Abuse:Beware of men in costumes

NYTimes   The man in the red Elmo costume was back to work in Central Park on Tuesday, but under the mask, he was not smiling. He was behind in tips he earns by posing for photographs with tourists. He said he had gotten a late start because he was not released from a psychiatric evaluation at a nearby hospital until midmorning. 

The man, who said his legal name, if not an original one, is Adam Sandler, was handcuffed by the police and escorted from the park on Sunday afternoon after he was heard — and videotaped, by an English tourist — shouting anti-Semitic remarks outside the Central Park Zoo. 

The police put him into an ambulance bound for Metropolitan Hospital Center, but he was not arrested. The video spread quickly on the Internet, bringing out the dark humor, to some, of a cuddly children’s character engaging in a violent-sounding rant. Others thought it was just plain scary.

He said the doctors at Metropolitan told him he was “a little paranoid.” It was obvious from talking to him that he is troubled. But he told a lucid and detailed account of his life, and he told of his own dark past, one that might alarm parents whose children have posed with him. The tale he told underscored just how little is known about the men and women who dress as various children’s characters in tourist-clogged areas, looking for small tips. This tiny industry is unregulated.

Stand-your-ground defense falls short in Texas

CSMonitor  A man who claimed Texas' version of a stand-your-ground law allowed him to fatally shoot a neighbor after an argument about a noisy party was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years for murder.

Rodriguez, a retired Houston-area firefighter, was angry about the noise coming from a birthday party at his neighbor's home. He went over and got into an argument with 36-year-old elementary school teacher Danaher and two other men at the party.

In a 22-minute video he recorded on the night of the shooting, Rodriguez can be heard telling a police dispatcher "my life is in danger now" and "these people are going to go try and kill me." He then said, "I'm standing my ground here," and fatally shot Danaher and wounded the other two men. 

Chareidim & Democarcy by Dr. Marc Shapiro

Seforim Blog   From the haredi leadership’s perspective, while at the present time the haredi world is forced to take part in the democratic process, they assume that if haredim ever became a majority they would dismantle Israel’s democracy and institute a Torah state (i.e., a theocracy led by the haredi gedolim).[2] Since that is their goal, stated explicitly, we have to wonder what such a society would look like. To begin with, if haredim were ever the majority, funding for non-Orthodox (and perhaps even Religious Zionist/Modern Orthodox) schools would be halted. There would be massive decreases of funding for universities, with the humanities taking the biggest cuts, and money for the arts, culture, and institutions connected to Zionism would dry up. Freedom of the press would be abolished, artistic freedoms would be curbed, and organ transplants would almost entirely vanish. Public Shabbat observance and separate-sex public transportation would likely be required. There would also be restrictions on what forms of public entertainment and media are permissible and on public roles for women. Of course, women’s sporting events would no longer be televised and men would not be permitted to attend them. From the haredi perspective, these steps are all halakhic requirements, and no one who reads haredi literature can have any doubt that these sorts of things are intended when haredi writers refer to the time when it will be possible להעמיד הדת על תלה. How many non-haredim will be affected by this is questionable, because as soon as the haredi numbers come close to a majority, the non-religious and non-haredi Orthodox emigration will begin (followed no doubt by the yeridah of some haredim as well). No one who has lived in a Western style democracy will want to live in a society where cherished freedoms are taken away.

Defending Rav Gestetner's bitul seruv

t Rav Gestetner wrote in his nullification of the seruv   where he  strongly attacks the language of the fourth paragraph for too strongly criticizing the beis din of Machon l'Hora'ah and by inference - the gedolim who agreed with the seruv.

In fact this fourth paragraph makes little sense taken in isolation from the context of the rest of the letter. Consequently because ignored the context of the rest of the document he ended up mistranslating "gate of fraud" rather than "gate for those who are tormented by the words of others." In fact the fourth paragraph follows logically from the preceding paragraphs

Let's go back to the beginning paragraphs. First paragraph: Rav Weiss (the husband) received a summons from Machon l'Hora'ah at the instigation of his wife who is in the middle of a suit in secular court against him. Rav Gestetner explains that according to the halacha the husband is not required to go at the same time to beis din until she pays him for the expenses incurred in secular court... Nevertheless the husband acted beyond what he was required to do and responded to the summons and informed Machon l'Hora'ah that he was prepared to participate in a din Torah with his wife and specified two dayanim who were prepared to judge for his side[and thus he responded correctly according to halacha]. Second Paragraph:In spite of this compliance ,Machon  l'Hora'ah responded as if he had ignored their summons and reversed what Rav Gestetner understood to be the facts of the case and claimed that the husband - and not the wife had initiated the lawsuit in secular court. Based on what Rav Gestetner claims were these false claims the beis din issued an invalid seruv which publicly slandered Rav Weiss - despite his total innocence of these claims and he had fully complied with every halachic requirement of the original summons. Rav Gestetner lamented the injustice done to the husband. Third paragraph: Rav Gestetner states that he has the obligation from lo ta'amod" to forcefully defend Rav Weiss and declare that he is a kosher Jew who has in fact complied with the demands of the beis din - beyond that required by the halacha. Consequently Rav Gestetner asserted that there is absolutely no basis for issuing a seruv - which by definition is an assertion that there was a failure to comply with beis din. Thus the issuing of the seruv constitutes slander and therefore the seruv by definition can have absolutely no validity and is null and void.

