Popular Israeli TV series -- THE NEW BLACK --and a new streaming service, ChaiFlicks, arrive

Seems like every time you turn around these days, another new streaming service has popped up. The latest -- of which TrustMovies is aware, anyway -- is called ChaiFlicks, which launched last year, is devoted to Jewish entertainment and culture, and approximates, according to The Times of Israel, "the Jewish Netflix." The service offers a lot of films and television series, both narrative and documentary, and one of its latest additions is the extremely popular Israeli TV series, THE NEW BLACK (Shababnikim), a comedy that details the travails of four Yeshiva students trying to make their way through religious life in a supposedly secular state.

The creation of Eliran Malka (below, right) and Daniel Paran (at left), The New Black was a big hit in Israel, where it won four awards from the Israeli Television Academy. 

ChaiFlicks introduces the series today, Thursday, January 21, premiering the first two episodes, with two additional episodes to follow each week. 

The streaming service offers over 300 films, documentaries, shorts, television programs, stage productions, music 

performances, dance performance artists -- including multiple award winning and classic films that played for months at top theatres throughout North America and at film festivals in Miami, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles. 

Subscribers will have the opportunity to see such films as The Women’s Balcony, Gloomy Sunday, Dough, The Rape of Europa and 1945. 

Back to The New Black, of which TrustMovies has now watched three episodes. The series is fun and it's interesting, too, particularly for a non-Jew/non-Israeli like me to see what passes for a look at a modern Yeshiva and into the lives of a few its students. Oh, yes, and they're only male, since the Israeli orthodox community still views women as lesser in so many ways.

The series makes some fun of this, while trying to somehow have it both ways. It's a difficult balancing act, which some of us feel also defines the state of Israel itself. The New Black is very well cast, and while the four leading males begin pretty much as assholes, you'll warm up to them as the episodes progress. (Left to right, above, are Omer Perelman Striks, Ori Laizerouvich, Daniel Gad and Israel Atias.)

The plot so far also has to do with a new "guardian" in charge of this yeshiva, a nasty, stupid and ultra-conservative fellow who is determined to bring the school back to its former glory days, as well as with pairing off our four fellows with the proper young woman, one of whom we’ve clearly met already. 

What happens after episode three is up for grabs. If there were more than 24 hours in a day, I might have time to fit the remainder of The New Black into my schedule. You may well decide to do this, anyway, as I am told that the series does get better as it moves along. Find out more about ChaiFlicks and what it has to offer by clicking here, and then clicking on Browse. 

Your move...