Ricki Lake Interviews Michoel and Chava about their "Unconventional" Orthodox Jewish Marriage

The Lubavitcher Rebbe Discussing Mothers and Children

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Help Beth

Part of the transcript: "It is the mother who carries the child for nine months with all the pain involved the entire development and growth....is dependent on the mother's exertion. Therefore, by common sense - even if the child were not fully dependent on the mother for the first several years of life - the child's very existence, its development in the womb and its birth depended completely on the mother.... Common sense dictates that this is reason for the mother's nationality to determine the child's. So a group of men come along - and what is mire bizarre, some women - and have decided that they'll rearrange the natural order. They insist that the mother is irrelevant, but rather if the father is of a certain nationality, then this should determine the child's people. This defies logic, it defies common sense. The greatest injustice, the greatest crime that can be perpetrated upon a mother is to rob her of her child for whom she toiled through the pains of pregnancy and labor for nine months, with the sheer will to bring a child into the world. Now a few people come along and say: "No! Why should it be this way? We will gather a committee and decide this by vote. And with the committee's vote we will change the nature of another couple's child." It is unheard of! This is not a religious issue - although it is certainly fundamental to Judaism - it affects even those who, for whatever reason, are not involved in Judaism or who are non-Jewish, belonging to a different nation. When people are convening or organizing to "decide" to what People a child will belong - all the women of the entire world should raise an outcry - and certainly they eventually will - to categorically reject such a possibility."

Further discourse:
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/player_cdo/aid/355453/jewish/The-Jewish-Woman-Part-1.htm

http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/player_cdo/aid/355453/jewish/The-Jewish-Woman-Part-2.htm

Schlesinger Twins: Who is Judge Konstanze Thau?

Help Beth   Excerpts 

Thau's Involvement in the case of the Schlesinger Twins

The Austrian newspaper, Heute, reported back in 2013: "This newspaper can now reveal the findings of our research: For months a high court judge (name known) has intervened on the side of the father (the high court judge is a good friend of the ex-husband)."

In fact, according to this post, "judge Konstanze Thau (who has no legal position in the case) was a family friend of Schlesinger's, and was advising him as admitted by Schlesinger in court and documented in the court transcripts."

Back in 2013, an investigation was lodged to investigate her involvement in the case although it is not clear whether any investigation was actually carried out or left to fade away. The article reads: 'Lawyer Dr Helmut Krenn said the case has been suspended while the court investigates whether the judge, Susanne Goettlicher, acted improperly by allowing another judge, Konstanze Thau, to intervene in the case. Dr Krenn said: “I applied to transfer the case to another court because of the intervention.”'

Judge Thau was frequently mentioned during the Debate in British Parliament as having made inappropriate communication with the people involved in the case.

Dr Ulrike Willinger (the psychologist responsible for writing a since-discredited 80 page criticism of the mother which heavily contributed to the 2011 custody decision) was an employee of Kenneth Thau, Konstanze Thau's husband. It seems odd that the judge specifically commissioned Dr Willinger to write the report and was never highlighted as a conflict of interest. This raises even more questions as this report has since been independently proven to be wildly inaccurate in favor of Mr Schlesinger. The custody decision was never reversed despite this underpinning report containing dubious findings.

There is further evidence to suggest that Konstanze Thau was working behind the scenes by the fact that Chabad Rabbi Biderman felt it necessary to forward the mother's private emails to her: http://helpbeth.blogspot.co.uk/p/court-document-rabbi-biderman-sent.html.

Frum Follies fabricates another lie - Adina Cohen

Frum Follies has been carrying a story regarding Adina Cohen who has defended Meisels. This is a fact and I am not disputing it. The story has also been carried on the Rare View Blog where Adina's father comments that Adina's mother had been murdered in Jerusalem in 2010 and that Meisels had been very supportive of her. He also notes that he has stopped her from further public comments on the matter.

 My objection to Lopin is the false story he has fabricated around Adina Cohen.

He claims she is a madricha at Chedvas one of the four seminaries and thus he slams the principal - Rabbi Kahane - for continuing to employ her. He also slams the Israeli Beis Din for ignoring an employee at Rabbi Kahane's seminary who supports Meisels.

These are Lopin's words:

Last week I posted a mass email by Adina Cohen, a madricha (dormitory counselor) in the Meisels seminary, Chedvas Bais Yaakov, directed by Rabbi Meir Kahane. In this email Adina appealed for support for Rabbi (sic) Elimelech Meisels as if he merited respect, as if he was innocent of serious allegations of sexual abuse, as if he still deserved to be called a rabbi. This concerns me because a staff that denies anything happened  is telling students they  will not be believed if they report abuse.

I am amazed that any seminary would employ such a dorm counselor. It does not square with the Israeli Beit Din position that “There is no cause to refrain from sending girls to study and dorm in these seminaries. It can be confidently assumed that the distinguished staff does its work trustworthily and it will continue to educate Jewish daughters for Torah and purposefulness.”

Obviously the Israeli Beis Din missed this miscreant. One can only wonder how many others they missed. It is clear that their blanket endorsement of staff is based on a very restrictive understanding of proof and a presumption of acceptability  (chezkas kashrus). But their flowery language deceives the public into believing that the staff are great. In reality a number of those staff are just not provably guilty because other staff and starry -eyed, mean alumni and students are intimidating witnesses into silence.

The above constitutes an outrageous lie. She is not working at the seminaries. She never worked and is not presently a madricha in Chedvas. She actually had nothing to do with Chedvas since her year in Seminary. She WAS a madricha in Binas but she is now living in Baltimore Maryland. Thus her letter has nothing to do with the ruling of the Beis Din regarding the seminaries. It has nothing to do with Rabbi Kahane. It has nothing to do with the integrity and competence of the Israeli Beis Din. But it does have to do with Lopin's vendetta against Rabbi Kahane and the seminaries as well as the Israeli Beis Din.

