Rachel Green: Jewish

I always thought she was a shiksa. They were clear that Monica and Ross were Jewish but I don't remember them ever making a point that Rachel was. As for the name, I happen to know some Greens and they are Presbyterian.

FRIENDS always had a specifically NYC Jewish sensibility, even among network sitcoms. The creators, Marta Kaufman and David Crane both went to Brandeis, a predominantly Jewish university, and moved to NYC after college to work in theatre. (Crane is gay.)

All of the characters felt very Jewish to me, even the Italian-American Joey and the WASPy Chandler.

As the author of the book The One About Friends wrote, in television terms calling a character Rachel is like calling her Shoshanna.

If I think Jewish sitcom in the 1990's I think The Nanny or Seinfeld, not Friends, other than the Chanukah Armadillo.

r3 TV writers and producers might get it but most of the public don't.

Well one reason the audience didn’t get it is that the show cast not-Jewish Jennifer Aniston as Rachel.

Why has this topic already been lined out? Weird.

As for Rachel being Jewish, I think that there are lots of things that contradict this, without being able to list any offhand.

Why is the name Green automatically thought of as Jewish?

Okay, now the topic isn't lined out anymore. Are these things reversible through using the W&W button or did Muriel have a slip of the hand? I thought it was all decided by F&Fs.

He was clearly coded (secular) Jewish from the beginning. It’s just that most people aren’t very clever and don’t understand things unless they are spelt out in big block letters.

Rachel is best friends in school with Jewish Monica, gets a nose job after graduating High School, her father is a walking stereotype of the loud pushy brash Jewish doctor from Long Island, she calls her grandma “Bubbe”...

*She

Another day, another thread full of obsessed anti-Jewish scum.

Jennifer Aniston is already a 50 years old granny by now and people are still discussing her 20yo character and show that ended more than 15 years ago.

I think the thread was lined out, R7, because OP has posted anti-Jewish, conspiracy-theory stuff elsewhere on Datalounge.

r14 No, I haven't.🙄

But now I know who was the crazy cunt who FFed me in just A FEW MINUTES of my posting this thread.

Do tell, how many browsers did you use to get me temporarily banned, Mister Anscher?

"spin the dreidel, rachel"

I always assumed Rachel was Jewish. Her fiance was Barry the dentist and she was initially written as a spoiled JAP (no offense) who was dependent on her father's credit cards.

As of a few hours ago, trolldar was showing otherwise, R15. And you were already greyed out when I first noticed your thread, which was why I was curious. You didn't need any F&Fs from me, but your unhinged response shows that you would have deserved them.

The same year, NBC added another Rachel Greene, Mark Greene's daughter on ER. I don't remember if Mark was supposed to be Jewish or not.

r18 A story from The Guardian or the New York Times is not a "conspiracy theory". You're the one's who's unhinged if that's what you think. You can go now.

Thread drama!!!!

Didn’t they refer to Rachel as Jewish in the holiday armadillo episode?

R18, nobody likes a hall monitor. Be gone, you tireless cunt. Xoxo 💋

It was obvious in the first episode that Rachel was Jewish. It was clear in the episodes with her parents that they were Jewish.

Why is this up for discussion now?

Next you'll be trying to convince me that Tovah Feldshuh is Jewish.

Most young dna that worship this show are WASPs and think they’re watching 6 WASPs.

Chandler is the only true WASP of the group.

r8, I don't know, but it is interesting to note that in the 80's sitcom "The Facts of Life," the Natalie Green character was also supposed to be Jewish.

Interesting thread.

The creators of Friends were slammed for "de-Judaizing" the obviously Jewish characters (Rachel, Ross and Monica) even going as far as to make Ross and Monica's mother Christian.

The generally accepted reason was that the (mostly Jewish) studio executives were afraid that Americans (and people outside the US when the show went into international syndication) would not warm to Jewish characters.

Seinfeld was another example of a show with four clearly Jewish characters where they made Elaine a WASP, George Italian and very rarely explicitly mentioned Jerry's Jewish background.

Both shows had tons of not all that subtle reminders that Jews (or people who knew a lot of Jews) easily picked up on.

Rachel, as R17 noted, embodied EVERY SINGLE JEWISH -AMERICAN PRINCESS STEREOTYPE: Didn't have a real job, was going to marry a wealthy dentist, had a nose job, called her grandmother "Bubbe", got jobs as a buyer at Ralph Lauren and Bloomingdale's.... the list is pretty endless. Even casting Aniston, who while Greek, looked the part.

And then her parents, as played by Marlo Thomas and Ron Leibman- seriously, is Ron Leibman ever cast as a Gentile? And again, two over the top stereotypes of JAPPY parents from Long Island, the loud demanding cardiologist and his fashion obsessed wife.

They all but shouted at the viewers (especially the Jewish viewers) "SEE SHE'S REALLY JEWISH!! THE NETWORK JUST WON'T LET US SAY IT!!!"

Even Seinfeld, with Jerry's parents and "Boca Del Vista Phase 2" and all that are Jewish in-jokes.

Compare that with "Transparent" which, when you take away the "Trans" part is the Jewy-est show ever on TV, where the lives of the decidedly non-religious characters still revolve around Jewish holidays and customs, the way the Friends would have--Rachel's divorced parents would have been feuding over whose Passover seder she was going to-- things like that.

Who gives a fuck?

This is from the Friends fandom Wiki, which I discovered while double-checking the profession of Rachel's father:

[quote] Like many of the characters on the show, including his wife and daughter, Dr. Green is a traditional Jewish stereotype: the overbearing, oft-critical doctor.

GREEN as in MONEY, which JEWESS' love.

r31, is an anti-Semitic bigot.

Shun her gals!

R31 is also the Anti-Smoking Troll, the one who has been posting all the "Should smokers be denied last rites" type threads for the past few days.

I am not, you are JEWESS attempting to spoil my reputation, but it's too late, we all know about your hankering for those GEEEN bills, r33.

I always that Rachel was the quintessential Long Island JAP...and Rachel is a popular name amongst the Jews.

Maybe more people would have picked up on it if her sisters were also given Jewish names. Amy, Jill - those are pretty generic white girl names.

Everyone in Hollywood is Jewish, its practically a requirement. What's interesting about a sitcom character being Jewish? it's not like jews are an underrepresented group

Didn’t they also cast WASPs as her sisters? Like come on.

R38 Thought one of her sisters was Reese Witherspoon. Isn't Reese just an entitled Christian bitch from the South?

Yes R39. That’s what I’m saying. Reese is a WASP they cast as her sister and Christina Applegate the other

Jill and Amy are both very common names for Jewish women of that age R36. (Whereas other white girl names like Maureen or Christine are not.)

As are Leonard and Sandra and Ross.

Also, R36 and R40, the casting of WItherspoon and Applegate, while in many ways stunt casting (both were fairly well known at the time) was criticized because it seemed the studio was backtracking on Rachel's Jewishness, given Aniston, Thomas and Leibman and her backstory.

You know what other group that is well represented in Hollywood is the first to tell showrunners not to make a character so "obvious" because the mass of American and overseas audiences won't find the character relatable?

Friends was a typical 90s show. All white characters, characters the Hollywood bosses liked back at the time (white, Jewish, straight), no black or gay friends, often making fun of gays, no interracial couples, "white" storylines.

Compare this to the political correct current shows: At least one black or gay character, all white characters have at least a black friend (or vice versa), everywhere interracial couples etc. The 90s were any interesting time. No one gave a fuck about political correctness.

I never watched this show, don't think I ever saw a full episode, but even I figured a character named Rachel Green living in NYC was Jewish.

[quote] The 90s were any interesting time. No one gave a fuck about political correctness.

Are you kidding? Were you alive and oblivious, or are you young and just pulling this out of your ass?

One more on the Jewish casting-- Rachel's college BFF Mindy (another very popular name with Semites of a certain age) was played by Jennifer Grey.

And one last one-- Rachel's sorority sister (probably at Syracuse, though they never mentioned it) was played by Winona Ryder

[quote]Friends was a typical 90s show. All white characters, characters the Hollywood bosses liked back at the time (white, Jewish, straight), no black or gay friends, often making fun of gays, no interracial couples, "white" storylines.

I doubt you actually watched the show. Ross was given not one but two nonwhite girlfriends (neither lasted too long) after the show had been called out publicly for its overt racism. Even in the 90s.

It reminds me of SEX AND THE CITY, which also scrambled to do damage control (bringing in Blair Underwood, who was terrific) after really fucking up the race stuff.

None of this goes unscrutinized now. And guess what? We're better off for it.

A lot of that was less about racism and more about what TPTB thought would make them the most money when they sold the shows in syndication both in the US and internationally. (That is how they make their real money)

The PC stuff first took off in the 90s if I remember correctly. I was just a kid and I loved a show called Ghostwriter. Probably the main character in the ensemble of kids was the black boy, and he had the racially balanced array of friends: the Latino siblings, the Asian girl, the Jewish(?) girl, the white kid who later moved to Australia...

OP. Honey. Her name is Green, for fuck’s sake.

FRiENDs brought in Gabrielle Union for one episode, where Joey and Ross both wanna date her.

Later, Aisha Tyler was brought in for a few episodes as Joeys girlfriend and then she ends up with Ross.

Ross and Joey were the two characters they made open to dating different women. Besides them it was all white.

They never dared have precious white washed Rachel date a non-WASP man

PS the black love interests were brought in after the show was called out for never having black characters and making NYC look like a small town in the Midwest, all white people.

PS the black love interests weren’t added until after 2000. So it falls in line with the new millennium.

It never made sense for a characters like Joey to only be with white women. He’s a man whose only intentions are getting laid by attractive women. A man like that hardly discriminates against a woman based on skin color or race, they usually discriminate based on looks and body type.

R36, "Jill" is my ultimate JAP name. The most beautiful girl in the world who went to my college, from Great Neck, was named Jill. Simply one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen. And I had a friend named Jill from Park Avenue who was such a JAP, she didn't cash her paychecks from her first job. It was more fun to harass her employers this way for underpaying her. She didn't need the money.

Yeah I knew this JAP from the Midwest that moved to NYC and didn’t even work, her daddy paid for her apartment and everything. She used his credit cards for everything.

When he did finally make her get a job he still agreed to pay her rent which was in the THOUSANDS monthly but nothing else, if she wanted to go out every night and buy new clothes etc. she had to pay for that herself.

But he still gave her an “emergency credit card”. Dumbass.

Just a small reminder -- Ross had an Asian girlfriend in season 2.

[quote]The creators of Friends were slammed for "de-Judaizing" the obviously Jewish characters (Rachel, Ross and Monica)

But when they did make a big thing about Judaism, the results were always unfortunate (Hanukkah Armadillo anyone?)

Omg I forgot about Julie 😂

But that means nothing. Asian women will sell their child for white Cock.

Reminds me of this Asian woman I met that was obsessed with her one son that came out with blond hair and blue eyes like her husband and was a total bitch to her other son that came out looking like her, Asian.

r60 Was she part white? Otherwise she couldn't have a blue-eyed child.

R61 you clearly don’t know how genetics work...

r62 Um, I know very well. I know, for example, that the alleles for blue eyes does not exist among pure Asians. It does among Europeans and to a lesser extent Middle Easterners and South/Central Asians. When Americans speak of Asians, though, they mean East Asians, which is what I'm assuming you're talking about. People who are of pure East Asian descent (Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Filipino...) can't have blue-eyed children.

Also, blue eyes are a recessive trait. Nobody can display this trait unless BOTH parents have the right alleles.

I always saw Rachel's dad as obnoxious because he was a surgeon, not because he was Jewish.

Yes, they can.

And she came here from China. Had a thick accent and broken English. Her husband had blond hair and blue eyes. Their child came out with just that.

Go back to school. I studied this also.

The two are not mutually exclusive R65, but there is a definite stereotype that Rachel's dad fit. Granted Jews may be more familiar with that stereotype than gentiles, but it exists.

I had no idea she might be Jewish.

[quote]Yes, they can.

No, they can't. This is high school stuff, honey. Here's a helpful link below.

[quote]And she came here from China

[italic]Han[/italic] Chinese? Then she for sure doesn't have blue eyes alleles, and any child of hers would come out dark-eyed.

[quote] Had a thick accent and broken English

And what does that have to do with what we're discussing here?

Blue eyes are recessive. The child has to inherit one blue gene from each parent.

The brown-eyed mother inherited one blue gene and one dominant brown gene from her parents.

You people sound dumb as fuck.

Tell that to my biracial black friend with brown eyes who had a child with a biracial black woman whose daughter came out with blue eyes. Neither has blue eyes.

Her eyes came from his MOTHER

R71... you sound dumb as fuck.

I thought we were talking about Rachel.

Anyone who went to school with Jewish kids recognized that R was a JAP, but others just saw her as spoiled and rich.

R72. No. You do.

Genetics are NOT black and white like you describe.

Eye color is... dumbfuck.

No. It isn’t. Wtf school did you go to?!

