Why is Bank Leumi telling foreigners to close their accounts? Why is a staggering 22% of Israel’s economy off the books

Times of Israel

As the US cracks down on tax evasion, Israel’s flourishing decades of money laundering for Diaspora Jews are being exposed. It’s part of a financial malaise that runs deep, and that harms all law-abiding Israelis

All over the Diaspora, owners of holiday apartments in Israel were surprised this past spring to receive a letter from Bank Leumi.

“Dear Customer,” it read, “We wish to inform you that in light of the increased exposure of Israeli banking corporations to compliance risks deriving from cross-border banking activities, and in accordance with Bank of Israel instructions in this matter, the Bank has concluded that it will not continue to maintain accounts of foreign residents with a balance of less that $50,000, or the equivalent thereof.”

Recipients of the letter were then instructed to either pony up the extra cash to bring their account to $50,000 or close their account altogether.

As one observer told The Times of Israel, “Bank Leumi has caused an uproar among Brits [and other foreign residents] with apartments in Israel who open accounts with Israeli banks in order to run things such as service charges or maintenance. No one would place that sort of sum in a current account that paid no interest.” [...]

But the mild storm casts light on a larger issue, the fact that Israeli banks, including but certainly not limited to Leumi, for decades helped Diaspora Jews evade taxes and launder money on a major scale, helping to attract organized crime to the country and contributing to the high cost of living.

“Israel has been Switzerland for Jews,” Ronen Bar-El, an economics professor at Israel’s Open University, told The Times of Israel. “Bin Laden [September 11 and the subsequent US-led crackdown on global money laundering] put the brakes on our business of laundering money for Jews.” [...]

In 2014, Bank Leumi admitted it had conspired to aid and assist a minimum of 1,500 US taxpayers to prepare and present false tax returns to the US Internal Revenue Service by hiding income and assets in offshore bank accounts in Israel and elsewhere around the world. According to a US Justice Department press release, Bank Leumi’s “criminal activity” spanned over a decade from at least 2000 to 2011, during which time Leumi also provided “hold mail” service for approximately 2,450 US accounts whereby bank statements were held abroad and not sent sent to the customer’s address in the United States. To avoid prosecution, Bank Leumi agreed to pay $400 million in fines to the US and New York State governments. A US government investigation into Bank Hapoalim and Bank Mizrahi is ongoing.

The US Department of State’s 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report listed Israel as a “major money laundering country… whose financial institutions engage in currency transactions involving significant amounts of proceeds from international narcotics trafficking… or other serious crime.” [...]

In fact, said Avichai Snir, a lecturer in economics at the Netanya Academic College, money laundering for Jews abroad has been an Israeli government policy since the early days of the state.

“Israel has been a shelter for black money since its establishment,” he told The Times of Israel, adding that Israel’s early leaders had ideological, as well as practical, motives for such a policy.

“There was an idea that it’s a good thing to help Jews hide their money from Soviets and the Poles, because otherwise those regimes will steal from them,” explained Snir.

“But at the same time, a lot of American, Swiss and French money got hidden here as well.”[...]

Just as bad, said Snir, is the culture of tax evasion within Israel. Twenty-two percent of Israel’s economy is off the books. This includes everything from babysitters and plumbers working without receipts, to foreign workers and Palestinian construction workers being paid in cash, to tax-evading landlords, not to mention the proceeds of theft, extortion, prostitution and narcotics.[...]

According to Snir, FATCA and the attendant tougher banking regulations caused many Diaspora Jews with Israeli bank accounts or Swiss bank accounts to quickly pull their money out and invest it in real estate, partially contributing to the marked spike in Israeli housing prices over the last several years.

But by far the biggest problem with Israel’s tax evasion and money laundering culture, stressed Bar-El, is the encroachment of the mafia into our daily lives. Israeli streets are generally safe and the violent crime rate is much lower than in a country like the United States, he said, but this could change due to a lack of willingness by the police to tackle economic crime.

Even today, thousands of Israelis wake up every morning and go to work stealing money from victims abroad in the mafia-linked fraudulent binary options and forex industries, which have inexplicably been allowed to flourish here over the last decade, as detailed in a series of exposés published by The Times of Israel in recent months.[...]

But if Israel does not crack down on tax evasion and other economic crimes, the future could be very bleak.

