A young woman charms her bearded roommate and a merchant’s daughter while posing as a Talmudic schoolboy in circa-1900 Poland.
Rebbe Mendel (Nehemiah Persoff) is a single father who teaches the Talmud, a sacred text of Judaism, to the boys of his small Polish town. Behind closed doors, he also instructs his daughter, Yentl (Barbra Streisand), despite the fact that girls are forbidden to study religious scripture. When Yentl’s father dies, she still has a strong desire to learn about her faith — so she disguises herself as a male, enrolls in a religious school, and unexpectedly finds love along the way.
Set in the Edwardian era, beginning in 1904.
Like all great fables, it grows out of a particular time and place, but it takes its strength from universal sorts of feelings. At one time or another, almost everyone has wanted to do something and been told they couldn’t, and almost everyone has loved the wrong person for the right reason. That’s the emotional ground that “Yentl” covers, and it always has its heart in the right place. – Roger Ebert
Starring Barbra Streisand, Mandy Patinkin, Amy Irving, Nehemiah Persoff, Steven Hill.