Rabbi Mirvis Is Not Giving The Usual Mushy Rosh Hashanah Message.... Ephraim Mirvis says failure to protect children must not be tolerated in wake of report into abuse of children in religious settings.

 

Chief Rabbi of The UK: Child sexual abuse report is ‘urgent wake-up call’

Ephraim Mirvis says failure to protect children must not be tolerated in wake of report into abuse of children in religious settings.

 

 

A devastating report into child abuse in religious organisations is an “urgent wake-up” call, the Chief Rabbi has said. 

Yesterday’s report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found “shocking failures” in many religious settings to protect children, including in Jewish organisations.

Some major Jewish organisations did not even have a child protection policy, it found, while concerns were heard about potential for child abuse in unregulated yeshivas. (READ - HAREDI and HASIDIC YESHIVAS)

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who was praised for his “clear communication” of the “abhorrence of child protection failures”, said everyone must take greater responsibility to protect children.

“The report confirms beyond any doubt that perpetrators of abuse find it all too easy to hide in an environment where religious institutions command a great deal of respect and where a hierarchy of religious leadership is in place,” he said.

“These, together with a variety of other cultural factors, including a power imbalance and fear of reputational damage, have made our children more vulnerable to the scourge of abuse.

“This cannot be allowed to continue any longer.”

He added: “The failure to protect our children, and to report abuse where it occurs, is a complete abrogation of our responsibility to God and to one another. It cannot and must not be tolerated.”

The report recommended that all religious organisations should have a child protection policy, and that the Government should legislate to amend the definition of full-time education.

Among the shocking examples child abusers attempting to hide from justice was the case of paedophile Todros Grynhaus, a prominent member of the Manchester Charedi community.

Grynhaus was convicted to 13 years and two months in prison in 2013, with a judge finding he had “felt able to rely on a prevailing attitude of insularity” in the community to avoid being held to account for his crimes.

Some Jewish organisations, including the United Synagogue, were praised for being a “rare example” of an umbrella body which provides support for safer recruitment.

The United Synagogue’s chief executive, Steven Wilson, welcomed the report, saying the movement would support “more formal and proportionate regulation of child protection within religious organisations and would be pleased to work with the Inquiry on this important piece of work.”

Other Jewish bodies were criticised, however, including the strictly-Orthodox Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations (UOHC).

The inquiry said that there was “a mismatch between the organisation’s stated position and its actual practice in responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.”

The organisation’s Rabbi Jehudah Baumgarten had told the inquiry that the rabbinate was clear child sexual abuse must be reported to the relevant authorities.

 

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/chief-rabbi-child-sexual-abuse-report-is-urgent-wake-up-call/

Child Sexual Abuse is Not a Recent Phenomena!

 

Does Ishmael Molest Isaac?

 

In Genesis 21:9, Sarah sees Ishmael מְצַחֵק metzacheq and tells Abraham to banish the boy. The verb has long been interpreted innocently, as laughing or playing, yet this may not be what it means.

Molesting Isaac

The sexual connotation of the verb צ.ח.ק in piʿel was noted by the 2^nd century C.E. sage, Rabbi Akiva, who makes use of it in interpretation Ishmael’s metzacheq-ing (Genesis Rabbah §53, Theodor-Albeck ed.):

אמר ר' שמעון ר' עקיבה היה אומר בו דבר לגניי,

R. Simon said: R. Akiva would read this term as something negative.

דרש ר' עקיבא... אין מצחק אלא גילוי עריות. היך דאת אמר לצחק בי

R. Akiva taught: “…Metzacheq means sexual transgression, as it says [in the Joseph story, when Potiphar’s wife addressed her husband]: ‘to tzacheq with me.’

מלמד שהיתה שרה רואה את ישמעאל מכבש גנות וצד נשי אנשים ומענה אותן,

This teaches that Sarah would see Ishmael forcing his way into gardens, grabbing hold of other men’s wives, and raping them.”^[18]

While sexual violence is a good translation of the verb here, R. Akiva’s imagery of Ishmael crashing through people’s yards as a serial rapist goes beyond the text. If we take R. Akiva’s insight, however, and apply it to the LXX’s text which includes the words “with her son Isaac,” I believe the meaning becomes clear. The LXX text offers an exact grammatical parallel to the Isaac and Rebecca story:

וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה יִצְחָק מְצַחֵק אֵת רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ	*וַתֵּרֶא שָׂרָה אֶת־בֶּן־הָגָר הַמִּצְרִית... מְצַחֵק אֵת יִצְחָק בְּנָה[19]
And (Abimelech) looked, and he saw Isaac metzacheq-ing his wife Rebecca.	And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian… metzacheq-ing her son Isaac.

In other words, Sarah witnessed Ishmael molesting her son. We can better understand Sarah’s anger, and her need to send Ishmael away. His indecent and abhorrent behavior alone warrants disinheriting him, but more importantly, he should not be allowed to remain in the house to continue to abuse her son.

According to this reading, Sarah is not simply taking the main wife’s prerogative by banishing the son of the concubine as a possible future competitor with Isaac; she is protecting her son from the sexual predator in their midst.

 

READ THE ENTIRE ESSAY:

https://www.thetorah.com/article/does-ishmael-molest-isaac

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the leading rabbi of the Ashkenazi non-hassidic ultra-Orthodox community, has stated that complaints over sexual abuse should be made to the police, in comments which have been released to the public by the rabbi’s advisors.

 

Kanievsky says go to police over sexual abuse incidents - בוקר טוב

 

(I Urged All 15 Years ago)

Listen:

https://www.sfjny.org/images/stories/mp3s/5-UOJ%20English.mp3

https://www.sfjny.org/images/stories/mp3s/14-UOJ%20Yiddish.mp3

https://www.sfjny.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=67

 

Comments made in video with head of victims support organization are the first such public ruling by the senior haredi leader

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky seen at his home in the city of Bnei Brak, on March 17, 2021.

 

 

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the leading rabbi of the Ashkenazi non-hassidic ultra-Orthodox community, has stated that complaints over sexual abuse should be made to the police, in comments which have been released to the public by the rabbi’s advisors.

