11 Babies infected with herpes because of "Mezizah B'peh", 2 died and 2 have brain damage

None of the mohelim are identified by name in the current CDC report. However, previous news accounts of neonatal herpes infections following ritual Jewish circumcision and oral suction in 2003 and 2004 identified Rabbi Yitzchock Fischer as the mohel. He was subsequently banned from performing the ritual in New York City.

None of the mohelim are identified by name in the current CDC report. However, previous news accounts of neonatal herpes infections following ritual Jewish circumcision and oral suction in 2003 and 2004 identified Rabbi Yitzchock Fischer as the mohel. He was subsequently banned from performing the ritual in New York City.

The report is sure to reignite a long-simmering debate over public health and religious liberties: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday that 11 baby boys in New York City were infected with herpes between Nov. 2000 and Dec. 2011 following an ultra-Orthodox Jewish circumcision ritual called metzitzah b’peh — or oral suction — in which the mohel puts his mouth directly on the newborn’s circumcised penis and sucks away the blood.

Ten of the babies were hospitalized, at least two developed brain damage and two died, according to the New York City health department. In 2005, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked rabbis throughout the city to move away from performing metzitzah b’peh — and also issued an open letter [PDF] to the Jewish community warning of the health risks — but they refused claiming the practice was safe.

(MORE: Battle of the Bris: A Move to Outlaw Circumcision in San Francisco)

According to the CDC report, the investigation into circumcision-related herpes infections in newborns began in 2004 when New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) was notified of twin boys who had contracted herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1, the type that causes cold sores and is usually transmitted orally) following circumcision with metzitzah b’peh; one twin died. Both twins were circumcised by the same mohel, whom the CDC report refers to as “mohel A.”

During the investigation, the DOHMH learned of another 2003 case of neonatal HSV-1 infection after circumcision, also involving mohel A. In all three cases, the babies’ mothers and the hospital staff who cared for the infants had no history of herpes infection. When mohel A was tested about three months after the 2004 circumcisions, he showed antibodies to HSV in his blood, but was not found to be actively shedding the virus.

In all three cases, the babies developed lesions or vesicles in their genital areas about 8 to 10 days after their ritual circumcision; the timing and location of the babies’ symptoms suggest that the infections were introduced during circumcision, the CDC reports. The health officials’ investigation further uncovered eight other similar cases through Dec. 2011 in New York City, bringing the total to 11.

(MORE: Circumcision: The Surgery that May Lower Prostate-Cancer Risk)

About 85% of all neonatal HSV infections (including HSV-2, which causes genital herpes) are transmitted during delivery from an infected mother, 5% of infections are congenital and 10% are acquired after birth, usually from adult caregivers. HSV-1 is extremely common in the adult population — infecting some 73% of New York City adults over 20 — but the CDC report finds that HSV-1 infection in baby boys is rare, with about three cases a year on average in New York City.

Based on the overall incidence of neonatal HSV infections, total birth statistics and estimates of boys being circumcised with direct oral-genital suction (about 3,564 a year in New York City), health officials estimate that the risk of HSV infection in baby boys after metzitzah b’peh is 3.4 times greater than in boys who aren’t exposed to oral suction. Overall, the risk of herpes infection following metzitzah b’peh was 24.4 per 100,000 baby boys between April 2006 and Dec. 2011, the CDC estimates.

The authors of the CDC report write:

Circumcision is a surgical procedure that can transmit infection if not performed under sterile conditions. Oral contact with an open wound in a neonate risks transmission of HSV and other pathogens. Professionals advising parents and parents choosing Jewish ritual circumcision should be aware of this risk, and direct orogenital suction should be avoided.

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley also released a statement [PDF] urging that metzitzah b’peh not be performed. The health department also announced that several New York City hospitals, including those serving Hasidic Jewish communities, have agreed to distribute a brochure [PDF] describing the herpes risk to infants and advising parents considering out-of-hospital Jewish circumcision to ask the mohel before the bris whether he practices metzitzah b’peh. If so, parents can talk to their health-care providers and consider other options for circumcision.

“There is no safe way to perform oral suction on any open wound in a newborn,” Farley said. “Parents considering ritual Jewish circumcision need to know that circumcision should only be performed under sterile conditions, like any other procedures that create open cuts, whether by mohelim or medical professionals.”

