[Music] foreign [Music] I'm Tisha Bader thank you for joining us for this special program this season on JBS we are so thrilled to be broadcasting through game the award-winning and beloved Israeli television series which explores the lives of young singles navigating life and love in the modern Orthodox World in Jerusalem some of you may be familiar with through game already like other hit series from Israel such as fauda or stisel sugim has been a popular TV import to the U.S over the years but we are especially excited to be bringing you season one of this
series now and we hope you'll enjoy spending time with ifatodaya Amir and Nati again or meeting them for the very first time on JBS now through game the word in Hebrew means knitted or crocheted it refers to the crocheted yamakas kipot worn by modern Orthodox men on the show and in the community well on this program we are going to unravel through games so to speak looking closer at themes of Jewish life identity and of course and most of all Jewish dating like how do young singles today experience dating in the modern Orthodox world what
are the specific challenges or benefits to being part of a religious community while trying to find a mate during this program we're going to look beyond the television series to the real world today to explore how these things play out not just in Israel but here in the U.S and to help in that discussion I'm thrilled to welcome into the JBS Studio Shira Kaplan Shira works on the morning talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan she is also a Hebrew school teacher a Jewish Community organizer and a podcast Creator and she is an upper west
cider a community some have drawn parallels with with the Jerusalem neighborhood where sugim takes place and she has her own experience in the young professional modern Orthodox dating World welcome Shira thank you so much thank you for being here of course so when you hear that that people have made comparisons between the neighborhood in Jerusalem which is katamon and lovingly referred to as habitsa which means in English the swamp which maybe has negative connotations but we can get to that does that ring true for you that comparison to the upper west side at all and
how and why definitely definitely the just a large Congregation of Jewish people together young Jews particularly in the age group where they are looking for a partner definitely is parallel with katamonen and the Upper West Side the Upper West Side in general is such an interesting sociological experiment I feel like there's something like 60 000 Jews between 60th and 100th Street just on the upper west side it's not just uh you know young people but Jews in general and I don't know that anyone's calling it um habitsa but there are other things that people call
to get for West Side like the shadow for obvious reasons um people call going to kiddish after show a little bit like the meat market um and then there are a few dorms a few buildings that are called the dorms because they kind of serve as this transitional space between the college Utopia of the Jewish community and your adult Jewish Community that's so interesting when you're watching the show I know you're a fan of Sir game there are situations for example um in the first episode I believe where there's a a young man who is
in need of to fill in in the morning he wants to say his prayers he's at one of the girls homes and asks her to get him some and she brings to fill in which are the black leather boxes that Jews use to pray Jewish men basically and but he brings she brings him a setup to fill in from a female neighbor who uses them and he is completely in shock over this he says I'm not using these they belong to a woman you know it almost as if to say I'd almost rather not pray
than pray with these to fill in um which belonged to a woman are there situations that you've encountered as far as women's roles in modern Orthodox Judaism that sort of are similar to that situation yeah the Everest that is very very liberal in comparison to other Orthodox communities they're still always work to be done in regard to front-facing women leadership roles but there are a number of shows on the upper west side a number of synagogues one of them for example is a partnership minion so there's a Maritza between the men and women seating but
women give directora they read from the Torah they lead davening their other more middle of the road places some places that you dress a little more formally and on a date when someone asks you what shall you go to they're kind of feeling out maybe your political leanings but also how religious are you because even though it's not a blanket statement not everyone is exactly the same at every show it does give you kind of an implication of who someone is so relating to what you just said someone asked you what tool you go to
it's getting information about you right so when you go on a dating site or what have you you want information about the other person obviously you want to see if you'd be compatible is it helpful like to have more information in other words right off the bat you can tell usually if a man is a modern Orthodox Jew by the knitted keeper and sometimes you know you can say that many young orthodox uh modern Orthodox women dress in a similar fashion I don't want a blanket statements saying dress the same because that's really not true
