A Jewish cop show?
‘Boston Blue’ serves up surprises, including Shabbat dinner
I came for the story but stayed for the Shabbat meal.
That was my surprising reaction to “Boston Blue,” the new CBS series airing, as it turns out, somewhat inappropriately, or maybe ironically, on Friday evening.
Like a couple of million others, I’d been a fan of “Blue Bloods,” the long-running show about the Reagans, a multi-generational Irish New York City cop family. (There have been 293 episodes over 14 seasons.) Very much part of its — you should pardon the expression — haimish appeal was that every episode included a Sunday meal, a family gathering where a week’s events were hashed out.
I know I wasn’t supposed to envy those gatherings, but I did. I know it was just actors, but the love and conversation they shared made me regret I didn’t make Shabbat meals a regular feature at my house when my kids were growing up.
So when I heard that there was going to be a “Blue Bloods” spinoff, I immediately dialed it into my DVR. It starts after a fourth-generation Reagan, Sean (Mika Amonsen), unable to join the NYPD because of a hiring freeze, signs up with the Boston PD. On an early patrol, he’s grievously wounded, so his dad, Detective Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg), travels north to stand by his son and inevitably help capture the perp. He’s partnered with Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green), who invites him home for dinner.
I don’t know what he was expecting, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t “borei pri hagafen.”
Like the Reagans, the Silvers are a law-enforcement family. Matriarch Mae Silver (Gloria Reuben) is the Suffolk County district attorney — that includes Boston — and the head of a blended family that resulted from her second marriage to a Jewish man who’s since died. The brood includes Sarah Silver (Maggie Lawson), Lena’s stepsister and her boss as superintendent of detectives, and Jonah Silver (Marcus Schriber), a rookie cop partnered with Sean Reagan.
“Boston Blue” is the brainchild of a pair of veteran showrunners collectively known as the Brandons: Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier. The two have a passel of TV cop shows to their credit, including “L.A.’s Finest,” a spinoff of the Bad Boys franchise starring Jessica Alba and Gabrielle Union, “The Blacklist,” and “S.W.A.T.,” among others.
To say “Boston Blue” is their brainchild is a bit of a stretch. What they actually pitched was another show. Notes Mr. Margolis: “We sold a pitch about a cop from L.A. who goes to Boston to find his estranged son. His son had been taken in by a sort of surrogate family, the Silvers. We modeled that family largely after Brandon Sonnier’s family in terms of their faith and blended dynamic.
“That was a separate pitch we’d sold to CBS. This was during the final season of ‘Blue Bloods.’ We were already writing the pilot when they came to us and sort of floated the idea, what if this cop from L.A. was Danny Reagan?
“And we were like, you mean THE Danny Reagan? And they said, yeah, if there’s an organic way. So once we were given the green light to experiment with it, that’s when we came up with the model of, okay, well they had a weekly dinner on that show. What if we had a Shabbat dinner? And it sort of came from there once we realized we were getting a chance to expand their universe.”
There was no negative feedback from CBS. “It was very well received from the moment we floated the idea,” Mr. Margolis said. “Here’s an organic way we can maintain a weekly family dinner that comes from an organic place. You know, from our lives. There was never a second thought — it was like, yes, run with that.”
None of the cast members are Jewish. Gloria Reuben, whose father was Jewish, comes closest, but as Mr. Sonnier notes: “She didn’t know any of the rituals, much about the culture or any of the prayers. It’s one of the things we discussed early on that she was interested in exploring. So as we got into it, this was sort of a journey of self-discovery.
“All of the actors, unfamiliar with Judaism, really did their homework, did their research and really dug in. It touched several of their lives. Marcus, who plays Jonah on the show, was dating a Jewish girl at the time and said we’ve started doing Shabbat.
“We really had a good time exploring the culture and the rituals. All the things I do in my house and all the things he does in his house. We all sat around the table and went through the pieces: Here are the blessings that we say, this is a challah, here are the candles, and this is a kiddish cup.
“We really got to go step-by step and discuss each part of things we do on Friday and often took for granted. That made it very special and very meaningful, even for us.”
Mr. Sonnier, a Jew by choice, was likely the perfect instructor, having recently gone through the conversion process himself.
He grew up in Houston and met his wife, Sarah, in high school, where she was the only Jewish girl. Judaism “was really a foreign concept to me,” he said. “I was raised Catholic. But we started dating, and she made it clear to me early on that ‘if this continues, our children will be Jewish. I’m going to raise Jewish children.’
“I sort of came around to that and said, ‘I’m Catholic, but it will be fine.’ Then I was at my nephew’s bar mitzvah very early in my marriage, and I saw the passing of the Torah from one generation to the next. I turned to my wife at the bar mitzvah and said, ‘Well, I’m going to have to convert, because I can’t not be part of my children’s lives that way.’
“But then life gets in the way. You’ve got to take classes. You’ve got to learn all the things. So it took many, many years, as I was considering it and putting it off. But we lived a Jewish lifestyle. We did Shabbat. The children went to Hebrew school preparing for bar mitzvah. The whole thing. And then I had my accident.”
The accident occurred on the set of “L.A.’s Finest.” A stunt went bad. A car crashed into a shipping container that toppled on Mr. Sonnier, who wound up losing part of a leg.
“The first night back, we were doing Shabbat, and my oldest son, who at the time was 7, reached back and grabbed my hand to make me a part of the circle, you know, all touching the challah. I wept and I said to my wife, ‘You know now it’s got to be done.’”
So he took a course at American Jewish University in Los Angeles — twice. “The first time we ended up selling a show, and I got too busy. So again, life got in the way. But I had to go back and do it again before our oldest son’s bar mitzvah. I knew that I had to be fully converted so I could stand on the bimah with him. And I could have an aliyah. And so I did. I finished before my oldest son’s bar mitzvah.”
Mr. Margolis’ Jewish story is, well, let him tell it:
“Actually, it’s funny,” he said. “I went through a conversion process myself. I was raised Jewish, but my mother is not Jewish. Since in our community we follow the religion of the mom, in order for me to be bar mitzvahed — and I was a bar mitzvah at 13 — I underwent a conversion. I did the whole thing as part of my studying for my bar mitzvah.
“But after my siblings and I had our bar mitzvahs, it was sort of left to us how often we wanted to continue going to services and things like that. I’m sad to say I sort of let it lapse for a long time. I always felt connected to the Jewish community, but more in terms of a social connection than a faith connection.
“But I got married and my wife practiced a little bit more traditionally than I did. We have two daughters that we’re raising Jewish now, so I’m sort of relearning and remembering a lot of things from my own childhood that I sort of let go for a while.
“My wife and I now do Shabbat dinner with our girls. We try to light candles and make sure we’re all there, and my daughters love it. My youngest likes to dip her challah into grape juice. I can’t stop her from doing it so now it’s part of our thing.
“Writing the show and writing about characters who are living their lives as Jews in America has really reminded me of a lot of things. Also getting to watch my partner go through this experience at this stage has been really rewarding and a beautiful thing to see.”
Several Jewish moments are planned for upcoming episodes. A yahrzeit. A discussion about the meaning of a chai necklace.
“It’s been fun putting in these little Jewish things,” Mr. Margolis said. “Someone buys someone a sandwich, and one of the Silvers says, ‘There’s bacon on this. I can’t eat it.’ It’s just a throw-away line. But it’s part of their Jewish lives that makes them full characters and kind of runs through the whole tapestry of the show.”
“Boston Blue” airs on CBS at 10 p.m. on Friday nights.