The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is an Israeli television series written by Oded Davidoff, based on a novel by Sarit Yishai Levi. It follows a Sephardic Jewish family in Jerusalem from the end of the Ottoman Empire to the 1940s. It stars Michael Aloni as Gabriel Ermoza, Hila Saada as Rosa Ermoza, Swell Ariel Or as Luna Ermoza, Eli Steen as Rachelika Ermoza, Bar Tzidkiyahu as Rivka "Becky" Ermoza, Irit Kaplan as Mercada Ermoza, Tom Hagi as Ephraim Siton (Rosa's brother), Mali Levi as their neighbor Victoria Franco, and Israel Ogalbo as her son David Franco. Yuval Scharf plays Rochel Leibowitz, and Michael Givati plays her son Shloimele.
Both seasons are available on Netflix.
Provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Ephraim is drunk half the time he's on screen, and it rarely ends well for anyone around him.
- Ambiguous Situation: At first, it seems like Ephraim and the Lehi kidnap Dalia Zisman because she had a relationship with an Arab man. But then at her "trial", they play an audiotape of her boyfriend asking her to take a bomb to Tel Aviv. She protests that she never followed through with his demand, but doesn't deny that he asked her that. It also makes Ephraim's murder of her boyfriend a little less unsympathetic.
- Arranged Marriage: The norm for most Jews at the time, especially traditionalists like the Ermozas.
- Awful Wedded Life: Gabriel is forced to marry a woman he doesn't love over one he does, and Rosa knows it.
- Bastard Angst: Shloimele's mother Rochel reveals that he's actually Gabriel's son, not her husband's, and it causes him a lot of angst, particularly when he falls in love with a girl who doesn't know the truth, and who he worries wouldn't want to marry him if she knew.
- Benevolent Boss: Mr. Zacks is Luna's boss, but he's also a good friend, always looking out for her, and letting her take time off if she needs it. He fears for her safety when David starts becoming more possessive of Luna, and seems to view her Like a Daughter to Me.
- Betty and Veronica: Gender-flipped. Luna used to be romantically involved with Nice Guy neighbor David, but he moved to Jaffa to work, and she started dating resistance fighter Itamar, a much more dangerous and exciting boy. When David comes back to Jerusalem, she has to decide whether to push him away or not. It becomes a moot point when Itamar dies.
- Bittersweet Ending: At the end of Season 2:
- Luna has gotten free of her abusive husband David, who's in prison, but she's still legally married to him because he refuses to grant her a divorce (in Judaism, only a man can grant divorce). She also leaves for England with no indication that she's coming back to her family.
- Ephraim, who had fallen into deep depression, commits Suicide by Cop.
- Shlomo's mother dies, but he and Amalia are going to get married after all.note
- Break Her Heart to Save Her: Ephraim and Victoria call off the wedding after he cheats on her. He later explains that he's joined the Irgun, and might be killed fighting the Arabs or the British. Given her first husband died, he doesn't want to put her through that again. Of course, he could just be making this all up as justification after the fact.
- Bring My Brown Pants: When James says if he finds evidence that any of the family helped in Ephraim's escape from jail, he'll make sure they go to prison for 20 years, Rachelika pees herself out of fright.
- Camp Gay: Downplayed. Mr. Zacks owns a store selling women's clothing, is unmarried, gentle, and is a skilled cook, but otherwise appears pretty masculine.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: Mercada has a way of getting anyone to spill the beans to her, even if they'd already been paid off to keep their mouth shut. This is how she finds out Rochel's identity.
- Child by Rape: Becky is Rosa's daughter by the Arab who raped her.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Luna and David, her next-door neighbor and the brother of her best friend Matilda.
- Cop Killer: Ephraim's first murder is of a British soldier, who he suffocates and then steals his gun. He becomes a thorn in the side of the British occupying authorities, who hunt him as a terrorist. Later on he plants a bomb at a party attended by British officers, killing several soldiers and civilians.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: After David and Luna are married, he becomes possessive of her, trying to prevent her from working, and reacting violently to any man who talks to her, even when he was there with his own girlfriend.
- Crime of Self-Defense: The British arrest Ephraim for refusing to come with them to the police station, after he'd killed two Arabs attacking his family. He gets freed pretty quickly.
