Tovah Feldshuh Hits Back at Adam Brody's Palestine Comments

By Daniel Okafor

Tovah Feldshuh has accused her "Nobody Wants This" co-star Adam Brody of repeating "Hitler's playbook" — by calling the Israel-Gaza war a genocide. Her comments, made Sunday to The New York Post, are the sharpest response yet from inside the Netflix hit's cast.

Brody set off the dispute last month. In a GQ interview, the actor — who plays Rabbi Noah Roklov on the show — said the issue comes up "a lot" for him in private, even though he hadn't spoken about it publicly before. Then he was blunt.

"Put me down as thinking it's a genocide," Brody said. "Put me down as wanting a free Palestine. 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."

What did Feldshuh say?

Feldshuh, who plays Bina Roklov — the mother of Brody's character — didn't mince words. "To accuse the Jewish people of genocide is wild," she told The New York Post. "It's right out of Hitler's playbook. You take the victim, and you make the victim the perpetrator."

She added that such accusations carry particular weight when they come from Jewish people themselves. It "makes a difference to the [Jewish] community," she said.

The veteran stage and screen actor then widened the frame. "I believe that the perseverance of the existence of the state of Israel is crucial to the well-being of the democratic world and of the free world," Feldshuh said. "Of course, Israel needs the United States, [but] the United States needs Israel, believe me."

She also invoked what she called the "horseshoe effect" — the political-theory idea that far-left and far-right positions bend toward each other. "We're in a time where we have the 'horseshoe effect,' where socialism and antisemitism are trying to meet," she said.

How does she handle the on-set dynamic?

Feldshuh drew a line between politics and the workplace. "My job, as Bina but also as Tovah, is to love the people on set at my place of work, to be kind," she said. That's a diplomatic posture, given she plays the mother of the man whose politics she just compared to Nazi propaganda.

She isn't the first from the production to push back. Earlier this month, series creator Erin Foster addressed Brody's comments on the "Not Skinny but Not Fat" podcast. "I disagree with him, and that's OK," Foster said.

"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," Foster said. "And, you know, while I love Adam, I also disagree with him, and that's OK."

So the pattern on "Nobody Wants This" is now clear: Brody states a position, and his colleagues disagree — politely. Feldshuh has broken that politeness. Whether the show's family-dinner atmosphere survives her Hitler comparison is the question its third season's press tour may have to answer.