The Zionist Conspiracy |
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A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews. 
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Wendy Shalit's Response I think Wendy Shalit's response to her critics is more compelling that her original Times piece. While I don't completely agree with all of her points, and don't feel that observant Jews should avoid criticism of problems in our community, I like Shalit's outspoken and unequivocal defense of Orthodoxy and its adherents, as well as the fact that she's opened up a debate about how observant Jews are depicted in fiction. If the blogosphere is an accurate indication (and it probably isn't), it seems like thinking observant Jews are riddled with angst about Orthodoxy (not that that's all a bad thing). Whether she's a naive BT is open to question, but Shalit's bold arguments are novel and interesting. One of the criticisms directed toward Shalit is that the authors she criticizes are writing fiction. In her response, Shalit argues: To be sure, fiction is not sociology, and sometimes a negative slant can enliven a story. But when all your Orthodox characters are cold and dysfunctional, and unlike anything this group understands itself to be, then I think one must ask what else might be going on ... literature matters. 18th-century French literature was a reflection of, and shaped what became, modern society's dominant notions of the social contract. How is the treatment of Orthodox Jews in fiction affecting our society and particularly, the rest of the world's perception of the Jews? I don't pretend to know the answer to this, but I feel we should be permitted to ask the question. Shalit's argument brings to mind an infamous February 2000 review in the New York Times of Kadosh, an anti-Orthodox movie by Amos Gitai, a secular Israeli who proclaimed that in writing it he was "voting against the religious right." Stephen Holden, reviewing the film, wrote about a marriage in Kadosh of a charedi couple: Their wedding night scene would be the stuff of grotesque comedy if it weren't so cruel. After hastily removing as few clothes as necessary, Yossef climbs on the bed, pulls the covers over them and without so much as kissing his bride, or even looking her in the face, brutally lunges at her as she screams in agony. Later, when he suspects her of infidelity, Yossef goes ballistic and viciously beats her with a belt. Just fiction, right? But then Holden, referring to "the profound and shocking misogny" of the charedi world, continued: The sort of oppression endured by the women in 'Kadosh', of course, is not limited to ultra-Orthodox Jews. It is just as virulent among Moslem fundamentalists and extreme sects in other religions. At its heart is a fear and loathing of sex that originates largely from a primitive notion of women's bodies as essentially unclean. In other words, Holden, in reviewing Kadosh, a work of pure fiction, took the film's negative depiction of its charedi male lead, and charedi life generally, as an absolute fact. At the time, many observant Jews were furious, though much of the objection fell on deaf ears. | "
