Wearing a "F*ck Hamas" T-shirt, necklaces with maps of Israel and hostages' names, and a tattoo reading "Am Yisrael Chai", Nick Matau might appear to be just another American Jew explaining Israel on social media through videos and livestreams. In his case, he reaches 50,000 followers on TikTok ("I used to have 100,000, but TikTok closed my account when I started speaking up for Israel and Zionism").

However, the 32-year-old Californian isn't Jewish – and didn't even grow up in a Jewish environment. His only connection to the Jewish people is through the man who raised him from age one, a Samoan, who instilled in him a love for the Jewish people. "He taught me history and how important it is to support Israel," Nick explains. "He's a large Samoan man who occasionally yells at people hanging Palestinian flags in the street, calling them terrorism supporters. He strongly supports what I'm doing but urges me to be careful."

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Q: Be careful of what?

"There's tremendous hate on social media. I receive death threats daily and statements saying Hitler didn't finish the job, unfortunately."

Beyond the harsh messages, Nick also receives threats from people claiming to know where he lives and promising to "eliminate" him. Nick welcomes them, "I tell them 'Yes, I'm here, and I have a gun in my drawer.' I want to be prepared. I have cameras around the house. There were cases where people called leaving 'Free Palestine' messages, and one woman exposed my ex-wife's and child's personal information. I went to the police, but they said they couldn't do anything until she actually does something – which I think is really stupid."

For 12 years, Nick served in the US Navy as a nuclear engineer, returning to civilian life about a year ago. While he always supported Israel, he rarely discussed it in his social media videos until May 2021. "When Hamas started launching rockets in 2021 and I felt TikTok was flooded with 'Free Palestine' content without enough support for Israel, I knew I had to speak up. Every day I learn something new about Israel. I always knew antisemitism existed, but I didn't realize how prevalent it was. From the moment I started talking about antisemitism or Zionism, I received enormous hate from followers and blocks from TikTok, but I didn't care. I learned more, read more, speak with many Muslims from Arab countries, and understand I'm on the right side. Before this, I was never blocked once, but since then I've lost 15 TikTok accounts."

Q: Did you reach out to them about this?

"I emailed them and filed an appeal. I even made my main account with 53,000 followers private recently because I had more than 30 videos removed. They restored all but three, with TikTok claiming I was 'promoting hate and supporting a hate organization.' The IDF is considered a hate organization? Most of the time they just respond that I'm violating guidelines."

Early in the war, when pro-Palestinian activists set up encampments at universities and severely harassed Jewish students, Nick and his friend Bracha, who often joins his TikTok livestreams, decided to see firsthand what was happening at Berkeley.

"I went to their encampments and stood in front of 100 pro-Palestinian protesters with their flags, waved an Israeli flag, and started debating them and disproving their claims. They didn't know how to respond, and after a few minutes their 'leader' came out and told them not to talk to me. I was busy arguing and didn't notice one of them opening his jacket to show Bracha, who was standing on the other side, that he had a gun. She left immediately and called to warn me to leave. We went to file a police report, but they didn't do anything."

Nick doesn't rule out conversion to Judaism. He first visited Israel over a year ago and returned to the United States just days before the Oct. 7 attack. "I wanted to visit Israel when I started my activism," he recalls, "but I was in the Navy, and they always found different reasons not to approve my travel. I first arrived in Israel with my fiancée Danielle just before Yom Kippur last year, and it was an amazing experience. We visited Masada, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, and Ramat Gan, leaving shortly before Oct. 7. On the day of the attack, I received a call from a good friend, 'Hebrew Hammer' – the first Zionist I met on TikTok, who called to say Israel was under attack. I replied 'What else is new?' and he said this time was different. Then it got worse moment by moment, and the first thing we thought after crying was that we wanted to return there."

Nick met his fiancée online – thanks to his videos. "Danielle is an American Jew who moved to Israel at 21 and stayed for 13 years. She happened to see one of my videos about Israel and commented on it. I thought she was really cute and sent her a message, and things moved quickly from there."

Q: Are there plans to return or move to Israel?

"I have an 11-year-old child. When he goes to college, I'd be more than happy to move to Israel."

Q: Have you ever considered converting to Judaism?

"When I was stationed in Guam, there was an Australian rabbi I talked to about it, and he said it's better not to because my voice as a non-Jew is stronger. But on my third visit to discuss conversion, he promised to start working on my conversion process. Shortly after, I left Guam and didn't pursue it further. I identify as a Noahide, and I'm very open to conversion. When I feel God puts things in front of me, I don't resist them."

TikTok responded to a request for comment: "We operate at all times to strengthen our defense mechanisms in order to keep the platform safe and clean from content that could harm the user community, and we have zero tolerance toward violators of community guidelines. We monitor the content through a combination of technologies and a team of 40 thousand human monitors. Every report about an inappropriate video is treated with full seriousness, and the algorithm does not promote content of one side over another side."

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American columnist Ben Shapiro shot back at anti-Israel propaganda this week by debunking four of the most common myths propagated against Israel.

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In a video posted on YouTube, which has already been watched over a million times, Shapiro said, "The things that we've been seeing on our screens from Hamas are atrocities, obviously. But the media has said that these atrocities are really missing context. The context they are providing is a bunch of lies."

Shapiro went on to address such misconceptions as "Israel is historically Muslim territory," "Israel is the cause of the failure of land partition in the Middle East," "Israel expelled all Palestinian Arabs from British Mandate Palestine," and "Israel is an apartheid state" with examples from the Bible and ancient and contemporary history.

Video: 'It's a massacre' - Israeli kibbutz highlights destruction of Hamas attack / Credit: Reuters

At the end of the video,  Shapiro, who has 6.4 million subscribes on YouTube, asked viewers to donate to causes such as the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews as well as the Israeli Soldier Support, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and others.

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Canadian actor Omar Sharif Jr. has joined the cast of popular Israeli romantic comedy Beauty and the Baker, which is scheduled to air its third season on Channel 12 on Thursday. Sharif is the grandson of the legendary Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, famous for his immortalized roles in Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. 

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Beauty and the Baker follows the love story of simple baker Amos (portrayed by Israeli actor Aviv Alush) and heiress Noa (played by Israeli actress Rotem Sela). Sharif portrays a gay Hollywood agent of Palestinian descent, who is married to an Israeli travel agent. 

Series creator Assi Azar tailored the role for Sharif. The two got acquainted shortly after Sharif had come out as gay in a column he wrote for a US magazine. Azar contacted Sharif to offer support after his coming out and the two have kept in touch ever since. 

"I watched one episode and immediately fell in love," Sharif told Israel Hayom, stressing that what appealed to him most was the series' multiculturalism. 

"I grew up with an Ashkenazi mother, the daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland, and the family on my father's side are Muslims from Egypt. There was bicultural dialogue [in the family], which is a very unique thing that is also present in Beauty and the Baker, which represents two sides of Israel.

"My mom sent me to a Jewish school in Canada," Sharif continued. "I speak Hebrew as well as Yiddish because it was important for my grandparents that I speak Yiddish. [Growing up,] I visited Israel four or five times. I came here on a school trip and as part of my bachelor's degree studies.

"And although I grew up in Egypt, I understood how important Israel was to the Jews. In the society that I grew up in, I mostly heard negative things about Israel, so it was important for me to figure out what my opinion is on this issue, and I did so while studying for my master's degree, which focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Q: How did peers back in Egypt react to you starring in an Israeli show?

"They weren't thrilled, unfortunately. There were negative comments, they called me a 'traitor.' But my father was treated the same way when he starred in Funny Girl alongside Barbra Streisand."

Q: What was it like to work with an Israeli cast? 

"Amazing. I did not know what to expect, but it was great. Rotem Sela is always a pro. She is a real star. And Mark Ivanir [who plays the travel agent] is an international actor. In a few years, we will surely see him on the Academy Awards stage, winning an Oscar." 

Q: And what are you busy with these days? 

"I published an autobiography, A Tale of Two Omars, which is sold on Amazon, and in it, I describe the mixed heritage I grew up in. It is a story about love, acceptance, and empathy because that is what we need most, for people to be more understanding of each other, to understand that you can love people even if their opinions are different than yours."

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At the age of seven, Rudy Rochman, 27, experienced his first antisemitic incident when, together with his mother and younger brother, he was waiting in London for a double-decker bus. Rudy's mother wore a shirt with the word "truth" in Hebrew, and the driver – who later turned out to be a neo-Nazi – asked her "Sorry, is that in Jewish?" She replied, "It's in Hebrew, the language of Jews." In response, the driver demanded she get off the bus. "I do not want Jews here, get out of here," he declared, and physically dragged her over to the steps of the bus, with little Rudy and his brother behind her.

