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Ben Stiller Producing TV Adaptation of Gary Shteyngart's 'Super Sad True Love...
Gary Shteyngart is headed for the small screen, and Ben Stiller is leading the charge. Stiller is producing a television adaptation of Shteyngart’s 2010 novel, Super Sad True Love Story, according to...
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A Jewish Wedding on Downton Abbey
It happened! Last night on Downton Abbey, Lady Rose MacClare, the glamorous carefree cousin to the Crawley clan (some might think of her as the adorable romper-clad Olivia to Lady Edith’s dolorous...
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The Original 'Catfish' Victim Now a Messiah to a Generation?
The documentary Catfish, released in 2010, followed Nev Schulman along the journey of finding out that his new love and her entire network of extended family and friends were not who they claimed to...
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'Fresh Off the Boat' Episode About Jews and Asians Plays to Stereotypes
Left to my own devices I would only watch TV shows about smoldering Scotsmen in kilts. My husband would only watch things explode. But we have children, so our TV world involves a lot of cooking shows...
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Soon You'll Be Able to Stream 'Seinfeld' Episodes Online
Seinfeld is already on the medical school curriculum, so it’s about time it made its way to the realm of online streaming. The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony Pictures Television is close to a...
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Alice Hoffman's Masada-Based Novel 'The Dovekeepers' Now a CBS Miniseries
Despite the “hot mess” that was Lifetime’s The Red Tent adaptation (newly out on DVD!), a major network is turning another feminist Jewish narrative into a TV miniseries. The Dovekeepers, based on...
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Shimon Peres on the Iron Throne
Shimon Peres is not often at a loss for words: even at 91, after seven years as President, his ability to conjure up platitudes on a moment’s notice is unmatched. But yesterday morning, eight months...
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'Mad Men' Sits Shiva
The ghosts of Rachel Menken, Don Draper’s season one paramour/breathtakingly classy department store heiress (not to mention the only woman, apart from his wives, who has ever actually broken up with...
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Beloved Spanish-language Show 'Sábado Gigante' Canceled After 53-year Run,...
Sábado Gigante, the longest-running variety show in television history, is shuttering production. Hosted by the 74-year-old Don Francisco, the Chilean son of Holocaust survivors, the Spanish-language...
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Why 'Game of Thrones' Is The Ultimate Diaspora Narrative
Look, I love Game of Thrones, you love Game of Thrones, everyone in America loves Game of Thrones, at least judging from the amount of ink, real and virtual, spilled over HBO’s sprawling and ambitious...
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10 Memorable Appearances by Jews on 'Letterman'
As you’ve likely heard, tonight is David Letterman’s last night as host of CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman, a job he’s held since 1993. Prior to that, the 68-year-old entertainer hosted Late Night...
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TV's 'Botched' Takes On The Art of Fixing the Failures of Plastic Surgery
I’ve tried to stay away from plastic surgery reality shows over the years. I’m not squeamish about the bloody stuff, or the inevitable moment when the surgeon either shoves in or pulls out a quivering,...
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Watch Jon Stewart Interview David Letterman as His Final Guest in 1995
Before Jon Stewart became the liberal lion of late-night satirical news who tore through bow-tie clad CNN hosts with rhetorical ease, he cut his teeth as host of MTV’s The Jon Stewart Show, which ran...
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Jewish Mysticism Steals the Show on Showtime's 'Penny Dreadful'
Look, it’s entirely possible that I am the only person in America who is watching Penny Dreadful. The ratings for Showtime’s witch-vampire-werewolf-Frankenstein extravaganza apparently aren’t too hot,...
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Television's Most Alluring Antihero is a Fictional Jewish Woman
It’s an image you’ve seen a hundred times before: A score of gorgeous, perfectly-groomed young women in evening gowns standing nervously by the edge of an underwater-lit, electric blue swimming pool....
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Egyptian TV Show Depicting Cairo's Jewish Quarter in 1948 Is a Hit in the...
A breakthrough seems to have occurred in the eternally stonewalled Israeli/Arab conflict, and yet not a shot was fired, a curfew lifted, or an olive branch extended—and neither Barack nor Bibi made the...
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Shalom, Jon Stewart: The Liberal Lion Steps Down From 'The Daily Show' After...
