Visiting New York

For the next few weeks I will be in New York
 
My main reason for announcing this is that are certain evil people whose main happiness in life is claiming that I have committed various sins.

I have gotten gleeful messages when they have misread the time on some of my postings claiming that as proof that I am not shomer Shabbos.

Schlesinger Twins: Scrooge lives in Austria - Beth denied extra holiday time with her kids

Why is Michael smiling? Could it be because he succeeded in blocking any extra time for Beth during Chanukah?

Divided custody is rough on the children and rough on the parents. It is especially rough on the children when they are given only very limited time with their mother and are condemned by the courts to be raised primarily by 2 non-Jewish women whose native language is neither German or English. One constant in custody division is that courts usually are concerned that children spend equal quality time with their parents over a holiday period.

Beth was given a clearly unjust ruling concerning her time that she is allowed to spend with her sons - but it has improved over the outrageous ruling that took full custody away from her and gave it to Michael - who had previously been allowed limited supervised visits.

Austrian friends of Beth have informed me - (remember the courts have blocked Beth from publicizing any information about her children) - that while Chanukah goes from Tuesday night (16th) to Wednesday (24th) - the courts are not changing Beth's access to her children and she got to see them Tuesday (16th) and will see them next Tuesday (24th). 

Typically courts divide custody during the holiday period rather than keep to the non-holiday division. Courts around the world recognize how important it is for the children to spend equal time during a holiday season - why doesn't the Vienna court?

NEW INFORMATION ABOUT PORTUGUESE NATIONALITY FOR SEPHARDIC DESCENDANTS

I just received the following letter:

Dear  Rav  Daniel Eidensohn

I send you the news about the new law about the Portuguese Nacionality for Sephardic Jews that will start at the beginning of the 2015. Can you publish it at Daat Torah_

Best regards and Kol tuv

Daniel Litvak

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

By Jewish Community of Oporto, Portugal

Shalom.

In early 2015, the Portuguese Government may grant Portuguese nationality to the descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, who demonstrate a traditional connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin.

How to Obtain Portuguese Nationality and Passport?

• Step 1: Certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community
• Step 2: Application for Portuguese Nationality
• Step 3: Obtaining a Portuguese Passport

Information about the step 1:

The applicant for Portuguese Nationality must first obtain a Certificate from the Portuguese Jewish Community which attests to his/her ties to a Sephardic Jewish Community of Portuguese origin. A request for this Certificate must be addressed to the Jewish Community of Oporto or to the Jewish Community of Lisbon.

From today, 15th December 2014, the Jewish Community of Oporto is ready to receive requests from descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews who wish to obtain a certificate issued by the Portuguese Jewish Community attesting this status.

The request for a Certificate issued by the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto should be addressed by the applicant, or an attorney acting for the applicant, by digital means to the following email address: portuguesenationality@comunidade-israelita-porto.org, together with the following documents:

·   Contact details;

·   Copy of passport;

·  Birth certificate or similar document that contains applicant’s date of birth, place of birth and names of parents;

·   Proof of residence;

·   Payment of the Committee’s fee (€150,00 - one hundred and fifty euros); and

·  All of the supporting documentary evidence as may required for a proper evaluation of the matter and decision. Evidence of the applicant’s family history of connection to a Sephardic Community of Portuguese origin may be direct and circumstantial.

Payment of the Committee’s fee to review the request, in the amount of €150,00 (one hundred and fifty euros), must be made by bank transfer to the account of the Jewish Community of Oporto.

Information about the step 2 and step 3

Please visit the official website or blog of the Jewish Community of Oporto - http://jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.pt/2014_12_01_archive.html

If you need an opinion or statement of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community of Oporto. By Debora Elijah:

“The new legislation corrects a moral wrong. The long centuries of antisemitism in Portugal and the expulsions decreed by King D. Manuel I in 1496 cannot be denied.”

(Deborah Elijah is member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community of Oporto. She is also member of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Oporto which issues Certificates.)

In Portugal, the Jewish Community of Oporto, founded 90 years ago, is the organization that unites local communal groups of the city of Oporto and its environs, while the Jewish Community of Lisbon, recognized 102 years ago, is the organization that unites local communal groups of Lisbon and its environs. (For more information about the Portuguese communities, please visit the website of the World Jewish Congress - http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/communities/show/id/109)

Wishing you a very happy, healthy and light-filled Chanukah,

Best regards.

