Episode Details

Olga Gershenson, professor of Jewish and Near East Studies and Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, explains how a generation raised on VHS, torrents, and global cinema reinvented horror in Israel—turning familiar tropes into sharp, funny, and deeply local cultural critique. From "Hebraizing" zombies to exposing the absurdities of military life, Israeli horror is anything but escapist—it's subversive, original, and long overdue.

Why did it take so long for horror to emerge in Israeli cinema—and why did it suddenly explode in the 2010s?

Her book, New Israeli Horror: Local Cinema, Global Genre, is available here: https://websites.umass.edu/newisraelihorror