Meir Pogrow: A plea from Yehuda - his brother and victim

update: Yehuda Pogrow asked me to publish his full article. I had originally published the major points but he felt that that had led to misunderstandings by some of the readers.


Yehuda Pogrow's Facebook page is here

https://www.facebook.com/yehudapogrow


update: Since posting this I have gotten a number of negative responses to Yeduda Pogrow's analysis and his conclusions. Most focusing on the fact that aside from being beaten up by his brother - he doesn't seem to have any direct knowledge or experience of what the community is doing for child abuse or what should be done.

While the article is obviously written from a sincere desire to be helpful and to empathize with victims - the sweeping condemnations of the community leaders and institutions are problematic. Basically he just woke up to the fact that there is a problem and the first thing he does is scream "fire". As he himself has noted there already are a number of excellent organization that are working on the issues. There are rabbis, educators and community leaders who are working on solving the problems. I would suggest his first step is to work with the organizations and leaders - rather than tell others what to do.
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Times of Israel   

Meir Pogrow, the justly-condemned sexual predator, is my older brother. He is roughly nine years my senior. I share my story because I hope to launch a movement that will raise from the ashes of this tragedy a new hope for all victims of child abuse — whether or not the specific abuse is a crime in a given jurisdiction, or whether the victim is a minor or a young adult vulnerable to abuse by a perpetrator who holds a position of authority.

I identify with my brother’s victims, because I was — perhaps — his first. He first abused me approximately 30 years ago, in my boyhood years. My brother did not attack me sexually. Rather, over a period of roughly 10 years, he subjected me to severe physical, verbal and emotional abuse. He is short, but he was strong. He would lift me above his head, my whole body parallel to the floor, just let go, and walk away as I crashed to the floor.

I was 17 the last time my brother physically abused me. I had finally grown strong enough to defend myself. He chased me and tried to hit me, but I deflected him. When I thought he had quit trying to hurt me, I dropped my guard. He then stared me in the eyes with a gruesome expression. My arms were at my sides when he punched me, breaking my nose and giving me a concussion. The next day he told me — gleefully — that he broke my nose intentionally. He also explained that I deserved it, because I did not spend enough time studying Torah during my time off from yeshiva.

In my journey of recovery from my brother’s abuses, what has been most difficult to overcome is not the impact of the physical pain — what is most enduring is the psychological trauma and manipulation that he used in order to groom me for the physical pain.

It is this psychological torment that he inflicted that makes me identify so strongly with his later victims. Numerous victims of his torment have spoken out on Facebook. I suspect that it was on me that he first exercised those psychological abuses.

My brother’s carnage is massive, and it spans multiple continents, but it is tragically far from the only carnage. Abuse by faculty in the yeshiva school system has occurred for decades; yet today there remains no system-wide enforceable plan to protect children. Far too many administrators are enablers — at a minimum due to failures to act on complaints brought to their attention — in many of the crimes committed by faculty in yeshivas across the globe.

My brother taught at YULA, a Los Angeles yeshiva, in the 1990s. On Facebook, in a comment replying to a post about my brother, one YULA alumna stated, “But I clearly remember discussing him with other staff members and no one taking us seriously.”

In a separate comment, that same alumna wrote, “I do clearly remember discussing my discomfort about him to another teacher, possibly the principal after a discussion that he instigated about masturbation.”

The YULA administration should issue a public statement to either discredit this former student’s version of events, or confirm that it dismissed Meir immediately after they verified her complaints, and that it did everything in its power to ensure my brother was never allowed in a classroom again.

After leaving YULA, Meir joined the faculty at Michlalah, a school for young women in Israel.

Numerous Michlalah alumnae I met during my time as a student at Queens College in New York told me that my brother was verbally abusive, and that he fostered a cult-like mentality. His groupies were known as “Pogs.”

The Michlalah administration should issue a public statement to confirm that it never received any complaints of abuse of any form perpetrated by my brother. If Michlalah cannot make such a statement, it should publicly provide a detailed accounting of how it acted on all complaints against my brother.

My brother was not the only perpetrator of abuses I experienced as a child. I was a victim of severe physical and emotional abuse in Yeshiva Bais Mikroh in Monsey, at the hands of Rabbi Gavriel Bodenheimer, among others. Bodenheimer and other faculty abused me — and many other children — more than two decades ago, as fellow faculty and my schoolmates looked on. Bodenheimer has since pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child. He is also subject to the typical restrictions imposed on sex offenders.

How could Bodenheimer have remained principal at Bais Mikroh until 2015?

I believe that on a per-capita basis, the magnitude of the cover-ups of sexual, physical, emotional and verbal abuses in the yeshiva system is on par with that of the Catholic Church. There are many wonderful Orthodox rabbis and administrators — I have worked alongside some and proudly consider some my friends and mentors — but the Orthodox Jewish clergy as an institution has lost its credibility. Much like the Catholic priesthood, the rabbinate has its work cut out if it wants to earn back its credibility on matters of child safety.

A fundamental and systemic reform of yeshivas is necessary. Unfortunately, the rabbinate has forfeited its right to lead that reform.

Recent pronouncements by Torah Umesorah of new initiatives to expand education surrounding the issue of child abuse for parents, children, camp counselors and teachers are but a minuscule step forward. Does Torah Umesorah genuinely believe that expanded education will touch the root of the problem?

Where is the joint pronouncement from Torah Umesorah and Agudath Yisrael of America (the Agudah) laying out a concrete plan of action to root out the perpetrators and enablers currently in the system?

Where is the declaration that any teacher or administrator who in any way whatsoever prevents a claim of abuse from getting to the police will be immediately fired?

Where is the directive to every teacher and administrator to advise any complainant who comes forward that he or she (the teacher or administrator) is not equipped to determine the validity of the accuser’s claims?

Where are the instructions for teachers and administrators to immediately direct all allegations to the police?

(Teachers and administrators should, of course, offer any complainant any support they are indeed equipped to offer, including accompanying the alleged victim to the police station.)

Where is the Agudah’s pronouncement that it has reversed its opposition to pending legislation in New York State that would reform the Statute of Limitations (SOL) on child sexual abuse? Does the Agudah really want to be on the same side as the Catholic Church on this issue? Does the Agudah’s concern for the ability of its institutions to financially and reputationally withstand an onslaught of criminal and civil cases justify not doing everything in its power to prevent just one more instance of child abuse?

At the 2016 Torah Umesorah convention, Yaakov Perlow, head of the Agudah, in an attempt to explain the Agudah’s opposition to SOL reform said, “Yes, we want to protect our mosdos (organizations). We want to be able to prevent somebody who wakes up 40 years later, and he sues a yeshiva for something that happened who knows how many years ago. But at the same time, we have no sympathy for perpetrators.” Perlow also stated, “The rabbonim (rabbis) sitting here, knowing perhaps better than I do, how many hours and hours and dozens of hours throughout these last years we’ve sat and deliberated and talked about every single aspect of this problem.”

I would ask Rabbi Perlow, if you have no sympathy for perpetrators and are committed to fixing this problem, why not reverse your opposition to SOL reform and allow the judicial system to assess the validity of victims’ claims?

Is the possibility of even one additional criminal conviction of a predator still operating in a yeshiva not reason enough for the Agudah to lobby for SOL reform?

A committee of mental health professionals, law-enforcement experts, survivors, and child abuse activists should be given free rein to institute the required reforms in the Yeshiva system. This committee will solicit guidance from thoroughly-vetted rabbis and yeshiva administrators.

