Israeli government skeptical about Bnei Anusim

Haaretz

The authorities would probably call the 30 U.S. citizens who scoured the Negev last week Christian tourists. But the members of the group think of themselves as American Marranos, and they are determined to return to the faith they say their ancestors were forced to renounce and strike root in Israel. Like Del and Helen Sanchez, who headed the group, most of the tourists grew up going to church on Sunday. Only recently did most of them discover what they call their "Jewish roots."And the trip to the Negev was the first step in a quest to realize the prophecy in Obadiah 1:20, stating that "the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad [Spain], will possess the cities of the Negev." The group was looking at places to settle as Jews in Israel. Like all the other members of the group, the Sanchezes believe that their ancestors were in fact Spanish and Portuguese Jews who escaped the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century to flee the Spanish Inquisition. Soon after arriving, some of these Jews found themselves once again under the rule of the Spanish conquistadors, who set up colonies in the Americas. [...]

Michael Freund encouraging descendants of anusim

Michael Freund helping descendants of Anusim

Converts: Racism & Judaism

Jewish Journal Aliza Hausman

Did you hear the one about the black Harvard professor who got arrested breaking into his own home? No, this is not a joke. It was the beginning of a Shabbos lunch that left me traumatized.

It's always the same. I feel safe, comfortable and carefree, and suddenly, punched in the gut, violated, uncomfortable, and all the cares of the world weigh on me. When I feel safe, I feel part of the Jewish community, but when I do not, I feel like an outsider on the outskirts, not fitting in.

My husband and I started speaking out about racism in the Jewish community when a friend asked us to speak at a synagogue in Washington Heights, in my hometown of New York City. As an interracial Jewish couple (my husband is white, I am Dominican), our friend was sure we'd have plenty to say. I wasn't. But as I started to write about my experiences in Washington Heights (from both white Jews, who thought I was dark and foreign, to Dominicans, who thought I was too light and American), I filled four single-spaced typed pages. I knew from the stories of other Jews of color that this meant I was lucky. I learned still others had been even luckier.[...]

Fatah conference - boosting its radical credentials

Time

President Obama's Middle East peace plan faces a key hurdle on Tuesday, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas convenes the first conference in two decades of his Fatah movement. The conference, to be held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem under heavy Palestinian Authority security, is seen as critical to the prospects of restoring Abbas' waning political legitimacy and authority. But early signs suggest that the conference will, if anything, weaken the Palestinian leader's ability to follow Washington's script.

Since the death of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, U.S. peace efforts have relied on the moderate and relatively pliable Abbas to negotiate a two-state agreement with Israel. But the prevailing view within Fatah is that Abbas has achieved precious little for his negotiation efforts, and that this has been a prime factor in weakening Fatah in the face of the challenge by its more militant rival, Hamas. The Islamists trounced Fatah in the last democratic elections for the Palestinian parliament in 2006, and many fear that a candidate backed by Hamas would likely beat Abbas in presidential elections currently scheduled for early next year. Much of the Fatah rank-and-file, and even many in the leadership, believe that the only way the movement can be saved is to break with American tutelage, and seek to reclaim the mantle of "resistance" from Hamas. The result is that the political statement adopted by the conference is unlikely to please the U.S. and Israel.

Indications from within Fatah suggest that the conference political document will reaffirm the Palestinians right to "resistance," specifying non-violent challenges to the occupation, but remaining silent on the question of armed resistance and the future of the Fatah-affiliated militants of the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. It will flatly reject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state," on the grounds that this undermines the rights of Palestinian refugees and of those with Israeli citizenship. It will also insist on a complete freeze on Jewish settlements in occupied territory as a precondition for any talks with Israel, which it will stress must be based on U.N. resolutions — which will include recognition of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees expelled from Israel in 1948, a demand that Israel deems a deal-breaker.[...]

Woman accused of starving child - indicted

JPost

An indictment was served Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court against a haredi woman suspected of starving her three-year-old child over a period of two years. The woman's internment sparked riots in Jerusalem which lasted nearly a week.

The mother is being accused of abusing a helpless infant. The ultra-Orthodox Toldot Aharon sect to which the woman belongs threatened to renew riots if she is remanded again or if the conditions of her house arrest are worsened.

The woman underwent a psychiatric evaluation last week and was found to be fit for trial.

Since her arrest, the mother has consistently refused to cooperate with investigators, and has been erratic in appearing for both court hearings and psychiatric evaluations.

Her son, who weighed just seven kilograms when he was admitted to Hadassha Ein Kerem Hospital at the end of June, was discharged last Friday to the care of relatives. He gained at least three kilograms while he was hospitalized.

At the end of June, Toldot Aharon members rioted throughout religious neighborhoods in the capital in protest of the arrest of the mother. Only after police released the woman to house arrest did the violence subside.

Throughout the saga, the mother has maintained her innocence, and has insisted that her child suffers from multiple illnesses which have caused him to eat improperly. [...]

Israel - Tom Friedman's advise to Obama

NYTimes

Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats they have had over the years, replete with "I-am-not-taking-any-more-of-your-guff" outbursts by Obama officials at American Jewish leaders, and, yes — it wouldn't be a real Israel-U.S. dust-up without it — Israeli accusations that Jewish Obama aides are "self-hating Jews," working out their identity crises by working over Israel. Having been to this play before, and knowing both families, I'd like to offer some free marriage counseling.

Here's what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over "insignificant" settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.

As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel's Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: "The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. ... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. ... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress."

For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it.

The Times's Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, captured the we-are-untouchable arrogance of the settlers last week when he quoted Rabbi Yigael Shandorfi, leader of a religious academy at the settlement of Nahliel, calling Mr. Obama in a speech "that Arab they call a president."[...]

8 dead from false rumor of Koran desecration

Times on line

Paramilitary troops patrolled the streets of a town in eastern Pakistan yesterday after Muslim radicals burnt to death eight members of a Christian family, raising fears of violence spreading to other areas.

Hundreds of armed supporters of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed Islamic militant group, set alight dozens of Christian homes in Gojra town at the weekend after allegations that a copy of the Koran had been defiled.

The mob opened fire indiscriminately, threw petrol bombs and looted houses as thousands of frightened Christians ran for safety. "They were shouting anti-Christian slogans and attacked our houses," Rafiq Masih, a resident of the predominantly Christian colony, said. Residents said that police stood aside while the mob went on the rampage. "We kept begging for protection, but police did not take action," Mr Masih said.

