EJF - Conference in Philadelphia

YWN reported

This is the official publicity release of EJF regarding their Philadelphia conference held November 2-4. Strange that they would just be releasing 2 weeks after the event - as opposed to last year when it had massive coverage in the major chareidi publications. Also Rav Eisenstein is not mentioned - even though he was there according to Hamodia and the Yated [see RaP's comments at bottom of post].

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Just a few years ago, it would have seemed impossible to bring together distinguished dayanim from throughout the world to explore issues regarding universally accepted conversions in intermarriage in the 21st century. Yet on Sunday, November 2nd, in downtown Philadelphia, the Eternal Jewish Family once again reached beyond any barriers of this challenge and convened some of the greatest dayanim and rabbanim of our times.

The esteemed group travelled from numerous cities around the world to Philadelphia’s downtown Marriott Hotel. Present were such notable dignitaries as Harav Shmuel Kaminetzky, Rosh Yeshiva of Philadelphia, member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah; Dayan Chanoch Ehrentrau, Rosh Beis Din of London; Harav Binyomin Weiss, lead dayan of the beis din of Montreal; Harav Reuven Feinstein, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Staten Island and chairman of the EJF halachic committee; Harav Betzalel Tuvia Wettenstein, the Belzer Dayan; Harav Dovid Olewsky, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivas Ger of Brooklyn; Harav Eliyahu Levine, Rosh Kollel of Lakewood; and Harav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, the Rosh Yeshiva of South Fallsburg.

The conference was also honored with the presence of Harav Avrohom Sherman, head of the Bais Din Hagadol in Jerusalem, who communicated the brocho of Maran Harav Eliyashiv for his participation. Also from Israel came Harav Shlomo Pappenheim of the Eida Hachareidis and Harav Eliyahu Eisherik, lead dayan of the beis din of Tel Aviv and author of Toras Haribis. Harav Eisherik is also the emissary of the Gerrer Rebbe in all areas of geirus and concerns regarding botei din.

Together these spiritual giants delved into such topics as the standards of legitimate botei din, family and marital issues, the importance of determining a successful conversion candidate, and numerous other vital issues. The presence of the gedolei Torah, as well as the scope and breadth of their lectures and discussions, gave testimony to the Torah world’s recognition of the important accomplishments of Eternal Jewish Family.

The dayanim shared their experiences with conversions in intermarriage, leading to a yeshiva-like atmosphere as the distinguished participants exchanged divrei Torah. The consensus was clear that relaxation of conversion standards only leads to complex issues in the arenas of marriage, children’s chinuch, and integration into communities. The dayanim concurred that sincere conversion candidates must make commitments to live within communities that have the infrastructure of shuls, yeshivos, mikvaos and kosher food. Harav Leib Tropper, Chairman of the EJF Rabbinic Committee, outlined some of the recent successes of EJF in working with the growing network of botei din that subscribe to the standards of the gedolei haposkim who guide EJF’s policies.

An intriguing dimension to this revolutionary gathering was that, simultaneously in the same location, another EJF seminar was being held exclusively for the mentors of female candidates for conversion. Travelling from Oregon, Texas, Arizona, California, Maryland, and New York, the women received inspiration from an esteemed group of rabbanim who, while addressing their questions and concerns, also defined their challenging role as mentors of conversion candidates. More than this, the rabbanim conveyed heartfelt brachos that encouraged the participants to continue to be exemplary role models for other women who are on their way to conversion or already integrating into a community after the conversion process.

(Rochel Weinstein - Lubicom)

Livni - Israel not a monopoly of rabbis

JPost reports:

International acceptance of Israel's right to exist is not enough, the world must accept Israel as a Jewish state, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday to the thousands of Jewish American leaders who had come to Jerusalem for the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities.

"The world is willing to defend the right of the state of Israel to exist, this is the part of the requirement that the [Mideast] Quartet demands [of] Hamas. But I would like to add two more words to this demand of the quartet: They need to accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state," she said.

Livni went on to clarify that there were international leaders who support such a right, expressly mentioning US President George W. Bush.

Moving on to the Jewish nature of the state, Livni said, "It's not about learning Hebrew or about joining the army, it's about Jewish tradition, Jewish history… We need to keep the nature, the character of the state of Israel as a Jewish state because this is - excuse me for using the French - the raison d'etre of the state of Israel."

"A Jewish state is not a monopoly of rabbis, it's what each and everyone feels inside," she added.

Livni also announced that Israel would become the second country to boycott the so called "Durban II" conference to be held in Geneva the spring of 2009.

It followed Canada, which announced its decision in January of this year. "I decided that Israel will not participate and will not legitimize the Durban II conference," Livni said.

The foreign minister in February stated Israel's intention not to attend the follow up conference to the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which met in Durban, South Africa.[...]

Child Abuse & Psychiatric medication?

NYTimes reports:

WASHINGTON — Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks, a panel of federal drug experts said Tuesday.

More than 389,000 children and teenagers were treated last year with Risperdal, one of five popular medicines known as atypical antipsychotics. Of those patients, 240,000 were 12 or younger,according to data presented to the committee. In many cases, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders.

But Risperdal is not approved for attention deficit problems, and its risks — which include substantial weight gain, metabolic disorder sand muscular tics that can be permanent — are too profound to justify its use in treating such disorders, panel members said.

“This committee is frustrated,” said Dr. Leon Dure, a pediatric neurologist from the University of Alabama School of Medicine who was on the panel. “And we need to find a way to accommodate this concern of ours.”

The meeting on Tuesday was scheduled to be a routine review of the pediatric safety of Risperdal and Zyprexa, popular antipsychotic medicines made, respectively, by Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly& Company. Food and Drug Administration officials proposed that the committee endorse the agency’s routine monitoring of the safety of the medicines in children and support its previous efforts to highlight the drugs’ risks.

But committee members unanimously rejected the agency’s proposals,saying that far more needed to be done to discourage the medicines’growing use in children, particularly to treat conditions for which the medicines have not been approved.

“The data show there is a substantial amount of prescribing for attention deficit disorder,and I wonder if we have given enough weight to the adverse-event profile of the drug in light of this,” Dr. Daniel Notterman, a senior health policy analyst at Princeton University and a panel member, said when speaking about Risperdal.

Drug agency officials responded that they had already placed strongly worded warnings on the drugs’ labels.

