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?

Fallen behind.

Been having internet connectivity issues; still behind on my e-mails. Other issues have arisen. On positive note, judge came down with decision in my client's favor. 

Hurricane Sandy's Nonphysical Damage

Various prior postings to this blog have mentioned the technophobia of the various insular religious rabbinical authorities, who have at various times banned internet access in the home, text messaging, social media such as Facebook, et cetera.  And incidents of rejection or expulsion of students from private religious schools on account of having an internet connection in the home, an e-mail account and/or a Facebook or Twitter presence, or a cell phone have been legion.

I could not agree more that the internet poses some significant major league moral and ethical obstacles to society.  But the internet also provides significant advantages and efficiencies in the communication of valid and useful information.

Many insular Jewish religious communities were devastated by Hurricane Sandy.  And it turns out that many individuals who nominally are members of those afflicted insular Jewish religious communities have made use (and continue to make use) of one or more of the banned evil technologies in order to, quite literally, weather the storm and its aftermath.  For some, the use of those evil prohibited technologies have no doubt made the difference between life and death.

Yes, the insular religious rabbinical authorities can continue to deny that the new electronic technologies are of any good to their constituencies.  But due to the recent and ongoing Hurricane Sandy experience, those denials can no longer command much credibility by the rabbis' followerships.  

When is The Internet not the Internet?

Past postings have speculated on the prospects for the insular religious Jewish communities in general, and the Agudath Israel of America in particular, becoming an internet presence. The rabbinical sages have nominally banned the Internet (with an ever-growing list of exceptions for business and livelihood purposes). It has been, and continues to be, my contention that official acceptance of the Internet will occur gradually, as the rabbis are able to find credible face-saving stories to make it look as though they are not backpedaling from their original stance.

[Note the use of the term "official" acceptance; many in the insular communities alreadly are cryptocyberians.].

Well, I got the latest Hamodia weekly edition today from my usual source, and, in a 2-page spread on pages C28 and C29, Hamodia announces its "Free Digital Edition," "Opening a Clean Window to the World," with the blessings of the rabbinical sages. An Internet version of the same display ad is available here (and you can read it in its entirety if you are so inclined). The long and the short of it is that it involves a one-site connection with no active clickable links, so you cannot be exposed to any material that will evoke impure thoughts.

Curiously, the internet version of the display ad (but not the print version) bears the legend "Hamodia's Clean Window email edition does not in any way endorse or condone personal/home email/internet use."

So the "Clean Window" edition of Hamodia is delivered over email, which supposedly is to be accessed only in the office and not at home. I think we all (including the rabbis) know that there are more homes with internets in these insular communities than anyone cares to publicly admit, but it still has to be kept sub rosa.

I note one teenage girl's account: "One friend goes to a really religious school and tells me that if her principal knew she had an email address she would be kicked out." This young lady's friend would do well to obtain the principal's own e-mail address (and preferably, those of her husband, children and mother-in-law). That way, any threatened expulsion from school can be parried by a threatened public disclosure of the principal's own family e-mail addresses.

If this Hamodia "Clean Window" thing is successful, then I would not be a bit surprised if similar technologies from similar vendors were to become a component of the Agudath Israel's soon-to-be-resurrected Jewish Observer. They will be pleased to use the internet, as long as it isn't really the internet.

Will the Agudath Israel go Cyber?

The previous posting included the comment:

"(E) Personal sentiment: It would not surprise me in the least if, within the next few months or years, the Agudath Israel of America erects a website. I leave it to those in the pari-mutuel profession to assign particular odds to particular time frames."



Some further discussion of this and related matters occurred during Shabbat, so I will now expand upon it. I also have gotten hold of a generally-addressed missive dated 11 June 2009 from Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, the Executive VP of Agudath Israel, regarding the its Jewish Observer magazine. The letter includes the following passage:

" [G]iven the harsh economic realities of our times, and the proliferation in recent years of a number of other worthy publications that cater to the Torah community, we believe the time has arrived to do some fresh thinking about The Jewish Observer -- its format, its content, its role in serving the community today."


The letter goes on to say that publication will be suspended for a few months while the Jewish Observer gets reinvented, and beseeching the loyal readership's patience and understanding.

Fair enough!


If you have spent Shabbat in Bnei Brak in Israel, you will know that among the first matters to be attended to after Havdalah is the announcements, over the loudspeakers, of the names of those who passed away during Shabbat (statistically speaking, at least one can be expected on any given Shabbat). Such a method of communication suffices quite well for Bnei Brak, and might conceivably suffice for neighborhoods such as Borough Park or Crown Heights. Agudath Israel's symposium last Tuesday drew from a wider area than the individual neighborhood in which it was held. In other words, the bullhorn announcement method that works so well in Bnei Brak would not have sufficed to get the word out in time. And, I am informed, the Agudath Israel did use e-mail to publicize its symposium, and did make sure that certain websites got word of it as well.


