What Agudath Israel & All Jews Can Learn From The "Goyim"! THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE KISSED THEIR RELIGION GOODBYE! Deal With This At Your "Feel-Good" about Nothing Convention - Where Lies & BS Prevail!

The Catholic Church’s Sins Are Ours

It’s fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient respect for religion in America and that religious people are marginalized, even vilified.

That’s bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special accommodation and the benefit of the doubt. Because they talk of God, they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an unwillingness to cross them.

The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.

“Spotlight” — which opens in New York, Los Angeles and Boston on Friday and nationwide later this month — chronicles the painstaking manner in which editors and writers at The Boston Globe documented a pattern of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests and the concealment of these crimes by Catholic leaders.

Because of the movie’s focus on the digging and dot-connecting that go into investigative reporting, it has invited comparisons to “All the President’s Men.”

But it isn’t about journalism. Or, for that matter, Catholicism.

It’s about the damage done when we genuflect too readily before society’s temples, be they religious or governmental. It’s about the danger of faith that’s truly blind.

It takes place in 2001 and 2002, and that time frame itself is a remarkable reflection of how steadfastly most Americans resist any intrusion into religious groups, any indictment of religious officials.

Eight years earlier, James Porter was convicted of sexually abusing 28 children in the 1960s, when he was in the Catholic priesthood. He was believed to have abused about 100 boys and girls in all, most of them in Massachusetts.

Major newspapers and television networks covered the Porter story, noting a growing number of cases of abuse by priests. Porter’s sentencing in December 1993 was preceded by two books that traced the staggering dimensions of such behavior. The first was “Lead Us Not Into Temptation,” by Jason Berry.

 The second was “A Gospel of Shame,” with which I’m even more familiar. I’m one of its two authors.

But despite all of that attention, Americans kept being shocked whenever a fresh tally of abusive priests was done or new predators were exposed. They clung to disbelief.

“Spotlight” is admirably blunt on this point, suggesting that the Globe staff — which, in the end, did the definitive reporting on church leaders’ complicity in the abuse — long ignored an epidemic right before their eyes.

Why?

 For some of the same reasons that others did. Many journalists, parents, police officers and lawyers didn’t want to think ill of men of the cloth, or they weren’t eager to get on the bad side of the church, with its fearsome authority and supposed pipeline to God. (After the coverage of the Porter case, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston announced, “We call down God’s power on the media, particularly the Globe.”)

“Spotlight” lays out the many ways in which deference to religion protected abusers and their abettors. At one point in the movie, a man who was molested as a boy tells a Globe reporter about a visit his mother got from the bishop, who was asking her not to press charges.

“She put out freakin’ cookies,” the man says.

When the cookies finally went away, many Catholic leaders insisted that the church was being persecuted, and the crimes of priests exaggerated, by spiteful secularists.

But if anything, the church had been coddled, benefiting from the American way of giving religion a free pass and excusing religious institutions not just from taxes but from rules that apply to other organizations.

A 2006 series in The Times, “In God’s Name,” noted that since 1989, “more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use.” That was before the Supreme Court, in its Hobby Lobby decision, allowed some employers to claim religion as grounds to disobey certain heath insurance mandates.

A story in The Times this week described how various religions are permitted to use internal arbitration procedures to settle disputes that belong in civil court. It cited a federal judge’s ruling that a former Scientologist had to take his claim that Scientology had defrauded him of tens of thousands of dollars before a panel of current Scientologists.

To cloak sexual abuse and shield abusive priests, Catholic leaders and their lawyers routinely leaned on the church’s privileged status, invoking freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, and the secrecy of the confessional. They thus delayed a reckoning.

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says a character in “Spotlight.” Indeed it does: a village too cowed, and a village too credulous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/opinion/the-catholic-churchs-sins-are-ours.html?_r=0\

JACOB PERLOW/ SAMUEL KAMINETZKY - WHAT WOULD YOUR MOTHERS SAY!?

http://bdnews24.com/entertainment/2015/11/01/survivors-of-clergy-sex-abuse-hope-spotlight-film-brings-victims-forward

Ninety-two Israeli Arab Muslims have committed terrorist attacks. They are not under occupation (and have better freedoms and living standards than most of the Arab world has). So clearly these attacks are not about any political dispute; they are driven by the same hateful incitement that rejects any state for the Jews....

An Idiot’s Guide for the Media on How to Do Your Job Properly

An imaginary newspaper report about 9/11

What if your Newspapers were run by Terrorists?

A new instructive video shows what news reports would look like if they applied their outrageous Israel-reporting techniques to terrorist attacks in the rest of the world. In the hope of lessening the egregious anti-Israel bias, here are some pointers to members of the media:

1) Your job is to report facts, not reinforce a narrative. Really. The facts matter – they form the basis for judgments. So here are some facts for you, meticulously documented and updated (with details and graphs worthy of a data scientist) in a shared Google spreadsheet by Nehemia Gershuni-Aylho. According to his data, in the fifty days from September 11 through October 31, there have been 1,315 Arab Muslim attacks on Jews, including stabbings, bombings, rock-throwing, etc. That’s about 26 attacks per day resulting in the murder of 11 innocent Jews. Adjusted for the US population, that’s over 1,000 knife, bomb and other attacks per day that kill 440 people during fifty days of terror. How would the US react to that?

2) Remember that the weaker party can be wrong. Actually, when a Palestinian man stabs a 70-year old woman, he’s not even the weaker party. Sometimes Palestinians do indefensible things. Sometimes Israel is guilty of only trying to protect its citizens from insanely hateful violence. And as an honest reporter, you should try to show this.

3) Properly identify the terrorist and the victim when reporting on casualties, and describe the main causal sequence of events with relevant context. That’s how you avoid headlines like “Jewish man uses his neck to attack the blade of Palestinian’s knife.” The BBC’s distortions were actually not far from that when they effectively turned terrorists into victims. The BBC’s bias is so egregious that even its former chief complained.

