Arnon Grunberg

Control

Followers

On numbers – Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz:

‘But some of those issues are so critical that, for the first time, the rabbis have had to get up and go meet the minister, despite the Haredi parties’ formal announcement that they are boycotting the government whose existence they call a "bitter and unbearable sin."
At first glance, it may seem odd that the critical issue that triggered this meeting is about mobile phone numbers, and the 'kosher' phones that are rabbinically approved for use by the Haredi community. But this is not just about numbers. It’s about the rabbis controlling the free flow of information into their communities. Without that control, their power over their followers is greatly diminished.’

(…)

‘The 'kosher' communications line has existed for nearly two decades, as part of an agreement between the three largest Israeli mobile phone providers and a shadowy organization called "The Rabbis’ Committee for Communications Matters." Under the agreement, customers can buy a phone that is blocked from accessing messaging services, the internet and social media networks.’

(…)

‘The blacklist is supposed to cover numbers associated with perceived immorality, such as phone sex services, but the long list encompasses several government welfare agencies, support centers for domestic and sexual violence victims, and secular organizations offering assistance to those trying to leave the ultra-Orthodox community.’

(…)

‘In other words, soon, a Haredi customer can voluntarily choose to own a phone with no access to the internet and to forbidden numbers. But if they decide to purchase a regular smartphone, they will be able to do that while keeping their old number. No-one will know. The rabbis will have lost their lever of communal information containment. Which is why they turned up at the minister’s office this week.’

(…)

‘For example, Rabbi Reuven Elbaz, a member of Shas’ Council of Torah Sages, recounted the example of a "married yeshiva student whose brother has a mobile phone, an iPhone, a smartphone, and gave it to him. Asked him when he was passing some place to drop it there to be fixed. The student was curious and began opening and playing with it…he came to me crying, in tears, telling me, 'Rabbi, I don’t know what happened to me, what filth, what things that I’ve been through, I can’t even tell my own rabbi' and started to cry. Believe me, he cried with tears."
Another rabbi described a parable-like scene in which he met "Satan sitting in a café, his legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. I asked Satan, 'I’m used to seeing you rushing around the Jewish neighborhoods, 24-hours non-stop, around the clock. What happened? No work today? Satan answered: 'Since they invented the internet and the smartphone, the work gets done by itself.'"
Whether they expressed themselves in stories, sermons or veiled threats, what all the rabbis had in common was a deep anxiety for their position. The internet jeopardizes their control over the information channels into the Haredi world.’

(…)

‘The carefully curated reality of Haredi life is already far from impermeable. Haredi leaders know that, and their increasingly frantic efforts to hold back the tide are actually precursors of an evolving ultra Orthodox Jewish identity that won't be limited to the catechism and constricted ideas they alone dictate. Perhaps the rules have really changed.’

Read the article here.

The devil – a strange extra in Jewish mythologies –made my day in this parable. Internet is just the continuation of the devil.

Pfeffer hints at the unavoidable: human desire is stronger than a kosher phone.

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