Fill The Void

      I recently saw the movie  Israeli movie Fill The Void . Fill The Void is an Israeli movie about a chassidic family in Israel. The oldest daughter dies in childbirth and a shidduch between the the younger sister and her sister's widowed (not sure this is the right term) husband. The actual plot is not the point. The point of the movie is that it shows this family as real people and the thought processes they go through to make their decisions. It is also a film directed by an orthodox Jewish woman. I think that this movie shows religious Jews in a very positive light. Definitely five stars. 

hush

i just finished reading the book hush by  a woman whose pseudonym is eishes chayil..i am in awe.
sexual abuse in the clergy is not a new thing especially among the catholics. these issues have only been out in the open in the recent past. sexual abuse of children is not limited to any particular religious group and isnt only something priests do to catholic school children. its an equal opportunity psychological disorder.
 recently chassidishe as well as yeshivish pediphiles have polluted the airwaves with scandal. what had once been taboo to discuss has been blown out of the water. exposing such monsters does not mean that everyone who is chassidishe or yeshivish is a pedophile just like all catholic priests are not pedophiles either. the point of blowing the cover of such scoundrels is to protect the innocent who have been scarred by such monsters and to not let them ever commit such vile acts again.
a woman who calls herself eishes chayil witnessed her childhood friend being molested. she also knew of a boy who had hung himself because he had been molested. the community she grew up in was hush-hush about these events. they didn't want anyone to know lest it ruin their chances for shidduchim. eishes chayil wanted to wake people up. sexual abuse of  children occurs in every community and must be addressed so there will never be another child  suffering from sexual abuse. eishes chayil succeeds in conveying her message by portraying a multifaceted, loving  and g-d fearing community of chassidim who are a bit too  concerned with being spurned by the community for condemning child molestation and not concerned enough about preventing it in the first place. it might ruin their shidduch chances. it might cause them to be threatened  physically. this type of ignorance must not continue.                                                                             because this is a novel and not just a newspaper article eishes chayil was able to show us the beauty and innocence of a chassidishe lifestyle. chassidim may be much too concerned with what the jones' will say but they are also basically caring people.they  just need to work on this issue.  we don't need any more young men jumping from their hotel windows on their wedding night because they were molested as a children.
there is a reason why the world is more open about psychological disorders. it is so those who chas v'shalom have to endure such atrocities will be able to be helped and so abusers will stop.
when a frum community ignores the cries of those who are molested because it may be lashon hara or because  it could ruin the good name of the molester's family that community is condoning molestation. silence is acquiescence. the torah does not say one should stand idly by while children are abused. that is not torah and it is not frumkeit. it seems the chassidim are more concerned with the good of many rather than the well being of an individual. im not sure why. i know that ive learned in the modern orthodox school that i went to as a child that if you save one person it is as if you have saved an entire world. if one person is murdered it is as if a whole world has been destroyed. is this not a chassidishe or yeshivish concept? i thought that this was what the torah espouses. period.
everyone loses when molestation occurs . the victim as well as all of their friends and family.
thank you eishes chayil for writing this tenderly  written  book about such a grievous issue. if it will help but  one child be safe it will have been successful.  may this book protect  us all.

oy gevald!

if you want to know why we are still in galus see the documentary film gevald. i did and now i know that the biggest danger for the state of israel is not the arabs, its the jews. apparently those who are ostensibly fervently orthodox have lost site of what ahavas yisroel is.
i saw gevald this past monday at the jewish film festival in new york city. gevald chronicles the ideologies of rabbi shmuel chaim pappenheim and the late rabbi avraham ravitz.
rabbi pappenheim hates secular jews and anyone who does not believe as he does. he is from a sect of chassidim that are a bankrolled by satmar chassidim in new square. this sect is anti-israel and only leave their enclave to rally against the state of israel. for them it is a great honor to be jailed for rallying against the state of israel. for their children they distribute propoganda books that equate secular jews to the nazis not unlike how the arabs distribute anti-jewish propoganda books to their children.
rabbi avraham ravitz was perhaps just as strict as rabbi pappenheim, but he believes in working within the system to fight for charedi rights as opposed to hooligan tactics. he and his wife had a home that was open to guests. his wife was actually shown on screen as well as one of his sons and some of his grandchildren. according to rabbi ravitz the jews of meah shearim danced with joy when israel became a state. he even showed a picture of it on screen. alot has happened in 60 years.
there is an old joke about how if you have two jews in a room you will have three opinions. so you can imagine that within a country full of jews that everyone will have his opinions and then some. to me someone like rabbi ravitz who tried to change israel within the structure of the government is more respectable even if i dont agree with all that he stood for. rabbi pappenheim on the other hand is a pure disgrace to the jewish people . he hates other jews for not being exactly as he is and defends his actions by saying that this is what the torah wants. it is not what the torah wants. the bais hamikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam and because we cannot seem to get along with each other. apparently we haven't learned a thing.
when israel was established the secular jews did do alot wrong to the religious jews , especially the yemenite jews, but two wrongs dont make a right. if the religious route is the high road then we should live it, not stoop to the lowest level. if you want change to really happen, you have to seek it in a way that will be taken seriously. it seems that rabbi ravitz tried to do this. rabbi pappenheim would prefer to be a haylegah thug.