Vision

Sound

TC

Man singing, men walking around, standing,

Singing

01:00:00

v/o:  The Western Wall - Judaism's holiest shrine.  Now an unholy battleground where Jew fights Jew.

people fighting

FX:  People talking

Interview with Rabbi Bandel

Super:

Rabbi EHUD BANDEL

Liberal Jewish Leader

Rabbi Bandel:  We are now reclaiming what belongs to us - the Western Wall, the Torah, the Bible is ours - it was not given to the Orthodox establishment and we want to be there and we want to have part in it.

01.30

People walking along arm in arm, people fighting, Orthodox Jewish people, people yelling

v/o:  For Rabbi Ehud Bandel and his congregation, a walk to the wall is a march into battle.  They're members of a liberal stream of Judaism known paradoxically, as conservative.

01.55

FX:  People yelling

v/o:  Their presence here on a religious holiday is a direct challenge to the most observant of Jews, the Orthodox who have ruled this place as they have ruled Judaism ever since Israel was created.

02.14

Rabbi Bandel:  People have enough.  You go in the street you feel the anger ...

FX:  People yelling

Interview with Rabbi Bandel,

Rabbi Bandel:  And really afraid what God forbid, the violence, a civil war that will tear these people apart.

02.39

man with arm around,  young girl who is crying

FX:  Woman crying

Dissolve to map, synagogue, wall

v/o:  For years in Israel there was no alternative to orthodoxy, it reigned supreme.  But new immigrants brought new ideas, new streams of Judaism.  Now these people want equal recognition.

02.55

Dominique Schwartz to camera

Super:

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ

Schwartz: On one level then, this is the struggle about the control of Judaism.  In a broader sense, however, it's about much more than that.  It's about what kind of state Israel will be.  Will it be a democracy or a theocracy?

03.07

Cityscape, man, walking down steps

Music

03.24

walking through city, up steps

v/o:  Zvi Arie Ingbar was once a New York businessman.  Now he's a rabbi running a yeshiva, a study centre, in the Old City of Jerusalem. Rabbi Ingbar is part of the haredim - ultra Orthodox Jews who devote their lives to strict observance and study of the Jewish Scriptures, the Torah.

Men in black hats speaking to each other, interview with Rabbi Ingbar

Ingbar:  It's an issue of the Torah versus a democratic society that's what it comes down to.  It's a Torah versus a pluralistic society.

04.16

Many men in room, Ingbar speaking, men studying or praying

v/o:  Rabbi Ingbar has nothing against democracy - but he believes on some things you can't compromise.  Like the Torah, and the commandments.  He says life should adapt to the Scriptures not the other way around.

04.31

Interview with Rabbi Ingbar

Ingbar:  On one hand I'm saying to you that the Torah is not these chest-beating fist-pumping fundamentalists.  That's not what we are.  On the other hand I am telling you clearly there are certain areas which we can't compromise and we won't compromise.

04.46

Schwartz:  So what happens when you compromise on the Torah?

Ingbar:  On the Torah?  (pause)  What can I tell you?  Pull the plug on the universe?

Young people dancing, beach scenes, people talking, eating, walking,

Music

05.12

sun bathing

v/o:  In Tel Aviv however, the universe is quite a different place. 

Music cont

v/o:  It's everything the Holy City is not - where sun-worshipping is as close to religion as many people ever get.

Music cont

Key in ignition, car driving off, Rabbi Meir Azari driving car

v/o:  While the ultra-Orthodox wouldn't switch on a light - let alone drive a car - on the holy day of rest, here no one gives it a second thought.  Not even some of the rabbis.

05.58

Azari:  I'm trying to appeal to those who want to live in the Jewish world by at the same time in the modernity.  And I see it's a good way of living. 

Interview with Rabbi Azari

Super:

RABBI MEIR AZARI

Liberal Rabbi

Those who like to stay in the old ghetto, fine, but who are those people to tell me whether I'm right or wrong according to what they did,  according to what they did - they did wrong, because most of the Jews left them.  So simple.

06.24

Rabbi singing, people singing

Singing

06.41

congregation in synagogue, Rabbi speaking, congregation listening

v/o:  Rabbi Meir Azari leads the largest community of Reform Jews in Israel.  Here, they're a relatively new and small group but in the U.S. together with other liberal Jews, they constitute the majority.

