Succoth , She'mimi A'tzeret 74 - Futuristic Happiness

Allan Katz - Parenting by the book    We come out of the Rosh Hashanah – Yom Kippur Te'shuvah = repentance and atonement experience, with a joy in our new perspectives about life and closeness with God. These feelings of joy and closeness to God can be given expression through the  'mitzvah' of the ' sukkah' and the other commandments of the holiday Sukkoth. We leave our permanent homes and dwell in God's shadow – the sukkah. We no longer need the protection of a permanent   dwelling.  Being closer to nature, without the barrier of physical structures, we feel God's closeness and protection in a temporary booth. Our new trust and closeness with God makes us feel less threatened by others and more accepting of other people. Sukkoth is called the festival of happiness and we are happy with life itself and our relationship with God.

The other pilgrim festivals - Pe'sach and Shavuot have good reasons for experiencing joy and simchah. Pe'sach comes when it is spring - when the barley begins to ripen. It is also the spring of the nation who gained their freedom from the Egyptian   slavery.  The fruits of this freedom are not harvested until Shavuot, when the Torah was given on Mount Sinai. Shavuot is called Chag Ha'katzir when the actual crops are harvested. Sukkot is called Chag Ha'asif – the festival of the ingathering of the crops at the close of the year. On a spiritual level we ' gather in'  the  lessons of life which God and his creation have taught us over the past year. We then spend a week being very close to God and happy with our relationship and his creation.

Although we received the Torah on Shavuot, we will not be able to totally appreciate the Torah and the world until the messianic period. Chag Ha'asif hints to this period where the ' ingathering of crops ' on a spiritual level refers to our new understanding of God and his creation.

Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch, a Rosh Yeshivah from Telse, explains that Sukkot is essentially a glimpse into the messianic period. When we hear of bad news, we bless God as the ultimate and true judge. When we hear good news we bless God as being the ultimate of Good and He does  good.  In the messianic period we will have the perspective to see God's goodness behind both good and bad tidings.

On sukkot , this new perspective allows us to find joy in leaving our homes  in order to be in a temporary 'sukkah' a  symbol of being in ' ga'lut'  = exile. In the sukkah we also  have the positive experience of being in the shadow of God , similar to the  clouds of glory that protected the Israelites in the desert.  Ga'lut = exile is now only a positive experience. 

The 4 plant species=' 4 minim'   are pointed and waved during prayers in different directions in order to invoke God's blessing of rain on the world.  They also symbolize the unity of the Jewish people. The ' etrog' = citron which has both taste and a pleasant aroma symbolizes the scholar who possesses scholarship and good deeds, the lulav= the palm tree branch has fruit – the date which has taste= scholarship but has no aroma= good deeds. It symbolizes the scholar who   lacks  good deeds, the myrtle=hadas has aroma but no taste, symbolizes a person who has good deeds but is deficient  in Torah learning. The willow lacks both taste and aroma. On sukkot we are happy with everyone, and bless God who is good and does good even to those people who don't have taste or aroma.

The sacrifices are often accompanied by song = shi'ra and the wine libations – nisuch ha'ya'yin. The principle is  ' ein shi'ra e'la ul  ha'ya'yin. There is ' song' only with wine, because only wine has the ability to elicit joy and song. On sukkot we don't have any special reasons to be happy except life itself. And it is for this reason we are happy even with ' plain water '. We celebrate the gift of water with the ' simchat beit ha'sho'evah ' and accompanying the daily sacrifice with water libations in the hope and prayer for the blessing of rain.

During the year we suffer from the nations of the world who pursue Israel like 70 wolves. But on Sukkot, we wear different lenses and see only the good in the nations, and thus we bring 70 sacrifices for well-being of the seventy nations.

We need to leave our permanent dwellings for the temporary structures of Succoth in order to enjoy the heavenly, spiritual and 'futuristic ' happiness of the messianic period. But our spiritual demands and aspirations are to leave the sukkah and take with us its eternal messages and combine ' heaven and earth '. On she'mini a'tzeret, the 8^th day of our celebration, we leave our Succoth and return to our homes. For 7 days we were God's guests in His sukkah. Now, we invite God as a permanent guest back into our homes and try to live 'eternal lives ' and enjoy ' a futuristic happiness ' where we can see God's positive hand in all the creation. May we see only good in our kids and family and see problems as opportunities for growth and becoming closer to God.

