FailedMessiah.com

Anti-Trust In Kosher Saint Paul

Rubashkin's distributor in the upper midwest has consistently refused to sell non-glatt meat – even Rubashkin non-glatt – in the Twin Cities. Rabbi Morris Allen, the Saint Paul-based Conservative rabbi leading the Conservative Movement's investigation of Rubashkin, has been fighting to get non-glatt for his community. But after many months of fighting, no results – until, it seems, this week. The local supermarket is now selling Rubashkin non-glatt. Amazing how this would happen the very week of the investigation, a week that saw the revelation of federal anti-trust subpoenas targeting price fixing and collusion in the kosher meat business. What a 'coincidence.'

[For those not familiar with the intricacies of kosher food, non-glatt meat is less expensive than glatt. It is the meat of choice for most non-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jews.]

MORE ABUSE? Rubashkin And His Workers, cont.

The Rubashkin family opened a sister plant to Postville last year in Nebraska. The JournalStar, seemingly oblivious to the legal and ethical troubles plaguing the Rubashkin operation, reports on the plant's first year of operations. First, what's in it for Rubashkin?

The Nebraska plant is also unique in its partnership with the Oglala Lakota Nation, which is just north of Gordon in South Dakota. Oglala leaders declared the plant and 300 surrounding acres of Gordon part of its economic empowerment zone.

For every person living within the zone it employs — Native or otherwise — the company qualifies for a $3,000 federal tax credit.…

Plant manager Gary Ruse said about 65 of the nearly 100 plant employees are Native. He estimated about 15 percent of the work force is Latino and the remainder is Anglo.…

The company got more help Thursday when Gov. Dave Heineman presented a $505,000 check to Rubashkin on behalf of the city of Gordon.

Leaders of the northern Panhandle community of 1,800 — about 430 miles northwest of Lincoln — obtained the funds from the state’s Community Development Block Grant program, said Gordon City Administrator Fred Hlava. The money represents a loan to help with plant expansion costs.

Sounds fine so far. Until you read what the workers are actually paid:

Starting pay is $8.25 per hour without benefits. Ruse said the company plans to offer benefits as soon as it can.

Reread the Forward's damning report of Rubashkin's Postville worker abuses. Can you ethically continue to purchase and consume any AgriProcessors product? If so, why?

Haredi Expert Misleads On Circumcision

Dr. Daniel S. Berman is a haredi-linked "expert" with very few published papers and no special expertise. He bills himself as "Chief of Infectious -Disease Section. New York Westchester Square Hospital Medical Center." The center is not a research facility and is merely a decent community hospital. Berman has been in the forefront of the movement to declare metzitza b'peh safe. He writes in today's Jewish Week:

First, compared to other medical contexts, the steps recommended in the agreement are quite severe. In contrast, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), entrusted to guarding public safety on a national level, in response to outbreaks of life-threatening bacterial infection linked epidemiologically and genetically to three petting zoos across the United States recommended only stronger infection-control measures in these zoos. The CDC’s report said nothing about closing the individual petting zoos or banning any of the operators. Further, within this same agreement, if a baby nurse was found to be the transmitter of the herpes virus to the baby, no action would be taken, and she could continue to care for other babies. If a mohel were found to be the source, he would be banned for life.

What Berman does not tell you is that the disease transmission differs dramatically in the two cases, and that bacterial transmission and viral transmission are not equivalent. Berman then continues his disingenuousness:

As for Dr. Zenilman’s assertion that the steps would not reduce the risk of transmitting the virus, there is strong evidence to the contrary. There are many studies in the literature demonstrating the effectiveness of antiseptic mouthwash in inactivating Herpes virus. Studies have shown that the antiviral agent acyclovir can reduce the incidence of Herpes viral shedding by 94 percent in those with genital herpes. It is likely to do the same in oral Herpes.

Berman does not tell you that the author of the antiseptic mouthwash study brought by the state (presumably at the suggestion of haredim through Berman) totally disagrees with both the incorrect use of his study and the unsupported conclusions recklessly drawn from it, and he is adamant that MBP should be stopped. Berman's intellectual dishonesty continues:

It still has not been proved with 100 percent certainty that any case of herpes has been transmitted through metzitzah b’peh. If there is transmission, the incidence is rare. There are only seven reported suspected cases in New York City over the last 18 years, with many thousands of babies receiving metzitzah b’peh during this time. The infection- control measures recommended should reduce the incidence of transmission of herpes through metzitzah b’peh (if such transmission exists) to almost nothing.

No mandatory reporting existed during those years. We know only of the most severe cases. No serious expert believes these 7 were the only cases in the city during those years.

Here is a letter Danny Berman wrote to Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv "informing" him about herpes and MBP. Note that he refers to Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler as "an individual with a Ph. D." rather than as a rabbi, and that he slants all his information toward the supposed "safety" of MBP:
Download dr. Daniel S. Berman Letter To Rabbi Elyashiv.pdf

Here is a brief report on Berman and Westchester. Note Westchester is not a critical care facility:
Download daniel_s. Berman Report.pdf

Danny Berman has consistently proven himself to a less than honest broker. He shares part of the blame for every maimed and dead MBP infant. Perhaps one day his licensing board will look into that.

Want to know the real dangers of MBP? Read Dr. Shlomo Sprecher's Hakirah article on the long history of disease transmitted through MBP:
Download sprecher_metzitza.pdf

President Katsav: Conservative Rabbis Rabbis

israel's president Moshe Katsav digs himself (and his mentor, Sefardic chief rabbi Shlomo Amar) deeper into a PR hole. Katsav has told the Conservative movement that he will address their rabbis as "rabbi." Exactly how he intends to explain this to the Reform movement, whose rabbis he refuses to call rabbi, is, to say the least, unclear.

Chabad Calls For More Federation 'Inclusiveness,' Argues Against Helping Non-Jews

Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, a quasi-official Chabad spokesman, argues in the Forward for Federations opening their doors – and wallets – to haredi causes. Steven I. Weiss breaks down Eliezrie's arguments here. Most notable is this claim by Eliezrie, with SIW's response following in italics:

Just imagine if Orthodox scholars had a major seminar and referred to the AJCommittee as “liberal extremists,” “ultra liberal” or “being on the fringe.” The front-page headlines would scream, “Orthodox attack AJCommittee.”

Point me to a gathering of Orthodox scholars that doesn’t do that (other than perhaps the recently defunct Edah), and you get a prize.

No matter how tone-deaf the Federations may be to haredim and haredi causes, fanciful claims – even from polished haredi spokespeople like Eliezrie – show clearly why the problem exists. From Rabbi Avi Shafran downward, haredim play fast and loose with the truth. In this case, that lack of honest assessment hurts an otherwise important cause.

Rabbi Avi Shafran And Agudath Israel Exposed And Rebuked

Rabbi Avi Shafran, perhaps the sleeziest PR person Judaism has ever known, wrote a disgusting piece last week on the Rabbi Kolko Man Boy Sex Abuse Scandal. The Jewish Week published three responses in this week's paper that reveal Shafran's lack of moral compass:

Orthodox Abuse And Cultural Forces
Robert Kolker

For those closely following the issue of rabbinical sexual abuse accusations in the fervently Orthodox Jewish community, last week’s Jewish Week represented something of a historic moment: An authority from the esteemed haredi organization Agudath Israel, Rabbi Avi Shafran, openly acknowledged that sexual abuse is indeed a problem that requires more attention and measures than the community currently brings to bear.

In the past, The Jewish Week’s own reporting has mentioned how rabbinical sexual abuse has been roundly ignored at Agudath Israel conventions. Rabbi Shafran himself has eschewed any calls for a centralized body to deal with the problem, instead encouraging anyone claiming to have been abused to “go to the rebbe or community rabbi.” So it is refreshing to read Rabbi Shafran grappling with these issues in an open forum and writing, “Must more be done? Yes. And it will be.”

But pausing only briefly to extend sympathy to victims of abuse, Rabbi Shafran saves his real outrage — and most of the space in his piece — for my recent feature story in New York magazine, “On the Rabbi’s Knee,” the first report to publicly detail plaintiff David Framowitz’s astonishing allegations in a recent sexual-abuse lawsuit. (The defendants are Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, Yeshiva & Mesivta Torah Temimah of Flatbush, and Camp Agudah, which Rabbi Shafran acknowledged is affiliated with Agudath Israel.) While the detailed and brave testimony of Framowitz received little attention from Rabbi Shafran, the uncomfortable question asked in my piece — if molestation is more common in the fervently Orthodox community than it is elsewhere — must have hit a nerve. Because last week, Rabbi Shafran accused the New York magazine article of “slip[ping] toward slander, not only of Orthodox Jews but of Judaism itself.”

As a journalist and a Jew, I take this accusation very seriously, and I’m grateful for the chance to respond.

First, Rabbi Shafran suggests that when I wrote that “there’s reason to believe the answer to that question [of more sexual abuse among the fervently Orthodox] might be yes,” I was engaging in something “sinister” — and that the only substantiation I provided was an insight from the author Hella Winston about the countless incidents she heard about in her laudable research on chasidic exiles.

While everyone including myself and Rabbi Shafran can stipulate that no hard statistics are available, my explanation of this belief extends for several more paragraphs. The next paragraph suggests that some experts believe “repression ... creates a fertile environment for deviance.” Rabbi Shafran takes this as an assault on what he calls “a Torah-observant life.” I intended it only as my sources did: as a belief that any society that shies away from open discussion of certain issues is a society that allows problems to fester longer — and abusers to stay in business longer.

But it’s what I discuss next that Rabbi Shafran ignores completely: the cultural forces of shame and denial that have kept alleged victims like David Framowitz from going public for decades. Nowhere in Rabbi Shafran’s piece is a mention of the so-called shonda factor, lashon hara, shalom bayit, mesira, and chillul Hashem, all of which are invoked to keep victims from bringing their community unwelcome attention by the authorities.

Rabbi Shafran spoke to mental-health experts who believe the problem is smaller among the fervently Orthodox. The experts I interviewed said otherwise — like the pediatrician who was in tears discussing how these pressures keep victims silent, and two psychologists who agreed that the fears of being ostracized from the community prevent victims from speaking out and being treated.

