Laws fail to keep sex offenders from working in schools, federal report finds

Washington Post

People with a record of sexual misconduct are often able to land positions in public and private schools as teachers, support staff, volunteers or contractors, slipping through a system of background checks meant to thwart them, federal investigators reported Thursday.

Among the 15 cases the Government Accountability Office reviewed was that of former Manassas teacher Kevin Ricks, who pleaded guilty this year to abusing a male student and faces other sex and pornography charges related to his long career in education. The Washington Post in July disclosed questions about Ricks, his school employment record, and allegations against him of sexual advances toward several students in Maryland and Virginia.

Eleven of the 15 cases, the GAO reported, showed that offenders who had previously targeted children were able to obtain positions in schools.

"Even more disturbing," the report concluded, they were able in at least six cases to use those positions to abuse more children. The report found: [...]

Maharal: The dangers of universal education and access of the masses to clear texts

From Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Maharal (Tiferes Yisroel #69): It is not proper that the words of the Torah, which are words of wisdom, should be in the hands of fools so that each person can think they are just as competent as anyone else to say what is in the Torah. I discussed this in my sefer Be’er HaGolah. I explained that our sages have deliberately concealed their words in many places in order that fools should not have ready access to them. Therefore if the Torah had been written clearly and explicitly – it would be difficult to distinguish who is truly wise from one who is lacking in wisdom. As a consequence it would produce great disputes. This is the opposite of the intent of the Torah that everything in it should make connection, order and unity in creation. It is in order to prevent dispute and schisms that the Torah says that a rebelious elder is deserving of capital punishment (Sanhedrin 88a).  Therefore it is proper that the Torah be in the hands of the few in order that they be listened to. This would prevent the many disputes that we have our day in which everyone imagines that they are a scholar and outstanding religious authority. They believe this because they say, “I can also read seforim.” This causes a number of bad thing which I don’t want to write about. Therefore the Torah is written in a manner that only the elite will comprehend it and so it will be inaccessible to the masses. This universal access to Torah was the cause that the Sanhedrin was not utilized and everyone built a private sanctuary for himself and there was no connection or unity. Thus Devarim (17:11) commands us that when there is a difficult matter it should be dealt with by the Sanhedrin. Thus we see that not writing down the Oral Torah and that it be given to the Sages (rather than the masses) is something inherently necessary for our well﷓being.

Incident on Lakewood bus: 4 teen boys accused of bias intimidation of their school bus driver

Asbury Park Press

Four teenagers were arrested Tuesday night and charged with bias intimidation of their bus driver after praising the Ku Klux Klan during the ride home from school, township police confirmed.

The four boys, all about 15 years old, are accused of crowding behind their black female school bus driver after she objected to their conversation, during which they used racial slurs about the KKK's violence against blacks, Lt. Paul Daly of the Lakewood police said.

"They stood behind her instead of being seated," Daly said Thursday. "She felt intimidated."

They boys were arrested on the bus and released later into the custody of their parents.[...]

Sefer HaBris: Due to the great stature of the Rambam - theology took a look time to develop

From Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Sefer HaBris (Section 1 2:6): The Givat HaMoreh wrote in the introduction to his sefer that the reason that it took such a long time for the full development of philosophy was because of the great wisdom of Aristotle and his unprecedented stature. Because of this his views were followed by all the scholars generation after generation in a slavish manner. It was viewed that anybody who disagreed with him was as if he were arguing on self-evident reality. In exactly the same way, the reason that there has been a long delay in the development of our theology is because many think that to disagree with something that the Rambam said is to disagree with something which is self﷓evidently true. The two processes are almost identical because in fact the concepts of the Rambam are those of Aristotle - as is well known. However all men of integrity while they love the Rambam – love the truth more. This is as the philosopher said, “I love Aristotle and I love Socrates but the truth I love more.”

Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers

WSJournal

Tri Tang, a 25-year-old marketer, walked into a Best Buy Co. store in Sunnyvale, Calif., this past weekend and spotted the perfect gift for his girlfriend.

Last year, he might have just dropped the $184.85 Garmin global positioning system into his cart. This time, he took out his Android phone and typed the model number into an app that instantly compared the Best Buy price to those of other retailers. He found that he could get the same item on Amazon.com Inc.'s website for only $106.75, no shipping, no tax.[...]

