Dor Yeshorim - Wall Street Journal interview

Wall Street Journal             Dor Yeshorim Web site

Rabbi Josef Ekstein, who had four children die of Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal neurodegenerative condition, founded a program called Dor Yeshorim to screen people and create a database with the test results while providing participants with anonymity. Young people—typically from age 17 to their early 20s—who get tested are assigned a personal identification number and birth date without the year. The program screens for nine conditions common among Ashkenazi Jews—those who can trace ancestry to Central and Eastern Europe—and the information is kept in a database by Dor Yeshorim, which means "upright generation" in Hebrew.

How much to reveal to people remains a contentious issue in the gene-testing field. Some geneticists argue that scientists still have no grasp of most gene mutations' relevance, and that sharing information whose meaning is uncertain is potentially harmful. In some cases, people might endlessly worry or alter their lives because of a mutation for which there is no effective treatment or that turns out to be benign; others may ignore medical advice because genes show they aren't predisposed to a particular condition, even though screening can't rule out the possibility a disease will develop.

Yaniv Erlich, a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., who works with Dor Yeshorim on research projects, says the group's decision to share only what it considers "actionable information" is a stance taken by many geneticists. What's unusual is that, in this case, "the marriage is the actionable information," he says.

Still, researchers believe that while risk can be lowered, it can never be completely eliminated. In genetics and love, says Edwin Kolodny, professor emeritus in neurology at New York University Medical Center and chairman of Dor Yeshorim's medical advisory board, "Marriage in most situations remains a lottery where we just take our chances."

Rav Gestetner to Rav Miller - Remarry without heter 100 Rabbonim?

Rav Gestetner to Rav Miller

Sarah Schenirer: Lecture by Dr. Hillel Abramson

Classical example of false ma'us ali claims

False ma'us ali claims against the husband

Higgs Boson - who cares?

Alleged rapist working in Brooklyn Yeshiva - Background check?

NY Daily News   Moshe Pinter, 28, was arrested and charged with a trying to molest a 13-year old boy in 2007, but pled down the top felony charge to a misdemeanor child endangerment offense after the victim declined to testify against him, according to court records and sources.

Pinter was sentenced to three years of probation, but was not barred from working with minors.

For the past year Pinter has been working at Ohr Hameir Yeshiva in Borough Park chaperoning Hasidic teens on weekend getaways while parents had no idea of his criminal past - which also includes two theft convictions.

Child victim advocates said the case highlights the need for private schools to be legally obligated to run fingerprint and background checks on employees and for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to publicize the names of convicted perpetrators in the Jewish community.

Debate over drafting Chareidim & Arabs

NY Times  On one level, the questions shaking the Israeli political system this week are pragmatic: how many ultra-Orthodox men and Arab citizens should be drafted into the military or national service, over how many years and how should those who resist be penalized? 

But the debate over these details masks a more fundamental and fractious one about evolving identity in this still-young state, where a “people’s army” has long been a defining principle, and about the growing cleavage among its tribes. 

That is what has brought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad unity coalition to the brink of collapse in recent days, with an Aug. 1 deadline looming to replace a law providing draft exemptions to thousands of men studying in yeshivas that the Supreme Court deemed illegal in February. 

“What’s at stake is two cultures, two civilizations,” Professor Stern added, referring to the ultra-Orthodox, known as Haredim, and other Jews here. “These two civilizations used to live in some kind of peace because each one thought that the other is going to disappear eventually. Nowadays I think everybody realizes that the two camps are here to stay, and we have to decide what will be the identity in the public sphere.”

Victim who Assaulted Molester Priest - Acquitted

CNN A California jury Thursday acquitted a man charged with assaulting a retired Catholic priest, in a case that prosecutors had described as a vigilante attack.

Weiss Family Statement & Supporting Documents

Weiss Family Statement

Nachlaot: An anonymous letter objecting to a post

I just received this letter today. It is a demand that I remove a post regarding an article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post about the child abuse scandal in Nachlaot.  This is an example of the pressure that happens in the Orthodox community regarding discussing of child abuse. Anonymous letters,  anonymous phone calls etc. 

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He masterminded systematic rape of over 100 kids :The nightmare of Nachlaot

JPost

Dear Rabbi,

I recently went through your blogs on  Nachlaot and see that you are not one of the people who have been irrationally pushing the witch hunt that has been going on in Nachlaot.  Since your blog comes up every time a search is done on Nachlaot abuse, I assumed you were one of the many inciters.  In this I apologize.  However, I will take you to task on the article you did print from the Jerusalem Post.  I am not sure for what purpose you posted it.   Perhaps you didn't have any better thing to post that day.  In any case, the fact that you took the effort to give validity to an article from the JP that is based on lies and contains mostly lies is not forgivable.  (Every one is judged according to who they are.)  Therefore, since you have involved yourself in outright Motzie Shem Ra(everyone knows who S is), and chose to give the validity of the Torah to these lies by posting them on your blog as a truth, it is only right that you should want to correct the ill truths that you presented as truth. 

