La belle de Jérusalem

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?

It was probably timely that I started watching "The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem" right before the latest war between Israel and Hamas. This series looks at life in Israel while it was still the British colony known as Mandatory Palestine. The main focus is a Sephardic family living there starting in the 1920s, going up through the '40s. Among the issues covered are the tensions between the Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, clashes with the Arabs, and the question of retaining one's cultural practices.

All in all a fine show. If nothing else, it should remind us that many of the problems in the region stem from the British occupation, with London drawing up the borders to benefit itself; the British authorities later acknowledged that they made a mistake by not asking the Palestinians their opinion on creating a Jewish homeland in the region.

Worth seeing.

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.

Let's get the possible negatives out of the way first: it's quite low budget - anyone hoping for expensive set-pieces or grand sweeping shots of historic Jerusalem will be disappointed (the show, in fact, makes good use of a quaint handmade model of the city for panoramic shots); the 'English' accents of the British are abysmal, and the English dubbed version should be avoided (due to incongruous American accents).

Now the positives. Despite following two parallel timelines and spanning decades the show is easy to follow. The characters are mostly, if not all, multi-dimensional and the story manages to be both surprising and shocking at times whilst also a decent 'comfort' watch.

Most of all, it is the sheer range of human emotions this series manages to encapsulate that is impressive. Love, lust, anger, betrayal, redemption, jealousy, revenge, the list goes on - all captured amidst authentic portrayals and believable development.

Billed as a 'melodrama' and occasionally feeling like the classiest soap opera - it is best seen as a visualised novel. The acting is decent, for the most part, but it is primarily the writing that shines through here.

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.