"The American ultra-Orthodox and yeshiva community must wake up!"
Every Friday night, I help run a “Carlebach” service in Beit Shemesh.
It’s a unique service that brings together Jews from all backgrounds to
pray, sing and dance on a weekly basis. While closing up the synagogue
this past Friday night, a Hasidic man in his early thirties who was at
this service for the first time approached me and introduced himself.
“Before you were elected to the Knesset, I was in Kollel (religious
seminary for married men), and could not support my growing family,” he
began. “So I went to work. But I felt like a second-class citizen when I
did so, and was made to feel that way by those around me who were still
in Kollel. It got so bad that when I saw someone who knew me walking
by the place where I worked, I would hide so they would not see me
working.”
I began telling him how bad I felt for him, but he cut me off.
“Don’t worry, it all changed when you came into office. The moment
you changed the government’s policies and cut the stipends, and it was
no longer financially worthwhile to stay in learning instead of working,
massive numbers of Kollel guys began working. This made it acceptable
in our community to work, and I no longer felt like a second-class
citizen and I did not have to hide any longer.”
He said that despite the protests against the stipend cuts from many
in the ultra-Orthodox community, he and many others supported our
effort. He also agreed that working to support your family with dignity
is not only consistent with being a Talmudic scholar and fervently
religious, but is actually the ideal.
My new Hasidic friend then said that while he was thankful he had a
job, it was not not the type of job he wanted. He blamed this on his
inability to speak English, and was frustrated that many religious
schools in Israel don’t teach English. “Why didn’t they teach us
English? What could possibly be wrong with English?”
I told him that he was correct, and that was why my political
party, Yesh Atid, cut into the funding of schools that did not teach
English, and pushed to introduce English instruction in all schools.
I said that I needed to start walking home, and he asked if he could join me to ask one last question.
“Those young men with the knitted kippot and untucked white shirts
who were in that service just now — are any of them IDF soldiers?”
I told him that many are active soldiers, and that two or three of them were home from their first week of basic training.
“Unbelievable,” he replied. “They have it all. The way they danced
and prayed, they are clearly very spiritual and religious. They are
serving the country. And they, no doubt, have a general education.
They
have all that, while half of my cousins who were presented with a life
of Torah-only are no longer religious. Had they known that an option of
balance was available, they would still be religious.”
I told him that many in Israel are aware of the problem, and
reassured him that we are committed to correcting it — and that this was
among the reasons I entered politics in the first place.
This remarkable conversation reminded me to tune out the propaganda
and rhetoric coming from the ultra-Orthodox media and its political
leadership, and to keep on working at the important task at hand.
The American ultra-Orthodox and yeshiva community must wake up and
recognize that this Hasid was not an aberration. He is a part of the
silent majority whose voices have been stifled but are crying for
help. We must not fight them; but help them. This is what will ensure
the continuity of Judaism for generations to come.
Rabbi Dov Lipman served in the Israeli Knesset (2013-2015) with
the Yesh Atid party, the first American born MK in 30 years. He holds
rabbinic ordination from Ner Israel Rabbinical College and a Masters
Degree in Education from Johns Hopkins University and currently serves
as Director of Public Diplomacy in the vice chairman’s office of the
World Zionist Organization.
There is a certain group within the Jewish people that over and over
again stray from our holy tradition. These people act as if they have
very little regard to many of the statements and teachings made
throughout Jewish scripture and subsequent Rabbinic literature. The
existence and prominence of these people is a definite threat to the
future of Judaism, and if we do not act quickly it may be too late.
The group that I am referring to is, of course, Jewish Fundamentalists (or Chassidim.)
These people, including but not limited to: the Charedei world, most of
the Yeshivish community, and even some Jews that consider themselves to
be more “modern”, are sadly a growing phenomenon within Jewish
demographics. While there are many reasons why I strongly feel that
these groups are a major break from classical Jewish tradition, I would
like to focus on one idea that I feel can summarize most of the others.
Jewish fundamentalists (well really any religious fundamentalists)
are the most closed minded people in the world. They are closed minded
in regards to science, empiricism, theology, or really any way of
thinking that may, sort of, eventually, contradict many of their
specious beliefs.
Let’s start at the beginning.
If we believe that God created the world, and the magnificent
universe should draw us to the praise of God (Psalm 19), then it
probably makes sense that we have some ability to understand the natural
world – aka science. This of course presents an immediate problem, as
many of the ideas throughout the Torah directly contradict a scientific
way of viewing and thinking about the world. No I am not talking about
one time events such as the splitting of the sea or some food falling
from heaven – while these miracles clearly contradict science (and I
personally do not believe that they ever happened) it is still somewhat
reasonable to hold these beliefs to be true and accept a scientific view
of the world. I am talking big picture: age of the universe,
evolution, our knowledge of the universe and the way it works. It is in
these fields that fundamentalists will close their eyes and their mind
to any sort of logical or rational argument, branding all who disagree
as either stupid or heretical.
In the past Judaism and biblical interpretation was never about
trying to stick to the literal translation of the Bible at all costs –
but rather it was a quest to learn more about the world and God. When
it came to learning about the natural world, many Jewish thinkers felt
that an adequate knowledge of science and the universe was crucial to
understanding God. Some of these scholars wrote that a prophet was one
who understood science (ever heard of the Rambam). Science and ration
was not viewed as the enemy in classical Judaism, rather it was viewed
as necessary to fully understand the world.
The well known Torah Scholar Malbim actually TWICE changed his
commentary of Genesis due to scientific discovery in his time. If
science revealed a secret about the world than we must use it to deepen
our understanding of God and the Torah. Over and over again the Rabbis
in the Talmud use empirical evidence to try and determine facts in many
different cases. In some cases in the Talmud the Rabbis even admit that
their understanding of a natural phenomenon is wrong and they are
forced to re-evaluate their position (Pesachim 94b). Other exegetes
such as the Ibn Ezra or Rabbi Judah Hachassid talk about the possibility
of anachronistic verses in the Torah being added in later – due to
their literary analysis of the text. Of course these fundamentalists
feel so strongly that their world view is the “correct one” that many of
them will even prohibit their students from reading these works. In a
famous ruling Rabbi Moshe Feinstein actually wrote that Rabbi Judah
Hachassid’s work was a forgery (based off of zero evidence). Other
Yeshivot who do teach these classical Jewish sources will argue that
these Rabbis did not really mean what they wrote or find other very
creative ways to distort what they say.
When Jews who do realize that science is valuable try to fuse it into
their understanding of Torah, the Jewish Fundamentalists are quick to
silence them (Natan Slifkin anyone). And here is the main problem! It
is not just that these people simply disagree with science and the world
of empiricism – rather they view anyone who does accept science as an
enemy who must be stopped. This is a major break from Jewish
tradition. The irony, of course, being that the group of people who
feel in charge of defending this tradition are in many cases the biggest
threat to its continuity.
