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As ‘The Marvelous Mrs Maisel’ ends, will its Jewish legacy be more than a punchline?
(JTA) — After five seasons, 20 Emmy awards and plenty of Jewish jokes, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” airs its final episode on Friday.
The lauded Amazon Prime show from Amy Sherman-Palladino has enveloped viewers in a shimmering, candy-colored version of New York during the late 1950s and early 1960s — a world in which “humor” has meant Jewish humor and “culture” has meant Jewish culture.
But as it comes to an end, the show’s Jewish legacy is still up for debate: Did its representation of Jews on mainstream TV make it a pioneer of the 2010s? Or did it do more harm than good in the battle for better representation, by reinforcing decades-old comedic tropes about Jews?
The comedy-drama followed the vivacious Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) on a journey from prim Upper West Side housewife — left in the lurch after her husband has an affair with his secretary — to ambitious, foul-mouthed comic fighting her way through the male-dominated standup comedy industry. Her New York Jewishness colored her jokes, her accent, her mannerisms and much of her daily life.
That’s because the whole landscape of the show was Jewish, from the well-to-do, acculturated intelligentsia (such as Midge’s parents) to the self-made garment factory owners (such as her in-laws). Even the radical Jewish comic Lenny Bruce, a countercultural icon of the midcentury, appeared as a recurring character who propels Midge’s success.
Henry Bial, a professor specializing in performance theory and Jewish popular culture at the University of Kansas, said the emergence of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” in 2017 exemplified a shift to more overt portrayals of Jews on TV — especially on streaming services. Although Jewish characters featured in TV shows throughout the 20th century, such as “The Goldbergs” in the 1950s, “Rhoda” in the 1970s and “Seinfeld” in the 1990s, their Jewishness was often more coded than explicit. Network television, seeking to attract the majority of Americans coveted by advertisers, feared alienating audiences who couldn’t “relate” to ethnic and racial minorities.
“If there are only three things you can put on television at 8 o’clock on Tuesday night, then there’s a lot more incentive for networks and advertisers to stay close to the herd, because you’re competing for the same eyeballs,” said Bial. “But when people can watch whatever they want whenever they want, then it opens up for a much wider range of stories.”
Other shows such as “Transparent,” “Broad City” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” which debuted in 2014 and 2015, are often cited alongside “Mrs. Maisel” as part of a new wave of Jewish representation.
Riv-Ellen Prell, a professor emerita of American studies at the University of Minnesota, argued that Midge subverts the stereotype of the “Jewish American princess.” At the start of the show, she appears to embrace that image: She is financially dependent on her father and husband and obsessive about her appearance, measuring her body every day to ensure that she doesn’t gain weight. Despite living with her husband for years, she always curls her hair, does her makeup and spritzes herself with perfume before he wakes up.
“She looks for all the world like the fantasy of a Jewish American princess,” said Prell. “And yet she is more ambitious than imaginable, she is a brilliant comic who draws on her own life. You have Amy Sherman-Palladino inventing the anti-Jewish princess.”
Bial said that Midge’s relationship with her Jewishness defies another stereotype: That identity is not a source of neurosis or self-loathing, as it often appears to be in the male archetypes of Woody Allen and Larry David, or in Rachel Bloom’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” Through the spirited banter, the pointed exclamations of “oy,” the titillation over a rabbi coming for Yom Kippur break fast — Midge’s Jewishness is a source of comforting ritual, joy and celebration.
“She has anxieties and issues, but none of them are because she’s Jewish,” said Bial.
Some critics argue the show’s depiction of Jewish culture relies on shallow tropes. In a 2019 review, TV critic Paul Brownfield said “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” repurposed stereotypes to appear “retro chic.” He pointed to a consistent contrast between the Weissmans (the assimilated, cultured Jews of the Upper West Side) and the Maisels (the boorish, money-focused Jews of the Garment District), arguing that these superficial types replace an exploration of what the period was actually like for American Jews.
“However ‘Jewish’ Sherman-Palladino wants the show to be, ‘Maisel’ fails to grapple with the realities of the moment in Jewish American history it portrays,” Brownfield wrote. “Which is ultimately what leaves me queasy about its tone — the shtick, the stereotypes, the comforting self-parody.”
