Transcript of the Interview with the creator of Shtisel Yehonatan Indursky

May 2, 2025 Transcript of the Interview with the creator of Shtisel Yehonatan Indursky

Upon a viewer’s request, I’m posting the interview transcript below.

Frieda Vizel: Hello or hello again. I’m Frieda Vizel, and in this channel, I explore topics related to Judaism, insular culture, Yiddish and much more. If you ask me, probably the most profound media created on the Hasidic community, which I cover extensively on this channel, is the fictional world of the Israeli Shtisel family, as presented first in the series Shtisel and now Kugel. It tells the story of these complicated human characters, a Hasidic patriarch, his artist son, their love, their frictions, their extended family, with a cast of characters from the Yiddish-speaking and hilarious Bubba to the ferociously strong daughter and granddaughter Giti and Ruchami. The stories are complicated, nuanced, heartbreaking, and beautiful. Today, I am so delighted to talk to the show’s co-creator, Yehonatan Indursky, who himself grew up Haredi and has created a series of gorgeous portraits of ultra-Orthodox life on film. Welcome, Yehonatan. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this.

Yehonatan Indursky: Thank you. Thank you for having me with you. It’s an honor. And thank you for all the compliments. I will show it to my mother. She’ll be very proud.

Frieda Vizel: I just wanted… it wasn’t intended to be shmaltzy compliments. I just wanted the viewers to…

Yehonatan Indursky: We are into shmaltzy stuff, you know, not matter what, complements, food, jokes, everything. If it’s shmaltzy, I’m there.

Frieda Vizel: Okay, I’m into it. By the way, it’s Pesach season now, so it’s really appropriate because I grew up with Shmaltz Pesach season, so I feel like we can do that.

Yehonatan Indursky: You grew up in a Haredi family?

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, in New York. I’m sure that there is tremendous differences between a Haredi family in New York and in Israel. Something I really love about the show actually is that it gave me some feeling of the nuances of the Haredi community in Israel. You know, I grew up Satmar, which I guess puts me Hasidish, and there’s this whole conversation of where the Shtisel family belongs. But before we talk about the show, I want to do your biography sort of, in the way that you would introduce where you come from and describe your life story.

Yehonatan Indursky: So I grew up in an ultra-Orthodox family, Haredi, in Jerusalem, in the Givat Shaul neighborhood. It’s in the entrance of Jerusalem. It’s a Haredi neighborhood, unlike Mea Shearim, let’s say. It’s a bit more open, but still there is a lot of kind of Haredi there. It’s a Haredi community. And there is also a small group of people of Mea Shearim living there, because Givat Shaul, it was, I think, one of the first neighborhoods out of the walls.

Frieda Vizel: Of Mea Shearim.

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, so it was Mea Shearim. When they had no place, Mea Shearim was the first one, actually, when they had no place in Mea Shearim, they went to Givat Shaul, then to Beit Shemesh, then to Beit HaArava, there is also some. So, but my family, they are not from… they are, let’s say, a Litvak family. I grew up in Litvak yeshivas. I learned in Ponevizh yeshiva in B’nai Brak when I became almost 16, 15, around 16. And I spent there, let’s say, three years, almost three years. It was the most significant three years of my life, I guess, and the most tough three years of my life, which is always, not always, but sometimes going together. When I was 18, towards 19, I left the yeshiva. It was not so clear, like it’s not I left in one day. It took me some while, let’s say, 20 years till I defined myself as a secular guy, or I tried at least. And in these 20 years, I studied cinema in Jerusalem, in Sam Spiegel Film School. I moved to Tel Aviv. I study here in the university literature and philosophy. And three years ago, I met my wife, Eva. She just came to Israel as a… she did an aliya. She grew up in Paris in a, let’s say, traditional family. And she came here, she started to find herself more and more to the religion. And then we met on the corner, and we found our ourself kind of in the middle of Tel Aviv. I don’t know if you know, we are living in the middle of Tel Aviv, but there is here a very small Hasidic community that they are here for, let’s say, almost 100 years. Not these people, I mean, but…

Frieda Vizel: Their children.

Yehonatan Indursky: But Tel Aviv used to be, it was a time when people were calling Tel Aviv a Hasidic city. It was a Hasidic city. A lot of Rebbes was here, like any corner of the city, you could find some small shtiebl, some shul with a Hasidic Rebbe, to find some l’chaim, some honey cake in the mornings. So, it’s not anymore the case. There is here a very small community. Just for example, there is here in the street next to our home, there is a small shtiebl of Gur Chasidim. Gur, Ger, as you know them, they had, only in Tel Aviv, they had more than 20 synagogues, more than 20 shtiebls. And now they have one, and not always there is a minyan. They fight to get in the morning minyan. They have only in the mornings prayer, if there is a minyan. There is another; there is a shul of Belz that they are more developed here, they’re more based, so they have more… there is more options there, but not more than that. Like here and there, a very bit. So, we found ourselves here in between, on the border. I guess it’s going to be some headline of our conversation, the borders. The border is always the most interesting place to be.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, that is true.

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, and you know it.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, I’m also on the border. It is the most interesting place to be. I agree with that. It’s a difficult place to be as well. It’s a very difficult place to be.

Yehonatan Indursky: But as we said, the difficult, it’s always interesting and significant.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, that we said before. Also, it’s funny that you said that, if something is hard, then it’s a sign, it’s a good sign. I actually believe that. I tend to believe that. A gite zach kimt on shver, as we say it in Yiddish.

Yehonatan Indursky: I know it, like [?], he said, he talked about [meniyot], we say in Hebrew. [Meniyot] is something, if there is no, you need to ask yourself if you are in a good way. You know what I mean? So to do this conversation, we had some [meniyot] and here we are.

Frieda Vizel: It’s definitely a mitzvah. You’re doing a mitzvah for me. That’s not a question.

Yehonatan Indursky: A mitzvah? You mean our talk?

