Israel – While other firms have tapped into the religious market by offering phones free of Internet access, with no email or access to Facebook which could lead users into temptation, none has so far offered its services in Yiddish, Yediot Aharonot said.
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“This phone has no text messages, Internet access, Facebook or email. It doesn?t even have a camera,” said the paper.
“And if you call from it on the Sabbath, you will pay an exorbitant price of 10 shekels ($2 euros) per minute.”
And all the menus are in Yiddish — the traditional German-derived language still widely used by ultra-Orthodox Jews, with the local market estimated at between 350,000 to 400,000 people, the paper said.
Local importer Accel Telecom said it took four months for a pair of ultra-Orthodox translators to come up with the interface which is written in Hebrew characters and uses words such as “Klingen” (ringtone) and “Schirm Verteidikung” (screensaver).
But to win rabbinical approval for the device, which is based on an Alcatel T-701 handset, Accel had to first prove that tech-savvy users would not be able to work their magic to circumvent the safeguards and succumb to sin.
“It is not simple to make the phones kosher and bring them to a level in which you prove that the phone cannot be breached or changed in such a way that it will be possible to send text messages or surf the Internet with it,” Accel CEO Mark Seelenfreund told the paper
I wonder how many customers they’ll have. I don’t even know what that screen saver word means.. Is it yiddish or german? What kind of songs is it gonna play? Tzavei? Anovim?
$2 euros?
What a joke…they expend all these hours and resources to be certain their followers are kept in the dark and cannot use the basic tools needed to be functional and useful citizens of the medinah. Why even bother? They can use internet filters and that should be enough. If they can make a call, what is to prevent them from engaging in an illicit relationship by voice rather than text? Any rav who participates in this charade makes himself part of the joke.
Oifen Pripichuk
brent a fierel
var aran de fone………..
Att un Sprint
oich Verizon
daled reish/segel kuf…….
And what, exactly, is the problem with texting? As far as having the screens in Yiddish, I’m sure that all these people can read Hebrew.
Ringtones? During Sefira?
Doesn’t sound kosher to me.
Having a regular cell phone is a serious issur that violates daas Torah. Daas Torah is not based on the fads of today but on our Rabbinic leaders understanding of what the Torah Hakedosha demands of us.
People if you want chassidish ringtones you can put them on almost any newer phone. I can’t believe the silliness of so many of us.
Heck you can even make your own ringtones. You can have no ringtone at all…. you can record your talmidim saying “Rabboisaini! Higia zman krishme shel shachris!” if that’s what makes you happy. This reminds me of the “First Glatt Kosher Ice Cream in Ge’ula” gelechter of a year or two ago.
Can anyone explain to me please, what’s wrong with having a camera on the phone?
I still don’t see why people just don’t buy old phones from 10 years ago. Def. kosher as they have no exciting features.
And what do you need fancy yiddish fonts for? All you need is a keypad, a green call button, and a red off button.
My phone is ‘Glatt’ Kosher……..It doesn’t work altogether!