Sexual Abuse in Jewish Communities (Boropark, Williamsburg)

Shared by someone who was abused themselves and struggles now in their life. I though this should be shared for as much as possible.

However, prior to watching these videos, please take your time and read this comment as a disclaimer

(Part 1) Protecting those who advocate for Jewish Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse - Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg

(Part 2) Protecting those who advocate for Jewish Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse - Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg

(Part 3) Protecting those who advocate for Jewish Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse - Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg

Part 1: Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg Update - January 11, 2009

Part 2: Problems in Advocating For Sexually Abused Children in Brooklyn (Update: 01/11/2009)


Part 3: Fighting Against Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox World of Brooklyn (Update: 01/11/2009)


Part 4: Witness Tampering - Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community (Update: 01/11/2009)


Part 5: Jewish Sex Offenders and Prison (Update 01/11/2009)


(Part 6) Discusses A 14-Year Old Girl who was Sexually Assaulted (Update 01/-11-2009)


Part 7 - Educating Children about Sexual Abuse - Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg (Update: 01/11/2009)


Part 8: Changes needed to end sexual abuse in Borough Park and WIlliamsburg (01-11-2009)

Shidduch mistakes (updated on 20090527)

Updates:

• Added links to two more articles
• Added Chanie's recommendations from comments to the post
• 2009/01/29 - added a link to Bad4's post
• 2009/05/27 - added a link to another Bad4's post

There's a day for everyone when they go for the first shidduch date. Some take it easy, others get very nervous. I was pretty nervous not to f/up something. We all tried to find out from our more experienced friends how to act, where to go, what to say, what to ask, what not to ask...

Anyway we end up doing some mistakes that other just couldn't predict to inform us beforehand.

I didn't happen to go on many shidduch dates yet, but I made my mistakes and I noticed some mistakes that girls did.

Here's my list - it contains my mistakes, things I noticed from girls I dated and my friends' experiences:

• Do not talk too much, let girl talk. This requires some strong self control, but this is a very good habit for any situation.
  
• Do not talk over the phone - discuss everything on dates - this gives you more topics to talk about so that you will never sit and look at each other trying to find next topic.
  
• Do not go shopping right before date - if you happen to go anywhere these bags may make troubles for you, also you'll be exhausted and tired and will not look as impressive as you want.
  
• Remember about time - first date shouldn't be longer than 1,5 - 2 hours (probably my biggest mistake so far) - what if a girl would graze her foot and will be feeling her less impressing (or whatever word is better here) - never forget about your 'partner'. Also, what if he/she doesn't like you from the first time but hesitates to show that by rushing to finish as soon as possible?
  
• Date after full work day is not a good case either, especially if it's a first date - tired person would not look attractive nor will be able to concentrate well.
  
• Be dressed properly. Imagine you're going to meet with your future boss of some company in Manhattan - would you come in jeans and wrinkled and emitted (released?) shirt or in some old t-shirt? So why wouldn't you take a person you go on date with at least same level of appreciation?
  
• Have a back up plan - what if the place you go to will get closed or will be packed with no place to sit? What if a girl will be late on her bus to Lakewood? What if she's flaishiks and you're going to a dairy place? Or vegetarian? Just be prepared...
• Do not show if you don't like girl/guy you with. Just try to politely finish date faster, but don't just tell it in face. I also heard of guys seeing a girl from another corner, thinking that they don't like her and just disappearing! Remember that she also spent her time, so be nice and don't let her stand there with stupid look for another hour thinking you're late or she messed up with place you were supposed to meet at.
• Be on time. This never hurt anyone, however making someone to wait for you is not nice and is a first item in the list against you. This is more for guys than for girls though.

Chanie added some recommendations in the comments:

• If you're a brilliant girl, don't show it on the first date. It turns guys off.
• Don't make dirty jokes on any date- it's inappropriate.
• Don't tell the guy/girl that they're not the weirdest, craziest person in the world. Some will get insulted.

Did you get something to add? It'll be cool if you post in your blog and then we'll all interlink to all posts on this topic. By that we may be able to prevent future mistakes and help other who only start.

