Careful, Beauties Ahead

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Mea Shearim, the neighborhood of 100 gates, is a part of Jerusalem predominantly inhabited by ultra-Orthodox Jews. To grasp and understand this incredibly exciting and foreign world and its spirituality, one must have lived there—just as Tuvia Tenenbom did. Having grown up in Mea Shearim, he returned after many years in New York to confront his past. Tenenbom comes from an ultra-Orthodox family, studied in a yeshiva, and was prophesied a future as one of the great rabbis. His stay becomes a journey into his own childhood. Tenenbom seeks to understand how the Orthodox culture and lifestyle have changed and how a restrictive world has evolved in an increasingly restrictive society. To answer this, he immerses himself in their lives for months, participating in synagogue and yeshiva activities, visiting rabbis, including extremists, sharing meals, singing for hours, and sitting with families for Shabbat, speaking Yiddish. Through this, he earns their trust, revealing the fascinating and contradictory world of their faith.