Since the beginning of the whole social networking craze, orthodox Jews — though some secretly double as “magic Jews” when their wives aren’t looking — have faced a vexing dilemma: join in on the trend or break their notoriously strict Kosher laws. But now a Hasidic version of Mark Zuckerberg named Yaakov Swisa has launched Faceglat, a Facebook clone that segregates men and women so that no “indecent pictures” of women could be viewed by men, and vice versa.
Launched in Israel last month by a young Hasidic geek, this website boasts a social structure designed especially for ultra-Orthodox Jews. The name “Faceglat” comes from the fusion of two words: Facebook, and glatt, meaning highly kosher, according to the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut.
When men go on Faceglat.com, they sign up by clicking on the arrow on the right of the screen. Women click on that on the left. From this moment on their respective paths will never cross. “One day, a couple of friends paid me a visit, and while we were chatting, the young woman said it was a pity that there was no website where she could share pictures with her female friends without other people being able to see them,” says the site’s creator, Yaakov Swisa. “We started thinking about a religious social network, where there would be no indecent pictures, and which would guarantee that men could not see photos posted by women, and vice versa.
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Trust demands extremely strict rules. For example, a program tracks and deletes inappropriate words. And users who mischievously put photos of men in the women-only space, or who posted pictures that were deemed indecent, are simply banned from the website. For the time being, administrating Faceglat still involves a lot of improvisation. But in order to “move quicker,” this Mark Zuckerberg of Hasidic neighborhoods wants to buy a software that can identify and automatically delete pictures showing “more skin than is necessary.”
So I’m guessing that Matisyahu will get a lot of “likes” on this site, right? Because he should — dude kills it live if you’ve never seen him perform before. It’s something to behold.
(HT: Business Insider. Jon Benjamin gif via)