"Hypocrisy is nothing new when it comes to the double standard applied by the international community against Israel"

United States Attack in Syria Parallels Israel’s in Gaza

US aircraft carrier in the Suez Canal.

Author:

Alan Dershowitz

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Arab rocketscivilian casualtiescivilian targetsGeneral Wesley ClarkHamas Terroristhuman shieldsterroristic threatsUnited States AttackUnited States SyriaThe air attack by American and Arab forces against ISIS and other terrorist targets parallels Israel’s air attacks against Hamas terrorist targets in Gaza. According to retired General Wesley Clark, the United States air attacks are designed to degrade and destroy the infrastructure of the terrorist groups, including the electric grid, the sources of their finance and other mixed military-civilian targets.

When Israel attacked Hamas military targets, including some that had mixed uses, it was condemned by the same Arab nations that participated in the joint United States-Arab attack in Syria. The difference of course is that the threat posed by ISIS is not nearly as imminent as the threats posed by Hamas. This is certainly true in relation to the United States and may also be true in relation to its Arab partners.

Among the most hypocritical nations participating in the US attack is, of course, Qatar, which not only condemned Israel for defending its civilians against Hamas rockets and tunnels, but actually funded the Hamas attacks and provided asylum for the Hamas terrorist leaders who ordered them. Hypocrisy is nothing new when it comes to the double standard applied by the international community against Israel. The United States and its Arab partners have the right to take preemptive action against terrorist groups without fear of UN condemnation, a Goldstone report, or threats to bring its leaders before the International Criminal Court. Yet everything Israel does, regardless of how careful it is to minimize civilian casualties, becomes the basis for international condemnation.

If the US attacks in Syria continue, there are likely to be civilian casualties, because ISIS will embed its fighters among civilians and the many hostages it has taken. When that happens, American and Arab rockets will kill some civilians. It will be interesting to compare the world’s reaction to those civilian deaths with its reaction to deaths caused by Israeli rockets hitting human shields deliberately employed by Hamas. If the past is any predictor of the future, the ratio of civilian to terrorist deaths may be considerably higher in the American lead air attacks than it was in the Israeli air attacks. In past wars, such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the former Yugoslavia, the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths was far higher than the ratio brought about by Israeli rockets firing into Gaza where human shields are Hamas’s tactic of choice.

It will also be interesting to see the reaction of the international community and various NGOs to US led attacks on mixed military-civilian targets, such as electric grids and sources of financing. The international law on these subjects is vague, open ended and thus subject to selective application. Doubts are always resolved against Israel and in favor of other nations engaging in similar military actions.

The joint attack by the United States and the handful of Arab countries may finally persuade the world that the laws of warfare must be adapted to the new realities of terrorism. If one were to literally apply the words of Section 51 of the UN Charter, no country could defend itself against imminent attacks, either by terrorists or conventional armies. That section requires an armed attack by an enemy state to have occurred before the right of self-defense kicks in. That provision was unrealistic when drafted and it is far more unrealistic now in the face of terroristic threats. The laws of war also require proportionality, which is defined as demanding that the anticipated deaths of civilians be evaluated against the military value of the target. But it does not take into account situations where the enemy hides its valuable military targets behind human shields.

It has been easy for the international community to apply these rules rigidly and unrealistically when the only country to which it applies them is the nation-state of the Jewish people. But now it will have to apply them across the board, and that will require defining them in a sensible and realistic way that does not give undue advantage to terrorists who refuse to comply with the rule of law.

Author of Terror Tunnels:  The Case For Israel’s Just War Against Hamas

New York City schools require all students to get a series of basic vaccinations in order to attend classes, but the state of New York allows parents to opt-out of vaccinating their children because "they are stupid" for religious reasons.

NYC Court Tells Anti-Vaxxers: Keep Your Unvaccinated Kids Away From Schools! 

Republish Reprint

A Brooklyn Federal District Judge has ruled that, at least in New York City, the Constitutional right of free exercise of religion does not allow someone to place the entire population at risk with the biological ticking time bombs that are unvaccinated people.

New York City schools require all students to get a series of basic vaccinations in order to attend classes, but the state of New York allows parents to opt-out of vaccinating their children because they are stupid for religious reasons.

Three families in the city obtained those exemptions, but their children were barred from attending school because they chose to not properly vaccinate their children. Their children were kept home, sometimes months at a time, because of the city’s policy that unimmunized children may not attend public school when another student has a vaccine-preventable illness.

