Film: Romeo and Juliet In Yiddish

A new feature film retells William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet” – in Yiddish.

 

"Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish" Makes Big Screen Debut
By Jon Kalish • WNYC

A new feature film retells William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet.” In Yiddish.

Aptly titled “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish,” it's been screened for enthusiastic audiences in London and Berlin, where it won the audience favorite award at the Berlin Jewish Film Festival.

On Sunday, January 16, the movie has its U.S. debut at Lincoln Center as part of the New York Jewish Film Festival. The film stars first-time actors who left their close-knit Chasidic communities in Brooklyn.

It began in 2006 when director Eve Annenberg stumbled upon Chulent, a weekly gathering of edgy Orthodox and formerly Orthodox Jews. Annenberg, a secular Jew who lives in Manhattan, was very much taken with the Chasidic garb, which struck her as Shakespearean, and the sound of people speaking in Yiddish, the language of her grandparents.

“Hearing Yiddish spoken natively by very young people — it's absolutely exhilirating,” Annenberg said. “It doesn't matter if you don't speak Yiddish. I don't speak Yiddish.

The director got a group of young men who left the Satmar community in Williamsburg to translate Shakespeare's play into Yiddish, which took a year. Over the course of that time, Annenberg was greatly entertained by the stories of two of the dropouts, who lived in a van and engaged in such “youthful hijinx” as marijuana smuggling, credit card fraud and fabricating lost baggage claims at airports.

“It was really cinematic, funny stuff,” Annenberg said. “And I thought, 'Wow! We can use all this. This is great. Let's share this. Let's put it up on the screen. Let's tell it now.'”

Mendy Zafir was about 17 when he left Satmar. He has a face that's been described as angelic. Today, Zafir is 26 and runs a marketing business in Boro Park that serves the Orthodox community. He still remembers those first weeks and months away from Satmar without any marketable skills, unable to speak English.

“I once slept on the subway for a month with a friend of mine, and I use to sleep in a van with Lazer,” he said of his friend Lazer Weiss, who also stars in the film.

Those days living in a van are recreated in the film.

In one scene they are lying down on makeshift beds in the van when a call comes in. Would they like to work on a translation of “Romeo and Juliet” into Yiddish?

Weiss asks if the woman who they would work for has food, chocolate or weed.

Isaac Schonfeld, who coordinates the Chulent gatherings, said the young actors in the film who left the religious life are traveling down an arduous path.

“You're leaving community, you're leaving family, you're leaving friends, you're leaving ritual, you're leaving comfort,” he said at one of the late night Chulent parties. “I mean, if you want to make someone insane right quick, take away all those things.”

The young men and women in the film grew up in chasidic households with no TV. They never went to the movies until they left home. Despite their deprivation of the pop culture staples, a couple of them show real promise as actors, according to Eve Shapiro, an acting teacher at Julliard who coached them. She was charmed by Weiss and Zafir, who play Romeo and Benvolio, respectively.

“They have charisma and that's something you cannot teach. You either have it or you don't,” said Shapiro, who trained British actors Alan Rickman and Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

In Annenberg's cinematic retelling of “Romeo and Juliet,” the warring Montague and Capulet clans bear a distinct resemblance to the Satmar and Lubavitch Chasidic sects, the character of Friar Lawrence has been transformed into Rabbi Lawrence and Juliet's famous “Wherefore art thou?” soliloguy is delivered from a Brooklyn fire escape.

There's a brief bit of nudity in a scene in which Romeo and Juliet are seen through gauzy fabric romping in bed. Such material would be problematic for observants Jews, who observe tznius, or sexual modesty. A post on an Orthodox Jewish woman's Web site, imamother.com, referred to the movie as a chillul ha shem, a desecration of God's name. Actor Lazer Weiss, who plays Romeo, bristles at such talk.

“This is not a chillul ha shem. This is something beautiful,” Weiss said. “And if you don't get it, call me up and discuss it with me. But chillul ha shem doesn't make any sense because it's not even close to what we trying to do here.

Malky Weiss, who plays Juliet and grew up in a Satmar family in Boro Park, has six sisters and at least one will see the film at Lincoln Center.

“One sister for sure and another sister might come see it,” Weiss said. “I don't want anyone else to come see it. They would just get angry and not really get the movie.

Weis fell in love with Lazer Weiss, the actor who plays Romeo, during the making of the film. They're now living together in the so-called hipster section of Williamsburg and working on a screenplay of their own. It's a comedy about the clash of hipsters and Chasidim in their neighborhood.

Director Eve Annenberg hopes to film another Shakespearean classic in Yiddish this summer.

