Fighting for the Right to Lie About Military Service

NYTimes

In 2009, a burly Colorado man named Rick Duncan was a rising star among local veterans groups, advocating on behalf of struggling soldiers and holding forth about his own powerful experiences returning from Iraq as a wounded Marine.

The problem was, none of it was true, not even his name.

Mr. Duncan was actually Richard G. Strandlof, a troubled drifter who had never served in the military. Instead, he used his bogus story to work his way into the company of prominent politicians and admiring veterans.

Mr. Strandlof was eventually arrested by the F.B.I. and charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act, a 2006 law that makes it a federal crime to lie about being a military hero.

But though he admitted conjuring the entire tale, Mr. Strandlof has been fighting the case against him, arguing that the law violates his right to free speech. Simply telling a lie, his lawyers assert, does not always constitute a crime.

The Irrelevance of the Settlements

Cross currents Jonathan Rosenblum

Given all the attention focused on Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines (known colloquially and erroneously as the 1967 borders), one would never know how irrelevant they are to Israeli withdrawal from land captured in 1967. From his first day in office, President Obama seized on the settlements as the crucial issue in Palestinian-Israel peace process, as a means of signaling to the larger Muslim world that they have a friend in the White House. In so doing, he only succeeded in hardening Palestinian positions and convincing them that there was no need to negotiate with Israel because the United States will pressure Israel into withdrawal to the “1967 borders” with minor adjustments.

For many American Jews too, the settlements have taken on a role far out of proportion to any actual impact on peace. The settlements allow American Jews to indulge their Jewish guilt over the failure to achieve peace and to engage in a particularly Jewish form of hubris – the feeling that everything depends on us and that if were only better, more magnanimous, peace would be at hand.

No Israeli government will ever be able to evacuate a quarter of a million Jews from their homes beyond the 1949 armistice lines and an almost equal number from homes in new neighborhoods of so-called east Jerusalem without provoking a civil war. But even if there were not a single settlement, Israel could not return to the 1967 lines. That is a point that cannot be sufficiently emphasized.

NO MILITARY EXPERT considered Israel’s pre-1967 borders capable of being defended. Israel’s coastal plain, in which over 80% of its industrial capacity and 70% of its population is located, is no more than 15 miles wide and it narrows to as little as nine miles. No less crucial is Israel’s topographical vulnerability. Much of the central mountain range running through Judea and Samaria is over 3,000 feet about sea level, and thus overlooks the cities along the coastal plane. Not only is the entire coastal plane exposed, but so is Ben Gurion Airport and the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway.[...]

NY socialite pleads guilty to fraud charges

Wall Street Journal

A New York socialite pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal charge that she duped corporations out of millions of dollars.

Dina Wein Reis, 47, softly answered, "Guilty," when U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson asked her how she pleaded to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Reis could have faced up to five years in prison, but an agreement with prosecutors would cap her possible sentence at no more than 31 months if the judge accepts the deal, which she is not obligated to do. The plea agreement also limits the financial penalties Reis might have to pay to $7 million.[...]

A Hasidic Guide to Love, Marriage and Finding a Bride

BBC

Wonderland delves into the Hasidic Jewish community of Stamford Hill, north London, where the people live in a unique world divided between 21st-century urban life and 18th-century traditions.

For the most part this community is reserved and publicity-shy, but filmmaker Paddy Wivell has spent three months with members of the community who have decided it is time to let the rest of the world inside their personal and religious lives. Father of five Avi Bresler invites him to his eldest son's wedding - a scene of religious solemnity, family gathering and drinking - and on his quest to find a wife for his second son.

Rav Elyashiv and Haircuts on Friday Before LaG BaOmer - a Halachic Analysis

5tjt Rabbi Yair Hoffman

There is a fascinating Remah (in Orech Chaim 493:2) that tells us that when LaG BaOmer falls on Friday, the custom is to allow getting a haircut on account of Kavod Shabbos.  The Ramah seems to cite the Maharil as the source for this ruling.  In fact, the parenthesis indicating the source was not penned by the Ramah but rather by a later editor.

Indeed, if one looks at the Maharil, one sees no such indication in his writings that this is correct.  What then is the source?  It comes from the Mahariv.[...]

Mahmoud Abbas’s formula for war

Wash Post

M iddle East diplomacy is settling into a familiar pattern. Desperate to jump-start an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Obama administration and its European allies are piling pressure on Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu, demanding that he offer a plan, concessions — something — that will provide the basis for starting negotiations with Palestinians.

As he has before, Netanyahu has responded, but cautiously and with obvious reluctance. On Monday he gave a speech suggesting that he was prepared to cede most of the West Bank to a Palestinian state — a step forward from his earlier refusal to spell out territorial terms.

