1.
It's a bit hard to call the two ultra-Orthodox weeklies competitors. But in practice, that's what they are.
A brief review of this weekend reveals: 48 pages in Family News, compared to 40 in Community News; 100 pages for Family Magazine, only 72 in Community Magazine; 80 pages for 'Inside the Family' - Family's women's newspaper, only 48 for 'Peninim' - the corresponding supplement of Community.
But sometimes, using a headline and cover image, you can also outdo your competitors.
And that's what they managed to do this week in 'Bakhi' to the big brother from 'Mishpah'.
Under the headline 'First Choice' plus a picture on the cover of the magazine, a newspaper in the community featured an article, the title of which implied that the newspaper had conducted an interview. This is how the newspaper's editor presented it to me.
The subtitle reads: "Special: Veteran writer Rabbi Moshe Grilak returns to 2009, when the Haredim went out to vote for the first time and chose a status quo for the emerging state.".
Inside, an article by Yitzhak Horowitz, which recounts the election days since the establishment of the state, with various interviewees: Rabbi Meir Kloft, now a resident of Bnei Brak, was a small boy in 1979 who lived with his parents in central Tel Aviv and followed the billboards, the colorful flyers and the world war that was going on between Ben-Gurion's Mapai and Menachem Begin's Herut; Yehoshua Mazza, former president of the Bund and a member of Knesset for the Likud. And Rabbi Moshe Grilak also gave the reporter a few sentences. Not a single interviewee at all. He didn't even imagine that this was what would be presented.
To the reporter's credit, he took the trouble to call and apologize for the way things were presented. The newspaper's editorial board, for its part, insisted on continuing to stand its ground.
She said: "Out of respect for Rabbi Grilak, the rabbi of the rabbis for decades, and the honor of our senior writer Yitzhak Horowitz, we will not address the sequence of events in more detail, beyond our basic clarification that everything was done properly and professionally. We would recommend to our colleagues at the family newspaper that instead of making up forced apologies, it is better for them to continue to make an effort and produce a fine newspaper for the enjoyment of their readers and for the benefit of healthy competition.".
2.
If there was an exciting column this weekend of yet more politics chewed over to the point of exhaustion, it was Aryeh Erlich's column, hidden between the pages of 'Family' magazine.
So far I haven't been able to understand the logic of throwing the column at the end of the magazine. In my opinion, it's so unrelated to the name. But whatever.
In a fascinating, colorful description, he recounts what tens of thousands of viewers saw in the film that was revealed this week, documenting the first large church of Agudath Israel in 1943.
And he also has lessons from what we saw. "Suddenly, a realization struck me. Once upon a time, there was an Agudat Israel here that was different in its essence, sublime in its difference, prominent in its otherness. An association whose establishment was founded on a profound and forward-looking idea. An idea that originated in a strong longing for a Haredi organization that was unifying, uplifting, with a restful spirit and rich public benefit.
""Less than two decades have passed. Europe has gone up in flames. The founders and activists of the association perished at the stake. It moved to Israel. At first, it continued its glory days in an Israeli version. The great men of the generation were its sole leaders... Then its dignity diminished, its glory was dimmed, its exclusivity was taken away. Its political representatives quarreled among themselves and it was split into fragments of factions and sub-streams. Many hold onto the tallitha, everyone says it's all mine, until it tears to pieces.
""Nothing is left of it, except a conflicted political faction, low in stature, devoid of spirit and spirit. It cannot mount an election campaign. It cannot unite all the publics that belong to it. It is unable to bring back lost audiences – neither it, nor its sister who left it at the height of the times.".
How sad.
3.
Pay attention to the map of 'Family' mandates.
In a colorful pie, they summarize the numbers from the polls: how much do the Haredim get, how much do the Arabs get, how much do the right (Likud, Beite Yehudi, and Yahad), how much do the center (Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Kulanu), and how much do the left (Zionist Camp, Meretz).
What is interesting is that only the Haredi parties United Torah Judaism and Shas are shown in the pie. Eli Yishai's 'Yachad' is shown in the blue-colored part of the pie - the right-wing parties.
But below, in the graph of rectangles, which shows each party and the mandates it receives in the polls, 'Yachad' is colored red, just like the color in which United Torah Judaism and Shas are painted. The poll gives Yachad 4 mandates, Shas and United Torah Judaism 8 mandates each (I hope so, amen). The overall total, according to this graph, should be 20 mandates for the Haredi parties. But in the pie above, 'Mishpacha' gives the Haredi parties only 16.
So where is the mistake? In the pie or in the pie at the bottom?
Or maybe someone up there wanted to please both reality (in which Yahad is considered an ultra-Orthodox party, despite the prevailing hypocrisy) and Shas (which demands that Yahad be presented as an ultra-Orthodox party)?
4.
I tried to find material in 'Yom Yom' that wasn't related to the elections. I admit, the task wasn't easy.
The headlines were all copied, even the editorial.