It is incredible reading the self-righteous commentators on Frum Follies as well as the Rare View who jump through hoops trying to be more "brilliant" than  the next in their comments and express greater horror at the awesome significance of this "employee" that Lopin has discovered. Everybody seems to take it as a given that anything that Lopin states must be true when in fact it is a lie. However now that I have exposed the lie - I doubt that any of them - especially Truthseeker - will apologize for babbling slanderous and false comments. They are only concerned with ways to slander others - because the facts are not what is important to them - it is the fun of being self-righteous.

Rolling Stone Tries to Regroup After Campus Rape Article Is Disputed

NY Times      Started nearly a half-century ago as a chronicle of 1960s counterculture, Rolling Stone established its journalistic credibility with provocative coverage of politics and current affairs.[...]

The magazine seemed to have struck again last month with a vivid account of a young woman who said she was gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity party, a story that helped drive the national debate over the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. [ Original Rolling Stone article with apology]

 

But late last week Rolling Stone found itself facing a crisis that threatened its reputation as a place for serious, significant journalism. Faced with reporting in The Washington Post that appeared to undermine crucial details of the accuser’s account, and a rebuttal of some aspects from the fraternity, the magazine published a note to readers on Friday saying that it had reservations about the article. It also acknowledged that it had erred in relying solely on the word of the accuser, named only as Jackie, and in agreeing not to try to contact the men she accused. 

“I have serious questions about what happened, and I am at this point not ready to say what happened that night,” the magazine’s managing editor, Will Dana, said in an interview Friday. “There should never be a story in Rolling Stone where I feel that way.” [...]

Rolling Stone was harshly criticized by media critics for its journalistic lapses, and by women’s groups who said it set back the cause of encouraging sexual assault victims to come forward. [...]

The accuser appeared to be distressed, perhaps as a result of her trauma, according to a person familiar with the newsroom’s process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe sensitive events. She had repeatedly asked Ms. Erdely that those she accused of raping her not be contacted. When the magazine brought up the issue again later, she threatened to withdraw from the story. [...]

The magazine faces some potential legal liability, said Eugene Volokh, a University of California, Los Angeles, law professor who also writes for The Washington Post. “Based on the facts as I have read about them in the media,” he said, “I would not have approved the publication of a story that names a fraternity, when there hadn’t been a call to the alleged rapists.” [...]

A therapist goes to middle school and tries to sit still and focus. She can’t. Neither can the kids.

Washington Post   This is a follow-up to two popular posts about the problems kids face when they are forced to sit still in school for hours on end without a break. The first, written by pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, was titled “Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today” and discussed how being inactive affects students’ ability to stay focused and learn, and in some cases leads to improper diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. The next piece was titled
“The right — and surprisingly wrong — ways to get kids to sit still in class.”

Hanscom has now written a third related piece, this one specifically about middle-schoolers. Hanscom told me that she was curious about the effects of restricted movement on students in middle school, so she went to a local middle school to observe what was going on inside classrooms and talk to teachers and parents. The following post explains Hanscom’s experience and findings at the middle school she visited.  Hanscom is the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England. [...]

Yoel Weiss & Rivky Stein: Court throws out most of RICO claims

 As further evidence of the weakness of Rivky's case, the court recently threw out most of the RICO claims. The rest will eventually also be rejected. In a separate action, the court has also rejected her requests for $25,000 maintainance and child support and $30,000 moving expenses

   Yoel Weiss Rejection Most RICO 

The Pygmalion Effect - the importance of positive attitudes towards others

Allan Katz    There is a lot of thought and psychology   behind Ya'akov's – Jacob's display of vulnerability, respect and servitude when he bowed 7 times before Eisav-Esau and called him my master. He bowed 7 times until he reached his brother and he certainly reached him. Eisav's compassion and mercy was aroused and he embraced and kissed Ya'akov and then he together with his brother cried. R' Hirsch explains that tears flow from the innermost feelings, so one can only cry if he is genuinely moved.

כַּמַּיִם, הַפָּנִים לַפָּנִים--    כֵּן לֵב-הָאָדָם, לָאָדָם. as in water, face to face, so too, is the heart of one person to another.  When one has positive thoughts and feelings about another person, these feelings will be reflected back to you as the other person will tend to feel positively about you too. A negative response from a person is a generally a reflection of how you feel about them. The feelings have to be genuine, coming from the heart and lightening up the face. These positive thoughts and feelings will lead us to act accordingly, with more empathy, compassion and kindness..

The idea in Proverbs precedes the so-called Pygmalion effect, documented in the 1960's, which showed how positive teachers'   assumptions, expectations and beliefs about student's intellectual potential affected student's performances in a positive way. Parents and teachers who believe that children have also a brighter side to their human nature and can behave in a virtuous and altruistic way can likewise impact on children and set into motion a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How we view children, our beliefs and subsequent expectations about them will guide and dictate our interventions and interactions with them. Parents and teachers who have a dark view of human nature and only see the negative side as in the verse -' since the imagery of man's heart is evil from his youth' –   כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו  
 will resort to very controlling environments with rewards, consequences and punishments. The message to kids is that you can't be trusted to learn or behave unless you are given rewards or threatened with punishments. And then we see how kids become so addicted to and dependent on rewards and punishments.  When we write off kids as disruptive, defiant, manipulative or destructive they are likely to 'live down' to these expectations.

 The key to a parent-child or teacher-child relationship is the child learning to trust the parent and teacher, so that kids want 'relationship', sees  them as  guides and someone to come to , especially when they ' screw up' and make mistakes. Rav Pam relates that as a 'Rebbi and teacher' - a kid came late for class and offered some excuse adding that he could bring a note from his parents. Rav Pam responded that he had already explained why he came late, why  would he need a note from his parents.'' In truth, I wasn’t sure if he told me the truth, but I couldn’t let him feel that I don’t trust him.”  Most teachers would be much more focused on their fear that the student will feel he put one over on the teacher.  They probably wouldn’t even consider the harm that distrusting their student would cause. 