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, yeah.

Yehonatan Indursky: No, I don’t do it as a mitzvah. I do it just as a pleasure.

Frieda Vizel: Ah, lovely.

Yehonatan Indursky: I don’t mix between mitzvot and pleasure.

Frieda Vizel: No?

Yehonatan Indursky: Sometimes, yes.

Frieda Vizel: Uh-huh. Your mitzvahs you make harder. Well, essentially what you’re saying, you live in Tel Aviv, which we tend to think of as the secular city of Israel. But there is some Haredi community there, and you consider yourself part of it or on the border of it. Is that what you’re saying?

Yehonatan Indursky: I will tell you, I think what is charming for me and for my wife here in Tel Aviv is that we live here, and you know, people used to ask me which community I am, which Chasidut, what is yours. So I used to answer, you know, I’m independent. Like I’m here, if I want, I go to the shul, I pray there, I feel part. If I want, I go to some Sephardic shul, which I pray there any morning, very early on the [?] time. And I don’t belong to any community really. And I think more than that, when I feel, and Eva, she knows it and always she do fun of me about it, when I feel too much a part of some synagogue or some community, I don’t come anymore. I find another place. When the synagogue became like a club, a friend’s club, so I find… I have friends…

Frieda Vizel: Why?

Yehonatan Indursky: Why? I guess it’s, I need to ask my therapist, which she does not exist. So, I guess it’s something that all over my life, I found myself as an outsider, let’s say. When I was in Ponivizh, I found my way to… Let’s say I think it’s connected to the fact that in the… And it’s something that we try to tell in Shtisel and in another part of my work, I always deal with this subject, how the Haredi world, you know, there is a lot of colors inside, and this is what we try to describe, but in the end, and you know it better than me even, when you are part of this world, sometimes you need to lose your color, your special color, what you are. And for a lot of people, it’s tough. A lot of people, they are not conscious for this, but it’s tough for them also. And I guess it’s not only in the Haredi world. Also, you can find it in a lot of traditional communities, not only traditional communities, any communities. Any community, when you are part of it, when you are trying to be part of it, you need to pay some price. You need to be part, you need to play the role, you need to please the people around you. This is part of being a human being. There is a lot of pluses for it, but sometimes also some minus. And the minus is that you lose kind of part of your identity. You need to adapt yourself. And I guess I was not happy with this part. And this is, if I look at my life from, I try to do some, to look at it from far as I can, and I can’t. But if I try, I always, I didn’t find myself part of, or I wanted to feel that I have something special, that I have something… you know, I learned in Ponevizh, which is a huge place. I don’t know if you were there, but if you are here again, go there. You see, when you come there, you see hundreds of people, one thousand young people, young boys. They look all of them the same. They dress the same. They have the same ambitions, the same goals in life. They do the same. Their scheduled day looks the same. When I was there, I just tried to find what makes me special. Why am I here if there are so many people and all of them, they are the same, so why does the world need me? And it’s something that I think any human being should ask himself. I think also this is the role of art, of any art, to remind us that any human being, any person, a man, a woman, a Jewish, non-Jewish, it doesn’t matter, they are unique, they are special, they are one time, and they have their role in life. And when you see, when you get to know a story of a human being, you recognize it. Sometimes we walk on the street, we see so much people every day, you know, on the bus, on the train, on the subway, I don’t know where. We don’t even recognize them. We don’t see them as… they are just some faces around us. But the moment when we got to know that they are someone, they are walking in the world and they have troubles, it’s just when you got to listen to their story. And it can be when you are on a bus station and you hear someone talk with his daughter, with his wife, you hear some story, you hear a guy, he’s heartbreaking from someone just left him, or a girl, it doesn’t matter, and you look at him or at her and you understand that there is there a human being. And this is what a story, a good story, but even not good enough, can bring us.

 

Frieda Vizel: It’s interesting what you’re saying, because I think I relate a lot to the idea that there is a sense of the challenge of individuation, of becoming your full self inside a world where you’re very in the club, right? And this is not just in the Haredi world, but it’s very much there. And I think it’s interesting as an artist, in order for you to tell the stories of people’s individuality in the Haredi world, you needed to step out. Would you agree?

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah. You ask if I had to go out of the community to tell the story of Shtisel or the other stories, of course. You know, sometime to see your life, to see your home in another light, you need to go out and to look at it from outside. And it’s not always something possible because usually when you leave your home, you have not the moment to stay outside and to look at it. Like you just want to run away, you just want to find a new home, or to… But it’s something that I recommend to anyone, to go to his childhood home and to look at it from outside. It can be the home where still his family, his or her family, they live there or not. It’s funny because I just had an interview in the New York Times, and we talked about it. Part of it, I took the journalist, Daniel, we went to give a tour to my childhood neighborhood. My parents, they’re still living there. We were in their home, but it’s not the home where I grew up. They live just five blocks next to, but not the same home. They left it, let’s say, 15 years ago, something like this. And from the day they left this home, I never was there in the home where I grew up. I didn’t want to go there because, for me, the fact that my parents, they are not there anymore, it was kind of a crisis. Like, not really, because, you know, I talk about, let’s hope this is going to be our tsuris, you know. But it is a tsuris. And when they left, it was a feeling of something. I lose something, I lose, I lose, because there is nothing more that brings you comfort than the fact that you can always go back to the place you grew up, to the home. So, there is this home. My parents, they have a beautiful home, they have the same varemkayt that they had in the old one, but in another way. It’s a new home. There is not any memories from my childhood there. So to make the story short, which it will not be the case anymore, but to try, I went with Daniel to the old building where I grew up, and I told him, listen, let’s go, let’s knock on the door, and let’s see what’s going to be and maybe they will open and we will have the opportunity to go there. And we knock on the door. Someone opened the door, some cute guy, actually he’s American, originally, ex-American. And I told him I was living here in this home for some years, and if it’s okay just to take a look. And he said, of course, come. And it was not the same home because they did renovation. It looked a different place. But it is kind of the same home. You can recognize it. But it’s bring… and it was very moving to be there. I had tears in my eyes. And I think I got in that moment that, no matter what, even if it was the same home where I grew up, even my parents were still living there, you know, when you come back after so many years to your home, it’s not anymore your home, and you are not anymore the same person. So, you are not coming back to your home. As Thomas Wolfe used to say, you can’t go back home again. And another person, a huge person in history said you can’t go, you can’t dip in the same river twice.