Common sense would indicate that even if there are fewer fervently Orthodox abusers, if they’re allowed to remain in positions of power for decades they can abuse hundreds of more victims and perhaps even create victims who go on to become abusers themselves. As one abuse victim told me, “Whether it’s Jewish or Amish or Mennonite or Catholic or Muslim, it doesn’t make a difference. I feel like this is kind of like a fungus. It grows in the dark.”

But above all, this sort of chauvinistic we-abuse-less argument is an insult to victims like David Framowitz who felt so alone and intimidated for so long. Can there be any doubt that until the cultural bias against the reporting of abuse is tackled head on, not defensively, community leaders are only paying lip service to the problem?

Rabbi Shafran would have you believe that something is being done, but is it really?

While the Catholic Church now has a charter calling for removal of any clergyman who commits an act of abuse, the 3-year-old guidelines for preventing abuse in Jewish day schools that Rabbi Shafran mentions are non-compulsory. Torah U’Mesorah, the National Society of Hebrew Day Schools, has no real disciplinary system in place, but the New York City schools do. Are Jewish children somehow entitled to less protection than public school children? If Rabbi Shafran wants to suggest that fervently Orthodox religious observance in fact fosters superior moral behavior, then why not throw open the doors to the public? Why not urge complainants frustrated by the bet din process to take those grievances to an American court?

The absence of such conviction leads me to conclude that the real point of Rabbi Shafran’s editorial appears to be to distract attention from the Framowitz lawsuit and make people believe that Agudath Israel’s reputation deserves their support more than the victims do. He would have you believe that the mainstream media — the usual bugbears of the Internet and MTV — are the villains here. He is obviously more concerned with defending Judaism from paper tigers — illusory enemies — than he is with actually dealing with the problems of his community.

Still, a major step has been made. At long last, by admitting there is a problem, Rabbi Shafran has opened the door for more discussion. Is it possible that outside forces like the Framowitz lawsuit and the mainstream media have actually done some good here? As a Jew and a journalist, I hope so.

Robert Kolker is a contributing editor at New York magazine.
Special To The Jewish Week

Hella Winston Responds

For the second time on the pages of your paper (Rabbi Marvin Schick’s paid column “Is this Jewish Sociology,” May 12, and Rabbi Avi Shafran’s Opinion piece “A Matter of Orthodox Abuse,” June 23), the participants in my research have been subject to baseless speculation that they may have lied about their experiences of sexual abuse. I find this disturbing, not only for what it implies about their character and my research, but also because it serves as confirmation that victims who speak out about abuse can expect to have their credibility called into question, even by those ostensibly charged with representing their interests.

What I reported in my book was the result of several years’ research, involving not only chasidim who left their communities, but those who remain within them, as well as a variety of professionals who work closely with this population. To be clear: Nowhere have I asserted that sexual abuse is more common in the Orthodox world than it is in the general population; reliable published statistics on this issue are notoriously hard to come by. What I have noted, however — along with many others — are some of the factors that make it particularly difficult for chasidic victims of abuse to seek help and justice: the fear of stigma; the traditional Jewish antipathy toward informers; concerns about lashon hara and making a chillul Hashem; the taboo against speaking openly about sexual matters; the lack of independent entities within these communities to investigate charges of abuse; the fact that offenders often find refuge in other communities.

All of this means that it is possible for abusers to go on abusing unhindered, sometimes for years. Ultimately, however, quibbling over numbers is merely a distraction from dealing with an issue that deserves our undivided attention.

Hella Winston


Don’t Circle Wagons On Orthodox Abuse

Avi Shafran (“A Matter Of Orthodox Abuse,” June 23) quotes David Mandel of Ohel as saying, “The degree to which Torah leaders have spoken out [on abuse in the Orthodox community] has been remarkable.” I wish he were right.

While there are some who have spoken out in clear, responsible ways, what is remarkable to me are the many who have spoken out against lashon hara (slander), hillul Hashem (scandal) and mesira (the prohibition of going to secular authorities), to name just a few halachic walls to inappropriately hide behind, as a means of silencing victims. What is remarkable are the many stories that I have heard in my extensive work through JSafe with victims of sexual abuse, child abuse and domestic violence in all parts of the Jewish community of denial, cover-up and dismissal.

Interestingly, the non-Orthodox often see abuse as an Orthodox problem, and the Orthodox see it as a non-Orthodox one. And it is a problem for all of us. To date we do not have appropriate studies that give us real numbers. But perpetuating stereotypes of where to find perpetrators does no one any good.

I agree with Shafran’s critique of the New York magazine article and his dismissal of its suggestion that somehow Orthodox repression fosters abuse. But I believe that there are unique factors within the Orthodox community that make it extremely difficult for victims to come forward and get the help they need. There is systemic intimidation, covertly and overtly, of victims and their advocates, and even their rabbis. These people often fear retaliation and intimidation, as well as harmful consequences to their own reputations and those of their families. There are betei din (rabbinic tribunals) that have adjudicated these cases that have no expertise or understanding of these issues and no means to protect past and future victims.

Now is not the time to circle the wagons in order to protect an idealized vision of the community. Now is the time to do everything possible to protect victims from abuse. Then opinion makers won’t have to write columns defending their communities and accusing others of having nefarious agendas — they won’t need to.

CEO, JSafe

Rabbi Mark Dratch
West Hempstead, N.Y.

Shafran is the official "voice" of the so-called gedolim. Unless these alleged rabbinic leaders publicly repudiate Shafran, we should repudiate them, and we should do so in the only way they understand – do not give any money, no matter how small the amount, to any haredi organization, school, charity or rabbi, no matter how seemingly worthy the cause. It is the only message today's "gedolim" are likely to understand.

[Hat tip: Mechaberet.]

The OU, etc.

It seems to me the OU and other kosher supervising agencies may be targets of the new federal investigation of price fixing and collusion in the kosher meat industry. This is a good time to point out that, with only one or two exceptions, these companies operate as tax exempt religious corporations and shield their books under the so-called "church exemption" which allows them to avoid filings with the IRS that otherwise would be public information. This means that, for all practical purposes, these organizations from the behemoth OU down to the much smaller UMK (Rabbi Zeilingold, who might possibly have his own IRS issues brewing, although I have not confirmed this) have no public accountability for their finances. When was the last time the OU's or UMK's books were laid bare for the community to view? It seems this has not happened recently, and probably never happened. Worse yet, while the OU seems to legitimately fit the "church exemption," others like the OK do not – yet they claim it nonetheless.

Will the feds pierce the veil of these "church exemptions"? I believe they will, and that piercing will result in indictments and, eventually, convictions and perhaps plea bargains.

It may very well be the corruption so rampant in the kosher industry will be cleaned up by federal prosecutors and Treasury agents, when it should have been cleaned up long ago by rabbis and community leaders.

My guess (and this is only a guess) – the federal medical prison facility in Rochester, Minnesota will have a very choshuv minyan a year or so from now.

RUBASHKIN HIT WITH FEDERAL ANTITRUST SUBPOENA – "CRIMINAL COLLUSION" INVESTIGATED

Larry Cohler-Esses of the Jewish Week reports AgriProcessors and other unnamed glatt kosher meat providers have been hit with federal anti-trust subpoenas. The justice Department is investigating apparent price-fixing. The Jewish Week notes this appears to be part of a criminal investigation:

A law enforcement official who specializes in antitrust cases termed the fact that a federal grand jury had issued the subpoenas “very significant.” The official would speak only on the basis of anonymity because he thought his office could end up involved in the case.

“That means it’s a criminal investigation,” he explained. “Price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation are the kinds of practices that are traditionally pursued criminally. … It sounds like they are investigating collusion within the industry.”

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division Web site defines price fixing as “an agreement among competitors to raise, fix or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods are sold.” Market allocation, another practice that may be relevant to this grand jury probe, consists of “agreements in which competitors divide markets among themselves. In such schemes, competing firms allocate specific customers or types of customers, products or territories among themselves.”

One industry insider, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said the unique certification process involved in producing kosher meats made the industry particularly vulnerable to potentially illegal market allocation.

“There is an unwritten agreement not to traipse on each other’s hekshers,” he explained, referring to the rabbinic kosher certifiers who give their stamp of approval to the ritual processes by which meat must be slaughtered under religious law.

The power of custom and sectarian loyalty to particular kosher certifiers among various Jewish religious groups means “if you have a certain heksher, you have a lock on a certain part of the market geographically and religiously,” this insider said. Lubavitch and Satmar chasidim, for example, have separate certifiers to which they are each exclusively loyal. The meat companies, understanding this, effectively divide up the market by agreeing not to use each other’s certifiers, the source explained.

In one case, said the industry insider, a company that recruited a different kosher certifier to come in and oversee its production process was excoriated by the rest of the industry. “They said, ‘You slept with my wife,’” this source said the company was told by others using that certifier.

Look for this probe to expand (if it already has not) to include kosher food distributors and other kosher food producers. It also seems the Justice Department may be about to look at the records of major kosher certifiers, including those who certify Rubashkin. This may include their tax exempt status and compliance with related tax law. More on this shortly.

[Hat tip: JWB.]

Edah To Fold

Edah, the 9-year-old Modern Orthodox think tank, has gone out of business. Too bad.

[Hat tip: JWB.]

Founder Of Lakewood's Shomrim Arrested For Bribing Police

Chaim Rubin, the 25-year-old founder of Lakewood's haredi Shomrim street patrol, has been arrested for bribing two policemen in an attempt to have a moving violation issued to his wife voided:

Rubin's wife, Raizel, was stopped last fall by Lakewood Officer Michael Ruiz for an undisclosed motor vehicle violation. On Sept. 28, Rubin showed up at Menck's father's house and asked to speak to Menck.

Rubin said that Ruiz stopped Mrs. Rubin and, although the officer didn't have a ticket book on him, said he would later issue summonses. Rubin quickly arrived and told Ruiz that Rubin and Menck were friends.

When Menck and Rubin were finished talking, Rubin handed him an envelope and stated "I appreciate you talking to the other officer."

Rubin left, and when Menck opened the envelope, he found four $100 bills.

Menck talked with Ruiz to confirm Rubin's account and then reported the incident to his superiors in the Police Department.…

Menck also gave a taped statement to Ocean County Prosecutor's Office Senior Investigator Todd L. Friedman, who set up another meeting with Rubin. Menck wore a wire and the conversation was recorded.

