By: Daniel Wiseman
The latest tumult to rock the Jewish world during these lazy summer months is the “sky-is-falling” show My Unorthodox Life.
Relax, there is nothing revolutionary about this show that debuted July 14 on whether “dangerous stereotypes” are being perpetuated that will cause more Jew hatred.
First, the obvious: this is merely a television show, i.e., fiction. In addition to being fiction, this is a “reality” television show, which, by definition, is not reality. Further, this is a reality show about the fashion world, which is unreality on steroids. People in Davenport, Iowa, or Scottsbluff, Nebraska, do not watch shows about narcissistic twits and the New York fashion scene. Americans there and everywhere probably have their minds made up about Jews anyway. As President Nixon once said, this show won’t “Play in Peoria.”
Does the widely acclaimed Netflix show Shtisel, somehow make the world a safer place for Jews because it generally presents ultra-Orthodox Jews in a positive light? Of course not. Shtisel is a well-done sympathetic franchise that makes one feel good, but mostly because this creative enterprise has been done so well. On the other hand, contradictions and half truths permeate My Unorthodox Life, in which Ms. Julia Haart makes her living as a fashion designer and representative to comely models. Ms. Haart is not “unorthodox,” in a religious context, except in that she dabbles in sex tropes. In fact, if Ms. Hart were simply to have been a Jewish woman who started a business, promoted herself and her business without maligning Judaism along the way, she would be doing just about what every Jewish businessperson does in America, and that’s OK.
By now in our culture everyone knows the familiar story line of “repressed” Jewish woman “escaping” “mean-old” Orthodox Judaism to discover that she can now bare her cleavage and French kiss her apparently non-Jewish husband on television and make money. For added effect, in My Unorthodox Life, Ms. Haart, with great nobility, desires to ensure that models are not abused by the “mean-old” men and women of the fashion industry, which at its very essence exploits women by forcing the models and women in general to uphold an impossible standard of beauty. This reality show is inside baseball at its finest. Tens of millions of Americans don’t choose to watch shows about fashion, and if they do, they are not going to discover anything shocking about this one other than Ms. Haart’s being “against something” to motivate her and drive her business plan.
Here is what appears to be the main untruth in My Unorthodox Life: Ms. Haart was oppressed living in Monsey, Rockland County, New York, as an Orthodox married woman. By her personal photos displayed on the show, Ms Haart appears to have lived a “typical” existence for a woman in an Orthodox community that was not “ultra-Orthodox,” but simply Orthodox. She does not appear to have been a member of a “Chassidic” community that does in fact, it could be argued, keep women “sequestered,” or if one likes, held as second-class citizens. There is no denying that the status of women in Judaism can be and is often problematic. But Ms. Haart seems to be railing against an “ultra-Orthodox” community for which she was not a member. Her ex-husband is an attorney and they seem to have lived mostly a mainstream suburban American life, other than that they were Orthodox Jews, somewhat on the right of the Orthodox spectrum, but not what would be called Hareidim or belonging to a “ultra-Orthodox” Chassidic sect. One would have to be knowledgeable of the delineations in the Orthodox world to catch these distinctions, which Ms. Haart blanketly ignores in perpetuating her narrative.
The second misleading aspect is that if Ms. Haart had wanted the career that she now has and made the same business choices without “escaping” or “maligning” Orthodox Judaism, she would have been perfectly able to do so without leaving her community. There are hundreds of deeply committed Orthodox Jewish women who run successful businesses and are proud Orthodox mothers and wives, and many of them are probably a bit flamboyant, and they are known, welcomed, and accepted for being such. Strong Jewish women make the massive Jewish steamship sail across the ocean, and some of them are business owners, and some are not. If Ms. Haart wants to rail against Judaism as part of her business plan, so be it. Barbra Streisand and Kirk Douglas, two name two Jews, promoted their show business careers in their way, and nobody cares how “Jewish” they are or were, respectively.
There are many factors going into Jew hatred in the United States, and many revolve around politics, such as the State of Israel’s role in the world or to what degree Jews are considered good citizens by mainstream American society. The United States is a relatively philo-Semitic country, which on average finds about 10 to 15 percent of its citizens holding deeply anti-Semitic views. That compares to about 40 percent in the 1930s. My Unorthodox Life is not moving the dial in increasing anti-Semitism, just in the same way Shtisel is not decreasing anti-Semitism. If you want to watch, my Unorthodox Life, go for it. If that’s your form of entertainment, that’s your prerogative. But ultimately to answer the classic question is My Unorthodox Life, “good for the Jews?” depends on one’s outlook. If you see anti-Semitism under every rock, you are going to be deeply disturbed. If on the other hand, you are a believer and have faith, you will conclude rightly that My Unorthodox Life is a grand nothing burger and has minimal consequence or impact on that dreaded bogeyman, “anti-Semitism.”
Daniel Wiseman is an independent commentator on Jewish matters, especially on the interconnection on the role of religion and politics on American culture and society.
