Daas Torah - Issues of Jewish Identity

FOR a brief, heady period in the history of autism spectrum diagnosis, in the late ’90s, I had Asperger syndrome.

There’s an educational video from that time, called “Understanding Asperger’s,” in which I appear. I am the affected 20-year-old in the wannabe-hipster vintage polo shirt talking about how keen his understanding of literature is and how misunderstood he was in fifth grade. The film was a research project directed by my mother, a psychology professor and Asperger specialist, and another expert in her department. It presents me as a young man living a full, meaningful life, despite his mental abnormality.

“The Toxic Truth About Sugar”

2012-02-02T14:25:00.000-04:00

Time

In an opinion piece called “The Toxic Truth About Sugar” that was published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis argue that it’s a misnomer to consider sugar just “empty calories.” They write: “…There is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills – slowly.”

Strengthening authority with the legend of the death of the Shagas Aryeh

2012-02-02T05:07:00.001-04:00

Jewish Review of Books hat tip to Hirhurim

The great 18^th-century scholar Rabbi Aryeh Leib Ginsburg was not a shy critic. He excoriated implausible talmudic arguments, even, or perhaps especially, when they were made by earlier authorities. He once compared a halakhic proof of the 12^th-century commentator Jacob ben Meir (widely known as Rabeinu Tam) to a "basketful of melons." Of the Beit Shmuel, a commentary on the Shulchan Arukh from the 17^th century, he wrote that the author, Shmuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, was "a student who had not reached the level of one who has the ability to determine halakhic rulings." Borrowing from the creation story in Genesis, he accused the even more famous commentator Rabbi Yoel Sirkis (author of the Bach) of "building his proofs on a foundation that was formless and void (tohu va-vohu)." Of the Magen Avraham (Rabbi Abraham Abele Gombiner) Ginsburg wrote that he simply "did not know what he was talking about." Certain passages penned by the authors of the Shakh and the Taz, two other leading commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh, were "nonsensical and incomprehensible." As for his contemporaries, most "ruined good paper and ink and embarrassed the Torah."

Like many rabbinic scholars, including those above, Ginsburg came to be known by the title of his book, Sha'agat Aryeh. In this case it is particularly apt, since it is a phrase (taken from the Book of Job) meaning "the roar of the lion." Ginsburg's harshness eventually killed him, or at least so the story goes. Or at least one version of the story. [...]

Fischer: Israel's ultra-Orthodox must start working

2012-02-02T04:23:00.000-04:00

The ultra-Orthodox have to start working, companies have to stop bilking their bondholders and home prices could wind up falling too hard and too fast if the government isn't careful, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said in a stinging address on Wednesday.

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center, Fischer stressed the danger posed by a fast-growing population where work isn't the norm. "In 30 years, the proportion of the Haredi population will be much bigger," the governor said. "Most of that community doesn't work. I respect religion, but a state of affairs in which part of the population growing very fast doesn't work can't go on."

Bail set at $23M in ex-teacher's molestation case

2012-02-01T15:25:00.001-04:00

USA Today

Bail for a former school teacher accused of taking bizarre photos of children in his classroom for a sexual thrill was raised Wednesday to $23 million, as parents questioned why they weren't notified when the pictures were found more than a year ago.[...]

Failure to do background checks - $1 million embezzlement

2012-02-01T08:12:00.000-04:00

Judaism and Justice - A Conversation Between Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Professor Michael Sandel from Harvard Hillel on Vimeo.

For eight years, the woman worked in accounts payable for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, gaining the trust of her superiors.

Colleagues praised her quiet dedication and hard work, and noted that she prayed often; her volunteer work at an event at St. Patrick’s Cathedral won mention in the church’s newspaper, Catholic New York. No one, then, questioned the hundreds of checks she wrote at the archdiocese to cover small expenses, like office supplies and utility bills.

On Monday, the woman, Anita Collins, 67, was charged with embezzling more than $1 million over seven years from the archdiocese.[...]

Conversation between Chief Rabbi Sacks & Prof Sandel

2012-01-31T05:50:00.001-04:00

Should a Ger be Fearful of an Orthodox Conversion?

2012-01-31T04:32:00.000-04:00

This comment was just published to an older post Should your child marry a ger? under the name "concerned"

1) My husband and I have been trying to convert for almost 10 years. The main holdup is denominational issues. I want an orthodox conversion, because I (foolishly, I know) dream of my children having the opportunity of attending a good yeshiva if they want. My husband can't stand the idea of an orthodox conversion because of comments/ideas like this blogger's. He is angry about the way girls are spat upon in Israel by "men" in black hats. He wants a conserva...dox conversion, followed by the same observant, increasingly frum lifestyle we have had over the past several years. I'm close to agreeing with him.

(2)To the person who feels the need to say that a shiksa would revert back, the "ש" word is pejorative term up there with the "n" word. It implies moral debasement. It's basically a meaner way of calling somebody a "skank ho." (a) Don't toss that word around loosely. If you dare insist on using that word to describe all gerah, you are intentionally being ignorant and racially prejudiced. (b) If you are not using that word to describe all gerah, then consider this: Assume somebody who is so-morally-debased-the-ש-word-should-apply-to-her somehow decides she wants to go to a beit din, and assume she somehow commits fraud or bribery on the court sufficient to get through her conversion. She's morally corrupt!!! Isn't it kind of a "duh" statement that she runs a high risk of recidivism?!? Why even bother making the point?!?

(3) BUT, that is not most gerim. Most of us have had to give up former family and friends, completely overhaul our lifestyles, experience discrimination, hatred, bigotry from both sides of the fence. Yet we still manage to convert.

You who are reading this: Are you an FFB? Please take a moment and imagine sitting your parents down. "Mom, dad, I'm converting to, e.g., Islam." Imagine their reaction. Imagine what lengths they would go to so you would change your mind. We withstand all of that and still manage to convert.

I know another ger who took 20 years to get through the conversion process. That is 20 years where a VERY religious individual lived without a spiritual home. He lived in a nether-region--no longer a Christian, not yet a Jew. We aren't allowed to have study partners. We can get bounced from the shul we go to at any time, for any reason. We are constantly living in fear that the one thing that means the most to us in the whole wide world will be yanked out from under us. Yet we still manage to convert.

Why? Because we love our G-d. Because we love his Torah. Because we love his people. We love you even when you are mean to us for no other reason than genetics. We love you even when you are mean to our children. I think that is why you are asked to love us. It is not because we are evil. It is because we loved you first.

Inverse relationship between time spent multitasking on social programs & social problems

2012-01-29T04:31:00.000-04:00

CNN

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

Attention deficit drugs are not effective in the long run

2012-01-29T04:22:00.000-04:00

Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.

Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs.

What gets publicized are short-term results and studies on brain differences among children. Indeed, there are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see.

Rabbi Pinto's Followers raise questions about Congressman’s Fund-Raising

2012-01-28T14:21:00.000-04:00

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/10/rav-reuven-feinstein-kiruv-and-mixed_18.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/10/rav-reuven-feinsteinkiruv-mixed-couples.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/10/r-tropper-is-transcript-of-rav-reuven.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/06/ejf-attracting-non-jews-to-proselytize.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/06/rav-reuven-feinnstein-kiruv-and.html

Soon after he began running for Congress in 2009, Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, needed to convince party leaders in Washington that he could raise enough money to become a viable candidate. Seeking help, he turned to an unlikely source: followers of an Orthodox rabbi and mystic from Israel.

Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi’s top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi’s followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm’s campaign records.

הסודות של חסידות גור נחשפים

2012-01-27T07:57:00.000-04:00

Understanding the extreme views some chassidim have about women

Haaretz

תקנות מחמירות האוסרות על גברים לדבר עם כל אשה - כולל זו שנישאו לה; חתנים שמגלים רק לפני חופתם את סוד הכלולות; והשיטות להסחת הדעת מכל מראה שעלול ליצור גירוי. כתבה ראשונה מתוך שתיים

Maharal explains why Moshe had to marry a giyorus

2012-01-27T07:48:00.000-04:00

Maharal(Gevuros HaShem): Why didn’t Moshe marry a Jewish woman from birth with pedigree like Aaron? Don’t think like the fools that this just happened because that is mistakenly dismissing foundation principles. Therefore it is important to explain itdsf because this is one of the reasons that Moshe’s children were inferior to Aaron’s children. From here our Sages (Bava Basra 109b) learned that one should always attach oneself with a pedigreed family. If so what was the reason that he married a woman from another nation? This is truly a very great question but if you think about it intelligently you will realise it was not done for nothing but was for a extremely important issue. Firstly you should know that Moshe was equivalent to the entire Jewish people because he was in fact the completing factor for the entire Jewish people. That is why the Torah (Shemos 18:1) writes that Yisro… heard all that G‑d had done for Moshe and for Yisroel. We thus see that Moshe is equivalent to all the entire Jewish people… Therefore it makes no sense that he would marry a woman who is one of the 600, 000 Jews when Moshe was equal to the 600,000. In contrast gerim who are outside of the Jewish people and therefore are not included in the 600,000 are capable of matching Moshe. That is because Moshe was not included in the 600,000. Thus the soul of the convert if she merited was more appropriate for Moshe who transcended the Jewish people. It is important to understand this amazing thing. Consequently Moshe married a woman from a different people even though the Jewish people are the essence of the world and the other nations are merely additions and supplements. Thus gerim when they convert become additions to the Jewish people. This is the reason that Moshe married a giyorus.

Rav Kook supports Argentine rabbis' measures against insincere conversions

2012-01-27T04:53:00.000-04:00

Rav Kook(Daas Cohen Y.D. #154): [Written to the rabbis of Argentina] Even though the halacha is that those who convert for ulterio r motives are valid gerim (Yevamos 24b) and this includes a man who converts for the sake of a woman and a woman who converts for the sake of a man, it appears from Tosfos (Chullin 3b) and Yevamos (24b) that this is only if the conversion involves a full commitment to keeping the mitzvos. But if the conversion is not complete –meaning without full observance of the mitzvos and also the motivation was not proper – then they are worse then regular lion‑converts that are mentioned there in a braissa. There is one opinion that these lion‑converts are genuine gerim but they are like the Kusim because according to the view that they are lion‑converts they are considered according to the halacha as total non‑Jews because there are two problems. 1) the conversion was not for the sake of Heaven 2) they don’t fully observe the mitzvos because as a minimum they worship idols through shituf as is learned from the verse “and yet they still worship their gods.” The language of Tosfos in Chullin is that they didn’t convert completely and thus it was not only idolatry that they violated. Thus in any case where the mitzvos are not observed properly and the motivation wasn’t proper – then there is no conversion at all. We see this in the language of the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch (Y.D. 248) that a person who converts for ulterior motivation, we are concerned about him until his righteousness is established. In other words if we see that he is not conducting himself properly according to the halacha and he had ulterior motivation for conversion – this is not considered complete conversion. In fact by accepting a ger who is not going to be observant, we transgress the prohibition of placing a stumbling block before the blind in any case. For if we say that the conversion is not valid even bedieved and yet we accepted them – then that causes problems for society because they are treating non‑Jews as Jews. How many snares and destructions results from that – especially concerning kiddushin, gittin and yibum. The Jewish husband will mistakenly view their son as his son and if he has a Jewish wife afterwards and he dies without other children, his wife will be mistakenly allowed to remarry without chalitza even if he has a brother. There are many other harmful cases that can result. On the other hand if they are truly gerim then bedieved they are fully obligated to keep the entire Torah. Then the beis din causes the gerim problems because they are now obligated in punishment because of all the Torah prohibitions they are violating. Prior to conversion they were not obligated and not punished for transgressing the Torah. We see this in Yevamos (47a) that we are to instruct the candidate for conversion the punishment for not keeping the mitzvos. We tell him , “you should know that before you came to convert, if you ate chelev fat there was no punishment of kares. If you transgressed Shabbos you would not be punished with stoning. However once you convert , eating chelev fat is punishable with kares and profaning Shabbos is punished with stoning. Thus we see that we are commanded about lifnei ivair (placing a stumbling block before the blind – even for non‑Jews. This is stated in Avoda Zara (6b): How do you know that you should not offer a limb from a living animal to a non‑Jew? Because the Torah says “do not place a stumbling block before the blind.” And it is a kal v’chomer concerning our case because he causes him to be have a great obligation as a Jew and he will be punished for his transgressions of the Torah. Therefore it is wonderful what you and the other holy rabbis [of Argentina] have done in making and strengthening the boundaries in Argentina where there is a great breakdown in the walls and there is a great number of gerim who are not sincere – and you have decided not to accept gerim at all. Whoever genuinely wants to attach themselves to the holy Jewish people should come to Israel where they will carefully be evaluated by the Jewish courts. Only those who are genuinely committed to converting for the sake of Heaven and will be fully observant - will be accepted…

Rav Reuven Feinstein prohibits proselytization

2012-01-26T05:23:00.001-04:00

Wikipeidia - Criticism of Michael Freund & Shavei Israel

2012-01-25T09:24:00.004-04:00

Michael Freund's response to RaP's criticism in 2009

Shavei has been under criticism for its limited vision of the Jew Status and Jewishness. Many rabbinical and secular notions state that a Jew is always a Jew, no matter how much he or she stood away from the rabbinical tradition. The laws for Sephardic Anussim sustained by Sephardic rabbis and rabbinic wisemen for more than 600 years defined “anuss” as any Jew forced to abandon Jewish legal practice, but still remains Jewish anyway, seeing that, in rabbinic law, an anuss does not need to be formally converted (though workers of Shavei affirm they do not convert in the strict sense, people who contact with their projects frequently use the term conversion^[6]), and in some rabbinical opinions the Anussim retain a higher statute than a Jew free to observe Judaism on the inside of a Jewish community.

