The latkes are sizzling, the menorahs are glowing, and the dreidel is ready to spin. It’s the perfect time of year to show appreciation for our Jewish friends and the stories they share in movies and TV shows.
Whether or not you’re joining your Hanukkah-celebrating colleagues in lighting candles, unwrapping a little gelt, and debating whose bubbe made the best sufganiyot, you can still celebrate the festivities with films and shows that capture the humor, heart, and everyday magic of Jewish characters and culture. From nostalgic favorites to fresh new gems, these picks add an extra spark to your eight nights of light.
It may be our favorite modern Jewish rom-com trope: a Jew and a shiksa fall in love, and chaos ensues. In this Swiss take on the genre, Mordechai 'Motti' Wolkenbruch (Joel Basman) is a Jewish Orthodox student studying economics and humoring his mother, who sets him up constantly on dates with eligible Jewish women in the hopes he’ll marry soon. Unfortunately, none of them spark his interest quite like Laura (Noémie Schmidt), a fellow student and non-Jew in one of his classes. In order to steal time with Laura, Motti and one of his mother’s set-ups, Michal (Lena Kalisch), agree to pretend they are dating — buying them both some freedom. When Motti starts exploring even more forbidden pleasures, he has to decide if he’s ready to be honest with himself and his family about who he wants to be.
A Friday Shabbos dinner goes completely off the rails in this comedy of errors. David (Jon Bass) and his fiancée, Meg (Meghan Leathers), plan to introduce Meg’s Catholic parents to David’s Jewish family during a Sabbath dinner. David’s brother, Adam (Theo Taplitz), his sister, Abby (Milana Vayntrub), and her rude boyfriend, Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman), arrive, and Adam and Benjamin fall into their usual bickering. Then, a prank leads to a fatal accident, causing panic among the family as they weigh their options. With a dead body to hide and in-laws on the way, this is one Shabbos no one will forget.
Disillusioned and still grieving the death of his wife the previous year, Ben (Jason Schwartzman) is having trouble serving as the cantor at his Jewish temple. At a bar one night, he runs into his old grade-school music teacher, Carla (Carol Kane), and the next day she randomly shows up at his bar/bat mitzvah class. It turns out that Carla was unable to have a bat mitzvah when younger — and she wants to do so now. Thus begins an unlikely friendship between two people struggling with faith, family, and finding purpose.
As both a religion and a culture, one’s Jewish identity often plays a large role in choosing a partner. In this reality series, matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom comes to the rescue. Of course, in our modern world, melding traditional values with today’s dating culture is no easy task. Working with Jews of all backgrounds and levels of observance, she sets up dates and gives her clients advice that will — hopefully — lead them down the aisle and under the chuppah.
This sitcom introduces us to Sandy Kominsky (Michael Douglas) and Norman Newlander (Alan Arkin), whose friendship may go down as one of TV’s greatest. The two men represent the secular, partially observant Jewish population. With their bitingly dark senses of humor and their steadfast companionship, the pair support each other through loss, aging, career disillusionment, and family drama. All of which provides a hilarious study of two aging Jewish creatives.
As the creator of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg has proven himself a master of self-deprecating, ironic, satirical comedy. His new animated series follows the Schwartz-Cooper “Schwooper” family: father Elliot (Paul Reiser), mother Naomi (Lisa Edelstein), eldest son Avi (Ben Feldman), daughter Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and youngest son Yoshi (Max Greenfield). Told non-linearly, we see this Jewish family’s highs and lows at different points in time, revealing how family shapes who we become. The glue that binds them is their Jewish identity, though each practices — or doesn’t — in their own way.
A sex podcaster walks into a dinner party and flirts with a Jewish rabbi. It sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s actually the compelling starting point for this rom-com series starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. The series focuses on the difficult reality of merging one’s faith and family with one’s chosen romantic partner, and the give-and-take that must occur on both sides. The tension at the heart of their relationship is whether Bell’s Joanne will eventually convert to Judaism. Of course, all the other challenges of making a lasting connection are at play as well, making this a well-rounded portrayal of both integration and love.
A hallmark of Jewish humor in film and TV is often the uncomfortable weight of family expectation, no matter how inappropriate it may seem. College senior Danielle (Rachel Sennott) attends a shiva with her parents, where her mother prepares her to respond to questions about her seemingly aimless life trajectory. Danielle is passed around the house by friends and family, grilled about her career and love life, questions she does her best to dodge. Dani has been seeing a sugar daddy in secret, and she’s thrown for a loop when he shows up with his wife and baby to the service.
This Argentinian film uses the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony to highlight an entirely different sort of transition. Young Rubén Singman (Milo Burgess-Webb) comes out to family with a new identity, Mumy Singer, and wants to celebrate a bat mitzvah instead of a bar mitzvah. Mumy’s mother and brother are supportive, but her father struggles — not with the gender change so much as with the name change, seeing the name “Rubén” as a prophecy deserving of honor. Fast-forward 20 years and Mumy Singer is now a world-famous Yiddish pop star, returning to Argentina after all this time. Tragic circumstances cause Mumy to lose her voice, and she decides she needs the bat mitzvah she never got to honor both her past as Rubén and her new identity as Mumy. Her brother, Eduardo (Juan Minujín), joins her on this journey through the multiplicity of identity as he tries to assert what he, too, wants from his life.
A young woman’s bat mitzvah is a rite of passage — and the make-or-break party of her life. At least that’s what best friends Stacy (Sunny Sandler) and Lydia (Samantha Lorraine) have been dreaming of since childhood. But when the two friends have a falling out over a boy, all that they’ve worked toward threatens to unravel. Adam Sandler (real-life father to Sunny) and Idina Menzel play Stacy’s parents, just trying to navigate the tempestuous, hormonal maelstrom that is pre-teen life in this hilarious coming-of-age tale.