Historically, the rabbis have always received technological innovations with great suspicion. This is not to say that the rabbis did not understand the technical aspects of the innovations, nor that the rabbis didn't use the innovations. But the rabbis, quite appropriately, have always been concerned about the effects of the technological innovations upon society in general, and the Jewish community in particular. The printing press, for example, caused much consternation among the rabbis when it first came out, but the rabbis eventually embraced it, but not without placing caveats and restrictions upon its use. To this day, books written on religious subjects often have one or more rabbi's imprimatur letter in the prefatory material.

Reading between the lines in Rabbi Zwiebel's letter, the Jewish Observer is now suffering from competition from the Internet. AI and its affiliate rabbis have pronounced many restrictions upon the use of the Internet, and indeed, have branded it as evil. And now, having made such pronouncements, they will have to find a way to use the Internet's positive attributes while avoiding its negative attributes to whatever extent is possible.

Also, there are some conflicts within the AI itself. Specifically, there are conflicts of style and philosophy between the Chassidic and the other religiously observant. And while the factions usually tend to manage their differences quite well, there had been a certain degree of pandering to the Chassidic faction by the others over the years.

And now, AI is a troubled organization that needs redirection to its core values and purposes. On account of the misbehaviors of some individuals from amongst its constituent groups, AI has, in many respects, morphed from an organization advocating statutes and administrative rules which are friendly to the observance of Jewish rituals and the safety and well-being of religious Jews, to an organization that scrambles to cover up the indiscretions of its wayward brats, and/or implore the prosecutors and judiciary for leniency towards the same. Zwiebel understands that the organization he leads has been distracted, and must refocus on its core values.

My rhetorical question: If the Agudath Israel of America can hastily convene a seminar on a few days notice, why does it need a few months to think about what it is going to do with its Jewish Observer publication? Fundraising may well be part of it, but I strongly suspect that it may have more to do with convincing the anti-Internet factions of the need to redirect the organization's public affairs agenda, including, perhaps, the necessity for an Agudath Israel website.

Sewer Service

After nearly a week, I now have internet access again. We had technical problems last Monday, and with the last two days of Passover on Wednesday & Thursday, coupled with some big time ineptitude on the part of the Best Buy and its Geek Squad, we were unable to get back up until this afternoon (Sunday). No thanks to the Geek Squad or Best Buy; we called in a local who, after several attempts (and one return of a new router to Staples), did in fact get us up and running. Tomorrow, my wife will cancel the Geek Squad appointment that had been set for this coming Wednesday (more than a week after the first call!), because their services are now unnecessary.

It has been very challenging to exist for a week without internet access (though 3 of those days, the last 2 days of Pesach and Shabbat, would not have been internet access days for us anyway). Almost as challenging as the 6 + days without internet access have been the 8 days of Passover without beer (but we did have an enjoyable holiday, and the Carmel 777 Brandy and Jelinek Slivovitz. sufficed quite well).


The big story now in LawyerLand is that a process serving company, American Legal Process, together with its president, has just been charged with various offenses in connection with falsified evidence of service. If these charges are proven (and there seems to be some rather strong and damning evidence in the AG's pocket to substantiate them), then many people had default judgments taken against them because they were never served with the papers.

This will have to play out in the courts. ALP's attorney, Corey Winograd, is, of course, zealously defending his client and insisting that ALP and its president, William Singler, did nothing wrong. This, of course, is what a defense attorney should be doing.

[Disclosure: A few years back, I had a case with Corey Winograd, and have no reason to impute his client's scumbag attributes to Corey personally.].

This subversion of the judicial system is a very disturbing matter. The process servers who falsify their affidavits and other documentation are no less a threat to American freedom than the terrorists and pirates.

And while I applaud Andy Cuomo, the New York Attorney General, for his proactive interest in the matter, the potential for political payback cannot be ignored.

I note that in Binghamton, some volunteer lawyers have taken on the task of aiding families of the victims of the recent shooting spree there. Reading between the lines, much of their work will effectively be aid to illegal aliens. These illegal alien enablers are being organized by the New York State Bar Association, an organization in which I allowed my membership to lapse quite a few years ago, a decision I do not regret.

My question: Will the NYSBA round up a cadre of volunteer attorneys to help out the real Americans and legally present aliens who were victimized by American Legal Process?