Bribing kids for academic success?

Time

In junior high school, one of my classmates had a TV addiction — back before it was normal. This boy — we'll call him Ethan — was an encyclopedia of vacuous content, from The A-Team to Who's the Boss?

Then one day Ethan's mother made him a bold offer. If he could go a full month without watching any TV, she would give him $200. None of us thought he could do it. But Ethan quit TV, just like that. His friends offered to let him cheat at their houses on Friday nights (Miami Vice nights!). Ethan said no.

One month later, Ethan's mom paid him $200. He went out and bought a TV, the biggest one he could find.

Empathy - how to not raise a Bully

Time

Since the Jan. 14 death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old in South Hadley, Mass., who committed suicide after being bullied by fellow students, many onlookers have meditated on whether the circumstances that led to her after-school hanging might have been avoided.

Could teachers have stepped in and stopped the bullying? Could parents have done more to curtail bad behavior? Or could preventive measures have been started years ago, in early childhood, long before bullies emerged and started heaping abuse on their peers? (Read what can be done about bullying in school.)

Increasingly, neuroscientists, psychologists and educators believe that bullying and other kinds of violence can indeed be reduced by encouraging empathy at an early age. Over the past decade, research in empathy — the ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes — has suggested that it is key, if not the key, to all human social interaction and morality.[...]

Rav Sternbuch: How Gedolim deal with tragedies

Obama - paradigm shift on Israel

NYTIMES

It was just a phrase at the end of President Obama’s news conference on Tuesday, but it was a stark reminder of a far-reaching shift in how the United States views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how aggressively it might push for a peace agreement.

When Mr. Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a “vital national security interest of the United States,” he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests.

This shift, described by administration officials who did not want to be quoted by name when discussing internal discussions, is driving the White House’s urgency to help broker a Middle East peace deal. It increases the likelihood that Mr. Obama, frustrated by the inability of the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to terms, will offer his own proposed parameters for an eventual Palestinian state.[...]

Tropper - update

Troppenstein's monster cites Failed Messiah

The following charlatans sent a "discharge" letter to Yeshiva Kol Yaakov over a month ago proclaiming themselves as the "roshei yeshiva & mashgichim" and dismissing the current administration:

Leib Tropper
Chaim Weiss
Mendel Ashkanazy
Nachman Kramer (Bais Yaakov Monsey)
Eliyahu Berney (son of Nosson Berney)

Then 2 weeks ago, Tropper submitted a notarized affirmation to the the court that while he was oyver on some little "indiscretion", he remains the "rosh yeshiva" and the people running the yeshiva, specifically Moishe Raice, are "immoral".

Tropper claims to the court that R' Moishe Green, R' Aron Schechter & R' Elya Ber Wachtfogel agree with him on this.

Kol Yaakov's lawyer filed a counter-affirmation as follows:

Tropper had once invested $1 million of the yeshiva's money with Nosson Berney's investment firm. They are now trying to bankrupt the yeshiva by giving much of the money away to Tropper's friends in the Rabbonus with the remainder being pocketed by Tropper. Nachman Kramer padlocked the yeshiva office so that no one can get all the documents that prove this.

R' Reuvein Feinstein issued a written psak to the Monsey beis din that Tropper cannot take back his resignation and that there is no issur arkaos to stop him in court. (Does this mean there is no more money being doled out by Tom Kaplan?)