"Mr. Rubin acknowledged the $400 bribe and asked if the amount . . . was enough," Friedman wrote in the affidavit. "Mr. Rubin stated that "one hand washes the other' and that he would rather give Erik the money than the government. Mr. Rubin also refers to not needing the summonses and continued to tell Erik to enjoy the money. Mr. Rubin then alluded to offering more money to Patrolman Ruiz if needed."

[Hat tip: Nigritude Ultramarine.]

Circumcision Deal Fatally Flawed

Steven I. Weiss has been doing some work on the circumcision deal between haredim and NY State. He interviewed an expert cited by the state in support of its new protocol. The expert, Dr. Timothy F. Meiller, had never heard of metzitza b'peh (MBP), the controversy or the new protocol. Worse yet – he rejects the state's use of his data and is firmly against MBP:

By way of example, he said, “If a dentist called me and asked, having read my paper, if a patient rinses with Listerine, do I have to wear gloves? My answer to them would be: Are you crazy? Of course you have to wear gloves.” He noted “In this procedure, it’s slapping that in the face and saying I’m gonna use some superficial technique and say I’m now ok; you’re not.”

“As a scientist who knows a little bit about virus, I would recommend against the procedure. I would not rely on a surface disinfectant, it’s just too variable. I can’t rely on that being a trustworthy procedure.”

Asked how he would have responded if the state’s health department had contacted him when formulating its protocol, Meiller replied “I would have said that I didn’t think it was enough data to make a decision on anything…it’s like having unprotected sex; in today’s world, it’s just not worth it.”

“Clearly, this is not a procedure that I would think should be condoned,” he said.

So Commissioner Novello struck a dangerous deal with haredim. Why? I believe it is because haredim vote in blocks under the direction of their leaders. (Remember when Hillary got something like 98% of the New Square vote?) Satmar, etc., voting in a block for Governor Pataki in whatever office he next chooses to seek is apparently enough incentive to allow the needless deaths and maimings of a few eight-day-old infants.

SIW also has a copy of a letter sent by NYC's health commissioner to Novello ripping apart the state's new protocol and showing clearly why it is fatally flawed – this without knowing that Dr. Meiller was not in agreement with the use of his work and the conclusions drawn from it. Dr. Friedan closes with the hope that the state's new protocol will nonetheless help. One should presume his wishes for the success of the protocol would have been much less strong if he had known about Dr. Meiller's objections – and if his boss, Michael Bloomberg was not grovelling for Satmar votes.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin And Jerusalem's Gay Pride March

The "leading American rabbi" Yehuda Levin mentioned in this Ynet article appears to be the same Yehuda Levin who was on Pat Buchanan's staff for his presidential runs.

Levin wanted me to write an anti-abortion article for the Minnesota Jewish newspaper to publicize an anti-abortion campaign he was heading. I told him I would write an article on the halakhic views on abortion, including Rav Moshe Feinstein's. Rav Moshe was opposed to state limits on abortion because he believed there would be times when halakha would mandate an abortion to save the life of the mother, and state controls would prevent that.

Rabbi Levin was confused by that. He said abortion is assur (forbidded) in all but the most extreme circumstances, and generally showed himself to be something far less than a halakhic expert.

Levin is now on an anti-gay crusade, sparked, it seems, by Jerusalem's gay pride march. The idea that most homosexuals do not choose homosexuality, that genetics play a far more important role than "choice," escapes him.

This does not mean Torah-observant Jews should promote homosexuality. But it does mean this issue demands a level of sensitivity and understanding Rabbi Levin and his haredi cohorts wholly lack.

Rather than marching for "morality," Rabbi Levin should spend some time learning poskim.

Star Wars

A Star Wars organic food parody on YouTube. Check it out.

[Hat tip: C Girl.]

Neshama Carlebach

I've been listening to several Neshama Carlebach CDs for a project I'm working on. She has an amazing voice, and the discs I'm listening to are excellent. David Morgan, who produces her and co-writes and co-arranges her work, shows a depth of talent rarely seen in the Jewish market. And Neshama's voice is so polished and shows such a broad range, she could easily cross over to the secular market. A great place to start with her music is Dancing With My Soul. For those who care about such things, check with your rabbi regarding possible issues of kol isha before listening.

Israel Still Does NOT Recognize YU Degrees

Ha'aretz reports Israel is still refusing to recognize YU degrees, despite promises made last year. Degrees accepted by Harvard and Yale are void in Israel. One has to think there is something beside the standard Israeli incompetence behind this. My guess is YU has become associated with hard right politics and an increasingly haredi outlook – two things Israel already has more than enough of, especially after the Rabin assassination. But then again, it really might just be Israel's infamous bureaucracy at 'work.'

President Katsav: It's All Mr. Yoffie's Fault

The president of Israel announces in the Israeli media that he will not call Reform rabbis "rabbi." When asked about this, the head of the Reform movement Rabbi Eric Yoffie noted that he had suspected as much for some time, because when meeting with President Katsav, the president had clearly avoided calling Rabbi Yoffie "rabbi." He then noted that he would not meet with President Katsav until Katsav uses the "r" word.

So what's new? In response to this understandable move by Rabbi Yoffie, Preisdent Katsav has lashed out:

"It is inappropriate to debate me via the media. I hear I'm being boycotted. No president of the Reform Movement will boycott the president of the state or the state. He [Yoffie - A.B] wouldn't dare do that to the president of the United States. I am the president of a sovereign state."

The President of Israel manages to offend millions of non-Orthodox Jews. He believes he is standing on principle. Why? Because he has rabbinic advice from Israel's Sefardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar:

"There is a problem," the president said. "The chief rabbi opposes calling Reform rabbis 'Rabbi' so I call them 'Reform Rabbis'.* In this way I avoid an argument with the Orthodox rabbis.

Amar, infamous for rejecting all American Orthodox conversions and for the thuggish and criminal behavior of his immediate family, is the "mind" behind this petty and unnecessary flap. Ending Israel's state-sponsored rabbinate cannot come too soon.

* This appears to be false. President Katsav apparently referred to Rabbi Yoffie as "Mr. Yoffie." The "Reform Rabbi Ploni" bit seems to be a new gambit meant to extract the President from the whole dug by Rabbi Amar.

The Chabad Rabbi And The Prostitute(s)

A British tabloid is reporting a rabbi from the Chabad movement has been caught frequenting a whorehouse.This rabbi may be a first cousin to another Chabad rabbi, now dismissed, who stood accused of sexual harassment and, if memory serves, attempts to fondle a non-Jewish maid. Prior to that, before accepting a position as a rabbi, he was involved in an armed robbery. Chabad backed him in the first case, but not in the second, and his shlichut was to the best of my knowledge, terminated.

So, what does this newest case say about Chabad? Nothing bad, certainly. An errant rabbi or two should not reflect badly on the movement as a whole – unless Chabad works to cover up illegal activity or takes other foolish steps to protect its image.

People – even rabbis – sin. what should be done with this particular sinning rabbi? Suspend him with pay (even if 770 has to step in to do this), bring in a temporary replacement and assess the situation. If he has a problem, get him treatment. Then find him a desk job away from people, someplace where he will not be viewed as a rabbi. And do what is necessary to help his wife and children, including facilitating a divorce if that is what his wife wants wants.

Most prostitutes were abused as children, many by powerful figures in their lives like parents, older brothers and clergy. Perhaps Chabad can start an unusual form of outreach, to a largely (but not exclusively) non-Jewish population, funding programs to help get prostitutes out of the business, helping them deal with their past and facilitating a future away from the sex trade.

But again, whether Chabad does this or not, the sins of one or two of its rabbinic representatives should not tarnish the entire movement.

The Failure Of Israeli Haredi Leadership

Shahar Ilan writes in Ha'aretz:

… There are many possible explanations for the decline in the power and influence of the Torah sages over the past few years. One of the most important is the split of the Council of Torah Sages into three councils - of Agudat Yisrael, Degel Hatorah and Shas.

But the main reason is that the rabbis have made themselves irrelevant. They are battling the modern world instead of trying to serve as regulators. And mainly, they completely fail in dealing with the truly important crisis facing the Haredi society of learners - the economic crisis.

The most prominent scholar on Haredi society, Prof. Menachem Friedman, has been warning for 30 years that this crisis is waiting to happen, but none of the rabbis have tried to preempt the foreknown economic tsunami. Friedman warned, for example, that a time would come when the secular public would no longer be prepared to bankroll the yeshiva students. And yet, when the child allowances were slashed, the rabbis and their public were caught completely off-guard. In the general public, that would be termed a fiasco. The Haredim quietly grumble.

It's not that stuff isn't happening in Haredi society. The Israel Defense Forces' Haredi Nahal battalion was created. Vocational training courses are opening. Dozens of men and women received law degrees last week. But everything is happening too slowly, in a faint trickle. The reason for this is that all of the processes are occurring without the overt support of the rabbis. Their uncourageous consent is expressed merely through turning a blind eye.

The … rabbis are trying to hang on by their fingernails to a society in which two out of three men study. They fail to grasp that this is untenable from an economic standpoint. Other rabbis know what has to be done, but they haven't the guts, nor broad enough shoulders.

They haven't the guts to announce that only those who excel ought to study their entire lives, while the rest should study for several years at a kollel - a yeshiva for married men - and then go out to work. They haven't the guts to initiate academic tracks at yeshivas, like in the United States, and to permit the establishment of Haredi high-school yeshivas. Fear of the zealots is stronger than concern for the public.…

And to finish up, a moment of Haredi logic: If this generation was deserving, a leader would surely arise who knows how to contend with the current challenges. Since the generation was not found worthy, the Haredi public has become a herd whose shepherds follow it.

Rubashkin Is Not Alone

Rubashkin is not alone in his reprehensible treatment of workers. Here's an example from a North Carolina plant owned by Smithfield Foods as reported by Bob Herbert writes in the New York Times (sorry, no direct link is available for free):

Union representation would make a big difference for Smithfield workers. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been trying to organize the plant since the mid-1990's. Smithfield has responded with tactics that have ranged from the sleazy to the reprehensible.

