Suspected Modesty Squad members arrested in Beitar

YNET    Two ultra-Orthodox men were arrested Monday for allegedly heading a "modesty squad" that terrorized the female residents of Beitar Illit over what they deemed their "immodest behavior."

The two, both in their 30s, are believed to be responsible for what the police called "a reign or terror."

The two are suspected of a line of violent acts including threats, beatings, kidnappings and more, against what they perceive are indecent women, and at times – men.

The suspects allegedly followed the conduct of the city's residents and decided to "educate" those who did not live up to their standards of modesty.

 According to the case file, the two would watch people's conduct in the streets, the way they dressed, the manner in which they sat on public transportation, their use of language and more.


update YNET Mayor of Beitar alleged to have known about modesty squad and protected it

Office Shooting Video: Run - Hide - Fight!

R. Leib Tropper - educator at RJJ elementary school

Update: Text on Tropper's blog now says "educated at the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef Elementary School" instead of "educator".

Update in light of some comments in the comments section

Daas Torah February 25, 2013 at 11:29 AM

Yisroel's comments concerning this shows that he is a shoteh. However Monseylite raises some of the same concerns I mentioned in the post itself. The issue is whether there is any benefit of mentioning the terrible chillul hashem that an individual once did. Monseylite says "its over" " I don't think it's fair to bring him up again and open up another chance for people to shoot arrows at him."
I disagree. Tropper's crime was not a momentary loss of control where he might have taken money that wasn't his. It wasn't an aberration of the situational temptation of eating treif food or selling it. His crime involved the systematic and intentional corruption of Orthodox Judaism and some of the most well know and important gedolim within that system primarily with money but also with kavod and power over others concerning conversion.
For these types of crimes not only is his repentance dependent on the facts of his crime being well known- but something more important. When I traveled to America after the Tropper affair I was confronted with an amazing reality - almost no one I met had heard of the disaster. I am not talking about tzadikim and masmidim who are detached from awareness of scandal. The people ignorant of this historic event were people who pride themselves with knowing what goes on in the frum world. As one American godol who was intimately involved in the events put it, it was event that involved too many big people and involved too much of the system to be publicized. In the vernacular -Eternal Jewish Family and Tropper were too big to fail. But he did. And it caused one of the most negative lowering of rabbinic status, respect and authority of anything else in the last 50 years- if not more.
Furthermore the response of gedolim - not only those in involved - was a concerted effort to silence comment and coverup the crimes that were done. There was not a single comment of apology from a single gadol who was involved in the fiasco except to say what happened wasn't really such a big deal.

So for all of these reasons and more I respectfully disagree with monseylite and his "let's be adult in our midos" approach.
If he has any actual sources that say that this event should be erased from our collective memory, that it serves no purpose to remind the public periodically what happened and that it is wrong to Tropper (who to the best of my knowledge is not a baal teshuva in this matter) to remind him of his past when warning others of what can happened when the rabbinic system loses its transparency and is concerned primarily with power, influence and money - please educate us.

Those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it.

The Torah prescribes punishment for crimes that serve as a warning and consciousness raising exercise so that the crimes are not done again.

As Rav Moshe Feinstein put it - "even if a murderer did genuine teshuva - he is still executed." It is still publicized that he was a murderer or any other type of criminal - even though this has disastrous consequences on his family.

Update: Rabbi Micha Berger wrote:  Dr Marvin Schick's email address is on his blog, so it took no work to contact him and ask. Here was his reply:

Leib Tropper does not teach at the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School on Staten Island and to my knowledge has never taught there. Nor does he hold any other position at the school. I hope that this makes the matter clear.
 ===========================
 I was recently given a shock when someone sent me a page from Rabbi Tropper's Blog where he proclaims in the upper right hand corner that he is currently an "Educator at the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef Elementary School". That is where his father taught first grade for 30 years.  He also notes that "He is involved in the Character First project, which promotes good character in young people

At the time that the tapes of R' Tropper were circulating the internet and it was clear that he was involved in behavior incompatible with being a spiritual leader  - someone approached a gadol who was associated with Eternal Jewish Family and asked him what he was doing to remove him from leadership of the group.  The gadol unsurprisingly wasn't convinced that he was guilty but said that even if he were guilty - so what? A shikse is not an issur doreissa. He was then asked - well how could he be a rosh yeshiva? The gadol incredibly answerered  that even if he was guilty as charged but since he was not teaching his students immoral behavior or encouraging them to do so - there was no need to remove him!

