Thursday, November 16, 2017
Toldos; If One Knows His Child Will Be A Rashah...
GADSDEN, Ala. — Alabama’s increasingly bizarre Senate race was convulsed again as four more women came forward on Wednesday to describe encounters with the Republican candidate, Roy S. Moore, and Mr. Moore’s campaign sharply questioned the credibility of another accuser.
The newest accusations came from women who ranged in age from about 18 to 28 at the time. They complained of being groped, forcibly kissed or subjected to unwanted advances.
One of them, Becky Gray, now 62, a retired teacher living in Gadsden, Ala., said in an interview that she was puzzled by Mr. Moore’s repeated overtures when she worked in the Gadsden Mall.
“I just couldn’t figure out why a man of his age spent every Friday and Saturday at the mall,” said Ms. Gray, who was then in her late teens or early 20s.
She said she frequently saw Mr. Moore, then in his 30s, talking with young women and did her best to avoid him. Ms. Gray said she eventually complained to her manager that he would not leave her alone and was later told that Mr. Moore had been banned from the mall.
Toldos; If One Knows His Child Will Be A Rashah...
Rav Chaim Shaul Kaufman זצוק''ל, in his ספר משחת שמן, asks from the נשי למך. They were woman and yet they were told that they should not refrain from having children...
Rogochover and More by Marc B. Shapiro
Marc B. Shapiro
In a recent Jewish Review of Books (Summer 2017), I published a translation of an interview R. Joseph Rozin, the Rogochover, gave to the New York Yiddish paper, Der morgen zhurnal. You can see the original interview here. The fact that the Rogochover agreed to the interview is itself significant. As is to be expected, the content of the interview is also of great interest.
In the preface to the interview, I mentioned that the Rogochover famously studied Torah on Tisha be-Av and when he was an avel, both of which are in violation of accepted halakhah. When he was once asked why, while sitting shiva, he learnt Torah, he is reported to have replied:[1]
ודאי, עבירה היא זו, וכשאקבל עונש על שאר עונותי יענישוני אף על עון זה, אבל אני אקבל באהבה וברצון את העונש על חטא זה, וכדאית היא התורה להלקות עליה
R. Yissachar Tamar cites an eye-witness who reported that the Rogochover said basically the same thing in explaining why he learnt on Tisha be-Av, and noted how wonderful it will be to be punished for studying Torah.[2]
ומה נעים לקבל צליפות על עסק התורה
The Hazon Ish was told that the Rogochover learnt Torah when he was in mourning and that he made another antinomian-like comment in justification of his behavior, namely, that he wants to be in the gehinom of those who learn Torah. The Hazon Ish replied that “this gehinom is the same gehinom for the other sins.”[3]
The various comments quoted in the name of the Rogochover show his great need for studying Torah, a need that simply did not allow him to put aside his Torah study, even when halakhah required it. Yet the antinomian implication of the Rogochover’s comments was too much to be ignored. R. Gavriel Zinner’s reaction after quoting the Rogochover is how many felt.[4]
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Williamsburg man busted for repeatedly raping pre-teen member of extended family
NY Daily News
An 18-year-old Brooklyn man raped a pre-teen member of his extended family, authorities said Monday.
Police arrested David Teitelbaum late Sunday and charged him with rape, sex abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child younger than 17.
Teitelbaum, who has no previous arrest record, was arraigned on $15,000 cash bail Monday night.
His defense attorney denied all the allegations, noting that his client has no history of trouble with the law.
"He's a full time student," said defense attorney Israel Friend.
"And from what I was told, the complaining witness' mom doesn't want to go forward with the charges," he added.
A source familiar with the case also said the victim’s parents had stopped cooperating with police, fearful of the shame the incident will cause the family.
Prosecutors said the accused was 17 at the time of the alleged rape a year ago.
The incident occurred during the holidays while the families were visiting, and the adults were asleep.
Prosecutors said Teitelbaum pulled his pants down to expose himself to the girl and then penetrated her.
In another incident, Teitelbaum touched the girl over her skirt, the prosecutor said.
Authorities said the girl told her mother, and then later told a therapist.
The therapist didn't initially report the allegations to police. But when the therapist was told last month that the two families would be getting together again for the holidays, the police were notified.
The girl, whose age and relationship to the victim are being withheld to protect her identity, was attacked inside the suspect’s Williamsburg apartment, sources said.
