9th volume of Igros Moshe to be published soon

The Jewish Star

A new volume of the halachic responsa and letters of HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt”l will see the light of day thanks to his grandchildren.

The Belarus-born gadol hador, the greatest Torah leader of his generation, was 91 when he passed away on Ta’anis Esther in 1986. Rav Moshe’s reputation as the foremost posek, halachic decisor, and a beloved leader, radiated from the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he led Mesivta Tiferes Jerusalem for half a century while answering an unending stream of halachic questions from all over the world. Many of his decisions were published in a seven-volume collection of halachic responsa titled “Igros Moshe,” the “Answers of Moshe.” He resolved questions on an almost unimaginable array of subjects, from business and ethical disputes to complex medical issues and matters of life and death. One of Rav Moshe’s most famous opinions, still discussed at length today, permitted consumption of non-cholov yisroel milk, unsupervised during the milking process — though only in the United States.[...]

Part II The continuing saga of trying to produce the Abuse book

Yesterday I reported my decision to publish my book as an ebook because  of the refusal of the traditional stores to carry it. However that too has turned into a dead end. After about 10 hours of unsuccessfully trying to convert my files into errorless ePUb files I have simply given up. On the surface the process is very simple. A word document is fed into a conversion program. 5 minutes later it produce an ePub formatted file. That file must be checked with ePubcheck to make sure that it has no errors. If there are any errors Barnes and Noble will not publish it. However since I have not succeeded in producing errorless files that is simply the end of that alternative. I am not so upset about this as ebooks are very difficult to navigate for large and complex books such as mine. Also most people would prefer to have a physical book.

Fortunately I discovered what seems to be a viable alternative - publishing on demand with Createspace (an Amazon company). They store your files and produce one book at a time and ship it anywhere in the world. The production cost is lower than other publishing on demand companies and it is very easy to do. They collect sales tax and there is an option of listing it on Amazon. The only downside is that they only produce softcover works.

 I will be sending them the finished files next week - then they will produce a proof copy which I need to review and approve and then I am in business.

Because of their lower cost I will probably be selling the book at $25 or less. They also offer the service of selling the books to me  at cost amd shipping them to anyone I wish - so that I can sell it to any store which is brave enough to carry it. In essence they have eliminated the need for a distributor or middleman.

The only issue which I am still wrestling with is that of some of the descriptions and language used in the book. One suggestion is simply to place a warning on those chapters which would make some people blush or get sick. On the other hand that is the nature of the beast and too many people are naive and are ignorant of  what abuse is. They imagine some wild eyed psychotic monster attacking their child while he/she is walking down the wrong street late at night. David Morris has recently written about the issue of grooming. He has given me permission for that post to be included in my book. Others argue that any descriptions which upset people will sink the book so why sacrifice the whole project for the sake of realism? That is a good question which I am still wrestling with.

Pledge of allegiance is American idea

YNET

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stressed Thursday that "we did not invent the idea of pledging allegiance to the state," in response to criticism leveled at the Citizenship Act amendment.
Asked during a visit to Berlin of the essence of the amendment, which requires non-Jewish aspiring citizens to pledge allegiance to the State of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state, Lieberman pointed to the American pledge of allegiance. He noted that the Yisrael Beiteinu party is "willing to adopt the American law word for word."[...]

The publishing of my Child & Domestic Abuse book will be in a few days

Problem

My book is almost finished. I am just waiting for one final essay to be finished. However I have run into a major roadblock. I contacted three distributors/book sellers regarding the book. The first one said simply, "I can't have a book on abuse in my store." The second one said, "Of course I'll distribute the book. It is an important work that is needed by our community. However I don't know a single store that I supply that would take it." The third one said, "The book is important but I can't have a book which is so explicit in description and language. I need a book that any beis yaakov graduate would be comfortable with , a book that any chassidic woman would allow in her home. You need to just say there is an abuse problem and here are the solutions to prevent it - just don't describe what abuse is or use terms such as oral sex, sodomy or incest." LOL

Therefore the problem is how to produce and distribute a book that will be acceptable to the mainstream Orthodox stores. How do I produce a safe enough book which conveys the nature of abuse to those who have no idea of what it entails without describing what it is? Aside from the concerns with content the distributors  were also very concerned that the book would be banned and that they might suffer financially - but they all agreed that I have no way of protecting against this.

