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority states. Potential future participants — most notably Saudi Arabia — have explicitly conditioned normalization on credible steps toward a two-state solution, a framework that annexation would almost certainly undermine.
In response to Huckabee’s interview, more than a dozen Arab and Muslim-majority governments, joined by major regional bodies including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, issued a joint statement condemning Huckabee’s remarks. The statement described his comments as “dangerous and inflammatory” and said they “directly contradict the vision put forward by U.S. President Donald J. Trump” and the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. Just three days before the statement’s release, many of those same governments had met in Washington for the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace and pledged significant funding to the initiative.
According to reports, members of the Trump administration sought to reassure those governments that Huckabee’s comments reflected his personal views rather than official U.S. policy.
For his part, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — a supporter of West Bank annexation — posted Saturday on X, riffing on a movie title: “I (heart) Huckabee.” And no wonder: last year the ambassador had declined to oppose plans for a large West Bank settlement Smotrich had declared “will bury the idea of a Palestinian state,” with Huckabee declaring it “incumbent on all of us to recognise that Israelis have a right to live in Israel.”
Trump, however, has said he opposes annexation of the West Bank, reflecting growing rifts in the U.S. and even his own supporters, with the rise of a Christian Nationalist movement that includes many at odds with Christian Zionism.
At the same time, generational shifts within the republican party suggests an uncertain future for Christian Zionism. A recent study found that 20% of Republicans overall believe the United States is providing too much military aid to Israel. The generational divide is pronounced: 27% of Gen Z Republicans say the U.S. is giving too much aid, compared with 16% among Republicans in the Silent, Baby Boomer, and Generation X cohorts. Influential figures within this camp — including Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and on the more extreme fringe, Nick Fuentes — have gained prominence in part by criticizing the scope of U.S. support for Israel.
For now, however, the evangelical Christian Zionist movement remains deeply embedded in American politics. With Huckabee in the ambassador’s residence, that worldview occupies an official diplomatic post.
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Trump has no vision for what comes next in the Middle East
Buried within the long, maudlin, combative, occasionally moving and never modest verbiage of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday State of the Union address was this uncomfortable truth: Trump has no idea what comes next in the Middle East.
In discussing two conflicts that have drawn intense attention over the past year — those in Gaza and Iran — he offered a downright confusing picture of what the future has to offer.
When the president finally touched on foreign policy, after he had already been speaking for nearly an hour and a half, he credited himself with ending eight wars — a figure that’s worth questioning.
“The war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level, it’s just about there,” he said.
The Gaza war is over, maybe
There is no doubt Gaza is closer to peace than it was when Trump took office. The deal he forged between Israel and Hamas is so far the greatest foreign policy accomplishment of his second term.
But “just about there?”
Israel has killed about 600 Palestinians, including many civilians, since the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Hamas has not disarmed, and in fact, according to the Times of Israel, has begun inserting itself in new Trump-backed governing bodies in Gaza.
More than 80% of the structures in the Strip were destroyed in the conflict that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Rebuilding will take many years, and billions of dollars. Of the 200,000 temporary housing units humanitarian agencies estimate the enclave needs, only 4,000 have been delivered or on their way.
The much-heralded Trump peace plan, in other words, is on shaky ground.
That explains why Trump thanked Hamas, as he has done in previous speeches this month, for helping to find the bodies of dead hostages.
“Believe it or not, Hamas worked along with Israel,” Trump said, “and they dug and they dug and they dug. It’s a tough, tough thing to do, going through bodies all over, passing up 100 bodies, sometimes for each one that they found.”
Why not mention that Hamas wouldn’t have had to do such hard, noble work if it hadn’t attacked and killed Israelis in the first place? Because the odd compliment — thanking murderers for returning their victims’ bodies — was Trump playing to reality. If his signature diplomatic initiative is to succeed, he needs Hamas and its patrons to go along. So far, the group is stalling when it comes to disarmament. If he can’t persuade them to take that step, his signature peace effort is done for.
An awareness of just how treacherous this situation is explains why Trump’s Gaza comments focused largely on his success at negotiating the return of Israel’s hostages, both living and dead.
“And those parents who had a dead son,” Trump said, “they always told me that boy, they wanted him as much as though he were living.”
Trump didn’t offer a vision, as he has in the past, of a prosperous Gaza; of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords; and of Israel at peace with its neighbors. He didn’t even mention his pet initiative, the Board of Peace — surprising, given that the body met for the first time just last week. The Middle East has a way of lowering expectations, and in the State of the Union, Trump wasn’t selling anything but the successful return of the dead.
The Iran war that isn’t, yet
On Iran, Trump was, if possible, even more confusing.
The United States has sent its largest military force in decades to the Middle East, which means we are once again — maybe — on the verge of a Middle East war. But Trump’s case for conflict — and explanation of how things got to this point — was lackluster.
He claimed that Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
But evidently, a program that was “obliterated” is somehow, less than a year later, an imminent threat. In the very next sentence, Trump said Tehran is now trying to rebuild its nuclear facilities and develop missiles that could reach the United States. (The simpler and more factual explanation: actually, nothing got obliterated in the first place.)
While claiming that the Iranian regime recently killed 32,000 of its own people during nationwide protests — an exact death toll is still elusive — he offered the country a path to survival: give up nuclear weapons.
But what sounds like a clear demand really isn’t. Nuclear diplomacy takes a long time and great delicacy. Trump, who favors swift resolutions, has backed himself into a corner: The military is already there, and the world is waiting with baited breath.
Plus, Americans don’t want to go to war. Some 49% of Americans oppose an attack on Iran, with just 27% in support of one, according to a YouGov poll this month. Independents oppose the idea by 54%, and Republicans support it by only 58%.
What’s a president who has staked his second-term reputation on his ability to win big and make peace supposed to do?
For now, the lack of specificity gives Trump room to waffle on whether or not to go to war — and try to make a case for what specific, achievable aims he would have in doing so.
In a clear sign that he doesn’t yet have answers for those questions, Trump’s language on Tuesday sounded awfully familiar. “I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror to have a nuclear weapon,“ he said. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy.”
Compare that to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union.
“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” Obama said, “and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better.”
Maybe Trump has a clear idea of what comes next for Gaza and Iran. Or maybe we’ve just gone back to the future.
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