Sunday, October 6, 2013

Lashon harah can be false according to Chazal:Sde Chemed

The Sde Chemed below shows that both true and false derogatory statements are also called lashon harah by Chazal. In contrast the Rambam and others say that lashon harah is true while false statements are called motzi shem rah. This  lack of concern for precise definitions by Chazal seems to imply that  they were primarily concerned with stopping harmful speech - rather than defining its parameters as they did for violating Shabbos or stealing (I have mentioned this issue in previous posts 1 ). This focus on the moral imperative rather than the legal dimensions might also explain why the even the Rambam was not careful in formulating the definition of rechilus according to the Kesef Mishna and Chofetz Chaim. It also explains why there was no Shulchan Aruch of the issur of lashon harah/rechilus before the Choftez Chaim.

Are online mugshot sites extortion/lashon harah?

NY Times    [...] But once he is done, Mr. Birnbaum’s record will be clean. Which means that by the time he graduates from the University of Texas at Austin, he can start his working life without taint.

At least in the eyes of the law. In the eyes of anyone who searches for Mr. Birnbaum online, the taint could last a very long time. That’s because the mug shot from his arrest is posted on a handful of for-profit Web sites, with names like Mugshots, BustedMugshots and JustMugshots. These companies routinely show up high in Google searches; a week ago, the top four results for “Maxwell Birnbaum” were mug-shot sites. 

The ostensible point of these sites is to give the public a quick way to glean the unsavory history of a neighbor, a potential date or anyone else. That sounds civic-minded, until you consider one way most of these sites make money: by charging a fee to remove the image. That fee can be anywhere from $30 to $400, or even higher. Pay up, in other words, and the picture is deleted, at least from the site that was paid. 

To Mr. Birnbaum, and millions of other Americans now captured on one or more of these sites, this sounds like extortion. Mug shots are merely artifacts of an arrest, not proof of a conviction, and many people whose images are now on display were never found guilty, or the charges against them were dropped. But these pictures can cause serious reputational damage, as Mr. Birnbaum learned in his sophomore year, when he applied to be an intern for a state representative in Austin. Mr. Birnbaum heard about the job through a friend.“The assistant to this state rep called my friend back and said, ‘We’d like to hire him, but we Google every potential employee, and the first thing that came up when we searched for Maxwell was a mug shot for a drug arrest,’ ” Mr. Birnbaum said. “I know what I did was wrong, and I understand the punishment,” he continued. “But these Web sites are punishing me, and because I don’t have the money it would take to get my photo off them all, there is nothing I can do about it.” [...]

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Hynes to Run for District Attorney as a Republican

NY Times The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, will campaign for re-election to a seventh term as a Republican despite having said earlier that he would not do so and despite losing the Democratic primary in September by a wide margin, his campaign said on Thursday. 

Mr. Hynes is a lifelong Democrat, but secured spots on the Republican and Conservative Party lines of the ballot for this year’s election. He had said he would not actively campaign as the candidate of those parties and promised a smooth transition to the man who defeated him, Kenneth P. Thompson, but changed his mind and decided to run this week after Republican leaders and longtime supporters urged him to campaign, said his spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer. 

In part, the decision was also driven by reports that Clarence Norman, a former chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party and former assemblyman who was convicted of accepting illegal campaign contributions, had helped Mr. Thompson’s get-out-the-vote efforts on Primary Day, Mr. Schmetterer said. Mr. Thompson has emphatically denied working with Mr. Norman.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Update from Zephaniah Waks: Major rabbi refuses to protect children against known pedophile

I recently received a call from Zephaniah Waks to discuss his experiences in trying to get a senior Chabad rabbi in Israel to protect communities against child molesters. He just sent me an email requesting that I post these links to his Facebook account where he describes  what happened. 
 
 
 
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Last week, in Israel, I got a high-level toxic dose of reality. I can now share the story publicly because former Melbourne Yeshivah teacher and repeat convicted paedophile David Kramer's plans have changed: in court at his sentencing hearing in Melbourne a few months ago, for numerous child sexual abuse (CSA) charges committed against several children to which he pleaded guilty and is now sitting in jail, he announced that he would return to Israel upon release. Apparently now that is not the case – it seems that he will be returned to the US from where he was extradited, so this is what transpired in Israel last week:

