Jewish TV Characters

Dr. Cristina Yang, "Grey's Anatomy"

With a B.A. from Smith College, a Ph.D. from Berkeley in Biochemistry and an M.D. from Stanford University, Seattle Grace resident Dr. Cristina Yang has the competitive drive of any Jewish or Asian girl – and coincidentally, she's a combination of the two. Though her first and foremost loyalties are to science, Dr. Yang also considers herself Jewish. At nine years old, Yang witnessed the death of her biological father, and shortly after, her mother Helen remarried to oral surgeon Dr. Saul Rubenstein and converted to Judaism.

Yang spent the rest of her childhood growing up Jewish, which she has revealed in tiny pieces throughout the series. In one second season episode of "Grey's," Yang is appalled when her live-in boyfriend Dr. Preston Burke brings home a Christmas tree to a Jewish girl. Early on in the next season, she helps console her fellow intern Izzie Stevens, who is consumed by grief at the death of her love, by sharing with her the age-old Jewish rituals of shiva.

Cyrus Rose, "Gossip Girl"

Cyrus Rose enters the cast of "Gossip Girl" in the show's second season, when he begins dating and eventually marries socialite fashion designer Eleanor Waldorf, mother of the often ruthless but admired Upper East Side high school social queen, Blair. Though Blair initially snubs the short, warm-hearted bald man, she makes an unprecedented decision to turn to Cyrus for relationship advice, and they end up bonding over bagels and lox. Mid second season, Cyrus marries Blair's mother under a gold-fringed chuppah, in a ceremony jointly conducted by a rabbi and an Episcopal priest.

At the wedding, Blair has so warmed up to her new stepfather that she says to friend Nate Archibald, "I'm not maternal, I've just been spending too much time with Cyrus and I'm turning Jewish. Come on, I see kugel."

Toward the end of season two, Cyrus and Eleanor host quite an unforgettable Passover seder. All day, Eleanor had been nervously preparing the details of the seder to appease her mother-in-law, yet a cascade of mishaps disrupt the endless evening. Cyrus – a veteran attorney – shuffles between reading the Haggadah and solving Blair's best friend Serena's legal quandary, an inadvertent teenage marriage during a weekend tryst in Spain.

Erin Silver, "90210"

Half sister of David Silver and Kelly Taylor from the original "90210" series, Erinis West Beverly Hills High School's half-Jewish, bipolar video blogger and writer, who usually just goes by her last name, "Silver." Technically, Erin and David are Jewish only on their father's side, but David openly identified himself with the religion in the previous series.

Among Erin's seemingly wild behaviors include her broadcasts a sex tape of herself and her boyfriend. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Silver decides to transfer to a local Catholic high school, in hopes of avoiding the gossip and ridicule that she'd likely face back at West Bev. Ultimately, however, she knows nothing about Catholicism and ends up the prey of more catty torment.

By the end of the season – and after turning down a prom queen title – Silver decides that she'll be coming back to West Beverly the next school year. But her relationship's future is not quite as clear, when she finds herself kissing Ethan, instead of her boyfriend Dixon.

Neil Goldman, "Family Guy"

Squeaky lisp, retainer and all, Neil is the quintessential high school nerd who devotes his time to operating audiovisual equipment and soliciting Meg Griffin's unrequited affections. He is son to Muriel and Mort Goldman, a neurotic Jewish pharmacist and friend of Peter Griffin, Meg's father. Complementing his bright orange hair, a massive over-bight and pale, freckly skin, Neil sports a bright blue AV hat and thick plastic-framed glasses with a tight-belted, all-green wardrobe.

Occasionally, he does succeed in winning Meg's affections, when she finds herself dating him by contract, to pay away her father's pharmacy debt. Most of Neal's luck with Meg comes from external forces – and no, not Star Wars forces; Neal is a born and bred Trekkie. In fact, Neal finds himself under sexual siege by Meg's mom, Lois, at a fake Star Trek convention, where she lures him into a betraying situation that immediately nullifies said contract.

Susie Greene, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

Susie Greene, Jeff Greene and Larry David are the Jewish triumvirate of the HBO sitcom "Curb Your Enthusiasm" – many of the other characters, like Richard Lewis, are also Jewish, but these are without a doubt your title three. Played by comedienne Susie Essman, Susie Greene is the foul-mouthed, perpetually opinionated wife of Jeff Greene, writer/actor Larry David's agent.

While all three characters are certainly Jewish, Susie's argumentative, heavy New York accent is probably the loudest testament toward their shared background. Nothing ever gets past Susie, including her husband Jeff's ridiculous schemes with Larry, both of whom are frequent recipients of her f-word rants.

Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

Though Larry's Jewish background is prominent throughout every season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," his culture is particularly prominent in Season 5. In the opening episode of the season, Larry is proud to have a sandwich named after him at Leo's Delicatessen, until he finds out that his honor comes in the form of whitefish, sable, onions, capers and cream cheese. That combo might make some people's mouths water at Shabbat luncheon, including his elderly father, but the old man ends up requiring immediate hospitalization after eating it.

In that same episode, in a jab at synagogue prayer policies, Larry has to purchase scalped tickets in order to attend Rosh Hashanah services with the Greenes. Several episodes later, the Davids accidentally host a sex offender at their Passover seder.

Chris Taub, "House"

Despite his typically Christian name "Chris," Dr. Chris Taub is a Jewish plastic surgeon on Dr. Gregory House's team in the medical drama "House," along with fellow Jewish doctors James Wilson and Lisa Cuddy. Though Taub claims that he's in love with his wife, he also cheats on her regularly, which is well known to several of his colleagues.

While treating a chasidic patient later in the fourth season, Taub reveals that he himself is non-practicing and doesn't like many Orthodox practices. Both he and Wilson are the frequent both victims of House's politically incorrect comments, which include some Jewish jokes here and there. But only Taub receives Houses's "gold Star of David" from the master for his work.

Lisa Cuddy, "House"

Dr. Lisa Cuddy, another Jewish doctor in the medical drama "House," is the dean of medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Throughout the series, we get the idea that she and Dr. House at one point had a romantic history, and she is one of the only doctors who refuses to tolerate his obnoxious behaviors. At the end of season 5, House even dreams about sleeping with Cuddy while he's under the influence of Vicodin.

As far as her Jewish background, there have been hints at her religion since early on in the series. In season two, Dr. House suggests that Cuddy's efforts on JDate aren't going so well, and the following year, she has a Chanukah menorah during the winter holidays. By season 5, however, we receive official confirmation that Cuddy is Jewish, when she invites Dr. House to the simchat bat, or naming ceremony, of her adopted daughter.

Detective John Munch, "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit"

The only thing Detective John Munch has in common with Judaism is that he doesn't like to work on Saturdays, he says. But he is also completely Jewish, born and bred.

While Munch originally appeared in character on the show "Homicide: Life on the Street," today he works with Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson and the rest of the crew on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit." Like the other detectives, Munch faces a slew of personal problems, including drug experimentation prior to his career as a cop, as well as relationship troubles: he has been divorced four times. In one episode, Stabler discovers Munch's uncle – thought to be living in Florida like any elderly Jew – homeless on the streets of New York and guilty of a murder.

A bit older than the other detectives, Munch uses his keen experience to his advantage and is known for his aptitude for uncovering tiny details. Back in the ninth season – we're about to start season 11 in September – Munch passed the exam to become a sergeant in the unit.

Ari Gold, "Entourage"

The merciless agent for a young Hollywood A-list movie star Vincent Chase, Ari Gold is a Reform Jew with a wife and two children. In the HBO hit series "Entourage," his character comes directly from show producer Mark Wahlberg's real-life agent, Ari Emmanuel. In between jaunts around the world with Chase's posse, Gold remains a devoted husband and father and notably throws his daughter Sarah a lavish bat mitzvah.

But Gold never stops doing business – not even on Yom Kippur. Though his wife stripped him of his cell phone before they went to services, he had to find a way to close a last minute deal for Chase. So he slips out of services to negotiate, oversized white yarmulke still perched on his head. When his daughter spots him out there, Gold instructs her to lie to her mom that he's sick in the bathroom, adding, "That is the beauty of Yom Kippur. As long as you apologize by sundown it doesn't matter what you do."

Benjamin Katz, "Desperate Housewives"

After having an inadvertent bris and gaining a Jewish stepfather, little Benjamin Katz is being raised Jewish by his mother Danielle Van De Klamp Katz.

The daughter of desperate housewife Bree Hodge and Rex Van De Klamp, Danielle entered the first season of Desperate Housewives as the president of her high school's abstinence club. But by season three, she is pregnant with the child of classmate Austin McCann and refuses to have an abortion. During her pregnancy, her parents send her away, and meanwhile her mother Bree pretends that she is the one who's pregnant.

After Danielle gives birth to her new son Ben, Bree takes temporary custody of the child and decides to get him circumcised despite her husband Orson Hodge's wishes. Orson forbids all local hospitals from performing the procedure, but Bree successfully sneaks around his back – she gets the baby a bris by convincing a rabbi that he's Jewish.

Five years pass and by the beginning of the fifth season, Danielle is married to Leo Katz and had taken her son back from her mother a few years before. The young couple decides to raise Ben Jewish, and he conveniently enough already has a rabbi's blessing.