During the course of the DOHMH investigation, health officials determined that four mohelim were confirmed to be involved in seven of the herpes cases. In two of those cases (involving the same mohel who circumcised two brothers three years apart), parents declined to reveal the identify of the practitioner, so it’s not clear whether he was the same mohel involved in any of the other cases. Therefore, the total number of mohelim involved in the 11 cases can’t be determined, but the investigators presume it is at least three and not more than eight.

(MORE: Study: Women with Circumcised Partners May Have Lower HPV Risk)

None of the mohelim are identified by name in the current CDC report. However, previous news accounts of neonatal herpes infections following ritual Jewish circumcision and oral suction in 2003 and 2004 identified Rabbi Yitzchock Fischer as the mohel. He was subsequently banned from performing the ritual in New York City.

“We’re not oblivious to what’s going on,” Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, told the New York Times in March, regarding the health risks surrounding metzitzah b’peh. He added: “The worst thing that could happen is if the authorities regulate this practice, then it could go underground. … I think the practice would continue, but there could be significant difficulty in gathering evidence.”

The CDC report is published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/how-11-new-york-city-babies-contracted-herpes-through-circumcision/#ixzz1x8nUkEOs

'Dead' Brazilian boy 'sits up in coffin at his own funeral and asks for WATER before lying back down lifeless'

Two-year-old Kelvin Santos 

Kelvin Santos stopped breathing during treatment for pneumonia and was declared dead on Friday

On Saturday he allegedly sat up in his coffin and asked his father for a glass of water

A two-year-old boy sat up in his coffin and asked for water before laying back down again lifeless, according to a Brazilian news website. 

In a case that seems almost too incredible to be true, ORM claimed that Kelvin Santos stopped breathing during treatment for pneumonia at a hospital in Belem, northern Brazil.

He was declared dead at 7.40pm on Friday and his body was handed over to his family in a plastic bag.

The child's devastated family took him home where grieving relatives held a wake throughout the night, with the boy's body laid in an open coffin.

But an hour before his funeral was due to take place on Saturday the boy apparently sat up in his coffin and said: 'Daddy, can I have some water?'.

The boy's father, Antonio Santos, said: 'Everybody started to scream, we couldn't believe our eyes. Then we thought a miracle had taken place and our boy had come back to life.

'Then Kelvin just laid back down, the way he was. We couldn't wake him. He was dead again.

Mr Santos rushed his son back to the Aberlardo Santos hospital in Belem,where the doctors reexamined the boy and confirmed that he had no signs of life.

He said: 'They assured me that he really was dead and gave me no explanation for what we had just seen and heard.'

The boy's family decided to delay the funeral for an hour in the hope that he would wake up again, but ended up burying him at 5pm that day in a local cemetery.

Convinced that his son was victim of medical malpractice, Mr Santos has now registered a complaint with the police who have launched an investigation

He said: 'Fifteen minutes after rushing him away for resuscitation, they came and told me he was dead and handed me his body. Perhaps they didn't examine him properly. Dead people don't just wake up and talk. I'm determined to find out the truth.'

The local state department today confirmed the boy had been admitted to hospital in a critical condition and was declared dead after suffering cardiac-respiratory failure.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155245/Dead-Brazilian-boy-wakes-funeral-asks-WATER-lying-lifeless.html#ixzz1x4CMZbBB

Frum boy on "America's Got Talent"! Video

Coins dating from Bar Kochba era found!

Israeli archaeologist Emil Aladjem holds up one of four extremely rare Roman era gold coins, near a gold ring and ear ring as well as some 140 silver coins (C,L) and several cosmetic implements (C-R), inside the Israeli Archaeology Authority headquarters in Jerusalem, Israel, 05 June 2012. EPA/JIM HOLLANDER

Archaeologists have discovered a treasure comprising of about 140 pieces of gold and silver coins, with gold jewelry, probably hidden by a rich lady in a time of imminent danger during the Bar Kochba revolt of some 1880 years ago.

The Israel Antiquities Authority or IAA presented the find on Tuesday and said it was recently exposed in an excavation in the vicinity of Kiryat Gat in southern Israel.

