Christian TV Network CEO Marcus Lamb Dies Of Covid

Jordan Klepper Debates Anti-Vax Mandate Protesters in NYC | The Daily Show

‘I won’t last much longer’: Lawyer begs for gov’t help after 1 month in Belarus jail

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/i-wont-last-much-longer-lawyer-begs-for-govt-help-after-1-month-in-belarus-jail/

An Israeli woman imprisoned for over a month in Belarus on suspicion of having tried to smuggle a small amount of medical marijuana into the country has implored Israeli officials to intervene on her behalf, saying that she may not survive behind bars much longer.

“My health is waning. I can no longer stay here, and I will not last much longer,” said Maya Rayten-Stol, a lawyer who was detained at the Minsk airport on November 4 with some 2.5 grams (under a tenth of an ounce) of medical cannabis.

Upon her arrest, she reportedly stressed to Belarussian authorities that the marijuana in her possession was licensed by the Health Ministry and tried to show documents to prove her assertion, but was ignored. She suffers from several unspecified conditions, according to a letter from fellow lawyers sent to Israeli officials on her behalf.

Kiruv can be dangerous to marriage

 From my book Child and Domestic abuse vol II

There was a very well known kiruv personality. Perhaps you could say that he was a poster boy for kiruv. Warm and wise and very articulate in expressing the wisdom of the Torah. He was much in demand as a speaker - and as a consequence he spent much time flying between speaking engagement. Wherever he went he brought the light of Torah. It warmed his heart to see all the people he was influencing and he was a role model of humility and service of G-d. One day he was flying the long and boring stretch across the Atlantic when the stewardess asked him if he needed anything. He suspected that she might be Jewish so he engaged her in light banter – hoping to influence her to become more religiously observant. He stated in a joking tone that he was an outreach rabbi and that she probably should avoid him since he was a fundamentalist ultra-orthodox rabbi. She had never met such a charming and intelligent religious fanatic so she decided to play along. It turns out she wasn't Jewish - but she really enjoyed the discussion. The conversation deepened and she was really taken with this man. There was something about him that was different than all the men she had ever met. He of course told himself that he was motivated solely by altruistic reasons.  The fact that she was stunningly beautiful and was quite intelligent and asked really good questions – simply made it a more interesting challenge. By the end of the flight they exchanged phone numbers and promised to stay in contact.

To make a long story short - he realized that she really made him feel alive. It was a wondrous thing watching her come up with a really deep question about the Ramchal that he had told her and the joy on her face when he took the question and connected it with Chassidic stories and Kabbala. It was an amazing thing realizing how much this beautiful woman benefited from everything he said. He realized that he once had that relationship with his wife of 20 years - but they hadn't had a deeper issue than who was coming for Shabbos - for at least 10 years. Besides his wife wasn't so beautiful anymore.

After much soul searching he realized that for the sake of his spirituality and hers he needed to drop his wife and marry her. The stewardess had readily agreed to convert - to marry him. Nonetheless it wasn't easy breaking his wife's heart and destroying his kids - but he was willing to make the sacrifice for the sake of G-d. After all isn’t spiritual growth the prime value? Besides all his wife could do was have babies and keep house. His interaction with this stewardess pushed him to spiritual heights and understanding. He just couldn't believe the profound Torah insights coming out of his mouth when he spoke with her. He decided he would abandon his family. He was young enough to start over again with a new family.

He did in fact divorce his wife, the stewardess converted and they married. Of course his former wife, family and community were totally devastated. But he moved elsewhere and is happily starting life over again with his beautiful student – purely for the sake of Heaven of course.

Tropper's former defender has regrets

RONI has left a new comment on your post "Reb Reuven - please!":

Rav Daniel Eidensohn Shlita

At it stands now (and I do not think that the situation will change relating to this angle) , YOU (RAV DANIEL EIDENSOHN ARE THE TZADIK and so some others (except one and the gvir he covers up and the people aligned with that gvir) and I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY IN THE SIZE OF AN ELEPHANT!