It has also been accused of giving only some attention to groups like the Majorca Chuetas and the Belmonte Jews, whom “have been abandoned by the Sephardim”, and that attention given by Shavei comes always accompanied by “some historical and dialectical inconsistencies”. Shavei is frequently accused of favouring Ashkenazi ways, ignoring the Sephardi Chief Rabbinate of Israel and ignoring that these populations are “Sephardi Jews with specific customs and ways of living under the halakha.” Its lack of transparency is also an usual target of criticism. The tops-down structure and excessive clericalism of Shavei is also criticized, seeing that it ignores that “being a Jew is also a matter of communal agreement” with the communities that they try to convert, something which they do not try to reach.

These critics affirm that the non missionary character of Shavei is a sham, and that it is made by the “Secular Arm” of the Israeli government. The supposed separations of Freund’s Amishav and Shavei is also noted by critics, and much noted and believed by the public oppinion.^[7]^[8]^[9]

Shavei may also be accused of fooling different crowds by using the word “return” for defending their actions (“return” to the Jewish nation being understood in different ways by the Israeli government, Israeli rabbinates, and Jewish law).^{[citation needed]} The Jewish return law does not include tevilah, for a meshumad (former heretic) or an anuss (coerced converted Jew).^[10]

Rabbis related with Shavei have also been accused of having turned tense the relations with local non-Orthodox spiritual traditions and favoring Israeli traditions.^[11]

While Freund and his supporters affirm that his critics engage in Lashon haRá (evil tongue/rumours), the critics answer that many Shavei publications induce readers and Sephardim-Anussim in error and have many transgressions of Jewish law, and that they are truly preserving Jewish Law by attacking Shavei’s actions. They accuse Shavei of not being transparent on its motives, fooling Bnei Menashe for using them as settlers in areas disputed with Arab populations,^[12]^[13] of treating Sephardim-Anusim as Gentile converts to Judaism (denying them so their culture and ancestrally^[14]) and of “Ashkenazifying” them.^{[citation needed]}

The Shavei actions towards the Bnei Menashe are especially criticized and analyzed. In 1979 the Amishav, na Israeli organization founded by Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail and dedicated to locating the Lost Tribes of Israel (with the objective of contracting the population increase of a “bourgeoning” Arab population by their mass return^[15]), heard of a group in India which affirmed to descend of Israelites. The Rabbi travelled to India several times during the 1980s for investigating the claims. Convinced that the Bnei Menashe were in fact descendants of Israelites, he dedicated himself to converting them to Orthodox Judaism and ease its aliyah with funds given by benefactors like the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an US-Israeli organization which rises funds of Evangelical Christians for Jewish causes. By influence of the involvement of Shavei and other related Jewish organizations, from 1994 to 2003 800 Bnei Menashe made Aliyah to Israel, the majority going to Jewish settlements.

In 1998, the US-Israeli writer and New York Sun columnist Hillel Halkin travels to India with Rabbi Avichail for meeting himself with the Bnei Menashe and writes a widely-analyzed book on it titled Across The Sabbath River (2002). Halkin’s conclusions were that the immense majority of the Kuki-Mizo do not descend from the lost tribe of Manasseh but small numbers of them may in fact descend from this, and having passed their history and traditions to the remaining Kuki-Mizo people. The Rabbi left the leadership of Amishav for the Jerusalem Post columnist and former vice director of communications and policy planning of the Prime Ministers Office Michael Freund, who founds Shavei Israel. In 2003, the formerly Shavei sponsored Hillel Halkin starts collecting 350 genetic samples of Mizo-Kuki which are tested in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology of Haifa under the guidance of Prof. Karl Skorecki. In agreement to the late Mizo research scholar, Isaac Hmar Intoate, who helped collect the samples, no proof was found which seemed to indicate a Middle Eastern origin for the Mizo-Chin-Kuki.^[16]^[17]

In 2003 the Israeli Minister of Interior Avraham Poraz froze indefinitely the Bnei Menashe immigration (after accusations by Ofir Pines-Paz, future Minister of Science and Technology, that the Bnei Menashe were “being cynically exploited for political aims", settling in the settlements in the disputed areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank/Judea and Samaria). In August of the following year in response to this action, the Israeli Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar sends a rabbinic committee to investigate the origins of the Bnei Menashe. In 2004, DNA testings in the Calcutta Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory affirmed to have discovered proves of Middle East genes among a sample of Mizo-Kuki-Chin in an internet article titled Tracking the genetic imprints of lost Jewish tribes among the gene pool of Kuki-Chin-Mizo population of India. This article is still to be peer-reviewed but already led to some critical answers (by Prof. Shorecki in an article in Haaretz,^[18] referred to by a BBC News article the same day, as indicating non Jewish paternal root but maternal possibly Middle Eastern root, and also stating that "right wing Jewish groups wanted such conversions of distant people to boost the population in areas disputed by the Palestinians",^[19] and Hillel Halkin described how he contacted two of the authors, "V.K. Kashyap and Bhaswar Maity, with a request of additional information", but the information not only was not given as Kashyap and Maity never published the article, what would subject it to peer evaluation).

Thanks to Shavei lobbying and these doubtful DNA tests, in March 2005 Rabbi Shlomo Amar announced the recognition of the Bnei Menashe by Israel and their possibility of immigration under the Law of Return, after a full conversion in face of their separation from Judaism.^[20] In June 2005 the Bnei Menashe completed the construction of a mikvah, a ritual bath tank, in Mizoram under the supervision of Israeli Rabbis in way to start the process of conversion to Judaism.^[21] Short afterwards, a similar mikvah was built in Manipur (Shavei was involved in all this mass conversion and immigration process^[22]). In mid-2005, with the help of Shavei Israel and the Kiryat Arba local council, the Bnei Menashe opened their first community center in Israel. This is seen by Shavei critics as showing its wrong conception of conversion for elements that (to being genetically confirmed as “Lost Jews”) are still de facto Jews.

Freund talks many times of the Bnei Menashe from the utility to Israel point of view: he calls them "a blessing to the State of Israel" for being "dedicated Jews and Zionists",^[23] he believes that "groups like the Bnei Menashe constitute a wide demographic and spiritual reserve, for being used, by Israel and the Jewish people"^[24] and on the support to the settling of 218 Bnei Menashe on the High Nazareth and Karmiel in November 2005 expressed by the Jerusalem Post ("after what the North passed by this Summer during the Lebanon war, it is especially meaningful that the Bnei Menashe will help to strengthen and revitalize this part of Israel"). In the last two decades about 1,700 Bnei Menashe moved to Israel, mainly settlements in the West Bank^[25] and Gaza Strip (until the disengagement).

Shavei and Amishav may be accused of creating division among the Bnei Menashe people: in interview to the Northeast India Grassroots Options magazine Halkin explained that "Avichail is today a man in his seventies, and many years ago, convinced that Amishav needed a younger leadership, gave away his position to an American-Israeli journalist, Michael Freund. The two (Avichail and Freund) ultimately shocked on organizational issues, and Freund left Amishav and founded an organization called Shavei Israel. Both men have their supporters on the inside of the B’nei Menashe community in Israel, although Avichail continues to be the most influential and admired figure." He added that "tribal rivalries and Kuki-Mizo tribal clans have also played a role on the schism, with some groups supporting a man and some the other. Because Freund is independently rich, Shavei Israel is the better financed of the two organizations and has been capable of conducting more activities, particularly in the area of supporting Jewish education for the B'nei Menashe in Aizawl and Imphal".^[26] Among the Mizo-Kuki out of the Bnei Menashem the Shavei acts also caused tension, provoking strong controversy with the evangelical churches predominant among those ethnic groups (mainly during the television debate between Dr Biaksiama of the Aizawl Christian Research Center and Lalchanhima Sailo, founder of the Chhinlung Israel People’s Convention (CIPC), a secessionist Mizo organization which on the contrary prefers to create independent Mizo Israelite nations inside India to the return to Israel.^[27]^[28]^[29] Biaksiama was also author of Mizo Nge Israel? (Mizo or Israelite?) on this subject.^[30]

This subject concerns people in India out of the Mizo-Kuki ethnicities. As Dr. Biaksiama states “mass conversion by foreigner priests will rise a threat not only to the social stability of the region, but also to national security. A large number of people will forsake loyalty to the Union of India, as they all will become eligible for a foreign citizenship”.^[31] Shavei’s action also affected the close and healthy relations between Israel and India, motivating even the Israeli government to stop the conversions in November 2005 for calming the concerns of the Indian rulers. This decision not only worsened the relations of the Bnei Menashe with the Indian government (the Bnei Menashe defended that the actions of the Israeli rabbis only formalized previous conversions and did not count as proselitising in light of Indian law), but also of some Hindu groups with the government (affirmed that the care in favor of Mizo-Kuki Christians facing conversion to Judaism was not shown by the government to the conversion of Hindus by Christian groups).^[32][37] Freund took an aggressive posture against the government and threatened the same responsible minister that he would take him to the Supreme Court if he did not ease the arrival of the Bnei Menashe. In face of the decision in October 2007 of passing to take decisions on the mass entry in Israel and conversions in Cabinet reunions and not by one single minister (in the attempt of making more difficult the taking of decisions), Freund again promised to fight the government on this issue.^[33] Despite these tensions Shavei did not stop continuing takings of people in November 2006 (first group of 100 Mizoram^[34]^[35]^[36]), Agosto de 2007 (mais de 260 Bnei Menashe^[37] and in January 2009 (more than 200 Bnei Menashe). In January 2010 the Israeli government announces that the remaining 7,200 Bnei Menashe can make Aliyah within a period of 1-2 years after passing by conversion in Nepal.^[38]

RaP -- "Why does Michael Freund do it?!"

2012-01-25T05:01:00.008-04:00

There are good reasons why Michael Freund is still up and running:

Michael Freund's image is that of a clean-cut "good citizen" and is the opposite of the greasy sleaziness that Tropper exuded from every pore. Freund comes across like a "saint with a halo" compared to Tropper's grim Mafioso demeanors.

Freund is connected to the right people in the Israeli establishment and government and through Shavei Israel's efforts they can showcase that Israel does not discriminate against any racial group and that Zionism is most definitely NOT racism to a world that forgets that Israel has already taken in millions of multicultured (Halachic) Jews from every corner of the globe and does not really need to prove its bona fides.

And if as "Jersey Girl" says, Freund is funded by the Christian Evangelicals (and they have unlimited hundreds of millions at their disposal to further all their aims), then that is another reason that the likes of the Netanyahu and the Likud want to impress them and not interfere with the financial support for Freund's Shavei Israel because the Likud counts on the political support and muscle of the Evangelicals in the United States against the liberal anti-Israel establishment.

But Freund sincerely believes that he is doing "the Lord's work" -- you can see it in his face on any of the YouTube videos with him talking on this topic -- his earnestness and sincerity are obvious, see this good example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzhNlL0lWE (YouTube video 5 minutes) and the way he speaks with absolute certainty, no one stands up to such a tone of voice and audacity! so that few realize the anti-Halachic controversial nature of his organization's global missionizing and proselytization of gentiles with borderline Jewish identity to haul them over to Israel and hold them up as PR prizes for the Zionist state and the "atchalta de'geula" that he no doubt believes in with the clear "messianist-appeal" pull of modern day Zionism at work.

By the way, listen to Michael Freund attack a former Likud Minister Sheetreet who wants to introduce a 5 year waiting period and Michael Freund attacks, worth listening to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnZDaSwluw (5 minutes)

California sex offender sentenced to 195 years in prison

2012-01-25T04:43:00.000-04:00

San Diego Union Tribune

A convicted s♠ex offender who sliced off his electronic tracking device in 2010 and drove to the South Bay where he assaulted four women will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Leonard Scroggins was sentenced Tuesday to 195 years to life in prison by San Diego Superior Court Judge George "Woody" Clarke.

Last month a jury convicted Scroggins of seven felonies, including committing a forcible lewd act on a child, attempted kidnapping, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon

Woman assaulted by haredim in Beit Shemesh while hanging signs in a synagogue,

2012-01-24T18:56:00.000-04:00

SEE prior post - kosher switch - problematic haskomas

Beit Shemesh resident Natalie Mashiah, 27, who was attacked by dozens of extremist haredi men while trying to put up posters of Mifal Hapyis (Israel's national lottery) in a synagogue recalled the moments of horror.

"I didn't even have time to pull down the hand brake, and they already surrounded me. They shattered all the windshields and threw stones at me. I begged them to stop, I promised to leave, but they wouldn't let me go.

School superintendent threatened, punished 15 year old boy who wrote op-ed against gay adoptions

2012-01-24T18:10:00.000-04:00

Fox News

A 15-year-old Wisconsin boy who wrote an op-ed opposing gay adoptions was censored, threatened with suspension and called ignorant by the superintendent of the Shawano School District, according to an attorney representing the child.

Mathew Staver, the founder of the Liberty Counsel, sent a letter to Superintendent Todd Carlson demanding an apology for “Its unconstitutional and irrational censorship and humiliation” of Brandon Wegner.

Wegner, a student at Shawano High School, was asked to write an op-ed for the school newspaper about whether gays should be allowed to adopt. Wegner, who is a Christian, wrote in opposition. Another student wrote in favor of allowing gays to adopt.

Wegner used Bible passages to defend his argument, including Scripture that called homosexuality a sin.

Kosher Switch - Rav Neuwirth rejects use l'chatchila

2012-01-24T05:17:00.010-04:00

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims - Aish HaTorah connection

2012-01-24T04:19:00.000-04:00

NewYork Times

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.[...]

