2024 was truly an unparalleled year for Jewish movies and TV. We had one of the most profound Holocaust dramas ever made in “We Were the Lucky Ones,” which centered Jewish family in a really moving way. We saw a Jewish national hero in “Masters of the Air.” We got Natalie Portman as a complex Jewish housewife in “Lady in the Lake,” an incredibly dense and profound period show that more people should be talking about, one that even features some Hebrew and Yiddish. We got “Nobody Wants This,” the Adam Brody hot rabbi show nobody wanted to stop talking about. We got lots of great reality TV representation in shows like a “Real Housewives” featuring an adult bat mitzvah and the funniest catfishing Jewish mom on “The Circle.” We even got a “Knuckles” Shabbat episode (hearing Idris Elba talk about gefilte fish is something you’ll never forget).
Going into 2025, it certainly feels like no year will surpass 2024 when it comes to the expansive representation of Jews on TV. Yet there is still a lot to look forward to in the next calendar year. Here are my most anticipated Jewish shows of 2025:
“Kugel” (Early 2025, Izzy)
OK, so this “Shtisel” prequel is technically happened in 2024. The first season of “Kugel,” which focuses on Shulem and Libbi Shtisel’s life in Antwerp’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community before they moved to Jerusalem, is already airing in Israel to rave reviews and much fanfare. While “Shtisel” was a pretty big Netflix hit, the streaming service dropped the show in 2023 and smaller streamers have since picked it up. Izzy, a streaming platform which centers Israeli content, is slated to premiere the show sometime in 2025, and watching the trailer, I can already tell it will be one of the best Jewish shows premiering stateside this year.
“SNL50: The Anniversary Special” (February 16, NBC)
Last year, we celebrated the Jewish roots of SNL in the excellent “Saturday Night” (and in this list of their best Hanukkah sketches). Here’s hoping this year’s live 50th-anniversary special will also feature a lot of funny Jews, from odes to Gilda Radner and cameos from Adam Sandler.
“Suits L.A.” (February 23, NBC)
As an OG “Suits” aficionado, I am really excited for this reboot. “Suits” gave us a really fascinating, funny and maybe a bit problematic Jewish character, the one and only Louis Litt played by Rick Hoffman, who also makes for a pretty adorable Hallmark Hanukkah movie dad in “Round and Round.” Will “Suits L.A.” offer Jewish representation? I think a show about lawyers in LA has to include Jewish lawyers (I mean, our current VP is a Jewish LA lawyer after all), but we don’t know that for sure yet. What we do know? That it will feature jaddy (that’s Jewish zaddy for you!) Bryan Greenberg, a real life Jewish dad and proud Jew — who also happened to be Hoffman’s co-star in “Round and Round.” He plays Rick Dodson, who Greenberg calls the “moral compass” of the show.
“House of David” (February 27, Amazon Video)
The biblical story of King David is such fertile grounds for drama that I’m honestly surprised it’s taken TV makers this long to make a big production based on it. Yes, there was the 2012 Brazilian “King David” and the 2019 modern retelling “Kings,” but the upcoming Amazon MGM Studios show “House of David” promises a more epic feel than those, one worthy of the most fascinating and famous Jewish kings. The team behind it, Jon Erwin and Jon Gunn, are known for their Christian films, which means this series might not be as friendly for the Jewish viewer. “The once-mighty King Saul falls victim to his own pride, as an outcast shepherd boy, David is anointed as the second king,” reads the tagline. The cast is incredibly diverse, featuring veteran Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer as Queen Achinoam, “Tattooist of Auschwitz” star Yali Topol Margalith (yes, that’s Chaim Topol’s granddaughter!) as Mirab, and “Star Trek: Discovery’s” Oded Fehr as Abner. Egyptian-born Michael Iskander, who recently starred in one of my favorite Broadway musicals “Kimberly Akimbo,” plays David.
Netflix has really gotten into the business of biblical retellings with shows like the streaming hit “Testament: The Story of Moses” and it will definitely be interesting to watch this Amazon MGM venture into the genre.
