Tumble into Sweet Crumble on Glenferrie Road

Tumble into Sweet Crumble on Glenferrie Road

For a mumble with your friends and family

They have a jumble of great cup cakes

Fresh every day because these people are humble

And good enough to give the left over cakes

To those who lives have taken a tumble down

So let’s hope they will remember when they make

An upward turn to frequent Sweet Crumble for a bit of a rumble

With their loved ones and enjoy the cakes and cookies

(Can I say that?) rather than biscuits because it rhymes with bookies

Who would put the food and drink at Sweet Crumble on short odds

To win the ambiance and food excellence stakes for all bods.

Don't you just love the presentation of these delicious cakes and biscuits? Sweet Crumble is just past Wattletree Road on Glenferrie Road. If parking is a problem, go to the car park around the back and come in through the back lane right at the end in the corner.

You will not regret visiting this place and having a coffee and smooze with friends. The staff at this place are friendly and very helpful. All food is made on the premises. They have both a Dairy and a Parve kitchen. It is 'Tres chic' and a good place to relax and de-stress alone or with friends.

How Does One Gently suggest.......

B'H
To some indviduals to get a life that does not involve destroying other people.
I have  had a hectic few days. It's been yom tov and shabbes all in one and we have had to deal with many different issues all at once. Frankly though I am quite fed up with the persistence and malice of couple of people that have persisted in spreading stories, slander and Lashon Hara about me. It really amuses me that they have nothing better to do with their time. G-D they must be BORED out of their silly brains. So I could be writing a letter to my ninety year old mother in a home, doing more CV's and instead I am defending myself and my reputation on the Internet and it is irksome to say the least.
I have had this flood of emails and have not replied to one of them. I am not going to either. What is the point?
The latest one sees me sent an email that I should go onto chabad.org to see what Judaism says about those who take revenge??????????? and I thinking to myself, is this a hint from this person? Is she threatening me, like she threatened me that I would
a) never have employment in an educational institution ever again and she would see to it, what's more
b) never be able to show my face in the Melbourne Jewish community again (??????)
c) pay for my morally decadent lifestyle (interestingly I am intrigued as to what morally decadent activities I am supposed to have indulged in, maybe I have been sleep walking or astral travelling to different places of ill repute
d) been accused of lashon hara and myriad other crimes against humanity which means I have been a rather busy person apart from trying to get a job and look after my child
e) told I put intimate details of my life on the net (what defines intimate? I know that some things that are normal social interactions need not be private because I have nothing to hide. My life is pretty ordinary and mundane. There are some things one does not put on the net and does not speak about to friends but being harassed by a person sending repeated emails is quite scary to say the least, especially when they have threatened the things this person has threatened. Hearing back ludicrous stories about one and one's life which are complete fabrications on the part of others is also quite scary and unsettling.
f) be better off seeing a psychiatrist for my mental health because I am obviously a mental disturbed person and the reasons being my late entry into mother hood and my mothering of my child, nothing could be right with it.

I am beginning to view this person in a similar light as one very active and fanciful so called 'gay activist' MikeyBear who also subjected me to public and derogatory posts in his blog mentioning me by my name, spreading lies and slander about me through the Internet. This person actually made up some quite vicious stories and had no idea of the true situation of my life but felt at liberty to spread malicious lies and untruths about me and my child on the Internet. He feels quite justified in a quite snide and vicious way to justify his attacks on a single older parent and calls it defense of homophobia. Because I do not support same sex marriage, I am supposed to be homophobic.  I guess that has some source in misogyny which explains why he is gay and cannot form a relationship or decent friendship with a member of the opposite sex. There are well adjusted gay people who do not feel the need to attack heterosexuals and the heterosexual way of life, but he is not one of them.
At least this person is a cut above by far, but some of the spiteful and rather revolting things said to me have made me extremely reluctant to have anything to do with her. What are you supposed to do? Believe me, if all those things she said about me were true, I would not want to have anything to do with me and I would not send emails to the person. I would keep right away.
I just think how unhappy a person must be to do something like that and I pray for their mental health. Myself, I am doing Yoga and Pilate's again and it is great. I need the balancing energy and the peace. We are being evicted in 60 days as they are selling our flat and that is on top of everything else so any one who has a spare flat or house to rent for a boy and his mother plus a very cute cat, email me or message me please. Or if you know some one....who has maybe....

