Ignoring the middle ground

The media neglects the needs of mainstream observant Jews.

By RALPH AMELAN
Jerusalem's Old City 521 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Jerusalem's Old City 521
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
If you want a fascinating glimpse into the secret lives of close to half the Israeli Jewish population, tune into the state-run Channel 1 television series “A Question for the Rabbi” (She’elat Rav) on Friday afternoons.
The program features the genial and gentle presence of the Chief Rabbi of Modi’in, David Lau, son of former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who answers phoned-in and written questions with much patience. This patience is needed: many inquirers ramble at length before reluctantly coming to the point.
And the point of the program is the questions.
The great issues of religion and state that occupy the media, from the Tal Law to the exclusion of women, are almost entirely absent. In their place are questions which revolve almost entirely around domestic and life-cycle concerns. Is a certain food kosher? Is it proper to give a baby a name not found in Jewish tradition? Who should be called up when to the reading of the Law in the synagogue? Most common of all, I think, are queries about death, the cemetery, and mourning. Nearly everyone wants to know what they should do when their family circle is broken by loss.
As these queries show, the audience is drawn from that vast middle ground of Israeli Jews, perhaps half the population or more, who are at least intermittently observant and respect tradition. Their concerns are practical, and straightforward, and in “Ask the Rabbi” they have a media forum entirely appropriate to their needs. There are, of course, Internet sites and radio programs that also cater to them, but by and large, the mainstream and religious media pass them by. If it were not for these few outlets, which enable them to break surface, as it were, their existence and concerns would scarcely be noticed.
They are certainly not in the foreground of God, Jews and the Media. Dr. Yoel Cohen, a faculty member of the School of Communication at the Ariel University Center of Samaria, has tried to construct a comprehensive scholarly framework to accommodate the many ways that Judaism and the Israeli media, secular and religious, interact with each other.
His survey is at its best when he employs anecdote. “We want to offer you a newspaper that filters inappropriate news from your home,” boasted the first editorial of the English edition of the ultra-Orthodox Hamodia in 2003. By contrast, it was a now-defunct religious newspaper that scooped all rivals in 1977 with the story that an official ceremony welcoming Israel’s first F-15 fighter planes had overrun into the Sabbath: the result was the break-up of the Labor-led coalition, and its replacement in the subsequent elections by the first ever Likud government.
But the rest? An academic is entitled to use the jargon of his discipline to write a book that is, plainly, intended for his peers rather than the public. But he should also demonstrate a degree of control over his subject, and here he lets himself and his audience down.
Too often, poll findings are scattered all over the page, with little effort to build argument from them. Contradictions in the findings (related, I suspect, to the inconsistencies between polling criteria and the dates when polls were made) go unexplained. His language is imprecise, and occasionally outright errors creep in. This one example will have to serve for many.
“A fourth bloc, an estimated 42 percent of the Jewish population, between the secular community and the religious community, comprises a middle group of traditional Jews, who identify with Judaism and observe Jewish laws and customs selectively. This bloc comprises an estimated 38 percent of the Jewish population.”
42 percent? 38 percent? Which is it? And where was the publisher’s proofreader? And while we are talking about the publisher, what is the justification for charging the public $125 for this? It is perhaps symptomatic that this error was made about the unconsidered viewers of “A Question for the Rabbi.” Cohen himself spends little time on them, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that their needs are generally ill-served by the media. In a few weeks, it is almost inevitable that newspapers and other media will run two contrasting pictures to honor the Tisha Be’Av fast: the haredim praying at the Western Wall and the secular relaxing at the beach.
No doubt those responsible will think they have made a point about Israeli society, instead of repeating a lazy stereotype.
Meanwhile, most of the rest will be observing, or not observing the fast, each in his or her way, and quietly carrying on the tradition regardless.