but is it easier in a way to live in a neighborhood or in a community where certain things are identifiable right off the bat and you already have information or do you find that it limits or makes you judge people in a certain way that's interesting yeah I well I think about specifically with keepode that it feels like you're it's like your sorority letters like this is the group that I am a part of and I feel like with so like the keep asking for God the knitted keepa maybe it means you're a little more
zionistic maybe you spend a little extra time in Israel if you have like the more structured like saucer keeper it's a little more trendy maybe you're from I don't know an urban area and there's like a suede keepa that's kind of somewhere in the middle and it doesn't it's not always whatever it's not like this is the person who the person is but it does give you kind of an idea with women it's a little more complicated because there is such a wide range of how people dress and that's it's so incredibly personal all of
it but I was even surprised seeing just the wide range that there is and it doesn't Define who you are as a Jew but it it does kind of put you somewhere and we like our brains we need places to to categorize people and so to a degree it helps do you feel it's too insular sometimes or what are the pros and cons of being in a community and obviously not the entire Upper West Side is Jewish but like you mentioned it's a very strong number a very large population is there any negative to that
insularity I think it's mostly positive the I would say just to begin with the negatives I think people feel like it's oversaturated it's a huge amount of people and yet at the same time you also feel like you're seeing the same people everywhere so somehow it's we hold both I think overall it's a really amazing thing because again it's this transitional space this in between before you go off into your adult life you know to be married Etc and you're physically so close to all the people that you are you share so many things in
common with the modern Orthodox ritual of Shabbat of Shula then Shabbat dinner and then Shabbat morning services and then Shabbat lunch we have this like amazing traditional meaningful thing to gather around and it automatically cuts out um the usage of phones which is something that people have such such uh you know critical feelings about but it's amazing we we actually actively don't use phones from this time that we're doing the most social activity of our whole week which I personally really love and I think that it's hard for people of other denominations maybe in other
groups other parts of the country to find that community in the same way that exists on the upper west side so I personally am I'm a fan I completely understand why people would feel or feel differently but overall I think it's a net positive for sure um and talk about the Shabbat dinners that you host on occasion I know you work with a group called Maisha house tell us a little bit more about that and how it sort of feeds into this a social aspect yeah so that was when I first moved to the Upper
West Side that was the literal that was my social life was Shabbat and I think for a lot of people it is you have a crazy work week people are tired after work they don't want to do social things and the weekend is the time when you're all off and it also happens to be the time when you're observing Shabbat and the biggest thing for me was to figure out a way that I could host as many meals as possible it's just an amazing amazing way to have really meaningful interactions with people and there's art
you're gathering around something already there's no like need to you don't have to make conversation you don't have to make things to talk about it's like we're all doing the same thing it's been really really special for me I try to engage people who are affiliated with Orthodoxy and also people who aren't and just kind of because I do think there should be more inter-denominational interactions but overall it's been an amazing thing for me I do get funding from a few different organizations for you know depending on the on the week and it's made a
huge difference in my my social life and also my ability to make the community that I was hoping to have in addition to being a part of other people's Shabbat meals and Shabbat experience I love what you said just there about integrating it more with different denominations of Judaism people you know I was explaining this the other day to somebody who didn't know a lot about Judaism about the various denominations and there are so many I mean even within modern Orthodoxy or within conservative Judaism or reform there are there is a spectrum and Shabbat like
you said can be such a positive thing and whether the person drives to your house or walks there the fact that they're all sitting together at the table I think is really like such a beautiful thing are there conversations when you've had people that are even perhaps secular or not as religious are there conversations about that or is that kind of not the topic that is brought up yeah I mean if there's conversations about how we're all different I guess to a degree yes but the thing that I'm always so careful about is for example
with the ritual of washing hands uh after saying kiddish and before saying hamoti doing the blessing over the bread I do try I don't want to be like that annoying overexplainer but I do want people to feel as comfortable as possible I do not believe there's anything there's any such thing as a bad Jew we just all have different ways of practicing and perhaps we haven't been shown Judaism in a meaningful ways it strikes us as something that we should be doing um so I try to I probably am guilty of being an overexplainer but