Several things happened in quick succession today

B'H
One, I got a job teaching 0.5 at a secondary college in the south east suburbs. An hour later as I showered and prepared for the interview and was dressed and ready to go, I checked my phone and realised I had a message from the principal of the school ringing to tell me that I do not have the job as the time tabler had already filled the position.  Elation, than deflation.  Breathe deeply into the disappointment and say to oneself, it is all for the best. It was a long way away anyway. Hashem  wants to give me a job closer to home or in a different area to Glen Waverley.

I started Yoga yesterday and I am going to go to another class in a few days. It is a great calmer and stills the mind and brings the body back to a better healthier state of being.
Also had a call from a lovely girl Dianne at Body Work Australia and I will get a massage on a Groupon on coupon. They are normally $80 but you have the Groupon Website that offers you all these deals for cheaper. For example, the $80 massage for $30 and being highly stressed about my unpaid rent and no work, I have spend some of my remaining money this month on a massage for the 8th of June as a birthday present to myself and to calm and soothe my anxiety re work. It is better to go to interviews calm, collected and relaxed rather than a jangle of nerves.
I am dealing with people's viciousness, condescending attitude and pettiness much better than I used to do.

I have put in a new story into the Glen Eira Literary Awards. Taking no notice of the vicious emails from an ex friend who tells me I cannot write, that I am living a morally corrupt life and that I cannot write and she is just so much better a writer than I will ever be. (Oh, yeah and she is going to sue me for a post that does not mention her by name or anything to do with her. Who is paranoid?) What does she expect me to collapse in a heap because she the magnificent 'literary critic' of the twenty first century has stated my writing is crap  and that I am a morally degenerate person in her opinion. What because I am a single parent? There but for the grace of G-D could go anyone....Oh yes, that was another piece if vicious and vulgar rubbish she threw at me. I could not stay married and I am a paranoid mental case  and she, she of all people will see that I am never hired by an educational institution and I will end up on the streets like I deserve because I am such a morally corrupt person.
I remember wanting to do a massage course and really I should not have followed the advice of a person who I had believed was a friend. She talked me out of it. It would have been a good course for me as I enjoy healing and if I had done the course while I had money I could have had my own business now and worked at my writing stress free.
It is so good to be back writing after a break of twenty years. I did not write a lot from 1986 until 2006 when I began to pick up my pen again, everything flooded out. I would have liked to write my mother's story but cannot as she has Alzheimer's now and cannot remember anything and cannot even hear and cannot speak English any longer. She writes and talks in German at times and incoherent German. Apparently she would not probably even recognise me. She thinks my brother's wife is her daughter. Nothing I can do about that.
I shall just have to go on living my 'morally corrupt life', going to the library and reading Jeffery Archer, my Chumash (five books of Moses), my Tanach and commentaries, learning a bit of french, teaching my son and looking after his needs and trying to get teaching work, going to shule or the occasional shiur when I can. Oh yes and I must continue writing my nasty schumaltzy stories and poems and said friends do not have to read them.

Coles Elsternwick and a whole new Kosher outlook

B'H

I have to say a big Kol Hakavod to COLES in Elsternwick. shopping for KOSHER products down there is such bliss now. All the kosher items are marked with a Kosher symbol on the price ticket. I used to check things in the book and still will when I am in doubt, but now it is as easy as just glancing down at the ticket on the shelf.
I have had many excuses given to me for not keeping kosher. I remember a girl who boarded with me for a while with her two children. Main reason was expense but also she stated that she did not know what was kosher and what was not, not like in Israel. To be honest, in Israel you also have to be careful. However Coles in Elsternwick is working with the people from Kosher Australia and they do go by the list.

The picture above was taken at Pesach when they had fish Kosher le Pesach. That is the symbol you need on the ticket except it is blue. We have to just LOVE Coles and the young guy who must have an Israeli friend or two. He always greets you in Hebrew. :-)

How Do We Stop child Abuse and how is it related to bully behaviour?

Someone has written this in support of victims but it is only tongue in cheek support and I will show you why.

