It seems as social animals we have a strong urge to pass on unsavory information to others, and people even spent their own money in the study, using a "gossip note" they had to pay for during an economic game in which participants could warn people about to play against cheaters. The researchers suggest that people shouldn't feel bad about passing on information if it is likely to help those involved, exposing vices or protecting someone against exploitation.
Willer points out, however, that the study was focused on the positive sides of gossip, passing on useful information or "prosocial" warnings about untrustworthy or dishonest people. The study did not look at the typical tabloid type gossip involving celebrities and their personal issues. This author would suspect that this type of gossip is an almost imaginary or invented version of the more positive prosocial / protective gossip, in that the behavior of a celebrity with a drug or marital problem doesn't necessarily have any real or immediate effect on our daily well-being, although perhaps studying the behavior and mistakes of famous people, might help those spectators avoid those kinds of life path mistakes themselves.
Bnei Brak's Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Leib Landa has warned that turning on faucets in some multi-story apartment buildings leads to the desecration of Shabbat
The rabbi issued a halachic ruling explaining that the using the tap directly turns on an electrical water pumping system – an offense which, according to the Torah, can be punished by stoning. [...]
According to the rabbi, the long-term solution is to install a high water reservoir enabling natural rather than electrical pumping. In the meantime, however, "there is no other choice but to ensure that the pump is turned throughout Shabbat and Jewish holidays."
Judge Dan Pollock of the Jerusalem Magistrate Court ordered the release of four men who were suspected of assisting a scam in the Mea Sharim neighborhood. The accusations involved keeping money that was advertised as being collected for charity. The arrests involved a popular community rabbi and his arrest this week led to street protests in the Mea Shearim and Geula neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
The Immigration and Absorption Ministry has withheld a landmark research project documenting the murder of women in Israel's Ethiopian community. Only sections of the report, completed in 2009, are now coming to light.
The research was conducted by Dr. Shalva Weil, an anthropologist who has researched Ethiopian Jewry for over 30 years. It offers a comprehensive profile of what Weil claims is the typical wife-killer, based on the examination of 16 such cases and extensive interviews with women and other family members who survived murder attempts.
הרב מרווין טוקאייר מגרייט נק שבמדינת ניו יורק לא ישכח את השיחה המפתיעה שקיבל לפני 43 שנה. "ב-1969, כשגרתי בטוקיו, צלצל לפתע הטלפון בבית. "שמעתי קולות לא ברורים", נזכר טוקאייר, שכתב 20 ספרים ביפאנית על יהדות והיה הרב היחיד ביפאן באותה העת. "השיחה היתה מטלפון ציבורי ברחוב, שמעתי את המכוניות ובכלל לא הבנתי על מה האיש מדבר. אז שאלתי אותו: אילו שפות אתה מדבר? והוא ענה: יפאנית, גרמנית, קצת אנגלית ויידיש. אז אמרתי לו: יידיש?! קענסט דעדן יידיש? (אתה מדבר יידיש?) והוא ענה: יו (כן). אז אמרתי לו: קום אהער! בוא מיד, אני רוצה לפגוש אותך!"
Police in France have questioned Rabbi Daniel Farhi, a prominent member of the Jewish community in that country, over suspicions that had he had raped an undisclosed number of underage girls, French media reported Tuesday.
The 70-year-old rabbi, who founded the Liberal Jewish Movement of France, the nation's tiny Reform Judaism group, was grilled by investigators at a police station in Paris earlier today.
The chief rabbi of Amsterdam, Aryeh Ralbag, was temporarily relieved from his post Wednesday by the board of the Orthodox Jewish community, after he signed a document describing homosexuality as an inclination which “can be modified and healed.”
Ralbag, a US-born Orthodox rabbi nominated to head the Amsterdam community in 2005, had recently cosigned the document titled “Declaration On The Torah Approach To Homosexuality,” which called on “authority figures” to “guide same-sex strugglers towards a path of healing and overcoming their inclinations.”[...]
A wave of excitement is gripping parts of the hareidi religious world as a historic reconciliation between the hassidic dynasties of Belz and Satmar is underway.
The Admor of Belz sent a delegation of ten dayanim (rabbinic judges), headed by his personal assistant, to the graves of Satmar Admorim, Baal Ha"Divrei Yoel" and Baal Ha"Berach Moshe," at the Kiryas Yoel cemetery in New York City. [....]
