Be Fruitful and Multiply

How does it feel to have been pregnant or breastfeeding for 25 of 26 years of your married life?This and other questions are posed openly and directly for the first time in this film, and they expose the consequences of the commandment "Be fruitful and multiply" – the mother of all Mitzvot – upon the ultra-orthodox Jewish woman. The center of her life is pregnancy, childbirth and constant nursing. She doesn't have the freedom to determine the course of her life; she serves God via the womb. BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY follows the stories of four ultra-Orthodox women. Yentel from Mea Shearim, Jerusalem is the key figure in the film, and the personal stories of three other women are interwoven into her story. She is the dramatic figure in the film who turns from the obedient wife who internalizes the strict social code into an independent woman who rebels against social conventions. This is a story about oppression in ultra-Orthodox society, which ignores women's spirituality, emotional needs and inner world, and proscribes their behavior both socially and ideologically.