Q&A: Shababniks — the Lie!!!
Shababniks — the Lie!!!
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I don’t know whether you’ve watched Shababniks,
but wow, I’m boiling with rage.
I’m a classic yeshiva guy.
I’ve watched all the episodes so far, and all I’ve seen is cruel cynicism that makes me look like an idiotic, ignorant primitive.
But Guri Alfi’s speech finished me off — link: https://youtu.be/qBdpziTQ1Xw
It’s a disgusting lie. We don’t think like that. We don’t talk like that.
We do not spend all day thinking about some girl drinking a glass of water in front of us!!! And in dating meetings we talk about feelings!!! We’re human beings!!!
The dating scene was cruel and dishonest, and I cried from rage!!! See the link above.
Hair tied back?! Black clothing?! Only water?! A red tie is forbidden?! Where did they make this stuff up from?!
This series portrays us the way Marvel’s Avengers portrays a classic day on the street!!! I feel humiliated!!!
If tomorrow I’m walking down the street and even one secular person thinks I behave anything like the people in the series, I won’t even want to leave the house. The characters there looked like they came out of an antisemitic cartoon!!!
Here are some of the stupidities: nobody asks anyone to change their last name.
Nobody chases after secular people in the middle of the street to complete a prayer quorum.
No yeshiva guy shakes hands with the director of a zoo.
Nobody approaches a Sephardi for a match because his daughter’s hand was amputated.
And nobody relates to television with that kind of hysteria and throws it out the window. And that’s still nothing…
They hurt me!
I didn’t come to whine, I think there’s enormous damage here.
It will only create distance. They turned us into lunatics.
And what makes me angriest is that it’s a complete lie!!! If it were an unpleasant truth, I would accept it lovingly.
I don’t think the Haredi public is perfect, absolutely not!!! But this is sheer venom!
If it were The Jews Are Coming, I’d have no problem, everyone understands that it’s exaggerated satire, or the result of a different worldview, but here it’s a distortion of reality!!!
Anyone who talks to a Haredi person for 20 seconds will understand the terrible image-damage this series is causing.
The character of Shlomi came straight out of an antisemitic skit!!! It’s simply an injustice!!!
I’m angry because I work and talk with secular people, and I hear people confidently saying that this is really how Haredim behave!!! It’s so humiliating that someone might think I’m like the idiots in the series.
I’d be glad to hear your opinion. Thank you.
And do you think there is damage here?
Answer
Hello.
Since I haven’t seen the series, I can’t offer an opinion. In your remarks here, are you talking about shababniks or about regular yeshiva students? That isn’t the same thing. The series is about shababniks, no?
In general, I understand the pain and anger you’re expressing, but I’ll present a few points you should take into account in the opposite direction: 1. Whenever someone shows you from the outside, it’s never the way you perceive yourself from the inside. And they are not always entirely wrong. That is true of every person or group that sees a depiction of itself. 2. If I understand correctly, this is not a documentary series. There is artistic freedom. Though you are right that when the public treats it as an authentic representation, there is a (moral) obligation to preserve authenticity. This even came up in legal discussion regarding the film Jenin, Jenin, among other things. 3. There are different shades of shababniks and of Haredi yeshiva students. There are different kinds of Sephardim, and Hasidim and Lithuanians of various kinds, and so on. It is possible that among some of them this is in fact closer to the truth. 4. From what you describe (again, I haven’t seen the series), there are things that are not far-fetched. For example, throwing out televisions is an Amnon Yitzhak-style act, and it probably refers to that public (which is not yeshiva students, of course). Turning to a Sephardi for a match because of some deficiency/limitation is a completely real phenomenon. I myself encountered it in the past. Chasing after secular people for a prayer quorum is not an existing phenomenon? I’m astonished! 5. There are differences between periods. There may be phenomena that used to be more common even if today they are less so. Even the term “shababniks” seems to me a bit outdated, no? Is it still used on the Haredi street today? I remember it from the era when the phenomenon first broke out into the open. 6. A society that advocates seclusion and separation cannot protest the fact that it isn’t known and isn’t presented properly, or that it is perceived as strange and as doing strange things. Even if that isn’t accurate, that is how the broader public perceives it. As far as I know, yeshiva students do not make films about themselves.
And one more general comment. As I understand it, some of the creators of the series were themselves from that world, and I assume they know the situation. True, once people leave they present things in an inaccurate and sometimes infuriating way, but I refer you back to point 1 above.
Discussion on Answer
By the way, in your view as the questioner, is there a gap between secular people as they are portrayed in the series and the way you perceive them?
Actually I think this series may be harmful to the Haredim, but very good for their image.
Especially now that they are in the opposition.