“That’s what this Bank Leumi fine was about, and that’s why we have the anti-money laundering authority,” said Bar-El. “If we let economic crimes continue to grow, we will turn into a criminal nation.”

Convicted pedophile - Yonah Weinberg - has left Har Nof allegedly because of community pressure - for unknown destination

Kikiar HaShabbat

יונה וינברג, יהודי שעלה מארצות הברית ועבר להתגורר בשכונת הר נוף בירושלים לאחר שהורשע בתקיפת ילדים בארה"ב, עבר בימים האחרונים דירה - זאת לאחר סדרת לחצים שהופעלו על ידי עסקנים ורבנים בשכונה שהתריעו מפניו כשהם טוענים כי הוא מסוכן לילדי השכונה.

בחודשים האחרונים החל הרב יעקב הורביץ להזהיר את שכניו מפני וינברג, בעקבות ההאשמות כי לכאורה פגע בילדים להם שימש מורה לקראת בר המצווה בארה"ב. לפני מספר חודשים ביקש וינברג מבית המשפט להוציא צו מניעה האוסר על הרב הורביץ להרצות במתנ"ס בשכונת הר נוף בירושלים - בטענה כי הוא מסית נגדו.

לדבריו, מדובר באיש שהורשע בארצות הברית בפגיעה חמורה בשניים מתלמידיו בני ה-13. הרב הציג לתושבים את המאגר האמריקאי המפרסם את שמות העבריינים, המציג את וינברג כעבריין בעל דרגת מסוכנות לציבור -3 - דרגת המסוכנות הגבוהה ביותר.

לפני חודשים ספורים תבע וינברג את הרב הורביץ בתביעת דיבה על סך של 200,000 שקלים לאחר שזה הזהיר מפניו ברשת החברתית טוויטר. בכתב התביעה נכתב כי פעילותו של הרב גורמת לו נזק וכי "הוא זומן לשיחות בירור, כולל בבתי הספר שבהם לומדים ילדיו, ומאז הוא נמצא תחת מעקבים והטרדות. אין לדעת כיצד ישפיעו עוד פרסומים שקריים ומשמיצים אלה אודותיו".

בעבר ביקש וינברג מבית משפט השלום בירושלים להוציא צו מניעה ולמנוע הרצאה מתוכננת של הרב ברקוביץ במתנ"ס בשכונת הר נוף, בסופו של דבר נעתר בית המשפט לבקשה באופן חלקי כשהוא מתיר את קיום ההרצאה אך אסר על הרב ברקוביץ לשוחח בנושא שכנו.

בחודשים האחרונים גברו הלחצים על וינברג, בשיחה עם 'כיכר השבת' אמר עורך הדין של וינברג כי מדובר ב"שקרים וניפוחים" וכי מדובר ברדיפה שמטרתה רווח כספי, אלא שעורך הדין סרב לפרט בנושא. לכיכר השבת נודע כי בשבועות האחרונים עבר וינברג דירה לרחוב צדדי בפאתי שכונת הר נוף.

Copepods, Citi Field, and Cattle Prods by Akiva Wasserstein

Guest post by Akiva Wasserstein

In the summer of 2004, a group of Brooklyn rabbis made a discovery while rinsing bug-free lettuce from Israel. They found tiny crustaceans, called copepods, in the New York City drinking water. A community-wide tumult ensued, prompting Jewish housewives far and wide to urge their husbands to procure and install all kinds of filtration products. Regardless of the fact that Rabbi Belsky himself ruled that the water is kosher, the people voted with their feet, and resolved to keep the bugs at bay with any and every means available to them from their local hardware and plumbing stores.

In the spring of 2012, a throng of epic proportions gathered at Citi Field in Queens, New York, at the behest of rabbinic leaders from the Agudah. They went there to decry the dangers of "technology," and the internet. Jewish mothers far and wide urged their husbands to procure special filters and locks to keep the black-flag-waving terror of information from riding roughshod over the impressionable children and teenagers in the Jewish home. Rabbis issued sharp warnings against the use of smartphones and WhatsApp, going so far as to deny the children of such users entry into the yeshivas. Never mind that a recent study in Israel shows that Haredim surf the web just as much as anyone else does.

Lately there has been a new menace prompting the use of filters, but it's not about keeping out bugs or bytes. This time, the Jewish wife is banning the bum, which is what she calls her husband. An infraction as small as a harsh word uttered after a hard day's work, or even just a 'look,' will oftentimes be enough to get the ball rolling to have him ejected from his home, his children, and his marriage. A good husband filter can be bought at the mega-BDA, or any smaller local mom-and-pop corrupt besdin, who in cases of more serious critters can refer the woman to the professionals in superior court, ORA, and rabbis-for-hire wielding cattle prods. And so the precious children will ultimately be treated to clean drinking water, protected from outside influences, and be rid of that good-for-nothing father of theirs, once and for all.

What we are left with is dozens of fathers who have been shut out of their children's lives, either partially or in totality. The affected children are all around us, even though we may not notice that there's anything wrong with them at first. Many have been so thoroughly brainwashed to despise totty that they may not even know themselves how badly damaged and scarred they are. But these lebideke yesomim are a giveaway when you look them deep in their sad and soulful eyes. It would take a miracle to prevent some of them from slipping headlong into the OTD abyss, the numbers of which are estimated to be 5000 in the NYC area alone. The father's life is virtually over as well, with his reputation gone and remarriage prospects bleak, not to mention being forced out of shul in some cases. Many will never regain the financial traction that they once enjoyed, and even more slip away emotionally.

The recent reporting here on Daas Torah about a rabbi in the Satmar community getting hired to bump off a husband strikes one as being a bit anachronistic. Hadn't he heard about Mendel "The Prodfather" Epstein going away for ten years? And that was only for conspiracy to kidnap, not murder, although Epstein did admit to an undercover agent that if the husband gets a heart attack in the middle of his "session," his men were instructed to "make a right turn and keep on going." Ah, but wait; didn't this attempted murderer's rebbe forbid him from looking at a computer? Maybe that is why he never heard of Mendel Epstein or his arrest.

Instead of filtering out imaginary bugs or husbands, it's about time we took serious steps to expunge these killers from our midst. And while we're at it, we should focus on all the other bad apples and actors in the rabbinate as well. I have yet to hear R' Herschel Schachter retract his "beat 'em up with a baseball bat" ruling. Why his feet were never held to the fire during the Epstein trial for inciting to murder, I will never know.

It shouldn't have taken so long for Barry Freundel's shenanigans in the mikva to finally be put to an end, but eventually one brave woman did make a stand, bringing the whole world crashing down on him. The finger of blame for that one needs to be pointed directly at the RCA, who covered up for that peepster all along. And If it wouldn't have been for some brave souls plodding onwards in the face of neglect on the part of the NYPD and Charles Hynes, justice would never have been served in the Epstein case either.

Now we have R' Shmuel Kamenetsky and his son being paraded about in conferences and symposiums as if they are the best thing since sliced bread, as if nothing ever happened to Aharon Friedman. It won't work, of course. If a major effort to come clean on the worthless Greenblatt heter will not be forthcoming soon, their fate to be forever known as charlatans and quacks will be sealed.

And no amount of Citi Field-like events will succeed in keeping the Jewish public from the truth.

US kids’ clothing store defends ‘anti-Haredi’ return policy

Times of Israel   Jewish owner says customers in a ‘few concentrated areas’ abused cash-back policy, threatened survival of online shop  

On Wednesday, JTA reported that Shan and Toad, a high-end children’s clothing retailer, had a very specific return policy: Customers could return non-sale items for a full refund — except for residents of five communities in New York and New Jersey, all of which have a significant Orthodox population. [...]

But in an e-mail to JTA sent Thursday, Shana Laub, the owner of the online shop, denied allegations that her company’s return policy was in any way discriminatory against Orthodox Jews. [...]

Laub, herself an Orthodox Jew, emphasized that her store accepted returns from all areas, and that residents of these five areas could still return unworn clothes for store credit. She said she implemented the more restrictive return policies because “the survival of the business had been threatened by abuse of its return policy among customers in a few concentrated areas,” she wrote.

She continued: “Those customers would place large orders and return all, or nearly all of the items they had purchased, often in poor condition, and only after a substantial delay.”

