The Unorthodox, written and directed by Eliran Malka; Hebrew with English subtitles; 92 minutes; to be shown during the San Diego International Jewish Film Festival at 1 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 10 at the Reading Cinemas Town Square, 4665 Clairemont Drive, San Diego, and at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 16, also at the Reading Cinemas Town Square.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Yakov Cohen (Shuli Rand), charges in a rage to his daughter’s school after he learns that she (Or Lumbrozo) has been suspended. When he demands to know the reason for the suspension, he is given several answers, none of them true. It dawns on him that his daughter is being punished because as a Sephardic girl, she is not wanted in an Ashkenazic school, notwithstanding the fact that they are all Torah-observant Jews.
After telling off Mrs. Blumenthal, the principal of the religious school, Cohen, a printer, is the subject of retaliation. A customer who had placed an order with him cancels it, even after the job has already been done. Refusing to pay for it, he says as he leaves, “Regards from Mrs. Blumenthal.”
These incidents trigger Yakov to talk to his Sephardic friends about the need for Sephardic Jews to form their own religious party so that they will not be taken for granted, or ignored, by the Ashkenazim, who look down upon them. Eventually he recruits Yigal (Yoav Levi) and Rabbi Moshe Sharvit (Yakov Cohen; yes the name is a coincidence) to his cause.
At first, no one takes them seriously — not even his sister Yehudit (Shifi Aloni), who has been helping him to raise his daughter ever since his wife died. Gradually, as the movement grows, gaining some hard-won endorsements from important rabbis, members of the Ashkenazic religious party begin to take notice. They are not happy, to say the least.
As the movement develops momentum, there are those in the leadership who want to fight fire with fire – ripping down the other party’s posters, perhaps sending out thugs to deal with their thugs, but Yakov disapproves. When overtures are made to merge the burgeoning Sephardic religious party into the dominant Ashkenazic religious party, again he disapproves. When money is offered from shadowy sources, Yigal is ready to take it, but not Yakov who spurns it as a bribe.
Yakov, you see, is an idealist, wanting to gain a voice for his fellow Sephardim, but unwilling to violate clear Torah commands. A stutterer, he is compared to Moses, who leads his people to the Promised Land, but needs someone more elegant to talk with him. He chooses Rabbi Toledano (Golan Azulai), a political opportunist.
The movie is a fictionalized account of the rise of the Shas party. Along the way, one wonders, is this a Hebraicized version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Will the revolutionaries become just like their former rulers?
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com