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz's asks parents to speak to their kids about child safety

 

     

Reb Daniel

Hope all is well. Could you please post this with a note asking parents to speak to their kids about child safety before/over Yom Tov?

It is SUCH a dangerous time for kids to be abused.

You cannot imagine.

http://www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/ArticleDetails.cfm?Book_ID=1869&ThisGroup_ID=238&Type=Article&SID=2

Thanks and Best wishes for a piska tova and a gutten Yom Tov. 

Yankie

Visit www.bbchumash.com to learn more about our popular chumash workbooks designed to give your children the Hebrew language skills to succeed in school. 

Teach your kids how to protect themselves from predators. Watch our 3 short videos to learn how. 

#1  http://youtu.be/O3i9Gdlbw1g  

#2. http://youtu.be/zS7WBs_osNE

#3  http://youtu.be/lp0vjJolygQ

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz

Dean, Yeshiva Darchei Noam

Director, Center for Jewish Family Life/Project YES

www.kosherjewishparenting.com
 ==================================
2nd Letter

Yesterday evening after dark, a pre-bar-mitzvah-age boy came to our front door collecting for a school-based charity drive. No reflector. No adult accompanying him. He does not live on my block and subsequently no one - including his parents - really knew exactly where he was or whose door he was knocking on. And I stopped counting after ten such children came knocking on our door since Rosh Hashana.  

Really???

L'ma'an Hashem; haven't we learned anything from all the tragedies and ruined lives of kids who have been abused? At least in previous years, many or most of us thought our community was somehow immune from problems of this nature. What is the excuse now?

My dear friends, this lack of supervision is simply unconscionable knowing what we now know about the scope and magnitude of child abuse nowadays.

In fact, over the years, we have noticed a significant spike in abuse-related calls to Project YES around the joyous Pesach and Succos Yomim Tovim.

 

Those of us who work in the arena of child safety attribute the greater number of abuse cases during these times of year to:

1) The less structured environment at home, in Shul and at play.

2) The fact that children are exposed to a far greater number of pre-teens, teenagers and adults during Yom Tov than they are during the average school week.  

We are all busy before Yom Tov, but we at Project YES strongly encourage you to speak to your children about child safety before Succos, and give them a refresher talk if you already have.  

We plead with you to take this matter seriously and do everything in your power to keep your kids safe. There are two steps you ought to take in order to accomplish this:  

1) Have safety talks with your children - using effective, research-based techniques that will educate and empower your children without frightening them.  

2) See to it that they are properly supervised over Yom Tov.

There are four basic messages that children need to internalize in order for any abuse prevention program to be truly effective:

1. Your body belongs to you

2. No one has the right to make you feel uncomfortable

3. No secrets from parents

4. Good touching/bad touching

Please educate yourself before speaking to your children so that your discussions generate light and not heat. Additionally, it is important for you to know - and to share with your children - that although "stranger danger" is a genuine concern, the vast majority of molesters are family members or people well-known to the children.  

As Tenafly Police Chief Michael Bruno brilliantly said during a magnificent talk he gave on child safety, "We need to train our children to consider the "it"

(the inappropriate action being done to them) not the "whom" (regardless of the relationship or stature of the individual who is doing it).  

There are free resources available in the Karasick Child Safety Initiative section of our website www.kosherjewishparenting.com, and we encourage (read: plead with) you to take advantage of them, including a comprehensive list of Links to Safety Resources for Parents  

and our three free Child Safety videos; #1 , #2, #3.

    

  

Thanks for reading these lines, and kindly take a minute to forward this to others - for the only way our children and grandchildren will be safe, is when each and every one of us is well educated about child safety.

 

Best wishes for a Chag Samayach and much Nachas from your family.  

Yakov Horowitz

D.A. Kenneth Thompson failed to keep his promise to crack down on Orthodox child abusers

Daily Beast   Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson ran on the promise that he’d clean up the office’s problems with prosecuting ultra-Orthodox sex offenders who preyed on children—but so far he appears just as lax as his predecessor.

 

After initially facing up to 32 years in prison for eight counts of child sexual abuse, Baruch Lebovits walked out of Riker's Island last week a free man. He had served just under 16 months of total prison time.

