Yesterday, I posted about the upcoming episode of The Equalizer dealing with antisemitism, which sounded like it might actually tackle the issue in the right way. This follows The Calling, a TV police procedural on Peacock TV, with the lead detective being a strong, proud Jew.
And now it seems we may have another example of a show which portrays Jews or Jewish issues in a better way than we have seen in the past.
The show is Apple TV’s Extrapolations:
“Extrapolations” a bracing drama from writer, director and executive producer Scott Z. Burns that introduces a near future where the chaotic effects of climate change have become embedded into our everyday lives. Eight interwoven stories about love, work, faith and family from across the globe will explore the intimate, life-altering choices that must be made when the planet is changing faster than the population. Every story is different, but the fight for our future is universal. And when the fate of humanity is up against a ticking clock, the battle between courage and complacency has never been more urgent. Are we brave enough to become the solution to our own undoing before it’s too late?
Doesn’t sound at all related to Jews or Judaism, I know. But episode 3 stars Hamilton‘s Daveed Diggs as a rabbi.
According to this interview with Diggs:
Diggs plays Marshall, a rabbi, who is dealing with his own familial issues as the world is fissuring. “He’s not ruminating on climate change very much,” says Diggs. “But it still is the world that everybody is living in. And that’s what I think was so powerful about these stories. It’s about it, without only being about it.”
And by the way, Diggs is actually Jewish:
Meeting rabbis for the show helped him reacquaint with his own Judaism. “It’s easy to imagine religion as something that is opposed to science, working in opposite directions than science. But that wasn’t true for any of the rabbis that I talked to, right? They were all hyper-concerned with climate change. Pandemic times, too. They were [involved in] vaccine campaigns, and reading all of the Covid science, and figuring out how to keep their communities together based on science. That was just really interesting, to reconnect with religion in a different way than I did when I was young. But the same religion that I claim I practice, because occasionally I light a candle!”
While I have no details about the character beyond this, the mere fact the show has a Black Rabbi seems significant, especially at a time where there is increased antisemitism from the African-American community.
Plus let’s face it. The guy is cool and certainly gives off different energy to the Rabbis and Orthodox Jews we are accustomed to seeing in Hollywood:
Update: Although I am curious about those palestinian flags in the trailer
