Protocols
12-08-2002 – 12-08-2004

With this final post, the Protocols era comes to a close. Despite its humble beginnings in late 2002, Protocols quickly became the one of the Jewish community’s widest read and influential publications – in print or online. Its eclectic Elders frequently posted updates and summaries on topics including politics (American, Israeli, and global), religion, academia – and basically anything else they felt like. They uncovered and confronted scandals, occasionally created them when none existed, and even started getting mainstream media recognition. Though well short of its goal to “totally dominate the blogosphere,” Protocols clearly became the center for Jewish news on the internet.
Today on YUTOPIA, we look back at Protocols meteoric rise, its internal technical and personal struggles, and its eventual descent into cultural irrelevance and its unfortunate demise.

Fark links to this BBC article about Bank Leumi developing a credit card which will not work on Shabbat.
First, I’m curious how would this apply to people traveling overseas or for Internet purchases? Does it go by Shabbat in Israel or where the purchase was made?
On a more serious note, I have no idea what the point of this is. The Orthodox don’t shop on Shabbat – or at least shouldn’t.¹ Secular Jews (or clever Orthodox) will either use a different card – either from Bank Leumi or someplace else or just use cash or cheque. Certainly if the bank forces all clients to use the restrictive card, they would only increase the animosity towards the Orthodox.
Provided that the bank doesn’t force people to use the cards, this plan seems fairly innocuous. If it makes you happy, go for it – certainly no issurim are being violated by having it. However, I’m troubled by this quote: “Reports also say it may not work on any day in shops which do not honour the Sabbath.”
I have no idea how they would manage to do this from a technical perspective. The only thing I can think of is that “certain authorities” would create a blacklist and send that in to Bank Leumi. I can’t even begin to enumerate the problems with such a system (think corruption, fights over authority, payoffs, blackmailing, etc.)

1. Perhaps it’s like the content cell phones and the Orthodox can’t be trusted to be shomer Shabbat on their own such that they need external techinical restrictions to keep them on the proper path.

I have to say I’ve missed reading my weekly e-mail updates from Dei’ah vdDibur. Today I found out that “content cell phones” are “wreaking spiritual havoc.” Apparently, the dangers cell phone are so great, that even the public announcement doesn’t say what they are. At any rate, the Hareidi community is implored to safeguard their children’s purity and of course, “the deference to gedolei Yisroel shlita.”
So basically, the “Torah True^TM” Hareidi educational system itself isn’t enough to instill the appropriate values such that the bochrim themselves cannot be trusted with temptation and the only solution is to ban anything that might cause “agmas nefesh.”
Who knew Hareidim were closet Democrats?
Also, it seems that there was a scandal in which a government report claimed that Hareidi schools received two or three times the amount of their secular counterparts. It also seems that this report was flawed in several ways. DvD Editor Mordechai Plaut recaps the hows and why of the mistakes, and even appeals to “the first rule that beginning students of statistics learn.”
Plaut’s argument implies that math might actually be important. However, we know from his newsletter that teaching math and all of its subversiveness will ultimately destroy the Hareidi community.
Does this mean it’s now assur to read his column?
What if I get it on my cell phone?

First there was that whole messiness with McGreevey donations and witness tampering. Now, the school named after Charles Kushner’s family has over 40 students busted for drugs and alcohol.
I have several friends who teach there, my father contributed to the curriculum when it first started, and I’m sure there are many positive things to say about the school. Still, I know this school has had such problems and it’s been going on for years.
But now, not only does this happen, but I first hear of it from FARK of all places.
Hopefully this will be embarrassing enough to the school, the board, and the students to actually effect some change.
I can’t say I’m terribly optimistic, but that’s for another time.

Introduction

Anyone part of a “single’s scene” knows how difficult it is to find that special someone with whom you can spend the rest of your life. Bars and mixers might help put similar people in the same room, but such forums rarely result in successful relationships. To help narrow down the field of compatible singles, some entrepreneurs took advantage of the Internet, resulting in sites like Match.com or E-Harmony.

Jewish dating is perhaps even more difficult for a myriad of reasons which won’t be discussed here. Still, there are some Internet dating sites created specifically for the Jewish community, such as JDate, Jewish Caf?, Future Simchas and Frumster.

Like many other on-line dating services, singles complete profiles which contain generic information as well as some space for the individuals to elaborate. When singles search for other singles, they do so on specialized fields – each depending on the particular site. For example, Frumster allows one to search based on such fields as education, height, body type, and religious observance. However, with Frumster one can be certain of a minimum degree of observance, as it is the only one which serves the Orthodox community exclusively.

During one of my random Frumster searches I noticed that there were more women in my results page who were divorced. I found this odd since the age range for which I was searching was up until 30 years old. What bothered me wasn’t that divorce’s were suggested. I don’t believe that someone divorced should be any less of an option than anyone else. Furthermore, there are cases such as abuse where divorce would be the obviously preferable option – the sooner the better. However, there is an unfortunate stigma against being divorced, and for divorce’s Frumster might be the only option. There are many questions which need to be asked to interpret the meaning of any phenomenon.

What occurred to me that Frumster could be a useful resource for obtaining Orthodox Jewish sociological data, necessary to at least begin to understand what is happening within our community.

This will be the final post in the impossibly named series I called Rabbi Week. Today, I’d like to discuss what I consider to be the major misconception of the Rabbinate, and wrap things up with some thoughts as to what the future might hold.

The past few years haven’t been good for the image of the Modern Orthodox Rabbinate. From the Lanner scandal and subsequent OU cover-up, to the most recent frustrations with YU, it isn’t surprising to find Modern Orthodox Jews who are suspect if not disgusted with the institution of the Rabbinate. I’ve personally heard claims of malicious dishonesty, where if you’re part of the “old-boys club,” you can get away with whatever you want.

Most Modern Orthodox Jews will blame the “system” or Rabbinic intstitutions for perpetuating a corrupt system. The Rabbis are simply looking out for themselves, and so continue the patterns of dishonesty though their schools and organizations. But while there may be some merit to this position, it fails to address why such a system is allowed to exist and to continue. Assuming that the Rabbiniate is as bad as some people say – a presumptuous suggestion in its own right – then what would the factors be that caused this unfortunate situation?