By Jewish Community of Oporto

Board of Directors

Official website: http://www.comunidade-israelita-porto.org          

Official blog: jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.com

Title IX's Impact :College (Seminary) sexual abuse programs are replacing the police & criminal system with psychotherapy and expulsion - strongly reducing a man's presumed status of innocence

Slate    The College Rape Overcorrection  SEE article which refutes the statistical claims that are used to justify this policy
  
Sexual assault on campus is a serious problem. But efforts to protect women from a putative epidemic of violence have led to misguided policies that infringe on the civil rights of men.
[...]

We are told that one of the most dangerous places for a young woman in America today is a college campus. As President Obama said at a White House event in September, where he announced a campaign to address campus violence, “An estimated one in five women has been sexually assaulted during her college years—one in five.” (At an earlier White House event on the issue, the president declared of sexual violence, “It threatens our families, it threatens our communities; ultimately, it threatens the entire country.”) In recent weeks, Rolling Stone’s lurid account of a premeditated gang rape at the University of Virginia has made the issue of campus sexual violence front-page news. (The reporting and the allegations in the article have since been called into question, and Rolling Stone has issued a statement acknowledging that the magazine failed to properly investigate and corroborate the story.)

Sexual assault at colleges and universities is indeed a serious problem. The attention it’s receiving today—on campus, at the White House, in the media—is a direct result of the often callous and dismissive treatment of victims. For too long, women who were assaulted on campus and came forward were doubted or dismissed, and the men responsible were given a mild rebuke or none at all. Those who commit serious sexual crimes on campus must be held to account.

In recent years, young activists, many of them women angry about their treatment after reporting an assault, have created new organizations and networks in an effort to reform the way colleges handle sexual violence. They recognized they had a powerful weapon in that fight: Title IX, the federal law that protects against discrimination in education. Schools are legally required by that law to address sexual harassment and violence on campus, and these activists filed complaints with the federal government about what they describe as lax enforcement by schools. The current administration has taken up the cause—the Chronicle of Higher Education describes it as “a marquee issue for the Obama administration”—and praised these young women for spurring political action. “A new generation of student activists is effectively pressing for change,” read a statement this spring announcing new policies to address campus violence. The Department of Education has drafted new rules to address women’s safety, some of which have been enshrined into law by Congress, with more legislation likely on the way.

Unfortunately, under the worthy mandate of protecting victims of sexual assault, procedures are being put in place at colleges that presume the guilt of the accused. Colleges, encouraged by federal officials, are instituting solutions to sexual violence against women that abrogate the civil rights of men. Schools that hold hearings to adjudicate claims of sexual misconduct allow the accuser and the accused to be accompanied by legal counsel. But as Judith Shulevitz noted in the New Republic in October, many schools ban lawyers from speaking to their clients (only notes can be passed). During these proceedings, the two parties are not supposed to question or cross examine each other, a prohibition recommended by the federal government in order to protect the accuser. And by federal requirement, students can be found guilty under the lowest standard of proof: preponderance of the evidence, meaning just a 51 percent certainty is all that’s needed for a finding that can permanently alter the life of the accused.

More than two dozen Harvard Law School professors recently wrote a statement protesting the university’s new rules for handling sexual assault claims. “Harvard has adopted procedures for deciding cases of alleged sexual misconduct which lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process,” they wrote. The professors note that the new rules call for a Title IX compliance officer who will be in charge of “investigation, prosecution, fact-finding, and appellate review.” Under the new system, there will be no hearing for the accused, and thus no opportunity to question witnesses and mount a defense. Harvard University, the professors wrote, is “jettisoning balance and fairness in the rush to appease certain federal administrative officials.” But to push back against Department of Education edicts means potentially putting a school’s federal funding in jeopardy, and no college, not even Harvard, the country’s richest, is willing to do that.

Hard-line policies like Harvard’s are necessary, government officials say, because undergraduate women are in unique peril. Often-cited studies of sexual violence at colleges describe an epidemic. But each of these studies has serious methodological limitations. In some cases, the studies make sensational assertions that are not supported by the underlying data. In others, the experiences of one or two campuses have been made to stand in for the entirety of America’s higher education system. [...]