At some point the girl told her mother the suspect had touched her inappropriately, but the family didn't alert the police, sources said.
“The guy rapes their daughter and they’re protecting him — unbelievable” said the source. “I can’t even imagine how angry I’d be if it was my daughter.”
After the therapist notified the NYPD, the Child Abuse Squad launched an investigation.
An 18-year-old Brooklyn man raped a pre-teen member of his extended family, authorities said Monday.
Police arrested David Teitelbaum late Sunday and charged him with rape, sex abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child younger than 17.
Teitelbaum, who has no previous arrest record, was arraigned on $15,000 cash bail Monday night.
His defense attorney denied all the allegations, noting that his client has no history of trouble with the law.
"He's a full time student," said defense attorney Israel Friend.
"And from what I was told, the complaining witness' mom doesn't want to go forward with the charges," he added.
A source familiar with the case also said the victim’s parents had stopped cooperating with police, fearful of the shame the incident will cause the family.
Prosecutors said the accused was 17 at the time of the alleged rape a year ago.
The incident occurred during the holidays while the families were visiting, and the adults were asleep.
Prosecutors said Teitelbaum pulled his pants down to expose himself to the girl and then penetrated her.
In another incident, Teitelbaum touched the girl over her skirt, the prosecutor said.
Authorities said the girl told her mother, and then later told a therapist.
The therapist didn't initially report the allegations to police. But when the therapist was told last month that the two families would be getting together again for the holidays, the police were notified.
The girl, whose age and relationship to the victim are being withheld to protect her identity, was attacked inside the suspect’s Williamsburg apartment, sources said.
At some point the girl told her mother the suspect had touched her inappropriately, but the family didn't alert the police, sources said.
“The guy rapes their daughter and they’re protecting him — unbelievable” said the source. “I can’t even imagine how angry I’d be if it was my daughter.”
After the therapist notified the NYPD, the Child Abuse Squad launched an investigation.
Monday, November 13, 2017
V
forward
I remember the moment distinctly, and it was almost a decade ago: a group of stylish women walked into the main sanctuary of my shul in Baltimore for a Torah class. They all had a similar panache about them, sporting long, curled sheitels (wigs) that reached mid-back, large designer handbags slung over the shoulders, and outfits that were trendy, expensive-looking and mainly black. I stood at the side of the room and observed something that was clearly a new “look.” I had never seen religious women look like this before (living outside of NY most certainly contributed). Sure, religious women always have worn expensive clothes and lots of black. But it was the sheitels — they now were the accessory that put it all together. And they were so long.
V
I remember the moment distinctly, and it was almost a decade ago: a group of stylish women walked into the main sanctuary of my shul in Baltimore for a Torah class. They all had a similar panache about them, sporting long, curled sheitels (wigs) that reached mid-back, large designer handbags slung over the shoulders, and outfits that were trendy, expensive-looking and mainly black. I stood at the side of the room and observed something that was clearly a new “look.” I had never seen religious women look like this before (living outside of NY most certainly contributed). Sure, religious women always have worn expensive clothes and lots of black. But it was the sheitels — they now were the accessory that put it all together. And they were so long.
V
Jerusalem – Israeli Rabbis Tell IDF Chief Women Are Weakening The Army
.vosizneias
Jerusalem – A group of leading Orthodox rabbis met with the Israeli army’s chief of staff to complain. According to Israel’s Arutz Sheva news website, the rabbis told Gadi Eisenkot on Tuesday that the growing ranks of female combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces are creating an immodest environment. They demanded changes to accommodate [...]
V
Jerusalem – A group of leading Orthodox rabbis met with the Israeli army’s chief of staff to complain. According to Israel’s Arutz Sheva news website, the rabbis told Gadi Eisenkot on Tuesday that the growing ranks of female combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces are creating an immodest environment. They demanded changes to accommodate [...]
V
Never forget the Har Nof massacre
arutz 7
We used to feel safe.
We used to think that Har Nof was just another frum community in Yerushalayim.
But three years ago, everything that we thought was normal was shattered.
