Emmy-winning actor, writer and chaunteuse Rachel Bloom will receive the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s 2026 Freedom of Expression Award. How crazy is that?
Bloom will be on hand to accept the SFJFF honor on July 18, the same night the festival screens “Hollywood Does Abortion.” Bloom is co-executive producer and a cast member of the documentary, which addresses this hot-button social issue. Spoiler alert: She’s pro-choice.
The hotter the button, the better for Bloom, who first drew widespread acclaim for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” a TV series that earned multiple Emmys and Golden Globes, including two for Bloom, over its four-year run.
The show, which starred Bloom as the mishegas-begotten Rebecca, infused a girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy premise with a girl-never-stops-pursuing-boy plot. Each episode featured wickedly droll musical numbers (all co-written by Bloom) and a generous helping of Jewish inside jokes.
Who could forget Tovah Feldshuh as Rebecca’s verklempt mama, visiting her daughter in West Covina and singing the Fiddler-esque “Where’s the Bathroom.” (Sample lyric: “By the way, you’re looking healthy/And by “healthy” I mean “chunky”/I don’t mean that as an insult/I’m just stating it as fact/I see your eczema is back.”)
Funny and frothy as it was, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” did feature a serious abortion storyline in season 2, when the character of Paula (Rebecca’s bestie), who already had two much older children, chooses an abortion when she becomes pregnant and has zero regrets.
Bloom later co-starred in 2022’s “Reboot,” a Hulu sitcom from creator Steve Levitan (“Modern Family”) about the making of a Hulu sitcom. Alongside a stellar cast that included Paul Reiser, Judy Greer and Keegan-Michael Key, Bloom played a frustrated showrunner of a doomed TV series. Life imitated art when “Reboot” was canceled after one season.
Her 2024 Netflix special, “Death, Let Me Do My Special,” starred Bloom as herself live on the concert stage performing an initially light-hearted standup routine, when Death (as played by actor David Hull) heckles her from the audience. He presses her to confront the unbearable reality that her real-life songwriting partner, Adam Schlesinger, died from Covid in 2020, and that her newborn daughter faced her own life-threatening condition at the same time.
If that’s not wrestling with God, what is?
Bloom spoke to J. from her Los Angeles-area home about her upcoming award, the abortion documentary, her career and her Jewish backstory.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What does it mean to you to have the SFJFF bestow this honor on you?
It’s really cool. Freedom of expression brings up living during the Trump administration, and also living when we are handcuffed to these dopamine rage-bait hellholes that harden our empathy to view everything in black and white. Is it scary to be behind [a documentary] when Trump is actively coming for people who are against him? Yes, but it’s worth it. I’ve been very outspoken about abortion rights, so I was never going to be honored at the White House.
“Hollywood Does Abortion” looks at the manner in which film and television approached the subject of abortion. It includes clips from shows like “E.R.,” “Maude,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and your show, all of which had abortion storylines. What drew you to the project?
To be honest they interviewed me, and then they asked me to come on as producer. I’m so happy to be involved with it, to use my name to get the film’s message out there. It brings up the question of what do artists owe, as far as our social responsibility?
What’s surprising about the film is how timid Hollywood has actually been about abortion, often going with a subtle, seemingly safe pro-life message. Or at least most of the women depicted were consumed with anguish.
You don’t just make TV shows for liberals. Execs remind us you’re making shows for everybody. You don’t want people coming after your network, so people avoid these very real hassles. That’s something the [documentary] got me thinking about. Liberal Hollywood is not a monolith; it’s just people trying to keep their jobs and keep their shows on the air, which is getting harder and harder.
Your character Rebecca in “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” was very obviously Jewish. How crucial to Rebecca’s persona was her Jewishness?
We talked about Judaism a lot in the show. Rebecca’s Jewishness was an amalgam of [co-creator] Aline Brosh McKenna and my husband’s — not my own. I’ll always be in this learning situation.
You noted in your Netflix special that you are proud to be Jewish but that you are also an atheist and didn’t grow up with much Jewish ritual or tradition. Can you describe the impact and influence of growing up Jewish in Southern California?
It was another thing that contributed to my being an “other” in Manhattan Beach. In so many ways I didn’t fit in there, and being Jewish was another thing that made me different.
I found myself drawn to things that felt Jew-ish. I have this feeling toward fellow Jewish people similar to my fellow theater people, who feel like me, who feel like family. Because it wasn’t a huge part of growing up, there’s a thirst for [Jewish] knowledge, more so the culture than the religion. It’s a phase I’m still in. I’m still working out my Jewish identity. I want my daughter to have 10 to 15% more [Jewish] knowledge than I have.