Ultra-Orthodox: difficult path to freedom

Jerusalems Mea Shearim neighbourhood seems like its own planet in the middle of the city. Its inhabitants consider themselves particularly pious: an ultra-Orthodox community that lives by its own laws. They all follow the rules of the rabbis.

For a stranger, it is virtually impossible to gain an insight into an ultra-Orthodox family. The reporter team succeeds, however: Yossi Saaks receives the ZDF team in a cramped three-room flat where he and his wife live with five children, the youngest still a baby. They only speak Yiddish among themselves. There is no internet or television here.

The walls of the ultra-Orthodox community are crumbling. The number of Ultraorthodox leaving the community is now ten percent. Their stories have brought the issue out into the open.

Reporter: Katrin Eigendorf

Camera: Vanessa Schlesier, Theresa Breuer