JTA via e-mail. "I did this because I
was profoundly touched by the ceme-
tery when I was in Prague. I proceed-
ed to write an impassioned letter of
my own, which I forwarded along
with the original letter to every Jew or
concerned person on my e-mail list. I
was therefore incredibly embarrassed
to find out that what I had forwarded
was misinformation."
Bird is not alone. Eyal Dulin, who
also lives in the United States, did the
same. "I am ashamed to say that I
reacted in a knee-jerk fashion when I
received the mentioned e-mail.
"It was only after hitting the send
button that my common sense sud-
denly kicked in and I did what I
should have done in the first place,
question the authenticity of the mes-
sage," Dulin concluded.
Residents of the Czech Republic
were less likely to be fooled.
Graduate student Denisa Kera was
amused by the chain letter at first, but
then became angry.
"The petition I got was organized
by someone who does not have any
idea of what is happening in Prague,"
she said. "I was actually amused by the
stupidity of someone who wants to
save something that is not in danger.
But now I acknowledge that it is a
dangerous petition because many peo-
ple believed it."
There's no way to know how many
people have received the e-mail, but if
each person who got it forwarded it to
only five people, by the fifth generation
there would be 3,125 copies of the mes-
sage. If those 3,125 people each for-
warded it to five people, there would be
15,625 copies.
Some copies have included lists of
more than 60 recipients. Michal Pober,
who lives near Prague, said he got the e-
mail when it was sent to all the partici-
pants in last year's conference of child
survivors of the Holocaust. That confer-
ence had literally hundreds of people on
its mailing list, so in all probability, hun-
dreds of thousands of people have got-
ten the chain letter.
Nobody seems to know who is
responsible for the original letter, but
the Federation of Czech Jewish
Communities would like to find out,
said Kraus, its executive secretary.
'As to the chain letter, I don't know
[where it came from] and that would
be of an interest to us, as well you can
imagine," he said. The Czech Jewish
community has been frustrated by
what it sees as outside interference in-
the cemetery issue, with rabbis from
Great Britain organizing protests in
London and Prague.
The e-mail cites as its source a let-
ter written by Czech Chief Rabbi
Karol Sidon to the London
Committee for the Preservation of
Jewish Cemeteries in Europe.
Rabbi Abraham Ginsberg, of the
committee, said his organization was
behind the international campaign to
find a solution to the cemetery con-
troversy. He denied sending the erro-
neous e-mail.
"We don't publish articles
through e-mail," Rabbi Ginsberg
said, noting that he doesn't even
have a computer.
The Czech Ministry of Culture has
posted correct information about the
cemetery on its Web site, and Ceska
Pojistovna, the Anti-Defamation
League and the World Jewish
Congress have all attempted to correct
the errors in the e-mail.
Experts on e-mail chain letters have
simple advice on what people should do
when they receive electronic petitions.
Don't Spread That Hoax!, a Web
site devoted to fighting the phenome-
non, advises, "Don't send it unless you
either know the message is true, you
can authenticate [the sender's identi-
ty], or you know the sender personally
and know they would have written
this message.
"If the message tells you to do
something, check with someone
knowledgeable that you can trust,
advises the site, at
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