Prison Rehabilitation - Greater Success

JPost reports:

When Avraham Hoffman founded the Prison Rehabilitation Authority in 1984, 90 percent of prisoners in Israel found themselves back behind bars within a year of being released.

By the time he resigned as director-general of the authority in 2002, less than 60% of offenders were being sent back to jail, placing Israel well below the international average of 70-75%.

For this remarkable feat, and the groundbreaking methods he pioneered to give prisoners a ray of hope, Hoffman was awarded a prize by the International Corrections and Prisons Association last month in Prague - the same city he passed through when he was a month old and he and his mother were escaping the Nazis.

"Receiving the prize in Prague was very meaningful for me," Hoffman said last week. He recently returned from a lecture tour that took him around Europe to share his innovative ideas on rehabilitation.

The Prison Rehabilitation Authority was founded around the idea that "every person has the right to a new start," he explained, describing how a Knesset law provided government backing for the authority.

"Before the PRA existed, repeat offenders would stand before judges, and the judges asked of them, 'What should I do with you? This is your third time here.'

"The offender would reply, 'Your honor, what would you do in my position? I have no job, no basis in society.' The PRA was founded to remove this excuse," Hoffman said.

Moreover, until the authority was founded, the wives of prisoners were left helpless while their men did time. Only the underworld would offer to support the women financially, Hoffman said.

When the prisoners got out, their "buddies" would throw a party, welcome them back, and then demand a "payback" for looking after their families.

"The underworld figures did not want money from their newly released friends, but for them to get back into committing crimes. We came along to break the cycle of crime, by looking after the wives and children of the prisoners ourselves.

"When the prisoner gets out now, he doesn't owe anyone a thing," Hoffman said. Unlike other prison programs, the onus is on the prisoner to apply to join the Rehabilitation Authority. If approved by a prisons committee, the offender and the authority draw up a contract, under which the prisoner is released after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

The newly released offenders are then placed in urban hostels, kibbutzim and other places with the consent and support of the surrounding community.

"We need society's support, otherwise there is no rehabilitation," said Hoffman. The offender is then trained for a variety of jobs, and is obligated to show up for work. If the offender breaches the contract, he is sent back to jail.

"They are being taught to live. They don't know how to live simple lives, after being thrown out of schools and their homes at a young age. They have nothing to hold on to, so naturally they drifted towards crime," he said.

The feeling of "never being alone" is critical to the authority's success, he added."Being accessible 24 hours a day is everything in rehabilitation. All employees must commit to being available around the clock. What good are set office hours when a prisoner is threatening to jump off a high spot and needs to speak to you?" Hoffman asked. "We respect the prisoners, and we give them hope. Those who make it for two years without a relapse into drugs or crime become counselors for newly released prisoners. This is to prove that rehabilitation is possible," he said.[...]

R' Slifkin - context of ban /RaP

This was taken from one of RaP's comment to his analysis regarding Rabbi Tropper

SD said... I was trying to understand the relevance of Columbia's having awarded a PHd to Rebbetzin David for her dissertation on Rav Chayes.

RaP: Rabbi Eidensohn is always asking for "sources" and every now and again I like to inveigh with a jolly good one at that. The relevance in this case was to point out Rabbi Tropper's role in the ban of Rabbi Slifkin's books that ultimately it was a joint rabbinic effort by many Haredi rabbis, not just Rabbi Tropper, to have Rabbi Slifkin's revisionistic (in the sense that he introduced a "non-ArtScroll" gedolim-approved genre) writings about Judaism and science, essentially part of a larger historical struggle between how to reconcile IMPLICATIONS from Science/Biology with classical Judaism.

