Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Kosher meat shortage

Forward reports [sent by RaP]
Buffalo Lake, MN- In developments that are likely to cripple the availability of kosher beef in large parts of America, three of the five largest slaughterhouses producing kosher beef have halted production this week.

All eyes have been on the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, in Postville, Iowa, which stopped producing beef last week due to a series of legal problems and arrests at its parent company, Agriprocessors. That company also owns a slaughterhouse in Gordon, Neb., which is thought to be the nation’s fifth-largest plant producing kosher meat. While little attention has been paid to the Gordon plant, local officials told the Forward that it stopped operating in October.

Now, in unrelated developments, executives at America’s third-largest kosher beef slaughterhouse, located in Minnesota, told the Forward that production there has been brought to a complete halt due to a fire.

“We’re not killing anything right now,” said Bill Gilger, CEO of North Star Beef, which is located in Buffalo Lake, Minn. “We’re adding to the shortage of kosher beef, having nothing to do with what is going on Postville, but just to do with our own situation here.”

“Whatever it is, there’s going to be a tremendous void in the market,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of O.U. Kosher, the largest certifying agency for kosher meat. [...]

Financial Crisis - day of prayer scheduled

Haaretz reports:
The ultra-Orthodox community is planning a day of prayer to encourage continued funding of its schools.

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, many donors have scaled back support and others have stopped completely.

The campaign's promoter, Chevy Weiss, said Monday that some six thousand families have been hit hard by the crisis and were short on food and diapers for their children.

She said about 28,000 Israeli Jews choose to devote their lives to study instead of work. They rely on donations from philanthropists and government stipends to support them and their families.

Eleven prominent rabbis have apprioved of the prayer day, set nationwide for Nov. 13. A delegation of rabbis will then head to the United States to try and raise funds.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Arab violence surging - in Israel

Arutz Sheva reports:
(IsraelNN.com) Two Jews were attacked last week in the center of the city of Ramla, in an incident which is part of a growing pattern of Arab-on-Jew violence inside pre-1967 Israel. In the latest incident,two young Arabs started pushing two Jews who were exiting a synagogue,and beat one of them who was on crutches.

According to Rabbi Uriyah Shachor of the Ramla Kollel yeshiva, "It's obvious to us that there is an awakening of a nationalistic drive and this is connected to the situation in the country these days."

Eliezer Shachor, a member of the religious seed community in Ramla, added:"This is a powder keg, in the center of the state of Israel. Everyone knows it, but no one has a serious plan on how to stop it." He also related his own story of Arab violence. On the first night of Sukkot,he said, "a number of Arabs jumped out of a car, ruined my sukkah and ran away."

Religious seed communities are groups of national-religious families that make their homes in mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods and front-line towns in order to try and stem the tide of a gradual Arab takeover in the mixed cities, to strengthen the spirit of the Jewish residents and to revive the spirit of Torah and Judaism.

A network of religious seed communities is spreading out throughout Israel. They can be found in Sderot, Ramla, Lod, Yafo (Jaffa), Harish and Akko, to name just some of the locations.

Obama - Leap of Hope?

Every vote for a nonincumbent Presidential candidate is in some sense a risk, given the power and complications of the job. But in both his lack of experience and the contradictions between his rhetoric and his agenda, Barack Obama presents a particular leap of hope. It is a sign of how fed up Americans are with Republicans that millions are ready to take that leap even in dangerous times.

To his supporters, such as Colin Powell, the first-term Senator has the chance to be "transformational," the kind of gauzy concept that testifies to Mr. Obama's unusual appeal. His candidacy is certainly historic, and that isn't simply a reference to his Kenyan father and American mother. One secret to Mr. Obama's success is how little his campaign has been marked by race, at least not by the traditional politics of racial grievance. He has run instead on a rhetorical theme of national unity, a shrewd appeal to voters weary of the polarizing debate over Iraq and the Bush Presidency.

Mr. Obama has also understood the political moment better than his opponents in either party. In the primaries, he used his inexperience to advantage by offering himself as a liberal alternative to what seemed like an inevitable, and dispiriting, Clinton replay. He then turned around in the general election to project sober reassurance amid the financial crisis, which was the moment when his poll numbers began to climb above the margin of error against John McCain. His coolness reflects what seems to be a first-class temperament. And while community organizing may not be much of a credential for the Presidency, Mr. Obama's ability to organize a campaign speaks well of his potential to manage a government.

