Dor Yeshorim's work to save children from genetic diseases

Update: see Rav Moshe Feinstein - Medical tests and bitachon

Tablet Magazine     An office sits on a humble corner on Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg, a Brooklyn stronghold for hipsters and Hasidim alike. Above a locked and graffitied metal security gate is a weathered sign, its gold letters scratched and peeling. “Dor Yeshorim: Committee for Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases,” it reads. It’s unclear if anyone works there and whether or not the office is now just an idle space below closed-curtained apartment windows. The organization operates quietly, some would even say secretively: Phone numbers linked to Dor Yeshorim are automated, its website outdated and often unclickable, and its services little-known to those outside the Orthodox world.

The Brooklyn-based organization, which now offers Jewish genetic testing across the United States, Canada, Israel, and Europe, works to eliminate any chance that two carriers of the same genetic disease will even date, avoiding the heartache of having to abandon a progressing relationship, or worse, having a child with a fatal or debilitating genetic disorder. After conducting genetic screening, Dor Yeshorim assigns identification numbers that correspond to its clients’ genetic data. Before or soon after meeting, potential partners exchange ID numbers and dial an automated hotline to check genetic compatibility—a phone call that almost always determines if a relationship will move forward or end.

Described as both a matchmaking service and a preventative health organization, Dor Yeshorim provides an anonymous medium for clients to check compatibility. “You have reached Dor Yeshorim, the internationally recognized program for the prevention of Jewish genetic diseases,” answers the hotline’s automated male voice. “To submit a request for compatibility, press 1. To check compatibility, you will need to submit both the male and female’s nine-digit Dor Yeshorim identification number and both their dates and months of birth, not the year of birth,” the robotic voice instructs.

Since Dor Yeshorim’s founding in 1983, numerous Jewish genetic testing services have emerged worldwide. Secular Jews might choose to get screened through their physician’s office or at a hospital-based program. New York City’s Mount Sinai, NYU, Columbia, and Beth Israel hospitals all have medical genetics departments that offer testing. There are also community and nonprofit screening programs, as well as commercial labs. As genetic science advances, screening and access to genetic data have become easier and more affordable for the general population. But Dor Yeshorim differs, in one important way: Those tested never find out their results.

The only information provided is whether a pair is compatible—meaning that the two individuals are not carriers of a mutation for the same disease. If a boy and girl are incompatible, Dor Yeshorim indicates that continuing the relationship is “not advisable” and offers genetic counseling. Meanwhile, everyone’s test results remain locked in a confidential database. [...]

Bat Melech shelter for religious battered women in Israel to double its capacity

Times of Israel   An organization that runs two shelters for religious battered women will double its capacity and wipe out its current waiting list. 

Bat Melech currently serves over 1,000 women and children each year who require a kosher and Shabbat-observant atmosphere. [...]

“Many of Bat Melech’s residents are English-speakers from the United States, Canada, England and South Africa, so I see ourselves as the ‘international Jewish women’s shelter’ as we provide service to everyone, “ said Bat Melech’s overseas director Amy Oppenheimer.

An Oasis of Care for People With Intellectual Disabilities

NY Times   LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A mother needs to get her son out the door. Thick white socks cover his contorted feet, a coat drapes his twisted shoulders, a water bottle with a straw nestles in the concave of his chest, and black straps on his wheelchair secure his wrists. He is 33 years old, and she has to get him to an appointment.

“I always forget something,” the mother, Mimi Kramer, says, looking about her small, immaculate house. “Oh. A change of pants, just in case.”

Her son, Trey, has intellectual disability, autism and cerebral palsy. He was a joy as a child, she says, but with puberty came violent acts of frustration: biting himself until he bleeds, raging against sounds as faint as a fork scrape on a plate, lashing out with his muscular right arm. He nearly bit her finger off one Kentucky Derby Day when she tried to swipe away foam that he had gnawed from his wheelchair’s armrest.