Meanwhile, Berney sent the following checks out to the rabbonim, as submitted as evidence to the court:
Rabbi Zaks, Chofetz Chaim Monsey $75k R' Shmuel Gorelick, Kollel Beer Mordechai Monsey $50k
Rabbi Malick, Ohr Moshe Monsey $40k
Keren Ezra, 11 Gwen Lane Monsey $25kRabbi Holzcer, Ohel Avrohom Monsey $25k
R' Amram Rosenberg, Chasidim Tovim Monsey $25k
Chasdei Avos, 8 Elyon Rd Monsey $25k
Mesila Baarav, Yerucham Israel $15k
R' Moshe Mosebacher, 5 Carlton Lane Monsey $15k
R' Michel Yuda Lefkowitz, Ponvizh $5k
R' Doniel Alter, Gur $5k
R' Shaul Kanievsky $3.5k
R' Eliyahu Levin $2.5k
R' Chaim Kanievsky, Bnei Brak $2k
R' Moshe Solomon $2k
R' Zalman Dovid Zuckerman $2k
R' Dovid Rotenberg, Yershalayim $2k
R' Yaakov Kupshitz, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Yosef Kupshitz, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Efraim Kupshitz, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Tzvi Kupshitz, Yerushalayim $2k
R' Nechemia Waldenberger, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Efraim Frank, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Pesachya Sternberg, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Yoel Turczin, Beit Shemesh $2k
Rav Sokolover, Beit Shemesh $2k
R' Nosson Kupshitz $1.8k
R' Moishe Mordche Schlesinger $1.8k
R' Yitzchok Scheiner, Kaminetz $1.8k
R' Shmuel Deutsch, Kol Torah $1.8k
R' Y. Levy $1.8k
R' Nechemia Zuckerman $1.5k
R' Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz $1.5k
R' Moshe Carlebach $1.5k
R' Yomtov Stern $1.5k
R' Nochum Schiller $1.2k
R' Moshe Sumter $1.2k
R' Yitzchok Kalmanowitz $1k
R' Osher Kalmanowitz, Mir $1k
R' Yehuda Kravetz $1k
R' Chaim Zeibald $1k
R' Eliyahu Rimmer $1k
R' Sar Shalom Marzel $1k
Rav Schmeltzer (Telz / Monsey / Miami?) $1k
R' Yitzchok Kossovsky $1k
Rav Eltovitzky $1k
R' Netz Elzas $1k
R' Aryeh Kanievsky $1k
R' Mordechai Carlebach $1k
R' Refoel Shapiro, Beit Shemesh $1k
R' Avrohom Rivlin, Beit Shemesh $1k
R' Chaim Jacobowitz, Beit Shemesh $1k
R' Eliyahu Mittelman, Beit Shemesh $1k
R' Chaim Solomon $800
R' Refoel Solomon $800
R' Moshe Battelman $800
Rav Klein $600
R' Avrohom Bernstein $600

Barzilai emergency room to be built on graveyard

YNET

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday that Barzilai Medical Center's fortified emergency room will be built according to plan, despite the discovery of ancient burial ground in its intended location.

 
Netanyahu made the decision in his capacity as acting health minister, ordering the graves be relocated.[...]

Baruch Lebovitz given 10-32 years for sexual abuse

NYPost

A New York rabbi was sentenced today to a maximum of 32 years in jail for the repeated sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy, prosecutors said.

Baruch Lebovits, 59, was convicted last month on eight charges of abuse of the teenager between 2004 and 2005, and was given the maximum sentence on each count -- meaning he would serve between 10 years and eight months and 32 years behind bars.

The rabbi is also a prominent businessman in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the teenager also lived, said Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Two separate cases of Lebovits's alleged sexual assaults on minors are still pending.[...]

Gay & Ger - Hiding at the Seminary

United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

There have been times in my life when I have felt like the prophet Jonah, pushed by life, or by God, to embrace the destiny from which I had run away.

In 1996, after three years working as student-rabbi for the Orthodox Jewish community of Naples, Italy, I quit my position. I had loved every moment of those years. The interactions with the various members of the community, the closeness that the position allowed me to have with them, the intellectual challenges, the spiritual high, had given new meaning to my life.

But I did feel a subtle, increasing pressure from the rabbinical establishment that I should get both an Orthodox smichah – ordination – and a wife. While I would have agreed to the smichah in a heartbeat (after all, it was my dream) I could not deal with the idea of a wife. I was a closeted gay man.[...]

Reconsidering anonymous online comments

NYTimes

From the start, Internet users have taken for granted that the territory was both a free-for-all and a digital disguise, allowing them to revel in their power to address the world while keeping their identities concealed.

A New Yorker cartoon from 1993, during the Web’s infancy, with one mutt saying to another, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” became an emblem of that freedom. For years, it was the magazine’s most reproduced cartoon.

When news sites, after years of hanging back, embraced the idea of allowing readers to post comments, the near-universal assumption was that anyone could weigh in and remain anonymous. But now, that idea is under attack from several directions, and journalists, more than ever, are questioning whether anonymity should be a given on news sites.[...]

Teaching kids about the Internet

NYTimes

When Kevin Jenkins wanted to teach his fourth-grade students at Spangler Elementary here how to use the Internet, he created a site where they could post photographs, drawings and surveys.

And they did. But to his dismay, some of his students posted surveys like “Who’s the most popular classmate?” and “Who’s the best-liked?”

Mr. Jenkins’s students “liked being able to express themselves in a place where they’re basically by themselves at a computer,” he said. “They’re not thinking that everyone’s going to see it.”[...]

Journalist turns in pedophile sources

Time

To say that pedophilia is a hot-button issue is an understatement. But in France, a new dose of controversy was added this week when a television exposé on cyber-predators ignited a debate over journalists' ethics in the era of hidden-camera reportage. While conducting research for a program called Pedophiles: The Predators, the most recent installment of the France 2 network's hidden-camera investigative series, Les Infiltrés, reporter Laurent Richard communicated with multiple alleged pedophiles online and in person — and then turned them in to the police. But in betraying his sources — repugnant as they were — did Richard and his producers betray their profession?  [...]

Palestinians try less violent path

NYTimes

Senior Palestinian leaders — men who once commanded militias — are joining unarmed protest marches against Israeli policies and are being arrested. Goods produced in Israeli settlements have been burned in public demonstrations. The Palestinian prime minister has entered West Bank areas officially off limits to his authority, to plant trees and declare the land part of a future state.

Something is stirring in the West Bank. With both diplomacy and armed struggle out of favor for having failed to end the Israeli occupation, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, joined by the business community, is trying to forge a third way: to rouse popular passions while avoiding violence. The idea, as Fatah struggles to revitalize its leadership, is to build a virtual state and body politic through acts of popular resistance.[...]

The Catholic Church's Catastrophe

Wall Street Journal

There is an interesting and very modern thing that often happens when individuals join and rise within mighty and venerable institutions. They come to think of the institution as invulnerable—to think that there is nothing they can do to really damage it, that the big, strong, proud establishment they’re part of can take any amount of abuse, that it doesn’t require from its members an attitude of protectiveness because it’s so strong, and has lasted so long.

And so people become blithely damaging. It happened the past decade on Wall Street, where those who said they loved what the street stood for, what it symbolized in American life, took actions that in the end tore it down, tore it to pieces. They loved Wall Street and killed it. It happens with legislators in Washington who’ve grown to old and middle age in the most powerful country in the world, and who can’t get it through their heads that the actions they’ve taken, most obviously in the area of spending, not only might deeply damage America but actually do it in.[...]

Dying peacefully or fighting?

NYTIMES

By the time she was 38, Dr. Desiree Pardi had become a leading practitioner in palliative care, one of the fastest-growing fields in medicine, counseling terminally ill patients on their choices.

She preached the gentle gospel of her profession, persuading patients to confront their illnesses and get their affairs in order and, above all, ensuring that their last weeks were not spent in unbearable pain. She was convinced that her own experience as a cancer survivor — the disease was first diagnosed when she was 31 — made her perfect for the job.[...]

Vatican Priest:Criticising Church in abuse cases is like anti-Semitism

NYTimes

A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack.

The remarks, on the day Christians mark the crucifixion, underscored how much the Catholic Church has felt under attack from recent news reports and criticism over how it has handled charges of child molestation against priests in the past, and sought to focus attention on the church as the central victim.[...]

White Shul: Shir HaShirim

This Shabbos afternoon between  6:15 & 7:00  I will be talking about Shir HaShirim at the White Shul in Far Rockaway. I will being discussing the issues of the relationship between physicality and spirituality as well as reality and metaphor.