Vigilante justice when the system fails to protect

NYTimes

The murder of Ken Rex McElroy took place in plain view of dozens of residents of this small farm town, under the glare of the morning sun. But in a dramatic act of solidarity with the gunman, every witness, save the dead man’s wife, denied seeing who had pulled the trigger.

The killing was a shocking end for a notoriously brutal man who had terrorized the area for years with seeming impunity from the law until he was struck down in a moment of vigilante justice. It was also the first major case for a young county prosecutor, not far removed from law school and just months into the job, who said he was confident that the case would be solved soon. [...]

Professor David Epstein charged with incest with his daughter

Columbia Spectator

Political science professor David Epstein, 46, was charged Thursday with having a sexual relationship with his daughter, 24.

He was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with one count of incest in the third degree at an arraignment hearing on Thursday. According to police, the relationship appears to have been consensual. [...]

RAshba: Verses understood allegorically to agree with philosophy

From Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Rashba (Commentary to Agada Bava Basra 74b pp 102-106):  You should know that when one of our pious Torah sages reads the words of the philosophers, it is possible that he might agree with them. Even if he finds contradictions between Biblical verses and the philosophers, he can explain those verses in a manner that conforms to philosophy. In other words he can view the verses as metaphoric and not literal - since he isn’t rejecting anything learned from prophecy and he isn’t discarding any mitzvos by doing so.  However when it comes to matters [concerning Biblical verses or our Tradition] that are widely accepted by our Sages as literally true – then the sage will insist on understanding them literally according to our Tradition. He will do this even though he knows that the philosophers strongly reject such a literal understanding. For example, the belief that the dead will be literally resurrected is not unequivocally found in Biblical verse. It is seems reasonable that all the relevant verses might be explainable as being allegorical e.g., such as those in Yechezkeil (Chapter 36). Nevertheless such a metaphorical approach is rejected by the sage in favor of the literal one because our Tradition insists that these verses be taken literally. In such cases, the sage acknowledges that the widely accepted traditional understanding takes precedent over the philosophical﷓rationalist view. He readily admits in such conflicts that we do not pay attention to rational analysis which goes against our Tradition because the wisdom of G﷓d is beyond our intellectual grasp. Of necessity in every instance that we have a clear Tradition from our ancestors, we can not reject this Tradition – unless it is established that the traditional understanding is impossible – G﷓d forbid! Why should we destroy our Tradition since we know that it would not have become wide﷓spread except for the fact that it has been received generation after generation all the way back to Moshe or the Prophets… Consequently while we need to acknowledge that many verses in Bible are allegorical, nonetheless we need to accept the truth that some verses are describing actual miracles and that G-d has the ability to change nature according to His wishes…. Therefore when our Tradition requires a literal understanding why should it be discarded just because it is against a rationalistic philosophical understanding? …

Marine's top general:Allowing gays to serve openly is dangerous

Washington Post

The Marine Corps' top general suggested Tuesday that allowing gays to serve openly in the military could result in more casualties because their presence on the battlefield would pose "a distraction."

"When your life hangs on the line," said Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, "you don't want anything distracting. . . . Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines' lives."

In an interview with newspaper and wire service reporters at the Pentagon, Amos was vague when pressed to clarify how the presence of gays would distract Marines during a firefight. But he cited a recent Defense Department survey in which a large percentage of Marine combat veterans predicted that repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" law would harm "unit cohesion" and their tight-knit training for war. [...]

Benefactor for homeless Haitian boys - guilty to child molestation

Fox News

In 1997, while he lived in Connecticut, Perlitz founded the Project Pierre Toussaint (PPT) School for homeless children in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Four years later, the school had evolved into a 10-acre walled village where more than 200 children could eat, live and attend school, according to the brief.

"Dozens, if not hundreds, of youths who had entered the program 'drugged out' and homeless evolved into respectful, productive students with the help of PPT," the document reads. "With the growth of the program, however, came additional pressures, and additional forces that, coupled with the many other stresses of everyday life in Haiti, took their toll on Doug Perlitz."

