A
video of the incident shows the woman walking through the crowd of
ultra-Orthodox men and boys, who yell at her to “Get out of here” and
“We won,” while also repeatedly calling her a “shiksa,” a pejorative
Yiddish term for a non-Jewish woman that derives from the Hebrew for
“vermin.”
After being kicked by a young boy, the woman
can be seen turning around to grab him but drops her cellphone. As she
reaches down to pick it up, additional protesters kick at her and her
phone. Border Police officers nearby then swoop in and pull her out of the scrum.
The protest was the largest yet in a series of
recent demonstrations by ultra-Orthodox protesters over the arrest of
members of the community for failing to show up to the Israel Defense
Forces draft offices.
Community leaders called for the mass
gathering. They set up a stage for rabbis to speak and closed a main
street in the ultra-Orthodox Geula neighborhood, near Jerusalem’s
central bus station.
Ultra-Orthodox Parasite
Jews hold placards during a protest against Israeli army conscription,
in Jerusalem, on March 28, 201
Police said that although the protest was
unauthorized and illegal, they decided to contain the event and monitor
it rather than risking violence by trying to break it up.
The event marked a change in tone following
weeks of often violent — albeit much smaller — protests by young men,
which included blocking traffic, burning garbage and throwing rocks and
objects at police. Tuesday’s protest was much larger and largely
peaceful.
The event was organized by the supporters of
Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, the leader of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox
community in Jerusalem, who have been protesting the draft for the past
few weeks. Unusually the Orthodox Council of Jerusalem — an anti-Zionist
extreme faction opposed to any cooperation with the state — joined the
protest. Rabbis from both groups spoke from the podium, preaching
against the IDF.
Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach (C) speaks during an anti-draft rally in Jerusalem on March 28, 2017.
The ultra-Orthodox protesters, dressed in
their traditional black garb, held signs such as “The State of Israel
persecutes Jews” and “The draft edicts — a holocaust for the Torah
world.”
Ultra-Orthodox Jews represent about 10 percent
of the Israeli population and live in compliance with a strict
interpretation of Jewish laws.
Some of them view military service as a source
of temptation to young adults to leave the closed world of prayer and
religious study.
The ultra-Orthodox are exempt if studying in
yeshiva religious schools. However, the issue is controversial with
secular Israelis, and attempts have been made to do away with the
exemption.
Regardless, they must register at the
recruitment office, but some — inspired by rabbis hostile to any
cooperation with the Israeli authorities — refuse to even go to the
office and are considered deserters.
It is nothing new that certain elements among our fellow Jews want to
have nothing to do with the draft into the IDF. They have found
multiple ways to show their displeasure and, in doing so, to disrupt the
public thoroughfares , cause severe damage to public property, inflict
bodily harm on security personnel and other actions–all in the name of
G-d.
A subset of this population is a group of fringe elements, who
have now gone even further, beyond any terrible actions to date.
Carrying signs that declare that one must resist the draft to the point
of יהרג ואל יעבור (better to choose death than to “transgress”), this
group (known as the Jerusalem Faction, among others) has decided that
drafting into the IDF is akin to the three sins for which one must
forfeit his\her life: Idolatry, murder and immorality.
If that was “all” that they did, then, Dayenu…but wait, there’s more!
Public declarations from these individuals have been made, in the
name of Jerusalem Faction leader Shmuel Auerbach, to resist enlistment “until the last drop of blood.”
If that phrase sounds familiar, it should. It is nearly the very same
words used by our mortal enemies, Hamas, the PA, etc. They,too, call for
defending Al Aksa “until the last drop of blood.” So, apparently, this
whole draft issue is worth bloodshed OF FELLOW JEWS!
And if that was “all” they did, Dayenu…but wait, there’s more!
Leaflets calling for the deathof Maj.
Yaakov Roshi were strewn outside of his parents’ house in Petach Tikva,
representing an escalation in the campaign of harassment and
intimidation against haredi soldiers and their recruiters, the Behadrei Haredim Hebrew news site reported.
These leaflets were left outside of the house with the phrase, “G-d
will break the arm of the wicked,” and calling Roshi and his colleagues
“hunters of souls.”
“Therefore, the great Torah scholars instructed that one should do
the same as our forefathers did when a wicked person rose up against
them, to cry to the Creator of the world that He should spare and
comfort us and remove sins from the earth,” the letter continued.
“And in all places, they will pray that the memory of his name will
be in disgrace, Yaakov Menachem Ben Naomi, and they will say about him
what is written in Psalms, Chapters 10 and 109, about the loss of the
wicked, and the Lord will hear our prayers and save us from the wicked
Yaakov Roshi, may his name and memory be blotted out,” the letter
concluded.
The prayer that an individual’s name and memory be blotted out is
reserved by normative religious Jews for perpetrators of genocide
against the Jewish people, such as Haman and Hitler. According to BeHadrei Haredim,
a haredi news site, the prayer for the death of a fellow Jew crossed a
new red line and showed that “anything goes” in the fight against
enlistment. (Arutz-7)
And if that was “all” that there was to report, then, Dayenu. But wait…yes, sadly, there is much more!
On Monday, thanks to an ongoing undercover investigation, the Israel
Police arrested more than 20 Jewish ultra-Orthodox men as suspected sex
offenders whose alleged crimes were known to their insular communities but concealed from the authorities.
The twenty-two men, aged 20 to 60 and from communities in Jerusalem,
Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh and Beitar Ilit, allegedly committed sex crimes
against women, youths and children from their communities over the past
two years, police said. (Ynet)
Another horrific case of a community protecting pedophiles, rapists
and those who prey on women and children. Once again, the police expose
communities with a mindset that one must sweep under the rug all the
dirty little secrets; a mindset that protects the vermin of society,
while prolonging the agony and pain of the victims.
And this is the part where some of my readers begin to chant: “Haredi
basher!” And I say to all who declare that: GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF THE
SAND! I don’t care if the ones saying these things and doing these
things are Dati LeUmi, Reform, Conservative or have nose rings and belly
button piercings: CALLING FOR THE MURDER OF FELLOW JEWS AND ENCOURAGING THE ENDANGERMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN crosses every single red line that Judaism stands for.
No, these are not the acts of “Haredim.” These are acts of the lowest
stratum of society. If I am bashing anyone, it is the leaders who say
nothing; who protect the abusers; who encourage their followers to
murder (yes, MURDER Jews). I am bashing every one of those who carry
signs that going into the IDF is an issue of יהרג ואל יעבור. To say
that the actions of these people reflects all of Haredi society is
merely a statement of ignorance.
Why do we accept this? Why do we not have massive
counter-demonstrations against such horrific behavior? Why do we allow
our Judaism to be hijacked by hooligans, miscreants, misfits and
ne’er-do-wells?
Ultra-Orthodox
Jews take part in a protest against Israeli army conscription, in the
city of Jerusalem, on March 28, 2017
Jerusalem
(AFP) - Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of
Jerusalem on Tuesday to protest against compulsory military service at a
time of increased tensions between them and Israeli authorities.
The
protesters dressed in the dark suits and hats typical of the
ultra-Orthodox community held signs, including those saying "the state
of Israel persecutes Jews".
Rabbis addressed the crowd, sometimes in Yiddish, while police deployed heavily in the area.
"It's better to be shot than to go in the army," said one of the protesters, Aaron Roth, 45 and with a long, dark beard.
The protest was organized by particularly hardline ultra-Orthodox who completely reject the Israeli state. ( But Take The State's Funding)
Military service, two years and eight months for men and two years for women, is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis.
Ultra-Orthodox
Jews represent about 10 percent of the Israeli population and live in
compliance with a strict interpretation of Jewish laws.
Some
of them view military service as a source of temptation for young
people who then leave the closed world of prayer and religious study.
The
ultra-Orthodox are exempt if studying in yeshiva religious schools,
though the issue is controversial with secular Israelis and attempts
have been made to remove the exemption.
Regardless,
they must register at the recruitment office but some, inspired by
rabbis hostile to any cooperation with the Israeli authorities, refuse
to and are considered deserters.
Last month there were major protests in ultra-Orthodox areas across Israel, with more than 30 people arrested.
There
were also fresh tensions on Monday, when police arrested 22
ultra-Orthodox suspected sex offenders whose alleged crimes were known
to their insular communities but concealed from the authorities.
Less hardline ultra-Orthodox Jews participate in Israeli politics and wield significant influence.
Ultra-Orthodox
politicians have often acted as kingmakers in Israeli politics, and a
number of them currently form part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's coalition.
The ultra-Orthodox protesters, dressed in their traditional black garb,
held signs such as “The state of Israel persecutes Jews” and “The draft
edicts — A Holocaust for the Torah world.”
Exile, Therapy and Only Sometimes the Police: How ultra-Orthodox Jews Handle Sex Offenders
Israel Police arrest 22 ultra-Orthodox Jews for sex crimes against minors and women
The arrest Monday of 22 ultra-Orthodox suspects on sexual offenses allegedly committed over the past two years against juveniles and women comes at a time of major change in the attitude of the Haredi public regarding the handling of sexual offenses. This is reflected first of all in a new level of cooperation between the Haredim and the police, even including educational institutions affiliated with particularly insular Haredi factions.
Another change relates to intensive coverage that Haredi news websites now devote to sexual offenses, even if it doesn’t extend to Haredi print journalism. It does, however, extend to Haredi social media.
But these arrests are a reminder that the traditional method of attempting to deal with sexual offenses within the community persists. Allegedly, records concerning the sexual predators were kept by a single person – known in Haredi circles as a “fixer.” This person is said to have operated under the auspices of a Jerusalem-based body known as the “purification commission” of the community, which works in various Haredi communities.
The fixer himself is not a suspect in the case and is not under arrest. He has been in contact with the police for years and testified in many sexual-offense cases, helping police obtain convictions. But it is now alleged that he also maintained a network that would field and investigate complaints about sexual offenses, using old-world methods accepted in the Haredi world. Usually, offenders who were said to have undergone “arbitration” proceedings of various kinds within the community reportedly were forced to undergo therapy, possibly with a psychologist, or they may have been “exiled” to another city.
The newly disclosed case was uncovered almost by happenstance after the fixer’s name came up in another major case in the Haredi community involving an attempt to incriminate two couples in Ukraine in connection with a family dispute. Last week an indictment was filed in that case. While investigators cleared the fixer of suspicion in the Ukraine case, they are said to have found that he had possession of the records that led to the new investigation.
Law enforcement officials in touch with the Haredi community have spoken of their increasingly close cooperation with the community’s leadership. A year ago a closed-door conference on the subject of sexual offenses was held under the auspices of the rabbi of the police Central District. And in Jerusalem, there is a center for treatment of juvenile victims in the Haredi community that operates with the involvement of police investigators, psychologists and municipal social workers.
Sources have recounted instances in which ultra-Orthodox schools have encouraged the filing of police complaints. Even if most cases are still handled without police being notified, until a few years ago it would have been unheard of to involve law enforcement officials. And now many Haredi schools, particularly for girls, have put programs in place to address the issue of sexual offenses in the family and community.
In the case of the 22 suspects, it now appears that representatives from the purification commission in touch with the police were using a two-track system of enforcement, one of which worked within the Haredi community and the other with outside officials. The investigation of the new case is therefore expected to look into what considerations came into play in deciding to turn certain suspects over to the police while quietly dealing with others inside the community.
Was it the severity of the allegations or did it have to do with the personal standing of the alleged victims and offenders? Did it have anything to do with the nature of their ties with the rabbis and others who dealt with the case?
Eli Schlesinger, a reporter for the Behadrei Haredim ultra-Orthodox website, who has been among the most prominent reporters covering the issue, which in the past wouldn’t have been touched by the Haredi media, noted that the purification commission has been providing major assistance to the police, and over the past year provided a great deal of material related to a major sexual offense case in Modi’in Illit. It is possible, Schlesinger added, that the new case will do damage to these cooperative ties.
Avigayil Heilbronn-Karlinsky is the founder of an organization called Lo Tishtok (Thou Shalt Not Be Silent), which began as a Facebook page and was transformed into an agency that provides substantial assistance to victims of sexual offenses in the ultra-Orthodox community. Although she supports involving the police, she told Haaretz there is no single sweeping approach that always applies. “There are a lot of private entities, not just Haredi ones, that legally deal with offenses in the community and sometimes they do it better than the police, whose means are limited,” she said.
But she also said her organization does not recommend dealing with cases in the traditional manner within the community, “other than in cases in which there is no alternative because legal authorities can’t help or because the victims will under no circumstances contact the police.”
Two particularly serious cases that were dealt with inside the Haredi community and are now the subject of legal proceedings involve two senior figures at Haredi yeshivas in the greater Tel Aviv area and in Jerusalem. The two cases were initially dealt with inside the community with the involvement of senior rabbis, but in both instances efforts to enforce the decisions in the cases failed. The offenders continued to commit sexual offenses and were not being punished.
The Lo Tishtok organization exposed one of the cases. Heilbronn- Karlinsky said, “In both cases, they were people who faced the threat of being turned over to the police, but even when they continued causing harm, the private and community officials never followed through on the threat. That’s what happened until we entered the picture and took the first complainant to the police.”
Arrests and searches in Betar Illit, Bnei Brak, and Jerusalem for community sex crime cover up.
