Big Love’s Resident Kibbutznik
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.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30