HaBorer

Baruch Asulin, head of a traditional crime family from Givat Shmuel, serves as the underworld's "arbitrator" - settling business and personal disputes between criminals and quoting (not always accurately) from the Bible in his rulings.

He built his empire of casinos and protection rackets with his brother Yossi and his best friend Yigal Mizrahi, until Yigal was jailed in Germany and Yossi fell into drug addiction.

His world is shaken when Yigal, now known as "The Nazi", is released and returns to Israel as his sworn enemy.

At the same time Nadav Feldman, a social worker and former Maglan commando, discovers he was adopted and that Baruch is the biological father who gave him up as a baby.

Their growing bond pulls Nadav into the crime world and sets him against Avi "The Spleen", the eldest son meant to inherit the empire.

The series blends drama and suspense with satire of underworld norms and codes - above all the gap between the characters' religious piety and their open disregard for human life.

Nadav grows close to Baruch and helps him with the "black widow" - a widow refusing to return millions deposited in her late husband's account.

Instead of threats, Nadav uses his social-work skills to reunite her with her estranged children, which is what wins her over.

Avi gets tangled up in the murder of his mistress Kuki's ex-husband, and the Kovlova brothers, who worked for him, switch sides to Yigal and try to frame him. Kuki is forced to cooperate with detective Madmoni.

The season ends with hitman Shimi Angel, sent by Yigal, shooting Baruch at his home, his body seen floating in the pool.

Baruch survives, and Nadav suggests faking his death - even his wife Gila believes he is dead.

A revenge hit on Shimi Angel kills Angel's 13-year-old son instead, and a depressed Baruch hides out at Nadav's home.

Nadav gets involved with Irena Kovlova, the brothers' sister, despite being engaged to Orna.

When Gila learns that Nadav is her husband's son from outside the marriage, she sends men to attack him and Orna, and Orna loses her pregnancy.

At a fateful hotel-lobby meeting, Nadav, convinced Yigal is behind it, stabs him in the stomach with a shard of a flowerpot.

Nadav escapes custody to protect Orna, and Baruch saves Yigal's life so Nadav won't face a murder charge.

Yigal flees the hospital and starts eroding trust inside the Asulin clan.

When it emerges that Gila ordered the attack, Baruch "sentences" her to ten years of house arrest and orders Bulldog to kill Ron "The Persian", his best friend.

Nadav opens a hotel as a legitimate front and starts calling himself "Nadav Asulin". At the circumcision of Naomi and Itzik Sasa's son, Baruch wipes out the family's traitors, and Yigal drops a bombshell: he tells Nadav that he, not Baruch, is his real father.

Unsure who his father is, Nadav tries to broker peace between Baruch and Yigal, meeting Yigal behind Baruch's back.

Avi suffers a psychotic breakdown after learning Kuki worked with the police and is committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Nadav, growing colder and more ruthless, eliminates anyone who might expose him, including his uncle Yossi.

Avi's wife Inbal is killed in an attempt on Avi's life, and officer Weiner persuades Orna to record Nadav and testify against him.

Nadav secretly runs a paternity test and the result is clear: his father is Baruch Asulin.

He lures Yigal to a club and kills him, but a rumor that Yigal is the father reaches Baruch.

In the final scene Baruch shoots Nadav outside the club.

With his last strength Nadav calls him "Dad" for the first time and hands him the test results.

Baruch screams as Avi tries to save his brother.

The ending is left open, but Reshef Levi has said that, as far as he is concerned, Nadav dies.

A planned scene of Nadav in a body bag was never shot because HOT hoped for a fifth season.

The series is fiction, but many details draw on Israel's real crime world.

Reshef Levi's uncle, Uri Levi, nicknamed "The Captain", served as an underworld arbitrator until his death in 2015 and once lived in Givat Shmuel.

The town was also known as a stronghold of the Alperon crime family, which also has a sister who became religious.

The hotel-lobby stabbing in Herzliya echoes an incident at the nearby Daniel Hotel, where Dror Alperon was suspected of stabbing Amir Mulner.

Avi's romance with Inbal, the lawyer who represented him in custody, recalls attorney Nurit Buchnik, who married criminal Itzik Hadif.

The Asulins' casino in Prague recalls the Casino Royal linked to the Abutbul family.

Natalie, the patient who speaks only French after a psychotic episode, is based on the case of "Anna O." from Breuer and Freud's Studies on Hysteria.

According to Reshef Levi, the Book of Kings and the stories of King David are the main inspiration for HaBorer, alongside The Godfather.

The fight between Avi, the eldest son, and Nadav, the son from outside the marriage, echoes Isaac and Ishmael and the struggle between Solomon and Adonijah.

When Gila threatens Baruch, she recalls Sarah and Bathsheba.

Baruch himself compares Avi to Absalom, and Nadav compares Baruch's desire for Tali, another man's wife, to the parable of the poor man's lamb.

Although it is a crime drama, family relationships sit at the heart of the show.

Almost the whole Asulin family - Baruch and Gila, Avi with his wife and son, Naomi and young Oz - live together in one villa.

Infidelity runs through most of the characters, and the tension between Baruch and Avi, who wants independence but can't win his father's trust, drives much of the plot.

The Asulins are traditional: Baruch attends morning prayers and is more upset by the shooting in his synagogue than by the threat to his life, Avi kisses mezuzahs, and Naomi has become religious, a religiosity Wikipedia describes as portrayed grotesquely.

None of this stops them breaking "Thou shalt not kill" again and again.

Even hitman Shimi Angel wears tzitzit.

Each episode opens with a short montage of earlier episodes, then a long new scene, and only then the opening credits, and it ends with a teaser for the next episode.

Most episodes end on a cliffhanger, and the season finales are built around them: Baruch floating in the pool, Yigal stabbed, and at the end of season 3 the question of who Nadav's father is.

The first two seasons were produced by Jerusalem Capital Studios (JCS) and the last two by Yanosan Productions.

The show aired on HOT 3 with reruns on HOT Plus, and part of it also aired on Channel 2. In 2016 it moved to yes as well, and in 2019 to Channel 24.

In 2011 the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council fined HOT NIS 100,800 for hidden advertising in season 3, including a gas-station convenience store chain and the Moses burger chain.

In 2010 Fox bought the rights to an American version, which was never made.

In 2014 a Russian version aired under the title "Son for the Father". In 2026 Reshef Levi said he was working on a follow-up series called "HaMamzer".

The series was criticized because most of its criminals are Mizrahi or immigrants from the former Soviet Union, while the normative characters, such as Nadav and Orna, are Ashkenazi.

Reshef Levi rejected this: he said Nadav is the son of either Baruch or Yigal, and that the series asks what shaped him more, his genes or his upbringing.

"This isn't an ethnic series, it's a class series," he said, about people on the margins versus the Israeli bourgeoisie.