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"It all happened really fast and slowly right in front of my eyes," Rochman recalled. He spoke with Israel Hayom via Zoom, half in Hebrew with a French accent and half in English with a fluent American accent, during the short time he managed to make for me – between giving a lecture to a group coming from the US to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a 1 a.m. conversation with the Jewish community in Montreal.

As he walks around with his phone in Tel Aviv on the way to his parents' house, people he does not know stop him at least three times and pat him on the shoulder or shout at him, "Rudy, great job!"

Q: You're famous.

"I do not know if I'm famous," he says modestly.

If you have no idea who he is, you probably don't spend much time on social media, where the total number of his followers has hit 300,000. Rochman's videos get tens of thousands of views on YouTube and hundreds of shares on Facebook. Most of them are discussions with pro-Palestinians and radical leftists, shot in Israel and around the world during demonstrations against Israel, in processions and on the streets.

If Israel's public diplomacy efforts have a name – it's Rudy Rochman, and he's not even clearly right-wing – he just wants to make peace here. In one of his videos, one of the demonstrators asks him who he is, and Rudy replies: "I'm an activist for the rights of Jews and Israel, living in Israel, and building relations between Palestinians and Israelis. Jews and Palestinians can live side by side."

During Operation Guardian of the Walls, where the country's public diplomacy seemed to fail colossally, Rochman came out against comedian and Daily Show host Trevor Noah, who declared that Israel needs to understand that it has more power and therefore must spare the other side, which suffers far more losses.

"Any missile fired at civilians in order to kill civilians is a war crime," Rochman wrote on Facebook in a post that went viral, to which he attached a video illustrating a small part of what Israel went through during the war. "If not for the Iron Dome, the casualties on the Israeli side would have been much higher than they are today," he wrote.

The narratives that work

From a young age, Rochman has tried to explain to those around him who he is and where he came from. He was born in France, moved to Israel at the age of three, then to Miami at the age of five, returned to Israel to enlist in the IDF, then moved back to Los Angeles, and two years ago made aliyah and settled in Jerusalem – even managing to have his family immigrate to Israel during the pandemic.

Now, among his various pursuits, which in addition to social media videos also include the "The Home" project – a movement that builds connections between Israelis and Palestinians through joint activities, he is also working on a docuseries he plans to sell, called "We Were Never Lost" that deals with the story of the disengagement of the ten tribes from the Jewish people.

Searching for roots is not unfamiliar to Rochman. "My mother is Moroccan and my father is an Ashkenazi from Poland and Germany, but he adopted my mother's culture and our house was Moroccan in every way. When I went to Jewish school I was told 'you go by your father, so you are Ashkenazi.' That put me in a situation where I did not know what to answer when I was asked who I was.

"In Morocco, we [Jews] were killed because we were not Moroccans, in Poland we were killed because we were not Poles, why do we identify with the last place we lived in? I am a Jew, because no matter where I grew up and where I was, I am part of the people of Israel. As a result of all the moving from place to place, I started to be good at explaining myself. "

Q: Where else did you explain yourself?

"In eighth grade, I would go to AIPAC meetings and there were speeches by members of Congress who spoke very superficially. One of them once said, 'A strong America is a strong Israel!', and everyone stood up and applauded, and he went on to say, 'A strong Israel is a strong America!' I asked myself, 'What exactly is he saying?' I felt like they were just talking to make people feel good, instead of doing something. I went out, and there were thousands of anti-Israel protesters, neo-Nazis and all kinds of Israel haters, and as an eighth-grade kid I went out and talked to them, and I saw that the way I was taught to answer didn't really work, and that I should learn how to answer them next time.

"I jumped at every opportunity I had to talk to anti-Israelis, and checked what narratives were working, listened to their speeches and learned to respond in the best possible way."

Q: And you continued as you grew up.

"Absolutely. During university in the United States, I founded a pro-Israel student movement, to give Jews tools to help them be strong and know what to answer so that the younger generation will understand that a lot of things being said about us are wrong. But later I stopped with that, because the movement became something I did not want it to be: mainstream propaganda without depth, with stories about Israel inventing Waze or the cherry tomato, and that we are the only democracy in the Middle East. That does not give us the right to exist.

"It's a 4,000-year-old story, that we created the state after thousands of years of oppression, that our nomadic people came to the Land of Israel, kicked the British and proved that a state can be formed.

"The movement became an average pro-Israel organization, doing things that supporters liked and less what needed to be done. Jews aren't pro-Israel, they are Israelis. I'm not pro-Rudy, I'm Rudy. There were times, if we were talking about the establishment of the state and the wars, the world would support us, but today people care about narratives and emotions that if they support them, they feel better. They are less interested in technology, but more in the belief that we have taken land from other people – and that needs to be fixed."