It is in this context of declaring that Rav Weiss  has been unjustly subjected to public disgrace and ridicule based on false charges that Rav Gestetener wrote the fourth paragraph. It is simply a collection of statements of Chazal regarding the consequence of those who embarrass and torment other Jews with words. This includes 1) malbin pnei chaveiro - extreme embarrassment, 2) slander which Chazal say causes loss of Olam HaBah. 3) that they are deserving of nidoi since they are placing an innocent man in nidoi (seruv). 5) He notes that Chazal also say that all gates to Heaven are blocked except from those who cry out because of being tormented by words and these victims are answered immediately.

In sum - there really isn't anything unusual about Rav Gestetner's nullification of the seruv issued by Machon l'Hora'ah.  The seruv is issued for failure to comply with beis din's summons - and in fact Rav Gestetner says that there was more than full compliance. The language that is upset about - are  simply citation from Chazal. An additional point is that Rav Gestetner - despite  claims - is not a one man beis din. There are in fact other dayanim.

ORA rally against Weiss - Chareidi attendees?

Assuming the following report of last Sunday's rally is true - this seems to represents a major change in the debate of Get Me'usa and what is permitted by Rabbeinu Tam's harchakos. It is the first time of claims of support for ORA's from the yeshiva world. As I have noted before - there is no statement of Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky, Rav Yisroel Belsky or Rav Aryeh Ralbag supporting public demonstrations or ORA. ORA's list of supporters does not include a single chareidi rav.
It also remains to be clarified whether this is a simple case of ma'os alei like the Friedman-Epstein case or whether it is one of those cases where force is in fact permitted by everyone?

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You Cant Handle The Truth has left a new comment on your post "Rav Gestetner: Bitul Seruv or Nidui?":

Emes, that's a great answer to my challenge. But regardless, I was told that The Lakewood Roshei Yeshiva were asked by the family not to attend so as not to overshadow the purpose of the rally. Rabbi Kotler's mother attended as did his brothers in law, Rabbi Krupenia, the rosh kollel of lakewood & Rabbi Reich. As for Rabbi Schustal, his oldest son, a Shoel Umashiv in BMG, was the one who led the tehillim, and another son was more or less directing the rally. So if that's all the egg I have on my face, I'm cool.

Now how about you stop distracting from the issues we are discussing and answer a single challenge put before you?

Yehuda Kolko aquitted of violating Order of Protection

NYPost  Eight minutes!

That's all the time a Brooklyn jury needed to acquit a notorious ultra-Orthodox rabbi today of charges that he leered at a boy who years earlier had accused him of being a pervert.

Joel Kolko was looking at two years behind bars if convicted of violating an order of protection by eyeballing the boy and his dad twice as they walked past his Flatbush home in 2010.

"We believe justice was served," said Jeffrey Schwartz, a defense lawyer for Kolko. "Really, there was no evidence to support anything."

The boy had accused Kolko of molesting him in 2006, when he was a first grader - but the rabbi dodged sex-offender status by pleading guilty two years later to misdemeanor child endangerment.

Camp Safety - Potential Molestation in Camp

Supreme Court: No mandatory life sentence for Juveniles

NYTimes The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that states may not impose mandatory life sentences without parole on juveniles, even if they have been convicted of taking part in a murder. 

The justices ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that such sentencing for those under 18 violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling left open the possibility of judges’ sentencing juveniles to life imprisonment without parole in individual circumstances but said state laws could not automatically impose such sentences.  

Nearly 2,500 juvenile offenders are serving life sentences without parole in the United States. Human rights groups say there are almost no other countries that put teenagers in prison and keep them there to die without the possibility of parole. 

That number was at the core of an angry dissent written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who asserted that if something was common it could not, by definition, be “cruel and unusual.” He wrote: “Put simply, if a 17-year-old is convicted of deliberately murdering an innocent victim, it is not ‘unusual’ for the murderer to receive a mandatory sentence of life without parole. That reality should preclude finding that mandatory life imprisonment for juvenile killers violated the Eighth Amendment.”

New Leadership at Yated

JPost   Recent upheavals at the influential haredi newspaper Yated Ne’eman, official mouthpiece of the Degel Hatorah faction of the ultra-Orthodox community, appear to have been consolidated with new management taking control of the paper.

