Arabs riot as Illegal homes demolished

JPost reports:

Jerusalem Municipality wreckage crews on Wednesday demolished two illegally built Arab home in east Jerusalem, prompting skirmishes in the area throughout the afternoon, police said.

The court-ordered demolition in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, which was carried out under heavy police guard, quickly erupted into violence after dozens of local residents pelted police with stones and hurled a firebomb at police, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

Police responded by firing stun grenades to disperse the crowd. There were no casualties reported in the two-hour altercation.

Later, some of the residents barricaded themselves in one of the homes slated to be torn down, but eventually agreed to leave the building, furniture in hand, after lengthy negotiations with police.

The city said that the two homes, one of which was inhabited, were built in "green areas" where construction is forbidden, and that they were both razed by court-order after appeals against their demolition were turned down.

Since the beginning of the year, the municipality has carried out 108 demolitions, including 78 in east Jerusalem and 30 in west Jerusalem, the city said in a statement.

Palestinians and left-wing Israelis complain that is difficult for Arabs to obtain building permits in Jerusalem, forcing them to build illegally, while the municipality insists it is evenhanded in enforcing building codes in all parts of the city.

The issue of Arab house demolitions is especially explosive in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state.[...]

Same-sex marriages banned in California

Los Angeles Times reports:
A measure to once again ban gay marriage in California was passed by voters in Tuesday's election, throwing into doubt the unions of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who wed during the last 4 1/2 months.

As Proposition 8, the most divisive and emotionally fraught issue on the state ballot this year, took a lead in early returns, supporters gathered at a hotel ballroom in Sacramento and cheered.

"We caused Californians to rethink this issue," Proposition 8 strategist Jeff Flint said.

Early in the campaign, he noted, polls showed the measure trailing by 17 points.

"I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn't we let gay couples get married. And I think we made them realize that there are broader implications to society and particularly the children when you make that fundamental change that's at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage," he said.

In San Francisco on Tuesday night at the packed headquarters of the "No on 8" campaign party in the Westin St. Francis Hotel, supporters heard from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose decision to issue same-sex wedding licenses in his city led to the court ruling that made gay marriage briefly legal in the state. .

"You decided to live your life out loud. You fell in love and you said, 'I do.' Tonight, we await a verdict," Newsom said, speaking to a roaring crowd before final returns were in.

Elsewhere in the country, two other gay-marriage bans, in Florida and Arizona, also won. In both states, laws already defined marriage as a heterosexual institution. But backers pushed to amend the state constitutions, saying that doing so would protect the institution from legal challenges.

Proposition 8 was the most expensive proposition on any ballot in the nation this year, with more than $74 million spent by both sides.

The measure's most fervent proponents believed that nothing less than the future of traditional families was at stake, while opponents believed that they were fighting for the fundamental right of gay people to be treated equally under the law.

"This has been a moral battle," said Ellen Smedley, 34, a member of the Mormon Church and a mother of five who worked on the campaign. "We aren't trying to change anything that homosexual couples believe or want -- it doesn't change anything that they're allowed to do already. It's defining marriage. . . . Marriage is a man and a woman establishing a family unit."[...]

The battle was closely watched across the nation because California is considered a harbinger of cultural change and because this is the first time voters have weighed in on gay marriage in a state where it was legal.

Kosher meat shortage

Forward reports [sent by RaP]
Buffalo Lake, MN- In developments that are likely to cripple the availability of kosher beef in large parts of America, three of the five largest slaughterhouses producing kosher beef have halted production this week.

All eyes have been on the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, in Postville, Iowa, which stopped producing beef last week due to a series of legal problems and arrests at its parent company, Agriprocessors. That company also owns a slaughterhouse in Gordon, Neb., which is thought to be the nation’s fifth-largest plant producing kosher meat. While little attention has been paid to the Gordon plant, local officials told the Forward that it stopped operating in October.

Now, in unrelated developments, executives at America’s third-largest kosher beef slaughterhouse, located in Minnesota, told the Forward that production there has been brought to a complete halt due to a fire.

“We’re not killing anything right now,” said Bill Gilger, CEO of North Star Beef, which is located in Buffalo Lake, Minn. “We’re adding to the shortage of kosher beef, having nothing to do with what is going on Postville, but just to do with our own situation here.”

“Whatever it is, there’s going to be a tremendous void in the market,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of O.U. Kosher, the largest certifying agency for kosher meat. [...]

Financial Crisis - day of prayer scheduled

Haaretz reports:

The ultra-Orthodox community is planning a day of prayer to encourage continued funding of its schools.

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, many donors have scaled back support and others have stopped completely.

