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A Jewish expert on monuments on what Philly’s famous Rocky Balboa statue can teach us about memory
(JTA) — Paul Farber was shocked when he first watched “Rocky” and saw a Star of David on the grave of Rocky Balboa’s coach, Mickey Goldmill.
As a Jew and as the founder of the Philadelphia-based Monument Lab, which has explored collective memory through art installations across the country for over a decade, Farber was well positioned to think about the deeper meaning of that brief shot.
“Anytime I see a Jewish funeral in a film, there’s some kind of call to attention. And I always want to know what that means, especially for a Hollywood production, especially when it may not be branded as a Jewish story,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“We’re not there in a prolonged series of mourning, but in a split second, seeing a Jewish site of a memory is really fascinating,” he added.
That outlook lies behind Farber’s work as the host of the new NPR podcast “The Statue,” a deep dive into Philadelphia’s famed statue of Rocky Balboa, the fictional prizefighter at the center of “Rocky.” The series delves into what sports and society can convey about memory, and in his research, Farber discovered a few Jewish nuggets found in the film series — including the fact that Rocky’s love interest was originally supposed to be Jewish.
“They made an actual gravestone [for her character] and it’s in Philadelphia’s most famous cemetery, Laurel Hill. And you can go there and see this gravestone where a movie character is ‘buried,’” he said. “People leave offerings on the gravestone, including small pebbles as if it’s a Jewish site of memory.”
In an interview with JTA, Farber shared his inspiration for the series, how his Jewish upbringing informed his life’s work and the role statues — such as that of Jewish baseball legend Sandy Koufax — do, and should, play.
This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: To start off, I’d love to hear about how you first got interested in studying monuments.
Paul Farber: I’m really interested in the ways that, in cities, we innovate toward the future, and also come to terms with our past, and it happens often in the same exact places. That could be a statue, a street, a corner store. And so that’s a big part for me.
What really inspired this project is a conversation I had with my mother, quite a few years ago. My mother is a lifelong Philadelphian. Her parents were Jewish immigrants in South Philadelphia. And when I told her I was teaching a class at the University of Pennsylvania about Philly neighborhoods, she asked me if I was covering Rocky. When I said, “Oh, it’s not on the syllabus” — and I may have said it in a way that felt dismissive — she gave me this look that I think a lot of us know: “How could you.” So for her birthday, we watched “Rocky” and we went to see “Creed.” My grandfather went to South Philly High and was in the boxing club. He shared stories in our family about what it meant to have sport and culture and belonging go together in South Philly. I started to see that across generations, from long before “Rocky” to this moment now, almost 50 years after the release of the film, many people’s family stories could be channeled through this statue, including my own, and that was enough of a prompt to go dive in.
“Rocky” is obviously not a Jewish story, but there are some nuggets. There’s the funeral scene, and you mentioned something about Adrian almost being Jewish. I’m curious what you think about the little Jewish pieces you can pull out of this famous story, and what those mean to you as a Philly sports fan.
It blew me away that Rocky’s coach, Mick, passes away and the character Rocky goes to his funeral, and you see a Star of David. Anytime I see a Jewish funeral in a film, there’s some kind of call to attention. And I always want to know what that means, especially for a Hollywood production, especially when it may not be branded as a Jewish story. And it just opened up a whole set of questions for me that blurred between art and life, between the film series and the city of Philadelphia.
In episode two, we showcase this monumental art book that Sylvester Stallone [who played Rocky] created. There was this passage in it that just blew me away, about the first draft of “Rocky,” where he says, “As for Adrian, she was Jewish in the first draft.” And he got feedback and cut that character. We never hear about Mickey’s Judaism. We never hear about Rocky’s bond across culture. But the fact that the first scene in the “Rocky” series is in a place called Resurrection Gym — that is obvious Christian iconography — and to put Jewish characters in is really fascinating to me.
There is another famous grave that is involved in the series. The character Adrian eventually passes away, and like the statue, which was made as a bronze sculpture, for the “Rocky” film series they made an actual gravestone and it’s in Philadelphia’s most famous cemetery, Laurel Hill. And you can go there and see this gravestone where a movie character is “buried.” People leave offerings on the gravestone, including small pebbles as if it’s a Jewish site of memory.
