Haredi feminist activist Ruth Kolian had sued 2 haredi newspapers, Yated Neeman and Yom LYom, for not running the ads for her political party, BZchutan, in the 2015 elections. She claimed discrimination as BZchutan was a party of [Haredi] women.

Without getting into details of the case, the court recently decided against Kolian, in favor of the newspapers. The court decided that the newspapers did not reject her ads because they were women but because the ads were for a political party not identified with the outlook of the newspapers. It is acceptable for the newspapers to refuse to accept advertisements for political parties attempting to take away votes from the parties clearly identified with those newspapers. It is important to note that the court determined that the newspapers did not reject the ads because of Kolian, or the rest of the party, being female, but because the party was a competing party and not identified with the newspaper.

This is an interesting and unexpected decision on what constitutes discrimination, and if anyone can explain it better, especially the ramifications, I would appreciate it.

It seems to me that this gives newspapers a wide berth in making decisions like this. While most newspapers will take any ad thrown their way that brings in big money, like political ads from just about all parties, a newspaper with some sort of political identification could now easily decide to not accept ads from other parties. For example, Israel Hayom, identified clearly as being a supporter of Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud, could reject ads from Labor or Yesh Atid parties, along with Shas and Habayit Hayehudi. Haaretz, identified with perhaps Meretz and Labor, could choose to reject ads from Yesh Atid. Makor Rishon could reject ads from the Haredi parties and from the Likud and from the various small parties that seem to crop up in every election. etc etc etc

While newspapers cannot discriminate against women, they can discriminate against political parties that are not aligned with the political outlook of the newspaper.

According to a report in Haaretz, one of the leaks from one of the investigations into Netanyahu's affairs (investigation #2000, fyi) is about how as part of the deal being arranged, allegedly, between Netanyahu and Noni Moses, head of Yediot Acharonot, Yediot would write negative articles about Naftali Bennet, head of Habayit Hayehudi and a politician seen by many as a potential rival to Netanyahu's position of leadership.

This would have been Israel's version of what has become known in the USA as #FakeNews. A politician telling newspapers to do hit jobs on rival politicians and then the public just reads it as regular news and editorials not knowing that the slant was dictated by political rivals.

On the one hand, thankfully it didn't end up happening. On the other hand, how do we know that most of what we read in the newspapers and other news media is already not fake news?

There is an interesting article in the Columbia Journalism Review about how Ultra-Orthodox newspapers are planning to deal with the challenge of Hillary Clinton possibly being the next President of the United States vis a vis their policy of not printing images of women in the newspapers.

an excerpt:

It’s not just her politics that worries these publications, although they are far to the right of Clinton on most issues. More troublesome is her gender. For reasons of tradition and modesty, and in line with some interpretations of Jewish law, the ultra-Orthodox publications do not run pictures of women in their pages. When they publish articles about Clinton, they are likely to run images of her campaign posters, a picture of her house in Chappaqua, NY, or a photo of her husband, Bill. Occasionally, they will run a caricature of Hillary Clinton from a political cartoon, but not a photo.
It was one thing to avoid printing Clinton’s picture when she was First Lady or a United States senator, or even Secretary of State. But how can you not show the President of the United States?
In interviews, the editors of four major English-language ultra-Orthodox publications, three of them published in New York and one in Jerusalem, said that they are reevaluating their no-women policy in light of the Clinton candidacy, but would not make any final decisions alone. As with all important decisions, they will take the question to the boards of rabbinical advisors with whom final authority over the publications’ content rests. One of the editors, a rabbi himself, said that a Clinton victory could spell a change in the longstanding no-women policy in his paper and the others. “I think we’re going to have to rethink it,” Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter, the executive editor of Ami Magazine, told me. Not to do so, he said, “would be disrespectful.”

This alone might be the cause for many people to vote for Clinton, and they would be willing to ignore any and every other issue, just to get the frum papers to start printing images of women....

Then again, the real frum response really should be that clearly Hillary Clinton is going to lose, so that the frum papers won't have to break their tradition of thousands of years...

