'Vaart' Season 3: Not the chareidi world it claims to show

The third season of "Vort" aired last night on Channel 13, and it appears the production has shown maturity in at least one respect: they learned their lesson. Last season, the match between Ariel and Esther sparked controversy, mainly because viewers watched two young people of draft age running their own business while their secular or national-religious peers were serving in the IDF.

This time, it seems someone at the network feared getting burned again, and they went with participants who have already passed draft age. But dig just beneath the surface, and you'll find the pattern hasn't really changed.

Take Chaya Zanzuri (22) and Eliezer Brauner (24). Chaya comes to the match with two active businesses in Elad, manicures and Pilates. When did she find the time? Apparently during exactly those years when most of you were doing military or national service. And Eliezer? He's the "handyman" who does everything from electrical work to plumbing, alongside a falafel and challah-schnitzel business ("Falafelyzer"), and lest we get bored, he's also spent the past year working on a fashion brand. "You can't put me in any framework," he testifies about himself. In short: a classic shabaabnik, full throttle.

Chaya and Eliezer meet / Photo: Channel 13 (Photo: Channel 13)

The winning (and misleading) card of the season

But the story that took center stage in the opening episode belongs to Yonah Kraus (30). Yonah is a complex story of a chareidi who left with questions, left home, enlisted in the army, completed his bagruyot, and fought his way to a prestigious internship in the tax and economic prosecution office. Along the way, he confesses his longing for his roots and family, and today he bridges both worlds.

Yonah's appearance is deceiving: he looks like an avreich who just stepped out of Meah Shearim, but inside he represents an open and progressive life path. And yet, even the matchmakers feared he would appear "too chareidi" for Sarah the Chabadnik.

The episode's peak came when matchmaker Yaki Reisner sat with Yonah and told him the quote that distills the entire show: "We both studied in the most frum chadorim in Bnei Brak, we were both destined to be avreichim --- and we're both a disappointment."

Reisner, who transformed from mainstream chareidi to successful real estate entrepreneur and media figure, added with a smile: "How does my mother put it to me? 'Look where you've ended up, imagine if you'd continued in yeshiva.'"

Yonah Kraus — looks chareidi, left with questions, returned to the family / Photo: Channel 13 screenshot (Photo: Channel 13 screenshot)

The double mirror of chareidi society

And here is the tragedy (or the punchline) of "Vort": for classic chareidi society, this show is indeed a kind of disappointment. This is not a show about the chareidi mainstream; it's a show about the marginsm about those who didn't succeed in finding a match through the regular system, about shababnikim, and about those who are considered almost outcasts, those who place military service and a law degree above learning in yeshiva.

In the United States, a chareidi who doesn't work or study a profession is a rare sight. In Israel, by contrast, the cherished ideal is still the avreich whose Torah is his occupation. In this sense, "Vort" does something amusing: it purports to present "the chareidi world," but in practice shows us exactly what it is not.

But, despite the antagonism and the gap between image and reality, everyone continues watching it in secret.