Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Islam: Women in a permissive society
New information in the Shaima Alawadi murder case in El Cajon, Calif., suggests that the family was cracking over a forced marriage for daughter Fatima, 17, and that Alawadi herself was preparing to divorce her husband. If female freedom turns out to be at the heart of the murder, it will highlight not so much the intolerance of Muslim immigrants by Americans, but the cultural restrictions on women in those communities and what happens when those restrictions clash with the relatively permissive rules of Western society.
Alawadi was beaten to death with a tire iron inside her home in El Cajon (home to 40,000 Iraqis) last month. For weeks the case has been regarded as a possible hate crime because someone left a note beside her unconscious body that read, “Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.” But Alawadi, 32, belonged to a culture in which families choose husbands for their daughters at a young age, and the daughters have no say in it. She was married by the age of 15. She had produced five children with her husband Kassim Alhimidi, who moved his family to the U.S. 17 years ago. Police executing search warrants on the family’s house, cars and phones found documents in Alawadi’s car indicating she was planning to get divorced. According to the New York Times, a family friend told police that Alawadi wanted to leave her husband and move to Texas. Her sister, however, denied that.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Widow with dementia gave $600,000 to Kabbalah Centre charity
Susan Strong Davis, an 87-year-old widow, spends the day inside her Palos Verdes Estates home, tended round-the-clock by nurse's aides. For company, relatives say, she has her dog, the television and, on increasingly rare occasions, memories of the glamorous socialite's life she once lived.
"She definitely has some sort of dementia," said Viki Brushwood, a niece who visited from Texas in December. "I don't know if it's Alzheimer's or what. She is somebody who is not making decisions anymore."
But decisions involving large amounts of money are being made in Davis' name. In recent years, she has borrowed millions to build a four-bedroom house in Beverly Hills featuring three fireplaces and a pool, according to property records, court filings and interviews. She has also given at least $600,000 to a charity to which relatives say she has no ties and which is run by the controversial Kabbalah Centre, the Westside spiritual organization now under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Beit Shemesh:Urban planning for chareidi cities
The city of Beit Shemesh lies some 20 kilometers west of Jerusalem. Established in the early 1950s, it was just another depressed development town with a population of 20,000, when work on a master plan for its expansion, which called for the absorption of 130,000 additional residents, began, in the summer of 1990. That a large and unified block of land, most of it under state control, was available south of the existing town, and the central location of Beit Shemesh between Jerusalem and the coastal plain, were key factors in the government's decision to plan and build what is now called Ramat Beit Shemesh. Since that time, the city's population has soared: Today it stands at some 80,000. Once a backwater, today a boomtown. [...]
The special requirements of the Haredi community pose significant problems for town planners. Their high birth rate and great number of subgroups, as well as the fact that boys and girls attend separate schools, results in an inflated number of educational institutions, which are an immense burden to finance, build and maintain. In Beit Shemesh today, no less than 70 percent of all schoolchildren are ultra-Orthodox. To avoid halakhic problems regarding Sabbath elevators, building heights are often restricted to not more than four stories, limiting urban densities.
Igros Moshe: Law requiring Get if civil divorce
Igros Moshe( E.H. 4:106): This that there is an effort being made to pass a law in the state legislature that whenever a Jew becomes divorced in a secular court he is also obligated to give his wife a valid get in beis din – this is definitely a very major accomplishment. Such a law does not constitute an illegal coerced get (get me’usa) because of the involvement of non‑Jews. That is because the husband has the free will not to divorce his wife according to the secular law. It is only because he wants to obtain a secular divorce in order to be exempt from the financial obligations of his wife and that he will be able to legally marry another woman – and the secular government will not give it to him unless he has given a valid get to his first wife. Therefore he is giving the get of his own free‑will. This is exactly equivalent to one who doesn’t want to give his wife a get but when they give him thousands of shekel – suddenly he becomes willing to give it. This is not considered coerced (me’usa) since he has the free will to decide whether desire for the money is more important to him than the desire not to give the get. This is not considered coerced (me’usa) since he has the free will to decide whether the money is more important to him then giving a get. It is a daily occurrence amongst the Jewish people that a husband is given this choice.
The coercion which invalidates a get is when he is beaten or imprisoned or given some other affliction in order that she be given the get. Such cases are considered that he is being forced to give the get – only then is it in invalid. Similarly even in the case of financial pressure in a case where the government obligates him to pay as a punishment for not giving the get is considered as a get given with financial coercion because he doesn’t want to lose the money. An additional case is if someone takes a large sum of money from the husband and refuses to return it unless he gives a divorce – is also considered to be illegal coercion. [See the Shulcahn Aruch E.H. 134.4 in the Rema and Pischei Teshuva (E.H. 134.11)] In contrast if the husband is given money to motivate him to want to give the get – it is obvious that this is not considered coercion and it is a daily occurrence. So this concern for obtaining a benefit is exactly the same thing as giving a get in order to obtain a civil divorce. Even if he is imprisoned for a different matter and the wife has someone who is willing to intervene to obtain his freedom on the condition that he give her a get – this is not considered that he was coerced to give a get. That is because the cause of his suffering was not caused by his not giving a get – but because of an unrelated matter. The giving of the get only provides a remedy for removing the suffering. Therefore a get given to stop suffering from an unrelated matter is considered to be total free-will. This is quite simple and logical. This is a valid get even in a situation where he has no obligation to divorce her.
