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TV Sit-Com Mocks Rebbe’s Name

A newly released promo for Fox’s sit-com ‘New Girl’ has some eyebrows raised. The Rebbe’s name is mentioned, but not in the context you might have anticipated. Listen for yourself..

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45 Comments

  • elli

    This is definitely disrespectful on the part of the writers. It is for sure done with intent to mock.

    But I must ask, where was your outrage at the 2 Broke Girls episode that completely trashed Chasidic Judaism a few weeks ago?

  • oh give me a break

    oh give me a break. you extremists are so pathetic. get over it and yourselves

  • OH PLEASE!!!

    M”M is such a common name.
    tell me every time you call an agency and they ask you if you are menatshem do you get offended that they misspronounced the rebbes name???
    GROW UP!!!!

  • Just wondering

    To #1 – you call this funny? I think it is disgusting. To #2 – what is that show you are talking about? What happened there? How come there was no outrage anywhere about both shows? On second thought, where did outrage get us anywhere at anytime in history?

  • CR

    I think it less a disrespect to the Rebbe than a completely absurd portrayal of an “oisvarf” speculating on a prospective family with a “shiksa”. It is far from credible given how he completely mangles the pronounciation of the names: Avracham, Menendel, Shmeer…

    If this clip is representative of the show’s production quality then it will not last more than one season before getting uncerimoniously axed by network execs.

  • Brian Epsein

    Sickening for three things:
    i. a lady said OH MY G-D, not good
    ii. a lady said “OH NO no more hormones allowed in this room”
    iii. SHMEERSON is a bad connotation. Not good.

    Producers: Please wipe this out of the segements immediately, or there will be backlash from the Chabad community. No joke.

  • mendel..

    big deal…find something else to complain about …like why are we still in golus…

  • Whatever

    That is not there intention at all!!! It was just funny!!!! Its showing that schmidt is jewish and can pronounce the ch sound!

  • OH VEY

    Vos iz Dos? How come you know about such goyshe tv. Oh vey iz mere. You should not be watching anything. And I had to google did “new girl” cause I did not even know such a thing.
    Shame shame shame

  • Bottom line

    They did it bc they know how many people watch the show in Crown Heights….

    And they know how many dont, that will if they put it in.

    And they know that CHI will post it giving them 100s of comments and ultimately advertisement for there show…

  • och un vey that so many are familiar wit

    och un vey that so many are familiar with all these shows..
    it seems that there are lots of people who should be deeply thinking about what the Rebbe said about having a TV…it’s like bringing in a priest with a cross hanging on him…
    get rid of the TV’s…you will undoubtedly regret it one day so get it out, before the effects on the whole family and all of kal Yisroel get worse….
    and if you’re watching it online, go check out something more postive and uplifting instead

  • OMG OMG !!! !!!

    We should all protest and threaten to throw out our TV’s.

    Even Millhouse…

  • TO-EESSI

    It was surely put out by an Anti who is always mocking the Rebbi’s words and Sichos. A Meshichist whould never use those words.

  • sheer CH stupidity as usual

    number 15 you are dead on about that. haters gonna hate

  • excher

    oy the humanity!… lubavitchers get a life and stop being so sensitive… its a much greater busha to the rebbe that you are at all familiar with a tv show than said tv show using the rebbes name as a bad joke.

  • yup

    hey, secular ppl arent allowed to infringe on your way of life ie religious freedoms dont infringe on theirs ie free speech!
    YOU CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!!! if you want your stuff to be respected redpect others. this is why religious ppl are not respected in the secular world because they are seen and known as big fat hypocrites!

  • Andrea Schonberger

    I admit that I watch television but not lame shows like that. Who needs them?

  • PLEASE TAKE DOWN THIS VIDEO

    for the kovod of the rebbe . PLEASE TAKE DOWN THIS VIDEO NOW!!!!!!!

  • Just my opinion...

    After reading this “article” I watched the episode to see for myself. These lines clearly were not meant in a harmful way, though I do believe it would have been more respectful not to have added “Schmeerson” after the pause.

    Many of the “hit” shows have Jewish writers and they use such lines as their way of saying “I’m proud to be a Jew”.

    The only thing in dispute is why this should be considered “news”? Even more so on a web site designed for a community where watching TV is shunned. I’m sure just as I watched this episode, many others have or will as well…

  • Shalom! :)

    HAHAH! This is what we call FUNNY! Just cuz someone says the name of the Rebbe and pronounces it wrong is not negative! And Eli, Yes in 2 Broke Girls also very funny!! Good Job New girl for uplifting the “shtusim” With the name of the Rebbe! Shame on you those who find it to be disrespectful!! BITE ME!

  • Really?

    Come on! A real lubavitcher would not have known about this to be upset in the first place…

  • yechi too

    they have mishechisten who watch the show too you know…you’re allowed to so long as you keep a yellow flag tied to the antennas

  • very sad

    Very sad that CHI, an otherwise great website, posted this, which is disrespectful to the Rebbe.

  • kudos to ch.info

    ok ok ok listen up – you are all wrong about this.

    The girl just sat and listened to her BF sing Yechi for the 16th time.

    Will y’all just laff out loud now gee!