According to Laub, a mother of five girls whose LinkedIn page lists her as living in the “Greater Los Angeles” area — and whose blog says the company was originally launched in Jerusalem — these mass orders would deplete her stock and affect her ability to process other orders, which proved destructive for her small business. “If I continued to offer returns to these neighborhoods,” Laub wrote, “my business and my income would be destroyed.” [...]

Time to Give an Unconditional Get to the BDA and ORA - the case of Donny Novick

Baruch Hashem

Guest post by Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver

Let us discuss the current "agunah" case of Donny Novick and Sherri Essrog-Novick and the detrimental involvement of the BDA (the Beth Din of America) and ORA (the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot) in their dispute. I will argue that Sherri is not in fact an agunah because at no point did Donny refuse to give her a get. Rather, the wrongdoings of Sherri from both a halachic and human standpoint have delayed the get. Moreover, the BDA is culpable for miscarriage of justice and ORA is culpable for defamation. All are in violation of established Jewish law, and these travesties should move the Jewish community to ostracize these organizations.

ORA’s False Accusation of Get Refusal

On their Facebook page here, ORA posted an image (under the headline "Facts:"!) accusing Donny of refusing to give his wife a get for three years. On its face, this means that ORA claims to have solid proof that three years ago, Sherri went to beis din and requested a get, and that beis din instructed him to give one, yet Donny refused—out of misogynistic, vengeful, spiteful "recalcitrance".

It further states that the BDA placed on him a seiruv (issuance of contempt of court) for get refusal.

These are bold-faced lies. Donny did not refuse to give a get for three years or at all, nor did the BDA place him in seiruv for get refusal.

What are the facts?

Let’s look at the BDA’s letter supposedly issuing a seiruv for get refusal. A basic reading of the letter shows that that is simply not what it says. The relevant text from here:

…Daniel Novick has failed to appear in front of the Beth Din of America or an alternative beth din for the purpose of giving a Get or submitting to beth din adjudication of Sherri Novick’s request for a Get. Daniel Novick is thus deemed a mesarev lavo ledin, one who declines to appear in front of the Jewish courts according to Jewish law, and Sherri Novick is free to pursue any remedies permitted by secular law…

This letter is written in guarded language in comparison with other such letters. It was plainly issued not for get refusal itself but for failure to appear at a beis din. It did not recommend public pressure and punitive measures against Donny; it merely stated that his wife is not obligated to go to beis din and may use civil courts (we note that this dispensation is absurd, as the BDA was fully aware that Sherri was using civil courts without rabbinic permission long before this letter was composed; more on that below).

We wonder how ORA construed this letter as a green light for a public shaming campaign against Donny. In addition to the inherent sin of embarrassing a fellow Jew without sufficient warrant, such coercive actions without solid rabbinic approval cross the line into the grave issue of forcing a get without sufficient warrant according to Jewish law, which would invalidate any get given, rendering the offspring born from Sherri’s future unions illegitimate (mamzerim), G–d forbid (cf. Rashba 7:414, Radvaz 4:118, Bais Yosef Even Ha’Ezer 154, Chazon Ish Even Ha’Ezer 108:12).

Thus, ORA is guilty of making a false accusation against Donny.

It is not enough to state the superficial fact that a get was not given for three years. "Context is everything". Was Donny refusing to give a get or even refusing to cooperate with a beis din for three years, or at all? No.

The BDA’s Negligence

In reality, Donny's wife brought this case to be tried in two different batei din of her choosing, each of whose advice or ruling was not to her liking, until she took the case to secular court (in 2014) without rabbinic dispensation (a grave sin worthy of excommunication; see Gittin 88b, Shemos 21:1, Rashi and Ramban ibid., Mishneh Torah, Laws of Sanhedrin 26:7, Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 26:1).

This means that in fact, the delay in the delivery of the get was the fault not of Donny but of Sherri, making her the get refuser and him the agun, the husband "chained" in a marriage against his will. If anyone should be the subject of a seiruv, it would be Sherri.

Then while the case was still in civil court, Sherri brought it back before the beis din—two separate batei din, in fact—yet once she learned that both those batei din require both spouses to sign a shtar chiyuvim, a legally binding contract requiring that matters of custody be settled by those respective batei din, she refused. Why would she do that? After all, she was already getting full custody using civil court and on her way to winning big bucks on a final settlement.