After an exhaustive investigation, a judge found that the company had threatened to shut down the entire plant if the workers dared to organize, and had warned Latino workers that immigration authorities would be alerted if they voted for a union.

The union lost votes to organize the plant in 1994 and 1997, but the results of those elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board after the judge found that Smithfield had prevented the union from holding fair elections. The judge said the company had engaged in myriad "egregious" violations of federal labor law, including threatening, intimidating and firing workers involved in the organizing effort, and beating up a worker "for engaging in union activities."

Rather than obey the directives of the board and subsequent court decisions, the company has tied the matter up on appeals that have lasted for years. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling just last month referred to "the intense and widespread coercion prevalent at the Tar Heel facility."

Workers at Smithfield and their families are suffering while the government dithers, refusing to require a mighty corporation like Smithfield to obey the nation's labor laws in a timely manner.

The defiance, greed and misplaced humanity of the merchants of misery at the apex of the Smithfield power structure are matters consumers might keep in mind as they bite into that next sizzling, succulent morsel of Smithfield pork.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Even if Smithfield is worse than Rubashkin, both are still wrong. If Smithfirld were producing kosher meat, I would urge you to boycott its products, just as I have urged you to boycott Rubashkin. (My assumption is none of you, at least none of the Jews who read this blog, are consuming pork products – for those of you readers who may be, please don't buy Smithfield.)

[Hat tip: Brooklyn Cowboy.]

Why Is The Rubashkin "Investigation" By Conservative Rabbis Taking So Long To Start?

So, why is the much-ballyhooed "investigation" of alleged worker abuse at Rubashkin's Iowa plant taking so long to get off the ground? It is more than 3 weeks since the Forward broke the story, and the "investigation" has still not begun.

A source close to the happenings in Postville tells me the Conservative rabbis agreed to wait until Rabbi Sholom M. Rubashkin returns from an extended stay in New York. Rubashkin's son Getzel was married last week, and the sheva brachot (week of festive meals) isn't over until early this week. Rubashkin wants to be in Postville for the Conservative rabbis' visit, and the rabbis, who took way too long to decide an investigation was warranted, then agreed to wait for Rubashkin to return.

Rubashkin has had almost one month to coverup and prepare for this visit. He has had ample time to reward workers who help him and isolate those who have not. And into this "prepared table" will waltz the Conservative rabbis, whose leader seems much more concerned about preventing a scandal than he does with getting at the truth.

Another rabbi on the delegation wants to secure Rubashkin non-glatt meat at affordable prices for his community. Will this "investigation" do this for him? If it does, doubt the investigation's results.

The Ethical Omnivore And Why Judaism Is (Now) Irrelevant To the Discussion

Can waterfowl be force fed to produce foie gras? Can lobsters be boiled alive? Can chickens be raised in hellish conditions? what is the line between an acceptable level of animal suffering and the unacceptable? Frank Bruni writing in today's New York Times qotes two authorities on the subject:

"Foie gras and lobster are not at the heart of the real tough issues of animal welfare, which are feed lots and pigs and cattle and chickens and how billions of animals are treated," said Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which traces the messy back stories of our meals. "On the other hand, the fact that we're having this conversation at all — that we're talking about ethics in relation to what we're eating every day — strikes me as a very healthy thing," he said last week.

Mr. Pollan is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, and the reaction to a 2002 article of his illustrates how random people's concerns over animal welfare can be. The article depicted the life on a Kansas feed lot of a young steer that Mr. Pollan had purchased, a steer slated for slaughter several months later.

After the article appeared, Mr. Pollan received appeals from readers willing to pay large sums of money to buy and save the steer. One reader, he recalled, was a Hollywood producer who wanted to let the animal graze on his lawn in Beverly Hills, Calif.

"He kept coming after me," Mr. Pollan said, describing a crusade that culminated in an offer of a meal at a famous emporium of porterhouses in Brooklyn. "He finally said, 'I'm coming to New York, we're going to have dinner at Peter Luger to discuss this.' I'm like, 'Excuse me, we're going to have a steak dinner to discuss the rescue of this steer?' How disconnected can we be?"

The dinner never happened. The steer was killed. Mr. Pollan didn't eat its flesh, but he does eat beef, trying to make sure it's not from feed lots. He said he won't eat veal, but has not sworn off foie gras. For different omnivores there are different codes.

And there is often as much sentiment as sense. The anecdote about the producer suggests the ways in which many people make distinctions and decisions based primarily on the degree to which they have become familiar with the creatures they ingest, the degree to which they have anthropomorphized them.

"People look at the lobster and try to imagine what its experience would be like, but they don't look at a package of chicken breasts and imagine what the experience would be like," said Jay Weinstein, a Manhattan caterer whose book "The Ethical Gourmet" was published this month. "It's because they're closer to the final step of the killing."

While the lives of "free-range" chickens are hardly ideal, the lives of other chickens are even worse, Mr. Weinstein said. The birds' feet are lacerated by the wire they are forced to stand on, while their beaks are clipped so they can't peck at each other in the tight quarters they occupy. He questioned whether any of that was less offensive than the force feeding of ducks.…

A question not asked (perhaps because Bruni's piece was written more than one month ago) is, Can we benefit from the work of workers who are mistreated and abused, as workers at Rubashkin and now at Smithfield Foods are alleged to be abused and mistreated?

Bruni poses his questions from a secular perspective. The answers he notes come from the secular side as well. Striking is the absence of any Jewish response to these questions, especially because Judaism both claims to have the earliest animal welfare regulations known to man and deals on a daily basis with ritual food preparation.

But this absence is not ideologically driven and it is not an oversight.

Judaism under the leadership of today's Orthodox and Conservative rabbis has again dropped the ball on a major issue the Torah speaks to, preferring to "protect kashrut" from "attacks" only made possible in the first place by gross rabbinic negligence that cuts across ideological and denominational lines.

If fewer Jews keep kosher now than pre-Rubashkin scandals, rabbis have no one to blame but themselves. They allowed horrific animal cruelty that flew in the face of their self-defined description of shechita presented to governments around the world. They stood in the midst of worker abuse and extortion and said nothing. And they benefited financially from these abuses.

Do most Jews care? I think not. But most Jews are not affiliated Jews, having long ago made a decision to opt out of the synagogues and community life these rabbis represent.

The failure of today's Judaism, the lack of "continuity," the rampant assimilation, has one overarching source – the ineffectiveness and incompetence of today's rabbis.

Avraham Yehoshua Heschel marched with Martin Luther King. But he was in the minority. Most rabbis were silent on civil rights until much later. A whole
generation of synagogue-attending young Jews realized this because they saw it first hand. Many left, because Judaism was perceived to be too parochial to speak the needs of their generation. The Havurah movement was a small outgrowth of this much larger exodus, much as the Jewish Renewal movement is a small outgrowth of today's dissatisfaction with turgid rabbis and limp Judaism.

A reporter doing a story on civil rights in 1963 would have had a Rabbi Heschel to quote. A reporter writing about tzaar baalei hayyim (animal cruelty) has no such luxury. Judaism is now wholly irrelevant to an issue it first put on the map thousands of years ago. And you can thank your local rabbi – Orthodox, Conservative and even Reform – for that.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin On Chabad

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has written a nice little column for the Forward on Chabad. He captures the myth of Chabad very well. But does Telushkin really know what he's writing about? Let's see:

My father, Shlomo Telushkin, of blessed memory, served for nearly 50 years as an accountant both to the rebbe and earlier to his beloved father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. He told me once of a conversation at which he had been present during which the discussion focused on the fact that the European rabbinic leadership had for so long written off America as a treif medina, an unkosher country, and did all within its power to discourage Jews — particularly knowledgeable committed Jews — from going there.

One of the consequences of this behavior was that American Jews as a group were, for a long time, quite Jewishly ignorant. The elder Rabbi Schneersohn quoted the biblical verse, "our fathers sinned but they are no more," indicating his disapproval of the stance taken by earlier European rabbis.

What Telushkin does not know – or will not write because it is "lashon hara" – is that both Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn and his father Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber Schneersohn, the 6th and 5th Lubavitcher Rebbes, told their followers not to leave Europe for either Palestine or America. The 6th rebbe's position changed only during the Holocaust. That Telushkin does not know this is surprising.

Telushkin was a strong backer of Rabbi Mordechai Gafni, using the laws of lashon hara to silence victims and accusers that he did not bother to speak with, and touting the results of an "investigation" that was never done. I have seen no public apology from Telushkin and no repentance. Not surprising, then, that his "facts" on Chabad are equally tainted, and his research non-existent.

New JBlog

New Jerusalem-based JBlog, Batel Beshishim. One post on Chabad, one post on meeting the victims of a terror attack only days (in one case, one day) before their deaths.

Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin Physically Assaults Opponent

A Crown Heights-based blog, DaasHakohol, claims that Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin, the convicted felon who heads the Crown Heights Community Council, assaulted a political opponent during a meeting, breaking the man's glasses, fracturing (or dislocating) the man's jaw, knocking out a tooth, and causing various cuts and bruises. Rabbi Rubashkin is a son of Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of Agriprocessors. More on Moshe Rubashkin's criminal history is linked on the left sidebar of this page.

[Hat tip: Tzemach Atlas.]

PETA, Rubashkin and the Forward

Rubashkin's defenders have attacked a claim made by PETA and reported last month in the Forward that their investigator, when employed at AgriProcessors, was denied health care for a bacterial infection caught from handling diseased chickens. PETA has quietly released a video of Rubashkin's management doing exactly what PETA say they did. Watch it here.

[Hat tip: Stephen Mendelsohn.]

Rubashkin's New Website Touts Rubashkin, Rubashkin Employees As "Independent Experts"

Agriprocessors has put up a new website to counter charges of worker abuse. The site touts Nathan Lewin (Rubashkin's attorney), Rabbi Asher Zeilingold (a kosher supervisor at Agriprocessors and a close Rubashkin friend), the Jewish Press editorial board, Carlos Carbonera, a close friend and regular driver for Rabbi Zeilingold, and Rabbi Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin himself, as "Independent Experts."

