Lev Avery-Peck
Dr. Nathanson
December 5, 2011
The History and Use of Jewish Sitcoms
The trend of Jewish sitcoms on American television since 1940 has gone up and down.
While it started in 1940, it did not really take off until the 1980s. The first Jewish sitcom to air
was The Goldbergs in the 1940’s. It featured a Jewish immigrant family that dealt with every day
immigrant problems. After The Goldbergs ended there was a forty-year gap where there were
minimal influential sitcoms that involved Jews. Starting in 1989 a trend began within American
sitcoms, with shows like Seinfeld, Brooklyn Bridge, The Nanny, Mad About You, Friends,
Dharma and Greg, Will and Grace, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and many others. These are sitcoms
that have some relationship to Judaism, especially, characters that have some sort of Jewish trait.
Phoebe in Friends has traits of the “Jewish American Princess”. Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld is
definitely Jewish on the show, even if there are only a handful of episodes that revolve around
his Jewishness. Seinfeld had a huge influence on the Jewish sitcoms that were to come in the
following years. Shows like Friends, The Nanny, and Will and Grace include similar
characteristics to those in Seinfeld. They all have Jewish characteristics that are made apparent
by their personal traits and not their religious actions. When we move forward a few years, we
find Curb Your Enthusiasm starting in 2000 that involves so much of Jewish culture.
What these shows have in common is that they all attempt to give audiences a portrayal
of American society through the eyes of a Jewish character. Jews, we will see, increasingly
appear in the media because they serve producers and writers as a slightly different kind of
American who can offer a unique perspective on contemporary American life. The presence of
Jews in the media does not reflect the success of Judaism in America. Instead of showing the
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Jews and Judaism as a religious group of people that have come to be a strong ethnic group in
America, they are shown as typical everyday people that identify as Jewish. This reflects the
need of the media to find an appropriate outsider that can do everyday American things but still
have a slightly unusual perspective on America and American culture. Audiences can identify
with these Jews, who are just a different type of an average white person, with a unique and
interesting outlook on life. Jews are represented like every other person, but they can give the
people of America a different view because they are Jewish.
The articles I read concern changing American attitudes towards Jews and Judaism. In
these articles, these changing attitudes are seen to parallel changing American views of ethnicity.
More and more, there is an American interest in exploring what it means to be American by
looking at people who are separate from the mainstream of American identity. It is these
changing interests that account for the trend in programming that revolves around Jews (and also
African Americans and gay Americans, for instance). The authors argue, in order for these
shows’ audiences to enjoy these shows, the shows must focus on Jews who are only marginally
associated with the religious and cultural traditions of Judaism. These are Jews whose marginal
Jewishness makes them perfect examples of what it means to be an American in our age of
multi-culturalism. By reviewing these articles we can get a sense, first, of how Americans have
come to view Jews in the past 20 years, second of how Jews view themselves within American
culture, and, finally of how American media uses cultural differences and stereotypes to try to
make a point about the ironies of being an American today.
The Goldbergs (1949)
As one of the first sitcoms that openly involved a Jewish family, The Goldbergs was an
early attempt at a whole new category of sitcoms—the Jewish sitcom. But The Goldbergs was
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not replicated for a long time. For forty years after The Goldbergs there were no other sitcoms
like it, because Americans increasingly wanted to see sitcoms about suburban culture, which
portrayed the fulfillment of what was seen as the American dream (Weber, 2003, 117). The
Goldbergs, by contrast, were an immigrant family living in the Bronx. They spoke with Yiddish
accents, celebrated Jewish holidays, and dealt with the everyday assimilation problems that most
Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants dealt with. Because of this The Goldbergs at first attracted
many viewers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. The show dealt humorously with everyday
problems of people trying to become American. Many Americans were able to relate to the show
and this brought it more viewers (Weber, 2003, 115).
As the times in America were changing, The Goldbergs had to change too. Immigrants
were becoming more Americanized and moving to more white suburban places. Jewish
immigrants no longer were of interest to Jews, who wanted to forget their immigrant past, or to
non-Jews. The producers began to think that the show was “too Jewish”. The show had to change
in order to attract more non-Jewish viewers (Brook, 2003, 22). The norms of television were
starting to revolve around middle class whiteness, and The Goldbergs needed to become that.