“The Studio” (March 26, Apple TV+)
Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen co-created this show in which Rogen plays Matt Remick, the new head of the movie studio Continental Studios. Shenanigans and Jewish men in fine suits ensue as Remick and his team of execs try to “juggle corporate demands with creative ambitions as they try to keep movies alive and relevant,” according to Apple TV+. The cast here is phenomenal, worthy of any star-studded movie. There’s Bryan Cranston, former TV rabbi Kathryn Hahn, “Schitt’s Creek’s” Catherine O’Hara, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Charlize Theron, Zoe Kravitz and fellow Nice Jewish Actor Ike Barinholtz. How Jewish will this show be? We don’t know yet, but it doesn’t feel like there could be a show about a Hollywood studio without having some Jews in (from lawyers to Hollywood, I’m really leaning into Jewish stereotypes here, aren’t I?). And Remick could potentially be a Jewish name, as could Barinholz’s Sal Seperstein.
“The Last Of Us” Season 2 (Early 2025)
I am a big video game player, and no video game moment has touched me like the synagogue scene in the post-apocalyptic game “The Last Of Us: Part II.” Jewish players don’t often get to see themselves represented in video game characters, yet in this particular moment, Dina, Ellie’s partner in the game, talks about her sister Talia who used to take her to synagogue as the two explore an abandoned synagogue in Seattle. Dina talks about what it means to her to come from a long line of Jewish survivors in this barren landscape. It’s especially moving when you realize the game’s creator, Neil Druckmann, was born in Israel, and the game itself asks such pertinent questions to Jewish life right now. You can even find a particularly moving letter from the synagogue’s former rabbi about the nature of allyship, resilience and community during gameplay.
The much anticipated season two of the TV adaptation of “The Last of Us,” on which Druckmann serves as executive producer, is coming later this year, and Dina will be played by Isabela Merced, who, like the actress who voiced the game’s Dina, is not Jewish. We still don’t know if Dina’s Jewishness will make it to the story of season two, but I truly hope it does.
“Nobody Wants This” Season 2 (Netflix, maybe late 2025?)
Yes, a season two of “Nobody Wants This,” the hit Netflix show about a hot rabbi (Adam Brody) who falls for a “shiksa,” Joanne, played by Kristen Bell, is officially coming. When we last left Joanne and Rabbi Noah, the latter was willing to give up his dream job for their romance. In season two, we’ll see how that pans out, but we’ll also get to see a lot of fun developments for our favorite side characters, from Justine Lupe’s Morgan to Emily Arlook’s Rebecca. Here’s everything we know about season two of “Nobody Wants This” so far.
“The Rehearsal” Season 2 (Max, sometime in 2025)
The top contender for the trippiest Jewish show ever made is Nathan Fielder’s “The Rehearsal.” In 2022 it gave us one of the most out there episodes on interfaith parenting and here’s hoping that season two of the Jewish comedian’s show will also give us similarly refreshing Jewish moments.
“Tehran” Season 3 (Apple TV+)
When is season three of the hit spy thriller “Tehran” coming to Apple TV+? We don’t know, but we really hope it does soon. In the meantime, it’s airing on the Israeli broadcast channel Kan11, and it features the incredible Hugh Laurie, who was apparently a big fan of the show set in the Iranian capital about an Israeli spy trying to infiltrate the country. Laurie plays Eric Peterson, a nuclear inspector, in the season.
“Too Much” (Netflix, sometime in 2025)
Lena Dunham’s newest British series is a collaboration with her husband, musician Luis Felber, and appears to be, like her hit show “Girls,” somewhat autobiographical. According to Netflix’s Tudum, the show “follows Jessica, portrayed by comedian Megan Stalter, a New Yorker who heads to London in the wake of a painful breakup. There, she meets Felix, played by White Lotus’ Will Sharpe. The pair build a connection that surprises Jessica… but is impossible to ignore.” It will star many actors who you saw on “Girls,” including Andrew Rannels and Michael Zegen, who told Kveller, “I really feel like it’s a true follow-up to ‘Girls,’ and I’m really excited to hear what everyone has to say about it.”
“I have always played Jewish characters, because I’m a Jewish person,” Dunham told Kveller in June of last year. “And the characters that I wrote came from Jewish families, which is what I relate to, and what I connect to, but always in a way that was very cultural. It was about the way that they communicated. It was about their sense of humor. It was about the way that their aunts argued and yelled at each other. It was about the way that people ate dinner together. It was about an occasional reference to Jewish summer camp.”
