Child Abuse - Hikind subpoenaed

Jewish Week reports

State Assembly member Dov Hikind was subpoenaed Monday to provide testimony and files he has compiled about rabbis and yeshiva employees who have allegedly sexually abused children under their charge, and rabbinic leaders who may have protected the abusers.[...]
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NYTimes reports:

Since last year, when Assemblyman Dov Hikind invited his radio show listeners to discuss an explosive topic — sexual abuse of children in the Orthodox Jewish community — he says he has collected more than 1,000 complaints and the names of 60 accused sexual predators.

He has kept those stories under lock and key in his Brooklyn office, he says, because the people who said they were victims had sworn him to secrecy, fearful of becoming outcasts in a community where perceived troublemakers risk losing employment, housing and even marriage prospects.

But a prominent lawyer representing a half dozen former yeshiva students who say in a civil lawsuit that they were sexually abused by a teacher in Borough Park, Brooklyn, had Mr. Hikind served with a subpoena this week, demanding that he surrender those files.

Mr. Hikind has refused. “I will go to jail for 10 years first,” he said on Wednesday.[...]

“I’ve been shocked and overwhelmed at the magnitude of the problem,” said Mr. Hikind, an Orthodox Jew and a Democrat who represents the predominantly Orthodox community of Borough Park.

The victims have come to his office in a steady stream to tell their stories, he said. “Abusive teachers and rabbis in the schools,” he said. “Pedophiles on the streets. Incest in the home.”

Michael G. Dowd, the lawyer who had Mr. Hikind served with the subpoena, has been a leading advocate for plaintiffs who say they were abused by Roman Catholic priests. He represents six men who say they were abused by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, a teacher at Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Brooklyn. Rabbi Kolko, who was charged with sexual abuse in 2006, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and has left the school.

Mr. Dowd’s subpoena demands that the assemblyman turn over not just complaints that Mr. Hikind may have received against Rabbi Kolko, but “any and all reports of sexual abuse at any yeshiva and/or by any rabbi or employee of a yeshiva in New York City.” Mr. Dowd said they were crucial to proving his clients’ contention that sexual abuse was commonplace and routinely covered up by administrators in yeshivas.

He described Mr. Hikind’s refusal as “misguided.” While he said that he planned to have the subpoena enforced, he also said that he understood the reluctance to cross the powers that be in the Orthodox community. “The lead rabbis have the kind of power to shut people up that the Catholic Church had 50, 60 years ago,” he said.

Mr. Hikind said that every complaint he received was in complete confidence, with the understanding that “under no circumstances would their names be known in the community.”

“There is no way in the world, when people have come to me and spilled their hearts out to me, and shared the most intimate and private things with me, hoping I will do something to address the larger, overall issue, that I would ever betray their trust,” he said.[...]

Mr. Hikind said that of all the people who said they had been victims, “99 percent would not go to the police under any circumstances — that is just the reality.”

But Joel Engelman, 23, who grew up in the Orthodox community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and who helped found a group of victims called Survivors for Justice, said that while “well-intentioned,” Mr. Hikind had a classic misunderstanding about sexual predators that is embedded in insular communities like the Catholic priesthood or the Orthodox world. “The community cannot police itself,” he said. “This has been shown again and again.”

In his own case, Mr. Engelman said, a complaint he brought to the attention of administrators at the United Talmudical Academy against a teacher who sexually violated him when he was 8 years old led to the teacher’s brief suspension and subsequent reinstatement. Mr. Engelman has since brought a civil suit against the teacher and the school.

Prof. Marci Hamilton, a visiting professor at the Yeshiva University School of Law and an expert in sexual abuse by religious leaders, said Mr. Hikind’s refusal to turn over the names of alleged predators, if not his entire case file, was “outrageous.”

She said that Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, “should already have convened a grand jury” to investigate.

Jerry Schmetterer, Mr. Hynes’s spokesman, said, “If someone has information about a sex crime, he or she should bring that information to our sex crimes unit, and we will investigate what needs to be investigated.”

Secular Education & dropouts/ R Yakov Horowtiz

In strong contrast to Rav Dessler's approach

R' Yakov Horowitz writes:

It is certainly reasonable for one to make the case that due to the rapidly eroding moral culture in the world around us, it is necessary and prudent to safeguard our children from its negative effects. But it is one thing to shield your children from the Internet or television,and entirely another to raise them lacking the rudimentary skills to earn a living. Many point to individuals who became fabulously wealthy without a command of their native language. But they are just that.Individuals. The brutal reality is that most people who are poorly educated struggle mightily to earn a living and support their families– and this applies even or especially to those who plan on entering chinuch or rabbonus. Expecting to strike it rich with limited education is analogous to a 15-year-old dribbling a basketball and dreaming of playing in the National Basketball Association. A few make it while the others. . .well, . . . they don’t.

A close friend of mine owns a business in an area with a large charedi population and is always looking to provide avrechim with jobs.His ‘entrance exam’ is rather simple. He gives prospective applicants a pad and paper and asks them to write two paragraphs in English expressing the reasons they would like to land a job in his company,and then to turn on a computer and type those lines. His thinking is that if an applicant cannot perform those two tasks, they are useless to him in his business. Suffice it to say that this would probably be my last column in Mishpacha if I shared with you the percentage of applicants he turns away because they cannot do that.

In more than twenty-five years of dealing with at-risk teens I have not noticed a lower drop-out rate among kids who are raised in more sheltered environments. In fact, my experience leads me to support the observation made by my colleague Reb Yonasan Rosenblum, in a number of columns in these pages over the past few years, that out-of-town children have a lower drop-out rate than those who are raised in very sheltered communities.

What is indisputably a colossal risk factor, for marital discord and kids abandoning Yiddishkeit, is poverty. With that in mind, it is my strong and growing feeling, that not educating your children nowadays, and overly sheltering them from acquiring basic general studies skills, dramatically raises the risk factor that your grandchildren will be raised in stressful, unhappy homes – and more vulnerable to all the negative influences we wish to shield them from.

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Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l wrote:

שו"ת אגרות משה יורה דעה חלק ג סימן פא

יסוד ישיבות תיכוניות ביוראפ /באירופה/ בע"ה ער"ח כסלו תשל"ח נוא יארק מע"כ מנהלי הקהילה,,, שלמכון יסגא לעלם.