They, of course, filed a suit against the city.

Citing a 1905 Supreme Court ruling that Massachusetts was legally able to fine a man for refusing a smallpox vaccine, Judge William Kuntz ruled that the court had “strongly suggested that religious objectors are not constitutionally exempt from vaccinations.”

“Disease is pestilence,” one of the plaintiffs said, “and pestilence is from the devil. The devil is germs and disease, which is cancer and any of those things that can take you down. But if you trust in the Lord, these things cannot come near you.”

Recently, vaccine-preventable illnesses have made a resurgence as a result of lies and propaganda pushed by celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Donald Trump and other fools . In March, AATTP reported a record measles outbreak in California due to parents foregoing vaccinations because Baywatch, Hairpiece, (and Philadelphia BEARD), told them vaccines cause autism–a link that has never been proven.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal the court’s decision.

“There’s no way that court anticipated that children would be subjected” to the vaccines they must get today, said the families’ lawyer.

Watch a video that perfectly sums up the anti-vaxx crisis, below:

http://aattp.org/hey-anti-vaxxers-nyc-court-rules-parents-dont-have-the-right-to-send-unvaccinated-children-to-school/

“Perspectives of a Survivor.”... “We as a community cannot be afraid to address this terrible demon. We must face it head on.”

Childhood Abuse Survivor Highlights Panel Discussion at Rinat

THURSDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2014 12:52 BY LISA MATKOWSKY

Panel discussion at Rinat Yisrael

Teaneck–September 15–About 200 people from Bergen County and the surrounding metro area attended last night’s panel discussion “Protecting Our Children from Sexual Abuse,” hosted by Congregation Rinat Yisrael’s Adult Education Program. The event was co-sponsored by Teaneck’s Congregation Keter Torah, Congregation Netivot Shalom, and Lubavitch of Bergen County. The interactive presentation, which was open to the entire community, focused on increasing awareness of the scope and ramifications of sexual abuse (SA) within the Orthodox community as well as preventing and dealing with the SA of minors.

Present were such notable supporters as Benny Forer, Assistant District Attorney of LA County; Chris Anderson, executive director of MaleSurvivor (www.malesurvivor.org), an association that helps address the therapeutic needs of adult male survivors of SA, and Mayer Seewald, a Crown Heights resident who founded a recognized organization dedicated to eradicating child SA within the community called Jewish Community Watch (www.Jewish CommunityWatch.org).

This initiative comes in light of recently exposed cases, including the latest charges against the head of four Orthodox seminaries in Israel. Rinat’s leadership determined it was time to highlight the issue to empower parents to better protect their children while encouraging communal organizations to adopt more effective preventive policies. Thursday’s event was spearheaded by Rinat member David Cheifetz, an outspoken adult survivor of childhood SA in an Orthodox summer camp.

Cheifetz publicly revealed last year that he was a survivor and has since founded Mi Li, an organization dedicated to preventing child SA and helping survivors deal with ongoing trauma as well as advocating for the community to take stronger measures to protect children. “This is a much bigger problem in the Orthodox community than people realize,” said Cheifetz. “We hope our event will serve as a model for other communities to expose this important issue to the light of day.”

The panel commenced with comments from the moderator, Seymour Adler, Ph.D and was followed by an introduction from Rabbi Yosef Adler, Rinat’s rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC). Rabbi Adler stressed the crucial nature of the topic, and referenced the posuk in Devarim: “Arur makeh rayeihu b’seter–Cursed be he that smites his neighbor secretly,” explaining: “Sexual abusers strike in secret, behind closed doors. The abuser is often known to the victim and is abusing someone vulnerable, with terrible ramifications.”

Rabbi Yosef Blau, an internationally recognized advocate for victims of SA, provided an “Overview of the Scope and Scale of Abuse in the Jewish Community.” Rabbi Blau explained that referencing a survivor’s status often frightens people off from associating with them, thinking of them as “damaged goods,” and affecting their shidduch prospects. “That’s a problem,” said Rabbi Blau. “With proper help and crucial support from the family and community, many survivors go on to have good lives.” But getting it can present a challenge even though reliable studies in the US reveal that SA statistics among all streams of the orthodox community, including modern Orthodox, are the same those in the general population.

According to the U.S. State Department’s National Sex Offender Website (www.nsopw.gov), one in three girls and one in seven boys in the U.S. are sexually abused during their childhood, and in more than 90% of cases the victim knows their abuser. These statistics highlight a major issue equally affecting the Jewish community.

