"I also threw stones at Halbernetz" • Screen Review

With great interest I watched the program 'True Face' on the Halbernetz cult, Amnon Levi - as usual - did a great journalist job, it is dramatic, sweeping a wave of emotions, people cry at the sight of the great sadness that looks out of the eyes of poor Aryeh, who's only wish is to see the face of his biological mother, and the terrifyingly dangerous cult that prevents him from what he calls his last request, unparalleled cruelty.

Listen Mr. Levi, I began to see the first episode and I stopped in the middle due to boredom, and how you become anticipated from moment to moment, starting from the second part I said, perhaps there will be a renewal of something small, but at the height of the emotional meeting, after a few extra yawns, I retired from watching a sense of ewww ... Understand, I'm trying to be objective here, to enjoy watching a quality program but you are not making it easy for me.

You say there's a deaf dialogue going on here; you could not have defined it better, because for the mother, her son is an atheist, witty, and villain, yes - evil! Because the evil Orthodox should not kill or steal to be evil, enough that he denies G-d, and oops, he is evil (sometime Google search for the meaning of the term 'recusant and we should not'.) No matter how many places he volunteered, no matter if it is amicable, we can argue humanly if it should be that way or not, but for now it's a fact, Judaism is fanatical and primitive, like any other religion. By the way, we cannot change things that are the way it is and the quicker you understand it the better, cracks will be made in the deafness of the dialog box. If indeed that’s what you are looking for.

Too bad you've wasted so much money to stay in Canada, since large parts of this film could have been photographed in Israel, in many Hasidic courts, and you as a "expert" on haredim you should know that also a Vizhnitz chassid for example who abandons religion and appears after seven years as a mobster with two thugs (that's how they see it anyway, do not try to understand), and will request to see the mother, there they will also not let him, same for Belze, Satmar, Panovicz, Lithuanian, Chassidic, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews.

Another thing, in some places I heard words like 'why did you contaminate?' Or 'Why did you have to do this?' It seems that there's some misunderstood background, do you want to tell us something we do not know? Did something promote this movie? Did some parts fall in the editing room?

Every guy who was a haredi for fifteen minutes knows you can enter the shul, everyone, so what is that innocent act? They tell him that his brother who he loves so much is a few meters away (his brother in law tells him clearly that he in the synagogue), and he did not jump up and go in there? Or more simply, why is he not there for morning prayers, also with a skullcap, at least for the game. That is, unless we missed something.

I will not go into all the details, it is possible that you have good answers for some of my puzzling questions, I did not see the whole program so that I can discuss and analyze each frame, what I do know is that the program is rather demagogic and partial in my eyes, from the outside it seems like this is a family in distress, a poor divorcee forced to leave the country (escape?) and this is what she found, two sons I saw who did not look like the most 'sharpened pencils in the pencil case', like the tzaddikel, Rabbi's son in law, telling him, "Just believe, that's all we want', even though an 18-year-old might not know that belief is something you have or do not have, you cannot ask someone to do good and believe. Okay.

I must emphasize all this I tell you as one who threw stones at them even when I lived in Monsey. Even more, I harnessed my fellow Yeshiva students to go throw stones at him, during the Bloom case, after which he was forced to flee to Canada, I know all the stories by heart, the young marriage, serious punishments, beatings, breaking families, family reunification, some I doubt today by the way, but it's the same garish slogans we shouted as we shattered the window in his living room.

I know that they are extremists, and really not part of the Orthodox community, I know they could be doing illegal things there, but I still believe that like all things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And this story is far from innocent as it seems on the surface. My heart is with all those involved in this story, and what they need is probably a deep therapy, not soap opera.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!