On Friends and Me

By Janna Rogat

The other day, while channel surfing, I happened upon a holiday episode of my favorite show, Friends, running in syndication. Stop me if you remember this one: Phoebe, who's trying desperately to write a holiday song with all the friends' names, includes the line "spin the dreidle, Rachel" in her first draft. Sounds fine to me. But, Rachel tells Phoebe that she doesn't spin the dreidle. My eyes bugged out, and to tell the truth, my heart fell.

I thought, What? Wait a minute, you mean Rachel's not, in fact, Jewish? Rachel Karen Green. The spoiled Long Island girl who could never quite divorce herself from her shopping habit, even as she left her sheltered, country-club life at home. Rachel, the daughter of a vascular surgeon (Daddy looked like actor Ron Liebman), the almost-wife of an orthodontist? After watching as much television in life as I have, you know pretty much that that combination, unequivocally, means you've spotted a Jew.

I've been a Friends fan from the start, and almost immediately caught a Jewish vibe from the show that made it pretty easy to jump to that conclusion. Forget the Christmas decorations and the lack of a bris when Ross's son, Ben, was born. Even before Monica and Ross made a mention of celebrating Hanukkah (and before I learned that the show's creators, David Crane and Marta Kaufmann, were fellow MOT). Just watching Monica and Ross, I knew they were at least half Jewish. With a father looking like Elliot Gould and the last name Geller to finish off the equation?

So, of course, during that first season, I just assumed that Rachel, too, was Jewish. The fancy wedding, the engagement to Dr. Barry Farber D.D.S. (a.k.a. Barry Finkle in the pilot episode). The passion for shopping. I thought for sure all those added up to one perfect, for lack of a better word, JAP. I mean, look at Fran Drescher's The Nanny, (substituting Flushing for Long Island, of course), or even more accurately, remember Brenda Patimkin in the film Goodbye, Columbus? Isn't Rachel Green's background supposed to be the perfect dream life of every Jewish girl on screen?

And right there is where I stopped. Oh my God, I realized, I was in deep.

I had not only bought, but invested heavily in those age-old stereotypes and their evil perpetuator, television. I was deeply disappointed in myself.

Of course, I know Jewish girls are as different and varied as anyone; I also know how dangerous stereotypes can be; and after enough women's studies courses, I should have learned not to use them myself. Moreover, being a television buff, I know that stereotypes are fodder for comedy, even though they are becoming less static in TV today.

But, why then, was I so upset to learn Rachel Green was probably not a Jew? Why, even though the characteristics I used to deduce her membership to the tribe were ones I hardly shared, did I at that moment, feel betrayed by my TV?

It sounds pathetic: Fan questions devotion to television show because she feels deceived. But it goes deeper than that. The issue is not whether or not Rachel was portrayed Jewishly, but how I, as a young Jewish woman, interpreted her to be so. An educated, forward-thinking woman like myself still finds TV role models in those characteristics that have for so long been the harbinger of the Jewish woman on screen: daddy's money, the mall, and a doctor husband. I've memorized them so well that I've started to label unidentified people (okay, characters. My obsession with TV is another whole article) as Jews merely by dint of any combination of these key attributes. Forget religion, spirituality, all that. If her goal's a rich Jewish doctor, I suddenly feel a deep connection.

What was particularly upsetting about the realization that Rachel Green might not be Jewish, though, is that the connection I felt to her character had grown into something beyond the Jewish fairy tale. On the show, Rachel is just one of a whole menagerie who are making the best of their young, single years. Who doesn't want that? But more importantly, Rachel has proven to be a strong, yet fallible woman, who has rescued herself from that stereotypical suburban life and charted her own course in the big city. Hell, she even got the man of her dreams (what Jewish girl wouldn't want either David Schwimmer or his alter-ego, Ross Geller?). She's desirable and sexy, and even though the pilot episode, where Rachel has just left Barry alone at the altar, left her little to go on, she has made it.

As a Jew, it's hard enough to find images of oneself that are as flattering as the story of Rachel Green. Sure, Fran Drescher's The Nanny is funny, but the voice and the big hair? No thanks. Even on Friends, half-Jewish Monica is too neurotic to make her endearing. Besides, Courteney Cox does not a good Jew make.

Ironically, it's also hard to find a desirable non-Jewish image to emulate, because they don't feature that same Jewish heritage I want to always be a part of my life. Does that mean that television is a wasteland for the positive Jewish female image? I think not. I just think that we have to look harder to find the Jewish girl we've been searching for. And if that means ignoring what some writers put into their mouths, then so be it.

Paul Zakrzewski writes about the arts for a variety of publications, including Time Out New York and Manhattan Spirit. He thought Nathan Englander was a friendly guy despite the scowling publicity pix. Paul lives in Brooklyn, New York and can be reached at pzak@aol.com.