Abuse: Problem of recovered memories

NYTIMES

BATES CITY, Mo. — On a dead-end dirt road, through frosted crops and bales of hay in this sleepy town about a half-hour east of Kansas City, state investigators spent much of last week excavating the yard around a farmhouse, looking for decades-old evidence of sex crimes against children.

Their search was prompted, law enforcement officials say, by a 26-year-old woman who went to the police in nearby Independence, Mo., in August and accused her grandfather, father and three uncles of sexually abusing her and her siblings as children, beginning in the winter of 1988 and continuing for seven years.

According to criminal complaints and other court papers, the woman said she had recovered suppressed memories of mock weddings, sexual acts involving children, rape and a sex act involving an animal that took place in and around the secluded old Bates City farmhouse, a wooded 55-acre property formerly owned by her grandfather, Burrell E. Mohler Sr. [...]

Shalva of Har Nof: Story of a heart

JPost

The night I meet with Gerry and Theresa Casey, Jerusalem is enjoying its first wintry weather of the year. However, for the natives of Sligo in the northwest of Ireland, the storm brewing outside is reminiscent of the type of climate they have tried to escape this past year to give their little girl Rachel, born with Down's syndrome and serious heart defects, a better quality of life.

"We were told by doctors in Ireland that a warm climate could increase Rachel's life expectancy for up to five years," says Gerry, 40, who officially arrived here with Theresa, Rachel and the couple's three older children - Sean, nine, Emma, seven, and Louisa, five - in December.[...]

Abuse:Clergy malpractice I - Obeying a rabbi

One of the critical issues in dealing with abuse is the legal status of the advice or guidance of a rabbi not to call the police in abuse cases - especially when this is a violation of mandated reporting. Does this constitute clergy malpractice in the sense of a doctor, lawyer or psychologist giving bad advise? Who is liable for a person not reporting abuse when a rabbi said not to. As a general rule it seems that a clergyman is not held responsible but rather the person who acts on his advice. This is especially true when the person acting on the clergyman's advice is an adult. See Rabbi Mark Dratch's article

Click here for additional reading

A breach of the duty owed by a member of the clergy (e.g., trust, loyalty, confidentiality, guidance) that results in harm or loss to his or her parishioner. A claim for clergy malpractice asserts that a member of the clergy should be held liable for professional misconduct or an unreasonable lack of competence in his or her capacity as a religious leader and counselor.

Generally speaking, most clergy malpractice cases are couched in terms of TORT LAW as matters of alleged NEGLIGENCE, abuse of authority or power, inappropriate conduct, breach of confidentiality and trust, or incompetence. The claims assert that members of the clergy owe the same kind of duty to persons they serve as doctors owe to patients or lawyers owe to clients. Most licensed professionals in the secular world, including physicians, lawyers, and psychologists, may be held liable for negligence. Clergy members, however, are not licensed as professional counselors, making them accountable only to religious standards in many jurisdictions. Moreover, because the practice (or "free exercise") of religion is protected by the Constitution, which, under the FIRST AMENDMENT, requires separation of church and state, courts remain reluctant to apply secular laws to what they perceive as religious matters. For these and other social reasons, claims of clergy malpractice historically were relatively fruitless, with courts consistently ruling in favor of defendants. In the late 1990s, however, a rising number of sexual misconduct allegations surfaced in the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in courts taking a closer look at the viability of such a legal premise.

Christian fund protects Jews

JPost

Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavi is disgusted at the failure of several bystanders to come to the aid of a man who was viciously assaulted by a dozen gang members in a local park last week.[...]

City Without Violence costs NIS 20 million a year to operate. The government covers 47 percent of the outlay, while the International Fellowship of Christians Jews pays for 38%. Local authorities pay for the remaining 15%.

Chabad's wealthy donors are honored

Chabad's wealthy donors were honored at a special closed session

Clink this link to see 60 pictures

Women soldiers and motherhood

Yahoo

An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas.

Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son — her mother — was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems. [...]

Israeli army - most prolific innovation engine on earth

Newsweek

How does Israel—with fewer people than the state of New Jersey, no natural resources, and hostile nations all around—produce more tech companies listed on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, and China combined? How does Israel attract, per person, 30 times as much venture capital as Europe and more than twice the flow to American companies? How does it produce, for its size, the most cutting-edge technology startups in the world?

There are many components to the answer, but one of the most central and surprising is the Israeli military's role in breaking down hierarchies and—serendipitously—becoming a boot camp for new tech entrepreneurs.

While students in other countries are preoccupied with deciding which college to attend, Israeli high-school seniors are readying themselves for military service—three years for men, two for women—and jockeying to be chosen by elite units in the Israeli military, known as the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF.