This is most definitely part of a longer term struggle that goes back to the days of Hellenism vs Judaism, then into the days of the Early Renaissance and the struggle between the Chachmei Sefarad and the Chachmei Tzarfas/Ashkenaz with the latter fighting the RAMBAM's views on Greek Philosophy, then the struggle of the major Renaissance where secular science began to flourish and spawned the Enlightenment and the Haskala. The fight against Rabbi Slifkin is in many ways a continuum and flare-up of the ongoing struggle between those willing to accept scientific theories and views from non-Jewish sources and those who do not. Rabbi Chiyes in his day inter-acted with maskilim and incorporated their views into his hashkofa and for that Rebbetzin David took him to task (read her work, it is thorough and makes lots of good arguments), just as Rabbi Slifkin was taken to task for incorporating non-traditional views, albeit with rationalizations and proofs from various sources that he garnered, just as Rabbi Chiyes did, and just as Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik ztk"l did in creating "Torah Umada", but this is getting to be too broad a discussion. [...]

RaP: [...] In fact few people know of this thesis but it has been online for a while now. And please assume good faith, as they say on Wikipedia, this is not about "exposing" this or that. It is much more than that, a large historical debate between different schools of thought and with many intellectual and human battles and skirmishes along the way. Rabbi Slifkin knew the risks he was taking by being an iconoclast and writing in a way about nature and animals that had not been done before in the English speaking Torah world and he was challenged and the Haredim decided to ban his books. This is not unusual. It has been happening with more frequency as many worlds converge and collide in our days. Rabbi Tropper knows about the school of hard knocks too, he helped to get Rabbi Slifkin banned and in turn he was banned by the BADATZ for his own more "enlightened" view about conversions that there should be mass proselytisation to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried Jews all in the name of "higher conversion standards" and by jumping down the throats of Batei Din he liked or didn't like.

All men are equal? - RaP vs. R' Micha Berger

Recipients and Publicity wrote: concerning "R' Tropper - Kiruv vs Geirus/ RaP's analysis":

RaP had written in the above post: "But what to do when confronted with interfaith couples where the Jewish one needs kiruv and the non-Jew needs conversion? This is not an easy quandary for all concerned but at rock bottom, regardless of what the interfaith couples are told or imagine, the gentile is NOT a "tinok shenishba" and has NO neshama while the Jew has a 100% holy neshama, which the converting gentile presumably desires. While male Jew can count for a minyan as would the greatest gadol on Earth, as would a 100% Halachically Jewish mother (even if she was anti-religious) give birth to a 100% Jew, on the other hand a goy MUST be excluded from a minyan. These are facts life and Jewish Law."

R' MB: Didn't HQBH make a point of having us all come from Adam so that things like this would not be said?

RaP:What micha said is really very surprising:

RaP: Yes indeed that is the classical answer and it is true, but why do you ignore the fact that Judaism holds that a non-Jew does not have THAT neshama that a Jew does have and indeed it is exactly THAT neshama that the sincere potential convert wants to have and should/does get upon immersion in the Bais Din's mikva when THAT neshama that he did NOT have enters into him/her upon immersion in the mikva of geirus. That is all I was saying and there was no need of you to move the issue into illogical non-relevant humanistic and globalistic egalitarian drive, when you could have just let the obvious Halachic reality stand without unnecessary questioning by you.

R' MB: One may argue whether the difference is qualitative or quantitative. Or whether it's inherent, or a product of our being part of a mission (whether a willing part or not).

RaP: These are just nice words that have nothing to do with anything, I am afraid. Why are you panicking and why do have so much trouble when THE key difference between a Yid a Goy is pointed out? I.E.: That a Yid has a Holy Neshama and Goy does not. That is why a Yid is a Yid and Goy is Goy. What don't I get here?

R' MB: But to deny that every human being has a tzelem E-lokim... The Tanya says such things, but I can't think of anyone else who does.

RaP: The "tzelem E-lokim" was not mentioned here nor was it discussed. And as you know, the use of the phrase and notion of "tzelem E-lokim" requires definition and context depending how it is to be used, but one this is for sure, the idea that somehow gentiles may have a degree of the the sublime "tzelem E-lokim" does NOT mean that they automatically can be assumed to have a neshama as well upon their desire to convert to Judaism. Far from it. Regardless of the sublime and noble Godly origin and roots of all mankind, to use the analogy of the Jewish sages, a gentile is in essence like "water" and only upon proper Halachic conversion does that gentile become "wine" when he/she finally immerses in the mikva as if it was a literal miracle of birth. Call it the ultimate BORN AGAIN phenomenon (of course the Christians stole this idea like almost all their best ideas from Judaism.)