The campaign's promoter, Chevy Weiss, said Monday that some six thousand families have been hit hard by the crisis and were short on food and diapers for their children.

She said about 28,000 Israeli Jews choose to devote their lives to study instead of work. They rely on donations from philanthropists and government stipends to support them and their families.

Eleven prominent rabbis have apprioved of the prayer day, set nationwide for Nov. 13. A delegation of rabbis will then head to the United States to try and raise funds.

Arab violence surging - in Israel

Arutz Sheva reports:
(IsraelNN.com) Two Jews were attacked last week in the center of the city of Ramla, in an incident which is part of a growing pattern of Arab-on-Jew violence inside pre-1967 Israel. In the latest incident,two young Arabs started pushing two Jews who were exiting a synagogue,and beat one of them who was on crutches.

According to Rabbi Uriyah Shachor of the Ramla Kollel yeshiva, "It's obvious to us that there is an awakening of a nationalistic drive and this is connected to the situation in the country these days."

Eliezer Shachor, a member of the religious seed community in Ramla, added:"This is a powder keg, in the center of the state of Israel. Everyone knows it, but no one has a serious plan on how to stop it." He also related his own story of Arab violence. On the first night of Sukkot,he said, "a number of Arabs jumped out of a car, ruined my sukkah and ran away."

Religious seed communities are groups of national-religious families that make their homes in mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods and front-line towns in order to try and stem the tide of a gradual Arab takeover in the mixed cities, to strengthen the spirit of the Jewish residents and to revive the spirit of Torah and Judaism.

A network of religious seed communities is spreading out throughout Israel. They can be found in Sderot, Ramla, Lod, Yafo (Jaffa), Harish and Akko, to name just some of the locations.

Obama - Leap of Hope?

Wall Street Journal:

Every vote for a nonincumbent Presidential candidate is in some sense a risk, given the power and complications of the job. But in both his lack of experience and the contradictions between his rhetoric and his agenda, Barack Obama presents a particular leap of hope. It is a sign of how fed up Americans are with Republicans that millions are ready to take that leap even in dangerous times.

To his supporters, such as Colin Powell, the first-term Senator has the chance to be "transformational," the kind of gauzy concept that testifies to Mr. Obama's unusual appeal. His candidacy is certainly historic, and that isn't simply a reference to his Kenyan father and American mother. One secret to Mr. Obama's success is how little his campaign has been marked by race, at least not by the traditional politics of racial grievance. He has run instead on a rhetorical theme of national unity, a shrewd appeal to voters weary of the polarizing debate over Iraq and the Bush Presidency.

Mr. Obama has also understood the political moment better than his opponents in either party. In the primaries, he used his inexperience to advantage by offering himself as a liberal alternative to what seemed like an inevitable, and dispiriting, Clinton replay. He then turned around in the general election to project sober reassurance amid the financial crisis, which was the moment when his poll numbers began to climb above the margin of error against John McCain. His coolness reflects what seems to be a first-class temperament. And while community organizing may not be much of a credential for the Presidency, Mr. Obama's ability to organize a campaign speaks well of his potential to manage a government.

None of this changes the fact that voters still know remarkably little about a man who is less than four years out of the Illinois state Senate. While he has already written two autobiographies, there are significant gaps in Mr. Obama's political resume. The nature of his relationship with onetime friend and political contributor Tony Rezko, a convicted felon, or with radicals Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, not to mention Acorn, remains ambiguous or contradictory.

They were all early supporters or mentors, yet during this campaign Mr. Obama has eventually disavowed each one. This is perhaps testimony to a ruthless pragmatism, or maybe opportunism, but what do those relationships say about what he really believes? He is fortunate the media have been so incurious about them -- as opposed, say, to Sarah Palin's Wasilla church or Joe Wurzelbacher's plumbing business.

More importantly, it remains unclear how Mr. Obama intends to govern. As a political candidate, he has presented himself as a consensus-oriented bridge-builder. But for all his talk about reaching across the aisle, we can think of no major issue where he has disagreed with his party's dominant interest groups or broken with liberal orthodoxy. Not one. The main example he cites -- "ethics reform" -- is the kind of trivial Beltway compromise that changes nothing about the way Washington works. [...]

If he is elected, Mr. Obama would immediately face the same kind of large, liberal Democratic majority on Capitol Hill that did so much to ruin Jimmy Carter and the first two years of the Clinton Presidency. Is there anything its liberal barons want that he'd oppose? He hasn't said so. On the contrary, Mr. Obama's voting record and agenda suggest that the "transformation" he may have in mind is a return to the pre-Reagan era of government expansion and liberal ascendancy.