Repeated calls over the past several days to the Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, were not answered. The nonprofit group shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. The producer of “The Third Jihad,” Raphael Shore, also works with Aish HaTorah.

Kav L'Noar Child Abuse Conference - mp3 of Rav Leff & Dr. Pelcovitz

2012-01-22T20:20:00.005-04:00

I attended the Kav L'Noar Child Abuse Conference in Jerusalem tonight - Sunday January 22, 2012. The presentations were excellent and are a reflection of the progress that is occurring in our communities. I am just providing the recordings of the two main speakers. Click on link to listen or right click and save link to download mp3 files

Rav Zev Leff as the halachic adviser to Kav L'Noar is clearly aware of the issues. He focused on the various conflicts involved - without offering a nice neat resolution. He addressed briefly the need for calling the police and mandated reporting and clearly and forcefully acknowledged that abuse is not the area of competence for rabbis. He ended up suggesting the need for a group involving rabbis, social workers, therapists and secular authorities such as is done in Los Angeles and Bnei Brak. He also graciously acknowledged using and benefiting from my books which he recommended to everyone interested in the topic of abuse.

Dr. David Pelcovitz is a consultant to Kav L'Noar. He presented a sensitive and informative presentation which gave clear practical advice as to how to protect children and shared his extensive experience regarding specific problems. He also stated that rabbis are not the total solution to the problem since they have often focused on what is best for the abuser rather than the victim.

RaP discusses Shavei Israel search for hidden Jews around the world

2012-01-22T10:13:00.000-04:00

Looking at the latest postings on Shavei Israel's website; it's reach is global with direct projects geared to:

*"Bnei Anousim http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/bnei_anousim/?lang=en Bnei Anousim in Spain...Portugal...Brazil"

RaP: In Brazil, no Orthodox rabbis undertake conversions and they have closed the door to this kind of thing, but Freund is not put off. Freund is staying clear of the USA -- except to get his funding and ask for more -- and Western Europe where he knows he will have to deal with strong rabbinical opposition, so he works from the Israeli front, leaving the field wide open in the USA for a variety of smaller operators of this effort, that The Jewish Press never fails to promote no matter in which synagogue or state a pro-Anusim talk or gathering may be held.

*"Bnei Menashe http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/bnei_menashe/?lang=en ...In recent years, Shavei Israel has brought some 1,700 Bnei Menashe back home to Zion. Another 7,200 still remain in India, waiting for the day when they too will be able to return to Israel..."

RaP: Even the Israeli government is in no rush to have these people who are of very doubtful Halachic Jewish status, but that does not stop Freund and Shavei Israel from extending the "Zionist dream" to them.

*"Subbotnik Jews http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/subbotniks/?lang=en "The Subbotniks were peasants in southern Russia who embraced Jewish practice and converted to Judaism more than 200 years ago under the Czarist regime..."

RaP: Who they were is not clear and what the Subbotniks did is controversial. They had ties with Christianity. After 200 years of raw ignorance there was also the inevitable intermarriage with gentiles. Shavei Israel's work with this group has been featured in past editions of the American Mishpacha magazine. But since the demise of EJF the Mishpacha editors/owners have been more cautious about getting into this minefield.

*"The Hidden Jews of Poland http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/hidden_jews_of_poland/?lang=en "...increasing number of Poles have begun to discover their families’ Jewish roots. These include young people whose Jewish parents or grandparents were put up for adoption with Polish families and institutions in a desperate attempt to save them from the Nazi onslaught nearly seven decades ago..."

RaP: On the one hand it is noble to welcome those who can prove they were descendants of victims hidden during the Nazi conquest of Poland, but Shavei Israel is rolling out a red carpet come one come all, not just to victims of Nazism, but of everything bad that ever happened in human life and in the process crosses the line into proselytization, as it does with all it's activities. It is not stopped by what other rabbis may or may not say or think, it makes up the rules and its goals for itself. It gets away with everything because it cloaks all its efforts in the ethos of modern Zionism, the Israeli flag and the kippa seruga, so people in the Israeli government do not oppose them, and that's all that matters to them.

*"The Kaifeng Jews http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/kaifeng_jews/?lang=en Jews arrived in Kaifeng...China, over a thousand years ago... 5,000 people...assimilation eventually began to take its toll...there are between 500 and 1,000 identifiable descendants of the Jewish community...an awakening has been taking place among them, as increasing numbers of young Kaifeng Jews seek to reclaim their heritage"

RaP: To Shavei Israel a group of perhaps 5,000 from 1,000 years ago that had withered down 800 years later and for the last 200 years has melted away obviously by centuries of intermarriage with local gentiles does not mean anything. The main thing is to get them to Israel.

*"San Nicandro http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/san_nicandro/?lang=en ...Italy...end of the First World War.. illiterate peasant, Manduzio...discovered Judaism...thought that no Jews were left in the world. He began practicing the Jewish faith, and more and more of his neighbors joined him in his spiritual quest. Eventually, the community numbered 80 people...They approached the soldiers...to take the community members to the Promised Land. Subsequently, in 1946, most of Donato’s community succeeded in converting to Judaism, and the vast majority of them made aliyah in 1949. Today, there are still a few dozen members of the community in San Nicandro who are living a Jewish life and practicing Judaism even though they did not undergo a formal conversion."

RaP: This stuff cannot be made up! Someone gets the idea in their head that they want to be "Jewish" and convinces a few more people, they suddenly all want to go to Israel, and Shavei Israel will help any such group to get to every last one. Multiply such things by hundreds of groups all over the world, and where does one draw the red line? Let them stay in Italy. It is a great country. A mecca for tourists. Israel does not have to be the "home" of anyone who decides they are part of the Jewish people. There are hundreds of millions of Christians who regard themselves as the modern Biblical Israel, and who knows when they will want to convert and Shavei Israel will help them make Aliya to make Israel into an even bigger Zionist population. Not to mention all the Arabs who think they already "own" Eretz Yisrael and are willing to kill Jews to get their goals.

*"The Jews of the Amazon http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/jews_of_the_amazon/?lang=en In the 19th century...Moroccan Jews, made their way to South America...many of them eventually married local women...In recent years, a growing number of these Jews of the Amazon have begun to reconnect with their heritage, leading several hundred to make aliyah."

RaP: If they married local women then their children are gentiles. Simple! Brazil is a great country, why the need to get to Israel? This story can be told about Jews who moved anywhere who did not stick to Torah learning and Mitzvos observance. The whole Reform and Conservative movement in America is riddled with this scenario in every way with millions of such similarly non-Halachic "lost Jews" but there is certainly no mass proselytization effort to reach them by the Orthodox in America at this time, not since the demise of EJF at least. But Shavei Israel works out of Israel and can sell its goods of Aliya from there. The day when they will get access to the huge American market will indeed be interesting to behold...

*The Inca Jews http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/inca_jews/?lang=en Over five decades ago, in the northern Peruvian city of Cajamarca...Alvaro and Segundo Villanueva Correa...decided to embrace Judaism, forming a community in 1958...The group, which came to be known as the “Bnei Moshe”...makes no claim of Jewish ancestry...growing in number to more than 500 people...nearly all of the Inca Jews underwent conversion by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and made aliyah, thanks in part to Shavei Israel."

RaP: There was no need to rush to bring them to Israel nor to convert them en masse. They could have stayed where they were. Peru is a nice country! Israelis love to vacation there! But again, someone gets an idea in their heads and Shavei Israel is there to not just fan the flames, to roll out the red carpets, to proselytize en masse and even get the Chief rabbinate to give its stamp of approval.

*"Other Communities http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/other_communities/?lang=en This section of our website is the place to learn about other Jewish communities around the world where Shavei Israel is not specifically involved. Below you’ll find these communities organized according to region and country."

RaP: In other words: they've only just begun! According to Shavei Israel they have a global master plan! See the list that Shavei Israel posts on its own website that would target even more far-flung groups. Click on each link to see what Shavei Israel has to say about each one:

"So far, there are only [two] regions listed – we’ll be adding others over time:
*Africa http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/other_communities/africa/?lang=en
    Abayudaya (Uganda)     Cameroon     Igbo Jews (Nigeria)     Lemba (Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa)     Rusape (Zimbabwe)     Timbuktu (Mali)

*Asia http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/other_communities/asia/?lang=en
    Afghanistan     Bnei Ephraim (India)     Bukharan Jews     Donmeh (Turkey)     Jews in Japan
    Kyrgyzstan     Pathans (India)

*Caribbean http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/other_communities/caribbean/?lang=en

    Cuba    Jamaica     Puerto Rico     Suriname "

RaP discusses Shavei Israel search for 'Hidden Jews" in Poland

2012-01-22T09:59:00.000-04:00

Guest post by RaP:

Shavei Israel looks for 'Hidden Jews' in Poland and All Over!

"The Jewish Press

Friday, January 20, 2012

Page 18

(Display advertisement:)

HELP US UNCOVER THESE HIDDEN TREASURES

After decades of oppression, Poland’s ‘Hidden Jews’ are finally emerging from the shadows, seeking to reclaim their Jewish identity. The downfall of the Iron Curtain has opened up new worlds, and allowed previously-buried family secrets to come to the fore.

Across Poland, countless young people are suddenly discovering the Jewish roots that their parents or grandparents sought to hide because of fear or persecution, and an increasing number are seeking to learn more about Judaism.

Shavei Israel is leading the way, reaching out to Poland’s ‘Hidden Jews’ with a helping hand and a welcoming heart.

Please join us in assisting these brave young men and women to reconnect with the Jewish people.

[Photos six young people surrounding Shavei Israel logo]

Please send your US tax-deductible contributions to:

American Friends of Shavei Israel

25 West 45^th Street, Suite 1405. New York, NY 10036. Tel: (212) 840 – 1166

www.shavei.org”

The Jewish Press is unique among the English language Orthodox weekly newspapers and magazines in that for many years, someone or other in its ownership/editorial department has consistently pushed and allowed and even promoted articles and ads from organizations and individuals such as the defunct EJF, Shavei Israel and a variety of events.

The American Yated is the most conservative in this regard. It has basically never allowed any information on its pages that in way seem to be promoting proselytization of gentiles by any sort of rabbis or organizations. Perhaps in the early history of the EJF when many roshei yeshiva were induced to attend its earliest meetings, there was something, otherwise nothing. The American Hamodia at one time had regular articles and ads about EJF's work, but it stopped that when the Tropper scandal came into the open. the American Mishpacha once used to have more articles about finding lost Jews and promoted the work of the Shavei Israel organization headed by Michael Freund. But without missing a beat, The Jewish Press has never given up on the theme of publishing articles, ads and promoting outright proselytization to gentile by Jewish organizations and rabbis. This seems to have come about in the period after the passing of its founder Rabbi Sholom Klass (d. 2000), but since then there has been a constant blizzard and drumbeat for this cause. The Jewish Press was among the leadership of the EJF from its inception in various ways and even wrote editorials and op-eds to support EJF. The Jewish Press has been the greatest supporter of Shavei Israel and it hosts a regular column by Michael Freund who has made it his life's mission to go searching for all manner of "lost Jews" that's part of a greater Zionist vision as he is also a Zionist activist. (The New York Jewish Week is not considered an Orthodox paper as it's funded by the secular UJA).

This past week was no exception, and space was given not to events to help "Anusim" but raise money for finding lost Jews in Poland.

----------------------

The following is a closer look at the latest Shavei Israel infomercial:

"HELP US UNCOVER THESE HIDDEN TREASURES"

RaP: The word "uncover" here is ambiguous, it easily means "proselytize"!

"...Poland’s ‘Hidden Jews’ are finally emerging from the shadows, seeking to reclaim their Jewish identity."

RaP: Almost all of them are not Halachic Jews and would require proper conversions. The wording jumps the gun, it tells the reader that they are already "Jews" albeit "Hidden" -- meaning they are "real" Jews just "hidden" away somewhere, when the facts are far from that. They are mostly gentiles with very tenuous links and claims to Jewish ancestry, and to repeat, almost every single one of them would require a proper geirus. So this is really a masquerade to cover up another mass proselytization effort.

"The downfall of the Iron Curtain has opened up new worlds, and allowed previously-buried family secrets to come to the fore."

RaP: Many of these claims are useless in a court of law, let alone a Bais Din because they almost all lack the proper kind of documentation that their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents were truly verifiable Halachic Jews.

"Across Poland, countless young people are suddenly discovering the Jewish roots that their parents or grandparents sought to hide because of fear or persecution, and an increasing number are seeking to learn more about Judaism."

RaP: This is true EVERYWHERE, not just in Poland, but that does not mean that they should be ENCOURAGED to do so for obvious reasons that no one knows who these people are really descended from. This is certainly not classical "kiruv rechokim" by any stretch of the imagination, its going way beyond the normal parameters of what an Orthodox-run organization should be doing. There should be many lessons learned from the recent mass Aliya from the former USSR that dredged up all sorts of people with very unreliable and false and even no claims to being Jewish and they amount to at least a third of the million who came from the USSR who are not Halachic Jews. The Jewish state of Israel does not need more problems because it is already choking Halachically on this bone of contention of nebulous "hidden Jews"!

"Shavei Israel is leading the way, reaching out to Poland’s ‘Hidden Jews’ with a helping hand and a welcoming heart."

RaP: There are plenty of priorities to work on and help bring back to authentic Judaism the millions of secular or marginal Jews who have a closer connection to provable Jewish ancestry.

"Please join us in assisting these brave young men and women to reconnect with the Jewish people."

RaP: They may be brave but Shavei Israel, and The Jewish Press that's promoting this are clearly pushing the envelope of and clearly crossing the line from kosher kiruv to painful proselytization.