I'm very into I don't call them icebreakers because I don't believe in icebreakers the ice has been broken we are people wanting to gather I call them introductions I always have some sort of like silly question or introspective question to that everyone should answer and also even if you know most of the people it's if it's a reflection about your week we wouldn't have gotten to that subject if you wouldn't have been point blank asked about it so I try to yeah provide as much guidance but also let it be what it's supposed to be
what's a sample question you ask people at the table okay so this is what whistle and I did last week oh okay uh I was thinking a lot about highbrow versus low brow content and so the question was is there something that you really really love you do not consider it a guilty pleasure it's considered low brow but you think it should be highbrow like a television show or yeah yeah like my answer was Tick Tock because everyone is so detests Tick Tock but I honestly I found so many recipes I found so much home
decor like I I think it should be given more respect but well thank you Shira so much for that insight and we are so excited right now to welcome into the studio and speak more about strugim with the creator of the series Eliezer lazy Shapiro born in Israel to American parents who made Aliyah lazy studied in Yeshiva and served in the IDF as a paratrooper before going on to study filmmaking at the maale film School in Jerusalem he created and directed through game which was named best drama by the Israeli film and television Academy and
he joins us now from Jerusalem welcome lazy thank you so much for coming on JBS all right thank you for inviting me it's a great pleasure for me thank you so how did this idea come to you what are what's the seed of sugim the ceter's true game is my life of course um at that time uh this is we started working on the show around 15 years ago I was uh single I was in my late 30s I was living in Jerusalem and I looked around me and I said here's a whole world that
no one's really familiar with and I was I graduated from Film School a couple years before I had done a documentary film for one of the cable channels here um and I was also looking for good ideas and so I was also trying to make a living and also create so it all came together in my life and my yearning to create and to to start my career and I came up with this idea um and and it worked I mean people always say write what you know right uh definitely um and it wasn't just
me we put together a writer's room first of all I have a co-creator called Chava Divan which we are both the creators of the show I'm the director but we're both the creators together and we put together a writing room of like six um five or six writers depends when and almost all of them had experience being single in Jerusalem at a certain time so everyone was writing from their own personal experience now this is the first time that this world this community was seen on Prime Time television the modern Orthodox single dating world that's
kind of a huge responsibility to have in a way to want to give as authentic a picture as possible of this community did it feel heavy at the time are we just trying to write a good show and then the rest will follow no it felt heavy yeah both me and Sava were like we're really good kids we're not Rebels or anything like that and um we knew that there's a lot of responsibility especially because in Israel um our society never really got good PR it was never showed authentically on TV if it was showed
it was showed usually in a political context um usually created by people who had negative agendas about it and you know we knew that our people are looking at us and like you're bringing us to TV we want to look good uh so we're not a PR Company we don't you know write things to make the people look good we wanted to tell our stories and I think in the bottom line when you tell a real story a human story and you create characters that people love and identify with then you don't have to show
you're living in a perfect world I mean if you create these characters that people like and identify then you did the job um you don't have to make everything look pretty uh actually when you show the problems when you saw the flaws people identify with you more I love that so much and I and I love the fact that the themes really and the the way we feel watching through game it is a universal thing it's not that you have to be a member of the modern Orthodox Community to enjoy the show you have to
be a person to enjoy the show because you're looking into these people's lives and as you said them dealing with the day-to-day many of the same challenges we all deal with perhaps with slightly different things around it in a different kind of framework but it's very similar to it's human connection um what was the response when the show was first down the air I'm sure you heard a lot from the community I'm wondering what people said and how they felt sort of being portrayed suddenly on this on the screen on the big screen or small
screen okay so I'll it divides into you know different audiences of course um here in Israel the secular audience you know where people are not religious at all were fascinated it's the first time they saw religious people on TV and they were human beings they weren't just you know a stereotype or something like that most of them really loved the show and I got good feedback when it comes to my own Society it was of course more complex and it you know divides again between our society itself became so diverse over the last decade over