“But he’ll also definitely make you smile when he’s happy,” says Ms. Kramer, 52, a slight, divorced woman who has raised her son mostly alone. “His smile will light up the room.”

For years, parents like Ms. Kramer have struggled to find compassionate health care for their adult children with profound disability, among the most medically underserved populations in the country. They are told their children are not welcome: too disruptive in the waiting room, too long in the examining room — beyond the abilities of doctors who have no experience with intellectual disability.

“It’s been really hard to find anyone to even take him,” Ms. Kramer says. “Much less the experience when you go into a waiting room with someone as challenging as Trey.”

Now, though, Ms. Kramer has a place to go. A motorized lift raises her son into her customized Ford Econoline van, where a home care aide named David Stodghill keeps some fudge cookies nearby as positive reinforcement for Mr. Kramer. [...]

Off they go into the wintry Kentucky rain, bound for refuge on the other side of Louisville: the Lee Specialty Clinic, one of the very few free-standing facilities designed exclusively to provide medical and dental treatment — and a sense of welcome — to people with intellectual disability.

The 17,000-square-foot clinic, which opened in June, offers certain amenities. A reception area with natural light and easy-to-clean cushions. Extra-wide halls. Scales designed to weigh people in wheelchairs. An overhead tram to lift patients into dental chairs.

Just as important, say the clinic’s co-directors, Dr. Henry Hood and Dr. Matthew Holder, is its staff, trained to understand what their patients and families have been through. For example, Dr. Hood says, parents will often recall being told at the last medical clinic “to get your son or daughter out of here, and don’t ever bring them back.”

Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God

Wall Street Journal    In 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he’s obsolete—that as science progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself. 

Here’s the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.

With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing. 

What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.

Even SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . . may no longer be tenable.”

As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here. [...]

One in five women in college sexually assaulted: an update on this statistic

Washington Post     “We know the numbers: one in five of every one of those young women who is dropped off for that first day of school, before they finish school, will be assaulted, will be assaulted in her college years.”

–Vice President Biden, remarks on the release of a White House report on sexual assault, April 29, 2014

“It is estimated that 1 in 5 women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted during their time there — 1 in 5.” 

–President Obama, remarks at White House, Jan. 22, 2014

This is an update of an article that originally appeared on May 1, 2014. It now has a Pinocchio rating.

Reports of sexual assault on college campuses spurred the White House early in 2014 to launch a task force to examine the issue. The group’s report was issued on April 29, and the first sentence of the report echoes what both the president and vice president have asserted in public: “One in five women is sexually assaulted in college.”

Where does this oft-repeated statistic come from? We dug into the data so you don’t have to.

The Facts

This statistic is derived from a 2007 study, The Campus Sexual Assault Study, which was conducted for the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice. The researchers, led by Christopher Krebs of RTI International, also surveyed men, but the statistic cited by the administration focuses on women so we will look carefully at that part of the study.

In the winter of 2006, researchers used a Web-based survey to interview undergraduates at two large public universities, one in the Midwest and one in the South. A total of 5,446 undergraduate women, between the ages of 18-25, participated as part of a random sample. The survey was anonymous and took about 15 minutes to complete. (Participants received a $10 Amazon.com certificate for participating.)

So, first of all, it’s important to remember that this is a single survey, based on the experiences of students at two universities. As the researchers acknowledged, these results clearly can be generalized to those two large four-year universities, but not necessarily elsewhere. Moreover, the response rate was relatively low:

“Another limitation of the CSA study, inherent with Web-based survey, is that the response rates were relatively low. Although the response rates were not lower than what most Web-based surveys achieve, they are lower than what we typically achieve using a different mode of data collection (e.g. face-to-face interviewing).”

The survey found that 1,073 women, or 19 percent, said that they experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college. The actual breakdown was that 12.6 percent experienced attempted sexual assault and 13.7 percent experienced actual sexual assault. (There was some overlap.) [...]

