UK Jews divided on response to government defining Jewishness

JPost

LONDON - To fight or not to fight?

That question has bitterly divided the Jewish community in Britain following the Supreme Court ruling a month-and-a-half ago striking down a Jewish school’s policy of limiting admission to the children of Jewish mothers.

The ruling, which said that state-funded Jewish schools may not award places on the basis of whether a student’s parent is Jewish because it contravenes Britain’s Race Relations Act, went beyond forcing an expansion of admissions criteria to children whose Jewish identity is a matter of dispute between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews.[...]

Monsey Rabbonim continue Tropper investigation

Five Towns Jewish Times

Further evidence was introduced, reviewed, and discussed today in a meeting of Monsey Rabbonim, Roshei Yeshiva, and Askanim regarding the scandal surrounding Leib Tropper, the former head of the Eternal Jewish Family and Yeshiva Kol Yaakov. Tropper had ostensibly resigned last week, but it has been further reported that he continues to run and tend to the functions of the Yeshiva in an unchanged manner. Apparently, the inquiry has now widened to other areas as well. The meeting on Tuesday afternoon included some of the leading Rabbinic figures in Monsey and was chaired by one of the most senior Roshei Yeshiva in Monsey, HaGaon HaRav Moshe Green Shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva D’Monsey.

Abuse - Coerced pregnancy

Newsweek

About a decade ago, Elizabeth Miller remembers seeing a certain teenage girl at a hospital clinic for adolescents in Boston. The patient thought she might be pregnant and asked for a test. When it came out negative, Miller started asking the standard questions, inquiring as to whether her patient wanted to be pregnant (she didn't) and whether she was using contraceptives (she wasn't). So Miller explained all of the birth-control options and, as she describes it, "sent her on her merry way with a brown bag of condoms." It was, by most measures, a pretty routine appointment.

Except that, two weeks later, the same patient was back at the hospital, in the emergency room after her partner pushed her down the stairs. "That was the wake-up call where I started thinking there might be a relationship between the two situations," says Miller, now an assistant professor of pediatrics at University of California, Davis. "She was coming in for a pregnancy test, not wanting to be pregnant, and not wanting to use birth control. And now I'm wondering what's going on for her, knowing she was in a physically and sexually violent relationship. I started wondering whether I needed to be asking her about why [she isn't using birth control] at that visit." [...]

Partial Excerpt from Abuse Book - Dr. Baruch Shulem

From Professional Clinician to Obligated Jew

Why?

This book is a partial fulfillment of a religious, emotional, and professional obligation that was forced upon me years ago by my clients who suffered from child abuse. I can’t remember one of them ever saying to me “you have to …” but their pain and questions were enough of a reprimand that I took upon myself to do more than just “talk.”

This book is more than ‘just about talk therapy and helping individuals;’ it is about advocacy, namely the pursuit of influencing outcomes that directly affect people’s lives. My clients were challenging my deeply held beliefs in Torah and Torah communities. Both in their eyes and in my own mind, I became the representative of the Orthodox Jewish community that had not adequately answered their cry for help. They were not only abused, but also abandoned by the community that makes up a significant part of the Orthodox ‘self. It is as if there is – beyond the pain of abuse – a psychological punishment of “Karet".

No secular therapist could understand this unique facet of the Jewish self: how the individual is indivisible from his or her community. The secular therapist would counsel the individual to be strong, independent, overcome, forget and maybe even forgive. But for us ‘Karet’ is too meaningful and too overwhelming to “go on with life.” There is no life after “Karet”, be it just psychological or heaven forbid otherwise.

This kind of ‘Karet’ inadvertently begins long before the abuse. It begins with the absence of a vocabulary of abuse. The source of this lacuna seems to be the belief that the Torah community and the Torah personality do not do these ‘things'.

They – the other groups be they religious, ethnic, or national - might do it, so why “open your mouth to the devil?” If you don’t talk about ‘it’ it doesn’t exist. Why voluntarily bring even the subject into our homes or schools? This approach is grounded also in a unique religious perspective, that in reality speech and actions are indivisible. In other words, talking facilitates doing. [this is page 1 of 10 page essay]

Women's conference for kosher internet use

YNET

Anglo-Israeli religious women to hold a one-day conference in Jerusalem on February 17 to discuss how Torah-observant people, organizations can use cutting-edge online technologies as tool to build their businesses [...]

Marketing Child & Spouse Abuse Book

I need some basic information in order to finalize the book.

 The size of the market. So I am setting up a widget to register how many of my readers are interested in purchasing the book.

1) I would like to know what to charge. Since as of today I have received $280 worth of contributions I estimate I will need to charge $45 for the book to possibly break even. But I would like to know how many people would buy it if it were $30 versus $45.

Thus there is a poll on the right side. Please check the highest price you would realistically pay for it. Price includes shipping and taxes.

2) A number of experts have told me that I need to keep the book to about 650 pages. That would mean that I would omit the Hebrew references and just include the English translation. Do you view that the Hebrew sources are indespensible and must be included with the book?

3) How many people are willing to order before it is published?

R' Dovid Bar-Chaim: Rabbinic Paralysis

During a student's first years in yeshiva he learns to think creatively and ask probing questions. However, when he embarks on his rabbinical studies, the rules change. Suddenly all that is a thing of the past. Now he is taught not to think, for his opinion is not important; he is now taught that he must simply accept. This approach, a far cry from the methodology of the Talmud, produces "rabbis" incapable of analyzing primary sources and reaching an independent conclusion. One tragic example is child abuse within the observant community.

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