Abuse: Boot camps for troubled teens under attack

Time

For the last 40 years, teens with drug problems, learning disabilities and other behavioral issues have been sent to residential facilities to endure "tough love" techniques that are widely known to include methods of outright physical and psychological abuse.

Whether labeled as boot camps, emotional-growth schools, behavior modification programs or wilderness programs, these organizations have operated without federal oversight, and state regulation of the schools ranges from lax to nonexistent. Now, however, individual critics of the programs are using the Internet to find each other and mobilize, and are bringing change.

Consider the Elan School, in Poland, Maine, which has long been known for its extreme practices. On April 1, Elan shut its doors after four decades in operation, blaming negative publicity online for recent declines in enrollment. "The school has been the target of harsh and false attacks spread over the Internet with the avowed purpose of forcing the school to close," Sharon Terry, Elan's executive director, told the Lewiston Maine Sun Journal.

Rashi questioning assertion of gemora (Berachos 33b)

Berachos (33b): R’ Zera said: Choose the statement of Rabbi Chiya bar Abba because he is very precise in reporting the statements of his teacher like Rachava of Pumbedisa. Because Rachva said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda ….

Rashi (Berachos 33b): Choose the statement of Rabbi Chiya bar Aba…but this is very problematic. First of all Rachava never saw Rabbi Yehuda. He never saw Rabbi Yehuda the son of Rabbi Elai or Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi. Second -  all the other Amoraim were also very precise in reporting matters in the name of the one who originally said them. Furthermore what is quoted doesn’t show that he was being precise…

Eliyahu (Pinchas) will restore Mesora in Messianic Times

From Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Brisker Rav (Malachi 2:4-7): And you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with Levi, says G d. My covenant was with him for life and peace… The Torah of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips; he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should guard knowledge, and they should seek the Torah from his mouth; for he is a messenger of G-d. We need to understand G d’s promise to return the Mesora (tradition) to the Jewish people in Messianic times. How is it possible to restore the Tradition – which has been passed in an unbroken chain from one person to another going back to Moshe? This chain of the transmission of the Torah has already been broken many generations ago! It appears that Eliyahu HaNavi - who is one of the transmitters of the Tradition (Introduction to Mishna Torah) - will come and restore the Tradition. That is explicit in the verse, “My covenant was with him for life and peace.” This verse is referring to Pinchas [it is the covenant he got after he killed Zimri]. That is why these verses conclude, “For the lips of the cohen should guard knowledge”. This is according to the view that Pinchas and Eliyahu are the same person and he will guard Torah for Israel, as it says, “And they shall seek Torah from his mouth.” That means that Torah will be requested from him and he will return Torah to Israel. (When this explanation was told to Rav Chaim Brisker he responded that it had been stolen from him. He added that is why teachers explain to their students that the word “teiku” [which indicates an apparently unanswerable question] is an abbreviation meaning that Eliyahu will answer questions and difficulties. The purpose of this is to implant the belief in the heart of the child that Eliyahu will restore the Torah) … However the question remains as to why Eliyahu merited to be the one to restore the Tradition. It would appear that this is the result of the incident with Zimri in which the halacha was forgotten. Pinchas was the one who saw what was happening and remembered the halacha. He told Moshe, “We have received the halacha from you that one who has sexual relations with a non Jew is killed by zealots.” Moshe responded, “The one who read the letter should carry it out.” Immediately he took a spear … [and killed Zimri] (See Rashi at the end of Balak and Sanhedrin 82). Because Pinchas was the one who returned the halacha at that time he merited be the one who would restore it in Messianic times. That is implicit in these verses, “The Torah of truth was in his mouth…and he saved many from sin.”  That is why it concludes, “The cohen’s lips shall protect knowledge and they will ask Torah from his mouth.” Therefore also in the times of Moshiach he will be with the one that people will seek Torah from his mouth.

Abusive 8 yr old - pepper sprayed by police in class

ABC

Colorado police and school officials are defending a decision to pepper spray a second grade boy who threatened to kill his teachers.

Aidan Elliot seems like a typical video game loving 8 year old, but what happened in his Glennon Heights Elementary School on Feb. 28 was hardly typical.

"I kind of blow up a little," Aidan said. "I said I'm going to kill you once you get out of that room."

Aidan is in a class for kids with behavior problems. He became enraged, spitting and throwing chairs and even threatening teachers and students with a sharp piece of wood he held like a knife. [...]

Yale accused of failure to deal with sexual abuse

yahoo

Federal civil rights officials are investigating complaints by Yale University students that the Ivy League university has a sexually hostile environment and has failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment concerns.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights confirmed Friday that it has begun an investigation at Yale. The office gets about 7,000 complaints per year and investigates about one-third of them.

The complaint, sent March 15, alleges that the university failed to respond promptly or effectively to incidents of harassment, resulting in the denial of equal opportunity, the office said.[...]

Everyone has a book that only he/she can write

Rav Tzadok (Machshovos Charutz #15): Even though there are already many seforim in the world and Shlomo cautioned against making an unlimited amount of seforim (Koheles 12:12), nevertheless every accomplished student has something new to teach which is uniquely his and that no one else is able to discover… Not a day goes by without a new insight from some accomplished student of that generation. Furthermore that particular insight, which is part of the process of sustaining the existence of the world, needs to remain fixed and permanent in the world. There are in this matter many additional factors and processes concerned with preserving and perpetuating this new insight.