“The Orthodox community likes to believe we are different,” said Blau.”We are not. I was given the job of responding to a report on a study conducted in Israel in the Charedi community. When the results were collected, I was told that there was good news and bad news. The bad news? The numbers are the same as everyone else’s. The good news? They’re not worse.”

Rabbi Blau was asked why the Orthodox community has such a difficult time in responding to this issue. He replied: “We find it difficult to believe because we believe that followers of the dictates of the Torah are much better because of it.”

Rabbi Blau was followed by David Cheifetz speaking about “Perspectives of a Survivor.” Cheifetz’s presentation was, for many, the highlight of the evening. He said: “I am standing here not as David Cheifetz, but as one nameless, faceless victim who has chosen to share his name and show his face. I stand here and look out at this audience... and I know that I am not speaking only for myself, but for the twenty percent of people in our community, including numerous people in this room right now, who were sexually abused as children.” (See his speech on page 30.)

Audience members were noticeably moved and impressed by Cheifetz. After he described the trauma, shame, depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that resulted from being abused and the failure of others to properly respond, Cheifetz concluded: “The most important take away from my own recovery, the key for me, was dealing with my own sense of guilt and my own fear. And I say to you today that I was a victim of a terrible crime. It was not my fault. And I am no longer afraid.” He continued: “We as a community cannot be afraid to address this terrible demon. We must face it head on.”

Meyer Seewald said: “David’s bravery and courage last night was remarkable. He stood in front of a crowd of his peers and his community, and shared his story. He did it, not for himself, but for all the other people and their children, to save them from the pain he suffered. He is one of the few to give a voice to the voiceless and a face to the faceless. As the lone soldier David Gordon once wrote ‘he blushed for a few so others won’t have to bleed.’ David is a hero.”

Benny Forer said “I have worked alongside David and Rabbi Blau for a number of years. I deeply admire both for their stance on this issue and I fully support their perspectives, designed to effectuate a positive change in the community, support survivors of abuse and their families and educate the community on the particular issues. It is of utmost importance that we protect our children, and the way to do so is by having open and honest dialogues regarding these issues–both with our own families and with the community at large. In balancing the interests of the survivor and the protection of the community versus the privacy or comfort of a perpetrator, the former is far more important and should be supported wholeheartedly, regardless of its detriment to the abuser.”

Chris Anderson commented: “I was tremendously impressed by the community’s support for David in particular. It was also especially heartening to see people’s willingness to openly discuss and learn about SA. There are relatively few faith communities that have been so proactive in seeking information that will help them better protect children and support survivors. This is a deeply divisive and difficult issue, and I feel all those who had a hand in making last night’s event happen are to be commended. I hope the information and lessons from last night will spread through other Jewish communities and as well to all other faith communities. We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to abuse, nor a deaf ear to survivors.”

The panel discussion concluded with “Parenting and Protocols: Protecting Children from Abusers” by Dr. Shira Berkovits, a youth consultant for the Orthodox Union’s WINGS (We Inspire New Growth Synagogues) program and a Global Justice Fellow with the American Jewish World Service, working to combat trafficking and sexual violence against women and children. She provided concrete guidelines for appropriate individual and communal response to suspicion of “risky behavior.” Berkovitz explained that “there is no prototype. Child molesters look and act like everyone else... they are just really good at picking children with holes in their hearts.”

In addition to tips for educating children such as teaching respect for personal space and putting children in charge of the giving and receiving of physical affection, Berkovitz provided resources for individuals and the community at large, and recommended the website www.d2l.org.

When the floor was opened up to questions, topics discussed included encouraging youth-serving institutions such as camps and schools do extensive background checks, screening, and in-service training. Dr. Berkovitz suggested that rabbis give talks about the topic. “We see the clergy show up to support the offender, but never once to support the victims. What message does that send?”

Cheifetz agrees that the message must be changed, saying that we need to change a culture that downplays SA, to provide support for current victims and their families, and to create mechanisms to supply ongoing support for victims and survivors of all ages. Rabbi Adler advises: “Believe the person, and demonstrate that as a community, we care about this issue. Ask institutions about their policy.” Said one audience member: “This is a good beginning.”

http://www.jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4945%3Achildhood-abuse-survivor-highlights-panel-discussion-at-rinat&catid=150%3Anews&Itemid=562

I See Shmuel Kaminetzky as a Huge Problem!

