Earthquakes in America: Should you worry about potential megadisasters?

NYTimes

Mr. Wong noted that the Pacific Northwest is at considerable risk of a strong earthquake from the Cascadia fault, which lies off the coast under the seabed. And while the coastal zone of the Northwest does not have as much residential and business development as that slammed by the Japanese tsunami, the earthquake risks farther inland along the Pacific Northwest could well end up sustaining severe damage, he said. Nearly a thousand Oregon schools built in the last century have poor earthquake resilience, and many vulnerable dams protect urban areas in the region. Oregon is moving to shore up its schools, but the program is not slated for completion until 2032. The federal government is working to address dam issues, but the pace is deliberate, he said.

“Steps are being taken, but there’s a lot of dams, there’s a lot of fixing that needs to be done,” Mr. Wong said. “We’re decades away from being able to fix all our dams.”

The sobering fact is that megadisasters like the Japanese earthquake can overcome the best efforts of our species to protect against them. No matter how high the levee or how flexible the foundation, disaster experts say, nature bats last. Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, warned that an earthquake in the United States along the New Madrid fault, which caused strong earthquakes early in the 19th century, could kill tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people in the more densely populated cities surrounding the Mississippi River.

At State-Run Homes, Abuse and Impunity

NYTimes

Nearly 40 years after New York emptied its scandal-ridden warehouses for the developmentally disabled, the far-flung network of small group homes that replaced them operates with scant oversight and few consequences for employees who abuse the vulnerable population.

A New York Times investigation over the past year has found widespread problems in the more than 2,000 state-run homes. In hundreds of cases reviewed by The Times, employees who sexually abused, beat or taunted residents were rarely fired, even after repeated offenses, and in many cases, were simply transferred to other group homes run by the state.

And, despite a state law requiring that incidents in which a crime may have been committed be reported to law enforcement, such referrals are rare: State records show that of some 13,000 allegations of abuse in 2009 within state-operated and licensed homes, fewer than 5 percent were referred to law enforcement. The hundreds of files examined by The Times contained shocking examples of abuse of residents with conditions like Down syndrome, autism and cerebral palsy. [...]

Phil Jacobs & Scott Rosenfelt expose sexual abuse in Baltimore

BaltimoreCityPaper

Sexual abuse within the Catholic Church has been a topic of public debate for at least a decade, but word of molestation in the Orthodox Jewish community has been slower to emerge, often because its members have had a tendency to keep such scandal under wraps. But, increasingly, publications such as New York City’s Jewish Week have begun to explore the topic, while victims have started going to the police. In the last several years, at least four books have been published on sexual molestation in the Orthodox world, and several prominent rabbis have publicly addressed the need for the community to face the problem. In Baltimore, the dubious privilege of shining a light on the subject has fallen to Jacobs.

Bush Terminal: Trouble for Abraham Fruchthandler i.e., Yeshiva Chaim Berlin

Hat tip to RaP

Real Estate

A $300 million loan on the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, NY has been transferred to a special servicer due to monetary default, according to Fitch.

According to the documents related to the loan, it is secured by a first mortgage encumbering Bush Terminal, which is located on various blocks between 32nd and 41st Streets and 1st through 3rd Avenues in Brooklyn. The Bush Terminal Property consists of 16 multi-story office, loft and industrial buildings containing a total of 6.15 million sf of gross building area. The buildings were constructed at various times starting in 1904 on approximately 35 acres of land. The Bush Terminal Property was 85 percent occupied by tenants such as the NYC DCAS HRA (2.9% of NRSF), Virginia Dare Extract Co. Inc. (2.6%) and NYC Department of Finance (2.5%) when the loan was secured.

The borrowers are 1-10 Industry Associates LLC and 19-20 Industry City Associates, LLC, each a single-purpose, single-asset entity. The sponsors of the borrowers are Rubin Schron and Abraham Fruchthandler. At the time the loan was distributed, Rubin Schron had approximately $1.5 billion of equity in more than 40 residential, retail, commercial and healthcare assets primarily located throughout the New York metropolitan area, including over 15 million sf of industrial space.

Wall Street Journal

The Schron group is hopeful it will be able to restructure the debt and hold onto the property, according to people familiar with the property.

Mr. Schron's group, which today includes Abraham Fruchthandler, anticipated when the initial loan was made that the property could generate an annual net operating income of about $37.9 million as they released space at higher rents, according to Realpoint. Instead the property's net operating income for the six months ended in June 2010 was about $5.8 million. During that same time period, debt service was about $9.6 million, according to Realpoint.

The property's history can be traced back to the early 1900s when industrialist Irving T. Bush began building on the land his family owned. It was billed by some accounts as a city within a city with a railroad, trolleys and as many as 35,000 workers.

