Ziva David

Character creation and casting

Sasha Alexander's character Kate Todd was killed in the second NCIS season finale following Alexander's decision to permanently leave the show. Shortly afterwards, series creator Donald Bellisario announced plans to replace Todd with another female lead. At the time, he stated that the new character would be "quite different" from the previous and of an undecided foreign nationality—"I want to go for a European or Australian girl who is very comfortable with her femininity and sexuality."

Before joining the cast of NCIS, Cote de Pablo, who lived in New York at the time, had performed primarily in the theatre. She was intended to portray one of the lead female roles in a 2005 Broadway musical version of The Mambo Kings and had turned down other television roles to stay with it. However, the production was cancelled in June after a trial engagement in San Francisco and two days later de Pablo was asked to audition for a role on NCIS.

De Pablo later said that the character was simply described as a generic eastern European woman and that she had used a Czech accent when auditioning. Over 50 actresses reportedly auditioned for the role, and another actress with a longer résumé had initially been the frontrunner. During a screen test, de Pablo and other actresses were paired with Michael Weatherly, who went offscript by brushing her hair back and commenting, "You remind me of Salma Hayek." De Pablo described her response as follows: "I dismissed him completely. My primary thought was, 'Don't let this guy get physically close to you.' And, at that moment, everybody in the room started laughing and thought it was the funniest thing in the world because the chemistry between the two characters was perfect." Co-executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson remarked that de Pablo won the role of Ziva for her reaction to Weatherly's departure from the script, saying, "When you get actors who really listen and respond organically in the moment to what they're hearing, sometimes magic happens. They really seemed to get that immediately, and that doesn't always happen."

The character's nationality was changed to Israeli after de Pablo was cast. She was also rewritten as a Mossad agent and Ari Haswari's half-sister, with creators originally planning for her to be Interpol or Royal Australian Navy. De Pablo later added, "I was one of the last to audition, and I don't think they had a clear idea of what they wanted. So I interpreted Ziva as a cool, competent woman, not the usual Hollywood sex symbol with big boobs, but [someone] who was comfortable in her own sexuality and used to working with men on an equal footing. It helped that by my looks, I could be taken for almost any nationality." She has also said that Ziva is based on an Israeli woman that she had known prior to joining the series.

Biography

Childhood and early years in Mossad

Born in Be'er Sheva, Israel on November 12, 1982, Ziva is one of three children fathered by the fictional Mossad Director Eli David, the other two being Ari, an older half brother, and Tali, a younger sister who was killed in a Hamas suicide bombing at the age of 16. Her mother, Rivka (Weronika Rosati), is infrequently mentioned throughout the series; she is referred to as having taught Ziva how to drive and preferring that she play with dolls instead of "boy games" like Battleship and G.I. Joe. By 1991, Rivka took her children and left Eli because she could no longer tolerate the nature of his work. They apparently attempted to reconcile at some point, though, according to Ziva, they divorced when she was 13 due to Eli's indiscretions with a female Mossad operative. In the Season 9 episode "Safe Harbor", it is confirmed that she is deceased, having been "killed" prior to the beginning of the series.

As a child, Ziva took ballet, though her father never came to any of her performances. At some point, he also taught her how to play baseball. Since her early childhood, Eli trained her in combat tactics and espionage (according to Ziva, one of her earliest memories of childhood was her father leading her and her sister into a forest, blindfolded, then leaving them there to find their way out again). She commented in "Tribes" that her childhood best friend, a Muslim, was killed in a retaliatory Israeli air-strike when she was twelve. She explains her upbringing to Tony: "You and I come from two totally different places. In my world, you grow up fast. You have no choice."

Directly after high school, Ziva served a mandatory period of two years in the Israel Defense Forces. Contrary to speculation, she claims she volunteered to join Mossad as soon as she was eligible, and was not motivated by the desire to avenge the death of her sister. During her time at Mossad, Ziva was part of a special operations unit known as Kidon, which is part of the Metsada (which is now code named Komemiute). This unit specialized in assassinations, paramilitary operations, sabotage, and psychological warfare. Her position was control officer. As a result of early, intensive training, she is very skilled in hand-to-hand combat and shooting, later attempting to teach a class on knife throwing at NCIS.

