Suggestions for improvement in Gittin - Can we all agree?

I am making these comments into a separate post - focusing on how to improve the situation.

Dovid EidensohnOctober 24, 2013 at 9:17 PM

Is there any focus on our future, where all who agree with the major poskim and the Shulchan Aruch will not be able to marry the products of invalid divorces from the followers of Kotler and company? And if there is a great war in Israel between the rabbonut and gedolim about divorces, what does that mean? Are we thinking and talking about that, or are there more important issues?

PloniOctober 24, 2013 at 10:57 PM

R' Dovid:

I'm imagining that the identifying the "products" of these Gittin would require some sort of registry run by people that have the Gedolim's CLEAR stamp of approval.

That's a tough call, because as the author states, Sincere Batei Dinim are afraid to come out in the open against the Rabbanut, because they need the Rabbanut's אישור on Gittin.

How about dealing with "low lying fruit", first:

Let's get some publicity, articles.. ads etc publicizing a simple, logical truism:

1) No Rov or Bais Din can issue a Psak affecting the rights of any party in issues of בין אדם לחבירו without A) hearing both בעלי דין when they are both present together and B) without seriously attempting to ascertain the facts, unless the Baalei Din are מקבל קנין of their free will for a פשרה that states otherwise.

2) Any Baal Din has a right to ask מהיכן דנתני, where he feels an issue of bias may crop up.

3) Any Baal Din has a right to record the proceedings of Bais Din, where he feels there is an issue of bias.

Even if we assume that Epstein/Walmark can explain away lots of things: They care for עגונות; as Rabbi's they feel entitled to the opinion that גט מעושה is okay in the cases they dealt with; they took money because they have families to support...

....Perhaps the most blatant travesty in the saga is the lack of due diligence on their part: Namely, the fact that they never heard "the other side of the story". After all, there are ALWAYS two sides to every story!

How can Epstein/Walmark claim entitlement to the opinion that גט מעושה is okay in the cases they dealt with IF THEY OBVIOUSLY NEVER MET THE FICTITIOUS HUSBAND?

I think most of Kllal Yisroel - across the board - could empathize with these arguments.

I think that if we stay focused on things that most of Kllal Yisroel CAN agree with, we'll BS"D accomplish MUCH more..

Maybe afterwards - once people are warmed up - you'll BS"D have support going forward....

What Motivates Internet Trolls?

ABC News    A White House national security aide, with access to the country's foremost policy makers and closely guarded secrets, blew it all for the chance to write racy, inflammatory and mean-spirited messages on Twitter. 

Jofi Joseph, a director in the non-proliferation section of the National Security Staff at the White House, was fired after it was revealed that he was anonymously taunting senior administration officials, mocking politicians from both parties, and criticizing the policies he was helping to develop. 

Under the handle @natsecwonk, he also revealed internal government information. In short, he was a troll.[...]

But why write spiteful things online if there are real-life consequences? What motivates trolls like Joseph?[...]

"Cyber-psychologists often talk about the disinhibition affect. People do and say things online that they wouldn't do in real life," said John Suler, a cyber-psychologist at Rider University in New Jersey. In cyberspace, the face-to-face cues people rely on to curb inappropriate behavior is missing.[...]

But anonymity alone does not breed trolls, said Claire Hardaker, a professor at Lancaster University in England who studies Internet troublemakers. Trolls often have some sort of personal grudge, she said [...]

Weberman's victim's husband receives death threat

NYPost  The husband of the brave Orthodox Jewish teen whose testimony helped convict the once-prominent Jewish counselor who sexually abused her is receiving death threats, The Post has learned.

“I know my Jewish rights . . . I am allowed to kill you and that [is] what I am going to do,” a thuggish coward posted Monday on the Facebook page of Boorey Deutsch, husband of imprisoned perv Nechemya Weberman’s now-18-year-old victim.

“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU WITH IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS you may be stronger than one thousand satmar people but not stronger than a gun bullet,” the posting raged.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office is investigating the threat, spokeswoman Mia Goldberg confirmed.

