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E-mailSeptember’s UN opening session seems to be the month that all the “crazies” crawl out from under their rocks—
Mahmoud Achmedinejad claims to be the world’s champion of democracy…
Muammar Ghaddafi proposes to abolish Switzerland… and:
Satmar Hasidim rally at UN over Israel’s ‘cruelty’ toward ultra-Orthodox
Members of the anti-Zionist Satmar Hassidic ultra-Orthodox c
ommunity rallied outside the United Nations building in New York on Tuesday to protest against Israel’s ‘cruelty’ toward ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Satmar Rabbi Nahum Samson Meyer, who spoke at the demonstration, said it was being held outside the UN because the global body “has always taken up the cause of oppressed peoples around the world.
“We have come here to publicize the cry of our religious brethren who live under Zionist state oppression,” he said, referring to the running over of two ultra-Orthodox men by police cars in August during demonstrations against the Shabbat opening of a Jerusalem parking lot, and to the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox woman who allegedly starved her three-year-old son.
Meyer added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, had “no right to speak in the name of Jewry.
“As Netanyahu tells the world his views on the Middle East crisis, we wish to make clear that his state, which presumptuously calls itself Israel, has no connection with the Torah or with Judaism,” he said.
“We call upon President Obama and all the esteemed leaders of the world not to recognize the Zionists as leaders of the Jewish people.”
= = =
Nor do the Satmar “represent the Jewish people”.
Rabbi Meyer’s distortion of facts is almost funny—the two ultra-Orthodox gentlemen who were “run over by police cars” actually jumped in front of them to block their way to a demonstration that had become violent—and this was shown on the evening news in Israel the same day. The saddest part of this whole issue is that the parking lot in question is not open for business on Saturday, but is left open as a free parking lot—which is not a desecration of the Sabbath (but conducting a violent demonstration during the Sabbath IS a desecration) according to their own rules.
If it’s oppression to separate a mother who has been deliberately starving one of her children from her children and indict her for child abuse, then the Israeli government is “oppressing” this member of the ultra-Orthodox “Toldot Aharon” cult. The demonstrations against this also turned violent. (I’m sure this never made the news outside Israel, so a bit of background—the mother brought her three-year-old son to the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital ER weighing 7 kilos (about 16 pounds). After surgery to introduce a feeding tube directly into the child’s stomach, the boy was moved to the pediatric ICU. Two days later, when the boy was beginning to gain weight, security cameras in the ICU recorded the mother removing the feeding tube and mopping up the spill.
The hospital called the authorities. The mother was separated from her child and now suspected of “Munchausen by proxy syndrome”. Eventually, after an investigation, she was arrested. Then the protests” began…
These protests were reminiscent of scenes from a couple of years ago, when a 19-year-old ultra-Orthodox father in Jerusalem shook his three-month old son to death for crying while the father was studying Torah (you guessed it—another ultra-Orthodox cult member). This father was tried for reckless manslaughter and convicted. He’s presently serving his sentence, after his appeal was denied.
In both cases, members of most of the ultra-Orthodox cults took to the Jerusalem streets protesting, burning dumpsters, billboards and bus stop shelters, confronting police and hurling garbage at them. Their protests were not, as you might think, based on protesting against miscarriages of justice or wrongful accusations… but on the claim that the secular authorities had no jurisdiction over them and no right to interfere in their private lives. In other words, these folks believe (among other things) that it’s all right to abuse your children and even kill them, as long as it’s done according to Halakha (Judaic Law).
It’s interesting to note that these ultra-Orthodox cults accept the secular authority and laws of the US and UK (where most of them live), but refuse to accept the secular authority of Israel’s government and laws. This refusal includes non-payment of taxes and rejection of state laws and jurisdiction, but they do not reject taking advantage of healthcare and other public services. Perhaps it’s because they know that if they tried the same crap in either the US or UK, the local police would have no compunction in arresting them and “busting heads”…
All of these “ultra-Orthodox” cults together (Satmar, Neturei Karta, Toldot Aharon, Hasidei Gur, etc.) total less than 100,000 people worldwide—can they speak for a world Jewry of around 16 million? They think they do—and many “anti-Zionists” would have the public believe the cult claims that they are “the only true Jews” (although just listing the ways that they violate the concepts of Judaism would take several hours).