The
Israeli Police announced an undercover investigation into sexual crimes
committed in haredi communities and in neighborhoods in Betar Illit,
Bnei Brak, and Jerusalem. In the overnight operation police arrested 22
suspects and searched homes.
The crimes were allegedly committed over a period of two years. The
ongoing investigation gathered evidence against suspects who carried out
crimes within the communities.
Community members did not report the information to authorities or
social workers and tried to cover up the sexual crimes that were being
committed. Members of the community preferred to employ "law of the
jungle" methods to deal with the crimes. The incidents were documented
by members of the community and police acquired this evidence.
The ages of the suspects arrested range between 20 and 60 years old.
Police were faced with disturbances in the haredi communities during
the arrests and damage was caused to police cars involved in the
operation.
All suspects are being questioned at the Jerusalem police department
and will appear before the courts based on the developments of the
investigation.
Talk about a bomb shell, even if that is not necessarily the nicest
metaphor to employ in a story about terror threats. The vast majority
of threats made against Jewish Community Centers around the nation, not
to mention the bomb threats phoned in regrading two flights on Delta
Airlines, were, it now seems clear, made by a 19 year old Jewish
American-Israeli dual citizen. That breaking revelation comes on the
heels of news related to a similar, if smaller, story regarding
swastikas spray-painted on a home in Schenectady, NY. The vandal is
thought to be none other than the Jewish home-owner himself.
If this weren’t so deadly serious, I would just shake my head and move on. But it is
serious, and we can’t simply look away, as much as some may want to –
whether out of shame, embarrassment, fear, or simply out of exhaustion.
We can’t look away, because there is real anti-Semitism in
our world, and “crying wolf” makes it all the harder to take that fact
seriously. After all, if people lied about it this time, others will
remember that lie next time, even if the next threat is real. And no,
it’s not good enough to say, “Well, in these cases it was ‘crazy people’
who fabricated the anti-Semitic threats, but when responsible leaders
and organizations alert us to real threats, we have to pay as much
attention as ever.”
It’s not good enough because so many of those very same leaders and
organizations were the first to jump on the “rising tide of
anti-Semitism band wagon” in the past months. I am not interested in
questioning their motives for having done so, but it is precisely because
I share their legitimate concerns for real anti-Semitism, that I would
invite all those who have been wringing their hands since last fall, to
ask themselves/ourselves what happened here, and how we can do better in
the future, assuming that is even the goal.
“Assuming that is even the goal? Are you telling us that it’s
not totally clear that slowing our urge to hit the panic button is not
everybody’s goal?” Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, and it is the
part of this story which I find most troubling.
We Jews, or at least far too many of us, find it hard to take “yes”
for an answer. We cannot imagine that, given our lives here in America –
our successes, achievements and the overwhelming embrace of us as proud
Jews – we should probably be at least a little less panicky and a bit
more cautious regarding sudden bursts of anti-Semitism.
If you factor out the recent rash of phone threats, for example, the
supposed doubling of such acts in the past year, turns out to be totally
false. There may have been some increase, and there is no
question regarding the importance of figuring out the cemetery attacks,
but the panic from both the left and the right, the mobilizing of that
fear, and people’s willingness to accept the worst possible explanations
– those are serious issues which demand at least as much collective
Jewish introspection as they do collective Jewish mobilization against
anti-Semitism.
Now, I get it. It would be so much more convenient, for some, if the
threats had come from the increasing hordes of white supremacists,
which the left not only presumes, but imagines are in lock-step
(goose-step?) alignment with President Trump and his closest advisors.
Or perhaps, for those on the right, if the threats had come from an
organized group of Muslims, confirming the false and ugly claim that
“they” all hate “us” (Jews, Americans, etc) anyway. It would be so much
easier for people animated by over-the-top fear mongering regarding
whomever they hate most, if these threats had come from one of those
groups.
It would have confirmed all that they fear, and being right about who
they fear is what defines who they are, in so many cases. But of
course, that is not how it went down. It seems that in the vast
majority of these cases, one of “us” was the perpetrator. And that may
be the most threatening, and most important, reality to which we need to
adjust – the shift away from being the perennial victims, not to
mention the willingness to look both without and within when we are being victimized.
Again, I am not naïve. Jews do get victimized in this
world, and even in America, simply because they are Jewish. That is
repugnant, and it must be fought, but it is not the norm – not in the US
anyway – and as hard as it might be, especially after millennia of
actually being the perennial victims, we need to adjust to this
new normal. And to be clear, I am not suggesting that because we are
generally no longer the victims, we have generally become perpetrators,
as many real anti-Semites and Israel-haters too often contend.
I am talking about moving beyond the victim-perpetrator model. I am
talking about moving toward a model which is more aspirational than it
is defensive, that mobilizes people around the dreams they have, more
than around fighting the nightmares they have, and that doesn’t pit
communal self-defense against communal introspection. I am talking
about appreciating that, by and large, we are living the dream, and need
to guard against constantly looking for boogey men, simply because they
used to be more present, and defining ourselves by who hates us, rather
than by what we love, even though it is often so much easier to do it
that way.
Abraham Maslow (or Mark Twain who is often credited with this line)
was right when he said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is
tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail”. The
reverse is also true – if you always think of yourself as a nail, it is
tempting to see everyone else as a hammer. Today’s events remind us
that the world is filled with both hammers and nails, but who is which,
is less obvious than we often let ourselves believe.
In his recent blog post
the honorable Rabbi David Rosen, a man I greatly admire, asks a
provocative question, “Is any meat today kosher?” While never fully
addressing the question posed in the article’s title he answers by
advocating for Jews to eat more plants and fewer animal products. He
also encourages Rabbinic figures to speak out about the abuses of the
factory farm system and to advocate for plant-based diets. The Rabbi’s
description of factory farming is disturbing, accurate, and astute. What
Rabbi Rosen fails to do is present a path to resist the cruelty of
factory farming while continuing to eat meat—and it is on this point
that I wish to respectfully challenge him.
Rabbi
Rosen and I agree that there can be no doubt about the cruel and
immoral nature of the factory farm system. Through my own experiences
growing up on an Israeli factory farm, working as a shochet (kosher
slaughterer) in an industrial beef plant in the midwest, and now working
as an animal welfare advocate at the Jewish Initiative For Animals(JIFA),
I have come to know the factory farmed industry first hand. My
colleagues and I at JIFA are all staunchly opposed to factory farming
regardless of the kosher status of the meat it produces, which is not an
issue we feel qualified to comment upon.
That said, I question why the only alternative
to factory farming that Rabbi Rosen embraces is a move towards
plant-based diets. The easiest way to avoid factory farming while
keeping kosher may be to choose plant-based, but it is not the only way.
