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Sunday, February 12, 2012
Israeli Psychological Association legitimizes conversion therapy but doesn't recommend it
Rabbis, therapists and religious homosexuals have welcomed conclusions published by the Israeli Psychological Association on "conversion therapy", defining the document as "good news".
According to the religious leaders, the important thing is the fact that the committee believes a patient should be presented with the existing knowledge, which warns against reparative therapy, but that the possibility to change a person's sexual orientation should not be ruled out completely.
Rabbi Berel Wein: Why Haredim Have An Image Problem With Most Israelis
| [hat tip RaP] |
The most dreaded status in Israeli society is to be considered a frier – a sucker, a boob, stupid and unable to withstand being taken advantage of.
The current backlash in Israeli society against haredim is not merely a matter of theology or of vastly different societal values, different dress and customs. That would prove insufficient to provoke the over the top reaction that has emerged over the past several weeks against haredim generally because of the abominable behavior of some haredim – with, unfortunately, the tacit approval of many other haredim.
The underlying motive for all this haredi bashing is that Israelis – religious, traditional, secular and haredi light – are tired and disgusted of being friers. They have had it with a large and growing section of the Israeli population that they feels is being supported by the general public while contributing next to nothing to the general good and welfare of society.
It is useless to protest that the study and observance of Torah and the continuity of Eastern European or Sephardic traditions is somehow the guarantee of the continued existence of the state of Israel. [...]
What is the Halacha about the separation of sexes?
The issue of the “exclusion of women” (hadarat nashim) in public spheres has greatly engaged Israeli society over the last several months. Unfortunately, under this big headline, numerous phenomena have been included. There is a big difference, from the perspectives of both Halacha and democracy, between allowing religious soldiers to excuse themselves from recreational concerts by women singers, to forcing non-religious women to sit in the back of an Egged bus or beating them for entering a certain neighborhood in immodest dress.
Clearly, however, many of the phenomena are deplorable, and require redress on three levels: (1) rectifying the massive desecration of God’s reputation (Hillul Hashem) created by extremists like the Sikarikim group and their neighbors who fail to condemn their actions; (2) creating greater understanding on the relationship between Halacha, democracy, and tolerance; and (3) clarifying the halachic sources related to these matters, the latter of which will be the focus of this essay.
Clearly, however, many of the phenomena are deplorable, and require redress on three levels: (1) rectifying the massive desecration of God’s reputation (Hillul Hashem) created by extremists like the Sikarikim group and their neighbors who fail to condemn their actions; (2) creating greater understanding on the relationship between Halacha, democracy, and tolerance; and (3) clarifying the halachic sources related to these matters, the latter of which will be the focus of this essay.
An orgy of hatred by liberal secular Jews against the chareidim
In recent days I’ve been quarreling with all my friends. They are good people, these friends – liberal, tolerant, moderate and sensitive to any injustice. These are people that in our complex reality were never confused between good and bad. This is why I love them, among other things. I’d like to think that we are cut from the same cloth. That’s why I’m so amazed to see how uncaring and hateful they become when a group of people known as the haredim comes up for discussion.
My liberal friends propose various steps against the haredim and religious: A cadet who cannot bear female singing will not be an officer in the IDF, said one friend. As simple as that (“as simple as that” or “at once” are words that always accompany discussions about the haredim.) A segregated bus shall be stopped! The driver and bus operators should be sent to jail. A yeshiva that will not teach the core curriculum shall be closed at once! We shall not allow primitive ignoramuses to be raised here, and at our expense no less. A neighborhood that features separate sidewalks for women shall immediately lose its municipal services! They can go ahead and choke in their own garbage.[...]
Saturday, February 11, 2012
French parents teach politeness & patience - Americans don't
[see also Time Why American kids are brats]
[...] But for all its problems, France is the perfect foil for the current problems in American parenting. Middle-class French parents (I didn't follow the very rich or poor) have values that look familiar to me. They are zealous about talking to their kids, showing them nature and reading them lots of books. They take them to tennis lessons, painting classes and interactive science museums.
Yet the French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there is no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents," one Parisian mother told me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time." French parents want their kids to be stimulated, but not all the time. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves. [...]
One of the keys to this education is the simple act of learning how to wait. It is why the French babies I meet mostly sleep through the night from two or three months old. Their parents don't pick them up the second they start crying, allowing the babies to learn how to fall back asleep. It is also why French toddlers will sit happily at a restaurant. Rather than snacking all day like American children, they mostly have to wait until mealtime to eat. (French kids consistently have three meals a day and one snack around 4 p.m.) [...]
No, Israel Isn’t Turning into an Iran-Style Theocracy
New Republic Prof. Gil Troy
In the popular media, in both Israel and abroad, images of rock-throwing, gender-segregating, yellow-star-wearing extremists obscure these good works—and a more accurate picture. Noah Efron, a Bar Ilan University philosopher and historian, has explored the ingrained prejudice and popular revulsion against haredim. “The Jewish fight against ultra-Orthodoxy is part of a long-running struggle about what legitimately counts as Jewish,” Professor Efron says. “The modern forms of Judaism have so won the day that this need to continue fighting the battle seems neurotic.” Nevertheless, emphasizing the bad behavior of haredi Jews—who epitomize the stereotypical Jew—makes modern Jews and non-Jews feel better, less judged, suggesting that “these ostensibly superior Jews are actually inferior,” Efron says. “We continually prove our own probity to ourselves by proving the depravity of those people.”
More broadly, these stories provoke secular Westerners’ condescension toward religious people. Reading many of the American and European blogs about the haredi tensions this winter, Efron has been “stunned” by “the depths of the hatred and the crassness of the arguments. The attacks reflect a toxic mix of old style anti-Semitism and contemporary anti-Zionism, with a new style modern anti-anything-that-is-not-secular-liberal-and-Western added.”
More broadly, these stories provoke secular Westerners’ condescension toward religious people. Reading many of the American and European blogs about the haredi tensions this winter, Efron has been “stunned” by “the depths of the hatred and the crassness of the arguments. The attacks reflect a toxic mix of old style anti-Semitism and contemporary anti-Zionism, with a new style modern anti-anything-that-is-not-secular-liberal-and-Western added.”
Why the secular Israeli fears a chareidi majority
Capital punishment is not the issue. Two other issues are far more important in addressing concerns that Israel could become Talibanized. The first is that not everyone listens to Moshe Grylak – or his gemara. You can argue that the community should not be held responsible for the escapades of kano’im and Sikrikim – but they aren’t doing a very good job holding them in check either – or even speaking out against them. Why wouldn’t a chiloni Israel look at their activities with concern that as the Chareidi community grows, there will be more on these zealots, who will become even more brazen in time?
