Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

http://משוגעת.com?

Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, Web business has been transacted in the language that was “good enough for Jesus”. Even when the content of the pages has been written in foreign-speak, the url, the addresss of the page has been reassuringly English. That’s all about to change.

Bowing to the democracy that is over 1 billion Chinese-speakers and countless billions of Arabic-speaking dollars ICANN, the body that regulates email addresses, will finally consider the proposal on Friday at its six-day 36th International Public Meeting in Seoul — as Lance Whitney points out on CNET.

I thought we were at war. We can’t have people writing in their own languages while we’re at war. Who knows what sort of secret things they’ll be saying? Where’s the Department of Homeland Security?

Hat tip to Lloyd Trufelman.

A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren

We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.

With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.

—  Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief 

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.