There is several reasons why you would want to do this.  A. Many innocent lives have been destroyed.  The only way to correct that is to expose the lies and establish the truth.  B.  As long as the children are being treated based on lies, they will never get better.  1. Many of the children that are in treatment may not have been abused. 2. And if they were abused, it is not by the people they are claiming to have abused them.  3.  The people that are abusing them are still getting away with it,  i.e. brothers,  Rebbis or whoever might actually have access to them.  C.  Several people that are in jail very well may be innocent.  D. All the other reasons stated in the letters of the Rabbis that say it much more eloquently than I do.

Therefore, it is imperative that you do what you can do to straighten out this situation.  To stand up in the name of truth. 

Having been falsely accused,  basically ostracized from the Jewish community, the Shechina cries.  

One of the MANY falsely accused of Nachlaot. 

http://nachlaotchildabuse.blogspot.com/2012/07/moral-panic-or-modern-day-witch-hunt.html

http://nachlaotchildabuse.blogspot.com/2012/06/english-translation-of-letters-written.html

Chazon Ish: "Die rather than Transgress" - Literally?

There are three sins which a person must die rather than transgress, murder, idolatry and sexual immorality (Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 157:1). The Chazon Ish pronounced that drafting women was included and that a woman should resist even if it meant death (See the below excerpt). The Chazon Ish also said the same applied to shaking hands with women. My question is whether he meant that literally? In other words should a man faced with the choice of being killed or shaking hands with a woman - should allow himself to be killed?

[Just added the original report in Moadim u'Zemanim where it is clear that the Chazon Ish meant it literally.]

תשובות והנהגות כרך ד סימן ש    נישוק ונתינת יד לאמו החורגת  

נדרשתי מבחור ירא שמים, שנודע לו רק עכשיו שאמו מתה בילדותו, ואביו התחתן עם אשה שניה שגידלה אותו כבן ממש, ועכשיו כשנודע להבחור ממאן לנשק ולתת יד לאמו החורגת, ואביו כועס עליו מאד ואומר שזה לא הכרת הטוב לנהוג כן באשה שגדלתו במסירות, עד שרוצה לגרש את הבן מהבית. וכעין שאלה זו הבאתי ב"מועדים וזמנים" (ח"ד סימן שט"ז בהג"ה) ששאלתי למרן החזון איש זצ"ל והשיב שאין להתיר אפילו נתינת יד מפני שדרך חיבה היא ויהרג ואל יעבור. וסיפר לי השואל שאח"כ הלך לשאול גם את הגאון רבי משה פיינשטיין זצ"ל, והשיב שאם מדקדק לעשות בצורה ובאופן שניכר שאין זה דרך חיבה מותר, ואין בזה משום אביזרייהו, והביא לזה דברי הרמב"ם בהלכותיו שעיקר האיסור הוא דרך תאוה דוקא, ולדבריו התיר באופן שהבאנו

מועדים וזמנים (חלק ד' סי' שט"ז):

...הבן ביקש ממני ליכנס לרבינו ה"חזון איש" זצ"ל לשאול פיו לשמוע עצתו, נכנסתי וסיפרתי לו הדברים כהויתן, והשיב מיד "לתת יד לאשה קריבה לעירות, ומאביזרייהו דגלוי עריות שיהרג ואל יעבור, ואין שום היתר בזה מפני דרכי שלום או רגילה עמה כאמו", אבל סיים דבשמירת התורה לא יבוא לידי היזק, ושהבן יתעקש ויצליח בע"ה, ואודיע לו דבר זה בשמו והבחור באמת התעקש ומיאן לתת יד עד שלבסוף האשה גופא השפיעה על הבעל לעזוב אותו למנהגו אם מתעקש  כ"כ ושלום בבית והבחור זכה ב"ה לבית נאמן בישראל והוא תלמיד חכם שזכה לשלום בית ומשפחה וחיים מאושרים!

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RJJ Halacha Journal  Rav Yaakov Koniefsky reported that the Chazon Ish had declared that if the law were indeed passed, it was the duty of every Jew to resist unto death - literally.s For him it represented an encroachment upon the prohibition of "Arayot" - immorality and licentiousness - which is one of the three mitzyot for which a Jew must choose death rather than transgress. Rav Koniefsky also writes that the Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav, and the Tchebiner Rav all concurred that if the measure became law, every family with·a draft-age daughter would have to leave the country! So strong were they in opposing the danger that they equally opposed a similar plan to draft girls not for the army but for some alternate National Service.

They left no doubt as to the cause for their opposition - the army in any country. and Israel is no different, is a place where moral standards are relaxed. to say the least, and it was just not the proper environment for a Jewish daughter, Against their will, the girls would be affected by the atmosphere and the environment to which they would be exposed, a milieu which would replace the positive reinforcement they would have gotten at home from parents and family.