So, sure, according to the Pantheistic and Panentheistic (Panentheism posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe) views of Tanya, which posits sparks of G-d in everything, but even Tanya teaches that while while animals have the nefesh habahamis and humans have nefesh, it is ONLY Jews who have a higher complete neshama, the "neshama Elokis sichlis" as the MAHARAL of Prague labels it most definitively, and it is precisely THAT "neshama Elokis sichlis" that a true ger tzedek receives upon the completion of a successful geirus and more specifically upon immersion in the mikva which for the ger is considered THE literal moment of BIRTH as a Jew when the "neshama Elokis sichlis" enters into hi/her just as it does when a Jewish baby is born to a 100% Halachicaly Jewish mother. And hence the expression of the Chazal: "Ger shenisgayer ketinok/kekatan shenolad dami" ("[a] convert who converts [is exactly similar to] like [a] newborn [JEWISH] infant/child") (Yevamot 48b).

Neo-Nazis Russian Immigrants II /Time

Time Magazine reports:

The last thing you would expect to find in the Jewish state would be homegrown neo-Nazis, but an Israeli court on Sunday jailed eight teenagers for beating up ultra-Orthodox Jews, gays and the elderly, while shouting, "Heil Hitler!"

The same gang of skinheads had painted swastikas and naked women on the doors of a Haifa synagogue. They had also attacked a drug addict in Tel Aviv and forced him to grovel and beg for forgiveness for being a Jew. They videotaped the spectacle and posted it on their website, spliced with clips of Adolf Hitler. And they weren't particularly secretive about their identities, having strutted around the beaches of Tel Aviv showing off their Nazi tattoos. And yet all of these neo-Nazis are Israelis — one of them is a Jewish teenager whose grandparents survived the Holocaust.

Tel Aviv District Judge Zvi Gurfinkel called their crimes "shocking and horrifying" and sentenced the youths, ages 16 to 19, to between one and seven years in prison. The judge conceded that the sentences were severe, but his objective, he said, was to discourage other young Israelis from joining neo-Nazi gangs.

Most Israelis reacted to the presence of neo-Nazis in their midst with a combination of surprise and revulsion, imagining that a country that rose from the ashes of Nazi death camps would be immune to the sort of anti-Semitic thuggery occasionally still seen in Europe and Russia. Israel, after all, has always offered itself as a sanctuary from anti-Semitism. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

Israel's neo-Nazis seem to be rebellious misfits. They are the sons of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel under its Law of Return, which grants citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent. (The Nazis used the same yardstick to decide who was Jewish enough to be dispatched to the concentration camps.) (See pictures of Kristallnacht.)

More than 1 million former Soviet citizens flooded into Israel in the 1990s, taking advantage of the Law of Return to escape the calamitous economic collapse that accompanied the demise of the Soviet Union. According to sociologists, nearly one-third of those immigrants have no deep sense of Jewish culture or identity. "The young Russian immigrants feel lost here," says Sergei Makarov, historian of Israel's Russian community. "They come from poor families who expected to be appreciated as loyal Jews when they arrived here," he says, adding, "Instead, they found themselves with no jobs and no recognition from the Israelis. They became bitter and frustrated. The neo-Nazi agenda fits them very well."[...]

"Strange Side of History" website / R' A. Broide

I have posted a number of articles by R' Avraham Broide in the last two weeks. For those who are interested in more, he now has his own website http://www.amazingjewishfacts.com/ based on his long running column in Yated Neeman (USA), "The Strange Side of History." In conjunction with the site, a weekly e.mail will contain an abbreviated strange event from Jewish history. Additional features are being added to the webstie at present.

Slaps not abuse say 70% of Israeli Arab women -

Haaretz reports:

Some 70 percent of Arab women in Israel believe women who are pushed, slapped or struck by their male partners are not victims of domestic violence, according to a poll conducted by the Na'amat women's organization.

The organization conducted the survey to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Some 73 percent believe women whose partners curse or humiliate them are not victims of violence. [...]

