L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Shows its Grit
T E L EVISION
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
IT’S HARD TO DO what you
actually want to do in life.

It’s much easier to sell out
for money, to conform to some
traditional gender role or all of
the above.

“The Marvelous Mrs.

Maisel” is an Amazon Prime
show about a Jewish woman,
Miriam “Midge” Maisel,
played by Rachel Brosnahan,
who grows from doing the
latter to doing the former.

Mrs. Maisel starts season one,
which premiered in 2017, as a
housewife and mother of two;
she ends it as a hilarious and
magnetic stand-up comic.

Midge, according to her
manager Susie Myerson,
played by Alex Borstein, just
has it; she’s a natural on stage.

But even for a talent like
Brosnahan’s character, the
journey to stardom is long and
diffi cult, fi lled with setbacks
and moments of doubt, oft en
darkened by the unsettling
feeling that you might never
get there.

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Season four of “Mrs. Maisel,”
which Amazon is releasing in
two-episode installments for
four consecutive weeks begin-
ning Feb. 18, captures just how
diffi cult this journey can be.

In doing so, it shows that
Maisel is more than just
a stylized celebration of the
female empowerment that
swept across American culture
during the show’s time period:
the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Instead, the series is about a
modern hero’s journey.

Episode one of the new
season, “Rumble on the
Wonder Wheel,” picks up
Midge after her greatest
success yet, a riotous set at the
Apollo Th eater, and her biggest
setback — getting dropped
from the tour for making fun
of its headliner, the fi ctional
musician Shy Baldwin, during
that same set.

Th e rest of the hour shows
a woman and a journey in
limbo, as Midge returns home
to New York City, hides in the
bar/comedy club where she got
her start and lies to her family
about being in Prague.

At one point, Susie, who is
on the same journey in her
eff ort to become a successful
manager, goes to a dive bar
and asks the bartender why
the calendar is still set to April,
even though it’s June. He tells
her they like the idyllic picture
with trees and a splash of sun
illuminating the end of a trail.

It’s an apt metaphor.

By episode two, “Billy Jones
and the Orgy Lamps,” Midge’s
secret is out, and her failure
is known to the people who
matter to her: her parents,
her ex-husband/the father of
her children and his parents/
Midge’s former in-laws. But the
truth also sets her free to move
forward, as she furnishes a new
apartment, asks her parents to
move in and tries to get back
on stage with a commitment to
the strategy that got her kicked
off tour: total comedic honesty.

Yet action doesn’t lead to
Rachel Brosnahan plays Miriam
“Midge” Maisel in “The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel” on Amazon Prime.

Rachel Brosnahan and
Alex Borstein in an episode of
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
Courtesy of Prime Video
instant success; it rarely does.

Midge has trouble buying
groceries due to a money
shortage from the tour debacle;
her parents invade on her space,
the operation of her household
and ask Midge to tell people
that they bought the apart-
ment for her; and her eff ort to
get back on stage is rebuff ed
by a club manager in favor of
mediocre male comedians.

In the same episode, Midge
reads a column from an enter-
tainment writer who refers to
her sets as “deeply unfunny
meanderings.” Th e column was
not even about her; the writer
just used her as an example of
a bad comic.

Mrs. Maisel is back in
action, but her stock is not yet
rising again. Th e journey is not
easy. It’s not easy for the show’s
supporting characters, either.

Throughout season three,
JEWISH EXPONENT
inspired by Midge, her father
Abe Weissman, played by Tony
Shalhoub, her mother Rose
Weissman (Marin Hinkle) and
her ex-husband Joel Maisel
(Michael Zegen), all started
doing what they actually
wanted to do, too.

Abe leaves a comfortable
career as a tenured professor
to become the cantankerous
theater critic he was probably
always meant to be; Rose
ends a cozy existence as a
housewife to become a match-
maker; and Joel, whose own
comic dreams in season one
led to him breaking up with
Midge, and to her getting on
stage, fi nally grows into the
independent businessman that
the show makes clear he is
supposed to be.

But as season four begins,
Abe is dealing with a meager
paycheck, while Joel is fi guring
out how to handle the Chinese
community in which he now
does business, and that wants a
cut from him.

“The Marvelous Mrs.

Maisel” has reached a new
chapter in its maturation
process. It’s no longer just about
one modern hero’s journey, but
several. At the end of episode two,
Abe and Midge are sharing
a drink during a moment of
doubt for Abe.