That Lebovits, a cantor from the ultra-Orthodox Borough Park section of Brooklyn, was even convicted is seen as a victory considering the difficulty of prosecuting abuse in that community. However, his release is disappointing, if not surprising, for those who hoped Brooklyn district attorney Kenneth Thompson would be the man to end decades of ultra-Orthodox sex abuse cover-ups.

Thompson beat out Charles Hynes for Brooklyn DA, ending a reign that last more than 23 years. Towards the end of his time as DA, Hynes was scrutinized for his perceived unwillingness to prosecute crimes against the ultra-Orthodox, especially in regards to sexual abuse. At best, his administration appeared exceptionally lax, and at worst, it willfully obstructed justice. He was famously reluctant to release the names of convicted sex abusers in the Orthodox community. His office let Rabbi Yehuda Kolko get away without jail time or registering as a sex offender. Instead, Kolko received a plea deal that allowed him to plea guilty to child endangerment. The DA claimed the alleged victims—first graders in Kolko’s class—were unwilling to testify, but chief of the Kings County sex crimes division, Rhonnie Jaus, publicly said that their parents had been willing to put the kids on the stand. It was one of many cases that raised questions about Hynes' willingness to prosecute ultra-Orthodox sex abuse.

Many critics of abuse and corruption in the ultra-Orthodox community hoped and believed Thompson would bring justice to Brooklyn. For his part, Thompson openly criticized Hynes’ record on crimes committed by the ultra-Orthodox. “Every community in Brooklyn has to be treated the same,” he said during a 2013 interview. “When I become Brooklyn DA, I’ll make sure there’s equal justice for everyone, under the law.” [...]

Thompson may be no worse than Hynes, but his first year has been frustrating for advocates who once had high hopes for his tenure. “I don't think Thompson is an inherently bad guy,” says Rosenberg. “But he's an extreme disappointment.”

Absurd Mandatory sentences: Killing in self-defense is o.k.- but firing a warning shot gets you 20 years!

CBS News [...]   According to Wollard, the young man lunged at him and punched a hole in a wall; the teenager disputes that. But no one disagrees about what happened next. 

"So I fire a warning shot into the wall, [and] I said, 'The next one's between your eyes,'" said Lee. 

Sandy continued, "And the kid turned around and just hurried out the door. And that was the end of that."

Not quite. 

Wollard was charged with shooting into a building with a firearm, aggravated assault, and child endangerment. And when he went on trial a year later, a jury convicted him of all charges -- and then Judge Donald Jacobsen sentenced him to 20 years in Florida state prison, the mandatory minimum.

That means Wollard will serve every day of 20 years in state prison.[...]

It didn't matter that Lee Wollard was a first offender, or that no one was physically injured. In Florida, a conviction for aggravated assault involving a firearm means an automatic 20 years. That's the mandatory minimum sentence.

"I looked at him and told him, 'I would not be sentencing you to this term of incarceration, 20 years Florida state prison, if it were not for the fact that I was obligated under my oath as a judge to do so,'" said Judge Jacobson.[...]

And Wollard's sentence seems particularly harsh, says his wife, when you consider that in Florida, if you happen to kill someone while "standing your ground" in self-defense, you may face no charges at all. 

"But if you shoot a warning shot just to scare them away, you'll get twenty years in prison," said Sandy.[...]

Yom HaDin - a reminder of the inherent insecurity of life

Received the following letter from a friend:

Chanced on this story last night listening to NPR on my way home.

Would perhaps have been better for Yom haDin than Y"K, but certainly helps engender the general mood of this blessed season.  

To think how tenuous the future is...  The narrative, entirely factual, and very clear, could have come right out of Kafka or The Count of Monte Cristo.  A Bronx teenager is doing his thing one day with other teenagers, and then for no reason becomes jailed for 3yrs, mostly in solitary confinement, and mostly due to nothing more than ruthless bureaucracy.  (Was Yosef haTz' jailed for 2yrs or 3 ?)  No trial, no conviction, no bail-- just awaiting trial on flimsy evidence until a housecleaning dismissal 3yrs later.

His crime, apparently, was living in a region where the justice system is overwhelmed and the administrators of all levels care little (NYC).  I find the story chilling.  I doubt any of us can relate to the boy's background, but in the possibility that the story may help any others recognize how little protects what we count so dear, I pass it on.  Well, for that reason, and as well because of my lunatic fringe taste.

