Weberman: What is the message of 103 year sentence?

Wall Street Journal   Other close observers of the Satmar community worry about the outcome of the Weberman trial. Dovid Zwiebel, vice president of Agudath Israel America, a group that works closely with Brooklyn's Satmar population, said the case should have been handled more "delicately." 

"Many people felt it wasn't as if Mr. Weberman was on trial, it was as if the community was on trial," he said. 

Mr. Zwiebel, who said he applauded the crackdown on abuse, worried that a 103-year sentence might suggest "the system is rigged against Hasidic Jews."

"The reaction I've heard from many is maybe we shouldn't be cooperating with law-enforcement authorities," he added.

Mr. Hynes said his office asked for the maximum prison term knowing that the sentence—similar to those given to others convicted of such sex-abuse charges—would likely be cut to 50 years on appeal, which is typical in such cases. 

But that change might come too late to alter the perceptions of the community. 

Even Mr. Hikind, one of the most determined advocates for stepped-up prosecutions of sexual abuse within the Orthodox communities, questioned the wisdom of the sentence.

"As horrible as all of this is, I would have been happier if it would not have been 103," he said. "This almost says to people who already have a chip on their shoulder that the Orthodox community isn't getting a fair shake that they're right."

Judge rejects Torah Temima's attempt to settle in Kolko case

Thomson Reuters   A Brooklyn judge has rejected an Orthodox Jewish day school's attempt to settle a civil lawsuit brought by a boy who said he had been sexually abused by one of the school's teachers.

Supreme Court Justice Jack Battaglia denied Yeshiva & Mesivta Torah Temimah Inc's motion to enforce a confidential settlement because the parents of the alleged abuse victim changed their minds and rejected the deal after they signed it in 2011.

"The court cannot say on the record presented that the refusal of (plaintiff)'s parents to proceed with the settlement in accordance with the Feb. 15, 2011, settlement agreement is unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious," Battaglia wrote in a ruling Wednesday. [....]

In 2011, the parties reached a confidential settlement agreement, which was signed by the boy's parents, the ruling said. Days later, the parents reversed course and said they no longer agreed to the settlement, which they said had been signed under "duress," the ruling said.

The parents also said they had come under fire from some members of their community. A rabbi at the school told them they would "bankrupt" the yeshiva and destroy it in the way "the Nazis (have) destroyed" the "yeshiva in Europe," the ruling said.

Lawyers for the school disputed that the parents had signed under duress, according to the ruling. They moved for an order approving an infant compromise, which would allow the court to approve a settlement involving a claim brought by a minor.
Battaglia rejected the request.[...]


Kolko, a first-grade teacher who taught at the Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Brooklyn, was indicted by local prosecutors in 2007 for sexually abusing a former student. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and was sentenced to three years' probation.. [...]

It is unclear if the boy in the criminal case is the same as the one in the civil lawsuit before Battaglia. It is unclear whether Kolko still teaches at Yeshiva Torah Temimah.

Father Gordon MacRae: "What the Jews know of Justice"

The following is an excerpt from a recent post by Father Gordon MacRae who has been imprisoned for 18 years  - apparently based on false charges. His comments underline the fact that the suffering of child abuse - both that of victims and the falsely accused - must be dealt with fully and openly as a society. When a community - whether Jewish or non-Jewish, secular or religious - betrays the victims and those falsely accused in order to  protect their public image  - the resulting soul searing anguish is perhaps worse than the abuse itself. The G-d given goal of society is justice to protect individuals - not to sacrifice them.

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These Stone Walls   [...] WHAT THE JEWS KNOW OF JUSTICE [...]

One of our earliest TSW subscribers is Jacob, a devoutly Jewish man from the San Francisco Bay area. Jacob writes to me on occasion, though as usual I’m very delinquent in responding. One of Jacob’s letters has always stood out. He wrote that the pursuit of justice is valued very highly in the Jewish community. He wrote that the Torah admonishes us three times that, “Justice, justice, justice shalt thou seek.”