In order for Judaism to continue to thrive we must act together to
stop giving these people dominant voices in our community. It is
absolutely ridiculous that pre college students are sent to certain
yeshivot in Israel where the Rabbis spend the entire year trying to
convince these students to turn down college and remain in yeshiva
instead. Furthermore, once young men do enroll in a – God forbid –
secular college, there are actually organization and people that will
try and convince students to leave mid college to pursue yeshiva study.
The motive for these Rabbis is the belief that Torah study is the only
important and worthwhile discipline for one to pursue in their life
time. It pains me that such teachers have seemingly never opened up the
most important halachic work of all time.
One who makes up his mind
to involve himself with Torah and not to work, and to support himself
from charity, has profaned God’s Name and brought the Torah into
contempt, extinguished the light of religion, brought evil upon himself,
and has taken away his life from the World-to-Come… (Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:10)
Furthermore, many Jewish communities filled with doctors, scientists,
and professors are lead by Yeshivish Rabbis who fundamentally disagree
with the disciplines of the majority of their community! How can a
Rabbi denying evolution, inspire a group of doctors in their Judaism!
Many Modern Orthodox schools employ Yeshivish/Charedi Rabbis,
worsening the already bad situation. Does it make sense for a high
school student to spend half his day learning science, math, and history
– and the other half of his day being told that these things are
false!?!
If we want to ensure the survival of Judaism we must stop those who
break the valuable Jewish tradition of searching out for truth in the
world.
We must stop hiring these fundamentalists for any sort of
teaching position whatsoever! Just as the Charedi and Yeshivish world
views modern Orthodoxy as a less religious version of Judaism, we must
view them in the same manner. If Judaism continues at the trajectory
that it is headed now, more and more people will be turned off by the
anti-science and anti-thinking attitudes that permeate the religious
communities – and we will eventually be left with two groups: one of
fundamentalists and one of non-religious and even anti-religious
people. The only people with the power to stop this phenomenon are
those people who value both Judaism and its teachings, along with the
rest of the academic world – something that was once known as Modern
Orthodoxy.
To conclude, I feel the need to recall one of the most upsetting
arguments I have ever had in my lifetime (and trust me I get into
arguments with a solid amount of foolish people):
It was about a year ago on a regional NCSY Shabbaton where I was an
advisor – in charge of teaching and inspiring high school students. It
is through this organization that I have had the pleasure of teaching
and inspiring handfuls of turned-off high school students to learn more
about Judaism, including helping them chose a yeshiva program or even
thrive in their Judaism throughout their college years. It was a
Shabbat afternoon and I was chatting with one of the seniors about
various Jewish topics. The boy, lets call him J, to hide his identity,
asked me a question regarding using magical amulets to cure illnesses ( a
topic which the Talmud in Tractate Shabbat devotes much attention to).
As any Jewish educator should do, I explained to him the two major
opinions in regards to the efficacy of such items. The first being the
opinion that they work and the second (that of the Rambam and many other
greats in the “rationalist camp”) being that such items are bogus and
at best a placebo and do not actually work.
The answer of the Rambam greatly interested J and apparently a few
other students since when I finished giving my answer there was a group
of 5-7 other students surrounding us. Many of them expressed to me that
they had never believed that there was such thing as magic and were
overcome with joy that their were prominent Jewish scholars who had felt
the same way. After all, how would these students have know the
Rambam’s view on such things? They had only each been in Jewish day
school since they were 4 and gone to Shul almost every week of their
lives!
Anyways, the conversation evolved into talking about the Rambam’s
view of magic and miracles in other contexts and that was when things
turned sour. A man, probably late twenties, wearing a suit and black
hat, stepped in and said that the Rambam makes no sense – “of course
their is such thing as magic” he said confidently, “my rabbi told many
stories which he has heard directly from descendants of the Chazon Ish,
of the Chazon Ish himself performing crazy miracles”. I politely asked
this man to allow us to continue our conversation in peace, when he
snapped back that he was on of the few people in charge of the entire
Shabbaton and he did not like the fact that I was teaching these
children lies. I sighed and then asked him to go into further details
about the “miracles” that the Chazon Ish performed.
I do not remember the full list, but I do remember that at the end of
his list he stopped and said “Oh, yeah and the Chazon Ish discovered a
cure for cancer at the end of his life due to his deep knowledge of
Torah.” Since then I have learned that this is a very common belief
amongst many Jewish fundamentalists, but back then I had never heard
this claim before so I then asked the question that any reasonable
person would ask in response to this: “so where did the cure go?” The
man smiled and said that the Chazon Ish knew that the next illness was
going to be much worse so he hid the cure for cancer and never revealed
it. At this point I could see the bewilderment of the group of the
growing number of high school students who had taken interest in our
discussion. I rebutted that if the Chazon Ish knew the cure for cancer
and refused to tell anyone then he should be viewed as a murderer. The
man’s face turned red, but before he could say anything I asked the next
rational question. “So based on the Chazon Ish’s actions do you think
that we should be engaging in trying to find a cure for this deadly
illness?” I will never forget his answer. He sort of shrugged his
shoulders and said “well, I would never publicly say this, but if the
Chazon Ish was against publicizing a cure, who are we to decide
otherwise”
While this is an extreme example, this is the general direction of
what the future of Judaism holds if we do not take a stand. Imagine a
world where the average age of death is 30, most babies die before
turning 1, and our knowledge of the universe is based on ancient
mythologies. That my friends, is what the world would be like if it was
run by fundamentalists who are anti human progress in any sense of the
word. Fundamentalists do not only break the Jewish tradition of truth
seeking, healthy debate, and bettering humanity, but they wish to
forcibly silence anyone who values these important Jewish pastimes. We
need to come together as a community and refuse to hire such people for
positions within our community. Just as there are no non-charedim
teaching in schools in Meah Sharim, there should be no Charedim or
Yeshivish teachers in our communities. If one wants to live in a world
that is anti-science, anti-ration, and anti human progress, with all who
disagree stopped, then please go back in time to 15th century Europe or
build a massive wall around your neighborhood or something- but please,
do not pretend that you are continuing the tradition of our beloved
Judaism.
The Enemy Within-Part Three-Chassidism Is Not Judaism - From The UOJ Classics Originally Posted January 30, 2007
Make no mistake, Chassidism is not part of authentic Judaism. In matter
of fact it is closer to Christianity than to Judaism. Orthodox Jews
believe that ALL of the principles of Judaism were given to Moshe at
Sinai. The written Torah and the oral Torah were dictated to Moshe by
Hashem for the forty days he was at Sinai. The roots of the Chassidic
movement did not begin until the thirteenth century, when Moses De-Leon
started the writings of the Zohar. About three hundred years later,
Isaac Luria (ARI) started preaching this mystic garble. The Ari as he
was known, was an enigma. He purported to preach the thoughts of Rabbi
Shimon Bar Yochai, who lived fifteen hundred years earlier. The problem
is that there was no known link of mesorah or chain of events, going
back to that time, from RSBY to him or to De-Leon....
In this July 18,
2003, file photo, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and his wife,
Vanessa, hold hands during a news conference at the Staples Center in
Los Angeles.