4) Do your homework on this region. Learn its basic history so that you don’t moronically suggest (as the NY Times did) that Jews have no historical connection to the Temple Mount. Otherwise it looks like you’re trying to support Palestinian revisionism against basic facts and endless archaeological evidence (including what a 10-year old recently discovered).

5) Learn the history of this conflict enough to know that Pallywood has been actively deceiving journalists for at least 15 years now, in an effort to delegitimize Israel. Before publishing “information” fed to you by fixers and “eyewitnesses,” realize that even Amnesty International has admitted the unreliability of “eyewitnesses” in this conflict. The most galling Pallywood example from this latest round of Arab terrorism is the inflammatory lie – by “moderate” Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas – that Israeli forces had “executed” a 13-year old. The truth: he was treated in the same Israeli hospital caring for the boy he tried to murder.

Such lies can kill. Because when it comes to this conflict, Arab leaders know that violence replaces reason at the slightest provocation – like hooligans at a football game incited to attack the opponents of their beloved team. So inciting lies are very much a weapon. The media should know this and expose the falsehoods, rather than blindly proliferate them. Journalists should know that “reporting” inflammatory claims can produce mob violence, and should therefore be doubly careful about checking facts, unless of course their goal is to trigger riots (which do produce more sensational news stories).

6) Learn the history of this conflict enough to know that Arab Muslims have been killing Jews in this area for over a century, with shifting excuses over time.

7) Stop trying to use the latest of those shifting excuses to justify the unjustifiable (here, too, the BBC is an offender). No alleged grievance warrants randomly stabbing people in the street. The average Syrian is infinitely worse off than anyone in Gaza or the West Bank, but Syrian teens aren’t randomly stabbing civilians. Countless refugees from Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere have risked their lives for the hope of a better future in Europe. And yet there are virtually no Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza among the millions desperate to reach Europe. So random stabbings don’t reflect some miserably unfair existence – they are the product of raw hatred and incitement.

8) Take note of nuances. Ninety-two Israeli Arab Muslims have committed terrorist attacks. They are not under occupation (and have better freedoms and living standards than most of the Arab world has). So clearly these attacks are not about any political dispute; they are driven by the same hateful incitement that rejects any state for the Jews.

9) Show cause and effect (ideally one before the other), and not just effect. When you show only Israeli responses to attacks, it makes Israelis look as if they wake up every morning asking how they can hurt Arabs. Israelis actually have better things to do with their mornings. Like cure cancer and stuff. But when people are trying to kill them, they understandably get a bit distracted. If the world could keep Israelis safer, cancer might get cured faster.

10) Articles should contain a logical subject and verb, preferably in a way that indicates who did what. According to CNN, Joseph’s Tomb spontaneously “catches fire.” CNN would rather change the laws of physics than blame Muslims for trying to burn a Jewish holy site. But there is a long list of non-Muslim sites that have been desecrated or destroyed by Muslims – from the Buddhas of Bamiyan razed by the Taliban to the countless monuments and churches destroyed by the Islamic State. History is also littered with Islamic conquests that converted non-Muslim holy sites into mosques.

11) Israeli lives matter. Getting both sides of the story means including photos and profiles of Israeli victims of Arab terrorism at least as often as you include photos and profiles of Arab attackers who were killed while trying to murder innocent Israelis. In case you’re not sure what it’s actually like to survive a stabbing attack, Kay Wilson’s TED Talk is a must-watch for some valuable context (and a reminder of what a life-affirming culture looks like, as opposed to the death cult trying to stamp it out).

12) Don’t be afraid to present Gazans as they present themselves (brandishing butcher knives and calling for Jewish blood). Show this Palestinian mother who celebrates that her child was killed trying to murder Israelis and who hopes that she and her other children all die for the same “cause.” Showing the Palestinian death cult of Jew-hatred that runs from crib to coffin might help observers understand why there’s still no peace.
Just for some context, when was the last time that you saw a video of a Jewish mother hoping that she and her children can all die for the sake of murdering some Germans to avenge the German Nazi murder of six million Jews (which seems a bit worse than praying on a contested holy site)?

13) If you want to falsify information to sanitize Palestinian terror, as NBC correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin did, try not to do so on live TV, because you’ll look really biased (and stupid).

14) It’s better to research whether the maps you display on your “news” broadcast were produced by anti-Israel propagandists BEFORE you broadcast them, because otherwise you’ll look as biased (and stupid) as NBC/MSNBC did.

15) To ensure that your reporting is fair and consistent, consider how a similar event was covered in other countries/contexts. For a strikingly convenient example, contrast how differently NBC News (again!) reports on airstrikes taking place in two neighboring Mideast conflicts, within just eight days of each other:
On October 3, NBC News used this headline to report that 60 Russian airstrikes in Syria killed 39 civilians: “Russia Launches New Wave of Airstrikes in Syria.” On October 11, NBC News used a much more personalized headline – with victim profiles – when reporting on one Israeli air strike that killed two civilians: “Israeli Strike in Gaza Kills Palestinian Woman, Child as Violence Continues.” So are two Gazan civilians more worthy of attention and sympathy than 39 Syrian civilians?

Ironically, despite your endless bias in favor of Palestinian terrorists, they thank you by posing as journalists in order to stab Israelis – a deceit that only undermines the trust that combatants have in the label “PRESS” and potentially endangers true war correspondents.

Each small instance of bias may seem like a mere “journalistic microagression” against Israel, but its cumulative effect is toxic and sometimes deadly. At best, the persistent anti-Israel bias poisons many millions – from voters to policy-makers – against Israel.  Even worse, it can lead to anti-Semitic violence, by mobs and/or individuals thugs, as is so often the case in Europe.

You journalists are key to a fair and civilized world. Start acting like it.

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/11/03/an-idiots-guide-for-the-media-on-how-to-do-your-job-properly/

Pick a "Kol Koreh" / Rabbinic Proclamation That Works For You!

GUEST POST:

by Daniel Schwartz Esq.

So, The Jewish people are suffering a wave of random terrorist stabbing attacks in our homeland. Islamic State is now making videos in Hebrew threatening annihilation of the Jewish people. Anti Semitism the world over abides and in some places rears its ugly head more often and louder than it has in the recent past. Iran marches on toward the bomb; which they say will be pointed at Tel Aviv, once they get it.

 But here in America, rabbinic leadership [sic], both its Modern Orthodox and Chareidi varieties, has determined that the greatest threat to Jewish survival, the two headed devil that has to be beheaded, are a growing group of uppity women who want to dedicate their professional lives to service of the Jewish people and a sub denomination that both supports those rebellious women and dares to ask and ponder questions on Jewish belief and practice to which there are no simple and pat answers.

 Around a year ago, when three boys in Israel were kidnapped and murdered, we all extolled the unity that was engendered by that horrific crime. We all knew in our hearts that our strength as a people lies in our fraternal love and unified voice. Well, that's what we projected. But it was a lie, the worst kind of self deception.

 The existential threat has not abated. The barbarians remain at the gate. And the threat grows with each day. Achdut? Areivut? Not this time, I guess. The "Gedoilim" have a new idea. Before "they" kill us, we'll kill each other- with words. Let me know how that works out for you.

Why would we trust information that doesn’t ever change? Information shifts perspective, deepening understanding.

Science Doesn't Find Truth, It Understands Change

 

People love the benefits of science. They generally like the advances made in technology, biology, psychology, chemistry, and physics. And yet, there seems to be confusion about what science is and how we perceive it, which has led to a strange backlash against pursuing knowledge. In a recent and riveting piece for Aeon, David P. Barash, a professor of psychology and biology at the University of Washington, dissects our modern suspicion of science with razor-sharp insight.

NASA Just Released The Largest Photo Ever Taken. What It Shows Will Shake You Up.

The video shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the Galaxy, stretching over 40,000 light-years. Nature is truly breathtaking and immensely vast...

The public distrusts science because it appears to change, Barash says. One day nerve cells don’t regenerate; the next day they do. Sugar is good; wait no bad; wait no evil — "wake me up when you make a decision," the weary public mumbles. But Barash points out that it’s only our paradigm that is shifting; not the actual truth, just our understanding of it.

That is something that seems difficult for people to understand. For example, if there is “breaking news” on TV, information starts rolling in to help us understand what happened. The event itself doesn’t change based on what we know or don’t know about it. So it is with science — the truths are always going to be true, regardless of the information we have. To continue with the news analogy, the reporters do research to find the facts. The facts give context. With science, the research being done by its practitioners gives us context to understand the story of the universe.

As our tools and abilities to investigate on micro and macro levels become rapidly more sophisticated, it should be expected that old information will be invalidated and new information will be discovered.

 We are capable of forgiving public figures for mistakes (especially if they go on a late show and act cute), yet forgiving scientists for misjudging or misunderstanding something makes us assume that the entire endeavor is faulty. This type of black-and-white thinking is evident throughout modern society, particularly in politics, where nuance and gray areas have basically been eradicated. We ask from science that it be completely accurate all the time, a set of rules that go unchanging. Yet, our understanding of the world is constantly changing and evolving.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains where future scientific breakthroughs will come from:

Why would we trust information that doesn’t ever change? Information shifts perspective, deepening understanding. As our tools and abilities to investigate on micro and macro levels become rapidly more sophisticated, it should be expected that old information will be invalidated and new information will be discovered. The fact that things are changing at the speed that they are is encouraging! It means that we are becoming increasingly more informed and knowledgeable, that our methods are refined and tools more precise. If there was a greater lag time between discoveries, it would be a sign that our methods of research were as outdated and inaccurate as they were when we thought the Earth was flat.

Our culture doesn’t like science because it doesn’t offer a quick, easy answer that you can hang on to and use when you play Trivial Pursuit. Science is an ongoing investigation and observation. Instead of dismissing it just because it’s fluid and complex, maybe we should take a step back and do an observation all our own: look at how quickly we are advancing. Faster than ever before. More sophisticated than ever before. What an exciting time to be alive. After all, thanks to science, your lifespan is a whole lot longer than our ancestors. Maybe we’re scared of knowledge, because the more we find out about the universe, the smaller we feel. But I can’t help but be in awe of our achievements, and the continuing discoveries being made every single day all over the planet. Science is only how we understand reality; it’s nothing to be apprehensive about. Or as the great Bill Nye once said, science rules.

--

Lori Chandler is a writer and comedian living in Brooklyn, NY. She has been published in The New York Times and on CollegeHumor. You can follow her on Twitter @LilBoodleChild to keep up with her latest pieces, performance dates, and wry observations. 

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/if-you-think-science-is-the-enemy-you-dont-know-what-science-is

Another American victim of Palestinian terrorism was buried this week. Does it matter that he was an American? Why should the American government, or American Jews, take any more interest in the latest victim than in any other victims?

Another American Victim of Palestinian Terror: Why it Matters

Author:

Stephen M. Flatow / JNS.org

 

 

Richard Lakin, who succumbed to wounds he sustained in a terrorist attack on a bus in Jerusalem.

JNS.org – Another American victim of Palestinian terrorism was buried this week. Does it matter that he was an American? Why should the American government, or American Jews, take any more interest in the latest victim than in any other victims?

Richard Lakin, a 76-year-old former Connecticut school principal, died Oct. 27 of wounds he suffered in a recent Palestinian terrorist attack in Jerusalem. He was the 137th American citizen murdered by Palestinian terrorists since the 1960s.

Since he was an American citizen, Lakin’s death will merit a brief mention in many American newspapers, and newspapers in his hometown will give more extensive coverage.

