To the So-Called Self-Described "Leaders" - Moral Midgets - De Facto Criminals of Every Faith Denomination, Jewish, Secular and Otherwise ----- “The scars of this horrific abuse continue to live with all of us, and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Simone Biles testified to Congress.

"All we needed was one adult to do the right thing," Aly Raisman tells Senate..."It has affected my health. In the last couple of years, I've had to be taken in an ambulance because I passed out. I'm so sick from just the trauma. It might not even be after a hearing like this. It just hits me out of the blue. So I think it's important for people to understand how much, you know, even if we're not crying, how much we are all struggling and how much survivors are suffering, because people often say, well, why did you just come forward now? Because it's terrifying to come forward, the fear of not being believed, but also because it affects us so much. Sometimes it's impossible just to say the words out loud," Raisman said. 

 
"I personally don't think that people realize how much experiencing this type of abuse is not something one just suffers in the moment. It carries on with them sometimes for the rest of their lives. For example, being here today is taking everything I have. My main concern is, I hope I have the energy even to just walk out of here. I don't think you realize how much it affects us, how much the PTSD, how much the trauma impacts us. For every survivor it's different," she said.

WASHINGTON — Simone Biles, the most accomplished gymnast in history, did not want to be in Congress on Wednesday, testifying to a Senate committee about the F.B.I.’s mishandling of one of the biggest sexual abuse cases in United States history.

Sitting at the witness table alongside three of her former teammates on the United States national team, Biles said she couldn’t imagine being less comfortable. But she chose to publicly address lawmakers for herself, as a survivor of that abuse, but also for other athletes, especially children, whom she feels compelled to protect.

Biles, 24, broke down in tears when explaining that she does not want any more young people to endure the suffering that she has at the hands of a pedophile. She and hundreds of other girls and women were molested by Lawrence G. Nassar, the former national team doctor. He is now serving what amounts to life in prison for multiple sex crimes. NYT

US Olympic gymnasts (L-R) Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols testify during a Senate Judiciary hearing about the Inspector General's report on the FBI handling of the Larry Nassar investigation of sexual abuse of Olympic gymnasts on September 15, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Gymnasts Slam FBI for Failing to Protect Them From Sexual Abuse

 

Four of the top gymnasts in the United States told Congress that the FBI, USA Gymnastics, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had failed them, for years, in a Senate hearing Wednesday—and they want answers and accountability.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing centered on a Justice Department report, released this summer, that found the FBI had botched its investigation into Larry Nassar, a once-celebrated doctor who has since been jailed and accused of abusing hundreds of gymnasts while pretending he was providing medical treatment. The four gymnasts who testified Wednesday—Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman—have all said that they were abused by Nassar.

“They had legal, legitimate evidence of child abuse and did nothing,” Maroney, an Olympic gold medalist, told the senators of the FBI. “If they’re not going to protect me, I want to know: Who are they trying to protect?”

Maroney, who is not named in the report, spoke with a FBI agent about her experience with Nassar, but that agent didn’t properly follow up, according to the report. More than a year after speaking with Maroney, the agent drafted a summary of her interview that included statements she did not make, per the report. 

The FBI’s inaction, Maroney said, was beyond devastating. She recalled sitting on her bedroom floor and spending nearly three hours telling the agent about the abuse she endured. After recounting one particularly horrific memory, she began to cry; the agent, she said, only asked her, “Is that all?”

“By not taking immediate action from my report, they allowed a child molester to go free for more than a year and this inaction directly allowed Nassar’s abuse to continue,” Maroney said. “I am tired of waiting for people to do the right thing, because my abuse was enough.”

“Despite the extraordinarily serious nature of the allegations and the possibility that Nassar’s conduct could be continuing,” the Justice Department report concluded, “senior officials in the FBI Indianapolis Field Office failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and violated multiple FBI policies.” 

The report also found that the special agent who led the Indianapolis field office had lied to the Justice Department inspector general’s office, “in an effort to minimize or excuse his errors.”

However, the inspector general’s office declined to prosecute anyone in the FBI over the handling of the Nassar case—a decision that came under fire in the Wednesday hearing. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, called on the Justice Department to pursue “criminal prosecution where appropriate.”

Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, and Christoper Wray, the FBI’s director, are also expected to testify Wednesday in a panel after the gymnasts.

