Love, Jerusalem Style

"What's happening in the meat market?" asks a character on the new Israeli TV show "Serugim," which explores being young, religious and single in the Holy Land.

by Esther D. Kustanowitz

If you thought the streets of New York were hard for observant singles in their 20s and 30s, you should try Katamon.

Jerusalem’s young, traditional single Jews—Anglos and sabras alike—are talking about “Serugim,” the first TV drama to take the well-traveled “single in the city” theme, reduce the sex, and add a gloss of both religious commitment and the holy city.
“Serugim” (Hebrew for “knitted,” for the style of kippot worn by modern Orthodox Jewish men) was created, written and directed by Laizy Shapira, a 32-year-old graduate of Jerusalem’s Maale School for Television, Film and the Arts. (And yes, he’s single and religious.)

In Jerusalem—home to many native-English-speaking Anglos, some of whom defected from the states, in part, for a better dating

experience—residents have embraced the new show, which is in Hebrew, and tackles the experiences of single religious Jews from varying backgrounds.

The first two episodes deal with tensions within Orthodoxy and the nuances of interpersonal relationships between people who are very different, in terms of both personality and Jewish observance. For instance, women roommates have rules about men not sleeping over. But what if your date gets so drunk that he can’t drive home? Can he stay over? And what happens when that guy wants to put on tefillin in the morning, and the only set available is from Stacy, the Reform rabbinical student down the hall?

Originally titled “Sex And The Holy City,” the show does feature scenes of intimacy, but they are considered mild by the standards of Israeli film and TV.
The show covers issues familiar to the committed, traditional populations of Jewish singles in diaspora communities. What’s the etiquette when the guy you’ve met at speed dating hits on your roommate at Shabbat dinner? What if your traditional man doesn’t want a woman to make Kiddush in her own home? Should the first date question be whether the woman is going to cover her hair when she’s married? How can a woman tell her religious grandmother that she now wears pants?

The show takes place largely in Rehavia, Katamon, Nachlaot and the German Colony, and “the Jerusalem Swamp”—where educated, intelligent twenty- and thirtysomethings live in apartments, struggle with their place in the religious world, and seem stuck a permanent state of singlehood.

The first two episodes are available for viewing online (at yes.walla.co.il) only in Israel, but there’s talk of bringing the show to the US for Israeli film festivals. Meantime, some observant Jerusalemites—living without a TV or without a subscription to the YES cable network which airs the show—are requesting additional episodes online. Plus, Anglo audiences, who feel most represented by American neighbor Stacy, are beginning an underground clamor for more of that character.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization