Sounds Like Taliban Brooklyn...Except in Brooklyn it Could also "ENclOOd BoYz".....

Fanatics Keep Gassing Girls to Stop Them From Going to School

 

More than 300 students in Afghanistan were sickened this week after exposure to toxic fumes.

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Throwing acid on girls or gassing them because they want to learn how to read and write—those are the horrific actions some men around the world resort to, to stop girls from going to school. The efforts of extremists appear to be escalating in Afghanistan after 300 girls from two schools around Herat, a city of nearly 500,000 in the western part of the country, were sickened this week by poison gas fumes.

The girls, who range in age from nine to 18, were gassed in three incidents, as were their teachers. “I was inside a classroom and felt a bad smell. I don’t know what happened later on,” Hasina, a teacher at one of the schools, told Pajhwok Afghan News after the first incident on Monday. “When I opened my eyes, I was in hospital,” she said.

Girls were banned from going to school in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 when the Taliban ruled the country. In neighboring Pakistan, now-18-year-old education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head in 2012 by a Taliban gunman for her advocacy of girls’ education.

“I’m not just representing myself. I am speaking up for all girls who are deprived of education. There are about 66 million girls, and I think I’m speaking up for them,” Yousafzai, the subject of the upcoming documentary He Named Me Malala (produced by TakePart’s parent company, Participant Media), told The Daily Show host Jon Stewart in June.

In 2010, blood tests of those who’d fallen sick proved that members of the Taliban had gassed dozens of Afghan girls with poison to keep them from going to school. Schoolgirls were gassed again in 2013, but the Taliban denied involvement. Local police did not confirm that they suspected the group in this most recent incident, CNN reported. Abdul Razaq Ahmadi, the head of education for the area, told Voice of America that he believes the people who gassed the two schools are opponents of education and growth.

Still, it’s inspiring to see footage in the CNN video below of girls in classrooms eagerly learning—something that would have been impossible only a few years ago.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/09/04/gassing-afghan-girls-school?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-08-19 

Protecting the religious liberties of the city’s Jewish schools

The education of H*Y*M*e*N K*A*P*L*A*N 

A dispute over education within the Hasidic community made headlines this month after activists demanded the government force Hasidic schools to teach secular subjects. 

Now the city Department of Education is investigating these schools — called yeshivas — and even threatening to send them “lesson plans.”

But like a man who steals his neighbor’s butter knife to cut down a tree, the activists are taking the wrong approach and using the wrong instrument.

Young Advocates for Fair Education and a former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union charge that Hasidic schools are failing to provide the legally required instruction in English, math, history and science. 

Although well-intentioned, using government coercion to achieve their goals violates parental rights and religious liberty — and is unlikely to work anyway.

New York’s overly broad Education Law demands that private schools provide a “substantially equivalent” education to the public schools — well beyond just math and English. However, parents often choose private schools because they want an education that’s substantially different.

The activists wrongly assume that being “educated” means whatever the government says it means. But there is and always has been a legitimate diversity of views about the meaning and purpose of education, what children should learn and how best to teach them.

Yeshivas have educational priorities that differ from mainstream society, but that doesn’t mean their students are uneducated. Most people would be impressed to hear that students were studying Aristotle and Plato in their original Greek and Virgil in his original Latin.

Yeshiva students spend most of their day studying the ancient Jewish texts in their original Hebrew and Aramaic. And like studying law or philosophy, vigorous Talmud study develops highly analytical and critical thinking skills.

A truly pluralistic society must allow individuals and groups considerable freedom to decide what to teach their own children. ( yeah, and let them destroy their kids lives in every way possible)

Although the government may impose some reasonable regulations, particularly concerning health and safety, the justice system has long recognized parents’ fundamental right to decide how to raise their children. As the US Supreme Court ruled in its landmark case Pierce v. Society of Sisters, a “child is not the mere creature of the state.”

Some states do a better job adhering to this core American principle than New York. In Florida, for example, neither the state nor local districts “have the authority to oversee or control the curriculum or academic programs of private schools.” Private schools are free to decide what to teach and how to teach it, and parents are free to choose schools that work for them.

But even if the government had a right to impose its will on private schools, there’s no reason to believe it will be effective. In fact, the city DOE has proved utterly incapable of overseeing its own failing schools.
In some city schools, not a single student passed the state’s English or math exams. Although nearly 70 percent of city students graduate high school, barely a quarter are “college- or -career-ready” by the state’s own standards. Many of the students holding these worthless diplomas can barely read.

If the state and city governments fail to provide a quality education at their own schools, why should anyone believe that they’ll be able to improve someone else’s schools?

Plus, any effort to improve secular education in the yeshivas will need the support of the Hasidic community at large. Trying to twist their collective arm is a poor strategy for winning friends and influencing people. And their arm doesn’t twist so easily.

A prominent Hasidic writer has already voiced such resistance, calling Young Advocate’s plea for the DOE’s intervention an attempt “to disrupt and destroy” yeshiva education. Notably, the writer supports improving secular education in yeshivas, objecting only to government compulsion.

Lasting change can only come from within. Fortunately, there are some signs of progress. One Hasidic school in Crown Heights, Lamplighters Yeshiva, has already made great strides in implementing a quality secular education as a part of its curriculum — without DOE threats.

Better secular education in yeshivas is a worthy goal, but using persuasion, not coercion, is the right way to get there.

 http://nypost.com/2015/09/01/protect-the-religious-liberty-of-the-citys-jewish-schools/ 

Having just begun teaching English As A Second Language to a group of Asian adults, a relative thought I might enjoy "The Education of Hyman Kaplan". The novel takes place entirely at the American Night Preparatory School for Adults. There under the tutelage of Mr. Parkhill, Hyman Kaplan, Miss Mitnick, Miss Caravello, Mrs. Moskowitz and an assortment of Jewish and Italian immigrants struggle with the complexities of the English language, anxious to master the language and learn about the history and culture of their newly adopted home.

 The irrepressible Mr. Kaplan takes center stage in the classroom with his singular logic in using the English language. Abraham Lincoln becomes Abram Lincohen, King George III of England is an autocrap, and Valley Forge becomes Velly Fudges. Kaplan conjugates the tense to die as "die, dead, funeral", and when talking of the contents of a newspaper he can't understand why he must say "it said", instead of "he said", since the paper is decidedly of the masculine gender. 

It's the Harold Tribune after all. This is a hilarious yet touching book. We are never laughing at Hyman Kaplan's linguistic foibles but with him, as we appreciate the struggles of all immigrants, those seventy years ago, or those today to come to terms with becoming Americans and learning the language that binds us together.