Why I’m now a former Conservative Jew - because Interdating is now permitted

Times of Israel    My name is Jesse Arm. I am a grandson of a former Conservative rabbi, a former student of a Conservative Jewish day school, a former president of the Detroit chapter of USY, and a former Conservative Jew.

The last of those characteristics is the newest one attached to my identity. In fact, I made the decision to no longer classify myself in this fashion less than 24 hours ago, upon reading of the recent change in standards decided upon at USY’s international convention. Formerly, to take on a leadership position in the USY youth movement, it was considered a requirement that board members commit themselves to refrain from, “relationships which can be construed as interdating.” The language was changed to, “The Officers will strive to model healthy Jewish dating choices. These include recognizing the importance of dating within the Jewish community and treating each person with the recognition that they were created Betzelem Elohim (in the image of God).” The change was made in an attempt to become a more inclusive youth group within a more inclusive movement

Perhaps the crux of why this change so fundamentally irks me is in its lack of forthcoming language. If my former youth group, and in essence my former movement, is willing to compromise its commitment to the preservation of Jewish nationhood in the name of inclusivity, then why doesn’t it just say so? It is clear that this movement is on a path of setting its commitment to its original, cardinal principles aside in an effort to salvage some of its continually dwindling membership and “changing with the times.” The addition of Hebrew words in the language which adopts the permissibility of interdating is truly laughable. Saying that recognition of all humans being created betzelem elohim serves as a justification for interdating and eventually intermarriage, makes about as much sense as me arguing I should be eating delicious bacon in my Sukkah because the Torah says v’samachta b’chageicha, v’hayita ach sameach (we should rejoice in our holiday and we should feel nothing but total happiness). [...]

Wife who used child porn to frame husband gets jail time

Fox News   A Pennsylvania woman convicted of downloading child pornography to frame her estranged husband must spend six months to two years in county jail.

The Indiana Gazette reports 43-year-old Meri Jane Woods was sentenced Monday by an Indiana County judge who rejected her attorney's request for leniency and flexibility to start serving the sentence after the holidays.

A jury previously found Woods downloaded 40 images to the family computer, took it to police in August 2013 and blamed Matthew Woods for the material.[...]

Nachlaot Case: Questions raised regarding conviction of Zalman Cohen

Guest Post

Was the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen biased in the judgment of Zalman Cohen?

Recently, Zalman Cohen was convicted and sentenced to 9 years as one of the Nachlaot Pedophiles from the alleged "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring".

All of the material in this article is taken from either the Court Document of Zalman Cohen's verdict, or as a comparison, from the Court Document of Ben Tzion P. who was acquitted of all charges against him.

The verdict for Zalman Cohen was based entirely on the testimony of four minors who testified against him, along with their parents, the child investigators, and psychologists. There was no physical evidence of molestation (such as the presence of DNA or doctors' findings of physical damage to the bodies of the children). The type of evidence presented against him was quite similar in nature to what was presented against Ben Tzion. The children spoke in a way that seemed believable; that is, they did not appear to be intentionally lying. However, there were contradictions and impossibilities in the children's testimonies. The judges in Ben Tzion's case felt that this presented a doubt as to whether Ben Tzion ought to be convicted, and therefore acquitted him.

In the case of Zalman, the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen explained away any problems with the children's testimonies as being due to their confusion since they must have been traumatized by experiencing the sexual molestation that had allegedly occurred.

The defense did not bring any personal eye witnesses in Zalman's favor. Zalman claimed that no one wanted to endanger themselves by testifying, but the judge dismissed that. (However, it is understandable that people would not want to get involved out of fear that they would also be accused of being members of the "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring".) The defense also brought two expert witnesses, who stated that children under pressure are likely to generate false memories that are indistinguishable from memories of actual events which transpired. The judge also dismissed the expert witnesses' statements about false memories.

