A senior Israeli rabbi revealed that he destroyed a student’s iPhone because of the device’s supposed spiritual dangers, according to an audio recording that has just surfaced.
Charedi media claimed to have found the recording of a sermon by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef in which he argued that smartphone usage was enough to invalidate a marriage.
According to the tape, then recalled an incident in yeshiva. “In a lesson, we heard a ring,” he said, explaining that it was a student’s iPhone. Having requested a bowl of water, Rabbi Yosef said he immersed the phone, and “the phone was gone”. When the student complained that the device was expensive, Rabbi Yosef said: “I’m not obliged to pay you — take it to a rabbinical court.”
