If You Tickle Us...

-------- Original message -------- Subject: NHAYS: Beis Din Tsedek From: NHAYS Webmaster < webmaster@northhendon.co.uk > To: mailinglist@northhendon.co.uk CC: Sent on behalf of the Executive: This is a statement to confirm that the Executive and Board of Management are most surprised that our Rov has been appointed to represent a 'Beis Din Tsedek' in the local case (see here ). This has been done without our knowledge and is therefore totally independent of our shul. Yours sincerely, The Executive of NHAYS

Channel 4’s news item on the programme

Guest post by “Pen Tivakesh” The so-called “unfortunate” Channel 4 Dispatches programme is about to hit the airwaves, and the UOHC has done it again. It has laid bare its wares and showcased its blatant disregard for anything but the safeguarding of its own precarious existence. Nothing is more indicative of this than Rav Padwa’s characteristically myopic and blinkered response which is bound to spread further the rot decaying the UOHC’s rickety construction. Rav Padwa: if it is indeed so important to you that our children are protected from harm, where on God’s earth have you been hitherto? Why have you to date cared so little for the pain and suffering of children and of victims of child abuse? Why have you shown them the door on numerous occasions citing their inadmissibility as witnesses owing to your own dark-age interpretation of Halacha ? If child protection is indeed so important to you, why do you still allow school teachers to beat their charges black and blue at the schoo...

13 Shvat 5773 [24 January 2013] To Rabbis, Educators and Heads of Educational Institutions here [in London] UOHC and Child Protection Parents and educational institutions in our community dedicate themselves to bringing up and educating pure souls and to raise them and watch over them with sanctity and purity, and with the help of God have much success. Guarding our precious children and protecting them from all harm and abuse is of course essential. It is therefore incumbent on us to treat every complaint of abuse, God forbid, very seriously. We need to understand how to deal with this appropriately, [how] to institute safeguards to prevent such possibilities and to provide appropriate support to those who have been abused. There exists a special committee appointed by the Union to deal with cases of abuse, God forbid, of children in our community. Members of the committee are rabbis, educators and community members some of whom have have been trained in how to deal appropria...

In the furore that has recently gripped us all a small news item in the JC back in October of last year may have been overlooked. Nothing ground breaking, if that's not a metaphor too far, since we're only talking about a tiny little baby of a few days old, born prematurely and which is dead anyway. It's not even relevant to its manner of dying but rather its burial and the inconsequential matter of a mother wishing to discover her baby's burial place. But still I think it's important enough not to have the story buried, if you'll excuse the pun, during this bad news period. It was the caring and feeling Adath that took charge of the cadaver and interred it out of sight hoping it would remain out of mind. Along comes mum several years later asking the outlandish question of where the dead body is bestowed. Trust our Adath to come up with a humane answer to this apparently insoluble query which may have taxed even the brains of Solomon. And true to character t...

Guest Post (with a not altogether silent host) Dear "still not in the no" I have hesitated to respond to your inquisitive comments for I am fearful of incurring the displeasure of my Divrei Chaim brethren, and hope I shall not be banished from the DC magic circle for disclosing the clandestine mysticism oft-practiced in our cult. As you must have heard, we entrusted our entire life including our womenfolk and children to our Rebbe. Some even accorded to him the ancient right of droit du seigneur but it is said that our Rebbe, renown for his asceticism and self-abnegation, would exhort that the bride merely have him in mind during the Great Act rather than participate in it in person. We would pose to him all queries concerning our businesses and families for we knew Him to be the source of all knowledge. We would include even such esoteric topics as psychotherapy, tax avoidance and gynaecology and never would he fail us. Our Rebbe is a practitioner too of the ancient art...

Strange that the ‘signature given’ to the notice proclaiming that, despite myriad allegations, Chaim Halpern may continue in all public positions was in Hebrew, while the above retraction is in English. Is this playing to different audiences or is it revealing of the signatory’s attitude to our collective mother tongue? To me at least it suggests that Hebrew is for zealotry while common sense comes in English.

Part II So where were we before we were rudely interrupted by a Beis Din that will/will not take place? A (no) Show Trial where the judges are brought kicking and screaming, the witnesses are nowhere to be seen and the guy in the dock is smirking like a combatant after a prize-winning wrestle. Stalin couldn’t even have thought this one up but they call it justice round here. They even had me fool standing at the door with a hand on the mezuzah returning thinking it was a final curtain call, but which turned out to be a fly-by-night Beis Din stuck on the runway. Firstly, thanks for all the kind words and sentiments expressed. 'Mertshem by you,' you can see me nodding in all directions. 'Not at all, it was mamesh our pleasure. Ach don't be silly,' I say to those who insist on helping take home the half bottles of cherryade and unopened plonk because the waiters were under orders to hide the corkscrew openers. ' Loz , the goyim will look after it. Mach zich ...

