Of Batei Din, Girls Seminaries, Vulnerable People and the Internet, Part 5

Guest post by RaP

An open letter to Jewish parents of daughters in North America, more: 

Dear parents, like many people with seminary-age girls you must be very worried, anxious, puzzled, confused, betrayed, angry, resentful maybe even in a gambling mood that all will be well, or you have made a paradigm shift in your thinking and have come down on the side of sanity by not sending your daughter away to far off Israel when she could accomplish everything you want for her in safety closer to home. Whatever your choices have been or will be you are not to be envied.

On the one hand is the reality that you are up against a craze that has taken hold of the yeshivish and even not so yeshivish communities whereby young post-high school girls feel it is their "right" to have an all-expenses-paid year of fun-time in Israel with multiple trips back home for Yom Tov and Simchas as the need may be. What a life that is! What a way to rip off parents by kids who have never had to work hard for a dime in their lives. They live with the expectation that you "owe" them this year of fun in the Holy Land as if was free time on your expense account at the Riviera or Disneyland.

You ask yourself, if you even have a moment to catch your breath, how did we ever get here? How did this type of thinking ever set in? Was it brought over from the old country in Europe by the Bubbies and Zeidies? Was that how frum Jewish life was lived for so many decades with an explicit assumption that your daughters would "demand" to be part of mass waves of migrating nightingales after their oh-so "difficult" years of fun and games at the best summer camps, winter vacations, fancy Pesachs, and trips galore all over America and the world for all sorts of brief breaks between this and that? After all, being spoiled takes lots of effort and practice and needs its rewards! For girls it is not easy modeling themselves on carefree celebrities and egoistic entertainment icons.

And the biggest question of all, how did a year in Israel for frum girls become a "pre-requisite" for shidduchim as if without it a girl would be looked at as "missing" her nose or her brains? You may rightly ask those kind of questions, that is if your kids even give you the time to think about life as you slave away to earn a living to support the kind of royalty and celebrity lifestyle that you probably never had yourselves!

The following may save you the time to think about all the above, as it would in any case depress you if you got to think about it too much. You have bigger things to worry about, like paying your mortgage and bills, tuitions, Yom Tov expenses, car rentals, go to work and produce, manage your business/es, and so on. But don't be fooled about why you wake up in the mornings and go to work, it is to support your sheifalach and darling meidel that is the apple of your eye. So let's take a tour through recent history to see how we probably got here.

This may come as a great shock and surprise to many people but not so long ago frum girls were absolutely not allowed to leave home even on supervised trips far away from home to foreign countries for a year or two. Such things were out of the question. But then some time in the late 1960s and 1970s the Kollel trend was starting to catch on.

Good bochurim were persuaded by their rebbeim and roshei yeshiva to abandon plans of going to college and become full-time Torah learners instead. Part of this plan required that there also be a supply of equally committed frum girls who would be willing to become Kollel wives and support their husbands in learning while they would be so committed to Torah idealism that they would add being the breadwinner to the titles of wife and mother. That was the time when the need for masses of Kollel wives was beginning to be thought of by some roshei yeshiva. But such wives could not just come from the few Torah homes of rabbis and special people who would go along with it. Mass production was called for and a kind of unofficial master plan had to be thought of.

So if we had to pinpoint the point and people who started this trend, when was it and who were they? Feel free to add your own ideas or reject these and come up with your own alternatives of how we got here, but the following is borne out by what really happened.

In around 1970 two major things happened in the seminary world in relation to girls in English-speaking countries and as it relates to what grew out of it. The first was the rise of the baal/as teshuva movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. By 1970 the first and most famous campus for English-speaking newly religious young women was founded in Jerusalem, it was and is still known as NEVE  YERUSHALAYIM and it had wonderful goals, to give a higher Jewish education for those who never had it and make secular women into very Orthodox even Haredi woman. It was for a special group and it worked for many. Over time its success was not lost on entrepreneurs in America who saw it as a model for setting up seminaries to educate regular religious girls.

After all, if a seminary in Israel for baalas teshuvas could do so much, how much more so would seminaries for already religious girls do to turn them into super-students and of course there was money to made in this new field. New seminaries could be set up as affiliates of local seminaries, even connected with colleges with official credits recognized and the right to get various private and government donations and grants from the USA and Israel and from rich people. Many founders of such schools have grown very wealthy and powerful from these ventures -- and with that success has come corruption and decadence as is now open for all to see with the Elimelech Meisels four seminaries scandal that has focused much-needed attention on these shady operations.

