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Phinehas Veuillet’s 'Neither Day Nor Night' delves into the struggles of a newly religious Mizrahi family in Bnei Brak, exposing deep-seated biases in Haredi society.
By HANNAH BROWN FEBRUARY 24, 2025 04:08
A SCENE from Phinehas Veuillet’s ‘Neither Day nor Night.’
(photo credit: ZIV BERKOVICH)
Phinehas Veuillet’s Neither Day nor Night, which opened in theaters throughout Israel on Thursday, tells an unusual, intense story, and it’s not surprising that it’s the work of a filmmaker with an unusual background himself.
The movie is about a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) family in Bnei Brak, but there are several twists. The family is newly Orthodox and from France, which makes them outsiders in the community they have chosen.
They are also Mizrahim (descendants of local Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa), which might not have caused them problems, were it not for the fact that their son, Raphael (Adam Hatuka Peled), is a prodigy in Torah studies.
His mother, Ahuva (Maayan Amrani), feels he should go to what is considered the top yeshiva, which is run and attended almost exclusively by Ashkenazim. Raphael’s brilliance is such that his admission should be a no-brainer, but the prejudice against Mizrahim runs deep among the gatekeepers of this yeshiva.
Anyone who follows the news in Israel knows how true this is. Elite Ashkenazi yeshivot often find themselves in the news for refusing to accept Mizrahi students, whom they believe to be inferior in various ways. Sometimes they have even separated pupils physically, so the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi children could not play together on breaks.
The perception in the Ashkenazi yeshiva world is that the Mizrahim are not as bright or as observant as Ashkenazim, and the haredi world also questions whether the children of the newly religious will grow up to follow religious law.
Ahuva is focused on figuring out a way to get Raphael into the yeshiva, thinking that if he isn’t accepted, it will harm his and his siblings’ chances at finding a good match.
For his father, Shmuel (Eli Menashe), a handyman and a contractor, the situation is more complicated. He isn’t ashamed to work with his hands, but he knows that he has joined a society in which religious study is considered the only prestigious occupation. While he is proud of Raphael, Shmuel feels an understandable resentment against the powers-that-be who discriminate against his son.
Fiercely religious, Shmuel believes that those who feel his son is not good enough because of the color of his skin are actually violating religious law and doesn’t want anything to do with them. But his wife has completely bought into the new system and its values and insists that if Shmuel doesn’t take matters into his own hands, their son will not have the bright future he deserves.
So Shmuel tries to convince the yeshiva head (Shmuel Vilozni) to accept Raphael, but Shmuel’s resentment builds up and finally bursts out in a way that has unexpected consequences for the entire family.
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IN A RECENT interview, Veuillet said that the story in the film is an amalgam of his own family story and that of his co-screenwriter, Aaron Israel. Veuillet was born to parents who became ultra-Orthodox, “as hardcore as you can be,” and is one of eight children. Israel is from a family like Raphael’s in the movie, both newly religious and Mizrahi, from an Algerian-Tunisian background.
“Aaron is a genius at Torah,” said Veuillet. “He was angry that he was put in a second-rate yeshiva as a child.”
Veuillet became obsessed with movies as soon as he was introduced to them, watching Bruce Lee films on DVDs and eventually seeing the Eminem film Eight Mile in a theater. After that, he would spend whole days at movie theaters, and eventually studied visual arts and film. He wrote the documentary Silver’s Uprising about the founding of the Telegrass cannabis distribution company.
Finding himself in an uncertain period in life where he worked at various jobs to make ends meet, he eventually joined forces with Israel to write the script that became Neither Day nor Night.
He said that both of them were inspired by the films of British directors such as Mike Leigh and several Iranians, especially Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation. The influence of these two directors can be seen in the quiet but very emotional atmosphere of Neither Day nor Night.
Discriminating Mizrahi haredim
Asked to explain the discrimination against Mizrahi haredim, he said, “Some of it comes from perceptions from back in Europe… It’s like European pride in their whiteness. Haredim are connected to the 19th century. It’s a community that’s delicate, fragile, and they feel they have to preserve their community, its purity.”
The choice to have the character of the father be a man who works with his hands came out of an idea to make the story “a bit biblical.” He said they thought of the story of Esau, who spent his days working in the fields.
“It felt right… And then there’s the fact that the haredim don’t work. That they don’t take part in the working world, they opt out of derech eretz [the way of the land], of being engaged in the world. And it’s not realistic. It’s also not the way of the Torah at all… It’s not something that existed in the history of the Jews before at all. The Rambam said anyone who believes people should study Torah and not work is committing a desecration, and that’s really what is happening.”
The religious hierarchy “takes away all the father’s authority, it neuters him in the eyes of his family.”
While the mother in the film completely accepts her new community’s values, the frustrated father reflects the feelings of Veuillet and Israel, who left their community to go into filmmaking.
Said Veuillet: “The character of the father, I feel it’s kind of inspired by us, by Aaron and me. We want religion to be a place of community, a place of warmth, there to serve you, to support you.”
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