The website also contains this fanciful piece of text:

The values expressed in the kosher rituals and requirements are a part of the values shared by our employees, regardless of their religious beliefs. They include a commitment to:
• Cleanliness and health
• The safety and welfare of our employees, colleagues and neighbors
• Stewardship of the environment
• The humane treatment of our animals

Right. For this, you need an "investigation"? Here you have it in black and white – lies and misrepresentation right from the mouth of Rubashkin himself. If the OU, RCA and RAA cannot act against a company that portrays its own employees as "independent experts," and which has been the subject of multiple enforcement actions from the EPA, the State of Iowa, OSHA, and the USDA, no "investigation" run by rabbis not trained to investigate will prompt action, either.

Judaism, once a moral shining light, has been reduced to darkness by years of amoral rabbinic leadership. Judaism is broken, and it is the rabbis who have done the breaking.

Think Tom DeLay, But With A Black Hat And Untrimmed Beard

The Forward reports:

Stephen Bloom, the author of the book "Postville," believes that the current tensions have less to do with the immigrants and more to do with the Jewish owners of AgriProcessors. Bloom said that residents have long standing concerns about AgriProcessors and its workers, but they were afraid that public criticism might drive the company — the town's economic engine — to leave. Now, he said, it is clear that the plant is here to stay, so people are speaking out.

"People on the council feel empowered to say things they only whispered in the past," Bloom said.

Indeed, the new town council members said they were motivated to run for office because they believed that the old town council had grown too close to AgriProcessors, taking paid trips to New York and Europe on the company.

Should The Conservative Rabbis be Trusted?

The Forward quotes their leader this way:

"We are very much interested in the continued production of kosher meat," said Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly. "We just don't want those plants that produce it to be perceived by the public as being somehow terrible."

And what if those plants are terrible?

My guess: A whitewash. The Conservative rabbis are afraid their congregants will stop buying kosher meat or stop keeping kosher all together. So, in the name of "preserving" kashrut, they'll let Rubashkin (largely) skate.

Also note the inordinate length of time it has taken for the Conservative rabbis to act. Plenty of time for Rubaskin to create a fig leaf of "respectability."

The Sickness Of Rabbi Avi Shafran

Agudath Israel's PR flack Rabbi Avi Shafran writes about sex abuse and child abuse in the haredi community:

True or false?

1) Child abuse does not happen in the Orthodox Jewish community.

2) Child abuse is particularly prevalent there.

3) Halacha-observant living actually encourages child abuse.

4) The Orthodox community has not taken measures to prevent child abuse.

Answers: 1) false 2) false 3) false 4) false.

Abuse of children unquestionably exists in the Orthodox community. So, though, does fanciful speculation of its extent. Consider a recent long, lurid article about a child molestation lawsuit against an Orthodox rabbi.…

Less than 40 words into his piece, Rabbi Shafran has proved himself to be dishonest. By painting his "questions" in the extreme, he has guaranteed "answers" he agrees with. But those straw men are not the proper questions. These are:

1. Child abuse happens in the Orthodox community with alarming frequency, despite denials by Orthodox leaders.
2. Child abuse in Orthodox communities occurs far more often than previously believed.
3. Denial of the extent of the problem, along with frequent coverups and protection of abusers, coupled with persecution of victims and their advocates, encourages abuse.
4. The Orthodox community, especially the haredi community, has done little to prevent abuse or punish abusers. At the same time, they have persecuted victims and worked to crush dissent in order to preserve their community's "good name."

Answers: 1) True. 2) True. 3) True. 4)True.

Shafran closes with this:

If any environment can reasonably be imagined to foster the bane of child abuse, it is the charged atmosphere of MTV, R-rated movies, contemporary advertising and uncontrolled Internet usage, not the universe of Jewish values.

Of course, Jewish values do not foster child abuse and sex abuse – unless you count lying and covering up for abusers as a Jewish value. Sadly, it seems today's haredi leaders do just that.

Chabad Tries To Muscle In On Europe's Rabbis

A venerable organization of Europe's Orthodox rabbis finds itself challenged by an upstart rabbinical group controlled by Chabad. The Chabad group tries to get itself invited to an important interfaith conference sponsored by the EU. The EU does not bite, because it already recognized the nearly 50-year-old non-Chabad group. Chabad donors and flunkies exert more pressure. The EU still doesn't bring in Chabad. Israel's scandal-plagued Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger enters into the fray on the side of and, it seems, the request of – Chabad – and in the process appears to have violated Israeli law. More on this story soon to come.

Rabbi Inside Rubashkin Plant Confirms Charges Of Worker Abuse, Conservative Rabbis To Investigate – KAJ Rabbi: "We can't get involved in issues of labor, because that's not our job there, and they have not hired us to do that"

So, what's new with Rubashkin and his rabbis? While the OU and RCA move to whitewash allegations of worker abuse and unethical business practices, and two groups of Conservative rabbis prepare to investigate Rubashkin, a rabbi working inside the plant has confirmed the charges against Rubashkin, and that confirmation was shared with the Forward:

Several sources inside the Orthodox Union, the main Orthodox congregational association and the nation's largest kosher certifying organization, said there has been disagreement about how to assess the conditions and what the movement's response should be.…

The Rabbinical Council of America, which is closely associated with the O.U., sent a rabbi to Iowa to investigate conditions soon after the Forward article appeared. The executive vice president of the council, Rabbi Basil Herring, said he had no comment on the findings.

"The discussions are underway — but as of now there is no public comment," Herring said. "This is for a matter that is under investigation."

According to people close to the O.U., the rabbi dispatched by the Rabbinical Council of America returned from his visit with a positive review of the situation at the plant, after receiving a tour from the owners of AgriProcessors.

However, the Forward has learned of other, conflicting reports from the plant that have reached kosher supervising agencies.

In a correspondence that was shared with the Forward, a rabbi who works inside AgriProcessors wrote to one supervising agency supporting the Forward's investigation, which had found that most workers receive wages under $7, two to three dollars less than the standard at slaughterhouses.

"The workers that I work with get anywhere from $6.00 to $7.50 if they are lucky," the rabbi said.

Referring to the Forward's article, the rabbi said, "A lot of us agree that the article is about 98% true."

What will our dearly beloved rabbis do? Why, they're forced to make a decision that involves ethics and morality, rather than minutia and legal hair-splitting! What a tight spot for out leaders to be in!

The early money is on creative lying along with a fig leaf of concern. But then again, maybe not:

To date, most religious authorities have avoided making public statements about the specific nature of conditions at the plant. The administrator at one widely accepted kosher certification organization, K'hal Adath Jeshurun, said his organization is not interested in labor questions.

"We can't get involved in issues of labor, because that's not our job there, and they have not hired us to do that," said Rabbi Moshe Edelstein, the administrator.

That is what is wrong with 21st century kashrut in a nutshell. Turn a blind eye to violations of halakha that are not directly related to the minutia of the kashrut moment. "Is there enough salt on that chicken?" is a far more important question to our rabbis than "Did Rubashkin just rip the throat out of a live cow using a rusty meat hook?" or "Is that hispanic worker lying on the bloody concrete floor writhing in pain a victim of both Rubashkin's inadequate safety training and procedures and his cruelly low wages?"

But do not fear, Rabbi Edelstein. Rabbi Menachem Genack, Bill Clinton's rabbi and a rosh yeshiva at YU, is confident whatever the legal definition of the word "is" is, it exonerates Rubashkin, who fills the OU's coffers to overflowing:

The director of kosher supervision at the O.U., Rabbi Menachem Genack, said that whether AgriProcessors is on the high or low end of the industry in areas like wages and working conditions, he was confident that the firm is not violating any laws.

And I am confident Rabbi Genack would fail a lie detector test on this and many other issues related to both animal and worker abuse at the nation's largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse.

Can we strap you up, Manny?

Haredim Demand End To All Autopsies In Israel, Insist State Use MRIs And CT Scans Instead

Haredim under the leadership of Zaka are demanding the end to traditional autopsies in Israel. Instead, they insist the state use MRI and CT scans to determine cause of death. Zaka is even considering paying for all or part of the machine's cost, and Dr. Yehuda Hiss, Israel's head pathologist, is on his own, without Zaka involvement or haredi influence, traveling to Europe for an extended visit to learn how to use the machines for autopsies. The problem? While MRIs and CT scans can reduce the number of autopsies, they cannot eliminate all autopsies. Further, Zaka demands the machines be used immediately, even though Israel has no trained pathologists to use them, something the state cannot agree to, for obvious reasons. So look for riots* and body snatchings to continue.

* The haredi apologists over at CrossCurrents seek to minimize haredi violence and law-breaking. Ha'aretz briefly notes the history of haredi behavior with regard to the autopsy issue:

The latest clashes over autopsies centered around the baby girl whose body was stolen from the Ashdod cemetery and outbreaks of violence in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in January, after the autopsy of a Kiryat Ata woman who was murdered. The conflict reached its height in the 1960s and '70s, when ultra-Orthodox groups organized mass protests, threatened the lives of pathologists and stole bodies from medical centers. The situation settled down after 1981, when an amendment to the Anatomy and Pathology Law was passed, minimizing pathologists' right to conduct autopsies.

Whereas before they would frequently conduct autopsies for research purposes, pathologists today must have reasonable cause to suspect foul play or to require an autopsy to determine the cause of death. If the family opposes an autopsy, the police can ask permission from the courts, which must hear the family's arguments.

Those changes to law did not stop haredi violence and law-breaking, they only reduced their frequency. MRIs and CT scans will reduce it further, but not stop it entirely. Democracy is not a haredi virtue.

Former UJC Head: "It's because they're from Africa. That what I believe. I hate to say it. I'm embarrassed to say it. But I don't have any other explanation"

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Bringing the remaining Falash Mura to Israel is not necessarily a priority and the delay of their immigration is not simply a matter of money, Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

He made his comments following a meeting of the ministerial committee devoted to the subject, which decided not to increase the rate of immigration of Falash Mura from 300 to 600 a month despite the previous government's commitment to do so.

Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielski was opposed to delaying the pace of immigration, while Immigrant Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim was "uncomfortable" with Tuesday's decision, according to sources in his ministry.…

Ethiopian activists and American Jews involved in raising money for the Falash Mura condemned the decision as racist and not based on financial reasons.