Police and local officials said that at least eight people, including four women and a child, were killed in the fires. Two others died of gunshot wounds. Residents said that the casualties were much higher; one claimed that the number of dead could be in the dozens as many bodies were still buried under the rubble.Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, said that 40 Christian homes were torched in rioting. He said there was no truth to allegations that a Koran had been defiled, and accused the police of ignoring his appeal to provide protection to Christians. [...]

Blaming marriage problems as excuse for failure

NYTimes

LET'S say you have what you believe to be a healthy marriage. You're still friends and lovers after spending more than half of your lives together. The dreams you set out to achieve in your 20s — gazing into each other's eyes in candlelit city bistros when you were single and skinny — have for the most part come true.

Two decades later you have the 20 acres of land, the farmhouse, the children, the dogs and horses. You're the parents you said you would be, full of love and guidance. You've done it all: Disneyland, camping, Hawaii, Mexico, city living, stargazing.

Sure, you have your marital issues, but on the whole you feel so self-satisfied about how things have worked out that you would never, in your wildest nightmares, think you would hear these words from your husband one fine summer day: "I don't love you anymore. I'm not sure I ever did. I'm moving out. The kids will understand. They'll want me to be happy."

But wait. This isn't the divorce story you think it is. Neither is it a begging-him-to-stay story. It's a story about hearing your husband say "I don't love you anymore" and deciding not to believe him. And what can happen as a result.[...]

Tax fraud schemes steal millions

Haaretz JPost YNet NYTimes

The police arrested a number of Israelis and Americans who allegedly defrauded U.S. tax authorities, Army Radio reported on Monday.

The suspects are alleged to have masterminded a scheme whereby they fraudulently obtained tax refunds totaling tens of millions of dollars which were then transferred to various bank accounts in Israel.

A hearing is scheduled for Monday afternoon in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, where the suspects will be arraigned.

The affair follows a similar case last month in which 11 Israelis were arrested for allegedly swindling elderly Americans out of more than $25 million in a telemarketing sting.

Prosecutors sought court approval to extradite the 11 people who are wanted in the United States.

Criminal indictments unsealed in a district court in Manhattan last month accuse 12 people of phoning victims in the United States and falsely telling them they had won an international lottery.[...]

Burial Societies - consequences of their demise

NYTimes

Someone was buried in Florence Marmor's grave, and it was not Florence Marmor.

When Mrs. Marmor visited her deceased husband's cemetery plot in Flushing, Queens, one afternoon, she found that someone had been freshly buried in the spot next to his, where she had planned to rest someday. No one could tell her why.

Strange and wrenching discoveries like that have sprung up repeatedly in Jewish communities over the past few decades as families have discovered that the cemetery properties where they expected to be buried among spouses, children and parents are caught in a legal knot that no one can untangle.

The reason: the Jewish burial societies that sold the gravesites no longer have administrators. Founded by the immigrant ancestors of the people caught in this bind, the societies, in effect, have died. [...]

Bipolar disorder:Surviving mental illness

Aish.com

[....]My strong desire to be "just another high-school girl" and not considered "crazy" was intensified by my mortification toward the end of the previous year, when I had my first encounter with a psychiatric ward. Mental disorders manifest themselves through the particular characteristics of the culture in which the person has developed. Having grown up in a religious neighborhood, my obsession took on a seemingly harmless, and perhaps even admirable, desire to become more religious. So my general, all-encompassing anxiety and sense of helplessness, and my compulsive desire to regain control, were directed onto the one area of my life where I felt control was possible. I wanted to do every mitzvah and keep every detail of Jewish law in the most exacting way. I wanted God to be pleased with me and thought the way to accomplish this was to make my observance of each mitzvah increasingly more complicated and difficult.I didn't simply kiss each mezuzah I saw; I kissed it many times, each time reciting an additional prayer.[....]

OCD and Orthodox ritual

Jerusalem Post

Ritual complements ethics in Jewish law, but Orthodoxy and ultra-Orthodoxy seem in recent years to have put greater stress on ritual and on praising those who observe it pedantically. Thus it may be difficult to distinguish a simply devout person who is meticulous in his observances from one who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

While experts say OCD is not more common among observant Jews than in any other group, when the observant do suffer from OCD, the symptoms usually relate to ritual observance, causing them to carry out practices compulsively in prayer, ritual hand washing, milk/meat separation, family purity or personal hygiene.

In 2001, psychiatrists Prof. David Greenberg and Prof. Eliezer Witztum of Jerusalem's Herzog Hospital wrote their pathfinding volume Sanity & Sanctity: Mental Health Work Among the Ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem, published by Yale University Press, that devoted a few chapters to OCD in this community. But it was an academic volume and not a guide to the treatment of OCD.

Now Dr. Avigdor (Victor) Bonchek (drbonchek@013.net), a long-time Jerusalem psychologist and ordained Orthodox rabbi, has written a $30 book called Religious Compulsions and Fears: A Guide to Treatment. Released by Feldheim Publishers (www.feldheim.com) in Jerusalem, it is prefaced with a note of approval by Rabbi Abraham Twersky, a hassidic scholar and well-known psychiatrist living in New Jersey who specializes in treating substance abuse. His name on the cover alone is enough to encourage many observant Jews to read it. Twersky writes that in his 45 yeas as a psychiatrist, he has noted a "marked increase" in the prevalence of OCD. "It is unclear whether this is due to a greater awareness of the condition or an actual increase in its incidence."

Twersky notes that OCD is known among professionals as "the doubting disease" because its sufferers "cannot be sure of anything. [Someone] may have washed his hands many times or spent hours in the shower, but still doesn't feel clean. He may have repeated a word in davening [praying] many times, but may feel it has not been pronounced correctly... An OCD sufferer may take on absurd and totally unnecessary precautions to avoid mixing milk and meat... In short, he is tortured by persistent doubt."[...]

Gays blame Chareidim for attacks

YNet

Shas condemns attack on gay center Haredi faction issues statement saying 'murder contradicts the way of Torah.' Shas MK says gay community's accusations against party following incident are 'a blood libel' [...]

Supporters of conversion of descendants of anusim - are guided by emotion not halacha

The following is an example of the "rational arguments" that I have received from a number of people who don't understand elementary halacha and feel that anyone who feels they have Jewish anscestors - male or female - or has suffered because they think they are Jewish should be treated as a Jew. These people are obviously sincere - but Judaism is not Christianty - and you can't ignore halacha.

