Rabbi Steve Leder, who served as a technical advisor on the first season of Netflix’s “Nobody Wants This,” publicly criticized the show’s star Adam Brody on Tuesday after Brody said he believes Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
In an Instagram video addressed directly to Brody, Leder reintroduced himself as the person responsible for ensuring the authenticity of Brody’s rabbi character and the show’s portrayal of Judaism in its first season.
“Your pronouncement the other day about a ‘genocide in Gaza’ was truly shocking,” Leder said. “Not only because of your misuse and mischaracterization of your use of the word genocide — there is no genocide in Gaza, there are genocides in other countries happening, but you failed to mention any of them.”
Leder went on to call Brody “a relatively ignorant Jew” by his own admission, and said that ignorance was evident in his comments.
“If you’re going to use a word like ‘genocide,’ you ought to know what it means,” Leder said. “And, by the way, being so flippant about a word like ‘genocide’ — ‘Hey, put me down for genocide,’ like you’re asking for a table for two at Craig’s — is disgusting. Here’s some more technical advice: If you know nothing about something, you should say nothing about it.”
What Brody said
Brody, who plays a rabbi on the Netflix series, made the remarks in a recent interview with GQ magazine.
“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. 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.”
Fox News Digital, which first reported the story, said it reached out to Brody’s representatives for comment but had not received a response.
Other reaction
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, also criticized Brody as “ignorant” in a comment to Fox News Digital.
“One of the hallmarks of antisemitism is to irrationally regard Jews as a threat. While Hamas was holding, torturing, raping and murdering hostages, only a bigot would call the effort to free those hostages ‘genocide.’ An ignorant Jew is no less likely than anyone else to fall prey to hateful indoctrination,” Menken said.
Menken added that photographer Motaz Azaiza has acknowledged Hamas could have ended the conflict at any time by releasing hostages, and argued that “in no genocide in history have the victims controlled the off switch.”
The Israeli-American Council also responded, saying it felt “revulsion at the ignorant and harmful statement” made by Brody.
“Lies like this are not just fake news, they incite violence that can lead to the murder of innocent Jews. Just today, Israeli passengers narrowly escaped death from what is being called an attempted terrorist attack on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. That’s the reality Israelis and Jews live with every day,” the organization said.
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