Basically I am asking this as a question - not claiming that this as the halacha for him. The facts of what has happened are public knowledge for most of my readers and Rav Sternbuch had told me to publicize the facts of his misdeeds

Has the scandal been so successfully covered up that in fact there is no problem with him having an official position of a Torah teacher to children?  Would you want him to teach Torah to your children or be the rav of your shul? Or alternatively even if it is assumed that he has done teshuva [which isn't certain since he has not publicly confessed to his misdeeds] does that erase all that has happened?

When it comes to picking a shliach tzibor there are those who prohibit picking one who had sinned intentional - even if he did teshuva because of the reputation 

Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 53:5):  ... Rema: ... One who has sinned unwittingly for example he accidentally killed someone and repented - it is permitted for him to be shliach tzibor. However if he did it on purpose he can not be the shliach tzibor despite the teshuva because he has already acquired a bad name prior to doing teshuva.

The example of Rabbi Meir and his rebbe who sinned is also not clearly related to the present case since Acher never did teshuva - or at least not until the end of his life.

Bottom line. Can a person who has been involved in a major scandal involving major sins and chilul hashem - ever be given a job as a teacher or spiritual leader?

Child behaves better with less violent & more good TV

NY Times   Experts have long known that children imitate many of the deeds — good and bad — that they see on television. But it has rarely been shown that changing a young child’s viewing habits at home can lead to improved behavior.

In a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers reported the results of a program designed to limit the exposure of preschool children to violence-laden videos and television shows and increase their time with educational programming that encourages empathy. They found that the experiment reduced the children’s aggression toward others, compared with a group of children who were allowed to watch whatever they wanted.

“Here we have an experiment that proposes a potential solution,” said Dr. Thomas N. Robinson, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford, who was not involved in the study. “Giving this intervention — exposing kids to less adult television, less aggression on television and more prosocial television — will have an effect on behavior.” [...]

The new study was a randomized trial, rare in research. The researchers, at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington, divided 565 parents of children ages 3 to 5 into two groups. Both were told to track their children’s media consumption in a diary that the researchers assessed for violent, didactic and prosocial content, which they defined as showing empathy, helping others and resolving disputes without violence.

Arrest for allegedly ordering woman to back of bus

Times of Israel  Police on Sunday arrested a man suspected of ordering a woman to the back of a bus, on Friday. The woman was reportedly harassed by other passengers on the bus when she refused to move.

The incident took place when two ultra-Orthodox men ordered 22-year-old Noa Kentman to move to the back of a public bus — which was traveling from Safed to Ashdod — because of her gender. The woman filed a report with the police, resulting in the arrest of the suspect. [...]

Kentman sat at the front of the intercity coach when a couple of ultra-Orthodox men demanded that she immediately remove herself to the rear of the vehicle.

When she refused, the men shouted she was “impure,” and began reciting prayers and screaming at her.

One of the ultra-Orthodox men then sat on the front steps of the bus near the driver to deliberately sit in front of her. The woman’s younger sister called the police, who sent squad cars to intercept the bus at the entrance of the destination city.
 
See Rav Moshe Feinstein's teshuva regarding a man sitting next to a woman on a bus

Police close Modin Illit rape case

YNET   Two weeks after the Judea and Samaria District Police launched an investigation into a suspected rape of a five-year-old girl in the haredi settlement of Modiin Illit, the case has been closed.

Police decided to end the investigation after it was discovered that the woman who had made the original complaint had fabricated the story. She may face charges for her conduct.

However, the inquiry has opened the door to other suspicions. Police said that during the probe investigators had uncovered a number of cases of molestation involving children in the settlement. Police are now looking into these cases.

Rabbi Herbert Bomzer passes away - RaP

Rabbi Herbert Bomzer Passes Away 

Major Torah scholar arrested in sex sting operation

NYTimes    A rabbi has been arrested after sending sexually explicit messages online to a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl and arranging to meet her in Queens for sex, the district attorney’s office said on Thursday. Instead, a New York police detective had impersonated the girl, the authorities said.

The rabbi,  Nosson Dovid Rabinowich [Wikipedia], 59, of Brooklyn, was arrested Wednesday. He was charged with four sexual offenses, including attempted rape, the Queens district attorney’s office said in a statement. [...]

Rabbi Rabinowich runs a tour company and a synagogue from his home in the Midwood section, according to the statement. He exchanged online messages, some sexually graphic, with the detective in December and this month, the statement said.

