Tuvia Tenenbom: How a Secular Jew Came To Love the Haredi World [Teshuva IV 3/4]
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Tuvia Tenenbom, a formerly Haredi and now secular Jew and the author of Careful, Beauties Ahead!, about how he developed a new love for Haredi religious life.
When Tuvia Tenenbom wrote a book about Haredim in Mea Shearim, he found that all Jews-no matter how different their communities-are interconnected in more ways than we might think. In this episode we discuss:
-How did the Haredi community respond to October 7?
-What do outsiders misunderstand about Haredi Jews?
-Is humor the universal Jewish language?
Tune in to hear a conversation about what it means to truly love the entirety of the Jewish family.
Tuvia Tenenbom is an Israeli-American theater director, playwright, and author who is the founding artistic director of the Jewish Theater of New York. He authored several books that deal with themes of Jewish life, Jewish culture, antisemitism, and the Holocaust, including his well-known Catch The Jew!. He joins us to discuss the year he, a secular Jew, spent with the Haredi Jews of Mea Shearim.
References:
18Forty Podcast: “Joshua Leifer and Shaindy Ort: How Progressive Activists Rediscovered Traditional Jewish Life”
Tosafot on Pesachim
Careful, Beauties Ahead! by Tuvia Tenenbo
Catch The Jew! by Tuvia Tenenbom
Works of Tuvia Tenenbom
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I understand his point that if you are confident with your faith, you are not so afraid of the outside world, but there is a limit to how much you can mingle with the secular world. We are ppl with evil inclinations and can get carried away by our surroundings. Tuvia himself is not religious today, so how exactly can he claim there is nothing to be afraid. Again,the chareidim are also taking too far with being so insulated, but there has to be a healthy middle way.
I really enjoyed that interview, a highly interesting person! I really do wonder if he still believes but just doesn't want to live that way anymore, or if it's to do with his faith
I think I first discovered Tuvia on the Two Nice Jewish Boys podcast or maybe it was the Tikva podcast with Jonathan Silver. It was around the time that he released “Catch The Jew”, which I subsequently purchased and read. I found the book endearing, albeit somewhat neurotic in tone, if not downright depressing in its conclusions. But listening to him talk now about his upbringing and insights into Haredi culture, I have a renewed appreciation for his worldview. I don’t think that he’s actually pessimistic, but rather that he uses pessimism as a comedic device like so many great Yiddish literary figures of a bygone era. Also, I read the English translation from what I understand to be the original German, so I think a lot of the tone probably got lost in translation. The German language is probably unmatched in its ability to convey dark humor, with Russian being a possible competitor for the title. Plus knowing what I now know about his background in yiddish as well as living in the secular and haredi worlds I have a feeling that I missed some layers of expression and now I want to go back and read more of his work. I think his insight about the depth of the Jewish humor within the Haredi world being unmatched and under appreciated is profound and elusive to many Jews who have limited exposure to these communities.
What a charming interview, so much chein
I have a similar story to Tuvia. My family were very loving and I had a very happy childhood within a chareidi family. I always say to my Dad, you made a happy home so what would I be running away from. Therefore I still feel close with the chareidi lifestyle and chareidi people. It feels familiar and homey but it just wasn’t for me Hashkafa wise.
Like Tuvia,I think charedim are terribly led, but when you engage an honest haimishe charedi, there’s an instant connection. The פה ושם ושם ופה segment was a gem. A wonderful interview with a wonderful person. Shkoiach to you both.
A key to loving other people is in the morning prayer, "My GOD, the soul You gave me is pure. You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me. Rabbi Itemar Schwartz expands the thought that any flaw that I see in myself merely comes from the garment over my soul. The soul remains pure. I say to myself that if this is true for me, it is true for every other human being. We must see the soul of the other person.
Loved this interview. Loved the emphasis on ahavat yisrael. I’ve read tuvias other books and will be looking for this one.
What is great about this interview is that Tuvia shows how loveable the Jewish people are with their wonderful sense of humor and kindness.
A most educational and educational interview. Many thanks
12:09 The fear is that the prince will see only that the poor people don't have his burdens and conclude their lives are more enjoyable than his.
Not every impressionable child or teenager is capable of studying Nietsche at age 7, and is liable to make irreversibly bad decisions about his future when swayed by shallow claims.
12:59 If you're confident in your body's health, can you then overeat, drink to heavy intoxication, consume all sorts of substances?
33:39 Ha'aretz is hardly respected any more. It doesn't have a wide enough circulation to cover its own costs, and makes money by leasing out its printers to right-wing outlets.
But this is hardly new. When Weitzman lost his battle with the old yishuv over education, he took his revenge by spreading terrible lies about the old yishuv, such as claiming he'd found in the ranks of the old yishuv 500 ladies of the night.
37:41 For some 15 years before the Holocaust the Jewish Agency first denied outright, then limited the entry visas to Palestine for religious people (by political party; Agudah was assigned 6%). That religious Jews made it to then-Palestine in spite of the Jewish Agency - which repeated its coercive antireligious tactics a generation later on the Yemenite immigrants - is blatantly Divine Providence.
37:57 The Sefardi world didn't have a haskala, and therefore had no Zionists trying to remake the Jewish identity into a secular one.
1:04:20 That's not the problem. R' Avigdor Miller describes how in Lithuania every Monday the morning papers would carry the names of non-Jews who'd gotten so roaring drunk over the weekend they wandered into the sea and drowned. As long as that world held no temptation for us, we were secure in our own identity. Once we became tempted by that world, and started looking to redefine our own identity by its inferior standards, then we were in trouble.
1:11:02 What do you think of Feiglin?
The interview I didn't know I needed!!! My favourite podcast with one of my favorite authors, love his other books!!!
Protest in Tel Aviv ,not at home...cowards also hide near home, go to gay bars and fight there
From my understanding, non-haredi Israelis take issue with the fact that the haredim are exempt from the IDF and pay less taxes(because taxes are proportionate to income). Their population is growing faster than almost all other segments of Israeli society and that cost is unsustainable.
Is the argument that all the janitors and waiters in Israel be held accountable because they can't afford a new Mercedes-Benz every month?
When Haredim choose to work in their enclaves for lower salary instead of in a generally anti-religious secular work environment for a higher salary, a free-market economy has very few options to push people into certain jobs (unlike a Marxist economy which has more has options -- admittedly quite bad ones).
The army is even worse. 20-50% of religious Zionists who enter the army leave without Judaism; the Haredi public isn't willing to paper over that price.
It is still sustainable. At some point, if it won't be, then employers will race each other to provide more Haredi-friendly working conditions, as will the army.
Until then, the entire issue is a tool by politicians to attract voters.
@@zevspitz8925 a free-market economy has even fewer options for unqualified individuals and in IMO shouldn't discriminated based on a person's religious beliefs. Your point about the army and 20-50% religious zionists leaving without Judaism is a testament to Tuvia's epiphany; people know a lot about their religion but probably don't have faith (12:51)
True
Amusing interview ,sad a little
What a great character. Love him ❤
He may be secular, but was born in a Hasidic family and studied first in a yeshiva..
Beautiful!