Solution
However I have a solution. The book will be initially released as an ebook from Barnes and Noble. This uses the ePub format which is readable on all computers as well as most ebook readers (Kindle is a major problem however.). The Nook free software works also on cell phones. It will also be copy protected (DRM) This produces some significant problems regarding format i.e., the pages are smaller and so navigating is a formidable problem. Formatting is limited and Hebrew can't be displayed. However it can have internal links in the text and so the Table of Contents (12 pages in book format) will provide hyperlinks to the relevant sections. The Nook software not only allows reading the ebook on many different devices but allows you to lend it to others for a 14 day period.

 Once I have a finished version I will also sell it through Amazon for the Kindle. If the ebook version is acceptable to the public then I will see about publishing it either as (publish on demand) or for the stores.

There is also a major advantage to this approach - aside from the fact that I don't need a store or pay for printing (for Barnes & Noble but not Amzaon) - I can update and correct the book free and purchasers can download the latest edition free (This is true only for Barnes & Noble but not Amazon). There is obviously no physical book so there is no problem that your mechutan might see that you are reading a book on abuse or your children might ask what child abuse is. So it won't produce problems for shidduchim.

The ebook of Child and Domestic Abuse hopefully will be available in a few days.

Long Recovery Looks Like Recession

New York Times

This is not what a recovery is supposed to look like.

In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on the market are so-called short sales, in which sellers ask for less than they owe lenders. And in Arizona, in sun-blasted desert subdivisions, owners speak of hours cut, jobs lost and meals at soup kitchens.

Less than a month before November elections, the United States is mired in a grim New Normal that could last for years. That has policy makers, particularly the Federal Reserve, considering a range of ever more extreme measures, as noted in the minutes of its last meeting, released Tuesday. Call it recession or recovery, for tens of millions of Americans, there’s little difference. [...]

National Week for Prevention of Child Abuse

Why Barack Obama is losing the political war

Time Magazine

Barack Obama is being politically crushed in a vise. From above, by elite opinion about his competence. From below, by mass anger and anxiety over unemployment. And it is too late for him to do anything about this predicament until after November's elections.

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle. [...]

Boro Park as real estate

New York Times

IN late September, during the final days of the weeklong holiday of Sukkot, young boys in white shirts and black hats could often be seen lining the streets of Borough Park, a large neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn. Standing behind folding card tables arrayed with long, thin willow branches to be waved in synagogue, they called out in Yiddish, hoping to attract customers from among the crowds of shoppers who exited, bags in hand, the kosher markets of 13th Avenue.

The neighborhood is home to one of the largest Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish populations in the United States — “the Jewish capital of the United States” and a “kosher utopia,” according to David G. Greenfield, who lives and works in Borough Park, in addition to representing it in the City Council. [...]

Israeli loyalty oath:Denounced by Arabs as racist

Voice of America

Israel's Cabinet approved a controversial loyalty oath that requires new citizens to pledge allegiance to a "Jewish and democratic" state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the oath reflects the essence of the State of Israel. Critics countered that it would widen the existing gap between Jews and Arabs.
Mr. Netanyahu told the Cabinet that many in the world are trying to blur the connection between the Jewish people and their national homeland. He said Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and there is no other Jewish state in the world.  "Those who wish to join us must recognize this," he said.
The bill, which must be passed by parliament to become law, is largely symbolic because it only applies to new citizens.  But Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of the population, and who tend to identify with their Palestinian brothers, describe the loyalty oath as racist.[...]

Medical training & high suicide rates of doctors

New York Times

Several years ago, I learned that a physician in a town not too far from where I was practicing had committed suicide. Neither I nor my hospital colleagues knew him, but according to the story we heard, he was the father of young children, was respected by doctors and patients alike and had struggled privately with mental illness since medical school.
But it was not the details of his life that haunted us; it was the details of his death. He had locked himself in a room in the hospital, placed a large needle in his vein and injected himself with a drug that so effectively paralyzed his muscles he was unable to breathe.[...]

Palestinians turn rock attack into car attacking innocent children

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZWSiA-nrjQ

Haaretz

David Be'eri, head of a known settler group, hit two Palestinian children with his car on Friday, after they hurled rocks at his vehicle in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.[...]