Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Fran Drescher And Susie Essman Played Sisters On ‘Broad City’

“Don’t raise your voice to me, missy! I’m the person who taught you to insert a diaphragm, so lets just show a little respect!” Susie Essman screamed at Fran Drescher Noevember 8th on ‘Broad City.’

Things are looking up in 2017.

The seventh episode of the politically fraught fourth season of “Broad City” offers a glimpse of the world to come: Boca Raton’s largely Jewish retirement communities. Illana and Abbi fly south with Illana’s mom Bobbi (Essman) and brother Eliot (Glazer’s real-life brother) to clean out Bobbi’s deceased mother’s apartment.

There’s just one thing standing in their way.

It’s her! Image by Comedy Central Screen Grab

Fran Drescher plays Beverly Baumgarten, Illana’s unmarried aunt who put off leaving Manhattan for the trip to Florida for a year because she might get “Hamilton” tickets. “Cheryl’s niece is dating an usher who could slip us through the garbage shoot, but we had to be ready at any moment! At ANY moment!”

Bev lost her virginity to Neil Friedman in a bungalow in the Catskills on family vacation. She wears earrings made of four (four!) curtain tassels. She’s not worried that the weed she’s smoking may have been stored in a family member’s orifice for the duration of a domestic flight. She’s perfect.

Glazer directed the episode, which was shot in her own recently deceased grandmother’s retirement community in Florida. Check out the wall hangings behind Drescher’s head:

Image by Comedy Central Screengrab

BRUCHIM HABAIM!

Image by Comedy Central Screengrab

That’s right, a hanging synthetic tapestry embroidered with pomegranates that says, “A Home Blessing: Let this be a place where peace abides.”

Florida, the broads discover, is not where peace abides. The increasingly heart-rendering season interrogates racism, even (don’t panic) Jewish racism.

Bruchim habaim to one and all.

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

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.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 [email protected], 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.