EJF - Conference in Philadelphia

YWN reported

This is the official publicity release of EJF regarding their Philadelphia conference held November 2-4. Strange that they would just be releasing 2 weeks after the event - as opposed to last year when it had massive coverage in the major chareidi publications. Also Rav Eisenstein is not mentioned - even though he was there according to Hamodia and the Yated [see RaP's comments at bottom of post].

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Just a few years ago, it would have seemed impossible to bring together distinguished dayanim from throughout the world to explore issues regarding universally accepted conversions in intermarriage in the 21st century. Yet on Sunday, November 2nd, in downtown Philadelphia, the Eternal Jewish Family once again reached beyond any barriers of this challenge and convened some of the greatest dayanim and rabbanim of our times.

The esteemed group travelled from numerous cities around the world to Philadelphia’s downtown Marriott Hotel. Present were such notable dignitaries as Harav Shmuel Kaminetzky, Rosh Yeshiva of Philadelphia, member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah; Dayan Chanoch Ehrentrau, Rosh Beis Din of London; Harav Binyomin Weiss, lead dayan of the beis din of Montreal; Harav Reuven Feinstein, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Staten Island and chairman of the EJF halachic committee; Harav Betzalel Tuvia Wettenstein, the Belzer Dayan; Harav Dovid Olewsky, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivas Ger of Brooklyn; Harav Eliyahu Levine, Rosh Kollel of Lakewood; and Harav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, the Rosh Yeshiva of South Fallsburg.

The conference was also honored with the presence of Harav Avrohom Sherman, head of the Bais Din Hagadol in Jerusalem, who communicated the brocho of Maran Harav Eliyashiv for his participation. Also from Israel came Harav Shlomo Pappenheim of the Eida Hachareidis and Harav Eliyahu Eisherik, lead dayan of the beis din of Tel Aviv and author of Toras Haribis. Harav Eisherik is also the emissary of the Gerrer Rebbe in all areas of geirus and concerns regarding botei din.

Together these spiritual giants delved into such topics as the standards of legitimate botei din, family and marital issues, the importance of determining a successful conversion candidate, and numerous other vital issues. The presence of the gedolei Torah, as well as the scope and breadth of their lectures and discussions, gave testimony to the Torah world’s recognition of the important accomplishments of Eternal Jewish Family.

The dayanim shared their experiences with conversions in intermarriage, leading to a yeshiva-like atmosphere as the distinguished participants exchanged divrei Torah. The consensus was clear that relaxation of conversion standards only leads to complex issues in the arenas of marriage, children’s chinuch, and integration into communities. The dayanim concurred that sincere conversion candidates must make commitments to live within communities that have the infrastructure of shuls, yeshivos, mikvaos and kosher food. Harav Leib Tropper, Chairman of the EJF Rabbinic Committee, outlined some of the recent successes of EJF in working with the growing network of botei din that subscribe to the standards of the gedolei haposkim who guide EJF’s policies.

An intriguing dimension to this revolutionary gathering was that, simultaneously in the same location, another EJF seminar was being held exclusively for the mentors of female candidates for conversion. Travelling from Oregon, Texas, Arizona, California, Maryland, and New York, the women received inspiration from an esteemed group of rabbanim who, while addressing their questions and concerns, also defined their challenging role as mentors of conversion candidates. More than this, the rabbanim conveyed heartfelt brachos that encouraged the participants to continue to be exemplary role models for other women who are on their way to conversion or already integrating into a community after the conversion process.

(Rochel Weinstein - Lubicom)

Livni - Israel not a monopoly of rabbis

JPost reports:

International acceptance of Israel's right to exist is not enough, the world must accept Israel as a Jewish state, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday to the thousands of Jewish American leaders who had come to Jerusalem for the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities.

"The world is willing to defend the right of the state of Israel to exist, this is the part of the requirement that the [Mideast] Quartet demands [of] Hamas. But I would like to add two more words to this demand of the quartet: They need to accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state," she said.

Livni went on to clarify that there were international leaders who support such a right, expressly mentioning US President George W. Bush.

Moving on to the Jewish nature of the state, Livni said, "It's not about learning Hebrew or about joining the army, it's about Jewish tradition, Jewish history… We need to keep the nature, the character of the state of Israel as a Jewish state because this is - excuse me for using the French - the raison d'etre of the state of Israel."

"A Jewish state is not a monopoly of rabbis, it's what each and everyone feels inside," she added.

Livni also announced that Israel would become the second country to boycott the so called "Durban II" conference to be held in Geneva the spring of 2009.

