ISIS terrorist murders pedestrians and bicyclists in Manhattan with truck

A vehicular terrorist attack took place in New York City, committed by a terrorist who screamed a familiar call:

A man described by authorities as a terrorist drove a rented pickup truck down a crowded bicycle path in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least eight people, police said — the first deaths from terrorism in New York since the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Two law enforcement sources close to the investigation identified the suspect as 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan who moved to the U.S. in 2010.

The trail of destruction extended for nearly a mile, with crushed bicycles and clothing scattered along the popular path. The rampage also injured nearly a dozen people.

It came to an end when the truck crashed into a school bus and the assailant ran into the street, waving a pellet gun and a paintball gun before being shot by a police officer and taken into custody.

Saipov shouted “Allahu akbar,” which is Arabic for “God is great,” before being arrested, the law enforcement sources said.

[...] President Trump took to Twitter to address the attack, writing: “In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!”

He later tweeted: "I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!"

[...] Saipov’s homeland, the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, is not considered a major hotbed for terrorism. But several terrorist groups — including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Al Qaeda, Islamic State and the Islamic Jihad Union — have supporters there, according to the U.S. State Department.

In a 2015 case in Brooklyn, five men from Uzbekistan and one from neighboring Kazakhstan were charged by federal prosecutors with providing material support to Islamic State.

As night fell Tuesday, the investigation turned to New Jersey. Police blocked off a street in the city of Paterson, where Saipov had lived in an apartment. Investigators also visited a Passaic County Home Depot, where he rented the truck, according to multiple law enforcement sources.

Paterson has a significant number of Muslims living there, so no surprise he'd resided in that area when he came to the US. This is a terrible incident proving that Islamofascism is still a serious danger in north America.

Even on Saturday night, Haredis were rioting

The anti-military Haredi rioters continued their repellent acts this past Shabbat evening:

Ultra-Orthodox activists clashed Saturday night with supporters of a Jerusalem soccer club, with Beitar fans throwing rocks at the protesters, who responded in kind. Police dispersed the crowds, and there were no reports of injuries or arrests.

The ultra-Orthodox protesters had stopped traffic on Shivtei Israel and Haturim streets in the capital, as well as torching dumpsters, police said.

The soccer fans, who had earlier watched their team beat Hapoel Ashkelon 2-0 at Teddy Stadium, returned along a route that took them through the demonstrations and stopped to confront the Haredi protesters.

Well it's hard to feel sorry for the Haredi rioters if that's all they can think to do. Some of the Haredis connected with the rioters apparently yelled at people having a special celebration in the Yehuda Market too:

The demonstration Saturday came hours after violent clashes between members of the ultra-Orthodox community and secular Jerusalemites in the Mahane Yehuda Market.

Trouble began at midday, when several demonstrators tried to disrupt a joint religious-secular event that saw some 100 people gather in the closed market to enjoy food and joint activities, the Kol Ha’Ir local news site reported.

Organized by city council member Fleur Hassan-Nahoum and the Yerushalmit Movement, which campaigns for cooperation between communities in the capital, the happening was arranged to include only kosher food and adhere to religious restrictions for Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

The ultra-Orthodox demonstrators shouted at participants until police moved them away.

According to the Ynet news site, the protesters then moved to another location in the city, on Haneviim Street, where some 200 other demonstrators had gathered for a weekly protest, organized by the anti-Zionist Orthodox Council of Jerusalem, against the operation of businesses on Shabbat.

Some 20 secular counter-protesters against religious coercion confronted the Haredi activists. Although police tried to keep the two camps separated, some of the ultra-Orthodox demonstrators reportedly attacked secular protesters. There were no reports of arrests of injuries in the clashes.

The Jerusalem Post says:

The event was specifically designed so that there would be no infraction of the laws of the Sabbath to enable religious and secular alike could attend, including no music.

Despite these strenuous efforts to create an inclusive space for different sectors of the community to come together, a large group of haredi men who had been protesting vehicular traffic on close-by Hanevi’im Street then made their way to Mahaneh Yehuda to protest the event.

The horde of protesters were already on site at 3 o’clock when the event was scheduled, indicating they had planned in advance to be present and protest.

The men, some of whom appear to have been from the radical Yerushalmi communities in Mea She’arim and its environs, began shouting “Shabbes,” harassing participants, and generally disturbing the event.

The situation was not helped by a group of secular counter-haredi protesters who had been present on Hanevi’im Street, and who followed the haredi group to Mahaneh Yehuda and protested the disturbance they were causing there.

According to Fleur Hassan- Nahoum, a member of the Jerusalem Municipal Council for Yerushalmim who helped organize the event, there was a small amount of pushing and shoving between the two groups.

Hassan-Nahoum said that she tried to reason with the demonstrators at one point, but they would not speak to her because she is a woman.

Instead, she organized a group of several women to begin singing and advancing towards the protesters causing them to disperse somewhat.

Another Jerusalem Municipal Council member from the haredi United Torah Judaism party was also present, and he eventually convinced the mob to leave, pointing out to them that there was no Sabbath desecration taking place.

The police were called to the scene but made no arrests.

That's a terrible shame, again, if the police were not willing to ensure that obnoxious disruptors of an event that's meant to be for happiness aren't punished for ruining everything. The event may have improved and become livelier after they were cleared away, but that's still no excuse for the police's failure to send the Haredi protestors a message that their behavior won't be tolerated.

Dhimmitude at Bar Ilan University

A lecturer's been penalized by faculty staff for telling a Muslim student to take off her hijab:

A lecturer at Bar-Ilan University kicked a student out of class last week after she refused to take off her hijab.

The incident occurred in the department for Middle East studies, Channel 2 reported Sunday, when the unnamed lecturer told one of the Arab women in his class to remove her head covering, or hijab.

The TV report said the student was asked to leave the classroom when she refused. It offered no explanation on why the professor had made the demand.

The teacher was reprimanded by the university management and apologized to the student. He is also expected to apologize to her again in front of the entire class, according to the report.

The lecturer will also face a university disciplinary committee hearing that will decide his professional future amid calls for him to be fired.

I guess if he'd asked for a lady student to dress modestly, that wouldn't warrant any protests, right? This is absolutely reprehensible, and anybody who cares should call the university and demand they drop the assault on the professor immediately.

It's regrettable when even a university like Bar Ilan turns out to have scum running their faculty.

Muslims murdered elderly Israeli out of "revenge" for death of another terrorist

Some Islamofascists in Israel are now charged with murdering an old man in an Israeli-Arab town:

The terrorists who murdered Reuven Shmerling did so out of revenge for the death of their friend, maintains Israeli law enforcement.

Two Palestinian terrorists murdered Reuven Shmerling, a 70-year-old Israeli, at an industrial zone in the Israeli-Arab town of Kfar Kassem in October as an act of revenge, the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) revealed Monday.

The two terrorists, Yousef Khaled Mustafa Kamil and Muhammad Ziad Aby Al-Roub, residents of Kabatiya, were arrested by Israeli forces a few days after the attack.

The two suspects, in their twenties, entered Israel illegally and worked in the country for two weeks, during which they planned their attack.

So it was all planned in advance, and they apparently only went to get jobs for the sake of plotting a murder. Absolutely sick.

The goal of Kolech is to safeguard women's rights in Orthodox Judaism

The Jewish Press has an article about Kolech, a women's rights organization whose goal is to ensure the rights of women in Orthodox Judaism, and they've proven they can do this without infringing on halacha. Pretty impressive in that sense.

The next "plant" to attack Sara Netanyahu is a Haredi woman

So many leftists seem to have gone to work at the prime minister's offices and residence just to betray the Netanyahus for the sake of defamation. The latest appears to be a Haredi woman who's probably doing it to turn the Haredi community against the wife as well:

A 24-year-old haredi woman on Thursday filed a civil suit against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's wife Sara.

The woman claims Sara Netanyahu abused her when she worked in the Prime Minister's residence as a cleaning woman.

S.R., who is married and a mother tof three , began working on the second floor of the residence two months ago, on August 27, 2017. She worked there for only a month, and is currently filing for 225,000 shekels ($63,780), claiming Sara belittled her, abused her, yelled at her, was cruel towards her, and even wanted to hit her.

"I never imagined that I would have to suffer abuse like that I suffered in the Prime Minister's residence at the hands of Sara Netanyahu," she told Yediot Aharonot. "I came into the Prime Minister's residence a happy, smiling, healthy woman who simply wanted to earn money to support her family. I left broken, depressed, sad, without any energy, barely functioning, paranoid and suffering from nightmares every night."

"For an entire month, every day, every hour, Sara Netanyahu terrorized me. Every little thing I did drove her crazy, until she lost control of herself. I keep thinking, 'Why did this happen to me? Why did I deserve to be treated like a slave?' At the end of the day, I came to work. As a girl and as a woman, no one ever yelled at me, no one ever tried to hurt me. I was always loved. And suddenly I come to the Prime Minister's residence, the place that is supposed to be the most respectful on earth, and I am treated violently, in a hurtful and abusive manner, by Mrs. Netanyahu. It was and is a complete shock for me."

The cleaner also claimed that she had to report for a military-style "cleaning briefing," and could only eat and drink at certain hours. In addition, she said she had to "come to work without makeup and without jewelry, and was not allowed to use cosmetics or creams." She was not allowed to use the residence's bathroom, she claimed, and was forced to use the security guards' restroom outside the building. She also was not allowed to eat or drink during the day.

Oh, this is just so stupid, and who's paying this clod to carry out the latest defamation effort? The whole notion she wouldn't be allowed to eat and drink all day already sounds phony.

Sources close to the Netanyahu family responded that "this is not a real suit. This is the attempt of a worker who worked for only a few days to squeeze 225,000 shekels out of the Netanyahus."

