Violence & leadership in the Chareidi world

I have received inquiries from a number of people who have asked questions concerning why the gedolim of the chareidi world have not said or done anything to stop the riots. In fact there have been apparently only two voices - Rav Eliashiv and Rav Sternbuch - and their statements seemed not to have had much impact. In addition they presented their views in an indirect manner. There has also been much scholarly pontification about the nature of the chareidi world in the secular press and about their desire for the secular world not to intervene with their people. The following quotes are typical of the questions that are being asked.

Haaretz

Earlier Thursday, Jerusalem District police chief Aharon Franco voiced harsh criticism over the failure of the Haredi leadership to speak out against the violent riots…."There is not one sane voice within the Haredi community that will rise up and cry out against this phenomenon," Franco said. "They have rabbis, they have leadership, and I haven't heard the rabbis or sages crying out."

Garnel Ironheart asked

Maybe someone can explain this to me. I hear over and over again: The Gedolim have Daat Torah. The Gedolim have Ruach HaKodesh. Listening to them is like listening to God. Disobeying them is like disobeying God. Over and over again. Whenever a non-Chareidi Jew challenges the latest chumra of the week, we're are told: But the Gedolim said so, so you have to! So Rav Eliashiv has come out against the riots. Rav Sternbuch has come out against the riots. And the rioters aren't listening. Aren't they Chareidim?

It is true that that many in the chareidi world think these riots are justified - even if they are not happy with the level of violence. They object to the heavy handed manner that the police have acted in that they have taken a respected pregnant mother from her family and put her in jail with common criminals. The police acknowledge the truth of this but say it is because she hasn't cooperated.

However I would like to discuss another critical factor - one which will not please some - but one which needs to be addressed. That is the issue of violence and threats of violence by elements in the chareidi world - against other chareidim. These threats also include threats against the life of rabbonim who disagree with these elements. Consequently the leaders are silent. Most of this has been addressed by someone with an intimate knowledge of this world who insists on being identified only as Aaron.

Aaron wrote:

There are two concerns. One is the fear of the outsider – especially secular authorizes such as the police and doctors. Distortions and outright lies are believed because they fit the stereotype of the outsider who hates and wants to hurt frum Jews. For example, most people on the street believe the wall posters that this is a "blood libel". People are really stupid. This claim definitely causes hatred to the frum community in the Hadassah hospital – because of its unfairness to many who genuinely try to help heal and accommodate the needs of frum Jews. So even if there was no bias against frum yidden it sure encourages it. This talk about “blood libel” is totally forbidden. These people are going on a witch-hunt, trying to portray Hadassah as a place with hatred towards the frum people. I have spent a lot of time there – both during the day and at night. These charges are an outright slander against the hospital. The hospital staff in fact treats frum people very well. While there are medical mistakes made, but this is typical of every hospital in the world. People have bought the story that the hospital is against frum people and they believe this nonsense. Unfortunately it becomes a self-fulfilling belief when doctors and nurses become angry when all their efforts and care are forgotten and they are accused of these disgusting lies.

The second concern is that of violence and intimidation by the low lives of chareidi society against other chareidim. This is a fact that everyone must come to terms with. One needs to acknowledge that besides the tzadikim and the talmidei chachomim and those who work hard to help others - every society has their dropouts. Our society is being dragged around by a bunch of renegade hooligans. They aren’t representative of the whole society but they have a very strong impact on the way the community is perceived and on the type of responses the people – especially the leaders can do. It is very sad that it has come to this.

Rav Sternbuch has consistently and repeatedly denounced acts of violence in our community. There was even a long quote in a recent Mishpacha magazine in which he strongly condemned any types of violence and especially in demonstrations. His demonstrations against the gay parade were totally without violence. Rav Sternbuch stated that anyone who acts violently demonstrates that he does not belong in our community

Regarding why Rav Sternbuch has not been more direct and forceful in denouncing these riots, the simple answer is that he realizes that he is taking his life into his hands. So while he feels an obligation to try and change the situation - but he does it cautiously. The statement he gave denouncing the riots could cause him much trouble when these hooligans find out about it. They are likely to call him a collaborator or moser – they have no respect for any rav who doesn’t do what they expect. There are many rabbanim – chareidim and non-chareidim who could and should have condemned these riots – but they haven’t. Basically everyone is scared for their lives and safety from these guys – it is very sad.

I remember a number of years ago when the Bedatz was investigating the issue of heart transplants. They wanted to discuss the issue with some doctors – and some hooligans said no. The issue was decided when the dayanim of the Bedatz found a bullet hole in the door of their meeting room. There was no further discussion of the issue.

