Orthodoxed. A Film by and about Berel Solomon

 

With so many books and testimonies around the web about leaving Orthodox Judaism - in its manifolds and various representations, I often complained that more testimonies about Jews returning to their origins is essential for balancing the facts. Being an Orthodox Jew - Hassidisch, Litvisch etc. - has only a way out and no one wants to go it? In my opinion, it is a false premise, as personally I known many more people who are actually returning to faith, a phenomenon very common among people in their 30s and 40s, in Israel and abroad. There are people who mostly grew up with any or a very limited religious education who in the middle of their life, found themselves lost and in need of guidance. They started alone or as a family, by keeping kosher and Shabbes and learn Torah and create religious families. Without relying on serious data, I may assume that this is a phenomenon predominant among Judaism, as my non-Jewish friends I´ve questioned about similar moves among Muslim or Christian denomination are rather unique and are mostly the result of religious conversions, particularly when it comes to young people.

Last night I was finally offered the chance to see a challenge to the predominant narrative about Jews living the fold, as I watched Orthodoxed - available to watch for free on YouTube - by and about Berel Solomon. Berel Solomon grow up in a culturally Jewish family in Toronto, where, according to his own account, they ate pork chops on the Friday evening Shabbes table. He went to Jewish school and Jewish camps but without a proper religious education. Soon, he become part of a dysfunctional group, got involved in drug trafficking and then got into the nigh club business. He had the mind for business and even launched his own reality show. Until the pressure of his ´empty´ life was too heavy as a burden and he collapsed. 

´Looking for the truth´ he first reached to a Breslov Hassid and ended up - where many baal teshuva end - by Chabad. Diplomatically, he does not mention the group too often, although there is a flash-picture of their 7th Rebbe and he prayed to the ohel in NYC. His rhetoric suits very much the usual Chabadnik enthusted by the return to traditional values and I may say that he sounds a bit too aggressive and show-offish for my taste. After all, the return to religion does not happen overnight and no matter how much one would love to come back to traditional values, technically it is impossible as one needs time to go through the long process of understanding the complex rules of kosher and of Shabbes, among others. But there is a lot of enthusiasm for burning up the stages and starting to catch up with the time of ´unkosher´ life. 

Berel Solomon is now training in Jewish business leadership, and has a religious family. His parents were a bit shocked by his choices - although they seemed not so worried as he was a drug dealer and nightclub entertainer - but nevertheless they got used with his beard, and kapota and kippah. 

Despite my reservations towards any kind of loud declarations of faith, I am glad that a film like Orthodoxed exists and despites its imperfections and shortcomings, it offers a different take on being religious and Jewish in the modern world.

 

My Story of An American Pickle

 

Drown for 100 years in a barrel of pickles, Hershel Greenbaum is back to life in a Brooklyn and Williambsburg of hipsters. Among them, Ben, his gran-grand nephew, who is trying unsuccessfully to launch an app for ethnically conscious consumers. Welcome to the world of An American Pickle!

The story in itself has a plot and it resonates probably with many non-religious American Jews. Ben is the ancestor of Jews (religious) who had left their Cossack-threatened communities looking for a better future in the ´goldene medina´ (which was the USA at the time). As Ben, played by Seth Rogen, who also plays Hershel, there are many American Jews who made their Bar Mitzva, know they are Jewish but couldn´t care about it and this is also a choice. The net that connects can be, and often is, wider than the minyan of the synagogue. It can be a cemetery plot, or a pickle. 

The film has a lot of action, hilarious encounters and really really will make you laugh - even if you are not Jewish. But the thing - my thing, actually - is that by the fact of being made by people with probably a very limited - if any - Jewish knowledge, it gets it wrong at least in one respect. 

Hershel, which used to be a religious Jews - at least it is dressed as one, although his daily practice is just supposed and this for those who are expecting him to do so, is coming back to life after 100 years but his behavior is completely ´normal´. He doesn´t care about kosher, not praying, not donning tefillin. He is doing his pickle thing brilliantly, even starts a Twitter-storm with some inappropriate religious comments about another religion. but his character is mostly empty. Ben, on the other side, it looks more ´natural´ and genuine because, it seems reflects the lifestyle of the film producers. 

