- Yifat (Yael Sharoni): A graphic artist who is perpetually unlucky in love.
- Hodaya (Tali Sharon): Yifat's roommate, a Rebbe's daughter who rebels by wearing jeans and attending Hebrew University.
- Reut (Sharon Fauster): Yifat and Hodaya's friend, a strong-willed accountant.
- Nati (Ohad Knoller): A snarky but charming doctor at Hadassah Hospital who frequently mooches off of Yifat and Hodaya's refrigerator and washing machine.
- Amir (Amos Tamam): Nati's shy roommate, a recently divorced grammar teacher at a girl's school.
All of the characters are in their late 20's and have a near obsession with getting married. Episodes are filled with speed-dating and fix-ups. The hope of marriage informs their actions ways that are comically obvious. In one episode that veers into zany sitcom territory, Amir finds out that his school only employs married men, so he ropes Reut into acting as his wife at a work party. The desire for marriage can also form a quiet backdrop to even the smallest actions. Reut's old wooden bed is breaking nightly, but she refuses to buy a new one. When Amir asks why, she reveals that she got her old bed when she was 16 and vowed she would never buy another bed until she got married. She is afraid that if she got a comfy new twin bed, then she would become too complacent with being single and not work hard enough to get married. Reut's struggle is particularly poignant considering where she starts in the first episode. After her boyfriend of five months both announces his promotion at work and proposes to her in one breath, she concludes that he didn't want to get married until he made more money than her and she dumps him. For her own happiness, she needs to be with someone who understands and respects her. (It was for the best. As she walks to Yifat and Hodaya's apartment for Shabbat dinner with a covered dish in hand, she runs into her ex-boyfriend who sneers, "You are going to be carrying kugels to Shabbat dinners for a long time.")
Reut's story represents the stories of many people who are part of the growing population of Modern Orthodox singles. Young religious Jews are no longer content to have matchmakers set them up as early as possible. They not only want autonomy in marriage partners, but a chance to find themselves first. As a natural consequence, they become pickier and the marriage date recedes further into the distance. Show creator Laizey Shapiro said that part of his inspiration behind the series is to dispel the notion that the intensely pro-family religious Jewish population has no singles. The stories of these characters can be so true to life that some Modern Orthodox youth find the show too painful to watch. The characters are caught between the traditional desire for marriage and the contemporary desire to forge their own separate identities.
Another battlefront between tradition and modernity is in religious practice. Judaism focuses on outward signs of practice and surprisingly little on actual belief. The idea behind this is that action influences belief, but the characters often have a disconnect between what they do and what they believe. Yifat tries to ask a man for a date, but the man says it wouldn't work out because he's "not religious." Sure, he wears a kippah, separates milk and meat, and observes Shabbat, but he has non-religious excuses for all of these things. He also implies that he is not religious "when it comes to dating," (as in, he is willing to have pre-marital sex.) The outward markers of religious practice don't match how he feels inside. In contrast, Hodaya wears pants and attends a secular university. (Speaking of which, I love seeing my old stomping grounds at Hebrew U.) She fancies herself as a rebel, but her rebelliousness only goes so far. When she starts dating Avri, a non-religious archaeology professor, she balks when he takes her on a Friday night movie date. Later, she panics when he not only makes her spaghetti Bolognese (read: meat sauce), he also grates Parmesan cheese on her dish after she tells him not to. These incidents are enough to make her want to break up with him, convinced that the gulf is too great for their relationship to work out.
Of course, there are still standard romantic plots. They are usually described as "will they or won't they?" In this case, it's describing dating and marriage instead of sex. Yifat pines for Nati, who wavers between just not getting it and not being interested. When she sends in an entry to a newspaper column where people write thinly-veiled poetry about their love lives, Nati reads Yifat's entry (written under a pseudonym) about a prince who kisses many frogs without seeing his true princess in front of him, he declares "That guy is a jerk!" without realizing he is describing himself. Later, he makes a date through a dating website--then bolts when he finds out that his Perach (flower) is actually Yifat. On the other front is the chemistry between Amir and Reut. She was just too darned good playing his wife at the party for there not to be something between them.
At this early stage, the show is already a winner. The actors are so natural and it has the right balance between humor and drama. Z and I really appreciate the extra dimension that our knowledge of Judaism brings, but it makes me wonder how much someone without that knowledge would enjoy the show. We crack up whenever a cell phone rings on Shabbat, and we screamed "NO!" when Avri grated the parmesan cheese on the meaty spaghetti. I can't see others having that reaction. Srugim is popular among secular Israelis, but a secular Israeli is much more versed in Jewish practice than your average secular Jew or non-Jewish person anywhere else. Still, its insightful look at a specific culture and its take on universal themes are enough to make it worth a try for anybody.
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