Now, as Netanyahu heads to Washington, Israelis and Americans are debating, among themselves and with each other, whether Netanyahu has gone far enough (probably not) and whether President Obama should respond by putting his own plan on the table (probably he won't).

Meanwhile, short shrift is given, as usual, to Netanyahu's putative partner. Yet the leader of the Palestinian "moderate" branch, Mahmoud Abbas, is not only refusing to make any concessions of his own but is also turning his back on American diplomacy — and methodically setting the stage for another Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[...]

The distorted self-serving view of halacha at Sunday's Agudah conference

I listened in dismay to R' Shlomo Gottesman's presentation of halachic issues of child abuse. He picked a very narrow perspective in answering the question of whether halacha allows going to the police to report abuse. The presentation involved snippets from the collection of teshuvos found in volume 15 of Yeshurun. He concluded that it was in fact permitted to go to the police but only if a rabbi had established that there was some - deliberately vague - level of evidence  called raglayim ledavar and that this was for tikun olam (improvement to society). It was asserted that both these conditions could only be determined by a rabbi. In other words one risked being guilty of mesira (informing) and thus lose olam habah if reporting was done directly without first consulting a rabbi. Thus the focus  of his presentation was on preserving rabbinic authority in abuse cases when the rabbi is not capable of dealing with it and the police need to be involved.

He also claimed that requiring a rabbi  to decide whether abuse could be reported did not violate mandated reporting laws.  . He did not say how this is possible but just asked the audience to trust him that it was possible to reconcile the mandated reporting requirement to report abuse and the requirement to allow a rabbi to decide whether abuse is to be reported. It is astounding that he so glibly stated this since he is a very competent lawyer and presumably knows that this is very problematic and that he is unlikely to find any judge or secular social agency to agree with him. He also claimed that there was no need to utilize the concept of rodef  (self-protection) since a rabbi could decide on calling the police by tikun olam alone. That is strange since the concept of rodef is a significant factor even in the teshuvos of the gedolim that he was citing. Why would the gedolim utilize this concept if it wasn't necessary?

So what was really wrong with what he said? The fact is that by entirely focusing on the assertion that permission must first be gotten from a rabbi before contacting the police  - he avoided dealing with the complexity of the  issue of abuse as it happens in the Orthodox community. He obviously felt this was not of general interest but as he put it, this is what an individual needs to speak privately with a rabbi because each case is different.

Unfortunately he squandered an important opportunity. What he should have done was to ask a different question. Not under what conditions is calling the police mesira - but the real question is what does the Orthodox community need to do to protect the children? He failed to note that there are clearly times when a rabbi does not need to be consulted and that furthermore there are clearly times when a rabbi who says not to report should be ignored. He failed to address the more important issue of whether going to the police without community involvement and with pressure on parents not to file a complaint is really protecting the children. He failed to address the fear of reporting because of shidduchim and the danger that a child will be kicked out of school if he/she is found to have been abused. He failed to note that the Aguda has insisted that the financial well being of its institutions are more important than the welfare of the children. That cover ups to protect reputations of rabbis come before the sanity and safety of our children.

But perhaps his biggest failure was to address the betrayal of the abuse victims by the rabbis and community and the severe psychological &  religious damage this betrayal causes. It is commonly observed by those who work with off the derech children that most of these children have been abused.

So yes - there is a legitimate halachic problem of how to deal with mesira - but in reality the issue of abuse is not primarily about how to preserve rabbinic authority - but how to protect our children.

John Jay College Study "blames Woodstock" for the abuse problem of the Church

NYTimes

A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.

Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.

Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.
The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010. [...]

Recording of Agudah's conference on the child abuse

Just received this letter from Dr. Asher LIpner with permission to post it
=========================
Recording of the Aguda Conference May 16, 2011

Please be advised that I am still preparing my detailed response to the lecture.  It has raised many, many questions for me from a halachic perspective as well as a practical one.  Let me just ask the following for now, in the name of Rabbi Blau:

The lecture makes clear that according to Rabbi Gottesman's interpretation of halacha, abuse should never be reported without first consulting with a rabbi who is an expert on abuse for a halachic determination of the evidence.  However, in Lakewood the rabbis who were appointed to deal with this issue in an informal beis din have all resigned, and appear not to want that particular responsibility.  

(I believe there were two reasons for their resignation and disbanding the beis din.  The rabbi apparently realized that in a case of a false allegation they could be held liable, and since they are not trained forensically, or psychologically or legally in the area of sexual abuse, their expertise in halacha does not qualify them as experts and they would have no leg to stand on should they be sued, which actually did happen once. 