 

The comments were made three years ago but have only now been publicly disclosed in a video seen by The Jerusalem Post of the meeting in which the rabbi stated his position. Kanievsky previously stated in 2015 regarding a specific case that a victim could report his abuse to the police, but the new comments refer in general to all incidents of sexual abuse and the video of his ruling was officially approved for release by the rabbi’s advisers.

 

Kanievsky made his remarks in a meeting with Rabbi Asher Melamed, director of the Israeli Protection Center, which works to prevent sexual abuse in the haredi community and assist the victims of such abuse.

 

In the video, Kanievsky’s grandson Aryeh Kanievsky asks the rabbi, in the presence of Melamed, whether someone should file a police complaint against a suspected sex abuser.

 

“Go to the police quietly,” Kanievsky said.

 

Asked if it was possible to ignore legal obligations to report criminal sexual abuse, the rabbi said, “No.”

 

Israeli law requires that criminal sexual abuse by people in various positions of authority, such as teachers, doctors and nurses, must be reported.

 

When Kanievsky said “quietly,” Melamed told the Post, he meant the identities of those involved should be protected and all due caution taken to the extreme sensitivities of such issues in the haredi community.

 

“This is a dramatic development,” Melamed said. “Rabbi Kanievsky, the great Torah scholar of his generation,” is saying clearly and sharply that one must report sex abusers to the police and that sexual abuse is akin to murder of the soul.”

 

Due to societal sensitivities in the haredi community, there are many obstacles to people reporting sexual abuse, he said.

 

Prohibitions against using non-religious judicial systems, against speaking badly of others and against desecrating God’s name are all severe impediments within the community to reporting that someone has been sexually abused, Melamed said.

 

“Here, the great Torah scholar of the generation is saying, ‘There is no moiser [being an informer] when it comes to sexual abuse; go and report it to the police,’” he said. “And, furthermore, he says one cannot ignore the obligation to report sexual abuse. So this is a dramatic step.”

 

Problems of sexual abuse in the haredi community have become so severe, including extremely high-profile cases with multiple victims such as that of Zaka founder and head Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, that the time was ripe for such comments by the rabbi to be made public, Melamed said.

 

There is very little dialogue about the issue of sexual abuse in the haredi community due to its highly conservative character. But it appears that Kanievsky and his associates now feel comfortable addressing the problem publicly.

 

 

 

A haredi family walks down the street in the Makor Baruch neighborhood of Jerusalem 

 

 

Shana Aaronson, director of the Magen organization which combats sexual abuse in Israel, said that increasing numbers of ultra-Orthodox rabbis do now recommend that complaints be filed to the police about sex abuse. 

 

But she added that there is still too much trust placed in alleged sex abusers, who often themselves approach authoritative rabbis and claim that false accusations have been made against them. 

 

The rabbis, who do not have the capability to properly investigate the claims, often believe the first person who approaches them, often creating problems for victims, Aaronson said.

Tags crime haredim sexual abuse

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/kanievsky-says-go-to-police-over-sexual-abuse-incidents-678178?_ga=2.127295949.1520215445.1630261805-1969581575.1579377799&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israel+registers+almost+11%2C000+cases+in+a+day%2C+marking+new+record&utm_campaign=August+31%2C+2021+Day&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

NY Jewish institutions hit with 150 child sex abuse lawsuits since 2019

Claims were filed after Child Victims Act opened up a two-year window for abuse survivors to seek redress for incidents that otherwise fell outside of the statute of limitations

The Ramaz School’s Morris and Ida Newman Education Center in New York City

JTA — At least 150 child sex abuse lawsuits were filed against Jewish institutions in New York over the past two years, under a special law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations barring old claims, according to an analysis of the New York court system by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

This look-back window for reviving allegations was created by the Child Victims Act of 2019 and it led to a dramatic wave of lawsuits that peaked just ahead of the August 14, 2021 deadline. Survivors took advantage of the CVA window to file nearly 11,000 civil suits against individuals and institutions, according to data provided by the New York’s Office of Court Administration.

Only a small fraction of the total involve Jewish institutions, but the number is high enough to reflect a widespread desire among Jewish survivors to hold officials accountable and expose policies and practices that allegedly enabled the abuse.

The number is also a function of the fact that New York is home to almost two million Jews, far more than any other state, and is the seat of the headquarters of nearly all major Jewish institutions. The bulk of cases involving Jewish institutions were filed in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The lawsuits feature accusations across virtually every denomination of Judaism. The institutions named include summer camps, elementary and high schools, youth movements, community centers, providers of services for disabled people, foster care agencies, and synagogues.

Among the lawsuits filed were at least three against the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, with plaintiffs claiming that the organization negligently or willfully allowed one of its regional directors, Ed Ward, to sexually abuse them. Two of the lawsuits were filed hours before the August 14 deadline, after The Times of Israel published a story featuring one of Ward’s alleged victims, who chose to speak publicly about the abuse for the first time.

Yeshiva University’s Mendel Gottesman Library

 

While some of the institutions targeted by new lawsuits appear not to have been associated previously with child sex abuse claims, many others have been the subject of allegations for some time.

There are at least 11 lawsuits, for example, against SAR Academy, a Modern Orthodox school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, which has been embroiled for years by accusations that two former teachers had molested students. One of the teachers, Stanley Rosenfeld, admitted to molesting hundreds of boys throughout his life.

After the SAR Academy revelations, two other New York schools that employed Rosenfeld, the Ramaz School in Manhattan and Westchester Day School in the northern suburbs, launched sexual abuse investigations. Both schools are now also subject to multiple CVA lawsuits.

In another high-profile case, Yeshiva University was accused of harboring child sex abusers at its affiliated boys’ high school in the 1950s through the ’80s. Dozens of men came together to sue the institution in 2014, but their suit was rejected because of an expired statute of limitations. Now, Yeshiva University has been named in at least a dozen CVA cases.

Non-Jewish institutions that had previously been the subject of highly publicized abuse claims also saw many more suits filed during the look-back period. Thousands of lawsuits against Catholic clergy appeared, leading four of the eight dioceses in New York to file for bankruptcy protection, over the last two years. Another thousand lawsuits name the Boy Scouts of America, whose record on child abuse has been a focus of extensive news coverage.

Initially, the window to revive cases that had been barred because of the length of time elapsed since the alleged abuse was set to last one year, and end in August 2020. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disruption of the justice system, New York lawmakers extended the deadline for another year. They also changed the statute of limitations for future instances of abuse and made a variety of other amendments to lift restrictions on legal actions by survivors.

