Nebsu is a TV sitcom series which will soon
begin its second season in Israel. The
series was aired on Reshet and produced with monies from the collaborative
effort of the Gesher Film Fund and the Avi Chai Foundation—two organizations
committed to promoting pluralism and tolerance within Israeli society.
Nebsu is a low-brow series, filled with lots
of bathroom and mother-in-law jokes, playing to a low common denominator of the
Israeli public. Having said that, I must
also add that it’s well-paced, filled with sharp criticism of social customs in
Israeli society, and it made me laugh at many of the foibles of our culture.
The story line centers around the son of immigrants from
Ethiopia and the daughter of an Ashkenazi family who fall in love and want to
marry each other. The characters are
compelling and the humor is quite witty, although not terribly sophisticated. More important than anything else, the
program has brought a typical and wonderful Ethiopian family into the living
room of hundreds of thousands of Israeli homes. This is a crucial step in bringing mainstream
Ethiopian Jews into the Israeli consciousness and helping to promote racial tolerance
within Israeli society.
In addition, the big news is that I read in today’s Haaretz
newspaper that American Fox TV is going to create a pilot for a comedy series
based on the same idea of an inter-racial young couple.
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