"When Heinemann speaks, people listen," says Paul Mendlowitz, senior vice president of DiamondCard Processing Corp., a credit-card processing company in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Mr. Mendlowitz, who is Orthodox, and others countered that since most Web sites don't process transactions on Saturdays, no money changes hands, so the sites should be able to remain open."

• MENDLOWITZ VS. HEINEMANN 
•  



HEINEMANN



MENDLOWITZ

•   Updated Aug. 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET -B.F. - BEFORE BLOGS 

  

 

 

Ruling Guides Orthodox Sites' Sabbath Sales

Nicholas Zamiska Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 

Updated Aug. 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET 

  Because of the biblical prohibition against working on the holy day, Orthodox Jews must close their stores on the Sabbath. But does that also apply to their Web sites?

With the rise of e-commerce, that question has long been brewing in Orthodox Jewish circles, and last fall it came to a head with a random phone call to Rabbi Moshe Heinemann.

Rabbi Heinemann, of Star-K Kosher Certification, an international kosher certification organization based in Baltimore, is one of a handful of rabbis in the United States recognized as having mastered the minutia of Jewish law.

He is consulted frequently by Orthodox Jews -- who number some 600,000 in the U.S. -- seeking guidance with the wave of new technology never anticipated by the strictures of Judaism, especially when it involves the Sabbath, which begins at sunset Fridays and ends an hour after sunset Saturdays.

With the dilemma over Web-based businesses before him, Rabbi Heinemann recalled a 45-year-old related ruling by another renowned arbiter of Jewish law. The late Rabbi Yitzchok Weiss had said Orthodox-owned vending machines must be closed, because even though the owner isn't present to make the exchange, he still collects the money. The parallel precedent seemed clear, so Rabbi Heinemann's answer was that Web sites, too, must be unplugged, even though the owner isn't technically doing anything.

A Web site operated by an Orthodox Jew could remain open only "if the shopping cart on the Web site is shut down," ensuring that no actual transactions took place, Rabbi Heinemann ruled in his group's small but influential newsletter Kashrus Kurrents.

The article spurred a storm of protests from Orthodox businessmen concerned that Rabbi Heinemann's ruling, which several rabbis say has the force of law among observant Jews, would mean a loss of online orders.

The 66-year-old Rabbi Heinemann travels around the world certifying everything from ovens manufactured by General Electric Co. that can be programmed to go into "Sabbath mode" -- meaning that food can be kept warm because Orthodox Jews aren't allowed to turn things on by pressing buttons on the Sabbath -- to legal arrangements in which a Jew transfers formal ownership of his business to a gentile one day a week so it can stay open on Saturday. His organization boasts what it calls the world's only Mandarin-speaking rabbi.

Born in Germany, Rabbi Heinemann lived in England and came to the U.S. after World War II ended. He studied at rabbinical college under a prominent rabbi, the late Rabbi Aharon Kotler, dean of Beth Medrash Govoha Seminary, in Lakewood, N.J., the largest rabbinical seminary in the U.S. He has been teaching Jewish law for several decades.

"When Heinemann speaks, people listen," says Paul Mendlowitz, senior vice president of DiamondCard Processing Corp., a credit-card processing company in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Mr. Mendlowitz, who is Orthodox, and others countered that since most Web sites don't process transactions on Saturdays, no money changes hands, so the sites should be able to remain open.

 Israel Sendrovic, a retired executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, weighed in with the protestors, confirming that credit-card transactions over the Internet aren't generally processed Saturdays.

"One of my hottest business days was on Rosh Hashana," says Rabbi Mayer Pasternak, who created Jewishmusic.com, an online emporium of aural Judaica. "I felt a twinge of guilt, coming back and there were a couple hundred orders." The guilt was especially strong, he says, because he assumed that visitors to his site were nearly all Jewish, and should not be browsing the Internet on the Sabbath and holidays at all.

The Talmud, the collection of writings that make up the body of 3,000-year-old Jewish civil and religious law, weighs in on many of the finer points of the Sabbath, but not all of them, and could never have anticipated the explosion of Internet shopping, to name only one technological development that would have confounded the ancient patriarchs. "This is all new," Rabbi Heinemann says.

An infertile Jewish couple once asked the rabbi whether their child would be Jewish if they used a surrogate mother who wasn't. To the couple's relief, Rabbi Heinemann ruled that their child would indeed be Jewish, as the host mother would simply be an "incubator." He even developed an Orthodox procedure for ensuring the paternity and maternity of a baby conceived in a test tube: An Orthodox Jew must be on hand to collect the sperm and the egg and to seal the contents of the test tube.

The rabbi heard from an array of people who disagreed with him on the Web site issue. He was inundated with phone calls both at work and his home, and after mulling over the decision, he handed down a rare reversal in the newsletter's latest issue in May.

"Technically speaking," he wrote, "the vendor's monetary acquisition, the kinyan kesef, happens on a weekday so there is no issue, prohibition of mekach umemkar, business sale transactions, on Shabbos." (It took him 9 long months to swallow his inflated ego, as Jewish money burned)

The issue has quieted down, but the rabbi, who has reversed himself only a handful of times in his 40-year career, says it deserved the attention: "This is something you have to know. Keeping the Sabbath in a proper way is very important to us."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109269113906892796

Don't Panic!

The reason for the intense involvement of the Haredi establishment in preventing sex scandals can be attributed to the proliferation of Haredi news websites, which over the past decade have been exposing numerous cases of sexual misconduct of every flavor, in a community that until recently maintained a code of silence over such crimes...

Reports: Haredi Establishment Using MikvahCams to Prevent Scandals

By: JNi.Media

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Following an increase in reported sex scandals in the Haredi community, rabbis and Mikvah managers have increased supervision in ritual baths using guards, compulsory modesty aprons in the saunas, and even cameras, Mosher Heller reported Sunday in Yedioth Jerusalem. According to Heller, mikvahcams and daytime supervisors have already been installed in Jerusalem baths.

Enhanced supervision of mikvahs is one of the ways the ultra-Orthodox establishment is dealing with reports of scandals in Jerusalem, both in and out of the mikvahs.

A source in the Haredi establishment who requested to maintain his anonymity has confirmed to JNi.media that just about every mikvah has a hidden camera. “No one cares about these pictures,” the source said, “they’re only there in case something happens, and then the value of having a record of the event far outweighs the issues of privacy.”

Apparently the mikvahcams are hidden from sight, using technology similar to nannycams that monitor how your babysitter treats your children when you’re away.

According to the Heller story, in the Shomrey Hakhomot mikvah in the Beit Israel neighborhood there are hidden cameras in the locker rooms, outside the showers, in the saunas and in the hallways. In many mikvahs the cameras are hidden over the dipping pools as well.

Access to the video records is restricted to certified rabbis, who may only watch the material in groups of three, and must verify their identities using their fingerprints.

