Talk show queen checks out Borough Park and Crown Heights
Two unlikely allies are coming together Sunday night showing off how to raise kids Brooklyn Jewish style.
“Oprah’s Next Chapter” on the Oprah Winfrey Network will feature religious moms from Borough Park and Crown Heights bantering about a bevy of things - from Beyonce to ritual baths - with the talk show queen.
The media mogul was so impressed from what she picked up in the Orthodox enclaves that her producers are airing the chats over two episodes Sunday and Monday nights.
“This religion is so family oriented,” Winfrey later told Rabbi Motti Seligson about her Brooklyn trip in an interview featured on Chabad.Org. “The core of the belief system is about bringing families together.”
Viewers will see Winfrey eating fish and matzo ball soup with the Ginsberg family in Borough Park; checking out a ritual bath, or mikvah, in Brooklyn Heights, and having a candid discussion with four Hasidic women.
“We are more alike than we are different,” Winfrey told the rabbi after her kosher adventures throughout the county of Kinds. “The moment I walked into the Ginsberg’s home. I felt welcomed. I felt a sense of warmth. A sense of family, comfort, and value.”
Winfrey pointed out that no one had heard of Beyonce, Mickey Mouse or Shrek, when she dined with Borough Park Shterna Ginsberg, 38, hubby Aron, and their nine kids.
The star then scolded American kids for spending so many hours playing with their smart phones and tablets, while praising Brooklyn Jews for dedicated so much time to family.
“It is amazing to me, that right across from Manhattan, there is a whole world of children who are not doing that and are happy fulfilled and loved,” Winfrey said.
Shterna Ginsberg was bashful about the celeb’s assessment of her non pop culture knowing kids.
“My kids are normal kids. They are not angels,” Ginsberg said, adding she
hopes viewers of all faiths learn something about Judaism from the show.
“Respect is an important value in Jewish culture,” Ginsberg said.
Still, Ginsberg said some of her neighbors weren’t too pleased to hear that their insular community is getting blasted across the airwaves.
“It is a controversial thing,” Ginsberg said.
The family asked their rabbi for approval before agreeing to the chat fearing a religious backlash.
And like many Hasidic Jews, the Ginsbergs don’t have a television and are debating whether to go to a friend’s house to watch themselves on the small screen Sunday night.
“Television can be used to spread the word of God,” Ginsberg said. “We don’t shun technology.”
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