Mental illness of abuse is pikuach nefesh even if not life threatening

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Mordechai (Shabbos 424):. R”i bar Sholom explains that all the cases in the gemora where the choleh says it is necessary (tzarich) is to be understand to mean that it appears to choleh that he will die if they don’t feed him because he thinks that he is in a life threatening condition. There are also commentaries which write concerning the matter of Rav Yannai where the choleh says tzarich where it is understood that it talking about possible life threatening circumstances…. All the cases which are brought in the gemora, our Sages were experts in medicine and they knew these cases were life threatening (sakana) such as lighting a candle when a blind women requested it, or breaking down the door when a child was locked in. It would therefore seem that we are not considered experts in the issue of when to feed a choleh while the choleh is. Therefore if the choleh says that his life is not endangered if he doesn’t eat -  it is prohibited to feed him. This is the same for the question of profaning Shabbos to save someone. For example Avoda Zara (28b) states that if an eye is severely tearing it is permitted to put medicine in it on Shabbos. The gemora explains that this is permitted because there is a connection between the eye and the heart and thus it is life threatening. Consequently if the only concern is for the loss of the eye but we don’t consider it to be life threatening - it would not be permitted to put the medicine in the eye on Shabbos.

However Rabbeinu Tam disagrees with this understanding and he has issued permissive rulings in actual cases even when it is not life threatening. This is what he said: Are the sick people prophets or experts in medicine [that we rely on their judgment to permit violating Shabbos or Yom Kippur]? The fact of the matter is that since the sick person or one who recently gave birth is aware that it is Shabbos or Yom Tov and nevertheless says they need to eat or have Shabbos profaned for them – that means they are not able to bear the pain and discomfort which results from their condition. That is why we feed them on Yom Kippur. And this is true even if they are not in life threating conditions (choleh shain bo sakana). For example, how do we consider that being bitten by a mad dog is life threatening or the case of Rav Ashi and Mar Zutra (Kesubos 61a)? Therefore even though the majority of sick people will recover but nevertheless we are lenient when there is even a possibility of danger or severe mental illness (tiruf daas). The expression “that they are going to die” should not confuse you because that is the expression used by the Talmud and you would want to know then what does “a possibility of death mean.” In fact when the Talmud talks about the concern that these people will die it is not to be taken literally. The term death in these cases is a fear that the person will get sick or deteriorate in some way. This understanding is obviously correct. Thus if the sick person asks to eat or drink it is permitted to feed him or give him drink because the lack of food causes him pains in the heart and because of that he will faint and there are times he won’t recover. Thus even there is only the loss of a limb, I would call it a danger and would therefore permit Shabbos to be profaned. We also see this concerning an injury to the interior of the body where the majority of such cases do not die and similarly the case of pregnant women who smell food - we see that they don’t die and yet we are permitted to feed them. Consequently all cases which involve a lost to the body or loss to a limb or embryo is a danger (sakana). We learn this from the case of the mother who recently gave birth or a pregnant woman or someone who is bled and becomes chilled – that it is permitted to make a fire even during the summer even though we have no concern that they will die from this condition So if Shmuel who was a doctor as well as the Sages who were familiar to some degree about medicine and they said that an individual is knowledgeable about his own suffering. So if they literally meant dying that means that all men are experts in this matter for themselves and the statement can’t be reversed. But in fact even if a person screamed out that he wasn’t going to die from this condition - that we have evaluated that he can’t bear – it is permitted ignore him to profane Shabbos according to our judgment….

Sexual abuse trials of Weberman & Dascalowitz

YUBEACON

At 10:15 on Friday morning, Nechemya Weberman was seen before the judge in the Kings County Supreme Court for what promises to be a long trial involving his alleged rape and sexual assault of a 12 year old girl for three years as she was seeing him as a therapy patient. Weberman was arrested in connection with this on February 23rd and is currently out on $15,000 bail.

Weberman’s lawyer, a slick looking man in an expensive suit, turned down Judge Patricia Dimangos’ offer of five years imprisonment and maintained a pleading of not guilty. The court scheduled to meet again on Wednesday, May 11th for the next step in the proceedings. The trial itself has not been yet set. These proceedings can drag out for months or years, often wearing the victim and her supporters thin.

The defendant is a 53 year old married, unlicensed therapist from the sequestered community of Williamsburg, New York, where almost everyone is Chasidic. The courtroom was filled with Hasidim, most of whom were there to support the victim. Weberman’s wife, son, and two sisters sat in the back corner, avoiding the glances of curious audience members.[...]

Adoption:Should race be a consideration?

Newsweek

Several pairs of eyes follow the girl as she pedals around the playground in an affluent suburb of Baltimore. But it isn't the redheaded fourth grader who seems to have moms and dads of the jungle gym nervous on this recent Saturday morning. It's the African-American man—six feet tall, bearded and wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt—watching the girl's every move. Approaching from behind, he grabs the back of her bicycle seat as she wobbles to a stop. "Nice riding," he says, as the fair-skinned girl turns to him, beaming. "Thanks, Daddy," she replies. The onlookers are clearly flummoxed.

