n a responsum to a reader published on Sunday in the ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper Yated Ne’eman, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky said that “it is forbidden to be in possession of [an iPhone], and one must burn it”; this despite the fact that the reader, a business-owner, said it was “crucial for [his] dealings.”

And lest a contrite Jewish smartphone owner think to hawk his device on eBay and pocket the cash, Kanievsky also warned that it is forbidden to sell the phone to a non-Jew, “just as it is forbidden to sell a weapon to a non-Jew.”