"This is just one more false claim, filled with lies, reused and recycled. Again someone is trying to get attention and money by slandering Sara Netanyahu and the Netanyahu family. There is no end to the persecution, the lies, and the character assassination.

"There is no question that important people stand behind this suit. I would not be surprised if the lawyer representing this woman is Naomi Landau, a lawyer working for the New Israel Fund who has turned the persecution of Sara Netanyahu into her profession. I would not be surprised if she is connected to Meni Naftali, the former caretaker of the Netanyahu residence who is leading a campaign vilifying the prime minister."

I wouldn't be shocked either. The most offensive part is that it's no doubt calculated to turn the Haredi community against Netanyahu, and what the woman's doing is an embarrassment to her own family as much as everybody else. Why, how much socialist welfare and food stamps is the woman's husband collecting while spending all his time at a yeshiva and not working, and likely not serving in the army either? Such people should be ashamed of themselves, and if they're smart, they'll apologize for participation in defamation and leave the lifestyle behind as well.

EU parliament is flooded with sexual harassment

No shock at all. New reports from Europe reveal that the continental parliament is just as awful in its conduct to women as Hollywood:

An investigation has revealed that the European Parliament is a “hotbed of sexual harassment”, where senior MEPs who “feel they can do whatever they want” prey on young women.

The Sunday Times reports speaking to over a dozen junior staffers — professional, multilingual women, some graduates of the College of Europe which trains people to work for the EU’s standing bureaucracy — who suffered the unwanted attentions of older, often married European politicians.

Some of the allegations levelled are very serious, with at least one MEP accused of masturbating in front of a young aide.

If you read the rest, be advised, it's as gross as you surely guessed. And in some semi-related news, "scholar" Tariq Ramadan's being investigated for sexual assault:

French authorities have opened an investigation into controversial Swiss-born Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan after a French feminist accused him of sexual misconduct and sending her death threats.

Former Salafist Henda Ayari, 40, who now identifies as a secular feminist, filed a complaint with French authorities in Rouen accusing Ramadan of sexually harassing her, raping her, and issuing death threats towards her. The feminist activist also revealed that she had written about her experience in a book, but had been too fearful to print Ramadan’s name, L’Express reports.

On Friday, Ayari posted on her Facebook account about the situation saying: “I have been silent for several years because of fear, because by threatening to press charges for the rape I was a victim of, he did not hesitate to threaten me and to tell me also that he could go after my children. I got scared and kept quiet all this time.”

"I really hope that other women victims, like me, dare to speak, and denounce this perverted guru who uses religion to manipulate women!” she wrote.

Or, more precisely, who uses religion to justify his behavior. She did the right thing to speak out, and to leave the awful religion/ideology that condones what Ramadan did to her. It's a good thing this news is coming out, and the expose on Harvey Weinstein, interestingly, appears to have been what helped encourage victims to speak up.

More of Auerbach's indoctrinated subjects become public nuicances

Though not as bad on Thursday, from what I could tell, there were still Haredis associated with cultist Shmuel Auerbach who caused public disturbances yesterday, all because they're - what else? - anti-Israel:

Police arrested five ultra-Orthodox demonstrators in Jerusalem on Thursday for blocking roads during a protest against military conscription.

During the demonstration, which was organized by the anti-Zionist Orthodox Council of Jerusalem, hundreds of protesters blocked traffic at the city’s Shabbat Square, a key intersection leading to several ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

A number of protesters held up signs reading, “We would rather than die than be drafted.”

The demonstrators also temporarily blocked the nearby light rail and Haim Bar-Lev Boulevard, a major thoroughfare.

Police said officers dispersed the protesters.

Thursday’s protest was the most recent in ongoing demonstrations sparked by the arrest of two yeshiva students for failing to show up to the Israel Defense Forces draft offices.

This is the result years of men and women alike being indoctrinated under tribalism has led to. No doubt, these villains also despise the great-grandson of a Satmar guru who left the insular community and successfully ascended to become an army officer:

The great-grandson of world’s largest hassidic sect's leader graduated IDF Officer School on Wednesday and will become a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade.

Chaim Meisels, the great-grandson of one of two Satmar Rebbes who lay claim to the hasidic dynasty, was drafted into the IDF in 2014 after moving to Israel from the United States. On Wednesday, he graduated the IDF's Officer School and became a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade.

In a Facebook post that has since gone viral in Israel, Meisels wrote about the long journey that took him from the insular Satmar community of his youth to the IDF.

You can read the rest at the link, but this proves that, if somebody wants to work hard at it, they can successfully leave a socialist community and become successful in a prominent career like military service. And it's regrettable that awful men like Auerbach are teaching incredibly negative examples, in contrast to this guy who's taken an admirable path.

Phony peace institute in France awards father of terrorist in Israel

Another offensive example of terrorists being given prizes, including money that was no doubt stolen from the public's tax payments:

The father of a terrorist who murdered three Israelis won an international lawyer prize on Sunday for defending another terrorist's wife.

Attorney Muhammad Alyan's son, terrorist Baha Alyan, perpetrated the October 2015 attack in Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem, killing three Israelis.

Baha was killed by security forces.

Alyan recently represented Nadia Abu Jamaal, the widow of terrorist Ghassan Abu Jamaal, who participated in the November 2014 terrorist attack on a synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood in the capital, which killed five worshippers and a police officer.

The terrorist in this attack was also killed by security forces.

Outrageously, for representing Abu Jamaal, Alyan received the prize for best international human rights attorney in a ceremony held in Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem.

The university collaborated with the International Institute for Human Rights and Peace in Caen, northern France, to present the award.

Caen's local bar association, along with its Palestinian counterpart, the French human rights institute and Al-Quds University held the ninth annual International Palestinian Pleading Competition for Human Rights on Sunday.

Many diplomats attended the event, including from Belgium and Canada, along with French MPs and human rights activists.

When a lot of politicians give their approval, you know something's wrong. If any members of Emmanuel Macron's party associated themselves with this atrocity, then it only compounds the bad reputation they should have. The "lawyer" voiced some hateful speech against Israel too, and that should be telling something about what he's really like.

Meirav Hajaj, whose daughter Lt. Shir Hajaj was murdered in a ramming attack in Armon Hanatziv this January, was enraged to learn that a terrorist's father had won the award.

"This is an absurd situation that we are trying to prevent," she said.

"The son committed murder and the father receives money and prizes. He has become a public figure who leads fights against Israel, instead of fearing for his status in the state. This is unreasonable. This is intolerable."

Maor Zemach, CEO of the Lach Yerushalayim ("For You, Jerusalem") advocacy group that seeks to safeguard Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, said that "the consul general of France in Jerusalem and four French MPs awarded a prize to the father of a despicable murderer. He defends the rights of terrorists who murder worshippers while they are praying. This is an unimaginable record moral low."

Zemach called on the political echelon to respond severely "against the countries who support this distorted morality, and against the university of terrorism in Abu Dis."

Yes, they should get on the ball and deal with this immediately, and luckily, there are some MKs already who've spoken out:

Habayit Hayehudi MK Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli has called on Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely to deny entry to Israel to lawmakers who took part in an awards ceremony that honored the father of a terrorist for his work as a human-rights lawyer.

"We cannot show restraint," Mualem-Rafaeli wrote in a letter to Hotovely, after an Israel Hayom report revealed that Muhammad Alyan, whose son killed three Israelis in 2015, won the International Institute for Human Rights and Peace in France's award for best international human rights attorney for defending another terrorist's wife. Many diplomats attended the event, including from Belgium and Canada, along with French MPs and human rights activists.

[...] Mualem called for those countries' representatives in Israel to receive a dressing-down. "The message to the world will be clear: The State of Israel will not allow subversive elements to pass through the entrance gates to Israel," she wrote.

Hotovely has asked the Israeli Embassy in Paris to relay her objection to the French Foreign Ministry.

Hotovely said, "I view with great severity the presentation of the award to the father of a terrorist, as the countries of the world, including France, Canada, Belgium and Israel [continue to] fight terrorism." She said the decision sent a "problematic and inappropriate message."

Likud MK Anat Berko called the move "very serious." She said it was as if there would be "a ceremony honoring the parents of one of the perpetrators of the Bataclan or Charlie Hebdo attacks."

In a way, that's what the "diplomats" were doing. They may not think so, but to honor a terrorist in a different country is to honor those in their own countries. It attests to how they truly don't see much wrong with jihadism committed in Europe.

Over-observance of Shabbat leads to loss of life in pregnancy

A Haredi woman's refusal to take a special fetus monitor at a hospital over Shabbat led to the loss of a child:

A pregnant haredi woman in her 30s arrived on Saturday at Tel Hashomer Hospital, and refused fetal monitoring since she did not want to desecrate Shabbat (the Sabbath).

The woman arrived at the hospital due to a health complication connected to her pregnancy. She claimed she felt the fetus' movements and therefore fetal monitoring was not a necessity.

Jewish law, however, allows the desecration of Shabbat if there is a threat to life, or if there may be a threat to life - including and especially the life of an unborn child. Since the woman arrived in the hospital on Shabbat, fetal monitoring would therefore absolutely be permitted unless the hospital staff deemed it entirely unnecessary. However, this woman preferred not to be monitored on Shabbat, for reasons which are unclear.

Regular fetal monitoring is standard procedure for women with high-risk pregnancies.

If she put religious beliefs ahead of the unborn's safety, that was wrong, and now look what's happened. It should serve as a lesson to all why, if you want to bear children safely, you should never refuse technology that can ensure safe birth.

Unfortunately, London now has a mega-mosque, in a Jewish neighborhood

Several years ago, there was word of a gigantic mosque being planned in London. Now, it's come to be...in Golders Green, which has a notable Jewish neighborhood, and the worst part is that the local council in Barnet where the building's located shut out all protests:

Barnet Council has come under fire after deleting hundreds of comments objecting to plans for a mosque in a suburb home to one of Britain’s largest Jewish communities.

