Is this what happens when one Jew feels endangered by his brother’s very identity? Is this what the air felt like before the Churban?
Then came the sermon:
“Observe your religious ceremonies in private, [Maggie]. In Israel or, by the way, in any other venue in the West. We must separate religion from the news industry. The walls of our liberal fortress will never fall to you. You [religious Jews] are an utter churban. This is not ‘Jewish television,’ it’s religious television.”
Alper’s column got the expected response from Channel 14 fans. They duly noted how Haaretz is enlightened enough to regularly rue the plight of Palestinian third-generation refugees, yet still can’t muster any tolerance for a Jew keeping halachah. So much for its supposed liberalism.
But all that stridence, all that passion, over a cup of water — it makes you wonder. Why did Alper blast Tabibi’s primetime brachah in a full-length, blistering condemnation instead of just swiping it away like an annoying gnat? He seems almost… threatened.
What’s he scared of?
Alper’s column may have reminded you of that viral clip of the verbal lashing a secular Israeli woman unleashed upon Yonatan Eilon Hirsch, a 26-year-old chassid riding the city bus in Hod Hasharon last June. First she excoriated him for not serving in the army. When he countered that he was in fact an officer in an elite IDF unit, she yelled, “So why do you wear a kippah? Why do you have that whole shtreimel getup? Are you a cult?”
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