Frum Follies fabricates another lie - Adina Cohen

Frum Follies has been carrying a story regarding Adina Cohen who has defended Meisels. This is a fact and I am not disputing it. The story has also been carried on the Rare View Blog where Adina's father comments that Adina's mother had been murdered in Jerusalem in 2010 and that Meisels had been very supportive of her. He also notes that he has stopped her from further public comments on the matter.

 My objection to Lopin is the false story he has fabricated around Adina Cohen.

He claims she is a madricha at Chedvas one of the four seminaries and thus he slams the principal - Rabbi Kahane - for continuing to employ her. He also slams the Israeli Beis Din for ignoring an employee at Rabbi Kahane's seminary who supports Meisels.

These are Lopin's words:

Last week I posted a mass email by Adina Cohen, a madricha (dormitory counselor) in the Meisels seminary, Chedvas Bais Yaakov, directed by Rabbi Meir Kahane. In this email Adina appealed for support for Rabbi (sic) Elimelech Meisels as if he merited respect, as if he was innocent of serious allegations of sexual abuse, as if he still deserved to be called a rabbi. This concerns me because a staff that denies anything happened  is telling students they  will not be believed if they report abuse.

I am amazed that any seminary would employ such a dorm counselor. It does not square with the Israeli Beit Din position that “There is no cause to refrain from sending girls to study and dorm in these seminaries. It can be confidently assumed that the distinguished staff does its work trustworthily and it will continue to educate Jewish daughters for Torah and purposefulness.”

Obviously the Israeli Beis Din missed this miscreant. One can only wonder how many others they missed. It is clear that their blanket endorsement of staff is based on a very restrictive understanding of proof and a presumption of acceptability  (chezkas kashrus). But their flowery language deceives the public into believing that the staff are great. In reality a number of those staff are just not provably guilty because other staff and starry -eyed, mean alumni and students are intimidating witnesses into silence.

The above constitutes an outrageous lie. She is not working at the seminaries. She never worked and is not presently a madricha in Chedvas. She actually had nothing to do with Chedvas since her year in Seminary. She WAS a madricha in Binas but she is now living in Baltimore Maryland. Thus her letter has nothing to do with the ruling of the Beis Din regarding the seminaries. It has nothing to do with Rabbi Kahane. It has nothing to do with the integrity and competence of the Israeli Beis Din. But it does have to do with Lopin's vendetta against Rabbi Kahane and the seminaries as well as the Israeli Beis Din.

It is incredible reading the self-righteous commentators on Frum Follies as well as the Rare View who jump through hoops trying to be more "brilliant" than  the next in their comments and express greater horror at the awesome significance of this "employee" that Lopin has discovered. Everybody seems to take it as a given that anything that Lopin states must be true when in fact it is a lie. However now that I have exposed the lie - I doubt that any of them - especially Truthseeker - will apologize for babbling slanderous and false comments. They are only concerned with ways to slander others - because the facts are not what is important to them - it is the fun of being self-righteous.

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Rolling Stone Tries to Regroup After Campus Rape Article Is Disputed

NY Times      Started nearly a half-century ago as a chronicle of 1960s counterculture, Rolling Stone established its journalistic credibility with provocative coverage of politics and current affairs.[...]

The magazine seemed to have struck again last month with a vivid account of a young woman who said she was gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity party, a story that helped drive the national debate over the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. [ Original Rolling Stone article with apology]

 

But late last week Rolling Stone found itself facing a crisis that threatened its reputation as a place for serious, significant journalism. Faced with reporting in The Washington Post that appeared to undermine crucial details of the accuser’s account, and a rebuttal of some aspects from the fraternity, the magazine published a note to readers on Friday saying that it had reservations about the article. It also acknowledged that it had erred in relying solely on the word of the accuser, named only as Jackie, and in agreeing not to try to contact the men she accused. 

“I have serious questions about what happened, and I am at this point not ready to say what happened that night,” the magazine’s managing editor, Will Dana, said in an interview Friday. “There should never be a story in Rolling Stone where I feel that way.” [...]

Rolling Stone was harshly criticized by media critics for its journalistic lapses, and by women’s groups who said it set back the cause of encouraging sexual assault victims to come forward. [...]

The accuser appeared to be distressed, perhaps as a result of her trauma, according to a person familiar with the newsroom’s process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe sensitive events. She had repeatedly asked Ms. Erdely that those she accused of raping her not be contacted. When the magazine brought up the issue again later, she threatened to withdraw from the story. [...]

The magazine faces some potential legal liability, said Eugene Volokh, a University of California, Los Angeles, law professor who also writes for The Washington Post. “Based on the facts as I have read about them in the media,” he said, “I would not have approved the publication of a story that names a fraternity, when there hadn’t been a call to the alleged rapists.” [...]

