My daughter's rendition of Matan Torah
Leora often plays “What Do You See” with her daughter’s pictures. Here is one my daughter drew for the holiday of Shavuot. What do you see?
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This is Part III of a series on pashkevilim, the anti-establishment wall posters hung in large haredi neighborhoods. The series is based on a talk by Tzuriel Rashi of Michlelet Lifshitz and Bar Ilan University.
See Part I and Part II.
Pashkevil forbidding the use of Zionist banknotes. Credit: Ben Chorin
A major concern for the haredi community in recent years has been cell phones. When chassidim who worked with troubled youth realized how easily a cell phone could be connected to the outside world, they alerted their leaders and an emergency meeting took place between the leaders of the various haredi communities. Even Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Sephardic chief rabbi, was invited. As a first step the haredim demanded that the cellphone companies stop selling phones with internet to the haredi public. The companies refused to give up such a lucrative source of cash.
The next step was to issue a set of draconian rules, published in newspapers and on pashkevilim, that included the immediate expulsion from school of any student found with an internet cell phone. A boycott was called and the haredi newspapers refused to advertise cellphone companies, taking a large financial loss.
Eventually the companies agreed to market an inexpensive phone for the haredi market without text messages, video, or internet. A secular columnist wrote about his wife trying to buy one when she learned how cheap it was. However, only 30% of haredim own one. One haredi told Rashi that many keep two types of cellphones: “Echad lemaan yishme’u ve-echad lemaan yirau:” One so that they may hear, and one so that they will be afraid. (The source is a combination of two biblical verses).
A few years ago the haredi community had a dispute with Bank Leumi because it wanted to build a hotel in Tiberias on top of what turned out to be a Jewish cemetery. Soon a pashkevil went up, pictured above, warning about the pictures of women and Zionists that even the most zealous haredim carry in their wallet—in the form of Israeli banknotes. After all, banknotes contain photographs of Golda Meir, Ben Gurion, and others. The only acceptable one is the NIS 1000 note with a picture of the Rambam, the medieval sage Maimonides. The pashkevil suggested a solution—reverting to a barter system. The secular press wrote about this pashkevil without realizing that it was intended as a spoof.
Another tongue-in-cheek pashkevil went up in advance of the annual kiddush on the Shabbat after the holiday of Simchat Torah and warned against the dangers of the traditional Jerusalem kugel. Five reasons were listed for banning the sweet and spicy noodle pudding:
- The long stringy noodles resemble worms, which are clearly forbidden.
- The hot kugel is served with cold pickles, which may inadvertently lead to cooking on the Sabbath, a prohibited activity.
- The kugel is often cut into triangles and resembles the foreign, suspicious food known as pizza.
- The noodles are made of flour, which is known to have kashruth issues such as insect infestation.
- The smell of the kugel in the synagogue on Shabbat morning distracts the worshipper from his prayers.
You can find a collection of fake pashkevillim at Ben-Chorin’s blog. Next week I hope to have a guest post by a blogger involved in a couple of those spoofs.
Part I and Part II.
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The holiday of Shavuot begins Thursday evening. Known in English as Pentecost because it takes place fifty days after Passover, Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. The two main customs associated with the holiday are serving dairy foods and staying up all night to study Torah. Staying up all night only became popular once coffee became readily available in Europe.
This year the one-day holiday of Shavuot leads right into Shabbat. Cooking is permitted, but only for the holiday itself. This creates a problem with heating or cooking food for the Sabbath, when all cooking is forbidden. To get around this we put aside some cooked food on Thursday, before the holiday begins, make a blessing and designate it for one of the Shabbat meals. It’s as if we begin cooking officially for Shabbat before the holiday actually started. This food is known as an Eruv Tavshilin.
In Israel all yamim tovim—the holidays with this restriction—are observed for only one day with the exception of Rosh Hashanah. Outside of Israel every yom tov is two days long. Judging by the crowds, it seems that many Israelis panic at the thought of stores closing for two days in a row. A one-day observance also means that making an Eruv Tavshilin is rare. Here the only holidays that can fall on Fridays are Shavuot, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and the last day of Passover, and that doesn’t happen even every year.
