‘Balcony’ gives insightful view of modern Judaism
Although it takes a gently comic approach, “The Women’s Balcony,” a film directed by Israeli TV veteran Emil Ben-Shimon and newcomer Shlomit Nehama, who also wrote the screenplay, addresses the issue of the treatment of women in a devout Orthodox Jewish community in present-day Jerusalem. The trouble begins with a calamity when the balcony where the women sit in a small synagogue collapses during a bar mitzvah, severely injuring the rabbi’s aged wife and sending the frail rabbi into a mental tailspin. Among the faithful are amiable spice and candy dealer Zion (Igal Naor) and wife Ettie (Evelin Hagoel), a deeply loving, older middle-aged couple, Ettie’s attractive niece Yaffa (Yafit Asulin), whom Ettie is, of course, trying to marry off, and Ettie’s dear friends Tikva (Orna Banai) and Ora (Sharon Elimelech) and their husbands, who frequently sit outside Zion’s shop.
When Rabbi David (the handsome Avraham Aviv Alush), a deeply conservative and unbending young rabbi offers to fill in for ailing Rabbi Menashe (Abraham Celektar) and begins to spread his views, the bonds holding the community together begin to fray. The men respond to the rabbi’s more conservative teachings and in some of the film’s best comic scenes try to get their wives to adopt headscarves for use in public. It’s obvious the women have beautiful hair and enjoy showing it off. Forget it, fellas.
But before you know it, some of the women have decided to adopt Rabbi David’s conservatism. Tikva, whose past was hardly pious, suddenly takes a judgmental view of the way Ettie wears her hair and shows off her still impressive figure, and even questions if she keeps kosher properly.
One of Rabbi David’s Orthodox followers, whose son likes to hang around Zion’s shop, suddenly won’t let the boy do so. Rabbi David wants to re-appropriate money raised by the women to reconstruct the balcony and use it to pay for a new Bible scroll. All sorts of heck threatens to break loose, much of it amusing. Even Ettie and Zion have a falling out, although he continues to send her his fruit salad, which she loves.
Soon the women have threatened to go all Lysistrata on the men if they don’t corral Rabbi David. “The Women’s Balcony” is not a raucous comedy, it’s a gentle satire of religious views, a very serious subject in communities all over the world. Naor and Hagoel are very appealing as Zion and Ettie. Asulin is winning as the lovelorn Yaffa, who meets her soul mate through the new, divisive rabbi. In one eyeopening moment, Zion accuses the boy’s Orthodox father of raising his child “in a bubble.” Does Rabbi David commit forgery? These developments and details about such things as hiring a gentile to flip a breaker switch on the sabbath offer fascinating insight into present-day Judaism and make “The Women’s Balcony” an entirely worthwhile experience.
(“The Women’s Balcony” contains slightly suggestive language.)