From Directions in Your Bedroom, to the Car You Drive...and The Importance Of Keeping Child Rapists Out Of Jail... The Danger That Is Gur Chassidus, and the Ignoramus that leads it...

Ger, also known as Gur, is the largest Hasidic court in Israel has unparalleled political and financial power, and its thousands of Hasidim are ruled with an iron fist. It's a community with branches across Israel and in the United States and Europe, but with the characteristics of a closed cult where the leader dictates the most intimate details of the lives of his followers, who are dependent on him for everything.

 The Gerer chasidic sect’s Communications Committee issued a declaration in the sect’s various shuls describing what it termed the “loopholes in multimedia systems in cars” and stressing that Tesla cars, which have systems which cannot be filtered, should not be purchased or used.

Entitled “Bal Yeraeh U’Bal Yimatze” [should not be seen of found] the declaration states that “after numerous incidents and tragedies which occurred, we are obligated to warn and issue an alarm that unfiltered appliances should not be seen or found in our camp in any way, both visible and hidden.

“Additionally it has become clear that in many vehicles the multimedia systems are open and exposed to the internet. Even in cases where the company claimed that it was filtered or the users believe that it has nothing untoward, in most cases the unfiltered internet can easily be reached with a number of damaging incidents occurring, may Hashem have mercy.”

The declaration placed responsibility on “each and every person not to bring such impediments to himself or to his children and not to maintain a dangerous phone appliance without a filter or supervision in his possession.”

The declaration recommended detaching the Waze application from every vehicle system and added that “Tesla vehicles cannot be detached at all from the internet system and therefore should not be purchased or used.”

Oy! Such A (big) Deal! When Normal Is The Exception!

 

In rare move, haredi magazine publishes photo of a woman — a forgotten donor to European yeshivas

Telz Yeshiva 1941 - Women In Class Photos Were The Norm (PM)

(JTA) — When readers of Mishpacha magazine opened up the Passover issue, they found two surprises. The first was the unsung, mysterious story of a prolific American philanthropist, Jennie Miller Faggen, who supported dozens of European yeshivas before World War II.

The second was a rarity in the world of haredi Orthodox publications: Miller’s photograph.

Mishpacha and other haredi magazines have long refrained from publishing photos of women, though some exceptions have been made. The publications’ editors cite traditional haredi mores regarding modesty and shielding women’s appearances. Feminist groups in the Orthodox world and elsewhere, however, say such policies demean women and aid in their erasure from the public sphere.

Mishpacha did not respond to requests for comment as to why and how it decided to include the picture of Miller, who donated tens of thousands of dollars to Orthodox educational institutions in the 1920s. Nor did Dovi Safier, who authored the article as well as a book about Miller called “Mother of all Yeshivos.”

But Orthodox feminists took notice of the photo, which depicts Miller wearing a hat and is shaded in blue. The cover of Safier’s book features the same image and design. The print version of the article also included a photograph with the face of another woman — Rebbetzin Temi Kamenetsky, the late wife of Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, a prominent Lithuanian haredi rabbi who lives in Philadelphia.

“How wonderful to hear and see that @themishpacha included these images in this week’s edition,” Chochmat Nashim, an organization that fights extremism and sexism in the Orthodox community, posted on social media last week. “We CAN come back from the trend of erasing women and include the entire Jewish family & community in our visual depictions. Ken Yirbu [the more the better].”

Historian Rivka Press Schwartz tweeted, “I’m one of those Orthodox feminist nudniks who doesn’t buy your publication because of no pictures of women. Bought your Pesach issue because of @safier’s article about Jenny Miller Faggen–and because I saw you included pictures of her. Incredible.”

Safier uncovered Miller’s philanthropic pursuits through a three-year-long reporting effort that took him through archives, letters and a Rolodex of prominent rabbis. Miller Faggen, who was born in New York but spent much of her life in the Philadelphia area, funded dozens of yeshivas across Europe and the United States, and hosted prominent rabbis at her 18-room home in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood of Philadelphia. Widowed twice, she inherited the bulk of her wealth from her first husband’s business in the city’s booming textile and real estate industries. Many of her contributions were forgotten when the yeshivas she supported were destroyed during the Holocaust.

This is not the first time Mishpacha has published photos of women. Articles in 2021 about a turn-of-the-20th century Jewish nursing home in New York City, and about the Holocaust in Telz, Lithuania, each contained prewar photos of women. Responding to a tweet about the photo of Miller in his latest article, Safier wrote, “Far from the first time. But I guess because the story is about a women [sic] it’s getting more attention.”

Mishpacha attracted particular attention in November 2016, ahead of that year’s election, when its cover image included profile views of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton facing each other, both in negative exposure and both covered in collages of their campaign symbols. After the issue was published, an editorial from Hamodia, an Israeli haredi paper, denounced the decision, arguing that a “true” haredi publication would never show an image of a woman.

“There are no – there haven’t been, and there won’t be – any pictures of women in the true haredi press, not of those who have reached high positions of sovereignty and power in their countries, and also not pictures of women in Jewish life,” the editorial read. “These are our ways of life, these are the fences that surround them, and they don’t change, and aren’t connected to political circumstances.”

A contributing editor for Mishpacha, Sruli Besser, responded at the time that the magazine engaged in “hours of conversation and deliberation with real rabbanim,” or rabbis, before arriving at the decision to print a version of Clinton’s picture.

Let's Hear It From Our "Friends" The Evangelicals & Their Supporters....For Many Christian Zionists, Israeli Protesters are a Threat to God’s Plan

 

Drawing a comparison between Netanyahu’s opposition and German Jews who supposedly allowed the Holocaust to happen because they were too “busy insulting each other [and] drunk on the wine of pride,” his underlying message is that Jews who resist Israel’s far-right agenda—even in the slightest—constitute one of the greatest existential threats to the Jewish people themselves. To some prominent Christian Zionists, the destruction of the Jews and the Jewish State threatens the critical role that Israel is meant to play in the fulfillment of certain biblical prophecies, including Jesus’ Second Coming. 

