Eighteen months after joining Israel’s cellular telephone provider community, Golan Telecom CEO Michael Golan announced that his company is servicing the chareidi community. Golan kosher phones will have the 058-32 prefix as Golan has signed an agreement with the vaad rabbonim that deals will cellular communications. This makes Golan Telecom the first of the new cellular providers in Israel to enter the kosher phone market, joining Orange, Cellcom, MIRS and Pelephone.

It was Golan Telecom that literally broke the cell marketplace in Israel by introducing its 100 NIS monthly plan for unlimited phone use, internet surfing and SMS texting, and the price has since dropped. Other companies have followed suit, including Rami Levi Communications. The Golan plan also offers unlimited long distance service.

Golan will be offering the kosher market an option of two plans;

1. 59 NIS monthly for a year, which gives subscribers unlimited phone service in addition to calls abroad to 55 countries, also unlimited.

2. The second plan is for the light user, offering a monthly fee of 10 NIS for 60 minutes of talking, also including international calls to 55 countries.

In both of the plans the free international phone service includes calling cell phones in the United States and Canada. The free international service is significant, particularly for the chareidi tzibur in Israel for market research shows a significant percentage of calls for this tzibur is to destinations abroad.

An yet another perk, Golan explains it will offer kosher subscribers the same two free local numbers offered to non-kosher users. This means kosher phone users may select a local number in one of the countries covered by Golan, and this permits residents of that country to phone Israel as a local call. Once again, the US and Canada are included. That means a subscriber who has family in the Ukraine and New York may have two local numbers, one for each.

For example , a resident of NYC calling a Golan kosher telephone in Jerusalem may do so by dialing a local number.

The vaad rabbonim has already approved the Golan SIM card, which block internet connectively and text messing. Michael Golan calls on the chareidi tzibur to join the 400,000 satisfied Golan subscribers.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)