Frieda Vizel: Twice, it’s never the same river.

Yehonatan Indursky: Because you are not the same person and the river is not the same. But you can try.

Frieda Vizel: But you were very emotional. Why were you emotional there?

Yehonatan Indursky: Because I am a human being.

Frieda Vizel: It brought up a lot of…

Yehonatan Indursky: Animals also, sometimes they are very emotional. You see dogs or cats, you can be very moved by them. Dogs, they are for me, they are very emotional creatures. You know, you see, you look at the dog, you see all the sorrow of the world, of the existing in their face. But I think all of us, we are emotional. Some of us…

Frieda Vizel: I mean, when you went back home.

Yehonatan Indursky: Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Frieda Vizel: What was so emotional about it? I’m asking because my parents also moved out of my childhood home. They lived there for my entire childhood. And sometimes I see pictures and there were renovations, they added this, they added that. I look at it and I think, I don’t know, I think if I’ll go, I’ll be so fixated on what’s been changed, I don’t know if I’ll be able to access the emotions or what emotions would come forth.

Yehonatan Indursky: I will tell you, I guess this is the fact, this is the reason I didn’t try to go there. Also, because it’s not so polite to knock on the door of someone if you have no journalist from the New York Times with you. They were very excited about it, so for them, because they are Americans, they know what is it. I’m not sure if it was some just Haredi person, he’d have the same excitement. But I didn’t go there also because I had the memory of this home. Like for me, it was still existing as I remember it, and I didn’t want to replace it in another memory. And indeed, I replaced it now in another memory because I was there and I saw the home. As I said, it looked a bit the same, not the same because they did some changes. But I will tell you something. You know, sometimes it’s good to have this new look, and it was not really a new look because when I was there, I met myself. You know, I had so much memories. I have, not I had, so much memories from this home. Beautiful, beautiful memories and sad memories and horrible memories, and amazing, like in any childhood home. And I saw myself as a child walking still in this home. You know, it was nice to meet this Haredi child again. He is still there. I believe in it.

Frieda Vizel: What did you tell him?

Yehonatan Indursky: I don’t know. It’s a good question. It’s something that, always like in movies or in, like there is this kind of meeting between people, the same people but in another place. But you know what, I never did this kind of conversation with myself. So, I’m sure I will tell him nothing, and I didn’t actually. But it’s not only about myself, you know. I feel the same feeling when I’m in Eastern Europe, when I go to Warsaw or to Budapest or another lost place from our history, where my grandparents, they were walking. And I feel them. I feel them when I walk there. I feel there is something I lose that it’s there and I can find it. Even I was born here in Tel Aviv, not in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, but I was born in Israel and I have still nostalgic feeling for a place where our people had so much, so rich history, and horrible history, and amazing, and tremendous, and all of these words. But they are still walking there.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, that’s very interesting. On the note of you visiting your childhood home, there is the interesting concept of this Haredi kid probably would have never imagined you’d go on the life journey you went on of, I mean, your life turned out extraordinary. Is that too schmaltzy to say?

Yehonatan Indursky: I will tell you something. It’s… you talk about like about Shtisel, etc., or just about…

Frieda Vizel: Just the journey, going on such a tremendous journey.

Yehonatan Indursky: So I will tell you, you know, it’s something I ask myself in some points of my life, you know, and I guess anyone asks himself these kind of questions. What if, which is meaning, you know, what if my parents, they insisted not to let me go to Ponevizh? Because Ponevizh is a great yeshiva, but it’s also a very tough place to be there, a very tough place to be accepted. And also, when you are accepted, to survive there. I call myself sometimes a Ponevizh survivor in a joke.

Frieda Vizel: We understood.

Yehonatan Indursky: And my parents, they were not sure it’s a good idea for me to go there. And they wanted me to go to a smaller place, more like a boutique yeshiva, you know, with more or less people. And there is a more personal feeling, and people see you, people know what you are doing in the night, in the days. In Ponevizh, you know, you can go, you can come, nobody knows, nobody cares. Not anymore. In my time, it was like this. It’s not like this anymore, but in a way, it is. So, what if my parents was insisting to not let me go there or to go to another place. And maybe I was very happy in the yeshiva, I was less lonely, and I had more success in the yeshiva. Maybe I would have stayed in the Haredi world, and we were not talking now. And this picture was not existing in the world.

Frieda Vizel: The picture, let’s just explain. The picture is iconic from Shtisel. In Shtisel, it’s illustrated, it’s painted by Akiva.

