Tag: Orthodox

Putin’s Unholy Alliance With Orthodox Church To Persecute Gays

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Persecution of Gays, Russian Theocracy, Unholy Alliance, Vladimir Putin

Putin’s Unholy Alliance With Orthodox Church To Persecute Gays
by Susie Madrak

Vladimir Putin is not your typical head of state. He’s a thug, and Russia is a state run by gangsters. Frank Schaeffer, who (having grown up in the bosom of the Christian right) knows a thing or two about religious hate, writes about Putin’s unholy alliance with the Orthodox Church to persecute gays:

With the disgusting acquiescence of the Russian Orthodox bishops, Vladimir Putin has accomplished what Sarah Palin, Franklin Graham and Michele Bachmann could only dream of doing in America. He’s made it okay to persecute gay people people in Russia. Putin has built his power base of corruption and terror with the help of the religious and conservative elements of his society. He’s become expert at courting the alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church. And here in America conservatives are lining up to defend Putin. For instance, writing in The American Conservative,  in an article called Culture War Goes Global, (August 13, 3013) Patrick J. Buchanan writes:

As Father Regis Scanlon writes in Crisis Magazine, in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated Catholic doctrine that homosexuality is a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” an “objective disorder.” That homosexual acts are unnatural and immoral remains Catholic teaching.

Thus, if we seek to build a Good Society by traditional Catholic and Christian standards, why should not homosexual propaganda be treated the same as racist or anti-Semitic propaganda? …. “The adoption of Christianity,” declared Putin, “became a turning point in the fate of our fatherland, made it an inseparable part of the Christian civilization and helped turn it into one of the largest world powers.” Anyone ever heard anything like that from the Post, the Times, or Barack Hussein Obama?

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, took to TV to say that “liberalism will lead to legal collapse and then the Apocalypse.” On another occasion, he called Putin’s rule “a miracle.” When convening the heads and senior members of 15 Orthodox Churches for an unprecedented meeting at the Kremlin in the summer of 2013, Putin praised the moral authority of the church. “It is important that relations between the state and the church are developing at a new level,” Putin said in televised remarks, with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill by his side. “We act as genuine partners and colleagues to solve the most pressing domestic and international tasks, to implement joint initiatives for the benefit of our country and people,” he told the clerics.

Alongside Kirill, those present included Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, Theophilos III of Jerusalem and Ilia II of Georgia. Also present were the heads of the Bulgarian, Serbian, Polish and Cypriot Orthodox Churches. Together they represented more than 227 million faithful.

To my knowledge not one American Orthodox bishop protested this meeting. I’m reminded of the silence of most of the German churches during the rise of Hitler.As a member of the Orthodox Church, in this case the Greek Orthodox Church, I’m ashamed.

Where are the voices of Orthodox leadership, not only in Russia but here, denouncing this awful man and the terror he’s unleashing against gay men and women? Putin has presided over show-trial prosecutions of political opponents and reformers. He’s used the full weight of his government against artists who mock religion. He’s encouraged the liquidation of crusading journalists who have been beaten and murdered. Putin and his government may have been directly involved in at least one such killing.

Now with the approval of the Russian bishops Putin is inventing a new enemy to distract attention from his fascist takeover of Russia: Russia’s LGBT men and women. As Adam Lee, a writer living in New York City points out in an article published byAlternet, Putin’s “parliament” passed increasingly draconian anti-gay laws. Russian activists have even been arrested for just holding up a signs reading “Gay is normal.”A bill now under consideration would take away children (both adopted and biological) from gay and lesbian parents. With the Russian Church, parliament and Putin saying that LGBT people aren’t fully human, homophobes in Russia are emboldened. The torture and murder of gay people, by gangs of skinheads assaulting gay-rights protestors in public, with the police looking on,is happening. And American evangelical Christians think this is all great. So, apparently judging by their silence, do American Orthodox church leaders.NOW American evangelical and Roman Catholic right-wing haters are climbing aboard the Russian hate parade .

Click back to Adam Lee’s Alternet story to see just how eagerly right-wing Christians are fanning the flames.

