Stage appeal: A scene from Ma?aseh Bruria (top); Gabriella Lev, Ruth Wieder-Magan and Aliza Elion-Israeli (below left to right)

Even when she was growing up in Australia, her Jewish identity was the central issue in Gabriella Lev?s consciousness. It was so important to her that a country had been created for her people that she decided to move permanently to Israel in 1973.

But then, she had to answer some questions that faced her. ?I asked myself: Why was I here? What can I do in this country that I cannot do anywhere else in the world?? she reminisces now.

Lev wasn?t alone in her quest for identity and a role. Her sister Ruth Wieder-Magan, and poet and dramatist Aliza Elion-Israeli, all residents of Jerusalem, had similar questions about themselves. The answer was apparent to all at Delhi?s India International Centre this Thursday, when the Theatre Company Jerusalem (TCJ), staged its play Ma?aseh Bruria before an enthralled audience.

Ma?aseh Bruria could have been any other play staged by any other theatre company but for the fact that the group was breaking certain ancient laws of Israel in doing so. Like every other modern country with ancient roots, the state of Israel is a strange paradox between the religious and the social. Lev stresses that while the people of Israel are secular in thought, their lives are bound by certain religious diktats.

Two of the religious tenets were very important for the three women 20 years ago. The first was the fact that the ancient oral scriptures of Israel, the Talmud, forbade women to study them. The second was a ban on women going to the theatre.

?These were not laws of the state, but our religion. Just like the sati might have been a religious law in India a hundred years ago, but is not practised anymore except in a few rare instances,? explains Lev. She and her colleagues decided to break both laws.

In 1975, they became the first women to stage a play in Israel to celebrate International Women's Year. It wasn?t so much a play as a series of narratives, where five women came on stage to talk about their real-life experiences of being a woman living in modern-day Israel. ?The play was hugely successful and we took it to all parts of Israel,? says Lev.

Theatre Company Jerusalem has the distinction of being the oldest fringe theatre group in Israel. TCJ has a core group of five members right now, with the original founders ? Lev, the conceptualiser and director, Wieder-Magan, the performer, and Elion-Israeli the playwright ? at its helm. The three came together almost 20 years ago, and have been at it since then. It was Wieder-Magan who formally founded the TCJ in 1984. Two younger members, technical director Ayellet Stoller and administrative director Osnat Gispin, joined later.

Eighty-year-old ex-university lecturer Joyce Miller, the matriarch of sorts, pitches in as part of the creative team from time to time. Men are not unwelcome either, and percussionist Jeffery Kowalsky has been with them for four years, combining percussion music from various countries to create a unique effect. ?We also invite in male actors from time to time,? says Ruth, adding that their plays are so woman-centric that they don?t need to do that often.

The group has staged over 20 plays in the last 20 years, and won a series of awards ? including a prestigious one at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival. TCJ is completely aware of its priorities. ?We?re here for the love of the craft,? says Lev. Unlike many other women fringe groups they inspired the formation of, they continue to be faithful to their fringe identity. ?What happens in most cases in our country is that if a group is hugely successful, it gets sucked into mainstream theatre. Or else, they die out ? like most women?s groups in our country did ? after three or four shows,? explains Lev. TCJ, however, with its work, has even the support of the Israeli government, and a sponsor by way of Mifal Hapayis, the country?s private lottery system.

Ma?aseh Bruria is one of their more famous plays. Wieder-Magan ? who was responsible for giving the company an identity instead of the amateur group it was ? didn?t take any chances. ?I knew I was entering forbidden territory when I started learning the sacred texts,? she reveals. But she was undaunted. For six years, she lived in stark nunnery-like surroundings, devoting her entire time and energy to the texts, to fully comprehend them. It was after that, in 1984, that she came out with some of the best plays that Israel has produced.

Wieder-Magan is the chief performer in most of the plays staged by TCJ. Her powerful performances, with an equally powerful singing voice, bring a new dimension to Bruria, a woman living in the second century A.D. The play is taken from the Talmudic texts, which talk of Bruria as a woman so wise that the ancient rabbis would ask her for advice. However, little was known about her tragic and mysterious death until 700 years later, when it was revealed that she choked herself to death after being seduced by a student sent by her husband, Rabbi Meir.

On stage, the tale is told in the way of a discourse, the ancient oral tradition of the Jews which the women have exploited. A tale of intrigue which talks about how Bruria?s entire family perished under tragic circumstances at the hands of the Romans, with her father, Rabbi Hanina, being burnt with the pages of the Torah, the holy book of the Jews. The Talmudic texts talk extensively about the story, but the play owes itself to its writer, Elion-Israeli, to present it from Bruria's point of view.

The Talmud, which have been compiled into texts, are unique in their look. The centre of each page has verses from the Bible, and all around it are the interpretations of the rabbis across centuries. ?Most of the ancient texts are written by men, and are for men. The woman is secondary in them, and is even looked down upon. But we have converted them to suit the woman?s perspective,? explains technical director Stoller.

Of course, the other event in history that can never be far away from Jewish consciousness is the Holocaust, and Ester, another play in the TCJ basket, finds a unique way to talk about it. ?Most of the epics and mythical stories in all cultures are ever-evolving. For example, the war in Mahabharata, signalling the end, may have taken on a whole new meaning after Hiroshima,? explains Lev. Similarly, the story of the ancient Queen Ester, who saved thousands of Jews from Roman tyranny and prevented a potential Holocaust, has been woven into the real-life experiences of Lev and Wieder-Magan?s family during the Holocaust, to give it a new perspective.

India holds a special place in the hearts of the group. ?In fact, we are in the process of bringing out a musical with the thumri singer, Vidya Rao,? says Wieder-Magan. Delhi-based Rao currently has a guest role in their other production, Songs Of Desire.

As the evening draws near, the lights on the stage dim, and two dark figures cut into the darkness with powerful torches, singing the songs of the ancient knowledgeable women of Israel. It is left to their modern counterparts to tell the tale of women and wisdom.