Egyptian actors on a hidden camera television show reacted violently upon being told they were being aired on an Israeli TV channel.
Excerpts from the show, part of satellite TV channel Al-Nahar’s special Ramadan programming, were translated and distributed this week by MEMRI-the Middle East Media Research Institute.
In one show, Egyptian artist Ayman Kandeel attacks the producer, who had identified himself as Israeli, and slaps the host, causing her to fall to the floor.
Realizing he has been pranked, Kandeel tells the host that she brought it on herself and offers to rub lotion on her back where she has been hurt.
Actor Mahmoud Abd Al-Ghaffar also reacts violently, pulling a producer by his hair and fighting with other staff members.
“If you weren’t a girl, the moment you told me you were Jewish … I hate the Jews to death,” he said.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, at the end of 2010, about 7.1 million people, or 1 in 33 adults, were under the supervision of U.S. adult correctional authorities. That’s a whole lot of institutionalized Americans.
So it’s no surprise that a show like the Discovery Channel’s “I (Almost) Got Away With It,” a program about people that commit crimes and eventually get caught, is such a hit. We’re curious about their unfortunate lives.
What’s not as understandable, however, is who gets the attention — not some wayward shoplifting teen, but a dishonest neo-Nazi felon. In a recent episode of “I (Almost) Got Away With It,” neo-Nazi John Ditullio told producers that he murdered a homeless man simply because the man asked for a drink, and cut off another man’s pinky when he disrespected the American Nazi Party.
Slow down, guys — “Hardcore Pawn” is not what it sounds like. It’s actually a hit show for the truTV cable network about third-generation pawnbroker Les Gold and his family, and their 50,000-square-foot business, American Jewelry and Loan.
Located in the tough Eight Mile section of Detroit, the business has customers lining up outside hours before it opens, to hock their valuables. The Forward’s Curt Schleier spoke with Gold, 61, and his son and business partner, Seth Gold, 30.
Curt Schleier: How did you get into this business?
Les Gold: My grandfather opened his pawn shop in the mid-’40s, at Michigan and Fifth…. I was 7 years old when I made my first sale.
Did your grandfather or father push you to get into this line of work?
L.G.: I knew I was going into the same business.… It was my decision to open the first suburban pawn shop in A Detroit area [mall], in Oak Park, a normally Jewish area where I was raised as a child…. It was in transition. The Jews were moving out, and the area was changing.
“I’m travelling to L.A. with a dream in my suitcase and butterflies in my stomach. I’m looking for the end of a string to grab and create an opportunity to conquer the world,” sings Dudu Aharon in the first seconds of the opening sequence for “Chai b’LaLa Land” (“Living in LaLa Land”), a new Israeli reality TV show about six Mizrachi-style Israeli singers trying to make it big in Los Angeles.
The program, set to begin airing on Israeli’s Yes satellite cable network later this month, has been described in an article in Los Angeles’ Jewish Journal as a cross between “American Idol” and “Big Brother,” and is the most expensively produced Israeli reality show to date. Aharon lived in L.A. together with Etti Levy, Avihu Shabat, Julietta Agronov, Zehava Ben and Alon de Loco for six weeks beginning last January, as they vied for a distribution deal with Geffen Records.
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