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click here for Dr. Marc Shapiro's article regarding plagarism

Electronic retinal implant gives sight to the blind

NY Times    The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the first treatment to give limited vision to people who are blind, involving a technology called the “artificial retina.” 

With it, people with certain types of blindness can detect crosswalks on the street, burners on a stove, the presence of people or cars, and sometimes even oversized numbers or letters. 

The artificial retina is a sheet of electrodes surgically implanted in the eye. The patient is also outfitted with a pair of glasses with an attached camera and a portable video processor. These elements together allow visual signals to bypass the damaged portion of the retina and be transmitted to the brain. The F.D.A. approval covers this integrated system, which the manufacturer calls Argus II. 

The approval marks the first milestone in a new frontier in vision research, a field in which scientists are making strides with gene therapy, optogenetics, stem cells and other strategies.[...]

With the artificial retina or retinal prosthesis, a blind person cannot see in the conventional sense, but can identify outlines and boundaries of objects, especially when there is contrast between light and dark — fireworks against a night sky or black socks mixed with white ones in the laundry. 

“Without the system, I wouldn’t be able to see anything at all, and if you were in front of me and you moved left and right, I’m not going to realize any of this,” said Elias Konstantopolous, 74, a retired electrician in Baltimore, one of about 50 Americans and Europeans who have been using the device in clinical trials for several years. He said it helps him differentiate curbs from asphalt roads, and detect contours, but not details, of cars, trees and people. “When you don’t have nothing, this is something. It’s a lot.”[...]

Developed over 20 years by Dr. Mark S. Humayun, an ophthalmologist and biomedical engineer at the University of Southern California’s Doheny Retinal Institute, the artificial retina was inspired by cochlear implants for the deaf. Some financing came from a cochlear implant maker and other private sources, but about $100 million was provided by the National Eye Institute, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, all federal agencies. 

Who does Rabbi Dov Lipman of Yesh Atid speak for?

Guest Post by RaP:    The challenge of increasing progressive American Charedim in Israel

This is a trend that is only bound to continue as Aliya from America and Britain grows, how will the Hashkofas and influence of the relatively more "liberal" American graduates of Charedi yeshivos effect life of Charedim in Israel? In the past the native Charedim of Israel have required American Charedi Olim and Baalei Teshuva to submit to Israeli Charedi directives and standards and lifestyles. But this is a new challenge coming from the other side, it will not stop because there are lots more like Dov Lipman where it's coming from, it was bound to happen sooner or later and now it has, yet again.

In the past Israeli Charedim put down literary challenges from relatively moderate Western Charedi rabbis such as banning the books of Rabbis Noson Kaminetsky ("Making of a Gadol") and Noson Slifkin (the "Zoo Rabbi"), but now similar personalities are entering the political arena and creating political alliances with secular politicians and parties. Americans are PRAGMATISTS and LIBERALS (in the broadest political sense not in the narrow pejorative meaning) and they adhere and love the PRAGMATIC and OPEN way of politics and lifestyle. Americans CANNOT be dictated to, they adhere by the rules of COMPROMISE. This is something new to Israel which is more IDEOLOGICAL, RIGID and FANATICAL and it has the media and Israelis, both secular and Charedi very confused. 

One of the curious developments of the last election in Israel is that the Yesh Atid party that won 19 Knesset sets, has on its lists at least two rabbis, one of them being a young American oleh: "[Wikipedia]: Dov Lipman (Hebrew: דב ליפמן‎, born 7 July 1971) is an Israeli rabbi, author and politician. A member of Yesh Atid, he was placed seventeenth on the party's list for the 2013 Knesset elections.Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, Lipman attended the Yeshiva of Greater Washington in his hometown and completed his rabbinical studies at Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore while in a concurrent program with the Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a master's degree in Education. He immigrated to Israel in 2004."

But now Lipman has taken his cause to the Knesset and as reported by the Times of Israel (February 13, 2013), Lipman makes some radical statements, "taking the fight" to his Israeli Charedi Hashkafic opponents in UTJ: Times of Israel

In maiden speech: US-born MK calls on ultra-Orthodox to serve country

Quoting Torah sources, first American expat legislator in 30 years exhorts Haredim to embrace army service and join labor market

MK Rabbi Dov Lipman, the first American-born Israeli member of parliament in 30 years, delivered his inaugural Knesset speech Wednesday, recalling his family’s immigration to Israel eight years ago and urging the ultra-Orthodox community to give up its opposition to the universal draft and to join the workforce.