For example, the Rabbi failed to mention a
once-common kosher meat product that just became available again for the
first time in over 50 years, American Poultry Association
(APA)-certified heritage chicken. In his post the Rabbi correctly states
that “Chickens in today’s factory farms grow three times as fast as
they did fifty years ago as a result of selective breeding programs and
the use of antibiotics” and that “This leads to crippling bone disorders
and spinal defects causing acute pain and difficulty in moving.” This
cruel and commonplace practice of breeding chickens and turkeys to grow at an abnormal
rate is of great concern to us at JIFA and addressing this problem was
our first priority when founding the organization a little over a year
ago.
Since then, we’ve worked with two kosher meat distributors, KOL Foods and Grow and Behold, to help bring to market the first commercial run of certified heritage and certified kosher chicken in decades. These APA certified heritage breed birds are raised under robust animal welfare standardsand
come from genetic lines that can be traced back to before the advent of
factory farming. They grow at a healthy and natural rate, reaching a
normal slaughter weight of 5 pounds after a minimum of 112 days of
growth. This is in contrast to the industrial Cornish Cross chicken,
which typically takes only 42 days to get the same weight and, as a
result, suffers from unnecessary and painful problems with skeletal
development, organ function, obesity, and more.
There are also other higher welfare products
that the Rabbi failed to mention. For example, KOL Foods deserves
special recognition for being the only national purveyor of domestically
farmed 100% grass-fed kosher beef.
Grass-fed cattle take longer to raise but are able to live healthy and
natural lives, totally removed from the factory farmed system. The fact
that KOL is the only distributor of this product shows that this is a
sector of the industry that needs more caring kosher consumers on its
side.
Perhaps Rabbi Rosen’s most controversial
statement is that“responsible rabbinic leadership should be advocating a
plant based diet as much as possible, as the most kosher diet available
for most people today.” I fear that this suggestion forgets the
realities of the worldwide Jewish community. Many of us, myself
included, feel that animal products make up an important part of our
diets and is crucial for our health. To propose that Rabbinic
authorities advocate for a plant based diet as the only alternative to
factory farming and not mentioning any higher welfare options leaves the
vast majority of the kosher-keeping population feeling as if they have
little to do but continue purchasing factory farmed products.
I also believe that Rabbi Rosen doesn’t go
nearly far enough in advocating for institutional-level change in buying
practices. If the membership of a Jewish institution finds factory
farming to be cruel and immoral then their concerns can be turned into
action by applying those concerns to an institutional food policy that
takes these serious matters into account. This is why the Jewish
Initiative for Animals has made it a top priority to work with Jewish institutions to create ethical food buying policies that address animal welfare.
If you keep kosher and are concerned about the
conditions described in the Rabbi’s article than there are many
concrete steps you can take to fight factory farming. Here are a few
suggestions:
But more than all the things mentioned above, the way to supersize
your impact on the kosher meat industry is to work with your local
Jewish institution to create a simple and effective food buying policy that takes animal welfare into account.
Advocating for plant-based diets as the only
alternative to the factory farm system is not the way to most
successfully fight its extreme cruelty. Even the great Rabbi Avraham
Isaac Kook, mentioned at the end of Rabbi Rosen’s article, was known to
eat some meat on Shabbat and holidays. If that great Rabbi, who
advocated for a vegetarian diet, couldn’t make a full transition we
certainly cannot expect the millions of everyday Jews throughout the
world to become vegan overnight.
I believe that we can all play a vital role in
the fight against factory farming. I invite Rabbi Rosen to join me and
the diverse group of caring individuals that make up the Jewish
Initiative For Animals in widening the tent and offering a path for each
and every individual that wishes to make this world a more humane place
for all of God’s creations.
Yadidya Greenberg
Yadidya Greenberg serves as the Kosher Meat & Animal
Welfare Specialist at the Jewish Initiative for Animals, where he works
… [More]
"Rav Shraga Feivel
Mendlowitz, the founding dean of New York's Mesifta Torah VoDaath,
became a vegetarian after the Holocaust/Shoah, simply yet powerfully
declaring, "There has been enough killing in the world."
It is ironic that with
Jewish observance and spiritual values at unprecedentedly high levels in
Israeli society, the established religious leadership has sunk to its
lowest nadir.
There are
many wise, creative and worldly Israeli rabbis but in most cases, they
are marginalized or even dismissed as being “Reform.”
Compared to
their predecessors, the current chief rabbis are mediocrities. When
headed by spiritual giants like Rabbis Isaac Herzog,
the Chief Rabbinate courageously reviewed Halachah built up over 2,000
years of exile and sought ways and means to blend and harmonize it with
the requirements of the modern industrial State of Israel.
Sadly,
today’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi was selected as a puppet of the extreme
wing of the haredim, who themselves regard the role of the Chief
Rabbinate with utter contempt. He and his Sephardi counterpart dismiss
the revolution brought about by the creation of a Jewish state and make
no effort to harmonize Halachah with the modern needs of the state. They
adamantly reject Torah im derech eretz (worldliness) and aggressively adopt the most stringent interpretations of Jewish law.
Their vulgar,
boorish language and vile curses directed against the non-Orthodox have
succeeded in creating a crisis in Israel-Diaspora relations. Their
bizarre intrigues and broken undertakings in relation to access to the
Western Wall demean the Jewish people.
The ultimate
source of ultra-Orthodox control rests in retention of the political
balance of power and the ability to extort vast sums of taxpayers’ funds
from the state for their one-dimensional projects. It also enables them
to indoctrinate their followers to engage in full-time Torah study in
lieu of earning a livelihood, thus becoming lifelong recipients of
welfare. They also discourage young adults from enrolling in the army.
Draft evaders from this sector grew by 15% last year.
The situation
is becoming explosive and statistics published this month note the vast
increase in numbers attending haredi schools that provide no core
secular education.
This has
potentially catastrophic demographic and economic consequences because
the shrinking productive sectors of the community will ultimately revolt
against providing long-term welfare payments to able-bodied haredim.
Yet, in the
current political climate, non-haredi Israelis are powerless to
influence events because our dysfunctional political system pressures
the secular political parties to succumb to haredi extortion to retain
or gain political power.
Those who
should be at the forefront of the battle against religious extremism are
the leaders of Habayit Hayehudi — but they have abandoned their primary
obligation of promoting religious Zionism as a unifying factor in the
state. They have become so deeply entrenched in politics and focused on
the settlement issue that they have neglected the soul of Israel. To his
credit, Naftali Bennett as education minister is promoting greater
appreciation of Jewish heritage in the secular school curriculum; he
should be concentrating more on this rather than engaging in battles for
individual political supremacy.
Bennett has
failed to confront the extremes of the haredi establishment. He has not
only deferred to extremist haredi initiatives but has nurtured the hardalim within
his party, the influential elements seeking to prove, as dedicated
Zionists, that they are equally or even more zealous in their
interpretation of aspects of Halachah than the haredim.