So that was one set of influences, but not the most important. Probably the key seminary and trend-setter in the American yeshiva world has been the establishment and influence of the famous elite BJJ (Beth Jacob of Jerusalem) seminary founded and still run by its head, the only daughter of the late rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner (RYH), Rebbetzin Dr. Bruria Hutner David (RBD).

Armed with a PhD in Jewish Studies from Columbia University, a brilliant brain, and with her father's formidable training and guidance, Rebbetzin David is married to the mysterious Rabbi Yonasan David (RYD) who heads the Pachad Yitzchok Yeshiva founded by RYH in Jerusalem.

After the 1967 Six Day War RYH, RBD, RYD made the commitment to leave Brooklyn and re-settle in Israel. They travelled back and forth in this mission splitting their time between America and Israel. In 1970 they were on one of the planes that was hijacked to Jordan by the Black September terrorist group. They narrowly escaped serious harm, but they redoubled their resolve to build their base in Jerusalem.

Of the three, RBD has been the most successful by making BJJ the must-go-to-place for any serious frum girl who had/has plans of marrying a serious ben Torah and becoming a Torah teacher or wife of a rabbi or Kollel husband or all of those. This was a trend for the elite, but at some point it became the model for virtually all girls in the English-speaking yeshiva world even if they lacked the idealism, brains and knowledge that was required and still is of all BJJ candidates.

Somewhere over the decades the BJJ model was adopted and commercialized and made into a popular culture must-do attraction for all frum girls in the yeshivish world, maybe because a growing number of teachers and staff were BJJ-influenced and graduates. As the 1980s and 1990s came along the craze caught on, parents like yourselves started making more money, and the mass migrations of girls to Israel went into full swing as it still has into the 2000s and the 2010s...Until now in 2014 when the entire undertaking has rightly been called into question by the revelations of what had been going on in four such seminaries for the fun-loving frum girls of America.

Another institution that contributed to the trend was the famous MICHLALA institution in Israel that was more Zionistic and academic. But that was a program that was much more like a college-level education with serious lecturers and also for serious girls. Both BJJ and MICHLALA were very for very mature students only. While NEVE was for serious secular or more modern girls who wanted to become more religious and Haredi. They were great for the culture of the 1960s and 1970s and even into the 1980s when those girls who wanted to learn more about Torah and Judaism were usually more serious and earnest.

But from sometime into the 1980s through the 1990s to the present the requirement for "seriousness of purpose" was dumped in favor of the mass market mentality of hey everyone, they're (that means you dear parents) giving out free trips to Israel for a year all expenses paid so let's ALL go and have us some big-time fun, fun, fun!!!

The only problem is that while all girls are always vulnerable, but for girls who mainly want to have fun and games who are just not serious students by an measure this could be and has become a deadly trap and decoy and recipe for disaster luring them into the hands of unscrupulous sexual predator teachers, rabbis and even fellow-students, masters of grooming victims, isolating and trapping the vulnerable sheep in their flocks, and waiting for the right moment of loneliness and need to be loved, in order to pounce and extract their literal "pound of flesh" from the unsuspecting girls, some of which should never have been allowed to leave home under such circumstances in the first place.

Another trend that has contributed to frum girls assuming they have it owed to them to be sent to Israel, is that it has now become the standard de rigueur practice for almost all of their brothers and boys their age to go to yeshivas in Israel after high school some time. Yet another factor has been the rise in secular Jewish society of promoting free trips to Israel for college-age students in order to strengthen their Jewish identity.

Dear parents, presumably you are in the majority whose daughters do NOT study Talmud and therefore they do not need a few years of studying Gemora at a yeshiva in Israel. Your daughters are NOT becoming Jewish studies teachers and many will not even marry "forever" Kollel learning types so why brainwash your daughters with these kinds of ideals she will not practice or want and does not need?

 Your daughter is presumably already religious and likes and enjoys Yiddishkeit therefore she does not need a year in Israel to make her even more farmfrumt. Ever heard of "kol hamosif gorei'a" ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it")"! And your daughter is not secular by any means because she is like you and therefore she does not need artificial doses and fake overlays of Jewish idealism and knowledge implanted by charlatans and Rasputins, since she has already learned all she needs to know in her bais yaakovs or good Jewish day schools.

So please dear parents, re-think your plans, do not succumb to dangerous and artificial social-engineering plans. Your daughter will find her bashert and live happily ever-after without risking herself and your good family name in far-off Israel.

Keep your daughter close to home until she is ready to leave and get married with the help of Hashem, and give your hard-earned charity to Jewish education for post-high school girls closer to home!