Mr. Schron's group is in default on the $300 million in debt, according to Realpoint, a credit-rating firm and a unit of Morningstar. The debt was reported 30 days delinquent earlier this month by the special servicer charged with managing the loan, according to Realpoint.

Foster care:Mother wants Orthodox & judge rules for non-Jewish supported by rabbi & her partner

Jewish World

A battle over two Jewish children is brewing in the Rensselaer County Department of Social Services (RCDSS), the county’s family court and pitting the Troy Orthodox and Reform Jewish communities at odds over how Jewish children should be raised.

The battle centers on a foster care case where an infant girl only a few months old and a two-year-old boy have been placed in foster care, which means providing a temporary home for children in need, with the hope is that the child will eventually return to their birth family.

The Mother’s Profile
The biological mother is said to be in her 20s, grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, identifies with the Orthodox Jewish community in Troy, is a known drug addict and had her children out of wedlock. While the baby boy was not born addicted to drugs, the girl was born with a chemical dependency to heroin, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

At the urging of the Manhattan-based Agudath Israel of America (AIA) and Leible Morrison, the spiritual leader of the Beth Tephilah Orthodox congregation in Troy, the mother is requesting that her children be placed in a Jewish household and raised in an Orthodox lifestyle. AIA is a Jewish communal organization representing sectors of Chasidic Judaism. [...]

Rav Sternbuch: Shailos UTeshuvos 2

Wallposter:Avoiding Trouble

Rav Sternbuch: Heavenly Hierarchies

Israeli rabbis launch initiative to marry gay men to lesbian women

Haaretz

Rabbis from the religious Zionist community have launched an initiative to marry gay men to lesbian women - with some surprising successes.

So far, 11 marriages have been performed. Haaretz conducted an email interview with one such couple, Etti and Roni (not their real names ).

Etti and Roni, both religious, were married five years ago. Though they were honest with each other about their sexual orientations from their first meeting, to the outside world, they portray themselves as a normal heterosexual couple. Today, they have two children, and are thrilled with the results.

Ohr HaChaim: Moshe got everything - yet Rabbi Akiva said chidushim he didn't know!?

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Ohr HaChaim  (Vayikra 13:37): I would like to reconcile the apparent contradiction between two opposing views found in the Medrashim. In Vayikra Rabbah (22:1) it states that everything was given to Moshe at Sinai – even that which a student would innovate in the future. However Bamibar Rabbah (19:7) says that Rabbi Akiva gave interpretations that Moshe didn’t know. There are many other sources regarding these two views. It would appear that the reconciliation of these views is that in truth that all the Torah was told to Moshe. And therefore no scholar can possibly know more than Moshe did. And that is true across the generations from the day the Torah was given until the Messianic days – there were no new Halachos that weren’t known to Moshe. The explanation is that G d in fact gave Moshe the Written and Oral Torah. G d in His wisdom also encoded in the Written Torah the entire Oral Torah that he had taught Moshe. However He did not tell Moshe how the Oral Torah was encoded in the Written Torah. Ascertaining this encoding is in fact the work for all those engaged in Torah study. They are to determine where the halacha which was given to Moshe and the secrets and interpretations are alluded to in the Written Torah. Thus we find that the Tanaim came and composed works such as Torah Cohanim and the Sifre. Thus all their analyses of the verses are to determine where the known halacha is encoded in the Written Torah. This work which continues until the present is the holy work of Torah scholars to investigate the verses of the Bible and reconcile them with the Oral Torah. This effort is call Eretz HaChaim. This knowledge of exactly how the Oral Law was encoded in the Written Law was not given by G d to Moshe. It is in reference to this encoding that our Sages state that Rabbi Akiva made interpretations that Moshe didn’t know. This doesn’t mean that Moshe didn’t know the basis of the interpretations since after all everything was transmitted by him even that which a student would say in the future. However he didn’t know how the Oral Law was hinted at in the Written Law. This is the key to understanding the present issue where Hillel expounded the halacha from the verse that which was said to Moshe orally and G d did not reveal this halacha to Moshe from the verse. It was left for Hillel to find how this halacha was encoded in the verse.

One in four Jewish women suffer abuse in the home

Jewish Chronicle

One in four Jewish women are victims of domestic abuse, according to the largest survey of its kind.

The Jewish Women's Aid study, You know a Jewish woman suffering from domestic abuse: Domestic abuse and the British Jewish community, found that 26 per cent of the 842 people surveyed had personally experienced domestic abuse.

Despite a third admitting they thought abuse in the Jewish community would not be the same as the rest of society, the number of Jewish woman abused is two per cent higher than the national average.

Jewish leaders have criticised communal organisations for "sweeping this problem under the carpet" and said the report must act as a "wake-up call" to the community. [...]

Police in Los Angeles Step Up Efforts to Gain Muslims’ Trust

NYTimes

The question of whether American Muslims do, or do not, cooperate with law enforcement agents in preventing potential terrorist attacks is at the heart of Congressional hearings that begin Thursday in Washington. The hearings have been called by Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, N.Y., and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He says that American Muslims do not cooperate, and that he will call witnesses who will prove it.

