This ad appeared in the Charedi newspapers last week. The ad states that riding the bus is like taking a Challah in the grocery store, just like you wouldn't steal the challah you shouldn't steal rides from Egged.
IMHO this ad is embarrassing and a chillul hashem. This is not a bombastic anti-Charedi politician saying this, this is a for profit company that is spending a lot of money on full page ads in Charedi newspapers. Egged is only spending the money because there is a problem of Charedim not paying for bus rides.
4 comments:
IMHO this ad is embarrassing and a chillul hashem.
The ad is embarrasing. The fact that the ad is considered useful for Egged is a chillul hashem, not the publication of the ad. The crime is the scandal, not the publicizing of the crime.
Larry, I'm sure that's what Marty Bluke meant. That Chareidim have been observed not paying bus fares to the extent that the bus company feels the need to remind them publicly that this amounts to stealing reflects badly on the Torah the Chareidim profess to uphold. Of course, the C"H is not the reminder; rather that the reminder was needed.
The ad is a waste of time. Too many Chareidim seem to believe that if "the goyim" endorse a particular value they need to endorse the opposite. The more the secular world tells them stealing is wrong, the more of a mitzvah it becomes.
I seriously doubt that any Charedi newspaper would print this ad, if (a) the issue was not real; and (b) they did not considered it to be a problem.
But it is, and they do. My question is this: Where are our fellow bus-riders, who permit this behavior to occur/continue? Is their/our money hefker?
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