Herschkopf’s parents both survived Auschwitz.

Markowitz worked in the historically Jewish garment district.

Herschkopf and Markowitz were introduced by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a pioneering liberal Orthodox leader who built a huge following at Manhattan’s Lincoln Square Synagogue before moving to Israel. Pages could be filled by just listing the Jewish references and resonances in the story.

But the podcast and series also play out in a very specific setting: New York City’s affluent Modern Orthodox Jewish community. “The Shrink Next Door” touches on universal themes, like the fraught nature of mental health treatment, the occasionally fine line between friendship and manipulation, and the question of who in your life you can really trust. Since that time, other patients of Hershkopf have made similar, if less chronic, allegations against him. In 2010, Markowitz realizes what has happened and ends his relationship with Herschkopf, who lost his psychiatric license this year. He insinuates himself into Markowitz’s business and finances. He commandeers Markowitz’s Hamptons house and passes himself off as the owner. He persuades Markowitz to cut off relations with his family and friends. Over the next three decades, according to the podcast and the series, the psychiatrist essentially transforms his patient into his manservant. The real-life Herschkopf took Markowitz on as a patient in 1981. The New York Jewish Week even plays a tangential role: Herschkopf wrote an occasional column for the newspaper for more than a decade. Paul Rudd plays Herschkopf and Will Ferrell plays Markowitz in a story that centers, as that kippah suggests, on a distinct slice of New York City’s religious and philanthropic Jewish community starting in the 1980s. The series is based on a true story that was first told in a popular 2019 podcast of the same name by journalist Joe Nocera. The party, viewers will later find out, is being held at the summer home of Marty Markowitz, a garment district merchant whose life becomes increasingly dominated by his psychiatrist, Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf. (New York Jewish Week via JTA ) - One of the first images of “The Shrink Next Door,” the limited series premiering Friday on Apple TV+, is of a smiling man wearing a huge kippah, chatting at a party in the Hamptons.

Life next door