How a Shabbat Pamphlet Became the Talk of the Town

The image circulating online, supposedly from Yalkut Shimoni

Did an ancient holy book indeed predict the rise of ISIS? Yesterday, an exciting message was circulating on WhatsApp, including a photo supposedly from 'Yalkut Shimoni,' which mentioned the terror group ISIS as a 'force destined to create chaos and conflict in the world at the end of days.'

However, anyone who checked Yalkut Shimoni could clearly see that the quote was not from there. Soon enough, an alternative explanation surfaced on WhatsApp: the source was an old Chabad book recently discovered.

Luckily, before anyone tried to find this mysterious book, some sharp-eyed readers noticed that the modern graphic design of the passage suited not an ancient book but a...Shabbat pamphlet. From there, it was a short journey to discovery: the passage was taken from the Shabbat pamphlet 'Or Chai,' published by the esteemed Rabbi Chaim Adani.

In a conversation with 'Hidabroot', Rabbi Adani said: "I wrote the material in a book I published last year, and I quoted from it in our Shabbat pamphlet. The person who spread the message as if it was from Yalkut Shimoni or another ancient book called me to apologize—he admitted he made it up to make people believe it."

The original pamphlet article was misleadingly presented as Yalkut Shimoni