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Rolling Stone's disastrous story of gang rape and R Gottesman, Chicago Beis Din & the bloggers Lopin, Maryles and Morris

Now that the Seminary scandal is winding down or rather unraveling from a story of a massive sex scandal where a respected rabbi was accused in federal court of  running four seminaries for the sole purpose of  having girls available for his sexual satisfaction to a growing realization that it was only an inexcusable hug given by a respected rabbi to a student  after which he was promptly kicked out by the staff and he readily acknowledged his misdeed in front of beis din. Headlines of seminaries being run as houses of prostitution has become nothing more than  an inappropriate hug.

The question is why has such a relatively minor - though inexcusable transgression - triggered such strong emotions. Why have sincere and intelligent people believed the worst - even in the face of clear unambiguous facts? A similar thing happened in American in the 1970's and 1980's where thousands were falsely accused of child abuse in a hysteric atmosphere based on no evidence. Many reputations were destroyed and some spent many years in jail. See   Modern Day Witch Trial
 Father Goron Macrae..  Nachlaot     Tablet Magazine regarding Nachlaot

Part of the answer is that serious abuse does occur.  Abuse is so horrible and disgusting that it and the abuser have to be destroyed.  Lives have in fact been ruined by abuse and the betrayal of family and community when the abuse was reported. The reality is that Orthodox community - like the rest of the world - has until recently not dealt properly with abuse. But that is not enough to explain what has happened in terms of peoples emotion and propagation of baseless accusations

I would like to suggest another dynamic. There seems to be the need for people to not only have abuse prevented and abusers jailed - but that they have to be the ones who save the world from abuse. These people lose all objectively when dealing with abuse. They lose all ability to consider alternative explanations of events. They take an extreme position - if there is smoke if there are rumors if there was an over friendly personality - he must have done it.  It is a lynch mob attitude combined with being a savior of mankind from abuse.

Over and over in the comments on the blogs and in the comments of certain people who have led the attack on the seminaries we hear:

"He must have been guilty - did you see the way he conducted himself?"  Of course he is guilty of rape - my wife heard that 40 girls were raped." He must have been guilty if the beis din has suspicions - they would not publicize suspicions unless it really happened." " I am going to close down those seminaries - there is no such thing as a seminary where staff failed to stop abuse that can serve as an educational institution and even if the accusations aren't true but we can't allow a seminary where such rumors exist." "Don't confuse the issue by demanding evidence - everyone knows that in rape cases the girls don't say anything - but he is guilty and the seminaries were guilty because that's what everyone says." "Not only is he guilty of the worst that everyone says - but given the enormity of what is claimed about him the staff obviously knew about it and not only did nothing but they facilitated his abuse - don't defend him by saying there is no evidence. Commonsense tells you that he is guilty and if you don't believe it you are also a facilitator of abuse." "It is better that a 1000 innocent people lives be destroyed if it prevents an abuser from getting away with his crime."

Following is another example where a distinguished University accepted the gang rape charges made by a student because of the investigation of a reporter who wanted to believe it happened and ignored anything which would have ruined her "righteous" expose. Fortunately the Washington Post took the time to check the facts and the "facts" unraveled. The accused must be given the chance to self-defense and the lynch mob must be replaced by a calm and rational evaluation of the evidence

=================================

Washington Post   On Slate’s DoubleX Gabfest podcast last month, reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely explained why she had settled on the University of Virginia as the focus for her investigative story on a horrific 2012 gang rape of a freshman named Jackie at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. “First I looked around at a number of different campuses,” said Erdely. “It took me a while to figure out where I wanted to focus on. But when I finally decided on the University of Virginia — one of the compelling reasons that made me focus on the University of Virginia was when I found Jackie. I made contact with a student activist at the school who told me a lot about the culture of the school — that was one of the important things, sort of criteria that I wanted when I was looking for the right school to focus on.”

Rolling Stone thought it had found the “right” campus and the right alleged crime: Following her Nov. 19 story on Jackie’s alleged assault in a dark room at the Phi Kappa Psi house, the university suspended all fraternity activities and a national spotlight fell on the issue of campus rape.

Now it’s all falling apart. Thanks to several days of reporting by the Washington Post’s T. Rees Shapiro, Rolling Stone’s account is not even a semester away from becoming part of journalism classes around the country. Jackie’s friends now doubt her account of the traumatic event, reports Shapiro, and the fraternity insists it never held a “a date function or social event” on the weekend of Sept. 28, 2012, which is the date cited by Jackie in the Rolling Stone story.