 

 

Since Prime Minister Netanyahu and his far-right coalition have sought to curtail the powers of the Israeli judiciary, effectively seizing power in perpetuity, Israeli society has erupted into some of the largest sustained protests in its history. The world has watched for months as hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrate to prevent Israel’s slide into outright authoritarianism. 

As the protests have grown, however, a number of Israel’s Christian allies have grown frantic at the discord while calling on their followers to pray for the unity of the Israeli people. Some of these Christian Zionist leaders even blame “liberal” Israeli protesters—and their supposed foreign “deep-state” funders—for widening rifts that threaten the security of the Jewish State which, they believe, plays an integral role in God’s plan.

On March 27, after the 12th consecutive week of Israeli protests against judicial overhauls, Capitol Hill Prayer Partners (CHPP), a Christian Nationalist ministry based in Washington DC, emailed an ‘Emergency News Alert’ stating: “Israel as a nation has never been in as much danger as she is right now!” The ministry names “external forces from the Deep State/globalists [who] have used their sway to funnel monies to the liberals in Israel, to fund these protests.” 

In addition to being an antisemitic trope, the idea that a group of liberal elite power players is orchestrating mass protests against authoritarian power grabs—or in favor of LGBTQ rights, racial equality or other progressive causes around the world—has become a main far-right talking point according to expert Ben Lorber, my colleague at Political Research Associates.* Many far-right pundits have attributed blame to these same forces for, among other things, inciting the Arab Spring in 2011 and orchestrating the supposed theft of the 2020 election from Trump. 

CHPP laments how internal strife is making Israel vulnerable to enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and encourages followers to pray for forgiveness for the U.S. taxpayer money it believes is funneled to the protests. Making no mention that these protests are the result of antidemocratic judicial reforms initiated by the most extreme, authoritarian government in Israel’s history, the CHPP blames Israeli protesters and—again, using antisemitic code—their supposed “globalist” funders for dividing Israeli society. 

(To add to the irony, just last week U.S. evangelical groups railed against Netanyahu’s far-right government for authoring a bill that would limit Christian groups’ ability to proselytize in Israel. In response, Netanyahu froze the bill). 

This isn’t the first time Christian Zionists have condemned Jews who push back against Israel’s far-right policies—including with antisemitic conspiracy theories. Following Netanyahu’s failed election in 2021, evangelical author Mike Evans, who claims millions of followers, blamed the anti-Netanyahu bloc for risking Israel’s downfall in a Times of Israel blog post titled “Israel’s political striptease show.” 

Drawing a comparison between Netanyahu’s opposition and German Jews who supposedly allowed the Holocaust to happen because they were too “busy insulting each other [and] drunk on the wine of pride,” his underlying message is that Jews who resist Israel’s far-right agenda—even in the slightest—constitute one of the greatest existential threats to the Jewish people themselves. To some prominent Christian Zionists, the destruction of the Jews and the Jewish State threatens the critical role that Israel is meant to play in the fulfillment of certain biblical prophecies, including Jesus’ Second Coming. 

The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ)—one of the largest and most influential Christian Zionist organizations in the world—takes a somewhat more “both-sides” approach. While acknowledging that Netanyahu has been rushing his judicial reforms and leaving little room for broad consensus, David Parsons, ICEJ Vice President & Senior Spokesman, also blames the protests, specifically calling out reservist pilots who vowed to not report for duty for placing Israel in danger “right when Iran is poised to cross the nuclear threshold.” 

At the same time, the ICEJ is comforted by Netanyahu’s recent decision to delay the judicial changes and “attempt to achieve broad consensus.” This may allow time for tensions to quell and Israeli society to reunify—or it may simply take the wind out of protesters’ sails as Netanyahu seeks a more opportune moment to push his reforms through. 

Regardless, in the wake of Netanyahu’s decision, Dr. Juergen Buehler, President of the ICEJ, reassured his followers that most of the Israeli protesters would identify as Zionists, who ultimately “want Israel to be a Jewish State as Theodor Herzl envisioned.” Indeed, the Israeli protests are filled with Israeli flags, and call for few if any changes to the current political system, let alone racial justice for Mizrahim or the end of apartheid or rights for Palestinians who’ve been denied democracy since Israel’s founding. The Israeli protesters are Zionist enough, and opposed enough to Palestinian Rights, for the ICEJ.  

Christian Zionists have long upheld their goal for unity amongst Jewish people around a Jewish-majority State in Palestine. Many Christian Zionist organizational missions go beyond simply investing in to actually relocating Jews to the State of Israel; in addition they’ve supported legislation that equates Jews with Israel and criminalizes criticism of Israel, even by Jews, as antisemitic. Cracks in Jewish unity pose a threat to Israel’s future, which is, according to some biblical interpretations, essential to God’s plan for salvation. 

It’s important to note that Christian Zionist movements include tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people around the globe who undoubtedly take a range of positions on the Israeli protests, and even on Israel itself. In an ongoing debate, some scholars have challenged the notion that End-Times theology is a significant factor for many Christian Zionists, correctly citing the prevalence of Prosperity Gospel and Reconciliation, among others, for motivating support while rightfully pointing to the Israeli government’s role in bolstering the power of Christian Zionism. Indeed, Netanyahu has long pandered to Christian Zionist supporters (and often reinforces the same antisemitic conspiracy theories espoused by U.S. far-right groups). 