We can help students develop good values and middot by attributing to the students the best possible motive consistent with the facts. So when they are generous and pro-social we do not say they were motivated by self-interest. When  they don't meet our expectations it could be that that they are good kids but were unaware of how their actions impact on others and are lacking skills rather than being selfish, defiant aggressive and lacking in compassion. And we would then  in a collaborative way, ' work with' kids to   teach important life lessons and solve problems by finding mutually satisfying solutions .In this way the kid contributes to the solution, learns important life skills and a trusting relationship with the parent or teacher is enhanced. 'Treat kids 'as if they need to be controlled' we may well undermine their natural predispositions to develop self-controls and internalize commitments to upholding cultural norms and values' – Marilyn Watson. 'Doing to ' kids with rewards and punishments just teaches them to ask – what's in it for me and feel sorry for themselves. It does not help kids to reflect on what type of person they want to be and how their actions impact on others.

Higher expectations of kids are positive, but we need to ask ' higher expectations for what'? If our expectations for academics are higher test scores, we will teach to test .If we expect more engagement, curiosity, and self-directed learning we will teach accordingly. If our high expectations for kids behaving themselves and being responsible is being compliant and following instructions we will be controlling. But if we understand that kids learn to be responsible by making decisions and acting in a pro-social way, we will allow them to participate in making decisions and solve problems in a collaborative way.

We all have a brighter and a darker side to our human natures, capable of being generous and selfish, helpful or hurting. But the good news is that if we follow the advice in the words of Proverbs- Mishlei and take into account the Pygmalion effect we can help ourselves and those we interact with to become more positive and caring people.

Pearl Harbor Day: December 7, 1941

 

 This is an excerpt from Manchester's memoirs of his return to the battlefields of the Pacific in 1978 - taking a tour of Pearl Harbor

 

Manchester, William (2008-12-02). Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War (Kindle Locations 784-799). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition

 

Historical shrines often become diminished by mundane surroundings. One thinks of Saint Peter's in Rome and Boston's Bunker Hill. Still , it is jarring, when driving to the port where the United States entered World War II, to find a prosaic green-and-white freeway sign, exactly like those on the American mainland, directing drivers to: 90 EAST PEARL HARBOR Following it, and instructions phoned to me at the Halekulani by CINCPAC, I come to a naval complex of moors and piers, fringed by palms warped by millennia of offshore winds. Elsewhere commercial launches leave hourly for tours of the harbor, but I am booked on a military VIP junket....

The movie, an NBC documentary, is suggestive of the March -of-Time style and was probably spliced from film clips shortly after the war. The narrator's voice is stentorian; the crashing score is by Richard Rodgers; there is a lot of Japanese footage captured after the war. Its chief interest is in what it omits. There isn't a single reference to U.S. bungling. Much is made of the fact that the Japs missed U.S. oil reserves, enough for two years, and dockyard repair facilities. At the end, with Rodgers's music soaring triumphantly, American warships steam out into the twilight to wreak vengeance on the deceitful enemy. As the lights are turned up, one almost feels that the Pearl Harbor raid was an American victory. Judging by their comments as we file out, the other VIPs are impressed. One recalls that the American navy has always been attentive to its reputation. Especially remembered is the alacrity with which , after the raid, the title of the commanding admiral here was changed to Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), from Commander in Chief, United States (CINCUS)...

 

 ... But I jerk upright as we dart by one inlet. Moored there are the last ships I expected to see in Pearl Harbor — two spanking-new destroyers flying the Rising Sun battle ensign of the Empire of Japan . Ashore, I make inquiries and am told that , yes, I saw what I thought I saw. In fact, Japanese naval officers in dress whites are frequent guests at Pearl's officers' mess. And, my informant adds, they are very polite. Naturally. They always were. Except, of course, for that little interval there between 1941 and 1945. At 3: 00 A.M. in my comfortable Halekulani bed, my eyes pop open. The lean, hard, dreamland Sergeant in me has been leering sardonically, recalling the loudmouthed tourists , Hotel Street's smut, the navy's cover-up movie , and the welcome mat for Hirohito's seafarers. That will be the Sergeant's attitude every night — and he will come every night — during the early stages of my trip. If I rarely mention him, it is because his performance has become as unvaried as a cult rite. He gloats and glares and smirks cynically. I have begun to realize that it will take a great deal, a fire storm of passion, to exorcise him. In Honolulu the old man has no answer for the Sergeant . His experiences here have shaken him. Somehow Hawaii hasn't stirred memories of the blows inflicted on that distant day of infamy. And I think I know why. The answer, I believe, is that there was virtually no opposition to the Japanese, and therefore no fight. Like Fort Sumter, like Sarajevo, the disaster at Pearl is best remembered as a curtain raiser, largely irrelevant to the drama which followed. We were prepared to visit retribution on the enemy tenfold , but we didn't identify with the victims. Few had fought back. And as professionals they should have been ready to fight . Now we, the amateurs , had to do the job. And though we mourned them, the very brevity of the December 7 attack meant that there hadn't been time to hang breathless on their fate....

Arab mother whose son was treated free in Israeli hospital for fatal heart condition - hopes he grows up to be a martyr to kill Jews

Post by StandWithUs.

Blame only the man who tragically decided to resist

NY Post    Eric Garner and Michael Brown had much in common, not the least of which was this: On the last day of their lives, they made bad decisions. Epically bad decisions.

Each broke the law — petty offenses, to be sure, but sufficient to attract the attention of the police.

And then — tragically, stupidly, fatally, inexplicably — each fought the law.

The law won, of course, as it almost always does.

This was underscored yet again Wednesday when a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict any of the arresting officers in the death in police custody of Garner last July.

Just as a grand jury last week declined to indict the police officer who shot a violently resisting Michael Brown to death in Ferguson, Mo., in August.

Demagoguery rises to an art form in such cases — because, again, the police generally win. (Though not always, as a moment’s reflection before the Police Memorial in lower Manhattan will underscore.) And because those who advocate for cop-fighters are so often such accomplished beguilers.

They cast these tragedies as, if not outright murder, then invincible evidence of an enduringly racist society.

