New York – While much of the secular media coverage of the Siyum Hashas was devoted to discussing traffic conditions and logistics of the event, one New York City radio reporter looked beyond the sea of black hats at MetLife Stadium and took a much deeper view of Wednesday night’s events.
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WNYC reporter Arun Venugopal, whose Micropolis series appears on the WNYC news blog, delved deeply into the Siyum Hashas, first spending Tuesday morning at two Brooklyn Shuls in order to observe both a 5:30 and a 7:00 Daf Yomi shiur firsthand before coming to the Siyum on Wednesday. WNYC, an affiliate of nationally syndicated NPR and a non-profit public radio station, is the one of the few known media outlet to have sent a reporter to Daf Yomi and speak to participants.
In his outstanding news report, Venugopal offered a stunning clarity for the secular world on both the concept of Daf Yomi and the goings on at MetLife Stadium, but his coverage went one step further, offering his own insights on the jubilant scene that unfolded in front of him as the actual Siyum took place, calling it “a pretty amazing sight.”
“As an outsider to the Orthodox community, it is possible to see nothing more than the uniformity,” reported Venugopal. “The dark clothes, the black hats, the conservative values. But at this event it is clear that these men were having a blast. There was a sense of exhilaration and camaraderie in a way that I have almost never seen among men in the American mainstream.”
“Hundreds of non Jewish media outlets have covered the siyum and I have seen and read many of them but this reporter truly captures the spirit of it” news reporter Yosef Rapaport told VIN News. “WNYC did the right thing by sending its reporter to Brooklyn literally into the inner sanctums of Orthodox life and came out ahead with this report”
Listen below the WNYC report
NPR is a really good radio station. Much more informative and focused than 1010 and 880 and more balanced than 770AM. They can be found in New York at 93.9FM and 820AM.
Very good report. Pity it aired on the public radio station with all its six listeners, five of them women, all six of them are pretty weird.
what a zechus Rav meir Shapiro of lublin has.