On June 30, 2003, Kobe Bryant arrived at the Cordillera Lodge
and Spa in Edwards, Colorado. After a frustrating season that saw the
Los Angeles Lakers fail to win a fourth straight championship, Bryant
was in town for an operation on his knee.
A 19-year-old concierge at the hotel showed the superstar and his
security team to their rooms, and caught his eye. Bryant, a new father
of a six-month-old daughter, made small talk with the blonde, and once
they arrived at his room, he took her aside and requested that she come
back later to give him a private tour of the hotel. She obliged, and
after the tour and mild flirtations, Bryant invited her into his hotel
room.
Just five minutes later, the woman exited the room, disheveled and
reportedly distraught. Her underwear was bloody, as was Bryant’s shirt.
She told her friend, a bellboy at the hotel, about the encounter that
night, and after making sure the woman got home safely, the bellboy
went home and told his father. The next day, after recounting the
incident to her mother, the woman reported it to police.
Whether or not Bryant and the woman engaged in sexual activity that
night is not in question — Bryant admitted to cheating on his wife,
Vanessa. But the woman he claimed to have committed adultery with said
she did not consent to that activity.
And thus, those five minutes became the center of one of the most
high-profile rape cases of all time. As Jeffrey Scott Shapiro put it in
his book, Kobe Bryant: The Game Of His Life, the case came down to two words: yes or no.
Bryant is set to play his final NBA game on Wednesday. Tickets are
going for $25,000, and he’s being celebrated and honored by athletes and
movie stars, rap artists and clothing brands. His career as a
basketball player certainly merits that. In 20 years with the Los
Angeles Lakers, Bryant won five NBA championships, one MVP award, and
was named to the NBA All-Star team 18 times. He is, without a doubt, a
legend.
But as fun as it is to reflect on his career and the mark he left on
the sport, it’s also important to remember what happened off the court.
Though the criminal charges were ultimately dropped after 15 months and
the civil case was settled behind closed doors, the Kobe Bryant rape
case left behind a legacy of victim blaming, media sensationalism, and
image repair that still influences society — and other high-profile rape
cases — to this day.
Victim Blaming
It didn’t take long for a bonafide media circus to descend upon the
small Colorado town. On July 2, both the alleged victim and Bryant were
taken to the hospital for examinations. There was a small bruise around
her neck, and she had tears on her vaginal wall. An arrest warrant was
issued for Bryant on July 4th, and on July 18th, charges were filed.
As soon as the charges against Bryant became public, media and fans
alike honed in on the alleged victim. Who was this young girl who had
the audacity to threaten one of the greatest, most well-respected
athletes on the planet with life in prison?
She was a sexually active teenager who had attempted suicide twice
and been briefly hospitalized for mental illness. She was an aspiring
singer who had once tried out for American Idol. She had a
lingering crush on her ex-boyfriend. So very quickly, a picture was
painted of a fame-hungry, unstable woman who would do anything for
attention.
Kobe Bryant, left, and his attorney Pamela Mackey, center.
Unfortunately, narratives like this seem to emerge almost any time a
woman accuses a famous man of violence. But what made the Bryant case
notable was the lengths to which the defense team would go to encourage
that victim-blaming narrative.
“In the Kobe Bryant case, it was abominable how the accuser was
treated. Everyone was at fault,” Mark Shaw, an attorney and author who
covered the case for ESPN and USA Today, told ThinkProgress. “This poor
woman, they wore her down, and it happened from the first hearings.”
The preliminary hearing in October 2003 was supposed to merely be a
chance for the judge to decide whether there was enough evidence to
require a trial. But Bryant’s attorney, Pamela Mackey, used it as a
chance to smear the alleged victim’s reputation.
Not only did Mackey use the alleged victim’s name a staggering six
times during the hearing, but when she was presented with the woman’s
vaginal injuries, Mackey used the victim’s sexual history against her.
The high-powered lawyer brought the hearing to a screeching halt,
asking, “Could it be that [the alleged victim’s] injuries were caused by
having sex with three men in three days?”
As Shapiro wrote in his book, Mackey’s tactic was an effective one,
because that became the story of the day, and not the evidence displayed
by Deputy District Attorney Gregg Crittenden and Eagle County Sheriff’s
Detective Doug Winters.
And that evidence, such as the retelling of the statements the alleged victim gave to officers the day after the attack, deserved attention.
When Bryant began groping her, the woman said she tried
to flee but the athlete barred her way and grabbed her by the neck,
Winters said. “She was afraid that he was going to choke her.”
Then, the woman said, Bryant turned her around, pushed her against a
chair, pulled down her panties and raped her. She tearfully said “no”
twice but was ignored, Winters said. At one point, Bryant “stated that
he liked Vail, Colo.,” he said.
Five minutes later, it was over, Winters said, and Bryant made her kiss his genitals. Then he told her to “go clean up.”
Just days before the criminal case went to trial, the alleged victim
decided to stop cooperating and the charges were dropped. Up until that
moment, she had been put through the ringer. She had friends,
acquaintances, and even strangers accept money from the tabloids or
gifts from television producers to tell stories — some the truth with a
spin to it, others outright lies. Photos of the alleged victim were also
leaked and plastered all over magazines in the supermarket. Even the
Eagle County court contributed to the onslaught, by inadvertently making
private court documents public.
As Shaw wrote at the time,
“with her identity known, her past sex life revealed, her mental state
common knowledge, and her life in shambles due to constant anguish about
the motive behind the charges, it is no wonder that she threw in the
towel.”
Because the case received so much coverage, everyone, even those not
paying close attention, saw what happened to the alleged victim. It’s
nearly impossible to measure that impact. According to Shapiro’s book,
however, there are other women who had similar encounters with Bryant —
one in particular who was able to escape before an assault occurred —
who wouldn’t cooperate with the Colorado trial because of how the
alleged victim in that case was treated.
In the immediate aftermath of the hearing, it was no surprise that
sexual assault reporting declined dramatically at the alleged victim’s
school, the University of Northern Colorado.
“How many women remember the Kobe Bryant case and don’t file a rape charge?” Shaw said.
It’s hard to tell if this case impacted national reporting statistics, but 68 percent
of rapes still go unreported. And it’s worth noting that in other cases
where a high-profile athlete — such as Greg Hardy, Ben Roethlisberger,
and Patrick Kane — has been accused of violence against women, the
alleged victims have been smeared in a similar way. In the Kane case, it
was leaked that traces of DNA from other men were found in the alleged
victim’s underwear. Hardy’s alleged victim had her drug use and relationship with rapper Nelly dragged through the media. One of the two women
who accused Roethlisberger of rape was said to have a “history of using
sex and lies to get what she wanted.” None of these women decided to
cooperate with or pursue criminal charges.
One positive, if there is such a thing, to come out of the Bryant
case was the improved rape shield laws in Colorado. Rape shield laws are
supposed to protect the victim’s identity in cases and limit the
ability for her past sexual activity to be brought into evidence.
