The Ma\'aleh School for Filmmaking, a religious school in Jerusalem, will make its debut on national television tonight with the screening of three of its films on Channel Two. Neta Ariel, head of the school, expressed satisfaction that \"the good dramas have found their proper place, on Israel\'s main television channel, and the entire country will get to see them.\" The films are \"Newspapers and Flowers,\" \"Eichah,\" and \"Wife of a Kohen.\" The first is a romantic comedy depicting a religious couple \"checking each other\'s level of religiosity,\" Ariel said. \"It\'s become a very popular movie among the young religious public, and the issues are dealt with delicately and with humor.\" The second film deals with a sensitive halakhic [Jewish legal] issue wherein a loving Yiddish-speaking couple may have to divorce. \"This movie had received international acclaim,\" Ariel said, \"and has appeared in 20 film festivals around the world, winning 2nd prize in a German event.\" Finally, \"Eichah\" deals with the daughter of ideological \"settlers\" (residents of Yesha), \"and examines the gaps between parents and children and between religious and secular, as well as what\'s going on in the Yesha towns... It won first prize three weeks ago in a festival in Tel Aviv.\"
Arutz-7\'s Yosef Zalmanson asked the school\'s rabbi, Mordechai Vardi, what value the movies had from a religious standpoint. \"They bring the religious world to the secular public,\" he said. \"They bring about a dialogue that might otherwise not exist between the two worlds, and give it a much more accurate basis - as the religious world is presented with accuracy, more so than in other films... A Ha\'aretz reviewer complained yesterday that the secular public is depicted in a weak, negative manner. I would first of all advise you to see the movies and see if that\'s true, but in general I am pleased that for the first time criticism of this sort comes from that direction and not the other...\"
Rabbi Vardi, who serves as rabbi of the Gush Etzion community of Rosh Tzurim, said that \"Eichah\" is \"the most important movie of the three, in my opinion. It depicts the problems that the \'second generation\' of Yesha settlers must deal with, i.e., where they stand vis-a-vis the ideology and religiosity of their parents. We ran a seminar in Gush Etzion on this topic, using this movie as our basis, and many very important points emerged.\"
Asked about the type of Halakhic guidelines he gives to the young movie producers in Ma\'aleh, Rabbi Vardi said, \"We don\'t have strict rules, because rules can always be detoured, as we saw in the rating system for movies in the U.S.... Instead, we have open discussions, and I believe that this is a much more effective way of ensuring that a Jewish, halakhic atmosphere is maintained in the films. I was aided by the fact that I took some courses in filmmaking here when I took on this position, as I felt that I could not be the rabbi here without an understanding of what the students were doing...\" Rabbi Vardi apparently did well in his studies, and now heads the Scripts Department at Ma\'aleh.
Arutz-7\'s Yosef Zalmanson asked the school\'s rabbi, Mordechai Vardi, what value the movies had from a religious standpoint. \"They bring the religious world to the secular public,\" he said. \"They bring about a dialogue that might otherwise not exist between the two worlds, and give it a much more accurate basis - as the religious world is presented with accuracy, more so than in other films... A Ha\'aretz reviewer complained yesterday that the secular public is depicted in a weak, negative manner. I would first of all advise you to see the movies and see if that\'s true, but in general I am pleased that for the first time criticism of this sort comes from that direction and not the other...\"
Rabbi Vardi, who serves as rabbi of the Gush Etzion community of Rosh Tzurim, said that \"Eichah\" is \"the most important movie of the three, in my opinion. It depicts the problems that the \'second generation\' of Yesha settlers must deal with, i.e., where they stand vis-a-vis the ideology and religiosity of their parents. We ran a seminar in Gush Etzion on this topic, using this movie as our basis, and many very important points emerged.\"
Asked about the type of Halakhic guidelines he gives to the young movie producers in Ma\'aleh, Rabbi Vardi said, \"We don\'t have strict rules, because rules can always be detoured, as we saw in the rating system for movies in the U.S.... Instead, we have open discussions, and I believe that this is a much more effective way of ensuring that a Jewish, halakhic atmosphere is maintained in the films. I was aided by the fact that I took some courses in filmmaking here when I took on this position, as I felt that I could not be the rabbi here without an understanding of what the students were doing...\" Rabbi Vardi apparently did well in his studies, and now heads the Scripts Department at Ma\'aleh.