 

SAR Academy in the Bronx, New York

 

While the CVA triggered a spike in public allegations, it is impossible to extrapolate from the data to determine how prevalent child sexual abuse is in the Jewish community or particular Jewish movements. Experts say that in the Jewish community, as well as the wider world, sexual abuse is far more common than what appears in law enforcement statistics or the court record.

Trauma and feelings of shame combine to discourage survivors from coming forward. The skepticism baked into the rules and norms of the justice system is also a factor. Statutes of limitations can cause survivors to lose opportunities for recourse; the CVA offered an opportunity, but for survivors to file lawsuits, they had to have known about the look-back window and felt compelled to use it.

Advocates for sexual abuse survivors in the Jewish community worked to raise awareness about the look-back period and watched with anticipation as lawsuits entered the New York court system ahead of the August 14 deadline.

For Asher Lovy, who heads the survivor advocacy group Za’akah and lobbied lawmakers in support of the look-back window, learning of the final tally of cases elicited a mixed reaction.

“I feel two ways about it,” Lovy said. “I am gratified many victims are availing themselves of the CVA, especially since I spent so many years fighting for its passage. But there remain a lot of abusers who are not going to be held to account. There are survivors who will have never known that CVA existed and those will never feel empowered to come forward.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ny-jewish-institutions-hit-with-150-child-sex-abuse-lawsuits-since-2019/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2021-08-31&utm_medium=email

Rabbinical court of haredi rabbis rules that rabbis Yitzhak Tufik and Moshe Tufik committed ‘severe and obscene transgressions’ against their students …

 

Sexual abuse by two rabbinic brothers suspected at Be’er Yehuda Yeshiva in Jerusalem

 

Rabbinical court rules students should no longer enroll in schools run by Yitzhak and Moshe Tufik, advises victims to file complaints with police -

“It is utterly forbidden to send yeshiva students to the Be’er Yehudah Yeshivot and those who assist in registering students there, and all the more so those who assist in attempts to cover up the facts, are guilty of a sin too heavy to bear, because they bear the sins of many in taking kosher students down to the nethermost pit,” wrote the rabbis. “Since rabbinical court in our days has no enforcement ability in these matters, the rabbinical court permits and even recommends every student who was harmed by the staff of the yeshivas mentioned to file complaints with the police, and speedily.”

 

 Students study at a yeshiva in Jerusalem

 

An ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court has found that two brothers who head a Jerusalem yeshiva have for years allegedly sexually assaulted their high school and post-high school students.

In a Friday ruling, the panel of five prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis said that brothers Yitzhak and Moshe Tufik present a “serious threat” to students and advised that no students should enroll at their Be’er Yehuda yeshiva, located in the Sanhedria neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Yitzhak is dean of the upper yeshiva and Moshe is dean of the high school yeshiva, which is well-known in the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox community.

The religious panel, which has no criminal jurisdiction, urged any students or former students who were assaulted by the brothers to file a complaint with the police.

“Over several years, dozens of youths were severely harmed by serious things that we cannot put in writing, and even right now the serious acts continue,” the rabbinical court said in a statement of its findings.

Several formal complaints have been filed in recent days and Yitzhak Tufik was questioned by police on Sunday, the Haaretz daily reported.

Around 10 former students testified before the rabbinical court, which did not summon the Tufik brothers themselves. Most of the complaints were against the elder of the brothers, Yitzhak, who is accused of more serious offenses.

A source familiar with the allegations told Haaretz the panel had evidence supporting the claims, including letters and recordings.

Moshe Tufik rejected the accusations and the ruling.

“The court did not summon us and did not speak with us and we heard about the ruling by reading of it on the internet,” he told Haaretz.

He called the ruling “a death sentence on innocent people” and said the claims against him and his brother were being made by former students seeking revenge.

“Not a single one has come before us and said that we did something to him. Everyone knows that our yeshiva is the most God-fearing,” he said.

The brothers have faced previous accusations of abuse and following an earlier rabbinical court hearing had committed to abide by restrictions intended to prevent the alleged assaults. The court said that it was making its ruling public because they had violated those terms, without elaborating.

According to the report, some senior rabbis in the ultra-Orthodox community who were supposed to sign the court ruling ultimately declined to do so.

One of those who did sign was Rabbi Zion Boaron, who is a candidate to become the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel. Three years ago, Boaron was on a similar court panel that had warned the brothers over allegations against them, though that ruling was not widely publicized.

At the time, Yitzhak Tufik signed a commitment to not be alone with his students under any circumstances. He also committed to not enter the dormitories or participate in any trips with the students.

In addition, the rabbi pledged to not give lessons to prospective grooms, a common practice in the chaste ultra-Orthodox community. Former students have claimed it was during such lessons that some of the assaults were carried out, Haaretz said.

However, Tufik later claimed that he only agreed to make those commitments to “calm the waters,” according to Haaretz.

In the wake of those developments, the brothers appealed to another private rabbinical court to investigate the claims. That court heard the testimony of former students and also heard the brothers’ version. In a ruling published two years ago, that rabbinical court found that “there is no suspicion or nothing untoward, and everything there [at the yeshiva] is conducted in the best way,” Haaretz reported.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-brothers-suspected-of-sex-abuse-at-their-jerusalem-yeshiva/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2021-08-30&utm_medium=email

Israeli children’s average level of knowledge in mathematics, science and reading is below that of every developed country, the Shoresh report showed. Educational gaps in primary education within Israel are also much higher. And the country has more students who do not reach the minimum level of knowledge set by the OECD – even without considering most ultra-Orthodox children, who do not study the materials and therefore do not participate in international exams.

 

Israel’s education system is a ‘ticking time bomb’

 

A new report has shown that 50% of Israel's students are getting a third-world education.

Ultra orthodox jewish kids seen the first day of school at an Ultra-Orthodox school in Neve Yaakov Neighborhood of Jerusalem on August 9, 2021.

 

 

Some 50% of Israeli children from the country’s fastest-growing sectors are getting a third-world education that will not be able to support a first-world economy, without which there will be no first-world health, welfare and defense systems, according to a new report published by the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research.