Gmar chasima tova, and wishing you an easy fast,

===================================================

 New Yorker Magazine   Late on Saturday, seventeen hours after the police picked Browder up, an officer and a prosecutor interrogated him, and he again maintained his innocence. The next day, he was led into a courtroom, where he learned that he had been charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. The judge released his friend, permitting him to remain free while the case moved through the courts. But, because Browder was still on probation, the judge ordered him to be held and set bail at three thousand dollars. The amount was out of reach for his family, and soon Browder found himself aboard a Department of Correction bus. He fought back panic, he told me later. Staring through the grating on the bus window, he watched the Bronx disappear. Soon, there was water on either side as the bus made its way across a long, narrow bridge to Rikers Island.

Of the eight million people living in New York City, some eleven thousand are confined in the city’s jails on any given day, most of them on Rikers, a four-hundred-acre island in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx. New Yorkers who have never visited often think of Rikers as a single, terrifying building, but the island has ten jails—eight for men, one for women, and one so decrepit that it hasn’t housed anyone since 2000.[...]

Prestia has represented many clients who were wrongfully arrested, but Browder’s story troubles him most deeply. “Kalief was deprived of his right to a fair and speedy trial, his education, and, I would even argue, his entire adolescence,” he says. “If you took a sixteen-year-old kid and locked him in a room for twenty-three hours, your son or daughter, you’d be arrested for endangering the welfare of a child.” Browder doesn’t know exactly how many days he was in solitary—and Rikers officials, citing pending litigation, won’t divulge any details about his stay—but he remembers that it was “about seven hundred, eight hundred.” [...]

Another "cool" charismatic teacher arrested for abuse

NY Times   She got to know Mr. Shaynak — “ShayShay” to his favorites — during her sophomore year, when she and a friend went to his classroom at lunch. He tutored them in geometry. He sometimes bought them lunch outside school. He gave one of them cigarettes.

Then, at one point, Sean Shaynak, the hip aerospace teacher in his early 40s with a flight simulator in his classroom, asked the girls if he could take pictures of them in the park, to inspire a nude painting he wanted to do. According to a friend of one of the girls whom she later confided in, they thought the request was weird and put him off, saying they were too busy. They told no one. They thought: Why ruin a teacher’s life? [...]

In interviews on Wednesday with dozens of students, virtually all said they had no knowledge of inappropriate sexual behavior on Mr. Shaynak’s part. But many knew that he was unusually close with some students, often in ways that might alarm parents, including smoking with students and sometimes attending their parties.

But these signs were not so much missed as, apparently, kept private by the only people who really knew Mr. Shaynak — his students, who liked him and saw him as one of their own. In this way, the authorities said, he was able to gain their trust and “groom” the girls he pursued.[...]

Those students who did know Mr. Shaynak were loyal. Two groups in particular — the smokers and the children in his aerospace classes — saw Mr. Shaynak as the rare teacher who talked like a teenager. He made students feel relaxed, told stories about flying and doled out cigarettes and hugs. He was the hip teacher who wore jeans, smoked with older students and drove a Mini Cooper, that is, when he wasn’t riding the B train home to Flatbush. [...]

Emancipation and individual freedom - destroyed the viability of Beis Din

Justice Menachem Elon (Mishpat Ivri Chapter 41): THE PERIOD OF THE EMANCIPATION

A. Internal-Spiritual and External-Political Changes

A fundamental change in the historic course of Jewish law took place in the eighteenth century with the advent of the Emancipation and the abro­gation of Jewish autonomy. The story of the termination of Jewish auton­omy in general, and of Jewish juridical autonomy in particular, has been widely documented in recent historical studies and need not be repeated here. 1 As already noted.2 two factors supported and explain the persistence of a living and functioning Jewish legal system not withstanding the lack of political sovereignty and of a territorial center. The first factor was the integr­al discipline of traditional Jewish society, which, rooted in religious and national imperatives. felt bound to govern its everyday life by Jewish law. The second factor was the existence of the corporative state; by virtue of its political structure, the state allowed autonomous bodies possessed of jurid­ical authority to exist within its boundaries and, indeed, for various reasons already discussed. even had a positive interest in promoting the existence of such autonomy.