P.S.
In case you forgot or are not aware of what the current fuss is all about, this is the letter that broke open this scandal of what goes on in some girls seminaries:

"SPECIAL BEIS DIN

Chicago, IL

July 10, 2014

The Special Beis Din of Chicago has convened to address allegations of improper conduct, including unwanted physical contact of a sexual nature, between Elimelech Meisels and students of the following seminaries with which he is affiliated: Pninim, Binas Bais Yaakov, Chedvas Bais Yaakov, and Keser Chaya.

Based on the testimony received by the Beis Din, including testimony by the claimants and by Elimelch Meisels, the Beis Din believes that students in these seminaries are at risk of harm and it does not recommend that prospective students attend these seminaries....

Rabbis Gedalia Dov Schwartz.., Shmuel Fuerst.., Zev Cohen..."

Caveat emptor! (Latin for "Let the buyer beware")!

"Here were the wages of blind faith and sexual repression; here was a case study in how a culture of hierarchy and obedience gave criminals free rein. But bearing witness is insufficient; lessons must be learned as well... "

It’s a case study in how exploitation can flourish in different cultural contexts, and how insufficient any set of pieties can be to its restraint.

Rape and Rotherham

SEPT. 6, 2014

THERE are enough grim tidings from around the world that the news from Rotherham, a faded English industrial town where about 1,400 girls, mostly white and working class, were raped by gangs of Pakistani men while the local authorities basically shrugged and did nothing, is already slipping out of American headline.  But we should remain with Rotherham for a moment, and give its story a suitable place of dishonor in the waking nightmare that is late summer 2014.  We should do so not just for the sake of the victims, though for their sake attention should be paid: to the girls gang-raped or doused with gasoline; to the girls assaulted in bus stations and alleyways; to the girl, not yet 14, who brought bags of soiled clothes as evidence to the police and earned nothing for her trouble save for a check for 140 pounds — recompense for the garments, which the cops somehow managed to misplace.

Interpreted crudely, what happened in Rotherham looks like an ideological mirror image of Roman Catholicism’s sex abuse scandal. The Catholic crisis seemed to vindicate a progressive critique of traditionalism: Here were the wages of blind faith and sexual repression; here was a case study in how a culture of hierarchy and obedience gave criminals free rein.But bearing witness is insufficient; lessons must be learned as well. This is more than just a horror story. It’s a case study in how exploitation can flourish in different cultural contexts, and how insufficient any set of pieties can be to its restraint.

 The crimes in Rotherham, by contrast, seem scripted to vindicate a reactionary critique of liberal multiculturalism: Here are immigrant gangs exploiting a foolish Western tolerance; here are authorities too committed to “diversity” to react appropriately; here is a liberal society so open-minded that both its brain and conscience have fallen out.A more subtle reading, though, reveals commonalities between the two scandals. The rate of priestly abuse was often at its worst in places and eras (the 1970s, above all) where traditional attitudes overlapped with a sudden wave of liberation — where deference to church authority by parents and police coexisted with a sense of moral upheaval around sexuality and sexual ethics, both within seminaries and in society at large. (John Patrick Shanley’s famous play “Doubt,” in which a hip, with-it, Kennedy-era priest relies on clericalism to evade accusations of abuse, remains the best dramatization of this tangle.)In a somewhat similar way, what happened in Rotherham was rooted both in left-wing multiculturalism and in much more old-fashioned prejudices about race and sex and class. 

The local bureaucracy was, indeed, too fearful of being labeled “racist,” too unwilling, as a former member of Parliament put it, to “rock the multicultural community boat.” But the rapes also went unpunished because of racially inflected misogyny among police officers, who seemed to think that white girls exploited by immigrant men were “tarts” who deserved roughly what they got.The crucial issue in both scandals isn’t some problem that’s exclusive to traditionalism or progressivism. Rather, it’s the protean nature of power and exploitation, and the way that very different forms of willful blindness can combine to frustrate justice. So instead of looking for ideological vindication in these stories, it’s better to draw a general lesson. 

Show me what a culture values, prizes, puts on a pedestal, and I’ll tell you who is likely to get away with rape.In Catholic Boston or Catholic Ireland, that meant men robed in the vestments of the church. In Joe Paterno’s pigskin-mad Happy Valley, it meant a beloved football coach. In status-conscious, education-obsessed Manhattan, it meantcharismatic teachers at an elite private school. In Hollywood and the wider culture industry — still the great undiscovered country of sexual exploitation, I suspect — it has often meant the famous and talented, from Roman Polanski to the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, robed in the authority of their celebrity and art. And in Rotherham, it meant men whose ethnic and religious background made them seem politically untouchable, and whose victims belonged to a class that both liberal and conservative elements in British society regard with condescension or contempt.