That’s where legitimacy is bought, especially with the help of the actions of the current hypocrites’ government.
The long nose and dirty clothes in Der Stürmer also had a factual basis, no less than throwing out a television. And the amputated hand. Setting the boundary for artistic freedom is very difficult, but there is a feeling that the line of good taste was crossed, and by a lot.
I’m not talking about the portrayals of the shababniks themselves!!! Even that is nonsense with internal contradictions!!!
I’m talking about the little scenes that supposedly speak about the people around them, who are the real Haredi public!!!
And what drives me crazy is that Eliran Malka writes that he sat with Haredim and came to write the truth. He kind of feels like a journalist exposing serious things here. And that gives the impression that things are exactly as written and exactly as they happen.
About the dating scene he wrote that this was an important episode!
And the impression one gets is that with us you really aren’t allowed to talk about feelings, and that there are stupid rules like these. There is no such thing!!!
Even my most chilled-out friends don’t behave like that!!!
No yeshiva guy shouts through a loudspeaker in the middle of a secular street in Jerusalem to get a prayer quorum!!! Maybe there are Haredim who do that. That’s a minority, and it’s not yeshiva students.
Nobody in the Haredi public behaves like that — no shades and no nothing.
That’s exactly why I’m angry, because Eliran Malka does know us. He gives the sense that everything is real, takes negligible situations that don’t exist, and declares them Haredi mainstream.
Thank God the whole yeshiva didn’t also go out to throw stones!!!
So what, there aren’t Haredim who throw stones?!
I know my public and I know television.
I wasn’t born yesterday.
They went beyond the bounds of good taste.
You can feel Eliran Malka’s condescension and contempt in every episode.
Dear Elchanan Rein.
I don’t understand what you want. And where you live.
Yes, on dates people don’t talk about feelings. Among Hasidim, really nothing at all, and among Lithuanians from the more old-fashioned circles and up, not either…
Maybe a few “modern” ones with forelocks allow themselves… but why is that not representative?
Throwing out a television? That’s really not unusual. I assume most of the neighbors in the crowded, noisy, filthy building you live in would behave that way. Even if you don’t.
Chasing after people for a prayer quorum? Why not? [Of course not with a loudspeaker just like that in the middle of the day in the middle of the street…]
I came onto this page and felt the need to respond.
I watched all the episodes of the series, and it is indeed evident that the creator(s) did targeted work with the aim of getting ratings.
In some cases they were innocently mistaken, and in some they deliberately exaggerated in order to create interest and tension, and also condescension toward the Haredim, because otherwise the series would not succeed.
No secular person would pay, or even waste time, to watch a series that presents the light and beauty and goodness among Haredim.
Indeed the series presents the Haredim from an unflattering angle and exaggerates almost every negative thing.
There is no good Haredi character in the series. It’s either frustrated, half-secular shababniks, or extreme Haredim on the border of insanity, like Gedalia and Tapiro. Most of the secular characters come off much, much better.
All the Haredi characters are caricatures. The main character, the “Rosh Yeshiva,” Gedalia, presents a man with a host of mental disorders, obsessive, with anxiety disorders and an uncontrollable lust for honor, in such pathetic form that only in a secular series could he be a yeshiva head and win the esteem of students who are Haredi and several times better than he is. In real life, that did not happen and will not happen. No wonder he got the award for best actor.
The plot itself is also full of enormous holes, and maybe that is actually for the best, so that anyone looking even a little for truth can identify the forgery. Even the Torah insights spoken throughout the two seasons are very shallow (some are completely mistaken).
The series definitely pats the secular viewer on the shoulder and presents the Haredim “in their wretchedness,” leaving the secular viewer with a very good taste. And that, after all, was the goal.
To my mind, it is exactly like a series that would be written about secular people and present them as thieves and sexual deviants with no values at all. Or a series that would be written about Arabs and present them as thieves and bloodthirsty terrorists.
Unfortunately, the creators aimed more at ratings and financial success and gave the Israeli public what it enjoys. But that is nothing new in the Israeli world in which we live.
I just now saw that you attached a clip, and only now did I watch it. The context isn’t clear to me: who is Guri Alfi and whom is he speaking to (who is his audience). But it is evident that this is a parody, and in my opinion it definitely falls within the bounds of the reasonable. Not because all the facts there are accurate, but because it is a parody of a situation that really exists. Try thinking about it through secular eyes (in relation to what secular people do with one another on dates), and you’ll be able to understand the parody. Remember that caricature and parody always exaggerate and take things further in order to sharpen and intensify. And this really is not such a huge exaggeration compared to the real situation. By the way, as a yeshiva student you may not be used to watching movies or series and may not be familiar with these genres.