  • teacher

    all of you with tvs would be shocked to see how poorly your children are doing in school compared to those who don’t. it is obvious to every teacher, from the first day of school, from children as young as 2 yrs old, which ones come from a tv home and which dont. it manifests itself in their attention, behavior, and most importantly to their lack of interest in anything jewish we do- like davening, learning…if you would only see what we see…we see children with so much potential that were robbed of their opportunity to shine by their own parents allowing a tv in the home. these children find it hard to focus and daven at 2 yrs old! what will be when their older?

  • It really isnt alright

    Well it is a long story ! And the study of names is almost common ! The shmearson or sneerson version isn’t foreign as some of the many students from the many yeshivas that proclaimed we are the rebbes children, the rebbe took responsibility for our children’s chinuch ! The actual names mentioned menachem is a name from the first temple/bees hamikdash and embodies some of the righteous qualities of Noah the builder of the ark, Mendel is a composition of mem and nun representing righteous order and dal a vessel !
    Schneer is a reminder that he who created the eyes sees also so have yireh shamayim and San or son samach and nun have more than few interpretations !
    I believe the television promotion is an expression of frustration at religious practice as well as an expression the authority figure’s of parents and rabbi’s !

  • wtff(what they find funny)

    this was put in making fun of jewish names. Menachem Mendel is now one of the most commonly used jewish names now because everyone is named after the rebbe. It is the epitome of jewish names now so they went to the source. If you really want to take offense at what comedy writers say about jews, just LISTEN to south park…..(created by jews unsuprisingly….)if you react with posts like this they will do it again <sorry im really tired right now>>>

  • Not Lubavitch

    Hello all,
    Just checking out this blog for the first time. I’m a BT, some would say close to Lubavitch, who watches the occasional movie. We also allow our kids to watch a secular (educational) video here and there.
    Not only is this the dumbest conversation I have ever read online, but why do you so many of you know more about these retarded television shows than I do? Forgetting the religious perspective for a moment, none of my non-Jewish friends or non-religious friends would ever watch such inane, brainless television. Something tells me that some of you are catching up on lost television time.
    After reading some of these comments from “chassidim”, I’m starting to not feel as bad about my own shortcomings in yiddishkeit….
    Again, I am not an extremist and I actually do see some value in certain kinds of television productions, but take my word….from someone who was raised with a TV, do NOT allow your kids, or yourselves, to watch this garbage or 95% of what is on television. It has damaged myself and every one of my friends who were raised with it in ways you can’t imagine. Even many cartoons contain messages antithetical to the Torah and civil society. All I’m saying is, while you may not be ready to get rid of TV altogether, be extremely wary!

  • MJ

    While mispronouncing the Rebbe’s name in order to be funny is reprehensible, I would like to add my thoughts on the matter.

    The Rebbe is the most well known Jewish leader, past or present, in this country, for non-frum Jews and non-Jews alike and so he was chosen because of name recognition. Had they chosen someone else, the supposed humor in the mispronunuciation would have been lost on the entire audience. Had they instead called Rav Belsky “Rav Belfry” (the most correct English term for bell tower), it would not have been malbain panim b’farhesia because thetre would have not been 10 people in the audeince who know who Rav Belsky is.

    Also, the main point of the humor was that non-frum Jews and non-Jews are not good at pronouncing Jewish names and words. We occasionally go to a shul outside of CH where there are several BTs, and when we have our next Shabbos meal at home, our children start the bentching “BaruKKKKK…” and proceed to mangle all the words. We scold them that it is not funny to make fun of the way less knowledgable people bentch, not to mention that it may be questionable that they fulfill the mitzvah if they intentionally mispronounce the words.

    Thaty’s my take on the issue.

  • High Dudgeon!

    Knowing nothing about the show I found that audio clip to be too silly and ridiculous to be worth being offended. The joke is on whoever produced that piece of …

    Folks, there are real affronts to the Rebbe’s legacy and kovod out there in the world. This is NOT one of them!

  • Ploni Almoni

    The real affront to the Rebbe’s legacy and kavod is that you even watch TV, I never even heard of this show. One of the things I’m proud of as a BT is that I left my TV on the curb for the garbage collector.

  • The Real Punchline

    The character mispronounces the last name as “Schmeerson” because his name is “Schmidt.” I very much doubt that the writers intended to be offensive- remember that they are coming from a different cultural viewpoint and probably meant to convey nothing more than 1. although he is not especially religious, Schmidt is proud to be Jewish and 2. Schmidt was excited to give his baby a name that paid tribute to his Jewish heritage. If anything, take this as a source of motivation to continue to teach Schmidt’s real life counterparts about Judaism (and the Rebbe) and be proud that so many secular people have heard of the Rebbe, even if their irreverence is misplaced and unintentionally disrespectful. Sometimes it’s best to look for silver linings- the last thing we want to do is throw our good intentions to the wind and allow our hearts to become hardened and hateful like the Muslims who respond to cartoons of Mohammed with death threats.

  • come on

    it’s not about the rebbe, it’s about jewish names with Chhh and probably has a link to the telethon where r cunin talks about the rebbe by name to lots of people in hollywood who don’t know who the rebbe is

  • Ephraim Grushnit

    don´t we just LOVE our jewish oversensibility?
    Come on, folks, don’t be so uptight: shrug it off! :)

  • non-Jew

    “The Rebbe is the most well known Jewish leader, past or present, in this country, for non-frum Jews and non-Jews alike and so he was chosen because of name recognition.”

    The majority (99.9%) of non-Jews have no idea who the Rebbe was and have never heard of him. I don’t understand where this idea came from that non-Jews would know. From a secular education? From tv? From magazines? From church?