“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Ruth Lichtenstein Publisher of Hamodia Will Not report Walder Story Despite Her Own Daughter Writing a book about Incest in the Ger Community
Ruth Lichtenstein's daughter, Judy Brown, wrote a book titled Hush, a best seller which described a scene where the protagonist witnesses a friend getting raped by her own family in the Ger community. At the time she wrote it under a pen name, "Aishas Chayil" but she was subsequently outed. She then went public to lecture the community about sexual abuse in the Chassidic community.
Her mother, Ruth, is the publisher of Hamodia, and wants to continue her family minhag of keeping her mouth shut about a serial rapist and adulterer, a menace to the frum community. Shame on her, she has learnt nothing.
Talk about tone deaf... have you seen the editorial in Hamodia? Take a look. What a total letdown. @HamodiaUS - you guys need to go back to the drawing board. This kind of drivel simply isn't credible. In fact, it's downright offensive. #chaimwalder pic.twitter.com/YxbaKLMNIH
— Pini Dunner (@pinidunner) January 6, 2022
Funny how Ruth Lichtenstein of @HamodiaUS claims that her paper is following the footsteps of Reb Chaim Ozer and the Imrei Emes זצ"ל – both of whom had images of women published in their publications, as documented in @DerVeker. https://t.co/fhWOeHxZTM
— Shlomo Felberbaum (@ShlomoFelber) January 6, 2022
Editor of hamodia writes in this week's issue that her publication will not be writing about the sex abuse scandal. Seems like a good time for a reminder that her own daughter wrote Hush, a story about sex abuse cover-ups in her community.https://t.co/iTxxeZpCWZ https://t.co/lsT5d5pXH0
— Miriam Moster (@MiriamMoster) January 5, 2022
California prosecutor opposed to vaccine mandates dies of COVID at 44
California prosecutor opposed to vaccine mandates dies of COVID at 44 https://t.co/EFYGH8tBwZ pic.twitter.com/UJkg70fAgQ
— New York Post (@nypost) January 5, 2022
Beit Shemesh resident Orly Vital an Agunah for 14 years gets her get
From left to right: Yad La'Isha Rabbinical Court Advocate and Attorney Tehilla Cohen, Orly Vital, and Pnina Omer, Director of Yad La’Isha |
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Rebbetzen Tziporah Heller: "We Can't Judge Rapists. Only Journalists."
But now I saw it spelled out, nauseatingly, in an essay by the generally wise and respected Rebbetzen Tziporah Heller-Gottlieb. Seriously, I feel that I have to give a warning before linking to her essay, as it is immensely triggering.
Watch How the Media drooled over Elizabeth Holmes "The Fraudster"
Corporate Media Gushed over Theranos Fraudster Elizabeth Holmes pic.twitter.com/86Q0YLyf2n
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 4, 2022
If you are a Victim of Abuse do not go to any Rav they won't help you ..Here is a history of those who did go
Internal reporting doesn't work, and if you need any evidence of that I'll send you the list of CVA cases against Agudah, Camp Agudah, Torah Temimah, Ger Yeshiva, Bobov, Satmar, Mogen Av, Ohel, Ohel, Ohel, Chai Lifeline, Hamaspik, Kranczer, etc. All it does is lead to coverup.
— Asher Lovy (@HareianiBlog) January 5, 2022
For those not on twitter:
In 2013 Yossi Kolko, nephew of prolific child rapist Yiddy Kolko, started raping a child in lakewood. He raped him in camp then came back to Lakewood and raped him for a few more months. The kid finally disclosed to his father who being a good Lakewood man went to beis din.
The beis din found Yossi guilty paskened that he couldn't be a rebbi anymore and had to go to 12 weeks of therapy. He stopped going after 6. The father went back to the beis din to get them to enforce their psak and they told him they had no power to do that.
Having tried the internal system he sent a letter to Rav Shternbuch asking for permission to go to the police. Rav Shternbuch said yes. Yossi was eventually arrested. Meantime, noted gadol Yisroel Belsky wrote a letter calling the accusation a lie.
Yisroel Belsky had written a similar letter decades prior for Yossie's uncle Yiddy after he was accused of raping boys at Torah Temimah (also being sued under the CVA). The father was fired from his job as a rosh bechina at BMG and the son was expelled from yeshiva.
Eventually Yossi pleaded guilty and at his allocution he said that he had done it because he had been molested by his uncle Yiddy Kolko (whom Belsky had written a letter for saying the allegations were false).