These are the same cults that participated in the Iranian Holocaust denial conference a couple of years ago in a blaze of publicity… they have to deny the Holocaust—because if it was not some kind of “punishment from God” for becoming “distant from the true Judaism”, then they have to admit that many of their basic concepts are wrong. Of course, this “distancing” excuse might explain why secular Jews in Europe died in the Holocaust, but it doesn’t explain why one-and-a-quarter million children and more than a million truly Orthodox Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators (assuming that you believe that God controls and causes everything).
These people are a Jewish Taliban—and this is what the Israel detractors would like to convince you are the “real Jews” of the world—while telling you in the same breath that the Muslim Taliban doesn’t represent Islam. Neither of these fanatic cults represents the religion they purport to belong to.
RSS 
I think the real tragedy is not their gullibility but their abandonment of the basic principles of Judaism in favor of the ritual. They have become so engrossed in the ritual that they forget the meanings of the ethics, ethos and concepts of the religion.
Three of their most basic deviations from the religion (in my mind, at least) are:
1) Studying Torah is supposed to be a Mitzva (good deed, for want of a better expression), not a parnasa (the trade you make your living with). All of the great Torah sages they revere were amateur scholars and made their living in another field. Miamonides specifically stated that Torah study is NOT a profession, but an avocation—something you do in your spare time after discharging your other responsibilities, like supporting your family.
2) Taking the Torah literally instead of attempting to interpret it. One of the core concepts of Judaism is to question everything and seek answers. In their blind, literal acceptance of their cult’s founding rabbi’s interpretations, they abandon this concept entirely.
3) Each of these cults has a founding rabbi who is “revered” much the way a Christian saint is—with pictures, photographs or icons in every room. In a way, this is a direct violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.
Adrien:
One correction: these cultists don’t accept Israeli welfare or unemployment benefits—they live off of donations, mostly from abroad. In everything else, you’re right on the mark.
First point: You state that ”nor do the Satmar represent the Jewish people”. That is true, and the Satmar don’t pretend to be presenting the Jewish people. Unlike the (supposedly) ”Jewish State”, which always purports to represent the world’s Jewry, which they clearly don’t, the Satmars do not claim to be representative of all Jews. They simply came out to say that the State of Israel does not represent them, as indeed it doesn’t.
Second point: The two Haredi people that were run down by the police were standing in front of the cars AT THE SITE OF THE PROTESTS. THE POLICE CARS IN QUESTION WERE NOT ON THEIR WAY TO THE PROTESTS. In fact, the second incident occured when the man tried to keep a police van from LEAVING the site, and the van ran him over, dragged him several hundred feet, and then a second police car ran the man over again, even though he was down on the ground and already severely injured and bleeding profusely. The man is still in a critical condition. It is a miracle that he remained alive at all; the police’s intention was clearly to kill him. AND, HE WAS A NON-VOILENT PROTESTER TO START, as was the case with the first person that was run over!
Third point: The woman who is accused (ACCUSED, NOT CONVICTED!) of starving her child did NOT bring him to the emergency room weighing 7 kilos. The boy has been in and out of the hospital for most of his life, and was hospitalized for 7 months straight before his weight reached 7 kilos. There is significant evidence from his symptoms and from his medical records that he was not treated properly by Hadassah’s physicians, and there are many indications that experimental treatments were administered to him. The entire case against the mother was likely fabricated as a cover-up for the illegal and brutal experiments. You think me a ridiculous conspiracy theorist? Think again. Look, for example, at the way the mother was treated:
When she was arrested, they handcuffed her hands and feet, even though she was five months pregnant and her feet were swollen as a result. They dumped her in a horrible prison under horrific conditions. She was placed in one cell with an arabic woman who is accused of murduring her husband. Her cellmate tortured her throughout their entire stay together, and took her food away when it was finally allowed in (which also took quite some time). When she complained about the horrific conditions in her cell, she was told ”for a murderess like you, even this is too good”. She was subjected to many long hours of ceaseless interrogation, and her interrogators threatened her that if she doesn’t confess to starving her child she’ll never see her family, children, or the light of day again. They also wouldn’t allow her to see a lawyer or receive visitors for quite some time after she was arrested, presumably in order to break her spirit and coerce her into confessing to a crime she did not commit.