Ziva is scripted as someone who "has had to do awful things and watch awful things in her life"; she has "seen 12-year-old suicide bombers in Israel" and gone hungry long enough to resort to eating maggots. In the third season, she recounts an incident in which one of her friends from Mossad had been beheaded after infiltrating a Hamas cell in Ramallah; Hamas terrorists sent his head back on the overnight express, leading her to view captivity as worse than death. Ducky later told Gibbs that, "Agent David has been through things you and I can't even imagine" and suggested that she was the only one who could relate to a suspect who had been abused.

NCIS

Officer Ziva David first appears in the third season, having been sent to NCIS following the murder of Special Agent Todd by Ari Haswari. She is Ari's control officer and half-sister due to the fact that they shared the same father, Mossad's then Deputy Director, Eli David (Michael Nouri). Eli is later described as Director of Mossad.

During the episode "Kill Ari (Part 2)", NCIS Special Agent Gibbs finds himself cornered by an armed Ari, but Ziva emerges at the last minute and kills Ari with a single gunshot wound to the forehead, similarly to the way Ari had shot Agent Kate Todd in the season 2 finale, "Twilight". After Ari's death, she asks to be assigned as a liaison for Mossad at NCIS, where she subsequently joins Special Agent Gibbs' team in the episode "Silver War", permanently replacing the deceased Agent Todd.

Her early storylines center on her integration and attempts to be accepted by the other characters. Due to her relation to Ari, Ziva's appearance and eventual assignment to Gibbs' team draws fierce resentment from team member Anthony DiNozzo, forensic specialist Abby Sciuto, and even Gibbs himself when he learns that Director Shepard had assigned Ziva to his team without his knowledge. She later proves her worth in the same episode by using her training to save herself and Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard from Dr. Burns, a rogue member of the Smithsonian Anthropology Lab. This in turn causes the team to develop a newfound respect for her and sets the foundation for Ziva's strong friendship with Ducky.

In "Shalom", the fourth season premiere, she is framed by Iranian agents for the murder of two FBI officers and a suspect in their custody who was wanted for crimes against Israel. Accused of being a double agent, she becomes a fugitive and is forced to ask for help from Gibbs, who had retired from NCIS at the end of season 3 and is living in Mexico. They ultimately prove her innocence, which prompts Gibbs to return to NCIS.

According to one critic, "the first time we really see Ziva's soft side is during season 4", when she develops a short but intense friendship with Lt. Roy Sanders (Matthew Marsden), who had been intentionally exposed to radiation by a coworker, in "Dead Man Walking". Ziva knew him from her daily run, during which they always passed by each other running in opposite directions. This elicits concern from Tony and others when it becomes clear that she is "falling in love with a dying man". Roy later asks if she would have noticed him if he had just stopped running, expressing regret that they had never been able to "run together". Ziva assures him that she will never forget him, and after his death, she is shown frequently wearing the orange beanie that Lt. Sanders wore when he went running.

Subsequent events

Following her resignation from NCIS in season ten, Ziva returns to Israel. Following an explosion, and the subsequent death of Secretary Clayton Jarvis, the remaining members of Gibbs' team are informed that Ziva's life is in danger. DiNozzo travels to Israel in order to ensure her safety, and the two share a passionate kiss. In season thirteen, it is revealed that they also consummated their relationship, leading to Ziva becoming pregnant. Though DiNozzo was not informed of this, Ziva gave birth to a daughter named Tali. In season thirteen ("Family First"), Ziva's farmhouse is destroyed in a mortar attack ordered by CIA Agent Trent Kort. Although Tali is found alive, the NCIS crew are informed that Ziva is dead, though her remains are not found at the house. DiNozzo subsequently departs NCIS in order to care for their daughter, and travel to both Israel (in search of answers), and Paris, in honor of Ziva's love for Paris.