Those factors, the document claims, ultimately led Perlitz to "cross the line," along with stress and the "never-ending responsibility" of his job at the school, his struggles with homosexuality, a lack of intimacy and his prior physical and spiritual relationship with a priest at Fairfield, a Jesuit institution [...]

Child & Domestic Abuse Book: Discussed in Hirhurim

Hirhurim

A new book by Dr. Daniel Eidensohn, Child & Domestic Abuse: Torah, Psychological, & Legal Perspectives, displays a different balance between thoughtful response and outrage. The first volume contains essays by an assortment of professionals — rabbis, psychologists, social workers, lawyers. Each, in his own way, lashes out at the community’s response to sexual abuse of children and attempts to explain the proper response according to the Torah and/or their professional training and experience.

Dr. Eidensohn writes that we will not change the attitude of our rabbinic leaders by providing Torah sources and arguments, even from someone as respected as R. Moshe Sternbuch, who advised Dr. Eidensohn on the publication and personally reviewed the Synopsis section. The only way to spark change is to dramatically describe victims’ pain. When community leaders recognize the extent of the problem and its effects, they will join the cause. “To the degree that the rabbis and community leaders can be convinced that abused children suffer horrible lifetime wounds, you will discover that the legal objections disappear” (p. 12). The same, I believe, applies to the problem of corrupt and unethical practices. When leaders realize how much this damages the community, how deeply this disrupts the basic functioning of our community, they will respond seriously. [...]

Novel, three nonfiction books on problem in Orthodox community point to growing awareness as cases persist.

Jewish Week    by Hella Winston

[...] The book’s author — a chasidic woman writing under the pseudonym Eishes Chayil (“Woman of Valor”) — told The Jewish Week that “after many suicides and hundreds in the streets, on drugs, in therapy, there is definitely more awareness [of the sexual abuse issue].” But she also cautions that “there is still so much ignorance” in the Orthodox community. “And as I know firsthand,” she said, “practical advice for parents is sorely lacking.”

It is, in part, this ignorance and lack of practical advice for parents that is being addressed by three new nonfiction books on the topic: “Breaking the Silence: Sexual Abuse and the Jewish Community”(Ktav) edited by David Mandel, the CEO of Ohel Family and Children’s Services, and David Pelcovitz, who teaches psychology and education at Yeshiva University; “Child Abuse and Domestic Abuse, Volume I and II,” edited and self-published by Daniel Eidensohn, a haredi rabbi and author who writes a blog on issues of Jewish identity; and “Abuse: The Communal and Religious Factors that Undermine the Apprehension of Offenders and the Treatment of Victims” (Urim Publishing, Jerusalem) by Michael J. Salamon, a prominent psychologist in the Orthodox world.[...]

Attention-Deficit (ADHD) is real and not caused by computer games

NYTimes

As recently as 2002, an international group of leading neuroscientists found it necessary to publish a statement arguing passionately that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was a real condition.

In the face of “overwhelming” scientific evidence, they complained, A.D.H.D. was regularly portrayed in the media as “myth, fraud or benign condition” — an artifact of too-strict teachers, perhaps, or too much television.

In recent years, it has been rarer to hear serious doubt that the disorder really exists, and the evidence explaining its neurocircuitry and genetics has become more convincing and more complex. [...]

Israeli hit teams have a history of eliminating weapons scientists.

Newsweek

During his years as Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion was haunted by a recurring nightmare. In it, the Holocaust’s survivors had taken refuge in Israel only to become the targets of another Holocaust. The nightmare seemed to be coming true in July 1962, when Egypt’s then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced four successful tests of missiles capable of striking anywhere “south of Beirut”—that is, anywhere in Israel.

Israeli officials panicked. The Mossad had never guessed that Nasser was developing the means to destroy “the Zionist entity,” as he had repeatedly promised. Israel’s military intelligence quickly learned that Egypt had built a secret facility in the desert, known as Factory 333 and staffed by German scientists, builders of the V1 and V2 rockets that had devastated London. Even the project’s security chief was a veteran of Hitler’s SS. The Egyptians’ plan was to build some 900 missiles, all of them presumably to be aimed at Israel. [...]