Customer Reviews

Arab Labor: The Complete First Season

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I happened to glance at Link TV one day, and this series happened to be on at the time.
Since Hebrew is my mother tongue, I had to watch.
The plot is about the trials and tribulations of Amjad, a journalist of Arab Israeli descent. The show's language is mainly Hebrew with Arabic and English interspersed throughout. In Israel the title Arab Labor, is akin to shoddy labor. It was/is used as a denigrating phrase for Arab capability.
The show is funny and full of heart. Amjad is torn between the respect he owes to his scheming father, and his modern secular upbringing, which bring him closer in spirit to the modern secular Israelis.However since he is an Arab, he does encounter bias in every turn. How his problems are handled, is the main crux of the plot, and they are handled with love and a great sense of humor.
I highly recommend this DVD to one and all.

"Seinfeld" was supposed to be a show about nothing - no hugs at the end, no lessons learned - just straight up human frailties. "Arab Labor" borrows that aspect of "Seinfeld" and marries it to "All in the Family" and then ships the whole thing over to Israel. It works completely.

When I say "Arab Labor" on LinkTV, I fell out of my chair laughing. I have been waiting for season one and now I shall have it! This is, far and away, one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. It's irreverent, yet playful. True, you need to know some history here and there to get some of the jokes, but it's very accessible comedy - if you don't mind reading along. I'll admit my Hebrew and Arabic aren't up to snuff, but the jokes do translate well enough for me to fall in love with them.

If you have no sense of humor, don't buy this. If you love it when sacred cows become hamburger, then this product is both kosher and halal.

This product is mostly in Hebrew, but is subtitled in English. I was lucky to get an early release copy. This is the Israeli version of "The Jeffersons" or "Good Times". It is groundbreaking as it is a series about a family of Palestinian-Israelis. A view of Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli life from the view of an Arab-Israeli. He is a normal father, husband and son who is trying to fit in to a dual society. He isn't a confrontational person nor is he controversial, he is just trying to make it through the day and have a normal life. Not only is this a great glimpse into lives that most Americans and even most Israelis will never see, but it is FUNNY. It is life, whether it is trying to find a good kindergarten for his daughter or dealing with parents or in-laws.

Cutting social commentary done in a humorous way. Should be required viewing for all potential suicide bombers and ultra orthodox settlers.

I caught this series when a marathon of it aired on LINK TV. The characters are all great and each episode is genuinely funny. It is the story of an Arab family living in Israel. Controversial subjects like rascism and religion are somehow handled with humor and humanity. I Highly recommend watching.

I really enjoyed this sitcom and am eagerly awaiting the second season. It is in both Hebrew and Arabic language with English sub captions.

Here is what I wrote in the daily newspaper Haaretz, about Arab Labor in July 2010:

Possibly the easiest thing you will ever be asked to do to better understand Jewish-Arab relations in Israel is watch "Avodah Aravit" ("Arab Labor" ). Television viewing is usually not hard work, but the show, which returned to Channel 2 on Saturday night, makes it effortless because it is blessed with all three of the ingredients required for a top-flight sitcom: excellent ensemble acting with characters we can care about, an infinitely rich subject, and great comic writing.

Three years after the first season was seen by more than a million viewers, with consistently high ratings among Jewish (but not Arab ) viewers, the season premiere thrust us right back into Amjad's world. Amjad (Norman Issa ), a token Arab reporter for a Hebrew newspaper, is repeatedly assigned to write features that only reinforce Jewish readers' stereotypes of Arabs as quaint. He is desperate to enjoy the comforts and freedoms taken for granted by his Jewish colleagues and to be accepted by Jews, but this impossible quest twists his soul into a pretzel.

Writing separates the best sitcoms from the dunghills of mediocrity and "Arab Labor"'s writing is not only first-rate, but, astonishingly, the work of one man. Sayed Kashua is a triple threat: He is the lone scriptwriter, he is a columnist for this newspaper and his recently released third novel, "Second Person Singular," earned flattering reviews. The tyranny of sitcom rules demanding three jokes per page dooms most scriptwriters to be tediously superficial, but Kashua produces scripts that are authentic, moving and funny as hell.