A few rabbis in Lakewood wrote an apology to the father for believing Belsky's letter, but it was too late. He couldn't get his job back and his son couldn't get back into yeshiva. That's what internal reporting does, and that's why it's wrong.
Even when the father did what the community wanted him to do he and his son were thrown out and branded as moisrim. The Father a chushiver Rav sold his shul and home and left to another state. This is why Lopiansky's stupid idea for a panel in @themishpacha is so harmful. All it leads to is coverup and harm to victims.
If Lopiansky really cares about victims as he claims to he should work to rectify the reasons why victims are so scared to report in the community instead of throwing his hands up in the air and then suggesting harmful, illegal, stupidity.
Israel faces grave outlook for burial space
Since the Jewish state’s creation 61 years ago, cemeteries across the small country have been filling up with graves. Cremation could be an option, but ritual Jewish law bans the practice. So plots are at a premium and space is tight.
At the entrance to Jerusalem, one of the city’s largest cemeteries now juts out and touches the highway as an eerie reminder to all passing by just how little land is available.
Anti-Zionist Chareidie speaks fluent Arabic to Al Jazira to rant about the Medina
ווער פארשטייט pic.twitter.com/huV4zXjMBI
— Hasidic_3 (@Hasidic_3) January 4, 2022
The Yeshivaworld News Blog Will not talk about Monster Walder but did allow a "letter to editor" but then allows comments that basically say that Walder is innocent
The letter:
After hearing about the tragic events last week, I read an article about how to talk to children about what had happened. One of the things it explained was how suicide is a final solution to a temporary problem. After reading the article I thought about how lucky I was that I didn’t need to speak to my kids about this. It also spoke about protecting the innocence of children. In my naivety, I thought they were too young, only 9 and 11. I would be saved from the hassle of needing to have a talk with them. Boy was I wrong. When they came home from school, they brought it up. However, the narrative was one that I did not want them to hear. It was full of falsehood and lies.
Rabbi YY Rubinstein Resigns After 30 Years at BBC Over ‘Inexcusable’ Antisemitism
A rabbi who has worked for the BBC for decades has tendered his resignation with the British Broadcasting Corporation in response to their handling of a story about a Hanukkah night attack on a group of Jewish teens.
In a letter, Rabbi YY Rubinstein, who has worked for both BBC radio and television (and also write for the Jewish Press), said, “This is a very sad moment for me as I have been a BBC broadcaster for some 30 years. … The current crisis over anti-Semitism at the corporation and its attempts to turn the victims of the recent anti-Semitic attack on Jewish children in London and claim that the victims were actually the perpetrators, was and is inexcusable. The obfuscation, denial that followed, was and is utterly damning.
“ … I simply don’t see how I or in fact any Jew who has any pride in that name can be associated with the corporation anymore,” he continued.
His decision to leave follows a plethora of criticism stemming from a broadcast in which BBC staff attempted to paint the teenage victims of a Nov. 30 anti-Semitic attack on a busy London street during Hanukkah as the offenders.
Video clips of the incident show men attacking the bus carrying the teens to an event. In its on-air reporting, BBC stated that the Jewish teens made racial slurs against Muslims, despite there being no evidence to support the claim.
The broadcast led to a protest rally outside the BBC, organized by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), with people demanding the BBC stop blaming the Jews and tell the truth.
A spokesperson for CAA responded to news of the resignation saying, “Rabbi Rubinstein’s courageous and principled decision to resign as a broadcaster at the BBC is just the latest sign of the collapse in the Jewish community’s confidence in the corporation. No self-respecting Jewish person wants to be publicly associated with the BBC after it yet again demonstrated its bias against Jews in its recent reportage of an anti-Semitic incident on Oxford Street in Central London.
“We have written to the BBC and held a rally …. But the BBC has only doubled down and refused to accept its error or apologize, adopt the international definition of anti-Semitism or accept anti-Semitism training,” the spokesman continued. The BBC “is once more attempting to bludgeon the Jewish community into silence by hiding behind layers of unaccountable bureaucracy. With the support of a furious Jewish community, we will continue to pressure the Corporation to change its ways and live up to its legal obligations.”
Just last week, the Simon Wiesenthal Center named the British Broadcasting Company in its “Global Anti-Semitism Top 10.”
