Higgs Boson - who cares?

Alleged rapist working in Brooklyn Yeshiva - Background check?

NY Daily News   Moshe Pinter, 28, was arrested and charged with a trying to molest a 13-year old boy in 2007, but pled down the top felony charge to a misdemeanor child endangerment offense after the victim declined to testify against him, according to court records and sources.

Pinter was sentenced to three years of probation, but was not barred from working with minors.

For the past year Pinter has been working at Ohr Hameir Yeshiva in Borough Park chaperoning Hasidic teens on weekend getaways while parents had no idea of his criminal past - which also includes two theft convictions.

Child victim advocates said the case highlights the need for private schools to be legally obligated to run fingerprint and background checks on employees and for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to publicize the names of convicted perpetrators in the Jewish community.

Debate over drafting Chareidim & Arabs

NY Times  On one level, the questions shaking the Israeli political system this week are pragmatic: how many ultra-Orthodox men and Arab citizens should be drafted into the military or national service, over how many years and how should those who resist be penalized? 

But the debate over these details masks a more fundamental and fractious one about evolving identity in this still-young state, where a “people’s army” has long been a defining principle, and about the growing cleavage among its tribes. 

That is what has brought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad unity coalition to the brink of collapse in recent days, with an Aug. 1 deadline looming to replace a law providing draft exemptions to thousands of men studying in yeshivas that the Supreme Court deemed illegal in February. 

“What’s at stake is two cultures, two civilizations,” Professor Stern added, referring to the ultra-Orthodox, known as Haredim, and other Jews here. “These two civilizations used to live in some kind of peace because each one thought that the other is going to disappear eventually. Nowadays I think everybody realizes that the two camps are here to stay, and we have to decide what will be the identity in the public sphere.”

Victim who Assaulted Molester Priest - Acquitted

CNN A California jury Thursday acquitted a man charged with assaulting a retired Catholic priest, in a case that prosecutors had described as a vigilante attack.

Weiss Family Statement & Supporting Documents

Weiss Family Statement

Nachlaot: An anonymous letter objecting to a post

I just received this letter today. It is a demand that I remove a post regarding an article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post about the child abuse scandal in Nachlaot.  This is an example of the pressure that happens in the Orthodox community regarding discussing of child abuse. Anonymous letters,  anonymous phone calls etc. 

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He masterminded systematic rape of over 100 kids :The nightmare of Nachlaot

JPost

Dear Rabbi,

I recently went through your blogs on  Nachlaot and see that you are not one of the people who have been irrationally pushing the witch hunt that has been going on in Nachlaot.  Since your blog comes up every time a search is done on Nachlaot abuse, I assumed you were one of the many inciters.  In this I apologize.  However, I will take you to task on the article you did print from the Jerusalem Post.  I am not sure for what purpose you posted it.   Perhaps you didn't have any better thing to post that day.  In any case, the fact that you took the effort to give validity to an article from the JP that is based on lies and contains mostly lies is not forgivable.  (Every one is judged according to who they are.)  Therefore, since you have involved yourself in outright Motzie Shem Ra(everyone knows who S is), and chose to give the validity of the Torah to these lies by posting them on your blog as a truth, it is only right that you should want to correct the ill truths that you presented as truth. 

There is several reasons why you would want to do this.  A. Many innocent lives have been destroyed.  The only way to correct that is to expose the lies and establish the truth.  B.  As long as the children are being treated based on lies, they will never get better.  1. Many of the children that are in treatment may not have been abused. 2. And if they were abused, it is not by the people they are claiming to have abused them.  3.  The people that are abusing them are still getting away with it,  i.e. brothers,  Rebbis or whoever might actually have access to them.  C.  Several people that are in jail very well may be innocent.  D. All the other reasons stated in the letters of the Rabbis that say it much more eloquently than I do.

Therefore, it is imperative that you do what you can do to straighten out this situation.  To stand up in the name of truth. 

Having been falsely accused,  basically ostracized from the Jewish community, the Shechina cries.  

One of the MANY falsely accused of Nachlaot. 

http://nachlaotchildabuse.blogspot.com/2012/07/moral-panic-or-modern-day-witch-hunt.html

http://nachlaotchildabuse.blogspot.com/2012/06/english-translation-of-letters-written.html

Chazon Ish: "Die rather than Transgress" - Literally?

There are three sins which a person must die rather than transgress, murder, idolatry and sexual immorality (Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 157:1). The Chazon Ish pronounced that drafting women was included and that a woman should resist even if it meant death (See the below excerpt). The Chazon Ish also said the same applied to shaking hands with women. My question is whether he meant that literally? In other words should a man faced with the choice of being killed or shaking hands with a woman - should allow himself to be killed?