Further, an independent committee should be empowered to investigate all yeshivas where any claim of abuse has ever been made, with a possible exception for claims that have been previously dismissed by the police or judicial system.

To My Fellow Survivors:

We need no longer scream in silence.

We are hurting. Our lives have been forever altered by sexual, physical, verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of those we trusted implicitly. We struggle with emotional and physical intimacy because our innocence was stolen and our trust betrayed. Many of us have nightmares; sometimes we wake up screaming.

We felt so alone in our pain; no one would listen. We were told we deserved it — some of us told we were bad, some of us told we were oh-so-special. Many of us are well into our adulthood, still only beginning to understand the full scope of the damage our tormentors inflicted upon us. We live with the scars and we try to move forward, but we can no longer stand by and watch as crimes continue in a corrupt system that harbors perpetrators.

Over time we discovered that our friends who were not direct victims became victims indirectly. They tell us that when they learn that clergy they had revered committed heinous crimes against their classmates, it shakes their faith. They are so tired of having to study techniques to train their children to defend their bodies and souls against predators. Is it too much to ask, they wonder, to trust that their children will be kept safe from the time they leave for yeshiva in the morning until the school bus returns them home?

No one understands us better than we understand one another. Let’s meet each other. Let’s unburden ourselves of our pain by sharing it with one another. Let’s harness our awesome collective strength. Let’s be angry, but let’s direct our anger constructively, and as One.

Speaking out is terrifying. It has taken me 30 years to come forward.

Tragically, I believe there are thousands of us. I know — I just know it in my gut — that with the Strength of Numbers we can march together right on through the shaming collaborators may attempt, stronger — and more determined — than ever.

We have so very many good guys on our side jumping up and down for us, laying their necks on the line for us, yelling at anyone who will listen for us. They need our help. Some of them tell me the full scope of necessary reforms will not be implemented for many years, if ever. But an army of survivors speaking out publicly can bring about a sea change. And that’s where we come in.

This is a moment we must seize. The tides are turning our way. A Beit Din (religious court) just formally condemned a rabbi via media outlets worldwide as a rasha (evil man) because of his sexual abuses. I believe from a place in my heart that two weeks ago I did not know existed that we can achieve massive structural reform. I beg you. Please dig deep.

Let’s grab back from our tormentors our overwhelming collective power. We can achieve this. Let’s not stay on the sidelines another day. Let’s get this done.

Our fellow survivors who have already publicly blazed this path before us stand ready at our side.

There are organizations staffed with professionals ready and begging to help survivors. Among them are Jewish Community Watch and Magen. Please reach out to them or other organizations with similar missions.

Should a survivor wish to contact me, he or she may email me at [email address deleted. Not convinced that a victim of abuse should contact an untrained volunteer to deal with this problem DT]  Survivors may feel free to maintain their anonymity when contacting me.

Moshe Stavish: Convicted abuser of children to be released soon from prison

Jewish Community Watch issued the following notification

Warning to the people of Israel.

Moshe Stavish was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the district court in Jerusalem in 2005 after pleading guilty for the molestation of 11 boys and girls ages 5-13. At the time of his arrest, Moshe lived in Har Nof, Jerusalem.

At the time of his sentencing it was determined that Moshe is a stalker level 3-at high risk of re-offending.

Now he is expected to be released. Anybody who knows anything about whereabouts after release is asked to contact our mother.

A politically correct Swedish politician: Migrant rape isn’t as bad

Arutz 7

Swedish Left Party politician Barbro Sörman has suggested that it’s “worse” when Swedish men rape women, than when immigrants do so.

“The Swedish men who rape do it despite the growing gender equality. They make an active choice. It’s worse imo [in my opinion],” Sörman tweeted.

Sörman, a self-described socialist and a feminist, made the observation in response to what she claimed was excessive media focus on the fact that most of the rapes in Sweden are committed by immigrants.

She explained that Swedish men are brought up in a society that believes in gender equality and therefore should be held to higher standards than migrants, who come from cultures where women are treated as second-rate citizens.

When faced with a storm of indignation, she tried to walk back the comments and admitted that her sentiments had been “clumsily expressed”.

She later deleted her Twitter account altogether.

'Rape capital'

Sweden is widely known as the rape capital of Europe. It has been noted that Muslim immigrants are massively over represented in the official rape statistics.

Sweden has the fastest growing population in Europe, due nearly totally to the influx of Arabs and Muslims from the Middle East. At the same time, its crime rate has increased astronomically: In 1975, 421 rapes were reported to the police; in 2014, it was 6,620.

“77.6 percent of the country’s rapists are identified as “foreigners” (and that’s significant because in Sweden, ‘foreigner’ is generally synonymous with ‘immigrant from Muslim country’), wrote conservative columnist Selwyn Duke. ‘And even this likely understates the issue, since the Swedish government — in an effort to obscure the problem — records second-generation Muslim perpetrators simply as ‘Swedes.’”

Conservative politicians who try to draw attention to this problem have been charged with hate crimes, while some Swedish rape victims are said to be reluctant to report sexual assaults to police because they fear it may “offend” the perpetrators. [....]

Jack Sabbagh - NYPD cop convicted of molesting 13 yr old girl after caught on tape admitting to the crime

NY Daily News    A Brooklyn jury convicted an NYPD officer who'd been caught on tape admitting to molesting a young girl.

Jacob Sabbagh, 33, was busted in December when the now 21-year-old woman came forward to report a family friend touched her inappropriately numerous times when she was between 10 and 13 years old.

“Her parents trusted him. He is a member of their religious community. No one would think a 23-year-old man had an interest in their 10-year-old girl,” said Assistant District Attorney Grace Brainard in her closing arguments in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday.[...]

Sabbagh faces up to seven years in prison when Justice Alan Marrus sentences him Sept. 7. The judge ordered Sabbagh to turn over his Israeli passport.

The abuse happened between 2005 to 2008, before Sabbagh joined the NYPD in January 2009. The victim’s family moved to Israel, which is where she reported the incidents to police, prosecutors said. Authorities in Israel then reached out to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.[...]

Sabbagh’s attorney John Arlia argued that the victim is “delusional,” and was “troubled” because, at the time, her parents were going through a divorce.

The jurors rejected those claims — thanks in large part to a 40-minute conversation the victim had with Sabbagh that she secretly taped.

“The past is in the past, you have to move on from this ... this should have never happened, it was a mistake,” Sabbagh said on the audio recording.

Jerusalem school bus driver arrested for sexual assault on 13 year old chareidi girl passenger

Update: Source BeHadrei Haredim

Arutz 7   A driver for a haredi girl’s school in Jerusalem was arrested on Sunday, amid suspicions he repeatedly sexually assaulted a 13-year old passenger over the course of a year.

The man, a resident of the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, allegedly assaulted the young girl, who was assigned to assist students enter and exit the vehicle.

According to the police report, after the driver had dropped off all of the students assigned to his route, he would drive the victim to a secluded area to commit his crimes unimpeded, BeHadrei Haredim reported.

Following a complaint by the girl, the driver was arrested and interrogated. Out of consideration for the suspect’s family, Jerusalem police allowed him to voluntary report to a police station rather than arrest him at his home in Ramat Shlomo. [...]

Rabbi Maurice Lamm, z”l

Cross-Currents by Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein

We note with great sadness the petirah of one of the deans of the American rabbinate, Rabbi Maurice Lamm.