Child abuser: Jail or therapy?

Cycling & Parkinson's disease

NYTImes

The man had had Parkinson’s disease for 10 years, and it had progressed until he was severely affected. Parkinson’s, a neurological disorder in which some of the brain cells that control movement die, had made him unable to walk. He trembled and could walk only a few steps before falling. He froze in place, his feet feeling as if they were bolted to the floor.

But the man told Dr. Bloem something amazing: he said he was a regular exerciser — a cyclist, in fact — something that should not be possible for patients at his stage of the disease, Dr. Bloem thought.

“He said, ‘Just yesterday I rode my bicycle for 10 kilometers’ — six miles,” Dr. Bloem said. “He said he rides his bicycle for miles and miles every day.” [...]

Tom Kaplan successfully invests in gold

Forbes

This March two of the world's biggest investors became believers in a company with next to no revenues and $352 million in losses over three years. Funds run by billionaires George Soros and John Paulson invested a combined $175 million in NovaGold Resources. Both Soros and Paulson are seriously bullish on gold, but why did they bet on a Vancouver mining company with an unimpressive history?

They were following the lead of Thomas Kaplan, 47, a little-known New York City billionaire investor who thinks gold's bull run is far from over. An Oxford-trained historian, Kaplan believes that the last 40 years, when gold was not the world's reserve currency, were an aberration and that gold will revert to the top store of value as it was for 5,000 years. He means it: Kaplan's family office, Tigris Financial Group, manages close to $2 billion in gold assets. [...]

Politics & Happiness Research

New Yorker

In 1978, a trio of psychologists curious about happiness assembled two groups of subjects. In the first were winners of the Illinois state lottery. These men and women had received jackpots of between fifty thousand and a million dollars. In the second group were victims of devastating accidents. Some had been left paralyzed from the waist down. For the others, paralysis started at the neck.

The researchers asked the members of both groups a battery of questions about their lives. On a scale of “the best and worst things that could happen,” how did the members of the first group rank becoming rich and the second wheelchair-bound? How happy had they been before these events? How about now? How happy did they expect to be in a couple of years? How much pleasure did they take in daily experiences such as talking with a friend, hearing a joke, or reading a magazine? (The lottery winners were also asked how much they enjoyed buying clothes, a question that was omitted in the case of the quadriplegics.) For a control, the psychologists assembled a third group, made up of Illinois residents selected at random from the phone book.[...]

Child abuse: R' Gartner Calling police

The full article is in the current Yeschurun

Child abuse: R' Shafran force payment for therapy

The full article is in the current Yeschurun

Child abuse: Baruch Lebovitz sentencing

Baruch Lebovits Sentencing Put Off Until Monday, April 12 « FRUM FOLLIES by Yerachmiel Lopin

Sentencing of Baruch (Mordechai) Lebovits for eight Class D Felonies of child sexual assault was originally scheduled for Monday, March 29, Erev Pesach. Supporters of both the defendant and the victim requested a postponement because this is a very difficult day to get to a court house with all the necessary work preceding Passover.

I have urged all of you concerned about molesting in our community to write letters to the judge and to show up in the courtroom. If you are sympathetic but have not yet committed to either of these courses of action you have another chance to act.[...]

CNN East Jerusalem neighborhoods

A Pesach story

Shlomo Singer wrote:

As an Assistant Prosecutor in Essex County, New Jersey, I get to see and hear many “interesting” things on a regular basis. Newark, is not a dull city.   However, something happened to me this week which I will remember for years to come.

Felix is a 60ish year old defense attorney. I had the opportunity to prosecute a case against him previously, and I found him to be a pretty good guy- as defense attorneys go. This Monday, I was doing some bail hearings when, lo and behold, Felix shows up.   He motioned to me and said, “I’ve gotta tell you something…”   so I came along, we found an empty courtroom, and Felix told me an amazing story.

