84-year old Chaim Kanievsky, an influential ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbi, decreed to his followers to set fire to their iPhones as part of a rather extreme campaign to ensure that the outside world remains at bay, targeting the Internet in particular. This decree was announced before Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur, which kicked off earlier today. It seems that owning the iPhone was forbidden, and those who already had one must actually burn theirs. The verdict concerning the iPhone? “It takes over your life. It takes over your mind.” I don’t suppose that this decree came about after the good rabbi failed to find his way around town after Apple Maps led him into thinking that the Dead Sea was actually the Sea of Galilee. I don’t think that this rather extreme self-proclaimed sanction against the iPhone is going to affect Apple’s bottomline negatively in any way, and I am extremely curious as to know just what the rabbi’s stance is on Windows Phone 8, BlackBerry and Android-powered devices.
. Read more about