Blog appearance - Maximized for firefox

After a bit of investigation it seems that Blogger is maximized for Firefox and is not fully compatible with either Explorer or Chrome.

In Firefox I can increase the entire page with the fonts. With the other two - the size of the blog page is fixed and only the fonts can be enlarged or reduced. There are also certain formatting commands that are invisible in Firefox but are displayed in the other two.

If anyone has any way of getting around this problem I would appreciate  the information. In the mean time I will stick with the present template. Consequently the best way to view this blog is to use Firefox.

History - Inquisition & Dr. Nunez

Jewish History No One Knows (But Should Know)
From articles written for the Yated Neeman (USA)

by Avraham Broide
(Jerusalem based translator and journalist.
phone: 02-5856133; email: broide2@netvision.net.il)

What happens when you cannot flee your jailors? Take them along with you!

Dr. Nunez was in a crisis. Would he ever escape the eagle eye of his guards?

Dr. Samuel Nunez of Lisbon, Portugal, was born to a Marrano family that was still passing along the torch of Judaism two centuries after Spain expelled all its practicing Jews in 1492. Nunez lived a double life. Publicly, he was a distinguished doctor serving high dignitaries of the Catholic Church; privately, he and his family were committing religious crimes that could earn them death at the stake.

All went well until the spring of 5486/1726 when Inquisition spies caught him, his wife Rebecca, and his three children red-handed in the middle of a Passover Seder. For most Marranos, the crime of "seeking the L-rd according to their prohibited faith" would have signified torture and death. Fortunately, Dr. Nunez was the private physician and close friend of the Grand Inquisitor who was suffering from an enlarged prostrate gland and reluctant to lose the good doctor's services.

An agreement was struck. The doctor was spared on condition that two Inquisition officials reside at his home day and night, keeping a sharp eye on his activities. Now, severed from his spiritual roots, the doctor felt that life in Portugal was unbearable and plotted a brilliant escape.

Years later, a descendant of one of the Marranos who fled with the doctor recorded how he fooled his jailors:

"The doctor had a large and elegant mansion on the banks of the Tagus and being a man of large fortune he was in the habit of entertaining the principal families of Lisbon. On a pleasant summer day, he invited a party to dinner, and among the guests was a captain of an English brigantine anchored at some distance in the river. While the company were amusing themselves on the lawn, the captain invited the family and part of the company to accompany him on board the brigantine and partake of a lunch prepared for the occasion.

"All the family, together with the spies of the Inquisition and a portion of the guests repaired on board the vessel, and while they were below in the cabin enjoying the hospitality of the captain, the anchor was weighed, the sails unfurled, and the weather being fair, the brigantine shot out of the Tagus, was soon at sea, and carried the whole party to England.

"It had been previously arranged between the doctor and the captain, who had agreed for a thousand moidores in gold to convey the family to England, and who were in the painful necessity of adopting this plan of escape to avoid detection. The ladies had secreted all their diamonds and jewels, which were quilted in their dresses, and the doctor having previously changed all his securities into gold, it was distributed among the gentlemen of the family and carried around them in leathern belts. His house, plate, furniture, servants, equipage, and even the dinner cooked for the occasion were all left, and were subsequently seized by the Inquisition and confiscated to the state."

Soon after his arrival in England, the doctor heard that a group of about forty Jews was sailing overseas to the newly founded English colony of Georgia and sailed off with them to become the second Jewish doctor in North America.

Mr. Benjamin Sheftall, one of the Jewish passengers, described the group’s arrival in his journal:

"The names of the Jews who arrived in Savannah, Georgia on the 11^th day of July, 1733. Doctor Nunis, Mrs. Nunis his mother, Daniel Nunis, Moses Nunez, Sipra Nunez, Shem Noah their servant …. These Jews were the first of our nation who came to this country [Georgia]. They brought with them a Safer Torah with two cloaks, and a circumcision box, which were given to them by Mr. Lindo, a merchant in London, for the use of the congregation they intended to establish."

Yet, even in the relative freedom of America, it took the doctor's family years to shake off the last vestiges of their Catholicism.