“I grew up around Jews,” he started.   When I heard this, I immediately became suspicious.   I’ve spent my whole life being an identifiable Jew.   I’m the guy who people say “shalom” to in the elevators because it makes them feel better.   I’m the guy who has to hear observations from everyone who believes that my Yarmulka is some lighting rod for confessions about religion.

Nonetheless, Felix continued “I grew up on the Lower East Side.”   I had to smile.   When one thinks of the Lower East Side of Manhattan that existed in the 1940’s, one can’t help but smile.   Felix gave a big smile too and, while making motions that made me think that he was giving a closing statement to a jury, said “I’ve got a story for you!” And so it began…

Felix told me that his father immigrated to the US from Puerto Rico in the 1930’s.   When he arrived, like many immigrants, Felix’s dad came by himself with hopes of earning money that would bring his family over to the “ goldenda medina .” However, as his first holiday season approached, pops became lonely.   He missed his family and his wife.; So Felix’s dad did what he could to remind him of his family at the holiday season- he went out and purchased a Christmas tree.   Now, when he got home, he looked around and all he saw was lights. So pops said to himself: “I’ve got to be a real American!” He went out and purchased some lights. Pops felt so happy, he was both reminding himself of his family and being a “real American” at the same time.

Felix’s dad continued this practice with the tree and the lights for the holiday season.   3 years later, a friend came to the apartment during Christmas-time and looked around in horror.   “What the heck are you doing?!” the friend asked. “I’m being a real American!   I have my tree and my lights!” dad answered.   The friend laughed and replied “You fool!   That’s a menorah!”

Felix continued and told me that he has continued on his dad’s tradition of having both a tree and a menorah come holiday time.   This tradition continued to the extent that when he moved to the suburbs, a neighbor asked Felix- who has a most un-Jewish surname- whether he was Jewish.

I knew that there was a point to hearing this story before pesach .   (Aside from the fact that it was funny.) The haggadah tells us “ chayiv adam l’rios es asmo c’ilu hu yatsa mi’mitzayim .”   Translated, “a person is obligated to see oneself as if he left Egypt.”   When we sit down for the seder , do we do all the motions, do we recline, do we hide the afikomen , because our dad did them - like Felix?   Do we just do things because they remind us of prior generations?

Or worse- do we do things because we look out the window and see what the Joneses or Goldsteins are doing - like Felix’s dad?   Do we say, “their seder went until 11pm, I bet we can beat that!” Do we turn Maxwell House or Artscroll into our source of all our pesach customs?

I know that the job of every pulpit rabbi (which I am not) is to take a quasi-hilarious story and to turn it into a serious discussion. I’m guilty!   (How often to you hear a prosecutor say that?)   But, in all reality, please laugh like Felix and I did when he recounted this story.

Realize what some people do with their holidays and traditions. Acknowledge that we can bastardize the rituals that are most closely related to our service to G-d.   But recognize that if we don’t turn the pesach seder into a real, living, process, we might as well pull out the Christmas trees and the electric menorahs….for our children and grandkids.
 
A Kosher Pesach
-SYS

Matzav filter is blocking Rav Sternbuch's articles

I apologize if you can't see Rav Sternbuch's articles.  I am using an internet connection with a Matzav filter which unfortunately is blocking a number of sites which are needed to post pdf - as well as other valuable sites.

It could be that some of you can see the articles - but I can't

Rav Sternbuch: All Jews are one

Rav Sternbuch:Every Jew is a living Temple

Obama abuses Netanyahu

Times of London

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said. [...]

Electronic medical records are not secure

Wall Street Journal

I learned about the lack of health privacy when I hung out my shingle as a psychiatrist. Patients asked if I could keep their records private if they paid for care themselves. They had lost jobs or reputations because what they said in the doctor's office didn't always stay in the doctor's office. That was 35 years ago, in the age of paper. In today's digital world the problem has only grown worse.

A patient's sensitive information should not be shared without his consent. But this is not the case now, as the country moves toward a system of electronic medical records.[...]

Israeli relationship with America

CNN

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it insulting to the United States earlier this month that the Jewish state announced new construction on disputed land while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting. Not only did the Israeli declaration seem designed to torpedo indirect peace talks with the Palestinians, which the United States had just painstakingly arranged, but it came during a trip by the highest-ranking member of the Obama administration yet to visit the country.

