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Israel

Man helping Orthodox boot up and cash in

September 12, 2014 09:30
Charedi and high-tech: a man edits photos in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem

By

Nathan Jeffay,

Nathan Jeffay

1 min read

When Moshe Friedman was trying to get a high-tech start-up off the ground, a potential investor raised a concern. The funder was worried that because Mr Friedman is strictly-Orthodox, he would not be able to stop himself from taking the funds and giving them to charity.

Mr Friedman came up against such prejudice on several occasions while building up his video-editing company.

"Potential partners and investors don't want to work with Charedim and they looked at me as if I was an alien," he said. So he shelved his start-up and instead created a non-profit with an even more ambitious aim: to revolutionise the relationship between high-tech and the Charedi community.

Kama-Tech runs diversity workshops in high-tech companies and allays fears about the ramifications of employing Charedim. For example, he tells companies that they would not have to follow religious rules.