- Crush the Keepsake: When Rosa sees Gabriel searching through the laundry for Rochel's kerchief, only to abandon it after he realizes it doesn't have her scent anymore, she burns the cloth.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Gabriel falls in love with Rochel, an Ashkenazi woman, but his parents are strongly against it. After the shock apparently kills his father, his mother forces him to marry Rosa, a woman who cleans the family shop.
- December–December Romance:
- Mercada attempts to hit on Luna's boss Mr. Zacks, who's of a similar age to her, after she notices he's unmarried, but unfortunately for her he's gay.
- She has more success with Avram, an old family friend who she starts courting after his wife dies.
- Defiled Forever: After Rosa is raped during the 1929 riots, she scrubs her entire body with soap in a desperate attempt to feel clean again. She doesn't tell her husband what happened.
- Descent into Addiction: Colonel Parker introduces David to a drug called Pervitinnote , which he quickly becomes addicted to, even returning to his supplier's house and rifling through his things to find more.
- Disarm, Disassemble, Destroy: After witnessing an innocent Arab passerby being murdered by the Irgun group she joined, Rachelika leaves but has to give her gun back to the group. So Rachelika destroys her gun before giving it back. Hey, they didn't tell her that the gun had to be intact.
- Domestic Abuse: David slaps his wife Luna after their honeymoon period ends and rifts appear in their marriage. Eventually, he becomes such a Crazy Jealous Guy (not helped by him taking drugs) that he nearly beats her to death.
- Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Gabriel takes off his belt to discipline Luna, though he actually hits the pillow and has her cry out to make Rosa think he followed through.
- Doomed by Canon: Since two storylines are told simultaneously, certain characters (like Matilda and James) appear in the Flashback B-Plot after we've already seen their deaths in the later storyline.
- Dramatic Irony: After Rochel and Shloimele leave Jerusalem, Gabriel thinks they got on a ship that was sunk by a German submarine, and fears they died.
- Elopement: After Shloimele runs away from their wedding, Amalia's father arranges a new match for her, but she still loves Shloimele, and runs away to Jerusalem to find him.
- External Combustion: Ephraim and his fellow militants set a bomb in Colonel Parker's car. Ephraim argued they should set it to go off when the car started, but they decided to set it off at a set time, which ended in failure when the colonel happened to be running late that day.
- Eyepatch of Power: After the bombing at the club, James wears an eyepatch.
- Failed a Spot Check: Colonel Charlie Parker berates Captain Stanley Clark (an intelligence officer) and strips him of his command when he finds out from Clark's subordinate that Luna (who had visited the colonel's house multiple times) is Ephraim's niece.
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Tzachi pulls Rachelika into a sudden kiss when a British patrol comes by.
- Family Honor: A prominent motivation for the older generations (Mercada, Rosa, Gabriel) is maintaining the family's honor.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: Mercada tries to teach Luna to cook when she's an adult and married, since Luna never learned as a child.
- Flashback B-Plot: In the first season, two storylines are shown, the first in the early 1920s to 1930s, when Gabriel and Rosa marry and have their children, and the second in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when those children are teens.
- Foregone Conclusion: Since certain parts of each timeline are shown before others in the other timeline, it's clear that:
- Ephraim and Victoria won't end up married, since they're not married in the 1930s.
- Rosa and Gabriel's son won't survive, since they have only daughters.
- Foreshadowing: Becky has a darker complexion than her sisters, an early clue that she's not Gabriel's daughter.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Downplayed with Luna (the pretty one) and Rachelika (the smart one).
- Graying Morality: Early on in the series, Ephraim's actions are portrayed almost entirely negatively — he did plant a bomb that killed several people. But as we learn more of his backstory in the first storyline, we see him help his family, and he even has some heroic moments. By the end of the first season, he's become much grayer morality-wise.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- Tzachi gets jealous after Luna dumps him for Itamar, even after he dumped Rachelika for Luna.
- Luna gets jealous seeing Itamar with another girl, even though she turns out to be his sister.
- Harmful to Minors: After witnessing her mother's rape during the 1929 riots, Luna becomes mute and near-catatonic, with a Thousand-Yard Stare. It's a long time before she's herself again.
