Uncategorized
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.
Uncategorized
US House Passes State Department Funding Bill With $3.3 Billion in Security Assistance to Israel
US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks to members of the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, Nov. 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The US House of Representatives in a decisive bipartisan vote passed on Wednesday a sweeping government funding package that includes $3.3 billion in annual security assistance to Israel, underscoring continued congressional support for Washington’s closest ally in the Middle East amid heightened political scrutiny.
The legislation — which combines funding for the State Department and certain national security programs for the Treasury Department and other parts of the government — passed easily by a margin of 341 to 79, reflecting a durable consensus on Capitol Hill that Israel’s security remains a key US strategic interest.
Washington has committed to provide Jerusalem with $3.8 billion in military aid each fiscal year until 2028, according to an agreement signed by the two nations in 2016. The $3.3 billion in aid passed by the House, along with the $500 million given to Israel as part of the US defense budget for anti-missile programs, will meet that total.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, issued a statement praising lawmakers for passing the legislation, arguing that it bolsters the longstanding relationship between the US and its closest Middle Eastern ally.
“The pro-Israel provisions in this bill further reinforce the bipartisan and ironclad support for the US-Israel partnership in Congress,” AIPAC said. “These resources help ensure that our ally can confront shared strategic threats and that America has a strong and capable ally in the heart of the Middle East.”
The funding for Israel is provided through the Foreign Military Financing program and aligns with the 10-year memorandum of understanding between Washington and Jerusalem. Supporters say the assistance is critical to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, funding advanced missile defense systems, and ensuring the country can defend itself against evolving security challenges.
The House package also includes provisions tightening oversight of US funds directed to the Palestinians and restricting assistance to international bodies viewed by supporters of the bill as hostile to Israel. It further bans funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the controversial UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The Israeli government and research organizations have publicized findings showing numerous UNRWA-employed staff, including teachers and school principals, are active Hamas members, some of whom were directly involved in the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, while many others openly celebrated it.
The legislation additionally blocks all funding to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was founded in 2002 under a treaty giving it jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that were either committed by a citizen of a member state or had taken place on a member state’s territory.
Last November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Israel has adamantly denied war crimes in Gaza, where it has waged a military campaign to eliminate Hamas following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on ICC judges and those who assist with International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations of American citizens or allies such as Israel in February 2025.
The legislation also allocates $37.5 million for the Nita Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, a 2020 US law issuing a maximum of $250 million over five years for initiatives promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace-building efforts and a two-state solution.
The funding package is making its way through Congress as the future dynamics of the Israel-American military aid relationship remain in flux. Recently, Netanyahu told US reporters that he plans on weaning Israel off US support over the next decade. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a stalwart supporter of Israel, responded by announcing he plans on introducing legislation to accelerate the timeline to end US aid to Israel.
The measure now moves to the Senate, where leaders are expected to take it up in the coming weeks. If approved and signed into law, the funding would ensure uninterrupted security assistance to Israel for another year.
Uncategorized
Argentine Doctor Suspended After Threatening to Cut Jewish Throats
Dr. Miqueas Martinez Secchi. Photo: Screenshot
A doctor in Argentina has been suspended from his job at a hospital in Buenos Aires after posting antisemitic messages on social media that included explicit calls for violence against Jews.
The suspension of Miqueas Martinez Secchi, a resident physician specializing in intensive care at José de San Martín Hospital in La Plata, marks yet another example of rising antisemitism in health-care settings across the West.
“Instead of performing circumcision, their carotid artery and main artery should be cut from side to side,” Secchi wrote in one post.
The medical professional’s antisemitic online activity was exposed by journalist and commentator Dani Lerer, who posted the graphic messages on the social media platform X.
El @miqveas_ que llama a cortar la yugular de los judíos, y que borró su cuenta, es residente de terapia intensiva del Hospital General José de San Martín de La Plata.
Imagino que ya mismo tomarán cartas en el asunto las autoridades, pero que las redes hagan lo suyo. pic.twitter.com/luCjZbedar
— Dani Lerer (@danilerer) January 12, 2026
The posts prompted widespread outrage, leading Secchi to delete his social media account — but not before other users were able to save screenshots.