After he started viewing adult pornography, various websites solicited him to purchase and download child pornography, and he did. He became curious, too, about other forms of sexual stimulation—with men, with animals, with fetishes. Alarmed and ashamed of these new compulsions, so alien to his previous sexual nature, Walter found himself engaged in a grim struggle for control.....

Urge 

Oliver Sacks

September 24, 2015 Issue

 

  Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died on August 30, was a longstanding contributor of thirty essays to The New York Review of Books. His last published article, below, appears in the Review’s September 24 issue.

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Royal Library, Windsor Castle Detail of a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, circa 1510–1511

Walter B., an affable, outgoing man of forty-nine, came to see me in 2006. As a teenager, following a head injury, he had developed epileptic seizures—these first took the form of attacks of déjà vu that might occur dozens of times a day. Sometimes he would hear music that no one else could hear. He had no idea what was happening to him and, fearing ridicule or worse, kept his strange experiences to himself.

Finally he consulted a physician who made a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy and started him on a succession of antiepileptic drugs. But his seizures—both grand mal and temporal lobe seizures—became more frequent. After a decade of trying different antiepileptic drugs, Walter consulted another neurologist, an expert in the treatment of “intractable” epilepsy, who suggested a more radical approach—surgery to remove the seizure focus in his right temporal lobe. This helped a little, but a few years later, a second, more extensive operation was needed. The second surgery, along with medication, controlled his seizures more effectively but almost immediately led to some singular problems.

Walter, previously a moderate eater, developed a ravenous appetite. “He started to gain weight,” his wife later told me, “and his pants changed three sizes in six months. His appetite was out of control. He would get up in the middle of the night and eat an entire bag of cookies, or a block of cheese with a large box of crackers.”

“I ate everything in sight,” Walter said. “If you put a car on the table, I would have eaten it.” He became very irritable, too, he told me:

I raged for hours at inappropriate things at home (no socks, no rye bread, perceived criticisms). Driving home from work a driver squeezed me on a merge. I accelerated and cut him off. I rolled my window down, gave him the finger, and began screaming at him, and threw a metal coffee mug and hit his car. He called the police from his cell. I was pulled over and ticketed.

Walter’s attention assumed an all-or-none quality. “I became distracted so easily,” he said, “that I couldn’t get anything started or done.” Yet he was also prone to getting “stuck” in various activities—playing the piano, for example, for eight or nine hours at a time.

Even more disquieting was the development of an insatiable sexual appetite. “He wanted to have sex all the time,” his wife said.

He went from being a very compassionate and warm partner to just going through the motions. He didn’t remember having just been intimate…. He wanted sex constantly after his surgery…at least five or six times a day. He also gave up on foreplay. He would always want to get right to it.

There were only fleeting moments of satiety, and within seconds of orgasm, he wanted intercourse again and again. When his wife became exhausted, he turned to other outlets. Walter had always been a devoted and thoughtful husband, but now his sexual desires, his urges, spread beyond the monogamous heterosexual relationship he had enjoyed with his wife.

It was morally inconceivable for him to force his sexual attentions on a man, woman, or child—Internet pornography, he felt, was the least harmful answer; it could provide some sort of release and satisfaction, even if only in fantasy. He spent hours  in front of his computer screen while his wife slept.

After he started viewing adult pornography, various websites solicited him to purchase and download child pornography, and he did. He became curious, too, about other forms of sexual stimulation—with men, with animals, with fetishes.¹ Alarmed and ashamed of these new compulsions, so alien to his previous sexual nature, Walter found himself engaged in a grim struggle for control. He continued to go to work, to go out socially, to meet his friends for meals or movies. During these times he was able to keep his compulsions in check, but at night, alone, he gave in to his urges. Deeply ashamed, he told no one of his predicament, living a double life for more than nine years.

Then the inevitable happened, and federal agents came to Walter’s house to arrest him for possession of child pornography. This was terrifying, but it was also a relief, because he no longer had to hide or dissimulate—he called it “coming out of the shadows.” His secret was exposed now to his wife and his children, and to his physicians, who immediately put him on a combination of drugs that diminished—indeed, virtually abolished—his sexual drive, so that he went from insatiable libido to almost no libido at all. His wife told me that his behavior instantly “reverted back to loving and compassionate.” It was, she said, as if “a faulty switch was turned off”—a switch that had no middle position between on and off.

I saw Walter on several occasions in the time between his arrest and his prosecution, and he expressed fear—mostly of the reactions of his friends, colleagues, and neighbors. (“I thought they would point fingers or throw eggs at me.”) But he thought it unlikely that a court would view his conduct as criminal, in view of his neurological condition.

On this point, Walter was wrong. Fifteen months after his arrest, his case finally came to court, and he was prosecuted for downloading child pornography. The prosecutor insisted that his so-called neurological condition was of no relevance, a red herring. Walter, he argued, was a lifelong pervert, a menace to the public, and should be put away for the maximum term of twenty years.

The neurologist who had originally suggested temporal lobe surgery and had treated Walter for almost twenty years appeared in court as an expert witness, and I submitted a letter to be read in court, explaining the effects of his brain surgery. We both pointed out that Walter’s condition was a rare but well-recognized one called Klüver-Bucy syndrome, which manifests itself as insatiable eating and sexual drive, sometimes combined with irritability and distractibility, all on a purely physiological basis. (The syndrome had first been recognized in the 1880s, in lobectomized monkeys, and subsequently described in human beings.)

The all-or-none reactions that Walter had shown were characteristic of impaired central control systems; they may occur, for example, in parkinsonian patients on L-dopa.² Normal control systems have a middle ground and respond in a modulated fashion, but Walter’s appetitive systems were continually on “go”—there was scarcely any sense of consummation, only the drive for more and more. Once his physicians became aware of the problem, medication readily brought it under control—albeit at the cost of a sort of chemical castration.

In court, his neurologist emphasized that Walter was no longer subject to his sexual urges, and that he had never actually laid hands on anyone other than his wife. (He also noted that, among more than thirty-five cases on record of pedophilia associated with neurological disorders, only two had been arrested and charged with criminal behavior.) In my own letter to the court, I wrote:

Mr. B. is a man of superior intelligence and a real moral delicacy and sensibility, who at one point was driven to act out of character under the spur of an irresistible physiological compulsion…. He is strictly monogamous…. There is nothing in his history or his current ideation to suggest that [he] is a pedophile. He poses no risk to children or to anyone else.

At the end of the trial, the judge agreed that Walter could not be held accountable for having Klüver-Bucy syndrome. But he was culpable, she said, for not speaking sooner about the problem to his doctors, who could have helped, and for persisting for many years in behavior that, by supporting a criminal industry, was injurious to others; “yours is not a victimless crime,” she emphasized.

