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Opinion

Enough with the gloom, Jewish art should be more joyous

On stage and screen, Jews just wanna have fun

January 19, 2023 10:01
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My Unorthodox Life: Season 1. Episode 5, Secular in the City. Pictured: (L-R) Miriam Haart and Julia Haart. c. Courtesy of Netflix © 2021
3 min read

Last November, I caught Deli Segal’s caustic one-woman show Pickle, a wry romp through the love life of a contemporary Jewish singleton who is wondering what her community means to her and how far she can date “outside the box”. As John Nathan wrote in his JC review, Segal has “the makings of a Jewish Bridget Jones”.

Early on, Segal gives us a “public service” announcement. “This is NOT a play about the Holocaust… Not everything about Jews has to involve the Holocaust, and a mournful solo violinist from Fiddler on the Roof. Nor is this a story about a young woman fleeing the Orthodox community to find herself and flourish in the freedoms of the secular world. This is not Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life. This is not Unorthodox. This is not Schindler’s List.”

Amen, Deli! I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard this complaint from Jews in the creative industries. In the West End, the Holocaust plays keep coming: Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, Dominic Cooke’s superb revival of Good, Maureen Lipman’s repeat run of Rose.

Then there are dramas of escape from Chasidic or strictly Orthodox communities, My Unorthodox Life and Unorthodox, and before them Disobedience.