Ami & Mishpacha Do the Right Thing and Talk about "Monster Walder"
This is a really big deal, and truly is unprecedented.🧵 https://t.co/oYSlhrNltQ
— Shlomo Zuckier (@ZuckierShlomo) January 4, 2022
R’Lopiansky’s opening words: “It has been a week of upheaval and devastation. The notion of a serial predator comfortably ensconced within chareidi society shakes us to the core. This was never even remotely part of our vision of Torah community life.”https://t.co/1FJgdg1pF8
— Alexandra Fleksher (@alexfleksher) January 4, 2022
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Zelenko: "Anyone who is vaccinated is no longer human, they're Another Species"
If true this is big news!
Zelenko: Anyone who is vaccinated is no longer human. They’re another species. pic.twitter.com/1gCKnsXnaJ
— Blimi Marcus (@MarcusBlimi) January 3, 2022
Ari Teitelbaum the music guy outed as a sexual predator ...
Ari with singers Shapiro and Leiner |
In the legally obtained recording, shared by @MendyTV, an investigator asks AT if he abused the victim as a child. Without knowing the name of the victim, AT says he remembers and asks if it’s X. The investigator says no. So the recording is evidence he had at least 2 victims. pic.twitter.com/xNrbg4RMiK
— Netanel Zellis-Paley (@wordpaley) January 3, 2022
"He knows who his alleged victims are. He’s made no attempt to atone for the irreversible harm he’s caused them. Given those facts, we must assume he’s still dangerous."
His alleged abuse has been public knowledge since at least 2015, when he was added to the Wall of Shame of Jewish Community Watch, a now-defunct organization raising awareness about abusers. This was not common knowledge however until May 2021, when the recording was shared.
Chareidi Grassroots Activists Defy Rabbis and Distribute 320,000 Fliers Stating: ‘We All Believe The Victims’
In an act of defiance towards the established leadership of the Chareidi community, a group of activists distributed fliers in Chareidi neighborhoods stating that “We all believe the victims”, referring to the revelations regarding Chaim Walder.
Hundreds of thousands of such fliers were distributed Friday, depicting a young girl holding her hand over her mouth and including the caption “We all believe the victims.” The girl’s mouth is being shut by a man wearing a bracelet which states that “Lashon Hara doesn’t speak to me”, a reference to Chareidi concerns about Lashon Hara regarding victims of abuse which can lead to silence in the face of such abuse.
The backside of the fliers explains the importance of speaking out about sexual abuse and believing the alleged victims. The pamphlets were placed on bulletin boards, stuck in mailboxes and distributed in shuls around Israel.
The campaign, which involved 150 volunteers who distributed the fliers, is a response to claims by Chareidi leaders and media outlets that the stories of Walder’s alleged victims who came forward in recent months are Lashon Hara and may have caused Walder to take his own life. The Chareidi activists behind the campaign, who preferred to remain anonymous, decided to strengthen the victims and to negate the response of the Chareidi media, which lauded Walder as “well-known writer and educator” and omitted any of the abuse allegations or the manner in which he died.
The campaign organizers have launched a crowdfunding campaign in order to produce another batch of fliers.
Israeli Chief Rabbi David Lau made a condolence visit to Walder’s family. In response to the uproar that ensued, he issued a statement, expressing his support for Walder’s victims.
“Unfortunately, there were those who interpreted the fact that I made a condolence call to the mourners — widows and orphans who I know personally, and there is no need to exaggerate what they are going through — as if I do not identify with victims,” Lau said in letter released Sunday.
“My heart goes out to the victims who are going through some very difficult days, and we must all stand by them always, and at this time in particular. I believe completely everyone who has been affected,” he added.
When the allegations first came to light in November, a number of Chareidi entities severed their ties with Walder. Radio Kol Chai stopped featuring Walder’s program, Hidabrut magazine stopped accepting his stories and the Otiyot children’s magazine said it would stop publishing his stories. At his funeral it was claimed that he had decided of his own volition to stop writing in the Yated Neeman Newspaper
Monday, January 3, 2022
Shlomo Werdiger Uses Agudah Stationery to Pressure Israel to Allow Gerer Chassidim to Fly to Rebbe's Grandson's Wedding
Sol Werdiger - very worried Gerrer chassidim from abroad won't make it to the Rebbe's grandson's wedding next week in Yerushalayim - urges PM Bennet to ease covid flying restrictions. (oh, and in the name of Agudath Israel). pic.twitter.com/9qWtnNYLmE
— ira sorry (@SorryIra) January 2, 2022