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Meet the real-life rabbi in the synagogue scene of ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’
(JTA) — Rabbi Michael Wolk was nervous when he stepped foot onto his synagogue’s bimah in May 2021 — but not because his congregation was returning to in-person prayer after a pandemic pause.
The jitters were because he was about to debut as an actor, in a role for which he hadn’t auditioned: as the rabbi in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” which debuted in theaters on Friday.
Wolk was initially brought on as a consultant for the synagogue scene in the film adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic coming-of-age novel, published in 1970 — more than a decade before he was born. He was elevated to on-screen talent when the original actor for the role of Rabbi Kellerman left the project.
“They called me that night and said he doesn’t feel that he can do it — would I be willing to play the rabbi?” Wolk told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He said yes.
The story centers on a sixth-grader, Margaret (played by Abby Ryder Fortson), who has a Christian mother and Jewish father who have raised her in neither tradition. As part of Margaret’s grappling with her anxiety about growing up, she embarks on an effort to explore religion and visits a synagogue with her grandmother Sylvia, portrayed by Kathy Bates, who is pushing her to identify with Judaism.
Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” with Kathy Bates as Sylvia Simon, her Jewish grandmother. (Dana Hawley/LionsGate Publicity)
In the story, Margaret and her family live in New Jersey, but the filming took place in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Wolk has been the rabbi of Temple Israel, a Conservative synagogue, since 2020. (That year, the synagogue petitioned to have its name removed from a local memorial to Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy’s most prominent Jew.) A Long Island native, he came to the synagogue from a pulpit in Louisville, Kentucky.
The film’s producers asked Wolk to prepare what he referred to as a “sermonette” and to stand in the prayer leader’s traditional spot on the bimah in Temple Israel’s sanctuary, surrounded by stained glass. Some of his congregants sat in the pews as extras, which Wolk recalled as a breakthrough moment for Temple Israel, coming a year into the pandemic.
“It was my first time being in the room, being on the bimah with the people in the congregation,” he said. “Even little things like that moment of people responding ‘Shabbat shalom’ when I said it to them, there was something very moving about that.”
But the moment was hardly a typical Shabbat service. For one thing, it was a weekday. For another, Wolk was wearing a black robe, commonly worn by Conservative rabbis and cantors in the mid-20th century but not in fashion today. And his sermon was interrupted repeatedly.
Margaret, the main character in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” prays by herself as she searches for meaning in her life. (Screenshot from YouTube)
“It did not feel like I was leading a service at any given time because they would have me say ‘Shabbat shalom’ 100 times and have the people and the extras in the room respond ‘Shabbat Shalom’ over and over again,” Wolk said.
The synagogue scene, which is just a few minutes long, took 14 hours to film.
Besides the rabbi’s attire, there are a few differences between the American Jewish world of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” in the 1960s and 1970s and the one today. The film has a female cantor, which wouldn’t have been the case at the time the movie takes place. While the book and movie don’t specify which movement of Judaism the synagogue Margaret visits belongs to, women weren’t ordained in the Reform movement until 1972 and in the Conservative movement until 1985.
“I did point that out and they were interested in representation,” Wolk said. “And that doesn’t bother me that much, but I know that it’s historically inaccurate.”
There are some other continuity issues with the scene: The actors used the prayer books in Temple Israel’s sanctuary, which were only published in the last decade. While the congregation is well over a century old, its current building wasn’t constructed until 1992. And, Wolk confessed, he is wearing an Apple watch, though it is obscured by his robe.
But also, he said, norms around interfaith families like Margaret’s have changed over the decades. In the United States, Jews who married before 1970 married non-Jews 17% of the time, according to a 2013 population study; now, that number is well over 50%. But contrary to what some feared, many of those interfaith couples are raising their children at least in part with Judaism. Their synagogues have adjusted accordingly.
“At the point when the book was written, there was no expectation that an interfaith family would want to participate in the religious life and Jewish life of a synagogue,” Wolk said. “And we know that’s not true right now. We have any number of interfaith families who are active and involved in Temple Israel.”
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The post Meet the real-life rabbi in the synagogue scene of ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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JD Vance condemns Knesset vote on West Bank annexation as ‘very stupid’ as Trump says it ‘won’t happen’
Vice President J.D. Vance denounced a vote by Israeli lawmakers to advance West Bank annexation as “weird” and personally offensive, in comments as he departed Israel after a two-day visit aimed at shoring up the Gaza ceasefire.
In part to increase pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right-wing lawmakers signed off on two bills related to annexation on Wednesday in an early stage of the legislative process. Most members of Netanyahu’s party boycotted the votes, and the bills are seen as unlikely to advance to become law.
President Donald Trump has said annexation is off the table in his view as he seeks to solidify peace in the region and secure additional relationships between Israel and Arab nations.