Before coming to Australia around 20 years ago, apparently Kramer offended in the US. As far as I know, he was not apprehended, the matter was not reported, and Australia, where he came next, was not warned. He offended in Australia, with vastly more than the four victims for whom he was jailed (estimates range from 30 to over 80), and actually include rape (a rape victim many community members know is still too traumatised to press charges – it has also been alleged that his rabbi has prohibited him from reporting the rape to police). Yeshivah Centre Melbourne sent Kramer off to Israel, neglecting to notify authorities in Melbourne, forbidding others from going to the police themselves, and neglecting to notify anyone in Emanuel, Israel, where Kramer became a respected member of the local Chabad community, and was very active, among other things, with...youth. As he was a dual Israeli/US citizen, after several years in Israel, he returned to the US. Kramer was jailed for sodomy there, where Rabbi Ze'ev Smason, on the International Advisory Board of Tzedek, of which my son Manny is CEO, went against the normal and widely accepted trend and helped the victim and his family (as opposed to the actions of Yeshivah). Upon release on parole in the US, he was re-arrested and extradited to Australia, where he is currently in jail.

Since he had said in court that he wished to return to Israel, I took it upon myself to warn the leaders in Emanuel that he was coming (based on past experience, I didn't rely on others to do this). My reasons were two-fold: so the country could be warned that a monster was returning and hence protect themselves, and that past victims could be encouraged to go to the police, hence ensuring that Kramer would not be able to offend for quite a few more years. As is par for the course in many ultra-Orthodox communities all over the world, the leaders were having none of this: they became deaf-blind-mutes - nobody claimed to know anything regarding Kramer’s past. The father of an alleged rape victim claimed he didn't even know Kramer, falsely claiming that he had arrived in Emanuel only after Kramer had already left for the US.

So I approached one of the most senior Chabad rabbis in Israel for help. He is in fact one of the most senior and well-known rabbis in Israel in general. I told him the public facts above, as well as the fact that I knew of a rape victim in Israel. I pointed out to him that he was convicted and jailed for CSA in two countries, and that it was almost inconceivable that he had not offended in Israel where he resided for a few years between those two other countries. The rabbi became very angry with me, saying he was not going to "bury" someone without having two (kosher) witnesses coming to testify in his Beth Din (religious court). I reiterated that Kramer was not an innocent person whose unblemished character he was coming to besmirch, but he was currently in jail etc. Still angry with me, he asked what I wanted from him. I said that since nobody in Emanuel was taking it seriously, all I asked was that he would speak to the leaders there, that they should warn their congregants and encourage them to go to the police with any information, that he had the religious duty of "al ta'amod al dam re’acho...", not to stand idly by where others would be injured. He again fumed at me that he would do nothing without two (kosher) witnesses testifying before his Beth Din. He was explicit that the fact that Kramer had been convicted in two western democratic countries with well-functioning legal systems meant nothing to him, and that was the end of the conversation.

People that know me may think I spoke harshly or not clearly with the rabbi, but my wife was next to me and heard the entire conversation, and confirmed that I was calm but firm, and explained the matter very clearly. I was so stunned by the conversation that I rang Rabbi Yosef Blau in NY, and spoke to other rabbis and people active in confronting CSA in Israel, and the reaction of all of them was the same: no surprise, but some expressed disappointment that this particular senior rabbi went that far, since this would have been an easy case for him to be less demanding than usual, based on the background, and the fact that all that was being asked was warning about obvious danger, and a request for people to cooperate with the police.

Very depressing, and this story clearly demonstrates how dangerously CSA is still being mismanaged in many quarters within the ultra-orthodox world: any protestations to the contrary, this attitude and (in)action is the norm, where even a repeatedly convicted perpetrator's well-being trumps any consideration at all for past or possible future victims. The ultra-Orthodox world has a major problem, and I will be putting this very strongly to the Royal Commission when I appear before them next week. Just as Australia led the way in the past http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_suffrage
"Women are also granted the right to stand for parliament, making South Australia the first in the world to do so", maybe "with a little help from our friends" (the Royal Commission) we will push this matter along also.

Enough is well and truly enough.

Rav Eliashiv: Ma'os alei - Kovetz Tshuvos vol 1 #174

The following is a systematic discussion of the status of a woman who claims ma'os alei (he disgusts me) even when it is clear that she is fully justified.

See also Rav Eliashiv Ma'os alei get not required (translation)

See Rav Eliashiv - original teshuva from Piskei Din vol 2 (curtesy of Rav Michael Tzadok)

Serious halachic deterioriation in Weiss Dodelson divorce battle

The Open Orthodox Race to the Edge and Beyond: When Will It Stop?