That’s the first reason the American identity of these victims matters. If not for the sense that “he was one of us,” these terror victims would be completely forgotten. Newspapers have limited space. They choose the stories they will cover based primarily on what they think will interest their readers. They believe that Americans will care more about other Americans than about other victims, and that residents of Connecticut will be more interested in what happens to other residents of their state than residents of other states. And that’s a reasonable assumption, whether we like it or not.

Richard Lakin was Jewish. As a result, American Jews will take a particular interest in what happened to him. And they should. The organized American Jewish community actively encourages Jews to visit Israel. The community, as my family does through the Alisa Flatow Memorial Scholarship Fund, also supports “study abroad” programs at Israeli schools, seminaries, and universities in order to attract American Jewish college students to study there for a semester or a year. And a number of Jewish organizations provide financial assistance and other incentives to American Jews to move to Israel.

These American Jewish initiatives to send Jews to Israel are an expression of the strength and warmth of the ties that bind Israel and the Diaspora. We derive inspiration and spiritual sustenance from our relationship with the Jewish state. We want our children to share in that. And if we are going to encourage American Jews to go to Israel, then we have a special obligation to care, and to act, if any of those Jews are harmed by Palestinian terrorists in Israel.

Moreover, American Jews have the ability to make a difference. Our relationship with the White House and Congress, our electoral clout as a community, and our skills at reaching out to the wider public enable us to influence America’s policy on these issues.

The American public should care, too. The people of the United States have always had a special attachment to Israel, because the Jewish state shares our democratic, humanitarian, and Judeo-Christian  values. Americans who visit or even live in Israel are putting into practice the heartfelt sentiments of millions of their fellow American citizens.

American taxpayers should care for another reason: the US government sends $500 million of their tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority (PA) every year. So the public has a right to expect the government to intervene when PA employees or PA-incited terrorists murder our citizens, or when the PA names streets, parks, and soccer teams after murderers of Americans.

The American government, too, has a special obligation with regard to American victims of Palestinian terrorism.

First, there is a legal obligation. American citizens, whether they are visiting, studying, or living abroad, are still American citizens. They pay taxes just like the rest of us, and in return the US government has a legal responsibility to act when they are harmed by terrorists abroad just as it would have an obligation to act if they are harmed by terrorists within the US.

Second, the US government has a strategic obligation to act. Fighting Palestinian terrorism must be part of America’s global war on terror. Bringing Palestinian killers of Americans to trial in the US would contribute significantly to anti-terror efforts, by making it clear to Palestinian terrorists that they could face the death penalty, or at least life in prison with no hope of release in a prisoner exchange — something that is not the case when they kill Israelis.

So, yes, it is relevant that Richard Lakin was an American. It’s not just a question of narrow national pride, or ethnic solidarity, or curiosity. For important moral, legal, and strategic reasons, the American victims of Palestinian terrorism should matter to American Jews, to the American public, and to the American government.

 

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

"A scholar of Biblical texts, Jewish law and Hasidic philosophy, Leifer is a mother of eight. But evidence given earlier this year in a civil case in the Victorian Supreme Court portrayed her as a calculating, predatory paedophile...."

Charismatic school principal Malka Leifer was adored within a strict Jewish sect in Melbourne’s east. Despite whispers of inappropriate acts with students, it was years before her dark secrets were exposed.
 

"My childhood was very difficult,” Sarah* says, in a matter-of-fact way. Now in her mid-20s, she has a quiet voice, but speaks with a forceful elegance. 

“I just knew that when my mother hit me and when she screamed at me, I couldn’t tell anyone. For anybody to know would be the scariest thing.

“We weren’t allowed to go to the toilet. We weren’t allowed to sleep, or we had to sleep in the way she wanted us to. We’d go to bed and she’d decide she wanted some food made for her in the middle of the night, so she’d wake up. But we had to be dressed in a certain way.”

Sarah and her siblings would dress in socks, dresses, dressing gowns; layer upon layer, so that they appeared “modest”.

“She’d wake us up, just as we’d fallen asleep, make us get her food, and then go back to bed. Ten minutes later, she’d wake us up because she wanted a glass of water.”

“I knew what that looked like, though,” she says. “I’d go to friends’ houses and see how their mothers would feed them, how they would look at them and give them hugs.”

None of the children were exempt from abuse, but Sarah and her youngest brother suffered most. They were also the darkest-skinned and looked more like their mother.

“She used to tell us all the time how ugly we were,” says Sarah, “and how she wished we would die.”
The children “self-diagnosed” their mother as having borderline personality disorder.

“There was no love, there were no hugs, there was no encouragement. It was basically trying to survive.”

Sarah says her mother routinely hit her until she turned 16 and was “very smart about it”, hitting her in places covered by her clothes – places even an observant teacher wouldn’t notice.

Malka Leifer

“A teacher with the right knowledge would be able to see that we looked… haunted,” Sarah says.

That teacher was Malka Leifer.

“I would say it took her about two years to work her magic,” Sarah says.

Malka Leifer was principal of the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel School in Elsternwick, Melbourne from 2002 to 2008, a pillar of her tight-knit community. At 48, Leifer was, according to parents of former students, recruited specifically because of her ultra-Orthodox beliefs.

At the time of her appointment, she was widely regarded within the community to be its second-holiest member, behind spiritual leader Rabbi Avrohom Zvi Beck.

A scholar of Biblical texts, Jewish law and Hasidic philosophy, Leifer is a mother of eight. But evidence given earlier this year in a civil case in the Victorian Supreme Court portrayed her as a calculating, predatory paedophile.

"She knew exactly when to do it,” alleges Sarah.

“It was all planned. Slowly, when she set herself up in the community and had their love and respect, at the point when such a thing would never enter their minds, that’s when she started.”

Sarah claims she was systematically abused by Leifer for years, along with “seven or eight” other female students.

“I don’t know how I could explain how charming she was,” says Sarah.