The rooms of a building dating from Roman and Byzantine period were exposed during the course of the excavation. Archaeologists discerned that a well had been dug in the ground of the courtyard of the old building and refilled. To the surprise of archaeologists, a spectacular treasure of exquisite quality was discovered in the well. It was wrapped in a fabric cloth that had deteriorated.

According to archaeologist Emilio Aladjem, who directed the excavation on behalf of the IAA, "The magnificent treasure includes gold jewelry, including a pendant handmade by a jeweler in the form of a flower and a ring with a gemstone in which is a hallmark of a winged goddess, two silver bars were probably kohl sticks and some 140 gold and silver coins."

"The coins were discovered dating from the reigns of Roman emperors Nero, Nerva and Trajan, who ruled the Roman Empire between 54-117 CE. The coins are adorned with images of the emperors and their reverse side are the representations of cults of the emperor, symbols of the brotherhood of warriors and mythological gods like Jupiter seated on a throne or Jupiter catch lightning in his hand."

Saar Ganor, an archaeologist in the district of Ashkelon and Western Negev of the  IAA added that "the composition of numismatic artifacts and quality are consistent with hidden treasures that have been previously attributed to the time of the revolt of Bar Kochba. During the uprising, between 132

-135 AD, the Jews under Roman rule would mint coins of Emperor Trajan with the symbols of the revolt. "

"This treasure includes gold and silver coins of different denominations, most of them dating from the reign of Emperor Trajan.

This is probably a cache of emergency that was concealed at the time of imminent danger by a wealthy woman who wraps her jewels and money in a cloth and hid deep in the soil before or during the Bar Kochba revolt. It is now clear that the owner never returned to claim the treasure."

New York Limits the amount of Herring ! Kiddush Clubs depressed!

The days of fishing unlimited herring from the waters in New York from the Hudson River, which dates back to colonial times, may be coming to an end.

Faced with plummeting numbers of herring in the river and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, the 

Department of Environmental Conservation proposes a first ever limit on the amount of the popular fish that can be captured.

Under the proposals, the fishermen

would be able to land with maximum 10 herring between March 15 and June 15, when hundreds of thousands of small fish come from the Atlantic by the river north to Troy Dam to spawn. The fishermen usually use herring as bait for bass, a popular sport fish that also comes on the river in the spring and feed on herring. 
Herring is a also popular fish eaten by many Ultra Orthodox Jews on Shabbat.

Orthodox Sex Abuse Family: They tried to Shut Us Up with Chivas Regal

The family of a Brooklyn man being treated for drug addiction in California traces his problems back to sexual abuse by a yeshiva teacher, when he was just 9 years old. "I do recall the rabbi being over here, trying to hush up my dad," Yosef Werner--the abuse survivor's brother--told PIX 11 Friday.

20 years ago, Daniel "Benji" Werner came home from the Yeshiva of Brooklyn one day and started confiding in his mother at theirMidwood home. "He told me the rabbi was touching him," Yehudis Werner told PIX. "And I said, 'What??!!"

Benji Werner told his mother the teacher would call him up to the front of the class, take the boy behind the desk, place Benji on his lap, and then put his hands in the boy's pants and molest him.

Mrs. Werner said she called her husband, Aaron, and he started contacting other parents from Benji's class. She told PIX several parents had heard the same thing from their children. Soon after, she said the family received calls from religious leaders. "They called up my husband and said 'if you continue to call parents, we'll make your name mud.'"

Yehudis Werner told PIX that because the family with eight children had recently emigrated to Brooklyn from Israel, they didn't want to rock the boat back then by going to police.

The Werner family decided to talk to PIX 11 now, because of recent publicity surrounding the District Attorney's office and how it's handled sexual abuse cases in the Orthodox Jewish community. The Kings Country District Attorney, Charles Hynes, told reporters this week he's ready to put handcuffs on any religious leader who threatens witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

Back in 1992, Benji Werner's parents took him out of the yeshiva and transferred him to a school on the lower East Side of Manhattan. But within a couple of years, Yosef Werner recalls his kid brother was getting into trouble, at the age of 11. "I know he was popping Ecstasy pills at a very early stage," Yosef Werner told PIX.