And I want to say to you now, Bekitzur:

ON THIS ISSUE YOU ARE A TZADIK, I WAS A RASHA, I NEED TO DO TESHUVA ON THIS ISSUE, OF SHAMING YOU AND CALLING YOU NAMES AND MORE WILL BE FORTHCOMING AFTER CLEAR INFORMATION IS GIVEN. I HOPE YOU WILL ALLOW MY WORDS TO STAND. I HOPE YOU FEEL THAT I FEEL REAL REMORSE AND PAINED OVER THE FACT THAT I MALIGNED YOU NUMEROUS TIMES OVER AN ISSUE THAT YOU WERE RIGHT.

THERE ARE MORE THAT HAVE WHAT TO SAY AND I WANT TO SAY, AS THE APOLOGY AND AS THE EXPLANATION THAT YOU WERE IN SOME CENTRAL ISSUES.

(I MUST STATE FROM THE OUTSET, THAT NOTHING ABOUT THE OTHER RABBI, THE OTHER GVIR, THOSE WHO LECKED HIM THEN, AND NOW AND MILK HIM AND EVERYTHING THAT THAT PART REPRESENTS IS *NOT* CHANGED. SOME LESSONS MUST BE TAKEN FROM THAT AS A WELL.

BUT THE LESSON FROM ADONI RABBI UMORI RAV EIDENSOHN IN THE APST THAT AS TO THE PRESENT IT IS A "RED HERRING" HE IS 1000% RIGHT).

LEIB TROPPER: I MUST SAY TO YOU, BEKITZUR NOW, THAT YOU WERE A TERRIBLE RASHA ON THIS ISSUE, THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT HAPPENED HERE THAT EE EFSHAR LEPORTOM. I WOULD BE WRITING THEM, MORE BEARICHUS LATER IF THE RABBI OF THIS BLOG KINDLY PERMITS IT AND AFTER WE HAVE MORE INFO.

YOU HAVE ONE AND ONLY OPTION (PLEASE FORGET ABOUT CALLING ME; IT IS USELESS AND A WASTE OF TIME; YOU MUST NOT CONVINCE ME ABOUT YOUR TRUTH), THAT YOU MAKE YOUR CASE TO THE *PUBLIC* THROUGH A LAWYER TO PROVE THAT YOUR IS THE TRUTH AND THAT WHAT APPEARS ON THE TAPE (THAT IS FAR FAR FAR BEYOND "KOLOH DELOY PASSIK" AND BEYOND "UMDENAH DMUCHACH" OF KIUR AND WORSE AND SELLOUT OF JUDAISM (GERUT_) FOR ZNUSS, IS THE REAL ESSNAN ZONAH) IS FALSE.

OTHERWISE, DO US ALL FAVOR AND DO SOMETHING SIMILAR TO

חזרת טבח שהיה בודק לעצמו ומוכר ויצא טריפה מתחת ידו, {פד} שילבש שחורים ויתכסה שחורים, וילך למקום שאין מכירים אותו ויחזיר אבידה בדבר חשוב, או יוציא טריפה מתחת ידו בדבר חשוב. (לו ועיין בי"ד סי' קי"ט).

AND AGAIN DO NOT CALL ME! I COULD NOT SLEEP ALREADY FOR THE LAST WEEK (AND MORE).

Jerusalem rabbinical court says spousal abuse not grounds for divorce - because her request for divorce caused the violence

Times of Israel

An Israeli woman who was denied a divorce by a rabbinic court on the grounds of documented domestic violence has appealed to the state’s attorney general.

The woman’s lawyers made the unusual appeal Thursday following the Jerusalem Rabbinic Court’s rejection of her divorce motion. Her husband had been convicted and imprisoned for 75 days for assaulting his wife last year.

In Israel, religious tribunals function as family courts. According to Orthodox Jewish law, divorce is only possible if the husband consents to it. Rabbinical judges in most cases cannot force husbands to give their wives a divorce, though they can impose punishments – including imprisonment and dispossession – on those deemed to be abusing their wives but not granting them a divorce. Such women are called agunot in Hebrew, meaning chained.

In this case, the husband admitted to the domestic violence before the rabbinical court and expressed regret for his actions. The assault took place after the woman filed for divorce for the first time – an unsuccessful bid that the court rejected because the husband objected.

The woman refiled citing the assault conviction, but in dismissing the request, the court ascribed the violence to the woman’s desire to divorce her husband rather than any inherent will on his part to harm her, according to Mavoi Satum, a Jewish Orthodox organization working for so-called chained women.