“The community absolutely respected and loved her. They basically treated her like God.”

“The way she played her game was… she’d start by calling you out of class, in the middle of a lesson, and would sit with you and ask you how you were doing, how you were feeling. When I finally, eventually opened up to her and told her that things were really bad, that’s when she made her move.”

Sarah says she heard whispers about Leifer’s relationships with other students, but was not equipped to comprehend the implications behind the rumours.

“I heard little things, but I didn’t really understand. All I knew was that at school if she likes you… that’s what you should aim for.”

Adass Israel is a strain of Hasidism, a movement which was founded in the 18th century by Jewish mystics and quickly became a populist alternative to traditional Judaism. The Hasidim, or “pious ones,” are an ultra-Orthodox movement with a focus on self-preservation.

After generations of persecution, many Hasidic Jews today are second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors, who take quite literally the Lord’s order to “be fruitful and multiply”, to replenish a devastated population. Today, Australia has the second-highest population of Holocaust survivors per capita in the world.

The insularity of the movement is, in part, born of the caution that comes of a history shaped by adversity. It’s also the product of a rich cultural heritage and religious strength that has allowed it, and others like it throughout the diaspora, to flourish and bring new prosperity – both to itself, and to its adopted home of Melbourne. That same insularity has also allowed it to harbour dark secrets. Growing up in the Adass community, Sarah tells me, is to grow up in a culture of humiliation and shame, particularly centred around the body.

Sexual education exists only in the form of a special lesson administered by a community member – with a strict focus on procreation – after a young man or woman is already engaged.

Sarah recalls reading Enid Blyton books at school, where every third or fourth paragraph would be missing a word. Sarah read the whole of The Magic Faraway Tree without knowing the names of two main characters: Dick and Fanny.

“We wouldn’t have even known what ‘Dick’ was supposed to mean, because we didn’t know what a dick was,” she tells me. “Their crossing it out only made us more inquisitive, but biology wasn’t even a subject.”
Outside school, a few of Sarah’s classmates had read different books without their parents’ consent and they shared with friends what they had learned.

“We knew that a penis goes into a vagina when you get married,” she recalls. “And I remember a friend saying, ‘There’s no fucking way I’m letting that near me’.”

Sarah grimaces. “I also said that I was never going to let that happen.”

Without sex education, Sarah had no defence against sexual predators.

“I’ve always wanted to share my story,” Sarah tells me on a particularly bleak morning, over three cups of strawberry tea. But it has taken her seven years to feel comfortable doing so.

I ask about her earliest memory.

“When people ask me my memories of my childhood, the good things don’t come to my mind,” she says. “I try not to dwell on that too much. The main good thing about my childhood was having my siblings. If I didn’t have them, I probably wouldn’t be alive.”

She talks about being eight years old.

“We used to go on family holidays and we couldn’t go to the beach because it wasn’t modest enough. Or we’d walk down the street in summer and everyone else would be in shorts and singlets, and we’d be wearing long dresses and tights.

“I remember thinking even at that age that I didn’t want to be different, I just wanted to be the same as everyone else,” she says.

Sarah’s entire universe was contained in one suburb: “We went to Carnegie once, and that felt like going to the end of the world.”

Her parents had moved to Australia fleeing disapproval of their marriage, and soon started a family. “Then they decided to become religious, and they went all the way to the extreme," Sarah says.

“I think a lot of that shift has to do with my mother’s extreme nature,” Sarah says. “She needed to grab onto something and when she encountered someone from our community who was really kind to her, she decided they were the type of people she wanted to be around.”

Sarah believes her mother’s urge to fit in prompted her to join the community.

“Only if you become so extreme can you become one of them,” she says.

“There’s no middle ground. You’re either extreme or you aren’t part of the community.”

When Sabbath begins on Friday evenings, what is already the quietest neighbourhood in Eastern Melbourne becomes almost eerily silent. Restaurants close down, cars are parked in driveways where they remain for the next 24 hours, and families gather indoors to feast and to pray, shutting out the white noise of contemporary life even more resolutely.

Without the internet, television, media or movies, she says, “you don’t have much to talk about.” Sarah characterises the community as “a world of nothing”.

“What do they talk about? Who has the nicest car. Who has the nicest house. Who has the nicest clothes. I find all that stuff really trivial.”

“It sounds very… strict,” I offer.

Sarah corrects me. “It was a cult.”

The Adass community is the most insular of the Haredi or ultra-Orthodox spectrum of Jews. Melbourne’s Jewish communities have long dominated the Eastern suburbs of St Kilda East, Balaclava and Caulfield; the Adass community is confined to a small grid bordered by Brighton, Orrong, Balaclava and Glenhuntly Roads.

The concept of an eruv encircles this boundary: all buildings within are ritually integrated into a private domain where residents may carry objects that are otherwise forbidden to be held on the Sabbath: prams, house keys, tissues, medicine and babies.

They have their own telephone directory, schools, ambulance service, synagogue, shops, cemetery, bathhouses, security patrols and rabbinical court system.

Male “Adassniks” have long, dark beards and wear black silk coats that reach their knees over white pantaloons and stockings. Twin sideburn ringlets curl down beneath enormous mink fur hats. Female members of the community wear thick tights, long skirts and loose blouses. Married women wear wigs, in keeping with the law that their heads must be covered for modesty’s sake.

Adass Israel School is responsible for the education of 600 students from preschool to year 12. The girls’ and boys’ campuses are strictly segregated, separated by a two-minute walk and gated security. The VCE curriculum that is the benchmark for university entry is not offered: boys leave around the age of 16 to pursue religious education, while girls complete a vocational certificate – if they aren’t married off beforehand.

Adass Israel School, Elsternwick Victoria

Mornings are dedicated to Jewish history and scripture. Three hours in the afternoons are spent studying maths and science. 

