ABSTRACT
It was a hot day in July when I entered the Inbal Hotel in South Jerusalem for the third annual Judaism, Society and the Internet conference. The conference was run by Kipa.co.il and its CEO, Boaz Nachtstern, an enthusiastic young Orthodox religious Zionist in his mid-twenties. He founded Kipa when he was only seventeen years old, as a simple information website on Judaism. Eight years later it had become one of the predominant online forums for religious Zionists within Israel. As the site’s name suggests it has a clear religious identity; a kipa is the head covering worn by male religious Jews as symbol of their adherence to Jewish law and tradition. Nachtstern is unashamed about his goal for Kipa to become the primary online hub for the Israeli religious public and to compete with other popular Israeli internet sites like Ynet and Walla, which also provide Israeli news and online discussion forums. “We strive to create a site where most religious groups feel comfortable … to centralize the religious and national discourse amongst traditional and orthodox Jews” states Nachtstern (personal interview, 5 Aug 2008). The hotel lobby was already filling up as I made my way to the registration
table. I found myself standing amongst a variety of conference attendees: from ultra-Orthodox programmers in traditional black hats, somber rabbis dressed in long dark coats and white shirts, alongside young techie Jewish boys donning colorful kipas and even a few Orthodox couples dressed casually – men in jeans with knitted kipas and their wives in long skirts with hats – with children in tow. Booths lined the hallway offering colorful flyers on a variety of religious services and software. A young teenager eagerly explained to me the benefits of signing up for Internet Rimon’s “Torahnineto” and the safety and peace of mind it would offer my family since I had a computer in my home with unmonitored internet access. An older Orthodox gentleman in a dark suit and wearing tallits showed me a variety of CDROMs offered by a company called Babakama to aid my study of the Talmud and a member-only website for online Torah study. The crowd was predominantly young, male, and from the dress attire I sur-
mised Modern Orthodox. They were also very pro-technology, many being programmers, Web designers, or forum managers involved in Kipa or other
religious Israeli sites like Bharat Haredim. The eight-hour conference offered a variety of sessions, from scholars sharing about the psychological impact of the internet on children, educators reporting on developments in e-learning at religious colleges, religious bloggers sharing their personal experiences and motivations, to a discussion panel with a secular lawyer, the Chief Rabbi of Safed and the head of religious content for Ynet (a well-known Israeli news and discussion forum) reflecting on the ethical challenges posed by the internet for religious society. The conference was strategically organized around the Orthodox religious
timetable in order not to interfere with evening prayers. The second session ended somewhat abruptly so that all the men could move to the back of the room to perform evening prayers where a helpful poster had been placed with an arrow to indicate the direction of the Western Wall for orientation. Amidst the cacophony of davening and swaying Orthodox men I reviewed my notes. I was most struck by a session chaired by Rabbi Yuval Sherlow, a con-
sulting rabbi for Kipa and well-known for his responses on “ask the rabbi” pages with Kipa and Morshet, another religious Israeli website.1 I had interviewed Rabbi Sherlow a few days previously and during which he stressed that it was fully acceptable for religious Jews to use media such as the internet to express their ideas and feelings, as long as this is done in light of Jewish law and values. He acknowledged that the freedom of expression offered online raises issues of boundaries, and potential transgression of Lashon hara – “the evil tongue” in Hebrew – or pubic gossip. In the advice he gives online he urges Jewish internet users to set personal boundaries in light of a clear understanding of accepted religious morals and ethics.
