The funniest thing I saw today was a headline in Kikar that said Struggle in Geula: Residents Against Public Telephones. I could only imagine what this was about... are we back in 1990 that they need to fight against public payphones?

Reading the article though is interesting. The fight isnt against this new modern invention called the payphone. It seems that recently people are calling these payphones and the ringing phones piques the curiosity of kids who answer the phone. It seems that these callers who get the kids to answer the phones then talk with these kids about "tzniyus issues", obviously not how to guard and protect ones tzniyus, and the kids get seduced or at minimum hear things they should not be hearing.

As part of the fight, residents are sticking stickers on these phones warning passerby to not answer should it ring. Being that this did not help, as it can't be expected to, some people are going to all the payphones and snipping their cables.

The proposed solution is to get Bezeq to make these phones only outgoing with no incoming calls possible.

Another solution would be for Bezeq to evaluate how many calls are actually made on these phones and see if it is necessary to keep them installed on the streets of Geula, or anywhere in the country, and remove them if they are deemed not necessary or useful. Who uses pay phones nowadays? Just about every person has a cellphone, whether kosher or not, in their pocket. Kids almost always borrow from someone on the street when they need to make a call to their parents. I would not even know where to get a pay card for these payphones nowadays. Just get rid of these things. I am sure that even in Geula they are not necessary in 2018.