Kosher cellphone

Blocks phone sex numbers, text messaging and the Internet.

The kosher phone is an example of demand leading the way for supply.

In late 2004, a special rabbinical panel was formed to study how to bridge the need for cellular phones and ultra-Orthodox codes. The community was torn.

Some saw the phones as a non-threatening convenience. Others believed the sophisticated "third generation" phones offered an unhealthy freedom: the ability to download pornography or allow young people to make furtive contact with the opposite sex — which is highly restricted in ultra-Orthodox society. The conservative magazine Family called the multitasking new phones "a candy store for the evil impulse."

The rabbis' solution — find a cell phone that's only a phone.