Kamus and Masoud sat on the neighborhood bench in Netivot. One immigrated from Tunisia, the other from Morocco. They have lived next door to each other for thirty-five years. At Mimouna Masoud invites Kamus to his home, and at the Yitro feast Kamus invites Masoud to his home.
""It wasn't easy during the transitional period," Masoud begins his conversation with us. "Education wasn't Haredi until Rabbi Yitzhak Meir came and founded the school, where we sent the girls... God bless you, you see, the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren all study Haredi.".
From Rabbi Yissachar Meir (color 3), they move on to tell about Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who founded the education network, where the great-grandchildren go.
This might explain why the G and Shas are hitting each other, biting each other, instead of looking to the sides and trying to bring in outside voices. The grandchildren studied in independent education, the great-grandchildren in El HaMa'ayan, so who do they vote for?
Trust them day by day, that's not the question the columnist poses to them. He focuses on Kamos' Tunisian origin, and asks whether it's true that Tunisians vote for 'Yachad.' Well, he doesn't explicitly say the word 'Yachad,' don't expect it, but he asks: "Tell me, Kamos, they say the entire Tunisian community is against Shas, is that true?"'
Kamus, who probably knows where the questioner is writing and to whom he belongs (all employees of 'Yom Liom' were warned of complete loyalty at the start of the election campaign), replies: "Whoever says that doesn't know our community. We don't have a flock. We have rabbis. Maran was and will be our leader. Whatever he decides, we do... and I don't care what others say.".
And why do I have the feeling that if Kamus's answer had been different (say, I listen to Rabbi Meir Mazuz), this editorial column would not have seen the light of day?
5.
In Beit Ne'eman, the situation is no better. There, they even managed to take the auditor's report, in order to use it to create a call for elections in... C.
""The auditor's report revealed the most difficult problem of not being able to afford a roof over your head. A problem that has been swept under the rug until now... The situation in the ultra-Orthodox and 'ultra-Orthodox' areas is doubly serious. The outcry is reaching the heavens and the government remains silent.".
What is the solution? You guessed it right. "By strengthening the power of 'United Torah Judaism', which promises to fight with all its might and presents plans.".
As if until two years ago, for four years, United Torah Judaism was not part of Netanyahu's coalition. As if MK Moshe Gafni did not head the Finance Committee at that time, when the Minister of Construction and Housing was his Shas colleague Ariel Atias. And what did the two parties do together with the power they had? They were not even able to lift Harish.
Isn't it a shame to deceive the public? And does anyone really think that United Torah Judaism will succeed, in addition to repealing the conscription law and restoring the slashed yeshiva budgets, in also solving the housing crisis?
Tell me, you fools: Vote C because there is a 'calling out', because that is what the elders of Israel instructed. Tell fairy tales to the people in the fields, not to the readers of 'Yated' who continue to moan all the way to their children's weddings.
6.
This week, Zvi Jacobson, a writer in the community, opened a front against the Israel Hayom newspaper.
""From the perspective of the C.I., there is no doubt that Israel Hayom is one-sided in an infuriating way and even defeated," writes Jacobson in his column. "Mati Tochfeld, as is his custom, continues to glorify Yahad: 'After a scrambling on the verge of a deadlock, the Yahad party of Eli Yishai and Yoni Shtavun managed to secure four seats, and last week two polls gave it five.'.
This was made possible in no small part thanks to the union between them and Otzma Yehudit and Baruch Marzel --- From the first moment of visiting the election headquarters of the Yahad party in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem, one notices that this is no ordinary election headquarters. The diversity of those present at the headquarters is evident in every corner. Haredim, Hasidim, Lithuanians, Sephardim with people wearing knitted kippahs of all sizes, and even non-religious people are present and running from room to room.
He has the right to believe in those who believe, to admire Marzel, and to pray for the collapse of Shas and the rise of Yahad, but he is not allowed to weave all of this into his articles, and certainly not week after week.
'Israel Hayom, fearlessly and shamelessly, continues to persecute Deri. A half-page ad for the sale of Moti Gilat's book, "The Curse of Deri," was published in the newspaper last Friday. The most negative superlatives were worded as if this were merely a description of the book's subject.
Gilat is once again using his column to convince the reader ["criminal Aryeh Deri"] not to vote for Shas. He is obsessed...
""What did Nahum Barnea once tell me? He's like a Rottweiler. He'll grab the victim's throat until he chokes to death. And Deri, what can he do, refuses to die, and Shas is rising for now.".
So far in the community.
I leafed through the newspaper, trying to find praise for Eli Yishai.
But in one column I read about how he was the one who put a damper on the wheels of the then Minister of Construction and Housing, Ariel Attias, and stopped initiatives and signatures.
Then, in a spread, I read about an interview with MK candidate Haim Biton, under the title "We All Demonstrate Loyalty to the Leader." I remembered the weeks in which harsh things were written there about Rabbi Mazuz, the spiritual leader of 'Yachad,' and a thought crossed my mind: Could it be that the writer of the column criticizing Israel Hayom (a decent and honest writer) simply doesn't read the pages of the newspaper in which he writes?
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