The Grade-II listed Golders Green Hippodrome was bought earlier this year for £5.25 million by the Centre for Islamic Enlightening, a Muslim charity which announced it plans to use the building to house a mosque and Islamic centre.

Citing “inappropriate comments”, Barnet Council announced it had deleted hundreds of objections received in response to a public consultation regarding the application, which closes Thursday, and also prompted a petition which amassed more than 5,000 signatures.

Many Jews have already left Britain, and they'll probably end up leaving Barnet and Golders Green too, now that the corrupt system dominating London's decided to capitulate and allow the Islamists to erect a mosque in such a big structure. No doubt, they had no intention of accepting objections, no matter how civil they could've been.

Where does the next world war begin?

Daniel Greenfield says it could be in France, which, he correctly notes, has become another Israel in its own way (H/T: Jewish Press).

Of course, we also have to consider the situation in Germany, where as many as 18.6 million people today are of a foreign background, with 1 in 5 of different origin, and the majority are Turkish; quite possibly much higher a sum of Muslims than in France, especially ever since Angela Merkel opened the floodgates for Muslim migrants. And with the way Germany's going today, Islam could certainly become dominant there if nothing is done.

Police aren't doing enough to prevent Haredi rioters from sending Jerusalem into turmoil

Another day of Shmuel Auerbach's cultists causing serious disruptions:

Several thousand haredim from the extremist Yerushalmi Faction (Jerusalem Faction) blocked the main entrance to Jerusalem on Monday and protested in other areas as part of a series of demonstrations against serving in the Israeli military and the arrest of two haredi draft dodgers.

The protesters occupied an area around Jerusalem's main bus station that serves as the city's primary exit and entrance point, police and an AFP journalist said.

At one point, police used a foul-smelling spray known as "skunk" to disperse them.

There were reports of roads being blocked in other areas as well. Police said at least 10 people had been arrested.

They're still not doing enough to prevent these awful incidents from occurring. They have to also go to arrest the head honcho himself, and put all rioters arrested in prison for at least several months. In fact, in this report it says:

Israel Hayom has learned that police have begun collecting intelligence about the man responsible for the protests, Jerusalem Faction leader Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach. Among other things, police have learned Auerbach is residing in a yeshiva where dozens of his pupils currently study. This could make it difficult for officers to arrest him should they decide to do so.

Well they're going to have to do it anyway, because if they don't, he's bound to continue, although they most definitely could send a message by cutting electricity, gas and water supplies to the yeshiva to send a starting message, to say nothing of close down the yeshiva to boot. Even a curfew could help, by closing off openings to their neighborhoods so they don't go out to cause harm.

Muslim in Hebron throws rock at 12 year old boy at a spring

A jihadist knocked a boy unconscious as he was playing in a spring around Hebron:

A Palestinian man dropped a large rock on a 12-year-old Israeli boy who was playing in a spring with friends in the West Bank city of Hebron, knocking him out, the IDF said over the weekend.

“Such violence is nothing less than terror,” the IDF spokesman said.

The incident was caught on CCTV near the Abraham’s Well spring in the Jewish part of the city.

The boy fell into the well and was rescued by friends who immediately called the authorities, the Jewish community of Hebron’s representative Noam Arnon said.

The unconscious boy was transported to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem where he received 10 stitches for the head wound. The boy later regained consciousness, the hospital stated.

If they allow the PLO to shield the monster from the law, they'll be doing a terrible disfavor for everyone.

Patricia Douglas: first woman to call out Tinseltown on sexual assault

Yahoo's entertainment section wrote about Patricia Douglas, a minor performer in Hollywood who fell victim to rape by a MGM employee, and the establishment tried to cover up the crime. This old case shows how sexual abuse had existed in Hollywood at least a century ago and many members of the upper echelons even then went out of their way to sweep it under the rug.

Haredis and prostitution

The Jerusalem Post wrote about Haredis who've obtained services with prostitutes at the expense of their families when they're married:

“It is customary to think prostitution does not exist among religious men and women, but I want to say it certainly does,” said Debbie Gross, director of the Tahel Crisis Center for Religious Women and Children.

Gross, who has received many requests from girls and women who have fallen into prostitution or whose spouses go to prostitutes, gave some examples.

“A woman turned to us, A., a religious woman in her 40s, married and a mother of several children,” she said, at the Kolech Religious Women’s Forum in Jerusalem on Wednesday during a session devoted to the war on prostitution. “She has a family as standard as any other, loving and caring. No one has prepared for the difficult day in her life when she will find out that her beloved husband has been going to brothels for several years and using the services of escorts.

“Amid a mixture of feelings of guilt, disgust and a sense of betrayal, she sought someone who could help her. And this is how she got to us. She could not even honestly speak with her husband on her own, let alone consult lawyers regarding her rights or her thoughts of blood tests to rule out whether she contracted any sexually transmitted diseases.”

Very sad. Even worse, however, is when sexual assault occurs within the community:

Another case, which Gross said is representative of a widespread phenomenon, was of “an ultra-Orthodox girl from Bnei Brak who had difficulty fitting in with the haredi lifestyle and got into a relationship with an ultra-Orthodox boy from the neighborhood. After several meetings, he raped her, and the only person with whom she could share her tragedy was a good friend of hers.

“At some point, the story came out and got to school and to the girl’s parents. The results were to be expected: Sara [not her real name] was thrown out of school and [then] left home after she could no longer bear the fact that her parents blamed her for the rape, of which she’d been the victim.”

This was only the beginning of Sara’s story. Out on the street, it was no better, and Sara eventually started working as a prostitute.

Her feeling that she had indeed become a “whore” only came after a long time, during which she was raped and exploited horribly, Gross said. “And then she turned to us.”

This is far more abominable, when victim-blaming becomes the norm, but it's still unclear whether Haredi community leaders are demanding parents stop doing it and start calling for justice to be meted out against the rapists. Unless they do it publicly, there won't be any improvement.

UN promoted tons of hate groups hostile to Israel

Latest reports on the UN's evil are no shock at this point:

The United Nations formally endorsed and approved numerous anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate groups which encourage terrorism and violence against Jews, according to a new report.

Human Rights Voices, a watchdog group, exposed the U.N. for accrediting non-profit organizations that are hate groups by granting them privileged status, which is a potential violation of the U.N.’s own bylaws, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

And UN will probably never part ways with the hatemongers. This only demonstrates the vital need to stop funding them.

Failures of French intelligence in preventing terror must be mended

A former intel chief for France's security services will testify in the trial of jihadist Mohammed Merah's brother, who didn't inform authorities of his filthy sibling's plan to commit murder:

A French ex-intelligence chief is expected to addresses failures in tracking Islamic extremists, at the trial over deadly 2012 attacks on a Jewish school and French soldiers.

Bernard Squarcini, now a private security consultant, was heading the French police counterterrorism agency when Mohammed Merah went on a shooting rampage, killing three French paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi.

Squarcini said at the time that Merah acted as a lone wolf, self-radicalized when in prison for petty crimes and wasn’t affiliated with an extremist network. But Merah had been placed on the “fiche S” listing, a register of people suspected of being radicalized, as soon as 2006 because of his relationship with older brother Abdelkader Merah, who is on trial for complicity to terror in connection with the three shooting attacks Mohammed Merah carried out in and near Toulouse.

It wouldn't be shocking at all if Squarcini has responsibility to shoulder for the disaster, and he should be prosecuted himself for failure to ensure Merah would be incarcerated.

Another report tells that the jihadist on the Champs-Elysees wanted to commit martyrdom nearly a decade ago:

A new report has shown that Islamic terrorist Karim Cheurfi, who killed a French police officer in April, had been a radical Islamist for well over a decade and expressed a desire to be a “martyr” as far back as 2009.

Seven months after he committed an act of Islamic terrorism in Paris, a profile of attacker Karim Cheurfi has finally started to emerge. Cheurfi, who had been a career criminal for most of his life, is said to have been radicalised by Islamists as early as 2002 when he spent time in Fleury-Mérogis prison, L’Express reports.

Known for his virulent hatred of police, Cheurfi spent a total of 15 years of his life behind bars where he eventually met Islamist Slimane Khalfaoui. Khalfaoui was well-known for his connections to al-Qaeda and had plotted a terror attack in Strasbourg in 2000.

Cheurfi’s father told investigators: “He already said in 2009 that he would like to die as a martyr … He had a negative vision of life, he said it was better to die as a martyr than live like, according to his terms, the disbelievers.”

But why couldn't he just commit suicide and not go murder innocent people just to get there? Such creatures are pathetic in their cowardice.

Soros could try to influence Hungarian election next year

A Hungarian parliamentarian is worried that ultra-leftist George Soros plans to infleunce next year's election in the country:

George Soros will use his organisation, now the second largest political activist charity in the world, to “influence” Hungary’s 2018 general election, a Hungarian member of parliament has claimed.

István Hollik MP fears that Soros would use his Open Society Foundations (OSF) to remove Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party from power, tear down the border fence, and implement the “Soros Plan” to flood Europe with one million third-world migrants annually, reports the Hungarian Times.

The politician, whose Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) is in coalition with the conservative Fidesz, also said that the OSF-backed refugee human rights group Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s legal challenge to the government’s national consultation on the Soros Plan could be “the first step in the campaign”.

Hollik pointed out that Soros’s foundation, which recently received a cash injection after the Hungarian-American speculator transferred $18 billion into the NGO, has been a “generous and intensive” source of money for those “Soros organisations and politicians” who “regularly intervene in Hungarian public life and who try to put pressure on the Hungarian cabinet”, alleges Hollik.

I have no doubt Soros has every intention of using his dough to darken Europe as much as possible. That's why he must be condemned for his reprehensible behavior.