Furthermore, an Asbury Park Press article quoted the Ocean County Prosecutor Collen Lynch as saying that it is illegal for rabbis to hear allegations of abuse and not report it to child protective services.  The reason she said this because in New Jersey they are mandated reporters, and failure to report is a crime punishable with a fine and possible jail time.)

So, the question is, if you can't go to the rabbis as this tape advises, and you can't go to the police without talking to the rabbis as this tape advises, Rabbi Blau and I and many, many people in Lakewood would like to know, is there anything at all that people are allowed to do to stop abusers in Lakewood, New Jersey according to halacha? 

Growth Chemical Leads to Exploding Watermelons in China

Time

Safety goggles may become required for eating watermelons. It seems the wrong chemicals in the hands of the wrong farmers can lead to some pretty fascinating results, such as exploding watermelons. Yup, exploding watermelons. And this isn't some science experiment gone wrong—or right, depending on how fun your science teacher was—this is farming in China.

According to The Guardian, farmers tending fields throughout eastern China injected forcholorfenuron, a growth accelerator, into their crops of watermelons. The result had these ultra-plump melons literally bursting at the seams, unable to contain their own chemically laden power.[...]

Vatican Gets Tough on Child Abuse, but Not Tough Enough

Time

When the Vatican issued a letter on Monday ordering bishops across the world to draw up tough guidelines for dealing with priests who rape or molest children, it addressed only half the scandal that has been rocking the Catholic Church.

To be sure, when it comes to the abusive clerics, the Vatican's new edict takes a firm stand, obliging local bishops to cooperate with local law enforcement in reporting sex crimes and recommending that policies be put in place to exclude accused priests from public ministry if they pose a continued danger to minors or could be a "cause of scandal for the community."

But what Monday's letter fails to do is put in place any sanctions on the bishops who oversee those clerics, should they fail to follow through with the recommendations. Child abuse is by no means unique to the Catholic Church. What sets the scandal apart is the sustained and widespread effort by church authorities to cover up for and protect the accused. And, in this regard, the new guidelines change little. "No threat of penalty will deter a child molester from committing a child sex crime," says David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which criticized the proposal as too lax. "But penalties can deter bishops from ignoring or concealing those crimes."

'Defiant' Wendi Runge receives 10 years for fraud

Press-Citizen

Wendy Weiner Runge tried to appear contrite Tuesday as she faced sentencing for fraud, telling a judge she was truly sorry for deceiving the state while trying to make movies in Iowa.

But outside the Polk County courtroom, the Minnesota filmmaker has been defiant about her culpability in Iowa's long-running film tax-incentive debacle - a move that got the 46-year-old mother of four a 10-year sentence in the Mitchellville women's prison.

Judge Douglas Staskal criticized Runge, the head of Polynation Pictures, for attacking prosecutors and judges in public statements she has made and blaming her plight on anti-Semitism and "some sort of political conspiracy."

Staskal said sentencing Runge to 10 years was a difficult decision because she had no prior criminal history, but he could not ignore the "complete arrogant and defiant" way in which she had denied responsibility for her crime. [...]

Another Ponzi scheme - "smart" investors lose $30 million

Hartford Courant

The architect of one of the state's biggest financial frauds — an investment scheme that could result in $30 million in losses and already has cost victims their homes, retirements and college education funds — was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison.

Michael Goldberg, 40, of Wethersfield, was accused of operating a Ponzi scheme that began by attracting small sums from friends and neighbors and ultimately collapsed under the weight of as much as $25 million put up by so-called sophisticated Florida investors.

Law enforcement experts say they believe that more than $100 million changed hands over the life of the scheme, which began in 1987 and ended in October 2009, when Goldberg turned himself in — first to his lawyer, Richard Brown of Hartford, and days later to the FBI.

Brown said Monday at U.S. District Court that Goldberg confessed because he is a "moral person" who had become consumed by the guilt associated with "living a lie for so long a period of time." But Assistant U.S. Attorney David Novick argued that Goldberg confessed because he could not keep up with the so-called interest payments he was obligated to make to the Florida investors who had begun to sue. [,,,,]

Behind the Israel Protest Turmoil: A Middle East Without a Peace Process

Time

Welcome to the post-peace process: The drama that unfolded on Israel's boundaries on Sunday as 12 Palestinians were killed in a wave of unarmed civil disobedience was but a taste of things to come. That was the warning from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Sunday night, and he's certainly got reason to worry: Rather than pin their hopes on a moribund peace process, Palestinians have begun instead to align themselves with the Arab Spring  by pressing for their own rights through acts of people power. Even if there's no immediate followup to Sunday's protests, they represent a political crisis of epic proportions, not only for Israel and the United States, but also potentially even for the Palestinian leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas (and even, possibly, for his new Hamas partners in government).