Buenos Aires Province Health Minister Nicolás Kreplak released a statement responding to the incident.
“Any aggressive message or one showing a lack of respect for human life is incompatible with health care practice and particularly with medicine. They are fundamental values of training as a health professional,” he posted on X. “Health is one of the essential assets of society, and it is indispensable to be firm against any act of discrimination and racism. As is public knowledge.”
Kreplak then referenced Secchi and noted he is under investigation.
“Due to this message, consistent with other previous behaviors that now acquire relevance, the resident doctor at Hospital San Martín de La Plata who made those public statements is suspended and in an administrative and judicial investigation process, in order to conduct an evaluation under an ethical, technical, and professional committee that will determine whether it is appropriate or not for them to resume their training process,” the minister said.
The incident in Argentina continues an alarming pattern of rampant antisemitism in health care across the Western world which has left Jewish communities feeling unsafe and marginalized.
In November, for example, a Jewish columnist from Amsterdam said she was denied medical care by a nurse who refused to remove a pro-Palestinian pin shaped like a fist.
Elsewhere in the Netherlands, local police opened an investigation into Batisma Chayat Sa’id, a nurse who allegedly stated she would administer lethal injections to Israeli patients.
In Italy, two medical workers filmed themselves at their workplace discarding medicine produced by the Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals in protest of the Jewish state and the war in Gaza.
In Belgium, a local hospital suspended a physician after discovering antisemitic content on his social media, including a cartoon showing babies being decapitated by the tip of a Star of David and an AI-generated image depicting Hasidic Jews as vampires poised to devour a sleeping baby.
The same doctor came under fire after he recently diagnosed a nine-year-old patient by listing “Jewish (Israeli)” as one of her medical problems on his report.
Several such incidents have occurred in the United Kingdom, where British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan in October to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism.
That same month, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
Incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.
In Australia, two nurses filmed themselves bragging online about refusing to treat Israelis, making throat-slitting gestures, and boasting of killing Jews. Both lost their licenses and now face criminal charges.
A US-born Jewish woman who moved from Israel to Australia six years ago told The Algemeiner last year that she no longer feels safe in hospitals given the atmosphere of heightened antisemitism.
“In the past year alone, my little boy has witnessed many hostile protests where ‘anti-Zionists’ have actually come into the Jewish community without permits to intimidate us. Time and time again, instead of [authorities] dispersing and arresting anyone in the crowd for screaming racial slurs and threats, Jews are asked to evacuate and told if they don’t run away, they are inciting violence,” the woman said.
“Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” she continued, referring to the case in Australia. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”
Uncategorized
US Appeals Court Says Decision to Free Mahmoud Khalil Lacked Jurisdiction, Opens Door to Rearrest
Anti-Israel activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil marching with followers in New York City on June 22, 2025. Photo: Reuters Connect
A US federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that a lower court judge lacked the authority to order the release of a prominent anti-Israel activist who helped stage riotous demonstrations on New York City college campuses.
Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian citizen born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, was detained by the Trump administration in March after federal agents arrested him at his Manhattan apartment for what the Department of Homeland Security described as “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” The State Department also alleged that Khalil was supporting Hamas and argued his residing in the US posed “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Immigration officials moved Khalil to New Jersey, leading his case to be transferred there to US District Judge Michael Farbiarz.
Khalil was held without charge for more than 100 days at a facility in Louisiana administered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, until Farbiarz ordered his release in June, ruling that the government failed to prove he posed a threat and suggesting the detention may have violated his First Amendment rights.
On Thursday, however, a three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the lower court lacked “subject-matter jurisdiction” under federal immigration law to halt the Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil.
According to the appeals court, the district court that considered his lawsuit was not the proper forum to address Khalil’s claims, which should have been heard through an appeal of a removal order from an immigration judge in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
The ruling stressed that Khalil lacks legal standing to challenge the government’s decision to deport him before his case has been adjudicated in immigration court, adding that the INA does not allow for a petition to review (PFR) the case at the federal level at this time.
“The scheme Congress enacted governing immigration proceedings provides Khalil a meaningful forum in which to raise his claims later on — in a petition for review of a final order of removal,” an opinion issued by the majority says. “That scheme ensures that petitioners get just one bite at the apple — not zero, or two. But it also means that some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government or conduct.”