Shimon Ortiz has left a new comment on your post "RaP: Proselytization in Latin America":

Rabbi you are a racist and you should not be a Rabbi. Actually you need to take conversion classes yourself and learn what is like to suffer discrimination because of your love for the Torah. Rabbi did you forget that the Jewish soul never dies! Did you forget the spanish inquisition or are you just jealous that the Sphardim are rising up in large numbers again. Well Rabbi everything does come from above and if that is Hashem's desire to bring back all of the lost (but not lost in the eyes of Hashem) Jews than it will happen no matter how much hate you try to spread. Rabbi did you forget what ahavas Yisroel means?. Like i said earlier i think that you need to take conversion classes.

$100 million bonus - should it be paid?

NYTimes

In a few weeks, the Treasury Department's czar of executive pay will have to answer this $100 million question: Should Andrew J. Hall get his bonus?

Mr. Hall, the 58-year-old head of Phibro, a small commodities trading firm in Westport, Conn., is due for a nine-figure payday, his cut of profits from a characteristically aggressive year of bets in the oil market.

There is little doubt that Mr. Hall is owed the money under his contract. The problem is that his contract is with Citigroup, which was saved with roughly $45 billion in taxpayer aid.

Corporate pay has become a live grenade in the aftermath of the largest series of corporate bailouts in American history. In March, when the American International Group, rescued at vast taxpayer expense, was to give out $165 million in bonuses, Congress moved to constrain the payouts, and protesters showed up at the homes of several executives.

As it happens, one can see some of those homes from Mr. Hall's front lawn in Southport, not far from his office. But his case is more complex. Mr. Hall, raised in Britain and known for titanium nerves and a collection of pricey art, is the standout performer at an operation that has netted Citigroup about $2 billion over the last five years. If Citigroup will not pay him the huge sums he has long made, someone else probably will.

The added wrinkle is that Mr. Hall works in a corner of the trading world that appears headed for its own infamy. Regulators are pushing to curb the role of traders like Mr. Hall, whose speculation in the energy markets may have played a major role in the recent gyrations of oil prices.

That suggests that last summer, drivers paid more at the pump, at least in part, because of people like Andrew J. Hall. How do you hand $100 million to a guy who may have profited because gas hit $4 a gallon? [....]

Understanding the Spinka scandal

I think the following makes too much of too little - but it is useful to understanding the context of recent scandals. The Rebbe pleaded guilty last week. In addition he spoke at the recent Aguda conference where he publically admitted his guilt and suggested honest alternatives.

Forward - Allan Nalder

The Hasidic Rebbe, or "Grand Rabbi," is no ordinary Jewish spiritual leader. Unlike rabbis in other denominations, from Reform to the fervently Orthodox, the Rebbe in Hasidic communities is much more than a teacher, adjudicator of Jewish law and community leader. He is nothing less than a conduit between his followers and the Heavens; a man believed by the faithful to be immaculately holy, endowed with a direct line to God Himself and thereby blessed with supernatural powers that include miracle-healing, divination and the magical granting of every imaginable human need, from bequeathing children to the clinically barren to endowing wealth to the chronically impecunious. A classic Hasidic adage assures that it is within the Rebbe's power to bestow believers with "offspring, long-life and sustenance."

And speaking of “sustenance,” at least one contemporary Hasidic Rebbe is allegedly also blessed with the power to grant sophisticated money-laundering and tax-evasion services to his supporters. When the Grand Rabbi of the Boro Park clan of the Spinka Hasidic dynasty, 59-year-old Naftali Zvi Weisz — or as he is reverently known to his followers, “His Honored Holiness our Master, Teacher and Rabbi of Spinka, Shlita” — was busted by federal agents in Los Angeles on December 19, along with his gabbai, or personal assistant, Rabbi Moshe Zigelman, and four co-conspirators, on charges of having defrauded the American government of almost $35 million, the Hasidic world entered into paroxysms of shock, dismay and anger. The mood of this deeply insular ultra-Orthodox community only darkened further as copies of the 45-page federal indictment detailing no fewer than 37 criminal charges against the Rebbe and his cohorts, as well as the juicy FBI transcripts richly documenting the surveillance methods employed to uncover the Spinker Rebbe’s elaborate schemes, hit the Internet.

But the lion’s share of the Hasidic community’s anger was directed not at the alleged crimes of their Rebbe, but rather at the FBI’s informant. Referred to in FBI documents only as “RK,” the informant cut an immunity deal with the government years ago and was the key figure in blowing the whistle on the Rebbe’s alleged scam. The New York Yiddish weeklies published under Hasidic auspices, as well as numerous comments on a variety of Hasidic Web sites, all cried foul — demanding a community-wide inquest to unmask and root out the “evil spy and informer” who betrayed and defamed the Holy Spinker Rebbe, Shlita. [...]

Polish government forces Jews to accept convert

Time Magazine Monday, Mar. 28, 1932

Jewry does not seek converts. It even discourages those few non-Jews who seek to join. Nevertheless, as sometimes happens, Jewry was petitioned in Warsaw by a Roman Catholic named Antoni-Stefan Raczynski. The Warsaw Rabbinate refused the application, was backed by the Minister of Education who cited a Tsarist ukase of 1905 granting religious liberty save to native Christians who wished to adopt non-Christian faiths. But Pan (Mr.) Raczynski appealed his case to the Supreme Administrative Tribunal at Warsaw, which three weeks ago reversed the previous decisions. Let the Rabbinate admit Pan Raczynski. The Tsarist ukase, said the Tribunal, meant "Greek Orthodox" when it said "Christian." Hence any Roman Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist or whatnot might become a Jew if he wished.

Last week The American Jewish World viewed the conversion of Pan Raczynski as a "strange case." It said: "For centuries it was considered [by civil authorities] a crime for Jews to accept a Christian convert. At certain periods in history, it constituted a capital crime. Now we have a decision of a Supreme Tribunal whose members are probably all Catholics, denying to the Rabbinate the legal right to refuse a Catholic conversion to Judaism. Verily, the world does change!"[...]

Eternal Jewish Family - Phoenix 2007

Jewish News of Phoenix online Jonathan Rosenblum - speaker at Phoenix
EJF Phoenix 2007

US Consulate in Jerusalem - Palestinian territory?!

