“It’s just like YouTube, except with one difference: there isn’t any lasciviousness,” explained Sharon Bokubaza, a student from the Breslov Shuvu Banim Yeshiva who is also the site director. “Glatube is geared for newly-observant Jews who want to hear music but are not interested in the lasciviousness that exists on the internet.”
Clip with a Kippa
Akiva Novick • Yedioth Ahronoth (back page)
Translation for FailedMessiah.com by Didi Remez • Coteret.com
The unyielding rabbinic ban on any use of the internet notwithstanding, there is hardly a haredi who hasn’t been exposed to the web in one way or another. In order to cope with the photographs and other non-kosher content for the Haredi surfer, a new solution has been found: Glatube.com, the new hit in the Haredi sector.
The idea was to form a completely kosher file-sharing website. You won’t find any clips of Rihanna on that site, nor will you find the [Israeli] singers, Sarit Hadad and Subliminal. “It’s just like YouTube, except with one difference: there isn’t any lasciviousness,” explained Sharon Bokubaza, a student from the Breslov Shuvu Banim Yeshiva who is also the site director. “Glatube is geared for newly-observant Jews who want to hear music but are not interested in the lasciviousness that exists on the internet.”
More than 1,000 clips have already been posted on the new website, all of which are kosher, of course. More than 100 surfers have already posted material of their own on the site. Every new clip that is uploaded onto Glatube is inspected first by a special team that ensures that it does not contain any inappropriate material, such as sex, violence or other offensive content.
“We don’t have restrictive rules, like Amnon Yitzhak. Any video clip can be posted here, except ones with lasciviousness,” says Bokubaza, and promptly offers a definition of lasciviousness: “a clip that contains the image of women won’t be posted on our site. Women singing is also off-limits.”
The website currently has clips of Hebrew songs, Torah lessons and a clip of a cat playing the piano.
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