‘Sinner’ singer given 39 lashes by rabbis [not]

‘Sinner’ singer given 39 lashes by rabbis was the sensational headline that appeared in a Jerusalem Post article three days ago, along with the following report:

A singer who performed in front of a “mixed audience” of men and women was lashed 39 times to make him “repent,” after a ruling by a self-described rabbinic court on Wednesday.

Yechiel [the singer], who said, “I accept upon myself the lashing for my sins,” was ordered to stand by a wooden poll with his head facing north (“from whence the evil inclination comes”), his hands tied with a azure-colored rope (“a symbol of mercy”), and served his “sentence.”

Anyone cognisant of Jewish law even to a small extent would realise immediately that the facts have been distorted, but this did not deter an international newspaper from publishing such misleading information to the non-religious and non-Jewish world.

The story was gleefully picked up in a Ynet News article today, and this time the existence of a video clip of the flogging was mentioned - though without providing a link so that readers could see and judge for themselves.

Well I think you should see the clip. Here it is:



The actual "flogging" occurs at 5:26 and you can see it reflected in the glass of the rabbi's bookcase. Don't worry, this is not BSM and you can certainly watch it with your kids.

What's happening here is that a singer who performed to a mixed audience became a possibly over-zealous "ba'al teshuva", repented his actions, and asked these rabbis for some sort of penance.

The penance is symbolic, and the theatrical - but totally painless - flogging is a well known custom in several Jewish communities - both Ashkenazi and Sephardi. In fact where I live, in southern Israel, this kind of "symbolic flogging" with this kind of strap is routinely performed before immersion in the mikva on the Eve of Yom Kippur, by members of the local Moroccan and Tunisian communities. People actually queue up for it.

You are free to dislike the custom, and you are certainly free to disagree with the rabbis' decision to record and broadcast the proceedings (I think it was insane), but you cannot deny the fact that this "flogging" was not in any way comparable to the floggings and stonings carried out in parts of the Muslim world to which it is deliberately being compared.

Now you can rest assured that the journalists who wrote both articles saw the video and were well aware of the facts. Yet both articles deliberately give the reader the impression that a "real" flogging took place - and you need only read the semi-hysterical, knee-jerk readers' comments on both pages to see that their end was achieved.

My question is: How did two Israeli newspapers of international standing get away with such flagrantly false and misleading reportage?