Israel is a third-rail topic of conversation these days, capable of leveling a room in minutes. Fortunately MCC Theater Off Broadway has survived Jonathan Spector’s Birthright; indeed, it’s thriving, as the best new play of the nascent 2026-2027 season may have already arrived. Perhaps that’s no surprise, as his Tony-winning Eureka Day took on another squeamish topic, vaccination, with gusto. But it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to tackle this subject, in all its knottiness and complexity, for over three hours in three acts that span 18 years. Yet he has, and the result is shattering (and funny, and fast-paced, in case this comes across as intimidating).
Spector begins in 2006, a few weeks after six young Americans about to graduate college have returned, giddy, refreshed, and gossipy from an educational, and eye-opening, Birthright heritage trip to Israel, an experience open to all Jews. Alona (Molly Ranson), who’d fallen for an IDF soldier, plans to return, but a concerned Chaya (Zoë Winters) has gotten the group together to convince her otherwise lest Alona upend her life. (Chaya, in whose home outside D.C. the play unfolds, is the unofficial, and as we will see sometimes unwelcome, mother hen of her peers.) All have prospects of their own: the politics-obsessed Noah (Eli Gelb) has launched one of those new-fangled “blogs” at the dawn of social media. (Changing tech is how Spector connotes changing times throughout.) Izzy (Molly Bernard) is contemplating a law degree. Lev (Hale Appleman) is just contemplating, his head filled with the teachings of Jewish scholars and considering rabbinical school. Everyone has some notion of what to do next except Emerson (Nate Mann), who is drowning his sorrows a little too liberally now that his bandmates have kicked him out of their promising indie act. Spector’s dialogue adroitly captures the strain of a thrown-together group, united mostly by a life-changing experience, trying to keep it light as tensions surface. (When they do it’s into the backyard hot tub they go, as Chaya’s mom Deborah, a cheerful busy body played by Liz Larsen, pops up to crack wise.)
In Act II the group reconvenes a decade later, eagerly awaiting the election of America’s first woman president. Needless to say we’re still waiting, as cracks turn to fissures in that hopeful moment. Alona is set to marry an Israeli, but the rehearsal dinner was marred when one of her uncles said that a vote for Hillary was akin to a vote for an ayatollah. From there everything tumbles, as the group confronts the death of family members, the fallout from a painful divorce, and the dashing of Obama-era dreams. Chaya and Izzy, who find themselves divided over support for Israel in their professional and personal lives (both are enmeshed in politics) skirmish.
David Bengali’s projections were a highlight of Eureka Day, conveying its most outrageous scene. Their use here is initially more subtle until they explode in the third act, set after the Hamas massacre in 2024. One character has died, making the clash between Chaya and Izzy all the more fraught. Everyone else goes to their phones, bringing up evidence of antisemitism, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the abuses of Netanyahu, and the horrors of Hamas in a dizzying cascade. It would all go slack, however, a collection of position papers, if we weren’t fully invested in these people, and if Spector stacked the deck in favor of any one position. He doesn’t. The agony of “purity tests” administered by the rising generation is a particular bone of contention for Chaya, who has felt their sting, but Spector gives us the bad news straight. The air explodes, then clears.
What a rich show this is, directed with a sure hand by Teddy Bergman. It had to have taken a lot of shaping to get this right, and everyone played their part to get it to the finish line, as moving an ending as I have seen in its sorrows and hopes. The design is immaculate, with scenic designer Scott Pask making changes to the house over twenty years, Natasha Katz wringing laughs from a backyard light with a motion sensor in the second act, and skilled gradations in looks and styles from Clint Ramos (costumes), Robert Pickens (hair), and Nikoletta Skarlatos (makeup).
As for the ensemble, sublime, all of them, in their deeply flawed, deeply felt humanity: Winters (from Succession, keeping everyone else on their toes while not trying to lose her emotional equilibrium); Bernard (a worthy opponent always spoiling for a fight for her causes); Ranson (who knows the terrain from the equally epic Prayer for the French Republic, searing in her divided loyalties); Gelb (a Stereophonic alum with a yen for Chaya as he bumblingly tries to make peace); Appleman (charismatic, enigmatic); Mann (deftly handling a major third act change); and Larsen (finding something radiant in what looks to be mom shtick). I’m sure this play will have a vibrant afterlife once this production closes in late August, so whether now or in the future anyone concerned with one of the most pressing issues of our time should be sure to seek out Birthright, which covers 2,000 years of Jewish history and asks a plaintive question: “How the fuck did we get here?”
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