Related articles

The Fear of the Rabbis | Jewish Ultra-Orthodox Oppression | Jewish Sexual Abuse Amongst Ultra-Orthodox

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Censorship, Freedom of Speech, Internet Censorship, Jewish Censorship, Jewish Fundamentalism, Politics, Religious Fascism, Religious Nuts

The Rabbis Are Right To Be Afraid
The Fear of the Rabbis | Jewish Ultra-Orthodox Oppression | Jewish Sexual Abuse Amongst Ultra-Orthodox

Post by Jay Michaelson
40,000 people at Citi Field? Can’t be for a Mets game—no, must be an ultra-Orthodox rally/teach-in/info session on the dangers of what you’re doing right now: browsing the Internet. And so it is: tonight, with overflow seating at the Arthur Ashe tennis center (yes, the event is sold out) and simulcast to schools in Borough Park.

I suspect most readers are, by now, chuckling to themselves—as, admittedly, I did myself. After all, the New York Times coverage of the event notes the sale of “kosher” smartphones that limit Internet use. This is funny stuff.

But on second thought, aren’t the ultra-Orthodox right? This is an insular community that has built real and virtual walls to shield itself from secular influences. Aren’t they correct to worry that if their adherents surf the Internet, the community will suffer?

I think they are. One reason I write for publications like this one is to make a difference, to share information that people may not ordinarily hear about, and offer some perspective on issues like this one. (Okay, maybe this is getting too meta-.) I hope that I’m not only preaching to the choir; I hope that there are people who read my work, feel challenged by it, and then think and rethink their positions.

And of course, no amount of ink-spilling can make as much difference as a Lady Gaga video or an episode of Glee. (In somewhat related news, Hong Kong evangelicals plastered the city-state with posters warning Christians to stay away from a planned Lady Gaga concert that would include “pornographic, homosexual and satanic elements.” Well, two out of three ain’t bad.) Or the YouTube videos of Hasidim who are glad to have left the fold. Or websites devoted to egalitarian, LGBT-inclusive, and open-minded Judaism. The rabbis are right to worry, are they not?

Maybe what’s ridiculous here is the irony: tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men using technology, cramming into Citi Field, and learning why they should fear technology. Then again, no ultra-Orthodox authorities can really ban the Internet, and the Hasidim are not like the Amish, willing Luddites rejecting “modernity.” They’re rejecting certain aspects of modernity—cultural and moral ones, in particular.

Or maybe it’s just the futility of it all. Surely, as the proposed reality TV show “The Unchosen Ones” and Hella Winston’s similarly-titled book, Unchosen, show, ghetto walls are highly permeable these days. There’s something almost quaint about 40,000 middle-aged men thinking they can stop their teenagers from tweeting. Even if they can.

I think, though, the reason these stories strike a chord is that they remind New Yorkers like me that only a few miles from where I sit, people are living in a different century—and I don’t even mean the 20th. Here in Park Slope, there are more lesbians than coffee shops, and more coffee shops than trees. Yet a few blocks down in Crown Heights, or across the park in Flatbush, thousands of people have lifestyles and morals that wouldn’t pass the laugh test over here. They think we’re sinners, we think they’re throwbacks, and yet we ride the same subways, crowd the same streets.

Unfortunately, as secular and moderate Israelis have long known, the ultra-Orthodox minority is not content to keep its morality to itself. These people aren’t Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof: as soon as they gain enough political power, they use that power to change laws, segregate the sexes, fund their religious schools, and foist their vision onto the rest of us.

Moreover, as a handful of protesters have recognized, this anti-Internet rally is taking place in the shadow of an unprecedented probe into sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community, which appears to be rampant. When ultra-Orthodox rabbis aren’t busy railing against the Internet, some of them are busy covering up hideous instances of abuse among their flock or intimidating witnesses. That’s certainly not Tevye either.

Maybe, then, we’re laughing because otherwise we might be terrified.

Related articles

Priestly Broom Brawl Forces Palestinian Police Intervention

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in God Crazies, Religious Crazies

Now what would fictional baby Jesus think?!