Rabbi Shteinman Attacked at Home by Chareidi man

Arutz 7    A red line was crossed Tuesday night in intra-hareidi political rivalry when a man in his 20s broke into the home of Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, who is 99 years old, and physically attacked him.

The incident took place as votes in the municipal elections were still being counted nationwide, and while Rabbi Shteinman was preparing a Torah lesson he intended to give Wednesday. It is seen as being connected to the municipal elections, in which the faction that follows Rabbi Shteinman received 8 seats on the Jerusalem Municipal Council, but Rabbi Shteinman's favored candidate for mayor, Moshe Lion, lost.

Sources in Rabbi Shteinman's home said that the attacker apparently entered through a window. He approached the rabbi, held him with both hands and began to shake him vigorously, while verbally insulting him and saying he had come "to get revenge."

Upon hearing the commotion in the rabbi's room, his assistants and followers quickly entered the room and held the down the attacker until police came and arrested him.

The rabbi is reportedly not feeling well after the attack, and his doctor is conducting a series of tests to determine how badly he was hurt.

The ultra-Orthodox seamstress who determined the fate of Jewish women

Haaretz   Schenirer wrote of the dissonance in the community, as "Carolin": 

“And as we pass through the days before the High Holy Days...fathers and sons travel, and thus they are drawn to Ger, to Belz, to Alexander, to Bobov, to all those places that had been made citadels of conceited religious life, dominated by the figure of the rebbe’s personality. 

“And we stay at home, the wives, daughters, and the little ones. We have an empty festival. It is bare of Jewish intellectual content. The women have never learned anything about the spiritual meaning that is concentrated within a Jewish festival. The mother goes to the synagogue, but the services echo faintly into the fenced and boarded-off women’s galleries. There is much crying by elderly women. The young girls look at them as though they belong to a different century. Youth and the desire to live a full life shoot up violently in the strong-willed young personalities. Outside the synagogues, the young girls stay chattering; they walk away from the synagogue where their mothers pour out their vague and heavy feelings. They leave behind them the wailing of the older generation and follow the urge for freedom and self-expression. Further and further from the synagogue they go, further away, to the dancing, tempting light of a fleeting joy.”[...]

Of course, a century later in Orthodox girls’ schools, no one taught us about Schenirer’s secular studies. Nor did anyone tell us about the testimonies that those who knew her have given since, stories which would fit all too awkwardly into a hagiography: that she had been married previously at an early age but soon afterwards got divorced (some say her husband was not religious enough for her, others claim it was childlessness which drove them apart), that she studied the Mishna in the original Hebrew without Yiddish translation, that her lectures were attended both by men and women. 

After Schenirer’s death, religious leaders went to great lengths to describe Schenirer as a "modest, pious woman." As Shoshanah Bechhofer writes in her 2005 dissertation on the subject, a “movement that represents change [in] a religious community that reveres tradition” must “celebrate its innovator without celebrating the idea of innovation”. And so, it was decided that, if ambition contradicts the traditional ideal of female piety, Sarah Schenirer’s memory would have to evolve first and foremost as a paragonof modesty, a modern-day redeemer of the daughters of Israel. And so, she has become today exactly what she once mourned in her diary: a woman wrapped in shawls rather than words, a perfectionist in “clothing the body” but not so much in clothing the seeds of the soul - or the mind, for that matter.[...]

Jewish Community Watch: Shh...Don't report abuse?

Minyan as a way to politically strengthen the Land of Israel

Guest post: The following is not a typical post for this blog. As the author states, she is not presenting a halachic view but a political one touching on the mitzva of yishuv haaretz.

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Why the Minyan?

It takes ten men to say certain prayers in shul. Yet no member of a minyan has a duty to attend. Why, then, opt in to this essential expression of Jewish community? It all goes back to the spies on whom the size of this religious -- and, in many ways, political -- quorum is designed.

In preparation to claim the promised land, chieftains of each tribe were dispatched to "see what kind of land it is, and the people who inhabit it; are they strong or weak? Are there few or many?" Ten of the 12 spies gave reports so discouraging that the people considered dissolving their nation in favor of returning to slavery in Egypt.

Those ten fearmongers were excised and our nation survived the episode. But, today, if the tables were turned, and enemies peered over our shul walls to discover the strength of Am Yisröel, would those spies run in fear or find our Beit Knessets all but abandoned?

