Senator Bob Menendez setting Obama straight about Israel, on the Senate floor

I don't understand what they are protesting in Iran. The choices of presidential candidates, fro the little I have read on the subject, are all pretty lousy. None of them are pro-democracy, and they are each just bad forms of dictatorial governments.

The real change would be to overthrow the ayatollah and make the Iranian government more pro-western, democratic, etc.

In Twitter, people have been showing their support with the Iranian protesters by changing the color of their avatars to be green.

I do not support the Iranian protesters.

I am not against them, but I do not support them. I think they are naive if they are protesting to get rid of Ahmadinejad just to bring in another terrorist dictator.

I do not support the murder of protesters, or the neglect, or worse, of human rights, but I do not support the protesters.

When is the last time they have supported Israel in our times of distress? Have we heard words of comfort and support from Iranians? Must we act as though we are their friends, when they are not ours?

At best, I support chaos. I am even a big fan of chaos. Chaos makes for interesting history. Any support and solidarity I have for the protesters is really just support for chaos. I enjoy seeing chaos wreak havoc like that on an unfriendly country. I support the protests, because it disrupts the normal activities of a hostile country. I support the protests because it diverts world attention, a bit, from putting unfair pressures on Israel while they look at what is going on in Iran. I support Iranian protests because it is the enemy fighting with the enemy, rather than the enemy fighting with us.

The only problem with this is what Menachem Begin said - that goyim kill goyim, and the jews get the blame (said in reference to the murders in Sabra and Shatilla during the Lebanon War). At the end of the day we will end up losing no matter who wins in Iran.

My avatar is not green. Maybe when I see some Iranian avatars turn white and blue, I'll consider changing my avatar to green.

Whatever side of the battle lines you were on for the future division and construction of RBS C/G/3/Gimmel, this should interest you...

According to the bhol charedi news site, a lot of grave sites have been found in the area slated for C/G/3/Gimmel during excavations and infrastructure preparations.

This will, at minimum, cause a delay of months, if not years or if not forcing the scrapping of the whole project, before anything can proceed. They have to investigate the graves and possible solutions. And only if they find reasonable solutions will they be able to begin dealing with the area.

I don't know what the situation is or what solutions would be acceptable, but it would be a shonda if the Asra Kadisha wrote this off as easy to solve just so the haredi construction could proceed, while they refuse to implement any solution for the Ashkelon Hospital that is waiting to build a secured emergency room, or other times they protest every time they find bones...

I have no problem with them finding a solution for this, but if solutions are available, they should also be available in other similar instances.

It must be nice to have good neighbors who are so concerned about you that they make up such nice brochures and put them in your mailbox...

The residents of Sheinfeld neighborhood closest to the Kirya Hareidi were zoche to find these brochures in their mailbox. I hope the people who distributed were dressed appropriately for the Sheinfeld area and chose to be considerate to the local styles and sensitivities...

1. Jack asked a bunch of people why they are Jewish. Here is his post on what they had to say...

2. The Jewish Worker talks about wearing tcheiles, and the issue of "safek d'oraisa"...

3. Photo of the Week at Israel the Beautiful...

4. Rationalist Judaism wants to know the respectful way to refute a Rishon.

5. Chutznikit lost a parent, and now can't get a shidduch...

And if you have not yet had enough, now Haaretz is running an article on the RBS sexual molestation/abuse issue... They seem more interested in the phenomenon itself, and the communal response, and less interested in the issue discussed in the two Jpost articles about the involvement of the rabbonim:

Ever since the affair was revealed, the parents have been vulnerable and exposed to a community that is condemning them for having laundered their dirty linen in public, and especially for complaining to the authorities. Later on their names were made public, and rumors were circulated to the effect that it was one of their sons who molested his brother. The father of the family has had to leave his synagogue because of the alienating way he was treated by the congregation.

But the most resounding slap, according to the father, was felt by the family when the principal of the school to which their son, the victim of the abuse, had been accepted during the summer, informed them that he had decided to revoke his acceptance on the excuse that he would need treatment that the school did not have the capacity to offer. "I think they simply want to distance us because we are a family that makes problems," says the father. "My son asked me, 'Daddy, is it because of what happened?' What answer could I give him?"

[...]

According to Rabbi Tzvi Rabinsky, the director of the Toras Habayis educational institutions, of which Bais Shalom is one of three schools, the management is not obligated to report as long as the cases have not been proven to it. Also, because the investigation of the institution was carried out during vacation time and found that they are clean, there was no need to suspend the teachers.

