Big Love’s Resident Kibbutznik
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The first appearance came in the first episode of the third season, which debuted this week. The character in question was not some strange caricature, as outwardly Jewish television characters often are, wearing yarmulkes or speaking with a Yiddish inflection. True to HBO’s interest in Israel — see the Forward story about “In Treatment” and “A Touch Away” — “Big Love” presented us with Ladonna, the Israeli wife of a Native American. The character, played by the Israeli actress Noa Tishby, was a beautiful, abrasive woman of the world who showed no shame in grilling the main characters on their polygamy and beliefs about Native Americans — forcing them to renounce the Mormon church’s old beliefs. This is the sort of tolerant, intolerant Israeli that is familiar to anyone who has been to Tel Aviv, and she shone like some strange gem in the Utah desert landscape of the show.
Ladonna, who is on the episode helping her Native American husband negotiate a casino deal, was only on screen for a single scene, but she clearly made an impression, sparking online chatter about where she came from and what she represented; was she Native American or Middle Eastern, commenters wondered. If her accent and demeanor didn’t give it away, the writers left no question about her heritage with her lines about time on a kibbutz and the meshuga ways of fundamentalist Mormons.
It would appear that she captivated the producers enough that they placed her in a number of upcoming episodes. This could get interesting.
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. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
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.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