While complicating simplistic notions that Christian Zionists globally are uniform in their beliefs or developed independent of any strong alliance with Israeli and Jewish groups, some studies have overcorrected by doubting the importance of Christian theologies as the foundation of contemporary Christian Zionism and undermining the ongoing existence of End-Times theologies, particularly in the growing New Apostolic Reformation movement.  

These studies also risk minimizing the anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim, and antisemitic underbelly of many Christian Zionist leaders, even as they do so in partnership, and often in conjunction, with right-wing Jewish groups. It’s a recurring pattern for prominent Christian Zionist leaders to deride liberal and progressive Jews—and especially Palestinians and Muslims—who oppose their far-right agenda. And it’s certainly not new for Christian Zionists to promote conspiracy theories that invoke deep-state and globalist references to elite liberal, and even Jewish, power ruining the State of Israel and God’s plans. 

Insisting on Jewish unity and relocation to Israel interferes with the sustainability of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, and becomes particularly manipulative when driven primarily by Christian prophetic goals, including, at times, End-Times scenarios. 

While they’re frequently omitted from the discussion, Christian Zionists are the largest, and most far-right base of support for Israel in the world, as well as the backbone of U.S. support for Israel, according to former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. It can be difficult to parse out their professed “love” for Jewish people from an underlying agenda that reinforces Israeli apartheid and marshals Jews to carry it out. All in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

https://religiondispatches.org/for-many-christian-zionists-israeli-protesters-are-a-threat-to-gods-plan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=for-many-christian-zionists-israeli-protesters-are-a-threat-to-gods-plan&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=for-many-christian-zionists-israeli-protesters-are-a-threat-to-gods-plan

Maybe it is more important to check our commitment to Jewish peoplehood than to check other people’s bags for hametz.

 How did we get here? Why was partnership and consensus so obvious to previous generations, and why have recent governments attempted ill-advised power grabs rather than conducting consensus, partnership-based politics? 

 

 

We must restore the sacred partnership of Jews, Torah and Israel

 

In religious terminology, how do we balance between Torah, peoplehood and land? Or, in Hebrew, how do we balance between Torat Yisrael, Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael? 

Jewish survival is the greatest anthropological miracle of human history. How did a nation survive a 2,000-year exile without common currency, flag or land? 

Scattered across hostile lands, we retained national fraternity and exhibited uncommon unity. What was the bonding agent of this solidarity? 

Remarkably, the heavenly word of God provided an unbreakable bond which human history could not separate. The study of God’s Torah and the performance of His rituals and commandments created a common language and an unspoken bond between Jews across the globe. Because we were bonded by common dietary laws, committed to the same Shabbat observance, and adherent to the same marital standards, it was obvious that we were one family. Without divine commandments, Jewish identity would have withered, and Jewish unity would have splintered. 

Judaism proved to be a robust and portable religion, as the word of God was powerful and hardy enough to preserve Jewish unity throughout centuries of exile. During exile, religious consciousness was based on one variable, and it was divine and all-consuming. 

Upon returning to our land, this equation radically changed, as two new religious variables were introduced. In the State of Israel, in addition to divine commandments, we possess a divine mandate to settle our land and a divine mandate to rebuild our people and attend to the needs of every Jew. A sovereign Jewish state provides a shared Jewish commonwealth for every Jew, regardless of religious orientation. Religion now incorporates three variables, not one, challenging us to juggle multiple values. It was easier when religious identity was based on only one factor.

In religious terminology, how do we balance between Torah, peoplehood and land? Or, in Hebrew, how do we balance between Torat Yisrael, Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael? 

A triangle or line? 

Many religious Jews arrange these three values as a triangle. The triangle metaphor implies inseparability and also claims identical value for each component. In a triangle, each angle is equal, and each is necessary for the construction of a triangular structure. The values of Torah, land, and peoplehood are indivisible and equivalent. 

My teacher Rav Yehuda Amital altered this geometry by describing these three values as a line, or a time line, rather than a triangle. The positioning of these values along the line reflects their chronological sequence. The genesis of Jewish peoplehood occurred upon our departure from Egypt, weeks before Torah was delivered at Sinai. According to this chronology, the necessary needs of the Jewish people supersede Torah. Halacha can never be violated, but, in a broad sense, Jewish peoplehood is the paramount value. 

Jewish nationhood and Torah each preceded our entry into the Land of Israel. Consequently, both Torah and Jewish peoplehood supersede the settlement of the Land of Israel. In the lineup of religious values, Jewish peoplehood emerges as the supreme value of religious consciousness. 

Understandably, Jewish peoplehood in the Land of Israel is more challenging precisely because we share one common country. Outside of Israel, each religious Jewish community can carve out its own independent communal space without infringing upon any other religious group. In Israel, we all share one country and must establish one common consensus. Ironically, pursuing Jewish peoplehood in the land of the Jewish people isn’t that easy. 

Sacred partnership

Despite the difficulties, the supreme value of Jewish peoplehood creates a sacred partnership between every Jew.

  Religious Jews may sharply disagree with secular Israelis over issues of religion, but we all share one common agenda and are all partners in one common historical project of resettling our land. The supreme value of Jewish peoplehood creates a scared partnership which should never be broken. 

It is precisely this issue that makes the current political climate so disturbing. Regardless of the merits or drawbacks of the current reforms, they have clearly incited national strife and deeply fissured our national unity. There are severe practical dangers to social disunity, especially in a country constantly facing security threats. Practical concerns aside, one-sided political maneuvers in contempt of even minimal national consensus ignore any sense of partnership. 

That these changes were launched by religious people is even more troubling because our sacred partnership is a religious value which should be specifically prioritized by religious people. Whatever larger religious needs these reforms may support do not justify the cost to our peoplehood and the demolition of our sacred partnership. Jewish peoplehood must take precedence.

Again, Orthodox Jews can never tolerate even minor halachic violations for the sake of any other value.