Rap sent the following

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027079.php
Jihad Watch: "US Consulate in Jerusalem website assumes Jerusalem is Palestinian, says nothing about Israel"

Wash Post crticizes Obama's policy on Israel

Wash Post

ONE OF THE MORE striking results of the Obama administration's first six months is that only one country has worse relations with the United States than it did in January: Israel. The new administration has pushed a reset button with Russia and sent new ambassadors to Syria and Venezuela; it has offered olive branches to Cuba and Burma. But for nearly three months it has been locked in a public confrontation with Israel over Jewish housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank. To a less visible extent, the two governments also have differed over policy toward Iran.

This week a parade of senior U.S. officials has been visiting Jerusalem to tackle the issues: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Middle East envoy George J. Mitchell, national security adviser James L. Jones and senior aide Dennis Ross. But the tensions persist, and public opinion is following: The Pew Global Attitudes Project reported last week that Israel was the only country among 25 surveyed where the public's image of the United States was getting worse rather than better.

In part the trouble was unavoidable: Taking office with a commitment to pursuing Middle East peace, Mr. Obama faced a new, right-wing Israeli government whose prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has refused to accept the goal of Palestinian statehood. In part it was tactical: By making plain his disagreements with Mr. Netanyahu on statehood and Jewish settlements, Mr. Obama hoped to force an Israeli retreat while building credibility with Arab governments -- two advances that he arguably needs to set the stage for a serious peace process.

But the administration also is guilty of missteps. Rather than pocketing Mr. Netanyahu's initial concessions -- he gave a speech on Palestinian statehood and suggested parameters for curtailing settlements accepted by previous U.S. administrations -- Mr. Obama chose to insist on an absolutist demand for a settlement "freeze." Palestinian and Arab leaders who had accepted previous compromises immediately hardened their positions; they also balked at delivering the "confidence-building" concessions to Israel that the administration seeks. Israeli public opinion, which normally leans against the settler movement, has rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu. And Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which were active during the Bush administration's final year, have yet to resume.[...]

Obama administration drops voter intimidation charges against Black Panthers

Washington Times- Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November's election, according to interviews.

The department's career lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division who pursued the complaint for five months had recommended that Justice seek sanctions against the party and three of its members after the government had already won a default judgment in federal court against the men.

Front-line lawyers were in the final stages of completing that work when they were unexpectedly told by their superiors in late April to seek a delay after a meeting between political appointees and career supervisors, according to federal records and interviews.[...]

Rav Sternbuch - Preparing for Moshiach

41(2)

Proselytization - R' Celso Cukierkorn

Proselytization - R Jonathan Ginsburg

West Bank - Natural growth /NYT

General Colin Powell - arguing with the police

Yahoo news

WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was mildly critical Tuesday of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Barack Obama.

Powell, interviewed by CNN's Larry King, criticized the way Gates dealt with Sgt. James Crowley, a white officer who responded to reports of a possible break-in by arresting the black professor at his home on a charge of disorderly conduct. The charge was soon dropped.

Gates "might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it," said Powell, one of the nation's most prominent African Americans.

"I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal," he said.

But, Powell said, Gates was just home from China and New York and "all he wanted to do was get to bed."

When asked about the incident at a news conference, Obama said the police acted stupidly. The president subsequently toned down his criticism but not his denunciation of racial profiling generally.

Powell said he was the target of racial profiling many times and he sometimes got mad.

On one such occasion, he said, he tried to meet someone at Reagan National Airport "and nobody thought I could be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy."
Asked how he dealt with the situation, Powell said "You just suck it up. What are you going to do?"

"There is no African American in this country who has not been exposed to this kind of situation," Powell said.

But, he said, "when you are faced with an officer trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is not the time to get in an argument with him. I was taught that as a child.

"You don't argue with a police officer," Powell said.

EJF - Do rabbis know it converts mixed couples?

Aaron commented to "EJF - attracting non-Jews to proselytize - is permitted...":

Roni/R Tropper; I want to ask you , can you tell me with the full truth ,that all the Rabonim associated with the EJF including the beautiful dais that was shown at the confrence last week,are aware that the purpose of EJF is to be megayer these goyim in an intermarried couple? I have strong reason to beleive that they are being told one thing and the EJF is doing something else?

Michal bas Avraham commented to "EJF - attracting non-Jews to proselytize - is permitted...":

Aharon,
You are right they are not being told that the organization is there to convert intermarrieds. They are being told that they are trying to raise the standards of conversion. Last Shabbos, I was at someone's house and the husband told me three men in his kollel took some course to be on their baytai din. This is what they were told. Also, the RCA standards are actually higher. They know who is on their baytai din, real rabbis who have done conversions but, not the one before them. Whereas now we see about EJF.

Roni,
The EJF doesn't provide mentoring. They make you bring them your shul rabbi. They ask him to find you a mentor. They also ask him to "watch your attendance in shul." This is ridiculous. Anyone can go to shul and go home to watch TV. However, I've heard this from rabbis. They say, you have to live in my area so I can make sure you go to shul every week. Also, what about Brooklyn? In Brooklyn, a woman who goes to shul is like a prostitute that's how UNacceptable it is to go to shul.

I have blogged about EJF and I will do it again. They are this organization that just formed itself and run around with their ego telling everyone they better and have higher standards. Actually, they don't.

Psychiatrist in abuse case retracts evaulation

YNet

Dr. Yaakov Weill, who wrote the psychiatric evaluation of the mother suspected of starving her three-year-old son, has changed his mind and now says the woman does pose a threat to her children.

Weill's opinion, among other factors, contributed to the court's decision to release the suspect to house arrest with her children

Following his meeting with the mother last week, Dr. Weill concluded she was not dangerous to her children. However, in a letter recently sent to the rabbis who assisted the mother during her arrest, the psychiatrist wrote that he wishes to recant on his earlier estimate that the mother "can continue carrying out her parental duties to her children without risk."

"I did not have the sufficient tools to determine this," Weill said in a letter to Rabbi Avraham Froelich, who hosted the woman after she was remanded to house arrest.

"I wish to stress that I did not consider myself an expert witness appointed by the court, but was merely obliging you, the rabbis, who asked me to examine her," he added. [...]

Hunches save soldiers' lives

NYTimes

The sight was not that unusual, at least not for Mosul, Iraq, on a summer morning: a car parked on the sidewalk, facing opposite traffic, its windows rolled up tight. Two young boys stared out the back window, kindergarten age maybe, their faces leaning together as if to share a whisper.