Vance said he was told the Knesset vote was purely symbolic, which he said he did not understand. “If it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it,” he said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is replacing Vance in Israel, two weeks into the U.S.-brokered truce in the Gaza war amid questions over its durability. Trump’s plan said it aimed to create “a credible pathway” toward a Palestinian state, of which portions of the West Bank would be an expected component.
Rubio also criticized the annexation vote in comments to reporters late Wednesday. “They’re a democracy, they’re going to have their votes. People are going to take these positions,” Rubio said. But, he added, “We think it might be counterproductive.”
Trump’s stance on the issue received new clarity on Thursday as Time Magazine published the full transcript of its interview with him earlier this month. Asked what the consequences would be if annexation moved forward despite Trump’s instruction to Netanyahu not to allow it, the president said the cost would be steep.
“It won’t happen. It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” Trump said. “And you can’t do that now. We’ve had great Arab support. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
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The post JD Vance condemns Knesset vote on West Bank annexation as ‘very stupid’ as Trump says it ‘won’t happen’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What the new season of ‘Nobody Wants This’ gets right — and very wrong — about Judaism
Despite the name, apparently everybody wanted a new season of Nobody Wants This; the first season of the comedy instantly became one of Netflix’s most-watched shows. Adam Brody charmed as Noah, a young, hot, menschy rabbi. Kristen Bell brought spunk and controversy as Joanne, his blonde, non-Jewish girlfriend. The pair had great onscreen chemistry. The writing was witty. The half-hour episodes made for an easy binge-watch.
Jews, however — myself included — had some sharper criticisms of season one, which we hoped season two might address. The Jewish women in the show were either vapid or harpies, and underdeveloped as characters to boot. And the depiction of Judaism itself wasn’t particularly enticing. Noah may have been a cool, young rabbi who smoked weed and had sex, but the show made it clear that he was the exception to the rule.
(For the record, I know many rabbis who smoke weed. Actually, the stereotype should go the other way; a recent study on psychedelics and spirituality that gave psilocybin to spiritual leaders couldn’t source enough rabbis who had not already tried a hallucinogen.)
Many — again, myself included — wondered whether the second season would take some of these complaints to heart and add some depth to the conversations around interfaith relationships, conversion, Jewish women and Judaism in general. And in a promising move, two Jews — Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan, both of Girls fame — took over the showrunner role from its original creator, Erin Foster.
On the surface, the new season is a carbon copy of the first. Again, it is framed around the question of conversion. Noah, who has lost his promotion to senior rabbi because Joanne isn’t Jewish, admits that their relationship probably can’t progress if Joanne doesn’t convert. Joanne, who thought that the question had been put to bed — as many of us did, after the final episode of the last season in which she declared rather clearly that she would not convert for Noah — is taken aback, but decides to see if she can find a reason to fall in love with Judaism. And so we’re off to the races, with a baby naming, a Purim party, a Shabbat dinner, a conversion class.
This gives the show numerous chances to offer nuggets of Jewish learning. In the Purim episode, Noah goes beyond the usual “Purim is about getting drunk” tagline and gives a nice spiel, explaining that the holiday is a time when expectations are turned upside down. True! Another time, he points out that Judaism is about “analyzing things from every direction,” not just following rigid rules — a concept that deeply appeals to Joanne. (“A religion that encourages you to argue? Love that,” she says.)
The Jewish women are also better this year. The word “shiksa,” a pejorative that season one deployed very, very liberally, always in the mouths of Jewish women, has been erased. And Esther, Noah’s sister-in-law, has some actual plotline — we dive into her marriage to Sasha and her dreams for the future. And her snark feels more like fond ribbing than cruel jabs this season.
The show is still far from perfect — Bina, Noah’s stereotypically overbearing Jewish mother — remains a miserable, meanspirited hag. And the show’s popularity has also led to several clunky product placements and ads for Netflix. (At one point we vicariously watch a whole scene of Love Is Blind, one of the streaming platform’s reality shows, on Joanne’s laptop.)
Perhaps the show’s strongest answer to criticism of last season comes in the form of Temple Ahava, a new, very open-minded synagogue that hires Noah and immediately shows itself to be more focused on vibes than Judaism. It’s a clever, inside-baseball kind of joke; most Jews know this kind of synagogue, where ritual and text is downplayed in favor of broad, easy-to-swallow messaging. Last season, Judaism was portrayed as close-minded and rigid, unwilling to accept Joanne. Ahava is open-minded, sure — but it has lost its depth as a result.
The head rabbi — played by Seth Rogen — encourages Noah to take off his kippah. (“I’m raw-dogging the world!” he says.) Teens are encouraged to skip Shabbat in favor of movie premieres. The synagogue speedruns their conversion classes, offering a six-month version because no one wanted to sign up for a full year. Noah is skeptical; isn’t Judaism supposed to require learning and commitment? He keeps his kippah on.