 The point is that as a society changes, as what’s held sacred and who’s empowered shifts, so do the paths through which evil enters in, the prejudices and blind spots it exploits. So don’t expect tomorrow’s predators to look like yesterday’s. Don’t expect them to look like the figures your ideology or philosophy or faith would lead you to associate with exploitation.Expect them, instead, to look like the people whom you yourself would be most likely to respect, most afraid to challenge publicly, or least eager to vilify and hate.

Because your assumptions and pieties are evil’s best opportunity, and your conventional wisdom is what’s most likely to condemn victims to their fate.    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-rape-and-rotherham.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140906&nlid=32999454&tntemail0=y

Running Out of Time? Israel’s Getting Stronger, Not Weaker

Doomsayers about the State of Israel never run out of material. Since the day it was born and even before that, skeptics about the Jewish state’s viability and long-term survival have been numerous and loud. They have plenty of material. The many grave threats to its security as well as many profound domestic problems shouldn’t be minimized. But amid the continuous chorus of those predicting its demise and saying it is running out of time, there is abundant evidence bolstering the opposite conclusion.Today’s news of the conclusion of a $15 billion natural gas deal between Israel and Jordan is just one such story that undermines the dire narrative that many on the left take as a given.

It can be argued that there is nothing terribly new about close cooperation between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom. Even long before the peace treaty between the two nations in 1994, Israel and Jordan closely cooperated on security issues. In fact, Israel leaped to Jordan’s defense in 1970 when its actions thwarted a Syrian invasion seeking to help a Palestinian uprising against King Hussein. Since then, the Jordanian government has remained tight with the Israelis as it sought to defend itself against radicals. Good relations with Amman are impacted by the widespread hatred for the Jewish state in a country where the majority are Palestinian Arabs rather than King Abdullah’s Bedouin kinsmen. But even though the monarchy must publicly keep its distance from Israel, in practice it remains closely allied to it. So it’s little surprise that with the conclusion of this gas deal, the Jewish state has become Jordan’s chief supplier.

This illustrates some important short-term trends as well as another larger truth about Israel’s future.

The first is that Israel’s energy production has the capability to transform its economy and its relations with at least some of its neighbors. Whereas Jews used to joke about Moses being led to the one spot in the Middle East that had no oil, in recent years the discovery of huge reserves of natural gas and shale oil have rendered that jest obsolete. Israel is not only on its way to energy independence but may soon become a major exporter of fossil fuels.

That means Israel isn’t just the Start-Up Nation commemorated in Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s book about the country’s unique ability to adapt to the high-tech age. The exploitation of its considerable brainpower and culture of innovation as well as its not inconsiderable national resources make it a formidable economy in a world where both are at a premium. While the rest of the Middle East languishes in Third World poverty or merely exploits oil wealth without building a more diverse economy, Israel has become a First World nation in every sense of the word.

Will these developments transform its diplomatic dilemmas?

Not entirely. So long as many people are convinced that Israel has no right to exist or to defend itself, one shouldn’t expect the siege of the Jewish state to end or for its enemies in Europe to pipe down. But only a fool would think that much of Israel’s diplomatic problems are not related to the influence of Arab oil wealth. An Israel that is forced to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism will never be popular in Europe or accepted in the Muslim world. But growing Israeli economic power can ameliorate some of that hostility. The BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanction) campaign is gaining support especially in Europe. But as is the case with oil exporters, boycotts of natural gas aren’t as easy or cost-free to promote as those of Israeli academics or fruit and vegetables.

That economic ties with Jordan should be growing at the same time as Israel finds itself in a strange bedfellows alliance with Egypt and Saudi Arabia against Hamas and Iran is no surprise. Pragmatic Arab nations know that Israel won’t be destroyed and that Islamist terrorists are as much if not a greater threat to themselves than to the Jews.

The larger point here is that rather than getting weaker as its opponents and critics have consistently predicted, Israel is getting stronger, both economically and militarily. Anyone who thinks the two factors are not linked should remember the decisive role technology in the form of the Iron Dome missile defense system played in determining the outcome of the fighting with Hamas.

This doesn’t entirely cancel out the disadvantage that Israel faces from the ongoing campaign against Israel from pro-Palestinian activists and outright anti-Semites. But when you hear both American officials and left-wing pundits talk about an “unsustainable” status quo that will drag Israel down if it does not make more dangerous concessions to Palestinians who still seek its destruction, remember that this is a line that has been parroted for decades even as the Jewish state became stronger, not weaker. Just as the assumptions about a demographic crisis in which Arabs will outnumber Jews haven’t panned out, conjectures about Israel’s isolation may also prove to be unfounded.

