None of you have nominated Yentl. I don't know if that is because you disagree, don't like the movie, or are simply unfamiliar with it. It is my wife's favorite movie, and Yentl is a role model for her. Like Yentl, my wife had the experience of having a Jewish bookseller (in Boston) refuse to sell her a religious book until she lied, saying it was for her husband. We have the VHS version, but a new two-disk DVD version came out this year, so I bought it for her birthday and we watched it together.
For those unfamiliar, I shamelessly quote the Wikipedia article: "Barbra Streisand portrays Yentl Mendel, a girl living in an Ashkenazi Jewish community in Poland. The film is set in an era during which women are forbidden to receive an education in Jewish Talmudic Law, but despite this, Yentl is instructed in the teachings by her Rabbi father, Rebbe Mendel (Nehemiah Persoff).
"After the death of her father, Yentl decides to dress like a man, take the name Anshel, and enter a Jewish legal school, or yeshiva. Upon entering the yeshiva, Yentl makes friends with a fellow student, Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin), and meets his fiancee Hadass (Amy Irving). The story is complicated as Hadass' family cancels her wedding to Avigdor due to fears that his family is tainted with insanity, and decides that she should marry Anshel instead. Meanwhile, Hadass develops romantic feelings for Yentl (as Anshel), while Yentl herself is falling in love with Avigdor. After much turmoil, Avigdor and Hadass are reunited, while Yentl leaves Europe to go to America, where she can lead a freer life."
Having looked at Wikipedia, I'd like to know more about the play on which it is based. Again, quote: "When her study partner Avigdor discovers the truth, Yentl's assertions that she is "neither one sex nor the other" and has "the soul of a man in the body of a woman" suggest the character is undergoing a gender identity crisis, especially when she opts to remain living as Anshel for the rest of her life."
S
