"The challenge of a filmmaker is to capture life's moments and preserve them in a movie forever, reflecting back to viewers their own lives. Seeing the perspective of another can bring about a change in consciousness and thought, and, subsequently, create a new reality."
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These words are taught at Jerusalem's Malee Film School and its special branch for the ultra-Orthodox. Established seven years ago, it caters to Haredi students ages 18-50 who gather biweekly bringing with them a glimmer of creative defiance as well as strict adherence to halacha (Jewish law).
Twenty-five-year-old Rivka Fertig is a Maale alumna. A curious, talented and opinionated student, already in her first year she directed a film called The Distance to You which tells the story of three Haredi artists who juggle their desire to be creative and follow the laws of Judaism.
In the spring of 2020, Fertig's movie was chosen to be screened at the Opus Festival in Tel Aviv. Another thing that stands out about The Distance to You is the choice of editor, a 25-year-old Muslim woman, Juman Daragmeh, from the Arab neighborhood of Sharafat in Jerusalem. The two were later joined by Julia Mann, also 25 years old, who is a secular filmmaker originally from Baltimore, now living in Tel Aviv.
The three also cooperated on another project, as part of which they placed cameras at central locations in Jerusalem and asked passersby one simple question: "What did you change your mind about recently?"
After only three days of shooting the coronavirus pandemic broke out, bringing the entire film industry to a halt.
Fertig was born in the United States, but her family made aliyah when she was just six months old. She has been living in the ultra-Orthodox city of Beit Shemesh ever since. Growing up, her family had no radio or television in the house. At the age of 9, Fertig's grandmother gave her a video camera as a gift and so began her love of filmmaking.
"I started filming my brothers, and that became my first movie," she told Israel Hayom. "Each video was about four minutes long, one take, without editing. This is how I expressed my creativity.
"When I was 12, I flew with my mom and siblings to visit my grandparents in Baltimore, and I saw my very first movie onboard the flight, it was Hannah Montana. I thought it was amazing. A combination of everything I loved. As a child, I read a lot, and the movies were a combination of story, image and light. A power that can change the world.
"After that, I watched movies in secret, when visiting my grandparents. They are also ultra-Orthodox, but in the States, Haredim are more modern than in Israel, and so they had television. I took every opportunity to go to my grandparents' basement and watch movies."
Nevertheless, falling in love with cinematography was not easy for Fertig.
"It always made me feel conflicted because it is a sin, but I just could not stop. After visiting the States I would stop watching movies, but the next year, during the next visit, I would do it again. I felt guilty, but the experience was incredible and amazing."
Q: What movies did you watch?
"Whatever was available. Whenever there was a kiss scene, I looked away. But what bothered me most about movies is that people did not say a blessing over their food."
After graduating from high school, Fertig went on to study at a religious seminary, which also had film and photography classes, and "all of a sudden I found myself in the world of movies again. I realized that I could be a filmmaker without breaking halacha. I searched for a place to specialize and found Maale.
"During my studies, I struggled thinking that perhaps filmmaking went against the ultra-Orthodox way of life. I directed a film, The Distance to You, about this inner conflict. I filmed various Haredi women who are artists, and I realized that I was not alone."
Towards the end of her studies at Maale, Fertig was accepted to the Jerusalem Film Workshop's program that selects 24 young filmmakers from all over the world to come together in Jerusalem for six weeks and make a film. This is where she met Mann.
Mann was born in Baltimore in a secular Jewish family. She went to a public school and attended college, but dropped out after one month.
"I got bored," she told Israel Hayom. "The rest of the year I spent on a trip to Vietnam and Thailand, which is where I heard from other travelers about a media program at Tel Aviv University, for students abroad. I came to Israel to join the program, it seemed like an adventure, and then someone recommended JWP. 'Another adventure,' I thought to myself.
"I met Rivka on the first day of the program. When I first saw her, I only saw one thing: a long skirt, and assumed she was Haredi. My secular brain just closed off. My interactions with religious people until then consisted of Haredi men refusing to sit next to me on the plane."
But when Mann needed help with filming, she turned to Fertig, "who was the most talented cinematographer in the program." Slowly but surely, the professional collaboration turned into a friendship.
"The way Rivka described her tremendous love for Judaism made me emotional," Mann said.
Fertig: "I was the only religious person in the program, and I wanted to get to know Julia better. I organized a Shabbat meal at her apartment, and slowly the divide between us disappeared. By the end of the program, we became good friends."
Mann: "We accepted each other as is. That is the basis of our friendship. One time we were walking around the central bus station in Jerusalem. People in the street were dressed like Rivka, while I was wearing my classic summer outfit: shorts and a tank top. And when we walked together, some people stared at us. Both Haredi and secular. That is when I realized that there is almost no friendship between the ultra-Orthodox and secular people. It's a shame. Rivka and I have learned so much from each other."