More important is the gemara that Rabbi Grylak does not quote: Rosh Hashanah 6, and elsewhere, which establishes the authority of the Jewish court to compel people to perform mitzvos. The plain meaning of the text is that people who are reluctant to perform mitzvos can be compelled through grievous bodily force to obey the law. Couple this with the authority of beis din to act le-afrushei me-issura/ to distance a potential sinner from his ability to sin, and you have a license for batei din to compel full observance of the Torah, both affirmative and proscriptive obligations. No witnesses, no forewarning, none of Rabbi Grylak’s niceties that calmed his secular friends. Why should they not anticipate groups of people jumping out of vans, forcing tefillin and tzitzis on their bodies, and bulldozing their soccer stadiums?
For members of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Gur sect, sex is a sin
According to Dr. Benjamin Brown, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, criticism of the regulations laid down by the late Rabbi Israel Alter (also known as the Beis Yisroel ), who led Gur from 1948 to 1977, goes back as far as the 1960s. Among the critics was Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (1899-1985 ), known as the Steipler. Kanievsy was the brother-in-law of the world-renowned rabbinical authority Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (the "Hazon Ish," who lived 1878-1953 ) and the father of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the leading rabbinical authorities in Bnei Brak today.
The Steipler wrote that one should not necessarily act according to the sect's strict regulations, which he said mainly cause suffering to women. To this day his views are studied in instruction sessions for bridegrooms in the Lithuanian (non-Hasidic ) ultra-Orthodox community, who are encouraged not to refrain from sexual relations. Among other things, the Steipler wrote: "It is known that a woman's main hope in her world is to have a husband who loves her ... but heaven forfend that he observe the measure of prishut, whereby he hurts his wife."
The Steipler wrote that one should not necessarily act according to the sect's strict regulations, which he said mainly cause suffering to women. To this day his views are studied in instruction sessions for bridegrooms in the Lithuanian (non-Hasidic ) ultra-Orthodox community, who are encouraged not to refrain from sexual relations. Among other things, the Steipler wrote: "It is known that a woman's main hope in her world is to have a husband who loves her ... but heaven forfend that he observe the measure of prishut, whereby he hurts his wife."
A Rabbi’s Teachings on Addiction Recovery Find a Wide Audience
For six years, Rabbi Taub, 37, has been teaching and writing about the spiritual component of recovery from addiction. He had begun within the Jewish community, specifically the Chabad movement, and yet providence or serendipity or destiny has brought him increasing recognition and influence well beyond it.
So it was that Father Boes asked him to address a half-dozen staff members, some of them clergy and some of them therapists, who lead recovery programs at Boys Town. Once a refuge for children neglected or abandoned due primarily to poverty, it now deals extensively with boys and girls who have abused alcohol and drugs. And while Boys Town from its origin had been nondenominational and opposed to religious compulsion of any kind, it has always considered faith a central element for repairing damaged lives. [...]
So it was that Father Boes asked him to address a half-dozen staff members, some of them clergy and some of them therapists, who lead recovery programs at Boys Town. Once a refuge for children neglected or abandoned due primarily to poverty, it now deals extensively with boys and girls who have abused alcohol and drugs. And while Boys Town from its origin had been nondenominational and opposed to religious compulsion of any kind, it has always considered faith a central element for repairing damaged lives. [...]
Tying together the whole discourse was Rabbi Taub’s thesis, the central insight of his teaching and writing. Addiction, he argues, is less a chemical dependency or a mental illness than the consequence of an individual’s absence from God and of the psychic pain that absence inflicts.[...]
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Friday, February 10, 2012
Nude images hung in religious J'lem neighborhood- latest weapon against chareidim
The Secular-haredi tensions over the exclusion of women reached new heights in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel where there is a growing haredi community. Local bulletin boards were recently pasted with pictures of women posing almost entirely in the nude.
The pictures were put up suring the Sabbath and included a caption that read: "The glorification of women." The haredi residents were horrified by the "abominable signs" but could not remove them because it was the holy day and doing so would involve desecrating the Sabbath.
New project to integrate Haredim in higher education
The Council for Higher Education will invest NIS 180 million over the next five years to encourage Haredim to study and enter the workforce. The CHE approved the plan yesterday to make higher education more accessible to the ultra-Orthodox population.
The CHE will provide financial incentives to institutions of higher education to establish appropriate frameworks for Haredim, which will focus on specific professions. Among the proposals are scholarships, classrooms with separation between men and women, and special educational materials that take into account and bridge the large gaps in knowledge in certain subjects. The CHE will also increase the funding for colleges in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem that serve the Haredi community and allow them to accept more students.
Chazon Ish: Since prohibition of electricity is not clear - we need to seek out prohibitions for it.
From Dr. Benny Browns book on the Chazon Ish quoting his student Dr. Tzvi Yehuda
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Depressed children more likely to be bullied & socially rejected
Children who are ostracized by their peers and bullied often become depressed, but new research suggests that the relationship may work the other way around as well: children’s depressive symptoms in elementary school precede social victimization and isolation later on.[...]
While children with symptoms of depression in 4th grade became prone to peer victimization later, the researchers found that being bullied earlier didn’t increase children’s risk of depression in later grades. The children with the highest levels of depressive symptoms in 4th grade were more likely to be bullied by 5th grade.
Children who show symptoms of depression — having low energy, social withdrawal, passive behavior, excessive crying, and having an obsessive, negative self-focus — may first be rejected by peers and then targeted by bullies.
While children with symptoms of depression in 4th grade became prone to peer victimization later, the researchers found that being bullied earlier didn’t increase children’s risk of depression in later grades. The children with the highest levels of depressive symptoms in 4th grade were more likely to be bullied by 5th grade.
Children who show symptoms of depression — having low energy, social withdrawal, passive behavior, excessive crying, and having an obsessive, negative self-focus — may first be rejected by peers and then targeted by bullies.
Public school teacher's aide accused of taping sexual acts with students
A teacher’s aide at a public school in Brooklyn who was charged last month with possessing and distributing child pornography was arrested again on Monday night after federal agents discovered that some of the videos showed him engaging in sexual acts with students, possibly at the school, according to law enforcement officials.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Plea averts trial in NY Hasidic firebombing case
A Hasidic teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday to assault, averting a trial in an attempted murder case that brought unusual attention to a religious dispute in a Jewish enclave.
Shaul Spitzer, 18, accepted a plea bargain as jury selection was about to begin at the Rockland County Courthouse in New City, said defense attorney Deborah Lowenberg.
Spitzer had been accused of severely burning neighbor Aron Rottenberg with a firebomb outside Rottenberg's home in New Square, an insular Hasidic village of 7,000.[...]
Eda Haredit raises money to sue police
Eda Haredit members are fighting back against a recent wave of police arrests. The extreme ultra-Orthodox faction decided in recent days to step up its battle, and has begun filing personal lawsuits against police officers.
As a start, the faction allotted a budget of $20,000 for the legal struggle, which is aimed at deterring the police from "harassing" its members.
According to an Eda Haredit source, in recent months the police have decided to "hit everyone affiliated with the faction with all their might".[...]
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
School Linked to Abuse Claims Will Replace Entire Faculty
The entire faculty at Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers were arrested last week on accusations of child sexual abuse, will be replaced by new teachers this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent announced Monday night.