This is one of the frequently made assertions about campus violence, but the evidence to back it up is lacking. Being young does make people more vulnerable to serious violent crime, including sexual assault; according to government statistics those aged 18 to 24 have the highest rates of such victimization. But most studies don’t compare the victimization rates of students to nonstudents of the same age. One recent paper that does make that comparison, “Violence Against College Women” by Callie Marie Rennison and Lynn Addington, compares the crime experienced by college students and their peers who are not in college, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. What the researchers found was the opposite of what Gillibrand says about the dangers of campuses: “Non-student females are victims of violence at rates 1.7 times greater than are college females,” the authors wrote, and this greater victimization holds true for sex crimes: “Even if the definition of violence were limited to sexual assaults, these crimes are more pervasive for young adult women who are not in college.”[...]

Any woman who is raped, on campus or off, deserves a fair and thorough investigation of her claim, and those found guilty should be punished. But the new rules—rules often put in place hastily and in response to the idea of a rape epidemic on campus—have left some young men saying they are the ones who have been victimized. They are starting to push back. In the past three years, men found responsible for sexual assault on campus have filed more than three dozen cases against schools. They argue that their due process rights have been violated and say they have been victims of gender discrimination under Title IX. Their complaints are starting to cost universities. The higher education insurance group United Educators did a study of the 262 insurance claims it paid to students between 2006 and 2010 because of campus sexual assault, at a cost to the group of $36 million. The vast majority of the payouts, 72 percent, went to the accused—young men who protested their treatment by universities. [...]

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist and author of the feminist classic, The Mismeasure of Woman, and, with Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me). She says she is troubled by the blurring of distinctions between rape (notably by predatory males), unwanted sex (where one party agrees to sex not out of desire but to please or placate the partner), and the kind of consensual sex where both parties are so drunk they can barely remember what happened—and one of them later regrets it. She says, “Calling all of these kinds of sexual encounters ‘rape’ or ‘sexual assault’ doesn’t teach young women how to learn what they want sexually, let alone how to communicate what they want, or don’t want. It doesn’t teach them to take responsibility for their decisions, for their reluctance to speak up. Sexual communication is really hard—you don’t learn how to do it in a few weekends.” [...]

Government rape statistic for coeds is 0.61 percent, not widely claimed 20 percent.

  Rape Statistics for College 1995 2013 by US Government

 See Slate's article how Title IX has changed dealing with sexual abuse charges

Breitbart

The campus rape crusade, which yielded positively Orwellian "consent rules"  at some institutions, was driven in part by an oft-repeated, jaw-dropping statistic that one in five women are victimized by sexual assault during their time at college.  The Justice Department just published a study on the matter, and they found the actual figure to be not one in five, but rather 6.1 per thousand.  In other words, the percentage of coeds exposed to sexual assault is 0.61 percent, not 20 percent.[...]

Whatever else is going on with young men and women on college campuses, the hysterical politically-driven crusade against "rape culture" has long since gotten so out of hand that it's become a crisis in its own right.  It's no surprise that there's keen interest in teaching young women to think of themselves as victims, and young men to see themselves as beasts.  That agenda found fertile ground in a neurotic groupthink culture that has lately taken to demanding a cocoon of "trigger warnings" around any idea that might make them so upset they can't function, and demanding time off from important coursework to deal with the emotional fallout from controversial news stories.  It would be far more useful to teach young people not to abandon their critical faculties even when dealing with the most sensational claims of crisis.

Perspectives on Disclosing Rape Victims' Names By Deborah Denno

The recent issue of shielding or revealing the names of  abuse victims - raised a number of questions. What in fact are the halachic, legal and moral perspectives. What if the court doesn't believe her story? Is there a difference if her name is known in the community already? The following article which was published in the Fordham Law Review - reviews the issues and states the law regarding rape victims as of 1993 in America. Apparently the law is much stricter elsewhere e.g., England and India. I could not find any sources dealing with victims of abuse which doesn't involve rape.  To download the article use this link or search with Google
  
Helen Boyle in  Rape and the Media: Victim's Rights to Anonymity and Effects of Technology on the Standard of Rape Coverage', European Journal of Law and Technology, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2012 wrote:

In the UK, victims of rape or serious sexual assault have unequivocal anonymity and protection from media intrusion under section 1 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. This is a statutory exception under Art 10(2) which allows for derogations on the basis of protecting the rights and freedoms of others. This means the names of victims of rape or sexual assault cannot be reported by the media. In the United States, no equivalent law exists; victims of sexual assault rely on a 'conspiracy of silence' in the media to protect their privacy according to Denno. [13] This is based on the media's recognition that rape is more 'personal, traumatic, and stigmatizing than most crimes' [Denno, p1113, 1992]. If the media decide to break this rule of silence the courts will defend their right to do so. The US Supreme Court, to date, has always protected the media's right to release the name of a victim of sexual assault under the First Amendment.  [...]

