The Internet interprets a cherem as damage and routes around it

15 December 2009

It’s too bad there aren’t more Orthodox Jews working for Agence France-Presse, because this article, headlined “Ultra-Orthodox rabbis decry Internet’s ‘terrible impurity’”, buries the lede.

The reporter and editor don’t seem to realize that “haredi leaders denounce Internet”, in and of itself, is about as newsworthy as “evangelical Christian leaders denounce premarital sex”. The real news here is that the rabbis are calling out Internet sites run by other haredim that are airing out the community’s dirty laundry or otherwise lack, shall we say, the nihil obstat of the gedolim.

via jwz

• Later: Thank God we are free, unlike this poor sod
• Earlier: I would like to register a meta-complaint