After UN vote on Palestine - Has anything changed?

NYTimes   Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, recently said that the day after Palestine gained recognition as a nonmember state at the United Nations, “Life will not be the same.”

True, there would still be the occupation, he said; Israeli settlement and closing policies would continue. But no Israeli official could argue that the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem were disputed territories, he said, adding, “Palestine will become a country under occupation. The terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal.” [...]

“They got a state without end of conflict,” a top Israeli official said. “This sets new terms of reference that will never allow negotiations to start.”

The absence of negotiations may then open the way for a more confrontational approach. [...]

Israel has said that any punitive measures after the United Nations maneuver would depend on the future actions of the Palestinians. Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said that Israel would “work by the book” and would only take steps that did not violate any signed accords.

One possibility, he said, was deducting debts owed by the Palestinian Authority to Israeli utility companies from the tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the authority. “We can, so we may,” he said.

Weberman trial: Illegal picture taking of accuser

NYTimes   The trial of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor accused of repeatedly molesting a girl was disrupted on Thursday afternoon when four spectators in a Brooklyn courtroom were accused of taking pictures with their cellphones of the accuser on the witness stand. [...]

The accuser, who is now 17, has testified that she and her family had faced a pattern of intimidation from the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, since she alleged last year that Nechemya Weberman, the unlicensed therapist her parents had sent her to for counseling, repeatedly forced her to have oral sex during their sessions together from the time she was 12 until she turned 15. [...]

Mr. Weberman’s accuser had already been provided with increased security after onlookers said they spotted Mr. Weberman staring at her threateningly through the window of a conference room as she rested during a break in the court session on Wednesday, said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office. The defense denies that Mr. Weberman did this.[...]

The phones of the four men arrested had photos of the teenager that had been taken in the courtroom, and one photo appeared to have already been posted to Twitter, Mr. Schmetterer said. David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the court, said that Judge Ingram also admonished the men before allowing the trial to continue.

Nahloat - the worst case of abuse or a witch hunt?

Tablet Magazine   Right now, Binyamin Satz, Benzion Primashelanu, and Zalman Cohen are in jail, charged with sodomy and violence against Israeli children. Six other men have been arrested, questioned on suspicions of the same, and released. A 70-year-old woman named Sarah Vorst was violently beaten by five men in February, her apartment ransacked, and her computer and telephone stolen—according to many because her attackers believed she was a mastermind behind the pedophiles’ plot.

To date, more than 70 children, nearly all from Haredi families in the tight-knit community of Nahlaot, have been interviewed by Social Services and have claimed to suffer severe sexual, psychological, physical, and ritual abuse at the hands of nearly 60 individuals. At least another 50 children have claimed abuse, though they were not interviewed by Social Services. The children have identified the perpetrators either by name or by telling characteristics: the one with the ponytail, the one who exercises, the filmer, the one with a walker, the one who wears a knitted kippah, and so on. Those accused include American immigrants, middle-aged men, elderly women (nearly half of those accused are female), geriatric couples, teenagers, mother-son teams, mentally handicapped individuals, at least one Arab, suspected Christian missionaries, and, more recently, a few prominent members of the community, including a rabbi. Some of those who have been identified by one or more children are unaware, or appear to be unaware, that they have been accused.

There was no hint of pedophilia in the community before October 2010. But the Haredi community in Nahlaot now believes that the highly organized ring has been operating secretly for years—possibly generations—and is governed by an elaborate hierarchy. According to community members with whom I’ve spoken over the past year, they believe that a small number of masterminds, including the 70-year-old Vorst, a convert to Judaism who directs Ohel Sarah Imenu, an organization that facilitates Haredi conversions, used formerly abused teenagers and mentally handicapped locals as scouts for the victims. Community members believe that these scouts watched the children and parents from outdoor locations that offered prime vantage points—under the guise of tending gardens, doing calisthenics, or panhandling—and memorized their schedules, recording when the children would be unsupervised. The pedophiles noted the schedules of various homeowners, residents of Nahlaot claim, and they allegedly snuck into dozens of apartments and sheds in the neighborhood in order to abuse the children, who have pointed out these locations to their parents. Many are convinced that there are Christian missionary motivations at play here and that false converts have infiltrated their community. A number of locals told me they believe that the videos and media produced by the pedophile ring are being sold for tens of thousands of dollars or more.[...[]

