BBC covered up abuse by legendary children's entertainer -

Time Magazine   For millions of British children, Jimmy Savile was the TV presenter who promised to make their dreams come true. Now it appears he has been haunting the memories of some of them — and could be turning into a nightmare for his former employer, the BBC.

Savile, who died last year, hosted prime-time children’s shows in the U.K., including the wishes-come-true favorite, Jim’ll Fix It, and raised over £40 million ($64 million) for charity throughout his life. But in a documentary aired on British commercial television last week, five women claimed to have been raped, molested or forced to commit sexual acts on Savile when they were underage, often on the premises of the BBC, for whom Savile worked. Since the documentary aired, over 40 women have made similar allegations.

The BBC is now facing accusations of an institutional cover-up as it emerges that producers, press officers, executives and other presenters at the BBC were aware of Savile’s alleged behavior at the time. The publicly funded broadcaster buckled under pressure to acknowledge the “horrifying” allegations last week, vowing to support the police in any investigations, although it has insisted that there is “nothing to suggest any wrongdoing was ignored by management.” Prime Minister David Cameron has described the allegations as “deeply, deeply troubling” and hinted in a television interview that Savile could be posthumously stripped of his knighthood. [...]

Haredi parties - bitter internal struggles

Haaretz   Both ultra-Orthodox parties are heading for elections unwillingly, as both are embroiled in bitter internal struggles that could make it hard for them to preserve their current combined 16 Knesset seats. And fewer seats means less influence in whatever government is formed after the elections.

For Shas, the internal rift centers on former party chairman Aryeh Deri, who is now weighing a return to politics - either as part of Shas, which would entail an uneasy alliance with current chairman Eli Yishai, or in the framework of a new, rival party.

For United Torah Judaism - a joint list comprised of the Degel Hatorah and Agudath Israel parties - all is not sweetness and light between the various Hasidic sects that comprise the latter. But UTJ's biggest problem is with Degel Hatorah, which represents the "Lithuanian" (non-Hasidic ) Haredim: The Lithuanians' unchallenged spiritual leader, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, recently died, and the party is now riven between adherents of his two would-be successors, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman and Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach.

כולם נגד כולם ב'עדה': הראב"ד נגד סאטמר ובריסק

bholהמלחמה הפנימית שפרצה בחוגי 'העדה החרדית' סביב מאבק הקברים -          ובראשם המאבק המתהל במתחם גולובנציץ בבית שמש - הולכת ומתרחבת, ובימים האחרונים נראה כי נוצר קרע של ממש בין החוגים המרכיבים את 'העדה החרדית'.

לטענת אנשי 'אתרא קדישא', קיימים במתחם גולובנציץ קברים, טענה אשר מהווה מבחינתם סיבה לעכב את הבנייה במקום, עד לבדיקה יסודית. אלא שיזמני הבניה והרוכשים, שקבלו על העיכוב, פנו אל ראשי בד"ץ 'העדה החרדית', והדיינים התבקשו להתערב ולמנוע מ'אתרא קדישא' את עיכוב הבניה. אלא שהגאב"ד עצר את הדיון, וההיתר לא הונפק.

אלא שבערב חג סוכות פורסם מכתב, עליו חתום ראב"ד 'העדה החרדית', הגר"מ שטרנבוך, הקובע באופן נחרץ כי ניתן לעלות עם דחפורים על השטח ולהתחיל בבנייה, ללא שום חשש לחילולי קברים. "ולמעשה אין לעכב את החפירות", נכתב. "ויש לחפור מיד ממש בטרקטור קטן בלי שיניים גדולות ולהעמיד משגיח מומחה מהבד"ץ לחפש ולעיין אם נמצא..." 

בתחילת המכתב פורש הגר"מ שטרנבוך בקצה את הסיבות ההלכתיות לדבריו ולהיתר הבניה, ובין היתר גם מזכיר כשיקול משמעותי את מצוקתן של 1000 משפחות הממתינות בכליון עיניים לביתם החדש, "ובפרט שהדבר נוגע לחיותן של אלף משפחות, ולחייב רבים מהם לחזור על הפתחים מחשש בעלמא שאינו מבוסס כלל".

NY sued for incompetence in false rape accusations

NYTimes   One of four men who had sex-crime charges against him in a case involving a young Orthodox Jewish woman dismissed last June has sued New York City and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office for malicious prosecution, defamation and false imprisonment.

The man, Darrell Dula, filed the lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Oct. 2, more than a year after he was jailed on Rikers Island and held there for months without bail on the charges, which were dismissed amid troubling questions about the accuser’s credibility and whether prosecutors mishandled exculpatory evidence. [...]

