Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Haredi Orthodox Rabbis Issue Ruling Forbidding Smartwatches

Prominent Haredi Orthodox rabbis have issued a ruling forbidding the use of smartwatches, the Israeli newspaper Kikar Hashabbat reported.

“The severity of the destruction brought about by smartphones is already known…and the great rabbis of our generation have already warned us about the magnitude of the issue,” the rabbis wrote in their ruling, according to a translation by The Jerusalem Post.

“Recently, different types of these devices have been upgraded, which in their appearance and name seem to be other permissible devices, such as the so-called ‘smart watch’, but they are tricks of one’s desire which imagines that they are supposedly not stated in the prohibition.”

The rabbis added that the use of the smartwatches is “causing the public to sin in a very serious manner and place the entire future of a generation in enormous danger.” Both adults and children were forbidden from using the devices, “even if they don’t contain a sim card or some kind of blockage,” the ruling concludes.

Many Haredi rabbis have already banned the use of regular smartphones, though many are split on whether it is permissible to own one if programs are installed to stop users from accessing the internet. Rabbis are largely concerned about internet users accessing immodest material, such as pornography.

More than 40,000 Orthodox Jews attended a rally at New York’s Citi Field in 2012 warning of the dangers of the internet. ““The purpose of the [gathering] is for people to realize how terrible the internet is and, of course, the best thing for every [good Jew] is not to allow it in his home at all,” Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon told the Brooklyn Orthodox daily Hamodia.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.