On New York’s Rikers Island, the parents of baby Annie await trial for shaking their infant girl to death. Her mother and father deny harming their child in any way, but prosecutors claim the 70 day old baby died with a severely fractured skull and brain damage consistent with being shaken violently.
Shaken baby syndrome presents a terrifying dilemma to the criminal justice system: a false conviction leaves a grieving parent or other innocent in prison for years while an undeserved exoneration could allow a dangerous child abuser to kill again. Unfortunately, the medical science used to determine the cause of death in infants suspected of being shaken to death is far from precise, and certainly not conducive to the simple “guilty” or “not guilty” decisions that courts require. [...]
On Monday, just two weeks after a big demonstration sparked by an incident in which an ultra-Orthodox man spat at a local 8-year-old girl dressed "immodestly," another student at Beit Shemesh's Orot state religious school was targeted by Haredi teens on the short walk home from school.
The victim this time was a third-grader, whose parents asked to identify him only as A. He was surrounded by a group of boys who shouted and spit at him and then threw a large rock in his direction that hit him in the back.[,,,,]
The following appeared in the latest The Jewish Press. The article and comments and questions follow: The Jewish Press Page 44 Friday, January 13, 2012 South Florida
Anusim/Crypto Jewish Conference Scheduled
On January 2, 1492 the queen and king of Spain, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, signed the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews. It is estimated that 300,000 Jews lived in the country and only one third managed to get out and continue practicing their faith.
One hundred crossed the border to Portugal, where they considered to be being safe, but only five years later they were forcibly converted to Christianity. One hundred thousand were unable to leave Spain either took their faith underground or adopted the Catholic faith. The Church called them New Christians, but many of those New Christians were not so observant of their forced new faith, practicing their true Jewish beliefs secretly and within their homes.
Caminos de Israel is organizing its second annual Anusim and Crypt-Jewish Conference, with experts in the filed and Orthodox rabbis participating, on Sunday, February 12, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Marriot Dadeland in Miami. This year’s special speaker is a woman from Cuba who has traced her family’s Jewish ancestry all the way back to the 1400.
Due to limited seating, organizers ask that reservations be made in advance. Reservation in advance is $20 per person (at the door it’s $25 per person).
You can e-mail your reservation request to Loscaminosdeisrael@yahoo.com and you will receive a Pay Pal-secured link to make your reservation. If you wish to make your reservation over the phone call 786-306-8211.
For more information, or to schedule this type of event in your synagogue or community, call Rabbi Moshe Otero at 786 306-8211."
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RaP: Who is Rabbi Mariano Moshe Otero? A little Googling gives some answers. According to a 2003 article in The Miami Herald on the website of "The Jews of Cuba" http://www.jewishcuba.org/descendants.html : "Hundreds of Hispanics return to Jewish roots...Hundreds of Christian Hispanics in South Florida are discovering they are descendants of Jews who hid their faith...
Dozens of Cubans in exile, and even on the island where they were born and raised with different beliefs and identities, are discovering what their subconscious mind has suggested to them for years: their Jewish roots. Through identity papers, records and genealogical studies, many have confirmed their Jewish origins and are returning to the religion, usually through conversion... This group of Cubans is not alone in its discovery. In South Florida and the rest of the Americas, hundreds of Christian Hispanic families are turning to Judaism in the belief that they are descendants of the marranos, the Jews who converted to Catholicism during the 15th Century Spanish Inquisition to avoid being burned at the stake, said Nathan Katz, head of Florida International University's Department of Religious Studies... Mariano Moshe Otero, a 42-year-old Cuban American and a former evangelical minister, knew he was a Jew but had no proof. His mother told stories about his grandparents' home in Cuba, when they would cover the mirrors when someone died, a practice among some Jews. One day, Otero, who is Orthodox, received a document that confirmed what he had always known. It was the birth certificate of his maternal grandmother, Dolores Caraza Levi, stating that she was a Jew. According to Rabbinic law, Judaism is passed down from the maternal side, which made Otero a member of the faith. ''I always felt I had a special connection,'' said Otero, who is taking Rabbinic studies and helping a dozen Cuban families in Miami track their religious roots through his organization Los Caminos de Israel -- The Roads to Israel... Los Caminos de Israel -- The Roads to Israel -- helps Cuban families in Miami trace their religious heritage. For more information, call 786-306-8211."
