For generations, Hollywood has been filled with Jewish voices — but Jewish identity itself has often been portrayed through a limited lens. The familiar neurotic Jewish character who complains, worries or turns traditions into a punchline has become a recurring presence on screen. The humor is often brilliant, and self-deprecation is deeply rooted in Jewish culture, but Allison Josephs believes Hollywood has rarely explored another side: ordinary Jews from all walks of life who are openly proud of and connected to their heritage.

Josephs, a writer, producer and Jewish advocate, has spent nearly two decades working to change the way Jews are portrayed in media. In 2007, she founded Jew in the City, an organization created to challenge misconceptions about Orthodox Jews through storytelling. In 2021, she expanded that mission by launching the Jewish Institute for Television & Cinema (JITC) Hollywood Bureau, an initiative dedicated to promoting authentic and nuanced portrayals of Jews, Judaism and Israel in film and television while challenging stereotypes in entertainment.

“I think there has always been a reticence in Hollywood to show Jews just unapologetically enjoying being Jewish,” Josephs said. “What you have is a certain archetype of our Larry David character who’s whining, kvetching, complaining that the service is too long and the sermon is so boring. We have Jon Stewart with a bit about why Easter is so much better than Passover, they have chocolate bunnies and chocolate eggs, and we have hard-boiled eggs. And yeah, it’s funny. Chocolate is better than a hard-boiled egg. But at the same time, why do we always have to dunk on ourselves?”

That question — how to expand the range of Jewish stories being told in Hollywood — is at the heart of JITC’s new Jewish Roots Screenwriters Collective, a fellowship designed to help working writers develop film and television projects rooted in Jewish identity, ethical traditions and moral values.

The idea began taking shape in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, when concerns about rising antisemitism were growing in Hollywood and beyond. At the Variety Antisemitism Summit in 2023, philanthropist Daniel Loeb delivered a message that stayed with Josephs.

Loeb, who is deeply committed to Jewish life but is not traditionally observant, spoke about the power of Jewish learning and encouraged the audience not simply to respond to antisemitism with complaints, but to reconnect with Jewish wisdom and texts. For Josephs, the message raised an important question: Could Jewish learning serve as a source of inspiration for Hollywood storytellers?

At the same time, Josephs was examining what had worked for other communities in improving representation in entertainment. When she launched the JITC Hollywood Bureau, her goal was to create for Jews the kinds of programs that other groups had successfully used to bring more authentic stories to the screen. But she quickly realized that the challenge facing Jewish representation was different.

Many existing writers’ labs were designed to help underrepresented groups gain access to the industry and secure opportunities. But that was not the primary obstacle for Jewish creators, Josephs noted.

“I couldn’t say to the studios: Jews need jobs. Jews don’t work in the industry — that’s not true. From the start, Jews have always had jobs in the industry,” she said. “I needed a different angle.”

Josephs said the answer was to create an initiative that would help Jewish writers reconnect with the depth of their own heritage and draw from Jewish history, traditions and values as a source of creative inspiration.

The goal was not simply to create more Jewish characters, but to encourage writers to bring more of their own heritage and lived experience into the stories they tell.

Research conducted by JITC and the Norman Lear Center’s Media Impact Project helped confirm some of Josephs’ concerns. The study found that Jewish characters were often portrayed through stereotypes and that Jewish identity was frequently minimized or hidden rather than explored in meaningful ways. It also revealed disparities in representation, including that Jewish women were less likely to be cast in Jewish roles compared with their male counterparts.

“The study gave us proof of the hunches that we had,” Josephs said. “We had hunches that stereotypes were prevalent … but what we were not expecting was that Jewish identity was hidden.” The findings helped define the purpose of the collective: helping writers draw on thousands of years of Jewish history, ethics and tradition.

The concept moved quickly from an idea to reality. Applications opened soon after the announcement, and the inaugural cohort brought together 10 working writers whose credits include “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Good Doctor,” “Physical,” “Upload,” “A Small Light,” “Dickinson,” “S.W.A.T.,” “Robot Chicken” and “Kung Fu.”

For Josephs, the program also addresses a much older tension in Jewish American history: the relationship between visibility and assimilation. For generations, many immigrant and minority communities learned to downplay aspects of their identities in order to avoid discrimination. Josephs pointed to a pattern of “covering” — changing names, altering appearances or hiding cultural practices in order to fit into the mainstream.

“Historically, different minority groups would cover when they came to work,” Josephs said. “They would use their English name instead of their ethnic name, they would straighten their hair, they would bring in American food instead of ethnic food. There was a sense for many decades in this country that the way that you protect yourself from discrimination is by flattening your identity and erasing your identity and kind of becoming more of the American norm.”