Denouncing any violence against women, the judges said this applied “especially to such serious violence as described in the charge sheet.” However, “there is also no doubt that the husband’s outburst followed on the difficult conditions he is in as a result of the divorce suit his wife filed against him; and there is no doubt that if the wife accepted the husband’s request to attempt to return normal life together, this occurrence would not have happened,” the ruling by the three-judge panel read. [...]

Schlesinger Twins: Excerpts from court documents regarding Dr. Schlesinger

The following are excerpts from court documents relating to Dr Schlesinger's attempt to have his wife committed to a mental hospital falsely claiming she was a paranoid schizophrenic and  that he was a psychiatrist. There are a number of facts cited from documents which clearly indicate problems with Dr. Schlesinger - that were ignored by the judge who awarded him custody.

=============================

Failure of the courts to take any account of Schlesinger’s abuse of the mother and its traumatising effect on the children

1. Not only did Schlesinger enlist his friend, high court Judge Konstanz Thau to assist him in wresting the children from my care, he also manipulated his medical friend and colleague, Dr Paul Földes, head of psychiatry in the Wilheminen Hospital where the father was doing his traineeship to support Schlesinger´s plan to falsely diagnose me and have me sectioned.
2. Göttlicher held a hearing on 9 August 2011 to hear the witnesses – police officers, police psychiatrist and paramedics who were present the day the father tried to commit me to a mental hospital. After hearing their evidence, Göttlicher could have been in no doubt that I was not mentally ill and the diagnosis was fabricated by the father and his friend and colleague with whom he colluded, Paul Földes. In fact Göttlicher herself stated the following in her order granting the father unsupervised access, 31.7.2010:

“Die Feststellungen, zum Umstand, dass haben weder Amtsarztin noch einschreitender Sanitater einer psychischen Erkrankrung der Mutter sahen, stutz sich zum einem auf vorliegenden Polizeibericht samt amtsartzlicher Bescheinigung nach $ 6 UbG, ON 3, sowie auf die zeugenschgaftlichen Einvernahmen dieser beiden Personen im Scheidungsverfahren der Streitteile”

“It can be concluded that neither the police psychiatrist, not the paramedics that were present saw any indication of mental illness in the mother, which is supported by the documented police reports, the medical report by the police psychiatrist, as well as their witness testimonies in the process of the divorce proceedings.”

Witness testimony of events of 11.2.2010 and 16.2.2010

3. Statement by the police psychiatrist, Dr Schreitl:

“Es ist richtig, es war ein Bekannter des Ehemannes, ein Psychiater (anm. Dr. Földes), dabei, der auch sagte, dass die Frau eingewiesen gehört. Der war auch vor Ort. … Ich habe danach auch noch am Gang mit ihm gesprochen und habe ihn gefragt, wie er auf die Idee kommt. Er sagte mir, dass er die Geschichte nur vom Ehemann weiß und dass er selbst die Frau nicht exploriert hat. …. Ich habe ihn darauf hingewiesen, dass er sich zunächst selbst ein psychiatrisches Bild zu machen hat.“

Ich war daraufhin nicht unbedingt freundlichen am Gang. Ich habe ihn auf seine Kompetenzen als Psychiater hingewiesen und darauf, dass er ein Facharzt ist, dass man so fachkundig nicht vorgehen kann, und dass er nahe am Rufmord vorbeischrammt. …. Ich habe ihn darauf hingewiesen, dass er sich zunächst selbst ein psychiatrisches Bild zu machen hat.“

Translation: “It is true that there was a colleague of the father, a psychiatrist (Dr Földes) there, who also stated that the wife must be sectioned. He was also there...I then spoke to him in the corridor and asked him how he came to such a conclusion. He told me that he knew the story from the husband but that he himself had not examined the wife.......I told him that he was then obliged to carry out his own psychiatric assessment.

I wasn't completely unfriendly after that. I questioned his competence as a psychiatrist and said that as a specialist, such an expert he could not behave in that way and he had totally abused his powers....”

