Los Angeles area Rabbi Steve Leder is ripping actor Adam Brody’s “ignorant” accusation that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Leder, a former rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, was a technical adviser on season one of Brody’s hit Netflix rom-com Nobody Wants This. His connection to Brody didn’t stop the Rabbi from blasting the actor for his ignorance.
“You by your own admission are a relatively ignorant Jew, and your ignorance really showed the other day,” Rabbi Leder said on Instagram. “Here’s some technical advice: If you know nothing about something, you should say nothing about it.
Brody, who was born to Jewish parents and portrays a Jewish Rabbi in the Netflix series, has been quoted in the past as saying that he has no real knowledge about his ancestors’ religious ideals. For instance, in 2024, he claimed that he “barely got bar mitzvahed and retained nothing from it.”
Leder was a senior rabbi of the Synagogue where Nobody Wants This creator Erin Foster converted to Judaism and was then hired to help make sure that the show portrayed the religion authentically. He also oversaw how Brody portrayed a rabbi in the series.
Just ahead of season three, Brody told GQ magazine that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza.
He told the magazine that he fears that Hollywood is getting “too conservative,” and added, “Between COVID, a second Trump term, Israel-Gaza, it’s really brought out some different beliefs that I was ignorant to, and then disheartened by.”
He went on to remark on Gaza, and exclaimed, “Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.”
“It’s awful that it’s taken so much death and misery, but it does feel like it’s reaching a breaking point that it should have a while ago,” he said. “I’m hopeful that another administration can really do some good and correct some of these policies that are helping that situation be as awful as it is.”
Leder was not pleased with Brody’s comments.
“Your pronouncement the other day about a ‘genocide in Gaza’ was truly shocking,” Leder said. “Not only because of your misuse and mischaracterization of your use of genocide — there is no genocide in Gaza, there are genocides in other countries happening, but you failed to mention any of them … if you’re going to use a word like genocide, you better know what it means. And by the way, being so flippant about a word like genocide — ‘hey, put me down for genocide’ like you’re asking for a table for two at [L.A. hotspot] Craig’s — is disgusting.”
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