Useful posts by other authors:

• 10 minutes a Day to a Better Marriage
• Un-Funny Sh'lom Bayit Joke
  
• Hooray for Bad Date Stories
  
• Where Do You Want To Go? - where not to go by Bad4

I want a cat!!!

One of my hopes that will probably never happen is my wife to be into cats so we have one at home... I want a cat since my 2 y/o kitten died after he ate some rubber cap and doctors would tell us for a month that he's just sick as many cats during that month... Unfortunately to me I find that more girls here like dogs and I don't think that I've met unmarried girl who'd like cats.

Anyway here's a clip about a roomba robot vacuum riding cat... Have fun:

Post-conflict facts - email repost

Before reposting email sent to me by friend of mine, I wanted to share this cartoon illustration, found here

Email repost (no edit, only formating):

Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000 

ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics: 

(zero)

Physics:

(zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

---

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000

Only FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population..

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pa sternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 – Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Don ald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phil lips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Joseph son
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Sim on Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Mil ton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herb ert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Ed elman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Ed ward B. Lewis

TOTAL: 129 ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE!

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims!

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew that has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew that protests by killing people.

The Jew s don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them!!

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you be lieve there is more culpability on Israel's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu

Merhak Negia (מרחק נגיעה)

If you understand Hebrew or Russian here are 8 series of Merhak Negia (מרחק נגיעה)

The movie based as anti-haredi, but if you would be watching it from clearly frum standpoint you can notice there some problems and/or bad behaviours of our frum communities that bother a lot people who aren't there or were born there but end up being frum or between frum people.

PS. I would highly recommend NOT to watch this movie for not frum people, non-Jewish people or people with yet unstable views on orthodox Judaism.

• Part 1
  
• Part 2
  
• Part 3
  
• Part 4
  
• Part 5
  
• Part 6
  
• Part 7
  
• Part 8
  

Thoughts on music trends

Looking at my collection of music that is close to my heart (OK, may be that's said too loud) I can't really recall any good albums in past decade (from the day when Gregorian year started from number 2).

For the music I mostly listen to the best years were 80's, especially many good albums were produced in 88-91. I don't know why did it happen so, may be because of a serious changes in the world when free countries became less conservative, crime amount went down and former USSR burned as a match.

Looking at 90's there were many good albums too, well all not as good as in 80's, but there were many new bands born who were talented enough to produce music you would listen to again and again.

Unfortunately this is not the case for 00's. Look - there were enough of cataclysms to push things up if that's the real trigger for talents - 9/11, war in Iraq, Israel and it's 'life-loving' neighbours, recent accident between Russia and Georgia, russian gas and Europe, who learned how russians live during winters... You can go on and on, but where's my music? Gimme something I'd listened to for second time, please? It feels like oldies get too old and ungsters degraded so much that they can't produce any good stuff at all. Look at Metallica (I'm bringing a famous brand here), or at Briney Spears (well I'm not into her, except of Children of Bodom's cover on her's 'Oops I did it again' opus, but she's another famous person here) - they didn't bring any good stuff. Most of bands/singers I listen too sucked in 00's a lot.

I've got three questions: What's going on? and Will the entire genre die out in next decade like did most of popular styles of 50/60's? And if so, what kind of new music will we see in the wild?

Unforgiven III (by Metallica)

This ain't my most favorite song, but I like it's lyrics enough to listen to it couple of times during the week. Can't say it's about everyone but there's definitely something about me...



Can't guarantee you would be able to listen to the song due to latest way of YouTube fighting with unauthorized music, so here are lyrics of the song:

How could he know
This new dawn's light
Would change his life forever?
Set sail to sea
But pulled off course
By the light of golden treasure

Was he the one causing pain
With his careless dreaming?
Been afraid
Always afraid
Of the things he's feeling

He could just be gone
He would just sail on
He'll just sail on

How can I be lost,
If I've got nowhere to go?
Search for seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?

How can I be lost?
In remembrance I relive
And how can I blame you
When it's me I can't forgive?

