The new season of Arrested Development premieres on Sunday (all 15 episodes, at once, on Netflix), and suffice it to say, we’re excited. And we’re not the only ones—the New York Times is featuring daily interviews with the cast members, and the introduction to the interview with Jeffrey Tambor, who plays infamous patriarch George Bluth Sr., confirms that Jewcy favorite Seth Rogen will play a young George Sr. in the new season.

George Sr., you may recall, was a memorable installment of our Network Jews series—his conversion, while in prison, was as insincere and hilarious as all of his ventures. Here’s what Max Daniel had to say about Tambor’s bumbling character:

While the manipulations of those like Gob (Will Arnett) and Lucille (Jessica Walter) are often shallow and unintentional, George Sr.’s (Jeffrey Tambor) are the most successful, as he manages to manipulate every situation he finds himself in, even pitting his sons Gob and Michael (Jason Bateman) against one another for personal gain in a perverse rendering of the Jacob and Esau story. Sent to solitary confinement after an escape attempt from prison, George Sr. witnesses a sign from above—a shadow on the wall in the shape of a Star of David, complete with that schmaltzy clarinet music—and decides to become a Jew, crafting an improvised yarmulke out of his felt shoe (leaving an amusing tan line).

What this Judaism actually accomplishes is not much at all—he speaks slower and softer, he is exempt from the infamous “no touching” rule, but he’s still an unrepentant and self-interested liar (the producer, Mitchell Hurwitz, and several cast members are in fact MOTs—including Tambor, something he discussed with Marc Maron earlier this year.

So what’s in store for George Sr. this season? Tambor told the Times that his character is all about simply getting by:

Would you boo me if I said survival? That’s it. That’s what he mistakes for love and that’s how he operates his business. He likes to get it done. I’ve heard a lot of people bring up people in business and go, “Oh he’s this person.” I don’t know that there’s any of that intent, but he is of the times. The guy buried himself disguised as Saddam! I mean, come on!

We’ll you Sunday, Bluths.

(Photo by Stuart Wilson/Getty images For The BFI)

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When asked about his faith, Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) says, “The only thing Judaism and I have in common is we both don’t like to work on Saturdays.” Quipping aside, Munch—a cynical, sarcastic, four-times-divorced conspiracy nut—actually has a rich and nuanced, though largely secular, relationship to Judaism.

The character of John Munch is the longest-running one on television to be played by the same actor. He began as a lead on Homicide: Life On The Street as a detective in the Baltimore Police Department and then moved to New York as a Sex Crimes cop on Law And Order: SVU (which occupies the same universe), racking up a current total of 19 seasons of television. Belzer has also appeared as Munch on more series than any other television character, including the original Law And Order and its spinoff Trial By Jury, short-lived UPN cop drama The Beat, The Wire, and The X-Files, comedies 30 Rock and Arrested Development (where Munch helps the FBI run the “scrapbooking sting” on Tobias), and Sesame Street.

But for a character with such longevity, Munch’s complicated relationship to his religion has been sparingly explored. Like Jerry Seinfeld, his Judaism is cultural—he’s oversensitive to perceived anti-Semitism but completely fine with joking about Judaism himself. His sensitivity to personal slights, whether against his religion or not, reaches its logical conclusion in paranoia and an obsession with conspiracy theories. This aspect of the character became less prominent as he moved from Homicide to SVU, but a forensic psychologist in the first season of SVU still pegs Munch as able to “smell a conspiracy theory at a five-year-old’s lemonade stand.”

One of his many crossover appearances suggests Munch might not be so off the mark with his theories. The framing device of “Unusual Suspects,” a Season 5 episode of The X-Files, sees Munch interrogating John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood), the leader of the Lone Gunmen—a group of conspiracy nuts more paranoid than Fox Mulder (David Duchovney), another Jew. Within The X-Files, “Unusual Suspects” provides the origins of both the Lone Gunmen and Mulder’s overwhelming fear of the government, but it also helps situate Munch’s persecution complex and surprisingly well-justified distrust of authority.

