- Recipients and Publicity said...
RaP's Farewell PostI am truly sorry that you were bullied into silence. I hate bullies and bullying. It is not a cultured, let alone a Jewish, attribute.
Two quick questions for Rabbi Dr. Eidensohn/da'as torah:
Did you consult with a competent lawyer or lawyers in Israel familiar with this area of law, relating to the alleged "libel", on a blog yet, regarding your rights and defenses in the face of the alleged threatening Email you received?
I am positive that there must be those who would defend you, probably even pro bono (for free). It can still be done!
Hopefully you have retained digital copies of all the posts you deleted for your own files if further clarification needs to be made and for your own legal protection!
I assume that you have no further interest in receiving and posting my additional posts and comments on this blog from this point on.
As you know I have shared your main concerns and I have spent well over a year researching and debating the issues of the problems at hand, and this probably means that I will no longer participate in your blog.
I have no regrets so please do not feel bad for me, and I am happy to have served as a catalyst in unmasking and showing the world the true colors of those who have bullied you, and by association Rav Shternbuch and the BADATS, into silence, for who will yet have to answer in ways that they will not be able to intimidate into silence.
Kol tuv!
- Jersey Girl said...
In the US, there is freedom of speech and blogs fall under "freedom of the press, first amendment".
In the US, what this attorney tried to do to you would be considered a SLAPP (Strategic law suit against public policy) in order to silence your First Amendment right of Free Speech.
In the US, an attorney could be disbarred for filing a SLAPP and reprimanded for even threatening it.
Furthermore in many US states, you could sue someone who files a SLAPP suit against you and collect damages. (Anti SLAPP States).
If you have no right of freedom of speech in Israel, then you may as well just pack up and forget blogging because now, anyone can control every word you write just by threatening you with a lawsuit.
In the US, there are certain conditions that have to be met for libel:
1. first of all "the person who is not to be mentioned" is a wealthy and well known celebrity so the burden of proof of libel would be virtually impossible to meet. It is unheard of to get a libel judgment against a famous person because he has to prove absolute malice in your intentions. You can look at "rags" such as the National Enquirer and see that this is true.
2. There has to be no other reason for your post except that you wish to malign the person. This is impossible to prove true in this case since you are trying to understand halachic implications of many issues.
3. what you write has to be untrue and it has to be proven that you KNEW it was untrue. This is also not the case since it is quite obvious that you believe everything you write.
4. opinion - most of what is posted on this blog is opinion and not being presented as fact and therefore cannot be libel. This is why anonymous comments cannot be libelous. Nor can you be held accountable for anonymous comments.
5. no actual injury. The person who does not want to be mentioned in a blog has not suffered any financial or other provable injury.
6. Fair comment on a matter of public interest. Obviously the future of the Jewish religion is of importance to both you and the posters of comments.
7. Religious privilege - it is normal for a Rabbi such as yourself to issue religious opinions and rulings on a topic. To attempt to restrain your right of Free Speech, by threatening a SLAPP suit, in the US would also be restraining your Right to Freedom of Religion. In the US, this is a serious crime and punished as such. What if Rabbis could never say "such and such is not kosher?" That is restraint of Freedom of Religion.
I would recommend that you get in touch with Orthomom a wonderful blogger who was sued for libel. She prevailed and I am pretty sure that her attorney was free.
The threat of a SLAPP suit against your blog is indicative of the level of control that these missionaries have on the Orthodox Jewish world.
Daas Torah seemed to be a beacon of hope in what appears to be a lost battle. Now, that this blog is completely under the control of Evangelicals who are restraining MY rights of Free Speech, why even bother to fight?
I live in the US, in fact in the same state and county as the "person who does not want to be mentioned" on a blog.
Perhaps, I am the right person to file the anti SLAPP suit against the "person who does not want to be mentioned", because it is MY First Amendment Right of Free Speech is being restrained.
Furthermore, if you want to somehow host this discussion from my IP address (or something like that), I would love to be sued for libel for blogging about the "person who does not want to be mentioned".
I have a friendly relationship with some of the writers from the local newspapers and also in Brooklyn, where I used to write for a Jewish paper. My goal would be to get the name of the person who does not want to be mentioned in a blog in as many Jewish and secular newspapers as possible.
Most journalists welcome a SLAPP suit because it is lots of free publicity for their publication and cause and in the end, they usually get to collect a few thousand dollars in an anti SLAPP suit on top of it.
I would really LOVE to be sued in a SLAPP by "the person who does not want to be mentioned in a blog". Then I could publicize and bring this cancerous issue among the Jewish people to light.
Maybe I should just start a blog for the sole purpose of discussing "the person who does not want to be mentioned in a blog" and his goal of destroying Judaism with his billions of dollars of oil money and his puppet quasi Rabbis.
If this is a topic that posters are interested in, I will do it.
I can assume that these comments are being read by out "friend" and his lawyer.
