the video below (I am leaving it up because maybe one day they will make it public again) has been turned to private.. an alternative is this, though it is only audio:




original video:
Jonathan Rosenblum: Charaidim in Israel 2/25/14 from Miracle of Change on Vimeo.

A Guest Post by Dr. Harold Goldmeier

Let’s stipulate haredim have a network of charities that do good deeds, and their commitment to Torah and prayer are unquestioned. But. the world stands on three things: Torah and Good Deeds are not the sole purview of the haredi.  Secular Jews and Jews of all shades of religious practice do charitable work and believe in Torah sometimes without following the Law in the strictest manner of the haredim.  The third pillar is Avoda: work. The claims against the haredi are not cavils that haredim fight their draft into the IDF and public service programs; are grossly underrepresented in the workforce; receive too little secular education to make them viable employees, researchers, and professionals; receive special benefits from the State; and more.

The haredi community has an image problem due to its reliance on the political system to enforce its positions and beliefs. The haredi minority parties have made unholy alliances with other political parties to legislate and capture government offices in an uncompromising campaign for the control of people’s lives. It seems to the non-haredi community that reason and sanity have given way to religious delirium sometimes bursting into hysteria.

In the tenacious web of politics and religion, all good things get distorted not by inadequate public relations, but by the touch of money and the smell of power. Mark Hanna once wrote: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” It seems it is all about money, and the rest is talk.

Dr. Harold Goldmeier

The writer is a former business owner, Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University where he received his doctorate. He served in the administrations of three U. S. Governors, is Managing Director of a business marketing and development company, and consults on education and community/business development matters. 

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Jonathan Rosenblum has written a great article about the OROT school situation. I read it first in the Mishpacha (Hebrew) magazine, and then saw it, albeit slightly different, in the Jerusalem Post.

Excerpting from the JPost:

Mutual respect for the rights of others is the necessary basis for any democratic society. Mutuality is not just a basic moral intuition; it is a fundamental principle of the Torah. Hillel taught: That which is hateful to you do not do to others. One cannot with consistency condemn the demonstrators in Tzoran and turn a blind eye to the extremists in Beit Shemesh.


BUT I have an even more fundamental objection to these extremists: They distort the Torah and make it something ugly. They would exercise a territorial imperative – that we establish the rules wherever we live and adjacent thereto – that is more in tune with Islam. Islam is a religion of conquest, which divides the world into territory it has conquered, or dar al- Islam – in which Shari’a, Islamic law, must be imposed – and territory not yet conquered.


Judaism, by contrast, was never a religion of conquest outside of Eretz Yisrael, and Jews have never viewed territorial conquest as the primary sign of Divine favor. More fundamentally, Jewish law recognizes the legitimacy of parallel legal systems, as expressed in the famous Talmud statement “dina d’malchuta dina” – the civil law of the country is the law.


Last week, I found myself praying Minha in Kiryat Sanz in Netanya, prior to spending a few hours at the separate beach across the road. Kiryat Sanz is a largely self-contained neighborhood of Klausenberger Hassidim, though the late Klausenberger Rebbe insisted from the beginning that there be a Sephardi community within it. Laniado Hospital, which the rebbe built, lies at the edge of the neighborhood.


While in Kiryat Sanz, I noticed one or two women in decidedly non-hassidic dress walking through the neighborhood. No one paid them any attention.


Just to make sure that my powers of observation were not waning, I called a doctor friend who lives there, and he told me a story of rabbi who once spent his summer vacation in the neighborhood.


After a week, he complained to the Klausenberger Rebbe, of blessed memory, that he was shocked by the presence of immodestly dressed women there.


The rebbe replied, “That’s amazing. I’ve been here over 10 years, and I never saw anything like that.”


My friend then told me another story that captures the ahavat Yisrael – the love for one’s fellow Jew – that the Rebbe made the animating value of his community, along with devotion to Torah study.


Once, the rebbe heard that some hassidim had shouted, “Shabbes!” at seaside bathers. He ordered them to cease and desist forever.


