MAY 18 • 2023 | 97

THE FOCUS THIS WEEK IS 
THREE TALENTED JEWISH 
WOMEN 
The week of May 18-24 
is a rare week: It doesn’t 
have a movie or series 
premiere with a strong 
Jewish connection. This 
gives me the chance to 
focus on three women who, 
coincidentally, have similar 
Jewish family backgrounds. 
All three have recent 
projects that I haven’t 
mentioned before.
If you use Roku to stream 
channels, as I do, you know 
that Roku is offering an 
ever-increasing number of 
exclusive-to-Roku series. I 
think their best “original” 
to-date is Slip. This seven-
episode series stars Zoe 
Lister-Jones, 40. She also 
created the series, wrote 
it and directed every 
episode. The series began 
streaming in its entirety on 
April 21. 
As the series begins, 
Mae (Lister-Jones) is an 
exhibit curator for a major 
museum. She’s long been 
married to a struggling 
novelist. He’s a nice guy, 
but Mae is tired of being 
the breadwinner and 
resents his decreasing 
interest in physical intimacy. 
Without intending to, she 
“hooks-up,” once, with a 

smart, very good-looking 
guy, and the next morning 
— she finds herself in a 
parallel universe in which 
she is married to this guy! 
Subsequent episodes 
show Mae “slipping” out of 
one life into another — a 
lesbian mother, a rich man’s 
wife, etc. She wants to get 
back to her husband but 
doesn’t know how. 
Sounds odd, I know. But 
this is serious, insightful 
stuff, with some comedic 
moments here and there. 
While Mae isn’t identified 
as Jewish, Lister-Jones 
gets in a few lines that are 
Jewish-related.
Most people know Lister-
Jones, if they know her at 
all, from her role on the 
CBS series Life in Pieces. 
But I know Lister-Jones 
as someone who often 
flies her Jewish flag — 
which makes sense — her 
mother, video artist Ardele 
Lister, was the head of her 
Conservative synagogue; 
her family kept kosher; 
and her father, Bill Jones, 
a prominent photographer, 
converted to Judaism. 
In Arranged (2007), a 
charming indie film, Lister-
Jones played an Orthodox 
public-school teacher who 
finds her perfect Orthodox 
husband with the help of 
her Muslim schoolteacher 
friend. 
Lister-Jones made her 
directorial debut with Band 
Aid (2017), a quite good 
dramedy film that she also 
co-starred in and wrote. 
It’s about a Jewish married 
couple who find a novel 
way to stop arguing and 
repair their marriage. 
Sadly, Lister-Jones and 
her filmmaker husband, 
Daryl Wein, 38, split up in 
2021 after nine years of 
marriage. 
Working Moms, a 

dramedy, ran on CBC from 
2017-2023. All 85 episodes 
are now streaming on 
Netflix. It stars Catherine 
Reitman, 42, as Kate 
Foster, a talented ad 
executive who is also a 
working mom. The show 
focuses on Kate and three 
of her friends, who are also 
working moms.
Reitman created the 
series, often wrote 
episodes and sometimes 
directed her show. 
Philip Sternberg, 42, 
Reitman’s real-life husband, 
played Kate’s husband, 
Nathan. Sternberg has a 
long track record as a top 
Canadian TV producer. He 
and Catherine have been 
married for 14 years and 
have two children. Nice to 
note: In a recent interview, 
Reitman called her husband 
“my best friend.” 
Working Moms isn’t a 
huge hit, but it found a 
quite big audience on 
Netflix. The main criticism 
is it focuses too much on 
upper-class women. 
Reitman is the daughter 
of Ivan Reitman (1946-
2022), a Canadian Jew who 
directed a slew of huge 
hits, including Ghostbusters 
and Kindergarten Cop. 
Catherine’s brother, Jason 
Reitman, 45, is a top film 
director whose hits include 
Juno. The siblings’ mother, 
Geneviève Robert, is a 
French Canadian who 

converted to Judaism. 
Dianna Agron, 37, 
became well known when 
she played Quinn Fabray, 
a star character on the hit 
series Glee (2007-2014). 
She chose to appear in 
smallish indie films after 
Glee and began a singing 
career. Since 2020, she has 
amped up her film career 
again. 
As noted in a recent 
Rolling Stone interview 
(May 7), this “amp-up” finds 
Agron playing identifiable 
Jewish characters for the 
first time. In Shiva Baby 
(2020), she played what 
seemed to be the only 
major non-Jewish character 
— but then it comes 
out that “maybe” her 
character’s father is Jewish. 
In the recently released 
Hulu horror film Clock, 
Agron plays a young 
Jewish woman who 
reluctantly agrees to be 
a patient in a medical 
program that’s supposed 
to increase her fertility. The 
Holocaust features in the 
plot.
Agron’s Jewish father 
was a Hyatt hotel manager. 
Her homemaker mother is 
a convert to Judaism. 
Agron went to Hebrew 
school and was a bat 
mitzvah. A take-away from 
the Rolling Stone piece is 
that being Jewish is central 
to Agron’s sense of self. 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

MONTCLAIR FILM FESTIVAL 

Zoe Lister-Jones

TEDXTORONTO/JOSHUA BEST 

Catherine Reitman

FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/GREG2600

Dianna Agron