A source told Heller that many regulars were upset to discover that they were being taped in their birthday suits. There was an outcry in Meah Shearim after a mikvah there announced that it had installed cameras “to maintain the sanctity of our camp.”

The most troublesome issue in daytime dipping in the mikvah, which is for men only, is the potential contact between unaccompanied children and adults. To this end the Skver mikvah in the Geula neighborhood in Jerusalem has hired a special daytime supervisor who walks in and out the small pool enclosures, monitoring the unsupervised children and “keeping an eye” on suspicious adults.

The reason for the intense involvement of the Haredi establishment in preventing sex scandals can be attributed to the proliferation of Haredi news websites, which over the past decade have been exposing numerous cases of sexual misconduct of every flavor, in a community that until recently maintained a code of silence over such crimes.

The Haredi websites avoid vulgar language and stay away from lurid pictures — they use code words, innuendo, even scriptural citations, to wink and nudge at their readers who have no problem understanding the full message. In the past three years intense competition among more than five such websites has pushed the reports of Haredi scandals to levels of exposure they never received since the prophet Nathan rebuked King David over the “poor man’s sheep.”

And that archaic scandal also began at the bath, you’ll recall…
JNi.Media
 
About the Author: JNi.Media provides editors and publishers with high quality Jewish-focused content for their publications.

For the first time, Holocaust survivors who were raped or sexually abused as children and teens in the ghettos and concentration and labor camps speak on camera about what happened to them and how this sexual violence has scarred their lives over the 70 years since the war ended.

Holocaust film reveals long-hushed child sex abuse

Airing on eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, documentary shines light on a topic historians have largely avoided

 by Renee Ghert-Zand   a reporter and feature writer for The Times of Israel.

A documentary film Wednesday evening on Israeli television sheds light on a dark corner of what is already the blackest of historical events. “Screaming Silence,” which will be broadcast on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, is about a topic which few, even World War II scholars, have dared to broach in public before: sexual abuse of children during the Holocaust.

For the first time, Holocaust survivors who were raped or sexually abused as children and teens in the ghettos and concentration and labor camps speak on camera about what happened to them and how this sexual violence has scarred their lives over the 70 years since the war ended. 

These individuals kept the sexual abuse they experienced a secret from everyone, including their spouses, children and grandchildren—who will learn for the first time about what happened to their loved ones from this film.

Ronnie Sarnat devoted six years to producing “Screaming Silence.” She was determined to deal with a difficult subject that others have refused to research and speak about.

“The Holocaust research establishment doesn’t think that the Holocaust and sex go together,” she asserts. “But who decides what is permitted and what is not?”

Professor Gideon Greif, chief historian at Shem Olam: The Holocaust & Faith Institute for Education and Research and an expert on Auschwitz, concurs that indeed, there has been a tendency among Holocaust scholars not to touch upon the subject of sexual abuse of children.

‘There has been a lack of information about this topic because of a desire among those who study the Holocaust not to hurt the dignity of the victims’

“There has been a lack of information about this topic because of a desire among those who study the Holocaust not to hurt the dignity of the victims,” says Greif, who was a consultant to the film.

“Yad Vashem, for instance, has many testimonies that include accounts of rape and sexual abuse, but historians have been reluctant to deal with this. This film is really the first time that the subject is being dealt with so openly,” he says.

It took Sarnat a significant amount of time to locate survivors who were raped or sexually abused as children or teenagers. Once she found them, they had to decide they were ready to reveal publicly secrets they had buried so deeply and for so long out of shame and a paralyzing fear of being rejected by their children if the truth were known.

One elderly man in the film talks about how his son was such a “macho Israeli” that he felt he could never reveal to him what had happened.

“How could I let him think of his father as a ‘one of those Jews who went to the slaughter like sheep’?” he says.

A child who was sexually abused or raped during the Holocaust. From ‘Screaming Silence’ documentary film. (photo credit: courtesy)

Sarnat and her creative team decided to make the film using only the first-person testimonies of the survivors. There is no third-person narration and there are no talking heads providing historical context or psychological analysis.

“The witnesses wrote their own script, so to speak, and determined the limits of what they would or would not say on camera,” the producer says.

She believes this technique elevates the film beyond a horrific retelling of events to a more complex work in which the issue of rape is not necessarily more important than the question of whether a person should or should not tell a deeply held dark secret before he or she dies.

These survivors—both men and women—describe having been sexually abused, raped, gang raped or witnesses to prostitution at a young age

Watching and listening as these survivors—both men and women—describe having been sexually abused, raped, gang raped or witnesses to prostitution at a young age is difficult. Even more gut wrenching is hearing how these acts of violence damaged the rest of their lives and their images of themselves.

For instance, one man, who was raped by a German soldier as a 13-year-old boy in Tunisia, has struggled his whole life with his sexual identity. How could he be a man who goes out with women if he was in the position of being one, he asks.

One of the women speaks of how she never feels at ease and is always looking over her shoulder. She says she has never been able to have a sexual relationship. All she says about the fact that she has children and grandchildren is that “their father was a very cruel man.”

The man who was afraid of telling his “macho” son about his experiences in Auschwitz recounts what happened to him as a “piepel.”

According to Sarnat, no one is sure what the origin of the term is, but everyone in the camps knew what one was: A piepel was a pre-adolescent or young adolescent boy who was forced to serve one of the kapos (prisoner functionaries, who were Jewish or non-Jewish) in a concentration or labor camp. The boy was used to service all the kapo’s needs—including sexual ones. (Elie Wiesel included a scene with a piepel in his seminal Holocaust memoir “Night,” and the controversial Israeli Holocaust survivor writer Yehiel Dinur, also known by the pen name Ka-Tsetnik, wrote a novel titled “They Called Me Piepel” in 1961.)

A German soldier’s bordello card from the Ravensbruck concentration camp. From ‘Screaming Silence’ documentary film. (photo credit: courtesy)

The man who was a piepel tells about how, as a boy in Auschwitz, he was raped by an especially cruel kapo who forced bread into his mouth to shut him up during the rape. The man recalls how he was starving and readily ate the bread, and then says that he isn’t completely comfortable calling what happened to him rape because he willingly ate the bread.

“Child victims of rape are not like adult victims of rape,” says Sarnat. “They think it must be a punishment for what they have done.”

The man’s reaction is understandable from a psychological perspective, but Greif warns that it is imperative to always remember that the perpetrators, the Germans and their accomplices—and not the Jewish victims—were to blame.

…there is no way to really know how extensive this phenomenon was for the simple reason that the victims…never spoke about what had happened to them

According to Greif, sexual abuse and rape of Jews, including children, was a limited phenomenon because of the Nazi racial laws that prohibited Germans from having sexual relations with Jews.

“The sexual abuse that did occur was part of the Nazis’ drive to humiliate Jews, but there was no systematic approach to this,” he says.

Indeed, there is no way to really know how extensive this phenomenon was for the simple reason that the victims—like the ones in the film—never spoke about what had happened to them.

But Sarnat believes that if others go beyond the Holocaust research establishment as she has and do their own digging, they will find out more and more about this subject.

“Yad Vashem and the Germans both say that there were no Jewish girls used as prostitutes to service the Nazis. But I have testimonies that Jewish girls did work in bordellos in the camps,” she says. 

“They must have changed their names so the Germans wouldn’t know they were Jewish.”

Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to avoid the gas chambers and crematoria by being sex slaves.

“Screaming Silence”  

The writer has been asked not to use the names of the people in the film or to identify them in the photos out of respect for the fact that they have not yet revealed their secret to their families. 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/documentary-reveals-secrets-of-sexual-abuse-of-children-in-the-holocaust/

Friedman allegedly sexually assaulted the boy, shoved a rag in his mouth and threatened him with a gun....

Brooklyn math tutor charged with allegedly molesting 6-year-old student: prosecutors  

Moshe Friedman makes his way into a courtroom for a hearing as he faces charges related to the repeated sexual abuse of a six-year-old child at Brooklyn Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. (Credit: Byron Smith for New York Daily News)

(Byron Smith/New York Daily News)

BY Christina Carrega-woodby

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 1:03 PM

 

A Brooklyn math tutor charged with repeatedly violating a six-year-old student is expected to go to trial in the fall.

Moshe Friedman was hired by the young boy’s parents to conduct in-home tutorials in 2013. Instead, for over 10 months, Friedman allegedly repeatedly assaulted and sexually abused the child.

Friedman, 30, was arrested in January 2015 for first-degree sexual conduct against a child and other shocking charges.

After several routine court appearances, prosecutors informed Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Raymond Guzman on Wednesday that they are ready for trial in the fall.

According to court documents, Friedman allegedly hit the child in the back of the head, causing his glasses to fall off and injuring his hand.

On another occasion, while the boy’s hand was in a cast, Friedman allegedly followed him into the bathroom and violated him, according to the criminal complaint.

Friedman allegedly sexually assaulted the boy, shoved a rag in his mouth and threatened him with a gun.

"You'd better not tell your parents or I'll kill you and your family," Friedman allegedly said to the boy.


If convicted on the top charge, Friedman faces up to 25 years in prison.

Friedman and his attorney Arthur Aidala both declined comment outside court.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-math-tutor-busted-molesting-student-article-1.2718757

Hillary Clinton Must Never Become President of the USA!

The Hypocrisy and Naivete of American Jews

by Larry Levine

*The Jewish Vote in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania Will Decide This Election! (PM)*

Do you mean to tell me a stupid red star, which may or may not be taken as anti-Semitic, is THE issue that inflamed American Jews?  Are we really that dumb?

I am an observer. I love to watch people, read about people, even though I sometimes don’t really like them. Like now. I am receiving “news” posts forwarded to me with urgency from many in the Jewish community about Donald Trump, saying no Jew should support him, that he is a racist, a demagogue and a… Oh my gawd, an anti-Semite. He is a rabid anti-Semite because of imagery of a red star with Hillary Clinton and money. Oh, and David Duke supports him so that is enough to show that DT is also a racist.

Of course, when Hillary sings the praises (NY Post headline, April 14, 2016) of Al Sharpton, a known race agitator, anti-Semite, tax cheat, and liar, nothing is said.

I also just received the following “personal” note from Jonathan Greenblatt (a former Democratic operative in the Obama administration), CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL):

Hi, I haven’t heard from you! A few days ago I sent you the message below about the alarming hate the presidential campaign has stirred up—and what ADL is doing about it. Mr. Trump tweeted a message critical of his opponent Hillary Clinton with an image apparently created by a white supremacist site. The meme showed a six-pointed Star of David on top of a stock art image of American bills. After broad backlash from across the political spectrum, the tweet was deleted, but then surrogates for Mr. Trump blamed the media and the Clinton campaign for creating the controversy.  

This is offensive on many levels, especially since the meme was created by a Donald Trump staffer who came forward, apologized and was adamant that it did not have any anti-Semitic overtones in it. 

There is nothing like yelling ‘Racist’ or ‘Anti-Semite’ in a crowded Jewish theater.

The fundraising letter mentions Bernie Sanders, but it was mostly about Trump supporters. Nothing about Hillary Clinton. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that Hillary supporters were also racist, yet no mention of Hillary.

The letter speaks about rising anti-Semitism, especially on campus, without mentioning that most of this rising anti-Semitism is coming from Muslims.

It is clear from this and other letters that the ADL is becoming highly politicized and is now really just another arm of the Democratic Party. Now they have J Street and the ADL and a bunch of sheep who believe everything that they hear.

In the same week as this “horror” we receive a new report now from Germany that Iran was indeed looking to purchase nuclear weapons, and/or chemical weapons. Germany, one of the supporters of the Iran deal, is also cautioning the world that Iran is not honoring the deal.  Wow, big surprise here.

If that wasn’t enough, there was another direct call from a head of Iran’s military for the destruction of Israel. They were bragging about the more-than-100,000 missiles placed all around the Middle East, especially in Lebanon. Iran could simply push a button, if they decide, and destroy Israel.

I was waiting for the avalanche of posts, emails, alerts and another personal letter from Jonathan Greenblatt ADL. What I got was nothing, no posts, emails, just CRICKETS. Why? This is not the party line of the Democratic Party to which 70 percent of Jews pledge their fealty.

Now we have two obviously troubling videos on Facebook of policemen shooting blacks. However troubling and tragic those videos may be, we are a nation of laws and we don’t know the other side of the story. Immediately there were protests, more letters from the organized Jewish community, front page articles on how we (the Jewish community) are going to deal with this supposed rash of shooting black people. Statistics, of course, do not support this narrative. Any unnecessary death is sad, however, the rule of law must prevail. If it is shown that these two situations were racist in nature, then they will be tried by a jury of their peers and punished.

The Black Lives Matter movement is being paid for by people like George Soros – one of the world’s 30 wealthiest people and a supporter of liberal causes – and has now joined forces with anti-Israel organizations. The left is making the association between “oppressed” Palestinians and the Black Lives Matter victims.

Once again our people are falling for this, hook line and sinker. Today’s Black Lives Matter is not yesterday’s Selma or Schwerner and Goodman of the civil rights movement.

To somewhat paraphrase a line from Michelle Obama, this is the first time in my life that I am embarrassed to be a Jew.

Now let’s qualify this. I don’t look at Israelis as the same Jews that we have here in the States, and I certainly do not feel embarrassed to be a Jew in general. However, the larger American Jewish community is so brainwashed, so far to the left now, that I almost have nothing in common with them.

Sure, Donald Trump has said some questionable things, but he is no anti-Semite. He speaks without a teleprompter and he exaggerates. Not the perfect candidate, but an anti-Semite?

Is a person who has women in important positions throughout his organization a woman hater?