Readers still looking for holidays recipes can check out Gillian of Food Past’s Kosher Cooking Carnival, with added efficiency ratings. You can try my Sourdough Chocolate Cake or Seven-Minute Microwave Cheesecake. Israeli Kitchen has a luscious looking cheesecake and Shimshonit provides both dairy and pareve menus.
Last but not least, funny man Benji hosts Haveil Havalim.
Have a chag sameach and Shabbat shalom.
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In honor of Jerusalem Day our synagogue hosted Tzuriel Rashi, professor of political science and communications and expert on pashkevilim, political and religious wall posters found on the streets of large haredi neighborhoods.
This is Part II. See Part I and Part III.
In the pre-State period, a staff of four men known as kruzim sped through town to put up the pashkevilim. One brushed the walls with glue, the second and third worked together to carry and stick up the posters, and the fourth added a final layer of glue.
Pashkevilim were and continue to be a way of getting out important news that the regular press won’t publish, in the same way we often use blogs.
After the 1929 Hebron massacre, the graves of the victims were dug quickly and shallowly because of the tense situation. When animals began to carry away the victims’ remains the haredi leadership turned to the secular newspapers, but they did not consider the situation newsworthy. The pashkevil asking the public for help in reburying the bodies also criticized the editors of Doar Hayom for “shutting our mouths.”
Sometimes news in the haredi world will not be published even by mainstream haredi newspapers like Yated Neeman and Hamodia: Chabad’s announcement proclaiming the deceased Lubavitcher Rebbe as the Messiah was first announced in a pashkevil.
The British government of Palestine put up a pashkevil as a wanted ad to help solve the first political murder in modern Zionist history. Jacob Israel Dehaan was a Dutchman who immigrated to Palestine and became a spokesman for the Haredim. His contact with Arabs in order to undermine the Zionist leadership led to his assassination in 1924. Considered a martyr by Haredi anti-Zionists, a pashkevil has been posted for the last 84 years on the anniversary of his murder. The authors of the pashkevil consider the Arab nations their “brothers in misery.”
Occasionally the street sign for Bar-Ilan Street is altered to honor de Haan, instead of the Zionist it is officially named for.
Pashkevilim in the pre-state period asked for prayers for the powers of foreign governments. Rashi shared two stories about Franz Joseph I of Austria’s visit to Jerusalem in 1869:
- The Emperor visited the yet to be completed Tiferet Israel synagogue. When he remarked on its lack of a roof, Rabbi Nissan Beck replied that the synagogue “took its hat off in your honor.” Franz Joseph got the hint and donated the dome.
- Franz Joseph also visited the home of Rabbi Shmuel Salant, who invited the emperor to sit in the only chair in his modest home. The Emperor promptly fell through a hole in the chair’s seat. Rabbi Salant saved the occasion by remarking that according to the Midrash, the stones fought over which would serve as the pillow for the patriarch Jacob and then joined together to become one large stone. In the same way, the small holes in Rabbi Salant’s chair combined to have the honor of seating the emperor.
Some pashkevilim are republished on a regular basis with the names of the signatories updated. Before every national election a poster goes up decrying the elections of the kofrim hanatzionim, the “NaZionist apostates,” and announcing that stores will be closed in protest (!).
Some messages are too sensitive for pashkevilim. When the haredim worked to cancel the Gay Pride parade scheduled for Jerusalem, they worried about answering children’s questions. Instead of pashkevilim they decided to discuss the issue only in the mikveh, the ritual bath where children don’t generaly accompany their fathers. Rashi quipped that the mikveh in Washington D.C. is supposedly the way top-secret information about Israel gets leaked to AIPAC from the state department.
See Part I here.
Coming up next: The cell-phone controversy and “spoof” pashkevilim in Part III.
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This Shabbat meme comes from the Homeshuling blog. A meme is a set of questions answered by a variety of bloggers.