[Just added the original report in Moadim u'Zemanim where it is clear that the Chazon Ish meant it literally.]

תשובות והנהגות כרך ד סימן ש    נישוק ונתינת יד לאמו החורגת  

נדרשתי מבחור ירא שמים, שנודע לו רק עכשיו שאמו מתה בילדותו, ואביו התחתן עם אשה שניה שגידלה אותו כבן ממש, ועכשיו כשנודע להבחור ממאן לנשק ולתת יד לאמו החורגת, ואביו כועס עליו מאד ואומר שזה לא הכרת הטוב לנהוג כן באשה שגדלתו במסירות, עד שרוצה לגרש את הבן מהבית. וכעין שאלה זו הבאתי ב"מועדים וזמנים" (ח"ד סימן שט"ז בהג"ה) ששאלתי למרן החזון איש זצ"ל והשיב שאין להתיר אפילו נתינת יד מפני שדרך חיבה היא ויהרג ואל יעבור. וסיפר לי השואל שאח"כ הלך לשאול גם את הגאון רבי משה פיינשטיין זצ"ל, והשיב שאם מדקדק לעשות בצורה ובאופן שניכר שאין זה דרך חיבה מותר, ואין בזה משום אביזרייהו, והביא לזה דברי הרמב"ם בהלכותיו שעיקר האיסור הוא דרך תאוה דוקא, ולדבריו התיר באופן שהבאנו

מועדים וזמנים (חלק ד' סי' שט"ז):

...הבן ביקש ממני ליכנס לרבינו ה"חזון איש" זצ"ל לשאול פיו לשמוע עצתו, נכנסתי וסיפרתי לו הדברים כהויתן, והשיב מיד "לתת יד לאשה קריבה לעירות, ומאביזרייהו דגלוי עריות שיהרג ואל יעבור, ואין שום היתר בזה מפני דרכי שלום או רגילה עמה כאמו", אבל סיים דבשמירת התורה לא יבוא לידי היזק, ושהבן יתעקש ויצליח בע"ה, ואודיע לו דבר זה בשמו והבחור באמת התעקש ומיאן לתת יד עד שלבסוף האשה גופא השפיעה על הבעל לעזוב אותו למנהגו אם מתעקש  כ"כ ושלום בבית והבחור זכה ב"ה לבית נאמן בישראל והוא תלמיד חכם שזכה לשלום בית ומשפחה וחיים מאושרים!

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RJJ Halacha Journal  Rav Yaakov Koniefsky reported that the Chazon Ish had declared that if the law were indeed passed, it was the duty of every Jew to resist unto death - literally.s For him it represented an encroachment upon the prohibition of "Arayot" - immorality and licentiousness - which is one of the three mitzyot for which a Jew must choose death rather than transgress. Rav Koniefsky also writes that the Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav, and the Tchebiner Rav all concurred that if the measure became law, every family with·a draft-age daughter would have to leave the country! So strong were they in opposing the danger that they equally opposed a similar plan to draft girls not for the army but for some alternate National Service.

They left no doubt as to the cause for their opposition - the army in any country. and Israel is no different, is a place where moral standards are relaxed. to say the least, and it was just not the proper environment for a Jewish daughter, Against their will, the girls would be affected by the atmosphere and the environment to which they would be exposed, a milieu which would replace the positive reinforcement they would have gotten at home from parents and family.

Rabbis Isser Zalman Meltzer and Tzvi Pesach Frank also issued pronouncements that a person must choose death rather than accede to the government decree, as did the Steipler Rav and Rav Shach. When another rabbi suggested that perhaps it would not be so terrible if the girls served under carefully supervised conditions, the Chazon Ish retorted that the rabbi's opinion was totally worthless and, had he had any children, he would not have been able to say something like that The Chazon Ish actually ruled that the Sabbath should be desecrated to avoid compliance with a draft order and urged parents and teachers to inculcate young women with the laws of dying "al kiddush Hashem;' in sanctification of the Name

Dr. Benny Brown's Biography of Chazon Ish

Haaretz   It is to Brown’s credit that he has rescued the Hazon Ish from ultra-Orthodox hagiography. Brown treats his subject with the respect he deserves and with more than a little empathy. At the same time, he views him as flesh and blood, and does not refrain from disclosing moments of weakness in his life. One mark of Brown’s success is the sharpness of the Haredi response to his book. It seems that more than anything else, the ultra-Orthodox cannot forgive Brown for saying the Hazon Ish − whom they consider one of the inspirations for the creation of a “learning society” in which Haredi men learn Torah all day instead of working, regardless of their scholarly aptitude − never believed that men must do nothing but study Torah, and that he was not opposed to army service or participation in the workforce.