As a black father and adopted white daughter, Mark Riding and Katie O'Dea-Smith are a sight at best surprising, and at worst so perplexing that people feel compelled to respond. Like the time at a Pocono Mountains flea market when Riding scolded Katie, attracting so many sharp glares that he and his wife, Terri, 37, and also African-American, thought "we might be lynched." And the time when well-intentioned shoppers followed Mark and Katie out of the mall to make sure she wasn't being kidnapped. Or when would-be heroes come up to Katie in the cereal aisle and ask, "Are you OK?"—even though Terri is standing right there.[...]

Obama’s War on Schools

Newsweek by Diane Ravitch

Over the past year, I have traveled the nation speaking to nearly 100,000 educators, parents, and school-board members. No matter the city, state, or region, those who know schools best are frightened for the future of public education. They see no one in a position of leadership who understands the damage being done to their schools by federal policies.

They feel keenly betrayed by President Obama. Most voted for him, hoping he would reverse the ruinous No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation of George W. Bush. But Obama has not sought to turn back NCLB. His own approach, called Race to the Top, is even more punitive than NCLB. And though over the past week the president has repeatedly called on Congress to amend the law, his proposed reforms are largely cosmetic and would leave the worst aspects of NCLB intact.

The theory behind NCLB was that schools would improve dramatically if every child in grades 3 to 8 were tested every year and the results made public. Texas did exactly this, and advocates claimed it had seen remarkable results: test scores went up, the achievement gap between students of different races was closing, and graduation rates rose. At the time, a few scholars questionedthe claims of a "Texas miracle," but Congress didn't listen. In fact, the "Texas miracle" never happened. [...]

Halachasizing of lashon harah: Mussar principles versus halachic rules:

The following post on Hirhurim has a link to Dr. Benny Brown's paper regarding the transformation of lashon harah - but it applies also to other matters. As affirmation of his basic thesis - my son told me that the Rosh Yeshiva of Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak told him that the Chazon Ish had said, "Lashon Harah is not a complicated topic. All one needed to remember was not to use speech to hurt others."

 This is also reflected in Rav Sternbuch's teshuva regarding a principal's refusal to listen to lashon harah regarding child abuse as well as the Rav Chaim Ozer's refusal to sign the Chofetz Chaim's pledge never to speak lashon harah.


Hirhurim

Audio Roundup CXXXIX
March 31, 2011

by Joel Rich

Dr. Benny Brown’s paper (pdf link fixed) concerning the Chofetz Chaim’s “halachasizing” approach to lashon hara resonated with some of my lay person’s musings on the subject. My Hirhurim comment prior to reading the paper was “llimud v’lo lmaaseh I always go back to the same question – why was there no real compendium on lashon hara rules until the C”C?

Increased awareness of sexual abuse amongst Orthodox women

Haaretz

Last Wednesday, the day after former President Moshe Katsav was sentenced, Tirza Frenkel, vice-principal of Tehilla, a state-religious girls' high school in Jerusalem, was planning to discuss the case in her 12th-grade civics class. But even earlier, she says, students stopped her in the hall and asked her to address the matter.

Frenkel has a reputation at the school for devoting a lot of attention to sexual abuse, in general, and to the Moshe Katsav affair in particular. The issue preoccupied students throughout the trial (which began in the summer of 2009 ), she says, and discussions were held in classrooms at high points in the proceedings, such as after the verdict.

"I used the case in civics classes to describe court proceedings, to explain what a plea bargain is and why Katsav turned it down - and to discuss sexual abuse," Frenkel says. "In Orthodox parlance, we talk about how every woman was created in the divine image, and therefore has a right to her body and must not be violated."

She told her students that "the personal message to all of you is that you has the right to safeguard your body and to do with it as you see fit, and nobody has the right to demand anything else." [...]

Paying for dialysis when it doesn't prolong life?

NYTimes

Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one — end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years ago provides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.

But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney experts say. It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive. Instead, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old and have other medical problems, often suffering through dialysis as a replacement for their failed kidneys but not living long because the other chronic diseases kill them.

Kidney specialists are pushing doctors to be more forthright with elderly people who have other serious medical conditions, to tell the patients that even though they are entitled to dialysis, they may want to decline such treatment and enter a hospice instead. In the end, it is always the patient’s choice.

One idea, promoted by leading specialists, is to change the way doctors refer to the decision to forgo dialysis. Instead of saying that a patient is withdrawing from dialysis or agreeing not to start it, these specialists say the patient has chosen “medical management without dialysis.” [...]

Does major change always require causing a stink?

Just had a discussion regarding the tactics to use in bringing about change in a community. Can one act with derech eretz and a concern with truth or is the only effective way to be rude and abrasive and to have a blatant disregard of truth? The point of contention are the views of Saul Alinsky.


NYTimes

Saul Alinsky, the Chicago activist and writer whose street-smart tactics influenced generations of community organizers, most famously the current president, could not have been more clear about which side he was on. In his 1971 text, “Rules for Radicals,” Mr. Alinsky, who died in 1972, explains his purpose: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.” [...]

Make yourself look as big and scary as possible:

For an elementary illustration of tactics, take parts of your face as the point of reference; your eyes, your ears, and your nose. First the eyes; if you have organized a vast, mass-based people’s organization, you can parade it visibly before the enemy and openly show your power. Second the ears; if your organization is small in numbers, then do what Gideon did: conceal the members in the dark but raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more than it does. Third, the nose; if your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place.

