Season 3 of our favorite show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, wrapped up on February 16. While we wait for the CW to announce a renewal (🙏), we decided to round up our favorite Jewish jokes over the course of the three seasons. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years and don’t know anything about the show, the plot centers on a Jewish New York lawyer Rebecca Bunch (played by Rachel Bloom) who moves to West Covina, California over a camp boyfriend. Oh, also it’s a musical. A very Jewish one at that.
In the style of the 10 Best Jewish Jokes on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, here’s our favorite Jewish jokes on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Honorable mentions:
· Rebecca to Audra Levine (Season 2, Episode 10): “Hey, remember when I had sex with your husband. Yeah. As he finished he called me ‘Mom.’ Have fun unpacking that. Mazel tov.”
· Darryl and Rebecca (Season 1, Episode 1):
Darryl: But I’m in the middle of a divorce….And my wife, well, she’s got a very powerful pit bull lawyer. I mean, this guy’s amazing. One of those real smart Jewish guys.
Rebecca: I’m sorry, I’m-I’m I’m Jewish.
Darryl: Really?
Rebecca: Yeah, but it’s okay.
Darryl: I—I honestly had no idea. That is a tiny nose. It’s like a button.
Rebecca: Thank you.
· Rebecca to Josh (Season 2, Episode 2): “It’s called noodle kugel. It’s a Jewish thing. I figured, I don’t know, I’ve had your people’s food. You’ve never had my people’s food. […] It’s my bubbe’s recipe. Oh, bubbe would’ve hated you. She was really racist. It was a different time, but still wrong.”
· Everything Naomi says in Season 2, Episode 10
The Best Jewish Jokes
10. Moshe, Diamonds, discounts (Season 1, Episode 16)
Rebecca: I helped my client, Moshe, through a very complicated subdivision deal, and he said he could hook me up with non-blood diamonds at a discount. And never pass up a good discount, right? I know what you’re thinking — like, diamonds, discounts, those are some like classic Jew moves, you know?
Rebecca admires Josh’s sister’s engagement ring, that she helped pick out. This crams a ton of Jewish stereotypes into one joke — self-deprecating, Moshe, diamonds, discounts, Jewish noses — yet somehow lands.
9. Chanukah/Hanukah/Hanukkah (Season 1, Episode 8)
A simple visual gag of Rebecca hanging up Hanukkah banners that spell the holiday three different ways.
8. Soju / “So Jew” (Season 2, Episode 8)
A really quick throwaway line when Rebecca brings Paula’s son to a club where they’re promoting a drink called “soju.” Rebecca, of course, hears “so Jew” and indignantly calls the bartender a Nazi. Blink and you could’ve missed it, but I kept laughing for a while.
7. “Always Questioning” (Season 2, Episode 10)
Really, this entire episode — “Will Scarsdale Like Josh’s Shayna Punim?” — was *full* of gems, it was hard to choose specific moments. It’s the most Jewish episode of the entire series (perhaps because it is set in Scarsdale and features Patti LuPone as the rabbi). Yet this one joke, where the rabbi asks Rebecca if she’s found a synagogue in West Covina, perfectly encapsulates Jewish guilt and modern Jewish religious identity.
6. Bishop in Wisconsin (Season 1, Episode 8)
Okay, maybe this is cheating because it’s in a song but this line is simply too good not to include on this list. In the midst of singing “Where’s the Bathroom?”, Naomi (played by the amazing Tovah Feldshuh) mentions that her synagogue is now boycotting cheddar cheese because of anti-Semitism in Wisconsin. It hits the nail right on the head of how synagogues — and the Jewish community at large — respond to small instances of anti-Semitism. May as well boycott cheese!
5. Skyler’s Torah Portion (Season 2, Episode 10)
Back to that Scarsdale episode, but oh my god was this joke good. Everyone knows someone who had the dreaded menstruation and lepers Torah portion; they stumbled their way through the d’var torah and just made the best of it. Rebecca and Naomi’s glee at Skyler getting the Torah portion (and cousin Stuey messing it up years ago) is spot-on.
4. Jew Guilt (Season 3, Episode 2)
At the start of Season 3, Rebecca is determined to get revenge on Josh. So she turns to the worst person she knows: Nathaniel. In “Strip Away My Conscience,” Rebecca sings to Nathaniel, “Strip away my conscience/ Tear away my Jew guilt/ Kiss around my sense of right and wrong.” In a song that is focused on her being bad, wanting to go to the dark side, this small line where she wants to be ripped of her “Jew guilt” worked extremely well.
3. Jewish geography (Season 2, Episode 10)
Yes, we’re back at the Scarsdale episode. No, I don’t care that it’s half this list. It defines Jewish geography (and we love Jewish geography). David (Audra’s husband) attempts to connect with Josh, who “basically” lives in Los Angeles. If Josh were Jewish, this obviously would’ve worked. Instead, David tries: Jeremy Stein, Josh Berger, Sam Goldberg, Sammy Goldberg. Don’t forget Camp Nock-A-Mixon (real) and Camp Winadu (also real). The delivery was flawless.
The Top 2:
The two most Jewish songs on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend also have the highest amount (and funniest) Jewish jokes of all three seasons, so we had to give them their own category.
2. “Remember That We Suffered” (Yes, the Scarsdale episode)
The song has an amazing concept (and comes from the best Hanukkah comedy album): using hora music to talk about the Holocaust.
1.”JAP Battle” (Season 1, Episode 13)
“JAP Battle” is filled to the brim with amazing one-liners; taken all together, the song is the best example of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doing Jewish jokes. It’s full of insider references that only its Jewish viewers will fully get — and it’s the song that made me start watching the show. The lines talking about Westchester, Scarsdale, the ACLU, “sheket bevaka shut the fuck up,” AEPI guys, a young Jewish professionals party called the Matzo Ball, Birthright, “egged on like seder plates,” salty like the Dead Sea…. it well deserves the #1 slot.