הנה בדבר ענין יסוד ישיבות שנקראים תיכונים, היינו שלומדים שם עם התלמידים גם למודי חול במדינות יוראפ, שידוע שיש מקומות ואופנים שהוא מוכרח מצד מצב החינוך שאי אפשר בלא זה מאיזה טעם שיהיה, אם מצד ההורים אם מצד התלמידים שאם לא יהיו למודי חול תחת השגחת יראי השי"ת וראשי הישיבה איזה זמן קצר, ילכו לגמרי לבתי ספר המדינה אשר הוא כהסרה לגמרי מעם ה' ומתורתנו הקדושה, ואם ילמדו במוסד ישיבה תיכונית תחת השגחת ראשי הישיבה ויראי השי"ת ורק זמן קצר אחרי למוד שעות הרבה ביום בלמוד התורה ילמדו למודי חול, יהיו בני תורה ויראי השי"ת. ויש מקומות שאין שום צורך בזה אשר ודאי אסור ליסד שם ישיבות תיכונים, ואפילו אם יש צורך לאיזה תלמידים מועטים אין ליסד. ולכן אין בידנו מרחוק המקום להורות בדבר הזה החמור מאד כדיני נפשות, ורק מרא דאתרא יודע להחליט בזה הוראתו, וגם המרא דאתרא שיודע מצב המקום והוא ראוי להורות בזה מצד גדלותו בתורה וגדלותו ביראת ה' טהורה, יש לו להתחשב עם מקומות הסמוכים שאין צריכים לזה שלא יסמכו על היתר מקום זה ויהיה הקלקול יותר מהתיקון.
הכו"ח למען האמת ולמען כבוד התורה ולמען השלום,
משה פיינשטיין.

Barkat - Next Jerusalem mayor

Haaretz reports:

Secular candidate Nir Barkat declared victory over his Haredi rival Meir Porush in the Jerusalem mayoral election early Wednesday, in a race that again exposed the deep divide between religious and secular Israelis.

With all polling stations reporting in the capital, Barkat won 52 percent of the vote versus 43 percent for Porush. Russian billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak ran a distant third with just 3.6 percent.

In his victory speech, Barkat declared himself the mayor of all Jerusalemites, pledging to work for those who had voted for him as well as those who had voted for other candidates. He added that he would be working for both religious and secular, as well as Jewish and Arab residents of the city.

"I'm aware of the depth of the challenge and the complexity of the mission. Now is the time to work together for the good of the city," Barkat, a technology investor and former paratroops officer, told his supporters.

The race in Jerusalem was one of many that captivated the country as Israelis around the country flocked to the polls for Tuesday's municipal elections, with Arab and ultra-Orthodox voter turnout exceeding expectations.

Kosher meat shortage II

YNet reports:

A recent criminal affair threatens to cause a great shortage in kosher meat in the United States, as Agriprocessors, the country's number one kosher meat provider filed for bankruptcy last week and is expected to shut down.

The Iowa-based slaughterhouse, which have been run by a family of Lubavitch hassidism for many years, was raided last month by immigration police, who allege the owners 80-year-old Aaron Rubashkin, and his son Sholom (49) were personally involved in the large scale forgery of identification cards for hundreds of illegal workers in the factory.

The company provides some 60% of American Jews' kosher meat and in many small communities is the sole meat provider.

An investigation revealed that the Rubashkins employed over 400 illegal immigrants from Guatemala, and a production line manager at the factory told detectives that he received cash from Rubashkin that he distributed among a few dozen workers to purchase their fake IDs.

It was also revealed that the Rubashkins illegally employed minors in abusive conditions including excessive hours and poor wages. The under-age workers were allegedly exposed to dangerous chemicals and were required to operate dangerous machinery without the proper protection.[...]

The Agriprocessors affair has not only left American Jews with a damaged image, but could also pose a threat to many isolated Jewish communities that depended solely on the factory for their kosher meat, and will now have to do without.

Rabbis across the United States warned that if the factory closes, hundreds of thousands of traditional Jews will be left without a meat supply.

The state of Iowa has already given the company a $10 million fine for illegally employing under-age workers, and barring any last minute changes, the factory will go bankrupt and shut down.

If Sholom Rubashkin is convicted of the line of offenses he has been charged with, he is expected to spend up to 22 years in prison.

Ashkenazic - What is it?

Guest Post: Avi Grossman

R' Eidensohn,

Shalom. I am familiar with the ruling of prominent rabbanim from the past generations that Ashkenazic Jews should continue using havara Ashkenazis for ritual uses. I have long been confused by one issue: what defines what is Ashkenazic? Indeed, I spent a year davening at one of the largest Chasidic shuls in Yerushalayim, and they, like other synagogues, had a notice from the hanhala that shlichei tzibbur were required to use Ashkenazis, but mine sounds a lot different theirs. Better yet, laafukei mai? How would they define an un-Ashkenazic dialect?

On a similar note, an American rav who has been here for thirty years told me that R' Schach ruled that the vowel holam should davka be pronounced with a yud sound at the end, even though there are gantza rayas from the baalei mesora and dikduk, foremost of whom being the GRA, that holam is supposed to be pronounced like the long O sound, like in English, and even though that is a common Ashkenazic practice in England and America and among Yekkies. Is this true? Common Ashkenazic practise is to often accent the wrong syllable of a word. (me-NO-ra instead of me-no-RA). Would R' Schach similarly rule that Ashkenazim should continue accenting the wrong syllables even if they know better.

Thank you for your time.

Avi

Mormons baptize dead Jews

Fox News reported:

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must "implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."

"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."

Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that "the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion."

In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims.Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.

"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."

Michel's decision to unilaterally end discussion of the issue through a news conference leaves the church uncertain about how to proceed, Wickman said.

Baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife.

Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.

Only the Jews have an agreement with the church limiting who can be baptized, though the agreement covers only Holocaust victims, not all Jewish people. Jews are particularly offended by baptisms of Holocaust victims because they were murdered specifically because of their religion.

Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.

"They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?" Michel said Monday.

Wickman said the practice in no way impinges upon a person's "Jewishness, or their ethnicity, or their background."

Under the agreement with the Holocaust group, Mormons could enter the names of only those Holocaust victims to whom they were directly related. The church also agreed to remove the names of Holocaust victims already entered into its massive genealogical database.

Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.

But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.

The researcher, Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.

Wickman said lists of names have been entered into the database by as mall number of well-meaning members who were acting "outside of policy." He said that church monitors have identified and removed42,000 names from the database on their own, and that the church welcomes research from others.[...]

Obama's advisors met with Hamas

Haaretz reported:
The Arab daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday quoted a senior Hamas official as saying that United States President-elect Barack Obama's advisors met with members of the Palestinian militant group before the U.S. presidential election.

