Esty’s Erlebnis and Moishe’s Mikveh: Experiencing Berlin in Netflix’s Unorthodox

Abstract

Netflix has repeatedly used the four-part series Unorthodox to show the success of its international offerings. While the series was popular in the United States and Britain, it was named a "Binge-Watch Phänomen" among German audiences. The story follows Esty, a Jewish woman who escapes her Satmar Orthodox Jewish community to Berlin. Although she is pursued by her husband and an outcast from her former community, Esty moves through the enlightened, welcoming city of Berlin like a modern subject. Using and re-appropriating Walter Benjamin’s competing concepts of urban experience, Erfahrung and Erlebnis, this article probes into ethical questions about the way that Unorthodox’s protagonists interact with the city: how can a German series responsibly criticize the violence of an Orthodox Jewish community and present Berlin as the answer to a Jewish problem?