Catholics – and I’m not excluding bishops and priests – could learn a few things about justice from our spiritual ancestors, the Jews. Late last month, a TSW reader sent me an example in a surprising December 16 blog post entitled “Father Gordon MacRae – Imprisoned for Abuse Payoff?” It was posted by psychologist and rabbinical scholar, Daas Torah on his website of the same name. The site is subtitled “Issues of Jewish Identity.” Daas Torah has authored several books on child and domestic abuse in the Jewish community and is considered an expert in this field.

After a decade of official Catholic efforts to appear sufficiently harsh and unmerciful in heavy-handed condemnation of accused priests, Catholic leaders might take a cue from Daas Torah and the Jewish community’s grappling with these same issues. Some of the comments by Daas Torah’s readers on his post about me reveal a basic tenet of justice that somehow became lost as we addressed the burgeoning Catholic scandal a decade ago. Daas Torah’s Jewish readers are firm in their opinion that victims of real abuse are not at all served by presumptions of guilt and sabotaging the rights of the accused. Here’s an example by a commentator reacting to Daas Torah’s presentation of the case against me:

“Innocent victims who were targeted by false allegations . . . is another thing the victim community does not want to hear . . . Don’t assume that all victims consider themselves to be well-represented by the political activists. Many victims are exceptionally sensitive to injustice. This is also true in the Catholic community, where groups like SNAP want to bury cases like MacRae’s because they undermine sound-bite propaganda.”

Daas Torah’s post included a link to a 2012 update on this story. As a prisoner with no on-line access, I had only a printed version that was sent to me so I had to ask someone to go online to find out what this “update” link was. Surprisingly, it’s a link to an article by Ryan MacDonald entitled, “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison.”

Fellow Catholics, take note of this. Salvation came to us from the Jews. And lest any of us wonder whether Catholics are ready to hear another side of this decade of scandal in the Catholic Church, we need look no further than The Media Report which a few weeks ago posted its year end “Top Ten Stories of 2012.” In Part 2 of that post, the Top Five, The Media Report’s most visited and cited story of 2012 was David Pierre’s coverage of my defense in “Exclusive Report: Alarming New Evidence May Exonerate Imprisoned Priest.” [...]

Amazing dung beetles navigate by Milky Way star light

National Geographic   Moving in a straight line is crucial to dung beetles, which live in a rough-and-tumble world where competition for excrement is fierce. (Play “Dung Beetle Derby” on the National Geographic Kids website.)

Once the beetles sniff out a steaming pile, males painstakingly craft the dung into balls and roll them as far away from the chaotic mound as possible, often toting a female that they have also picked up. The pair bury the dung, which later becomes food for their babies. [...]

Scientists already knew that dung beetles can move in straight lines away from dung piles by detecting a symmetrical pattern of polarized light that appears around the sun. We can’t see this pattern, but insects can thanks to special photoreceptors in their eyes.

But less well-known was how beetles use visual cues at night, such as the moon and its much weaker polarized light pattern. So Warrant and colleagues went to a game farm in South Africa to observe the nocturnal African dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus. (Read another Weird & Wild post on why dung beetles dance.) [...]

Dung beetle researcher Sean D. Whipple, of the Entomology Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said by email that the “awesome results …. provide strong evidence for orientation by starlight in dung beetles.”

Weberman case: Satmar raising $1 million for Dershowitz appeal

BHOL   After the verdict yesterday (Tuesday) which sent Nehemiah Weberman to prison for rest of his life, Satmar went out on an operation to recruit huge donations for funding his court case.

The Brooklyn Court sent Weberman to serve 103 years in prison and under the heading "Redemption of Prisoners", Satmar chassidus is trying to recruit a total of a million dollars to appeal against the decision.

The goal is to harness for the appeal the senior lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who is signed on some spinning legal successes in the United States.

Chareidi father who forced sons into girl's school - more problems

BHOL   If the petition filed by Moshe Aryeh Friedman against the school, Bnos Yerushalayim, of Belze was not enough, following which the girls school was required to allow the two sons of Friedman to study together with students of the school, coming next: This coming Thursday the Antwerp Court is expected to decide on the petition Friedman filed demanding that the three older daughters will be accepted at the Yavne school, in the city.