4. Further statement from Dr Schreitl demonstrating that the father fabricated the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia:
5. Auf Frage der KV an Dr. Schreitel, wie es dazu kam, dass ich in Richtung einer Erkrankung aus dem paranoid-schizophrenen Formenkreis zu untersuchen sei, sagte Dr. Schreitl:

„Die Polizisten haben mir gesagt, der Ehemann hätte ihnen das so erklärt.“

Translation: In response to the question to Dr Schreitl how it came about that I examined the mother for evidence of paranoid schizophrenia, Dr Schreitl replied:

“The police told me so, the husband had claimed it.”

6. Statement by Police Inspector Aigner:

„Es hat uns wieder der Ehemann empfangen und uns mitgeteilt, dass die Frau krank ist und dass sie eingewiesen gehört.“

„…Da ist der Ehemann dann in die Küche gegangen und hat dem Rettungsdienst immer wieder das Telefon hingehalten und gemeint, sie sollten am Telefon mit jemanden sprechen, mit einem Arzt (Dr. Földes).“

Translation: The husband repeatedly insisted that his wife was mentally ill and needed to be sectioned....

then the husband went into the kitchen and kept telling the paramedics they must speak to someoone who was on the phone, to a doctor (Dr Foldes)

7. Statement by Paramedic, Thorsten Brandstetter (paramedic):

„Er (Dr. Schlesinger) sagte uns dann auch, dass er mit einem Oberarzt telefoniert hat, und dass er will, dass sie ins Krankenhaus kommt.“

Translation: He (Dr Schlesinger) also then told us that he had called a specialist and that he also wants the wife to be hospitalised.

8. On 11.2.2010, after I called the police because of the father's violence (he again pushed me as I was holding one of the babies) the father, a trainee doctor lied to the police that he was a psychiatrist.
9. Statement by police inspector, Ing. Franz Trittremmel

„Auf Frage unter Vorhalt, dass hier dokumentiert ist, der Ehemann habe sich als Psychiater genannt:

Ich neige nicht dazu, etwas zu erfinden. Ich würde so etwas nicht an der Haaren herbeiziehen. Für mich als Einschreiter ist es ja irrelevant, ob sich der Ehemann als Psychiater, Staatsanwalt oder sonst jemand bezeichnet. Ich gehe daher davon aus, dass das, was drinnen steht, so auch gefallen ist.“

Translation: In response to the event where it is documented the father (falsely) claimed he was a psychiatrist:

“I do not invent things. I wouldn't document something as false. However, for me it is irrelevant if the husband is a psychiatrist, attorney general or something else. I can only state that if I wrote it, then that is what was said at the time.”

10. Dr Krenn reported both Dr Schlesinger and Dr Foldes to the Medical Chamber for massive abuse of their powers but as far as I know, no action was taken against them.
11. While he may not have been struck off as a doctor, his abuse of his doctor´s credentials as well as the subversive attempts to separate the the twins from their mother should, in any event, have excluded all possibility of the father ever gaining custody of the children. Indeed, he was prevented from unsupervised access for a whole year because of his actions on this day. (It is questionable why the Supreme Court decided to overturn his supervised access without any new evidence).
12. Not only was this episode not taken into account by Göttlicher, it was later discovered that these documents are missing from the custody file. (This will be dealt with later in the report under 'suppression of evidence')
13. The subsequent Appeal Courts have also failed to take any account of the father´s documented abuse in this shameful episode.
14. Although all the other witnesses clearly heard Schlesinger and Földes falsely diagnose me with paranoid schizophrenia, (as above) Földes denied diagnosing me, stating that this is a serious diagnosis that he would not label people with lightly. QUOTE
15. Göttlicher accepts Földes false testimony, ignoring the contradictory evidence of the police witnesses who clearly heard him diagnose me with paranoid schizophrenia and in her custody decision refers only to Földes’ own account that he was only of the opinion that the history and the situation at that time was “enough to result in a psychologically stressed situation.” The appeal court similarly stated, somewhat remarkably, that “the relationship problems between the mother and the father and the events surrounding the eviction of the father are no longer decisive elements.”
16. Göttlicher refers in her Custody decision to my claims that Schlesinger was also violent generally during throughout the marriage. However she goes on to say that “the expert [Willinger] found nothing in the whole examination that indicated that the father might be aggressive, violent or not in control of his impulses. Göttlicher did not send Willinger copies of the police documents of this episode and all mention of it is omitted in her report.
17. In the custody decision, Göttlicher failed to mention Willinger’s hypothesis as stated by her in the 10 hour court hearing, that either the mother is not mentally ill and everything she alleged about the violence is correct, or she is mentally ill and is paranoid. My lawyer asked what we could deduce about the father if I were not mentally ill and willinger stated this would be 'manipulation' by the father:

“Wenn man die Gegenhypothese annimmt, dass die Mutter nicht krank ist, dann ist das Ereignis für sich allein eine Manipulation.