It’s a powerful lesson about what makes Judaism truly meaningful. But the show undoes this exact lesson in its final scene. Joanne has been waiting all season to feel like she wants to convert. And even though she loves Shabbat and she’s picked up Jewish expressions, she doesn’t.
But Esther thinks she’s focusing on the wrong things. “I feel like you have this idea of being Jewish that’s so much more complicated than it actually is. I mean, you feel Jewish to me. You’re warm and cozy, you always want to chat about everything,” she tells Joanne. “You’re funny — that’s Jewish. You love to overshare. No matter how much I resisted, you literally forced me to be friends with you — forced. You’re a true kibbitzer. You’re always getting in everyone’s business. Ever heard of a yente, Joanne? You’re a yente.”
Joanne, she concludes, is already Jewish.
But that’s not true. Noah was right that six months is too fast for a conversion, because there’s more to Judaism than a list of facts or rules; it’s a millennia-old tradition of rich thought, text and discourse. Joanne may align with cultural stereotypes of Jews, but those are considered stereotypes for a reason — they’re shallow and incomplete. Being neurotic or anxious does not make someone a Jew anymore than being funny does.
This ending shouldn’t be surprising, however. The show’s creator, Erin Foster — who herself converted to marry her husband — rejected the critiques of the first season’s stereotypes.
“With the heaviness of what’s going on in the world around the Jewish faith,” she said in an interview with Vanity Fair about the new season, “to have a lighthearted, sweet, happy show that reminds people how beautiful Judaism is — don’t find something wrong with it! Take the win, you know?”
In response to any criticism about its reliance on Jewish tropes, the new season seems to answer that those tropes are actually core to Jewishness. Sure, season two of Nobody Wants This gets rid of the term shiksa and has a few nice Jewish moments. But it comes to the same conclusion as the first: Judaism is about vibes, not ritual or learning or commitment. It’s the same message Ahava offers — and like Noah realized, it’s not satisfying.
In many ways, this ending is a carbon-copy of the first season’s; in fact, the closing scenes are almost shot-to-shot identical. Last season, Joanne decided she couldn’t convert and Noah decided it didn’t matter — if Judaism was limiting them, then he’d reject Judaism. In this ending, Joanne embraces Judaism, but only because she’s decided it doesn’t actually mean that much.
The post What the new season of ‘Nobody Wants This’ gets right — and very wrong — about Judaism appeared first on The Forward.
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650+ US rabbis sign letter opposing Zohran Mamdani and the ‘political normalization’ of anti-Zionism
(JTA) — As the New York mayoral election draws near, a group of 650 rabbis and cantors from across the United States have signed onto a letter voicing their opposition to mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and the “political normalization” of anti-Zionism.
The letter, titled “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future,” cited Mamdani’s previous defense of the slogan “globalize the Intifada,” his denial of “Israel’s legitimacy” and his accusations that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza.
The letter quotes Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the leader of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side, who told his congregants in a YouTube address last week that Mamdani’s rhetoric will “delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility toward Judaism and Jews.”
Hirsch was also one of the signatories on the letter, which included a wide range of rabbis and cantors from over 30 states as well as Toronto. It was organized by the new Jewish Majority advocacy group, led by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman.
About 60 rabbis across denominations in New York City signed on, including Rabbi Joshua Davidson of the Reform Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side, Rabbi David Ingber of the progressive synagogue Romemu on the Upper West Side and the 92nd Street Y and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of the Orthodox Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side.
Gerald Weider, a rabbi emeritus at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, where Mamdani spoke earlier this month at the invitation of its current rabbi, also signed on.
Other influential rabbis across the country who signed on include the author and former leader of Los Angeles’ Conservative Sinai Temple Rabbi David Wolpe and Rabbi Denise Eger, the first openly LGBTQ+ rabbi to head the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
While New York City rabbis, including Hirsch, have previously voiced their opposition to endorsing candidates from the pulpit, that norm appears to have been set aside as Mamdani carves out a significant edge ahead of the Nov. 4 election.
The candidate has said Israel has a right to exist as a state with “with equal rights for all”; he has also said he would “discourage” the phrase “globalize the intifada,” acknowledging that it makes some Jews scared, and would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited New York.
“We will not accept a culture that treats Jewish self-determination as a negotiable ideal or Jewish inclusion as something to be ‘granted,’” the letter says. “The safety and dignity of Jews in every city depend on rejecting that false choice.”
The letter quotes Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Conservative Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, who urged his congregants during a sermon last week not only to vote against Mamdani but to convince other Jews they know to do the same.
“We also call on our interfaith and communal partners to stand with the Jewish community in rejecting this dangerous rhetoric and to affirm the rights of Jews to live securely and with dignity,” the letter concluded. “Now is the time for everyone to unite across political and moral divides, and to reject the language that seeks to delegitimize our Jewish identity and our community.”
The post 650+ US rabbis sign letter opposing Zohran Mamdani and the ‘political normalization’ of anti-Zionism appeared first on The Forward.