Yet Sherri did not have everything she wanted—she still needed a get. So she needed a beis din that would overlook her sinful use of civil courts and allow and therefore enable her to keep the custody and financial settlement cases there, yet push for and preside over the get at the same time. So she went shopping still further until she found a "beis din" that would ignore her halachic wrongdoings and thereby essentially aid and abet them—the BDA. Indeed, they agreed to push for a get without demanding that Sherri first take the custody dispute out of civil court and have them adjudicate it. Nor did they insist on even trying to mediate or negotiate the custody issue, as any decent rabbi involved in a divorce case would have required. 

While in email contact with the BDA, Donny told them (and he has the email trail to prove it, which he is willing to share upon request) that he had brought his case before other batei din (and he included their names and phone numbers in those emails), and was then later taken to court by her without rabbinic permission. He also stated that he was willing to give a get along with the civil divorce, even if the ruling of the divorce court would not be in his favor.

The BDA sent email summonses to Donny, and although he apologized and explained that he could not appear at those dates due to work restraints, they refused to work with his schedule and issued a seiruv against him for his failure to appear, along with giving permission to his wife to sue him in civil courts (knowing full well that she was doing so already regardless, without rabbinic permission). The seiruv was enough for ORA to go public and launch yet another shameful social media shaming campaign, this time against Donny.

The blame here lies with ORA:

·     *  for their zeal in going beyond the words of the BDA’s letter, which did not call for a public shaming campaign 

·        * for waging a public shaming campaign against a fellow Jew without sufficient warrant, committing the sin of shaming a fellow Jew 

 ·     * for willfully disregarding the fact (that Donny communicated to them directly when they contacted him) that Donny had been involved with several other batei din with which he had fully cooperated, and instead libeling him as a "get refuser" 

·       *  for creating halachically unwarranted communal pressure that could potentially result in a coerced and therefore invalid get (cf. Rashba 7:414, Radvaz 4:118, Bais Yosef Even Ha’Ezer 154, Chazon Ish Even Ha’Ezer 108:12)

But blame also lies with the BDA itself:

·              *   for taking up Sherri's request for a get in the first place, despite the fact that she was suing in civil court, in which case Jewish law rules that the Defendant in civil court need not respond to a summons to appear before the beis din, nor may the beis din impose a seiruv on the Defendant (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 26:1)  

·       *     for ignoring Donny’s requests to delay the meeting with the BDA to a later date so it could fit in to his work schedule 

·     *      for publicizing a letter falsely accusing Donny of neglecting to come before beis din (he was willing to, just not at that date) when in reality it was Sherri who was guilty of that very wrongdoing by abandoning the earlier batei din that she herself chose—which had the effect of falsely implying that he is a get refuser 

·      *       for failing to issue any statement at all holding Sherri accountable for committing the grave sin of using civil courts (even alongside the seiruv against Donny, which would at least have demonstrated a modicum of balance) and calling for her to return the custody and financial disputes to beis din immediately (especially considering the severity of her case against Donny—see following section) 

·      *     for issuing even such a limited seiruv knowing full well that ORA would use it as carte blanche to publicly pillory Donny, even though there was no halachic basis to do so

Financial Ruin upon Donny through the Civil Case

Bringing the case to civil court has brought great financial ruin upon Donny:

·         Donny has been paying alimony since their separation in 2013.

          Sherri's lawyer managed to require Donny to pay for Sherri's lawyer.

   ·         This case has left Donny hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

The legal conflict that Sherri initiated is the real reason that the get has been delayed for so long:

1. The conflict over custody. Even the conflict over temporary custody has drawn out interminably. Despite the fact that Donny has no history of poor parenting, Sherri has refused every offer toward a reasonable temporary custody agreement, resulting in his daughter only spending four Shabbosim with him since January. (Every month he is required to send a list of dates that he wants visitation with his daughter for Sherri to approve, only after they are reviewed and approved by her lawyer.) And who has been forced to pay for all these unnecessary, petty legal squabbles, and suffer the painful distance caused between parent and child? Donny.