the last 20 years you have you know our more liberal size and more conservative sides so of course the more conservative sides were like you know what are you doing you're doing you know what they say you're showing our problems you're showing you know things between men and women that you shouldn't show and you should be ashamed of yourself and you're not religious and stuff like that and on the other side there are people are like you know this is great we finally could see ourselves on TV we we finally people could really get us
they know what we're about you know people always came to me like people who work with non-religious people they'd say you know in the show if we saw let's say Monday night Tuesday night everyone and you know on the in the office which says that the way it really is is that the way your life is um so it was real it was real eye-opener for a lot of people and I think most of the people in my Society the mainstream they enjoyed it they appreciated it and they were proud of it um that's that's
it was really crazy years we got a lot of responses but most of them were very very positive that's awesome I want to turn things over to Shira for a minute um who can sort of ask you something in relation to where she lives in New York and yeah yeah I'm curious what you think about the comparisons of katamon the singles Community to the singles or couples community of the Upper West Side of New York well I've been there several times uh I was actually when the second season came out I was invited by a
synagogue in the Upper West Side the um the Jewish Center on 86th Street to do a premiere of the the second season like a shul you know flew me in uh was like a special event that was packed with hundreds of people that was very exciting and I got to know the upper west side it's it's of course very similar I think it's a little bit more advanced it's like 20 years ahead of us always you know because it it existed I think already in in the 70s if I'm not if I'm not mistaken um
and I think that it's like us but like 20 years from now and I must tell you that over the last 10 years the idea of trying to make uh an American version in the upper side it's gone across us many times um we even wrote a pilot once and um I could tell you why I don't want to give too many details but there is more of a serious negotiating negotiation even now with a certain company and we're actually we're talking the details already they're interested in it they think that it's uh that it's
something that would sell especially these days you know TV has become much more Americans are willing to see different kind of cultures and and stuff like that you don't all have to be like the same thing and and it might actually happen I don't want to open my mouth and give too many details but it might actually happen eventually it has to it has to Lazy okay we want to see this show it's such a perfect fit I don't know why it's taking this long but okay and as I said it really Israeli TV is
just booming right now I mean so many not only are we seeing shows like Diesel and fauda but also shows like um your honor based on Israeli shows homeland of course based on an Israeli show so get this done please just let us know when it's when it's finished it would be great it would be like ours it would be like our show but like with Maura's Chic you know like you know designer outfits and stuff like that yeah exactly um I wanna you mentioned men and women relationships on the show I just want to
thank you for showing such strong complex interesting women on this show because especially in the modern Orthodox World there are assumptions of women's role and women's place and from the get-go from the first episode These are women who are going to say kedush at their table they're going to say hamotzi at their table they are um you know they have very strong views on things they're very much um masters of their own destiny kind of and I just think that's a wonderful thing to see again and a lot of things we see on the show
from I feel like we see it from the female perspective and and well thank you for that first of all because that's not a given and this show is not written today when that is like a huge emphasis this was written years ago when it was not as hip and cool perhaps to really show the female perspective so talk a bit about that it's very funny it's not exactly what we planned but somehow it evolved to be that the the women were like the main thing you know it's really about these three girls the men
have their stories they're interesting of course but somehow the women are more complex I don't know what to say about that maybe there's something Universal about that um we found at the time there are professional that we were a few many of us some of us were women writers so maybe they they you know they know how to write it better um I think the majority were women but I really found that it was it was somehow better to tell a story through them they were more complex um there's something about men in general as
you know something's less complex and through three different kind of women we throw we showed three different models of of being a modern Orthodox woman one was more conservative more old-fashioned one was very Advanced you know also feminist about being religion and also being religious and also um she had a very strong career and one was more of a rebel you know it was you know between the border of being religious and now religious but still as he said she was you know the master of her you know she was she was taking in charge
