Netflix hit show 'Nobody Wants This' at center of controversy over star's Israel genocide remarks

The hit Netflix series "Nobody Wants This" has drawn controversy over comments about Israel made by actor Adam Brody and other members of the cast and production team.

In an interview with GQ Magazine several weeks ago, Brody, who plays Rabbi Noah Roklov, described Israel’s actions in the war as genocide and called for a “free Palestine.”

“Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine,” he said. “It’s awful that it’s taken so much death and misery, but it does feel like it’s reaching a breaking point that it should have a while ago. I’m hopeful that another administration can really do some good and correct some of these policies that are helping that situation be as awful as it is.”

Several cast members and members of the production team pushed back against Brody’s remarks. This week, veteran Jewish actress Tovah Feldshuh, who plays his mother on the show, also weighed in.

“To accuse the Jewish people of genocide is wild,” Feldshuh told the New York Post. “It’s right out of Hitler’s playbook. You take the victim, and you make the victim the perpetrator.”

Feldshuh, whose decades-long career spans Broadway, television and film, has frequently spoken out in defense of Israel amid criticism in the entertainment industry.

“Of course, Israel needs the United States, [but] the United States needs Israel, believe you me,” Feldshuh told the NY Post, adding that the continued existence of a free and democratic Israel is crucial for the entire democratic and free world.

She said cast members rarely discuss politics or other divisive issues on the set of the show, now in its third season.

“My job, as Bina but also as Tovah, is to love the people on set at my place of work, to be kind,” Feldshuh said. She added that playing a Jewish matriarch makes her “thrilled and proud, and that will never change.”

Series creator Erin Foster grew up in a Christian family but converted to Judaism in 2019 when she married her husband, Simon Tikhman, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants in the United States. She has described "Nobody Wants This" as “a love letter to Judaism.”

Foster also said that, despite disagreements, cast members can express differing views while maintaining a respectful working environment.

“You know, it’s complicated,” Foster said of Brody’s remarks during a recent interview on the entertainment podcast "Not Skinny, Not Fat."

“I think our work environment, our set, is very similar to dinner tables around the world where people are having debate and discussion and disagreeing. And, you know, while I love Adam, I also disagree with him, and that’s OK.”