 

“The absence of a first-world ability to defend itself in the world’s most violent region will jeopardize the State of Israel’s very existence,” Prof. Dan Ben-David, who authored the 2021 report, told The Jerusalem Post. “This is an existential threat.”

 

Israel has enjoyed one of the world’s highest fertility rates for quite some time. The most recent report shows that Israeli families have an average of 3.1 children – a minimum of an entire child more than any other OECD country.

 

Families in Mexico and Turkey have an average of 2.1 children. The rest of the countries in the list average between one and 1.9.

 

 

 

Students and parents protest outside the Municipality in Tzfat after their school was closed allegedly due to safety deficiencies. August 25, 2021

 

 

However, those children are being born mostly into certain sectors: Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and Arab Israeli students each make up more than one-fifth of Israel’s first graders today, about 43% in total.

 

Most haredi students do not even study the core curriculum. The average score of Arab Israelis in the basic subjects is far below the entire developed world.

 

The education provided to students in Israel’s social and geographical peripheries is often inadequate as well.

 

 That’s about 50% of students, and it “turns the national education picture into a ticking time bomb,” Ben-David said.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the fundamental problems of the education system, bringing to the forefront challenges that had existed for years prior, despite continual investment.

 

The Education Ministry budget is larger even than that of the Defense Ministry, yet students are simply not making the grade.

 

Israeli children’s average level of knowledge in mathematics, science and reading is below that of every developed country, the Shoresh report showed. Educational gaps in primary education within Israel are also much higher. And the country has more students who do not reach the minimum level of knowledge set by the OECD – even without considering most ultra-Orthodox children, who do not study the materials and therefore do not participate in international exams.  

 

Israel’s non-religious Jewish schools rank below a third of the developed countries, when looking at the most recent average achievement scores in 25 OECD countries and in Israel on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam, which evaluates what students know in reading, mathematics and science and what they can do with that knowledge.

 

The country’s religious schools fall below 80% of those countries. Arab Israelis fall at the very bottom, including beneath nine of the 10 Muslim countries that participated in the most recent PISA exam.

 

While Israel cannot be compared to the United States in terms of population size, the US, like Israel, can be divided into four major ethnic groups. In the US, PISA scores show, Asians and whites are getting a better education than every student in every developed country, achieving an average score of 549 on the exam.

 

Israel’s non-religious students average 509. Israel’s religious students average 485.

 

However, American Hispanics achieve only 470, while African Americans have almost the lowest score – 436. But there is one group that achieves lower: Arab Israelis achieve an average of 372.

Moreover, Israel has the highest percentage (33%) of students in any OECD country scoring at or below “level 1” in mathematics, science and reading on the PISA exam, on which one is the lowest score and six is the highest.

 

“If education is a jumping-off board to the marketplace, with these gaps in knowledge, you cannot expect equality in future generations,” Ben-David said.

 

 

Israelis return to school amid coronavirus concerns, September 1, 2020 

 

 

So, why is this happening?

 

THE EDUCATION system likes to blame the country’s large classrooms as the reason children are struggling to learn. But according to the Shoresh report, while this may be a contributing factor, not all Israeli classrooms are large, and there is no explanation for why efforts have not been made to reduce class size given the number of teachers that Israel employs per student – higher than average.

 

The number of students per teacher in Israeli elementary schools is nearly identical to OECD averages, according to the report, and the middle and high schools have fewer children per teacher than the OECD average.

 

Additionally, the number of instruction hours in Israel is greater than in most OECD countries.

As such, Ben-David pointed to a different challenge: the quality of Israeli teachers.

 

He said that the knowledge levels of undergraduate Israeli education students are very low – both compared to other Israeli college and university students and when compared to others in the developed world.

 

Some 79% of Israelis study to be teachers in one of the country’s teaching colleges, another 17% learn in general colleges and 4% are students in regular universities. The average psychometric score for those studying in teaching colleges is nearly 25% lower than the average for Israeli university students, the score is almost one-third (32%) lower for those who are accepted to general colleges, and still 9% lower even for those who learn to teach at the university level.

 

The situation becomes even more acute when looking at how Israeli teachers rank on the OECD’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) test, which examines the basic knowledge and skills of adults ages 16-64. Israeli literary teachers’ skills are close to the bottom of the developed world, and the knowledge of Israel’s math teachers is the lowest among developed countries.

 

Ben-David stressed that this situation is not because teachers in Israel are underpaid. He said that “contrary to Israeli conventional wisdom, the country’s teachers’ salaries are higher than the national average salary and are also higher than average teachers’ salaries in developed countries.”

 

Specifically, Israeli elementary school teachers make 3% more than the average received by their OECD counterparts, middle school teachers 16% more, and high-school teachers 23% more when looking at what teachers make per hour of instruction.

 

“Israel regards brain power as its primary natural resource. Its hi-tech sector – nearly the only economic sector that’s thriving economically in the global arena – does not have nearly the number of workers with university-level educations that it needs. How can teachers who could not even get accepted to universities themselves educate children at a level that could bring them there?” Ben-David asked. “How can we expect our kids to reach university and be a part of modern society if their teachers are not at that level?”

 

As Israel goes back to school on September 1, rethinking its classroom models to keep kids safe from coronavirus, Ben-David said there is an equally urgent need to reimagine the way that Israel chooses, trains and compensates its educational staff.

 

“The system is not functioning well,” he stressed. “We need an overhaul of the entire system.”

While the sky is unlikely to fall this year or next, Ben-David told the Post that if Israel does not act soon, there will be “a point of no return.”

 

He highlighted the situation in Beirut that was brought on in large part by demographics – a less fertile, more educated elite sector of society was overturned over time by a more fertile, less-educated poor population.

 

“It is hard for young people today to imagine that Beirut was once called the Paris of the Middle East,” Ben-David said. “Today, it is a poverty state at the brink of explosion.... Countries do fail.”

 

To ensure that Israel is equally a success story in 2065 as it is today, Ben-David said that when it comes to education, “Israel must get its act together while we still can.”

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israels-education-system-is-a-ticking-time-bomb-677966?_ga=2.63218927.1520215445.1630261805-1969581575.1579377799&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=COVID%3A+Booster+opened+to+all%2C+jabbed+with+3rd+dose+exempt+from+isolation&utm_campaign=August+29%2C+2021+Night&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

No images of women could be printed on the pages of books or newspapers, or kept at stores or in homes....No woman under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan ever enjoyed the basic human right of speaking her mind or dressing as she liked. Women who flouted any of the above commandments were subjected to harsh, undreamed-of and ruthless punishments by the religious police.