Meanwhile, Andy Samberg took a jab while co-hosting the 2019 Golden Globes with Sandra Oh. “It’s the show that makes audiences sit up and say, ‘Wait, is this antisemitic?’” he joked.
Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle, shown in a synagogue scene, are two of the show’s non-Jewish actors. (Nicole Rivelli/Amazon Studios)
Others have criticized the show’s casting: Its titular heroine, her parents Abe and Rose Weissman (Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle) and Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) are all played by non-Jews. A debate over the casting of non-Jewish actors in Jewish roles has heated up in recent years, taking aim not only at Brosnahan as Midge Maisel, but also at Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsberg in “On The Basis of Sex,” Helen Mirren as Golda Meir in “Golda” and Gaby Hoffmann and Jay Duplass as the Pfefferman siblings in “Transparent.” Comedian Sarah Silverman popularized the term “Jewface” to critique the trend.
“Watching a gentile actor portraying, like, a Jew-y Jew is just — agh — feels, like, embarrassing and cringey,” Silverman said on her podcast in 2021.
Midge’s rise as a comedian is interlocked with her ally and one-time fling, the fictionalized Lenny Bruce. His character has a softened glow in the show, but in reality, Bruce was branded a “sick comic” for his scathing satire that railed against conservatism, racism and moral hypocrisy. Between 1961 and 1964, he was charged with violating obscenity laws in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, and he was deported from England. At his Los Angeles trial in 1963, Bruce was accused of using the Yiddish word “shmuck,” taken as an obscenity to mean “penis.” He incorporated the charge into his standup, explaining that the colloquial Jewish meaning of “schmuck” was “fool.”
Driven to pennilessness by relentless prosecution, police harassment and blacklisting from most clubs across the country, he died of a morphine overdose in 1966 at 40 years old. The real Lenny Bruce’s tragedy lends a shadow to the fictional Midge Maisel’s triumphs.
The United States that he struggled with until his death also looks comparatively rosy through the lens of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” whose protagonist battles misogyny but takes little interest in other societal evils — including still-rampant antisemitism. Some critics have noted that she is oblivious to segregated facilities when she tours with Black singer Shy Baldwin, then nearly outs him as gay during her set.
“‘Mrs. Maisel’ takes place in a supersaturated fantasy 1958 New York, one where antisemitism, racism, homophobia and even sexism are barely a whisper,” Rokhl Kafrissen wrote in 2018.
Reflecting on the criticism that had piled up by 2020, Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino, also an executive producer and a lead writer for the show, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that trying to appease every Jewish viewer was a futile exercise.
“We knew that if we show a Jewish family at temple — if we show them and talk about Yom Kippur and all those kinds of things — there are going to be people who are going to nitpick at specifics that maybe we didn’t get exactly right,” said Palladino, who is not Jewish. “But a lot of the feedback that we’ve gotten has been ‘Thank you. Thank you for leaning into it and showing Jews being Jewish, as opposed to just name checking them as Jewish.’”
Sherman-Palladino added: “[T]here are many different kinds of Jews! To say, ‘oh, Jewish stereotypes,’ well, what are you talking about? Because we have an educated Jew, we have a woman who was happy to be a mother, we have another woman striking out as a stand up comic, and, you know, Susie Myerson’s [Alex Borstein’s character] a Jew! We’ve got a broad range of Jews in there.”
However “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is assessed in the future, it will remain significant for thrusting a new kind of Jewish heroine into the mainstream consciousness, said Bial.
“Because of its popularity, its longevity and frankly its quality, it’s going to be the example,” Bial said. “In the history of Jews and TV, this is going to be the chapter for the late 2010s and early 2020s — you have to mention ‘Mrs. Maisel.’ It is very clearly a landmark in Jewish representation, particularly for Jewish women.”
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Mamdani Transition Team Appointee Resigns After ‘Money Hungry Jews’ Social Media Posts Resurface
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
An appointee of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani resigned just one day after her selection this week, following the exposure of decade-old social media posts that contained antisemitic language and stereotypes.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa, who had been named Mamdani’s director of appointments, stepped down Thursday after social media posts from around 2011–2012 resurfaced in which she used phrases echoing classic antisemitic tropes, including references to “money hungry Jews.”
