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Jewish, Hilarious, Haunting: HBO Max Spotlights Curb, Survivor, and The Rehearsal for Heritage Month

HBO Max’s emotional picks for Jewish Heritage Month explore humor, trauma, and resilience, and what it means for Jewish families today.

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May is American Jewish Heritage Month, a time to honor the vibrant contributions of Jewish Americans to our culture, history, and identity. This year, HBO Max is stepping up with a curated spotlight on three shows that, at first glance, might not scream "Jewish stories" but dig deep into Jewish humor, identity, and resilience: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Survivor, and The Rehearsal.

These picks, ranging from Larry David’s cringe-inducing comedy to Nathan Fielder’s quirky social experiments, show how Jewish perspectives can shine through in wildly different ways.

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Curb Your Enthusiasm: Larry David’s Schlemiel Swagger

If there’s one guy who’s made awkwardness an art form, it’s Larry David. Curb Your Enthusiasm, which wrapped its 12th and final season in 2024, is a masterclass in Jewish comedy that’s both painfully specific and universally relatable. Larry plays a fictionalized version of himself, a semi-retired TV writer who stumbles into social disasters with the grace of a Yiddish folktale schlemiel, the lovable fool who challenges norms just by existing.

The show’s Jewishness is in its DNA. Whether Larry’s teaching Jon Hamm Yiddish slang like “schmuck” or starting a fight over a Holocaust museum shoe display, Curb sprinkles Jewish culture into its chaos. One iconic moment has Larry mediating a hilarious argument between a Holocaust survivor and a reality show contestant over who “survived” more, a nod to the real The Survivor film we’ll get to. It’s not just laughs; it’s about navigating Jewish identity in a secular world, where bagels and guilt are equally sacred. As scholar Vincent Brook points out, Curb’s Jewish characters feel lived-in, making its humor a bridge to universal truths.

For Jewish American Heritage Month, Curb is a love letter to Jewish humor, a way to laugh at our quirks while owning our place in the cultural mosaic. Larry’s not a hero, but he’s ours: a guy who’d argue over gefilte fish in a grocery store and somehow make it profound.

The Survivor: A Boxer’s Fight Beyond the Ring

The Survivor (2021) is the gut-punch of this trio. Directed by Barry Levinson and starring Ben Foster as Harry Haft, this HBO film tells the true story of a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz by boxing fellow prisoners for Nazi entertainment. After the war, Haft moves to America, chasing fame in the ring while struggling with survivor’s guilt and the ghosts of his past. It’s raw, unflinching, and deeply Jewish, rooted in the Holocaust’s scars and the resilience it took to rebuild.

Haft’s story explains what it means to carry unimaginable trauma into a new life. The film weaves Jewish identity through his struggle, his Yiddish accent, his memories of lost family, his search for meaning in a country that doesn’t fully get him. Critics, like Variety, praised Foster’s transformation and the film’s focus on Haft’s emotional journey over typical Holocaust tropes. It’s a story that hits especially hard when antisemitism is spiking, making Haft’s defiance feel urgent.

The Rehearsal: Nathan Fielder’s Jewish Lens on Life

Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal is the wildcard of the trio. This genre-bending show, where Fielder helps people rehearse life’s big moments, is less overtly Jewish than Curb but carries a Jewish sensibility through its anxious, introspective humor. Fielder, a Canadian Jew, infuses the show with a neurotic curiosity about human behavior, reminiscent of Jewish comedic traditions that question everything.

In Season 1, Fielder works with a Jewish teacher preparing to confront a friend, and his own Jewish background subtly shapes the show’s tone (kind of like Woody Allen meets reality TV). Posts on X have called The Rehearsal a “Jewish-American” story, though some debate whether its Jewishness is overstated. Still, Fielder’s approach, dissecting social norms with a mix of empathy and absurdity, feels like a modern take on the Jewish outsider perspective, always analyzing, never quite fitting in.

The Rehearsal might not be not a synagogue sermon, but it’s got that Jewish soul: restless, reflective, and a little weird.

HBO Max’s partnership with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to curate Jewish content for May 2025 demonstrates a real commitment to celebrating Jewish storytellers who’ve helped form American culture. Richard Hirschhaut of AJC Los Angeles said it best: Jewish creators bring “stories of joy, pain, challenge, family, love, and much more.”

These three shows, in their own way, embody that range. Curb laughs at the mundane, Survivor wrestles with guilt and underlying Holocaust trauma, and The Rehearsal questions how we navigate life’s chaos.

But the timing isn’t lost on anyone. Antisemitism is rising: FBI data shows a surge in hate crimes against Jews. HBO Max’s spotlight, then, feels like a counterpoint, a celebration of Jewish voices in a world where they’re increasingly under fire.

As Jewish American Heritage Month unfolds, HBO Max’s picks invite everyone to see Jewish stories not as niche but as universal, and after everything Jews are facing all over the world, it's a welcome change.

Stronger Together contributed to this article.

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