Posts from — July 2008

Frightened voices are starting to spread on the internet against Mrs. Vorst and Ohel Sarah Imenu. Some of them are quite sad…all are afraid that their conversion will be revoked if they speak out against this program.

One person wrote,

i just came across this websight and all this information tonight. i had no idea that people were talking about this stuff openly.

This one is heartbreaking.

i must have this be anonymous… i too was in mrs vorst school …i have been silent for a long time about the things that went on there while i was a student… and i am afraid that if i address them or speak of them publically that my conversion will be taken away…. i know this is a big possibility… especially now with the big conversion ballygan.

i too was lied to by the big rabbi(s)…. there is so much i could say… but i am cautious because i am afraid of mrs vorsts (and her sidekick) power over my conversion. but the things nancy is saying are all true… and many many more stories could be told.

people should be made aware of the sickness of this system and the particular situation there so that more girls and women who come to Israel with sincerity and pure hearts are not caused so much suffering.

i am sorry i have been silent for so long…

And then, there is something apparently going on with some guy named Zalman whom the commenter describes as a “pervert.”

does anyone know if this person (zalman) has been prosecuted? also does anyone know if Mrs Vorsts has made an official statement concerning her schools association with this person? has she checked to see if any of her students were affected” has she issued any apologies to her former students for dragging them into his arena against their wills?

while i was in her program we were forced to attend his foolish seminars and girls and women were “forced” to have counseling with him (forced because if you didn;t do what they wanted you to do, they would not let you get converted).

i personally know a young woman who he was extremely inappropriate with (she believes she was possibly even drugged…btw…she has taken several years to heal emotionally from the abuse she suffered at Ohel Sarah and other conversion “schools” in israel… and after they took thousands of her dollars, she never has been able to get a conversion…).

i had one “counseling” session with him and thought he was an idiot… i never could fathom why mrs vorst and mrs lawson were so enamoured with him. it didn’t take a rocket scientist or a Torah scholar to see that the man was a joke… a sick joke…

Anyone have any info?

Earlier: Ohel Sarah Imenu’s Own Words

This dude’s just spiking something fierce. Anyway, congrats to Shmarya. Full profile in the Forward.

It’s been a difficult career — some of it rewarding, some of it frustrating. But he says he has seen a few small signs that he and the other bloggers on his beat have made a difference.

Part V

Nancy Cuevas Guzman alleges,

I was very hurt by the 2×4. I still have the board. I was whacked quite hard at the hip. Police took photos and so did my doctor, (which I have), when he wrote a report for police records. The puncture wounds were visible from the nails.

This was the last incident and although the person who did this was Haraedi, he was not part of the first original attackers. This last guy was a kook who was attacking me over “cats”. I was delivering cat food to his friend who lived in filthy conditions with about 20 starving, disease-infected, toothless cats (from a virus epidemic), and “a chicken.”

I am amazed that the police released this guy. Yes, he has “challenges,” however, he is also dangerous. These guys drink vodka all day.

The week before, this same “kook” slashed my friend’s tire over the cats. My friend works for the City at an animal shelter. They have a grant to help these animals absolutely free of charge. Part of what they do is to spay them, as well as treat them for their medical diseases. They have a letter from a rabbi which verifies that it is OK to spay the animals for they are suffering greatly and multiplying as fast as bunnies.

In this instance, the Haraedi guy was shouting that it is forbidden in the Torah to spay the cats. I believe he is right if the animal is male. It is OK to neuter the female….typical. However, in this neighborhood, in particular, this house which was across from me with broken windows which the cats jump through…it is pretty horrible.

I found cats that were dragging a dislocated leg behind them and nursing kittens at the same time. I found a kitten with a crushed hip dragging itself…terrible conditions. I took these cases to a vet for I could not handle seeing it day after day. I paid out of my pocket and finally had to call the City.

Again, as always, the Haredim always do what they do for religion. I feel like I live in Iran.

