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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Today: U.S. working on short-term truce between Israel and Hezbollah, Brandeis president resigns, prominent Muslim group endorses Harris, document connecting Jewish financier to American Revolution for sale, and we’re launching a new podcast.

♥️ OUR LEAD STORY ♥️

Kristen Bell and Adam Brody in a scene from Nobody Wants This. (Netflix)

A rabbi dates a non-Jew in Netflix’s new romantic comedy. Rabbis in interfaith relationships have thoughts.

How’s this for the premise of a TV series? Kristen Bell, the spunky Midwestern actress, plays a sex podcaster who meets a nice Jewish boy, portrayed with nebbishy charm by Adam Brody, and they end up dating. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: he’s a rabbi.

The entire first season of Nobody Wants This debuted this morning on Netflix. And while the storyline may seem to belong solely in the realm of fiction, it actually exists in real life, too.

Rabbi Lex Rofeberg, who is married to a non-Jew (she’s the granddaughter of an Anglican bishop), says he’s looking forward to binge-watching the series and the “opportunity to engage in deep conversation about clergy relationships,” adding that it “humanizes” rabbis.

“I believe in the power of pop culture,” he said. “I treat new Jewish-themed TV shows or movies in a way similar to if I were around 2,500 years ago and a new book that is now part of the Bible came to exist.”

“So much of the discourse on intermarriage is so doom-and-gloom,” said Rabbi Denise Handlarski, the author of The A-Z of Intermarriage and herself married to a non-Jew. “But to me, really, every marriage is an intermarriage.”

The series features a basketball team called the Matzah Ballers. (Netflix)

So, is the series any good? “It feels closer to one of Hallmark’s attempts to slot one Hanukkah movie into their Christmas lineup than it does to some of the incisive, nuanced Jewish shows we’ve gotten in the past few years,” writes our culture reporter, Mira Fox, who watched all 10 episodes. Read her review ►

Why the hot rabbi is having a moment (again): Our PJ Grisar explores the history of stunning Jewish clergy from the Talmud’s Rabbi Yohanan and I.L. Peretz’s account of the smoldering gazes of European Hasidim up to the recent breakthrough of dateable women rabbis on streaming shows. “We can learn a lot by asking why, given this tradition, acknowledging members of the rabbinate as attractive still feels somewhat subversive,” PJ writes. “It has more to do with cultural expectations, and less to do with who actually heads Jewish congregations today.” Read his story ►

Related…

From our Bintel Brief advice column: My rabbi went to a sex party. Should I tell the board?

From our friends at Hey Alma: A timeline of pop culture’s hot rabbis.

ISRAEL AT WAR

A demonstrator raises an Israeli flag smeared with red paint during an anti-government protest calling for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. (Getty)

How 10/7 — like 9/11 before it — irrevocably changed the meaning of a pair of numbers: A new book by journalist Lee Yaron, 10/7: 100 Human Stories, shares intimate profiles of some of the people who were taken or traumatized that day. “The vignettes etched by Yaron,” writes our reviewer, “restrained and rapid, at times made me turn away — a luxury not afforded to the survivors or first responders. In a way, Yaron is among those early responders.” Read the story ►

Related…

“I was still very much overwhelmed with my own grief and sense of shock and just this deep feeling that I need to do something,” Yaron, 30, said in an interview.

Yaron will be in conversation with our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 7. Register here for the in-person and online event.

Plus…

The U.S. and France and other allied countries are calling “for an immediate 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah while also expressing support for a truce in Gaza.”

In a new feature story for The Atlantic, Franklin Foer goes “inside the year-long American effort to release the hostages, end the fighting in Gaza, and bring peace to the Middle East.”

– From our Sponsors: American Friends of the Hebrew University–

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Brandeis was the first private university to ban a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. (Wikimedia)

On campus…

🏫 The president of Brandeis University resigned after he lost a vote of no-confidence from faculty amid a budget crisis and the fallout from campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. (JTA)

🇮🇱 Protesters this spring convinced some universities to consider divesting from Israel. Now several of those schools have weighed the issue, and opted not to divest. The highest-profile test will come next month at Brown University. (JTA)

And elsewhere…

🇺🇸 A prominent Muslim organization endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. It comes a week after the “Uncommitted” movement, which prompted more than 700,000 voters to protest the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel during the Democratic primaries, opted not to endorse Harris. (Religion News Service, Forward)

💔 The former editor of the Jewish Press, who was sentenced to prison last week for his role in the Jan. 6 riot, was banned from Loop, a dating website. He was previously kicked off Saw You at Sinai, a Jewish matchmaking service. (NY Jewish Week)

💰 A rare document that details the contributions of a Jewish financier to the American Revolution is for sale for $50,000. “Jews in early America were strong patriots and fought for freedom alongside their Christian friends and neighbors,” said the document’s current owner. (JTA)

Mazel tov ► To Malia Reichmann, 32, on becoming New Jersey’s youngest Jewish judge and, her family is proud to report, the first in the town of Edison to wear a sheitel head covering from the bench.

Shiva call ► Naftali Herstik, one of the most influential cantors of his generation, died at 77.

What else we’re reading ► Securing a tortoise and 40 hours of choir rehearsal: How New York’s Temple Emanu-El prepares for the High Holidays … Tree grown from ancient mystery seed found in cave could be source of biblical balm … Katz’s Deli debuts a vegan pastrami sandwich — for one afternoon only.

🎧 CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST 🎧

We’re launching Make Art Not War, a podcast about how Jewish and Palestinian artists in Israel experienced this year of war, and how it has affected their work. The show features a series of frank, open-hearted and insightful one-on-one conversations. The first episode drops Friday; you can check out the trailer and subscribe here.

Thanks to Mira Fox, PJ Grisar, Julie Moos and Jodi Rudoren for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Dan Perry for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

P.S. We’re so grateful that you start your day with this newsletter. We’re committed to bring you the Jewish news that matters each morning. If you appreciate Forwarding the News, I urge you to support it and the entire Forward team with a monthly or one-time donation for the High Holidays.

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