JERUSALEM -- It has the power struggles, intrigue, love
triangles and plot twists of any soap opera. But in the world's first Hasidic
"telenovella"--as soaps are known in Israel--there are no steamy love
scenes, and dialogue is peppered with "praise the Lord."
The first half-hour episode of "The Rebbe's Court" aired Thursday on
Azure, a new Israeli cable channel focusing on Jewish issues. The show is set
in a community of Hasidic Jews in Tel Aviv and portrays a world normally closed
to outsiders.
Uri Orbach, the channel's program director, said the show's
goal is to entertain, but narrowing Israel's religious-secular divide is a
welcome byproduct.
"You see the ultra-Orthodox as real people," he said.
Many Israelis believe the culture clash between observant and secular Jews is
one of the nation's most pressing problems. Each side feels its way of life is
threatened by the other, and decades of animosity have left the two groups with
little common language.
"The Rebbe's Court" opens to traditional music played to a rock beat.
The main plot centers on Hanoch, the son-in-law of community leader Rabbi
Azriel Rutenberg. Hanoch, who is married to the beautiful Zippora, is expelled
from the community and reluctantly settles in the secular world after being
falsely accused of gambling with the community's funds.
Zippora believes in Hanoch's innocence and resists matchmakers' efforts to find
her a new husband. Meanwhile, her younger sister Ruhi is plotting to snare
Hanoch for herself--and that's just in the first of 26 episodes.
The show also addresses the tensions between secular and religious Jews in
Israel.
A police officer who arrests Hanoch at an illegal gambling club tells him
contemptuously: "You Hasids, you don't serve in the army because you're
too busy studying Torah. But you have time for gambling, huh? Your Torah allows
that?"
Later, a detective demands to be allowed into the rabbi's seminary to
investigate the burning of bus stops carrying immodest advertising and attacks
by ultra-Orthodox Jews on archeologists digging up ancient graves. Both are
real issues in Israel.
Oded Menaster, who plays a young Hasidic man named Gedalia, said the show helps
build bridges.
"It shows that Hasidic Jews are real people and that we all have something
to learn from the other."
Actress Ranana Raz, who plays Zippora, said the soap's steamy story lines are
difficult to portray in the Hasidic setting, where men and women refrain even
from casual touching.
"It is challenging to show desire when you can't do things in the normal
manner," she told Israel TV. "The eyes talk a lot."
Menaster said the limitations make "The Rebbe's Court" more exciting
than a run-of-the-mill soap.
"In a secular soap opera, a character like mine chases a girl, he gets her
and that's it. In our show it's all about subtlety, slowness and respect. I try
to make Zippora be with me, but it's in a very slow and respectful way. There's
always a distance."
Azure--named for a dye sacred in biblical tradition--went on the air five
months ago with $5 million from private investors, including U.S. cosmetics
tycoon Ron Lauder.
Azure broadcasts 18 hours a day, including several hours of original programming.
Only about 5 percent of the 50,000 subscribers are ultra-Orthodox, the
strictest level of observance in Judaism.
Ironically, the subjects of the soap opera, Hasidic Jews, probably won't be
watching: Their rabbis do not allow them to own television sets.