School Linked to Abuse Claims Will Replace Entire Faculty

 NYTimes

The entire faculty at Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers were arrested last week on accusations of child sexual abuse, will be replaced by new teachers this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent announced Monday night. 

Speaking to hundreds of parents at a meeting called to address the crisis at Miramonte, Superintendent John Deasy announced the school would be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and when students returned on Thursday, an entirely new corps of teachers and staff members would have been hired to greet them. All current teachers, administrators and staff members will be moved to a school still under construction for the rest of the school year, where they will be interviewed by school officials and, if necessary, the police.  [...]

Mr. Deasy said he felt a personal responsibility to do two things: help children who were victims, and restore parents’ trust in the school district.

Identity vs Integration: Radical Islamists 'freak out' Belgian community

Life sentence for man who refuses to give a get - upheld by rabbinic court

JPost

The supreme rabbinical court of appeals upheld a life sentence handed down to a man who has refused for ten years to give his wife a bill of divorce.

Meir Gorodetzki was imprisoned by the Jerusalem rabbinical court in 2001 for refusing to allow his wife to divorce him and has spent the last ten years in jail for his ongoing refusal to give his wife a bill of divorce, or get.[...]

A case of Rabbinic sexual abuse by Neustein & Lesher

Journal of Child Sexual Abuse

Escape from Williamsburg: A Memoir of a young woman going off the derech

 Forward review by Eishes Chayil author of Hush

“Unorthodox” is a memoir about a young woman who has a lot of opinions. But in the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic world of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, opinions in general, and certainly those of young women, are not appreciated.

I grew up in a similar world nearby, the Hasidic world of Boro Park. Reading “Unorthodox” was like seeing a variation on my own life mapped out meticulously, down to the last traditional detail. I found it oddly compelling, visiting scenes and dialogues that so perfectly encompass a world so familiar. When Deborah and her older cousin, Mimi, go to an ice skating rink, a young girl offers Deborah a Hershey chocolate kiss and tells her that it’s kosher:[...]

Rabbi Immanuel Schochet criticizes Rabbi Shmuly Boteach's book "Kosher J"

Forward 

Rabbi Boteach's response to the letter

Israeli bill aims to grant financial aid to Haredi youths leaving religious world

Haaretz

A new bill advanced by Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On aims to provide financial aid to youths leaving the religious world, similar to that given to new immigrants upon their arrival in Israel.

Three years ago, Tel Aviv resident Eli Bitaan, 21, abandoned the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and left the religious world. These days, he’s trying to fulfill his dream and get into Tel Aviv University’s Law School. Without a high-school matriculation certificate, and devoid of any financial backing from his family, Bitaan is, for the third time, trying to pass required predatory classes while working toward his high-school diploma.  [...]