The Kastner Trial

A grave, talk-heavy courtroom drama that asks you to weigh impossible moral choices alongside the characters.

Created by

Uri Barbash

Genres

Drama

Starring

Ya'akov Alperin, Avigail Ariely, Idit Gideon Ben-Eliyahu

Overview

This three-part television courtroom drama series is based on one of the most controversial trials in Israel’s history. In 1944 Dr Yisrael Kastner, a member of the committee for the rescue of Hungarian Jewry, succeeded in saving the lives of 1,685 Jews by gaining permission for them to leave Budapest. A decade later he was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and was assassinated. Focusing on the courtroom procedures of 1954–5, as well as on the private lives of the protagonists, and drawing on court proceedings and interviews, the drama deconstructs the narrative of the Holocaust, bringing out issues such as the ineffective policy of the Zionist leadership regarding the Holocaust and the morally ambivalent stance of the survivors.

How it feels

Tense, melancholic, earnest and dark. Measured and demanding.

About

Justice, guilt, morality, betrayal

Content

Mild violence, sexual content and language. No gore.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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