The judge acknowledged that there had been some contamination of the children's testimonies in the Nachlaot Pedophile Case, and that there had been panic and gossip in the neighborhood, but decided that this did not invalidate the testimony of the four children who testified against Zalman in the case. The four minors who testified against Zalman were:

1. "Dalet", who also testified against Ben Tzion. She was the child who testified that the children undressed outside Ben Tzion's house. The judge decided that since she did not live in the neighborhood, but only came to visit her cousin, she would not have been exposed to the gossip. That is simply not true. She definitely heard the gossip from her cousins and relatives, regarding Zalman and others. Here is a quote regarding her testimony with regards to Zalman which appeared in the decision made by the judges in Ben Tzion's trial:

בתשובה לשאלות נוספות התבקשה לתת תיאור של זלמן שהיה בחדר ואמרה שהוא נראה חרדי מחופש. כאשר נשאלה מנין היא יודעת שהוא מחופש, אמרה: "אבא של בת דודה שלי אמר" (עמ' 18, שורה 29).

[Translation: In answer to additional questions, she was asked to give a description of Zalman who was in the room, and said that he looked like he was disguising himself as a Chareidi. When she was asked from where she knows that he

In contrast, in his statement regarding the conviction of Zalman, the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen did not even mention the above statement.

"Dalet" also contradicted herself on the two occasions in which she was interrogated regarding Zalman. The first time she said he didn't do anything but just watched. The second time, she said he did participate to some extent. The judge, in point 37, dismissed the contradiction and stated that the fact that she contradicted herself increased her reliability as an witness.

The judge did mention the fact that "Dalet" was discussing the events with others in between the interrogation sessions by the child investigators (in point 46). Also, he mentioned how the mother of "Dalet" pressured her to say something about the possibility of being molested (in point 47). But in the end, in his point 48, he decided that the contamination of "Dalet's" testimony by these outside factors was not of any significance.

2. "Yud" was the second child who testified. He stated that he was forced to touch a girl's genitalia during an event when boys and girls were paired up. When asked what the girl's genitals were like, he said they were just like a boy's genitals. The expert child investigator expressed his opinion that at least this part of the boy's testimony represented an event which had not occurred. However, the judge decided to disagree with the expert child investigator's opinion in this instance, and stated that he believed the event must have really occurred but that since the child was so traumatized he didn't remember that a girl's parts are different from a boy's parts.

3. "Shin" was the third child who testified.  The mother of Shin admitted to trying to force her child to say something for several hours, with such force that "Shin" ultimately had her eyes roll back and fainted. Subsequently, the mother took "Shin" to repeated therapy sessions in order to get her to talk about being molested. Although initially "Shin" denied being molested and said she didn't remember anything ever occurring, after the extreme pressure from her mother, and the repeated pressure from the therapist, "Shin" finally said that she "remembers". Rather than recognize that the mother was putting a strong amount of pressure on her child, which in and of itself was a traumatic experience which would be a strong inducement to generate a false memory, the judge felt that the child's fainting must be evidence that she had undergone sexual molestation by Zalman Cohen and others.


The judge's reasoning was that the mother and therapist didn't tell her what to say specifically, but just asked her to tell about being molested. Also the judge decided that because of the numerous details that "Shin" gave when she "remembered" the alleged molestation, it was unlikely that she had made it up. However, the research on false memory generation indicates that it is not necessary to ask specific questions in order to generate richly detailed false memories of events which did not occur in young children, and that the children actually believe the richly detailed stories that they tell. For example, some research was done in which it was suggested to children that they had experienced a number of events, some true and some false. One of the false events was the experience of having a finger caught in a mouse trap and having to go to the hospital to be treated for that. A number of children generated richly detailed storied about having their finger caught in a mouse trap even though the event had never occurred. (See the scientific research article: http://www.shoreline.edu/dchri s/psych209/Documents/Ceci% 20and%20Loftus.pdf)

"Shin" described in detail how she went from one apartment (Ben Tzion's) to another apartment (Binyamin's) and then a third apartment (Zalman's). The judge felt that the detail of how she went from one house to the next was quite impressive. But almost every child in the neighborhood would have been able to describe how to go to each of those houses (regardless of whether they had been molested or not), even if their parents had not taken them on a tour to see where they were. And the parents did take the neighborhood children on tours to ask them if they had been in those houses (as the judge mentioned at several places in his statement). The neighborhood is quite small, and gossips a lot. It would be amazing if there would be any resident of the neighborhood, child or adult, who didn't know exactly where those three individuals lived.