"I can't remember a time in Israel's history when aliya policy was decided by budget considerations. I find it even more puzzling that [this decision] would be made at a time after the government decided to cut the VAT... The government has the financial wherewithal to do right by Jews returning to Israel," said Steve Hoffman, who is president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and was the president of the United Jewish Communities when the UJC started to work on a campaign to raise $100 million for the Falash Mura.

Hoffman called the NIS 3.5-to-4-billion estimate "overblown," while Israel-based immigration professionals also expressed surprise that money was cited as the reason for delaying the Falash Mura immigration rate, since they thought the funds had already been budgeted. A spokeswoman for the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, however, said that only resources for the current rate of 300 per month were currently available.

Hoffman attributed Israel's alleged disinterest in bringing the Falash Mura to race.

"It's because they're from Africa. That what I believe. I hate to say it. I'm embarrassed to say it. But I don't have any other explanation," he said.

For his part, Bar On claims to be concerned about the poor quality of absorption and the formation of "ghettos" as a result. However, it should be noted that Bar On has not proposed a solution to the absorption problems, nor has he suggested funding any solutions to them.

Perhaps American Jewish leaders are finally beginning to realize what Ethiopian Jewry activists said 25 years ago is true. Racism is endemic in Israeli political circles. 25 years ago, the same could be said for American Jewish leadership, as well. Thank God that is largely no longer the case.

Related post here.

Yeshiva Students Behaving Badly, Haredi Rabbis Behaving Worse

Jane Lerner of the Journal News reports:

MONSEY — A newspaper was ignited inside a men's rest room at a College Road school, and young people there refused firefighters' orders to leave the building, police said yesterday.

When firefighters responding to the automatic alarm arrived late Wednesday, they smelled smoke and ordered people to leave the synagogue and school.

They youngsters would not leave until Ramapo police arrived.

"They laughed when the fire chief ordered everyone out," Ramapo Detective Sgt. John Lynch said yesterday.

Police were interviewing those involved to see if any would be charged with interfering with the duties of firefighters.

"We don't know at this point if the behavior rose to the level of criminal charges," Lynch said.

Arson investigators also were trying to determine who set the newspaper on fire.

The Tallman Volunteer Fire Department was called to Congregation Anshe Sfard at 38 College Road shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday, after the alarm was activated.

Firefighters smelled smoke in the building, Assistant Chief Scott Meier said.

"When we asked them to evacuate, they laughed at us," Meier said. "They wouldn't move until the cops got there."

There was no damage to the building, authorities said.

A young man went into the men's room and burned Wednesday's edition of The New York Post, which had a picture of three women in bathing suits on its front page, police said.

Firefighters said they were angry that those in the school didn't follow their orders.

"We're the ones getting out of bed at 11 o'clock at night to protect them," Meier said. "What will it take for them to cooperate with us? Do we have to pull one of them out of a building dead one night?"

Rockland Fire and Emergency Services Coordinator Gordon Wren Jr. said one problem was that no adults were supervising the high school-age congregants.

He also said the students had turned off the alarms.

"I would think things would have been done differently if adults were there," Wren said.

Wren said the school needed a plan in case of fire. He said school administrators needed to emphasize that students should leave the building when an alarm sounds.

"When the alarms go off, people should leave a building with no questions asked," Wren said. "In this case, the alarms went off and they silenced it."

Kids will be kids. The real story here is the lack of adult supervision and the clear disrespect the yeshiva students showed to firefighters. And those problems stem from one source – haredi rabbis.

By the way, similar situations have happened with alarming frequency at the Lubavitch Yeshiva of Minnesota.

[Hat tip: DovBear.]

Wal-Mart Jews

The New York Times reports:

Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches. For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display.

Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.

Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).

Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America, but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville, where the migration of executives from cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by Hindus, Muslims and Jews.

It is the Jews of Benton County, however, who have asserted themselves most.…

Make sure to read the entire article to see the many positive steps taken by Benton County to deal with its new-found diversiy. There also seems to be a complete lack of antisemitism. Compare that to Postville, Iowa where for the first few years of Rubashkin presence, antisemitism was far from unknown.

[Hat tip: Yisroel-By-The-Bay.]

Racist Israel?

If anyone doubted Israel has a problem with race, a small blurb in the Jerusalem Post should, properly viewed, open your eyes. The previous government promised more than one year ago to bring 600 Falash Mura to Israel each month, double the number slotted. It did not keep its promise. What has the new government, Ariel Sharon's heirs, done? It had codified the broken promise:

The ministerial committee for Falash Mura issues, headed by Interior Minister Roni Bar On, decided on Tuesday not to expand the quota of Ethiopian immigrants to above 300 persons as part of the 2007 budget.

The decision was made in spite of a decision by the previous government of Ariel Sharon to double the number of monthly Falash Mura immigrants.

This despite promises to North American Jewry, which committed itself to raising a large portion of the needed funds, and did so, keeping its promise.

One can disagree with the ruling of the chief rabbinate mandating Falash Mura aliya. Indeed, factions in Israel's Ethiopian Jewish community have done just that. But to lie, cheat and steal to keep more poor blacks out of Israel – which is what the government is in effect doing – is reprehensible.

In the bad days leading up to Operation Moses, Israel regularly set Ethiopian Jewish immigration quotas, and then did its best to make sure fewer than the limited number were actually saved. (And this was after years of refusal to admit any Ethiopian Jewish refugees. This disgusting policy was only occasionally deviated from, and those deviations involved the threat of immediate public scandal if a particular small group of black Jewish refugees who had found their way to freedom was not admitted.)

Israel can protest that race and class have nothing to do with its decision, and it certainly will do so. But the government has continually bemoaned the cost of absorbing Ethiopians, and has at the same time resisted efforts to improve that absorption – improvements that would make Ethiopian aliya more cost effective and more successful for the immigrants themselves.

Further, the decision to again restrict Ethiopian aliya was a budgetary one. One can hardly imagine a similar decision being made with regard to Russian, French or Argentinean Jewry, all of whom come from first world countries and have white skin.

UPDATE: The JTA reports:

The government decided several years ago to increase the number allowed into Israel each month, from 300 to 600.

However, the decision was never implemented, and the committee said the move should be postponed further because of financial considerations.

The recommendation comes as Israel’s High Court of Justice is set to hear a petition next week on the government’s failure to expedite the aliyah.

UPDATE 2: Ha'aretz reports (and this appears to be what the JTA incompetently ripped):

The ministerial immigration committee decided Tuesday to recommend the government postpone an earlier decision to double the monthly number of Falashmura Ethiopian immigrants allowed into Israel.

The decision would have raised the quota of Falashmura permitted to immigrate to Israel from 300 to 600.

The decision will be postponed until the debates on the 2007 state budget.

The decision, made by committee chairman Interior Minister Roni Bar-On, ran contrary to the opinions of the other ministers taking part in the debate on the matter.

Immigrant Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim, Industry and Trade Minister Eli Yishai and Culture Minister Ophir Pines-Paz were of the opinion it was time to implement the January 2005 decision made by the previous government that determined the rate of immigration would be doubled starting June 2005.

The High Court of Justice is slated to debate next week a petition field by volunteer organizations against the government for failing to implement the decision to double the immigration rate.

A representative from the state prosecution said she disagreed with the decision by the ministerial committee and said it would be difficult to defend it in the High Court.

At the start of the ministerial committee meeting, a Finance Ministry representative said there is currently no money to double the rate of Ethiopian immigration.

Boim responded by saying the decision could be funded from reserve sources.

Pines-Paz said it was an outrage that a government decision made 18 months ago has not been implemented due to opposition from the professional level.

Bar-On initially proposed a compromise deal that would increase the Falashmura immigration quota to 450, out of a fear that the High Court would force the government to implement the January 2005 decision.

By the end of the meeting, however, Bar-On decided to accept the treasury's position and postpone the increase in immigration from Ethiopia.

Rubashkin, Illegal Aliens And Worker Abuse

The New York Times has a damning report on the saturation of unskilled and lightly skilled jobs by illegal aliens and the corrosive egffect this has on workers who are not illegal. One example. Janitors in NYC make $19 per hour. In LA they make about half of that. Janitorial wages have decreased over the last decade, and non-illegals have been forced out of the industry because of falling wages, unfair labor practices and a glut of illegal workers.

While the Times report focuses on the janitorial services industry, the facts are the same in other industries, including meat packing. The glatt kosher meat you eat comes at price. It pushes American workers out of jobs and encourages the importation and exploitation of illegal aliens.

One company that is alleged to rely heavily on illegal alien workers is Agriprocessors, better known by its major brand name and the name of the family that controls it – Rubashkin. The Forward documented worker abuse at Rubashkin, including alleged threats to turn in recalcitrant workers to the Immigration police. But it seems Postville is not the only Rubashkin operation with labor difficulties. I have previously documented Rubashkin worker abuse that included collecting union dues but not turning those dues over to the union, an illegal practice that resulted in censure and penalties from the National Labor Relations Board.

C-Girl did some digging and came up with another example:

Workers at Agriprocessors Inc. in the Brooklyn Meat Market are on strike to force the company to recognize and negotiate with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). After a 15-5 vote in October in favor of representation by UFCW Local 342, the bosses fired two union militants. In response, the workers walked out. “We want a contract,” Erasmus Flores, one of the fired workers, who has worked at Agriprocessors for seven years, told the Militant in a November 29 interview on the picket line. “We don’t have a single benefit—no overtime pay, no health benefits. We work six days a week 12-15 hours a day.” While the bosses are employing a dozen scabs, strikers are getting support from other workers in the market.

And who were those "scabs"? Chances are, illegal aliens.

Questions:

1. Should we knowingly benefit from worker abuse?
2. Should we benefit from illegal alien labor that pushes out non-illegal workers?
3. Is cheaper glatt kosher meat more important than how workers are treated and paid?

As you think about your answers, please remember this: Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot are all byproducts of kosher slaughter. The Torah scroll you make a blessing on, that you hold up in shul, of which you say, "This is the Torah that Moshe …" – may very well be the byproduct of worker abuse, crime and theft.

Is this what you want? Is this what God wants?

[For an explanation of the Jewish position(s) on illegal immigration and its effects, see this article by Rabbi Dr. Marc Shapiro.]

