Movies in Hebrew at Izzy Streamisrael

If you are thinking about improving a language, any language, watching movies in the original language with subtitles helps a lot. The language of movies is usually easy, using basic conversational vocabulary, the kind you need to maintain a basic conversation. Additionally, movies are an excellent way to get immersed into a culture. No wonder that the American culture is so well known everywhere as the movies made in Hollywood do have such a widespread audience.

For those who are looking to improve their Hebrew while getting to know different historical and cultural facts about Israel, Izzy Streamisrael offers a good selection.

I tested the service for a week and was overall happy with the results, only that as for now the selection of movie is relatively limited. You will not find very popular Israeli movies, of the kind of those aired at international film festivals but rather popular local series and films. There are a couple of documentaries, but unfortunately none of the old movies.

However, it seems that the list of movies is permanently changing and those who are aired are really unique, of the kind that you hardly hear about it. Which does not mean that they are not worth watching.

The registration process on the platform is very easy: you register an email address, set up an account and a password. It costs 5 USD per month - which is a ridiculous price after all - with a 7-day free access. If you have some time on your sleeves and you love movies, one week is enough to figure out if you want to continue your membership or not. 

The main language of the website is English and one can watch it everywhere in the world. Especially for those looking to a more in-depth connection with Israel, the real Israel with all its goods and bads, Izzy Streamisrael is an easy gateway.

Here are the films that I watched during my trial period.

Allenby St.

The 12 episodes of Allenby St. - in installments of 30 minutes each - are based on the bestseller book of Gadi Taub - unfortunately only published in Hebrew. Taub also created the series and also has an episodic role. The film is following the spirit and the flesh of the book which follows the complicated relationships in the underworld of Tel Aviv, where Orthodox drug dealers meet desillusioned religious girls turned prostitutes, bouncers, merciless mafia-connected security guards and sentimental night club owners. 

The film has an alert pace, a couple of great twists and some good human insights, plus some good actors - like Aviv Alush (maybe they will upload more of his movies on the platform, one day). I watched it over the last weekend and it was definitely worth it. Like the book, it is not for the faint of heart and it contains openly aggressive and violent and sexual content, but it shares a slice of real Israeli life.

Benched

A short movie (22 minutes) directed by Gill Weinstein, Benched features Baruch, a former successful basketball player in the 1970s who became religious, abandoned his career and retired from the city. Now, he is back to visit unannounced her former lover and eventually see for the first time their son that he abandonned. 

I loved the concision of the visual language, as well as the fine tensions created through different encounters featuring the before and after. Although it is not explicitly expressed into words, the gestures, movements of the eyes the oppositions between the old and new life are building up finely. 

Although it is hard to remain non-judgemental, there is a beauty in the dramatic failures and human mistakes.

Ben David

The half-hour short movie by Evyatar Rosenberg, Ben David was my least favorite movie. One Shabak - Israel´s internal intelligence - agent, a religious Jew, is switched unexpectedly from one department to another. His new assignment is to recruit and infiltrate the Hilltop Youth movement, radicalized youngsters living in the settlements, often opposed to the state institutions, particularly police and Army. 

Although the topic is interesting, the intrusive ways of the Shabak agent were annoying and clumsy. Personally, I didn´t connect at all with this movie. Maybe the 30-Minute length was not the right tempo. 

Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

 

The Jewish heroes of the post-WWII narrative were mostly survivors of the concentration camps. Broken people, most of them unwilling to share their stories, their testimonies - very scarce in words - were part of a larger story of Jews as the unequivocal victims. ´Jews were like lambs to the slaughter´ says this narrative.

However, more and more testimonies collected in the recent decades are rather proving the opposite. In fact, from the very beginning of the Nazi nightmare, Jews rebelled. In France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and Eastern Europe, Jews set up groups of resistance, fought to death but at least they died as free people. 

Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust by Doreen Rappaport  offers a significant number of stories about resistance against Nazis as well as networks of support and rescue organised by gentiles - churches mostly, but also individuals, particularly in France. Although the role of the church in ´saving´ in different capacities Jewish children has so many dark episodes, it did saved children from being sent to death. How difficult it was for the parents or surviving family members to find them and take them back it is another painful story of those dramatic times. 

