• The Front Row’s Richard Brody has Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love and Judd Apatow’s This is 40 on his list of the best films of 2012. [New Yorker]

• Hatufim and Homeland mastermind Gideon Raff is creating a new show for FX about an American family in the Middle East. [Vulture]

• Jewcy contributor Meredith Gordon has some ideas for how to up Hanukkah’s marketing game. Matt Damon is one. [HuffPo]

• Thanks to the Internet, you can get a Jim Morrison menorah and “Dr. Dre Del” stationary. [Guy Code]

• What happened when a Wasp went to a Bulletproof Stockings concert in Ditmas Park. [New Yorker]

• Meet the two young Jews who wrote music and lyrics for the new Broadway version of A Christmas Story. [Vox Tablet]

The post Daily Jewce: ‘Homeland’ Creator’s New Show, Helping Hanukkah Market Itself appeared first on Jewcy.

This summer, Hulu began streaming Hatufim (Prisoners of War), the Israeli show Homeland is based on. And while I’m always excited for new devotees of Israeli television, I noticed a strange phenomenon: people commenting on the relative unattractiveness of the Israeli actors in comparison to their Homeland counterparts. In fact, a similar thing happened when I was writing weekly recaps about the Israeli TV show Srugim—there were a few commenters who repeatedly popped up to air their opinion on the female characters lack of hotness.

Look, people are the worst. But they may sort of have a point. It is true that American TV stars, with their airbrushed perfect skin and glossy hair, are better kempt and more conventionally attractive than their Israeli counterparts. That’s partly due to the much lower production budget for Israeli TV, and partly because Israeli media lacks an US Weekly-style obsessive cataloging of every actresses’ baby weight or latest wrinkle.

And while some might prefer everyone onscreen to look like Bar Refaeli, there’s something comforting and refreshing about the every-guy quality of Israeli TV actors, who really look like people you might see on the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. I mean, would you really trust a CIA operative as attractive as Claire Danes? I have never seen anyone with such shiny hair in Foggy Bottom.

Danes’ character has no exact analogue on Hatufim, but as I pointed out a few weeks ago, the great Israeli Hollywood takeover has lots of Israeli and American actors playing the same characters. Cultural differences aside, some actors manage to bring more believability to their roles than others. To see how the Americans stack up against the originals, here’s a side-by-side comparison.

Show: In Treatment/B’Tipul
Character: Psychologist

Israeli version: One of Israeli’s most iconic actors, Assi Dayan—son of famed eye patch-wearing foreign minister Moshe Dayan!—plays Dr. Reuven Dagan. The therapist’s office may be a bit run down and his clothes slightly rumpled, but even while his inner life is in turmoil he still conveys his commitment to his patients.

American Version: Gabriel Byrne plays Dr. Paul Weston, with an Irish brogue that lends gravitas to everything he says. His long silences and distant looks instill confidence—as do his well-tailored suits.

Most Realistic: Byrne. He’s easy to imagine as one of those annoying therapists on the Upper East Side who doesn’t take insurance and makes you pay upfront.

Show: Traffic Light/Ramzor
Character: Type A Wife

Israel: Yael Sharoni—who also starred in Srugim, my favorite show about the love lives of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem—plays Lilach Itzkovich-Yafa, the overly opinionated wife of the henpecked Itzko. Her verbal (and implied physical) abuse is a running joke throughout.

America: Liza Lapira plays Lisa Reilly. Lapira is a talented actress, but because the showrunners don’t think America can handle an unlikeable woman, the character is watered down to a bland nothing.

Most Realistic: Sharoni. She was born to play a Grade-A bitch. Plus, Srugim!

Show: Homeland/Hatufim
Character: Returning POWs

Israel: Yoram Toledano and Ishai Golan play Nimrod Klein and Uri Zach, two Israeli soldiers returning home after being held in captivity in Lebanon for 17 years.

America: Damian Lewis is Nicholas Brody, an American soldier who has been held by Al-Qaida since 2003.