In addition, the following Monday will be the first hearing in the appeal filed by the school administration 'Bnos Yerushalayim' - where Friedman's two sons are currently learning, against the court's decision which was received earlier this month that the school must enroll the boys in school, despite being designed for girls only, by virtue of the law.[....]

Mr. Rosenberg said in a conversation with B'Chadrei Charedim, that he presented before the State Attorney's Office several arguments, including the fact that the children are forced to migrate from apartment to apartment, after the second time it turned out that their father took a lease fraud and refuses to pay the rent.

Rabbi Padwa recorded saying not to go to police

Times of Israel   The leader of Britain’s Haredi community has been caught on video advising an alleged victim of sexual abuse not to report the claim to police.

Rabbi Ephraim Padwa, head of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, was recorded by a community member using a hidden camera as part of a Channel 4 documentary on Haredi child abuse.

In a scene that will air Wednesday, the insider, who hails from the Haredi London neighborhood of Stamford Hill, tells Padwa, “Someone who you may know of . . . sexually abused me when I was younger, when I was a child,” and asks how to proceed.

After Padwa responds, “We are dealing with this,” the insider asks whether he should go to the police.

“Oh no,” Padwa answers, explaining that doing so would constitute “mesirah,” or turning a Jew over to secular authorities. He adds in Yiddish, “People mustn’t tell tales.”

Asked to comment by The Times of Israel, a spokesman for Padwa questioned the credibility of Channel 4’s undercover insider, saying the allegations had already been investigated and dismissed as “malicious” by social services in the borough of Hackney. They were investigated again in 2007.

Padwa’s on-camera advice about avoiding the police was made, the spokesman said, with that in mind.

Winds of change: Meet new MK Ayelet Shaked

Guest post from RaP The next Knesset is going to have 53 new members, and they are educated, sophisticated and many are accomplished social activists and have big hearts with great dreams for the success of the Jewish people.

Mercifully, the wild-eyed Amnon Yitzhak has been kept out of the Knesset, but there will be saner Jewish voices preaching traditional Jewish values from some very unlikely sources, such as from Knesset newcomer the dynamic Ayelet Shaked (born 1976) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayelet_Shaked a symbol of the "winds of change" that will blow in the new Knesset.

She is a leader in Naftali Bennett's Bayit HaYehudi party that is trying to be a more open version of the old National Religious Party. She is not frum but respects the religious. Her guide is former IDF chief rabbi Ronsky. See the fascinating interview with her at http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/08/16/an-interview-with-ayelet-shaked-the-secular-candidate/     "An Interview With Ayelet Shaked - ..." (Algemeiner, August 16, 2012) and best of all watch her talk for four minutes as she gets a prize for her views about the problems with the Israeli media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRCLE3ySrns

(4 minutes. In Hebrew with English sub-titles)

Benefit of study Agada & Kabbala - even without understanding/ Noda B' Yehuda

Tzlach (Introduction): There is a critically important benefit of learning agada of the Talmud and medrashim - the profound thoughts of our Sages - which they presented in a concealed and obscure manner. They obviously were fully aware that such profound secrets would not be totally comprehended even by a very wise man. Nevertheless despite all the concealment there is in fact a major benefit when we should merit that it should be fulfilled in us  "He kissed me with the kisses of His mouth". And that the exalted spirit manifests itself in us and we hear the words of the Living G-d. Then we will comprehend and know the great good which we obtain by the means of our study of the words of agada even though we don’t properly understand them.  