Prior to the season thirteen finale, Ziva builds a strong friendship with her father's successor - Director Orli Elbaz - who later informs DiNozzo of the difficulty Ziva had faced while deciding whether to inform him of the birth of their daughter which Tony is given care of after Ziva is presumably killed.

In the season sixteen episode "She", NCIS reopens a ten-year-old cold case when they find the starving daughter of a woman who has been missing for ten years. While digging into the case files, Special Agents Eleanor Bishop and Nick Torres find that Ziva had kept notes on and had been secretly investigating the case after her departure from NCIS. While interviewing the girl's father and woman's boyfriend, he points them to a backyard building that Ziva had rented for years as a private office to write private journals as she coped with her job and life in America, though it hasn't been touched since her apparent death. Bishop tells Gibbs about this, who admits he suspected but warns her not to get personally involved in the case as it could get her killed. After finding the woman alive and arresting her kidnapper, Bishop goes to read a vengeful note from the woman's mother that Ziva had intended to read to the kidnapper, only to find that someone had already read it to him before she arrived. Realizing that Ziva is alive, Bishop runs to her private office only to find a note from Ziva asking her not to reveal her secret for the safety of her family. At the end of the season sixteen finale, "Daughters", Ziva shows up in Gibbs' basement to inform him that he is in danger.

During the season seventeen premiere, "Out of the Darkness", it is revealed that Ziva faked her death to protect her family from a woman named Sahar who wanted to kill her. Sahar was involved in a Hamas splinter group with Ziva's brother Ari, and is seeking revenge for his death.

Development

Characterization

Cote de Pablo describes the character as someone who is "completely different from anyone else on the show" and that because "she's been around men all her life; she's used to men in authority. She's not afraid of men." She later stated that, "This woman is a soldier. She takes things to the extreme. She knows how to use all sorts of things—guns and knives—I would never imagine using. ... She's one tough woman, but it doesn't take away from the fact that she's still very sexy and playful and all of that. But, when it comes to work she means business." Ziva is often portrayed as calmly aggressive and does not shy away from physical altercations with suspects, though it has been acknowledged that she has become "a little bit softer" and "more inclined to listen before acting out" since her arrival at NCIS. She is not easily intimidated or rattled. She approaches her job with zeal, appearing to truly believe in what she does. She is very committed to the ideals of the U.S., in particular the bounds that law places on all citizens including the government.

Ziva is sometimes considered a "haunted" figure; she is a skilled assassin and is able to take life without hesitation or remorse when the situation requires, something that has not changed with her new affiliation with NCIS. In spite of this, Ziva is capable of displaying playfulness, nearly childishness at times, such as in "Heartland" when she gleefully races McGee to be the first to tell Tony and Abby about meeting Gibbs' father. She is particularly empathetic towards children, as demonstrated in episodes such as "Dagger" and "Outlaws and In-Laws".

Ziva is an Israeli Jew, and was always seen wearing a Star of David pendant until her capture in Somalia, where her captor ripped it off her neck. Shortly before her captivity, she said that she "would sooner die than take this necklace off". In early seasons, her Judaism is only alluded to, leading some commentators to identify her as a secular Israeli. She does not appear to follow Orthodox Jewish strictures, dating men who are not Jewish, though she celebrates Jewish holidays, observes Shabbat, and has been seen praying in Hebrew on several occasions. In the aftermath of her father's death in Season 10, she is shown praying in a synagogue, visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and planting an olive tree. Ziva has made references to keeping kosher; however, in her second episode on the show, she is seen eating a slice of pepperoni pizza, which goes against kosher dietary laws. After being forced to fatally shoot her half-brother, Ari, to keep him from killing Gibbs, she quietly sings "El male rachamim" ("God, full of mercy"), an Ashkenazi Jewish mourning song, over Ari's body.

