Debut: Back to the Gelt, Back to the Velt

As we go to press with our debut article, we are deeply saddened by the recent shutdown of the http://www.veltnews.com website which occurred several weeks ago.

Veltnews had started originally under the name of http://www.greaterlakewood.com. The website was around for about a year or so.

Paradoxically, the shutdown is both upsetting and inspiring at the same time. Upsetting, that someone trying to make an earnest living in a clean and sensible fashion is unable to do so, either because decent content isn’t as popular as sensationalism, or because the #FrumMafia decided to run him out of town by encouraging his advertisers not to do business with him. Probably both.  Alas, finding a livelihood which is kalah unekia is easier said than done.

And it’s inspiring, because it provides us with further drive and encouragement to come forth with our own platform to help provide meaningful, honest content.

Frankly, we don’t even know who the former owners of the site are.  Nor do we necessarily agree with every position espoused by their site.  But we do know that they were decent people trying to do a decent, accurate, and sensitive job with news reporting in the frum community.

We can’t help but recall the lyrics sung by Avraham Fried (brother of Rav Mannis Friedman shlit”a) on his classic Melave Malka album in the song A Gutte Vuch, where he says, “tzrik tzu der gelt, tzrik tzu der velt“, back to the money (gelt), back to the world (velt).  How apropos.

We will not be mirroring the former veltnews site. We will be taking a different approach. We are a truth-seeking, data and evidence driven site. We intend to fight the #Mainstream and #FakeFrumNews sites, blogs, newspapers, and magazines when they publish inaccurate, misleading, or insensitive content which deviates from the Torah path or encourages sinas chinam, the underlying cause for our current galus.

Have you been systemically attacked or abused by #BigMosdos or other #EiruvRav sentiments or anti-Torah projects in our community masquerading as Torah or #FakeAuthority? We would love to hear. Send us a note. Do you have inside information about corruption? We are whistleblower-friendly. Feel free to contact us. Have you been exposed to #sheker and corruption being disseminated by controlling mafia-like forces within our community? #FilmTheSheker and send it to us. We’d love to hear.

Are you fed up with the censorship, self-censorship, misreporting, non-reporting, insensitive reporting and other forms of #sheker in the #FakeFrumNews? Are you interested in hearing the #Emes even if it’s unpopular? We are a #FactChecking website. You’ve come to the right place.

If you don’t have the heart for the truth and would prefer to follow the ideologies of popular falsehoods or you’d prefer to take a blind and emotion-driven approach to news or you have no interest in being a critical thinker and questioning information that’s presented to you then our site may not be your cup of tea.

A popular lie will always triumph an unpopular truth.

For the rest of us, feel free to create an account and drop a comment on the site, or send us a message. Please join us in an engaging, interactive, and educational experience as we portray the news which occurs in our community and peripheral area in a meaningful, accurate, and Torahdig way.

We will try our best to approve comments, even those with dissenting views, as long as they are evidence-driven, written with sensitivity, ahavas yisroel, and are in line with basic Torah values.

We are only human beings and are subject to error, like anyone else. If you find an error in any of our articles kindly let us know so that we can address accordingly.

Our site is still in its formative stages. However, we felt compelled to go live with our site in an effort to help address the unusually high amount of #sheker in the news and community, particularly pertaining to the COVID-19 crisis.  If you encounter any bugs with the site kindly let us know. 

Please join us for our soft opening.

Thank you!