Sorry for the quality of the images. You’ll have to buy tomorrow’s paper or wait till they are put up online.

First Anti Halpern Letter Note on translation: Since the text waffles on in places I have omitted the less relevant passages. The letter refers to Rav Padwa in the 3rd person which has been changed to direct speech. Committee of Rabbis of NW London Days of Selichos Elul 5772 [September 2012] To the Gaavad of the UOHC Rabbi M.C.E Padwa shlita We have become aware that one of the Dayanim, a member of the Union Rabbinate, is involved in obscene acts with married women. By ‘obscene’ we mean deeds that according to all [halachic] opinions are within the category of an obligation of martyrdom rather than commit the acts. Many women have testified that he speaks freely in the most licentious of manners. To our great consternation, his actions too are of an extremely grave nature. Those close to the matter have said that even if he has yet to transgress the prohibition against adultery, there is considerable concern that he may commit such acts too in the near future, God forbid. ...

This comment was left by someone calling himself 'We are victims too' I was thinking of writing for a long time, and tonight after reading the many comments, I have decided to take the plunge and I hope people will be kind and read my post in the way it was intended. I am referring to the many attacks against the "evil", "selfish", "foolish", "irresponsible" " baalei machloikes " leftover DC mispalelim. Please understand, we the leftover DC mispalelim are victims ourselves. We now KNOW and realise the sad truth, but we cannot leave because we were imprisoned by R' Padva. You need to remember, when R' Padva promised the B'Din there were mainly just lots of rumours but no clear public guidance from rabbonim, so some of us had no motivation or courage to jump ship and leave. Many of us had the subconscious thought of "lets wait another week". The moment R'Padva said that he was getting a...

Open Letter from "yankel" Dear Mr Frand, Firstly, let me introduce myself. I'm just an average Golders Greener, have only eaten Kedassia meat for the last 40 plus years, used to daven in Halpern shuls, but still daven in very right wing shuls (no eiruv carriers) send my kids to the most frum schools in NW, and try and do whats right in the eyes of Hashem. I go to work everyday, schvitzing to make a living to enable me to bring up my kids frum and correctly. Oy and 1 more thing I almost forgot to mention - I try to respect what my Rabonim and magid shiurim have to say. Your letter throws all this to the wind! What message are you sending out to me? I can't trust my rabonim I've learnt from and davened with for all these decades? I may as well send my kids to Christ College; they will probably end up being better guided knowing right from wrong! (Will save a fortune in school fees too!) I am thoroughly appalled by your recent announcement naming 3 ra...

The time has come to bow out of Towelgate. I shan't refer to it as the 'Painful Saga' as those who coined that name had in mind only the pain of the poor accused and his 'distinguished family'. But not a word was heard from those quarters to acknowledge even the existence of victims and never mind a kind word for their pain. It's a propitious time of year for reckoning so as we move on from the winter of discontent that has rocked our community it wouldn't be a bad idea to stand back and reflect. The basic facts hardly need repeating and the outcome is still far from certain. The reverberations will be felt for some time to come and there will be ample opportunity to analyse the causes and effects, exposures and cover ups, successes and setbacks, and winners and losers. On balance, however, I think we as a community have plenty to be proud of. We have shown that rabbis too can be responsive when the weight of public anger is brought to bear down on them. D...

Harav Wosner's T'Shuvah, Highlights By ‘Moish’ Much of the confusion in the recent case has been due to the fact that there is so little by way of precedent in terms of how to deal with rabbis who are alleged to have acted 'improperly'. Within the Charedi world, although such issues have surely arisen, they have been dealt with (if at all) so furtively as to leave barely a smidgen of record in the halachic literature. Precedents from the Modern Orthodox community are easier to find, but, well, they're modern anyway so what do you expect? The one recent case that does spring to mind is that of Rabbi Mordechai Tendler of Monsey. Without going into details, the rabbi concerned was expelled from the American RCA on account of his alleged misbehaviour with women in a counselling context (ring any bells?) and a group of his local colleagues took it upon themselves to examine the evidence against him and proceeded to publicise their verdict. Whilst the parallels are fa...

Leil Yud Tes Teves 5763 [1 January 2013] Statement The Union may not be responsible for the alleged misbehaviour of one its Dayonim. However its lack of willingness or ability to deal with the matter in any way is perceived to be unacceptable and is a matter of great embarrassment. As a result we have been put in an impossible position where our Shul has fallen victim to the situation just by virtue of our official association with the Union. We must do all that we can to protect the Shul and its membership from this. The internal equilibrium and stability of our k ehilla is far more important than with whom our Shul is affiliated. I am therefore fully behind the Executives decision to call this meeting, in order to examine and explore our options. We must take into account all the ramifications of any decision we make. We need to enlist Hakodosh Boruch Hu ’s help to make the correct decision, and many more t efillos to invoke His rachamim that this terribly destructive g ...