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Playwright Graf Opens the ‘Gates’of Jerusalem’s Charedi Community

One might expect that playwright Wendy Graf’s new work, “Behind the Gates,” which brings to light abuse of women she found to be rampant among Jerusalem’s Charedi community, would prompt angry articles, letters to the editor or outraged public protests denying the image that she presents of the ultra-Orthodox. While Graf has fielded some strong objections to airing the dirty laundry in public for fear of inciting anti-Semitism, the truth of what she portrays has not been challenged, and the production has so far not been met with pickets or violent confrontation. “There has been none of that,” said Graf in a recent interview, “and I’m disappointed.”
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June 2, 2010

One might expect that playwright Wendy Graf’s new work, “Behind the Gates,” which brings to light abuse of women she found to be rampant among Jerusalem’s Charedi community, would prompt angry articles, letters to the editor or outraged public protests denying the image that she presents of the ultra-Orthodox. While Graf has fielded some strong objections to airing the dirty laundry in public for fear of inciting anti-Semitism, the truth of what she portrays has not been challenged, and the production has so far not been met with pickets or violent confrontation. “There has been none of that,” said Graf in a recent interview, “and I’m disappointed.”

The story Graf tells begins with a highly charged monologue by an angry young woman named Bethany (Annika Marks) who sports a nose ring and other punk accouterments and who excoriates her upper-middle-class adoptive parents (played by real life couple Keliher Walsh and James Eckhouse) while also talking about scoring good dope. Unable to handle their out-of-control teenager, the parents send her to Israel on a summer educational program. In Jerusalem, she meets an ultra-Orthodox rabbi (Oren Rehany) from the isolated settlement of Mea Shearim who invites her to Shabbat dinner.  Bethany is seduced by what seems to her a beautiful way of life in which women, who must dress modestly, are venerated as wives and mothers.

Graf explained that the young woman in her play is attracted to the Orthodox lifestyle in part because, by dressing modestly, she doesn’t have to meet unattainable standards of beauty.

“She is desperate to have people accept her and not feel disappointment in her. Also, there is what I call the relief of absolutes. This family was out of control. The parents are clearly afraid of her. She wasn’t following the rules, but she was craving rules and structure, and she comes to a society where she’s told what to do. She can turn over everything to people who seem to be completely accepting of her.”

Or so she thinks.

When she disappears, her distraught parents come to Israel and hire a guide (Steven Robert Wollenberg) to help find her. Eventually, they learn that the rabbi arranged a marriage between their 19-year-old daughter and a widower in his late 40s with nine children who beat Bethany on their wedding night because she wasn’t a virgin and then beat her every month when she didn’t become pregnant. There is no help from law enforcement because the community is depicted as having its own rules, enforced by “modesty police.” Ultimately, events hurtle to an emotional conclusion.

Graf said the impetus for this play was her long-anticipated trip to Israel two years ago.  “On the positive side, Israel is so beautiful, and it’s so magical. I was moved to tears.  When the plane came into the airport and I saw the Jewish flag flying, I started crying.”

Israel had informed and influenced much of Graf’s work, and many of her plays have Jewish themes.

The guide on her trip, who became the model for the guide in Graf’s play, would not take her into the neighborhood of Mea Shearim, home to the ultra-Othodox Charedi sect, where, he said, nobody would talk to her, and she would be forbidden to take pictures.  For the playwright, learning about Israel and about Jerusalem was like peeling away the layers of an onion. 

“The Neturei Karta, for example, which is a strain of Charedi Judaism, burn the Israeli flag on Israeli Independence Day. They’re hanging out with Ahmadinejad. They support him. They support enemies of Israel. They don’t believe in the State of Israel. They think that the Jews have sinned, and that’s why they were cast out, and until the next Messiah comes, there is no State of Israel. And the Israelis are very resentful of what they perceive to be the Orthodox influence, especially in Jerusalem.”

There is also the issue of how women are treated by the Charedi men. “Our guide said that one of the big, growing problems was that ‘they beat up their women.’ He explained that they were starting to have really big families, sometimes with 11 or 12 kids, and they were on welfare, accepting money from the State of Israel, in which they do not believe, and the women are starting to work as nursery school teachers or nurses’ aides or whatever. They’re learning about other ways of living, and the other thing is that they’re getting some money, and now it’s a matter of, how are you going to keep ’em down on the farm?”

Graf continued: “Two things are happening. One, they’re seeing a bit of the outside world, and they’re relating to women who are not part of their community, and they’re seeing that there are other options available to them. In addition, women are now coming forward more. Previously, they discouraged women from coming forward, and now they’re building all these shelters for ultra-Orthodox women, who are sometimes going to a shelter with 10 children.”

A 2009 article in the Jerusalem Post reported on a conference about family violence in that city. The conference was run by ATEM Nefesh-Israel, an organization of observant social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and other therapists. According to the report, “Abuse of women, children and the elderly in the religious Jewish community was long denied, on the grounds that observance of the Torah and Talmud prevented it.” Modern Orthodox Rabbi Dr. Benjamin (Benny) Lau is quoted as saying in the keynote address, “If a community gives a legitimacy to violence and abuse, these can happen. There are closets in Charedi society that are still not open.”

In addition to examining issues surrounding the rights of women, Graf said she is exploring unconditional love between parents and children, communication and religious extremism.

“Clearly, from the play, you could tell that I don’t care for religious extremism. But I chose to show why I feel this way, which has to do with the extremists’ silencing of people’s voices, their silencing of free will and individual expression, and that whole me-them philosophy, which is also a metaphor for the Israeli-Arab conflict.”

Graf doesn’t believe that these people are evil; in her eyes, they are just misguided and, because of that, they inflict a lot of damage.

“I didn’t want this to be a bashing of anybody or anything,” she said. “I really wanted to raise questions and let everybody else go across the street when the play was over, have a drink and argue it out themselves.”

“Behind the Gates,” presented by Hatikva Productions in association with the Lee Strasberg Creative Center, Marilyn Monroe Theatre, the Lee Strasberg Creative Center, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 3. $25. Contact: (323) 960-5772 or www.Plays411.com/Gates  Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

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