Rolling Stone has issued a statement apologizing for the story, which includes this misogynistic, victim-blaming line: “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” But Jackie was a freshman in college when her episode allegedly took place; the story itself references her misgivings about putting her life into the public realm; she requested that Rolling Stone not contact “Drew,” the ringleader of the alleged assault; the alleged sequence of events — nine college men conspiring to attack a freshman and sexually assaulting her for three hours — should have triggered every skeptical twitch in the Rolling Stone staff. This disaster is the sole property of editors and a reporter. [...]

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A therapist goes to middle school and tries to sit still and focus. She can’t. Neither can the kids.

Washington Post   This is a follow-up to two popular posts about the problems kids face when they are forced to sit still in school for hours on end without a break. The first, written by pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, was titled “Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today” and discussed how being inactive affects students’ ability to stay focused and learn, and in some cases leads to improper diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. The next piece was titled
“The right — and surprisingly wrong — ways to get kids to sit still in class.”

Hanscom has now written a third related piece, this one specifically about middle-schoolers. Hanscom told me that she was curious about the effects of restricted movement on students in middle school, so she went to a local middle school to observe what was going on inside classrooms and talk to teachers and parents. The following post explains Hanscom’s experience and findings at the middle school she visited.  Hanscom is the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England. [...]

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Yoel Weiss & Rivky Stein: Court throws out most of RICO claims

 As further evidence of the weakness of Rivky's case, the court recently threw out most of the RICO claims. The rest will eventually also be rejected. In a separate action, the court has also rejected her requests for $25,000 maintainance and child support and $30,000 moving expenses

   Yoel Weiss Rejection Most RICO 

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The Pygmalion Effect - the importance of positive attitudes towards others

Allan Katz    There is a lot of thought and psychology   behind Ya'akov's – Jacob's display of vulnerability, respect and servitude when he bowed 7 times before Eisav-Esau and called him my master. He bowed 7 times until he reached his brother and he certainly reached him. Eisav's compassion and mercy was aroused and he embraced and kissed Ya'akov and then he together with his brother cried. R' Hirsch explains that tears flow from the innermost feelings, so one can only cry if he is genuinely moved.

כַּמַּיִם, הַפָּנִים לַפָּנִים--    כֵּן לֵב-הָאָדָם, לָאָדָם. as in water, face to face, so too, is the heart of one person to another.  When one has positive thoughts and feelings about another person, these feelings will be reflected back to you as the other person will tend to feel positively about you too. A negative response from a person is a generally a reflection of how you feel about them. The feelings have to be genuine, coming from the heart and lightening up the face. These positive thoughts and feelings will lead us to act accordingly, with more empathy, compassion and kindness..

The idea in Proverbs precedes the so-called Pygmalion effect, documented in the 1960's, which showed how positive teachers'   assumptions, expectations and beliefs about student's intellectual potential affected student's performances in a positive way. Parents and teachers who believe that children have also a brighter side to their human nature and can behave in a virtuous and altruistic way can likewise impact on children and set into motion a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How we view children, our beliefs and subsequent expectations about them will guide and dictate our interventions and interactions with them. Parents and teachers who have a dark view of human nature and only see the negative side as in the verse -' since the imagery of man's heart is evil from his youth' –   כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו  
 will resort to very controlling environments with rewards, consequences and punishments. The message to kids is that you can't be trusted to learn or behave unless you are given rewards or threatened with punishments. And then we see how kids become so addicted to and dependent on rewards and punishments.  When we write off kids as disruptive, defiant, manipulative or destructive they are likely to 'live down' to these expectations.

 The key to a parent-child or teacher-child relationship is the child learning to trust the parent and teacher, so that kids want 'relationship', sees  them as  guides and someone to come to , especially when they ' screw up' and make mistakes. Rav Pam relates that as a 'Rebbi and teacher' - a kid came late for class and offered some excuse adding that he could bring a note from his parents. Rav Pam responded that he had already explained why he came late, why  would he need a note from his parents.'' In truth, I wasn’t sure if he told me the truth, but I couldn’t let him feel that I don’t trust him.”  Most teachers would be much more focused on their fear that the student will feel he put one over on the teacher.  They probably wouldn’t even consider the harm that distrusting their student would cause. 

