Monday, February 27, 2006

Many sects of Ultra-Orthodox Jews ban their adherents from all computer use, let alone Internet use, for fear of unapproved material getting into the home. Most ban movies and TV, and so a home computer with a DVD drive cannot be used, as well, for the obvious reason that it could be used for watching movies. Other groups permit use of the Internet at work, and e-mail at home, according to a report.

The Ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia operates only a one-page website that gives e-mail and telephone contacts. Even that, however, is more than it used to have. Its website once said only that it would never have a website.

An Ultra-Orthodox newspaper reports (according to Israeli business paper Globes) that investors are considering development of a network at about $12 a month that would include a computer with a keyboard, screen, and viewing of a limited number of sites, including only "approved" news. According to Globes, the entrepreneurs recently delivered 100 computers with the proposed features for examination by members of leading rabbis of the Ultra-Orthodox community.

Now the real story is that "underground" Internet use by the Ultra-Orthodox community already exists. Women are using it to vent their frustrations over the lives they lead, including reports of family abuse not widely discussed in such closed communities. There are other uses, as well, which you can imagine. "Official" proclamations and "real life" are often different things, even in such tightly regulated communities.

But even this small step seems to me to be an acknowledgement that the real world cannot simply be closed out. I suspect that this "camel's nose under the tent" is designed to legitimize and control existing practices.
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