My most vivid recollection of Rabbi Lamm is of the person who firmly put a smug young man – me! – in his place. It was during one of my earlier years in Los Angeles, when I still saw things as sharply divided between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness. The latter, of course, included Modern Orthodoxy, something that I had turned off to growing up in Kew Gardens Hills and watching what happened to my friends. So when I was invited to a community event at Cong. Beth Jacob, the flagship Modern Orthodox shul in Beverly Hills, I had no problem accepting the honor. It essentially meant debating Rabbi Lamm on the merits of large synagogues (we used to call them synagogues with Edifice Complexes) versus the increasingly popular (and much frummer shteibels.

I made my case, and didn’t think I had done so badly. I had walked into a trap, however. Rabbi Lamm rose up to cream me. He made a number of good points that I had not considered, and he was entirely correct. I don’t think he touched my arguments for why people enjoyed the smaller shuls where each person meant more, but his counter-argument was impressive. If you splinter a community into small devotional cells, entire aspects of community life disappeared. Some important activities required a critical mass of people to sustain them. Only larger shuls could deliver them.

To Rabbi Lamm, this was not a question. He understood what fewer and fewer of us today understand: HKBH expects us to give up parts of our individual comfort for the good of the tzibbur.

His challenge to me resonated, and changed me for life. We subsequently became friends. When he published a book introducing Judaism to non-religious teenagers (writing for a vastly different audience showed his great agility as a writer), he asked me to review it for Jewish Action. Years later, his brother Rabbi Norman Lamm יב”ל, then President of Yeshiva University, turned to him to figure out who this Adlerstein guy was. Was he so black as to hate YU and everyone in it?  Rabbi Maurice assured his brother that Adlerstein’s bark was worse than his bite.

The commitment to tzibbur was something that he lived. He was the consummate old-school shul rov. Anything that was important to his flock was important to him – and he did not delegate. He did it all himself.

His sefer on aveilus became and remains a classic. While in circles further to the right halachic detail became the only concern, Rabbi Lamm understood the need for many people to engage the whys and wherefores of what they were living through in their times of tragedy. The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning is still the book you want to give to people who want the comfort of context and explanation.

 יהי זכרו ברוך

Donald Trump Deletes Tweet Showing Hillary Clinton and Star of David Shape

NY Times

Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came under fire on Saturday for posting on Twitter an image of the Star of David shape next to a picture of Hillary Clinton and calling his opponent the “most corrupt candidate ever!”

Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came under fire on Saturday for posting on Twitter an image of the Star of David shape next to a picture of Hillary Clinton and calling his opponent the “most corrupt candidate ever!”

R D Hartman: "God must not be our top priority" - rebuttal by Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein

update: Donniel Hartman Is So…Yesterday!

Cross-Currents by Rav Adlerstein

In a new twist on the old “Jews to the back of the bus” routine, Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, wants the Jewish G-d to take a back seat as well. In an extensive interview in the Times of Israel, Hartman explains the thesis of his new book, Putting G-d Second. The purpose of religion ought to be the creation of the ethical personality.[...]

Hartman sees this preoccupation with G-d as blinding us to the plight of Palestinians and migrants seeking entry to Israel. He notes that in all of Israel’s wars, it was religious MKs who pushed for pushing on in battle while their more secular colleagues wanted to call it quits.

Religion gets in the way of what should be our real focus: inculcating ethical values in our personalities, and democratic processes in our societies.

He does not want to do away with religion as we know it. He wishes for G-d to be number two, not to disappear, or even show up as number twenty. Two can’t be so bad, he says. Religion is a “powerful vehicle” for making ethics central to our lives. And while the violation of the ethical renders all other attempts at spirituality meaningless, there are spiritual dimensions that are valuable if the ethical is there, front and center. Religion can transmit them. Moreover, religion helps create community, which banishes loneliness. So we ought not to discard or minimize religious practice – as long as it does not interfere with the primary goal of ethical development. (He therefore mocks the notion of an Orthodox woman at Bar Ilan not singing at a Holocaust commemoration, in deference to the halachah of kol ishah, which interferes with our ethical sense of egalitarianism. And he tells baalei teshuvah that if they refuse to eat at their non-observant parents’ home, they can stop calling themselves his students.) To the contrary, Hartman wishes that Israel firmly embrace a Judaism whose first passion is the ethical, and bringing its values to the rest of the world.

None of this is particularly new. It is rather old and tired. The derogation of the ritual and ceremonial in favor of the ethical has a storied past, all of it ending the same way. More religious denominations than we can easily keep track of – Jewish and otherwise – hoped to revitalize interest by accentuating good character, or (more recently) good deeds. Think, in modern times, of Felix Adler’s (said to having been inspired by a Berlin lecture by Rav Yisroel Salanter) Ethical Culture, and what is left of it. Consider the attempts by the mainline Protestant denominations move towards social justice as their primary concerns. Or the elevation of so-called tikun olam as the only principle of faith of the Jewish heterodox movements. What they all share is younger people stampeding out the door, fossilizing those who remain behind. Without coupling character and social action with responsibility to a personal Creator, too many give up on the entire enterprise of religion. We have very little reason to believe that all those who have fled from religion are better people, or have succeeded in making ours a better world. Meanwhile, the only group within Judaism that is growing is Orthodoxy, with its insistence on G-d centeredness. And in the Christian world, the fastest growing group are Pentacostals, who distinguish themselves for seeking an immediate, strong connection with G-d.

Hartman is also so….incredibly wrong on the intellectual level. The words that stood and stand before the baal tefilah for centuries – שויתי ה לנגדי תמיד (Tehillim 16:8) cannot possibly be rendered, “I have set Hashem before me some of the time.” Hartman would certainly cheer Rambam (Shemonah Perakim), who insisted that the development of an ethical character should optimally become a natural part of one’s personality, rather than a response to Divine command. The same Rambam, however, wrote (Hilchos Teshuvah 10:3)

What is the proper love of Hashem? It is that a person should love Hashem with an extraordinarily great, strong love, so that his soul is connected to Him through love, to the point that he is preoccupied with Him at all times…

Hardly a second-place finish.

Is ethical development really the summa bonum of Yiddishkeit? When the Khazar king argues something similar to the chaver (pointing to the same lines from the prophet that Hartman does, expressing Hashem’s preference for proper character over a surfeit of Temple offerings), the latter explains that Judaism has two chief goals. The first, earlier goal that must be achieved is the creation of the ethical individual. Having attained that goal, the Jew is then positioned to achieve the next goal: becoming more G-d-like, through the performance of myriad mitzvos.

For good measure, we’ll throw in the Ibn Ezra to Tehillim 84:6, “Praiseworthy …[are] those with paths in their hearts,” who explains that those paths focus on a single goal – getting close to Hashem.[...]

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Times of Israel

Donniel Hartman, the head of an educational powerhouse, argues heretically that the great monotheistic religions are fatally flawed — by an obsessive focus on God that overwhelms what should be our prime imperative, to live decent, moral lives. [...]

Hartman argues that ethics — living honestly and decently — should be the first priority of the religious human being, of all human beings. Most of us would agree with that.

He laments that in Judaism, as in all the great monotheistic religions, the obsession with God has been allowed to take intolerable precedence over that prime ethical imperative. Many of us would agree with that, too.

Most controversially, however, he asserts that the exaggerated, over-elevated focus on God in religion is actually not the fault of the religious, the practitioners, but of monotheism itself. “I go further than most critics of religion,” Hartman acknowledges, setting out his challenge during a heartfelt interview in his office at the institute, “because most critics of religion say that the problem is religious people who distort it. I don’t think that’s the case. I think there is an auto-immune disease embedded in religion. There’s something flawed in the system that the system doesn’t fully understand. I don’t think religion understands God’s impact on people.”

