Jean has recommended the 2016 Israeli film The Woman's Balcony.
Description:
A congregation of moderate orthodox Jews in Jerusalem's Bukharan quarter struggles after part of their synagogue collapses during a service, incapacitating their rabbi and his wife, and traumatizing the congregation. A Rabbi from the Haredi (ultra orthodox) tradition steps in to help them, but the help comes at a price of damaging their relationships and minhagim.
The film is in Hebrew, with English subtitles.
Where to watch:
Available free (with ads) on TubiTV:
https://tubitv.com/movies/601032/the-women-s-balcony
Where to chat:
Discussion 8:00pm on Monday July 17 (2023) at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2272006912 Meeting ID: 227 200 6912
Notes:
The film was a box office hit in Israel despite Israeli critics panning the movie, deriding it as simplistic and trite, with shallow cartoonish characters and relying on old tropes. To the complete surprise and astonishment of the filmmakers the film was a big hit in the United States where it attracted big crowds at Jewish film festivals and American reviewers paradoxically wrote reviews that were the exact opposite of Israeli ones, identifying the perspective as fresh, the problems universal and relatable, and the characters deeply developed.
https://www.jta.org/2017/05/23/ny/the-womens-balcony-lost-and-found-in-translation
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-womens-balcony-review-20170302-story.html
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-womens-balcony-2017
The film was made by a husband-wife pair of filmmakers who wanted to highlight the traditions of their Bukharan Jewish traditions, which many articles describe as Sephardic to distinguish from Ashkenzi but in reality they are neither. These are Persian tradition Jews who emigrated to Israel from Central Asia starting in the 19th century, primarily from cities in what is now Uzbekistan. The film is filmed in the neighborhood where they grew up. It depicts the community still intact but struggling. The filmmakers say that in reality when they returned there was no persian jewish community left at all and the entire neighborhood was now Haredi (ultraorthodox) congregations. Everyone moderate had converted to Haredi or left the area. As such the film reflects on events that lead to a hollowing out of the middle leaving only the sides - uncompromising fundamentalists on one side and secular atheists on the other, with no place left remaining to be accepted for those in the middle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukharan_Jews_in_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukharan_Quarter
https://www.amazon.com/Bukharan-Dynamics-Judaism-Indiana-Sephardi/dp/0253006503
https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Thousand-Fools-God-Musical/dp/025321310X
https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/columnist/334681/why-do-persian-jews-beat-each-other-with-scallions-during-the-passover-seder/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi_Judaism
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/rkST4TLb00
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/haredim-not-arabs-or-iran-are-the-biggest-threat-to-israel-opinion-672968