The Anti-Defamation League condemned the comments, saying they “echo classic antisemitic tropes and otherwise demean Jewish people,” and questioned how such remarks were not uncovered during the vetting process for a senior role in the incoming administration. Shortly after the controversy broke, Da Costa’s X account was taken offline.
In a statement announcing her resignation, Da Costa expressed remorse for the posts, calling them and inconsistent with who she is today. In a statement, Da Costa said she “spoke with the Mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements. These statements are not indicative of who I am.” Mamdani accepted her resignation, stating that he believed her apology to be sincere.
The episode has intensified scrutiny of Mamdani’s transition team and personnel choices as he prepares to take office. Mamdani, a progressive lawmaker, has previously faced criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel groups over his rhetoric and positions related to Israel, prompting heightened sensitivity to issues of antisemitism surrounding his administration.
Jewish communal leaders said the incident underscores broader concerns about tolerance for antisemitic language within progressive political circles and the need for more rigorous screening of public officials and senior staff. Several noted that public servants must be held to a high standard, particularly at a time of rising antisemitism in the United States.
Halle Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, expressed approval of Da Costa’s resignation.
“Glad to see that Catherine Almonte Da Costa has resigned. The views she expressed are unacceptable and intolerable,” she said.
Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, also praised Mamdani’s “cutting ties” with Da Costa, but cautioned that ““had she said ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jew’ the response from the incoming Mamdani administration and the outcome we just witnessed would likely have been quite different.”
David Friedman, the former US Ambassador to Israel, expressed a more skeptical view of Da Costa’s decision to step down.
“Seems like every Mamdani appointee has something in common — an intense dislike for Jews,” he said.
The resignation marks an early setback for Mamdani’s mayoral transition and is likely to keep questions about antisemitism and accountability at the forefront as his administration begins to take shape. Mamdani has repeatedly stressed his commitment to protecting New York City’s Jewish community amid ongoing concern over rising antisemitism in the city and his own anti-Israel viewpoints.
Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, is an avid supporter of boycotting all Israeli-tied entities who has been widely accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; refused to recognize the country’s right to exist as a Jewish state; and refused to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been associated with calls for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide. During his tenure in the NYC City Council, Mamdani spearheaded the “Not on our dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act,” legislation which would ban charities from using tax-deductible donations to aid organizations that work in the West Bank. In 2021, Mamdani issued public support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement—an initiative which seeks to economically and diplomatically isolate Israel in the first step to its eventual destruction.
Notably, on Oct. 8, 2023, 24 hours following the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, Mamdani published a statement condemning “Netanyahu’s declaration of war” and suggesting that Israel would use the terror attacks to justify committing a second “Nakba.” Mamdani then said that Israel can only secure its long term safety by “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
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British Police Report Jewish Children Are Requesting Armed Escorts for Hanukkah Celebrations
Illustrative: A police car is seen outside Victoria Station in Manchester, England. Photo: Reuters/Phil Noble
British law enforcement say they are receiving calls from Jewish children — some as young as 10 years old — requesting armed police protection for Hanukkah celebrations, as fears and threats against the UK’s Jewish community intensify in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre and a surge in antisemitic incidents.
Speaking at the Policy Exchange think tank in London, Greater Manchester Police Chief Sir Stephen Watson said fear within the Jewish community has risen sharply after the Yom Kippur terror attack in Manchester and the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach — with even young children now asking for armed police protection to simply attend Hanukkah parties.
“We are getting telephone calls into Greater Manchester Police day in and day out over the past few days, where you have a group of 10-year-old girls wanting to go to a Hanukkah party — where they should, frankly, be interested in balloons and bicycles — and are requesting armed police officers,” Watson said.
“Jewish children are the only children in our country who, day to day, go to school behind large fences, guarded by armed personnel, with routine patrols around those areas,” he continued. “Our Jewish communities endure a way of life in this country that no one else has to endure.”
“The intolerable has become normalized and is now almost accepted as the way things are,” he added.
Manchester police have also been investigating reports that people celebrated last week’s terror attack at Bondi Beach — which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others — an act Watson described as “sickeningly distasteful.”
Speaking to the panel, Watson also warned that threats to Jewish communities have surged sharply since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“October 7 marked a dramatic increase in the threat facing our Jewish communities. The level of fear escalated, and it suddenly became clear that this was no longer an abstract issue — the level of security required by the community had risen sharply,” he said.