Amid a recession, with the mortgage market already nationalized and the banking industry partly so, the next President needs to draw some lines against further politicization of our economy. Perhaps Mr. Obama will surprise by appointing Paul Volcker as his Treasury Secretary, or postponing his tax increases with the economy in distress. But those are further leaps of hope with little evidence of pragmatism to back them up.

On national security, Mr. Obama is an even greater man of mystery. Perhaps once in office he will take the course of prudent realism. He can certainly sound hawkish when he wants to, advocating unilateral military strikes inside Pakistan and promising the kind of open-ended commitment to the Afghan conflict that he claims we can't afford or sustain in Iraq. Yet he ran irresponsibly against the surge in Iraq and now has his lucky stars to thank that Mr. McCain prevailed in that debate, so Mr. Obama would inherit a far more stable Middle East. His belief that diplomacy can stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions is also naive, and we suspect would be shown to be so early in his Administration with an Iranian nuclear declaration, if not a test.

As Joe Biden recently said, an Obama Presidency would invite challenges from enemies who would tread more cautiously against a President McCain. Perhaps Mr. Obama will evolve into a Truman, or perhaps he'll prove merely to be another Jimmy Carter. Unlike Mr. McCain, he'll be making it up as he goes.

Perhaps this is the kind of leadership the American people want after the Presidential certitudes of the Bush years. Americans certainly are eager for fresh start, and it is typical of periods of economic panic that they may even be willing to reach for the kind of alluring but untested appeal that so marks Mr. Obama. Sometimes these gambles pay off, and sometimes they don't.

Redeeming capitives - and jail

The following is from Rabbi Broyde's excellent article concerning informing on others found on JLaw

16. ...The question that is worthy of pondering is the relationship between the obligation to redeem captives (found in Yoreh Deah 253) and the prohibition to inform. In cases where there is no prohibition to inform (as informing is permitted, see Darkai Teshuva 157:53 and more generally Part III of this article) a logical case can be made that there is no mitzvah to redeem captives (as they are in prison properly) when there is nothing wrong with informing. This exact observation is made in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in a recent work, Ve'aleyhi lo Yuval, volume 2:113-114, which recounts in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Goldreicht:

I asked Rabbi Auerbach about a particular Jew who stole a large sum of money and he was caught by the police in America. He was sentenced to a number of years in prison in America. Was it proper to assist in the collection of money for him [we were speaking about a large sum of $200,000] in order to fulfill the mitzvah of redeeming captives to have him released from prison? When Rabbi Auerbach heard this he stated "Redeeming captives?! What is the mitzvah of redeeming captives here? The mitzvah of redeeming captives is only when the gentiles are grabbing Jews, irrationally, for no proper reason, and placing them in prison. According to what I [Rabbi Auerbach] know, in America they do not irrationally grab Jews in order to squeeze money from them. The Torah says "do not steal" and he stole money -- on the contrary, it is good that he serve a prison sentence, so that he learns not to steal!

============
Rav Sternbuch told me that the Chazon Ish was asked about aiding a Jew who had been imprisoned. The Chazon Ish replied that no effort should be made since upon release he would be together with his wife. Since the couple didn't observe the laws of nidah, it was better if the Jew remained in jail.

Child Abuse - What to know

The Jewish Week by David Mandel & Dr. David Pelcovitz

Our community has to recognize that child molestation is a disease. The child molester is a sick person with an illness that he is unable to control or stop on his own. He has a preoccupation and a sexual desire for young children. In order to stop, he needs help through treatment,supervision or incarceration.

In our collective experience working with this population in the Jewish community, approximately one-third of pedophiles have a preference for boys, one-third prefer girls, and one-third have no preference. Some pedophiles also have distinct preferences within select age groups.

The article, “A Charge Of Double Betrayal In Williamsburg” (Sept. 5), about a young man, Joel Engelman, alleging he was sexually abused as a child by his principal, once again raises the important question of what can we do as parents, as educators, and as a community to protect and respond to sexual abuse.

While we do not know the people involved in the story, it is noteworthy that Engleman and his attorney, Eliot Pasik, stated they were not initially seeking a financial settlement but rather an assurance that other children would not be exposed and hurt.

Children are sexually victimized because they can be. They are trusting, vulnerable, curious by nature, and usually not suspicious of adults, certainly not of a parent, teacher, counselor or other role model. This can be true of adolescents as well, who can fall prey to sexual abuse even into their mid teens.

Children can be victimized repeatedly because they are often too ashamed or frightened to divulge information to others. Ashamed of what was done to them or what they were forced to do. Frightened because the molester threatened to hurt them or their family members, or frightened that their parents will not believe them or will blame them.