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, the painter actually is a very, very talented and nice guy. His name is Alex Tubis. He’s a painter based here in Tel Aviv. So, saying that, I still believe that there is something in life, we used to call it destiny. And I think for myself and for you, if I can say it, I can’t, but you will get what I try to say. I think there are some souls that have a destiny to go, they have a role in life, to go, to search, to find their place, and no matter what, they will do it. I really believe in it, but I can’t prove it. But I believe that if I was in another yeshiva, maybe it would happen later, maybe it would happen in another way, maybe. I don’t know. I was not there. But it was happening. I was finding myself out of the Haredi world. And at the same time, I was finding myself back. You know, I had some teacher in the cinema school where I learned, where I studied. He used to say, and I took it to my life and to my work, he says, character, like a fiction character, the only act he can do is something that, in the same time, is going to be, going to surprise him and us, the viewers, but in the same time, he can’t do any other thing, which is an oxymoron kind of. But it’s true if you will think about any fictional character or not fictional. People doing decisions in their life, you know, three years ago, I was in some… I did, I’m still doing, I’m writing a series that connects somehow to my story. So, I did some presentation, and the people in the presentation asked me, and the guy there is dealing with, he’s an ex-Haredi and he has some flirt with the Haredi world again. So, they asked me, there is a chance you’re going to find yourself again in the Haredi world? And I say, I was very clear about it, I say, no way. No way. Not because I like the Haredi world. I have a lot of critiques about this world, but I embrace it. I like these people. I had nothing in my life except this world, and I’m very thankful to belong to this world, to grow up there. And at the same time, I was sure I will not come back to it just because there is no way. I told them, listen, I went too far. I went too far and there is no chance I will be back there. And if I will be, it will be a very different way. Which is true kind of, but I never imagined that I will speak with you and I will look at myself on the screen and this is the guy I’m going to see. And in the same time, I will tell you, for years, when I look at myself in the mirror, I ask the guy there, who are you? What am I going to do with you? I didn’t recognize him. And now I recognize myself. I think it’s a good feeling. And in the end, it’s more about this. I really believe that it’s not about… Of course, it’s connected to belief and to religious questions and to life situations and to choices. But in the end, it’s just how you feel when you look at yourself. And if you feel you are in your skin, or you feel you are in another skin, and sometimes it’s good to be in another skin also. There is no problem. It’s a beautiful experience. It’s a beautiful life. I have no regression about… not about this, not about this. And you know what? You never know.

Frieda Vizel: You never know.

Yehonatan Indursky:…what’s going to be with me in the coming years, maybe I will look at it in a different way. Let’s see. There is some years to live here.

Frieda Vizel: The character is going to surprise us.

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also, to do what he has no other choice.

Frieda Vizel: He has no other choice to do, exactly. Can I ask this question? How would you say to the question, why did you become Haredi again? Do you have like an easy answer?

Yehonatan Indursky: So, you know, there is no easy answer because if it was easy, so it was not taking 20 years and it was… it’s funny because, you know, I spent with Daniel, the journalist of the New York Times, we spent together one week, and it was very, very intense. I never talked so much in my life. And he tried to understand it, and he tried again and again and again to get what is it, what is the story. And I tried to say this and this and this. And then I told him, listen, I think if I had a very clear answer for this question, I’m not sure you would be sitting now next to me. And I think it’s true for anything, any choice we take in our life. It’s tough. You know, just now, 20 years after, I can start to understand why I left the Haredi life. Because I had so much answers for this question. Still, I have a lot. But I try to start to define and to tell myself what I was searching for. So let’s talk in 20 years. But to try to answer, you know, part of the reason I do interviews in my life, it’s because there is, after some headline, someone takes all what I say, all the bullshit I say, and they put it under some headline. Usually, it’s the editor. In this case, you are also the editor, so you’re going to do it, I guess. And you know what? It can be a bit frustrating to see that your life is going inside the one sentence, and it can be a bit deductive. But at the same time, it’s beautiful, because it can help you to tell the story of yourself. And I will tell you something. I did some interview here, actually here in Tel Aviv for some Israeli newspaper just after I came back to look like this, which was also, it took time, it was not in one day, of course. And I said something during the interview that I didn’t even think about it, you know, like as we talk. And the editor took it to the headline of the article. And the headline was with huge, we say, Kiddush Levanah letters, you know, like it was huge. So, it was very powerful. I say, me, I say it? Wow, it’s nice.

Frieda Vizel: What did it say?

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, I will tell you. Don’t worry. It was written, I try so much years and so… it was shorter, but I don’t think exactly, but in so much ways to be secular. And in one second, I just stopped to try. And I think it’s kind of true. And I don’t judge myself for this trying. I think it’s, as I told you already, it’s beautiful. It’s part of our experience as a human being. You know, we grow up and we want always to be what we are not. I guess if it was not the case, we were not staying alive, it’s part of what makes us to live, makes us to wait for the next moment to try or to convince yourself that you’re going to achieve something that you have no… It can be the next stage in your career. It can be the love you are searching for. It can be some spiritual goal. I don’t know. A lot of things it can be. And anyone with his desires, with his… By the way, you know, there was a very interesting guy, an intellectual, I’m sure you know him, Jacques Lacan, the French theoretician. And he was saying something very interesting. He talked about that anyone, any human being has some desire, he calls it desire. And desire can be some goal that he wants to achieve. Most of the time, he doesn’t know what is his desire is, by the way, for Lacan. And part of the therapy process of Lacan is to get to know what is your desire. But what is interesting is that he says, when you get your desire, what is it, never try to go to achieve it, to get it, to achieve it, because then you’re going to destroy your life. You’re going to find that you have no reason to be alive anymore. So he says, put it on a small fire, you know, like a good chulnt or kigel. And wait, don’t kill it. Don’t eat it. Close the fire under the pot. Wait. It’s good to have small fire. You don’t need to have big fire and not too small, but let it cook. It’s good to have something, some desire. So I say, we try to be what we are not, and we don’t need to be judgmental for this. The opposite, we need to embrace it. But I think I had this desire to be what I am not. I grew up as a Haredi person, Haredi boy. I was… I look for a lot of years, from my childhood, I look out from the bus, from… you know, I remember this when I was a child, sometimes my parents, they were going to Miron, to Reb Shimon’s grave in L’ag B’omer. And I can’t, like always, it’s the road to the north, and you go through [?], and then you come to Miron. And you know, this journey, it was something. You know, the Reb Shimon, it was the most least interesting thing for me at that time, but the road for there, it was so, you know, to see the world, to see the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, and to see like, you know, just the world, life, secular life, secular people, you can say free people, or just people, to look at them and to say, why am I stuck here in the bus and I need to hide the fact that I’m looking through the window from my father? Why I can’t just be there and he will look at me? Why I… or they, they will look at me from the… You know? So, yeah, I was always curious about the world out of the yeshiva, of the Haredi life, and in one moment I say, I’m going to go to live this life. And it was a beautiful journey, a beautiful journey. I was not… I will not give up on any moment in this journey.  As well, I will not give up on any moment in my childhood or my life.

