Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally For a More Kosher Internet 430
Hugh Pickens writes "Michael Grynbaum writes that 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men filed through the gates of Citi Field to discuss the dangers of the Internet. For the attendees, many of whom said they came at the instructions of their rabbis, it was a chance to hear about a moral topic considered gravely important in the Hasidic community: the potential problems that can stem from access to pornography and other explicit content on the uncensored, often incendiary Web. Schlomo Cohen, 24, said he came to Citi Field because the rally was a good way to remind his community to keep temptation at bay. 'Desires are out there,' said Cohen. 'We have to learn how to control ourselves.' The rally was sponsored by a rabbinical group, Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, that is linked to a software company that sells Internet filtering software to Orthodox Jews. Those in attendance were handed fliers that advertised services like a 'kosher GPS App' for iPhone and Android phones, which helps users locate synagogues and kosher restaurants. 'No one here is a Luddite who denies the manifold benefits that technology has brought to mankind as a whole,' says Eytan Kobre, spokesman for the event. 'But at a certain point, a mature, thinking individual stops and says, "I've got to make a cost-benefit analysis [of] what ways it is enriching my life, [and] in what ways it is undermining it."'"
...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been on the internet since the early 90's and I don't ever recall even once being forced to go to a porn site (though I have been tricked into watching Rick Astley a couple of times). Unless you get some kind of phishing virus, no one is going to *force* anything on you. And if you're so weak that you can't control yourself, you may want to avoid the internet altogether. Anyway, if you really want the porn, I'm pretty sure you'll just find a way to bypass the filtering software this guy is hawking. If all that's standing between you being devout and becoming a porn-crazed sinner is some software, maybe it's time for you to reevaluate your faith.
Just keep in mind that the second you start talking about fucking with MY internet or MY ability to access porn (or anything else), then we're going to have a problem. And that goes whether it's a bible you're thumping, or a Koran, or the Talmud, etc. It's not our job to protect you from yourself, Sparky.
Listen to Schlomo (from TFA) (Score:5, Insightful)
'Desires are out there,' said Cohen. 'We have to learn how to control ourselves.'
Exactly. Just learn to control yourselves and stay away from porn sites. Treat them like you do pork. Or guys porking girls. Whatever, there's pork there.
It's Almost Like a Powerful Double-Edged Sword (Score:5, Insightful)
Shlomo Cohen, 24, of Toronto, said he used the Internet for shopping, business and staying in touch with friends -- “Everyone needs e-mail,” he said.
You might say it's a powerful tool that isn't inherently good or evil, it can just magnify the abilities and desires of the user?
...
Basically: "New technology befuddles and stymies religious folks who wonder why their deity(s) of choice didn't write out rules for said technologies X millennia ago (at least for deities that are said to be omniscient)."
As a former Catholic, I'm sort of glad that "thou shalt not play Diablo III for 12 hours on Sunday while occasionally watching free pornography" is no longer applied to me. Hard to shake the guilt that I'm enjoying so much while others deliberately stunt themselves though
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't just about porn. Kosher internet requires a ban on female participation in public life. From TFA: "The organizers had allowed only men to buy tickets, in keeping with ultra-Orthodox tradition of separating the sexes". This "tradition" is almost as savage as the Taliban's treatment of women. This state of affairs saddens me very much.
Re:Listen to Schlomo (from TFA) (Score:0, Insightful)
Whatever, there's pork there.
And there's a douche of a parent. Anti-Semitic jokes are lame.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I understand them just fine. I just don't AGREE with them.
Re:The internet isn't their problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Silence and self-rule: Brooklyn's Orthodox child abuse cover-up [guardian.co.uk]
This happens to most -- if not all -- closed off religious communities. When people are above the law, and they fear no prosecution because their followers will protect them even when they are caught red handed, they will abuse their positions of authority and victimize the weak. It's human nature.
That's why the civilized world aims to use third parties to administer the law equally, regardless of who the perpetrator is. It's an idea hated by religious people, because it often exposes their leaders as the flawed and sometimes evil human beings that they are. Once reality becomes your enemy, you're doomed to a life of obedience to the power structure that lets you live in a fantasy world, which can lead perfectly normal people to protect monsters. In their minds it's not possible for their rabbi or pastor or priest to be evil, because acceptance of that fact is too damaging to their worldview.
