Israeli Drama ‘East Side’ Takes Leaf Out Of ‘The Sopranos’ Book By Placing Family Front And Center

Jesse Whittock
·6 min read
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Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

This week we feature East Side, an Israeli drama that puts family at the center of the action Sopranos style, in East Jerusalem’s politically-charged Old City. The show has been a critical success for public broadcaster Kan 11 and is also available locally on Netflix Israel through a deal struck in February. Marking a new direction for internationally-popular Israeli drama, it follows a father and fixer who brokers shady property deals between the Arab residents of East Jerusalem and powerful Jewish groups who want to take control of the area.

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Name: East Side
Country: Israel
Network: Kan 11, Netflix Israel
Producer: Abot Hameiri (Fremantle)
For fans of: The Sopranos, Shtisel, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
Distributor: Fremantle

To outsiders looking in, it might seem any TV show or film set in East Jerusalem would be inherently political. The area, just 7.5 square kilometers in size, is a microcosm of the Israel-Palestine conflict — internationally recognized by UNESCO as part of occupied Palestine, with a larger population of Palestinian Arabs than Jewish settlers and an increasing number of Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law (though Israel disputes this).

The ‘Holy Basin,’ as it’s known, is a spiritual focal point for Jews, Muslims and Christians, so to make a series there based on actual events and not get swallowed up by the volatile politics is quite the achievement. That was Yael Rubinstein-Nitsan’s task when she forged East Side.

The Abot Hameiri-produced series for Israeli public network Kan 11 uses the local circumstances as a palette, not a propeller, for the narrative. It focuses on Momi, played by Yehuda Levi, an ex-Israel secret service agent-turned-fixer who covertly acquires Arab properties for powerful Jewish groups — allowing them to overtake the neighborhood one home at a time. However, his motivation isn’t selfish and cold-hearted but instead for the benefit of his 18-year-old autistic daughter. His work is inherently dangerous, too — carrying a heavy legal cost if Palestinian authorities discover him.

Creator and writer Rubinstein-Nitsan (Srugim) says she was compelled to pen the story after discovering East Jerusalem’s real estate landscape: “An amazing world — ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse, set on top of a political gunpowder barrel.”

“The twists and turns of the story make the spectator feel and grasp the surprisingly layered reality, and the assumptions about who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad’ are continuously challenged,” she adds.

Most of the storylines are fictional but one is not, centering on control of a grand hotel at the strategically important entrance to the Old City. Despite Momi’s offers, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem that owns the building will not sell. Rubinstein-Nitsan says the plot is inspired by the real life of the 140th Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, Irenaios, who was accused in 2005 of selling three Old City properties to Ateret Cohanim, an organization with the declared aim of making East Jerusalem majority-Jewish. “The bigger-than-life ‘Greek tragedy’ of the Patriarch was too strong to ignore, and its inclusion in the series encourages the audience to explore the relationship between real events and fiction,” she adds.

‘A Story About Character’

Developing the series was “very challenging,” says Abot Hameiri Head of Drama Dikla Barkai. “On the one hand, we wanted to bring this wider world of East Jerusalem to life and on the other hand we wanted a good story that wasn’t forced. Really, it was without any agenda, not even the agenda of trying to bring the personal and political together.”

Guy Hameiri, one of the Israeli producer’s founders and company CEO, adds: “There were so many storylines and back stories that are big, significant and political but at the end of the day it’s not a political show. It’s a story about character and family in the East Jerusalem environment.”

Hameiri notes that many of the greatest TV shows put family at their core — think how another conflicted character, Tony Soprano, was constantly wrestling with his role as a husband, son and father, and his life as a mafia boss. East Side applies those sensibilities to Middle Eastern politics — Momi is cold and heartless while on the job but viewers relate to his emotional storyline. “The situation forces Momi to be an extremely caring, very pushy helicopter parent,” says Rubinstein-Nitsan.

“The parent-child dyad is, in my opinion, the most profound relationship a person may have, a productive source of infinite stories and facets,” she adds. “It is easy to portray a perfect family image in which all the family members are beautiful and happy, but parenthood has its share of pain and complexity.”

Acting alongside Levi, who won Best Actor for Fire Dance at Series Mania 2022, are the likes of Neta Riskin, Amir Khoury, Panos Koronis and Gefen Kaminer, an autistic actress who plays Momi’s daughter Maya.

“The empathy Gefen has shown towards Maya’s character, based on her own life experience, as well as her chemistry with Yehuda Levi, sparked unfiltered emotional sincerity, in complete contrast with all the cunning schemes and manipulations Momi does for a living,” says East Side director Evgeny Rumna. “This casting was the exact contrast we were looking for.”

Netflix Israel has landed the series through a wider local deal with Kan 11 for several shows and will launch it this month. The first season has been considered a critical and ratings success on TV — “on every part of the public channel the numbers were really good,” claims Hamieri — and a second was ordered just as the first ended. Barkai says this is still at the “beginning of the writing stage,” adding: “You don’t always get a second season in Israel so we don’t tend to plan of them.”

However, she says there is a “very strong story for Momi starting to form” and adds: “Some series start at one point and end at another, but you could live with these characters forever.” Abot Hameiri parent Fremantle launched the series at Mipcom last year and Hameiri says negotiations are ongoing with buyers, with “a few deals in play.”

In East Side, single father Momi is constantly conflicted as he goes about his work and life. Israel’s creative industry has been facing its own troubles, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judicial system and clamp down on free speech impact the local film and TV biz. Our Boys creator Hagai Levi was briefly arrested in March during a protest in Tel Aviv, while Euphoria creator Ron Leshem and film producer Yoav Roeh have regularly raised threats to culture and freedom of speech in the country.

Leshem and Hagai have noted how the government is showing signs of censorship by threatening to withdraw public funding and investment for networks that don’t toe the party line, while introducing new funds for pro-government projects.

Regardless of the political backdrop, East Side proves the country can still deliver quality TV.

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