An appreciative critic referred to the humor in Joshua Harmon ’ s play Bad Jews as “ savage . But Maddie Jo Landers , who will be in the cast when the play begins previews at the George Street Playhouse on Tuesday , has a different take . She thinks of the play not as savage , but as “ passionate .” Both terms arise from Harmon ’ s subject matter : a heated confrontation within an American
Jewish family over which of two cousins will inherit their grandfather ’ s “ chai ” necklace — a treasure he brazenly hid from his guards in a Nazi concentration camp . “ Chai ” is a two-letter Hebrew word meaning “ life .” The protagonists in this conflict are the brothers Jonah and Liam Haber ( Amos VanderPoel and Alec Silberblatt ), their cousin Daphna Feygenbaum ( Laura Lapidus ), and Liam ’ s “ shiksa ”