The soldier patrolling closest to the car stopped. It had to be hot in there; it was 120 degrees outside. "Permission to approach, sir, to give them some water," the soldier said to Sgt. First Class Edward Tierney, who led the nine-man patrol that morning.

"I said no — no," Sergeant Tierney said in a telephone interview from Afghanistan. He said he had an urge to move back before he knew why: "My body suddenly got cooler; you know, that danger feeling."

The United States military has spent billions on hardware, like signal jamming technology, to detect and destroy what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, the roadside bombs that have proved to be the greatest threat in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, where Sergeant Tierney is training soldiers to foil bomb attacks.

Still, high-tech gear, while helping to reduce casualties, remains a mere supplement to the most sensitive detection system of all — the human brain. Troops on the ground, using only their senses and experience, are responsible for foiling many I.E.D. attacks, and, like Sergeant Tierney, they often cite a gut feeling or a hunch as their first clue.

Everyone has hunches — about friends' motives, about the stock market, about when to fold a hand of poker and when to hold it. But United States troops are now at the center of a large effort to understand how it is that in a life-or-death situation, some people's brains can sense danger and act on it well before others' do.

Experience matters, of course: if you have seen something before, you are more likely to anticipate it the next time. And yet, recent research suggests that something else is at work, too.

Small differences in how the brain processes images, how well it reads emotions and how it manages surges in stress hormones help explain why some people sense imminent danger before most others do.[...]

Hadassah Hospital officials harassed

JPost

Anonymous callers are continuing to harass the families of senior Hadassah Hospital officials in the case of the three-year-old Jerusalem boy who doctors believe was nearly starved to death by his mother, according to a tape recording of the latest call released Monday.

The harassment, which follows death threats made against Hadassah staff, persisted Sunday night, even though the child was discharged from the hospital earlier in the day.

In the latest telephone harassment, an English-speaking caller, who said that he was calling from the United States, told the sister-in-law of Hadassah Deputy Director-General Dr. Yair Birnbaum at her Haifa residence that Birenbaum was carrying out experiments on the child with chemotherapy.

"You should know that people are disgusted with him and the way he is behaving with Orthodox Jewish people," the caller said in heavy English, according to a tape of the call played on Israel Radio's lunchtime newsreel on Monday.

"He should know that there will be demonstrations in the US, the UK and Australia against Hadassah Hospital," he continued.

The caller, who has phoned the Hadassah family member's residence for four straight nights, went on to justify comparisons between Hadassah officials and the infamous Nazi known as Dr. Mengele who performed medical experiments on inmates.

"He says he feels offended by being called Mengele," the caller said. "Well, he is trying all sorts of experiments on this innocent child...and treated him with chemotherapy." [...]

Missionaries targeting the elderly

JPost

A Holocaust survivor who was suffering from dementia was deceived by those hired to help her, family members said, because they claimed they converted her to their Messianic Christian religion.

The two women who were hired to play music and speak with 94-year-old Sara told her daughter Goldie Maxwell weeks after Sara died that they were both Messianic Jews, that they had played and sung songs from the New Testament when Maxwell and her husband were not around, and that at the end of her life, Sara had a revelation and acknowledged Jesus as the messiah.

They also recorded these statements in a document they gave to Maxwell after Sara's death in March.

"I sensed that they had betrayed me, because I let them into the house on certain assumptions, but even more, the betrayal of my mother and of who she was," Maxwell told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. "They knew who she [Sara] was." [...]

Abuse: Questions to ask your local rabbi

1. In a case where a father finds out that his son is being molested by a teacher and this is corroborated by several of his classmates. The abuse has been going on for a number of months. Thus there is absolutely no question that the abuser is active and the danger is present for the foreseeable future.

--- Since in my opinion I have clear and unequivocal evidence that the molesting is taking place - can I go directly to the police. Or do I need rabbinic approval first?

---- Is there a difference whether the likelihood of another incident is clearcut and urgent or whether there is clearly time to consult rav?

2. A person reported Reuben as an abuser or attacked Reuven because he reasonable thought Reuven was a rodef and needed to save Reuven's apparent victim from harm and he hurt Reuven in the process. It was discovered that the Reuven not in fact an abuser or rodef – is the person liable for damages? For example I see a man and woman fighting and the woman is screaming. I go over and warn to guy to stop but he tells me to mind my own business. the women seems to be in danger and the ownly way I can stop the attacker is by taking a baseball bat and knocking him out. It turns out they are married and the wife sues me for hurting her husband.

3. In a case where a rav said not to report a case of abuse and as a result the child suffered severe physical and psychological damage – is there any liability for either the rav or the person who listened to the rav?

4. In a case where a person reasonable concluded that a child is being molested and a rav told him not to report it – should the person report it anyway?

Kidneys for sale - is it immoral?

Wall Street Journal

Even by New Jersey standards, Thursday's roundup of three mayors, five rabbis and 36 others on charges of money laundering and public corruption was big. But what put this FBI dragnet head and shoulders above the rest are the charges of trafficking in human body parts.

According to a federal criminal complaint filed in district court in New Jersey, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn conspired to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. The cost was $160,000 to the recipient of the transplant, of which the donor got $10,000. According to the complaint, Mr. Rosenbaum said he had brokered such sales many times over the past 10 years.

"That it could happen in this country is so shocking," said Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the Red Cross.

No, it isn't. When I needed a kidney several years ago and had no donor in sight, I would have considered doing business with someone like Mr. Rosenbaum. The current law—the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984—gave me little choice. I would be a felon if I compensated a donor who was willing to spare me years of life-draining dialysis and premature death.

The early responses to the New Jersey scandal leave me dismayed, though not surprised. "We really have to crack down," the co-director of the Joint Council of Europe/United Nations Study on Trafficking in Organs and Body Parts told MSNBC. That strategy is doomed, of course. It ignores the time-tested fact that efforts to stamp out underground markets either drive corruption further underground or causes it to flourish elsewhere.

The illicit organ trade is booming across the globe. It will only recede when the critical shortage of organs for transplants disappears. The best way to make that happen is to give legitimate incentives to people who might be willing to donate. Instead, I fear that Congress will merely raise the penalties for underground organ sales without simultaneously establishing a legal mechanism to incentivize donors.

