While there is anger in the chareidi community over the play ‘Fleischer’ which is brazenly anti-chareidi, no one is calling to shut it down, defending the theaters’ freedom of speech rights.
Some of the references made about chareidim in the original script include “bad animals” and “they only understand force”, however, when approached to come to the defense of the chareidi tzibur, Minister of Culture & Sport Miri Regev feels the play must be permitted under freedom of speech.
Other lines in the play includes “If I wasn’t born Jewish, I would be a major anti-Semite”, and “They are not humans, they are animals”, “They want a Sanhedrin, not a parliament – they want a state run by halacha” and “a black coat in the middle of August – it stinks!”
One shouldn’t forget the line “The blacks – look at them, like in the shteitel. For this we built a state? Even wild animals have a neshama but not them”.
Channel 10 chareidi affairs correspondent Avishai Ben-Chaim reports on Fleischer, citing the obvious anti-chareidi bias.
Regev’s office adds under the law, the ministry may not interfere with the institutions it funds but it may turn to the Finance Ministry to complain if the content is illegal, such as insulting the national flag, incitement to violence and the like as per Paragraph 3b under the budgeting law, but this is not the case here. As such, because there is no law-breaking, the Ministry of Sport & Culture explains it cannot intervene as the theater is entitled to exercise freedom of speech.
Habima is quoted telling Kikar Shabbos News that the theater seeks to bring issued at the center of social conflict, explaining “the role of the national theater is to air performances exhibiting the realities of where we live towards stimulating public debate and dialogue between various factions in Israeli society. Fleischer deals with the chareidim and secular Jews and portrays the dramas that divide between these streams”.
It appears some of the quotes mentioned above, reported by Channel 10, have been omitted from the actual show in the editing process while some are explained to be “dramatic content important to understand the overall context…”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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11 Responses
Jews of America WAKE UP!!!
This stupid government os DOUBLE STANDARD!!
When people said they were happy, they were arrested!!
When Meir Kahana spoken, he was kicked out of the Knesset.
This disgusting government says freedom of speech, it really means freedom to say what we allow!!
This play in essence is what Zionism is all about.
They wouldn’t dare use such language about Ethiopians, Sephardim or even Arabs but haredim? You can say whatever lie or insult you want(as well as not hire us for jobs) and Israel doesn’t care!Shameful, talk about double standards.
#1 (a good Jew): Who got arrested for saying they were happy? I’m confused.
Motcha. I was here years ago when Rabin got assassinated (inside job). People who expressed satisfaction were ARRESTED! Obviously because they spoke out against the CURSED LEFT
I still don’t understand why people would want to live in Israel.
To expect the zionists to close down an anti-hareidi play would be similar to expecting the American south to have objected to an anti-Black play during the Jim Crow era. Why would they object to someone inciting towards implementing state goals and realizing the dream of the zionists to be free of the yoke of Torah.
There is no double standard, only separate goals and polciies. Absorbing the Ethiopians, the Sefardim and even the Arabs is part of zionist policy. But there is no double standard. The policy of zionism towards Bnei Torah is to get rid of them (perhaps by convincing them to give up Torah and Mitsvos, and if that doesn’t work to leave the country – hopefully they won’t consider “ethnic cleansing” but they may have to do given current birthrate differentials).
Rav Akiva said it best
“When I was an am haaretz I wanted to bite talmedai chachom, like a donkey
If the dialogue openly advocated violence against chareidim, it could be shut down. Otherwise, it is simply giving voice to sentiments that are sadly held by a significant percentage of secular Israelis
Try posting something like “Miri is a witch”. See if she says it’s alright due to freedom of speech, and doesn’t open a police investigation.
to #1 -I was also here. (and still am). People were arrested even just for smiling and looking happy. In my son’s yeshiva, a chasan who had just gotten engaged the night before, came back to the yeshiva at lunch time. When he walked into the dining room the boys called “mazel tov”, picked him up on their shoulders and started dancing with him. So the police came and the Rosh haYeshiva had to explain to them that they weren’t happy because Rabin was killed, rather because of the chasan. The policeman didn’t like that answer and said they should have waited until after the funeral. The Rav explained that they didn’t have newspapers or a radio and didn’t know what time the funeral was. so the next day in the newspaper there was a picture of the yeshiva from the shabby side entrance and it said, “Yehiva so and so -no newspapers and no radio.”
FRIENDS! What we need is a strong American politically -minded aliyah to teach them democracy.