Stopping The Simcha Announcements

The askanim are renewing their fight against the haredi weekly newspapers. They needed a new tactic, since the old ones have obviously not worked as rather than weeklies shutting down on their orders, even more are being published as new weeklies have joined the market.

Instead of fighting with the newspapers, who have obviously not been listening, they are attacking the readership. Not just by telling them that the gedolim say not to buy the newspapers (this method was already unsuccessfully employed), rather resorting to the tactics of Motka Bloi who tries to shut down the music industry (before Rav Amnon Yitzchak got involved). Bloi famously threatened that any haredim who would dare to go to the concerts would be photographed and their names and images would be publicized. They would take the information to the rosh yeshivas and get them thrown out of their yeshivas and seminaries and kollels.

The askanim are now adopting similar tactic, pointing to the "mazel tov" pages that run in all the weeklies. The "mazel tov page" is the page on which people can announce their simchas, usually used for announcing engagements.  These announcements are often free, and the paper covers it by targeting ads on those pages that are directed to the wedding industry, assuming that the engaged couples and their friends and people "in the parsha" will be regularly looking at these pages.


Besides for informing people which of their friends and acquaintances have gotten engaged the past week, it also tells askanim who reads the newspaper. I guess they assume that if you put your announcement in the paper it means you clearly read that newspaper. I am not sure the assumption is correct especially as the notices are generally free, as people might just announce their engagement in papers they dont read, as a way of making sure as wide an audience of their friends as possible will be exposed to the announcement. Bechadrei says that the existence of such announcements and people choosing to send them in provides a chizuk of sorts to the newspaper and encourages them to continue operating, and it gives the newspaper a sort of hechsher, as people will be under the impression that these papers are accepted and acceptable in the yeshivas and by the rosh yeshivas.

The askanim, for some reason who choose to remain anonymous, are now beginning to fax, on a weekly basis, to the various rosh yeshivas, the lists of their talmidim who announce their simchas in these weekly newspapers that go against the wishes of the gedolim, with the encouragement that the rosh yeshivas should speak out against this and should tell their talmidim to not announce their simchas in these papers.

When all else fails, the reign of terror will sometimes still work. I dont think it will work here though, just like it didnt with Motka Bloi and the concerts. The concerts still happen and people still go to them, and people will still read the weekly newspapers and make their simcha announcements in them. I wonder what they think of onlysimchas.com which is a million times worse because there are even pictures of women!