As part of the program, Fertig and Mann came on a tour to the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, during which three students screened their films.
"One of them was exactly like my movie, just with Muslim women," Fertig said.
The movie that made such an impression on her was directed by Daragmeh. Growing up, she studied at a mixed school in Jerusalem that had both Jewish and Muslim students.
"It was a wonderful school, it made me more open-minded," she said. "I speak all three languages – Arabic, Hebrew and English."
Daragmeh finished her high school studies with an emphasis on filmmaking and afterward attended Bezalel Academy and received her bachelor's degree in Screen-Based Arts (Video).
"My film is about a Muslim girl who grew up in a fairly religious environment, and is questioning whether God truly exists. She believes he doesn't but worries that perhaps he does. She is questioning whether the stories she had been told as a child were true, whether she needed to pray five times a day or fast for an entire month [of Ramadan]. In essence, this movie is about me, about my personal doubts regarding God's existence."
After the screening, Fertig knew she had to meet the director.
"Both of our films ask questions but do not provide answers," she said. "Even the visual symbols used in the movies are similar, as are the sites at which we filmed. We shot at the Dead Sea, in the cave near the Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem. All the motifs of freedom, redemption and imprisonment were similar in both movies as well."
Fertig approached Daragmeh to introduce herself.
"Until meeting Juman, I had never met a single Arab person in my life," Fertig said. "I just heard about terrorist attacks and intifadas. When I was little, we even formed a gang with the neighborhood kids, including boys. We planned on fighting the Arabs with silly weapons, like ketchup."
Daragmeh's film and the conversation between the two broke many stigmas.
"We continued to stay in touch," Fertig said. "We spoke on the phone about our films, and back then, I was looking for an editor for my final film project at Maale, and I thought of Juman."
Daragmeh: "I came to Maale, and we sat, conversed, and drank tea. It was a little strange, but pleasant. I didn't really understand that I was in a religious school. It looked like a normal place.
"I saw Rivka's footage and was fascinated by it, by the similarities between our films. I loved her cinematic language and the plot as well. The confusion of the religious and the secular worlds. I felt we were telling the same story.
"We quickly connected. In the beginning, it had more to do with work, but with time, we became good friends. Through Rivka I met Julia and the three of us connected easily."
The idea for all three to work on another together in Jerusalem came from Mann.
"When I lived in New York, I made a similar movie myself," she said. "I asked people in the street to share the story of their first kiss. It was practice for me, my first attempt to make a movie. I realized that people wanted to speak, to share their stories.
"That is when we decided to do something in such a format, to ask a relevant and personal question, nothing political. A political question would divide. Our goal was to make people change, because thinking about it alone can open the person up to the possibility."
Q: Why in Jerusalem?
Fertig: "Jerusalem is a microcosm."
Mann: "People in Jerusalem live with a long and traditional history, and it limits one's thinking. I think filming in another city would not have been as meaningful."
Q: How did people answer the question?
Fertig: "There was one person who said he changed his mind about himself. That he judged himself less. Another person hated sports, but began playing basketball after her friend invited her, and found out, to her surprise, that she enjoyed it. There was a national religious teacher who thought that Islam was a religion of violence, and after a debate in class, he understood that he was wrong, and that Judaism and Islam had many similarities. His interview was filmed at the Machane Yehuda market, and people around him were vexed when he said Islam and Judaism were similar."
Mann: "There was a 75-year-old gentleman who used to think only academic individuals were smart, until he began talking to the sellers at the market and saw how much life wisdom they had, and how much they understood the reality around them."
Q: Have any of you changed your opinion about something during filming?
Mann: "When I first met Rivka I only saw her skirt, I thought she didn't believe in women's rights. When I spoke to her, I saw that the reality was completely different. During filming I also spoke to Haredi men, dressed in black and white, and the very fact that they spoke to me changed my opinion of them. I understood that Haredim were much more open than I had thought. That not all of them hate and despise women."
Daragmeh: "I am still unsure about religion. People said certain sentences during filming that made me contemplate, made me think that perhaps I'm wrong. That perhaps there is a God in the end. It scares me."
Fertig: "I changed my perspective about Arabs and secular people. This process, which began with Juman and Julia, continued. I understood that not all Arabs were out to kill me, and that secular people also have values and are not just interested in physical relationships and money, like we were taught."
Shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic in Israel, in February 2020, Daraghmeh and Fertig's movies were chosen to be screened at the Jerusalem Cinematheque to a group of secular Jews who came from the United States to Israel to learn about Judaism. The program is run by Fertig's father.
The movies sparked a meaningful conversation about religion, diversity, and aceptance.