Al Gore, then a Tennessee congressman who spearheaded the National Organ Transplant Act, spoke of using "a voucher system or a tax credit to a donor's estate" if "efforts to improve voluntary donation are unsuccessful." After 25 years, it is clear they have been unsuccessful.

More than 80,000 Americans now wait for a kidney, according the United Network for Organ Sharing. Thirteen of them die daily; the rest languish for years on dialysis. The number of donors last year was lower than in 2005, despite decades of work to encourage people to sign donor cards and donate to loved ones. [...]

Why Obamacare is sinking/Krauthammer

JPost

What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health care nirvana: more coverage, less cost.

But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes.

President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True. But now we learn - surprise! - that universal coverage increases costs. The congressional Democrats' health care plans, says the CBO, increase costs in the range of $1 trillion plus.

In response, the president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue neutral. But that's classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable.[...]

Aish HaTorah & Anusim

Aish HaTorah has published yet another article indicating the anusim or marranos are somehow Jews.

From my family I am the only one who "returned" to embrace Judaism. But I choose to focus on the positive things my ancestors did accomplish. I feel the very reason I am today a Jew must be because ultimately they did something right. I have no doubt that it was because of the merit of my ancestors dying "al Kiddush Hashem," sanctifying God's name, that I have the privilege to become a full-fledged Jew.

Conversion - is there age discrimination?

Sara asked

I am a 58 year old candidate for geirus. I have been trying for the last 4 years to convert. Despite the fact I have taken all the courses and have been shomer mitzovs for a number of years - the beis din does not seem very interested in converting me. I have sacrificed a lot to convert - in particular I have lost my connection with my family because I am trying to convert. I would like to know if there are older single women who are having a difficult time converting. I suspect it is because of my age and that if I was young, had money or children, I know I would have a valid conversion already. I also believe that if I was in a relationship with a Jew that I also would have been converted already. I also have observed that those who claim to be Jewish - i.e., have a Jewish father or have think that they have Jewish ancestry are also more readily converted. Is there anything I can do to facilitate the matter? For example can anyone recommend a respected beis din that might be more interested in convering me? I am not concerned whether it is Modern Orthodox or Haredi - I would like to be converted already. Finaly I have a close friend who is also trying to convert. But she says that her mother was actually Jewish but she can't prove it. Are there any services that can help her provide evidence that a beis din would find acceptable? Are there any internet resources that could be used?

Again, thank you for your time,

Informing on Others to a Just Government

Rabbi Michael J. Broyde - [page 43-45 Journal of Halacha]

5. A Jew is knowingly and intentionally cheating on his United States taxes. May one inform on him to the Internal Revenue Service? According to the view of Rabbi Waldenberg, such conduct government.is permitted because informing is not wrong to a just government. According to Rabbi Batzri, such informing is prohibited and makes the informer a pursuer, as it will land the tax cheater in jail, and that is prohibited. According to Rabbi Wosner, although such conduct is not informing, it is prohibited under the rubric of doing gratuitous harm to another,and would only be permitted when the informer stands to benefit concretely from the arrest,94 or when it was one's job to detect such people or when being silent leads to desecration of G-d's name or informing leads to a sanctification of G-d's name, in which case informing is mandatory.95 According to Rabbi Feinstein, such informing is prohibited and makes the informer a pursuer (unless this conduct is one's job, and if he did not do it, someone else would and the person would be detected

94. Such as when the government knows about the cheating and actually suspects the informant of being the cheater. 95. See Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 266:1. 96. Rabbi Shmelkes' view is hard to determine. Cheating Medicaid or Medicare would seem to be no different than cheating on taxes. Consider a simple case of a doctor who is in a medical practice with another doctor who is forging the first doctor's signature on Medicare reimbursement forms; may the first doctor inform on the second? This case is relatively simple as informing is the only certain way the first doctor can preserve his own Medicare rights. He is informing for direct personal benefit, and thus such conduct would be permitted, even more so since Medicare fraud only very rarely results in jail sentences. A much harder hypothetical involves a Jew who is involved in non-violent criminal activity with a group of Jews and who – alone – is caught by the police. The other members of the criminal ring are not caught and their identities are still unknown. The District Attorney offers this defendant a deal, in which if he reveals the identity of his fellow criminals he will serve no jail time. Otherwise, a full penalty will be imposed. While a full analysis of this matter is quite complex, it is clear that one who informs out of fear of being punished himself anyway).is not generally deemed an informer; Choshen Mishpat 388:2. However, many authorities deem such conduct a sin; see Pitchai Choshen volume 5 Chapter 4, notes 31 and 32 and Chapter 12, paragraph 5 and 27. According to the view of Rabbi Waldenberg, such conduct is permitted as informing is not wrong in a just government. According to Rabbi Batzri, this conduct saves one's life, while endangering the life of others, and is wrong. According to Rabbi Wosner's approach, if this is an area where the authority of the secular law is valid in the eyes of Jewish law, such conduct is permitted. According to Rabbi Feinstein, such informing is prohibited and perhaps even makes the informer a pursuer.

Money laundering case will lower donations to yeshivos

Haaretz

Government sources believe that one of the aftereffects of the massive money-laundering and illegal organ trading case that broke this week will be a sharp decline in donations to Israeli yeshivas, particularly those linked with the ultra-Orthodox party Shas and its spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Three New Jersey mayors and several rabbis were arrested last Thursday in a sweeping federal investigation into political corruption that also uncovered human kidney sales and money laundering from Brooklyn to Israel.

Sources say that the wave of donations received by Israel's Sephardic yeshivas will significantly diminish as the scandal breaks, even by Jewish bodies unrelated to the affair who want to distance themselves from it.

One of the main suspects in the money laundering case is Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Haim, who is a close associate of Rabbi David Yosef, Ovadia Yosef's son. Ben Haim is also very active in the Yechavei Da'at organization, headed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's family.

David Yosef heads the Yechavei Da'at kolel, an institute for advanced studies of the Talmud and rabbinic literature, in Jerusalem. Ben-Haim has helped elicit donations from rich U.S. Jews for the institution in the past. These donations are expected to cease. [...]

FBI Corruption scandal ITN video

Shas restarts Ethiopian immigration - mistake?

Haaretz

Quietly, without fanfare or any sort of serious debate, the government is resuming Falashmura immigration from Ethiopia, a year after it was ended by the previous administration.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the man who holds the keys to the gates of Israeli citizenship, is sending officials to Ethiopia to restart the process of examining the eligibility of potential immigrants. They will be looking at Falashmura claiming to be descendants of Jews who for some reason or other converted to Christianity generations ago.