But in Los Angeles, home to one of the largest and most diverse Muslim populations in the country, the picture is far more encouraging, though there are still challenges. And it has one of the most assertive multidepartmental efforts in the country, along with New York, to overcome mistrust and engage Muslims as allies in preventing terrorism, according to law enforcement experts.

"We're not going to win the war against terrorism without Muslims," said Leroy D. Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff, in an interview in his office. Mr. Baca will be called as a witness at the hearings on Thursday. [...]

David Schick: The Man With Two Faces; a Fraud Case Shocks

NYTimes 1996

Then came David Schick. A lawyer and father of 10 at age 36, his reputation as a doer of good deeds brought people to his home on Avenue I late at night seeking counsel on immigration law or trouble with a child. And Mr. Schick took the family's name far beyond Flatbush.

He was recently the honorary chairman of the annual meeting of the nation's largest Orthodox organization. He helped arrange for President Clinton to meet in March with donors to a large rabbinical college he supports. When Mr. Schick had early success as a real estate investor, word spread so fast through the Orthodox Jewish world that wealthy Jews around the globe were soon entrusting him with millions. To reassure the religious, his deals included a letter from a rabbinical court waiving the prohibition in Jewish law on Jews earning interest from each other.

"They were knocking his door down," said Robert Goldman, a lawyer representing investors in New York, California and Belgium.

Then on April 6, an investor called Mr. Schick to ask about his $1.7 million that was supposed to be parked securely in an escrow account. According to a complaint filed in Federal Court in Manhattan, Mr. Schick responded simply, "I took it." [...]

Chief Rabbi Amar's committee recommends ending Army conversion course

JPost

The rabbinic committee appointed by Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar recommended that he terminate the Nativ course held for potential IDF converts, since Reform and Conservative teachers are part of its staff, Israel Radio reported on Tuesday.

“In this [Nativ] course about 10 of the staff of 170 teachers are Reform or Conservative. We perceive this as a severe problem, that casts a heavy shadow on all of the military conversions, and every effort should be made to cancel this course and/or to not have it as a precondition to the IDF process,” the report quoted from a letter the three-man advisory committee wrote.[...]

Establishing Paternity by Means of Blood Type Testing

MedEthics by Prof.Dov Frimer

A. Introduction

Significant developments have occurred in the field of hemato- logy during the past generation, and research in the area continues to advance. Scientists are firmly of the opinion that proper use of ABO blood type testing enables one to establish in most cases the negative determination of a paternity, namely that X is not the father of Y.[1] At the same time, the medical community acknow- ledges that a satisfactory method for positive, definite determin- ation that X is the father of Y, on the basis of ABO blood types, has yet to be developed.[2] Despite all this, judges in Anglo-Saxon countries are quite reluctant fully to accept paternity blood testing with all its ramifications. It is their opinion that the law should proceed cautiously when dealing with the adoption of new tests and examinations in an area which is under going rapid change and development.[3]

In this article I shall analyze and compare the attitudes of Jewish law and of Israeli law towards the use of blood testing in determining questions of paternity. To achieve this aim, three questions must be investigated: [...]

Philadelphia Archdiocese Suspends 21 Priests

NYTimes

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Tuesday that it had placed 21 priests on administrative leave from active ministry in connection with credible charges that they had sexually abused minors.

The mass suspension was one of the single most sweeping in the history of the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. It follows a damning grand jury report issued Feb. 10 that accused the archdiocese of a widespread cover-up of predatory priests stretching over decades and that said as many as 37 priests remained active in the ministry despite credible allegations of sexual abuse against them. [...]

Drawing U.S. Crowds With Anti-Islam Message

NYTimes

As a child growing up a Maronite Christian in war-torn southern Lebanon in the 1970s, Ms. Gabriel said, she had been left lying injured in rubble after Muslims mercilessly bombed her village. She found refuge in Israel and then moved to the United States, only to find that the Islamic radicals who had terrorized her in Lebanon, she said, were now bent on taking over America.

“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.”

Through her books, media appearances and speeches, and her organization, ACT! for America, Ms. Gabriel has become one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors who warn that Muslims pose an enormous danger within United States borders. [...]

Is it child pornography if no child is abused in edited video?

NYTimes

People in this economically pressed town near Lake Michigan are divided into two camps: Those who think Evan Emory should pay hard for what he did, and those who think he should be let off easy.

Mr. Emory, 21, an aspiring singer and songwriter, became a household name here last month when he edited a video to make it appear that elementary school children in a local classroom were listening to him sing a song with graphic sexual lyrics. He then showed the video in a nightclub and posted it on YouTube.

