According to a report by Ynet, leading Rabbonim have joined forces with the Jerusalem Municipality, and Health Ministry in a battle against the widespread habit of smoking in the Charedi public. According to the report, recent studies have shown that Chareidim have the highest rate of smokers in Israeli society.
Kol Koreh’s are expected to be hung throughout Yerushalayim in the next few days with halachic rulings against smoking. Additionally, one part of the campaign will focus on preventing Yeshiva Bochrim from starting the habit.
This campaign was launched just before Purim – since many children take their first puff on Purim.
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27 Responses
baruch hashem now all stores won’t sell to minors. Which clowns think it is okay to smoke anyways? Its terrible for young neshomas to get hooked on this stuff and use it. I hope they ban it in the USA too.
The Rabbonim have not J O I N E D F O R C E S with the Jerusalem municipality nor with the Health ministry,the latter 2 are NOT expected to be on the Kol Korehs with Halachic rulings.
This is the one of the smartest laws I heard of.
Just yesterday I saw a 15 yr. old boy smoking-no busha!
Guys you don’t look cool in anyones eyes when you smoke. If you think your attracting girls-wrong, it throws them away.
Girls don’t like guys who smoke.
Good for them, May they continue to fight this “terror” in our community and hopefully make it that when I am in isreal the air there will be clean and not stink like smoke and there wont be a charedi bachur at every 10 feet smoking
I sure hope that they will start this ban, although I still believe if someone wanted to smoke they will some how find a way to do so.
Oh!! My pet peeve.
As I said on a previous article:
I believe that it is a chillul Hashem for a frum Jew to smoke today, now that everyone knows the evils and dangers of smoking…
There are three categories that the majority of smokers fall into:
a. People who have been smoking for decades [before the awareness of health issues was widespread]
b. Lowlifes
c. Yeshiva bachurim
How embarrassing is this?! How WRONG is this.
I know that “EVERYONE” smokes.
I know that you’re considered a “NERD” if you don’t smoke.
I know how “NECESSARY” smoking is to your lifestyle and social status.
And I know it feels “SO GOOD” to smoke cigarettes, but it also feels good to smoke marijuana and we know there is no excuse for that among yeshiva guys.
How can you say “Refa’ainu” in shachris and then run out for your morning smoke?
And what other Torah commandment uses the word “meod” other than “Venishmartem meod l’nafshoseichem”? Smoking KILLS, whether you will agree with that or not in your immature 22-year-old stage of nicotine cravings.
Forget about the smell, the sensitivities of others around you to second-hand smoke [proven to cause terrible diseases and cancers], the fact that no girl wants to marry you if you look and smell like a chimney…
Disgraceful.
And as illini07 pointed out at that time, there is a fourth category – saddest of all – young impressionable kids & teens who are pulled into this by the lowlifes, yeshiva bachurim, etc.
🙁
If it is assur (a debatable issue in and of itself), why don’t the rabbonim simply state the issur? If it is not assur, why don’t they just advise against it anyway? Hashem does not put things in the world to be banned; rather, He wants us to gain pleasure from the world in a reasonable way. These “bans” seem just cause a stirs about the issues, while not affecting the issues themselves. Let the rabbonim be more clear about their statements, as it says in Pirkei Avos, so people do not have to ponder about what they mean, what their intentions are and what is expected of us.
It’s about time the kol kores are about something that is not a waste of the rabbonim’s precious time.
VENISHMARTEM MEOD LENAFSHOSEICHEM!!!!!
GEVAAAAALD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
good going!! i hope it works really well@ smoking is gross never mind unhealthy! its for big attention needers!! just to look cool!
Excellent!
i believe there is an org.in yerushlayim called ‘mothers against smoking’ [or something like that].they seem to have been quite successful in preventing kids from starting to smoke esp. around purim time.
this should also be implemented here in all the frum communities.
anyone know the org. contact info.?
if the people that teens look up to wouldn’t smoke , parents , rabbeim , rosh hayeshiva and older peers, then there would not be an example for them. look at the yeshivas where the rabbeim and rosh hayeshiva don’t smoke and you will see that the bochurim there hardly smoke.