"Please send your US tax-deductible contributions to:

American Friends of Shavei Israel

www.shavei.org ”

RaP: There can surely be more important things to support in the Jewish world today. A further look at the web link opens the wide window into Shavei Israel's growing network, that unlike EJF has not been stopped or derailed. Michael Freund is NOT Leib Tropper even though they are merchants in the same bazaar of bartering for "lost Jews" and having no qualms in trying to have them converted, no matter how many there are, they're still the same type of very dangerous undertakings from the point of view of Jewish identity according to Jewish law.

--------------------

Prominent Zionist rabbi Moti Elon denies sexual assault charges

2012-01-22T08:56:00.001-04:00

Haaretz

YNet

Prominent Rabbi Mordechai ‘Moti’ Elon denied on Sunday the charges against him that he sexually abused two male students.

Elon, until recently considered one of the spiritual leaders of religious Zionism, is the former head of Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem, went on trial at Jerusalem Magistrate's Court in December last year on charges of forcible sexual assault against the two students, who had sought his emotional support.

Jerusalem Police wage war against chareidi extremists

2012-01-22T04:37:00.001-04:00

The short history of the current conflict begins in 2003, with the anointing of Rabbi Yitzhak Tuvia Weiss - an elderly Belgian Jew who lives in Antwerp and who earned a respectable living as a rabbi and a rabbinical court judge - as leader of the anti-Zionist Eda Haredit community in Jerusalem. In his years as the Gavad (Genius Father of the Court ), pragmatic elements have been shunted aside and radical elements have grown stronger, dragging the sect into a series of struggles, most of them violent failures: against the gay and lesbian community's Pride parades; against opening the Karta parking lot and the opening of the Intel plant in Jerusalem; against the construction at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon; against the arrest of a mother from the Toldot Aharon Hasidut for starving her son; and more.

In the last of these cases, in 2009, top police officials continued to treat the Gavad with respect due to his being the great rabbi of the generation. But the soothing words they extracted from him at late night meetings remained within the room, while activists around him continued to fuel the struggle in the streets.

At about the same time, a group of Sicarii attacked a busload of ultra-Orthodox children with special needs driving down Mea She'arim Street in the capital. There were no physical injuries but some of the children suffered prolonged psychological trauma, which led representatives of the ultra-Orthodox public to realize that their internal institutions are not enough. They demanded, in no uncertain terms, that the police intervene and do what no rabbi dares to do: suppress the fanatics.

'He masterminded systematic rape of over 100 kids' :The nightmare of Nachlaot

2012-01-21T14:23:00.001-04:00

Members of the haredi community in the capital’s Nahlaot neighborhood are calling it “The Holocaust.” At least 10 pedophiles molested more than 100 children for six years, reaching nearly every family in this close-knit community.

One mother couldn’t figure out why her two sons would get hysterical every time she left the house, begging her not to go. They were chewing their clothes to pieces and having uncontrollable outbursts. She brought them to different doctors and psychologists to try to determine what was wrong, but no one could figure it out.

Then community doctors started seeing strange marks, possibly indicative of abuse, on many of the children. Finally, one young boy was injured in a way that was unmistakably sexual abuse. He was the one who finally broke the silence, and talked about the horrific abuse happening in the neighborhood.

Members of the community call this “the miracle.”[,,,]

Responding to abuse - interview with Dr. Yitzchok Schecter of CAPS of Rockland County

2012-01-21T13:26:00.000-04:00

The yawning chasm between American & Israeli Chareidim

2012-01-20T07:24:00.000-04:00

Cross Currents by Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein

Many people, myself included, believe that the fallout from Beit Shemesh and Kikar Shabbos will have a longer half-life than others suppose. One item to keep an eye on is the fault line that has surfaced, much as those that sometimes appear on the earth’s surface after an earthquake.

This fault line separates Israeli charedim from many of their American counterparts. Two different narratives developed. Americans could not accept the Israeli one, while Israelis were deaf to the arguments of Americans.

Americans by and large rejected the suggestion that protest was unnecessary, because there is no reason the rest of us should be responsible for the actions of a relatively small number of extremists. Witness the wall-to-wall condemnations of the activities in Beit Shemesh and Yerushalayim. Americans understood what was at stake: if you don’t distance yourself from ugliness, you are considered complicit in it. It didn’t matter to us whether lumping us all together was just or not. The honor of Torah, our relationships with non-Jews and non-religious Jews, our ability to attract baalei teshuvah in the future – all these would be imperiled by our remaining silent. So we spoke up, and couldn’t understand that in Israel, our cousins seemed not to understand. [...]

Constructive gossip proven to be healthy

2012-01-20T04:26:00.000-04:00

Medical News Today

It seems as social animals we have a strong urge to pass on unsavory information to others, and people even spent their own money in the study, using a "gossip note" they had to pay for during an economic game in which participants could warn people about to play against cheaters. The researchers suggest that people shouldn't feel bad about passing on information if it is likely to help those involved, exposing vices or protecting someone against exploitation.

Willer points out, however, that the study was focused on the positive sides of gossip, passing on useful information or "prosocial" warnings about untrustworthy or dishonest people. The study did not look at the typical tabloid type gossip involving celebrities and their personal issues. This author would suspect that this type of gossip is an almost imaginary or invented version of the more positive prosocial / protective gossip, in that the behavior of a celebrity with a drug or marital problem doesn't necessarily have any real or immediate effect on our daily well-being, although perhaps studying the behavior and mistakes of famous people, might help those spectators avoid those kinds of life path mistakes themselves.

Shabbos problem of using water in high rise buildings

2012-01-19T14:48:00.001-04:00

Bnei Brak's Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Leib Landa has warned that turning on faucets in some multi-story apartment buildings leads to the desecration of Shabbat

The rabbi issued a halachic ruling explaining that the using the tap directly turns on an electrical water pumping system – an offense which, according to the Torah, can be punished by stoning. [...]

According to the rabbi, the long-term solution is to install a high water reservoir enabling natural rather than electrical pumping. In the meantime, however, "there is no other choice but to ensure that the pump is turned throughout Shabbat and Jewish holidays."

Four Mea Shearim Men Released in Charity Scam Scandal

2012-01-19T04:59:00.000-04:00

Artuz Sheva

Judge Dan Pollock of the Jerusalem Magistrate Court ordered the release of four men who were suspected of assisting a scam in the Mea Sharim neighborhood. The accusations involved keeping money that was advertised as being collected for charity. The arrests involved a popular community rabbi and his arrest this week led to street protests in the Mea Shearim and Geula neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Controversy regarding report on the serious problem of Ethiopian domestic killings

2012-01-19T04:43:00.000-04:00

The Immigration and Absorption Ministry has withheld a landmark research project documenting the murder of women in Israel's Ethiopian community. Only sections of the report, completed in 2009, are now coming to light.

The research was conducted by Dr. Shalva Weil, an anthropologist who has researched Ethiopian Jewry for over 30 years. It offers a comprehensive profile of what Weil claims is the typical wife-killer, based on the examination of 16 such cases and extensive interviews with women and other family members who survived murder attempts.

Yiddish in Japan

2012-01-19T04:36:00.000-04:00

Haaretz

הרב מרווין טוקאייר מגרייט נק שבמדינת ניו יורק לא ישכח את השיחה המפתיעה שקיבל לפני 43 שנה. "ב-1969, כשגרתי בטוקיו, צלצל לפתע הטלפון בבית. "שמעתי קולות לא ברורים", נזכר טוקאייר, שכתב 20 ספרים ביפאנית על יהדות והיה הרב היחיד ביפאן באותה העת. "השיחה היתה מטלפון ציבורי ברחוב, שמעתי את המכוניות ובכלל לא הבנתי על מה האיש מדבר. אז שאלתי אותו: אילו שפות אתה מדבר? והוא ענה: יפאנית, גרמנית, קצת אנגלית ויידיש. אז אמרתי לו: יידיש?! קענסט דעדן יידיש? (אתה מדבר יידיש?) והוא ענה: יו (כן). אז אמרתי לו: קום אהער! בוא מיד, אני רוצה לפגוש אותך!"

French police suspect rabbi raped underage girls

2012-01-18T05:46:00.000-04:00

Police in France have questioned Rabbi Daniel Farhi, a prominent member of the Jewish community in that country, over suspicions that had he had raped an undisclosed number of underage girls, French media reported Tuesday.

The 70-year-old rabbi, who founded the Liberal Jewish Movement of France, the nation's tiny Reform Judaism group, was grilled by investigators at a police station in Paris earlier today.

Amsterdam chief rabbi suspended for signing document saying homosexuality can be changed through therapy

2012-01-18T05:36:00.000-04:00

The chief rabbi of Amsterdam, Aryeh Ralbag, was temporarily relieved from his post Wednesday by the board of the Orthodox Jewish community, after he signed a document describing homosexuality as an inclination which “can be modified and healed.”

Ralbag, a US-born Orthodox rabbi nominated to head the Amsterdam community in 2005, had recently cosigned the document titled “Declaration On The Torah Approach To Homosexuality,” which called on “authority figures” to “guide same-sex strugglers towards a path of healing and overcoming their inclinations.”[...]

Historic Reconciliation between Satmar & Belz

2012-01-17T09:10:00.000-04:00

Arutz Sheva

A wave of excitement is gripping parts of the hareidi religious world as a historic reconciliation between the hassidic dynasties of Belz and Satmar is underway.

The Admor of Belz sent a delegation of ten dayanim (rabbinic judges), headed by his personal assistant, to the graves of Satmar Admorim, Baal Ha"Divrei Yoel" and Baal Ha"Berach Moshe," at the Kiryas Yoel cemetery in New York City. [....]

The Shaky Science of Shaken Baby Syndrome

2012-01-17T08:42:00.000-04:00

Time

On New York’s Rikers Island, the parents of baby Annie await trial for shaking their infant girl to death. Her mother and father deny harming their child in any way, but prosecutors claim the 70 day old baby died with a severely fractured skull and brain damage consistent with being shaken violently.

Shaken baby syndrome presents a terrifying dilemma to the criminal justice system: a false conviction leaves a grieving parent or other innocent in prison for years while an undeserved exoneration could allow a dangerous child abuser to kill again. Unfortunately, the medical science used to determine the cause of death in infants suspected of being shaken to death is far from precise, and certainly not conducive to the simple “guilty” or “not guilty” decisions that courts require. [...]

Ultra-Orthodox teens accost U.S. immigrant boy in Beit Shemesh

2012-01-17T04:06:00.000-04:00

On Monday, just two weeks after a big demonstration sparked by an incident in which an ultra-Orthodox man spat at a local 8-year-old girl dressed "immodestly," another student at Beit Shemesh's Orot state religious school was targeted by Haredi teens on the short walk home from school.

The victim this time was a third-grader, whose parents asked to identify him only as A. He was surrounded by a group of boys who shouted and spit at him and then threw a large rock in his direction that hit him in the back.[,,,,]

RaP's discussion of the scheduled Anusim Conference

2012-01-16T04:11:00.005-04:00

Guest Post by Recipients and Publicity:

The following appeared in the latest The Jewish Press. The article and comments and questions follow: The Jewish Press Page 44 Friday, January 13, 2012 South Florida

Anusim/Crypto Jewish Conference Scheduled

On January 2, 1492 the queen and king of Spain, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, signed the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews. It is estimated that 300,000 Jews lived in the country and only one third managed to get out and continue practicing their faith.

One hundred crossed the border to Portugal, where they considered to be being safe, but only five years later they were forcibly converted to Christianity. One hundred thousand were unable to leave Spain either took their faith underground or adopted the Catholic faith. The Church called them New Christians, but many of those New Christians were not so observant of their forced new faith, practicing their true Jewish beliefs secretly and within their homes.

Caminos de Israel is organizing its second annual Anusim and Crypt-Jewish Conference, with experts in the filed and Orthodox rabbis participating, on Sunday, February 12, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Marriot Dadeland in Miami. This year’s special speaker is a woman from Cuba who has traced her family’s Jewish ancestry all the way back to the 1400.

Due to limited seating, organizers ask that reservations be made in advance. Reservation in advance is $20 per person (at the door it’s $25 per person).

You can e-mail your reservation request to Loscaminosdeisrael@yahoo.com and you will receive a Pay Pal-secured link to make your reservation. If you wish to make your reservation over the phone call 786-306-8211.

For more information, or to schedule this type of event in your synagogue or community, call Rabbi Moshe Otero at 786 306-8211."

----------

RaP: Who is Rabbi Mariano Moshe Otero? A little Googling gives some answers. According to a 2003 article in The Miami Herald on the website of "The Jews of Cuba" http://www.jewishcuba.org/descendants.html : "Hundreds of Hispanics return to Jewish roots...Hundreds of Christian Hispanics in South Florida are discovering they are descendants of Jews who hid their faith...