According to Karen Steinhauser, a Family Law and Criminal Defense
attorney in Colorado, at the time of the Bryant hearing, rape shield
laws didn’t apply to preliminary hearings in the state, which is why
Mackey could push the envelope so far. Now they do.
However, rape shield laws are still far from perfect, and many still
allow judges plenty of loopholes to permit an alleged victim’s sexual
history into evidence. Linda Seabrook, general counsel for Futures
Without Violence, a nonprofit that aims to end domestic violence and
sexual assault, said those loopholes perpetuate the mistrust of the
judicial system. And that mistrust will lead fewer victims to seek
justice.
“Sexual assault has always been one of the lowest reported crimes,”
Steinhauser said. “There’s this mentality of blame the victim, but
victims do enough blaming of themselves. So many victims decide it’s not
worth it.”
The Media’s Ability To Perpetuate Rape Myths
While Bryant’s defense team and the tabloids were certainly
responsible for festering the victim-blaming culture of the case, the
mainstream media itself didn’t do much to squelch it.
“The media in the Bryant case was as guilty as anyone else,” Shaw
said. “They were enamored by Kobe, a good looking star, married with a
baby. They wanted to get an interview with him, and the poor girl was
left to suffer.”
Renae Franiuk, a professor of psychology at Aurora University and an
avid sports fan, watched the media coverage of the case with interest,
and noticed that a lot of it seemed to be slanted against the alleged
victim. She was curious as to whether she was just overly sensitive to
it due to her job, or if it was an actual problem, so she set out to do a study.
For the study, Franiuk honed in on rape myths, which are “generalized
and widely held beliefs about sexual assault that serve to trivialize
the sexual assault or suggest that a sexual assault did not actually
occur.”
She then divided the myths into standard common categories, and
studied both articles and headlines about the Bryant case for
endorsements or challenges of these myths. She also studied the articles
for positive and negative statements about the alleged victim and
Bryant, and headlines for the choice of the word “accuser” versus
“alleged victim,” since the former has been proven to elicit sympathy
with the accused.
Franiuk’s findings were staggering. First of all, only 13 of the 156
articles studied actually countered rape myths — that is, mentioned how
rarely women lie about rape, or how entering a hotel room with a man
isn’t the same as consenting to sex with him. On average, there were
1.66 myth-endorsing statements per article, with over 65 percent of the
articles having at least one endorsing statement.
Additionally, 27 percent of the articles studied had positive
comments about Bryant as a person or an athlete, while only 5 percent of
the articles had positive statements about the victim as a person. And
whereas 42.3 percent of the articles questioned the victim’s honesty,
only 7.7 percent questioned Kobe’s.
Though less extreme, a similar pattern was discovered in headlines,
which are often the only information readers take in. Almost 10 percent
of the headlines studied endorsed rape myths. Headlines used the word
“accuser” 23 percent of the time, compared to about 1 percent each for
“alleged victim” or “victim.” Overall, 11 percent of the headlines were
pro-Bryant, while only 5.2 percent pro-alleged victim.
Why does this even matter? Well, Franiuk’s study accounted for that
too, and found that after reading articles that endorsed rape myths,
people were far more likely to side with the accused than the alleged
victim. Whether they intended to or not, the media shaped the public’s
perception of the case.
Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, right, holds
up balloons that his family brought out to him during a ceremony to
celebrate Bryant becoming third on the NBA all-time scoring list.
“The rape myths perpetuated in the media are a reflection of women’s
inferior status in our culture and our culture’s defensive reaction to a
heinous crime,” she wrote in the study. “Moreover, rape myths in the
media teach rape myths to those who do not already hold them, strengthen
rape myths in those who already do, and trigger rape myths in those who
are ready to use them.”
While there haven’t been similar studies on recent rape cases, there
is reason to believe that many of the problems in Franiuk’s 2008 study
are still present in media today. When NHL star Patrick Kane was accused
of rape last fall, many reporters chose to focus on his athletic
talents while perpetuating rape myths
and spreading unsubstantiated rumors about the alleged victim.
Meanwhile, when alleged victims don’t go through with pressing charges
or an undisclosed civil settlement is reached, athletes such as Ben
Roethlisberger, who was accused of sexual assault by two women, are
allowed to let their performance in their chosen sport serve as redemption.
“These people believing these myths don’t want people to be sexually
assaulted, and, ironically, that’s why they don’t believe the women,”
Franiuk said. “It’s easier to believe the myths because you don’t want
to believe that sexual assault is possible, but then that disbelief just
makes the problem of sexual assault worse.”
The only way to stop this cycle, according to Franiuk, is by getting
educated about the issue and speaking up about it. Everyone needs to be
educated about both healthy sex and sexual assault at a young age, and
journalists in particular need to know how to report it. (There are greatresourcesavailable
for reporters on the topic.) Once educated, they need to be outspoken
against it — Franiuk particularly mentioned the significance of Terry
Bradshaw passionately speaking out against Hardy last fall.
“We need media members to be more unapologetically vocal about this,” she said.
There Is Life After A Rape Accusation
Not even 24 hours after the charges were dropped in the Bryant rape
case, the media had moved away from questions of guilt or innocence,
motive and opportunity, and on to more pressing matters: Would Kobe ever
be able to repair his image?
Despite the fact that the dust from the criminal case hadn’t even
settled yet, it was a legitimate question. After all, both McDonalds and
Sprite had suspended relationships with the superstar after the charges
were filed, and even if people didn’t pay attention to the sordid
details of the case — the alleged victim’s blood on his shirt, the
vaginal tearing — there was still the fact that he had cheated on his
wife. Bryant was no longer the NBA’s ultimate family man.
Nearly 13 years later, it’s safe to say that Kobe’s image is just fine. Last year, he was 10th on the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes,
and between broadcasting and endorsements, coaching and management, his
future is filled with opportunities all over the world.
“He’s got real international cachet and popularity,” Bob Dorfman, editor of the Sports Marketers Scouting Report, told CNN.
These days, most people seem to remember the infamous $4 million
“apology ring” that Bryant bought his wife after the charges became
public more than they remember the accusations. People remember that the
charges were dropped, but they don’t remember the statement that Kobe
released when they were:
Although I truly believe this encounter between us was
consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this
incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery,
listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now
understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.
Of course, Bryant’s privilege has a lot to do with how quickly he has
bounced back, but it’s also worth noting that this theory — that women
accuse high-profile athletes of rape or domestic violence to become rich
and famous and destroy the life of the accused — doesn’t actually pan
out in reality.
While Jameis Winston — who was accused of raping a fellow student at
Florida State University — has gone on to be an NFL star, his alleged
victim had to drop out of school due to the abuse she received. Hardy’s
ex-girlfriend recently said that she’s had to move twice, change her
phone number multiple times, and even consider changing her name due to
the harassment she has received. Hardy, meanwhile, was signed with the
Dallas Cowboys even after the domestic abuse allegations, and is
reportedly only having a hard time finding a spot on an NFL team now
because he was often late to practice. Kane’s alleged victim reportedly
had to relocate as well, while Kane is winning awards for his play this
season.
