JEWISH CULTURE AND HISTORY GET A DRAMATIC WORKOUT ON TELEVISION SERIES

Television isn’t playing Jewish characters just for laughs these days.

Flip, urban-hip sitcoms featuring Jewish funnymen make up a sizable part of TV’s ethnic community. “Seinfeld,” “Mad About You,” “Love and War” and “Flying Blind” are leaders of the pack.

But just as Jewish humor has emerged full-blown on television, Jewish culture and history are getting dramatic workouts in network series as well.

“Homefront” portrayed the struggle of concentration camp survivor Gina Sloan (Guiliana Santini) to free herself of the memories and cling to her faith.

In an episode of the small-town drama “Picket Fences,” attorney Douglas Wambaugh (Fyvush Finkel) fought to observe Jewish burial laws for a dumped corpse.

On “Reasonable Doubts,” prosecutor Tess Kaufman (Marlee Matlin) has struggled to reconcile her professional ethics with her Israeli lover’s law-breaking bid to bring a former Nazi to justice.

Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), a New Yorker stranded in the tiny Alaskan town of Cicely on “Northern Exposure,” is as hard-pressed to make his ethnicity understood as he is to find decent cheesecake.

“I’m not white,” Fleischman firmly tells his American Indian assistant. “I may look white, but I am not. I’m Jewish. Jewish. A fellow person of color. A victim of oppression.”

Jews, although less than 3% of the U.S. population, would have trouble claiming minority status on TV as producers and writers take advantage of increasing creative leeway.

This on-screen fascination is relatively new to the entertainment industry, despite the number of powerful and famous Jewish figures woven throughout its history.

In “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood,” author Neal Gabler describes how Eastern European Jews such as Louis B. Mayer and Benjamin Warner founded the movie industry.

The studio bosses guided writers and actors, including a number of fellow Jews, in portrayals of an idealized American society, one generally devoid of Jewish characters or themes.

Jewish characters eventually turned up on television, mostly on comedies. Then, in the 1980s, television began to make serious stabs at Jewish characters and stories, such as ABC’s “thirtysomething,” with family man Michael Steadman.

Sam Weisman, co-producer of CBS’ “Brooklyn Bridge,” cites, in part, the increasing power that those who write and produce successful shows--Jews and non-Jews alike--have over the networks.

“People are more their own bosses than in the old days, and it’s more of a free-for-all,” he says.

The high ratings of shows such as “Seinfeld” and “Northern Exposure” seem to indicate public acceptance of Jewish flavor.

But there is, apparently, a limit: Seinfeld’s ethnicity is implied, not explored. And viewer research conducted for “Northern Exposure” found Jewish-themed story lines to be among the least compelling.

Some members of the real-life Jewish community have their own qualms about being TV’s darlings.

“There’s a lot more to being Jewish than bagels,” says Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who complains that television tends to emphasize the superficial.

There is a rich ethical and philosophical Judaic tradition that could be turned into dramatic fodder, Cooper argues.

He also questions TV’s delight in pairing Jewish men with women outside the faith.

And one more thing, Cooper says. “I would love to see an American Jewish woman not portrayed as a princess.”