In the Israeli film \”My Father My Lord,\” the secular or casually religious Jew encounters a world whose mindset and lifestyle might as well be thousands of miles and centuries away. It is the world of the charedi, or ultra-Orthodox, community, in which every action, every thought, is determined by God\’s law, as elucidated by the sages.
One day, when Leigh Silverman was 15 and the youngest student in a college summer drama program, her teacher pointedly asked her to stay after class.\n\”She said, \’Leigh, you shouldn\’t be an actress; you\’re terrible,\’\” Silverman, now 33, recalled with a laugh. \”I was horrified. But then she said I had good insights about the plays, and that instead of acting I should be her assistant.
The play opens in the south Hebron hills in the West Bank with Tsahi, an off-duty Israel Defense Forces soldier, pointing his gun at Ismail, a Palestinian shepherd. Having just broken up with his settler girlfriend, Tsahi is lost and seeking a way back to the main road. Ismail, waiting for his girlfriend, is the only one who can help Tsahi find his way.
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