CAIRO — A new Egyptian TV series premiered at the beginning of Ramadan — “Harat al-Yahud” (Arabic for "The Jewish Quarter") starring Jordanian actor Iyad Nassar and Egyptian actress Mona Shebli. "The Jewish Quarter" is a Jewish-populated residential area in Cairo, where Jews, Muslims and Christians have been living since 1848.

Before the series aired, Israeli media seemed positive about it. The Times of Israel praised the series in its June 5 article, “'The Jewish Quarter,' a new Egyptian series for Ramadan, shedding a positive light on the Jewish community.”

When the series began showing, the Israeli Embassy in Egypt posted a brief statement in Arabic on its Facebook page, reading, “We have watched the first episodes of 'The Jewish Quarter' and we have noticed that it represents the Jewish people in a humanitarian light, as humans above all else, and the show has our blessing.”

However, the Israeli Embassy’s optimism did not last long. The first statement was followed by another several episodes later: “We felt extremely [disappointed] after watching 'The Jewish Quarter,' which began to take a negative turn, inciting against Israel by using the Jewish humanitarian characters to mask being anti-Israel, depicting the latter as a brutal enemy.”