Gabe Friedman | JTA
“I’m preparing a tea so we can talk with leisure,” Sasson Gabay says over the phone from Israel.
The Israeli film and TV star, now 77, wants to get comfortable so he can talk about one of his favorite characters from his 50-year career: Nuhem Shtisel.
If that surname sounds familiar, yes — it’s a character from the popular and internationally acclaimed series “Shtisel,” about an Israeli haredi Orthodox family. Now Gabay has reprised Nuhem for a prequel series titled “Kugel,” streaming in the states exclusively on the platform Izzy.
And if kugel sounds familiar, yes — it’s referring to the Ashkenazi noodle dish, not another surname. The new series follows Nuhem, who frequents a kugel shop in his native Antwerp years before the plot of “Shtisel,” as he and his daughter Libbi (Hadas Yaron) navigate familial and romantic struggles. Nuhem’s heart is in the right place, but the diamond dealer often finds himself at the center of financial shenanigans that threaten his place in his family and his community.
As complex as that character sounds, it didn’t take much convincing to get Gabay — who is also well known for starring in both the Israeli film “The Band’s Visit” and the Tony-winning Broadway musical based on it — on board for the poignant and wryly humorous series that, like “Shtisel,” was created by Yehonatan Indursky.
“I loved [Indursky’s] writing. I loved his plot. I loved this poetic element in all his writing — wise, human and brilliant in my opinion,” Gabay said on a recent WhatsApp call.
Gabay spoke about filming in Antwerp, playing a deeply religious Jew while living a secular life, and the state of the Israel film and TV industry since Oct. 7.
How did you react when they came to you with the idea for this series, and you learned you could play this character again?
The love that we got [for “Shtisel”] from the audience in Israel and abroad was such a warm response, so we just waited for it to continue, but Yehonatan Indursky didn’t write another season for us. But you know, in the back of my mind, I was sure that it was not a farewell to my character. And Dov Glickman, who plays Shulem, and myself, we were fantasizing of doing something together about it, but it didn’t happen. And then after a while, Dikla [Barkai], the producer who will be with us in this event, she came up with the idea. They discussed it with Indursky, the scriptwriter, and they came with the idea to me. And, I mean, before I knew anything, I said immediately yes, because it’s going back to material that you trust, and that you know.
How would you compare the tone, scope and experience of “Kugel” to “Shtisel”?
I think “Shtisel” is more … let’s say it’s more broad. It’s a broad series, with many layers, many characters, and each one has his own story. “Kugel” is more concentrated, more limited to a few characters. So it’s more intimate, and it’s maybe even more poetic, in my opinion. I call it a close-up, a psychological close-up.
You’re a secular guy — has playing a haredi Orthodox character ever felt strange? Or did you fit into it more naturally than you thought you would have?
Not only am I not Orthodox, I’m not from this community — I’m from the Iraqi Jewish community, which has nothing to do with Yiddish. I was born in Baghdad; I came to Israel at three years old. I don’t remember anything, but Yiddish is really far away from the culture that I came from. But nevertheless, you know, when you live in Israel, you are exposed, especially when I was young, to many cultures, many communities, many Jewish people who came from many countries. My dad had a grocery shop in Haifa, and as kids, we came to help him, you know, in the work. And I remember over there — let’s say, some 50, 60 years ago — there’s a lot of people who immigrated from many countries, from many backgrounds, from America, from North Africa, from Iraq, from Poland. And among them, there were also ultra-religious Orthodox Jews. So I knew this kind of people. I knew how they behave, and I watched them. To sum it up, it wasn’t strange to me.
You’ve been a pillar of the Israeli film and TV industry for so long — how has the post-Oct. 7 atmosphere affected that industry?
First of all, there’s the work, and the industry is very prolific, and there’s a lot of productions. We have a problem with films becoming very hard to make because the subsidies are often declined and are getting smaller.
We’ve experienced some less demand and less interest from festivals abroad. Usually we had more interest in our materials, even though almost a year ago I was in Toronto [for the Toronto International Film Festival], for the film “Bliss.” And there’s a lot of Jewish festivals, Israeli festivals. Often when we are going to festivals we experience demonstrations, and sometimes people try to shout during events, but we are used to it.
But I learned that all this pressure and sometimes paradoxical situation here in Israel is that: We’re living normally but at the same time living in an impossible situation, in war. So it’s kind of a paradox, a human laboratory that produces many stories, many visions. And I’m really, really glad to see a lot of artists, a lot of script writers and directors — I mean the quantity of people who are doing things with TV is really amazing compared to the financial possibilities.