Eventually the Goldbergs moved out of the Bronx and into the suburbs to become more
Americanized. The show thereby became more relatable for Jews and non-Jews. The writers thus
used Jews in this show to say something about the creation of the uniform American culture that
was the ideal of America in the 1950s, when Americans truly believed that America should be a
melting pot, in which all cultural differences disappeared. Here we see Jews who are different
from their neighbors in their religion (they worshipped in a temple rather than a church) but in no
other way.
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The Goldbergs helped bridge the gap between the depression era and postwar America.
The show allowed viewers to see how people that were not Christian dealt with the different
changes in economy in America. The large conflict that The Goldbergs dealt with was “novelty
and tradition, Jewish and mainstream American ways” and the characters’ willingness to give up
their Jewish rituals to become more American (Brook, 2003, 26). When the Goldbergs moved to
the suburbs in the mid 1950’s they lost their legitimate religious and ethnic identity, because they
were giving in to the white suburban American culture (Brook, 2003, 116).
The Goldbergs was the first of a trend of Jewish sitcoms where the characters have to
deal with being Jewish and American. At the same time, it would be a long time before America
would be ready again for a show in which the main characters are Jewish. The Dick Van Dyke
Show in 1961 was originally supposed to be about a Jewish man living in New Rochelle. But the
producers did not think it would sell, so they got a white Protestant from the mid-west to play the
lead role. Producers did not think audiences at this time would relate to a Jewish sitcom (Krieger,
2003, 393). The trend of shows focusing on Jews would not occur until the late 1980s, when
issues of cultural difference again were interesting to Americans. We will see in other Jewish
sitcoms how different Jewish main characters have to struggle with the same issues first raised
by The Goldbergs.
Seinfeld (1989)
One of the most well known Jewish sitcoms, Seinfeld, like many other “Jewish sitcoms”,
does not actually involve any Jewish rituals or particularly Jewish characters. Jerry’s Jewishness
is shallow and not a focus of the show. Still, Seinfeld was one of the first of a crop of sitcoms
that focused on a Jewish main character, and it started a trend of Jewish sitcoms that were to
come in the next 20 years. Seinfeld was a breakthrough hit and dominant cultural force for
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sitcoms that involved Jewish characters. It made producers realize that audiences were receptive
to Jewish characters on screen (Brook, 2003, 6). Similar to The Goldbergs it opened up a door to
a type of sitcom that involved a religion that not many people in America knew about. The
Jewishness in these shows was so subtle though that they still attracted a lot of non-Jewish
viewers. Viewers were ready to see a view of America through the eye of someone other than a
white Christian, and this is what these Jewish sitcoms offered. But to accomplish this, the
character needed to be Jewish, but not too Jewish. For this reason, in this show and others like it
Jewishness and the traits of New York culture are intertwined, making it hard often to tell if what
is being shown is particularly Jewish or just a reflection of the culture of New York (Krieger,
2003, 391).
In the show, Jerry is the only character that identifies with Judaism, and there is nothing
about him that is distinctively Jewish: he engages in no Jewish ritual practices, does not use
Yiddish words, does not talk about Jewish issues or concerns. His Jewish identity is formed
around his stereotypical Jewish parents, not any Jewish acts he would participate in (because we
rarely see these acts). The audience therefore knows that Jerry is Jewish and understands that he
has an unusual perspective on life and culture in America. But the specific Jewish characteristic
that makes Jerry different is never explained or focused on.
Indeed, as with The Goldbergs, a concern of the producers of the show was that it not
become too Jewish. For instance, Kramer was originally a more Jewish character, but they
changed his name and personality to make him more general. George Costanza is given the last
name Costanza to make him seem less Jewish, despite his crazy antics, which some people might
see as Jewish and others as representing a neurotic New Yorker. (Gillota, 153) Jerry’s neighbor,
Cosmo Kramer’s original name was supposed to be Kessler, but it sounded too Jewish and so
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was switched to Kramer. Kramer’s Italian sounding first name Cosmo was given to him in order
to not alienate audiences because of a very Jewish sounding character. (Krieger, 2003, 391) So as
with The Goldbergs, the show is Jewish but not so Jewish as to make it unappealing to the
general American audience, and it presents no specific content to make it seem to be about
anyone who isn’t totally American. If anything, we see in Seinfeld that Jerry’s Jewishness is
more of a burden than anything else. Jerry’s Jewish identity is not important to him, it is more an
annoyance (Gillota 153). Jerry’s “possessive investment in whitness” makes it hard for him to
view his Jewishness as an ethnic identity. This makes it hard for us to see Jerry as a “legitimate
Jew”. His Jewish identity comes from typical American stereotypes of Jews; his last name, his
home in New York City, and his overbearing Jewish parents (Brook, 2003, 114). The result of
this is that Jerry’s Jewish identity makes him a good person to present a unique take on
American culture. But he tells us nothing about Judaism at all, beyond revealing the cultural
discomfort that many assimilated Jews in America feel.