Modest dress doesn't protect from sexual assault

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, some adherents to Orthodox Judaism, including Haredis or former ones, have spoken up to make some points about why you can't expect dressing modestly to discourage sexual assault in all instances:

Dressing modestly and conforming to the halachic principle of tznuit may have helped protect “Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik from unwanted advances in Hollywood. But it didn’t save Yocheved Sidof, who was groped by an Orthodox business associate when she was working as a professional filmmaker.

“I was filming on the Bowery and this married man from Monsey thought it was OK to casually rub my backside as he was introducing me to his staff,” Sidof, founder and executive director of Lamplighters Yeshivah in Crown Heights, wrote in a Facebook post last weekend.

And wearing loose clothing to accommodate her high school’s strict dress code did not protect Rachel Caplan, a 26-year-old actor who grew up Modern Orthodox, from snide comments and inappropriate stares.

“Predators and perpetrators of these acts and crimes are not concerned with what a woman is wearing,” Caplan told the Jewish Week.

Sidof, who is Lubavitch, and Caplan were not alone in their views. The New York Times op-ed penned by Bialik, who is Orthodox and something of an icon for observant women, suggesting that modest clothing could protect women from predatory behavior by men, and the Harvey Weinstein scandal, landed like a one-two punch in the Orthodox community. (Bialik later apologized for the op-ed, posting on Twitter “I am truly sorry for causing so much pain, and I hope you can all forgive me.")

After Bialik’s piece appeared late last week, and after the #MeToo campaign took off, a wave of response from Orthodox women flooded social media. Story after story from tzniut-observant women — many of whom put their names to their allegations — chronicled Weinstein-like sexual misconduct in the workplace, on dates and on the street. (The hashtag #MeToo campaign was launched last weekend so women could show how widespread the problem is.)

In a Facebook post that received hundreds of likes and shares, Caplan chronicled some of the “dangerous” messages she received about modesty while attending an all-girls Orthodox high school. She described the covert and frequently overt messaging as “’taking the ‘What was she wearing?’ culture to the extreme.”

“I have friends dressed in skirts and long sleeves and they still opened up about being harassed in public,” she said. “Perpetrators can fetishize anyone and anything. Sometimes it’s even more fun for them to mess with a woman who is clearly Orthodox and modestly dressed.”

Similarly, even Muslim women aren't safe from predators no matter how they're dressed. One of the worst places where abuse can happen is obviously behind closed doors, where sexual assault could take place in private. I've already posted about a lot of those atrocities myself, and even men can be victims.

As this article proves, modest dress is not a defense against sexual assault, and definitely not even physical assault. What matters is what kind of education is being given, both at home and in schools, for both children and adults.

Hundreds of Auerbach cultists turn themselves into a disgrace unto the nation

The Haredi followers of cult leader Shmuel Auerbach demonstrated against army service and the arrest of more draft dodgers yesterday by blocking roads and traffic:

Police on Thursday arrested 120 ultra-Orthodox protesters in a wave of rallies across the country, as several thousand hardline anti-draft demonstrators took to the streets in protests that caused major traffic disruptions in Jerusalem.

In the capital, the afternoon rallies continued well into the evening hours, before being dispersed by police. Protesters blocked traffic and the light rail near the city’s central bus station, snarling traffic at the entrance to the city and causing multiple delays on the tram line.

Police said 120 people were arrested during the protests for blocking roads and the light rail, as well as for failing to obey police orders.

Police appeared to be acting with restraint after accusations of excessive force at a recent protest.

An unnamed law enforcement official told Channel 2 police were refraining from using force to clear demonstrators in order to avoid violent clashes.

“The demonstrators are looking for video clips with violence by police in order to enlist donations from the United States,” the unnamed official said.

Needless to say, it's cowardice on the part of the police to resist using serious force in a case like this to get them away from the traffic paths they blocked.

Some ultra-Orthodox protesters chanted “we’d rather die than be drafted” at the demonstrations.

“The state wants to silence all the Jews who want to study Torah,” said one man, who looked to be in his 40s and gave his name only as Tzvi.

“Lately they have seen the (ultra-Orthodox) population growing, so they want us to serve in the army and be absorbed into the general population.”

Earlier, dozens of ultra-Orthodox protesters also blocked Jerusalem’s Shabbat Square, a key intersection leading to several ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in the capital. Police said protesters there burned trash and pushed it into the street.

And that's a way to endanger people, by risking a serious fire. If the extremists want to die, maybe they should consider leaving the country too and going to where welfare is dished out. They'd fit in perfectly with the emerging Islamic scene in Sweden, where welfare is undoubtably given away by the bustle to recipients.

Some of the protestors even acted abusively towards a woman who asked them not to block the train lines. One lone voice of sanity is Dov Lipman, who wrote the following op-ed:

At the exact same time as this ceremony, hundreds of other religious Israelis were blocking intersections throughout the country in the name of religion, in protest over the arrest of two draft dodgers. Why were they arrested? Because they broke the law: They failed to respond to the letters they received telling them to appear at their local IDF draft board. And for no reason: All these draft dodgers had to do was show up, claim that “Torah is their trade,” and they would have received exemptions from military service.

But they didn’t bother to do that, flouting the law which requires them to do so. So they were arrested and imprisoned for three weeks. Did the police enter the yeshiva where these young men were supposedly studying Torah day and night in order to arrest them? No. They were caught driving recklessly while on vacation in the Dead Sea region. For that, hundreds of demonstrators blocked tens of thousands of Israelis from going about their lives. This is an embarrassment in a country a state of law.

Enough is enough.

It is time for authorities to come down hard on the “Jerusalem Faction” of the haredi community which sent these demonstrators to the streets, and which instructs its followers to ignore the law and not show up for their army exemptions.

Every single one of these demonstrators who fights the police when they try to remove them from the roads must be imprisoned – not for a day’s incarceration as is done now, but for a minimum of six months. And their leaders – yes, including rabbis – must be brought in as well. There is a law against inciting to break a law, and those who violate it, especially when it involves educating and even commanding youngsters to violate the law, should be held accountable. We cannot allow anarchy.

Israel has been patient with these “protesters” and has demonstrated remarkable restraint. But there comes a time when a country has to put its foot down and say: We will not tolerate this anymore.

That time has come.

The demonstrators and their leadership know that they won’t be really punished for their actions, so they continue ignoring the law requiring them to appear before the draft board, and continue to disrupt the country.

During this week’s demonstrations, a policeman in Jerusalem was surrounded by these hooligans who were throwing rocks and other objects at his marked car, and blocking him from driving. He got out of this car with his pistol drawn. The demonstrators fled, he was able to drive on, and traffic on that street resumed. Is it comfortable for us to see a Jewish policeman wave his pistol at Jewish demonstrators? No. But did it work in order to restore law and order? Yes.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked must join forces to strengthen the penalties for these extremist demonstrators, and must punish their leaders as well. Moreover, it is incumbent on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to support Erdan and Shaked and not worry about the haredim in his coalition revolting over these measures.

It is also time for the mainstream haredi community to take a stronger stance against these extremists. MK Uri Maklev of United Torah Judaism was questioned about these demonstrators on Army Radio, and he said that while this is not his way and he thinks the protesters do damage, he doesn’t want to comment beyond that. No! Mainstream haredim must lead the way in condemning the Jerusalem Faction, and throw it out of the fold. The haredi leadership – if they are indeed the leadership – must support stricter policing and punishment of these religious zealots.

That's correct. Maklev himself should be condemned for failing to clearly acknowledge that the behavior of the extremists was wrong and calls for serious punishment. He didn't do so, and that's why he doesn't deserve to be a politician.

Haredi rabbi in Brooklyn stole money intended for disabled children

Here's one socialist Haredi scumbag who's presented a portrait of a 10 Commandments violator (via The Forward):

A New York City rabbi has been sentenced to prison for stealing $5 million in funding intended for disabled preschoolers.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown and state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced Tuesday that Samuel Hiller will spend one to three years behind bars.

Hiller was assistant director of the now-defunct Island Child Development Center. It provided services to Orthodox Jewish communities in Far Rockaway, Queens, and Brooklyn's Williamsburg and Borough Park neighborhoods.

Restitution is part of Hiller's plea agreement.

Three co-defendants also pleaded guilty for their involvement in the thefts, which occurred between 2005 and 2012.

Prosecutors say they diverted money to relatives, to businesses and to cover personal expenses including a family wedding, home renovations and jewelry.

Man...that is absolutely disgusting, and complete disregard for the well being of youngsters with physical disabilities. Evidently, they were fleecing people for their money in a pure scam to rob the parents of money meant to fund their children's health needs. He should've gotten much more jail time than what he did, but the plea bargain must've been what led to a shorter term. A pure disgrace.

Stabbing and murder at Parsons Green subway station

There's been another possible jihad stabbing in London that left at least one dead and 2 others injured:

A man died and two others were hospitalised after a horrifying triple stabbing outside Parsons Green Tube station in London.

The men were attacked outside the station shortly after 7.35pm.

Despite the attention of medics, one of the men was pronounced dead at the scene. Two others were taken to hospital.

It comes weeks after an alleged attempted bomb attack on a train at the station. Today's incident is not believed to be terror related.

Oh, what's that? I notice there's no meaty details given here as to the identity of the murderer, and that's only cause for suspicion of a cover up. After all, if the attacker had been a noticeable Christian, we'd be seeing it plastered all over the news everywhere. There's another tragedy that could've been avoided had Britain been more responsible years ago.

