Apple Removes ‘Jewish or Not Jewish’ App from French Stores

Apple Inc. dropped a mobile phone application called Jewish or nor Jewish from its stores in France, but the app remains available in other countries.

The French-based antiracism organization, SOS Racisme, said the app violated French laws since the compilation of personal data – including one’s religion isn't allowed without the person’s consent. In the aftermath of World War II, France enacted laws against such data collection – with a possible punishment of up to five years in prison.

The app’s developer, Johann Levy, who's Jewish, told media outlets the app was designed to be recreational and there's nothing wrong with it. He complied personal data on about 3,500 people listed in his app by using various online sources.

I'm not a spokesman for all Jews, but as a Jew myself, I know that in our community we often ask whether such and such celebrity is Jewish or not, Levy told Le Parisien newspaper on Wednesday.

For me, there's nothing pejorative about saying that someone is Jewish or not. On the contrary, it's about being proud.

In June, Apple deleted an Arabic language app called ThirdIntifada, after Israel complained it incited violence against Jews.

We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people, the company said at the time.

The app, which included news reports and editorials, also featured links to Palestinian nationalistic literature.

Israel’s Minister of Public Affairs and the Diaspora, Yuli Edelstein, said in a letter to Apple’s then-chief executive Steve Jobs, From browsing through the articles, stories and photographs that appear in the app, it is clear that this is an anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist application that in fact, as its name suggests, calls for an uprising against Israel.”

In March, Facebook removed a page which agitated for another Palestinian uprising against Israel – the page reportedly attracted more than 350,000 friends.