Most Realistic: Yoram and Uri. The two must have lost a significant amount of weight to look as emaciated as they do and they never lose their haunted look throughout the season. While I adore Damian Lewis, the man doesn’t even have bags under his eyes.

Show: In Treatment/B’Tipul
Character: A patient going to therapy with his wife to decide whether or not to have an abortion.

Israel: I don’t remember much about Rami Heuberger’s performance as Michael. Just that the character was all kinds of awful.

America: Dan Rydell Will Gardner Josh Charles plays Jake, with a penchant for denim and an unfortunate mustache and goatee.

Most realistic: Josh Charles because he is the king of office Passover seders and all things Baltimore.

Show: Homeland/Hatufim
Character: The older, wiser intelligence officer.

Israel: Gal Zaid is Haim Cohen, who is convinced the two returning abductees have a secret they aren’t sharing.

America: Mandy Patinkin steals the show as Saul Berenson‬‬, Carrie’s mentor and erstwhile defender. ‬‬

Most Realistic: Mandy Patinkin, holla

Previously: Is That a Falafel in My Situation Comedy?

The post Reality Check: The Israeli vs. American Actors of ‘Homeland’ and ‘In Treatment’ appeared first on Jewcy.

When Homeland returns for a second season this Sunday night, it will be able to boast a bevy of Emmy’s and claim Barack Obama as a fanboy. But perhaps its most noted distinction is indirectly leading to the creation of America’s new catchphrase—“Mandy Patinkin, holla.” As I’m sure you know, Homeland is an adaptation of the Israeli TV series Hatufim, Prisoners of War, and is only one in a flood of programming coming out of the Israeli-Hollywood pipeline. Just last week Universal Television bought rights to The Gordin Cell, a series following former Russian intelligence agents reintegrating themselves in Israel.

There have been various hypotheses offered for the recent obsession with Israeli television: Israelis, they’re just like us! 9/11! And inevitably—Jews run Hollywood. Showtime and HBO as well as all the major networks have at least one Israeli television adaptation in the works.

But the Israeli TV shopping spree hasn’t been particularly discriminatory and results vary: The sitcom The Ex-List was canceled after only four episodes, and the reality show 3 got the axe after two. And while the success and failure of a show can be a crapshoot, there does seem to be a pattern in whether or not a series has crossover success.

America has a long history of adapting TV shows from other countries. Iconic American classics such as All in the Family and Three’s Company were modeled on British shows. More recently, the U.K. has given us the soon-to-be-put-out-of-its-misery series, The Office, as well as NBC’s Prime Suspect and MTV’s Skins—both failures. In the hunt for new ideas, producers have turned to other countries; AMC’s The Killing, for example, was based on a popular Danish program.

Sharon Shaif, who co-edited the book Global Television Formats: Understanding Television Across Borders and is currently writing a book on Israeli reality television, told me that traditionally, the rule of thumb when scouring for potential crossover hits is to find programs that are “culturally neutral” and adhere to established formulas. For Israel, though, the lesson has been almost the opposite. The Israeli shows that have succeeded in the United States have been steeped in Israeli cultural concerns, from war and terrorism to the specter of the Holocaust.

HBO’s In Treatment, the most successful Israeli crossover before Homeland, is a case in point. Adapted from the Israeli hit B’tipul, the show centers on a psychologist, with each episode depicting a therapy session. The patients in the Israeli version included a pilot, whose father is a Holocaust survivor, grappling with having bombed an Arab school; a couple deciding whether or not to have an abortion; and a childless woman in her 30s from a traditionally conservative Mizrachi family. The U.S. script follows the Israeli version almost word-for-word, only changing Israel-specific details, such as turning the pilot into an Iraqi war veteran.

