A smartphone approved by a rabbinical committee will soon be launched in Israel, announced Rabbi Dovid Zilbershlag at the Ariel Conference for Ethics in the Media last Rabbi Zilbershlag said that the smartphones would handle e-mail.
Rabbi Zilbershlag said that such a device was needed part because of the need for Chareidim to earn a living, and that it would provide a response similar to the “levels of kashrus” in previous generations of mobile phone. He estimated that 40% of Chareidim go online.
Rabbi Zilbershlag believes that the Chareidim will have to establish their own Internet in the future, similar to the closed Internet operated by the Pentagon, in order to create “a clean environment with boundaries.”
Academic College of Israel in Ramat Gan president Prof. Avinoam Reches, who also serves as chairman of the Israel Medical Association’s ethics bureau, also spoke at the conference. He said that 25% of respondents in a Medical Association poll said that they had changed their medical treatment on the basis of information found online, and without consulting their doctor. He said that, in recent years, doctors have seen a substantial and unjustified increase in anxiety about common symptoms caused by online searches.
{Matzav.com Israel}
