As always, except for last year because of the CoronaVirus lockdown for Pesach, Keren Lev Yisrael is running their free hagalat keilim right now. 

The Bank of Israel has new directives regarding converting coins to bills. There will be a significant fee (fluctuating a bit from bank to bank) for such conversions. Bank of Israel themselves will do it for free, but maxing out at 5000nis worth, or a maximum of 1000 coins.

Representatives of tzedaka organizations are worried that this will naturally hurt them in the pocket. They get a lot of coins in their collections, and they would now have to pay fees to convert it all. They asked MK Maklev for assistance in the matter and Maklev met with the Bank of Israel director. Maklev explained the concern and he told the coin people in the Bank of Israel  to be especially attentive and attuned to the tzedaka organizations needs and do whatever possible to assist them.

Maklev explained that by nature the tzedaka organizations receive a lot of coins, while the donors all want to know that their money is going 100% to tzedaka. Therefore the tzedaka organizations need special dispensations to make their jobs easier so the tzedakas won't be harmed.
source: Behadrei

That is all good and true, but without changing the rules, nobody is going to help. Nobody will break the rules of the Bank of Israel just because the director said to be helpful. He is going to have to have his board actually change rules if he wants to assist.

Regarding Maklev's claim, it is true, but silly. Yes, paying fees for conversions will take money out of their pockets, but so does stationary and secretaries and directors and printing and distribution of pamphlets and credit card fees and toner for the office printer and photographers for the campaigns and a million and one other things the various kupot pay for. Nobody expects that 100% of their money is going to tzedaka, as everyone realizes it costs money to run an office and run campaigns. Even more so, their money is still counted as going to tzedaka, because it is being spent on things that help them raise money for tzedaka. Paying the little bit extra in fees does not seem to make a big deal - it is probably minor compared to all the other expenses they incur on a regular basis. And they could probably find donors to cover those costs just like they find donors to cover the cost of office supplies or of printing pamphlets or other things.

and talking of lots of coins, this just happened a few days ago, though it really happens relatively often

this is important enough to interrupt the normal flow of posts, so here goes..

A local tzedaka organization is running their Purim collection campaign this year with a theme based off the Starbucks logo and slogans.

All is good, after some initial drama that brought them some nationwide attention, and they have gone forward with the campaign. The campaign includes spreading a number of stickers around the neighborhood with a variety of slogans.

One of them is this:

Now, I get that they are referring to coffee, and not alcohol, but that is a really poor choice of a slogan to use on erev purim. It can really be misconstrued. I think Drink Then Drive is a really bad campaign slogan, when in the entire world they are encouraging people, especially on Purim, to NOT drink and drive.

Even if you are giving this organization your tzedaka money, and matanot laevyonim, please, I encourage you, DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE!!!!

It seems Rav Chaim Kanievsky is upset about a doctored photo of him used by a tzedaka organization.

Rav Kanievsky recently went to Kever Rachel to daven. The haredi paparazzi were calling ti a historic visit, as he has not be there in probably close to 50 years. Rav Chaim Kanievsky went to Kever Rachel and davened. Beautiful. Inspiring, perhaps.

The following photo on the left is the original photo of Rav Kanievsky davening at the kever, while on the right you will see the doctored photo of Rav Kanievsky davening and supposedly holding a paper from the tzedaka organization as if he is davening for them and for their list of names of sick people or needy people.
:


I remember reading once that someone complained to Rav Shteinman about the underhanded tactics used by some of these tzedaka organizations, the way they doctor photos, manufacture segulahs, and whatnot. I remember Rav Shteinman's response was to brush it off and say it is to get people to give tzedaka so it is ok, and if people would give without that, they should, but unfortunately they don't so it is not such a big deal that these organizations do all this...

It seems Rav Kanievsky does not agree, at least not when it comes to his own image.

According to Kikar, Rav Kanievsky and his assistants are very upset with the way the photo was doctored. They say they were not in contact with that organization at any point regarding davening for their donors.

Is it a big deal? Are all these questionable or dirty tactics ok - is it ok to deceive people into donating just because it is for a good cause (maybe)?

The following two "pashkevils", or maybe advertisements, are spoofs of what a Kupat Ha'Ir advertisement to raise money might look like this week upon the advent of Christmas. They are being sent around (i.e. I do not know what/who the original source is), and I thought they were pretty funny, so I am sharing them with you...