In the eighteenth century, however, both these factors underwent a radical change. From the political perspective, as a result of the movement toward equality before the law for all citizens, including Jews, the European countries, in quick succession, withdrew from their Jewish communities the power, even in civil litigation, to compel Jews to submit to adjudication before Jewish courts. The use of the ban, as well as other methods of en­forcing the judgments of Jewish courts, was also prohibited. Important as the political factor was, however, the primary cause of the progressive dis­use of Jewish law in practical life was the change wrought by the Emanci­pation in the social and spiritual life of the Jewish people, and the conse­quent erosion of the internal discipline that had been largely responsible for the vitality of Jewish law in the everyday life of the community. Up to that time, the Jewish community had regarded Jewish law as the supreme value by which all activities were to be measured; but the Emancipation split the community-some still followed the tradition, but others felt no obligation to do so.

==================

I. See S.w. Baron, The Jewish Community, II, pp. 35 Iff.; Y. Kaufmann, Golah ve-Nekhar [Exile and Estrangement). II, 1930; J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis, eh. XX, pp. 2 I 3ff.; Assaf. Battei ha-Din, pp. 5-6; A.H. Freimann, "Dinei Yisrael be-Erez Yisra'el" [Jewish Law in the Land of Israel). Luah ha-Arez, 1946, pp. I l Off.: S. Ettinger, "Toledol Yisra'el ba-Et ha-Had­ashah" [History of the Jews 'in the Modern Period). in H.H. Ben-Sasson. Toledot Am Yis'ra 'el [History of the Jewish People]. vol. 3, 1970, pp. 17-137.

2. Supra pp. 3-39.

Rav Herzog: Value of Jewish Law

רב יצחק הרצוג (תחוקה לישראל על פי התורה ג:283): א. על ערך המשפט בישראל. כל הרוצה לעמוד על ערך המשפט בישראל יפתח את ספר טור חושן המשפט ויקרא את הסימן הראשון. אפשר להוסיף על דבריו, אפשר לכתוב ספר שלם על נושא זה על יסוד של כה"ק וספרות התורה שבעל פה, אבל מדברי רבינו בעל הטורים אין לגרוע. כל הסימן הוא מחרוזת של פנינים יקרים מלוקטים ממאמרי רז"ל. לא זו בלבד שהמשפט הוא חלק כ"כ גדול בכמות ובאיכות של התורה שמן השמים, לא זו בלבד שהוא, כדברי המשנה [אבות א:יח], אחד משלשת עמודי העולם, אלא שהוא מהווה דבר יסודי בעצם מושג האלהות של היהדות. הקב"ה הוא שופט כל הארץ. כביכול, השופט העליון, שהשופטים הם בבחינת שלוחיו, ואברהם אבינו מתמה "השופט כל הארץ לא יעשה משפט"? הקב"ה הוא אלהי המשפט, והשופטים נקראים אלהים, ובית הדין נקרא עדת [אל]. בפרשת משפטים מכונים השופטים אלהים לפי מסורת רז"ל [סנהדרין ב:] , ללמדך שהמשפט לאלהים הוא, וכאזהרת המלך האדון יהושפט לשופטים שבימיו [דברי הימים ב יט:ו] . וכשבא מיכה והעמיד את כל התרי"ג מצוות שנתן משה לישראל על שלשה עיקרים מנה את המשפט ביניהם - כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד וגו' [מיכה ו:ח מכות כד.] על עיוות המשפט צועקים מרה כל נביאי ישראל וכולם עומדים ומכריזים שבגללה נגזרה גזירת חורבן על הארץ וגזירת גלות על העם.

New college sex assault rule: Rape is now absence of agreement - not use of force

BBC     California has become the first state to require students on state-funded campuses to receive clear, active consent before all sexual activity.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the "yes means yes" bill, which advocates say will change the perception of rape.

The legislation stipulates that voluntary agreement, rather than lack of resistance, defines consent.[...]

The rule defines consent as "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity."

Lawmakers say, however, that consent can be non-verbal, if it is unambiguous.[...]