While it may seem that it’s the gedolim who shaped the Haredi ethos as we know it today, the society is influenced by many more dynamics and constraints than the greats could have foreseen. The object of the hagiography, then, is to reinvent the images of the greats to suit the needs of the ultra-Orthodox ethos as it stands today. And woe is the critical scholar who reveals the gap between myth and reality.

In response to Brown’s book, Rabbi Abraham Isaiah Bergman wrote in the Haredi newspaper Yated Neeman: “These people [critical scholars] who have not ever read and have not studied and have never gotten close to Torah scholars, and think that they have touched an angel of God even though they have not come close at all ... I say to them: You who are coming to trample my courts, who are you to come here with donkeys [which can never become kosher animals]? ... Let the source of living water [a reference to God and the Torah] be.

Benjamin Brown’s book on the Hazon Ish is an impressive scholarly achievement, an important signpost in the study of ultra-Orthodox society. Anyone who wants to understand the Haredi world, with its obvious implications for Israeli society in general, must not miss this book.

Moser - Shulchan Aruch/Rema C.M. 388:5

Guest Post by Stan   Shulchan Oruch/ Rema Choshen Mishpot 388:5

Litigants who have a disagreement over land or over movable objects, this one says it is mine and this one says it is mine and one of them got up and informed (to the secular/ non Jewish authorities) then Bais Din (is obligated to) puts the one who forces (i.e. the informant) in cheirem until it reverts to how it was before and the hand of the forcer (through secular court) is removed between them and they have a Din Torah.

The Rema adds that the informant does not have the din of a moyser even though he made his "friend" have a very big loss because this is not called mesirah unless he intended to cause his friend damage but it is not mesirah where he (only) intends to retrieve what belonged to him (and there are those who disagree etc).

Please explain how we see from this Rema that a woman who goes to arko'oys for a divorce is not a moyser?

a) This case is talking about monetary matters, not other matters.
b) Even if you want to argue that it applies to non-monetary matters as well, merely by simply asking for a divorce the woman is almost inevitably harming the man unless he does not mind.
c) If the woman asks for anything that she is not entitled to al pi halocho, she is most definitely a moyser from this Rema e.g. alimony, equitable distribution etc.
d) If the children are boys and if she asks for custody and the halocho is that the boys go with the father, she is a moyser.
e) If she says anything bad whatsoever about the father to the courts, she is damaging the father and so is oyver mesirah.
f) If she asks for child support from the courts in the US, which many poskim including Rav Sternbuch hold is awarded excessively relative to the halochoh, she is a moyser.

So please explain to us, how unless in an extremely rare case, a woman going to arko'oys in the US is not a moyser?

Please explain to us why you conclude that such a woman in not a moyser? Who are you kidding?

Abuse viewed differently 30 years ago?

NYTimes This year, Lisa M. Friel, the former Manhattan prosecutor who has helped Poly Prep bolster its sexual-abuse-prevention program, angered plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the school when she said in an interview that “people had very different understandings of what sexual abuse was in the ’60s and ’70s and what a pedophile was.” 

 One problem with an argument like Mr. Lin’s is the extent to which it belies the secrecy surrounding the kind of encounters he describes. If things had, in fact, been as open, freewheeling and inoculated from reproof as he and others might have chosen to believe, then the sex that transpired between teachers and students would not have happened so clandestinely, with wrenching admissions and discussions arriving only 20 and 30 years later.  

 Times are different, in that more children who have been abused say so. In his research, David Finkelhor, a leading expert on sexual abuse who wrote one of the 1980 books, has found that now, in 50 percent of sexual abuse cases, the child’s victimization had been reported to an authority, compared with 25 percent in 1992. Dr. Finkelhor has also found that the number of substantiated cases of abuse has dropped 62 percent from 1990 to 2010. 

While it is true that the world of parental vigilance we inhabit now was not yet manifest in the ’70s or even the ’80s, when much of the abuse at Horace Mann is said to have happened, it skews reality to imagine that the sexual abuse of children is an issue that only recently has seen the rays of the sun. By 1974, years before the arrival of Lifetime television and its relentless airing of crisis dramas, ABC offered an hour of the series “Marcus Welby, M.D.” devoted to the case of a 14-year-old boy who had been raped by a science teacher during a field trip.