Then, only one day before she was to appear at court in Jerusalem, she was transferred to a jail in Ramala, a journey of several hours. She begged to be spared this journey, as her pregnancy makes traveling extremely difficult for her and she was anyway to go to Jerusalem the following day, but to no avail. She was sick during the entire journey and constantly threw up, but wasn’t even allowed a sip of water. There can be no explanation for this pointless journey, or for the horrific conditions she was kept in throughout her incarceration, other than that the authorities were hoping that she’d give in to their demands for a confession for a crime that they obviously have no evidence of. They claim to be in possession of a video that shows the mother disconnecting the child’s feeding tube; however, the video has not been released or shown publicly, even though (had it existed) if it were shown, it would have silenced the protestors if it proved the mother’s guilt.
The mother has been interviewed by a psychiatrist, who determined that she does not suffer from ”Munchausen by proxy syndrome”, as the Isreali authorities maintain. Perhaps you can explain why the woman was thrown in jail and tortured, if she is in fact a mental case? Why wasn’t she sent to a mental facility instead of a dungeon, if she is mentally ill? Perhaps you can explain how it is possible for a woman to starve her child during seven months hospitalization when he was tube fed? She’d have to disconnect his feeding tube several times a day in order to accomplish that. If that was indeed the case, why did it take Hadassah staff seven months to realize what is going on, and to alert authorities?? Do you really buy this ridiculous story at face value????
The protests were held to condemn the brutal treatment of a pregnant woman that has been baselessly accused of a crime she very likely did not commit. Even the Isreali judge ordered her to be released for house arrest after the first hearing on the case.
Fourth point: While the ultra-Orthodox community refuses to accept the authority of the State of Israel, they also do NOT accept any government services or funds.
Fifth point: These are NOT the same ”cult” that participated in the Iranian Holocaust denial conference. The three people who attended that infamous conference are a group of irresponsible individuals who purported to represent a larger community, when in fact, they were representing nobody but themselves. As a member of the Satmar community, I can tell you that these individuals were and still are very harshly criticized in our circles. In fact, the Central Rabbinical Congress (CRC) of the US and Canada (who stood behind the above demonstration), strongly and publicly condemned their participation at the time of the conference. The Satmar community opposes solidarity with muslim extremists in any form, let alone Holocaust denial.
I find it appalling and disgusting that our community can be so blatantly misrepresented. I will assume that your distortion of the views of the Haredi world and of the actual facts comes out of ignorance, and is not a deliberate attempt to besmirch our name. I appeal to you that in the future, before you post an article that slanders an entire community, you try to separate fact from fiction and prejudice.
Another ”interesting” (and terribly tragic) FACT about that case: When the father arrived at Hadassah’s emergency room with his baby, Dr. Avi Rivkind expressly prohibited his staff from treating the child. When the baby was examined in the morning, the attending physician stated that if treated promptly, the child would have been saved!!! Dr. Rivkind was never tried. Instead, they arrested the father and tricked him into confessing.
IF you are one of those who deliberately go outside of your community to harass others, destroy public property and reject the laws of the land, then yes, I consider you a member of the “Jewish Taliban”. These are the people my post protests against. If you are not, I have nothing against you, but would suggest that you examine the values of those in your community who act like that.
While the state of Israel isn’t “Jewish enough” for your tastes, you seem to have missed the main point of my post. Given the distorted reports of facts that appeared in the Eida Haredit papers, this is no surprise. You have to read both secular and Haredi papers to find the real picture.