Psychiatrists (and rabbis) and Skype

Time

Kanina Chavez lives an hour away from Children's Hospital in Seattle and used to have to take a whole day off from work whenever her daughter, Rachel, had an appointment with a psychiatrist. Rachel was a teenager when she started treatment for bipolar disorder roughly six years ago. Back then, she and her mother had never heard of telepsychiatry. But now they're using real-time videoconferencing in Olympia, Wash., to make it easier for Rachel to remain in the care of experts in Seattle. During the videoconferencing sessions, her psychiatrist can monitor how Rachel is doing, and Kanina can sit beside her daughter and take notes on the recommended adjustments to her daughter's medications. "I was a little apprehensive about my daughter not being face to face with the doctor," says Chavez. "But the conversation was just as good as if we were in person." (See how to prevent illness at any age.) [...]

Krauthammer: The Biden incident

JPOST

Why did President Barack Obama choose to turn a gaffe into a crisis in US-Israeli relations?

And a gaffe it was: the announcement by a bureaucrat in the Interior Ministry of a housing expansion in a Jewish neighborhood in north Jerusalem. The timing could not have been worse: Vice President Joe Biden was visiting, Jerusalem is a touchy subject and you don’t bring up touchy subjects that might embarrass an honored guest.

But it was no more than a gaffe. It was certainly not a policy change, let alone a betrayal. The neighborhood is in Jerusalem, and the 2009 Netanyahu-Obama agreement was for a 10-month freeze on West Bank settlements excluding Jerusalem.[...]

Child abuse: Portrait of a clergyman

Irish Times

Since Brendan Smyth’s death 13 years ago, the spectre of the relentless child abuser has haunted both his victims and those in the Catholic Church who failed to halt his crimes. With Smyth at the centre of a new controversy involving Cardinal Seán Brady, Gerry Moriarty , Northern Editor, outlines the late priest’s grim history

HERE’S AN image. It’s still dark, pre-dawn, in late August 1997. A graveside in the Co Cavan countryside at 4.15am, seven silhouetted Norbertine priests and a few locals gathered around, four gardaí standing in the background, the lights from a hearse illuminating the scene as the coffin of Fr Brendan Smyth is lowered into the ground.

It’s like a picture conjured by a modern-day Bram Stoker, only worse because you know it’s real. They buried Smyth for sure, but his pernicious legacy lives on. He destroyed lives, toppled a government, and – with the other paedophile priests allied to the church’s own criminal mismanagement – brought Irish Catholicism to its knees. Now Cardinal Seán Brady prays, reflects and wrestles with his conscience over whether he should step down as primate of Ireland because of Smyth. [...]

Early marriage

Haaretz

Last year, a matchmaker approached Ayala Suchi, 18, from Yitzhar, with a potential husband. While many people feel a woman her age is too young for marriage, in Ayala's family and circle of friends, no one was surprised by her decision to become a teenage bride. Her younger sister had married at 17, and a cousin did so at an even younger age.

"Here in the hills of Judea and Samaria, this is the way we are raised," explains Suchi, who now lives in the illegal outpost of Givat Ronen, south of Nablus. "People are more idealistic and they have a very clear idea of their priorities. A 15-year-old girl in the hills region doesn't go to movies like city girls; instead, she takes part in the fight for the Land of Israel. And that kind of activity makes you mature rapidly."[...]

Israel is standing firm against Obama

CNN

Israel has no intention of backing down in its argument with the United States over Israeli plans to build 1,600 apartments on disputed land in largely Arab East Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

"Our policy regarding Jerusalem is the same as it was over the past 42 years. We have made it clear to the Americans that for us, building there is just like building in Tel Aviv," Netanyahu said. Israel captured the land in question in the spring of 1967, nearly 43 years ago. [...]