None of this changes the fact that voters still know remarkably little about a man who is less than four years out of the Illinois state Senate. While he has already written two autobiographies, there are significant gaps in Mr. Obama's political resume. The nature of his relationship with onetime friend and political contributor Tony Rezko, a convicted felon, or with radicals Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, not to mention Acorn, remains ambiguous or contradictory.

They were all early supporters or mentors, yet during this campaign Mr. Obama has eventually disavowed each one. This is perhaps testimony to a ruthless pragmatism, or maybe opportunism, but what do those relationships say about what he really believes? He is fortunate the media have been so incurious about them -- as opposed, say, to Sarah Palin's Wasilla church or Joe Wurzelbacher's plumbing business.

More importantly, it remains unclear how Mr. Obama intends to govern. As a political candidate, he has presented himself as a consensus-oriented bridge-builder. But for all his talk about reaching across the aisle, we can think of no major issue where he has disagreed with his party's dominant interest groups or broken with liberal orthodoxy. Not one. The main example he cites -- "ethics reform" -- is the kind of trivial Beltway compromise that changes nothing about the way Washington works. [...]

If he is elected, Mr. Obama would immediately face the same kind of large, liberal Democratic majority on Capitol Hill that did so much to ruin Jimmy Carter and the first two years of the Clinton Presidency. Is there anything its liberal barons want that he'd oppose? He hasn't said so. On the contrary, Mr. Obama's voting record and agenda suggest that the "transformation" he may have in mind is a return to the pre-Reagan era of government expansion and liberal ascendancy.

Amid a recession, with the mortgage market already nationalized and the banking industry partly so, the next President needs to draw some lines against further politicization of our economy. Perhaps Mr. Obama will surprise by appointing Paul Volcker as his Treasury Secretary, or postponing his tax increases with the economy in distress. But those are further leaps of hope with little evidence of pragmatism to back them up.

On national security, Mr. Obama is an even greater man of mystery. Perhaps once in office he will take the course of prudent realism. He can certainly sound hawkish when he wants to, advocating unilateral military strikes inside Pakistan and promising the kind of open-ended commitment to the Afghan conflict that he claims we can't afford or sustain in Iraq. Yet he ran irresponsibly against the surge in Iraq and now has his lucky stars to thank that Mr. McCain prevailed in that debate, so Mr. Obama would inherit a far more stable Middle East. His belief that diplomacy can stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions is also naive, and we suspect would be shown to be so early in his Administration with an Iranian nuclear declaration, if not a test.

As Joe Biden recently said, an Obama Presidency would invite challenges from enemies who would tread more cautiously against a President McCain. Perhaps Mr. Obama will evolve into a Truman, or perhaps he'll prove merely to be another Jimmy Carter. Unlike Mr. McCain, he'll be making it up as he goes.

Perhaps this is the kind of leadership the American people want after the Presidential certitudes of the Bush years. Americans certainly are eager for fresh start, and it is typical of periods of economic panic that they may even be willing to reach for the kind of alluring but untested appeal that so marks Mr. Obama. Sometimes these gambles pay off, and sometimes they don't.

Redeeming capitives - and jail

The following is from Rabbi Broyde's excellent article concerning informing on others found on JLaw

16. ...The question that is worthy of pondering is the relationship between the obligation to redeem captives (found in Yoreh Deah 253) and the prohibition to inform. In cases where there is no prohibition to inform (as informing is permitted, see Darkai Teshuva 157:53 and more generally Part III of this article) a logical case can be made that there is no mitzvah to redeem captives (as they are in prison properly) when there is nothing wrong with informing. This exact observation is made in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in a recent work, Ve'aleyhi lo Yuval, volume 2:113-114, which recounts in the name of Rabbi Yehuda Goldreicht:
I asked Rabbi Auerbach about a particular Jew who stole a large sum of money and he was caught by the police in America. He was sentenced to a number of years in prison in America. Was it proper to assist in the collection of money for him [we were speaking about a large sum of $200,000] in order to fulfill the mitzvah of redeeming captives to have him released from prison? When Rabbi Auerbach heard this he stated "Redeeming captives?! What is the mitzvah of redeeming captives here? The mitzvah of redeeming captives is only when the gentiles are grabbing Jews, irrationally, for no proper reason, and placing them in prison. According to what I [Rabbi Auerbach] know, in America they do not irrationally grab Jews in order to squeeze money from them. The Torah says "do not steal" and he stole money -- on the contrary, it is good that he serve a prison sentence, so that he learns not to steal!
============
Rav Sternbuch told me that the Chazon Ish was asked about aiding a Jew who had been imprisoned. The Chazon Ish replied that no effort should be made since upon release he would be together with his wife. Since the couple didn't observe the laws of nidah, it was better if the Jew remained in jail.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Child Abuse - What to know

