Meet, pray, love: Why everyone is idolising the ‘hot rabbi’

The title is misleading: Nobody Wants This. At the moment, clearly everyone does: this charming rom-com is sitting at number one on Netflix. It was only a matter of time before Fleabag’s Hot Priest was matched by a Hot Rabbi. This one certainly puts the sin back into synagogue.

Imagine the love child of Nora Ephron and Noah Baumbach (I know that is generationally icky, but it conveys the quality of the genre) and you have a pretty good idea of the calibre of humour, and the degree of chemistry and neurosis of the central characters. When the world is going to hell, it’s a welcome relief to have such a charm offensive unleashed on our screens, a piece of fluffy escapism that never takes itself too seriously.

For those who have not yet discovered this light-hearted and immensely likeable show, it tells of the instant attraction and developing relationship between Joanne, a nothing-is-off-limits agnostic WASP podcaster (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody), a young rabbi who has a bright future ahead of him in his tight knit community.

Noah has recently broken up with his perfect JAP (Jewish American Princess) girlfriend Rebecca, while Joanne has been on the dating apps for some time and has a past history of poor choices. She’s been happy to have her fair share of meaningless sex (though probably nowhere near as much as her much blonder sister, Morgan, played faultlessly by Justine Lupe, who you will remember from Succession, in a thankless role that she made something of) while he projects a serious romantic intensity.

Noah's mother is devastated about the break up with Rebecca, who was clearly about to become the perfect daughter-in-law. Not only that, but Rebecca’s best friend Esther is married to Hot Rabbi’s dorky brother, and she emits poison in Joanne’s direction at every opportunity (she is also channeling several classic Hollywood villainesses with her glossy liquorice hair and husky voice, giving off a Morticia-meets-Demi-Moore vibe).

Joanne and Noah seem as doomed and Romeo and Juliet, if older and more experienced. They are both successful adults, as opposed to star-crossed teens, although they sometimes behave in adolescent ways. Of the two, he is the wiser and the more mature, nurtured in the bosom of a loving family, secure in his beliefs. Her family is more of a mixed bag: her mother is New Age woo-woo and her father is flamboyantly gay.

Naturally, there are many obstacles in their path to happiness, all of them centering on Joanne being a shiksa. Hot Rabbi cannot become Head Rabbi if he marries out. But hurdles, shmurdles, they have a lot of fun overcoming the obstacles in their path and testing their commitment to each other.

Just as an aside: someone, somewhere is surely writing a PhD on the role of texting in film and TV drama (it’s an important dynamic in the series, as is the use of emojis) and how Uber provides modern day damsels in distress with quick getaways.

I do have minor quibbles: at times, Joanne is so needy, insecure and petulant that it is hard to see what is so attractive about her, but the short answer is: difference. (I also question some of her wardrobe choices: an off-the-shoulder white linen dress for a picnic?!?) Sometimes the situations are just too cute, or cheesy. Joanne irritatingly refers to herself as a brand and while this may be ironic, it is grating in its shallowness.

The language is often distracting in its currency: I admit I had to look up ‘slam piece’ (two meanings), and as for inviting someone to ‘sit soft' (move from the dining room to the sofa)…. and I also question whether a woman like Joanne, for whom this is not her first rodeo, would be so ignorant of Jewish culture as to have to ask what shalom means and what a Shabbat dinner is. Are stereotypes at play here? You bet, particularly in the case of Hot Rabbi’s smothering mother, Bina, played to the kosher hilt by Tovah Feldshuh.

The show is not reality, it is fantasy: everyone is well-heeled, and exists in a very LA bubble. Presumably the show was written and made before the tragedy of October 7 and the current wave of antisemitism. I’ll be interested to see what series two does in terms of tone and the challenges it sets the two lovers.