“Over recent months, security has gone from being a necessary measure to something that, despite its presence, was unable to protect people on Yom Kippur from being attacked and murdered,” he continued, referring to the terrorist attack earlier this year that left two Jewish men dead.
“We are now in a situation where the dynamics have continued to shift, but not for the better — everything has worsened. The terrorist threat has increased, and both the number and effectiveness of attacks have grown,” Watson said. “Fear, particularly within our Jewish communities, has intensified, and the reasons driving that fear have become more tangible and realistic.”
With antisemitism continuing unabated and threats against Jews and Israelis on the rise, British authorities are stepping up efforts to crack down on antisemitic incitement, targeting anti-Jewish hatred and bolstering both legal and security measures.
On Wednesday, London and Manchester police warned that anyone publicly chanting to “globalize the intifada” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely condemned as a call for violence against Jews and Israelis — will be arrested.
“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘globalize the intifada,’” London’s Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police said in a joint statement, pledging to “be more assertive” and take decisive action against anyone inciting violence.
“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed, words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests,” the statement read.
Shortly after this new measure was announced, local police arrested two individuals “for racially aggravated public order offenses” after they allegedly “shouted slogans involving calls for intifada” at an anti-Israel demonstration in central London, while a third person was detained for obstructing the arrests, the Metropolitan Police said.
Watson explained that slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are not outright prohibited, describing their legality as subjective and context-dependent — though he noted it is banned if shouted outside a synagogue.
He also emphasized that while waving a Palestinian flag is not illegal, doing so outside a synagogue could result in arrest.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” is a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
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Hamas Ran Gaza’s Aid System — and NGOs Helped Keep the Secret
Palestinians buy vegetables at a market in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
For years, international NGOs and humanitarian agencies told the world they were working “neutrally” in Gaza. But according to newly declassified Hamas documents, that neutrality never existed.
In a conversation with HonestReporting, NGO Monitor vice president Olga Deutsch explains how Gaza was run not as a normal territory, but rather as a tightly controlled police state where Hamas oversaw almost every aspect of international aid. “No one was neutral or independent in Gaza,” she says. “Hamas controlled everything.”
The documents, seized by the IDF and later declassified, come from Hamas’ own ministries. They show a system in which Hamas approved NGO staff, tracked individual employees, and controlled which projects and grantees received funding.
The “Guarantors” Inside Humanitarian Groups
At the heart of this system is something Hamas called the “guarantor.”
Every international organization working in Gaza had a local liaison, many of whom held senior roles inside the NGOs, and at least some of them were identified as Hamas members or affiliates. That person had two jobs: report back to Hamas on what the organization was doing, and make sure foreign staff didn’t see what Hamas didn’t want them to see.
The guarantors watched staff behavior, tapped phones, monitored social media, and filed detailed reports. Those reports graded organizations as “cooperative,” “medium cooperative,” or “non-cooperative” — but even “non-cooperative” groups still had to toe Hamas’ line if they wanted to operate at all.
It wasn’t just about skimming food or supplies. Hamas treated NGOs as a strategic asset: a way to control the population, gather intelligence, and cover military activity. Aid groups working on agriculture near the Israeli border were of particular interest, because those areas overlapped with Hamas infiltration routes and surveillance of the fence.
One internal report describes a Norwegian Refugee Council delegation visiting an elderly couple whose apartment floor was shaking from below. The couple suspected Hamas was digging a tunnel. The delegation, escorted by Hamas officials, ignored the complaint and moved on. No warning was issued, no public statement was given when the delegation later returned home. Just silence.
Why Gaza Is Different — and Why That’s Not an Excuse
Deutsch acknowledges that working under a terror regime poses real risks for aid workers. But she rejects the idea that this explains everything, or excuses anything.
In other conflict zones, she notes, the same organizations have no problem openly labeling groups like Boko Haram or Al-Qaeda as terrorist organizations, even while negotiating access on the ground. In Gaza, by contrast, Hamas is often softened into “militants” or “fighters,” while Israel is frequently accused of crimes that are never substantiated.
Gaza is also structurally unique. In many war zones, international staff live in fortified compounds separate from the local population. In Gaza, NGOs live and work inside the civilian areas, making it easier for Hamas to monitor their every move — and harder for them to claim they don’t know what was going on.