In her statement, Biles echoed a question that has been raised by Rachel Denhollander, who spoke out publicly against Nassar in 2016: How much is a little girl worth?

“The scars of this horrific abuse continue to live with all of us,” said Biles, who suggested that her experience with Nassar, USA Gymnastics, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had contributed to her mental health at the Tokyo Olympics, where she largely stepped back from competing.

At one point, Biles was clearly holding back tears.

“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” she said. “USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by the Olympic team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”

Nassar was sentenced in 2018 after pleading guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct. More than 150 young women spoke at his sentencing hearing, delivering wrenching testimony about the lingering effects of Nassar’s abuse and the mass failure to act to stop him.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93y4d7/gymnastics-simone-biles-larry-nassar-fbi-congress?utm_source=email&utm_medium=editorial&utm_content=news&utm_campaign=210915

גמר חתימה טובה

 

"Ultra-Orthodox" Fressers & Their Fresserai - What Worries Them During The Covid Pandemic!

 

Kosher restaurants fear losing customers over NYC vaccine mandate

The owner of this kosher restaurant in Brooklyn says a vaccine mandate will not convince the unvaccinated to get the shot

 

 

 

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last month that beginning Sept. 13, restaurants would have to ask customers for proof that they received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in order for them to dine indoors or else be fined.

As the deadline approached, some kosher restaurants in New York City were still debating the consequences of complying — or not.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Miriam Lebovitz, the manager of Milk N Honey in Borough Park, Brooklyn, said last week. “I think it’s going to hurt us very bad.”

For kosher restaurants in Borough Park, where many Orthodox Jewish residents have taken to the streets to burn masks and protest COVID restrictions, deciding whether to follow the city’s mandate means weighing the cost of fines against the cost of losing unvaccinated customers.

“I don’t know what customers will do,” Lebovitz said.

A kosher pizzeria owner in Brooklyn is more confident. The New Yorker, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of inviting government inspectors to his neighborhood, said he’ll “100%” lose customers if his restaurant starts asking for proof of vaccination, even though the new policy allows unvaccinated customers to still dine outdoors or get delivery.

“If we open up the store and put up the sign, nobody’s going to walk in,” he added, referring to the signs that some restaurants have put up saying masks are required for entry.

Joe Klein, manager of Cafe Paris in Borough Park, said that while he supports vaccination because he’s seen the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus, he’s worried about losing unvaccinated customers. 

While de Blasio hopes the mandate will push those on the fence to be vaccinated, Klein said that based on his conversations with customers, this will “definitely not” happen. 

In the Zip code for heavily Orthodox Borough Park, only 44.65% of residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to city Health Department data. This is lower than the first-dose rate for the city overall, 66.8%. On Sept. 7, the most recent day for which the data was available, there was a seven-day rolling average of 1,446 daily COVID cases among city residents.

“There are people who’ve, God forbid, boycotted restaurants who are following the law,” said Elan Kornblum, who runs a Facebook group where “kosher foodies” have debated the city’s new policy. “That, I think, is disgusting.”

Rivky Amsel, a mother of five in Brooklyn, says she doesn’t support a boycott, but she also doesn’t want to go anywhere where she will be asked for vaccine proof.

“I feel bad for [the restaurants]. I do,” the Midwood resident said. “And I also really appreciate the establishments who stand up and say ‘This is not OK.’ You can’t ask people to say that. It’s not your business.”

“Being from a family of Holocaust survivors, I know that it’s terrible,” Amsel said. “People don’t see it that way — they see the equating of the asking for vaccine cards to anything related to the Holocaust as very, very extreme and negative. But me, I just can’t help it. I come from a family where, if my husband wore a yellow tie, my great aunt would say ‘We don’t wear yellow ties because it’s too similar to a yellow star.’

“I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling,” she added.

The mandate comes at a time when many restaurants, despite receiving government aid during the pandemic, have already been suffering financially. Their workers have faced harassment, too. 

“It’s very, very rough, very hard to get money, even if we don’t put up the sign” requiring masks, the pizzeria owner said.

If he decides not to ask for vaccine proof, he risks incurring fines of $1,000 after an initial warning, $2,000 for a third offense and $5,000 for any subsequent violations of the policy. Starting Monday, inspectors will be hitting neighborhoods in all five boroughs, de Blasio said Thursday.

But lingering questions remain.