 

Taliban’s Regulations For Women

It will send chills down your spine. 

 

 

 

 

Conventional media have put all their resources into whitewashing the brutalities of the Taliban and giving them an image makeover, so as to make them acceptable to the modern world and perhaps win these mountain savages a seat at the United Nations. They tell us that Taliban 2.0 is a whole different entity and is not comparable to the Taliban that had wreaked havoc in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. After all, the Muslim group has promised to honor women rights and allow them to continue to work as usual. Little girls could receive education as well.

We are a little confused by the Taliban’s commitment to permitting girls to go to school, because quite recently, Taliban jihadis were going door-to-door hunting down girls as young as twelve years old, to take them as sex slaves. We have learned of a woman being lashed for wearing revealing slippers and another burka-clad woman being shot dead for not covering her face enough. And these atrocities have happened under the rule of the moderate, women’s-rights-acknowledging Taliban 2.0.

Leaders of the Muslim outfit have clarified their views on women’s rights in the country: “The rights of women will be under the Sharia law,” affirmed Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, during their first press conference since conquering Kabul.

And what are the rights granted to women by this esteemed Islamic law? Let’s look at the “rights” Afghan women enjoyed during Taliban 1.0 from 1996 to 2001; or shall we call them impositions?

Women were not allowed to walk out of their homes without a burqa covering every inch of their skin, including their feet, hands and face. Most women during that period opted for the shuttlecock burqa that covered them from head to toe; there was a little gap for the eyes, but with a net or mesh covering the gap so that their eyes couldn’t be seen. It was mandatory for every woman to be accompanied by a male family member – a blood relative – while she was out on the street.

No man should be able to hear the footsteps of a woman, hence, high heels or any kind of footwear that produced a sound while walking were banned from use by women.

A woman’s voice must not reach the ears of a man who is not related to her. Hence she must watch the level of sound she was producing while talking. Would it be “Islamophobia” if we said that the Taliban had perfected the textbook version of silencing a woman?

Again, as women were prohibited from being viewed by men who were not related to her by blood, it was mandatory that the windows of all ground floors be painted in a dark tint, covered, or shut at all times, just in case a woman passed by and became visible to a man in the ground floor.

Also, women were barred from standing at the balconies of their houses, as that could allow men on the streets or male neighbors to catch a glimpse of them.

The word “woman” was removed from all public places or names of public places.

Women were precluded from having their pictures taken or being filmed. No images of women could be printed on the pages of books or newspapers, or kept at stores or in homes.

It goes without saying that women were not allowed to be in movies or on television, or to work at radio stations. They were forbidden from forming groups outdoors or holding public gatherings.

Women have never been allowed to work in offices under the Taliban. They cannot work as journalists, bankers, teachers, nurses, doctors or hold administrative positions, as these jobs would land them amidst male colleagues who are not related to them. Office jobs held by women were subsequently passed on to their male family members.

Little girls were banned from going to school. Numerous schools imparting education to girls have been bombed or burned down by the Taliban, not only in Afghanistan, but in several countries where they have gained the slightest foothold.

 

 

No woman under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan ever enjoyed the basic human right of speaking her mind or dressing as she liked. Women who flouted any of the above commandments were subjected to harsh, undreamed-of and ruthless punishments by the religious police. They could be stoned to death, mutilated, or given hundreds of lashes with a meter-long metal lash. Many of these women perished in the midst of receiving their penalty.

Afghanistan in 1996 witnessed a young woman’s finger being chopped off by the Taliban; she had dared to paint her nails. A woman named Bibi Aisha was forced into a nightmarish marriage as a trade-off to settle a family dispute. When she tried to escape the violent and abusive marriage, the Taliban, to shame her for her act of disobedience and to set a warning example for the other young women in the community, severed her nose and ears.

One must be an absolute ignoramus living in denial to even begin to trust that the Taliban will leave the Afghan women alone this time.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/talibans-regulations-women-ashlyn-davis/

The widespread rejection of COVID vaccines brings this into high relief for a couple of reasons. First, the selfishness of those who reject the vaccine affects not only the individual who makes that choice but the broader public. Their decision not only puts them at risk but also the unwitting person exposed to them later. At least with cancer, poor choices only affect those making them.

 

From Cancer to COVID: Is There a Fix for Willful Medical Ignorance?

H. Jack West, MD

The patient saw me for a second opinion after developing metastatic disease, but he'd initially been diagnosed with locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). His oncologist had appropriately proposed treatment with concurrent chemoradiation followed by durvalumab. He listened to the rationale and the evidence, but he refused to pursue it, favoring alternative medicine instead.

A repeat scan several months later showed obvious progression. Even though it was potentially treatable — including with curative intent — he demurred again.

Several months down the line, he developed back pain heralding a new spinal metastasis. Only then did he accept that perhaps conventional, evidence-based anticancer therapy was worth pursuing. Of course, by that time the window of opportunity to treat with the hope of cure had closed.

But in other ways, it isn't too late for him. He can at least benefit from subsequent treatments for advanced NSCLC. Too many other patients I've seen have eschewed conventional medicine so long that their poor performance status precludes standard therapies that would have been effective had they pursued them as something other than a final act of desperation.

Corollaries to Coronavirus

Though this dynamic has existed for decades in oncology, the current rejection of the coronavirus vaccine, on a massive scale involving a significant minority of the US population, is a reflection of this same willful ignorance.

In 2008, I started a nonprofit organization — the Global Resource for Advancing Cancer Education — dedicated to providing free, timely, and credible information to cancer patients and caregivers around the world.

It was based on the premise that if the lay public had access to the best information — in other words, the same content that informs experts and defines optimal patient management — patients would then be able to pursue these treatments to the extent that they were broadly available. And although this service and a growing number of similar efforts have since generated a virtual army of sophisticated patients (who have since become an important force in and of themselves), it has been humbling to recognize that this approach can't help the many people who denigrate the very pursuit of evidence-based medicine.

