Why the secular Israeli fears a chareidi majority

Cross-currents by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

Capital punishment is not the issue. Two other issues are far more important in addressing concerns that Israel could become Talibanized. The first is that not everyone listens to Moshe Grylak – or his gemara. You can argue that the community should not be held responsible for the escapades of kano’im and Sikrikim – but they aren’t doing a very good job holding them in check either – or even speaking out against them. Why wouldn’t a chiloni Israel look at their activities with concern that as the Chareidi community grows, there will be more on these zealots, who will become even more brazen in time?

 More important is the gemara that Rabbi Grylak does not quote: Rosh Hashanah 6, and elsewhere, which establishes the authority of the Jewish court to compel people to perform mitzvos. The plain meaning of the text is that people who are reluctant to perform mitzvos can be compelled through grievous bodily force to obey the law. Couple this with the authority of beis din to act le-afrushei me-issura/ to distance a potential sinner from his ability to sin, and you have a license for batei din to compel full observance of the Torah, both affirmative and proscriptive obligations. No witnesses, no forewarning, none of Rabbi Grylak’s niceties that calmed his secular friends. Why should they not anticipate groups of people jumping out of vans, forcing tefillin and tzitzis on their bodies, and bulldozing their soccer stadiums?

For members of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Gur sect, sex is a sin

Haaretz

According to Dr. Benjamin Brown, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, criticism of the regulations laid down by the late Rabbi Israel Alter (also known as the Beis Yisroel ), who led Gur from 1948 to 1977, goes back as far as the 1960s. Among the critics was Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (1899-1985 ), known as the Steipler. Kanievsy was the brother-in-law of the world-renowned rabbinical authority Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (the "Hazon Ish," who lived 1878-1953 ) and the father of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the leading rabbinical authorities in Bnei Brak today.

The Steipler wrote that one should not necessarily act according to the sect's strict regulations, which he said mainly cause suffering to women. To this day his views are studied in instruction sessions for bridegrooms in the Lithuanian (non-Hasidic ) ultra-Orthodox community, who are encouraged not to refrain from sexual relations. Among other things, the Steipler wrote: "It is known that a woman's main hope in her world is to have a husband who loves her ... but heaven forfend that he observe the measure of prishut, whereby he hurts his wife."

A Rabbi’s Teachings on Addiction Recovery Find a Wide Audience

NY Times

For six years, Rabbi Taub, 37, has been teaching and writing about the spiritual component of recovery from addiction. He had begun within the Jewish community, specifically the Chabad movement, and yet providence or serendipity or destiny has brought him increasing recognition and influence well beyond it.

So it was that Father Boes asked him to address a half-dozen staff members, some of them clergy and some of them therapists, who lead recovery programs at Boys Town. Once a refuge for children neglected or abandoned due primarily to poverty, it now deals extensively with boys and girls who have abused alcohol and drugs. And while Boys Town from its origin had been nondenominational and opposed to religious compulsion of any kind, it has always considered faith a central element for repairing damaged lives. [...]

Tying together the whole discourse was Rabbi Taub’s thesis, the central insight of his teaching and writing. Addiction, he argues, is less a chemical dependency or a mental illness than the consequence of an individual’s absence from God and of the psychic pain that absence inflicts.[...]

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Nude images hung in religious J'lem neighborhood- latest weapon against chareidim

YNet

The Secular-haredi tensions over the exclusion of women reached new heights in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel where there is a growing haredi community. Local bulletin boards were recently pasted with pictures of women posing almost entirely in the nude.

The pictures were put up suring the Sabbath and included a caption that read: "The glorification of women." The haredi residents were horrified by the "abominable signs" but could not remove them because it was the holy day and doing so would involve desecrating the Sabbath.

New project to integrate Haredim in higher education

Haaretz

The Council for Higher Education will invest NIS 180 million over the next five years to encourage Haredim to study and enter the workforce. The CHE approved the plan yesterday to make higher education more accessible to the ultra-Orthodox population. 