Wardrobe

NCIS costume designers initially had Ziva's clothing style fluctuate; she is introduced wearing an IDF uniform jacket, cargo pants, and combat boots to illustrate "the Israeli military influence" on the character but afterwards is frequently dressed in high heels and skirts in a manner similar to her predecessor, Kate Todd. On realizing that the latter was impractical for an officer of the Mossad, designers settled on a more simple and low-maintenance style. Subsequently, "T-shirt, cargos, ponytail" became Ziva's signature look. This allowed Cote de Pablo to typically be "in and out of hair and makeup in all of 20 minutes". She explained, "From what I've been told, I'm one of the quickest girls in the business as far as getting ready everyday for NCIS. I put on my cargos, my T-Shirt, my microphone, my hair is usually up in a ponytail and I wear very little makeup."

An exception was made for the premiere episode of the sixth season, during which Ziva goes undercover as a bar singer. De Pablo opposed the idea at first and did not want to sing on the show, believing it would be out of character for Ziva. Despite this, she agreed to after executive producer Shane Brennan described the scene. For the opening of the episode, she was dressed in a blue, backless dress that, according to NCIS Costume Supervisor Rachel Good, was made by the show's wardrobe department. "We decided we wanted something sexy but long that revealed a lot but wasn't short or vulgar in any way," said de Pablo. "It had to be sexy and provocative, but in a long, sexy, sleek way."

More details were fleshed out as the character continued to develop. Costume designers wanted to show her acclimation to life in the United States and in doing so made her wardrobe less militarily influenced. However, they maintained the same basic style, keeping her regularly dressed in cargo pants and boots. Rachel Good felt that she needed to always be wearing a gun but wanted it to be concealed; given the task of "making her look sexy while still covering a huge holster piece on her hip", Good opted to have de Pablo frequently wear long coats while filming. These changes allowed Ziva to be "a hybrid of sorts" in terms of dress.

Stunts

Over the course of the show, Ziva has been involved in numerous action and combat scenes. Cote de Pablo frequently did her own stunts, saying that she "liked the challenge of learning to fight and enjoyed the adrenaline rush". She described some of the work as "intense" and "taxing on the body" but added, "Coming from the theater I love that. You get home and you're exhausted, but you feel like you've really worked." She sustained several injuries while filming—"I hurt myself a lot. I hurt my neck, I hurt my groin, my pelvis and I had a couple of injuries that were really hard to deal with." After injuring her neck, de Pablo decided to partially stop doing stunt scenes during the tenth season and "let the pros do what they do best".

In July 2013, NCIS received an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama Series, Miniseries, or Movie" for the tenth season episode "Revenge". The stunt performed in that episode involved an extended fight scene between de Pablo's character and her father's killer. When the NCIS cast was honored by the Red Cross at the Santa Monica Red Carpet in April of that year, co-star Brian Dietzen stated that de Pablo had worked on the scene throughout the previous night until six in the morning and, as a result, was unable to attend the event.

Language abilities

Ziva speaks ten languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, English, Spanish, French, Pashto, German, Italian, and Russian. Cote de Pablo is occasionally required to perform dialogues in Hebrew, Ziva's native language. She said of the process, "When I learn it, I learn it like a prayer, chanting it for a while. I have a good ear for language and, truthfully, I picked up the language pretty fast."

At one point, de Pablo was given 48 hours to memorize a monologue in Hebrew. She divulged that she used to criticize other actors who portrayed Latin characters and did not speak convincing Spanish but changed that perspective after having to learn Hebrew to depict Ziva. "Everything I had judgments on has turned around and bitten me in the butt," she explained.

A running gag in the series, referred to by fans as "Ziva-isms", is Ziva frequently misusing, misunderstanding or just completely mangling American slang, cultural references, colloquialisms, and idioms. For example: In "Silver War", she said she felt like a "donkey's butt" when she meant "horse's ass". In another episode, she says "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few legs" instead of 'eggs'.

Relationships

NCIS team and colleagues

The interactions of the NCIS team are often perceived as familial among viewers, and Cote de Pablo has commented, "I've always thought of Ziva as the adopted kid who comes in and has this really funny thing with one of the siblings, which is Tony." Ziva's arrival at NCIS initially draws mixed reactions from other characters. Both Ducky and McGee accept her immediately, with the latter living near her and assisting her in finding the best routes to work. Abby, by contrast, hates her at first glance, believing that Ziva was taking the place of her good friend, Special Agent Kate Todd, and resenting McGee's fascination and admiration for Ziva. During the course of her hate, Abby scribbles over photographs of Ziva, deliberately mispronounces her surname, and becomes annoyed when Ziva is praised.

