Leave It To CNN

Someone passed on to me a link to a video CNN made on the Satmar chassidim. While my friend was infuriated with the short, my own personal whe more of "ho-hum" annoyance.

But then again, my expection for the media to give an accurate protrayal of chassidic Jews is about as high as my expection of us discovering life on Venus.

My community is not chassidic by any means; but using the Chassidim as a model for "fundamentalist religion gone wrong" is getting really old. How about discussing far more disturbing issues like complaints of indecency being filed against major networks. I mean, this is something that effects the viewer directly; not a random Satmar who decided to leave behind the tradition he was born into.

_____________________________________________

I am tempted to start listing the accolades of the Satmar and other Chassidim, but I will refrain (since I would probably do an injustice anyway). Instead, I just say that we all have different pieces that come together and make us into the person we are. With some of us, the traditions and ways of our family makes up a big part of who were are - with others, this is not the case. I think of my Grandmother for example, whose parents were East Indian Hindus but she learned none of the language, did not wear the "garb", and did not feel the need to marry within the Indo-Caribbean community exclusively. There are also people where the personality is what pushes them to the forefront - like Madonna. Now I never looked into her ancestral background, but I think it's pretty safe to say that none of her forefathers/mothers led a life anywhere close to the one she currently lives. The final factor is the environment we come into. Phyllis Wheatly immediately comes to mind - because here you have an African slave who was brought up in White American environment and educated as such. Now why in the world would a person born to two Satmar parents be exempt from this phenomenon?

None of us are automatons. In the video, Heschy talked about how the chassidim don't see movies or TV. Ok. My Grandmother is a Pentocostal X-tian and also has never seen a movie (in the theater at least) in her life (she has also never worn pants). And I don't have a TV. Does that make us fundamentalists? And doesn't the reason behind the action count for anything? I mean who would highlight someone who is just so poor, that they cannot afford to by a TV. No one. But if you say that they choose not to watch TV because of the negative influences of most of the programming - that's somehow not normal? What ever happened to respect for other people's standards and freedom of religion?

I almost laughed out loud when the woman with the dark hair (I don't remember her name) said "That in the Satmar community...if you don't conform....you have a very hard time". Well guess what Charley? Growing up as a young Black girl who read Edgar Allan Poe for fun, would wear Fred Perry's instead of Karl Kani or Cross Colors, and didn't know all the lyrics to the latest Tupac song, I had a hard time too! That's just normal in any social situation where you don't "behave as expected". They were also way off track when they said "Satmar's feel their Judaism is the only form of legitimate Judaism. Perhaps they are mixing the Satmar's up with the Neturei Karta , and even there, the dispute is over acceptance of certain concepts and not the the halachaic distinction of who is and isn't a Jew. I mean, all Orthodox Jews are that way to a degree. If they did not feel legitmacy in "their" flavor of Judaism then they wouldn't be practicing it (or they are prevented by some ulterior reason of not changing).

They curiously glossed over the fact that Heschy is still Torah-observant. Did they fail to dig just a tiny bit deeper to see that in even the "Modern Orthodox" movement, women wear skirts? Why did they not highlight the "freakishness" of the fact that Heschy doesn't touch a light switch on Shabbos? How about not eating a bagel with cream cheese 3 hours after you ate a piece of chicken. I mean, aren't those actions more "odd" than encouragement to get married at a young age?

_____________________________________________

Bottom line is, "Nice try CNN, but you came significantly short of the goal line". Unfortunately, CNN assumes both ignorance and intolerance from the majority of their viewers. Even if it's true, thumbs down on playing on the fact. Remember when punk rockers used to make the news? Not so anymore, because now just about everyone has a "Cousin Joey" somewhere in the family that shaved his hair into a mohawk. Better yet, how about the club-hoppers? Popping pills, getting wasted, and having one-night stands weekend after weekend seems to me, in my own humble opinion, a lot more dysfunctional than the life of a Satmar Jew.

CNN needs to stick with what they do best; follow the President around, show pictures from far-away of bombs going off, and showing graphs of the GNP that no one understands. By publicizing misconstrued stories of people many Americans would never meet anyway just dupes the Average Joe into thinking he's knowledgeable about cultures other than his own. And we really don't need any more Charles Murrays on the scene.