Pashkevil

A pashkevil is a broadside or poster that has been situated on a public wall or location in an Orthodox Jewish community, and most commonly within Hareidi enclaves. Pashkevilim are sometimes distributed anonymously; however, many are posted with rabbinic endorsements or the name of an activist group appended to the bottom.

Function

Per Samuel Heilman:
Given the unique sociological insight to be garnered from their study, the National Library of Israel has begun to acquire private collections of pashkevilim to be preserved in a special section available for academic research.
Pashkevilim are mostly used to protest vehemently against a person the writer disagrees with.

Controversy

The authority of pashkevilim can at times be subject to much dispute. The medium is frequently used as an anonymous means of publicly attacking or undermining a person or group, though many other uses by official rabbinates or other open reliable organizations will use this method for whatever purpose. At times, an anonymously written/signed Pashkevil can be falsely written under a forged signature/name.

Etymology

A column in the Jewish Daily Forward claims the word as a Yiddish term borrowed from Polish paszkwil, which itself came from the French pasquil, from the Italian pasquinata. The term has also been explained as a Yiddish word meaning "protest or cry for help". The word made its way "from Yiddish into the Hebrew of the Old Ashkenazi Yishuv in Jerusalem."