‘Friends’ Creator Will Bring Ultra-Orthodox Family Drama to American TV
Little House in Jerusalem: Neta Riskin and Shira Hass play a mother and daughter in the TV series ?Shtisel.? Image by Roey Roth
By Josefin Dolsten October 20, 2016
— A producer who co-created the popular television sitcom “Friends” is working on a remake of a hit Israeli TV show about a haredi Orthodox family.
Marta Kauffman, who is Jewish, teamed up with her daughter, producer Hannah K.S. Canter, to create a series based on “Shtisel,” which has attracted audiences of all backgrounds in Israel. The Israeli original centers around the haredi Orthodox Shtisel family and their tales of love and loss.
Kauffman’s adaptation, called “Emmis,” will be set in the New York borough of Brooklyn and will be available through Amazon Prime, the online retailer’s streaming service, Variety reported.
Canter learned about “Shtisel” when she saw clips from the drama at an event organized by the National Association of Television Program Executives.
“She was haunted by it,” Kauffman said of her daughter’s initial reaction. “She fell in love with it, and the same thing happened with me. It stays with you. We knew it wouldn’t be easy to sell, but we all felt so passionately about it.”
“Emmis” will closely follow its Israeli counterpart, but Kaufmann is making adjustments to ensure that Jewish traditions that may be unfamiliar to a U.S. audience does not confound viewers.
“In America, the show will be a period piece set in contemporary times. [The family] is living such a different kind of life, it’s like a different century,” Kauffman told Variety. “In television today, people are taking their time telling stories, so we don’t have to explain all the rituals. We will just show it.”
The Israeli-American director Etan Cohen is writing the script for the show.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
