“Israel on Netflix” by Dan Grossman

Unsplash image by Taylor Brandon @house_42

Israel on Netflix

In Fauda, the Israeli operatives are so macho you can smell their balls, their armpits, even when they’re staring at their laptops. Still, these dudes are easier to relate to than the ultraorthodox men in Shtisel.  None of these men have internet access, but some have secret cell phones so they can call their wives while they’re experiencing the agony of childbirth. Agony always lurks around the corner in Red Sea Resort, the docudrama named after the Sudanese diving resort opened—as a Mossad front—to rescue Ethiopian Jews. In the documentary Inside the Mossad, they tell you everything you wanted to know about the high-risk Red Sea Resort operation—in Hebrew. You hardly ever hear Hebrew in American films set in Israel, but Hebrew’s all you hear out of Natalie Portman’s mouth in A Tale of Love and Darkness. (The love, in the film, drowns in the darkness.) You also hear Hebrew in the Egyptian film Escaping Tel Aviv. You don’t hear it in the first scene, however, as Salwa bows down on her prayer mat in a Cairo apartment. Imagine her surprise when her husband Ezzat tells her that he is really a Mossad agent named Daniel. What chutzpah! Then he kidnaps her and her kids and brings them to Israel. Salwa may eventually escape Tel Aviv, but she’ll never escape the smell of Israeli armpits and balls.