Rudy's story with social media began during a time when he studied at Columbia University and founded the student movement.

"We would go to anti-Israel events, and show them how they use the hardships of the Palestinians only when it fits their agenda," he says, "and we started filming videos to expose them. There are videos that show how at the beginning of the conversation they shout at me 'You are a racist!' And at the end I am told: 'I agree with you, my brother, now I understand what Zionism is'. It doesn't always happen in the first conversation, sometimes you have to plant the seed and move on."

Israeli & Palestinian bump into each other in Copenhagen, Denmark. After the shalom/salam, a long and passionate conversation breaks out.

Invest your energy in speaking to the person you share a Homeland with rather than trying to prove to the world why the other doesn't belong. pic.twitter.com/3luQUpKMZ8

— Rudy Rochman (@rudy_rochman) May 31, 2021

Q: What claims do you repeatedly hear from the other side?

"Antisemitism is finding the problem in society and projecting it on the Jews. On the left side of the map, people care about human rights and racism, but when they recognize what is bad in their society they project it on the Jewish state, instead of on their own people: racism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, land theft. There are Palestinians who suffer in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, but they only care when it comes to Israel."

Q: What responses do you get from people?

"Every day I get at least 30 messages from Palestinians and Jews saying 'You changed my perspective.' There was someone at Columbia University who really disliked Israel, and after a few conversations, he told me that his grandparents were Jews from Georgia. He knew nothing about Judaism. I suggested he learn more about his roots. After a year, he made aliyah and enlisted in the Border Police."

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South African comedian Trevor Noah offered his insights on the latest escalation of fighting between Israel and Hamas while hosting an episode of The Daily Show, Wednesday night.

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In a nine-minute segment, Noah said that while he wasn't trying to determine who was to blame, he did believe there was evidence of who could be held accountable.

"If you start from 'Israel fired rockets into Gaza,' then Israel is the bad guy, because they're bombing Gaza," Noah asserted. "But then you take a step back in time, and you go, 'Well, but Hamas fired rockets at Israel.' Then Hamas is the bad guy. But then you take a step back, and you go, 'But the Israeli police went in and started beating people up in a mosque during Ramadan, the most holy time in the Muslim calendar.' Well then, Israel is the bad guy, and back and back and back, and who knows how far. The first cavemen who hit each other with clubs were probably Israeli and Palestinian. I don't know," he mused.

Failing to note Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were among those killed in Israeli strikes, Noah said, "In Gaza, Israeli air strikes have reportedly killed 28 people, including 10 children. Over 150 people have been wounded. Although seven Israelis have died in the violence."

Noah asserted that "in Israel, Hamas rockets have killed two people. And this exchange of fire comes after the Israeli assault in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque that left more than 600 Palestinian protesters, worshippers, and civilians wounded, and a few dozen Israeli police."

Noting Israel has one of the strongest militaries in the world, he said, "Personally, I cannot watch that footage and hear those numbers and see a fair fight."

Then, likening the conflict to a fight between a teenager and his 4-year-old brother, he said that "as a person who has immensely more power, I had to ask myself whether my response to this child was just or necessary."

Purporting to pose an "honest" question, Noah asked viewers, "If you are in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you?"

"Everyone has a different answer to the question, and I'm not trying to answer the question, nor do I think I'm smart enough to solve it. All I ask is, when you have this much power, what is your responsibility?"

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A critically acclaimed yet controversial Israeli TV show dealing with the 2014 abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers and later a Palestinian teen has been sold to a broadcaster the largest Muslim country in the world – Indonesia.

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The show was also sold to Hong Kong and Australian broadcasters and has already aired in Europe and Latin America.

Set in the summer of 2014, Our Boys is based on the true events which led to Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip, and focuses on the June 12 abduction and subsequent murder of Naftali Frenkel (16), Gilad Shaer (16) and Eyal Yifrah (19) by Hamas terrorists, and the July 2 murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir (16), by Jewish extremists.

The 10-episode series premiered on August 12, 2019, on HBO as a co-production between the American cable television giant and  Keshet International, the global production and distribution arm of Israeli media company Keshet Media Group, which also operates Channel 12 News.

The series was filmed on location in Israel and directed by Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar and Palestinian writer and director Tawfik Abu Wael, who also co-created the series alongside showrunner Hagai Levi.