The Jews in Seinfeld create a balance that satisfies both Gentile and Jewish viewers. The
Jews are represented as assimilated, with enough of a Jewish identity to show they are different,
but not enough to make Gentile viewers not interested in the show. Jerry represents a character
that is part of the Jewish and gentile world, while Kramer and George struggle to fit in. Seinfeld
attempts to show Jerry and his friends trying to live in a Anglo-American middle-class world and
successfully adhere to its norms (Krieger, 2003, 391). Similarly to The Goldbergs, The Nanny,
and Friends, the characters in Seinfeld were trying to live in, and pass comic judgment on, a
white Christian world.
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The Nanny (1993) and Friends (1994)
Similarly to Seinfeld, The Nanny is a Jewish sitcom that does not portray Jewish rituals
and practices. In Seinfeld we see how Jerry’s Jewishness is defined by stereotypical Jewish traits,
his crazy Jewish parents and his New York home. This is the same for The Nanny, which gave us
one of the most famous Jewish women on television in its times. While there are very few female
characters that identify as Jewish on television, the ones that do are portrayed very
stereotypically. While Jewish men are portrayed as ideal husbands, responsible and devoted,
Jewish women in television have been portrayed as materialistic, demanding, controlling and self
centered (Brook, 2003, 138; Zurawick, 2003, 170). The Nanny had a much-toned down version
of the stereotypical Jewish women that many considered to be inoffensive (Los Angeles Times,
Brook, 2003, 138). Fran Drescher, the creator and star of The Nanny, gave Jewish women on
sitcoms a make over. Drescher on The Nanny may still be a Jewish American Princess (JAP), but
Brook argues that she is a classier version of the JAP. The definition of a Jewish American
Princess is a wealthy, spoiled, upper middle class woman. The Nanny has some of these
characteristics, but when you compare her to Rachel Green on Friends, for instance, the Nanny is
more Jewish and less spoiled. Still, she compares to Rachel in the sense that they both love to
spend money. Brook argues that she is a “classy” JAP. Since these characters reflect the self
identity of Jewish writers and producers, in this case, of Drescher herself, we get a sense from
them of how Jews in these year identified their own Jewish characteristics. They focused not on
religion or traditional cultural characteristics. Instead they defined Jewishness through
characteristics that define white, middle class, consumers in general
Similarly to Seinfeld and The Nanny, Friends acknowledges many of these Jewish
stereotypes. Thus, in Friends, Rachel Green is given many traits that portray a stereotypical
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“Jewish American Princess,” with her Long Island background, love of shopping, and superficial
values (Bial, 2005, 138). The characters on Friends, as the ones on Seinfeld, are considered
conceptually Jewish (Rockler, 2006, 457)). They all minimally identify with Jewish culture and
ethnic characteristics, but their Judaism is never truly discussed or problematized, that is, these
characters are never made to confront the fact that they are anything but completely American
and are never made to think about what their Jewish heritage means to them.
In Naomi Rockler’s essay “Friends, Judaism, and the Holiday Armadillo: Mapping a
Rhetoric of Postidentity Politics,” Rockler discusses how Jews are portrayed in the history of
television. She argues that the representation of Jewish identity in the Friends episode “The One
with the Holiday Armadillo” also represents the U.S. Jewish identity issues throughout the
history of television. This episode is centered around Ross trying to teach his son, Ben, about
Hanukkah and what it means. Ross soon finds out his son does not care at all about his Jewish
identity and Hanukkah. This leads Ross to panic and try to buy a Santa suit in order to make his
son happy; when that fails, he randomly settles for an Armadillo suit, suggesting that to him all
ethnic identifications are the same. Chandler then arrives in an actual Santa costume and Ben is
very happy. When Ross insists that Chandler, playing Santa, leave, Ben begs for him to stay.
