Conversion of intermarried couples/ R' Eliashiv's view?

JPost Jonathan Rosenblum

[...] But conversion is a commitment to mitzvah observance. That little detail rendered the Ne'eman Commission proposals inherently incoherent. How could those trained by teachers who themselves might have no commitment to mitzvah observance be expected to make such a commitment themselves?

THE UNHAPPY TRUTH IS that there is no solution for the current situation, within the ambit of halacha. And that has nothing to do with the recalcitrance of the rabbinic establishment to accept converts. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, widely viewed as the preeminent living posek (halachic decisor), has ruled that the traditional rule that we push away would-be converts does not apply in the case of intermarried couples or children of Jewish fathers. Following Rabbi Elyashiv's directives, Eternal Jewish Family is currently spending millions of dollars in Israel working with intermarried couples.

But not pushing away certain converts does not mean that the ultimate standard for conversion - a full acceptance of the yoke of mitzvot - can be waived. That standard is not a haredi invention, as some have alleged. Rabbi Yosef Ber Soloveitchik, leading decisor of the World Mizrachi movement, described it as axiomatic in his famous article Kol Dodi Dofek. Rabbi Shlomo Daichovsky, one of the most respected dayanim in the national religious world, declared at a Mossad HaRav Kook symposium last year that there is unanimous agreement on the requirement of a full acceptance of mitzvot. Rabbi Yisrael Rozen, former head of the Conversion Authority, recently reiterated that requirement.

Acceptance of mitzvot is not just a pro forma declaration by the would-be convert. The beit din has a duty to ascertain that he or she is sincere in that acceptance. Perhaps 350 years ago, when mitzva observance was the norm, it could be assumed that the prospective convert understood that joining the Jewish people entailed mitzva observance. And given the circumstances of the Jewish people then, it could also be assumed that the convert was not motivated by ulterior motives. But in modern times, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Herzog pointed out, neither assumption obtains, and a beit din must assure itself of the sincerity of the convert.

And therein lies the rub. The overwhelming majority of non-Jewish immigrants from the FSU do not wish to commit to mitzva observance. And the longer they remain in Israel and integrate into Israeli society without becoming Jewish, the less inclined they are to do so. That - not bottlenecks in the process or overly stringent demands by the rabbis - is the reason that there were less than 1,000 conversions, outside the IDF, last year.[...]

Obama's dream vs. reality

JPost Gerald M. Steinberg

President Barack Obama's Cairo speech was first and foremost an affirmation of the American dream, both in terms of his own story, and also of the broader national ethos.

History, he told his Arab and Muslim audience, was an obstacle to be overcome, and no differences were too great to prevent understanding and cooperation to achieve common objectives. Obama preached the virtues of freedom, religious tolerance, including for persecuted Copts in Egypt, and equal educational opportunities for women - all major problems in Arab societies.

This optimism was also an integral part of his framework for ending the long and violent Arab-Israeli conflict, based on the "land for peace" formula. Here, Obama is on shaky ground. After the lofty words that accompanied the Oslo process ended in mass terror, Israelis are less willing to assume that the gap between rhetoric and reality can be overcome in a few years.

The American president may believe that he has articulated the principles of mutual acceptance that "everyone knows to be true," but this is a stretch. His "everyone" ignores the army of propagandists who promote the anti-Israel narrative, label every act of self-defense a "war crime" and a "human rights violation," and reject the right of Jewish self-determination.

The call for Hamas - the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - to act responsibly to "put an end to violence" and "recognize Israel's right to exist" is extremely far fetched, even for Obama. Hamas belongs in the first part of the speech, which focused on confronting "violent extremism in all of its forms," including al-Qaida and the Taliban.

In promoting his peace plan, including the demand for a freeze in Israeli settlements, Obama has imagined a false and highly dangerous symmetry. Israelis are far more vulnerable to American pressure than the Palestinian leaders (Hamas and Fatah) or the dictatorships that control Egypt or Syria. No Israeli leader can afford to ignore or reject American coercion, particularly as Iran continues efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. But if Netanyahu accepts Obama's demands, and there is little or no change in the hatred, violence and rejectionism on the Arab side, the "land for peace" exchange will fail, and Israel will have neither.[...]

Rav Eliashiv - Abused child vs. suicidal parent

Rav Yitzchok Silberstein (Zohar #11 2003 pps 221-222): Removing an abused girl from her mother’s custody. Question: A nine-year-old girl is being severely beaten and her mother is suspected. Her mother is a widow who has psychological problems who sometimes gives her daughter sleeping pills because she works until midnight cleaning houses. There are also days where she doesn’t give her hot meals…. The question is whether to take the daughter from her mother’s custody and to put her in a foster home to improve the daughters life in that she will eat properly and have a warm and secure family and she will learn what normal behavior is – or perhaps not since the mother has threatened suicide if her daughter is taken away… It is important to note that the mother is opposed to all alternatives such as a boarding school or receiving help of any type and she threatens suicide. Answer: This is a very difficult question and I asked one of the gedolim who replied, That it was very difficult to avoid the tears of the mother and her threat to commit suicide. He said that it was beyond our ability to properly evaluate and weigh these issues. Thus we can do nothing.”