Paradoxically the only way this situation can be corrected is through the police. There have been a number of violent incidences in the last two years in Meah Shearim that the police have not taken seriously. This includes not only property damage but also violence to people. If the police would have been concerned for the well being of frum yidden in those cases and have protected the innocent against the hoodlum – things might not have spiraled out of control as they have now. The hooligans are aware that they can get away with a lot – and the police won’t exert themselves. It is primarily when the modesty squads attack people who are not part of the frum community that the police get involved.

Therefore at the present moment – despite some arrests – the police are not viewed as a significant threat by the hooligans. In fact the police go from doing nothing in legitimate cases of extortion and threats to overreacting with brutality against the innocent. This is especially true regarding yeshiva bochurim that they think are attacking them with stones. The incredible insensitivity that this woman was treated is unfortunately viewed as typical brutal police action in the chareidi world. Therefore if the police dealt with the chareidi society with a greater sensitivity and showed a genuine interest in helping protect against these gangster – the frum society would be more cooperative with the police. Unfortunately the police and the chareidim are involved with demonizing each other – while in fact they truly need each other for a stable and productive society.

In sum the Eidah has no power to oppose these hooligans and there are those who think that the violent riots serve a genuine purpose. Rav Sternbuch has in fact showed much bravery by trying to protest this violence – especially since other rabbis who agree with him are afraid to do anything.

Hopefully a growing awareness of the dangers of allowing this vigilante action and the greater concern of the police – will lead to the necessary improvements.

HaRav Sternbuch's statement on riots in Jerusalem

In response to my request for clarification of Rav Sternbuch's views on the current rioting connected with the arrest of a mother suspected child abuser I was authorized to report in his name the following:

He agrees that the rioting is wrong and he condemned the demonstrators are "mushugoyim". He said that it was in fact the duty of the hospital to report their findings to the authorities and thus they acted appropriately. He criticized the talk about boycotting the hospital in retaliation - as making no sense and and in fact being "very self-damaging." He asserted that the real point of contention is not whether this woman is guilty or innocent - but rather the way the police have dealt with her - chaining her hands and feet. If in fact it is true - as the police have claimed - that this woman is mentally ill, she should not have been placed in a cell together with dirty and dangerous criminals.

The reason that he hasn't issued a statement for the street or put up wall posters is simply that he knows he has very little influence on the people that are rioting - since they don't accept his authority. There are other people who in fact wield more influence - but they have yet to be convinced that the police have justification for what they have done. He is doing what he can behind the scenes to end the confrontation.

Rav Sternbuch - converting wife with invalid geirus

This is the type of case that Rav Eliashiv was referring to in his published teshuva (3:140) and it is the type of case that most poskim would agree that it is appropriate to convert the non-Jewish spouse. The insistence of having conventions and pursuing people who knowingly sinned by intermarriage is not validated by this approach. The attempt of Roni and R' Tropper to insist that leniencies such as this allow them to hold conventions to persuade intermarried couples to convert requires clearly stated teshuvos to that effect from Gedolim. Even their posek Rav Reuven Feinstein has not issued a heter for this nor has he stated publicly that it is permitted.As far as I can ascertain - Rav Reuven Feinstein does not disagree with Rav Sternbuch on this issue.

סימן ה:שבב

הערה נענין נישואין לבעלת תשובה

באו לפנינו מקרים של בני תורה שהתחתנו עם בעלות תשובה, ואח"כ נתברר שאם הכלה היא גיורת שנתגיירה ולא שמרה מצוות מעולם, ואומדנא דמוכח שלא נתכוונה בשעת גירותה לשמור מצוות, והפוסקים כתבו שלא חלה הגירות והיא עודנה בגויותה, וכן בתה, אף שהיא בעלת תשובה וצדקנית ונשואה לבן תורה, מ"מ מדין תורתה"ק היא גויה ובעלה חייב לפרוש ממנה, והטבלנו אותה בצינעא בפני בית דין לשם גירות, ובעלה קידשה ונשאה עוד פעם בפני עדים כדין. זה הוא אם אמה של הכלה נתגיירה ולא שמרה מצוות מעולם, אבל אם אמה של הכלה גופא החלה אח"כ לשמור מצוות, אין לי הכרעה, ומ"מ צריך לחומרא להטבילה...

