Q&A: On Censorship
On Censorship
Question
While the uproar over The Jews Are Coming is still turning tables out there, this time censorship came from a somewhat different place. After the rape case in Eilat and the demonstrations that took place בעקבותיו, the Tel Aviv municipality decided to remove the painting at Metzitzim Beach (in which two boys are seen peeping into the women’s changing rooms; https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.haaretz.co.il/amp/gallery/art/1.9094044).
Is that kind of censorship reasonable and permissible? What is the big difference between it and a demand to remove the program The Jews Are Coming?
Another question on the same topic: I don’t know whether there is any prohibition about this, but is a ban on broadcasting sexual content (sex scenes, for example) on the public broadcasting corporation a sensible and legitimate prohibition?
(And one last thing: I’m trying to post a comment in the thread I opened under the name “Zita,” but I just can’t manage to post there (after I write it in the text box, the “Reply” option disappears for me). What can be done? Is it possible to open a new question?)
Many thanks
Answer
There are many distinctions. In a place where there is concern about violence and physical harm to people, there are limits to freedom of expression. The Jews Are Coming will not cause violence. The Tel Aviv municipality is censoring itself, whereas regarding The Jews Are Coming, the religious folks want the right to censor others. And so on.
If the “Reply” button disappears for you, press TAB until it appears (that’s on a computer; on mobile I don’t know).
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely not. See the following column.
Thank you very much for the answer, Rabbi.
What about the second question? Is there legitimacy to forbidding a broadcasting corporation from airing explicit sexual content? (Let’s say non-violent content, and let’s say such content would get decent ratings.) More generally, is it reasonable to forbid a corporation from showing content just because of a social taboo, even though it’s unlikely that such content would cause any real harm?
Explicit sexual content does cause harm. But if there were a clearly designated slot for it and there were demand for it, then maybe there would be room for that too.
Just a reminder: this was the reaction to an unsuccessful imitation of a holy man named Amnon Abramovich.
“Anyone who has the nerve and audacity to harm a person who paid a heavy price through military service is someone who is unfit to represent even a single citizen of the State of Israel,” Bar attacked. “If this is how they treat a disabled IDF veteran, in this case Abramovich, they must not be in a place that is supposed to protect and look after disabled IDF veterans, and it doesn’t matter what Amnon Abramovich said. Thanks to him, these people sit in the Knesset and keep babbling.”
A quick Google search brings up endless criticism from every corner of the media, and of course poor Eliraz Sadeh was forced to apologize in a long post.
By the way, it’s interesting to see that even on Kan 11 itself they were shocked by this desecration of the sacred. Apparently they too are against parodying sacred values like the handsome Abramovich; it’s just that as far as they’re concerned, the holy ones of Israel are not holy.
Here is the publication on Kan:
https://www.kan.org.il/item/?itemid=49055
So even if we assume satire is good and welcome, those who criticize it have no right to use it against others, because by their own view the state is supposed to be shocked.
As for the harm caused by things of this sort, you’d have to bury your head in the sand not to think there is consciousness-shaping going on here. Every child who sees this content and later studies the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the associations that come up in his overheated mind are Joseph the homosexual and, at best, the rest of our forefathers as adulterers. You can’t argue with what one absorbs in childhood; that’s simply how it is. By the way, if it were true, as in the case of Amnon Abramovich, then hiding it would seem like fear of the truth. But here we’re talking about distortions for the sake of distortion, with no basis in reality. So taking Katsav and making satire about him as a rapist could somehow pass, but not doing that to the late Begin. That has nothing to do with satire; it’s about shaping consciousness.
Does the Rabbi not think there’s a problem with the fact that The Jews Are Coming is funded by public money? That’s really not like having such a program on a private channel. It seems like a simple and sensible distinction to me.