Strictly Jewish: The Secret World of Adass Israel (ATOM Study Guide)

Strictly Jewish: The Secret World of Adass Israel opens a window into a hidden subculture that exists cheek-by-jowl with Melbourne's trendy latte society. Two hundred families, comprising more than 2000 people, live in a virtually self-sufficient society created from the ashes of Auschwitz, with most families barely surviving the Holocaust. They have built a cradle-to-grave society, or more accurately a circumcision-to-grave community – they have their own shops, schools, butcher, baker, synagogue, cemetery and even their own ambulance service! Their world is so insular that many of their members have next to no contact with the outside world – not even with other Jews.

This film follows the Jewish calendar year 5775, opening with the festival of Succot, in which we see Rabbi Aryeh – who was born secular before becoming religious and then ultra-Orthodox – build his booth in his garage and then sleep there for eight days. We also see inside the synagogue, where members use a biblical fruit for a curious ceremony central to the festival.

We see how modern technology is a double-edged sword for Adass – some households do not use it at all, while Shlomo the Elder has become Adass' unofficial multimedia guru, emailing his community a regular bulletin that is 'kosher' for their eyes. Most Adass members carry phones, but most use analog phones, so they don't have issues with the internet. A few years ago, Adass established the Technology Awareness Group, an organisation to 'police' content that ensures filters are in place to block material that is taboo for this ultra-kosher community.

Kosher is central to their world, but other rabbinical authorities in Melbourne are not strict enough for Adass' extreme standards, so they established their own kosher authority under their own chief rabbi – Abraham Beck, an 83-year-old who survived the Holocaust.

In the shadow of the Holocaust, family is central to Adass. Most families are large. We meet Raizel Fogel, the local deli owner, who is the matriarch of her tribe. At the time of writing, she has thirty-seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild! All her children went through arranged marriages, as is custom in Adass. She also volunteers as the Adass community's doolah, helping women through childbirth – she has 'doolahed' more than 200 kids!

Boys and girls are strictly segregated from kindergarten onwards inside Adass. Boys finish at the Adass school in Year 10 – so secular university is off the agenda in favour of Torah studies. We also meet Rabbi Aryeh's family – at the beginning of the film, he has five kids, but he and his wife are expecting, and the film climaxes with the birth of a boy and the ritual circumcision inside the Adass synagogue on the eighth day.

Other key festivals reveal colour and custom. For 364 days a year Adass members dress in black and white, but for one day in March we see them burst into colour for the festival of Purim, a Jewish Halloween of sorts. On Passover, Adass members purge their houses of everything that contains yeast – so no bread, beer or pasta, but instead a yeast-free cracker called matzah that is eaten for the eight days of the festival. True to form, Adass are not satisfied with imported matzah in boxes – they bake their own!

As the Jewish calendar year ticks over, Adass members celebrate the Jewish New Year with the blowing of the ram's horn and begin ten days of repentance. This year, their prayers are heightened by breaking news in the ongoing child sex abuse scandal that has plagued the community since 2008 – a victim is awarded a $1 million payout by the courts on the day after New Year, although Israeli-born Malka Leifer is fighting extradition proceedings.

Colourful and candid, surprising and revealing, Strictly Jewish offers never-before-seen footage inside an ancient community as it strives to maintain its faith in the modern world.

Curriculum links

This documentary can be linked with different learning areas across middle and senior secondary levels. In particular, it can be linked with the learning domains of English, Humanities, Religious Studies and Media Studies.