“What happens if someone brings in a fake document?” Kornblum asks. 

“Or what happens if someone comes in and gives them a problem and starts arguing with them? And we’re also wondering, how is the government going to enforce? Are these inspectors coming every day? Are they going to be walking up to restaurant customers and saying, ‘Can I see your passport?’” 

Restaurant workers “have enough to deal with with reservations and no-shows and cancellations and a shortage of staff and rising costs of food and the entire gamut of what it takes to run a restaurant for decades, let alone the last couple of years,” Kornblum added.

Melissa Fleischut, CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, said it’s not just kosher restaurants that are worried about the new policy.

“The concern is that they’re being put in a position where they have to police this, and some customers are very upset about the mandate and are pushing back on the staff,” Fleischut said.

In a survey conducted last fall by One Fair Wage, more than three quarters of restaurant workers surveyed said they experienced or witnessed hostile behavior, including sexual harassment, from customers when a worker tried to enforce COVID-19 safety protocols. Restaurant workers also reported a decline in tips.

“Don’t say ‘I’m not going to help the restaurant’ because you can still take out, you can still get delivery,” Kornblum said. “I encourage people to keep supporting restaurants and doing what you can, and just being respectful to others as well.”

https://www.jta.org/2021/09/13/ny/kosher-restaurants-fear-losing-customers-over-nyc-vaccine-mandate?utm_source=JTA_Maropost&utm_campaign=JTA_DB&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-34452-462090

Hai Shaulian, one of the foremost anti-vaccine activists in Israel, died Monday morning of coronavirus.

 Fool anti-vaxxer dies of coronavirus

 

Hai Shaulian, an Israeli anti-vaxxer prominent on social media, dies of coronavirus after his condition deteriorated quickly.

Tags: Coronavirus

Hai Shaulian

Hai Shaulian, one of the foremost anti-vaccine activists in Israel, died Monday morning of coronavirus.

Shaulian was hospitalized approximately one week ago in Holon's Wolfson Medical Center, after being diagnosed with coronavirus. His condition quickly deteriorated.

Two days ago, Shaulian published his last video clip on Facebook, but did not backtrack on his anti-vaccine beliefs.

"Dear friends, my condition is extremely critical," he said in the Facebook video. "I am in very serious condition, I'm not able to speak or respond to people. I have no oxygen and I'm not managing to stabilize. This morning I woke up, I was soaking wet as if with several buckets of water, with no oxygen. It took me about an hour to understand who I am, where I am, and what I'm doing here. A lack of oxygen is a horrible and terrible thing."

"I thank all those who are worried about me and supporting me. You can pray, that helps. I believe that I will make it through this, with G-d's help. In my estimation it will take another two weeks, maybe three. Keep fighting. The State is acting with criminal and self-interested coercion towards us. Don't give up. The Green Pass will not be implemented in Israel, it has no connection to coronavirus. It has no connection to vaccines. It has a connection to coercion."

Prior to contracting coronavirus, Shaulian organized demonstrations and protests against the coronavirus rules, including in protest of the Green Pass and the requirement to wear masks in open and enclosed spaces.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313394

“How to Die Like a Medieval Peasant In Spite of Modern Medicine.”

Did Neil DeGrasse Tyson Tweet This About Unvaccinated Republicans?

 

The famous astrophysicist deleted the tweet, saying it was causing unintended "Twitter fights." 

 

Claim

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted that unvaccinated Republicans are dying from COVID-19 at five times the rate of Democrats.

Rating

Correct Attribution

About this rating

Origin

Snopes is still fighting an “infodemic” of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we’ve learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and “advice” you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.

---

Astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, “Startalk” podcast host and occasional Twitter “intergalactic troll” Neil deGrasse Tyson on Aug. 31, 2021, penned a tweet he later deleted because he said it was “causing too many unintended Twitter fights.”

The deleted tweet compared the rate of COVID-19 deaths among “(unvaccinated) Republican voters” to Democrats.

“Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats,” the tweet read. The post also contained a drawing of a book titled, “How to Die Like a Medieval Peasant In Spite of Modern Medicine.”

Here is an image of the now-deleted tweet, which was archived by the Internet Archive (the same post is still on Tyson’s Facebook page):

 

 

Tyson either didn’t provide a source for that information, or if he did, it was lost when he deleted the tweet. There was no source provided in the corresponding Facebook post.

