Explaining abuse & Weberman case - Yiddish letter

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Explaining abuse and Weberman case

School to pay $6.9 million for negligence in abuse case

LA Times   A jury has awarded $6.9 million to a 14-year-old boy who was molested by a Los Angeles Unified School District teacher when he was a fifth-grade student.

The judgment, among the largest ever awarded in a district molestation case, comes at a time when L.A. Unified faces close to 200 pending molestation and lewd conduct claims arising from another teacher's alleged conduct at Miramonte Elementary School.

Tuesday's jury award stems from acts committed by Forrest Stobbe, a veteran teacher at Queen Anne Place Elementary School in the Mid-Wilshire area. In September 2011, Stobbe pleaded no contest to two counts of a lewd act on a child and to continuous sexual abuse of a child younger than 14. He is currently serving a 16-year sentence in prison.

The case turned on how much responsibility the school system bore, and whether district employees should have recognized warning signs that Stobbe posed a threat to the boy. Attorneys for the school system insisted that district staff acted in a professional and appropriate manner and could not have known what Stobbe was doing.

French Psychiatrist guilty over Murder by Patient

BBC   A French court has found a psychiatrist guilty of involuntary homicide over a murder by one of her patients.

Daniele Canarelli was given a suspended prison sentence of one year, in the first case of its kind in France.

Her patient Joel Gaillard murdered a man in March 2004, 20 days after Gaillard fled a consultation with Canarelli at a hospital in Marseille.

Canarelli's lawyers said the verdict would lead to harsher treatment of patients by psychiatrists.

While accepting that there was no such thing as "zero risk" in such cases and that doctors could not predict the actions of their patients, the court found that Canarelli had made several mistakes in Gaillard's treatment.

In contrast to other medical professionals who have to make quick judgements about their patients, Canarelli had a longer period of time during which she should have realised Gaillard's treatment was failing, the court found. [...]

Schlesinger custody battle - Is she mentally ill?

 Help Beth and Her Boys - her blog with documents

update January 8, 2013

Times of Israel  Beth Schlesinger was at a Vienna play center with her 2-year-old twins, Samuel and Benjamin, when the phone rang. Her husband, Michael, had won custody of the children, social services said, and she needed to hand them over immediately.

Because her lawyer was away, Schlesinger phoned the only friendly face she could think of, a local rabbi, and headed home. The scene, she says 18 months later, was “barbaric.” Four policemen turned up with her husband as she fed her sons supper, and the children were taken without any of their belongings. She was crying, she says, and so was the rabbi.

Because she had not been awarded visitation rights, it was eight weeks until she saw the children again.

Since then, the couple — who had a Jewish divorce, but are still civilly married — have conducted a bitter custody battle that is beginning to draw media attention in Austria, and in the Jewish press in the UK, where Beth Schlesinger grew up. Her supporters, some of whom launched a public campaign on her behalf last month, claim that removing the children was highly irregular, and that they should be returned. [...]

Beth, 28, and her Austrian husband separated in February 2010, after three years of marriage. Schlesinger claims she fled to a women’s shelter, and that the marriage dissolved after the police were called to their apartment the following day. The custody dispute originates in Michael’s claims that his wife was mentally ill and suffered from post-partum depression. A court in Vienna commissioned an 80-page psychologist’s assessment, which concluded that Beth was indeed mentally unwell, delusional in her claims about how her husband treated her, and that she was not capable of raising children.

She now sees her sons every second Sunday and once during the week, with no overnight visits.

A gynecologist has told the court that there was no post-partum depression, and two privately commissioned psychological assessments have found that Schlesinger does not suffer from mental illness. A court-commissioned report, issued in mid-November, has said the same, with Dr. Werner Leixnering concluding that she had “neither at the time of examination nor at any time in the past, any form of mental illness.”

Why Amram married his aunt if the Torah prohibits it?