Upset, Ross is ready to give up and leave, when Chandler asks him to stay and tell him and Ben
the Hanukkah story. Ben is finally excited about Hanukkah, but only because “Santa” was
interested in this and stayed with them, and they end up lighting the Hanukkah candles together.
Confusion about and the interchangeability of the various holidays in the eyes of true Americans
seems to underlie the story as a whole (Rockler, 457).
While this episode involves some sense of Jewish rituals, it is important to see that it
does not focus on the more important Jewish holidays. Whenever serious Jewish issues are
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brought up, the episode quickly moves away from them. It first shows Jewish identity issues
stereotypically by having a “holiday Armadillo” that is not affiliated with any religion. Second,
the show is made accessible to non-Jewish viewers, showing Hanukkah alongside of Christmas
and almost always having Santa in the picture. The episode shows the Jewish experience through
Chandler and Joey, the non-Jewish characters on the show, rather than through Ross’ Jewish
experiences (Rockler, 458). To keep this episode of Friends from being “too Jewish” the
producers make sure they include as many Christmas holiday symbols as possible. While the
audience is learning a little about a Jewish holiday, it is still being overshadowed by Christmas
(Rockler, 460).
Overall, Jewish identity representation on television has been downplayed throughout
history to make the shows more appealing to non-Jews (453). When these shows actually use
Jewish holidays, they choose the less religiously important holidays. Holidays like Yom Kippur
and Passover are almost never shown, but Hanukkah is shown, though always along with
Christmas. Thus these shows depict not the ritual and religious content of Judaism but the ways
in which, in contemporary American life, Jews have found to be totally American: shopping,
partying, and fully participating in the “holiday” spirit that marks the similarly religion-less
American Christmas. Jewish holidays and rituals have no role in these shows at all, since that
would convey nothing but Jewish difference, which is the opposite of what these shows’
producers need to do in order to gain viewers.
It seems that Jews appear in these sitcoms for the sole purpose of bringing a different
type of person to the forefront so that viewers can look at American culture from a slightly
different (but not too different) viewpoint. They do this so the non-Jewish viewers can still relate
to these characters, which would not be possible if the shows were discussing more religious
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holidays and the like (Rockler, 456). With this in mind, Rockler discusses the superficial
treatment of different Jewish identity issues in television. Friends, even in the episode about
Hanukkah, does not give a serious discussion of what it means to be Jewish. The episode does
not take the time to even explain what Hanukkah is. Every time Ross tries to explain it he is
interrupted by Santa or Superman. The Jewish religion in this episode is shown in a way of
humor and it is even confused with a different Jewish holiday, Passover, on which, Ross’s son is
told, Superman flew the Jews to safety across the desert. When serious Jewish issues start to
become apparent in the episode, the show brings attention away from them with jokes and plot
developments unrelated to Judaism (Rockler, 458). This episode shows Ross as a Jew and it
reveals how he views certain American mainstream ideals. But it ignores any importance
Judaism may actually have for him. This is what the audience wants to see; a view on America
through someone else’s eyes.
Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000)
The last Jewish sitcom these articles looked at was Curb Your Enthusiasm. Curb takes
everything Jewish from all the previous shows discussed and puts it into one singular show. Curb
Your Enthusiasm is one of the most successful Jewish sitcoms on television today. Larry David,
the creator and star of the show, spends his episodes encountering problems that affect
contemporary middle to upper class American Jews. Larry confronts the problem of being
Jewish in today’s society head on. Larry is not a “good” Jew. He does not keep kosher, he rarely
attends synagogue, and he is married to a gentile. He hates engaging in conversations about
ethnic harmony or references to Jewish suffering. Larry’s onscreen persona serves as the
contemporary Schlemiel figure from Yiddish literature (Gillota, 153). The Schlemiel character,
who usually lived in the shtetl, was one whose actions usually ended in his own downfall. The
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Schlemiel was one that would challenge the status quo. Larry David has these essential
characteristics of the Schlemiel but in the 21st century. Instead of the shtetl he is living in upper
class white suburbia. He almost always makes a comment or does something that results in him
being yelled at by someone. Characters like Larry David and Ross Geller on Friends embody
this modern day Schlemiel (Gillota, 154). Larry uses this persona to make himself a cultural
other. He does not want to be the successful American Jew he is. And therefore, through Larry,
the viewer gets an outsider’s critique of contemporary American culture, viewed as shallow,
consumerist, and unethical, with people going through life (unlike Larry) refusing to be truthful
about what they are thinking and feeling.
