In 2003, Adam Brody broke through in the teen drama "The O.C." as Seth Cohen, the nerdy, awkward, lovable kid from Newport Beach. Cohen on screen was the son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, a scriptwriting device that gave birth to "Chrismukkah": a bizarre hybrid of Chanukah and Christmas, complete with a kippah topped with a pom-pom at the holiday meal. "In this house, you don't have to choose," Brody's character declared at the time.
And he never chose. Not in the series, and certainly not in real life. Brody brought the gospel of blurred lines and assimilation from the small screen into his private life when he married actress Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf from "Gossip Girl"). For him, the alienation and otherness that have accompanied Jewish identity throughout history are a foggy concept that does not actually exist. Even in his new series, "Nobody Wants This," he plays a character so privileged and disconnected that there is not even a hint of the rising antisemitism or the complexity of Jewish existence in America. Because in Brody's Hollywood reality, American Jews live in a perfect world: they do not feel persecuted, they experience no threat, and the bleeding reality of the Middle East is as distant from them as east is from west.
But living in a movie is a privilege. When you are not forced to fight for your very existence, it is very easy to close your eyes to the distress of your people in Israel. In the series he plays a rabbi whose partner is willing to convert for him, but in reality, that same Adam Brody did not see fit to tweet even a single sentence of solidarity or condemnation after the horrific massacre on October 7. That brutal massacre and unprecedented cruelty that led Israel into a war of no choice in Gaza.
Complete silence in the face of the slaughter of his brothers, but a wealth of words when it comes to preaching morality: in a recent interview, Brody addressed the war in Gaza and rushed to define it as "genocide." How convenient, how photogenic, and how hollow.
So who exactly are you, Adam Brody? An actor who continues to wear Seth Cohen's pom-pom kippah to feel good about himself, while spitting in the faces of those fighting for home. When Judaism for you amounts to a cute television gimmick and Hollywood clichés, no wonder you confuse justified self-defense of life with a crime. Maybe it is time you stepped out of the movie.