No such thing, as a matter of fact. Virtually always, these cases represent sad, low-impact collisions of cops and criminals — routine in every respect except for an outlier conclusion.

The Garner case is textbook.

Eric Garner was a career petty criminal who’d experienced dozens of arrests, but had learned nothing from them. He was on the street July 17, selling untaxed cigarettes one at a time — which, as inconsequential as it seems, happens to be a crime.

Yet another arrest was under way when, suddenly, Garner balked. “This ends here,” he shouted — as it turned out, tragically prophetic words — as he began struggling with the arresting officer.

Again, this was a bad decision. Garner suffered from a range of medical ailments — advanced diabetes, plus heart disease and asthma so severe that either malady might have killed him, it was said at the time.

Still, he fought — and at one point during the struggle, a cop wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck.

That image was captured on bystander video and later presented as irrefutable evidence of an “illegal” chokehold and, therefore, grounds for a criminal indictment against the cop.

That charge fails, and here’s why. [...]

December 4th, V’Sain Tal uMatar, Pope Gregory, and Halacha

5 Towns Jewish Times     By Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Generally speaking, the Pope who is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, does not affect the observance of Orthodox Jewish halachic practice.

In 1582, however, Pope Gregory XIII’s changes to the calendar did have some repercussions in our halachic observance, at least in the way we record the secular date as to when in the year we begin amending one line in the Shmoneh Esreh in Chutz La”aretz. In Israel itself we began saying it at Maariv of the 7th of Cheshvan.

The Pope made three changes to the Julian Calendar, but at first, only the Catholic countries followed it.

1] He fast-forwarded the calendar ten days. In 1582, there was no October 5th through October 14th.

2] He ruled that every 100 years there would not be a leap year. There was no February 29th in the year 1900.

3] He ruled that every 400 years there would be a leap year and that rule number two would not apply. Rule #3 has only be used twice in the year 1600 and in the year 2000.

What this boils down to is that until the year 2101 we begin saying v’sain tal umatar on the night of December 4th and before a leap year we begin saying it on the night of December 5th.

As an interesting note, if ArtScroll would have existed in the 1800’s it would have said to add in v’sain tal uMatar on December 3rd and before a leap year on December 4th.

IF ONE FORGOT
What happens if you forgot to add it in?
There are actually two major brachos of the 19 brachos in Shmoneh Esreh where it can be added in – Baraich Alainu and Shmah Kolainu. Ideally we shoot for the first, but if not we can do it in the later one.

IN BARAICH ALEINU
So the answer to what you should do if you did forget, depends upon when you remembered that you did not add it in. If you remembered before saying Hashem’s name at the end of the bracha of Baraich Alaynu, then just go back to v’sain tal umatar and continue from there (MB 117:15).

IN THE NEXT OPPORTUNITY
If you remembered after saying Hashem’s Name, then you just continue on until the Bracha of Shma Koleinu and add the words, “v’sain tal umatar livracha” right after “vkabel berachamim veratzon es tfilasainu” and before “ki attah shomaya tfilas” (MB 117:16). If one still forgot and did not yet say Hashem’s name at the end of the bracha, then just say “v’sain tal umatar livracha and continue saying Ki Attah shomaya.

If you have already said Hashem’s Name – then we have a debate between the Mishna Brurah and Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l as to what to do. The Mishna Brurah (117:19) says to say “Lamdeini chukecha” – a Pasuk in TaNach and then to say v’sain Tal uMatar livracha and finish with Ki Attah Shomaya.

Rav Moshe Feinstein questions this and asks how it is possible to just recite random Psukim in the Shmoneh Esreh? [He recommends that one just finish up the bracha and add it before one says Retzai, like the Shulchan Aruch recommends to do if you did end up finishing Shma Kolainu.] Unless you are a talmid of Rav Moshe, most people follow the Mishna Brurah.
 

IF YOU FINISHED SHMA KOLEINU
If one has already completed the entire Shmah koleinu bracha without having said v’sain tal uMatar, then the Shulchan Aruch rules that you just say it then and recite Retzai.
If you forgot to say it before then and actually started retzai – then you are now in for some major repeating. You have to stop where you are and just go back to the beginning of Baraich Aleinu and continue saying the Shmoneh Esreh from there.

IF YOU FINISHED THE SHMONEH ESREH
If you forgot it and completed the Shmoneh Esreh – then repeat the entire Shmoneh Esreh from the beginning (See SA 117).

NOT SURE WHAT YOU SAID
If you are not sure what you said, we assume you didn’t say it for the first 30 days. After 30 days, we assume that you did say it properly. The Mishna Brurah (114:40) suggests that if you sing the words “v’es kol minei s’vu’asah l’tova v’sain Tal uMatar livracha” 90 times then the assumption changes. We assume that you did say it. On Maariv of January 3rd (or January 4th of a leap year) is the day when the assumption changes if you did not end up following the 90 times recommendation.

My father-in-law, Rabbi Yaakov Hirch z”l, used to keep a piece of paper in his siddur at Baraich Aleinu for those thirty days in order to remind him to add it in. This is a good idea. It also saves on not having to say the formula 90 times.

For the record, the changes were not Pope Gregory’s original idea. The idea first came from an Italian doctor named Aloysius Lilius. Most of what was to become America did not adopt it, however, until 1752

It is official!: Chicago Beis Din and Israeli Beis Din agree 4 seminaries are o.k.

update: The recent post by Frum Follies contains significant distortions and lies regarding this psak.  His statements regarding Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rebbetzin Ullman in particular are egregious lies aimed at obtaining through slander that which could not be obtained by open means.

"Seminary principals Rabbi Meir Kahane and Mrs Hindy Ullman are being demoted but this will not be stated officially."

I have clarified with a member of the beis din that neither has been demoted or punished in anyway - officially or unofficially-  nor were there any findings or information to warrant it on any level whatsoever.

Let Lopin produce evidence to support his slander. It is clear that the original claims of the Chicago Beis Din - that he constantly repeated in his condescending and derogatory attacks on the Israeli Beis Din -  have been shown to not be supported by the facts. This psak could have been obtained a long time ago. Now that it has been obtained - the obvious question is who is feeding Lopin the information he is publishing - in order to undermine it?

Modern day witch trial: Day care owners were falsely imprisoned for 21 years because of satanic abuse hysteria

 AP  Former day care owners who spent 21 years in prison before being freed amid questions over their convictions for child abuse involving satanic rituals are struggling to convince prosecutors that they should be fully exonerated.

Dan and Fran Keller, who divorced in prison, were freed on bond last year when the only physical evidence against them was found to be a mistake. They had been convicted in 1992 after therapists testified that they helped three children recover memories of satanic rituals and sexual abuse at an Austin preschool the Kellers operated.

The Kellers, who always denied the charges, want the courts to throw out their convictions. But a year after they were freed from prison, Travis County prosecutors remain unwilling to proclaim them innocent, the Austin American-Statesman (http://bit.ly/129h789) reported Sunday.[...]

"It's so hard to prove you're innocent when there was never a crime," she said.

The Kellers had been sentenced to 48 years in prison.

During their trial, the only physical evidence came from an emergency room doctor who testified that internal lacerations on one child were evidence of abuse. But in court documents filed in 2013, Dr. Michael Mouw says what he thought were lacerations were actually normal physiology.[...]

Psychologists were behind the accusations

KXAN

That summer, a three-year-old girl at Fran’s Day Care in Oak Hill accused Dan of sexual abuse. Within weeks, more children, all patients of the same child psychologist, made similar claims against both of the Kellers. They were ultimately accused of the satanic, ritual abuse of the children in their care.

“I think they were coerced into making allegations,” said Fran. “Their parents, they were taking them to psychologists. I think the psychologists coerced them into thinking and saying things because the child is not going to say something that didn’t happen. The child is going to listen to who is talking and the seed is planted.”

During their six-day trial, an emergency room medical doctor testified as the prosecution’s expert and provided the only physical evidence in the case. Dr. Michael Mouw, who examined the three-year-old accuser, said she had internal injuries that could only be caused by physical abuse. [...]

Rav Moshe Twersky HY"D — Savior of the American Soloveitchik Dynasty by RaP

update: Sections that were seen as inappropriate have been removed.

Guest post by RaP

"Tzadikim Are Greater In Death Than In Life!" (Talmud) 

An incredible thing has just happened, but few realize it, admit it, or know what to call it. The name "Rabbi Moshe Twersky" ("RMT") was essentially unknown in the broader Haredi world – until the recent Har Nof Massacre. He was the son of the late Rav Yitzchok (Isadore) Twersky ZT"L, son of the Tolner Rebbe of Boston, and of Dr. Atara Soloveitchik, daughter of the famous Rav J.B. Soloveitchik ZT"L in America. RMT was among those murdered in cold blood while in deep prayer in a famous shull in Har Nof.< Within minutes of his murder everyone knew that someone famous was among those martyred on that terrible day. The irony is that until his death he made sure to maintain his "obscurity" and "anonymity" and it seems that really only his immediate family, a few of his elite teachers and mentors, only his very closest students at the Toras Moshe Yeshiva he taught at for at least 20 years, and maybe a handful of his neighbors and some select colleagues knew about him and who he REALLY was. RMT went to extraordinary lengths utilizing genuine humility to be a humble servant of the Lord, seeking no glory for himself, and making sure that to the world at large he was just another one among millions and billions of "everymen"! All of a sudden following his bloody death, the Jewish, Orthodox and Haredi media is paying attention to him in a way that would NEVER have happened in real life, and something he would evidently never had allowed let alone condoned.[...] 

Suddenly, for those who read the Yated, Hamodia, Jewish Press, Mishpacha, Ami, even the Jewish Week, Forward and many others like them, the name of Rav Moshe Twersky, heir to not one but two unique dynasties, the Soloveitchik Talmudic geniuses and the Twersky Hasidic Rebbes becomes known "overnight" and what is told about him is truly a great wonder that appears like a sudden blinding flash of light that is shockingly revealed – paradoxically not during his lifetime, but immediately following his dramatic death.

Suddenly the Haredi media mentions that he was the grandson of Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik (not Rabbi Dr. J. B. Soloveitchik of Yeshiva University as he was known) and the son of the previous Tolner Rebbe of Boston (not Dr. or Professor Isadore Twersky of Harvard University as he was known). [...]

So the "frum" media meanders back and forth. So far not one has mentioned anything about the name of this great man: Moshe? Why? It is very strange indeed. First of all RMT was probably named for his own grandfather Rav "Moshe Soloveichik (1879–1941)...was the second son of renowned Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik and grandson of the Beis HaLevi. He married Pesya Feinstein, daughter of the renowned Rabbi of Pruzany, Rabbi Eliyahu Feinstein, and first cousins with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein" (Wikipedia) – so this is truly the aristocracy of the Torah world. Then there is the name of the yeshiva where RMT was a Rosh Yeshiva at Toras Moshe Yeshiva (affectionately known as "ToMo"), named for Rav Moshe Soloveitchik ZT"L.

So far, the Haredi media is printing a lot of stories and anecdotal tales from relatively minor and obscure sources and avoiding getting into almost any descriptions and history of exactly who and the stature of Rav Moshe Soloveitchik, son of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik ZT"L, and father of the famous Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik who was known as "the Rav" to his thousands of students. It is known in the Torah world that the "yerusha" of Rav Chaim of Brisk ZT"L was "split" between Rav Moshe Soloveitchik who "inherited" the "Nezikin" part of the family moving first to Warsaw and then to America, while the most famous Rav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik ZT"L, known as Rav Velvel, or the Brisker Rov took the "Kodshim" part and went to Eretz Yisroel and founded the well-known Brisker Yeshivos in Israel that still study only Kodshim.

RMT chose to be a disciple of both wings of his mother's family. While "informally" RMT delved into Kabbalah and became known as an informal "[Hasidic] Rebbe" to his students in the Yeshiva Toras Moshe where he taught. RMT was regarded by Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik as not just one of his four all-time greatest talmidim, but also by the current Brisker Yeshiva of Rav Dovid Soloveitchik SHLIT"A as one of its greatest talmidim.

Thus RMT bridged two continents and much more than that he healed and solidified and made respectable the bonds between the American and Israeli sides of Brisk that had been in a "stand-off" and even a war of words from the time the Israeli Briskers became the arch-Charedim so to speak in the Litvish Torah world, while in America, Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik who had once been a member of the original Agudah Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in America left to become the arch-leader of Modern Orthodox Judaism and of the Mizrachi Religious Zionist movement, that split the Soloveitchik family in two distinct segments until now when Rav Moshe Twersky, IN HIS DEATH, has done the seemingly impossible of uniting the families as they move into the ;FUTURE realizing they have more in common than even they realized. This is no less than what happened in the time of Rebbi Akiva, who lost 24,000 students but his REAL "yerusha" and lineage continues through the five talmidim that TRULY continued his line. Rav Moshe Twersky seems to have died as a "korban" for something much greater much like Rebbi Akiva did Al Pi Kiddush HaShem Berabim in the midst of Holy Prayers!

Who would have thought that literally behind the scenes, that Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik while he was and is rightfully hailed as the rabbi who gave semicha to more Orthodox rabbis in his own lifetime than anyone else and who prided himself on his independence, was nurturing his own highly traditional grandson, the now martyred Rav Moshe Twersky in an entirely different image than what was assumed to be going on. RMT has been revealed for the whole world to see OPENLY as a genuine Illui, Tzadik, Nistar, Mekubal, someone well-versed in every part of the Torah and even in worldly matters on a standard higher than most Talmidei Chachomim of his generation (RMT was only 59 when he was murdered).< And then there is RMT's grandfather on his mother's side Rav Moshe Soloveitchik the leading Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivas Yitschak Elchonon (RIETS) brought there by the pioneering Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel. Rav Moshe Soloveitchik was an undisputed great Gaon, Torah giant and all-around genius in his own right, whose sudden death in 1941 propelled his son Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik to assume the mantle of leadership at RIETS and as one of modernity's leading Talmudists, Jewish Philosophers and Halachists.

The Haredi and Orthodox media is not giving enough, if any, attention to Rav Moshe Soloveitchik and it is a great shame because they are missing a great link. It was Rav Moshe Soloveitchik who brought the Soloveitchik and Brisker dynasty to America.

Now it has been proven that for all the controversy about how and why to deal with the challenges to the Torah World posed by Modernity, Zionism, and Secular Knowledge, at the end of the day there is nothing to be ashamed of because the great "egg" that was finally "hatched" was none other than the greatest of all of this process that is embodied and now enshrined in the Holy Memory and Glowing Torah Light that was Rav Moshe Twersky ZT"L, HY"D, May HKB"H Avenge His Innocent and Pure Spilled Blood that Poured Out In a Sanctuary of Tefila, Avoda and Torah in the Holy City of Yerushalayim!

MK Miri Regev notes that women can be victimizers and not just victims.

Arutz 7    Israel marked the UN's International Day for Eliminating Violence Against Women this week, but one Knesset Committee took the opportunity to note that women can be victimizers and not just victims.

The Knesset's Internal Affairs and Environmental Protection Committee devoted a special session week to the subject of domestic violence, as part of the Knesset's activities marking November 25, the International Day for Eliminating Violence Against Women, which was declared by the UN in 1999.

The day was also marked by the Knesset's Committee for Advancement of Women's Status, but Internal Affairs Committee Chairwoman MK Miri Regev (Likud) took a more inclusive approach than the one exhibited in the Committee for Advancement of Women's Status. The Internal Affairs Committee is charged, among other things, with supervising the Israel Police.

MK Regev remarked to the committee that domestic violence is also perpetrated by women, and that its victims include children and men. In this, she departed from the “politically correct” line that is usually heard in the Knesset on November 25. [...]

Consequences of easy divorce: Divorced Mothers Turning to Prostitution

Arutz 7   Dozens of divorced Israeli mothers have joined the prostitution trade in Eilat, as divorce rates skyrocket.

Dozens of divorced and separated Israeli mothers have joined the sex trade in the southern city of Eilat, according to a report on Channel 2 News's website.

The new trend can be seen as a byproduct of Israel's growing divorce rate, which studies say has reached 40% in just the first ten years of marriage.

According to the report, Eilat brothels disguised as massage parlors used to employ women brought into Israel for prostitution from the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, but after the security fence was built along the border with Sinai, Bedouin smugglers are no longer able to bring these women into Israel. 

Their place has been taken, in large part, by Israeli women, many of whom are divorced or recently separated mothers. The report quotes several of them as saying that they are able to make 20,000 shekels (over $5,000) or more a month in prostitution, while their former jobs earned them a quarter of that amount. [...]

Under pressure from radical women's groups, Israel has adopted a plethora of policies that encourage women to divorce - including meaningful financial benefits that are offered to separated and divorced women regardless of the circumstances of the divorce.

Fighting Child Trafficking

Huffington Post     by Alec Baldwin

Here is a letter to me from Rob Morris, just back from a recent trip on behalf of his child trafficking rescue organization, Love 146.

Dear Alec,

Just got in from my trip to the Philippines and it was amazing. I think people too often only talk about the horror and despair surrounding child trafficking and exploitation (which is a reality), but not enough about the hope, empowerment and change that is also just as much of a reality.

As I mentioned in my email, while in the Philippines I had the privilege of being part of two weddings for girls who were rescued years ago, were brought to our safe home, went through our program and were reintegrated back into a community. They came back to our safe home because they wanted to have their weddings there. It was amazing and beautiful. It was so humbling and such an honor to be a part of it.

While there, I was also able to spend time with girls who are currently in the safe home as well as several who had graduated from the home and are now living in communities and holding down good jobs. One of the girls I met with is Amanda. Amanda's past of abuse and exploitation began when she was eight. She was eventually trafficked throughout different provinces and even sold on the Internet. She was rescued when she was 14 and then moved from institution to institution. Her greatest desire was to go to school. Because she was unable to attend school in these institutions she ran away and began working in bars and ended up being exploited again.

Rescued again, she came into Love146's care. We lost no time putting Amanda in a home study program in our safe home that would allow her to learn at her own pace. At age 17 she began at a fourth grade level. After just one year, she passed exams that allowed her to skip high school and go on to college. During college we continued to support her with private tutoring. She has now finished her courses and passed qualifying exams to become a professional caregiver. She is now able to work in hospitals, schools, and other facilities with children, adults and the elderly. 

How many times does a girl need to be rescued before she is free? For Amanda, the answer was until she was given access to education. [...]

How do responsible Jewish organizations respond to abuse allegations?

The Jewish Week     The revelation that one of the most respected rabbis in our community is alleged to be an abusive Peeping Tom has come as a shock. Unfortunately, the allegations against Rabbi Barry Freundel in Washington, D.C., are but the latest in a long string of abuse cases that have come to light over the past few decades. The one thing that they all have in common is that they all had warning signs. There were always things that did not seem right or behavior that was bizarre. Many people were holding pieces of the puzzle but there was no one to put them all together. This is the crux of the crisis facing our community. How do we protect our children and institutions from those who seek to abuse others? [...]

In the wake of the 2000 Jewish Week expose by Gary Rosenblatt on the decades’-long abusive behavior by Rabbi Lanner, who was NCSY’s director of regions, the OU formed a commission to investigate. It became clear very quickly that many lay and professional leaders knew about the abusive behavior, but everyone claimed they only knew a piece of the puzzle. No one was putting it all together. Thus was born the NCSY ombudsman. A position was created so that all complaints would be filtered through one person, independent of the organization and therefore unbiased.

Fast forward to January 2005. That was when I became the international director of NCSY and assumed responsibility for the ombudsman. At the time the system was in place but left much to be desired in terms of accomplishing its goals. I realized that when I was handed a folder full of ombudsman complaints. Unfortunately, the files were generally incomplete. The complaints mostly consisted of emails that had been put in a file. There was no systematic filing system for abuse complaints. More importantly, there was no conclusion ascribed to the complaints. It was impossible to know what had happened and how each issue was resolved. This is not uncommon in the Jewish community, where there is much turnover of staff and little institutional memory.

Aside from the filing issues, another pressing matter was brought to my attention. When the NCSY ombudsman was put into place, there were no guidelines in terms of what fell within the discretion of the overseer. Often, after an employee was let go from the organization, inevitable anonymous complaints would be submitted to the ombudsman complaining about that person’s supervisor. This wasted a lot of time and effort on things that should have been handled by the human resources department. [...]

Ferguson grand jury's extraordinary efforts to establish truth - but does it matter?

NY Times  Officer Wilson’s version of events was just one part of a vast catalog of testimony and other evidence that the grand jurors absorbed during the three months that they heard the case. Yet it appeared to have helped convince the jurors, a group of nine whites and three African-Americans, that the officer had committed no crime when he killed Mr. Brown. On Monday, the announcement that there was no indictment set off violent protests, burning and looting throughout the beleaguered St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.

Most grand jury proceedings are swift and simple: a few witnesses are called, the prosecutor makes the case for an indictment and the jurors vote.

But the grand jury in the Wilson case met for an extraordinarily long session, hearing what the prosecutor said was “absolutely everything” that could be considered testimony or evidence in the case. While what happens in the grand jury room is almost always kept secret, Mr. McCulloch insisted on making the transcripts of the proceedings available to the public immediately after the session concluded. Unlike most defendants, Officer Wilson testified before the grand jury.

The grand jurors in the Wilson case met in a St. Louis County courthouse on 25 separate days. They heard 70 hours of testimony from roughly 60 witnesses. And they confronted a jumble of forensics reports, police radio logs, medical documents and tapes of F. B. I interviews with bystanders. [...]

'Vanished' Millionaire Guma Aguiar's Estate Divided among Heirs

Warning letter from his lawyer

 

Arutz 7    Two years after Aguiar mysteriously disappeared, 9 Jerusalem properties worth $44 million to be split between his mother, sisters and wife.

The estate of Guma Aguiar, the Jewish philanthropist who disappeared off Fort Lauderdale in June, 2012, has been divided among his heirs by a Florida court, reports Yediot Aharonot.

The court approved a compromise agreed upon by Aguiar's wife, Jamie, and his mother, Ellen, along with his sisters Adriana and Angelika.

The sides had been in conflict over the estate, with each side claiming all of the estate for itself, and Jamie insisting at first that her husband was still alive. Jamie accused her mother-in-law of wanting to drive a wedge between her and Guma, while Ellen said that the reason Guma went out to sea on the day he disappeared was that he was distraught after Jamie told him she wants to divorce him. Jamie completely denies this version of events.

Rav Belsky as a teacher of Torah and as a role model after a series of problematic events?

For many of us, Rav Belsky has been a role model for many years. He is a giant in Torah knowledge. He has been selflessly and readily available for halachic questions and advice. He is one of the leading experts on kashrus in the world and the basis for the reputation of OU Kashrus. He is also an independent thinker - even going against the accepted wisdom for that which he views as true.

Unfortunately events in recent years have raised major question about his judgment. His strong defense of Kolko of Torah Temima, Kolko of New Jersey where he also strongly attacked the abuse victim's father and falsely accused him of being a moser and a molester. The revelation of his role in the torture of husbands in get cases. Gedolim have denounced him in other divorce cases for questionable tactics. What does that mean about his being a role model and gadol? Why does the OU continue to employ him when his values clearly are inconsistent with theirs?