From rehab in California, Benji Werner told PIX 11 by phone Friday, "I basically isolated myself. I was depressed. After two years in my new school, one of the kids introduced me to marijuana. I smoked it and it would deaden my feelings." Werner acknowledged he later took Ecstasy and acid.

Through tears, Benji Werner's mother told PIX, "My only regret? I wish I got him counseling at the time." She told PIX her son tells her not to feel so badly. "He said, 'At least you did better than other parents. You put me in a new school.'" Yehudis Werner said she recently told her son, "Benji, thank you for confiding in me."

When PIX 11 contacted Yeshiva of Brooklyn Friday, a man who answered the phone said he was the principal. When I identified myself and asked if Benji's rabbi was still working at the yeshiva, the man told me, "No, he is no longer here." When I asked why, he responded, "None of your business. This is a private school."

Six years ago, Benji Werner and his brother paid a visit to the Kings County District Attorney's office. But Benji Werner was already 24 years old, so too much time had passed; under state law, there could be no prosecution, because of the statute of limitations.

Yosef Werner, a teacher, said he was working with a liason in the Orthodox Jewish community to get an apology from Benji's old teacher. But it never happened. "I did get a bottle of Chivas Regal from this individual who was trying to bribe me to shut my mouth up," Werner said.

Werner's father, Aaron, is dead now, and Yosef Werner said Friday, "I want people to see this story, because my father wanted this to come out in the 1990's."

When PIX 11 asked Benji Werner if he will get over his trauma, he replied, "Yes, I will, because I'm talking about it now. For years, I didn't talk."

Benji Werner expects to be in rehab for at least another, three months.

Anouck Markovits, leaves Satmar and writes best selling novel "I Am Forbidden"

Anouk Markovits was born into a Satmar family, but left the community at age 19 to avoid an arranged marriage.

 Anouk Markovits’s novel moves and fascinates, she writes about  about the Satmar Hasidim, the most isolated and insular of Jewish communities. The Satmar movement opposes all forms of secular culture and of Zionism. It began in 18th-century Hungary, but today is mainly based in Brooklyn and in upstate New York, though there are smaller communities elsewhere, including in Montreal. To write an intimate, respectful and yet critical novel about the workings of this community is no mean feat.
Markovits is well-positioned to lift the veil of secrecy that hangs over fundamentalist Hasidic sects. She was born into a Satmar family in France, but left it at the age of 19 to avoid an arranged marriage. She went on to study at Ivy League U.S. universities and then to write fiction in French. I Am Forbidden is her English debut and has already been sold in 10 countries.
The novel opens in Transylvania on the eve of the Second World War with an arresting scene: The teenage Torah scholar and cantorial prodigy Zalman Stern unwittingly “sins” by having an erotic dream featuring his study partner’s wife. Zalman, who over the course of the novel will become a harsh patriarch, accepts the teachings of the Talmud at face value. Much will ride on the dictum that “Whoever emits seed in vain deserves death” and not just in this vivid beginning.
Markovits infuses a great narrative arc with lyricism and immediacy. When 5-year-old Josef witnesses the brutal slaying of his mother and baby sister in 1939, it’s as if we are right there, trying to decipher the moment’s horror through a child’s innocent eyes. He is hidden by the family’s Gentile maid, who, though she hates Jews, yearns for a child of her own.
Monstrous historical events are telescoped into filmic images as, five years later, Josef, in turn, saves a little girl – also orphaned during an atrocity – and engineers her escape to the household of the same Zalman Stern with whom the story started. This child, Mila Heller, the daughter of Zalman’s former study partner, will become one of the dual heroines of the novel.
The other is Atara, Zalman’s oldest daughter. The two girls are closer than close and share the trials of displacement as the family is transplanted to France after the Iron Curtain descends over Eastern Europe. In Paris, at the age of 8, Atara experiences her first seeds of rebellion. Having mistakenly infringed the rules of the Sabbath by riding a bike in a park, she receives a severe beating from Zalman.
Atara, whose story surely echoes the author’s, begins to question the dictates of orthodoxy and the infallibility of the Satmar Rebbe, in whose behaviour she detects self-serving hypocrisy. (The Rebbe, a historical figure, escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary through the agency of the controversial Zionist Rezsö Kasztner, who negotiated with Eichmann to save a trainload of doomed Hungarian Jews. Yet the Rebbe had bitterly denounced Zionism and afterward claimed that he was saved not by Kasztner, but by a miracle of God.)
When Atara runs away from home, the focus shifts to the obedient and faithful adopted daughter, Mila. This is where the novel really shines, as Markovits explores the dichotomy between the comfort and costs of belonging to a tight, closed off group. By concentrating on the sister who conforms, she delivers a character study of great nuance and sensitivity.
Mila’s destiny is joined to Josef, who had been sent to the Rebbe’s court in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when the war ended. With tenderness and compassion, Markovits portrays their youthful arranged marriage, circumscribed wedding night and devotion to each other. But this love is gravely tested when Mila fails to conceive. By this time she, too, is in Williamsburg and discovers that there’s not much to life there for a childless young woman.
Fate and faith, free will and strict commandments collide, as Mila and Josef react to their situation in ways that have dark and far-reaching consequences.
Steeped in erudition and seething with emotion and energy, I Am Forbidden is driven by a breathless momentum that makes it hard to put down. It will stay with me for a long time.