My recent visit to the old city of Akko, recounted in Gather the Jews last week, suggests the latter. http://www.gatherthejews.com/2013/10/importance-of-a-minyan-in-akko/ Granted, rock-solid communities of faithful men abound around the world. But, what if Jews stopped to consider that their presence at a minyan constituted not just an act of group worship but a political statement, too? Our houses of prayer might brim daily to overflowing with platoons of tefillin-wearing chieftains.

Where no halakhic authority exists on the point, who am I to say whether HaShem wants you consistently in a minyan? What I do know is that people take their cues from leaders. And where ten leaders cannot take the time to convene daily in defense of their nation, what can any of the rest of us be expected to pledge toward its survival?

Lisette Garcia, J.D., is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) consultant in Washington, D.C. She attends Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a 15-minute walk from the U.S. Capitol.

Alleged Modi'in Illit child molester arrested

JPost   Modi’in Illit Police have arrested a 20-year-old resident of Bnei Brak suspected of involvement in attacks on several victims, including a sexual assault on a nine-year-old boy.

Police noted that the victim’s father went to his rabbi and asked whether or not he should notify authorities of the alleged abuse. The rabbi told the man to go to police immediately, and he filed the complaint on Tuesday.

The child told police that he was on his way back home from school when he asked a young man to help him cross the street. The boy said the man then asked him to come with him to a nearby building, underneath a synagogue, where he sexually assaulted him.[...]

Police in Modi’in Illit are now calling on residents to come forward if they know of additional children the suspect assaulted.

Freund succeeds in bringing in 900 more non-Jewish Bnei Menashe

JPost   Following last week’s cabinet decision to allow the immigration of nearly 900 members of the Indian Bnei Menashe community to Israel, Michael Freund, the founder and chairman of the Shavei Israel organization that lobbied for their aliya, told The Jerusalem Post that he wishes to see the entire community come to Israel soon.

“Our goal is to bring all the remaining members of the Bnei Menashe community here to Israel as quickly as possible,” Freund said during a telephone interview on Thursday. [...]

While the Chief Rabbinate does not consider the Bnei Menashe to be Jewish according to Halacha, the members of the community consider themselves to be of Jewish ancestry and “committed Zionists and observant Jews” whose goal “is to return to the land of their ancestors,” Freund remarked. [..]

According to Freund, last week’s cabinet decision allows 200 Bnei Menashe to be brought by the end of the year, 400 in 2014 and another 300 in 2015. All of the immigrants will be housed in a private absorption center run by Shavei Israel and will then be settled around the country. [...]

Why rabbis are typically not competent to deal with abuse cases

Guest Post from Rabbi Yehoshua Kaganoff: This is a letter written several years ago which was sent in response to an article in the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society.

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Rabbi Alfred Cohen, Editor

RJJ Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society

5 Fox Lane

Spring Valley, NY 10977

Chol Hamoed Succos, 5771

Dear Rabbi Cohen,

I appreciate the voluminous amount of research and effort that you invested in composing your recent article, “Judging Transgression in the Absence of Witnesses”. However, I was considerably dismayed over several fundamental omissions of very critical dimensions that impact dramatically on the outcome determinations and guidance that was necessary to convey to your readership and others under their influence.

Probably the most effective and efficient means of demonstrating the deficient aspects of the article is to critique the 3 case-studies that you cited as examples on pages 45-47 of your article.

In regards to the first case, you state that you feel that the authority figures acted in laudatory fashion.

Unfortunately, that is grossly incorrect. Nowhere is it mentioned that in the initial confrontation (“the quiet, discreet one”) that the rabbis in charge stipulated that the “rebbe” needed to submit to specialized psychological testing and treatment and that his engagement in the treatment protocols needs to be corroborated and verified. Nor was it mentioned that in the interim his movements need to be constantly (electronically) monitored and that the monitoring would only be discontinued after receiving a “clean report” from the supervising therapist.

The “rabbis in charge” were completely unaware of the compulsive, addictive nature of pedophility. Nor were they aware of the extent of the injury and damage caused to the victim of molestation.