One says that on Nittle Nacht the gedolei yisrael and rabbonim will play backgammon, that is famous for it's segulos,  in your merit. The second says that for just 99 NIS a minyan of talmidei chachomim will stop learning Torah for 12 hours straight, on Nittel Nacht.

This image was sent to me yesterday. It is being passed around described as a Kassam rocket that was shot to Israel. The body of the Kassam rocket was made from a pole of a bus stop or light pole that was cut and stolen from Bnei Braq, and the Hamas rocket makers somehow forgot to remove the tzedaka boxes that were welded on before making and shooting the rocket into Israel.

this Kassam rocket sponsored by Kupat Ha'Ir

It is a pretty funny story and picture, and worth posting just for the laughs.

Clearly it is a "photoshopped" picture. There is no way they could have not noticed the tzedaka boxes, or forgotten to remove them. And leaving them on, while I am not an engineer, I do not believe there is any way such a rocket could have been shot, let alone travel with any accuracy or distance with that unbalanced extra weight on it...

Still, it is pretty funny.

An office of Kupat Ha'Ir Bnei Braq was broken into on Shavuos. During the break-in, a safe with a lot of money was taken.

According to Bechadrei, an Arab worker of a baker below the office had heard the noise and called the police, who ignored him. He called a again a short while later when he saw them getting into their car to make their escape. The Arab employee also went in the morning to the home of the administrator of the office and to one of the shuls, but he waved it off as well not understanding what he was talking about.

The crooks tried to steal the safe getting it down 3 flights in the elevator, but the elevator got stuck. They broke out and carried it down instead. The police tracked them down near the house of the owner of the car, but they escaped (without the safe), and were only just now captured and arrested.

I'd say the events happened like this:
Kupat Ha'Ir at first did not donate enough to the kupa, but the criminals did. That si why they successfully stole the safe and got away.
But then, the Kupa donated more in order to get the safe back, and the crooks did not donate, so they were caught and the safe was returned.

See - donating to Kupat Ha'Ir does work!
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I have basically stopped commenting on the tzedaka organizations' various fundraising campaigns finding every remote segulah ever mentioned in the most remote seforim that have been out of print for hundreds of years and promoting them to get people to give money, and then the antics of where they will send a team of tzaddikim to daven for 40 days or whatnot. After a while the same complaints over and over again get kind of stale.

But now, one of the organizations has done something so unique, something I have never seen or heard of before, it deserves a mention.

I saw in one of the haredi papers regarding the segulah of saying the prayer written by the Shloh HaKodesh on erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan that one tzedaka organization came up with a unique idea. They collected money for the segulah like everyone else, promising to send a team of expert prayers to the grave of the Shloh (in Tiberias) and they would daven on your behalf in exchange for your donation of x shekels.

The next part is amazing. They went ahead and constructed a model of the grave of the Shloh, along with avreichim standing beside it wrapped in tallis and davening. I imagine it was all constructed from cardboard. They then put these models in some central places around town; the entrance to major shuls, around the shopping areas, and the like.

I imagine the idea was to raise awareness to their Shloh campaign, rather than to actually suggest that someone could daven at the fake grave of the Shloh.

But still. come on. Really?


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UPDATE Wednesday night:
As of this evening, yellow material that I photographed as being in dangerous p;aces was still up and had not been removed. Maybe they removed some material, and maybe they removed from some intersections, but they definitely did not remove all the dangerous materials.
-------------------------
UPDATE:
Someone just posted to the local email list on behalf of the Kupa that they apologize and are taking down the yellow bunting. The message reads:

It has come to our attention that the yellow materials related to our
campaign are obscuring vision of oncoming traffic and pedestrians. Please
accept our apologies for this - the materials will be taken down.

With thanks for your support and patience and wishes for a Happy Purim to
all!
Kupa Shel Tzedaka

-------------------------------

One of the local tzedaka organizations goes all out every year in their Purim fundraising campaign. While it often might look like they are spending an awful lot of money in an area in which they already have a very high level of penetration, it takes money to make money, as they say, and it is for a mitzva (even if it is annoying).

