By Mark D. Zimmerman
Actor Matthew Perry died tragically at the age of 54. Perry was best known for playing Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends. Bing was not one of the Jewish characters on the show–among the six friends, Ross, Monica and Rachel were Jewish. Which Friends episode featured Chandler Bing with a Jewish component in the story?
A. The One With Chandler’s Work Laugh, the episode where Chandler’s on-again/off-again Jewish girlfriend Janice sleeps with Ross. When everyone learns of this dalliance, Ross says, “Okay, look, I-I know what you guys are going to say…” To which Phoebe replies, “You two will have very hairy children.” This is the only episode that Janice appears in where she does not nasally utter her classic line “Oh! My! God!”. But Chandler does utter that line (mimicking Janice’s nasal whine) when he learns that Ross slept with her. Janice replies to him, “Don’t you worry, Chandler Bing. I can handle lots of Jewish boys but you’re still the only goy for me.”
B. The One With All the Rugby, where Chandler wants to break up with Janice, but he can’t tell her. So he says that he’s being forced to move to Israel for work, leading her to go with him to the airport to see him off. Chandler approaches the airline counter and says quietly “I need one fake ticket to Israel.” Not understanding, the clerk tries to sell him a real ticket, leading Chandler to reply, “What would you give to a kid if he wanted a ticket to play with?” Ultimately Chandler purchased a $2100 ticket and boarded the plane as Janice says she’ll write him at the address he gave her, “15 Israel Road, Israel.”
C. The One Where the Stripper Cries, featuring Danny DeVito as a stripper at Phoebe’s bachelorette party. In another scene Chandler and Ross go to a college reunion. Ross speaks with Missy Goldberg and he tells her that “He [Chandler] and I both really liked you a lot, but we didn’t want anything to jeopardize our friendship–so we kinda made a pact that neither of us could ask you out.” Missy looked surprised, saying that “Chandler and I used to make out. A lot!” She then says, “Well, Ross, I’m sorry to tell you that your friend lied to you, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad it was him and not you who asked me out.” Ross asks, “Because you respect me for upholding the pact with Chandler?” To which Missy replies, “Well, no. Not really. It’s because I had already dated lots of Jewish guys. Chandler was the first goy I ever kissed.”
D. The One With the Butt, where Chandler meets a beautiful Israeli soldier and considers asking her on a date, but feels she’ll never go out with him. Phoebe tells Chandler that “you always see these really beautiful women with these really nothing guys. You could be one of those guys.” They do end up dating, and Aurora shares a story about herself, concluding, “Luckily none of the bullets hit the engine block. So, we made it to the border, but just barely.” When she asks Chandler to tell more about himself, he says, “Once I got on the subway, right, and it was at night, and I rode it all the way to Brooklyn… just for the hell of it.”
E. The One With the Triplets, the episode where Phoebe gives birth to the triplets that she is carrying as a surrogate for her brother and his wife. One of the children is a boy, and the doctor asks if they want the child circumcised. This leads to a conversation among Ross, Chandler and Joey, where Joey says “Why would anyone do that? I mean, really? Cut it off?” Ross, who is Jewish, replies, “They don’t cut it off, it’s just a snip.” Joey then asks Chandler, “What about you? Are you still all man, or are you like Ross?”, to which Chandler replies, “I may not be snipped, but trust me, girls still don’t think I’m all man.”
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Mark Zimmerman is the author of a series of Jewish trivia books, under the title RASHI, RAMBAM and RAMALAMADINGDONG: A Quizbook of Jewish Trivia Facts & Fun.