Let me clarify this psak. On the one hand, the daughter is not actually in mortal danger that we need to be worried that perhaps she will die from lack of food or from the beatings or difficult work. It also seems that the mother is not forcing her to swallow life-threatening pills. On the other hand, the mother has threatened to commit suicide if her daughter is taken from her. While it is true that people sometimes make threats that they don’t carry out (Shavuos 46), but the Chofetz Chaim (Be’er Mayim Chaim Rechilus 9:12) has ruled that concerning life and death issues we need to be concerned about threats. This is seen from the incident with Gedaliya who was told someone threatened to kill him. When it comes to life and death, we need to take seriously even an unlikely danger. Furthermore in our case the doctors have agreed that it is possible that the mother will commit suicide…. In this case where we want to remove her daughter from her custody when the daughter’s life is not actually being threatened – who says that the daughter’s life is more important than the mother’s? Perhaps the life of the mother is more in endangered than that of the daughter? This my explanation of the gadol’s ruling of not removing the daughter from the mother’s custody.

I presented the facts before Rav Eliashiv and he said the following. “Do not take the child from the custody of the mother who threatens to commit suicide – based entirely on circumstantial evidence of beatings that seem to done by the mother. As long as there are not actual witnesses that testify before us that they saw the mother cruelly beating her – it is impossible to remove the daughter from her custody. That is because it is a case of pikuach nefesh also for the mother – in particular since the daughter has not requested to be removed from her mother’s custody. Similarly it is impossible to remove money from another person based on circumstantial evidence as is explained in Bava Basra (93a)… It would be different if the circumstantial evidence is absolutely clear that the mother is beating her such as if we find that the daughter has bite marks on her back which obviously can not be self-inflicted. The fact that the mother gives her daughter sleeping pills is also not a reason to take the daughter from her custody – since it is not clear that it is dangerous. Therefore we must do everything possible through the neighbors and friends who can speak persuasively with the mother or threaten her. But it is difficult to remove the daughter from the mother.

However if witnesses comes and testify before us that the mother is viciously beating her daughter then we are obligated to remove her from her mother’s custody. This is so even though there is a small possibility that she might commit suicide. That is because it is not the daughter’s fault so why should she have her life endangered because of the concern that her mother might commit suicide. Therefore when there are witnesses the daughter should be removed from her mother’s custody.”

Summary: 1) If it is clear that the mother is viciously beating her daughter, the daughter should be removed from her custody and we are not concerned with the mother’s threat to commit suicide. 2) If no one has actually witnessed the mother beating her daughter but we deduce it from circumstantial evidence – there is no basis of removing the daughter from the mother. That is because the mother’s life is also possibly endangered. Thus we are forced to do nothing (shev v’al taaseh). All we can do is make efforts through talking and deeds to try to stop the mother from beating her daughter. Heaven should be merciful.

Conservative rabbi crusades for Anusim

Forward

Of all the rabbis ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary on May 21, few have journeys to the rabbinate quite as unlikely as Juan Mejia.

Raised as a Catholic in Colombia and educated at Christian schools, Mejia was on his way to becoming a monk when he discovered as a teenager that his family had Jewish roots. His grandfather would recall men gathering in darkened corners to place towels on their head and pray from a strange book.

After a torturous journey, which involved his rejection by the tiny Jewish community in Bogota and several years of study in Jerusalem, Mejia converted and began training for the rabbinate. Now Mejia is dedicating his rabbinate to helping Jewish descendants like himself who want to reconnect with their roots.

The plight of descendants of Conversos, those Jews forced to publicly recant their religion under threat of execution by the Inquisition but who continued to practice their religion in secret, has received more attention in recent years. Articles describing stories of Latino immigrants who discover their family’s strange rituals are Jewish in origin have appeared in both the Jewish and mainstream press.

Rabbi Rigoberto Emanuel Vinas, a Cuban-born rabbi who teaches classes in the Bronx for Anusim — as forced converts are known in Hebrew — has been featured in The New York Times.

Mejia promises to take the type of outreach Vinas has pioneered to a new level. With many Conversos shunned when they turn for help to Jewish communities in Latin America — those communities are beset by a “colonial mind-set,” Mejia said, and have contempt for the claims to Jewish ancestry by the locals — Mejia hopes to reach them over the Internet.

