A Haredi news hotline is a telephone service that serves as an important source of news in the Haredi world. Many Haredim do not use radios or televisions or have access to the internet, leaving them with little or no access to breaking news. News hotlines were formed to fill this gap, and many have expanded to additional fields over time. Currently, many news lines provide rabbinic lectures, entertainment, business advice and similar services, in addition to their primary function of reporting the news. Many hasidic sects maintain their own hotlines, where relevant internal news is reported and the group's perspective can be advocated for. In the Israeli Haredi community, there are dozens of prominent hotlines, in both

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. Some Haredi hotlines have played significant public roles, however many prominent services have faced struggles.

Kol Mevaser

Kol Mevaser is a Yiddish news hotline. It reports the news, weather, lottery, traffic, and carries interviews and scholarly lectures on various topics of interest to the Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish community.

Frum News Wire

Frum News Wire, or FNW, was a news hotline based in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, a subsidiary of the ''Voice of Lakewood'' magazine. FNW carried local and world news, audio recordings of notable events, and various forms of entertainment. They have had interviews with notable Haredi personalities, such as

Jake Turx Abraham Jacob Terkeltaub (born 1986) is an American journalist and humorist who writes under the pen name Turx. He is currently the senior White House correspondent and chief political correspondent for the magazine ''Ami''. He is also a politica ...

, Yossi Gestetner, and Richard Roberts.. One of its popular shows was ''The Yaakov M. Show'', a

political podcast Political podcasts are podcasts that focus on contemporary politics and current events. Most political podcasts maintain a connection with an existing media source such as a newspaper or magazine. They aim to inform or entertain or advocate a c ...

. According to FNW, most callers called more than once a day, and the hotline had an average total of fifteen thousand calls a day. It said that the majority of its listeners were from the tri-state area, with approximately half from Lakewood. During its final months, FNW stopped updating their news and music sections, only updating ''The Yaakov M. Show''. After they shut down, ''The Yaakov M. Show'' opened up its own hotline, the Jewish News Channel, before moving to Yeshiva International.

Yeshiva International Newsline

Yeshiva International Newsline, often referred to as YIN, is a Haredi news hotline, based in Lakewood Township, New Jersey.

History

YIN was started in 2012 on a restricted access network which required a password, and was advertised by word of mouth. Often broadcasting news that was unavailable in the mainstream English language Haredi media, it successfully carved out a niche for itself within the Haredi yeshiva community. In its early period, the hotline issued extensive coverage of the plans and efforts underway in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

to initiate a compulsory draft of Haredi yeshiva students. The hotline espoused a

Satmar Satmar (Yiddish: סאַטמאַר, Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynast ...

-like position on the matter, and strongly praised Rabbi

Shmuel Auerbach Shmuel Auerbach ( he, שמואל אורבך) (September 21, 1931 – February 24, 2018) was a Haredi rabbi in Jerusalem. Rav Auerbach led a large portion of more radical elements of the non-Hasidic Haredi community. His followers formed a political ...

and his no-compromise policy regarding the draft law.

Current format

YIN eventually switched to an open access system and started carrying advertisements. As the hotline grew more popular, YIN gradually shifted from its intense focus on Israeli Haredi news to more general coverage, although it continues to report Israeli news. Together with news reports, the hotline features a music section, rabbinic lectures, documentaries (deemed appropriate for the hareidi audience), and various seasonal sections, usually before major Jewish holidays.

Voicenews

Voicenews, a Haredi news hotline, advertises on their

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account with the slogan: "No Smartphone. Listen to updated news by dialing...." Voicenews, operating entirely with an automated voice, includes news, read from articles by larger news companies, including

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

Washington Examiner The ''Washington Examiner'' is an American conservative news outlet which consists principally of an online/digital website with a weekly magazine, based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is ow ...

Israel National News ''Arutz Sheva'' ( he, ערוץ 7, lit=''Channel 7''), also known in English as ''Israel National News'', is an Israeli media network identifying with religious Zionism. It offers online news articles in Hebrew, English, and Russian as well as l ...

, and Hamodia; a music section; audio recordings of notable speeches by politicians and other governmental figures; the weather and ''

zmanim ''Zmanim'' ( he, זְמַנִּים, literally "times", singular ''zman'') are specific times of the day in Jewish law. *In Jewish law, a calendar day is defined as running from "evening" to "evening." This is based on the repetition of the ph ...

''; and deals.

References

External links

* * * *{{cite web , url =https://twitter.com/fnwalerts?lang=en , title =FNW on Twitter (@fnwalerts) , website=www.twitter.com
The Frum Rush Limbaugh - an article about the (now defunct) Kol Haolam newsline
Information by telephone Haredi Judaism Telecommunication services