In the wake of these allegations, the neighborhood underwent an immediately noticeable change of spirit. No one could be trusted. Parents were daily being informed by their children and friends that neighbors they’d known for years, invited over for Shabbat meals, or given charity to, were actually perverted sadistic pedophiles who had been terrorizing their children in ways no one could imagine. At this point, seemingly no family has gone unaffected: In certain sections of the neighborhood, 100 percent of families have children, and often more than one, who have been reportedly abused. I have heard reports of a family with 10 children, all claiming abuse. [...]

“One of the real tragedies of these cases is that once contamination takes place, you can’t undo it,” said Lanning. And it is clear that the case in Nahlaot has been contaminated—in other words, the facts can no longer be reliably determined—whether by the parents, whom police say are at fault for asking their children leading questions, or the police, whom the community says provided no guidance and were generally incompetent. “I believe that in most of these cases, maybe not all of them, there are seeds of truth, something happened here,” says Lanning. “And then through a complicated process, however sadly and unfortunately, the whole thing got exaggerated and embellished, and the sad result may be that someone who did bad things to children may now get away with it.” [....]a

Sexual Misconduct of Rabbi/Therapist by Dr. Klafter

Guest Post by Dr. Nachum Klafter:
[see related Dr. Klafter's critique of Rav Zilberstein's proposal for same gender therapist-client

Nachum Klafter, M.D., is Director of Psychotherapy Training at the University of Cincinnati Psychiatry Residency Training Program.  Dr. Klafter received his M.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.  He completed his specialty training in psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, where he also served as Chief Resident.  Dr. Klafter maintains a private practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.  He is the Vice President of the Cincinnati Hebrew Day School Board.  He is an active member of the Nefesh International network of Orthodox Jewish Mental Health Professionals.  Dr. Klafter’s interest in child advocacy stems from his experiences as a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, through which he has learned in intimate detail the tragic, long-term impact of child sexual abuse on its victims.  He resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife and four daughters- He also contributed a chapter to my sefer Child and Domestic Abuse Volume I

Sexual Misconduct and the Question of Rehabilitation [v3]

Hebrew U offers preparatory program for Chareidim

Jpost   The Hebrew University launched a special pre-academic preparatory program this week aimed at members of the haredi community wishing to enroll in institutions of higher education.

A project of the university’s Magid Institute for Continuing Education, the initiative was created in response to the national challenge issued by the Council for Higher Education in Israel to increase ultra-Orthodox society’s access to higher education.

Twenty haredi men began their studies on Wednesday in a newly renovated building near the Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus, and a contingent of women are expected to join the program later this year. [...]

In a recent study, the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies found that the failure of haredi schools to teach core curriculum subjects was one of the main factors in low male haredi employment.

According to the Bank of Israel, the rate of employment for haredi men in 2011 was 45.6 percent, as compared to a national average of 77.7%.

Weberman trial - video

Weberman trial - Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal Weberman is accused of sexually abusing the girl dozens of times in his home and office over a three-year span beginning when she was 12 years old. The girl, who turns 18 next week, is not being identified because she is the victim of a sexual-abuse crime.

The teen testified she was taken to see Weberman after school leaders deemed her a problem after she questioned her religion.

“I had a lot of questions about religion. … How do you know God exists?” she said, adding that in response her teacher “yelled at me and sent me to the principal. It happened to me a lot of times.”

She started seeing Weberman in March 2007, first twice a week and sometimes up to four times a week.

Speaking in almost inaudible tones and at times struggling to hold back tears, she described the alleged abuse in detail for more than three hours.

“I just froze,” she said about their first encounter. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know how to fight back. I was numb.”

“He would continue touching me all the time,” she said, adding later, “I wanted to die rather than live with myself.”

Weberman trial - first day of testimony

NYTimes   This time, people said that they came because they had read on victims’ advocacy blogs that the victim needed support or heard about her case through publicity surrounding a fund-raiser for Mr. Weberman in May. 

Though the young woman’s parents had asked her to drop the case as recently as this spring, the victim testified, about 20 members of her family came to show their support in court. 