So, no, Donniel Hartman insists his resonant call to put God second isn’t some superficial provocation. Rather, it’s issued out of a conviction that “the more we put ethics first, the more I am a religious person” and the less that God is “a destructive force in our lives.”

Does that make him a heretic? Maybe, he allows, if it’s heretical to admit “that religion has flaws, and that religion can fail.”

He’s not calling to close down religion; far from it. Like the subtitle says, he’s trying “to save religion.” But, again, “if criticism is heretical, which it can become, then yes, I’m proud to be a heretic,” says Hartman. “But in our tradition, criticism is the greatest sign of love.” [...]

I think God wants to be second, or at least one reading of Judaism wants God to be second. God didn’t come into this world for self-aggrandizement. It was in order to create a different type of human being, in order to elevate this world. But unfortunately, through God intoxication and God manipulation, the idea of God becomes a catalyst for evil. God intoxication is where our devotion to God is so all consuming that we no longer hear or see the needs of others. God manipulation is where we transform God into the private advocate for our particular needs and agenda. The devil quotes scripture. It’s there. It’s embedded. I’ve grown up witnessing how the devil’s chapters impact people.

Then it is heretical, your book. You’re saying the flaw is in the religion. I have a very close relative who is very Orthodox, very sincere, who always says it’s not the religion that’s to blame. The religion is wonderful. Religion is a code of life that, if people followed it, the world would be a wonderful place. It’s the people who are distorting and unbalancing. That’s her view. But you’re saying, No. You’re saying that built into what the religious think they should be doing is a tendency, a focus, that will make them bad.

That’s correct. There are really two religions. And we have to make a choice between the two. And part of what this book is about is forming a narrative for the religious life which places ethical responsibility at the center. That’s why I quote so many sources. There are two narratives. Narrative A starts with the Akeda (the Binding of Isaac) or starts with Lech Lecha, where it says, If you want to walk with me, you have to disassociate from anything that you care about. Anything. That a love of God is all-intoxicating. And God wants to see: Are you willing to fundamentally submit everything that you care about, that you love, that you think is good, to Me? Kill your son. Discriminate against a non-Jew. And I’m on your side because you’re the chosen ones. It goes on. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai exits out of the cave and says to people that all they should be doing is loving God, thinking about God, reflecting on God’s word. What do you mean, you’re working the field? When he sees farmers, he destroys them in the name of God. That is God intoxication.  [...]

Igros Kodesh: Letters of Chazon Ish and Steipler regarding marital intimacy

  קובץ אגרות קודש מלא

David and Goliath: Understanding the justification of my protest against the Kaminetsky-Greenblatt heter

Shelach; "7, 8, 11, 13"- Why These Numbers On Tzitzis?? by Rabbi Shlomo Pollak

What is the "Kesher" of these numbers and the Mitzvah of Tzitzis, that we wrap each corner with these specific numbers???

It turns out, they equal 39, and correspond with many other concepts in Torah...

In this Shiur, we walk through some of the connections, and try to "tie" them all together, into one concept....

For questions and comments please email at salmahshleima@gmail.com

Snapping a picture of your hotel room could help stop human trafficking

Fox      Snapping a picture inside your hotel room could help protect children across the globe.

The TraffickCam app enables travelers to submit pictures of hotel rooms around the world. The images are matched against a national database used by police.

“You just enter your hotel name and your room number. You take four pictures, and you submit them to the website,” Washington University Researcher and TraffickCam developer Abby Stylianou said. “And then those become part of the pipeline that law enforcement can use to track down where the victims are being trafficked.”

Stylianou was among the speakers at a Human Trafficking Town Hall at Maritz Tuesday.

“Right now there are pictures posted every day. Hundreds of pictures, in every city around the United States, posted online, that show victims of trafficking, in hotel rooms posed on beds,” she said.

Hotel photos submitted by travelers will allow police to query the database to determine where the pictures of victims were taken.

TraffickCam now has more than 1.5 million images of hotels across the world, thanks to support from the public.

The idea for the app is merging of ideas between researchers at Washington University and the Exchange Initiative, a non-profit formed by Nix Conference and Meeting Management. A few years ago, police sought the help of Nix staff to identify the specific hotel where a victim was trafficked.

“It was a photo that they had from the internet,” Nix Principal Molly Hackett said. “One of the girls in our office knew exactly what it was.”

The Exchange Initiative created the app, which Hackett said is widely used by her staff. But use of the app isn’t limited to her line of work.

“It’s great that everyday citizens can do everyday things by taking a picture help stop sex trafficking,” Hackett added.

The internet has made it easier for criminals to engage in sex trafficking and child exploitation, Sgt. Adam Kavanaugh with St. Louis County Police said. Kavanaugh is the deputy commander of the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

He said detectives are noticing an increase in younger victims.

“The average age, when we talk to our girls that we deal with, most of them have started at 13, 14 years old. And most of them have been sexually abused as children,” he said.

He said he is optimistic the new technological tool will make a difference.

“I think it’s going to be crucial to help us identify not only where they’re at now, but where they’ve been at. Which is something we need – that’s helps with prosecution.”

TraffickCam is free and available for iPhone, iPads, and Android devices.

Rav Shmuel Kaminetsy - unapologetically responsible for adultery - is honored with a sefer Torah - "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

Watch video!

Hi,

I just saw this clip and there are no words to describe it other than unreal.

http://matzav.com/watch-hachnosas-sefer-torah-at-philadelphia-yeshiva-in-honor-of-rav-shmuel-kamenetsky/

What is wrong with our chareidi world today is everything literally upside down? I just don't understand it, there is a woman continuing to commit adultery because of him and they write a sefer torah to honor him. Am I missing something here??

========================
Below is a letter from Rav Steinman to Rav Kaminetsky

kvod harav 

do you recall any letters sent from e'y rabbonim to the hundreds of  hachnasas sifrei torah a year that take place in the USA or is this some political eishes ish letter??????

Esti Weinstein: Channel 10 Reporter says that the Secular Media has maligned Chareidim with false accusations and reporting

Arutz 7   Channel 10 news reporter Avishai Ben-Haim, who works very closely with the haredi community (but is not haredi himself), thinks the press has committed a grave injustice in its coverage of the suicide of Esti Weinstein, saying that "basically everything you've heard about haredi wickedness in this matter is untrue."

Weinstein was found dead in her car on Sunday after years of estrangement from her Gerrer hassidic family, and her story continues to make waves in Israeli public discourse. The circumstances surrounding the tragic event have sparked debate about the Gerrer hassidic community, its social norms and practices (especially as pertains to the treatment of women), and attitudes within religious circles to those who leave religious observance.

Weinstein left a will explaining her reasons for taking her own life and a tell-all book about her life story. She accuses the Gerrer community of forbidding her children from having any contact with her once she left religious observance, and cites the disconnect from her family as the main cause of her emotional suffering, leading to her suicide. Many in the press have put the blame for the tragedy squarely on Weinstein's family and the Gerrer hassidic and wider haredi community in general. The veteran channel 10 reporter thinks this is grossly unfair.[...]

Ben-Haim opens with his impressions from the funeral itself:

"This is what injustice looks like. We came to Esti Weinstein's funeral today expecting to meet her evil and cold-hearted family and instead met a noble and sensitive family, we heard a eulogy from a loving haredi father and an explanation and request for forgiveness from a hurting haredi daughter.

