The Greatest Jewish Character in TV History: An Open Letter to Josh Schwartz
It’s no secret that Jewdar is a longtime adoring fan of Chuck. While former wunderkind Josh Schwartz has never come clean on whether or not Charles Irving Bartowski has a touch of the Torah-brush, as a consolation prize, he’s given us Lester Patel, whom we consider one of the greatest Jewish characters in the history of TV. Played by Vik Sahay (above), Patel is exactly what we’ve always wanted—unquestionably Jewish and proud of it, whose Jewishness comes up again and again, but never in the form of melodrama or lowest-common-denominator stereotype (All too many Jewish characters on TV can be summed up in one sentence: "Oy, my mother is such a yenta, it makes me neurotic!").
Just this season, Lester refers to a girl presumably too hot to get as "treyf," claims, after being kicked in the face in fight club spoof that he hasn’t felt so alive since his bar mitzvah and it’s revealed that next to his bed he keeps a picture of himself at his bar mitzvah carrying a Torah. So in this last week’s episode, when he negotiates with assistant manager Morgan for help in getting a woman, we were excited. But Josh, you really let us down—what is Lester’s criteria is that she be a "woman of color," preferably Padma Lakshmi. Now, this is not at all a dig at Ms. Lakshmi, but coming from a guy who once said that he couldn’t work fast food because he keeps kosher, it’s a bit of a disappointment.
Now, we presume based on the fact that he’s played by an actor of Indian descent, and has an Indian last name, that Lester is Indian as well, so we appreciate the need to nod to that side of things. But come on Josh, at the very least, couldn’t he have made a comment about getting her to convert? Just think of an episode in which Padma took a dip in the Ganges….
comments
submit a comment02.05.10 at 12:02 pm
“Greatest” hmmm? Can anyone think of a more worthy character to assume this title in TV Land? Anyone, anyone at all?
02.05.10 at 12:02 pm
Horseshack wasn’t Jewish. We even interviewed the creator of the show about it.
02.05.10 at 4:02 pm
And fairly remarkably, on a show that actually had two Jewish characters, you picked the goy.
02.07.10 at 1:02 pm
Juan Epstein anyone?
Is it just me, or does Sahay look like Howie Mandel’s and Phil Spector’s love child?
02.08.10 at 10:02 am
Ironic that Horshack (i.e. Polish for “the cattle are dying”) used more Yiddish, ate more knishes and whined like a bitch more than anyone.
02.09.10 at 6:02 pm
Lester acknowledged in the first season that he converted—so he can be Indian AND Jewish without conflict.
02.10.10 at 4:02 am
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02.10.10 at 6:02 pm
no problem with his being Indian and Jewish—it’s pretty clear, after all. My problem is that a guy who says he keeps kosher, and keeps a picture of himself as bar mitzva boy (he converted pretty young, that’s for sure) by his bed, should probably make “Jewish” a prerequisite for his wife. And “Jewish woman of color” would have been fine, and it would have been a nice set up for a joke about how Morgan would have to help him get Padma Lakshmi to convert. At any rate, I have spoken—Lester is a great Jewish character, but I want to see TV’s last taboo broken—a happy, young Jewish couple.