‘Broad City’ star says no regrets over previous decision not to film in Israel
Ilana Glazer says she’s glad the comedy series didn’t end up shooting an episode in Israel, though cancellation was due to 2015 violence that ‘got really scary at the last minute’
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Comic Ilana Glazer, creator and co-star of “Broad City,” the now-defunct comedy series about two young Jewish women living in New York City, has spoken to The Daily Beast about her decision not to film a planned episode in Israel around eight years ago.
At the time, Glazer and co-creator and star Abbi Jacobson were about to fly to Israel to film what they called “the Birthright episode,” but canceled at the last minute because of a security situation.
“There was violence happening between Israelis and Palestinians,” said Glazer in the Daily Beast interview. “And I don’t think either one of us had taken our journey into understanding the situation there to the degree that we do now, but it was just a bad vibe. And we were promised all of this army protection, you can film and there will be soldiers there with guns, and we were like, wait, what are we doing? We have to fully pull the plug. This is not appealing and that’s not what safety sounds like. And yeah, we pulled it.”
Glazer said the Israel episode was meant to be an hour-long finale of that season, “but it just got really scary at the last minute.”
“Broad City” was broadcast on the “Comedy Central” channel for five seasons, from 2014 until 2019, showing the small-world adventures of Glazer and Jacobson.
Instead of flying to Israel in the final episodes of that season, the two heroines were shown in the airplane surrounded by the other gung-ho Birthright participants, until their search for a tampon provokes a diplomatic incident.
Glazer told The Daily Beast she was glad they didn’t end up filming in Israel.
“I actually feel like our values now are related to why we pulled the plug then,” she said. “It’s just kind of funny how things unfold.”
Glazer has expressed sharp criticism of Israel and its war against Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023 massacre. In April, she signed a letter supporting British Jewish director Jonathan Glaser, who asserted in his Oscar speech last year that the occupation had appropriated the Holocaust and Judaism.