The Jewish Week by David Mandel & Dr. David Pelcovitz

Our community has to recognize that child molestation is a disease. The child molester is a sick person with an illness that he is unable to control or stop on his own. He has a preoccupation and a sexual desire for young children. In order to stop, he needs help through treatment,supervision or incarceration.

In our collective experience working with this population in the Jewish community, approximately one-third of pedophiles have a preference for boys, one-third prefer girls, and one-third have no preference. Some pedophiles also have distinct preferences within select age groups.

The article, “A Charge Of Double Betrayal In Williamsburg” (Sept. 5), about a young man, Joel Engelman, alleging he was sexually abused as a child by his principal, once again raises the important question of what can we do as parents, as educators, and as a community to protect and respond to sexual abuse.

While we do not know the people involved in the story, it is noteworthy that Engleman and his attorney, Eliot Pasik, stated they were not initially seeking a financial settlement but rather an assurance that other children would not be exposed and hurt.

Children are sexually victimized because they can be. They are trusting, vulnerable, curious by nature, and usually not suspicious of adults, certainly not of a parent, teacher, counselor or other role model. This can be true of adolescents as well, who can fall prey to sexual abuse even into their mid teens.

Children can be victimized repeatedly because they are often too ashamed or frightened to divulge information to others. Ashamed of what was done to them or what they were forced to do. Frightened because the molester threatened to hurt them or their family members, or frightened that their parents will not believe them or will blame them.

Unlike other insidious social problems such as gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse is not seen as an illness and still carries with it a taboo that results in a nonproductive demonization of the perpetrator and isolation of the victim.

In the last decade, a number of adolescents and young married men and women have self-identified and sought treatment for their serious problems with gambling, drugs and alcohol. While in some circumstances they may have been forced to seek help by their spouses, employers or creditors, these “addicts” have, willingly or not, sought and accepted professional help. The publicized accidental deaths by drug overdose of a number of young men, coupled with the writings of Dr. Abraham Twerski, have painfully raised our awareness and have resulted in many more individuals seeking professional treatment.

On the other hand, several deaths, accidental or suicide, resulting from depression and despondency due to sexual victimization, were not publicized.

It is fair to say that alcohol, drug, and gambling problems, serious as they are, no longer carry the social stigma and social isolation they did just a short few years ago. Not so with sexual abuse — not to the victim or to the perpetrator.

In our respective years of work at OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services and previously at North Shore University Hospital and in private practice, it’s fair to say we have met with, counseled and treated many hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and trauma.

Victims of sexual abuse, unlike other victims, almost never self-disclose.A crime victim may report to the police. A victim of domestic violence may seek out a relative, a rabbi, or a mental health professional. A drug user or alcohol binger can often be recognized by a spouse or employer. Not so with a victim of sexual abuse who is embarrassed, who represses, and who, years later, continues to carry the scars of the unresolved trauma of the abuse. So, too, with a child molester.

He (95 percent are male) will almost never voluntarily seek treatment. The fears of retribution, social isolation, physical harm, loss of family, loss of work, along with his sexual proclivities, prevent him from disclosing.[...]

Child Abuse -Safety Kid program

Jewish Journal:
Thirteen first-graders sit on the rug in their classroom at Shalhevet School, several with their hands raised. A guest speaker has just asked, "What would happen if you got lost at Toys 'R' Us? Who would be someone you could ask for help?"

"Someone who works there," one of the children calls out.

"Good. And how would you know who works there?" the speaker responds, holding up a picture of a cashier wearing a blue vest.

