Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally For a More Kosher Internet

Hugh Pickens writes "Michael Grynbaum writes that 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men filed through the gates of Citi Field to discuss the dangers of the Internet. For the attendees, many of whom said they came at the instructions of their rabbis, it was a chance to hear about a moral topic considered gravely important in the Hasidic community: the potential problems that can stem from access to pornography and other explicit content on the uncensored, often incendiary Web. Schlomo Cohen, 24, said he came to Citi Field because the rally was a good way to remind his community to keep temptation at bay. 'Desires are out there,' said Cohen. 'We have to learn how to control ourselves.' The rally was sponsored by a rabbinical group, Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, that is linked to a software company that sells Internet filtering software to Orthodox Jews. Those in attendance were handed fliers that advertised services like a 'kosher GPS App' for iPhone and Android phones, which helps users locate synagogues and kosher restaurants. 'No one here is a Luddite who denies the manifold benefits that technology has brought to mankind as a whole,' says Eytan Kobre, spokesman for the event. 'But at a certain point, a mature, thinking individual stops and says, "I've got to make a cost-benefit analysis [of] what ways it is enriching my life, [and] in what ways it is undermining it."'"

Comments

...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[crazyjj]

I've been on the internet since the early 90's and I don't ever recall even once being forced to go to a porn site (though I have been tricked into watching Rick Astley a couple of times). Unless you get some kind of phishing virus, no one is going to *force* anything on you. And if you're so weak that you can't control yourself, you may want to avoid the internet altogether. Anyway, if you really want the porn, I'm pretty sure you'll just find a way to bypass the filtering software this guy is hawking. If all that's standing between you being devout and becoming a porn-crazed sinner is some software, maybe it's time for you to reevaluate your faith.

Just keep in mind that the second you start talking about fucking with MY internet or MY ability to access porn (or anything else), then we're going to have a problem. And that goes whether it's a bible you're thumping, or a Koran, or the Talmud, etc. It's not our job to protect you from yourself, Sparky.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[jdgeorge]

Sounds like they're trying to help people figure out how to USE the internet to their benefit, not how to censor it. Did you read a completely different article?

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been on the internet since the early 90's and I don't ever recall even once being forced to go to a porn site (though I have been tricked into watching Rick Astley a couple of times). Unless you get some kind of phishing virus, no one is going to *force* anything on you. And if you're so weak that you can't control yourself, you may want to avoid the internet altogether. Anyway, if you really want the porn, I'm pretty sure you'll just find a way to bypass the filtering software this guy is hawking. If all that's standing between you being devout and becoming a porn-crazed sinner is some software, maybe it's time for you to reevaluate your faith.

Everything in that statement shows how little you understand religious people. Here's their perspective -->

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You're way the fuck down here.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[betterunixthanunix]

No, I understand them just fine. I just don't AGREE with them.

Unless you parents are ultra-orthodox, I am going to guess that none of the 40000 people at this conference actually care about whether or not you agree with them. They want to live their lives according to their rules and traditions, and this conference is about deciding how to deal with the Internet in that context -- how to keep traditions alive and relevant, and how to keep the community together, now that society has been fundamentally altered by the Internet. Here is an example of something they are probably concerned about: there is a rule prohibiting gossip, yet on social networking websites gossip is both common and sometimes more severe/malicious than it is offline.

You know what they are not concerned about? Whether or not you are gossiping on a social networking site. Just like they do not care if you go out and eat some pork. You are not part of their community, so as far as they are concerned the rules are not even relevant to you. There is some irony here: you are probably in agreement with them about their rules and your own life.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[Anonymous Coward]

but how do you equate "men and women on different sides of the room" with "will beat or slice off parts of women's bodies if they try to read or drive"?

It's just a question of degree, not of kind.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[Ardeaem]

A backward prachice? Yes. Savage like Islam? No.

Islam never raped, kidnapped, or stoned anyone. A small number of people, who practice a particular version of Islam, have done those things and justified it using their particular doctrinal interpretation. The same is true of Christianity and Judaism. To blame some fictional, abstract, monolithic "Islam," which doesn't have existence independent from how people interpret it, for the actions of individuals is a logical fallacy.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[mooingyak]

Fundies are notorious for limiting other people's choices because they find them disagreeable. You make it sound like we don't already have plenty of experience with people of this mindset.

I used to work with several Jews of varying degrees of fundamentalism. All of them were at a minimum of the 'cannot do anything that resembles work, including using electricity during the sabbath' variety. And me, being completely non-religious, got along fine with most of them (one guy was just a total asshole, but that had nothing to do with his beliefs. The other Jews didn't like him either). Jewish fundamentalists tend not to be of the evangelical sort. They have their rules, and they abide by them, but they didn't give a damn whether or not I followed them.

I have no objection to a group that wants to organize an opt-in censorship system for their own use.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[Imbrondir]

Every bigger religion has had bad apples, that's true. What's unique about Islam is that their leader Muhammed himself raped, enslaved, kidnapped, murdered and at least ordered people to stone in his name. This is pretty well documented in Hadith, an important source of Islamic knowledge for every interpretation of Islam as far as I know.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[MightyMartian]

Read the Old Testament sometime. If you're going to judge the roots of Islam harshly, ponder the fate of the Amalekites sometime.

Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites

[EnsilZah]

Well, living in Jerusalem my experience is rather different.
A while back they used to have these huge protest over the opening of a parking lot on Saturday, blocking off streets burning trash containers, a friend of mine told me that one day he was driving home they actually rolled a burning trash container onto the road and he almost hit it.
There was this whole thing about their treatment of women in the news a few months ago, exemplified by grown men spitting on a nine year old girl on her way to school because she wasn't dressed modestly enough for them.
A deli that I lived down the street from got vomit smeared on its doors because it sells non-kosher meat.
And the list goes on.

You might not hear of Jewish suicide bombers anytime soon but the fundamentalists around here certainly don't think their rules only apply to themselves.
And personally I'm planning to move somewhere else before they become the majority around here and start passing these things into law.

No wonder they hate the Internet

[Alranor]

It lets people find out things like this

It is not just about pornography

[betterunixthanunix]

What you need to understand about the ultra-orthodox is that all their rules and restrictions serve a single purpose: to keep the community together and maintain their traditions, no matter where they are or what sort of attitude the people around them have. One of the issues they are discussing at the conference is the effect that social networking websites have on the community; there are concerns that people will become more disconnected from each other, that they might gossip more, etc., which could create strife within the community itself. Sure, there is the matter of "purity" and abstaining from masturbation or pornography, but pornography is a pretty small issue within that community which has been addressed before -- as you say, "do not go to pornography sites," and additionally that if you accidentally go to one, you should close it and say a prayer (they are religious, after all).

Just keep in mind that the second you start talking about fucking with MY internet

Jews do not generally go around telling non-Jews what to do with their personal lives. If you take a look at the Talmud, there are sections that deal with how Jews should live when they are surrounded by non-Jews; the Talmud was written at a time when non-Jews were pagans whose rituals would be disgusting by modern standards, but the Talmud only commands Jews to stay away from pagan temples and to be careful about letting pagans become to "familiar" with a Jew's animals, and some regulations about wines and eating utensils that might be used by pagans. Note that the Talmud does not command Jews to stop pagans from practicing their religions or to judge them for their rituals. As long as you are not bringing your laptop full of pornography into an ultra-orthodox community, they really do not care what you are doing or what sort of information is on your computer network.

Re:It is not just about pornography

[Shoten]

Betterunixthanunix is spot-on. The topic is entirely misleading; this is not a summit where people are discussing changing the Internet. They are discussing the ramifications of some of its content and usage. This is one of the really cool things about Judaism, actually...they debate current issues in a really logical manner, and despite the optics of a bunch of ultra-orthodox walking around in traditional garb, they are actually very forward-thinking. Take the religious trappings out of it for a second. Imagine instead that it was a congregation of tens of thousands of people from the tech sector engaging in the debate instead. How would you feel about it then? That's very much like what this is...only without the inevitable commercial conflicts of interest that would arise from such a secular gathering.

It isn't just porn

[JoshuaZ]

It isn't just porn. The charedi(ultra-orthodox) are having serious troubles with people leaving the fold due to simply learning about things on the internet, like evolution and the age of the Earth. Many of them don't become outright atheists or agnostics but instead transition to being some form of Modern Orthodox, or Yeshivish. But for most of the ultra-Orthodox population that's about as close to as bad as completely abandoning the religion. In some respects it is worse, because when they stay some form of Orthodox, it is a lot harder to get friends and families to shun a person who leaves, which means the person now becomes an influx of new ideas into the community. It also doesn't help the charedim, that there are organizations like Footsteps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footsteps_(organization) specifically geared to getting people to leave the fold.

Incidentally, it seems that people commenting on this article are slightly confused about terminology. Chassidic or hassidic is not a synonym for ultra-orthodox. The Chassidim are a specific movement founded around 1800 that have specific belief sets and communal organizations where each sect centers around a Rabbinic dynastic that leads that sect. Chassidim are essentially a subset of ultra-orthodox. The more general term for ultra-orthodox as whole is "charedi" (or in the plural "charedim"), although in some contexts that term is used to mean ultra-orthodox who aren't chassidic.

Re:Listen to Schlomo (from TFA)

[Jason Levine]

While I was dating my wife (but still living with my parents), my parents belonged to an Orthodox temple. My wife (then-girlfriend) came over for a visit and my mother had to drop something off at the rabbi's house. When he heard that we were alone together, he got very worried and told my mother to go back home immediately.

This, plus other sermons the rabbi delivered, make me think that the ultra-orthodox live in fear that they are so weak-willed that they will give into desire/sin/whatever once the tiniest of opportunities present themselves. Thus, they make rules to prevent people from coming anywhere close to temptation. And then make rules to keep people from coming close to the rule which protects against temptation (lest they break that original rule). And then make rules to protect the rules which protect the rules which protect against temptation. Add in an adherence to tradition, even if the original source of temptation is gone, and this explains much of why they seem to have so many rules which don't make sense.

(Disclaimer: I'm actually pretty religious, but I decide which religious rules make sense for me to follow and ignore the ones that I think make no sense whatsoever.)

Brooklyn's Orthodox child abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

"Orthodox Jews don't rape nine-year olds" - just read this article to see how wrong you are:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/29/brooklyn-orthodox-jews-child-abuse-cover-up-feature/