Despite this, Reform rabbis are not recognised as kosher by either Israel's Jewish authorities or the government.

Azari:  There are hundreds and thousands of people that demand their religious services from reform rabbis but we cannot give them that.  I cannot lead a funeral, a wedding, a conversion. 

Interview with Rabbi Azari

In the eyes of the Orthodox community and in the eyes of the state of Israel, my state, I am nothing.  I am not a rabbi, it's ridiculous.

07.40

Wedding, Rabbi speaking, bride and groom, participants

Singing

07.47

v/o:  It looks like a wedding, it was a wedding. 

Singing

v/o:  But this did not constitute a legal marriage for Carmen and Uri.  They had a rabbi but he was the wrong type - Reform.

Singing

v/o:  Only weddings officiated by the Orthodox are recognised by the state.

Photographs in book, people looking at photos,

Schwartz:  So this wedding was not recognised?

08.21

photos

Carmen:  No.

Schwartz:  So what did you do to have a recognised wedding?

Carmen:  We went to Cypress.

v/o:  Civil weddings are not allowed in Israel.  So Jewish couples must be married by an Orthodox rabbi or leave the country to do the paperwork.  The marital trade in Cyprus is booming.

Interview with Rabbi Azari

Azari:  It's ridiculous, it's ridiculous that our members, Jews, when they want to get married, the clerk sitting in Cyprus, in Salonica ... in the morning, he's a fisherman and during the evening he's a Mayor of a small village he's better than me to issue them a marriage certificate.

08.41

Israeli flag, Schwartz walking towards camera speaking

Schwartz:  What's most ridiculous according to liberal activists, is that the real power of the Orthodox lies not in the synagogues but lies here in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.  

09.09

In the  turbulent world of coalition politics, the religious parties have long held the balance of power - governments of both the left and the right.  That means that although the Orthodox represent only about one-fifty of the population, their political clout far outweighs their numbers.

Two men talking parliament house

FX  Man speaking

09.39

ministers milling around, sitting

v/o:  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a no confidence vote - with confidence.  He would not be in power without the support of the religious parties.  And with his government's razor thin majority he can not afford to get them off side.

They've made it perfectly clear they will withdraw their support if he gives too much ground to secular and liberal Jews.

Interview with Rabbi Ravitz

Super:

Rabbi AVRAHAN RAVITZ

Ultra Orthodox Politician

Ravitz:  I don't say we're better than others, but we have a message, we have a goal and we have to do what God told us.

10.13

Rabbi Avraham in meeting

v/o:  Rabbi Avraham Ravitz is the leader of one of the ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel's ruling coalition.  He also heads the parliament's powerful finance committee.  He claims that any watering down of Orthodox authority would jeopardise not only the Jewish faith but the Jewish people.

10.26

Interview with Rabbi Avraham

Ravitz:  It's laws that we have from the bible and we are not authorised to change the bible like we're not authorised to change our identity of being Jewish. 

10.46

Interview with Avraham Burg

Burg:  The total mixture of religion and politics corrupted both systems.

10.57

Burg at table with family, in meeting with group of people

Burg:  Democracy is like sex - when it's good it's very good, when it's bad, it's also good.

11.02

Avraham Burg is head of the Jewish Agency which has helped Jews from many different cultures and backgrounds immigrate to Israel.

Burg:  ... and the struggle in Israel in the coming 50 years is going to be the struggle over these issues.  If I have to isolate one of them and say this is the most crucial one, the most energetic, the most problematic one, the most threatening one, I would say church and state.

v/o:  An Orthodox Jew himself, he believes the state must accommodate all streams of Judaism if the faith is to survive.

Interview with Avraham Burg, speaking to group of people

Burg:  ... And I'll say something very clear to all my Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox friends, with no democracy there is no Israel.  And this actually is the challenge, how to modernise and reform the traditional Jewish messages and to make them relevant to the individual moderate Jew.

11.39

Women walking along, man

Music

11.56

waiting, bus, kids, traffic woman with child

v/o:  The battle to shape Israel's identity is not being fought only by power brokers in the big cities.  But by ordinary people in ordinary towns like Pardas Hanna.

Music

v/o:  When Liora Dahan moved into this new neighbourhood in July she thought she'd found a piece of paradise.