The CHE will provide financial incentives to institutions of higher education to establish appropriate frameworks for Haredim, which will focus on specific professions. Among the proposals are scholarships, classrooms with separation between men and women, and special educational materials that take into account and bridge the large gaps in knowledge in certain subjects. The CHE will also increase the funding for colleges in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem that serve the Haredi community and allow them to accept more students.

Chazon Ish: Since prohibition of electricity is not clear - we need to seek out prohibitions for it.

From Dr. Benny Browns book on the Chazon Ish quoting his student Dr. Tzvi Yehuda

Depressed children more likely to be bullied & socially rejected

Time

Children who are ostracized by their peers and bullied often become depressed, but new research suggests that the relationship may work the other way around as well: children’s depressive symptoms in elementary school precede social victimization and isolation later on.[...]

While children with symptoms of depression in 4th grade became prone to peer victimization later, the researchers found that being bullied earlier didn’t increase children’s risk of depression in later grades. The children with the highest levels of depressive symptoms in 4th grade were more likely to be bullied by 5th grade.

Children who show symptoms of depression — having low energy, social withdrawal, passive behavior, excessive crying, and having an obsessive, negative self-focus — may first be rejected by peers and then targeted by bullies.

Training against abuse saves 7 year old child from abductor

Public school teacher's aide accused of taping sexual acts with students

 NY Times

A teacher’s aide at a public school in Brooklyn who was charged last month with possessing and distributing child pornography was arrested again on Monday night after federal agents discovered that some of the videos showed him engaging in sexual acts with students, possibly at the school, according to law enforcement officials.

Plea averts trial in NY Hasidic firebombing case

Wall Street Journal 

[BHOL]

A Hasidic teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday to assault, averting a trial in an attempted murder case that brought unusual attention to a religious dispute in a Jewish enclave.

Shaul Spitzer, 18, accepted a plea bargain as jury selection was about to begin at the Rockland County Courthouse in New City, said defense attorney Deborah Lowenberg.

Spitzer had been accused of severely burning neighbor Aron Rottenberg with a firebomb outside Rottenberg's home in New Square, an insular Hasidic village of 7,000.[...]

Eda Haredit raises money to sue police

YNet

Eda Haredit members are fighting back against a recent wave of police arrests. The extreme ultra-Orthodox faction decided in recent days to step up its battle, and has begun filing personal lawsuits against police officers.

As a start, the faction allotted a budget of $20,000 for the legal struggle, which is aimed at deterring the police from "harassing" its members.


According to an Eda Haredit source, in recent months the police have decided to "hit everyone affiliated with the faction with all their might".[...]

School Linked to Abuse Claims Will Replace Entire Faculty

 NYTimes

The entire faculty at Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers were arrested last week on accusations of child sexual abuse, will be replaced by new teachers this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent announced Monday night. 

Speaking to hundreds of parents at a meeting called to address the crisis at Miramonte, Superintendent John Deasy announced the school would be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and when students returned on Thursday, an entirely new corps of teachers and staff members would have been hired to greet them. All current teachers, administrators and staff members will be moved to a school still under construction for the rest of the school year, where they will be interviewed by school officials and, if necessary, the police.  [...]

Mr. Deasy said he felt a personal responsibility to do two things: help children who were victims, and restore parents’ trust in the school district.

Identity vs Integration: Radical Islamists 'freak out' Belgian community

Life sentence for man who refuses to give a get - upheld by rabbinic court

JPost

The supreme rabbinical court of appeals upheld a life sentence handed down to a man who has refused for ten years to give his wife a bill of divorce.

Meir Gorodetzki was imprisoned by the Jerusalem rabbinical court in 2001 for refusing to allow his wife to divorce him and has spent the last ten years in jail for his ongoing refusal to give his wife a bill of divorce, or get.[...]