These days drift on
Inside a fog
It's thick and suffocating

His sinking life
Outside it's hell
Inside, intoxication

He's run aground
Like his life
Water much too shallow

Slipping fast
Down with his ship
Fading in the shadows

Now a castaway
They've all gone away
They've gone away

How can I be lost
If I've got nowhere to go?
Search for seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?

How can I be lost?
In remembrance I relive
And how can I blame you
When it's me I can't forgive?

Forgive me
Forgive me not
Forgive me
Forgive me not
Forgive me
Forgive me not
Forgive me
Forgive me
Why can't I forgive me?

(Solo)

Set sail to sea
But pulled off course
By the light of golden treasure

How could he know
This new dawn's light
Would change his life forever?

How can I be lost,
If I've got nowhere to go?
Search for seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?

How can I be lost?
In remembrance I relive
So how can I blame you
When it's me I can't forgive?

How to make firefox not to remember entered information into the form

Solution is really shorter than title of this post.

Solution:

Add a random number to form name, so it will look like this:

<form name="review-788014185" method="post" action="#" id="reviewForm">

Random number is generated easily in most of programming languages. In PHP it would look like this:

<form name="review-<?=rand()?>" method="post" action="#" id="reviewForm">

Description:

I should say why did I bring this. I am working on a form where reviews could be submitted only with help of javascript. I know that it's not the wisest solution due to it's lack of accessibility and problems with usability, but I believe that there wouldn't be many visually impaired people visiting this particular site due to it's topic also I know that most of people have JS turned on.
So to make story short Java Script handles all submission process it doesn't change status of form (submitted/not) for browser. Firefox by default remembers what was entered into the form if you happen to simply refresh a page with F5 or Ctrl+R. See the problem? Although all data was passed to server browser is not aware of that it still thinks you're editing form so it saves all data for you. So i had to prevent it somehow. So I had to trick it and my trick was in having different name for the form on every reload.

Improvements:

Later I'd change it to a more sophisticated solution where JS also leaves a cookie with form ID so on every reload I would name form with the same name until it was submitted. On the event of submission I would replace this cookie with another one which says this user already left a review so I don't expect another one from them for another hour. Knowing this I wouldn't show a form. Simple.

New computer dilemma, urgent!

Since I am together with America in financial crisis I can't let myself buy so much wanted Mac. However I can buy a PC.

Here a problem raises: Dell has two very sweet offers for one of their slim desktops (I'm going only for slims)

First one for $660:

• Quad core Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB)
• 6GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4 DIMMs
• 640GB HDD
• ATI Radeon HD 3450 256MB supporting HDMI

Second one for $699:

• Quad core Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB)
• 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs
• 500GB HDD
• ATI Radeon HD 3450 256MB supporting HDMI
• Dell S1909WX 19 inch widescreen Flat Panel Monitor

Note, that for second offer I can manually add 2 more GB of RAM for just $30-40 and connect second 19 inch that I own and have a full working environment.

FYI, we have 4 computers for 3 people at home - 3 laptops and one 3y/o desktop. Now, I don't use our home desktop much recently since I own my personal laptop. However sometimes I find it not only occupied, but also moved to my mom's room since it's a more convenient way for her to work with her stuff (she is Mary Kay independent beauty consultant BTW).

So I have a dilemma here - should I buy a laptop which will not be as powerful as desktop, but has it's own advantages such as portability - my mom can always grab it to her room, and black out safeness - it has an at least 2hr battery, something that desktops suck at very much.

For pretty much same money I can get a 13/14/15 inch laptop with will be connected to a 19 inch monitor and keyboard with mouse by default, but it takes just a moment to disconnect it and return it to portable condition. So here we go, one of possible configurations:

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
• Glossy, widescreen 13.3" LCD (1280x800) w/ 2.0M pixel Camera
• 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS
• 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 (2 Dimms)
• 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
• Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card

So now I really don't know what to purchase. Do you have an idea?

PS. I don't care much about HDD since they're getting cheaper everyday and you can buy external ones for cheap prices.