It seems a curiously old-fashioned idea that childhood, schooling, religion or one’s family could dictate who you end up with There’s a hit new show on Netflix that everyone’s talking about; or at least every girlfriend I’ve talked to in the past week or so. It’s called Nobody Wants This and you may well have seen it but, if not, it’s about a “hot rabbi” who dates a gentile and the challenges they face as a result. From his family, from her family, from his temple, from society in general.
“You’re never going to end up with my son,” his mother whispers sadistically to the girlfriend, after an excruciating introductory lunch to which the girlfriend brought a charcuterie platter because she thought prosciutto was beef. Will they? Won’t they? I don’t want to give you any spoilers. Watch it, because it’s funny and very easy to tear through the 10, half-hour episodes, although some of the Jewish characters are enormously stereotyped, which has sparked flak for the writer, Erin Foster, who converted before she married her husband.
I watched it with particular interest because my ex-boyfriend recently cited my “world” as the reason he was breaking up with me. “We inhabit different worlds,” he said, in our final, sad conversation..