(These are my personal opinions only- others may think very differently. They are not meant to contradict or challenge any rabbinic ruling, and are based on my academic training and work with people associated with abuse)

I would not want a person who is abused going to this person for counseling because I believe this person could do more harm than good.  No academic training can prepare and allow a person to empathize with a survivor of abuse. You need experienced and competent counselors to deal sensitively and professionally with victims, not some anal bureaucrat with a psychology degree stuck up their butt.

Regarding alleged sexual abuse in our community, people frequently ask what I could do IF...

a) the victim is a friend or family member of mine, it is my obligation to support that person by positively asserting that he is in no way to blame, he always deserved full protection, he is entitled to complete care, acceptance and help and he has the right to fully exercise all options open to him as a citizen of Australia...

Quite comic really when you think about it. It is about human rights one would hope and just not citizens of Australia. It is about every person in this world's right to an abuse free childhood.

The best and only way to validate the victim’s feelings of being abused and to alleviate the shame is to go to the police and have the matter investigated by the proper authorities like any other crime and the perpetrator dealt with appropriate to his or her age and situation. The perpetrator relies on the victims’ shame and disgust with what they have been forced to do to hide his or her crimes. If this tactic fails they will then try to disparage the victims’ mental state and say that the victim misunderstood or has exaggerated the events. So the first physical overpowering and the sexual violation is then followed by a psychological overpowering of the victim leading him or her to doubt his or her sanity and events as they happened. In other words, sexual abusers of children are the worst sorts of bullies because they pick on vulnerable children who they can dominate and twist and manipulate. In other words the physical and sexual abuse is further compounded by mental torture as the perpetrator performs in such a way as to make the victim feel that ‘somehow it is my fault’.

b) the offender is a friend or family member of mine, it is my obligation to support him however I can to have the courage to act honorably throughout whatever processes occur, do whatever he can to make amends and to take whatever steps that might be required to ensure that he does not re-offend...

Interesting statement that apart from the grammatical errors. I would prefer to say that is it the obligation of the community and the family and friends of a perpetrator of abuse, especially one who abused/s children to acknowledge the wrongness of his or her actions and to work towards potential rehabilitation and to honestly acknowledge the pain of the victims and bear responsibility for it, even if it means incarceration for a period of time. Defaming the victims and their families is not bearing responsibility or acknowledging the pain caused to victims.

c) others blame the victim, it is my obligation to explain to them that children are always powerless when faced with the terrifying demands of any adult-even more one that the child thinks has authority, that all adults are responsible for guaranteeing the safety of children ahead of other concerns, including concerns such as protecting the 'good name' of institutions, wider family groups or communities... and stand up against those who might want to stigmatise the innocent family members of either victim or perpetrator.

It is a common ploy in any crime of this sort, rape, or child abuse or even assault. ‘I was provoked’, ‘she or he seduced me’ because of the social stigma attached to being a perpetrator of such a crime.  Rape and child abuse is very much about power and for perpetrators there is an almost aphrodisiac effect,  if they get away with delegitimizing the victim.  I speak from bitter experience that is a long time ago now, 23 rd August 1977 when I went through a rather unpleasant experience which marked my life for quite some years and I can still remember my mother saying, ‘Oh dear, you must have done something to provoke the man. Anyway it’s over and done with now. Have a Valium and calm down. You will soon forget all about it in time. Just learn a lesson from the experience.’ For just under two years, in a small country town I endured the taunting of that man and his mates. It stopped when I left town never to return thank G-D.  I thank G-D for allowing me to have that experience because while it was difficult to come to terms with for quite some years, it has enhanced my understanding of how the perpetrators think and behave.  However if rape happens at a later stage in one’s life, it is easier to deal with than child abuse. The child is often confused. For a rape victim it is the attitude of others that is the problem and that is why rape victims don’t want to talk about the stigma of rape as it is seen as somehow you ‘deserved it.’ For child abuse there is not that excuse so the abusers fall back on the vulnerability of the child and the fact that the child will not be believed against an adult who is lying. It is very hard to trap abusers into admitting that they did do what they did. They know and understand the social stigma attached and that is why they choose to force their attentions onto helpless children. For them, they have everything to lose if they are discovered and they play on the feelings of friends and family alike who do not want to believe that a person in whom they placed such trust has betrayed them. Apart from the sense of power it gives them, they want to have control over whether the child is believed or not.