The stories told in the book - who was in the preparation for six long years of research in the archives and dialogues with survivors from all over the world - are representative enough to offer a wide different picture of the Jewish actions during the war. 

Nevertheless, those story do not diminish the trauma of individuals and families who experienced those times and were murdered. There are stories about childhoods broken, about innocent children sent out of their homes, in trains, with a small luggage, not sure if they will ever see their parents again. Stories of teenagers who instead of continuing their education, were forced to learn how to use a weapon to defend themselves. And there is also the pride, against all odds. Of being born a Jew and remaining a Jew, despite all the tragedies and suffering. 

The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust fills in important historical episodes normally absent from the predominant narrative, which creates a bigger and more realistic context of the period but also of the extent of the trauma.

Book Review: An Observant Wife by Naomi Ragen

 

One year after reading An Unorthodox Match, I am done with the sequel, An Observant Wife which follows the beginning of the married life of Leah - former Lola, a BT (baal teshuva, repented Jew who returned to Orthodox Judaism) - and her husband, Yaakov. I had access to the book in the audiobook format, read by Gabra Zackman. 

Although a sequel, it stands on its own and one can read it independently without the risk of not being able to understand what it is about. There are several useful mentions about the past events taking place in the previous book. I´ve found this book better structured and balanced than the previous one, approaching very stringent topics for the Haredi community in America and elsewhere, such as acknowledging mental health and sexual molesters. 

One of the reasons why I am devouring anything written by Naomi Ragen - actually, I´ve listened to this audiobook in two days and I hardly wanted to take a too longer break curious about what is to come - is that compared to other authors approaching the ultra-Orthodox world with a critical eye she is doing it without the black-and-white perspective. Knowledgeable both in terms of practice and halachic standards, Ragen creates a world of many nuances, human with all its highs and lows. It is more or less how this world - in Boro Park or Kirias Joel or Bnei Brak - operates in real life. Therefore, the characters of her books - An Observant Wife included - look very authentic, you can even represent them in flesh in the front of your reader´s eyes.

Shaindel, Yaakov´s older daughter, who was initially a fierce opposant to this marriage - as usually within a very religious community those returning to Judaism are considered with a very critical eye and may be never fully trusted - is experiencing not only the first teenage awkward rebelious moments, but also a possible beginning of a depression, a sickness that prematurely killed her mother - who could not cope with post-partum confusion and committed suicide, a mortal sin in her conservative community. Her innocent adventure with an OTD - off the derech, a label applied to those who have left the righteous path of Orthodox, observant Judaism - who happens to be the son of her school principal is set by her parents in the context of a larger emotional trauma that may need a professional - psychological support. As the person recommended by the local rabbi and the principal is in fact a sexual predator, Yaakov and Leah are trying to publicly reveal his misbehavior, but they will become the victims of a mafia-like row of attacks against their own physical integrity as well as their professional status. Is this situation ´gam zu l´tova´ - all for good - or they are in fact caught in a complex situation when they have to follow the religious authority?

As usual in Ragen´s books, the characters are complex, able to face the manifolds of their complicated situations. However, there are a couple of details that caught my attention which are slippery. For instance, the description of the first physical contact between Yaakov and Leah which is neither cast or passionate, and is presented as a very awkward encounter which is unusual for two adults that were having relationships before. Another aspect which was out of place was Shaindel´s voice which sounded sometimes inadequate for her age and background: too reflexive and unusually philosophical. Also, in the discussion about Leah´s BT status, there is not a single person who, in fact, may mention that she is a born Jew, no matter how much she sinned before becoming religious. Strangely for communities where the everyday life is regulated by the expectations of holy events - Shabbes, the holidays - there is no clear mention of family reunions around the Shabbes table etc. As for Leah herself, although she is obviously a BT, calling the kids with ´sweetie´ and ´sweethearts´ sounds very goyishe. 

Despite those observations, I fully enjoyed the latest book by Naomi Ragen, for the complexity of the topics as well as for the strength of the writing. An Observant Wife has memorable characters and, as usual in the case of this author, the women, no matter the degree of observance, are strong and can so easily make the world a more nuanced and better place.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Stop Sensationalising Orthodox Jews

 

Non-Jewish yellow media is so hungry for reading accounts of Jewish Orthodox life. With the emphasis of the voyeur, memoirs, accounts and everything that has to do with those ´strange´ habits of the Jews who don´t eat together with the non-Jews, don´t mix with the non-Jews, don´t even buy from them apparently is becoming instant popularity. Those revelatory stories about all those strange stories such as the mikweh and the shaven head and oh, those wigs the observant women are wearing are turning any religious Jew into a naked doll which is turned on all parts and examined to be sure that it actually looks the same like...you know, the other humans.