Back on topic....

Thanks, R58. Asian-American Julie is, along with (horribly underused) Aisha Tyler, one of the not white GFs of Ross I was referring to.

I don't think they ever described Phoebe's ethnic or religious background, but Lisa Kudrow, who played her, is Jewish and a doctor's daughter from Los Angeles.

[quote]And I had a friend named Jill from Park Avenue who was such a JAP, she didn't cash her paychecks from her first job. It was more fun to harass her employers this way for underpaying her. She didn't need the money.

That happened. 😒

It really did, r79. At least, she said it did.

The weird thing is if you live in a big city and go out with six friends, how often does it happen that ALL of them are white?

If I was going to meet a new person called Rachel Green from NYC I would automatically assume she would be Jewish. I’m not Jewish but come on...

[quote] The weird thing is if you live in a big city and go out with six friends, how often does it happen that ALL of them are white?

If you are the Friends age R81, and from an upper middle class background as the core four were, I would say there would be a higher than 90% likelihood, especially given how they are connected to each other--three from the same hometown + college roommate.

If you are in your 20s, then I'd take a guess that there's a 30% chance that one of the six would be Asian

I was about 5 or 10 years older than the characters on Friends and lived in New York. Sorry, but it was weird how they lived in such a white world, when NYC in the 80s and 90s was not.

Right r84, just like the all white NYC that Seinfeld and friends lived in too.

And they were BOTH NBC comedy shows in the 90's, coincidence?

I remember in my office back in the 90s we used to talk about how white the TV versions of our city were.

We did not notice that TV de-Jewed NYC. Because they played it better by making so many charactes (like Rachel and George Costanza) into cryto-Jews.

Then we know very different people or you hung with a very mixed and very gay crowd--maybe more middle or working class? More artsy?

I know that the Chelsea scene back then was much more mixed, but remember that the Friends were supposed to be basic white people, the type who live in Manhattan until they have kids and then high-tail it back to suburbia.

The only POCs that most of my straight white NYC friends knew back then (and I come from a very similar background to the Friends) were their doormen, cleaning ladies and maybe a coworker or two, but they would not socialize together outside of work and would actively avoid places they felt would have too many POCs--I distinctly remember being vetoed on a suggestion of the Dallas BBQ on W. 72nd off Columbus back then for that very reason. Things were still very segregated in most of the city.

Most of those people now live in suburbia in places like Scarsdale, Chappaqua, Short Hills and Westport and their social groups are still all white, with maybe the occasional Asian thrown in as upper middle class suburbia has seen an influx of Asians over the past ten years or so.

What the fuck is a Rachel Green and why should anyone care??

They lived in Greenwich Village, worked in offices, restaurants, colleges, and department stores. They were presented as normal people with ordinary jobs living in an ordinary NYC apartment building. We were those people and it was not credible. For most of us, the city was not segregated.

I think people wealthy enough to live in doorman buildings at such a young age may have been insulated. Such people might not be around POC---but they would not be hanging out at a coffee shop either, or have a friend who was a massage therapist or an actor.

[quote]The weird thing is if you live in a big city and go out with six friends, how often does it happen that ALL of them are white?

In the documentary White People you learn that the friends of white people in the US are 91% white.

[quote]None of this goes unscrutinized now. And guess what? We're better off for it.

No, we're really not, because now we're made to pretend that groups of friends with one Asian, one Latino, one Black and one White, (pick which one gets to be gay), are the norm in real life, and that humans don't have a natural compulsion to stick with people who look like themselves. Kind of like how we're also made to pretend that yes - six foot muscled men who put on wigs and some eyeliner and call themselves Judy are REAL women.

[quote]They never dared have precious white washed Rachel date a non-WASP man

white-washed Rachel? Rachel WAS white!

Both "Friends" and "Seinfeld" were a white person's fantasy of what NYC was like; pure and simple.

The network's were probably too afraid to show NYC as it really was/is, for fear of isolating people in the mid West and the South.

I meant "networks" and "alienating" not "isolating" in post above.

My bad.

R92--I think both shows reflected exactly how NYC was in the 90s --and still largely is today-- for the white upper middle classes.

And since both shows--Friends, in particular--were largely written by people from that background, the casting was very much in line with their life experiences.