Me'or V'Shemesh (Shemos 6:20): And Amram took his aunt Yocheved for a wife and she gave birth to Aharon and to Moshe. It is an old question as to why Amram married his aunt when that would be a prohibited relationship with the Giving of the Torah. This is especially problematic when the offspring of this marriage would be none other than Moshe and Aaron through whom the Torah would be given. A possible answer is based on what I heard from one of the senior tzadikim of our times. He asked why it was permitted for a man to marry his niece – the daughter of his brother or sister – but it was prohibited to marry his aunt. He answered there are two major forces in the world – Male and Female [or Giver and Receiver]. The Receiver of influence is on a lower level than the Giver.  This is true of all such pairings that the one who influences has to be greater than the one who receives the influence. Therefore it is permitted to marry the daughter of his brother or sister because he is the Giver and she receives from him. That is because he is on a higher level than she in the development of the generation.  Similarly he is prohibited to marry his aunt so that the Receiver is not on a higher level than the Giver. In truth this is the way it is in the world when there is a relationship of a Giver and Receiver – the Giver is on a higher level than the Receiver. However in the realm of Torah learning, it is not necessarily so. That is because there are times when the student is much greater than the teacher. Furthermore it is the purpose of learning Torah that one should humble oneself and be able to learn from everyone – even if they are inferior to him as it says in Tehilim (119:99), From all my students I have learned. Therefore Amram alluded this to us through his marriage to his aunt who was on a higher level than him - so that there would come from them the source of the Torah through Moshe. This is the nature of Torah learning – that a great person should not be embarrassed to receive from someone who is inferior to him.

Weberman verdict: Hynes vs R Nuchem Rosenberg

NY Times   Sitting for an interview with Ami, a Jewish magazine, Mr. Hynes gave the side of his hand to “some absolute clown at The Daily News” who had written editorials criticizing his inaction on the Hasids. And he aimed an elbow at The New York Times, saying its long explorations of his handling of such cases and the shielding of the names of Hasidic molesters were “silly” and “dishonest.”  

Let’s give the district attorney his recent due. A week ago, his office convicted a leader in the Satmar community, Nechemya Weberman, of many counts of molesting. This prosecution owed nothing in particular to his investigators; the young and exceptionally courageous woman in question came forward and insisted on testifying. 

Still, Mr. Hynes is to be congratulated. 

I mention this to Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg and he rolls his eyes. For nearly two decades, this Hasidic rabbi, a member of the Satmar sect, challenged his community’s silence and complicity. Until recently, he and a handful of courageous ultra-Orthodox crusaders and families were alone.

“Charles Hynes rides our chariot and claims victory,” the rabbi says. “He stands up and says ‘I’m doing a pheeeeeenomonal job.’ 

“But for so many years, we had no one.”

Dancing Rabbis make Judaism relevant [VIDEO]

Palestinian killed attacking border guards [VIDEO]

 Tablet Magazine

Dead Sea Scrolls available online

http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/home

Funeral for Noah Pozner Age 6

Washington Post   The long and sad task of burying the children killed in the Newtown massacre began Monday afternoon, under dreary gray skies. 

The first two children’s funerals took place 25 miles apart, one in this city on Long Island Sound, and one in Newtown itself.

Here in Fairfield, family and friends gathered to remember Noah Pozner, the very youngest of the shooting’s young victims. Noah had just turned 6 on Nov. 20. He had a twin sister who survived the attack. [....]

 Veronique Pozner’s memories of her son brought many mourners to tears, several said after the service.

“She said ‘Whenever I used to tell him I love you, his answer would be, ‘Not as much as I love you’,” Rabbi Edgar Gluck, a clergyman attending the funeral, recounted after the service, which was closed to the media.

“It was very powerful — everybody had tears in their eyes,” Gluck added. “If you didn’t, you weren’t human.”