Frieda Vizel: It’s very interesting to me because I feel like, like you, I’m on the border. I am on the other side of the border. I think we’re very close to each other on that border. But like identity wise, I identify on the other side of the border. And I get asked all the time, you know, I go to Williamsburg where I give tours, and here and there, someone will say, [?], when are you coming back? You know, like that. People want a very easy answer. Like are you on this side of the border or the other side of the border, right? I’m sure people drive you crazy to explain why you identify now on the other side and they want you to reduce everything to a headline, like you said. I think when I heard about, I read the article in the New York Times, which was wonderful, when I read it, I was thinking to myself, you know, the Haredi world is very limiting creatively. Maybe he has grown the kinds of creative wings that, by now, you’re no longer constrained wherever you are. So now you can have, you know, the community or the identity or the reflection in the mirror that speaks to you without feeling limited creatively. I don’t know. This is just something that I was thinking about.

Yehonatan Indursky: I guess it’s true. You know, and I think it’s… I don’t know you, of course, but just from what you told me and I look a bit about for on your videos on YouTube, so you did kind of a beautiful thing, because you take people to the places where you grew up, but you take them as a guide now. You kind of look outside of your home and you bring people to look at it. And it’s a beautiful thing. And I think it’s something that I wish for any ex-Haredi to be able to come back to his childhood, to the place where he grew up. Sometimes it’s very tough. You know, people have very difficult stories, very difficult childhood. A lot of times it’s abusing stories, and there is people, they have not this luxus, we say in Hebrew, this luxury choice to go back to the childhood, and still, also for them, I wish for anyone to be able to do some, to be peaceful with… in a way. It’s tough to be peaceful with every part of your childhood, with every part of what the decisions the people around you took for you. And still, I think it’s part of to have kind of good relationship with the world, with yourself. It’s to be able at least to go to visit. And I say always to… I meet sometimes young people that they left the community. And the only thing that I have to tell them, it’s like, try, not matter what, try to be in touch with your family as you can, even if it’s tough. Because to forgive, or let’s say it in another way, like you know, Buddha, the Buddhism used to say about the people you are in this connection, in fight with them, you are in the most attachment, more than the people you meet any day. The one you don’t speak, your relationship with him or with her, it’s much stronger than the one you meet any day. And sometimes, for us, it’s good to close some page and to say, yeah, it was tough, it was complicated, but it was. And now I can look at it from outside. I will tell you some story about some guy who was living not far from here, like two blocks from where we live in Berdychevsky Street. His name was Yechiel Permutter, but people know him more in the name that he was living most of his life, Avoth Yeshurun. I don’t know if you got to hear about this guy. He’s kind of famous. He’s not alive anymore. He passed away, let’s say, I think 15, 20, maybe more years ago, I don’t remember. And Avoth Yeshurun, he was… I will not say very famous because it’s not true, but people know who is Avoth Yeshurun. He wrote a lot of beautiful poems, very deep, very charming, very moving poems. And his story was that he grew up in some shtetl in Poland. I think the name of the place is [Pshedmieszcze]. And it’s this kind of a name that you just say the name and you have already a hirrur tshuva, you know?  [?]. So, he grew up there, and when he was 15 or 16 or something like this, he left the home during the night time. He didn’t say even hello or bye-bye or something to his family. And he went to Palestine, to Israel. It was Palestine in that time. And he went because he had dreams. He wanted to be Zionist. He was already Zionist without the [?]. And he came here, and for years, his family, his mother, was writing him letters in Yiddish, and he never opened them. Of course, he never sent the answer. And all of them, they went to the camps. They died there. And every day of his life, he was dealing with this question. Why you didn’t open the letters? Why you didn’t read it? Why you didn’t send something, something back? Your mother, she is writing to you. And you know, I saw some interview with him and he talked about it. And he wrote also beautiful poems about it, about this story. But he says something funny, he says, just answer something. Say hello, say thank you, say kush in tuches, say something. Don’t be this kind of a person to not open. And when I meet this kind of, these people, like young people, they left the community, some of them, they have no relationship with their families. I just tell them, listen, I’m sure your families, they are sending letters for you, literally letters or SMS or they call you or some message by something. At least open and read it. Just this. Because it’s going to come a day that you’re going to regret about it. And it doesn’t matter what’s happened there. And I’m sure, what does it mean I’m sure? I know some of them, they deal with very, very difficult stories, very, very difficult childhood. And I will try to translate to you one sentence of one of his poems. He talks about, it’s not a good translation because my English, as you got it, it is a very high budget English, so my translation is even expensiver. But he talked about, he said, how you call it when you continue to get letters from your hometown, from your childhood home, and the home does not exist anymore. And this guy continued till the end of his life to get letters from Auschwitz, from [Pshedmieszcze], from heaven, I don’t know from where. And he could not answer for it anymore. He wrote beautiful poems, which is also important. But you know what? There is a story, and stop me when I talk too much because I…

Frieda Vizel: Go on.

Yehonatan Indursky: Just, last one. I read, I was reading lately about, in the end of his life, it was here, some synagogue, Hasidic synagogue, that he was coming there any Shabbat morning for a short time, for the beginning of [Shacharit], you know, [?], until the [Shoy Chenad]. And when the Chazzan was coming to [Shoy Chenad], he had some minhag, he started to yell. He said, Trisker Shtiebl, Trisker Shtiebl! Because in [Pshedmieszcze], it was some Trisker Shtiebl. It was Trisker Hasidim that was there. And I don’t know, he had this desire to… I guess most of them, they died. They were victims in the Holocaust. And he came, and in the beginning, the Gabbai was, listen, it’s not possible that anyone is going to come here and in Chenad is going to yell the shtetl where he came from or the shtiebl, but in the end, he says, okay, go for it. And he did it for any Shabbat. He was Trisker Shtiebl.

Frieda Vizel: Was it in memory of? Is that what he meant by it? Why is he screaming Trisker Shtiebl? What is he hoping to communicate?

Yehonatan Indursky: Ah, I think, I don’t know exactly, but if I had the option to ask him, I would like to do it. But if you ask me, I think he wanted to represent it, kind of like to recreate his memory. And when he came to the synagogue in Tel Aviv, that… you know, Tel Aviv is the only place in the world maybe that kind of you can feel a bit a feeling of a shtetl. I don’t know if you can understand it.

Frieda Vizel: Really?

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, it’s strange. And by the way, he wrote also a beautiful poem about this. He described how Tel Aviv lets you to bring your memories and your… The name of the poem is Pekla’ot, which means peklakh in Hebrew.

Frieda Vizel: Your sacks of like… baggage.

Yehonatan Indursky: You can go in Tel Aviv, you can walk and you can… Tel Aviv lets you to drag your memories, your luggage, your peklakh behind you. And Tel Aviv accepts it. He says, she, in Hebrew we say she, it’s a city, it understands it. It understands it, it can accept it, you are welcome. It embraces it. Come, bring your memories. And it’s funny because it’s tough to find it today in Tel Aviv, but who knows Tel Aviv good can find small corners that you walk there, and you feel you are in some shtetl, you are in Eastern Europe somehow, because the people established this city, most of them, they came from these places. You know what, as the shtetl in the east side, you know, you can also walk there and to feel you are walking in some shtetl.

Frieda Vizel: Maybe.

Yehonatan Indursky: Try to do it.

Frieda Vizel: I can put it to test. I feel like it’s more so in Israel than it is in Manhattan.

I see.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, maybe in Williamsburg to some degree. It doesn’t feel to me like a shtetl.

Yehonatan Indursky: No, I don’t talk about the Hasidic areas, actually. I talk about, you know, the area where the first people from Eastern Europe came to the US… and tried to establish their life. I talk about this place that there is no Haredi people there anymore, but you feel the… you smell the airing from the corners, you know.

Frieda Vizel: I hear what you’re saying. I’m going to go and put it to test. It’s not far from me. I’ll come with the right orientation to be able to communicate with the past. I think that’s the trick.

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know, orientation, it’s always, it’s to the east, orient, to the Orient. And it’s funny because when we were in Europe, we were sinking on the east, on Eretz Israel, our grandparents, they were waiting to come here. They always were in kind of East, in Eastern Europe, which is, you know, the people of the West always was very… they look at them like the kind of people from the past. I think orientation, it’s always, it’s about your roots.

Frieda Vizel: I want to talk to you about the making of Shtisel. I’m sure you have done so much promotion in Hebrew that I’m asking you questions that you’ve been asked a bunch of times, but forgive me that I’m going to ask you.

Yehonatan Indursky: No, no problem.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah. In what context, just tell me the story of making Shtisel in whatever way you feel like talking about it. How did it come to be? What was your experience with the reception? What do you think made it so magical?

Yehonatan Indursky: The beginning was very simple. Like I met kind of by chance my co-writer, Ori, Ori Elon. I knew his cousin, and I kind of, I found by chance, if there is a chance, a book he just wrote, a beautiful book called, in Hebrew we call it a [?], which we can translate it to the Hidden Performance or the Hidden Show or something like this. It’s kind of short stories, beautiful. And I was reading it and I felt I need to know this guy. Like I read, and sometimes, I felt it’s something I wrote or something I would like to write. And then we met actually in a small restaurant, a Jewish restaurant next to Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, called Shtisel. This was the name of the restaurant. Actually, it’s Shtisel, it’s the name of the family. It was a branch of the main restaurant that was placed in B’nai Brak. And this branch actually does not exist anymore. In Jerusalem, there is no Shtisel anymore, only in B’nai Brak. There are two now. And so, we were sitting, we talked, and we ate some piece of kigel, and we said, no matter what we are going to do together, because we wanted to do something together, we are going to call it Shtisel, and if it’s going to be a series, a movie, or a sandwich kiosk. In the end, it was a sandwich kiosk, as you know. And we started to work on writing something. And you know, in the beginning, it looked like some internal joke that only both of us or maybe a very small group of people we know can understand and enjoy from it. But we talked with some producers, the producer of Shtisel, her name is Dikla Barkai, and she was reading it, she liked it very much. She said, but you know, it takes time to sell a series. And then she went to the broadcaster, to Yes. It’s funny because in Yes, in this broadcaster, just a bit before the time I’m talking about, they had some series called Srugim. I don’t know if you had to…

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, I watched it.

Yehonatan Indursky: A beautiful series. Actually, Ori, he was one of the writers of this series. And it’s about, let’s say, modern Orthodox living in Jerusalem, religious, but very far from the Shtisel family. Broadcaster people, they told her, listen, she told them, I have a new series I want to represent. They say, listen, if there is any religious people in this new series, come back to us in some years because we have too much. It’s funny to say it because from that time, there is so much religious stories on the Israel TV, and not only on the Israel TV by the way, it became kind of a genre of Haredi stories. And so, he said, if there are these kinds of characters, come in some years, because we just had some. So she said, she is a smart woman, she said, listen, there is not even one religious character in this series, so read it and let’s talk. And you know what, after two weeks, they sign on this series, which for us it was not less than a miracle because, you know, I just finished the cinema school. Ori was part of the writing of Srugim, but it was not his series. He worked for the creators. So, it was a dream. And you know what? It’s still a dream. Sometimes, I feel this story went too far from me, from us, that it’s kind of a balloon that you try to hold it, and in one moment, it’s not in your hand anymore. It went very far, that you ask yourself, it’s mine? I don’t remember. Sometimes.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, yeah. It could almost be a little bit painful, no? Because it’s…

