Peace Corps' history of silencing the victim in sexual assault cases

NYTimes

Jess Smochek arrived in Bangladesh in 2004 as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer with dreams of teaching English and “helping the world.” She left six weeks later a rape victim after being brutalized in an alley by a knife-wielding gang.

When she returned to the United States, the reception she received from Peace Corps officials was as devastating, she said, as the rape itself. In Bangladesh, she had been given scant medical care; in Washington, a counselor implied that she was to blame for the attack. For years she kept quiet, feeling “ashamed and embarrassed and guilty.” [...]

Just published: "Child & Domestic Abuse - Compact Practical Guide Edition"

In preparation for the presentation I am giving Lag B'Omer at the White Institute conference on abuse in the Orthodox community and in response to those who  just want to know the basic halachic parameters of abuse in an inexpensive volume - I have just published a compact practical guide to abuse. This contains the text of Volume I including the Synopsis of Rav Sternbuch's views and the Practical Guide and my essays. However it does not contain the  important essays contributed by  rabbis, psychologists, and lawyers which fully describe the nuances of the psychological and legal issues. I also included the teshuvos of contemporary gedolim from Volume II dealing with abuse and calling the police or social agencies - both the translation and Hebrew source. However it doesn't include the many texts describing important associated issues. Thus I have selected 150 pages of the basic core material from the 800 pages published in Volumes I & II. This compact guide can serve as a stand alone source book or as an introduction/review of Volume I and II. Currently it is only available from the Amazon Createspace store (click link to order) - but should be available on Amazon  in another week. Volumes I & II are currently available from Amazon

Reporting the "atrocity" of photoshopping women - leitzanus for a slow news day

Hirhurim - by Rabbi Gil Student

I never thought I’d be in the position of defending extreme Chasidic “modesty” but I have no choice. The mocking condemnations of the Chasidic newspaper Di Tzeitung that are flying through cyberspace due to the paper’s removal of women from a picture are so lacking in self-awareness that someone needs to point out that the two parties in this discussion are flip sides of the same coin.

The newspaper’s decision is objectionable on many points, including copyright law, sensitivity and honesty. I can’t defend it. But rather than mock I can try to understand it. Satire can be insightful even when it is merciless. However, too often it is merely getting a cheap laugh or an easy position of outrage at the expense of thoughtful consideration.

Osama Bin Laden's sea burial condemned by leading Muslims

CNN  By Abdal Hakim Murad is a lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University, England. In 2010 he was voted Britain's most influential Muslim thinker by Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center. His latest book, Bombing without Moonlight, is about the religious meaning of suicide bombing.

The death and disposal of the Middle East's "Dark Lord," was always going to be an iconic moment. Its symbolism would provide a particular twist to the way he was remembered. Doubtless this was realized by President Obama's strategists. Yet there are good reasons, pragmatic as well as idealistic, to suggest that the final showdown with Osama bin Laden was dangerously mismanaged.

The burial at sea was a sad miscalculation. It is not clear where the Pentagon finds its information on Islamic rituals. It cannot ignore, however, the fact that Muslim leaders have found the procedure by which the cadaver was tipped into the sea, following an unspecified Muslim ceremony, entirely unacceptable.

The leading scholarly institution in the Muslim world is Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. And the Muslim world has heard, with disquiet, Al-Azhar's judgement on the "sea burial." [....]

When doctors bully nurses - patients suffer & die

NYTimes

But while most doctors clearly respect their colleagues on the nursing staff, every nurse knows at least one, if not many, who don’t.

Indeed, every nurse has a story like mine, and most of us have several. A nurse I know, attempting to clarify an order, was told, “When you have ‘M.D.’ after your name, then you can talk to me.” A doctor dismissed another’s complaint by simply saying, “I’m important.”

When a doctor thoughtlessly dresses down a nurse in front of patients or their families, it’s not just a personal affront, it’s an incredible distraction, taking our minds away from our patients, focusing them instead on how powerless we are.

That said, the most damaging bullying is not flagrant and does not fit the stereotype of a surgeon having a tantrum in the operating room. It is passive, like not answering pages or phone calls, and tends toward the subtle: condescension rather than outright abuse, and aggressive or sarcastic remarks rather than straightforward insults.

Halachic Analysis: Mitzvah of Kivud Av V'aim

VIN

Toppling Mubarak brings sharp increase in Muslim-Christian violence

Al Jazeera

Egypt's military rulers have detained 190 people in connection with the clashes between Muslims and Christians in Cairo in which at least 12 people have been killed and more than 230 others wounded.

The situation remained tense on Sunday, a day after violence first erupted in the Egyptian capital's northwestern neighbourhood of Imbaba.

Witnesses said the clashes broke out after a mob of conservative Muslims marched on a Coptic Christian church in Imbaba.