It is so easy for people in positions of authority to prioritise the 'good name' of an organisation and, frequently unintentionally, act in way that devalues the reasons it exists in the first place. A religious community exists to espouse the values of that religion- not to hide bad behavior so that others will be tricked into thinking those activities do not happen.

All organizations do not like bad publicity and that is why they are so careful to hide and to support the perpetrator as a paragon of goodness and virtue rather than own their duty of care in two main areas of abuse

a)      Child abuse

b)      Bullying

They seek to cover their culpability and disown any responsibility for the matter. That is why these things keep occurring because abusers get positive payback and support. I do not agree with emotional support being provided to abusers. Their families, yes, because I think they are secondary victims. The primary victims are the abused and their immediate families. Then you have secondary victims who are the family of the abuser. They have done nothing wrong, yet they suffer incredible guilt. Imagine if you are the family, good people of a person who is abusive and a criminal. How do you feel especially if you are the mother of such a person? You feel sick at heart and you feel that somehow you have failed in raising your child to be a mentsch.  That is a pain that does not go away for the rest of your life.

A community that has protecting children as a core value has the obligation to learn as much as possible about how to ensure children are safe and to learn as much as possible about how to know if there is danger and how to remove that danger. That same community should also feel responsible to learn all it can about what is needed for individuals to heal and to provide those conditions to bring about healing. To attempt to 'protect' an institution by failing to do these things is an insult to the people and the values that set it up in the first place.

This is politically correct bullshit and I will show you why.  Those who protect an institution are doing the institution no favours. Eventually the walls will crumple if you chip away at the foundations on which your institution was built. Especially if it was built to educate and protect its clientele. The most appropriate course of action is outright renovation. Completely gutting the inside where the plaster is rotted  and crumbling away. You don't patch and smatch and hide behind a fresh coat of paint. You strip the wall down right to the bricks and redo the plastering so that it is fresh and new and all the old plaster has been ripped out and all the leaks are fixed. 

 Corrupt principals breed corrupted principles. Especially ones that perjure themselves. Unfortunately we do not have a fifth ammendment in Australia. a person could say, no comment but then he or she risks being accused of hindering the process of justice and police inquiry.

Any community that does not protect and correct their children is at risk of failing as a community. Children are vulnerable and they are our future.  It is through our children we build steps for the future. they hold our vision for the future to come.  It is up to us to ensure that they do not have exposure to things that will corrupt and cripple their perceptions of life, sexuality and their relationships with others.  Clear guidelines need to be laid out and followed. Children need consistency and routine. A parent needs to care enough to put their needs second to that of the child. Once you have a child, your life is not your own.

We live in a very 'me' orientated society and one in which parents feel they are owed something. As a parent you are owed nothing except respect.  In fact, when you have children you have to be prepared to put your pleasures in life aside to support and protect your child from danger.  I am prepared to die for my child and to protect him or any child for that matter from invasion or violation by an abuser. Once you have been abused or violated by someone you get a gut instinct for an abuser and the only thing that prevents you falling victim to further abuse is lifelong celibacy because unfortunately the types of people attracted to you are abusive. They have an instinct for people who are likely to accept abuse as much as those who have been abused tend towards being taken in by the abusive behaviours and feel sorry for the 'abusers'. Stockholm syndrome. The abused starts to shift his or her perspective on a situation to include elements of the abuser's flawed perceptions.

leeds: Confessions of a "Lowlife"

leeds: Confessions of a "Lowlife": B'H Recently I received an email that spouted all sorts of interesting statements about me, my state of mind, my personal sense of being ...

Confessions of a "Lowlife"

B'H

Recently I received an email that spouted all sorts of interesting statements about me, my state of mind, my personal sense of being and my beliefs. It came thirty seven years too late to have an impact on me. If I had received such an email when I was twenty one or twenty five years old. I would have cried for days. But as it stands I refuse to be affected by its contents and the contents of other emails that I received telling me ‘I was cracking up’ and etc, etc. My comments about someone I published on FB will remain and I hope that I am wrong the person I wrote about is not going to be used in the way I fancy she could be.

