Bank heist: a man in Beersheba shoots four people dead in a bank robbery before turning the gun on himself and ending his life
Apple sales may be soaring in many parts of the world with the release of the new iPhone 5, but in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community in Israel leading rabbi Chaim Kanievsky has produced a public notice forbidding their use and ordering their destruction.
The rabbi made the ruling after an ultra-orthodox newspaper published a letter in which the writer said he needed an iPhone for business. Rabbi Kanievsky responded by saying that the possession of an iPhone is prohibited and that they should be burned. He also compared the Apple-made devices to weapons of war.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews have a history of anti-technology sentiment. In May 60,000 of them gathered at the Citi baseball stadium in New York to be told by leading rabbis that home internet was forbidden. Last year they smashed hundreds of TVs in Jerusalem in protest over indecency on secular television channels.
