A still from the episode “Nochebuena at the Funhouse / Hanukkah at Hilda’s. Hilda’s hands are covering the ichthys, commonly known as a Jesus fish. Courtesy of Disney Wiki / Screenshot
Hilda the Hanukkah-loving hippo is no longer wearing a messianic necklace in Mickey Mouse Funhouse.
In a newly edited version of “Nochebuena at the Funhouse / Hanukkah at Hilda’s,” Hilda appears wearing a necklace with only a prominent Jewish star. In a previous version of the Hanukkah special, Hilda wore a necklace with a messianic seal: a menorah above a Star of David above an ichthys, or Jesus fish.
The Forward reported in May that the initial inclusion of the messianic seal was accidental, according to a source familiar with the production. Although the Hanukkah episode underwent several rounds of review by Jewish cultural and religious advisers, including rabbis, the necklace was not flagged.
Disney did not respond to requests for comment about when or why the necklace was changed.
Allison Josephs, founder of the Jewish Institute for Television & Cinema Hollywood Bureau, which advocates for authentic Jewish representation on-screen, said she’s glad Disney made the fix.
“It’s certainly better than digging in their heels — because that costs them money to make such an edit,” she said. “So it seems like they are well meaning and want to do the right thing.”
The necklace mishap, Josephs said, is “more indicative of a broader problem — that just because Jewish people work on a project doesn’t mean they’ll catch everything.”
Josephs is less concerned about Hilda and more concerned with dehumanizing portrayals of Jews, the absence of Jewish characters who show pride in their identity, and depictions of Orthodox Jews in particular as joyless and repressed.
A 2024 study from the Norman Lear Center at University of Southern California found that only 18% of Jewish characters on screen talk about being Jewish, and 20% of analyzed episodes that discussed Orthodox Judaism showed Orthodox characters expressing dissatisfaction with their lives.
For example, the study cites a character from the Hulu show “Fleishman is in Trouble,” who says that another character “took it way too far, and now she’s, like, Orthodox and she’s gonna have like a million babies.”
The study also identified tropes such as “the nebbish man,” “the overbearing Jewish mother,” and “the Jewish American princess” that continue to persist.
But media representation is improving, Josephs said. The JITC Hollywood Bureau created an awards show in 2023 to honor shows that represent Jews authentically. Past awardees have included the FX series “The Patient” — which features a Jewish therapist played by Steve Carrell — and Netflix’s “Jewish Matchmaking.”
“A pendant, for me, isn’t where the problem’s at,” she said. “Dehumanization, hidden Jewish identity, relying on tropes that we’ve seen a million times — those are the bigger issues.”