Shtisel creator Yehonatan Indursky is making a limited TV series for N12 about Leonard Cohen’s visit to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, based on Matti Friedman’s bestselling book Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai, Deadline reported.
The show will follow the spontaneous journey Cohen took during the war to entertain IDF troops in Israel. Then 39 and at a creative dead end – the Jewish Cohen traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to Israel with his guitar. Hooking up with some local musicians, he performed for soldiers who were risking their lives close to the Egyptian front.
Friedman’s book, drawing on Cohen’s previously unpublished writing and original reporting, provides a previously-undisclosed account of those few weeks of both a harrowing, formative moment for a young country at war and a singer at a crossroads.
Who will be working on the series?
Indursky is working with N12 and will be writing the series, with N12’s Atar Dekel and Yuval Horowitz along with Jill Offman of Sixty-Six Media executive producing, according to Deadline. Keshet International (N12) is looking to bring international broadcast partners on board, according to the report.
The shooting for the series will take place in Israel but won’t begin until 2024, Deadline reported.