Depiction of religious Jews in the film

Here in Israel there are the datiim, that are simple religious people. They use kippas, eat kosher, go to the beit kneset, don't drive or use electricity and stuff in sabbath, but serve in the army like anyone, and they are quite normal.
The other kind, are the haridim. The orthodox jews. And sadly, they quite fit the description given in this movie.
They get money from the government, don't do the military service, thanks to them jews that want to marry non jews have to sail to Cyprus to get married...

"being Jewish has nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with the content of a man's character" that was Sammy Davis jr. wasn't it?
i liked your point somehow but still it sounds as if there would be no datim (or modern orthodox as you call them) in haaretz, which is not true. although most of the Israelis are secular, same as the biggest part American jews, who call themselves reform (which is basically ok) but never even go to the beit knesset nor eat kosher or anything else that marks a religious jewish life. exept once a year on yom kippur maybe. but between those and the ultra-orthodox haredim there is a a big group of jews who lives a life with devotion to the religious principals of Judaism without trying to separate themselves from other people (goim or not) or to convince other jews to live like they do. in the galut aswell as in the country.

I shall admit that many situations in this movie are complex and could be misunderstood.

However, the Ethiopian religious leader had NOT known Schlomo's secret all along. When the Christian Schlomo and his Jewish second mother had arrived to Israel, there is little doubt that he recognises the mother and testified by nodding that SHE is a member of the Jewish community. It is far from obvious that he had detected that this mother's alleged son was not her real son.

By contrast, when Schlomo asks the leader to write a letter to his real mother, the leader is surprised by the fact that the mother did not have a Jewish name. And Schlomo invents the false explanation that she had to convert in order to marry Schlomo's father. The leader evidently believes this explanation.

Not until Schlomo has been thoroughly maltreated by real black and non-Jewish men does Schlomo tell the truth to the leader. Evidently, the leader continue to treat Schlomo as a genuine Jew. - And Schlomo had certainly behaved like a real Jew for more than ten years. The greatest theological obstacle was that the Ethiopian Jews were allegedly the offspring of King Salomon and the queen of Saba. The queen was not a Jew, and Jewisness is inherited by the mother.

But all the falashas violently protested when the religious authorities would "transform them into genuine Jews" by taking a drop of blood from their penis. (Nothing was said about how to transform females into genuine Jews, and this should be more important, since the status of the mother determines the status of the child.)

It seems that the movie tried to give a balanced portrayal of religious Jews, but got a lot of details wrong. For instance, besides the qes who helped Shlomo write the letetrs, there was a kindly (white) rabbi as well who helped him prepare for his bar mitzvah and encouraged him. On the other hand there was Sarah's father who was depicted as being racist and intolerant. What they got wrong was depicting him as a haredi, from his style of dress, he looked "Litvish" --why then was he hosting a birthday party for his daughter in which teenage boys were invited? Someone as religious as he would be unlikely to condone a birthday party for a girl with teenage adolescents of both sexes present, regardless of whether they were Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Ethiopian, Jewish or non-Jewish. Then I didn't get the whole deal with that debate thing and Shlomo's speech about God being like the moon and watching over Adam, and all the religious Jews in the audience applauding Shlomo's Torah "commentary". The truth is, the intolerant father was right--that commentary was near heretical from a strict Orthodox perspective, the other Orthodox would probably not have accepted it so eagerly. They should have re-written that contrived scene entirely. It is true that there is a national Bible Contest in Israel (Hidon ha Tanakh), but that event is participated in by the "National Religious" types and seculars; not the ultra-Orthodox who are depicted as participating in a similar even in the movie. And I also didn't understand why Sarah's father dressed like a haredi, and she wore jeans. Were they Modern Orthodox or "Litvish"?

What do you expect when 'Shalom Achshav' seems to be the main political line of the movie, they love our enemies more than 'Jews', no news there.