 However, these reforms aren’t advancing halachic practice but recalibrating the religious tone of our society at large. Sadly, the manner in which they are being enacted will come at great cost to Jewish peoplehood.

A lost narrative

How did we get here? Why was partnership and consensus so obvious to previous generations, and why have recent governments attempted ill-advised power grabs rather than conducting consensus, partnership-based politics? 

Part of the answer is political. We are 75 years into our experiment with democracy, and, like every democracy, we are currently struggling to properly calibrate the balances of power. Monarchies are easier to construct than democracies because they don’t require power balancing. Approximately 75 years into the history of the United States, a civil war erupted surrounding the balance of power between the federal government and states. We are experiencing similar political convulsions, which, to a large degree, are natural to the evolution of any democracy. 

But there is an additional, uniquely Jewish layer to this crisis. Unity requires a common story and a common narrative. Our two centuries of bondage in Egypt provided a common narrative which unified Jews of every stripe as they journeyed through the desert. Regardless of social, religious or economic standing, we had all been enslaved, and we all felt compelled to build a better and more ethical society, based on the will of God. 

Similarly, when the State of Israel was founded, we all shared one common narrative – our recovery from the Holocaust. Not every Jew was directly imperiled by the Holocaust, yet it was a national trauma for every Jew. Every Israeli felt compelled to build a Jewish homeland to prevent this horror from ever recurring. 

In addition to the narrative of recovering from and preventing a future Holocaust, every Israeli shared a second unifying narrative. We all faced hostile opposition to our presence in this land. As we jointly faced common enemies and a common threat, we were united in the struggle to assert our historical and religious rights to our Jewish homeland.

Often, these two unifying narratives converged into one super-narrative: Without a Jewish state, the Jewish people was too vulnerable, and we teamed up to build and protect our state, our national heritage and the life of every Jew, both in Israel and abroad. 

These two narratives are each slowly fading. Unfortunately, but understandably, as time passes and Holocaust survivors themselves pass, the Holocaust becomes less of a defining feature of Jewish and Israeli identity. Additionally, as the State of Israel stabilizes its security situation and we no longer face existential threats to our state, we are less united in our heroic efforts to protect our state. Additionally, we have experienced economic prosperity, and the pursuit of wealth is always more of an individualistic endeavor than a common enterprise. 

We are slowly losing our common story, and because of this, politics has become extreme and polarized. National consensus is losing out to partisan politics, and the partnership is fraying. Political solutions are insufficient to restore unity. We must also rebuild our national consensus, reaffirm our sacred partnership, and retell our common story. Passover is a great opportunity for all this, especially for religious Jews. 

Maybe it is more important to check our commitment to Jewish peoplehood than to check other people’s bags for hametz.

The writer is a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, a hesder yeshiva. He has smicha and a BA in computer science from Yeshiva University, as well as a master’s degree in English literature from the City University of New York.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-738512?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Judicial+reform+back+on+Knesset+s+agenda%3F&utm_campaign=April+8%2C+2023&vgo_ee=%2FqKvLtp%2FgcWxxTmkviqev4oYQIKQaiyNgfkeF3eygRAFrw%3D%3D%3Abmy61qa8mXHVA8AWfJ4f6jGc4qesFg5l

Tags Judaism Torah religion God

Israel’s former health minister Yaakov Litzman was placed under investigation the same year over allegations he had tried to pressure psychiatrists to find Leifer unfit to stand trial.

 

Malka Leifer: The story behind Melbourne sisters’ 15-year fight for justice

 

Yaakov Litzman  - Left - His Crime Boss - Head of Gur Cult With Dead Mink On His Head - Front Right

It was the drawn-out legal battle kept hidden from jurors as a 15-year battle to bring a principal to justice reached its final weeks.

Three sisters’ fight to hold Malka Leifer accountable may never have come to fruition if not for video taken by private investigators who tracked her to the West Bank settlement of Immanuel in late 2017.

The former principal of the Adass Israel School – a religious school catering to Melbourne’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community – had fled back to her home country in 2008 after allegations of the sexual abuse of students first began swirling.

Details about Leifer’s extradition from Israel are only now able to be published after a gag order expired as a Melbourne jury handed down their verdicts last week.

Victoria Police had initiated extradition proceedings in 2014 but the case stalled when an Israeli court found she was mentally unfit to stand trial.

A social worker, Chana Rabinowitz, had contacted the school board days earlier to report her client’s whispered admission that she had been sexually abused.

“She was hunched over into herself and she could only whisper what it was,” Rabinowitz told a Melbourne court last month.

“She told me she had been hurt sexually by Malka Leifer. She described some of what happened.”

Leifer had fled Melbourne with her family in the middle of the night on March 6, 2008, after receiving a warning from members of the insular community.

On Monday, a jury found the 56-year-old guilty of sexually abusing Dassi Elrich, 35, and her sister Elly Sapper, 34, while they were students and later as junior religious teachers.

She was acquitted on allegations of abusing their older sister, Nicole Meyer, 37.

The trial began on February 8 and concluded after eight weeks and one day. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Paul Tyquin.

 

The mother-of-eight had been recruited to lead religious studies at the all-girls school in 2001, to great excitement in the school.

“She came to the community and became this person that was revered as much as a rabbi, and I had never seen a woman that people looked up to like this,” Ms Erlich told the trial.

“She made me feel loved when I spent time with her … I was hoping that she would love me like a mother. I wanted to feel loved,” Ms Sapper said of their relationship.

The sisters first filed police complaints in 2011, sparking a decade-long legal battle fought through two countries’ court systems.

Leifer was arrested by Israeli police in August 2014 at the request of Australian authorities and placed on house arrest as she challenged the extradition process.

For close to two years, she avoided scheduled hearings in an Israeli court, claiming she faced panic attacks and was too unwell to attend.