Yisrael Hayom [newspaper] is 'Pravda', it is a newspaper that is the trumpet of one person, that being the Prime Minister... I hoped the Yisrael Hayom would be a national newspaper that would contrast all the other papers and media, but it has not turned out like that. At every juncture where there was a conflict between the national interests and the prime ministers interests - the newspaper always preferred the prime minister. In the declaration of a Palestinan state, the paper supported the prime minister, in his Bar Ilan speech, the paper backed him, in his fights with Feiglin, in his fights with me.. It upsets me and disturbs me a bit..

  -- Minister Naftali Bennet, about his support for the law that would put Yisrael Hayom out of business, or make them change their business model

If you thought requiring a business license for operating a newspaper is a violation of the freedom of speech (as guaranteed by the US Constitution but not by any Israeli constitution that does not exist..), you are really not going to like yesterday law proposal submitted by MK Eitan Cabel (Labor).

Cabel has proposed that any newspaper of the "big four" daily papers with the widest distribution in the country will not be allowed to be distributed for free but will have to be sold for at least a symbolic price - at least 70% of the cheapest newspaper with the greatest distribution.

Basically this law is going to hurt only Yisrael Hayom, which has become one of the widest distributed newspapers (or maybe the widest), but is distributed for free.

Supposedly, they explain in the proposal, which is supported by MKs from a number of parties, the objective of the proposal is to strengthen the written press in Israel, and recognize the great importance and strengthen the freedom of expression and democracy.

The newspapers in Israel today are in a serious financial crisis and the greatest threat to them is that they cannot truly and fairly compete when other newspapers are distributed for free. Such newspapers are destroying the competition and do not allow the market to recover.

I enjoy the irony of "strengthening freedom of expression" by stopping a newspaper from distributing the way it wants to.

With support of MKs from both sides of the Knesset, this proposal might have a pretty good chance of being voted into law. Though I don't get why some of the MKs, like Habayit Hayehudi MKs, are supporting it. Yisrael Hayom is considered a right wing newspaper, supportive of Bibi Netanyahu (it even achieved the nickname "Bibiton")...

If this law should pass, Yisrael Hayom would either have to close up shop, begin charging a fee, or lessen their distribution.

courtesy of kikar.net

The newspaper rarely gets the details of stories accurately, and it might generate interesting discussion, it is not worth condemning or attacking anybody just based on an inaccurate newspaper article.

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!

The latest of the pashkevilim news in Bet Shemesh is a pashkevil against delivery of free newspapers to your mailbox.

I thought this was pretty funny.

When reading the newspaper this morning, there was an article about the debate regarding Yaakov Litzmans plan to include dental coverage for children, at the expense of other medicines in the "medicine basket". The article included a large picture of Litzman heading a discussion on the issue.

Right next to the article and image was a large ad for a center for plastic surgery offering all types of plastic surgeries, and the image was of a woman trying to decide whether to have a breast enlargement procedure.

It was one right next to the other - Litzman next to this woman trying to decide about breast enlargement, and I cracked up at the irony. It is even funnier because Litzman is not just a haredi MK and Deputy health minister, but he is a Gerrer Hassid - and they are among the most strict on tzniyus issues. I am sure he could not have been happy about the placement of his face next to that woman checking out her chest-size in the mirror...

Read the interesting story and emotions of parents (mine) of a volunteer IDF soldier (my brother), as printed in the Chicago Jewish News.

There are some minor inaccuracies in the article, but overall it is well-written. The inaccuracies do not really change anything in the story....

Today was the last day the Yisraeli" newspaper was printed. They have closed their doors.

It seems there have been fights between the owners and the investors, along with possible embezzlement and skimming.

It is a shame because the "Yisraeli" newspaper, aside from being free, was a very good paper. They had tidbits of news that the other outlets don't bother with, and it had right wing leanings, which is rare in the newspaper industry in Israel.

Recently, distribution of the "Yisraeli" has been highly erratic. They have not had the paper at our train station in BS since the beginning of January. At the station in Tel Aviv it has been spotty, some days they had it and some days not.

Oh well, another one bites the dust.

Maybe someone will buy it out and re-open...