Like Jane Austen in Tel Aviv, Rama Burshtein’s debut is a warm, watchful slant on marital mores in an ultraorthodox Jewish community.
Our torn heroine is Shira (Hadas Yaron), an 18-year-old urged to wed new dad Yochay (Yiftach Klein) when his wife, Shira’s sister, dies.
The resulting pickle may seem alien to many, but Yaron’s navigation of Shira’s struggles make it tangible.
So does Burshtein’s vivid community portrait: a New Yorker who converted to Judaism, she illuminates the culture’s complexities with the clarity that Austen brought to her world’s relationship rituals.
