Why are American Jews so intrigued by Shtisel?
E
arly in the previous century, the head clergyman at Temple Emanu-El, New York’s flagship Reform temple, once said proudly that “a prominent Christian lawyer… has told me that he entered this building at the beginning of a service on Sunday morning and did not discover that he was in a synagogue until a chance remark of the preacher betrayed it.” Back then, a visitor who’d mistakenly entered the sanctuary with his head covered might promptly be approached by an usher asking him to bare it (grinning or otherwise) so as not to offend proper temple decorum.
Well, times have changed. Two weeks ago, Temple Emanu-El and UJA-Federation of New York cosponsored a panel discussion at the temple featuring the actors of Shtisel, a television drama about a chareidi family in Jerusalem’s Geula neighborhood.
It was planned as a one-night event, but when all 2,300 seats sold out in just over four hours, the sponsors added a second evening, which sold out in seven hours. UJA’s executive vice president said he had “never seen this [level of] interest and excitement for any program,” which, writer Peter Beinart observed in an Atlantic essay, “is saying something, given that the [temple] last year hosted former President Barack Obama.”
Beinart wonders why the show has developed such a devoted following among secular American Jews. He acknowledges that with themes like the complexity of family dynamics and coming to terms with loss and longing, it holds universal appeal, and that it also provides a rare window into a mystifying, inaccessible culture.
Create a free account to keep reading.