Nearly 60 Haredi anti-army hoodlums arrested for public disturbances

Extremist Shmuel Auerbach's bunch are at it again, because they won't recognize that draft-dodging is a felony. And they even harassed a lady soldier:

Dozens of Haredi protesters who were demonstrating last night against the arrest of military draft avoiders were documented surrounding a female soldier who was passing through the area. The protesters shouted at the soldier, calling her “shiksa,” a derogatory term for a non-Jewish woman, and an “animal” while she was attempting to clear the way for a vehicle.

Their antics included blocking traffic, and I was on a train unit the other day where I noticed some of it:

Nearly 60 ultra-Orthodox draft protesters were arrested on Monday and Tuesday for rioting in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak.

The violence followed the recent arrest of two members of the Jerusalem Faction, an extremist haredi organization that opposes ultra-Orthodox enlistment in the IDF.

The group’s leader, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, has called on his followers to protest the arrests, as well as the High Court of Justice’s decision to strike down the law exempting haredi Jews from compulsory military service while they are studying in yeshivot.

Video footage, taken at a Monday night protest in the capital, shows a police officer pulling his pistol, pointing it at violent haredi protesters, and saying, “Who wants a bullet?” The incident is under investigation.

In the video, the unidentified officer can be heard issuing the threat, holding the gun in his right hand, while walking aggressively toward a crowd of dozens of protesters at the intersection of Sarei Israel Boulevard and Jaffa Road.

Police said that when the officer arrived moments earlier, his SUV was besieged by protesters who rocked it back and forth and pelted it with objects while shouting insults.

“During the riot by members of the ultra-Orthodox community, the officer’s vehicle was surrounded and blocked by a number of protesters who threw rocks at it, began rocking it and shouted at him,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

“For his own personal safety, he exited the vehicle and pulled out his gun, which at no time was fired,” he continued. “Ten arrests were made of people throwing rocks and blocking roads and the light rail.”

If this is the case, then he's innocent of wrongdoing, and was acting in self-defense. The police are already fingering Auerbach as a suspect:

The police said Tuesday that the haredi anti-draft demonstrations and illegal roadblocks in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak were instigated by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, the leader of the radical Jerusalem faction.

If direct evidence is found linking the 86-year-old rabbi to the riots and the roadblocks, the 86-year old rabbi will be treated like any other citizen and be summoned for questioning, the police told Channel 2.

He should be arrested already for incitement to cause disruptions in public order. He's got blame to shoulder, and should have his bank accounts frozen and electricity subscription cancelled for all the trouble he's caused.

Will that be immediate deportation?

Emmanuel Macron's said that illegal immigrants in France who commit crimes will be deported:

Illegal immigrants who commit crimes in France will face deportation, President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, in an interview in which he also confirmed disgraced Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein will be stripped of the prestigious Legion d’Honneur.

In the wide-ranging interview, only the sixth Macron has given at home or abroad since his election in May, he said that even without new legislation “we can take tougher measures” and expel illegal immigrants if they commit a crime, “whatever it may be”.

He was speaking after it emerged that a Tunisian man who stabbed two women to death in the southern city of Marseille on October 1 had been arrested two days earlier for shoplifting in eastern Lyon.

The question is: will it be IMMEDIATE deportation, as soon as the monsters are arrested for their crimes? Because that's the only way to effectively ensure they'll be gone. We'll see if justice is done properly or not.

And since the subject of Harvey Weinstein's come up:

The Weinstein scandal comes as France is stepping up the fight against sexual harassment. “Today, too often, (women) don’t press charges because they don’t dare to,” Macron told the three journalists.

Weinstein — accused by several women of sexual harassment, groping and rape — was made a knight of the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest award, in 2012 in recognition of the efforts by Miramax, the company he founded with his brother Bob, to boost foreign films in the United States.

“I have taken steps to revoke the Legion d’Honneur (Legion of Honour),” Macron said in the interview aired on the TF1 TV channel.

The reason they may not dare in France is because the legal system is tilted against them, putting the burden of proof entirely upon them. In which case, does he want to repeal the law as it stands to also ensure race won't be a factor in how things are handled?

Israel Parks Authority is fudging geological dates so as not to offend Haredis who don't believe in it

The Israel Parks Authority has done something very dumb that they would do well to mend:

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority has been removing information on the age of the geological features at prime tourist spots so as not to risk losing ultra-Orthodox visitors who believe a literal biblical account that the world is less than 6,000 years old.

The practice came to light after Lior Tal, a visitor to the Soreq Stalactite Cave in the Judean hills, noticed that the age of the cave had been scrubbed off the signs there and there was no reference to the millions of years over which the unique formations formed. He asked the guide if this was deliberate and was told that it had been done in order not to offend the ultra-Orthodox visitors to the caves, he said.

Tal posted of his experience at the site on Facebook and received hundreds of comments, including by others who had found similar issues at other nature sites, including the famous Rosh Hanikra grottoes in northern Israel.

[...] The Parks Authority, a government organization that runs Israel’s 200 nature reserves and more than 70 national parks, acknowledged that ultra-Orthodox sensitivities were a factor in the content of its educational material.

“The Nature and Parks Authority offers its sites to the public in all its diversity, regardless of religion,” they said in a statement.

“The ultra-Orthodox visit the sites in large numbers and it is important to allow them to visit the national sites as part of their connection with society. The Parks’ Authority must also be sensitive to the needs of the ultra-Orthodox population,” it said.

Let me get this straight. They've been doubtlessly coming for decades, and now, all of a sudden, the park managers plunge into a "moral panic" and decide they MUST avoid offending over petty issues? They're an absolute disgrace, and the only way they'll be able to apologize is by restoring the correct data to the brochures and other material they removed it from. Their censorship is practically what led to a lot of other, far more terrible incidents, and if they don't want the public to think they support monsters, they'll restore all they threw out. Besides, what "connection" are the Haredis who shun scientific facts taking to society if they maintain such low visions?

That's why you can't just simply "accept" Islamization

Russia Today interviewed a French writer about a new book called "Partition", detailing how politicians practically accepted Islamofascism into the country, and the possibility that in the next decade, it'll become a new Lebanon:

In just a few years, Islamic suburbs of Paris will obey their own set of rules, they will have their own laws, their own principles, maybe even their own police. It is already the case, Alexandre Mendel, author of the book ‘Partition’ told RT.

Europe has been facing a large number of migrants coming from the war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East. Today many are concerned about the Islamization of Europe and the failure of Muslims assimilating into their new countries.

RT met with a writer Alexandre Mendel, whose new book “Partition” is devoted to the Muslims' failure to integrate in France, and discussed the current situation in that country.

RT: Please start by describing for our readers your book.

Alexandre Mendel: My last book, 'Jihadist France,' was only about the French terrorists. ‘Partition’ is mainly about Islamization of France, about what’s going on in France, in schools, hospitals, at work, in sports clubs, etc. I am not talking this time about terrorism itself, but about the way France decided whether the French government - like it or not – collaborated and accepted some kind of arrangements with Islam. This is the main topic of the book. [...]

RT: What should be done to integrate people into society? Is it only a Muslim thing, or other groups, as well?

AM: In my book, I say that there is no solution, because it is too late; there won’t be any solution. You can’t send them back to their country - they are French - the French cannot send them back. What France will become in the next 10 or 20 years will be a kind of new Lebanon in some places in France.

For example, take some suburbs in Paris: they will have their own set of rules, they will have their own laws, their own principals, maybe even their own police. It is already the case. The fact that in France right now in many places France has no control in these areas. We accepted it already and we won’t fight back to get these suburbs back to France. It is already done – we already lost the war against them.

So the rich people in France will be in the fancy neighborhoods of Paris, far from the problems, and then the poor people will have to deal with Islamism on a daily base. This is the way we accepted that already.

Well that's why, no matter what anybody thinks, you cannot stand idly by and accept that barbarians are literally "citizens" in every way, shape and form and cannot be exiled for their evils. Geert Wilders made the point that we can't just simply accept and that's it; societies have to be de-islamized to make them safer again.

Two positive steps taken against UN and Iran

First, the USA leadership is withdrawing from UNESCO because of their anti-Israelism (and undoubtably, their anti-Americanism):

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the foreign ministry to begin preparing to withdraw from UNESCO, following the U.S. announcement it will leave the United Nations cultural body due to its anti-Israel bias.

In a statement Thursday, Netanyahu welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to leave UNESCO, calling it a “moral decision” and that UNESCO “has become a theater of absurd. Instead of preserving history, it distorts it.”

And they should never return to their council so long as their obsessions remain. It'll save a lot of money, and help defund the UN as they should've been long ago.

Then, president Trump has wisely taken steps to decertify the Iran deal:

President Donald Trump announced in a White House speech Friday that he has decertified the Iranian nuclear deal as part of a new and tougher approach towards the Islamic Republic.

“We cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said. “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout.”

While the decertification stops short of pulling out of the agreement, the move hands the decision over to Congress to decide whether to reimpose sanctions originally lifted in 2015.

And if the Democrats are smart, they too will back all efforts to ensure inspection of Iran directly within is able to take place. In any case, Iran's dictatorship must be brought down.

It's easier in Israel to ordain female Orthodox rabbis than in America

The Times of Israel wrote about modern Orthodox rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who's been successful in training female religious representatives, and it turns out that, despite the bad policies of the Haredi-controlled rabbinate, it is possible to appoint women to prominent roles in Orthodox Judaism more easily here.

"Protestors" who set fire to French police car imprisoned

Sentences have been handed down to several anarchists who set fire to a police car in Paris while the drivers were still inside:

Seven people accused of launching a vicious attack on a police car in Paris last year have been handed prison sentences up to seven years.

The assailants used iron bars to attack the vehicle, which was stuck in traffic, and later set it alight with a Molotov cocktail. Footage of the attack was widely broadcast in France and the case caught media attention worldwide.

The attack in May 2016 took place on the sidelines of a demonstration staged by police officers denouncing violence against the force, following repeated clashes with protesters during marches against controversial labor law changes.