“I’m a little puzzled about the statement that the label is inadequate,” said Dr. Thomas Laughren, director of the agency’s division of psychiatry products. “I’m anxious to hear what more we can do in the labeling.”

Kara Russell, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson, said,“Adverse drug reactions associated with Risperdal use in approved indications are accurately reflected in the label.”

But panelists said the current warnings were not enough.

While panel members spoke at length about Risperdal, they said their concerns applied to the other medicines in its class, including Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Geodon.

The committee’s concerns are part of a growing chorus of complaints about the increasing use of antipsychotic medicines in children and teenagers. Prescription rates for the drugs have increased more than fivefold for children in the past decade and a half, and doctors now use the drugs to settle outbursts and aggression in children with a wide variety of diagnoses, even though children are especially susceptible to their side effects.

A consortium of state Medicaid directors is evaluating the use of the drugs in children on state Medicaid rolls to ensure that they are being properly prescribed.

The growing use of the medicines has been driven partly by the sudden popularity of the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder.

The leading advocate for the bipolar diagnosis is Dr. Joseph Biederman, a child psychiatrist at Harvard University whose work is under a cloud after a Congressional investigation revealed that he had failed to report to his university at least $1.4million in outside income from the makers of antipsychotic medicines.

In the past year, Risperdal prescriptions to patients 17 and younger increased 10 percent, while prescriptions among adults declined 5 percent. Most of the pediatric prescriptions were written by psychiatrists.

From 1993 through the first three months of 2008, 1,207 children given Risperdal suffered serious problems, including 31 who died. Among the deaths was a 9-year-old with attention deficit problems who suffered a fatal stroke 12 days after starting therapy with Risperdal.[...]

Christian funding comes of age

JPost reports:

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, got the thanks he's been looking for from the organized Jewish world on Monday at a reception at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly.

Eckstein, who started the fellowship 25 years ago, has raised some $500 million from Evangelical Christians to give to impoverished Jews, Jewish groups and Zionist causes.

The relationship has often been one of contention, as the Jewish community has long been wary of receiving Christian money,especially for Zionist purposes.

But Eckstein has become a strategic partner of both of the federation system's overseas arms, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The fellowship has long been a donor to the JDC, giving the organization $9m. last year and $7m. this year, according to the JDC's executive vice president, Steve Schwager. Eckstein sits on the major boards of the JDC.

Most recently Eckstein pledged $45m. to the Jewish Agency in exchange for a seat on the agency's highest governing committee.

In May, that deal almost fell apart because Eckstein felt that the agency was not honoring him as a full partner; in particular, hewas upset that the fellowship was not listed on JAFI's letterhead along with its primary funding organizations, the UJC and Keren Hayesod,which raises money from Europe and Canada for the agency.

But Monday, Eckstein said he finally felt "vindicated" and officially accepted by the organized Jewish community.[...]

Chareidi post-election violence continues

Jpost reports:
n another incident demonstrating the escalating tensions between rival camps within the haredi community, the son of United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush was beaten and knocked to the ground Monday.

Yisrael Porush confirmed that he had been attacked but added that he did not want to provide details of the incident for fear it would lead to the desecration of God's name.

The Ger hassidic sect, the nation's largest, has been embroiled in a serious dispute with a constellation of smaller hassidic sects represented by Porush's Shlomei Emunim faction in Agudat Yisrael.

The tension between the two groups intensified after Rabbi Ya'acov Aryeh Alter, the Gerer Rebbe, did not support Porush in the Jerusalem mayoral elections. Many Ger hassidim actually voted for his secular rival, Nir Barkat, helping him win.

Porush's followers, who feel the Ger hassidim broke an unwritten rule to uphold haredi unity, have called for a revamping of Agudat Yisrael's political leadership. Currently Ger effectively controls Aguda.

Porush's followers are also trying to establish a new haredi daily to compete with the Ger-controlled Hamodia.

Ger hassidim say that Porush forced himself on the haredi public without receiving rabbinic backing for his candidacy. The Lithuanian rabbinic leadership has also criticized Porush for the same reason.

The tension between the camps has led to violent incidents. UTJ faction chairman Ya'acov Litzman was beaten and had food thrown at him during a family event in Me'a She'arim on Shabbat.

Islamic courts in Britain

NYTimes reports:

LONDON — The woman in black wanted an Islamic divorce. She told the religious judge that her husband hit her, cursed her and wanted her dead.

But her husband was opposed, and the Islamic scholar adjudicating the case seemed determined to keep the couple together. So, sensing defeat, she brought our her secret weapon: her father.

In walked a bearded man in long robes who described his son-in-law as a hot-tempered man who had d his daughter, evaded the police and humiliated his family.

The judge promptly reversed himself and recommended divorce.

This is Islamic justice, British style. Despite a raucous national debate over the limits of religious tolerance and the pre-eminence of British law, the tenets of Shariah, or Islamic law, are increasingly being applied to everyday life in cities across the country.

The Church of England has its own ecclesiastical courts. British Jews have had their own “beth din” courts for more than a century.

But ever since the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, called in February for aspects of Islamic Shariah to be embraced alongside the traditional legal system, the government has been grappling with a public furor over the issue, assuaging critics while trying to reassure a wary and at times disaffected Muslim population that its traditions have a place in British society.

Boxed between the two, the government has taken a stance both cautious and confusing, a sign of how volatile almost any discussion of the role of Britain’s nearly two million Muslims can become.[...]

Conversion - Join IDF & become a Jew

JPost reports:

Like thousands of other young immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ukrainian-born Igor Lermont always considered himself Jewish, even though his mother is not Jewish.

"When I was young, I thought I was Jewish," the 22-year-old IAF technician told a small delegation of North American Jews attending the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Jerusalem on Tuesday. "I thought it did not matter that my father is Jewish and mother is not."

When he arrived in Israel four-and-a-half years ago, Lermont soon discovered that according to Jewish law, a person's religion is determined by the mother - regulations that are strictly followed by the government, as the Orthodox have a monopoly on religious affairs.

After enlisting in the army, Lermont heard of an educational Jewish-Zionist educational program, offered in conjunction with his military service, which culminates with official conversion performed by the IDF Rabbinate.

The program, called Nativ, offers soldiers and officers who are not Jewish according to Halacha a seven- or 11-week intensive course in Judaism to prepare them for conversion.

After completing the course and being sent back to their bases, soldiers interested in proceeding with the conversion process are then invited to two two-week seminars, with a month off between them, before undergoing the official conversion by three rabbis of the IDF Chaplaincy.

