Europe's primary rabbinical alliance is demanding emojis representing Jewish men and women.
In a letter to the Unicode Consortium, which selects the emoji icons provided by smartphones around the world and used by tech giants Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Apple and Instagram, the 700-member Conference of European Rabbis asked for clarification as to why the consortium provides an emoji that depicts a woman wearing a hijab and a man in a turban but does not have any emoji of a Jewish man wearing a kippah or a Jewish woman wearing a headscarf.
CER member Gadi Gronich noted that in today's supposedly pluralistic world where we celebrate difference, the sense is that the Jewish religion is not included in this diversity. He called on the Unicode Consortium not to treat Jews differently from other religions.
According to Gronich, the struggle against anti-Semitism should start small, and including the Jewish religion and its markers in various platforms will assure they are normalized.