 

 Let me explain how one can benefit from studying material he doesn't understand. A child when he starts school - the first thing the teacher does before beginning formal learning - is to teach him the forms of the letters.  He teaches him what letter is an aleph and which is a beis - as well as all the rest of the letters. Once the child has mastered the letters he teaches him the different vowel sounds. When the child has mastered the letters and the vowels he teaches him the combination of the letters and the vowels. All this requires tremendous effort to master something which seems to have no inherent value. In fact in the child had a mature intellect he would find this study boring and repulsive. He would view himself as slave occupied in a totally meaningless task. He would object and say that he sees no significance in knowing whether the letter is read as oh or ah. He would protest simply because he is not able to comprehend the great accomplishment of knowing how to read. Therefore ironically we find that a child - because of his inferior understanding - is actually superior to this task to a mature mind. He is able because the weakness of his understanding to study the letters with great enthusiasm and fully master them This is obviously a critically important accomplishment. 

In fact there is a true story in which there were highly educated men traveling on a ship and with them was a pregnant woman. When the ship was well out to sea a great storm arose that transported the ship to a certain place which was uninhabited and had never been seen by man before. In that isolated place the ship broke up and the men and the woman were saved by going on the dry land. The remained there many days. After the passage of time the woman  gave birth to a boy. He grew up there. The men did not have any books with them. Nor did they have any writing material. When the boy grew up he was taught various knowledge by the men. The boy did not know anything about reading and writing at all - since he never saw it. Then one day one of the men came to him and said to him - I am going to teach you something. He began by teaching him the letters of the alphabet and how to pronounce them. He taught the boy in the same way the small children who first start school are taught the letters. However this boy who was born in the ship who already had grown up. He objected and demanded to know what the significance of this study was. He began to angrily argue with the teacher and denounced the study as a complete waste of time. He demanded to know what possible benefit came from studying the letters since it was pure mechanical memorization without any wisdom or intelligence. However the teacher told him that when they returned to civilization the boy would be able to read books as a result of mastering the alphabet and then he would appreciate the great good that is the result of this knowledge. Consequently he forced the boy to learn despite his objections - until the boy had mastered the alphabet. Eventually G-d had mercy on these people and they saw a ship which rescued them. When the boy returned to civilization he found there books of profound wisdom which he was able to study because of his mastery of the alphabet. He learned new things which he had never conceived of. Only then he realized and appreciated having learned the alphabet. He expressed his deep appreciation and gratitude to the teacher who had forced him to learn the alphabet. 

This is the moshol. This itself is the nimshol regarding Agada which have been taught to us by our Sages. All of them are in fact allegory which conceal within them great light. We unfortunately lack the ability to see this light and understand it. However without the superficial awareness we have from the agada it would be impossible for us to see this light and understand it in the future. In other words the agada is the material for the form that will be comprehended in the future. Nevertheless we have to realize that the agada which introduces us to this wisdom is in fact very far from being the wisdom itself. It is comparable to the relationship of the alphabet that the child learns to the wisdom contained in the holy books. In the future when the material is separated from its form then we will grasp and understand how wonderful it is that we learned the relatively superficial lesson of the agada. Without the preliminary superficial understanding obtained from the agada it would be impossible to understand - when we are in Heaven - the words of the Living G-d which are concealed in the agada. It will be at that time that we will understand and give thanks to our Sages who taught us the agada. We will then be able to recognize the great good that has done for us through the study of agada that are included in the Talmud and medrashim. 

Similar to this I heard in my youth from the great tzadik Rabbi Noach Levi of Brody concerning the 10 Sefiros and other issues of kabbala - all of them are merely introductions that are comparable to learning the alphabet with a child. By means of our exposure to them in this world we will merit in the Future World when the materialistic aspects have been removed from us - we will be capable of grasping and understanding their wisdom and give praise and appreciation to our G-d. It is then we will truly comprehend the profound secrets of the Torah. We will  know the truth. The ways of G-d are upright and the righteous go in them. Amen

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim: Invitation to discuss Zohar & Kabbala

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim basically disagreed with the Kabbala/Zohar discussion that Rabbi Tzadok has posted. I invited him to write a guest post to present his views. He initially agreed to do so but I just received the following e-mail from him. It is an invitation to move the discussion to his website.

