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The co-creator of ‘Shtisel’ identifies as haredi Orthodox again
A version of this article first appeared on Kveller.
Yehonatan Indursky co-wrote the international hit show “Shtisel,” one of TV’s most sensitive portrayals of haredi Orthodox life, as a secular Jew. After growing up the youngest of five in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighborhood, in a haredi family, and studying in a yeshiva in Bnei Brak, he left the haredi world at age 19.
Last week, he said that he identifies as haredi once again.
“For many years, I fought the fact that I was haredi. I worked hard at being secular,” he told the Israeli publication Ynet in an interview about his life and his work. “Until suddenly I stopped.”
That kind of identity switch, from haredi to secular and then back to haredi, is very rare. Yet some would argue that through his work, Indursky never strayed too far from the haredi world of his youth.
In “Shtisel,” along with his show “Autonomies” and his debut play “Babchik” — which tells the story of a haredi restaurant owner trying to combat a deadly family curse — he has found ways to continue “live” in the haredi Jewish world.
Indursky attributes several things to the reason why he is once again wearing a black hat and growing out his peyos, or sidecurls. One of them is his relationship with his wife, Eva, an observant Jewish immigrant from France.
“I always knew that in the end, I’d fall in love with a religious person,” he told Ynet. “My father was haredi, my grandfather was haredi, and my son will also be haredi, if he wants to be.”
He also credits his parents with keeping him comfortable and close to religion, and especially his mother was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. When he was almost 19, after he decided to leave the yeshiva that he had attended since age 16 (he later made a documentary about it titled “Ponevezh Time”), he planned to go to a shelter for formerly haredi youth.
But his parents found him at the shelter and asked him to come back to live with them in Jerusalem. They told him they would love him and accept him no matter what — they just wanted him to be close. He later discovered that his mom fasted once a week in hopes that he would return to the fold.
Indursky said he always felt like an outsider, ill at ease in the secular world — but in his haredi garb, which he only started fully donning a few months ago, he finally feels like himself again.
He now belongs to the Gur Hasidic sect and lives in the heart of Tel Aviv. Indursky said he sometimes feels pre-judged by his secular neighbors, but that he is against the Israeli government’s controversial judicial reform — which he calls an egregious offense against the status quo Israel is built on. He is also pro-women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, and he hopes one day that haredi leaders will accept homosexuality. And while he regrets not serving in the IDF, he says he is against making haredi people serve in the army.
Aside from his recent critically acclaimed play, Indursky has also been working on a “Shtisel” sequel, called “Kugel,” due to premiere in the upcoming Jewish year on the Yes network in Israel.
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The post The co-creator of ‘Shtisel’ identifies as haredi Orthodox again appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions
ILLUSTRATIVE: The Iranian flag waves in front of the IAEA headquarters before the beginning of a board of governors meeting, in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Iran’s currency fell on Saturday to a new all-time low against the US dollar after the country’s supreme leader rejected talks with the United States and President Donald Trump moved to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran.
The rial plunged to 892,500 to the dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared with 869,500 rials on Friday, according to the foreign exchange website alanchand.com. The bazar360.com website said the dollar was sold for 883,100 rials. Asr-e-no website reported the dollar trading at 891,000 rials.
Facing an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has been gaining against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials at the time of Trump’s re-election in November amid concerns that Trump would re-impose his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
The post Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media
Lebanon’s army chief Joseph Aoun walks after being elected as the country’s president at the parliament building in Beirut, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
i24 News – A photo showing US President Donald Trump’s deputy Middle East envoy donning a ring embellished with the Star of David to a meeting with Lebanon’s leader triggered outrage in Arabic social and broadcast media.
As Morgan Ortagus, who is Jewish, shook hands with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, her Star of David ring was visible in the frame, sparking accusations such as her being “more Zionist than her predecessors.”
Her direct superior, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, is likewise Jewish-American, as is his predecessor Amos Hochstein, who was born in Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ortagus is the first senior Trump admin official to visit Lebanon amid the fragile ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite jihadists of Hezbollah.
The post US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing
Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope
i24 News – Anti-Israeli activists in Britain applied for a permit to stage a demonstration through London on the morning of October 7, 2023, as Gazan jihadists were rampaging through southern Israel and slaughtering civilians, the Daily Telegraph reported.
At 12:50 PM, as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was still ongoing, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) notified the Metropolitan Police that they intended to hold a rally the following week.
Reports and videos of the Hamas-led onslaught began appearing on social media, and Israeli and then international broadcast media, several hours earlier.
“The Met was contacted on Saturday Oct 7 at approximately 12.50pm via telephone call and informed of the intention to protest,” a police spokesman was quoted by the Telegraph as saying. “The Met committed this to our systems on the same day and are satisfied being contacted by telephone was a sufficient means in which to notify the MPS as the event was taking place seven days after notification.”
The group’s spokesperson defended the move, telling the Telegraph it was “clear” as early as Saturday noon that “the Israeli attacks on Gaza would be of an indiscriminate violence we had not witnessed before, and that 2.3 million people in Gaza – more than 50 percent of them children – were at severe risk.”
The post UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.