The big streaming/TV story this week is the new season of Stranger Things, which was in such demand that Netflix crashed in the first hour of its release. After you’ve binged the first four episodes, you might still crave something supernatural, and there are currently two Israeli series running that have paranormal elements.
Nutuk, the Keshet series, has two more episodes to go, and the previous ones can be seen on mako.co.il It’s both about reincarnation and the Druze community in Israel (and Syria). It started strong and is keeping the tension going, as it adds more layers and plot twists every week.
Now, KAN has just begun its own supernatural drama, Hammam, which is running on Sundays and Wednesdays after the news and is available on kan.org.il as well. Judging from the first four episodes, it is an unusual and ambitious series, combining supernatural elements with a military thriller and a biblical allegory (which you might miss were it not for some clues sprinkled throughout).
The series stars Daniel Gad as Shaul, the tightly wound commander of a team of soldiers sent to an abandoned base in the Jordan Valley that was once the site of ancient baths, also used by the Turks. While the soldiers are not fighting on the frontlines in Gaza, this base turns out to be hazardous. It’s filled with wild dogs that might be rabid, and it turns out it sits on an underground tunnel network that is filled with creepy surprises.
After Shaul is bitten by one of the dogs and has to head out to a clinic for a rabies vaccine, he breaks protocol to give a lift to an elderly Bedouin man who tells him the base is under an ancient curse and that it is a place of death. After he stops at a gas station and the man gets out, things get even weirder, and Shaul soon finds himself under military investigation for his conduct in certain circumstances.
As his authority comes into question, he develops a friendship, and then a rivalry, with Dudi (Oneg Efron), a formerly religious soldier. Since their names are Shaul and Dudi, short for David, there is a biblical analogy going on here, but it’s possible to enjoy the atmospheric series without thinking about that.
The press notes for the series say that, “The series deals mystically with the sword by which we live as a ‘chosen people,’ and the national pathology of the people of Israel from biblical times to the present day,” and that, “The curse that hangs over the young heroes of 2025 is a shadow of an ancient past,” which raises the question of how much we control our destinies and how much we are being forced to play out some eternal, mythological drama?
Those are heavy questions to tackle, but the series is entertaining, buoyed by Gad’s performance in the lead. One of Israel’s best young actors, he starred in The Stronghold (both the series and the movie) about the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and was in the series, Line in the Sand and Shababnikim (aka The New Black). Hammam was created by Michael Alalu, who made the terrific short film, How I Killed Rabin, and several documentaries, and was produced by Dori Media, Sumayoko Productions, and Abbot Hameiri.
Kugel, the Shtisel prequel, is coming to Netflix on December 8. The series, which originally ran on Yes, stars Sasson Gabai, one of Israel’s most popular and beloved actors, as Nukhem Shtisel, Shulem’s brother, and Hadas Yaron as Nukhem’s daughter, Libbi. It’s set in Antwerp, before they moved to Jerusalem, when Libbi and Akiva (Michael Aloni) met.
The series begins when Nukhem and his wife, Vidas (Mili Avital), are having problems, and she decides to move out. Nukhem is stunned at first, but quickly seems relieved. Nukhem, always a likable schnook, quickly adapts and starts falling for Pnina (Rotem Abuhav), a baker whose specialty is – what else? – the kugel that Nukhem loves so much.
But in the tight-knit Antwerp ultra-Orthodox community, a failed marriage is something to be ashamed of, and Vidas and Nukhem agree to keep their marital problems a secret until after Libbi is married. Nothing has worked out with any of the matches they have tried to arrange for her, and she is already at the advanced age of 22.
She works as a teacher and has begun writing fiction for Jewish magazines, but as busy as she is, she longs to marry. When she sees a handsome haredi stranger (Roy Nik) on the tram one day, and they get into a soul-baring conversation, she is sure he is the guy for her, although her parents, of course, don’t approve of her meeting men on public transportation.
The series is lighter than Shtisel, and it’s a good showcase for the charm of its leads, Gabai and Yaron, who recently starred in We Were the Lucky Ones.
Unraveling UNRWA, a critical documentary
The new documentary, Unraveling UNRWA, a critical look at the Palestinian refugee services agency, will be shown on KAN 11 on December 6 at 10:30 p.m. (and will then be available on the KAN website). It is an impressively detailed look at this organization, which came under unprecedented international scrutiny following the October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas, in which a number of UNRWA employees took part, their participation documented in video clips and audio recordings.
This documentary shows that it is not surprising at all that UNRWA employees, many of them professionals, such as teachers and social workers, committed crimes, including murder and kidnapping. As one interviewee says, the October 7 massacre was the culmination of everything UNRWA had been teaching its pupils and clients for 75 years. Even the UN agreed that many UNRWA staff were involved in the massacre and were actually Hamas members.
But the focus of the documentary is not October 7, but the seven-plus decades leading up to it. Director Duki Dror has assembled a diverse group of interviewees to discuss UNRWA, including Dr. Einat Wilf; Prof. Benny Morris; UN Watch director Hillel Neuer; and Hamza Abu Howidy, a Gazan-born peace and human rights activist currently living in Germany.
In addition, there are interviews with former top international UNRWA officials, among them Peter Hansen and Scott Anderson. Some of these officials may seem naive and frustratingly passive, but the documentary gives them a chance to tell their side of the story.
The picture that emerges is of an organization that wants to perpetuate its own existence and which has been serving the cause of Hamas for decades. Various interviewees discuss how virtually every other refugee crisis in the world since the end of World War II was resolved in a few years, mostly taken care of by organizations with budgets far smaller than UNRWA’s, while the Palestinian issue continues.
Even Palestinians who have been citizens in other countries for generations are still considered refugees by UNRWA, and the entire school curriculum and organizational culture focuses on the right of return, i.e. that all Palestinians will one day return to whatever land their families once lived on. The organization is completely against any kind of coexistence.
It also shows the indoctrination of children into the Hamas credo that the greatest honor is to be a martyr, through paramilitary drills with toy guns for children and textbooks that glorify killing. Howidy speaks about how, as a child, he dreamed of becoming a terrorist.
It’s a sobering look at a group that many governments around the world still consider to be the only organization they can work with in Gaza. The series was produced by Zygote Films and Beetz Brothers Film Productions.