Abuse: Yosef Kolko case - Should beis din's social worker have to testify?

APP

A former yeshiva teacher and camp counselor spoke in detail about sexual abuse accusations against him to a social worker hired by a rabbinical council months before the case was brought to law enforcement, according to testimony in Superior Court Wednesday.

Now, an assistant prosecutor wants the social worker to be able to testify against the teacher, Yosef Kolko, at upcoming criminal proceedings regarding accusations that he molested a boy he met while a camp counselor.

Kolko's attorney, Michael E. Wilbert, argues that his client, as a patient, is entitled to confidentiality.

Sexual abuse case sheds light on Emmanuel’s ethnic tensions

JPost

A sexual abuse case recently made public is shedding some new light on the development of the ethnic tensions that exploded in Emmanuel last year.

Channel 2 reported on Monday that the principal of Emmanuel's Ashkenazi elementary school for boys, Rabbi Moshe Nussboim, is currently on trial behind closed doors in the Kfar Saba Magistrate's Court on suspicion of sexually abusing three boys from Sephardi families in his school between the years 2002-2008.

The Emmanuel affair took off in 2007, when a partition was erected in the middle of the local Beit Ya'acov girls' school building to separate between girls in a "hassidic track," composed of primarily Slonimer Hassidim, and the rest of the girls.

A High Court petition by Yoav Laloum and his Noar Kahalacha NGO charging ethnic discrimination led to the court ordering that the wall be taken down, and the Independent Education Center, which runs the school, obeyed.[....]

4 Palestinians falsely accused of raping 11-year-old

YNET

Police released four Palestinians residing illegally in Israel, who were arrested Tuesday on suspicion that they had raped an 11-year old Israeli boy, when it turned out the latter had been lying.

The four men denied the allegations from the first, prompting police investigators to question the boy again before a scheduled lineup. During the second round of questioning, the boy admitted that some of the claims he had made were false, and also supplied a different description of the men

Two opposing views: Must you listen to rabbis to violate the Torah?

From Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

The following shows that the commonly accepted view of rabbinic authority is based on the Sifre which is not the authoritative view since it is rejected by  the Bavli & Yerushalmi and is not mentioned by Rambam and Shulchan Aruch.

Ramban (Devarim 17:11): Left and Right.  Rashi explains that even if the Sanhedrin tell you that right is left or left is right – [you must obey them]. Meaning that even if you are certain that the Sanhedrin has erred and it is as obvious to you as the difference between your right and left – you still must comply with their understanding of the Torah. In other words you can’t argue, “How can I eat that  which is prohibited by the Torah or how can I execute this person when I know he has not transgressed?” Rather your attitude must be, “The absolute obedience to the rulings of the Sanhedrin is what G d has commanded me and I must observe the mitzvos exactly as the Sanhedrin (which is in G d’s presence in the Temple) says. The Torah was given to me according to their understanding – even if they err.”  This is what happened when R’ Yehoshau had a dispute with the Sanhedrin as to what day was Yom Kippur. R’ Gamliel the head of the Sanhedrin ordered R’ Yehoshua to appear before him on the day that he thought was Yom Kippur (Rosh HaShanna 25a). the necessity for this mitzva is very great. That is because the Torah was given to us in writing and it is known that people don’t think identically in all matters. Therefore it would be natural for disputes over what the Torah means to continually multiply and it would end up that there would be many Torahs instead of one. That is why this verse tells you that one must obey the Sanhedrin which convenes in G d’s presence in the Temple – in everything they say concerning the understanding of the Torah. There is no difference in the requrement to obey whether this Torah understanding is part of the Tradition which goes back what G d told Moshe or what their understanding of the meaning or intent of a Torah verse.  This requirement to accept their Torah understanding is because the Torah was in fact given to us according to their understanding. Therefore they must be obeyed even if their view contrasts with your understanding as left contrasts with right and surely if you agree with their understanding. That is because G d’s spirit is on those who serve in His Temple and He does not desert His pious ones. G d always protects them from error and mistake. The Sifri (Shoftim 154) says that you must obey them even if appears that they have reversed right with left and left with right.

Yad HaMelech (Hilchos Maamrim 1:2): …It is clear that according to the understanding of Rashi and the Mizrachi the intent of the Sifre [that one must listen to the rabbis even when it apparently involves Torah prohibitions] is against the view of the Babylonian Talmud and also against the Yerushalmi. Furthermore since the Rambam omits mention of this Sifre therefore we have only the halachic view that is explicit in the Bavli and Yerushalmi.  Thus all halachic rulings which appear to contradict the words of the Torah e.g., eating prohibited fats or killing an innocent man – irrespective as to the authority of the rabbi giving the ruling they are not to be accepted. It is stated explicitly in the Yerushalmi and also the Bavli that if someone errs in this matter and thinks it is an obligation to listen to these rabbis to eat fat prohibited by the Torah because he thinks it is a mitzva to always obey the rabbis – this individual is obligated to bring a sacrifice as he would be for eating any Torah prohibited food in error.
  
