Benizri's lying to parole board prompts calls for reform of system

Haaretz

The Israel Prison Service plans to test a treatment program for prisoners convicted of political corruption, according to the head of the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority, the statutory body that helps set standards for prisoner releases.

The PRA requested that such a program be instituted following the statements made by former Shas minister Shlomo Benizri after his early release from prison last week.

Benizri had expressed remorse to a parole board for the bribery, breach of trust, conspiracy and obstruction of justice he committed while labor and social affairs minister, and was thus marked for early release after serving only two-and-a-half years of his four-year sentence. Immediately after his release, however, he retracted his statement of regret and proclaimed that he'd been framed and was innocent.

Update: Baby’s Death Renews Debate Over a Circumcision Ritual

NYTimes 

Updating this post

Prosecutors are investigating the death of a newborn boy who died in September after contracting herpes through a controversial practice of ritual circumcision, reviving a debate in New York over safety and religious freedom. 

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, confirmed on Wednesday that the investigation was continuing, but declined to comment further. 

The cause of death of the 2-week-old boy, who died at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn on Sept. 28, was Type 1 herpes, caused by “ritual circumcision with oral suction,” according to the medical examiner’s office.[...]

Rav Kook: Connection of Purim & Amalek to Geirus

  PURIM61.htm 

Rav Kook then quoted the Talmudic statement in Sanhedrin 99b that Timna wanted to marry into the family of Abraham but was not accepted. In the end, she became the concubine of Esau's eldest son. "Better to be a maidservant to this people," Timna reasoned, "than a princess of another people." As punishment for rejecting Timna, the Jewish people were cursed with the eternal enmity of Timna's son - Amalek.

This of course is the connection to the story of Purim, for Haman, the enemy of the Jews, was a descendant of Amalek. Haman's hatred of the Jews and his decree to destroy them in fact originated in the failure to convert his great-grandmother Timna. But this error was redressed in the time of Mordechai and Esther, when "Many of the peoples of the land became Jews" (Esther 8:17).

Moldova votes to require castration for pedophiles

USA Today

 Foreigners convicted of sexually abusing children in Moldova will be mandatorily castrated, according to new legislation introduced Tuesday.

Parliament approved the law by a majority after lawmakers said the impoverished nation was attracting pedophiles from the West. It will become effective July 1.

The new law states foreign and Moldovan nationals found guilty of pedophilia will be chemically castrated, while courts will rule separately on those found guilty of rape.

The move was immediately criticized by the Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights group, which said chemical castration should involve consent, and offenders should be properly informed about procedure while the law should have been preceded by a public debate. [...]

NYTimes looks at Shabbos Elevators

NYTimes

From sundown on Friday until the sun sets on Saturday, many observant Jews refrain from certain activities, including pushing elevator buttons, following a restriction that comes from a prohibition against creating sparks and fires. So in some buildings, elevators are programmed to stop automatically on every floor during the Sabbath. That way, observant Jews can hop right in and, eventually, get where they are going. 

These systems, long a fixture in hospitals as well, can be lifesavers for older people and those with disabilities, and they allow the observant to live on floors that are too high to hoof it. But they also slow down elevator traffic. A lot. [...]

More reliably, said Rabbi Weinstock, an associate rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, many doormen know where the observant people live and will push the appropriate button for them. But it is not acceptable, he said, to walk up to the doormen on a Saturday morning and ask them to do so. (Some rabbis also do not consider Shabbos elevators to be acceptable .) 

Latest chumra for Parshas Zachor & Megila

"These are for the benefit of the public - it is proper to clean one's ears prior to hearing Parshos Zachor"

Aide to top Republican refuses to divorce wife

Aharon Friedman seruv

Cross Currents by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

Tamar Epstein is an agunah with an impressive list of rabbinic supporters. Her ex, Aharon Friedman, has exhausted all his legal options, both in beis din and in secular court. The divorce has been granted, but Friedman is unhappy with the way he has been treated, and is denying his ex-wife a get, trying to leverage terms more to his liking.

Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky is one of the signatories to a shtar seruv against Friedman. Rav Yisrael Belsky, who at one point was counted in Friedman’s camp, has turned against him. R[av] Hershel Schachter has taken a personal role in applying public shame pressure against Friedman. While it is always possible to empathize with both sides in a dispute, at some point the law must speak. After a person has been given every opportunity to be heard in legal proceedings, any assistance given to the losing party is nothing less than a stab at the process of law itself. We are well past that point in the case of Aharon Friedman.

You can help by simply signing a petition, and urging your friends to do the same.

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update:
my  brother Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn wrote:

I told Mr. Friedman not to give a GET because of coercion and humiliation, as such as GET is invalid, and the wife could not remarry anyway. On my website  http://www.getamarriage.com/ I have the sources from the Rashbo, Bais Yosef, Radvaz, Shach and Chazon Ish that it is forbidden to produce a GET by humiliation and that such a GET is invalid. I wanted to talk to the Epstein side but Ora and others on her side refused. They want to win with terror, even if in halacha the new children would be mamzerim.

I discussed coerced Gittin with posek HaDor Rab Yosef Shalom Elyashev shlit"o and he told me that any Beth Din that cuts corners to produce a GET for an "Aguinah" that he takes away from them the status of a Beth Din.

see also  Daas torah blog postings

See also the article by Rabbi Tzvi Gartner for a full discussion of a forced get.

 the article by Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz dealing with the New York Get bill.

the article by Rabbi Gedaliah Dov Schwartz  dealing with the New York Get bill