Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has come under fire for blocking the Facebook page of Rabbi Shlomo Köves, a prominent Rav in Hungary, known for his daily Daf Yomi Shiurim.
Rabbi Köves, who serves as the chief rabbi of the EMIH – Hungarian Jewish Federation, an affiliate of the Chabad Jewish movement, saw his page restricted without a clear explanation.
The blocked page was the platform for the first-ever Hungarian Daf Yomi Shiur, which had amassed over a hundred daily followers. The move by Meta to block the page coincided with the group celebrating the 1600th Shiur of the Daf Yomi Cycle.
Since Sunday afternoon, Rabbi Köves’ Facebook page has been inaccessible, following a vague email notification from the social media giant about the restriction. The absence of a clear reason for the block has led to questions about the motivations behind it, particularly regarding the potential suppression of religious expression.
Rabbi Köves’ page predominantly featured content related to Judaism and the Jewish community, including his Daf Yomi Shiur.
Sources within the Hungarian Jewish community have suggested that this action by Meta could be an antisemitic attempt to silence a significant Hungarian Jewish educational initiative.
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14 Responses
Mark Zuckenberg never went to Yeshivah he is a Tinok shnishba, he has strong opinions and he more or less knows what to do in the academy of the secular world. I personally don’t have any facebook for about 6 years and WhatsApp for about 3 and a half years and yes all those free services come with a huge expense of your for most your time and most disturbingly your Data. Not worth the headaches
Chabad-Lubavitch is a cult.
if you allow censorship of opinions, it will negatively affect you in more ways than you can imagine.
Maybe it’s just Dirshu 🤔😄
Chabad-Lubavitch of Hungary, of which Köves is a major part, with the help of the Hungarian government and devious acts have pushed out old Frum kehillos there, including Khal Adas Yereim of Budapest, which was evicted from its home of close to a century at the historic Kazinczy street Shul. Chabad has tried to take over the community there along the lines of what they have done in Russia and elsewhere. This has been reported in media, and a condemnation from Edah Charedis in Eretz Yisroel has also condemned Chabad for their illegal, outrageous behavior. So it is not surprising, therefore, that Divine justice has come down upon this Chabadsker. Chabad-Lubavitch must repent and give back to Khal Adas Yereim of Budapest and others what they have illegally usurped, in collusion with politicians. If they do not, they should not be surprised if more trouble is sent to them from above.
facebook does not explain its actions, which are often arbitrary and illogical. they do not remove the nastiest antisemitic content, but will block an account for just showing a historical picture from the public record, of the mufti of jerusalem, ym”sh, meeting adolf hitler, ym”sh. its hard to tell (you are not even allowed to see what content was deemed offensive), but it was either a misunderstanding (most moderation is done by software), or a malicious complaint. either way, their account won’t be posting for at least a few days, if not longer. whether facebook itself is biased or not, the antisemites have certainly learned how to manipulate the system.
Lemayseh and McN, this is indeed terrible! Chabad has stolen the Rambam from the yeshivish world and now they are stealing our Daf Yomi!!! Giving a Daf Yomi shiyur is mamash geneiva and gezeila. This cult keeps stealing from the chareidish oilom all that we own. In the old days, everyone knew that Chabad only learns Tanya all day long. Now they learn OUR daily Rambam and now THIS, they learn and teach OUR Daf Yomi?!! I have an idea: Let’s do a nekama on them and steal their Tanya, by everyone starting to learn their Tanya. THAT will teach them!
Lemayseh:
lubavich was never a major factor in hungary, and definitely not in budapest. if the authentic hungarian jewish groups would set aside their differences, there would be no need, or room, for lubavich. i’m saddened that this is not the case.
Lemayseh, you are out of your league on this one.
1. Russia: Lubavitch tried to take over the community? They were the only ones who were there continuously for 80 years, it was never not theirs to have to take and besides they currently have 300 Rabonim/Shluchim in Russia on the ground!!! You think action must be taken to “take the community”? They ARE the community!!!
2. Hungary: Rabbi Koves is a local Hungarian boy. He grew up there, knows the mentality and made some moves. That being said, Lubavitch has 25 Rabonim/Shluchim in Hungary. They are on the ground, doing all the work. Why on earth would any of the orgs still be affiliated with groups of people who are in Brooklyn?
True they had a great run, but they all left crumbling orgs to go to Waste, Lubavitch came in 30+ years ago and painstakingly started rebuilding Yiddishkayt in Hungary.
Now that it’s all built up you want it back because your Zeyde is from Hungary??? Does not work that way.
PS the Lubavitcher Rabonim In Budapest are original Hungarian, Satmar types that became Lubavitcher, so they would have the same zchees Uvois to it.
