A couple of months ago, a group of friends and I put on an explainer of Israel’s judicial overhaul proposal at Manny’s. My wonderful colleague Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg talked about the extent to which the struggle over the country’s government structure is cultural no less than it is legal-political. As she explains it, huge swaths of the Israeli secular public are waking up to the extent to which their hard work and sacrifice (military service, taxes) are funding Ultra-Orthodox communities and special interests. I was reminded of this when we held my father’s funeral at the secular cemetery Menuha Nehona (“a proper resting place”), which is beautifully, efficiently, and compassionately run by a team of superb volunteers. The standard Jewish funeral in Israel is run by Hevre Kadisha, the Ultra-Orthodox funerary service, whose extortionist practices, dehumanizing burial procedures, and insulting bigotry have become legendary. Instead, we got to bury my beloved father with speeches from loved ones, live and recorded music he loved, moving songs, and a kaddish from his own daughter, as well as the traditional kaddish from his brother. It was such mercy that we were able to divest from the stronghold that the Ultra-Orthodox administration holds over so many aspects of any Israeli’s circle of life, and it reminded me how alienating and surreal my divorce ritual was (I’ve written about it here). As I wrote recently, the absurdities of dealing with the Rabbinate and its many tentacles were swept under the rug through a delicate dance of hypocrisies and performances. And to hear Hadar discuss it, a big part of why there’s such a huge uprising against this government has to do with how fed up people are with all this.
It’s hard to explain to people who don’t live her how insular and removed the Ultra-Orthodox experience is from everyday, mainstream secular life, but today presented an interesting example. Strauss company makes a crunchy snack called Doritos (basically, tortilla chips with a spicy kick), and a year ago they released an ad for their snack for family day. As you’ll see, the ad celebrates lots of different families, including those based on same-sex marriages:
The ad was deliberately released only digitally, not on TV, to reduce controversies with religious audiences. Nevertheless, it provoked ire among the Ultra Orthodox, to the point that the Ultra-Orthodox rcourt called to boycott Doritos.
My friend Andrea Lobel (theologian, Renewal Rabbi, and librarian extraordinaire) drew my attention to a new ad Doritos has produced, which has been shared on Twitter:
The ad is quite humorous, and based on the Eastern European folklore of the Jewish Shtetl (my dad wrote a sweet and endearing short story book about those little Jewish towns.) It’s a bit like a Jewish Monty Python. But comparing it to the secular ad above is striking. It’s obvious Doritos wanted to recapture the Ultra-Orthodox market share, and they went to great lengths to flatter and appease their target audience. The religious ad is entirely in Yiddish, with Hebrew subtitles. There’s nary a woman in sight. Most scenes take place in synagogues and Batei Midrash (Jewish scripture-learning institutions). In the movie theater scene, all the people seated at the theater are men, and all in religious garb. The ad essentially recreates the Israeli street as an entirely Ultra-Orthodox street, purged of any secular markers or identifiers and purged even of religious women (in case this seems imaginary, in some neighborhoods in Israel girls are actually admonished to stay away from the streets and play hidden from view, lest they encounter men on their way from the synagogue.)
My colleague Gadi Barzilai, whose multicultural tolerance for communities and their way of life was legendary, would probably have more patience for this than I do, but it does come not only at the expense of the secular public and Ultra Orthodox women, but the Ultra Orthodox men themselves. The limited education and life experience this lifestyle provides its adherence is producing an impoverished, ignorant community that is unable to adapt effectively and productively to life in the 21st century. It’s worth stopping, looking around, and thinking how far the chasm has come, and considering how it is informing the ever-widening civil rift in Israel.
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