Israel’s New Reality TV Sensation: Synagogue Singing

By Published on October 21, 2015

Called Ha’Paytan — Hebrew for liturgical poet — the new televised singing contest is produced by Israel’s Channel 20, a year-old private station devoted to Jewish and Israeli heritage. Most of the channel’s previous programming failed to find a critical mass of viewers, and its content — mainly panel discussions about history or Yiddishkeit — was deemed too old-fashioned for a nation devoted to Big Brothers and Master Chefs and the other polished specimens of the non-scripted genre. Ha’Paytan, however, became an instant hit, with episodes regularly attracting upwards of two percent of all television-watching households, more than double the channel’s usual ratings. This may not be much next to the entertainment juggernauts that dominate the country’s robust TV culture, but the buzz around Ha’Paytan is unmistakable: The show’s quarter-finals, which aired the other week, featured none other than Israel’s minister of finance, Moshe Kahlon, as a guest judge.

At first glance — the show is available, without subtitles, on YouTube — it’s hard to see what the fuss is about. For one thing, the show’s contestants are all men, in accordance with the halachic prohibition against women singing for mixed audiences. And while these men may all be lovely and accomplished human beings, they are, to put it kindly, not exactly the stuff of which TV dreams are made: The only thing chiseled about these young hopefuls is their commitment to belting out their favorite tunes in shul. Add to that the show’s set, the aesthetic highlight of which is a row of empty plastic chairs positioned behind the contestants, and the fact that all musical accompaniment early on in the season is provided by a guy with a small electric keyboard, an arrangement that would be considered humble at a small town bar mitzvah, let alone a national television show, and you have a good idea of what Ha’Paytan looks and feels like.

 

Read the article “Israel’s New Reality TV Sensation: Synagogue Singing” on tabletmag.com.

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