She sentenced him to twenty-six months in prison, followed by twenty-five months of home confinement and then a further five-year period of supervision. Walter accepted his sentence with a remarkable degree of equanimity. He managed to survive prison life with relatively little trauma and made good use of his time in jail, establishing a musical band with some fellow inmates, reading voraciously, and writing long letters (he often wrote to me about the neuroscience books he was reading).

His seizures and his Klüver-Bucy syndrome remained well controlled by medication, and his wife stood by him throughout his years of prison and home confinement. Now that he is a free man, they have largely resumed their previous lives. They still go to the church where they were married many years ago, and he is active in his community.

When I saw him recently, he was clearly enjoying life, relieved that he had no more secrets to hide. He radiated an ease I had never seen in him before.

“I’m in a real good place,” he said.

1. 1 Such “polymorphous perversion” (as Freud called it) may occur in a number of conditions where dopamine levels in the brain are too high. It developed in some of my post-encephalitic patients “awakened” by L-dopa, and it can occur in association with Tourette’s syndrome or chronic use of amphetamines or cocaine. ↩
   
2. 2 This also happened with many of my Awakenings patients, who had damage to various drive systems in their brains. Thus Leonard L. was, as he later said, a “castrate” with no libido at all before he received L-dopa, but on L-dopa, he developed a ravenous sexual appetite. He suggested that the hospital make a brothel service available for L-dopa-charged patients, and when his plans were frustrated, he masturbated constantly, and often openly, for hours. ↩
   
   http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/urge/
   

But the most important point to be gleaned from Obama’s seeming triumph is that he and his party now bear complete responsibility for Iran’s good conduct as well as its nuclear program.....

The Democrats Now Own Iran. They’ll Soon Wish They Didn’t

This morning, President Obama got what he’s been working toward all year. With Senator Barbara Mikulski’s announcement that she will vote to support the Iran nuclear deal, the administration got its 34^th vote in the Senate, thus assuring that the president will have enough support to sustain a veto of a resolution of disapproval of the pact. Mikulski was just the latest of a number of Senate Democrats to throw in with the president on Iran.

 The only suspense now is whether Obama will get to 41 and thus have enough for a filibuster and prevent a vote on the deal from even taking place. Leaving aside the terrible damage the deal does to U.S. security and the stability of the Middle East, the most far-reaching effect of the deal is that from now on Democrats own Iran. From this moment forward, every act of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, every instance of Iranian aggression and adventurism as well as the Islamist regime’s inevitable march to a nuclear weapon can be laid at the feet of a Democratic Party. With a few exceptions, the Democrats fell meekly behind a president determined to prioritize détente with Iran over the alliance with Israel and the need to defend U.S. interests.

By smashing the bipartisan consensus that had existed on Iran up until this year, the Democrats have, in effect, become the hostages of the ayatollahs. This is a decision that will haunt them in the years to come.

In analyzing the struggle that was ultimately won by Obama, it must first be acknowledged that the outcome was determined primarily by a mismatch in terms of the relative power of the two sides.

Though the Iran deal is a threat to U.S. security as well as to the interests of moderate Arab regimes who are as afraid of Tehran as Israel, the pro-Israel community, and AIPAC led the fight against the agreement. Though AIPAC can generally count on bipartisan support on any issue it cares about, it never had a prayer of beating an administration that was prepared to do and say anything to get its way.

 Once the president made clear that he considered the nuclear deal to be the centerpiece of his foreign policy legacy, the chances that even the pull of the pro-Israel community could peel away enough Democrats to sustain a veto override were slim and none. In order to achieve that victory, Obama had to sink to the level of gutter politics by smearing his critics as warmongers and slam AIPAC with the same sort of language that earned President George H.W. Bush opprobrium. But the president’s ability to pressure most of the members of his own party to back him was never really in doubt. It was a defeat for AIPAC but not one that should impact its ability to continue to be effective on Capitol Hill.

It must also be noted that this outcome was only made possible by the utter stupidity and cowardice of key Republican leaders — especially Senator Bob Corker — that led to their agreement to a bill that reversed the treaty ratification process. The Corker-Cardin bill that gave Congress the right to vote on the deal was represented at the time as a bipartisan triumph but the Democrats were laughing up their sleeves the whole time. Instead of demanding that the president present the deal to Congress as a treaty, which would have required a two-thirds vote of approval, Obama was able to ram this awful deal down the throats of a reluctant country and Congress by only being able to have enough votes to sustain a veto.

 It would have been better for the country had the GOP stood on its ground on the treaty issue since that would have left Obama to pursue his original plan, which was to treat the deal as a simple agreement that required no Congressional action at all. At least then the deal would have been seen as another end run around the Constitution by a lawless president. Instead, he gets to pretend that Congress has ratified the deal when, in fact, large majorities oppose it in both the House and the Senate.

But the most important point to be gleaned from Obama’s seeming triumph is that he and his party now bear complete responsibility for Iran’s good conduct as well as its nuclear program.

Let’s remember that, up until this past winter, it could be argued that Congressional Democrats were as ardent about stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the Republicans. Sanctions on Iran — that were opposed by the Obama administration — got overwhelming Democratic support with members of the party like Senator Robert Menendez leading the fight for them. Even tougher sanctions that were also opposed by the president last year also had the support of the vast majority of the Democratic caucuses in both the House and the Senate. Nor was there much enthusiasm among Democrats for the string of concessions that Obama made to Iran in the negotiations led up to the deal.

But once the president got close to achieving his goal of an entente with Iran, he set about the business of peeling away Democrats from that consensus position. To date only two in the Senate — Menendez and New York’s Chuck Schumer — resisted the pressure and even Schumer promised not to try and persuade other Democrats to join him. The power of the presidency and the threat of unleashing a wave of slander and perhaps primary opposition from the president’s left-wing admirers was enough to force Democrats into his camp.

The statements of support from each Democrat betrayed their lack of enthusiasm for a deal that all admitted wasn’t the triumph that Obama was crowing about. They know it doesn’t achieve the administration’s stated goal when the negotiations began of stopping Iran’s program. At best it postpones it for a decade or 15 years. Meanwhile Iran is allowed to continue research and keep its advanced infrastructure as well as the right to go on enriching uranium.

Just as important, the deal did nothing to rein in Iran’s support for terrorism, halt its ballistic missile building program (which shows that the U.S. and Europe are as much Tehran’s target as Israel) or halt its push for regional hegemony.

Obama and the Democrats now say they will get behind Israel and strengthen its defenses even though the deal makes Iran a threshold nuclear power almost immediately. That renders talk of preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge over potential foes meaningless.

But what this means is that every act of Iranian terror, every instance of Hamas and Hezbollah using Iranian funds and material to wage war against Israel or moves against Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states must now be seen as having been enabled not just by Obama but also by his party.

