Film and discussion. (ISRAEL 2005, 52 min). Film director Shosh Shlam

Date: Wednesday 7 November 2007

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: West London Synagogue

  33 Seymour Place, W1

Price: £10

Renowned journalist and author Eilat Negev has interviewed the director for a write-up in Yediot Akharonot. How does it feel to have been pregnant or nursing for 25 out of 26 years of married life? Many questions are posed openly and directly for the first time ever in this film, and they expose the consequences of the Biblical commandment "Be fruitful and multiply" – the mother of all blessings being carried out by the ultra-orthodox Jewish woman. We are provided with a rare opportunity to enter the ultra-orthodox Jewish woman's world where the centre of her life is pregnancy, childbirth and constant nursing. The documentary film explores how their prescribed role fits in with these women’s other yearnings to determine the course of their lives and their inner world. The film claims that a traditional ultra orthodox patriarchal society dominates its women socially and ideologically, leaving them unable to develop inner freedom and negating their right to critical thought.

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