President Katsav: I Will Not Call Leader Of Reform Movement "Rabbi"

Haaretz reported Thursday that Rabbi Yoffie - who heads the largest Jewish movement in the U.S., with some 1.5 million members - decided not to attend a reception this week at the President's Residence because Katsav has consistently refused to address him as "Rabbi."

… [In] a television interview Katsav gave Channel 1 on Rosh Hashanah Eve, in which he explained that he was brought up to address as "rabbi" only those ordained in accordance with the lifestyle he maintains, and that the president is not obligated to recognize Reform rabbis until the State of Israel does so.

Is Katsav correct?

Two noted Shomer Shabbat Jews do not think so:

Whoever advised President Moshe Katsav not to address Rabbi Eric Yoffie, leader of the Reform movement in the United States, by the title "rabbi" has erred, Anti-Defamation League head Abraham H. Foxman has told Haaretz.

The leader of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Weinreb, also thinks Katsav should address Yoffie as "Rabbi." "There are many matters in dispute between the [Orthodox] movement I represent and the Reform movement," Weinreb said, "but titles must not be an obstacle to cooperation between us."

Readers?

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu Skates On Incitement Charges

Sefat's Sefardic chief rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, son of former Sefardic chief rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu, made a plea bargin with the state to avoid trial on incitement to racism charges. According to Ha'aretz, Rabbi Eliyahu will:

[M]ake a public announcement refuting a number of previous slanderous statements made against Israeli Arabs.

"The aim [of the plea bargain] was to improve relations instead of carrying out a criminal trial which would have polarized the two sides," Eliyahu's lawyer Yael Grossman said.

Maybe. The real aim of the deal seems to be keeping Rabbi Eliyahu out of jail and retaining his rabbinic post, which he would have lost if convicted. The state gets to avoid sending a rabbi to jail and further upsetting Israel's settlers.

But the deal is not win-win for both sides. The state will eventually have to crack down on anti-democracy rabbis. Better that should be done now, rather than later under duress.

Rubashkin Attorney Nathan Lewin Exposed

Steven I. Weiss makes mincemeat out of Nat Lewin's defense of Rubashkin. For a look at what happened to another attorney who lied for the Rubashkin family, read this. Suspension and disgrace, all for a few dollars. A lesson Nat Lewin should take to heart, but surely will not.

[Partial Hat Tip: BrooklynCowboy.]

Will You Stand Up?

The new edition of the Forward has an editorial on the newest Rubashkin scandal. The paper claims the scandal has raised a storm, and that most viewed their coverage of it kindly. It closes with this way:

For the record, we have not received evidence that causes us to doubt our previous reporting. Much of the so-called rebuttal we've seen in various media consists of disproving charges that we never made, or claiming we overlooked facts that actually appear in black and white in our story. For the most part, our facts speak for themselves. As we noted, AgriProcessors accounted for more than half of all slaughterhouse complaints submitted to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration so far this year in Iowa, a state with scores of meatpacking plants.

But a newspaper article isn't an indictment. If community institutions are going to take action — and we believe they should — they need more information. Many of our readers feel the same way; they want to know more before they judge. We'll be following up, and we expect others to do so as well.

My OU contacts today were parroting the Rubashkin party line, attacking the Forward as "anti-Orthodox" and claiming Rubsahkin was railroaded by the newspaper. Unless much changes, the only Orthodox "followup" will be a coverup, similar to the OU's initial coverup of the Rabbi Baruch Lanner abuse scandal and the current attempts by haredim to cover up for Rabbi Lipa Margulies and Yeshiva Torah Temimah.

This means Orthodox laity and non-Orthodox movements will be left to act alone against the Orthodox-controlled kosher establishment. Non-Orthdox Jews consume much of the kosher meat eaten in America. Further, they are close to the sole consumers of Rubashkin's non-glatt output, including David's brand. A boycott led by these groups could cripple Rubashkin and force change.

Will it happen?

If it does not, Judaism will have lost its moral voice in a matter – prevention of worker abuse – that once distinguished Judaism from all other religions and societies, much as the Rubashkin shechita scandal has removed our communal voice from another issue Judaism was once out front on – prevention of animal cruelty.

I believe history (both the Jewish version and the academic) will view this as the most amoral era in Jewish history, a time when minutia printed on a printed page became more important than the very real pain and suffering of both men and women, and of animals.

If the non-Orthodox movements and groups remain silent about Rubashkin abuses, they will teach their children a clear message, that morality takes a back seat to expediency and comfort. No one today is commanded to eat meat. To claim no other product is available, that Rubashkin is our only choice, just does not cut it. You can survive without meat and fowl until truly humane kosher slaughter is widely available. To do any less makes a mockery out of Judaism.

Your children understand that, even if you do not.

"After Me, The Deluge"

Ha'aretz has a long report on historian of hasidut David Assaf's new book dealing with scandals in hasidic history. In the book, Assaf cites new documentation that proves Moshe, the son of the Alter Rebbe (Baal HaTanya, the founder of Chabad) converted to Christianity. This documentation also proves the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, was either a liar of epic proportion, delusional or just plain foolish:

The biggest scoop in the book has to do with the conversion to Christianity of Moshe, the youngest son of the founder of Chabad, Shneor Zalman of Ladi. The affair was known and dealt with in a heated debate among the Maskilim (followers of the Enlightenment) and after them the academic researchers, who tried to blur and even deny the story.

Assaf's discovery should put an end to the debate. According to him, in recent years Professor Shaul Stampfer of the Hebrew University found two files of documents relating to the affair in the National Archive of Belarus. Among other things, the files contained a letter from Moshe to the priest in his town, Oula, requesting conversion, the baptism certificate that was prepared for him and letters from his two brothers to the head of the Russian Orthodox Churchin in which they state that their brother is mentally ill and ask, in the light of this, to revoke the conversion to Christianity as a step that was taken when he was of unsound mind and that exploited his illness (a description with which Assaf agrees). [He later notes the fanciful story concocted* by the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe to cover up this episode.]

The book also deals with the apparent suicide of the Chozeh of Lublin, the apostasy of the Sadigora rebbe's brother, who was a rebbe himself and a son of the Ruzhiner Rebbe, and the violent persecution of Breslov hasidim by other hasidic groups that by far outstripped what the mitnagdim did to hasidim.

Assaf also notes this amazing fact:

Assaf cites the late researcher Dov Sadan, who visited the leftist [rabidly anti-religious] Shomer Hatzair Kibbutz Merhavia, identified many descendants of admors there and wondered about the meaning of this. He offers a varied explanation: "First of all, the admor's home is the least supervised element in a Hasidic court. The court supervises everyone's life, but the admor's children are less supervised. They were also given an education different from that of the other children of the court, and at least in Ukraine this was a more open education. A third point is that unlike other people of the court, they know it from 'inside,' not only with the aura of sanctity but also the stitching - the power struggles, the gossip - and what is most important - The admors' families are 'noble families,' often with many material assets that engender power struggles, and with struggles about who will be the heir, struggles that we have encountered just recently in the Satmar Hasidut.

"However, from a certain stage in Eastern European Hasidism a tradition emerged whereby even those who do not succeed their father in his court establish a court of their own in another town. This created tremendous pressure on the sons, even those who were not suited to the role of admor and had not necessarily been trained for this."

On the subject of the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson:

Assaf attributes the difficulty of selecting an admor "first of all to the mystic trap that the rebbe himself stuck them in, when he spoke about the 'seventh nasi' [the term used to denote the admors of Chabad, a Hebrew word that can mean president, chairman or leader - Y.S.], that is to say himself, as the last nasi. Beyond that, the rebbe himself had no descendents, and among the Hasidim there is no outstanding candidate upon whom they can agree.

"What is interesting is what the rebbe himself thought, how he thought the Hasidut would continue after him. In my opinion, he solved this question for himself by really believing that he was the Messiah, or at least that our age is a messianic age and in any case the question does not exist. Otherwise, it is hard to understand how a wise person like him thought that the Hasidut would continue."

I heard the following story from a source who heard it directly from Chana Gourary, the daughter of the Rayatz and sister-in-law of the Rebbe: Concerned about succession and afraid her father's hasidut would end, Chana approached her sister Chaya Moussia, the Rebbe's wife, in the early 1980's and asked what arrangements had been made in this regard. Moussia did not know of any plans for succession, so she asked the Rebbe what plans he had made. The Rebbe smiled at his wife and responded, "After me the Deluge." (After me the Flood.)

And so it will be.

*[Yes, it is possible the Rayatz was deceived by others or simply believed a falsehood to be true. But according to Chabad theology, a complete tzaddik is infallible and all Chabad rebbes are by their definition complete tzaddikim. So can a rebbe who believes transparent and fanciful lies be a rebbe in Chabad? No he cannot.]

And The Kolko Coverup Begins …

The coverup of the Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, Yeshiva Torah Temimah coverup has begun in ernest. Yeshiva head Rabbi Lipa Mrgulies, accused of knowingly harbored pedophile Rabbi Kolko for four decades, crushing all previous attempts to deal with the allegations, including attempts within the community itself, called a meeting to calm parents. And he brought in some heavy hitters from the Brooklyn haredi community – David Mandel from Ohel, a Jewish social services agency that deals extensively with children, and Aaron Twerski dean of Hofstra's law school.

Mandel, a 'mental health professional,' told the crowd:

However, when an audience member asked whether sex education could help to strengthen children’s knowledge of inappropriate behaviors and empower them to come forward if someone violated them, Mandel responded that sex education was “not something realistic” in a community that stresses modesty.

He told parents that the overwhelming majority of children who have experienced “unwanted touch” would go on to live happy, healthy lives, while only a “small percentage” of individuals would be permanently harmed by the abuse

Mandel also said that abusers could be treated for their perversions.

“An individual who abuses children and who participates in treatment can lead a successful life and be believed that they would no longer hurt children,” Mandel said.

When asked, in an interview the following day, whether such people could work with children again, Mandel evaded the question.

Do not give any money to Ohel until David Mandel is removed from any position of authority, paid or unpaid, with it.

For his part, Rabbi Aaron Twerski was no less dishonest:

Rabbi Twerski, a legal scholar who said he has been working on the issue of abuse for “a long time,” dismissed the allegations against Rabbi Margulies.

“I know Rabbi Margulies for many years and know him to be a man of great honor,” said Rabbi Twerski. He did not make any comments about Rabbi Kolko.

