A driver without a license is threat to life

VIN reports an discussion between Rav Chaim Kanievsky and a bochur who drove without a license and had an accident.

This is discussed by Rav Sternbuch in volume 1 #850. A similar conclusion that the driver is a rodef and can be reported to the police is found in Minchas Yitzchok, Tzitz Eliezar and Rav Ovadiya Yosef.

Rav Sternbuch quotes the Steipler as follows:
...(R’ Yaakov Kaniefsky was very angry with those who violated traffic laws whose purpose is to protect the lives of the members of society. I heard that someone once came to him because he was worried that he was about to receive a very severe punishment because he had violated the traffic laws. He wanted to receive a beracha that he would be free of the punishment. R’ Kaniefsky replied with a very sharp admonition and told him that in truth he deserved to be punished!) (This was even though R’ Kaniefsky was not necessarily in agreement with the secular laws in general). Therefore it would appear that if the person is considered a danger to society and since we can’t punish him ourselves, he should be reported to the police – with the permission of beis din or the rabbi of the community. This is in fact a mitzva since it is saving the community from harm and possible death.

Chareidi modesty squads intimidate merchants

Haaretz reports

Ultra-Orthodox modesty patrols in Netivot are threatening local business with boycotts unless they conform to strict religious standards. The group's actions are stoking religious tensions in the normally calm southern town and police opened a criminal investigation into the matter Tuesday following a Haaretz Hebrew edition report.

The gang members - whom ultra-Orthodox residents of the city say are a minority group not supported by the rabbis and community - enter local businesses, assess the situation and complain about the employees' dress. They approach the store manager and warn him that if the saleswomen do not switch to completely modest clothes, they will see to a boycott of the store.

Some of the local store owners capitulate to the demands and in return receive a faux kashrut certification in the form of a sticker that states: "The king's daughter is glorious within. Daughter of Israel, you are the daughter of a king - dress accordingly," which is affixed to dozens of store windows around town.
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"The guy came into my store and saw one of my female workers wearing a small shirt," said the owner of a shoe store, "it wasn't a tank top, just a small shirt. But he started shouting that if the worker did not dress appropriately, he would cause financial damage, and claimed 'just as you can tell the workers when to come and when to go, you can tell them what to wear.' I didn't want to hurt my business and therefore I agreed, and I received certification."

Another local merchant, the owner of housewares store, described what happened to him. "Two weeks ago one of the guys came into my store," he said. "'I have the entire ultra-Orthodox community behind me. If you don't sign this paper and affix the sticker, we will boycott you,' he said to me. I didn't give in to his degenerate blackmail, but I didn't want to get into a fight with the whole ultra-Orthodox community and that's why I didn't file a complaint with the police." The ultra-Orthodox community in Netivot, which comprises about 25 percent of the city, denounced the phenomenon. [...]

R Avraham Goldstein & his Puerto Rican Community

Chareidi boycott of Hadassah - a bluff

JPost

Although anonymous haredi groups have publicly claimed they are boycotting Jerusalem's two Hadassah-University Medical Centers (in Ein Kerem and on Mount Scopus) due to the Hadassah Medical Organization's handling of the "starved haredi toddler" case, on Tuesday both Hadassah and Shaare Zedek Medical Center, the city's other major hospital, reported no indications of a boycott.

A Hadassah spokeswoman said that while there may have been a handful of haredim who had told Magen David Adom ambulance drivers to head for Shaare Zedek instead of Hadassah because of their "anger" over the affair, its emergency room has "not seen any decline" in the number of haredim coming for medical care in the past week.

The spokeswoman for Shaare Zedek confirmed that it had not noted any increase in haredi patients coming to its own emergency room in the past week.

Despite media reports that Hadassah wanted to "strike a deal" by discharging the three-and-a-half-year-old child or transferring him to another hospital in exchange for a cancellation of "the haredi boycott," the Hadassah spokeswoman said it would continue to treat the boy, whose physical condition has improved significantly since his mother was barred from the pediatrics ward two weeks ago. He has gained three kilos beyond his then seven-kilo bodyweight and is functioning much better. Channel 1 reported Tuesday night that the boy would be transferred to Tel Hashomer hospital by Thursday. [...]

Rap's posting on Proselytization in Latin America

I am really curious about the continuing high level of interest in this article- according to the Blog's statistics. Relative to the times this post has been read there have been rather few comments. Most of those who read the post arrive at this blog by Google with the search terms Rabbi Avraham Goldstein,Mishpacha. The article was posted over two weeks ago - what is the reason for the interest in this article? In addition few of those interested are from Latin America.

Chareidi Riots in Jerusalem

You don't have to be Chareidi to believe Conspiracy Theories!

