Eilat police drama breaks virgin ground
‘Betoolot’ takes viewers into southern resort town, the border with Egypt and a family’s dark secrets
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
HOT cable television has high hopes for its latest drama series, “Betoolot” (Virgins), about a female police captain and the discovery of the dead body of her long-lost twin sister, believed to have drowned 17 years earlier in the Sinai.
Directed by Adam Sanderson, the son of musician Danny Sanderson, the show is set in Israel’s wild south, where Shelly Toledano (played by Magi Azarzar) is a police captain who lives in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat and polices the African refugees crossing over the border from Egypt.
Her TV husband is actor Tsahi Halevy, a musician and relatively unknown actor who played Razi, the sensitive, troubled Shin Bet officer in last year’s Oscar short-listed “Bethlehem.”
Toledano’s father, also stunned by the discovery of his daughter’s body, is played by veteran actor Sasson Gabbai.
The show is called “Betoolot” because the sister’s body is found intact, weighing far more than when she first disappeared, and still a virgin, leading to questions about where and what she was doing for the last 17 years.
Thursdays, HOT 3, 10:15 pm.
Tsahi Halevy is performing at Zappa Tel Aviv on December 14.
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