Another "cool" charismatic teacher arrested for abuse

NY Times   She got to know Mr. Shaynak — “ShayShay” to his favorites — during her sophomore year, when she and a friend went to his classroom at lunch. He tutored them in geometry. He sometimes bought them lunch outside school. He gave one of them cigarettes.

Then, at one point, Sean Shaynak, the hip aerospace teacher in his early 40s with a flight simulator in his classroom, asked the girls if he could take pictures of them in the park, to inspire a nude painting he wanted to do. According to a friend of one of the girls whom she later confided in, they thought the request was weird and put him off, saying they were too busy. They told no one. They thought: Why ruin a teacher’s life? [...]

In interviews on Wednesday with dozens of students, virtually all said they had no knowledge of inappropriate sexual behavior on Mr. Shaynak’s part. But many knew that he was unusually close with some students, often in ways that might alarm parents, including smoking with students and sometimes attending their parties.

But these signs were not so much missed as, apparently, kept private by the only people who really knew Mr. Shaynak — his students, who liked him and saw him as one of their own. In this way, the authorities said, he was able to gain their trust and “groom” the girls he pursued.[...]

Those students who did know Mr. Shaynak were loyal. Two groups in particular — the smokers and the children in his aerospace classes — saw Mr. Shaynak as the rare teacher who talked like a teenager. He made students feel relaxed, told stories about flying and doled out cigarettes and hugs. He was the hip teacher who wore jeans, smoked with older students and drove a Mini Cooper, that is, when he wasn’t riding the B train home to Flatbush. [...]

Emancipation and individual freedom - destroyed the viability of Beis Din

Justice Menachem Elon (Mishpat Ivri Chapter 41): THE PERIOD OF THE EMANCIPATION

A. Internal-Spiritual and External-Political Changes

A fundamental change in the historic course of Jewish law took place in the eighteenth century with the advent of the Emancipation and the abro­gation of Jewish autonomy. The story of the termination of Jewish auton­omy in general, and of Jewish juridical autonomy in particular, has been widely documented in recent historical studies and need not be repeated here. 1 As already noted.2 two factors supported and explain the persistence of a living and functioning Jewish legal system not withstanding the lack of political sovereignty and of a territorial center. The first factor was the integr­al discipline of traditional Jewish society, which, rooted in religious and national imperatives. felt bound to govern its everyday life by Jewish law. The second factor was the existence of the corporative state; by virtue of its political structure, the state allowed autonomous bodies possessed of jurid­ical authority to exist within its boundaries and, indeed, for various reasons already discussed. even had a positive interest in promoting the existence of such autonomy.

In the eighteenth century, however, both these factors underwent a radical change. From the political perspective, as a result of the movement toward equality before the law for all citizens, including Jews, the European countries, in quick succession, withdrew from their Jewish communities the power, even in civil litigation, to compel Jews to submit to adjudication before Jewish courts. The use of the ban, as well as other methods of en­forcing the judgments of Jewish courts, was also prohibited. Important as the political factor was, however, the primary cause of the progressive dis­use of Jewish law in practical life was the change wrought by the Emanci­pation in the social and spiritual life of the Jewish people, and the conse­quent erosion of the internal discipline that had been largely responsible for the vitality of Jewish law in the everyday life of the community. Up to that time, the Jewish community had regarded Jewish law as the supreme value by which all activities were to be measured; but the Emancipation split the community-some still followed the tradition, but others felt no obligation to do so.

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

I. See S.w. Baron, The Jewish Community, II, pp. 35 Iff.; Y. Kaufmann, Golah ve-Nekhar [Exile and Estrangement). II, 1930; J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis, eh. XX, pp. 2 I 3ff.; Assaf. Battei ha-Din, pp. 5-6; A.H. Freimann, "Dinei Yisrael be-Erez Yisra'el" [Jewish Law in the Land of Israel). Luah ha-Arez, 1946, pp. I l Off.: S. Ettinger, "Toledol Yisra'el ba-Et ha-Had­ashah" [History of the Jews 'in the Modern Period). in H.H. Ben-Sasson. Toledot Am Yis'ra 'el [History of the Jewish People]. vol. 3, 1970, pp. 17-137.

