Friday, May 12, 2023
A Chat With Rough Diamonds Creators On Hasidic Representation
When Rough Diamonds hit Netflix, it brought up some mixed feelings. While wonderful to see Orthodox Jewish representation on screen done with nuance and three dimensionality, some of the plot lines dabbled in tropes of Jewish deception and greed. Negative minority representation increases hatred of those minorities, according to research. With attacks on all Jews, Hasidim especially, increasing, is this show good news for the Jews?
Allison Josephs and Cindy Kaplan, JITC Hollywood Bureau consultant, sat down with the show's creators, writer Yuval Yafet and director Rotem Shamir (who also co-created Line in the Sand, and worked together on Fauda) in this co-production between Keshet International and De Mensen for Netflix and VRT in an open and honest conversation about their decision to make the show and include all the drama, and not-so-pretty depictions of the fictional Hasidic family.
If you haven't watched it yet, the show is currently the 3rd most-watched non-English show on Netflix, and last week it peaked as 5th in Netflix's Top 10 TV Shows in the world. It revolves around a Hasidic family in Antwerp, Belgium with a long history of working in the diamond industry. It's something the Jews in Antwerp have been involved in for hundreds of years — we're not just talking about a few decades. It's more than a business to them; it's their economic foundation, tradition, family life and more. It's what they pass down to each new generation. When it comes to Jews and money though, things get dicey and can often fall quickly into antisemitic tropes about Jews being obsessed with getting rich or controlling the entire business world. When crime is involved — the show starts off with a scandal that puts the entire business at risk — it gets worse. It's easy to go from that to relating all Jews as being responsible for economic distress. The creators of the show, though, explain the nuances in what they made. "The crime element of the show is more of a plot moving tool than anything else," Shamir shares.
He stresses that none of the characters are motivated by greed. "It's not about getting rich," he explains. "It's about preserving their family life; about tradition and legacy."
"We always say that the crime is the fire under the pot," Yefet remarks. "The pot is everything else you see in the show — like the family life. That part is so interesting, but you need the fire underneath to make everything work. If there was no crime element, there would be no confrontation."
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