The Lesson: New Israeli series starring Fauda’s Doron Ben-David has critics raving

Thanks to recent hits like Fauda and Tehran, the Israeli TV industry is most known for producing action-packed series and spy thrillers.

Cue the surprise when The Lesson, an intelligent series set at a local high school, took home Israel’s Best Drama Series of 2023 and grabbed additional global prizes at the prestigious Berlin and Cannes TV festivals.

The Lesson, featuring Fauda’s Doron Ben-David and rising star Maya Landsman, is now streaming exclusively on ChaiFlicks, the Jewish streaming platform, with English subtitles.

Surprising Success

The Lesson

Based on real events, The Lesson traces a classroom argument between a high school civics teacher (Ben-David) and his student (Landsman) which quickly spirals out of control and puts the two protagonists — and later the whole country — on a collision course.

In an interview with the Jewish Journal, series creator Deakla Keydar said she was inspired by her own perspective on incidents where teachers in Israeli classrooms were penalized for sharing their own political viewpoint in class.

“The idea is of a mini-drama with a fight that snowballs into a big fire,” she told the Journal’s Alan Zeitlin. “It’s not a feel-good idea, so we thought it might go under the radar, but many people were moved by it”.

Touching on Reality

Marrying sharp writing from Keydar and strong performances from the two opposing lead protagonists in Landsman — called a “revelation” by The Forward for her performance — and Ben-David, the series is able to maintain a crisp tension that leads the audience through familiar themes such as teenage angst, body image issues, the influence of social media and politics in the classroom.

What perhaps is most refreshing about The Lesson is that, instead of taking a clear thematic stance, it allows its characters to shine through and make the viewer connect with each in their own way.

Throughout the six episodes we see Landsman’s Lian, otherwise your typical 12th grader, struggling with body image and social acceptance, vying for her parents’ approval and doing her best to get the attention of Assi, the boy she likes from class. So, it’s no surprise when she finds that her way to get that much attention is to stake a controversial political debate with her teacher, Ben-David’s Amir.

Side by side we come to learn how Amir, the 40-plus newly divorced teacher, gets drawn into this debate of right versus wrong, which — once caught on video and shared on a TikTok-like app — explodes on social media and derails his life’s work as an educator.

Without diving into the details, Keydar said she was fascinated by the power of social media to inflame and magnify the divisions often troubling modern societies, Israel included.

“In real life, we’re very cautious,” she told Eric Berger of JTA. But with social media, “we get very attached.”

The Lesson is one Israeli TV series you don’t want to miss.