Rather than running out of time to make a peace that will save it, Israel actually has both the strength and the time to wait until a sea change in Palestinian and Arab political culture will make peace possible. While the doomsayers will never be silenced, the belief that time is not on its side is being given the lie by a growing economy and breakthroughs to the Arab world that can’t be negated by Jew hatred.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/09/03/running-out-of-time-israels-getting-stronger-not-weaker-jordan-natural-gas/#.VAhVEJORASY.twitter

"ISIS is awful, but it is not a threat to America’s homeland"... The Perverted Mind Of A Jewish Liberal - All Liberals...Jewish or Otherwise

President Obama has been excoriated for declaring that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for effectively confronting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. In criticizing Obama for taking too much time, Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that “this ‘don’t-do-stupid-stuff’ policy isn’t working.” That sounded odd to my ear — like we should just bomb somebody, even if it is stupid. If Obama did that, what would he be ignoring?....

READ TOM FRIEDMAN'S ENTIRE DRUG-INDUCED OBAMA KISS-UP!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/opinion/thomas-friedman-what-are-we-really-dealing-with-in-isis.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

Recent allegations regarding improper behavior towards young women by Rabbi Aaron Ramati and Rabbi Elimelech Meisels highlights some of the difficulties parents face when choosing a seminary...

A Modest Year in Israel: When Young Women go to “Seminary”

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Eighteen year-old girls in New York, London and Paris are packing their suitcases. Slightly worried that their suitcases are overweight, they are even more worried that they will return overweight from their year abroad in Israel, in a religious seminary, or midrasha, in Hebrew.

 Across Israel (well, actually mainly across the affluent areas of Jerusalem) the doors of the academic Jewish year 5775 will open in the first week of September, 2014. 

A well-groomed cohort of young women will immerse themselves in an intense year of advanced Jewish studies complemented by extensive touring and volunteer work. I’d argue that ‘sem’ as these places are affectionately referred to, is a microcosm of contemporary Orthodox life and are a powerful tool for the socialization of young women. 

The competition to attract girls is fierce and for a seminary to succeed, it needs to have a strong brand, an effective marketing campaign and a strategic business plan. Parents who are paying an average of $20,000 USD for 10 months (this covers fees, accommodation and some food) need to be convinced that the seminary is going to cater to their daughter educational, social and emotional needs. Further, in Orthodox circles where gender relations are more circumscribed, some parents are often concerned that the choice of sem will influence the type of boy their daughters will be introduced to for potential marriage. Therefore, in loco parentis for the year, each seminary must establish its credibility to attract its clientele and online fora can be helpful. 

Recent allegations regarding improper behavior towards young women by Rabbi Aaron Ramati and Rabbi Elimelech Meisels highlights some of the difficulties parents face when choosing a seminary. Other than knowing students who went to a particular seminary, the first place to look is at their website. These sites consistently show groups of attractive, slim and smiling young women in certain poses – there’s the group hug on a tree top or during water sports, the girl poised with a pen over her notebook, girls helping in a range of charities and teachers with beatific grins. However, for a more pointed analysis, one must look to the curriculum.

As Torah and Talmud study is mandated for men, the male yeshivas have much less variety in the core curriculum, however, the seminaries are free to develop their own timetables as advanced Jewish women’s education for women is a relatively recent phenomena, largely in response to women’s advanced secular education. While all seminaries will structure their day around the study of Jewish texts, it is the selection of texts, the attitudes of the teachers and the approach to learning demonstrate the seminary’s Weltanschauung. The sem that is teaching Talmud will attract a different sort of young woman than a sem with a track record of girls getting married the year afterwards. A sem that engages these young women in rigorous Talmud study every morning, encouraging them to study ‘b’chevruta’ in pairs, has a very different view of women’s education and their role in the intellectual life of the community than a sem that shuns Talmud study and focuses more on Bible and personal development. 

Further, a small number of sems offer an integrated study/volunteering option; for example, one is closely affiliated with a Jerusalem hospital and offers volunteering opportunities within the hospital, another offers arts and music activities to complement their Torah studies while another is based in a foster home for disadvantaged Israeli children and the girls study and also help care for the children. Rather than look at these seminaries as ‘soft options,’ it’s wonderful that there are a range of opportunities to suit areas of interest and skills – it’s a much healthier approach than the male yeshivot which are generally much narrower in their selection of texts and opportunities for extra-curricular activity. 

Despite these variations, one thing is constant: notions of modesty permeate the sem experience, and with rare exception, girls are expected to wear knee-length skirts and loose-fitting tops. There are nuances to this code: in some places, sleeves must cover the elbow, while in others, the sleeves may fall shy of the elbow by a couple of inches. Some places require stockings be worn summer and winter while others allow bare legs but demand covered toes. A small number are more flexible when it comes to hikes, allowing the girls to wear loose baggy trousers to preserve their modesty. Peer pressure and social norms ensure that inappropriate text on T-shirts, excessive jewelry or outlandish hairstyles are discouraged.