“If we accept the opposing hypothesis, that the mother is not mentally ill, then the father's actions can be seen as manipulation.' Transcript, court hearing Willinger, 24.7.2011

As three further psychiatric reports (including a court commissioned one) all confirmed the mother is clearly not mentally ill, according to Willinger's reasoning, the father is manipulative.

18. That Földes abused his position by relying on Schlesinger’s account without performing his own assessment is beyond question. The only question is what was his motive in doing so. The only logical explanation is that of collusion between Schlesinger and Földes, his colleague and friend. That Schlesinger is capable of manipulating friends in this way in an attempt to have his wife sectioned should surely have been an immense concern for the judge in evaluating his suitability to be given custody over children.

Effect of violence on children

19. The children witnessed this entire barbaric episode: a team of 5-6 armed policemen in our apartment, a team of 3-4 paramedics, a police psychiatrist, Dr Földes, a violent father insitstent on the children´s mother being taken away. The children displayed signs of trauma immediately afterwards: sleeping and eating problems, clinginess and general insecurity.
20. The Appeal Court (par x above) stated that events between parents and children were irrelevant to a custody decision.
21. However, when questioned in court about the effect of witnessing domestic violence on children, Expert psychologist Dr Sinko-Sanz:

„Auf Frage der Vertreterin der Mutter nach der Trennung der Eltern am 16.2.2010, und dass die Kinder in dieser Situation waren, ob das auch einen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung haben kann.

Das ist etwas, das ein Punkt sein kann und sicher zu berücksichtigen ist. Es ist bekannt, dass Kinder, die eine belastende Aaussensituation erleben, sich zurückziehen.“

“In response to a question from the mother´s lawyer about the separation of the parents on 16.2.2010 and that the children were in this situation, whether that may have an impact on development.

This is something that can be a point and must surely be taken into consideration. It is known that children who have experienced a stressful situation, withdraw themselves.

22. In fact, the expert states that her initial impression of the children was that they were underdeveloped because they were traumatised. She therefore recommended calm and stability:

“Es ist vorstellbar, dass ein derartiges Sozialverhalten dann entsteht, wenn es eine schwere Traumatisierung in der frühen Kindheit gegeben hat. Das war meine erste Vermutung in der ersten Vermutungsdiagnose. Ich habe daher diese Empfehlung nach Ruhe und Gleichmäassigkeit gegeben.“

"It is conceivable that such a social behavior arises when there has been severe trauma in early childhood. That was my suspicion in the first diagnosis. Therefore I recommended calm and regularity. "

23. It is therefore very likely that the father´s own violent behavior and actions towards me and the children was the very cause of the developmental delay in the children which is the main subject of Willinger´s report. Yet Willinger failed to take this into account.
24. Expert Witness, Dr Sinko-Sanz, Court hearing 17 June 2011:

„Auf Frage der Verteterin der Mutter, dass wenn Kinder Gewalt erlebt haben, ob das auch einen Einfluss haben kann:

Prinzipiell ja.

Auf Nachfrage der Vertreterin der Mutter, dass für den Fall, dass die Mutter verbale und psychische Gewalt erlebt hat und die Kinder die miterlebt haben, ob dann die Kinder in ihrer Entwicklung beeinträachtigt sein könnten:

Grundsätzlich ja, das ist vom ausmass, dem Alter und den umgebenden Konstellation abhängig.”

“In response to the question posed by the mother´s lawyer that if children have experienced violence, whether that may have an impact:

In principle, yes.

In response to the further questioning by the mother´s lawyer that in the event that the mother has experienced verbal and psychological violence and the children have witnessed it, whether that also has an influence on the child´s development:

Basically, yes, that depends on the extent, the age, and the surrounding factors.”