In addition "Shin" described in detail similar though not identical events that allegedly occurred in all three apartments. In all three apartments, there were similar details about watching a soccer movie, being in a bathtub, and the presence of a stick of some kind. (See point 112 in the judge's statement.) The events seem absurd and pointless. The judge stated that the reason for the similarity was that the three individuals, Ben Tzion, Binyamin, and Zalman acted together in most circumstances and that is why the events described are similar. However, nowhere did "Shin" say that all three men were present together at the time of watching the soccer movies, sitting in the bathtub, or during any of the alleged events. So I don't know how the judge arrived at that conclusion. Also, the judge made much of the fact that "Shin" did not say that Ben Tzion tried to sit on the stick "Eastern style", but instead used the stick to hit her, while the other two men sat on the stick. Therefore since the events she described were similar but not identical, they must be true, according to the judge.

4. "Mem" was the fourth child who testified. "Mem" stated that he was in Binyamin's house and that many of the other alleged pedophiles who were on the "list" were there, including Zalman. A movie was watched in which there was "Pritzut" (in English: "Immodesty"). One has to be knowledgeable about the Chareidi outlook to understand what "Immodesty" means to them. A movie with "Immodesty" would not necessarily mean a pornographic movie, but could simply be a movie in which girls were wearing short sleeved shirts and pants. Also, perhaps this is not common knowledge, but most Chareidim forbid the watching of any movies whatsoever, which makes it much more tempting for a child to want to go to someone else who has a computer where he can watch a movie for entertainment. I have no doubt that many Chareidi children whose parents forbid the watching of movies, probably do go to the houses of other people to watch movies.

"Mem" also acknowledged that there was extensive discussion of all the alleged pedophiles in the neighborhood, between himself and others.

The judge discounted the possibility that the panic and discussions in the neighborhood could have caused "Mem" to have a false memory. However, he didn't discuss at all the possibility that there could have been a real memory that was distorted. Perhaps at some time "Mem" did go to Binyamin's house, and watched a movie. But were all those other people (including Zalman) present? Did they undress?

The judge found support for "Mem's" testimony, from his mother's testimony. His mother said that "Mem" used to wet his bed up until the age of 12 years, and that after he gave his testimony, he was able to get over that problem. Therefore, the judge concluded that this proves he must have been molested and that giving his testimony made him feel better. However, there could be other explanations for why "Mem" got over his bed-wetting problem. Perhaps he simply matured and grew out of it.

In contrast, the judge also found support from the fact that after "Mem's" siblings testified, their mother stated that they seemed to get worse and develop more emotional problems than they had before. According to the judge, if a child's behavior and emotional state improved after giving testimony, that meant the child must have been molested. But if a child's behavior and emotional state got worse after giving testimony, that also meant the child must have been molested.

Although the Honorable Judge Amnon Cohen does not mention Ritual Abuse, he does mention the strange nature of the abuse as seen in the testimony of "Shin" but this does not seem to bother him. What is not seen in the Court Document of Zalman Cohen is what the parents claim occurred.

