A confession: I have a crush on Ruxin. There, I said it. Yes, Rodney Ruxin (Nick Kroll), the Jewish products-liability attorney on The League, is an insufferable jerk. Yes, he seems willing to go to great lengths to humiliate and sabotage his friends. Yes, his morals seem, well, flexible. (In one episode, Ruxin defends a paint company whose cans explode by arguing that anyone buying such a cheap item should have “a reasonable expectation that that product will explode in your face.” “And, morally, you’re good with this?” asks his friend, Pete. “There was just one word in there that I am not familiar with,” Ruxin responds.)

So, yes, I know that I should be embarrassed about my crush. “I can’t even unpack that,” one friend responded when I told her about my attraction. Well, I can. Maybe what’s attractive about Ruxin is that he’s part of a rebranding of the Jewish man: not the nerdy, nervous nebbish of yesteryear but a cocky, self-assured asshole.

Ruxin’s loutishness sometimes plays off his Jewishness. In one memorable episode, he hosts a Sukkot party in an attempt to butter up the Jewish preschool teacher to improve his son’s chances of being accepted. “Wonderful news to fill your pathetic social calendars,” Ruxin warmly says by way of announcing the party to his friends. “Since when does Sofia allow you to celebrate Judaism in your house?” one buddy asks, referring to Ruxin’s decidedly non-Jewish wife. “Forget Sofia, since when do you allow Judaism in your own house?” asks another. Well, ever since baby Geoffrey needed to get into a good preschool, of course. Ruxin warns his friends not to park in his driveway, which has a pothole; when he hears that the city will expedite cleanup on racially insensitive graffiti, he spray-paints a swastika on his own driveway. In poor taste, sure, but the man knows how to get things done, even if it means, you know, appropriating a Nazi symbol.

That’s what’s liberating—and appealing—about Ruxin: his brazen boorishness isn’t bound up with his Jewishness. Unlike Jewish putzes of the past—slimy lawyers like The Wire’s Maurice Levy or cripplingly analytical men in the Alvy Singer mold—Ruxin’s bad behavior exists independently of his Jewishness. He knows it, too: “If I did look inward, which I won’t,” he says, “I think we would find that my Judaism would be the least objectionable thing about me.” You have to like a guy who doesn’t engage in the kind of endless introspection typically characteristic of Jews in popular culture, or one who doesn’t view his Jewishness as a burden or a mark of Cain, forever setting him apart. See what assimilation has wrought—a man can just be a jerk like everyone else.

But Ruxin isn’t without some ancestral anxiety. He is, in some ways, a product of his people. In a fit of cold feet before he marries the Catholic, Hispanic Sofia, Ruxin blurts out, “I’m worried that her family full of conquistadors is going to round up my whole family and stick us in a basement and put yellow stars on us.” Even here, it’s clear that Ruxin’s Jewishness is nominal at best; mixing a touch of Inquisition-era worries with a healthy dollop of Holocaust neurosis, Ruxin’s sense of Jewish history is a jumble of victimization across time and geography. Being Jewish, for Ruxin, is merely being subject to the occasional moment of deep-rooted paranoia—but not so deeply rooted that it can’t be soothed, in this case, by the reassurance of knowing that he is marrying a very attractive woman. Sexy, right? A man who coasts through life on his assimilated rudeness but maintains some iota of his people’s historical dread is, after all, every girl’s dream.

Jewish jerks aren’t new. And they’re generally not attractive—no one swoons over Shylock. But Ruxin’s different; his Jewishness is refreshingly tangential to his coarseness, one of many facts about Ruxin instead of his defining fact. Also, when he thinks he’s home alone, he sings about eating crackers and jelly in the goofiest voice imaginable. It’s kind of adorable.

Previously on Network Jews:

Tommy Pickles, the heroic cartoon baby on Rugrats.

Willow Rosenberg, the lesbian witch on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Andrea Zuckerman, the brainy girl on Beverly Hills, 90210

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It is, one has to assume, no accident that Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) of Frasier (and Cheers) is named after the biblical Adam’s mythological first wife, known in legend as a demonic, child-killing woman. Frasier Crane’s ex-wife may not snatch newborns, but she’s hardly easy to love.

