Do mobile phone numbers have politics? The case of mobile phones in the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel

This study examines the political economy of mobile phone numbers, highlighting how leaderships use socio-economic policies to govern number allocation as a tool for surveillance and control. Focusing on the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, this research examines how leadership restricts exposure to secular content through a socio-economic enforcement system that identifies community members who use unauthorized internet-enabled mobile phones, by tracking their phone numbers. In 2021, Israel's Ministry of Communications introduced a reform allowing ultra-Orthodox individuals to retain their phone numbers when switching providers, thus masking their device type and undermining the identification system. This sparked strong opposition from ultra-Orthodox leaders. The present study investigates how community members responded to the reform and its broader implications. To analyze these responses, 1,905 posts from an online ultra-Orthodox forum published after the reform's announcement were examined. The findings showed that phone numbers were perceived not only as technical identifiers but as instruments of economic, political, and cultural power. More broadly, they revealed how phone numbers function in boundary-making – material and symbolic – within a religious enclave navigating its place in a modern liberal society.