The programs, which are a joint project of the IDF Education Corps and the Joint Institute for Jewish Studies, are made possible with the support of the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the Jewish Agency for Israel. They offer thousands of IDF soldiers an opportunity to convert in an Orthodox-recognized process with like-minded peers in a friendly environment, bypassing the rigid civilian conversion system.

"I enlisted in the army specifically to take this course," said Cpl. Sophie Shapira, 19, who immigrated to Israel as a baby from Moscow, never knowing she was not considered Jewish by her adoptive country. She is now nearing the end of the course.

"Back in Lithuania, I knew that I would not be considered Jewish in Israel, and I thought it was a joke," said Lt. Dalia Desiatnik, 21, a basic training platoon commander. "When I got here, I understood it was no joke."

One million Jews from the former Soviet Union have immigrated to Israel over the last decade and a half, but about a third of them are not Jewish according to Halacha.

Today one out of every five soldiers is a new immigrant, with one of four new immigrants serving in a combat unit.[...]

Molad - Moon's Race against Earth

From articles written for the Yated Neeman (USA) by Avraham Broide

(Jerusalem based translator and journalist. phone: 02-5856133; email: broide2@netvision.net.il) 

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

The moon is an erratic traveler, sometimes zipping through its monthly circuit at high speed, and sometimes gliding along at a more leisurely pace. Because of this, the difference between a long month and a short month is sometimes as long as thirteen and a half hours.

Why does the moon speed and slow down with such maddening irregularity?

Let us explore what the Molad, or "New Moon."

About every 29.5 days, the moon begins a new month at the Molad, soon after it passes directly between the earth and the sun. Sometimes, the moon blocks the sun's light from earth during this maneuver and we experience a solar eclipse. Why does the moon take varying times to run this monthly race?

The answer is based on the difference between circles and ellipses. If the moon and earth traveled in perfectly circular orbits, Molads would always arrive with (almost) perfect regularity, since objects traveling in circular orbits never alter their speed.

However, since the moon and earth have elliptical orbits, and objects move in elliptical orbits vary their speeds, the earth and moon constantly slow down and speed up depending on their place in orbit.

Illustration: The earth moves slowest when it is furthest from the sun on the left, and speeds up as it moves nearer the sun towards the right.  

This is why the moon has irregular molads!

If the moon is moving slowly towards the end of the month and the earth is moving faster, the moon takes longer to catch up with the sun-moon-earth axis and you have a longer month. The opposite happens when the moon is moving fast and the earth is moving slowly. In such a circumstance, the moon catches up with the sun faster and you have a shorter month.

Illustration: In this example, the moon is near earth and moving faster, while the earth is far from the sun and moving slower.

Some time after the Churban, Hillel II created the modern calendar which avoids the irregular-month problem by using the average month-length mentioned by Raban Gamliel (Rosh Hashana 25a): "So I received from the house of the father of my father; the renewal of the moon is not less than 29 and a 1/2 days, 2/3 of an hour, and 73 parts (1/18^th of a minute)."

With this average molad, it is very easy to calculate the average molad of any month of the past or future.

However, incredibly accurate as Raban Gamliel's average month-length may be, it is gradually becoming less precise due the "stretching of time."

What is the "stretching of time?" Not some obtruse, Einsteinian concept, but simply the gradual lengthening of the day due to the moon's constant tugging on the world's oceans. Friction caused by the tides' flow and ebb is slowing down the world's spin, lengthening the days by about 0.00175 seconds per year, and due to this our modern days are about 1.75 seconds longer than the days of a thousand years ago.

Since Raban Gamliel's average month-length is tailored for the shorter days of the past, the lengthening days have gradually pushed Chazal's molad so far backwards that unlike the time of Hillel II when it was accurate to milliseconds, it is now off by about 0.6 of a second per month. These small differences have added up and nowadays, on average, the average molad calculation runs about two hours late!

This does not matter, since the Chazon Ish lays down a general rule in connection with a similar issue that Chazal's measurements do not have to absolutely coincide with reality. Also, using a chelek (1/18 of a minute) as his smallest unit, Raban Gamliel could in any case not have expressed the molad average with more accuracy.

DIFFERENT MONTH MODES

We mentioned that the Molad calculation began ticking from the time of Ma'asei Bereishis. If so, what is the meaning of Hashem's command in Egypt (Shemos 12:2), This month shall be for you the first of months?

In his fascinating discussion of this verse, the Ramban not only explains this point, but also resolves a triple contradiction.

First, he explains that This month shall be for you the first of months is saying that just as it is a mitzvah to constantly remember Shabbos by calling the days rishon b'Shabbos and sheni b'Shabbos, so it is a mitzvah to start the counting of the months from Nissan, in order to remember the redemption from Egypt.

But how can one say that the count begins in Nissan? The year begins with Rosh Hashana in Tishrei as it says (Shemos 34:22), And the festival of ingathering [Sukkos] at the changing (tekufas) of the year? The Ramban answers that although we call Nissan the first month and Iyar the seventh month, this does not mean that they are the first or seventh months of the year, but that they are the first or seventh month since our redemption.

The Ramban now raises another difficulty. How why do call the months by the names Nissan, Iyar, etc? Isn't this a violition of the Torah's command to name them Rishon and Sheni after Yetzi'as Mitzrayim?

To answer this question, he cites the Yerushalmi (Rosh Hashana 1:2) that states, "The names of the months came with them from Bavel." In other words, the Jews innovated a new month innovation system after returning from the second galus. Why? In order to fulfill the verse (Yirmeyahu 16:14,15), It will no longer be said, as Hashem lives who raised bnei Yisroel from the land of Egypt, but, as Hashem lives who raised bnei Yisroel and who took bnei Yisroel from the land of the north [Bavel].

"We reverted to called the months the names they are called in Bavel to be a reminder that we were there and that Hashem, may He be blessed, raised us from there," the Ramban concludes. "Because these names, Nissan, Iyar, and the rest, are Persian names, and are only mentioned in the sefarim of the prophets who were in Bavel (Zechariah 1:7, Ezra 6:15, Nechemiah 1:1) and in Megillas Esther (3:7). ...And until today, the nations in the lands of Persia and Madai, so they call them Nissan and Tishrei and all of them, like us. And so we make remembrance, with [these] months, of the second redemption, as we had made until now of the first [redemption]."