Re:It is not just about pornography (Score:5, Insightful)
Betterunixthanunix is spot-on. The topic is entirely misleading; this is not a summit where people are discussing changing the Internet. They are discussing the ramifications of some of its content and usage. This is one of the really cool things about Judaism, actually...they debate current issues in a really logical manner, and despite the optics of a bunch of ultra-orthodox walking around in traditional garb, they are actually very forward-thinking. Take the religious trappings out of it for a second. Imagine instead that it was a congregation of tens of thousands of people from the tech sector engaging in the debate instead. How would you feel about it then? That's very much like what this is...only without the inevitable commercial conflicts of interest that would arise from such a secular gathering.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I understand them just fine. I just don't AGREE with them.
Unless you parents are ultra-orthodox, I am going to guess that none of the 40000 people at this conference actually care about whether or not you agree with them. They want to live their lives according to their rules and traditions, and this conference is about deciding how to deal with the Internet in that context -- how to keep traditions alive and relevant, and how to keep the community together, now that society has been fundamentally altered by the Internet. Here is an example of something they are probably concerned about: there is a rule prohibiting gossip, yet on social networking websites gossip is both common and sometimes more severe/malicious than it is offline.
You know what they are not concerned about? Whether or not you are gossiping on a social networking site. Just like they do not care if you go out and eat some pork. You are not part of their community, so as far as they are concerned the rules are not even relevant to you. There is some irony here: you are probably in agreement with them about their rules and your own life.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:0, Insightful)
This isn't insightful. How does this stuff get rated insightful? The post had zero relevance to the article. Insightful wtf? Anyways, the gathering wasn't about how one is *forced* to watch porn. It is about how one should be wary to avoid that temptation. You're an idiot, crazyjj. Since your kid is not forced to touch hot objects, according to your worldview, you shouldn't instruct them not to touch hot things? No one forces you to do drugs, should we not have D.A.R.E. ? No one forces us to have sex, should we not have sex ed ? See, your logic breaks down really, really quick. That's because it's not logical.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
This "tradition" is almost as savage as the Taliban's treatment of women. This state of affairs saddens me very much.
"Almost" is not appropriate here. Orthodox Jews don't rape nine-year olds, kidnap girls of other religions, stone rape victims to death for adultery, etc. A backward prachice? Yes. Savage like Islam? No.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a question of degree, not of kind.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:4, Insightful)
Also note that there is almost no way to be on the Net and not accidentally see some level of offensive content, like some politician saying how lazy the poor are, or some rich guy trying to say that a christian who brought the Word to thousands and served his country in the marines is evil, or some talking head saying how wonderful it is to kill other people. We have to be mature about this offensive content, but we also have to make sure that such content is not thrust upon those who do not wish to see it. Sure, we have to make such porn available to the freaks who want it, but their right to such content does not trump my right to not want to see it.
So there are costs, but also benefits. A benefit is finding a place to feed your family healthy food. No one can say that is a bad thing. Sure, we can say why not go to McDonalds, but are we not supposed to have a choice? If there is a better place to eat, should we not be encouraging tools to find such places? Likewise, no one is going to say a parent does not have the right to install filtering software on family computers. We may not agree with it, but then that is why we live in a free country. So we can make choices that other's disagree with.
Fundamentally, the whole writeup, and many of the responses, seem to indicative of an issue that I see often. For some reason some people need their values validated by the widespread adoption of those values. When we hear about a kosher app, if our personal faith is not strong enough we question if that App somehow effects our belief. Of course it does not. One's faith has noting to do with what other's believe. But when we see people get so defensive over such a thing, it makes me question what those people actually have faith in.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:4, Insightful)
This is Slashdot, we're lucky if people read the summary. In this case most seem to have just read the title. Kosher Internet is a great example, we know those Jews have been trying to outlaw non-Kosher food for ages rather than just putting a little logo on food they deem to be pure and letting everyone else make their own choices.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:3, Insightful)
> You don't agree that they should be able to control themselves
I wonder why they can't already.