“Nobody ever came closer to Torah because someone shouted at them,” he said. “Open your windows and sing Shabbos zemiros [songs] at the top of your lungs. That might have a positive effect.”


How do I know that the relations between Kiryat Sanz and secular residents of Netanya are normative Torah behavior, and threats by a handful of newly arrived, self-proclaimed “zealots” in Beit Shemesh to their national religious neighbors that they’d better remove their TVs or else, are not? Because the Klausenberger Rebbe was a universally recognized giant of Torah scholarship, while the “zealots” listen to no rabbinic authority. Rabbi Aharon Feldman, today the head of Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore, once told me how, 30 years ago, he and a group of some of Jerusalem’s most distinguished younger talmidei hachamim tried to convince a group of kids throwing stones on the Ramot Road on Shabbat to stop. The kids just laughed at them.


And my conclusion is confirmed by the dozens of places around the country where haredim live harmoniously with secular neighbors – in mixed cities like Petah Tikva, in Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood with its large group of Stoliner Hassidim, or Arad with its large population of Gerrer Hassidim.


Unfortunately harmony never garners media attention, perhaps because it does not further anti-haredi propaganda.


JEWS, UNLIKE Muslims, have a millennia-long history of living as a despised minority. Minority status has imbued us with some prudential values. Satmar Hassidim in Williamsburg, for instance, do not post dress code advisories in the elevators of buildings they share with Puerto Ricans.


Despite its rapid growth – or perhaps because of it – the haredi population in Israel today is highly vulnerable.


Secular Israelis fear haredi domination, just as many of those of native European stock fear the loss of their cultural patrimony to rapidly growing Muslim populations. And fear triggers backlashes.


That has certainly happened in Europe in response to the growing number of Muslim neighborhoods that are “no-go” zones for the police, the assaults and worse on European women who do not conform to Muslim dress codes, and the retention of Islamic customs, like honor killings, even when they contravene the criminal law. The leaders of Germany, France and Britain have all declared multiculturalism a failure. Anti-immigration parties are ascendant, and a number of countries have enacted restrictions on Muslim dress. Some observers warn that the blood of native European and Muslim immigrant combatants will flow in Europe’s streets.


Haredim in Israel cannot afford such a backlash.


And nothing will do more to trigger one than assertions of territorial sovereignty by those who profess to believe that we are still living in galut (exile).


Contrary to what the protesters on Rothschild Boulevard may think, for instance, the haredi community suffers from a critical housing shortage.


Haredim will have to move, many to mostly secular cities (which I view as largely positive development for a number of reasons). But many mayors have actively fought to prevent haredim from moving to their cities, in part motivated by fears that once haredim become a critical mass, they will demand that streets be closed on Shabbat and the like.


EVEN THE danger they represent to the larger haredi public is not, however, the greatest threat posed by the small group of “zealots.” I spoke last week to one of the veteran leaders of the Eda Haredit and a resident of Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim neighborhood for more than 70 years, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim. Ironically this outspoken opponent of violence was one of the prime movers behind the move of thousands of former Mea She’arim residents to Beit Shemesh, among them the group of “zealots” in question. “I envisioned them teaching Torah to their neighbors,” Rabbi Pappenheim told me.




In the course of the conversation, he shared the view of his teacher Rabbi Tzvi Yosef Dushinsky, the late chief rabbi of the Eda, that the coming of the Messiah only requires some spiritual arousal from below, not that every Jew first become Torah observant.


The latter is God’s business, not ours, and will only happen after the Messiah’s arrival, Rabbi Dushinsky taught.


Anyone who makes the Torah ugly in the eyes of the broader public, in that view, is doing nothing less than stymieing the redemptive process itself.


I DON’T expect the “zealots” to be convinced by anything I write. They don’t listen to Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv; why would they listen to me? But I do expect the haredi mayor of Beit Shemesh to take a strong stand that violence will not be allowed to establish facts on the grounds and that all the city’s residents will be treated fairly and equally. Doing so will constitute a powerful statement that the haredi public understands the requirement of mutual respect and tolerance in a diverse society, and allow us to maintain the moral upper hand when we demand fair treatment in places like Tzoran.