If Iran cheats its way to a bomb before the deal expires or uses the wealth that Obama is lavishing on it to get them to agree to this deal to undermine regional stability it won’t be possible in the future for Democrats to say that this was simply Obama’s folly. No, by docilely following his lead for a deal that few of them were eager to embrace, the entire Democratic Party must now pray that the president is right and that Iran will seek to “get right with the world” rather than pursuing a religious and ideological agenda of conflict with the West and Israel.

Obama got his deal despite the opposition of the majority of Congress and the American people. But the Democratic Party now gets the responsibility for Iranian terror and hate. By making Iran a partisan issue in this manner, Obama saddled his party with the blame for everything that will happen in the coming years. 

Munich analogies are often inappropriate but when Rep. Patrick Murphy (the likely Democratic nominee for the Senate seat Marco Rubio is vacating next year) said the deal gives us “peace in our time,” his channeling of Neville Chamberlain was no ordinary gaffe.

In the years to come when Obama is retired and Iran uses the deal to make new mischief and atrocities, Democrats may regret giving in to the president’s pressure. But, like the appeasers of the 1930s, the legacy of the pro-Iran deal Democrats is now set in stone.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/09/02/democrats-own-iran/

Yeshiva University: release the full report now!

This past Monday, Yeshiva University’s President, Richard Joel, issued a highly misleading statement regarding the completion of the investigation into accusations of sexual and physical abuse by faculty of Yeshiva University’s High School for Boys.

Yeshiva University had engaged the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell to conduct an investigation into the University’s conduct after The Forward published a report detailing sexual and physical abuse by former staff members, including the long-time principal, Rabbi George Finkelstein. 

On January 6, 2013, at the outset of the investigation, in a statement on its website, Yeshiva University announced:

The Board of Trustees is fully aware that it will be judged on the manner in which it conducts this critical and sensitive matter and, in that connection, will, as always, seek to meet, if not exceed, the best possible practices employed by institutions that have confronted similar circumstances. We expect the findings of the investigation will be communicated to the public following completion of the investigation.

Fast-forward to the present time. This is the statement issued by Sullivan and Cromwell in its published report on August 26:

While it was the intention of the Board of Trustees to have made public a report which would have set forth the specific details of the extensive interviews conducted and documents reviewed by the Investigative Team, as a result of the Pending Litigation, the Investigative Team has been directed by the Special Committee to describe its findings with respect to sexual and physical abuse in summary fashion.

In other words, the Special Committee of the Board of Trustees overruled the prior decision of the full Board that the investigative report containing “the specific details” of the investigation should be made public and instead “directed” the outside lawyers to withhold the facts from the public.

What about the commitment to “seek to meet, if not exceed, the best possible practices employed by institutions that have confronted similar circumstances?”

Yeshiva University is an institution whose motto is, Torah and Madda. They should hold themselves to the highest standard of ethical behavior. However, if we compare them to the way Penn State handled their own accusations we see a large gap.

In the face of certain litigation, Penn State chose to release the full report detailing the sexual abuse that occurred on its campus. Penn State has paid millions of dollars as a result, but they are on their way to regaining their reputation. In contrast, in a similar circumstance, Yeshiva University chose to release a report of which only 320 words concern the veracity of the actual accusations.

But it gets worse. Those 320 words contain the following sentences:

The Investigative Team has concluded that multiple incidents of varying types of sexual and physical abuse took place at YUHSB during the relevant time period. This conduct was carried out by a number of individuals in positions of authority at the High Schools at various times throughout the period covered by the Investigation, including, in certain instances, after members of the administration had been made aware of such conduct.

Because of the direction of the Special Committee we have no way of knowing who these members of the administration are? Who are these administrators who acted so egregiously as to allow a sexual predator to continue to abuse students? Are any of these administrators (and senior faculty members who should have known better) still working for Yeshiva?

If we are to follow the Board of Trustee’s words and judge them on this matter then we judge them to be in dereliction of their duty and to have done lasting damage to the legacy and the reputation of Yeshiva. They have placed short-term financial strength over integrity and a responsibility to the victims of sexual abuse.

As an alumnus of the school I sent a letter (signed by twenty other alumni) on January 3, 2013 to the chairman of Yeshiva’s Board, Dr. Henry Kressel, asking for a transparent investigation that would be released to the public according to the standards under which Louis Freeh investigated Penn State. We received no response from Dr. Kressel. This is consistent with another finding of the 320 words published by Sullivan and Cromwell:

Based on what the Investigative Team learned from its interviews with victims, this lack of an appropriate response by the University caused victims to believe that their complaints fell on deaf ears or were simply not believed by the University’s administration.

No wonder at least seventy people refused to speak with the investigators from Sullivan and Cromwell. Many probably felt that their interviews would be buried and not released to the public. And sadly, they were right.

To summarize: Yeshiva was accused of not taking complaints from their students about sexual abuse seriously. They were also accused of covering up acts of sexual abuse.

In response to this it hired Sullivan and Cromwell to conduct an independent investigation — only to then bury the full report and not release the names of the administrators who egregiously allowed the abuse to happen.

Richard Joel described the issuance of the 320 word report in the following public statement:

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP released its report marking the completion of the firm’s eight-month investigation into allegations of past abuse at Yeshiva University High School for Boys.

This is a highly misleading statement. Yeshiva University did not really release the report. It instead chose – contrary to the previous directions of the Board – not to release the report. Instead of publicly disclosing the detailed findings (as had been promised), the Special Committee chose to place the university’s financial position in front of the needs of the victims and the public’s right to be aware of the full extent of the problem.

They are committing the same sins of their past.

Richard Joel should overrule the Special Committee and release the full report at once.

 If he doesn’t do that then the Board of Trustees should remember that what is at stake is not only the reputation of Yeshiva University, but the very reputation of the Torah itself. 

Or, as Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University, put it in The Forward on January 10: “No institution can study this issue with any credibility and fail to report to the public what they’ve found.” She added, “This is the leading Orthodox university in the country, if not the world, and what’s needed is for this institution to set an example for dealing with these kinds of issues.”

Shmuel Herzfeld  is rabbi of Ohev Sholom--The National Synagogue in Washington DC.

 http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/yeshiva-u-release-the-full-report-now/

RABBIS - SHMUEL KAMINETZKY, MALKIEL KOTLER, ARON SCHECHTER, MATTISYAHU SALOMON...YOU ARE ON NOTICE! CAUSE HARM TO A CHILD OR A COMMUNITY...I WILL COME AFTER YOU UNTIL I SEE YOU BEHIND BARS!

I have written much, and for more than a decade about the blatant ignorance & evil of Jewish clergy on a host of social topics that negatively affect our families, destroy children, and create dire poverty with limiting or eliminating secular education and with their kollel businesses that impoverish generations....

