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The Ma'ale School: Catalyst for the Entrance of Religious Zionists into the World of Media Production

IN 1989, THE MA'ALE SCHOOL of Television, Film, and the Arts was founded in Jerusalem with the primary purpose of providing religiously observant Jews with the opportunity to receive the appropriate training that would prepare them to become engaged in the world of Israeli film and television production in a manner that is informed by the spirit of religious Zionism.' Until now the school has received little scholarly attention, and it still maintains a relatively low profile in Israeli society as a whole. Ma'ale, however, merits careful consideration for three main reasons: (i) The establishment of Ma'ale has constituted an important new stage in the development of the relationship of religious Zionists to modernity in general and to the secular majority culture in Israel in particular. (2) The school represents the first sustained attempt to arrive at a synthesis between traditional Jewish values and the relatively new visually-oriented field of media production, thereby raising important questions about the relationship between Judaism and the visual arts in general and film and television production in particular. (3) The films produced at Ma'ale as graduate projects attempt to explore issues of Jewish religiosity in ways that had been largely absent from the history of Israeli film and television production until the founding of the school, thereby suggesting the potential for the emergence of religiously-oriented trends in the world of Israeli media in the future.