"All of this means that we need to rewrite the entire story of the past 48 hours and tell the truth: everything you heard about the wickedness of the haredi side was a lie."

The Channel 10 reporter then goes into detail, discussing individual claims made in the press, going point by point through the events, in chronological order:

"Something about this seemed fishy to me from the beginning. First it was claimed that the haredi family members were going to snatch the body to bury it on their own terms. I called and spoke with the family. They were shocked by the idea, 'Of course not! Heaven forbid!'. I don't need to tell you that no one actually tried to snatch the body.

"Next they said that Weinstein's daughters broke off contact from their mother because of a cruel order from the Admor [leader of a hassidic community]. I called again, I spoke with the family, and they swore that there was no directive from the Admor and explained that this was not a religious issue at all, merely a human one. The girls were angry at their beloved mother who simply up and left them one day 7 years ago. Hence the estrangement.

"Afterwards they said that the haredim are demanding she be buried outside of the cemetery walls. I called, spoke with the family, and they were shocked by the idea, 'she was a good mother, we love her. We never had any such plans.'

"Then they said that they don't intend to sit Shiva [week-long mourning period in Jewish law] for Esti. I called, spoke with the family, they were shocked by that idea too. No such thing had ever crossed their minds.

"Next, they said that the family is demanding a small and quick haredi funeral that will demean Esti's memory. I called. Spoke with the family. They said this was untrue and that they had every intention of honoring their late mother's wishes, having already made clear that they have no problem with there being flowers and songs at the funeral [as per Weinstein's instructions in her will].

"Then the courts were petitioned to make sure that the funeral will be held with a secular atmosphere (not that songs and flowers really make a funeral 'secular'), and it was reported that the secular side won as the court ruled against the haredi family. But the haredi family never sent anyone to the hearing to contest any of this and wasn't even part of any fight. They didn't want to fight about this and there was no need to 'beat them' in court, for as I've already written, the family wanted to honor Esti's non-haredi wishes.

"After that, it was claimed that the family was boycotting the funeral, which would indeed be the height of cruelty. But then... well, then we saw a large group of haredi Gerrer hassidic women arriving at the funeral, sobbing, and sad Gerrer hassidic men, all standing to the side, quietly and politely, and waiting for the time when they will be able to take part in the proceedings. We heard the father eulogizing his daughter, and the eldest daughter Raheli eulogizing her mother. No haredi told Raheli that she wasn't allowed to speak in this kind of forum because she's a girl.

"It was then that I understood that this week, a grave injustice was committed among the Jewish people." [...]

Ben-Haim's post ends with a quote of the full text of Weinstein's eldest daughter's eulogy, excerpts from which were available before the funeral and were published by Arutz Sheva.

Rav Yitzchok Isaac Sher's view of marriage - the importance of human love (regarding criticism of Gerrer Takanos/Esti Weinstein)

I first published this on 3/30/15. I am republishing this because of the current discussion of the Gerrer Takanos in connection to Esti Weinstein. The criticism of the Takanos is discussed in detail in the following article by Prof. Brown

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The following is from   Kedushah: SEXUAL ABSTINENCE IN HASIDIC GROUPS by Prof Benny Brown. The pamphlet from Rav Scher is found on Hebrew Books
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The Hazon Ish probably wrote this letter in Bnei Brak in the early 1950s. At approximately the same time and in the same place, another Litvish rabbi, R. Yitshak Isaac Sher (1881–1952), the head of the prestigious Slobodka yeshivah, wrote an article entitled Kedushat yisra’el [the Holiness of the Jewish People], which dealt somewhat more bluntly with the same sensitive issue.[...]

Rabbi Sher begins by drawing attention to an apparent controversy between Maimonides and Nahmanides, the former condemning sexual desire and the latter condoning it as holy. Rabbi Sher concludes that there is no real disagreement between them: sexual desire, like all other physical desires, is natural and should be condemned only if it is indulged by way of excessive pleasures, but it is holy when it functions within the boundaries set by the Torah, namely, in order to fulfill the commandment of onah. He proceeds to analyze the views of Rashi and Nahmanides on the matter, concluding as follows:

One does not observe the mitsvah [of onah] properly if one performs it only in order to fulfill one’s obligation. [. . .] In truth, he who performs coition without ardor violates [the commandment] “her duty of marriage [= onah] shall he not diminish” (Ex. 21:10).78 [. . .] Just as it is prohibited to abstain altogether from the act itself, which is the husband’s duty of onah in respect of his wife, so it is prohibited to refrain from physical intimacy with her, which is what the wife craves—to enjoy her physical intimacy with her husband. This entails desire that goes beyond what is required for [the performance of] the act itself. The husband is commanded to satisfy her desire as she pleases. And see [B.] YevamotOne does not observe the mitsvah [of onah] properly if one performs it only in order to fulfill one’s obligation. [. . .] In truth, he who performs coition without ardor violates [the  commandment] “her duty of marriage [= onah] shall he not diminish” (Ex.21:10).78 [. . .] Just as it is prohibited to abstain altogether from the act itself, which is the husband’s duty of onah in respect of  his wife, so it is prohibited to refrain from physical intimacy with her, which is what the wife craves—to enjoy her physical intimacywith her husband. This entails desire that goes beyond what is required for [the performance of] the act itself. The husband is commanded to satisfy her desire as she pleases. And see [B.] YevamotOne does not observe the mitsvah [of onah] properly if one performs it only in order to fulfill one’s obligation. [. . .]

 In truth, he who performs coition without ardor violates [the commandment] “her duty of marriage [= onah] shall he not diminish” (Ex.21:10).78 [. . .] Just as it is prohibited to abstain altogether from the act itself, which is the husband’s duty of onah in respect of his wife, so it is prohibited to refrain from physical intimacy with her, which is what the wife craves—to enjoy her physical intimacy with her husband. This entails desire that goes beyond what is required for [the performance of] the act itself. The husband is commanded to satisfy her desire as she pleases. And see [B.] Yevamot 62 and Pesahim 72, where it is stated explicitly that whenever she desires and yearns for her husband—this is her [rightful] onah, even if it exceeds the prescribed minimum.

Rabbi Sher goes on to attack the hasidic understanding of kedushah:

I have heard that some pretended God-fearing and pious men [mithasedim] take great care to fulfill this mitsvah for the sake of Heaven, without any desire.80 Such a person would busy himself half the night with Torah and prayer [. . .] and only then, aftermidnight, would he come home and wake up his wife, prattle to her placatingly in order to fulfill this mitsvah. [Naturally,] she allows him to do with her as he pleases, and he is proud of having managed to fulfill this commandment without [succumbing to] the evil inclination, [namely], without any impure lust. He later wonders why the sons he has produced in this way have turned out to be wicked or stupid!81 Surely, the reason is the false belief that it is wrong to perform the commandment [of onah] with desire, whereas [the truth is that] a son conceived without desire turns out to be foolish, as is well known, and when intercourse takes place without the wife’s full consent or desire, that is, when she would rather be asleep and is angry with her husband for disturbing her and doing with her as he pleases rather than as she pleases, then he violates a Torah prohibition, and his sons will possess the nine evil traits82 of the rebellious and sinful.