Single mothers are very vulnerable people. We have no partner in life to bounce ideas and situations off. There is no one to discuss and reflect on events connected to the raising of one’s children and we often do make mistakes without that second head around to process situations. It is very easy for single mothers to be used even my their ex husband.  For example, my ex husband was up on assault charges in Sydney. Yes, the person who he had insulted had called him ‘a black dog’, but he did behave badly and his consequent behaviour afterwards was never exemplary.

Our son was, at the stage he was going to court, eight months old. He asked me to come to Sydney and he and the ‘girlfriend’ (he called her a close friend) who he had had since I was four or five months pregnant , maybe earlier, would pay my fare up there and he would get to see Nir, but in return I was to show the judge that ex and I were a ‘happy little family with a new baby’. UMMM yes despite the fact that I and my son were living in Narrandera alone and he was living in Sydney with another woman. I told him thank you very much for your ‘kind offer’, but no thank you. He said he would back pay me the $300 a month child support that he had told me he would give me if i would just ‘support him’ and stop him from going to jail.  I had heard those promises before and others.  I said NO. You go to court and you present the situation honestly.  I am not going to come to Sydney and I think the judge will decide on the merits of your case and you have a girl friend, good luck to you. I have my job and my child to worry about. I have enough in my life without handling any more crap from you. He got abusive and threatening. Threatened to come and take our son away to Nigeria and give him to his mother to look after because I was a disloyal and unfit wife.  I fixed that situation I divorced six months later so I could then be the disloyal and unfit ex wife.

It was interesting the garbage that came out of his mouth when he did visit. He accused me of trying to poison him and all sorts of things that I did not dream of. I dreamt only of an honest and open caring relationship where nothing was hidden. His bank accounts were hidden because I might steal his money. (???)Yeah right, I was his wife and what was I going to spend it on? Things for our home where he would benefit and it would improve our lives.  Where he went at night until three o’clock in the morning at times. That was a state secret.  I was trying to control him if I wanted to know. Often his phone would be switched off and go to message bank. Now I might have been more trusting when it was just me and him.  I did give him the benefit of the doubt, many times, but when it involved the welfare and future of a child, I was not at all trusting.  I got devious answers time and time again.

I decided then and there one night after two hours of an abusive phone call and things said to me that were similar to what was said in the email from my supposed ‘good friend’ LOL with friends like that who needs enemies, that I would go for sole custody of my son so he would have one stable element in his life without the ups and downs of his father’s rubbishy doings.  I thought he can play around with me and try and mess me up but I am not going to let him do it to a child. Even so he only came down to Narrandera every six to eight weeks to see his son and a couple of times he borrowed money from me to go back to Sydney because he visited the pubs in Narrandera and lost his money at the poker machines.

I paid very dearly for my marriage with him and our child has paid dearly too. He does not have a father. He is half African Australian.  He is a lovely kid and he does not deserve this BS in his life and the racist taunts from those who should know better.

A kindergarten teacher tried to tell me my child was a psychopath, not exactly in those words but it offended me quite a lot and she did untold damage to my child. I hope she does not give similar treatment to another child who skin might be slightly darker than lily white Caucasian. I was blinded by a belief in the goodness and honesty of the person. I was expecting her to be professional and treat every child with respect.

My child was speaking more coherently at thee and half than he does now. She damaged him and labelled him in the eyes of others. He has been labelled ‘severely intellectually disabled’. He is not. He is severely depressed and understandably so because of the labelling. How would you feel if you were told day after day after day, you are stupid, you can’t do this, you are dumb, you don’t understand this, you haven’t got the cognitive powers to understand this? How would you feel day after day of that message being drummed into your brain? Would you feel good about yourself? Would you think that you could do things or that you were just some dumb half African jerk of a kid with no dad?

Recently I sat across from a psychologist who told me, ‘I haven’t met your son, but I have seen two test results and I saw him in the Naplan tests. He is clueless and he just can’t do it.  He has no idea.  He is severely intellectually disabled.‘ I was sitting across from this guy and thinking does he understand that perhaps my son does learn differently and maybe if he had the encouragement to achieve and tasks are explained to him, he will succeed in doing it. Not every child catches on so quickly.

