Netflix will debut a follow-up to ‘Unorthodox’ — but it’s not what you think
Julia Haart at a 2017 event for La Perla. Image by Getty
By Irene Katz Connelly March 11, 2021
Whether you are pining for more drama about formerly Haredi Jews or simply have an unending appetite for puns on the word “Orthodox,” Netflix has you covered.
Almost a year after releasing the blockbuster miniseries “Unorthodox,” the streaming giant announced a reality show entitled “My Unorthodox Life,” about Julia Haart, a fashion executive who left her Orthodox community to become a mover and shaker in the design world.
Currently the CEO of Elite World Group, a large network of model management agencies, Haart has previously worked at luxury lingerie brand La Perla and launched her own shoe collections.
But before all that, she had a very different career. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Haart was a Judaic Studies teacher at Yeshiva Atlanta (now Atlanta Jewish Academy), a co-ed Modern Orthodox high school. Forward staff who knew her at the time – when she went by the name Talia Hendler – recalled that she was beloved by students and known for her sharp style.
Netflix said the show, set to release later this year, will follow Haart as she balances her “mission to revolutionize the industry from the inside out” with her role as a mother to four children, including popular TikTok-er Batsheva Haart.
“My Unorthodox Life” is helmed by the producers of wealth-porn reality show “Bling Empire,” which suggests that there will be plenty of high heels and dinner party spats. As a successor to the lush and moody “Unorthodox,” it seems a little — well, you know what the word is.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t be watching.
Irene Katz Connelly is a staff writer at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @katz_conn.
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!
Dive In
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward He called a Nazi sympathizer ‘extraordinary.’ Now he’s a nominee for U.S. attorney.
-
Opinion This is my last column as editor of the Forward
-
Books Unwieldy, unnerving, and a masterpiece — the last great Yiddish novel has arrived
-
Fast Forward Texas bakery reportedly becomes first bagel shop to be named James Beard Award finalist
-
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.