Awarded at Cannes
A German-Jewish family – ARD series “Die Zweiflers”
At a meeting with friends, Samuel (Aaron Altaras) meets the trendy chef Saba (Saffron Coomber). photo
© Elliott Kreyenberg/ARD Degeto/HR/Turbokultur/dpa
Best series of the year – “The Doubts” about a Jewish-German family was named in Cannes. Now viewers can see the highly praised production for themselves.
Complex characters and a Frankfurt am Main that seems almost cooler than New York City: The German miniseries “Die Zweiflers” tells stories from the life of a Jewish family that owns a delicatessen empire. The six-part dramedy from Hessischer Rundfunk and ARD Degeto won in April Cannes (at the International Series Festival) won the award for “Best Series” of the year – and rightly so. Masel Tov (congratulations)!
The series (already in the ARD media library, on May 10th linearly on the first from 10:20 p.m.; six times around 45 minutes) expects viewers to do a lot, for example a bit of language confusion when Yiddish and English are spoken and therefore subtitles can be seen. It has an excellent cast anyway, for example with Sunnyi Melles, Saffron Coomber, Deleila Piasko, Aaron Altaras, Leo Altaras, Martin Wuttke and Ute Lemper.
The sympathetically dysfunctional mixed poke is lovingly designed. In Yiddish, the word “Mischpoke” (family, relatives) has no negative connotations, but in German the term – which says a lot – is usually used in a derogatory way and, according to “Duden”, is “historically closely linked to anti-Semitic ideas”.
Authentic insight
“My aim with ‘The Doubts’ is to tell a family story that gives an authentic insight into this microcosm and deals with the ambivalence of Jewish self-image in Germany in a tragic and humorous way,” says David Hadda, who was born in Frankfurt in 1984. The descendant of Holocaust survivors is the creator and showrunner of the series, which is vaguely set in the late Merkel years.
Still, you don’t presume to be exemplary or represent everyone, says Hadda, who wrote the scripts together with Juri Sternburg and Sarah Hadda. Above all, you want to entertain. “The credibility of the characters was the top priority in order to be able to play with well-known stereotypes and break them again and again, while honestly addressing questions about identity, religion and culture.”
Major events cast their shadows ahead for the doubters: family head Symcha – an old-school patriarch – wants to make money from the family’s delicatessen company. Large parts of the multi-generational clan feel offended by the sales plans. Conflicts and traumas break out, a quarrel with traditions spreads.
Suddenly the media brings back Symcha’s wild time in the red light district in the post-war years. When grandson Samuel gets involved with a non-Jewish woman and has a child, the Bris (Brit Mila/Brismile), i.e. circumcision of the newborn son, becomes a huge issue.
Israeli-American actor Mike Burstyn plays Symcha, a Holocaust survivor who did not leave Germany after the war, despite all the atrocities committed against the Jews. He mostly speaks Yiddish – just like his film partner Eleanor Reissa, who, as his wife Lilka, is afraid of German doctors because of her experience during the Nazi era.
Together they have daughters Mimi (Melles) and Tammi (Lemper), who in turn already have adult children. Doubtful offspring Samuel (Aaron Altaras), from the marriage of Mimi and the Soviet-born Jackie Horovitz (Mark Ivanir), falls in love with London-born Saba (Saffron Coomber), a restaurateur with a Jamaican background who mostly speaks English.
Filming took place from August 8th to November 4th, 2023, including in the picturesque Frankfurt apple wine bar “Zum gemalten Haus”, which functions as a Jewish deli.
Noticeable everyday anti-Semitism
In the middle of filming, on October 7, news broke of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, to which Israel responded with an anti-terror war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The everyday anti-Semitism that has become even more noticeable everywhere and in Germany since then is shown in the series anyway.
A taxi driver, played by bath salt comedian Henni Nachtsheim, talks stupid stuff (“I have nothing against Jews, but…”) and the wise-cracking curator of an art exhibition justifies the work “It’s Shoa Time”, which is the state-organized genocide compares the destruction of European Jews by Nazi Germany with the food industry’s chick shredding. He deserves a slap for that, doesn’t he?
We wish this series, which is unfortunately hidden at night on linear television, a lot of audience.