 Yes, he was a playboy, but that didn’t seem to affect the Democratic Party’s feeling about Kennedy.

After all, Kennedy’s women were all lined up while he was still married. Same for Bill Clinton. He had so many that he installed a number system at his front gate. It still didn’t work, as Monica Lewinsky showed up at the same time as Eleanor Mondale, the former vice president’s daughter. 

‘Now I Understand How the Holocaust Happened’

 

In recent years I have found myself at odds with some in our community who, frankly, no longer make sense to me. There are many useful – actually, useless – idiots in our community. Now I can understand how the Holocaust happened. Sad to say, but I am sure that there were Jews who didn’t want to believe what was happening in Europe. They didn’t want to rock the boat. They once again pledged their fealty to Roosevelt (Democrat) and did virtually nothing to stop the Holocaust from happening.

I am being dramatic here. Where is the passion, the logic, when it comes to Israel? We watched as most of our elected Jewish leaders marched in lock step with this overtly hostile administration in putting this Iran deal hoax over us.

Where were our pulpit rabbis when it came time to speak up? Do you mean to tell me a stupid red star, which may or may not be taken as anti-Semitic, is THE issue that inflamed American Jews?  Are we really that dumb?  A people that is over-represented in our most important fields of medicine, economics, business, education? Dumb?  Naaaaah, we are deluded. We are being led by the lost-in-the-’60s generation who are living their second childhoods. They are stuck in a time warp of civil rights and another generation.

Where was the reaction from our community when our government sent $350,000 to One Voice to fund an anti-Netanyahu campaign in Israel? The political firm hired was the same firm that Barack Obama used.  Where is the outrage?

In Europe there are stories coming out of France of Jewish-owned businesses being burnt to the ground and a temple almost destroyed by a firebomb. All coming from Arabs and North African immigrants to France. This is a population among which 85 percent hate Jews and Christians. Europe is on fire with increasing anti-Semitism. So what do our “geniuses” say?  Let’s bring them here… brilliant!

Yes, there is anti-Semitism and there is always going to be racism, but our country is not the same country as it was in the 1960s.  After all, we elected and reelected a black president, didn’t we?  That at least means that the majority of Americans are not racist.

We are facing real threats, and as a community we don’t vote our real interests. Today’s Democrats are not your Daddy’s Democrats. They are more like apparatchiks, bureaucrats of the failing Soviet system, than independent Democrats.

Today’s Republicans are not yesterday’s Republicans. There is still a divide with social issues, however, most of them are now considered to be settled. Christians are entitled to believe whatever they want to believe in. The country in general is more accepting of alternative lifestyles, etc.

The love for Israel on the Republican side is infinitely more reliable and from the heart than from the leftists on the Democratic side.

I remember watching Nixon resign in dishonor because he destroyed evidence and lied to the American people. Today, the Democratic candidate is involved in so many scandals, lies, obstruction of justice, that she has made a career of it. Most important, her constituency lets her get away with it. Where is the passion about the rule of law and telling the truth from the Democratic side?

Where are the people who invented the law when they see it so obviously been torn to shreds?

Which brings me back to what I said at the beginning of this blog. I have to believe that I am not the only Jew that is embarrassed by the way that our community has reacted.

I’m tired of the hypocrisy, partisanship (on the Democratic side) and lack of support from the American Jewish community for our fellow Jews. I’m tired of the hypocrisy and acceptance of the “party line” by the party to which 70 percent of Jews have pledged fealty.

I am just tired… sad and disappointed.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/the-hypocrisy-and-naivete-of-american-jews/

The elusive rabbi has been handed over to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), finally paving the way for his extradition to Israel, where he will stand trial for a variety of sex crimes.

Extradition of Eliezer Berland begins, as own son shuns him

Berland's son Nahman condemns 'criminal' father, as Breslov rabbis warn public to 'keep away' from fugitive rabbi.

Rabbi Eliezer Berland

The four year international odyssey of Rabbi Eliezer Berland is about to come to an end.

The fugitive rabbi and spiritual leader of the Shuvu Banim yeshiva in Jerusalem fled Israel four years ago, following allegations of sexual misconduct with female members of the religious movement he founded within the Breslov stream of Hasidism.

Since then, Israeli authorities have sought his extradition, tracking him across the United States, Italy, Morocco, and Switzerland.

Finally, in 2015, Berland was arrested in South Africa, though he was not transferred for extradition until this week.

Now, however, the elusive rabbi has been handed over to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), finally paving the way for his extradition to Israel, where he will stand trial for a variety of sex crimes.

While officials at the Shuvu Banim yeshiva maintain Berland’s innocence, Berland’s son, Nahman, and leading Breslov rabbis have condemned him and warned the public to steer clear of the fugitive rabbi and his teachings.

On Monday, BeHadrei Haredim publicized a recording of Nahman Berland lambasting his father as a “criminal”.

“[H]e pretends to be a great saint,” the younger Berland said. “My father has no shame….when people know about his crimes they won’t come near him; my father is such a criminal – either he’s totally wicked or he’s mentally ill, and I don’t care which.”

Nahman Berland also railed against some of his father’s followers who he claimed dismissed his crimes.
“So they say my father is god, so everything is permitted to him,” said Nahman, calling such ideas “Christianity”. “You’re Christians, you are.”

A number of prominent Breslov rabbis, including Yaakov Meir Schechter, Shmuel Moshe Kramer, and Natan Libermentch, released a joint statement condemning Eliezer Berland and warning the public to “keep their distance”.

“We hereby announce our view that we have no part or share or ties with this man or any of his followers, and anyone who cares for his own wellbeing will keep his distance from him.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/215125

"This is the real issue that has plagued my mind for so long. The fact that this man was never, ever fit to be an educator. The fact that knowing all the Torah in the world does not on its own make you trustworthy enough to be given a classroom’s worth of young, impressionable souls. The fact that long before anyone suspected inappropriate sexual behavior, it was glaringly clear that this person employed all kinds of unhealthy teaching methods in order to cultivate relationships with students. And the fact that no one but a few innocent teenage girls seemed to notice."

On ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ charisma in Jewish education: Toward a taxonomy of risk

 

Elli Fischer Elli Fischer is a writer and translator from Baltimore and living in Modiin. His articles have appeared in Commentary, the … [More]
 

Meir Pogrow is but the latest in a long list of charismatic rabbis and Jewish educators who fell from grace when the world finally learned how they manipulated students emotionally in order to take advantage of them sexually — a list that includes Baruch Lanner, Motti Elon, Marc Gafni, and many others.