The speaker, Marlene Kahan, is a volunteer who has come to present Safety Kid. The program -- its full name is the Aleinu Julis Child Safety Program -- was developed by the Aleinu Family Resource Center, the arm of Jewish Family Service that reaches out to the Orthodox community. Safety Kid's goal is to teach day school children about safety issues -- including sexual abuse -- in a culturally sensitive manner. Visual aides show boys and men wearing yarmulkes, as well as women in skirts and children walking to synagogue. Discussions about strangers who might come to the front door mention not only the UPS man, but "the man who comes to collect funds for Eretz Yisrael." The instructional cards are currently being adapted for use in non-Orthodox Jewish day schools as well, and will likely be introduced this school year.

The Safety Kid program is the latest in a series of proactive programs Aleinu has developed over the past few years to protect children from abusive situations and to help parents and institutions know how to handle such crises when they come up.

While in the past abuse was not openly discussed in the Orthodox community, Aleinu has made it a priority to bring the problem to the forefront so that children, parents, teachers and rabbis can deal with it in an informed and intelligent manner. The Los Angeles agency has become a national leader in the Orthodox world in creating these programs and policies.

The urgency for such programs became apparent over the last several years, when incidents of sexual or emotional abuse in Orthodox schools, shuls and youth groups were described in articles in the Jewish press.

The number of incidents in the Orthodox community doesn't exceed the national average, but within the past two years, there have been high-profile incidents in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Aleinu Director Debbie Fox, who developed Safety Kid with colleague Wendy Finn, says that the program was produced in response to such episodes.

"We wanted to do something to help by providing tools which could help prevent future occurrences," Fox said.

More than five years ago, Fox began working with Aleinu's Halachic Advisory Board to develop a conduct policy for school administrators and teachers. The policy stipulates appropriate and inappropriate behavior, both verbal and physical. School personnel also receive training on how to spot and report signs of abuse. Since its introduction in 2002, the policy has been adopted by 28 Los Angeles-area schools. Torah U'mesorah, a national umbrella organization for Orthodox schools, adapted and adopted the policy for its 700 constituent schools.

But Fox wanted something specifically geared for the children -- a way to give them tools to help prevent incidents. She first tried adapting material produced by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but found it didn't resonate with Orthodox audiences.

When she shared her concerns, Aleinu board member Mitch Julis and his wife Joleen came forward with a grant to adapt the materials, and Safety Kid was born. The couple has since pledged funding for the next four years. [...]

Woman prime minister - permitted by halacha?

YNet reports:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas' spiritual leader, said last week that in principle, a woman could be the prime minister of Israel. The halachic ruling was given in response to a question sent to the rabbi, and clearly stated that it was only in principle and did not refer specifically to the general elections, a ruling which is to be given by the Council of Torah Sages.

Rabbi Yosef discussed this issue at length in the Hebrew website "Halacha Yomit" saying, "Regarding appointing a woman as prime minister – if she conducts herself with dignity and honesty, and is instrumental in strengthening religion more than any man who submits his candidacy, then we most certainly should give preference to electing the woman."

Despite the ruling, Yosef addressed the problematic aspects of the matter. He mentioned that the Sages of Blessed Memory learned from the verse, "Be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses" (Deuteronomy, 17:15), that it should be a king and not a queen that would rule of over Israel, and therefore, a woman could not be appointed queen of Israel as long as there is a king who is as fit to rule.

He added that Maimonides wrote the above verse applied not just to kingship, but to all positions of public rule. Yosef continued to say that this was only Maimonides' opinion, which the other sages, who said gender was only an issue in kingship, did not share. Yosef said that Nahmanides's writings also showed that if David had not had any sons, it would be lawful to say that David's daughter was queen, and she could even bequeath kingship to her sons, as he wrote that the reason David couldn't leave the kingdom to his daughter was because he had sons. Therefore, it seems there is no absolute restriction on woman taking on public authority posts, even as queen, as long as the path taken to leadership was taken with modesty.

Yosef also metioned Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's ruling in the case of a woman whose husband, a kashrut supervisor, passed away, leaving her with no way to support her family. The woman, being educated and God fearing, wanted to take on her husband's supervising job, which would also entail ruling over a large group of workers. "The question brought to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein," wrote Yosef, "was if there is any reason to prevent her from this, when it is vital for her livelihood. After deliberating long and hard, and deciding to allow her to take on the position, one rabbi spoke out against him, saying his ruling in this matter would lead to a breakdown, when the State of Israel sees that such a great rabbi allowed a woman to be a kashrut supervisor, and will lead to having women in the State's parliament.