The widespread rejection of COVID vaccines brings this into high relief for a couple of reasons. First, the selfishness of those who reject the vaccine affects not only the individual who makes that choice but the broader public. Their decision not only puts them at risk but also the unwitting person exposed to them later. At least with cancer, poor choices only affect those making them.

Another reason that COVID vaccination is such a flashpoint: everyone, including every public figure, now makes a public declaration of their support or suspicion of science and evidence-based medicine. And we are seeing an alarming fraction of people with access to very good information rejecting the evidence and our best opportunity to control the pandemic.

I am particularly disheartened that those who reject the science aren't prone to change their views with better educational efforts. I recognize that there is a spectrum of resistance and that some of our colleagues have convinced family members and patients to reverse their prior anti-vaccine stance; but I wish it wasn't so hard to overcome people's biases against the establishment — biases that lead not only to self-harm but danger to the broader public.

We need to do more to understand what leads people to reject science, because it's clearly not just ignorance and lack of better information. We have to recognize that this phenomenon is now a leading bottleneck in the progress of modern medicine, both in oncology and other settings.

I would love to learn what others think, including successes and more optimistic views — or to simply vent your frustrations with these issues.

H. Jack West, MD, associate clinical professor and executive director of employer services at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, California, regularly comments on lung cancer for Medscape. Dr West serves as web editor for JAMA Oncology, edits and writes several sections on lung cancer for UpToDate, and leads a wide range of continuing education programs and other educational programs, including hosting the audio podcast West Wind.

Follow Medscape on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube

 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/957067?src=WNL_dne_210825_mscpedit&uac=404005EZ&impID=3591774&faf=1

Kanievsky added that the general public should make every effort to protect themselves from COVID-19, including adhering to Health Ministry regulations, and urged people to get the vaccine because it will prevent the cancellation of Torah studies and prevent illness.

 

Top ultra-Orthodox rabbi (and Yanky): Unvaccinated teachers should not come to work

 

Rabbi Haim Kanievsky says teachers have an obligation to get vaccinated and should be suspended from work if they don’t do so. 

Coronavirus Commisioner Dr. Salman Zarka meets with Rabbi Haim Kanievsky on Tuesday

 

Rabbi Haim Kanievsky, the leading Ashkenazi non-hassidic ultra-Orthodox rabbi, has told school principals in the sector that if school teachers are not vaccinated against COVID-19 they should not teach. 

 

Kanievsky’s comments were made amid an increasing rate of coronavirus infection in the ultra-Orthodox community resulting largely from the reopening of haredi educational institutions at the start of the Jewish month of Elul on August 8. 

 

The rabbi made his remarks in a meeting with coronavirus commissioner Dr. Salman Zarka on Tuesday. He and other leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis have repeatedly called on the haredi public to get the vaccine and booster shot. 

 

Zarka raised the issue of unvaccinated teachers in the haredi sector, drawing particular attention to institutions for children below age 12 who cannot be vaccinated, and are therefore likely to infect unvaccinated children. 

 

According to a statement from the Health Ministry, Kanievsky said that it was "forbidden" for teachers to go to work unvaccinated and that men and women involved in education had an obligation to get the vaccine. 

 

The rabbi added that principals should suspend any unvaccinated staff.  

 

 Coronavirus Commisioner Dr. Salman Zarka meets with Rabbi Haim Kanievsky (and Yanky) on Tuesday. (Yanky whispers in zeide's ear "Don't fall asleep now")

 

 

 

Kanievsky added that the general public should make every effort to protect themselves from COVID-19, including adhering to Health Ministry regulations, and urged people to get the vaccine because it will prevent the cancellation of Torah studies and prevent illness.

 

According to the Health Ministry, Zarka called on adults to get the third shot of the vaccine and also asked for Kanievsky’s blessing for the success of the current vaccination campaign at educational institutions. 

 

 

https://www.jpost.com/judaism/top-ultra-orthodox-rabbi-unvaccinated-teachers-should-not-come-to-teach-677659?_ga=2.20070971.2065450011.1629707200-1229034299.1617710680&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israeli-Arab+swimmer+Iyad+Shalabi+wins+gold+medal+in+Paralympics&utm_campaign=August+25%2C+2021+Day&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

A Bunch Of Murderous Ignorant Rabbis Get Together And In The Name Of DAAS TORAH Tell Thousands DO NOT GET THE COVID VACCINE! Not even the Humane Suggestion To Speak With Your Doctor! On The List Of Potential Murderers is Malkiel Kotler And Eli Ber Wachtfogel!

 

Chief Rabbi --- What's Next? - I Never Even Heard of Meron? I heard of Moron, but not Meron!

Rabbi of holy sites tells Meron probe: I had no authority over Lag B’Omer events

 

Shmuel Rabinovitch testifies before commission into Israel’s worst peacetime disaster: ‘They didn’t tell us there was an issue with the passageway. Nobody brought it up to us’

Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch testifies before the Meron Disaster Inquiry Committee in Jerusalem, on August 23, 2021

For the second consecutive day on Monday, the government commission investigating a deadly accident at a Jewish pilgrimage site in April heard testimony from officials involved in the oversight of Mount Meron in Israel’s north.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, told the three-member panel that he didn’t know the narrow passageway that was the site of the crush was dangerous. “We didn’t know there was a problem,” he said on Monday. “They didn’t tell us there was an issue with the ‘Dov Bridge.’ Nobody brought it up to us.”

Rabinovitch spoke to the panel, headed by former Supreme Court justice Miriam Naor, almost four months after the crush at Mount Meron left 45 people dead. The April 29 incident at a Jewish festival in northern Israel was the deadliest civilian disaster in the country’s history. Around 100,000 worshipers, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, attended festivities despite longstanding warnings about the safety of the site and the dangers of overcrowding.

In June, the government approved the formation of an independent state commission of inquiry — composed of Naor, former Bnei Brak mayor Rabbi Mordechai Karelitz and former Israel Defense Forces planning chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Shlomo Yanai — to investigate safety shortcomings at the site.

Rabinovitch served as the head of the Committee of Five charged with overseeing the Mount Meron site, which draws enormous crowds each year on Lag B’Omer of those seeking to visit the grave of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Rabinovitch repeatedly claimed that the committee was not involved with the planning of events at the site on Lag B’Omer, and did not have the authority to intervene. “If the state had told me that I was responsible for the events of Lag B’Omer, I would have immediately resigned,” he said on Monday.