Ahmed Yusuf, a political advisor to Hamas' Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly told the London-based paper that, "The connection was made via email and after that we met with them in Gaza."Al-Hayat reported that Yusuf also said the relations were maintained after Obama's electoral victory last Tuesday. He said the president-elect's advisors requested that the relations be kept secret so as not to aid his rival, Senator John McCain.During Obama's campaign, he pledged that his administration would only hold talk with Hamas if it renounced terrorism, recognized Israel's right to exist, and abided by past agreements.

On Saturday, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshal told Sky News that he is willing to hold talks with Obama, and that he is challenging the newly elected leader to follow through on past statements indicating a willingness to sit down with America's chief adversaries on the world stage.

Rodef II - because of pikuach nefesh?/ Reb Chaim

Reb Chaim Brisker (Hilchos Rotzeach 1:9):

חדושי הגר"ח הלוי (הלכות רוצח ושמירת נפש א:ט): וביאור דעת הרמב"ם בזה נראה, דהנה יסוד דין הריגת הרודף הלא הוא מדין הצלת הנרדף, ועיקרו הוא שנפש הרודף נדחה מפני פקוח נפשו של הנרדף, וכדתניא בסנהדרין דף ע"ד [ע"א] ריב"ש אומר רודף שהיה רודף אחר חברו להרגו ויכול להצילו באחד מאבריו ולא הציל נהרג עליו, הרי דכל ההריגה של רודף היא רק להציל את הנרדף, אלא דהלא בכל מקום אין דוחין נפש מפני נפש והכא ברודף הוי גזירת הכתוב דנפשו נדחה, והרי זהו הלאו שכתב הרמב"ם שלא לחוס על נפש הרודף, ר"ל דלא נדון בזה לומר שאין דוחין נפש מפני נפש, אלא כך הוא הגזירת הכתוב שנפש הרודף נדחה:
אלא דאכתי יש להסתפק, אם כל הגזירת הכתוב דרודף הוא רק בעצמו של הרודף שידחה בפני פקוח נפשו של הנרדף, אבל עיקר ההצלה של הנרדף היא משום דין פקוח נפש של כל התורה כולה, או דנימא דגם עיקר ההצלה של הנרדף היא מהך גזירת הכתוב של רודף, והוא דין הצלה בפני עצמו של נרדף, מלבד דין פקוח נפש של כל התורה, וצ"ע:
ונראה דכן הוא כאופן השני שכתבנו, דהרי בסוגיא שם מבואר דילפינן דין רודף מקרא דשופך דם האדם באדם דמו ישפך, הרי דיש דין זה גם בבני נח, דפרשה זו הלא נאמרה לנח, וכן הוא להדיא בסנהדרין דף נ"ז [ע"ב] דחשיב להך דיכול להציל באחד מאבריו בכיוצא בזה דנכרי בנכרי כמו ישראל, וכן הוא ברמב"ם בפ"ט מהל' מלכים עיי"ש, הרי להדיא דאם אינו יכול להציל באחד מאבריו מצילין אותו בנפשו של רודף גם בבני נח, והרי לא מצינו דין פקוח נפש בבן נח, אלא ודאי דהוי גזירת הכתוב בפני עצמו להציל הנרדף בנפשו של רודף, ואין זה שייך לפקוח נפש דכל התורה כולה, ושייך זה גם בבן נח, דהוא בכלל דינין:
והלא יסוד הך דינא של רודף אחר חבירו להרגו ילפינן לה בסנהדרין דף ע"ג [ע"א] מעריות ומקרא דאין מושיע לה, מה שאין זה שייך כלל לדין פקוח נפש של כל התורה כולה, אלא ודאי דהוי דין בפני עצמו, דין הצלה של נרדף, אם להריגה אם לעריות

Child Abuse - Prevention, Detection & Recovery

Dr. Susan Schulman, a Jewish pediatrician in Brooklyn, recommends that parents discuss with their children in an age-appropriate fashion:

• The area that is covered by your bathing suit is your private area. Sometimes when you are little your teacher may help you in the bathroom. That is okay. Other than that, you are not allowed to touch someone else and no one is allowed to touch you in the area covered by your bathing suit. You are not allowed to show anyone and no one is allowed to show you. If anyone does this you can say: "No! My mommy doesn't let me!" Go away from that person and tell your mommy what happened.
• If someone is touching you, hurting you, or making you feel bad, tell me about and I will stop it.
• Your mommy and daddy love you. We will always love you. Nothing you will do will ever take that love away from you. We want to hear about things that happen in school -- all the good things and even the bad things that happen.
• If you have done a bad thing, we may not like what you did, but we will always love you.
• If anyone hurts or scares you, you should come and tell mommy or daddy. They might tell you that something terrible will happen if you tell your mommy, but you must still tell us. We are grownups and we will protect you. I will give you the biggest hug if you tell me about it.

Older children and teenagers need the same reassurance. Tell the child that you are there for him/her, and that you always want to hear about their experiences - good and bad. Tell your child you will always love him.

The larger the family, the more important it is that you give a few minutes a day of eye contact and keep the channel of communication open. Ask, "How was your day?" Even if he doesn't say much, this communicates that you are interested and available when the need arises.

This line of talk should be gently reinforced periodically with the child. There are many milestones where these conversations can occur naturally, e.g. entering preschool, a new school, send off every year to camp, a weekend getaway.

Since the majority of children are molested by people they know - relative, neighbor, sports coach, teacher, bus driver -- you need to discuss trust in older people and role models. This one person did something bad. Place an emphasis on all the other people who are good, loving and kind.

Speak to your children about exercising care not to be caught in a situation alone. Young people should walk in groups, particularly at night.

It is human nature to shy away from discussing sexual issues with our children when they're young adults, let alone when they may be 10 or 15 years old. Yet this is what we need to discuss.

Detection

There are various warning signs and red flags to look for in your child who may have been victimized.

Dr. Schulman lists five behavior changes that may indicate the child is being subjected to abuse:

1. The child may seem unusually interested in the private areas of the other people's bodies.
2. The child may draw pictures of hidden body parts.
3. The child may show signs of stress such as sleep problems, appetite changes, behavior changes, tantrums, restart bed-wetting, fears and irritability.
4. The child may become unusually afraid or unusually attached to an adult in his life.
5. The child might give verbal hints or even describe the abuse to the parent.

If your child exhibits a serious problem that appears to be new, you can consider sexual abuse a possible factor without getting alarmed or overreacting. In seeking out professional help for treatment, go to a mental health professional and ask about his or her specialized training in this area.

Recovery

Research regarding the role of religious beliefs in helping victims deal with the impact of abuse repeatedly finds that religion can play a crucial protective role in helping victims find meaning and support, even in the face of cynicism and betrayal. On the other hand, many religious individuals who are victimized by a member of their community experience the additional trauma of feeling abandoned by a religion that they were taught stands against abuse. It is therefore not surprising that a percentage of alienated and rebellious adolescents who "drop out" of active religious observance have a history of being molested.