It’s impossible to know what Bryant’s present status would be if his
rape case had gone differently — if the accuser’s past had not been
viciously put on trial, if the media hadn’t irresponsibly condoned rape
myths, and if Bryant and his alleged victim had both gotten their day in
court.
Barack Obama stands with Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.
There’s also no way of knowing what would happen if the charges had been brought today.
Ever since the video of NFL running back Ray Rice punching out his
then-fiance in an Atlantic City elevator became public, the media has
been slightly more careful with the language it uses when talking about
alleged victims and violence against women. There is also an increased
awareness about the inadequacies of the justice system, and more
pressure on leagues such as the NBA to independently investigate and
punish the personal conduct of its players. So if Bryant was charged
with sexual assault presently, it’s likely the NBA would be under
pressure to take disciplinary action.
However, that’s no guarantee that things would have turned out
differently. After all, the victim-blaming tactics used in Kobe’s case,
both by the defense team and the media, have been utilized in big-time
cases recently, and the results have been similarly successful for the
athletes.
All we know for sure is that 13 years ago, Bryant’s alleged victim
was forced to move out of her hometown due to safety concerns. She was
last seen during the civil case, married and pregnant, and hasn’t been
heard of in public since, except for the occasional rumor on the
underbelly of the internet.
Meanwhile, Bryant is now a father of two. He and Vanessa briefly
filed for divorce, but have since reunited. Kobe was able to finish out
his career with the Lakers, winning two more NBA championships and
climbing to third on the list of all-time scorers in NBA history. He’s
an icon of the sport, and of our culture.
But as the legend bids goodbye, those close to the case can’t help but wonder, “What if?”
“Every time I see Kobe Bryant on television playing basketball, I
think about how lucky he is,” Shaw said. “Based on the evidence I knew
about… he should be in prison.”
In a recent blog post, R’ Steven Pruzansky bemoaned the loss of
traditional values that have led to casual sex on college campuses and
increasing awareness of the concerns of transgender people. R’ Pruzansky
fears a threat to communal stability, a challenge which undercuts
education and morality. But the threat appears to be Rabbi Pruzansky
himself, who takes a position of authority in his community and uses it
to spread myths and vitriolic rhetoric that teaches nothing but hate.
While this hateful speech is itself counter to the mission of Judaism,
it is the statement of falsehood as fact that is most deeply troubling.
His information about victims of rape, for example, is riddled with
errors. He cites a statistic of “10-20 annually on campuses with many
thousands of students” in colleges “deemed the worst offenders.” It is
unclear where his statistic comes from, as he fails to cite a reference
source, but recent data suggest that one in five women and one in
sixteen men will be sexually assaulted during their time in college.[1]
Perhaps his statistic is based on reported assaults, and simply doesn’t
account for the more than 90% of assaults on campus that go unreported.[2]
He also writes about the reasons behind women’s claims of sexual
assault, again without providing any foundation. While Rabbi Pruzansky
strongly implies that many claims are false (the result of regretted
consensual sexual encounters or retaliation for sexual rejection – two
of the most damaging myths about sexual assault claims), a variety of
studies have found that only roughly 2% of claims of sexual assault are
fabricated; the vast majority are based on real assaults.[3]
Rabbi Pruzansky suggests that women are victimized because they are
sexually active. He cites his prior experience as an attorney as proof
that women know “right away” when they have been raped, usually
perpetrators are strangers, and charges are often filed. He states that
he is “quite familiar with the literature about the psyche of the rape
victim” before going on to say that he doesn’t “buy any of it.” Whatever
literature he is familiar with, he is clearly unaware that sexual
activity is not a risk factor for sexual victimization in this
population, though previous sexual assault is,[4] as is lack of sex education.[5] He is clearly unaware that most assaults are carried out by intimate partners or acquaintances,[6] most assaults are never reported,[7] charges are frequently not filed, and 98% of offenders will never spend a single day in jail.[8]
This flawed perception of sexual assault – the myth that all rapists
are a “stranger in the alley” – contributes to Rabbi Pruzansky’s
incredulity that women would continue to interact with their abusers,
even in loving ways. But this is a recognized fact in psychological
literature, and is most common in cases of intimate partner violence
(which Rabbi Pruzansky seems also to be unaware of, given his insistence
that abstinence until marriage will prevent assaults altogether). He
also denies sexual assault exists as a problem in the Jewish world,
which demonstrates forcefully that he is either blind or willfully
ignorant of the realities of the community he claims to lead.
Most distressing of all, Rabbi Pruzansky places the blame for sexual
victimization squarely on the victim.
His narrative is predicated on a
series of dangerous falsehoods – that women would not go to college if
assault were such a problem (requiring women to choose between education
and victimization), that they would not be assaulted if they were
abstinent (requiring women to “control” men’s supposedly inevitably
violent sexual appetites), and that they claim rape when rejected
(implying that women are both hyper-emotional and malicious, willing to
“cry rape” when their sensitive feelings are wounded). None of this
accounts for the truly responsible party in any rape – the rapist. Rape
is an act of choice, and any person familiar with the literature will
tell you that rape is about power, and not about sex. Men do not rape
women because they are biologically inclined to sex without intimacy (a
stereotype which does a disservice to men as well as women), or because
women are sexually promiscuous. Those men who do rape women do so
because it is a way to assert their power over women. It’s about power.
So is Rabbi Pruzansky’s post. And in its own way, it is just as
dangerous.
There is more in the post to criticize and debunk – his wildly
unsubstantiated statements on transgender people and mental illness, his
imposition of his own experience of a 15 year old male-bodied person’s
sexuality onto others, his suggestion that separate is indeed equal and
anyone who says different is a bully, his determination to take complex
issues and reduce them to the least nuanced possible interpretation. But
more than attempting to identify each piece of misinformation, we want
to draw attention to the larger problem, which is the irresponsibility
of Rabbi Pruzansky’s using his influence to publicize such falsehoods in
the first place.
Rabbi Pruzansky leads a thriving community synagogue, participates
actively in the administration of the Rabbinical Council of America, and
has a central role in the Beth Din of America. He is not a small-town
outsider voicing a fringe opinion. He wields power, and he is using that
power to demean and disenfranchise women, to cast doubt on their claims
(already infrequently made and infrequently believed) of sexual
violence, and to make them responsible for their own protection. He is
using that power to deny that a rape culture exists, even as his post
demonstrates certain features of rape culture – such as the view that
women make up rape claims when they are rejected, or are victims only
because they were intoxicated or sexually active (a practice known as
slut-shaming).
In recent decades, the Jewish community has made some strides in
responding to the rampant child sexual abuse that has lived in our midst
like a cancer. It has done so in part by calling to task the rabbis who
protected perpetrators at their victims’ expense. It has done so in
part because prominent rabbis publicly stated that protecting the weak
was more important than protecting the community’s reputation, more
important than any other factor. It has done so because prominent rabbis
used their influence to protect those who could not protect themselves.