"Finally, Rabbi Feinstein addressed the matter of the parliament in the State of Israel, where heretics and Shabbat desecraters are appointed, which is completely forbidden in the Torah." Yosef said. "As Maimonides wrote, anyone who is not God fearing, even if they carry great wisdom, should not be appointed among Israel's leaders. And the whole point of leadership in Israel is to strengthen the power of the Torah and not, heaven forbid, to weaken it.

Regarding the appointment of women, it is clear that if the chance to vote between a woman who is fit and a man who is not fit arises, we should certainly give preference to electing the woman over the man who is not fit."

In summary, Yosef said, "In regards to appointing a woman as prime minister – if she conducts herself with dignity and honesty, and is instrumental in strengthening religion more than any man who submits his candidacy, then we most certainly should give preference to electing the woman. "It is absolutely forbidden to support any party whose representatives are not God fearing," he added. "On the contrary, we must vote in favor of representatives that strengthen the power of the Torah. And if people who are not fit can be found in all the parties, then the ones that are closer to religion should be favored."

Arabs torch Acre yeshiva

Police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have arrested three Arab youths in Acre suspected of torching an office in the city's hesder yeshiva last week, it was announced Sunday.

Police said the motives appeared to be nationalistic. The suspects - Ibrahim Bayuni, 29, Khaled Shaaban, 20, and Salah Titti, 20 - said they carried out the attack to avenge violence against Arabs during the Acre riots.

The blaze, caused by a Molotov cocktail, badly damaged the office and threatened to reignite the rioting that battered the city for several days starting on Yom Kippur.

The yeshiva, Ru'ah Tzfonit (The Spirit of the North), will make a conscious effort to show its Arab neighbors that it will not be intimidated by the attack, members said.

"We are here to stay," Dorel Avramovitz, the yeshiva's administrative director, said last week. "We will not cave in to bullying…we refuse to make any changes that would give the impression that we are intimidated by Arab threats."

Yeshiva head Rabbi Yosef Stern said the arsonists were "a group of bullies who are threatened by our Zionist, Jewish activities here. But we will not be dragged into a confrontation with them, nor will we deviate from our goal of strengthening the Jewish presence in the city."

Ru'ah Tzfonit is located in Acre's Wolfson neighborhood. Approximately three-quarters of the area's residents are Arab. Four years ago the yeshiva, which opened in 2001, relocated to Wolfson to reinforce the dwindling Jewish community and to reopen a synagogue that had closed. The yeshiva currently has 170 students.

Secular Marriage - halachic significance?

Five Towns Jewish Times - R' Yair Hoffman wrote: [from RaP] [...]

Few, however, would identify her as a typical example of one of the tens of thousands of people that are the subject of a great halachic debate between Rav Yoseph Eliyahu Henkin, zt’l, (1881–1973) and Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt’l (1895–1986).

What lies at the heart of this great debate are the following questions: How does the halachah view a secular (non-religious) Jewish marriage? And what happens if such a marriage dissolves? When a Jewish couple that was married either in the secular court system or by a non-Orthodox rabbi is divorced, rarely do they seek to also obtain a Jewish bill of divorce, called a get. This could present a problem for the woman’s future marriage prospects and, unfortunately, for those of her children as well.

Although Tory Burch (daughter of Reva Robinson and thus halachically Jewish) apparently received the last name she is now using from her marriage to Chris Burch (not a Jew), she was previously married to William Macklowe, a famous real-estate developer who is also halachically Jewish. The marriage did not succeed, and it ended rather quickly in a secular divorce. The question is, though: What is the halachic status of this first marriage?

Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses this issue in Igros Moshe (Even HaEzer, vol. IV, No. 59; he discusses the issue in general, not Ms. Burch’s particular circumstances). In discussing these types of marriages in a letter to Rabbi Nissan Alpert, zt’l, Rav Moshe is of the opinion that since the original wedding was, in all probability, never made with any halachic validity, the need for a halachic get is not imperative. A halachic wedding requires a woman to receive an item of value accompanied by the Jewish declaration of marriage in the presence of two Sabbath-observing witnesses. If there were no Sabbath-observing witnesses present when the ring was given and the declaration made, there is no halachic wedding, states Rav Moshe.