It makes me nauseous to think that I allowed my son to suffer this abuse for a whole year and i am to blame too. I should not have been so stupid. My son is a very good human being. But it is adults who are twisting him and hurting him, maybe even not intentionally and by not explaining but having a picture in their minds of his mental capabilities without thinking he is a child and capable, they have already labelled him and put him in a pigeon hole as intellectually disabled when I do not feel that is the case. The pain and the labelling follows him and is twisting him up inside.

They have put my son in a sinkhole and isolated him. They have withdrawn from him the right to be perceived as a normal functioning human being. That is what is destroying him. A little boy who now shuffles instead of walks and his shoulders hunch over, who cries at night and has night mares because he is a child and he does not understand how cruel adults can be and how narrow minded and bigoted and judgemental.  A little boy who tells me he cannot play football any more because people tell him that. People who withdraw normal social interaction from him and they are deliberately and quite cruelly failing to see who he is, blinded by their own prejudices and stereotypes.

They want to be right because if he proves them wrong and is successful both academically and sports wise than they have been seen as flawed and they want to be right no matter what. That is the worst of it. The fact that they will destroy a child to be right in their own mind. Crazy, but true.

Milk N Honey Cafe coming up cosy roses on the kosher cafe scene

B'h

2012 is the year of the kosher cafe.I have said in a previous blog posting that we have had several new kosher cafes open in Melbourne. Glenhuntley Road has now three kosher cafes within two blocks of each other. Savion up near Orrong Road and Glenhuntly Junction and the much loved Amalya's cafe near the Kooyong and Glenhuntly Junction and now Milk N Honey which is the latest on the Melbourne Jewish Cafe sene to open its doors.
Each of these places is different and caters to a general public with varied tastes and hasa  unique ambiance. Milk N Honey has a warm inviting atmosphere with wooden seats and outside seating for those who like to sit outside in the open air to observe the passersby and just smooze.
I went there today and it is crowded with a wide variety of people. The coffee is good. That is a plus. If you are a cafe, no matter how good your food is, you need to know how to make a good cup of coffee. The staff are friendly although run off their feet. When I entered today, every seat was taken and I hope that continues.
They have an innovative and interesting menu and people seemed to be enjoying what they were eating. All the food has healthy and fresh combinations with a lot of fish and salads. The desserts looked scrumptious. My waistline needs tucking in so I could not order or tuck in. Here is there website with the menu. I am looking forward to going there after I have gotten myself a job and celebrating. So nice to have a choice of places to eat out and socialise with friends.
The prices are very reasonable and they also cater for functions. Have a look on the website and check out the menu and pop on down but at the moment you may have to book or try for in between times to get a seat. This place is hot to trot in the town.

http://www.milknhoney.com.au/

Migron Facts

B'H

1.       Building  the town of Migron  was not the unauthorised  decision of a band of people unrelated to government of Israel.  In 1999 the government of Israel identified the Migron hilltop area as a strategic place, from security and settling perspective.  It was uninhabited at the time.  Thus the government decided to establish a community on this very location.

2.       In addition, there is not one person who until now has been able to provide official documents of ownership of the land. It has all been hearsay, supported by a radical left wing political group in Israel whose agenda is extremely destructive to the state of Israel and opposed to its name Peace Now.  If such documents of ownership to even one plot of land on the Migron hilltop exist, let them be brought forward and the possessors of the document will receive that land or monetary compensation to the value of that land the day that they bring such a document.

3.       NO country in the world destroys the homes of its citizens. To do so, is destructive to the national morale and it is both immoral and inhumane.  There is no legal precedent for such action according to international laws, nor Israeli law and not even Jordanian laws which have some legal significance in Judea and Samaria. Even according to the Halachah (Jewish code of law) as set out in the Talmud, you pay money for land in good faith and if is discovered that the there is a claim to the land from a neighbour then the neighbour has the right to the field but he will need to compensate the buyers but he does not have the right to harm them. These laws are rather complicated but straightforward in essence if one really things about it.  (1) See NOTE below. The residents of Migron built their homes in good faith and made good and honest use of the land and cultivating it, planting and harvesting it.