“I fight the Inquisatorial frame of mind,” he said. Mejia already runs a Web site that offers online instruction in Jewish topics. And with his rabbinical training now complete, he hopes to relocate with his wife, also ordained in late May at JTS, to the Southwest, where many Conversos are located.

Mejia believes that only in the United States, with its large, secure and welcoming Jewish community, can the Anusim be educated and brought back to their roots.

“The Anusim revolution,” he said, “starts here.” [...]

abuse - 2 pedophiles arrested

Haaretz [this item is in references to Har Nof]

Police remanded two men Wednesday suspected of more than 20 sexual attacks on young boys in an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood. One of the two, a 17-year-old, is suspected of attacking an 11-year-old boy who lives in the neighborhood

The case came to light after the head of the yeshiva where the alleged victim studies told the boy's father six months ago that boy had told him an older boy had accosted him on the bus. The boy said the 17-year-old persuaded him the get off the bus with him, took him to the yeshiva where the older boy studies and molested him in the bathroom.

On the basis of the principal's allegations, the father filed a complaint with the police. On Tuesday, after the boy told his father he saw his alleged attacker on the street, the father called the police, who arrested the suspect. He confessed to nine other attacks on neighborhood boys.

Meanwhile, in the same neighborhood, a 43-year-old man was arrested and remanded Wednesday for molesting boys in recent years. Two teenage boys who complained that the man had molested them said he had attacked at least 10 boys, some of them allegedly friends of his children. [...]

Rav Sternbuch - Finding one's greatness

Rav Sternbuch Shavuos II

Rav Sternbuch & Theory of Evolution

Intermarried Rabbis (revised)

Jewish Week forwarded by RaP

[...]A few weeks ago New Voices, a Jewish student magazine, published “The Coming of the Intermarried Rabbi,” which leads with the story of a Berkeley, Calif., man denied admission to Hebrew College’s rabbinical school because his wife is Christian. Earlier this year InterfaithFamily.com raised the issue as well, with “Why I Am Not a Rabbi,” an essay about being rejected from the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College because the author’s non-Jewish husband was deemed a “problem” to be “fixed.” Both articles have been magnets for online comments, listserv discussions and blog postings, and in a few weeks the VeAhavta Collaborative, a new group of rabbis, rabbinical students and prospective rabbinical students dedicated to discussing this issue, is holding its first meeting.[...]

R' Klein - Abusers don't threaten society

Regarding my recent posting of Rav Menashe Klein's teshuva regarding child abuse, he accurately notes that the Torah requires two valid witnesses and other restrictions which make it obvious that the Torah can not deal with the plague of child abuse. He is in essence saying since we are halachic Jews - we can not violate the halacha just because we have a problem that can't be dealt with by halacha.

On the other hand Rav Eliashiv (click the link) and many other gedolim note that we are not allowed to let our society be destroyed by following the law of the Torah. There is a second mode of judicial operation called ais la'asos or migder milsa which must be invoked. This approach is clearly stated in the gemora and openly discussed by many rishonim and achronim and is codified in the Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 2. The Tzitz Eliezer has a long and learned discussion of this in 19:51.

Thus the issue is: 1) is our society threatened by child abuse? 2) who is authorized to prescribe extra legal procedures? Rav Klein clearly doesn't feel that our society is seriously threatened by abuse and he seems to feel that the rabbis who permitted extra legal procedures are a greater danger to Judaism.

Abuse - Ramat Beit Shemesh/ The System

JPost

For Zehava (not her real name), the decision to break with the stringent cultural norms of her tight-knit haredi community in Ramat Beit Shemesh and report the suspected sexual abuse of her three-year-old child to the secular authorities came quickly.

"I grew up in the community, but I have always been open and accepting of the world around me," begins the haredi-raised Zehava, as she shares the story of her battle against the town's religious leaders, who in her view turn a blind eye to the ongoing problem of sexual abuse in the semi-private haredi school system.

"We have an epidemic on our hands, and there is complete denial here that there is anything wrong," she continues. "I spoke to the rabbis and other community leaders here, but they all called me a liar and said that this kind of thing does not happen here... but it does."

Sadly, Zehava, a recent immigrant from the US, has proof of such abuse and is one of a growing number parents from Ramat Beit Shemesh becoming increasingly frustrated with their leaders' continual denial of the problem.

"Families of the victims are made to feel stupid," she says, adding that they are very often ostracized for speaking out about the problem on any level. "But I will not keep quiet; I want to do all I can to make sure that this does not happen to another child," she insists.

"I still feel guilty that I did not pay attention and continued to send my child to [kindergarten] every day," continues Zehava, describing how her child stopped talking, would not sleep at night and was often inconsolable after being continually abused by the teacher.

Only after two years of medical checks and, eventually, speech therapy did the whole story come out. Zehava took her child to the Jerusalem Center for Child Abuse, where her suspicions were confirmed.

