Haredim protest arrest of scam suspects; 3 detained

JPost 
Haaretz

5:30 Sunday afternoon - I am sitting in my car in front of Manny's in Meah Shearim as I post this with the aid of a wireless modem. There are no signs of any riots and people are shopping as usual.

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Three haredi (ultra-Orthodox) demonstrators were arrested in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square on Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds of haredim had gathered to protest the arrest of six men from Mea She'arim for alleged involvement in a financial scandal earlier that day. The protesters threw rocks, calling police officers Nazis. A cameraman was reportedly injured.

6 chareidi activists arrested - including the gabbai of head of Eida Chareidis

BCHOL

שישה עסקנים - ובהם משב"ק הגאב"ד - נעצרו לפנות בוקר • החשד: הלבנת הון ועבירות מס בהיקף של מיליונים בארגון 'הוועד הארצי' • 'העדה': ירושלים תבער • סיקור מיוחד

Israelis Facing a Seismic Rift Over Role of Women

NYTimes

JERUSALEM — In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry. 

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance.  So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Jaded Jewish travel writer's first visit to Jerusalem

 NYTimes

As a traveler, I am not a particularly choosy person. I will go pretty much anywhere, anytime. Wander on horseback into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan? Why not? Spend the night in a sketchy Burmese border town? Sure! Eat my way through Bridgeport, Conn.? Loved it. Once, I even spent four consecutive Sunday nights in Geneva — in midwinter — an ordeal to which no rational adventurer would willingly submit. 

In fact, of all the world’s roughly 200 nations, there was only one — besides Afghanistan and Iraq (which my wife has deemed too dangerous) — that I had absolutely zero interest in ever visiting: Israel. 

This surprised friends and mildly annoyed my parents, who had visited quite happily. As a Jew, especially one who travels constantly, I was expected at least to have the Jewish state on my radar, if not to be planning a pilgrimage in the very near future. Tel Aviv, they’d say, has wonderful food![...]

Family claimed rabbi told them not to call police "since incest rape happens in many families"

YNET

The State Prosecutor's Office has filed an indictment this week against two brothers who molested their younger sister, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday.

The abuse continued for years after a rabbi advised the  parents against involving to the police, saying that such incidents "happen in many families."[...]

Ami magazine acknowledges poor judgment in their nazification of the White House

Jewish Week

The editor of Ami Magazine acknowledged today that the front page of this week’s issue depicting the White House draped in Nazi flags with Nazi storm troopers marching in front “may have been a poor choice.”

Should a baseball hall of fame writer who is an alleged child abuser keep his award?

Time magazine

It was fairly common that when I went to eat at Villa Gallace restaurant during spring training in Clearwater, Fla., I would run into Bill Conlin, the baseball columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Long before I joined the Philadelphia Phillies as a player with a team he covered very closely, I would know his work, his name. He spared no one from his wide-ranging critiques. Luckily, I was exempted from his harshest words in part because I happened to be his late wife’s favorite player.

So when I heard about the allegations against him — that he molested a group of young girls and a boy (including his niece who came forward over the holidays) — I was certainly appalled and caught off guard. A controversy is now brewing about whether his award for journalistic excellence given to him by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011 should be revoked and Conlin stripped of his place in Cooperstown. Character matters, it is argued, and I agree. Yet as it pertains to the award, it isn’t that simple.

The leadership vacuum facing ultra-Orthodox Jewry

Haaretz

On the top floor of a Jerusalem hospital lays a very old man. He is slowly dying, but he won't be left in peace. A small circle of courtiers around him continue to issue in his name edicts and rulings, ensure that his signature still appears on letters and when his medical situation improves temporarily, they will remove him from hospital and seat him in his chair at the synagogue, where everyone can see him. The hospital staff grumbles that all this just prolongs the old man's agony, but there is nothing they can do as the retinue controls all the old man's moves. 

Only a tiny handful of relatives and trustees are allowed to talk with him, and they jealously guard his real mental situation while everyone is told that he is fully lucid and talking with his family and doctors, praying and studying as normal. 

This is how the great rabbis die nowadays. These were the circumstances of the last years of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as the Chabadniks fought over him, manhandling him to the window of his study so he could wave to the crowds on Eastern Parkway, steadily deifying him as he descended into his last coma. His body died in 1994, at the age of 92, but many of his followers still believe he is with us.

The Kavod Of A Bas Yisrael

Five Towns Jewish Times

“i tried looking into her, but i dunno anybody that knows her or what she looks like . . . i’ll leave her name in the pile and may pursue it later if i find more info. thanks, Ploni.”

What you have just read is a genuine e‑mail received by a shadchan after forwarding a resumé to a young man. The e‑mail reflects what is wrong with some of the underlying attitudes that are prevalent in our community—at least among our young men. This e‑mail, of course, is not atypical or unique. It reveals an outlook, a mindset that is rampant in a world that has lost perspective and direction.

The resumé described a brilliant girl imbued with genuine chesed—a girl that the shadchan knew well. No matter. The young man will leave her name in the pile, which he may or may not pursue in the future. Why? Because in his cursory and superficial investigation, he couldn’t find anyone who knew her or what she looks like.

The young man’s thought process? We can only extrapolate. “Sorry. Gave her a chance. Let’s move on. Plenty of fish in the sea for me.”

Jewish chivalry, it seems, is not just dead, it is dead, buried, and so completely obliterated that we shall be lucky if it ever rises again.[...]

Legal fight to allow single women to use mikveh

Haaretz

Plia Oryah, a 19-year-old Modi'in native, is among several parties to a December 29 petition asking Israel's Supreme Court to compel Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Religious Services Minister Yaakov Margi, and the Office of the Chief Rabbinate to reverse official directives to municipal and regional ritual bath operators. The directives explicitly deny access to women who are single, divorced or widowed. 

"These are public facilities," charges Oryah, who said she considers herself to be Orthodox. "It's their job to operate and maintain the facilities, not to decide who can use them."

RJJ takes Kars4Kids Charity to secular court in tuition dispute after going to beis din

Forward

An Orthodox Jewish charity known for its omnipresent radio jingles is embroiled in a federal lawsuit over $300,000 in scholarships that were allegedly promised to Jewish day school students.