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Friday December 21, 2007

Seinfeld-esque Arab show a hit on Israeli TV

by matti friedman
the associated press

Flipping through Israeli TV channels on a Saturday night, you might come across this scene: a car approaching a roadblock guarded by armed soldiers, and a policeman gruffly asking the driver, a nervous Arab man, for his papers.

You’ve just stumbled on Israel’s latest hit sitcom.

Israel’s Arab minority, one-fifth of its citizens, have long been relegated to the fringes of the country’s consciousness, and the TV screen has been no exception. That’s why the premiere of “Arab Work” last month was unique: It marked the first time a program mostly in Arabic, written by an Arab and starring Arab actors has aired on Israel’s commercial prime time, aimed at an audience that’s almost entirely Jewish.

The show’s premiere was the third-ranked program the week it ran and remains in the top 10, according to ratings figures from Keshet, the show’s production company. And the usually pitiless TV columnists for all three of Israel’s major newspapers liked it.

Much Israeli TV comedy is lowbrow, deploying broad caricatures and a disproportionate number of men wearing makeup and women’s clothing. This may be what really makes “Arab Work” unique — it’s actually funny.

The main character, Amjad, a reporter for a Hebrew paper, tries to distance himself from his Arab roots, which he thinks are backward, and become more Israeli, an identity he sees as modern and thus superior. Other characters include Amjad’s traditional parents, his skeptical wife and his Jewish photographer sidekick Meir, the show’s average Israeli.

Making able use of an absurdist style lifted from “Seinfeld” and transplanted to the Mideast, the show skillfully tackles Israel’s most loaded issue — relations between Arabs and Jews — and dares laugh at it. The title, a derogatory Hebrew expression used to describe shoddy work, is itself a bitter joke about Israeli attitudes toward Arabs.

In one scene, Meir tries to impress Amal, a beautiful Arab feminist, by inviting her over for dinner and making Arab food like hummus and tabouli salad. Insulted that Meir assumed she wouldn’t like western cuisine, Amal angrily refers Meir to “Orientalism,” Edward Said’s famous critique of western condescension to the east.

“Is that a cookbook?” asks the bewildered Meir.

The show takes on the daily humiliations suffered by Arabs in Israel, but the jabs are always humorously packaged. One story line involves an unusually intelligent sheep so used to having police demand its Arab owner’s ID that it has learned to fetch the card itself.

“Arab Work” also pokes fun at Israel’s Arabs, depicting a less-than-enthusiastic commitment to the law and a tendency to blame Israeli authorities for any problem.

In one scene, Amjad is interviewed over the phone for a Hebrew radio program about the high rate of car accidents among Arabs. He blames government neglect of Arab areas, but he’s doing the interview over his cell phone while driving, a traffic offense in Israel, and is duly pulled over.

The show’s creator, Saed Kashua — himself an Arab writer at a Hebrew paper — has been criticized by some Israeli Arabs for featuring stereotypical characters, like the crooked owner of a garage in Amjad’s village who steals car parts both for and from his customers.

But Kashua, 32, feels he’s doing a service just by presenting sympathetic Arab characters. Even the guy from the chop shop, he pointed out, is likable.

The show’s goal is to entertain, Kashua said, and he has no delusions about a sitcom’s ability to bring about real change in relations between Jews and Arabs. He’ll measure the show’s success, he said, by how enthusiastic the audience is about Meir and Amal ending up together, even though he’s Jewish and she’s Arab.

“That will be a great victory,” Kashua laughed.

Israeli Arabs still lag far behind the country’s Jews in income and education, but have been slowly becoming more visible in popular entertainment. An Arab won Israel’s version of “America’s Next Top Model,” an Arab actor is now a popular soap opera star, and other Arab performers have starred in some of the most popular movies released recently, including “The Band’s Visit,” which won the local version of the Oscar for best film.

“Arab Work” appears to be building on that trend. When the show premiered, the Ma’ariv newspaper ran a breathless feature on Mira Awad, who plays Amal, on the cover of its weekend supplement, crowning her “the new Arab woman.” The story included a list of other hot young Arab actors, dubbing them the “Palestine All-Stars.”

It seemed to indicate that while Arabs remain a neglected minority in Israel, in the liberal Tel Aviv scene that is the hothouse for the local entertainment industry they are now officially hip.

“Arab Work” is special mainly because it shows Israeli commercial TV can produce a sitcom that “doesn’t insult your intelligence,” said Yaron Ten Brink, reviewer at Yediot Achronot.

As for the subject, Ten Brink said, “It’s a bit sad that it’s unique.”

“Twenty percent of Israelis are Arabs, so you wouldn’t think seeing them on TV would be such a big deal,” he said.

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