Mazel Tov by JS Margot - the pen name of Belgian-Flemish journalist Margot Vanderstraeten - is the story of an ´extraordinary friendship´ between the author and a Jewish Orthodox family. The story starts in the 1990s when Margot was hired to help with the homeworks and other school-related tasks the children of a family whose father was working in the diamonds´ sector. Probably at the time there was no Netflix and not too many OTD memoirs so we may a bit excuse the author for being so awkward when meets her employers for the first, second, third...time. 

Those Jews, who are interogating her about her - then - Iranian boyfriend, are always building up walls around themselves and are stuck in their old centuries-old rules. In the end, of course, she is becoming a friend of them but still, it´s nice to have different, exotic friends. Plus, they don´t want to answer her repeated questions about how was it in the war and other intrusions into a private trauma.

To be honest, there is nothing wrong with the tone of the book - which I had access to in the German edition - and it is well written, but the way in which every couple of pages one has to read about how different, and strange and bizarre customs Jews - the Orthodox ones - have, it´s embarassing. It´s not antisemitic, but it is, as they call it in plain German - ´doof´.

Rating: 1.5 stars

´The 100 Most Jewish Foods. A Highly Debatable List´

 

´the salty, the sweet, the dense, the light, the beautiful and the undeniably brown´...

I mostly came to The 100 Most Jewish Foods edited by Tabled editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse for the stories and less for the recipes. With so many recipe books and personal collections, I am rather interested on the stories behind a certain meal or another. But, as often happens during my intellectual journeys, in reality there were the recipes that kept me focused, more than anything else.

Let´s say it loudly...Most of the foods on the list are relevant rather for the East Coast Jews and Israeli, although it also covers other Jewish communities (Yemenite, Syrian, Persian, Georgian). There are chefs and restaurant menus and grocery store supplies that are mostly Made in America/Israel. Jews don´t eat too much bagel in Europe. There are foods that do not say anything to me, like the Hydrox or Bazooka Gum (although I used to crave for the cartoons attached to chewing gum). I am sad that there is no schnitzel although you may try to do an exercise of oral history with any yeshiva bochur to realize how important is this meal in their everyday life. I was happy to discover Adafina - a food of Spanish conversos - or Bialys or Labda and there is even an amba sauce recipe (the shortest way to my heart of stone). It breaks my heart there is not kokosh cake - but the babka the eternal enemy deserves a feature. 

I got the irony of including on the list treyf, burnt offerings and used tea bags but well, would have prefer even more local diversity - what about some Ethiopian Jewish food recommendations? 

I´ve learned, indeed, a lot of details about some less known foods and even some interesting details about how the Soviet-times food policies influenced the eating habits of Jews originary from the Soviet Union. For instance, the fact that the scarcity of food prevented them from a clear separation between Jews and gentiles. 

The authors are chefs, writers, journalists, food afficionados. There is Shalom Auslander writing about chulent with the deep hate I would experience if will ever be requested to write about chopped liver and herring. The contexts and historical details are very important and I know enough now to conclude that most of the basic Askenazi Jewish foods do have, in fact, a German origin. I may add that the tastiest are Hungarian but what can you expect from a book misceviously omitting the queen kokosh...

What entinced me when I was feeling that too much information is just too much information is the writing style of the recipes. So many careful details about the directions are a great exercise of food writing. Recommended to have a look at even if you are not Jewish, Jewish food lover etc. 

The project of The 100 Most Jewish Foods is largely revolutionary despite the controversies that are actually healthy for the discussion. I am planning at a certain point to cook myself some huevos haminados and maybe the Yerushalmi kugel recipe too, and hope to try in restaurants more of the foods from the list that I never or vaguely heard about. At the end of the day, Jews and food are a long story and every 100 foods counted are a blessing for the inquisitive soul. 

All being written, time to prepare my Rosh Hashana menu which is a very far hysterical cry of any description of a trendy, fancy heimishe meals.