The Immoral Message of the Film 'East and West' (1923)

I have recently watched the 1923 silent Yiddish film East and West. You can find it on YouTube with bilingual title cards.

The premise of the movie is what happens when an American born Jewish girl, named Molly Brown, vists her Orthodox cousins back in Galicia in the Austrian empire. She engages in some shenanegans including eating on Yom Kippur and teaching the synagogue choir boys an American song and dance. 

The main conflict of the story begins when Molly wants to do a mock wedding with her cousins. At the time, her cousins' family had been hosting Yankel, a Yeshiva Bochur, for meals. The mock wedding needed a groom, so they forced Yankel to be the groom. Molly wanted him to go through all the motions of a marriage including putting the ring on her finger. Yankel understood that giving her the ring would constitute a halachic marriage, but he had developed a crush on her and allowed himself to be forced to do it. 

Yankel refuses to give her a divorce, and is ostracized by the community. He tells Molly that she should find him in Vienna in five years. Yankel moves to live with his secular uncle in Vienna. He gets a secular education and becomes an aclaimed author. When Molly returns to Vienna, she unknowingly meets her legal husband at one of his book talks in which he was appearing under a pseudonym. He starts actively courting her using his pseudonym and she falls in love with him. Molly thinks they cannot start a committed relationship, since she was married and is an Agunah. Then Yankel reveals himself to her and she is happy that they can be together, and the movie ends happily ever after. 

I find it thought provoking how Molly as a character engages in gender role inversion. In her role in the play as the super Americanized girl, she boxes for fun. When the cook rats her out for eating the break fast meal on Yom Kippur, she tries to get her revenge by socking the cook. 

Later she dresses up like the other members of the all-male synagogue choir and tries to join them when they perform at her cousin's engagement party. 

(In these instances when Molly does somethings wrong, she gets a patsh. It's not pleasant to observe even fictional children on screen being hit. Those scenes are meant to played for laughs.)

In her last moment of gender inversion, she basically forces Yankel to marry her. He knows he shouldn't perform the marriage and all the men watching the mock wedding tell him not to, but Molly encourages him. She forced him to be at this mock wedding in the first place. After she learns what happened, she blames herself for forcing Yankel to marry her. 

The first inversions are played for laughs. It's simply funny to see a woman doing something that a man would normally do. The same kind of way gay men are often just played for laughs in more recent cinema. The final inversion of gender roles at the mock weddding results in tragedy. You could read the mock wedding scene as the limitation of acceptible gender inversion. This is when it goes too far, and she gets into real trouble. 

The overall message of the second act of the movie is very problematic. It is essentially a manifestation of the fantasy of men who refuse to divorce their wives. In Jewish law, only the initiative of the man can lead to a divorce. If a man wants to abuse his ex-wife after they have already separated, he can withhold the divorce and prevent her from getting remarried. A woman in this situation is known as an Agunah, someone who is chained. 

Yankel turns Molly into an Agunah when he refuses to divorce her. Molly's father calls him a scoundrel. The rabbi of the community orders him to divroce Molly, so the Jewish community rises up against him and he is forced into exile. The community mob is framed as mindlessly following the rabbi's orders. As if wanting to free an Agunah itself is a backwards practice. (Granted, you can criticize Orthodox Jewish marriage law as backwards. In my opinion the movie is pretty neutral about Jewish marriage law itself.)

Then Yankel runs away for five years. He spends these five years fixing himself up to be attractive to his imagination of who he thinks Molly is. Yankel barely knew Molly before he married her. He just happened to be in the house when they were doing the Mock wedding. He makes himself secular, because he knows Molly is an American girl. He makes himself into a famous author, because he knows she enjoys reading books. 

When she meets Yankel, she falls for him. He guessed correctly. Then when he reveals himself to be her abuser, she is happy and stays in love with him. Her happy acceptance of his true identity does not make any sense. She wouldn't have known that he was serious about waiting the five years. A regular person would have assumed he was just stalling to refuse again later or to simply disappear and leave her chained forever. 

