Currently Browsing: Television 34 articles
Is She or Isn’t She . . . Jewish?: ‘The Queen’s Gambit’
Vincent Brook reviews new Netflix series, The Queen’s Gambit. SPOILER ALERT: The following review contains major reveals! We all know about Bobby Fischer, the paranoid, self-hating Jewish chess wiz featured in two American movies (Meeting Bobby Fischer, 1993; Pawn Sacrifice, 2015). Fischer became U.S. champion at fourteen and, marred by his antisemitic rantings, defeated the […]
The Art of Mizrahiness
Karen Skinazi argues that, in the Jewish diaspora, we don’t talk enough or think enough about the Mizrahi experience—but, with writers like Ayelet Tsabari, that’s changing. I don’t remember hearing the word ‘Mizrahi’ growing up. Almost all the Jewish people in my Jewish day school, and almost all the Jewish people in the stories we […]
The Crown’s Jew(el)s*
Nathan Abrams looks forward to finding more Jews in The Crown‘s new season. Season Four of the Netflix drama The Crown is about to drop. ‘This drama’, as its official website states, ‘follows the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and the events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.’ Seemingly, […]
Watching Unorthodox in Broughton Park
Rachel Harris argues that problem with Orthodox Jewish women in popular cultural representation lies with audience shlock and salvation, not with Charedi society. I am an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor, supporting people who have experienced sexual violence. I am a writer and a campaigner against ideologically motivated harms. I live and work in the heart […]
A Golden Age of Jewish Television?
Nathan Abrams reflects on current Jewish television, wondering if we are now enjoying a golden age of Jews on the box. ‘When Did TV Get So Jewish?’ proclaimed Vanity Fair recently. On almost every channel, we find Jews on television, both factual and fictional. We have also seen more and more Jews both as central and incidental characters and […]
From Aliyah to ‘I’m A Celebrity’: Gwrych Castle’s Secret Jewish History
Nathan Abrams reveals the forgotten Jewish history of Gwrych Castle. One thing that has been missed in the excitement of the announcement that Gwrych Castle in Abergele, north Wales is hosting I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here is the location’s Jewish history. During the Second World War, Jewish refugee children were housed in […]
Jews and Cheese: An Ambivalent Relationship
As we celebrate Shavuot, Nathan Abrams explores the curious relationship between Jews and cheese. The issue of Stilton cheese, which held up any potential UK trade deal with Japan, got me thinking about the relationship between Jews and cheese. But as it’s Shavuot, it’s a good time to be thinking about it again. Despite the modern Israeli’s love of all things to […]
MRS AMERICA: Everything coming up Bagels
True story: About three weeks into a new job, my first in England, which had thus far included a lot of activities labelled ‘induction’ (a term unfamiliar to my North American brain, but which seemed to mean go drink coffee while having small talk about the weather and bad shows like The Great British Bake […]
Frum Fetish Shlock: Netflix’s ‘Unorthodox’
The problem with Orthodox Jewish women in popular cultural representations lies with audience desires for shlock and salvation, not with Haredi society. The Netflix series Unorthodox, appearing as it did at the heart of pandemic lockdown, caused a sensation in both the Jewish and non-Jewish world. The four-episode drama offered a tantalizing look at a woman’s escape from her […]
‘A Place to Call Home’: The Fantastic Jewish Show You Haven’t Been Watching
Australian drama, A Place to Call Home, by Bevan Lee, premiered in 2013, follows Sister Sarah Nordmann (née Adams), played by Marta Dusseldorp, as she returns from two decades in Europe to 1950s Australia. After nursing in the Spanish Civil War, she spends the rest of the 1930s in Paris, with her Jewish husband — she has converted to Judaism so they can marry. They are caught up in the […]