It is time for our community to take such a stand when it comes to the
assault of women, as well.
So here and now, we must as a community make a choice. When rabbis
like Rabbi Pruzansky claim that sexual assault is not a problem in the
Jewish community, we must say that they are wrong. When they imply that
victims are to blame, we must say that they are wrong. When they use
their positions of power to protect perpetrators and hurt victims by
spreading lies about victims of sexual assault, we must say that they
are wrong. They cannot be allowed to represent us to each other and to
the world when their views are so antithetical to the Jewish values of
respect and understanding for our fellow men, and more radically, so
antithetical to truth itself. And if they continue to do so, we must
cease to give them power by allowing them to be leaders of our
community.
https://avigailgordon.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/not-in-my-name-a-response-to-rabbi-steven-pruzansky/_________________________________________________________________ [1]
Krebs, C. P., Lindquist, C., Warner, T., Fisher, B., & Martin, S.
(2007). The campus sexual assault (CSA) study: Final report. Retrieved
from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf [2]
Fisher, B., Cullen, F., & Turner, M. (2000). The sexual
victimization of college women (NCJ 182369). Retrieved from the National
Criminal Justice Reference Service: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf [3]
Lonsway, K. A., Archambault, J., & Lisak, D. (2009). False reports:
Moving beyond the issue to successfully investigate and prosecute
non-stranger sexual assault. The Voice, 3(1), 1-11. Retrieved from the
National District Attorneys Association: http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/the_voice_vol_3_no_1_2009.pdf;
Heenan, M., & Murray, S. (2006). Study of reported rapes in
Victoria 2000-2003: Summary research report. Retrieved from the State of
Victoria (Australia), Department of Human Services: http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/644152/StudyofReportedRapes.pdf [4]
Acierno, R., Resnick, H., Kilpatrick, D. G., Saunders, B., & Best,
C. L. (1999). Risk factors for rape, physical assault, and posttraumatic
stress disorder in women: Examination of differential multivariate
relationships. Journal of anxiety disorders, 13(6), 541-563. [5]
Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I., & Smith, C. (1990). Sexual
abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence,
characteristics, and risk factors. Child abuse & neglect, 14(1), 19-28. [6]
Breiding, M. J., Chen J., & Black, M. C. (2014). Intimate Partner
Violence in the United States — 2010. Retrieved from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention
and Control: http://www.cdc. gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cdc_nisvs_ipv_report_2013_v17_single_a.pdf; Myhill, A., & Allen, J. (2002). Rape and sexual assault of women: the extent and nature of the problem. London: Home Office. See also: https://rainn.org/statistics for FBI statistics. [7]
Rennison, C. A. (2002). Rape and sexual assault: Reporting to police
and medical attention, 1992-2000 [NCJ 194530]. Retrieved from the U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Statistics: http://bjs.ojp. usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsarp00.pdf; Myhill, A., & Allen, J. (2002). Rape and sexual assault of women: the extent and nature of the problem. London: Home Office. See also: https://rainn.org/statistics for FBI statistics. [8] Department of Justice, Felony Defendents in Large Urban Counties: 2009, drawn from https://rainn.org/statistics.
Clockwise: Mutty Parness two guitars top row, Yisroel Lamm, Professional Trumpeter, David Nulman, Chaim Fessel, Shmuel Boruch Bagry - Accordian, Paul Mendlowitz, Josh Goldberg, Eli Teitelbaum, Y. Landesman, Elliot Frankel - Accordian, Michael Lamm - Clarinet.
FREE --- TO THE PERSON THAT CAN NAME THE MOST PEOPLE IN THE ABOVE PHOTOGRAPH
Now available for members of Agudath Israel of America:
EXCLUSIVE:
Sheldon Silver accused of blocking bills to aid sexually abused kids
after Catholic group hired his longtime aide as a lobbyist!
Sheldon
Silver allegedly stopped pushing for a bill to aid victims of sexual
abuse after one of his aides was hired to lobby otherwise.
ALBANY — Disgraced ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was all about pay
to play — and sexually abused kids were the ones to pay the price.
Silver stopped pushing for a bill to aid victims of predators after the
state Catholic Conference hired his former long-time aide as a
lobbyist, says a controversial former lawyer who has taken on the
Church.
John Aretakis, of upstate Troy, made the alarming charge in a scathing
letter he sent to a judge who in May will sentence Silver on an
unrelated federal corruption conviction.
“Mr. Silver met with and looked into the eyes of many victims of clergy
sexual abuse, and he promised his continuing support. ... As soon as
money lined his pockets, or the pocket of his trusted and loyal allies,
he dropped us,” he wrote.
Aretakis, who as a lawyer and victim’s advocate represented a host of
clients who sued the Catholic Church over abuse cases, wrote that Silver
had been a supporter of a bill to extend the age that an adult who was
sexually abused as a kid could bring a case.
The Assembly passed the bill three times — the last time in 2008.
Aretakis wrote that he met with Silver each year between 2004 and 2006
to discuss the bill, which the then-powerful pol “bragged” had passed
the Assembly several times with over 100 votes even as it stalled in the
Senate.
That changed after the lobbying firm owned by Patricia Lynch, who
previously was a longtime Silver aide, took on the Catholic Church as a
client, Aretakis wrote. The Church was aggressively lobbying against the
bill.
Longtime
aide Patricia Lynch was hired to lobby for the Catholic Conference in
2009 — the year after the last time the bill passed the Assembly.
State records show that Patricia Lynch & Associates was first hired
by the state Catholic Conference in 2009 — the same year the Democrats
briefly took control of the chamber and had considered taking up the
measure.
Then-Senate Codes Committee Chairman Eric Schneiderman, now the state
attorney general, tried to move the bill out of committee but the vote
fell short and the measure died.
The Assembly last passed the bill in 2008, months before Lynch’s firm was hired by the Catholic Conference.
“Once Ms. Lynch lobbied for the Catholic Conference, Mr. Silver’s
support for our bill ended, and the bill did not come out of the
Assembly’s Codes Committee ... which as speaker, he controlled,”
Aretakis wrote.
Aretakis said he penned the missive in an attempt to counteract any
messages of support seeking a light sentence filed on Silver’s behalf by
those “that have benefited from Mr. Silver’s largesse over the
decades.”
He recommended to the judge that Silver be sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
“Victims of sexual abuse as children want Mr. Silver to have sufficient
time away to think about how he abandoned his victims...” the letter
says. “Allow Mr. Silver to share in the lifetime of pain that he will
now have in common with the victims of childhood sexual abuse.”
The
alarming charge, made by a controversial lawyer who has taken on the
Catholic Church, was part of a scathing letter written to the judge who
will sentence Silver in May on an unrelated federal corruption
conviction.
Silver’s lawyer, Joel Cohen, had no comment when reached Friday. A
spokesman for Patricia Lynch & Associates also had no comment.
