Report about Sunday's White Institutes Conference on Sexual Abuse in Orthodox World

It was truly an amazing conference. I think everyone was inspired and encouraged to do more. The conference was clearly a remarkable achievement.

Richard B. Gartner, Ph.D. Training and Supervising Analyst, Faculty, and Founding Director of Sexual Abuse Service, William Alanson White Institute for Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology, New York City

Yesterday's conference, "Understanding and Treating Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish World," was a groundbreaking, extraordinary event. In a short time, the Sexual Abuse Service, headed by Conference Chair and Service Director Julie Marcuse and Conference Co-chair Alison Feit, put together a very full, tightly-run conference that included messages from two prominent rabbis (Daniel Eidensohn and Yosef Blau) ; personal statements from three survivors of sexual abuse; keynotes by Julie, Ali, and myself; small groups led by various members of the Service; further panel papers by Abby Stein, Julie, and Ernesto Mujica, and a brief summing up by Alan Slomowitz.

The audience was rapt and in almost all cases very open to what psychoanalysis has to offer the Orthodox community. One person said to me she was astonished to come to a meeting where psychoanalysts listened rather than judged the community and where so much helpful information was offered.  The conference was sold out and there were probably as many turned away as attended. The conference was aimed both at mental health practitioners in the community as well as what we call (thanks to Jill Bellinson's input) first responders in the Red Cross model (those to whom sexual abuse is first disclosed but who have had no training in how to deal with such a difficult subject with its multi-layered meanings in the Orthodox community).  The audience was clearly wanting more, and there have been some feelers already to have speakers come out to the community, as well as a clear desire for more offerings from the Institute.

Jill Bellinson did an absolutely knock-out job at organizing the details, rounding up and instructing the volunteers, and at every stage of the planning being a voice of clarity and reason as difficult choices were made.  Donations made it possible for us to offer glatt kosher food to the attendees, who in many cases made it clear they felt surprisingly comfortable in our milieu. Sondra Wilk as always was superb at making things happen.

In addition to all I have named, I want to recognize the efforts and contributions of people who led small groups, manned the safe room, participated in the planning (I am sure I will leave out some names, and I apologize to anyone I have forgotten): Gail Harris, Daniel Gensler, Sharon Kofman, Seth Aronson, Evelyn Hartman, and Rivki Jungreis; Shloimie (Stephen) Zimmermann, who was a willing and helpful (as well as brave) supervisee in a live consultation meeting with me; and a group of  wonderful volunteers.

It was a day about which the Sexual Abuse Service and the Institute can be very proud.

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Dr. Asher Lipner

All I can add as an advocate for abuse prevention and treatment in the Orthodox community is that everyone I spoke to was equally as impressed as Dr. Gartner.  I too would like to take this opportunity to make the following remarks of thanks:

Thanks to Dr. Gartner for his remarks, his enlightening supervision, and his grasping the need and readiness of our community to learn from his wisdom.
Thanks to Dr. Julie Marcuse whose brainchild this was and who put her all into seeing it through.
Thanks to the awesome courageous survivors Esther Malka, Mark and Joel, who never disappoint and who need to keep taking their show on the road.  Next stop Oprah Winfrey? 
Thanks to Dr. Alison Feit for a brilliant overview of what we have all been learning over years about how and why abuse is allowed to occur in our community and the psychoanalytic explanation for the human behaviors involved.
Thanks to Dr. Shloimie Zimmerman for a "massive" case presentation that left all of us emotionally moved and more sensitive to the experiential real life challenge of doing clinical work with survivors.
Thanks to Dr. Mujica for being so cool, both as a presenter and as a support for the survivors who spoke.
Thanks to Rabbi Eidensohn for the Kiddush Hashem of showing that the Torah can be and should be the most powerful tool we can utilize to prevent and help survivors heal.
Thanks to Rabbi Blau for modeling what a rabbi should be in this day and age.
Thanks to Dr. Nosson Solomon, Past President and one of the cofounders of Nefesh for attending and participating.
Thanks to Rivkie Yungries, currently of Nefesh for publicizing the event on the Nefesh listserve.
Thanks to Sondra Wilk for helping my friend and I and I don't know who else, in "the safe room," where we had a shared moment of survivor support.

Thanks to all of us for showing all of us that we care, and we are starting to get it!!!

,The Anisakis Worm Rears its Ugly Head Once More

5tjt

Like the Anisakis worm in fresh salmon, it is the kashrus issue that never died.  Eighteen months ago, the debate raged in the Jewish community – may one consume fish that are infested with the Anisakis worm or must one  first removing them from the flesh of the fish?
The Brooklyn Vaad HaRabbonim, the Baltimore Kashrus agency, and a handful of other Kashrus agencies were stringent.  The Orthodox Union, in agreement with Rabbi Vay from Jerusalem, however, ruled that these worms while still in the flesh of the fish are kosher.  [The interview of Rabbi Vay may be seen at this link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMtQLb1YmLo].  Even the lenient position is of the opinion that once the worm has left the fish it is no longer kosher.

LaG BaOmer - An Overview

5tjt by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

The Ramah Shulchan Aruch (OC 493:2) that on LaG BaOmer we engage slightly in Simcha – joy.  Commemorating LaG BaOmer is a serious matter.  The Mogen Avrohom cites the Kavanos HaArizal that discusses a certain individual who had the habit of reciting Nachem every day.  He continued to do so on LaG BaOmer as well.  For doing so he was punished.  We see, therefore, that one should take the words of the Ramah quite seriously.
A number of reasons are cited by Torah authorities for commemorating Lag BaOmer:

   1. It commemorates the students of Rabbi Akiva who ceased dying during this day – although the deaths persisted between Pesach and Shavuos. (Shla Psachim 525).
   2. This day is the Yartzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai who revealed the inner secrets of the Torah (Chayei Adam Moadim 131:11)
   3. This is the day that Rabbi Akiva granted ordination to his five students – among them Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai – they did not die in the plague that struck Rabbi Akiva’s other students (Pri Chadash OC 493)
   4. It also commemorates the Manna which began to fall on this day after the Bnei Yisroel left Egypt (Responsa Chsam Sofer YD #233 “Amnam Yadati”).

In this short essay, we will attempt to discuss each of the four reasons mentioned above.

Fighting for the Right to Lie About Military Service

NYTimes

In 2009, a burly Colorado man named Rick Duncan was a rising star among local veterans groups, advocating on behalf of struggling soldiers and holding forth about his own powerful experiences returning from Iraq as a wounded Marine.

The problem was, none of it was true, not even his name.

Mr. Duncan was actually Richard G. Strandlof, a troubled drifter who had never served in the military. Instead, he used his bogus story to work his way into the company of prominent politicians and admiring veterans.

Mr. Strandlof was eventually arrested by the F.B.I. and charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act, a 2006 law that makes it a federal crime to lie about being a military hero.

But though he admitted conjuring the entire tale, Mr. Strandlof has been fighting the case against him, arguing that the law violates his right to free speech. Simply telling a lie, his lawyers assert, does not always constitute a crime.

The Irrelevance of the Settlements

Cross currents Jonathan Rosenblum

Given all the attention focused on Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines (known colloquially and erroneously as the 1967 borders), one would never know how irrelevant they are to Israeli withdrawal from land captured in 1967. From his first day in office, President Obama seized on the settlements as the crucial issue in Palestinian-Israel peace process, as a means of signaling to the larger Muslim world that they have a friend in the White House. In so doing, he only succeeded in hardening Palestinian positions and convincing them that there was no need to negotiate with Israel because the United States will pressure Israel into withdrawal to the “1967 borders” with minor adjustments.

For many American Jews too, the settlements have taken on a role far out of proportion to any actual impact on peace. The settlements allow American Jews to indulge their Jewish guilt over the failure to achieve peace and to engage in a particularly Jewish form of hubris – the feeling that everything depends on us and that if were only better, more magnanimous, peace would be at hand.

No Israeli government will ever be able to evacuate a quarter of a million Jews from their homes beyond the 1949 armistice lines and an almost equal number from homes in new neighborhoods of so-called east Jerusalem without provoking a civil war. But even if there were not a single settlement, Israel could not return to the 1967 lines. That is a point that cannot be sufficiently emphasized.

NO MILITARY EXPERT considered Israel’s pre-1967 borders capable of being defended. Israel’s coastal plain, in which over 80% of its industrial capacity and 70% of its population is located, is no more than 15 miles wide and it narrows to as little as nine miles. No less crucial is Israel’s topographical vulnerability. Much of the central mountain range running through Judea and Samaria is over 3,000 feet about sea level, and thus overlooks the cities along the coastal plane. Not only is the entire coastal plane exposed, but so is Ben Gurion Airport and the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway.[...]

NY socialite pleads guilty to fraud charges

Wall Street Journal

A New York socialite pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal charge that she duped corporations out of millions of dollars.

Dina Wein Reis, 47, softly answered, "Guilty," when U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson asked her how she pleaded to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Reis could have faced up to five years in prison, but an agreement with prosecutors would cap her possible sentence at no more than 31 months if the judge accepts the deal, which she is not obligated to do. The plea agreement also limits the financial penalties Reis might have to pay to $7 million.[...]

A Hasidic Guide to Love, Marriage and Finding a Bride

BBC

Wonderland delves into the Hasidic Jewish community of Stamford Hill, north London, where the people live in a unique world divided between 21st-century urban life and 18th-century traditions.

For the most part this community is reserved and publicity-shy, but filmmaker Paddy Wivell has spent three months with members of the community who have decided it is time to let the rest of the world inside their personal and religious lives. Father of five Avi Bresler invites him to his eldest son's wedding - a scene of religious solemnity, family gathering and drinking - and on his quest to find a wife for his second son.