Q: In your opinion, how are women portrayed in films nowadays?
Fertig: "There is nothing on movie screens that portray the complexity of a Haredi woman. Until the film Fill the Void [by director Rama Burshtein], ultra-Orthodox women were not portrayed in films at all, and even this movie is about Hassidim, who are only part of the Haredi world. Nevertheless, even though movies might not be completely accurate, they do contribute something, and it's been getting better."
Daragmeh: "If Arab women are portrayed, it is mostly in docu-series, and these are grandmothers who talk about their lives. I personally have not seen many Muslim women portrayed in films. As for Fauda, well, it is stereotypical."
Q: What do your families think about your love for filmography? What are their hopes for you?
Daragmeh: "My parents are traditional, but are open-minded. We are four daughters, I am the third one. Actually, my youngest sister has gotten married, while the older ones haven't yet. My parents are not pressuring us at all."
Mann: "My mom doesn't want me to get married. She wants me to be independent, to do as I wish."
For Fertig, the situation is completely different. She has been encouraged to get married ever since she turned 18.
"In shidduchim [religious dating], you need to be marriage-oriented. I can't think this way. After several attempts, I understood that I needed more time to understand who I am. I stopped for half a year, and this week, started dating again. I was set up with a Haredi young man who learns medicine at the Technion [Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa], but he wants to move to the States."
Q: Did you tell him that have an Arab friend?
"Yes, it did not sway him at all. He studies at the Technion, so he too has many Arab friends. My mom, on the other hand, is upset every time I say I have an Arab friend, but I cannot live life without being true to myself."
The coronavirus year has been a challenging one for the trio. The Opus Festival was canceled, and the screening of Fertig's movie was postponed by half a year. Eventually, it was screened at the event held online. But to Fertig's delight, The Distance to You was picked to be screened at several more international film festivals.
Daragmeh and Mann had to self-isolate, one due to coming into contact with a verified virus carried, and the other after returning to Israel from a trip abroad. Mann even got infected with the coronavirus.
"It was tough," she recalled. "Mostly, I was alone. But Rivka was amazing, and so was her mom."
Mann was unable to step out of quarantine.
"Julia does not have Israeli health insurance," Fertig said. "So she could not take a COVID test, and that is why she could not step out of self-isolation. My mom, who used to be a nurse, called everyone she knew and succeeded in helping Julia. She told me, 'This girl will not be left alone.' She treated Julia as her own daughter."
In the days between the lockdowns, the trio completed the shooting of their film. This week, they met to edit it and brainstorm ideas for future projects.
Q: Did you notice any changes in the interviewees after the coronavirus?
Mann: "The project and its format have not changed, but the people's answers, and the people themselves, have. Almost everyone has experienced personal or family-related changes in this time. After the lockdowns and self-isolations, people wanted to be part of a community, and conversations with people in the street are more meaningful now than ever."
Fertig: "I felt that people are more open to changes. Everyone has come to understand that the world can change at any moment. That it doesn't matter where you are, change will happen. That if we don't change, then reality will force us to. For example, a secular woman told me that her car broke down during the pandemic and Haredi people came to help her, and it made her change the way she thought about them."
Mann: "We filmed someone who moved to Jerusalem from Los Angeles. He wanted to move to Israel a long time ago, but every year it got postponed. The pandemic broke out exactly after he arrived, and since then, he has barely left his home. He said the coronavirus has taught him to be patient. And that if there's anything one wants to do - one should do it immediately."
Q: And how did the pandemic change you?
Fertig: "In the first [morbidity] wave, I no longer felt the pressure to succeed, for everything came to a standstill. I had a hard time with the uncertainty, but am back to work now."
Mann: "I am more gentle with myself, I am learning to take things more easily, understand that not everything depends on me."
Daragmeh: "I mostly think of what I can do to make the world a better place, for it is not easy."
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Although the trio preferred to leave politics aside, they did admit that the latest 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip was not easy.
"In one day, everything changed," Fertig said. "My social media feed was full of hatred and death threats to Israelis and Jews, and Juman's feed was full of hatred against Arabs. We were both speechles over all the hatred towards us."
Q: Did it affect your friendship?
Fertig: "In the beginning, each one of us, naturally, stood up for her own. There was even a little bit of animosity there, and it broke our hearts."
Q: And what did you do?
"Talked and talked again. We saw how difficult it was to truly listen and hear the other side, so we talked more. And finally, we saw each other as two human beings again. We understood that this tiny connection between us is important, and that we allowed this hatred and fear to get to us as well.
"In the end, we decided to focus on editing our movie and do another project together to make connections between people. We want to bring across the message that one can disagree with another's opinion, but respect him or her nevertheless."
