New visibilities of Ultra-Orthodox Jews on streaming platforms
Jewish Film & New Media
An International Journal
Edited by Nathan Abrams and Nir Cohen
Special Issue- streaming the Ultra-Orthodox Jew: new visibilities in transnational contexts
Edited by Yael Friedman and Sophia Wood.
One of the evident transformations that were brought about by the rise
of streaming platforms in the past decade is the sheer volume and
diversity of television and film content from around the world showcased
to global mainstream audiences. Within this landscape, the number of
TV series and films that portray Jewish communities and themes seem to
be flourishing, so much so that a recent headline of the popular
entertainment magazine /Vanity Fair/ proclaimed “When Did TV Get So
Jewish?”[1]. Indeed, recent productions range from comedies such as
/The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel/ (Amy Sherman-Palladino, 2017 -) /Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend/ (Rachel Bloom, 2015-2019) and /The Awakening of Motti
Wolkenbruch/ (Michael Steiner, 2018), to dramas such as /Transparent/
(Jill Soloway,2014-2019) and /Hunters/ (David Weil, 2020), as well as
titles featuring the Israeli security services including /The Spy/
(Gideon Raff, 2019), /Mossad 101/ (Izhar Harlec, Uri Levron and Daniel
Syrkin, 2015-2018), /The Angle/ (Ariel Vormen, 2018) /Fauda/ (Lior Raz
and Avi Issascharoff, 2015-2020), /The Red Sea Diving Resort/ (Gideon
Raff, 2019). These examples seem to share a global appeal that speak to
different audiences around the world.
While Jewish characters and themes are by no means a novelty on the
American screen – both on television and in cinemas – this new wave of
programmes is interesting not only for its global appeal but also as it
includes a focus on the previously less visible experience of
Ultra-orthodox Jews. The most prominent examples are the
Yiddish-speaking Netflix original mini-series /Unorthodox/ (Schrader,
2020), about the escape of a young Haredi women from the confinements of
her Brooklyn-based Satmar Hasidic community, and the Israeli drama
series /Shtisel/ (Ori Elon and Yehonatan Indursky, 2013- 2015) that
follows the daily life of a bereaved family in the Ultra-Orthodox area
of Jerusalem, which was bought by Netflix in 2018, several years after
it was first aired on Israeli television.
The unexpected global success of both these ‘niche-themed’ series, about
minority closed religious communities, invites critical attention.[2]
Their modes of representation and patterns of reception are worthy of
examination especially at times where discourses of hate and extremism
appear to be on the rise, including expressions of antisemitism, and
debates around assimilation and pluralism are rehearsed in familiar and
mutated ways across Europe and the US.
We invite proposals for papers that would discuss these new
representations of *Haredi communities* from diverse critical
perspectives, and within the context of transnationality and transmedia,
with a focus on screen representations. Topics can include, but are not
limited to, studies of production contexts; reception, viewership and
fandom of new Jewish-Orthodox content; comparative textual analysis
across media; notions of alterity, otherness and exclusion; the rise of
religiosity and perceptions of fundamentalism; Jewish identity and
intersectionality.
Abstracts of 350-500 words should be emailed to yael.friedman@port.ac.uk
and Sophia.wood@port.ac.uk by 30 August 2020.
Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2020. First draft of full
article: 15 May 2021.
[1]Lisa Liebman “When Did Television Get so Jewish?” Vanity Fair, 16
March
2020,.
https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/journals/detail/jewish-film-new-media