R' Eliashiv prohibits moving graves for emergency room

JPost

Plans to build a rocket- and missile-proof new emergency room at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center were dealt a blow on Thursday when Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the top rabbinic authority for the Lithuanian haredi community, told Deputy Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman not to be complicit in moving graves to make room for the structure.[...]

Israel objects to U.S. demands

NYTIMES

The discord between the United States and Israel over Jewish building in East Jerusalem deepened Tuesday with Israeli officials saying they would reject demands by Washington and expressing anger over the public upbraiding of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Obama administration.

On a day of scattered disturbances by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, news emerged that Israel was moving ahead with a second building project there. A notice on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority invited bids on construction of 309 new homes in the Jewish suburb of Neve Yaakov, in northeast Jerusalem.

A spokesman for the Jerusalem municipality said building and planning across the city were moving ahead. “For us, it is business as usual,” the spokesman, Stephan Miller, said.[...]

Obama bashes Israel to please Arabs

Washington Post

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S Middle East diplomacy failed in his first year in part because he chose to engage in an unnecessary and unwinnable public confrontation with Israel over Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Over the past six months Mr. Obama's envoys gingerly retreated from that fight and worked to build better relations with the government of Binyamin Netanyahu. Last week the administration finally managed to strike a deal for the launching of indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks. So it has been startling -- and a little puzzling -- to see Mr. Obama deliberately plunge into another public brawl with the Jewish state.

True, this U.S.-Israel crisis began with a provocation from Jerusalem: the announcement by the Interior Ministry of plans for 1,600 more Jewish homes beyond Israel's 1967 border. Vice President Biden, who was visiting when the news broke, was embarrassed; he quickly responded with a statement of condemnation. He then appeared to accept the public apology of Mr. Netanyahu, who said he, too, had been surprised by the announcement.[...]

Arabs protest rebuilding of shul they destroyed

NYTIMES

In what appeared to be a case of unfortunate timing, Israel officially inaugurated a rebuilt synagogue in Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday, entangling what was intended to be a festive cultural event with the diplomatic row over new Israeli construction in the contested territory.

The restoration of the Hurva Synagogue, which was destroyed by Jordanian forces during the 1948 war, has been under way for years. But its reopening ceremony coincided with a crisis in Israel-American relations over plans for new Jewish housing in East Jerusalem that were announced during a visit here last week by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.[...]

Worst crisis in US-Israel ties in 35 years

Haaretz

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has told the country's diplomats there that U.S.-Israeli relations face their worst crisis in 35 years, despite attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office to project a sense of "business as usual." [...]

Abuse: Praising the abuser

YNET

Nachman Stal, who fled to Britain after being accused of sodomizing a youth of 14 years, was sentenced Sunday to 13 years behind bars.

Stal, who was extradited to Israel in July last year, received 12 years' imprisonment for sexual offenses and an additional year for evading justice. Tel Aviv District Court also criticized rabbis who had come to Stal's defense. [...]

Million dollar fund for abuse program in Brooklyn

NYDaily News

The state has earmarked $950,000 since April 2009 to fund Assemblyman Dov Hikind's plans to teach H asidic Jews to speak up against child molestation.

But the money sits untouched as Hikind figures out the details of Shomrei Yeldainu - Hebrew for "Guardians of our Children" - the Daily News has learned.

"You have to develop something that is done correctly working with the rabbis and leaders," said Hikind (D-Brooklyn). [...]

Getting Chareidim to work

Jewish Chronicle

The large buildings and symmetrical streets in Modiin Illit are a world away from the crowded flats found in other Charedi neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. And according to new figures, the environment is directly contributing to a growing enthusiasm for work.

Israel's fast-growing Charedi community is traditionally characterised by low employment, high poverty and dependence on charity and benefits. How to change this has become a perennial question of Israeli politics.[...]

Rav Sternbuch: Giving with joy

British social services failed to stop incest over 35 years

Times on LIne

A father who repeatedly raped his two daughters and made them pregnant 18 times during a tyrannical 35-year campaign of physical and sexual abuse escaped detection because of a litany of failings by care professionals, a report revealed yesterday.