Each year they decorate the neighborhood with a different theme. This years theme is social justice and the high cost of electricity. they plastered all over various intersections yellow bunting, hung yellow and black signs with different slogans about the high prices, the lack of social justice and other slogans, and in some traffic circles by major intersections also erected some tents akin to the tent protests this past summer.

The bunting must come down. The bunting has been placed in a very dangerous way. (the signs and tents are fine, the bunting is the problem) At many intersections it blocks the vision of both a driver and of pedestrians who might be about to cross the street.They have been up just a day and already there have been complaints of near-accidents.

I went out to see how much it actually blocks a drivers range of vision and this is what I found:

a child pedestrian who might step out into the street to cross will look to his left and not be able to see an oncoming vehicle.

A driver will not be able to see a child pedestrian as he/she steps out into the street. As well, if the driver will be turning right, his vision is seriously limited.

overall view of the intersection

The bunting must come down before there is a major accident!

Two emails (so far) about this were sent to a local email list
1.

I have just witnessed a potentially nasty car accident at the bottom of Ayalon and Kishon where the visibility for oncoming cars has been totally obscured by huge pieces of yellow fabric. Cars are being forced to inch out into speeding traffic because the fabric curves out 20 meters into the line of vision for motorists trying to turn right.

Please inform the bochrim on Dolev that jumping out in front of and literally onto moving vehicles is not just stupid, but illegal. Cars are swerving all over Dolev to avoid them.

Seriously, Purim is not going to be very happy for some families of they have to spend it in hospitals with their loved ones due to so-called Purim spirit!

Grrrr.

2.

I am so glad you wrote this. I almost had 2 accidents this morning because
of the stupidity of charity organizations that think it is ok to decorate
traffic circles reminding people the importance of giving tzedaka on purim.
HELLO PEOPLE - you are going to be collecting money for injured people after
purim. I don't know these organizations but perhaps someone in rbs can tell
them to remove all the yellow material that they have hang on fences leading
up to circles and around the circles. The 2 that I saw that were dangerous
was the traffic circle on kishon by the mercaz mischari and the traffic
circle just after beit tefilla on refaim. It makes driving very dangerous
and you can't see on coming cars or people waiting to cross at the crossing
as the material makes it into a blind spot.

The bunting of this years decoration is very dangerous in the way it hampers a drivers vision as well as the pedestrians. Take down the bunting before an accident happens!

I emailed the organization with my thoughts on this. As of this writing I do not yet have a response from them. I suggest you email (or call) them as well, if you agree.
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Picture Of The Day

a mobile menora being driven around town encouraging people to donate..

Their people, a group of kohanim, will be praying, "for the first time", in the precise way the kohanim chashmonaim davened 2200 years ago and were saved. I assume this means they know exactly how the chashmonaim davened for success in their upcoming battle against the Greeks and Hellenists.

Since they are davening outside the Kotel in the place that is opposite the kodesh kodoshim, I am not sure how this event is going to be precisely what the chashmonaim did. Did the chashmonaim daven at the Kotel and not in the Bet Hamikdash? Did they really daven outside the wall of the Bet Hamikdash, opposite the kodesh kodoshim, rather than going in? How do they even know what the chashmonaim did - how they davened, where they davened, if they davened, what tefillos they said, etc?

The following tzedaka ad ran in many of the frum papers this past week. I scanned the English version that appeared in the Hamodia, though it appeared in Hebrew in many, or maybe all for all I know, of the Hebrew papers as well.

What I find particularly astounding about this ad is that it implies a segulah without actually mentioning one. They must have run out of segulahs, or couldn't find one specific for this week/month so they had to do something that would just make you think it is a segulah.

What do I mean? The ad says that for 9 minutes on the 9th day of the 9th month of the 9th year 18 gedolim will daven for you at 12 holy sites.

The ad does not say that all these combinations of 9 make any sort of segulah, but I would bet that most people reading the ad will automatically assume there is a segulah involved...

Do they want me to only give 9 NIS?

Why 12 holy sites? Why not 9 or 18?

9th year from what? on what count?

At least this time nobody can claim they are selling remote segulahs that might or might not come true. They make no such claim here. Any assumption of a segulah is the readers own misunderstanding.