We can help students develop good values and middot by attributing to the students the best possible motive consistent with the facts. So when they are generous and pro-social we do not say they were motivated by self-interest. When  they don't meet our expectations it could be that that they are good kids but were unaware of how their actions impact on others and are lacking skills rather than being selfish, defiant aggressive and lacking in compassion. And we would then  in a collaborative way, ' work with' kids to   teach important life lessons and solve problems by finding mutually satisfying solutions .In this way the kid contributes to the solution, learns important life skills and a trusting relationship with the parent or teacher is enhanced. 'Treat kids 'as if they need to be controlled' we may well undermine their natural predispositions to develop self-controls and internalize commitments to upholding cultural norms and values' – Marilyn Watson. 'Doing to ' kids with rewards and punishments just teaches them to ask – what's in it for me and feel sorry for themselves. It does not help kids to reflect on what type of person they want to be and how their actions impact on others.

Higher expectations of kids are positive, but we need to ask ' higher expectations for what'? If our expectations for academics are higher test scores, we will teach to test .If we expect more engagement, curiosity, and self-directed learning we will teach accordingly. If our high expectations for kids behaving themselves and being responsible is being compliant and following instructions we will be controlling. But if we understand that kids learn to be responsible by making decisions and acting in a pro-social way, we will allow them to participate in making decisions and solve problems in a collaborative way.

We all have a brighter and a darker side to our human natures, capable of being generous and selfish, helpful or hurting. But the good news is that if we follow the advice in the words of Proverbs- Mishlei and take into account the Pygmalion effect we can help ourselves and those we interact with to become more positive and caring people.

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Pearl Harbor Day: December 7, 1941

 

 This is an excerpt from Manchester's memoirs of his return to the battlefields of the Pacific in 1978 - taking a tour of Pearl Harbor

 

Manchester, William (2008-12-02). Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War (Kindle Locations 784-799). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition

 

Historical shrines often become diminished by mundane surroundings. One thinks of Saint Peter's in Rome and Boston's Bunker Hill. Still , it is jarring, when driving to the port where the United States entered World War II, to find a prosaic green-and-white freeway sign, exactly like those on the American mainland, directing drivers to: 90 EAST PEARL HARBOR Following it, and instructions phoned to me at the Halekulani by CINCPAC, I come to a naval complex of moors and piers, fringed by palms warped by millennia of offshore winds. Elsewhere commercial launches leave hourly for tours of the harbor, but I am booked on a military VIP junket....

The movie, an NBC documentary, is suggestive of the March -of-Time style and was probably spliced from film clips shortly after the war. The narrator's voice is stentorian; the crashing score is by Richard Rodgers; there is a lot of Japanese footage captured after the war. Its chief interest is in what it omits. There isn't a single reference to U.S. bungling. Much is made of the fact that the Japs missed U.S. oil reserves, enough for two years, and dockyard repair facilities. At the end, with Rodgers's music soaring triumphantly, American warships steam out into the twilight to wreak vengeance on the deceitful enemy. As the lights are turned up, one almost feels that the Pearl Harbor raid was an American victory. Judging by their comments as we file out, the other VIPs are impressed. One recalls that the American navy has always been attentive to its reputation. Especially remembered is the alacrity with which , after the raid, the title of the commanding admiral here was changed to Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), from Commander in Chief, United States (CINCUS)...

 

 ... But I jerk upright as we dart by one inlet. Moored there are the last ships I expected to see in Pearl Harbor — two spanking-new destroyers flying the Rising Sun battle ensign of the Empire of Japan . Ashore, I make inquiries and am told that , yes, I saw what I thought I saw. In fact, Japanese naval officers in dress whites are frequent guests at Pearl's officers' mess. And, my informant adds, they are very polite. Naturally. They always were. Except, of course, for that little interval there between 1941 and 1945. At 3: 00 A.M. in my comfortable Halekulani bed, my eyes pop open. The lean, hard, dreamland Sergeant in me has been leering sardonically, recalling the loudmouthed tourists , Hotel Street's smut, the navy's cover-up movie , and the welcome mat for Hirohito's seafarers. That will be the Sergeant's attitude every night — and he will come every night — during the early stages of my trip. If I rarely mention him, it is because his performance has become as unvaried as a cult rite. He gloats and glares and smirks cynically. I have begun to realize that it will take a great deal, a fire storm of passion, to exorcise him. In Honolulu the old man has no answer for the Sergeant . His experiences here have shaken him. Somehow Hawaii hasn't stirred memories of the blows inflicted on that distant day of infamy. And I think I know why. The answer, I believe, is that there was virtually no opposition to the Japanese, and therefore no fight. Like Fort Sumter, like Sarajevo, the disaster at Pearl is best remembered as a curtain raiser, largely irrelevant to the drama which followed. We were prepared to visit retribution on the enemy tenfold , but we didn't identify with the victims. Few had fought back. And as professionals they should have been ready to fight . Now we, the amateurs , had to do the job. And though we mourned them, the very brevity of the December 7 attack meant that there hadn't been time to hang breathless on their fate....

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