We’ve covered Jon Stewart quite a lot over the years—mostly because of his run as host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, which comes to a close on Thursday night, while keeping in mind his...
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A Nutty Jubilee: 'The Jerry Springer Show' Turns 25
Dressed in a tux, Jerry Springer, the king of trashy television, celebrated his show’s silver jubilee on Monday. That’s 25 years of paternity tests, adult babies, kung fu hillbillies, baby mamas,...
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Yiddish-Speaking Brooklyn Hits the Small Screen
If you’re going to showcase Brooklyn, where better to start than the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park where the Yiddish language thrives? That’s exactly what non-profit...
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Jill Soloway's 'Transparent' Continues Its Accurate Portrayal of American...
The second season of Transparent, Jill Soloway’s multi-generational dramedy about the triumphs and struggles of the Pfefferman family as they adapt to the reality of having a transgender parent,...
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In 'Transparent,' It Makes Sense that a Jewish Family and Transgender Issues...
There was an unanswered question at the heart of the first season of Transparent, the TV-show-not-for-TVs, produced by an Internet retail behemoth, that earned so much love last year. It was a question...
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'Broad City' Season 3 Is Out, and It's as Good as Ever
Is it ridiculous to fantasize we—Abbi, Ilana, and me—could hang out? It is nuts, given my age and station, to think the stars of Broad City would want me as a friend? See, I’m a single parent to a...
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Why You Should Be Watching 'Crazy Ex-Girfriend'
When I first saw the ads for the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, featuring a pink-clad, open-mouthed, pink-lipsticked, manic-eyed girl ferociously clutching a pink balloon string, I thought, “This show is...
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This Week on Unorthodox: 'Sex With Shakespeare' Author Jillian Keenan and...
This week on Unorthodox: Tel Aviv, so hot right now. Our Jewish guest is writer Jillian Keenan, whose first book, Sex With Shakespeare, explores her dual passions for the Bard and BDSM. She tells us...
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‘Game of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin Predicts Future of Jewish State
“Alas, the apt phrase is not ‘open city’ but ‘open sore.’ Jerusalem bleeds as it has for almost four decades. If this city is sacred, I should hate to visit one that was profane.” No, this sentence was...
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Throwback: Remembering PingPong, Israel's Disastrous Eurovision 2000 Entry
On Saturday night, the Eurovision Song Contest—an televised evening of chansons, costumes, and camp—returns to Stockholm, scene of an infamous disaster for Israel in this musical extravaganza. In 2000,...
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Hulu's 'The Path' Is Remarkable Because it Portrays Religion and Systems of...
The finale of the first season of The Path, one of the most remarkable pop culture explorations of religion in recent memory, is coming to a television screen (or, laptop screen, since it’s a...
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Andy Cohen Expands His Entertainment Empire by Launching His Own Book Imprint
With his firm hand on the helm of the vast Bravo experiment—from the inescapable and seemingly infinite Real Housewives franchise to his own late-night talk show Watch What Happens: Live—it’s more than...
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This Week on Unorthodox, Humorist Mo Rocca, Writer Rebecca Schiff, and a New...
This week on Unorthodox: Kappa connections, ruff times for dogs in Iran, and a new original song from our in-house Jewbadour Jim Knable. Our Jewish guest is Rebecca Schiff, whose debut short-story...
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A Comedy Writer Penned a 'Seinfeld' Episode About 9/11—and It's Hilarious
For a comedy, Seinfeld could get pretty dark. Take Susan’s death in “The Invitations” episode that aired during Season 7. Outside of her parents, no one shows anything resembling empathy. Or how about...
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Netflix Keeps Adding Israel's Best TV and Film. Here's What You Should Watch.
In recent years, American audiences have become familiar with Israeli television through its frequent overseas adaptations. The most famous of these, of course, is the hit show Homeland, a take-off of...
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How 'The O.C.' Taught a Catholic School Girl About Chrismukkah
A decade-plus of Catholic school in Texas will teach you a lot. It certainly taught me about spirituality and humanity, the power of prayer and our capacity for compassion. It also taught me to leave...
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Watch: Geoffrey Rush Is Albert Einstein in New 'Genius' Series for National...
For its first scripted television series, the National Geographic Channel is producing a “Genius” anthology that will focus on a different really, really smart person (Nat Geo calls them “innovators”)...
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Joseph A. Wapner, a star TV judge on star 'The People's Court,' dies at the...