The Children of Israel, he contends, are so holy that they are able to “delight themselves in the Lord”84 through eating and coitus, just as Adam had done before the Sin of Eden.85 For the Lord wishes his children to “delight themselves in His goodness.” This is why they are able to perform physical acts “for the sake of Heaven,” while those who endeavor to shun the physical pleasure of sexual intercourse end up diminished mentally and spiritually. For even if they declare in advance that they intend to perform the sexual act only in order to fulfill the commandment of onah, they know all too well that when it comes to the act itself, they are bound to be distracted from their purpose by the inevitable stirring of their natural desire, and they end up performing the whole act lustfully.86 To convince the hasidim that his understanding of the matter is correct, Rabbi Sher appeals to their view of themselves as heirs to the kabbalistic tradition by adducing a series of quotations from the Zohar to corroborate his position.[...]

As an adherent of the Musar movement (musarnik), which developed in the Lithuanian yeshivot in the late nineteenth century and called for ethical self-improvement, R. Sher acknowledges that the couple achieve sanctification by ensuring that during coitus they focus on nothing other than the ethical and religious significance of the act. He takes this significance to be (a) the creation of a new human being, which resembles the work of God; (b) the union of male and female in the image of God, by which, “through the power of desire,” they come to resemble Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; and (c) a means of enhancing their love for each other, which is not only a virtue in itself but also serves to enhance their love of God and of their fellow human beings. He admits, however, that the virtue of love “is not properly developed among us [the haredim]. Those who have claimed in their learned books that marital love is contingent on transient factors (ahavah hateluyah badavar)”88 are wrong. “For surely, this love is natural, and it is a mitsvah to enhance and develop it properly,” which includes the husband’s obligation to satisfy his wife whenever she desires him.

It is for this reason, Rabbi Sher contends, that when the couple come together, the husband must address his wife in a way that conveys not only “awe, piety, and chastity,” but also tenderness, affection, and erotic love (agavim). He clearly anticipates the reader’s astonishment at the latter: “The
point of erotic love seems difficult to understand,” but he quotes the Zohar and Maimonides to bolster his argument that the husband must speak to his wife explicitly even “about her [physical] beauty.”

Without expressly mentioning the Gerer hasidim, he condemns what he calls the bad habits arising from a common misunderstanding of the ideal of kedushah:

As for the bad habits that many of them have adopted in error, believing that in order to maintain themselves in holiness they must  refrain from talking to their wives—the rabbis must strive to make them realize that this kind of holiness is the very essence of impurity [. . .] and that the husband must speak to his wife, addressing her with wondrously affectionate words of placation. [...]

   Kedushas Yisroel by Rav Y I Sher

Esti Weinstein - formerly religious Gerrer chasid - commits suicide because of the loss of her daughters she abandoned

Arutz 7   As ever more reactions pour in throughout the haredi world in the wake of the suicide of Esti Weinstein--who was found dead in her car in Ashdod after a week-long search--in a tragedy that has garnered much attention in the wider Israeli public due to its backstory, a more important perspective, that of Weinstein's estranged children, has now been offered.

Weinstein left the Gerrer hassidic community and religious observance several years ago, leading to a complete break of contact with 6 of her 7 daughters, in an estrangement allegedly enforced by Gerrer community leaders.

The late mother left a note and a will on her computer, explaining that the cause of her decision to commit suicide was the estrangement from her children. She also left a book detailing her entire life story in which she makes severe allegations against Gerrer leaders and norms, and asked that it be disseminated in every way possible, mentioning in the will that she wants "as many "Dossim" [slang term for religious or haredi people] to read it." [...]

The husband of one of Weinstein's daughters had the following to say: "You can't blame little girls who get angry at their mother in this kind of situation. It's a normal thing, a human story, something that happens the world over. I don't think it's anything that should be brought in support of any one side's agenda."

In response to the question of whether the daughters broke off contact with their mother for religious reasons, the son-in-law said that "they broke off contact because of this unsolved mystery: a mother who abandons her children. It's very possible she had right on her side, it's very possible that no one was right here, the bottom line is you can't blame the angry reaction of daughters abandoned by their mother."

Ben-Chaim also published a eulogy written by one of the daughters:

"Mother, we will remember and never forget the years in which you raised us. We well always remember the way you walked with us glowing with pride, seven amazing girls."

"We will remember and never forget the sudden, bitter day when you abandoned us. We begged for explanations, we asked to come with you, but you turned your back on our feelings. Little girls who were just abandoned one day and have no mother to explain things to them and pick up the pieces."

"Mother, mother, we will always remember and not forget. I understand there are things we couldn't take back, but now you can watch us from above, listen, and understand everything that the people around us didn't. But the most important thing is that you forgive us now."

What One Rape Cost Our Family

NY Times   WHEN people hear about campus sexual assaults, they rarely understand the true impact such an attack has on the survivor and her family. But I do.

In the spring of 2013, my daughter, Willa, was raped by a fellow student at her college in Washington, D.C. A freshman at the time, she did not tell anyone until a year later. Meanwhile, she developed post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, depression and an addiction to alcohol. And while she chose not to file criminal charges — out of fear of being traumatized again — she struggled so much after the attack that ultimately she had to leave school.

It would be impossible for me to describe in the space of a newspaper article the emotional toll this took on Willa and our family: the grief we felt that our child’s body (and soul) had been violated; the anger that we (and the college) could not protect her; the fear that our once spirited, ambitious daughter might never be more than a shell of herself. But I can offer, by way of illustration, a financial reckoning — collateral damage that demonstrates the devastation, and that rarely comes up in the national discussion on campus sexual assaults.

The financial burdens of an attack can be overwhelming. A 2014 White House report noted that the cost to survivors (of all types, not just college students) can range from $87,000 to $240,776 per rape. While the numbers are staggering, they seem abstract until your family is the one paying the bills. In our case, they were on the higher end of the range, and included the following:[...]

There were other expenses too, but the ones I’ve listed add up to $100,573.63 out of pocket, and approximately $145,000 in lost wages, for a total of $245,573.63. That’s roughly the same as the cost of four years at one of the nation’s top colleges.

I should be clear: I would have done anything, made any financial sacrifices, to see the light again in my daughter’s eyes (which is there now, thanks to Willa’s hard work and the many caring professionals who helped her). I recently went through a divorce, however, and my former husband and I are writers, not investment bankers. These are big costs for us; at times, we had to borrow from family or retirement funds, or use proceeds from the sale of the house we gave up in the divorce.

We’re fortunate to have top-tier health insurance, which helped defray many of the costs. But this is still an extraordinary amount of money, and I often wonder how survivors from less privileged backgrounds recover from these attacks. It’s not a hypothetical question.

According to a 2015 survey at 27 universities by the Association of American Universities, 11.7 percent of all students (including men) reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact, by force or incapacitation, since enrolling at their university, and the incidence among undergraduate females was 23 percent.

These costs are enormous for any rape survivor, not just those who suffered a campus sexual assault. For our family, they continue to accrue. [...]

Oh Boy: Was A National Security Position Given As Payback To A Clinton Foundation Donor?

Townhall   This is a very strange article since it is based on reporting done  by the "leftwing newsmedia" ABC which several commentators have stated have ignored anything negative about Hillary.

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It seems as if anything is up for sale if you give enough money to the Clinton Foundation, even positions on a national security intelligence board that has access to top-secret information. Meet Rajiv K. Fernando, a big donor to Clinton, Democrats, and the family foundation, was given a spot on the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board in 2011, even though he had zero experience in the field. He has since resigned from the board after ABC News launched an inquiry into his appointment. The first thing that they asked for from the State Department was his resume. Emails obtained by Citizens United after a 2-year Freedom of Information Act battle with the State Department showed that Clinton’s staffers were instructed to “stall” and “protect the name” of Mrs. Clinton from the news organization’s review of this appointment. One member told ABC, “We had no idea who he was.”

ABC News’ Brian Ross was threatened with arrest for merely asking Fernando about his appointment during the 2012 Democratic National Convention. He added that Clinton promised Foundation donors would not be given special treatment during her confirmation hearings to become secretary of state (via ABC News) [...]

Before suicide, woman penned book about her ordeals in ultra-Orthodox world

Times of Israel


A formerly ultra-Orthodox woman, who was found dead in her car on Sunday after apparently taking her own life days earlier, had written a short autobiography describing the rigors of living within the Gur Hasidic sect and the pain she felt when her daughters cut ties with her over her choice to give up religion.

Eight years ago Weinstein, who had seven daughters, chose to leave the ultra-Orthodox fold, in which she had grown up and which had seen her married at 17.

Trump campaign falsely claims that State Department gave $55.2 million to Laureate Education after hiring Bill Clinton

Washington Post   “As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton laundered money to Bill Clinton through Laureate Education, while Bill Clinton was an honorary chairman of the group. Clinton’s State Department provided $55.2 million in grants to Laureate Education from 2010-2012. Laureate thanked Bill for providing unbelievable access to the Secretary of State by paying him off $16.5 million. This is yet another example of how Clinton treated the State Department as her own personal hedge fund, and sold out the American public to fund her lavish lifestyle.”   –Donald Trump campaign, email response to Hillary Clinton’s speech, June 21, 2016
The Trump campaign sent out a series of email and Twitter responses during Hillary Clinton’s speech attacking his business record, and among them was this claim that came to our attention. As usual, the Trump campaign did not respond to our request for supporting information. During his speech the next day attacking Clinton’s record as secretary of state, Trump repeated the charge that Clinton treated the State Department as her “personal hedge fund” with no evidence to back it up, either.

This talking point traces back to information from Peter Schweizer’s book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.” In one chapter, in discussing Bill Clinton’s role with Laureate Education, Inc., Schweizer describes a “Clinton blur” between the activities of Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. But critics, including Schweizer, have not been able to prove quid pro quo.

The short answer here is: Laureate Education Inc. did not receive $55.2 million in grants from the State Department while Bill Clinton was being paid by the company. This talking point actually conflates two organizations that are independent of each other, and is worth unraveling for our readers. So we explored it.[...]

Why do some blame rape victims while others blame the rapist?- Why do some people shoot the messenger and protect the transgressor?

The following article offers an interesting explanation of why there are diverse reactions in a wide ranger of situations in labeling who the good guy is and who is the bad guy. Why are some rape victims supported and others are harshly attacked for causing problems for the rapist. Likewise - why do someone people attack the messenger when it is pointed out that some rabbis and even gedolim have committed significant crimes and others view it as a acting according to what halacha and thus G-d wants? The authors argue that it depends largely on whether the prime value is group unity or the focus on the well being of the individual

NY Times

IF you are mugged on a midnight stroll through the park, some people will feel compassion for you, while others will admonish you for being there in the first place. If you are raped by an acquaintance after getting drunk at a party, some will be moved by your misfortune, while others will ask why you put yourself in such a situation.

What determines whether someone feels sympathy or scorn for the victim of a crime? Is it a function of political affiliation? Of gender? Of the nature of the crime?

In a recent series of studies, we found that the critical factor lies in a particular set of moral values. Our findings, published on Thursday in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, show that the more strongly you privilege loyalty, obedience and purity — as opposed to values such as care and fairness — the more likely you are to blame the victim.

These two sets of values have been the object of much scholarly attention. Psychologists have found that when it comes to morality, some people privilege promoting the care of others and preventing unfair behaviors. These are “individualizing values,” as they can apply to any individual. Other people privilege loyalty, obedience and purity. These are “binding values,” as they promote the cohesion of your particular group or clan.

Binding and individualizing values are not mutually exclusive, and people have varying degrees of both. But psychologists have discovered that the extent to which you favor one relative to the other predicts various things about you. For example, the more strongly you identify with individualizing values, the more likely you are to be politically progressive; the more strongly you identify with binding values, the more likely you are to be politically conservative.

Our animating insight was that these two clusters of values entail different conceptions of victims. Proponents of individualizing values tend to see a dyad of victim and perpetrator (a victim is hurt, a perpetrator does the hurting). Proponents of binding values, however, may see behaviors as immoral even when there is no obvious victim — for example, the “impure” act of premarital sex or the “disloyal” act of flag burning — and may even feel that doing the right thing sometimes requires hurting others (as with honor killings, to pick an extreme example). So we hypothesized that support for binding values would correlate with a greater tendency to blame victims. [...]

Consistent with our previous findings, the more participants endorsed binding values, the more blame they assigned to victims and the less blame they assigned to perpetrators. But we also found that focusing their attention on the perpetrator led to reduced ratings of victim blame, victim responsibility and references to victims’ actions, whereas a focus on victims led to greater victim blaming. This was surprising: You might assume that focusing on victims elicits more sympathy for them, but our results suggest that it may have the opposite effect.

Victim blaming appears to be deep-seated, rooted in core moral values, but also somewhat malleable, susceptible to subtle changes in language. For those looking to increase sympathy for victims, a practical first step may be to change how we talk: Focusing less on victims and more on perpetrators — “Why did he think he had license to rape?” rather than “Imagine what she must be going through” — may be a more effective way of serving justice.

Cameras are being put in Jerusalem mikvehs to stop abuse: Increasing transparency at what price?

Kikar HaShabbat

בשל החשש מאירועי תקיפות אכזריות של ילדים ונערים בחדרי המקוואות בירושלים, החליטו במשמרת הצניעות להתקין מצלמות אבטחה במספר מקוואות בעיר.

את הצילומים של מצלמות האבטחה יכולים לראות שלושה רבנים בלבד וזאת תחת מעטה כבד של אבטחה.

על פי הדיווח ב'ידיעות ירושלים', מצלמות האבטחה הותקנו בסמוך לבורות הטבילה, המקלחות וחדרי ההלבשה והסאונה.

המקווה הראשון והמפורסם בעיר בו הותקנו מצלמות האבטחה הוא מקווה 'שומרי החומות'. מי שרשאים לצפות בצילומים הם שלושה רבנים שצריכים להתכנס יחד במקרה שהוגשה תלונה על פגיעה בילד. השלושה יצטרכו להיכנס אל המערכת באמצעות 'טביעת אצבע'.

Breslov Hashkofa: You can't be saved unless you accept Rav Nachman!

See specifically:

The beginning

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The Coming Constitutional Crisis Over Hillary Clinton’s EmailGate

Observer   Suddenly things were aligning perfectly for Hillary Clinton in her quest for the presidency. After months of embarrassing inability to vanquish Senator Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old socialist who represents a state with just two-tenths of a percent of the American population, she wrapped up her party’s nomination for the White House. The Democratic convention in Philadelphia next month will be a formality, no matter how loudly Bernie Bros stomp their feet.

To cap that triumph last week, President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton as their party’s nominee for 2016. While this, too, was a formality, since Mr. Obama was eventually going to endorse her—no matter how much bad blood lingers between them from the 2008 race—it was satisfying to her supporters, if perhaps overdue.

The president’s praising assessment of Clinton, including “I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office,” should go a long way toward unifying their party as she faces her Republican opponent, presumably Donald Trump, this autumn.