- Heroism Equals Job Qualification: After Ephraim saved his family's lives, Gabriel gives him a job at the shop, even though he's a drunkard and Gabriel hates him. He can't let that go unrewarded, especially when Gabriel wasn't there to protect them. Ephraim puts up a newspaper clipping in the shop calling him a hero, so all the customers will know about him.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After committing Insurance Fraud by burning down the delicatessen, with Gabriel still inside, Morduch doesn't get any of the money, since it's not his name on the ownership documents. And after he confessed his actions, Gabriel isn't feeling charitable towards him.
- Honor Before Reason: In the 1940s, Gabriel is in debt to a criminal loan shark, but the family receives a windfall when Ephraim and his comrades rob a train and steal thousands of pounds, some of which he gives to Rosa. Upon finding out, Gabriel refuses to use the money to pay off his debts and pay for Luna's wedding, instead burning it all.
- Hookers and Blow: Mercada notices Gabriel and Rosa's marital troubles, and hints he should visit Beirut on a business trip, giving him the name of a hotel his father used to visit there...that also happens to be a brothel/strip club/drug den. It works a little too well, and Gabriel starts spending far too much money on frequent trips to Beirut.
- Hostage Situation: After the British arrest Itamar, the Irgun kidnap James in response and demand a trade. Both of them end up hanged.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Through most of Season 2, Rochel has a cough that keeps getting worse. In the penultimate episode, they learn it's a terminal illness, and she dies in the finale.
- I Never Told You My Name: A variant. Luna is getting ready for her date with Tzachi, only for Rachelika to ask about him by name. She never told Rachelika his name, but Rachelika knew because they already dated and Tzachi dumped her for Luna.
- Innocently Insensitive: When Avram comes by for dinner, he brings a gift for Gabriel and Rosa — two super-soft pillows. Unfortunately for him, the two of them have just had the biggest fight of their marriage.
- Insurance Fraud: Morduch insures the delicatessen, then sets it on fire—not knowing Gabriel is still inside.
- Internal Reveal: Late in Season 2, Rosa discovers Gabriel has been secretly visiting Rochel and Shlomo — the second of whom she didn't even know existed.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: The British Army beat Itamar to a pulp trying to get him to give up the location of Ephraim.
- Jack of All Trades: Avram is a typist who writes things down or reads them for people who can't read, but he also sells train and ship tickets, and in Season 2 he reveals that he's also a certified legal arbitrator.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Mercada is controlling and manipulative of her family, but she pushes both Gabriel and Rosa to do the right thing when they need to.
- Ephraim is a mean drunk who bullies his nieces, but he has a point about how Gabriel and especially Mercada force Rosa to do pretty much all the housework without help.
- Jewish Mother: Gabriel's mother Mercada is very controlling of both her son and daughter-in-law, even if she sometimes has a point (like telling Gabriel to take care of his family and business and stop spending all his money on Hookers and Blow).
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Two examples by Ephraim.
- The first shown is when he sets off a bomb at the club, killing several people.
- The first chronologically is when he murders a British soldier.
- Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: For all the terrible things he does, Ephraim draws the line at hurting his own flesh and blood. He saves Luna from the bomb that he planted at the club, and Rachelika is confident he won't hurt her even after she destroys his gun.
- Language Fluency Denial: When Itzik is captured and tortured by the British, he pretends to not speak English, even to the point of death.
- Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: Luna and David, also an example of Childhood Friend Romance.
- Loan Shark: During The '30s, Gabriel goes into debt to buy his family, especially Luna, nice things. He then takes out more debts to pay back the first debts, despite middleman Avram's repeated advice not to borrow from a loan shark (who turns out to be Gabriel's old nemesis Morduch). It gets to the point that Gabriel is forced to sell half his stake in the family delicatessen to Morduch.
- Loose Lips: Tzachi brags about helping Jews illegally immigrate to Palestine to impress Luna, leading to Itamar beating him up and him being kicked out of the Irgun for spilling their secrets.
- Love-Obstructing Parents:
- Gabriel's parents forbid him from seeing Rochel, and once he's married to Rosa, Mercada forces Rochel's husband to move with her to America.
