Shtisel Uncovered: Yehonatan Indursky in conversation with NIFC

Israel is changing before our eyes. Even as illiberalism in Israel seems to be growing ever-stronger, so too are surprising and unexpected alliances that are pushing back.

Yehonatan Indursky, co-creator of the award-winning Netflix drama Shtisel, has changed how many of us see the ultra-Orthodox community. The New Israel Fund has long supported allies within the haredi community – now comprising 12% of Israel’s population — but rapid changes are opening up new, diverse partnerships in our fight for Israel’s democracy.

Join us as Shtisel creator Yehonatan Indursky shares his artistic vision and helps us all open our minds to a new world of possibilities for Israel’s future. This conversation will be moderated by prize-winning author, activist and editor Dr. Nora Gold.

“The reason we create art is to remember how special human beings are. New Israel Fund understands that. It’s at the core of your work.” – Yehonatan Indursky

Yehonatan Indursky: screenwriter and co-creator of Shtisel
An award-winning writer and director, Yehonatan Indursky is a graduate of the elite ultra-Orthodox Ponevezh Yeshiva, and later a top alum of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School. He wrote and created, with Ori Elon, the esteemed drama series Shtisel, which won 17 Israeli Academy of Television awards. The series is currently an international hit on Netflix. His full-length documentary “Ponevezh Time,” was nominated for Best Documentary Film at the Israeli Academy Awards. “Driver” (2018), his first full-length film, won the Israeli Critics Award. Indursky wrote and directed the series Autonomies, which received rave reviews and won Reflet d’Or for “Best International Television Series” in the Geneva International Film Festival. Autonomies imagines an ultra-Orthodox autonomy in Jerusalem that is surrounded by a wall, and operates strictly in accordance with Halachic laws. Indursky’s short film, “The Cantor and the Sea,” won the best director prize in Jerusalem Film Festival 2015.

Dr. Nora Gold: moderator
Dr. Nora Gold, a founder of the New Israel Fund of Canada, is a prize-winning author, activist, and editor of the prestigious online literary journal, Jewish Fiction .net. For ten years a tenured professor of social work, Gold left fulltime academia in 2000 to have more time for writing fiction. Two of her books, Marrow and Other Stories and Fields of Exile, have won Canadian Jewish book awards. Her most recent novel, The Dead Man (which is set in Israel), was awarded a Canada Council Translation Grant and was published last summer in Hebrew. Her fourth book is forthcoming. Gold is passionate about Israel and social justice and divides her time between Toronto and Jerusalem.