Tony Tague, the Muskegon County prosecutor, stands firmly in the first camp: He charged Mr. Emory with manufacturing and distributing child pornography, a crime that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and 25 years on the sex offender registry.

“It is a serious, a huge violation,” said Charles Willick, whose 6-year-old daughter was one of the students, all readily identifiable, in the video. “He crossed the line when he used children.”

Rav Herzog to Rav Unterman regarding rejection of paternal blood test

Rav Yitzchok Herzog(Assia 5 page 196-197 translation by R’ Dov Frimer): I do not deny that I was almost embarrassed ... by what you wrote ... in such a deprecating manner towards blood tests, from a negative aspect. That is, with regard to the possibility that [a blood test can] clarify that X is not the son of Y. How can there be a question of the credibility of the doctors in a matter which has been clearly accepted by all the masters of medicine throughout the entire world! Our Sages nowhere say that it was a statement handed down to Moses on Sinai .... Moreover, this is impossible, since it is now as clear as the sun at high noon... . However, they .held it as a fact and built on this assumption, since Aristotle had so asserted and so had been accepted by all the scholars of his time. What vast differences there are between the science of medicine in their day and in ours, and between the contacts that exist between all parts of the world today, in contrast to the state of affairs in ancient times! I remember from my reading of medical literature that there is no doubt whatsoever concerning this matter. Yet in your letter you imply that there are differences of opinion among medical experts. With all due respect, you are completely mistaken. Here is a copy of a letter from the government’s medical-legal expert who is also an observant Jew. The husband has already come to me and asked that the judgment be executed. You do not accept this. We shall give him an extension, and I am arranging the matter here and will notify the parties through you as to when they must come. It is unfortunate that while science is progressively conquering worlds and discovering all sorts of secrets, although it too errs at times, we like ostriches bury our heads in sand. It is imperative that we encourage the ablest students of the yeshivot also to be educated as men of science in each discipline, so that we should not need to turn to others in matters of physiology, chemistry, electricity, etc. concerning things that relate to our sacred Torah. ...

Rosh (55:9): Jewish vs Secular thought

from Daas Torah - copyrighted translation

Rosh (55:9): This that you wrote concerning the conclusions of intellectual analysis and the conclusions of religion thought – what shall I reply to this? The fact is that our Torah is not like your idle chatter. From secular logic - which all religious scholars distance themselves from - you cite proofs that cause an obligation or give rights or prohibit or permit. But it is an established fact that the ones who laid the foundation for the system of logic did not believe in Moshe nor in the righteous laws and statues which he transmitted to us – either in writing or through tradition. So how can those who are the intellectual heirs of a system which denies the importance of Moshe and his teachings bring a proof to support a particular statute or law of Moshe and to decide laws based on analogies and deductions which are characteristic of the study of logic? Of course this is not possible! In my day and my place are Halachos decided on the basic of solely on logical models – G-d forbid! As long as I live there will be Torah amongst the Jews and proof will be based on Mishnah, and the Babylonian and Yerushalmi Talmuds. There is absolutely no need for secular logic. That is because secular philosophical analysis is not the same as Torah thought and law - the wisdom of the Torah is a Tradition that was given to Moshe at Sinai. A Torah scholar generates conclusions based on the traditional hermeneutic rules as well as by drawing analogies and making deductions – even though these are not necessarily what would be found by the use of secular human intellect – we conduct ourselves according to Tradition. In contrast philosophy is entirely natural. They have great scholars and they rigorously follow pure human intellect. With their great intellect they delve deeply and of necessity contradict the Torah of Moshe since the Torah is simply not based on human intellect but Tradition. This is expressed by the verse, “Be simply pure with G d”. In other words even if the Torah directs us to go against human intellect we should not question our Tradition but should follow in total obedience to the dictates of G d. Therefore we do not bring proof from secular scholars against the upright laws of G d. Concerning this Mishlei (2:19) says, “None that go to the alien woman ever returns.” In other words all those who get involved with secular analysis are not able to escape from its influence and cannot bring the wisdom of Torah into their hearts because they have become accustomed to the secular way of thinking which is inherently more attractive than Torah. As a result of the influence of secular thinking, they are not able to fully comprehend the wisdom of the Torah which is the true path of life. That is because their minds are constantly dominated by natural thinking and wisdom and they assume that the wisdom of Torah and secular thinking are equivalent and compatible. They thus believe that is possible to bring a proof from one to the other – and as a consequence they corrupt the correct halacha. The fact is that these two modes of thinking are opposed to each other and thus incompatible – they can not coexist….

No Crime, but an Arrest and Two Strip-Searches

NYTimes

Albert W. Florence believes that black men who drive nice cars in New Jersey run a risk of being questioned by the police. For that reason, he kept handy a 2003 document showing he had paid a court-imposed fine stemming from a traffic offense, just in case.

It did not seem to help.

