Nurit Jacobs-Yinon is an independent filmmaker and owner of Aluma Films, in which she focuses on documentary projects, new media, and video-arts. Nurit’s artistic work has a unique point of view on the Orthodox–feminist–art nexus. In addition to filmmaking, Nurit is an artistic director, judge, and lecturer at various film festivals throughout Israel. She also lectures about art, Judaism, and gender in different settings and is socially active in these areas.
The video-art work “A Tale of a Woman and a Robe” deals with the act of immersion in a ritual bath (mikvah) by women converts. This immersion, signifying the final stage of the conversion process, obligates the woman to immerse in the presence of a beit din (three rabbinic judges) while wearing only a robe. The video-art examines the immersion experience from the woman’s viewpoint, an experience that may simultaneously evoke feelings of both elation and humiliation. The work exposes the woman’s role as being both present at, and absent from, the ceremony and gives expression to an artistic, personal, and public statement.
Q: What led you to decide to make the movie “A Tale of a Woman and a Robe” about women converts and their mikvah experience?
A: Five years ago I received a phone call from a friend who worked at the Prime Minister’s Office, which then included the Ministry of Religious Services (Misrad Hadatot). He told me that he had just seen an announcement (a “tender”) seeking men to take part in a beit din that would bear witness to converts immersing in the mikvah. The men did not have to be rabbis, just Orthodox males. They received compensation for this role. This was how I learned about the phenomenon of women converts having to immerse in the mikvah, while wearing a robe, in front of three men. Until this point, I didn’t really know what a woman convert had to experience in order to become Jewish. This was my entry point into the world of giyur (conversion). I was in shock.
Until five years ago, there was little or no discussion about this element of giyur. That was when I decided to make a documentary on this topic. I met with Hila Karabelnikov, a painter with a unique artistic language, and we decided to put together a joint exhibit that was eventually shown in April 2013 at the Tel Aviv Public Gallery House. Over the following few weeks, more than 2,000 visitors came to the exhibit to see our artistic work. All the Israeli radio and TV channels and newspapers covered the exhibit. It received a lot of attention because it was the first time this topic was being discussed publicly. Suddenly, the idea that a female convert had to immerse in front of a beit din of men entered the consciousness of politicians in the Knesset, rabbis from Beit Hillel, and the general public.
Since the exhibition, I have been lecturing and showing my video-art at various places, including the Knesset, academic venues, cinemas, and batei midrash. I was also honored to share my work at the 2013 JOFA conference. One of the most moving moments for me, was when my video-art was awarded the “free-style” best documentary film award in Israel for 2013. Receiving this prize demonstrated that my work was appreciated for its artistic value, beyond the religious, social, and gender messages it contains.
Q: Tell us about yourself. How do you affiliate Jewishly? When did you decide to make films?
A: I identify as a Modern Orthodox feminist. I grew up in a typical Zionist Orthodox family, and my loving husband and I have four children. My entry into the world of filmmaking was incidental. When I was twenty years old, I heard about Ma’aleh, a religious film school in Jerusalem. At that point, it was still very new. I went to visit and was drawn to it, and I graduated in the sixth graduating class.
Q: Tell us about the Ma’aleh film school
A: Ma’aleh is now about twenty years old. It is a religious film school, although the faculty and student body are not exclusively religious. It was a very radical thing when it started, as film was an unusual field to study in the religious world. Many graduates started out teaching kolnoa (film) in high schools, and in 1996, I started teaching film in the High School (Ulpana) for the Arts in Jerusalem. I went on to become responsible for film study for the national-religious schools network (Hemed) for a couple of years, where I oversaw 80 ulpanot, yeshivot, and religious high schools. The fact that the religious school system included the study of film in its curriculum turned it into a more widely accepted option in the religious Zionist world, and I think a similar phenomenon is happening now in the world of dance. For example, my students in the Pelech Ekron School just made a movie about a woman named Daniella—a religious woman in Israel who dances for men and women. There are many talented religious Jewish artists. Once it was not accepted to pursue performing arts, but now it is becoming more mainstream.
Q: When did you become a religious feminist? Is this your first Jewish feminist film? What were the others?
A: In retrospect, I have always been a religious feminist. For my final project in Ma’aleh, I made movie about Zelda, the Israeli poet. I knew I wanted to make a movie about a woman. It might not have always been expressed as feminist activism, but I knew I wanted to highlight the work and life of Zelda, even when movies about Jewish and Israeli women were less common.
In 2005, I made a movie called “Brit: Women, God and All That’s Between” about religious women and the brit milah experience. I have, of course, made movies on other subjects, but movies about women and feminism are my passion.
This year I started a partnership minyan in Shoham with friends. My films are an expression of my feminist activism, but I still view myself as an artist first.
Q: Tell us about the film’s success. What has been the reaction within Israel? Has it impacted the United States yet?
A: I presented the movie at the 2013 JOFA Conference on a panel with Dr. Jennie Rosenfeld, Dr. Susan Weiss, and Rabbi Shmuel Klitsner, and many people came to see the movie. This was the first time I had shown the movie outside Israel, but I look forward to continuing to the next phase, when I will develop a full-length documentary film on this subject.
I like to joke that the chaluk (robe) is a sixty-year-old “Israeli startup.” Before the chaluk was used, women immersed in the nude in front of the beit din. Sometimes a sheet was put on top of the water. Through my panels, I occasionally hear from individuals that it wasn’t always this way. Also, at the recent JOFA Conference, a woman from Toronto approached me to say that she had converted within the past ten years and immersed without a chaluk. There are still places where women immerse without the robe, and the beit din glances for a second so as not to behave in an immodest manner. In Israel today, women always immerse with the chaluk.
Q: Do you think the situation will change soon and women will be able to immerse in front of women?
A:We published a catalog to accompany the movie that brings together voices of women from different fields, including MK Dr. Aliza Lavie, Emily Bilsky, and Rivka Lubich. One article, by Rabbanit Michal Tikochinsky, argued based on halakhic sources that a woman can be appointed as an emissary of the beit din and watch the convert immerse. Midreshet Lindenbaum now has a program training female dayanot (rabbinic judges), but it will take a few years for these women to complete their training and graduate.
Rabbanit Michal Tikochinsky had written her article before my film came out. However the film brought together voices that discussed the problematic nature of a woman convert immersing in front of a male beit din. Rivka Lubich, a to’enet beit din (rabbinic court pleader) and author, wrote a modern midrash conveying the discomfort a female convert must feel.
I do believe the situation will change, but it will take a while.
Q: What will your next film be about?
A: It will be a documentary about a strong-minded woman from the highest class of Israeli Arabs in the north, a woman of means, fighting for her independence to realize her dream: the first Arab cinemateque in Israel.