Orthodox Jews in a meeting, woman

FX:  Man speaking

12.37

wheeling child on small tricycle

v/o:  When her neighbours shifted in a short time later, they thought so too.  Unfortunately for everyone, paradise is a very subjective thing.

Interview with Rabbi Bublil

Bublil:  They walk half naked, they walk with cleavage in front of people who need to observe modesty.  They went out so they'd see them, they went out to provoke.

12.57

Interview with Liora, child swinging, women

Schwartz:  Are you being provocative do you think?

13.14

sitting, Liora interview

Liora:  No.  This is the life that I live.

v/o:  Liora and her secular neighbours believe the provocation comes from ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Rafael Bublil and his followers.

Liora:  They want us to behave as they think we have to behave and to believe in what they believe. 

Interview with Karel with short hair

Karel:  I don't have anything against religious people but when someone is coming to my neighbourhood and telling me how to dress up I don't think it's fair.

13.39

Yard, signage, kids in classroom, walking along street

v/o:  It began as a war of words - ultra-Orthodox signs calling for modest dress and religious development versus secular signs to do as you please.

13.50

FX:  Man speaking

v/o:  Then the ultra Orthodox classrooms appeared on vacant public land.  Next came the alleged attacks.

Interview with Rabbi Bublil, interview with Karel, interview with Liora

Bublil:  They went in to the school in the middle of the night and threw three Molotov cocktails.

14.13

Karel:  We didn't do it.  We didn't do it.  Of course he will say we did it.

Liora:  Because we heard music and we had a little party he broke the stereo, just broke it - came to my house inside and broke it.

Interview with Rabbi Bublil

Bublil:  The people left the synagogue and told them it was disturbing them and asked them to turn it down.  An argument broke out and during the argument what happened happened.

14.41

Orthodox Jews praying in

Chanting

14.51

synagogue

v/o:  Now the secular have won court rulings saying the Orthodox should vacate the synagogue and move the classrooms.  But Rabbi Bublil claims he has the support of the national religious parties and that he's here to stay.

Chanting and singing

Interview with Rabbi Bublil

Bublil:  If they try to close even one institution here we'll open ten more.  We'll continue in Pardes Hanna, we'll continue all the way.  How?  God will decide.

15.19

Crowd clapping, Rabbi Azari speaking at microphone

v/o:  In Israel the pressure for change is mounting.

15.37

Azari yelling:  It's the time, in the name of Judaism and for the good of Judaism to say NO to religious coercion.

v/o:  A rally in Tel Aviv called to protest against religious coercion attracted thousands.  At stake, many believe, much more than just religious freedom.

Interview with Rabbi Azari

Azari:  So the issue is not rights of reform rabbis or conservative rabbis or secular against Orthodox, the fight today is:  Would we have peach here?  What would be the shape of the state of Israel?  How a Jew can live in a modern country touching his neighbours.

16.12

Crowd watching huge screen Burg speaking at

Burg yelling over loudspeaker

16.33

microphone

v/o:  Without a separation between religion and state, Avraham Burg fears the worst.

Interview with Avraham Burg

Burg:  Bloodshed, civil war, divisiveness.  Look when I look at the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin for me it was not just a simple political assassination on the background of the peace process.

16.45

Yigal Amir, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin did it out of religious conviction, he did it from his religious point of view.  And he analysed and accepted Yitzhak Rabin as the embodiment of the Zionist secularism in Israel. 

So for me Yitzhak Rabin was not just a victim of the peach process he was a victim of the church and state combat.

Synagogue at night people around fire

Music

17.22

watching fire

v/o:  Across the roof tops of Old Jerusalem, Jews are celebrating Lag Ba'omer - a festival about light and enlightenment.  For ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Ingbar, it's what Judaism is all about.

Ingbar:  It's all about light, the world's about light, the Torah is light. 

Interview with Rabbi Ingbar

We are about light.  We're about bringing light into the world.

17.53

Orthodox men walking along, fire raging, kids and people watching

v/o:  But the sparks which fly across this, the heart of Judaism, could just as easily start a wildfire, as cast an illuminating glow.

17.58

In many ways, ultra-Orthodox and liberal Jews are fighting for the same thing - survival of their faith in the modern age.  Hopefully they won't have to destroy each other to achieve it.

Focus on fire

Music

Ends 18.34