jerusalem (jps) | Israel’s newest reality TV series isn’t intended to be funny, but many viewers are likely to smile at the central premise: that an attractive Jewish bachelor needs to leave one of the most Jewishly populated cities in the world to find himself a Jewish wife.
Fortunately for 34-year-old New York businessman Ari Goldman, “Mikol Habanot Ba’olam” (“Of All the Girls in the World”) offers the land of Israel as a dating pool; his odds of meeting a nice Jewish girl here are at least as good as at a Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side.
The series, which shares creative talent with “HaShagrir” (“The Ambassador”) debuted last week and is scheduled to air weekly until its romantic conclusion three months from now. For the duration, Goldman has been handed the not-so-terrible task of whittling down a group of 17 contenders to a single potential wife, to whom he’ll eventually deliver the magical yet painfully cheesy line: “Of all the girls in the world, I picked you.”