Therefore, even though they may have (perhaps) protected the children of the yeshiva, they did nothing to protect the children of the community at large. As is well documented and known, a pedophile’s verbal assurances are of absolutely no value; Nor are threats of punishment! The disease (and indeed, a disease it is!) is a compulsion that he cannot rationally control and it was only a matter of time before he would victimize another child.

The rabbis in charge, either out of neglectful ignorance or arrogance, ignored the medical scientific research on this condition and blundered egregiously. They did not discharge their responsibility of Lo Sa’amod Al Dam Re’echo. The subsequent victim’s trauma (“….not abiding by the terms of the agreement.”) is their full responsibility. “Kol Dmei Achicho Tzoakim Eilai!”. Yodenu Shofchu es HaDom Hazeh!”      

              

This is very precisely a case of “Holcho Chamorcho, Tarfon”.

And likewise the public denouncement thereafter, was also a consequent miscarriage of justice. They never gave the perpetrator a proper chance at therapy to modify his psychological issues which underlie his disease. They basically set him up for failure and the subsequent public degradation.

This is not laudatory at all!

Similarly in the case of the Hebrew school teacher that you cited as case study #2, The Rosh Yeshiva perhaps protected the children in school. How these same children were to be protected off school premises remains mystifying. The nature of the disease is that if one avenue of sating the craving is denied, then the addict finds another avenue to “soothe” the compulsion.

And exactly how was the Shul Rabbi going to protect the children in the Shul? Was he to appoint (discreetly, of course) a shomer to watch the teacher’s every action? Anyone who works in the field of addictions knows that it is absurd and impossible to expect another person to control externally the addict from engaging in his “drug of choice”.  And what about the children in the rest of community? Again there was no interim electronic monitoring to keep the community safe. And there was no   mandated treatment with corroboratable compliance to ascertain that the perpetrator was engaged in the therapeutic process. All of these follies lay the groundwork for a subsequent disaster to happen.

Your referencing and comparing of these first 2 cases to your third case study of a Monsey butcher is a total non-sequitor. Even if we suspect the butcher of the compulsion of Kleptomania, at most he is endangering people’s money. The Maacholos Asuros factor is clearly an “Ones Rachmono Patrei” on the part of the customers and every responsible rov and rebbi will exonerate the consumers. Even the “Timtum HaLev” aspect, if indeed it applies at all, is removed by some Teshuva on the part of the consumers – please see endnote for elaboration. In no way does this compare to the severe emotional trauma and physical damage caused by molestation! A molester is a true Rodef in every sense of the word as borne out by the research.

Until such time as Rosh Yeshivos, Rabonim and Dayonim educate themselves in the following areas:

            1 – The compulsion dimension of Pedophilia; it is not a case of yitzra b’yodo – that he can contain his “own   evil urgings”…..

             2 – The extensive damage done to the victims….; 

          3 – That this is not a case of “judging transgression”; but preventing profound injury by a public menace (Rodef)…

A parent or other responsible adult has no other recourse than to go to the secular authorities and/or to the media, to protect his own children and those of others. And this is, indeed, mandated by Halocho!

If you would like, for your convenience I can send to you the corroboratory Teshuvos, Mareh Mekomos and resource material that is available upon these matters.

I believe it behooves you to recall the article as being half information and therefore inaccurate and misleading.

A Guten Moed v’Simchas HaChag

Sincerely,

Rabbi Kaganoff

PS – concerning Timtum Halev:

1) Droshos HaRan(#11) posits that a person who commits an Aveira but did so because he followed the Psak of Torah Authority does not suffer Timtum HaLev. In the cited butcher case, the consumers were following a very reliable Rav HaMachshir.

2) Even if we would disregard the Droshos HaRan, the Timtum HaLev is at most a Hezek SheAino Nikar, which is only a Hezek m’d’Rabbonon – NOT m’dOiraisah (Oruch HaShulchon CM 386:8).

3) Even if we suspect that the consumers ate Chelev, which would precipitate upon them a Chiyuv Korbon (Chatos or Oshom Tolui) to atone and rectify the damage, the cost of the animal would be only a monetary damage on the part of the butcher (Garmi – Oruch HaShulchon 368:11). 

