JERUSALEM – For ultra-Orthodox Jews who shun secular newspapers, radio and the Internet, the best way to hear the news has long been by literally reading the writing on the wall.
The insular, strictly religious community still relies on black and white posters pasted up on walls in their neighborhoods to hear the latest rulings from important rabbis on modest dress, upcoming protests and the correct way to vote in elections.
Now one avid collector has teamed up with Israel’s National Library to bring this old-fashioned form of communication into the 21st century by scanning more than 20,000 of the posters — known locally as “pashkevilim” — into a digital online archive. The project, which includes an exhibit that opened at the library earlier this month, offers a glimpse into one of the main media used by a group trying to hold the line against the march of modernity.
Yoelish Kraus, a 38-year-old ultra-Orthodox resident of Jerusalem, began peeling the posters off the sooty stone walls of his neighborhood when he was a teenager. Today they fill a windowless, crumbling two-room library. Some are filed by subject. Others lie in piles under a layer of dust and scattered black fedoras.
The posters are typically
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