Obtaining sexual favors certainly ranks as one of the worst misuses of charisma, but it is by far not the only misuse of charisma. In 2006, Paul Shaviv first posted the draft of an essay profiling “Pied Piper” educators. Among the dangers he points out are:

• A charismatic teacher will deeply affect and influence some students, but will almost always leave a trail of emotional wreckage in his/her wake.
• The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student leads to boundaries being crossed.
• The teacher becomes party to knowledge about students and their families that reinforces the teacher’s view that they are the only teachers who ‘really’ are reaching the students.
• A really charismatic teacher can end up running a ‘school within a school’.
• The teacher will often employ techniques (and texts) which take students to the extremes of emotion or logic, and will then triumphantly show them how they are holding they key to resolution (‘At this moment, you have agreed that life has no meaning — but here is the answer’).
• The moment [the students] realize that they are not [protégés] (sometimes when the teacher ‘moves on to the next’), deep emotions come into play.
• Many charismatic teachers will lavish attention on a student or group of students as long as the student(s) do things the teacher’s way, or accept every piece of advice or ‘philosophy’ or Torah uncritically. The moment the student shows independence or objectivity, they are dropped.
• As soon as they are disillusioned or dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s story. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school.

Perhaps the most fundamental point in Shaviv’s critique is: “The problem is that at core, these are not educational relationships.”

Charisma in general is a deeply problematic and risky trait in a teacher of Torah, as, by definition, the student is attracted more to the charm and personality of the teacher than to the material that is being taught. The unfortunate reality is that each of the offenders mentioned above used deeply problematic methods long before there was any general awareness of the sexual aspect of their predations. This point was articulated well by Shayna Goldberg:

This is the real issue that has plagued my mind for so long. The fact that this man was never, ever fit to be an educator. The fact that knowing all the Torah in the world does not on its own make you trustworthy enough to be given a classroom’s worth of young, impressionable souls. The fact that long before anyone suspected inappropriate sexual behavior, it was glaringly clear that this person employed all kinds of unhealthy teaching methods in order to cultivate relationships with students. And the fact that no one but a few innocent teenage girls seemed to notice.

She concludes:

I hope that in the wake of this scandal, we don’t just talk about one outed, sick educator and then move on as if everything were okay. Let us not get so distracted by the outrageous details that we forget what was so grossly inexcusable about his conduct as a teacher, even had he never touched anyone….

Let’s talk about it.

Indeed, let us talk about the role of charisma in our educational system. Let us discuss whether there is such a thing as “good” or “safe” charisma (I am skeptical, but realize that I’m still in the minority); how a school, parents, and/or students can learn to recognize subtle warning signs; and — to paraphrase Rabbi Noam Stein of the Akiva School in Detroit — whether and how young charismatic teachers can be trained to use their talents in an educationally safe and sound manner.

There are three or four basic categories of charismatic teacher. The first is comprised of cases where the teacher has clearly crossed a line into psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse, as in the cases mentioned at the beginning of this column.

The second category is one where  certainly no crime or abuse has taken place, but the techniques used by the teacher are unhealthy and unsound.

The third category is teachers who use charisma to manipulate students, but to positive effect. I am skeptical about the existence of this category, but many students of Rabbi Aharon Bina would vehemently contend that he fits this category, and that, indeed, he changed their lives for the better by breaking them down and building them back up. There is no doubt that R. Bina’s methods cause considerable damage as well. Is it possible to fashion a situation in which all such collateral damage will be eliminated? Perhaps, but I am skeptical.

The final category is “soft charisma,” a term I first heard in the name of Rabbi Menachem Schrader, the founding director of OU-JLIC (and thus my former boss), and which he uses to describe the educators he seeks for his program. He explained that, as opposed to “hard charisma,” in the case of “soft charisma,” the educator never becomes more central to the experience than the Torah that s/he is teaching.

In 2010, in the wake of the Motti Elon scandal, Rabbi Aryeh Klapper of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership explained why this distinction is so crucial: the Torah develops the self. Hard charisma effaces the students’ sense of self and replaces it with the teacher’s “self.” The difference between soft and hard charisma is thus the difference between developing the student’s sense of self — and distorting it.

The problem is that is it not always easy to differentiate hard and soft charisma. Building off of R. Klapper’s essay, the following is a preliminary taxonomy for identifying charisma and its dangerous manifestations. It goes without saying that teachers and students, and especially administrators and parents, must be vigilant even about “soft” forms of charisma, lest boundaries be crossed. “Failing” one of these tests should not automatically brand the teacher as a dangerous charismatic, but failure of multiple tests should raise red flags.

• Charismatic energy is easily transformed into eros, so any sort of physical contact or seclusion is a breach that warrants dismissal for a first or (at most) second offense.
• Does the teacher seek to persuade the student to see value in what the teacher values, or to persuade the student to see value only in what the teacher values?
• Is the teacher replacing the student’s friends?
• Has the student begun to imitate the teacher’s idiosyncratic practices and mannerisms?
• Is the student able to restate the teacher’s views in his own words and defend them without falling back on “but my teacher said”?
• What is the ratio of content to unmoored emotion in a teacher’s “inspirational” talks? Can the talks or lessons be quantified in terms of thinking, textual, or interpersonal skills, or only (or mostly) in terms of emotion and inspiration?
• How does the teacher respond to a student who questions, challenges, or rejects his/her assertions?
• How has the student’s relationship with his/her parents changed since s/he first came under the teacher’s influence?

Charisma is attractive and even tempting. It sometimes seems as though a life of virtue, or spirit, or value is immediately attainable, but, to quote a great rabbi (who had a great deal of soft charisma), “There are no shortcuts. Ein patentim.” Education is a long and arduous process, and the voice of God is not in the earthquake, the great gust, or the fire, but in the still, small voice.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/on-hard-and-soft-charisma-in-jewish-education-toward-a-taxonomy-of-risk/

The UOJ Bais Din Is Now In Session - Rosh Bais Din - Dayan UOJ Presiding!

There have been many requests that I crack open the culture of corruption that exists in today's batei din. It's not one or two batei din that are impossibly corrupt, there are only a handful that perhaps you can trust. The vast majority of batei din are run by crooks and hooligans. If I went after all of them, I would not have time to eat, never mind tend to my personal life.

So...I decided to open my own online bais din. Hazmanas are free, and there is no charge for a psak din. The criteria for "UOJ - House Of True Din" to accept a case, is that the case has to be unusual.

If you want to know if your neighbor has a right to open a ladies clothing store in his basement, where he or she would be selling tube socks that you have in your basement mens store (an ugly case of hasagat g'vul), ask your local posek.

But if you want to know if your kid should be sent to a boot camp because he wears a kipa sruga, that's where the "UOJ - House Of True Din" will render a psak without consulting with the former SS guard Aaron Schachter from Coney Island Avenue.

So, I hope you get the drift of what the UOJ bais din will focus on.

Having said that, I'm certain that there will be cases that I will need to consult with "real ppposkim -- gggggedoiiilei Torah", and I will. (I always stutter when I say those words, I wonder why?) I have no ego issues; if you wanted to know, for example, if you should invest your last dime with Leib Pinter's mortgage company, I would be certain to call Shmuel Kaminetzky, and if for some strange reason he refuses to come to the phone, I would rely on his precedent ppppsak as applied to the Pinter case..."If Pinter did not scam someone in the last three months, one would have to assume Pinter did teshuva"... so by all means invest your last dime with him.