4.       The residents of Migron settled on a rocky hilltop where there was not even one structure, tree or cultivated plot. It was desolate fields which was why the government of Israel chose that area.  If it can be proved that there are legitimate owners to the land, then they are liable for compensation for the value of the land, but they can not uproot the settlers of the land who have established in good faith homes and facilities on the barren sites and to throw them out in the wilderness. Such actions as taken by the Supreme Court of Israel is both inhumane and against all Jewish codes of law and goes against even compassionate treatment of any individuals or groups of people and their laws internationally. The government of Israel has an obligation and duty of care to discharge to the residents of Migron as we shall see in point 5.

5.       There was and is in place a plan by the Housing Ministry  and is submitted by the Ministry of Building for 500 additional housing units for Migron. On the deed submitted to the Housing Ministry, the landowner is the Appointee for the Government and Abandoned Property in Judea and Samaria. It is not private land but government land. Land in this category went all the way to the office of the Prime Minister of Israel who was then Ariel Sharon. Land that was registered to people who had abandoned it over 50 years ago was recognised as Absentee Land and the Absentee Land in Judea and Samaria now government property and land on which Jews can be permitted to settle.  If this was truly someone else’s land, why was no claim made previous to this time?  Thus such a claim to land termed as Abandoned Property in Judea and Samaria, should be seen as fictitious and malicious in intent without real basis. If there is no history of previous claims to the land and no complaints to the courts previously recorded about this land from the supposed owners in fifty years, than indeed there was indeed no real cause for this case to go to court.

6.       There is a community on the hilltop of Migron which consists of 50 families with numbers more than 300 persons. They settled there and built their families over the last ten years. Many of the children were born there. They have cultivated the land and built houses and facilities there. What government that is fair and just, mindful of its duty to its citizens does such a act as the uprooting of a community that has improved and settled on land abandoned and not used? What law court,  mindful both of natural justice and the international laws of justice, as Jewish Halachic Laws  makes such a decision and on what basis is this decision based?

7.       The mischief caused by radical organisations such as Peace Now is more than damaging to a few individuals, but damaging to the whole nation of Israel.   Indeed the government of Israel must  pass legislation to rectify a situation that has already gotten out of hand. Otherwise the whole country of Israel is on a suicide mission of appeasement.

8.       The feeling toward the Jewish homeland, Israel, was summed up by Shimon Ha'Chashmonaiof the Maccabees, the brother of Yehuda Ha'Maccabee. Shimon became the Jewish nation's leader after his brother died. Antiochus, sent his message to Shimon saying: "Return to me all the towns that you captured from me in the war, or, I will wage a war against you."

Shimon replied to Antiochus saying: "We did not take foreign land, and we did not assert control over foreign assets, but the land that is our inheritance from our fathers, which, at a time, without justification, was conquered and we, when we had the opportunity, reclaimed our fathers' lands." This reply is posted on the entrance to Migorn. Because we believe in it; we returned to be a nation; we did not invent ourselves; we existed for over 3,500years. We became a nation again in our homeland.

(1)    http://matzav.com/bar-metzra-bava-metzia-daf-108

Son-in-law vs. Neighbor for Liquidated Apartment

A rich man became bankrupt and the beis din ordered him to relinquish his home to the creditors. Fortunately, one creditor was his beloved son-in-law and the house was transferred to his possession. The latter allowed his father-in-law to continue living there for free, but just as the older man started to feel more at ease, his adjacent neighbor complained to the beis din that he had been mistreated. After all, he was a bar metzra, and the beis din, as receivers of the property, should have offered to sell it to him first. However, the Chasam Sofer (Responsa, C.M. 11) refuted his claim, stressing that Chazal learnt the halachah of adjacent neighbors from the commandment in Devarim 6:18: do what is upright and good. The owner of a field next to one offered for sale profits from buying it by enlarging his property and should be preferred but not if he thus harms the seller. If, in this case, the beis din sells the home to the neighbor, he would evict the owner, who would become homeless. The house should remain the son-in-laws’s for the previous owner’s sake, who is being allowed to live there, as the neighbor is also commanded to “do what is upright and good”! (See Chasam Sofer, ibid, who cites more reasons as to why the principle of adjacent neighbors does not apply to such cases).

