A controversial television sketch allegedly taking aim at the religious public continued to make waves and elicit widespread criticism on Thursday. The satirical sketch appeared on the popular Israeli satire show "Eretz Nehederet" (It's a Wonderful Country) earlier this week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: "You don't have to be a person who wears a kippah to understand how important our heritage is to the future of our people. This is what separates us and this is what makes us strong. I am all for satire, but there are things that just aren't done."
The sketch in question involved an impersonation of Education Minister Naftali Bennett with two tefillin boxes (phylacteries) on his head, mimicking the signature hairstyle of recent Eurovision song contest winner Netta Barzilai.
After the episode, Bennett himself criticized the skit and wrote: "Laugh at me all you want, but not at the tefillin and things sacred to Israel."
Bennett also serves as chairman of the national-religious Habayit Hayehudi party.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri expressed his dismay over the skit, saying it "made a mockery and a sham of the tefillin, the sacred mitzvah, for which Jews have sacrificed their lives throughout the generations."
"Had this sketch aired in any other country in the world, everyone would be shouting 'anti-Semitism,'" Deri contended. "But here, of all places, this type of thing is accepted. It's disgraceful."
On its Hebrew website, meanwhile, Israel Hayom on Thursday asked readers to weigh in on the skit and the response was clear: 70% of respondents said the sketch had crossed the line and was distasteful.
Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau remarked that "the use of religious objects in a mocking and insulting manner is terrible. It is unacceptable for such a thing to be broadcast. … This is not culture or entertainment, it's mockery of tefillin and of religious objects and a trampling of the feelings of millions of Jews."
Producers of Eretz Nehederet said in response the criticism: "The sketch dealt, among other things, with Netta Barzilai's victory at the Eurovision contest and the considerable public interest in the matter. Netta's hairstyle was incorporated on the heads of some of the characters participating in the sketch, in various variations. There was no intention to offend or degrade."