He also told the panel that when the committee was established in 2008, the site was in much worse shape. “The situation there in 2008 was awful — there was no infrastructure, there was illegal building, electric cables everywhere, and every brick we tried to move set off a war,” he told the three-member panel, which is holding hearings in the Malha neighborhood of Jerusalem.

“I decided that I couldn’t give in [to demands] because the place was so dangerous. And for three years there were major changes,” Rabinovitch added, saying that the situation now is vastly improved over 2008. “Then, any child could touch an electric cable and get electrocuted.”

Victims of the April 30, 2021, Mount Meron disaster: Top row (L-R): Chen Doron, Haim Rock, Ariel Tzadik, Yossi Kohn, Yisrael Anakvah, Yishai Mualem, Yosef Mastorov, Elkana Shiloh and Moshe Levy; 2nd row (L-R): Shlomo Zalman Leibowitz, Shmuel Zvi Klagsbald, Mordechai Fakata, Dubi Steinmetz, Abraham Daniel Ambon, Eliezer Gafner, Yosef Greenbaum, Yehuda Leib Rubin and Yaakov Elchanan Starkovsky; 3rd row (L-R): Haim Seler, Yehoshua Englard, Moshe Natan Neta Englard, Yedidia Hayut, Moshe Ben Shalom, David Krauss, Eliezer Tzvi Joseph, Yosef Yehuda Levy and Yosef Amram Tauber; 4th row (L-R): Menachem Knoblowitz, Elazar Yitzchok Koltai, Yosef David Elhadad, Shraga Gestetner, Yonatan Hebroni, Shimon Matalon, Elazar Mordechai Goldberg, Moshe Bergman and Daniel Morris; 5th row (L-R): Ariel Achdut, Moshe Mordechai Elhadad, Hanoch Slod, Yedidya Fogel, Menahem Zakbah, Simcha Diskind, Moshe Tzarfati, Nahman Kirshbaum and Eliyahu Cohen.

 

Naor pressed Rabinovitch to answer questions about the narrow passageway where the tragedy unfurled, as hundreds of people pressed their way to the exit and, as some began to slip and fall, leading to the deaths of 45 men and children.

“We didn’t know there was a problem. The security advisers we consulted in 2008 and after that didn’t bring up any problems with the Dov Bridge, they didn’t mention it,” said Rabinovitch on Monday. He claimed that it was possible there were no issues with the bridge throughout the majority of the year, and said that on Lag B’Omer, “I don’t really spend much time at the site.”

Rabinovitch reiterated that he had never heard of any concerns with the specific passageway, “but I thought that the entire area looks like the third world. We asked to plan and build everything from scratch,” he added. “We started work on a plan that was supposed to renovate the entire area. I didn’t know there were any problems with that bridge. Nobody brought it to my attention.”

The members of the panel further pressed the rabbi about the specific area of the Meron site where the tragedy occurred, where the Toldot Aharon sect lights a bonfire each year. Rabinovitch claimed that the lighting occurs each year without any particular oversight or approval. “I don’t approve anything — nobody even asks us,” he said.

Rabinovitch said he believed authorities should considering canceling or moving the satellite bonfire lightings at the site. “The committee was opposed to the Toldot Aharon lighting… we told them to go to a different area, but they rejected it.”

Former chief of the Supreme Court Miriam Naor (center) heads the Meron Disaster Inquiry Committee in Jerusalem, on August 23, 2021

He told the panel that he welcomed the state commission of inquiry, and noted that it was unfortunate that such a tragedy had to occur to establish an investigation.

“There are many different interests at play. I am also part of the bereaved families, I lost a nephew during the incident,” said Rabinovitch. “It’s a horrible tragedy, my heart is hurting.”

The commission’s proceedings kicked off on Sunday with testimony from Northern District police chief Shimon Lavi, the officer who was in charge of managing the event.

Lavi said the Mount Meron festivities were the Israel Police’s most significant annual event, requiring extensive resources, planning and preparation. He said that out of safety concerns “there has been no limitation on attendance at Meron — that’s how it has been done for the last 30 years.”

Any attempt to limit entry and put up barricades could result in “bottlenecks and much greater disasters,” he said.

Israeli rescue forces and police at the scene of the fatal crush during Lag B’Omer celebrations on Mt. Meron, in northern Israel, on April 30, 2021

 

Lavi said there had been “neglect for many years” and “a lack of understanding that the event grew over time and that the infrastructure was not adequate, but rather a kind of Band-Aid.”

In addition to Lavi and Rabinovitch, witnesses summoned by the panel include former Israel Police deputy commissioner Alon Asur; Yosef Schwinger, head of the National Center for the Development of Holy Places; Yisrael Deri, the head of the northern branch of the National Center for the Development of Holy Places; and Eli Friend, manager of the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

The panel has been granted a budget of NIS 6 million ($1.83 million) to investigate how the disaster unfolded and probe the decision-making processes that authorized the event.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-of-holy-sites-tells-meron-probe-i-had-no-authority-over-lag-bomer-events/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2021-08-23&utm_medium=email

Not just Afghanistan or Brooklyn; you can find Taliban wherever people reject science!

 

The Chief Taliban Scientist Explaining His Law of Gravity

 

What medical and scientific researchers have not done is explain, in ways that the average yutz can understand, how science has always worked.

Anti-vaxxer causes mass-infection in special needs kindergarten

 

An anti-vaxxer got infected with COVID-19 and sent her twins to their special needs kindergarten, sparking a mass-infection.

Anti Covid-19 vaccine injection activists protest outside a vaccination center of Magen David Adom, in Jerusalem,

 

An anti-vaxxer was the source of a mass-infection of COVID-19 in a special needs kindergarten in Ra’anana last week, Ynet reported.

 

The infection was discovered when the kindergarten teacher wrote in the parents' WhatsApp group that one of the staff had been infected, and so all the children needed to be put in isolation.

 

"It was the last week of kindergarten in any case, so we all immediately got tested and went into isolation," one of the mothers told Ynet.

 

But another mother, who has twins in the kindergarten, refused to isolate her kids.

 

"I refuse to put the children into isolation, and I won't get them tested," she wrote in the WhatsApp group. "I won't take part in this madness, I'm sorry, it's enough."