- Luna's parents and David's mother forbid their children from being involved with each other, or even crossing the yard to the other's house.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage:
- Gabriel's Sephardic parents forbid him from marrying an Ashkenazi woman, Rochel. On the other side, Rochel's family doesn't want her marrying a Sephardi, either.
- Luna's parents don't want her getting together with her childhood friend and neighbor David, partially because his family is poor, but also because there's bad blood between the two families.
- Most Jews don't approve of relationships with goyim, but the Revisionists take it a step further with harassment and even violence towards Jews (mostly women) who do this.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Gabriel doesn't know he has a son until Rochel returns to Jerusalem for the second time and tells him. Shloimele shows up on the day of Luna's wedding.
- Marital Rape License: David rapes Luna when they visit Colonel Parker and his wife Stephanie for a party. When the hosts find out, Stephanie is the only one who calls it rape. Later on, after David beats Luna severely, her family dismiss going to the police, saying they won't interfere in matters between a husband and wife.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: All three adult Ermozas visit the witch Jilda for advice or help, but it's ambiguous whether she's actually doing magic or just telling them what they want to hear and giving them more mundane assistance. The scene where Jilda's ritual reveals that Mercada cast the evil eye on Becky leans more towards the "magic" end.
- Meaningful Name: "Ermoza" means "beautiful" in Judeo-Spanish/Ladino. What's the title of the show, again?
- Missed Him by That Much: When Rochel comes back to Jerusalem she's accompanied by her son Shloimele. Gabriel meets her, but she doesn't tell him Shloimele is his biological son, and he leaves just before Shloimele gets on the cart with her, so he doesn't even know the boy exists.
- Mistaken for Cheating: David misinterprets Luna's plan to travel to London with Colonel Parker and his wife as her having an affair with the colonel. He beats her within an inch of her life.
- Mistaken for Thief: When Shloimele is hanging around the Ermoza house spying on Gabriel and trying to get a chance to talk to him, David gets suspicious that he's casing the house to rob it and beats him up, only stopping due to Gabriel's intervention.
- My Greatest Failure: Gabriel is horrified he was away from his family (and with his mistress, no less) during the riots of 1929, and unable to help them.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Rochel's brother attacks Gabriel in the street, warning him to stay away from her. Unlike most examples of the trope, the two men didn't know each other beforehand.
- Only Friend: Ephraim doesn't seem to have any friends other than Yechiel.
- Operation: Jealousy: Luna tries to make David jealous, showing off her rich and handsome date.
- Playing the Family Card: Other than Gabriel, who hates his brother-in-law, the Ermozas protect Ephraim from the British military and police. As we get deeper into the plot we see they have strong reasons, especially Ephraim saving all their lives during the 1929 riots, when Gabriel wasn't there.
- Rosa is obviously the most loyal, since he's the only brother she has left after the Ottomans killed Rachamim. She warns him when the British are looking for him, and covers for him when they question her.
- Even though he set off the bomb that killed her best friend Matilda, Luna refuses to make a witness statement incriminating him. Instead, he confesses to free her from jail.
- Rachelika smuggles him a gun to help him escape from prison.
- Later on, Luna lures James into a trap set by Ephraim, ostensibly with the hope of trading him for Itamar's freedom.
- Even Gabriel stays silent sometimes. He doesn't help Ephraim, but he doesn't betray him to the authorities.
- Promotion to Parent: Orphaned at a young age, Rosa had to become a mother figure to her brothers Rachamim and Ephraim.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Colonel Charlie Parker goes to work, tortures captured militants, and then heads home to his wife.
- Put on a Bus:
- A literal example In-Universe. Mercada buys tickets for a ship to America, and forces Rochel's husband to take himself and Rochel to New York and never come back.
- The Bus Came Back: Rochel briefly returns to Jerusalem in 1931 for her husband's funeral, eight years after she and her husband left for America. And then comes back for good in 1941.
- Mercada herself leaves for Spain and doesn't come back for 10 years, though this is only a "bus trip" chronologically — she returns in the next episode, but in the second storyline.
- In Season 2, Victoria is absent, with a few mentions of her moving to another city for work.
- A literal example In-Universe. Mercada buys tickets for a ship to America, and forces Rochel's husband to take himself and Rochel to New York and never come back.
- Rape as Drama: Rosa is raped by an Arab thug during the 1929 riots.