The forces of truth and justice seem to have taken blow after blow of late, and this weekend brought about another sockdolager, albeit of the more elegiac kind: The esteemed judge Joseph A. Wapner,...
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Hunky Jewish Time Travelers: Josh Bowman and Adam Pally Star in Two New Shows
This Sunday two new shows featuring time-travel elements will have their series premiere. These series have something else in common, too: a lead actor who is Jewish, or “Jew-ish, ish.” In Fox’s Making...
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What HBO's 'Big Little Lies' Can Teach the Jewish Community About Domestic Abuse
Note: This article contains spoilers for ‘Big Little Lies.’ “He hurts you.”Continue reading "What HBO's 'Big Little Lies' Can Teach the Jewish Community About Domestic Abuse" at...
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Monica Lewinsky on Roger Ailes and the 'Culture of Exploitation' at Fox News
The death of former Fox News chief Roger Ailes last week has inspired a mini-industry of sorry-not-sorry obituaries, detailing (as though we could ever forget) with solemnity what a miserable human...
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‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘House of Cards’ Offer Differing Lessons in Morality
With the long-anticipated third season of the classic Twin Peaks having debuted this past weekend, and the fifth season of the political drama House of Cards just a few days away, it’s shaping up to be...
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The Chosen Ones: An Interview With Celebrity Chef Super-Manager Scott Feldman
There are so many cooking shows now—ones featuring celebrity chefs, iron chefs, dessert chefs, top chefs, test kitchens, chef’s lives, chef’s minds, $13-dollar Anthony Bourdain chocolate bars at...
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The Pfefferman Pfroblem: Why Are the Characters in 'Transparent' So Awful?
I watched the new season of Transparent three weeks ago when it first came out. I’d seen an episode or two before and was never much moved. But I was intrigued to see how the show would handle a...
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Today on Jewcy: Why Seth Cohen is still the iconic Jewish heartthrob.
There have always been cool Jews: Judah Maccabee, Bugsy Siegel, Lou Reed. But for one brief shining moment in the early Noughts, a curly-haired, comics-collecting, indie-listening ball of neuroses was...
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Today on Jewcy: Where does the new DC TV crossover line up with other...
The CW is up to four shows that simultaneously take place in the DC comic book universe— that’s The Flash, Supergirl, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow. Tonight will begin their annual crossover, “Crisis...
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Today on Jewcy: From Lenny Bruce to ghost Hasids, 2017 brought us...
A superhero in Biblical rags. A comedienne rubbing shoulders with Lenny Bruce in 1950s New York. Ben Feldman’s hair on Superstore. You didn’t have to search very hard to find Jews making a splash in...
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Today on Jewcy: In a new show, two short Jews take on LA
Based on the short film of the same name, the new Freeform series Alone Together, created by and starring Jewish LA comedians Esther Povitsky (AKA Little Esther) and Benji Aflalo, doesn’t take itself...
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On Unorthodox, Phil Rosenthal's New Netflix Food Series, and DoubleX Gabfest...
We’ve got swag! Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here.Continue reading "On Unorthodox, Phil Rosenthal's New Netflix Food Series, and...
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Today on Jewcy: Is the musical anti-Semitic? Maybe.
As they often do, Passover and Easter coincide this year; Easter Sunday is the second full day of Pesach (which is also April Fools’ Day this year— beware). Normally this wouldn’t be much cause for...
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On Unorthodox, Josh Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway of 'The West Wing Weekly'...
This week on Unorthodox, a crossover episode! We’re joined by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway, hosts of The West Wing Weekly podcast, an episode-by-episode discussion of one of television’s most...
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The Jewish Women Who Are Revolutionizing Television
The blaring neon cover of Stealing the Show: How Women Are Revolutionizing Television by Joy Press is scattered with the names of the high-powered women—producers, directors, and writers—profiled...
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Late TV Producer of 'Hill Street Blues' Fame Steven Bochco Wasn't Just a...
When I met Steven Bochco in 1991, he was already one of the most successful producers in television history. Having made one fortune already, he would go on to make several more. Steven’s father,...
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Living the ‘Goods Life’
Come Sept. 22, many of us will be glued to our oversize television sets rooting for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to take home a cluster of Emmys. While the show’s appeal is lost on me, some of its fans, I...
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