Ish rotzeh isha

While eating dinner, Jo and I have been watching an especially implausible--but clearly cheap to produce--reality show called "Farmer Wants a Wife." The "city women" come from areas of dubious urban-ness (places where, say, one has to drive), yet the show begins with all of these shots of Manhattan. And the farmer... has a body unusual among men in search of a wife. He is clearly an aspiring actor living in New York who was taught to ride a tractor for this show. (And yes, this show does bring to mind the "tractor incident" from "Seinfeld.")

It occurred to me that the best reality show ever, of this same theme, would be an Israeli man who wants an American Jewish wife. Or, why not, Diaspora Jewish, so that there could be some French, South American, and Canadian participants as well. Now I don't see why an Israeli man would want a non-Israeli wife--Israeli women tend towards the gorgeous--but the potential for farcical culture clash would be far greater than that of a farmer meeting girls from Dallas and Orlando. The difference probably seems huge to those involved, but it's not coming through on the small screen.

In my reality show, women from New York and Paris could be sent to a small desert town in Israel. It would be like the Birthright trip to the club in Eilat, for which all the American Birthrighters dress like they're going out to a club in the Meatpacking District, except it would go on for weeks, the eliminations would involve mock-IDF basic training (again, like Birthright) and at the end, someone would get 250,000 shekels.