*** Even Ramban might hold Sifre only applies if  Sanhedrin rejects your view ***

Rav Ovadia Yosef (Yabiah Omer Y.D. 6:7.2): … The Yerushalmi (Horious 1:1) states, that you might think even if they tell you that “right” is “left” and that “left” is “right” that they must be obeyed. Therefore the Torah says that you should only obey them if they say that “right” is “right” and “left” is “left”. But this is the opposite of the Sifre [that you must obey them even if they tell you that “right” is “left” and “left” is “right”…. However according to the explanation of the Ramban (Sefer HaMitzvos Shoreh I) and those who support him [Ran Sanhedrin 87a] there is a reconcilation. According to the Ramban as long as the dissenting view has not been directly presented to the Sanhedrin [or Rabbinic authority] then he must refuse to eat that which the Sanhedrin insists is kosher. [If he eats food that he regards as unkosher because he is relying on the Sanhedrin he must bring a korbon] However once he has directly discussed the issue with the Sanhedrin and they have rejected his view [despite his best efforts] then the halacha becomes that he must obey them [even if he is still convinced he is right.]

Riva (Devarim 17:11): Don’t deviate from what they tell you left or right – Rashi explains,“You must obey them even if they tell you right is left and left is right and surely if they tell you right is right and left is left.”  This is an astounding statement. Are we really required to listen to a rabbi who tells you that something that is impure is pure or that something which is prohibited really permitted?! The answer is that this command does not concern Torah obligations but rather Rabbinic decrees. Thus “the right that is really left” is referring to decrees such as not doing the Torah mitzva of blowing shofar because of the concern of profaning Shabbos. The meaning of “the left that is really right” is referring to decrees such as prohibiting marriage to someone who is permitted by the Torah.

Why Experts Get the Future Wrong

NYTimes

What does the future hold? To answer that question, human beings have looked to stars and to dreams; to cards, dice and the Delphic oracle; to animal entrails, Alan Green­span, mathematical models, the palms of our hands. As the number and variety of these soothsaying techniques suggest, we have a deep, probably intrinsic desire to know the future. Unfortunately for us, the future is deeply, intrinsically unknowable.

This is the problem Dan Gardner tackles in “Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to Worthless, and You Can Do Better.” Gardner, a Canadian journalist and author of “The Science of Fear,” takes as his starting point the work of Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Beginning in the 1980s, Tetlock examined 27,451 forecasts by 284 academics, pundits and other prognosticators. The study was complex, but the conclusion can be summarized simply: the experts bombed. Not only were they worse than statistical models, they could barely eke out a tie with the proverbial dart-throwing chimps.

The most generous conclusion Tetlock could draw was that some experts were less awful than others. Isaiah Berlin once quoted the Greek poet Archilochus to distinguish between two types of thinkers: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Berlin admired both ways of thinking, but Tetlock borrowed the metaphor to account for why some experts fared better. The least accurate forecasters, he found, were hedgehogs: “thinkers who ‘know one big thing,’ aggressively extend the explanatory reach of that one big thing into new domains” and “display bristly impatience with those who ‘do not get it,’ ” he wrote. Better experts “look like foxes: thinkers who know many small things,” “are skeptical of grand schemes” and are “diffident about their own forecasting prowess.” [...]

Spiritual leader of Syrian Jewish community enters guilty plea

YNet

The spiritual leader for the Syrian Jewish community in the United States has entered a guilty plea in a massive federal corruption probe in New Jersey.

Rabbi Saul Kassin of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty in a Trenton federal courtroom Monday to one count of unauthorized money transmitting.

The 89-year-old is the chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and New Jersey.
 
Kassin was among five rabbis arrested in July 2009 and charged with money laundering using charitable non-profit groups they or their synagogues controlled.

 

Emmanuel: allegations that sex abuse is behind segregation

Channel 2 news Hat tip Joel Katz

Here's a heads-up on a Israel Channel 2 TV program "360" investigative report.

what was really behind the segregation in Emmanuel's school.

360 reports that the origin of the conflict involved allegations of sexual abuse by rabbi in Emmanuel.

The allegations created conflict between the 'ba'aleh teshuva' population and the haredi population.

Only later did the segregation take place.

Channel 2 http://reshet.ynet.co.il/Shows/360/ Monday 21:00 March 28, 2011.

Joel

Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel
http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/

Emmanuel: allegations that sex abuse is behind segregation

Channel 2 news Hat tip Joel Katz

Here's a heads-up on a Israel Channel 2 TV program "360" investigative report.

what was really behind the segregation in Emmanuel's school.

360 reports that the origin of the conflict involved allegations of sexual abuse by rabbi in Emmanuel.

The allegations created conflict between the 'ba'aleh teshuva' population and the haredi population.

Only later did the segregation take place.

Channel 2 http://reshet.ynet.co.il/Shows/360/ Monday 21:00 March 28, 2011.

Joel

Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel
http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/

The Eruv crisis in the Hamptons:The thin Jew LIne

City Show

Readership - South Korea & Iran

Just noticed in my statistics of readership by country - that there are a significant number of readers from South Korea & Iran. 

I would appreciate hearing from these readers what they find of interest?

Supreme Court to Weigh Sociology Issue in Wal-Mart Discrimination Case

NYTimes

When the Supreme Court considers on Tuesday whether hundreds of thousands of women can band together in an employment discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, the argument may hinge on the validity of the hotly disputed conclusions of a Chicago sociologist.

Plaintiffs in the class-action suit, who claim that Wal-Mart owes billions of dollars to as many as 1.5 million women who they say were unfairly treated on pay and promotions, enlisted the support of William T. Bielby, an academic specializing in "social framework analysis."