The series won 14 Israeli Academy Awards, including for Best Drama Series, Best Actor for Johnny Arbid, Best Actress for Ruba Blal Asfour, Best Photography for Yaron Scharf, plus Best Direction and Best Screenplay for Hagai Levi, Joseph Cedar and Tawfik Abu Wael.

Our Boys has also received nominations in the Entertainment category of the 2020 Peabody Awards, which honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and online media, and in the Foreign language category of the 2020 Multi-Ethnicity in Communications Vision Awards.

The show sparked controversy in Israel over what many claimed was its skewing of the facts.

Some 120 bereaved Israeli families sent a letter to HBO protesting the series, claiming that the show largely glosses over the murder of the three Israeli teens, to focus on the Palestinian teen's murder.  They demanded that HBO clarify that Palestinian terrorism is much more prevalent than Jewish terrorism, but HBO declined to comply.

"We are thrilled that a series that focuses on a tragic human story from the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is capable of transcending borders and touching the hearts of viewers from around the world, and now, for the first time, Muslim viewers," Karni Ziv, Keshet Media Group's head of Drama and Comedy, told Israel Hayom Wednesday.

"A solid human-inserters story knows no borders. Keshet is proud to work with top Israeli creators and produce an Israeli content experience that has universal appeal."

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Who of us has not heard or even experienced the following email scams: a Nigerian prince wants to transfer large sums of money into your account, or a childless millionaire on her deathbed wishes to bequeath her fortune to you, or a widowed doctor is volunteering in Africa looking for true love and says you might be the one.

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In 2021, most people are not fooled by such scams. These emails, and sometimes Facebook messages, are suspicious the moment you read them, especially since they contain lots of grammar mistakes.

Nevertheless, despite the relatively high awareness of the issue in society, some do still fall prey to such fraud. These are primarily elderly, mentally ill, or financially challenged individuals.

Phishing, as such fraud is called, is common in every country, especially in English-speaking ones. Dozens of offices in India pretend to be call centers for Microsoft or Google and manage to rip off innocent customers.

One scenario involves a warning on an internet user's screen, something along the lines of "Your computer has been infected by a virus, call technical support immediately."

When the victim of the scam is the one who initiates the phone call, he is much more likely to believe that he is contacting a legitimate center.

The scammer will then ask the customer to download a program that will enable him to take over the computer "to fix the problem." The user, who thinks his computer has been infected with a virus, is asked to pay an exorbitant amount for the antivirus program, which will not be installed on his computer.

Sometimes, scammers claim the company is closing down, and they would like to refund the user for a payment he made in the past. For this, they connect to the victim's computer, ask to fill out a special form, and type in the amount of money to be transferred.

The scammers add a 0 at the end of the sun, and when the customer sees that he "mistakenly" arranged for a higher refund, the scammers ask to return the money by a gift card or money transfer.

In 2019, when the Facebook data leak happened, the information of more than half a billion users became available online. Full names, phone numbers, emails, dates of birth, you name it. Scammers jumped at the opportunity to use this wealth of personal information.

How to prevent such frauds from happening? The simple answer is: there is no real way to avoid such email scams except speak to your grandparents and explain to them that if they receive a message of this kind, they should not engage.

Some people have taken it upon themselves to eradicate the phone and internet scams and, to this end, created special YouTube channels. Israel Hayom spoke to three such YouTubers to find out their methods in fighting that which appears to be undefeatable. 

Jim Browning's channel, which has 3.1 million subscribers, deals with exposing frauds like impersonating a company worker or a customer service representative in India. He aims to get these offices closed down and has succeeded several times already, when thanks to his work, the Indian police, which previously received countless complaints, but did nothing to stop the fraud, was finally under pressure to act.

Browning's videos include phone calls with scammers during which he pretends to be an innocent customer, and shows how he gets access to the scammer's phones, deletes data on their computers, and downloads lists of potential "customers," whom he later warns.

Sometimes he can save the victim in the middle of the fraud by calling the user while he is on the phone with the scammer. Surprisingly, most of the time, victims do not believe that they are being scammed. In fact, often, they think Browning is the scammer.

"These fraudsters manage to persuade the victims to part with their money because it is someone who seems trustworthy, so when I called them up saying, 'hey, you are being scammed,' they get suspicious," Browning explained.

Browning, which is an alias, lives somewhere in Europe. He is a computer and software engineer and has always been fascinated with internet fraud.

"I would call it 'professional curiosity.' I've always wanted to know how these scams work, how they are built, how to find the weakness in them, and repay the scammer what he deserves."