According to Rabinsky and educational supervisor Rabbi Yosef Juliard, the complaints refer to the two best teachers at the school, and throughout the entire year during which the parents are claiming the teachers abused their children the directors heard only praise of the teachers from parents. Moreover, according to them, one of the families that filed complaints continued to send the complainant's younger brother to study with the teacher who is suspected of abuse.

To support their claim regarding the teachers' innocence, the directors showed a graphological test of one of the teachers in which he came out clear of any suspicion. They say they were prepared to see to all the necessary tests carried out by expert psychologists, but the parents of the children were not prepared to cooperate.

"We initially thought of going to the police, but we can't spill innocent blood. And apart from that the parents of the other children pressed us not to fire the teachers," said Yuliard and Rabinsky. According to them the parents' accusations against the teachers derive from the fact that the teachers sent their children for diagnosis, and there are parents who feel pressured by this.

[...]

In Ramat Beit Shemesh, the population consists mostly of ultra-Orthodox Jews from abroad, who are considered more open than the Israeli-born ultra-Orthodox. Most of them work and therefore are more connected to the world around them. However, as new immigrants they are prisoners in the hands of the rabbinical establishment that is the captive of the most extreme Israeli ultra-Orthodoxy. The parents' reporting to the police in the three cases has been interpreted by the rabbis and school directors as traitorous to the community.

In all the cases, the children's departure from the schools stirred up a storm. The parents have been cold-shouldered by neighbors and friends, and have had to stop worshiping at their synagogues. As a result of the demands to retract their complaints they are feeling threatened. One family has even left Israel but is continuing to cooperate with police investigators.

[...]

"In ultra-Orthodox society the child's voice is not heard. They prefer to be considerate of the adult," said one mother.

The women confessed to Pollack their bad feeling about the beatings in heder (traditional school for young boys) as a matter of routine - a rabbi who crudely pushes a child's face into the Pentateuch on the table, another rabbi who cruelly twists ears - and said that this reality has to stop.

"Write about us compassionately," one of the women requested after the meeting. "I love this community. "

At another meeting held this month on the issue of sexual abuse, attended by nearly 100 people, the lecturer, a volunteer from the hotline on sexual abuse issues for religious women and girls, apologized for talking about immodest things. "I didn't understand why she was apologizing the whole time," complained one woman. "I got up and said, 'We're talking about child abuse. What does that have to do with modesty?'"

The speaker, D., is the mother of children who studied at an institution where sexual abuse took place. Ever since the abuse affairs became known, she has been acting unremitingly to fight the community's terrible silence. "They are saying that to blame the teachers is murder," she says, "and talking about how rabbinical law prohibits harming their livelihood. But against that, what about the danger of the harm to children? I am asking how it is possible to keep someone who is suspected of abuse at a school with little children."

During the past year 10 families applied to the welfare office in Ramat Beit Shemesh and the National Council for the Child concerning such issues. According to the NCC's director, Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, this represents an increase in the rate of applicants from that neighborhood. However, according to Kadman and Pollack, in Ramat Beit Shemesh a kind of social chaos prevails. "Beit Shemesh has grown at dramatic rates but the welfare office has not been given extra manpower slots. There aren't enough social workers and welfare officers," says Kadman. "Among other things a population has arrived here that is closed and extremist, and requires complex treatment."

The prosecution did not bother to inform the complainants in the Yishrei Lev case that it had been closed, because of a malfunction. This fact added to the parents' overall feeling that they are being punished for reporting the abuse. "If in this particular community, someone who gathers up the courage and complains doesn't get the fastest and best treatment, he will retreat and the whole community will get the message that it is not a good idea to report," says Kadman. "We mustn't miss this window of opportunity."

Being that this article is more revolved around the societal and communal aspect of the issue, I think it would be interesting to discuss why we as a community (I am not talking about any specific individual that does or does not act the same way, but the community as a whole), reject parents who do make such claims.
If we create an atmosphere that discourages them from stepping forward, as if they do they will then be ostracized to an extent, are we no better?

Just when you thought it was safe to brush your teeth.... Don't tell my kids or they'll use this as an excuse to not brush...

PM Bibi Netanyahu gave CBS an interview about his positions, as mentioned in the speech the other day...


Watch CBS Videos Online

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.

1. Ou tof all the bloggers analyses of the Bibi Speech last night, Free Thought takes a different approach by discussing the Iranian aspect of it, and what he sees happening there.

2. BlackBeltStep offers some Arab Wisdon for the Ages..

3. ParshaBlog discusses what the Gr"a thought of dybbuks...

4. JoeSettler analyzes the Bibi Speech and says "the Joke is on You".

5. Baila had the executioner of Eichmann in her living room. Wow!

Bet Shemesh was honored today with a visit from a government minister. We are still, despite the progress BS has made in the past 15 years, a pretty backwater town, and such visits are rare and usually only happen right before elections.

