Tovah Feldshuh pushed back on the backlash around Adam Brody’s September GQ comments, calling accusations that the Jewish people are committing genocide “wild.” She said the dispute has spilled past a TV conversation and into a fight over Israel, Gaza and how Jewish identity is being discussed publicly.
Brody’s September GQ remarks
Adam Brody told GQ in September, “Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide” and “Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.” The comments drew sharp reaction because they came amid the war following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, and because he is one of the stars of Nobody Wants This, a show that has become an unlikely battleground over Jewish identity and Israel.
Steve Leder called Brody’s comments “truly shocking” and “disgusting” in a recent Instagram video. Feldshuh’s response kept the argument moving in the opposite direction: instead of treating the remarks as a general political statement, she framed the genocide accusation itself as the problem and said it lands on the Jewish community.
Tovah Feldshuh on set
Feldshuh, who plays Bina on Nobody Wants This, said she has had to keep working through the controversy by “switch[ing] channels and do[ing] my job.” She added, “My job, as Bina but also as Tovah, is to love the people on set at my place of work, to be kind.” That is the practical stance of a cast member trying to separate production from a dispute that keeps pulling the show into the news cycle.
She also said, “I believe that the perseverance of the existence of the state of Israel is crucial to the well-being of the democratic world and of the free world,” and added, “Of course, Israel needs the United States, [but] the United States needs Israel, believe you me.” Her view is blunt, and it places the show’s off-screen arguments squarely inside the wider debate over Judaism and Israel rather than inside a standard celebrity skirmish.
The show’s larger split
Feldshuh said, “To accuse the Jewish people of genocide is wild,” and added, “It’s right out of Hitler’s playbook.” She also said, “You take the victim and you make the victim the perpetrator,” arguing that people with large platforms who feed followers such falsehoods do the most damage. The line matters because it separates Brody’s comments about Israel’s conduct from the broader accusation she says is being leveled at Jews collectively.
She tied the debate to the show’s earlier criticism, saying one of the complaints after its first two seasons was that the Jewish women were written as uptight, controlling and mean. Feldshuh attributed those traits to history and collective trauma, saying, “One of the great privileges of being a Jew is the fear of extinction.” That makes the cast debate less about a single interview and more about how a hit series keeps getting drafted into arguments over representation.
On Oct. 22, Nobody Wants This returned for season three, and Feldshuh said she never imagined the series would provoke such intense discussion around Judaism and Israel. The off-screen fight now hangs over the show’s public face, and the question left standing is whether Adam Brody or anyone else from Nobody Wants This will answer her remarks directly.