Browning's YouTube channel began by accident.

"I wanted to show one of the scammer's internet provider what he had done. I recorded it, uploaded the video to YouTube, and sent him [the provider] the link to have it [the scammer's internet] blocked, and people discovered the video and watched it. I never intended to become a well-known and popular YouTuber."

Dutch YouTuber, Deeveeaar, who has 136,000 subscribers, works with fraud exposers worldwide without knowing their real names or exact locations.

"Not only do we waste their [the scammers'] time, but we also cause them millions of dollars in damage," he said. "We hack into their websites, take over their computers and cause calls to overflow.

Another YouTube channel, ScamBait Central, with more than 39,000 subscribers, is run by a Londoner who calls himself Mr. Pricky. He is a veteran in the field and mainly deals with West African scams.

He does most of his work through Facebook live, during which he exposes scammers. Often Mr. Pricky tries to trick the scammer himself.

"I spoke to someone who "sells gold" in Ghana once a week for a year. It was a large sum of 234,000 pounds ($326,000). After several failed attempts, he agreed to send a colleague to the UK to collect the money. When he arrived at the meeting point in London, I photographed him standing and waiting for the money that never arrived."

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Efi Skakovsky and Meni Wakshtock, two ultra-Orthodox comedians, have managed to shatter stereotypes by proving to secular Israelis that being Haredi doesn't mean you can't be funny.

The duo, known as Bardak, have taken comedy world by storm, bridging the divide between the two sectors in Israeli society.  

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The two met in August 2020 and realized that their talent for humor would be a hit within their community. Skakovsky and Wakshtock post their skits on social media and cover various topics, ranging from the coronavirus to the ultra-Orthodox anti-government protests. 

The videos are tailored to the Haredi audience, they do not use profanity and focus on men's perspectives.  Nevertheless, they are proving to be incredibly popular among secular Israelis.  

"Our content is acceptable for everyone across the board," Wakshtock said in an interview with Israel Hayom. "Some have access to the Internet at home, others have access to it at work and can download it onto a flash drive," he added. 

Q: Your videos are hilarious. You are masters of your field, which is something one wouldn't expect, because you grew up watching very little TV.

"I took film studies in a religious institution, and I have been directing for seven years,"  Wakshtock said. "Our approach is to create a perfect product without slacking and 'going with the flow.' Sometimes we contemplate an idea for hours, refine certain parts of the script and change it again and again."

Q: What do Rabbis think about your work?

"The ultra-Orthodox love to laugh, and until now, they didn't really have a lot of kosher content. I went to consult with a rabbi before [I began this work,] and he encouraged me to pursue it, that it was my mission," Skakovsky said. 

Q: Where do you publish your content?

"On Youtube, where we have 4.7 million views for 25 videos," Wakshtock said. "Another 20,000-30,000 views on Facebook, about 15,000 on TikTok. Recently we came across a video that someone uploaded to Tiktok, a segment from one of our bits about an ultra-Orthodox man disguising himself as a secular person to cross a barrier [put in place during lockdown.] It was viewed 750,000 times."

Nevertheless, Whatsapp is more common in the Haredi world, Wakshtock added. "We have 40-50 groups where we publish videos every week," he noted. 

Q: Do some people criticize your work?

"Most of the feedback is positive," Skakovsky said. "The minority that does criticize us provides us with constructive criticism. In one of our first sketches, a character by the name of Eisenbach is seen counting money, and my father said that might be less appropriate at this time."

Q: What are your plans going forward? 

"We are open to suggestions," Wakshtock said. "One day, we might make a movie or a TV series, the kind that Haredi people will enjoy too.

"Secular people watch our videos as well. Perhaps they don't get all the nuances, but they say they like seeing what the real Haredi world is like."

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Norway's National Museum said over the weekend that a small, barely visible sentence written with a pencil on Edvard Munch's 1893 masterpiece "The Scream" was penned by the Norwegian painter himself.

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The painting which shows a waif-like figure cradling its head in its hands with its mouth agape, has become a global icon for the expression of human anxiety. The sentence – "can only have been painted by a madman" – was scribbled in the top left-hand corner.

The painting is being prepared to be exhibited at the new National Museum of Norway that is due to open in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, in 2022. In this connection, the canvas has undergone research and conservation.

"The writing is without a doubt Munch's own," Mai Britt Guleng, curator at the National Museum, said in a statement Monday, adding it was compared to the painter's own scribbling in diaries and letters

"The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction," Guleng said.