The case began in June 2011 when Mr. Hynes, at a highly publicized news conference, announced the indictments of Mr. Dula and three co-defendants — Damien Crooks and two brothers, Jamali and Jawara Brockett — on charges of rape, sex trafficking and compelling prostitution over the course of a decade.

The four men were accused of using assaults and threats of violence to silence the woman, a member of the Chabad Lubavitch community in Crown Heights who was only 13 at the start of the events described in the indictment.

Jerry Sandusky sentenced to at least 30 years

CBS News   Jerry Sandusky was sentenced Tuesday to at least 30 years in prison -- effectively a life sentence -- in the child sexual abuse scandal that brought shame to Penn State and led to coach Joe Paterno's downfall.

Judge John Cleland sentenced the 68-year-old former assistant football coach to 30 years minimum to 60 years maximum in prison. Under Pennsylvania law, Sandusky cannot be released on parole before the minimum term is up.

A defiant Sandusky gave a long, rambling statement in which he denied the allegations and talked about his life in prison and the pain of being away from his family.[...]

Why banning anti-gay therapy is problematic

Time Magazine   On September 29, Jerry Brown signed into law a bill banning therapy that purportedly “cures” gays for minors in the state of California. Brown had previously Tweeted that these practices, known as conversion therapy, “have no basis in science of medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.” Almost immediately after being signed into law, a Christian legal group called the Pacific Justice Institute sued the state, saying that the ban was a violation of free speech and private relationships between youth, families and their therapists. Is the law a helpful effort to protect minors or a nanny-state intrusion into a private and intimate issue?

Both, possibly. First, it should be clearly stated that the empirical research supporting the efficacy of this form of therapy is weak, at best.  A 2009 task force report    by the American Psychological Association concluded that efforts to therapeutically change sexual orientation do not work, and carry significant risk of harm.  Consenting homosexual behavior is no more harmful than consenting heterosexual behavior, but instilling or reinforcing in patients the view that their sexual orientation is wrong can do psychological damage. Outside of religious conservatives, few defenders of conversion therapy can be found.

Whether government banning of such procedures is the most appropriate response is worth debating, however. There are a number of therapies out there which have been empirically demonstrated to range from useless to outright harmful. Scott Lilienfeld, a professor of psychology at Emory University, discussed this in a 2007 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science. Among the therapies he looked at were questionable ones such as facilitated communication, “rebirthing” therapies, and “recovered memory” therapy. But they also included relatively popular approaches such as “Scare Straight” for kids who are at risk for delinquency, boot camps kids who are anti-social, and DARE anti-drug programs. If we are going to start down the road of banning therapies, should we not ban these all, if the research evidence continues to bear out Dr. Lilienfeld’s concerns?  Why do we ban gay conversion therapy but leave DARE programs intact?

Rav M' Feinstein - Women & men are equally holy

Igros Moshe (O.C. 4:49): ...It is necessary to know that  women are not inferior in their level of kedusha (holiness) to men. Concerning kedusha, women are equal to men regarding the aspect that the obligation of mitzvos is only because of holiness.. Also we see that all the verses regarding kedusha apply equally to women. Whether it is in regard to the beginning of the receiving of Torah when the Torah says, And you will be to Me a treasure and you will be for me a holy people. Or when G‑d said to speak to Beis Yaakov – which means the women and tell Bnei Yisroel – which means the men. Or when the Torah says, You shall be holy men to Me – in Mishpatim. Or in Shemini, You shall be holy or in Kedoshim, And they will be holy. Or in Re’eh, Because you are a holy people to me. In all these verses where kedusha of the Jewish people is mentioned, it also applies to women. This equivalence of halachic kedusha is why women say the same beracha – “who has commanded us with His mitzvos” - when they do mitzvos as men say. This is true also even when they do mitzvos that the Torah doesn’t obligate because of various leniencies that G‑d has for women not having to do certain mitzvos. Their exemption from certain mitzvos is certainly not the result of being inferior, G-d forbid! And concerning the obligations between husband and wife, the husband is obligated to honor his wife and the wife is obligated to honor her husband – without any difference. Furthermore there were many women who were prophets and they had exactly the same laws of prophets as the men. In addition there are many things that women are praised more than men in Torah verses and the words of our Sages. There is absolutely no degradation of their honor or anything else by the fact that they are exempt from studying Torah and time bound positive commandments. Thus there is no reason to complain at all. Consequently it is necessary for you to explain this each and every time. It is necessary to be determined and strong in these views which are like the laws of the Torah and to protest against those women who stubbornly insist on clinging to their foolish and distorted [feminist ideology]- in order that no change should be made to any aspect of holy Jewish practice