Details Mag: Jews Are Smoking Hot
Congratulations, Jewish women: You are officially “the ethnic fetish du jour.”
So says the men’s magazine Details, which bestows the dubious honor in an article in its December issue, informing readers that “America can’t get enough smoking-hot Semitic tush.”
Reporting that Jewish women’s unglamorous “Fran Drescher rep” is a thing of the past, the article cites the “smoldering image” of actresses Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Rachel Bilson, describing the performers as “cultural mutts…who have little in common beyond sultriness and Star of David necklaces.”
The group’s newfound desirability is doubly impressive, the magazine adds, because of the demographic odds against it, noting that Jews represent a “truly tiny minority” at just 2.2% of America’s population.
The article finds further evidence for its claims in the world of pornography — specifically the subgenre known as “frum porn,” which it describes as “raunchy photos of religious Jews getting busy” — and goes on to interview two Jewish porn stars, including “hard-core superstar” Joanna Angel, who says she grew up in an Orthodox household and fasts on Yom Kippur.
Jewish men, for their part, recently enjoyed their own golden age as objects of desire, a trendiness that the article attributes to the “cuddly schlubbiness” of Jewish characters in the comedies of Judd Apatow. Jewish women’s accomplishment is even more impressive, however, because these women exert their appeal through “sexual energy” — and because they’ve had to displace “the old stinging JAP stereotype of frigidity, whininess, and big hair.”
Culture, the magazine suggests, may lie at the heart of Jewish women’s appeal. “It’s no secret that the Jews are comparatively cool about sex,” opines the author of the article, Christopher Noxon. “From the racy Purim story of hottie concubine Queen Esther” to the works of Philip Roth and Erica Jong, “the Jewish tradition is a veritable orgy compared with Christian culture.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