Still, as much as his attitude reflects a Jewish upbringing, Munch isn’t particularly religious. Homicide’s episode “Kaddish,” the most in-depth exploration of Munch’s faith, makes it clear that although he knows the details of Jewish burial laws, some Yiddish, and a substantial amount of prayer, he wants nothing to do with Judaism. During the episode, Munch refuses to participate in a minyan, a group of 10 Jewish adults required for certain prayers, at a shiva for Helen Rosenthal, a victim whose murder he is investigating who also happens to be his high school crush. At the minyan, Munch claims (while obviously lying) that he doesn’t remember the Mourner’s Kaddish, the hymn of praise to God said by those grieving for a loved one.

Throughout “Kaddish,” we trace young Johnny Munch’s infatuation with Helen. That relationship is important by itself to understanding the adult Munch, but it also lets us peek at his nerdy childhood in the heavily Jewish Baltimore suburb of Pikesville, where he ran a paper route and dreamt of being a detective, “like Johnny Staccato.” Growing up in the suburbs in front of a television, afraid of bullies, it’s easy to trace a line between Johnny Munch and the cynical Sex Crimes cop.

As someone connected to Judaism more through a sort of worldview than through faith, or even rituals, Munch seems to be a kindred spirit of Homeland’s Saul Berenson, another Jewish law-enforcement official who may not be exceedingly religious but takes Judaism as crucial and constitutive of his personality.

Both Munch and Saul experience similar moments confirming their inherent Judaism. Saul says kaddish over Asfal Hamid, a terrorist who has committed suicide, as a way of expressing the compassion that makes him such an effective CIA operative. Likewise, at the end of “Kaddish,” Munch returns to Helen’s shiva, dons a yarmulke, and joins the minyan, the sound of the Mourner’s Kaddish providing the grace note of the episode.

Before he heads back to the shiva, Munch asks his partner why people forget the simple pleasure of holding another person’s hand, clearly pining for the pure love he felt for Helen. The contradiction at the heart of John Munch—the cynical, paranoiac bastard with four ex wives who still believes deeply in true love—is less a signal of the hard-bitten cop’s rejection of Judaism and more a representation of the reluctant Jewish hero, a tradition as old as Moses.

Previously on Network Jews

Dr. John Zoidberg, the Klutzy Jewish Crustacean on Futurama

Jean-Ralphio, the status-obsessed sidekick on Parks and Recreation.

Shoshanna, the scene-stealing afterthought on Girls.

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• After 65 years, San Francisco institution Israel’s Strictly Kosher Market is closing. [Jweekly]

• Jerry Seinfeld wears Nike Shox. That is all. [NYT]

• Time thinks Lena Dunham is really, really cool. [Time]

• We can’t wait to watch Caged Wisdom: Musings from Prison by Arrested Development’s George Bluth Sr. on Netflix [Vulture]

• This season of The Voice may be over, but Adam Levine and Blake Shelton’s camera-ready rivalry lives on. [Jezebel]

• Seth Rogen got freaky at the dermatologist:

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Like most of the great TV shows of my generation—Freaks and Geeks, Futurama, Family Guy—Arrested Development was unlovingly canceled by curmudgeonly executives to the chagrin and disappointment of nerdy fans everywhere. Yet in its time off the air, Arrested Development has gained an unprecedented cult following, with fans producing such Tumblr gems as Arrested Decision 2012 (which mashes up campaign photos with some of the best AD lines) and Lucille and Mitt (which does the reverse); fan-made documentaries, and enough uproar to convince executive producer and narrator Ron Howard to revive the series for a fourth season on Netflix next year, which some boldly claim will change the way we watch TV.

Before this announcement, I had pushed back such dreams to the part of my brain occupied by fanciful delusions—the next time I’d see the Bluth family would be when the Chicago Cubs made it to the World Series (them actually winning is beyond delusion) and when Led Zeppelin announced a reunion tour.

Now that my fantasy is a reality, what I’m most looking forward to laughing at again are the constant personal disasters inflicted and received by the Bluths, caused by their evil genius, well-intentioned foolishness, or, often enough, both—Maeby’s (Alia Shakwat) attempts at fraud by pretending to be suffering a rare illness or a Hollywood executive, the fiasco behind “There’s always money in the banana stand!” or my favorite, Tobias’ (David Cross) fusing of his analyst/therapist skills to become an “analrapist.”