Next week: Big Aish rabbi discourages Nancy from speaking out

Part IV

Nancy Cuevas Guzman alleges,

Speaking of sex harassment, a rabbi at Aish HaTorah took my hand and placed it on his crotch…he had an erection. That was my first wake up call. When any of these guys, even a rabbi, sees an American woman, Baal Teshuva, he thinks he has a victim.
They know they can easily “de-rail her”….like placing a stone before a blind person. Many young girls…and older, fall in love with their rabbis. This one wanted me as his concubine in addition to his wife.

I reported it and it seems they have handled it.

Earlier: Baruch Lanner’s most significant enabler working at Aish HaTorah

Ezzie and Erachet are exactly the type of frummies that liberal and secular American Jewry needs to worry about. They babble about unity and their love for klal yisroel, and claim to get so very sad when people fight.

But these are the exact same people who will deny problems when they are raised. They will either not bother to research the material/links you give them, or they will lie blatantly.

On frum sites, they will shut you down so fast…in a discussion with them, even one Modern Orthodox person wrote in protest and dissent to their contemptuous attempts to dismiss me and the legitimate concerns I raised about kiruv,

I don’t agree. I think we should continue to discuss this. I don’t believe that DK is alone. You can’t shut people down. Who does it serve?

It serves their kiruv agenda. You are not to disagree with them on that which they are attempting to do to people like you and me – not like them. It is maddening.

How does the community respond?

By honoring them with leadership positions.

Not only are these people going to Israel on the State of Israel’s dollar, Ezzie is being given a partnership role at the Beyond BT shabbaton.

Why? Ezzie isn’t even a baal teshuvah!

Ah, well…he apparently comes from a Modern background, but instead of going to Harvard like his ancestor, he went to Touro. Oh, and I guess he put a black hat on at some point for shabbos. Do not call him Modern, by the way, Ezzie gets very insulted if you call him Modern Orthodox. I made that mistake. Once.

And if that’s not “learning and growing,” they don’t know what is.

In the backdrop of Nancy’s story is rabbi Nochum Eisenstein. Eisenstein made Shmarya’s list of the top five worst Israeli haredi leaders. Failed Messiah noted,

The rabbi of the Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood of Jerusalem, he also heads the Vaad HaRabbonim Haolami LeInyonei Giyur, an international haredi organization whose goal is to make stricter conversion standards worldwide.

Eisenstein is a long-time enemy of Modern Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism, and is also an early backer of the Monsey, New York-based Eternal Jewish Family (EJF) and its founder, Rabbi Leib Tropper.

Speaking at an EJF convention late last year, Rabbi Eisenstein said anyone believing the universe to be older than 5768 years is a heretic who is unfit to serve on a beit din (religious court).

JTA’s The Fundermentalist reports,

“The Israeli economy, despite all of the hoopla and excitement over foreign investment and the rising shekel, is a bubble that is going to pop,” [Landa] said.[...]

The gap between the wealthy and the poor is rapidly growing, and the majority of the poor are Israeli Arabs and Charedi Jews – two sectors that can cause considerable unrest.

Only 37 percent of Israelis actually work, he said, compared to the United States, where 50 percent of the population works. (He warned against looking at the unemployment rate, which only measures the percentage of those who have actually worked before who have jobs.)

Understand…haredim don’t work because their leaders don’t want them working. How do they justify this bizarre and quite recent phenomenon? By claiming it is “an emergency situation,” today being so spiritually dangerous that one cannot be a functional human being. True, in every generation in the past, people got up and went to work…BUT WE ARE NOT ON THEIR LEVEL! THE GENERATIONS HAVE FALLEN!

Today, one must be exceedingly cautious even before scratching his balls, while before, one could at least do some light bookkeeping. Today, one must sit in the Middle Eastern heat in black clothes and a black hat and avoid a career and even a job, lest someone sees someone else wearing something somewhere who says something and then at some point something happens.

These are the people whom secular and Modern Orthodox Israelis are expected to be increasingly sensitive to.

Increasingly large sectors of Traditional Judaism just get more and more dysfunctional. They are functionally retarded.

Part III: The Hardliners in their Own Words

Before we go deeper into Nancy’s personal story, we should first take examine the organization that guided Nancy.

Ohel Sarah Imenu is a Rabbi Elyashiv approved conversion program. The following excerpts are from their own site. You decide if there is anyway in hell these people are normal.

