'A disgusting Jew': Uproar after Netflix casts Jewish-Israeli actress to play Mary, Jesus's mom

Netflix released the trailer earlier this week for Mary, its upcoming movie about Jesus’s mother – a Jewish woman from the Middle East –  and a good chunk of the Internet is melting down, because the actress in the lead role is a Jewish woman from the Middle East.

Noa Cohen, a 21-year-old Israeli actress, portrays the world’s most famous Jewish mom in the movie, but some social media users are calling for a boycott.

Objections were raised both on the grounds that Cohen is Israeli and that she is Jewish, with anti-Zionism and antisemitism fusing in some posts, as they tend to do more and more these days. This subject, since it points to the fact that Jews lived in the land of Israel hundreds of years before Islam was established, whipped social-media users into a particularly petulant storm of grievance.

Where antisemitism and anti-Zionism rewrite history

An X user called America First ZOE (AFZ) posted an image of Cohen’s Instagram account, writing, “A disgusting Jew got the part. lol.”

Red Pill Media wrote, “Jews created this and the actors are jewish. No thanks.”

Kathy, an X user whose bio reads, “It’s Palestine. It will always be Palestine,” wrote, “F**k you. I’m an offended Catholic. F**king have an Israeli play Mary? May you all be f**king smited. Blasphemous”

Salim wrote, “And the cast are Israelis! The ones who call mother of god a w**** and rejects her son! What a farce! Lots of indigenous Levantine Christian actors yet they casted Zionist settlers for the role of the life of Jesus christ mother”

Cohen, who previously appeared in the series, Northern Storm, aka 8200, a drama about the IDF’s famous intelligence unit, is from Hod HaSharon, a town in central Israel. Ido Tako, who was nominated for an Ophir Award for his performance in The Vanishing Soldier, which just opened in Israeli theaters, plays Joseph. Ori Pfeffer portrays Joachim, and several other actors are Israeli. The biggest name in the cast is Anthony Hopkins, the two-time Oscar winner, who plays King Herod.

Many of those commenting flaunted an almost unfathomable ignorance about the basic history of one of the world’s major religions.

Jeff Stan wrote on X/Twitter, “Mary was not a ‘Jew’.” Adam Kout said, “As a muslim you have no right to insult mother Mary, one of the best female figures in Islam.”

Elica Le Bon, the Iranian activist, attorney, and influencer who devotes herself to opposing the lies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and their followers around the world, condemned this outpouring of antisemitism, saying: “The internet is having a melt down that a Jewish woman of the land 2,000 years ago is being played by a Jewish woman of the land today. Why? Because it reminds us of Jewish indigeneity before conquests & defeats their white colonizer narrative - a lie they’ll die to protect.”

While some Christians expressed concern about whether the movie was an accurate portrayal of the biblical story, a few realists joined Le Bon in condemning the flagrant antisemitism and cluelessness of many of those posting. Jerry Coyne pointed out, “How could Jesus's mom NOT be Jewish? Isn't the drive towards ethnically appropriate casting?”

As of Thursday night, Cohen had closed the comments section on her Instagram post that showed the trailer. 

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