Influential Israeli Haredi rabbi orders followers to burn iPhones

Jerusalem - Influential Israeli Haredi Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky has decreed that owners of Apple’s iPhone must burn the forbidden, evil items.

The decree by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky was published on the front page of the most influential Haredi newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, the Jerusalem Post reported. “Kosher cellphones” with no access to the Internet are allowed, but members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community are encouraged to keep the outside secular world at bay. Following Rabbi Kanievsky's decree posters sprang up around Jerusalem's Haredi neighborhoods, warning children must be kept away from children who own iPhones, and advising iPhone owners should be kicked out of religious seminaries. The Times of Israel reported in May that a gathering of 60,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York were told by Rabbinical leaders that the Internet was an "evil inclination" and there was no justification for allowing it into the home. A letter was sent from Rabbi Kaneivsky warning the Internet is: “a great destruction for the Jewish people, with many reaching the lowest levels. There is no home that has these devices that has not fallen prey to terrible sins…. It is the obligation of everyone to gather together and destroy this evil inclination.” According to Shalom Life Rabbi Lior Glazer said "access to Smartphone’s is creating a 'spiritual holocaust', as he led an iPhone-smashing ceremony.