Gloating in what it hopes will be its rival's downfall, the editors of the bizarre haredi spin machine triumphantly announced the name of an advertiser who had deserted its rival due to the haredi rabbis' ban. But then it pulled the story without correction or comment. Why?
Statement from RCCS re Vos Iz Neias Kol Koreh
In the past, RCCS, the Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society has utilized the Vos Iz Neias web site as one of the mediums used to garner and generate funds necessary to help subsidize health insurance premiums for hundreds of cancer-stricken patients, annually, in our community.
After a personal conversation with the RCCS Rabbinical Chairman, the Novominsker Rebbe shlit”a, he unequivocally told me that he signed the aforementioned Kol Koreh; as a result RCCS will no longer patronize the Vos Iz Neias site unless and until permission is granted by those Rabbanim.
Respectfully,
Rabbi Yosef C. Golding
Executive Director
Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society
Matzav posted this statement yesterday. But then it abruptly pulled the story without correction or comment. Why?
The details are hard to ferret out, but one possibility is that the email makes it real for many haredim that the Novominsker really signed the ban and still supports it. And that lack of "plausible deniability," the idea that haredi rabbis can make outrageous bans and then later claim not to have signed or that they were tricked into signing, goes up in smoke if the head of Agudath Israel of America's Council of Torah Sages is reliably quoted as strongly supporting the ban, and it directs heat to the Novominsker, who previous to the release of this email could easily claim and be thought to be a tangential person with regard to the ban, not a driving force behind it.
Here is Matzav.com's Twitter feed showing the story as posted:
Here again is the ban against VIN:
[Hat Tips; Burich, SW.]