Actually, the people in Bavel pronounced them a little differently, for example, Simanu instead of Sivan, Du'uzu instead of Tamuz,  and Arakhsamma instead of Marcheshvan. Also, they counted Shevat before Teveis. But our version is close enough to eternally remind us of our redemption from the land of Nevuchadnezer and Haman.

THIRTY DAYS HATH SEPTEMBER

In light of the Ramban's statement that the Hebrew month-names and their numerical symbols serve such important functions, how can we use non-Jewish month names such as January and February, that remind us neither of Yetzias Mitzrayim, nor of our escape from Bavel?

One intriguing answer is that, in the Torah view, non-Jewish months are not months at all as their timing is purely arbitary and has nothing to do with the Molad. In fact, the earliest Roman calendar created in about 3008/753 BCE by the mythic first king of Rome, Romulus, did not even have twelve months, but only ten! This early ten month system helps explain a surprising incongruity connected with these month's names.

Most of the first four months are named after false gods, raising a sha'alah how we are permitted to use them. Martis was the god of war, Aprilis probably refers to hog raising, Maius was an Italian god, and Junius was yet another god.

By the time he reached the fifth month, Romulus' imagination seems to have ran dry as labeled the remaining six months as 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th, or, in Latin, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December.

Since this ten month year had a miniscule length of only 304 days, far less than the solar year of 365 days, in about 3061/700 BCE, the Romans tacked two more months to the year, Januarius and Februarius, stretching it to 355 days.

Centuries later, Julius Caesar, made the names of the last six months a joke when he shifted the beginning of the year from March to January, so that the names September, October, etc., no longer make any sense. Also, Quintilis was renamed Julius after Julius Caesar, and Sextilis was later renamed Augustus after Augustus Caesar, bringing the month's name to their present form. 

All this makes it obvious that the secular months have nothing to do with our lunar year. They are not months in the Torah meaning of the word, and thus one can argue that using them does not constitute a substitute for the names of the Hebrew months.

Of course, it is no big mitzvah to use them either.

(Sources: Duncan David Ewing, "The Calendar," 1999, Fourth Estate, London. Source of molad information: Dr. Bromberg Irv of University of Toronto, Canada, "Moon and the Molad of the Hebrew Calendar." )  

Third Year Seminary cancelled

Chedrei Chadarim reports:

Valis sentenced for killing son

JPost reports:

The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday sentenced Yisrael Valis,convicted of killing his infant son in 2006, to six years imprisonment and a two-year suspended sentence. Valis was convicted of manslaughter earlier this year for beating his three-month-old son to death.

The baby died in the hospital on April 10 2006, a week afterhis then-19-year-old father hurled him against the wall when he startedto cry.

The young father's arrest led to days of haredi rioting in Jerusalem, after leaders of the vehemently anti-Zionist Edah Haredit community - which the Valis family was part of - accused police of concocting a 'blood libel' identical to European blood libels against the Jews.

Valis, who was arrested after he admitted during police questioning to repeatedly beating his child, later retracted his confession in a court hearing, saying that it had been coerced by police.

Prague CER conference & R' Tropper

Rabbi Tropper was asked to speak at the recent CER conference in Prague - but I heard that his presentation ran into serious difficulties. Any clarification of what actually happened and what is happening - apparently a major change in Rabbi Tropper & EJF's status - would be appreciated.

Conversion - Europe vs. Israel/ Whose rabbis?

JPost reported:

At a Conference of European Rabbis in Prague last week, rabbis from Europe's smallest Jewish communities said the current policy of the European Orthodox establishment was limiting the growth of small communities at a time when interest in Judaism is being rekindled among assimilated Jews and their non-Jewish descendants.

"If I can start to convert observant people who have already been coming to my synagogue for the past five years, I can have a minyan," explained Rabbi Kotel Dadon of Zagreb.

Instead, he told hundreds of assembled Orthodox rabbis from across Europe, he faced a catch-22 that is keeping his community from growing.

Only with conversions can he build a viable community, but the poskim (halachic decisors) and batei din (rabbinic courts) of Europe won't convert someone living in a community that lacks the institutions necessary for Jewish life, such as the schools, ritual baths and kosher slaughterhouses required for an observant lifestyle.

Most prominent among these poskim is England's Rabbi Chanoch HaCohen Ehrentreu, who sat a few meters from Dadon as he and many other rabbis - from Budapest, Zurich, Helsinki and elsewhere - explained their difficulties and sought advice.

"The question is whether Croatia has an infrastructure for Judaism," explained a rabbi familiar with Ehrentreu's opinion. "What is conversion? It's an acceptance of the yoke of mitzvot. If [the aspiring convert] doesn't know what mitzvot are, or cannot fulfill them, how can he accept them?"

Former French chief rabbi Joseph Sitruk agreed. "To convert someone who will be the lone Jew in his area is to put a stumbling block before the blind. How can you keep Torah and mitzvot alone?" he asked.

"Conversion can be the salvation of a community, or its destruction," said Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, chief rabbi of Moscow."If it is done according to law and custom, the convert can be the strongest link in the community, but if [the convert] continues to behave like a Gentile, sending the message to our youth that it's permissible to be Gentile, to marry Gentiles, this will destroy a community."

But the rabbis from the struggling communities did not come to Prague to rail against the senior rabbinic leadership of European Orthodoxy, but to beseech its help.

"They are my beth din," said a rabbi from a tiny Balkan community. "We need a beth din to have a communal life. I can't grow the community without them. So I must convince them to help me. That's what I'm doing here." [...]

Another complaint of Europe's rabbis was perhaps moresurprising. Many Israelis attended the conference, including chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger. The Israelis held the more conservative position throughout, and came to be seen by many participants as unhelpful.

One organizer said that the many Israeli participants "were more trouble than they're worth.

Next year, we're considering not inviting the Israelis."

The CER was meant to deal with European problems, said rabbis atthe conference, and the Israeli rabbinate's push to standardize conversion under its authority worldwide has met with much resistance both in the US and Europe.

"In Europe we could get a consensus of opinion [on conversion]to which most of Orthodoxy would agree," said one of Europe's most senior rabbinic figures. "But I don't think you'll ever get an international consensus on conversion."

"Right now, unity is not possible," agreed Belgian chief rabbi Albert Guigui. "The Jews of Brussels are not the same as the Jews of Bnei Brak. Perhaps we need to establish consistent guidelines in all countries to preserve the principles" of Orthodox conversion.