These same evil people, yes very evil, who have covered up child sex abuse in every disgusting, unimaginable ways; Kaminetzky, Salomon, Kotler, Aron Schechter - dare to challenge the vast majority of doctors, scientists, and mountains of evidence and statistics about the importance of vaccinating your children from deadly infectious and communicable diseases. THEY ARE CHARLATANS BEYOND IMAGINATION AND ARE A DANGER TO SOCIETY AT LARGE!

Yet, nothing is 100% foolproof and can be compatible with every individual's genetic composition. Therefore you have doctors who have devoted their lives to the prevention and curing of diseases.

If your doctor tells you NOT to vaccinate your child, get a second opinion, as most intelligent people do with major medical decisions.

 BUT TO LISTEN TO THESE RABBIS ABOUT ANYTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE/MEDICINE THAT CAN CAUSE SERIOUS ILLNESS & DEATH TO YOUR CHILD AND COMMUNITY --- IS A CRIMINAL ACT THAT IS UNCONSCIONABLE!

If you received advice from a rabbi NOT to vaccinate your child or force schools to admit children that were not vaccinated, in many states and jurisdictions that is now ILLEGAL!

BRING IT TO MY ATTENTION - I WILL CONTACT THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES!

EMAIL:
a_unorthodoxjew@yahoo.com

Rabbis Instruct: Vaccinate the Kids

The Orthodox Union (OU) and Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) strongly called on Jewish parents to vaccinate their children.

OU.org

Orthodox Jewish parents, like responsible parents across the United States, overwhelmingly vaccinate their children against measles, mumps, rubella, polio and the other childhood diseases for which inoculations are now almost miraculously commonplace.

As in many communities, a small minority of parents chooses not to do so. The ongoing measles outbreak demonstrates how this could bear very serious consequences, not only for their own children but others’ too, especially those medically unable to be vaccinated.

The Orthodox Union (OU) and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) strongly urge all parents to vaccinate their healthy children on the timetable recommended by their pediatrician.

Parents who choose to not vaccinate often cite a medical study that purported to link autism and the MMR vaccine. The study was discovered to be fraudulent and was withdrawn; its lead author was found to have acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly," and his license to practice medicine in Britain was revoked.

Judaism places the highest value on preserving human life. It is well known that those facing even a potential life or death situation are instructed to set aside the Sabbath and other key tenets of halachic (Jewish law) observance until the emergency has passed.

Prayers for good health and for the complete and perfect healing of the ill are an ages-old aspect of Jewish tradition. But prayers must go hand-in-hand with availing oneself of medical science, including vaccination.

There are halachic obligations to care for one’s own health as well as to take measures to prevent harm and illness to others, and Jewish law defers to the consensus of medical experts in determining and prescribing appropriate medical responses to illness and prevention.

Therefore, the consensus of major poskim (halachic decisors) supports the vaccination of children to protect them from disease, to eradicate illness from the larger community through so-called herd immunity, and thus to protect others who may be vulnerable.  

The vaccination of children who can medically be vaccinated is absolutely the only responsible course of action. *

"Beyond these arguments is our refusal to allow people to elect out of other crucial aspects of public health law on the basis of religion. You cannot object to a drunken-driving arrest, for instance, on the grounds that you worship Bacchus and feel encouraged to have six shots of bourbon before getting in a Chevy. You cannot refuse to wear seatbelts because your spiritual beliefs reject confinement.

In a well-argued essay, “Vaccination in Halakhah and in Practice in the Orthodox Community,” published in Hakirah, The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought, Asher Bush, a rabbi, made the implicit point that on the subject of vaccines we are in some sense regressing. He pointed to the case of an Orthodox Jew who was arrested in 1896 in London for refusing to vaccinate his child on the grounds that his religion forbade him. The prosecutor in the case, who was also Jewish, sought guidance from the chief rabbi of Britain. The rabbi’s conclusion, essentially, was that the man’s contention was hogwash."

Most die quietly. Sometimes, it is days before they are found... it’s with a loud cry: you can’t catch me anymore...

 Suicide in the Ultra-Orthodox Community, Where the Dead Come First 

No one knows how many ultra-orthodox men and women kill themselves every year. It’s hard to know when there are so many ways to die in silence, by drugs, by overdose, by drowning. The victims leave no note, and it all goes by—the announcement, the burial—as if it were an accident, just another self-destructive tragedy. 

I remember one man who jumped at dawn, right in middle of our ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Borough Park. A body fell from the seventh floor of Avenue Plaza hotel. It was November 2009. The groom, a religious young man married 48 hours before, had climbed over the balcony as his bride slept, oblivious, nearby.

Shockwaves rippled through the community, of grief, alarm, denial. From the outside, reporters came, storming the gates of an insular world. The story was displayed in newspapers and on screens in all its blood and gory: Groom’s Death-Plunge; Tears for Suicide-Plunge Groom; Suicide Groom Told Friend He Was Molested.

But for us, from within, this was no news. We knew that what felt like a loud bang had really been a final whimper, the victim’s last exhausted cry. Ten months later, Hush, a book I’d been working on for three years, was published. The book told the story of a Chassidic girl whose best friend hangs herself after suffering sexual abuse for years.

Publishing this book was the most painful experience of my life. Quickly, I found myself stumbling, attempting to walk an unsteady line between two worlds: the denial of the ultraorthodox on one side, and the sensationalist spin of the mainstream press on the other. Our nightmare was their drama—a reality show watched from afar.

In the four years that have passed, there have been more suicides. Within the community, there have been many changes. But in the process something inside me broke. After years of writing about the tormented and suffering, I withdrew. I could not bear to walk among the gravestones anymore.

I wanted to write about life, about joy and triumph. That had been my world too. I felt strong when I wrote about miracles. I felt good, even happy, when I wrote about my brother. And I wanted to tell his story—of a boy who could not speak, who was afflicted with a strange madness, and of my parents who refused to let him go. No. Matter. What.

It took me three years to write my memoir, This Is Not a Love Story. I laughed a lot. Memories came back that I’d forgotten, and for those moments, I was a child again. Just two weeks ago, interviews were scheduled in which I was to discuss the nuanced and complex aspects of ultra-orthodox life. Things were going to be good.

Then on July 20, 30-year-old Faigy Mayer jumped over the ledge of a building, and fell 20 floors down until she hit silence and death. And, like that, my miracle was gone. My stories of joy were consumed, sucked in by the sheer gravitational force of the tragedy and the too-many-suicides before. Conversations that were to be about life turned into ones of death; interviews in which I’d have discussed love and the complexities of a religious family were now focused, laser-like, on abuse, depression, denial, leaving, transition, struggle, all that.