The writing on the canvas was added after Munch had completed the painting, but for years, it has been a mystery, the museum said in a statement. Speculation has ranged from it being an act of vandalism by an outraged viewer to something written by Munch himself.

Guleng said the inscription was likely made "in 1895, when Munch exhibited the painting for the first time."

The painting at the time caused public speculation about Munch's mental state. During a discussion night when the artist was present, a young medical student questioned Munch's mental health and claimed his work proved he was not sound.

"It is likely that Munch added the inscription in 1895, or shortly after, in response to the judgment on his work," the statement read.

Munch was profoundly hurt by the accusations, returning to the incident again and again in letters and diary entries. Both his father and sister suffered bouts of depression, and Munch was finally hospitalized after a nervous breakdown in 1908, Guleng said.

The National Gallery was temporarily closed in 2019 to secure a safe moving process to the new National Museum, which is currently under construction in downtown Oslo. The museum will exhibit 400,000 objects ranging from antiquity to the present day and includes paintings, sculpture, drawings, textiles, furniture and architectural models.

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"It's a good thing I kept working during the coronavirus [outbreak] because I shop even when I can't afford it," says Gali, 32, a self-confessed shopaholic from northern Israel.

"Everyone is on social media all the time, but I don't have time for that because I'm going through apps and purchasing groups for what I can buy and where things are the cheapest. All of my free time is focused on that, it's my only interest."

Gali is hardly alone. While most of us will not hesitate to give our credit cards a good workout for special sales like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, websites deliver tempting offers on a daily basis, and that's before we consider websites where items are cheaper in the first place. Clicking on "add to cart" and "place your order" has never been easier.

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Compulsive buying disorder (CBD), is not something that makes headlines in Israel, where turbulent politics, security threats, and now the global pandemic dominate the headlines.

CBD, more commonly known as shopping addiction, can lead to debt and hoarding. It is characterized by excessive shopping cognitions and buying behavior that leads to distress or impairment. Found worldwide, the disorder affects about 6% of Israelis, but experts believe the majority of cases go undiagnosed.

Still, there is no doubt that the coronavirus outbreak and the lockdowns that have seen online shopping boom like never before have exacerbated the problem.

A vicious circle

We're all familiar with the process: You go on a website to buy "just one thing you really need" but very quickly you get sucked into everything else it has to offer. The availability, convenience, and checkout speed, which almost always makes you oblivious to the actual amount of money you spent, creates the same effect as pulling out a credit card, by which if you don't see the actual money you spend, it's easier to spend it.

This feeling only intensifies if you happen to be using a website that stores your credit card information, as simply clicking "Pay" saves you precious time. Add to that the satisfaction you feel when you add one more $25 item and hit the minimum order to qualify for free shipping, and you'll find that little compares to the rush the online shopping experience provides. Sound familiar?

"Shopping addiction is not a defined as a psychiatric diagnosis but it is recognized as an impulse control disorder," Dr. Shira Sobol, a behavioral disorders and addiction specialist who serves as a senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University, explains.

"I see more and more people who speak of very high expenses, of living beyond their means, having credit cards that the rest of the family doesn't know about, using funds from their private business and more."

Q: What drives the compulsion to constantly shop?

"As with any addiction, here, too, it is just a symptom. The need for escapism, dealing with feelings of emptiness, compensation for what one perceives as a shortcoming and sometimes trying to get positive reinforcements through shopping are the the heart of it, but the problem is that it doesn't really bring happiness or fill the mental void.

"Instead, it causes guilt. It's a vicious circle that expands over the years. You shop to feel good but you feel bad because of the money you spend on things you don't need, so you shop again, to calm those emotions, and so on."

Q: How can you tell the difference between just another shopping spree and shopping addiction?

"There's nothing wrong with occasionally indulging in a garment or a product. The problem begins when it becomes a coping mechanism meant to try to resolve mental conflict. If this is your routine compensation; if you devote time to it at the expense of work or time with your family; take out loans or get into debt to finance your shopping – it's an addiction. "

Q: Has the pandemic caused routine shopping to escalate into an addiction?

According to Sobol, such extreme circumstances can trigger addictions of all kinds, including CBD.

"The lockdown, the endless sitting in front of screens along with the lack of other forms of gratification, like flying abroad or visiting stores, exacerbated the tendency to buy online.

"The coronavirus has also aggravated mental conditions. If someone was anxious or lonely, they are more anxious or lonley now and when there's a deterioration in one's emotional state addictive behaviors rear their heads because they can regulate these feelings," she explained.

