Did you know the Internet causes cancer?

Much as I wish this was a joke, its still a little early for Purim.

Haredi ads: Internet causes cancer
New ultra-Orthodox marketing campaign uses scare tactics to prevent community from Web surfing. 'Internet causes disease, adversity,' Rabbi Shmuel Wosner writes
Ari Galahar • Ynet

The Internet causes drought and terminal disease – so claims a new marketing campaign publicized in the ultra-Orthodox community and aims to curb use of the world wide web.

"Where there is Internet, there are no rains," read one of the posters that were pasted in central haredi spots. "Let's remove the foreign work from among us. Hundreds of thousands of cancer patients (suffer) because of the Internet."

Fearing the community's exposure to secular culture, different establishments within the haredi sector published the intimidating declarations, in addition to quotes from prominent rabbis - among them Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - that describe Internet use as the root of impurity.

"The connection to the Internet is an abomination, and the one who does it in his home brings abomination into his home," Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv was quoted as saying.

"The Internet causes disease and all types of adversity. Since the creation of the world, there has never been invented a tool so dangerous and corrupting like it," reportedly wrote Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wosner.

The fear-inducing posters blame the inability of teenagers to study – and the destruction of tens of thousands of homes – on the web, and use gematria, which assigns numeric values to Hebrew letters, to prove that Internet equals cancer.

Take away points:

• Something seriously rotten must be happening inside Haredista; but instead of looking inward, and trying to fix the cultural problem, the leadership is lashing out.
• Claiming the Internet causes cancer is about as pathetic as it gets. No wait. The fact that the Haredi masses are likely to swallow this whole is as pathetic as it gets.
• If the cause of cancer can be ascertained via gematria, perhaps the cure can be found via gematriah as well! Why aren't they trying this at the top labs?
  
• Lying, apparently, is ok so long as you don't do it on the Internet (HT @esteelavitt)

UPDATE: I hate to disagree with Haredim, but per this http://www.gematrix.org/?word=internet the gematriah for internet isn't cancer, but LUPIS -- also disaster, sunni and doctor freud (Yes, I know they did it in Hebrew. And so?)

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