RBS Gimmel - I do not know if that should be called RBS C, RBS 3, RBS G (RBS G seems wrong to me, but that seems to be the English acronym taking hold) or whatever - is on the slate. Everyone is fighting over how to divide it up so deals can be signed and construction can begin to get under way (infrastructure first).

So today, Ariel Attias - Minister of Housing and Construction - came to Bet Shemesh to see for himself the area under discussion, and to discuss it further with the mayor and council people.

The debates and fights will go on for the next few weeks until a decision is made, and probably for a long time after that, but at least it is being taken seriously enough that a government minister felt the need to come out and see the situation firsthand.

I personally thought PM Netanyahu's speech bordered on brilliance.

Not that what he said was so unexpected or new. But the way he was able to maneuver within his problematic diplomatic situation and come up with a speech like he did was, in my mind, brilliant.

To start off, and this is not even the most important point to me, he gave up very little. He talked and talked and only mentioned once the possibility of a PA state at the end of the process. until that mention it was neighboring territories and living side by side and variations of that. And when he did finally mention it, he had already by then set so many preconditions that the Palestinians would have to fulfill, by their own agreement in previous negotiations and agreements, that the issue of a Palestinian State is at best moot, most likely irrelevant, and even if it should come to be it would by definition be not a problem, as they would be peaceful (assuming Israel stays tough on these conditions).

The more important part of the speech was the history lesson by Professor Bibi. Every time Bibi Netanyahu gets up to speak, you can expect some sort of history lesson somewhere in the speech. Too bad history is boring, so most people ignore those parts of the speech. For example, on the Israeli website I was watching the speech on, they had a plug-in to see peoples comments on the speech from Facebook. As soon as Bibi started talking history, you could see form the style of the comments that most people tuned out and only tuned back in when he started talking current reality again.

So Bibi gave a history lesson in two parts:

1. He discussed the history of Palestinian terror showing two things - 1) Palestinian terror started well before the State or any semblance of occupation existed. So anybody who claims the Pali terror is a result of the occupation is a liar. 2) He showed how every time Israel gave concessions, in land, to the Palestinians terror from their side increased.
2. He refuted the suggestion by Obama, and others, that the State of Israel is a result of the Holocaust. He went through a Jewish history lesson detailing how the Land of Israel has been ours for three thousand + years, and he described our history in, and connection to, the land. He said the Holocaust may have sped up the process of our returning to the land, but it is not the cause of our returning to the land. He even said that had we already had the state before the holocaust, it would have prevented the holocaust. That point would be debatable, but the point was made.

So all in all, I was very impressed with Bibi's speech yesterday, and with his ability to throw the ball back in the court of the Palestinians.

Based on the reactions from the PA, it seems they have shown again how little they are actually interested in peace and will not honor past agreements. They expect Netanyahu to hand them everything on a silver platter and not obligate them to keep their side of the deals...

I got a phone call last night from an insurance agent wanting to update his file.
He had a list of questions to run through with me, and they included questions about diseases the agency wanted to know if I have.

Every time he mentioned the name of an illness or disease, the guy said a combination of "chas v'shalom"s and "she'lo neida"s ("God forbid" and "We should not know from it"). He did not just mention it once at the beginning or end of the conversation to be nice. He mentioned it every time he had to ask about a sickness.

A little jolt of emuna reminder from the insurance guy...Only in Israel.

1. CosmicX lets us all know about the previously unknown, or lesser known, side of Merkaz HaRav terrorist incident hero Rav Yitzchak Daddon...

2. SuperRaizy weighs in on the Obama shoe photo and pressure on Netanyahu.

3. Achas L'Maalah describes the life of a salesman..

4. Ima on the Bima has Haveil Havalim #221...

5. Holy Exposures clarified some long standing rumors about the new mall in RBS. Looks like they were true despite previous denials.

Ever wonder how extreme the extremists of Bet Shemesh are compared to the extremists of other places?

According to this report, the Eida Charedis has been interested in appointing Rav Nosson Kupshitz, Rav of the Kirya Charedit of Bet Shemesh, to the position of Dayan on the Eida Beis Din.

What is holding up the appointment?

Rav Kupshitz is known for his level of extremism in support of tzniyus issues, mehadrin buses, and other issues. He is also known for having a streak of independence. The Eida is unsure of what to do about that - they are concerned he is too extreme and too independent. They are trying to get him to agree, supposedly, to a condition that he will not speak out on any of these issues without first consulting with the Gaavad of the Eida.

That is how extreme BS extremists are. Even too extreme for the Eida.