Like Frasier, Lilith is a psychiatrist; an exceptionally smart woman given to a distant, highly intellectualized, unemotional way of interacting that often has her branded an ice queen by members of the Crane family. She is the image of consummate uptightness: Her hair always in a perfect bun, her wardrobe a treasure trove of pantyhose and sensible, darkly colored suits. Frasier consistently refers to her domineering ways. In one episode, he snorts, “If I had trouble taking orders from a woman, Frederick would never have been conceived.”

Even when it comes to her child, where Jewish women are generally thought of as exuding warmth and caring to a smothering degree, Lilith expresses love in unusual ways. In one episode, Frasier and Lilith become consumed with getting young Frederick into an exclusive prep school. After an initial visit at the headmaster’s house, Frasier and Lilith return repeatedly to try to butter up the fussy teacher—in one ruse, Lilith pretends to have left behind an earring given to her by Golda Meir. Meanwhile, Frederick, under the care of his grandfather and uncle, gets hit in the face with a baseball, breaks out in hives from eating anchovies, and walks into the refrigerator door. In her zeal to secure Frederick’s academic future, Lilith, the Jewish mother meant to tend to her son’s every hangnail and skinned knee, doesn’t notice his shiner and rash.

But underneath the cold, calculated, emotionless exterior runs some hot blood. Lilith is also, it turns out, a bit of a temptress. In one episode, after Lilith’s new husband has left her, she visits Seattle to turn to Frasier for emotional support. Frasier is anxious—in times of distress, he has trouble resisting Lilith, a weakness exacerbated by the short red dress Lilith turns up in. “Oh, baby,” he moans sadly when he answers the door, resigned to the certainty of his giving in to his attraction.

Despite her sexiness, Lilith retains some essential Lilithness—she greets Frasier’s brother, Niles, in a characteristically blunt way: “I’m sorry to hear your marriage ended in a shambles.” And yet, the next morning, Niles wakes up in bed with Lilith, cursing her “bewitching” ways.

So Lilith—both siren and schoolmarm—encompasses the opposing ideas that have long been the hallmarks of Jewish femininity: that Jewish women are either frigid or floozies, uptight in bed or else quite the opposite. Jewish women have long been associated with a conniving sort of sexuality; from Ivanhoe on, literature is filled with Jewesses who use their wiles to get their ways. But in a post-World War II world populated with literary characters like the prudish-but-trying-to-get-over-it Marjorie Morningstar, Jewish women became withholding shrews. It’s the attitude that led Anthony Weiner to famously exclaim last year, in what must win the honor for most romantic text message of all time, “Wow, a Jewish girl who sucks [word for penis that my mother would not approve of]! This thing is ready to do damage.”

Lilith isn’t exactly doing much to dispel the stereotypes. Vacillating between repellently repressed and bewitchingly seductive, she has it both ways, but doesn’t win any fans. Her reputation precedes her; when Frasier mentions that she is in town, Niles deadpans, “Oh, so that explains why blood was pouring from all my faucets this morning”—but still sleeps with her in the same episode. Lilith is destined to exist in the in-between world of beguiling and repugnant, in which she has both the power to tempt and the power to terrify. But Lilith might be playing the stereotypes to her advantage: Either way, she’s got the power.

Previously on Network Jews:

Neal Schweiber, the 14-year-old crotchety ventriloquist on Freaks & Geeks

George Bluth Sr., the erstwhile Jew and patriarch of Arrested Development

Fran Fine, the nasal-voiced star of The Nanny

The post Network Jews: Lilith Sternin, The Ex-Wife From Hell on ‘Frasier’ appeared first on Jewcy.

