:: Movies Plus

Brother vs Brother

Latika Padgaonkar

More than 60 years after the founding of Israel, the enormously complex issue of the separation of state and religion continues to divide the country’s citizenry. Israel’s situation is unique — it is a Jewish state and a democracy. Its Declaration of Independence guarantees freedom of religion, a freedom not always implemented to the satisfaction of secular and non-Orthodox Jews. So serious is the matter that Swiss-based Israeli filmmaker Igaal Nidaam (whose award-winning film Brothers, which showed at the Osian’s-Cinefan Film Festival recently) takes the issue head-on and expresses fears the country will move irretrievably toward civil war if left unresolved. Can a modern state be created with religious laws, his film asks? What comes first — the State or the Torah?

Brothers doesn’t beat about the bush. Indeed, there is an urgent and missionary feel to Nidaam’s film as he marshals and presents the many-sided legal, social, political and theological ramifications surrounding this divisive issue. Two brothers, Dan and Ahron, originally from Argentina, have been separated for over twenty years. Dan has come to Israel, Ahron to the US. Dan’s letters to his younger brother have gone unanswered. And then one day, Ahron foxes Dan by announcing his arrival in Jerusalem. The visit is far from benign. He has come to defend the case of a yeshiva (religious school) in the Supreme Court. The yeshiva seeks to get its students exempted from compulsory military service. As bearers of Judaism and Jewish values, it believes, its students are soldiers of God alone.

The personalities of Dan and Ahron are as different as chalk and cheese and emblematic of the two faces of Israel. Interestingly, both the brothers are engaged in Biblical occupations: Dan the shepherd (or rather a sheep manager), Ahron the rabbi. Dan, a father of two, a once-upon-a-time Communist, now a kibbutznik (even if the kibbutz wears a bourgeois look), a child of the ideological ’60s and ’70s, his family cultured and content, his son in the army, doing his military service; Ahron the orthodox rabbi and brilliant lawyer from New York, a believer in the Torah’s teachings, suave, unmarried and given to frequent prayers. He will not shake hands with women, nor eat fruit before knowing how it was planted. Discomfiture sets in quickly after he arrives. "The abyss between us is deeper than darkness…There is not an ounce of Judaism left in Dan." (Ahron); "Religious guys live off charity. He must have come to collect money for his yeshiva. We are not kosher enough for him." (Dan)

The heart of Jerusalem’s orthodox quarter greets Ahron as a messiah. With him fighting their case, it seems as good as won. But wait. The mighty lawyer has to contend with Shelly Meron, a smart, intelligent, attractive District Attorney made of stern mettle. She will move mountains to rid the country of this discrimination, this blatant evasion of civic duty. Only the secular pay with their blood, she claims, while the orthodox run off and burn the army’s marching orders as an act of faith. They not only dodge the draft, explains Nidaam, they are "parasites" in every way, and an economic burden on the state. They vote, yes, but neither pay taxes nor work, and believe the government and society owe them a living. All in the name of God. The yeshiva (and by extension the students and the rabbi) get subsidies from the government and political parties and their numbers are on the rise. Over 65,000 18-year-olds enter religious schools every year. In the film, the yeshiva rabbi actively prevents his students from enlisting because the draft, he thunders, contradicts Jewish laws and justice. My film, Nidaam explains, only reflects the prevailing situation.

The case proceeds in court, with Ahron freely quoting the scriptures and working slyly around arguments. When you argue in the name of God there nothing left to argue.

But the situation in Israel, which Ahron hasn’t visited for decades, bears little resemblance to the B/W picture he has painted for himself. Its complexity breaks him bit by bit. When the DA thrusts before him a list of fictive names of yeshiva students given to the government by the rabbi’s son, he learns to his horror that it’s a case of open corruption. Ahron may be orthodox but he is at least honest with himself, he knows he stands no chance. His world crumbles, he begins doubting his divine mission, his acceptance of the case. People, he realises, are moderately secular here, not the atheists/extremists he has presumed. So? Should he follow his client or his heart? He resigns.

As Ahron opens up to Israel’s reality, he also softens up to the DA, visiting her at home (unthinkable in an earlier day since orthodox Jews forbid any proximity between unmarried couples) after yeshiva students (now described as hooligans by Ahron) attack and revile her as a witch.

For the rabbi’s son Shmuel, Ahron’s resignation is the last straw — it is pure poison. The story then can have one and only one end. Ahron is stabbed to death by Shmuel and a comrade posing as Arabs in the alleys near the Wailing Wall. He had to, cries Shmuel to his father, he was left with no choice. The yeshiva must live. "A symbolic killing," says Nidaam. "All those who work for peace are martyred: Rabin, Sadat, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi…."

Brothers is an intelligent, sensitive and tightly-knit film built brick by careful brick, never losing sight of its objective. Its fine, convincing performances, crisp editing and restrained emotions tug at the heart. Every scene advances its argument, every shot reinforces its focus. But the story of the two brothers and more widely of the yeshiva contains the seeds of a grand battle. "When people speak of Israel, it is normally in the context of Israel-Palestine relations," says Nidaam. But this other problem is equally grave, if not graver. It is like a bomb ticking away. Nidaam is firmly for the separation of religion and state. "A large section of people, over 30 per cent, are either orthodox/conservative or sympathisers who oppose all moves towards peace with our neighbours. They are against progressive legislation, against the creation of a separate Palestinian state, even against the use of parking lots and lifts on the Sabbath. I have made this film not just for Israel, but for other countries where similar sets of problems are posed." Wrapped in a seductive story, Brothers takes off from real events (the draft dodging case was in court for several years before being thrust at Parliament which, unable to resolve it, shoved it into cold storage) poses the larger issue of religion and governance that incessantly beleaguers many other societies as well.