Orthodox Jew asks: Does acknowledging being out of touch with reality help or hinder us?

One of the participants at the White Conference on abuse made the effort to contact me to clarify a number of points I made at the Conference. One of the comments she made struck me as a very cogent expression of what many Orthodox Jews think or act as if they hold such a view. I wasn't sure how to respond.

Lastly, it was repeatedly stated that we, orthodox Jewry, are out of touch with reality. Though this may be true (examples cited were scrutinizing others during the matchmaking process and being involved in irrelevant details such as tablecloths) does it actively help us? Does acknowledging this provide any practical benefit? Might it deflect us from properly addressing these problems and allow us to accept the situation as it is? It seems that it might simply dismiss the problem. Is it possible to clarify what benefit this sort of statement brings?

Rabbi's follower clashes with New Square burn victim's family

LOHUD

Early in the news conference, a six-year New Square resident, Shulem Sofer, began screaming that Sussman was lying. He yelled out that Rottenberg broke the community's rules and that it was justifiable to try to burn down Rottenberg's home, but not to injure the man.

"The rabbi never said to do fire to people," Sofer screamed in a high-pitched voice. "It's anti-Semitism. It's anti-New Square."

Sussman countered that people in the United States are free to pray where they want, but Sofer said he followed the grand rebbe's rules.

"I am from Jew land," he said, drawing laughter from the crowd. [....]

White Conference in the Press: Rabbis finally break silence on sex abuse

London Jewish Chronicle

The groundbreaking event took place at the William Alanson White Institute, a top psychoanalytic training and treatment centre, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The rabbis explained the halachic view of sexual abuse, mental health experts explained its psychological consequences, while survivors described lives traumatised by guilt, shame and betrayal.

Dr Alison Feit, director of the Jewish Centre for Trauma and Recovery, told the 120 members of the audience: "For too long family and communal concerns have been prioritised over the needs of the victims. [...]

Sex abuse coverups - interview with ex-cop

http://www.earthbook.tv/religion/channelhome/channelvideos/149/640/

Drugging the Vulnerable: Atypical Antipsychotics in Children and the Elderly

Time

Pharmaceutical companies have recently paid out the largest legal settlements in U.S. history — including the largest criminal fines ever imposed on corporations — for illegally marketing antipsychotic drugs. The payouts totaled more than $5 billion. But the worst costs of the drugs are being borne by the most vulnerable patients: children and teens in psychiatric hospitals, foster care and juvenile prisons, as well as elderly people in nursing homes. They are medicated for conditions for which the drugs haven't been proven safe or effective — in some cases, with death known as a known possible outcome.

The benefit for drug companies is cold profit. Antipsychotics bring in some $14 billion a year. So-called "atypical" or "second-generation" antipsychotics like Geodon, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Risperdal rake in more money than any other class of medication on the market and, dollar for dollar, they are the biggest selling drugs in America. Although these medications are primarily approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which combined affect 3% of the population, in 2010 there were 56 million prescriptions filled for atypical antipsychotics.

In a presentation this week at an American Psychiatric Association meeting, Dr. John Goethe, director of the Burlingame Center for Psychiatric Research in Connecticut, reported that over the last 10 years, more than half of all children aged 5 to 12 in psychiatric hospitals were prescribed antipsychotics — and 95% of these prescriptions were for second-generation antipsychotics.

Many of these children didn't have a condition for which the drugs have been shown to be helpful: 44% of youngsters with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 45% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were treated with them. [...]

Expert warns national-religious educators of denial of sexual abuse

JPost

The denial and complacency within the national-religious sector regarding sexual assault of minors is wrong and harmful to the victims, an expert warned a forum of educators on Wednesday – emphasizing the danger of the belief that a rabbinic figure would not molest a child.

Speaking at the Rehovot campus of Orot Teachers’ College on their annual conference dedicated to leadership, Adi Fishman, an Education Ministry expert on preventing and treating sexual assault, specializing in the national-religious sector, said “the religious public’s feeling – as though its children are more protected from sexual assault than those of other populaces – is wrong.”

“When, indeed, nothing has yet happened, that feeling can be a convenient defense mechanism. But once a sexual assault does occur, the belief that ‘things like that don’t happen in our society’ can mar the educator or parent’s ability to assist the victimized child,” she added. “An educator must first and foremost be aware that there is a good [likelihood] that there is a sexually assaulted child in his classroom. We know that one of every four girls, and five boys, will be sexually assaulted.” [...]

Religious dispute in New Square leads to severe burning of dissident

CBS

An orthodox Jewish father of four said he was apparently punished for worshipping his own way after an attack left him with burns covering 50 percent of his body.

CBS 2’s Dave Carlin reported a rift exploded into a fiery confrontation in Rockland County Sunday morning.

“His upper body is third-degree burns all over,” the victim’s son-in-law, Moshe Elbaum, said.

Elbaum said the top half of Aron Rottenberg’s body is covered in excruciatingly painful burn wounds. He said his father-in-law suffered the burns defending his family, confronting a man who police said was trying to fire bomb their home.

“He tried to murder people who were sleeping in the house,” Elbaum said.

Early Sunday morning, Rottenberg, 43, was sleeping in his Truman Avenue home in New Square when a family member saw an intruder in the backyard.

Rottenberg, a plumber, went outside to face the suspect, who police said had a device with flammable liquid and a long, improvised fuse. In the struggle, the device caught fire, injuring both men.

Police arrested 18-year-old Shaul Spitzer, also of New Square, and charged him with first-degree attempted arson and first-degree assault, both felonies.