Yehonatan Indursky: You know what? There is this pasuk of, I don’t remember, I guess from Mishlei or from Kohelet, [?]. I will try to translate it. Send your bread on the water, and one day you’re going to find it. As I look at it, most of my life, it’s been like invest now, and one day, you will find it maybe. But in one moment, I got that for me the meaning is like, release, release it, let it go, let it go, and one day, maybe you will find it, and maybe not. And you know, it reminds me of some moment, some years ago I was in Paris, before I knew Eva, before I knew Paris was going to be part of my life, because the family of Eva, they still lived there, so we spent part of our life there. So, I was there just for some vacation, I don’t remember, some festival or something. And I went very early in the morning to the sand, to the river. I was sitting on the sand, then I saw under me something on the water. And it was a baguette, you know, a baguette on the water. And then it came another one and another one, it was like kind of a parade of baguettes on the river. And then after I asked someone, what is it? So he said, you know, the baguetteries they have nothing to do with the baguette of yesterday, they put it in the water for the birds, et cetera. And yeah, I saw the bread going on the water, and then it was some beautiful nachat. They had very… they were very comfortable on the water. It looked like they had a plan. I’m not sure about it.

Frieda Vizel: It spoke to your bread arriving on water?

Yehonatan Indursky: Yes. So you know sometimes you just need to release, to say, let it go. It’s tough. As you say, it can be painful. You write something, then it goes to the hands of the director, the producers, the broadcaster, anyone who has what to say. And you must say to yourself, okay, it’s mine, or it was mine, not anymore. Not anymore, and let’s see, maybe it will come back and maybe not. It’s good to sometimes to be Buddhist, it’s good. I’m not sure Jewish people can understand it because we are very, we are stuck on… we have a huge attachment for things, as human beings, not only as Jewish. But it’s good sometimes to say, to release stuff, to say, to let stuff to go, to let things to go, to let the memories to go, to be more forgivable for anything.

Frieda Vizel: I think a lot of times, something you create, something you make, maybe children, maybe a house, your first house or your creative work, it’s hard to let it go. Once you’ve let it go, it becomes something else. But obviously…

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, but sometimes when you find the new thing, you have a huge opportunity. When you are able to look at it in the new look, in the new light there is on it, you can find… Because the most easy thing is to be nostalgic and to say, you know, these days are not anymore. And with the TikTok and people, they are so weird, it’s horrible, there is no respect for anything, for any image. Like the image became so cheap to create, even a video. I don’t talk even about the AI generation, but also. And it can bring some fear, some discomfort, some anxiety even to say where we… and you know, it was a guy, a Jewish guy actually, a philosopher, Walter Benjamin, Walter Benjamin, Walter Benjamin as the Americans call him, and he wrote a lot of years ago, I don’t know how to say it in English, but who wants can find it very easily, but he wrote a book about, it was the time when they just started to do pictures, like they developed the camera, the first cameras, and it was kind of a disaster for the art world because it means there is no respect anymore to the painters, to any creation, because you can do so easily imitations of the world, of the reality. So, what is the difference if you spend a lifetime to do painting or you take a picture of it? And he created this book to tell us how there is always, when you destroy something, so you can cry and to say, oh, it’s horrible, what are we going to do? Or you can try to dig inside the destroyed home, how you say, like the sand or the stone that stay from the old home.

Frieda Vizel: The rubble.

Yehonatan Indursky: And maybe you will find a beautiful new thing.

Frieda Vizel: Upcycling from the…

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, thank you.

Frieda Vizel: By the way, why is there a toothbrush in your hand? Just asking as an aside.

Yehonatan Indursky: This?

Frieda Vizel: Yes.

Yehonatan Indursky: It’s a funny question. You know, it’s the most, like Tzili, the most game she likes is this one. So always when she cries, like this is the magic thing, like she takes it and she relaxes. She likes it so much. And she tries always to put it in my mouth, to clean my teeth, to brush my teeth.

Frieda Vizel: I thought it had something to do with the baby. Because you were talking with your hands, and a toothbrush came out from your bag of tricks… I was waiting for baguettes to come next. Can I play a scene from Shtisel?

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, of course.

Frieda Vizel: And then we can say what…

Yehonatan Indursky: I will tell you something, you know, just before you do it… because we just did the prequel of Shtisel that deals with two characters from Shtisel, Nukhem and Libbi, and the most rational thing to do is to go and to watch Shtisel and to see what’s going to be with these people, to know what to write. And I insist not to do it. I didn’t watch it for some years, this series, because in a way, they are the same people, but also, they are another people, as we just talked for two hours, I guess, almost. So, let’s watch. I didn’t watch it for a long time. So, it will be interesting.

Frieda Vizel: It’s not going to have the characters from Kugel.

Yehonatan Indursky: No problem. No matter what, it’s just saying I didn’t watch Shtisel for some years.

Frieda Vizel: Okay, your reaction is going to be interesting. I picked the scene because I gave you the choice to pick and you let me pick…

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, it’s very good. Already without, I know what is it. Perfect choice.

Frieda Vizel: Okay, thank you. Akiva, one of the two main characters, really, he’s a single man in his early 20s. He’s also a teacher in the boys school. He has a student who has a mother who’s twice widowed, and he takes a shine to her and he really likes her and he really wants to date her. And it’s a little bit dating outside of his league, lower than his league, because she’s twice widowed and he’s single, never been married. And he’s really after her, and they, after one date, they turn him down. And this is what follows.