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This Blog's author was gracious enough to invite my words regarding this recent Zoharic/Kabbala debate, which cannot be decided based on a halachik mechanism of "majority rule". My thoughts grew to more than a page in length, so I have posted it here for those of you interested in reviewing my thoughts: http://www.mesora.org/ZoharsDeviation.html

I also cannot seem to subscribe here, as I see no "email" link on my Mac/Safari browser. Therefore, I am happy to continue on the Mesora website in the Discussions tab: http://www.mesora.org/Discussions  under the forum: Judaism's Fundamentals>Zohar & Kabbala: The Heresy

May we each cleave to emess, abandon falsehood when we realize it, and adhere meticulously to God's words. May we each show kavod to God's habriyos and learn in order to help others, not for self-aggrandizement, and certainly not l'kantare. may God show us all His intelligent truths.


Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, Founder
Mesora.org / The JewishTimes
(516)569-8888 ph
rabbi@mesora.org

Jerusalem man indicted on abusing chareidi kids

JPost   A 43-year-old Jerusalem man was indicted by the Jerusalem District Court Wednesday morning on two counts of sodomy and other indecent acts with young children.

Binyamin Schatz, who lived alone on Hanatziv Street in a haredi neighborhood of the capital, confessed to police that he had abused children around his current apartment and in another neighborhood in Jerusalem where he used to live. He said when his neighbors found out that he was a serial child molester, they forced him to move to another area of the city or they would report him to the police.

After his arrest, other parents came to the police station and reported more instances of abuse and sodomy with their children.

Elections: Bibi - Religious or Secular government?

haaretz   Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu claimed 31 seats, Yesh Atid 19, Labor 15, Shas 11, Habayit Hayehudi 11, United Torah Judaism 7, Hatnuah 6, Meretz 6, United Arab List-Ta’al 5, Balad 3, and Kadima likely to win 2 seats.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4335946,00.html

Weberman sentenced to 103 years for abuse

NyTimes    An unlicensed therapist who was a prominent member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was sentenced on Tuesday to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a young woman, beginning the attacks when she was 12. 

Nechemya Weberman, 54, a member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, did not react as the judge sentenced him. The victim, now 18, who delivered an impassioned statement asking for maximum sentence to be imposed, dabbed away tears.

“The message should go out to all victims of sexual abuse that your cries will be heard and justice will be done,” said State Supreme Court Justice John G. Ingram before imposing the sentence, close to the longest permissible to him by law. He praised the young victim’s “courage and bravery in coming forward.” 

Mr. Weberman, who wore his traditional black suit and head covering, did not speak before the sentencing, but his lawyer, George Farkas, said he was “innocent of the crimes charged.” The defense is planning to appeal.

Church documents reveal high-level abuse coverup

NYTIMES   The retired archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, and other high-ranking clergymen in the archdiocese worked quietly to keep evidence of child molesting away from law enforcement officials and shield abusive priests from criminal prosecution more than a decade before the scandal became public, according to confidential church records. 

The documents, filed in court as part of lawsuit against the archdiocese and posted online by The Los Angeles Times on Monday, offer the clearest glimpse yet of how the archdiocese dealt with abusive priests in the decades before the scandal broke, including Cardinal Mahony’s personal involvement in covering up their crimes.  

Rather than defrocking priests and contacting the police, the archdiocese sent priests who had molested children to out-of-state treatment facilities, in large part because therapists in California were legally obligated to report any evidence of child abuse to the police, the files make clear.  [...]

In a written statement released on Monday, Cardinal Mahony, who took over the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1985 and retired in 2011, apologized to the victims of the sexual abuse. 

“Various steps toward safeguarding all children in the church began here in 1987 and progressed year by year as we learned more about those who abused and the ineffectiveness of so-called ‘treatments’ at the time,” the statement said. “Nonetheless, even as we began to confront the problem, I remained naïve myself about the full and lasting impact these horrible acts would have on the lives of those who were abused by men who were supposed to be their spiritual guides.” 

Cardinal Mahony said he came to understand that impact only two decades later, when he met with almost 100 victims of sexual abuse by priests under his charge. He now keeps an index card for each one of those victims, praying for each one every day, he said in the statement.