“I was very under-stimulated and very under-challenged,” Sarah says. “Kids would play up because they didn’t care about secular subjects, because their parents kept instilling ‘this is not important, you don’t need to know this,’ because you get married and then that’s it. You won’t ever get a degree because you don’t need one.”

READ ENTIRE ESSAY:
http://www.sbs.com.au/features/news/dear-teacher/

"There’s no way in the world that the ultra-Orthodox community in 30 years will look in any shape or fashion the same way it looks now."

Ultra-Orthodox Jews are using WhatsApp to defy their rabbis’ Internet ban . The popular messaging app has made it difficult for Hasidic leaders to keep the secular world at bay...

Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Anti-Internet Rally

Like most people, Moshe spends a lot of his time messaging friends on his smartphone. Unlike most people, he can’t openly talk about it.

As a Hasidic Jew living in Brooklyn, Moshe’s online activities are extremely limited. His ultra-orthodox sect has long banned internet use, on the grounds that exposure to the secular world would lead to moral corruption, sexual promiscuity, and infidelity. The insular community has allowed for some exceptions, acknowledging that smartphones and computers are now essential for business, though its leadership still requires members to install web filters on their devices, blocking all social media services and all but a few whitelisted websites. Internet use among children remains strictly forbidden.

Moshe, like many other Hasidim, regularly skirts these rules with WhatsApp — the popular messaging application that Facebook acquired for $19 billion in 2014. On his second, unfiltered smartphone, he uses the app to share news articles and local gossip across several group chats, some of which include up to 100 members.

WhatsApp has become popular among the Haredi community — an umbrella term for ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects that include the Hasidim. For Moshe and other Hasidim, the app provides a window into the outside world, and a forum for candid debate and discussion. In their view, it’s a closed network that’s not explicitly connected to the open web. For Hasidic leaders, it’s the latest threat to centuries of tradition and insularity.

Earlier this year, a forum of leading Haredi rabbis in Israel issued an injunction against using WhatsApp, which they described as "a great spiritual danger." A 2014 article in a Yiddish-language newspaper pointed to WhatsApp as the “number one cause of destruction of Jewish homes and businesses," citing rabbis who oversee divorces. Hasidic leaders have yet to fully ban the app, though they only allow it to be used with strong filters that block images and video. Those found to be using non-filtered phones could be ostracized from the community and have their children thrown out of ultra-Orthodox schools.

That’s why Moshe, 40, requested that his real name not be published. "We are playing with my kids’ lives," he told me.

Hasidic leadership has in recent years mounted a concerted campaign to control the web. In 2012, ultra-orthodox leaders held a massive anti-internet rally at Citi Field baseball stadium in New York, where they called for tighter restrictions on internet use. Ultra-orthodox rabbis have effectively limited outside media in the past, with edicts against television and radio, and tight controls over Yiddish-language newspapers. But the internet has proven more insidious, and with the rise of smartphones, it’s become even harder to control.

Ysoscher Katz, a former ultra-orthodox rabbi, says the community’s insularity stems from the belief that strict adherence to tradition is the best way to preserve Jewish identity. "The idea is that once you adopt contemporary names, contemporary clothing, and contemporary language, then eventually that’ll lead to assimilation and dissolution of the Jewish community," says Katz, who grew up in the Hasidic sect but eventually left to become a rabbi and teacher at a more progressive orthodox community in New York.

"They’re very worried and very afraid. And very anxious."

 
He recalls Hasidic leaders "aggressively fighting back" when the internet began gaining traction more than a decade ago, with strict bans on household computers, and those efforts have only amplified as technology has evolved. "I would lie to you if I said I don’t sympathize with their concerns," Katz says. "They’re very worried and very afraid. And very anxious."

So far, the community has policed smartphone use through a small group of approved filtering companies. Whitelisted sites and services are determined by local rabbinical boards, and the parameters can change from one community to another. But the guiding principle is that if it’s not business-related, it’s blocked. "The assumption is that any website could potentially lead to something inappropriate, or something dangerous or titillating," Katz says. "So the starting point is very low and the bar is very high."

With WhatsApp, Haredi leaders face a new dilemma. At its core, the app is a messaging service, and ostensibly permissible for business use; but it also incorporates elements of social networks, which remain strictly forbidden. And with more community members, like Moshe, secretly carrying unfiltered phones and sharing links from the wider web, it’s become nearly impossible to keep the outside world at bay.

Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College CUNY who has spent his career studying contemporary orthodox Jewish communities, describes Hasidic WhatsApp groups as vibrant forums where users share "everything from jokes to news accounts." He says that the group’s moderators are very "plugged in" to the news cycle. Last month, for example, Heilman first learned of the deadly stampede at Mecca through one of the group chats he was invited to join.

"A real threat for their insularity."


"There’s nothing now of the outside world that doesn’t find its way into these Haredi enclaves," he says.

"And so this represents a real threat for their insularity."

Last week, Moshe added me to a few of the dozen WhatsApp groups he created. One is devoted to business (he works in marketing and finance), and another for a small group of his close friends. The largest, and most active group, is primarily for general news and discussion. It includes around 100 members, though Moshe estimates that he personally knows around 30.

Much of the discussion last week focused on the latest developments in Israel, and the escalating violence there, though group members shared links and media about other stories, as well — everything from the presidential primary race to local news. The conversation would shift between Yiddish and English, and at times, it was difficult to keep up. One minute, I would be scrolling through photos of Jimmy Kimmel shooting a segment in their neighborhood, or videos of young Hasidic men dancing at a recent event. Seconds later came videos of a bus that had caught fire near LaGuardia Airport, or news that a New York police officer had been gunned down.

"I show him the middle finger, that I still have an opinion. He cannot censor my opinion."

 
There was plenty of debate, and things sometimes got heated. But Moshe says that’s exactly the kind of dialogue that’s too often stifled by censored Yiddish media. He sees himself as a kind of editor for the group, dropping in links to spark discussions that wouldn’t happen in public. For him, it’s a quiet form of rebellion.
 