Military Conscription for Ultra-Orthodox Jews & Arabs

NYTimes  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s supersize coalition was showing its first serious signs of stress on Friday in its quest for a more universal draft system in Israel. 

An effort that has so far focused on phasing out mass army exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews suddenly became more charged as right-wing nationalist parties decided to press the equally — if not more — contentious issue of national or civilian service for Israel’s Arab citizens.  

The issue is highly provocative. While most Jewish Israelis, and Druze men, are conscripted at 18, Israeli Arabs are generally not required to perform mandatory military service, though they may volunteer. 

Recent polls have shown that despite a rise in the number of Arabs volunteering for civilian community service, a growing majority of Arab youth are opposed.  A survey published in May by Haifa University found that 40 percent of Arab youths in Israel were willing to volunteer for civil service in 2011, compared with 53 percent in 2009. The Haifa University study also found that 90 percent of the Arab volunteers were girls providing educational and welfare services in their communities. 

Mondrowitz with D.A. Hynes in hot pursuit?!

NYTimes  For years, Avrohom Mondrowitz counseled children out of his home in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. He was host of a call-in radio show popular among ultra-Orthodox Jewish listeners, claiming to be a rabbi and psychologist. But law enforcement officials say Mr. Mondrowitz, who fled to Israel in 1984 to avoid arrest, was also something else: “a compulsive pedophile.” 

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, has repeatedly said that since taking office in 1990, he has vigorously tried to extradite Mr. Mondrowitz. Mr. Hynes has said his office was instrumental in bringing about a change in a treaty between the United States and Israel in 2007 that had thwarted early extradition efforts.  

But newly disclosed documents from Mr. Hynes’s office cast doubts on his accounts of his role in the case, suggesting that for many years, the office paid little attention to it. 

“There isn’t a single e-mail, a single letter, a single memo, either originating from the D.A.’s office or addressed to it, that so much as mentions any attempt by the D.A. to seek a change in the extradition treaty,” Mr. Lesher said. “It’s just inconceivable that such important negotiation on such a detailed issue could have taken place and not left a trace in the documentary record.”

Keeping cool in modest clothing

NYTimes  When the mercury passes 90, most New Yorkers start to wilt. Many resort to shorts and tank tops, even in the office. More than a few bankers and lawyers reach for their seersuckers. 

Yet amid all the casual summer wear, in some neighborhoods more than others, Hasidic men wear dark three-piece suits crowned by black hats made of rabbit fur, and Hasidic women outfit themselves in long-sleeved blouses and nearly ankle-length skirts. To visibly cooler New Yorkers, they can look painfully overdressed.

In the Hasidic world, the traditional fashion code and interpretations of ancient Jewish law dictate modesty for a woman — a concept known as tzniut — so even on sizzling days women conceal their necks, arms and legs, and married women don wigs, head scarves or turbans to hide their real hair. While Hasidic men do not feel the modesty obligation to the same degree, they believe that it is a mark of humility and respect for others to dress formally when encountering the world.

In Borough Park, women snatch up neckline-hugging shells that allow them to wear thin, long-sleeved and open-necked blouses from, say, Macy’s. Hasidic men seek a frock coat made of lighter-weight, drip-dry polyester, without a shape-holding canvas lining, and lightweight weaves in the fringed, four-cornered, woolen poncho known as tzitzit, a daily version of the prayer shawl that is worn over a white shirt. Also, men will go jacketless when working or driving, though any substantial stroll along a public sidewalk requires a suit jacket or frock coat, known in Yiddish as a rekel or in its longer and fancier Sabbath version as a bekishe. 

Child abuse rates higher in Israel

JPost   Reports of child abuse in Israel have steadily grown over the past three years, as the number of reported cases in the US is decreasing, according to recent data the Jerusalem-based Haruv Institute collected and provided to The Jerusalem Post this week.

The data presented by the institute, which not only researches the phenomenon but also provides training to professionals working in the medical, educational and community fields, shows that in Israel in 2010 the number of reported child abuse cases was 18.9 for every 1,000 children, compared to 8.7 for every 1,000 children in 1995. The US figures for 2010 were 10 reports for every 1,000 children, compared to 14.7 reports for every 1,000 children in 1995.

While part of the rise in reporting of child abuse cases in Israel stems from greater awareness among professionals and society as to what constitutes abuse and how to report it, Haruv Institute director Prof. Asher Ben-Arieh said it has more to do with an alarming increase in violence throughout Israeli society in general.