Nadene Goldfoot
In scanning Netflix's page for a new story to watch, I kept bumping into Blacklist, and kept skipping over it. The title just didn't suit me. Finally, I started watching and became hooked. It had action which is what I wanted, and I went through a shock each night as the story really had a lot of twists and turns that I never suspected.
It was a highly unusual story with the main character, Raymond Reddington, being a very bad guy, not worth watching, and I started liking him a lot. He was a master criminal, and with the blink of an eye he was shooting other guys who were also bad.
Two characters intrigued me. One was Mozhan Marnò as Samar Navabi: A Mossad agent who was one of the FBI agents that Reddington was working with. She was an Iranian, and spoke Farzi and a lot of other languages.
Reddington had become a confidential informant for the FBI, so in that way, he was on the good guys team. What an actor! He has the most lines to memorize.
One of the FBI men was also an Iranian, Amir Arison as Aram Mojtabai: A cyber expert with the FBI on Cooper's team. Aram was the computer genius who could solve anything on his computer in a matter of seconds. Aram and Samar become the love interest after many crisis.
As it turns out, Amir Arison, the actor, is from an Israeli family that is a real rags to riches story in itself, reminding me of the main characters in Meyer Levin's THE SETTLERS. The Arison family is an Romanian-Israeli-American business family. I don't know the family connection, but Moshe and Sarah Arison immigrated to Ottoman Palestine from Romania in 1882, and were among the founders of the town of Zikhron Ya'akov. Their eldest son was Meir Arison, who was the father of Theodore Arison (later Ted Arison) and two daughters, Aviva and Rina.Arison,
- Ted Arison (1924–1999), Israeli businessman, was born as Theodore Arison in Tel Aviv in 1924, in Mandatory Palestine. He served in the Israel Defense Forces and participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. After his army service he moved to the United States and became a business man. He founded Carnival Cruise Lines which earned him a fortune as it grew to be one of the biggest in the world. Over time he became one of the richest people in the world. In 1990, he returned to Israel. He contributed large sums of money to the state of Israel to build hospitals and to establish charity organizations. In 1997 he acquired from the state of Israel (as part of a government privatization plan) most of the controlling shares in Bank Hapoalim, the biggest bank in Israel.
Amir Arison, our Blacklist actor, was born in Missouri, grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and his parents, Ron and Zipora Arison, are both practicing doctors. Arison graduated from Columbia University in 2000. In New York, he appeared frequently in Off-Broadway productions and eventually became a movie and television actor.
At one point Samar's loyalty was questioned because she was formerly a Mossad agent and Aram spoke up for her, saying they you didn't need to question her loyalty; he knew that the US was first with her. As a Jew myself, and as a Jew holding dual citizenship, I had to wonder just why she was there in the first place. Wasn't she still a Mossad agent on loan? Yes, it's hard to be from 2 countries. It's like one is your mother and the other is your father. You love both, and hope both love each other.
We've had another TV series with just such a person. It was Ziva. Ziva is introduced to the show as an Israeli citizen, an agent of the Kidon unit of the Mossad, a daughter of Mossad Director Eli David, and a friend of NCIS Director Jenny Shepard. I watched this series faithfully, hating to see it go.
Ziva was a fictional character from the CBS television series NCIS, portrayed by Chilean-born American actress Cote de Pablo. She made a fantastic Israeli. In the story line, she was having troubles with such an important father. As i remember, they hadn't been really close as her father was such an important person and was away from home so much.
María José de Pablo Fernández, known professionally as Cote de Pablo (born November 12, 1979), is a Chilean-American actress and singer. Born in Santiago, Chile, at the age of ten she moved to the United States, where she studied acting. She attended Carnegie Mellon University to study music and theatre. After appearing in a number of television roles, she was cast to portray main character Ziva David in the CBS television series NCIS in 2005 and won an ALMA Award for the role in 2011.
The other main character that is so loveable in Blacklist is Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma: Reddington's bodyguard and confidant turned FBI agent. He is wiser than Reddington and an honest person, but puts up with Reddington's ways because he had saved his life. Actually, they take care of each other. He's a true friend everyone would love to know. He's always there ready to save their lives.
Born in New York City, Tawfiq discovered his love of the arts while performing the poem "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou in high school. Tawfiq studied at the Negro Ensemble Company, known for educating actors such as Denzel Washington and Ossie Davis. He also studied with coach Susan Batson. Prior to pursuing a full acting career, Tawfiq served in the U.S. Marines, deployed during Operation Desert Storm. From 1994 to 1996, Tawfiq worked as a corrections officer in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. While pursuing his acting career, Tawfiq also served as a firefighter for 20 years with the New York City Fire Department.
I'm on season 6 episode 12, so I have 51 more episodes to look forward to
before season 9, which looks iffy being it's to be made in our COVID 19
days. Then I'll have to look for something equally grabbing my interest.
Never thought I'd enjoy a story about an evil man. They're making it
believable that there's some good in most all of us, even criminals.
Episode 14; I should have waited before a gave the program a kinna-hora.
I'm furious with the writers for writing such a lie about the
Mossad. That's a shock that I certainly never expected to happen.
It's a huge lie that is unforgivable, and now I blame Arison for allowing
it to happen. He should know better. This would never ever happen in
real life.
"Bokenkamp has no background in television. He has absolutely no experience writing for television. He barely has any resume to speak of in film either. In over twenty years, Bokenkamp worked as a writer for exactly five movies (all of which were lackluster mystery or thriller movies). His real background is in the world of live theater. Inexperienced and untested, Bokenkamp has been working to prove himself in the five years since Blacklist came on the air. For a newbie, he has been doing quite well. The show certainly has a strong following and there is no evidence that it will be canceled. It hasn’t been an easy road though." Evidently, he didn't believe in bothering to stick to the truth about Mossad. Jews, including the state of Israel, have enough anti-Semitism to deal with without making up horror stories about an important section of government of Israel. (https://screenrant.com/facts-trivia-blacklist/)
The highest gift in Judaism is to save a life, not to take it.
I don't know why the writer, Jon Bokenkamp, took the angle that Mossad
kills anyone who works for them if they thought they would give away
secrets, for this is ridiculous. Quite the opposite, they would go to any
lengths to keep their people alive.
As far as fiction goes, Daniel Silva does
a much better job in his series of books with Gabriel Allon as his hero as
a secret agent that would make James bond weep. At least Silva doesn't
help along Israel-hatred.
I would like to be able to watch an American-made program
that doesn't turn into anti-Semitism. This isn't it.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziva_David
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Arison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arison_family
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