2. Supra pp. 3-39.

Rav Herzog: Value of Jewish Law

רב יצחק הרצוג (תחוקה לישראל על פי התורה ג:283): א. על ערך המשפט בישראל. כל הרוצה לעמוד על ערך המשפט בישראל יפתח את ספר טור חושן המשפט ויקרא את הסימן הראשון. אפשר להוסיף על דבריו, אפשר לכתוב ספר שלם על נושא זה על יסוד של כה"ק וספרות התורה שבעל פה, אבל מדברי רבינו בעל הטורים אין לגרוע. כל הסימן הוא מחרוזת של פנינים יקרים מלוקטים ממאמרי רז"ל. לא זו בלבד שהמשפט הוא חלק כ"כ גדול בכמות ובאיכות של התורה שמן השמים, לא זו בלבד שהוא, כדברי המשנה [אבות א:יח], אחד משלשת עמודי העולם, אלא שהוא מהווה דבר יסודי בעצם מושג האלהות של היהדות. הקב"ה הוא שופט כל הארץ. כביכול, השופט העליון, שהשופטים הם בבחינת שלוחיו, ואברהם אבינו מתמה "השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט"? הקב"ה הוא אלהי המשפט, והשופטים נקראים אלהים, ובית הדין נקרא עדת [אל]. בפרשת משפטים מכונים השופטים אלהים לפי מסורת רז"ל [סנהדרין ב:] , ללמדך שהמשפט לאלהים הוא, וכאזהרת המלך האדון יהושפט לשופטים שבימיו [דברי הימים ב יט:ו] . וכשבא מיכה והעמיד את כל התרי"ג מצוות שנתן משה לישראל על שלשה עיקרים מנה את המשפט ביניהם - כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד וגו' [מיכה ו:ח מכות כד.] על עיוות המשפט צועקים מרה כל נביאי ישראל וכולם עומדים ומכריזים שבגללה נגזרה גזירת חורבן על הארץ וגזירת גלות על העם.

New college sex assault rule: Rape is now absence of agreement - not use of force

BBC     California has become the first state to require students on state-funded campuses to receive clear, active consent before all sexual activity.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the "yes means yes" bill, which advocates say will change the perception of rape.

The legislation stipulates that voluntary agreement, rather than lack of resistance, defines consent.[...]

The rule defines consent as "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity."

Lawmakers say, however, that consent can be non-verbal, if it is unambiguous.[...]

Schlesinger Twins: Beth's Rosh Hashanna Prayer for her sons

Rosh Hashonnah Prayer

My precious little boys Sammy and Benji,

While other families prepare for the New Year, we are once again separated. I cannot be with you on the holiest day of the year, cannot buy you new clothes and shoes for shul like other mothers or even kiss you good Yom Tov. I won't be able to hold you in my arms again and bless you until after Rosh Hashonnah by which time our fate for the coming year will already have been decided. While everyone fills the river with their sins, we could flood it with our tears. 

Luckily, there is another court, a higher court than the one here on earth that has caused us so much unnecessary hurt and pain. On Rosh Hashonnah, Hashem, the real judge will sit in Court and the angels will help Him decide what will happen in the coming year. Surely we have been tested enough and better times lie ahead.  

There is not a day, an hour or a moment that goes by when I am not thinking about you both and willing all my motherly love and positive energy towards you, hoping and praying that you feel me there beside you, reaching out and holding your soft warm hands. You are never alone.

On Rosh Hashonnah, I will daven for you all the more. I wish so much that you will finally be able to enjoy your childhood and be allowed to grow up peacefully, healthily and most of all, feeling loved and secure. 

I, your Mama, am here for you. I will never ever desert you and I will never be far away. 

Shana tova umetukah my darling baby boys. I love you so so much. 

With you always in spirit even if you cannot see me. 

Your Mummy forever

xxx

Schlesinger Twins: The Lubavitcher Rebbe held strongly that the mother should get custody

I just received the following letter from a well known Lubavitcher posek who wishes to remain anonymous. It is obviously very significant. I would suggest emailing this to Rabbi Biderman and other members of the Vienna Chabad community. Rabbi Jacob Bideman

BH

I am not getting involved in the details, but I think it would be appropriate to post the following, it's an answer from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, where the Rebbe writes that the benefit of the child is that the child should stay with the mother [...]

Objecting to the term "Filipino" being used to refer to nannies or personal care aides

I received the following email and received permission to post it anonymously. In Israel the term Filipino is widely used to refer to someone who is an aide or personal care-worker - because in fact most people employed in this capacity are from the Philippines. 

