Posted on 05/09/2011 5:09:38 PM PDT by decimon
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel's kosher cellular phone market has a new model, a device with a Yiddish interface to help devout Jews combine tradition with modern technology.
Hundreds of thousands of mobile phones, popularly dubbed kosher because they block access to services frowned upon by ultra-Orthodox rabbis, have been operating in the Jewish state for years.
Last month, Israel's second largest mobile provider, Partner introduced what it hailed as the world's first Yiddish cell phone, manufactured by Alcatel-Lucent.
Marc Seelenfreund, CEO of Israeli Accel Telecom which imports and distributes mobile phones to all Israeli operators, had a special team of translators work for months to develop an interface entirely in Yiddish.
Yiddish, a mixture of medieval German and Hebrew, was the spoken language of millions of European Jews for centuries, but it is now spoken mostly by elderly Jews and in ultra-Orthodox communities.
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The words "kosher" and "approved by the rabbinical committee for telecommunications" appear on the screen when a kosher cell phone is turned on.
"There are many problems with today's phones, many temptations," said Rabbi Baruch Shraga, a member of the committee.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Unleavened ping.
>> Hassidic ringtones
[sounds of compressed laughter]
>> Hassidic ringtones
[sounds of compressed laughter]
A new way to kibitz.
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