Unlike other insidious social problems such as gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse is not seen as an illness and still carries with it a taboo that results in a nonproductive demonization of the perpetrator and isolation of the victim.

In the last decade, a number of adolescents and young married men and women have self-identified and sought treatment for their serious problems with gambling, drugs and alcohol. While in some circumstances they may have been forced to seek help by their spouses, employers or creditors, these “addicts” have, willingly or not, sought and accepted professional help. The publicized accidental deaths by drug overdose of a number of young men, coupled with the writings of Dr. Abraham Twerski, have painfully raised our awareness and have resulted in many more individuals seeking professional treatment.

On the other hand, several deaths, accidental or suicide, resulting from depression and despondency due to sexual victimization, were not publicized.

It is fair to say that alcohol, drug, and gambling problems, serious as they are, no longer carry the social stigma and social isolation they did just a short few years ago. Not so with sexual abuse — not to the victim or to the perpetrator.

In our respective years of work at OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services and previously at North Shore University Hospital and in private practice, it’s fair to say we have met with, counseled and treated many hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and trauma.

Victims of sexual abuse, unlike other victims, almost never self-disclose.A crime victim may report to the police. A victim of domestic violence may seek out a relative, a rabbi, or a mental health professional. A drug user or alcohol binger can often be recognized by a spouse or employer. Not so with a victim of sexual abuse who is embarrassed, who represses, and who, years later, continues to carry the scars of the unresolved trauma of the abuse. So, too, with a child molester.

He (95 percent are male) will almost never voluntarily seek treatment. The fears of retribution, social isolation, physical harm, loss of family, loss of work, along with his sexual proclivities, prevent him from disclosing.[...]

Child Abuse -Safety Kid program

Jewish Journal:
Thirteen first-graders sit on the rug in their classroom at Shalhevet School, several with their hands raised. A guest speaker has just asked, "What would happen if you got lost at Toys 'R' Us? Who would be someone you could ask for help?"

"Someone who works there," one of the children calls out.

"Good. And how would you know who works there?" the speaker responds, holding up a picture of a cashier wearing a blue vest.

The speaker, Marlene Kahan, is a volunteer who has come to present Safety Kid. The program -- its full name is the Aleinu Julis Child Safety Program -- was developed by the Aleinu Family Resource Center, the arm of Jewish Family Service that reaches out to the Orthodox community. Safety Kid's goal is to teach day school children about safety issues -- including sexual abuse -- in a culturally sensitive manner. Visual aides show boys and men wearing yarmulkes, as well as women in skirts and children walking to synagogue. Discussions about strangers who might come to the front door mention not only the UPS man, but "the man who comes to collect funds for Eretz Yisrael." The instructional cards are currently being adapted for use in non-Orthodox Jewish day schools as well, and will likely be introduced this school year.

The Safety Kid program is the latest in a series of proactive programs Aleinu has developed over the past few years to protect children from abusive situations and to help parents and institutions know how to handle such crises when they come up.

While in the past abuse was not openly discussed in the Orthodox community, Aleinu has made it a priority to bring the problem to the forefront so that children, parents, teachers and rabbis can deal with it in an informed and intelligent manner. The Los Angeles agency has become a national leader in the Orthodox world in creating these programs and policies.

The urgency for such programs became apparent over the last several years, when incidents of sexual or emotional abuse in Orthodox schools, shuls and youth groups were described in articles in the Jewish press.

The number of incidents in the Orthodox community doesn't exceed the national average, but within the past two years, there have been high-profile incidents in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Aleinu Director Debbie Fox, who developed Safety Kid with colleague Wendy Finn, says that the program was produced in response to such episodes.

"We wanted to do something to help by providing tools which could help prevent future occurrences," Fox said.

More than five years ago, Fox began working with Aleinu's Halachic Advisory Board to develop a conduct policy for school administrators and teachers. The policy stipulates appropriate and inappropriate behavior, both verbal and physical. School personnel also receive training on how to spot and report signs of abuse. Since its introduction in 2002, the policy has been adopted by 28 Los Angeles-area schools. Torah U'mesorah, a national umbrella organization for Orthodox schools, adapted and adopted the policy for its 700 constituent schools.

But Fox wanted something specifically geared for the children -- a way to give them tools to help prevent incidents. She first tried adapting material produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but found it didn't resonate with Orthodox audiences.

When she shared her concerns, Aleinu board member Mitch Julis and his wife Joleen came forward with a grant to adapt the materials, and Safety Kid was born. The couple has since pledged funding for the next four years. [...]

Woman prime minister - permitted by halacha?

