A new Steph Curry sitcom takes on an old Jewish stereotype

Are Jews bad at sports??

I recently binge-watched all of “Mr. Throwback,” the Peacock sitcom starring Steph Curry as, well, Steph Curry and Adam Pally as his sixth-grade teammate, basketball prodigy Danny Grossman, known as the “Jewish Jordan.” Not to spoil too much, but actions by his team’s coach and father, Mitch Grossman, lead Pally to retire from the sport and become a vintage clothing store owner instead. The show is about what happens when he and Curry reconnect as adults.

I found the show to be a delightful, if somewhat vulgar, escapist romp (it’s directed by “Wet Hot American Summer” director David Wain and executive-produced and written by David Caspe, Daniel Libman and Matthew Libman of “Happy Endings”). The chemistry between Curry, Pally and SNL’s Ego Nwodin is wonderful, and the show is both funny and charming. But it did make me think about a very old stereotype often enshrined in movies and TV shows: Jews are bad at sports.

There is nary a Jewish-themed show that doesn’t have a joke about Jews and sports in it (Harry Rosenblatt attempting racketball, anyone?). Even the one Jewish episode in “Raising Hope” made sure to let us know that Jewish boys are bad at basketball. And arguably the best Jewish-themed made-for-TV kids’ movie, “Full-Court Miracle,” relies somewhat heavily on said premise (but it’s also pretty great, so I forgive it).

For the sake of full disclosure, I did not grow up believing that Jews were bad at sports, because, well, I grew up in Israel and all the good athletes around me were Jewish. But I did grow up as a Jew who was bad at sports. Like, the “person everybody waits to finish the last lap at gym class” bad at sports. Like the “person who gets hits on the head with the ball more than catches it” bad at sports. And beyond watching (and LOVING!!) the Olympics, I’m not really a habitual sports watcher.

That doesn’t mean I don’t resent the preconception, which has such clear antisemitic roots. It right away invokes this caricature of a Jew with a big head and a big nose but a mangled body. Jews aren’t meant to be connected with their physicality and aren’t meant to be physically attractive, either. It’s this hateful stereotype that a Jew is someone who is focused on the cerebral and bad at the physical, and there’s something so untrustworthy about that. And it also firmly sits on this intersection between antisemitism and misogyny — this old belief that Jewish men are “feminine” and therefore unathletic.

Basically, for someone who on multiple occasions misspelled Super Bowl as Super Ball (I didn’t grow up with football, or at least not with what Americans call football, BUT ALSO IT JUST MAKES SENSE), I do get very agitated about the fact that people think Jews and sports are incompatible. It’s fundamentally not true. I’m bad at sports for reasons that have nothing to do with my ethnicity or religion. Just ask the Jewish kids who accidentally threw balls at my head but were otherwise very good at throwing them.

Jewish athletes won an impressive 18 medals at the Olympics this year (Israel won seven, the most it ever has). And they are a big part of American sports lore and history, from Sandy Koufax to Aly Raisman to Joc Pederson and Julian Edelman. For a people that is such a small percentage of the population of this country, we do boast a lot of impressive athletes.

I like to think that Adam Pally (Max Blum in “Happy Endings,” Dr. Peter Prentice in “The Mindy Project”) is single-handedly trying to dismantle that preconception. This year he’s played both an aspiring Jewish wrestler and a former Jewish basketball star. Sure, “Mr. Throwback” isn’t full of his athletic feats, but it doesn’t joke about Jews being bad at sports, either. Yes, reviews still tout Pally’s character as schlubby in contrast to Curry, a term that also feels reliant on a kind of unathletic and unattractive Jewish trope, but aside from being a decent athlete, Danny Grossman is the most stylish “Mr. Throwback” cast member too. I seriously want his entire wardrobe.

There’s a really cute scene in the show where Pally and Curry play together and the Jewish player knocks him down to the ground afterward when bumping into him. “I’m sorry dude, I’m thick, I’m wide,” he jokes. Even though he doesn’t play basketball anymore, there’s something still really powerful about his physicality. It’s a super small (and funny!) moment but it gave me some Jewish joy.

Do you have a favorite Jewish sports TV moment? What do you think of the “Jews are bad at sports” stereotype? Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments (and whether you are good at sports).