Then, in June 2016, the sisters were undoubtedly shocked when news broke that Leifer had been found mentally unfit by a court-appointed psychiatrist and her extradition hearings would be delayed indefinitely while she received treatment.

Fugitive teacher Malka Leifer faced multiple extradition hearings in Israel to try to have her returned to Australia. Picture: Ynet News.

 

Her lawyer, Yehuda Fried, told news outlets at the time she struggled to get clear instructions throughout the proceedings.

Leifer’s house arrest was lifted and she quietly continued on with her life.

Appeals from Australian government officials – including then-prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews – to re-examine the case failed to gain traction in Israel.

More than 200 hours of video proof showing Leifer out-and-about doing mundane tasks such as shopping and catching public transport, spectacularly captured national and international news headlines in 2018.

The sisters had travelled to Israel and met with the anti-child abuse organisation Jewish Community Watch, which arranged for a private investigator to track her down in the gated community.

It was then they launched the Bring Leifer Back campaign to fight for her return.

The footage galvanised Israel’s police force, who launched a fresh investigation and rearrested Leifer the same year amid suspicion she was feigning her mental illness.

 

Footage captured by private investigators who worked with Jewish Community Watch revealed Malka Leifer living a fully functional and social life. Picture: Supplied.

 

A new assessment found she was able to stand trial and, by 2019, she was being held in the country’s only female prison awaiting extradition proceedings.

Israel’s former health minister Yaakov Litzman was placed under investigation the same year over allegations he had tried to pressure psychiatrists to find Leifer unfit to stand trial.

He stood down from the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, in 2022 and was sentenced to eight months jail after taking a plea deal for breach of trust.

A panel of psychiatrists engaged by the Jerusalem District Court found in 2020 that Leifer had faked her mental illness to avoid returning to Australia.

More than six years after Victoria Police first filed the request, Israel signed the extradition order in December 2020.

A female officer from Victoria Police travelled to Israel in early 2021 and Leifer was taken into Australian custody, touching down in the country on January 25.

 

Malka Leifer was rushed out of Israel before borders closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Ynet News.

During the following two years she faced a series of hearings across Melbourne courts before the case was eventually set down for a trial in February 2023.

Over seven weeks a jury heard evidence from the three sisters, police investigators, Adass Israel school staff, and psychologists and psychiatrists.

Leifer remained expressionless through the trial, sitting in adock at the back of a courtroom and was often seen reading a small gold and white coloured prayer book while silently mouthing words.

After more than 31 hours of deliberations spanning nine days, the jury re-entered the courtroom to a thick silence shortly after 3.45pm on Monday April 3.

Beyond reasonable doubt, they found Leifer guilty on five counts of rape, one count of rape by compelled sexual penetration, four counts of indecent act with a 16 or 17 year-old child, five counts of indecent assault and three counts of sexual penetration of a 16 or 17 year-old child.

The verdicts relate to incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2007 on school trips, during private education sessions at Leifer’s Elsternwick home, and backstage of a school play being performed at the Phoenix Theatre.

She was acquitted of five charges of rape and four charges of indecent assault, which were alleged to have occurred on school grounds or a June 2016 school camp in Blampied.

Israel approved the extradition request in December 2020, more than six years after it was first made by Victoria Police. Picture: Supplied.

In their testimony before the jury, the sisters said their mother had been violent and abusive growing up, and school had felt like a safe haven.

Leifer, they said, had begun to show them a “warmth and care” they were not receiving at home.

Prosecutors argued the evidence proved the former principal had targeted the girls for their vulnerability, manipulating them with her affection.

“In each instance, she started with lesser acts so she could see the reaction and escalated over time,” crown prosecutor Justin Lewis told the jury.

“As far as the accused was concerned, they were ripe for the picking.”

Leifer has vigorously maintained her innocence, with her barrister Ian Hill KC telling the jury from the outset her interactions were “proper and professional”.

Outside of court on Monday, he told reporters he had “nothing to say at this time”.

Sisters Elly Sapper, Nicole Meyer and Dassi Erlich held hands after the verdict was read out and said they were ready to move on with their lives. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

The sisters, however, held hands as they faced TV cameras and a throng of journalists to proclaim; “the whole world will know that now, she is guilty”.

“Today we can start to take the power back that she stole from us as children,” Ms Sapper said.

“We have sat in this court for going on nine weeks now, every day listening to our truth and having people try to tear that apart and tear us apart.”

Ms Meyer, whose allegations the jury acquitted Lefier on, described the feeling as “bittersweet”.

“Yes it’s bittersweet, but she is guilty,” she said.

“I turned around and looked at her … if she doesn't want to look at me, so be it.”

Ms Erlich said the abuse had held them hostage for so many years but it was now “time to start looking forward”.

“This is the beginning of our future now, throwing off how the abuse has impacted us for so many years and it’s time to start our lives,” she said.

Shortly after the verdict was handed down, Adass Israel School principal Aaron Strasser issued a statement on behalf of the school.

“On behalf of Adass Israel School, we apologise to the survivors abused by Mrs Malka Leifer while they were students here,” he said.

“We are sorry for the distress they have suffered and the impact of that abuse on their lives and families.

“We commend the survivors’ bravery in coming forward.

“Adass Israel School complies fully with all child safety standards and regulations, and we have zero tolerance for abuse of any kind.”

Leifer will return to court for sentencing at a later date. 

 

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/malka-leifer-the-story-behind-melbourne-sisters-15year-fight-for-justice/news-story/5d15676a90d7abe5583fb2c59de3737f

Leifer was found guilty on 18 counts of rape and sexual assault out of the 29 charges that she was on trial for.