YNet reports:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas' spiritual leader, said last week that in principle, a woman could be the prime minister of Israel. The halachic ruling was given in response to a question sent to the rabbi, and clearly stated that it was only in principle and did not refer specifically to the general elections, a ruling which is to be given by the Council of Torah Sages.

Rabbi Yosef discussed this issue at length in the Hebrew website "Halacha Yomit" saying, "Regarding appointing a woman as prime minister – if she conducts herself with dignity and honesty, and is instrumental in strengthening religion more than any man who submits his candidacy, then we most certainly should give preference to electing the woman."

Despite the ruling, Yosef addressed the problematic aspects of the matter. He mentioned that the Sages of Blessed Memory learned from the verse, "Be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses" (Deuteronomy, 17:15), that it should be a king and not a queen that would rule of over Israel, and therefore, a woman could not be appointed queen of Israel as long as there is a king who is as fit to rule.

He added that Maimonides wrote the above verse applied not just to kingship, but to all positions of public rule. Yosef continued to say that this was only Maimonides' opinion, which the other sages, who said gender was only an issue in kingship, did not share. Yosef said that Nahmanides's writings also showed that if David had not had any sons, it would be lawful to say that David's daughter was queen, and she could even bequeath kingship to her sons, as he wrote that the reason David couldn't leave the kingdom to his daughter was because he had sons. Therefore, it seems there is no absolute restriction on woman taking on public authority posts, even as queen, as long as the path taken to leadership was taken with modesty.

Yosef also metioned Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's ruling in the case of a woman whose husband, a kashrut supervisor, passed away, leaving her with no way to support her family. The woman, being educated and God fearing, wanted to take on her husband's supervising job, which would also entail ruling over a large group of workers. "The question brought to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein," wrote Yosef, "was if there is any reason to prevent her from this, when it is vital for her livelihood. After deliberating long and hard, and deciding to allow her to take on the position, one rabbi spoke out against him, saying his ruling in this matter would lead to a breakdown, when the State of Israel sees that such a great rabbi allowed a woman to be a kashrut supervisor, and will lead to having women in the State's parliament.

"Finally, Rabbi Feinstein addressed the matter of the parliament in the State of Israel, where heretics and Shabbat desecraters are appointed, which is completely forbidden in the Torah." Yosef said. "As Maimonides wrote, anyone who is not God fearing, even if they carry great wisdom, should not be appointed among Israel's leaders. And the whole point of leadership in Israel is to strengthen the power of the Torah and not, heaven forbid, to weaken it.

Regarding the appointment of women, it is clear that if the chance to vote between a woman who is fit and a man who is not fit arises, we should certainly give preference to electing the woman over the man who is not fit."

In summary, Yosef said, "In regards to appointing a woman as prime minister – if she conducts herself with dignity and honesty, and is instrumental in strengthening religion more than any man who submits his candidacy, then we most certainly should give preference to electing the woman. "It is absolutely forbidden to support any party whose representatives are not God fearing," he added. "On the contrary, we must vote in favor of representatives that strengthen the power of the Torah. And if people who are not fit can be found in all the parties, then the ones that are closer to religion should be favored."

Arabs torch Acre yeshiva

JPost reports:

Police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have arrested three Arab youths in Acre suspected of torching an office in the city's hesder yeshiva last week, it was announced Sunday.

Police said the motives appeared to be nationalistic. The suspects - Ibrahim Bayuni, 29, Khaled Shaaban, 20, and Salah Titti, 20 - said they carried out the attack to avenge violence against Arabs during the Acre riots.

The blaze, caused by a Molotov cocktail, badly damaged the office and threatened to reignite the rioting that battered the city for several days starting on Yom Kippur.

The yeshiva, Ru'ah Tzfonit (The Spirit of the North), will make a conscious effort to show its Arab neighbors that it will not be intimidated by the attack, members said.

"We are here to stay," Dorel Avramovitz, the yeshiva's administrative director, said last week. "We will not cave in to bullying…we refuse to make any changes that would give the impression that we are intimidated by Arab threats."

Yeshiva head Rabbi Yosef Stern said the arsonists were "a group of bullies who are threatened by our Zionist, Jewish activities here. But we will not be dragged into a confrontation with them, nor will we deviate from our goal of strengthening the Jewish presence in the city."

Ru'ah Tzfonit is located in Acre's Wolfson neighborhood. Approximately three-quarters of the area's residents are Arab. Four years ago the yeshiva, which opened in 2001, relocated to Wolfson to reinforce the dwindling Jewish community and to reopen a synagogue that had closed. The yeshiva currently has 170 students.