That last paragraph is perhaps the most important of the whole article. the mayor cannot allow violence and threats to set the tone, to decide policy. Mutual tolerance and respect is the key and the only way to coexist.

Jonathan Rosenblum has written and posted a response, on the Tzedek-Tzedek blog, to the article written by Michael Lesher refuting Rosenblum's original article three months ago in the Jerusalem post regarding alleged child abuse cases in RBS.

Perhaps later I will write down some thoughts and comment on the article.

Jonathan Rosenblum recently wrote an article called "Do you know where your boychick is". In the article, Rosenblum discussed the phenomena of American yeshiva boys, who were sent to Israel to immerse themselves in learning, are found getting in trouble at hafganot, and described an atmosphere where there is no supervision over these boys, and they are far from immersing themselves completely in their studies. They are basically taking advantage of no parental, or any other authority, supervision to have a good time.

While Rosenblum does not call directly for a cacellation of the "trend" to send kids to israel, he does call on parents to be more discerning about their children and make more personal decisions, and not just send because everyone else is.

I actually like Rosenblum's article because of the ending. In the various analysis and criticisms I have seen since he wrote it, people have commented a lot on the issue of boys going to Israel and on the style of the yeshivos. but I think Rosenblum was making a bigger point than that. Rosenblum says concluding the article:

The last and most important rule is at the same time the hardest one for parents to fulfill: Know your child. Do not assume that simply because your son has always been a "good boy," who learns well, and does not get into trouble, that you have nothing to worry about. Rabbi David Sapirman, a mechanech in Toronto with forty years experience, writes in a Torah U'mesorah publication, "Why and How to Teach Emunah," of many top notch yeshiva products who "when it comes to emunah . . . neither believe nor disbelieve. He is simply moving along the conveyor belt, which takes him from cradle to kollel. He goes through the motions, and may even be very happy doing so. But his lack of conviction permeates all that he does. These youngsters are as much at risk as the disenchanted, although they may not be aware of it yet. . . . Woe to him, if ever faced with a serious nisayon, like the temptation for something immoral or dishonest. Only real conviction can enable one to withstand temptation, not a robotic life style."

And that is just the point. The time spent learning in Eretz Yisrael, without in many cases adequate supervision or accountability, is filled with many temptations. Before sending one's sons to learn there, parents have to know whether their sons have a real connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, whether the image of Yaakov Avinu will confront them in moments of temptation, and whether they are truly filled with aspirations for growth in Torah. Or are they just "good boys," who have never gotten off the conveyor belt. If the latter, caution is advised.

It is more than "don't send them to Israel because they will get into trouble". The reason they are getting into trouble is because they are not really dedicated students. They have been riding a train. They were never taught emunah, bitachon and hashkafa. They were just good kids in yeshiva learning the curriculum and were never actually challenged or taught how to deal with anything but a blatte gemara. They were on a conveyor belt until now.

I think he is completely right on that. I remember from my yeshiva days, and I went to decent yeshivas, that all we did was learn gemara. Variety was a short halacha seder in the morning and a short mussar seder in the evening.

Maybe we were meant to glean the lessons of emunah and hashkafa form the gemara, but we were so interested, or should I say involved, in the pilpul, we never knew to, or how to, glean such lessons just from the gemara itself. Those types of topics were never even considered, let alone anybody having the gall to teach it or to ask about it.

The best guys I know today learning in kollel, are guys who have spent time learning seriously from the mussar seforim and hashkafa/emunah seforim.

The reason why ia m writing about this today is because Hamodia has published a number of Letters to the Editor in response to Rosenblum's article. They all, each and every one, ignore this point of Rosenblums. They all deal with whether boys should or should not go to Israel, each one supporting his position with anecdotal "evidence" based on what happened when they or their kids were in Israel.

They are missing the point that the education is lacking. The education our kids are receiving is not one that will prepare our kids to deal with the challenges they will eventually face. Until what age can a parent baby a child and not let him face challenges? We are talking here about boys from ages ranging from 18-23. And they are not prepared to face a year without their parents.

