should health clinics spend money advertising blessings for learning accomplishments?

MK Eitan Ginzburg (Kachol Lavan) tweeted out a comment about a street billboard posted by the Clalit Medical Services organization.

היי שירותי בריאות כללית, איך תסבירו למבוטחים שלכם שכספיהם מושקעים בשלט חוצות ענק ובזבזני שמברך את לומדי ומסיימי הש"ס, במקום להשקיע בהסברה בתחום הבריאות למשל. אתם שירותי בריאות, שירותי חינוך או שירותי דת?
לא הבנתי. אולי חמודי יודע? @inbartvizer pic.twitter.com/PshtT5nNRX

— איתן גינזבורג - Eitan Ginzburg (@EitanGinzburg) January 7, 2020

Ginzburg said, directed at Clalit, how will you explain to your insured customers that their monies are invested in giant and wasteful billboard signs blessing those who learn and finished Shas, instead of investing the money in, for example, PR for the medical industry? Are you a medical services company or are you an educational or religious company?

Attached to the tweet is a picture of the sign posted by Clalit about which he is commenting.


ok. That is a silly tweet. Personally I see nothing wrong with them investing money in some marketing, and perhaps they decided the best way to attract new customers form this or that community near where the sign was is to advertise like this - with blessings about the siyyum hashas. They do all sorts of other marketing, and this is just another form of that. It costs money to make money. If they want to grow and be able to provide more services, they need to attract new customers and to work to keep old customers. This is one way they are doing that. Nothing wrong with that. Silly tweet, but not completely out of place. Nobody really needs their blessings, and with not enough money available in the health industry in Israel, perhaps the money would be better spent on medical services, but no big deal, in my opinion, either way. Ginzburg would have been better of not commenting about this, especially if he does not comment about every other situation in which he thinks they, or other such companies, are wasting money.

Interestingly, the official UTJ Facebook page felt the need to comment on it. With only 1500 or so followers, Ginzburg's tweet would most likely have never even been noticed by more than a few people. I would not have seen it, for example. With more than 6000 followers of their page, they gave it far more attention than it initially would have ever received on its own.

UTJ wrote a very brief post in response, attaching a screen shot of the original tweet, and directing it at Yair Lapid, one of the heads of Kachol Lavan:

איר,
תוודאו בבקשה שכל החבר'ה מעודכנים שבסבב הזה לא תוקפים את החרדים...

נ.ב.
כן, יש חבר כנסת בכחול לבן בשם איתן גינזבורג. מקום 32 ברשימה.
אין כמו רושם ראשוני. תודה איתן, נעים להכיר.

they write: Yair, please make sure that everyone is updated that this time around you decided there will be no attacking Haredim.
they then add a jab at Ginzburg with a postscript saying yes, there is an MK in Kachol Lavan at number 32 in the list named Eitan Ginzburg. There is nothing like a first impression, nice to meet you.

regarding the jab, it is silly, because he might be number 32 in the list but UTJ does not even get close to 32 MKs on their list and can barely scrape out 8 MKs. 8, or even 7, is good for them, but being 32 on a different list is nothing to sneeze at.

Regarding UTJ's post itself, not everything needs to be turned into an anti-haredi issue. Even things you don't like. You can disagree without turning everything into hatred. Ginzburg did not mention the word Haredi and did not direct it at anyone Haredi in particular. Also, Haredim do not own the Torah, nor the Gemara, nor the Daf Yomi. Plenty of non-haredim learn Shas, learn Daf Yomi, and have even finished Shas. Ginzburg's comment, stupid as it may have been, was about Clalit, not about haredim.

I know, it is election season, and everyone needs to generate headlines to get attention. They, both Ginzburg and UTJ, need to rile up their voters. I just find it tiring every time someone does not like what someone else says they start scream about incitement, provocations, hatred, anti-Haredi or anti-Russian or anti-immigrant or anti-sefardi or anti-this or anti-that. Argue, disagree, dispute, whatever, just stop turning everything into a hate fest

Again, I personally think posting such a billboard is simply a form of marketing and you have to spend money to make money. I think UTJ could have taken the high road and commented on that or something similar with a different explanation. Instead of commenting on the actual post and responding to that, they immediately turned it into another hate fest. Perhaps that serves their needs more. Like everyone else, they too like to accuse everyone of hating them and take every opportunity to do so.

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