French media reported that Antonin Bernanos, who was accused of assaulting the driver inside the car, was handed a five-year sentence with two years suspended. The driver escaped with minor injuries.

They really should've given them at least 20 years, because of the severity of the offense, even if thankfully, nobody was killed in the assault.

Harvey Weinstein's got a long list of allegations against him

The movie mogul's been suffering serious fallout after the all the accusations of sexual harassment, and even rape, as some newer reports have stated. The New Yorker wrote all about Weinstein's huge laundry list. There's at least one unfortunate attempt to inject Donald Trump into this - apparently, the reporter couldn't resist a bias - but aside from that, it's clear Weinstein's as bad as Bill Cosby sadly turned out to be. The beginning has a very eyebrow-raising detail:

Since the establishment of the first studios a century ago, there have been few movie executives as dominant, or as domineering, as Harvey Weinstein. As the co-founder of the production-and-distribution companies Miramax and the Weinstein Company, he helped to reinvent the model for independent films, with movies such as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “The English Patient,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Crying Game,” “Shakespeare in Love,” and “The King’s Speech.” Beyond Hollywood, he has exercised his influence as a prolific fund-raiser for Democratic Party candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Weinstein combined a keen eye for promising scripts, directors, and actors with a bullying, even threatening, style of doing business, inspiring both fear and gratitude. His movies have earned more than three hundred Oscar nominations, and, at the annual awards ceremonies, he has been thanked more than almost anyone else in movie history, just after Steven Spielberg and right before God.

Yep, he was a boilerplate Democrat supporter. Somehow, it just totally figures.

For more than twenty years, Weinstein has also been trailed by rumors of sexual harassment and assault. This has been an open secret to many in Hollywood and beyond, but previous attempts by many publications, including The New Yorker, to investigate and publish the story over the years fell short of the demands of journalistic evidence. Too few people were willing to speak, much less allow a reporter to use their names, and Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements, monetary payoffs, and legal threats to suppress these myriad stories. Asia Argento, an Italian film actress and director, told me that she did not speak out until now—Weinstein, she told me, forcibly performed oral sex on her—because she feared that Weinstein would “crush” her. “I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento said. “That’s why this story—in my case, it’s twenty years old; some of them are older—has never come out.”

Last week, the New York Times, in a powerful report by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, revealed multiple allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein, a story that led to the resignation of four members of his company’s all-male board, and to Weinstein’s firing from the company.

So he even had an entirely male board of directors. That just demonstrates how bad male dominance still is in Hollywood, though obviously, there are women executives who've failed to protest the behavior of awful men like Weinstein.

Anyway, it looks like his career is finally destroyed, and he'll be run out of town, though unfortunately, there's still plenty of other creeps in Hollywood who may never be punished for their own deviations from humanity.

Leftist indoctrination damages a school in Minnesota

John Hinderaker at Power Line wrote about how a leftist-dominated school in Edina, Minnesota has practically ruined itself for the sake of pathetic, time-wasting leftist politics. He also provides a special video on the subject.

Theresa May is sticking with Iran deal

Some Britons already suspect May dislikes the Brexit vote as much as her predecessor and doesn't want to leave the EU. I think that could also explain why she's told Netanyahu that the UK is going to stick with supporting the Iran deal (Hat tip: Breitbart):

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his British counterpart, Theresa May, agreed on Monday that the international community needed to be “clear-eyed” about the threat posed by Iran in the Middle East even as May said the UK remained committed to the 2015 nuclear accord and praised its importance.

Speaking by telephone on Monday, Netanyahu and May discussed security cooperation, Israel-UK trade and the contentious nuclear deal signed two years ago between Tehran and the P5+1 world powers, which included the UK.

A spokesman for Downing Street said May noted to Netanyahu “the importance of the nuclear deal with Iran which has neutralized the possibility of the Iranians acquiring nuclear weapons for more than a decade.”

May told the Israeli leader, a vocal opponent of the deal, that the UK remained “firmly committed” to it and that it was “vitally important for regional security,” adding that Iranian compliance with the accord should be “carefully monitored and properly enforced.”

Except it never has been, and as far as I can tell, even the UK's not doing it any more than they're keeping their own country secure. The US will hopefully abandon it, but the UK so far is acting dreadfully on the subject, and it doesn't help Europe at all.

New documentary focuses on Roger Waters' antisemitism

United With Israel reported on the making of a new documentary exposing the antisemitism Roger Waters has been involved in promoting and encouraging:

Ahead of former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters’ Canadian tour in October, B’nai Brith Canada and award-winning filmmaker Ian Halperin are set to premiere a new film—“Wish You Weren’t Here”—exposing the anti-Israel rocker’s history of promoting anti-Semitism.

Waters—who has compared the Israeli government to Nazi Germany and has claimed the “powerful Jewish lobby” runs the media—is arguably the most vocal figure behind the anti-Israel BDS movement. He is also the most prominent voice in pressuring other artists to boycott performances in the Jewish state.

And for this, he's lost a lot of audience and some sponsors over the years, and nobody should be wasting any money on his concerts now. This is, interestingly and ideally, a documentary focusing on modern antisemitism:

“It starts with Roger Waters, but it’s all about contemporary anti-Semitism, which is thriving and the world is turning a blind eye,” Halperin said. “There’s no place for this in today’s world….It’s time to call a spade a spade.”

I'll be pleased if revolting and degrading figures like former French president Jaques Chirac are brought up, because they were responsible for enabling modern antisemitism to go over the edge. It's the modern antisemites as far back as the turn of the century, still around today, whom everybody needs to know about.

Muslim rape gangs still running rampant in UK

The Muslim rape gangs who violated tons of British girls are still a serious problem in the UK, yet the establishment is determined to "prove" it's not an Islamic problem (Hat tip: Jihad Watch):

Grooming gangs across the country are repeating the horrific abuse exposed in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and most recently Newcastle, victims and investigators have warned.

There are mounting calls for nationwide action to combat sexual exploitation, with authorities accused of playing catch-up after ignoring victims “for decades and decades”.

Sammy Woodhouse, who was abused as a teenager by the Rotherham ringleader Arshid “Mad Ash” Hussain and has waived her right to anonymity, said abuse was underway “all over the country”.

“It’s an issue for every town and city, more people are being failed,” she told The Independent. “I’m hearing a lot of new complaints from survivors.

“Some are saying they have been to the police and didn’t get taken seriously, others are getting support.

“But I think the Government is still trying to play this down and make out it’s not a major issue – they are not doing enough.”

Her calls for action came as figures show that in Bradford 1,153 referrals were made to its child sexual exploitation team in 2016/17 – a 62 per cent increase on the year before.

Bradford Metropolitan District Council’s specialist hub launched interventions for 861 children – including many who were referred more than once. The vast majority of possible victims are girls.

Ms Woodhouse said she had also noted a growing number of grooming victims contacting her who were from the city.

Authorities behind an investigation that identified more than 700 women and girls as potential victims of sexual exploitation in North East England believe the abuse is happening far beyond areas where perpetrators have been caught.

Pat Ritchie, the chief executive of Newcastle City Council, said “any area that says it does not have a problem is simply not looking for it”, while chief constable Steve Ashman of Northumbria Police told The Independent: “I think there’s every likelihood that this is happening in every town and city across the country.”

No doubt it's happening in London too. And it's bound to continue for years and years with very few of the victims getting justice for the terrible experiences they've been through.

UFC Octagon girls wear t-shirts to honor Las Vegas shooting victims

#Vegasstrong with these amazing women @ufc @vanessahanson @brookliyn_wren @chrissy_blair @ariannyceleste @ashleypiccone #ufc216

A post shared by Brittney Palmer (@brittneypalmer) on Oct 7, 2017 at 6:10pm PDT

To honor the victims of the Las Vegas shooting last week, the UFC's Octagon girls wore special Vegas Strong t-shirts. It's a good way to show unity in the face of terrible events.

Once again, Trump disappoints on moving US embassy to Jerusalem

Donald Trump has again become a letdown by saying he wouldn't move the American embassy to Jerusalem, all because a "peace deal" between Israel and the PLO is supposedly far more crucial:

President Donald Trump told former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in an interview broadcast on TBN Saturday that he would not move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem until he had tried to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The statement marks a significant walk-back of Trump’s campaign promise in 2016 to relocate the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “fairly quickly.”

It's regrettable if he considers making peace with an organization that adheres to evil more important in every way, shape and form than recognizing Israel's right to sovereignty over its own capitol. That's not going to do anything to encourage confidence in pro-Israelists, and won't change the anti-Israelists either.

A woman combatting sexual abuse in Haredi communities

Here's an interview in Haaretz with a woman who's fighting sexual assault in Haredi societies:

Attorney Rivka Schwartz remembers vividly the first time she ever heard about sexual abuse within the family. She was 16 at the time, attending summer camp. She and one of her best friends – also a Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, girl from Bnei Brak – were having trouble falling asleep. They talked well into the night, and Schwartz’s friend revealed something that astounded her.

“She told me that a member of her family was forcing himself on her,” Schwartz recalls now, speaking with Haaretz at a café in Jerusalem. “I was stunned. I hardly knew anything about [sexual] relations then, and certainly I didn’t think anything like that – sexual abuse – existed. None of us had internet access, and it wasn’t something that people talked about. I was also shocked because I knew the man. I felt guilty for not having seen it sooner. I didn’t understand how I could have known her for so many years without having the least idea.”

Schwartz decided she had to help her friend. “I sat with my mother in the kitchen and told her the whole story. She said, ‘No way, it can’t be.’ ... She said that maybe my friend had dreamed it and that I should let it go.”