Time Magazine - Ten Conspiracy Theories

# The JFK Assassination
# 9/11 Cover-up
# Area 51 and the Aliens
# Paul is Dead
# Secret Societies Control the World
# The Moon Landings Were Faked
# Jesus and Mary Magdalene
# Holocaust Revisionism
# The CIA and AIDS
# The Reptilian Elite

Obama - the squandered stimulus

Washington Post - Robert J. Samuelson

It's not surprising that the much-ballyhooed "economic stimulus" hasn't done much stimulating. President Obama and his aides argue that it's too early to expect startling results. They have a point. A $14 trillion economy won't revive in a nanosecond. But the defects of the $787 billion package go deeper and won't be cured by time. The program crafted by Obama and the Democratic Congress wasn't engineered to maximize its economic impact. It was mostly a political exercise, designed to claim credit for any recovery, shower benefits on favored constituencies and signal support for fashionable causes. As a result, much of the stimulus's potential benefit has been squandered. Spending increases and tax cuts are sprinkled in too many places and, all too often, are too delayed to do much good now. Nor do they concentrate on reviving the economy's most depressed sectors: state and local governments; the housing and auto industries. None of this means the stimulus won't help or precludes a recovery, but the help will be weaker than necessary [...] Here, as elsewhere, there's a gap between Obama's high-minded rhetoric and his performance. In February, Obama denounced "politics as usual" in constructing the stimulus. But that's what we got, and Obama likes the result. Interviewed recently by ABC's Jake Tapper, he was asked whether he would change anything. Obama seemed to invoke a doctrine of presidential infallibility. "There's nothing that we would have done differently," he said.

Insensitivity and bias against chareidim

YNet

[...] It's easy, too easy, to slam the haredim. They are the classic candidates for xenophobia. Even liberal Israelis, who are outraged by patronizing remarks made by a judge to a young Ethiopian woman, by the expulsion of emigrants, or by the abuse of Palestinians, hate haredim with a clear conscience. It's commensurate with the bon-ton.

The "starving mother" affair is a clear example. The first incisive questions about her should have been directed to the hospital: Why did so much time pass before suspicions emerged that the problem has to do with the mother and not with the child? What sort of needless and damaging treatments did he undergo? What did the hospital's social work department do about the case? Was there an effort to handle this grave matter in cooperation with the community?

A hospitalized child is under the responsibility of the hospital, rather than his mother. Before we turn her into a monster, perhaps we should look at what the hospital did with the responsibility given to it.

Hadassah's hospitals make a living from the haredim. They have extensive experience in treating them. Many problems, including mental problems, were solved there over the years in a discrete manner, through dialogue with the rabbis. Even a radical haredim-hater won't believe that a haredi rabbi would want to see the death of a haredi child.

The Hassidic branch the mother belongs to is radical and isolationist. Its members are considered anomalous even within the haredi street. However, the suspicion towards the establishments cuts across factions and exists in Orthodox camps that are an inseparable part of the State.

Many haredim truly believe that the secular Israel plots to exterminate them, and if not that, then to humiliate them, disparage them, and force them to betray their faith

A responsible Israeli establishment needs to disprove these suspicions, rather than reinforce them. In no way am I suggesting that we mitigate the punishment of a haredi abuser, that we turn a blind eye to vandalism, or that we capitulate in the face of the groundless campaign managed by elements within the Eda Haredit sect against the opening of a parking lot on Shabbat.[...]

Endangering life because of lies about Haddassah Hospital

Rav Sternbuch warned about the danger to life because of the lies spread about Hadassah Hospital. This is an example

YWN reported

A boy was struck by a bus in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. Paramedics wanted to take him to the trauma unit of Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital - the highest level trauma unit in the State of Israel. The medics also explained to the father that only Ein Kerem has certain diagnostic equipment for a head injury which is applicable in this case. Due to the ongoing conflict surrounding the case of the so-called Munchausen mom, the father, a member of the chareidi community, insisted his son be taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center.[...]

Jordan removes citizenship of Palestinians - 70% of population

JPost

Jordanian authorities have started revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan to avoid a situation in which they would be "resettled" permanently in the kingdom, Jordanian and Palestinian officials revealed on Monday.

The new measure has increased tensions between Jordanians and Palestinians, who make up around 70 percent of the kingdom's population.

The tensions reached their peak over the weekend when tens of thousands of fans of Jordan's Al-Faisali soccer team chanted slogans condemning Palestinians as traitors and collaborators with Israel. Al-Faisali was playing the rival Wihdat soccer team, made up of Jordanian-Palestinians, in the Jordanian town of Zarqa.

Anti-riot policemen had to interfere to stop the Jordanian fans from lynching the Wihdat team members and their fans, eyewitnesses reported. They said the Jordanian fans of Al-Faisali hurled empty bottles and fireworks at the Palestinian players and their supporters.[...]