Ziva's relationships with her colleagues steadily improve, and she invites Gibbs, Abby, McGee, and Palmer over to her apartment for dinner in the third season. Abby, who thinks Ziva is an excellent cook, begins to soften towards her, as the latter works to earn her friendship, first by helping Abby put a bomb back together for information and later by remembering her birthday. Abby, in turn, expresses concern when Ziva and Tony go missing in "Boxed In". In the third season finale, the tension comes to a head, and Abby angrily tells Ziva she has no emotions, prompting both women to slap each other. They later apologize after Tony goads them into it, and both women punch him in the arm when he jokingly suggests that they should "tongue-kiss" one another.

By Season 4, their friendship has grown and Ziva is accepted by the rest of the team, as shown in the season's premiere, "Shalom", where Tony and the rest of the team put their careers on the line and vow to prove Ziva's innocence before she is apprehended by the FBI for a crime she did not commit, knowing that their involvement could land them in prison. By the fifth and sixth seasons, Abby and Ziva are firm friends. When Ziva first appeared, she would flinch whenever Abby would hug her; however, by Season 6, Ziva overcomes her discomfort, and now accepts and returns the hugs.

Ziva's relationship with McGee develops to resemble one of a brother and sister. While Ziva teases McGee a great deal, often with Tony, they remain on friendly terms (Ziva's teasing is far more playful than Tony's, who takes a much more sadistic approach to the pranks he pulls on McGee) and continue to communicate when the team was disbanded between Seasons 5 and 6. He and Abby both urge Ziva to repair her friendship with Tony in the aftermath of their fallout in the sixth season finale. After Ziva is revealed to be alive, McGee outright states that Ziva is like a sister to him and he trusts and understands her enough that Ziva simply shaking her head at McGee from a distance is a request that he stand down that McGee follows.

Family

Ziva is depicted as having a complex family history, and, as of the tenth season, all of her immediate family is deceased: Tali, her seldom-mentioned younger sister, was killed in a terrorist attack against Israel; her mother died in an unspecified violent incident; Ziva shot and killed her half-brother to save Gibbs; and her father was shot dead in a targeted killing.

She evidently had a close relationship with her siblings, describing her sister as "the best of us" and as a person who had a great deal of compassion. In Season 10's Shell Shock (Part II), Ziva tells Tony that she goes to the opera every year on Tali's birthday, as Tali had wanted to be a singer. When Ari Haswari, her older half brother by her father, is accused of murdering Special Agent Caitlin Todd, she acts as his control officer and adamantly defends him. Her choice to fatally shoot Ari after his guilt becomes apparent in order to prevent him from killing Gibbs is often regarded as a pivotal moment for the character and a recurring subject within the show. Vance calls her motives into question in the episode "Aliyah" and charges her with acting on orders. However, Ziva later makes clear to Gibbs that she did in fact shoot her brother in order to save him, saying, "I pulled the trigger to save your life. I was not following orders." Though Ziva seems to feel that killing Ari was justified, she still struggles with guilt and coming to terms with his death.

Ziva and her father, Mossad Director Eli David, often have a somewhat strained relationship, especially following the death of her half-brother Ari. She recalls him taking his children into the forest for "fun" blindfolded and making them find their own way back. When Ziva was a child her father told her that one "can never truly know a person or their secrets". At the time, she had refused to believe him but later said that he had never been more honest with her. It is remarked upon several times that Eli "raised her to be a killer", a fact that he does not deny and explains to Director Vance: "Every day is a fight to survive. It is my dream that my daughter will not have to make that decision with her sons and her daughters. I would like my grandchildren to be doctors and architects. To live a happy life. To grow fat and old."