Israel doesn’t pretend to represent the Jewish world population, just the population of Israel and its citizens. If the Satmar living in Israel refuse to become citizens, with all that entails (responsibilities and duties as well as privileges), what are they doing here in the first place? Do you refuse to pay US taxes? Do you refuse to pay social security premiums in the US? Do you demand healthcare treatment you haven’t paid the premiums for? Somehow I doubt it.
Secondly, your unsubstantiated claims don’t hold water, but the unverified details you pounce upon are not the core issue of the matter.
The Karta parking lot is not “open for business” on Shabbat. What the Jerusalem municipality did was leave the barriers at the parking lot entrances and exits open on Friday afternoon prior to Shabbat. This was done to get the Saturday visitors’ cars off the streets around the Old City, where they present a danger to pedestrians. How is this a “desecration of the Sabbath” or a “change in the status quo”? If there is any desecration of the Shabbat, it’s the drivers who drive on Saturday and not the municipality who are desecrating the Shabbat. If this is Satmar logic—protesting the desecration of Shabbat by desecrating the Shabbat, then your logic is deeply flawed.
Without the demonstrations based on this flawed logic, none of the events you describe would or could have happened.
For an additional point of argument, Meah She’arim is nowhere near the Old City, with the Russian Compound lying between them. I do not drive on Shabbat or hagim unless it’s an absolute necessity, but I would never drive through or even by Meah She’arim on these days, not even in the direst emergency. Why do the Taliban agitators go outside their neighborhoods to stir up trouble?
This behavior reminds me of the old lady who calls the reception desk at a hotel complaining that a man in the opposite wing of the hotel is walking around his room naked and it offends her. The manager comes up, looks out the window to where she points and says, “Madam, I can only see the man down to the waist—there’s no way to know whether he’s naked or not.”
She responds with a shout: “STAND ON THE BED!”
Who appointed this Jewish Taliban as the conscience of others?
Now for other “points” in your argument:
Do you have any idea of the controls and monitoring involved with experimental drugs or medical devices? After ten years of working as a QA or production manager for medical companies in Israel, the US and Europe, I do. The idea that a person, any person, could be treated with an experimental drug, device or procedure without a paper trail a mile wide and ten miles long is not only preposterous, it’s idiotic. Every pill, dosage, use of medical device or performance of procedure is documented and witnessed by at least one other medical professional. Drugs are constantly inventoried and every dose of an experimental drug must be accounted for.
Doing such a thing as you claim would require the collusion of the entire staff involved in such a clinical trial, the hospital Medical Ethics board, the hospital management, the company sponsoring the trials and the regulating authority (in this case, the Ministry of Health).
For just an inkling of the requirements and controls in place for experimental pharmaceuticals, try reading the Ministry of Health’s guidelines for clinical trials on humans: http://www.health.gov.il/Download/pages/GuidelinesClinical_Trials_Human_English.pdf
Knowing the system and having complied with it no less than six times in Israel, twice in the US and twice in Europe, I can tell you that this claim is purely a figment of imagination by some person ignorant of medical procedure, laws and safeguards.
How can you explain that the examinations of the child in Sheba Medical Center (where the boy was sent for independent examination and treatment) found nothing to support your claims? Are they part of the “conspiracy”, too? Do you think that dozens, if not hundreds, of medical personnel would hold their silence or lie under threat of losing their livelihood and going to prison? If you do, you must really think that all secular Israelis are monsters—something not borne out by facts on the ground.
The distance from Jerusalem to Ramla is 37 kilometers (24 miles). The only way this trip can take “several hours” is if you walk. On the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, it’s a 20-minute trip. Check it out yourself on a map.
Despite non-cooperation from the beginning, the mother has been under house arrest (not in jail) since July 24. She has missed interviews, examination appointments and violated other conditions of her house arrest agreement, yet has not been returned to jail. Any secular accused who did these things would have found themselves back in a cell so fast, it would take a week for their shoes to catch up to them. I’d call that preferential treatment. I can remember no accused secular child abuser who was allowed such lenient terms of arrest before trial.