"What is a filter? A filter censors you," he told me last week. "He wants to censor my mind. And I show him the middle finger, that I still have an opinion. He cannot censor my opinion."

Yet despite his misgivings about the community and its approach to the internet, Moshe admits that he would never leave. That would involve abandoning his family, isolating his children, and leaving the only life he’s ever known. Instead, he’s forced to lead a double life. In public, he dutifully uses his flip phone and feigns ignorance of the outside world; in private, he scours the web for news stories and memes to share. It’s a delicate balance that he maintains for the sake of his children.

When parents enroll their children in ultra-orthodox schools, known as yeshivas, they’re often obliged to register their phone numbers and sign a form saying that they won’t allow their children to access the internet at home. "The goal of that letter is either to discourage people from having internet or to make it very clear that if they do have internet, this kid better not have access to it," says Naftuli Moster, a former Hassid who left the community to start an advocacy group for yeshiva reform. "And that part is very strictly enforced."

"They need their kids to go to that school. It's not like there are options."

 
Proving that people have internet for the wrong reasons can be difficult, Moster says, though authorities can be tipped off if children talk about it at school, or through community gossip. And the threat of having their kids pulled out of yeshiva is serious enough for parents to keep quiet. "They need their kids to go to that school," Moster says. "It’s not like there are options."

For now, it appears that the leadership is treading lightly with regards to WhatsApp. A representative from Geder, a New York-based filtering company, says community leaders decided that the app is necessary as a messaging tool for business purposes, but ordered all images and videos sent within it be blocked. All of the major Hasidic filtering companies use the same basic software, called Livigent, though Geder’s incorporates "live filtering" technology that automatically scans every web page and blocks any offending content. If it detects an image with skin tones, for example, it will replace it with a black box.

Moster believes rabbis could effectively crack down on WhatsApp if they wanted to, though he says they would risk backlash if Hasidic businesses begin suffering, adding that the app has already become ingrained within the community. Perhaps in anticipation of a crackdown, many within Moshe’s social circle have begun using Telegram — a similar messaging app that offers encrypted texting and doesn’t link user accounts to phone numbers. Moshe believes the app offers stronger privacy protections than WhatsApp, underscoring fears that their online conversations could be monitored. Last week, two filtering companies, Geder and Meshimer, sent emails to clients notifying them that Telegram would now be blocked.

"There’s no way that the ultra-orthodox community in 30 years will look the way it looks now."

 
In a phone interview, the Geder representative said a local rabbinical board decided to block it after
determining that it wasn’t necessary for business use, and denied that the move had anything to do with the encrypted communications that Telegram allows. He added that customer data is stored on secure servers and not shared with anyone else, though Moshe and some others in his WhatsApp groups remain wary.

For Moshe and other Hasidim carrying unfiltered phones, stronger censorship won’t make much of a difference. They’ll continue sharing links and information through WhatsApp or other messaging platforms, and they’ll continue pretending like it doesn’t happen. Less clear is how the leadership will respond going forward.

"I think it could go both ways," Katz, the former Hasidic rabbi, says of a potential crackdown. "It could either be a huge success, and they will ultimately succeed to isolate those who don’t adhere to their wishes, or it might be a failure and they might ultimately concede."

In the long run, though, he thinks change is inevitable. "There’s no way in the world that the ultra-orthodox community in 30 years will look in any shape or fashion the same way it looks now."

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/27/9620752/whatsapp-hasidic-jewish-internet-ban

What Did Rabbi Hutner Do When He Was Captured? How Did He Conduct Himself? Did He Assist Fellow Passengers? Did He Act As A Gadol Would?....And Should We Care?

KOSHER FOOD FOR RABBI HUTNER

Allenby Bridge across the Jordan River, 11:30 AM. A lone U.S. embassy official walked up to the Allenby Bridge, an unimpressive, steel and wooden structure spanning the Jordan River at a narrow point between Israel and Jordan. He carried a box marked "special foods for [the Red Crescent] Amman." Inside were canned Israeli goods and a note that read "Kosher food for Rabbi Hutner."

TWA Flight 741

TWA Flight 741

A TWA Boeing 707 similar to the hijacked craft
Hijacking summary
Date	6 September 1970
Summary	Hijacking
Site	Brussels, Belgium
Passengers	144
Crew	11
Injuries (non-fatal)	none
Survivors	155 (all)
Aircraft type	Boeing 707–331B
Operator	Trans World Airlines
Registration	N8715T
Flight origin	Ben-Gurion Int'l Airport
2nd stopover	Ellinikon International Airport
3rd stopover	Frankfurt International Airport
Destination	John F. Kennedy Int'l Airport

TWA Flight 741 (type Boeing 707, serial 18917/460, registration N8715T^[9]) was a round-the-world flight carrying 144 passengers and a crew of 11. The flight on this day was flying from Tel Aviv, Israel to Athens, Frankfurt am Main and then to New York City, and was hijacked on the Frankfurt-New York leg. In an interview for the film Hijacked, Flight 741's purser, Rudi Swinkles, recalled, "I saw a passenger running toward first class. I ran after him, and when he came to first class to the cockpit, he turned around, had a gun in his hand, and pointed the gun at me, and said, 'Get back, get back.' So right away, I dove behind the bulkhead first class divider, and I hid behind it, over here."^[10]

It landed at Dawson's Field in Jordan at 6:45 p.m. local time.^[11]

Hijackers gained control of the cockpit and a female stated, "This is your new captain speaking. This flight has been taken over by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. We will take you to a friendly country with friendly people."^[5]

Yitzchok Hutner^[12] and Tova Kahn and her children were also on the plane.^[13]

Two days earlier, the American embassy in Amman learned that Rabbi Isaac Hutner, "a strict adherent to the dietary laws of Judaism, has refused to accept food which he believes to be not kosher." (In fact, eight other hostages, including me, were doing the same.) The embassy asked other U.S. embassies in the region to "obtain canned kosher items and forward [them] to Amman as soon as possible for relay to the captors." The next day, the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv offered to do so. The Amman embassy advised it to deliver the food in "inconspicuous packages" to the Jordanian police at the Allenby Bridge and request that it be turned over to the ICRC in Amman. Despite a day-long effort, the Amman embassy could not reach the ICRC to alert it to the possible arrival of the food.