May all those who follow daas torah be gezunt and ‘enjoy’ this world until 120.
what we need is the Rabbonim to BAN smoking like a CONCERT. I know of very respected R”Ys that smoke and pass on the message that smoking is o.k. Just kick the habit. and if you hold that you are your own daas that lets you smoke, don’t influence young kids that were not toeim taam chet to ‘just get a taste for it’ I have seen kids as young as 9 picking up cig butts by their cheder playground during recess, left by yungerleit on a coffee break. I don’t think [m]any r”ys or mashgichim are addressing the issue. And even if they do, it could be that these bochrim/avrechim weren’t by a single shmuess in thir life.
I forgot, as the ad goes here, “have a good Time” let’s really have a good time, by having time to live.
If a ban can bring down a concert, it should stop people from smoking. And to the person concerned about someone losing his parnosso by not being able to sell cigs… get a life! If he were to sell treif would you say the same thing? Or are you just a smoker which can’t seem to kick the habit. I hope you have a gezunte smoke-free (erev) Shabos.
This kol koreh is over forty years old. It was issued by the surgeon general.
This would be a worthwhile Kol Koreh/ban. But as noted in a post above, people decide which ones they want to listen to. A ban on smoking will not be a popular one and while it should have been done years ago, I don’t see any rabbonim stepping up to the plate on this one. You can rest assured smoking causes more harm than a Lipa concert.
We should be appalled that the rabbonim have not banned smoking we should be lining up in protest. This is sakonas nefashos and very little is heard from the great ones on this topic.
about one year ago the dushiner rebbi came to a private home for a visit in lawrence,n.y.. waiting his arrival were some chasideshe boys . one was smoking outside like a chimney.i went over to him and told ‘here in lawrence it is forbidden to smoke’.he quickly put out his cigarette.a litvishe boy approached me and in english asked me ‘why did i lie to that chasidedshe boy by telling him that’ in lawrence it was forbidden to smoke’.my answer to him was i did that to save that youngs man life by not smoking,pikuach nefesh.i felt a small lie was worth the effort.
the young man asked us in yiddish’what we said to each other, and i told him the truth.
he than told me that , in yiddish, that he was going to make an effort to stop smoking altogether; especially after seeing to what degree and effort i made to have him stop smoking.i feel that the rosh hayeshivos and the admorin on the large khillas and small khillas would join in a joint effort to have their members ‘osser’ to smoke they would increase their lives and make for more decent communities.
In 2006 the Va’ad Halacha of the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America) issued a comprehensive T’shuva on the Issur of Smoking
when the rabbonim sign against s/t you don’t agree with, you get mad. When they don’t sign something you want them to, you yell and shout why they don’t sign and ban that particular thing. When they sign something you really want them to, why don’t you all say HURAY!?!?!?!
Oh,and BTW, “you” should know whom I’m talking about!
PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN :
I’M A BOCHUR AND MY FIRST CIGARETE WAS IS IN EIGHTH GRADE NOT BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE COOL BUT BECAUSE I DIDNT WANT TO BE AN OUTCAST,OR NERD ETC. ALSO PARENTS SHOULDN’T THINK THE SONS ARE REBELING IF THEY SMOKE MANY TIMES THEY FEEL BAD IF THIER PARENTS DONT LIKE LIKE IT, BUT AT THAT STAGE FRIENDS ARE EVERYTHING. ESPESCIALY IN THE YISHIVISH VELT WHERE ITS MAMISH YEHAROG V’AL YAVOR NOT TO SMOKE. PEOPLE HAVE TO BE WILLING TO ACCEPT THEIR SONS HABIT BEC. MOST GUYS STOP ANYWAY NEAR SHIDUCHIM
MY PERSONAL OPINION; LET IT PASS IT WILL GO AWAY ITSEF
I MYSELF STOPED IN 12TH GRADE HATZLOCHA TO ALL!!!!!!!!