At the conference's concluding meeting, former French chief rabbi Sitruk read a decision of the CER, according to which"Conversions will be done in Europe solely by dayanim [rabbinic judges]approved by the standing rabbinic courts of Europe, in cooperation with the [umbrella] European Beth Din headed by Rabbi Ehrentreu."

The message was clear, said conference organizers: conversions in Europe will not be opened to Israeli influence.

IDF - Should teach Jewish values?

Haaretz reports:
The chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces is sticking to his position that the military rabbinate must be involved in inculcating soldiers and officers with "values and Jewish awareness," despite the opposition of the education corps.

"There is a crucial need to connect [the] soldiers with their roots and Jewish values," Rabbi Avihai Ronski wrote in a letter he sent earlier this month to officers in the military rabbinate, in response to criticism that arose in response to a Haaretz article describing the rabbis' activities. "Thank God we have the privilege of dealing with this. We should continue to act in the area of Jewish awareness."

Haaretz reported a month ago that the IDF rabbinate was getting involved in areas under the responsibility of the education corps and quoted senior officers as saying the IDF rabbis are dangerously close to preaching that troops become religious and introducing soldiers to their right-wing political views.

In his letter, Ronski said "it seems utterly plain" that IDF rabbis are supposed to be involved in inculcating Jewish values. He said he met with dozens of unit commanders before he took up his post and was told they saw the job of the IDF rabbinate as being "to teach us, who did not grow up in a religious home, what Judaism is." [...]

Child Abuse - A sefer on the Jewish perspective III/ changed focus

My sefer discussing child abuse has passed the 300 page mark and is growing by the hour. It has become obvious that most of the material I am citing is not specific to child abuse. Issues such as rodef, mesira, etc are in fact applicable to other issues such as wife or hsuband abuse, self abuse in the form of drug, alcohol or tobacco abuse, etc etc.

Therefore I have decided to expand the focus of the book. It is now enttled:

 "Abuse of Others (including Oneself) in Halacha and Hashkofa"

All support is greatly appreciated either with 1) sending me relevant sources and issues, 2) financially (through my Paypal account on my blog) and/or 3) buying the sefer when it is out in a projected 5 months.

Child abuse - Heter to call police/ Rambam

Among the various justifications for calling the police in the case of child abuse is the following Rambam [Shulchan Aruch C.M. 388:12 according to Gra & Shach] which is found in his discussion of moser. A major concern is the source of this Rambam. There is no direct source in Chazal which says this. It is discussed at length by the Chasam Sofer and the Minchas Yitzchok. Is it a viable source to call the police? Ask your local posek.

Rambam (Hilchos Chovel uMazik 8:11): ...Similarly concerning all those who distress the community and harm it – it is permitted to hand them over to the non‑Jewish government to be beaten, imprisoned and punished. However if the person is only disturbing an individual and not the community – it is prohibited to hand him over....

רמב"ם (הלכות חובל ומזיק ח:יא):עשה המוסר אשר זמם ומסר יראה לי שאסור להרגו אלא אם כן הוחזק למסור הרי זה יהרג שמא ימסור אחרים, ומעשים בכל זמן בערי המערב להרוג המוסרים שהוחזקו למסור ממון ישראל ולמסור את המוסרים ביד הגוים להרגם ולהכותם ולאסרם כפי רשעם. וכן כל המיצר לציבור ומצער אותן מותר למסרו ביד גוים להכותו ולאסרו ולקנסו, אבל מפני צער יחיד אסור למסרו, ואסור לאבד ממונו של מסור ואע"פ שמותר לאבד גופו שהרי ממונו ראוי ליורשיו

שולחן ערוך (חושן משפט שפח:יב):

כל המוסר [המיצר גר"א וש"ך]הצבור ומצערן, מותר למסרו ביד עובדי כוכבים אנסים להכותו ולאסרו ולקנסו; אבל מפני צער יחיד אסור למסרו. הגה: (וע"ל סי' תכ"ה ס"א). מי שעוסק בזיופים וכדומה, ויש לחוש שיזיק רבים, מתרין בו שלא יעשה, ואם אינו משגיח, יכולין למסרו ולומר שאין אחר מתעסק בו אלא זה לבד. מי שרוצה לברוח ולא לשלם לעובדי כוכבים מה שחייב, ואחר גילה הדבר, אין לו דין מסור, שהרי לא הפסידו רק שהוצרך לשלם מה שחייב, מכל מקום ברעה עשה דהוי כמשיב אבידה לעובד כוכבים; ואם גרם לו היזק, חייב לשלם לו מה שגרם לו (מהר"ם מרוזבורג).

Secular conversions in Israel?

Haaretz reports:
The Knesset caucus for secular Judaism and organizations from all streams of Judaism have created a coalition of conversion courts independent from the Chief Rabbinate. The coalition, which was approved last week, is being coordinated by PANIM for Jewish Renaissance, an advocacy group for pluralistic Judaism.

The goal is to create two new tracks in Israel for conversions to Judaism, one secular and one national-religious, both independent from the Chief Rabbinate. These come on top of the conversion courts of the Reform and Conservative movements, which produce about 300 converts a year.

Converts of the new coalition will not be permitted to marry through the rabbinate, but rather in accordance with a ruling by the High Court of Justice that these converts will be registered as Jews in the Interior Ministry's Population Registry.

One of the coalition's main innovations is the inclusion of Ne'emanei Torah Vaavodah, a moderate Orthodox movement, in a forum that recognizes Reform, Conservative and secular conversion. The chairman of Ne'emanei Torah Vaavodah, Yonatan Ben Harosh, said at the forum's latest meeting that his movement plans to establish independent conversion courts "in close cooperation with two other organizations: Mavoi Satum (Dead End) and Kolech, Jewish Woman's Voice."

The forum's founding document explains that "300,000 of the immigrants to Israel who are eligible under the Law of Return are not recognized in Israel as Jews in the Population Registry. Most have integrated into Israel and have forged a covenant of fate but are not accepted by us into the Jewish people, with all that entails: the stripping of citizenship rights, alienation and rejection."

The organizations in the forum say that "the opportunity given by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel by the state to respond to the challenge of conversion in Israel has been exhausted. [The rabbinate's] monopoly must be taken away from it."