Coming out of the ultra-orthodox world is like emerging from an isolated fortress in which one room is on fire. The inhabitants refuse to believe there is a fire. Those burnt by the heat are driven out to seek help elsewhere, screaming of an inferno. Only when strangers come with hoses do the fortress’s inhabitants agree that perhaps indeed, there is some smoke and flames. And that they can put it out themselves.

But the strangers outside know nothing of the myriad other lives being lived inside the fortress. It’s hard to see the complexities of a distinct world through the smoke. We who come from within know of kindness and love, of charity and faith. For years we hold on to the powerful and deeply rooted forces of heritage and family until slowly, we learn to let go. It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to destroy one. With passion and conviction, the ultra-orthodox have done both.

Still, our lives are not lived through the pixels of your TV screen. The stories of those who stay and those who leave are made up of so much more than the space allowed in today’s paper.

After Faigy jumped, reporters and curious writers asked me for the connection between my story and hers. Links were made between the past ignorance of the community regarding special children and the complicated nightmare that is mental illness today. Lines were drawn which don’t exist, from a family devoted to their child in impossible circumstances, to one that shunned their daughter for being different. Sexual abuse. Special children. Depression. Leaving. 

The media wanted to merge all these stories into one.

I tried to explain that my story, the one being published now, is not about ignorance; it’s about triumphing over ignorance from within the ultra-orthodox world. I tried to explain that yes, victims of abuse face a nightmarish reality, but no, I did not know Faigy Mayer personally, and will not dare speak in her name. Yes, transitioning out of the only world you know is like moving to a different planet; but no, not everything is terrible. There are happy moments and good memories too. Yes, many families shun those who leave, but there are other complicated issues that might factor in. Yes, I once wrote a story about a little girl who hangs herself—but look, here is my lovely new book about a boy who finds himself, also in the ultra-orthodox world.

It hurts, because others will continue to die, some by overdose, some by hanging, some by letting go a rooftop ledge. Leaving the ultra-orthodox world is an enormous struggle. For those suffering from depression, or abuse—so is staying. 

It’s complicated. Beneath the black and white Chassidic garb, all sorts of people live: the intelligent and the disabled, the curious and the obtuse, the sugar eaters, the vegetable lovers, the gentle ones walking by similarly garbed folks who see the world in red. There are people who struggle with autism and those who suffer from depression, and the reaction to those two issues are completely different. The first, the community has largely embraced, the second is still a tortuous process. Leaving is a third and separate story. Sometimes the issues merge; sometimes they don’t. It’s a discussion I wonder if we’ll ever be able to have.

Most die quietly. Sometimes, it is days before they are found. Others fall in broad daylight. When they jump off the balcony of a hotel in Borough Park or the rooftop bar of Manhattan, it’s with a loud cry: you can’t catch me anymore. There is no separating the living from the dead. Their agony tramples us all. My joy and triumph would have to wait. The dead, you see, come first.

Judy Brown is the author of This Is Not a Love Story and Hush. 

http://jezebel.com/suicide-in-the-ultra-orthodox-community-where-the-dead-1724616839?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Message From the Next World Comes to Israeli Mystical Rabbi, Warns of Imminent War - UOJ WARNS OF NEW MUSICAL COMING TO BROADWAY - "NEXT WORLD CRAZIES & THEIR WARNINGS" "BE PREPARED TO DIE LAUGHING" THE CRITICS RAVE!

 FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS (AFTER I FELL TO THE FLOOR) I'VE BEEN ROLLING ON THE FLOOR - ROTFLMAO

For three and a half hours this past Saturday night, Rabbi Amram Vaknin, a 76-year-old Israeli mystic, fell to the floor as he received a warning from the next world.

From approximately 9 PM until 12:30 AM, in his modest home in the port city of Ashdod, Rabbi Vaknin was cautioned that war is coming to Israel very soon, the rabbi’s student revealed to Breaking Israel News. 

The most recent revelation from Heaven was given over to the rabbi from a small group, including the prophet Elijah and his own deceased rabbi, Rabbi Moshe Zrihan, along with Rabbi Vaknin’s father and grandmother.

As previously reported by Breaking Israel News, Rabbi Vaknin receives periodic messages from the Next World, warning about events in Israel. Gil Nachman, a close student of Rabbi Vaknin’s, told Breaking Israel News, “Pray that it’s not going to be today, tomorrow or in two weeks.”

Nachman recounted the specifics that Rabbi Vaknin received in the message. “The Muslims are going to contaminate the water, the fruits and vegetables.They are going to damage the electricity,” he said. “And there are going to be people dying in the streets, thousands of people all over Israel.” 

Nachman urged that the Israeli water company, the electric company and food importers should be prepared for these attacks.

According to Nachman, Rabbi Vaknin was told that Arab citizen of Israel and Member of Knesset Hanin Zoabi is the one planning it. Vaknin stated his belief that Zoabi is a spy for ISIS and Hamas and is providing the terror groups all the information they need to plan the attacks.

Why is this happening? According to Nachman, it is because the leaders of the generation “don’t want to do teshuva (to repent). They aren’t waking up. Hashem (God) wants to lead them in the right path. We all need to do teshuva.”

Nachman said that in the past, Jewish leaders such as Moses and King David knew about decrees against the Jewish people before they happened. These great leaders took it upon themselves to repent first, but the leaders of today are telling others to repent without doing it themselves. 

“Our weapon is not Tzahal (IDF), not Netanyahu, nobody. Only teshuva,” Nachman urgently told Breaking Israel News.

When asked what Rabbi Vaknin said people should concentrate their repentance on, Nachman mentioned four things. Repent for “the inner sins that you hide away from people and the sins that people see. And kibud av v’eim (honoring your father and mother) is one of the most important things. And always say the truth of what’s in your heart. Be real. It’s all about emet (truth).”

Rabbi Amram Vaknin giving a blessing. (Photo: Gil Nachman)

“The war is very close. We have no choice. The teshuva of Am Yisrael (the Jewish nation) will determine the rachamim (mercy). But war is definitely coming,” Nachman insisted. “We beg Am Yisrael to do teshuva as soon as possible, because we don’t want to see people dying. Stop thinking about material things. That’s not going to give you life. When Moshiach (Messiah) comes, material is not going to mean anything to anybody.”

“We’re getting close to the big day of Moshiach. Before that happens, Hashem wants us to do teshuva. We have to be ready and prepared,” pleaded Nachman. “When we do real teshuva, Hashem will fight for us.”

Nachman concluded by recounting a teaching from the Talmud, the primary source of Judaism’s rabbinic tradition. The eagle approaches his baby eaglets in the nest very slowly. He makes sure that they notice him gradually, so as not to shock them, because they can die from such fear. Similarly, God does not want to hurt us. He’s warning us to wake up because He’s about to rule the world, so He’s warning us little by little, in order that we recognize His approach. Every earthquake, every terrorist incident, every battle, is a warning to wake up. 