Government abuse of children:Forgotten Australians

CNN  ..............Time Magazine


Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized on Monday to thousands of adults who, as impoverished British children, were brought to Australia with the promise of a better life but found abuse and forced labor.

"My hope today is to reach out to you all on behalf of this nation -- Australia -- and to speak what so often has been unspoken, and to offer this profound apology," Rudd told an audience of former child migrants gathered in the national capital of Canberra and scattered throughout the country. "To apologize for the pain that has been caused. To apologize for the failure to offer proper care. To apologize for those who have gone before us and ignored your cries for help."

The so-called Forgotten Australians -- children who came from British families struggling with severe poverty or from institutions in England -- were brought to Australia in a program that ended 40 years ago. But the program scarred generations of children who were placed in state institutions and orphanages. They later told of being kept in brutal conditions, being physically abused and being forced to work on farms [...]

EJF backer Tom Kaplan - saving the big cats

Telegraph

Who could have predicted that a mild-mannered Oxford-educated historian, with a PhD in the politics of colonial Malaya, would make an absolute killing from mineral extraction, with assets valued at billions of dollars?

Who then could have predicted that, while still in his mid-forties, the billionaire minerals magnate would channel his energies and business acumen into saving big cats from extinction? [...]

Blog : 1 million Jewish refugees from Arab countries

An interesting blog - Point of no return - which deals with the Middle East's forgotten Jewish refugees

Jerusalem & the Jews:Countering the Arab Big Lie

Aish HaTorah

What is the Palestinian Big Lie? Palestinian Authority Mufti Ikrama Sabri was quoted in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam (November 22, 1997) as saying that the Western Wall is part of the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Jews have no connection with it. The same newspaper (July 18, 1997) reported that Hamad Yusef, head of the Institution for the Rejuvenation of the Palestinian Heritage, referred to the "false historical claim of the Jews in the holy city, a claim which they were unable to prove in all of the (archaeological) excavations conducted by foreign groups for the past hundred years."[...]

US wants to seize Iranian linked mosques

Time

Amid ever-higher tension with Iran, the Obama administration made a bold legal swipe at Tehran this week that could send shock waves through the Muslim world. In what appears to be an unprecedented move, the Department of Justice filed notice in federal court in New York on Thursday that the government intends to seize the assets of a foundation with alleged links to the Iranian government, including several mosques around the country.

The department's action against the Alavi Foundation in U.S. District Court in Manhattan expands a forfeiture proceeding which began last December against the Assa Corp., a part-owner of a 36-story high-rise on Fifth Avenue. But in what may be a first, the government also seeks to seize additional properties in New York, Maryland, Texas, Virginia and California, some of which house mosques, Islamic centers and schools. (See pictures of America's Islamic community.) [...]

RaP: Goodbye Turkey; Hello Hodu!

RaP wrote:

As a follow-up to the posts on this blog about the decline in relations between Israel's traditional ally Turkey, there have been increasing reports highlighting the fact that Israel has struck up a huge new relationship with India, known as "Hodu" in Hebrew. Interestingly, "tarnegol HODU" is also the colloquial name in modern Hebrew for "turkey" the big tasty kosher bird. The new strategic alliance between Israel and India is even begrudgingly noted by China (see article below) a traditional rival of India (that also does lots of business with Israel!)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/12/content_12436763.htm

Indian-Israeli relationship of convenience

www.chinaview.cn

JERUSALEM, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- India and Israel have reportedly finalized the details of a 1.1-billion-U.S. dollar deal for the supply to New Delhi of the Israeli-made Barak-8 tactical air-defense system. The contract was set up earlier this year, but was sealed this week with the visit to Israel of India's army head, Deepak Kapoor. The agreement is the latest in a series in recent years that makes Israel India's largest military supplier. India is now also Israel's largest customer. The sale of weapons systems to New Delhi is only part of the story. The countries share intelligence in the war on terror and have blooming ties in the agricultural sector.

Malcolm Gladwell- an amateur expert

NYTIMES Prof. Steven Pinker

Have you ever wondered why there are so many kinds of mustard but only one kind of ketchup? Or what Cézanne did before painting his first significant works in his 50s? Have you hungered for the story behind the Veg-O-Matic, star of the frenetic late-night TV ads? Or wanted to know where Led Zeppelin got the riff in "Whole Lotta Love"?

Neither had I, until I began this collection by the indefatigably curious journalist Malcolm Gladwell. The familiar jacket design, with its tiny graphic on a spare background, reminds us that Gladwell has become a brand. He is the author of the mega-best sellers "The Tipping Point," "Blink" and "Out­liers"; a popular speaker on the Dilbert circuit; and a prolific contributor to The New Yorker, where the 19 articles in "What the Dog Saw" were originally published. This volume includes prequels to those books and other examples of Gladwell's stock in trade: counterintuitive findings from little-known experts.[...]