Again, like the parking lot demonstrations, the violent demonstrations supporting this mother had nothing to do with the case itself, but with the “government’s interference in our lives”, according to their own spokespeople. Does this mean that the Haredim approve of child abuse? This is the impression that they themselves created with their demonstrations, burning public property, pelting the police with garbage and used diapers. Is that your idea of a “peaceful demonstration”?
Now for a word about the psychiatrist, Dr. Meir-Weill:
Did you know that he retracted part of his evaluation without another examination? The part he retracted was the statement that the mother does not present a danger to her other children.
Did you know that he was hand-picked by the Toldot Aharon representatives as the only psychiatrist they would allow to examine her?
Did you know that he was dismissed by the Hadassah Ein Kerem medical center a year before this incident for “improper and unprofessional behavior”?
These “minor details” are a matter of public record. There is another “minor detail”: as a psychiatrist, he is not qualified to evaluate Munchausen by Proxy syndrome—psychiatric and medical associations around the world have defined this as the area of expertise for pediatric specialists—and Dr. Meir-Weill is not a pediatric specialist. He never even examined the child.
As for her treatment as a suspect, this is all “she said, they said” hearsay—with no supporting evidence for either side, and, as such, can’t be honestly debated.
The child was never “hospitalized for seven months”. He was brought to an ER for treatment several times over a period of seven months, each time to a different doctor. It was only after he was hospitalized and under the care of a pediatric ICU that suspicions were aroused.
The security tape showing the mother removing the feeding tube is evidence and will not be shown publicly before it’s presented as evidence during the trial. This is standard procedure in most legal systems. The judges who viewed the tape considered it compelling enough to ratify the indictment and continue to trial.
SS: “Fourth point: While the ultra-Orthodox community refuses to accept the authority of the State of Israel, they also do NOT accept any government services or funds.”
But they do demand healthcare benefits without paying the Health Tax as required by every resident of the country. They do demand government financial support for their Yeshivot and schools, despite the fact that they refuse to hold classes according to the Ministry of Education syllabus.
SS: “Fifth point: These are NOT the same ”cult” that participated in the Iranian Holocaust denial conference.”
No, but they are part of the Eida Haredit, who often band together to support each other when they are in conflict with the secular world around them. A driver getting a rock thrown through his windshield doesn’t care if the thrower was Neturei Karta, Satmar, Toldot Aharon or some other group from the Eida Haredit. He only understands that a Haredi tried to kill him.
SS: “I appeal to you that in the future, before you post an article that slanders an entire community, you try to separate fact from fiction and prejudice.”
I would make the same appeal to you before you blindly defend actions that are reprehensible and indefensible.
The father who “allegedly shook his baby to death” as you call it, is serving a six-year sentence plus two years suspended sentence, which is entirely consistent with involuntary or reckless manslaughter. Considering the fact that he’ll get 1/3 off for good behavior almost automatically, I would say he got a fairly lenient sentence.
Once again, as in the case of the mother, he was allowed to be under house arrest and not in jail for the duration of the trial. Murderers are held on remand and not allowed bail.
The claims of coercion and his treatment are again of the “he said, they said” hearsay variety and can’t be intelligently discussed by anyone who was not present.
Your “fact” about Dr. Rivkind, the attending physician, also comes under the heading of hearsay. Dr. Rivkind is a respected physician, head of the Ein Kerem ER and a lecturer on medical ethics worldwide. What you allege against him would go against everything he has stood for over his entire career. Such an accusation without proof is a blood libel.
Does the Haredi community think that the lives of these two children are less important than their need to isolate themselves from the community around them? This is the impression these two incidents have made on the general public and the idea is abhorrent to us.
Believe me, I also like to be left alone by the authorities—but I do it by not breaking the law of the land, paying my taxes and behaving like a responsible citizen, not by doing whatever I feel like doing, then claiming the state has no jurisdiction.
This is what I protest and your post only reinforces the original opinion that the Eida Haredit considers itself above the law in Israel—but you know that a similar incident in Monroe, New York would not be met with the same behavior by your eida, nor would the police in Monroe act with the same restraint—there would be dozens, if not hundreds, of demonstrators hospitalized.
Why the double standard where Israel is concerned?