Conversion is Estrangement From Friends and Family

Conversion to Judaism sometimes, but not always, alienates family and friends. At best, there can be temporarily-strained relationships. At worst, relationships can be totally severed permantly[sic], leaving the convert alone and without emotional or material support.

All Else Besides Haredism is Slavery and Oppression. Only Haredism is Freedom. Do not trust those Modern Orthodox cheaters!

Like the journey from Egypt to Sinai, the journey to authentic Torah Judaism is a long one.. Often it begins simply with discomfort in previously-familiar physical surroundings. The quest for freedom from physical enslavement and spiritual oppression leads through territory unfamiliar to the traveller[sic]. The path along the way is strewn with the litter of thoughtless individuals who offer short cuts and detours that lead nowhere.

Ohe Sarah Imenu doesn’t respect Reform Jews very much.

Soon afterward, Mary Ann moved to Illinois. For several years, she drove to Temple every Friday night and Saturday morning, learned to eat bagels, lox, and cream cheese; borsht; and blintzes. One Passover, for the seder, Mary Ann invited guests, and even ventured to make kreplach for the soup. She couldn’t understand why it was so hard to find flour in the stores.

Ohe Sarah Imenu will help you accept things. Like, say, why it was in your interest for your ex-husband to kidnap your children after he divorced you.

Faced with the prospect of finding a job and raising her children alone, she became easy prey for missionaries who convinced her that she should become a “completed Jew.” When her ex-husband heard about that, he kidnapped the twins and disappeared with them […]

“Strange as it may seem, I believe that, all things considered, my husband’s taking the children was the best thing that could have happened. They were raised in a stable family with a mother and father and other children. They were instilled with the strong Jewish values I could never have given them at that time. It was so hard for me then, but somehow, deep down inside, I knew that was best for them. I’m so grateful today that they were taken away before I could destroy their Jewish foundation.”

Everything you have read about this person may have been fabricated or twisted by Ohel Sarah Imenu.

NOTE: The account of this Personal Journey is essentially true. The unessential details may have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals. Any resemblance to any actual person, location, or situation is coincidental.

Why? Are there no real converts with real stories?

Or worse, did you really force a woman to claim that she is happy her children were kidnapped in order to recommend her for conversion?

The above passages were what they put on their website for public consumption. Nancy is telling us information that doesn’t make it on to their website.

It is well known that Nefesh B’ Nefesh mostly cares about the frum. And go figure – their “Jewish” Blogger convention features frum, frum, and more frum bloggers.

Now that’s their right, but they have NO RIGHT to act as if it is a JEWISH Blogger convention.

This is complete nonsense. This is a FRUMMIE blogger convention.

How in hell is it a “First International Jewish Bloggers Convention”?

Oh, that’s cause their going to have both kinds OF EACH. Israel AND American bloggers (Will they have a INTERcontinental breakfast also?) and because they have Modern Orthodox AND ultra-Orthodox!

Ezzie and friends have noted that the whole experience is like “reliving Camp Moshava [an Orthodox summer camp] watching the goings-ons.”

Exactly, Ezzie and Erachet.

Ezzie is all excited that the “Jewish” Blogger convention’s proximity to the Beyond BT Shabbaton! Oh, hip hip hooray, but why don’t Beyond BT and Nefesh B’ Nefesh just combine their programs and save $5 on marketing materials? And each will gain from the other’s constituency — I mean, talk about a similar base, Jesus.

Demand that Nefesh B’ Nefesh change the name of their conference to “The Frum Bloggers conference.”

They have no right to pretend that secular and liberal Jewry is represented in any significant way. Of course, for Nefesh B’Nefesh, secular and liberal Jewry apparently don’t count as part of the Jewish people in the first place, so they don’t realize they are doing anything wrong.

Updated: There are a couple of secular bloggers mixed into this “International Convention,” so whatever.

אישים ושיטות caught haredi doctoring of a photo with the Chafetz Chayim in it. See this post for a comparison of the original photo and the new and improved women-deleted one.

Guess which one—the original, or the male-only picture—yeshivas prefer?

Often it requires Jewish education to understand haredi lies and historical revisionism.

But in a case like this, you can see it with your own eyes.