The Brookings Institute, citing Kaiser Family Foundation polling data, has reported that anti-vaccine, anti-mask, and anti-social-distancing campaigns taken up by right-leaning political figures and media have had an effect on a segment of Republican voters, to the extent that Republicans are among the groups most likely to state they will “definitely” not get vaccinated.

---

Sources:

Alba, Davey. “Virus Misinformation Spikes as Delta Cases Surge.” The New York Times, 10 Aug. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/technology/covid-delta-misinformation-surge.html.

Kamarck, Elaine. “COVID-19 Is Crushing Red States. Why Isn’t Trump Turning His Rallies into Mass Vaccination Sites?” Brookings, 29 July 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/29/covid-19-is-crushing-red-states-why-isnt-trump-turning-his-rallies-into-mass-vaccination-sites/.

“COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor Dashboard.” Kaiser Family Foundation, 24 Aug. 2021, https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/dashboard/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-dashboard/.

 

30,000 Jewish Idiots at a Grave, 30,000 Idiots, If One Of Those Idiots Should Happen To Die, 29,999 Idiots at a Grave!

 

COVID testing in Uman collapses into chaos

 

No one can return home without a test result, but many tests taken on Monday still weren't ready three days later.

Entrance to Rebbe Nachman's tomb in Uman

MDA flew 70 paramedics and other staff out to Uman to conduct coronavirus testing, and the government’s coronavirus project manager, Prof. Salman Zarka, even traveled out himself to oversee the testing of tens of thousands of Israelis prior to their flights back home.

Despite all the preparations, however, the system seems to have collapsed into chaos and the question is why.

At least thirty thousand Jews from Israel (and many more from other countries) traveled to Ukraine to spend Rosh Hashanah at the gravesite of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, who is buried in Uman. Some ten thousand were already in Uman over a week before Rosh Hashanah began, and the government was prepared for another twenty thousand or more to join them in the last few days before the Jewish New Year.

Regulations enacted in the last few weeks by the government sought to ensure that those tens of thousands did not contract Covid-19 in large numbers abroad and bring it back to Israel with them. All those traveling out to Ukraine (and only to Ukraine) were required to test for the presence of coronavirus before boarding a flight out, and only those who tested negative were allowed to depart. 

They were tested again when they arrived in Ukraine – either at the airport in Kiev or in Uman, a four-hour drive away. Then, up to 72 hours before flying back, they were required to test a third time. At this point, the system collapsed, with huge lines at each of the testing stations and people waiting for hours.

Many who had anticipated just such a turn of events, as well as those who were flying back immediately after the end of the festival and needed a test result ready, took their tests before Rosh Hashanah began, on Monday. On Wednesday evening, however, as they were packing up and getting ready to head back home, their test results still had not come in.

According to MDA, the MDA tests were immediate, and these cases of late results were in cases of local tests and external organizations who offered tests to the masses.

Anecdotal reports suggest that rather than missing their flights home, some decided to pay for forged test results, after waiting long hours for the results of a test that had already cost them $20. Given that flights from Ukraine to Israel around Rosh Hashanah cost around four times the usual price as airline companies exploit the demand, missing a flight was clearly not the desired option.

“Why weren’t they prepared in advance? Didn’t anyone know how many Jews were in Uman?” one frustrated Israeli said in conversation with Arutz Sheva. “They really didn’t know how many testing stations they needed? Or do they simply not care – because at the end of the day, they can just blame whatever happens on those who came to Uman ‘and brought coronavirus back with them.’”

Ukraine: Israeli man seriously hurt 

 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313210

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This cannot be allowed to continue any longer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Child Sexual Abuse is Not a Recent Phenomena!

 

Does Ishmael Molest Isaac?

 

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

Molesting Isaac

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

READ THE ENTIRE ESSAY:

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

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

 

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

 

(I Urged All 15 Years ago)

Listen:

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Go to the police quietly,” Kanievsky said.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

Tags crime haredim sexual abuse

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeshiva University’s Mendel Gottesman Library

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

SAR Academy in the Bronx, New York

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 Students study at a yeshiva in Jerusalem

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moshe Tufik rejected the accusations and the ruling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

So, why is this happening?

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Taliban’s Regulations For Women

It will send chills down your spine. 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

H. Jack West, MD

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

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

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

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

Corollaries to Coronavirus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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