Haaretz
Yoel Krois decided in recent months to take a temporary break from the holy wars he ordinarily wages as the unofficial "sheriff" of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She'arim, in Jerusalem. The battles against men and women walking together on Mea She'arim's sidewalks, against bus company Egged, against the Gay Pride Parade and against the Haredi politicians who sit in the infidels' Knesset - all of these can evidently wait, because Krois, a member of the extremist religious faction Eda Haredit, has a burning mission that keeps him glued to his storage room for days and nights: uploading his personal archive of 20,000 pashkevils, or street posters, to the digital collection of the National Library of Israel.
The cooperation between the radical anti-Zionist activist and the national-academic institution is hardly self-evident, nor is the fact that the pashkevil - the medium of communication that has shaped the face of streets in Jerusalem for more than a century - will take its place in the national library's collection, at an investment of NIS 100,000. On top of this, the individual who served as middleman between Krois and the library is considered a bitter enemy of the Eda: Shuka Dorfman, the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority. [...]
Yoel Krois decided in recent months to take a temporary break from the holy wars he ordinarily wages as the unofficial "sheriff" of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She'arim, in Jerusalem. The battles against men and women walking together on Mea She'arim's sidewalks, against bus company Egged, against the Gay Pride Parade and against the Haredi politicians who sit in the infidels' Knesset - all of these can evidently wait, because Krois, a member of the extremist religious faction Eda Haredit, has a burning mission that keeps him glued to his storage room for days and nights: uploading his personal archive of 20,000 pashkevils, or street posters, to the digital collection of the National Library of Israel.
The cooperation between the radical anti-Zionist activist and the national-academic institution is hardly self-evident, nor is the fact that the pashkevil - the medium of communication that has shaped the face of streets in Jerusalem for more than a century - will take its place in the national library's collection, at an investment of NIS 100,000. On top of this, the individual who served as middleman between Krois and the library is considered a bitter enemy of the Eda: Shuka Dorfman, the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority. [...]
In it's own way, this is actually hysterical.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I applaud Reb Krois for this wise and thoughtful passion for preserving a real valuable treasure. The pashkevilniks may not realize this, but they are propagating a true, authentic, and indigenous art form, and I give Reb Krois a great deal of credit for recognizing this to the point of risking other principles he has long held sacrosanct.
That being said, I would not be surprised if Reb Krois himself becomes the target for Pashkevilia condemning his attempt to preserve other Pashkevilia in the most effective fashion possible. I can just see it now - "collaborating with the agents of Satan to distract our precious children" yadda yadda yadda...
That, to me, is hysterically funny - sort of like schadenfreude from Robespierre's execution. The revolution has no memory because it continues to eat its children.
The museum was established by Monteofire in the late 1800's, and is not part of the Zionist system.
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