While the manipulations of those like Gob (Will Arnett) and Lucille (Jessica Walter) are often shallow and unintentional, George Sr.’s (Jeffrey Tambor) are the most successful, as he manages to manipulate every situation he finds himself in, even pitting his sons Gob and Michael (Jason Bateman) against one another for personal gain in a perverse rendering of the Jacob and Esau story. Sent to solitary confinement after an escape attempt from prison, George Sr. witnesses a sign from above—a shadow on the wall in the shape of a Star of David, complete with that schmaltzy clarinet music—and decides to become a Jew, crafting an improvised yarmulke out of his felt shoe (leaving an amusing tan line).

What this Judaism actually accomplishes is not much at all—he speaks slower and softer, he is exempt from the infamous “no touching” rule, but he’s still an unrepentant and self-interested liar (the producer, Mitchell Hurwitz, and several cast members are in fact MOTs—including Tambor, something he discussed with Marc Maron earlier this year.

Despite any signs of a moral turn-around, George Sr.’s turn to Judaism is insincere—as we’ve come to expect from any attempt at change from the Bluths. He informs Michael during a visit that it’s the first day of Yom Kippur, but even Michael knows that the holiday only lasts one day and that it was “back in September.” And although he calls himself a scholar, much of what he cites as Jewish religious insight, either in his Torah study group in prison or his gimmicky video series “Caged Wisdom” is not particularly serious or Jewish at all. One would be hard-pressed to find Rabbis debating how to spell “Hanukkah,” and as far as I know, finding joy in solitude—the basis behind his conversion—is not a particularly Jewish value at all, considering that much of Jewish life consists of being part of a group, either in a minyan or a mahjongg game.

Perhaps the only instance of anything particularly Jewish, aside from the ritual prayer shawl and tefillin that George Sr. dons in the “Caged Wisdom” infomercial, is when he mentions in a prison yard confrontation with “White Power” Bill that Jews believe that a part of heaven can be attained on Earth (i.e., the Sabbath). However factual this bit of info really is, we find that it’s probably artificial, telling Michael that he must get ready for the Sabbath, even though “it’s only Tuesday.”

Judaism, a religion that highly prizes morality and wisdom, are the two values that the Bluth family fundamentally lacks—and when George Sr. adopts the faith, we instantly (and correctly) suspect him of conniving some manipulative plan, twisting his conversion to serve his own needs. In Season 2, when he’s hiding in the family’s attic as a fugitive, his readiness to adjust to new circumstances is evident when he briefly adopts Christianity after finding a pamphlet on Jesus and a cross-shaped scar on his forehead. Converting various inmates and creating self-help tapes has very little to do with the fleeting faith George Bluth Sr. may have dabbled in, and is instead used to command respect as a leader of converts in his new prison environment.

While most of the family is either indifferent or at least tolerant of his conversion, the only one who calls him out—and the only one equally, if not more, capable of such funny self-interest—is his wife, Lucille. It seems that George Bluth’s foray into Judaism is one part of the family’s characteristic Chicken Dance—just another display of hilarious cruelty and stupidity.

Previously on Network Jews:

Fran Fine, the nasal-voiced star of The Nanny


Noah Puckerman, the coolest Jew in school on Glee

Andy Botwin, the promiscuous playboy on Showtime’s pot comedy Weeds

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But to place the Jewish Music Stream (JMS) on the same psychic or spiritual level as comfort food or television bingeing is to trivialize its higher significance and, indeed, its sheer awesomeness. The Stream plays solid, 24-hour blocks of contemporary Jewish religious music in stunning digital quality, and without the glitches or gaps in connectivity that are so common to small-cap internet radio stations. The website, which was created in 2009, has somewhere between 250 and 400 listeners at any given time, although that figure likely shortchanges the station’s actual reach through the Intersect World app.

After all, we’re Jews: Klezmer is our jazz, the Banai clan is something like our Rolling Stones (or maybe The Killers), and the Pro Musica Hebraica series, organized by the columnist Charles Krauthammer, even attempts to give us our own place in classical European art music. The music the JMS plays is our gospel; our soul music, even. As I’ve discovered, much modern-day yeshivish music comes from a place of emotional or spiritual jouissance. The semi-orchestral religious music played on the JMS reaches epic heights; it soars, tapers, and then soars even higher still. Musical cultures often have genres or modes of expression reserved for feelings, ideas or experiences that are too vast and too immediate for any other artistic form to contain (Robert Johnson and Brett Michaels both belong in this category). We Jews are no exception. Yeshivisha music is melodramatic and emotionally overstuffed, but even in its textures it is fundamentally, recognizably ours. It’s our people’s attempt at achieving something that, through pure feeling and sheer earnestness, aspires to a kind of musical transcendence.