The march began over an apparent relationship between a Coptic woman and a Muslim man, amid reports that the woman was being held inside against her will and prevented from converting to Islam.

The verbal clash soon developed into a full-fledged confrontation where the two sides exchanged gunfire, firebombs and stones, and another church nearby was set on fire.

Yated publishes ban against Mishpacha

Kikkar HaShabbat

קוראיו הוותיקים של העיתון "יתד נאמן", בטאון ´דגל התורה´, שפשפו הבוקר (שני) את עיניהם בתדהמה. בעמוד השער, התנוסס מכתבו של לא אחר מאשר גאב"ד בית דין צדק בני ברק, הגאון רבי ניסים קרליץ.

במכתבו, יוצא הגר"נ קרליץ חוצץ נגד השבועונים החרדיים לסוגיהם. "כל השבועונים והחינמונים, כולל עיתון "משפחה", מסלפים ומטשטשים את השקפת תורתנו הקדושה שקיבלו מרבותינו, וחלילה להכניס עיתונים מסוג זה לבית, או לסייע בידם בכל אופן שהוא", כותב רבי ניסים קרליץ.

לצד מכתבו של הגר"נ קרליץ, הופיע מכתבם של מספר ראשי ישיבות, גם הוא נגד השבועונים, אשר גורמים "נזק רב לערכים נעלים ומקודשים אותם אנו עמלים להנחיל. על כן יש להתרחק מהם ומכל השבועונים למיניהם", לשון מכתב ראשי הישיבות.

New mechanism for converts to marry

JPost

After over a year of an impassioned court debate, the state and ITIM – The Jewish Life Information Center have agreed on a mechanism set to ensure converts are registered for marriage by city rabbis in a way that is nearly identical to the procedure other Israeli Jews go through.

Last September, the state suggested that four regional rabbis would bear the the capacity to function as marriage registrars for converts from anywhere in the country.

The solution came in the wake of the phenomenon of some city rabbis refusing to register state-approved converts for marriage. This situation was what had prompted Alina Sardiyokov, a convert to Judaism, and her husband, Maxim, ITIM and three other public petitioners last March to file a High Court of Justice petition against the rabbinate and four city rabbis. [...]

Rav Eliashiv refuses to ban women speaking on cellphones in public

BHOL

הרב קופשיץ, גיסו של הגר"נ קרליץ, החתים את גיסו על מכתב נגד שבועון 'משפחה'. המכתב הוכחש, ופורסם בשנית, ופרטים אודות הסאגה המדוברת תוכלו לקרוא בהרחבה במדור עיתונות ותקשורת באתר 'בחדרי חרדים'.

אחד מבאי ביתו של הגרי"ש אלישיב, סיפר היום (ה') ל'בחדרי חרדים' סיפור מעניין שהתרחש לא מכבר.

בצהרי יום אביבי, הגיע הרב קופשיץ לבית הגרי"ש אלישיב. לאחר שנכנס לחדרו של הרב, סיפר לו כי דורנו לוקה במגפה נוראה ההולכת ומתפשטת.

"מהי המגיפה?" התענין הגרי"ש

"בנות סמינר הולכות ברחוב", סיפר הרב, "והן מדברות בפלאפון בקול רם. זהו מחזה לא כשר ההולך ומתפשט. הבאתי מכתב נגד התופעה ואני מעוניין שהרב יחתום עליו".

Rabbi found guilty in plane grope incident

NYPost

A touchy-feely Orthodox rabbi was found guilty today by a federal judge for groping a female Israel Defense Forces officer during a flight aboard a commercial jetliner bound for New York.

Gavriel Bidany, 48, a father of 11 children, was traveling on a Delta flight from Tel Aviv and seated next to the young woman, who had fallen asleep. [...]

How to View Bin Ladin's Death from a Jewish Perspective

5tjt

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

It is a verse in the 24th chapter of Mishlei.  In the falling (death) of your enemy – do not rejoice.  And the concept discussed in the verse is being examined throughout the world – from the Huffington Post to internal presidential cabinet discussions.

AP News reports, for example, that a certain Hyojin Jenny Hwang wrote on Facebook that she was saddened by the sight of young Americans like herself jubilantly cheering Osama bin Laden’s death, the angry response was swift, even from friends.

“One friend told me she felt judged for feeling happy,” said the 30-year-old mother from New Jersey. “And another one simply unfriended me on Facebook.”

From a Torah perspective the question arises:  Osama Bin Ladin, the murderer of 3000 Americans, is dead.  How exuberant should we be?

We must also keep in mind another seemingly contradictory earlier verse then the one mentioned in Chapter 24 of Mishlei.  It was also written by Shlomo HaMelech – “In the death of evil-doers – exhuberance! (Mishlei 11:10).  How are these two verses to be understood together? [...]