Are Ultra-Orthodox Turning Away From Vaccination?

Rabbi Who Denounces Practice Gains Some Backing

By Josh Nathan-Kazis

Published September 17, 2014.

Related

• Prominent Orthodox Rabbi Condemns Vaccines as a 'Hoax'
• Why Vaccination is a Jewish Thing To Do

A prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbi has drawn criticism for calling vaccines a “hoax,” but his beliefs are not uncommon in Orthodox circles.

“I see vaccinations as the problem,” Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky told the Baltimore Jewish Times in a story published in late August. “It’s a hoax. Even the Salk [polio] vaccine is a hoax. It’s just big business.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews who declined to vaccinate their children have been at the center of a handful of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in recent years, including one large measles outbreak in Brooklyn in 2013, another in London the same year and an earlier outbreak in Jerusalem in 2007.

An anti-vaccine Orthodox glossy called P.E.A.CH. Magazine launched in April in English, with copies distributed in Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn. “We have heard what the pro-vaccine side has to say, and we are decidedly opposed to their largely unfounded claims,” an introduction on the issue’s second page reads.

It’s unclear how many ultra-Orthodox parents skip vaccinations for their children. A representative for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said that 96% of students at yeshivas in Brooklyn are vaccinated, and ultra-Orthodox insiders in Brooklyn say that vaccinations are near-universal in the community.

“Because we have so many kids, and we are concerned that if something happens… it can affect the entire family, people are going to (get) vaccinations in droves,” said Isaac Sofer, a Satmar leader in Williamsburg.

In Philadelphia, where Kamenetsky runs the prominent Talmudical Yeshiva, a spokesman for the city Department of Public Health said that the agency had a good relationship with the Orthodox community, and that during a 2011 mumps outbreak, city health workers were welcomed into an Orthodox boarding school to set up a vaccine clinic.

Yet, a letter from researchers that was  published in the medical journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in October 2013 reported that ultra-Orthodox 2-year-olds in Hackney, London are vaccinated at far lower rates than the general population.

Agudath Israel of America, the leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, does not promote or oppose vaccinations. Kamenetsky sits on the group’s rabbinical board.

“It’s a matter of some contention,” said Rabbi Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel. “There is a small, but not insignificant, part of the populace that is persuaded that vaccination can be a dangerous thing.”

Epidemiologists say that a failure to vaccinate can be dangerous, too. “If a population were entirely self-contained, like living on an island with a force field around it, then refusing vaccination against things like polio would be totally reasonable,” said Christopher Gill, who is an associate professor at Boston University’s Center for Global Health & Development and a specialist in infectious diseases and vaccines. Such populations don’t exist in the modern world, Gill said. “No community is entirely self-contained. No one actually lives on that island.”

Vaccines work on the theory of herd immunity, the notion that disease outbreaks can be prevented if a population has a high proportion of people who are immune to a given disease. Large numbers of people who opt out of vaccination lower a population’s level of herd immunity. “If you have a community where the herd immunity is very, very low and also if there’s crowding or very, very large families… then the disease could spread rapidly,” Gill said.

That appears to be what happened in ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn in 2013, when 58 people were sickened in the largest measles outbreak since 1996. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on the incident, nearly 80% of the people who fell ill in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn were members of “three extended families whose members declined use of measles vaccine.” Nine of those who got sick in Williamsburg had also refused vaccination.

The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Hackney experienced a measles outbreak in 2013 that also spread among unvaccinated young people.

“Vaccination coverage within this community is lower than in the general population of London, causing low herd immunity and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases,” read the letter from researchers that was published in the infectious disease journal, a CDC publication. Eighty-seven percent of the people infected in the first three months of the outbreak had never been vaccinated for measles. “This ongoing outbreak highlights continued health risks in communities with low vaccination coverage,” the researchers concluded.

One Orthodox rabbi condemned Kamenetsky’s position. “This is an area in which medicine has made such tremendous progress for the benefit of humanity,” said Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a senior faculty member at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical school and an expert on bioethics. “I believe that there may very well be rabbis who agree with Kamenetsky, but they are not speaking under their authority as rabbis, they are speaking simply as uninformed laymen.

“I’m hoping that Rabbi Kamenetsky was misquoted,” Tendler said.

The Forward tried multiple times to reach Kamenetsky for comment, but he was not available.