Now the official walked across the bridge hoping to find someone on the Jordanian side willing to accept the package. Finding no one at the Jordanian end of the bridge, he walked about a kilometer into Jordan where he finally encountered a group of Jordanian soldiers. The corporal in charge was sympathetic but had no clue what to do; he phoned an officer. Instructed not to accept the parcel, the corporal suggested that it might be possible to deliver it in a couple of days, perhaps on Sunday. So, the official returned to the Israeli side and entrusted the parcel to the bridge commander, one Captain Ilan, who agreed to hold onto it until new arrangements could be made.

The food never reached Rabbi Hutner.

http://www.meforum.org/1768/terror-in-black-september-an-eyewitness-account

The Hijacked Rosh Yeshiva

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Luke Ford

 

In a lecture on rabbinic biographies for Torah in Motion, Orthodox rabbi and history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: “I think the [Nathan] Kamanetsky book was too voyeuristic in those areas. There are times when it is going to be rough to tread.

The story of the famous rosh yeshiva who was involved in a hijacking. His behavior on the airplane was very questionable. He separated himself. He got his family there to convince the hijackers that he’s special and that he should be separated. His students in America thought they could raise money to ransom him.” ( Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky said it was forbidden to pay ransom for him....)

According to Wikipedia on Yitzchok (Isaac) Hutner (1906–1980): In the late 1960s he began to visit Israel again, planning to build a new yeshiva there. On 6 September 1970, he and his wife, daughter, and son-in-law Yonasan David were returning to New York when their airplane was hijacked by the PFLP Palestinian terrorist organization. The terrorists freed the non-Jewish passengers and held the Jewish passengers hostage on the plane for one week, after which the women and children were released and sent to Cyprus. The hijacked airplanes were subsequently detonated.

 The remaining 40-plus Jewish men – including Rabbi Hutner, Rabbi David, and two students accompanying Rabbi Hutner, Rabbi Meir Fund and Rabbi Yaakov Drillman – and male flight crew continued to be held hostage in and around Amman, Jordan; Rabbi Hutner was held alone in an isolated location while Jews around the world prayed fervently for his safe release. The terrorists tried to cut off his beard, but were stopped by their commanders.

 Rabbi Hutner was reunited with the rest of the hostages on 18 September, and was finally released on 26 September and flown together with his family members to Nicosia, Cyprus. On 28 September Rabbi Hutner and his group were flown back to New York via Europe, and were home in time for the first night of Rosh Hashana.”

"Among the documents that the hijackers discovered were precious handwritten manuscripts of seforim that Rav Yitzchak Hutner had painstakingly compiled over years. The terrorists confiscated the manuscripts, claiming they contained secret plans for espionage. Years of efforts to retrieve those manuscripts proved fruitless — they were probably incinerated when the planes were blown up. The terrorists also discovered in his possession documents relating to the purchase of two apartments in north Jerusalem, one for him and one for his daughter. The terrorists were enraged by his plans to buy apartments in territory that had been “stolen” from them. “It’s ours! It’s ours!” they shouted repeatedly."

http://www.mishpacha.com/Browse/Article/1411/HE-SWALLOWED-MY-PAPERS-TO-SAVE-ME 

R

RABBI ISAAC HUTNER'S "DAAT TORAH PERSPECTIVE" ON THE HOLOCAUST: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

 

 Rabbi Hutner sitting - 2nd from right.

... Further, Professor Kaplan described “the whole notion of Daat Torah [as] to close and suppress discussion [and thus enable] one person or group to impose, ex cathedra a personal, particular viewpoint on all persons or groups -- and no questions asked!” [All footnotes omitted.]⁴
 
In his longer 1992 essay, Professor Kaplan again cited Rabbi Weinberger's statement in The Jewish Observer about Daat Torah “bordering . . . on the periphery of prophecy,” describing Rabbi Weinberger's writing as “perhaps the clearest exposition of Daas Torah . . ..” ⁵ Developing the various fundamental flaws (in his mind) relating to “Daat Torah” that he first publicized in Tradition and attempting but (again from his perspective) failing to find traditional “sources” for the concept, Professor Kaplan concluded -- citing Professor Ephraim Urbach -- that “Daat Torah ideology has never been based upon authoritative halakhic sources . . ..” 

 "Let us ignore the Agudah's ritual invocations of  Daat Torah. Let us be wary of separatist groups, which are led by  their philosophy to engage, albeit unwittingly, in highly selective forms of Ahavat Yisroel. Instead, let us continue in our classic tradition of working from within for the advance of our old but ever new goal of Klal Yisroel, the land of Israel, for the people of Israel, in accordance with the Torah of Israel"

 "But one thing is certain: the fact that the philosophy of Agudat Israel can, for whatever reason, result in such distortions should serve to prevent Orthodox Jews who are committed to the principles of religious Zionism from being seduced by the siren song of Agudah, to wit: that their viewpoint and only theirs represent the view of Daat Torah. And here we come to the final and perhaps most fundamental point. On its cover page The Jewish Observer described Rabbi Hutner's discourse as offering "a Daas Torah perspective" on the Holocaust. I believe that Orthodox Jews who are not adherents of Agudat Israel and its philosophy should be wary of the entire concept of Daat Torah and its all too casual use, both in the pages of The Jewish Observer and on the part of Agudah spokesmen in general...."

A VERY IMPORTANT READ: 
http://traditionarchive.org/news/originals/Volume%2018/No.%203/Rabbi%20Isaac%20Hutner's.pdf