Orthodox Jews Making Films

David Gothard's caricature accompanying this story:

This School Makes Film A Kosher Career Choice

(excerpt)

Israel's religious Jews, about 20% of the population, were unrepresented in film and television, despite their growing political power, Mr. Lion said. Their rare depiction was exotic or hostile, noted Moti Shiklar, another founder: "Settlers were always either praying or dancing. They weren't human."...Then, as now, Ma'ale operated in a city-owned circa-1900 stone building near the border between East and West Jerusalem. In cramped quarters, with rudimentary electricity, plumbing and film equipment, no work was done on the Sabbath. Violence, sex and nudity in scripts were taboo. The students, who often came from West Bank settlements, were shaped less by Hollywood than secular Israelis were. "They had an innocence," said Doron Tsabari, a secular filmmaker who taught there, "It's as if they were saying, 'Feed us, feed us.'"

Israel is no Hollywood Babylon, yet cinema challenged the self-segregation of wary Orthodox Jews. Ma'ale's most qualified instructors were secular. So were the actors who played roles in films. And students raised on religious laws soon broke rules, especially in 1998, when Avital Livneh-Levy filmed an exercise with a housewife ironing, completely nude. The school's rabbi ordered her to burn the footage. Half the school's Orthodox staff quit. So did secular staff, when she was suspended and eventually left. Ma'ale almost closed.