Roseanne Barr coming to Israel to avoid ‘The Conners’

Comedian says she won’t ‘curse or bless’ spinoff but will leave US to study with her favorite teachers for a few months

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (l) and Roseanne Barr attend live podcast at Stand Up NY on July 26, 2018 in New York City.  (James Devaney/Getty Images via JTA)
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (l) and Roseanne Barr attend live podcast at Stand Up NY on July 26, 2018 in New York City. (James Devaney/Getty Images via JTA)

Roseanne Barr said she is planning to take a trip to Israel to avoid “The Conners,” a spinoff of her eponymous show.

She told Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in a new appearance on his podcast that she is not planning to watch the “The Conners,” which brings together the entire former cast except for her iconic character, when it premiers on October 16.

“I have an opportunity to go to Israel for a few months and study with my favorite teachers over there, and that’s where I’m going to go and probably move somewhere there and study with my favorite teachers,” she said during the podcast. “I have saved a few pennies and I’m so lucky I can go.”

She said that she is going to go and study “with any rabbi that I can ask to teach me.” She also said: “It’s my great joy and privilege to be a Jewish woman.”

The interview comes days after John Goodman, the television husband of star Roseanne Barr, confirmed in an interview with the London-based The Times that Roseanne will be killed off for the spinoff.

Rosanne told Boteach that she will neither “curse it or bless” the spinoff show.

“I’m staying neutral. That’s what I do. I’m staying neutral,” she said. “I’m staying away from it. Not wishing bad on anyone and I don’t wish good for my enemies. I don’t. I can’t. I just stay neutral.”

She explained that it was important for her to not get too worked up about the show.

“That’s what I gotta do… I have some mental health issues of depression and stuff. I got to stay in the middle or I’ll go dark and I don’t want to go dark again,” she said.

She also said that she was working on a new sitcom, and had cut a record in Nashville, though she did not say if it would be released.

“I’m singing and getting better,” she said. “I’m not great, or even good, but I’m better.”

Roseanne last appeared on the rabbi’s podcast two days after ABC canceled her popular show, a reboot of her late 1980s sitcom, over a tweet mocking Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to President Barack Obama and an African-American woman. The tweet said the “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” The actress later deleted the tweet and issued an apology, saying she had made “a bad joke about her politics and her looks.”

Boteach did not release the podcast right away, saying, “I want to give her space to reflect on the recent events and releasing the recording is a decision she will make at the appropriate time.” He later released the podcast, a day after the announcement of plans to launch “The Connors.”

Boteach has had a 20-year friendship with Barr.

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