People talk about representation on screen, and I’m not sure a Jewish funeral necessarily does that, but I would imagine for some people, seeing Rocky Balboa say the “Mourner’s Kaddish“ was maybe their first interaction with Judaism in some way. What do you make of that?
Every shot is deliberate. And it’s actually that kind of attitude and outlook that created the Rocky statue, because Sylvester Stallone was the director of that film, and they could have made a styrofoam version or a temporary one, but they spent over a year making a bronze version so that when the camera faced it, it would make contact. I think very similarly, this is part of the artistry of Stallone that plays out in our podcast series. We’re not with him when he sits shiva. We’re not there in a prolonged series of mourning, but in a split second, seeing a Jewish site of a memory is really fascinating. And to see the coach Mickey, to have his Wikipedia page say he’s Jewish, all that we have is mourning.
I think about how for immigrant Jewish communities, there are gaps in our narratives. Throughout the series, and one of the reasons I wanted to share my perspective as a queer Jewish person who grew up loving sports in Philly, I’ve been informed by my own family’s history, and what we’re able to recall and what gaps there are. And I see that being echoed for so many people in the Rocky story.
It’s clearly a very personal story for you. Why did you think it was important to start the podcast with your own identity, and to include your Jewish mother?
I think it’s important that when we talk about sites of memory, we understand that there are shared and collective ways that we bring the past forward, and there are others that are incredibly personal. My hope was to find, in this case, to spotlight, a significant site of memory in the city, but ask questions about it. And I think it was important to note what position I would take, because I don’t believe there’s one story to the Rocky statue. To tell a biography of a statue, you actually have to tell it of the people who make meaning from it. So in the series, we do a lot of work where we want to know other people’s stories and backgrounds, whether they are refugees from Afghanistan, or community organizers in Kensington [a neighborhood of Philadelphia]. My hope was by positioning this from my perspective, almost as a memoir in a way, that it opened up space for others to have their experiences be valued and made meaning of.
The official artwork for Farber’s podcast. (Courtesy)
Both with the podcast and in your work with the Monument Lab, how do you feel that your Jewish identity informs what you do? Do you see overlap between your Jewish values and the values you work on in your organization?
I absolutely think so. I grew up in a Jewish community in Philadelphia, and tikkun olam was a constant refrain. The work of tikkun olam meant a worldview that necessitated building coalitions and understanding across divides, to not diminish or under-emphasize them, but to appreciate how we work in solidarity, whether that’s around racial justice, gender justice, in various struggles. I am a co-founder and director of an organization that focuses on memory, and that I really get from the stories of growing up in a Jewish household, in a Jewish community, where memory lived in different ways. We were always aware of the stories of trauma and loss, as well as reconciliation and transformation, and how you work with the gaps that you have, and you listen, and you learn and you carry the story with you. Because that is the way to bond generations. Jewish memory really grounds what I do, and I seek to use it as a tool to learn more and to feed connection across divides.
Rocky takes on this almost mythical, godlike status, and his statue in Philadelphia is a bit of a pilgrimage site. Do you see any tension there as a Jew, given the prohibition against idol worship?
I think about the importance of memory, against forces of violence and erasure. I also understand that, in a world that is full of pain and difficulty and loss, we seek places to release that. And so I understand the pull to monuments. What I would like to see, and what we try to do through this series, “The Statue,” and also with the work of Monument Lab, is to look on and off the pedestal, and really think about how history lives with us. As we say in the series and other places, history doesn’t live inside of statues, it lives with people who steward them, who create other kinds of sites of memory, who are vigilant in their modes of commemoration. What I try to do in this work is understand the ambivalence around monuments, the pull to try to remember and be enduring through time, and just that constant reminder that whenever you try to freeze the past, or freeze an image of power, you cut out the potential to find connection and empowerment, and thus forms of survival.