I have received enough emails that have convinced me that I am not the only one who is strongly bothered by the question. More importantly why this is the elephant in the room that everybody tries not to see? Is he simply too big to fail? See Chazon Ish: Lashon Harah about gedolim

RCA acknowledges R Belsky's views on abuse are problematic

R Belsky's contradictory statements about not going to police for abuse 

Rabbi Goldin president of RCA discusses Rav Belsky's views

Rav Aharaon Schecter and Rav Miller criticize Rav Belsky

Rav Belsky, Mendel Epstein and torturing husbands

Abduction and torture of Rabbi Rubin

Rav Belsky accuses father of being a moser and molester

Torture of Rabbi Avraham Rubin to give a get

Rav Belsky's support of child molesters

Support for Lakewood Kolko

Rav Sternbuch's psak to report Kolko to police

Involvement in the Friedman Epstein divorce case

Friedman case - See page 3 of Rav Gestetner bitul seruv
 

Burying objects with the deceased - what is the source of the practice?

Someone just asked me about the appropriateness of burying objects with the deceased. Below is a description of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's wife being buried with a ring. Similarly Rabbi Shlomo Freifeld was buried with some of the wood of his dining room table as a zechus for the tremendous kiruv work he accomplished at his Shabbos table. Does anyone have a source for the practice?



 From Telushkin, Joseph (2014-06-10). Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History (Kindle Locations 6683-6687). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Per Chabad custom, no eulogies were delivered. A twenty-member motorcycle police guard escorted the procession from Crown Heights. Also accompanying the Rebbetzin was a ring given to her by her sister Sheina, who was murdered in Treblinka; the Rebbe instructed that the ring be interred with her. The last line on the Rebbetzin’s matzevah (monument), after various honorifics about Chaya Mushka and her parents, mentions her sister, “the righteous Rebbetzin Sheina.

Multiple Personality Hoax - or How psychiatrists messed up the lives of thousands

NY Times   The notion that a person might embody several personalities, each of them distinct, is hardly new. The ancient Romans had a sense of this and came up with Janus, a two-faced god. In the 1880s, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a novella that provided us with an enduring metaphor for good and evil corporeally bound. Modern comic books are awash in divided personalities like the Hulk and Two-Face in the Batman series. Even heroic Superman has his alternating personas.

But few instances of the phenomenon captured Americans’ collective imagination quite like “Sybil,” the study of a woman said to have had not two, not three (like the troubled figure in the 1950s’ “Three Faces of Eve”), but 16 different personalities. Alters, psychiatrists call them, short for alternates. As a mass-market book published in 1973, “Sybil” sold in the millions. Tens of millions watched a 1976 television movie version. The story had enough juice left in it for still another television film in 2007.

Sybil Dorsett, a pseudonym, became the paradigm of a psychiatric diagnosis once known as multiple personality disorder. These days, it goes by a more anodyne label: dissociative identity disorder. Either way, the strange case of the woman whose real name was Shirley Ardell Mason made itself felt in psychiatrists’ offices across the country. Pre-"Sybil,” the diagnosis was rare, with only about 100 cases ever having been reported in medical journals. Less than a decade after “Sybil” made its appearance, in 1980, the American Psychiatric Association formally recognized the disorder, and the numbers soared into the thousands. [...]

As retold in this latest video documentary from Retro Report, part of a series exploring past news stories and their consequences, the phenomenon burned most intensely for roughly a decade, from the mid-1980s to the mid-'90s. Then it faded from public view, partly the result of lawsuits brought successfully against some psychiatrists, who were found by the courts to have used dubious methods to lead their patients down the path of false memories.[...]

Dr. Wilbur did not write up her findings in some dry professional journal. Instead, she went looking for a large audience, and enlisted a writer, Flora Rheta Schreiber, to produce what became a blockbuster. But as the years passed, challengers began to speak up. One was Herbert Spiegel, a New York psychiatrist who said that he had treated Ms. Mason when Dr. Wilbur was on vacation. Dr. Spiegel described his patient not as a sufferer of multiple personality disorder but, rather, as a readily suggestible “hysteric.” A harsher judgment was rendered in the 1990s by Robert Rieber, a psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a New York City school where Ms. Schreiber taught English. After listening to tape recordings that he said Ms. Schreiber had given him, he concluded that “it is clear from Wilbur’s own words that she was not exploring the truth but rather planting the truth as she wanted it to be.” Debbie Nathan, a writer interviewed for this Retro Report documentary, piled on still more skepticism in her 2011 book, “Sybil Exposed.” Perhaps inevitably in a dispute of this sort, counter-revisionists then emerged to denounce the doubters and to defend “Sybil” as rooted in reality.

Overwhelmingly, those receiving a diagnosis of the disorder have been women. They typically had rough childhoods. A pattern to their stories — Ms. Mason fell squarely within it — was that they endured horrific physical and sexual abuse when they were little. More than a few claimed to have been the victims of torture at the hands of satanic cults. In many cases, their memories were brought to the surface through hypnotism or with injections of so-called truth serums like sodium pentothal. But were those recollections real? The “Sybil” phenomenon went arm in arm with a reassessment of certain psychiatric techniques. Some studies concluded that people may have become less inhibited with pharmacological intervention, but not necessarily more truthful. Other research found that hypnosis sometimes creates false memories. Those who dismiss Dr. Wilbur’s work as hokum say that induced false memories lay at the heart of her work with Ms. Mason. [...]

Har Nof Massacre: Survivor describes his miraculous escape

Arutz 7   Rabbi Shmuel Goldstein describes his 'miraculous' escape from the brutal massacre at Har Nof synagogue - after tackling a terrorist.

Rabbi Shmuel Goldstein, one of several people seriously wounded in last week's horrific attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem, has described his "miraculous" survival to journalists for the first time.

Speaking with some difficulty from a wheelchair at the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem where he is being treated for his wounds, Rabbi Goldstein recounted the terrifying moment two terrorists burst in during morning prayers at Har Nof's Kehillat Bnei Torah synagogue.

He said the attack happened during the Amida - the central prayer of the service - and recalled how he suddenly heard gunshot and saw people fall to the floor "ducking for cover."

Rabbi Goldstein described how one of the two terrorists struck him three times with a meat-cleaver, twice in the head and once in the back, leaving him for dead on the ground.[...]