In order to understand the underlying point of view of the parents making the accusations against Zalman Cohen and the other alleged "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring" members, I think it is important to look at the lengthy documents which have been published by someone on the "rotter.net" website, under the pseudonym "Sheleg". In particular, the claim is made that the purpose of the "Nachlaot Pedophile Ring" was to perform ritual child abuse in order to convert the children to Christianity. The reason to understand the underlying point of view of the parents is to truly understand that either: 1) everything they say is true (including the claims of tunnels and secret rooms) and the Nachlaot Pedophile Ring really exists and the diabolical purpose of it all is to try to convert their children to Christianity, or 2) nothing they say is true at all and they are totally insane in their beliefs and outlooks, or 3) some of what they say is true, but their beliefs are mixed with a lot of crazy thoughts and one must be very careful before condemning anyone based on the testimony of these parents and their children.

What also needs to be looked at is not only the evidence presented regarding these four children who testified in the case against Zalman, but also the testimonies given by the other children which were not presented. These four children were among approximately 80 children that testified, and only these four were accepted by the child investigators. (In Ben Tzion's trial the judges requested to look at the testimony of the other children which the child investigators had rejected, in order to get a better overall picture of what actually happened.) The parents claim that all of these children were also molested, as well as others that did not testify. This supposedly went on for years. Nachlaot was one busy place and yet no one noticed.

Makes me wonder.

Visiting New York

For the next few weeks I will be in New York
 
My main reason for announcing this is that are certain evil people whose main happiness in life is claiming that I have committed various sins.

I have gotten gleeful messages when they have misread the time on some of my postings claiming that as proof that I am not shomer Shabbos.

Schlesinger Twins: Scrooge lives in Austria - Beth denied extra holiday time with her kids

Why is Michael smiling? Could it be because he succeeded in blocking any extra time for Beth during Chanukah?

Divided custody is rough on the children and rough on the parents. It is especially rough on the children when they are given only very limited time with their mother and are condemned by the courts to be raised primarily by 2 non-Jewish women whose native language is neither German or English. One constant in custody division is that courts usually are concerned that children spend equal quality time with their parents over a holiday period.

Beth was given a clearly unjust ruling concerning her time that she is allowed to spend with her sons - but it has improved over the outrageous ruling that took full custody away from her and gave it to Michael - who had previously been allowed limited supervised visits.

Austrian friends of Beth have informed me - (remember the courts have blocked Beth from publicizing any information about her children) - that while Chanukah goes from Tuesday night (16th) to Wednesday (24th) - the courts are not changing Beth's access to her children and she got to see them Tuesday (16th) and will see them next Tuesday (24th). 

Typically courts divide custody during the holiday period rather than keep to the non-holiday division. Courts around the world recognize how important it is for the children to spend equal time during a holiday season - why doesn't the Vienna court?

NEW INFORMATION ABOUT PORTUGUESE NATIONALITY FOR SEPHARDIC DESCENDANTS

I just received the following letter:

Dear  Rav  Daniel Eidensohn

I send you the news about the new law about the Portuguese Nacionality for Sephardic Jews that will start at the beginning of the 2015. Can you publish it at Daat Torah_

Best regards and Kol tuv

Daniel Litvak

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

By Jewish Community of Oporto, Portugal

Shalom.

In early 2015, the Portuguese Government may grant Portuguese nationality to the descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, who demonstrate a traditional connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin.

How to Obtain Portuguese Nationality and Passport?

• Step 1: Certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community
• Step 2: Application for Portuguese Nationality
• Step 3: Obtaining a Portuguese Passport

Information about the step 1:

The applicant for Portuguese Nationality must first obtain a Certificate from the Portuguese Jewish Community which attests to his/her ties to a Sephardic Jewish Community of Portuguese origin. A request for this Certificate must be addressed to the Jewish Community of Oporto or to the Jewish Community of Lisbon.

From today, 15th December 2014, the Jewish Community of Oporto is ready to receive requests from descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews who wish to obtain a certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community attesting this status.