Rav Henkin, on the other hand, disagrees. He quotes a principle of the Talmud (Gittin 81b and codified in Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 26:1) that a person does not generally wish that his marriage not be legitimate. The Mishnah there in Gittin explains that, according to Beis Hillel, if a man divorces his wife but subsequently remains with her in a pundaki (an inn), a get is required. The Shulchan Aruch (E.H. 149:1) rules in accordance with Beis Hillel.

Rav Henkin extends this ruling to cases such as the one mentioned above, as well. He points out that, although no longer practiced, there are ways of enacting a halachic marriage other than with the use of a ring (see the first Mishnah in tractate Kiddushin), and this is what is at play both in our case and in the Mishnah in Gittin. Since the members of this married couple are living together as a married couple, and the world views them as such, we have all the elements of a halachic marriage. What are the elements? The three elements are (1) kosher witnesses; (2) a valid method of effectuating marriage; and (3) the declaration of marriage.

In Rav Henkin’s view, who are the “kosher witnesses”? The witnesses are the entire world, including Sabbath-observing neighbors and friends that see them acting as a married couple. Rav Henkin refers to another Talmudic principle called an “anan sahadi,” which literally means “we [all] testify.” In his view, witnesses do not actually have to see it, but knowing it with certitude is sufficient.

Where is the declaration of marriage? According to Rav Henkin, there is a tacit, unspoken declaration of marriage that is based on the fact that a person does not wish his marriage to be invalid. Thus, when there is another method of effectuating the marriage—living together as husband and wife—Rav Henkin rules that the tacit declaration is the accompanying secondary marriage effectuation. Although it may sound somewhat strange, Rav Henkin’s position is not so novel. Poskim have discussed the notion of savlanos, sending gifts to one’s new bride, as a problem, and the issue is extended beyond the case of the Mishnah in Gittin. [...]

Agriprocessors in deep trouble

A federal judge has appointed a temporary receiver for a kosher meatpacking company in Iowa after a bank said that the company had defaulted on a $35 million loan and that it had written $1.4 million in bad checks.

The loan foreclosure against the company, Agriprocessors Inc., was the latest in a cascade of troubles that have come after nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers were arrested in a raid in May at its plant in Postville, Iowa. On Thursday, Sholom Rubashkin, the former chief executive, was arrested in Iowa on federal charges of conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Cedar Rapids, First Bank Business Capital of St. Louis claimed that Agriprocessors had failed to maintain enough cash in designated bank accounts to stay current on the revolving loan it took out in 1999. The lawsuit was first reported Friday on the Web site of The Forward, a Jewish newspaper.

The suit also claims that Agriprocessors violated the loan terms by diverting nearly $1.4 million from First Bank accounts to another bank to issue payroll checks on Oct. 24. First Bank learned that those checks were returned for insufficient funds, the lawsuit says.[...]

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Child Abuse - Israel's approach

The holiday of Succot had arrived, and, when their father was out praying at the synagogue, the children were growing hungry. One of them, a girl, took the initiative and prepared nine pizzas for herself and her siblings. As they sat down to eat, their father arrived home,and gazed with rage upon his daughter's efforts. "Eat every single one by yourself," he ordered his terrified daughter, forcing her to obey until she vomited.The father-of-11 - now 47 - admitted to carrying out the actions described above eight years ago. He also admitted to sexually abusing one of his daughters, and to routinely verbally and physically abusing all of them, using objects such as shoes and hangers to hit them.The man struck a plea bargain with the prosecution and was sentenced on Monday to seven-and-a-half years behind bars, receiving a reduced sentence because he had agreed to grant his wife a divorce. The sentence enraged children's rights activists.This is the latest sample of misery to emerge from the spate of family abuse stories that have been dominating the local news.

Last month, it was the Rose Pizem case. The country listened in horror as details of the murder of the four-year-old at the hand of her grandfather, who stuffed her body into a suitcase and tossed it into the Yarkon river, emerged.Soon after that, three mothers murdered their young children in the space of a single week.And most recently, a successful police officer rising through the ranks is believed to have gunned down his policewoman wife, baby and toddler, before taking his own life. Police are clueless about the motive.Is this indicative of a new rise in extreme domestic violence here? According to police, the answer is no. "This has always been in the headlines. There is no increase," one source said. "Unfortunately,these incidents come in waves," he added, arguing that the quick succession of horror stories and intense media spotlight provide an exaggerated picture of the extent of family abuse.[...]