Many gedolim have come out against cigarette smoking. The Chafetz Chaim decried this terrible habit, asking rhetorically who permitted one to endanger oneself. She the Jewish Observer’s Nov 07 issue for articles on this topic. However, let’s acknowledge what medical scientists have told us: the nicotine in cigarettes is more addictive than even heroin.
The key is to prevent teens from starting. If someone reaches age 21 and has never started smoking, there is virtually no chance of that person starting smoking.
Rather than spending over $1800 a year (for one pack per day), letting that money go up in smoke, and taking upon oneself a risk of 33% or more of dying from a terrible, smoking related illness before one’s time, one can rather invest his or her time and money in other ways.
The key remains to prevent teens from starting, and to do that would require rabbonim and roshei yeshiva to speak out, with one voice, against the dangers, and make smoking simply not acceptable, not on Purim, not ever. The first cigarette is the most dangerous one, as with so many others addictions. (As a society, we do not permit our teens a Rumspringa, as with the Amish, wherein they can engage in all sorts of sordid acts, so why permit smoking, with all its known dangers?)
Listen to teens, be there for teens, but at all costs stop the teens from smoking, and the problem will lessen.
Of course, we should also inform our daughters of the high risks to the wives and children of smokers, even from those who do not smoke at home. There are very high risks of lung cancer and other diseases from secondary smoke, just for those who constantly inhale the fumes left on the clothing, etc, of these smokers.
Smokers should be second class citizens when it comes to shidduchim. If that were to happen, that would be another disincentive to smoke.
A huge (sarcastic) Yaasher Koach to lgbg (comment #3) for his/her Eitza to young teenage boys on how to attract girls.
This is a highly inappropriate comment for the YW audience suggesting that Unzerer 15+ year old Bochurim have Meidlach on their minds & therefore begin to smoke.
Yeshiva Bochurim begin to smoke because they see Eltere Bochurim & Yungerleit puffing away.
When I went to Mesivta 2 1/2 decades ago most Bochurim & Yungerleit as well as our Rabbeim smoked. We used to get anti smoking Musser Shmuezen from a Rebbi who had a cigarette right before Shiur & one right after. Such Chashuva “role models” were the real cause for many Bochurim to begin smoking (not girls)
A former smoker (who still enjoys a cigarette here & there)
#25 ani oymer
sorry, b4 i sent the #3 comment i thought about it if it’s safe to put on. I sent it cuz the sad part is, it’s not a new concept, they know.
sorry, but gathering the fact you went to mesivta about 2 1/2 decades ago makes you about 35 yrs. old, you don’t know what mesivta boys think now. I’m not blaming them and would never want to have such a nisayon. but fact is fact. simply put.
and PLEASE don’t tell me that 21 yr. boys start smoking cuz there rabbayim do. That is the most lamest excuse ever. If you say that, then maybe they should follow there rabbayims ways of not waisting a puff on a cigarette and puffen some gemara.
Dear Igbg
Its quite uncommon for a 21 year old to begin to smoke at that age. By 21 most Bochurim have been through 5-6 yrs of Bais Medrash including Eretz Yisroel if they haven’t smoked yet they never will. Mesivta and early BM yrs (some even elemetary school) are the usual years for trying cigarettes (ages 12 -17)
My point was that most of these Bochurim are starting to smoke because not only are their friends doing it but even people they look up to such as Eltere Bochurim, Yungerleit & Rabbeim. Who can blame them???
This “BAN” actually makes alot of sense…
ani oymer
baruch hashem i never smoked and bli neder never will. so i can’t tell you the hanaah someone gets while smoking. but what i can tell you is those boys who are ages 12-17 are not looking at the rabbayim who smoke(which most stopped now)rather at the younger boys ages 19-and over.
and very proud you stop, thank you for lessening the pollution in the world.
have a good shabbos