The Audacity of Holiness Orthodox Jewish Women’S Theater עַ זּוּת שֶׁ Israelבִּ קְ Inדוּשָׁ ה

ׁׁ ְִֶַָּּּהבשות שעזּ Reina Rutlinger-Reiner The Audacity of Holiness Orthodox Jewish Women’s Theater ַעזּּו ֶׁת ש in Israelִּבְקּדו ָׁשה Translated by Jeffrey M. Green Cover photography: Avigail Reiner Book design: Bethany Wolfe Published with the support of: Dr. Phyllis Hammer The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA Talpiot Academic College, Holon, Israel 2014 Contents Introduction 7 Chapter One: The Uniqueness of the Phenomenon 12 The Complexity of Orthodox Jewish Society in Israel 16 Chapter Two: General Survey of the Theater Groups 21 Theater among ultra-Orthodox Women 22 Born-again1 Actresses and Directors in Ultra-Orthodox Society 26 Theater Groups of National-Religious Women 31 The Settlements: The Forge of Orthodox Women’s Theater 38 Orthodox Women’s Theater Groups in the Cities 73 Orthodox Men’s Theater 79 Summary: “Is there such a thing as Orthodox women’s theater?” 80 Chapter Three: “The Right Hand Draws in, the Left Hand Pushes Away”: The Involvement of Rabbis in the Theater 84 Is Innovation Desirable According to the Torah? 84 Judaism and the Theater–a Fertile Stage in the Culture War 87 The Goal: Creation of a Theater “of Our Own” 88 Differences of Opinion 91 Asking the Rabbi: The Women’s Demand for Rabbinical Involvement 94 “Engaged Theater” or “Emasculated Theater”? 96 Developments in the Relations Between the Rabbis and the Artists 98 1 I use this term, which is laden with Christian connotations, with some trepidation. Here it refers to a large and varied group of people who were not brought up as Orthodox Jews but adopted Orthodoxy, often with great intensity, later in life. The Hebrew term for formerly secular Jews who have adopted Jewish observance is hozrim biteshuva, which means “those who return in penitence.” 3 Chapter Four: The Nekuda Yehudit [Jewish Point] Group 101 Dina Shohat 102 Daniella Dvash 109 Development of the Nekuda Yehudit [Jewish Point] Group 111 Characteristics of the Group 113 The Goal: “To Make Contact with this Side of the Women, with the Motivating Force” 116 Theatrical Techniques 118 The Modular Play: Bina yetera [Excess Wisdom] 121 The Stories 122 The Most Professional Play and Its Silencing: Hakhnasat kala [Bringing in the Bride] 123 The Problem of Reception 124 Summary 126 Chapter Five: Emunah Teachers’ College 130 The Emunah Teachers’ College and the Background for the Opening of a Theater Department 131 The Theater Department Is a Different One—“Radioactive” (“Hagai Boker,” the Director of the College) 132 The Ideology of the Planners of the Department 135 Crises 140 “Ruth”—Masterpiece or Failure? 142 Bi’ur hametz [Burning the Unleavened Bread]: Is This What We Prayed For? 150 Hashaul [The Borrowed One]—“A Classical Example of Mixture of Ideology and Desires?” 180 Dima’t hashoshan [The Tears of the Lily] 191 Emunah College: Summary 217 Chapter Six: TheDosiot 2 Group 221 The Establishment of the Group—a Corrective Experience 223 2 The Hebrew name of the group, Dosiot, is amusingly ironic, the mildly pejorative slang term for Orthodox women. 4 The Religious Outlook of the Group Members 228 The Way of Working 230 The Unique Content and Theatrical Language 231 The First Play: Bat-mitsva: halom veshivro [Bat-Mitzvah Celebration: “A Good Connection to Break and Return”] 234 Al tagidu mayim mayim [Don’t Say, “Water Water”] 256 Conclusion: The Dosiot Group as a Test Case for the Creation of Orthodox Women’s Theater in Israel 285 Conclusion 289 Jewish Women’s Theater in Israel–Is It Really Subversive? 289 The Rabbis’ Role in the Teatron Hamishmar “Preservatory Theater” 291 The Feminist Character of Orthodox Women’s Theater 292 The Development of the Genre of the Orthodox Community 294 Conclusion 297 Epilogue 302 Bibliography 306 Index 315 5 God created a pure heart for me. Let me create, O God, in purity. Enable me to create from sanctity. You, who create worlds and produce them And I, who was created in Your image, draw the power of creation from You. Everyone has been given the tools with which she can Discover divinity in the world, and You have given me the power of imagination, The need to act, and the ability to encounter a character. My soul summons me to create, to discover, to express, to transmit The holy with my words and my body. Enable me, O God, to bring this sanctity From potential to actual. Make me a vessel in your service. And may it be Your will that I will not stumble, will not fail, and will not be swayed by with pride, For everything is Yours, and everything comes from You. Amen. Yael Schechter, “Prayer before Appearing on Stage,” Teatron Mahut [The Essence Theater], 1997 6 Introduction I did not come as an outsider to Orthodox Jewish women’s theater.3 I chose this topic because of a personal affinity, because I am an Orthodox woman and