"For years after their arrival in this country," a contemporary record reports, "the female members of the family were unable to repeat their [Jewish] prayers without the assistance of the Catholic rosary, by reason of the habit acquired in Portugal for the purpose of lending the appearance of Catholic form should they be surprised at their devotions."

Dr. Nunez left many descendants, the best known his great-grandson Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jew ever appointed Commodore in the US Navy. True to his great-grandfather’s Jewish principles, Levy was instrumental in abolishing the navy’s vicious punishment of flogging men before the mast.

Bailout money not being used for loans

NYTimes reports:

SO goes the old saw about bankers: they loan you an umbrella when the sun is shining, only to ask for it back when it rains.

But with our economy and markets in a world of hurt, the nation’s banks were supposed to stow their self-interest and help start lending again.

When the Troubled Asset Relief Program of the Treasury Department handed over $125 billion in taxpayer money to nine banks a month ago, they were supposed to lend to small businesses, home buyers and other worthy borrowers to keep the economy’s gears in motion.

At the time, the Federal Reserve Board and three bank regulatory agencies said: “The agencies expect all banking organizations to fulfill their fundamental role in the economy as intermediaries of credit to businesses, consumers, and other creditworthy borrowers.”

Alas, that admonition wasn’t accompanied by any real requirements to lend. When the Treasury gave taxpayer billions to the banks, it attached no strings. So is it any surprise that lending is tight?

Reports from institutional and individual borrowers across the country indicate this. Nervous lenders are demanding that even healthy loans be paid back. Banks and other financial institutions, meanwhile, are reducing exposures to borrowers and doing whatever they can to discourage the assumption of further debt.

Borrowers I have heard from don’t want to get into trouble with their lenders by speaking publicly about their experiences. As a result, they will remain nameless. But their stories are all the same.

The problem is, unless the government puts serious pressure on the nation’s banks to start lending, the value of assets used as collateral will fall as individuals and institutions everywhere are forced to sell. [...]

Lashon HaRah vs saving others

Riva(Vayikra 19:16): One should not stand idly by concerning the blood of your fellow man. Rashi explains that it means you should not stand idly by and see the death of another person - if you could save him.

Another explanation connects Rashi’s understanding with the first part of this verse, “Don’t spread gossip amongst your people.” Even though you are commanded not to be involved in lashon harah – don’t stand idly by concerning the blood of your brother. In other words if a person told you that he was planning on killing someone – don’t stand idly by but go and inform the intended victim so he can save himself…

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ריב"א (ויקרא יט:טז): ולא תעמוד על דם רעך. פרש"י לראות במיתתו ואתה יכול להצילו. י"מ לא תלך רכיל בעמך אע"פ שהזהרתיך על לשון הרע לא תעמוד על דם ריעך שאם אמר לך אדם אחר שיהרגנו אל תעמוד עד שתודיע לו

Neo-Nazis Russian immigrants sentenced

Haaretz reports:

The Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday sentenced eight neo-Nazi gang members exposed last year in Petah Tikva from one to seven years in prison.

The court stated that the phenomenon revealed during the investigation of the case is extremely severe, shocking and horrifying - particularly in light of the fact that the suspects were all youths and immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent states.

According to the original indictment, filed last September, the eight defendants - mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union between the ages of 17 and 20 - perpetrated violent hate crimes against Asians, religious Jews, drug addicts and homosexuals.

The indictments included charges of conspiracy to commit a crime, assault, racial incitement and the distribution of racist materials.

The police investigation into the cell began over a year ago, following two incidents of vandalism against Petah Tikva synagogues. Police detectives found neo-Nazi materials on the computers of two suspects.

The video clips found on the computers showed the suspects, along with other people dressed in typical skinhead, neo-Nazi clothes, in the process of assaulting their victims.

These videos led detectives working on the case to suspect that the gang had attacked dozens of people in the Tel Aviv area, mostly foreign workers and drug addicts. In one video, they are seen approaching a foreign worker as he is talking on a public telephone, punching him in the face and breaking a bottle over his head. Violently loud music accompanies each clip, and between segments, the suspects spliced swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

According to the material on their computers, the suspects also planned to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and memorial.