The request for a Certificate issued by the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto should be addressed by the applicant, or an attorney acting for the applicant, by digital means to the following email address: portuguesenationality@comunidade-israelita-porto.org, together with the following documents:

·   Contact details;

·   Copy of passport;

·  Birth certificate or similar document that contains applicant’s date of birth, place of birth and names of parents;

·   Proof of residence;

·   Payment of the Committee’s fee (€150,00 - one hundred and fifty euros); and

·  All of the supporting documentary evidence as may required for a proper evaluation of the matter and decision. Evidence of the applicant’s family history of connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin may be direct and circumstantial.

Payment of the Committee’s fee to review the request, in the amount of €150,00 (one hundred and fifty euros), must be made by bank transfer to the account of the Jewish Community of Oporto.

Information about the step 2 and step 3

Please visit the official website or blog of the Jewish Community of Oporto - http://jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.pt/2014_12_01_archive.html

If you need an opinion or statement of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community of Oporto. By Debora Elijah:

“The new legislation corrects a moral wrong. The long centuries of antisemitism in Portugal and the expulsions decreed by King D. Manuel I in 1496 cannot be denied.”

(Deborah Elijah is member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community of Oporto. She is also member of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto which issues Certificates.)

In Portugal, the Jewish Community of Oporto, founded 90 years ago, is the organization that unites local communal groups of the city of Oporto and its environs, while the Jewish Community of Lisbon, recognized 102 years ago, is the organization that unites local communal groups of Lisbon and its environs. (For more information about the Portuguese communities, please visit the website of the World Jewish Congress - http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/communities/show/id/109)

Wishing you a very happy, healthy and light-filled Chanukah,

Best regards.

By Jewish Community of Oporto

Board of Directors

Official website: http://www.comunidade-israelita-porto.org          

Official blog: jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.com

Title IX's Impact :College (Seminary) sexual abuse programs are replacing the police & criminal system with psychotherapy and expulsion - strongly reducing a man's presumed status of innocence

Slate    The College Rape Overcorrection  SEE article which refutes the statistical claims that are used to justify this policy
  
Sexual assault on campus is a serious problem. But efforts to protect women from a putative epidemic of violence have led to misguided policies that infringe on the civil rights of men.
[...]

We are told that one of the most dangerous places for a young woman in America today is a college campus. As President Obama said at a White House event in September, where he announced a campaign to address campus violence, “An estimated one in five women has been sexually assaulted during her college years—one in five.” (At an earlier White House event on the issue, the president declared of sexual violence, “It threatens our families, it threatens our communities; ultimately, it threatens the entire country.”) In recent weeks, Rolling Stone’s lurid account of a premeditated gang rape at the University of Virginia has made the issue of campus sexual violence front-page news. (The reporting and the allegations in the article have since been called into question, and Rolling Stone has issued a statement acknowledging that the magazine failed to properly investigate and corroborate the story.)

Sexual assault at colleges and universities is indeed a serious problem. The attention it’s receiving today—on campus, at the White House, in the media—is a direct result of the often callous and dismissive treatment of victims. For too long, women who were assaulted on campus and came forward were doubted or dismissed, and the men responsible were given a mild rebuke or none at all. Those who commit serious sexual crimes on campus must be held to account.

In recent years, young activists, many of them women angry about their treatment after reporting an assault, have created new organizations and networks in an effort to reform the way colleges handle sexual violence. They recognized they had a powerful weapon in that fight: Title IX, the federal law that protects against discrimination in education. Schools are legally required by that law to address sexual harassment and violence on campus, and these activists filed complaints with the federal government about what they describe as lax enforcement by schools. The current administration has taken up the cause—the Chronicle of Higher Education describes it as “a marquee issue for the Obama administration”—and praised these young women for spurring political action. “A new generation of student activists is effectively pressing for change,” read a statement this spring announcing new policies to address campus violence. The Department of Education has drafted new rules to address women’s safety, some of which have been enshrined into law by Congress, with more legislation likely on the way.

