The Adam Brody and Kristen Bell-led comedy series Nobody Wants This has returned for its second season, and while the cast’s mishpochah of perfectly cast regulars and guest stars (including Girls’ Alex Karpovsky as a rival rabbi to Brody’s Noah; a newly bangs-sporting Jackie Tohn as Noah’s sister-in-law; the great Justine Lupe as the sister, confidante, and co-podcast host of Bell’s Joanne; and, of course, Brody’s real-life wife Leighton Meester as a delightfully annoying Instagram momfluencer) is better than ever, the question of whether Joanne will convert to Judaism or not remains the show’s main tension.
Obviously, one wouldn’t want to be too judgmental of Nobody Wants This without a higher power weighing in—so for thoughts on how the series reflects modern-day Judaism, the complexity of representing Jewish women onscreen, and some of the most common real-life worries people have about conversion, Vogue spoke to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who holds the distinction of being the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi. (Her new book Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging is also out now from Penguin Random House.) Read that conversation below.
Vogue: Has Nobody Wants This sparked new interest in conversion from people you’ve spoken to?
Angela Buchdahl: What it has done is sparked a kind of interesting pride in cool rabbis. [Laughs.] I don’t think it’s necessarily sparked more interest, but I think it’s reflecting what I’ve seen in the last couple of years, which is that there actually is increased interest in conversion. It’s not just something that I’ve seen at my own synagogue, which has a very large program for people interested in exploring Judaism that now sees more than 300 students a year, but across the country, we’re seeing people who are more interested in conversion than in past years.
What are some of the most common issues that couples bring to you when one of them is thinking about converting?
There are so many, but I think one is that people do wonder, if they convert, will they be fully accepted as Jews? I think that can be exacerbated especially if someone is a person of color, for example. I think another question people have is, “Will I ever know enough to be fully Jewish or authentically Jewish? Will I be accepted by the community when I do it? Will I always be sort of labeled a convert, or can I just be Jewish?”
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