New York – As the final deadline for signatures on the White House Rubashkin petition approaches this Shabbos, activists have waged an all out campaign to make computers available to the large percentage of the chasidishe population that does not have internet access by bringing computers to these areas, including Borough Park, Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Monroe and Monsey.
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“We found that many people complained that they wanted to add their signatures to the petition, but since they have no internet access had no way to do so,” explained Shimon Rolnitzki, one of the askanim involved in this effort. “Since people do have extra time on Chol Hamoed, we decided to set up locations in as many chareidishe neighborhoods as we can, so that as many people as possible can sign the petition.”
Signatures are being collected at the following locations throughout the night tonight:
Borough Park – The former Galpaz store at the corner of 53rd Street and 13th Avenue.
Williamsburg – The Krula Shul, located at 127 Wallabout Street.
Crown Heights – At the Crown Heights Simchas Beis Hashoeiva on Kingston Avenue, where two separate internet kiosks will serve men and women separately.
Monsey – On Monsey Boulevard, next to the Satmar Shul.
Monroe – Monroe Internet Kiosk in the Kiryas Joel Business Center.
The petition, which calls on the Obama administration to investigate Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Rubashkin case, is the second most popular petition on the White House site and currently has over 42,000 signatures.
You can sign online at www.rubashkin.org
If they don’t have Internet how do they know where these locations are 🙂
I find this whole petition exercise a waste of time. Its like any other “grass roots” campaign where people send form letters to their Congressman which as many of us who have worked on the Hill know, get thrown out in the trash as they arrive. This is simply an electronic version of the same game. If anyone really believes that Eric Holder will challenge his own prosecutors is ganz meshugah. The President or the AG is not going to be influenced because a bunch of electronically challenged Chareidim opposed to the internet do or don’t sign sucha petition. If they don’t believe in the internet, there is no special “SMR waiver” in halacha.
signatures holding now by 24,700
Until what time will this be in krula tonight in willy?
Its interesting that only one of these locations (Crown Heights) felt it was somehow necessary to separate men and women from signing the petition. At least that shows some sanity on the part of the askanim who organized the internet locations at those four sites and reflects very poorly on the organizers of the simchas beis ha’shoevah in CH. If you believe strongly in the cause of reducing SMR’s sentence, to inject the idea of “separate” computers is truly bizarre.
So the internet is banned, except when it serves the rabbonim’s purpose. Maybe the internet is not bad after all. Maybe the responsibility is actually on the person using the internet to be responsible? Could that be? I mean, if someone does the mitzva of shechita with a chalaf, the chalaf is a good thing, but if he murders someone with the chalaf we blame the chalaf? Maybe the rabbonim who ban internet need to put effort into teaching proper usage instead of being lazy and making silly taliban style bans?
” As the final deadline for signatures on the White House Rubashkin petition approaches this Shabbos”
I am not that sure that after one meets the 25,000 petition threshold one can not add more petitons. It only means that you wont get a response.
Read “To cross the second threshold and require a
response, a petition must reach 25,000
signatures within 30 days”
Good. Now time to do the same for Jonathan Pollard!
good job….Now time to do the same for Jonathan Pollard. He has been in prison for way too long and like Gilad Shalit also should be with his family already…How can we set this up for Jonathan too?
Mi keamcha yisroel!! Just came back from one of the mobile sites. Although I was up half the previous night with another dvar mitzvah. I took along my 12 year old to show him how yidden give away from their time and sit there and show people what to do , the computer un savvy folks. I would do the same for pollard. Hashem should bench us all with a git kvitel, and all the best for all.
When will the rabonim see that the internet is not such a bad thing and it’s a way of life today. Just like you can’t stop people of driving a car you can’t stop them from using the internet.
I’m not sure how people know about the sites if they don’t have Internet access, but maybe you can tell your friends who don’t have Internet access.
How about Jonathan Pollard? And, while we’re at it, how about Yigal Amir?