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In new miniseries ‘The Calling,’ an NYPD detective’s Judaism helps him solve crimes
(New York Jewish Week) — In “The Calling,” a new miniseries streaming on Peacock, a Jewish NYPD detective fights crime and solves mysteries by letting his Jewishness lead the way.
Jeff Wilbusch plays Avraham Avraham, a detective whose Judaism is both central to his character — in more than one scene he says the Mourner’s Kaddish for a murder victim — and an identity that influences the way he does his job.
“It is so beautiful that, in our profession, as actors in the storytelling business, that you can play such a character,” Wilbusch told the New York Jewish Week. “Also, in these crazy times now, to have this beautiful role and character brought to life on screen on such a big platform is a really good thing.”
“The Calling” is based on a series of detective novels by Israeli author Dror Mishani. Though Mishani’s books take place in Israel, the show, produced by David Kelley (creator of “Ally McBeal,” “Big Little Lies” and more) and directed by Barry Levinson (“Diner,” “Good Morning, Vietnam”), transports Detective Avraham to New York. Slightly reminiscent of “Law & Order,” it has less of a procedural bent, with cases that span multiple episodes and more emphasis on the character development.
Detective Avraham — whose double name is not explained in the show further than one off-hand comment “my parents liked the name, I guess” — is a bit of a mysterious and complicated figure who works with his team to solve missing persons cases and a bomb threat at a day care.
Wilbusch, who is Israeli, is best known for his role in Netflix’s “Unorthodox” as Moishe Lefkovitch — the unruly and somewhat dangerous cousin who flies to Germany to track down Esty (Shira Haas), the show’s formerly Orthodox protagonist. For the actor, who grew up in the Satmar Hasidic community of Mea Shearim in Israel until he was 13, and whose native language is Yiddish, he feels a certain responsibility to honor the Jewish characters he plays.
“As a storyteller you have a lot of responsibility, especially when it comes to playing characters that are specific. I do feel a very strong responsibility to Avi,” the 34-year-old actor said. “I’m Jewish and I’m playing Jewish and it is a strange time for us Jews. The current events don’t really leave my head.”
Avraham is considered the best interrogator in the department because of his willingness to listen and empathize in pursuit of justice. (Heidi Gutman/Peacock)
In some instances, the show seems to combine several different streams of Judaism — Detective Avraham says he grew up in Crown Heights, though in a shot of him saying morning prayers and wrapping tefillin on his roof, he appears to live in Williamsburg. He doesn’t wear a kippah save for a few scenes, and while he attends an egalitarian synagogue, he also seems to speak fluent Yiddish.
Still, the character’s Judaism is less about the external markers of Judaism on the show — the scenes of him praying, saying a blessing, or performing “shemira,” watching over the dead — and more about how he carries himself and conducts his job.
“He’s not just Jewish because his name is Avraham, or Jewish because he wears a kippah. He’s Jewish because many different things make him Jewish, storytelling-wise. He’s not a superficial character,” Wilbusch said. “He is such a deep and complex and interesting character with such a strong message of humanity. ”
Avraham is considered the best detective in the department: He knows how to ask the right questions, how to bear witness to tragedy and how to continue to advocate for justice.
“I learned many things from him — to really listen to people, to really use the senses and to fight to see the good in people,” Wilbusch told the New York Jewish Week.
“The Talmud teaches us to see every single human being as the whole world, and that each and every person is entitled to infinite respect and concern. It’s not that I didn’t believe in this before, but just to play a character who consciously embodies this in his whole way of living is a very strong thing and a very healing thing,” he added.
Though Avraham is guided by that very Jewish conscience, he still has his blind spots. He prefers to work alone, he keeps his methods to himself and he remains guarded about his background and personality, perhaps aware that his Judaism sets him apart.
Juliana Canfield as Janine Harris, Jeff Wilbusch as Avraham Avraham, Karen Robinson as Captain Kathleen Davies (Heidi Gutman/Peacock)
Upending these tendencies in Avraham is his more junior partner Janine Harris (Juliana Canfield), who is eager to learn more about Judaism in order to understand her colleague better. Throughout the series, she asks about synagogue, shiva and Sukkot in a respectful and curious way.