Speaking to hundreds of parents at a meeting called to address the crisis at Miramonte, Superintendent John Deasy announced the school would be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and when students returned on Thursday, an entirely new corps of teachers and staff members would have been hired to greet them. All current teachers, administrators and staff members will be moved to a school still under construction for the rest of the school year, where they will be interviewed by school officials and, if necessary, the police. [...]
Mr. Deasy said he felt a personal responsibility to do two things: help children who were victims, and restore parents’ trust in the school district.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Life sentence for man who refuses to give a get - upheld by rabbinic court
The supreme rabbinical court of appeals upheld a life sentence handed down to a man who has refused for ten years to give his wife a bill of divorce.
Meir Gorodetzki was imprisoned by the Jerusalem rabbinical court in 2001 for refusing to allow his wife to divorce him and has spent the last ten years in jail for his ongoing refusal to give his wife a bill of divorce, or get.[...]
Meir Gorodetzki was imprisoned by the Jerusalem rabbinical court in 2001 for refusing to allow his wife to divorce him and has spent the last ten years in jail for his ongoing refusal to give his wife a bill of divorce, or get.[...]
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Escape from Williamsburg: A Memoir of a young woman going off the derech
“Unorthodox” is a memoir about a young woman who has a lot of opinions. But in the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic world of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, opinions in general, and certainly those of young women, are not appreciated.
I grew up in a similar world nearby, the Hasidic world of Boro Park. Reading “Unorthodox” was like seeing a variation on my own life mapped out meticulously, down to the last traditional detail. I found it oddly compelling, visiting scenes and dialogues that so perfectly encompass a world so familiar. When Deborah and her older cousin, Mimi, go to an ice skating rink, a young girl offers Deborah a Hershey chocolate kiss and tells her that it’s kosher:[...]
Israeli bill aims to grant financial aid to Haredi youths leaving religious world
A new bill advanced by Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On aims to provide financial aid to youths leaving the religious world, similar to that given to new immigrants upon their arrival in Israel.
Three years ago, Tel Aviv resident Eli Bitaan, 21, abandoned the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and left the religious world. These days, he’s trying to fulfill his dream and get into Tel Aviv University’s Law School. Without a high-school matriculation certificate, and devoid of any financial backing from his family, Bitaan is, for the third time, trying to pass required predatory classes while working toward his high-school diploma. [...]
Three years ago, Tel Aviv resident Eli Bitaan, 21, abandoned the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and left the religious world. These days, he’s trying to fulfill his dream and get into Tel Aviv University’s Law School. Without a high-school matriculation certificate, and devoid of any financial backing from his family, Bitaan is, for the third time, trying to pass required predatory classes while working toward his high-school diploma. [...]
- Gur Hasidim & Sexual separation - הסודות של חסידות גור נחשפים
Haaretz - English version
In a recent study, scholar Nava Wasserman offers a window into the philosophy behind the strict sexual separation practiced by Gur Hasidim. For them, sexuality is the antithesis of sanctity, and must be resisted at all costs.
Haaretz - Hebrew version
תקנות מחמירות האוסרות על גברים לדבר עם כל אשה - כולל זו שנישאו לה; חתנים שמגלים רק לפני חופתם את סוד הכלולות; והשיטות להסחת הדעת מכל מראה שעלול ליצור גירוי. כתבה ראשונה מתוך שתיים
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Problem of readers making comments unrelated to the post
The issue of people making comments on new issues unrelated to the post has been brought up recently. It is generally perceived as an irritant and distraction.
I will try to keep the thread to topic from now on. For those who feel that there is an important issue that you want to bring up - please send it to me for evaluation [yadmoseh@gmail.com] as a guest post or something that I should make a post about.
In addition I just want to repeat that I don't allow anonymous comments. Sometimes I will add a name but usually I just erase them
Friday, February 3, 2012
Shavei Israel's Michael Freund in his own words -- he wants to reach millions, tens of millions of 'lost Jews'!
Guest post from "RaP"
"Shavei Israel's Michael Freund in his own words -- he wants to reach millions, tens of millions of 'lost Jews'!
A year ago, YNet interviewed Michael Freund about himself and his goals in a lenghty interview. What he said is very revealing, here are some key passages:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4018444,00.html
YNet News.com - Jewish World
"Columbus of hidden Jews
"Shavei Israel's Michael Freund in his own words -- he wants to reach millions, tens of millions of 'lost Jews'!
A year ago, YNet interviewed Michael Freund about himself and his goals in a lenghty interview. What he said is very revealing, here are some key passages:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4018444,00.html
YNet News.com - Jewish World
"Columbus of hidden Jews
He wanders Amazon jungles, travels to Chinese villages, searches Spain for Marranos, and sees India’s Bnei Menashe as his life's mission. Michael Freund has an obsession: Discovering remote Jews
Itamar Eichner
Published: 01.25.11
Published: 01.25.11
It happened six years ago. Michael Freund decided to go on a South American adventure. Armed with high motivation, he entered a small canoe and went off into the Amazon River of Peru, quickly finding himself among wild jungles filled with trees and animals resembling those which appear in children's nightmares.
Suddenly, he noticed a group of Native Americans in a canoe approaching him. He waved to them. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something strange – the names of their boats were typical Moroccan Jewish names: Ben-Zaken, Levi, Ben-Shushan.
Suddenly, he noticed a group of Native Americans in a canoe approaching him. He waved to them. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something strange – the names of their boats were typical Moroccan Jewish names: Ben-Zaken, Levi, Ben-Shushan.
Freund, the Christopher Columbus of Jews, smiled with satisfaction. Right then and there he knew his journey was a successful one: Another lost Jewish tribe had been found.
"I went to visit a village in the area, and on the way we stopped to buy drinks," he recalls. "I saw a sign: 'The Ben-Shimol family.' I knocked on the door and a gentleman of about 80 answered.”
"I went to visit a village in the area, and on the way we stopped to buy drinks," he recalls. "I saw a sign: 'The Ben-Shimol family.' I knocked on the door and a gentleman of about 80 answered.”
“’I am from Israel I told him. He looked at me excitedly and replied: ‘I am a Jew and my father is a Jew.'"
The elderly man invited Freund into his house and showed him a large picture of his father – a Moroccan Jew who had married a Peruvian. "He barely knew his father, who had about 20 children," Freund said. "The only thing he received from his father was his name - along with the one Jewish commandment he had taught him: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ I couldn't believe it. In a remote village in the Amazon, you find Jews. Over the years, several hundred of these Jews have moved to Israel and undergone formal conversion.
The Spanish Wailing Wall
Freund, an American immigrant, has a mission: Locating remote and hidden Jews and descendants of the Jewish people.
He devotes all his efforts and resources to this project as founder and director of the Shavei Israel organization, which works to strengthen the connection between descendants of Jews and Israel and the Jewish people.