Orthodox opposition to vaccines, where it exists, does not appear to be based on religious objections. Some vaccines do include gelatin, which is made from pig tissue. But Jewish law does not ban the injection of nonkosher meat such as pork, it bans actual consumption of it, according to Rabbi Menachem Genack, who runs the kosher division of the Orthodox Union.

Instead, ultra-Orthodox anti-vaccine advocates use language similar to that of secular anti-vaccine activists, such as former Playboy Playmate and talk show host Jenny McCarthy.

In his interview with the Baltimore Jewish Times, Kamenetsky suggested that vaccines don’t work, claiming that if they did, students would be getting diseases from school janitors. “They are mostly Mexican and are unvaccinated,” the rabbi said. “If there was a problem, the children would already have gotten sick.”

P.E.A.C.H. Magazine, which on its masthead lists a post office box and email address but no phone number,, focuses on “vaccine safety” and skepticism of the medical profession. The issue carries one article titled “The Autism Mystery” and another called “How To Prevent Your Children From Being Damaged by Vaccines.”

In the introductory note, the editors write: “Do not allow anyone to inject anything into your child unless all of your questions are answered…. You can always vaccinate later, you can never un-vaccinate.”

The magazine did not respond to an email sent to its listed address. The Centers for Disease Control says there is no link between vaccines and the development of autism.

Orthodox embrace of vaccine skepticism could be connected to a broader ultra-Orthodox cultural suspicion of the government at large, according to one expert.

“My impression is, from my research, that there are many ultra-Orthodox Jews who are interested in alternative medical treatments, including chiropracting and vitamins,” said Ayala Fader, an associate professor of anthropology at Fordham University who has done extensive fieldwork in ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn. “The language is not necessarily halachic, it’s more anxiety with the state — distrust of the state,” she said.

Additional reporting by Frimet Goldberger

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter @joshnathankazis

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/205801/are-ultra-orthodox-turning-away-from-
vaccination/?p=all#ixzz3DdGKYYS2


Developing immunity:
The immune system recognizes vaccine agents as foreign, destroys them, and "remembers" them. When the virulent version of an agent is encountered, the body recognizes the protein coat on the virus, and thus is prepared to respond, by (1) neutralizing the target agent before it can enter cells, and (2) recognizing and destroying infected cells before that agent can multiply to vast numbers.

When two or more vaccines are mixed together in the same formulation, the two vaccines can interfere. This most frequently occurs with live attenuated vaccines, where one of the vaccine components is more robust than the others and suppresses the growth and immune response to the other components. This phenomenon was first noted in the trivalent Sabin polio vaccine, where the amount of serotype 2 virus in the vaccine had to be reduced to stop it from interfering with the "take" of the serotype 1 and 3 viruses in the vaccine.^[20] This phenomenon has also been found to be a problem with the denguevaccines currently being researched,^[when?] where the DEN-3 serotype was found to predominate and suppress the response to DEN-1, −2 and −4 serotypes.^[21]

Vaccines have contributed to the eradication of smallpox, one of the most contagious and deadly diseases known to man. Other diseases such as rubella, polio, measles, mumps, chickenpox, and typhoid are nowhere near as common as they were a hundred years ago. As long as the vast majority of people are vaccinated, it is much more difficult for an outbreak of disease to occur, let alone spread. This effect is called herd immunity. Polio, which is transmitted only between humans, is targeted by an extensive eradication campaign that has seen endemic polio restricted to only parts of four countries (Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan).^[22] The difficulty of reaching all children as well as cultural misunderstandings, however, have caused the anticipated eradication date to be missed several times.

READ SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND ENGLISH YOU CHALERYE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine

Hundreds at Event Against Abuse

A standing-room only crowd packed Lubavitch Yeshiva in Crown Heights for a powerful event Monday to combat child abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community.

By COLlive reporter
Photos: Itzik Roytman

A standing-room only crowd of 800 packed into Lubavitch Yeshiva hall in Crown Heights Monday for a historic event to combat child abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community.

The "Night of Education and Awareness" organized by the Jewish Community Watch organization was a powerful and eye-opening event, which highlighted the effects of child abuse on its victims and educated participants about abusers.

Participants were called upon by MC Zvi Gluck, director of operations of Zaka International, to stand up and take action to prevent abuse against children, because "any precious soul that is lost is on the hands of those who did nothing to stop it."

