Category — Haredim

The Gedoylim Offer Salvation!

One of the many things not taught either in liberal Judaism or Modern “Orthodoxy” (Remember! A little Torah is sometimes worse than no Torah!) is to trust the Great Ones to protect you from spiritually damaging information. This is a popular concept in right-wing ultra-Orthodoxy. So popular, in fact, that a post on this very subject is touted as the most popular editorial ever online for the haredi Dei’ah V’ Dibur, which has strong ties apparently to the Israeli Yated Ne’eman.

In “Why We Censor,” DVD notes,

Yet the spirit of the Western world, in its media, in its science, in its art, in its politics, is a challenge to the authentic Torah spirit from the floor to the rafters.

Learn this. It says it all. This is the Harediban mentality.

What is their solution?

FOLLOW THE GEDOYLIM!

Whoever wants to, is free to go it alone. He or she can plunge in to the treacherous waters of the modern world alone, and try to reach the truth heroically alone. It is a big task for an individual.

The rest of us will take shelter under the banner of gedolei Yisroel. As in the generation of Chanukah, so too in our generation — the gedolei veziknei hador cry out to us all: Mi laSheim eilai!

Whoever wants to reach Hashem should join them!

A Chassidic man and six other men are facing indictments for beating the shit out of a woman and threatening to kill her for refusing to move out of the community after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy, and for talking to men.

While the right-wing ultra-Orthodox ban careers and secular education, apparently, Baruch HaGedoylim, there is money to be made in brutalizing women. The ringleader of this modesty vigilante was apparently paid $2,000 for his role in this vicious beating.

What neighborhood does this modesty vigilante group feel comfortable attacking woman and threatening her to leave?

Maalot Dafna. Home of the Dark Light.

All the haredi leaders in the vicinity connected in any way to these Harediban criminals should be asked to publicly condemn the violence that took place. If they do not, all institutions they are connected to should be asked to disassociate from these rabbis. If the institutions refuse, then the yeshivas, synagogues and day schools they are connected to should be bulldozed.

Hat tip: NCG

Hopefully, management will take control of these crazed penguins, but the truth is, you know you are hitting home when the frummies start violating Godwin’s Law. I suspect a lot of them are Chabadniks, because, 1) The Rubashkins of Agriprocessors are a Chabad affiliated and supported business, and 2) Chabadniks are notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism. Big Aish and of course, OU types simply don’t behave this way unless they are very young. Even Dark Light type fundies don’t act like this. They just scream about how Evolution is a scam and we can’t understand the reasoning behind some stupid, stupid new Gedolylim ban because WE AREN’T ON THEIR MEDREGAH!!!! Idiots. Anyway, I wrote the following:

Listen up, penguins. Some of us came here way before you people, when you were still shlugging kaparos (oh, right, you still do that, sorry) and cursing the “treife medinah.” And OUR ancestors fought hard for workers rights and conditions, so if you think we are going to shut up because you call us “Nazis,” well, you are in for a rude shock.

We will gladly end the supply of kashrut rather than allow these shenanigans to continue in the name of kashrut. Got it?

So why not just clean up your act?

My suggestion to call the strident right-wing ultra-Orthodox “the harediban” is gaining ground. See the far-left column for today’s featured reader quote onJewcy.

Could be in a few months Rabbi Shafran will be writing Op-Eds condemning the unfortunate and insensitive use of this horrible term. Wouldn’t that be great?

Update: Ahava likes it too!

I have long railed against the poverty created by the haredi baal teshuvah movement. When in public, in front of liberal and secular Jews, many insist they don’t know what I am talking about. They have not heard of this problem in any significant way. Maybe one or two individuals…but certainly not generally. After all, why should a hardline against secular education and in Israel–against the work ethic — possibly lead to poverty?

But when out of earshot, the frum say something quite different. And because the lowly BT does not have the nepotistic network of the frum world, he may not only become as poor as the average haredi, he may become still poorer.

Jonathan Rosenblum writes on Cross-Currents,

Last year, I wrote a column about Rabbi Aharon Betzalel, who was struggling to keep open a Talmud Torah in Kadima for children of ba’alei teshuva. At the time, he was reduced to personally collecting every night the money for gas to bring the rebbes to school the next morning and cleaning the floors himself.

Yet all he needed to put the Talmud Torah on a sound financial footing was enough money to make improvements in the physical plant necessary to gain recognition from the Education Ministry. Twenty thousand dollars from two or three donors who had never before heard of Rabbi Betzalel did the trick. Their contributions were leveraged to produce government funding of many times that amount annually.

Already, there are 140 students registered for next year, as compared to 80 this year. Rabbi Betzalel’s biggest worry is no longer how he will make it through the day, but where to find 30,000 shekels for new furniture to accommodate the huge jump in the students.

These children of baal teshuvah are indeed in dire straights, as so many other children of baalei teshuvah are.

Please help them. Help us stop this haredi machine towards poverty. For the haredi-kiruv machine grows every day. Each slithery tentacle must be amputated from a high school or college or trip to Israel program one by one. And when it grows back, it must be amputated again.

A few months back, I wrote (as did others) about Robert Savit’s decision to attend Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem, noting,

Robert, beware. Ohr Somayach rejects scientific method, and Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem rejects the work ethic as well, and reports to “daas Torah” gedolim, who are quiescent fundamentalists to the core, and whom are increasingly activist.

Robert’s father, Joel Savit, has commented on The Kvetcher in defense of his son’s decision.

Mr. Joel Savit wrote,

I never even realized that this web site existed, but now that I have read some of your comments, I find I must reply. I am Robert’s father. I did not want Robert to leave for Israel, telling him he could study Torah in the U.S. instead of so far away.

I knew I would miss him dearly and I do. The only “motive” which Robert has is to be the best Jew he can be. For him that means studying in the Holy Land where he feels a greater connection with Hashem.

Robert has no agenda other than to learn as much as possible in the city of our Lord and if that is somehow evil or irritating to those who are criticizing him, I pray for you.

He has chosen his path based upon his feelings and heart and for that I applaud and congratulate him.

Just so you are aware, I attend a Conservative Shul and certainly had nothing to do with Rob’s decision to be closer to God. If that is wrong then this world is in trouble.

It should be noted that even though the Ten Commandments dictate that you respect and obey your parents, there is one time that this Commandment does not apply, and that is if your parents demand that you not study Torah. For that is the most important mitzvah of all. Robert has chosen that course and it makes me shed tears of happiness for him, knowing how his love of Judaism has led him to the Holy Land.

…in the secular schools

His Mentalness, shlita, Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, writes,

Immorality parades before us in the permissiveness of dress and unrestrained interaction of the sexes, and reaches new depths with the efforts to legitimize gay activity. Have we done enough to condemn this mode of behavior which is wreaking havoc on so many families and society in general? Murder is the extremist form of violence but its subtler forms of physical and verbal abuse are so prominent that even in the secular schools in our Jewish state there is so much violence by pupils towards teachers and fellow pupils, and the number of battered wives and abused children keeps growing.

Are our government and our educational system doing enough to control this modern form of murder?

Clean your own house, Rabbi Mental! And notice the “unrestrained interaction of the sexes”? That’s a reference to the push for “mehadrin” buses, where women must sit in the back.

Ohr Somayach remains in solid standing with Yeshiva University.

This is the wound it made.
These are some of the police reports (and affidavit) for various haredi harassments Nancy received.

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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

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