Conversion - Bronfman's views/Garnel Ironheart

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This is a profound analysis of the posting regarding Edgar Bronfman views of conversion.

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His Lordship, Garnel Ironheart guest post:

And this is a story from the fictional JNet.

Wilbur Bronfman, little known half-brother of Edgar Bronfman, today demanded that any person who wants to be a doctor should be allowed into the medical school of his choice and guaranteed an automatic MD.

The strict approach to medical school admissions advocated by universities around the world (with the exception of the Carribean) infuriates Wilbur Bronfman, the man who for nearly three decades led the World Jewish Gefilte Fish Association. Anyone who declares himself a doctor should be accepted to the medical community, he says. Or else the medicine would cease to exist.

With Bronfman at its helm, the WJGFA has fought anti-naturopathy, and extracted funds belonging to legitimate doctors from Swiss banks to help with that. Last year Bronfman was forced to hand over the leadership of the powerful organization to billionaire Pesky Finklestein.

But Bronfman, 99.5, is not ready to retire yet and has found a new platform for his philanthropic energies – Dumbo - the Institute for Easy Medical Training, of which he is now the international chairman.

In a recent interview, Bronfman elaborated on his belief that medicine should be more open and agree to embrace those who wish to become part of it without placing too many obstacles in their way. "I want to change the medical way of thinking," he stated, and pointed out that almost 50% of medical students come from a mixed-marriage family in which one of the parents is not a doctor!

The medical school deans wouldn't agree with you. According to the common sense, only someone who's qualified to attend medical school and completed the requisite training is a doctor.

Bronfman is outraged by this notion. Medicine used to be an open profession, he said, and the medical schools have only sealed the book lately.
 
'You don't have to know a damn thing about the human body to be a doctor!'

Bronfman's son Shvantzy, explained that Dumbo's objective is to introduce people to medicine through education. "We’ll accept anyone who walks in and says he's a doctor… we'll study anatomy and neuroscience with him… teach him how to take out an inflamed appendix."

Bronfman noted that many non-doctors in the United States who are married to doctors develop an interest in medicine themselves, an interest which Dumbo seeks to encourage. [...]

At-risk girls ignored?

JPost reports:

[...] Gershonowitz's and Sander's stories are not the first of their kind. Unfortunately, neither are they the last, as the truth about the growing number of troubled religious girls using drugs and alcohol or suffering from abuse is becoming harder to ignore.

These are the girls who, in some way, do not fit in with the mainstream seminaries that thousands of others attend every year. Even more startling is the fact that these teenagers are actually in Israel "trying to get themselves together," as Rabbi Oded Sher says, but have almost nowhere to go.

"These are girls in crisis, usually from dysfunctional or broken homes, and they are asking for help. They are ready to make changes in their lives and they need guidance," explains Elimelech Lepon, a teacher at one girls' school.

The majority of the girls at these seminaries have always been from the US, but this year in particular there has been an upsurge in the number of American teenagers in Israel. Two renowned schools in New York for at-risk youth closed down over the summer, leaving Israel as one of the only options for these teens.

After Sandler was expelled from the school in Memphis, Tennessee that her mother had sent her to, she entered Monsey Academy for girls in New York (then one of the only institutions for girls at risk in the US). There, she met Oded and Shiri Sher, who later went on to open a school for girls in Israel, Derech Hashem Academy.

"These people devote their entire lives to helping girls at risk, and dedicate their time and energy to doing everything in their power to help us," she said.

As of 2008, there are only three places in Israel (Tzofiah Machon Rivka in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Derech Hashem in Tiberias and Tikva in Jerusalem) that answer the call to help these girls - within a religious framework. But these institutions struggle with dwindling funds, even as the number of at-risk cases escalates.

Contrast this to the dozens of yeshivot that address the problem of at-risk boys - each of which is a recognized institution in its own right, or is affiliated with a reputable program, and therefore has no shortage of funding - seemingly ready to accept every boy who comes off the streets looking for help.

