Bylines Sam Sokol | Ottawa Jewish Bulletin

Study finds widespread history of sexual abuse among formerly Orthodox

By Sam Sokol: July 19, 2018

A haredi man arriving for a court hearing in Jerusalem after being arrested for alleged sexual assault, March 27, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

(JTA) – While Jews are no more likely to be sexually abused than other Americans, individuals who have left the Orthodox community are more than four times as likely to have been molested as children than the general population, a new study has found.

The study, by two Orthodox Jewish researchers, surveyed more than 300 participants over a three-year period. Its authors – Dr. David Rosmarin of Harvard and Dr. David Pelcovitz of Yeshiva University – said their report was an attempt to address a lack of research on the prevalence of sexual abuse in the Jewish community. [Read more…]

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In Jerusalem, Ruth Bader Ginsburg celebrates her commitment to tikkun olam

By Sam Sokol: July 6, 2018

Benjamin Freidenberg, an Israeli filmmaker, interviews Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, July 5, 2018. (Natasha Kuperman)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, third from right, receives the inaugural Genesis Prize Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in Tel Aviv, July 4, 2018. (Eran Lamm/Lens Productions)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg described how grateful she was for her Jewish heritage during a screening of a new documentary film about her life and career at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

“The demand for justice, peace and enlightenment runs through Jewish history and tradition,” she said Thursday, describing how she is reminded of this fact every day when she enters her judicial chambers and is confronted with a poster proclaiming the biblical verse, “Justice, justice thou shalt pursue.” [Read more…]

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These academics want to mend Israel-Diaspora relations. But can this marriage be saved?

By Sam Sokol: June 25, 2018

Adam Ferziger is a history and contemporary Jewry professor at Bar-Ilan University. (Courtesy of Ferziger)

(JTA) – When Adam Ferziger wants to describe the “deteriorating” relationship between American and Israeli Jews, he reaches back to a 2,000-year-old divide.

“To use a metaphor, we have a contemporary Jerusalem and Babylon kind of dynamic,” said Ferziger, a history and contemporary Jewry professor at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, “with two truly significant creative and vibrant Jewish centres developing across the world from each other.” [Read more…]

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‘Terror kites’ shake residents in southern Israel, but not their resolve to stay put

By Sam Sokol: June 13, 2018

A firefighter extinguishing a blaze in the Beeri Forest on the Israeli border with Gaza, where flaming kites sent from Gaza have caused thousands of shekels of damage, June 11, 2018. (Sam Sokol)

NAHAL OZ, Israel (JTA) – Dani Ben David fiddles with his radio, switching between it and his cellphone as he drives through the Beeri Forest, a nature reserve located on the border of Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

As his Jeep jolts over the dirt road, he quickly and calmly jumps between multiple conversations, coordinating efforts to extinguish the multiple fires that have sprung up across his territory. As regional director for the Western Negev for Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, Ben David is responsible for maintaining the forest’s tens of thousands of acres in the face of Palestinian efforts to torch them and the surrounding farmland.

Since April, more than 450 open-air fires have been set along the border region by kites and balloons carrying incendiary materials launched from Gaza. Flying aimlessly over the kibbutzim, they have turned large swatches of what was once an oasis of green in a dry and dusty south into a charred landscape. [Read more…]

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