“The anger has reached a level where people have decided to put an end to making the victim into the villain,” said Judy Genut, an advocate for abuse victims in Williamsburg. 

The testimony of the young woman, who turns 18 next week, lasted for hours. 

She recalled in detail her first meeting with Mr. Weberman, now 54, at an apartment he used as an office. Her father, she testified, had brought her there for counseling at age 12 because he falsely believed she was having a physical relationship with a 16-year-old neighbor named Shimmy.[...]

She said nothing to her father when he came to pick her up, she testified under cross-examination. Nor did she tell her family she wanted to stop going to sessions, though she said the abuse went on for years, in four-hour sessions that sometimes were held several times a week. In 2011, she reported being abused to a licensed therapist, who brought her to the police. 

Psychotherapy: Branding or product problem?

Time Magazine    In a recent Sunday’s  NY Times article a psychotherapist with a freshly hung shingle describes the challenges of earning clients in a market crowded with professionals willing to listen, but with a dwindling number of patients. Her solution? Turning to a “branding consultant” who advises her, among other things, to sell herself as a specialist treating a particular type of patient and to start doing “life coaching” instead. But the trend toward “branding” may be diverting attention away from deeper problems with psychotherapy that are dissuading people from trying it and discouraging insurers from paying for sessions.

In the article, therapist Lori Gottlieb writes:

    What nobody taught me in grad school was that psychotherapy, a practice that had sustained itself for more than a century, is losing its customers. If this came as a shock to me, the American Psychological Association tried to send out warnings in a 2010 paper titled, “Where Has all the Psychotherapy Gone?”

    According to the author, 30 percent fewer patients received psychological interventions in 2008 than they did 11 years earlier; since the 1990s, managed care has increasingly limited visits and reimbursements for talk therapy but not for drug treatment…Three months into private practice, I had exactly four regular weekly clients.

Her branding consultant tells her “Nobody wants to buy therapy anymore. They want to buy a solution to a problem.” [...]

[However] If therapists like Gottlieb want to attract patients, they need to consider that sometimes the problem isn’t the branding, but the product itself.

Jacob Ostreicher case: High Bolivian official arrested

Boston Globe   LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — A high-ranking Bolivian official was arrested Monday for alleged illegal enrichment from the sale of rice seized from a U.S. businessman who has been jailed for 18 months without charge.

The American, Jacob Ostreicher, was arrested in a money-laundering investigation but no evidence has been presented in court to support the case against him. He claims his incarceration has allowed corrupt officials to fleece him, seizing 18,000 metric tons of rice from his farming venture and selling most of it.

The man arrested Monday and accused of receiving $9,900 in proceeds in a personal bank account from the sale of some of Ostreicher’s rice is Jose Manuel Antezana, an official in the Presidential Ministry who was named to the board of directors of the state-run Cartonbol cardboard company in 2010.

Prosecutor Javier Monasterios told reporters that authorities were investigating others in the case.

Ostreicher told The Associated Press that prosecutors told him there would be more arrests and that 11 people ‘‘who work for the government are under suspicion’’ for allegedly abuses of authority in his case.

Weberman abuse trial starts in Brooklyn

NYTimes   The abuse began when the girl was 12 years old, prosecutors in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said on Monday. She was sent to a prominent man in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community for counseling, and prosecutors said the man sexually molested her over the next three years.

But lawyers defending the man, Nechemya Weberman, 54, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told a far different story during the opening arguments of his trial. The girl, a defense lawyer told the jury, had hatched the sordid tale of abuse as an act of revenge against Mr. Weberman and against a religious community she found stifling and rulebound. 

As proceedings began during the trial of Mr. Weberman, who is accused of 88 counts of sexual abuse of a minor, it became clear that the community itself, as well as Mr. Weberman, would undergo scrutiny during what is expected to be an emotional week of sexually explicit and culturally intricate testimony.

Both the prosecution and the defense informed the jury that the Satmar Hasidic community, to which Mr. Weberman and the girl belonged, was so rigid that questions from a young girl about something as simple as the proper length of a skirt could lead to mandatory counseling, and even expulsion from school. The accuser in this case, both sides said, was just that kind of girl: a free spirit whose questioning and challenges to authority landed her in trouble. [...]