Aretakis in 2008 was suspended from practicing law for a year after
being found guilty of professional misconduct. He had been sanctioned by
different judges for “frivolous” courtroom conduct, including pushing
for a judge’s recusal from a case by alleging the jurist took part in a
criminal conspiracy.
Catholic Conference Dennis Poust dismissed Aretakis as a “person who
has had a long-time animus and obsession with the Catholic Church and an
obsession with the Catholic Church and has not always been truthful to
the facts.”
Poust argued that favoritism toward Lynch by Silver was not the reason
the child abuse legislation has not passed the Assembly since 2008.
He said it was because an alternate bill was introduced at the time by
then-Assemblyman Vito Lopez that split the Democratic conference in a
way where there wasn’t enough votes to pass either proposal
The first bill by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Queens) at the time
would have increased to 28, up from 23, the age at which someone abused
as a child could bring a suit.
Markey has since amended the bill now so that it would completely
eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases.
Letter
author John Aretakis (l.)
It also would have opened a window to give those who can no longer sue
under current law a year to bring a lawsuit — a provision the Catholic
Church and other private groups like the Boy Scouts vehemently fought
for fear it could bankrupt them.
The Lopez bill, a version of which is now carried by Assemblyman
Michael Cusick (D-Staten Island), did not include the one-year window
for past cases.
“I think what (Silver) saw was that there was no consensus in the
conference,” Poust said. “That was pretty clear. It passed earlier when
there was no alternative bill, but when the legislators were educated,
the conference was basically split as to the best way to handle the
issue.”
Another obstacle is the Church’s contention that public institutions
like schools should be treated the same as the church and other private
and nonprofit organizations.
A victim has just 90 days from the incident to file a notice of claim to sue a government entity.
Yisroel Belsky & His Partner In Crime Mendel Epstein, In Happier Times For Both Of Them!
BOTH IMPRISONED - one - B 'Yeshivah shel maalah - the other B'Yeshivah shel mattah
The (criminal) orthodox rabbi(s) with unorthodox criminal solutions
It's certainly not the first time that New York's been cursed by mob
violence. But a current plague of beatdowns and intimidation is
festering in a place you wouldn't expect: the orthodox Jewish community,
a society that operates outside of the mainstream and lives by its own
rules and laws.
One of those laws most controversial to outsiders? An orthodox woman
can be granted a divorce only when her husband allows it. She has to
convince him to sign a document called a "get" to release her from
marital vows. A vindictive husband can use it to make life for his
ex-wife miserable.
"Without a 'get,' she's a chained woman," said Robert Stahl, attorney
for Rabbi Mendel Epstein. "She is not allowed in the orthodox
community to date, to remarry. If she did, her children would be
considered 'mamzers,' which means, basically, bastards."
Community pressure or a stern letter from a rabbi will usually get a
husband to come around. When those tactics don't work, there are other
solutions, and they come right out of the bloodiest books of the Old
Testament.
It's called a "forced get," and it can range from simple scare tactics to heartless violence.
And there's one man who can arrange it all for you: Rabbi Mendel
Epstein, a respected religious leader and advocate for women in Jewish
courts. And he's more than happy to help a client whose sister has a
deadbeat husband.
The good rabbi will provide another service, if you know what to ask for.
"You understand what we're talking about is some strategic planning,
you know, using a nice word," Epstein says on a recording made by two
undercover FBI agents.
"What Mendel Epstein did was when a husband refused to grant his
wife a get, he would in some cases, for tens of thousands of dollars,
have that man kidnapped and beaten up until he agreed to give his wife a
get," said Joseph Gribko, lead prosecutor, U.S. Attorney's Office.
First comes a formal sit-down in Epstein's office. But when Epstein
talks about getting the divorce signed, he sounds less like a rabbi and
more like a mob boss.
His "get" process is simple.
"I don't want to use secular terms, but what we're doing is basically
kidnapping the guy for a couple of hours, beating him up and torturing
him and then getting you the get," Epstein says on a recording.
"Now understand, you're lying with a plastic bag around your head, a
minute ago you were standing like a normal person. That's fright,"
Epstein says on the recording. "For 80 percent of the guys, it's over
right there. Now you do what we tell you, or it's gonna get worse."
He knows the best way to avoid attracting any nosy cops is to avoid leaving any marks.
"Hopefully there won't be a mark on him," Epstein says. "And
basically the reaction of the police is that the guy does not have a
mark on him, they don't want to -- it's just some Jewish crazy affair
here and they don't get involved."
He also knows how to get what he wants.
"You really want to know? Take an electric cattle prod," Epstein
says. "If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move, you put it
in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know."
"That meeting is pretty shocking," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah
Wolfe. "You see what looks to be a nice old rabbi, he's sitting in his
office, he looks very official, and yet the language that he's using,
the things he's talking about is something you would expect to hear from
somebody very different."
"And now he's lying on the floor, handcuffed and hooded," says
Epstein. "And then he says, 'Oh yeah?' And then a guy zaps him and he
goes nuts. And we can continue and we can work on other parts of your
body, but you're not walking out of here."
But even with all his experience and careful planning, the alleged
"Prodfather" doesn't know the woman and her brother are undercover FBI
agents wearing body cameras.
Prosecutors claim Epstein has been getting away with it for years.
"Mendel Epstein believed that as long as things were kept within the
community, there would not be any repercussions," said lead prosecutor
Joseph Gribko. "When people went to the police the police would just
wave it off and say it was some crazy Jewish affair."
"He knows that I'm now unfortunately I'm in my 40s and he knows how
desperately I want children and he's depriving my mother of her
grandchildren," said the female undercover FBI agent in the meeting with
Epstein.
The two FBI agents are acting as brother and sister, trying to arrange a beatdown on the woman's husband.
"Drown him. I don't care what happens to him," the female undercover agent says on the recording.
"We've learned on different people how to do this," says Epstein.
"The first shot if you land puts him out.
Whether it's a kick to the
stomach or a bat, you bat him out, he's down. Once he's down, he's
handcuffed and hooded."
This kind of brutality doesn't come cheap.
"To start is $10,000," says Epstein. "The tough guys are probably gonna be in the range of fifty or sixty."
Rabbi Epstein instructs the sister and brother to have her husband
show up at a remote warehouse in New Jersey for a real-estate deal he
can't refuse.
The plan is to have three other rabbis there armed with divorce
papers, and four thugs who'll make sure he signs them -- even if it's in
his own blood.
To keep his hands clean, Rabbi Epstein will be miles away in Brooklyn with an ironclad alibi.
"I'm somewhere else. I'll be in a public place, because anything goes
on I'm the first stop. So I've got to be with witnesses," says Epstein.
"After this is done, they're going to call me up and say 'mazel tov'
to me so I know that it's done."
But is all this just tough-guy talk, designed to inflate the rabbi's ego and reputation?
Consider Epstein's final, chilling bit of advice:
"He says he's getting a heart attack. Know what I do? Continue the
ride and let him die. I'm very serious. Be prepared for that. My boys
don't care," says Epstein.