Dozens of Cubans in exile, and even on the island where they were born and raised with different beliefs and identities, are discovering what their subconscious mind has suggested to them for years: their Jewish roots. Through identity papers, records and genealogical studies, many have confirmed their Jewish origins and are returning to the religion, usually through conversion...
This group of Cubans is not alone in its discovery. In South Florida and the rest of the Americas, hundreds of Christian Hispanic families are turning to Judaism in the belief that they are descendants of the marranos, the Jews who converted to Catholicism during the 15th Century Spanish Inquisition to avoid being burned at the stake, said Nathan Katz, head of Florida International University's Department of Religious Studies...
Mariano Moshe Otero, a 42-year-old Cuban American and a former evangelical minister, knew he was a Jew but had no proof. His mother told stories about his grandparents' home in Cuba, when they would cover the mirrors when someone died, a practice among some Jews.
One day, Otero, who is Orthodox, received a document that confirmed what he had always known. It was the birth certificate of his maternal grandmother, Dolores Caraza Levi, stating that she was a Jew. According to Rabbinic law, Judaism is passed down from the maternal side, which made Otero a member of the faith.
''I always felt I had a special connection,'' said Otero, who is taking Rabbinic studies and helping a dozen Cuban families in Miami track their religious roots through his organization Los Caminos de Israel -- The Roads to Israel...
Los Caminos de Israel -- The Roads to Israel -- helps Cuban families in Miami trace their religious heritage. For more information, call 786-306-8211."
The problems are glaring. What are the bona fides of "Rabbi Mariano Moshe Otero"? And given that the article states that he's "a former evangelical minister" who were and are his own rabbis and teachers that can support his claim that he renounced his Christian beliefs and which reliable posek and rov and rabbis, presumably a Bais Din, that can vouch for him and his claims that his proofs are 100% Halachically valid when he claims that he (in his own words:) "received a document that confirmed what he had always known. It was the birth certificate of his maternal grandmother, Dolores Caraza Levi, stating that she was a Jew. According to Rabbinic law, Judaism is passed down from the maternal side, which made Otero a member of the faith."?
The JP article and a number of sites of "Rabbi Mariano Moshe Otero" indicate that he is actively encouraging Hispanics to dig into their ancestry to find if they have any Jewish roots. This process could be applied in most lands where Jews lived for centuries and assimilated, not just Anusim.
There is a red line that is crossed, and NOT OFTEN GRASPED as well as OFTEN DELIBERATELY IGNORED, from doing acceptable normative outreach or Kiruv when the chances are fairly certain that the targeted students are Jewish, but to run around looking for potential converts and returnees with VERY shaky and doubtful connections to the Jewish people amounts to PROSELYTIZATION and is thus very dangerous to Judaism and the future of the Jewish people faced with ongoing assimilation, intermarriage and apostasy in the here and now, without having to dig up what may or may not have happened 500 years ago!
Since the Jewish Press is promoting this event in its paper it needs to act responsibly and provide the bona fides and more background about this organization and its Cuban American rabbi who also seems to be commercializing and making great efforts to raise huge funds as he advertizes on his own websites. This and more information about his goals, associations and activities can be traced from his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/mariano.otero page there are a number of links to his work:

Contact Information

	http://www.waysofisrael.com http://www.loscaminosdeisrael.com http://Www.radiotorah.com http://Www.radiotora.com http://Www.noahshouseinstitute.com http://www.noahshouse.net

So there is more information about him if one searches.. For example, see http://roshpinaproject.com/2010/03/17/introducing-mariano-moshe-otero-converting-to-hasten-moshiach-and-redemption/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introducing Mariano (Moshe) Otero – Converting to hasten Moshiach and Redemption

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Gev

Mariano (Moshe) Otero is a Cuban-American ex-Pentecostal minister in his late forties who promotes Noahide evangelism amongst Gentile Christians and kiruv evangelism amongst what he calls wayward and lost Jews. In his own words he states. “I am a former ordained Christian minister who has returned to (Orthodox) Judaism, the faith of my forefathers.” Otero says he always knew [he had no evidence, just a feeling] he was Jewish and had a special connection with the Jewish people. One day he got documents showing his maternal grandmother was Jewish, then he decided to convert to Judaism.
Otero is Founder and Director of the Spanish speaking Los Caminos De Israel (The Roads to Israel) in Hollywood, Florida, initially helping Cuban families in Miami track their religious roots. He leads the Ways of Israel and Noah’s House. He is a member of the First Covenant Rainbow Foundation.  Otero has Chabad connections as we also see with the YouTube clip at the end of this post which is festooned with references to the rebbe. Chabad Hollywood also partner with one of Otero’s prjoects.
Otero runs a radio show in Costa Rica aimed to convert Gentiles to keep Noahide laws. “The goal of TSHUVAfm is to be a means of communication for the Remnant of Israel in the Diaspora to have a real chance to reconnect with their true identity, and for non-Jewish people to discover the Seven Noahide Laws, as a precursor to the coming of the Messiah and the Redemption (Geula)“
Otero’s eschatological excitement is tangible in his comment here: “ The Christian world seems to be moving into a new direction. And I pray it will be one which will bring them closer to their first century roots: in which non-jews were Noahide observers–Yirat Shamayim. This fact alone herald the imminent coming of the Moshiach.”
Converting lost Jews to Judaism is seen as a trigger for the coming of Moshiach as we read in his comment here: “No one can doubt that Jewish Community is experiencing a wave of converts, and I expect this trend to grow with more intensity as we move closer to the time of the advent of the Mashiach.”
It seems that Otero has not changed much of his Pentecostal missionary zeal or beliefs about the imminent coming of Moshiach, only who that Moshiach will actually be!
[See YouTube video, 9 minutes:]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iJiKG6oh6fs "
RaP: The poster of that ends with a big worrisome implied question. As Bugs Bunny used to ask: "What's Up Doc?" :
"Gev on March 19, 2010 at 9:50 am said:

He sounds so much like a fundamentalist Christian when he talks about Jews and Gentiles converting is a precursor to the coming of Moshiach/Christ!"

Haredim protest arrest of scam suspects; 3 detained

2012-01-15T11:34:00.002-04:00

JPost
Haaretz

5:30 Sunday afternoon - I am sitting in my car in front of Manny's in Meah Shearim as I post this with the aid of a wireless modem. There are no signs of any riots and people are shopping as usual.

-------------------

Three haredi (ultra-Orthodox) demonstrators were arrested in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square on Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds of haredim had gathered to protest the arrest of six men from Mea She'arim for alleged involvement in a financial scandal earlier that day. The protesters threw rocks, calling police officers Nazis. A cameraman was reportedly injured.

6 chareidi activists arrested - including the gabbai of head of Eida Chareidis

2012-01-15T11:07:00.000-04:00

BCHOL

שישה עסקנים - ובהם משב"ק הגאב"ד - נעצרו לפנות בוקר • החשד: הלבנת הון ועבירות מס בהיקף של מיליונים בארגון 'הוועד הארצי' • 'העדה': ירושלים תבער • סיקור מיוחד

Israelis Facing a Seismic Rift Over Role of Women

2012-01-15T09:39:00.000-04:00

JERUSALEM — In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry.

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Jaded Jewish travel writer's first visit to Jerusalem

2012-01-14T19:33:00.000-04:00

As a traveler, I am not a particularly choosy person. I will go pretty much anywhere, anytime. Wander on horseback into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan? Why not? Spend the night in a sketchy Burmese border town? Sure! Eat my way through Bridgeport, Conn.? Loved it. Once, I even spent four consecutive Sunday nights in Geneva — in midwinter — an ordeal to which no rational adventurer would willingly submit.

In fact, of all the world’s roughly 200 nations, there was only one — besides Afghanistan and Iraq (which my wife has deemed too dangerous) — that I had absolutely zero interest in ever visiting: Israel.

This surprised friends and mildly annoyed my parents, who had visited quite happily. As a Jew, especially one who travels constantly, I was expected at least to have the Jewish state on my radar, if not to be planning a pilgrimage in the very near future. Tel Aviv, they’d say, has wonderful food![...]

Family claimed rabbi told them not to call police "since incest rape happens in many families"

2012-01-14T18:26:00.000-04:00

The State Prosecutor's Office has filed an indictment this week against two brothers who molested their younger sister, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday.

The abuse continued for years after a rabbi advised the parents against involving to the police, saying that such incidents "happen in many families."[...]

Ami magazine acknowledges poor judgment in their nazification of the White House

2012-01-14T18:08:00.000-04:00

Jewish Week

The editor of Ami Magazine acknowledged today that the front page of this week’s issue depicting the White House draped in Nazi flags with Nazi storm troopers marching in front “may have been a poor choice.”

Should a baseball hall of fame writer who is an alleged child abuser keep his award?

2012-01-14T17:24:00.001-04:00

Time magazine

It was fairly common that when I went to eat at Villa Gallace restaurant during spring training in Clearwater, Fla., I would run into Bill Conlin, the baseball columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Long before I joined the Philadelphia Phillies as a player with a team he covered very closely, I would know his work, his name. He spared no one from his wide-ranging critiques. Luckily, I was exempted from his harshest words in part because I happened to be his late wife’s favorite player.

So when I heard about the allegations against him — that he molested a group of young girls and a boy (including his niece who came forward over the holidays) — I was certainly appalled and caught off guard. A controversy is now brewing about whether his award for journalistic excellence given to him by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011 should be revoked and Conlin stripped of his place in Cooperstown. Character matters, it is argued, and I agree. Yet as it pertains to the award, it isn’t that simple.

The leadership vacuum facing ultra-Orthodox Jewry

2012-01-14T14:07:00.000-04:00

On the top floor of a Jerusalem hospital lays a very old man. He is slowly dying, but he won't be left in peace. A small circle of courtiers around him continue to issue in his name edicts and rulings, ensure that his signature still appears on letters and when his medical situation improves temporarily, they will remove him from hospital and seat him in his chair at the synagogue, where everyone can see him. The hospital staff grumbles that all this just prolongs the old man's agony, but there is nothing they can do as the retinue controls all the old man's moves.

Only a tiny handful of relatives and trustees are allowed to talk with him, and they jealously guard his real mental situation while everyone is told that he is fully lucid and talking with his family and doctors, praying and studying as normal.

This is how the great rabbis die nowadays. These were the circumstances of the last years of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as the Chabadniks fought over him, manhandling him to the window of his study so he could wave to the crowds on Eastern Parkway, steadily deifying him as he descended into his last coma. His body died in 1994, at the age of 92, but many of his followers still believe he is with us.

The Kavod Of A Bas Yisrael

2012-01-13T10:16:00.001-04:00

Five Towns Jewish Times

“i tried looking into her, but i dunno anybody that knows her or what she looks like . . . i’ll leave her name in the pile and may pursue it later if i find more info. thanks, Ploni.”

What you have just read is a genuine e‑mail received by a shadchan after forwarding a resumé to a young man. The e‑mail reflects what is wrong with some of the underlying attitudes that are prevalent in our community—at least among our young men. This e‑mail, of course, is not atypical or unique. It reveals an outlook, a mindset that is rampant in a world that has lost perspective and direction.

The resumé described a brilliant girl imbued with genuine chesed—a girl that the shadchan knew well. No matter. The young man will leave her name in the pile, which he may or may not pursue in the future. Why? Because in his cursory and superficial investigation, he couldn’t find anyone who knew her or what she looks like.

The young man’s thought process? We can only extrapolate. “Sorry. Gave her a chance. Let’s move on. Plenty of fish in the sea for me.”

Jewish chivalry, it seems, is not just dead, it is dead, buried, and so completely obliterated that we shall be lucky if it ever rises again.[...]

Legal fight to allow single women to use mikveh

2012-01-13T05:44:00.000-04:00

Plia Oryah, a 19-year-old Modi'in native, is among several parties to a December 29 petition asking Israel's Supreme Court to compel Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Religious Services Minister Yaakov Margi, and the Office of the Chief Rabbinate to reverse official directives to municipal and regional ritual bath operators. The directives explicitly deny access to women who are single, divorced or widowed.

"These are public facilities," charges Oryah, who said she considers herself to be Orthodox. "It's their job to operate and maintain the facilities, not to decide who can use them."

RJJ takes Kars4Kids Charity to secular court in tuition dispute after going to beis din

2012-01-12T14:30:00.000-04:00

Forward

An Orthodox Jewish charity known for its omnipresent radio jingles is embroiled in a federal lawsuit over $300,000 in scholarships that were allegedly promised to Jewish day school students.

Michael Hirsh - advanced use of computer technology

2012-01-11T14:21:00.003-04:00

this appeared in the January 4th edition of Hamodiah magazine

Eda Haredit denounces state ‘oppression’

2012-01-11T14:00:00.000-04:00

The ultra-Orthodox Eda Haredit (Badatz) organization published a harsh letter this week condemning the government and police for waging a war against “those who fear God,” and against “modesty and holiness.”

The letter, which appeared on posters in haredi (ultra- Orthodox) Jerusalem neighborhoods on Monday night, was written in the name of Rabbi Tuviah Weiss, the head of the Eda Haredit rabbinical court, and his deputy Rabbi Moshe Shternboch.

New Daas Torah & Child & Domestic abuse books - to be available in Jerusalem

2012-01-10T12:31:00.000-04:00

Depending upon the speed of shipment from America to Israel - the 2nd edition of Daas Torah as well as the 3 volumes of Child and Domestic Abuse will be available in Jerusalem book stores some time soon.

They should also be available in Brooklyn this week

Knesset members express outrage regarding disgraceful handling of Nachlot abuse case

2012-01-09T17:17:00.000-04:00

Knesset members from the Committee for the Rights of the Child expressed their outrage on Tuesday that a year-and- a-half after the largest pedophilia case in Jerusalem was uncovered, many of the suspects were still at large and coming into daily contact with their victims.

The committee held a special discussion about the pedophilia case that rocked a small, insular Jerusalem neighborhood this past year: More than a dozen perpetrators abused at least 100 children, starting as early as 2006.

Five men in their 40s and 50s were arrested in September, but police are still investigating additional claims of abuse.

“This scandal rocked our very foundations,” said MK Uri Maklev (United Torah Judaism), who initiated the discussion.

At least 9 suspects allegedly abused more than 70 children in Nachlot

2012-01-09T17:11:00.000-04:00

JPost

Police arrested three more men on Sunday morning in what they are calling Jerusalem’s largest-ever pedophilia case, with at least nine men suspected of abusing around 70 children in the Nahlaot neighborhood.

Police do not believe the suspects operated in an organized ring but rather that they knew of one another and sometimes carried out the abuse in pairs. More arrests are expected.