A central question in the case is whether he should have been allowed, in preliminary proceedings, to go beyond describing general research about gender stereotypes in the workplace to draw specific conclusions about what he called flaws in Wal-Mart's personnel policies.

"Bielby made a conclusion that he had no basis to make," said Laurens Walker, one of two University of Virginia professors who coined the term for the analysis almost 25 years ago. "He hasn't done the research." [...]

The alienation of American Muslims

CNN

The community is growing more defensive in the face of what many here say is a national climate of suspicion reminiscent of the period immediately after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Graves in Yaffo are apparently not Jewish

YNET

The tombs uncovered near Andromeda Hill in Jaffa belong to pagan worshipers buried next to domesticated pigs, according to the latest findings revealed during excavation works at the site.

For the past year, the site has become a political and religious hotspot, with ultra-Orthodox frequently protesting what they claimed was the desecration of Jewish graves.

BCHOL

עצמות יהודים? התמונה אומרת הכל! • צפו והזדזעו
'אתרא קדישא' נערך לטקס קבורה פומבי לעצמות שפונו ממתחם אנדרדומה ביפו • עדות שצולמה במקום מוכיחה באופן חותך: מדובר בעצמות נוצרים • צפו

Abuse: Cyberbullying:5 Essential Parenting Tips

Time

Cyberbullying is back in the news, most recently because of a so-called "smut list" published online that targeted 100 teenage girls, some as young as 14, for being promiscuous. So Healthland asked two bullying experts — Elizabeth Englander, author of Understanding Violence, and Jonathan Singer at the Temple University School of Social Work — for tips for helping parents teach kids to avoid, cope with and understand the harm of digital abuse:

Make sure your kids know cyberbullying is wrong. Many kids don't understand that when they write down and disseminate feelings of frustration, jealousy or anger toward others online, it can quickly escalate into problems in the real world. They also tend to think that what happens digitally "doesn't count" and that digital abuse doesn't hurt, especially since parents usually focus on their kids' behavior in person.

Lawsuit:Magnets defeat push button locks

NYTimes

Yeshai M. Kutoff was house-proud, having bought a home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, for his family of five. And as an Orthodox Jew, he bought push-button locks for the doors — an accommodation for the Sabbath, when many of the devout do not carry keys.

When a neighbor told him that the locks he had bought could be opened by a powerful magnet costing about $30, Mr. Kutoff was perturbed. “It does bother me that other people could easily figure it out,” he said. Mr. Kutoff did not buy a magnet to see for himself. “It doesn’t interest me to know how to break into my own lock,” he said.

If this were a problem with security software instead of errant bits of steel, a company could send out a patch. If this was someplace other than the United States in the 21st century, Mr. Kutoff might have called a locksmith. But because it is the United States in the 21st century, lawyers are involved.

Jesuits Settle Sex Abuse Claims For $166 Million

NRP

In one of the largest settlements in the Catholic church's sweeping sex abuse scandal, an order of priests agreed Friday to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order's schools around the Pacific Northwest.

The settlement between more than 450 victims and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus also calls for a written apology to the victims and disclosure of documents to them, including their personal medical records.

"It's a day of reckoning and justice," said Clarita Vargas, who said she and her two sisters were abused by the head of St. Mary's Mission and School, a former Jesuit-run Indian boarding school on the Colville Indian Reservation near Omak, Wash., in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The abuse began when they were as young as 6 or 7, she said. "My spirit was wounded, and this makes it feel better." [...]

Brain-Damaged Mom Granted Visitation Rights With Triplets

Fox News

A judge issued a tentative written order Friday allowing a woman so badly brain damaged by medical errors during childbirth that she can no longer walk, talk or eat temporary visitation with her 4-year-old triplets.

Superior Court Judge Frederick C. Shaller issued the ruling after a two-week court hearing over the parental rights of Abbie Dorn, a 34-year-old who is being cared for by her parents at their Myrtle Beach, S.C., home. The order will stand until a trial date is set in the case, said Dorn's attorney, Lisa Helfend Meyer.

Dorn's parents, who are suing for permanent visitation, want the children to visit for two weeks every summer and a week in the fall and spring, but an attorney for Dorn's ex-husband argued during a hearing earlier this week that their mother was so badly injured giving birth that she is no longer capable of being a parent. [...]

Jews were given Torah because of their arrogance

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Maharsha (Nedarim 20a): The fear of Him should be on your faces – this is shyness – … This is one of the inherent qualities of Jews and it is a desirable personality trait for a person to be shy but in regards to the nature of learning our Sages (Avos 2:5) say that a shy person can’t learn. However we note in Beitza (25b) that the Torah was given to Jews because they are inherently arrogant. We can explain both these gemora. The Torah was in fact given because of two reasons. Since Jews are inherently arrogant they are natural students because they are not ashamed to ask question. Secondly it was given to them because the Torah diminishes arrogance as it says that fear of G d should be on their faces which is shyness.

Abuse: Israeli court convicts 4 who didn't try to help lynch victim

YNET

IDF soldier Or Levy and three young Arab-Israeli men were convicted Wednesday for neglecting to prevent a crime during the brutal killing of Leonard (Arik) Karp in August 2009, describe by some as outright lynching.

The defendants, Fadi Jaber, Fuad Musa, Mahmud Ades and Levy, were convicted for standing by and not doing anything while their friends attacked and killed Karp. [...]