They have
become totally obsessed with gender issues in which they impose
unprecedented standards of separation, modesty and dress codes that even
the most pious former leading religious Zionists never required.
There are
legitimate halachic concerns with mixed-gender combat units, which
moderate rabbis also recognize.
One of their
outspoken charismatic leaders, Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, co-head of the
prestigious Bnei David pre-military religious academy, created outrage
with a series of derisive statements vilifying female soldiers, claiming
that the IDF “has driven our girls crazy. … They enter as Jews but they
are not Jews by the time they leave.” He was supported by the chairman
of the Shas party, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, and several radical
religious Zionists, including Rabbis Dov Lior and Zalman Melamed.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman demanded Levinstein’s
resignation, asserting that his outlook is “in total contravention of
the values of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” If his
resignation was not forthcoming, he threatened to revoke state
recognition of the pre-military academy. Education Minister Bennett
criticized Levinstein’s comments as “wretched and disparaging” but
adamantly opposed any effort to suspend the academy’s recognition.
Allowing that
there are no calls to close state-supported universities when radical
left-wing professors publicly support the boycott, divestment and
sanctions movement, some consider it hypocritical to call for the
closing down of a religious Zionist institution whose head, Rabbi Eli
Sadan, only last year was awarded the Israel Prize for life achievement.
In response to Lieberman, Sadan also reiterated his opposition to women
serving in combat units but insisted that any woman serving in the IDF
deserved respect and was a righteous woman.
However, this
is not a question of freedom of expression. It rather represents a
challenge to the religious Zionist leadership. Bennett should have been
the first to state that Levinstein had to resign. Such crude remarks by a
spiritual leader and educator make Levinstein unfit to retain a
leadership role in a prestigious national religious pre-army academy
that sets the moral standards for impressionable youngsters. There may
be differences regarding the role of women in the army, but there should
be no tolerance for anyone denigrating the increasing proportion of
religious women who opt to serve the nation by choosing military
service.
In this
complex potpourri, it is extremely difficult to provide religious
Zionist youngsters with a worldly and balanced education and upbringing.
There are outstanding rabbis in the community but they face constant opposition from the haredi establishment.
Tzohar, the
organization of moderate religious Zionist Orthodox rabbis, has made
major contributions in providing religious services for those who have
no religious educational background. But they decline to confront the
Chief Rabbinate out of a misplaced fear that this would contribute to
the further denigration of religious Judaism.
A bright
light in the arena was the creation of an independent rabbinical court
by religious Zionist rabbis to specifically challenge the monopoly
relating to conversions imposed by the restrictive haredi-controlled
Chief Rabbinate. The highly respected director of the Birkat Moshe
hesder yeshiva in Maaleh Adumim, Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch, heads this
court, which includes Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar, and others.
This court is
also reluctant to stand up and confront the Chief Rabbinate on other,
broader areas that are currently undermining the religious status quo of
the country.
Other
organizations doing excellent work include Beit Morasha, headed by
Professor Benny Ish-Shalom, which inculcates moderate religious
standards into the educational system.
On the more
academic side, Eretz Hemdah, an institution headed by Rabbi Yosef
Carmel, is an impressive Talmudic college constructively reviewing
halachic issues that the Chief Rabbinate is inclined to ignore or
reject.
It is
incredible that, despite the office of the Chief Rabbinate, which deters
rather than inspires spirituality, the country is nevertheless
experiencing a major spiritual revival with a greater appreciation of
the Jewish heritage and tradition among rank-and-file Israelis than ever
before.
Regrettably,
until there is political reform, the haredim will continue to inhibit
progress. And unless Habayit Hayehudi rejects its extremist elements, it
will not succeed in promoting the moderate religious Zionism that
should be its principle raison d'être.
Economics
will ultimately lead to an upheaval but while the status quo persists,
the nation is obliged to pay a bitter price. The only solution would be a
mutual undertaking by the government and opposition parties to prevent
their exploitation by the haredim.
Regrettably,
the prospects for political parties to agree to any such undertaking at
the expense of their own self-serving interests are inconceivable — and
thus they bear the responsibility for the hijacking of state religious
instrumentalities by the haredi extremists.
Elizabeth did an impressive job of reporting a misleadingly minimum
amount of factual information about a tragic event in an effort to
support claims of a link between vaccinations and SIDS — claims that
have been repeatedly rejected (and rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected) by the scientific community.
Infant Twins Die Simultaneously After Vaccines?
A
15-year-old tragedy has been warped into a scientifically flawed
indictment of vaccinations by those with an anti-vaccine agenda.
CLAIM
The simultaneous death of infant twins in Turkey in 2002 was connected to their having recently received vaccinations.
RATING
Unproven
WHAT'S TRUE
In June 2002, twin infants in Turkey passed away within 24 hours of each other two days after receiving vaccinations
WHAT'S FALSE
The infants were diagnosed as having died of SIDS, and
reports framing this event as evidence of the harm caused by
vaccinations do so by misleadingly omitting any mention of contrary
evidence.
ORIGIN
On 1 February 2017, Erin Elizabeth of “Health Nut News” published an article
bearing the headline “Infant Twins Die Simultaneously After Vaccines,
Medical Board Rules ‘Just a Coincidence’” that implied the simultaneous
death of infant twins was caused by childhood vaccinations:
PubMed reports that identical twin girls, aged 3.5-months and delivered
via c-section, were found dead (by their poor momma) in their crib, both
laying face up. Not surprisingly, both babies were healthy will no
serious medical history. Two days before their death, both of the girls
had received their second dose of oral polio, DPT, and their first dose
of hepatitis B vaccines. They had a fever the day after the vaccines and
were given a teaspoon of acetaminophen.
All that and yet, “the death scene investigation, judicial
investigation, parental assessment, macroscopic and microscopic autopsy
findings and the toxicological analysis didn’t yield any specific cause
of death.” Because the case was so rare it was referred to a board of
multidisciplinary medical professionals at the Institute of Forensic
Medicine, in the Ministry of Justice, in Istanbul. And yet, the Board
still decided that the data they had was consistent with [Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome, SIDS].
Elizabeth’s article was a highly deceptive one that deliberately
omitted a wealth of contrary information in order to further her
anti-vaccination agenda, starting with the fact that nowhere did she
inform her readers that the report she was referencing was ten years old
(2007), and that the infant deaths it examined occurred nearly fifteen
years ago (2002). Instead, she left readers with the misleading
impression that she was describing a recent event and suggested that it
was somehow suspicious that the non-homicide deaths of two infants in a
remote part of the world fifteen years ago didn’t garner the attention
of the U.S. national press — likely because doing so served to further
the anti-vaccination narrative that the “mainstream media” is
withholding the truth about the dangers of childhood vaccinations.
