I was the ‘shiksa’. I feel misrepresented by Nobody Wants This

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Nobody Wants This.

Read Caroline Baum's review Nobody Wants This here.

As soon as I saw the trailer for Netflix’s hit TV series Nobody Wants This, the teenage crush I had on Adam Brody as Seth Cohen from The O.C. was reignited.

Here he was, all grown up, a rabbi, and the Jewish love interest in a conversion story. It felt like the show had been made for me as I was once a non-Jew who fell in love with a charming and handsome man.

Rabbi Noah (played by Brody) has high expectations of himself and of what he dreams his life will be. The ‘perfect Jewish girl’ is seemingly cast aside for a ‘shiksa’ (Joanne, played by Kristen Bell), and chaos ensues. 

I mentally noted the release date and binged the entire season in one evening. My husband arrived home from performing at a Jewish musical event at our shule to find me yelling at the TV, "THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN", and watched me rage about the unflattering portrayal of Jewish women as nasty, needy, possessive, and unapproachable.

There was zero consideration for investigating their perspectives and they seemed to exist purely as the villains in this cute rom-com about an unlikely romance between an outspoken woman of the world and a rabbi.

Simultaneously, whilst watching the show I remembered the pain of being labelled ‘the shiksa’, the pain of exclusion, of being seen as someone there to destroy the possibility of real Jewish grandchildren in a family of Holocaust survivors, and sympathised with Joanne and her complete inability to navigate Jewish spaces. The desire to win over the women in her new boyfriend's life was a brick wall I myself bashed my head against for many years.

But I was frustrated at her wishy-washy knowledge and lacklustre attempts to impress Noah's parents. Like her decision to bring a charcuterie board with prosciutto to a family event. Come on, how does she not know taking non-kosher food to her rabbi boyfriend's house isn't the most terrible idea ever?

Was her clumsy attempt at making the sign of the cross whilst saying goodbye to Noah in shule who replies shaking his head, "Nope, not us", funny? Maybe to some. Clearly the thing the creators want you to know about Noah is that he's not like ‘regular nebbish Rabbis’, he's a ‘cool Rabbi’. My eyes could not have rolled further back into my head, but I forgave him because he is my teenage crush after all.

Yes, I watched the whole show in an evening. Not out of enjoyment but because I needed to know how they would resolve this love story between a woman who thinks she's found the first decent man to date in years and the indecisive Jewish man who has just left a serious relationship and is the half-baked challah equivalent of a rabbi. As a person, Noah is not fully resolved in his choices and when presented with his dream job, he appears to fall at the final hurdle because of his relationship with Joanne. 

In the final episode, Joanne does a quick Google search to see what conversion involves and proudly announces that she’s going to convert, much to Noah’s delight. He gushes and throws a couple of excited Jewish words and concepts at her, she freaks out, realising that, oh gosh, this might actually be more than what she was expecting from her quick brunchside investigation. Yawn. 

Good conversion stories are few and far between, and portraying gentile women as interlopers here to steal the men and ruin the family is pretty annoying. 

Judaism was used as a big ‘you’re not one of us’ bat to hit me with for years. The pressure it places on many interfaith couples is immense. True love and a strong sense of self are required to navigate the idea that, as a woman, you will break the Jewish line, tear the family apart, and ultimately be the demise of the Jewish people. Pretty dramatic stuff for two 20-year-olds to deal with. This pressure breaks many couples, and it isolated my husband and me in our 20s, making any Jewish event feel like an unsafe space.

I constantly felt pressured to convert when I wasn’t spiritually ready for what that meant for me. When we were planning our wedding and got married, it was the first time we were able to have independent conversations with supportive members of the community who made us both feel welcome and like there were options to incorporate Jewish culture into our life in a way that felt relevant and meaningful.

"Conversion should be like a brisket, low and slow", says Rabbi Rob in the NZ show Kid Sister which explores the relationship between a Jewish woman and her non-Jewish partner in a much more original way. 

Recently, I observed a conversation in one of my many Jewish groups asking for advice about conversion for their friend. Among the many opinions was a comment reiterating that Reform conversion is not a halachic conversion.

Conversion is a spiritual journey, and we are all on our own spiritual path. As a 20-something, an Orthodox conversion was about as far from the choice I would have made for myself as possible.

As a 36-year-old, I am now undertaking an Orthodox conversion and all that entails. I cover my hair, I keep kosher, and when people meet me, they are often surprised that I am a convert.

I really wanted to like Nobody Wants This, and there were parts I thought were really funny (and I’ll admit it is nice to see Seth Cohen all grown up). But we deserve better storytelling than indecisive Jewish boys, one-dimensional Jewish nags, and clueless shiksas.

Read Caroline Baum's review Nobody Wants This here.