I Am Forbidden, By Anouk Markovits, Bond Street Books/Doubleday Canada, 300 pages, $29.95

Rav Avraham Tzvi Wosner of Monsey bans Witnesses at a wedding who own a smart phone!

Rabbi Avraham Tzvi Wosner in Monsey ruled this week, abiding by the  decision of his grandfather, that those who own smart phones or have Internet access without filters are banned from being witnesses at a Jewish court proceeding.

According to the report, the decision of Rabbi Wosner came at a wedding when he found out a witness to the wedding ceremony had a phone that had internet access. He ordered that other witnesses be found.

Jewish Band performs in Krakow Poland singing "Aveenu Malkeinu", Video

Colorado Indians Jewish?

(JTA) – Israeli geneticists have linked a Native American population in Colorado to Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition.

Geneticists at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv discovered the genetic mutation marker BRCA1 in a group of Mexican Indians who had emigrated from Mexico to the United States over the past 200 years and settled in Colorado, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

BRCA1 is found in Jews of Ashkenazi origin and leads to a higher incidence of breast and ovarian cancer.

Researchers say the mutation found in the Colorado Indians is identical to that of Ashkenazim, according to Haaretz, and dates to a period more than 600 years ago. Jews were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

Researchers say this offers genetic proof that some of the Jews expelled from Spain who reached South America intermarried with the indigenous population, whose descendants later migrated to Mexico and then the United States, Haaretz reported.

Colorado’s Mexican Indians do not have any traditions that link them to Jews, according to Eitan Friedman, who headed the Sheba team.

VosizNeias censors Rabbi Slifkin's article on Daf Yomie

Vosizneias posted the following article by Rabbi Nathan Slifkin then removed it because of pressure!
Here is the article from Slifkin's Blog"

But who are the guests of honor at the grand Siyumim? Who performs the siyum, who makes the speeches, who gets the glory? Not the Daf Yomi participants and not even the maggidei shiurim. Instead, it's the roshei yeshivah.

This is not only tragic; it's also ironic. For the roshei yeshivah are the ones who not only do not learn Daf Yomi; they also often speak out against it!

Now, to be sure, there is room to criticize Daf Yomi. The breakneck pace means that the learning is often superficial and not committed to memory. But there is room to criticize the yeshivah style of learning, too. Spending endless weeks on three lines of Gemara is not exactly the traditional form of study. And learning without coming to clear halachic conclusions is entirely in opposition to the reasons for learning Torah that the Rishonim give.

But whatever the respective merits and drawbacks of the different approaches to learning Gemara, one thing is clear: yeshivos don't do Daf Yomi. Rabbi Meir Shapiro wanted all Jews to be studying the same material at the same time; yeshivos make no such effort. Rabbi Meir Shapiro wanted masechtos of the Gemara that are not usually studied to receive their due respect; yeshivos ignore those masechtos on principle. Daf Yomi is about covering ground in Shas, whereas in most yeshivos, the emphasis is on endless analysis of a few lines of Gemara - the "oker harim" approach instead of the "Sinai" approach. Most fundamentally of all, Daf Yomi is for ba'alei battim, the laymen from whom society is built, not yeshivah students. Why, then, would roshei yeshivah be the ones getting the glory at the Daf Yomi Siyum HaShas, and giving intricate pilpulim in Gemara (and in Yiddish!)? Mah inyan Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel aitzel Sinai?