 

After a short argument with her ex-husband in the WhatsApp group, the ex-husband wrote: "Get well soon, Nurit. I hope you're recovering well from COVID-19." The woman immediately left the group.

 

The next day, the parents received the results of their kids' tests, and many of them were positive.

 

"We went back through the messages and realized that she was the one who infected them," a different mother told Ynet. "We went into her Facebook and discovered that she clearly wrote there that she has been sick since the 9th. She still sent her twins to kindergarten. They're also infected now." 

 

 

Jerusalem’s new Shalva National Center for children with disabilities

The other parents were outraged. "The kids in this kindergarten are taught that their lives will be tangled with difficult experiences," a mother told Ynet.

 

"One moment before they are meant to go on holiday, this woman ruins it for everyone. How can a person do that? To endanger the kids, their families and the staff that gives their heart and soul to these children? There's a teacher there who is over 70 [years old]."

 

The mother added that she also blames the ex-husband. "It doesn't matter that they're separated. He cooperated with her."

 

The mother filed a complaint with the police against the infected woman, who she says constantly posts anti-vaxxer posts on Facebook and has called the coronavirus pandemic a scam.

 

The kindergarten teacher reported the infected woman and filed a complaint against her to the Education Ministry.

 

Another parent at the kindergarten told Ynet that they didn't sleep that night because of their anger and frustration.

 

"More than we worried about the kids, we worried about the staff," the father said. "There are elderly people there, and a pregnant woman. Throughout the pandemic, they worked for the kids because they need a routine. This kindergarten has no masks because of its unique nature, and no social distancing and the staff agreed to take the risk. It's a staff of angels."

 

The father added that the staff took it very hard because they could not believe they were put in this position after everything they do for the kids.

 

He also told Ynet that there were other incidents with the infected woman where she did not heed the restrictions and was told off many times.

 

In a statement to Ynet, the infected woman said that she was infected by a vaccinated woman and reported it to the Health Ministry.

 

"I've been sitting at home for two weeks. I got seriously ill, and I haven't seen my kids," she said. "They've been with their father, not me. 

 

"The Israeli people have become a people of snitches. I have no connection to the outbreak in the kindergarten. My kids have a carer, and he's also sick. He's a vaccinated person who infected my mother and my kids. I am not vaccinated, and I got to the point where I was on the verge of death."

 

The woman added that her kids "were part of a vaccination experiment conducted by pharmaceutical companies. That's why they have autism. It's true about all the kids in the kindergarten."

 

The kindergartens do not yet have a date for reopening and are expected to be kept closed until after Rosh Hashana.

 

The Education Ministry meanwhile reported that any teacher who is unvaccinated and untested will not be allowed to enter the schools.

 

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/anti-vaxxer-causes-mass-infection-in-special-needs-kindergarten-677383?_ga=2.145969780.1517962874.1629448825-1969581575.1579377799&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Bennett+to+present+Biden+with+plan+to+halt+a+nuclear+Iran&utm_campaign=August+22%2C+2021+Night&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

Rabbi Yaakov David Klar allegedly carried out his abuse while he was a social worker at Chai Lifeline, a national Jewish social services provider, and as a teacher at the Yeshiva Kehillath Yaakov in Monsey, N.Y., also known as Cheder Chabad

 

Lawsuit: Monsey rabbi sexually assaulted children — and his bosses covered it up

 

Rabbi Yaakov David Klar speaking at a 2011 Chai Lifeline event in Boro Park about coping with trauma.

 

 

A New York rabbi sexually assaulted children while he was supposed to be treating them for mental health issues, and the prominent Jewish institutions he worked for covered it up, claims a lawsuit filed August 13 in New York.

Rabbi Yaakov David Klar allegedly carried out his abuse while he was a social worker at Chai Lifeline, a national Jewish social services provider, and as a teacher at the Yeshiva Kehillath Yaakov in Monsey, N.Y., also known as Cheder Chabad, Yeshiva Tzion Yosef or Pupa. 

 Klar allegedly began years of abuse of the plaintiff in 2002, when the lawsuit alleges the yeshiva already knew or should have known of the rabbi’s predatory history.

After other people at those institutions reported earlier assaults, the lawsuit alleges, the defendants continued to allow Klar to be around children.

Only later did they enter a “secret arrangement” to allow Klar to leave quietly — and they never reported his suspected actions to the authorities, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says the plaintiff, identified as John Doe, has suffered physical, emotional, and psychological damage as a result of Klar’s actions, and seeks monetary compensation from Klar, Chai Lifeline and the yeshiva.

The lawsuit was filed under the Child Victims Act, which extends the statute of limitations for child sex crimes and established a look-back window for survivors whose statute of limitations had previously expired. The window for filing on CVA cases closed Aug. 14.

While the lawsuit does not say when the institutions parted with Klar, a 2016 article in the New York Jewish Week identifies Klar as the co-associate director of Project C.H.A.I., Chai Lifeline’s crisis intervention, trauma and bereavement hotline.

The lawsuit says Klar used his position of trust to take advantage of children he knew were especially vulnerable.

Doe had “serious mental health issues” at the time, according to the lawsuit, which is why he was receiving treatment from Chai Lifeline.

“Despite [Klar]’s full knowledge and awareness that the Plaintiff had serious mental health issues, [Klar] criminally sexually assaulted the Plaintiff, and exposed the Plaintiff and other children and personnel to an increased risk of harm, all in a wanton and reckless disregard of the child’s, students, and/or patients’ safety,” the lawsuit says.

While the school’s willful ignorance of prior assaults has not been demonstrated the way it might with a full discovery process, the plaintiff’s attorney, Darren J. Epstein, said that abusers in other cases frequently receive such shelter from their institutions.

“Not just in yeshivas — we’re talking about Catholic churches, Episcopal churches, public schools,” Epstein said. “In all these scenarios, we have found that there have been complaints that have been made about individual perpetrators and nothing was done about it.”

When the Forward called Klar at his home for comment, the person answering the phone said he was unavailable. Calls to Chai Lifeline and the yeshiva on Friday afternoon went to voicemail.

With the lawsuit filed, the defendants now have time to put in an answer or a motion. If the case is not settled or dismissed during that period, it will proceed to the discovery phase.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/474469/lawsuit-rabbi-yaakov-david-klar-money-chai-lifeline-sexual-abuse/