Benny Forer, a Deputy District Attorney for LA County who is on the board of the Jewish Community Watch organization, related surprising facts about accusations against an alleged abuser.

"People say it's a 'he said, she said' situation, that one person makes an accusation and it ruins a life," he said. "Not true. There are many steps taken and extensive investigation" before anyone is arrested, he said, noting that only 20% of the cases in California are filed, while the rest are rejected for lack of evidence to prosecute.

Brooklyn's recently elected District Attorney Ken Thompson made an appearance, telling the crowd that he is "determined to keep everyone in Brooklyn safe, and treat everyone fairly - and protect all of our children."

An emotional speech was given by a young woman who is a survivor of abuse, who urged victims to remember, "it's not you who should be ashamed, but the animal who did this to you."

"It may take millions of tears, but you will survive," she said, to a standing ovation.

Renowned orator Rabbi YY Jacobson spoke passionately about the organization, saying that he attended the event to "ask forgiveness for the fact that so many of us have ignored, willingly or inadvertently, the silent cry of so many young beautiful souls whose lives have been affected, and sometimes shattered" by abuse.

Rabbi Jacobson implored victims not to remain silent any longer. "Speak up, we will not blame you," he said. "Speak up - you will be embraced. And you will be loved," he said.

Other speakers included Eli Nash, a survivor of abuse, psychologist Rabbi Benzion Twerski, Yocheved Sidoff, founder of Lamplighters Yeshiva and Chaim Drizin, marriage and family therapist.

The event marked the relaunch of the organization, founded and directed by Meyer Seewald, after it halted operations a year ago due to lack of funding. A crowd-funding campaign in July helped raise $150,000 in 24 hours to cover a major portion of JCW’s annual budget enabling it to recommence its services. 

SEE VIDEO AND MANY MORE PHOTOS:
http://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=32019&alias=hundreds-at-event-against-abuse

Of Batei Din, Girls Seminaries, Vulnerable People and the Internet, Part 6

Guest post by RaP

An urgent appeal to parents of frum girls in the English-speaking world:

HOW  ATTENDING  SEMINARIES  IN  ISRAEL  BY  FRUM  GIRLS  CONTRIBUTES  TO  THEIR  'SHIDDUCH  CRISIS'  OR,  WHY  YOU  MUST  STOP  SUPPORTING  SEMINARISTAN!

Dear parents, you are being taken for the rides of your lives by the owners of seminaries in Israel who treat them as pure cash-cows rather than getting real jobs for themselves, and by unscrupulous rabbis who need to breed and brainwash innocent frum girls into thinking that they "need" to become ultra-frum zombies in order to marry and support full-time Torah learning boys which most of the girls will never do!

Think of this: Do your fellow frum parents in Israel ever dream of sending their daughters away from home to far away America, which surely lots of the girls would love as fully-paid one year vacations in American seminaries as some sort of "higher" preparation in life for some "higher" calling of getting to know the world in order to know how to better live in it?

Obviously NOT!!!

So why have you dear English-speaking parents fallen into this trap and craze of offering up your daughters on altars of tourism and fun-seeking, which is all that the year in Israel will amount to for your daughter at the end of the day, when the same type of parents like yourselves in Israel would never in a thousand years even dream in the middle of the night to pack up all their daughters as they graduate high school and ship them off the equal distance you do but in reverse, to America, where they could after all learn about the special Torah-lifestyle of American religious Jews which so many admire and speak so highly of in Israel?!

So you will say, there is the Kosel and the Kever Rochel over there! Great! But there is also big city life, traffic, shopping malls, and the same or better level of technology there. It's a concrete jungle like anywhere else. You think there aren't holy places and graves of holy people to visit in America? There are plenty of famous righteous roshei yeshiva and rebbes buried in America! There are plenty of holy sites in USA Jewish cities and cemeteries in New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Los Angeles, etc!

What? All of a sudden Boro Park, Lakewood, Monroe, Monsey, Flatbush, Golders Green etc are not "holy" enough for you? You think Bnai Brak, Meah Shearim, Bayit Vegan, Har Nof etc are better for your daughter? Sure Eretz Yisrael is the true Holy Land. If it is so important then YOU go live there! When your daughter gets married let her move there with her husband as a couple. Why does she need to be there as a single girl as if in a movie of a "Roman Holiday" as if she was an "Audrey Hepburn" lehavdil having a ball!

You know why the Israeli parents don't send their daughters, or their sons, to learn in the good old USA??