Despite taking place in New York City, which is, as everyone knows, the center of the Jewish conspiracy to conquer the world, HBO’s Sex and the City didn’t feature a significant Jewish character until the show’s fifth season, when the blue-blooded, Connecticut-bred, straight-haired Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) divorces her equally WASPy surgeon husband, Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan). The divorce lawyer Charlotte employs? Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), the bald, stocky, sweaty (Jewish) attorney she turns to only after his goyish partner in the law firm proves to be distractingly attractive, preventing Charlotte—who wants to appear ladylike in the eyes of a handsome man—from being as aggressive as she would like in pursuing her share of the marriage’s assets. Thankfully, there is nothing sexy about Harry, leaving Charlotte uninhibited enough to roll up the sleeves of her sweater set and come out swinging.

But Harry, of course, doesn’t see himself as the sexless creature that Charlotte does. Lured by shiksappeal, a phenomenon well-documented in popular culture, Harry falls for Charlotte, telling her once the case has settled that he is infatuated, a man stricken. He is mad about her, approaching her with a carnal gaze and a speech declaring his intense yearning for her, telling her that he has been unable to stop thinking about her since they met.

Why, hello, sex-crazed Jewish man desperate for an—ahem—outlet for his desires; I believe we’ve met before. (Spoiler alert: The next sentence contains an obligatory Philip Roth reference.) From Leopold Bloom to Alexander Portnoy, novels are filled with the sexual frustrations of Jewish males, men confounded and immobilized by their lust. Director Judd Apatow has built a career largely on the nervous fumblings of Jewish men—Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, all of them have shyly and awkwardly bumbled their way through Apatow’s films, shocked into near paralysis when the pretty (and not Jewish) girl lets them unhook her bra or come home with her.

And yet, Harry is not quite of their ilk. Because, you see, it turns out Harry is something of a sex savant. Though he schvitzes (his word) on Charlotte’s divorce papers, gets bits of tissue stuck to his damp, shining forehead and suffers from a general lack of suaveness, Harry manages to woo Charlotte with his open admiration of her, and then wow her with his sexual prowess. Initially rather repulsed by Harry’s poor etiquette, hirsute body and—oh, cruel fate!—hairless head, Charlotte is drawn to her ugly paramour for their unexpected chemistry. They begin what starts as a purely physical relationship and turns into a full-blown love affair, one in which Charlotte eventually converts to Judaism in order to marry the man who once disgusted her. (Though she gradually embraces Judaism, Charlotte is at first confused by its complexities; Harry’s willingness to order pork at a restaurant baffles her. “I’m not kosher, I’m Conservative,” he tells her. “I’m conservative, too,” Charlotte says, to which Harry responds, “My Conservative doesn’t have anything to do with wearing pearls.”)

Nebbishy, lawyerly Harry certainly seems to be cut from the same cloth as his anxious, uncool brethren. Harry knows that the “shiksa goddess” Charlotte seems to be beyond the reach of “a putz like me,” as he puts it. But while the stumbling nerds of the popular imagination typically win the affection of their crushes despite not knowing how to interact with members of the opposite sex, Harry gets the girl with his brazenness, a forthrightness that Charlotte finds difficult to resist. It’s his openness about his desire for her—coupled with a talent for coupling—that distinguishes Harry from his geeky cohort. Like the female characters of Apatow’s movies, Charlotte ultimately develops feelings of real depth for Harry, noting that if his warmth and kindness are part of his Jewishness, being Jewish might be something she would want for herself. But—unlike in Apatow’s films—these feelings emerge only after the ignition of a sexual spark.

Harry may have surprised audiences with his Casanova ways, but maybe he shouldn’t have. After all, in the show’s first season, Charlotte has a brief but passionate romance with Shmuel, a Hasidic artist in Williamsburg. The Jewish men of Sex and the City, it seems, have a power of seduction not found in the often self-conscious, insecure Jewish men of books, film and television. Must be something in the Cosmopolitans.

Previously on Network Jews:

Max Blum, Happy Endings‘ solution to the Joey problem

Seth Cohen, The O.C.’s loveable dork

Hesh Rabkin, Jewish Loan Shark on The Sopranos

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Hesh (Jerry Adler), the elder Jewish statesman of North Jersey, is—what else?—a loan shark and an informal advisor to Tony, as he was to Tony’s father before him. A man of business acumen, Hesh made his money in the recording industry, garnering writing credits (and royalties) for songs recorded by young black musicians in the 1950s and 1960s.