Rav Sternbuch (Teshuvos V'Hanhagos 5:322): Concerning a marriage to a baalas teshuva. We have cases coming before us of a ben Torah marrying a baalas teshuva and then afterwards it is discovered that the bride's mother was a giyorus who never observed mitzvos. It is reasonable to assume that the mother had no intention of observing mitzvos at the time she converted. The Poskim says that therefore the mother was never a convert and thus she is still a non-Jew and obviously so is her daughter the bride. This is so even if the bride is a genuine baalas teshuva and truly righteous and she has shown her sincerity by marrying a ben Torah. Nevertheless according to the law of the Torah she is a non-Jew and her husband must separate from her. However she is to be immersed in the mikva secretly before a beis din for the sake of conversion. Her husband needs to marry her a second time in the presence of kosher witnesses. This is if the bride's mother converted and never observed mitzvos. However if her mother eventually did come to observe mitzvos - it is not clear whether the daughter is Jewish but she should l'chumra be converted....

Chief Rabbi Amar validates cancelled conversion

JPost

In an encouraging sign for converts whose Jewishness has been questioned by the haredi-controlled rabbinic establishment, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar ruled this week that a conversion annulled by a Haifa Rabbinic Court was perfectly kosher.

Amar's ruling was handed down on Tuesday, just in time to allow the convert to wed the woman of his choice in a Jewish ceremony that was slated to take place Wednesday evening in Haifa.

More than 15 years ago, S.V., the groom, was converted as a child along with his mother by a Haifa Rabbinic Court, headed by former chief Sephardi Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.

However, several months ago, when S.V. attempted to register for marriage at the Haifa Religious Council, he was rejected. The local registrar referred him to the local rabbinical court to verify his conversion.

The Haifa Rabbinic Court ruled that S.V.'s conversion was invalid since he had abandoned an Orthodox lifestyle when he reached bar mitzva age.

S.V. appealed to the Supreme Court against the rabbinical court decision. However, this past Monday the Supreme Court ruled that S.V. had to first exhaust his option of appealing to the Supreme Rabbinic Court before the Supreme Court could get involved.

The next day, S.V. appeared before Amar and two other judges: Rabbi Ezra Bar-Shalom, the son-in-law of Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and Rabbi Zion Buaron.

The panel ruled that S.V. was a full-fledged Jew. [...]

Child abuse case leads to Chareidi protests

The accusations against the mother of child abuse been fully represented in the secular press along with a conjectured psychiatric diagnosis. In short she has been put on trial convicted and executed. However there is a second side of the story which alledges that the doctors have misdiagnosed and mistreated the child and that the insensitive manner of arresting her in public was disgusting.

Whichever version of events is true - there is no question that this is a public relations disaster for the Chareidi community. However the release of private and confidential information as well as rumors to the secular press - by the police, social workers and hospital - are not acceptable in a modern society even if the facts are in agreement with the hospital. This is not the first time that the secular forces have felt a need to violate confidentiality to have the chareidim vilified in the press and public opinion.

The obvious solution should be a joint committee - of Chareidi representatives and hospital official - to investigate the facts - not only of whether there was abuse - but how and why confidential information was given to the press. Even if the facts of abuse are correct - and they haven't been proven - this public campaign by the secular forces is not appropriate but neither are the disgusting riots which only serve to validate the campaign of villification against the chareidi population

JPost

[...] The woman's family claims the child has cancer and that his skeletal appearance is due to chemotherapy treatments, a claim vehemently denied by doctors, who have said that since the mother's arrest, the child's condition has improved and that he has begun to put on weight.

Dudu Zilbershlag, the family's media adviser, told Army Radio on Thursday morning that they had medical documents proving their claim and would reveal them in a matter of hours.

Dr. Yair Birnbaum, deputy director-general of the Hadassah Medical Organization, said that the boy had gained 20 percent of his weight since nearly two weeks ago, when the mother was arrested. [...]

JPost

"Jerusalem's 'Eda Haredit' will boycott Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital, since its medical team fabricates libels against our community members and abuses them," declared Yoel 'Yoelish' Kraus, the 'operations officer' of the staunchly anti-Zionist haredi communal organization.

Speaking on Army Radio Wednesday morning, Kraus's statement came after a night of haredi riots in the capital, protesting the arrest of a Jerusalem woman apparently suffering from a psychiatric disorder, whose arrest for allegedly near-starving her three-year-old son to death was made public by police on Tuesday.

The mother of four, a member of the extreme Natorei Karta hassidic sect in Jerusalem who is five months pregnant, is suspected of severely abusing her child for two years, until he weighed a mere 7 kilograms, according to police investigators.

She was arrested last week during a meeting with a social worker.

In response, scores of haredi protesters took to the streets Tuesday night, setting garbage bins on fire on Rehov Bar-Ilan and in the Mea She'arim neighborhood, snarling traffic in the area, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. [...]

Neturei Karta & Iran!

And Hamas

Assisted suicide debate in England

NYTimes

LONDON — The controversy over the ethical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide for the terminally ill was thrown into stark relief on Tuesday with the announcement that one of Britain's most distinguished orchestra conductors, Sir Edward Downes, had flown to Switzerland last week with his wife and joined her in drinking a lethal cocktail of barbiturates provided by an assisted-suicide clinic.