Through previous messages from Heaven, Rabbi Vaknin accurately predicted the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” in May, 2010, the deadly fire in the Carmel forest in December of 2010 as well as Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

Read more  http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/47613/message-from-the-next-world-comes-to-israeli-mystical-rabbi-warns-of-imminent-war-jerusalem/#kEqx0gWot7PHlPtR.99

Why not Jewish plumbers against the deal and Jewish lawyers for the deal and Jewish doctors against the deal and Jewish teachers for the deal and Jewish hairdressers against the deal and Jewish gardeners for the deal?

 

Imagine the following headline: 340 Jewish plumbers urge Congress to disapprove Iran Nuclear Deal

The US Congress (Photo: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

A.
I have nothing against Rabbis. In fact, some of my best friends, and some of the wisest people I know, and many other good people, are Rabbis. I also have nothing against plumbers, even though, one must admit one’s shortcomings, I don’t have any plumber friends. But I have employed more than my fair share of plumbers, and some of them were fine people, smart and funny, efficient and useful.

 Truth must be told: when there’s a leak, a plumber is more useful than a Rabbi. Here's proof:
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2006/08/uoj-is-roto-rooter-guy.html

There are also times – so I’m told – when  a Rabbi can be more useful than a plumber (Not quite sure about this). 

One thing is quite certain: Rabbis have no advantage over plumbers when it comes to understanding and assessing the agreement with Iran.

 They have no better professional qualifications and no more relevant experience. Thus, when 340 rabbis signed a letter urging Congress to approve the Iran nuclear deal I shrugged. So what if they did?

B.
Let me say it again: I have great appreciation for Rabbis. I talk to a rabbi every week to learn about the weekly Parsha. I study the Talmud with the assistance of Rabbis. But when I need to fix something in my bathroom I do not consult with a Rabbi. And when I need to understand the ups and downs of an agreement with Iran I do not call a Rabbi – nor should you, nor should Congress.

I understand why the Rabbis signed the letter to Congress. They wanted to demonstrate to the public and to the legislators, that the Jewish community is split on the Iran deal, that many within the community support the deal. They signed the letter as leaders of the community. And this raises a serious question: should Rabbis play the role of political leaders in the Jewish community?

Of course, no one would doubt that Rabbis should be spiritual leaders of the Jewish community, and educational leaders of the Jewish community. This is what they are trained to do. But politics is a different field. Politics is the field of, well, political leaders. Is it not?

C.
The questions about the role of a Rabbi in a community are quite serious and interesting. Take Israel as an example, and test your own views on this matter: do you think that it is good for Israel to have political parties that get their marching orders from Rabbis? Or does it seem annoying to you that Israel has such parties and such Rabbis?

I suspect that many of the Rabbis who signed the letter to Congress – generally speaking we are talking about Rabbis associated with progressive streams of Judaism – would not really hesitate to also sign a letter denouncing the Israeli parties that adhere to Rabbinic rule. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they would only sign a letter denouncing the policies of these parties, and not their habit of adhering to Rabbinic rule. Namely, maybe they would argue with the rulings of these politically engaged Rabbis but not with the fact that Rabbis are the ones that dictate the policies of political parties.

D.
And what if we find 1500 Rabbis in opposition to the deal and only 1300 Rabbis supportive of the deal – would that be counted as a definitive Rabbinical decision? And what if we find that most Rabbis support the deal but most Cantors oppose the deal – would that make any difference?

340 Rabbis is a lot – but I don’t think it should be a problem to find 340 Rabbis who oppose the deal. In fact, some Rabbis who oppose the deal – Rabbis who belong to the OU and the RCA – have already expressed their views. I should say that their negation of the deal has no more merit than the more recent support expressed by the group of 340.

E.
To conclude:

We know that the Jewish community is split on the issue of Iran. We know it from surveys and from articles. We know that many liberal Rabbis, and congregants (some of whom, perhaps, are plumbers), “fully support this historic nuclear accord”. The Rabbis’ letter did not much add to our knowledge.

We also know that there are arguments with which to support the deal: the Obama administration has made these arguments known to the public, and experts of all types have been volunteering additions and variations to these arguments. Here, again, the Rabbis’ letter does not add much to our knowledge.

F.
Rabbis in America and in Israel are used to speaking about political issues. They do it all the time. Do I want Rabbis in America – not that it matters if I do – not to speak about Israel from the pulpit? Not to encourage their congregants to support Israel in certain times? Not to speak for human rights? Not to speak against BDS or anti-Semitism?

Rabbis in America and in Israel talk about political issues all the time, and maybe it is appropriate to ask whether that is a good policy for them and for the community.

Of course, it is somewhat suspicious that I tend to this issue following a letter that supports a view with which I do not agree. I plead guilty: the content of the letter was annoying, and that is why I began thinking about the role of Rabbis in debates about political issues. I also admit that it is not easy to argue that Rabbis should never speak about political matters. It is not easy for a practical reason: because Rabbis have the habit of doing so and would be hard pressed to give it up. It is not easy for a more inherent reason: because all matters are political matters. Even a Dvar Torah is – in some way – political.

G.
Then again, why should it be just Rabbis? Why not the members of other professions? Why not Jewish plumbers against the deal and Jewish lawyers for the deal and Jewish doctors against the deal and Jewish teachers for the deal and Jewish hairdressers against the deal and Jewish gardeners for the deal?

You might say: because Rabbis are special. And I agree – they are special? But one might argue that hearing them speak about issues on which their knowledge is limited to what most other people also know makes them less special, not more special.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain/item/imagine_the_following_headline_340_plumbers_urge_congress_to_disapprove_ira

Bronx Rabbi Who Took Boys Naked to Sauna Will Keep His Job

A (prominent) Orthodox rabbi in the Bronx who was the focus of scrutiny for having taken young boys naked to a sauna will keep his job, after his synagogue’s board changed course and decided not to seek his removal.

The rabbi, Jonathan Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center, had fought efforts to remove him and apologized for lapses in judgment (decades long) , and seemed to have the support of most of the 700-member congregation.

“After carefully considering various scenarios over the last several weeks, we firmly believe that the approach laid out by Rabbi Rosenblatt is an effective and appropriate way forward,” the board’s president and chairman wrote in an email to members last Thursday. The rabbi, the board said, had “shared his vision” about strengthening bonds among members and maintaining the synagogue’s financial stability.  (Moral and ethical conduct be damned)

The email was reported on Monday by The Times of Israel.

 Many of the congregation members are unhappy with the process and have begun holding services at each other’s homes instead of at the synagogue.

