In this week's case study we look at a particular part of the Jewish community and their response to one media technology. Ultra Orthodox Jews represent about 13% of Israel's total population of about 4.5 million and have significant communities in many other parts of the world including London & NYC. With the rise of many new media technologies it is a community that is constantly in conflict with the "tools of modernity" and having to make tough choices about what media forms they will and won't accept. You have been asked to read an article on the Ultra Orthodox and their response to TV. For a hint of larger tension between the Ultra Orthodox , modernity and the media also look at articles from the Guardian Online: The ultra-Orthodox Jews on a mission to save Jerusalem from secularism or this article from the Jewish News Week: Secular media continue to scapegoat the Orthodox. So what do these article argue about Ultra-Orthodox engagement with the media?
Before you say the Ultra Orthodox only condemn/reject the media...take a look at this exception "Israel's Tele-Rabbi" where one sephardic rabbi is using TV & the web as a tool for evangelising wayward Jews. What does this tell us UltraOrthodox views of media? Is TV acceptable or unacceptlable, and why?