“The Talmud says it’s forbidden for a teacher to reject his student,” she tells him in one scene. “If I ask you, you kinda have to teach me.”
It’s a relationship not often seen on television, a non-Jewish character with an innocent curiosity about Judaism and a recognition of how it influences one’s entire being. For Wilbusch, the relationship between Avraham and Janine was one of his favorite parts of the show.
“It says in the Torah ‘Lo tov heyot l’adam l’vado,’ a person should not be alone,” Wilbusch said, quoting a line in Genesis. “Avraham thinks he works best alone, but he needs Janine badly. The relationship that they have is not just a master-student. She keeps them in line where he has blind spots.”
The relationship on screen bled into their real world interactions on set, Wilbusch said. As production went on, Canfield, who is not Jewish, would slip in Yiddish phrases like “oy gevalt” after messing up a line.
“It means a lot to me. It’s a dream come true — a dream that I never knew I had,” Wilbusch said. “I never thought I would play a Jewish detective, that this would be my first leading role in America.”
All eight episodes of “The Calling” will be available to stream on Peacock on November 10.
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The post In new miniseries ‘The Calling,’ an NYPD detective’s Judaism helps him solve crimes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Over 300 rabbis and Jewish leaders call for removal of UN official who denied Oct. 7 rapes
(JTA) — Over 300 Jewish leaders, including women’s rights advocates and rabbis, urged the United Nations on Tuesday to remove Reem Alsalem, the U.N. rapporteur on violence against women and girls, for denying that rape occurred during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The letter, which was addressed to U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres, came two weeks after Alsalem claimed in a post on X that “No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October.”
In the letter, its signatories express their “horror and outrage” at Alsalem’s rhetoric, and cite two U.N. reports from March 2024 and July 2025 that concluded that there was “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence had taken place during the attacks “in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape.”
The petition was organized by Amy Elman, a professor at Kalamazoo College who has authored books on antisemitism and state responses to sexual violence, and Rafael Medoff, the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. It was shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency soon after being sent to Guterres.
“The targeted sexual abuse of Israelis by Hamas and its supporters is one weapon in the arsenal of those seeking Israel’s obliteration,” Elman said in a statement. “It’s outrageous that deniers such as Reem Alsalem are aiding and abetting the sexual violence by claiming it never happened. These apologists should be ashamed of themselves.”
The letter’s signatories include Deborah Lipstadt, the former antisemitism envoy; Judith Rosenbaum, the head of the Jewish Women’s Archives; Rabbi Irving Greenberg, the former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Rabbi Deborah Waxman, the president of Reconstructing Judaism; and Hebrew College president Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld.
Dispute over whether sexual violence took place as Hamas murdered about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 has solidified as a point of sustained interest for some of Israel’s staunchest critics who allege that Israel and its supporters are using claims of rape as propaganda. Even the United Nations, frequently maligned by Israel and its supporters over its record toward Israel, has drawn allegations of complicity in the propaganda campaign from pro-Palestinian voices — though the U.N. rapporteur on Palestinian rights, Francesca Albanese, who has faced her own calls for dismissal from the Trump administration, has also publicly questioned the claims.
In addition to the U.N. reports, independent reporting and research by an Israeli nonprofit have validated claims of sexual violence on Oct. 7.
In the X exchange that spurred the new letter, Alsalem was arguing with another user about the Israeli government’s prosecution of soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian detainee.
A day later, Alsalem posted a link to a Substack podcast from October where she criticized the credibility of the March 2024 U.N. report and said she had sought contact with the Israeli government to confirm its findings but had not received a response.
“The media, certain organizations and the world basically fell into the trap that Israel set up, which is to project that there was barbaric sexual violence being committed by these barbarian Palestinian men, and it was spun around and disseminated and very much used in order to then justify the genocide,” said Alsalem on the podcast.
Medoff said in a statement that Alsalem’s continued employment reflected inconsistent standards when it comes to Israel and antisemitism.
“If a UN official made such a remark concerning rape victims from any other ethnic or religious group, there would be an international uproar,” he said. “The same standard should apply to Israeli Jewish women who were sexually assaulted by Hamas terrorists.”
The post Over 300 rabbis and Jewish leaders call for removal of UN official who denied Oct. 7 rapes appeared first on The Forward.