In March 2005, Mr. Florence was in the passenger seat of his BMW when a state trooper pulled it over for speeding. His wife, April, was driving. His 4-year-old son, Shamar, was in the back.

The trooper ran a records search, and he found an outstanding warrant based on the supposedly unpaid fine. Mr. Florence showed the trooper the document, but he was arrested anyway. [...]

Jewish student sues UC Berkeley for not protecting her

JPost

A student has brought a federal civil rights lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley, saying the university did not protect her from being attacked because she is Jewish.

Lawyers for Jessica Felber, 20, say the case, filed in US District Court in Oakland, Calif., on March 4 against the university, the regents of the University of California and their ranking officials, is the first of its kind.

Her suit alleges that Husam Zakharia, a fellow student and the head of Students for Justice in Palestine, rammed into her with a metal cart because of the pro-Israel sign she was holding during a pro-Israel demonstration on the Berkeley campus on March 5, 2010. [...]

Jewish Week's reply to Ohel's response

Jewish Week

The Jewish Week finds itself, unfortunately, in a war of words with Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services.

To be clear: we have no animus toward the Brooklyn-based social service agency or any other Jewish organization; our mission and goal is to report the truth and inform and strengthen the Jewish community. Sometimes that makes for hard feelings.

Over the years we have reported allegations that Ohel’s policies in dealing with sex abuse has put the community’s children at risk. As a result, the agency appears to have concluded that we are biased against them, and worse. [...]

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz’s Campaign – And Why We Ought To Support It

Cross Currents - Rabbi Adlerstein

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz announced a new weapon in the struggle against abuse. For most people, the obvious reason to support him will be sufficient. It might be worthwhile to consider some of the other reasons as well.

Rabbi Horowitz is a trusted name in the world of chinuch. He has earned a justified reputation for speaking his mind, particularly about topics that generate lockjaw (in the closed position) for others. He has demonstrated enormous concern and sensitivity for the victims of abuse, and holds it responsible for producing a great part of the off-the-derech population. In a high-profile case now in progress, he anticipates a large showing in court from members of a closed community – on behalf of the accused. Understanding the impact that this will have on the victims (and victims in unrelated cases!), he urges at least a parallel show of support and concern for them. Whatever one believes regarding offering assistance to accused (but untried and unconvicted) felons, such assistance should not give the impression that accused criminals are more important to us than real victims. (At a conference for rabbanim in LA last week, Dr. David Pelcowitz shared a chilling finding. He related that child welfare personnel in community after community all ask him the same question: "Why is your community more concerned with protecting its image than protecting children?) [....]

Rosh(55:9): Jewish vs Secular thought

James Gleick's "The Information"

NYTimes

"The Information” is so ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly. Imagine luxuriating on a Wi-Fi-equipped desert island with Mr. Gleick’s book, a search engine and no distractions. “The Information” is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand.

In this relaxed setting, take the time to differentiate among the Brownian (motion), Bodleian (library) and Boolean (logic) while following Mr. Gleick’s version of what Einstein called “spukhafte Fernwirkung,” or “spooky action at a distance.” Einstein wasn’t precise about what this meant, and Mr. Gleick isn’t always precise either. His ambitions for this book are diffuse and far flung, to the point where providing a thumbnail description of “The Information” is impossible. [...]

Ohel's response to The Jewish Week regarding mandated reporting

OHEL

The Jewish Week Has It Wrong, Again.

A Heinous Crime and A History of Proactive Prevention

Child sexual abuse is a heinous crime. While unashamedly denied or ignored by many in the community for too long, OHEL has for decades tirelessly treated victims and raised community-wide awareness - long before child sexual abuse became media headlines. OHEL initiated hundreds of prevention workshops, provided local and national consultations with schools and communities, distributed a multitude of videos, books and other supporting materials, while providing on-going treatment and support to victims and their families. The media has a very important role to play in boldly tackling issues such as child sexual abuse and all other social ills. However, The Jewish Week’s inflammatory coverage of OHEL, most recently in the article “Abuse Case Tests OHEL’s Adherence To Reporting Laws” once again demonstrates a complete disregard for facts driven by a very misguided agenda, and, at worst, a reckless disregard for a patients right to privacy.

Fundamental Misrepresentations in Jewish Week Article [...]

Brooklyn camp counselor charged in kid-sex case

Kenyon Schraeder wrote: A 65-year-old man's entire life, reputation and freedom are at stake here and since there's just this one alleged incident to go on at this point and since the Dept. of Ed found nothing disciplinary in his folder over almost 20 years, I'd say he was entitled, at the very least, to the benefit of the doubt, some objectivity and a fair trial by a jury of his peers BEFORE pronouncing him "guilty as charged"

NYPost

a retired New York City schoolteacher known by the nickname "Uncle Joe," is accused of molesting a 5-year-old boy in a bathroom last summer, authorities said.