Schlesinger Twins: Beth's Rosh Hashanna Prayer for her sons

Rosh Hashonnah Prayer

My precious little boys Sammy and Benji,

While other families prepare for the New Year, we are once again separated. I cannot be with you on the holiest day of the year, cannot buy you new clothes and shoes for shul like other mothers or even kiss you good Yom Tov. I won't be able to hold you in my arms again and bless you until after Rosh Hashonnah by which time our fate for the coming year will already have been decided. While everyone fills the river with their sins, we could flood it with our tears. 

Luckily, there is another court, a higher court than the one here on earth that has caused us so much unnecessary hurt and pain. On Rosh Hashonnah, Hashem, the real judge will sit in Court and the angels will help Him decide what will happen in the coming year. Surely we have been tested enough and better times lie ahead.  

There is not a day, an hour or a moment that goes by when I am not thinking about you both and willing all my motherly love and positive energy towards you, hoping and praying that you feel me there beside you, reaching out and holding your soft warm hands. You are never alone.

On Rosh Hashonnah, I will daven for you all the more. I wish so much that you will finally be able to enjoy your childhood and be allowed to grow up peacefully, healthily and most of all, feeling loved and secure. 

I, your Mama, am here for you. I will never ever desert you and I will never be far away. 

Shana tova umetukah my darling baby boys. I love you so so much. 

With you always in spirit even if you cannot see me. 

Your Mummy forever

xxx

Schlesinger Twins: The Lubavitcher Rebbe held strongly that the mother should get custody

I just received the following letter from a well known Lubavitcher posek who wishes to remain anonymous. It is obviously very significant. I would suggest emailing this to Rabbi Biderman and other members of the Vienna Chabad community. Rabbi Jacob Bideman

BH

I am not getting involved in the details, but I think it would be appropriate to post the following, it's an answer from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, where the Rebbe writes that the benefit of the child is that the child should stay with the mother [...]

Objecting to the term "Filipino" being used to refer to nannies or personal care aides

I received the following email and received permission to post it anonymously. In Israel the term Filipino is widely used to refer to someone who is an aide or personal care-worker - because in fact most people employed in this capacity are from the Philippines. 

However I have not heard it used as a pejorative term but simply as a fact that when one needs help with an elderly parent, handicapped or retarded child as well as domestic help - one needs a fillipino.

However it clearly has irritated my correspondent - who does not want to get into an on line discussion. Do careworkers from the Phillipines resent the term "fillipino"? What would be the preferred alternative?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

The following is a list of ethnic slurs (ethnophaulisms) that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or to refer to them in a derogatory (critical or disrespectful), pejorative (disapproving or contemptuous), or insulting manner in the English-speaking world. For the purposes of this list, an ethnic slur is a term designed to insult others on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nationality. Each term is listed followed by its country or region of usage, a definition, and a reference to that term.

However the complexity of the issue of the listing and usage of such terms needs to be noted. For instance, many of the terms listed below (such as "Gringo", "Yank", etc.) are used by large numbers of human beings in many parts of the world as part of their ordinary speech or thinking without any intention of causing offence, and with little or no evidence that such usage does in fact cause much or indeed any offence, while the implicit or explicit labeling of such large numbers of people as racists (or similar terms such as prejudiced, bigoted, ethnophobic, xenophobic, etc.), simply because they use some words on the list below, can itself be deeply unfair and insensitive and can thus cause deep offence.

  ===========================================

Hello,

I read your blog post about your twins this morning and feel for your situation.

That being said, I wanted to flag a section of your post referring to 'the Filipinos'. If your children's nannies are from the Philippines, does this one fact lead you to label them with contempt or indifference? Surely you would not want to be to referred to as 'the Jew' if someone left their child on their care? You may not have meant any offence to this, but of you replace 'the x' with any race, gender or religion, then you may realise you are subtly commenting on a group of people that are not at fault in your predicament.

Kind regards,

Public media campaigns to obtain a Get have zero success rate - so why do they exist?

 The following is an embarrassing example of what is purported to be investigative reporting - when it is simply an example of the prostitution of the news media to get readership rather than provide cogent analysis as to what is happening. The reporter has not the slightest clue as to what the halachic issues are and clearly has simply relied on the claims of the women for determining what the facts are. While he did solicit  a counter response from Yoel Weiss - he didn't bother trying to understand what Yoel was saying. 