2. The conflict over the final settlement. Why indeed is the court requiring Donny to pay so much money, if he is currently a medical resident earning very little? Because Sherri is now arguing in court (and the documentation is accessible on the public record) that Donny's wealth must be evaluated not on its own merits at present, but in context of his family and their wealth, and in context of his future earnings as a doctor—earnings he never earned and does not have. If she really would get her way and win a final settlement for support on that basis, Donny could well be rendered homeless. As it is, she collects 70% of his earnings. The gross unfairness, injustice, and greed in this lawsuit is self-evident.

Moreover, Sherri is suing for a settlement that would place Donny in a lifetime of debt and thus make it impossible for him to ever remarry, rendering Donny an agun. (And as far as ORA is concerned, their callous lack of concern for Donny's remarriage prospects due to Sherri's forbidden lawsuit clearly reveals their feminist, misandrist agenda and the phoniness of their pious concern for the "chained".)

Thus, Sherri is not only litigating custody in civil court, which is forbidden in itself (and a form of kidnapping, which is even worse than stealing property); she is litigating for a monetary award to which she is completely not entitled under Jewish law, and which thus constitutes extortion and robbery. This makes the BDA's and ORA's acceptance of Sherri's ongoing lawsuit against Donny all the more morally wrong and severe.

Conclusion

In summary, Donny is no monstrous "get refuser" (which is anyway not wrong or forbidden in itself—see here) and Sherri is no "agunah". On the contrary, Donny was the one obediently submitting to Jewish law, willing to accept the rulings of a beis din following the standard procedure of negotiating his settlement and presiding over the giving of the get, enabling him to move on with his life. Donny did not refuse to give a get or demand anything outside the norm and he fully cooperated with four other batei din of Sherri's choosing. Rather, it was Sherri who rejected their authority and went on to commit a series of acts that neutral bystanders, as well as the arbitrators of those batei din, found to be totally beyond the pale.

Although a detailed account is beyond the scope of this article, Donny is only the latest in a long line of Jewish men who have been the victims of such treatment. The public must realize that despite the apparent worthiness of their cause, both the BDA and ORA are morally corrupt institutions with a long, sordid history of persecuting and victimizing Jewish men: The BDA, for issuing unwarranted seiruvim; and ORA, for knowingly libeling Jewish husbands as malicious "get refusers" guilty of "domestic abuse" while knowingly covering up the crimes and lies of abusive wives, all in order to promote their misandrist, feminist agenda (and harming the legitimate cause of true agunim and agunos—those unable to remarry because of the truly malicious refusal of their spouses to accept or give a get).

It’s time for the Jewish community to give an unconditional get to the BDA and ORA—with recalcitrance.

Shoftim 76 - Learning and action-good deeds , what drives what ? by Allan Katz

Guest post by Allan Katz

'When you besiege a city for an extended period, to make war against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees…... for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down, - for is the tree of the field a man? or, for man is like the tree of the field – (2 ways to read this), that you should besiege it? Only the trees which you know are not trees for food may you destroy and cut down, in order to build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls. (Devarim 20:19-20)

כי תצור אל עיר ימים רבים להלחם עליה לתפשה לא תשחית את עצה לנדח עליו גרזן כי ממנו תאכל ואתו לא תכרת כי האדם עץ השדה לבא מפניך במצור: {כ} רק עץ אשר תדע כי לא עץ מאכל הוא אתו תשחית וכרת ובנית מצור על העיר

Our verses deal with times of war and it is in this context that we are warned to preserve fruit trees. Man acts in a most destructive way against the planet -his home in times of war. Today, when chemical and atomic warfare is available and has been used, this message is very relevant. IS the tree of the field a man that he can flee into the besieged city ? or why make war on trees ? - they are non-combatants. We can read this as a statement, not a question - for man is like the tree of the field – for man's life is dependent of the fruit of the tree and there is a promise that after the war you will eat from the tree. The exception to the rule - trees that don't bear fruit or give food, may be cut down for a purpose ( building). The prohibition of meaningless destruction of tress is extended to not unnecessarily destroying or wasting objects called the laws of ' bal tashchit ' - do not destroy. The cutting down of forests – non- fruit bearing trees can have a negative ecological impact on the environment and man's future, so forests need sustainable management that takes into account their regenerative capacity. Fruit bearing trees can be cut down if there are good reasons justifying this.