 Because they are NOT  STUPID!! They are not idiots about money! Do you know what Israeli Charedi Jews of all kinds do for their daughters instead?? You know quite well if you think about it... they don't ship them off anywhere, they keep their precious blood and flesh virgins at home, but they do go about RAISING  MONEY  FROM  YOU to make sure they can buy a new apartment ("dira") for their daughter/s when she gets married, they raise and save money to make sure that the apartment/s their daughter's will live in soon enough as they get married at 17, 18 or 19, 20 the latest, will have furniture, linens, dishes, pots and pans and all the appliances like washing machines and ovens and refrigerators and all that's needed by a young newly-wed couple to get going in life. Most importantly they make sure that their daughters will be mentally and practically prepared for the hard chores and realities of marriage!!!

No chalomos only tachlis!

Not so you and your daughter as you prepare to send her off to Israel for a year. First you put your daughters' minds out of commission by getting them all hyped up about a fancy all-expenses-paid-year-vacation-and-tour in far off Israel. You spend your money on travel agents and tickets, on massive deposits and tuitions to the greedy and rapacious (in more than one sense) owners of the seminaries, you waste your money on buying your daughter fall wardrobes, winter wardrobes, and then for the spring and next summer, after all she cannot wear just two or three dresses that Yerushalmi girls wear because those Yerushalmi girls are neither spoiled nor stupid, they know that if their parents are smart and able they are saving every penny up to buy her an apartment that costs a few hundred thousand dollars in Israel.

Let's face it, any girl is at her physical prime when she turns 17, 18, 19. By the time she turns 20 she is already a young woman and no longer a child. Parents like yourself in Israel of frum girls KNOW this. They know that because for MARRIAGE to be the real goal it is important to get your daughter into shidduchim EARLIER and NOT later!! By you sending her off to Israel at 18, and prior to that at 17 she is already day-dreaming about going to Israel, then getting all that baloney stuffed into her brain when she is 18 or 19, she then comes home to the USA at 20 and is ready ...for...what?... exactly???

She needs another year to DE-PROGRAM from Israel if she can even do that. If she wants to stay on in Israel and make Aliyah then kol hakavod to her! But you won't let her, right?

So it's all a big tease for her and a self-made disaster for you! So let's say she spends her eighteenth or nineteenth year in Israel, which means she has to then spend her subsequent nineteenth or twentieth year depressurizing from the high she is on to get back to real life in America. During all this time she has taken herself out of the shidduch market when she could be using the best years of her life, with your help of course, to find her bashert, but because you have enabled her to become a high-roller she is not prepared for life or marriage. Her first "encounter" with life is that she got a one year vacation in Israel that is NOT a preparation for marriage, motherhood, running a home, facing childbirth and children, managing a budget, shopping and on top of that maybe even take a job.

So no wonder many girls fear marriage! They don't want the responsibilities of real-life in the real-world because they have been programmed for something else to be in space where all the idealism in the world doesn't help anyone run a day to day home with its regular humdrum routines.

 So no wonder so many girls are single, or in massive new numbers now they get divorced because they don't have a clue about marriage and real responsibility and self-sacrifice. And sadly many of their husbands, bochurim and singles in yeshivas are also clueless and spoiled by the unreality of their upbringing and lifestyle!

More and more of your daughters are opting to remain single and are not finding good dates, into their late 20s, 30s and even 40s, just read all the Jewish magazines like Mishpacha and AMI for all the stories about this stuff that everyone is shouting about but not solving! Some become lesbians (she may have been inducted into this by her "FRUM" girlfriends in the seminaries!), some drop out of formal Yiddishkeit and some, well it's just a nightmare that goes under the heading of "SHIDDUCH  CRISIS" and the related "OFF  THE  DERECH" (OTD) plague, all from good intentions by nice people like YOU who enabled it!

Before your daughter flies off to Israel on that shiny El Al plane, you will have to buy fancy new suitcases for the princess's trip to Israel, she can't travel or be seen with your or her old worn-out travel bags. She will then pack her bags with every last hairconditioner, shampoo, makeup, fancy lingerie, expensive shoes, stockings, and even lots of foods and toiletries that she has heard are not to be had in the Holy Land or are just too inferior for her royal highness's royal derriere! Can you imagine Israeli frum parents doing this for THEIR daughters? Never in a million years! All your Israeli counterparts and their daughters are thinking is "A dira (apartment), A dira, A dira" every penny must be saved for the Chasuna and the all important Dira!