Another case that the UOJ bais din could consider even though it enters into the realm of medicine. If you had the fear of flying in an airplane, and you had a heart condition where you could drop dead if your plane had to land safely in a body of water, but the pilot was Captain Sully, there's a better than even chance I would try to get Avi Shafran on the phone. (As long as I had him on the phone I'll check on your investments with Madoff - no charge)

Now the next one is a tough one, but we will NOT shirk from our responsibility to Klal Yisroel. Your wife gets pregnant, but you DID NOT have relations with her for 9 years; after consultation with the ppppposkim in Los Angeles, Monsey and Baltimore, the UOJ psak would be -- wait until the kid is born, if it looks like Sholom, Mordecai or Aron Tendler -- the UOJ - House Of True Din would pasken that the collective Tendler families would be liable for that kid's tuition, bar/bat mitzvah, wedding, and a lifetime in kollel.

One final example, just to make certain that you understand the depth and breadth of the UOJ bais din and the diverse range of topics we're willing to tackle. You want to know if you are permitted to picket your child's school, because the principal and 4 rebbes were gang-banging your son in the back of the bais midrash after mishmar -- I would certainly consult with the Novominsker Rebbe, although he and I may not see eye to eye on this one.

Send in your shailos, no unorthodox shaila will go without a psak din from the UOJ - House Of True Din.

Respectfully and humbly submitted,

Av Bais Din - UOJ PPPPPosssek.

Look for the (Triple K) KKK hashgacha on every authentic UOJ psak. Accept no substitutes! KOSHER - from corruption. KOSHER - from bribes. KOSHER from mattress gelt.

Rely only on the KKK. Our yarmulkes are black!

To ignore this abuse is to be a party to it!

Heading towards the Next Charedi Woman’s Suicide?

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Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll is an American Israeli, mom, branding consultant, lover of chocolate and seeker of truth. Love my people … [More]

After Esti Weinstein was found lifeless in her car, discussions raged online about what motivated her to end her life. Some blamed the restrictive Gerrer community for the creating the circumstances that led her suicide. Others rushed to say, “We cannot judge! It is their lifestyle! It is their culture.” As if somehow, they are an alien culture beyond our understanding or concern. As if calling out damaging behaviors of a community is the same as hating a community. 

But this is not about “lifestyle.” This is about abuse, at many levels. And there are times when the Jewish community is not only allowed to pass judgement, but required to do so.

 

Ger promulgates an extreme set of rules called takanot. Instituted after World War II in a number of Hasidic sects, the takanot of Ger are the most restrictive and are even at odds with Jewish law, according to most, in the area of marital intimacy. They control the lives of the Hasidim (followers) in everything from wives having to walk behind their husbands, to husbands not calling their wives by name, to how often a couple can be intimate (no more than twice each month).

In theory, any couple can opt not to follow any rule that they do not like. However, in actuality, the structure of the community and the expected obedience often leaves couples without choice. This is not unique to Ger. In Satmar, customs such as head-shaving for married women is enforced by community leaders with modesty patrols and mikveh attendants who are charged with enforcement and snitching.

In this way, the community is kept under the control of the leadership, and people who do not follow the rules find themselves threatened with things such as isolation, children’s expulsion from school, or loss of a job.

After Esti’s suicide, investigative articles and the book she had penned about her life reported details of a difficult marriage and her struggle with the takanot’s effect on her as a person and on her marriage. She also wrote of the extreme suffering she endured from her forced isolation (post-divorce) from six of her seven children. It was this isolation, she claimed, as the reason she could not go on. The same alienation commanded by community leadership has been the major factor in the suffering and even suicide of other women and men who have left Hasidic marriages and communities.

The Next Esti?

Rachel is another Gerrer Hasida who also wanted out of her marriage. Divorce, despite being permitted by Jewish law, is forcefully discouraged in Ger and other Hasidic sects. After Rachel requested a divorce, the rabbis sent her to therapists and psychologists who tried to convince that her she was crazy — to the point of pressuring her to take psychiatric medication.

After Rachel mustered the courage to file for divorce in the Israel’s rabbinic court, the heads of the hasidic community called for everyone close to Rachel to sever ties with her, including her grown children, parents, and siblings. And they did.

Over the course of the years during which she sought assistance from the court, Rachel continued to live in her home with her husband and children. Under directives from community leaders, the family ignored her existence. She ate meals alone in one room while her husband sat at the shabbat table with their children in another.

Despite begging, Rachel’s husband refused to divorce her. He went on to accuse her of being a rebellious wife (a halachic term that has specific ramifications) and committing adultery. Though this was the perfect opportunity for the court to order her husband to give Rachel her divorce, the court instead allowed him to deny her and keep her in the home as a ‘shifcha’ (maidservant), to keep house but not be a wife.

Rachel continued to suffer near complete isolation and get refusal with Israel’s Rabbinic Court in Ashdod and its dayanim complicit in both. It wasn’t until Rachel, represented by the Center for Women’s Justice, filed a suit in a secular court for emotional damages that her husband agreed to a divorce, on condition that she pay hundreds of thousands of shekels in extortion money.

Rachel got her divorce. But she is still being tormented. The rabbinic court is now deciding on custody of her minor children and once again, it is allowing the Gerrer leadership to run the show.

Unlike Esti, Rachel remains a dedicated Gerrer follower. And yet, for the crime of divorcing against the will of the Rabbi, she is being alienated from her children who miss her. See this heartbreaking letter from her son who states that he loves his mother but is being forced to not speak to her out of fear of what they will do to him if he disobeys.

The community has sent letters to the rabbinic court saying that Rachel is not a good enough chasidah (female chasid) to have custody of her children, letters which the dayanim have accepted as evidence but refuse to include in the official case files. This is illegal and a breach of court procedures.

Now, one of Rachel’s children is about to get married. Rachel was not invited to the wedding, and is experiencing deep pain because of it. During court proceedings, the father announced that the Rabbi of Ger in Ashdod is the one who will decide if Rachel can come to the wedding. And so, she waits, her fate in the hands of those who seem want to make an example out of her.In both cases of Esti and Rachel, Gerrer leadership violated Jewish law and falsely presented the people involved. In Esti’s case, her husband forced her into abusive sexual encounters with other men against her will, yet they turned her into the one who to shun for violating Jewish law for fleeing. In Rachel’s case, her husband was obliged to divorce her based on numerous factors, yet they did their best to prevent it. In both cases, they worked to alienate the children and vilify the mother. They violated halacha in favor of control.

 

Not Our Problem?

There are many villains here. From the leadership of the community that commands the abuse, to the community that fulfills its command. From the dayanim on the religious courts that add legal strength to the abuse, to the the silent majority who says nothing and does nothing to save the Estis and Rachels of the Jewish community.

