1 Journal of Jewish Identities 2009, 2(1) Frum Surfing: Orthodox Jewish Women’s Internet Forums as a Historical and Cultural Phenomenon Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Bar-Ilan University Introduction: In the autumn of 2007, while browsing through an Internet forum, I en- countered a thread with a poll that caught my eye. Under a heading of in- timate topics, a member had posted: “Are you atracted to your husband’s private parts?” Asking whether other women found it difcult to touch their husband’s genitals, she wondered whether her response was normal, and ended her post with a personal request to the site’s moderator. What drew me to the poll was its phrasing which used the correct anatomical term and not “private parts,” its appearance on an Internet forum open solely to married Orthodox Jewish women, and the poster’s plea to the site moderator not to lock the thread. Over the next several days an extensive debate developed on the site regard- ing this thread, with the vast majority of posters referring solely to the poll’s wording, which included the biological term and not the common Orthodox- Jewish euphemism for the male organ. The original poster was exhorted to clean up her language; posters shared personal experiences of what they taught their children to call various body parts, and cited Orthodox rabbinical authorities about using these terms. Afer several weeks of virtual batling the moderator removed the poll, changed the question’s wording to placate the religious sen- sibilities of site members, de-listed a member whose religious zeal and agenda were deemed unsuitable to the particular site, and deleted over 60 percent of the posts on the thread. The title of the denuded thread now read “atraction to hus- bands…” and only by going into the thread could new members understand what it was all about. The moderator also altered the guidelines of the intimacy section, telling posters they were allowed to use all proper English and Hebrew terms when discussing “private areas” but exhorting them to keep the general content of the message “clean and appropriate.” The debate over the aforementioned post and the creation and mainte- nance of virtual Orthodox Jewish women’s (henceforth cited as OJW) forums appear to be indicative of a long existing need now receiving expression in