The other night we watched the last episode of Shtisel, and my sadness at its conclusion was similar to the feeling I had when The Sopranos ended.
A show about an ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem would seem to have little in common with one about a Mafia family in New Jersey. But both took place inside sharply defined, mysterious/secretive societies far from the mainstream. And the triumph of both shows is that they found the universal in the individual. The tagline for Shtisel is that it “reckons with love, loss, and the doldrums of daily life,” which is exactly what The Sopranos did (with the occasional whack thrown in). A few months back Shira Haas, the actress who plays Ruchami, told the New York Times that she was watching The Sopranos for the first time and finding it riveting. Steve Van Zandt would probably have the same reaction if he watched Shtisel.