And when they are sent away, based on all the claims (which I think are exaggerated in scope even though they do happen), obviously the education they have received until that point is then proven to have failed, because at the first point of freedom and self-responsibility, these boys are failing the test.

I am willing to say that even if the solution some of these people want, of stopping the "trend" to automatically send the boys to learn in Israel, is implemented, these boys would get into trouble in New York or wherever else they went instead of Israel. They would not be getting into trouble in hafganot looking for excitement, but they would be getting into trouble by hanging out with girls, maybe dabbling in drugs, movies, pool halls, whatever. If the boy is not taught how to deal with the world, he will get in trouble when he is finally exposed to it. There is a limit to how much of an eye a parent can keep on a 20 year old guy, no matter how far from home he is or how close to home he is.

The real solution is not taking away their cellphones or laptops (which might be good ideas anyway), and it is not stopping to send them to Israel (which also might be right for some of them - parents should be discerning and not just do it because everyone else is), but the yeshivas need to improve the curriculum, and the parents need to prepare their kids to face the real world. The kids need to be taken off the conveyor belt.

The following "Letter to the Editor" was published in the Jerusalem Post in response to the Jonathan Rosenblum article:

Sir, - Jonathan Rosenblum, shame on you! (“Those primitive haredim – yet again,” June 12, JPost)

As a product of haredi yeshivot, I have always viewed your insistence on defending all things haredi with cynicism and a chuckle.

However, how can I remain silent in the face of your attack on David Morris and Lema’an Achai? Yes, you tried to veil the attack with some form of praise; but it was an attack nonetheless. Morris, the other workers of Lema’an Achai and their esteemed rabbinic leadership are the righteous of the righteous. They devote their days and nights to helping all Jews without trying to promote one sect over another. If they have concluded that there are rabbis who are not helping to deal properly with suspicions of molestation, then this is the reality. End of story.

As for the rabbis you mention by name, can you also defend their refusal to publicly condemn some of the recent acts by extremist hareidim in Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh – such as the Friday night kicking assault on a teenage girl in December, the constant spitting upon women deemed dressed not up to their standards , and the spray painting of rebukes on our walls and sidewalks? Is this silence also “a considered philosophy about what is best for the victims?”.

You are so correct in stating that the hareidi community is “much more complicated…than the stereotypes which abound”. Perhaps you should redirect your efforts towards helping fix those “complications.”

Rabbi Dov Lipman
Bet Shemesh

What I find interesting in the letter is the connection between the response and working method employed in the cases of RBS, to the responses mentioned regarding the attacks in RBS B. This despite the fact that they are 2 different crowds, different sets of rabbis, with seemingly no real connection. Yet Rabbi Lipman shows that the response is the same.

perhaps it is simply the preferred method of Haredi rabbonim - to work in quiet. Though the truth is, I think, that in the case of RBS B it was not a situation of working quietly behind the scenes, but of ignoring the issue completely.

After last weeks article by Ruth Eglash in the Jpost, discussed here in record setting length (record setting for this site at least), regarding child abuse and sexual molestation in local Haredi schools, Jonathan Rosenblum has now written an article responding, and refuting, Eglash's claims and conclusions.

Rosenblum says:

WHAT AROUSED MY SUSPICIONS? For one thing, not one local rabbi was quoted. Nor was there any indication that any had even been contacted. The story fit a little too neatly into familiar stereotypes of the haredi world. First, the portrayal of the community and its rabbinic leaders as hopelessly backward, with no knowledge of psychology or awareness of the darker side of human nature. Second, the idea of a community so insular that it would rather let its children be traumatized for life than address its problems or seek outside help.

I have many friends in the English-speaking community of Ramat Beit Shemesh "Aleph" and know many of the communal rabbis. And, frankly, the application of these stereotypes to them seemed preposterous. For starters, ba'alei teshuva comprise a very large percentage of the community - in some shuls almost 100 percent. These are not people with no knowledge of the outside world, who have never heard of sexual perversions, or whose every behavior is shaped by generations-old social mores. Few of them would silently endure the sexual abuse of their children, or tolerate rabbis they viewed as passive in the face of such abuse.