"I know this has happened in other schools, too, because I have since met several parents who tell similar stories about their children," says Zehava, who met with other haredi parents earlier this week under the auspices of the Beit Shemesh-based community organization Lema'an Achai to brainstorm ways to tackle the issue.

"We are a lightning rod for all sorts of problems in the community here," says David Morris, founder and chairman of Lema'an Achai, which provides among its services support and guidance for haredi parents who believe their children might have been sexually abused.

Last summer, the organization set up the "Safe-Kids" hot line in conjunction with the Beit Shemesh social welfare services to provide a lifeline to local families whose children have been abused. While the service has not been inundated with calls, Morris says there have been between five and 10 concrete reports of sexual abuse in the community - and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

"If only one in 10 children actually reports what has happened to them, and then only one in 10 parents goes on to officially report what has happened to their child, and the police or social welfare services only get around to investigating one in 10 complaints, that means there are many more cases out there that we don't get to hear about," he says.[...]

Obama's vision for Middle East peace

NYTimes

During a telephone interview Tuesday with President Obama about his speech to Arabs and Muslims in Cairo on Thursday, I got to tell the president my favorite Middle East joke. It gave him a good laugh. It goes like this:

There is this very pious Jew named Goldberg who always dreamed of winning the lottery. Every Sabbath, he’d go to synagogue and pray: “God, I have been such a pious Jew all my life. What would be so bad if I won the lottery?” But the lottery would come and Goldberg wouldn’t win. Week after week, Goldberg would pray to win the lottery, but the lottery would come and Goldberg wouldn’t win. Finally, one Sabbath, Goldberg wails to the heavens and says: “God, I have been so pious for so long, what do I have to do to win the lottery?”

And the heavens parted and the voice of God came down: “Goldberg, give me a chance! Buy a ticket!”

I told the president that joke because in reading the Arab and Israeli press this week, everyone seemed to be telling him what he needed to do and say in Cairo, but nobody was indicating how they were going to step up and do something different. Everyone wants peace, but nobody wants to buy a ticket.

“We have a joke around the White House,” the president said. “We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.”

A key part of his message, he said, will be: “Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly.” He then explained: “There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the ‘threat’ from Israel, but won’t admit it.” There are a lot of Israelis, “who recognize that their current path is unsustainable, and they need to make some tough choices on settlements to achieve a two-state solution — that is in their long-term interest — but not enough folks are willing to recognize that publicly.”[...]

Draft-dodging and Tal Law

Arutz7

(IsraelNN.com) Retired IDF Major-General Elazar Stern spoke at an event rallying for the end of the Tal Law, which allows full-time yeshiva students to postpone their IDF service. Prior to his retirement earlier this week, Stern served as head of IDF manpower. The event was held in advance of a Supreme Court hearing next week regarding the law.

The issues of hareidi-religious IDF exemptions, and of draft dodging in other Israeli Jewish communities, threaten more than just IDF manpower, Stern said. Israeli society is “rotting from within,” he said."If we are no longer socially involved, that will be one of the biggest existential threats we face,” he warned. He rejected calls to make IDF service optional, saying, “Mandatory enlistment is about much more than the number of recruits.” Israel cannot afford to pay soldiers a much higher wage in order to lure young men and women to volunteer for service, he added.[...]

Conversion - Court ordered funding to Reform

JPost:

The Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee held a stormy debate on Monday afternoon over whether or not the state is implementing the recent High Court of Justice ruling requiring it to fund non-Orthodox conversion programs.

The urgent hearing was held at the request of MK Shlomo Molla (Kadima).

"The court was called in to address this matter because the state gave the Orthodox institutions a monopoly on conversion. There is room in Israel for religious pluralism," said Molla. "That is why the courts passed the reins on to us."

Molla, in his opening remarks, emphasized that he did not intend to hold a halachic debate on the nature of Reform conversion, but rather to discuss the division of funds for such private conversion centers.

"It cannot be that the Israeli taxpayer is funding only one type of conversion," he said. "Religious pluralism is a foundation stone of any democratic state. The state must therefore view all of the streams of Judaism as equals and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry must carry out the High Court ruling to the letter of the law."

But it was exactly the halachic debate to which lawmakers were drawn, with MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) infuriating representatives of the Reform Movement by terming them "haters of Israel."

"There are rules set for joining the Jewish people," said Gafni. "It is not just being here and being a citizen. Mixing these fields could bring about a national tragedy."

Shas faction chairman MK Avraham Michaeli argued that "the High Court ruling is causing waste of the government's money, because the Reform converts are not achieving the goals of conversion. Their conversions do not allow them anything in terms of marriage and divorce, and they cause confusion and divisiveness among the nation." [...]