Teen Vampire Debuts on Israeli TV

High-School Heroine: A new Israeli TV show follows a 15-year-old girl who discovers she is half-vampire, half-human. Image by OHAD ROMANO
They could have called her “Batya the Vampire Slayer.”

High-School Heroine: A new Israeli TV show follows a 15-year-old girl who discovers she is half-vampire, half-human. Image by OHAD ROMANO
Following the international success of last year’s vampire drama “Twilight,” Israeli cable provider HOT is ready to broadcast its own bloodsucker-themed series. The show, “Split,” follows a 15-year-old girl whose identity — as half-vampire, half-human — is revealed to her by a mysterious male classmate, a newcomer who turns out to be roughly 300 years her senior. The series, which features elaborate makeup and special effects, will debut on May 28 and is produced by the same team behind several of Israel’s most popular prime-time soap operas.
As with “Twilight,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and virtually every other vampire-themed drama, “Split” appears to have a subtext only partly masked by all the pale skin and fangs. After the show’s heroine learns her true identity, she is “drawn into an ancient conflict” between humans and vampires, and eventually discovers she was “born… to put an end to the war,” as a HOT press release put it.
Whatever ancient conflicts the show addresses, it also devotes attention to the more universal elements of adolescence — the same sorts of worries about romance and social status depicted in “Twilight” and “Buffy.” Portraying the conflicted heroine is actress Amit Farkash, who last year played the female lead in a Hebrew-language stage version of “High School Musical.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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 polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.