According to assessments, he has put his own money into the project while raising large sums in donations from others. His organization is active in many countries throughout the world and helps different communities: From the descendants of Bnei Anousim (whom historians refer to as Marranos) in Spain, Portugal and South America, to remote communities in places such as China.
"It's a type of fixation that doesn't let me rest," said Freund. "I feel obligated to these communities forgotten by history, but they haven't forgotten us. Several years ago I visited Palma de Mallorca in Spain. There was a Jewish community there until 1435, several decades before the expulsion. In one of the alleyways of Palma’s old city, I saw people passing by a wall, nonchalantly rubbing their hands along the stone and quietly kissing it as they walked by. It turned out the wall was part of a church known as 'Mount Zion', which had been built centuries ago on the ruins of Palma’s synagogue. The bottom part of the wall is all that remains of the synagogue, and the Chuetas (descendants of Palma’s Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism centuries ago) had retained the custom of touching the stones and then kissing their hand to show that they hadn't forgotten their Jewish heritage," he said.
Over the years Freund has succeeded in helping thousands of Jewish descendants reconnect to their roots. In Jerusalem, he created a conversion institute known as “Machon Miriam Jerusalem Seminary”, which is named after his late grandmother Dr. Miriam Freund-Rosenthal. The institute has assisted numerous descendants of Jews from Latin America, Spain and Portugal to reconnect with their roots.
By all accounts, there are millions of Marranos throughout the world. "They are descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted under duress, many of whom continued to practice Jewish customs in secret despite the persecution they faced at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition,” he said and added, "The Marranos are a living and breathing phenomenon, but the Jewish world largely ignores them." ...
Lost tribe of Israel
He devotes all his efforts and resources to this project as founder and director of the Shavei Israel organization, which works to strengthen the connection between descendants of Jews and Israel and the Jewish people.
According to assessments, he has put his own money into the project while raising large sums in donations from others. His organization is active in many countries throughout the world and helps different communities: From the descendants of Bnei Anousim (whom historians refer to as Marranos) in Spain, Portugal and South America, to remote communities in places such as China.
"It's a type of fixation that doesn't let me rest," said Freund. "I feel obligated to these communities forgotten by history, but they haven't forgotten us. Several years ago I visited Palma de Mallorca in Spain. There was a Jewish community there until 1435, several decades before the expulsion. In one of the alleyways of Palma’s old city, I saw people passing by a wall, nonchalantly rubbing their hands along the stone and quietly kissing it as they walked by. It turned out the wall was part of a church known as 'Mount Zion', which had been built centuries ago on the ruins of Palma’s synagogue. The bottom part of the wall is all that remains of the synagogue, and the Chuetas (descendants of Palma’s Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism centuries ago) had retained the custom of touching the stones and then kissing their hand to show that they hadn't forgotten their Jewish heritage," he said.
Over the years Freund has succeeded in helping thousands of Jewish descendants reconnect to their roots. In Jerusalem, he created a conversion institute known as “Machon Miriam Jerusalem Seminary”, which is named after his late grandmother Dr. Miriam Freund-Rosenthal. The institute has assisted numerous descendants of Jews from Latin America, Spain and Portugal to reconnect with their roots.
By all accounts, there are millions of Marranos throughout the world. "They are descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted under duress, many of whom continued to practice Jewish customs in secret despite the persecution they faced at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition,” he said and added, "The Marranos are a living and breathing phenomenon, but the Jewish world largely ignores them." ...
Lost tribe of Israel
Freund is apparently the primary address for remote Jewish communities and descendants of Jews. They turn to him from all over the world and ask that he visit them.
This began over 15 years ago, after Freund made aliyah from New York and went to work for Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister. He served as deputy to the communications director, the late David Bar-Ilan.
One day a letter from the Bnei Menashe community in northeastern India addressed to the prime minister found its way to Freund’s office. The Bnei Menashe, who claim to be descents of a lost tribe of Israel, had been writing to every Israeli premier from Ben-Gurion onwards, but they had never received a reply.
After studying the matter and meeting with members of the community, Freund brought about an annual arrangement with the Interior Ministry that enabled 100 Bnei Menashe to come to Israel, undergo conversion and receive citizenship.
Subsequently, his organization, Shavei Israel, built educational centers in India for the Bnei Menashe. In March 2005, after a two-year investigation, the Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Shlomo Amar recognized the community’s Jewish roots. Over the past decade, approximately 1,700 Bnei Menashe have made aliyah. Another 7,232 Bnei Menashe remain in India, awaiting permission to move to Israel.
The last time Freund succeeded in obtaining permission to bring a group to Israel was in 2007, when 230 Bnei Menashe from the Indian state of Manipur made aliyah. Since then, the aliyah has stopped.
Freund is a gentle person. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't raise his voice. But he is frustrated. "I simply do not understand why these wonderful people are stuck and forced to wait years before being allowed to fulfill their dreams. This is a big mistake. The Bnei Menashe want to be here and deserve to be here," he says.
This began over 15 years ago, after Freund made aliyah from New York and went to work for Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister. He served as deputy to the communications director, the late David Bar-Ilan.
One day a letter from the Bnei Menashe community in northeastern India addressed to the prime minister found its way to Freund’s office. The Bnei Menashe, who claim to be descents of a lost tribe of Israel, had been writing to every Israeli premier from Ben-Gurion onwards, but they had never received a reply.
After studying the matter and meeting with members of the community, Freund brought about an annual arrangement with the Interior Ministry that enabled 100 Bnei Menashe to come to Israel, undergo conversion and receive citizenship.
Subsequently, his organization, Shavei Israel, built educational centers in India for the Bnei Menashe. In March 2005, after a two-year investigation, the Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Shlomo Amar recognized the community’s Jewish roots. Over the past decade, approximately 1,700 Bnei Menashe have made aliyah. Another 7,232 Bnei Menashe remain in India, awaiting permission to move to Israel.
The last time Freund succeeded in obtaining permission to bring a group to Israel was in 2007, when 230 Bnei Menashe from the Indian state of Manipur made aliyah. Since then, the aliyah has stopped.
Freund is a gentle person. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't raise his voice. But he is frustrated. "I simply do not understand why these wonderful people are stuck and forced to wait years before being allowed to fulfill their dreams. This is a big mistake. The Bnei Menashe want to be here and deserve to be here," he says.
"When I was there I met a family whose son is a lone soldier serving in the IDF, risking his life, while the Israeli government doesn't allow his family to reunite with him here. There are currently 18 lone soldiers like him who are stuck in India. It's heartbreaking.” ...
What motivates you?