Terror bombing: Live broadcast from Yerushalayim

YNET

Not believing in free-will reduces moral behavior

NYTimes

“Free will guides people’s choices toward being more moral and better performers,” Dr. Vohs said. “It’s adaptive for societies and individuals to hold a belief in free will, as it helps people adhere to cultural codes of conduct that portend healthy, wealthy and happy life outcomes.”

Educated, Unemployed and Frustrated

NYTimes

WE all enjoy speculating about which Arab regime will be toppled next, but maybe we should  be looking closer to home. High unemployment? Check. Out-of-touch elites? Check. Frustrated young people? As a 24-year-old American, I can testify that this rich democracy has plenty of those too.

About one-fourth of Egyptian workers under 25 are unemployed, a statistic that is often cited as a reason for the revolution there. In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January an official unemployment rate of 21 percent for workers ages 16 to 24. [...]

Mullah in Debate of Tradition vs. Modern Schooling

NYTimes

On opposite sides of a dusty road, thousands of Muslim students in this remote farming town are preparing for very different futures. On one side, inside a traditional Islamic seminary, teenage boys in skullcaps are studying ancient texts to become imams. On the other, students are hunched before computers in college classrooms, learning to become doctors, pharmacists and engineers.

The distance between them is about 50 feet, but it could be five centuries. In the middle is a bearded Muslim cleric, Mullah Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi, who has spent the past decade bridging the divide between traditional and modern education for Muslims. From his main campuses here in Akkalkuwa, he has built a network of religious schools, hospitals and colleges with more than 150,000 students across the country, and earned a reputation among India’s Muslim clerics as a reformer. [...]

Maureen Dowd: Avenging Altar Boy

NYTimes

It’s understandable if the former altar boy at St. Carthage in West Philly needs to light a votive. The 44-year-old Catholic, who still attends Mass with his family at the same church, now called St. Cyprian, is the first U.S. prosecutor to charge a church official for a sickeningly commonplace sin: Endangering children whom the Roman Catholic Church was supposed to protect by shuffling pedophile priests to different parishes where they could find fresh prey.

Reform converts more acceptable to Israel than Orthodox ones

Haaretz

According to a High Court decision, the civil registry must grant Reform and Conservative converts to Judaism the status of new Jewish immigrants, but paradoxically, the court determined that the Israeli rabbinate would retain jurisdiction over conversions conducted by Orthodox rabbis in the Diaspora.

At the meeting, Horowitz pointed out the irony: The Orthodox rabbinate is thus actually pushing prospective immigrants to opt for Conservative or Reform conversions instead. [....]

Dry Bones: Obama & the Itamar Massacre

Tradition - not Talmudic derivation- is source of halachos

Doros Rishonim (4:13): The Rambam’s words which are focused on the general principles of the nature of Tradition and the interpretation of the verses (drashos) indicate that the drashos and the format of the drashos as well as the given and take of the gemora regarding the drashos don’t constitute proof that the halacha under discussion is a Torah halacha. The proof whether a halacha is a Torah halacha can only be determined within the context of the discussion in the gemora. If analysis indicates that it is a Torah law then we conclude that the tradition is that this a Torah law. However if the analysis shows us that this is a rabbinic law then we can not conclude the contrary  from the fact that the gemora is describing it as being learnt from a drasha of Torah verse. That is because the Tradition is foundation of everything. Therefore in this case the drasha and limud is only serving as an asmachta (memory device). Thus the status of a halacha as being from the Torah is not determined by how it is seems to be derived - but rather that is what our Tradition says. Thus if  our Tradition says a halacha is rabbinic – it is rabbinic even though there are many interpretations from Torah verse. The form of apparent deriviation does not add or subtract from the status established by Tradition that it is rabbinic.

Doros Rishonim (Chapter 11): Concerning all the dershos, they are only to provide support for a halacha which is known by Tradition and the derasha is simply to show that there is nothing which is not alluded to by the Torah. They are also used to support a halacha which has been decided from concepts found in the Mishna or from a Tradition transmitted by their teachers or because of logical reasoning based on the concepts of the Torah [but the derasha is not the source of the halacha].

What are Talmudic disputes - if halacha is learned from Tradition?

