Among various groups in Israeli society, there is a tendency to focus frustrations and even anger on the media. Quite often I hear sentences like: "The media is to blame.".<\/p>\r\n
Does Judaism recognize this excuse? Are the sick in society really just figments of the imagination of media people? Can we generalize and say that there are no cases where journalists and programs do not bring us a surprising or different angle than what we are used to seeing?<\/p>\r\n
A week ago, I had the privilege - by virtue of my role as Gesher chairman - to join a meeting between senior media figures and the head of a Haredi yeshiva in Bnei Brak. The group is very diverse and certainly represented almost every color of secular, religious, national, and Haredi media.<\/p>\r\n
In response to one of the questions, the yeshiva head accused the media of harboring hatred from the non-Haredi side toward the Haredi side.<\/p>\r\n
Without being naive about the media, it's clear to me that such an answer is unsatisfactory, not to mention puzzling. Certainly not to people who take their precious time to come and learn more in depth about Haredi society.<\/p>\r\n
What is the correct approach?<\/p>\r\n
In my opinion, each and every one of us must conduct our own self-examination of negative social phenomena, and in this specific case - the representation of Haredim in the media - we must admit that it is not just a matter of journalists' prejudices, but is also rooted in deeper relationships of isolation and even alienation on the part of large parts of Haredi society towards society in general.<\/p>\r\n
To photograph the photographer who is not standing<\/b><\/p>\r\n
A few days after the visit, we marked Holocaust Remembrance Day and Heroism. A day on which Zionist society commemorates the Holocaust primarily in a national way, while on the other hand, traditionally, there is almost no special reference to it in Haredi society.<\/p>\r\n
Until this year, the main exposure of Haredim to Memorial Day through the general media was through the search for the Haredi who did not stand at the siren, while they, the Haredi, for their part, looked for the photographer who also did not stand and was busy photographing the Haredi who did not stand.<\/p>\r\n
But this year the picture was different.<\/p>\r\n
Three serious and important articles on the subject of the Holocaust from an ultra-Orthodox perspective were published in the general media, under the title "The ultra-Orthodox have a different way of remembering the Holocaust" (Itzik Halperin from Channel 1, Kobi Nachshoni, from YNET, and Cheko Menashe, from Kol Yisrael).<\/p>\r\n
They too have their own unique way of commemorating, and the content they highlight is distinctly different from that of society at large.<\/p>\r\n
The articles featured the special story of the Rebbe of Kaliv, reviewed the 'Ganzech Kiddush Hashem' museum, which commemorates the Holocaust in a very unique way, and interviewed an expert on the subject who illuminated the perception of the Haredi street in a new, different and fascinating light.<\/p>\r\n
There are also other journalists in Israel.<\/b><\/p>\r\n
These newspapers are serious professionals. They did not come with the goal of advocating for one public or another, but rather to try to illuminate a new angle that the public is apparently unaware of.<\/p>\r\n
This exposure attempted to give a little more color and a little more depth to Haredi society in the general space, without obscuring the fact that there are also differences of opinion on many other issues.<\/p>\r\n
This is the same media that is constantly accused of trying to polarize the people, create divisions, and pit publics against each other.<\/p>\r\n
In this case, it turns out, she managed to look at a large public in Israel with equal eyes, and in her way also brought closer the hearts of various groups in the nation.<\/p>\r\n
The Holocaust of the Haredi public<\/strong><\/p>\r\n In my opinion, despite the vast differences of opinion between the ultra-Orthodox and general public, the ultra-Orthodox world also has a deep memory of destruction and fracture following the Holocaust.<\/p>\r\n But the revival that the Haredim desired was not a secular political entity (although even among the Haredim at that time there were such voices), but rather the gathering of the remnant of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and a strong desire to rebuild the world of the Torah, which is in fact also a kind of revival.<\/p>\r\n After all, what is spirit? The Israeli narrative speaks of the spirit of rebellion and the courage to fight physically, but spirit does not have to involve physical strength, but also the spirit of tradition and the continued observance of the Torah of Israel \u2013 is considered 'spirit'.<\/p>\r\n In the State of Israel, we need both the spiritual and the physical. We cannot have one without the other.<\/p>\r\n And back to the media<\/strong><\/p>\r\n There is a tendency to blame the media for all of society's ills, especially the tense and hostile attitude of the Israeli public toward the ultra-Orthodox community.<\/p>\r\n But we must remember that the media does not create reality. It reports what it sees and mainly highlights what it finds unusual and interesting.<\/p>\r\n For example, we have a duty to report what is happening within the Haredi sector, such as the commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the right way.<\/p>\r\n After all, at the end of the day, how will those "outside" know what's happening inside the sector, if they're not told?<\/p>\r\n There is no need to blur differences between the publics. They exist. And yet, the Haredi press and media are expected to find a way, and correspond at eye level with these issues, even if it is only to emphasize the differences.<\/p>\r\n Who knows where this could lead? In my opinion, at least, only good things can come out of this.<\/p>\r\n \u2022 Daniel Goldman is the chairman of Gesher, and a businessman, living in Beit Shemesh<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The media is persecuting the Haredi street in the sensitive days of the State of Israel and seeks to intensify the rift between the various publics. \u2022 Yet it is not entirely to blame either: we must find a way to tell our narrative in the media, our way of commemorating it, even if it is different.","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[2372,457,32315,248,2629],"class_list":["post-159849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-138","tag-2372","tag-457","tag-32315","tag-248","tag-2629"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n