c. 2000 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ When the rebbe of the Hassidic Belz ultra-Orthodox sect recently ordered his followers to stop using the Internet as a leisure-time recreational outlet, Eliezer Ram took his brand new home computer out of the house and gave it away.

“It was kind of tough to swallow,” recalled the 33-year-old ultra-Orthodox Israeli who is himself a computer buff and works for a Jerusalem high-tech firm. “But we believe that the community elders know what they are doing.”

In most ultra-Orthodox circles today, use of the computer and the Internet is widely tolerated for work purposes, particularly because more and more men and women are depending on the high-tech industry for their livelihood.

But over the past few months, recreational computer use has been subjected to curbs of varying degrees by ultra-Orthodox rabbis who fear that ultra-Orthodox youngsters will gain unsupervised access to the Internet and the world of computer games.

The ban may have come too late to stem the technology tide. While television remains a rarity in ultra-Orthodox society, tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Israelis already boast computers.

“This is not an area of religious law that is cut and dried,” said Jonathan Rosenblum, an ultra-Orthodox commentator. Like many of his peers, Rosenblum has devised an individualistic solution to the broad-based rabbinical edict. He uses the Internet in his work but has blocked access to the network on his home computer, which his teen-age children could potentially access.

“The rabbis’ statements were really understood by most people as a wake-up signal,” said Rosenblum.

Ram, on the other hand, follows a rabbinical leader with a more stringent opinion on the new technology. He thus felt compelled to dispense with his home computer altogether, and with plans to teach his 10-year-old son the basics of computer programming.

Despite the lingering regrets, Ram justifies the rabbis’ proclamations by noting that computers and the Internet have their down side, which even secular critics acknowledge.

“The question is whether the ends justify the means,” said Ram. “Sure our kids may have to learn about computers a little later in life. But on the other hand, it will be at a time when they are mature enough to handle the medium. If you’ve ever seen the `shoot-’em-up, blood and guts’ computer games like `Doom,’ then you can understand the logic behind the rabbis’ edict.

“And besides,” he adds, “my wife was less upset than me about losing the home computer. She thought that the kids were spending too much time in front of the screen when they should be playing outside.”

DEA END FLETCHER