The statement – for man is like the tree of the field is seen by Sages as a metaphor – man can be compared to a tree. Psychologists use the ' tree drawing test ' that reveals something about personality. The trunk represents the sense of who you are and how intact your personality is - a small trunk – you feel weak, a large trunk, you have more strength. The branches are like your limbs symbolizing the efforts you make to connect to the world and support your needs to survive. Leaves and fruit are symbols of productivity. Roots show a sense of security and being in touch with reality.

The Mishna from Pirkei Avot – Ethics of Our fathers 3:17

כל שחכמתו מרבה ממעשיו, למה הוא דומה, לאילן שענפיו מרובין ושרשיו מעטין, והרוח באה ועוקרתו והופכתו על פניו. אבל כל שמעשיו מרובין מחכמתו, למה הוא דומה, לאילן שענפיו מעטין ושורשיו מרובין, שאפילו כל הרוחות שבעולם באות ונושבות בו אין מזיזין אותו ממקומו.

Anyone whose wisdom exceeds his good deeds, what is he comparable to? To a tree with many branches and few roots; comes a storm and uproots it, and turns it on its face. But one who's good deeds are greater than his wisdom, to what is he compared? - To a tree with many roots and few branches, whom all the storms in the world cannot budge from its place. Here, the roots of the tree are compared to a man's good deeds and actions and the branches – the head of the tree are compared to a man's learning, wisdom and Torah. What feeds, secures and the source of man's wisdom - are his good deeds and actions.

הגמרא בקידושין מ:. שאלה תלמוד גדול או מעשה גדול? נענה רבי טרפון ואמר - מעשה גדול. נענה רבי עקיבא ואמר- תלמוד גדול. נענו כולם ואמרו- תלמוד גדול, שהתלמוד מביא לידי מעשה.

The Gemorrah in Kidushin 40b asks – what is greater - Learning or mitzvoth - actions. R' Tarpon answered – actions, R' Akivah answered – Learning is greater. Then all the Rabbis in the study hall answered – learning is greater because it leads to action. A person in essence is his Torah – תורתו, a live, dynamic and walking Torah scroll .He can be described as a tree of dynamic knowledge and when he does mitzvoth and good deeds, he is giving expression to his inner being, he is giving expression to his Torah, a Torah which he has internalized and integrated, a Torah which is part of his personality. The tree is his wisdom - his Torah, and his good deeds, mitzvoth and actions are the fruits of his learning. The tree is greater than the fruit. From this Gemorah, the source of a man's good deeds is his Learning.

Our Mishnah from Pirkei Avot sees good deeds as ' roots' feeding, securing and driving learning whereas our gemorrah in Kidushin sees learning as the source of our actions and the driving force to good deeds, mitzvoth and actions. So how can we reconcile the two statements? We have learning and actions – what drives what?

There is an obvious question on our Mishnah's statement – 'how can good deeds should exceed one's wisdom'. ? We usually act on our knowledge in our order to pursue any planned action, so wisdom always exceeds one's deed. The opportunities for learning are many, both formal and informal, but opportunities for action are more limited. R' Yonah explains that when the Israelites made a sincere commitment to bring the Pascal sacrifice, the Torah credited them as if they did it immediately. A general commitment to fulfill God's commandments and mitzvoth, even those that one has not yet learned, is credited by God as if one has already done the action. This makes one's actions greater than one's knowledge. So what drives learning is a desire to learn to be active in the world and a commitment to action. It is a desire to answer questions related to actions and good deeds, solve life's problems, act in the world, and be of service to man and to serve God. The Gemorah in Kidushin sees man as the Torah within himself. His ultimate desire, like the pianist who wants to perform before an audience in a great concert hall, is to give expression to his learning and act on his learning. The Gemorah in Menachot 98 says that ' sometimes the stopping and not learning Torah to do mitzvoth is the very foundation of the Torah ' - שביטולה של תורה זהו יסודה-קיומה פעמים. Action and good deeds drive learning and give it direction while the learning itself builds Torah personalities who want to give expression to their Torah and do mitzvoth in the world.

What drives the educational system is getting good test scores rather than teaching kids relevant material so they can act in the world. Learning should be driven by questions, problems and projects. It is about being in the world and acting in the world. Once they are involved in answering questions, solving problems and doing projects we can really assess true learning. There is no need for a test and in the end we have ' exhibitions of their mastery' and children who have internalized and integrated their learning, burning with desire to share their learning and give expression to their learning by doing.