Must husband be informed of wife's adultery II - Ben Ish Chai

[See previous post of Rav Fisher and Rav Wosner]    Rav Pe'alim (E.H. 1:1): ... Question: A man sinned with a married woman a number of times and afterwards repented. He came to a talmid chachom to be told how to properly repent for doing this sin. He told the talmid chachom that he had been involved in an adulterous relationship and the question arises as to whether the lover is obligated to tell the husband that his wife had committed adultery. Perhaps he would believe him and divorce his wife and thus be saved from sinning through ignorance. Furthermore if the lover absolutely refuses to tell the husband because of a number of reasons – is there an obligation of the talmid chachom who heard the confession to tell the husband because he might be believed and therefore divorce his wife. Or alternatively should the husband not be told since it will lead to fights and conflict. That is because if the husband believes the accusation he will obviously have to explain the reason he wants a divorce and his wife will definitely deny the accusations and thus there will be fights and arguments – especially if she has children from her husband. Thus it will result in a stain on the family reputation and who knows what will result from this controversy. Consequently it is necessary to see whether there is a leniency that can be relied upon not to reveal the adultery or not. Answer: I saw that the Noda B’Yehuda (1:35) was asked a similar question. A person who was involved in an adulterous relationship and now is married to the daughter of the woman. He wanted to know whether he had to tell his father in law that he needed to divorce his wife or was it better to remain silent since the family was a distinguished family and they had children who were important in Torah and with high reputation. Consequently there is concern that the revelation would destroy the reputation of the family. Therefore in order to avoid the severe embarrassment to them it would be best that this repentant sinner should do nothing and not tell his father in law anything. The Nodah B’Yehuda replied that is was obvious that human dignity can only be considered when a person is not actively sinning.... He added that when the person sinning i.e., the husband – is unaware of the sin it is a major dispute between the Rambam and the Rosh concerning a person who is unaware that he is wearing kelayim in the street.... Therefore according to the Rosh it is best to be silent because of the degradation of the family while the Rambam would obligate notifying the husband to prevent him from sinning... It is important to note that the Noda B’Yehuda is generalizing from the case of kelayim. However it appears to me that there are significant differences between the two cases. In the case of kelayim the person directly sees that the person is wearing kelayim but in the case of adultery he doesn’t see the transgression since intercourse doesn’t take place in front of him. Perhaps the husband doesn’t have relations with his wife at all because of some other factor that interferes. This is also reasonable to assume in the case of the Noda B’Yehuda since the husband was already an old man. There is an additional doubt in that we are not sure that if the information is revealed to the husband that he will believe it and if he doesn’t then it doesn’t help as the Nodah B’Yehuda mentions himself. Thus we have a double doubt. 1) The first is whether the husband is actually going to have intercourse with his unfaithful wife for whatever reason. 2) And even if you say he will have intercourse it is uncertain that he will believe it and divorce her.            Furthermore the Noda B’Yehuda wants to distinguish between the obligation to tell the husband between the lover himself who created the problem and people in general. But it is also not clear that this is true. Because it is possible that the woman committed adultery before this with another man and thus she was already prohibited to her husband before the present adulterous relationship. Furthermore there is basis to object to the approach of the Noda B’Yehuda in learning the halacha from kelayim – but I don’t have time to go into detail.  Briefly, where there is disgrace to the family then the halachic reason of human dignity exists and because of the concern that the husband might not believe the information and therefore will not divorce her.  Consequently there is a need to find a leniency for both the lover and the talmid chachom who heard the confession not to reveal the information. A possible basis is the Maharish (Sho’el U’Meishiv Kama #262) that some rishonim hold that if the adultery was not witnessed then she is not prohibited to her husband and therefore the husband does no sin when he has relations with his adulterous wife. He cites the Bnei Ahuvim (Chapter 24 of Hilchos Ishus) that has an extensive discussion of this. Consequently regarding the case of the Noda B’Yehuda where the husband doesn’t know about his wife adultery and there were no witnesses she committed adultery – the lover is not obligated to tell the husband. That is because it is possible to rely on these rishonim who hold that there is no prohibition for the husband to have relations with his adulterous wife when there are no witnesses and surely this is true when this is combined with the reasons mentioned before of disgrace of the family and embarrassment. An additional factor is that the lover does not see with his own eyes that the husband is having relations with his wife because perhaps there are reasons that he is no longer able to. Finally there is the reason that it isn’t certain that the husband will believe him. I am surprised that the Nodah B’Yehuda does not mention the reasoning of the Maharish that there are gedolim who say that the wife is not prohibited to the husband when the adultery has no witnesses. I also surprised to see that the Chida (Chaim Shaul 2:48) also doesn’t mention the Maharish... You should also be aware that you cannot utilize the view of the Ran (Nedarim 3) who says that when the husband doesn’t believe the wife assertion that she committed adultery that the Kiddushin is abrogated and she becomes like an unmarried woman- because the Ran himself rejects this reasoning as the Chida points out. However based on those who say that if she committed adultery without witnesses she is not prohibited to her husband when combined with the other reasons we mentioned – she is not prohibited to her husband. Consequently concerning our question, we can state that the lover and surely the talmid chachom who heard his confession – do not have to reveal the adultery to the husband - based on all the reasons we have mentioned...