2 Feb 2015 7:24 PM PT
by Allison Josephs originally posted January 29, 2015
I first heard about Eric Kaplan, senior writer and producer at The Big Bang Theory (and author of the new humorous philosophy book “Does Santa Exist?”) several years ago from my friend and Partner in Torah Mayim Bialik. Eric was doing a fair amount of Jewish learning with Orthodox Jewish rabbis and had started a weekly chaburah (learning group) with Mayim Bialik and TV writer and producer David Sacks. I had “met” him via some emails a while back. But on a recent trip to LA where I hung out with Mayim and watched her TV show being filmed (pic above), Eric and I finally met in person.
Since our mission at JITC is to break down stereotypes people have about Orthodox Jews, I, of course, wanted to schmooze with a TV writer and producer about the way Orthodox Jews are depicted on TV to make my concerns known and to hear any feedback he had. Below is an excerpt of our conversation after I got back from LA:
Allison: In TV and movies, I think Jews are depicted in one of two ways – super secular, involving every stereotype (think Fran Drescher) OR – the super serious hasid who never smiles and is very extreme. I think the Maccabeats made such a splash a few years ago because we saw a group of guys who were clearly sincere and committed to their Judaism but were goofy and fun and didn’t take themselves too seriously. I feel like the “Orthodox” character that comes in for those token episodes (most shows have one eventually) is just a caricature and I think TV is doing better than that these days – showing blind chactacters and people on the spectrum and people in wheelchairs and gay characters. People who are *people* who have something that makes them atypical, but ultimately we see their humanity. I’d love to see a chactacter on a show – who is nice and likable and “normal” but then he says “Oops, I gotta run, Shabbos is starting soon.”
Eric: Since Orthodox Jews have a particular set of answers to the Big Questions any writer who includes an Orthodox Jewish character in a story is going to be doing that in order to engage with that set of answers to those questions — unless they’re just tokens or scenery. And that’s going to be very personal — either they like those answers, or they don’t like those answers, or they sometimes do, or they think x, y, z about people who like those answers. I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing that can or should be addressed by a campaign.
Allison: I guess I see the Orthodox community as more diverse than just “one set of answers.” Some people believe in answers, yet they struggle with them. I guess I’d like to see more complexity. I find that traditional media likes to show the MOST extreme examples of Orthodoxy. Like Oprah went into Crown Heights, but showed the women who weren’t trendy (even though most Chabad women are super stylish) and spoke to a family where the kids had never heard of Mickey Mouse, which I couldn’t understand, since most Lubavitchers are quite worldly. Not that you must be a worldly, trendy person to have value (the families on the show seemed like very lovely people), but rather, why can’t the media show that those elements of Orthodoxy exist too?
Eric: Don’t you think that statistically Orthodox people cluster around certain answers even if they struggle with them? So you can make valid generalizations about what an Orthodox Jew is likely to believe that a reform Jew or an episcopalian or a Confucianist won’t?
Allison: Well – the biggest division is between the the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) camp and the Modern Orthodox camp – though even those groups are quite nuanced. The first is by and large creationist (with, of course, exceptions), the second believes in science and in the Torah. But you’ll never see the latter shown on TV. It would be great to see Charedi characters shown with depth but as a starting point, I’d love to see Modern Orthodox Jews represented. It’s like they don’t even exist.
Eric: How many Modern Orthodox Jews are there?
Allison: I think it’s a third of the Orthodox population with is a tenth of the Jewish population – though even those numbers may be misleading because some people call it “Modern” Orthodox, other’s say “Centrist Orthodox.” But either way, I know – it’s not huge. Maybe 400k. But there are Modern Orthodox CEO’s and chairmen of big law firms and nobel laureates. It’s not like Modern Orthodox Jews are not contributing to the world. Why shouldn’t they be represented?
Eric: I think what you will have to figure out how to get across is to talk about a position that is defined by a very particular set of religious beliefs — a very particular attitude towards the proper relation between revelation and science — but then say you don’t want a discussion of these people to be engaging with those particular controversial positions but just about them as people. If it’s just about them as people why worry about whether they’re Charedi or Modox? It’s like someone says how come there are no unitarian universalists on TV and I say but there was a presbyterian character and they say “oh that’s very different.” I’m sorry if that seems unsympathetic — I’m trying to figure out a non bs way of responding to you.