Unfortunately, under the worthy mandate of protecting victims of sexual assault, procedures are being put in place at colleges that presume the guilt of the accused. Colleges, encouraged by federal officials, are instituting solutions to sexual violence against women that abrogate the civil rights of men. Schools that hold hearings to adjudicate claims of sexual misconduct allow the accuser and the accused to be accompanied by legal counsel. But as Judith Shulevitz noted in the New Republic in October, many schools ban lawyers from speaking to their clients (only notes can be passed). During these proceedings, the two parties are not supposed to question or cross examine each other, a prohibition recommended by the federal government in order to protect the accuser. And by federal requirement, students can be found guilty under the lowest standard of proof: preponderance of the evidence, meaning just a 51 percent certainty is all that’s needed for a finding that can permanently alter the life of the accused.

More than two dozen Harvard Law School professors recently wrote a statement protesting the university’s new rules for handling sexual assault claims. “Harvard has adopted procedures for deciding cases of alleged sexual misconduct which lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process,” they wrote. The professors note that the new rules call for a Title IX compliance officer who will be in charge of “investigation, prosecution, fact-finding, and appellate review.” Under the new system, there will be no hearing for the accused, and thus no opportunity to question witnesses and mount a defense. Harvard University, the professors wrote, is “jettisoning balance and fairness in the rush to appease certain federal administrative officials.” But to push back against Department of Education edicts means potentially putting a school’s federal funding in jeopardy, and no college, not even Harvard, the country’s richest, is willing to do that.

Hard-line policies like Harvard’s are necessary, government officials say, because undergraduate women are in unique peril. Often-cited studies of sexual violence at colleges describe an epidemic. But each of these studies has serious methodological limitations. In some cases, the studies make sensational assertions that are not supported by the underlying data. In others, the experiences of one or two campuses have been made to stand in for the entirety of America’s higher education system. [...]

This is one of the frequently made assertions about campus violence, but the evidence to back it up is lacking. Being young does make people more vulnerable to serious violent crime, including sexual assault; according to government statistics those aged 18 to 24 have the highest rates of such victimization. But most studies don’t compare the victimization rates of students to nonstudents of the same age. One recent paper that does make that comparison, “Violence Against College Women” by Callie Marie Rennison and Lynn Addington, compares the crime experienced by college students and their peers who are not in college, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. What the researchers found was the opposite of what Gillibrand says about the dangers of campuses: “Non-student females are victims of violence at rates 1.7 times greater than are college females,” the authors wrote, and this greater victimization holds true for sex crimes: “Even if the definition of violence were limited to sexual assaults, these crimes are more pervasive for young adult women who are not in college.”[...]

Any woman who is raped, on campus or off, deserves a fair and thorough investigation of her claim, and those found guilty should be punished. But the new rules—rules often put in place hastily and in response to the idea of a rape epidemic on campus—have left some young men saying they are the ones who have been victimized. They are starting to push back. In the past three years, men found responsible for sexual assault on campus have filed more than three dozen cases against schools. They argue that their due process rights have been violated and say they have been victims of gender discrimination under Title IX. Their complaints are starting to cost universities. The higher education insurance group United Educators did a study of the 262 insurance claims it paid to students between 2006 and 2010 because of campus sexual assault, at a cost to the group of $36 million. The vast majority of the payouts, 72 percent, went to the accused—young men who protested their treatment by universities. [...]

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist and author of the feminist classic, The Mismeasure of Woman, and, with Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me). She says she is troubled by the blurring of distinctions between rape (notably by predatory males), unwanted sex (where one party agrees to sex not out of desire but to please or placate the partner), and the kind of consensual sex where both parties are so drunk they can barely remember what happened—and one of them later regrets it. She says, “Calling all of these kinds of sexual encounters ‘rape’ or ‘sexual assault’ doesn’t teach young women how to learn what they want sexually, let alone how to communicate what they want, or don’t want. It doesn’t teach them to take responsibility for their decisions, for their reluctance to speak up. Sexual communication is really hard—you don’t learn how to do it in a few weekends.” [...]