The incidence of two infant twin siblings dying within 24 hours of
each other two days after receiving vaccines is factual. The information
Elizabeth cited was originally published as a conference presentation
and later as a case report in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine.
(PubMed is a government repository of published journal abstracts, and
as such does not “report” anything on their own.) This event was
described in that report as follows:
Twin girls (3.5-month-old) were found dead by their mother in their
crib, both in supine position. The infants were identical twins and
delivered at a hospital by cesarean section. Both infants were healthy
and did not have any serious medical history. Two days prior to the
incident, the twins had received the second dose of oral polio, DPT and
the first dose of hepatitis B vaccines …
Both twins had been given 2 teaspoonful of acetaminophen due to fever
on the first day of the vaccination. On subsequent two days they had no
complaints of fever.
The purpose of that report was to present the totality of information
doctors and Turkish government officials had available to them to prior
to making a ruling on the cause of death, the main objective of which
was to determine if any evidence of criminal wrongdoing existed.
A team of doctors, technicians, and judicial investigations did not
find any clear cause for the deaths, so the case was referred to the
Turkish Ministry of Justice’s Forensic Medicine Division, who ruled that
the best available diagnosis was sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS):
The death scene investigation, judicial investigation, parental
assessment, macroscopic and microscopic autopsy findings and the
toxicological analysis did not yield any specific cause of death.
Likewise, the clinical history of the parents and the infants, the
gestational follow up during the pregnancy did not imply any pathologic
condition the death can be attributed to. The case was referred to a
supreme board composed of multidisciplinary medical professionals at the
Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ministry of Justice, in Istanbul. The
Board decided that the available data was consistent with SIDS.
Elizabeth makes it clear that she believes the two died as a result
of their vaccinations, an assessment based on no evidence whatsoever
other than the temporal proximity of the twins’ deaths to their
vaccinations (a classic expression of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc
logical fallacy). Anti-vaccine advocates commonly try to draw a line
between SIDS and vaccinations, but citing a temporal relationship alone
is not convincing evidence of any link, since by definition the time
period during which a death can be considered to be the result of SIDS
generally corresponds to the same time period when children receive a
bulk of their vaccinations. To determine whether any possible causal
connection exists between vaccines and SIDS, researchers have to look at
the epidemiology of SIDS and vaccination as a whole.
Several studies have attempted to investigate a possible connection
by comparing populations of vaccinated SIDS victims against unvaccinated
SIDS victims. One of the earliest large scale studies, published in 2001 in the BMJ,
surveyed populations of infants in five regions of England and
concluded that “Immunisation does not lead to sudden unexpected death in
infancy, and the direction of the relation is towards protection rather
than risk.”
A similar study
conducted in the United States in 2001 using data collected between
1990-1997 from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System also
found no causal relationship, noting that the time period studied
actually showed an increase in vaccination but a decrease in SIDS cases. Laterstudies
published in 2007 also demonstrated a lack of a causal relationship
between SIDS and vaccination, and they even suggested that vaccinations
provided a protective effect against SIDS. Although the protective
element remains a subject of debate, more recent work has continued to confirm a lack of association between vaccination and SIDS.
A VAERS-based study published
in 2015 that used death- after-vaccination reports from 1997 through
2013 documented (similar to the 2001 study) a continued decline in
deaths from SIDS in the United States and, once again, no correlation
between vaccination and SIDS:
No concerning pattern was noted among death reports submitted to VAERS
during 1997–2013. The main causes of death were consistent with the most
common causes of death in the US population.
Because SIDS peaks at a time when children are receiving many
recommended vaccinations, it would not be unexpected to observe a
coincidental close temporal relationship between vaccination and SIDS.
Despite Elizabeth’s derision at the use of the term “coincidence,” it
should be noted that given the high numbers of children vaccinated in
the world, an infant death occurring 24-48 hours after a vaccination by
chance alone — in small numbers — is highly probable on an annual basis.
A 2005 study published in the journal Pediatrics investigated this question for the population of Australian children and found that:
The overall estimated probability of vaccination within the last 24
hours for a child who has died of SIDS in Australia is estimated as
1.3%. In the last 48 hours, it is 2.6%. With the average number of SIDS
deaths for the period 1997-2001 equal to 130 cases per year, we
estimated that a case of SIDS will occur when vaccination was given in
the last 24 hours in 1.7 cases per year and within 48 hours in 3.5
cases.
That the specific infant death event discussed here involved two
simultaneous cases of SIDS, of course, makes that Turkish tragedy more
rare — but not quite as rare of Elizabeth suggests. That’s because the
probability of SIDS is higher for twins in general, and much higher for
an infant whose twin sibling has been a victim of SIDS, as noted in the
case report:
In [a 2005 study
looking at Danish birth and death records from 1995-1998] the incidence
of SIDS was 82% higher in twins as compared to singletons. The excess
was especially prominent in term infants. The probability of a 2nd twin
dying of SIDS, given that at least one twin had died of SIDS was 4.9
times higher than the overall risk of a twin dying of SIDS.
Avoiding any mention of these significant factors was not the most
egregious omission Elizabeth made in her article, however. That award
goes to her neglecting to mention the mother’s family history of SIDS,
also described in the case report:
There is always the possibility of some familial metabolic or other
genetic disease. When the familial history of the mother is explored;
the mother’s mother had 3 twin births to 6 children, of whom 5 died
sometime after the delivery. And the mother’s own twin sibling and the
twins of the uncle of the mother also died.
Although samples were collected to test this line of inquiry, the
Turkish government did not pursue it due to a lack of facilities and
cost. This factor, the researchers argued, was the largest limitation to
their study (and study limitations are typically a factor mentioned in
objective coverage of scientific papers).
We reached out to Elizabeth to inquire whether she had read this
portion of the paper (or anything more than its abstract), and if so,
what her thoughts were on the probability of genetic mechanisms (rather
than vaccinations) being responsible for the infants’ deaths. A
response from her “part-time assistant” stated “Erin has read the entire
paper” but provided no further comment.
Elizabeth did an impressive job of reporting a misleadingly minimum
amount of factual information about a tragic event in an effort to
support claims of a link between vaccinations and SIDS — claims that
have been repeatedly rejected (and rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected) by the scientific community.
Elizabeth attempted to advance her biased viewpoint not by offering
false data or overt lies, but by the deliberate omission of any
information — genetic history, the time and location of the event, the
relationship between twinning and SIDs, and the massive body of research
addressing the subject — contrary to her preferred anti-vaccination
narrative.
Private lessons: Dassi Erlich’s story of sexual abuse - Erlich herself would not understand what it all meant
until years later, when memories haunted her and then almost killed her.
Damages: Dassi Erlich received one of Australia’s largest sex abuse payouts. “I couldn’t feel anything for
the child I was carrying – it scared me so much,” she says. “It got
worse after she was born. I was getting lots of flashbacks and I
literally could not deny it any more. I was suicidal, I was
self-harming and I felt like the worst mother in the world.”