Palestinian Police Break Up Fight Between Priests At Church of the Nativity

CNN reports that yesterday Palestinian police in the West Bank city of Bethlehem were sent into the Church of the Nativity to break up a fight that broke out between Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests. The Church is under a complicated joint administration of Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian religious authorities.
The Church is traditionally cleaned by priests between December 25 and the Orthodox celebration of Christmas that comes in the first week of January. During that clean-up, a fight broke out between two priests who were sweeping the Church. The fight quickly escalated until 50 to 60 priests were striking each other with broomsticks. A similar incident occurred in 2007.
Related articles

Jewish Child Sex Crimes: Vitriolic Verbal Punch-up Over Haredi Child Sex Abuse

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Abusers, Jewish Child Sex Abuse, Jewish Rabbi, Predator Rabbis

Jewish Child Sex Crimes: Vitriolic Verbal Punch-up Over Haredi Child Sex Abuse

Michael J SalamonMIchael Salamon, PhD. dukes it out with Ami Magazine’s dishonest publisher Rabbi Yizchok Frankfurter and Pinny Taub, the Patty Hearst of haredi child sex abuse survivors. In the process, Salamon threw bloggers and advocates under the bus, Frankfurter was sleazy and disgusting, and Taub was only marginally better. And during it all. Tzvi Gluck explained the mystery of the DA’s “89” haredim arrested for child sex abuse since fall 2009, and told stories about horrific child sex abuse incidents and equally horrific rabbinic coverups.

Michael J Salamon Michael Salamon, PhD

It was a non-stop Donnybrook on Zev Brenner‘s radio show last night.

The Salamon interview starts at 29 minutes into the show.

It is followed by the long, sometimes screaming fight between Ami Magazine’s publisher Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter, a very dishonest man, and Pinny Taub, an abuse survivor who clearly has a form of Stockholm Syndrome and an affinity for Patty Hearst, on one hand and Dr. Salamon (with some brief help from Tzvi Gluck and Mark Meyer Appel) on the other.

Gluck said the 89 arrests of pedophiles since 2009 claimed by the Brooklyn DA (but for which the DA refuses to supply a list of names and case dispositions) are mostly cases that were fixed by haredi community fixers. (Since Gluck, who is a haredi community fixer, apparently did not fix those cases, it could be that Rabbi David Neideman in Williamsburg, Yanky Meyer from Misasskim, Yanky Daskal from the Borough Park Shomrim, Rabbi Shea Hecht from Chabad, and several others did.)

Gluck also told a story of a haredi rabbi who told a victim’s family that because there was no penetration, there was no abuse and police should not be called.

A caller from Borough Park named Avrumele cited cases he knew of where rabbis told people not to call police even though actual child sex abuse clearly happened. And another caller named Esther really challenged Frankfurter, who is truly a disgusting human being.

At the end of a show a person emailed saying he had been abused by his father and grandfather and that he had tried to talk to the rabbis about it but they wouldn’t listen. Because of that, more children were being abused every day, he said.

Brenner asked Salamon if he had any advice for the man. Salamon said he hoped the man was getting help because otherwise the after effects of the abuse could be with him for years, but Salamon did not tell the man to call police.

Frankfurter’s treatment of Salamon was atrocious.

Pinny Taub has a form of Stolkhom Syndrome. Taub likes to tout extremely minor progress by haredi rabbis as if it were major progress, and he likes to forget what had to be done to force that change.

Taub has also been telling victims not to accept help and financial assistance from certain advocates.

When challenged about this, Taub said he did that because the victims who accepted help from a certain advocate were attacked in the community because they did. Taub didn’t blame community leaders or community members for this. Instead, he implied it was the fault of the advocates because they are perceived as being anti-haredi because they have openly criticized rabbinic leaders who have covered up for pedophiles.

In other words, if a victim who needs money for therapy or even for food takes it from an advocate who has worked hard to fight for change, the victim is viewed as a traitor by the community. Taub not only does nothing much to stop this abuse of victims and smearing of advocates, he almost endorsed it.

So what about the fact that until now the haredi community has done nothing to help victims?

Taub is working on that. Why, he’s even starting a program with money given to him by haredim after he started publicly bashing the advocates who are only people who are helping victims.

What a sick little man.

For his part, Salamon didn’t seem to see a problem with rabbis vetting abuse allegations and deciding which allegations warranted calling police, as long as those rabbis were properly trained. When Frankfurter and Taub criticized the Jewish Week and blogs, Salamon said, “I don’t like blogs,” basically throwing bloggers (like me, for example), reporters like Hela Winston and activists under the bus. That didn’t appease Frankfurter, of course, because nothing short of total rejection of anything that makes the haredi community look bad would appease him.

Salamon also said CDC figures show that the rate of child sex abuse is about the same in all communities, and that the cops he deals with concur – which is quite strange, because the cops, social workers, DAs and other professionals everyone else including me deals with seem to think the rate is higher. Salamon then said that he personally thought the level might actually be lower in haredi communities than elsewhere. Later in the show he noted that the haredi community had blocked all attempts to gather information that would give us an accurate rate of child sex abuse in the haredi community.

In other words, there are not statistics for haredi communities, the CDC’s figures do not specifically apply to haredi communities, and Salamon was, at least earlier in the show, apparently fudging the facts a bit to curry favor with Frankfurter & Company.

Oddly, the brief phone calls from Tzvi Gluck and Mark Meyer Appel were some of the most lucid moments of the program and are well worth listening to. (Ben Hirsch of Survivors for Justice also called in. He was fine, pointing out that Rabbi Eyashiv’s written opinion is different from what Agudath Israel of America claims, and that written opinion is clear that police should be called. But Hirsch would have been far stronger if he would have noted that the written opinion agrees with what Tzvi Gluck say Rabbi Elyashiv told him – report to police. And what if your suspicions are wrong, someone nearby asked Rabbi Elyashiv. The police know what to do and know how to investigate these things its their job let them do it is (paraphrased) how Rabbi Elyashiv answered.

My father had a serious amount of distrust for religious leaders and religious communities. Sometimes, when I was doing something to help Chabad or some other Jewish organization, he’d tell me that I was wasting my time and that they would never reciprocate. He viewed them as primarily selfish people whose agendas took precedence over the people they were supposed to be serving, leading and helping.

His father came to this country from Lithuania as a 9 or 10 year old boy. My father’s father was maskil. The maskil’s oldest brother was a rabbi and the rest of his siblings were either traditional or Orthodox.

Even so, my father’s father didn’t have much of a Jewish education. He wasn’t Orthodox, but he wasn’t anti-Orthodox, either. He went to an Orthodox shul but was best described as traditional or traditional-lite.

One day one of St. Paul’s synagogues caught fire. It wasn’t the synagogue my grandfather prayed in.

Even so, even though he wasn’t educated or Orthodox, he ran into the burning building several times and rescued Torah scrolls. Two other men followed him. No one else did. No rabbis. No machers. No scholars.

Later, the rabbis profusely thanked the two men who were considered Orthodox. But they could barely bring themselves to thank the one who wasn’t, even though he was the first man to run into that burning building and he took the greatest risks.

In many ways, that is Orthodoxy in a nutshell.

When reality doesn’t fit the Orthodox fantasy, ignore or downplay the reality, attack the messenger, make up new fantasies to enhance the old ones, lie.

My father learned that lesson early and he learned it often, not because his father complained (he didn’t) or taught it to him (he didn’t) but because he saw it with his own eyes and heard it with his own ears.

The people who “ran into the burning community” (so to speak) to try to save children from unspeakable horror are tossed under the bus by Salamon and (to a much greater extent) Taub because these activists and bloggers don’t fit the Orthodox-haredi fantasy, and publicly being associated with them assures that you will be harassed and attacked for doing so, and that you’ll never be considered a chevramon. (Salamon may also be doing it for business reasons.)

Here’s an audio of the entire show. Salamon and the child sex abuse fight start at about 29 minutes into the broadcast and continue to the end of the show.

The media player TypePad embeds has no controls, so you can’t fast forward. You can download the file by right clicking on the player or you can listen (with controls) and/or download on Zev Brenner’s website.

Please click the gray bar to listen:

2011-11-20_talkline_sun_112011_complete_show

Related articles