Obama’s praise was salve on the wounds Clinton recently suffered at the hands of the State Department over EmailGate. The long-awaited report by the Office of the Inspector General at Foggy Bottom can be fairly termed scathing and, as I assessed in this column, it leaves no doubt that Hillary Clinton systematically dodged a raft of laws and regulations on the keeping of Federal records and the handling of classified information.

Worse, the IG report leaves no doubt that Clinton has lied profligately about EmailGate from the moment the scandal broke over a year ago. Since the State Department, which Clinton headed during President Obama’s first term, cannot plausibly be painted as part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that Team Clinton sees lurking behind every piece of bad press, this report caused real damage to Hillary’s presidential campaign.

True to form, she began punching back herself and through surrogates. Their main talking point—that EmailGate remains a nothing-burger, a figment of the overheated FoxNews imagination more than a bona fide story—continues to be peddled daily. As she confidently said to the cameras last week, there’s “zero chance” she will be indicted over EmailGate, no matter what the FBI finds in its still-active investigation of the matter.

For good measure, Clinton stated for the umpteenth time, “nothing I sent or received at the time was marked classified.” This dodge has been employed for a year as cover by Team Clinton to explain how so much classified information, including at least two dozen emails classified top secret or higher, among them enormously sensitive special access programs from both CIA and NSA, wound up in Clinton’s “unclassified” private email. [...]

To make matters worse for Hillary, it recently emerged that at least one of the emails she handed over to investigators under subpoena in fact did contain classified information that was marked as such. The April 2012 email chain discusses an impending phone call with Malawi’s new president. The important part is an email from Monica Hanley, an aide, to Clinton, including the “call sheet” for the secretary. In layman’s terms, this was a note for Secretary Clinton telling her what she needed to discuss during her scheduled phone conversation with a foreign head of state.[...]

In reality, nobody goes to jail for mishandling classified information at the Confidential level. However, the Hanley email proves that Hillary’s staff was emailing her classified information in unclassified channels, that it was marked classified, and that it was transiting Clinton’s personal email server. It’s difficult to believe that a mere aide like Monica Hanley decided to break the law like this, as she surely knew she was, on her own initiative.[...]

Last week the Associated Press broke a big story about how Clinton’s “unclassified” emails included the true names of CIA personnel serving overseas under cover. This was hardly news, in fact I broke the same story four months ago in this column. However, the AP account adds detail to what Clinton and her staff did, actions that placed the lives of CIA clandestine personnel at risk. It also may be a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a 1982 law that featured prominently in the mid-aughts scandal surrounding CIA officer Valerie Plame, which so captivated the mainstream media. More recently, former CIA officer John Kiriakou spent two years in Federal prison for violating this law.

To make matters worse for Team Clinton, last week it emerged that several of the classified emails under investigation involved discussions of impending CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Clinton aides were careful to avoid hot-button words like “CIA” and “drone” in these “unclassified” emails, engaging in a practice that spies term “talking around” an issue.[....]

How the FBI can look at all this and not recommend prosecution of someone for something in EmailGate strains the imagination. Yet President Obama has clearly signaled that it’s all no big deal. Director James Comey has a tough job before him when he takes the FBI’s official recommendations regarding EmailGate to Attorney General Lynch for action, probably sometime this summer. Since Comey is now under a cloud over the FBI’s embarrassing mishandling of Omar Mateen, the Orlando jihadist mass murderer, perhaps his resignation over that matter would be welcome in the White House, which then could find a new director more willing to bend to Obama’s wishes.

Make no mistake, there are more than a few senior intelligence officials in Washington, DC, who are livid about Hillary Clinton’s willful disregard of clearly defined laws on the handling of classified information. Her misconduct endangered sensitive intelligence programs—and lives. Even if Comey is a sacrificial lamb here, there are high-ranking spies who are perfectly willing to leak the sordid details of EmailGate to the media if the president pulls a Dick Nixon and tries to subvert our Constitution to protect himself and his designated successor.[...]

Trump: The braggart with the ducktail who would be president

Chicago Tribune   by Garrison Keillor

It is the most famous ducktail in America today, the hairdo of wayward youth of a bygone era, and it's astonishing to imagine it under the spotlight in Cleveland, being cheered by Republican dignitaries. The class hood, the bully and braggart, the guy revving his pink Chevy to make the pipes rumble, presiding over the student council. This is the C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil and smirked when you asked him to stop. That smirk is now on every front page in America. It is not what anybody — left, right or center — looks for in a president. There's no philosophy here, just an attitude.

He is a little old for a ducktail. By the age of 70, most ducks have moved on, but not Donald Trump. He is apparently still fond of the sidewalls and the duck's ass in back and he is proud as can be of his great feat, the first punk candidate to get this close to the White House. He says the country is run by a bunch of clowns and that he is going to make things great again and beat up on the outsiders who are coming into our neighborhood. His followers don't necessarily believe that — what they love about him is what kids loved about Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, the fact that he horrifies the powers that be and when you are pro-duck you are giving the finger to Congress, the press, clergy, lawyers, teachers, cake-eaters, big muckety-mucks, VIPs, all those people who think they're better than you — you have the power to scare the pants off them, and that's what this candidate does better than anybody else.

After the worst mass shooting in modern American history on Sunday, 50 persons dead in Orlando, the bodies still being carted from the building, the faces of horror-stricken cops and EMTs on TV, the gentleman issued a statement on Twitter thanking his followers for their congratulations, that the tragedy showed that he had been "right" in calling for America to get "tough."

Anyone else would have expressed sorrow. The gentleman expressed what was in his heart, which was personal pride.

We had a dozen or so ducktails in my high school class and they were all about looks. The hooded eyes, the sculpted swoop of the hair, the curled lip. They emulated Elvis but only the look, not the talent. Their sole ambition was to make an impression, to slouch gracefully and exhale in an artful manner. In the natural course of things, they struggled after graduation. Some tried law enforcement for the prestige of it, others became barflies. If they were drafted, the Army got them shaped up in a month or two. Eventually, they all calmed down, got hitched up to a mortgage, worried about their blood pressure, lost the chippiness, let their hair down. But if his dad was rich and if he was born before you were, then the ducktail could inherit enough wealth to be practically impervious to public opinion. This has happened in New York City. A man who could never be elected city comptroller is running for president. [...]

Joeseph Hirt confesses he is an imposter and lied for years claiming to have been in Auschwitz

CBS News    A 91-year-old Pennsylvania man who has for years lectured to school groups and others about what he said were his experiences at Auschwitz now says he was never a prisoner at the German death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Joseph Hirt, of Adamstown, made the admission in a letter to LNP newspaper Wednesday. He said he used poor judgment and faulty reasoning in trying to tell the story of those affected by the Nazis.

"I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz," Hirt wrote. "I was not a prisoner there. I did not intend to lessen or overshadow the events which truly happened there by falsely claiming to have been personally involved."

Hirt's admission came weeks after his story of escaping from Auschwitz was questioned by Andrew Reid, a history teacher in Turin, New York. Reid and several students attended an April presentation by Hirt and the educator concluded that many of the speaker's claims didn't add up.[...]

In his letter, Hirt recounted a visit he made to Auschwitz several years after World War II and said he was determined "at that moment to prevent the loss of the truth" about life and death at the concentration camp.

He said he was wrong to lie to discuss the "the important truth of the suffering and death of so many" at the hands of the Nazis. Hirt said he was wrong and asked for forgiveness.