Shtisel - Let’s Talk About It by Professor Laura Yares
Wed, January 19, 2022 7:00 PM at Online (Zoom)
The Facebook group “Shtisel - Let’s Talk About it” was founded in 2019 by three women in Detroit, to discuss their mutual interest in a new Israeli television show added to Netflix. By November 2021, the group reached
over 33,000 members. Members use the group to post questions and insights about a broad range of topics related to the television show, including the Hebrew and Yiddish languages, the practices of ultra-
Orthodox Jews, and life in contemporary Israel. Drawing on surveys, ethnographic interviews, linguistic analysis of social media postings, and audio diaries of group members as they watch the show recorded via a
specially created app, this talk explores how members of the group learn about Judaism from watching Shtisel, and forge community by discussing, analyzing and critiquing it together.
Dr. Laura Yares is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and a core member of the Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University. Her work
explores Jewish education as a site for understanding the ways that Jews and non-Jews construct understandings of self, community and other. Her current research projects includes a history of Jewish Sunday Schools in 19th century America, and a contemporary ethnographic study analyzing Jewish learning in cultural arts spaces.