Are Dancing Rabbis Offensive or Hilarious?

hilarious.  mockery is the best way to handle religious zealots.

Ya know...if you dress as if you are in 19th century Poland, you kind of leave yourself open to be made fun of just a little bit.

In a way, is the commercial even really making fun of the charedi (outside of the speech at the beginning) as much as just making a joke because of the juxtaposition of some charedi guys dancing to the Village People? Because if it is mocking, one has to sort of accept that the very position of banning television is somewhat silly. Otherwise the speech at the beginning isn't so far off from reality. Umm, or perhaps I am misstranslating. That is a distinct possibility.

Though it does bring up a tree falling in the forrest type philosophical question. If you are being made fun of in a medium you don't watch, are you really being made fun of?

An argument can be made that television in some ways can promote a greater knowledge and understanding of the world. And to be closed off from such a source isn't actually an act of positive denial but rather close-mindedness and ignorance.

That said, it may be best that the Haredi have never seen Flavor of Love.

show up in a lot of popular representation of jews.

what offends me the most about this type of stuff is the way it implies that the epitome of a jew is a chassidic male.

that having been said, i actually think it's less bad if it's an israeli commercial.  it annoys me less than all the schlocky youtube videos of "funny" channukkah songs that feature dancing/rawking chassidim.

der Rebbe tanzt, tanzn alle chasidim.

Anyone know this song?

I think it is brilliant:  The commercial is saying that if we do what the Chareidim dont allow, we will have fun, (as we watch chareidim having fun being against it)!

I take back my mean comments from last week about not liking Soccers comments, that was a great point soccer, wow!  Tamar, I already think Soccer deserves comment of the week and its only Monday!!!

Tamar, crazy but I was also in BJ this shabbos!  Dont forget what I thought was another terrific point that Rabbi Feldman made: which was the fact that the chareidim, arguably passionate, committed and religiously devoted people, have somehow become seen as a caricature of themselves. There was no concern that YES would be seen as insensitive, irreverant, politically incorrect, andti-traditional, or anything else other than creative, humurous, and original. The chareidim have lost such credibility that those who would never parody blacks, Ethiopians, homosexuals, housewives, or environmentalists can parody chareidim with impunity. Doing so will sell more televisions.

ps. thanks for the compliments Leah

Wow, Soccer.  That's really weird.  Didn't you recognize me as the only girl there with purple hair?

I thought R. Feldman's outrage at the caricature of the charedim was a little out of place.  The charedi world has become a charicature of itself, just a lot of people trying to be frummer-than-thou, banning everything left right and center.  It seemed like it made him uncomfortable that the commercial hit so close to home, and I thought that was a little wimpy.  WHy not say, "Hey, when the secular world only sees you as an institution that says no and bans things, you might have taken a wrong turn somewhere."  I don't think the charedi method of isolation is particularly ideal.

Wasn't my cousin's dvar Torah awesome? 

I am astounded to find reference to that sermon I delivered on the Yes commercial. The only point I made was the point accurately described by Leah: that Chareidim have lost so much credibility that no one is afraid to make fun of them, and why aren't religious people more inteersted in how they are perceived? The commercial was evidence to me of teh problem chareidim have created (i am sympathetic to their tencity and commitment; very harshly critical of their disregard for, and lack of responsiblity for, how they are listended to, how they

 can make a difference in the world.

I don't mean Leah, I mean Soccer.

Bmar Chatima Tova

Just silly. Reminds me of Jay Leno's "Dancing Itos"... which weren't funny either.

you dont live in the holy city, here we have dancing allthe time, baruah hashem

musicians like me wonder the streets with all sorts of harps,guitars, tambourine -me,

drums and so on. we are always dancing not just breslev and habad, and when they dance so does everybody else. people are having so much fun while you sprout philosphy.

i could tell you endless stories, once a group of musicians came from asia,china i think, so many come its hard to remember back 2 years. they  played inthe kikar zion, jerusalem, after that they called the crowd around them to join in. i gave the leader a young man my tambourine with messiah painted on in hebrew, jewish messiah. he gave me his which was very heavy we all danced around and had a wonderful time and people were happy. not drug happy.  happy happy

you have no idea

the average israeli, religious or not, and there is not a gr eat difference, it is another media fantasythat we are so different, we are not. except for a few self righteous intellecuals, most israelis found this ad hysterical. most religious would not even have seen it no tv and woud not be interested to see adverts on the net.

most non religious find it hysterical. its so close to the truth how they dance. we dont care what stupid advert they are promoting, they are showing happy jews 

whats the matter honey, you want to see nasty settlers picking on virgin arabs

does not suit your prejudice. oh sorry all the arab virgins are in heaven.

what does a female suicide bomber get as a gift

she gets to be one of the 70 virgins of the suicide bomber

try fitting truth into your writings once in awhile

why dont you check it out, come to see for yourself the joy of the jews, true tuesday and thursday at the kotel, bar mitzvah day. one day in less than a hour i met 10 boys from all over the world and israel at the kotel with all their friends and families. i had time to say whats your name, where are you from, mazel tov, come again.

music blaring, drums, etc as theyenter the kotel, some dress in beautiful robes,

 you  really dont know what you are talking about and what you are missing

jews in israel at least have a great sense of humour, dont take themselves seriously and are not pretentious and snobby. that we leave to our professors and intellectuals and elites. they have more pride than we can stand and keep us humble in our efforts not to be like them. we are not troubled or bothered or give a damn. funny is funny. thats all. our rabbi's dance, thank god they get something right. they sing. we dance and sing. at the drop of a hat people dance and sing here 

whoops i should say at the sound of the tambourine folks start dancing. i personally get everyone dancing from baby to grumpy old man withthe tov miriam.

so we will keep on ddancing, you can keep on kvetching and being important we are to busy having fun to listen to your kvetching anyway.

how about the ad with the dancing iranians - wow  that was wonderful

how about the olympics, thank god for the chinese with their magnificent show and they had lots of tambourines, they danced on them. fantsatic.

loving jerusalem

and keeping her dancing

ruth and tambourine    .