[Scene from Shtisel]

Yehonatan Indursky: It’s interesting you chose this one. I think it’s one of the scenes that Akiva is, of course, he is one of the two main characters of the series, together with his father Shulem. And always there is a question, who is the main character, who is more? Which apparently, it’s Akiva. It looks like Akiva is the main character because he’s young and he’s the one most of the viewers, the boys and girls, they fall in love with. So yes, there is good reason. But Shulem is the one doing acting in the world. Like Akiva is a bit like he follows kind of, and he has a… And it’s a bit tough to be a main character and to be the lead but to not lead, you know? So, this scene actually, it’s one of the scenes, there is another, but Akiva, he’s standing and he is going to do something, like he does something, and it’s a big failure, you know. He comes there and he asks himself if it was better to stay home with his snoring father. It was a funny story when we worked on the first season, this one. And you know, the season starts by a dream, the dream of Akiva, he dreams about his mother eating kigel in some Jewish restaurant with a friend. One of the producers, he didn’t like this opening. He said, what is this, to start a series with a dream? It’s not, you need to bring like… to bring the meat. Don’t start with the kigel. And I remember Ori, Ori Elon, my partner, the co-writer of Shtisel, he says, he quotes some song, it was some song in that time on the Israeli radio, a beautiful song. And there is of Dudu Tassa. I like this guy very much. So, he has a song and there is some line there. He says, it’s better to have a tremendous failure than dreams in a shelf. So, Ori was, when we talk about it, it was very funny. He brought this sitat and he said, you know, it’s better to have tremendous failure than a dream about kigel in a shelf. And I guess it was the last sentence for this discussion because it is in the beginning of the series, as we know, and it is a tremendous failure and also a dream in a shelf. So, it’s nice you chose this one. What I got from it, it’s two beautiful Shabes zemiros, Ko Ech Soif and Kuh Ribon Ulem. And yeah, I think both of them, in these melodies, any Shabbat dinner, any Friday dinner. And yeah, it’s nice to see it now.

Frieda Vizel: How do you feel seeing it now?

Yehonatan Indursky: It depends. You know, sometimes it’s very moving and it’s with a lot of fire. And sometimes you just want to go to sleep. And you just finished to eat and you say, oh, it was a long week. So, you know, like everything in life, it’s sometimes you are the one singing and sometimes you are the one snoring. Both are sitting inside you, Shulem and Akiva, and never you know with who you are identified more. Like all the characters of Shtisel, you know, it’s Shulem, and maybe with this, it will be  a nice closure for our talk. In the last scene of Shtisel, in the last scene, in the last season, he quotes a sentence of Isaac Singer, Bashevis Singer, that he says, any one of us is a cemetery, a living cemetery walking, and inside us it’s all the people we knew, all the people we met, all the people that we didn’t meet but we hear about them from the camps, from Eastern Europe, from North of Africa. It does not matter where, they are sitting inside us, and we walk in the same way. I will tell you, all the characters of Shtisel, they are walking inside me and inside Ori as well, as I know, and the boys, the girls, the women, the men. And sometimes it’s heavy. Most of the time, it’s nice to know that more people help us to carry them.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah, that there’s more. That’s very beautiful. Let’s wrap up then, because you’ve given me so much of your time. And I want to wrap this up with talking….

Yehonatan Indursky: I’m not sure YouTube, they will let you to put so long a video.

Frieda Vizel: I think you can put a video of like 24 hours if you want to. But don’t worry, you don’t have to worry.

Yehonatan Indursky: We can continue.

Frieda Vizel: You don’t have to worry about it.

Yehonatan Indursky: There was a time when it was only, I’m old, only 20 minutes or something like this.

Frieda Vizel: Yeah. A lot has changed. You can do multiple hours now, but you don’t have to worry.

Yehonatan Indursky: Actually, I know, you know, when Tzili, she was very young, a small baby, so you need to put… there is on YouTube beautiful clips that you can put like nine hours of…

Frieda Vizel: Exactly.

Yehonatan Indursky:…songs or music or like just some sounds that make babies relax. So I remember this part.

Frieda Vizel: Yes, we’ll do… I now know the headline for this video, nine hours of Yehonatan Indursky.

Yehonatan Indursky: Better for anyone to not be there in this video… Thank you. Thank you for this. For me, it was very moving to remember all this, to remind all these memories, and thank you for the opportunity to be part of your experience of what you bring for people.

Frieda Vizel: Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to share with my viewers what you’re working on now. Can you briefly say that as we go out?

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, so we are working now on, I say we because I work with the director of Shtisel, Alon Zingman, he’s going to direct also the new project. It’s called Lost Paradise, and it’s a series, periodical series, taking place in Eastern Europe in a small shtetl in the 19th century. And it’s very, very moving to deal with this period. It’s kind of very far, but it’s also… It’s crazy. I just wrote the last episode, and I will not do spoilers, but I felt I’m writing something that’s happening just now. So, Lost Paradise.

Frieda Vizel: Lost Paradise. When is it…

Yehonatan Indursky: …Always about the paradise and the feeling of to lose your paradise and to be out of it. It can be a childhood home, it can be a paradise, it can be anything.

Frieda Vizel: It can be the shtetl.

Yehonatan Indursky: Exactly.

Frieda Vizel: So that’s not filming yet?

Yehonatan Indursky: No, we’re going to shoot it, B’esrat Hashem, in the end of the summer, beginning of the fall, in September, something like this.

Frieda Vizel: Is Kugel done shooting completely? It’s all…

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah, Kugel already was here. All the episodes were aired in Israel. Now it’s aired on Easy all over the world. It’s going to, I think they are now in this fifth episode.

Frieda Vizel: I think the fifth.

Yehonatan Indursky: Yeah. And yeah, we finished to shoot the first season. I hope we’re going to shoot the second season one day.

Frieda Vizel: Nice, nice. Lovely. Well, I’m going to link whatever I can find online to your projects. Thank you so much for sharing so late at night.

Yehonatan Indursky: No problem. It was my pleasure. Thank you, Frieda.

Frieda Vizel: Thank you. Have a good one. And thank you also to the viewers and the podcast listeners. Bye-bye.