of her of her or what's going to be with her of her Destiny um it somehow worked out like that I can't tell you exactly why that's how it worked out well it's really appreciated and so well done um when you look now at that specific neighborhood let's say of katamon I don't know if people still call it habitsa uh the swamp and are there changes that have happened that you've observed in that Community since the show came out um definitely first of all I feel like an old man already you know but I I
got married 12 years ago and I you know I went into my you know married uh um yeah what do Suburban life but I'm still in Jerusalem of course and you go into a different phase of raising kids and so on I still follow what's going on it's it's changed very much like the the certain like hip synagogues that were 10 years ago are totally shifted to different places um people are less innocent I feel also the neighborhoods have become different like cataman is still popular but like became more popular maybe for younger people from
our hit people and more interesting thing that happened over the last 10 years Tel Aviv has become a scene when I was writing the show 15 years ago there were hardly any religious people living in in Tel Aviv uh young uh you know Orthodox single people and now there's a youth scene there I have nephews in their 30s living there and it's it's very different than here in Jerusalem uh it has its you know Tel Aviv um um it's different in Tel Aviv in any case and and I think there's a lot less innocence because
the world has changed also you know all the you know the smart we didn't have smartphones you know you you know you arrange a Shabbat meal now through the WhatsApp you through a WhatsApp group people date through whatsapps you know they dump people through whatsapps or whatever um world has changed and so is our world that um something basic is still there you know the loneliness the pressure the pressure from your family uh that's always there uh but it's it's different I think you need to write a Tel Aviv version first of all it's through
game I'm also thinking of that by the way okay good okay okay okay we have high expectations from you and Sharon and I are waiting for all of this to come out as is most of uh our as our our audience is um I want to ask you something I read uh about the film school you have in your bio it the film School you went to sort of pushed this idea of exploring um I'll read burning issues of Jewish and Israeli identity fearlessly yet artistically explored on screen which is clearly something you did did
that really sort of inform you as well in creating the show and you know we have she still many people don't know came after through gameless first but is another example of like okay let's really look at something let's let's give people this this peek into this world as you said um yeah just one thing about schnitzel by the way the creator of stuff so one of the creators oriolani is he was one of our writers in the second and third season then he went on and created his own show he's very very talented wow
um I think in Malay you know I started also I started learning there 25 years ago and I also teach there by the way um there was always really some kind of pioneering there like they created a film school for religious people for several reasons also to make it more comfortable you know there's no Productions on Shabbat um and it's easier to work with religious people some of the content of the stuff you learn also but the main idea is try to create some kind of you know uh connection between the Jewish world and the
film world and that's a very you know that's very high expectations I think in the bottom line uh they created something very strong um uh more in the social area or the cultural area that it's the first time the young religious people are making movies about their life and showing their dilemmas and and that made a huge impact on the show is coming out you see religious people and and they're human beings okay that's like through game it's it's not my agenda but but it's always there you know I like telling stories I was born
like that I like making people laugh making them cry making them think about things but I also had a chance here I did have sort of a subconscious agenda to show my world and show people that were that were normal okay because a lot of times we get bad PR I think that's huge and I do think it's had that positive impact so congratulations mazalto on the show on it's still being popular this many years later we're so excited to be showing it on JBS and okay so you're going to be working on the upper
west side version of surveym the Tel Aviv version of Sir game anything else you're working on that we should know about before we let you know um there's there's a kids version of um I over the last year I created a TV show for the educational TV here in Israel which uh it's based on religious religious kids they were specifically wanted to make a show about logistics because they're not represented on TV almost at all and we created a show um I'm not gonna direct it but I'm the creator of the show and it's gonna
be American Hashem is going to be filmed this summer so I'll know more about it we'll tell more about it next year amazing lazy thank you so much for joining us Shira and I we appreciate and we cannot wait to see what you do next we wait with great anticipation thank you you're welcome it was great it was great being here thank you thank you to Lazy Shapiro Tashira Kaplan thank you so much for being here of course it was wonderful it was wonderful I appreciate it and thank you for watching JBS [Music]
