I recently watched two different Israeli television series set in contemporary Israel, though all set well before October 7. In classic Israeli television fashion, both series star Doron Ben-David of Fauda, but that is besides the point.
One, entitled The Lesson, is based on a true story and won the best series award at the Cannes International Series Festival in 2021. Called Zero Hour in the original Hebrew and set in a high school in the city of Kfar Saba, the series begins with a confrontation between an outspoken student and her civics teacher about whether or not local Arabs should be allowed at the municipal pool. With this explosive beginning, the series shies away from almost no conversation of Israeli society: racism, politics, the IDF, morality, fatphobia, Arab-Israeli tensions, and social media are all brought into the conversation—often with typical Israeli bluntness.
The second series was one called Asylum City, based on a novel by Liad Shoham. Set not in suburbia but in gritty South Tel Aviv, Asylum City is a crime drama whose plotlines involve the Minister of the Interior, the Mossad, and a fictional African country called Narundi. There is a shady bank, backroom arms deals, and—most central to the plot—the plight of tens of thousands of African refugees living in Tel Aviv. Each episode runs with the disclaimer: “Some of the stories depicted in the series are inspired by real-life events. Names of people and countries have been changed.” Esther Kustanowitz, a pop culture writer I admire, writes that “though not a documentary, the series, which aired in Israel from 2018 to 2019, is soaked in the blood of realism and social unrest, as it explores the challenges of emigres of African origin living in the Jewish state.”
Having now finished both series, I am thinking more about the endings more than anything else. A longtime watcher of shows like SVU and Criminal Minds, I am certainly used to the American plot devices that allow episodes—and series arcs—to wrap up neatly and give a (mostly) happy ending. Israeli TV, almost universally, is not interested in that—which I find refreshing, powerful, and sometimes challenging.
As painful as I know it will be, I am looking forward to seeing what art—especially film and television—comes out of this terrible year. I know it will be painful, powerful, and urgent—just like the best torah.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer