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Ultra-Orthodox turn to 'kosher' Internet

Israel's ultra-Orthodox leadership is encouraging its community to access only filtered Internet content and use ''kosher'' smartphones, as technology makes it harder and harder to block unwanted material.
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In recent years the Internet has made inroads in the ultra-Orthodox sector, much to the chagrin of its leadership. As far as the leaders are concerned, the Internet is a disaster — it represents an all-out threat against good old ultra-Orthodox separatism, its social and community circles and its family and modesty values. They believe the Internet encourages exposure to content that contradicts the Torah and Jewish halachic law.

The ultra-Orthodox community fully understood about a decade ago that the Internet was going to be a problem, holding its first anti-Internet rally in the ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak in 2006 with the participation of rabbis and educators. Two years earlier, in 2004, the ultra-Orthodox had already set up a “rabbinical council on matters of media” and a “kosher” cellphone was developed for the ultra-Orthodox — a device that can only be used to make and get calls, without access to the Internet and to “content services” that at the time included chat rooms and call centers that supplied sports news and gossip.

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