Ponivezh Rosh Yeshiva: We Deserve This

2012-01-08T14:08:00.001-04:00

Arutz Sheva

The Ponivezh Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein related to the media incitement against the Hareidim and said that in the face of such incitement, the Hareidim should realize it is a message from G-d. The only response can be the eradication of baseless hatred, and repentance.

Chareidi fanatics throw fish oil on rebbe's daughters in Mea Shearim - because they wear sheitels

2012-01-08T13:31:00.001-04:00

Kikar HaShabbat

מאה שערים: קיצונים שפכו שמן דגים על נשים חרדיות שחבשו פאה

אולי עכשיו כולם יבינו שבעיית הקיצוניים - מפריעה יותר לחרדים מהחילונים? בנותיו של אדמו"ר ידוע עברו במאה שערים כשהם חובשות פאה, אך למספר נטורי קרתא קיצוניים זה לא התאים. אלה החליטו לשפוך על בנותיו של האדמו"ר שמן דגים, ולהזיק להם ולבגדיהם. החסידים לא נשארו חייבים. במוצאי-שבת הם הגיעו לדירה והשחיתו את השלטים ואף ביצעו סדר בדירת הקיצונים האלימים

Afula rabbi charged with sexually assaulting minors

2012-01-08T13:10:00.003-04:00

The Northern District Prosecutor's Office has filed an indictment against Rabbi Yaakov Deutsch of Afula for allegedly sexually assaulting four minors who turned to him for spiritual guidance. [....]

http://www.vosizneias.com/97948/2012/01/02/new-york-an-open-letter-to-yossi-sarid-by-rabbi-yair-hoffman

According to the indictment, which was served by the northern district attorney’s office at Nazareth District Court, Deutsch, who has lived in Afula for forty years and has become an important local figure with a large following, abused his position to carry out a number of sexual offenses against minors.

New 2nd Edition of Daas Torah will soon be in Seforim Stores

2012-01-04T12:19:00.001-04:00

Possibly as of next week my new edition of Daas Torah will be in the
seforim stores in Brooklyn and elsewhere. It will still be available
through Amazon. List price will be $40.

Teachers rebel against becoming assistants to computer technology

2012-01-04T00:24:00.000-04:00

NYTimes

This change is part of a broader shift that is creating tension — a tension that is especially visible in Idaho but is playing out across the country. Some teachers, even though they may embrace classroom technology, feel policy makers are thrusting computers into classrooms without their input or proper training. And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.

“Teachers don’t object to the use of technology,” said Sabrina Laine, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which has studied the views of the nation’s teachers using grants from organizations like the Gates and Ford Foundations. “They object to being given a resource with strings attached, and without the needed support to use it effectively to improve student learning.”

In Idaho, teachers have been in open revolt. They marched on the capital last spring, when the legislation was under consideration. They complain that lawmakers listened less to them than to heavy lobbying by technology companies, including Intel and Apple. Teacher and parent groups gathered 75,000 verified signatures, more than was needed, to put a referendum on the ballot next November that could overturn the law.[...]

Religion and Sex in Israel: Street Clashes Over Defining a Jewish State

2012-01-03T04:15:00.001-04:00

Time

Israel seems to be at war with itself. For two weeks the Hebrew media have been dominated by street clashes between Jews arguing viciously over such matters as sleeve length and bus seating, which in the Israel of the moment are markers for the kind of country people want: Religious, or secular, or what balance of the two? It’s a conflict that goes back at least to the founding of Israel six decades ago, and grows more and more potent with the dramatic population growth of the most piously observant.

The latest flashpoint speaks volumes about the state of the nation: An eight-year-old girl stopped going to school after neighborhood men spat on her and called her a prostitute because even in long sleeves and a skirt her dress was deemed “immodest.” The men were extremist members of the ultra-Orthodox, the fastest-growing segment of Israel’s Jewish population. Known in Hebrew as Haredim, which roughly translates as God-fearing, ultra-Orthodox men are easily recognized by their signature black clothes and headgear (either wide-brimmed black felt or brimless beaver skin) their side locks and their agitation at being seated near women. [...]

Open letter to Yossi Sarid by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

2012-01-02T13:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Yossi Sarid, The horror that the overwhelming majority of Chareidi
Jews are feeling at the actions of the extremists is certainly deep. The
sickening demonstration of "cousins" of ours in holocaust garb is just
another illustration of how out of touch these Meah Shearim extremists
are with true Torah sensibilities. The Beit Shemesh extremists...

It is time to reclaim our inheritance from the extremists

2012-01-01T12:29:00.000-04:00

Guest post by Sarah Yehudit Schneider

A Teaching based on R. Tsadok HaKohen

Tsidkat HaTsadik #231

R. Yanai was journeying on the road when a man approached him and, with great enthusiasm, invited R. Yannai to his home for a meal. R. Yannai accepted the invitation. In the course of the meal R. Yannai probed the man’s literacy. Was there knowledge of Talmud? No. Medresh? No. Mishna? No. Scripture? No. As the meal concluded R. Yannai asked his host to recite the Grace after Meals for them. The man declined and deferred to R. Yannai. R. Yannai then asked the man if he could repeat the words that R. Yannai would speak. The man said he could and would. R. Yannai then (rudely) spoke the following sentence for him to repeat: “A dog has eaten of Yannai’s bread.”

The man grabbed R. Yannai by his collar and accused R. Yannai of theft: “You have stolen my inheritance, and are withholding it from me.” R. Yannai was shocked: “What inheritance is that,” he responded. The man answered that he had once passed by a school where children were memorizing scripture and the verse they were reciting was: “Moshe conveyed the Torah to us—an inheritance to the congregation of Yaakov.” The man challenged R. Yannai: “It does not say ‘congregation of Yannai’ but ‘congregation of Yaakov.’”

R. Yannai asked the man: “What earned you the merit of sharing a meal with me?” The man answered: “Never in my life have I repeated lashon hara, and never have I ever seen people quarrelling without making peace between them.”[Vayikra Rabba 9:3]

And so it is time to reclaim our inheritance from the extremists who are stealing it from us, distorting it beyond recognition, and using it as a club. Who are unilaterally decreeing that whole branches of our rich, complex, and paradoxical tradition are no longer daas Torah. We need to speak up and repossess our inheritance from the zealots like the man in this story. “You are stealing our inheritance. It is ours as much as yours…and WE are the (no longer silent) majority. It is ‘the inheritance of the entire congregation of Yaakov…NOT the congregation of zealots.’”

R. Tsadok uses this teaching to show how every Jew is a gadol in some area of Torah and an ignoramous in others. R. Yannai was a gadol in Talmud and an ignoramous is derekh eretz. His host, the opposite.

We cannot wait for leaders to speak up. We don’t have those kinds of leaders today. The people themselves have to take the lead, claim their truth, and speak it to the world. We cannot allow our precious inheritance to be hijacked and publicly degraded.

Thank you R. Eidensohn and R. Adlerstein for starting the process and providing the forum.

==================================================================
A STILL SMALL VOICE - Correspondence Teachings in Jewish Wisdom
Chabad St. 90/16      Tel/Fax (011-972-2) 628-2988
Jerusalem, 97500       smlvoice@netvision.net.il
Israel                         http://astillsmallvoice.org

New York Hasidic Women Want Separate EMT Unit

2011-12-30T16:56:00.001-04:00

NPR

If you live in New York City, you will often see the Orthodox Jewish ambulance service known as Hatzolah on the street. Hatzolah has some 1,200 volunteers — all men — in New York City and is known for its quick response time.

Now, a group of Hasidic female EMTs wants to create a women's division within Hatzolah, to help deliver babies in emergencies.

Deeply religious Hasidic men and women do not touch each other, unless they are immediate family. They don't shake hands. They don't sit next to each other on buses or at weddings. But when it comes to emergency births, the babies are often are delivered by male volunteers with Hatzolah. [...]

The Ugly Chareidim & their Frightened Leaders

2011-12-30T12:08:00.003-04:00

It is time to point out the obvious - the chareidim collectively are being viewed as vile, disgusting creatures. There are those who claim that it is because of the biased and hateful media while others say the odious behavior is obviously done by a bunch of extreme nuts in Israel. But after reading the embarrassing defense of chareidi idiots by so called moderate voices and after hearing the deafening silence of the leadership - (a press release of the Aguda & RCA is not sufficient) - there is a deeper problem which can't be blamed on others.

There has been a collective amnesia in the Chareidi world that we live in Golus. There is a further problem of Chareidi insisting on their so-called "rights" even when it severely offends everyone else. They have collectively forgotten that their main purpose is to create kiddush hashem and minimize chilul hashem. I have heard that since the Beit Shemesh activity and the fight for gender separation on public buses - there has been a significant drop in attendence at Arachim kiruv conferences. There has apparently been a drop of enrollment in schools by secular Jews who were attracted to the positive elements of religion.

The arrogance and distain that exists in religious circles literally scares not only the secular Jews but it also frightens the so called normal observant Jews. There is simply no leadership to stand up to religious coercion within the Charedei ranks. One gadol said, "Everyone knows that these activities are from the extremists so the majority are not being blamed. Everybody knows that these elements won't respond to criticism. So what is the benefit of protesting?"

The answer is simply - it is to reassure the rest of the world that the worst fears of the secular Jew about us are not true. This fear is a tremendous chilul hashem. It is not enough to call for the 99% of charedi to protest.

IT IS TIME FOR EVERY SINGLE LEADER TO SPEAK UP DIRECTLY. But sadly they are afraid.

Update: On my way to Boro Park for Shabbos, I was stopped in the Atlantic Avenue subway station by a goy who said he was from Trinidad. He said, "Do you know what is going on in Israel? Did you see the report from CNN? I know that you Jews treat women in a dignified fashion - but why are they forcing women to sit in the back of the bus? "

Rav Eliashiv bans Mishpacha Magazine

2011-12-30T11:36:00.000-04:00

bhol

"בל ייכנס לבתי היראים" • הגרי"ש אלישיב נגד 'משפחה' לראשונה: מכתב חריף, חתום בכתב ידו של הגרי"ש, פורסם ב'יתד נאמן' ו'המבשר' - נגד 'משפחה' • אוסר לסייע ל'משפחה', ומאשימו בסילוף 'השקפת התורה' • ולמה פורסם המכתב?

Necessary Chareidi response to the chilul HaShem of the fanatics

2011-12-29T10:57:00.000-04:00

Cross-currents by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

The Charedi Spring may have finally arrived. Eight year old Naama Margolese may do for Israel what a Tunisian street vendor did for the Arab world. The wave of revulsion for the behavior of the extremists, if sustained and channeled into focused police work, may release the Israeli public – both secular and charedi – from the tyranny of fanatics whose thuggery and primitivism ran unchecked in Meah Shearim for years.

The price we pay for it is a massive chilul Hashem, as hundreds of millions of people equate Torah with Taliban. The only partial antidote is for the genuine Orthodox world to do what Muslims do not do to their extremists. We must condemn with passion, conviction and without qualification.

As the numbers of Meah Shearim-grown extremists increased, they sought space in other communities. (It was not only a matter of space. They were repudiated by many in their own neighborhood, including the Edah Charedis, which was still unable to rein them in.) Large numbers settled upon the Beit Shemesh area. Their growing enclave in RBS-Bet gradually spread out, to the point that they found themselves in close proximity to existing neighborhoods of dati Leumi and conventional charedim. Ongoing clashes came to a head with the opening of a frum girls’ school on land the extremists coveted in the dati Leumi neighborhood of Scheinfeld. While the dispute has been going on for months, and while violently imposing their requirements on local businesses has taken place for years, the issue exploded upon the national and international scene through a clip from Israel’s Channel Two that has gone viral. Listening to an Anglo girl dressed in long sleeves and a skirt speak about her fears in simply crossing the street and having to run a gauntlet of taunts, curses, and spittle from bearded adults has turned out to be the impetus to galvanize a country – including many charedim – into taking action. Contrasting her angelic demeanor with the ugly rhetoric of one of the tormentors who is particularly honest about their objectives to take over the entire contributed to the mood of resistance.

Orthodox Rabbinic Group Won’t Take Position On Reparative Therapy For Gays

2011-12-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

Jewish Week

The Rabbinical Council of America said it will not take a position on so-called reparative therapy for gays.

In a statement released Monday, the RCA, the main umbrella group of centrist Orthodox rabbis, said it will neither “endorse nor reject any therapy or method that is intended to assist those ... struggling with same-sex attraction.” It further affirms that any therapy should be performed only by licensed practitioners.

RCA President Rabbi Schmuel Goldin told JTA that the statement did not represent a shift in the group's position.

Disgusting Chilul HaShem! Spitting on a 7 year old girl

2011-12-28T13:38:00.000-04:00

Index to Daas Torah 2nd edition

The latest battleground in Israel’s struggle over religious extremism covers little more than a square mile of this Jewish city situated between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and it has the unexpected public face of a blond, bespectacled second-grade girl.

She is Naama Margolese, 8, the daughter of American immigrants who are observant modern Orthodox Jews. An Israeli weekend television program told the story of how Naama had become terrified of walking to her elementary school here after ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her and called her a prostitute because her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code.

The country was outraged. Naama’s picture has appeared on the front pages of all the major Israeli newspapers. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Sunday that “Israel is a democratic, Western, liberal state” and pledged that “the public sphere in Israel will be open and safe for all,” there have been days of confrontation at focal points of friction here.

