Most people could be forgiven for not knowing their Tu BiShvat from their Tisha B’Av –but a Netflix series that centres around an interfaith romance between a rabbi and a podcaster could be expected to have a firmer grip on the Jewish faith than its rom-com rivals.
The second series of the show Nobody Wants This – in which Adam Brody portrays a “hot rabbi” who gets into a relationship with Kristen Bell’s agnostic sex podcaster – only hit screens on Thursday, but it’s already managed to get some viewers worked up for all the wrong reasons – by mistaking one holiday for another.
The scene in question involves two Jewish actors, Brody and Seth Rogen, with the latter making a cameo as a Reform rabbi.
In the scene, Rogen’s character can be seen saying: “I saw the sermon you gave at Tu BiShvat at Temple Chai a few years back. It changed the way I mourn … I was mourning all wrong.”
Although the two holidays have confusingly similar names, they could not be more different. While the uplifting Tu BiShvat marks the "birthday of the trees" and is celebrated on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat, which usually falls in January or February, Tisha B’Av is a fast day, and the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, where we mourn multiple tragedies including the destruction of both the first and second Temples and our expulsion from Spain, England and France. It takes place on the ninth day of the month of Av, which typically falls in July or August in the Gregorian calendar.
Explain how two Jewish actors mix up the saddest day of the year, Tisha B’av, with the birthday of the trees, Tu B’shvat, and no one catches the error? pic.twitter.com/kpMWDdkBfh
— The Jewish Meme Queen (@jewishmemequeen) October 26, 2025
Upon learning of the holiday mix-up, Rabbi Mendy Korer of Islington Chabad offered to help the Nobody Wants This writing team with season three of the show, telling the JC: “It would be my pleasure to invite the screenwriters to join my Judaism basics course.”
Despite Jewish characters being central to the show, many Jewish viewers have felt let down by the show’s portrayal of Judaism, with numerous reviewers taking issue with the series’ characterisation of Jewish women as “judgemental, needy and mean-spirited”, and noting it “pits Jewish women against ‘shiksas’”.
Reviewing season two, the JC’s critic wrote: “I’m not saying the hot rabbi should go elbow-deep into parshat, but if we’re to believe he’s as religious as the plot of this show insists, a smidgen of actual Judaism wouldn’t go amiss.”
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