Paran, who studied filmmaking in the US, held many roles in the Israeli television industry, including one as a producer on Channel One in the 1970s.
By HANNAH BROWN'Shababnikim' was one of Daniel Paran's final projects(photo credit: OHAD ROMANO)
Veteran television producer Daniel Paran, who expanded the frontiers of Israeli television in multiple formats and genres, passed away on Saturday at the age of 71 from cancer.One of his final series, Shababnikim, about a group of mischievous ultra-Orthodox friends, which drew comparisons to Entourage, won the Israeli Television Academy Award for Best Comedy Series, as well as several other awards, in 2017.Arab Labor, an acclaimed series Paran produced about an Israeli-Arab family, won the Best Comedy Series Award in 2012 and 2011.Paran, who studied filmmaking in the US, held many roles in the Israeli television industry, including one as a producer on Channel One in the 1970s. He created his own production company and brought many formats to Israel, including game shows and telenovelas. While he is credited on the Internet Movie Database website as a producer on 24 shows, he actually produced dozens of others made in an era not yet catalogued on the Internet.In addition to drama, comedy and children’s series, Paran made many acclaimed documentaries, several of which were about the Holocaust, among them Kapo, which won the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary in 2000.In 2003, Paran also created the first ultra-Orthodox television show, Ha Hatzer (“Grand Rabbi”), about a rabbi and his family.Several of his children worked with him, among them his son, Yoni Paran, who collaborated with his father for 20 years.Dori Media bought a stake in Paran’s company in 2007 for millions of shekels. Although Paran had struggled with cancer in recent years, he continued producing and was constantly searching for innovative contentIn an interview with The Jerusalem Post to mark the success of Shababnikim earlier this year, he looked back on his long career, saying, “You have to be open, to always think the opposite.”