The main obstacle to mass conversion is the demand by the Chief Rabbinate and Conversion Administration that converts conduct a religiously observant lifestyle and send their children to religious schools. The crisis between the national-religious public and the government's conversion system was created by a ruling by the Great Rabbinical Court seeking to void even conversions carried out by the head of the administration, Rabbi Haim Druckman.

The Reform and Conservative movements, like the Conversion Administration, require potential converts to complete hundreds of hours of instruction in Judaism. The secular Judaism institutions might very well do the same, but they will not demand that converts change their lifestyle.

The secular Knesset caucus is headed by outgoing Meretz MK Yossi Beilin, a pioneer of the idea of secular conversion. Currently the only secular organization initiating a secular conversion process is Tmura, the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism. Rabbi Sivan Maas, a director and assistant dean of Tmura, said the organization's first conversion course is scheduled to begin in January. [...]

Treasury bailout - Paulson's failure

Chron.com reports: Similar comments from Time / Wall Street Journal / Newsweek

Henry Paulson became Treasury secretary 28 months ago, when he was at the top of the financial world: Wall Street’s best-paid chief executive officer,capping his career with a high-profile sojourn in public service.

Today, two months before he leaves office, some say Paulson is a reduced figure, damaged by the financial-market meltdown that happened on his watch and by the government’s struggles to respond to it.

Like many others who have served in President George W. Bush’s administration — among them former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Treasury chief Paul O’Neill — Paulson, 62, will leave office casting a smaller shadow than when he arrived.

“Paulson’s credibility has certainly been substantially diminished,” said Peter Wallison, who was general counsel at the Treasury under former President Ronald Reagan and is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “There has been a lot of shifting back and forth and he clearly hasn’t thought through much of these policies. He has lost a lot of confidence from the market from all of this.”

The latest blow was his announcement last week that the Treasury is abandoning his plan to buy devalued mortgage assets — the one he unveiled dramatically just eight weeks ago, and defended against congressional and market skeptics.

“This is a flip-flop, but on the other hand, when they first proposed the thing,they didn’t really know what they were doing,” said Bill Fleckenstein,president of Fleckenstein Capital in Seattle and author of the book Greenspan’s Bubbles. Paulson has pushed some “cockamamie schemes,” he said. “So one has to ask, does he have any clue?”

“This is not something he’s going to be proud to put on his résumé,” said James Cox,a law professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C., who has testified on securities regulation before Congress and served on legal advisory panels for the New York Stock Exchange and National Association of Securities Dealers. “It does tarnish Paulson’s image, because it shows that a lot of political capital was spent on something that most of us thought was not a good idea to begin with.”

Only history will render a final verdict on Paulson’s handling of this year’s cascading economic crises. But he surely couldn’t have wanted to spend his final days in office this way: spearheading the massive government intervention in the banking, insurance and mortgage industries;fielding requests to bail out automakers and even heating-oil retailers.

“He’s ended up really in kind of a hair-on-fire thing,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. “Particularly in his position, of somebody who was going to be a government official for a very short time and then ride off into the sunset, it’s been very different from what he had in mind.”

The Treasury chief last week said he had no regrets over reversing his plans for the bailout program. “I will never apologize for changing a strategy or an approach if the facts change,” Paulson said at a press briefing.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television, he said “the original plan was a good plan. What changed was our understanding of the magnitude of the problem.”[...]

Economy & Boro Park

JPost reports:

Medium box. I need a large! I have my children to feed, please - please can I have a large box?

Sorry. Medium box.

That's how it went on a recent Thursday night at the TomcheShabbos food pantry in Brooklyn's Borough Park neighborhood, one of theseveral that provide weekly baskets of strictly kosher food to 500needy haredi families.

Jeno Herschkowits, who has run the pantry since 1975, sayssupplicants have gotten noticeably edgier in recent months, as peoplewho were narrowly avoiding ruin before this fall's stock market crashfind themselves slipping over the brink, now that the American consumereconomy has ground to a near halt.

"People are desperate; they get aggressive," he said. "And there are more people, but less money."

Evidence of pain is everywhere, from deep discounts at chainstores - as much as 60 percent off fall merchandise, that began weeksbefore the traditional Thanksgiving sales - to empty restaurants andupticks in late-night subway ridership by those who might previouslyhave splurged on cabs. But in New York's haredi neighborhoods, wheremost families subsist on a single income, the strain shows up in weeklydebates over "small," "medium" or "large."

A WEEK ago, New York exploded with euphoria after the historiclandslide election of Barack Obama to the presidency on promises ofbringing change, and hope, to America. Now, his transition team isalready racing to craft plans for his first weeks in office, among thema $175 billion stimulus package that would include extendedunemployment benefits and food assistance.

But inauguration is still 68 days away, and in the meantime,financial markets are continuing their downward spiral, with Bushadministration officials taking steps to make bailout money availableto credit-card and student-loan companies, in hopes of keeping cashflowing into consumers' wallets. Investors have responded to theapparent uncertainty over how to spend the $700 billion in bailoutfunds, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down another 400 pointson Wednesday alone.

That, in turn, threatens to empty state coffers of much-neededtax revenue next year. New York State officials are already bickeringover a proposed $5 billion in education and health-care cuts to close ayawning budget deficit, stoking concerns that food-stamp programs mightbe next on the chopping block.

Private charities say that if that happens, they will beill-prepared to make up the difference, because donations have driedup, and fund-raisers are working overtime just to get donors to satisfytheir current pledges, let alone worry about those to come next year.

"We lost one donor who used to give us $400 a week," saidAlexander Rapaport, whose Masbia kosher soup kitchen provides about 160meals a day, prepared by a caterer at a local school. He said he hastaken out advertising on local radio stations citing this week's Torahportion - on Sodom and Gomorrah - to inspire donations.

While Masbia qualifies for some government grant programs, theorganization's strict observance of kosher standards means he can'tmake use of many restaurant or overstock giveaways available for thosefollowing more relaxed codes.

Pantries that follow looser restrictions said they had seen aspike in requests from non-Jews, along with more Jews asking for help.One, the Oneg Shabbos pantry - run by Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch andhis wife, Pe'er - has installed a fence along the sidewalk to protectbags of carrots and potatoes waiting to be packed in with containers ofSabra-brand feta cheese and other goodies for people who wait in a linesnaking up the block.

"We're seeing families who never in their lives thought they would have to ask for food," Pe'er Deutsch told The Jerusalem Post."The thing about us is that we pack it into boxes, and it looks likegroceries - people know they can come here and the kids never have toknow."

