Kipat Barzel

The series is a mesmerizing examination of the highly publicized tension between secular Israelis and Heredi Israelis. For those willing to learn about other cultures, it is a fly on.the wall view of Israel, both rural and urban. The mesmerizing setting of the Israeli countryside, at which the basic training camp is set I found very beautiful, but I have always loved both desert and forest.

Reviewers criticized "mental health days" but even the US army has mellowed quite a bit in past decades. Post traumatic stress disorder due to exposure to death and violence is a very real global phenomenon among soldiers, and mental health days are now known to be real.

If you are interested in learning about Israeli culture, Judaism, and current Israeli social problems, grab a seat and enjoy! If you prefer the familiar, don't bother to watch.

For me it was an adventure.

This is an Israeli soap opera (yet another set in the army) that deals with the struggles of Orthodox Jews who enlist in the IDF, despite going against the beliefs of their Orthodox community. The plot lines and stories around the characters are paper thin, sometimes bordering on being childish. The moral decisions and dilemmas faced by them are unlikely to have much interest or help to engage viewers outside of Israel or the Orthodox religion itself! Had they made the characters a little more complex, and the plot lines even more Arab-Israeli e.g Valley of Tears, that might have upped the appeal to a wider audience. It's passable and watchable for anyone who wishes to learn more about the "Jewish Diversity" that exists in Israel!

At first, the show was interesting with the tension between the Haredi and secular Israeli communities. But, then it deteriorated to the unwatchable. I had to give up in the middle of the second season, as previously a fairly admirable character, discusses plans to hide her brother's crimes of theft, kidnapping and being an accomplice to murder, because he is mama's boy, even though he is a soldier in the army.

A single instance of people hiding a crime by one of their loved ones, over a 20 episode series might be interesting, but they whole show has several instances of normal people hiding the worst of violent crimes and make a series of bad decisions that any rational person would know would have terrible consequences.

Are these actual soldiers? Nope. They are millennials in uniform taking mental health breaks and needing safe rooms to cope with normal army life.