"I see it as my mission in life. There are people who travel great distances to look for spectacular views. I go to look for Jews. We are a small nation and we don't have all that many friends out there. So we should be reaching out to descendants of the Jewish people to cultivate a stronger connection with them. Two years ago a genetic study was carried out in Spain and Portugal which found that 20% of the male population of Iberia has Jewish genetic material. Because of all the persecution we have endured throughout the centuries, the Jewish nation was scattered to the four corners of the earth. So it isn't surprising that there are traces and remnants of Jews in all sorts of remote places. There are millions of such people out there and my dream is to reach each and every one of them. It behooves us to reach out to them, because we only stand to benefit from it in a range of fields, from public diplomacy to tourism." "
"I see it as my mission in life. There are people who travel great distances to look for spectacular views. I go to look for Jews. We are a small nation and we don't have all that many friends out there. So we should be reaching out to descendants of the Jewish people to cultivate a stronger connection with them. Two years ago a genetic study was carried out in Spain and Portugal which found that 20% of the male population of Iberia has Jewish genetic material. Because of all the persecution we have endured throughout the centuries, the Jewish nation was scattered to the four corners of the earth. So it isn't surprising that there are traces and remnants of Jews in all sorts of remote places. There are millions of such people out there and my dream is to reach each and every one of them. It behooves us to reach out to them, because we only stand to benefit from it in a range of fields, from public diplomacy to tourism." "
Ex-haredim to sue State for damages resulting from not being given basic core courses
Will the State of Israel be forced to pay for missing core studies? Dozens of former ultra-Orthodox men and women are seeking to sue the State for damages they allegedly suffered by not studying basic subjects like math or English in the schools they were educated in.
According to the plaintiffs, ever since leaving the religious world they have spent many years and a lot of money in order to catch up on the crucial material – and should therefore be compensated.
"Jewish Indiana Jones" confesses to being a fraud & thief
For years Rabbi Menachem Youlus, a self-described “Jewish Indiana Jones,” received plaudits from those captivated by his stories of traveling to Eastern Europe and beyond to search for historic Torahs that were lost or hidden during the Holocaust.
But on Thursday, Rabbi Youlus stood inside the federal courthouse in Manhattan and confessed that he had made up those tales of daring.
“Between 2004 and 2010, I falsely represented that I had personally obtained vintage Torah scrolls — in particular ways, in particular locations — in Europe and Israel,” he told Judge Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court. “I know what I did was wrong, and I deeply regret my conduct.”
Rabbi Ralbag reinstated as Amsterdam Chief Rabbi
The Orthodox Jewish community of Amsterdam reinstated its chief rabbi, Aryeh Ralbag, on Thursday after briefly suspending him last month for having co-signed a statement in which homosexuality was described as an inclination from which one can be “healed.”
According to the board of the community, NIHS, Ralbag’s reinstatement came after he “acknowledged both verbally and in writing” that he “should not have signed the statement using his title as chief rabbi of Amsterdam.”
Ralbag, a US-born rabbi who was made chief rabbi of Amsterdam in 2005, was temporarily relieved of his duties by the board of the NIHS after signing the “Declaration On The Torah Approach To Homosexuality” which called on “authority figures” to “guide same-sex strugglers towards a path of healing and overcoming their inclinations.”
According to the board of the community, NIHS, Ralbag’s reinstatement came after he “acknowledged both verbally and in writing” that he “should not have signed the statement using his title as chief rabbi of Amsterdam.”
Ralbag, a US-born rabbi who was made chief rabbi of Amsterdam in 2005, was temporarily relieved of his duties by the board of the NIHS after signing the “Declaration On The Torah Approach To Homosexuality” which called on “authority figures” to “guide same-sex strugglers towards a path of healing and overcoming their inclinations.”
Thursday, February 2, 2012
"I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly" - The false promise of Mental Health diagnosis
FOR a brief, heady period in the history of autism spectrum diagnosis, in the late ’90s, I had Asperger syndrome.
There’s an educational video from that time, called “Understanding Asperger’s,” in which I appear. I am the affected 20-year-old in the wannabe-hipster vintage polo shirt talking about how keen his understanding of literature is and how misunderstood he was in fifth grade. The film was a research project directed by my mother, a psychology professor and Asperger specialist, and another expert in her department. It presents me as a young man living a full, meaningful life, despite his mental abnormality.
“The Toxic Truth About Sugar”
In an opinion piece called “The Toxic Truth About Sugar” that was published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis argue that it’s a misnomer to consider sugar just “empty calories.” They write: “…There is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills – slowly.”
Strengthening authority with the legend of the death of the Shagas Aryeh
Jewish Review of Books hat tip to Hirhurim
The great 18th-century scholar Rabbi Aryeh Leib Ginsburg was not a shy critic. He excoriated implausible talmudic arguments, even, or perhaps especially, when they were made by earlier authorities. He once compared a halakhic proof of the 12th-century commentator Jacob ben Meir (widely known as Rabeinu Tam) to a "basketful of melons." Of the Beit Shmuel, a commentary on the Shulchan Arukh from the 17th century, he wrote that the author, Shmuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, was "a student who had not reached the level of one who has the ability to determine halakhic rulings." Borrowing from the creation story in Genesis, he accused the even more famous commentator Rabbi Yoel Sirkis (author of the Bach) of "building his proofs on a foundation that was formless and void (tohu va-vohu)." Of the Magen Avraham (Rabbi Abraham Abele Gombiner) Ginsburg wrote that he simply "did not know what he was talking about." Certain passages penned by the authors of the Shakh and the Taz, two other leading commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh, were "nonsensical and incomprehensible." As for his contemporaries, most "ruined good paper and ink and embarrassed the Torah."
Like many rabbinic scholars, including those above, Ginsburg came to be known by the title of his book, Sha'agat Aryeh. In this case it is particularly apt, since it is a phrase (taken from the Book of Job) meaning "the roar of the lion." Ginsburg's harshness eventually killed him, or at least so the story goes. Or at least one version of the story. [...]
Fischer: Israel's ultra-Orthodox must start working
The ultra-Orthodox have to start working, companies have to stop bilking their bondholders and home prices could wind up falling too hard and too fast if the government isn't careful, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said in a stinging address on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Herzliya Conference hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center, Fischer stressed the danger posed by a fast-growing population where work isn't the norm. "In 30 years, the proportion of the Haredi population will be much bigger," the governor said. "Most of that community doesn't work. I respect religion, but a state of affairs in which part of the population growing very fast doesn't work can't go on."
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Bail set at $23M in ex-teacher's molestation case
USA Today
Bail for a former school teacher accused of taking bizarre photos of children in his classroom for a sexual thrill was raised Wednesday to $23 million, as parents questioned why they weren't notified when the pictures were found more than a year ago.[...]
Failure to do background checks - $1 million embezzlement
For eight years, the woman worked in accounts payable for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, gaining the trust of her superiors.
Colleagues praised her quiet dedication and hard work, and noted that she prayed often; her volunteer work at an event at St. Patrick’s Cathedral won mention in the church’s newspaper, Catholic New York. No one, then, questioned the hundreds of checks she wrote at the archdiocese to cover small expenses, like office supplies and utility bills.
On Monday, the woman, Anita Collins, 67, was charged with embezzling more than $1 million over seven years from the archdiocese.[...]
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Should a Ger be Fearful of an Orthodox Conversion?