Minchas Yitzchok: Law requiring Get if civil divorce
This teshuva also would invalidate direct pressure to give a get by public humilation. The only pressure permitted is that which comes from something else which is alleviated by the giving of the get. If the sole reason for the pressure is to force the giving of a get - he says it invalidates the get according to all opinions.
Minchas Yitzchok(8:137): Question: There are frum people who are influential in the legislature who want a law passed that when a husband divorces his wife in secular court – that he would then be obligated to give a get in beis din. This suggested legislation is being done to benefit Jewish women so that their spiteful husbands should not be able to make them agunas. However you are concerned that doing so would invalidate the get as a get coerced by non‑Jews (get me’usa). In particular in cases where the halacha does not require that the husband gives a get. You also want to know if it is considered an illegal coerced get if it is given because the secular judge will require the husband pay additional money until he gives the get. Answer: This that the secular judge will keep adding the requirement to pay continually more money until the get is given – this causes the concern for a coerced get (me’usa) according to all opinion as is stated in Shulchan Aruch (E.H. 134:4) in the Rema and commentaries. Look at Toras Gittin and the views expressed in Pischei Teshuva. I have seen in Minchas Meishiv (14) that he has searched for solutions in this type of case. In addition to the fact that his solutions are very complicated both in terms of halacha and in carrying them out – he ends up without a clear answer. The only possible solution in my opinion is to try and establish that the law does not explicitly require that a get be given. Rather it should be done indirectly by saying that as long as there is no valid divorce in beis din that there is no valid divorce in secular court. If done in this way, there is no problem of a get me’usa. This would be exactly equivalent to a husband giving his wife a divorce because he wants to marry another woman. Because of the Cherem of Rabbeinu Gershom it is prohibited to be married to two women so he must divorce his first wife. The giving of a get to avoid the prohibition of Rabbeinu Gershom does not constitute a get me’usa. That is because he has the option not to divorce his first wife and consequently he would not marry anyone else. And even if we would not be concerned for the Decree of Rabbeinu Gershom but we are giving the get because of secular law which prevents marrying anyone else until the first wife is divorced – it would still be valid. See Aruch HaShulchan (E.H. 134:22), “ Even if he loves his wife but she hates him and torments him until he gives her a get – since the get itself is given of his free‑will and the pressure on him comes from a different direction – it is considered that he pressured himself. If you don’t understand it in this manner then the majority of gittin would be considered coerced and be invalid. That is because when a person gets divorced it is typical that there are various causes that he feels that he must get divorced. So therefore when the pressure is not on the giving of the get itself but from another source - it is valid.”
Saturday, April 7, 2012
When does teacher's touch constitute abuse?
The New York City Education Department wanted to fire Michael Dalton, a music teacher in Washington Heights, after its investigators said that he had placed three third-grade boys on his lap in what they considered an inappropriate manner.
He had tickled them in their midsection, the city’s investigative report said. He even cradled one boy, and cooed a lullaby, before kissing him on the forehead, the report said.
But wait, said Mr. Dalton, when he finally had a chance to defend himself.
“The facts regarding Mr. Dalton demonstrate a clear case of disparate treatment,” the arbitrator, Bonnie Siber Weinstock, wrote in July 2010. She ruled that the tickling and kissing were inappropriate, but not sexual. Ruing the lack of clear standards on what school employees could and could not do, she rejected the city’s attempt to fire Mr. Dalton and instead fined him $2,000.
Pesach: Minhagim regarding chametz
Books with pages spread wide open, perched on balcony railings and shedding imaginary crumbs of not-kosher-for Passover food. Shelves covered in new paper, and masses of aluminum foil on kitchen counters and the stovetop. Signs on doors warning "Do not bring in hametz" - referring to leavened products - with several exclamation marks. All of these were signs in my childhood that Passover was approaching. Above all I remember the near-hysteria that overtook the women and girls in the house, which mounted as the holiday grew nearer while they, dressed in rags, pursued to the death every stain and crumb.
I only understood the full depth of the madness created in people's hearts by this holiday when I watched my father and the man across the way standing balcony to balcony on the morning of Passover eve to scrutinize in the sunlight the leaves of lettuce that had previously sailed in the bathtub. As part of this essential activity, the two men - whose Passover chores consisted entirely of such washing of heads of lettuce, until the hametz inspection on the morning before the holiday began - made sure there was not the slightest suspicion of worms or other sorts of vermin on the leaves that were destined to grace the seder table as bitter herbs. When the examination was concluded to their satisfaction, they took clothespins and hung the leaves out to dry on the clotheslines.
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