25. It is totally unclear why Willinger accepted the father´s testimony over mine when it had been proven he had repeatedly lied, even to the police that he was a psychiatrist when he was in fact a trainee doctor. His false diagnosis of me was fully disproven by the police psychiatrist and later by 2 further court psychiatrists, whereas nothing I have said has been disproven.
26. Willinger claimed everything I said about the father was untrue:

Die Kindesmutter gibt an, tief getroffen von der Tatsache zu sein, dass der Kindes vater ihr eine psychische Erkrankung zuschreibe, und zeigt u.a.während der Befunderhebung eine herabgesetzte Stressbelastung auf (unvorhergesehene) Ereignisse…Darüber hinaus lässt sich eine herabgesetzte mentale Flexibilität in Bezug auf Inhalte, die den Kindesvater betrefen.“ P.75 Willinger report

The children's mother admits to being deeply affected by the fact that the children's father ascribes mental illness to her, but shows during the diagnostic assessment a reduced stress to (unexpected) events ... In addition, she showed a reduced mental flexibility in terms of content that concerns the children's father. "

The Art of Living Every Minute of Your Life

Man convicted of attempting to murder his wife in front of their toddler son

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-convicted-of-attempting-to-murder-his-wife-in-front-of-their-toddler-son/

A man was convicted Wednesday of attempting to murder his then-wife in front of their toddler son, in an incident that shocked the country last year and has seen the victim become a champion of awareness for domestic violence.

In a legal precedent, the Beersheba District Court also convicted Aviad Moshe of abusing the couple’s infant son, then a year and a half old, by repeatedly stabbing and beating wife Shira Isakov in front of him.

Moshe was charged last October with stabbing Isakov 20 times, hitting her with a rolling pin and strangling her on the eve of the Rosh Hashanah holiday on September 18 in their home in the southern town of Mitzpe Ramon.

A Letter From A Mother of a child abuser - the perspective from the other side

Jewish Press

It takes courage to write my story. I am not a young woman anymore and I feel compelled to put my family’s story on paper to give us a voice when we have none. I hope that by sharing our painful story, other parents can learn from our mistakes and that we will ultimately be able to open a dialogue about judgment and forgiveness – for ourselves and others. What follows is story of a regular family and a tragedy that unfolded while we were not looking. In that, ours is a cautionary tale for every parent.

It all began with a phone call. I was on my way to work when a woman called saying, “Do you know that your son Yisroel [a pseudonym] sexually abused my son in camp several years ago?” So shocking was this accusation that at first, I didn’t quite take it in. In the few seconds it took me to assimilate the information, I blurted out, “No. I don’t know anything about it, but I will find out and do whatever has to be done.”

I can’t really explain the effect this call had on me. I wondered if it could be true. This wasn’t the introverted, gentle son I knew – could he have done this terrible thing? Then, as any parent would, I started searching for any hint that I could’ve missed; what didn’t I see? And I searched my heart, wondering what I had done wrong. This child had been born at a chaotic time when I was overburdened with family troubles. My mother had cancer, and I had been turning the world upside down in a futile search for the doctors and treatments that would save her. Sadly, my efforts were too little and too late, and I was left grieving and feeling guilty. The next few years brought the death of my father and other medical crises, but despite it all, our family life seemed normal. In all the hours of soul-searching that followed, I wondered if this child, who perhaps needed the most attention of all my kids, didn’t get all that he needed. I know we had struggled to do the best we could.

Yisroel had been diagnosed with ADHD and had difficulty making friends at school. He was bullied and became sullen and withdrawn, and he seemed to lack social skills needed to make close friendships. We sought advice from a child therapist but nothing helped. When he finally made what seemed to be a good friend, a neighborhood boy a couple of years older than him, I was so happy. But my impression was terribly wrong. My son was being sexually exploited and I was totally oblivious. These events took place many years ago, and in those more innocent times, such things were unimaginable to most people. This older boy was “frum” and from our own Orthodox neighborhood, and I felt very comfortable. In fact, I saw this new relationship as a “bracha” for my child who was so bereft of friends. [...]