So what does the Jewish Music Stream play, exactly? Female voices are regrettably assur, or prohibited, so a good amount of airtime is devoted to various boys choirs. The Yeshiva Boys Choir likes adding techno beats to traditional zmirot, although purists are sure to thrill to the Kol Noar or Shir Hadasha Boys Choirs, both of whom are in the JMS rotation. And then there’s the grandaddy of them all, the Miami Boys Choir. I’ve been somewhat disheartened but nevertheless fascinated to learn that AutoTune has made its way into even the most established choir-based acts in yeshivish music—as if the angelic counter-tenor of a nine-year-old cheder student can possibly be improved upon.

The JMS is delightfully Ashkenazi. There’s the occasional Sephardi tune but for the most part there is no Torah on the JMS. There is the Toyrah. Today is not hayom, it’s hayoim; this morning is haboyker. Melachto? Puh-leeze: Our King is Melachtoi. And so on. I don’t mean to mock—indeed, this antediluvianism (I’m a hard-tav pronouncing, largely assimilated American Jew, thank you very much) explains much of the JMS’s power over me. This is the music of a mythical and most-likely imaginary before-time; a time when dybbuks existed and Chelm was best known as a real place, and when Warsaw (or possibly Baghdad) was the center of the Jewish world. Some of the music the JMS plays is actually in Yiddish!

At the same time, it is the JMS’s modernity—its connection to a real and thriving and even Yiddish-speaking now-time—that makes it so consistently surprising. The studio version of Yoely Greenfeld’s “Zemer” ends in a New Orleans jazz breakdown; Dovid Gabay’s “Berum Olam” begins with a pretty mind-wrecking (although obviously synthetic) blast of bagpipes. Ya’akov Shweky’s infectious “Ten Lo” has a slow-building, almost dub-like lead-in, complete with a meandering and virtuosic oud solo. Even in the famously internet-averse ultra-Orthodox community, Yisroel Werdyger has won over 1,000 Twitter followers. And why shouldn’t he, considering the presence, the subtlety of feeling—the kavana, for lack of a superior English equivalent—with which he sings?

The JMS showcases musical eclecticism, and, the heck with it, cultural modernity within an ultra-orthodox Jewish context. My intrigue at such a harmony of apparent opposites might simply be the result of false preconceptions. I can’t say that my pre-JMS world allowed for the possibility of zmirot capped with power ballad-worthy electric guitar solos.

When I reached out to the man responsible for the JMS—an IT professional and sometimes computer-programmer who runs the site anonymously and asked not to be named—he was somewhere between winding down from work and preparing for a night at the Beit Midrash. He created the site, he said, because “I saw what was out there in terms of Jewish music streams and saw that I would be able to build a better system.”

“I’ve met a lot of these artists,” he continued. “They’re regular people who happen to be blessed with these talents and are happy to have others enjoy it.”

The clash between the ultra-Orthodox and modern technology has been in the news lately, and the mere existence of the JMS suggested to me that this relationship is more complicated than many have given it credit for. The JMS founder and proprietor actually attended the recent Ichud HaKehillos asifa against the Internet, which packed Citi Field and nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium with nearly 50,000 ultra-orthodox Jewish men, who had come to hear their teachers’ concerns over the web’s effects on religious practice and communal life. After the speech, more than a few attendees took to the web to share their reactions. Some argued that the Internet could be helpful so long as it could be controlled. Others insisted that the technology itself was irredeemably evil.

Unsurprisingly, the JMS’s founder sits on the more liberal side of this simmering communal debate. “Personally, I do computer work most of the day, and from a general background perspective I use the Internet all the time,” he told me. “But I’m always pushing myself to make sure everything’s filtered.”

For him, having a “Jewish listening experience” is one way the Internet can foster and celebrate Jewish culture. “If you try to take all these types of sites offline, people aren’t going to listen to Jewish music,” he said. And people like me will likely never hear a techno version of Kol Hamispalel.

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