YNET A rabbi was detained last week following complaints that he had installed a camera in a men's mikveh (ritual bath) in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Sanhedria in northern Jerusalem.[...]
Recently, rumors began circulating in Sanhedria that hidden cameras had been installed in the place, documenting the naked men during the ritual immersion.
After some of the men who visited the mikveh confirmed the suspicions, several complaints were filed with the police and investigators were dispatched to the facility. The rabbi was detained for questioning. [...]
Some of the residents defended the rabbi's unusual move, explaining that he was concerned by the rise in pedophilia incidents and sexual assaults in Jerusalem's haredi neighborhoods. The rabbi's associates explained that he had tried to deter sex offenders by installing security cameras in the mikveh. [...]
Two questions:
ReplyDelete1. Was there a sign that the mikvah is under camera surveillance? Or were the cameras in plain sight? If yes, that would go a long way to supporting him.
2. Why are children in the mikvah anyway?
Many chassidish boys go to the Mikva from the age of 12, perhaps younger. It is according to some יצא שכרו בהפסידו
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it's יצא שכרו בהפסידו for any unmarried man to go to the mikva. והמבין יבין.
ReplyDeleteWhy would a man put a camera in the mikva if he intended to peep? He could just go in and look, if he was so inclined.
ReplyDeleteThe halacha is that Jews are not suspected of being homos.
ReplyDeleteשולחן ערוך אבן העזר הלכות אישות סימן כד
ReplyDeleteסעיף א
לא נחשדו ישראל על משכב זכר ועל הבהמה, א] לפיכך אין איסור להתייחד עמהן, ב] ואם נתרחק אפילו מיחוד זכר ובהמה, הרי זה משובח. וגדולי החכמים היו מרחיקין הבהמה, כדי שלא יתייחדו עמה. א (א) ג] ובדורות הללו שרבו הפריצים, יש להתרחק מלהתייחד עם הזכר.
בית שמואל סימן כד
א ובדורות הללו שרבו הפריצים - כתב ב"ח המחבר כ"כ לפי מדינתו שהיו פרוצים בעבירה זו אבל מדינו' אלו א"צ להתרחק מדינא רק מידו' חסידות הוא וכתב בח"מ דוק' יחוד בעלמא אבל לשכב יחד צריך להתרחק מכ"ש שני רווקין אסורין לשכוב יחד ויש למחות ביד העושים כן:
Humble Jew, perhaps by recording, he wants to savour the moment later! These people are sick and the frum people who protect them are sicker, because they allow these abusers to go on and abuse others!
ReplyDeleteThe abuse snowballs! What is this "Jewish law" that says you must not report an abuser to the police and instead Rabbis should deal with it themselves (by turning a blind eye of course) and let the party continue at the victim's expense!
And the Orthodox critisize the Reform and think that they are whiter than white!
He did it to prevent pedophilia. If people are aware that there are cameras around, it prevents them from abusing children. Additionally, as we've heard previously, he fears that there is a pedofile ring that is using rooms that have "pools" in them. This is clearly not a case of a peeping rabbi. This is a case of a rabbi attempting to protect young children.
ReplyDelete''Lefi medinato .. hayu perutzim''
ReplyDeleteI guess we're back to times that accepted such behavior.
But signs would be prudent. Legal liability signs are not common in israel, like they are here in america.
Regarding Yichud with two men, Many Mashgichim, including Rav Volbe Zt"l were against two Bochurim sleeping alone in a dorm room.
ReplyDeleteI myself heard of a number of cases where two Yeshiva Ketana boys were alone in a room and were found lying in bed together.
In the Mikva it is a Halacha Mefurash of Tznius that
It is Assur to walk around completely naked. The ONLY time that you don't have to cover you private parts is when going in the water. When going out one should immediately cover himself.
Besides for that one who walks naked in the Mikva is Machshil others in Hirhur when seeing his private parts.
It is brought down in Seforim that seeing other people naked makes a Pegam, and it is better for him not to go to the Mikva.
Why is it in every Mikva 90% walk around and shmooze naked, what is so hard about putting a towel around you till you get to the shower or pool?
THE CHILD-RAPE ASSEMBLY LINE
ReplyDeleteIn Ritual Bathhouses of the Jewish Orthodoxy, Children Are Systematically Abused
By Christopher Ketcham Nov 12 2013
Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, the lone whistleblower among the
Satmar, a powerful Hasidic sect, who recently was the victim of a bleach attack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg—who is 63 with a long, graying beard—recently sat down with me to explain what he described as a “child-rape assembly line” among sects of fundamentalist Jews. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to be graphic,” he said.
A member of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidim fundamentalist branch of Orthodox Judaism, Nuchem designs and repairs mikvahs in compliance with Torah Law. The mikvah is a ritual Jewish bathhouse used for purification. Devout Jews are required to cleanse themselves in the mikvah on a variety of occasions: Women must visit following menstruation, and men have to make an appearance before the High Holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many of the devout also purify themselves before and after the act of sex and before the Sabbath.
On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, Rabbi Rosenberg entered into a mikvah in one of the holiest neighborhoods in the city, Mea She’arim. “I opened a door that entered into a schvitz,” he told me. “Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy.”
Rabbi Rosenberg paused, gathered himself, and went on: “This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face—fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn’t stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, ‘It’s a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy’s soul?
You’re destroying this boy!’ He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. ‘How dare you interrupt me!’ he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen.”
KETHUBOTH, 11a-11b. "Rabba said,
It means (5) this: When a grown up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than this (6), it is as if one puts the finger in the eye (7), but when a small boy has intercourse with a grown up woman, he makes her as `a girl who is injured by a piece of wood' ".
(footnotes) "(5). Lit., `says'. (6) Lit., `here', that is, less than three
years old. (7) Tears come to the eyes again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl under three years."
KETHUBOTH, 11a-11b. "Rab Judah said that Rab said: A small boy who has intercourse with a grown up woman makes her (as though she were ) injured by a piece of wood (1). Although the intercourse of a small boy is not regarded as a sexual act, nevertheless the woman is injured by it as by a piece of wood."
(footnotes) "(1) Although the intercourse of a small boy is not regarded as a sexual act, nevertheless the woman is injured by it as by a piece of wood."