jew-ish characters: what’s the purpose?

(preface that it’s almost 2am and i should’ve been asleep 2 hours ago, so i may not word this perfectly 😅)

I’ve been wondering this for a while. it feels like 95% of jewish characters put the ish in jewish. now, i want to be very clear that i have nothing against these kind of jews irl! and I’m not even against their existence in media as a general rule, as those Jews absolutely exist and should be represented. i just don’t see the point most of the time? it hardly feels like representation when u wouldn’t even know a character is jewish if u cut out 3 throwaway lines throughout the whole show. why make a character jewish if theyre not going to do anything with that, if theyre actively going to have them go against jewish practices/doing goyish ones (eating treif, celebrating christmas, etc)?

if it wasn’t so common I wouldn’t bat an eye, but it feels like hardly any other type of jewish character even exists to hollywood writers, especially if it’s not a show about religious jews (not that we’re spoiled for choice with those either).

i know at least sometimes it’s jewish writers writing characters like themselves. and thats great for them! but there’s so many jewish characters out there and somehow im still dying to feel represented, to actually relate to a jewish character and not feel like their judaism is an afterthought, or an annoyance they were raised with.