Inadvertently though he has succeeded in showing that despite huge international campaigns - none of these women have gotten a get one second sooner if at all - and the compromises they needed to make were no different than what they were being asked - before the campaign.

So if the campaigns are useless regarding the goal of obtaining a Get - then why do these women parade the most intimate details of their marriage in public? Why do they insist on creating an incredible chillul hashem - if it never succeeds in ending their marriage?

The answer is simple - and was expressed by Shira Dicker the publicist behind these campaigns. It is an attack on Torah laws and halacha in the name of feminism, individual freedom, and progress. It is a rejection of the traditional Jewish concept of marriage.

 =========================

Tablet Magazine   The coordinated use of publicists, Facebook, Twitter, donation sites, and rallies is becoming common for women like Rivky Stein who seek religious divorces from their husbands. Many Jews give little thought to the get, but in traditional Judaism only men can grant a divorce. Without one, a woman cannot date or remarry without carrying and passing onto her children what is widely considered in the Orthodox world to be a tremendous stigma. So, with few options in Jewish law, more agunot—Hebrew for “chained wives”—are embracing contemporary and high-tech tools to publicly shame men.

“People say, ‘This is a disgrace, you’re washing our dirty linen in public,’ ” said Susan Aranoff, an economics professor who has been an agunah activist for 30 years. “But I understand the women who are doing it, because what else are they to do?”

In late 2010, hundreds of protesters flocked to the Silver Spring, Md., home of Aharon Friedman, a tax counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, who denied his wife, Tamar Epstein, a get. The rally was carefully planned, with activists distributing flyers and fact sheets while a Facebook event was shared with over 1,600 people.

Three years later Gital Dodelson, who was struggling to receive a get from her ex-husband, Avrohom Meir Weiss, worked with a publicist to set up the website setgitalfree.com. She eventually landed a front page tell-all in the New York Post and a segment on the public-radio show This American Life.

Just a few months ago protesters holding signs reading “Stop the Abuse!” and “Bigamist” gathered at the wedding of Meir Kin, who was remarrying despite his refusal to give his ex-wife, Lonna Kin, a religious divorce. He claimed that he had secured a heter meah rabbonim, the antiquated and seldom-used document, based on a technicality in Jewish law, that permits a man to remarry without a get if he can get permission from 100 rabbis.[...]

So, in her fight for a get, Stein needed help. In recent months, she has assembled up an impressive team. She hired Shira Dicker, the publicist who worked for Gital Dodelson. They set up the website redeemrivky.com as well as a Facebook page that has nearly 9,000 likes. A 7-minute YouTube video called “Rivky Speaks,” in the style of a close-up sit-down interview, has garnered about 125,000 views. Her donation page aims to raise $36,000, although she expects all of it to go to lawyer and PR fees. Media like the Daily News were invited to the beit din, which is used to resolve disputes including contested divorces. (Dicker told Tablet that “half” the work she did for Stein was pro bono and “the compensation was extremely modest.”)

[...]

And the track record for Stein’s social media-savvy successors isn’t completely encouraging. Publicity ultimately worked for Dodelson, who received a get three months after her story ran in the New York Post (and after she paid her ex-husband a six-figure sum, according to one knowledgeable source). While it was widely reported that Tamar Epstein was “free” three years after the protest against her husband, it seems that she never received her get, instead having her marriage annulled by a sympathetic rabbi or beit din. And after seven years of being civilly divorced, Kin has no get and is still vilified by blogs. [...]

Confusion regarding Chabad-Lubavitch & Chabad UK following drug bust involving the latter

Jewish News UK   Outreach organisation Chabad-Lubavitch this week took legal action to publicly distance itself from an unrelated group called Chabad UK, following a drugs bust involving the latter in Stamford Hill. 

Police said two men were arrested after a dawn raid on Monday “on suspicion of money laundering, fraud and supplying misleading/false information to the Commission (Charities Act 2011)”. They have been bailed to appear in January. 

One of the three addresses raided was Oldhill Street in Hackney, from where Chabad UK is run by 62-year-old Rabbi Chaim Yitzchok Cohen, director of the Beis Moshiach/Beis Menachem Community Centre. 

Police confirmed this week that the two men arrested were aged 62 and 34 years. They were widely reported to be Cohen and his son Dudi, although these reports could not be substantiated and Chabad UK could not be reached for comment. [...]