“Are you sure?” he asks. ●
jsaff ren@jewishexponent.com;
215-832-0740 JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
‘Breaking Bread’: A Cholent of Identity, Culture
FI L M
DAVID RULLO | JE FEATURE
BETH ELISE HAWK’S
new documentary “Breaking
Bread” takes an intimate look
at the A-Sham Food Festival in
Haifa, Israel.

The festival, launched
in 2015 by microbiolo-
gist Nof Atamna-Ismaeel,
the fi rst Muslim to win the
Israeli cooking competition
MasterChef, pairs Jewish and
Arab chefs. Ismaeel said the
festival aimed to move beyond
the confl icts of the region
because there is no room for
politics in the kitchen.

Hawk opens the fi lm with
Ismaeel describing her identity.

“I am a Muslim. I am an
Arab. I am an Israeli. I am a
Palestinian. I am a woman. I
am a scientist. I am the fi rst
Arab to win Israel MasterChef.

It caused a lot of happiness in
society,” she says.

Filmed during the 2017 and
2018 festivals, Hawk spotlights
several chefs, highlighting
their backgrounds and diff er-
ences, while showing the
synergy food can create.

Haifa chef Shlomi, who
operates the restaurant started by
his grandfather aft er the family
patriarch came to Israel at the
end of World War II, is paired
with Arab-Israeli chef Ali.

Ali’s family immigrated to
Israel from Syria and lives in
Ghajar Village, on the border
between Lebanon and Israel.

Th e Arab chef is quick to note
that, despite his Syrian roots, he
views himself as Israeli.

“I am part of the nation,”
he says, aft er pointing out that
the Israeli military protects his
village. Ali’s food honors his Syrian
roots; Shlomi’s that of his
Eastern European grandfather.

Despite the diff erences in
backgrounds, food, it appears,
is a common denominator.

“I’m going to work with
Ali Khattib on the dish for
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Chef Nof Atamna-Ismaeel
the festival,” Shlomi says. “It’s
not my style of cooking at all,
but that’s what’s nice — it’s
my mother’s style because her
roots are Egyptian.”
Th e fi lm succeeds as an
exploration of identity. Each
of the chefs discusses how they
see themself and what they
bring to their dishes from their
background and heritage.

Each chef also acknowl-
edges that despite their various
backgrounds — Jewish, Syrian,
half Christian/half Jewish,
Arab, Moroccan — they are
all Israeli.

“In our neighborhood,”
Jaff a-based chef Salah says,
“we spoke Arabic. We laughed
in Hebrew. We cursed in
Romanian. We got upset in
Moroccan. And it was all
‘sababa’ (OK).”
Removed from
the constraints of the confl icts
that might have weighed
heavier if the festival were
held in another city, Haifa is
presented as touched by its past
and infl uenced by its ethnici-
ties but, most importantly, as
a foodie’s paradise — eclectic
and cosmopolitan.

Despite making occasional
references to the confl icts
that have scarred the country
and region, the documentary
mostly achieves Ismaeel’s goal
of a politics-free festival.

Instead of discussing the
tensions that exist in the
country, the fi lm highlights
the inclusive nature of Israel
— Osama, a chef from Akko
talks of the synagogue, two
churches and two mosques
in his neighborhood. Former
Haifa mayor Yona Yahav
points to the peace in the
city between Jews and Arabs
which celebrates Ramadan,
Christmas and Chanukah.

Th e fi lm doesn’t take a deep
dive into the various confl icts
that exist between cultures,
instead celebrating the food
and eateries of those cultures.

Ingredients are presented in
raw and prepared states, and
the chefs profi led are shown
cooking in their restaurants.

Chickpeas and fi sh markets
share the screen with outdoor
cafes and high-end restaurants.

While “Breaking Bread”
advances Ismaeel’s mission, it
doesn’t take a deep dive into
the festival, nor does it present
a completely inclusive point of
view, as most of those featured
in the fi lm are male chefs.

Hawk’s documentary opens
with a quote from Anthony
Bourdain: “Food might not be
the answer to world peace ...

but it’s a start.”
Th e same might be said for
documentaries about food.

“Breaking Bread” opens
Feb. 18 at the Bryn Mawr Film
Institute and Landmark Ritz 5
Movies - Philadelphia. ●
David Rullo is a staff writer for the
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, an
affi liated publication of the Jewish
Exponent. JEWISH EXPONENT
“Breaking Bread” title sequence
Courtesy of Cohen Media Group
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