It added, “Because Khalil raises legal questions that a PFR court can meaningfully review later on, the INA bars him from attacking his detention and removal in a habeas petition.”
In a statement, Khalil was defiant even as he faces the possibility of being again detained.
“The door may have been opened for potential re-detainment down the line, but it has not closed our commitment to Palestine and to justice and accountability,” he said. “I will continue to fight, through every legal avenue and with every ounce of determination, until my rights, and the rights of others like me, are fully protected.”
Additionally, his lawyers, provided by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), vowed to exhaust “every available avenue,” which may include a petition for his case to be decided by the US Supreme Court.
Speaking to Fox News, the Trump administration commended the decision, saying, “Mahmoud Khalil was given the privilege of coming to America to study on a student visa he obtained by fraud and misrepresentation. As we have always maintained, the executive branch has the lawful authority to take actions that will protect the public and to ensure the integrity of our immigration system.”
Beyond Khalil’s alleged pro-Hamas activities, the US government has maintained that its action was warranted by his lying to obtain a green card. In court documents it charged that Khalil did not disclose that he had interned for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a group that was found multiple times to have been breached by Hamas members, and also concealed key details about another position he held at the British embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Khalil, the government added, also did not inform immigration officials about his leadership role in the notorious “Columbia University Apartheid Divest” (CUAD) group.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD perpetrated illegal building occupations and severe infrastructure sabotage while Khalil participated in a graduate program at Columbia University in the months after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. The acts stunned Columbia’s campus, prompting fears of imminent revolutionary-style violence on campus even as Jewish students and faculty received antisemitic hate mail and death threats.
The Department of Homeland Security initially arrested Khalil while acting on an executive order issued by President Donald Trump which called for the deportation of foreign nationals who cause antisemitic hate incidents. A major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose alleged support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas supposedly contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses.
Khalil has refused to condemn Hamas and even once denied that antisemitism at Columbia University required a policy response from school officials.
“I would say there is manufactured hysteria about antisemitism at Columbia because of the protests,” Khalil told Ezra Klein in an interview with The New York Times last year. “There are incidents here and there. But it’s not like antisemitism is happening at Columbia because of the Palestine movement … This is why I always push back. I have a strong belief that antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism rise together because the same groups are perpetrating that in different ways.”
Khalil then went on to assert some of the very claims prompting accusations of antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement, accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” while arguing that the accusation is aimed at making pro-Israel supporters “uncomfortable” and defending the terrorist-led Palestinian intifadas.
“I don’t want to sanitize history,” Khalil continued. “Like I told you, the second intifada involved violent acts, but overwhelmingly, they were peaceful.”
Over 1,000 Israelis were killed in the early 2000s during the second intifada, when Palestinian terrorists ramped up violence targeting Israelis that included suicide bombings, shootings, and stabbings.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, pro-Hamas activists at Columbia produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.
CUAD was among the most strident pro-Hamas organizations on campus and once promoted itself by distributing literature which called on students to join Hamas’s movement to destroy Israel and America.
“This booklet is part of a coordinated and intentional effort to uphold the principles of the thawabit and the Palestinian resistance movement overall by transmitting the words of the resistance directly,” said a pamphlet distributed by CUAD, a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff, to incoming freshmen. “This material aims to build popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”
Other sections of the pamphlet were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose is to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
“We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nations, its scholars, men, institutions, and active forces to come out in roaring crowds tomorrow,” it added, referring to a then-upcoming event. “We also renew our invitation to the free people and those with living consciences around the world to continue and escalate their global public movement, rejecting the occupation’s crimes, in solidarity with our people and their just cause and legitimate struggle.”
Columbia University denounced the group in 2025 as a part of a rollout of policies to combat antisemitism and unauthorized demonstrations which disrupted academic life.
In a statement issued in July, university president Claire Shipman said the institution will hire new coordinators to oversee complaints alleging civil rights violations; facilitate “deeper education on antisemitism” by creating new training programs for students, faculty, and staff; and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — a tool that advocates say is necessary for identifying what constitutes antisemitic conduct and speech.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.