Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Forward 50 2014

Ilana Glazer

In the first episode of “Broad City,” the hit Comedy Central show that premiered earlier this year, comedian Ilana Glazer, 27, posts a Craigslist ad that reads: “We’re just 2 Jewesses tryin’ to make a buck.” Later that day she winds up cleaning the apartment of a man wearing a diaper, with her best friend, Abbi Jacobson.

“Broad City,” which averaged 1.3 million viewers per episode and will be brought back for a second season, has made Glazer and Jacobson the darlings of the comedy world.

Glazer, who grew up on Long Island — in an interview with the Forward she said that the combination of her New York upbringing and Jewish background makes her a “double Jew” — met Jacobson while attending classes at the comedy school Upright Citizens Brigade. When both women failed to make the UCB house improv team, they decided to start their own show, and in 2009 they launched “Broad City” as a Web series.

Since then, “Broad City” has gained critical praise and widespread popularity for its irreverent depiction of two 20-something women trying to get by in New York. In a New Yorker profile of the duo, Nick Paumgarten called them the “idols of a largely underserved and under-chronicled female id,” while the Forward’s Sarah Seltzer deemed the show “a refreshing dose of equality, like ‘Girls’ without the self-seriousness sentimentality.”

Move over, Seth Rogen. There’s a new schlemiel on the block.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version