10 Year Old Sings Avraham Fried's Don't Hide From Me



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Shyne Freestyles Straight From Israel



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An email was sent out the other day, and has since been passed around and spread further, announcing the formation of a[nother] organization in RBS that will deal with claims of child abuse. The organization, called "Maaneh" is more haredi in structure, presumably, and that is probably the main difference between it and Magen.

Here is the bulk of the information that was in the email. The rest of it, the part I am not including, was fundraising to get a base of support and help get it off the ground stably.

A few years ago, an organization was conceived of and formed by a few Rabbonim here in RBS, who also decided that it should remain "under the radar" as long as it is able to, and certainly as long as it is still organizing its structure and its manpower, and establishing its ties with the relevant governmental agencies.

The name of the organization is Maaneh, and it is dedicated to work towards prevention, education, and treatment of forms of child abuse which exist and occur.

BH, the organization is up and running for a while already, has the necessary ties with law enforcement and social governmental agencies, and has a highly professional team in place for all aspects of the problem, from a crises hotline to a treatment center, to a training center for counselors, to a community relations center which has informational forums for those who need to recognize the issues.

The Director of the Center is R' Aryeh Levi, who, together with Dr Ephraim Rosenbaum, work under the guidance of a Rabbinical Committee to have the Center function as it should.

I see this as a very positive development.

But first, let me add, I don't see here, and haven't seen elsewhere, contact information. What should someone do if chas v'shalom they are in a situation in which they must contact Maaneh? It does not say anywhere. I guess they can call Dr. Rosenbaum's home number as listed in the phone book. I guess they would have to go to their rabbi (assuming the persons rabbi is affiliated with Maaneh rather than Magen or perhaps encouraging the person to avoid both and just go directly to the police) and he would direct them to Maaneh. Or maybe they are just not yet ready to announce that info yet, and are still structuring the organization before announcing to the wider public.

I see this as a very positive development. For the most part.

Is there going to be a redundancy of services? Probably. Will there be confusion (e.g. who to call)? Perhaps, probably not. Will there be a division along lines of affiliation? Most likely.

But so what?

We have a redundancy of services and divisions already in every other locally provided service, whether public or private. And where we don't already have such inefficiency and redundancy, someone somewhere is striving to create it.  Be it shuls, tzedaka organizations, mikvas, shops, activists - we have too much of everything except clean streets and clean parks (and of course we don't have too many swimming pools or other forms of entertainment locally), so why not this too? That should be the worst of the problems.

This is a breakthrough. As someone said to me, this is probably the very first time a group of haredi rabbonim are acknowledging there is a problem and that it must be dealt with differently than the way it was previously dealt with. While before things were kept quiet, the rabbonim ran the investigation before involving the authorities, now they are working together with government agencies, counselors, etc. This is ground-breaking in the haredi world! Nowhere else in the world, that I am aware of, has a haredi community  even acknowledged the problem, let alone moved towards implementing such a solution.

The biggest problem I see, the thing about this that upsets me, is the possible perception now that there is so much abuse in the neighorhood happening that we need two organizations to handle the load!

Is this better or worse than Magen? I have no idea. Only time will tell, though I hope there will never be enough cases to get that much information. Will; there be a redundancy? Yes, but so what. If there is a lack of trust among different communities (or even if it's not a lack of trust but a sense of different communities do things different ways) , so just like each has its own kashrut organizations, mikvas, poskim, dayanim and whatever else, so now they each have their own child abuse hotlines as well. Nu nu. Redundancy of services should be the worst of our problems.

As said above, I hope both of our community organizations dealing with child abuse have to deal with a lot of boredom due to a lack of incidents.


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Headline Of The Day

Turkey threatens Syria with retaliation over downed military jet 

  - Fox News

Maybe Syria should have apologized...

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Quote Of The Day

Specifically for this I came here, to pray that the Beit Hamikdash should be rebuilt. I wish for you that your prayers should be accepted.

  -- President of Russia Vladimir Putin

Putin went to visit the Kotel today, and while there someone called out to him in Russian. Shortly after, Putin went over to him and started chatting...








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Picture of The Day

The first group of families were moved today out of the Ulpana in Bet El...

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In a ridiculous story, worse than ridiculous really as lives were in danger, a woman in Jerusalem refused to go to a hospital to give birth, or even after birth for examination and care, because she was in the middle of a taanis dibbur -  a speech fast -at the time of birth.

According to this report on Kikar, on this past Motzei Shabbos MDA and the police were called in to deal with a woman who had given birth earlier in the day but refused to allow herself to be brought to the hospital for care. Her husband called the authorities. he claims to not have been home at the time of birth, but at some point during the day he had come home and discovered his wife in the bedroom holding the newborn baby that was still attached by the umbilical cord.

They tried to persuade her to allow them to bring her and the baby to the hospital, but she refused to communicate with them.

They brought the rav who released her from her taanis dibbur and told her that it is a mitzvah for her to go to the hospital to be checked, but she still refused, not allowing the MDA team to examine her or the baby.

The police ended up forcing the situation and gave the MDA team an opportunity to check the baby, who was fine and healthy, and then she finally agreed to be taken to the hospital.

When she got to the hospital, she broke her taanis and thanked the MDA team.

All around weird.


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Interestingly, according to this report on News1 (Yoav Yitzchak's news portal), the police have information, including testimony, that the bank windows that were smashed the other day at the social protests in Tel Aviv were actually smashed by Sudanese migrants who had each been paid 400 NIS to smash the windows.

1. It could be a libelous charge to make the Sudanese look bad.

2. Assuming it is true, which was really my initial belief, I am impressed that even at a protest in which the protesters got violent, and clearly intended in advance to get violent, they still did not want to carry out the violence themselves and instead hired non-Jews to be violent on their behalf. What can I say - Jews just don't like to get their hands dirty!

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hmmmm, Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman married off his daughter, according to a report in Ladaat. Mazal tov!

I wonder if this was the same driver of Litzman who was involved in a recent crash in which it was discovered he had been toking up.

No criticism here. I think marijuana should be legalized...

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Hundreds Gather in the Desert - Cry Out to G-d

This is weird.. details after the clip



More information from Arutz 7:

Hundreds of Israelis gathered this week for prayers, dancing, and singing in what has become an annual event. “The Tza'aka” (crying out to G-d), an event where Israelis of all ages and backgrounds go out to an isolated areas and raise their voices loudly in prayer, is “communicating with G-d on a very basic level, without the need to dress it up with speech or actions. In essence it is like blowing a shofar,” organizers of the event said. “As a result, the prayers here are more concentrated and directed.” The events have genrally been held in the Judean and Negev deserts.
Eldad Eilat, one of the event's organizers, said that the event was the result of the need for prayer under unusual and pressurized circumstances. “We learn about the concept of crying out before G-d from the Exodus, where we see that the Jewish people cried out. G-d heard their cries, and redeemed them. Since then, our rabbis – including Maimonides, the Chafetz Chaim, and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov - have recommended that we conduct prayers in this manner,” he said.
Eilat said that the idea for the “Tza'aka” was born several years ago, when war appeared to be on the horizon. Seeing the situation, he and a group of friends decided that this kind of activity would be an appropriate response. The event was a major success, and as word spread several well-known rabbis, as well as hundreds of people, sought to participate. An event that was held last week, at the request of a well-known rabbi, drew some 2,000 people, Eilat said.
The events attract people of all backgrounds, he said – religious, secular, and otherwise. “There were many deeply religious people at recent events, many teenagers and young adults, well-known rabbis and individuals from the religious world, and some who don't fit any category,” Eilat said of the last event. “It is a wide-ranging crowd. What unites them is their caring and love for the Jewish people.”

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There is no Zionism without Zion (Jerusalem)



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Graduates Of IAF Pilots Course 2012

Notice how they don't show anybody in an identifiable way...

good luck graduates! Fly well, fly safe, and do your part in protecting Israel!


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Matisyahu - Sunshine

A little while back I found a video of how this music video was being made.. a behind the scenes look.. here is the final edition of Matisyahu's Sunshine.....



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Interesting Posts #391

1. Times of Israel Bloggers - are you getting paid? - the post itself raises an interesting discussion, and one ensued in the comments. It even was the impetus for the next interesting post...