Terrorists stormed into our synagogue, our Mikdash Me’at, brutally slaughtering the bodies and stealing the Neshamos of Tzadikim wrapped in Talis and Tefilin.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Thursday, November 2, 2017
I Want ‘Allahu Akbar’ Back
ny time
Allahu akbar. It’s Arabic for “God is greatest.” Muslims, an eccentric tribe with over a billion members, say it several times in our five daily prayers. The phrase is also a convenient way to express just the right kind of gratitude in any situation.
I say “Allahu akbar” out loud more than 100 times a day. Yesterday, I uttered it several times during my late-evening Isha prayer. Earlier, during dinner, I said it with my mouth full after biting into my succulent halal chicken kebab. In the afternoon, I dropped it in a conference room at the State Department, where I’d been invited to address a packed room of government employees about the power of storytelling. Specifically, I expressed my continuing gratitude for the election of Barack Obama, whom, in a joking nod to the Islamophobic paranoia that surrounded him, I called “our first Muslim American president,” adding “Allahu akbar!”
People in the crowd laughed and applauded, the world continued to spin, no one had an aneurysm, and only a few people seemed to wonder with arched, Sarah Sanders-like eyebrows, “Wait, is he ...?” I even confess to saying “Allahu akbar” two days ago in a restroom after losing the battle, but ultimately winning the war, against a nasty stomach virus.
I’m 37 years old. In all those years, I, like an overwhelming majority of Muslims, have never uttered “Allahu akbar” before or after committing a violent act. Unfortunately, terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda and their sympathizers, who represent a tiny fraction of Muslims, have. In the public imagination, this has given the phrase meaning that’s impossible to square with what it represents in my daily life.
Allahu akbar. It’s Arabic for “God is greatest.” Muslims, an eccentric tribe with over a billion members, say it several times in our five daily prayers. The phrase is also a convenient way to express just the right kind of gratitude in any situation.
I say “Allahu akbar” out loud more than 100 times a day. Yesterday, I uttered it several times during my late-evening Isha prayer. Earlier, during dinner, I said it with my mouth full after biting into my succulent halal chicken kebab. In the afternoon, I dropped it in a conference room at the State Department, where I’d been invited to address a packed room of government employees about the power of storytelling. Specifically, I expressed my continuing gratitude for the election of Barack Obama, whom, in a joking nod to the Islamophobic paranoia that surrounded him, I called “our first Muslim American president,” adding “Allahu akbar!”
People in the crowd laughed and applauded, the world continued to spin, no one had an aneurysm, and only a few people seemed to wonder with arched, Sarah Sanders-like eyebrows, “Wait, is he ...?” I even confess to saying “Allahu akbar” two days ago in a restroom after losing the battle, but ultimately winning the war, against a nasty stomach virus.
I’m 37 years old. In all those years, I, like an overwhelming majority of Muslims, have never uttered “Allahu akbar” before or after committing a violent act. Unfortunately, terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda and their sympathizers, who represent a tiny fraction of Muslims, have. In the public imagination, this has given the phrase meaning that’s impossible to square with what it represents in my daily life.
Former Fugitive Rabbi Berland to Be Released From Israeli Jail Today
Eliezer Berland was convicted of sexual assault and prosecutors have decided not to appeal a decision granting him early release after five months.
haaretz
haaretz
Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain
ny times
After two hourlong sessions focused first on body awareness and then on movement retraining at the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, I understood what it meant to experience an incredible lightness of being. Having, temporarily at least, released the muscle tension that aggravates my back and hip pain, I felt like I was walking on air.
I had long refrained from writing about this method of countering pain because I thought it was some sort of New Age gobbledygook with no scientific basis. Boy, was I wrong!
Seven Bizarre Notions Trump and His Team Have About America
ny times
President Trump, his motley crew of White House and cabinet ideologues, and many other Republicans claim to have a better understanding of American values, traditions and history than the rest of us. They are the “real Americans,” as the historically illiterate Sarah Palin loved to say many times a day.
But a great many of their notions about America are deeply puzzling at best and, at worst, truly scary ideas infused with racism and intolerance of dissent.
The list defies comprehensive accounting. (Time magazine has to keep updating a handy guide to the world according to Trump that it started after his first 100 days in office.) But here are some of my favorites.
The Civil War: Back in August, after racists marched in Charlottesville to defend monuments to those who fought to preserve slavery, Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, forwarded around an email saying that there was “literally no difference” between George Washington and Robert E. Lee.