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Rome synagogue memorial for 2-year-old killed in 1982 Palestinian terror attack vandalized
(JTA) — A synagogue in Rome and a memorial for a 2-year-old boy killed in a 1982 attack by Palestinian terrorists on the city’s Great Synagogue were vandalized on Monday by unknown individuals.
The plaque dedicated to Stefano Gaj Taché, who was killed in the attack that also left 37 injured, is located on the Monteverde synagogue, also known as the Beth Michael Synagogue, in Rome.
The unknown vandals spray painted black on the memorial, and also wrote “Free Palestine” and “Monteverde anti-Zionist and anti-fascist” on the facade of the synagogue, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The vandalism was condemned by Victor Fadlun, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, who said in a post on Instagram that the incident came amid a “a climate of intimidation” where antisemitism has “become a tool of political protest.”
“We place our trust in the police and call for the government’s strong intervention to halt this spiral of hatred,” Fadlun continued.
The incident comes amid a recent series of antisemitic vandalism in Rome, an epicenter of pro-Palestinian activism that has continued to see large demonstrations even after the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In October, the words “Dirty Jews, may you all burn” were spray-painted on the shutters of a kosher bakery, and in June a sign at another local synagogue was defaced with the words “Sieg Heil” and ”Juden Raus.”
“This is an act that outrages the Jewish community and deeply wounds it, because the plaque is dedicated to a child murdered by Palestinian terrorism and because this is a meeting place where young people and children meet, where they pray and create a sense of community,” Fadlun told Corriere della Sera. “Attacking the synagogue in this way means disavowing and violating the right of Jews to be able to come together and lead a normal life.”
In a subsequent post on Instagram, Fadlun said Italian President Sergio Mattarella had spoken to him over the phone to express his “solidarity” in relation to the synagogue vandalism.
Antonio Tajani, the Italian minister of foreign affairs, also condemned the vandalism in a post on X, adding that he has called Fadlun as well.
The European Jewish Congress also condemned the vandalism in a post on X. “This is not ‘anti-Zionism.’ It is antisemitism: the targeting of Jewish memory, Jewish mourning and Jewish history,” the group said. “Stefano’s name is a symbol of one of Italy’s darkest terror attacks. His memory should be protected, not desecrated. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community of Italy and call on authorities to investigate this hate crime and ensure that such acts are treated with the seriousness they deserve.”
The post Rome synagogue memorial for 2-year-old killed in 1982 Palestinian terror attack vandalized appeared first on The Forward.
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Danny Wolf will see you now
When the Brooklyn Nets drafted Danny Wolf this summer out of the University of Michigan, scouts said they were getting a versatile big man who could get buckets, create for his teammates and rebound.
But the last few days of NBA action have shown the Jewish seven-footer picking up a surprising new habit: putting his opponents on posters.
After scuffling through the first two months of the season with a bum ankle, Wolf announced his arrival Saturday with a thundering jam on the Milwaukee Bucks’ Kyle Kuzma, for two of the forward’s career-best 22 points.
He claimed his next victim, in a 10-point, 7-rebound outing two days later, driving from the top of the arc before leaping off his left foot and dropping the hammer on the Charlotte Hornets’ Miles Bridges:
“That may get two howls!” Nets play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco cried.
Early returns have been limited since the Brooklyn Nets grabbed Israeli point guard Ben Saraf and Wolf with the 26th and 27th picks this summer. The learning curve for young floor generals is notoriously steep, and Saraf — who wears the number 77 to represent the Hebrew word mazal, meaning good fortune — has struggled to stay in the playing rotation.
But Wolf, an American-Israeli who was bar mitzvahed in Israel, is finding his footing — at least when he’s not taking off for a dunk. He dropped in five high-arcing three pointers against the Bucks, eliciting excited howls from Nets color commentator Sarah Kustok; before the Charlotte game, he apparently told teammates he was going to posterize somebody.
“I was kinda saying that as a joke,” he said, “but looking at it as an opportunity, and just trying to attack the rim, I did it, with rewards.”
“He manifested it,” said teammate Nic Claxton.
Let’s enjoy one more picture of Claxton and Wolf:
And here’s a Danny Wolf meme for good measure, courtesy of the Nets social media.
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