Cross-Currents    The Open Orthodox rush to reshape traditional Judaism has become incrementally manifest in terms of both The Open Orthodox rush to reshape traditional Judaism has become incrementally manifest in terms of both practice and belief, with Open Orthodox leadership actively promoting substantial modification of Torah observance and the creation of rituals that are foreign to normative Orthodoxy, while concomitantly asserting that one no longer needs to believe in the faith tenets of Orthodoxy in order for his or her Judaism to be Orthodox. While previous Cross-Currents articles and addressed many of these concerns, Open Orthodoxy has pushed full steam ahead with a new progression of breaches over the past few months, widening the base of those involved and deepening the degree of the changes being made to Orthodoxy. It is critical for the Orthodox public to be aware of this and to understand the underpinnings of these new seismic and startling Open Orthodox efforts to reshape and Reform.practice and belief, with Open Orthodox leadership actively promoting substantial modification of Torah observance and the creation of rituals that are foreign to normative Orthodoxy, while concomitantly asserting that one no longer needs to believe in the faith tenets of Orthodoxy in order for his or her Judaism to be Orthodox. While previous Cross-Currents articles and addressed many of these concerns, Open Orthodoxy has pushed full steam ahead with a new progression of breaches over the past few months, widening the base of those involved and deepening the degree of the changes being made to Orthodoxy. It is critical for the Orthodox public to be aware of this and to understand the underpinnings of these new seismic and startling Open Orthodox efforts to reshape and Reform.

I. Open Orthodox Changes to Practice

“Making it up as you go along” is usually not a recommended approach when doing anything serious. When it comes to Torah, such an approach is fatal.

This is exactly what came to mind when viewing the new Ohev Sholom/The National Synagogue 2013 Gala Celebration video regaling the feminizing of services in that congregation, including women reading the Torah and the Megillah, women serving as chazzan and reciting the “Mi She-Beirach” prayer (a feminized nusach thereof) at the bimah, and a woman serving as the Makri for Teki’as Shofar – all for general male/female services in the main sanctuary.

The congregation’s rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who is an Honorary Alumnus of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) and a protégé of Rabbi Avi Weiss (Rabbi Herzfeld served under Rabbi Weiss for five years as assistant rabbi at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and considers Rabbi Weiss his mentor), gives his blessings to the innovations, as elated, near teary-eyed congregants express their feelings of arrival in the Promised Land of Orthodox feminism. Rabbi Herzfeld, toward the end of this revealing video, declares his quest to continue to make further progressive modifications to his shul’s ritual practices. The most recent such action taken by Rabbi Herzfeld to make Ohev Sholom more progressive was the hiring of a female “Maharat” to fulfill some rabbinic duties at the synagogue. [...]

Lakewood Rabbis: Pikuach nefesh to save a Jewish child only if assailant is a Goy!

The messages in the following proclamations by Lakewood rabbis illustrate a critical problem with Lakewood's ability to protect the welfare of children.

The first proclamation prohibits reporting a suspected Jewish child molester to the police. These rabbis allow no reporting to the police without a clear psak from "an accepted beis din" - and that takes a lot of time and effort and might never happen. The second proclamation requires reporting a suspected non-Jewish child molester to the police. In that case they say that one must call the police immediately.

The reason for the differential response according to these rabbis - is that calling the police to protect against a Jewish child molester is mesira. Mesira is not a problem for reporting goyim. However these rabbis seem to have forgotten about the din of rodef or even sofek rodef - which doesn't require a psak. Or perhaps they don't understand that a child molester is a rodef.

Chasam Sofer: Israel had to be conquered militarily not through miracle

Rashi (Bereishis 1:1) quotes Rabbi Yitzchok – What was the reason that the Torah started with Bereishis and not with the Redemption from Egypt? Rabbi Yitzchok answers that it was to establish that G‑d created the world and thus He can give the land to whomever He wants. Otherwise the goyim are going to claim that the Jews are robbers by conquering the land of Israel from the Seven Nations.