In a major effort to counter this, police say, they have launched a new computerized information system aimed at providing all victims of crimes, including the tens of thousands of victims of domestic abuse, real-time information about the status and location of their abusers.The system, which is linked in to every police department, the Prisons Service and the courts, sends out a text message to victims' cell phones, informing them that their suspect has been released from custody, or alternatively, sentenced to a prison term. In other instances, victims will be notified of court dates, or be told where to access indictment sheets.The system, named MENA (an acronym for the Hebrew words for Crime Victims Department), has now been integrated in such a way that a police officer registering a complaint can't proceed without ensuring that MENA has been notified of all the details. [...]

But what becomes of the perpetrators? In one small hostel in Hod Hasharon, an innovative approach has been employed for the past decade, whose goal is to rehabilitate abusive men. So far, its results seem encouraging.The Beit Noam hostel can house 13 men who have opted (pending a judge's approval) to spend four months at the center, rather than serve time in prison."Beit Noam is the only place in Israel, perhaps in the world,in which violent men live in boarding-school conditions, rather than receive treatment in groups or communities," the center's president,Ahuva Talmon, said. Founded by social workers, with the cooperation of the government and charity funds, Beit Noam came into existence in 1997,and has given men with abusive tendencies a new outlook on life."Many have genuinely changed. Some even stay on after their initial four months, out of their own free will, even paying to do so,"Talmon said.[...]

Schindler's List

NYTimes:
The most dramatic scene in the movie “Schindler’s List” takes place not in a cattle car or a gas chamber, but in an office. As the accountant Itzhak Stern’s typewriter clatters in the background, the names of the fortunate workers whom Oskar Schindler would ultimately save appear on a blank page that fills the screen. Finally Stern raises the stack of papers and says: “The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.”

In reality, this never happened. According to Mietek Pemper, a Polish Jew conscripted as secretary to Commandant Amon Göth of the concentration camp Plaszow, no single person could have kept in his head all the information that appeared on the list, including prisoners’ numbers, dates of birth and professions. Although there was a real person named Itzhak Stern, the character in the movie is actually a composite of Pemper (who typed some pages of the list himself), the real Stern and at least one other person.

But Pemper’s book, “The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler’s List,” is no takedown. It is, rather, a deepening of the story, which Spielberg’s movie inevitably oversimplified. Pemper argues that the “crucial accomplishment” was not the list itself but “the multifarious acts of resistance that, like tiny stones being placed into a mosaic one by one, had made the whole process possible.” Though he takes the opportunity to correct a few factual inaccuracies and settle some old scores, Pemper devotes most of his carefully written book to the numerous small initiatives that, in his telling, played a part in the rescue effort. It could not have occurred without Schindler’s tremendous commitment, but its success relied also on the courage and creativity of many other people, not to mention plain luck.[...]

The Jews who survived the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, in March 1943, were transferred to Plaszow, a few miles south of the city. There, Pemper won the post of Göth’s personal secretary and interpreter. He was so terrified of working in close quarters with the volatile commandant that despite his workload he refused to ask for an assistant, unwilling to risk another prisoner’s death. Anyway, no one volunteered — the inmates were too afraid of Göth. The following anecdote, coolly related by Pemper, shows why:

“I would sit in the commandant’s office and take dictation from him. While he ­talked, Göth would watch the mirror outside his window, which he used to oversee the area in front of the barracks. Suddenly he would stand up, take one of the rifles from the rack on the wall and open the window. I would hear a few shots and then nothing but screams. As if he had interrupted the dictation only to take a telephone call, Göth would come back to his desk and say, ‘Where were we?’ ”[...]

Friday, October 31, 2008

Obama - War vet's endorsement of McCain

If the election came down to YouTube viewers, a pro-John McCain video would be the winner.

A short yet powerful video of an Iraq war veteran giving his endorsement to McCain has become the site's most watched election video, with over 11 million views.

The video opens with a young man with close-cropped hair standing outside in casual clothes next to an American flag.

"Dear Mr. Obama," he says, and describes himself as an Iraq war veteran, whose yearlong tour convinced him that Iraqis are "just like us" in seeking freedom.

"Are they better off today than they were in 2002? You bet," he says.

The man proceeds to list the reasons he doesn't agree with Obama's policies toward Iraq and instead is endorsing John McCain for president, "because he understands the fundamental truth, freedom is always worth the price."

The man then walks away from the camera, revealing he has a prosthetic left leg.