(Jewish Group) Netflix's 'The Club' offers a rare portrait of Turkish Jews...

[Behind the Aegis]

Netflix’s ‘The Club’ offers a rare portrait of Turkish Jews, shattering historical taboos in the process

ISTANBUL (JTA) — Imported Israeli TV has given Netflix several big hits in recent years, largely focused on the travails of Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews. The latest breakout show about a Jewish community is very different.

“The Club” is a Turkish drama about a Sephardic family in 1950s Istanbul, and it’s both reshaping what representation feels like for the roughly 15,000 Jews living in Turkey today and offering American audiences a window into an underexplored corner of the Jewish world.

The first episode of “The Club” (translated from “Kulüp”), which debuted on Netflix Nov. 5 and is available to view for U.S. subscribers to the streaming platform, begins with a Hebrew sabbath prayer and ends in a Ladino song. It only dives deeper from there, weaving the intricacies of Jewish observance and the country’s ever-present struggle between minority acceptance and assimilation into its plot.

From discussion of Shabbat rules, to the tradition of kissing a mezuzah when entering a room, to the scenes shot in Turkish synagogues, many Turkish Jews have found the show a revelation — especially given the fact that Jewish characters are usually relegated to stereotypes in Turkish productions. Turkish is the main language of the series, but there is some Ladino — the historical language of Sephardic Jewry, a mixture of medieval-Spanish, Hebrew and Aramaic alongside Turkish, Greek, Arabic and other languages — in every episode.

“Jewish people were just happy to see themselves,” Eli Haligua, editor of the Turkish Jewish news outlet Avlaremoz, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Anyone seen any episodes?