 

Malka Leifer found guilty of rape, indecent assault

 

 Last year, a former Israeli minister, Yaakov Litzman, admitted to abusing his powers to try to protect Leifer from prosecution. Litzman, a haredi Orthodox politician, a member of the Gur Hassidic cult, was instructed by his rebbe/crime boss to shield her from extradition, resigned from the Knesset and was sentenced to probation and a nominal fine as part of his plea deal.

 

Malka Leifer, a former Australian school principal

 

Malka Leifer was found guilty of rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a minor, in the County Court of Victoria, Australia on Monday.

A jury found Leifer guilty of 18 of the 29 counts of sexual abuse charges against two sisters that she was on trial for but cleared her of all charges relating to a third sister.

The jury took 12 days to return a verdict after struggling to come to a unanimous decision on all charges in those days.

During the trial, which lasted six weeks, the jury heard allegations of various forms of sexual abuse on multiple occasions against sisters Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper. The incidents occurred while the sisters attended Adass Israel School in Melbourne where Leifer was the principal and were said to have happened at the school, at summer camps and in Leifer's home.

Throughout the trial, the court heard that the sisters had a difficult home life, and Leifer used this to get close to them, raping and sexually assaulting them on multiple occasions.

 

 

 Australian sisters Elly Sapper, Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer, allegedly sexually abused by former headteacher Leifer. 

 

The court also heard that because the sisters had been raised ultra-orthodox, they did not understand the sexual nature of what was done to them and therefore could not give consent to any of it.

Leifer escaped to Israel

The sisters first accused Leifer of sexual abuse in late 2007 and early 2008 after Erlich spoke to a social worker about the abuse she was subjected to. Shortly after the accusations, Leifer fled Australia to Israel where she claimed she was not mentally fit to be extradited and stand trial in Australia.

Leifer remained in Israel for more than 15 years until Israeli courts ruled her fit and she was extradited back to Australia in January of 2021 after a six-year legal battle.

The court did not hear of Leifer's escape to Israel or about the extradition affair. Media in Australia was also barred from reporting about Leifer in Israel until after the sentencing.

“Today’s guilty verdict is a great day for justice and vindication of the courageous survivors whose perseverance and dignity have been a hallmark of their long and extraordinary fight for justice.”

In the middle of the trial, Leifer was acquitted of two counts of sexual abuse because the dates of the laws used to charge her did not match the dates in which the abuse allegedly occurred.

Leifer will receive her sentence at the end of April. According to Go To Court, which was established by Australian lawyer James Stevens, a standard sentence for rape could be 10 years in Victoria with the maximum being 25. The maximum sentence for sexual assault is 10 years. Sex offenders who sexually abuse minors usually get longer sentences depending on the age of the victim.

After the verdict, the three young women who led the acquisitions against Leifer, after personally suffering sexual abuse, spoke to the media. One of them said that “we have sat in this court for nine weeks, every day listening to our truth and having people try to tear it apart. It's a hard process but with support, it's the right thing to do; not to [give Leifer] access to touch kids ever again.”

“Today’s guilty verdict is a great day for justice and vindication of the courageous survivors, Nicole, Dassi and Elly, whose perseverance and dignity have been a hallmark of their long and extraordinary fight for justice,” said VoiCSA. “We hope that today’s verdict provides them with some peace of mind and contributes to their long-term healing and well-being,” he said.

VoiCSA (originally Kol v'Oz) was established in 2016 as an Israel-based, international organization that is dedicated to combating child sexual abuse in the global Jewish community.

VoiCSA called upon the Adass Israel School “to issue an unequivocal public apology to Dassi, Elly and Nicole for its horrific failure to protect them when they were under its care,” as well as calling upon Victoria Police “to hold to account those members of the Adass Israel School’s leadership who aided and abetted Leifer’s escape to Israel from Australia after being informed of what she had done.”

Zionist Federation of Australia President Jeremy Leibler said in response to the verdict that he hopes "that the verdict brings much-needed closure to Elly, Nicole and Dassi who bravely fought for justice for many years." He added that it also "brings closure for the Australian Jewish community who have supported the brave survivors’ demands that Malka Leifer face justice in Australia. We continue to stand with Elly, Nicole and Dassi and all survivors of abuse in their fight for justice.”

Leibler continued, “a key part of their trauma was the time it took to extradite Leifer back to Australia and the clear evidence of political interference in that process. Israel must take action to ensure that such a travesty cannot recur.” 

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-736231?_ga=2.220970399.667174566.1679803536-103014047.1667283256&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&

Trump, like the Republican opportunists who cling to him like remoras under a shark and stinks like zevel on your shoes, doesn’t care about shame—he cares about getting away with it. Indeed, rather than leaving the public arena, Trump has reveled in it all, rolling around in the garbage of his own life and grunting happily about how the rules don’t apply to the real elites like him.

 But to focus on which indictment should come when, is to ignore that Trump has already admitted to his awful behavior in the events around the case. Trump (who sometimes refers to Stormy Daniels as "Horse Face") denies that he had an affair with the porn actor...

'You shall teach them with your children, to speak with them, when you sit in your home, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you arise” [Deuteronomy 11:19].

Torah Umesorah's Mission -

The chinuch of our children has been a major factor in the exponential growth of Torah and Yiddishkeit in North America over the past 80 years.

Torah Umesorah’s establishment in 1944, by Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt”l, was for the very purpose of assuring the continuity of Klal Yisroel on these shores.

 The results far surpassed his expectations. Starting with barely a handful of yeshivos, Torah Umesorah’s network today includes over 850 schools, 350,000 students and 25,000 teachers, and the quality and scope of chinuch at an all-time high.

This alone should have eliminated him as the featured speaker at a recent Torah Umesorah convention. PM

 

An American Tragedy

 

Donald Trump is about to be charged with crimes in New York. I do not know if he is guilty of any of these charges—we don’t even know the exact accusations yet—and neither do you. That’s for a jury to decide, and both Trump and the state of New York will have their day in court. In that sense, this is a good day for America, because it shows, in the most direct way possible, that no one in this country is above the law.