LEADERS OF haredi organizations understand the irony of theirconstituents - most of whom backed Republican presidential candidateJohn McCain - waiting for a rescue from the incoming Obamaadministration.

"Our man always wins," said Rabbi Avi Shafran of Agudath Israelof America, winking. He said his organization, which has a staffertaking calls for assistance from the newly jobless or helpless, hasalways been able to work with both political parties, even if "peopleon the ground" disagree with one side or the other.

So, he said, there is hope. But with the first cold snap, the clock is already ticking.

Online tv show for religious kids

Haaretz reports:

When Asi and Tuvia, two yeshiva students at Machon Meir in Jerusalem, finish their Torah studies for the day, they head upstairs to a small TV studio above the yeshiva to produce what has become a major hit among religious children.

What started as a small online TV experiment a few years ago has become a household name for religious Zionist families, many of which don't have televisions.

Asi and Tuvia don't have the intentions or the capabilities to compete with Israel's national children's television station. But their online show has garnered enough affection to have received the nickname "The Rabbi's Pajamas," a play on the name of a wildly popular secular TV show called "The Pajamas".

Chareidi disunity - Jerusalem

JPost reports:

A sense of gloom hung over Mea She'arim on Wednesday afternoon, as the sting of haredi Jerusalem mayoral hopeful Meir Porush's loss to the secular Nir Barkat was still being digested.

The hustling buzz of haredim on their way to the polling stations on Tuesday was gone, and the quiet, subdued manner that often characterizes this modest enclave returned.

Whereas Tuesday's excitement gave way to an abundance of locals willing to talk to the press - an anomaly here - Wednesday saw a rescinding of that relationship and a withdrawn, disenchanted community with very little to say.

"I'm not involved in politics," was a common answer from shopkeepers and yeshiva students, even though the majority of the neighborhood - the same one that had worked diligently to promote its candidate across the city - had been not only involved in the election, but engrossed in it.

"I don't pay attention to those things," others said, as the now obsolete posters of a cartoon Porush blew in the wind from apartment balconies above.

Near the entrance to the Geula neighborhood, a fruit vendor who gave his name as Ilan tried to break it down.

"It's quiet here today," he said. "It's the quiet after the boom. Porush's loss is a big blow, and everyone here is still traumatized."

Ilan added that word on the street was focusing on the Ger Hassidim, who came out against Porush due to internal strife and, in some cases, purportedly campaigned on behalf of Barkat.

"I think most of the blame is going toward the Ger," Ilan said. "Porush made a deal with the Satmar [Hassidim], so the Ger went against Porush. What happened in the end? Porush lost, and we have a mayor of Jerusalem who doesn't keep Shabbat." He grimaced a bit at the thought.

"Still, it doesn't matter. What we need to realize, all of the Orthodox Jews in this city, is that we have to be unified. We split up into our groups, with our fights, and look what we got. He gave us a bill to pay," Ilan said, pointing at the sky.

Outside a nearby bookstore, a haredi man named Eli also aired his grievances.

"We suffered from two problems," he said. "The national religious and our own people who didn't go out and vote. We as a group have to realize that if we're not together, then we're weak. But am I worried about Barkat?" he smiled. "Nir Barkat has to realize that now he needs us more than we need him."

Still, Eli said he put most of the blame on the national religious, many of whom supported Barkat.

"I don't understand how they could vote for him," Eli said. "It just doesn't make sense."

Across town in Kiryat Moshe, however, the national religious crowd made itself clear.

"We don't approve of the haredim, and they don't approve of us," said Yehoshua, who learns at an area yeshiva. "I voted Barkat, not because of what I think he'll do for the city, but because I was afraid of what Porush would do. We don't dress like them for a reason, and I'm afraid [Porush] would have dealt with us badly."

Still, others said they had supported Porush, and now they were awaiting the consequences of a Barkat victory.

"The kippa sruga [national religious] who voted for Barkat are the biggest suckers," said Dudu, as he served food at a sandwich shop nearby. "They go to the army, they work and pay taxes, and look what the government does to them - just look at Gush Katif."

Dudu explained that by voting in Barkat, the national religious were, he felt, overlooking their own religious obligations.

"He's going to allow the Gay Pride Parade to come here, to Jerusalem, the holiest city to Jews," Dudu said of Barkat.

But Ya'acov, Dudu's coworker, chimed in, "I think everyone is out for their own pocket. It doesn't matter whom you vote for - this one, that one, in the end they're all the same."

Treasury bailout is a fraud! II

Michelle Malkin reports:     See also Treasury bailout is fraud I

Senators to Paulson: You Lied, TARP died

Three GOP Senators have sent Treasury Secretary Hank “Never mind” Paulson a “joint letter of concern.” I’ll have more on this abominable subject in my syndicated column tomorrow.

Joint Letter of Concern to Secretary Paulson After His Announcement to the Change Intent of the Troubled Asset Relief Program

November 13, 2008

Dear Secretary Paulson:

We are writing to express our deep concern over your announcement this morning that the Department of the Treasury will halt all plans to purchase trouble mortgage assets through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). We are concerned that the program has been fundamentally changed from its original intent and worry that continued changes may erode the structures of accountability put in to protect taxpayers.

When legislation authorizing the TARP was first proposed to members of Congress in mid-September, its primary component was a program to allow the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase “toxic” mortgage assets from financial institutions. The primary reason for this course of action, we were told, was to assist the market in discovering the price of these assets and to return liquidity to the financial markets.

At a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on September 23, 2008, you made the following comments on the urgent necessity of a troubled asset purchase program:

We have proposed a program to remove troubled assets from the system. This troubled asset relief program has to be properly designed for immediate implementation and be sufficiently large to have maximum impact and restore market confidence. It must also protect the taxpayer to the maximum extent possible, and include provisions that ensure transparency and oversight while also ensuring the program can be implemented quickly and run effectively.

This troubled asset purchase program on its own is the single most effective thing we can do to help homeowners, the American people and stimulate our economy.

Although the legislation was passed on October 3, the program was never implemented and now has been officially abandoned in favor of alternative plans after little more than a month. Such a rapid reversal raises questions about the TARP’s original design as well as the propriety of future plans.

Congress never intended for the TARP to be a blank check that could be spent with unlimited discretion. To ensure proper boundaries are in place to protect the taxpayer, we hope and expect that congressional approval will be sought by the administration before further changes are made.

