Ok, I still stand corrected on Seinfeld. In 9 seasons, and 180 episodes, there was only a bit of jewishness in the show.
But, Dear Pashuteh, I think your premise may be wrong.
Most people would say that the worst decade for Jews in the US was the 1930’s. Father Coughlin was spewing his antisemitic vitriol from Detroit over the nationa airwaves, Hitler’s propaganda machine was supplying anti-Jewish organizations in the US with first-rate propaganda.
Yet, during that time, even before that time and after that time, what was the most popular show on radio? The Goldbergs, also called “The Rise of the Goldbergs,” and “Molly.” It was a show about a loving Jewish family living on East Tremont Avenue in The Bronx, the parents and elders speaking with Yiddish accents, living in a tenement, using Jewish words, celebrating Passover and Yom Kippur, all the while generally being funny and positive. They occasionally addressed more serious issues, such as Kristallnacht, in an episode where a stone is hurled through the Goldberg’s window during their Passover seder.
Most of the action took place in the kitchen, where neighbors and friends and others would come to visit (*does this sound like Seinfeld at all?*) It was a revolutionary show, and the forebear to “I Love Lucy,” “The Honeymooners,” and also “Seinfeld.”
The only 15-minute comedy that had a longer life than “The Goldbergs” was “Amos and Andy.”
An article in SLATE magazine in 2007k, a Jewish educator said, “This series has done more to set us Jews right with the ‘goyim’ than all the sermons ever preached by the Rabbis.”
So, here was the worst period in America for Jews, yet one of the most popular shows on radio was about Jews.
Today, when antisemitism seems to be at a low, there are only shows like Seinfeld, where we have to grasp at little straws of jewishness.
I guess my point is that there is not a relation between Jews on TV or Radio, and acceptance of Jews in America. If you take the two examples of Seinfeld and The Goldbergs, you can see that there may actually be an inverse relationship (I don’t really hope so.), and that Seinfeld may not be as significant an indicator of jewish acceptance in the US as he first appears.
I also recall an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show, written lovingly and somewhat autobiographically by Jewish actor, writer and director, Carl Reiner, where there were characters that were proudly Jewish. I recall one episode where Buddy, brilliantly portrayed by Morey Amsterdam, one of the comedy writers, was sneaking out in the afternoons. His coworkers thought he was having an affair, but in fact, he was sneaking out to see a rabbi about Torah lessons, so he could become a bar mitzvah. Now, that’s a character who is clearly Jewish and self-identifies.