But this whole mess, no matter how it turns out, and no matter what other charges may come at Trump from elsewhere, is also an American tragedy. Trump’s status as a former president has not shielded him from answering for his alleged crimes. The indictment itself is shot through with tension, because Trump is, in fact, a former president and a current leading presidential candidate—which underscores the ghastly reality that no matter how much we learn about this crass sociopath, millions of people voted for him twice and are still hoping that he will return to power in the White House.

Trump’s defenders will argue that the New York case is just a local political vendetta, and that the potential crimes involved are relatively minor. As my colleague David Graham has noted, “Falsifying records is a crime, and crime is bad,” but this is like trying to get Al Capone on tax evasion, especially because “the Manhattan case seems like perhaps both the least significant and the legally weakest case.” David also notes that even some Trump critics wish Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had waited for Trump to be indicted on more important potential charges.

I’m not so sure. Trump has kept his supporters in a state of high tension over the past few weeks, first claiming that he’d be arrested on Tuesday, March 21, and then, in an appalling cultlike rally in Waco, bellowing that 2024 would be “the final battle” after previously warning that to indict him would be to court violence and civil unrest. Perhaps the New York charges have popped that bubble of tension; Trump can now go and whine about that while others prepare the case arguing that he has committed crimes against American democracy.

But to focus on which indictment should come when is to ignore that Trump has already admitted to his awful behavior in the events around the case. Trump (who sometimes refers to Stormy Daniels as "Horse Face") denies that he had an affair with the porn actor, but no one contests that he authorized paying her off, nor does his legal team deny that he lied about that money while standing in Air Force One—part of their risible argument that she was being paid hush money to keep quiet about an affair that never happened. They’re simply saying that technically, he didn’t violate any namby-pamby laws about ledger entries and campaign funding.

To our shame, we have too often let those kinds of arguments define the Trump legal saga. If Trump is brought to trial on the far more serious charge of attempting to strong-arm Georgia election officials, his defenders will claim that that indictment, too, is just local huckstering. They will find other excuses in the event that he somehow must answer for his role in trying to overturn our constitutional processes. And once again, even after looking at Trump’s own behavior, including his phone call to the Georgia secretary of state and the exhortation to the mob on January 6, too many Americans will focus on whether he committed an actual crime instead of coming to their senses and realizing that in any functional and healthy democracy, someone like Trump would have been shamed and forced into political and social exile years ago.

Trump, like the Republican opportunists who cling to him like remoras under a shark, doesn’t care about shame—he cares about getting away with it. Indeed, rather than leaving the public arena, Trump has reveled in it all, rolling around in the garbage of his own life and grunting happily about how the rules don’t apply to the real elites like him. Forget about Richard Nixon, who publicly resigned; Trump isn’t even Spiro Agnew, a man who seethed with rage at the felony corruption charges against him but had the sense not to brag about them. (Agnew insisted on his innocence for two months and then took a plea of “no contest” to a single tax-evasion charge, after which he mostly vanished from public view.)

No such luck this time. Win or lose in court, Trump is determined to bring us all into a summer-heat dumpster with him for as long as he can. And that leads to the last and most shocking thing about today’s news: Late this afternoon, New York local media reported that security was tightening up in certain areas of the city. That’s how we knew something was coming: The former president had already told us that he fully intended to trigger violence if the institutions of the law tried to touch him.

Tomorrow, all NYPD officers have reportedly been ordered to be in full uniform and ready to deploy. And again, somehow, we’ve just accepted this as the new normal. We no longer even blink when New York, a city scarred by multiple terror attacks against its innocent citizens, has to go on alert just to charge Trump with a crime. That one fact, more than any other, tells you how far down the long slide into vice and venality—and violence—Trump has dragged this country.

Every defendant, including Donald Trump, deserves the presumption of innocence. But when it comes to our civic and political innocence, Americans long ago lost whatever is left of ours.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/donald-trump-indicted/673577/

The jury in the Malka Leifer child sex abuse trial has reached unanimous verdicts on some of the charges in the case, but is yet to reveal its decision in court.

 

Malka Leifer sex abuse trial nears end as jury set to reach some unanimous verdicts

Former school principal Malka Leifer will continue to be tried on the remaining 27 charges after two were dropped.

The jury in the Malka Leifer child sex abuse trial has reached unanimous verdicts on some of the charges in the case, but is yet to reveal its decision in court.

Key points:

• The 12 person jury has indicated it will be able to reach unanimous verdicts on all 27 counts
• The former Melbourne school principal is accused of sexually abusing three sisters on school grounds 
• The jury will continue deliberations tomorrow morning

Mrs Leifer, the former principal of the Adass Israel school in Melbourne's inner-south east, has pleaded not guilty to 27 charges dating back two decades.

The complainants in the case are sisters Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, former students of the school who came forward to police.

They alleged Mrs Leifer abused them in secret on the school grounds, on school camps and at the principal's home.

Mrs Leifer faced a County Court trial that heard evidence over six weeks, with the jury retiring to consider its verdicts last Wednesday.

Around 4pm this afternoon, the jury foreperson was asked by Judge Mark Gamble whether they had reached unanimous verdicts on some charges, and whether they had been unable to do so on others.

"Yes," the foreman replied.

The jury foreman agreed that with further time to deliberate, the panel of 12 could reach unanimous verdicts on all counts.

The jury was not asked to reveal the breakdown of their finalised verdicts, nor give an indication about whether they had found Mrs Leifer guilty or not guilty on any counts.

They will resume deliberations from 10:30am on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, the jury passed Judge Gamble a note saying it was "unlikely" they would reach a unanimous decision on all charges.