The problems are glaring. What are the bona fides of "Rabbi Mariano Moshe Otero"? And given that the article states that he's "a former evangelical minister" who were and are his own rabbis and teachers that can support his claim that he renounced his Christian beliefs and which reliable posek and rov and rabbis, presumably a Bais Din, that can vouch for him and his claims that his proofs are 100% Halachically valid when he claims that he (in his own words:) "received a document that confirmed what he had always known. It was the birth certificate of his maternal grandmother, Dolores Caraza Levi, stating that she was a Jew. According to Rabbinic law, Judaism is passed down from the maternal side, which made Otero a member of the faith."?
The JP article and a number of sites of "Rabbi Mariano Moshe Otero" indicate that he is actively encouraging Hispanics to dig into their ancestry to find if they have any Jewish roots. This process could be applied in most lands where Jews lived for centuries and assimilated, not just Anusim.
There is a red line that is crossed, and NOT OFTEN GRASPED as well as OFTEN DELIBERATELY IGNORED, from doing acceptable normative outreach or Kiruv when the chances are fairly certain that the targeted students are Jewish, but to run around looking for potential converts and returnees with VERY shaky and doubtful connections to the Jewish people amounts to PROSELYTIZATION and is thus very dangerous to Judaism and the future of the Jewish people faced with ongoing assimilation, intermarriage and apostasy in the here and now, without having to dig up what may or may not have happened 500 years ago!
Since the Jewish Press is promoting this event in its paper it needs to act responsibly and provide the bona fides and more background about this organization and its Cuban American rabbi who also seems to be commercializing and making great efforts to raise huge funds as he advertizes on his own websites. This and more information about his goals, associations and activities can be traced from his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/mariano.otero page there are a number of links to his work:
Mariano (Moshe) Oterois a Cuban-American ex-Pentecostal minister in his late forties who promotes Noahide evangelism amongst Gentile Christians and kiruv evangelism amongst what he calls wayward and lost Jews. In his own words he states. “I am a former ordained Christian minister who has returned to (Orthodox) Judaism, the faith of my forefathers.”Otero says he always knew [he had no evidence, just a feeling] he was Jewish and had a special connection with the Jewish people. One day he got documents showing his maternal grandmother was Jewish, then he decided to convert to Judaism.
Otero is Founder and Director of the Spanish speaking Los Caminos De Israel (The Roads to Israel) in Hollywood, Florida, initially helping Cuban families in Miami track their religious roots. He leads the Ways of Israel and Noah’s House. He is a member of the First Covenant Rainbow Foundation. Otero has Chabad connections as we also see with the YouTube clip at the end of this post which is festooned with references to the rebbe. Chabad Hollywood also partner with one of Otero’s prjoects.
Otero runs a radio show in Costa Rica aimed to convert Gentiles to keep Noahide laws. “The goal of TSHUVAfm is to be a means of communication for the Remnant of Israel in the Diaspora to have a real chance to reconnect with their true identity, and for non-Jewish people to discover the Seven Noahide Laws, as aprecursor to the coming of the Messiah and the Redemption (Geula)“
Otero’s eschatological excitement is tangible in his comment here: “ The Christian world seems to be moving into a new direction. And I pray it will be one which will bring them closer to their first century roots: in which non-jews were Noahide observers–Yirat Shamayim. This fact alone herald the imminent coming of the Moshiach.”
Converting lost Jews to Judaism is seen as a trigger for the coming of Moshiach as we read in his comment here: “No one can doubt that Jewish Community is experiencing a wave of converts, and I expect this trend togrow with more intensity as we move closer to the time of the advent of the Mashiach.”
It seems that Otero has not changed much of his Pentecostal missionary zeal or beliefs about the imminent coming of Moshiach, only who that Moshiach will actually be!
[See YouTube video, 9 minutes:] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iJiKG6oh6fs "
RaP: The poster of that ends with a big worrisome implied question. As Bugs Bunny used to ask: "What's Up Doc?" : "Gev on said:
He sounds so much like a fundamentalist Christian when he talks about Jews and Gentiles converting is a precursor to the coming of Moshiach/Christ!"