The counselor was slapped with a slew of sex-abuse charges for the heinous July assault, in which he allegedly sneaked up behind his young victim and attacked him in front of a 4-year-old camper. [....]
 

Story of a victim:"The Man Who Molested Me"

NYTimes

Who might know a pedophile better than the child on whom he (it’s usually a he) has lavished his attention, sometimes for years? Who has studied him as intimately, allowing him his humanity as most of us refuse to do?

Child molesters, reviled even within prison caste systems, receive little sympathy from the adult world — so little it’s hard for most of us to imagine how long-term sexual abuse can be not only facilitated but perpetuated by a victim’s loyalty to his or her abuser. Children on whom pedophiles prey, often neglected and needy, advertise hearts as well as bodies to be plundered; for the child who loves his or her abuser the sexual price exacted for what is offered as affection represents a betrayal from which not every child recovers. The lesson learned — that to be loved one must endure violation — sows a lasting tolerance, even desire, for injury and subjugation. [...]

Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software

NYTimes

When five television studios became entangled in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit against CBS, the cost was immense. As part of the obscure task of “discovery” — providing documents relevant to a lawsuit — the studios examined six million documents at a cost of more than $2.2 million, much of it to pay for a platoon of lawyers and paralegals who worked for months at high hourly rates.

But that was in 1978. Now, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, “e-discovery” software can analyze documents in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. In January, for example, Blackstone Discovery of Palo Alto, Calif., helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000.

Some programs go beyond just finding documents with relevant terms at computer speeds. They can extract relevant concepts — like documents relevant to social protest in the Middle East — even in the absence of specific terms, and deduce patterns of behavior that would have eluded lawyers examining millions of documents. [....]

Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drugs

NYTimes

Alone with his psychiatrist, the patient confided that his newborn had serious health problems, his distraught wife was screaming at him and he had started drinking again. With his life and second marriage falling apart, the man said he needed help.

But the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Levin, stopped him and said: "Hold it. I'm not your therapist. I could adjust your medications, but I don't think that's appropriate."

Like many of the nation's 48,000 psychiatrists, Dr. Levin, in large part because of changes in how much insurance will pay, no longer provides talk therapy, the form of psychiatry popularized by Sigmund Freud that dominated the profession for decades. Instead, he prescribes medication, usually after a brief consultation with each patient. So Dr. Levin sent the man away with a referral to a less costly therapist and a personal crisis unexplored and unresolved. [...]

Fear in Philadelphia That Abusive Priests Are Still Active

NYTimes

Three weeks after a scathing grand jury report accused the Philadelphia Archdiocese of providing safe haven for as many as 37 priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors, most of those priests remain active in the ministry.

The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — “on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,” as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago.

The extent of the scandal here, including a cover-up that the grand jury said stretched over many years, is so great that Philadelphia is “Boston reborn,” said David J. O’Brien, who teaches Catholic history at the University of Dayton, referring to the archdiocese where widespread sexual abuse exploded in public in 2002. [...]

Fence separates haredi, secular Jerusalem kids

YNET

The Jerusalem Municipality on Friday began constructing a separation fence between two kindergartens, an ultra-Orthodox and a secular one, highlighting the complex relations between the different communities living in the capital.

The children of the two adjacent kindergartens have been playing happily together for six months, and were somewhat unsettled by the mayhem upon arriving at the site Friday morning. The municipality plans to cover the fence with blue cloth so the children will no longer be able to see each other. [...]

Rav Sternbuch: Ben Torah Every Step of the Way

Protection against abusers when only rumors are known

Torah always right in conflicts with perceived Reality

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Rav Shalom Shwadron (Daas Torah Orech Chaim - Shoneh Halachos page 8): If witnesses come and testify that someone had been killed and there are other witnesses who contradict them the two pairs of witnesses cancel each other’s testimony. Even if the two contradict the testimony of thousands of witnesses – the testimony of the opposing sides is canceled because two witnesses are as valid as 100 or 1000 witnesses. However the case is different if the purported murder victim shows up alive. In fact this is just the opposite of the previous case. Because even if 1000 witnesses had testified that he was dead, it is obvious that what they said is false and therefore their testimony is completely invalidated. So why is it in the first case that 2 witnesses can invalidate thousands of witnesses while in the second case thousands of witnesses are simply ignored? The answer is simple and clear. Testimony has no significance except when there is a doubt that needs clarifying. However testimony is irrelevant when it contradicts reality which needs witnesses to establish it. Now we should understand that we in our incompetence think that the events of the world are reality and the words of Torah constitute testimony, therefore when we come across events in our lives where Torah is at variance to what we perceive as reality our heart becomes filled with all sorts of rationalizations and explanation that enable us to explain the words of Torah to be consistent with what we consider to be reality. This is because we feel that what we hear from the Torah cannot be of greater validity than what we see with our eyes….However the pious Torah scholars know the real truth which is that there is no reality in the world except for the holy Torah. And all the phenomena of the world are insignificant in comparison to even the point of a letter “yud” in the Torah. Therefore if you find anything in the world which the Torah contradicts then we are forced to say that we did not perceive the world correctly and therefore the testimony from the world is totally null and void in relationship to the reality of the Torah.