If they can't, I wonder what they intend to do about it.
Fundies are notorious for limiting other people's choices because they find them disagreeable. You make it sound like we don't already have plenty of experience with people of this mindset.
H*LL we have an entire political party infected with them.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
> I am going to guess that none of the 40000 people at this conference actually care about whether or not you agree with them.
Ask any Israeli how well this works out where such people actually have some ability to impact public policy. Basically this is a case of "if they could, they would". They can't because they are a very tiny minority. This is the only reason not to be seriously concerned.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, Israel's domestic politics are irrelevant to America's domestic politics, so there is really no point in getting into an in-depth discussion of the issue. Israeli politics are only relevant to America's foreign policy; we could discuss that issue ad infinitum, but as far as this story is concerned that is equally irrelevant.
Brooklyn's Orthodox child abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
"Orthodox Jews don't rape nine-year olds" - just read this article to see how wrong you are:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/29/brooklyn-orthodox-jews-child-abuse-cover-up-feature/ [guardian.co.uk]
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
A backward prachice? Yes. Savage like Islam? No.
Islam never raped, kidnapped, or stoned anyone. A small number of people, who practice a particular version of Islam, have done those things and justified it using their particular doctrinal interpretation. The same is true of Christianity and Judaism. To blame some fictional, abstract, monolithic "Islam," which doesn't have existence independent from how people interpret it, for the actions of individuals is a logical fallacy.
Re:Who said they hate the Internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Point fingers at the ultra-orthodox and scream about child molestation, since that is exactly what they are afraid of happening if people speak about it outside of their community -- you are basically validating what they are saying to themselves when they keep it a secret.
If they weren't actively trying to cover it up then people would be pointing at the particular people responsible for the child abuse and screaming at them. As it is, in exactly the same way as the Catholic church has, their community are trying desperately to cover it all up, shield the perpetrators from any sort of punishment and allow them to carry on doing it
Damned right we should be screaming at people who do that, because they're enabling the molestors.
the problem is organized religion (Score:5, Insightful)
the only logically and morally defensible position on rights and freedoms is that of the individual
when people act as a group with a command and control structure and talk about rights and freedoms, the subject ceases to be valid because the command and control structure of organized religion, in the process of imposing edicts on its members, is breaking the rights and freedoms of the individual
you can only talk about rights and freedoms of the individual. "religious freedom" in this context is an oxymoron because "religious freedom" is really just about imposing on the rights of freedoms of individuals born into a religion and unable to choose for themselves
you have to talk about rights and freedoms from the point of view of the individual. all other perspectives are not logically coherent point of views to take and therefore are false and immoral
society is only able to maintain true freedom when organized religion ceases to think it has the right to impose its will on others. as long as it does, it is an enemy of rights and freedoms. you should be able to worship your god as you choose, convert to any religion you want, as an individual. the organized religion has no right to dictate your choices, as an individual. or it is a force of authoritarianism and oppression
Re:Who said they hate the Internet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if the community are actively shielding these people from prosecution, they share in the responsibility. Why is that so hard to understand?
Typical NYT bias borderline antisemitism (Score:2, Insightful)
Lubavitch and Satmar are not "Ultra" Orthodox. They're Orthodox. Charedi are 'ultra' Orthodox and don't use the net at all. This is one of those NYT smears against the Jewish community that's become their stock in trade. According to the NYT anyone who isn't a Buddhist Vegan Gay Interracial handicapped black Muslim lesbian anarchist is a 'ultra ultra ultra extremist fundamentalist religious millenarian nutcase.
I think we are safe. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we are safe from Muslim terrorists for a while at least. 40,000 Jews in one place and not even a bomb threat?
I have to wonder what we would be saying if it was 40,000 Muslims meeting there for the same topic? Flip through the variations of religions and apply that mental exercise of "what if?" Rastafarians make for an amusing mental image, as do several others. When I ponder which group would be the scariest in regards to tampering with our Internet freedoms, it boils down to Muslims and "Fundy Christians" with the later winning by a nose.