But Schwartz, who is today 36, did not let it go. “I thought I was being smart, and I persuaded my friend to tell her parents. Their reaction was to accuse her of being immodest. They said she had seduced the man. She was sent to a school abroad to keep her away from him. Finally, she left Israel [for good], and afterward also the religious way of life. She broke with her family – and with me, too, because from her perspective I was the one who had harmed her. I’d encouraged her to tell her parents, and the result was that she’d been punished and lost her family and her whole world.”

Schwartz was haunted by the realization that, instead of helping, she had only made matters worse. But the lesson was clear.

“I understood that there was no one to turn to in such cases,” she says. “I am not someone who accepts the idea that nothing can be done. I decided that one day I would do something about it, so other 16-year-old girls in similar situations would have someone to turn to.

“The second thing I understood was that talking and exposure exact a steep price, so you have to know how to go about it. You mustn’t remain silent, but you have to know how to not stay silent. I decided that in the future I’d find a way to help other girls.”

However, that future had to wait. As one of 11 siblings in a family affiliated with the Vizhnitz Hasidic sect, Schwartz was steered from childhood into attending a Haredi girls’ school and marrying.

She only departed from the path to the extent that she refused to marry someone within the Vizhnitz court. And even that was related to the assault she’d been told about as a teenager.

“I didn’t want to marry anyone from a community where such things happen,” she explains now, adding, “Until then, I had the naive notion that it didn’t happen in other communities.”

The matchmaker suggested Meni Gira Schwartz, then a 19-year-old yeshiva student from a different sect, a businessman and also editor of Behadrei Haredim – which bills itself as “the world’s biggest Haredi website.” The parents on both sides weren’t enthusiastic, but the couple insisted, and three weeks after their first meeting they became engaged.

Schwartz, who was 19 when she married, subsequently continued her studies to become a teacher, training at an ultra-Orthodox seminary. She had two daughters, and at age 26 chose to enroll in the law faculty at Ono Academic College, in Kiryat Ono, near Tel Aviv. It was the only law school that would admit her without a high school matriculation certificate. She’s the only one of her siblings to receive an academic degree.

During her studies, Schwartz volunteered at the college’s legal clinic, the Noga Center for Victims of Crime. There, for the first time, she discovered that the scale of sexual abuse, in society in general, far exceeded what she had imagined, and was hardly confined exclusively to ultra-Orthodox sects.

“Not many Haredi women contacted the aid center,” she recalls. “But I realized that in the same way a woman would better understand another woman, a Haredi woman will understand another Haredi woman better. It was clear that a Haredi who was victimized should be treated with Haredi ‘tools.’”

Schwartz also volunteered at an Israel Bar Association clinic that offers pro bono legal assistance to indigent persons.

The clinic often received ultra-Orthodox who had experienced sexual assault, and referred them to the relevant organizations. That experience only reinforced Schwartz’s belief that a Haredi facility – with an understanding of that community’s special needs and language – was needed to help in such cases.

After completing her studies, Schwartz clerked in the criminal department at the State Prosecutor’s Office in Jerusalem, which marked the first time she encountered incidents of sexual assault – including in Haredi society – that were considered serious criminal offenses.

She also discovered that in some cases, ultra-Orthodox assailants were simply ignorant of the law. She cites the case of a man from the Haredi town of Modi’in Ilit, who wanted to appeal a 13-year prison term to which he had been sentenced after being convicted of having sexual relations with a boy of 12.

“The man had a business, where the boy worked as a messenger, and the close working ties between them led to forbidden relations,” Schwartz relates. “Years after those relations ended, when the boy was 21, the man tried to hug him when the two met by chance on the street. The victim re-experienced the trauma and filed a complaint. The assailant had no idea why he was being investigated. He told the interrogator, ‘The boy didn’t resist, it didn’t hurt him, he wanted me. He even came to me on his own.’”

The man was aware he had violated Jewish law, having had relations with another male, but wasn’t familiar with the concept of statutory rape, when a minor is involved – and a crime even if consensual.

“For him, it was like someone turning on a light on Shabbat,” explains Schwartz. “He said it was between him and God. He didn’t know there’s no such thing as consensual relations in such a case. The ignorance stemmed from a lack of awareness. We live in a closed community, but I see that not as [a means of] silencing but as protection. The community wants to protect its members.”

On the condition that it’s really protection and doesn’t expose others to danger.

“Right. In the past, the community prevented exposure and wider publicity of these cases. The Haredi media didn’t report them. The Haredi public didn’t hear about them. When offenders were put on trial, I [as a member of the community] didn’t know about them.

“When I started to work in the State Prosecutor’s Office, I was shocked by the scale of the phenomenon. I realized that people who had suddenly disappeared from the landscape, and were said to be abroad, were actually in jail. The public wasn’t aware they’d been punished, so there was no deterrent effect.”

While clerking six years ago, during a tour of a Social Affairs Ministry center in Jerusalem that treats sexually abused children, Schwartz learned that 75 percent of the youngsters treated there came from ultra-Orthodox families. Though this was due in part to the high proportion of Haredim in the city, the information staggered her.

Schwartz: “I wrote about this in a Haredi Facebook forum, noting the high percentage of Haredi victims and the fact that people were in prison and we didn’t know the first thing about it. In response, people accused me of defaming the community. They said I was making things up. The forum’s manager told me we don’t wash our dirty linen in public, and deleted the post. I felt helpless. I wanted to fight the ignorance, so that potential offenders would know what lies in store for them from the legal standpoint, and preclude such cases.”

In-depth care

In 2013, after starting her own law firm, Schwartz founded Min Hameitzar (“From the Depths”), an organization that provides support and legal assistance to Haredi victims of sexual abuse.

She manages the organization, which operates on a national basis, with the aid of three administrative assistants and a team of volunteer lawyers. When it comes to psychological assistance, Min Hameitzar cooperates with other groups, such as Bayit Cham (“Warm Home”), which works with both at-risk teens and adults in ultra-Orthodox communities.

“Min Hameitzar is an organization that’s about victims, not criminals,” Schwartz says. “That’s the motto. The aim is to assist victims as such, and not necessarily to hunt down the offenders. I want to do what’s good for the victim. If it’s necessary to file a [formal legal] complaint, we will do that. If not, we won’t. If what they need is assistance in submitting a request to the National Insurance Institute to determine the level of their disability, that’s what will happen.

“We provide a response for a range of needs of the Haredi victim,” she continues. “That means psychological support, helping during criminal proceedings, representation in damages suits, assistance in dealing with social welfare, National Insurance and other authorities. It’s all on a voluntary basis. Our work also involves enhancing awareness by writing educational programs about prevention and organizing conferences.”

How does your organization’s work differ from the treatment of similar cases among the secular population?

“Overall it’s the same, but at the practical level, the professionals are Haredim and the cultural language they use in the treatment is different. At the time we founded the organization, there was only one investigator dealing with cases involving Haredi children in the whole country. In time, it was understood that Haredi society could learn the professional tools – psychological and legal alike – from the outside and use them in treatment within the community.

“Many studies have shown that if the therapist is from the same community as the person he’s treating, the treatment is more effective. Statistically, when the therapists and the investigators belong to the same community as the victims in criminal cases, there are more convictions.”

Isn’t there concern that people from within the community will encourage a policy of silence?

Schwartz is incensed by the question. “I don’t for a minute doubt the ethics of the professional therapists. Rabbis, too, have clear rules about when it’s necessary to file a complaint with the police – for example, in cases where it’s clear the offender is likely to assault others.

“In contrast, my ethics have been ‘doubted’ in the past. Recently, I was at a hearing as the lawyer representing victims in the case of a Haredi advertising man who was accused of rape. The defense counsel asked me to leave the courtroom, claiming I was liable to obstruct justice. The judge had me removed, contrary to the victims’ rights law. But the next day, it was actually the defense counsel himself who leaked to the press all the evidence he’d presented in court, which he didn’t want me to know about.”

In recent years, the Israel Police have hired 16 investigators, both men and women, to work within the ultra-Orthodox community. Even so, professionals in the field maintain that police handling of cases of sexual assault in the Haredi community is inadequate.

To begin with, 16 officers out of a police force of some 35,000 is an extremely small fraction, especially in light of the fact that the ultra-Orthodox public constitutes 12 percent of the country’s population. In Jerusalem, for example, there are only two Haredi investigators. The result is that many assault cases go unreported.

In addition, according to informed sources, in many cases victims who are willing to file a complaint find that, when seeking help from the police, they encounter a lack of cooperation, unclear terminology and an inadequate explanation of the procedures and possible consequences.

“The interrogation of a victim of sexual assault is always a difficult experience,” a source in one aid organization says.

“For example, when a Haredi woman is asked about an orgasm – and these are questions the police ask – and it’s a word she’s never heard before, that’s a problematic situation. There isn’t enough social support for the complainants even among the secular public, still less in the Haredi community. A woman who files a rape complaint will be asked by people in her circle how she ever found herself in a situation in which she was alone with the perpetrator in a room. It’s a case of being victimized twice.”

Still, the presence of Haredi interrogators has substantially improved both the attitude of the police toward the community and communication with it.

Says Schwartz: “These investigators understand the Haredi nuances and cultural language. The Haredi interrogator is able to ask questions that only Haredim would understand. For example, a suspect said he did nothing bad, that the boy only sat on his lap during a religious lesson. The Haredi policewoman asked him how he could have touched the boy and not washed his hands afterward, before returning to sacred matters. That’s a question a secular interrogator would never think of asking. At that point the suspect found himself in trouble and the case took a major turn.”

She gives another example: “A Haredi child is incapable of uttering words that he perceives as immodest, like names of the body organs the assailant touched. He’s used to having his mouth slapped if he speaks those words. He will say ‘below.’ That’s not enough for an indictment. You have to say exactly where. A Haredi interrogator understands that the boy will try to avoid those words,” and will find a way to work around the problem.