Preventing homosexual contact in schools & camps

2011-12-28T03:13:00.000-04:00

An experienced educator raised the following concerns with me. Western society has experienced a radical change in attitude towards homosexuality in recent years. It is no longer viewed as a sign of mental illness or moral depravity but rather a legitimate sexual expression. The stigma and shame of engaging in homosexual activity has decreased drastically. Thus while it is true that such activity has happened in the past in dormitories or camps - either between a teenage boy and younger children or between peers who are exploring their sexuality - the frequency seems to be increasing or at least the awareness has sharply increased. At the same time - the Torah absolutely prohibits such behavior calling it an abomination.

His questions were 1) how to react if two boys are discovered to have willingly engaged in homosexual activity? 2) Is there any way for the staff of a yeshiva or camp to identify boys who might be prone to such behavior or those who engage in it. 3) at what age does this type of activity stop being the result of exploration of sexuality and instead indicate relatively stable sexual identity? 4) When is it best to advise psychotherapy rather than silence? 5) under what circumstances should such boys either be refused admission to yeshiva/camp or be sent home and when should they be allowed to stay under watchful eyes and close supervision. 6) Is it better to provide some type of general educational program to explicitly warn against such behavior or is it more beneficial to maintain the present approach of not to mentioning such activity so as to not arouse curiousity and attention? 7) Are there any differences between boys and girls in this matter? 8) Is there any proven way to discourage homosexual attractions and develop exclusive heterosexual interest?

2nd edition of Daas Torah available now for $35

2011-12-27T01:50:00.003-04:00

The 2nd expanded edition is 822 page - English only. Approximately 200 new pages were added. There are additional chapters concerning the Satmar Rebbe's views on the 6 Day War, rabbinic authority, Daas Torah as well as Science and disagreeing with authorities. A portion of this new material has been posted on this blog, Most of the material from the first edition has been retained but has been reorganized. This edition is available only in paperback.

View first 52 pages including Table of Contents

My Amazon e Store - Purchase by clicking this link - greater royalty for me from this option

or order directly from Amazon - with option of free shipping

Many who have a good Jewish education in yeshiva or seminary regarding Jewish law and observance – often lack a deep and mature knowledge of Jewish Theology. Furthermore as a psychotherapist working in the Orthodox world – I often see clients whose problems are more issues of misunderstanding of Judaism rather than psychological issues per se. Knowledge of Jewish Theology is often restricted to a few platitudes such as “ You should love your fellow man” or “G-d runs the world” or mistaken ideas such as that Judaism doesn’t require any specific beliefs but only deeds. These concerns obviously apply even more to someone without a good Jewish education. In addition, teachers often expend hours looking for relevant material to explain a particular concept and students often need additional sources to get a clarify of subtle points.

This is a rich source book for those who would like to delve into the rich and nuanced discussions of classical Jewish theology. It is the work of over 10 years of compilation, translation and organizing. This work removes a number of hurdles 1) The original Hebrew has been translated into contemporary English 2) A wide variety of sources are quoted to avoid presented a biased and distorted view of a particular topic 3) There is no attempt to prove or force a particular view and thus contradictory views are presented 4) There is no censoring of material which might not be politically correct to current understandings but was acceptable for thousands of years.

As Rav Eliashiv told me, “You don’t avoid teaching Torah because it might cause confusion or questions. That is why a person has a teacher or rebbe.” As Rav Moshe Shapiro advised, “Let the sources speak for themselves.”

Ultra-Orthodox, Israel Police clash in Beit Shemesh; officer wounded

2011-12-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

haaretz

Police arrest two after residents chase officers, hurl rocks, and burn trashcans to protest the removal of a sign that calls for the separation of men and women on a main street.

Har Nof Pedophile: Rav Sternbuch's Psak

2011-12-25T04:58:00.005-04:00

Rav Sternbuch's gabbai sent me the following clarification:

The Rav told me to publicise in his name that he has not allowed any chillul Shabbos midaorayso, the Rav feels that if there is no issur Torah it is allowed what is absolutely necessary as this is a tzorah drabim, this does not include taking photos . The rav has never allowed going around with a telephone and camera on Shabbos, in special situations a rav must be consulted.

Rafoel Rechnitzer

---------------------------------
I also confirmed with Rav Treibitz that he gave a heter [for those who had seem him] to call the police on Shabbos and to carry a camera on Shabbos to take his picture because the police said that if they knew what he looked like they would surely catch him. He told me that unfortunately there have been a number of victims already.

Divorce - problems of using secular court & beis din

2011-12-23T00:41:00.000-04:00

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

This opinion was issued by New Jersey's Appellate Division this past week. While I know little- if anything- about divorce law, I wish to make the following observations.

Some states have laws which require gittin to be issued prior to the settling of a civil divorce. Obviously, New Jersey isn't one of these states. We should encourage those "askonim" (read as the Aguda, OU, et al) to try to pass similar legislation in states such as NJ.

Sadly, I happen to know the husband in the NJ case. While I do not know this person well, and am not intimately familiar with the situation, this specific case has been festering in the Passaic community for several years. Whomever handled this issue from the rabinical side clearly botched it. As with other issues addressed in your blog, our rabonnim need training on how to address these issues properly.

Aside from the primary rabbi(s) involved, the beis din involved also clearly mishandled this situation. We must encourage bottei dinim to seek the assistance of attorneys when drafting such resolutions. The Court's opinion is heavily reliant on the unclear language in the beis din's ruling. B'H, some bottei dinim use attorneys (the RCA has one on staff).

It is clear that we have professionals in our communities who can assist with all of these necessities. What is unclear is whether the entrenched establishment will issue a mea culpa and seek help.

*Disclaimer: I do not practice divorce law and do not intend to dispense legal advice. As an attorney in private practice, please note that the foregoing is my opinion and not that of my employer.

A freilechen Channukah

-SYS

A Jewish Santa puts on Tefilin

2011-12-22T15:39:00.000-04:00

Crown Heights Info

Survivor of Incest replies to Dr. Lipner

2011-12-22T12:48:00.000-04:00

Dear Rabbi/Doctor Lipner, (I'm not sure which title is appropriate.)

I'm deeply moved by your response to my letters. I just want to express my gratitude to you for your kind words to me. They are indeed very encouraging. May Hashem lead us to the point where we have totally extracted all lessons that we collectively need to learn from this horrifically painful, and exasperatingly complicated ordeal called incest, and molestation. And may we merit to transform all its darkness into brilliant lights, speedily in our days!! Amen!!

Shas rabbi's son: OK to sit next to woman

2011-12-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

Clarification by Survivor of Incest

Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has yet to address the exclusion of women issue. But his son, Holon's Chief Rabbi Avraham Yosef on Wednesday slammed the "kosher" bus lines phenomenon.

"There is no exclusion when it comes to a strange woman," he said in regards of gender segregation supporters. "Apart from touching, apart from looking, apart from smelling any good smell she may have put on herself – we should not be interested in anything else." [...]

Study shows: The richer you are - the less compassion you have

2011-12-21T13:21:00.001-04:00

Time Magazine

Pity the poor plutocrat. Politicians want to tax them, Occupy Wall Streeters mock them, 99% of their fellow citizens are mad at them (even if they secretly want to be one of them). Now comes word from the University of California, Berkeley, that is not likely to send their approval ratings any higher: a new study has confirmed that the richer you are the less compassionate you are — and don't gloat, you upper-middle classers, that includes you too. [...]

When the numbers on these inventories were crunched, Stellar and her colleagues found no meaningful personality differences among the students that could be attributable to income except one: across the board, the lower the subjects' family income, the higher their score on compassion.

Philadelphia Sportswriter Accused of Child Molestation

2011-12-20T22:25:00.000-04:00

NY Times

A prominent Philadelphia sportswriter abruptly retired Tuesday as three women and one man accused him of sexually molesting them when they were children in the 1970s, according to an investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The sportswriter, Bill Conlin, 77, a member of the news media wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a columnist for The Philadelphia Daily News for more than four decades, abused the children when they were from ages 7 to 12, they told The Inquirer in graphic detail in an article posted on the paper’s Web site.[...]

Dr. Asher Lipner: Response to Letter from Survivor of Incest

2011-12-20T13:33:00.001-04:00

Original Letter

Comments

=======================================

My response to the writer:

I admire your courage and strength. You have survived great emotional trauma and made a life for yourself. You are healthy enough to both recognize conflicted feelings about some of the most complex issues a person can face and to express them clearly and honestly. Whatever more you do, and wherever you go from here, I want you to know that I feel honored to address you because of the specialness of your accomplishments, and what you have to offer the community and the world with your wisdom.

I have been faced with similar questions plaguing others. I too am a survivor of abuse by my Rebbe, which poses a different set of questions and emotional conflicts, but I know many other people who have survived incest.

The reason that contacting law enforcement is almost always a good idea is for safety. In the case you quote of the author whose problems changed when police were brought in to stop her from being abused in her family, experiencing incest on an ongoing basis creates such a high level of risk for damaging one's life, that no serious consideration can be given to "collateral damage" that occurs when stopping the abuse. This is the halacha, and the law in most civilized countries, and while not necessarily true 100% of the time, from a clinical perspective the vast majority of the time the "new" problems are not as permanently scarring and damaging as child sexual abuse allowed to continue.

As for contact with family, each survivor needs to work this out for themselves. It sounds like you have a conflict about wanting to stop the charade which feels soul-killing on the one hand, but wanting to keep it up for the outside world so that you will not have to lose communal status on the other. This situation presents you with little alternative but to make the choice you have made: to cut off ties to your family. What if you were to break the charade ONLY inside the family? What if you confronted all the members and tell them how you feel? That you can understand why showing a united and positive front to the outside has benefits, but at least internally can everyone acknowledge that there has been grave sinning and abuse that has gone on, and can they not only validate you, but work with you to hold your father accountable, and make him do Teshuva? You might be able to have your cake and eat it to. You could get healing support and validation from your family members, thereby allowing you to have contact with them without feeling "killed", while at the same time you would give up the validation of your story by the whole world, by choosing to keep the healing process within the family. Another advantage of confrontation vs. total distance, is that it is another step towards making others safe from your father. Do you never worry about your nieces and nephews? Since your father has admitted his behavior, there is some reason to hope that others will support you, because they will not be able to deny it happened, which is usually the way family members choose to avoid having to deal with the problem.

What I am suggesting is just that, a suggestion. It is not intended to state "the right thing to do". Each situation is different, and there is no one size fits all right or wrong answer when it comes to healing.

Good luck, and Hashem should continue to give you strength in your healing,

Asher

If there were another way to stop the abuse without the police, such as removing the children from the home, that might be preferable in some cases, but that does not always stop the abuse. As long as the molester still is allowed contact with the child, there is risk of continued abuse, and unless you involve the courts, it is impossible to guarantee that such access will be denied.

Another reason to involve the police is to protect other people. While many children do survive and some even go on to thrive after sexual abuse, removing the child from the home does not stop the abuser from molesting other children. The only way to provide serious protection for all children from an identified child molester is to have the molester confronted and held accountable in a court of law. This would not only help the child who is being molested be protected, other children the molester may have access to be protected, but it would also create a situation in which the molester can be helped to stop his criminal behavior and live a more healthy life. The victims need therapy, but the molesters need to be helped as well, and for them, treatment is usually only even somewhat effective if it is court mandated and monitored.

Rabbi Pinto’s Followers Blame Aides for Missing Millions

2011-12-20T13:05:00.000-04:00

Six years ago, an Orthodox rabbi and mystic who traces his lineage to King David moved to New York from Israel and amassed a notable following. Real estate titans fetched him at the airport. Members of Congress attended his Hebrew classes. Even LeBron James, who is not Jewish, borrowed a friend’s yacht to consult the rabbi in private.

Lately though, the image of the rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, 38, has seemed tarnished. Millions of dollars in donations to the rabbi’s congregation cannot be accounted for, according to his aides and lawyers. Articles in Jewish publications have questioned his judgment. Camera crews have trailed him, with reporters shouting questions about improprieties.

Now, the rabbi’s close followers are disclosing what they say is the source of many of his troubles. They said they told federal investigators that the rabbi had been the victim of a bizarre embezzlement and extortion plot that was carried out by two former members of his inner circle, who stole his congregation’s money and tried to frame him.[...]

Supportive Steps After a Sexual Assault

2011-12-20T01:34:00.001-04:00

NY Times

Do you know what to do if you or someone close to you becomes the victim of a sexual assault? A national survey released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that sexual assaults are far more common than previously believed, with nearly one woman in five reporting that she had been the victim of rape or attempted rape.

Ideally, anyone who has been forced into a sexual act should be seen within 24 hours at a hospital emergency room where a specially trained team provides medical care and counseling, collects high-quality forensic evidence and supports often terrified victims who may — or may not — choose to pursue legal action.

Unless you already know the best place to go, call a rape crisis hot line, regardless of the nature of the assault and even if the attack occurred days or weeks earlier. There’s a hot line in every community, according to Dr. Judith A. Linden, an emergency physician at Boston University School of Medicine, where she treats victims and trains medical personnel how to be sensitive and thorough in examining people who have been sexually assaulted.[...]

In Israel's past bastions of secularism, religious debates flare

2011-12-19T13:27:00.001-04:00

The disagreement over worship traditions at Matzuva is just one example of the conflicts that have developed in the past several years at dozens of kibbutzim around the country. In some the issue is which stream or tradition to follow, while at others the dispute is over whether to build a synagogue on the kibbutz and where to put it: at the center of the community, or off the beaten path. Economic issues are also involved: The Religious Services Ministry spends hundreds of thousands of shekels every year to build synagogues in kibbutzim that want it.[...]

Dr. Moti Zeira, director of Oranim College's HaMidrasha Educational Center for the Renewal of Jewish Life in Israel, ascribed the current conflict to increased religious observance in Israel and a change in the kibbutz population. He said kibbutzim were influenced by the move toward increasing religious observance that began in the 1980s. "Young kibbutz members who became observant and stayed on kibbutz demanded venues for worship, posing a challenge from within that strikes a sensitive nerve," Zeira said. At the same time, many kibbutzim are absorbing new members, or nonmember residents, who want religious services.[...]

'Discrimination against women to be seen as crime'

2011-12-19T12:29:00.001-04:00

Jpost

Jerusalem - Police commissioner Insp.-Gen. Yochanan Danino ordered his commanders and officers to enforce a zero tolerance policy towards discrimination against women on Monday, following a string of incidents involving the negative treatment of women by haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men in public areas in recent days.

According to guidelines sent by Danino to police commanders, any form of discrimination against women must be treated as a criminal offense or a public disorder incident.

Danino accompanied the orders with a condemnation of the phenomenon, describing “any attempt to harm the rights of women” as unacceptable.

Child abuse is often unreported - few are punished for violating mandatory reporting laws

2011-12-19T11:26:00.001-04:00

USA Today

For counterpoint http://www.nccpr.org/reports/mandatoryreporting.pdf

[...] Yet a USA TODAY examination of police and court records from across the USA found that a combination of infrequent enforcement and small penalties means adults often have little to fear from concealing abuse.[...]

Child welfare agencies estimate that 695,000 children were abused or neglected last year, but studies have repeatedly found that even more abuse goes unreported.

In a 1990 RAND Corp. survey, for example, 40% of professionals admitted they had not reported at least one instance of suspected abuse, even though the law required them to do so. In a 2008 study published in the journal Pediatrics, medical researchers found that doctors chose not to report more than a quarter of physical injuries they thought were "likely" or "very likely" caused by abuse. The studies found that workers weren't certain what they saw was abuse, and they worried that reporting their suspicions could do more harm than good. [....]

Thousands of Haredim protest in Jerusalem over Zionist take over of the tomb of the Rashbi

2011-12-19T11:07:00.000-04:00

YNET

Thousands of haredim took part in a demonstration in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square Sunday night to protest a decision to establish a state authority which will be responsible for the tomb of Simeon bar Yochai in Mount Meron. Among the protesters were prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis and leaders.

Chareidim order woman to sit in back of public bus - she refuses

2011-12-18T10:59:00.000-04:00

Ynet

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz on Sunday ordered an official investigation into an incident in which a young woman was told to sit in the back of a bus driving from Ashdod to Jerusalem due to haredi protest.

The incident happened on Friday when Tanya Rosenblit, 28, was on Egged bus 451. "I dressed modestly and tried to keep a low profile, but I could tell something strange was going on," she told Yedioth Ahronoth.

"I could tell that the other passengers were looking at me with disdain. One of them yelled 'Shiksa' at me and demanded I move to the back of the bus, because Jewish men can't sit behind a woman."

2 NJ day schools accuse female teacher of "inappropriate sexual contact"

2011-12-15T15:19:00.000-04:00

Jewish Standard

Two New Jersey Jewish schools have announced that a teacher they formerly employed had “inappropriate sexual contact” with student.

Both the Torah Academy of Bergen County, in Teaneck, and the Jewish Educational Center, in Elizabeth, sent out letters informing their parent bodies that they had recently been informed of the incidents of sexual contact with the teacher, who is female. The incidents had occurred prior to this year.

The schools indicated that they immediately contacted the police, who opened investigations.

Survivor of Incest clarifies her letter

2011-12-15T14:58:00.001-04:00

This is a clarification of the original letter in response to my comments and those of other readers

Dear Rabbi Eidensohn,

It seems like there are some misunderstandings about some aspects of my situation.So let me set things straight.

I had no recollection of the abuse until a few years after my wedding, when I entered therapy for a seemingly different problem, (more about that later.) I believe the reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, yes, trauma often gets suppressed. But an equally important reason is that I had no way of knowing when I was going through the abuse that this was not ok. Of course it didn’t feel ok, but I knew nothing about sex, had no language about what was happening, thus I didn’t even have the tools to be able to ask myself whether what my father was doing was ok or not. I believed I was special, and that is why my father was doing this with me, and probably nobody else in the world (certainly not my friends,) has had, or will ever have this experience. I definitely had no clue that this is something all married adults do, and it is not meant for children, or for anyone else besides one’s spouse. I knew about immorality being one of the three cardinal sins that one must give their lives for, yet I had no idea what immorality was, and certainly had no idea that this was what my father was doing.

In addition, please understand that it was totally inconceivable to me that my father would do anything against Halacha, since he was my primary educator regarding Yiddishkeit, so to me, for sure my father was a bigger Yirea Shomayim then I was. (And those of you familiar with the Chassidishe education system, I’m sure you can realize how we inculcate this notion into our children that the previous generations are for sure much better than the later ones. After all, the whole issue of Massorah, in a way, hinges on this belief.)

When I found out about sex, a few weeks before my wedding, it was already a couple of years after the last time my father actually lived with me, so although, under the surface there were loads of issues there for me, yet I didn’t have any landing space for the truth to come up and be exposed to me consciously.

Then, a few years after my wedding, I hit a rock bottom regarding a seemingly unrelated issue, and it was suggested to me that I go for therapy, which I did. It took a year of intensive therapy until I realized that what my father did on a regular basis was sexual abuse, and then, once I realized that, the more suppressed memories of actually living with my father came to the forefront.

Even after the truth was clear to me, it still took another full year of therapy until I was ready to deal with the incest. I needed to take the time in therapy to reexamine who my father really is, character wise, in order for me to be able to accept and deal with the information I now had.

Based on my experience, regarding what it took for me to be able to come face to face with what really happened, I wrote to you in a previous comment that I strongly feel that the majority of incest victims in the Chassidishe communities are not even aware that they are victims.

I have been on an intensive healing journey since my discovery (for close to 20 years,) and look forward to continue on this path for the rest of my life. Baruch Hashem, I can now say that so much of who I am today would not have been possible had I not had the incest in my history. Healing from the incest has forced me to grow in ways that would never have been possible for me had I not had my history. And I believe growth is really what life is all about, and where the pleasure is at.(I hope it is self understood that I’m not in any way justifying abuse by making the above statements. Hashem runs this world, and ultimately no harm befalls us that isn’t leading to our higher good, in this world or the next. Yet this doesn’t at all excuse or mitigate the actions of the perpetrator, who is clearly responsible for his deeds.

Now let me share with you an excerpt of my first letter in order to clarify the point I was trying to make.

I often ponder, “As a child going through the abuse, knowing what I know now as an adult that has been through close to 20 years of intense healing, what would I have wanted other adults to have done to help me back then?” And I cannot say that reporting it to the authorities is the answer. I would have wished for someone, perhaps an aunt or other family member or family friend, to step in and remove me from my family, without exposing to the world what was really happening, (like by forcing my parents to send me to seminary, or by sending me to live with a grandparent with the excuse that the grandparents need a grandchild with them, etc.) In addition, I wish they would have sent me for therapy right then as a teenager

Had the authorities been called into the picture, and my family would have been exposed, I fear I would have never been comfortable in the community again. Certainly I wouldn’t have been able to do the shidduch I did, or hold the prestigious job I hold. It is sad, but it is just the fact, that our community would surely consider someone like myself as damaged goods, had they been told the truth. So I keep asking myself, is it really right for us to take a stand that calling in the authorities in such situations is the only correct thing to do? After all, isn’t it the victim’s life that we are here to improve, and does calling in the authorities, especially in cases of incest really help the victim in the long run?

I think I have made it quite clear that removing the child from the family and getting them into therapy, needs to be the top priority in order to help the victim.

Of course there is also the other issue of protecting potential victims, yet this is not the point I’m focusing on in my letter, rather my question is, what is best for the victim. (Though I do affirm that we are commanded לא תעמד על דם ריעך and if we are able to prevent someone from being abused, and we don’t, we share the liability together with the perpetrator.)

Now, quoting your letter, "living a good and productive life at the cost of living a lie,” I believe that is an oxymoron. Learning to live a good life publicly while privately suffering the painful consequences of being a victim of incest, what is the benefit of living a good life publicly when one is suffering privately?

I don’t see myself as one who lives a lie. Both of my parents are aware of my truth, and more importantly, I do not participate in family functions where I perceive that my presence is an acquiescence to my family’s façade, no matter how weird this looks to others, or how uncomfortable it makes others feel. But perhaps most importantly, because of all the help I received over the years, and my husband’s continuous staunch validation, I know, and totally accept my truth.I choose not to share about my incest with my next door neighbor, school friends, or husband’s family simply because I feel the community just can’t handle it, and chances are they will ostracize me rather than face the truth, or at best, just simply be freaked out by me and my existence. After all, I know what it took for me to be able to digest the information of incest existing in the Chassidishe world, even though I only stood to gain by assimilating that fact, and I was in intense therapy to help me along.So what can I expect of the average Chassidishe community member?

There is just so much more I can say about this point, that I have come to understand while grappling with all this over the years, yet I do realize that this letter is long enough already as is.

So thanks again for giving me the space to clarify myself, and wishing you much further success.

Jerusalem Conference on Abuse - Rav Zev Leff & Dr. David Pelcovitz January 22, 2012

2011-12-15T14:26:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn D.A. Refuses To Name Child Sex Abusers

2011-12-15T14:19:00.000-04:00

Forward

Law enforcement officials, legal experts, advocates and politicians have questioned why Brooklyn’s District Attorney arrested 85 Orthodox adults on child sex abuse charges but refuses to release their names.

In just three years, District Attorney Charles Hynes has arrested 83 Orthodox men and two women on charges including sexual abuse, attempted kidnapping and sodomy.

But when asked to reveal names — even of the 14 abusers who were convicted of sex crimes — Hynes refuses.[...]

Abused Israeli guru's 17 wives & 38 children received millions in aid

2011-12-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

Many of the wives of Goel Ratzon, the self-styled spiritual guru arrested nearly two years ago for terrorizing and abusing them and their children, are still suffering hardship despite the millions of shekels the state has spent on their rehabilitation.

Ratzon's 17 wives and their 38 children have received more than NIS 3.4 million in government aid through the Social Affairs Ministry, an unprecedented sum that is far beyond what is usually granted abused women who leave their homes. The funding covered such things as removing tattoos and covering debts of several hundred thousand shekels.

Alleged child molester Herschel Taubenfeld of New Square turned himself into Ramapo Police

2011-12-14T16:34:00.001-04:00

Rockland County Times

Alleged child molester Herschel Taubenfeld of New Square has turned himself into Ramapo Police as of 10:30 a.m. this morning. Previously he had fled the area when word of his impending arrest got around.

Sources said Taubenfeld is a well-connected resident of the Hasidic village. Recently a victim of Taubenfeld came forward willing to go through with the prosecution of the case and the sources said police are likely to arrest others in Taubenfeld's circle in the coming weeks. Police have taken a heightened interest and been more successful in pursuing such cases within the Hasidic community, since certain activists like Brooklyn Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg have made light of the abuse.

Others have also helped, though most would rather not have their names known. These activists have been setting up support networks for victims of abuse, as the most difficult aspect of prosecuting abuse charges is finding a victim willing to go through the trauma of the legal process.[...]

Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Report Sexual Assault

2011-12-14T15:38:00.000-04:00

NY Times

An exhaustive government survey of rape and domestic violence released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence against women remains endemic in the United States and in some instances may be far more common than previously thought.

Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point, and one in four reported being beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women have been stalked, according to the report.

“That almost one in five women have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people,” said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey. “I don’t think we’ve really known that it was this prevalent in the population.”[...]

Rabbi expected to plead guilty to sex abuse

2011-12-14T13:03:00.000-04:00

Boston Globe

In a case that highlighted concerns about sexual abuse in Jewish communities, a rabbi who taught at one of the region’s most prestigious Jewish day schools is expected to plead guilty today to molesting three sixth-graders during the 1970s, according to two of his alleged victims and others familiar with the case.

Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt, a former religious studies teacher at the Maimonides School in Brookline, was indicted by a Suffolk grand jury two years ago after one of his students, Michael Brecher, told Suffolk prosecutors that Levitt molested him when he was an 11-year-old patient at Children’s Hospital Boston, and a second student said Levitt abused him in the shower of his Brighton home.[...]

"Is the police the best solution" part II - Response to the letter from survivor of incest

2011-12-14T11:31:00.001-04:00

The letter I received and published from a survivor of incest - has attracted many readers and a number of comments. It as a sensitive and cogent expression of the complexity of the horrific reality of abuse in our communities. I have done a lot of thinking about her questions and how to respond to them. I am not going to complete that task today but simply want to summarize the issues she presents and then perhaps tomorrow to suggest some answers. I want to make sure I understand her letter properly.

She describes herself as a woman from a distinguished Orthodox Jewish family. Her father's sexual attacks happened when she was a child - and due to the resulting trauma - the memory of the rape was suppressed until after she got married. She was not protected or comforted from this rape nor did she receive therapy when it was discovered - apparently therapy started only many years later when she was married for a number of years. She is now living a good and productive life - but at the cost of living a lie regarding her past and being alienated from her family. Part of her concern is that if she had been fully aware of the abuse and if it became public knowledge due to the arrest of her father - she would not have gotten such a good shidduch. Therefore her question comes down to the costs-benefits analysis of having her father arrested for his horrible crime or whether it is better to live a lie in regards to the past - and have a good future?

The tenor of the letter seems to presuppose that there is either a choice of calling the police and having everything exposed and the possibility of a normal life forever destroyed or covering up abuse and learning to live a good life publicly while privately suffering the painful consequences of being a victim of incest.

I hope to show that the response to abuse is more varied and nuanced. [To be continued]

Israeli identity crisis - Who are we?” - Thomas Friedman

2011-12-14T10:54:00.001-04:00