Hatufim, which aired on Arutz 2 in 2010, is even more predicated on the Israeli context. The show revolves around the return of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers who were held in captivity in Lebanon for 17 years, and thus hits on one of Israel’s most sensitive nerves: the culture of the abducted soldier. While the series was successful, it had many detractors, who accused writer and director Gideon Raff of exploiting the issue at a time when Gilad Shalit was still in captivity.

Though Raff consulted on the U.S. version and serves as its executive producer, the series diverges sharply from its Israeli model, and with good reason: returning soldiers don’t have the same hold on the national mindset in America. So while Homeland takes as its premise a U.S. Marine returning home after being held captive by Al-Qaida since 2003, it adds an element of suspense to the mix with Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), a CIA operations officer who suspects he may have been turned.

While Hatufim and B’Tipul didn’t offer culturally neutral source material (far from it), they gave Hollywood something even more valuable: fresh ideas. The shows are unlike anything on American television, not only in theme, but in genre. For viewers used to network cop shows or cable series focused on tormented male anti-heroes, a show set entirely in a therapist’s office is nothing if not different. And Israeli television is a fertile ground for dramas that don’t conform to American models. “Israel is not wedded to the usual procedural formats—lawyer, cop, etc.,” says Shaif.

Not so with comedy. Israelis grew up on a steady diet of imported American sitcoms—the first Israeli sitcom, Krovim, Krovim, only premiered in 1983. Today many of Israel’s comedies mimic the classic sitcoms of the ’80s and ’90s. The familiar tropes are there—the plots are driven by misunderstandings; men are constantly screwing up and spend an episode working to hide it from their wives who will inevitably find out; children are a bit too precocious.

With contemporary popular American comedies trending toward meta-references and fast-paced jokes, it is not much of a surprise that American audiences would shy away from shows imitating Israeli shows that imitate American shows from 20 years ago. Take last year’s Traffic Light. The Fox show was based on Ramzor, a hit show in Israel. Now in its fourth season, the Israeli show follows three men at different stages in life: Itzko is married with a kid, Amir lives with his girlfriend, and Hefer is the perennial bachelor of the bunch. The show won an Israeli TV Academy Award for best comedy and became the first Israeli TV series to win an International Emmy Award for best comedy series.

Fox heavily promoted the show, which premiered in February 2011, but with dismal ratings it only lasted through May. Looking at the source material, one could guess why the show failed. In one episode, Itzko’s wife gives him two bags—one filled with old clothes to donate to African refuges and one with a Prada dress she needs dry cleaned. If you have ever watched an episode of Home Improvement you can easily guess that he gives away the wrong bag, his wife finds out, and hijinks ensue as he is forced to go down to the refugee shelter to get it back.

This doesn’t mean that all Israeli dramas are good, and Israeli comedies bad. Arab Labor, for example, the first Israeli sitcom to center around an Arab-Israeli family is both radical in its subject matter and riotously funny. But it may be a sign that the American audience is on the hunt for television that seems non-prepackaged, something that Israeli dramas are able to offer. And once Israeli sitcoms find their own voice, they may succeed here as well. And if anyone from Keshet is out there, I’m pretty sure a comedy centered on a multigenerational family that runs a Sabich stand in Tel Aviv is pure gold—remember to thank me at the Emmys.

The post Is That a Falafel in My Situation Comedy? appeared first on Jewcy.

• The first Hebrew translation of 50 Shades of Grey sold out in one day.

• The upcoming High Holidays are the perfect time to teach your kids how to apologize, Marjorie Ingall says.

• Look, it’s Clueless’ Jeremy Sisto playing Jack in a Titanic screen test. Wait, what?

• Performing in London, Lady Gaga dedicated her new morbid tune, “Princess Die,” to Princess Diana and Amy Winehouse.

• Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook stock has been a disappointment so far. We’re not mad, Zuck, just disappointed.

• Watch Claire Danes talk about Season 2 of Homeland, and filming for two weeks in Tel Aviv. “I really love Israel,” she says.

The post Daily Jewce: Hebrew ‘50 Shades of Grey’ Sells Out, Claire Danes Talks Israel appeared first on Jewcy.

