Chareidi Group Seeks Ban of Internet Creation from Yeshiva Textbooks

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — [TheKnish.com] A religious action group in the state of New York is applying pressure on the New York State Board of Education to ban any and all references to the creation of the Internet from yeshiva textbooks, a spokesman for the group confirmed today.

The move to ban study of creation of the Internet came up in a series of contentious yeshiva board hearings this week as the group loudly complained that the State’s current textbooks are rife with references to the controversial creation, which they say may or may not exist.

“These textbooks state unequivocally that the Internet was invented, as if that were a proven historic fact,” said Midvar Sheker, the group’s leader and spokesman. “The simple truth is, the Internet is and has always been nothing but a theory.”

If the group gets its way, starting in the fall of 2005 New York yeshiva students will be taught from newly reconstituted history books that omit 1969, 1983, 1990 and 1992 - years that represent significant achievement in the creation and advancement of the Internet as we know it. The side effect of omitting these years would mean that yeshiva students would never learn that man landed on the moon, Ronald Reagan was president, Nirvana rocked and Sam Kinison died.

Among students at Brooklyn’s Aral Sfosayim Yeshiva, reaction to the ban on Internet study was mixed.

“If the Internet didn’t happen, who was Bill Clinton's vice president?,” asked first year beis-medrisher Moshe Schlissel, aged 17.

But pre beis-medrisher David Golias, 16, was more upbeat about the news: “If it means that we have to learn four less years of history, that would rule! - um, I mean, dachtzich mir this would efsher be a gevaldig antfall."

Writer

Martin Bodek is short, dark, handsome, run marathons (finishes them too!), can solve a Rubik's Cube in 1:47, is a big TED chasid, can whup your keister in Scrabble, loves Halva, and co-founded TheKnish.com.

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