If I'm not mistaken, the explanation is as follows. The grand pomp of the Siyum HaShas, with tens of thousands of participants, offers Agudas Yisrael an opportunity to further one of their primary goals: strengthening the Daas Torah form of rabbinic authority, and specifically that of roshei yeshivah.

(Ironically, this latter aspect is not only contrary to tradition of Judaism in general; it is even contrary to the original form of Agudas Yisrael. The Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel were originally mostly either community rabbis or those with experience in such roles; today, they are virtually all roshei yeshivah who have never functioned in any such role.)

These are thy Gedolim, O Israel! That is what the siyum haShas does. Make the biggest public Jewish event, and give the stage exclusively to the people that you want to publicize as the heroes and leaders of the Jewish community.…

Daf Yomi is about the ordinary man who takes his ArtScroll Gemara on the train with him every morning on the way to work. He is the hero of the Siyum HaShas. Let's grant him his well-deserved honor!

New York State will outlaw Anonymous Posts on the Web!

 New York state lawmakers are proposing to effectively end the 1st Amendment for the sake of stopping cyber bullying and what they refer to as “baseless political attacks”.

New York State Assembly bill S06779 will require websites based in New York to “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.”

Jim Corte, member of the Assembly of the 10th District in New York, is promoting that Internet Protection Act (A.8688/S.6779). Assemblyman Dean Murray and Sen. Thomas O’Mara, R-Big Flats are also sponsoring the legislation.

Corte asserts that his “legislation turns the spotlight on cyber-bullies by forcing them to reveal their identity or have their post removed”.

Within the proposal are preventive measures to keep “people from posting anonymous criticism of local businesses”. Businesses would be allowed to judge online reviews that place them in a negative light as disruptive to their financial ability and therefore be empowered to have those postings removed from websites under the guise of “rival competitors”.

The proposal also includes language combating mean-spirited political attacks that “add nothing to the real debate and merely seek to falsely tarnish the opponent’s reputation by using the anonymity of the Web”.

This over-reaching proposition will “ensure that there is more accurate information available to voters on their prospective candidates”.

“While the Internet is a wonderful resource for social networking, sadly it can also be used to anonymously bring harm to others,” said Assemblyman Dean Murray, R-East Patchogue. “This bill will offer them the opportunity to either confront the person making these comments by having that person identified or have the comment removed all together in the case where this comment is false or slanderous.”

The website must provide a toll-free number or email address where “victims” of alleged cyber bullying can contact the webmaster to have the comments removed. No judge or jury is necessary. Simply the victim’s accusation is enough to have any comment removed for supposed offences.
In the event a complaint is filed, the webmaster will be mandated to contact the anonymous commenter, who is given a mere 48 hours to identify themselves as the author of the post or else the comment will be deleted.

“The internet has been a great innovation for our time, it’s brought forth a lot of advantages, but with that, there are abuses that come with it,” said O’Mara. “This will help lend some accountability to the internet age.”

However, the measures taken to legitimize positive from defacing comments regarding cyber-bullying, online business reviews and political attacks are not defined.

Only the power to change the content of the Web and force users to use their real identities is mentioned.

Murray would like to see the legislation be picked up nationally. He hopes this proposal will turn into a federal bill that will mandate the internet’s content across the US.

“There’s got to be a starting point,” said Murray. “If we don’t start somewhere, it’s not going to spread. A lot of times New York does lead the way for the nation.”

Assemblyman Peter Lopez, R-Scoharie, co-sponsor of the bill, believes that the internet is a kind of ‘wild west” where “anything goes”. Lopez hopes that this remanding bill will curtail the internet to make it a “beneficial [resource] and make sure it is used properly”.

Who decides if the internet is being used properly?

Egyptian Writer speaks out on Whats Really Happening to Women in Arab Countries! Video

Mona Eltahawy

Deborah Feldman talks about women being oppressed in the Chassidic Circles,
 She has no clue what oppression really is ... see Video

Time to Boycott South Africa !

