TV series about Israelis in Berlin gains potency in wake of October 7
Dramedy ‘Berlin Blues’ tells story of Yonah and Talya, a typical Israeli couple trying out life in Germany; it premiered on October 6
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
When “Berlin Blues” creators and screenwriters Dana Idisis and Itamar Rothschild wrote their six-part television series for Yes about an Israeli couple in Berlin, they were thinking about the more mundane trials of relocation and being a typical pair of Sabras trying out life in Germany.
The series premiered at the Haifa Film Festival on October 6, and was scheduled to launch at the end of October.
But the brutal, painful Hamas attack of October 7 delayed the launch until March, and the series now offers a different kind of emotional outlet, said director Ram Nehari in an interview with The Times of Israel.
“I knew a lot of people who were thinking about relocation before October 7,” said Nehari. “Remember, there was reason to think about that because of what was happening last year,” he added, referring to the government’s deeply divisive judicial overhaul plans and the ensuing protests.
It’s a conversation that’s still taking place among middle-class Israelis, said Nehari, and it’s even more potent since the war in Gaza, because “we don’t know what the reality will be tomorrow or in six months or a year from now.”
“Berlin Blues” is about a married couple, Yonah (Rothschild) and Talya (Shira Naor), with a young child, Rani, who move to Berlin for a year so that Yonah, a frustrated oboe player, can have the opportunity to work and perform with a German orchestra.
It’s an easy move for Yonah — a German citizen through his maternal grandparents, who fled the Nazi regime and escaped to Israel — and revels in his professional opportunity.
Talya, a novelist, struggles with the move and her sense of displacement, even as she keeps telling people that she can work anywhere. The sharp, short, 30-minute episodes veer between the couple’s relationship and family, and their friend circles of Germans and Israelis in their new Berlin life.
It’s a story based on a similar experience for the creators, partners in life and work, who moved to Berlin several years ago to fulfill Rothschild’s dream of living in his grandfather’s homeland. At the time, Idisis was working on the second season of her award-winning show “On the Spectrum.”
The move to Berlin, however, was difficult for Idisis, who had writer’s block and couldn’t move her script forward, said Nehari.
“Itamar was so happy. He loved the trains and the sense of order and flourished, while Dana found it hard. Her English wasn’t so great, she’s not open to strangers, and she couldn’t work,” said Nehari.
It was writer Sayed Kashua (who had advised Idisis with “On the Spectrum”) who recommended that she write about what she was experiencing. She and Rothschild each contributed what was happening in their Berlin adventure, creating a tragicomedy about the fictional couple’s struggle.
It’s a show about the trials of relocation and the ironies of being Israeli in Germany, where people wrestle with the country’s Holocaust history, but it’s also about the main character, Talya, a successful young writer who has her own troubles magnified by the move to Berlin.
She is pained by the cold weather, the language and the nature of Germans, while her husband, Yonah, is enthralled by it all, despite his own grandparents’ Holocaust history in the country.
There are other themes familiar to Idisis’ writing, who was inspired by her younger brother with autism when she created “On the Spectrum,” and introduces Talya’s own emotional troubles along with those of the character’s younger brother, who suffers from mental instability.
Nehari entered the project when most of the writing was complete and began filming in 2022. The team filmed two episodes in Berlin before they were about to travel to Ukraine as a less expensive stand-in for the city.
That was in February 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine, forcing the team to pivot to Budapest before finalizing the work in Israel.
Now the series is finally live, offering a certain kind of emotional outlet and reality check for Israeli viewers, said Nehari.
He acknowledged that at any other time, he would have been upset by the delay of the launch, but that wasn’t relevant this time, not after the tragic events of October 7, when hundreds of Israelis were killed during the Hamas terrorist attacks and hundreds more taken hostage.
“If I could have, I would have put a stop to all culture until the hostages were back home,” said Nehari. “No TV, no movies, but that’s not how things work.”
“Berlin Blues,” which is now available on Yes in Israel, offers something emotional, relevant and very Israeli in its tone, said Nehari.
“It touched people,” he said.
Nehari is currently working on a new series for Kan with Noa Knoller, and though it nothing directly to do with October 7, everything is now viewed through that prism, he said.
“Everything is about our fears, the questions of whether the Zionist dream is over, given the trauma, circles of despair and mourning,” he said.
“Berlin Blues” also strikes a nerve for Israelis, raising questions about Israel and the ability to live one’s life in this country.
“Is it easy to relocate or is it a fantasy?” asked Nehari, speaking about his grandfather, a Berliner, who always wanted to return to Germany after immigrating to Israel and who vacationed in Switzerland every year, while his Polish grandmother spoke only Polish in her final years of life.
“You get how traumatic it is,” said Nehari. “Their lives were there and for us, Israelis, our identity is here, and I love it here but I can see that we may be spending our time in bomb shelters. Anything could happen and do we want that for our children? We all could be hostages held in a tunnel.”
The first episode of “Berlin Blues” is available to view for free via YouTube, in Hebrew only.