Other communities, she said, have since moved away from that model, embracing the idea that visibility and pride can lead to greater acceptance. Josephs believes Jewish representation is now at a similar crossroads. For many early Jewish Hollywood pioneers, assimilation was often viewed as a path to safety and success. Many of Hollywood’s founders were Jewish immigrants who escaped antisemitism in Europe only to encounter discrimination in the United States.

“There were industries that shut Jews out — real estate, law, medicine and others,” said Josephs. “So Jews went out and built their own institutions, including hospitals, law firms and, eventually, Hollywood. But the message they received was that even in America, they would be safer and more accepted if they were a little less Jewish.” And so, while Hollywood has always been very Jewish, you could never be too explicitly Jewish.  “That was exactly frowned on,” said Josephs.

The Jewish Roots Screenwriters Collective was created, in part, to challenge that legacy by giving writers new creative tools. Rather than relying on familiar tropes, participants explored Jewish texts and traditions as a foundation for developing characters, conflicts and narratives.

The workshop was organized around core Jewish values, including courage, joy, shalom bayit (peace in the home) and teshuvah (return or transformation). Writers examined how these concepts appeared in Jewish sources and how they could inform contemporary storytelling.

Could a character draw courage from the example of King David? Could a story explore the importance of choosing peace over resentment within a family? Could Jewish traditions around joy, responsibility and repairing relationships inspire new kinds of characters? By reconnecting writers with these sources, Josephs hoped the program would provide not only inspiration for their work, but also a deeper connection to Judaism.

The projects that emerged reflected a wide range of genres and perspectives — from young adult stories and science fiction to historical dramas and contemporary relationships. Several writers explored the relationship between Black and Jewish communities, a topic Josephs said felt particularly timely as many people seek ways to strengthen connections between the two groups.

One project explored a love story that, at its core, could resonate with any audience — but featured characters from different Jewish ethnic backgrounds. For Josephs, that captured the larger goal: creating Jewish stories that are universal in their themes while allowing Jewish identity to exist naturally within the narrative.

Josephs said writers were encouraged not to make Judaism itself the central conflict, but to tell stories in which Jewish characters experience the same universal emotions, relationships and challenges as everyone else. She noted that this reflects a broader shift in Hollywood, where other communities have also pushed for stories that are not defined solely by identity struggles.

“The story and the conflict should be a human conflict, a universal conflict,” Josephs said. “The tapestry of the story is the identity that just folds in.”

The same philosophy applied across genres, including a sitcom centered around a family — a story designed to appeal to a broad audience, with Jewish identity woven naturally into the characters and their world.

The response, Josephs said, exceeded expectations. The writers described the experience as personally meaningful, saying it strengthened their connection to Judaism, influenced the stories they wanted to tell and helped build a new sense of community. Industry executives and producers who participated as mentors and panelists were also impressed by the range and originality of the projects.

For Josephs, the question of representation extends beyond Jewish characters to portrayals of Israel and Israelis on screen. She believes there has been a shift in recent years, particularly after Oct. 7, with Israeli characters increasingly depicted through the lens of violence and brutality.

Historically, Israeli characters in Hollywood were often associated with military or security roles — the Mossad agent, the soldier or the character skilled in Krav Maga — but they were generally portrayed as protagonists or figures audiences were meant to support. Josephs believes that portrayal has changed.

“We are seeing an increase in Israeli characters being more violent in recent years,” she said. “We are seeing the blood libel and the viciousness of the violence being directed at Israeli characters when they used to be characters basically involved in fighting but they were the good guys.”

Asked whether such portrayals influence viewers’ perceptions of Israel and Israelis, Josephs said the impact of media representation is well documented. “One thousand percent,” she said. “There is a ton of research showing from other communities, and we’re working on more research now since the Norman Lear study, that what people see on the screen influences what they think of the group.”

Josephs pointed to research showing that positive and complex portrayals can help humanize communities that audiences may not otherwise understand. She cited studies examining the impact of shows such as “Will & Grace” on attitudes toward LGBTQ people, as well as research on the representation of Black and Muslim communities.

“These are called impact studies,” she said. “The good representation makes people think better about the community, and the bad representation makes people feel worse about the community.”

As the inaugural cohort moves forward with their projects, Josephs hopes their work will help expand the way Jewish stories are imagined in Hollywood — moving beyond stereotypes and toward characters whose Jewish identities add depth to their stories rather than define them completely.