The Unrealistic Optimism of Cancer Patients

NYTimes

For almost four decades, researchers and patient advocates have debated the ethics of informed consent in early-phase clinical trials, studies that test only toxicity and dosing and offer little, if any, therapeutic benefit to those enrolled. A major part of the debate has focused on the motivations of patients who participate. Some research on patient motivations has had disturbing ethical implications, indicating that patients may never fully understand the purpose of trials, despite explanations by the researchers. Others have been more reassuring, noting that patients are driven by a sense of altruism and a desire to help others who may one day suffer from the same disease.

More recently, a few studies have offered what appears to be the happiest of hypotheses. Patients may simply be optimistic and have strong needs to express hope. And because optimism has long been considered an effective coping mechanism for patients with terminal diseases, other researchers have also then assumed that optimism in this context poses few ethical issues.

Now one group of ethicists has just published a study challenging that assumption. It turns out that when it comes to being hopeful, not all optimism is created equal. [...]

Supreme Court rules for anti-gay protesters at military funerals

NYTimes

The case arose from a protest at the funeral of a Marine who had died in Iraq, Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder. As they had at hundreds of other funerals, members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., appeared with signs bearing messages like “America is Doomed” and “God Hates Fags.”

The church contends that God is punishing the United States for its tolerance of homosexuality.

The father of the fallen Marine, Albert Snyder, sued the protesters for, among other things, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and won a substantial jury award that was later overturned by an appeals court.

Supreme Court: Can police interview "abused" child without consent of parents?

Fox News

The facts of the case are fairly straightforward. In 2003, an investigator for the Oregon Department of Social Services had reason to believe that Nimrod Greene may have sexually abused his daughters. That investigator and a sheriff's deputy went to the school of the nine year old girl, described in court documents as S.G., and pulled her out of class to ask if she'd been harmed.

The young girl denied abuse for most of the interview but later said she changed her story in an effort to end the inquiry. Greene was indicted on several counts of felony sexual assault but those charges were dismissed after a jury couldn't reach a verdict. The father eventually pleaded guilty to another unrelated incident of sexual abuse.

The mother filed a lawsuit saying the investigator and deputy had no right to pull her daughter out of class without approval from her or a court. [...]

U.K. Court: Anti-Gay Couple Can't Be Foster Parents

Fox News

A British court has ruled that a Christian couple can no longer care for foster children because of their opposition to homosexuality.

Eunice and Owen Johns provided foster care for nearly two dozen children in the 1990s — but after Great Britain instituted equality laws, they were banned from the program in 2007.

Social workers red-flagged the couple during an interview when they explained that they did not approve of homosexuality because of their Pentecostal faith.

The Associated Press reported that judges at London’s Royal Courts of Justice determined that laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination take precedence over the couple’s religious beliefs.[...]

Ethiopians as Jews - 2 letters of Rav Moshe Feinstein

Concerning the status of Ethiopians as Jews - there is a teshuva printed in the Igros Moshe which refers to a previous letter on the subject. This other letter was not published in the Igros Moshe but was published in HaPardes (59:1) in 1984. There are clear differences between the two letters and it seems strange that the second letter was not included in the Igros Moshe - especially since it was addressed to Mordechai Tendler who was involved in editiing the Igros Moshe. I am publishing them both here.   HaPardes is available at Hebrew Books

Violence in Chareidi schools

BCHOL

אלימות מזעזעת ב'חיידר' אשדודי: ילד דקר את חברו בראשו • מחריד
האלימות הגואה ברחוב הישראלי הגיעה גם לכיתות ה'חיידרים': ילד כבן 13, תלמיד 'חיידר' אשדודי ידוע, שלף במהלך קטטה מברג מכיסו, ודקר את חבירו בראשו • הרב חיים ולדר ל'בחדרי חרדים' בעקבות האירוע: "האלימות המילולית בציבור החרדי מפחידה אותי הרבה יותר" • ויש תמונות מהזוועה

Chabad Seminar: identifying, reporting and preventing child indecent abuse

Collive

As part of a series on protecting children, an educational seminar to take place March 8th, 2011, at 8:00 PM, at Bais Rivka, 310 Crown Street, Brooklyn, is going to revolve around identifying, reporting and preventing child indecent abuse - a largely unaddressed issue in our community.

Noted lecturer and Chabad.org columnist Mrs. Bronya Shaffer is coordinating the event and believes it should be mandatory given the necessity to address child indecent abuse issues.