Cameras are rolling, and the stage is now set for the sting late in
the afternoon in Edison, New Jersey. The industrial park is isolated,
quiet. The rabbi's gang arrives for last-minute arrangements, hooded,
shrouded, spoiling for a fight.
"People dressed in black, people wearing masks, shadowboxing and
getting ready and making actual preparations to grab the husband when he
arrived and force him, by violence, to give a get," said Gribko.
The undercover FBI agent gets the sting started: "If the guy gets
bloody, do it in here so I don't have to have carpets cleaned."
Now there's no turning back.
"All right. Lights out."
And with lights out, the FBI SWAT team is all-systems-go.
"They came in and they arrested everybody," said Wolfe.
The feds pull the net on eight orthodox henchmen, bagging the bad
guys in beards, hoodies, even catching one thug in a monster mask.
Three rabbis armed with parchment, ink and quills.
And the muscle, armed with rope, hoods and fists.
All of the men are given lengthy jail time. And Rabbi Mendel Epstein
is sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
"They were trying to say that this religious activity was protected
by the First Amendment, and although there are exceptions for religious
activities, effectuating violence on others is not one of them," said
Wolfe.
At sentencing, Epstein tells the judge: "I guess I got caught up in my tough-guy image."
"Rabbi Epstein and his family are some of the most loyal,
compassionate, smart, caring, community-minded individuals I have ever
met," said attorney Robert Stahl. "He was coming from a position of
what is good and what is right and what is noble and perhaps it went a
little bit too far."
But prosecutors claim the rabbi earned his title as "The Prodfather."
"This was a big operation and it had been operating under the radar
for years," said Sarah Wolfe. "Mendel Epstein had a reputation for this
sort of thing. He was known in the community as the rabbi who did
things 'the other way.'"
ABRAHAM RUBIN COURT PHOTO
From The Court Record, In Part:
The beth din
was held at the Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Ditmas Park. Among the several
men present, according to Amsel, were Rabbi Israel Belsky, who taught a
class at the yeshiva; Rabbi Martin Wolmark, a respected
educator from upstate; and Mendel Epstein.
Belsky told Amsel that Rubin
had already missed a hearing in December. Because Rubin again failed to
show up, Amsel recalled Belsky saying, he'd be tried in absentia and the
judges would authorize the use of force
to secure a get. "We'll physically give him beatings," Belsky said in Yiddish, according to Amsel.
The October 1996 assault left
Rubin bruised and bloodied. A passing motorist saw him and took him to
the police station, where officers removed his handcuffs and transported
him to a hospital. As he recuperated, Rubin
set out to compile evidence against the men he suspected were behind the
attack.
He had an associate make
phone calls to some of the men involved, posing as a rabbi claiming that
Rubin had contacted him to try to have the get reversed. The caller made it clear that he had no qualms with
the kidnapping, and that he was simply hoping to confirm that the get
was valid. Rubin's friend Barry Markowitz later filed an affidavit
stating that he set up a voice-recording system and listened in on the
calls.
On November 16 and December
10, 1996, a "Rabbi Wieder" made calls to Belsky. In a transcript of the
conversations, translated from Yiddish to English and later filed in
court, Belsky describes what he knew about Rubin:
"We heard this person is such a rotten animal that there is no equal on
this earth." Belsky goes on to explain that he and other rabbis held a
tribunal and "the verdict was that there should be compulsion." He
stresses that he was not present at the beating
but says, "I was in agreement, after many weeks and weeks of
consideration and discussing the compulsion itself."
Published in the Spring 2016 issue of Jewish Currents
It's The Fundamentalism Stupid!
BACK IN THE 1970s, the Orthodoxy I lived within was far less extreme than today’s. It demanded observance of halakha, Jewish law, but we young women were nonetheless encouraged to partake of education and career, even if Sabbath observance, kashrut,
a proper marriage, and family concerns all came first. This orientation
is known today as “modern Orthodox.” By contrast, the ultra-Orthodox
have moved so far into fundamentalism — and with a tinge of violence, in
Israel but not only in Israel — that the testimony of these breakaway
authors takes on a must-tell urgency and powerful cultural resonance.
Critic Laura Blum says of this literary wave, “They are having their
Arab Spring.” The parallels are persuasive — these writers and artists
are in the avant-garde sounding the first notes of a call for
self-determination. The analogy is also sobering.
FAIGY MEYER BECAME a tabloid headline last July when
she leapt to her death from a Manhattan rooftop bar. Faige (shown
below) was not a fictional character, nor did she write a memoir. She
was a 30-year-old woman who had left behind her ultra-Orthodox
upbringing for a secular life some six years before. Friends said she
carried a darkness within that she could not dispel. Since I, too, broke
with the Orthodox world of my childhood, I empathized with Faigy’s
self-rejection and despair. I imagine that there were days when she felt
brave and determined, possibly even powerful and free, but on that
summer day when she took the fatal plunge in the Flatiron district,
Faigy had once again lost her faith. This time, it was not her faith in
religious doctrine but in her own worthiness to live.
FAIGY MEYER a"h
Back
when I was Faigy’s age, I rarely told people from non-religious
backgrounds of my Orthodox origins. Organized religion (as opposed to
“spirituality”) was in such disrepute among flower children of the 1970s
that it seemed futile to explain where I hailed from and why it hurt so
much to leave it behind. Today, however, I am among a cohort of women
authors contributing to a successful wave of tell-all, up-from-Orthodoxy
memoirs. How has the social climate changed to champion our success?
What is it we have to say about the larger issues of religious
fundamentalism, patriarchy’s power, women as catalysts for change, and
the current schism in the Jewish world around these very issues? And why
are today’s readers drawn to our stories? Are these memoirs harbingers
of a turning point in an increasingly global, ideological conflict
between religious fundamentalism and modern society?
The
books consistently trace an arc from their authors’ origins as obedient
daughters, through conflicted adolescence, into a full-flowering
womanhood in which they seek autonomy of worldview and lifestyle. Their
stories are marked by a slow-simmering awareness of their own dissenting
spirits, a terror of the unavoidable consequences, and admirable,
sometimes sacrificial, courage. For every freedom gained, there is a
cutting emotional loss; in some cases, the price a woman pays for her
freedom is the right to maintain contact with her own children.
There are, of course, important differences in the stories. Some
transitions are smoother, some rockier and more haunted; some of the
writers find greater fulfillment in their new lives, others are more
bereft. The personalities and preferences of each author emerge within
these narrative distinctions, but the overall social significance of
their reports lies in the dissident trajectory that they share.
The books owe their appeal in part to the public’s curiosity about
daily doings within these hermetic Jewish communities. Uninitiated
readers anticipate passing through closed doors. But since the authors,
as females, are themselves excluded from central activities such as
study, prayer, and leadership, they report from the excluded side of the
gender partition. The early action takes place in bedrooms shared with
sisters, in all-girls schools, in women’s synagogue balconies, and in
their aunts’ and grandmothers’ kitchens, where the girls are
indoctrinated in the lavish preparation of food for others.
