EJF innovation - Women's mentoring symposium

Hat tip to RaP. His commentary is in comment section

November Dayanim Conference to Include Mentor Symposium

A WOMEN'S MENTOR symposium will take place November 8-9 in tandem with the annual Dayanim Conference at the Sheraton Meadowlands in NJ. By holding the mentor symposium concurrently with the dayanim conference, distinguished rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva will enhance the program by providing their perspective and responding to questions regarding the expectations of the batei din. The symposium will address the role of the mentor in guiding candidates, assisting them in meeting the requirements of their officiating bais din, and ultimately helping them integrate into a Torah community.

The participating women are either recommended by various batei din, were previously involved in kiruv, or aspire to be part of the EJF mission.

In addition to the formal lectures, the symposium is an opportunity for the mentors to share experiences and to learn from each other's diverse backgrounds. The EJF mentor symposiums have proven to be extremely informative, helping to create a network for people with a common goal: to work alongside the bais din in helping committed intermarried couples build a Torah home. Approximately thirty mentors are expected to attend. For more information please contact Rochel Weinstein: (845) 357-1022 x106 .
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The following appeared in the The Jewish Press October 30, 2009 Page 8.

Hamodia Community 10 Cheshvan 5770 | October 28, 2009 Page C29
Eternal Jewish family: The Lillian Jean Kaplan Jewish Pride Through Education Project Presents

A Symposium For Women Mentoring/Tutoring Conversion Candidates

An opportunity to network with other mentors from Around the world, and receive chizuk from gedolei hador. Topics to be addressed:

Developing Jewish Character and Its Role In Conversion
Open Question and Answer Forum
Challenged of Educating Intermarried Couples Sincerely Committed to Building Authentic Torah Homes
Q & A Panel Featuring Leading Dayanim from Around the World
Informal Mentor Networking Session
Perspective of Geirus Candidates and Mentors Divrei Chizuk

Sunday, November 8 - Monday, November 9, 2009 Sheraton Meadowlands, East Rutherford, NJ
EJFI sponsors travel expenses and hotel accommodations. Participation is based on approval only.
If you are an interested mentor or tutor, please contact us for an application.

Yemen: End of the Jewish community

Haaretz

About 60 Yemini Jews have been secretly flown in to the United States since July, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, adding that 100 more were scheduled to arrive in the coming months.

Earlier in the year Haaretz reported that the U.S. government was taking part in efforts to extricate Jews in Yemen as result of the physical harassment they had suffered from their Muslim neighbors.[...]

Re-endorsing Caterer who lost certification

1) LASHON HARAH ALERT

Assertions made by any poster - should not be assumed to be true until checked with authoritative rabbis. They are allowed only for the concerns that they raise - so that people can be alterted to investigate so as to avoid harm.

Acceptance of a post is not assurance that it is accurate or in proper context. Even notices said in the name of major rabbis need to be checked out to see that they were actually authorized by those rabbis.


Just received the following letter

Recently, the head of a kashrus supervision agency asked me for marei mekomos for not reendorsing a caterer who lost his kashrus license for deliberately violating policy and halocha.

Below is what I have come up with so far. I would like to find more contemporary applications especially involving hechsheirim. Please let me know if you have anything to add or if you know who might.

Ikar that a yid is more chomer than a goy and svora: SA 118 taz sk 2

Ikar that when caught must be removed and only takanah etc.
SA 119 15-17 vn"k shom

Ikar heter (shoel umeshiv) and that it is to be used with discretion Darkei Teshuva here, 117. Also see earlier DT leading up to that.

Of contemporary teshuvos that mashgiach can't possibly watch someone choshud 24/7 and doesn't help dayan Weiss- shu"t minchas yitzchok chelek 3 siman 95 (talking about shaala with goy but talks about yid....)

Thank you and AGSH

Naomi Remen: "Our stories are all we have"

Turkey is no longer Israel's ally

JPOST Daniel Pipes

"There is no doubt he is our friend," Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as he accuses Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Gaza. These outrageous assertions point to the profound change of orientation by Turkey's government - for six decades the West's closest Muslim ally - since Erdogan's AK party came to power in 2002.

Three events this past month reveal the extent of that change. The first came on October 11 with the news that the Turkish military - a long-time bastion of secularism and advocate of cooperation with Israel - abruptly asked Israeli forces not to participate in the annual "Anatolian Eagle" air force exercise. [...]

Abusive use of religious noise

JPOST

While recent rioting in and around Jerusalem's Old City has left religious tensions between the capital's Muslims and Jews simmering, a new dispute - this time concerning the volume of prayers, more than the prayers themselves - is resonating in outlying neighborhoods.

Jewish residents of these areas, all of which are in close proximity to Arab neighborhoods in the capital's east, have begun to complain that the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer, which is broadcast five times a day from loudspeakers inside local mosques, has become an intolerable nuisance, particularly when it blasts through their neighborhoods at 4 a.m. every day.

"It's as if they took the speakers and put them inside my bedroom," Yehudit Raz, a resident of the northeast Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. "And it's not from one mosque or two mosques - we're talking about tons of speakers going off, one after the other, every morning." [...]

Fears of Modern Orthodox Geirim

An anonymous commentator wrote:

I converted with a MO beis din, well actually two MO dayanim (definitely MO NOT conservadox/traditional/or anything of that nature) and one yeshivish dayan, in a mid-sized, but long established, out of town community twenty years ago. Since that time I married, am raising kah several children, wear a sheitel, and am pretty indistinguishable from the rest of my "middle of the road" slightly to the right of MO community.

I admit that there have been times when I've cringed at some conversions (not by my beis din) which I've seen. That being said, though, I am shaking in my shoes over what is lying in wait for me when my children reach shidduchim.

It seems that geirus has turned into nothing less than a witch hunt in recent years. That long-standing conversions are now going to be under a microscope seems very wrong, and something that is likely to prove a great embarrassment and emotionally traumatic for many totally sincere converts. It frightens me that the chareidi world, which does not accept MO as an acceptable hashkafa, is going to determine MY status and that of my children as well.

Add this to the other items I've seen, such as an opinion that the geirus of somebody could possibly be invalid if a dayan does not believe the universe is less than 6,000 years old, a position which was taken by no less than Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan back at that time and by dozens of those now well known in kiruv, and everybody who was converted by MO must be in great fear now.

Emotionally, it takes its toll - I always felt accepted, warmly accepted, but now it is all too clear how many don't really, at heart, want us. It is so terribly terribly painful. I did my part - I've embraced halacha, I've embraced this people, I've sacrificed to pay tuition for the children, and I have done my best, but it feels like hands are grasping to take it all away. How can Hashem let this happen to us? How is it permissible to oppress many sincere geirim in the name of ferreting out a few doubtful conversions?