Sincerely,

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D., U.S. Senator Richard Burr, U.S. Senator David Vitter

Self Esteem Movement is destructive

Yahoo News reports See also Baumeister et al & Barbara Kay

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Today's American high school students are far likelier than those in the 1970s to believe they'll make outstanding spouses, parents and workers, new research shows.

They're also much more likely to claim they are "A" students with high IQs -- even though other research shows that today's students do less homework than their counterparts did in the 1970s.

The findings, published in the November issue of Psychological Science, support the idea that the "self-esteem" movement popular among today's parents and teachers may have gone too far, the study's co-author said.

"What this shows is that confidence has crossed over into overconfidence," said Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University.

She believes that decades of relentless, uncritical boosterism by parents and school systems may be producing a generation of kids with expectations that are out of sync with the challenges of the real world.

"High school students' responses have crossed over into a really unrealistic realm, with three-fourths of them expecting performance that's effectively in the top 20 percent," Twenge said.

For the study, she and co-researcher W. Keith Campbell, of the University of Georgia, pored over data from the Monitoring the Future study, a large national survey of thousands of U.S. high school students conducted periodically over the past three decades.

The researchers compared the answers kids gave in 1975 and 2006 to 13 questions centered on students' "self-views." These questions solicited students' opinions on such things as how smart they thought they were, or how likely they were to be successful as adults.

"When we look at the responses of the students in the '70s, they are certainly confident that they are going to perform well, but their responses are more modest, a little more realistic" than teens in 2006, Twenge said.

For example, in 1975, less than 37 percent of teens thought they'd be "very good" spouses, compared to more than 56 percent of those surveyed in 2006. Likewise, the number of students who thought they'd become "very good" parents rose from less than 36 percent in 1975 to more than 54 percent in 2006. And almost two-thirds of teens in 2006 thought they'd be exemplary workers, compared to about half of those polled in 1975.

As for self-reported academic achievement, twice as many students in 2006 than in 1976 said they earned an "A" average in high school -- 15.6 percent vs. 7.7 percent, the report found.

Compared to their counterparts from the '70s, today's youth also tended to rate themselves as more intelligent and were more likely to say they were "completely satisfied" with themselves.

There was one exception -- measures of "self-competency" (i.e., agreeing with statements such as, "I am able to do things as well as most other people") did not rise between 1976 and 2006. According to Twenge, that may mean that young people continue to feel great self-worth even as they remain unsure of their competence in specific tasks.

Twenge stressed that youthful confidence isn't necessarily bad. "Young people have always had some degree of starry-eyed optimism, and that's probably a good thing," she said. "And setting goals for yourself is a good thing. It's just when those goals are wildly unrealistic, then that can cause trouble for everyone."

For example, young people entering the workforce may score well in job interviews if they exude self-confidence, she said, but that can quickly sour if a new employer doesn't provide them with the perks or promotions they feel they deserve. "They don't set the right goals for themselves, because they are overconfident -- and that's when it blows up in their face," Twenge said.

The blame for all this may lie with well-intentioned adults, she suggested.

"These kids didn't raise themselves, they got these ideas from somewhere," Twenge said. With Mom and Dad handing out endless praise, kids today readily believe they are somehow superior, she said. And teachers aren't blameless, either: According to Twenge, research shows that high school teachers now give out an "A" grade more easily than their counterparts did in the 1970s, even though today's high school students report doing less homework than students from that era.

Not everyone interpreted the new findings in the same way, however. Jennifer Crocker is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a longtime researcher in self-esteem. She said that by selecting data from 1975 and 2006, Twenge and Campbell have only presented two moments in time and have not shown evidence of any decades-long trend.

And based on available academic data, today's young Americans might be right to be more self-confident, Crocker argued.

"The fact is that we are all getting smarter -- IQ is going up quite dramatically over this same period of time," Crocker noted. "Students may believe that they are getting trained better than they used to, that they are learning skills that they didn't use to have. So, maybe their predictions aren't unreasonable."

But Twenge, who is the author of a book on young people's self-views called Generation Me, isn't convinced. In fact, she believes that today's parents may be sending another crop of young Americans down the same path.

"I have a 2-year-old daughter," she said. "I see the parenting of kids around her age, and I haven't seen this changing. Look around -- about a fourth of the clothing available to her says 'Little Princess' on it."

Mesirah & reporting abuse / Why is it a problem?

Guest Post: Raffi wrote:

Do you happen to have an article - or simply some marei mekomos or something - on the topic of mesirah?  I'm working on a domestic violence unit this year, and it's come up.  I  can't imagine that perpetrators of physical or sexual abuse are to be protected under this halacha, but I'd like to have some  actual mekoros to back me up.

...  I'm just getting my feet wet in the sugya since having started to work on a domestic violence unit.  Actually, I'm still confused by the whole principle.  I read through סימן שפח and it seems like we're talking about handing over someone's money (or body) to be confiscated (or beaten) by goyim (or nasty Jewish people).  How does that get carried over to not reporting someone who is physically beating his wife, sexually abusing his children, etc.? I would /never /have assumed that these people are covered by such a law.  And even though it says "אפילו רשע" - we're not talking about some generally bad guy whom you might want to hand over to the local goyim because he's a jerk - we're talking about someone who is not only in violation of laws that are nearly universal, we're talking about someone who is posing a serious threat to other people, including children, whether or not there is a danger of death.  A man who chains his child to his bed (perhaps for years) or rapes his kids regularly or terrorizes his wife may not have any intent of killing them, but he destroys them mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.  Can we really say that that's not a good enough reason to stop the abuse because you'd have to give this guy up to the authorities (who, while not a bunch of saints, are not thugs and warlords either)?

Sorry, that got a little out of hand there.  It's a touchy topic. The basic question I'm asking is, how do we get from the laws of mesirah to not reporting dangerous criminal activity?  Maybe I just haven't seen it inside, or maybe I'm just not getting it.

However, none of this justifies the attitude that it's best to just keep these things quiet, for garbage reasons like shidduchim, family reputation, shonda, etc.  According to what you said so far, there's no reason not to approach the local rebbeim and let them know that there's an abusive situation somewhere. And there's no reason for rebbeim to shy away or to assert (as I just heard last week) that "I can't dirty my hands with this."  Where does this come from?  And how did it get blamed on halacha???

Thanks very much,