• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 8, 2022

A new TV detective character applies his Jewish faith and grasp of Talmudic law to cases he works for the NYPD in Brooklyn.

The 30-something detective -- a native of the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn -- is the lead character in “The Calling,” coming to Peacock this week.

Played by Jeff Wilbusch (photo above), the character of Detective Avraham Avraham is part mystic and part pragmatist as he and a detective partner investigate the disappearance of a 16-year-old Brooklyn boy.

The show is from showrunner David E. Kelley, director Barry Levinson and Israeli author Dror A. Mishani, who has written a series of Avraham Avraham books. “The Calling” is adapted from one of them, “The Missing File.”

Though Detective Avraham is clearly Jewish and steeped in Jewish tradition and scholarship, his origins and his orthodoxy remain sketchy in Episode One, which the TV Blog previewed on Monday.

In one scene, he is seen passionately davining alone on a Brooklyn rooftop wearing a tallis and wrapped in tefillin. 

And yet, in his everyday life as he goes about his work, he wears no yarmulke, although he can sometimes be overheard muttering Hebrew phrases under his breath.

Whether or not his investigative instincts are entirely derived from Jewish scholarship, he has a keen ability to mine the truth from perps and witnesses.

He studies their faces, makes mental notes of their tics and gestures, and in one scene, even holds the hand of the mother of the missing boy.

“The Calling” is a great show. After Episode One was over, I had to watch Episode Two, but regrettably, I got only partway through it before realized I had to write this TV Blog.

The character of the idiosyncratic detective is one we have seen many times in books, movies and television shows, but I do not remember one who bases his investigations, at least in part, on Jewish tradition, principles and laws.

Detective Avraham Avraham is more than welcome to join the pantheon. Shalom.

“The Calling” starts streaming on Thursday (November 10) on Peacock.