Identification and treatment can be highly successful as children and adolescents have remarkable resilience. The majority of victims, with proper support, can emerge from the experience strong and healthy.

If we believe that our child is a victim of, molestation and talking is the very first step, what should you talk about? You should emphasize the following to your son or daughter:

• We, your mother and father, love you.
• You did absolutely nothing wrong.
• Your body is yours, let's discuss how to protect it in the future, no one can touch your body in any way without your permission.
• Your body is good, it's not dirty. Someone else who is not good did something that he wasn't supposed to.
• He was wrong for doing this.
• You were not in the wrong because this happened.

And what about the perpetrator? Pedophiles need to be pushed to seek professional treatment, pushed out of circumstances where they can be in regular contact with children, pushed into supervised and controlled environments, or pushed into the criminal justice system.

Arab squatters evicted in Jerusalem

Haaretz reports:

In a pre-dawn operation in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, scores of police officers and IDF troops Sunday evicted an elderly Palestinian couple from their home, despite protests by the United States, other countries, and human rights groups.

Security forces also detained several activists of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement who had been sleeping on the family's property, and expelled them to the adjacent West Bank, without pressing charges.

The case came to international attention in July, when U.S. diplomats lodged an official protest with Israel for harming Palestinians and for anti-Palestinian actions taken by settlers, citing as one example the eviction of the al-Kurd family from their home in the Shimon Hatzadik complex in Sheikh Jarrah.

For months, a group of settlers has also lived in a portion of the house, maintaining that an Ottoman-era bill of sale grants ownership of the Shimon Hatzadik property to the Committee for the Sephardic Group. The Jerusalem District Court issued a ruling in favor of the Sephardic Group,which transferred the property to a settler organization called "Shimon's Estate."

The settler group, in turn, sought to evict the al-Kurd family, refugees from West Jerusalem, who have lived in the house since the early 1950s.
At 4:45 on Sunday morning, some 20 IDF vehicles and seven police minibuses sealed off much of the neighborhood, prior to the eviction, witnesses said.

Mohammed and Fawziya al-Kurd were then taken from the apartment, which they have been sharing with Israeli settlers since 1999, when Israeli courts evicted their son Raed from an added wing of the property. The couple has been fighting for their property through the courts ever since, but in July 2008 they were ordered to vacate the premises at once.

Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said that following the court order naming a Jewish family as the legal owner of the house, "The Arab family was evicted. Two people were, in fact removed from the house," he told Haaretz, referring to the al-Kurds. [...]

Child Abuse & Chazal - Where is the victim?

Guest post by Dr. Baruch Shulem

In modern English the concept "victim" means or implies an overtone of “injustice”. Something that shouldn’t have happened did in fact happen. The emotional response is one of sorrow and/or moral indignation. Such is the case in our society about child abuse - injustice and moral indignation. Yet we are often taken aback by some of our community Rabbis that do not respond in a similar fashion.

I would like to describe a possible source to their less then sensitive response to what we call today “the victim”. Chazal and the responsa literature describe in great detail the forbidden behavior of the perpetrator of abuse, his legal status, and punishment. There is considerable discussion about how why and when you can kill him and what will happen to him in the next world. There is no parallel dialogue about the injured (abused) person. This seemingly insensitivity reaches a high point when the Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 425:3) states that if the perpetrator has begun the abuse (in this case rape of a betrothed women) he no longer has the status of Rodef (liable for death) and can “only” be brought to court. And the abused girl? No comment. No mention of emotional suffering, social repercussions, or suicide or a long list of laws violated.

Compare abuse to the modern Halacha pertaining to Lashon Hara. A simple word used inappropriately, correct information given without proper permission - and worlds are destroyed. People who are not even present become victims of unguarded speech. Something like 55 violations of Halacha, Torah, and Hashkafa are identified. This is a total response of Law, communities (teach ins, etc.), and Rabbonim to an infraction of the law.

And abuse? I want to propose two issues which might throw some light on the status of abuse in the time of the Gemora and today. First is the significance of the term victim and the second is the evolution of Pasak over time and in different communities. The term victim is a modern Latin/Christian term with all the baggage that it implies. Chazal do not relate to ‘victimization’. This difference can be attributed to a clear purposeful hashkafa that reflects Chazals’ understanding of all events in the world of flesh and blood: all events are direct product of God’s will, He and He alone determines what will happen and to whom. This is din emet. Within this approach there is no ‘injustice’, no ‘victim’ in the modern western (Christian) sense. No mistakes made, only things that we don’t and can’t understand. Halacha deals not with Hashkafa but rather damage, retribution, and compensation. The damaged person can receive payment for some act, but there is no moral judgment only civil suit.

These damages include elements of boshet (embarrassment) and Tzar (pain) which are measured in normative ways. I propose that this psychological artifact has evolved into a significant – almost dominant place in “new” halachic understanding of damage. This reflects the modern western fascination or obsession with emotions in general. Chazal generally do not dwell on emotions but clearly say that emotions – when they exist – should always be under the total control of Da’at. This supports, I believe my first assertion that Hashkafa determines judicial reasoning – as Daat does to emotions.

The conceptualization presented here in short can raise a number of questions:

1. How and when did emotions like boshet become so powerful as to be equated today as Pekuach Nefesh? And if the damage only appears years later is it still PN now? If it only happens in a certain percentage of cases?

2. How, when, and IF we should raise the Hashkafa issue in therapy with the child?

3. What are the positive side of ‘victim’ in these issues and are there also negative sides? Emotion or law should rule? Are Western ideas ‘better’ than Chazal when dealing with emotions?

Moser I - no Olam HaBah

Rosh Hashanna (17a):Wrongdoers of Israel who sin with their body7 and wrongdoers of the Gentiles who sin with their body go down to Gehinnom and are punished there for twelve months. After twelve months their body is consumed and their soul is burnt and the wind scatters them under the soles of the feet of the righteous as it says, And ye shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet.8 But as for the minim9 and the informers and the scoffers,10 who rejected the Torah and denied the resurrection of the dead, and those who abandoned the ways of the community,11 and those who ‘spread their terror in the land of the living’,12 and who sinned and made the masses sin, like Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his fellows — these will go down to Gehinnom and be punished there for all generations, as it says, And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have rebelled against me13 etc. Gehinnom will be consumed but they will not be consumed, as it says, and their form shall wear away the nether world.

Rambam(Hilchos Teshuva 3:6): These are the ones who have no portion in the World to Come but are cut off and lost and are judged because of the enormity of their wickedness and sins for eternity – apostates, heretics, deniers of the Torah, deniers of resurrection of the dead or redemption, those who cause the masses to sin, those who separate from participation in the community, one who sins openly…, the informers, and those who cause fear in the community for ulterior motives, murderers, habitual speakers of lashon harah and those who deface their circumcision.

Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 388:9): Who ever hands over a Jew into the hands of non‑Jews – whether it is the Jew himself or just his money – does not have a portion in the World to Come.

Kosher Home II - webcast

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: OU KOSHER TO PRESENT WEBCAST, 'KOSHER HOME, SWEET HOME, PART II'

Kashrutnews.com reported: NOVEMBER 25 ON OU RADIO

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” was former President Harry S. Truman’s slogan. “If all your questions weren’t answered, get back in the kitchen,” may be the motto of OU Kosher’s upcoming webcast “Kosher Home, Sweet Home, Part II,” to take place Tuesday, November 25 at 2:00 p.m. EST on ouradio.org. Once again, OU Kosher’s halachic poskim, Rabbi Yisroel Belsky and Rabbi Hershel Schachter, will respond to questions about the intricacies of maintaining a kosher kitchen.

The first “Kosher Home, Sweet Home,” was webcast on May 29 and drew an audience in the thousands, as the poskim responded to questions submitted prior to the program. But time did not permit many of the submitted questions to be answered, bringing on requests for a second webcast. The November 25 session is the response.

It may be accessed at http://www.ou.org/ouradio/webcast.

Questions in May included those pertaining to ovens, the microwave, use of non-Jewish help in kitchen, kosherization of various materials, kosher travel, using the same oven for dairy and pareve, and use of warming drawers on the Sabbath. The responses, intricate yet explained in a manner easily understood by the audience, may be found on the archived webcast on www.ouradio.org.

“In response to the overwhelming participation and feedback to last spring’s ‘Kosher Home, Sweet Home,’ the OU Kosher webcast when hundreds of questions were received and thousands of listeners tuned in worldwide, and considering the countless requests to allow for more kitchen-related questions to be asked,” we have scheduled Part II, declared Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Safran, OU Kosher Senior Rabbinic Coordinator and Vice President of Communications and Marketing.

The webcast is part of OU Kosher’s continuing and ever-growing educational outreach to the community, which includes the “OU Kosher Coming to Schools and Communities” program, and the highly informative and entertaining Kosher Tidbits postings, now numbering 125 on OU Radio. The most recent video Tidbit is on kosher wine certification, featuring Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz.

As with the May webcast, the audience is invited to submit questions. Prior to the webcast they may be sent to Rabbi Safran at safrane@ou.org, fax 212-613-0775; during the webcast they may be sent to Rabbi Eliyahu W. Ferrell at ferrelle@ou.org, fax 212-613-0701.

N.Y. Times' advice to Israel

NYTimes wrote:

Israel is becoming a nation at war with itself. The conflict is not just with militant Palestinians. Militant Jewish settlers in the West Bank clash regularly with Israeli police who remove illegal homes. Israeli security officials have warned of possible assassination attempts on peace-seeking Israeli leaders.

In September, Jewish militants tried to assassinate Professor Zeev Sternhell, a supporter of Peace Now, which documents settlement construction. Settlers are damaging Palestinian property in retaliation for government actions against the outposts.

The Israeli cabinet on Sunday branded the disturbances “a threat to the rule of law and order in Israel.” The situation is so bad that Ehud Olmert, the departing prime minister, announced plans to halt direct or indirect government financing of unauthorized settlements — roughly 100. Another 120 settlements are government-authorized. And any peace deal will inevitably require that the vast majority are shut down.

Mr. Olmert said he would increase the number of law enforcement personnel deployed in the West Bank and move against law-breaking settlers. It was long past time for the government to act. But we fear the measures are more symbolic than real.

Mr. Olmert’s announcement exposed the fact that despite repeated pledges to dismantle settlements, the government is still abetting them. Even if financing is ended, some experts say government services to the outposts like water and electricity will continue.

As a step toward peace, Israel must freeze all settlements and reduce the roadblocks in the West Bank that are strangling the Palestinian economy. To do so, the Israeli government needs the public support of American Jews and moderate Israelis against militants who seek political change through violence.

Israeli voters are expected to choose a new government in February. Mr. Olmert’s designated heir, Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, failed to put together a coalition government for the right reasons: She refused the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party’s demand that there would be no negotiations on the status of Jerusalem. Such a commitment would have made any peace deal impossible. Ms. Livni’s chief rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, opposes immediate talks on a Palestinian state.

Israelis need a leader who can calm the forces that are tearing Israel apart and also negotiate a just peace. The new American president must be ready to fully support that effort. The lesson of the last few months should be clear to all. Israel will have no peace — with its neighbors or its own citizens — without a peace agreement.

Rodef I - to save perpetrator from sin

This is the first in a series of postings dealing with the halachic basis for calling the police and dealing with a child molestor. It is primarily focused on the dynamics of the halacha. The bottom line is that major poskim clearly permit calling the police to protect a child from being molested. This discussion is part of the sefer about child abuse that I am currenly working on.

---

One of the important considerations - as to whether to call the police in the case of child abuse - is whether the molester has the status of rodef (pursuer). The widespread assumption is that the purpose of this halacha of rodef is protecting the victimization or harm to another person. But this is clearly wrong.

Sanhedrin(73a):MISHNAH. THE FOLLOWING MUST BE SAVED [FROM SINNING] EVEN AT THE COST OF THEIR LIVES: HE WHO PURSUES AFTER HIS NEIGHBOUR TO SLAY HIM, [OR] AFTER A MALE [FOR PEDERASTY]. [OR] AFTER A BETROTHED MAIDEN [TO DISHONOUR HER].1 BUT HE WHO PURSUES AFTER AN ANIMAL [TO ABUSE IT]. OR WOULD DESECRATE THE SABBATH, OR COMMIT IDOLATRY, MUST NOT BE SAVED [FROM SINNING] AT THE COST OF HIS LIFE.[Soncino translation]

The literal translation of this mishna is that "the following are potential vicitims who are saved from harm at the cost of the life of the pursuer". However, Rashi - following the understanding of the gemora - specifically rejects this

Rashi(Sanhedrin 73a): Are saved - from sin. At the expense of their lives - anyone can kill the rodef to save him from sin - and this is learned from the Torah verse.

Tosfos(Sanhedrin 73a) is bothered by this reading. However he concludes it is necessary to accept this understanding that we are not concerned with the victim - but rather the spiritual well being of the rodef. That is because of the case in the mishna of pursuing an animal [for sexual purposes]. Tosofos notes that it obviously makes no sense to say we are killing the rodef because we are concerned to protect an animal from being raped. Therefore the concern of the mishna is saving the rodef from sinning.

Tosfos points out that rodef is not solely to stop the person from sinning. There are two conditions to be able to stop the rodef by killing him - 1) he must be attempting to commit a sin which is punished either by capital punishment or kares 2) there has to be a person who suffers directly from the sin.

Thus Shabbos and idolatry are not part of rodef because there is no victim. Rape of an unmarried woman would also not be included because there is no death penalty or kares for it. [The Tosefta & Yerushalmi are more inclusive than the Bavli]

Another major consequence is that if the rodef has actually committed the crime - we can not stop him from continuing to engage in the act by killing him. This is the psak of the Shulchan Aruch(C.M. 425:3)

.שולחן ערוך חושן משפט סימן תכה סעיף ג

וכן הרודף אחר הזכר או אחר אחת מכל העריות (לאנסה), חוץ מהבהמה, מצילין אותו אפילו בנפש הרודף. ואם רדף אחר ערוה ותפס ושכב עמה, כיון שהערה בה, אף על פי שלא גמר ביאתו, אין ממיתין אותו עד עמדו בדין

In view of the above - only child abuse which is punishable by kares or death is relevant. - e.g incest or gential penetration for homosexual relationship. Obviously this would exclude many cases of child abuse. This would mean that the law of rodef would not justify calling the police in most cases.

The only way to invoke rodef is to assert that abuse is pikuach nefesh. However, this is problematic for a number of reasons to be discussed in the next post.

Remember major poskim do permit calling the police for child abuse - the reasons will be discussed in a later post.

Arabs riot as Illegal homes demolished

JPost reports:

Jerusalem Municipality wreckage crews on Wednesday demolished two illegally built Arab home in east Jerusalem, prompting skirmishes in the area throughout the afternoon, police said.

The court-ordered demolition in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, which was carried out under heavy police guard, quickly erupted into violence after dozens of local residents pelted police with stones and hurled a firebomb at police, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

Police responded by firing stun grenades to disperse the crowd. There were no casualties reported in the two-hour altercation.

Later, some of the residents barricaded themselves in one of the homes slated to be torn down, but eventually agreed to leave the building, furniture in hand, after lengthy negotiations with police.

The city said that the two homes, one of which was inhabited, were built in "green areas" where construction is forbidden, and that they were both razed by court-order after appeals against their demolition were turned down.

Since the beginning of the year, the municipality has carried out 108 demolitions, including 78 in east Jerusalem and 30 in west Jerusalem, the city said in a statement.

Palestinians and left-wing Israelis complain that is difficult for Arabs to obtain building permits in Jerusalem, forcing them to build illegally, while the municipality insists it is evenhanded in enforcing building codes in all parts of the city.

The issue of Arab house demolitions is especially explosive in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state.[...]

Same-sex marriages banned in California

Los Angeles Times reports:
A measure to once again ban gay marriage in California was passed by voters in Tuesday's election, throwing into doubt the unions of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who wed during the last 4 1/2 months.

As Proposition 8, the most divisive and emotionally fraught issue on the state ballot this year, took a lead in early returns, supporters gathered at a hotel ballroom in Sacramento and cheered.

"We caused Californians to rethink this issue," Proposition 8 strategist Jeff Flint said.

Early in the campaign, he noted, polls showed the measure trailing by 17 points.

"I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn't we let gay couples get married. And I think we made them realize that there are broader implications to society and particularly the children when you make that fundamental change that's at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage," he said.

In San Francisco on Tuesday night at the packed headquarters of the "No on 8" campaign party in the Westin St. Francis Hotel, supporters heard from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose decision to issue same-sex wedding licenses in his city led to the court ruling that made gay marriage briefly legal in the state. .

"You decided to live your life out loud. You fell in love and you said, 'I do.' Tonight, we await a verdict," Newsom said, speaking to a roaring crowd before final returns were in.

Elsewhere in the country, two other gay-marriage bans, in Florida and Arizona, also won. In both states, laws already defined marriage as a heterosexual institution. But backers pushed to amend the state constitutions, saying that doing so would protect the institution from legal challenges.

Proposition 8 was the most expensive proposition on any ballot in the nation this year, with more than $74 million spent by both sides.

The measure's most fervent proponents believed that nothing less than the future of traditional families was at stake, while opponents believed that they were fighting for the fundamental right of gay people to be treated equally under the law.

"This has been a moral battle," said Ellen Smedley, 34, a member of the Mormon Church and a mother of five who worked on the campaign. "We aren't trying to change anything that homosexual couples believe or want -- it doesn't change anything that they're allowed to do already. It's defining marriage. . . . Marriage is a man and a woman establishing a family unit."[...]

The battle was closely watched across the nation because California is considered a harbinger of cultural change and because this is the first time voters have weighed in on gay marriage in a state where it was legal.

Kosher meat shortage

Forward reports [sent by RaP]
Buffalo Lake, MN- In developments that are likely to cripple the availability of kosher beef in large parts of America, three of the five largest slaughterhouses producing kosher beef have halted production this week.

All eyes have been on the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, in Postville, Iowa, which stopped producing beef last week due to a series of legal problems and arrests at its parent company, Agriprocessors. That company also owns a slaughterhouse in Gordon, Neb., which is thought to be the nation’s fifth-largest plant producing kosher meat. While little attention has been paid to the Gordon plant, local officials told the Forward that it stopped operating in October.

Now, in unrelated developments, executives at America’s third-largest kosher beef slaughterhouse, located in Minnesota, told the Forward that production there has been brought to a complete halt due to a fire.

“We’re not killing anything right now,” said Bill Gilger, CEO of North Star Beef, which is located in Buffalo Lake, Minn. “We’re adding to the shortage of kosher beef, having nothing to do with what is going on Postville, but just to do with our own situation here.”

“Whatever it is, there’s going to be a tremendous void in the market,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of O.U. Kosher, the largest certifying agency for kosher meat. [...]

Financial Crisis - day of prayer scheduled

Haaretz reports:

The ultra-Orthodox community is planning a day of prayer to encourage continued funding of its schools.

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, many donors have scaled back support and others have stopped completely.

The campaign's promoter, Chevy Weiss, said Monday that some six thousand families have been hit hard by the crisis and were short on food and diapers for their children.

She said about 28,000 Israeli Jews choose to devote their lives to study instead of work. They rely on donations from philanthropists and government stipends to support them and their families.

Eleven prominent rabbis have apprioved of the prayer day, set nationwide for Nov. 13. A delegation of rabbis will then head to the United States to try and raise funds.

Arab violence surging - in Israel

Arutz Sheva reports:
(IsraelNN.com) Two Jews were attacked last week in the center of the city of Ramla, in an incident which is part of a growing pattern of Arab-on-Jew violence inside pre-1967 Israel. In the latest incident,two young Arabs started pushing two Jews who were exiting a synagogue,and beat one of them who was on crutches.

According to Rabbi Uriyah Shachor of the Ramla Kollel yeshiva, "It's obvious to us that there is an awakening of a nationalistic drive and this is connected to the situation in the country these days."

Eliezer Shachor, a member of the religious seed community in Ramla, added:"This is a powder keg, in the center of the state of Israel. Everyone knows it, but no one has a serious plan on how to stop it." He also related his own story of Arab violence. On the first night of Sukkot,he said, "a number of Arabs jumped out of a car, ruined my sukkah and ran away."

Religious seed communities are groups of national-religious families that make their homes in mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods and front-line towns in order to try and stem the tide of a gradual Arab takeover in the mixed cities, to strengthen the spirit of the Jewish residents and to revive the spirit of Torah and Judaism.

A network of religious seed communities is spreading out throughout Israel. They can be found in Sderot, Ramla, Lod, Yafo (Jaffa), Harish and Akko, to name just some of the locations.

Obama - Leap of Hope?

Wall Street Journal:

Every vote for a nonincumbent Presidential candidate is in some sense a risk, given the power and complications of the job. But in both his lack of experience and the contradictions between his rhetoric and his agenda, Barack Obama presents a particular leap of hope. It is a sign of how fed up Americans are with Republicans that millions are ready to take that leap even in dangerous times.

To his supporters, such as Colin Powell, the first-term Senator has the chance to be "transformational," the kind of gauzy concept that testifies to Mr. Obama's unusual appeal. His candidacy is certainly historic, and that isn't simply a reference to his Kenyan father and American mother. One secret to Mr. Obama's success is how little his campaign has been marked by race, at least not by the traditional politics of racial grievance. He has run instead on a rhetorical theme of national unity, a shrewd appeal to voters weary of the polarizing debate over Iraq and the Bush Presidency.

Mr. Obama has also understood the political moment better than his opponents in either party. In the primaries, he used his inexperience to advantage by offering himself as a liberal alternative to what seemed like an inevitable, and dispiriting, Clinton replay. He then turned around in the general election to project sober reassurance amid the financial crisis, which was the moment when his poll numbers began to climb above the margin of error against John McCain. His coolness reflects what seems to be a first-class temperament. And while community organizing may not be much of a credential for the Presidency, Mr. Obama's ability to organize a campaign speaks well of his potential to manage a government.

None of this changes the fact that voters still know remarkably little about a man who is less than four years out of the Illinois state Senate. While he has already written two autobiographies, there are significant gaps in Mr. Obama's political resume. The nature of his relationship with onetime friend and political contributor Tony Rezko, a convicted felon, or with radicals Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, not to mention Acorn, remains ambiguous or contradictory.

They were all early supporters or mentors, yet during this campaign Mr. Obama has eventually disavowed each one. This is perhaps testimony to a ruthless pragmatism, or maybe opportunism, but what do those relationships say about what he really believes? He is fortunate the media have been so incurious about them -- as opposed, say, to Sarah Palin's Wasilla church or Joe Wurzelbacher's plumbing business.

More importantly, it remains unclear how Mr. Obama intends to govern. As a political candidate, he has presented himself as a consensus-oriented bridge-builder. But for all his talk about reaching across the aisle, we can think of no major issue where he has disagreed with his party's dominant interest groups or broken with liberal orthodoxy. Not one. The main example he cites -- "ethics reform" -- is the kind of trivial Beltway compromise that changes nothing about the way Washington works. [...]

If he is elected, Mr. Obama would immediately face the same kind of large, liberal Democratic majority on Capitol Hill that did so much to ruin Jimmy Carter and the first two years of the Clinton Presidency. Is there anything its liberal barons want that he'd oppose? He hasn't said so. On the contrary, Mr. Obama's voting record and agenda suggest that the "transformation" he may have in mind is a return to the pre-Reagan era of government expansion and liberal ascendancy.

Amid a recession, with the mortgage market already nationalized and the banking industry partly so, the next President needs to draw some lines against further politicization of our economy. Perhaps Mr. Obama will surprise by appointing Paul Volcker as his Treasury Secretary, or postponing his tax increases with the economy in distress. But those are further leaps of hope with little evidence of pragmatism to back them up.

On national security, Mr. Obama is an even greater man of mystery. Perhaps once in office he will take the course of prudent realism. He can certainly sound hawkish when he wants to, advocating unilateral military strikes inside Pakistan and promising the kind of open-ended commitment to the Afghan conflict that he claims we can't afford or sustain in Iraq. Yet he ran irresponsibly against the surge in Iraq and now has his lucky stars to thank that Mr. McCain prevailed in that debate, so Mr. Obama would inherit a far more stable Middle East. His belief that diplomacy can stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions is also naive, and we suspect would be shown to be so early in his Administration with an Iranian nuclear declaration, if not a test.

As Joe Biden recently said, an Obama Presidency would invite challenges from enemies who would tread more cautiously against a President McCain. Perhaps Mr. Obama will evolve into a Truman, or perhaps he'll prove merely to be another Jimmy Carter. Unlike Mr. McCain, he'll be making it up as he goes.

Perhaps this is the kind of leadership the American people want after the Presidential certitudes of the Bush years. Americans certainly are eager for fresh start, and it is typical of periods of economic panic that they may even be willing to reach for the kind of alluring but untested appeal that so marks Mr. Obama. Sometimes these gambles pay off, and sometimes they don't.

Redeeming capitives - and jail

The following is from Rabbi Broyde's excellent article concerning informing on others found on JLaw

16. ...The question that is worthy of pondering is the relationship between the obligation to redeem captives (found in Yoreh Deah 253) and the prohibition to inform. In cases where there is no prohibition to inform (as informing is permitted, see Darkai Teshuva 157:53 and more generally Part III of this article) a logical case can be made that there is no mitzvah to redeem captives (as they are in prison properly) when there is nothing wrong with informing. This exact observation is made in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in a recent work, Ve'aleyhi lo Yuval, volume 2:113-114, which recounts in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Goldreicht:

I asked Rabbi Auerbach about a particular Jew who stole a large sum of money and he was caught by the police in America. He was sentenced to a number of years in prison in America. Was it proper to assist in the collection of money for him [we were speaking about a large sum of $200,000] in order to fulfill the mitzvah of redeeming captives to have him released from prison? When Rabbi Auerbach heard this he stated "Redeeming captives?! What is the mitzvah of redeeming captives here? The mitzvah of redeeming captives is only when the gentiles are grabbing Jews, irrationally, for no proper reason, and placing them in prison. According to what I [Rabbi Auerbach] know, in America they do not irrationally grab Jews in order to squeeze money from them. The Torah says "do not steal" and he stole money -- on the contrary, it is good that he serve a prison sentence, so that he learns not to steal!