Chasam Sofer (Derasha to Simchas Torah page 57b #11) asks why did the goyim object that the Jews took the land away from the Seven Nations by military conquest. After all isn't this the normal way all people take land away from it current inhabitants. So why should the Jews be considered thieves  more than any other nation? An explanation is that all the ancient people believed that each people had a spiritual representative in Heaven and who provided them with a homeland. The ancient people believed that G-d was just one of the national spiritual representatives and He was the representative of the Jews. They also firmly believed that G-d did not work in the normal natural manner but rather everything that He did was through miracles in a supernatural way. Consequently when they saw that the Jews were conquering the Land of Israel in a natural manner – rather than through miracles – they accused the Jews of unlawful seizure of the land and said that they were no more than thieves. That is because they knew that G-d only worked through miracles. It was to counter this mistaken understanding that the Torah begins with the story of G-d creating the world. This showed that G-d also works in a natural manner. If the Torah started with the Redemption of Egypt, that would serve to reinforce the mistaken view that G‑d only works through miracles. Therefore now that the Torah begins with Bereishis, the Jews were able to explain that they were not thieves. They conquered the Land of Israel in a normal manner through war, because G‑d wanted a natural conquest of the land rather than a miraculous conquest. However in truth this requirement of a natural conquest was not arbitrary but was the result of the sin of the Golden Calf and the breaking of the Tablets as is well known.  
So in fact there were two reasons that the Torah started with Bereishis in order to provide an answer to the Nations of the World. The first was because the Redemption from Egypt was totally miraculous so the Nations of the World mistakenly thought that all of G-d's actions were only through supernatural miracles. The second was that the breaking of the Tablets required that the conquest of land be done in a nature manner through war. [...]

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The Sukkah fiasco at the Rye Town Hilton by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Five Towns Jewish Times     If the facts reported are correct, the events that unfolded this past Sukkos at the Rye Town Hilton are a bit shocking.  Apparently, a few hours before Sukkos began, the Westchester Department of Buildings came down and forbade use of the Sukkah designated for use by over 200 guests.  They then actually confiscated the Schach to ensure that the Sukkah not be used.  Although the tour operators offered to post 24 guards and fire personnel to ensure the safety of the guests, the offer was not accepted.

It seems that some people did get hold of two pop-up sukkos and the three days of Yom Tov were spent with the guests switching off making kiddush in these two smaller sukkos.

There is no doubt that hearing and reading of this incident will cause quite a stir, however, in this article we will deal solely with the halachic aspects of the incident.

The issues can be divided into two parts:  The first is how best to handle the situation from a halachic perspective.  The second issue is how best to try and ameliorate the lack of a Sukkah on Yom Tov.

HANDLING THE SITUATION
Regarding the first issue, it would seem that the hotel kitchen staff should prepare mini portions of meat and challah.  Each male guest should wash before entering  one of the two pop-up Sukkos, make Kiddush on wine,  Hamotzi on bread and eat the mini meat portion.  He should then bentch.  The entire process should take between five and seven minutes.  He may have a second meal in the regular hotel and avoid mezonos foods, bread, and wine. [...]

US Jews losing their religion, survey finds

Ynet   Jews in the United States are overwhelmingly proud to be Jewish, yet nearly one in five of them describe themselves as having no religion, according to a Pew Research Center survey published Tuesday.

The gap is generational, with 32% of Jewish Millenials identifying as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture – compared with 93% of Jews born in 1914-27 who identified on the basis of their faith. [...]


"Americans as a whole – not just Jews – increasingly eschew any religious affiliation," with 22% of all Americans identifying with no particular faith, it said.

Nevertheless, 94% of respondents said they were proud to be Jewish, while seven out of 10 felt either very attached or somewhat attached to Israel, a proportion essentially unchanged since the turn of the 21st century, Pew said. [...]

Monday, September 30, 2013

Lashon harah learned from rechilus – how?

Rambam(Hilchos De'os  7:1) states that the Torah prohibits rechilus (gossip). But he goes on to say (Hilchos De'os 7:2): "There is a much more serious sin than rechilus (gossip) which is included in this prohibition and that is lashon harah. Lashon harah is saying negative things about another person – even though they are true.... The Ravad disagrees with the Rambam and states that lashon harah is not a more serious sin than rechilus – the opposite is true.

Rav Asher Weiss (Minchas Asher Vayikra #41) notes that the Rambam seems to be learning the prohibition of lashon harah is learned from rechilus by a kal v'chomer. In fact he says that the Chofetz Chaim(Be'er Mayim Chaim 1:4) states that according to the Ravad's view that lashon harah is not as serious a sin as rechilus that means that it can't be learned by a kal v'chomer. So how does the Ravad learn the prohibition of lashon  harah? The Chofetz Chaim suggests that the Ravad learns lashon harah from verses other than those dealing with rechilus. However Rav Weiss disagrees and notes that there is no problem because both the Rambam and the Ravad agree that lashon harah is learned from the verse of rechilus. The Rambam doesn't say that there is a kal v'chomer but rather says that lashon harah is "included in the prohibition " of rechilus. Therefore the dispute is only which of the prohibited speach learned from Vayikra(19:16) is a more serious sin.