This comment was just published to an older post Should your child marry a ger? under the name "concerned"
1) My husband and I have been trying to convert for almost 10 years. The main holdup is denominational issues. I want an orthodox conversion, because I (foolishly, I know) dream of my children having the opportunity of attending a good yeshiva if they want. My husband can't stand the idea of an orthodox conversion because of comments/ideas like this blogger's. He is angry about the way girls are spat upon in Israel by "men" in black hats. He wants a conserva...dox conversion, followed by the same observant, increasingly frum lifestyle we have had over the past several years. I'm close to agreeing with him.
(2)To the person who feels the need to say that a shiksa would revert back, the "ש" word is pejorative term up there with the "n" word. It implies moral debasement. It's basically a meaner way of calling somebody a "skank ho." (a) Don't toss that word around loosely. If you dare insist on using that word to describe all gerah, you are intentionally being ignorant and racially prejudiced. (b) If you are not using that word to describe all gerah, then consider this: Assume somebody who is so-morally-debased-the-ש-word-should-apply-to-her somehow decides she wants to go to a beit din, and assume she somehow commits fraud or bribery on the court sufficient to get through her conversion. She's morally corrupt!!! Isn't it kind of a "duh" statement that she runs a high risk of recidivism?!? Why even bother making the point?!?
(3) BUT, that is not most gerim. Most of us have had to give up former family and friends, completely overhaul our lifestyles, experience discrimination, hatred, bigotry from both sides of the fence. Yet we still manage to convert.
You who are reading this: Are you an FFB? Please take a moment and imagine sitting your parents down. "Mom, dad, I'm converting to, e.g., Islam." Imagine their reaction. Imagine what lengths they would go to so you would change your mind. We withstand all of that and still manage to convert.
I know another ger who took 20 years to get through the conversion process. That is 20 years where a VERY religious individual lived without a spiritual home. He lived in a nether-region--no longer a Christian, not yet a Jew. We aren't allowed to have study partners. We can get bounced from the shul we go to at any time, for any reason. We are constantly living in fear that the one thing that means the most to us in the whole wide world will be yanked out from under us. Yet we still manage to convert.
Why? Because we love our G-d. Because we love his Torah. Because we love his people. We love you even when you are mean to us for no other reason than genetics. We love you even when you are mean to our children. I think that is why you are asked to love us. It is not because we are evil. It is because we loved you first.
(2)To the person who feels the need to say that a shiksa would revert back, the "ש" word is pejorative term up there with the "n" word. It implies moral debasement. It's basically a meaner way of calling somebody a "skank ho." (a) Don't toss that word around loosely. If you dare insist on using that word to describe all gerah, you are intentionally being ignorant and racially prejudiced. (b) If you are not using that word to describe all gerah, then consider this: Assume somebody who is so-morally-debased-the-ש-word-should-apply-to-her somehow decides she wants to go to a beit din, and assume she somehow commits fraud or bribery on the court sufficient to get through her conversion. She's morally corrupt!!! Isn't it kind of a "duh" statement that she runs a high risk of recidivism?!? Why even bother making the point?!?
(3) BUT, that is not most gerim. Most of us have had to give up former family and friends, completely overhaul our lifestyles, experience discrimination, hatred, bigotry from both sides of the fence. Yet we still manage to convert.
You who are reading this: Are you an FFB? Please take a moment and imagine sitting your parents down. "Mom, dad, I'm converting to, e.g., Islam." Imagine their reaction. Imagine what lengths they would go to so you would change your mind. We withstand all of that and still manage to convert.
I know another ger who took 20 years to get through the conversion process. That is 20 years where a VERY religious individual lived without a spiritual home. He lived in a nether-region--no longer a Christian, not yet a Jew. We aren't allowed to have study partners. We can get bounced from the shul we go to at any time, for any reason. We are constantly living in fear that the one thing that means the most to us in the whole wide world will be yanked out from under us. Yet we still manage to convert.
Why? Because we love our G-d. Because we love his Torah. Because we love his people. We love you even when you are mean to us for no other reason than genetics. We love you even when you are mean to our children. I think that is why you are asked to love us. It is not because we are evil. It is because we loved you first.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Inverse relationship between time spent multitasking on social programs & social problems
Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.
Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.
Attention deficit drugs are not effective in the long run
Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.
Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs.
What gets publicized are short-term results and studies on brain differences among children. Indeed, there are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Rabbi Pinto's Followers raise questions about Congressman’s Fund-Raising
Soon after he began running for Congress in 2009, Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, needed to convince party leaders in Washington that he could raise enough money to become a viable candidate. Seeking help, he turned to an unlikely source: followers of an Orthodox rabbi and mystic from Israel.
Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi’s top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi’s followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm’s campaign records.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Maharal explains why Moshe had to marry a giyorus
Maharal(Gevuros HaShem): Why didn’t Moshe marry a Jewish woman from birth with pedigree like Aaron? Don’t think like the fools that this just happened because that is mistakenly dismissing foundation principles. Therefore it is important to explain itdsf because this is one of the reasons that Moshe’s children were inferior to Aaron’s children. From here our Sages (Bava Basra 109b) learned that one should always attach oneself with a pedigreed family. If so what was the reason that he married a woman from another nation? This is truly a very great question but if you think about it intelligently you will realise it was not done for nothing but was for a extremely important issue. Firstly you should know that Moshe was equivalent to the entire Jewish people because he was in fact the completing factor for the entire Jewish people. That is why the Torah (Shemos 18:1) writes that Yisro… heard all that G‑d had done for Moshe and for Yisroel. We thus see that Moshe is equivalent to all the entire Jewish people… Therefore it makes no sense that he would marry a woman who is one of the 600, 000 Jews when Moshe was equal to the 600,000. In contrast gerim who are outside of the Jewish people and therefore are not included in the 600,000 are capable of matching Moshe. That is because Moshe was not included in the 600,000. Thus the soul of the convert if she merited was more appropriate for Moshe who transcended the Jewish people. It is important to understand this amazing thing. Consequently Moshe married a woman from a different people even though the Jewish people are the essence of the world and the other nations are merely additions and supplements. Thus gerim when they convert become additions to the Jewish people. This is the reason that Moshe married a giyorus.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Wikipeidia - Criticism of Michael Freund & Shavei Israel
Michael Freund's response to RaP's criticism in 2009
Shavei has been under criticism for its limited vision of the Jew Status and Jewishness. Many rabbinical and secular notions state that a Jew is always a Jew, no matter how much he or she stood away from the rabbinical tradition. The laws for Sephardic Anussim sustained by Sephardic rabbis and rabbinic wisemen for more than 600 years defined “anuss” as any Jew forced to abandon Jewish legal practice, but still remains Jewish anyway, seeing that, in rabbinic law, an anuss does not need to be formally converted (though workers of Shavei affirm they do not convert in the strict sense, people who contact with their projects frequently use the term conversion[6]), and in some rabbinical opinions the Anussim retain a higher statute than a Jew free to observe Judaism on the inside of a Jewish community.
