Just to remind everyone, Chaim Walder is not the victim.

The predator Berland was arrested last night with a group of his goons. Due to him being a flight risk, his remand was extended. Immediately after, he suddenly felt sick with deteriorating health and had to be sent to the hospital for care.

Berland knows how to play the game... when he was in jail last he arranged to be released under some form of house arrest due to his deteriorating health. After a bit, he was out and about like anybody else without any necessary hospital visits or special treatments. Suddenly he is detained and sure enough once again his health is deteriorating and he needs urgent medical care.

To that end, they should tell him not to go to the hospital but to heal himself. The police can even sponsor the mentos pills that he will take to heal himself...
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Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman is under investigation for pressuring doctors to issue false psych reports to help Malka Leifer  avoid extradition too Australia.

Today MK Uri Maklev and Jerusalem City Councilman Yossi Deutsch and MK Yisroel Eichler and DM Meir Porush made public statements in support of Litzman. I have no problem with that. There is a presumption of innocence and they can express support for him and give him encouraging words, if they wish to. Some of what they said though is interesting.

Maklev said it is a witch-hunt going on against DM Litzman already for many months and is looking to delegitimize the Haredi community. It bothers them that Litzman's door is open before anybody who needs help... this campaign against the Haredi community and Litzman, to turn helping the public into guilt...

Deutsch said that he strengthens and encourages Rav Litzman who is going through a difficult time right now from miserly people who hate the Haredim, how fortunate is Litzman for being attacked for helping the needy, and we are confident that you did nothing wrong..

Eichler said I strengthen and encourage Rav Litzman and promise you that he is clean with no stains. We have arrived at a crazy situation and it makes no sense that a public figure would be sent to help people and cannot do his work..

Porush said in the name of the entire Haredi Judaism I want to express support for our friend Rav Litzman. How fortunate are you for being attacked for helping the needy.

All those words of encouragement and stating their belief in his innocence are fine. I have no problem with that. The interesting part I find is what they each said - he is attacked for helping the needy, he just wants to help those in need but cannot do his work, helping the needy is turned into guilt.

So he did help Malka Leifer?

It is wonderful to help those in need of government assistance and help ease bureaucracy when possible, but to help an alleged molester, charged with very serious crimes, by, allegedly, pressuring doctors to falsify documents - that is not exactly the type of "helping those in need" that is deserving of praise. I am not saying he did it, but they are referring to the accusations, and they are not saying the accusations are false, but that he does not deserve to be punished for helping the needy. This type of helping the needy deserves to be punished, or at least investigated.

They would have done better by just offering the words of encouragement and their belief in his innocence and not implied that he tried to help her.

 

police officers up north charged with arresting and booking the charlatan Ezra Sheinberg have been complaining about his behavior. Sheinberg has been cursing them and threatening them with spiritual anger (not sure how to translate "kpeida").

Some of the police officers are nervous and upset about this, especially the religious ones and the others who "believe".

Personally I would suggest that they have nothing to worry about. He has proven himself to be nothing but a charlatan. He isn't a mystic or a holy man. His curses won't harm anybody.

Tzedek-Tzedek asks an interesting question. Rav Moti Elon has been separated from society because had been accused of illegal sexual activities with students, abuse of authority and the like. He was sent into golus, so to speak, and banished from teaching.

Now, the police have closed all the open cases against him and they have decided he did nothing illegal.
The first stage of his return is that his supporters have created a website making his shiurim available to the larger public that might want to hear them. Tzedek-Tzedek's question is if such a person should be allowed to teach online.

First of all, I see nothing wrong with him teaching online. If anyone is disgusted by him, they do not need to download his shiurim. They can, instead, go to the plethora of other websites offering Torah shiurim and completely ignore Rav Elon.

Second, I actually see nothing wrong with him being allowed to return to the classroom and teach face to face. He was accused. he was removed. He was investigated. Now he was found innocent. There is no reason he should not be able to return and teach. He did nothing wrong.

That being said, what he did was not my cup of tea, and you can be sure I will not be attending his classes. Everybody else has the same option of deciding whether they are interested in listening to him or not. However, that should not be a reason to deny him the ability to form classes and teach as he used to.

The man was found innocent after going through the whole process. Are we still going to torture him? When does it end? When is a person allowed to get back to his life, if not after he is found to be innocent?

This story is an amazing example of how people can abuse power once they achieve it. They just let it get to their heads and think they can do whatever they want.

My translated recap of the story (for full story in Hebrew, see here):

It seems there has been political fighting in Tiberias between Shas and Rav Avraham Dov Auerbach, the Chief Rabbi of Tiberias. Rav Auerbach opposed a certain member on the local Shas list and therefore refused to support Shas in the municipal elections. Rav Auerbach started his own party to run in the elections.

Shas was upset, and in retaliation, requested of the mayor to transfer control of a school building to their school system. The school housed at the time a school run by Rebbetzin Auerbach. The request was not granted.
In the most recent elections, 6 months ago or so, Rav Auerbach again refused to support the Shas ticket, and ran his own people in his own party again. Everybody doubled their presence in City Hall, so it was a win-win situation, But Shas was still upset. Their candidate had won the mayoral race, and with their new-found position of power, they again filed a request for control of the school building.

This time, the mayor went and closed the building down saying there were safety hazards and the school could not operate in the building until they were rectified. Rav Auerbach spent a lot of money fixing up the building, but the mayor continued to refuse to allow them to use the building.

The mayor decided to go all out, transferred the building to Shas, and said that they have the right to allocate buildings as they desire. This was supported by the courts, and the mayor gave the building to Shas.

Rav Auerbach didn't take that sitting down. he was very upset and put a curse out saying that Haredi representatives went to secular court to solve their grievances and therefore anybody from Shas who goes into the building to work, I promise they will be held accountable and will not be "clean", not in this world and not in the next.

Shas did not just brush this off, but got frightened by the curse. Nobody from Shas is willing to step into the building now, fearing for their safety.

They tried to get rid of the building, asking for the city to now make a switch with a secular school. The secular school refuses to use that school building as well and rejected the request to swap buildings.

The building sits empty for now, as nobody is willing to use it.

1. I like the response of the secular school saying don't pass your curse off onto us. Just because we are not religious doesn't mean we are willing to die for your idiocy.
2. Shas is obviously more willing to let the building sit empty than to give it back to the school run by Rebbetzin Auerbach. sounds like rishus to me. Maybe there is more to the story.
3. This is what happens when power gets to your head. Can't they get the city to reallocate another building? One that was not in use? Or slate the next building built to go them? They had to grab this building just because they were upset about politics?
4. Just like Shas pulled some protexia in the city against Rav Auerbach, it seems Rav Auerbach has his own protexia to pull - God. And it seems that at the end of the day, even the Shas people, who are willing to denigrate the chief rabbi of the city, are not going to go out against God. My protexia is stronger than your protexia!
   
5. Amazing that they, Shas and the mayor, were willing to fight against the chief rabbi because of politics. Don't they have any respect? It is not like they were fighting over who would get a new building they each wanted. They took retribution by grabbing a building already in use by Rav Auerbach's school.

Is Olmert extending his grip on the seat of the Prime Ministership by killing Palestinians?

Just yesterday Olmert announced that he still does not approve any incursion or action in Gaza.

Today Avigdor Lieberman was to meet (I think they are meeting now) with Olmert to discuss the government's diplomatic moves. Olmert and Livni are leading talks with the PA that include negotiations over the core issues of Jerusalem.

Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, has come out against these talks and announced that when the government begins talks on the "core issues" they will leave the coalition. Lieberman is against negotiating over the core issues, and especially right now - he says there are many things to be discussed before getting to the core issues, so to discuss them now is premature. He announced he would leave the government when such discussions take place.

These discussions are officially taking place now.

Lieberman, in anticipation of a possible announcement that he is leaving the government, is meeting with Olmert to clarify what is exactly being negotiated. Olmert is expected to try to convince Lieberman to stay in the coalition.

With Lieberman expected to announce his decision tonight, suddenly today Olmert approves an offensive in Gaza that has so far killed 17 Palestinians (as long as they continue shooting rockets at Israel, as long as they support a government of terror, as long as they continue to hold Gilad Shalit captive, I will say "phoot phoot phoot", "the more the merrier", "kein yirbu", etc.).

So has Olmert approved this attack in Gaza simply so he could come to Lieberman with something in his hand's? He can now say "Look at how I fight terror", so stay in the government. I will protect Israel's interests even though you are against these negotiations.

Is Olmert buying his stay in power on the blood of the Palestinians? hmmmm

This will, of course, be added to his purchase of power with the Shastitutes. Olmert created a new ministry, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, specifically to give to Shas so they would not abandon the government coalition. This was just approved yesterday.

Yitzchak Cohen, the MK from Shas who has been appointed the Minister of religious Affairs, claims that it was necessary to create the ministry just to give him the authority (that had been handled by him under the auspices of the Prime Minister's Office until now) so he could ensure proper payments of salaries to the Rabbis and mikva attendants and others who have not been paid for months.

Why he could not use the responsibility he had as running the department when it was under the PMO with his management, and only now that it is his ministry, I do not know.

But Olmert bought Shas by giving themthis ministry and all the budgets and jobs that come with it.

So he has now bought an extension of power by bribing Shas, and killing Palestinians for Lieberman.

Whatever it takes.

It takes time to get full accreditation from the Ministry of Education, and I am not familiar with the process nro with the various stages and levels of accreditation, so in the aspect of the issue my post will be incomplete.

A new school opened up last year. The school is trying to cater to a public that mostly considers itself being some level of Haredi. They are mostly families of Western Immigrants who want a strong Torah education in the Haredi style but also want a strong secular education. The two generally do not go together. There are a number of schools around that have been trying this niche and all have had success and this new school is trying to join the crowd. In its second year, I am told it has been successful and parents are happy.

The school has been applying for accreditation and full recognition. The response they were given was that if the parents in the school (x number of them) sign up as members of (the ruling) Kadima party, they will be awarded a full license to operate as a school.

I am sure this happens all the time and whatever party in power uses their influence in similar fashion. However, right now Kadima is in power and right now I am blogging and this blatant abuse of power upsets me.

A school should be licensed and accredited based on its merits. If it fits the requirements (I would venture to say most of those requirements would be academic based) it should be given accredation, and if it fails to meet the requirements, accredation should be denied. In no way should any such decision be based on political affiliation.

When Kadima was started and was clearly going to win the largest amount of votes, reps of Kadima met with various mayors from around Israel. They basically threatened the mayors by saying that any moyor who switches affiliation and joins Kadima, his/her city will be given priority and funding from the Interior Ministry. Any mayor who does not switch to Kadima can expect to not advance too many projects in his city.

Many mayors made the switch to Kadima. Recently there have been talks and rumors of some of those mayors discussing the option of switching back due to their dissatisfaction with Kadima. These mayors are clearly opportunists and they see the way the wind is blowing. Polls currently show (whether or not you believe in polls makes no difference as they are a very large part of the Israeli media and political scene) that Olmert only has support of about 7% of the general public and if elections were held today Kadima might not even pass the electoral threshold. The mayors know all this and that is why they are talking about leaving Kadima. But the only reason they joined Kadima is because of the threats they received prior to the last elections.

There is clearly an abuse of power going on. When it involves which party a mayor is affiliated with it is bad enough. Just because a mayor is not part of Kadima does not mean his city should not be able to promote business or build schools or start other projects. It is worse (in my eyes) when the ruling party attempts to force individuals to sign up as party members under the threat of school accredation.
Do we live in Communist Russia? Do we live in North Korea or Iran? A school should be licensed based on its merits, not based on party affiliation.