- Relative Error: Luna sees Itamar on a date with another girl, and walks up and starts insulting her, before Itamar informs her that's his sister.
- Rich Bitch: In Tel Aviv, Luna meets Barbara and Stephanie, two wealthy British women who are married to British Army officers. They look down on her, but she gains their respect and gets them to pay for expensive dresses she designs.
- Romancing the Widow:
- After Ephraim moves in with the Ermozas, he starts getting close to Victoria Franco, their widowed neighbor.
- When Rochel returns to Jerusalem for her husband's funeral, Gabriel briefly reunites with her. They were together before she was married, though.
- Mercada starts putting the moves on Avram after his wife dies.
- Runaway Groom:
- At Ephraim and Victoria's wedding, he doesn't show up on time, and then they find him hungover in bed with another woman.
- At Shloimele and Amalia's wedding, he runs away during the vows, because of his Bastard Angst.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: David comes back from the war prone to violent outbursts over minor things.
- Slashed Throat: How Ephraim kills the Arab raping Rosa during the riots.
- Slut-Shaming:
- Matilda is derided as "the Brits' whore" for dating at least one British officer, though it's ambiguous if she actually had sex with any of her boyfriends.
- David brings up Luna having premarital sex as an excuse for becoming a Crazy Jealous Guy and beating her.
- Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb:
- Ephraim plants a time bomb at a crowded party, which kills several people and wounds many more.
- Later on, he and his comrades plot to send another bomb into a British police station.
- Sorry, I'm Gay: Mr. Zacks reveals he's gay when Mercada shows a romantic interest in him.
- Stay in the Kitchen:
- David adopts this attitude, literally forbidding Luna to leave the house, after she stays out too late.
- Mercada also believes this, saying that her granddaughters should only care about finding a husband, not getting a job or an education.
- The Stool Pigeon: Angry over being kicked out of the group, Tzachi starts informing on the Irgun to the British.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Gabriel is stuck in a loveless Arranged Marriage, and even his own mother supports him getting a mistress as long as he's discreet.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: British officer James is a nice enough guy, until Ephraim's terrorist attack maims him and kills his girlfriend Matilda. After that, he will stop at nothing to bring the perpetrator to justice.
- Teen Rebellion:
- Luna wants to drop out of school and work at a clothing shop. Her parents refuse, since they already paid a lot of money for her to go to her new Christian school. She tries to get them to take her out by hiding a crucifix in her room so they'll find it.
- Rachelika gets involved with the right-wing militant organization Irgun, though quickly finds herself in over her head.
- That Man Is Dead: Wanting to know if David is dead or alive, Luna visits the witch Jilda and gives her two photographs of him. Jilda places both on the fire, and the old one from before he joined the army burns up. Jilda tells Luna that "that one is dead". Indeed, when he comes back he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran.
- Through His Stomach:Both times Mercada attempts to romance a man (first Mr. Zacks and then Avram), she starts by bringing him a home-cooked meal every day.
- Turn in Your Badge: An odd variant, since they're fighting the police and don't have badges. After Ephraim interferes with the Lehi's planned bombing to save Rosa's life, they demand he hand over his pistol and expel him from the group.
- The Un-Favorite: Becky is Gabriel's least favorite, and he even refuses to recognize her as his daughter at first. To be fair, she isn't his daughter, she's Rosa's Child by Rape and a living reminder of how he failed his family.
- Unwanted Assistance: When Morduch swindles Gabriel, Rosa complains about it to Ephraim, who despite her request to stay out of it, goes and beats him up.
- Villainous BSoD: After he kills Dalia Zisman, Ephraim falls into a deep depression, and even Rosa is unable to get him to fully recover.
- Wanted a Son Instead: The Ermozas put a high priority on male children, but Rosa only has daughters. Rachelika has a male twin, but he doesn't survive. It turns out Gabriel does have a son — by Rochel.
- We Used to Be Friends: Lovers, even. Ephraim and Victoria were lovers and even engaged at one point, but he cheats on her, her son finds Ephraim's gun and hurts himself, and Ephraim plants a bomb that ends up killing her daughter.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Ephraim and his Irgun comrades see themselves as Fighting for a Homeland, but they're also willing to commit acts of terror to get there, including against other Jews.