from Daas Torah - translation copyrighted

Malbim (Introduction Toras Cohanim): There has been much confusion and concern of scholars throughout the generations about the origin of what we call the Oral Torah. It is clear to all who are familiar with the Jewish texts that the Oral Torah is constantly connected with verses and interpretation from verses. This is the obvious pattern that is found in such works as the Sifre, Sifra and Mechilta as well as the Babylonian Talmud and the Yerushalmi Talmud. However when the meaning of the verses are examined and compared to the lessons that are drawn from them it often seems as if there is no clear and necessary connection between the two. In fact we find in most cases that not only is there no obvious justification for the halachic interpretation which is learned from the verse but that there are times when the verse actually contradicts and opposes the halachic conclusion. In addition in most cases we find strong and sweeping conclusions built upon minor and far-fetched justification. Thus we find major halachic concepts which are established because of a single word or even a single letter – which despite great effort and thorough analysis no necessary justification for these conclusions can be found. And even if you accept that the word or letter is the basis for the halachic understanding, the question arises why other instances of the word or letter are not viewed as having the same significance for other Halachos? In addition we find at times that a particular analysis of a verse is done in one place but in other places that the word is interpreted to imply just the opposite. Thus it seems to be that the interpretations are totally dependent on the whim of the moment and that matters of substance are justified by trivialities. When we ask how this issue was understood by the scholars of the ancient times we see that they said that the words of the verse which are brought as proof for the halacha are simply arbitrary signs and mnemonic devices which were selected in order to aid recall of the halacha. In fact these ancient Torah scholars claimed that halacha was not learned from textual analyses but were known from oral tradition. However this answer seems very far-fetched because we see that Chazal were always asking where a particular halacha was learned from and they always answered with specific Torah verses. And there often was a dispute with one saying that verse was incorrect and a different one was the source. The typical interchange involved attempts by all parties to justify their verse and to show that the verse and proofs chosen by others was wrong. It makes no sense that Chazal would engage in such intensive arguments concerning something which was merely an allusion or mnemonic device!.. It is clear therefore that the verses are in fact the sources of the halacha and are not mere mnemonic devices. In fact the Rambam (Introduction to Mishna) distinguishes between those Halachos which are not derived from verses which he calls Halacha LeMoshe and between those halacha which are derived from verses. These two categories are different from each other for a number of reasons… The Rambam counts the halachos which are Halacha LeMoshe and shows that they are few. The vast majority of Halachos are in fact learned from Torah verses and grounded in them. Thus these two explanations of halacha being learned from Tradition and being learned from verses are simply incompatible. This matter is not only astonishing to the masses but Jewish heretics utilize this contradiction to cause difficulties and to undermine the validity of our Tradition. However even amongst scholars it causes severe difficulties because they end up with two opposing paradigms which they are constantly switching between. Sometimes they focus on the language of the verses and the interpretation of drash is viewed as external and artificial. But other times they are drawn after the drash and Tradition and argue with those who focus on the rules of syntax and understanding of the verses. Thus there is a constant fight of the brothers - the meaning of the verse and the drash. Both sides murmur in their tents and there is no reconciliation….

Dr. Lynn Margulis: Symbiotic evolution

Third Culture excerpt

Symbiosis is a physical association between organisms, the living together of organisms of different species in the same place at the same time. My work in symbiosis comes out of cytoplasmic genetic systems. We were all taught that the genes were in the nucleus and that the nucleus is the central control of the cell. Early in my study of genetics, I became aware that other genetic systems with different inheritance patterns exist. From the beginning, I was curious about these unruly genes that weren't in the nucleus. The most famous of them was a cytoplasmic gene called "killer," which, in the protist Paramecium aurelia, followed certain rules of inheritance. The killer gene, after twenty years of intense work and shifting paradigmatic ideas, turns out to be in a virus inside a symbiotic bacterium. Nearly all extranuclear genes are derived from bacteria or other sorts of microbes. In the search for what genes outside the nucleus really are, I became more and more aware that they're cohabiting entities, live beings. Live small cells reside inside the larger cells. Understanding that led me and others to study modern symbioses.

Symbiosis has nothing to do with cost or benefit. The benefit/cost people have perverted the science with invidious economic analogies. The contention is not over modern symbioses, simply the living together of unlike organisms, but over whether "symbiogenesis" — long-term symbioses that lead to new forms of life — has occurred and is still occurring. The importance of symbiogenesis as a major source of evolutionary change is what is debated. I contend that symbiogenesis is the result of long-term living together — staying together, especially involving microbes- -and that it's the major evolutionary innovator in all lineages of larger nonbacterial organisms.

First senior church official in court for charges of abuse cover up

NYTimes

In what is believed to be the first time in the history of the Roman Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal in the United States, a senior church official is to appear in court Monday on charges of covering up the activities of predator priests.

Several priests have been tried and jailed over the years on charges of sexually abusing minors. But Msgr. William J. Lynn, a pastor who headed the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s office of clergy from 1992 to 2004, is believed to be the first managerial-level official in the country to be charged not with abusing minors himself but with protecting those who did.[...]

Zero Tolerance, Zero Sense

Time

Two good kids. Two broken rules. Two parables of justice, except one offers a bracing lesson in honor and the other just leaves you heartsick at the latest evidence that zero tolerance often makes zero sense.

One kid made headlines: Brandon Davies, star Brigham Young basketball player whose team was heading toward its first Final Four ever — until it emerged that he had violated the Mormon school's strict honor code, with its injunction to "live a chaste and virtuous life." He had apparently slept with his girlfriend, an act that would barely register on most campuses, where athletes' failing grades, drunken sprees and loutish behavior are ignored as long as the players keep putting points on the board. BYU could have let Davies keep playing while the honor-code office "investigated," but school officials were steadfast. Davies' teammates, whose hopes were also crushed, said they bore him no malice and considered him a brother. The crowd roared in ovation when he returned to the arena, in street clothes, to cheer on his team. (Is the BYU controversy good for college sports?)

It would have been so easy to excuse him just this once — win a championship, reap the glory. But the players did the hard work that true forgiveness requires, offered it even as they lost their next game by 18 points, saw their championship hopes fade, knew potential recruits would surely pause. "BYU knows all this stuff, and it suspended the kid anyway," noted Los Angeles Times sportswriter Bill Plaschke, "and if you don't believe in its code, you have to love its honor." [...]

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. [...]