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Sunday, October 30, 2016

Agudath Israel in Cyberspace




Been away from posting for a while, what with the holidays and business and family things.

I have been trying, with varying success, to avoid discussion of the great farce known as the 2016 Presidential Election.

In more than a few postings past, I have speculated not so much whether as when the Agudath Israel of America will hop aboard the internet train.  The Agudath Israel is a loosely-organized advocacy group that purports to advance the interest of the insular religious Jewish community.  I have had past occasion to interact with the AI, and hold many of its officials and functionaries in very high esteem.

But there are various factions within AI, including many which remain totally and absolutely against the use of the internet.  For a while, it looked as though such factions would prevail in the internal debate within AI.  It seems, however, that the practical heads within AI have prevailed (mostly).

It has come to my attention that the upcoming 2016 AI Convention has a website.  Moreover, for all intents and purposes, AI itself now has its own website, albeit under the name "Lefkowitz Leadership Initiative"; that way they can have an official website without having an official website.

My wife and I caught some flak here in Israel not too long ago for using our smartphones; we were with some of my wife's 2nd and 3rd cousins in Bnei Brak, a largely insular community (which is more dependent upon non-religious and non-Jewish help and money than it cares to admit).  In the social groups my wife's cousins frequent, people are ostracized for possessing smartphones, which are considered to be a bad influence.  What stopped the flak was when my wife showed how she can use her smartphone to access vital medical information and facts to treat patients, including patients with conditions related to my wife's subspecialty.

Exit question:  If you were offered $100,000 to remain in a cabin in the woods for 3 months without any telephone, television, radio, or internet access, would you go for it?

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