This year of intense 24/7 communal living, away from one’s family, heightened by charismatic teachers and influenced by the seminary’s ideology, is also a harbinger of a life to come. A seminary offering opportunities for women to become religious leaders and arbiters of certain aspects of religious law is very different to a seminary focused on encouraging women to be dedicated homemakers supporting their future husbands who will continue to learn in a kollel, supported by their parents or charitable donations. Unfortunately, religious society is structured so that these two approaches are essentially mutually exclusive. A year in seminary is an expensive gamble and parents need to ensure that their eyes, as well as their wallets, are open before they send their daughter away.

- See more at: http://lilith.org/blog/2014/09/a-modest-year-in-israel-when-young-women-go-to-seminary/#sthash.rIKsS7tz.dpuf

Orthodox educator Rabbi Elimelech Meisels sued for sexual assault

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/08/08/news-opinion/united-states/orthodox-educator-rabbi-elimelech-meisels-sued-for-sexual-assault#ixzz3CI5pXd8s

WHEN RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE UNDERCUTS MANDATED REPORTING ON ABUSE!

THE UOJ ARCHIVES JUNE 1, 2011

http://www.psychologicalhelp.org/
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/48483

by Michael J. Salamon, Ph.D.

The New York Times got it right. In an editorial published on Thursday May 19, the Times castigated the Vatican for issuing "flimsy guidelines" for combating the sexual abuse of children by the clerical hierarchy.

According to the Times, the Vatican "issued nonbinding guidance," giving authority to local bishops which in effect bypasses the need to report the criminal offense of sexual abuse, or for that matter any abuse performed by an official of the Church, to the proper legal authorities.

In essence the report places Church doctrine ahead of the law and allows the local diocese the religious right to shield abusive priests from prosecution. At about the same time the guidelines were released, a study, funded primarily by Church sources, was released. The study allegedly reviews the causes for the sexual abuse scandal in the Church and, in an interesting twist of propaganda, blames the social climate of the 1950s, 60s and 70s for priestly indiscretion.

Taken together, this bizarre approach to coming to grips with the depth of the problem and working to set up parameters to prevent further transgressions is not just counter-intuitive, it's absolutely backward.

The law is quite clear. Individuals who are mandated reporters must report any suspected abuse to the proper authorities. In most states mandated reporters are teachers, doctors, lawyers and child care workers. In many locales clerics are also mandated reporters. Apparently the Church feels that reports are not mandated by Church doctrine and that the best needs of society are secondary to religious doctrine. This could be humorous if it wasn't so sad. Unfortunately, the Church is not alone in this folly.

Last month Agudath Israel of America held a conference for professionals at which the topic of how and when to report suspected abusers was discussed. The presentation of the topic included a good deal of source review and explanation. The presenter was knowledgeable about the issue. But, shockingly, the position advocated by the Agudah sounds astoundingly similar to that promulgated by the Vatican.

The conclusion stated in the Agudah position is that you must first ask a senior rabbi with experience or "even better, you should ask a full beis din" before you can call the proper authorities to report suspected abuse.

As a mental health professional I am a mandated reporter. What this means is that if I am made aware of a situation that raises a reasonable a measure of suspicion that abuse of any type is taking place, I am obligated by law and my professional license to report the situation to the proper authorities.

Nowhere in my professional training are rabbis considered proper legal authorities in this matter. In fact, if I report only to a rabbi, I put not just my professional license in jeopardy but also the welfare of the individual who is being abused.

Rabbis are not generally trained in forensics or police work and simply have no authority to intercede in any legal capacity to aid the abused person or apprehend the abuser. In addition, I may be breaking certain HIPAA laws related to confidentiality if I discuss a situation related to someone I am treating with someone who has no legal standing.

It is important to understand that most professionals do not have to report often, and certainly they do not do so lightly when they feel the need to report. Further, the reporting system, at least in New York and several other states, allows for a discussion with the agency to which the professional reports in order to better determine if a particular case merits investigation.

A professional can discuss in total confidence what he or she sees as suspected abuse - without providing any identifying information - if there is any uncertainty about the situation being a reportable offense. The specialist helps the mandated reporter determine what is reportable. The system is not generally set up as an immediately reflexive and overwhelmingly reactive response - unless there is clear and obvious abuse.

By issuing the doctrine of rabbis as the first report, Agudath Israel has put my license, my parnassah, my professional integrity and the law of the land in jeopardy. And while that alone is sufficient cause to ignore the position, there is one even more imperative justification for not following the mandate. So manyposkim, from Rav Elyashiv to Rav Hershel Schachter, have declared that individuals who abuse children are in the category of a rodef (a pursuer) and should be reported to the police.