It followed Canada, which announced its decision in January of this year. "I decided that Israel will not participate and will not legitimize the Durban II conference," Livni said.

The foreign minister in February stated Israel's intention not to attend the follow up conference to the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which met in Durban, South Africa.[...]

Child Abuse & Psychiatric medication?

NYTimes reports:

WASHINGTON — Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks, a panel of federal drug experts said Tuesday.

More than 389,000 children and teenagers were treated last year with Risperdal, one of five popular medicines known as atypical antipsychotics. Of those patients, 240,000 were 12 or younger,according to data presented to the committee. In many cases, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders.

But Risperdal is not approved for attention deficit problems, and its risks — which include substantial weight gain, metabolic disorder sand muscular tics that can be permanent — are too profound to justify its use in treating such disorders, panel members said.

“This committee is frustrated,” said Dr. Leon Dure, a pediatric neurologist from the University of Alabama School of Medicine who was on the panel. “And we need to find a way to accommodate this concern of ours.”

The meeting on Tuesday was scheduled to be a routine review of the pediatric safety of Risperdal and Zyprexa, popular antipsychotic medicines made, respectively, by Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly& Company. Food and Drug Administration officials proposed that the committee endorse the agency’s routine monitoring of the safety of the medicines in children and support its previous efforts to highlight the drugs’ risks.

But committee members unanimously rejected the agency’s proposals,saying that far more needed to be done to discourage the medicines’growing use in children, particularly to treat conditions for which the medicines have not been approved.

“The data show there is a substantial amount of prescribing for attention deficit disorder,and I wonder if we have given enough weight to the adverse-event profile of the drug in light of this,” Dr. Daniel Notterman, a senior health policy analyst at Princeton University and a panel member, said when speaking about Risperdal.

Drug agency officials responded that they had already placed strongly worded warnings on the drugs’ labels.

“I’m a little puzzled about the statement that the label is inadequate,” said Dr. Thomas Laughren, director of the agency’s division of psychiatry products. “I’m anxious to hear what more we can do in the labeling.”

Kara Russell, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson, said,“Adverse drug reactions associated with Risperdal use in approved indications are accurately reflected in the label.”

But panelists said the current warnings were not enough.

While panel members spoke at length about Risperdal, they said their concerns applied to the other medicines in its class, including Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Geodon.

The committee’s concerns are part of a growing chorus of complaints about the increasing use of antipsychotic medicines in children and teenagers. Prescription rates for the drugs have increased more than fivefold for children in the past decade and a half, and doctors now use the drugs to settle outbursts and aggression in children with a wide variety of diagnoses, even though children are especially susceptible to their side effects.

A consortium of state Medicaid directors is evaluating the use of the drugs in children on state Medicaid rolls to ensure that they are being properly prescribed.

The growing use of the medicines has been driven partly by the sudden popularity of the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder.

The leading advocate for the bipolar diagnosis is Dr. Joseph Biederman, a child psychiatrist at Harvard University whose work is under a cloud after a Congressional investigation revealed that he had failed to report to his university at least $1.4million in outside income from the makers of antipsychotic medicines.

In the past year, Risperdal prescriptions to patients 17 and younger increased 10 percent, while prescriptions among adults declined 5 percent. Most of the pediatric prescriptions were written by psychiatrists.

From 1993 through the first three months of 2008, 1,207 children given Risperdal suffered serious problems, including 31 who died. Among the deaths was a 9-year-old with attention deficit problems who suffered a fatal stroke 12 days after starting therapy with Risperdal.[...]

Christian funding comes of age

JPost reports:

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, got the thanks he's been looking for from the organized Jewish world on Monday at a reception at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly.

Eckstein, who started the fellowship 25 years ago, has raised some $500 million from Evangelical Christians to give to impoverished Jews, Jewish groups and Zionist causes.

The relationship has often been one of contention, as the Jewish community has long been wary of receiving Christian money,especially for Zionist purposes.

But Eckstein has become a strategic partner of both of the federation system's overseas arms, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The fellowship has long been a donor to the JDC, giving the organization $9m. last year and $7m. this year, according to the JDC's executive vice president, Steve Schwager. Eckstein sits on the major boards of the JDC.

Most recently Eckstein pledged $45m. to the Jewish Agency in exchange for a seat on the agency's highest governing committee.

In May, that deal almost fell apart because Eckstein felt that the agency was not honoring him as a full partner; in particular, hewas upset that the fellowship was not listed on JAFI's letterhead along with its primary funding organizations, the UJC and Keren Hayesod,which raises money from Europe and Canada for the agency.