The director of Shamir Salads, Amiram Guy announced that in response to the South African boycott of products manufactured in Yehuda and Shomron, he has decided that his company will be cutting all ties with that country.
Shamir is one of the companies targeted since it is located in Shomron, in the Barkan Industrial Park near Ariel. Guy however is not making apologies, calling on other companies to join him in boycotting S. Africa in response. He explains that while he does not sell to South Africa, he does import, including avocados, and this is now a thing of the past – stating the boycott can work both ways. He explains he used to import a ton of avocados from S. Africa monthly but he is moving his business to Ecuador or Mexico.
He admits that his move is a token one in the big picture, but he is hopeful that his move will serve as an impetus for others to follow, to give the S. Africans a taste of their own medicine. He also calls on Israelis to boycott S. Africa by removing it as a tourist option.
Guy himself is one of the owners of Shamir and another company in Shomron and while he resides in Ramat HaSharon, he explains he feels warmth for the area and its residents.

Organic eaters are mean, more judgemental and a bunch of jerks: Study, Video

Aguda reiterates: Abuse Victims must go to Rabbis first.

An Orthodox parent whose child tells him he’s been sexually abused may not take that child’s claim to the police without first getting religious sanction from a specially trained rabbi, the head of America’s leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella group has told the Forward.
But one year after acknowledging that no such registry of trained rabbis exists, Rabbi David Zwiebel said that his group has now dropped the idea of developing one.

One of the main reasons, said Zwiebel, was a warning from Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes — issued only a few days earlier — that rabbis who prevent families from going to police could be arrested.

“If they [rabbis] don’t give the right advice, they can be in trouble,” said Zwiebel. “Why would you want to create some sort of a list that would make them more vulnerable?”

Zwiebel, who is the executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, said that despite the absence of such a registry, his group would staunchly resist increased public pressure to lift its requirement that parents obtain rabbinic permission.

“We’re not going to compromise our essence and our integrity because we are nervous about a relationship that may be damaged with a government leader,” he said.

Zwiebel’s comments, offered over the course of an hour-long interview in Agudath’s Manhattan headquarters on May 21, highlighted a growing fissure that has opened between Agudath and previously friendly senior public officials in New York. The break comes in the wake of a New York Times exposé that chronicled intimidation of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn by their own communities to keep them from bypassing rabbinic authorities and reporting abuse. The Times’ two articles, and a flood of media stories that followed, also reported how Hynes appeared to accommodate rather than challenge the ground rules set down by ultra-Orthodox leaders asserting their authority over such cases.

Zwiebel acknowledged tensions between secular legal requirements and Jewish law. But he said the community was duty-bound to follow the rulings of rabbinic leaders.

Continue reading at The Forward 

What Women's Media Needs to Know About Chassidic Women

Hi. I'm Chaya, and I am a Chassidic Jewish woman. I am also a media professional with a degree in Women's Studies from a large, very liberal university (magna cum laude, baby!).

In the past few days, I've been reading the backlash against "the asifa," a recent mass meeting of religious Jewish men meant to draw a few boundaries around Internet use in our homes (meaning religious Jewish homes; not your house).

Whenever religious Jews make a stink about some cultural issue, the media moves in on it with a bizarre kind of vengeance. Like yesterday, Katie J.M. Baker published an article on Jezebel about the event, in which she actually compared Jewish men to ants!

See: "While men in traditional Orthodox garb filed into Citi Field as steadily as a never-ending line of ants approaching an anthill…" Um, where have I seen Jews compard to insects before? Oh, wait, WWII.

As a resident of Brooklyn, the epicenter of all things hipster and the home of many, many clad-in-black religious Jews, I'd like to clarify a few things for all of you. Here are a few things you need to know about Chassidic women:

 1. We are not imprisoned. 

The last time I checked (which was right now), I am free to do whatever I want to do. Nobody is making me do anything. If I want to leave the community I live in, whether to go grocery shopping or to put on a pair of pants and go to a disco and snort coke, I can. Nobody is going to stop me. Would I wear a pair of skinny jeans and snort coke in a disco? No. Why?

2. We like ourselves the way we are. And most of us are happy.

Poor Deborah Feldman got the short end of the stick. She got a dysfunctional family and a crummy school. But listen: That happens everywhere. How many (non-Jewish or secular Jewish) friends of yours come from dysfunctional families and crappy schools and just couldn't wait to leave home? Did they represent your entire hometown? 

 We call becoming lax in religious observance and adopting a secular lifestyle "frying out." People fry out all the time. Most of us, though, feel like we are leading pretty rewarding lives.

Look at it this way: When your friends go to India to learn how to meditate and come home "leading spiritual lives" and suddenly won't go out for barbecue with you, you think it is cool. Your friend is leading a spiritual life. Spiritual lives involve boundaries and not just doing whatever your body feels like at that second. We lead spiritual lives. Leading a spiritual life is rewarding. 

3. We find our husbands attractive.

You know those guys with the long beards and the black coats who are always reading something in Hebrew on the train and you're kind of freaked out by them? So they're our husbands.

My husband has a very impressive beard. He wears a black suit, and a kippah and a black hat. He is also the most handsome, hot, attractive man in the entire world to me. Nobody forced me to marry him. My father did not trade me to him for a flock of sheep.

Fun fact: Jewish law prohibits marrying someone who you're not attracted to. Another fun fact: In the Jewish marriage contract, one of the conditions of marriage is that a husband is obligated to sexually satisfy his wife. If my husband would deny "conjugal rights" to me, that's grounds for divorce. Pretty effing progressive if you ask me.

 4. We have been happily shagging for millennia. Jews never had the concept of "original sin." 

Judaism is the original sex-positive culture. What? You heard me right. Y'all need "sex-positive Third wave feminism" to help you feel like having sex is OK. Jews bypassed the whole Christian idea that all sex, even in marriage, is a sin. And Protestant asceticism just never happened for us.

G-d likes it when a married Jewish couple has sex. Jews never got a message that sex is dirty. We think sex is good. It is so good that having it is actually a commandment. No, we cannot shag "anything that moves." No, we can't sleep around or have sex outside of marriage. But once you're married, sex is totally cool and awesome and G-d likes it.

I don't know who made up the dumb story about having sex through a sheet, but let's bury that old chestnut now. Having sex through a sheet is actually prohibited by Torah and we are commanded explicitly by G-d to get totally naked to shag. Just in case you're wondering.

 5. Mikveh is awesome. We don't go to the mikveh because we're "dirty." 

Holy moly! How many times have I heard feminists totally misread the Jewish practice of abstaining from sex during one's period and then immersing in a mikveh (a ritual bath)? It is hard to explain this one to people who grew up in Puritan America.

When you hear the word "impure," it has a totally different meaning than the meaning it has in the context of Torah. In Torah, you're dealing with states of being that are related to the service in the Beis HaMikdash (the Great Temple). It's called "ritual purity" and "ritual impurity." These states of being have nothing to do with being dirty or clean.  You could, in fact, not shower for days and roll in the mud and you'd still be "ritually pure."

Are you confused? You should be. We think about these things in a paradigm that is so not the dominant paradigm. 

All you need to know is that the practice of not touching your husband when you're on your period and then immersing in a mikveh is awesome. Most women's mikvehs are like spas. Picture the most beautiful spa you've ever been to, in a quiet all-girls safe space, and that's mikveh. 

 Incidentally, Orthodox Jewish women have one of the lowest rates of cervical and other reproductive cancers because of…wait for it…these customs. We do not have sex at times that our vaginas are vulnerable to infection (such as right after birth). Because we do internal checks for menstrual blood the week after we finish menstruating, the rate of early detection of (G-d forbid) tumors and cysts in the vagina is very high.

You think we are sexually repressed and afraid of our own bodies just because we dress modestly? Every single Chassidic woman you see sticks her own fingers in her own vagina at least twice a day for 7 days of the month. The chicks in my women's studies classes didn't even do that. 

 In conclusion…

When you slam Orthodox Jews because you think you're defending or somehow liberating the women of our communities, you're actually doing us a huge disservice. When you slam Jewish men, you're slamming us, too. Not in my name, gals.  

The next time you see a Jewish lady in a wig pushing a baby carriage through Brooklyn, I hope you won't see an imprisoned waif who is just waiting to be liberated. Cuz we're not like that. We're strong. We're invincible. And we make delicious kugel. L'chaim, chicas!