In the first stage, they will review the cases of 3,000 Falashmura who were apparently left out of the process, but ultimately Yishai wants to enable all the inhabitants of the Falashmura compound in Gondar, which has an official population of 8,700, to apply for citizenship.

Thus, in typical Israeli fashion, a whole government policy been overturned without a cabinet meeting to discuss the various ramifications, nor has there been any inter-departmental discussion to plan all the contingencies. So what if the entire immigration and absorption setup - operated jointly by the interior and absorption ministries, the embassy in Addis Ababa and the Jewish Agency - has been dismantled and nobody knows where the funding for rebuilding it is going to come from, for how long it is expected to operate again and for how many immigrants? Screw long-term planning.

The pressure groups pressed, the rabbis ruled and the minister gave the order. The word is out in Ethiopia, the disappointed multitudes who left the Gondar compound are returning, and more family members will be joining them. The Israelis are opening the gates again.

It is hardly surprising. The Operation Solomon airlift in May, 1991 was to have finished the saga of Ethiopian Jewry once and for all, but despite four government committees and countless policy decisions since, all it took was one ministerial dictate to change the situation.

The cabinet decided in 2005 to set a firm date after which the Falashmura immigration would end and to limit the total numbers of migrants who would be allowed in. So what? The influential Falashmura lobby predicted that all it was needed was change of government to re-open the process and they were right. An absurd coalition has grown up around the Falashmura cause. Liberal American Jews who want Israel to do their tikun olam (healing the world) by accepting black citizens with a vague connection to the Jewish people join religious right-wingers who see the Ethiopians as the ultimate antidote to the Palestinian demographic problem. And Shas rabbis clinging to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's original ruling, 35 years ago, in which he recognized the Falashmura as Jews, have also banded with them.

Former interior minister Meir Sheetrit opposed them, with the backing of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, but no one is going to stop his successor now. Benjamin Netanyahu is certainly not going to endanger his increasingly shaky coalition by fighting Shas on this issue; many of those around him have long been fans of the Falashmura cause.

Neither is he going to open up another front with American Jewish leaders. He needs their support now more than ever as the strategic relationship with Washington plumbs new depths. Can you imagine what it would look like if Israel denied the rights of "black Jews" while the son of a Kenyan sits in the Oval Office?

Of course no one has taken the trouble to consult with the impressive group of professionals, and Jewish Agency and Foreign Ministry veterans who worked in Ethiopia for years and have a clear position on the issue. They would have told them that there is no finite number of Falashmura who can claim a tenuous link to Jewish roots. The family structure and marriage norms of Ethiopian society are of a fluidity incomprehensible in the West and every new immigrant who is allowed in opens up the opportunity for former spouses and stepchildren who will demand family reunification.[...]

R' Avraham Goldstein - discusses geirus

Yiddeleclips - Shaul Gromer

Rav Sternbuch - freedom of speech

55

Obama stokes racism by comments

Fox News

The white police sergeant accused of racial profiling after he arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his home was hand-picked by a black police commissioner to teach recruits about avoiding racial profiling.

Gates accused the 11-year department veteran Sgt. James Crowley of being an unyielding, race-baiting authoritarian after Crowley arrested and charged him with disorderly conduct last week.

Crowley confronted Gates in his home after a woman passing by summoned police for a possible burglary. The sergeant said he arrested Gates after the scholar repeatedly accused him of racism and made derogatory remarks about his mother, allegations the professor challenges

Gates has labeled Crowley a "rogue cop," demanded an apology and said he may sue the police department.

Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas, in his first public comments on the arrest, said Thursday that Crowley was a decorated officer who followed procedure. The department is putting together an independent panel to review the arrest, but Haas said he did not think the whole story had been told.

"Sgt. Crowley is a stellar member of this department. I rely on his judgment every day. ... I don't consider him a rogue cop in any way," Haas said. "I think he basically did the best in the situation that was presented to him."

Haas said Crowley's actions were in no way motivated by racism.

On Wednesday, President Obama elevated the dispute, when he said Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" during the encounter. [...]

NYTimes

The police sergeant whom President Obama accused of acting "stupidly" in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor offered his own account of the incident on Thursday, adding a new dimension to a drama that has transfixed the nation.

The arrest of the professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was dominating talk shows and dinner conversations even before Mr. Obama discussed it on Wednesday at his news conference. But the president's comments seemed to further polarize the national debate over whether the sergeant, James Crowley, who is white, was right to arrest Professor Gates for disorderly conduct while investigating a possible break-in at the professor's home in Cambridge, Mass.[...]

Chillul HaShem - Money laundering & corruption

NYTimes

Illegal sales of body parts. Furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots, and boiler rooms. Nervous jokes about “patting down” a man who turned out to indeed be an informant. And, again and again, piles of cash being passed along — once in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000

In this world of underhanded dealing and illicit promises, corrupt payments were “invitations” and approvals for development projects were “opportunities.”

Those were just some details of a sprawling corruption scandal, stretching from New Jersey to Brooklyn and beyond, that were revealed in court papers Thursday. Forty-four people were arrested, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said.[...]

Yeshiva World News editorial
Over the past 2 years, many small non-profits in Israel – ranging from yeshivot to medical organizations – have fallen under scrutiny from the IRS. For the past 2 years, Israeli non-profits couldn't understand the scrutiny. Today it became clear: No Jewish non-profit could be trusted to be legitimate. [...]

Psychiatrist concludes mother is fit to stand trial

Haaretz

A court-commissioned psychiatric evaluation of the ultra-Orthodox mother suspected of starving her son did not support claims that she was unfit to stand trial, the examining psychiatrist said.

Jerusalem's District Psychiatrist said he did not accept the results of Dr. Yaakov Meir Weil's examination.

Weil performed the examination at the home of the woman's rabbi, where she is staying in house arrest. Weil, who came there at the request of rabbis from the woman's religious sect as per an agreement between the woman and a judge who arraigned her, also said he could not diagnose the woman "based on a two-hour" talk.


The mother, a Haredi woman from the Eda Haredit group in Jerusalem, was arrested after hospital officials at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, saw her remove a feeding tube from her severely underweight three-year-old child on a hidden camera. She claims that she was trying to feed her son solid foods.