But whatever the operational challenges, Deutsch says the line was clearly crossed when organizations not only adapted to Hamas rule but then turned around and accused Israel of crimes while hiding what they knew about Hamas’ tactics.
From “Neutral NGOs” to Narrative Warfare
The documents also confirm what Israel has long said about Hamas’ use of hospitals and medical centers.
According to Deutsch, Hamas records show that every hospital and medical center in Gaza had a Hamas wing, with at least one tunnel linked to many of these sites. All the international organizations working there knew that Hamas used protected civilian infrastructure for meetings, medical treatment of operatives, and military activity.
Yet when the IDF struck near these sites after October 7, many of the same humanitarian groups were among the first to accuse Israel of targeting civilians or attacking hospitals, without mentioning Hamas’ presence at all.
Deutsch says part of the problem is what NGO Monitor calls the “halo effect.” NGOs are treated by journalists, politicians, and the public as uniquely trustworthy — as if their reports are objective, apolitical snapshots of reality.
In practice, many of these organizations arrive in Gaza with political assumptions already formed by the media and activist networks back home. They then produce reports that reinforce those assumptions, which are eagerly picked up by international outlets and quoted as fact.
Journalists have told Deutsch they “have to stay neutral,” which, in the Israel-Hamas context, means refusing to label Hamas a terrorist organization even when their own governments have done so. At the same time, these outlets unquestioningly quote casualty figures and narratives that originate with Hamas-controlled institutions.
The result is a vicious cycle: NGOs produce politicized reports, the media amplifies them, and then new NGO staff and donors absorb those narratives as the starting point for their own “humanitarian” work.
From Durban to October 7: This Didn’t Start Yesterday
The entanglement of NGOs, politics, and anti-Israel campaigning is not new. NGO Monitor itself was founded after the 2001 UN Durban Conference in South Africa, where international NGOs embraced the edict that “Zionism is racism” and committed themselves to using human rights language as a strategic weapon against Israel.
What has changed, Deutsch argues, is the intensity. In the last decade, and especially since October 7, accusations that once lived on the fringes — genocide, apartheid, deliberate starvation — have moved into the mainstream language of humanitarian organizations.
At the same time, record levels of antisemitic incidents in North America and Europe have not been treated by major human rights giants as a central human rights crisis, even as those same organizations repeatedly single out Israel.
What the Documents Show — And Why It Matters Now
The Hamas documents at the center of NGO Monitor’s report were seized by the IDF in Gaza and later declassified. Most come from Hamas’ Ministry of Internal Security — the same body responsible for policing dissent, internal surveillance, and managing foreign organizations. A smaller number are linked to the ministries of education and agriculture, where project activity overlapped.
NGO Monitor translated and analyzed thousands of pages, connecting Hamas’ internal tracking of NGOs with publicly available information on the same organizations and their funding.
Deutsch says the timing of the report is critical. As the international community debates how to rebuild Gaza, estimates for reconstruction have reached around $70 billion. If that money is channeled into the same systems that existed before October 7, she warns, the world will simply rebuild the infrastructure that allowed Hamas to thrive.
For individual donors who want to help civilians but fear enabling Hamas or politicized NGOs, Deutsch’s advice is simple: do basic due diligence.
Check an organization’s public statements and social media. See what it says about Israel, Gaza, and the war. Ask whether it operates in Gaza or the West Bank, and what projects it funds there. If the group regularly accuses Israel of genocide, apartheid, or deliberate starvation, that should trigger serious questions.
“Money should be conditional,” she says. “The same logic you use to choose a doctor or a school should apply to the charities you support. Don’t send money blindly.”
A Moment of Choice
Deutsch has been presenting this report in parliaments and policy forums across Europe. For her, the stakes go far beyond the Israeli–Palestinian arena.
The way NGOs, governments, and media handle Gaza’s reconstruction will signal whether the international system is willing to confront how human rights and humanitarian language have been weaponized, or whether it will simply pour money back into an unreformed structure controlled by a terror group.
“If we don’t learn from what these documents show,” she says, “we’re not just failing Israelis or Palestinians. We’re undermining the credibility of humanitarian work and the democratic societies that depend on it.”
To read the full report and learn more about the organization’s critical work, visit ngo-monitor.org
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.