"Can you please offer direction on a deadlock? Is it possible to use a majority verdict on charges?" they asked.

Judge Gamble told them to continue their discussions.

He said history had shown with time, juries had been able to reach conclusive decisions.

Mrs Leifer was in the dock to hear proceedings on Tuesday, as were the three sisters, who sat in the court gallery.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/malka-leifer-trial-sexual-abuse-trial-jury-update/102038320

We simply cannot ignore that Zionism is the only safeguard to the survival and prosperity of Jewish life today, and that Jews have longed for a homeland of their own for centuries.

 

A Message From Campus: Judaism Can’t Exist Without Zionism

George Washington University

Not long ago, while walking through George Washington University’s campus, I came across several posters with headlines that read “Judaism does not equal Zionism,” “Judaism values love,” and “Jewish values reject Zionism.”

 

One particular headline grabbed my attention: “Judaism exists without Zionism.”

 

Really? I think not. Giving this proposition the slightest consideration would entail some serious historical distortion. 

We simply cannot ignore that Zionism is the only safeguard to the survival and prosperity of Jewish life today, and that Jews have longed for a homeland of their own for centuries.

Across US campuses, the Jewish Voice for Peace organization (JVP) has become the face of Jewish anti-Zionism, in solidarity with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and numerous other organizations that seek to undermine or eliminate Israel.

JVP claims that Zionism corrupts Jewish values of “justice, equality, and dignity,” and that Israel’s eradication will foster peace and a return to authentic Jewish values.

JVP does perhaps get one thing right: Judaism can exist without Zionism — but only as a religious philosophy. Indeed, modern Zionism began as a secular movement, yet its DNA is inextricably shared with Judaism. Jewish history, culture, and values make them not only inseparable, but interdependent.

Zionism is defined as the movement for self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel. Theodore Herzl, a secular Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, conceived Zionism as a means for Jews to have a “normal existence” in a state of their own, in the face of incessant and violent antisemitism.

Zionism has enabled both diaspora and Israeli Jews to practice their religion in relative safety and engage in Tikkun Olam, the Jewish principle of repairing the world. It has contributed to the peaceful practice of Jewish worship on almost every continent, even in some regions once hostile to Jews.

According to a 2022 survey published by the American Jewish Committee about the state of antisemitism in America, 90% of the public agrees that saying “Israel has no right to exist” is inherently antisemitic. Yet, contrary to common sense, the claim that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is widely contested, especially across college campuses where BDS is highly active.

This contradiction illustrates that many college students are either ignorant about Zionism, or have been turned against Israel by lies from groups like JVP, SJP, and more.

To be clear, anti-Zionism is shorthand for “Israel has no right to exist.” And when we see anti-Zionism on the rise, we know that antisemitic persecution will follow.

BDS makes no secret of its mission to seek an “end of Israel” — and they use JVP to perpetuate their anti-Jewish bigotry. Tragically, well-intended JVP members have fallen victim to BDS propaganda.

Make no mistake, anti-Zionist Jew-hatred is an attack on all Jews. Dr. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a BDS supporter, denigrates Tikkun Olam as a philosophy that “camouflages [Israel’s] oppressive power”; he also spews antisemitic tropes such as “Jews use money for nefarious purposes.” These same efforts to demonize and delegitimize Jewish self-determination trace directly to ancient Jew-hatred rooted in Christian blood-libel propaganda used during the Spanish Inquisition, Russian pogroms, and the Nazi Holocaust.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah terrorist group, once wrote, “If we searched the entire world for a person more despicable, weak and feeble in mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew.” He then adds, “Notice, I do not say the Israeli.”

The charter of another terrorist group, Hamas, reads, “the Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.” In essence, Hitler’s Final Solution is what anti-Zionism espouses after all.

JVP envisions not a two-state solution for the neighborly coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis, but one bi-national state for both peoples. Eventually, this will mean Israel cannot remain a democracy, or will become an Arab state.

Regional demographics cannot be ignored: While only 7 million Jews inhabit Israel, more than 300 million Muslim Arabs occupy neighboring Middle Eastern nations. The Pew Research center expects a 74% increase in the Middle Eastern Muslim population by 2050. Clearly, Jews will always remain the regional minority.

Disavowing Zionism, as JVP suggests, effectively subjects Jews to their former state of precariousness — to the same conditions that Jews endured in old Europe, the Soviet Union, or the Arab world before Israel’s independence. Israel provided the only viable safeguard for three million Soviet Jews and approximately one million Jews from Arab lands who were expelled from the communities they inhabited for centuries. Zionism made this possible.

Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once said, “I can live as a Jew outside Israel, but not without Israel.” Over the centuries, Jews have emphatically written things down, driven by the tenet of “le dor va dor” — from generation to generation. Annual Haggadah readings during Passover remind Jews of liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt, calling upon Jews to fight for freedom and believe in God.

Despite all of Israel’s internal turmoil, modern Zionism remains rooted in compromise while enabling the existence of Judaism. It was for this purpose that the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan established side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states. Israel accepted the plan but, to this day, militant Palestinian organizations prevent the establishment of a formal Palestinian nation.

Palestinian Human Rights activist Bassem Eid has said, “Why trust the BDS? Why trust the Jewish Voice for Peace? We lost trust with these people … Everybody knows the BDS agenda is to destroy Israel and not to bring peace. The Palestinians should not participate in this.”

The Jewish value of Pikuach Nefesh always preserves life — existence — over death. A true Jewish voice for peace would engage with Zionism through the lens of Jewish values, employing the Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam for constructive criticism. Perhaps JVP should change its name.

By Sabrina Soffer, the commissioner of the Presidential Task Force to Combat Antisemitism at George Washington University.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/03/29/a-message-from-campus-judaism-cant-exist-without-zionism/