Although friends who spoke to the British news media said Sir Edward was not known to have been terminally ill, they said he wanted to die with his ailing wife, who had been his partner for more than half a century.

The couple's children said in an interview with The London Evening Standard that on Tuesday of last week they accompanied their father, 85, and their mother, Joan, 74, on the flight from London to Zurich, where the Swiss group Dignitas helped arrange the suicides. On Friday, the children said, they watched, weeping, as their parents drank "a small quantity of clear liquid" before lying down on adjacent beds, holding hands.

"Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes," Caractacus Downes, the couple's 41-year-old son, said in the interview after his return to Britain. "They wanted to be next to each other when they died." He added, "It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don't understand why the legal position in this country doesn't allow it." [...]

Living together first - can ruin marriage

Fox News

Couples who shack up before tying the knot are more likely to get divorced than their counterparts who don't move in together until marriage, a new study suggests.

Upwards of 70 percent of U.S. couples are cohabiting these days before marrying, the researchers estimate.

The study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, indicates that such move-ins might not be wise.

And it's not because you start to get on one another's nerves. Rather, the researchers figure the shared abode could lead to marriage for all the wrong reasons.

"We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting," said lead researcher Galena Rhoades of the University of Denver.

Couples might also be nudged into nuptials because of a joint lease or shared ownership of Fido — along with other practicalities.[...]

Shoteh - How defined /psychology or behavior?

Shalom Reb Daniel Eidensohn,

I was directed to you by a Rav who said you are a psychologist and a talmid chochom who has thought a great deal about the topic matter I would like to bring to your attention and get your opinions on.

Basically, my question is would you consider a person who thinks perfectly rationally, but who is prevented from acting accordingly because of severe OCD (on the level of Howard Hughes) and psychotic paranoia, to be a shoteh according to halachah?

This is a real-life scenario as the person in question absolutely exists and they have been diagnosed by a board certified psychiatrist with those mental illnesses.

Thank you for your time and I very much look forward to your feedback.

RS

Obama's Stimulus Plan - failing

Time Magazine

The $787 billion stimulus plan is turning out to be far less stimulating than its architects expected.

Back in early January, when Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers, and leading proponents of a stimulus bill, predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in America hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983. (See 10 ways your job will change.)

The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in Obama's Administration. Romer is the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Bernstein is the chief economist and economic-policy adviser to Vice President Biden. And the stimulus bill that both economists championed became law in mid-February. What has not come to pass, however, is the boom in job creation that Romer and Bernstein predicted. A little over a month ago, the Administration said the stimulus bill had created or saved 150,000 jobs. That's a far cry from the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Romer and Bernstein foresaw back in January.[...]

EJF's hilchos geirus program - what is it's purpose?

It has been claimed by Kanoimpogimbo that his community is being destroyed by rabbis as the result of EJF's welcoming attitude toward interfaith couples. The question is whether EJF in fact encourages the proselytizing of non-Jews who are dating Jews and encourages non-Jews to attend Torah lectures or that these rabbis who are participating in EJF hilchos geirus program have serious misunderstood EJF. Perhaps Roni could explain the purpose of the hilchos geirus program and what it teaches. If in fact these rabbis have misunderstood it, it is obviously necessary to inform R' Tropper that the goals of EJF - in least in this instance - are seriously misunderstood and that he needs to make sure the participants properly understand it. Below is the contract that participants sign. Perhaps R' Tropper should write a public letter condeming their attitude and I would be glad to pass it on and/or publicize it.

Agunos - Fairness and halacha

JPost

Susan Weiss, founding director of the nonprofit Center for Women's Justice, will never forget the day in 2000 when a 36-year-old mother of five walked into her office and pleaded with the New York-born lawyer to help her fight for a divorce.

"She'd been trying to obtain one for more than 10 years," recalls Weiss, a Jerusalem-based mother of five, who in June received an award from the Israel Bar Association for her work in helping agunot or chained women, whose husbands refuse them a get (divorce).

"The rabbinic court had ordered the husband to give a get and to pay child support, but he was still refusing," she continues, adding that the husband had invoked an ancient Jewish law where he claimed to be willing to divorce but only based on certain conditions.

"He said he would divorce her but that she had to waive all her rights to child support," remembers Weiss. "[The rabbinic judges] said that if she did not agree to his demands, then the fact she did not yet have a divorce was her own fault. When she asked the judge how she would be able to support herself and her children if the husband did not pay some form of child support, the rabbis said, 'Go to the haredi community, they will support you there.'"[...]