Although the old management team took legal steps to prevent their ouster, haredi public opinion and the rabbinic leadership seems to be shoring up the new administration.

Ten days ago, the newspaper’s outgoing director Rabbi Yaakov Labin and incoming director Shimon Glick filed mutual complaints in the Ramat Gan police station, accusing each other of assault during an incident at Yated Ne’eman’s offices on Jabotinsky Street in Bnei Brak.

The details of the confrontation are disputed, but center around the fight for control of the newspaper.

Yehuda Kolko faces 13 year old accuser

Jewish week  A 13-year-old boy who alleges he was molested by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko told a Brooklyn jury on Thursday that he felt “scared” when the rabbi -- whom he identified from the stand -- stared at him on the street on two occasions in late 2010.

Rabbi Kolko is currently on trial for violating an order of protection requiring him to refrain from having any contact with the boy. The order was part of a 2008 plea deal stemming from charges that Rabbi Kolko sexually abused the boy when he was a first grader in Kolko’s class (charges were also brought against the rabbi for allegedly abusing another boy).

Rabbi Kolko -- who has been dogged by child molestation allegations for over 30 years -- ultimately pleaded to lesser charges of child endangerment and received probation; he was not required to register as a sex offender.

Ropshitzer:Explaining shelo asani isha - to his wife

The Ropshitzer Rebbetzin was an intelligent, educated woman who was not at all reluctant to challenge her husband in matters of halacha or Chasidus. One day, she asked him to explain the meaning of the daily brocho shelo asani isha where men bless Hashem for not having been created as women. What disturbed her particularly was the notion that that there were many ignorant, boorish men who had no knowledge of the Torah, but who apparently were given the opportunity each day when saying this brocho to arrogantly claim that they were "better" than women, all women, even a woman such as she. who was so obviously on a higher spiritual and educational level than they. The Ropshitzer assured her that she needn't feel inferior to any of these men by virtue of this brocho. When each man says shelo asani isha in the morning, the woman he is referring to as the object of his gratitude is none other than his own wife. While he may feel somewhat superior to her when uttering those words, upon further introspection he will realize that he is offering thanks for not having been the wife, with a spouse such as he.

RCA: Must report abuse to police & secular authorities

Rabbinic Council of America    This statement adds requirement to comply with mandated reporting compared to what I had previously reported Daas Torah 2011 and the declaration of 2010 which is included in Child& Domestic Abuse Vol I.

Consulting with experts in a case of uncertainty whether rabbis and legal - is merely to clarify and does not make the rabbi the gatekeeper as it does in the case of the Aguda. I assume that this view also is that of  Rav Herschel Schachter 2006- even though he says to got to a rabbi in case of doubt

Jul 25, 2011 -- The Rabbinical Council of America has today reaffirmed its position that those with reasonable suspicion or first hand knowledge of abuse or endangerment have a religious obligation to report that abuse to the secular legal authorities without delay. One of the unique features of Jewish law is that it imposes upon every member of the community an obligation to help others avoid danger. The biblical verse “do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed" is understood by Jewish Law to mandate that one must do all in one’s power to prevent harm to others - even if monetary harm, but certainly physical harm.

Consistent with that Torah obligation, if one becomes aware of an instance of child abuse or endangerment, one is obligated to refer the matter to the secular authorities immediately, as the prohibition of mesirah (i.e., referring an allegation against a fellow Jew to government authority) does not apply in such a case.

As always where the facts are uncertain one should use common sense and consultations with experts, both lay and rabbinic, to determine how and when to report such matters to the authorities. False accusations are harmful to those falsely accused – but unreported abuse or endangerment can be life-threatening, as we have recently been tragically reminded.

In addition and as a separate matter, those within the Jewish community whom secular law deem to be “mandated reporters,” must certainly obey the particular reporting requirements, which vary from state to state in the US. A person covered by mandatory reporter laws must comply with those laws, even in a case in which Jewish law might otherwise not require a person to report such child abuse or endangerment.

Rav Sternbuch: Get for civil & Reform marriages?

Rav Moshe Sternbuch (5:327): The poskim have much discussion about the issue of civil marriage because the matter is complicated and deals with the issue of a married woman which is amongst the most severe prohibitions. There are many different aspects and questions. A look at the writings of recent poskim will see that there is no general psak in this matter because the actual halacha varies depending upon place and time and the couple involved. Therefore it is necessary to investigate carefully every single case with calm deliberation and the final halacha is given to the authority of beis din or at least to the gedolim.