His business savvy and fiscal shrewdness aren’t lost on Tony. Late in the series, Hesh lends the boss $200,000 to cover gambling losses, a debt that the former follows up on with a persistence that irks the latter; in one scene, when Hesh comes to collect his payment, Tony, rubbing two coins together, says, “I got some spare change here, too,” tacitly invoking the trope of the money-hungry Jew. But Tony isn’t above using Hesh when it serves him; during a period in which he stops seeing his psychiatrist, he enlists the older man as his not-entirely-willing sounding board. (Fitting, as Tony’s mother describes psychiatry as “a racket for the Jews.”)

Because Hesh is not Italian, he can never be a made man; relegated to the status of eternal outsider, orbiting the periphery of the mob world without ever being entirely of it, he serves as Tony’s sometimes-confidante without enjoying the full benefits of the Mafia brotherhood.

The moment that defines the crux of Hesh’s insider-outsider status comes early on, in the third episode of the first season. Silvio Dante, Tony’s consigliere, comes to Tony with a business proposition: Shlomo Teittleman, the Hasidic owner of the Flyaway Motel is having a dispute with his son-in-law, Ariel. See, Shlomo’s daughter wants to divorce Ariel, but Ariel will only grant the divorce if he’s given 50 percent ownership of the motel. Tony, Teittleman hears, has—how shall we say?—a history of getting people to do what he wants; maybe he can work his magic on Ariel in exchange for 25 percent of the business?

Tony approaches Hesh asking for his advice. Stay away, Hesh warns. Does Tony listen? Please. There’s business here.

Tony tracks down Ariel and first strongly suggests that he grant the divorce without a fight. He refuses. A second, violent encounter still yields no results; Ariel proves to be a not-incompetent fighter and, what’s more, isn’t afraid of death. Finally, out of options, Tony again solicits Hesh’s advice.

“I’m here with my non-shellfish-eating friend,” he tells him over the phone. “I gotta tell you something. I’m tapped out. This guy won’t listen to reason.”

“Didn’t I tell you, huh?” says Hesh. “Didn’t I warn you to keep away from those fanatics?”

“This guy’s willing to go down with the ship like no man I’ve ever seen,” Tony tells him.

Maybe, says Hesh, but there’s one thing no man would want to go without—“Make like a mohel, huh?” he prods, “Finish the bris.” Indeed, the threat of bolt cutters sets Ariel straight.

The Sopranos trades in tribalism; the fierceness of the Mafia bond is the only true law in a world of chaos. Loyalty is the defining credo. So much so, in fact, that Tony believes it must also be true for Hesh, manipulating the loan shark’s perceived closeness to other Jews to solve the Ariel problem.

But it isn’t true for Hesh. If the reigning order-establishing principle of the world of The Sopranos is fraternity—the notion that you are a member of an entity larger than yourself, and that there is a deep and innate connection among members of a tribe (an idea which, applied differently, often rings true for Jews)—then here Hesh not only betrays his capacity for sadism and indifference, but commits an act of self-excision. Willing to offer up another Jew for torture, Hesh reveals that there are more important things to him than his bond to his own community; specifically the tenuous bonds to a group of which he will never fully be a member. He proves himself to be that most pathetic of creatures: a striver, a man of naked yearning. Groucho Marx put it best: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

No, what Hesh wants is that which is always beyond his reach—membership in some other, better club.

What separates Jews and Italians in Tony Soprano’s universe is more than the difference between bagels and manicotti. Jewishness is code for difference, an unbridgeable gap. Hesh, to his Italian counterparts and, seemingly, to his own chagrin, is just the wrong kind of chosen.

Previously on Network Jews:

Eli Gold, The Good Wife’s Political Operator

Howard Wolowitz, the nerdy, sex-obsessed engineer on The Big Bang Theory

Paris Geller, Rory Gilmore’s high-intensity, over-achieving friend and foil on Gilmore Girls

Sala Levin writes for Moment Magazine.

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