I will not call An American Pickle a bad or mediocre movie, is just slightly prankish by its inability to create representations of characters as they are, especially based on their historical authenticity. On the other side, the pickle story is really funny and entertaining, beyond the hipster-take. As for the rest of it, I am not impressed at all, but I am happy I´ve finally watched it as it explains how different the identity of Jews living in America can be. 

 

Shavuot Movie Review: The Story of Ruth

I may confess that I have a very hard time watching and relating with old movies, especially those with a historical-religious subject. I often need a long time to figure out the context and cultural representations and appropriations. 

For this Shavuot, I was looking for something interesting to watch and was recommended to have a look at The Story of Ruth, an american production from 1960. It is available for free on YouTube and it lasts a little bit more of two hours.

It is produced by Samuel Engel, featuring as Ruth the Israeli-born Elana Eden. Eden, who studied acting and played at Habima and had her stage debut in Lysistrata, surpassed for this role big names such as Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.

Ruth the Moabite - Moab is supposed to be located in the nowadays area of Jordan - is a priestess in the Temple of the Moabite God Chemosh, that discovers Judaism through Mahlon, a young man she feels in love with. For his courage of exposing idolatry, he will die after trying to escape the forced labour prison he was sent to. A widow, Ruth is starting together with Mahlon´s mother, Naomi, the journey back to Bethlehem. As a Moabite, he is received with disdain by the locals, as the Moabites are considered a cursed people. In the Parashat Ki Tetze it says that there is prohibited to marry a Moabite - or an Ammonite - as they refused to give food and water to the people of Israel while on their journey out of Egypt, plus they hired Baal to curse Israel. 

Back to the movie The Story of Ruth, it follows at certain extent the story from the Meghillah, but I´ve found often the setting and the actors´ play more fit for a play than for the movie. Funnily, I don´t get it why some of the men are summarily dressed, in some very short kind of underwear, including the judge Boaz, while the women were mostly overdressed. As for Ruth, she was super flirty both as a priestess and as a converted Jewess. 

The conclusion is that I am not sure that I haven´t wasted those two hours watching this movie, but maybe I need to delve a bit more into the reception of Ruth by the Christian denominations and eventually watch a recent movie on Ruth and place the representations in a larger multi-religious context. 

The Story of Ruth was not the most exquisite choice for a serious Shavuot discussion but it was eyes-opening. Given that it took me a long time to really understand the deep meaning of the biblical story of Ruth, I suppose I need more time to grasp its cultural reception.

Jewish Movie Review: Disobedience

Based on the novel with the same name by Naomi Alderman, Disobedience is a subtle discourse about the freedom of assuming one´s identity. 

Set in the Orthodox community of Northern London, it explores the triangle Esti-Dovid-Ronit. Ronit is back from NYC to attend the shiva of his father, Rav Krushka, a respected local authority. Estranged from her family and community, she mets again Esti who is married now with Dovid, the logical successor of the Rav. Ronit´s relocation to NYC was caused by the love story between her and Esti that seems that after so many years it is still alive.

Ronit, now a successful photographer, come at terms with her own past, but longed for forgiveness from her father. She is too late though. Esti, a teacher at a girls´ school is playing her role assumed to her in the community, until the meeting with Ronit will wake her up from the life that did not represent her. In a couple of days, this is about to change as she is asking her husband to be free: `I was born in this community. I had no choice. I want my child to decide`.

What will happen after that, how Esti will deal with her newly discovered freedom, if she will follow Ronit or not to NYC are open questions we are left free to guess. What mattered for the story was the main choices of the characters between their appeareances built for the sake of the community and their real selves. 

There are many reasons why I really love this movie: the authentic ambiance of the Jewish Orthodox North London, the natural ways the tensions between the characters and the unfolding story is flowing, the excellent play of the actors, among which Rachel Weisz, as Ronit.

First and foremost I appreciated the quality of a movie who doesn´t want to convince anyone from anything, and just has a story to tell. The fact that it takes place within an observant Jewish community is only the context, what matters is the struggle of the characters and their personal destinies and choices. 

I also recommend reading the book which is a good read too. 

Disobedience the movie is available on Netflix.