This piece originally ran on Kveller’s Jewish TV Club Substack.
“Shtisel” was a game changer. When the drama about a Haredi family from Jerusalem first aired in Israel in 2013, it gave Haredi Jews mainstream representation — not as draft-shirkers and fanatics, but as true dramatic heroes. Its characters were funny and lovable, with passions and dreams and struggles and vulnerabilities not so different from secular and less observant viewers. We all fell in love with Michael Aloni’s Kive Shtisel, a tortured artist and true romantic, and with Shira Haas’ fiercely independent and grateful Ruchami, Kiveh’s niece. And while certainly the general fetishization and voyeuristic tendencies that exist in secular society about the lives of the ultra-Orthodox helped raise the show’s profile and popularity, it wasn’t a show that aimed to fetishize the community it depicted; both of its writers and creators, Ori Elon and Yehonatan Indursky were, at the time, formerly Haredi men. They came up with the idea of the show at a local kugel shop with the same name.
The third, and for now final, season of the show aired in 2021, after “Shtisel” became an international streaming hit on Netflix and gained accolades from the New York Times and other prestigious outlets. But at the tail end of 2024, a “Shtisel” prequel premiered: “Kugel.” Its eight episodes are now available to stream on IZZY, a platform full of great Israeli TV. The new show follows two characters who we met in the original show: Sasson Gabay’s Nuchem Shtisel and his daughter, Libbi Shtisel (played by Hadas Yaron of “We Were the Lucky Ones”), before they leave their home in Antwerp, Belgium for Jerusalem in “Shtisel.”
“Kugel” takes us into a different insular world, and I don’t just mean the Haredi community of Antwerp, but the world of Nuchem Shtisel’s family, which feels very intimate. Whereas in “Shtisel” each of the many characters is in their own world, living their own lives, here we have just Nuchem and Libbi, and sometimes Yiddis (Nuchem’s wife, played by Mili Avital). Nuchem’s story is the one that looms the largest; Israeli viewers adore Sasson Gabay and who can blame them? A legendary actor of TV, film and stage, he brings such humor and vulnerability to the role.
In this prequel, Nuchem and Libbi take us on a magical journey through Antwerp, the Belgian city known for its large Orthodox community, who are traditionally deeply embedded in the city’s diamond trade. Nuchem is embedded in that industry, too, making a living with petty cons, one of which becomes becomes the last straw for his wife, Yiddis, who leaves him. Libbi, a schoolteacher, dreams of finding love and of writing stories; she becomes enthralled by a man who she meets on a tram and also starts a career writing serial novels in a local Haredi publication, where she meets a kindred spirit. Nuchem finds solace in the newly widowed owner of the local kugel shop, Pnina, played by iconic Israeli comedian Rotem Abuhab. (Fun fact: Avital, Abuhab and Gabay are all Mizrahi Jews playing very Yiddish-laden roles.)
Yet despite the familiar faces of Libbi and Nuchem in this prequel, it feels almost unfair to compare “Kugel” to “Shtisel.” The two shows couldn’t feel more different.
I think that can be attributed to the team behind the show. Elon and original “Shtisel” director Alon Zingman were not involved in helming this show, and so the visual feel and the tone seem brand new. Zingman is replaced in “Kugel” by Erez Kav-El, a veteran film writer and the creator of the Israeli drama “The Chef.” The show was written and created by Indursky, who comes from more of a film background than Elon, who was a writer for another wonderfully illuminated and excellent show about religious Jewish communities, “Srugim.” Indursky, on the other hand, is a graduate of Sam Spiegel, who previously won accolades for his freshman film, “Driver.” Unlike Elon, Indusrksy also recently revealed that he still identifies as Ultra-Orthodox. Instead of taking me back to “Shtisel,” this show instead reminds me of the work of another Haredi filmmaker, Rama Burshtein, whose shows and movies — just like “Kugel” — feel like Haredi fairytales. Though it might also be Yaron’s face that transports me to them — she starred in Burshtein’s painfully romantic “Fill the Void.”
The show is visually arresting and inventive. Cinematographer Guy Raz is both playful and incredibly intentional in every shot. There are moody minimalistic black and white flashbacks. The colors of a local prestigious schvitz take me back to a Wes Anderson comedy. There’s a particular scene of a death at a kugel eatery that will stay with me forever.
“Kugel” feels lower stakes and way more playful than “Shtisel.” I’m not sure of the exact specifics of what Elon brought to the “Shtisel” writing duo, but it could be a certain gravitas that I think is missing from “Kugel.” The heroes of that show are often tortured and dealing with serious upheavals, especially in the show’s third season. Here, things feel somewhat lower-stakes.
The acting in “Kugel” is a treat. Gabay and Yaron fill universes with their expressions, Avital brings a sweetness to the screen, actor Shai Avivi is excellent in his role as a romantic lawyer and legendary actress Rivka Michaeli waxes in Yiddish as a stately widow and one of Nuchem’s “victims.”
As I said, the show feels like a Jewish fairytale, a story from one of the Yiddish writers of old, one with a moral, with a hero who gets his vindication. Whimsical, plucky music accompanies our tale, the kind one hears with the beginning of a “once upon a time.” It’s a love story — Nuchem’s, Libbi’s — but a love story toward all people, too.
One reviewer called the show a possible antisemite’s dream, and it’s probably because Gabay looks a bit like those dreaded caricatures of Jews with his payes and hat. The camera angles sometimes accentuate those features which we “classically” think of as Jewish (I’ll let you guess which). But Nuchem is a lovable — if not particularly successful — crook, certainly not one to inspire dark conspiracies. His schemes aren’t about getting rich at any cost, even if he hurts people left and right with them. He thinks of himself a bit of a hero, selling jewelry to widows, pretending that it was a last gift from their husbands.
“He loves people, he loves to eat well, he loves money, he loves women, he loves life,” Gabay aptly described his character in our interview.
“Kugel” still has fan service for the die-hard “Shtisel” fans — specifically, it returns to Nuchem’s iconic saying — “reshoim arurim,” cursed villains, the title of the show’s last episode embedded in a moving father daughter moment.
Yet “Kugel” makes one’s head spins sometimes with the perplexing choices both Libbi but especially Nuchem makes when it comes to the people in their lives. What are they doing? And why?? Just like human beings, they are deeply confusing at times, and it’s hard to tell who the reshoim arurim are versus who the heroes are, though the moral of our fairytale seems to be that we are all a bit of both. Is there a better lesson for us to learn and keep learning everyday than that?
“Kugel,” just like the characters in it, has its flaws which “Shtisel” fans can nitpick and pull apart, but in general it is a marvelously warm comfort and a treat for the eyes and the heart, a little like the dish it is named after.
If you want to meet Sasson Gabay, Michael Aloni, “Shtisel” and “Kugel” executive producer Dikla Barkai and dear old me this coming Monday, join us for a special Q&A at New York’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom!
