השרוף
For several months during the year 2000, Haim Zinovitch posed as "Hasaruf" ("The Burnt") - seemingly a new artist in the Mizrahi genre, behind whom is an unusual life story of disability and the cruelty of the establishment The first single of "Hasaruf", a rock song in an oriental style, was a great success and was played a lot on the radio. Zinovitch was interviewed for a cover story in the "7 Yamim" supplement of the "Yediot Aharonot" newspaper with his whole body wrapped in white bandages and wearing a mask, supposedly due to the "severe burns on his body". He said that a gas cylinder exploded in his house and that he could not escape the fire because he is paralyzed in his legs since he fell from a scaffolding. He said that only singing adds a little flavor to his depressed life. After several weeks in which the media showed interest in the story, Zinovitch revealed the true face of the "Hasaruf" in a television interview on the Yair Lapid program and removed the mask live. The hoax caused many controversies regarding the media's attitude towards art and criticism of the way the media in general treated a journalistic "scoop" regardless of the nature of the content and without a thorough journalistic examination as required by the newspaper. Zinovitch himself claimed in interviews that the scam was intended to reveal the tendency of the media to be interested in the sensational stories surrounding the artists and not in the music itself. He also claimed that he felt mentally "burnt out" after his work was ignored by the media and record companies. After exposing the face of "Hasaruf", which damaged the credibility of "Yediot Aharonot", the competing newspaper, "Ma'ariv", published a cover story in the weekend supplement, which dealt with the scam in great detail. The title of the article was "The Lighter".