And whether it be in a time when Korbonos can or cannot be brought, Teshuva accomplishes the requisite rectification as per Rambam, Teshuva 1:1 ; 3 and 7:4,6-8 

Feeling high and mighty gives us license to accept dubious dough

Scientific American  It may be satisfying to think back on good deeds. But beware: studies suggest these rosy recollections can prime us for future behaviors that are actually less ethical. When reassured of our rock-solid morality, it seems, we give ourselves more leeway in ethically slippery situations—a phenomenon dubbed “moral licensing.” In a recent example, California researchers found that individuals who had just written about a past good deed—such as helping a troubled friend or doing charitable work—worked harder for dough from an ethically iffy source. [...]

Kolko gets 15 years after judge rejects guilty plea withdrawal

Asbury Park Press   After watching his former camp counselor try to avoid responsibility for molesting him during a nine-hour hearing on Thursday, a 16-year-old boy faced his abuser in court as a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Francis R. Hodgson imposed the prison term shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Yosef Kolko, 38, a former counselor at an Orthodox Jewish camp in Lakewood.

Before the sentence was handed down, the victim, who was 11 and 12 years old when he was molested by Kolko in 2008 and 2009, confronted his former camp counselor.

“Molesting may seem harmless to you, but the reality is, it kills people,” the victim said. “How can you ignore the tears and open wounds when you know how much you hurt me? You ganged up on me and hurt me again.”

The victim and his family were ostracized in Lakewood’s Orthodox community for bringing the child’s allegations to secular authorities and breaking the religious tradition of having rabbis handle such problems. The family [...] made a 12-hour trip by bus for the sentencing hearing and an earlier hearing that stretched from the afternoon until 11 p.m. on Kolko’s bid to retract his guilty plea.

Kolko’s attorney, Alan Zegas, argued Kolko should be allowed to withdraw his plea to the molestation charges because he was coerced into making the admissions by members of the Orthodox community who didn’t want the bad publicity from a trial. [...]

However, Kolko’s previous attorney, Michael Bachner, one of seven witnesses at the hearing on whether to allow the guilty plea to be withdrawn, testified there was no coercion.

 

Senior Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Laura Pierro called Bachner to testify after six witnesses testified on behalf of Kolko, describing an effort by many people in the community to try and convince him to plead guilty.

“He was never being threatened,” Bachner said of Kolko. “I didn’t feel he was being coerced. He never indicated to me he was being pressured.”[...]

New accusers in rabbi ‘torture’ ring

NY Post   A prosecutor said Wednesday that “the phone has not stopped ringing” with calls from Orthodox Jewish men who claim they were kidnapped by a rabbinical torture ring that used a cattle prod to force recalcitrant husbands to divorce their unhappy wives.

Assistant US Attorney Joseph Gribko said that while the feds were aware of 20 abductions when the unholy gang was busted last week, it’s unclear how many more will be uncovered.

“It’s larger than we thought,” Gribko said in Trenton federal court.

“The threats are not just in the past. This is an ongoing business.”

Sadistic cult leader sentenced to 26 years

YNET    26 years in prison. That is the punishment meted out Thursday morning by the Jerusalem District Court on the head of a "sadistic cult" in the Jerusalem area. He was also ordered to pay NIS 100,000 to his victims. His aide, who was convicted alongside him in court, was sentenced to six years in prison.

In September, the head of the sect and his aide were convicted of sexual offenses, violence, imprisonment in conditions of slavery and abuse of women and dozens of minors – some of whom were biological children of the father of "the family." The father, known as D., and his assistant, were arrested with much publicity two years ago. Twenty charges were filed against the two, and they were convicted of most.

According to the verdict, the "family" consisted of six women and dozens of children. The father persuaded the women to join them peacefully, but once they joined, life became a living hell of horrific violence, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse towards them and their children. Even so, some wives continued to be faithful and denied the charges against him. "There was only love at home," they claimed after the conviction. "It is all lies."

 

Publication of the full indictment has been forbidden, in order to prevent the identification of dozens of young children and their mothers, but a shortened version was released. [...]