In
a cafe in Melbourne’s south-east, not far from her old school, Dassi
Erlich is writing about her former school principal, Malka Leifer. “I
see her pleading fingers undressing me, the slow crawl of her touch over
my exposed skin,” she types. “But I am not there. I am empty. In that
room, I do not exist. She has killed me. A silent death that no one will
ever know of. No one will believe me.”
Erlich
was only 15 years old and no one in her ultra-orthodox Adass Jewish
neighbourhood in East St Kilda knew then that she was being abused by a
doyenne of that community, the respected female principal of the Adass
Israel School. Erlich herself would not understand what it all meant
until years later, when memories haunted her and then almost killed her.
She
would have to reject the tightly knit religious community of barely
2000 people and all she had known in order to seek justice. Then came
the police statements, the court case, the million dollars in damages
and the stunning news that her community leaders had spirited Leifer out
of Australia in the dead of night to Israel, where she continues to
evade justice. In a cruel twist, Erlich also learnt that two girls close
to her were abused by the same woman.
Erlich,
now 29, has good reason to be angry with those who have let her down,
from her former school to the leaders of Melbourne’s Adass community to
the Israeli justice system, which has so far blocked the extradition of
her former principal. Instead, she cradles a coffee in her hands at her
favourite cafe and says she doesn’t want to throw another grenade after
the bad publicity her court case has already garnered for the
reclusive Adass. “I don’t want to talk badly about the community because
there are many people there who haven’t done anything wrong and who are
just living their lives to the best of their ability and who are
happy,” she says. “But from the outside, when I look at the kids who
grow up in that community and the way of life, I can’t condone it, I
think it’s wrong. I think a lot of the rules about keeping the community
so excluded and making the outside world seem so dangerous breed that
kind of [sexual] abuse.”
Now, almost 18
months after former Victorian Supreme Court judge Jack Rush ordered the
school to pay $1,024,428 in damages – one of the largest sex abuse
payouts in Australia’s history – and nine years after Leifer fled the
country, Erlich is ready to tell her story for the first time.
Culture of silence: Adass Israel School. Picture: Ian Currie
Over the past year I have met Erlich regularly at
the cafe as she ponders how to tell her remarkable story in the book
she is writing. At each meeting she is friendly and upbeat, talking
about her nursing studies and showing me pictures of her six-year-old
daughter Leah. She dresses in hip modern clothes, wears red lipstick and
large jewellery, a world away from the dour wigs and flowing
Amish-style dresses of the Adass women. “This is about owning my own
story,” she says. “My daughter will one day grow up and read about my
life. I want it to be a story of strength and inspiration rather than
victimhood.”
Yet it is hard to imagine a
more vulnerable target than Erlich and at least 15 of her fellow Adass
schoolgirls who say they were assaulted by Leifer, a mother of eight
who was then in her late 40s. “Children were raised not having knowledge
of world events and were completely isolated from anything beyond the
community they were within,” Erlich told the court in 2015. “We weren’t
to know that a relationship could exist between a male and a female.”
Erlich
and her six siblings were brought up in the strict Adass tradition of
no access to television, radio, internet, magazines or newspapers. Her
parents met at a Jewish youth club in London and in 1981 emigrated to
Australia, where they joined Melbourne’s small Adass community. These
so-called Adassniks, the most insular of the Haredi or ultra-Orthodox
spectrum of Jews, live almost entirely within an eight-block radius of
East St Kilda. Women are not expected to have careers but rather to
raise large families, often with more than 10 children in each. Adass
men dress as if they are roaming through 19th-century Europe, with tall
mink fur hats, black silk knee-length coats, white pantaloons, stockings
and black slip-on shoes. They are the closest Australia has to an Amish
community. “I didn’t realise it was an unusual community until I left
it,” says Erlich. “It was my way of life and I didn’t know anything
else. We were told that ours was the best way of life and the superior
way of life; it was just accepted that you didn’t interact with people
who are not part of your community unless absolutely necessary.”
When
Leifer began to take an interest in her, Erlich, then 15, was so naive
that she had no idea that a kiss on the mouth “was something that could
be done”. In any case, there was no reason to imagine that someone like
Leifer could be a sexual predator. The Adass community had recruited her
from Israel in 2000 to head the Adass Israel School in Elsternwick,
which had around 500 children enrolled in the separate boys’ and girls’
campuses. Among the Adass, Leifer was a towering figure who inspired
awe. “People looked up to her and listened to her as if hers were God’s
words,” recalls Erlich. “She was someone who everyone looked up to and
idolised. She was like an angel who had flown in from overseas.”
So
when Leifer offered to give “private lessons” to Erlich, the student
was flattered. “I would go to her office and study and she would put her
arms around me,” she recalls. “I found it quite comforting, I felt
quite loved and really special that she was giving me her attention.”
But as the lessons progressed, first in Leifer’s office and then at her
home, she says the principal began to rub her thighs against her
student and slide her fingers up her legs. “I thought it was weird but
it was also like, ‘Well, she is the boss, she is the adult here so it
must be right.’”
The meetings would
continue on and off for the next three years, with Leifer going further
each time and Erlich becoming more confused about what was happening to
her. “Every time we walk away as if it has never occurred… I have no one
to talk to and even if I did what would I say,” she writes in her book.
“It is much easier to make believe it is all OK.”
Former principal Malka Leifer.
In
his 2015 judgment against the Adass Israel School and Leifer, Justice
Rush stated: “I accept that because of her [Erlich’s] extremely
sheltered background she did not understand what was happening to her,
particularly as to whether she was right or wrong.”
Erlich’s
encounters with Leifer ended when she entered an arranged marriage at
the age of 18 with a 23-year-old partner chosen by her parents. “I was
very nervous,” she recalls of her first visit with her future husband.
“Suddenly I was supposed to speak to this guy I didn’t know and have a
conversation about marriage as my mother was in the next room listening
in. We talked about the guiding principles of life and what sort of home
you wanted to be in and what kind of kids you want to bring up. How
many kids is never a question because birth control is not an option –
you have to get the Rabbi’s permission for that.”
Within
a week of their first meeting, she was engaged. “I met him [for the
first time] at his house on a Monday… I met him four times over that
week and I got engaged to him on the Saturday.”
After
they were married, they left for Israel so that her husband could
pursue religious studies. Erlich struggled to get pregnant and when she
finally did, she had a miscarriage. She became depressed and started to
see a therapist. It was during those therapy sessions in Israel that
she began to open up for the first time about what had happened with
Leifer, something she had not even shared with her husband. “It was like
a very shameful secret because I believed it was all my fault – it was
like self-loathing,” she says.