I will go by my legal mandate and the psak of my rav. When I suspect abuse, as a mandated reporter I will follow the law. So will most of my colleagues.

Dr. Michael Salamon, a fellow of the American Psychological Association, is the founder and director of ADC Psychological Services in Hewlett, New York and a board member of Ptach. He is the author of numerous articles and several psychological tests and books including "The Shidduch Crisis: Causes and Cures" (Urim Publications) and "Every Pot Has a Cover" (University Press of America). His new book on abuse will be available shortly.

Of Batei Din, Girls Seminaries, Vulnerable People and the Internet, Part 4

Guest post by RaP

 An open letter to Jewish parents of daughters in North America, continued: 

Dear parents, at this point you may be thinking about where to send your daughter next year after she graduates 12th grade. She is probably 17 or 18 and in the prime of her beauty and life as a young woman! Or perhaps your daughter already graduated 12th grade, finished with high school, and is about to get on a plane to go to Israel or maybe she has left already, if so bring her back NOW!

It is not too late to stop her and make other arrangements, just tell her to come home pronto. She could start shidduchim and dating ASAP and not waste her time getting brainwashed in seminary with useless ideas that you don't want her to have. You have raised her with solid moral and Torah values and she has learned a lot in a bais yaakov-type school or a good Jewish Orthodox day school until now, so what will seminary add besides big expenses and a brainwashed child? or as is now coming out, someone who has faced sexual assaults and emotional abuses at the hands of rabbis, teachers or "perfect strangers" in Israel.

There are seminaries and programs in major American cities that offer a variety of limudei kodesh classes that will also earn college credits at the same time. In the New York Metro area there is the "kosher" Touro College with separate classes for girls. You can be a pioneer and start new post-high school seminary programs for your daughters in the cities where you live. After all, not so long ago, all the Jewish day schools, yeshivas and bais yaakovs in America did not exist once upon a time until pioneering parents like yourselves saw the need and created and founded the new educational institutions and Torah mosdos.

In years gone by parents sent young boys to far-off yeshivas and girls to New York to bais yaakovs. All that has changed now that every major and not so major city in North America with a decent Orthodox Jewish population has built good local Torah-based communal educational infrastructures so that your children can attend local Jewish day schools, yeshivas and bais yaakovs as the case may be. So why then all of a sudden fall into a dumb craze (that's being charitable, it actually functions more like a criminal scam) by sending your young impressionable protected daughter/s to far-off Israel thousands of miles overseas, that now also provably also carries with it the potential for sexual abuse that has come into the open as a hot-button controversial issue reported by Blogs on the Internet and now reported about by major media such as the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Tribune, JTA, the Forward, and others that are reporting about this disgusting "seminary scandal".

Until a few months ago sexual abuses by staff and others against its female student bodies was never openly discussed but now it has dragged an ever-increasing number of high-profile rabbis into this very public imbroglio. Count the power rabbis now hotly involved in this, and counting: First there is the guy who set off this radioactive bomb, Elimelech Meisels who was forced to resign in disgrace following allegations of sexual molestation of students at four seminaries that he owned and controlled. There are two other rabbis who as principals it is being alleged that they knew of the abuse and covered it up and covered for their boss's misdeeds, or turned a blind eye when they should have taken action to oust him and not support him. So that is three rabbis. Then there are the three notable rabbis of the special sex-abuse bais din in Chicago who have issued an advisory warning that the four seminaries are not safe. Then there are the three scholarly rabbis of the special ad hoc bais din that was set up to deal with this problem in Israel (IBD) now protecting the new status quo and at loggerheads with the original CBD over total jurisdiction over the case.

 That makes it nine rabbis stabbing viciously at each other, via proxy bloggers online, while dancing on hot coals of controversy. Then a few days ago, another five American Aguda rabbis (half of the American "Moetzes" but not on the Aguda stationary) came out saying that the situation at the seminaries is "fine" and that three more newly-named rabbis in Israel (not part of the IBD) have acceded to act as overseers of the four seminaries in question. Thus it's nine rabbis plus eight more rabbis squirming hither and thither making a total of SEVENTEEN  RABBIS as well as two Rebbetzins who have been mentioned as leaders of the seminaries, not to mention that supposedly each seminary has its "to'en" a rabbi (not publicly named so far) who argues on behalf of accused parties or to defend and make arguments on behalf of disputants in front of a bais din, so add four more such rabbis that makes it about TWENTY  ONE  RABBIS. At any rate, the names of all SEVENTEEN publicly named rabbis are known and it is not encouraging at all as to who they are, as they say "too many cooks spoils the broth"!