educator who teaches theater and produces plays in educational frameworks. The complexity of this research topic–Orthodox women’s theater in Israel–was influenced by my own multiple and complex identities, and by my fields of interest. I found myself doing research in various disciplines: theater, feminism, anthropology and sociology, each one of which contributed insights and research methods of its own. The research into Orthodox women’s theater, upon which this book is based, took longer than four years.4 It was a fascinating opportunity to link my biography with my research. I became a natural partner in conversation for the artists, a kind of indirect partner in their original creation, and they allowed me to get to know them personally. Our friendly relationship included conversations during which I was asked to express my opinion about their plays, and sometimes even to suggest improvements. Occasionally I even helped them set up the chairs and benches in the auditorium where the play was going to be put on and to carry props and scenery. This intimacy and involvement made me and my responses part of the research, and they also influenced my interpretation of the findings, my understanding of the phenomenon, and the changes that are taking place today among Orthodox women in Israel. 3 Throughout this book I will be discussing Orthodox Jewish women, not the Muslim or Christian women of Israel. To avoid repeated and cumbersome use of the adjective “Jewish,” I have omitted it below, but obviously with no intention of slighting women of other religious faiths. 4 The intense research was begun in 1998. While preparing the material for presentation in a book, I brought details up to date and added information about activity in the field until 2006. 7 The relations that grew with the subjects of the research were close and egalitarian, contrary to the “naturally” hierarchical relations commonly found in academic investigations, between the researcher, who possesses authority and knowledge, and the subjects, who provide information. In this study, the women artists, the educators, and the rabbis cooperated actively with me, consciously or unconsciously, in gathering the material. Sometimes they also agreed to read chapters of the study and to express opinions about the interpretation that I gave to the plays and to their theatrical work. By expressing criticism of passages that I wrote, they in fact also participated actively in the stage of analyzing the findings. The research enabled me to meet adult women who had no education or rich experience in theater, not even amateur theater, but nevertheless–and perhaps for that very reason–they decided to create a theater of their own, original and sometimes daring, that expresses their experience as Orthodox women. While I was gathering the material from interactions with the subjects of the study, I felt that I was observing myself and the reasons that led me to be the kind of anthropological “witness” known in the literature as a “participant observer,” and not one of the initiators of the process, despite my eagerness to act and direct. I am sure that there is something to the claim made among anthropologists, according to which “every version of the Other is also a construction of the Self.” This closeness revealed another stratum of information to me, the stratum that researchers call “romantic” or “intimate,” without which this study would certainly have had a different character. I also saw plays presented by ultra-Orthodox women for their own community, but the book is mainly concerned with the theatrical activity within the narrow and dynamic sector of Orthodox Zionism, on the axis between Modern Orthodoxy and the relatively new ultra-Orthodox-nationalist sector, which is sometimes influenced by elements from the adjacent societies: 8 Hasidism, the born-again, and the New Age. I determined the women’s appropriateness to the field of research according to criteria such as: Orthodox observance of the Sabbath, the type of education that the women give or intend to give to their children, and their commitment to the State of Israel–meaning, whether they or members of their close family did national service or served in the army. During the research it became clear to me that the plays were not only a means for examining a new pattern of culture, which was created among Orthodox women in Israel, but also the processes of change that have been taking place in that culture during past few years, and its contacts with the adjacent cultures. I owe a debt of gratitude to these women and also to the rabbis and educators who agreed to devote time to me and be interviewed, sometimes more than once. I have not mentioned them all by their real names, sometimes according to their request, sometimes for reasons of my own.

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