What kind of preparation is it for life that your daughters start out with the expectation that you "owe" them a year in Israel for fun and games? What have they done to deserve this? And why do they deserve or need this year in Israel experience? Have you wasted all your tuition money on the twelve years of schooling your daughter should have had until now? What was missing from the chinuch and Torah education she received from her local bais yaakov and Jewish day school that she still "needs" a year in Israel? How come the same type of girls in Israel don't "need" or get or are entitled to a free year of study in America? Don't you get what a rip-off you are being subjected to?

Not just that but with the current sexual abuse scandal in the four seminaries owned by Elimelech Meisels a veil of lies and hypocrisy have been ripped from this whole seminary charade, that there are plenty of sexual predators and their enablers who own, man and prowl the seminaries. They can be anyone from the head honcho rabbi like Elimelech Meisels, his co-rabbis, his lady employees and even fellow-students who because they are under an evil spell become typical groupies as if they were in a "Charles Manson" cult and will at times join in the cult-leader's depravities, protect the cult-leader from outside accusations out of a sense of false loyalty, and cover up for him as if they were protecting a mafia don.

This is where you want to send your daughters?

And in Israel the people who run seminaries and "inspire" the girls are all ideological nut-jobs that would never get such jobs in the USA where parents can and should supervise their kids, and even then it's not failsafe, but if you are a good parent and your daughter lives at home and is loyal to you and the family you should be able to have a better handle to prevent and stop any trouble. If you can't do it at home, then oy, how will you do it or how will it get done five thousand plus miles away in far off  Seminaristan!

But you poor dear parents have become slaves to an idea that you do not need, that you do subscribe to really and that in the end works quickly against you as your daughter with her idealistic American energy and idealism is viewed as a lump of clay to be over-written and over-ridden (in other senses sometimes as well) and have her true personality erased and an artificial crazy persona installed that says like a dummy "I want a Kollel guy, I want a Kollel, I want a Kollel guy" as if she was now in need of life-support and an elixir of life. Just how crazy is that?

P.S.

In case you think that the latest seminary scandal has died down, it has not, if anything it has moved into an even more serious phase as lawyers have gotten involved in addition to all the rabbis and dayanim and batei din. See this quote from recent correspondence that has been published on the Internet:

"SPECIAL BEIS DIN

Chicago, IL

September 4, 2014

Re: Pninim, Binas Bais Yaakov, Chedvas Bais Yaakov, & Keser Chaya

Dear Aron Twersky  Esq: 

We write in response to the questions that you, as attorney for the seminaries identified above...Between mid-April and mid-May 2014, former students of seminaries associated with Elimelech Meisels...alleged, and subsequently testified before the Beis Din, that she had been the victim of inappropriate conduct including unwanted physical contact of a sexual nature, by Meisels.

The Beis Din then summoned Meisels to appear, which he did. Meisels ultimately confessed before the Beis Din to the victims allegations of misconduct. He also confessed to having engaged in other misconduct, and prepared...a list of multiple additional victims. Some of the misconduct to which he confessed constitutes to our understanding 'sexual violence' as that term is understood in the context of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ('Title IX'), 20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.

The Beis Din also received evidence...that some staff members (i) were aware of both specific instances of misconduct and, more generally, gross violations of the norms of behavior in seminaries, and (ii) enabled this behavior by failing to take action to stop it...

Sincerely,

Rabbi Gedalia Dov Shwartz

Senior Dayan

cc:

Touro College

Hebrew Theological College"

The above is just a small fraction from a lengthy four page letter that details the horrors of the four seminaries fiasco under (ha!) Elimelech Meisels!

These seminaries, and no doubt many if not all the others are actually more like stealthy hushed up frat houses and no better than a covert covered up coed dorm at secular colleges where there are NO real barriers between sexual interactions between the male and female students be it heterosexual or homosexual.

So please dear parents, think it over, and ask yourselves how you came to buy into such a destructive and sick system?

It's time to put the covert wild west culture of the Seminaristans out of action.

Build schools and programs for your daughters in your home cities! You can then sit on the board of directors. Watch your daughters' progress first hand. SAVE  MONEY FOR  WEDDINGS and APARTMENTS for your daughters LIKE  THE  ISRAELI  FRUM  PARENTS  DO (they're not stupid!) and get her to start dating earlier that will save her and you lots of years of tears and agony in the long run!

Remember:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions !