Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Hormone suppressants for yeshiva students with smartphones?
by Zev Farber
Recently, Amnon Levi, the host of Panim Amitiyot (True Faces), did a segment on a young man named Pini Landau, who recently left the Gerrer Hasidim. The segment was called “Castration among Hasidim” (sirus be-hasidut). The story is as simple as it is problematic. Pini Landau was a 20-year-old Gerrer Hasid who lived in a yeshiva dormitory in Arad, in which many things that the average western person — secular or religious — finds normal are forbidden. One of these things is a smart phone.
According to Pini’s explanation, the assumption is that if a young man has internet access, it is guaranteed that he will use it to watch pornography. Pini had previously been caught with a cellphone, so he was considered a repeat offender. Thus, he was presented with a choice, either to be kicked out of the yeshiva or take medication that would make him stop behaving wickedly.
Pini was already taking a number of medications: Methylphenidate (for ADHD), Risperidone(an antipsychotic) and Sertraline (an antidepressant), so the idea of taking medication wasn’t particularly frightening to him, and he agreed. The medication that they wanted him to take was Decapeptyl SR (triptorelin), which is a Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH–A). What that means in simple English is that it is a hormone suppressor. In women, it suppresses estrogen, in men, testosterone.
Ger Chassidim force Chassidim that don't follow rules to take "Drugs"
The Gur Chasid trembled in pain as he spoke about a family gathering held at Purim.
One daughter in the extended family, a married woman with children, attended the big holiday meal after a long period in which she had remained secluded in her home.
"We were shocked," the man recalled. "At the beginning, we could barely identify her. This is a woman who has always been blessed with a lively, expressive personality, but now it looks like pills have finished her off. We met an apathetic woman who has a solemn, stony face; a woman who has had the life sucked out of her."
The man says the family has known for years that the woman has been "shelled," as he put it, with low dosage antidepressant and antianxiety medication prescribed by a psychiatrist to whom she was referred by rabbis and various Hasidic functionaries. But up to now, nobody in the extended family had witnessed firsthand the effects of this treatment.
"The sole reason why the woman was brought to a psychiatrist, against her will, was marital discord," the man explained. At first, she adamantly refused to take the pills prescribed her, but "she had no chance of persisting in this refusal, owing to the heavy pressure exerted on her by the rabbis."
The ultra-Orthodox man says the woman's husband belongs to a well-connected family in the Gur community, and so the man's family attached "responsibility" for the situation in the house to the woman, and demanded she receive medication. "She was told that the Gur Rebbe wants her to take medication, and that the pills would restore order to her home. Nobody knows whether the rebbe really said that, but this is what persuaded her."
As a result of the Haaretz report two weeks ago ("Rabbi's Little Helper," April 6 ) - about the conferral of psychiatric medication at the request of rabbis and Orthodox activists, for purposes described as "spiritual" rather than medical - a number of persons turned to Haaretz with their personal stories.
The Hasid from Bnei Brak presented his story as part of a trend of Orthodox referrals to private psychiatric clinics as a result of internal communal issues - typically family cases. Such referrals often override the patients' own desires; usually, he patient does not really understand the nature of the treatment. Psychiatrists and psychologists also approached the newspaper, and reported cases of unethical uses of medication.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
8 Dead , 15 Hurt in Lower Manhattan after TERRORIST runs over bikers on bike path . Yells "ALLAH ACHBAR" FBI TAKES OVER INVESTIGATION!!!!
UPDATED!!!!!!!!! 4:51PM
8 people have been killed, and 15 injured by an Arab Terrorist yelling "Allah Achbar" who mowed them down on a bike path in lower Manhattan on Tuesday.
The driver made his way from Houston Street down towards Tribeca where he mounted the bike path on the West Side Highway shortly after 3pm and drove 8 blocks until a school bus driver cut him off!
The man then emerged with imitation guns in his hand and was shot in the leg by police. He survived and was taken to hospital but at least six innocent people were killed and others are injured.
Police tweeted that one person has been taken into custody and "no others outstanding."
Why I Don’t Grieve on Social Media (or at Synagogue)
On the anniversary of my mother’s death this past April, there was no Facebook remembrance, no photo of my beautiful, smiling mother on Instagram, and not one #RIP tweet bearing her name. A few of my dearest friends remembered the date and texted that they were thinking of me.
It’s been more than seven years since my mom died, and even as I miss her daily and dearly, life has gone on—as it tends to do, even after the worst has happened.
My mother died 12 weeks after a surprising stage-four lung cancer diagnosis. By the time she got the diagnosis, cancer had already done its dreadful work. When she died, even after such a short period, the suffering had been immeasurable.
There was no time to prepare for the very end. And after it came, the shiva provided little comfort. My mother’s friends, colleagues, students, and even her dentist who came to my parents’ house, and told me that their lives would not be the same without my mom. They would miss her jokes, her kindness, her good advice. How selfish, I thought: You’ll be OK.
The loss felt so raw and so personal as if it was mine alone.
That misplaced anger dissipated long ago, but the need to keep her loss private did not. A text or a private email is welcome, but sad faces and timeline comments, no matter how thoughtfully written or well-meaning, no thanks. I realize that I may be in the minority among those in the same sad boat. I’ve read plenty of virtual remembrances that were incredibly poignant, and seem to have comforted the person doing the remembering. But the one time I posted a memorial on social media, it just felt forced and contrived and all too public.
So on the anniversary of my mom’s death, I say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and I light a Yarzheit candle, as is traditional. But I don’t seek out communal prayer in a synagogue. I go to the cemetery with my Dad, my husband, my kids and, schedules permitting, with my sister and her family. We stay for a short time at my mother’s grave, (and then visit dead relatives going back several generations). I’m always glad that I go, and I’m always glad when it’s over.
Then we go for fried clams from a seafood shack that my mother loved. We share real stories, not Instagram stories, about my mom over lunch. Surrounded by my family—and emoji free—this feels like the best way for me to remember.
Hot pastrami? Burglars steal $5,000 from Mechy's Deli in Flatbush
The burglars who robbed Mechy's deli in Flatbush weren’t looking for kishke or overnight potato kugel.
They left the food untouched but stole $5,000, after breaking in by way of the adjacent office of a Brooklyn state senator.
They left the food untouched but stole $5,000, after breaking in by way of the adjacent office of a Brooklyn state senator.
“They certainly weren’t desperate for pastrami,” state Sen. Simcha Felder said on Sunday, according to The New York Post.
Police said the burglary took place on Shabbat, between Friday and Saturday night.
The thieves broke into the deli by way of a stairwell connected to Felder’s office.
“Someone broke into the building. They broke into the office next door to ours and they broke into my office and messed up the papers in our office,” Felder said.
City Council Candidates for the NYC 44th district Kalman Yeger and Yoni Hikind "killing each other" Heshy Tischler Stays out of the Nasty Fights
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| Kalman Yeger (left) Yoni Hikind (Center) Heshy Tischler (right) |
It has something to do with Kalman Yegar's disabled son ... with Yoni Hikind mentioning Kalman's son in the campaign. ....
The YeshivaWorldNews Blog had an Op-Ed accusing Yoni Hikind of "Crossing the line." It should be noted that Kalman Yegar ran ads on the YWN website..
I'm not privy of what's really going on but it seems that Heshy Tischler would get my vote!
Monday, October 30, 2017
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Robert Mueller should resign! New York Post
Forgive yourself if you are confused about developments in the Russia, Russia, Russia storyline. In fact, there are so many moving parts that you shouldn’t trust anybody who isn’t confused.
Consider this, then, a guide to the perplexed, where we start with two things that are certain. First, special counsel Robert Mueller will never be able to untangle the tangled webs with any credibility and needs to step aside.
Mueller, whose office is apparently leaking the “secret” news that a grand jury has approved charges against an unidentified defendant, assumed his role with one big conflict, his relationship with his successor at the FBI, James Comey. That conflict has morphed into several more that are fixable only by resignation.
That became obvious last week when events showed that any honest probe must examine the Obama White House and Justice Department. Mueller served as head of the FBI for more than four years under President Obama and cannot be expected to investigate his former colleagues and bosses.
But without that necessary step, his work would be incomplete at best. So it’s time for him to say bye-bye.
The second thing we know for certain is that Hillary Clinton had a worse week than Mueller. Much worse.
The revelation that her campaign and the Democratic National Committee secretly funded the discredited dossier on Donald Trump’s supposed connections to Russiarocked the political world. The Clinton connection, denied by the campaign for a year, throws more doubt on the entire Trump-Russia-collusion narrative and shows that Clinton worked with Russian officials to meddle in the election.
The Washington Post reported that her campaign and the DNC paid millions of dollars to a law firm, Perkins Coie, which hired a shadowy company called Fusion GPS, which hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to compile the dossier, much of which was said to be based on Kremlin sources.
The bombshell sent Clinton into hiding, and no wonder. She probably thought three degrees of separation from the dossier would be enough to insulate her. In her absence, her defenders offered a dog’s stew of evasions, half-truths and diversionary attacks.
Their claim that nobody in the campaign or the DNC knew anything about the deal doesn’t pass the smell test. When as much as $12 million goes out the window for a document that aimed to win the election — and failed — everybody knows something.
While the link to Clinton answers some questions, it raises others. For example, while it is certain her campaign spread the dossier among the media last summer, it remains uncertain whether the dossier was used by the White House and the FBI to justify snooping on the Trump campaign.
One hint that it was is that Comey, while still in office, called the document “salacious and unverified,” but briefed Obama and President-elect Trump on its contents last January. And the FBI never denied reports that it almost hired Steele, the former British spy, to continue his work after the campaign.
The mystery might soon be solved because the FBI, after months of stonewalling, agreed last week to tell Congress how it used the dossier and detail its contacts with Steele.
If the bureau did use the dossier to seek FISA warrants to intercept communications involving the Trump campaign, it would mean the FBI used a dirty trick from the candidate of the party in power as an excuse to investigate the candidate from the opposition party.
Somewhere, Richard Nixon is wondering why he didn’t think of that.
Somewhere, Richard Nixon is wondering why he didn’t think of that.
There is also the issue of the “unmasking” of Trump associates caught up in the snooping, with the names leaked to anti-Trump media. It is essential to investigate that angle, but it would lead right to the Obama White House, which is why Mueller is not the man for the job.
As for Clinton, the dossier revelation was not her only new problem. In fact, the second blow might be the most serious yet.
At the urging of Congress and Trump, the Justice Department lifted its gag order on an informant who can now testify to Congress about bribery and other wrongdoing surrounding Moscow’s gaining control of 20 percent of US uranium production.
The 2010 transaction was approved by Obama officials, including Clinton, then secretary of state. About the same time, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a speech to a Russian bank involved in the transaction. Later, tens of millions of dollars — $145 million by one estimate — were said to be donated to the Clinton Foundation by individuals having a stake in the deal.
The informant’s lawyer, Victoria Toensing, told Fox News the speech fee and the donations amount to a “quid pro quo” for Hillary Clinton’s help.
“My client can put some meat on those bones and tell you what the Russians were saying during that time,” Toensing said.
Clinton called the accusations “baloney,” but that’s what her team said about any connections to the dossier — before the truth came out.
Clinton called the accusations “baloney,” but that’s what her team said about any connections to the dossier — before the truth came out.
Finally, another event is worth mentioning: the release of thousands of files from the JFK assassination trove. There were lots of juicy tidbits, but no final clarity, which raises the horrifying idea that, 50 years from now, we might still be waiting for the truth about Russia, Russia, Russia.
Heaven help us.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Satmar Rebbe's great-grandson becomes IDF officer
The great-grandson of world’s largest hassidic sect's leader graduated IDF Officer School on Wednesday and will become a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade.
Chaim Meisels, the great-grandson of one of two Satmar Rebbes who lay claim to the hasidic dynasty, was drafted into the IDF in 2014 after moving to Israel from the United States. On Wednesday, he graduated the IDF's Officer School and became a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade.
In a Facebook post that has since gone viral in Israel, Meisels wrote about the long journey that took him from the insular Satmar community of his youth to the IDF.
"I grew up as a haredi child in Brooklyn, United States," he began. "I had the feeling that something was missing, but I didn't know what. My first visit to Israel was at the age of 11. I discovered the State of Israel, a Jewish state. I did not yet know how it would affect me, but I felt that I had come home.
"When we returned to Brooklyn a few days later, I felt like another person," Meisels continued. "Suddenly there was something I connect to, the State of Israel. Because I am the grandson of the Satmar Rebbe, and the community in which I grew up does not support Israel, I had no one to talk about it with.
"I came to Israel again at the age of 15, this time to study in a yeshiva in Bnei Brak. The only language I spoke at the time was Yiddish, and I could not communicate with the outside world like I wanted to. When I returned to the United States a year later, I bought a phone with Internet (we were not allowed to own one in a yeshiva), decided to learn English, learn about Israel and a little about the world."
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