To ignore this abuse is to be a party to it.

To say, “We cannot judge,” is to discard our morality and God-given intellect and obligation to discern right from wrong.

We are obligated as Jews, to stand up for those being harmed.

If we are silent, if we allow this to happen, we cannot react with shock when we find the next Esti: alone, bereft, and unable to suffer any longer, alienated from her children by the leadership and community that betrayed her and the silent majority that allowed it to happen.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/heading-towards-the-next-charedi-womans-suicide/

They also like spending time at home. "I've learned how to cook," Trump says. "Once a week, we have a night in and I cook for just the two of us. We turn everything off and spend time together and talk about what we're working on." PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY IN 2009!

Ivanka Trump Converts to Judaism for Fiancé

 

Jared Kushner got got back together with girlfriend Ivanka Trump! Really, how could he not, they have so much in common: Both are attractive, both rich due to inherited real estate wealth and both have fathers who get extremely nasty while feuding with enemies. But Kushner is a Jew and Ivanka's a shiksa, and this has been a problem for Kushner's Orthodox family. In fact, the religious divide may very well have been behind the couple's mysterious breakup in April, around the time of their one-year anniversary. To get Kushner back, Ivanka has promised that, if things get more serious, she'll convert to Judaism. So sweet! And I'm sure the socialite feels a profound, authentic connection to the religion. Totes! Well, sort of. A friend tells Page Six the conversion is "a possibility, but that's way down the line." A brief recap of the Kushner-Trump romance, for those who have not been following along at home:

(GAWKER GETS IT - HER$HEL $CHECHTER DOES NOT!?)

 

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

By Lesley Messer

07/17/2009 AT 12:00 PM EDT

After a lengthy courtship, some celeb-watchers may have wondered what was taking Jared Kushner so long to propose to Ivanka Trump.

The answer was rooted in religion: until Trump converted to Judaism, they could not be engaged.

This week, however, Trump completed the lengthy process.

"Jared is my best friend for many reasons,” she tells New York magazine. "I've allowed him to see who I truly am and he still loves me. I don't feel like I have any defensive walls built up around me."

She continues: "He's a bit of a hero of mine. His ability to remain focused – he lacks an anxiety that's natural for someone his age handed so much responsibility."

 After meeting through mutual friends, Trump tells the magazine, the couple began dating – a "slow” courtship, as she describes it.

"It's very rare we're featured [in the press] out at some fancy restaurant on a date," she says. "We're very mellow. We go to the park. We go biking together. We go to the 2nd Avenue Deli. We both live in this fancy world. But on a personal level, I don't think I could be with somebody – I know he couldn't be with somebody – who needed to be 'on' all the time."

Homebodies

They also like spending time at home. "I've learned how to cook," Trump says. "Once a week, we have a night in and I cook for just the two of us. We turn everything off and spend time together and talk about what we're working on."

And unlike her parents, Trump says don’t expect the happy couple to work together any time soon.

"I think it's healthy to have a separation in our interests," she explains. "I love being able to talk business with my father [but] I don't know if I'd want to have a difference of opinion come between me and my boyfriend, or me and my husband, or whatever it may be. And, neither of us would naturally assume a secondary-type role."

But, the best part about her husband-to-be? "He'll be a great father," she gushed, adding that he has a "beautiful" relationship with his own dad. "He knows how to prioritize what's important."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20291939,00.html

from Huffington Post

Ivanka Trump Plans Conversion To Judaism For Jared Kushner

 

7/22/08 5:17am Filed to: Ivanka Trump

Jared Kushner got got back together with girlfriend Ivanka Trump! Really, how could he not, they have so much in common: Both are attractive, both rich due to inherited real estate wealth and both have fathers who get extremely nasty while feuding with enemies. But Kushner is a Jew and Ivanka's a shiksa, and this has been a problem for Kushner's Orthodox family. In fact, the religious divide may very well have been behind the couple's mysterious breakup in April, around the time of their one-year anniversary. To get Kushner back, Ivanka has promised that, if things get more serious, she'll convert to Judaism. So sweet! And I'm sure the socialite feels a profound, authentic connection to the religion. Totes! Well, sort of. A friend tells Page Six the conversion is "a possibility, but that's way down the line." A brief recap of the Kushner-Trump romance, for those who have not been following along at home:

(GAWKER GETS IT - HER$HEL $CHECHTER DOES NOT!?)

Why Did Ivanka and Jared Break Up?

Cute li'l real-estate magnate and newspaper-owner Jared Kushner broke up with oddly… Read more

• Jared Kushner owns the New York Observer. He also helps run his father Charles' real estate company. Charles Kushner is a convicted felon following schemes to funnel campaign donations throuh the names of real estate partners, and also because he hired a prostitute to seduce, and thus help Kushner get revenge against, his brother-in-law.
• In March 2007, Jared paraded Ivanka, daughter of famed loudmouth and Rosie O'Donnell hater Donald Trump, through the Observer offices in a suspicious way.
• In April 2007, Kushner's spokesman said the couple were just buddies, but this was irrefutably proven false when word leaked about the Observer trip, which for some reason Observer staffers had kept to themselves.
• Almost exactly one year later, Ivanka is spotted going to parties by herself. Speculation about the breakup centers on the religious issue, and also on speculation that maybe Charles wants to seem more independent and mogul-ish.
• A depressed Ivanka lost a very important online catfight.
• Now they're back together, with Ivanka pledged to maybe convert some day. No word on how the Donald took all this.

They even got back together in time to catch Dark Knight together. Something tells me that, against all odds, these two kids might make it. It's the feel-good heir-love story of the summer!

http://gawker.com/5027609/ivanka-trump-plans-conversion-to-judaism-for-jared-kushner

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein states the very marriage of a gentile woman to a non observant Jew, is equivalent to an open declaration that she will not observe the precepts. This is so, because it is highly unlikely that the gentile member of such a union, will be more committed to Judaism than her remiss Jewish husband (certainly when they are living together prior to their marriage). Unlike mental or tacit negations, explains Rav Feinstein, open declarations do invalidate conversions. When such cases appear before a rabbinical court, its members actually become witnesses to an acceptance declaration that is not sincere. Therefore, it is no longer a tacit insincerity, but rather an obvious one. As such, they are forbidden to sanction the conversion. Regardless of what this Jewish court may declare, the conversion is invalid and the person is not deemed a member of the Jewish nation. In Iggros Moshe, Letters of Moshe (Yoreh De’ah, no. 157), he writes that “According to the Law, it is certain that one who converts for the sake of marriage, does not intend to keep the commandments, and is not a proselyte at all.” 
Paul Mendlowitz - 2009

 BOGUS CONVERSIONS FOR SALE:

L'Hagdil Torah (HAHA) Ul'Ha(HAHA)dira

R' Hershel Schechter Av Beis Din Of The RCA Conversion Court In The U.S.A. - "Converted" Ivanka Trump To Judaism! PUBLISHED MARCH 14, 2010.

