Kosher Cell Phone
One of the defining features seems to be that it has no text messaging facilities, and can only make and receive calls, because texting apparently leads to &quot;immodesty&quot;[0]:<p>&gt; <i>Texting is not only a waste of time, the [rabbinical] authorities found, it encourages &quot;immodest&quot; exchanges which would not happen on the telephone or face to face.</i><p>I just... I know religion is a difficult topic for many people.  I was raised Catholic (CCD once a week through 8th grade, completed all the sacraments, attended Mass nearly every weekend until I was 18 and left home), but became an atheist when I was in my early teens (privately, as my parents would have punished me had they known).  I found a lot of things wrong with Catholicism, but one of the big issues I had was many parishoners&#x27; blind adherence to dogma, and their sudden inability to think critically where any aspect of religion was concerned.  This struck me as something that could be -- and it turned out, is -- easily abused by religious leaders.<p>So this prohibition on texting just seems like a method of control to me.  It feels cherry-picked, and the reason for banning it seems contrived.  There are so many other ways to be &quot;immodest&quot; that it feels weird to focus on something like this.  Where do these things come from?  It seems so arbitrary and capricious.<p>Orthodox Judaism seems full of things like this, especially the prohibition on doing certain things on the Sabbath.  I remember reading about how it&#x27;s not ok to use an elevator on the Sabbath, and workarounds like elevators that automatically always stop at every floor, or waiting for a non-Jewish person to use the elevator to piggyback on their usage.  It just feels so intellectually dishonest, like finding ways to follow the letter of the rules while completely ignoring their spirit.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pri.org&#x2F;stories&#x2F;2012-01-25&#x2F;kosher-phones-britains-orthodox-jews" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pri.org&#x2F;stories&#x2F;2012-01-25&#x2F;kosher-phones-britain...</a> (linked as a source from the posted Wikipedia article)