While the classic Schlemiel encountered problems that affected the eastern European
Jews, Larry encounters problems that affect contemporary middle and upper class Americans:
Jewish assimilation, secularism, intermarriage, and the Jews’ precarious and ethnic identity in an
increasing multicultural environment (Gillota, 154). Larry’s Jewishness is most apparent when
he feels threatened by someone of another ethnicity, like his wife and her family who are
Christian. In the episode “The Christ Nail” Larry asks his handyman to hang up a mezuzah
because his father is coming to visit. Larry’s wife Cheryl’s father is also visiting and is wearing a
“Christ nail” that he bought from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. The handyman,
named Jesus, does not hang up the mezuzah, and when Larry’s father arrives, Larry panics and
steals the “Christ nail” from his sleeping father in law’s neck. Larry uses it to hang the mezuzah
in time for Larry’s father to arrive and kiss it as he enters the house, a traditional Jewish ritual
that Larry himself would never perform. Larry using the “Christ nail” as an actual nail takes
away all symbolic importance it has, while giving the mezuzah its symbolic meaning by hanging
it up. This is Larry being the 21st century schlemiel: he alienates himself from his Christian wife
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and her family, which is necessary in order for him to maintain his own (minimal) Jewishness.
But the important thing is that Larry originally didn’t even have a mezuzah on his door, the most
basic thing any Jew would have. This episode thus shows Larry’s struggles with his own identity
as much as with Christian culture (Gillota 157). He identifies himself as Jewish only in response
to the demands of his parents and his desire not to be seen as Christian like his wife. He is totally
American and Jewish only because American multi-culturalism forces him to be.
Basically Larry deals with how to be Jewish in a world that is dominantly Christian, and
in doing this he criticizes much of American white middle and upper class culture. Similarly to
Seinfeld and Friends, Larry’s Jewishness is only made apparent in certain situations. Larry
shows viewers what life is like for a white upper class Jewish American in the U.S. and this is
why so many people watch it. It gives us an outsider’s perspective on America. But since that
outsider is only slightly different from us (as an assimilated, intermarried Jew), his is a
perspective to which we can relate and which seems relevant to our own experience.
Conclusion
While there is lots of research on what these Jewish sitcoms represent about the position
of Jews in America, no one has studied how viewers perceive these shows. I found no research
on how these shows actually change people’s view of Jews or Judaism or even of American
culture. It would be interesting to know the actual impact of these shows on the viewers. We
have to ask whether the role of Jews as the slightly different kind of American in fact gives
viewers an outlook on America that they would not normally get, and it would be useful to know
whether people’s understanding of Jews and Judaism is changed by these shows. Answers to
these questions would help us understand the actual impact of the media and sitcoms on their
viewers, helping us understand the role and power of television in America.
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The authors in these articles discuss how the Jewish Sitcom has come to be so successful
and popular. The portrayal of Jews in these shows matches the position of Jews in American
culture and in many ways matches the character of American culture overall. We see a
presentation of Jews as only marginally different from other white, middle class Americans. This
is because producers and directors did not want to present anything too Jewish, which would not
attract the non-Jewish viewers. But this approach also accurately represents Jewish selfperception. American Jews seem to identify as Jewish but also want to fit in and be just like
everyone else. Producers make the characters in Seinfeld, The Nanny, Friends and Curb Your
Enthusiasm more conceptually Jewish rather than religiously Jewish. They are coded to have
minimal Jewish traits, such as a Jewish last name, crazy Jewish parents, or other typical Jewish
stereotypes. These types of Jews’ traits define what is unique about them without actually
separating them from the rest of American culture. This makes the ideal example of what it
means to be an American in our age of multiculturalism.
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