Rabbi Twerski then outlined a host of steps he said the yeshiva was taking to improve school safety, including agreeing to train employees to recognize signs of abuse. In addition, he said the school would be hiring a counselor and an ombudsman to handle claims of abuse.

One member of the audience was overheard saying under her breath, “It’s about time.”

In addition, Rabbi Twerski said the school had implemented a number of guidelines, including forbidding teachers to be alone with students and requiring that there be no enclosure without windows “so that a passerby cannot see what is going on.”

Rabbi Twerski also said that Torah Temimah was in the process of implementing additional, but undefined, steps recommended by Torah U’Mesorah, the Jewish education arm of Agudath Israel of America.

A call placed to Torah U’Mesorah in search of the guidelines was not returned.

Rabbi Yosef Blau and Rabbi Mark Dratch were asked for comment. They responded:

But some Orthodox observers said the event amounted to a whitewash of the allegations.

Rabbi Yosef Blau, spiritual adviser at Yeshiva University who has been working to focus communal attention on the problem of rabbinic abuse, said that the community was so “authority oriented” that it prevented members from demanding more accountability from its leadership.

“No one who protected him [Rabbi Kolko] all these years is paying any price,” Blau said, adding that Rabbi Margulies “should remove himself for awhile until things can be reviewed objectively.”

Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive director of JSafe, an organization that fights abuse in the Jewish community, said the Brooklyn Orthodox community had a somewhat spotty record of taking care of its own.

“Part of the problem with Brooklyn is that it’s a very insular community,” Rabbi Dratch said. “They look to solve the problems themselves even if it’s not in the best interest of the community.”

Yup. Just what God wants – covering up for abusers and their apologists. If this is Judaism, I am an "atheist." You should be, too.

[Hat tip: Mechaberet.]

Wiretapping, Resignations And Racism

Wiretapping, resignations and racism. Washington? Paris? London? New York? Tel Aviv? Nope. Postville.

CIRCUMCISION: NY State, Haredim Reach "Agreement" On Metzitza B'Peh

Ny State and haredim have reached an agreement on metzitza b'peh, the dangerous oral sucking of the fresh circumcision wound by the mohel:

The new state guidelines require mohels, or anyone performing metzizah b'peh, to sanitize their hands like a surgeon, removing all jewelry, cleaning their nails under running water and washing their hands for up to six minutes with antimicrobial soap or an alcohol-based hand scrub.

The person performing metzizah b'peh also must clean his mouth with a sterile alcohol wipe and, no more than five minutes before it, rinse for at least 30 seconds with a mouthwash that contains 25 percent alcohol.

The circumcised area must be covered with antibiotic ointment and sterile gauze after the procedure.
In addition to the rabbinical policies, the state Health Department also added neonatal herpes to the list of diseases health care workers are required to report to state officials.

In adults, herpes is common -- almost 80 percent carry the oral form of the disease, according to the state Health Department. It is far less common, and potentially more dangerous, in children and babies.

If a baby who underwent metzizah b'peh does contract herpes, the mohel, the infant's parents and health care workers will be tested. If the mohel has the same viral strain as the baby, the mohel will be barred from conducting any future circumcision.

The problems?

1. No apparent provision for public oversight. If a mohel does not do what is required, who will know?
2. Most reporting cited as "mandatory" is really voluntary, because there is no provision for public oversight (outside of what already exists in hospitals).
3. No provision for dealing with the two mohels already linked to transmission, death and injury.
4. Even if the agreement were better structured, washing the mouth with alcohol will not stop transmission completely.

As shown rather clearly in this article in Hakira by Dr. Shlomo Sprecher, MBP is not a part of the actual mitzva of circumcision, and it has been clearly linked to dozens of deaths and even more maiming in recent history.

No surgical procedure or practice would be allowed to continue under such conditions. While the idea of State involvement with religious practice is very worrying, the idea that an irresponsible religious group can endanger infants is even more so.

This agreement was reached because Satmar and other haredim vote in blocks. This rabbinically mandated practice, often enforced by promises of blessings for those who vote correctly and hellfire for those who do not (and the very real threat of violence and ostracism for those who refuse to go along) gives haredim a tremendous amount of political power that far outstrips their actual numbers. It also corrupts the electoral system and, because of the threats involved, is clearly illegal.

In closing, one must ask a question: Why did haredim not adopt the sanitary provisions of this agreement on their own last year? Why wait until now? The answer I believe is that haredim do not believe these procedures are necessary. They have done what is necessary to avoid a statewide ban on MBP and nothing more. This does not bode well for future haredi compliance.

UPDATE: In a comment elsewhere, Dr. Zachary Sholem Berger notes:

… I wonder about the precautions listed. They would probably help reduce bacterial infections, but what people are worrying about these days is neonatal herpes. Antibiotic ointment won't do much to counter that.

From the beginning, New York State took a much weaker line on this issue than New York City. God forbid, more babies will die and be maimed, all in the name of a procedure not biblically mandated, and in the name of political power. If you did not understand the danger of Jewish fundamentalism before this, you should understand it now.

UPDATE #2: Steven I. Weiss is reporting that Agudath Israel is not a party to this agreement and will not comment on it until it has a chance to study it. He also echoes many of the reservations I expressed above. A bad deal all around.

Pornography, Hasidic Money-Laundering, And Jewish Charities

A pornographer is elected head of a prominent British Jewish non-profit. A scandal erupts. Rabbi Jeremy Rosen asks a very important question: Should this one man be singled out for criticism when criminals and other dubious sources of money are regularly welcomed by Jewish charities? Then Rabbi Rosen notes:

There has always been a very strong tradition in Hassidism of Rebbe money-launderers. Let me explain. One of several lines of thinking in Hassidism goes that the Rebbe is the saint who redeems the Jewish (and non-Jewish) universe. An ordinary person cannot hope to rise to his level of proximity to God. So simply by association and, where possible, rendering financial support, a person is elevated by the Rebbe’s relationship with God and participates in the Rebbe’s sanctity.

This explains those Rebbes who positively encourage sinners to come to them, to donate where possible vast sums (and I can assure you no questions were asked), and, as a result, both parties feel a lot better.

Nowadays, in addition to Hassidic Rebbes there is a whole industry in Oriental mystics and wonder rabbis to which streams of corrupt businessmen flow, carrying large donations, as regularly as flights to Las Vegas. Not all Rebbes, Rabbis, or followers are like this, of course, but there’s a heck of a lot of it going on quite openly, even brazenly, and all hallowed by religious fiat…

Of course I detest pornography but if we do not shrink from turning a blind eye to dubious sources of funding throughout the religious and the Jewish world, then we must not pillory one man just because he is an obvious and easy target.

Readers?

Will Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger Be Removed?

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The battle over the future of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger has moved to the Knesset with MKs from various parties trying to bring legislation that would end his term of office.

Attorney General Menahem Mazuz announced two months ago that while there was not enough evidence to indict Metzger over accepting bribes, there was still sufficient grounds for forcing him to step down from his position, especially as he had apparently changed his version three times under police questioning.…

Metzger refused to resign and received the backing of the Chief Rabbinate Council and senior rabbis who objected to the attorney general's attempt to remove a serving rabbi from his post..…

Metzger's aides are blaming the attorney general for exhorting the MKs to legislate against him.

Sources in the Justice Ministry denied that Mazuz had initiated any parliamentary action and said he had been approached on the subject. They stressed that all the candidates for the Chief Rabbinate had been told three years ago that there was a possibility that legislation limiting their terms might be introduced and that they were not guaranteed ten years on the job.

One obstacle standing in the face of any legislation could be the coalition agreement between Kadima and Shas that includes the promise that no changes would be made to the status quo on religious matters.

MKs involved in the attempt said they believed Shas could be convinced not to oppose the legislation if it were ensured that Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, a disciple of the party's spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, would be allowed to remain in his post.

There is no good solution to this problem. On one hand, it is necessary to remove the ethically challenged and woefully under qualified Rabbi Metzger from office. On the other hand, we are left with the thuggish and ethically challeneged Rabbi Amar as the only remaining chief rabbi. Truly sad.

Did Menachem Begin Try To Kill Germany's Chancellor In 1952?

A new book by a member of the terror plot to assassinate Germany's leader Conrad Adenauer in 1952 alleges Herut (and later Likud) leader Menachem Begin supported and offered to finance the plot, which killed a German sapper and almost Adenauer. Why? Begin was upset with the idea of reparations for Holocaust survivors, that money could somehow atone for blood spilled. If this report is proved true, any remaining question about Begin's status – terrorist or freedom fighter? – will be decided once and for all.

CONVERSIONS: Did The RCA Sell Out America's Rabbis And Jews?

Ha'aretz is reporting the conversion deal reached late last week between the RCA and the Rabbinute does not settle the issue of validity of past American conversions:

Representatives of the 1,500-member Rabbinic Council of America met in Israel last week with Amar. According to Amar's bureau chief, Rabbi Yigal Krispel, the two sides decided in the meeting to establish a joint committee to examine the validity of past conversions by RCA rabbis. According to the agreement, recognition of future conversions by members of the RCA will be dependent on those rabbis meeting standards set by the Chief Rabbinate.

Rabbi Seth Farber of the Itim Center praised the agreement, but said it did not address the complexities of conversions in the United States. "The agreement does not provide a complete response to whether there will be doubt regarding the Jewish status of those who have undergone conversion," Farber said. "I hope the new committee will act based on complete trust and not on innovation."

If this report is correct, it destroys the spin put on the agreement by the RCA's leadership, particularly by the RCA's executive director, the increasingly ineffective Rabbi Basil Herring. Worse than that, the agreement leaves open the possibility that those converted last week, last year or 10 years ago will suddenly be declared non-Jews. This makes it difficult to marry an American RCA convert or, in the case of RCA women converts, their children and female grandchildren. If Rabbi Seth Farber's explanation of the deal is accurate, the RCA's membership is left with only one choice: removal of RCA leadership, especially its executive director. In this case the old Yiddish proverb is certainly apropos: the fish stinks from its head.

Rabbi Zeilingold's Supervision

Rabbi Zeilingold's kosher symbol, the UMK, prominently displayed on a package of Rubashkin non-glatt meat. Picture taken in Trader Joe's today.