Rabbis Isser Zalman Meltzer and Tzvi Pesach Frank also issued pronouncements that a person must choose death rather than accede to the government decree, as did the Steipler Rav and Rav Shach. When another rabbi suggested that perhaps it would not be so terrible if the girls served under carefully supervised conditions, the Chazon Ish retorted that the rabbi's opinion was totally worthless and, had he had any children, he would not have been able to say something like that The Chazon Ish actually ruled that the Sabbath should be desecrated to avoid compliance with a draft order and urged parents and teachers to inculcate young women with the laws of dying "al kiddush Hashem;' in sanctification of the Name

Dr. Benny Brown's Biography of Chazon Ish

Haaretz   It is to Brown’s credit that he has rescued the Hazon Ish from ultra-Orthodox hagiography. Brown treats his subject with the respect he deserves and with more than a little empathy. At the same time, he views him as flesh and blood, and does not refrain from disclosing moments of weakness in his life. One mark of Brown’s success is the sharpness of the Haredi response to his book. It seems that more than anything else, the ultra-Orthodox cannot forgive Brown for saying the Hazon Ish − whom they consider one of the inspirations for the creation of a “learning society” in which Haredi men learn Torah all day instead of working, regardless of their scholarly aptitude − never believed that men must do nothing but study Torah, and that he was not opposed to army service or participation in the workforce.

While it may seem that it’s the gedolim who shaped the Haredi ethos as we know it today, the society is influenced by many more dynamics and constraints than the greats could have foreseen. The object of the hagiography, then, is to reinvent the images of the greats to suit the needs of the ultra-Orthodox ethos as it stands today. And woe is the critical scholar who reveals the gap between myth and reality.

In response to Brown’s book, Rabbi Abraham Isaiah Bergman wrote in the Haredi newspaper Yated Neeman: “These people [critical scholars] who have not ever read and have not studied and have never gotten close to Torah scholars, and think that they have touched an angel of God even though they have not come close at all ... I say to them: You who are coming to trample my courts, who are you to come here with donkeys [which can never become kosher animals]? ... Let the source of living water [a reference to God and the Torah] be.

Benjamin Brown’s book on the Hazon Ish is an impressive scholarly achievement, an important signpost in the study of ultra-Orthodox society. Anyone who wants to understand the Haredi world, with its obvious implications for Israeli society in general, must not miss this book.

Moser - Shulchan Aruch/Rema C.M. 388:5

Guest Post by Stan   Shulchan Oruch/ Rema Choshen Mishpot 388:5

Litigants who have a disagreement over land or over movable objects, this one says it is mine and this one says it is mine and one of them got up and informed (to the secular/ non Jewish authorities) then Bais Din (is obligated to) puts the one who forces (i.e. the informant) in cheirem until it reverts to how it was before and the hand of the forcer (through secular court) is removed between them and they have a Din Torah.

The Rema adds that the informant does not have the din of a moyser even though he made his "friend" have a very big loss because this is not called mesirah unless he intended to cause his friend damage but it is not mesirah where he (only) intends to retrieve what belonged to him (and there are those who disagree etc).

Please explain how we see from this Rema that a woman who goes to arko'oys for a divorce is not a moyser?

a) This case is talking about monetary matters, not other matters.
b) Even if you want to argue that it applies to non-monetary matters as well, merely by simply asking for a divorce the woman is almost inevitably harming the man unless he does not mind.
c) If the woman asks for anything that she is not entitled to al pi halocho, she is most definitely a moyser from this Rema e.g. alimony, equitable distribution etc.
d) If the children are boys and if she asks for custody and the halocho is that the boys go with the father, she is a moyser.
e) If she says anything bad whatsoever about the father to the courts, she is damaging the father and so is oyver mesirah.
f) If she asks for child support from the courts in the US, which many poskim including Rav Sternbuch hold is awarded excessively relative to the halochoh, she is a moyser.

So please explain to us, how unless in an extremely rare case, a woman going to arko'oys in the US is not a moyser?

Please explain to us why you conclude that such a woman in not a moyser? Who are you kidding?

Abuse viewed differently 30 years ago?

NYTimes This year, Lisa M. Friel, the former Manhattan prosecutor who has helped Poly Prep bolster its sexual-abuse-prevention program, angered plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the school when she said in an interview that “people had very different understandings of what sexual abuse was in the ’60s and ’70s and what a pedophile was.” 

 One problem with an argument like Mr. Lin’s is the extent to which it belies the secrecy surrounding the kind of encounters he describes. If things had, in fact, been as open, freewheeling and inoculated from reproof as he and others might have chosen to believe, then the sex that transpired between teachers and students would not have happened so clandestinely, with wrenching admissions and discussions arriving only 20 and 30 years later.  

 Times are different, in that more children who have been abused say so. In his research, David Finkelhor, a leading expert on sexual abuse who wrote one of the 1980 books, has found that now, in 50 percent of sexual abuse cases, the child’s victimization had been reported to an authority, compared with 25 percent in 1992. Dr. Finkelhor has also found that the number of substantiated cases of abuse has dropped 62 percent from 1990 to 2010. 

While it is true that the world of parental vigilance we inhabit now was not yet manifest in the ’70s or even the ’80s, when much of the abuse at Horace Mann is said to have happened, it skews reality to imagine that the sexual abuse of children is an issue that only recently has seen the rays of the sun. By 1974, years before the arrival of Lifetime television and its relentless airing of crisis dramas, ABC offered an hour of the series “Marcus Welby, M.D.” devoted to the case of a 14-year-old boy who had been raped by a science teacher during a field trip.