Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Jews Sound a Call to Arms Against Dangers of the Internet

Affixed to the stone walls in this city’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods and published in the community’s newspapers, the notices sound an unequivocal warning to the faithful: Beware the terrible dangers of computers and the Internet.

With the proliferation of computers in homes and offices and the explosive growth in the use of the Internet, leaders of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community have become increasingly concerned about the threat they believe such technology poses to their strictly religious way of life.

Now they have issued a sweeping rabbinical opinion that severely restricts computer use for most of their followers. Their decision also bans access to the Internet, except for those whose livelihoods depend on it--and then only if a religious authority approves.

Signed by many of Israel’s most eminent ultra-Orthodox rabbis, the opinion issued this month also forbids computer use by children. Even for adults, the computer is never to be used for entertainment, the opinion said in outlawing viewing CD-ROMs and games and repeating a ban on films.

The rabbis view the Internet, with its easy access to the secular world and the numerous temptations there, as a powerful threat to their followers, devout Jews who observe Halakha, or ancient Jewish law, and typically live in communities apart from others.

Connecting to the Web and exploring what it offers endangers “the sanctity of Israel in a way no other threat has since the people of Israel became a nation,” several ultra-Orthodox leaders wrote in a religious court ruling that served as the basis for the rabbinical opinion, known as a daat torah. Such an opinion is considered an extremely strong recommendation and is likely to be followed unquestioningly by many followers.

Other prominent community members said the dangers go well beyond the problem of Web sites, games and films considered inappropriate for strictly religious Jews. The Web acts as a ticket to an alternative and, they believe, very negative secular culture that some followers enter willingly and others stumble upon by mistake.

The Internet “insinuates values such as unbridled consumption, quick gratification of every desire, disrespect for authority [and] rootlessness,” Rabbi Mordecai Plaut, the editor of the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yated Neeman, wrote in a Jan. 14 editorial.

Cartoons published in a recent parents newsletter for the community’s religious school system drive home the point. One shows a boy sitting in front of a new computer as his parents beam with pride. But as he plays with the new toy, he is slowly transformed into a demon. In another, a weeping woman begs her husband to remove the computer from their home.

But even within this highly disciplined, often insular, society of about 500,000 Israelis, not all agree with the rabbinical opinion. Others say that it cannot be enforced.

In a strongly critical column published recently in the English-language Jerusalem Post, Naomi Ragen, an Orthodox writer who often chooses ultra-Orthodox subjects, described the Internet prohibition as “sadly ridiculous.”

Despite the existence of many objectionable Web sites and links on the Internet, Ragen wrote, forbidding its use is “like saying you can’t walk out of the house because you might pass by sex shops and movie houses showing X-rated films.” She urged the rabbis to reconsider their ban, noting that it also closes the door to dozens of religious and educational Web sites.

Several experts who study the ultra-Orthodox or haredi world said that, unlike a similar ban on television 30 years ago, this prohibition probably will be difficult or impossible to enforce.

“Television is very hard to hide,” said Menachem Friedman, a sociology professor at Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University. “In the past, people needed a huge antenna, and now they need a connection to the cable. People always had to expose the fact that they were watching TV, and this allowed it to be controlled by the community.

“But the Internet can be used in private--you only need a laptop and a phone line,” Friedman explained, “and this makes it even more dangerous from an ultra-Orthodox point of view.”

At least two prominent rabbis did not sign the opinion, with one, according to Israeli media accounts, arguing that banning the Internet and restricting computer use is not realistic, even for the ultra-Orthodox.

In an effort to address many of the same concerns, followers of one of the rabbis, Yaakov Alter, have established an approval system for computer games with a recorded phone line that parents can call. The approved list includes matching and word association games in English and Hebrew, puzzles, chess, a car-racing program and biblical stories.

The other rabbi, Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the influential Shas Party, is considered unlikely to go along with the prohibition. Although his assistants say Yosef disapproves of the Internet, his party has been quick to recognize the Web’s potential for spreading its views. And party officials say the Shas newspaper will soon be available on the Web.

Meanwhile, the director of an ultra-Orthodox technology college in Jerusalem--where men and women, in separate classes and at different hours, learn computer programming and Internet use--predicts that his center will be affected little, if at all.

Rabbi Yeheskel Fogel said the 4-year-old Haredi Center for Technological Studies is focused on teaching business uses of the computer and Internet, and should be able to continue doing so. But he said the rabbinical opinion reflects a period of reevaluation in the ultra-Orthodox community regarding the benefits of technology.

“It doesn’t mean that you can walk the streets of Mea Shearim [the ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem] and see that every Orthodox person has thrown out his computer because of this,” Fogel said. “But until recently, there seemed to be the idea that the computer was almost like the new Messiah--that you just hit the button and all problems are solved. This should help change that.”

People will cope with the opinion in a variety of ways, he predicted, with some taking the ruling literally, others asking their own rabbis for interpretation, and others deciding for themselves how it should affect them. “I think it’s mainly a warning sign for people to be careful,” he said.

Nearby, in a bright, cheerful classroom, young women in the modest clothing of religious Jews sat behind banks of computers, learning how to program.

Miriam Dushinsky, 30, said she had taken up computer studies to enable her to make enough money to support her husband and their six children, who range in age from 18 months to 10 years old. She was glad the ban would not affect her job preparations.

But Dushinsky said she would never have a computer in her home.

“I believe it can compromise our spirits and those of our children,” she said. “It is completely superfluous to our lives.”