In May, an article in The New York Times described how shortly after taking the helm of the synagogue in 1985, Rabbi Rosenblatt began taking boys from his congregation, as young as 12, to a gym to play squash or racquetball, then to the sauna, where he would talk with them about their faith. The rabbi and the boys were often naked during the chats.

Some of those congregants from the late 1980s and early ’90s said he gawked at them in ways that they found disturbing. Another said that in clothed chat sessions the rabbi often touched him in a manipulative and seductive way. The rabbi was never accused of sexual misconduct. He eventually agreed to stop taking congregants to the sauna.

In the wake of the article, at least 45 members signed a petition urging Rabbi Rosenblatt to step down. But more than 200 members signed another one urging him to stay.

In early June, the board voted to try to buy out Rabbi Rosenblatt’s contract, and he initially agreed to negotiate. Two weeks later, though, in an emotional and contrite speech to the congregation, the rabbi said, “I still believe I have contributions to make and surely, with God’s grace, I am ready to serve you.” The congregation applauded the speech.

A lawyer for Rabbi Rosenblatt, Benjamin Brafman, said on Tuesday, “We are obviously pleased with the board’s decision, and it was clearly the right decision as there were never any grounds for his removal.”

But one board member, who did not want his name published because of the inflammatory nature of the issue, said that the about-face was forced on the board by the president and chairman.

In June, the board voted by a wide margin — 34 to 8, reportedly — to seek the rabbi’s removal. At a board meeting last Wednesday, though, the member said, the chairman and president presented the decision to keep the rabbi as a done deal and would not allow a vote. The board member said he resigned after the meeting.

 Another member, who also did want her name published, said she did the same. Both board members said that at least three others had resigned. The president, Samson Fine, and the chairman, Donald Liss, did not return voice mail messages on Tuesday.

Some rank-and-file members, too, have decided that if Rabbi Rosenblatt stays, they will leave. A group has been holding services at each other’s homes for the last six weeks or so; two people who have been attending said the services typically attract 50 to 80 people.

One of them, Steven Bayme, a program official at the American Jewish Committee, worshiped at Riverdale Jewish Center for 38 years and had given lectures at Rabbi Rosenblatt’s invitation.

“He’s caused a schism in the congregation that he aspires to lead,” Mr. Bayme said. He called his decision to leave the congregation “extremely painful.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/nyregion/bronx-rabbi-who-had-naked-sauna-chats-will-keep-his-job.html?_r=0

Obama's Lap Dog Barks --- Obama's Latest "Trade Deal" - Op Ed by Lew, Goes To Western Wall Incognito...

The High Price of Rejecting the Iran Deal

by Jacob Jack (ass) Lew

WASHINGTON — THE Iran nuclear deal offers a long-term solution to one of the most urgent threats of our time. Without this deal, Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, would be less than 90 days away from having enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb. This deal greatly reduces the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, making Iran’s breakout time four times as long, securing unprecedented access to ensure that we will know if Iran cheats and giving us the leverage to hold it to its commitments.

Those calling on Congress to scrap the deal argue that the United States could have gotten a better deal, and still could, if we unilaterally ramped up existing sanctions, enough to force Iran to dismantle its entire nuclear program or even alter the character of its regime wholesale. This assumption is a dangerous fantasy, flying in the face of economic and diplomatic reality.

To be sure, the United States does have tremendous economic influence. But it was not this influence alone that persuaded countries across Europe and Asia to join the current sanction policy, one that required them to make costly sacrifices, curtail their purchases of Iran’s oil, and put Iran’s foreign reserves in escrow. They joined us because we made the case that Iran’s nuclear program was an uncontained threat to global stability and, most important, because we offered a concrete path to address it diplomatically — which we did.

In the eyes of the world, the nuclear agreement — endorsed by the United Nations Security Council and more than 90 other countries — addresses the threat of Iran’s nuclear program by constraining it for the long term and ensuring that it will be exclusively peaceful. If Congress now rejects this deal, the elements that were fundamental in establishing that international consensus will be gone.

The simple fact is that, after two years of testing Iran in negotiations, the international community does not believe that ramping up sanctions will persuade Iran to eradicate all traces of its hard-won civil nuclear program or sever its ties to its armed proxies in the region. Foreign governments will not continue to make costly sacrifices at our demand.

Indeed, they would more likely blame us for walking away from a credible solution to one of the world’s greatest security threats, and would continue to re-engage with Iran. Instead of toughening the sanctions, a decision by Congress to unilaterally reject the deal would end a decade of isolation of Iran and put the United States at odds with the rest of the world.

Some critics nevertheless argue that we can force the hands of these countries by imposing powerful secondary sanctions against those that refuse to follow our lead.

But that would be a disaster. The countries whose cooperation we need — including those in the European Union, China, Japan, India and South Korea, as well as the companies and banks that handle their oil purchases and hold foreign reserves — are among the largest economies in the world. If we were to cut them off from the American dollar and our financial system, we would set off extensive financial hemorrhaging, not just in our partner countries but in the United States as well.

Our strong, open economic relations with these countries constitute a foundation of the global economy. Nearly 40 percent of American exports go to the European Union, China, Japan, India and Korea — trade that cannot continue without banking connections.

The major importers of Iranian oil — China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey — together account for nearly a fifth of our goods exports and own 47 percent of foreign-held American treasuries. They will not agree to indefinite economic sacrifices in the name of an illusory better deal. We should think very seriously before threatening to cripple the largest banks and companies in these countries.

Consider the Bank of Japan, a key institutional holder of Iran’s foreign reserves. Cutting off Japan from the American banking system through sanctions would mean that we could not honor our sovereign responsibility to service and repay the more than $1 trillion in American treasuries held by Japan’s central bank. And those would be direct consequences of our sanctions, not to mention the economic aftershocks and the inevitable retaliation.

We must remember recent history. In 1996, in the absence of any other international support for imposing sanctions on Iran, Congress tried to force the hands of foreign companies, creating secondary sanctions that threatened to penalize them for investing in Iran’s energy sector. The idea was to force international oil companies to choose between doing business with Iran or the United States, with the expectation that all would choose us.

This outraged our foreign partners, particularly the European Union, which threatened retaliatory action and referral to the World Trade Organization and passed its own law prohibiting companies from complying. The largest oil companies of Europe and Asia stayed in Iran until, more than a decade later, we built a global consensus around the threat posed by Iran and put forward a realistic diplomatic means of addressing it.

The deal we reached last month is strong, unprecedented and good for America, with all the key elements the international community demanded to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Congress should approve this deal and ignore critics who offer no alternative.

Jacob J. Lew is the secretary of the Treasury.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/opinion/the-high-price-of-rejecting-the-iran-deal.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0