In sports, there are so many ways to honor people, especially different ways that, like a statue, take on the idea of permanence. When Bill Russell died, the NBA retired his number 6 across the league. On Jackie Robinson Day, every April 15, the whole MLB honors Jackie Robinson by wearing his uniform number. But statues just have a different level of oomph. Sandy Koufax has a new statue in Los Angeles that was unveiled last year; Hank Greenberg has one. What do you think it should take for an athlete to reach that status?
The pinnacle in sports is to have a statue dedicated to you outside of the stadium. And I do believe the cultures of social media have amplified that, because we grew up with the story of Sandy Koufax not pitching in the World Series during the High Holy Days, and that wasn’t because we learned it from a statue or a plaque. We learned it because it was carried forward and put into different forms of remembering and recalling its importance. I went to several Maccabi Games in the U.S. — I used to be a sprinter. And the culture of memory and sport, they were one in the same.
In professional sports, the pinnacle is the statue, but I think you brought up other really important ways of remembering that operate in non-statue forms that feel like they are living memorials. The idea of retiring someone’s number, and keeping their number up, is a way to acknowledge, in this really public of all public spaces, an intimacy and a care, and especially when an athlete passes away, how that transcends the lines of city geography. Jackie Robinson Day is something that did not occur immediately after Jackie Robinson was the first Black player to play in the major leagues, but was a product of a later moment when people around Major League Baseball sought to activate his memory. So yes, a statue outside of a stadium is like a particular kind of professional accolade. But the other forms are really meaningful.
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‘Nobody Wants This’ is getting less and less Jewish
In its third season, Nobody Wants This gives up on Judaism.
The Netflix show, starring Adam Brody as the ultimate nice Jewish boy, Rabbi Noah Roklov, and Kristen Bell as Joanne, his shiksa — the show’s preferred term — girlfriend, has been accused, repeatedly, of doing Jews wrong. Its creator, Erin Foster, a fellow blonde who converted for her husband, has just as regularly defended her show as good for the Jews, a positive representation in a time of antisemitism, and has basically implied that anyone who didn’t like it just couldn’t take a joke.
But the complaints have been about more than jokes. Some of the issues were one-offs, like cheesy puns about a bad Jewish basketball team, the Matzo Ballers, that leaned into a stereotype of Jewish men being unathletic. Others pointed to bigger concerns, like when Noah’s mom, who is ostensibly observant, ate pork out of the trash when she thought no one was looking — was the show painting Jews as dishonest liars?
Or there was the time the show mixed up Tu B’Shvat — a holiday celebrating the birthday of trees — and Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning the destruction of the Temple. This sparked debates about whether the writers’ room had done enough to ensure basic cultural competency; the show’s Judaism seemed to rely on shallow signifiers, like a room full of menorahs, to shore up its identity. Foster may have claimed that she made the show to spread “positive Jewish stories,” but the writing has never engaged particularly deeply with Judaism.
Really, though, the biggest complaint across the first two seasons of Nobody Wants This was the Jewish women. Jewish men have often been presented as nebbishy or neurotic in the media, something Foster set out to change, but Jewish women have long gotten the short end of the stick, stereotype-wise, and the show not only doesn’t rehab that image, it worsens it. The Jewish mothers are critical and overbearing and too obsessed with their kids. The Jewish wives are simultaneously overbearing nags and prissy princesses. The non-Jewish women are somehow always cooler, more beautiful, crazy in a fun and quirky way instead of a shrewish one. Non-Jewish women might thirst after Jewish men and vice versa, but no one lusts after a Jewish woman.
Given that the entire concept of Nobody Wants This is a hot rabbi dating a shiksa, it should not surprise any readers that the issue of Jewish women is not solved in the third season. Yes, yes, the characters are all better developed; Esther, Noah’s sister-in-law (Jackie Tohn), who was once mean, is sort of endearingly cranky and wry, and they’ve started putting her in much better outfits. Noah’s mom, Bina (Tovah Feldshuh), is as overbearing as ever — in fact she actually acts even crazier than ever before — but she is much nicer to Joanne. But the Jewish women are still not good enough for the Jewish men. And this season, Joanne is converting, so she can even beat Jewish women at their own game.
Putting all that aside, however, the new season of Nobody Wants This is kind of delightful. And that was, in part, thanks to making this season far less Jewish, or at least less overtly focused on it.
That’s not to say it has no Jewish elements; Noah is still a rabbi, Joanne is, as mentioned earlier, converting in a class led by Sarah Silverman, who nails the role — unsurprisingly, given that her real-life sister Susan is a rabbi. But the conversion class is as focused on work drama than what everyone is learning about Judaism. Noah and Joanne have moved in together and have a housewarming party where they hang a mezuzah on their door frame, but the episode is more about Joanne’s ex who lives next-door. The couple tries out a tech-free Shabbat, but they spend it smoking weed, not walking to synagogue or otherwise doing anything particularly Jewish.
That turns out to be the season’s strength. It isn’t trying to demonstrate specifically Jewish family dynamics, nor does it shoehorn Jewish traditions into each episode. Instead, one plot line focuses on Noah’s attempt to navigate between his mom’s vision for his life, Joanne’s and his own — a universal topic, since parents across cultures feel deeply personally engaged in their kids’ major life events. Another storyline takes on dating, reinventing and moving on after a breakup, as Esther and Sascha, Noah’s brother, try to figure out coparenting, new hairstyles and what they really want out of life. (Though it feels odd, and like a bit of a plot hole, that Esther doesn’t seem to care about dating Jewish, even though she was very hostile to Noah dating a non-Jew in season one.)
Though Nobody Wants This has occasionally managed nice little sermonizing moments on the deeper meaning of various holidays or ideas, it has stumbled when it has tried to make Jewish Representation the show’s identity. Besides, Jews are diverse, both in religious observance level and cultural background. The show was doomed from the start if it was meant to be some sort of ur-text to represent American Jewish life in the 2020s; Jews aren’t a monolith, and design for everyone is bad design. A Syrian Jew was never going to feel seen, nor was a Modern Orthodox Ashkenazi.
In its third season, the show’s Judaism is about exactly what it is: a Reform L.A. rabbi and a woman who is (finally) converting for him. There’s an episode about Joanne’s last Christmas and her attachment to the holiday; Noah tries to make her final celebration of it the most festive one ever, and it’s a deeply sweet episode despite its total dearth of Jewish content. That’s a story worth telling, and something many converts likely feel, and a rabbi celebrating Christmas is also not the average Jewish experience.
There are, still, to be fair, plenty of issues. Noah cops to drinking coffee on Yom Kippur, which I think a lot of people will be upset about — a rabbi unable to properly observe the most holy day of the year? What’s wrong with these people? But now that the show doesn’t feel as though it’s trying to represent American Jews to the rest of the world, that seems less harmful.
Besides, the best Jewish TV has always been TV about Jews who are doing other things — Seinfeld or Broad City are no less Jewish for focusing on the general misadventures of young people living in New York. Jews live life outside of Judaism. In this season, Nobody Wants This hits its stride by giving up on clunky explanations of Judaism for the wider world; we barely see Noah at the bima. Instead of Jewish holidays, we see Christmas. Nobody Wants This was always, truly, a sweet rom-com about a guy who happens to be Jewish, and his girlfriend who happens to be converting. Nobody wanted a spokesperson in the form of a Netflix show anyway.
The post ‘Nobody Wants This’ is getting less and less Jewish appeared first on The Forward.
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Herzog calls for crackdown on violent West Bank settlers as olive harvest tensions mount
(JTA) — BUDAPEST, Hungary — Israeli President Isaac Herzog is backing senior Israel Defense Forces commanders in taking decisive action against violent settler attacks in the West Bank, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
His comments came a day before Israeli forces detained New York Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander along with 90 rabbis and activists accompanying Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest.
At a press briefing in Budapest, JTA asked Herzog what action had been taken to curb settler violence following his previous calls for a stronger government response. Herzog pointed to a meeting he held earlier this month with the IDF’s West Bank division commander and other senior officers.
“I looked them in the eye and I gave them full backing to do whatever it takes to stop this terrible phenomenon,” he said.
The goal was to end the settler violence “at its roots,” Herzog said, adding that “major efforts” were underway.
Israeli police arrested 10 suspects following a series of settler attacks over the weekend, including a violent assault on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine. Nine of those suspects were released from custody, Haaretz reported on Wednesday.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir ordered the deployment of an additional Border Police company to the West Bank to combat extremist violence. The unit is expected to begin operations in late November.
Herzog had personally called Levine on Saturday to apologize for the attack, which left her with four broken vertebrae and other injuries. “I was morally tormented during Shabbat when I thought about it, and I express deep sorrow and apologize for what you went through,” he told her.
The attacks have drawn condemnation from the U.S. and European governments. On Sunday, the European Union called for Israel to take “full accountability” in preventing further violence against Palestinians, journalists and diplomats.
During his visit Tuesday, Herzog met with Hungarian President András Baka and Prime Minister Péter Magyar, whose government ended its predecessor’s opposition to EU sanctions against extremist Israeli settlers.
Herzog’s visit was the first by a senior Israeli leader since Magyar defeated longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in April. At a joint appearance, Baka described relations with Israel as “cordial and stable,” while Herzog called Hungary a “friend and an ally.”
Asked later at the press briefing whether he had received a cooler reception than under Orbán, Herzog dismissed the suggestion, describing his meetings with both leaders as “fantastic.”
Pressed on Baka’s reference to the Palestinians, Herzog said the issue had been discussed “very politely” but had not dominated the talks, adding that it was “a perfectly legitimate subject to discuss.”
Herzog called the new prime minister “a brilliant person, a very impressive leader.”
The Hungarian leaders had “opened their hearts” to him, Herzog said, citing the attendance of several senior ministers at a lunch hosted by Magyar among other gestures that he said went beyond diplomatic protocol.
The visit also had personal significance for Herzog, whose father, former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, made the first state visit to Hungary by a sitting Israeli president in 1991, shortly after the restoration of diplomatic relations between the countries.
Herzog also addressed the closing gathering of Voice of the People, his initiative bringing together 150 Jews from Israel and the diaspora. He warned that combating antisemitism would be a “long-range battle” and stressed the need to engage millions of unaffiliated Jews.
“Ask the average Israeli – he has no clue about the diversity of Jewish life,” Herzog said, adding that many Jews in the Diaspora were similarly unfamiliar with Jewish life in Israel.
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El-Sayed campaign hires Jewish liaison
(JTA) —
DETROIT – Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat has hired a Jewish liaison in the final weeks of the election season, part of a new push to swing undecided Jewish voters as the contentious race enters its homestretch.
Lenore Goldman is a veteran political consultant with Michigan ties whose work has included One Fair Wage, a national movement to raise the minimum wage that has prompted years of back-and-forth in the Michigan state legislature and courts.
She also consulted on Voters Not Politicians, a 2018 Michigan campaign that successfully passed a ballot measure to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission in the state. She has also consulted for Jewish groups, including the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.
Multiple figures close to the campaign confirmed her hire to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wednesday. The El-Sayed campaign did not immediately make Goldman available for comment, but she has already been a presence at some local events staged by Jewish supporters.
News of her hire comes nearly two months after the Democratic candidate’s campaign first told JTA they were interviewing for a Jewish liaison position.
Goldman enters the campaign at a precarious moment for El-Sayed, who has struggled to win over skeptical Jewish voters in his tight race with his Republican opponent, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers.
Recent polls show a tight race, with El-Sayed holding a narrow advantage. A Marist poll released Wednesday put him ahead of Rogers, 50% to 48% among likely voters, within the survey’s margin of error.
Jews have bristled at the former county health director’s strong criticism of Israel, including when he stated earlier this week that the country is “not an ally.” They have also objected to his campaign’s prior association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, whose remarks about Jews have drawn accusations of antisemitism. El-Sayed has since distanced himself from Piker.
Some Jews have criticized El-Sayed’s initial remarks to this spring’s Temple Israel attack, which he has since apologized for. Rogers called his opponent “anti-Jew” in a JTA interview this week.
A new letter from El-Sayed to Jewish Michiganders is also being circulated as part of an effort to warm relations.
“I care deeply about the threat of antisemitism to our communities, and I am committed to protecting all Michigan Jews against hatred and injustice,” El-Sayed writes in the letter, which was shared on social media.
A spokesperson for the Michigan Democratic Party, which is named as a sponsor in the letter, did not respond to JTA requests for comment by press time. The El-Sayed campaign also did not respond to a request for comment about the letter.
Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed meets with concerned Jewish voters during the state Jewish Democratic caucus’s “Summer Simcha” event, Birmingham, Mich., Aug. 30, 2026. (Andrew Lapin/JTA)
In the campaign’s final days, Jewish surrogates for El-Sayed are hitting the pavement hard. A new Jewish canvassing initiative led by the progressive voter-mobilization group Seed the Vote hopes to engage voters in an effort to boost support for El-Sayed. Seed The Vote is working with the Jewish advocacy groups Bend the Arc Action and IfNotNow.
Most of the Jewish canvassers have come from out of state. One Jewish Michigander who is canvassing, Ronit Wagman, said the activists have sometimes experienced hostility from Jewish households.
“People just don’t want to put themselves on a limb and open themselves up to name-calling,” Wagman, who lives in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park and has canvassed in the nearby, largely liberal town of Huntington Woods, told JTA. “So I’m not too surprised that local Jews don’t really want to door-knock.”
In her own family, Wagman said she has been an El-Sayed supporter for a while but that her parents “took some convincing” to vote for him.
The argument that worked on them, she said, was pulling back from the candidate’s remarks about Israel and the Temple Israel attack. Instead, she asked them to consider the prospect of how Jews would fare long-term under what she described as continued Republican attacks on “constitutional democracy and civil rights.”
“Ultimately, we talked about how Jews have been able to enjoy so much safety and security in America because of the protections offered to all people by our constitution,” she said. “And when you start to erode that, nobody is safe.”
Conversations like the Wagmans’ could prove the tipping point for a Jewish population that largely considers itself liberal but has often been troubled by El-Sayed. Jewish organizers for him have also staged a series of small-room meet-and-greets with progressive politicians who are either Jewish, or who have close ties to the Jewish community. These figures have made their own pitches for the senate candidate.
One of those surrogates, Jewish Illinois congressional candidate Daniel Biss, spoke at a Detroit private Jewish residence on Monday to about 50 people. Goldman was also present at the event.
Biss was targeted by far-left activists during his own primary this spring, some of whom accused the candidate of being AIPAC-aligned himself. In fact, he is backed by the liberal Zionist lobby J Street and he fended off millions in spending that the pro-Israel group dropped in favor of an opponent.
Yet Biss told JTA he had no qualms about supporting El-Sayed, some of whose followers have targeted Jewish Democrats in the state in similar fashion.
“I don’t think it is ever healthy to associate any leader with the ugliest thing that anyone who supports them does,” Biss told JTA. “I absolutely never saw anything like that from Abdul himself.”
He continued, “It is possible to fight for Jewish safety in America with a variety of different positions on foreign policy. I think if we don’t accept that, we make ourselves vulnerable unnecessarily.”
To the group, he also argued that some Jewish concerns regarding El-Sayed were misplaced, particularly concerns about his language around AIPAC, which spent heavily against El-Sayed in his primary.
The lobbyists also spent heavily against Biss in his own primary, and, according to Biss, are fair game for criticism because they employed pernicious tactics in hiding their ad spending and paying for ads that often obscure their pro-Israel motivations.
“To be a little bit cheeky, I would say you can’t perform an antisemitic trope and then accuse me of antisemitism when I describe the thing you just did,” Biss told the Jewish crowd.
AIPAC announced Wednesday that it would cease endorsing and soliciting donations for its preferred candidates, though its associated super PAC, United Democracy Project, would continue operations.
El-Sayed will campaign in Detroit this weekend with former President Barack Obama. He and Rogers face off in their final scheduled debate tonight.
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