Steipler: "Better to be punished in this world"

Rav Sternbuch: Sarah's pain

Conversion:Chief Rabbi vs. City Rabbis

JPost

The legal adviser to the Chief Rabbinate said Wednesday that he would take disciplinary steps - including layoffs - against city rabbis who refused to recognize converts who converted under the aegis of the Chief Rabbinate.

Attorney Shimon Ulman told the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee that it was unlawful for city rabbis to refuse to recognize conversions performed by the chief rabbinate rabbinical court.

In a telephone interview after the Knesset meeting Ulman told The Jerusalem Post that although the procedure was a long one, he would initiate disciplinary actions against rabbis.

"We cannot have a situation in which a rabbi who receives a salary from the Chief Rabbinate refuses to accept the decisions of that same Chief Rabbinate," said Ulman.

Missionary tactics against Muslim & Jews

Jersey Girl's response to question of Christian missionary activity with Muslim.

I have asked a few of my muslim business contacts if they are having problems in their mosques like we are having.

One man who lives in Qatar told me this:

"There is a large mosque that is very beautiful and was built by a family he knows. Many "Americans" started coming to this mosque and converting to Islam. They joined the mosque and became influential in its politics. Eventually they replaced the imam with someone else who turned out to be a Christian missionary. Now, this mosque is a church but it looks like a mosque. They do all of the same prayer rituals but the imam preaches Christianity. All ofthe Muslims in the area know about this mosque and do not go there. He prays at home because he does not live close enough to anothermosque to attend.

I spoke to a Moroccan Muslim lady about this. She sells for me for 3-4 years now. She is married with a baby and her whole family lives nearby. They are what I would consider the Muslim equivalent of MO. Very solid in their very traditional faith. She told me the following:

"In her mosque there is a new imam. Yes, there are many many new converts to Islam in her mosque. Last year for the first time, they had a Christmas party in the mosque with a festive meal and cakes. They exchanged gifts for Christmas". I asked her why would a Muslim celebrate Christmas, it is not a Muslim holiday. She answered that "the imam said that Jesus is a prophet and that the mosque should celebrate his birthday with a festival and gifts".

Another contact, a Moroccan woman named H who lives in England told me:

"There is a woman who comes to her mosque. She is very very verypious. She attends all of the prayers and covers with a khimar (this is a very long cape like covering that is above and beyond the headscarf) and a niqab (face covering, also not required by Islam, way beyond), she is very very pious and I should learn from her. (H does not cover her hair, but she does dress modestly). H told me that her new friend is single and has no friends since she converted to Islam. So she invited H to come home with her to her family for Xmas last year, "for moral support". She took H to church and candlelight mass and then to Xmas dinner with her "large extended family". H enjoyed it very much, it was very beautiful and because they knew she was coming, they purchased kosher meat (where she lives there is no halal market and so she buys kosher meat as do many Muslims in the West). I told her that I thought that this woman was a missionary and that this was staged. At first she was appalled that I would say something about this "sincere and pious convert". But then she asked around and found out that this woman has taken several women from the mosque to her Church.

My former neighbor, KB has told me that "Jesus never had any place in Islam, it is the result of missionaries that anyone would consider Jesus a prophet"

But do an internet search and you will see that in the West, Muslims are being bombarded with the concept that Jesus is a prophet in Islam.

On another topic, I have also spoken to a Hindu neighbor of mine.

She told me that her family has been aggressively invited for Xmas each year by their neighbors. She does not want to go, but feels very compelled to go because the neighbors tell her that "in America, it is considered traitorous not to celebrate Xmas because it is an American holiday". She is also similarly invited for Thanksgiving which she does not want her family to celebrate. But she works on Thanksgiving and Xmas (double time pay) and while she is at work and her husband is home with the kids, the Christian neighbors aggressively invite them.

This is nothing new and should be expected. But the concept that missionaries are converting to Judaism and Islam in order to witness in the shuls and mosques is fairly new. (I can write you about synagogues they have taken over too BTW).

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