Back in the day, you knew you could always count on Litvishe rabbonim being Litvishe, Hassidic being hassidic, and Sphardic being sephardic (in no particular order). Nowadays, you cannot even be sure of that!

Rav Chaim Kanievsky is no longer a Litvishe rav, but he is some combination of Morrocan -Hassidic. Almost like calling the baba's of the Abuchatzeira family "Admor", as the title is are commonly added to their names...

How so, you used to be able to go and buy a bottle of wine, supposedly blessed by the baba Sali or Rav Kaduri or somone else of similar stature, and maybe he had even had a drink from the bottle, or from some previous gilgul of that wine that was then mixed into 500 other barrels of wine, and you would pay some good money to get wine from a sephardic mekubal, and shalom al yisrael. Some hassidic rebbes did similar stuff, handing out shirayim or fruit or dollar bills or whatever, and it would supposedly be a source of blessing for the recipient.

The Litvishe were never into that stuff. The rabbonim were definitely not into it, and if a layman would go buy one of these things he had to have a great explanation as to why he did, otherwise his friends would look at him suspiciously.

In the past couple of years ads have been put out, by Kupat Ha'Ir no less, hawking bottles of wine blessed by Rav Chaim Kanievsky. Just as if he came to Israel straight from Morocco or Baghdad. He is now competing with Rav Kaduri.

And now, the latest ad and fundraiser is that Rav Chaim Kanievsky will:

• personally select 8 very special esrogs which will then be raffled off among the donors.
• along with other gedolei yisroel (rabbonim not important enough to be named) send out very special and rare flasks of very special honey, especially sweet honey, that is blessed for you to have on your table for the Day of Judgement!

So Rav Chaim Kanievsky has now been turned into the whole spectrum of Klal Yisrael in one swoop - he is the ultimate - the Litvishe-Hassidic-Sephardic rav!

caveat: I am not scoffing at Rav Kanievsky, but at those who have done this to him)

A incident happened in Elad the other day that led to an interesting psak by the rav of the city, Rav Shlomo Zalman Grossman, who also heads the local tzedaka organization.

A kitten had gotten stuck inside a gutter of a building. For 16 hours this kitten was crying out. The fire department was called to rescue the kitten, but after a couple hours of trying they were unable to remove it from where it was stuck. The only thing they could do was to break the wall to release the cat.

Obviously this would cost a lot of money, both the work and the repairs, and the question was who would pay for it.

The rav was asked, and Rav Grossman responded that it is allowed to use money from the public tzedaka fund to prevent tzaar baalei chaim.

After receiving the psak, they broke through the wall and saved the cat, treating its injuries after extraction. The cat was then sent for veterinary care.

At the end of the day it seems the cost is going to be sponsored by the City of Elad, rather than the local tzedaka fund, according to Bechadrei.

---

And in a totally separate interesting psak regarding tzedaka money, Rav Benzion Mitsafi has paskened that one should not donate his money to the various tzedaka funds. Rav Mutsafi says, without naming any specific fund, that they waste too much money, and he cites the large amount of money that is spent on advertising and considers it too wasteful. (source: ladaat)

Kikar Shabbos website has recently come up with so many crazy stories and halachic decisions happening in the haredi community that they are starting to seem like the National Enquirer. I don't know if all these stories happened or not, if they were reported on accurately or not, and even if they did happen as reported why suddenly they are being publicized, especially in such great increasing frequency like never before. Perhaps it is simply greater media access than in the past, perhaps it is haredi journalists digging more for this type of information like never before or maybe it is something else completely. Either way, the stories and piskei halacha make for interesting discussion.

The latest incident of interest is a story that happened in the apartment neighboring that of the apartment of the Kanievsky's. The apartment upstairs had been sitting empty for some time, as the elderly resident died. After some time, the family rented the apartment to a tenant, an avreich who wanted to live near Rav Chaim Kanievsky. He probably has had to pay a mint for that location.

It seems that this avreich has been using the apartment but one of the rooms has remained unused. The family owning the apartment asked the tenant if it would be ok if they rented that room out separately to Kupat Ha'Ir, and the avreich agreed (probably happy to have some of his expensive rent deducted).