Shavei has been under criticism for its limited vision of the Jew Status and Jewishness. Many rabbinical and secular notions state that a Jew is always a Jew, no matter how much he or she stood away from the rabbinical tradition. The laws for Sephardic Anussim sustained by Sephardic rabbis and rabbinic wisemen for more than 600 years defined “anuss” as any Jew forced to abandon Jewish legal practice, but still remains Jewish anyway, seeing that, in rabbinic law, an anuss does not need to be formally converted (though workers of Shavei affirm they do not convert in the strict sense, people who contact with their projects frequently use the term conversion[6]), and in some rabbinical opinions the Anussim retain a higher statute than a Jew free to observe Judaism on the inside of a Jewish community.
It has also been accused of giving only some attention to groups like the Majorca Chuetas and the Belmonte Jews, whom “have been abandoned by the Sephardim”, and that attention given by Shavei comes always accompanied by “some historical and dialectical inconsistencies”. Shavei is frequently accused of favouring Ashkenazi ways, ignoring the Sephardi Chief Rabbinate of Israel and ignoring that these populations are “Sephardi Jews with specific customs and ways of living under the halakha.” Its lack of transparency is also an usual target of criticism. The tops-down structure and excessive clericalism of Shavei is also criticized, seeing that it ignores that “being a Jew is also a matter of communal agreement” with the communities that they try to convert, something which they do not try to reach.
These critics affirm that the non missionary character of Shavei is a sham, and that it is made by the “Secular Arm” of the Israeli government. The supposed separations of Freund’s Amishav and Shavei is also noted by critics, and much noted and believed by the public oppinion.[7][8][9]
Shavei may also be accused of fooling different crowds by using the word “return” for defending their actions (“return” to the Jewish nation being understood in different ways by the Israeli government, Israeli rabbinates, and Jewish law).[citation needed] The Jewish return law does not include tevilah, for a meshumad (former heretic) or an anuss (coerced converted Jew).[10]
Rabbis related with Shavei have also been accused of having turned tense the relations with local non-Orthodox spiritual traditions and favoring Israeli traditions.[11]
While Freund and his supporters affirm that his critics engage in Lashon haRá (evil tongue/rumours), the critics answer that many Shavei publications induce readers and Sephardim-Anussim in error and have many transgressions of Jewish law, and that they are truly preserving Jewish Law by attacking Shavei’s actions. They accuse Shavei of not being transparent on its motives, fooling Bnei Menashe for using them as settlers in areas disputed with Arab populations,[12][13] of treating Sephardim-Anusim as Gentile converts to Judaism (denying them so their culture and ancestrally[14]) and of “Ashkenazifying” them.[citation needed]
The Shavei actions towards the Bnei Menashe are especially criticized and analyzed. In 1979 the Amishav, na Israeli organization founded by Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail and dedicated to locating the Lost Tribes of Israel (with the objective of contracting the population increase of a “bourgeoning” Arab population by their mass return[15]), heard of a group in India which affirmed to descend of Israelites. The Rabbi travelled to India several times during the 1980s for investigating the claims. Convinced that the Bnei Menashe were in fact descendants of Israelites, he dedicated himself to converting them to Orthodox Judaism and ease its aliyah with funds given by benefactors like the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an US-Israeli organization which rises funds of Evangelical Christians for Jewish causes. By influence of the involvement of Shavei and other related Jewish organizations, from 1994 to 2003 800 Bnei Menashe made Aliyah to Israel, the majority going to Jewish settlements.
In 1998, the US-Israeli writer and New York Sun columnist Hillel Halkin travels to India with Rabbi Avichail for meeting himself with the Bnei Menashe and writes a widely-analyzed book on it titled Across The Sabbath River (2002). Halkin’s conclusions were that the immense majority of the Kuki-Mizo do not descend from the lost tribe of Manasseh but small numbers of them may in fact descend from this, and having passed their history and traditions to the remaining Kuki-Mizo people. The Rabbi left the leadership of Amishav for the Jerusalem Post columnist and former vice director of communications and policy planning of the Prime Ministers Office Michael Freund, who founds Shavei Israel. In 2003, the formerly Shavei sponsored Hillel Halkin starts collecting 350 genetic samples of Mizo-Kuki which are tested in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology of Haifa under the guidance of Prof. Karl Skorecki. In agreement to the late Mizo research scholar, Isaac Hmar Intoate, who helped collect the samples, no proof was found which seemed to indicate a Middle Eastern origin for the Mizo-Chin-Kuki.[16][17]
In 2003 the Israeli Minister of Interior Avraham Poraz froze indefinitely the Bnei Menashe immigration (after accusations by Ofir Pines-Paz, future Minister of Science and Technology, that the Bnei Menashe were “being cynically exploited for political aims", settling in the settlements in the disputed areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank/Judea and Samaria). In August of the following year in response to this action, the Israeli Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar sends a rabbinic committee to investigate the origins of the Bnei Menashe. In 2004, DNA testings in the Calcutta Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory affirmed to have discovered proves of Middle East genes among a sample of Mizo-Kuki-Chin in an internet article titled Tracking the genetic imprints of lost Jewish tribes among the gene pool of Kuki-Chin-Mizo population of India. This article is still to be peer-reviewed but already led to some critical answers (by Prof. Shorecki in an article in Haaretz,[18] referred to by a BBC News article the same day, as indicating non Jewish paternal root but maternal possibly Middle Eastern root, and also stating that "right wing Jewish groups wanted such conversions of distant people to boost the population in areas disputed by the Palestinians",[19] and Hillel Halkin described how he contacted two of the authors, "V.K. Kashyap and Bhaswar Maity, with a request of additional information", but the information not only was not given as Kashyap and Maity never published the article, what would subject it to peer evaluation).
Thanks to Shavei lobbying and these doubtful DNA tests, in March 2005 Rabbi Shlomo Amar announced the recognition of the Bnei Menashe by Israel and their possibility of immigration under the Law of Return, after a full conversion in face of their separation from Judaism.[20] In June 2005 the Bnei Menashe completed the construction of a mikvah, a ritual bath tank, in Mizoram under the supervision of Israeli Rabbis in way to start the process of conversion to Judaism.[21] Short afterwards, a similar mikvah was built in Manipur (Shavei was involved in all this mass conversion and immigration process[22]). In mid-2005, with the help of Shavei Israel and the Kiryat Arba local council, the Bnei Menashe opened their first community center in Israel. This is seen by Shavei critics as showing its wrong conception of conversion for elements that (to being genetically confirmed as “Lost Jews”) are still de facto Jews.