The genius of "Arab Labor" is its ability to use sitcom set-ups to pinpoint both the most banal and torturous dilemmas facing Israel's Palestinian citizens. In Saturday night's episode, Amjad's desire to have sufficient water pressure to allow a decent shower leads him to pop naked into a stranger's bathroom while apartment-hunting - a classic sitcom situation. But when Amjad tries some "Jewish" assertiveness at the Water Authority, instead of improved pressure he gets a demolition order.

In real life, Arab citizens of Israel take such Catch-22s so much for granted - they can't get permits because government authorities want them to evaporate, so they build illegally and pray the axe never falls - that Kashua is able to slip the awful threat of losing one's home into family bickering, rather than playing it up as grand tragedy. Amjad's family is more outraged by his naivete than at the injustice of their situation.

Unlike Kashua's persona in his Friday column, Amjad is unaware of the futility of his quest for acceptance, so there is less neurotic despair. Amjad is ever optimistic - and forever being slapped down. His dilemma is the comic engine of the show, a subject that ranks with Archie Bunker and the breakdown of the racial divide, or Hawkeye Pierce navigating the wreckage of war with jokes and flirtation on "M*A*S*H."

If there were gripes about the first season, they came from members of the Arab community, where ratings of 5 to 10 percent were far below the Jewish average of 19.1 percent, according to Udi Lion, the show's executive director and director of specialized programming for Keshet broadcasting.

According to Lion, Amjad's sycophantic behavior toward Jews was anathema to the Arab audience, though it was the scheming manipulations of the Abu Amjad character (Amjad's father, played by Salim Dau ) that provoked the harshest response. Some viewers felt mocked, and critics charged Kashua with pandering to Jews (and to Keshet ) by lacerating Arab society and behavior.

"Arab Labor" does indeed aim for a Jewish audience, focusing more on points of friction between them and Arabs than on internal Arab concerns. Lion, who feels a sense of mission about exposing Jews to the Arab experience in Israel, suggests that Arab viewers may have sensed the series was not intended for them.

It might also be that Palestinian viewers feel too much the victim to see the comedy in "Arab Labor"; their place too insecure to laugh at the exaggerated archetypes required by sitcoms. But I would dismiss the suggestion that the show aims to please Jews. Jewish characters are skewered regularly for their prejudice, ignorance, power games and hypocrisy, and the series should make Jewish viewers squirm as much as it makes us laugh.

"Arab Labor" wouldn't be worth watching if it didn't raise some hackles. The strident young Arab human rights lawyer (Mira Awad ), an independent, whip-smart, attractive and highly educated Arab woman who has an on-again off-again, passionate affair with a self-centered Jewish photographer (Mariano Idelman ), breaks all sorts of cultural taboos. Later this season, Amjad's family becomes painfully (and hysterically ) torn between programs for Memorial Day, Independence Day and Nakba Day, whipsawed by their young daughter's desire to fit in at her new Jewish school.

This episode, which I saw in preview, has the potential to evoke the critical element absent from all the hate-filled Knesset histrionics about commemorating the Nakba - namely, empathy. Kashua makes Jewish viewers feel what Palestinian citizens already know: Memorial Day and Independence Day are not for Arabs, whose national tragedy cannot be wished or legislated away.

Of course, to improve Arab-Jewish relations, it's not enough to watch "Arab Labor." But until we get off our couches to take some action or meet some Palestinian citizens, at least we can ponder how to create an equitable society in Israel while refining our sense of humor.



Don Futterman, a former lecturer in communications, is the program director, Israel, of the Moriah Fund, a private American foundation that supports civil society and empowerment of disadvantaged minorities in Israel.

A comical window on our own insecurities played out brilliantly by the cast. There must be a little Amjad in all of us trying to fit in. As an American, I also appreciate insight into the many complications of daily life in Palestine. Peace to all who live there.Congrats on this very funny series!

My husband and I caught this show by accident when watching LinkTV and were smitten. It is painfully funny, and its widely-cast net of satire spares no one. It is an equal opportunity parody, having fun at the expense of all the characters who inhabit that overheated little part of the Middle East. You would think that someone who locates all the hot button topics afflicting Jews and Muslims and then plays a concerto on them would offend, but the undertone of love and sympathy that runs through this comedy insures that bitterness never trumps laughter.

very funny sad and clever,with an unusual point of view - l really felt l knew these people and cared about them - l loved it - only complaint - just that it was too short with lots of repeats at the beginning of each episode