Though Carrie Matheson (Claire Danes) is the main character of Showtime’s tense CIA drama Homeland (which returns for a second season September 30th), Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) is the force binding the show’s combustible elements together and propelling the action forward. Patinkin deserves a heap of credit: anyone who can play both Inigo Montoya and Che in Evita is a hall of famer. Still, Saul’s centrality is especially interesting because Jewish identity rests at his character’s core—an identity so richly illustrated, I offer the following proposition: Saul Berenson is the most accurate depiction of an American Jewish identity ever portrayed on television.

There is a scene midway through the first season in which Carrie bets her signed copy of Thelonius Monk’s Monk’s Dream that a polygraph test will incriminate Sergeant Brody. Saul parries: “I prefer Coltrane. Not so fussy.” The Monk-Coltrane dichotomy is an almost too-perfect metaphor for these characters. If Monk’s schizophrenic genius prefigures Carrie, Coltrane’s religious devotion to his craft encapsulates Saul.

Saul is the meticulously brilliant veteran to Carrie’s reckless savant. Steady but irrepressible, he knows exactly when to rein Carrie in and when to spur her forward. When she leaps to conclusions, he challenges her theories: “The dots are there Carrie, but you haven’t connected them yet.” Before one interrogation, Saul delivers a strangely effective pep talk: “You good? It’s good that you’re good. Good is a good thing. Carrie? Eviscerate the motherfucker.”

Saul also pushes the higher-ups to be assertive, daring, and unconventional. When the CIA nabs the American terrorist Aileen at the Mexican border, Saul convinces Estes to let him drive her back to D.C. Saul can persuade her to talk in the car; in D.C., she’ll stonewall. He “gets” her he says—and he gets her to finger Tom Walker, a huge break in a case that was going cold.

Through all of Saul’s orchestration and discovery, his fiercely cultural Judaism surfaces repeatedly. Some of these references are boilerplate. What Jew doesn’t believe chicken soup is the “elixir of the gods?”

Many are more complex. When Carrie blunderingly comes on to Saul after he discovers her illegal surveillance, he is horrified. She destroyed their trust, he hisses, when she treated him “like them—like every other schmup in this building.” Saul’s first yiddishism comes at a crucial moment. In Saul’s morality—one clearly influenced by his Jewish roots—Carrie’s misuse of her sexuality with him was grave in its suggestion of the relationship’s phoniness.

Homeland (loosely based on the Israeli drama Prisoners of War), though, pushes its exploration of Saul’s Judaism further. Viewers learn the most about Saul’s background through his conversations with Aileen. Saul expresses sympathy with Aileen, whose father was horrified at her relationship with a “little brown boy.” Aileen assumes Saul’s concern is artificial—“what do you know about it?” Saul replies, “more than nothing. I married a brown girl.” Saul leverages his personal narrative to gain Aileen’s trust, but that narrative is telling in its own right. Saul subtly indicates his family’s dismay that he married outside the faith.

The revelation is only Saul’s introduction. In one of the show’s brilliant scenes, Saul takes Aileen to the remnants of the makeshift synagogue in rural Indiana where he and his family prayed. He tells Aileen of the strict orders not to assimilate and his dutiful obedience to the prohibition on singing Christmas carols. He hated the synagogue—it was the reason why he was “different, strange, isolated.” “I’d gladly say their prayers, sing their songs,” Saul tells Aileen, “I just wanted to not be alone.” Saul grew up Jewish where that identity engendered alienation. Though as a child he may have wanted to simply blend in, as an adult, Saul ended up where many American Jews do: intermarried and non-observant, but with an intense cultural affinity and Jewish identity.

Jewish identity plays a central role in another critical scene—one whose opacity deeply challenges viewers. Saul interrogates Afsal Hamid, who is initially cooperative. But before Saul and Carrie can extract any further valuable intelligence, Hamid is found to have committed suicide. Looking at the dead body, Saul recites the first lines of kaddish, the prayer over the dead.