In the episode "Aliyah", Ziva is called home to Israel where her father says that he does not know if he can trust her and wants her to remain in Israel. She stays in Tel Aviv with her father and Mossad. The episode ends with a cliffhanger in which Ziva is being tortured at a terrorist camp in Somalia by Saleem. It is later revealed that her father sent her on this mission despite knowing that the risks made it a suicide mission. Gibbs holds Eli responsible for Ziva's captivity and subsequent abuse by Saleem and his men, saying that Ziva did not have a choice and that "her father left her to die in a desert."

Reception

General

Though viewers were initially wary of Sasha Alexander's replacement, Cote de Pablo received "huge praise" over the years for her portrayal of Ziva David, later winning an ALMA Award and an Imagen Award. In 2013, E-Poll Market Research released the results of a study naming the top 10 most appealing celebrities in America. De Pablo was ranked third, behind only actresses Betty White and Sandra Bullock. Other figures on the list included de Pablo's co-star, Pauley Perrette (Abby Sciuto), British singer Adele, and Olympian Gabby Douglas.

Entertainment Weekly included Ziva in its compile of "29 Female TV Characters You'd Date", placing her at number 17, and Postnoon included her in its list of "The sexiest cops on TV". In December 2011, TVLine announced Ziva as the winner of its "Ultimate Female Law-Enforcement Crushes Bracket Tournament". The tournament consisted of 64 nominated female characters from police procedural shows and several single-elimination rounds, garnering nearly one million votes by the end. Mary Edwards from the Reasons to be Beautiful Magazine published a list of "5 Great Female TV Characters of 2011" and wrote, "If any woman could have ended up a cold, emotionless killing machine, [Ziva]'d be a top candidate. But she's not ... She learns what it's like to have compassion and loyalty. She grows up. As an immigrant, she faces prejudice and racism, but she handles it with poise."

Her frequent misunderstanding of American idioms and slang has been described as "endearing" and is generally considered an appealing aspect of the show. Shortly after Ziva joined the series, Noel Holston from Sun Sentinel described her as "an exotically beautiful Israeli whose tendency toward malaprop English belies her investigative and interrogative experience". In 2007, Jewish Exponent editor Michael Elkin commented, "All shook up? That's the freshness she's injected into [NCIS], which just wrapped its fourth season with military honors and where second-season de Pablo is de anti-pablum, a no-nonsense ninja of a nemesis for those nasty evil-doers who soon discover that the Israeli is for real." In a 2012 publication of The Jewish Daily Forward, Lilit Marcus wrote, "Despite being unevenly written, Ziva was always compelling: She was tough, fearless and, often, tender." C. Coville from Cracked magazine questioned the choice to script her as "an espionage expert who knows nine languages ... all at age 28", describing excessive multilingualism as a common problem in television dramas.

Ziva's "will they/won't they" relationship with Tony DiNozzo, dubbed "Tiva" by viewers, became a prominent subject of interest. Maureen Ryan from Chicago Tribune commented that their "love-hate banter gives the show extra zip" during de Pablo's first year with the series. Due to being drawn out over several years, the development has been called a "slow burn", with Tony and Ziva being included in TV Tango's "Top 10 Romantically Challenged TV Couples". Entertainment Weekly described them as a "power couple" in 2013 and contributor Sandra Gonzalez noted that "it's tough to deny the chemistry the two actors (Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo) share" after "Housekeeping" aired.

Leaving the series

On July 10, 2013, CBS announced that Cote de Pablo would leave the series during the eleventh season of NCIS for undisclosed reasons. The network released the following statement: "We respect Cote's decision, thank her for being an important part of the 'NCIS' team, and for eight terrific years playing Ziva David. Cote and CBS share a great respect for the 'NCIS' audience, and we look forward to working with her and the producers on appropriate closure in this chapter of Ziva's story." De Pablo, who agreed to appear in part of the season, commented, "I've had 8 great years with NCIS and Ziva David. I have huge respect and affection for Mark, Gary, Michael, David, Rocky, Pauley, Brian, Sean, all of the team and CBS. I look forward to finishing Ziva's story."

