Reviewers Bash Ramadan TV Series For Lack Of Antisemitism

“It forfeits all verisimilitude when it ignores the defining aspect of Muslim life.”

Cairo, May 24 – Viewers across the region anticipate the onset of the monthlong Ramadan observance each year, either for the spiritual development it represents or for the special entertainment the government-run media in the Middle East produce to accompany each evening’s festive meal to break the daylight fast. This year, however, audiences and critics from Fez to Jakarta have issued harsh critiques of one television series on offer, with the main complaint involving the show’s near-complete absence of hatred for Jews.

“Qassem Jafr” follows the exploits of an eponymous industrial spy in the fictional Arab state of Nazriq. It takes numerous twists and turns through corporate intrigue, extortion, corrupt law enforcement, and a potential love triangle involving the daughter of a fictitious Persian Gulf banker. But unlike every other series produced for the occasion in past years, the program leaves out a constant audiences have grown to expect: implied or explicit antisemitism. Critics and viewers alike have registered their displeasure.

“The acting is fluid; the dialogue, crisp and clever,” wrote Tunisian reviewer Fares Aino, “but Qassem Jafr suffers from a moral blindness that keeps it from acknowledging the injustice of our age, perhaps of all ages: the epic struggle with the cursed Jews. It therefore falls flat, despite other promising, even compelling features.”

A critic in Malaysia echoed Aino’s sentiments. “Where is the axiomatic solidarity with Palestine?” railed Madezza Hatr. “Qassem Jafr forfeits all verisimilitude when it ignores the defining aspect of Muslim life.”

Audiences have given the series mixed reviews. “I like the plot, and I enjoy the banter Qassem has with his buddies,” conceded a viewer in Islamabad, Pakistan. “But it’s missing something. Only when my sister pointed it out did I realize it was missing the little pep, the zing, that Ramadan series have always had: Jew-hate. Maybe the remaining episodes will correct this defect, but I somehow doubt it.”

“I’m going back to reruns of the Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion series from a couple of years ago,” stated a TV watcher in Port Said, Egypt. “My family was really looking forward to the meat and potatoes of our culture, and Qassem just isn’t providing it. We get government corruption and incompetence in our real lives all the time. It’s nice to be able to enter a simple TV reality where there’s a foreign, sinister force to blame. Of course we blame that sinister force in real life too, but it’s harder to fit every development into that narrative without some serious cognitive dissonance. We manage, though.”

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