Media

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Gilmore Girls

What 'Gilmore Girls' Gets Wrong—and What We Get Wrong About It

Lily Plum Gartenlaub

Gilmore Girls has real flaws, but mainstream criticism of Lorelai and Rory shows normalized sexism within critiques instead of acknowledging problems with privilege and diversity.  

Topics: Television
Collage of stone bust

“How Dare You!” America’s Next Top Model’s Toxic Reign Over Feminism

Sarah Feldman

America’s Next Top Model was meant to be entertaining, but it was also meant to teach young girls about the industry and narrow societal standards.

Star Wars Collage

The Anti-Fascist Narrative of Star Wars

Clio Petrulis

Star Wars artfully depicts how a government rises to fascism, and how people in positions of power can twist the truth to deny events as big as genocide.

Topics: Television
Shiva Baby Film

Redefining Success In Emma Seligman's 'Shiva Baby'

Luna Romero

Shiva Baby illustrates both the warmth of people gathering together and the intensity of being constantly judged by that very community.

Topics: Television, Family
Mister Rogers Collage

Time-Out, Teshuvah, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

Dilan Payne

Mister Rogers, as magical as he was, could never solve the problem. He only gave me the sentences I would need to fix it myself. 

Topics: Television
Modern Family Logo

Modern Family: When Exaggeration Becomes Stereotype

Annie Katz

Modern Family makes me laugh, yes, but it also reminds me how essential it is to laugh with people rather than reducing them to punchlines.

Topics: Television
Pluribus

Examining Apple TV's 'Pluribus' Using Jewish Texts

Zia Saylor

The show’s open-ended nature to these ethical debates—rather than preaching a specific standpoint— poses questions for its viewers, much like Jewish texts.

Topics: Television
Maya Erdelyi Headshot

7 Questions for Animator Maya Erdelyi

Emma Breitman

JWA sat down with award-winning animator and artist Maya Erdelyi to discuss her career and recent short film, Anyuka.

Topics: Art, Media, Holocaust

Episode 136: How Jewish Women Shaped SNL

From "Jewess Jeans" to "Coffee Talk" to "Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy," Jewish women have left their mark on Saturday Night Live as cast members and as characters. In this episode of Can We Talk? we look at the evolving role of Jewish women on the show over its 50 years on TV. Original cast member Laraine Newman talks about how her Jewish identity influenced the characters she played, and how the show reflects changing attitudes about being Jewish. Also, pop culture scholar Jennifer Caplan helps us dissect some iconic sketches—some of which have aged better than others.

Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas is Inaugurated with Sofía Ímber as its Director

February 20, 1974

On February 20, 1974, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas (MACC) was officially inaugurated, with Sofia Ímber as its first director. Ímber served as the museum’s director until Hugo Chávez removed her in 2001. 

Bonus Episode: Remembering Susan Stamberg

Public radio icon Susan Stamberg died on October 16, 2025, at the age of 87. In this special episode, we pay tribute to Susan by listening back to our 2018 interview in which she discusses her New York accent, how early NPR audiences responded to hearing a woman deliver the nightly news, and what she listens for in a broadcast voice. The interview was part of an episode about women's voices in broadcasting, called "Breaking the Sound Barrier."

Episode 130: Molly Goldberg, America's First TV Mom

From 1929 until the mid 1950s, Molly Goldberg was America’s favorite Jewish mother. Her character was written, acted, and embodied by Gertrude Berg, the first female showrunner and the first woman to win an Emmy for television. First on radio, then on television, The Goldbergs was a hit show and the first family sitcom. In this episode of Can We Talk?, New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum introduces us to Gertrude Berg and her lovable character Molly Goldberg. We talk about how Molly remade the image of the Jewish mother, how McCarthy-era persecution led to the show’s downfall, and how the show still resonates today.

Bertha Klausner

Bertha Klausner was an influential literary agent in New York and Los Angeles. One of the earliest female literary agents, she represented major writers and cultural figures throughout the twentieth century.

Gabriele Tergit

Rising to prominence as a journalist in Weimar-era Berlin, Gabriele Tergit, née Elise Hirschmann (1893–1982), was an important chronicler of German-Jewish life. In her journalistic writings and novels, Tergit wrote biting social satires, sweeping panoramic novels, and lucid, hard-hitting commentaries on current events. A liberal whose writings reveal her strong commitments to social justice, women’s rights, and humanism, Tergit was forced to flee Germany in 1933 and settled permanently in London in 1938.

Yelena Khanga Covers the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit

December 8, 1987

On December 8, 1987, Yelena Khanga, a Russian journalist who has played a significant role in Russian journalism and written about her experiences as a Black Jewish woman in Russia, arrived in the United States as a member of the Soviet Press Corps to cover the historic Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Washington, D.C. 

Bonus Episode: Our Hot Summer Picks

In this special summer episode, Judith, Nahanni, and Jen each share something they've read, watched, or listened to this summer that Can We Talk? listeners will love.

Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff

Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff was an Egyptian-Jewish essayist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic. She is best known for promoting “Levantinism,” a social model for coexistence in Israel—a concept she articulates most fully in her “A Generation of Levantines” essays (1959). Her writings have inspired generations of Sephardi and Mizrahi writers in Israel.

English-Language American Jewish Women’s Magazines, 1895-1945

In the first half of the twentieth century, Jewish women published a wide array of magazines, bulletins, and newsletters, which displayed their skills as writers and editors. These publications served as tools for communication, publicity, and education and provided platforms for the diverse ideologies and perspectives of Jewish women.

Collage with image of Kristen Bell and Adam Brody acting in Nobody Wants This with a heart.

The Problematic Portrayal of Jewish Women in Netflix's Nobody Wants This

Zoe Moore

The Jewish women we meet throughout Nobody Wants This are portrayed as male-obsessed and manipulative villains.

Topics: Television
Collage with stars and Spock and Captain Kirk and stars and a hand making a Vulcan salute

The Jewish Collective Seen in Star Trek

Maya Braiterman

I enjoyed the show's covert Jewish content throughout the series, but I most appreciated episode eighteen of the second season for its beautiful Holocaust allegory.

Topics: Television
Image of Paris Geller and Rory Gilmore sitting on a coach with a checkered background

Ambitious, Bold, and Overlooked: Unpacking Gilmore Girls' Paris Geller’s Jewish Identity

Liza Feinstein

When does Paris get to be Jewish, and when is her Judaism forgotten?

Topics: Television
Collage with mage of Lady Bird and her mom driving in a car and trying on a dress

Lady Bird: The Story of a Teenage Girl

Lea Davis

Rather than a typical high school romance, Lady Bird offers the viewers a complex, messy, and emotionally resonant story about the love between a mother and daughter.

Topics: Television

Madame Goldye Steiner, aka Gladys Mae Sellers

Madame Goldye Steiner was the first known African-American woman singer of khazones, or Ashkenazi Jewish liturgical music. She was the only known African-American woman in the khaznte artistic movement in which non-synagogue audiences experienced khazones, sung by women in concert halls, on the radio, and on gramophone recordings.

Blanche Bendahan

Blanche Bendahan, born in Algeria in 1893, to a Sephardi father and a Catholic mother, became a renowned writer, poet, and political activist. One of her most famous works, Mazaltob, addressed themes of tradition versus modernity, women's rights, and the intersections between Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities. She continued to write about her homeland until her death in 1975, combining her multicultural background with modernist style.

Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Mager Officiating Meredith Marks' Bat Mitzvah

Reality TV Meets Jewish Tradition

Catherine Horowitz

JWA chats with Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder about what it was like to officiate Meredith Marks' bat mitzvah on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

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