A New Reality Television Show Draws on Stale Stereotypes about Orthodox Jews

Today, an “unscripted” series premiers on Netflix with the unoriginal name My Unorthodox Life, focused on Julia Haart, a fashion designer who nine years ago broke with the ḥaredi community in which she had grown up, and now—in the breathless words of the New York Times— “heads a global talent empire.” Kylie Ora Lobell comments on the buzz the series has generated:

In the trailer, [Haart] says, “It takes time to deprogram yourself.” Media outlets are reporting that the show “takes a strong stance against fundamentalism” and they’re praising [Haart] for “escaping” the grasp of her ultra-Orthodox community in Monsey, New York.

This is a story we’ve heard over and over again. [Often] these stories involve individuals who have some type of mental illness, were abused by their families, had spouses who didn’t understand them, or the like. Somehow, though, the Orthodox lifestyle and/or community are to blame for all their troubles. And when they bring up shocking stories about their communities, nobody bothers to look into them to see if they are true. . . . The Orthodox perspective is almost never taken into account.

Of course, there are people who have legitimate grievances with their Orthodox community. . . . Still, I can’t help but notice what seems to be a distressing media obsession. . . . I could provide countless examples of how wonderful Orthodox Jews are, but when it comes to Netflix, the media, and the publishing houses, that’s not what sells.

When My Unorthodox Life comes out, I anticipate it’ll get a lot of praise. Reviewers will say the star of it is bold and brave, and they will continue to bash Orthodox Jews.

Read more at Jewish Journal

More about: Anti-Semitism, Orthodoxy, Television

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society