Kosher cellphone bill sparks debate on Haredi consumer freedoms vs communal coercion

Like hundreds of thousands of Haredi Israelis, Daniel Saban has a cellphone plan that blocks all mainstream radio stations, theaters, emotional support helplines and many other numbers deemed immoral by his community’s spiritual leaders.

A 34-year-old father of four from Ofakim, Saban can neither tweak those filters nor switch plans and keep his current phone number because it’s a so-called “kosher” subscription.

This special kosher category persists despite laws designed to give consumers more freedom to choose and tailor their own plans. Yet Saban is not interested in the freedom afforded by those laws: He supports a newly submitted bill by Haredi lawmakers in the Knesset to dial back those laws so that the restrictions on kosher subscriptions become judicially incontestable.

Haredi consumers, Kariv later said, “have every right to buy filtered communications services but what is unacceptable is an arrangement that turns the cellphone into a means for identification and control within the community.”

Kariv was referencing the expectation in many Haredi communities that their members use kosher subscriptions with the identifiable initial digits (84/85 for the 054 prefix, 71/76 for 052, 41 for 050 and 31/41 for 053). In addition to having hundreds of inaccessible numbers, kosher subscriptions charge high rates on Shabbat, even for calling emergency services.

It is expected that parents give kosher numbers when providing their contact details to their children’s educational frameworks, among other communal institutions.

Most kosher plans are overseen by the Rabbinical Committee for Communications, a forum of top rabbis from across the Haredi spectrum. Its approval is an important social factor for Saban, he said.

“When another parent reaches out to us to arrange a playdate, their number indicates whether their home is an appropriate setting,” he said.

Haredi men protest against the sale of smartphones at a cellphone store in Jerusalem, on December 22, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

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