The rabbis’ role

According to state prosecutor Lizu Wolfus, who is in charge of cases of sexual assault in the Jerusalem District, recent years have seen a highly significant change in Haredi society’s approach to this subject, and groups like Min Hameitzar are among the reasons for this.

“Rivka understands the criminal process and is able to simplify it into the victims’ language,” Wolfus says. “It’s also significant that she can convey to them the law pertaining to the rights of victims of abuse, which is complicated. And, of course, there’s significance in the fact that she’s a female attorney – the women in her community see her as a feminist model. She helps girls at the lowest point of their lives, and that naturally enhances the role model.”

Wolfus, like Schwartz, refutes the widespread notion that it’s the rabbis who prevent complaints from being submitted. “In the cases I have handled,” the prosecutor notes, “I don’t recall even one in which a rabbi blocked submission of a complaint to the police. I do know of cases in which important, well-known rabbis did a great deal for victims – referring them to helping organizations and the police, helping uncover [the perpetrator] and even testifying.”

For her part, Schwartz argues that “it’s all too easy to accuse the rabbis of silencing things. But I have yet to meet a rabbi who did not allow me to handle a case. Not every case is suitable for a complaint to the police, but there wasn’t a single rabbi who told me not to deal with a case or tried to ‘silence’ the matter. Sometimes matters have to be dealt with within Haredi frameworks, but the rabbis don’t prevent this.”

Are things done more discreetly within Haredi frameworks?

“Yes. An effort is made to avoid making the offender’s name public, in order not to hurt his family, but certainly no one says not to deal with it or to go to the authorities. For example, the offender’s name is never published on Behadrei Haredim until there’s a court conviction. That’s an approach I agree with. Even the director general of the Justice Ministry, Emi Palmor, recently concurred in the opinion that, for the benefit of all parties, the accused’s name should not be made public. The offender’s name is not important to the public. What’s important is for the public to know that the incident happened, so they will be careful.”

Occasionally, however, there are reports about specific ultra-Orthodox rabbis who are said to have tried to silence complainants. One such case, which surfaced two years ago, involved a pedophile who assaulted children in Modi’in Ilit. Rabbis prevented a formal complaint from being filed against him and made do with “exiling” him to Bnei Brak – where he attacked another girl.

“I can’t tell you about cases that I didn’t handle,” Schwartz says. “I can testify to what I am familiar with, namely that in regard to the obligation to report, which exists when the victims are minors, I have always obtained full cooperation from the rabbis.

“Recently there was a story of a grandfather who assaulted his granddaughters for years. The parents came to me and demanded that we go to a rabbi. He said that a formal complaint had to be filed. The grandfather was [convicted and] a few weeks ago was sent to prison.”

At the same time, Schwartz is adamant that in cases in which reporting an event is not mandatory – because no minors are involved – going to the police is not always the most appropriate solution.

“The police are only a means, they are not the goal,” she explains. “The primary goal is to help the victims. Here, too, I always see full cooperation from the rabbis. There were occasional cases when we wanted to file a complaint, and the rabbis of the victims’ communities asked whether I thought it was essential to get the police involved. I always found a way to conduct a dialogue and arrive at an arrangement that was mutually acceptable. It’s also very helpful to the victims when the rabbis support them, whether that involves going to the police or psychological treatment.”

How do you enter into a dialogue with the rabbis?

“We try to make them aware of the victims’ feelings, and not berate or offend them. Recently, I met a rabbi in a community in which a woman who was abused filed a complaint with us; what the rabbi would say was very important to her. He is a person of great stature, but extremely conservative. When we entered, he immediately asked whether I was going to record him. I told him, ‘I am not from the media, I am here to get support from the rabbi.’ In the end he told the woman she should give thanks every day that she found Min Hameitzar, and he encouraged her to go to the authorities. The rabbis don’t kick me out, because I come to them in the spirit of dialogue based on shared values. I don’t come to them with a knife.”

As an independent, feminist woman, doesn’t it infuriate you to have to go through bodies consisting of men who get to decide how to proceed and must authorize every move you make?

“Infuriating or not, that’s the situation. There’s no point railing against it. Among the ultra-Orthodox, when something happens, you don’t go to a professional. If someone in the secular population is very sick, for example, he finds the best doctor and goes to him. A Haredi goes to a functionary, and the functionary refers him to a doctor. If you were arrested on suspicion of having committed an offense, you would hire a lawyer; the Haredi goes to a functionary, who sends him to a lawyer. If a child is harmed, they don’t turn to the welfare authorities, but to the local rabbi or functionary. That’s what is called ‘Haredi nuances.’ The achievement is that, whereas in the past the functionaries and rabbis tried to handle matters in their ways, today, thanks to growing awareness, they know they should refer people to us or to the authorities.

“What’s important,” Schwartz continues, “is for the rabbis to cooperate and not try to deal with things themselves, as they did in the past.”

In general, she adds, “The bureaucracy is very tough. It’s very difficult to get a case to the indictment stage when it involves a minor, for example, because the case can very quickly be ‘contaminated.’

“In the case of a young child, it’s always possible to claim he has a highly developed imagination or that his mother ‘helped him to remember.’ A recent check of data in the Be’er Sheva branch of the Beit Lynn network – of centers for the protection of minors who have been sexually assaulted – found that only 15 percent of the complaints they receive about minors lead to indictments.”

Muting the ‘S’ word

One of the major changes that Min Hameitzar has spearheaded, says Schwartz, is the heightened awareness that exists among the Haredi public about the very existence of sexual abuse, and the possibility of their talking about it, even before seeking the pro bono aid she offers. Nonetheless, there is still much work to be done, and she remains – at age 36 and the mother of four children – true to her idealistic 16-year-old self, who wanted the world to hear about the horrors perpetrated behind closed doors.

Among her many pursuits, Schwartz co-manages the largest Haredi Facebook group on the web, which has 17,000 members.

The closed group, whose name translates as “Some girls, and what’s between them,” was established “with the aim of speaking and sharing socially,” Schwartz explains, “and became a social-economic initiative. You can share anonymously in the group. Many women have described sexual abuses from their childhood, violent husbands, abusive parents. They receive vast support and advice and a hug from the public. It’s part of the revolution. After sharing online, some women told their story openly and asked for help. That has led to the creation of more aid organizations.”

In Schwartz’s view, the increasing number of organizations seeking to help victims isn’t a completely positive phenomenon. There are unqualified therapists who sometimes cause the victims serious harm.

“Some groups don’t have proper training but purport to assist victims of sexual assault,” she points out. “Charlatanism is rampant in this field. We have dealt with many cases in which secondary damage was caused – such as a father who raped his daughters, who were then taken by the mother to a psychologist who wasn’t qualified. The therapist extorted money from them by threatening to tell everyone what happened, and also tried to dissuade the girls from lodging a complaint against the father. She [the therapist] is now on trial.”

There are assistance organizations that are, to her mind, too occupied with exposing incidents of assault and the names of the offenders even before they have been brought to trial, she adds. In some instances, they make public material that Schwartz says is “verging on pornography,” without considering the damage liable to be caused to the families or the victims themselves. “Undue exposure is also liable to frighten the public. Our goal is to bring about a meaningful change from the bottom up, from the public, not to create fear,” she notes.

The boundary between silencing and discretion can be elusive.

“There are groups that describe Haredi society as primitive for not giving children sex education, or educating them in self-defense. But that’s not so today. Haredim don’t silence people, but they aren’t always eager to make things public. There’s a sensitivity that has to be taken into account. A child who’s abused and has his name publicized is a marked person. A person who’s charged is marked, as is his whole family.

“Every case we deal with and that you hear about in the media went through a rabbi. The Torah demands that we deal with it. For example, after the rape of Dinah in Shechem [Genesis 34], her brothers came to avenge her [by killing all the men of Shechem]. The Torah says, ‘You will sweep out evil from your midst.’

“It’s not like other sensitive issues, such as agunot [women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce]. To bring about a change for agunot, you need to change the halakha [Jewish religious law]. But in the case of sexual abuse, the halakha is with us and the Torah is with us. The rabbi won’t say that the matter should not be dealt with, but he will say it must be treated in a way that avoids harm to the community.”

One of the most sensitive issues Schwartz has to deal with is the language used. The word “sex,” for example, is beyond the pale. “I don’t use the term ‘victim of sexual assault,’ but ‘assistance to victims of an offense,’ and everyone knows what is meant,” she says. “That also goes hand in hand with legal language. The law, for example, is called the Rights of Victims of Offenses Law. Sexual abuse is a societal ill. I want the treatment in Haredi society to be done in a language that’s appropriate for ‘subjects about which silence is golden,’ but at the same time not to silence things. If that means conducting an entire conversation with a child in which the word ‘sex’ is not used, then it won’t be used, but the child will understand what he needs to be wary of.”

Does Haredi society have an institution comparable to the Takana Forum in religious-Zionist society, which tries to cope with sexual abuse without involving law enforcement authorities?

“Takana Forum is a splendid idea. It exists in the Haredi community to a certain extent – there’s a committee of rabbis that works with the social welfare services. If reporting is not mandated by law, and if the welfare official decides that it might be possible to deal with it within the community, by means that do not necessarily involve other intervention – the social welfare people consult with the rabbis committee.”

What about the danger to public safety? After all, reporting to the police isn’t intended to help the victim but to prevent the offender from harming others.

“One consideration is whether the offender will go on doing harm. We apprise the victim of that consideration, both in conversations and during a treatment process. We have a case of a man who was abused when he was a minor. When he arrived, he wasn’t capable of submitting a complaint, and he started treatment. After a few months, he was ready to file a complaint with the police. There are some who will never be mentally ready. Our approach does not come from a place of wishing to conceal, but from a place of wishing to assist the victim.”

It's always good to see somebody's willing to stand up and confront the insularists who damage psyches.