   Perspectives on Disclosing Rape Victims Names

The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind

NY Times    Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list.

As the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession, many of those men and women are eager to find work and willing to make large sacrifices to do so. Many others, however, are choosing not to work, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll that provides a detailed look at the lives of the 30 million Americans 25 to 54 who are without jobs.

Many men, in particular, have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives, in part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working. These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits; the decline of marriage, which means fewer men provide for children; and the rise of the Internet, which has reduced the isolation of unemployment.

At the same time, it has become harder for men to find higher-paying jobs. Foreign competition and technological advances have eliminated many of the jobs in which high school graduates like Mr. Walsh once could earn $40 an hour, or more. The poll found that 85 percent of prime-age men without jobs do not have bachelor’s degrees. And 34 percent said they had criminal records, making it hard to find any work.

The resulting absence of millions of potential workers has serious consequences not just for the men and their families but for the nation as a whole. A smaller work force is likely to lead to a slower-growing economy, and will leave a smaller share of the population to cover the cost of government, even as a larger share seeks help.

Why U.S. Women Are Leaving Jobs Behind

NY Times     Since Kerry Devine, 32, and her friends began having children, she has noticed a stark difference between her female friends in Auburn, Wash., where she lives, and those in England and Cyprus, where she grew up. In the United States, they almost all stopped working outside the home, at least until their children were in school. Yet, she says, she can’t think of a friend in Europe who left work after her children were born. [...]

Her story would have played out differently, she said, if she had been living in her native England. Like many European countries, Britain offers a year of maternity leave, much of it paid, and protections for part-time workers, among other policies aimed at keeping women employed.

“I would have been O.K. putting a 1-year-old baby in day care, but not a 12-week-old,” Ms. Devine said. “More flexible hours and being able to work from home part of the time definitely would have made a big difference.”

a

Her thinking is shared by many American women — and plays a role in a significant economic reversal. As recently as 1990, the United States had one of the top employment rates in the world for women, but it has now fallen behind many European countries. After climbing for six decades, the percentage of women in the American work force peaked in 1999, at 74 percent for women between 25 and 54. It has fallen since, to 69 percent today. [...]

Female haredi activists to haredi factions: Allow us to run, or we'll boycott

YNET   A large number of haredi women are demanding that the political parties representing their sector allow women on their electoral lists for the first time in Israel's history.

The struggle began on Facebook – under the slogan "no votes without representation", around 3,000 members of the social network have called for women to boycott the haredi factions in their current formulation.

The feminist campaign was ramped up Friday morning by an open letter from a prominent public action group to the leaders of Shas and United Torah Judaism that formally outlined demands. [...]

Some haredi women are active in the political arena, but not as MKs. Menachem Moses of United Torah Judaism has a female haredi aide, and even President Reuven Rivlin has a female haredi bureau chief – Rivka Ravitz, widow of the late MK Avraham Ravitz.

Will female MKs from the haredi sector join them in March? Time will tell. Meanwhile, Shas and United Torah Judaism refused to react to the open letter.

================================
"A woman should not dare to approach a secular party"
bhol

Renowned educator Rabbi Mordechai Blau, a senior at Yahadut Hatorah, declares today (Sunday) that "Every woman who will approach a party other than those led by Gedolei Yisrael - will be divorced without a ketuba and her children will not be accepted to educational institutions, as well as to purchase any product from, and will be ordered to remove her children from institutions ". [...]