More recently, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told Laura Ingraham on Fox News that the “lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
Continue reading the main story
Andrew Rosenthal
Politics, technology, national security, popular culture and whatever else seems interesting, important or just funny.
The F.B.I.’s Black Phantom Menace
OCT 19
Trump’s Self-Absorption on War Deaths
OCT 17
Trump’s Latest Outrage Against Puerto Rico
OCT 12
The N.F.L.’s Workplace Dodge
OCT 11
The Debate That Goes Nowhere
OCT 4
See More »
RECENT COMMENTS
Patricia G 2 hours ago
There's much commentary here about the big compromises in our history and whether the Civil War was about secession or slavery. But,...
DebbieR 3 hours ago
Mr. Rosenthal, it doesn't matter what you, or other elites think about what Trump says, because he is speaking to his base, and only his...
Charles 3 hours ago
Trump is not a political discussion, it's a discussion about psychology. Reporters were taken off guard because they were ready to write...
SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
What possible compromise could there have been over slavery? But it’s also false history. There were plenty of “compromises.” All of them enshrined the evil institution of slavery and made the civil war more likely, not less.
It might be tempting to write Kelly’s remarks off as the ravings of a man whose boss must drive him crazy on a daily basis and who had earlier talked of a mythical time when women in America were held “sacred” (by blocking their career aspirations and paying them less than men, denying them birth control and access to abortions, and refusing them the right to vote for more than a half-century after the Civil War).
But Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, picked up Kelly’s false history the next day. There was, she said, “pretty strong consensus” among people from “the left, the right, the North and the South” that a failure to compromise caused the war.
Questioning the military: Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, lied on Oct. 19 about a speech given by Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida when he was making his defense of Trump’s conversation with the widow of an American soldier.
Asked about that later, Sanders said, “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you, but I think if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inappropriate.”
President Trump, his motley crew of White House and cabinet ideologues, and many other Republicans claim to have a better understanding of American values, traditions and history than the rest of us. They are the “real Americans,” as the historically illiterate Sarah Palin loved to say many times a day.
But a great many of their notions about America are deeply puzzling at best and, at worst, truly scary ideas infused with racism and intolerance of dissent.
The list defies comprehensive accounting. (Time magazine has to keep updating a handy guide to the world according to Trump that it started after his first 100 days in office.) But here are some of my favorites.
The Civil War: Back in August, after racists marched in Charlottesville to defend monuments to those who fought to preserve slavery, Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, forwarded around an email saying that there was “literally no difference” between George Washington and Robert E. Lee.
More recently, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told Laura Ingraham on Fox News that the “lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War.”
Continue reading the main story
Andrew Rosenthal
Politics, technology, national security, popular culture and whatever else seems interesting, important or just funny.
The F.B.I.’s Black Phantom Menace
OCT 19
Trump’s Self-Absorption on War Deaths
OCT 17
Trump’s Latest Outrage Against Puerto Rico
OCT 12
The N.F.L.’s Workplace Dodge
OCT 11
The Debate That Goes Nowhere
OCT 4
See More »
RECENT COMMENTS
Patricia G 2 hours ago
There's much commentary here about the big compromises in our history and whether the Civil War was about secession or slavery. But,...
DebbieR 3 hours ago
Mr. Rosenthal, it doesn't matter what you, or other elites think about what Trump says, because he is speaking to his base, and only his...
Charles 3 hours ago
Trump is not a political discussion, it's a discussion about psychology. Reporters were taken off guard because they were ready to write...
SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT
What possible compromise could there have been over slavery? But it’s also false history. There were plenty of “compromises.” All of them enshrined the evil institution of slavery and made the civil war more likely, not less.
It might be tempting to write Kelly’s remarks off as the ravings of a man whose boss must drive him crazy on a daily basis and who had earlier talked of a mythical time when women in America were held “sacred” (by blocking their career aspirations and paying them less than men, denying them birth control and access to abortions, and refusing them the right to vote for more than a half-century after the Civil War).
But Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, picked up Kelly’s false history the next day. There was, she said, “pretty strong consensus” among people from “the left, the right, the North and the South” that a failure to compromise caused the war.
Questioning the military: Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, lied on Oct. 19 about a speech given by Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida when he was making his defense of Trump’s conversation with the widow of an American soldier.
Asked about that later, Sanders said, “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you, but I think if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inappropriate.”
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