Comments

[Menachem Mendel lll]

RE: CHILLUL HA SHEM.
Source: an Orthodox Jewish woman's Web site

Perhaps these Ha Shem fearing Jewesses would prefer that the groundbreaking Yiddish performance of Romeo and Juliet be called Kurveh and Yentzer.

It never fails that sooner or later a frum zoynah will up open her filthy mouth or legs at the most inopportune times and ruin try ruin it for the rest of us "emes" yidden.

I should be uses to it by now but oy a broch tzu mir...I'm not.

[danny]

I wonder who will be representing the Montagues and Capulets:

Zalmanistin vs. Aaronistin
Neteuri Karta vs. Dati Leumi
Syrian vs. Litvak Tropper Convert

Please add your own...

[danny]

What a brilliant idea to utilize native Yiddish speakers from the OTD community. Reminds me a lot of a movie like "City of G-D" which utilized actors from the Favellas of Rio De Janero.

I'm actually very interested in seeing this film!

[esther]

romance between a satmar and lubavitch being considered impossible? it's difficult to happen, but not impossible. not to the point of causing the death of the lovers (as juliet and romeo die in the play).

lets get some more creative, people.

if you want an impossible love, as dramatic as romeo and juliet, make a movie about the love of a convert and a cohen ... that would be real, big drama.

[JC]

*engaged in such “youthful hijinx” as marijuana smuggling, credit card fraud and fabricating lost baggage claims at airports*

True haredim. I don't quite get the timeline here, these actions imply that they are in their haredi lifestyle but the text implies that they did this after they left their lifestyle. What gives?

It is also interesting that "youthful hijinx" was the excuse given for credit card fraud. Such activities usually would merit a posting here as haredi criminal behavior so I was offended at the cavalier tone describing the criminal activities performed. Obviously Annenberg was not the victim of the fraud for if she were her tone would be completely different. I found it n poor taste that she was entertained hearing of the crimes committed by these miscreants.

That being said, if it makes haredim look bad then I guess the end justifies the means so I will leave it at that.

[Bfeirush in Fartscroll]

If this is what I think it is, a love story involving (gasp) heteroheebs, then the chareidim will have no interest. Make a movie about a rebbe dragging a five year old to the basement for a good old fashioned assfucking or about tatty shtupping his daughter and you'll sell out the Garden with all of Willy B and Crown Heights there.

[Trailer here]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ERyTmaGl4

[Yoel Mechanic]

Esther: excellent idea. although I am uncomfortable making it something that is *halachically* impossible. maybe a compromise can be reached.

[Adam Neira]

It is not my favourite Shakespeare play but this production is a good thing. Classics exist in many genres and cultures. A little cross pollination is healthy.

[Ocr]

Is the actress anywhere near as hot as Olivia hussey was at 17 in the zefferelli film?

[Garnel Ironheart]

> The director got a group of young men who left the Satmar community in Williamsburg to translate Shakespeare's play into Yiddish, which took a year.

What a waste of time. The synagogue I grew up in had a "Collected Works of Shakespeare" in Yiddish. Why did they re-invent the wheel?

[Forty Eighter]

From what I hear the film is a mumble of shlocky writing, halting dialogue, jittery editing, topped of by the most clumsy nude scene you have ever seen.

Malky, I know that the reason you left the fold was because you felt that your exquisite body was meant to be displayed in all its granduer for all to see. But I think you jumped to fast at an opportunity to uncloth. You might have waited for a better opportunity to come along. Have you sent your stills to Playboy yet?

[PrettyBoyFloyd]

A very poor excuse of a movie, a real Shande and an embarrassment to Shakespeare.

"Despite their deprivation of the pop culture staples, a couple of them show real promise as actors," hahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahaha!! In a Purim Shpiel by the Rebbes Tisch, maybe.

[steve]

credit card fraud and fabricating lost baggage claims at airports.

They haven't really left the fold after all.

[evanstonjew]

It reminds of the great Yiddish actor Boris Tomashefsky.One of Tomashefsky's most popular performances was Hamlet by William Shakespeare with the assistance of Boris Tomashevsky. Since he was the great Boris T. he had no problem in editing the play as he thought appropriate, and of course Tomashefsky took the part of Hamlet for himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Thomashefsky

[jimmy37]

Edgy? You mean not very religious. Public nudity is never OK, no matter how Lazer Weiss tries to frame it or fool himself.

[tooclose2detroit]

what a boring f'ing story-is there any opportunity to slap Judyism (when the hell do i meet Judy already??) in the face that the clown that runs this website will pass up??-howz about, just to show that his brain has the capacity for objectivity, running a story that is positive about Judyism or the beanie community?