The schools that take care of girls emphasize the mental, emotional and physical well-being and quality of life that the girls can achieve. "The structure is religious, we teach them according to a Torah perspective, but we encourage them to choose their own way of life; whatever will make them happy and healthy," says Shiri Sher from Derech Hashem, which will not reopen in 2009 due to a lack of funds.

Tzofiah, the largest of the three institutions for at-risk girls, was founded in 2000 and is headed by Rabbi Raviv Shaked and his wife, Basy. The school offers religious girls an alternative way to fend for themselves by giving them an "opportunity to re-explore Judaism" while receiving top-quality therapy, obtaining a high school diploma and a certified vocation.

The main challenge these schools face is money. "It costs thousands of dollars a year to run a place like ours," explains Shaked, who says a $30,000 per-girl, per year budget would be ideal in order to give the girls the greatest possible benefit. This figure is due to the fact that unlike other schools and seminaries, Tzofiah not only offers, but requires intensive therapy for each student. Besides the compulsory individual and group therapy, these schools also schedule a multitude of lessons, field trips and activities to keep the pupils supervised while ensuring that they feel free, as well as entertained.

In contrast, the estimated cost for a boy's year at yeshiva comes to about $17,000, mainly because programs for girls are more home-based than those for boys, and these particular teenage girls require a tremendous amount of supervision which also needs to be "fun," leading to increased expenses.

But donors are more hesitant to lend a hand when they hear that their money is going toward a school that deals with "wayward frum girls who shouldn't even be in this position anyway," Lepon says.

The feeling that "we are not getting the best bang for our buck" is prevalent, according to Rabbi Boruch Smith. As former education director of both Tzofiah and Tikva, and current co-principal of Michlelet Esther for girls, Smith continues by describing the increasingly obvious reality that the religious community still finds it "irregular for girls to stray so far from Judaism and family."

When it comes to at-risk male teens, the solutions seem to be much more clear-cut, giving the sense that "we can help with this problem - we follow steps a, b and c, and problem solved," says Sher. With troubled teenage girls, there seem to be a lot more intricacies involved, resulting in only a few people willing to fight this battle; a few singular individuals willing to step into this mire and start pulling the girls out, one by one.[...]

Conversion - Bronfman demands accepting all

YNet reports: [see Garnel Ironheart's in depth analysis]

The strict approach to conversions advocated by the rabbinic institutions in Israel and abroad infuriates Jewish billionaire Edgar Bronfman, the man who for nearly three decades led the World Jewish Congress. Anyone who declares himself Jewish should be accepted to the Jewish people, he says. Or else the Jewish people would cease to exist.

With Bronfman at its helm, the WJC has fought anti-Semitism, helped open the gates of the Soviet Union for aliyah and extracted funds belonging to Holocaust survivors from Swiss banks. Last year Bronfman was forced to hand over the leadership of the powerful organization to billionaire Ron Lauder.

But Bronfman, 78, is not ready to retire yet and has found a new platform for his philanthropic energies – Hillel, The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, of which he is now the international chairman.

In an interview to Yedioth Ahronoth held in Jerusalem this week, Bronfman elaborated on his belief that Judaism should be more open and agree to embrace those who wish to become part of it without placing too many obstacles in their way. "I want to change the Jewish way of thinking," he stated, and pointed out that almost 50% of Jewish students come from a mixed-marriage family in which one of the parents is non-Jewish.

The Orthodox rabbinate wouldn't agree with you. According to the Halacha, only someone whose mother is Jewish, or who converted according to the Halacha is Jewish.

Bronfman is outraged by this notion. Judaism used to be an open religion, he said, and the rabbis have only sealed the book lately.

'You don't have to believe in God to be Jewish'

Bronfman's son Adam, Hillel's vice-chair, explained that Hillel's objective is to introduce people to Judaism through education. "We’ll accept anyone who walks in and says he's Jewish… we'll study Tikkun Olam with him… teach him how to celebrate the Jewish holidays."

Bronfman senior noted that many non-Jews in the United States who are married to Jews develop an interest in Judaism themselves, an interest which Hillel seeks to encourage.[...]