It is unbelievable that the moment Yankel reveals himself to Molly after the five years, she doesn't at least slap him across the face. She certainly should have refused to continue the relationship now that she knows that he was who made her into an Agunah. Instead she's happy and kisses him. This is the fantasy of a get refuser. That if they keep withholding the divorce, maybe they can repair the relationship, and everyone can live happily ever after. 

It's a fun movie to watch. At the same time the moral of the story is a justification for abuse that ignores the agency of women. It is a fantasy that continued abuse can result in a happy conclusion.

How the Movie Der Dybbuk Uses Hoshanas as Foreshadowing

As we have just finished celebrating the holidays of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret, I was reflecting on how the iconic Sukkot ritual of Hoshanot is protrayed in the movie Der Dybbuk. When I first had the opportunity to watch the Der Dybbuk, I was initially struck with how proper and correct its portrayal of Jewish ritual felt to me. All of the cinematic portrayals of Judaism in American media that I was exposed to felt inauthentic. Either the writers don't really understand Jewish ritual or they are trying to simplify and explain it to their audience. 

Der Dybbuk was written for an audience that was already familiar with Jewish ritual. The writers and director were able to just place a scene of Hoshanot, a Sukkot ritual that is often overshadowed in depictions of the holiday by the Sukkah and the Arba Minim, with the full confidence that their audience would understand what was happening. 

The opening act of the movie introduces Nisn (chonon's father) and Sender (Leah's father) while they visit their Rebbe during the holiday of Sukkot. In the first scene of the movie both Nisn and Sender keep missing opportunities to get their Rebbe's approval for a vow they have both accepted. We, the audience do not yet know exactly what this vow entails. Sender commits to trying again the next day, which is Hoshana Rabba. 

The next scene opens in the synagogue while the Chazan is reciting Hallel. We hear the Chazan chanting last verses of Psalm 115. 

There are two scenes that take place within the synagogue during the opening act of the movie. The first scene contains a small portion of the Hallel. Specifically, we hear the Chazan recite: 

השמים שמים ליי והארץ נתן לבני אדם

"The heavens belong to God, but the earth, he gave to mankind."

לא המתים יהללו יה ולא כל ירדי דומה

"The dead cannot praise God, nor any who go down in silence" 

The inability for the dead to praise and worship God is a common motif in the Hebrew Bible. In addition to it literally meaning the dead cannot worship God, this statement comes with other implications. The dead cannot offer praise because they cannot speak. Perhaps the dead enter a domain of existence that prevents them from offer praise to God. For a viewer who is already familiar with the story of the Dybbuk, this line is ominous. The Dybbuk is a dead person who has stolen the ability to speak from a living person. In some ways this line is a prayer beseaching God to keep the dead quiet and at peace. It is also a warning that any dead person who does attempt to speak will not be doing anything righteous with that power. All this forboding information is contained within this short line.

The first verse the Chazan recites is also foreshadowing the final act of the movie. After being presented with Leah possessed by a dybbuk, Rav Azriel of Miropol holds two Din Torahs. The first Din Torah is to nullify the vow that Sender and Nisn made which is drawing Chonon and Leah's souls together. The second Din Torah is to force Chonon to leave Leah's body by putting his soul in Cherem. (Although not exactly addressing the ideology behind dybbuk trials, I recommend Historia Civilis' video on animal trials for a background on using trials to combat evil forces.) During the first Din Torah, the meshulach informs Rav Azriel that Nisn did not accept the nullification of the vow. Rav Azriel responds that if the heavenly worlds tried to maintain the vow, he would overturn their decision. In this instance he is drawing from an established tradition in Jewish theology that rabbinic courts on earth have more authority over interpreting the Torah law than God does. The verse in Psalm 115 states, "but the earth, he gave to mankind." The implication is he gave the earth to mankind to govern. This verse can be read as an affirmation of the tradition of mortal rabbinic decisions overriding divine understanding of Torah law.  