2. Grace and Respect

3. Hummus Ice-Cream!

4. Pompous Insults: Treating Us Like Pawns and Furniture

5. What About The Children of Tomorrow?

6. Kinda Sucks Getting Your @ss kicked By Those Sworn to protect you

7. Visiting Judenrein Lands



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If you are a rosh kollel, this interesting psak from Rav Shteinman might just be for you..

Rav Shteinman paid a visit to a beis medrash in Bnei Braq. At the end of his visit, the Rosh Kollel asked Rav Shteinman a question about how to deal with the avreichim in his kollel.

The Rosh Kollel asked if he should deduct money from the stipend of an avreich for coming late. Doing so, or at least threatening to do so, might prevent him from coming late and weakening the entire beis medrash. or, perhaps, he should not deduct for the already meager stipend, and should try to find other ways to strengthen the atmosphere and attendance in the beis medrash?

Rav Shteinman paskened that despite the fact that this fellow coming late can cause a weakened atmosphere in the beis medrash, the Rosh Kollel should not deduct from his stipend. The avreich is probably already barely getting by at the end of the month, and taking money away will be taking food away from his family.
(source: Kikar)

I would guess this question must be referring to a new situation. I imagine that if this is a new problem, this would be the right answer. If this has been going on for a long time already, and if he has been warned many times but continues to come late for learning, perhaps kollel, or specificially this kollel in which he is unmotivated, is not for him..


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SodaStream is one of the Israeli companies regularly targetted by BDS proponents and supporters. SoaStream is a small beverages company specializing in allowing the consumer to carbonate his own water and flavoring it with a variety of syrups.

SodaStream is typically used by people looking to drink soda pops that are healthier than the mass-produced brands, people who are concerned about the environment, and people looking to drink soda pop  while saving money, among others.

Not only does SodaStream have to worry about the BDS movement, but now they have to worry about a lawsuit from soft-drink giant Coca Cola.


SodaStream has been running an awareness program that they call "The Cage". They take a cage and fill it with empty soda pop bottles and place it in busy areas. They place on the cage a sign detailing different combinations of information, including how many bottles are in the cage, how long this garbage would take to decompose, how many bottles are used yearly by the average family and how much is recycled.
Coca Cola is upset that The Cage contains Coca Cola (and Fanta and Sprite, etc) bottles in it. they are claiming misuse of its trademark.

Obviously, you cannot really see Coca Cola bottles prominently. it is just a mass of empty bottles. Coca Cola bottles do not stand out any more or less than the bottles of any other company. The garbage was all taken from landfills for this project.

All was quiet until SodaStream recently took their Cage to the airport in South Africa. When they did, Coca Cola gave them all the publicity they could ever dream for, sending them cease and desist letters in order to have the display removed.

SodaStream Cage located in Yankee Stadium

Speaking to Globes, SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said, besides for the comment on the legal issues, "It doesn’t really matter whose garbage it is," he says. "If Coca-Cola wants to contend that the garbage belongs to it, that will only help us. I want that to happen, for Coca-Cola to take responsibility for the garbage it produces worldwide every day." and also had this exchange: You're not under pressure?" Not at all. I won't fold and I'm not afraid. I won't lie and I'm not a thief. I'm merely saying the truth, and I hope that the world will realize this." Birnbaum says that he is just getting started. "We didn’t start this war," he says. "The Cage is not only directed against Coca-Cola. There are a lot of other companies that could have been annoyed by it, but weren’t. The displays have been making the rounds for two years, and I don’t understand why only now tensions have arisen with Coca-Cola and because of the display in South Africa." Can you hazard a guess? "I don’t know. Maybe because in South Africa it's easier to protect trademarks. In general, this is a social question, not a legal one, and that's why we don’t care whether or not we'll have to remove the display or not." You're not worried that other companies, such as PepsiCo, might follow in Coca-Cola's suit?" I doubt it. PepsiCo is sitting quietly and hiding behind this story. It's a shame to be on the side of these polluters. A shame and a disgrace! They're doing nothing to currect the environmental damage." SodaStream is an Israeli company and is finding innovative ways to bring attention to its product. According to this, the display is in a small corner of the SA airport, and most likely it would have gone largely unnoticed to the majority of people passing through the airport. It is Coca Cola's campaign that is drawing much attention to SodaStream. ---------------------------------------------------- Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel ------------------------------------------------------