The community's rabbis are young, worldly and energetic. None come from a generation that might have believed that these problems do not exist among religious people. Child abuse is currently a hot topic in the haredi community. There is an ever-widening awareness of the traumatic impact of abuse on the individual child and the community, and that victims may themselves become perpetrators if not treated professionally and promptly. Rabbi Elimelech Kornfeld told me that extra vigilance is needed in a new community like Ramat Beit Shemesh, where people have not known each other for years and everyone comes from some place else.

I was even more confident that none of the rabbis I know would be indifferent to accusations of child abuse. Why would they be? The greatest posek of the generation has written that where adequate grounds for suspicion exist, one should go to the police. And one friend of mine was told by a leading member of the Eda Haredit that he should help a young man report a case of abuse to the police.

Ramat Beit Shemesh is not an established community with venerable institutions which there might be some impulse to shield. None of the communal rabbis have any interest beyond the well-being of their congregants. And they take that task very seriously.

One of the first lessons I learned practicing law was that there are usually two sides to a story, no matter how compelling your client's version. My lawyer's antennae were pricked last week by a front-page article in this paper headlined: "Haredi parents take on sexual abuse of children. Ramat Beit Shemesh parents increasingly frustrated with leaders' denial of problem." The piece portrayed two parents who bravely bucked "the stringent cultural norms" of their "tight-knit haredi community in Ramat Beit Shemesh" to seek redress for the alleged sexual abuse of their children.

None of the community’s rabbis come from a generation that might have believed sex-abuse problems do not exist among religious people.

Another hero of the piece was David Morris, director of Lema'an Achai, who promoted his organization's efforts to assist haredi parents versus the rabbinic authorities who, in many cases, end up "believing the perpetrators' story over the victims." Morris speculates that there is an epidemic of child abuse in Ramat Beit Shemesh based on the wild claim that every case investigated by the police represents 1,000 others not investigated.

I have met David Morris and been impressed by Lema'an Achai's work on behalf of the Jews evicted from their homes in Gaza and refugees from the North during the Second Lebanon War. (My wife worked for many years as a therapist for Lema'an Achai.) I can understand that he was displeased with the results in a particular case (The Jerusalem Post article appeared the same week the police declined to pursue a further investigation against a heder rebbe in the neighborhood - one of the two concrete cases described). And no doubt he feels he knows better than the rabbis how to handle the problem of child abuse, just as the local rabbis, many of whom have far greater experience than the five or 10 calls that Lema'an Achai's Safe Kids hot line claims to have received, do not assume that Morris (who is not a professional therapist) is the alpha-omega on the topic.

But I don't believe Morris thinks the rabbis are clueless about the issue or routinely believe accused perpetrators over children. It is true that the rabbis do not think a teacher should be automatically fired the first time any student complains of untoward behavior, and he and his family stigmatized for life. (When the police receive a complaint, they do not even routinely inform the institution in question.) The rabbis will, however, advise the institution to put the teacher on notice that he or she is under supervision and give him or her a set of inviolable rules while an investigation is in process. (One Bnei Brak heder installs a camera in the classroom in such cases.)

[...]

The rabbis' preference for working behind the scenes derives not from a desire to sweep problems under the rug, but from a considered philosophy about what is best for victims, their families and the community. The knowledge that incidents will be publicized can keep victims or their parents from coming forward. In addition, publicity can lead to hysteria in which parents become convinced that their children are at great risk in school. (In fact, more abuse takes place within families or involves older children as perpetrators.)

The rabbis recognize that ultimately the only cure for child abuse is prevention, which means above all educating children as to what is impermissible touching and must be reported immediately, and alerting parents to signs of possible abuse. One rabbi told me of an upcoming meeting with Dr. Susan Schulman, a Boro Park physician and author of Understanding Your Child's Health, to discuss ways to improve community education.

The skewed portrayal of the rabbinic leadership of Ramat Beit Shemesh provides one more example of how much more complicated is the reality of the haredi community than the stereotypes which abound.