By the time the distraught mother called me with the accusation, Yisroel was 22 years old and immersed in Torah studies. I immediately confronted him and told him about the call. I won’t lie; I hoped with all my heart that he would be shocked and deny it. I hoped it would wind up being untrue, a mix-up – that it was not my son; that it didn’t happen. But my son just looked at me with an expression I couldn’t interpret and was silent. Heartsick, my husband and I took him to see a therapist, a specialist in the treatment of sexual abuse recommended by an Orthodox referral service. A battery of tests confirmed that he had been abused himself and also had abused his camper. My husband and I, together with our other children, were enlisted in Yisroel’s treatment plan, charged with enforcing his attendance in therapy and monitoring his comings and goings, but he was anxious to cooperate in the treatment and continued willingly for six years.

Life went on almost normally. Eventually, Yisroel met and began dating a young woman. Concerned about whether he was ready for marriage, we consulted his therapist, who assured us that he was healthy and posed no danger to the community since he had received treatment early and had never repeated his offense. He gave my son his blessings for the marriage, and we were thrilled that our son was finally reentering life, albeit with a heavy burden.

It was three years after his marriage and almost 10 years after the abuse incident that another surprise phone call upended our lives again. This time, the former camper himself called and accused my son of molesting him. Yisroel readily admitted his guilt, apologized profusely and explained that he was still in therapy. But, unbeknownst to my son, there was a police detective listening in and recording the conversation, and in a classic sting operation, he arrested my son based on his admission.

Life has a way of forcing us to learn many lessons that we would rather never know, and so, we began our tutorial on the legal system that would occupy such a dominate place in our lives to this day. We became aware of the various classes of felonies: since the statute of limitations had passed, the state would have to apply the higher-level offence, which subjected our son to a mandatory sentence of five to 25 years. We learned that our only option was a plea bargain which required an admission of guilt, 10 years probation and being registered as a sex offender, and mandatory therapy through the court system, although he had already had six years of specialized therapy. We learned that in some respects, the law is unfair to the victim, instituting an unreasonable time frame for charges to be brought, and to the perpetrator, in that all offenders are lumped into one undifferentiated bunch. There was little we could do other than agree to the terms we were offered. We live with enormous guilt and anguish knowing that our son so grievously hurt another child and caused tremendous suffering to the victim and his family. To undo the damage is impossible, and we made the only reparation we could, paying unstintingly for the victim’s therapy, which ran into six figures.

Lawmakers drop proposal to add women to the draft as defense bill headaches mount

 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/ndaa-women-draft-dropped-523829

 Compromise defense policy legislation set to be filed Monday will not require women to register for a military draft, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations, a stunning turnaround after the proposal gained bipartisan support in both the House and Senate this year.

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees left the provision out of the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act, despite the fact that both chambers' bills would have expanded the Selective Service System beyond men.

Defense Bill Will Not Require Women to Sign Up for Draft After All

 https://www.newsweek.com/defense-bill-would-require-women-sign-draft-despite-gop-objections-1656610

A draft of the Defense Authorization Bill currently being considered by Congress has dropped a provision that would've required women to volunteer for the military draft. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and some other congressional Republicans opposed the provision.

Echoes of measles outbreaks in 2019: Antivaxxers are targeting Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn with COVID-19 misinformation

 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaxxers-are-targeting-orthodox-jews/

 Why did I start this post by recounting this unfortunate history? Simple. Past is prologue, and history repeats, as we’ve seen time and time again, or, as I like to put it, in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic and antivaxxers, everything old is new again. The same thing is happening now, in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Added to the list of previous players are new antivaxxers, quacks, and grifters who have risen to prominence over the last year and a half, like “the inventor of mRNA vaccines” Dr. Robert Malone, a man who thinks that he’s being “erased” from Wikipedia after his wife was caught editing his Wikipedia entry. This time, though, he’s been recruited to spread fear of COVID-19 vaccines, in particular the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, among the Orthodox Jews of Brooklyn and proudly announced his apparent “success” on Twitter the other day:

Anti-vaxxers fabricated quotes attributed to infectious diseases expert Kristine Macartney and spread them online

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-15/coronacheck-nsw-supreme-court-transcript-fake/100539064

This week, we debunk viral social media posts which incorrectly suggest that a vaccine expert told the NSW Supreme Court that doubled-vaxxed people were "13 times more likely to catch and spread COVID-19".

We also investigate claims that the currently available COVID-19 vaccines contain graphene oxide, and toast the achievement of Filipina investigative journalist and fact checker Maria Ressa, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Expert shoots down courtroom vaccine claims

 No, COVID-19 vaccines do not contain graphene oxide