However I have not heard it used as a pejorative term but simply as a fact that when one needs help with an elderly parent, handicapped or retarded child as well as domestic help - one needs a fillipino.

However it clearly has irritated my correspondent - who does not want to get into an on line discussion. Do careworkers from the Phillipines resent the term "fillipino"? What would be the preferred alternative?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

The following is a list of ethnic slurs (ethnophaulisms) that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or to refer to them in a derogatory (critical or disrespectful), pejorative (disapproving or contemptuous), or insulting manner in the English-speaking world. For the purposes of this list, an ethnic slur is a term designed to insult others on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality. Each term is listed followed by its country or region of usage, a definition, and a reference to that term.

However the complexity of the issue of the listing and usage of such terms needs to be noted. For instance, many of the terms listed below (such as "Gringo", "Yank", etc.) are used by large numbers of human beings in many parts of the world as part of their ordinary speech or thinking without any intention of causing offence, and with little or no evidence that such usage does in fact cause much or indeed any offence, while the implicit or explicit labeling of such large numbers of people as racists (or similar terms such as prejudiced, bigoted, ethnophobic, xenophobic, etc.), simply because they use some words on the list below, can itself be deeply unfair and insensitive and can thus cause deep offence.

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

Hello,

I read your blog post about your twins this morning and feel for your situation.

That being said, I wanted to flag a section of your post referring to 'the Filipinos'. If your children's nannies are from the Philippines, does this one fact lead you to label them with contempt or indifference? Surely you would not want to be to referred to as 'the Jew' if someone left their child on their care? You may not have meant any offence to this, but of you replace 'the x' with any race, gender or religion, then you may realise you are subtly commenting on a group of people that are not at fault in your predicament.

Kind regards,

Public media campaigns to obtain a Get have zero success rate - so why do they exist?

 The following is an embarrassing example of what is purported to be investigative reporting - when it is simply an example of the prostitution of the news media to get readership rather than provide cogent analysis as to what is happening. The reporter has not the slightest clue as to what the halachic issues are and clearly has simply relied on the claims of the women for determining what the facts are. While he did solicit  a counter response from Yoel Weiss - he didn't bother trying to understand what Yoel was saying. 

Inadvertently though he has succeeded in showing that despite huge international campaigns - none of these women have gotten a get one second sooner if at all - and the compromises they needed to make were no different than what they were being asked - before the campaign.

So if the campaigns are useless regarding the goal of obtaining a Get - then why do these women parade the most intimate details of their marriage in public? Why do they insist on creating an incredible chillul hashem - if it never succeeds in ending their marriage?

The answer is simple - and was expressed by Shira Dicker the publicist behind these campaigns. It is an attack on Torah laws and halacha in the name of feminism, individual freedom, and progress. It is a rejection of the traditional Jewish concept of marriage.

 =========================

Tablet Magazine   The coordinated use of publicists, Facebook, Twitter, donation sites, and rallies is becoming common for women like Rivky Stein who seek religious divorces from their husbands. Many Jews give little thought to the get, but in traditional Judaism only men can grant a divorce. Without one, a woman cannot date or remarry without carrying and passing onto her children what is widely considered in the Orthodox world to be a tremendous stigma. So, with few options in Jewish law, more agunot—Hebrew for “chained wives”—are embracing contemporary and high-tech tools to publicly shame men.

“People say, ‘This is a disgrace, you’re washing our dirty linen in public,’ ” said Susan Aranoff, an economics professor who has been an agunah activist for 30 years. “But I understand the women who are doing it, because what else are they to do?”

In late 2010, hundreds of protesters flocked to the Silver Spring, Md., home of Aharon Friedman, a tax counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, who denied his wife, Tamar Epstein, a get. The rally was carefully planned, with activists distributing flyers and fact sheets while a Facebook event was shared with over 1,600 people.

Three years later Gital Dodelson, who was struggling to receive a get from her ex-husband, Avrohom Meir Weiss, worked with a publicist to set up the website setgitalfree.com. She eventually landed a front page tell-all in the New York Post and a segment on the public-radio show This American Life.

Just a few months ago protesters holding signs reading “Stop the Abuse!” and “Bigamist” gathered at the wedding of Meir Kin, who was remarrying despite his refusal to give his ex-wife, Lonna Kin, a religious divorce. He claimed that he had secured a heter meah rabbonim, the antiquated and seldom-used document, based on a technicality in Jewish law, that permits a man to remarry without a get if he can get permission from 100 rabbis.[...]