============
Rav Sternbuch told me that the Chazon Ish was asked about aiding a Jew who had been imprisoned. The Chazon Ish replied that no effort should be made since upon release he would be together with his wife. Since the couple didn't observe the laws of nidah, it was better if the Jew remained in jail.

Child Abuse - What to know

The Jewish Week by David Mandel & Dr. David Pelcovitz

Our community has to recognize that child molestation is a disease. The child molester is a sick person with an illness that he is unable to control or stop on his own. He has a preoccupation and a sexual desire for young children. In order to stop, he needs help through treatment,supervision or incarceration.

In our collective experience working with this population in the Jewish community, approximately one-third of pedophiles have a preference for boys, one-third prefer girls, and one-third have no preference. Some pedophiles also have distinct preferences within select age groups.

The article, “A Charge Of Double Betrayal In Williamsburg” (Sept. 5), about a young man, Joel Engelman, alleging he was sexually abused as a child by his principal, once again raises the important question of what can we do as parents, as educators, and as a community to protect and respond to sexual abuse.

While we do not know the people involved in the story, it is noteworthy that Engleman and his attorney, Eliot Pasik, stated they were not initially seeking a financial settlement but rather an assurance that other children would not be exposed and hurt.

Children are sexually victimized because they can be. They are trusting, vulnerable, curious by nature, and usually not suspicious of adults, certainly not of a parent, teacher, counselor or other role model. This can be true of adolescents as well, who can fall prey to sexual abuse even into their mid teens.

Children can be victimized repeatedly because they are often too ashamed or frightened to divulge information to others. Ashamed of what was done to them or what they were forced to do. Frightened because the molester threatened to hurt them or their family members, or frightened that their parents will not believe them or will blame them.

Unlike other insidious social problems such as gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse is not seen as an illness and still carries with it a taboo that results in a nonproductive demonization of the perpetrator and isolation of the victim.

In the last decade, a number of adolescents and young married men and women have self-identified and sought treatment for their serious problems with gambling, drugs and alcohol. While in some circumstances they may have been forced to seek help by their spouses, employers or creditors, these “addicts” have, willingly or not, sought and accepted professional help. The publicized accidental deaths by drug overdose of a number of young men, coupled with the writings of Dr. Abraham Twerski, have painfully raised our awareness and have resulted in many more individuals seeking professional treatment.

On the other hand, several deaths, accidental or suicide, resulting from depression and despondency due to sexual victimization, were not publicized.

It is fair to say that alcohol, drug, and gambling problems, serious as they are, no longer carry the social stigma and social isolation they did just a short few years ago. Not so with sexual abuse — not to the victim or to the perpetrator.

In our respective years of work at OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services and previously at North Shore University Hospital and in private practice, it’s fair to say we have met with, counseled and treated many hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and trauma.

Victims of sexual abuse, unlike other victims, almost never self-disclose.A crime victim may report to the police. A victim of domestic violence may seek out a relative, a rabbi, or a mental health professional. A drug user or alcohol binger can often be recognized by a spouse or employer. Not so with a victim of sexual abuse who is embarrassed, who represses, and who, years later, continues to carry the scars of the unresolved trauma of the abuse. So, too, with a child molester.

He (95 percent are male) will almost never voluntarily seek treatment. The fears of retribution, social isolation, physical harm, loss of family, loss of work, along with his sexual proclivities, prevent him from disclosing.[...]

Child Abuse -Safety Kid program

Jewish Journal:
Thirteen first-graders sit on the rug in their classroom at Shalhevet School, several with their hands raised. A guest speaker has just asked, "What would happen if you got lost at Toys 'R' Us? Who would be someone you could ask for help?"

"Someone who works there," one of the children calls out.

"Good. And how would you know who works there?" the speaker responds, holding up a picture of a cashier wearing a blue vest.

The speaker, Marlene Kahan, is a volunteer who has come to present Safety Kid. The program -- its full name is the Aleinu Julis Child Safety Program -- was developed by the Aleinu Family Resource Center, the arm of Jewish Family Service that reaches out to the Orthodox community. Safety Kid's goal is to teach day school children about safety issues -- including sexual abuse -- in a culturally sensitive manner. Visual aides show boys and men wearing yarmulkes, as well as women in skirts and children walking to synagogue. Discussions about strangers who might come to the front door mention not only the UPS man, but "the man who comes to collect funds for Eretz Yisrael." The instructional cards are currently being adapted for use in non-Orthodox Jewish day schools as well, and will likely be introduced this school year.

The Safety Kid program is the latest in a series of proactive programs Aleinu has developed over the past few years to protect children from abusive situations and to help parents and institutions know how to handle such crises when they come up.

While in the past abuse was not openly discussed in the Orthodox community, Aleinu has made it a priority to bring the problem to the forefront so that children, parents, teachers and rabbis can deal with it in an informed and intelligent manner. The Los Angeles agency has become a national leader in the Orthodox world in creating these programs and policies.

The urgency for such programs became apparent over the last several years, when incidents of sexual or emotional abuse in Orthodox schools, shuls and youth groups were described in articles in the Jewish press.

The number of incidents in the Orthodox community doesn't exceed the national average, but within the past two years, there have been high-profile incidents in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Aleinu Director Debbie Fox, who developed Safety Kid with colleague Wendy Finn, says that the program was produced in response to such episodes.

"We wanted to do something to help by providing tools which could help prevent future occurrences," Fox said.

More than five years ago, Fox began working with Aleinu's Halachic Advisory Board to develop a conduct policy for school administrators and teachers. The policy stipulates appropriate and inappropriate behavior, both verbal and physical. School personnel also receive training on how to spot and report signs of abuse. Since its introduction in 2002, the policy has been adopted by 28 Los Angeles-area schools. Torah U'mesorah, a national umbrella organization for Orthodox schools, adapted and adopted the policy for its 700 constituent schools.

But Fox wanted something specifically geared for the children -- a way to give them tools to help prevent incidents. She first tried adapting material produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but found it didn't resonate with Orthodox audiences.

When she shared her concerns, Aleinu board member Mitch Julis and his wife Joleen came forward with a grant to adapt the materials, and Safety Kid was born. The couple has since pledged funding for the next four years. [...]