Quoting sources from the Torah and biblical commentators about the value of work and the need for soldiers to protect the nation, Lipman (Yesh Atid) exhorted the Haredi parties to accept proposals that end blanket draft exemptions for yeshiva students and encouraged them to join the army and/or participate in some sort of national service.

“Everyone, including yeshiva students, is obligated to contribute to the state through military or civil service,” the 41-year-old Maryland native said in perfect Hebrew but with a thick American accent. “I am proud to be an MK for a party that has a visionary leader who understands the time has come to restore the true Jewish tradition, which combines Torah with work.”

Lipman, who received rabbinic ordination from Baltimore’s Orthodox Ner Israel Rabbinical College, then turned to his fellow Haredi MKs and called on them to cooperate with his party’s plan to introduce universal conscription. “There is no ‘we’ and ‘you.’ There are no two sides. We are brothers; we’re all Jews,” he said.

Most Haredim know full well that their children will not be able to exclusively study Torah all their lives, he said, adding that pious Jews in the US combine rigorous religious study with university education and the pursuit of a livelihood. “There is no contradiction between the two.”

Lipman, who is known in the English-speaking Israeli community for his activism against Haredi extremism in his hometown of Beit Shemesh, devoted a significant portion of his 12-minute speech to his family’s aliya experience...

After his speech, several MKs from Yesh Atid and other parties rose to their feet and congratulated Lipman. Many male legislators hugged Lipman, while his female colleagues handed him flowers, respecting the belief of ultra-Orthodox men they are not allowed to touch women.

As is customary for an incoming MK’s maiden speech, Lipman was lauded by a fellow lawmaker from a different party upon concluding his remarks.

MK Isaac Herzog (Labor) praised Lipman for his activism in Beit Shemesh and said he viewed Lipman as a continuation of MKs who represent English-speaking Jews in the Knesset, including his late father Haim Herzog (who was born in Belfast) and his uncle Abba Eban (who was born in Cape Town.)

“You represent a very important stream in the Jewish world, that of Haredim from English-speaking countries who follow in the footsteps of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of blessed memory and many other great rabbis, which understands the synthesis of the modern world and its complexities and Judaism in the widest and deepest sense,” Herzog said. “It’s a difficult and very complicated challenge.”

So AT THIS POINT IN TIME, here are some questions for Rabbi Dov Lipman: Who does Rabbi Dov Lipman REALLY speak for? The Ner Yisroel Yeshiva in Baltimore he got semicha from? The Agudas Yisroel of America that Ner Yisroel is part of?? For All American Charedim in Israel? Some? None? Crucially, how does Lipman reconcile his status within a party led by Yair Lapid who wants to impose even more draconian and radical changes on the Israeli Charedi world such as accepting Reform and Conservative Judaism and their conversions and "rabbis"?? As Isaac Herzog, stated, it's a big challenge but it will not stop. A new age is dawning in Israel, but what kind? One of more problems or with more solutions? More Kiddush HaShem or more Chillul HaShem?? No one really seems to know right now, but we can all actually feel the Earth shifting seismically below us. No doubt it!

New Dangers of False Conversions & Enforced Religious Pluralism in Israel

Guest Post by RaP:   Great Tefilos and Rachamei Shomayim are needed !!! The old time "Status Quo" arrangement started in the times of Ben Gurion and the Chazon Ish, is facing an onslaught.

Not just from those who want to enlist the Charedim into the Israeli Army, but an emboldened and brazen push (actually an attempted "putsch" or "silent coup") to overthrow the entire balance of power between religion and state, between the shrinking secular majority and the growing religious minority in Israel as it has existed by common consent and political arrangements since 1948.

HaRav Ovadia Yosef has recently openly stated that Yair Lapid "Hates the Yeshivot" and that "Bayit HaYehudi" is a "Home of Goyim" but it is actually far worse than that! Lapid desires nothing less than a complete overturn and destruction of Torah Judaism as it is known, or as it knows itself, with every new provocative statement or speech he makes. While Bennett naively tags along and thinks he can have his cake and eat it to as Lapid's ally. This is a very dangerous and pivotal moment in the history of Am Yisrael, Klal Yisrael, Bnai Yisrael and Medinas Yisrael. Take just two current reports about the "plans" of Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid and its "alliance" with Naftali Bennett of Bayit Yehudi.

See how Lapid, who has never been a politician and heads a party of political novices, talks as if he knows all there is to know about theology, God, Jewish Law, and Judaism. He may be an effective journalist and TV anchor but he is not known to have studied any religion or anything else at any higher, or lower, or known institution of Jewish or secular learning either in Israel or outside of it, yet he feels he can  make the most radical statements about changing Judaism, Jewish conversions and about what is Judaism and anything else that comes into his head!

