"This is rigorous, passionate, readable television criticism."-David Marc, author of Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture

"By offering a savvy and sophisticated history of how television has showcased Jewish characters, Vincent Brook manages to illuminate both the permutations of Jewish status in pop culture and the openness of an inescapable medium to ethnic persistence. As a result, Something Ain't Kosher Here is a compulsively readable book."-Stephen Whitfield, Department of American Studies, Brandeis University

From 1989 through 2002 there was an unprecedented surge in American sitcoms featuring explicitly Jewish protagonists, thirty-three compared to seven in the previous forty years. Several of these-Seinfeld, Mad About You, The Nanny, and Friends-were among the most popular and influential of all television shows over this period. Viewers also saw a rising number of "Jewish" dramatic series and Jewish supporting characters overall. Vincent Brook asks two key questions: Why has this trend appeared at this particular historical moment and what is the significance of this phenomenon for Jews and for non-Jews?

Interviews with key writers, producers, and "showrunners" such as David Kohan (Will and Grace), Marta Kauffman (Friends), Peter Mehlman and Carol Leifer (Seinfeld) and close readings of individual series provoke the inescapable conclusion that we have entered uncharted "post-Jewish" territory. Brook contends that the acceptance of Jews in mainstream white America threatens the historically unique insider/outsider status of Jews in society. No reader of this book will ever be able to watch these television programs in quite the same way again.

Vincent Brook is an adjunct professor in film and television at California State University and Pierce College in Los Angeles. He has also worked as a film editor and screenwriter and published a number of articles in noted film journals.