Photo Of Ms. Trump - Wikipedia - June 2009
In July 2009, after studying with Rabbi Elie Weinstock from Ramaz School, Trump converted from Catholicism to Judaism,[11][12] , and took the name Yael.[13] The beth din that converted her included Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. On October 25, 2009 she married Jared Kushner, owner of The New York Observer,[14][15] in front of 500 guests at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. [Wikipedia]


By Yechiel Sever - Deiah V'Dibur News - 2008:

Following an agreement signed by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) to set up a network of regional botei din in cooperation with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, Eternal Jewish Family (EJF), headed by HaRav Leib Tropper which works extensively to uphold proper conversion practices around the world based on consultations with gedolei Yisroel, is warning against certain Chief Rabbinate officials who are offering support and recognition for modern rabbis who do not operate in accordance with halacha and is urging the Chief Rabbinate to announce publicly that it will not back these rabbis. According to reports in the foreign press the list of rabbis approved for these botei din includes individuals whose kehillas hold minyanim for women.

Recently officials at the Chief Rabbinate have recognized a number of new rabbis outside of Israel, some of whom are upstanding dayanim. But there are also a number of modern rabbinical organizations whose dayanim do not operate in accordance with halacha and Jewish hashkofoh, and their actions are liable to create major breaches in Kerem Beis Yisroel.

EJF has voiced its strong support for steps the Chief Rabbinate has taken to strengthen conversion abroad by cooperating with the organization, but at the same time EJF is warning not to submit to pressure of any kind, and to ensure that conversions are performed only by dayanim who have yiras Shomayim and are qualified to uphold the halacha passed down through the generations — especially in the area of conversion, a matter held dear by Torah-true Judaism.

The organization also notes the importance of distinguishing between rabbonim, who may be very capable of heading a kehilloh, but they are not dayanim who have specialized training and experience — including shimush — needed to sit on the bench of an orderly, permanent beis din. Without this training and experience they should under no circumstances be authorized to serve as dayanim in conversion courts. Proper conversion courts require an av beis din widely recognized as an expert and two other dayanim worthy of the title.

Recently, with the encouragement of EJF, 13 botei din have been set up around the US to hear cases related to all areas of Jewish law, including conversion. All these botei din include a well-known av beis din.

EJF welcomes the RCA's initiative to transfer the authority to perform conversions from individual rabbonim to fixed, regional botei din, but at the same time calls on the organization to ensure that the sitting rabbonim are properly trained to serve as dayanim.

In a related matter, EJF wishes to clarify that information regarding the agreement reached between the Chief Rabbinate and the RCA is being distorted in reports in the general press due to the efforts of several people who have ulterior motives.

Chief Rabbi Amar has told Rav Tropper that the Chief Rabbinate has only approved seven regional RCA botei din and not 15 as has been widely reported in the press. Also Chief Rabbi Amar has said that rabbis whose kehillas have prayer groups for women will not be approved as dayanim.

In a conference call among Rav Nochum Eisenstein, chairman of the Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur founded by HaRav Chaim Kreiswirth zt"l, Rabbi Peretz of the Chief Rabbi's Office, and a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, this message was clearly conveyed. Nonetheless, the Jerusalem Post refused to print a correct of the incorrect information in their previous articles, saying that it was not "interesting" to their readers.

Ivanka Trump: Officially Jewish and engaged; membership has its privileges.
By Allison Hoffman | 1:05 pm Jul 17, 2009 - Tablet Magazine
It’s been a big week for Ivanka Trump, the lovely heiress/socialite/real-estate developer. First, she became a Jew! Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, the Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, earlier this week formally certified the conversion of the daughter of real estate mogul Donald Trump (himself raised Protestant, by way of the positive-thinking pastor Rev. Norman Vincent Peale). Oh, and then Ivanka went and got engaged, to her boyfriend, New York Observer owner Jared Kushner, for whom she converted in the first place. Mazel tov to both.

The Forward:

....On October 25,2009, The New York Times announced the marriage of Jared Kushner, whose family name graces a New Jersey Orthodox Jewish day school, to Ivanka Trump, glamorous daughter of business tycoon and ubiquitous public personality Donald Trump. This unlikely union seemed so unremarkable that it didn’t even merit the “Vows” spotlight the Times frequently reserves for couples from divergent or unique backgrounds. Instead, the Times announcement straightforwardly noted: “Rabbi Haskel Lookstein is to officiate,” leaving it for those who read between the lines to understand that Ivanka had undergone a traditional religious conversion to Judaism prior to the Orthodox nuptials.........


Is Ivanka Trump Jewish?

In: Judaism [Edit categories]

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She may have converted but most conversations done these days are for the sake of marriage, and no REAL conversion panel [like in Orthodox] will allow one to convert for this reason alone. One must have had a genuine feeling of being a Jew as well as living the full Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. Conservative and Reform conversations are not authentic and do not actually make you Jewish.

No, she is NOT Jewish.



Look for the (Triple K) KKK hashgacha on every authentic UOJ psak. Accept no substitutes! KOSHER - from corruption. KOSHER - from bribes. KOSHER from mattress gelt.

Rely only on the KKK. Our yarmulkes are black!

RCA GEIRUS STANDARD AND POLICIES:

http://www.judaismconversion.org/GPS_Policies_and_Procedures.html

"a. Where the Conversion is Primarily for the sake of Marriage

i. Where marriage to a particular Jewish partner is a major incentive to a prospective conversion, there is an increased possibility that the geirus may come with less than the complete commitment necessary for a conversion that would be in keeping with the standards we are trying to set for the regional Batei Din. Nonetheless, experience also shows that such a motivation can result in converts of the highest caliber. Conversion for the sake of marriage therefore requires the Beit Din to constantly reevaluate if the candidate and future partner are likely to subscribe to the requisite beliefs and practices. The Beit Din must be convinced that if the potential spouse were to disappear from the candidate’s life, his or her commitment to the Jewish faith and people would not waver. These factors inevitably prolong the process and make examination of the prospective convert more intense. Indeed, should the couple mention a proposed wedding date as a deadline or goal, the Beit Din should respond that the process will take significantly longer than that......"

c. Requirements of Other People in a Candidate’s Life

i. When a candidate is previously intermarried or is converting for the sake of an individual Jew (as per above), the spouse’s observance level and attitudes must be consistent with the present and future Torah observance of the candidate and not be a source of conflict or opposition to the convert’s adopting a halachic lifestyle. The Beit Din should also consider whether other significant individuals in the candidate’s life such as parents, or any existing minor children, will have an impact on the success or failure of the process and the aftermath of conversion.

שולחן ערוך יורה דעה הלכות גרים סימן רסח סעיף יב

אפי' נודע שבשביל דבר הוא מתגייר, הואיל ומל וטבל יצא מכלל העובדי כוכבים, וחוששים לו עד שתתברר צדקתו