"Online shopping is a way to assert ownership of the freedom taken from us, and it makes up feel as if there are some areas of our lives we can still control. But this is just an illusion of control, as eventually, addiction isn't will hold you in a vise."

The thrill of the unknown

"I buy a lot of things I don't need," Gali admitted to Israel Hayom. "Clothes, bags. I have no place to put all of the shoes I bought during the corona [lockdowns]. I would love to get rid of some of this stuff."

Q: How do you manage to pay for all this shopping?

"I live with my parents and luckily, I'm employed. I was considered a spendthrift even before online shopping came along, and I would shop even when I couldn't afford it. Today I make sure not to get into debt but I also can't save any money and that bothers me."

Q: What's so appealing about shopping online?

"It's just so easy. My credit card [information] is stored and it's easy to use. I don't try on the clothes so it's a risk and that represents a thrill. But the biggest rush is when the package arrives. That's the real high. From there, it's all a letdown. I open it and I see what I bought and I say, 'Okay, I have a million of these. Why did I need it?'"

Q: How much do you spend in a single month?

"Between 4,000 and 5,000 shekels [$1,200-$1,500] a month. In the past, I got into debt and had to take loans. I was NIS 100,000 [$30,250] in debt and creditors were breathing down my neck. I pulled myself together because I had to. It took a few years for me to get out of debt. I've only has a credit card for three years but they [the credit card company] recently offered me another one, so I said yes."

No escaping 'special offers'

Even if you manage to somehow resist online shopping website, fear not for social media is here to "help." Facebook and Instagram are brimming with consumer and purchasing groups that have one goal in mind: helping you find the best bargains and the cheapest items – that you will then share online.

These groups are, of course, only a tiny fraction of what the internet has to offer but they only add to the sensory overload under the guise of trying to save users time.

Surprisingly, the shopaholics we spoke to are brutally honest about their experiences and it seems they see sharing them as therapeutic.

N., 42, subscribes to one of the leading purchasing groups on Facebook.

"They took away traveling so I found myself focused on online shopping," she said, referring to the travel restrictions imposed by the government as part of the effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

"I buy a lot of things I don't need. Expansive boots I have no use for, a fridge I didn't need and bought just because it was on sale. This month's credit card bill was almost NIS 20,000 [$6,000]."

Q: Why go on these websites? To shop or because you're bored?

"Sometimes to buy something I need and sometimes just to browse. Before the pandemic, I relaxed a bit with the shopping, but it brought me back to the edge."

Q: Would you like to stop?

"Absolutely, yes. But my screen time just increases, mostly at the expense of time with my family. It's a feeling of compensation for things I don't do. Without cafés, restaurants, vacations, what do we have left?"

Shopping addiction is not prevalent across all socioeconomic echelons, but it is becoming more common and with it is the awareness of it.

Sobol noted that according to studies on the issue, women are more vulnerable to shopping addiction than men, which links back to the fact that modern culture places more of an emphasis on the appearance of women than men.

"There are not enough studies on shopping addictions," she explains, "but about 6% of the population suffers from it, and it is estimated that only about 20% of the cases are diagnosed this condition is considered legitimate in our high-consumption society," expert says.

"The majority [of shopaholics] are women. We also see more women than men, especially in their late 20s to 30s, in our clinic. Many of these women suffer from anxiety disorders, depression and low self-esteem."

Twenty-six-year-old Karin Almakis has no problem coming forward as a shopaholic, nor does she mind admitting that most of what she buys is of little use to her.

"I get everything from Ali Express – everything," she says, naming the Chinese retail giant. "There must be 50 items on their way to me right now."

Q: There will be those who will say that your time is more valuable than what you buy.

"Now I'm self-employed, but when I was a [salaried] employee it really infringed on my time at work. My boyfriend doesn't always like the I shop so much, especially since I have almost no room at home for anything I buy. So I show him only what I know he would want, and that causes some credibility issues in our relationship.

"I pay a price because I buy things I don't always need, but the price is small compared to the pleasure it gives me," she says.

Almakis may be aware of her addiction but according to Sobol, most are not.

"There's a lot of denial of this issue. Most of the time, addicts will seek treatment, if at all, only at later stages, when debts have accumulated.

"As long as it does not impair one's financial situation and interpersonal relationship, and does not manage the person it's fine, it's a nice hobby. But once it crosses the line, it becomes a problem, an addiction," she said.

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