Theater and Jewish Ultra-Orthdox (Haredi) Society - Shall the Two Walk Together?

By Iftach Rave

Six years ago I first met Moshe Kravitz, a Lithuanian Haredi rabbi and clinical social worker, and we have been creating theater together ever since. Moshe founded the "Hineni" ("I Am") Theater Association, and this year, after three independent productions and on the cusp of a fourth production, we were honored to receive official recognition from the Ministry of Culture. This article presented me with the opportunity to try and delve deeper into the question that has accompanied us from the very beginning: How do we even write plays for the Haredi-Lithuanian community, and in particular for yeshiva students?

Photo: Iftach Rave Our goal from the start was to bring to the stage complex and relevant issues from the community itself, explore them in depth, reflect them back to the audience of community members to surface thoughts and emotions allowing meaningful discourse about these issues. We deal with "hot" topics that raise powerful emotions and pointed questions. We've written about the immense pressure put on parents to place their children in reputable educational institutions even if they're not a good fit, and the consequences of these pressures and discrepancies on the young mens' psyche. We've written about young men, raised in the rigid parenting style prevalent in the community, bearing the weight of maintaining and upholding the image of these homes in the community's eyes. We touched upon the challenging social lives of young men entering the "The big yeshiva", where they live in boarding school conditions from age 17. We addressed the experience of loss and mental illness within the family.

Our writing always begins with field research. We interview yeshiva students, therapists, and teenagers who were unable to withstand the pressure of the system and were expelled from it. The stories and real-life cases we heard are integrated into the plots on stage. We asked research questions such as: What happens to a teenager who suddenly discovers that he doesn't have a father to lean on? What happens when the person you've followed in your life's footsteps turns out to be an unhealthy person? Our dramatic style is simple and realistic, with the aim of creating scenes taken from everyday life, and characters who look exactly like them, for an audience that is not used to seeing themselves on stage. Yet, this realism is always accompanied by symbolism and visual images that enhance the theme of the play.

For example, in the play "Open Door," the main character of the boy physically walks around with a huge wooden door, carrying it through the passages between scenes – a visual image of the burden he carries on his shoulders.

Throughout our joint work, we operate with great caution and sensitivity. At first, we did not know how the plays would be received in a society with clear and strict rules and boundaries, but fortunately, they were received with great warmth and with astonished responses, in the face of a medium that this community had hardly ever been exposed to. The plays were deemed "kosher", receiving blessings from some of the most respected yeshiva rabbis, and were met with great response. One moment that I will never forget took place after one of the plays: a respected yeshiva head approached me with tears in his eyes and said to me: "This is something that is so sorely missing here, talking about emotions."

Moshe had a clear line from the beginning: the theater must be at the highest artistic and professional level. He realized early on that yeshiva students, by nature, cannot study in professional settings and acquire these creative tools, and therefore the entire artistic team of the theater, except for him, is not Haredi.

From the play Good House, Photo: Iftach Rave

The writing process itself is a joint effort between Moshe and I. Each of us brings our part to the table. Moshe brings his background, his realm of knowledge, and his professional experience from the fields of education and therapy. I bring the experience in crafting the dramatic structure, the tension, and the plot development, while during the writing and directing process, Moshe is a partner in bringing the fine details, the language, the subtext, and the subtle nuances of the Litvak (Lithuanian-Haredi) world. Ultimately, this work is born together, out of an unending dialogue and hours upon hours of joint conversations and meetings over every scene, line, and word. In addition, dramaturg Yitzhak Laor accompanies us throughout the entire project and in all the productions. Moshe has always been clear about one thing: theater is a tool for him, nothing more and nothing less. He doesn't need it as a source of meaning, because his Haredi world is already full of it. He chose theater because it is the best tool for what he wants to create, and as a playwright and director of plays, I actually find something refreshing in this line of thought. I come to this work with my need for the meaning that theater gives me. He comes with a meaning that he already has.

We manage to speak to this audience precisely because we constantly make a conscious effort to work on the fine line, both regarding the content itself and in the way the theater conducts itself: sensitively and carefully handling fundamental and painful issues without sparing criticism.

Photo: Iftach Rave

We are not here to change the Haredi way of life or to question it – this theater was created for them and from within them, out of complete respect for the system. Within these boundaries and codes of conduct, we are trying to expand the canvas. For example, there are no female characters on stage, even though the plays have been approved to also be performed for women (which is a huge change in itself), and our vision for the future is to establish a women's department in the theater that will produce plays specifically for them, by female creators.

Our various plays have been performed over 200 times, and tens of thousands of yeshiva students, parents, educators, and therapists have seen them.

The cultural encounter created between the actors (who are not Haredi), and the materials, the language, and the audience, is fascinating and surprising every time. Moshe and I always say that we are not here because of our differences, but because of what we have in common.

This commonality can be seen, for example, in the moments following the play: when the actors take off their authentic costumes from Haredi society and put on their civilian clothes, and the young men from the yeshiva refuse to believe how they managed to identify with them so much, and experience the exact same pain. As a writer, creator, and even an actor, I can say that that is exactly where the common ground lies - in emotion, in human pain, and in the most essential place from which we all operate.