Viewers sent "many e-mails, letters, notes, cards, posters, and so on to CBS headquarters and individuals at CBS" as well as cupcakes and M&Ms in protest. Many tucked paperclips into their letters, as they had become commonly associated with the character of Ziva following a Season 4 episode that featured her telling Tony, "I will kill you 18 different ways with this paper clip." Television Critics Association member Jane Boursaw published a letter sent by Dutch fan Dianne Lodder on her website. Lodder later wrote an editorial that was published in The Huffington Post analyzing the reasoning behind viewers' responses. Using writings by Blakey Vermeule, she explained, "Fiction allows us a rare insight into the minds and hearts of its characters, its people. An insight that we often wish for in real life."

CBS chief executive Les Moonves attempted to pacify fan outrage by claiming that de Pablo was offered "a lot of money" to stay on the show and that "the cast and the producers were aware with what was going on". De Pablo herself stated that her departure was "overwhelmingly hard—at times terrifying" and that it had not been planned. However, she declined to explain the reason behind it.

Cultural significance

Ziva, and Cote de Pablo's depiction of her, has been analyzed and commented upon by a number of critics, opinion columnists, and academics. She is credited as being the only Israeli regular on mainstream American television as well as the "most prominent televisual Israeli". Sarah Honig, an Israeli journalist and opinion columnist, wrote that Ziva is "quite possibly the only Jewish regular on American TV who's unapologetic, complex-free, and not comically dysfunctional" as well as "the only positive Israeli sort on the screen anywhere" in The Jerusalem Post. Jewish commentators gave the character favorable reviews, with Jewcy's Abe Fried-Tanzer stating, "Linguistic difficulties aside, Ziva is the show's most stable and dependable character, as steadfast as Harmon's Gibbs. Upon her arrival in Washington, D.C., Ziva proves her loyalty time and again, first saving the life of her future mentor Gibbs by shooting her murderous half-brother who was threatening him. That selfless, endearing act is representative of the kind of behavior that Ziva later exhibits over the seasons as she bends over backward to defend her teammates amid, and in spite of, the jokes her foreigner status frequently elicits. Ziva's portrayer, Cote de Pablo, is not Israeli, nor is she Jewish. Though the Catholic-born Chilean actress' pronunciation of the name of her character's home country leaves something to be desired, she does capture a certain Israeli toughness and no-nonsense attitude." Rabbi Elliot B. Gertel agreed that Ziva's sympathetic portrayal allowed the series to fairly show the security concerns of the Israeli government and the measures it takes to defend its citizens while still maintaining its role as a "good and helpful ally" to the United States.

The realism of her depiction also became a subject of discussion, and de Pablo's imitation of an Israeli accent and performances in Hebrew have been both praised and criticized. Anthony Frosh of Galus Australis suggested that her unrelentingly patriotic attitude did not reflect that of a typical Israeli, while Honig wrote that that trait helped Israeli viewers to identify with her more. Huffington Post critic William Bradley thought that the Chilean-born de Pablo was "surprisingly convincing" as a Mossad officer. Alex Joffe, a writer for Jewish Ideas Daily, added that when Mossad agents do appear on the American screen, it is often as "more extreme pictures of the general types and dilemmas", using The Debt as a primary example. He believed that Ziva, "a one-woman army, full of secrets", fell into this category but concluded that she was still "the most positive recurring Israeli character on American television".

De Pablo herself has been to Israel, visiting in 2007 after she received an invitation from the Israeli government. Shortly after returning, she stated in an interview that "Someone from the Israeli department of tourism watched the show and saw that there was an Israeli character on the show, and they were very happy about that. So they offered to give me a full tour of Israel. ... I'm still trying to digest everything. Everywhere you go, you're surrounded by Muslims and Christians and Jews, you can feel the tension, and you can understand why that is going on, but at the same time, everywhere you walk is holy. I went to [the historic fort] Masada, I floated on the Dead Sea. ... It was more of a trip for Ziva than for Cote. It absolutely informed my insights into her soul." She concluded that she ultimately thought that Ziva was a fairly accurate representation of the Israeli public.