Kugel review: ‘superb Shtisel spin-off’

“Everything is a story: a story that happened or a story waiting to happen.”

So begins the story that is Kugel, the highly anticipated prequel to the hit Israeli television series Shtisel, which revives members of the beloved Charedi family for an exploration of Libbie and Nukhem Shtisel’s backstory in Antwerp, Belgium several years before the events of the formative series.

Narrated by a 22-year-old Libbi (Hadas Yaron), whose hours are consumed by writing stories and daydreaming about finding her shidduch, the series begins with life-altering endings. Foremost among them is the breakdown of Libbie’s parents’ marriage, with her mother Yiddes (Mili Avital) abruptly leaving her father after Nukhem’s (Sasson Gabai) deceitful entrepreneurial exploits and greed cut too close to the bone.

Hadas Yaron as Libbie Shtisel[Missing Credit]

Nuckem, who seems unable to admit even to himself his own perfidy, begins courting the recently widowed Pnina Baumbach, not least because the restaurant her late husband owned churned out the best kugel in Antwerp and Nukhem, ever the chancer, spies an opportunity to rise. The Jewish noodle casserole is something of an obsession among the local Charedi community; arguments over who gets the delectable burnt bits of the kugel abound.

“We must separate the meaningful from the petty and always focus on the petty,” Nukhem says in one of his many oft-repeated maxims.

Amid the breakdown of his marriage, Nuchem’s consistent failure to be perceived as a gvir (a respected, wealthy man) is a torment compounded by his rejection from a prestigious sauna called Shwitz, whose gold membership cards are status symbols among the local Orthodox community.

Her efforts to become a writer bring her face to face with the dark side of her community’s prescriptive gender roles

Meanwhile Libbie, a talented writer, forges a connection with a young Orthodox man on the Antwerp tram and seeks him out for a formal marriage match, but things are rarely so straightforward in a community where social constructs are not inclined to bend. At the same time, her efforts to become a writer bring her face to face with the dark side of her community’s prescriptive gender roles.

Indeed, the pressure to measure up to the intense expectations of the strictly Orthodox is depicted with subtle sincerity in both Nuckem’s desperation for legitimacy – or at least a respected guise of legitimacy – and Libbie’s struggle between writerly ambition and becoming a wife and mother.

But Kugel also quietly revels in the simultaneous frivolity and profundity of religious Jewish life. The show bows to the power of classic Jewish and biblical storytelling, pays homage to the way such stories can richen our lives and help us look at the world with fresh eyes.

It quietly revels in the simultaneous frivolity and profundity of religious Jewish life

Even when the show pokes fun at itself – perhaps especially when the show pokes fun at itself – it does so with the same good faith and warmth of its predecessor.

But Shtisel, whose third and final season came out in 2020, needn’t be fresh in your mind to enjoy Kugel, written by the inimitable Shtisel co-creator Yehonatan Indursky and directed by Erez Kavel. Viewers who haven’t yet watched the original should be able to enjoy the prequel on its own.

Sasson Gabai as Nukhem Shtisel[Missing Credit]

The phenomenal writing and pacing of the show, which spans eight episodes, is enhanced by the performances of Gabai and Yaron, as well as supporting cast members. The dialogue is pithy, full of dry wit, and there is a lightness to Kugel that even Nukhem’s cynicism cannot obscure.

The upcoming series proves that the Shtisel universe, much like our own, is ever expanding and full of inexhaustible potential.

Kugel launches exclusively on Israeli streaming platform Izzy on 28 February

 ★★★★★