Reality of increasing divorce rate for Chareidim

YNET

Seven years ago I stood in front of a local bakery's counter in Bnei Brak, and requested the following be written on a cake: "Congratulations Miri, on your divorce". The woman behind the counter was shocked.

Until recently, divorce  in the ultra-orthodox sector was deemed provocation, a spit in the face of a conservative society. A divorcee was regarded as a local myth, a neighborhood attraction in a community of couples. Today, separated couples are becoming more common, even trivial, and no longer situated at the heart of every scandal or gossip.

As the rates of divorce go up, the stigma of the tragic nature of divorce is crumbling. A growing number of divorce stories help strengthen an alternative narrative. Instead of "they married and lived happily ever after", ultra-orthodox society now accepts the possibility of: "They married, lived, divorced and than lived happily ever after". 

Texas Athletic Ass. forced to accomodate Shabbos observant players

NYTimes

A Texas high school athletics association said Thursday that, under legal pressure, it would change the time of a boys basketball state semifinal game Friday to accommodate an Orthodox Jewish day school in Houston whose players observe the Sabbath. 

The school, the Robert M. Beren Academy, was expected to forfeit its game against the Covenant School of Dallas, scheduled for 9 p.m. Friday. It appealed to the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, the group that organizes the event, but the association said it was unwilling to change the time of the game, citing its bylaws. 

But on Thursday, the association, known as Tapps, said on its Web site that it had “been served a temporary restraining order which requires the Beran Academy be allowed to participate

Teacher Sex Abuse: Why Repeat Offenders Are So Common

Time Magazine

Parents don’t want to further traumatize young victims, but handling things "discreetly" merely displaces the problem to another school or community

 

When Bud Spillane was a school superintendent in New Rochelle, N.Y., he had to deal with removing an elementary school teacher suspected of sex abuse. “It was pretty evident he had done something,” Spillane recalls. The biggest obstacle to removing him from the classroom? “Parents came out of the woodwork…against me,” he says. They loved the teacher, the afterschool time he put in, and the weekend trips he liked to take students on, so they fought to keep him in school. Later in Spillane’s career, while he was leading the Fairfax County Public Schools outside of Washington, he had a teacher’s attorney demand a public hearing in a dismissal action involving multiple instances of alleged sexual misconduct with students. It was a shrewd move; instead of letting the school board handle the action in a private executive session, the lawyer wanted to force children to testify in court. Several parents understandably refused to put their kids through that spectacle. Welcome to the complicated and ugly world of sexual abuse in schools.

The unraveling of Deborah Feldman's fable "Unorthodox"

NY Daily News

The problem is that much of her memoir may not be true, according to ardent critics. These include family members, neighbors and even New York State authorities.


In the book, Feldman charges her mother – who was apparently burdened by the pressures of Satmar life – with a “mysterious disappearance” when Feldman was a toddler.

In fact, it takes about 30 seconds to find Shoshana Berkovic on both Twitter and Facebook. She is a science teacher at New Utrecht High School and does not appear to have ever left Brooklyn. She did divorce her husband, as court records indicate. But that was in 2010, more than a decade after Feldman accuses her mother with leaving her behind. (Shoshana Berkovic / Facebook)

Rav Yaakov Emden: Sexual Relations - Siddur

Rav Yaakov Emden

Yeshiva student pleads guilty to molesting 2 fourth-graders

 New York Post

Hillel Selznick, 25 of Flushing, admitted to Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter that he inappropriately touched a set of eight-year-old girls -- over a year-long period -- during private tutoring lessons inside the victim's homes.

Selznick, who was a student at Rabbinical Seminary of America, pleaded to two counts of course sexual misconduct against a child and will be sentenced on April 17 to six months in jail, 10 years probation, complete a sex offender program and register as sex offender.

Pedophile Rabbi David Kaye trapped by Dateline TV

Washington Jewish Week  Conservative Rabbi

Live Journal he received 6.5 years in federal prison

Rav Dovid Grossman discusses kiruv with Yair Lapid

Ezras Nashim: Women's ambulance service being formed

NY Daily News

The all-male Hatzolah EMT crew snubbed them — so a group of Brooklyn Jewish women are starting their own ladies-only ambulance service.

Borough Park lawyer Rachel Freier, 46, held the first recruitment drive Sunday for Ezras Nashim — Hebrew for “assisting women” — in her dining room. She signed up 50 members from across the borough.

“If women are having an emergency, they should have the option of calling a woman,” Freier said.

Ezras Nashim will focus on helping mothers in labor. Their goal is to train 50 EMTs and birthing assistants by the planned September launch.

Special yeshiva helps mentally ill find their way

Ynet

The Shaf Yativ yeshiva opened five years ago – a yeshiva for religious men with mental health problems. What seems like a regular yeshiva is actually a special care program that uses Torah learning to rehabilitate the mentally ill and help them rejoin normative society. It is named for a Synagogue in ancient Babel, made of stones from the Temple .

"A mental health start up," is how Rabbi Guy Avihod calls his life's work. Rabbi Avihod who is the head of the yeshiva says that "the yeshiva got going completely by accident. At a lesson given by Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu I met Udi Marili who told me that he works at the Health Ministry with the mentally ill, trying to find them employment.  

Yoga & Sex Scandals: No Surprise Here

NYTimes

The wholesome image of yoga took a hit in the past few weeks as a rising star of the discipline came tumbling back to earth. After accusations of sexual impropriety with female students, John Friend, the founder of Anusara, one of the world’s fastest-growing styles, told followers that he was stepping down for an indefinite period of “self-reflection, therapy and personal retreat.”[...]

But this is hardly the first time that yoga’s enlightened facade has been cracked by sexual scandal. Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught? 

One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.[...]

Dr. Klafter's critique of Rav Zilberstein's psak against therapy with opposite sex client

The noted frum psychiatrist - Dr. Nachum Klafter - submitted the following essay for posting on this blog regarding the recent psak of Rav Zilberstein [discussed here and here]. He requested that the reader be aware of two things: 1) This is a current draft of an essay that is be prepared for written publication, therefore any corrections or disagreements are welcome. 2) The essay is directed toward psychotherapists, and therefore may tend to over-explain some of the halakhic ideas as many of the readers are not rabbonim, and may under-explain some of the psychological content because the readers are trained psychotherapists. Dr. Klafter can be reached at doctorklafter@cinci.rr.com

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Dr. Klafter, Psychotherapy Treatment With Patients of the Opposite Sex 

Murderers taking care of senile fellow prisoners

NYTimes

Secel Montgomery Sr. stabbed a woman in the stomach, chest and throat so fiercely that he lost count of the wounds he inflicted. In the nearly 25 years he has been serving a life sentence, he has gotten into fights, threatened a prison official and been caught with marijuana.  

Despite that, he has recently been entrusted with an extraordinary responsibility. He and other convicted killers at the California Men’s Colony help care for prisoners with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, assisting ailing inmates with the most intimate tasks: showering, shaving, applying deodorant, even changing adult diapers.[...]

Rabbi Orlofsky: Chinuch in a world that has changed