Jewish World Review May 13, 1999/ 27 Iyar, 5759

Elliot B. Gertel

During the "sweeps," religion suffers

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT Hollywood producer David E. Kelley has pushed his animus of all things sacred as far as he can, he surprises yet again.

It's sweeps time, and leave it to Kelley to go to any length to make sure his highly successful series, The Practice, remains that way.

In a recent hyper-hyped episode, titled "Do Unto Others", Eugene, the black, heavy-set lawyer, defends a popular middle-aged rabbi (Michael Tucker, an alum of Kelley's L.A. Law) who is charged with raping a 23-year-old black woman. Viewers learns from the rabbi himself that he engaged in "forceable, but consensual" sex with the young woman. We also learn, from the woman, that while the rabbi made it clear to her that "intermarriage" was unthinkable, he kept asking for "dates" from the time they met as counselors at a drug rehabilitation center. The rabbi also confides in his attorney that he believed that the woman's repeated efforts to break up with him were intended to excite his rage and to result in "rough sex."

What is clear after only a few minutes of the episode is that this is one warped rabbi. Kelley, who is also the writer here, makes sure that the rabbi is branded an aberration when he has his eccentric Jewish character, attorney Ellenor, observe: "You know, there are thousands of model rabbis out there. Why is it the ones who come in here are all criminals?"

"Because we're criminal defense attorneys," her boss reminds her.

Yet this is a very mild disclaimer indeed when one considers the temper and the implications of the rest of the hour. For here, it is not so much the rabbi, as the synagogue board of directors, who are the offenders and the exploiters of people and the law.

The board members are depicted with intimidating camera angles as a round table of arrogant power brokerage in the name of fund raising. They want the firm's black attorney (Steve Harris) to defend their rabbi against the black woman, and they have a large "settlement fund" to buy the freedom of the "enormously popular rabbi essential to our fund raising."

Kelley envisions these Jews as conducting their meetings in the chapel of the synagogue, and their rabbis meets with his attorney in the sanctuary.

(Hadn't the congregation which lent its beautiful facilities to this vicious fare read and discussed the script and the concept of the episode?)

The spokesman for the (all-male) board turns out to be a savvy lawyer, who pushes the black attorney into the ethically questionable act of trying to bribe the young woman before the trial begins, exhorting the rabbi's attorney: "If this goes to trial, you'll know what you'll do to the girl."

Indeed, the emotionally powerful theme of the episode is not so much the "rapist rabbi," as a member of the defense(!) law firm contemptuously describes him. Rather, it's the tragedy of a black lawyer forced to impugn the reputation of a promising young woman of his own race, in public and on the witness stand, because of a manipulative synagogue board that insists on protecting its "popular rabbi" from the wheels of justice.

We learn that once before the board had paid off a woman to claimed to have been raped by the rabbi. The refrain of Kelley's depiction of synagogue politics is, "The synagogue handled it" --- namely, the rabbi's getting off scott free.

When the black lawyer invades a board meeting, charging them with perverting justice (with money, of course) in order that their rabbi can keep them in the "best wood for pews" and the "fanciest temple in town," the dominant lawyer responds that lawyers have no rights to get the whole truth from a client (even a rabbi or synagogue board), and that when lawyers take on a case, they have a duty to see it through. He sends the rabbi's lawyer to work on his summation, just as the D.A. is doing. We've checked you out, he tells the African-American, and know that you will not quit on us --- even, we can infer, if that means destroying the lives of good African-American people.

Now I'm sure that some of Kelley's best friends are Jewish (I know of some of his best Jewish friends.) I'm sure that Kelley intended to depict no more and no less than an unusually bad rabbi. He has been fascinated by Jews and Judaism and frequently deals with Jewish themes in each of his series. And he may well have intended here to make the synagogue board not so much as exploiters, but as formidable players in a system that demands tough strategy. But this is not the overall message of this episode or of Kelley's series in general when it comes to the portrayal of Jews.

How have things come to this? Why is it that Kelley depicted the synagogue board as manipulating a black man into compromising himself? Why is it that the rabbis portrayed by Kelley incite violence or commit rape, while the priests are usually framed or well-intentioned when put on trial? Could anyone have seen this coming?

Actually, this episode is the logical culmination of years of Kelley series. Tucker's old character, Stuart of L.A. Law, could act up and destroy his Christian mother-in-law's home at the first sign of anti-Semitism. On Chicago Hope the Jewish doctors were defined by their ability to act up verbally and to provoke others to act up. On Picket Fences the attorney Wambaugh proclaimed the right of Jews to behave obnoxiously and even unethically right in the faces of their clergy, as a test of their own self-worth and of the tolerance level of others. And Ally McBeal has already dated a rabbi for shock effect.

For a long time now, Kelley has made it clear that he regards Jews as a special, funny, perhaps bizarre people. He obsesses on Jews in his series. What he admires about them are precisely the stereotypes of nervous energy, verbal adeptness, cleverness in business and in manipulating systems, defining but non-debilitating neuroses, stinging one-liners.

At every opportunity he asks whether these are stereotypes or qualities that can lead either to achievement or treachery, perspective or hypocrisy.

It is almost as if he wants to see his Jews denuded of any of the scruples and beliefs of Judaism so that he can let them demonstrate what they are and do in and of themselves. So Wambaugh of Picket Fences can exult in being a "character" without having to improve himself by the standards of Jewish beliefs and practices.

The rabbis, however, cannot extricate themselves from Judaism. So they may be skirtchasers or zealots, but they are always talking about vengeance and money and deals and minor points of Jewish Law. Kelley sees rabbis in the terms of the most vicious canards about the Pharisees, and he regards Jews as amusing and colorful to the extent that they break away from Judaism.

The board in this episode of The Practice is representative of how Kelley sees synagogue Jews and Judaism Jews.

That, at least, is the impression that he gives, particularly on this offering of The Practice. If Kelley has not meant to give this impression, then he ought to look into himself and ask why he is giving it. For he has already come to the point where, in the worst tradition of the film, Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), he has portrayed the Jewish Jews as exploiters and the rank-and-file blacks as sexually loose and violent, in order to glorify the "exceptional blacks" and the "normal white people."

It's all in this episode, folks, for anyone to check.

The ramifications of this episode are not only about David Kelley and The Practice , but are all about ABC network officials, too. For days that network announced with pride the "rapist rabbi" episode. The promotions permeated its news programs as well as its entertainment schedule.

Last year, Catholics complained about ABC and its owners, Disney, for their depiction of priests and nuns in films and in the troubled, short-lived series, Nothing Sacred. Could it be that now the Jewish community is reaping the consequences of failing to speak up then?