But Monday, Eckstein said he finally felt "vindicated" and officially accepted by the organized Jewish community.[...]

Chareidi post-election violence continues

Jpost reports:
n another incident demonstrating the escalating tensions between rival camps within the haredi community, the son of United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush was beaten and knocked to the ground Monday.

Yisrael Porush confirmed that he had been attacked but added that he did not want to provide details of the incident for fear it would lead to the desecration of God's name.

The Ger hassidic sect, the nation's largest, has been embroiled in a serious dispute with a constellation of smaller hassidic sects represented by Porush's Shlomei Emunim faction in Agudat Yisrael.

The tension between the two groups intensified after Rabbi Ya'acov Aryeh Alter, the Gerer Rebbe, did not support Porush in the Jerusalem mayoral elections. Many Ger hassidim actually voted for his secular rival, Nir Barkat, helping him win.

Porush's followers, who feel the Ger hassidim broke an unwritten rule to uphold haredi unity, have called for a revamping of Agudat Yisrael's political leadership. Currently Ger effectively controls Aguda.

Porush's followers are also trying to establish a new haredi daily to compete with the Ger-controlled Hamodia.

Ger hassidim say that Porush forced himself on the haredi public without receiving rabbinic backing for his candidacy. The Lithuanian rabbinic leadership has also criticized Porush for the same reason.

The tension between the camps has led to violent incidents. UTJ faction chairman Ya'acov Litzman was beaten and had food thrown at him during a family event in Me'a She'arim on Shabbat.

Islamic courts in Britain

NYTimes reports:

LONDON — The woman in black wanted an Islamic divorce. She told the religious judge that her husband hit her, cursed her and wanted her dead.

But her husband was opposed, and the Islamic scholar adjudicating the case seemed determined to keep the couple together. So, sensing defeat, she brought our her secret weapon: her father.

In walked a bearded man in long robes who described his son-in-law as a hot-tempered man who had d his daughter, evaded the police and humiliated his family.

The judge promptly reversed himself and recommended divorce.

This is Islamic justice, British style. Despite a raucous national debate over the limits of religious tolerance and the pre-eminence of British law, the tenets of Shariah, or Islamic law, are increasingly being applied to everyday life in cities across the country.

The Church of England has its own ecclesiastical courts. British Jews have had their own “beth din” courts for more than a century.

But ever since the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, called in February for aspects of Islamic Shariah to be embraced alongside the traditional legal system, the government has been grappling with a public furor over the issue, assuaging critics while trying to reassure a wary and at times disaffected Muslim population that its traditions have a place in British society.

Boxed between the two, the government has taken a stance both cautious and confusing, a sign of how volatile almost any discussion of the role of Britain’s nearly two million Muslims can become.[...]

Conversion - Join IDF & become a Jew

JPost reports:

Like thousands of other young immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ukrainian-born Igor Lermont always considered himself Jewish, even though his mother is not Jewish.

"When I was young, I thought I was Jewish," the 22-year-old IAF technician told a small delegation of North American Jews attending the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Jerusalem on Tuesday. "I thought it did not matter that my father is Jewish and mother is not."

When he arrived in Israel four-and-a-half years ago, Lermont soon discovered that according to Jewish law, a person's religion is determined by the mother - regulations that are strictly followed by the government, as the Orthodox have a monopoly on religious affairs.

After enlisting in the army, Lermont heard of an educational Jewish-Zionist educational program, offered in conjunction with his military service, which culminates with official conversion performed by the IDF Rabbinate.

The program, called Nativ, offers soldiers and officers who are not Jewish according to Halacha a seven- or 11-week intensive course in Judaism to prepare them for conversion.

After completing the course and being sent back to their bases, soldiers interested in proceeding with the conversion process are then invited to two two-week seminars, with a month off between them, before undergoing the official conversion by three rabbis of the IDF Chaplaincy.

The programs, which are a joint project of the IDF Education Corps and the Joint Institute for Jewish Studies, are made possible with the support of the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the Jewish Agency for Israel. They offer thousands of IDF soldiers an opportunity to convert in an Orthodox-recognized process with like-minded peers in a friendly environment, bypassing the rigid civilian conversion system.

"I enlisted in the army specifically to take this course," said Cpl. Sophie Shapira, 19, who immigrated to Israel as a baby from Moscow, never knowing she was not considered Jewish by her adoptive country. She is now nearing the end of the course.

