There are so many reasons that “Madrasa”, the youth series of the educational program, which aired yesterday on Han Educational and Makhan 33, is brave – that it is depressing. First, this is a series that takes place in a bilingual school, where children speak Hebrew and Arabic, and like them, the series also speaks both languages. The series begins with an event in the home of the Arab family, not the Jewish one, and that is already a statement. She is also not afraid to practice religion, another step; And this without awe and without special respect, another step. And also: there is a love story in the series between an Arab boy and a Jewish girl – which is totally wow.
True, every American, British, French youth series in general combines relationships between boys and girls of all shades, religions and genders routinely. But we are in Israel, where Dorit Rabinian’s book “Geder Chaya”, about an affair between a Jewish woman and an Arab, was rejected by the Ministry of Education, and this was even when Nafatli Bennett was at the head of it – and not when the new Minister of Communications Shlomo Karai was just looking for a reason to close the corporation. A series that claims to “break the walls of separation, racism and fear and presents the possibility of a better future”, as its creators write, could be used as a reason for closure. Depressing, I said.
“Madrasah” (Arabic school) is the new series created and written by Seyed Kashua (“Arabic Work” and “The Scriptwriter”), and tells the story of students at the school, their teachers and parents. Kashua (47), born in Tira, is a Palestinian-Israeli writer, journalist, screenwriter and columnist, recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew writers for 2005, wrote his successful books “Arabs Dancing”, “Vehi Boker”, “Second Person Singular” in Hebrew. And he knows the subject well: his children studied at the bilingual school in Jerusalem, and he himself studied at the high school for sciences and arts in Jerusalem. In 2014 he moved with his family to the USA and his absence has been very noticeable in the journalistic and television landscape since then.
In 2008, during the visit of the Hollywood actress Debra Winger (“An Officer and a Gentleman”, “Terms of Endearment”) to the bilingual school in Jerusalem, the two discussed a variety of topics and I covered their conversation for “time”. In the conversation, Keshu referred to matters that also arise in the series. “Obviously I don’t accept people who oppose mixed marriages,” he said at the time. Wenger immediately agreed and said that she also opposes the extremists, and Kashu made it clear to her that in Israel the opponents are “from the mainstream”. He also said, “From my point of view, the differences between religions should not be respected. Religions should not be respected at all,” adding, “I am in favor of full integration. I am not interested in identities.” Kashua then understood Wenger’s enthusiasm for the school. He is also excited when he sees that his daughter Nai is a friend of “Yuval and Michal”, and that their relationship is good and natural, he said in the conversation. But he is afraid that he is confusing her, when one day she will come out of this greenhouse and encounter an insult.
In 2014, the year Keshua immigrated to the USA, this bilingual school was set on fire and the inscriptions “Kahana Tzedek”, “There is no coexistence with cancer” and “Enough with assimilation” were sprayed on its walls.
“Madrasah” begins with the story of an Arab family who came to the area and to the school from Haifa. The teenager wants to get back to his friends and his band. The integrated school is small for him and also seems a bit strange to him, with all these messages of peace and brotherhood. At the same time, in the Israeli Jewish home, the bilingual teenager discovers that her best friend goes to a normal high school. She gets upset about it, and her mother (Alma Zeke) assures her that if she wants, she too can move to him. When these two boys discover each other at school—their desires to leave take an unsurprising turn.
The series deals with the personal, matters that interest teenagers, and on the way with political and social issues and matters of identity, which also interest them. Since this is a tough series, directed by Guri Alfi, there is a lot of humor, self and other, in the conduct of the school, and especially of the parents who send their children to it. A couple of Jewish parents (Nelli Tager and Yrami Shik Blum), for example, want their child to hook up with an Arab boy, so they can show it off on social media, but they can’t figure out if his new friend is Rani or just Rani.
The series includes other famous and good actors such as Roi Bar Natan, Yara Azraik, Valerie Hamati, Jamil Khoury, Lir Issa, Emma Alfi Aharon, Ruba Bilal Asfor, Luna Mansour, Sharon Teicher, Dana Samo and Mona Hua.
In the advanced episodes, the series touches on a variety of even more sensitive issues. So, for example, the Arab teacher Iman gets a visit from her parents, who don’t want to pressure her, only in the village they say all kinds of things about her, like she lives in a Jewish building. And when a delegation of students arrives from Germany, and one of the students wants to apologize from the bottom of her heart for her grandfather’s actions during World War II, she does so in front of one of the Arab students, without understanding the difference between her and a Jewish student. The family of that student accedes to the daughter’s request, and hosts the German student and holds a traditional Jewish meal, with kiddush, candles and challah, approximately. As mentioned, a youth series that is not afraid to test the limits, just like teenagers do at this age.