The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

I just finished watching Season 1, all 10 Episodes, on Netflix. This TV series is amazing.

In part, this series is great because of all of the great acting. It features a wonderful ensemble cast. The way the show is filmed is also key to its success.

It's a very complicated show and some degree of concentration and patience is needed to fully appreciate it. By going back and forth in time, it can be confusing but it really does make a lot of sense.

Exploration of family dynamics against the backdrop of critical historical events is the true beauty of this show.

Would recommend this to anyone who's up for something on the heavy side. There are some truly shocking moments. For those who just want a "guilty pleasure," this is not for you.

I love this and I'm only on episode 9. Great acting, great storyline. The dubbing is immaculate. I'm hooked! I can't wait to see where these characters take me?

While the family drama is plodding, the backdrop of Palestine during the years leading up to the birth of the state of Israel has a beautiful feel, and, from what I've studied, an authenticity to it. Not everyone understands the nuances -- the wealthy Armozas have quite possibly been in Jerusalem since their family was expelled from Spain in 1492, so they look down on the Ashkenazim, the recent arrivals from eastern Europe, with their payos, their Yiddish and their shtetl ways. These divisions persisted. Also, it's very true that the birth of the state was accompanied by two wars, not one. By the late 1920s Jews in Palestine were being attacked by their Arab neighbors as a response to increased Jewish immigration, and the attackers didn't always distinguish between recent arrivals and Jews who had lived there for centuries. This war is not as well known as the War of Independence of 1948, but in Israel they have not forgotten it and these incidents are dramatized.

Admittedly, several of the key characters are not all that likeable so it's harder to care about what happens to them. Still, if you enjoy a production with a real sense of time and place, give it a try.

"The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem" has now completed two seasons. It follows, thus far, three generations of a middle-class Sephardic Jewish family living through British rule and thus far extended into World War II. The individual members of the Armoza family have distinct personalities which allows a variety of storylines. Grandma Mercada (Irit Kaplan) is strong-willed and traditional. Her son, Gabriel (Michael Aloni), is weak-willed and deceptive. He's forced to marry Rosa (Hila Saada), a woman he doesn't love. Rosa has a younger brother, Ephraim (Tom Hagi) who is part of the resistance to British rule. Gabriel's first love is an Ashkenazi Jewish woman, Rochel (Yuval Scharf). Gabriel and Rosa have three daughters--Luna (Swell Ariel Or) is the beauty queen and Gabriel's favorite. Rochelita (Eli Steen) is the brainy one in the family. The Franco family is the near neighbors to the Armozas.

The series begins in the 1920s and ends with 1941. The second season continues the war years, ending around 1944. "The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem" is entertaining soap opera. It relies greatly on family members keeping secrets from another, especially Gabriel. Breakthroughs come only in unavoidable crises. Even the storyline is somewhat predictable, it does weave historical threads together in an interesting fashion. And the writing is good enough so that the characters develop clear personalities even though they don't seem to learn any life lessons along way.

Set in old Jerusalem under Ottoman and British rule this complex life drama gives a fascinating taste of the social, political and human context of the time through a beautifully written drama of love, death, family, sex and revolution. Also quite compelling to taste the Middle East of the past with glorious costumes and cinematography.