Religious perspectives of the Internet, they all vary, but frankly I like to remain suspicious of all of them. People inherently seem to get big wild ideas about the Internet, politicians and religious people especially and these groups tend to intermingle at a disgusting rate.
Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes the whole "Kosher" process kinda irks me in the sense that many of the most commonly consumed foods have been "made Kosher" with special branding and tiny little symbols on the labels which seem innocent and harmless enough, but those markings COST MONEY. The cost, of course, results in higher prices for things which do not affect the majority of people.
So let's take a page from the "Halal" playbook and let them buy their stuff from Kosher stores instead of effectively taxing everything we eat. Seems reasonable -- you need something different, go ahead... get your something different, but don't make the rest of us pay for it.
That said, what does it have to do with the original topic?
PLENTY!
I don't want some minority interest stepping in with things that will ultimately change and harm the internet. If they want something "sanitized" great! There's an app for that! It's called a VPN. You just connect to a regular public internet connection and then from there, log into a VPN which routes all traffic through a "Kosher-net." Now you're cleansed without affecting the rest of the planet.
When small groups force their changes on the world, it invariably harms the world in some way.
Welcome to Gaza (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't let your 9 year old girl stray too close to the border fence or the guards will shoot at her for target practice. Don't protest the knocking down of homes because they'll run you over with a bulldozer. Don't try to bring aid to Gaza because they'll send troops into international waters and kill 8. Don't send UN monitors to a border that they're invading because they'll bomb it killing everyone inside the monitoring post. Don't even get me started on the UN School bombing where they killed all those civilians.
You may be blind to what Israel is up to, but the rest of the world isn't.
And anyone who supports that country is as bad as they are.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who was raised jewish, I am just dumbfounded at how people who are serious about religion manage to play the "moral card" and generally idiotic about the fact that religion is in conflict with rights, because people want and expect more rights than religion tends to allow.
Not everyone lives in that little "religion-box" of thinking where doing what makes you happy = bad. In fact, most of us don't. That goes for any religion.
Actually - yes, every single person that attended this rally is a luddite to me.
Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Manufacturers wouldn't go through the trouble of getting marked Kosher if it wasn't a net win for them; in fact, if you believe in the central idea of capitalism, having those little symbols lowers the price (by increasing sales and profits) because if it cut into their profits they wouldn't bother doing it.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why religion, in general, is basically impossible for me to come to terms with. While there are good things, there are SO many things in every religion that incite hatred and fear that I refuse to accept it. Look - the basic tenet of every religion is "Do unto others what you would have done unto you". The Golden Rule. I have yet to find a situation that it doesn't apply. Everything else is window dressing and embellishment by scared old men jealous of their power being taken away. There is no need for "GOD" to be a good person.
Refreshing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty bloody refreshing that you have a group that has a set of social values, that are getting together to logically discuss a way that they and their families can access the useful but wild'n'wooly Internet in a way that fits with their precepts, doctrines, and social values.... ...and doesn't make even a whisper about controlling OTHER PEOPLES' access.
That's absolutely wonderful.
I sincerely wish more people in this country would follow their lead and build their lives comfortably along their own beliefs but leave the REST of us ALONE.
You don't want porn? Fine. Don't watch porn. Build your ironclad access controls high and mighty to keep that out - just don't step up and say that the REST OF US can't watch porn either. Then you've crossed a line.
Really, this holds true outside of religious issues too. Want to help the homeless? Fine, pay more taxes, volunteer your time, whatever - just quit insisting on taking more of my paycheck to pay for your moral compunction.
WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the Old Testament sometime. If you're going to judge the roots of Islam harshly, ponder the fate of the Amalekites sometime.
Re:...Or you could just not go to porn sites (Score:5, Insightful)
While obvious flamebait, the post does have merit in that judaism and its successor religions like christianity and islam glorify suffering as a path to God.
Considering that its in direct conflict with our human nature to seek pleasure, it's not very surprising that reactions of those who choose suffering and then see others enjoy themselves around them are often violent. Similar reference: the sheer amount of people who are violently anti-gay that tend to end up coming out of the closet as homosexuals later in their lives.
It just seems that it's the natural defence mechanism when denying something we actually want is to attempt to destroy those who live the way we would want to live.