Frum Follies' lack of integrity in his slanderous claims against me

Frum Follies seems to have no more real issues to write about and has started attacking me with make-believe charges that arouse his groupies  like sharks smelling blood. It is not enough that he makes up lies in the Meisels case - as I have documented. It seems now that he is attacking me in retaliation for exposing his lies. lies 1   lies 2  lies 3

Yesterday he ran a post that falsely claimed that “Only-a-Hug” Eidensohn Christens Meisels a “Respected Rabbi”    I did not say that Meisels was guilty only of a hug and I didn't christen Meisels a respected rabbi. I said that despite the charges in the lawsuit that Meisels was running the seminaries solely to provide girls for his sexual appetites it seemed that he was only guilty of inexcusable hugs. The word "only" was clearly indicating that relative to the in initial charges the reality was much less. I clearly and repeated have said that Meisels misdeeds required that he be removed from the seminaries and educational activities. Lopin himself stated elsewhere on his blog that there was no such thing as "only a hug" for an Orthodox Jew - and yet said in this post that it was question as to whether I was saying it was only a hug or it an inexcusable hug. The answer was obvious to him - but it served the purpose of  inciting his readers to make derogatory comments about me - which is clearly reason why he wrote it.

I didn't "christen Meisels a respected Rabbi" - I stated the obvious that when he committed his crimes he was a respected rabbi. I nowhere stated that he is a respected rabbi now - I challenged him to produce evidence for such a claim - which he hasn't.

Today he is back with a claim that since I moderate all comments that maybe I approve of a comment which encourages harassment of witnesses! Stop the Witness Intimidation by Meisels Defenders    The comment that appears on my blog simply made a one line suggestion that if the anonymous plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Meisels are  found out to be liars their names should be exposed. I of course agree with the standard procedure of not publicizing the names of victims and witnesses. Furthermore I approve many comments which I don't agree with - such as the infantile slander from Truthseeker but this wasn't an outrageous comment. The comment wasn't a call to action of vigilantes to determine the validity of the lawsuit. it wasn't a call for a lynch mob to uncover the identity of victims and witnesses to silence them. It was simply a suggestion that if the lawsuit is judged by the court to be false  - that the plaintiffs names should be exposed.   Again the only justification for Lopin's making a post out of it was to slander me - not to discuss issues or protect anyone.

In both cases - despite my protests to him about the slanderous nature of these posts  and directly explaining why the posts are false - he still hasn't removed them. What slander will he figure out next. 

It is also interesting to note that there are no objections against what he is doing by fellow abuse activists such as Rabbi Yosef Blau, David Morris or Harry Maryles.  In fact the Chicago activist Dorron Katzin selected both the "only a hug" post and the "intimidation" post to distribute to his private group of abuse activists - without presenting any of my posts explaining my side of the story. It is clear that they have decided that I am a pariah for supporting the IBD beis din's activities in the Meisels scandal. It seems that slander and distorting the truth - in the name of "protecting all alleged abusive victims" - is no vice.

Chabad of California to pay for misusing federal funds

Sacramento Bee    A federal judge in Sacramento ruled late Tuesday that the California branch of one of the world’s largest Jewish religious organizations misappropriated grant funds and now must pay $844,985 in damages and penalties.

U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. found that Chabad of California violated the federal False Claims Act with bogus statements and certifications in connection with money it obtained through the Urban Areas Security Initiative: Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which provides funding for security upgrades to eligible nonprofits.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security program is administered here through the California Emergency Management Agency.

In a 21-page order, England found that Chabad knowingly failed to comply with grant requirements and falsely assured the government that it had written procedures to regulate the use of the funds.[...]

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

“Rabbi Cunin made it clear that the absence of policies was not an oversight” and “conceded that he never planned to safeguard the grant advances and ensure that funds so received were used only to pay authorized grant costs,” England said.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

Cunin “treated the grant advances as if they were gifts to Chabad that, once paid by Cal EMA, were ‘no longer the business of the government,’” England said, quoting the rabbi’s deposition testimony. “(Cunin’s) cavalier attitude shows, at minimum, a reckless disregard.” [...]

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

The whistleblowers, Aria Kozak and his wife, Donna Kozak, of Santa Monica, through their company, Elite Interactive Solutions, installed state-of-the-art video surveillance equipment in several Chabad of California facilities, but were not paid for the work despite repeated requests, according to Hirst. [...]

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. found that Chabad of California violated the federal False Claims Act with bogus statements and certifications in connection with money it obtained through the Urban Areas Security Initiative: Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which provides funding for security upgrades to eligible nonprofits.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article4404342.html#storylink=cpy

 

Seminary Recommendation: Yad Aharon signed by Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch,Rav Eichenstein and Rav Asher Weiss

More Frum Follies lies and distortions - this time regarding my view of Meisels

We have recently witnessed a series of blatant lies from Frum Follies regarding the Meisels scandal. See Dynamic of lynch mob mentality regarding abuse

It is important to note that despite Lopin's transgressions of normal standards of honest reporting and discussion - not one of his fellow advocates - has criticized his blatant lies or even acknowledged them. It seems that as long as an  advocate attacks people whose views differ from that of the advocates - it is considered legitimate.

