Thursday, December 13, 2007

Orthodox Hyprocracy

About a week or two ago, something like that, an commercial has been removed by Israeli TV that was deemed "offensive to haredim." The commercial was a satire showing Hasidim singing and dancing in protest of high definition television.

This is the commercial.



The thing is in real life, the haredim in Israel don't sing and dance in protest. They throw rocks, riot, and burn stuff. Okay, here's the thing. According to the Jerusalem post the haredim did a cartoon of their own.





In expressed dissatisfaction that haredim could not bully around the nonharedim of Israel into gender segregated busing and although thats not what how the haredim explain it, an interpretation can be made that this cartoon compares secular Jewish women to pigs.

Essentially the haredim are saying that its ok for them to do satire, cartooning or whatever about nonharedim but its not okay for the nonharedim to satirize them. This is similar to the anger of the followers of another religion about cartoons in Europe made about their prophet, while they themselves do vile antisemetic cartooning in their own newspapers in some of these countries that pratice that religion.

The core of the issue is that 1) that the haredim are control freaks and 2) the haredim don't undrstand or they don't like that in a free society one has to mind his own business about what other people think and do.

Now for my next point in this post. Athough while there are stuff on TV that is not worth watching TV is a great medium for conveying stories, memorable ones. Be it the story of a kid who goes back in time and forward in time and back again etc. to save his family, or the story of a starship that gets sent 75,000 lightyears from Earth by an alien force, and the ship is trying to find its way back, or the story of how someones parents were killed when he was eight years old and later in life he dons a mask and saves his city from a self righteous cult of destruction.

Granted a good television show could not go in depth into a story the way that a book can, but there is one thing in common between a good book and a good television show - that the stories are character driven. Sci-fi in particular, its not about the technology, the ships, etc. that makes a story progress, but rather the characters in a sci-fi setting (this holds true for every other setting also), and their personalities and how they overcome the trials that are sent their way.

The point is, that the antitelevision freaks in the orthodox world don't know what they are missing.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

on lp blog you wrote that athiest guys can talk to girls. isn't that why your an athiest?

the tv ad maligns every chareidi. that stupid caricature only represents the idiocy of the guy who printed it.

SJ said...

>> on lp blog you wrote that athiest guys can talk to girls. isn't that why your an athiest?

I am not an atheist.


>> the tv ad maligns every chareidi. that stupid caricature only represents the idiocy of the guy who printed it.

The tv ad was just a joke.

Anonymous said...

Then so was the ad.

Listen, neither was right but there's also a difference in context. The guys who developed the commercial know their target audience (the secular Israelis) and the kind of satire that will make them laugh and pay attention (dancing religious Jews). They are also members of an "enlightened" society that would never tolerate such abuse of any other ethnic group. What would have happened if they had shown Arabs going out to riot in Jenin then breaking into song? Could you imagine the uproar? In other words, they went for cute but should have known better.

The Chareidim who came up with the ad are part of a far more primitive culture. Unlike the makers of the commercial, they simply do not know better.

SJ said...

>> They are also members of an "enlightened" society that would never tolerate such abuse of any other ethnic group.


Any other ethnic group is not trying to impose its will on secular Israelis, except maybe for some of Israel's neighbors.


>> Unlike the makers of the commercial, they simply do not know better.

Garnel, I hope that you are not saying that halachat nibbel peh does not apply to secular jews.

Anonymous said...

Nivul peh applies to all Jews and if both secular and religious Israelis would figure that out, the country would be a far better place to live for all concerned.
As for ethnic imposition, it's all a matter of perspective. The average secular Israeli does not wish to be forced to observe Shabbos and sees laws demanding its enforcement as an imposition. Fair enough.
But from the Chareidi perspective, army service is an evil thing that they are always at risk of having imposed on them.
We see army service as a necessity and a sign of participating in national life. That's our perspective so we don't see the idea of chareidim being forced into the army as wrong. But they do have a right to their perspective, as much as we would disagree with it.

Anonymous said...

bro, you have a great blog and you're obviously really bright - but please , it's anti-semitic not "anti-semetic"!