I worked at a large management consulting company (not Bain) back then and was dating a guy who worked at a large ad agency. Both places had very few POCs who were in professional jobs (like less than 10) The creative department where he worked had none--it was all white

I remember there was one black guy who was around my age and realizing how awkward it was for him when a bunch of us would go out for drinks after work to one of the various bars in Midtown or Murray Hill. He was almost always the only black guy there and even though he was a pudgy nerdy guy with thick glasses wearing a suit, you'd see white girls nearby grab onto their handbags when he sat down at our table or when he went through the crowd to get to the bathroom. And not that he had any game to begin with, but none of them would have bothered to talk to him.

At gay bars in Chelsea and at more downtown/artsy bars and clubs the scene was way more mixed, but people like the Friends and Seinfeld crew would never go to places like that other than (maybe) as a one-time lark.

Monica and Ross were Jews and it was mentioned pretty frequently, most notably the "Holiday armadillo". episode. Religion wasn't a common theme on Frends though, and cannot remember there being references to other characters being Christian either. The claim that characters were "de jewed" is absurd, TV shows have always been filled with Jews.

r95 There were more references to Joey's Catholicism.

And an interesting fact: there's an article (to which the Wikipedia entry on Rachel links) noting that references to Monica's Judaism were far less frequent than to Ross's. Even if Ross's Jewish upbringing was mentioned in a scene that included Monica, she would stay quiet as if she and Ross had been raised in difference households (which we know they weren't).

I only remember two references to Monica's Judaism in the whole series: 1) Phoebe's Christmas song, where she wishes happy Hanukkah to Monica, and 2) one of the adoption episodes where Monica tries to pass as a pastor and Chandler reminds her that she's Jewish.

Monica and Ross's mother was a Christian. So were they practicing religious Jews since they called themselves Jews?

[quote]The weird thing is if you live in a big city and go out with six friends, how often does it happen that ALL of them are white?

Are you serious? Like, 100% of the time? But I'm old.

[quote]I think people wealthy enough to live in doorman buildings at such a young age may have been insulated.

Did their building have a doorman?

[quote]Such people might not be around POC---but they would not be hanging out at a coffee shop either, or have a friend who was a massage therapist or an actor.

Everyone who has ever lived in New York has had a friend who was an actor. Gay everyone, at least.

Re: de-Judaizing the characters-- Compare the level of outward Jewish identity the characters on Friends and Seinfeld have with the characters on more recent shows like Transparent and Mrs. Maisel, even Entourage (Ari's plot lines). It's not about religion and religious beliefs but about milestones and holidays celebrated.

So Ross's bar mitzvah/Rachel's bat mitzvah would have been a big thing, whose house they were going to for Passover or Rosh Hashanah, etc.

As for R89-- maybe we watched a different show? Ross, Monica, Rachel and Chandler all came from upper middle class families, went to private colleges, etc. Greenwich Village, even in the 90s, was far from cheap. The actor and the massage therapist were always the outliers and a decent amount of the humor came from the fact that Joey and Phoebe were so unlike the other four. Not sure what you define as "regular people" but even today NYC is far from a multiracial oasis and people tend to have friend groups that very much reflect where they came from.

R101 Maybe they weren't de-Judaized so much as secular non-religious Jews. I knew a Jewish girl, but I had no idea she was Jewish until I invited her to something at my Church. She didn't attend temple, never talked about her bat mitzvah(if she had one), nor did she ever talk about Jewish holidays.

They're fictional characters R102

R103 is certainly someone I want to discuss literature and drama with.

Jennifer Aniston is at least half Jewish, as she ages she looks more and more like Barbra Streisand

R104 isn't very good at sarcasm.

And PS, no one wants to discuss "Goodnight Moon" or "Go Dog Go!" with you.

[quote] We were those people and it was not credible. For most of us, the city was not segregated.

The series wasn't really for you. It was for people not living in NYC to fantasize about what life there would be like.

People point out that Rachel was played by the Greek Jennifer Aniston, and say that is proof of of de-Judaizing, but no one mentions that Monica, who was shown on the show to clearly be Jewish, was played by Courtney Cox, a Southern Episcopalian of English ancestry.

For someone to be observably "very good at sarcasm," r103, he must be presented with sarcasm. I don't even require "very good sarcasm." Just sarcasm.

R99, yes, R94 made a point that his all white friends lived in doorman buildings. In spite of Monica's lavish apartment, the characters on Friends were not people who could afford to live in doorman buildings (which in NYC is a sign of affluence).

Come to think of it, even now I do not know anyone who lives in a doorman building and my friends are all pretty well off.