The fact is that it is accepted practice today that a couple who have a civil marriage require a get when possible. However in difficult circumstances when it is impossible to obtain a get the practice is to permit remarriage without a get. And surely this is true if she is remarried already without a get and has a child – that the child is not considered a mamzer. And this is what Rav Chaim Ozer (Igros Rav Chaim Ozer #30) has written that one can rely on the great poskim such as Maharam Shick (#21), Beis Yitzchok (#29), Beis Ephraim (#41) to permit the woman to remarry – in time of need – without a get. However it is important to know that there are also gedolim that are machmir in this matter, See Even Haezel (Rav Issur Zalman Meltzer) who discusses this a great length (Chapter 6 Hilchos Ishus). He concludes, “In conclusion, kiddushin from another person after previously living together as man and wife is the severe prohibition of adultery. Therefore one should not make halachic rulings that permit this even by combining various leniencies to nullify kiddushin after a couple has been living together. Anyone who insists on being lenient in these circumstances – makes absolutely no sense and he requires atonement for his errors in deciding halacha concerning a prohibition that involves capital punishment and mamzerim and he must correct what has been done.” In sum he writes very strongly that one should not permit remarriage without a get. We find a similar view expressed by Ohr Someach (Hilchos Geirushin 10:19) who shows that the principle that a person doesn’t have sexual intercourse without marriage is not because of a prohibition but because living with a woman shows that he wants her to be his wife and thus they are halachically married.

However their words seem astounding. It is obvious that if a person gets a civil marriage and not a religious one – he is clearly indicating that he has no interest in a religious marriage. So how can you claim that such a person should be considered married according to Jew law? This is not equivalent to someone who gets married with less that a peruta – because that at least shows he wants to be married according to the Torah. If so then when he has sexual relations with his wife afterwards that finalizes the status of marriage according to the halacha. In contrast when he clearly indicates that he has no interest in a Jewish marriage. Elsewhere  (2:642) that basis for concern that civil marriage might be valid is according to the view of Rav Huna that chuppah acquires in marriage (Kiddushin 5a). Rabbeinu Chananel rules according to Rav Huna’s view. In Shulchan Aruch (E.H. 26:2) he writes as minority opinion that if one brings a women into chuppah there is a question as to whether it is valid. Therefore we might say that by taking a woman into his house for the sake of marriage there is a concern that they are married. However this can be answered by saying that it is true if they wanted a valid marriage according to the Torah. However if he only had a civil marriage – that shows that he doesn’t want a religious marriage and therefore the kiddushin has no validity.

All of the discussion so far only applies to a civil marriage, but if they want a religious ceremony but they decided to have a Reform marriage  because they have been misled into thinking that Reform also provide a religious marriage and they think that the Chareidim are just being strict and exaggerate the importance of their ceremony. They simply don’t understand that the Reform have cut themselves off totally from the Jewish religion. If that is what they are thinking then in truth their intent is to have a genuine religious marriage and then it would seem that the Reform ceremoney would be valid since there is the principle that , “ A person doesn’t have intercourse outside of a genuine marriage.” However that is not clear because the Rambam (Hilchos Ishus 7) writes, “There is a presumption that a religious Jew would not have intercourse outside of marriage when he has the opportunity to be married.” Obviously this principle does not applies to those who reject G‑d’s mitzvos. Along with this problem the validity of a Refom marriage is undermined by the lack of valid witnesses and questions regarding the nature of kiddushin they perform and the presumption of virginity. Consequently my view is that if the couple remarried without first obtaining a Get it is possible to be lenient regarding the doubt regarding mamzerim which in this case is only rabbinic. However to permit them to remarry without a get – I believe it is necessary to distingush between civil marriage and Reform marriage. While a civil marriage does require l’chatchila a Get however it is possible to allow them to get remarried without a Get when it is of great necessity. In contrast a Reform marriage in which they intended to be married according to religion but they were mistaken – then the obligation to obtain a Get is much greater. Therefore it is possible to allow remarriage without a Get in such a case - only when it would result in the woman remaining unmarriable. In such a case the permission to remarry must be made by beis din. In another place, I mention that in a situation where there is a dispute amongst poskim and a heter is needed - e.g., a marriage which was done not in accord to Torah law – than it is proper to receive permssion to remarry from beis din or at least three major rabbis.

Israeli Torah view on NY internet asifa

One of the most important and influential Israeli chareidi talmidei chachoim made the following judgment regarding the significance of the recent New York internet asifa.

A man was walking down the street when he noticed someone deep in thought. He stopped and asked him, "What are thinking about that is so important?" The thinker responded," I have been thinking about some very important ideas. I was thinking about what would happen if all the water in the world joined together - what a massive ocean it would make. Then I was thinking, what if all the trees in the world joined together - what an awesome tree it would make. That lead me to think about what if all men were joined together into one man - what a huge man would result.  But then I got an ever more profound thought. What if the mega-man of all humanity took the mega-tree of all trees and threw it in the mega-ocean of all water - what a tremendous splash it would make."