Praise has been heaped on the artfully produced “Shtisel” for drawing the interest of secular Jews toward Haredim and the way they live. It even got to the point where tossing around the Yiddish expressions regularly uttered by the show’s characters was the way to prove you were hip. Memes based on the show filled social media feeds. Huge billboards featuring the show’s bearded and side-locked characters popped up in secular Tel Aviv, a city where it’s more usual to see images of bikini-clad supermodel Bar Refaeli looming over the freeway.Īrticles, reviews and blog posts about “Shtisel” appeared in major publications.
In Israel, “Shtisel” wasn’t just on cable - it was everywhere. In addition, “Friends” co-creator Marta Kauffman has bought the rights to “Shtisel” and is planning to adapt it for an American television audience. A critical hit in its first season, “Shtisel” became a huge, popular success in its second season among viewers of all backgrounds, including some ultra-Orthodox Jews without televisions who admitted to watching it via streaming video on the Internet.Īmericans, too, have a chance to be smitten by “Shtisel” as it makes the rounds on the Jewish film festival circuit. And I was not the only one who was glued to the screen during the series’s second season, which aired from late October through mid-January.
In general, I don’t look favorably on the insular ultra-Orthodox, who for the most part avoid the Israel Defense Forces’ draft (and denigrate those who do serve), don’t contribute their full share to the economy, and discriminate against women.
At the same time, the series does not shy away from dealing with real-life issues facing ultra-Orthodox Israelis, such as the pressure to marry early and the difficulty of supporting large families (especially in cases where husbands study Torah full time).
The Haredi lifestyle is presented as a given, and by and large the characters do not strain against its strictures. Pained by her parents’ complicated relationship, teenage daughter Ruchama rebels by rashly marrying a young student without telling anyone.Īdditional strands of the dramatic narrative involve other members of the extended Shtisel family and their friends and neighbors in Geula.
Lipa eventually returns, but it is not easy for Giti to forgive him. Left to raise and financially support the children on her own, Giti almost falls apart under the strain. Her husband, Lipa, overwhelmed with the responsibilities of supporting a large family, goes abroad (ostensibly for a job) and disappears for months. The other main plot lines deal with Giti, one of Shulem’s daughters, and her family. This clash intensifies when Akiva’s paintings gain the attention of a successful secular art gallery owner who secures for him a stipend, a studio and even a solo exhibition at the Israel Museum. There is true love between them, but their relationship is fraught with tension over Akiva’s still being single, as well as over his preference for making art instead of studying and teaching Torah. In fact, living in the mixed secular and moderately religious south-central part of the city, I rarely interact with Haredim on a daily basis.Īt the heart of “Shtisel” is the relationship between Shulem Shtisel, a recently widowed Talmud Torah principal, and his youngest son, Akiva, a bachelor who still lives at home. The series is set in Geula, an area of Jerusalem that is a mere 20-minute walk from my house but one that I have yet to visit since my arrival. To distract myself from the harsher realities of living in the Holy Land, I’ve been watching “Shtisel,” a television drama series about a Haredi family in a crowded and impoverished neighborhood in Jerusalem.Īs bizarre as it may sound, a show about people governed by strict Jewish law, following ancient customs and living in austere conditions has been my escapist entertainment in recent months. Palestinian assailants had axed him in the head as he prayed in a Jerusalem synagogue on the morning of November 18, 2014. The same week I attended Richard’s funeral, Chaim Rothman, the husband of a woman I went to high school with, passed away after languishing in a coma for 11 months.
A longtime family friend, Richard Lakin, was shot and stabbed by Palestinian terrorists while riding a bus in Jerusalem on October 13. Those attacks were renewed last October and grew into the ongoing Knife Intifada, which has involved plenty of killing and maiming by shooting and car ramming as well. The war was followed that fall by Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis. Just days off the plane, I unexpectedly became an expert on taking cover at the sound of an air raid siren. I arrived right before Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza broke out in the summer of 2014. As luck would have it, I moved to Jerusalem from California during a particularly challenging period. Ask anyone who has made aliyah to Israel, and they’ll tell you that it’s not always easy, even in peaceful times.