How to Protect our Childrein: Amudim: Sunday 9/11 in Lakewood

Dignity of the Synagogue by Professor Cyril Domb F.R.S.

  Dignity of the Synagogue Prof Domb 

Ronit Bitton says that her son will not join his non-Jewish father in Belgium - despite court ruling

Arutz 7

Sources close to Ronit Bitton, who sat in jail for three and a half years for interference with legal proceedings dictating custody of her 17-year-old son to her non-Jewish ex-husband in Belgium, deny claims that the youth will soon join up with his father.

“We’re talking about a 17.5-year-old youth,” the sources said. “He is haredi. It is impossible to force him to go live with his non-Jewish father. Word to the contrary on this matter is incorrect.”

The Jewish Belgian paper Regards reported that Bitton agreed that the son be given to his father’s custody; in exchange, authorities in Israel agreed not to press charges against Bitton’s accomplices for hiding her son.

According to that report, Bitton “kidnapped” her son from his father in Belgium in 2006, when the boy was seven years old. Belgian and Israeli courts ruled that the father, Vincent Georis, was the sole legal guardian, and that the son needs to be transferred to his guardianship. The mother claimed that she did not know where her son was and, in an interview with Arutz Sheva in 2013, had asserted that she hadn’t seen him for five years. An Israeli court sentenced her to five years imprisonment for interfering with legal proceedings; she began to serve her sentence in 2013.

Last month, she was released from prison. It is unclear whether a third of the sentence was simply deducted or whether some sort of bargain transpired between Bitton and enforcement authorities which enabled her early release. The son, as far as is known, reported to a Jerusalem police station, and took a DNA test that verified his identity.

The father told the Belgian newspaper that he had spoken with his son on the telephone. “I have no words to describe my happiness,” he had said.[...]

‘Private Hell’: Prep School Sex Abuse Inquiry Paints Grim Picture

NY Times

Sexual abuse was so rampant that it created a “private hell” for some students at an elite prep school in Rhode Island in the 1970s and ’80s, investigators reported on Thursday, describing an atmosphere of terror in which at least 61 students were victimized and some staff members committed assaults for years before being forced out.

The investigation found that at least 51 students were abused by employees of St. George’s School, a prestigious private boarding and day school near Newport, and at least 10 others by fellow students — and that the true numbers are probably significantly higher. The inquiry came after years of pressure from victims who said that St. George’s had refused to squarely acknowledge the extent of the problems.

The report — with pages of vivid, painful detail from accusers — follows other revelations about sexual abuse at several prominent prep schools in the same area, but none have matched the sheer scale and pervasiveness of the misconduct discovered at St. George’s.

More victims will come forward, and “when the sun is set on this case, it could be the largest school sex abuse case in history,” said Roderick MacLeish, a lawyer and St. George’s alumnus who has worked with abuse survivors in pressuring the school to conduct the investigation. “It’s in the thousands of years of suffering this caused.”

The abuses that alumni have recounted, often after decades of silence, include forced intercourse, oral sex and digital penetration; one student sodomizing another with a broomstick; sexual groping; harassment; and taking photographs of naked students without their knowledge and showing them to other students.

The misconduct by one staff member, the report said, was so frequent and such common knowledge that many of the former students — now middle-aged, and many of them women — told investigators they did not see how other adults could have been unaware of it.

“Many of these students remember St. George’s as a place where their abusers created a kind of private hell for them — a place where they suffered trauma and emotional wounds that, for many, remain unhealed,” Martin F. Murphy, the leader of the inquiry, wrote in the nearly 400-page report documenting the findings.[...]

Re'eh; Listening To A Navi When The Torah Says Otherwise by Rabbi Shlomo Pollak

Rashi in Re'eh (12;13) quotes a Sifri, that learns from the words בכל מקום אשר תראה.... that the prohibition to bring a Karbon out of the Beis Hamikdash, is only when one wants to do so on his own. When a Navi commands Klall Yisroel to do it, it's OK . Rashi (still quoting the Sifri) then brings an example- Eliyahu Hanavi on Har HaCarmel.

The problem is, that Rashi in Parshas Shoftim (18;22) - ALSO quoting a Sifri - brings an entirely different source for the Har HaCarmel exception... 

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