(As of now, participating schools include Bais Rivka High School, Bnos Menachem, Darchei Menachem, Bnos Yisroel, Beis Chaya Mushka, Oholei Torah, Lubavitch Yeshiva and is being endorsed by Igud Hamenahalim.)

In an article titled Creating a Sane Environment: Protecting the Innocence of Children, Rabbi Manis Friedman chillingly surmises that close to half the people he has met were abused.

That is a staggering figure from someone who has been working in our educational system for decades and certainly reflects national survey averages of a 25% rate of childhood indecent abuse (this is an average of slightly varying statistics from different agencies and includes both men and women).

The panel will consist of Dr. David Pelcovitz, Rabbi Shloime Sternberg, Professor Gavriel Fagin and Assistant District Attorney Henna White. Mrs. Shaffer will emcee.

Union Education,What Wisconsin reveals about public workers & political power.

Wall Street Journal

It's important to understand how revolutionary this change was. For decades as the private union movement rose in power, even left-of-center politicians resisted collective bargaining for public unions. We've previously mentioned FDR and Fiorello La Guardia. But George Meany, the legendary AFL-CIO president during the Cold War, also opposed the right to bargain collectively with the government.

Why? Because unlike in the private economy, a public union has a natural monopoly over government services. An industrial union will fight for a greater share of corporate profits, but it also knows that a business must make profits or it will move or shut down. The union chief for teachers, transit workers or firemen knows that the city is not going to close the schools, buses or firehouses.

This monopoly power, in turn, gives public unions inordinate sway over elected officials. The money they collect from member dues helps to elect politicians who are then supposed to represent the taxpayers during the next round of collective bargaining. In effect union representatives sit on both sides of the bargaining table, with no one sitting in for taxpayers. In 2006 in New Jersey, this led to the preposterous episode in which Governor Jon Corzine addressed a Trenton rally of thousands of public workers and shouted, "We will fight for a fair contract." He was promising to fight himself.[...]

child abuser Elior Chen defended by misguided individuals

YNET
    

"הרב המתעלל" שעינה שני אחים קטנים חויב לפצות את המשפחה ב-700 אלף שקלים. השופט: "מעשי ההתעללות הם אכזריים, מחרידים ומזעזעים". התובע: העונש הולם את מעשיו. אביו של חן: "השופט כתב את מה שהתקשורת הכתיבה לו". נציג העדה החרדית: "זה משפט דרייפוס". הסנגור הבטיח לערער לעליון

Techeles rediscovered?

NYTimes

The scholar, Zvi C. Koren, a professor specializing in the analytical chemistry of ancient colorants, says he has identified the first known physical sample of tekhelet in a tiny, 2,000-year-old patch of dyed fabric recovered from Masada, King Herod’s Judean Desert fortress, later the site of a mass suicide by Jewish zealots after a long standoff against the Romans. [...]

Objective behavioral test accurately diagnoses ADHD,,

Time

Does your child have ADHD, or is he merely rambunctious? Few questions divide parents, teachers, and mental-health professionals as often as this one. Some 5.4 million children ages 4 to 17 had ever been diagnosed with ADHD as of 2007, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The previous year, the total was 4.6 million, meaning 17.4% of all recorded ADHD cases were diagnosed in a single calendar year. There is little hard evidence to suggest that the pace of growth since 2007 has slowed.

The surge in ADHD diagnoses has worried mental-health clinicians because diagnosis of the disorder can be highly subjective. And yet between 1992 and 2000, production of the stimulant methylphenidate — which is marketed as Ritalin — increased 730%, according to the British Medical Journal. But there is a better way to diagnose ADHD — an objective, widely available test developed at McLean Hospital, the psychiatric arm of Harvard Medical School. The test is so good that it could settle the ADHD-diagnosis debate. [...]

Child Abuser Elior Chen sentenced to 24 years in jail

YNet

Judge Yoram Noam wrote in the verdict that "the crimes Chen committed were committed together with others – group members – who congregated in his shadow and worshipped him. The defendant employed a reign of terror over the children which included violence, contempt, and degradation."

"The personal circumstances of the defendant, as well as his wife and children's place of residence abroad, are pushed aside before the public interest in a severe penalty," the judge wrote of his sentence. [...]

Pediatrician in Abuse Case Killed Himself

NYTimes

Dr. Melvin D. Levine, a nationally known pediatrician who was found dead last week, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a medical examiner said on Friday.

Dr. Levine, 71, was found in the woods near his Rougemont, N.C., home with a gunshot wound to his forehead. His death was reported a day after a class-action sexual abuse and malpractice suit was filed against him in Boston. [...]

Rabbi Akiva said not to live in community run by rabbis

Pesachim (112a): There were seven things that Rabbi Akiva instructed his son Rabbi Yehoshua,…Do not live in a town whose leaders are Torah scholars [because they are absorbed in their studies and not with community affairs – Rashi]…