Kupat Ha'Ir wanted to rent this location to make a shop taking advantage of the proximity to the many visitors  to Rav Kanievsky's house, making it possible to solicit donations in great numbers.

the rental went through, and Kupat Ha'Ir hired a contractor and began renovations to make the room usable. Sure enough, instead of just renovating the room, they also opened up a new window and door right out facing the stairway to Rav Kanievsky's apartment.

The tenant, and the owners eventually, protested the changes to the apartment, and expressed their distaste at their apartment being used as such a collection store (I am not sure why they rented it to Kupat Ha'Ir in the first place if this is true. What did they think Kupat Ha'Ir was going to use it for?).

So, according to Kikar, the tenant, with the owners on his side, went to beis din and got a restraining order against Kupat Ha'ir from making such changes.

Ignoring The Dayan
Kupat Ha'Ir ignored the restraining order issued by the beis din and yesterday showed up and continued the renovations. After the police were called in, The Kupat Ha'Ir administration decided to go to Rav Chaim Kanievsky to ask if they could continue or if they should stop. Rav Kanievsky refused to answer and told them to go to beis din.

Rav Kanievsky Paskens
Later in the day Rav Kanievsky called them back in and told them to stop the construction. He told them to back off the idea and forget about opening up such a store upstairs. Rav Kanievsky explained that because there is at least the appearance of deception having been used, they should back off. No bracha can come from deception and dishonesty.

The Kupa people responded that they would listen to his words and cancel their plans, even at great loss.

My guess is that now they will create a campaign to raise money for donors to get the zchus of listening to Rav Kanievsky and help cover the losses.

The tzedaka called "Vaad HaRabbonim" has beaten, in my opinion, all the competing tzedaka organizations in their pre-Purim marketing campaign.

Vaad HaRabbonim is sending, in a top secret mission, into Iran, despite the sanctions, a clandestine team of people who will daven for all the people who donate to the cause, beside the graves of Mordechai and Esther.

1. With the massive advertising they did, I am not sure how they call it a top secret mission. I hope the Iranians dont find out about it.

2. I guess they will be keeping Shushan Purim, considering they will be in Shushan. So, do they have to daven on the graves on Sunday or Monday?

The question raised was can someone fulfill his obligation of Purim to donate money to the poor, matanot la'evyonim, by donating via the major, central, charities such as Kupat Ha'Ir and Vaad HaRabbonim, among others.
ou cannot
Rav Ephraim Greenblatt wants to say that you cannot be yotzei the obligation by donating through these large organizations. He bases his opinion on an opinion that says the donor and the poor person should know each other, as they normally do with regular gifts. When the poor person does not know from whom he received the gift, and the donor does not know to whom he gave it - the opinion of Rav Yosef Engel is that this is not conisdered matanot la'evyonim.

Rav Greenblatt explains that the intention of matanot la'evyonim is to bring the two sides closer to each other, to increase love and friendship. According to Rav Yosef Engel, he says, this does not happen when they do not know each other.

He agrees that nowadays we do not pasken like this, but there are those who suggest that one should attempt to fulfill the mitzva even according to this opinion, by giving to a poor person you know rather than through an organization.

Rav Greenblatt presented his opinion to Rav Wosner and to other poskim.

Among the poskim, some say that there are additional reasons to not give through the large organizations. They explain that when the pot of money is divvied up and distributed among all the numerous recipients, there is a good chance that from your donation you will not have given a shaveh pruta, the minimum amount, to any one person.
While perhaps this is not the final psak of how the money gets divvied up and whether or not you are yotzei, some of the rabbonim do say that to fulfill the mitzva the best possible way would be to give the donation directly and not through the central kupot tzedaka. (source: Bechadrei)

It sounds like it should not be specific to the large kupot, but even to neighborhood kupot,. The same logic seems to apply.

Practically, it does not seem practical for most people to go search out for a poor person they know, as most people will not, or do not know any halachically poor people, or more precisely perhaps, do not know that the person they know is halachically a poor person. The kupot provide the added benefit that they ensure your money is being given to people who are genuinely needy and halachically qualify.

I am sure we have not heard the last word on this topic...

This is making the rounds. Pretty funny spoof of a Kupat Ha'Ir ad. In this pre-Christmas spoof, they are raising money and offering the services of a minyan of talmidei chachomim to stop learning [and play cards/kvitlach I imagine] on your behalf on Nittle Nacht...
Enjoy