Agencies involved with the family failed to confront the man even though they strongly suspected for many years that he was the father of the girls’ seven babies, some of them born with severe genetic defects.

Why isn't all punishment publicized as a deterrent?

One thing that I am puzzled by is the fact that the Torah lists four crimes whose death penalty is to be publicized so that the "people will hear and be afraid" and will learn a lesson not to commit a sin in the future. Why are these four crimes singled out? Why aren't all punishment publicized for its educational and social value?

Rambam(Hilchos Mamrim 3:8):How is a rebellious elder dealt with? …[once he is convicted] he is not to be executed by the beis din of his city or the Sanhedrin which is located outside of Jerusalem. Rather he is to be taken to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. There is to be imprisoned until one of the 3 pilgrimage festivals as it says that “all of the Jewish nation shall hear about it and be fearful. This implies that the execution required public announcement. In fact there are four executions which require public announcement – a rebellious elder, those who false testimony to try to cause e someone executed, a missionary, and a rebellious son (ben sorer u’morah) That is because the Torah says about all of them, “So that the people will hear and be afraid.

Ramban(Devarim 21:18): Concerning a ben sorer u’morah -…In general he is not executed because of a sin he has done but rather because of the sin he will do (Sanhedrin 71a). This is why the verse says “And all of Israel shall hear and fear” because he isn’t executed because of the greatness of his sin but rather to provide a lesson for the masses and so that he won’t be a stumbling block for others. And so it is the manner of the Torah verse when it warns about the death penalty that it is a deterrent to help others. Thus it is mentioned here regarding a rebellious elder (Devarim 17:13) since there is nothing deserving capital punishment in his teaching a minority view of halacha. His severe punishment is only to remove a dispute over the Torah as I explained in verse 11. This is also true concerning false witnesses (Devarim 19:20) who are given capital punishment only for trying to have another executed and not if they succeeded. This is also true of a missionary (Devarim 13:12) since he is executed only for saying things - even if those he spoke to did not actually worship idols or did not listen to him. In fact his execution is to provide a lesson for the rest of society. Thus it is with this mitzva that it is an innovation and a derivation of the basic mitzva of honoring (Shemos 20:12) and fearing parents (Vayikra 10:3).

The main problem is unemployment - not healthcare

New York Times

The Obama administration and Democrats in general are in trouble because they are not urgently and effectively addressing the issue that most Americans want them to: the frightening economic insecurity that has put a chokehold on millions of American families. 

The economy shed 36,000 jobs last month, and that was trumpeted in the press as good news. Well, after your house has burned down I suppose it’s good news that the flames may finally be flickering out. But once you realize that it will take 11 million or more new jobs to get us back to where we were when the recession began, you begin to understand that we’re not really making any headway at all.

It’s also widely known by now that the official employment statistics drastically understate the problem. Once we take off the statistical rose-colored glasses, we’re left with the awful reality of millions upon millions of Americans who have lost — or are losing — their jobs, their homes, their small businesses, and their hopes for a brighter future.

Reform Movement & intermarried couples

Haaretz

A Reform Jewish task force on intermarriage said Monday that the movement should do more to encourage mixed-faith couples to be active in Jewish life, including creating special blessings for major life events such as weddings and funerals.

The panel proposed no changes in the movement's policy on officiating at interfaith weddings. Reform Judaism formally opposes the practice but allows each rabbi to decide.

Instead, the panel proposed other steps, including educating rabbis on how they can engage intermarried families, and creating blessings for ceremonies that involve a non-Jewish spouse.[...]

Church faces growing abuse scandal in Europe

New York Times

ROME — Defending itself against a growing child sexual abuse scandal in Europe, one that has even come close to the brother of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican said Tuesday that local European churches had addressed the issue with “timely and decisive action.”

In a note read on Vatican Radio, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, cautioned against limiting the concerns over child sexual abuse to Roman Catholic institutions, noting that the problem also affected the broader society.

A wave of church sexual abuse scandals has emerged in recent weeks in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, adding to the fallout from a broad abuse investigation in Ireland.