Lemayseh and McN, Instead of simply bashing Chabad in the comments peanut gallery, which has no toelles, you should organize a Din Torah against Chabad. After all, you say that they stole a country! That is a serious tayna. Surely, there must be Plaintiffs willing to stand up and take these people to a Din Torah! Instead, you spread manure on the fields of Novol, and when the wind blows, we must all tolerate the stench. Have you tried howling at the moon? That might have more toelles, and it will make you feel better.
The Badatz of the Edah Chareidis in Eretz Yisrael in a strongly written proclamation ruled decisively against Chabad-Lubavitch’s despicable actions in Hungary last summer (can be seen online posted at @HungaryOrth on X, which is a good source of information for this matter in general, along with @ShomreiHadasHun).
The story has also been covered in multiple other media, such as JTA, J. Post, TOI….
Chabad has not had great hatzlacha in Hungary. As usual, they put out glitzy PR, trying to fool people that they are a smashing success, but one who looks more closely at the photos will see that they don’t have many people, despite all their machinations and manipulations.
The head Lubavitcher in Budapest, Oberlander, is a brother in law of Berel Lazar, chief Chabadsker in Russia. Lazar may well have coached Oberlander into how to take over a medinah, as he has experience in it from doing so in Russia (in which not all Yidden are Lubavitchers, for the record), in conjunction with President Putin there. President Orban of Hungary is similar to President Putin of Russia in significant ways, and Chabad has followed a similar playbook there, to get the support of the government to elbow aside mainstream Yidden who don’t belong to their sect.
So you say Chabad stole the entire medina of Hungary, like they stole Russia. I thought קרקע אינה נגזלת (simon 371:1), but I digress. I can’t help but ask: Will Chabad soon also steal the USA? Have they already stolen a few cities? Are there any websites that tell us which cities they have stolen. Is Lakewoos stolen? Monsel? Oy! We need to chain them down!
This is nothing about Chabad in general, and I am sure that @Lemayseh will agree.
@Lemayseh’s point specifically, is unfortunately true.
To the ignorant comments here, maybe if you knew a bit of history and what id going on their you wouldn’t bash @Lemayseh (though I must say he should have made it clear that his point wasn’t Chabad generally speaking).
In Hungary, under the Chasam Sofer (more so under his son the Ksav Sofer and his Talmidim, the MaHaRam Shik and others), created what is known in yiddish as the ‘taylung’, translating as separation.
At the time, the community of the neologs tried currying favour by the Hungarian royalty, specifically Franz Joseph and others, wherein they attempted to gain control over all matters Jewish, and created/fought for systems and laws that would force religious Jews to have to go to non-Jewish schools, go to universities etc etc.
It was at that time, that the Chasam Sofer and Talmidei Chasam Sofer got together and managed to gain recognition with the ruler of Hungary as a separate kehillah, and therefore unaffected by the neologs dirty attempts to ‘reform’ Judaism in Hungary and beyond.
What followed was different splits in various Kehillot, and those who know a little about Hungarian Jewish history, will recognise the names of the kehillot, like ‘status-quo’, ‘neologs’, Orthodox autonomous community (taylung) etc etc.
Fast forward to today, in Hungary, there are (in Hungary) until today the (mainly) 3 different kehillot that call themselves Jewish, there is the Autonomous Orthodox Community, which was the Kehilla the Talmide Chasam Sofer set up, under which the Khal Adas Yereim Shul on Kazinczy street is, and others, which are all a mingle of different types of reformers, such as the neologs, status quo etc.
When Chabad (whoever it is that specifically did this) decided to try and get things going by first gaining recognition under one of the kehillot, they didn’t manage at first to get into the Orthodox autonomous and lehavdil elef havdalot the neologs, because those are the two kehillot that are still going in Hungary (the latter בעו”ה). They therefore decided to revive the ‘status quo’ community (another one of the reform affiliated communities there), and that way they could get a foothold into Hungary.
The connections with the reform community ‘status quo’ (now Chabad hungary) and the abovementioned shul, started when the (not so religious) rosh hakahal of the autonomous community, Robert (Yuda) Deutsh decided to go with the ‘status-quo’ (chabad) community to fight in the israeli rabbinical courts, in a row over money claimed from the neolog community.
That is when Chabad Hungary started to try and take over things all-over, starting with the status quo, moving on to the Autonomous Orthodox community by currying favour with Robert Deutsh, then throwing out of the different shuls the mispallelim and long time members, and now they have their eyes on the neologs lehavdil.
It is an immense chutzpah that they do this, and the Chasam Sofer is definitely turning in his kever over this.
When I saw the ywn headline, the first thing i though of was what @lemayseh wrote..
Duvyy: “PS the Lubavitcher Rabonim In Budapest are original Hungarian, Satmar types that became Lubavitcher, so they would have the same zchees Uvois to it.”
The Budapest Yidden and kehillos historically were not Satmar Chasidim. The Khal Adas Yereim Kehillah from the Shul on Kazinczy street is like the old Khal Adas Yereim of Vien in New York of R. Yonason Shteif, an Ashkenaz kehillah. So your words don’t hold water.