Jewish Ipod: ShasPod

Picking up on search my recent theme of religious culturing of the Ipod I came across the Shaspod. Launched in 2005 the ShasPod comes pre-loaded 20GBs of Talmudic lessons and teachings. That is about 7.5 years worth of daf yomi (the practice of reading and studying one page of the Talmud a day) for the technologically "with it" religious Jew. This was the brainchild of Rabbi Dovid Grossman of Los Angels who also has a web site providing audio and visual dowloads of the video texts via his web site DafYomi.com. Version 1.o is currently sold out but it is said that 2.0 will soon be forthcoming.

A Jewish Google

My friend Oren (who recently wrapped up an interesting PhD at Hebrew University in Youth and the Internet) gave me a heads up to a new Jewish search engine known as jgog. While it looks similar to the Hebrew version of Google it is a unique Jewish focused search engine started by Israeli programmer Jossi Mor Josef. There has been some discussion online about the filtering mechanism in place in the software allowing some "unorthodox" words or searches to be blocked or re-defined, however most of these articles are in German and Hebrew. So if anyone runs across some more info in English on this site I would love to hear about it.

Introducing the J Phone

You could skip the Jesus Phone and go for a JPhone (from Jewlarious.com). This definitely made me smile!

A Jewish IPod?

Check this out. You can buy the Chai Pod iPod T-shirt...and download IDaven (Jewish prayers for the IPod) and Jewish users can make their IPod experience "Qof-Dalet-Shin".

Update: On an unrelated note "JPod" is not the name for a Jewish IPod, but the name of a recent novel from Douglas Coupland.

Hey, there's religion in my music?!

I'm continuing to search out new forms of religious expression popping up in popular culture. The last few weeks I have I spent a bit of time exploring emerging genres of religious music, especially related to Islam and Judaism. Contemporary Religious Music has facinated me since my stint as DJ at a Christian Radio station back in the early 1990s. Now I have discovered the wonders Muslim Hip Hop and Jewish Rock.

A great web site for a quick introduction to Muslim, Hip Hop and contemporary Nasheed is MuslimHipHop.com; I recommend checking out the music of Danish group Outlandish or New York native Miss Undastood. I am also anxiously awaiting the arrival of a recent CD purchase The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah to add to my growing collection of Jewish pop music. For an introduction into Jewish Rockers, religious and not so religious, check out Jewsrock.org and for fun test your knowledge of with the "Jew or Not?".

Kosher Cell Phones

One of my current project here in Israel is to research more information on the Kosher cell phne developed in 2005. Kosher cell phones are designed forthe Ultra Orthodox community have been stripped of video, web & sms access that might expose users to harmful content. They also bear a kosher symbol, indicatign the devices are approved for use byt the rabbican coincil of the community. If you are interested in finding out more check out these recent articles:
Kosher phone line to be launched
Partner to provide kosher cell phones
and
Israel's 'kosher' cell phone testing appetite for growth

Jewish Tele-Rabbis

One of my favourite evening activities here in Israel is watching the many different Middle Eastern TV stations. Most nights I spend at least some time watching religious programming. While my Hebrew is not very good so I can't follow much of the details of what is being said it is still interesting how similar the set-up, filming and the interaction is when compared to American Tele-Evangelist programs. The one I watch the most is called Hidaroot, which I think stands for something like negotiation. One of 3 Rabbis will share a message and interact with and audience of religious and secular Jews on different topics. They have a very interesting web site worth checking out.

Following the herd

I found this article this morning on Haaretz online. Following the herd makes a few interesting comments and links to UO response to media and a percieved decline in religious authority within the community. Especially interesting to note is the slow take up of the Kosher phone, a technology I have been following for the last 2 years.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews surf the forbidden web

This article "Ultra-Orthodox Jews surf the forbidden web" is about one month old, but I found it especially interesting as I spent several hours in Mea Sheraim, the main Ultra Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem just a few days ago. UO response to the internet is quite an interesting and contentious issue.

If you want to know more about this subject I recommend reading:
Barzilai-Nahon, K. & Barzilai , G. (2005). Cultured Technology: Internet & Religious Fundamentalism. In: The Information Society 21/1.