Going to jail for silence: Is withholding knowledge of a crime mesira

L.A. Times

 Two years ago, Rabbi Moshe Zigelman went to prison rather than testify against fellow Jews in a federal tax-evasion case and receive a lesser punishment.

Now, federal prosecutors are threatening him with a return to jail unless the 64-year-old devout Hasid agrees to testify before a grand jury regarding the federal government's ongoing probe of tax evasion in his Orthodox Jewish sect. On Wednesday, they will ask a judge to order him to testify or be found in contempt.

His attorney says Zigelman, a teacher of scripture and son of Holocaust survivors, will again refuse, citing his religious principles.

Zigelman's unyielding religious stance has led to attorneys wrangling in a federal courtroom over the rare intersection of the modern U.S. legal system and the ancient Jewish doctrine of mesira, a prohibition for Jews against informing on other Jews to secular authorities.

Prosecutors have said the rabbi's position is unsupported by Talmudic law, according to court papers filed by Zigelman's attorneys. Defense attorneys contend that he is again being asked to make the obvious choice between heaven and earthly jail cells, and that no prison time will be able to get Zigelman to go against his religion and face ever-lasting punishment.

Manny's Book Store in Meah Shearim terrorized by Sikrikim

JPost

A bookstore in the capital’s ultra-Orthodox Mea She’arim neighborhood is struggling against a wave of attacks by a haredi group called Sikrikim (“Sicarii”) that other business-owners have called the “mafia of Mea Sha’arim.”

Since the bookstore, known as Or Hachaim/Manny’s, opened in March 2010, men have smashed its windows several times, glued its locks shut, thrown tar and fish oil, and dumped bags of human excrement inside.

Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger was harassed and had stones thrown at him while leaving the store last year.

The bookstore, located on Mea She’arim Street, is popular with Anglo residents and tourists and carries many English- language holy books and Judaica items in addition to Hebrew books. The harassment stems from the bookstore’s refusal to accept demands made by the neighborhood extremist group, which would require all businesses to observe specific “modesty standards.”

At Or Hachaim, the Sikrikim’s demands include putting up a sign asking customers to dress modestly, removing all English-language books, signs and advertisements, and closing its website, which is in English, all so as not to attract tourists, who are not dressed modestly, said Marlene Samuels, one of the three managers of the bookstore, along with her husband, Manny, and Meir Dombey. Manny Samuels previously ran Manny’s Bookstore, which was well-known in the Anglo community.

“These people are very extreme; they terrorize lots of people here, and they are a very insular group,” Marlene Samuels said. She added that despite filing four complaints with the police and providing surveillance footage that clearly identified four of the men who have been vandalizing their shop, the police has not gotten involved.

“In the last few weeks, the police said they just don’t want to get involved in this neighborhood,” she said.

Can Chareidim control their extremists? Throwing blows in Beit Shemesh

Haaretz

The escalation began yesterday with a conflict involving the girls school Orot Lebanot. Orot Lebanot is a religious Zionist school, meaning it is Orthodox but not ultra-Orthodox.

Yesterday, Ultra-Orthodox extremists blocked the path of the Orot Lebanot schoolgirls while they were on their way home. They surrounded the girls and shouted insults at them. Some residents and parents accompanying their children responded, and a fight broke out. It took nearly 45 minutes for the police to restore order, which they did without detaining or arresting any of the troublemakers.

R' Yair Hoffman Reviews new 9th volume of the Igros Moshe

 Vos iz Neias  by Rabbi Yair Hoffman This is relevant to my previous post on the 9th Volume

It still must be understood that this volume was put together posthumously, and some of the material does, in fact, reflect that (see, for example, the later comment on responsa OC #5).  Some of the material does not include the Lomdus that has characterized his responsa in the past.  Yet the previous volumes also did include a substantial amount of what can be termed “apodictic” responsa that just discussed Rav Feinstein’s opinions without the Lomdus.  Some people have questioned whether some of the material should actually have been included.  Information told to this author by some insiders also revealed that there was material that was not included too.  Nonetheless, it is a very important work that contributes significantly to Rav Feinstein’s halachic oeuvre.

The Orech Chaim section contains 50 responsa.  In the first he recommends that all shuls follow the timing of the Mogain Avrohom for the recitation of Krias Shma. This is interesting as it seems to be in contrast with his earlier position in Volume I #24 to Rabbi Shalom HaLevi Kugelman. How do we understand or resolve this apparent contradiction? One may view it as a realization by Rav Moshe Feinstein that the pendulum has swung too much in the wrong direction after the publication of Volume I of the Igros Moshe (and not necessarily because of that).  Especially, if one views the purported intent of the publication of the Igros Moshe in the first place.  Not everyone is in agreement that Rav Moshe meant his Igros Moshe to play the role of say, the Mishna Brurah in halacha.  Some would have it that the authorial intent of his halachic magnum opus was to be a running dialogue, a discourse with Torah scholars immersed in a sugyah.  If this is the case, then the contradiction is readily resolved utilizing the “pendulum has swung too far” model.  

Community leaders in Australia accused of protecting a child molester

news.com.au

          SENIOR members of a Melbourne Jewish community have been accused of protecting an alleged child sex offender who worked at one of the order's schools.

David Cyprys, 43, a security guard at Yeshivah College in East St Kilda, was today arrested and charged with 29 counts of indecent assault and gross indecency relating to former students.

Cyprys, a father-of-two who also runs a locksmith business, could try to flee to Israel with the help of high-ranking individuals within the Yeshivah community, Detective Senior Constable Lisa Metcher told the Melbourne Magistrates' Court today.

She accused Cyprys's supporters of covering up the alleged offending, which is said to have occurred between 1984 and 1991.

Why Muslims are still mad at America

CNN

On the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, many Americans are wondering whether the risk of a terrorist attack against America has been reduced.  The picture is mixed. With the death of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda is weaker.  With revolutions in several Arab countries, frustrations with unpopular autocratic governments — a recruiting theme for terrorist groups - have been mitigated.  But one important contributing factor has not improved - widespread anger at America in the Muslim world.  While views have improved in Indonesia, throughout the Middle East and South Asia, hostility toward the United States persists unabated.

This does not mean that most Muslims support terrorist attacks on America. On the contrary, overwhelming majorities reject terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks, as morally wrong.  Al Qaeda is quite unpopular.

However, anger at America does contribute to an environment in which it is easier for anti-American terrorist groups to recruit jihadists, to generate funding and to generally operate with little government interference - witness how bin Laden operated in Pakistan and the widespread anger there when the Pakistani military failed to prevent the United States from taking him out.

Trying to understand Muslims’ feelings toward America has been the focus of a five-year study I recently completed that included conducting focus groups and surveys throughout the Muslim world.  I sat for many hours trying to understand as Muslims explained to me why they are so mad at America.

Muslims have much they do not like about how America treats them. But there is one thing that is the most fundamental: their perception that America seeks to undermine Islam - a perception held by overwhelming majorities.

One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring

NYTimes

Cynthia Daily and her partner used a sperm donor to conceive a baby seven years ago, and they hoped that one day their son would get to know some of his half siblings — an extended family of sorts for modern times.

 So Ms. Daily searched a Web-based registry for other children fathered by the same donor and helped to create an online group to track them. Over the years, she watched the number of children in her son’s group grow.

And grow.

Today there are 150 children, all conceived with sperm from one donor, in this group of half siblings, and more are on the way. “It’s wild when we see them all together — they all look alike,” said Ms. Daily, 48, a social worker in the Washington area who sometimes vacations with other families in her son’s group. [...]