She says
the therapist did not believe her at first but when Erlich told her
that two other girls close to her had also been abused, the therapist
passed on her claims to a colleague in the Adass community in Melbourne.
In late February 2008, those claims were relayed to a teacher at the
Adass school, Sharon Bromberg, who briefly confronted Leifer. The
principal deflected the questions. When Bromberg heard in the following
weeks that two other former students were alleging abuse by Leifer, she
raised the issue with the school and senior Adass community members.
Ex-Victorian Supreme Court judge Jack Rush.
By the time school and community leaders
met at the house of the late businessman Izzy Herzog on March 5, 2008,
they had become aware of at least eight separate allegations of abuse
involving Leifer and girls at the school. In attendance that night was
school board president Yitzhok Benedikt, school board member Meir
Ernst, barrister Norman Rosenbaum, psychologist Vicki Gordon and
Bromberg. What then unfolded would later be described by Justice Rush as
“disgraceful” and “deplorable”.
The
group put Leifer on speakerphone and put the allegations to her. She
denied them. “You have destroyed my reputation, I’m not going to stand
for this,” she replied. The group then told Leifer she would be stood
down as the head of the Adass school. But then, in a fateful decision,
it was agreed that rather than report Leifer to the police, the
principal should be spirited out of the country.
Dassi
Ernst, the wife of school board member Meir Ernst, asked a local travel
agent to open her shop at 10pm that night, only hours after the
meeting, and to book a plane ticket to Israel for Leifer. Less than four
hours later – at 1.20am – Leifer and four of her children flew to
Israel. (She was later joined in Israel by her husband Jacob, a rabbi.)
The school paid for her ticket.
In his
judgment, Justice Rush stated: “In such circumstances the alleged
perpetrator should not be assisted to urgently flee the jurisdiction.
The failure of the board to report the allegations to police prior to
arranging Leifer’s urgent departure is deplorable.”
Three
of those at the meeting – Gordon, Rosenbaum and Bromberg – have
declined to comment, but school board president Benedikt maintains they
did nothing wrong. “We have acted as any normal person would act, we
have responsibilities for our children and for our community,” he tells
this magazine. “We could not allow at that time a teacher like that to
stay anywhere near the children. Don’t you agree with me that the best
thing is that they don’t have anything more to do with the children?”
Benedikt maintains it was Leifer’s choice to leave that night and that
her departure had “nothing to do with the school”.
Rush
disputes this, saying it was done to protect the community’s reputation
and hide its embarrassment. “I have no doubt the conduct was
deliberate,” he says. “The conduct of Messrs Benedikt and Ernst on
behalf of the board in facilitating the urgent departure of Leifer was
likely motivated by a desire to conceal her wrongdoing and isolate the
conduct and its consequences to within the Adass community.” Victoria
Police is conducting what it describes as an “ongoing investigation”
into whether an offence was committed in relation to Leifer’s departure.
Erlich
did not learn of the clandestine arrangement for Leifer’s exit for
seven years until her civil trial in 2015, but says it didn’t surprise
her that the Adass community would try to hide the problem. “I wasn’t
shocked by that when I finally heard about it,” she says. “The cover-up
was like something that all religious communities around the world would
do, so I was disappointed but not shocked. It is what [the Adass] do
with a lot of their problems, they shove it under the carpet, pretend it
didn’t happen and move on.”
“I have found a new life and I love it” says Erlich.
In 2009, a year after Leifer’s departure, Erlich
began displaying signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. She returned
to Melbourne from Israel and became pregnant but was alarmed by her
lack of emotional response to the baby. “I couldn’t feel anything for
the child I was carrying – it scared me so much,” she says. “It got
worse after she was born. I was getting lots of flashbacks and I
literally could not deny it any more. I was suicidal, I was
self-harming and I felt like the worst mother in the world.”
She
was admitted to a mental health clinic. Her marriage broke up. Yet the
clinic proved to be her window to a life beyond the confines of the
Adass. “Until I went into hospital I had no connection with people
outside my community,” she says. “In there I met other mums and it
opened up a whole new world for me. They had the internet and I started
reading books on religion, history, philosophy – everything I could get
my hands on.”
Erlich realised she was
drifting away from the Adass and into a new life. For the first time she
weighed up whether she should pursue Leifer and the school in court,
knowing that to do so would see her forever locked out of the only
community she had known. She had by then bonded with her daughter Leah
and that helped her to see Leifer’s crimes in a more chilling light. “I
started thinking about Leifer flying to Israel and maybe committing the
same crimes there,” she says. “I now had a daughter and I couldn’t
imagine that happening to her. But I knew if I did [take legal action]
there would be no going back to the community.”
In
the biggest decision of her life, she went to court, knowing that she
was, in effect, also putting the Adass in the dock. “I knew nothing else
but that community,” she says. “I didn’t have a penny to my name, I had
left my husband and I was in a psychiatric hospital with literally
only the suitcase that I had taken there.”
Erlich
writes of how frightened she was as she sat in Moorabbin police
station, about to tell her story to the police for the first time.
“Panic pulsates my throat. The culture of silence, seeped into the
fibres of my nation, strangles my voice. My words crack and break. I
must continue and think of the motivation driving me to be present in
this moment.”
The civil trial in 2015
was a turning point for Erlich and her faith in the system. Justice
Rush’s withering judgment and the damages he ordered against the school
and Leifer finally convinced her that someone was listening. “I felt
vindicated,” she says. “I was proud of myself for sticking it through.”
Since
the verdict, Erlich has juggled nursing studies with writing her book
and being a single mum. She says she is frustrated by the fact that
Leifer remains in Israel with no immediate prospect of returning to face
her accusers. Leifer is wanted in Australia on 74 criminal counts of
child sex offences but has repeatedly claimed to be too mentally unwell
to attend extradition hearings. Late last year an Israeli judge halted
extradition proceedings and placed Leifer on a psychiatric treatment
regimen that can be extended for six months at a time for up to 10
years.
An Adass community elder, Shlomo
Abelesz, says the community would like to see the former principal
brought back to face justice. He maintains that the decision to send her
to Israel was done to keep her away from the students. “That was the
only reason they wanted to get rid of her,” he says. “But maybe yes, I
agree they should have gone to the police. But they were convinced that
had they gone to the police, [the response] would have been: ‘What can
the police do?’”
Erlich says Leifer is
using the Israeli justice system to her advantage. “I have no
confidence that she will be brought back. It’s disappointing and very
sad.” But these days she tries not to dwell on Leifer or on the world
she has left behind. She still has friends in the Adass community and
remains close to her siblings. She has just qualified as a nurse and,
after her rocky start, embraces being a mum. “I wanted to try to take
the secrecy and the shame away from my story by telling it in my own
voice. Maybe I can even inspire others,” she says with a smile. “I have
found a new life and I love it.”
