Thursday, February 18, 2010

Haredi and the Internet

Things continue to heat up within the Israeli Haredi community with renewed debates over the internet emerging. After several months of pressure from rabbis and the rabbinical council on communication over the work of several haredi web sites, resulting in several website closing and web masters resigning, this week rabbis have deemed haredi internet kosher as long as they follow certain directive of more closely filtering/monitoring content. Issues over suitable content seem to be more about the nature of how the community and its leaders are being framed online, rather than previous rhetoric that the internet allow questionable moral content into the community.

Today reports surfaced taht Haredi women are also being given instruction on how to keep the internet safe for their families, with such discussion being noted in a Jerusalem Post article entitled Is Facebook Kosher? Advice for torah-observant women included using laptops over desktop computers in the home which can more easily be closed and stored away from families so not to pose a temptation to husbands or expose children to online content. It seems discussion of halakhic use of the internet is now being an issues ofbehavior monitoring with the onus being place on women who work at home, so that their online activities do not to become a source of temptation or religious distraction for their families.

No comments: