''Unorthodox'' is a

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

television miniseries that debuted on

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

on March 26, 2020. Inspired by Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography, '' Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots'', it is the first Netflix series to be primarily in

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

. The four-part miniseries was created and written by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski, and directed by Maria Schrader. 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. Owned and operated by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the P ...

nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series ( Shira Haas), and Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series ( Anna Winger), winning for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series ( Maria Schrader).

Premise

Esty Shapiro, a 19-year-old

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

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

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. It was an independe ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. She runs away to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

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

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

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 t ...

, to try to find her.

Cast and characters

Main

* Shira Haas as Esther "Esty" Shapiro * Amit Rahav as Yaakov "Yanky" Shapiro * Jeff Wilbusch as Moses "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 (; ) is a group in Hasidic Judaism founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum (1887–1979), in the city of Szatmárnémeti (also called Szatmár in the 1890s), Kingdom of Hungary, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is a b ...

movement, a

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

community in New York City. Because Feldman is a public figure, the writers veered from her life in the fictional Berlin sequences, but based the flashbacks on the book. The show has language switching from English to

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

. ''Unorthodox'' is the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish. The show was written by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski, directed by Maria Schrader, and produced by Karolinski. 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". 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 building, Reichstag (Bundestag, German Parliament Building), and ...

, which served as the set for the music academy and surroundings, and the Wannsee lake ('' Großer Wannsee''), where, as referenced in the story, the "

Final Solution The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...

" was planned at a shoreline villa. The music academy in ''Unorthodox'' is based on the Barenboim-Said Akademie. Anna Winger told ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'': "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." 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 ( , plural: or ) is a Fur clothing, fur hat worn by some Ashkenazi Jews, 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 ...

s'', which were made by a Hamburg-based theater company, using

fake fur Fake fur, also called faux fur, is a Pile (textile), pile fabric engineered to have the appearance and warmth of fur. Fake fur can be made from a variety of materials, including polyester, nylon, or Acrylic fiber, acrylic. First introduced i ...

, instead of minks. An early hire was actor and Yiddish specialist Eli 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 Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

neighborhood of

Williamsburg Williamsburg may refer to: Places *Colonial Williamsburg, a living-history museum and private foundation in Virginia *Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood in New York City *Williamsburg, former name of Kernville (former town), California *Williams ...

, 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 neighborhood of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Reception

Critical response

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

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...

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 an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, it has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

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 structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

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 German English-language television shows Films about Orthodox and Hasidic Jews German-language television shows Multilingual television series Netflix television dramas German television miniseries Hasidic Judaism in popular culture Jews and Judaism in Berlin Jews and Judaism in Brooklyn Religious drama television series Jewish American television series 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