Another potential reading of first verse is the spirits/souls of the dead belong in heaven and the living human beings belong on earth. Though verse literally says, "The heavens belong to God," you can broaden God to include all divine and spiritual entities. There are ideas within Jewish mysticism that understand each human soul to be a small part of God. These souls, after they are freed from their human shells upon death, must return back to heaven and should not linger on earth. If one soul does linger on earth it can cause become a dybbuk. By declearing the heavens to be the realm of the divine, this verse can also be read a plea to prevent the conditions, that can create a dybbuk, from forming. 

After this short section of Hallel the scene shifts to the street outside of the synagogue. We see the meshulach figure appear outside and make his way into the synagogue. When he enters the synagogue, the congregation is up to the Hoshanas. Specifically, the Chazan is reciting אבן שתיה, which is the second round of Hoshanas that are recited on Hoshana Rabba. Each round of the Hoshanas has a theme or topic, and אבן שתיה describes the temple in Jerusalem. The section is a plea to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. 

While the Chazan recites the Hoshanas, Sender and Nisn discuss the details of their vow with someone who was standing next to them. This scene is where we the audience finally learn of the details of the vow and its dangerous implications. Interlaced within the dialogue describing the vow, we hear the Chazan chanting the Hoshanas. 

The word הושענא, which is the refrain of the entire Hoshana ceremony, means 'please save.' The whole ceremony is meant to beseach God for salvation. The ceremony is based upon a ceremony that was performed in the temple in Jerusalem which was meant to ask God for a good rain season in the winter. The success of the crops in Palestine were reliant upon a good rain season. In exile, the prayer has expanded to ask for all manner of divine salvation and blessing. In the Jewish tradition, rain is a symbol of God's blessings in general. 

The cries of 'please save' us echoing in the background of Sender and Nisn's doomed vow are a warning that the vow will require salvation. The Hoshana prayer becomes of foreboding chant for the clamity of the dybbuk that is to come. 

As I mentioned above, the specific section of the Hoshanas that the Chazan recites describes the temple in Jerusalem and serves as plea to rebuild it. The symbolism of the temple as the holiest place on earth represents the holiest acts a person can do, which are love,sex, and marriage. Chonon ends up corrupting the holiness of these acts and causes a disaster. 

Through Chonon's conversations with his friend Henoch, we the audience learn that Chonon has a somewhat Sabbatean ideology. He believes that holiness can be found in the most impure of places. He concludes that his love for Leah must be channeled through a Satanic lust in order for him to secure his marriage to her. When he reaches out to the Satanic forces for help, they grant his wish to be with Leah, but he becomes bound to her as a dybbuk and not through a marriage. 

Marriage and love are very holy things within the Jewish tradition. The Song of Solomon, which is sung throughout the movie, is considered one of the most holy texts within the Hebrew Bible. The most holy acts are also the most dangerous and can be easily corrupted if done improperly. In the opening scene of the movie, Rav Azriel of Miropol, holds his Hasidic court. He delivers a drasha in which he explains the great risk the high priest takes when he enters the holiest chamber of the temple on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, and recites the holiest name of God. If the high priest had improper intentions when performing the ceremony, he could cause great destruction. Through this speech, Rav Azriel describes the main theme of the movie, the holiest acts are both the easiest to corrupt and when corrupted have grave consequences. 

When the movie juxtaposes the Hoshana about the temple in Jerusalem with Sender and Nisn's vow to marry their children, it is infroming us the audience that the holiness of the temple is representing the holiness of love, sex, and marriage. The resulting calamity of the vow will defile the temple; Chonon's sacred love for Leah will become a dangerous lust that consumes him and transforms him into a dybbuk. 

I may come back to offer more thoughts about Chonon's lust itself, Leah's autonomy and relationship with Chonon, the various homosocial pairings of Sender and Nisn and Chonon and Henoch. There is also a good chance that it may take me a few years before I revisit this.