Today Mrs. Burqa was found guilty for abusing 6 of her 12 children.
Her lawyer said, in response to the verdict:
It disturbs me greatly that a sick woman, who is an extreme anomaly to her culture, as well an extreme anomaly to what we are used to, is being judged like a regular person. She should be dealt with like a person with an impairment.... This is my first client in my life whose face I never saw and voice I never heard. And this is how they decided to hold the trial, with a client who cannot take counsel with her own laywyer. This is a woman who is in a blackout and who has not left her house in 10 years. She is busy all day with ceremony, and mumbling words. Her place is not in line with the guilty, but she needs to be dealt with by doctors.Her situation is very sad, but the fact that she refused to speak to her male lawyer is nobodies fault but her own. if she refused to speak with him, they could have gotten her a female lawyer. if she refused to participate even with a female, again that is her fault. If you don't try her because of this, every criminal going to trial will pull the same shtick. And if the lawyer thinks she needs to see doctors only because she is too caught up in ceremony, there are plenty of people caught up in ceremony who live their lives just fine.
yes, she is sick. And hopefully she will get the treatment she requires. But abuse is abuse and that too has to be dealt with. Isn't every criminal "sick" to a certain extent to do what they do?
Does this mean we will have a new round of roits in r/bs tonight?
ReplyDeleteHer lawyer, I guess, never heard of Kupat HaIr? Rafi, when will people learn, already? HallelooooKa.
ReplyDeleteThis is good news. This woman is no longer free to abuse her children.
ReplyDeleteThere are still disturbing loose ends....
How come she had been doing this abuse for over ten years, before she was brought to trial?
And the timing - she hit the headlines (in Israel & around the world) for her peculiar burkas, and within a very short time (weeks), the legal process "pitom" got into gear.
What took so long, and was it the negative publicity (to her community in particular and to Bet Shemesh in general) about the burkas, which actually got the abuse finally stopped??
So Rafi, you would agree that the mother who was arrested last week for abusing her child by not feeding him should also in fact have been arrested.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the details of the case, what is true and what is not true. There are so many rumors about what did or did not happen that i have no idea.
ReplyDeleteIf what she is accused of is true, then yes. Obviously she needs help as well, but if she really abused her kids then she should be arrested as the law applies to everyone equally. haredi child abusers should go to jail just like non-haredi abusers should.
But again, I don't know the details and what, of all that was said, is true or not.
regardless of whether she should have been arrested or not, nothing that happened justifies the response of the community. Legal means, sue for millions (if it was not true), get people fired (if it was not true), etc. But riot like animals?
On behalf of Rabbis Kornfeld, Goldstein and Perlstein...
ReplyDeleteOn behalf of Magen Avot, Bais Yakov Harama, Toras Moshe, Toras Eliyahu, and Darchei Noam...
On behalf Nachal Revivim and Uriah...
We would like to congratulate the Israeli court system and hope that they punish Mrs. Burka to the fullest extent of the law.
And of course, we condemn the wearing of the Burka as a violation of "Bechukoteihem" and other issurei Torah. They are far from tznius.
Sincerely
Badatz AS"h
what does AS"h stand for?
ReplyDeleteBeing from Shiloh, I never saw any of the "burkas ladies." Are her "chassidot" still following her?
ReplyDeleteI hope all the kids are getting counselling. That's most important.
The level of suffering that children go through because none of the adults around them are willing to pipe up and protect them is extremely disheartening. Just recently in the news I heard of children taken away from their mother while she was off "smoking pot with some dude." The police found the children in a home that was filled knee-high with trash, the toilets were overflowing with excrement, and the refrigerator was overrun with bugs. The home was demolished rather than cleaned because it was so disgusting.
ReplyDeleteA home doesn't accumulate that much garbage overnight. Where was the community in both of these cases? What is wrong with people that they'd rather not make a scene than protect innocent children?!
Sorry for unloading. I've been following this case on your and Mother in Israel's blogs and it is just so mind boggling that things ever get as bad as the burka lady or the trash house.