Freund talks many times of the Bnei Menashe from the utility to Israel point of view: he calls them "a blessing to the State of Israel" for being "dedicated Jews and Zionists",[23] he believes that "groups like the Bnei Menashe constitute a wide demographic and spiritual reserve, for being used, by Israel and the Jewish people"[24] and on the support to the settling of 218 Bnei Menashe on the High Nazareth and Karmiel in November 2005 expressed by the Jerusalem Post ("after what the North passed by this Summer during the Lebanon war, it is especially meaningful that the Bnei Menashe will help to strengthen and revitalize this part of Israel"). In the last two decades about 1,700 Bnei Menashe moved to Israel, mainly settlements in the West Bank[25] and Gaza Strip (until the disengagement).
Shavei and Amishav may be accused of creating division among the Bnei Menashe people: in interview to the Northeast India Grassroots Options magazine Halkin explained that "Avichail is today a man in his seventies, and many years ago, convinced that Amishav needed a younger leadership, gave away his position to an American-Israeli journalist, Michael Freund. The two (Avichail and Freund) ultimately shocked on organizational issues, and Freund left Amishav and founded an organization called Shavei Israel. Both men have their supporters on the inside of the B’nei Menashe community in Israel, although Avichail continues to be the most influential and admired figure." He added that "tribal rivalries and Kuki-Mizo tribal clans have also played a role on the schism, with some groups supporting a man and some the other. Because Freund is independently rich, Shavei Israel is the better financed of the two organizations and has been capable of conducting more activities, particularly in the area of supporting Jewish education for the B'nei Menashe in Aizawl and Imphal".[26] Among the Mizo-Kuki out of the Bnei Menashem the Shavei acts also caused tension, provoking strong controversy with the evangelical churches predominant among those ethnic groups (mainly during the television debate between Dr Biaksiama of the Aizawl Christian Research Center and Lalchanhima Sailo, founder of the Chhinlung Israel People’s Convention (CIPC), a secessionist Mizo organization which on the contrary prefers to create independent Mizo Israelite nations inside India to the return to Israel.[27][28][29] Biaksiama was also author of Mizo Nge Israel? (Mizo or Israelite?) on this subject.[30]
This subject concerns people in India out of the Mizo-Kuki ethnicities. As Dr. Biaksiama states “mass conversion by foreigner priests will rise a threat not only to the social stability of the region, but also to national security. A large number of people will forsake loyalty to the Union of India, as they all will become eligible for a foreign citizenship”.[31] Shavei’s action also affected the close and healthy relations between Israel and India, motivating even the Israeli government to stop the conversions in November 2005 for calming the concerns of the Indian rulers. This decision not only worsened the relations of the Bnei Menashe with the Indian government (the Bnei Menashe defended that the actions of the Israeli rabbis only formalized previous conversions and did not count as proselitising in light of Indian law), but also of some Hindu groups with the government (affirmed that the care in favor of Mizo-Kuki Christians facing conversion to Judaism was not shown by the government to the conversion of Hindus by Christian groups).[32][37] Freund took an aggressive posture against the government and threatened the same responsible minister that he would take him to the Supreme Court if he did not ease the arrival of the Bnei Menashe. In face of the decision in October 2007 of passing to take decisions on the mass entry in Israel and conversions in Cabinet reunions and not by one single minister (in the attempt of making more difficult the taking of decisions), Freund again promised to fight the government on this issue.[33] Despite these tensions Shavei did not stop continuing takings of people in November 2006 (first group of 100 Mizoram[34][35][36]), Agosto de 2007 (mais de 260 Bnei Menashe[37] and in January 2009 (more than 200 Bnei Menashe). In January 2010 the Israeli government announces that the remaining 7,200 Bnei Menashe can make Aliyah within a period of 1-2 years after passing by conversion in Nepal.[38]
RaP -- "Why does Michael Freund do it?!"
There are good reasons why Michael Freund is still up and running:
Michael Freund's image is that of a clean-cut "good citizen" and is the opposite of the greasy sleaziness that Tropper exuded from every pore. Freund comes across like a "saint with a halo" compared to Tropper's grim Mafioso demeanors.
Freund is connected to the right people in the Israeli establishment and government and through Shavei Israel's efforts they can showcase that Israel does not discriminate against any racial group and that Zionism is most definitely NOT racism to a world that forgets that Israel has already taken in millions of multicultured (Halachic) Jews from every corner of the globe and does not really need to prove its bona fides.
And if as "Jersey Girl" says, Freund is funded by the Christian Evangelicals (and they have unlimited hundreds of millions at their disposal to further all their aims), then that is another reason that the likes of the Netanyahu and the Likud want to impress them and not interfere with the financial support for Freund's Shavei Israel because the Likud counts on the political support and muscle of the Evangelicals in the United States against the liberal anti-Israel establishment.
But Freund sincerely believes that he is doing "the Lord's work" -- you can see it in his face on any of the YouTube videos with him talking on this topic -- his earnestness and sincerity are obvious, see this good example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzhNlL0lWE (YouTube video 5 minutes) and the way he speaks with absolute certainty, no one stands up to such a tone of voice and audacity! so that few realize the anti-Halachic controversial nature of his organization's global missionizing and proselytization of gentiles with borderline Jewish identity to haul them over to Israel and hold them up as PR prizes for the Zionist state and the "atchalta de'geula" that he no doubt believes in with the clear "messianist-appeal" pull of modern day Zionism at work.
By the way, listen to Michael Freund attack a former Likud Minister Sheetreet who wants to introduce a 5 year waiting period and Michael Freund attacks, worth listening to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnZDaSwluw (5 minutes)
California sex offender sentenced to 195 years in prison
A convicted s♠ex offender who sliced off his electronic tracking device in 2010 and drove to the South Bay where he assaulted four women will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Leonard Scroggins was sentenced Tuesday to 195 years to life in prison by San Diego Superior Court Judge George "Woody" Clarke.
Last month a jury convicted Scroggins of seven felonies, including committing a forcible lewd act on a child, attempted kidnapping, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon
Woman assaulted by haredim in Beit Shemesh while hanging signs in a synagogue,
Beit Shemesh resident Natalie Mashiah, 27, who was attacked by dozens of extremist haredi men while trying to put up posters of Mifal Hapyis (Israel's national lottery) in a synagogue recalled the moments of horror.
"I didn't even have time to pull down the hand brake, and they already surrounded me. They shattered all the windshields and threw stones at me. I begged them to stop, I promised to leave, but they wouldn't let me go.
School superintendent threatened, punished 15 year old boy who wrote op-ed against gay adoptions
A 15-year-old Wisconsin boy who wrote an op-ed opposing gay adoptions was censored, threatened with suspension and called ignorant by the superintendent of the Shawano School District, according to an attorney representing the child.
Mathew Staver, the founder of the Liberty Counsel, sent a letter to Superintendent Todd Carlson demanding an apology for “Its unconstitutional and irrational censorship and humiliation” of Brandon Wegner.
Wegner, a student at Shawano High School, was asked to write an op-ed for the school newspaper about whether gays should be allowed to adopt. Wegner, who is a Christian, wrote in opposition. Another student wrote in favor of allowing gays to adopt.
Wegner used Bible passages to defend his argument, including Scripture that called homosexuality a sin.
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