"Back in Lithuania, I knew that I would not be considered Jewish in Israel, and I thought it was a joke," said Lt. Dalia Desiatnik, 21, a basic training platoon commander. "When I got here, I understood it was no joke."

One million Jews from the former Soviet Union have immigrated to Israel over the last decade and a half, but about a third of them are not Jewish according to Halacha.

Today one out of every five soldiers is a new immigrant, with one of four new immigrants serving in a combat unit.[...]

Molad - Moon's Race against Earth

From articles written for the Yated Neeman (USA) by Avraham Broide

(Jerusalem based translator and journalist. phone: 02-5856133; email: broide2@netvision.net.il) 

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The moon is an erratic traveler, sometimes zipping through its monthly circuit at high speed, and sometimes gliding along at a more leisurely pace. Because of this, the difference between a long month and a short month is sometimes as long as thirteen and a half hours.

Why does the moon speed and slow down with such maddening irregularity?

Let us explore what the Molad, or "New Moon."

About every 29.5 days, the moon begins a new month at the Molad, soon after it passes directly between the earth and the sun. Sometimes, the moon blocks the sun's light from earth during this maneuver and we experience a solar eclipse. Why does the moon take varying times to run this monthly race?

The answer is based on the difference between circles and ellipses. If the moon and earth traveled in perfectly circular orbits, Molads would always arrive with (almost) perfect regularity, since objects traveling in circular orbits never alter their speed.

However, since the moon and earth have elliptical orbits, and objects move in elliptical orbits vary their speeds, the earth and moon constantly slow down and speed up depending on their place in orbit.

Illustration: The earth moves slowest when it is furthest from the sun on the left, and speeds up as it moves nearer the sun towards the right.  

This is why the moon has irregular molads!

If the moon is moving slowly towards the end of the month and the earth is moving faster, the moon takes longer to catch up with the sun-moon-earth axis and you have a longer month. The opposite happens when the moon is moving fast and the earth is moving slowly. In such a circumstance, the moon catches up with the sun faster and you have a shorter month.

Illustration: In this example, the moon is near earth and moving faster, while the earth is far from the sun and moving slower.

Some time after the Churban, Hillel II created the modern calendar which avoids the irregular-month problem by using the average month-length mentioned by Raban Gamliel (Rosh Hashana 25a): "So I received from the house of the father of my father; the renewal of the moon is not less than 29 and a 1/2 days, 2/3 of an hour, and 73 parts (1/18^th of a minute)."

With this average molad, it is very easy to calculate the average molad of any month of the past or future.

However, incredibly accurate as Raban Gamliel's average month-length may be, it is gradually becoming less precise due the "stretching of time."

What is the "stretching of time?" Not some obtruse, Einsteinian concept, but simply the gradual lengthening of the day due to the moon's constant tugging on the world's oceans. Friction caused by the tides' flow and ebb is slowing down the world's spin, lengthening the days by about 0.00175 seconds per year, and due to this our modern days are about 1.75 seconds longer than the days of a thousand years ago.

Since Raban Gamliel's average month-length is tailored for the shorter days of the past, the lengthening days have gradually pushed Chazal's molad so far backwards that unlike the time of Hillel II when it was accurate to milliseconds, it is now off by about 0.6 of a second per month. These small differences have added up and nowadays, on average, the average molad calculation runs about two hours late!

This does not matter, since the Chazon Ish lays down a general rule in connection with a similar issue that Chazal's measurements do not have to absolutely coincide with reality. Also, using a chelek (1/18 of a minute) as his smallest unit, Raban Gamliel could in any case not have expressed the molad average with more accuracy.

DIFFERENT MONTH MODES

We mentioned that the Molad calculation began ticking from the time of Ma'asei Bereishis. If so, what is the meaning of Hashem's command in Egypt (Shemos 12:2), This month shall be for you the first of months?

In his fascinating discussion of this verse, the Ramban not only explains this point, but also resolves a triple contradiction.

First, he explains that This month shall be for you the first of months is saying that just as it is a mitzvah to constantly remember Shabbos by calling the days rishon b'Shabbos and sheni b'Shabbos, so it is a mitzvah to start the counting of the months from Nissan, in order to remember the redemption from Egypt.

But how can one say that the count begins in Nissan? The year begins with Rosh Hashana in Tishrei as it says (Shemos 34:22), And the festival of ingathering [Sukkos] at the changing (tekufas) of the year? The Ramban answers that although we call Nissan the first month and Iyar the seventh month, this does not mean that they are the first or seventh months of the year, but that they are the first or seventh month since our redemption.

