As reported by Julia Marsh for the New York Post today, students at the Orthodox Beth Rivkah HS have been ordered to immediately delete their accounts on the popular social-networking site and pay a $100 fine, or be kicked out of the school.
“Girls are getting killed on the Internet — that’s the reason for it,” Benzion Stock, administrator of the Crown Heights school, told The Post. Stock said Facebook is also off-limits because it encourages girls to violate the Orthodox code of modesty.
“The Internet is a good way to ruin marriages and families,” Stock said. “We don’t want them there, period. It’s the wrong place for a Jewish girl to be. Facebook is not a modest thing to do. “Socializing on Facebook could lead to the wrong things.”
The edict became the talk of the neighborhood after several 11th-graders at the school last week were found to have illicit Facebook pages and were forced to pay the fine. The crackdown was reported by CrownHeights.info, and went viral, infuriating school officials who said the policy has been in place for years and that all its students sign a contract not to use social media.
Chaya Tatik, 17, said she was booted from Beth Rivkah as a ninth-grader for using Facebook and dressing immodestly. “It’s not right that they’re keeping them from such a thing,’’ said Tatik, who is now a senior at Bnos Chomesh Academy. “Everyone uses Facebook. It’s a way to communicate,’’ she said. “I communicate with my cousins from Israel, who I don’t get to see that much. A lot of teenagers have been talking to guys on Facebook. They’re my friends. I don’t see a big thing about it.”
She said the Beth Rivkah ban will backfire.
“Blocking them from using it gives them hatred . . . They want to take revenge and rebel. I know because I’ve experienced it.”
You go, girl!
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