Before Carrie interrogates the Saudi diplomat, she reminds Saul he once told her that to extract information, you’re looking for what makes someone human, not a terrorist. Perhaps Saul finds Hamid’s humanity, seeing him break at the prospect of securing his family. Perhaps Saul says the kaddish as a show of respect, mourning the humanity of the dead.

Or perhaps Saul does it for tradition, like Jews who salt their bread irrespective of the day of the week. Saul is a cultural Jew, and he marks Hamid’s death with a formula that has no religious meaning but has cultural significance that transcends rational understanding.

But the most compelling explanation is that Saul loves his work religiously and mourns what he thinks may be the death of his case. Saul uses a ritual with deep religious significance as a grieving mechanism for his work. The kaddish isn’t for Hamid—it’s for himself.

I cannot think about Saul’s kaddish without returning to his appreciation for John Coltrane. Coltrane cut A Love Supreme after recovering from drug addiction and throwing himself into his music with unparalleled devotion. It’s the same devotion Saul shows to his own work. With his wife leaving for India and his marriage in jeopardy, Saul pleads guilty: “It’s my weakness. My Achilles heel. Every time they call me, I go.” Indeed.

At every key moment, there is Saul—playing an integral role only he can perform. “I was weaned on inter-agency non-cooperation. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the FBI stand around with their dicks in their hands, watching us work.” It’s why Saul shmears peanut butter on crackers with a ruler in the dead of night at Langley. It’s why he stays in D.C. when the love of his life returns to India. And it’s why Saul’s Judaism surfaces time and again on the job: this is his religion.

Previously on Network Jews:

Cristina Yang, Grey’s Anatomy’s Atheist Jew

Ross Geller, the nerdy paleontologist on Friends

Dr. Glenn Richie, the Jewish doctor on Childrens Hospital

The post Network Jews: Saul Berenson from Showtime’s Homeland appeared first on Jewcy.

• This Santa Claus look-alike was asked to stop agreeing to pose for pictures with children while visiting Disneyworld.

• A look at how the Israeli television series, Prisoners of War, stacks up against its Claire Danes-starring American equivalent, Homeland—and a reminder that the first season of Prisoners of War is available for online viewing on Hulu.

• Israeli designer Yigal Azrouël crafted a trendy baseball tee as part of a high-fashion collaboration between the New York Mets and the CFDA.

• Goop maven Gwyneth Paltrow’s new film is called Blood, Bones & Butter, gulp.

• Gene Wilder had a lot of input on his Willy Wonka costume.

• Akiva Schaffer, the other guy behind SNL Digital Shorts, talks about directing the new Stiller/Vaughn/Hill flick, The Watch. Here’s a very foul-mouthed, definitely NSFW preview:

The post Daily Jewce: ‘Prisoners of War’ vs. ‘Homeland,’ Yigal Azrouël and the Mets appeared first on Jewcy.

Asked about the news, Dunham gave possibly the best answer we could have asked for:

You know that song they sing at Passover, “Dayenu,” which is, “It would have been enough.” If God had just taken us out of the desert, it would have been enough. If He’d give us a cow, it would have been enough. But he did all this other stuff. I feel like with everything that happens, Dayenu.

Mayim Bialik is up for best supporting actress for her role as Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, which was also nominated for best comedy series. Larry David is in the running for best actor in a comedy series for his similarly-nominated Curb Your Enthusiasm. Most exciting of all, however, is Max Greenfield’s nod for best actor in a comedy series, for his absurdly spot-on performance as Schmidt in New Girl.

Homeland, based on the Israel show Hatufim, cleaned up nicely with 9 total nominations—a record number for a new series—with star Claire Danes up for best actress in a drama.

Mazel tov to all the nominees!

(Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

The post Emmy Nods for Lena Dunham, Mayim Bialik, and New Girls’ Schmidt appeared first on Jewcy.