With the opening of the fifth season of “The Jews Are Coming,” one can stop for a moment to look at the considerable accomplishment of the satire program that began with a cancellation. 9 years after Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amir and Yona Abrushmi sang “I am a right-wing killer” – a sketch that came out before the season and led to its suspension (in retrospect, for one year only) – there is no longer any danger that the program will be canceled due to top censorship. If they survived the late Channel 10, the procrastination of Channel One, the move to the corporation and the noisy (and for a moments, violent) public storm with the rise of the fourth season in 2020, they would easily survive the Corona, Putin and the meteor that would eventually destroy All of us, except for Moni Moshonov.
Season five also says that The Jews Are Coming has become, after “Wonderland”, one of the two most important satire programs of the period (sorry “this is it”, you are still a relic from another era). She has already left her legacy, and this may actually be at the heart of a plan that should remain sharp and fresh, for after the sword of cancellation no longer swings over her head, another danger remains, far more frightening to satirists – the danger of stagnation. Woe to the satire program that freezes on Shmarya, that forgets that you have to be funnier than kicking (and somehow, vice versa), that is afraid to challenge the public or that you are afraid to point arrows upwards. Fortunately, the “Jews” make no signs of any of these weaknesses.
Instead of worrying, we got a premiere episode that covers pretty much all directions. An obvious mockery (even if not the most original) for vaccine opponents, a retrospective on David Levy’s political barrier and also one sketch that was all delightful nonsense, about the moment when the Israeli theater tried, for the first time, to make a crossover for cinema. That truly forgotten work, “Sabra”, was pulled from 1933 to illuminate the over-acting, stereotypes and pompousness of Israeli theater at the time, and to some extent, even today, all without forgetting that it should also be funny – and the flowers go to the spectacular imitation, and not for the first time. Of Yael Sharoni to Hannah Rubina, and also to the sentence “The prop of the sun is about to fall.”
This question, whether it is more important to be funny or more funny to be important, hovers over every satire program, but for the Jews who come it rises after every sketch. The opening episode was more prominent in sharp, stinging and biting moments, but did not roll many laughs. The sketch that dealt with the makeup artist of the first channel who was sexually harassed by the star Dubi Doberman was composed of a funny premise, constructed precisely and conveyed the message, but not plenty of moments of laughter. It is not a simple mix for balance, and at least according to this chapter it is more critical for the creators of “Jews” to say something than to make someone funny, and if it comes, then let it come.
This choice turned out to be right with the episode’s final sketch, which not only kicked in the stomach but also pushed the head and shrank the heart. Ido Musari sits at the piano as Boaz Sharabi and performs an up-to-date, defeatist version of his song “When You Come”. This is a fairly simple satirical act of opposition – the attitude of Israelis towards prisoners in the past, and specifically white prisoners, was easy to campaign in their favor, compared to the attitude that “Avra Mengistu” won. It’s a pretty simple, but incredibly effective satirical act, and with sharp lines like “Ashkelon does not expect a halo, Avra is not Gilad who was born for freedom”, against the background of Ilan Wurzberg’s always moving melody, the whole thing does what any such show dreams of – plant The question ‘Where did we get to?’. Well, to the point where half the criticism is more pointed, well worded and somehow, less annoying. But sometimes, just sometimes, it was nice to see some more pure comedic moments in Ramat Hanna Rubina mumbling earth and crying over the agony lake of the pioneer life.
The Jews come, here 11, Saturday night at 9:15 PM here 11 or on YouTube