The Ramban now raises another difficulty. How why do call the months by the names Nissan, Iyar, etc? Isn't this a violition of the Torah's command to name them Rishon and Sheni after Yetzi'as Mitzrayim?

To answer this question, he cites the Yerushalmi (Rosh Hashana 1:2) that states, "The names of the months came with them from Bavel." In other words, the Jews innovated a new month innovation system after returning from the second galus. Why? In order to fulfill the verse (Yirmeyahu 16:14,15), It will no longer be said, as Hashem lives who raised bnei Yisroel from the land of Egypt, but, as Hashem lives who raised bnei Yisroel and who took bnei Yisroel from the land of the north [Bavel].

"We reverted to called the months the names they are called in Bavel to be a reminder that we were there and that Hashem, may He be blessed, raised us from there," the Ramban concludes. "Because these names, Nissan, Iyar, and the rest, are Persian names, and are only mentioned in the sefarim of the prophets who were in Bavel (Zechariah 1:7, Ezra 6:15, Nechemiah 1:1) and in Megillas Esther (3:7). ...And until today, the nations in the lands of Persia and Madai, so they call them Nissan and Tishrei and all of them, like us. And so we make remembrance, with [these] months, of the second redemption, as we had made until now of the first [redemption]."

Actually, the people in Bavel pronounced them a little differently, for example, Simanu instead of Sivan, Du'uzu instead of Tamuz,  and Arakhsamma instead of Marcheshvan. Also, they counted Shevat before Teveis. But our version is close enough to eternally remind us of our redemption from the land of Nevuchadnezer and Haman.

THIRTY DAYS HATH SEPTEMBER

In light of the Ramban's statement that the Hebrew month-names and their numerical symbols serve such important functions, how can we use non-Jewish month names such as January and February, that remind us neither of Yetzias Mitzrayim, nor of our escape from Bavel?

One intriguing answer is that, in the Torah view, non-Jewish months are not months at all as their timing is purely arbitary and has nothing to do with the Molad. In fact, the earliest Roman calendar created in about 3008/753 BCE by the mythic first king of Rome, Romulus, did not even have twelve months, but only ten! This early ten month system helps explain a surprising incongruity connected with these month's names.

Most of the first four months are named after false gods, raising a sha'alah how we are permitted to use them. Martis was the god of war, Aprilis probably refers to hog raising, Maius was an Italian god, and Junius was yet another god.

By the time he reached the fifth month, Romulus' imagination seems to have ran dry as labeled the remaining six months as 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th, or, in Latin, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December.

Since this ten month year had a miniscule length of only 304 days, far less than the solar year of 365 days, in about 3061/700 BCE, the Romans tacked two more months to the year, Januarius and Februarius, stretching it to 355 days.

Centuries later, Julius Caesar, made the names of the last six months a joke when he shifted the beginning of the year from March to January, so that the names September, October, etc., no longer make any sense. Also, Quintilis was renamed Julius after Julius Caesar, and Sextilis was later renamed Augustus after Augustus Caesar, bringing the month's name to their present form. 

All this makes it obvious that the secular months have nothing to do with our lunar year. They are not months in the Torah meaning of the word, and thus one can argue that using them does not constitute a substitute for the names of the Hebrew months.

Of course, it is no big mitzvah to use them either.

(Sources: Duncan David Ewing, "The Calendar," 1999, Fourth Estate, London. Source of molad information: Dr. Bromberg Irv of University of Toronto, Canada, "Moon and the Molad of the Hebrew Calendar." )  

Third Year Seminary cancelled

Chedrei Chadarim reports:

Valis sentenced for killing son

JPost reports:

The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday sentenced Yisrael Valis,convicted of killing his infant son in 2006, to six years imprisonment and a two-year suspended sentence. Valis was convicted of manslaughter earlier this year for beating his three-month-old son to death.

The baby died in the hospital on April 10 2006, a week afterhis then-19-year-old father hurled him against the wall when he startedto cry.

The young father's arrest led to days of haredi rioting in Jerusalem, after leaders of the vehemently anti-Zionist Edah Haredit community - which the Valis family was part of - accused police of concocting a 'blood libel' identical to European blood libels against the Jews.

Valis, who was arrested after he admitted during police questioning to repeatedly beating his child, later retracted his confession in a court hearing, saying that it had been coerced by police.

Prague CER conference & R' Tropper

Rabbi Tropper was asked to speak at the recent CER conference in Prague - but I heard that his presentation ran into serious difficulties. Any clarification of what actually happened and what is happening - apparently a major change in Rabbi Tropper & EJF's status - would be appreciated.