It was the summer of 2022 when Benjamin Stanley was left pleased and slightly embarrassed to hear he was being referred to as the “hot rabbi” at the wedding he was officiating.
Stanley, 41, worried he might no longer fit into the category after a string of sleepless nights with a newborn child. The moniker, however, is gaining attention as a result of the Netflix show about a weed-smoking rabbi, leading some to declare this season “hot rabbi autumn”.
Netflix’s hit series Nobody Wants This depicts an outspoken sex podcaster, Joanne, played by Kristen Bell, falling in love with a weed-smoking rabbi, Noah (Adam Brody). The show’s depiction of modern Judaism and, in particular, the rabbi’s character have captured the imaginations of many, earning a whopping 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes since its release in late September.
“Fleabag gave us the hot priest and now you are the hot rabbi,” remarked Jimmy Kimmel in an interview with Brody on his show, to which the actor jokingly responded: “I don’t want some of the other facets of his personality to not be discovered: he’s also a hot son, he’s a hot brother, he’s so many other hot things.”
For rabbis across the UK, Brody’s portrayal of life as a rabbi is refreshing and relatable. Stanley, who was ordained more than a decade ago and serves congregants at the Westminster synagogue, said it was “pleasing to see a fairly convincing world of Jews and a rabbi who are really applying their Judaism to everyday life in the real world.
“I felt more seen by the Adam Brody character because obviously rabbis in popular culture, generally, we do often get these blokes with beards and [Brody’s character] was much more relatable.”
Stanley’s sentiments were echoed by the rabbi Jordan Helfman, 40, who leads services at the Oaks Lane Reform synagogue in Ilford. “The life of a rabbi is not isolated and stuck in a bubble of community, it’s with society, and you meet all kinds of different people and all different kinds of parts of life.
“There’s the term, moral exemplar, that you’re trying to live the best life, the best Jewish life you can, both personally and professionally.”
Helfman added: “I think it’s really important that there’s shows which show Jews as loving, complex, interesting human beings as opposed to many of the stereotypes that you see in society or hear about on social media.”
The show’s creator, Erin Foster, said the series was a “love letter” inspired by her real-life love story with her now-husband, Simon Tikhman, for whom she converted to Judaism. In May, Foster wrote on Instagram: “We have a romcom born out of me falling for a nice Jewish boy and never looking back.”
Despite the show’s success, the series has attracted criticism for its portrayal of Jewish women. Writing in Time magazine, Esther Zuckerman said: “The series seems to loathe Jewish women, who are portrayed as nags, harpies, and the ultimate villains of this story.”
Deborah Blausten, 34, a rabbi who leads sermons at the Finchley Reform synagogue, said she recognised these issues. “I think it’s well talked about that the depiction of women in the show is not fabulous. It leans into stereotypes of Jewish women,” she said. “There was a sense that while making the rabbi human and fleshed out that, unfortunately, the Jewish women around him moved into the background.”
However, Blausten acknowledges there is an inevitable pressure placed on shows representing minority communities. “I think it’s a lot of pressure to put on a Netflix show,” she said. “I don’t think my medical friends look to Grey’s Anatomy to fully define their careers. It’s a challenge whenever you see Judaism represented in the media, which is that it doesn’t necessarily happen very often.
“Like any minority community, when you’re reflected in the public eye, people put a lot of pressure on it because they really need to be seen. So we have conversations about this kind of show that I’m not sure we would have about other kinds of shows.”
Blausten appreciated the depiction of an “unconventional” rabbi in the series. “We have exactly the same challenges with the religious life as our members do, and I think it’s great and appropriate that they show a member of clergy struggling with the question of how to be a Jew in the modern world.”
Rabbi Hannah Kingston, 34, at the North Western Reform synagogue in north London, agreed: “I don’t look like the stereotypical rabbi either, not just because of my gender, but also because I’m in my 30s. And I’m a new mom … [The show] feels like quite a good representation of my life in the bits that I’ve seen so far.”
All the rabbis agreed the series is particularly important within the context of rising antisemitism in the UK and the US. The Community Security Trust, a UK charity that records hate incidents against Jews, said it had logged more than 5,500 antisemitic incidents across the UK since 7 October – a 204% increase from the previous year.
Blausten said: “In a time when there’s a lot of tension and fear and where it feels Jewishness has been reduced to one particular axis, like a conversation about antisemitism, [when] people take the chance to see Jews in a different way, it can only be a good thing.”