So, in her fight for a get, Stein needed help. In recent months, she has assembled up an impressive team. She hired Shira Dicker, the publicist who worked for Gital Dodelson. They set up the website redeemrivky.com as well as a Facebook page that has nearly 9,000 likes. A 7-minute YouTube video called “Rivky Speaks,” in the style of a close-up sit-down interview, has garnered about 125,000 views. Her donation page aims to raise $36,000, although she expects all of it to go to lawyer and PR fees. Media like the Daily News were invited to the beit din, which is used to resolve disputes including contested divorces. (Dicker told Tablet that “half” the work she did for Stein was pro bono and “the compensation was extremely modest.”)

[...]

And the track record for Stein’s social media-savvy successors isn’t completely encouraging. Publicity ultimately worked for Dodelson, who received a get three months after her story ran in the New York Post (and after she paid her ex-husband a six-figure sum, according to one knowledgeable source). While it was widely reported that Tamar Epstein was “free” three years after the protest against her husband, it seems that she never received her get, instead having her marriage annulled by a sympathetic rabbi or beit din. And after seven years of being civilly divorced, Kin has no get and is still vilified by blogs. [...]

Confusion regarding Chabad-Lubavitch & Chabad UK following drug bust involving the latter

Jewish News UK   Outreach organisation Chabad-Lubavitch this week took legal action to publicly distance itself from an unrelated group called Chabad UK, following a drugs bust involving the latter in Stamford Hill. 

Police said two men were arrested after a dawn raid on Monday “on suspicion of money laundering, fraud and supplying misleading/false information to the Commission (Charities Act 2011)”. They have been bailed to appear in January. 

One of the three addresses raided was Oldhill Street in Hackney, from where Chabad UK is run by 62-year-old Rabbi Chaim Yitzchok Cohen, director of the Beis Moshiach/Beis Menachem Community Centre. 

Police confirmed this week that the two men arrested were aged 62 and 34 years. They were widely reported to be Cohen and his son Dudi, although these reports could not be substantiated and Chabad UK could not be reached for comment. [...]

Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff talks about Rav Ovadya Yosef

http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/716799/Rabbi_Aaron_Rakeffet-Rothkoff/2001-05-20_Rav_Ovadya_Yosef

Schlesinger Twins: Chabad finally dip their toe into the Schlesinger case

Guest post by Ari Steingold

I was amazed to read the "ask the Rabbi" column in "The Jewish News" this week: http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/ (to read the full newspaper, click on the right-hand column)

Finally, we see UK Chabad dipping their toe into the water. It should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Chabad culture that they have arrived late (there has already been public endorsements from Chief Rabbi Mirvis, Manchester Beth Din, etc...) but nevertheless it is very noteworthy.

Rabbi Schochet is a highly influential spokesperson within Chabad circles, and his unprompted passing reference to the Schlesinger case is more significant than it first seems. He brings Beth Alexander as a reference point, as if to recognize that her case in Vienna is an example of a clear injustice that is beyond debate.

I sincerely hope, now that there is public acknowledgement from senior and respected Chabad hierarchy, that a proper and thorough representation will be made to Biderman, and that the twins will soon be reunited with their mother once again.


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Dear Rabbi,
I'm involved in a nasty custody battle with my ex-husband. He has the majority custody of the children until the finances are sorted and the divorce is final. Is there a halachic position on this? Does Judaism acknowledge the rights of one parent over another?
- Name Withheld

Dear 'NW',
Judaism sanctions common sense and what is in the best interest of the children. With the exception of extenuating circumstances, it is obvious it is the best interest of the children to enjoy shared love from both parents, which can be experienced only when there is shared access.

Once case which has made headlines in the national press is that of Beth Alexander in Vienna. I don't know the circumstances that led to a judge denying her the basic rights as a mother, or the thinking of a court that doesn't sanction the husband for constantly cancelling the already-sporadic visitation rights granted to her. But notwithstanding the courts, I would have thought the husband would want the best for his children and all responsible parents must surely want their children to experience the love that only a mother can give.

Tell your ex-husband he should park his spite and bury his hate and not use your kids as battering rams against you. If he loves them and wants them to have a stable future and be able to form loving and lasting relationships in their own lives, he should do the right thing and grant equal access.

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