Lie 1)  He has claimed that Rabbi Kahane and Rebbezin Ullman have been demoted by the joint beis din.

 Truth: The members of the joint beis din told me that "his statement is a lie". That they made no ruling on demoting either of them nor did they find evidence that either had done anything deserving demotion.

See Psak of Joint Beis Din

Lie 2) He claimed that Adina Cohen who wrote a strong letter defending Meisels was currently a madricha for Rabbi Kahane at Chedvas seminary. That her employment by Rabbi Kahane's showed his disregard for the well being of his students andthe incompetence of the IBD for allowing it. That this employment showed that support was still strong at the seminaries for Meisel and thus contrary to the ruling of the joint beis din - Meisels still continued to have strong support there. Therefore the seminaries were obviously unsafe - contrary to the ruling of the joint beis din.

Truth: In fact Adina Cohen is not currently a madricha of for Rabbi Kahane's seminary and never was. She is in fact not presently employed by any of the 4 seminaries. She WAS a madricha at Binas seminary - but again she is no longer working there but lives in Baltimore. Thus her letter writing activity shows nothing about the unsafeness of the seminaries or that the joint beis din is incompetent.

 Blog Post about Frum Follies and Adina Cohen

Lie 3)  He just wrote a post falsely titled "Only-a-Hug" Eidensohn Christens Meisels a "Respected Rabbi".

Truth :I did not "christen" Meisels a respected rabbi - he was in fact a widely respected rabbi when he committed his crime. That is all I said. However he is no longer a respected rabbi and I challenge Lopin to show evidence for his statement indicating that I consider that he is currently a respected rabbi.  Furthermore I didn't say his crime was insignificant being "only a hug".

I was contrasting what the CBD had claimed as a massive sex scandal with the rape of 40 girls with what the evidence at present shows that his crime was an inexcusable hug. The word "only" was to show in contrast to a massive sex scandal where the seminaries sole purpose was to provide for Meisels sexual satisfaction - his actual crime was much less significant. Not that it was insignificant. This is the actual quote.

Now that the Seminary scandal is winding down or rather unraveling from a story of a massive sex scandal where a respected rabbi was accused in federal court of  running four seminaries for the sole purpose of  having girls available for his sexual satisfaction to a growing realization that it was only an inexcusable hug given by a respected rabbi to a student  after which he was promptly kicked out by the staff and he readily acknowledged his misdeed in front of beis din. Headlines of seminaries being run as houses of prostitution has become nothing more than  an inappropriate hug. 

Thus Lopin deliberately cherry picked my words - taking them out of clear context to make a false statement about my beliefs. This is the excerpt from the post.

 “Only-a-Hug” Eidensohn Christens Meisels a “Respected Rabbi”

Posted on 12/09/2014 by Yerachmiel Lopin

“It was only an inexcusable hug given by a respected rabbi to a student,” writes Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn on his blog in discussing the misconduct of Elimelech Meisels. Was it “only” or inexcusable? He is trying to have it both ways. Yes he was kicked out but if people believe it was only a hug he may be able to eventually stage a comeback claiming therapy and teshuvah (repentance). In fact it was much more than a hug. [...]

Daniel Eidensohn, please admit that Mr. Meisels is a disgraced sexual assailant guilty of much, much more than a hug. He is a serial sexual predator, not a “respected rabbi.”

Lopin is fully aware that a hug in the Orthodox world is very serious and that any educator who hugged females students would be automatically fired and never be allowed into chinuch again.  He in fact stated on his blog that in the frum world there is no such thing as "just a hug" for an Orthodox Jew. Yet he deceitfully pretends that he is genuinely puzzled what I might mean.

He compounds his deceit by pretending that even after Meisels has been shown to have committed serious sexual transgressions that I fully respect Meisels as a Rabbi. He knows that is a lie - and yet he states it anyway.

It is obvious that Lopin is stooping to disgusting smear tactics  in order to discredit me as well as my views - as well as others involved in the Meisels scandal.

Ricki Lake Interviews Michoel and Chava about their "Unconventional" Orthodox Jewish Marriage