One of the things that Weil had come to ascertain was the possibility that the woman is suffering from Munchausen syndrome - a psychiatric disorder wherein sufferers feign or create disease, illness, or psychological trauma in themselves or in loved ones in order to draw attention or sympathy.

But in a talk with Haaretz, Weil criticized police and doctors at Hadassah who speculated that the mother suffered from this condition. "I hope we can see each other in the future so I can help her. The environment she comes from is not used to requiring psychological services but maybe I can meet her in the future to reach a diagnosis based on the relationship I have with them," he said. "People in Hadassah diagnosed her without her ever meeting a psychiatrist. The talk about the Munchausen syndrome is gossip as far as I'm concerned."

Weil added that the syndrome was "not something that can be diagnosed through a two-hour talk or any sort of simple psychiatric interview."

"In our talk, I saw nothing to convince me she is unfit to stand trial, psychotic or has trouble telling right from wrong," he added.

Privacy and sensitity towards Chareidim?

JPost

Mental disease is not a crime. Society's role is not to banish mental patients, but to care for them while recognizing the patient's human rights and the need to safeguard the public. A society's attitude toward the mentally ill reflects its moral standards, values…
- Former supreme court chief justice Aharon Barak

By this criterion how should Israeli society, and the media in particular, evaluate its performance in the case of the mother suspected of starving her toddler son due to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP)?

In this rare disorder, which is almost impossible to diagnose and cannot be treated, an adult caregiver deliberately causes harm to a vulnerable dependent - most often a child. The underlying cause is a morbid craving for attention.

MSP is either a personality or a psychiatric disorder - experts disagree - though it can have criminal consequences. Most professionals believe that a mother with MSP does have the capacity to control her urges. We cannot know what impelled this mother to allegedly inflict suffering on her child. Her psychiatric evaluation began only Monday night.

After the mother was arrested by police, the family obtained a court order barring publication of the story. Somehow a Hebrew tabloid got wind of the news, challenged the injunction and won. Perhaps the court acted precipitously in lifting the gag order, robbing authorities and community leaders of the opportunity to resolve their differences away from the limelight.

The tabloid then sought and obtained a comment from Hadassah hospital. Subsequent coverage by the press emphasized that the family involved was from an insular anti-Zionist haredi sect - Toldot Aharon. Coming on the heels of the so-called Taliban mother from Ramat Beit Shemesh and several other instances of child abuse among the ultra-Orthodox, the haredi angle to the Munchausen Syndrome story grabbed the headlines and wouldn't let go.

SO THERE are two issues here. One is whether the right to privacy of the suspect - who is also allegedly mentally ill - was violated; the other is whether the haredi angle was overplayed.

Should Israel's 1981 Privacy Protection Law and 1996 Patients' Rights Law have shielded the presumed MSP mother from having her condition exposed to public scrutiny? While her name hasn't been published, her identity is known within her own neighborhood. [...]

Supreme Court convicts yeshiva student in hit-and-run

JPost

The Supreme Court on Thursday convicted Yeshiva student Itamar Biton for running over Ethiopian-Israeli parking lot cashier Noga Zoarish, overruling last week's acquittal by Jerusalem District Court judge Moshe Drori.

In addition to the 150 hours of community service that were, nevertheless, ordered by Drori, the Supreme Court added a one-year suspended sentence.

In a 350-page ruling heavily criticized last week by Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy, Drori had written that he made the decision because the defendant, the son of the Hadera chief rabbi, wanted to become a dayan (religious court judge).

Drori also wrote that as a result of being run over by the defendant, whose name had been banned from publication until Wednesday night, Zoraish, had become a full-fledged member of society, because she had been treated respectfully throughout the legal proceedings. He also ruled that since the young driver's apology had been accepted by the Ethiopian woman, there was no need to determine that the driver's offense constituted moral turpitude.

The Jerusalem District Court judge had also under pressure from Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas), with the latter saying that a conviction would ruin Biton's rabbinic future.

The controversial decision could well have ruined Drori's chances of getting himself appointed to the High Court of Justice. [...]

Charedi health minister criticized for not backing Hadassah Hospital

YNet

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman visited the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem on Thursday morning, following riots in Jerusalem over the arrest of a woman suspected of starving her toddler son. The child is still hospitalized.

At the start of the visit, the hospital's Director-General Shlomo Mor Yosef asked Litzman why he had avoided condemning the ultra-Orthodox community's attacks on the hospital.

"There is no reason to refer to the deputy director-general with these names – Mengele, a filthy traitor," Mor Yosef told Litzman. "The hospital is a place of grace, not of war… No one speaks and not one utters anything. Is this what the State of Israel has to say to its doctors?"

Litzman responded, "I give all the backing needed to Hadassah and its doctors." He added that pashkavilim (wall posters) has been published against him too and that he has been attacked by many.

Chareidi consensus? Jonathan Rosenblum

JPost

[...] But it is absolutely false to state that there is any kind of consensus that the mother is innocent or a categorical rejection of the claims of Hadassah. In yesterday's Mishpacha, by far the largest circulation haredi weekly, Rabbi Mordechai Gotfarb of the Toldot Aharon community is quoted, "Of course, if she were diagnosed with Munchausen, then we would understand that the child would have to be taken away."

Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, head of the Eda Haredit rabbinical court, did not reject out of hand police claims in a statement issued last Friday: "If their allegations are true, this woman deserves the appropriate medical treatment, but not to sit in a prison cell with such subhuman treatment." He went on to categorically reject "any talk of boycotting the hospital" as "against Halacha and self-damaging" in light of the fact that "many in our community receive their services with great care."

That does not mean, of course, that every claim of the hospital and police is accepted at face value. Many haredim would still like to know what were the presenting symptoms when the boy in question was placed in Hadassah's children's oncology ward, and how his mother could have prevented him from eating under the noses of the hospital staff during the nearly seven months he has been hospitalized. But there is a willingness to wait until trial for the full presentation of the facts.

IF THERE is one thing, however, about which there is a nearly unanimous agreement across all sectors of the haredi community, it is condemnation of violent actions, such as throwing stones at police and burning garbage cans. From the beginning of the Shabbat demonstrations, after Mayor Nir Barkat's bombastic announcement of the opening of a municipal parking lot, as if he were the secular Saracen recapturing the city from the haredim, Sternbuch has issued countless public proclamations stating clearly, "Anyone who commits acts of violence declares that he doesn't belong to our community."[...]