Dear parents, if you walked into a room, or a shul or a place supposed to be sacred, and saw for yourself that  SEVENTEEN  WELL-KNOWN  PROMINENT  AGUDA-TYPE  RABBIS that you knew of were having a huge brawl beating each other up or one group ganging up on another group and going at each other's throats OVER  THE  VERY SEMINARIES  OR  SIMILAR  ONES in Israel that you want to send your daughter/s to, then would you, let alone your daughter, want to go near such a scene???!!!

There is NO SHALOM  BAYIS in the very place you want your daughter to be shaped into a true Bas Yisrael and Aishes Chayil so what kind of person sends his flesh and blood loving child into such a toxic environment? A stupid or reckless one who then cannot turn around say that they were not warned of the problems and dangers that were staring them in the face!

Dear parents, it's hazardous to your life and health, to your pocket book and to the sexual safety of your precious daughters. Everything you worked for and wanted could, and is for some coming crashing down! Please be advised to keep your tender beautiful daughters away from sexual predators and Bluebeards in such a dangerous and harmful scenario.

The time to stop the seminary craze of going to Israel for a year of fun has come, at least to stop the idea and "divine right" of entitlement that kids think they have some sort "payment due" that since "P.H.D." ("Papa Has Dough"  -- while often-times he doesn't) they are automatically "entitled" to a one year tour of doing nothing or worse in Israel, maybe even getting groped or raped by some teacher or stranger sometimes as part of "hashkofa" training and there are sickos who use sex as a weapon to "teach victims a lesson" as sick as it sounds it's true, with no recourse to bais din or the police if something goes wrong as the "authorities" will just turn around and say "hey babe, you're over eighteen and you must have been a come-on bimbo or slut, why else did you have sex or neck or mess around, and you are of the 'age of consent' so get lost!" Yes, it's called "blame the victim" and you will not escape its harsh brutality!

Now coming back to the new crew of five Aguda rabbis who have gotten involved in this scandal, all in America with no handle on the situation in Israel, even though they claim that three new rabbis in Israel will be "supervising" the four controversial girls' seminaries now. The leader of the pack in America is an old Brooklyn rabbi Aron Schechter who has the worst track-record in this department, because, as examples, he has covered for and defended a student of his who was a child-kidnapper, another student he defended was committing incest with his own daughters and the rabbi helped him escape justice, and this rabbi also defends to this day the notorious Leib Tropper who extorted and blackmailed gentile women who wanted conversions and even male students into having sex with him and his wife.

 This old near-senile Brooklyn rabbi is now leading the group of five rabbis who are telling you that the "seminaries are safe" that should set off all the alarm bells like that old question "would you buy a second hand car from this senile old salesman?" Then another of this group of five rabbis is in Baltimore Aron Feldman has protected an accused pedophile on his own yeshiva's campus and refuses to oust him or bring him to justice. Would you trust such an arsonist like this to put out any fire? Then another lead rabbi Yaacov Perlow has served as the leader of the Aguda openly refusing to endorse the strong repudiation and expulsion of sex-molesters, such as the notorious Yehuda Kolko, from the Aguda world. Another rabbi Malkiel Kotler,  who couldn't get a divorce from his wife in Israel so he just married another one in America, and when molesters are found in his community of Lakewood will oust the accusers and protect the molesters. 

Would you trust such enablers to serve as references for a safe educational environment or as a "St. George saving the damsel from the dragon" in a school for teenage girls far from home with hormones exploding ready to be deflowered by cunning con men and manipulators in Israel acting as "men of God" and hiding behind pious words of Torah as they practice mind-control to get at the young bodies of your innocent or fun-loving adventure-seeking daughters? And on and on it goes. Scary isn't it?! If you are not scared by this real-life horror film there is something wrong with you!

It is frightening and mind-numbing to digest all this, but fact is stranger than fiction and the truth cannot be denied.

The blood of your daughters will be on your heads if you let them go to these stupid, useless and dangerous seminaries that nobody but the money-hungry owners need with the increasing likelihood that some of the students will be sexually abused and emotionally scarred and crippled for life!

Dear parents: PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Stop the madness and become part of the solution! Shut down all the seminaries FOR AMERICAN GIRLS in Israel. They can find their "salvation" at home in local institutions without the need of "extra-special" brainwashing in Israel! Save your money for better more important things. A girl at eighteen is ready to date from home. It will alleviate the so-called "shidduch crisis" in the Jewish Orthodox world with more younger Jewish Orthodox girls dating earlier! Otherwise you are part of the problem when it does not have to be that way! Hashem Yerachem! (May God have mercy!)