USHPIZIN

    Ushpizin is the Hebrew word for holy guests, particularly guests at the feast of Succoth, when many Jews build arbors outside their homes in which to take meals during the seven days of this harvest festival. Afterward, the arbors are taken down.  Building these tabernacles was ordained in the Bible and is considered obligatory for the Orthodox. The temporary structures, from which the sky must be seen, have been called a democratic manifestation because both rich and poor live in the primitive dwellings; also, they symbolize the transitory stages of life and the transitory nature of ife itself. It is an honor to receive guests in the succoth and to shower them with hospitality. Ushpizin are similar to the ancient Greek xenoi , or guest strangers, who were welcomed with hospitality.  Reb Moshe, a 40-something penniless Orthodox scholar in Jerusalem, and his wife Mallli want to build a succoth and buy the traditional succoth accouterments: palm branches, willow, myrtle, and a citron, a large, splendid lemon. Moshe is a recent convert to Orthodoxy, which has helped him overcome the violent temper he was subject to in his secular life. But his temper manifests itself when he sits outdoors on a bench praying loudly for money to build a succoth. This is no "If I were a rich man," but a calling on God in a paroxysm of demand. An anonymous stranger hands Moshe and Malli $1,000. Moshe's prayer is answered. And that's where the trouble starts.

    Moshe is played with conviction by the Israeli actor Shuli Rand, who wrote the screenplay and is himself a convert to Orthodoxy. While Moshe is building his succoth, his holy guests are on the way. They appear outside a penitentiary, presumably returning from home leave to complete their sentences for an unnamed though not heinous crime. But they decide instead to delay their return and visit their old friend, Reb Moshe, who welcomes the Ushpizin to his succoth. Shaul Mizvahi and Ilan Ganani play them as opportunists with a sense of humor. Moshe and his wife Malli, stout, motherly Michal Bat-Sheva Rand--Shuli Rand's wife and an actress as well known as her husband--feed the ushpizin fish, meat, salad, red and white wine, and after dinner offer them cigarettes, which they all enjoy happily. The feasts continue day after day. Mistakenly believing that Moshe and Malli are rich, the ushpizin abuse their hospitality, stealing whatever small things they can get their hands on. They also threaten to reveal Moshe's secret, that his good nature conceals an inherently violent temper that he seems to have concealed from Malli. They even try to steal the bulbous citron, which is believed to insure the birth of a child, a blessing Moshe and Malli eagerly await. But rather than allow himself to be bullied into exposing his temper, Moshe decides the truest test of his religious faith is how he and Malli treat their holy guests. Not surprisingly, all ends happily.

   Director Gidi Dar is a secular Jew who has made documentaries and videos before Ushpizin, a prize winner at the Jerusalem Film Festival. He shot the film in an Orthodox neighborhood, where residents avoid not only movies but, as much as possible, non-religious Jews. Dar asked the leader of the sect, whose members he portrays, for permission to film there; after reading Rand's screenplay, he granted permission. Ushpizin' s screening at the Jerusalem Film Festival was reportedly an almost unprecedented melange of Orthodox and secular Jews, and the film has been extremely successful in Israel. As a portrayal of an aspect of Israeli life that few outsiders see, Ushpizin should find an audience in the U.S. It is a delight.

                                    John L. Hochmann