Channel Two inaugurated a new investigative journalism series Hamaarechet (the System) earlier this month. The first documentary of the original series was originally entitled “The Chareidi Invasion ” until protests by chareidi Knesset members led to a change to something a bit more innocuous. But the subject matter remained the same: the threat posed by chareidim moving into secular neighborhoods.
The series was replete with errors. For instance a resident of Arad was interviewed complaining about how difficult it is to live with a synagogue in her building but neglected to mention that the synagogue preceded her purchase of the apartment. In pursuit of footage of confrontation Channel Two sent a scantily clad woman into a chareidi neighborhood of Beit Shemesh. If there are any places in Israel where chareidim and secular Jews are living together in harmony presenter Miki Haimovich did not manage to find them.
The bottom line of the series: Chareidi neighborhoods and cities are busting at the seams because of the rapid chareidi population growth and they are entering “our neighborhoods” where their presence will make life unbearable.
Happily the documentary was subjected to a fair amount of criticism and most of it by non-chareidim.
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