ReplyDeleteRaP I would not give up so fast on this blog - though Jersey Girl's strategy might have to be followed.
Most of your posting and comments are still up - and the remainder have merely been removed from display - but is still there. In addition everything is backed up and in a safe location.
Just got a request for an interview with a major Israeli newspaper reporter who is really anxious to know what is going on. I also got messages from others who are interested in contributing insider information about things you only guessed at.
So while it is true that this was a simple case of a nebach blogger caving in to intimidation - but it has become bigger than that.
Bottom line - our "friend" has won and consumed me - the question is how much indigestion he gets from silencing me. With a little help from HaShem and His helpers - things will turn out for the good for all concerned.
I would not call this as "MR X" having won, there wasnt even a "fight" Mr X has just raised his hand and for the moment the clever reaction is to take a step back and plan a safe strategy.
ReplyDeleteI would really hope that some lawyer would come forward and offer his services to you, for a few reasons. This is a major test of the Israeli internet law. i.e testing the borders of freedom of speech, the pillar of any democracy, furthermore specifically to this case, we are testing an interesting fellow who is attempting to enter the Israeli political/social life, i hope that this is the good start of some truth coming forward, ultimaltely the truth will prevail.
Take the interview!!!
ReplyDeleteI must confess that when you first posted about the threat, I said that I think this could be a good thing. It seems to me that you (although not some others) were so hung up with your issues with EJF and its founder, that you were overlooking the very real issue that he is trying to address, and giving way too free a pass to a former supporter. This threat would act to at least shake that up a bit. I don't care about your fight with Rabbi Troper, so I don't care that it's not going to change your opinion of him, only that you now see that "the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend" and won't give such an easy pass to people who have their own issues in this regard.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think this is even better than I had hoped. You should be pretty safe in taking the interview, as I have no doubt that the paper will fully protect you in the case that you get sued. I'm sure you will be honest in your interview, so whatever else gets said, the issue of improper geirus WILL be raised in a very public forum. That's going to give a lot of people a lot of "indigestion", but hopefully it will also push others to take action.
If it pushes others to step up to the plate and try to do what EJF is trying to do, and to do it right, I will very happy.
In the United States we have freedom of religious speech.
ReplyDeleteAnything you write that is ultimately part of a religious discourse is protected speech.
This is why Martin Luther's writings are not illegal (they are boldly inciteful and antisemitic) and is also why a church can decide not to admit handicapped members if the church concludes that their infirmity is a curse from G-d (this is an actual supreme Court ruling).
The fact that Mr X could silence you is one of the main reason that I don't live in Israel. If he tried it in the U.S. he'd be laughed out of court.
Not only is religious speech protected, but so is the press. In the famous 1964 Sullivan case, it was ruled that a public figure cannot be libeled. Slander only exists if you say something you know to be false just to smear someone. Clearly everything you have written, as well as those who post, are believed to be true by the writers.
Additionally, the blog has come to be regarded as a street corner rather than press. It's a place where people freely exchange ideas. Nobody can get arrested (in the U.S.) for engaging in free speech on a street corner.
I hope that you can find a way to continue these very productive debates and discussions from a U.S. base so that you will not need to fear the very real power that Mr. X has due to his inappropriate use of wealth.
Bright Eyes,
ReplyDeleteYou need to re-check the Sullivan case. He won considerable damages against the NYTimes.
Yes the Press is technically protected, however the Associated Press readily admits that 95%of libel cases brought against Newspapers extract damages. This is why the press has Libel Insurance.
For any libel suit to be effective it must demonstrate "actual malice". In the Sullivan decision the Supreme Court ruled that actual malice constituted a disregard for the truth and/or lack of due diligence in researching the veracity of certain claims.
Furthermore electronic media such as the internet allows a person to be prosecuted numerous jurisdictions on account of the "slander" happening within them.
I could well be argued that some of the claims made about varying individuals here had crossed the line into actual slander. However as they have been removed I can offer no actual reference points. Instead I offer this link, http://hasidic-feminist.blogspot.com/2008/12/purification-of-shame.html which my wife had accidentally stumbled upon. Notice that the writer makes the assertion that mikvah attendants are sexual predators with homosexual proclivities. Thus creating the possibility of a lawsuit, as that is an unsubstantiated claim.
Just because such claims are made within the religious sphere do not protect one from Libel suits. They may protect one from criminal prosecution, however not from civil suits. Furthermore as any good lawyer will tell you, even those freedoms are curtailed when it comes to the singling out of inidividuals.
Take for instance the numerous successful suits against Rev. Phelps for his statements regarding homosexuals. Most notably when he stopped speaking about the condition of homosexuality and began targeting specific homosexuals.
As someone who has been successfully sued for Libel on three separate occasions(twice for things that I had written for the US government and that were and still are under classified copyright)freedom of speech does not mean what so many Americans think it means.