''Unorthodox'' is a German

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

television miniseries that debuted on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

on March 26, 2020. The first Netflix series to be primarily in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

, it is inspired by Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography, '' Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots''. The four-part miniseries was created and written by

Anna Winger Anna Winger (née LeVine; born 1970) is an American writer, producer, screenwriter, and photographer who lives in Berlin, Germany. She is creator of the television dramas ''Deutschland 83,'' ''Deutschland 86,'' ''Deutschland 89,'' and '' Unorthod ...

and

Alexa Karolinski Alexa Karolinski (born 1984) is a German writer, director and producer whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. She is the creator of the television drama '' Unorthodox'' (2020). Filmmaking career Alexa received an MF ...

, and directed by

Maria Schrader Maria Schrader (born 27 September 1965) is a German actress, screenwriter, and director. She directed the award-winning 2007 film ''Love Life'' and the 2020 Netflix miniseries '' Unorthodox'', for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for O ...

. The series received eight

Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...

nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series (

Shira Haas Shira Haas ( he, שירה האס; born ) is an Israeli actress. She initially gained national prominence for her roles in local film and television, having won two Israeli Ophir Awards out of five nominations since 2014. In 2020, she gained int ...

), and Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series (

), winning for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series (

Premise

Esty, a 19-year-old

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

woman, is living unhappily in an arranged marriage among the Satmar sect of the ultra-Orthodox community in

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Williamsburg is a Neighborhoods in Brooklyn, neighborhood in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Bedford–Stuyvesant to the s ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. She runs away to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, where her estranged mother lives, and tries to navigate a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

life, discovering life outside her community and rejecting all of the beliefs she grew up with. Her husband, who learns that she is pregnant, travels to Berlin with his cousin, by order of their

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

, to try to find her.

Cast and characters

Main

as Esther "Esty" Shapiro * Amit Rahav as Yakov "Yanky" Shapiro *

Jeff Wilbusch Jeff Wilbusch (born Iftach Wilbuschewitz, 14 November 1987) is an Israeli-German actor. Early life and education Wilbusch was born on 14 November 1987 in Haifa, Israel. He grew up in the Hasidic Jewish Satmar community of Mea Shearim, Jerusale ...

as Moishe Lefkovitch

Recurring

Episodes

Production

The series was inspired by, and is loosely based on, the memoir '' Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots'' by Deborah Feldman, who left the

Satmar Satmar (Yiddish: סאַטמאַר, Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynasty ...

movement, a

Hasidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

community in New York City. The show has language switching from

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

. The show was written by

and

, directed by

, produced by Karolinski, and filmed in Berlin. The music academy in ''Unorthodox'' is based on the Barenboim-Said Akademie.

told ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'': "There's a real music academy called the Barenboim-Said Akademie where Jews and Muslims play classical music together, like a whole utopia. We were inspired by this idea, as the sort of institution that could only begin in Berlin." ''Unorthodox'' is the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish. Feldman approached writers Winger and Karolinski to turn her autobiography into a television series. They took on the project in part because the story meshed with several topics of mutual interest, especially the challenges of being Jewish in Germany. Winger said that the story "has a kind of doubling back on history", portraying a Jewish character who escapes the "confines of her own life" by returning "to the source of her community's trauma". Because Feldman is a public figure, the writers veered from her life in the fictional Berlin sequences, but based the flashbacks on the book. An early hire was actor and Yiddish specialist Lili Rosen, who translated the scripts, coached the actors, helped with cultural details, and played the rabbi. The production team took two research trips to the

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

neighborhood of Williamsburg, touring buildings and meeting with the community of Satmar Jews, where part of the story is set. Cast in Germany, Jeff Wilbusch was unique among the four lead actors in being a native Yiddish speaker from the Satmar community (via the

Mea Shearim Mea Shearim ( he, מאה שערים, lit., "hundred gates"; contextually, "a hundred fold") is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem outside of the Old City. It is populated by Haredi Jews, and was built by members of the Old Yish ...

neighborhood of

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

). Filming began in New York, then relocated to Berlin, where the production designer built interior sets at CCC Filmstudios that synced with the Brooklyn exteriors. Berlin locations include

Potsdamer Platz Potsdamer Platz (, ''Potsdam Square'') is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and close to the southeast corne ...

, which served as the set for the music academy and surroundings, and the Wannsee lake (''

Großer Wannsee The Großer Wannsee (, "Greater Wannsee", "See" means lake) is a bight of the Havel river near the locality of Wannsee and Nikolassee (in the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf), a south-western suburb of the German capital Berlin not far from Potsdam ...

''), where, as referenced in the story, the "

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

" was planned at a shoreline villa. For the production and costume designers, the project presented the challenge of creating a period film set in the present day, with the main character gradually transitioning between them. The two-day filming of the wedding was a complex undertaking, involving about a hundred extras that had to accurately depict a nuanced cultural celebration. "The joke on the show was that the men required way more hair and make-up than the women", Winger said. Costume designer Justine Seymour obtained some of the clothes in Williamsburg, but not the costly fur hats, ''

shtreimel A shtreimel ( yi, שטרײַמל , plural: or ) is a fur hat worn by some Ashkenazi Jewish men, mainly members of Hasidic Judaism, on Shabbat and Jewish holidays and other festive occasions. In Jerusalem, the shtreimel is also worn by Litvak ...

s'', which were made by a Hamburg-based theater company, using fake fur, instead of minks.

Reception

Critical response

''Unorthodox'' received widespread critical acclaim. The review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported an approval rating of 96%, based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "''Unorthodox'' adapts its source material with extreme care, crafting a series that is at once intimate and urgent, all centered around Shira Haas' captivating performance." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The miniseries has also been criticized for badly portraying the Hasidic community by Leah Aharoni, who said that the show's depiction of Orthodox / Haredi / Hasidic Jews resembled that of "primitive tribes", and by Julie Joanes, who wrote that spiritual practices depicted in the show were taken out of context.

Accolades

''Making Unorthodox'' documentary

Netflix released a 20-minute documentary, ''Making Unorthodox'', that chronicles the creative process and filming of the miniseries, and discussed the differences between the

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

and the TV show.

References

External links

* * {{Films about Orthodox and Hasidic Jews 2020 German television series debuts 2020s German television series 2020 German television series endings 2020s German drama television series Anti-Orthodox Judaism sentiment English-language television shows Films about Orthodox and Hasidic Jews German-language Netflix original programming German television miniseries Hasidic Judaism in popular culture Jews and Judaism in Berlin Jews and Judaism in Brooklyn Religious drama television series Television series about Jews and Judaism Television shows based on books Television shows set in Berlin Television shows set in New York City Yiddish culture in Germany Yiddish-language mass media in the United States