As reported in Israel National News: "Lapid: I’ll Push Civil Marriage, Reform Judaism (2/12/2013) Israel National News

...Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, spoke Tuesday at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, held at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem. Lapid declared that his political agenda includes making the Reform and Conservative movements – both popular in the United States – equal to orthodox Judaism in terms of state support. 'I want to do everything in my power to ensure the equality between all movements of Judaism in the state of Israel, Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform,' he declared. 'In conversions, in budgets, in the eyes of the law. No one can claim ownership over the Jewish God.' 'Small, old, petty politics cannot determine something that is eternal as is the Jewish identity, this is just wrong,' he added. Conservative and Reform Judaism differ from traditional Judaism on principles of belief such as the divine origin of the Torah and of the Oral Law. They also differ significantly regarding conversion to Judaism, and Reform and Conservative conversions are generally not recognized as valid by orthodox rabbis, who say converts must agree to full observance of Jewish law (halacha). Lapid also said that he plans to promote civil marriage in Israel. Currently Israel recognizes marriages performed under the auspices of a recognized religion within Israel, and any marriage registered abroad whether religious or not. The 'complete dominance of orthodox rabbis' over marriage “is an insult,' Lapid argued."

Add this to Lapid's alliance with the Bayit Yehudi party, a political successor to the Religious Zionist parties, that should be protecting Orthodox Torah life and values and not attacking them, whose 11 out of 12 members are Religious Zionists, some are rabbis:

As Israel National News reports: "Bennett and Lapid a Package Deal (2/14/2013)Israel national news

...Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have created a pact between their two parties, agreeing that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will have either both of their parties in his coalition or neither, political sources have told Arutz Sheva. Together, the two have 31 seats. Netanyahu’s chances of putting together a coalition without either party are not considered good. Bennett and Lapid banded together due to a shared interest in preventing Netanyahu from creating a coalition that excluded one of them in favor of hareidi-religious or left-wing parties..."

For all the above reasons and many more, it is fitting that between Chanuka and Purim, when the Jewish People were saved from all sorts of decrees to "change" them, that all Jews who care about the fate of the Jewish People fervently pray for the same miracles of salvation by HKB"H.

PTSD treated with injection of anesthetic (SGB)

Time  [See previous article]  The latest edition of the medical journal Psychiatric Annals features military researchers discussing how a procedure known as stellate ganglion block can effectively treat post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD).

Injecting a local anesthetic agent into the sympathetic nerve tissue at the base of the neck — a so-called stellate ganglion block (or SGB) – acts to numb signals which travel to centers deep in the brainstem and brain, commonly thought to be most responsible for PTSD.

The prospect of using a medical procedure to treat PTSD would be a paradigm shift for psychiatry.

That PTSD can be thought of an injury – something whose symptoms could be alleviated by injecting numbing medicine – would support the assertion that former Vice Army Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli has been advocating for some time that PTSD should be renamed PTSI – with an I for injury.

“It might seem counterintuitive that treating the peripheral nervous system could affect psychiatric conditions presumably mediated in the brain,” writes Dr. Cam Ritchie, my colleague and retired Army psychiatrist, in a press release for the journal heralding the news.

Reaction to Channel 4's expose of Haredi sex abuse

Tests in Mice Misled Researchers on 3 Diseases

NYTimes    For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report stunning evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers — sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years and billions of dollars have been wasted following false leads, they say.

The study does not mean that mice are useless models for all human diseases. But, its authors said, it does raise troubling questions about diseases like the ones in the study that involve the immune system, including cancer and heart disease. [...]

The paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps explain why every one of nearly 150 drugs tested at huge expense in patients with sepsis has failed. The drug tests all were based on studies in mice. And mice, it turns out, have a disease that looks like sepsis in humans, but is very different from the human disease.

Medical experts not associated with the study said that the findings should change the course of research worldwide for a deadly and frustrating disorder. Sepsis afflicts 750,000 patients a year in the United States, kills a quarter to half of them, and costs the nation $17 billion a year. It is the leading cause of death in intensive-care units. [...]

Some researchers, reading the paper now, say they are as astonished as the researchers were when they saw the data.

“When I read the paper, I was stunned by just how bad the mouse data are,” Dr. Fink said. “It’s really amazing – no correlation at all. These data are so persuasive and so robust that I think funding agencies are going to take note.” Until now, he said, “to get funding, you had to propose experiments using the mouse model.”