JANUARY 6 • 2022 | 41

and is played by Harvey Keitel — in Lansky.
The top prizewinner at this year’s Berlin 
Film Festival was an angry satire about 
sex tapes, COVID, history education and 
antisemitism. Bad Luck Banging Or Loony 
Porn depicts Romanian citizens angry over a 
teacher’s private transgressions, but blind to 
their own ignorance about how their coun-

try has historically treated Jews.
Israeli film imports to the U.S. shone 
brightly this year, with the disability family 
dramas Asia and Here We Are; melancholy 
comedy Golden Voices; and intergenerational, 
cross-continental LGBT+ drama Sublet.
As Israel and Gaza burned this summer 
and national dialogue around the conflict 
turned ugly, Israeli filmmaker Ra’anan 
Alexandrowicz’s documentary The Viewing 
Booth explored how one American Jew’s 
preconceived views about the conflict 
impacted her interpretation of video footage 
from the region.
In the world of Holocaust cinema, the 
documentary Final Account interviewed 
elderly former Nazis about their memories 
of the Third Reich; the documentary Love It 
Was Not depicted the unsettling relationship 
between a Jewish prisoner of Auschwitz 
and her SS guard; the Slovakian drama 
The Auschwitz Report told the story of two 
camp escapees who tried to warn the world 
about the horrors inside; documentary 
The Meaning Of Hitler tried to break down 
fascism’s appeal in the modern age; and 

the documentary Speer Goes To Hollywood 
explored the lifelong denialism of Hitler’s 
architect (though its methods have been 
criticized).
The summer musical In The Heights told 
the stories of Dominican residents of a his-
torically Jewish New York neighborhood. 

 

TELEVISION
The biggest Jewish TV phenomenon of 
the year was the Netflix reality series My 
Unorthodox Life, following the controver-
sial exploits of “ex-Orthodox” fashion 
designer Julia Haart and her family. The 
show spawned a new tabloid feeding 
frenzy; one of Haart’s daughters split 
from her husband, starting an internet 
obsession.
The year was also dominated by Jeopardy! 
hosting drama, with Jewish actor/presenter 
Mayim Bialik eventually being crowned 
co-host of the long-running quiz show 
through 2022.
The HBO phenomenon Succession intro-
duced a Jewish character (played by Adrian 
Brody) who causes business trouble for the 
beleaguered Roy family. The mansion Brody’s 
character lives in is actually owned by a 
Jewish billionaire.
A smash-hit podcast about a therapist’s 
obsession with his troubled client inspired 
the Apple TV+ miniseries The Shrink Next 
Door, starring Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell. 
The show has deep New York Jewish roots.

The Club, a surprise-hit Turkish drama 
series from Netflix, explores Istanbul’s 
Sephardic Jewish community of the 1950s, 
and features a surprisingly large amount of 
spoken Ladino. 
The very Jewy Curb Your Enthusiasm 
returned to HBO for its 11th (and, some 
might say, Jewiest) season of Larry David’s 
legendary complaints. Plotlines this season 
included Larry fending off a Klansman with 
a shofar, and Jon Hamm learning Yiddish 
so he could deliver a fake eulogy for Albert 
Brooks. 
Curb co-star Jeff Garlin got into some hot 
water at his long-running ABC sitcom The 
Goldbergs, about a Jewish family in the 1980s; 
he’s exiting the show midway through its 
ninth season following an investigation into 
allegations of on-set misconduct.
Shtisel, the slow-burn drama about 
Israeli haredi Orthodox Jews, released 
a long-awaited third season, to famil-
iar acclaim. And it was announced that 
respected director Kenneth Lonergan will 
helm an American remake of the series.
The second season of Dave, the heady 
sitcom from Jewish rapper Lil Dicky (Dave 
Burd), aired on FX and established its creator 
as a new force in TV comedy. It contained 
plenty of Jewish jokes and an entire bar mitz-
vah episode.

The hosts of Showtime’s Desus & Mero 
visited a New York synagogue and, with the 
help of Jewish actor Eric Andre and a rabbi, 
had a bar mitzvah of sorts.
Netflix’s academia satire The Chair fea-
tured a professor who causes controversy by 
jokingly performing a Nazi salute in class — 
an incident possibly based on real life.
The PBS genealogy show Finding Your 
Roots welcomed Mandy Patinkin, and 
revealed that he had lost family in the 
Holocaust. 

FROM LEFT: Comedian Eric Andre, Desus 
Nice and The Kid Mero are seen in The Village 
Temple in New York City during an episode of 
Desus & Mero.

SCREENSHOT FROM YOUTUBE

Fashion mogul 
Julia Haart, 
top center, and 
her children 
are featured 
in the Netflix 
reality series 
My Unorthodox 
Life.

 NETFLIX