Mothers' Day WARNING WARNING SHMUTZY ALERT! Plus Football and Melbourne's Kosher Milchig cafes

B'h

It has been a great Mother's Day. I received two Mother's day presents. Actually make that more than two, perhaps four MD presents. One was a little tray of pot plants. Another was hand lotion and bath gel. I received the plants on Friday. The hand lotion and bath gel was unpacked by my son for me last night Motzi Shabbat. He was a bit too excited to leave it for this morning. So as soon as Havdala was over he was into the school bag and pulling out my present which he then proceeded to unwrap for me. My gorgeous boy. The best part was today.
We got up early and went down to Murrumbeena for Nir's fifth footy match of the season. I have to say I am quite taken with footy at present. At first I thought, 'oh bother'. What a drag! Getting up Sunday to go to footy and again on a Thursday evening to take him to footy practice from 5.15pm to 6.30pm but if this is what being a good mother is, I will do it. We have actually set up a routine of activities. He is a busy boy, but he does have the energy.
Now they won against the Murrumbeena mob. Tough battle. But the AJAX Comets got in there and did they fight and fight their way through to win at the end. They were AMAZING! The whole team, the coaches, the trainers, the other parents who were standing there in the drizzle on Mother's Day to watch our beloved little footy stars busting their guts out on the field and fighting their way down to the finish of four quarters. They kicked four goals in the first quarter, plus two points. The score was 26 - 0 to us. It was exhilarating.
The second quarter our little team relaxed a bit too much and did not score a point, but then with some stern talk from Jamie and Daniel, the coaches, they revived and revved their game up a notch or two. The opposing home team fought like tigers but our boys got up and at one stage of the game,they were 34 points up. It was only some late goals by the other team that narrowed the margin. They are playing so well. They are playing like a good team should, like a pack working together. My son was one of the two captains and I told him over the last two days, you can't stand there on the side lines, you must get in on the action - hard and fast. Get in there and play, work your butt off and do and do. You are part of a team in every way. They will become like a well oiled machine by the end of the season. They are a great bunch of kids.Nir got his third goal of the season today. Not bad for his first season start. Five games and three goals. my little champion. He is getting hungry for success and it is a good thing. I tell him, don't ever listen to those who tell you that you cannot do things. They only hope that you cannot do things. Those who would pull you down psychologically are out to destroy you because they see you as a threat to their success. They hope you do not succeed because if you do succeed, it is sticking one in their eye. Tall poppy syndrome. Jealousy. Someone can have all the money in the world, many houses, cars and riches and still be a very unhappy and unsettled person. If you are a wealthy person with nothing to strive for or goals to achieve, then I guess you are bored and frustrated. You take things out on others.

Now food. A topic dear to my heart. Talking with one of the other mothers at the footy she told me about two new KOSHER CAFES in Melbourne. Melbourne has become a kosher kafe Gourmet delight.
We have a wonderful new Milchig restaurant cafe on Glenferrie Road. It is amazing and has these absolutely wonderful cupcakes.  It is called Sweet Crumble. It is just after Wattletree Road on Glenferrie and the same Side as Glicks. Here is their website. They have been open eight weeks.
http://sweetcrumble.com.au/
Divine coffee and the cup cakes are out of this world. Five ticks at least.

Now there is also the Milk and Honey Cafe opposite Alex's Supermarket and the Shemesh Pizza Place. They have not got a blog or website as far as I could tell. There is a Canberra place mentioned but I will make a trip there to ask them if they are putting up a website.
Then there is Savion Cafe which is near the Coles Supermarket in Elstenwick. They also do not have a website. They are convenient if you are a Lamdeni Parent and want to relax a bit while your child learns his  or her Hebrew and Jewish studies across the Road.
Now my old favourite which is, of course, Amalya's Cafe.  I love Amalya's and always have. I knew the first owners or founders of the cafe and it is hamishe and healthy. LOVE IT. The present owners Shaul and Miri Guerweiz are wonderful people and have wonderful warm and friendly staff. Their website is: http://www.amalya.com.au/ They also have the only Kosher goats cheese in Melbourne and I would say Australia. The food is great there. Always. The founding chef Yifat and her husband Shuki took a lot of care in designing the menu.  The present owners are also working on maintaining and improving the choices of food.
So that is the choices in the Milchig cafes in this small area. There are a couple of meat places, but Mini Bites is the best of these. Reasonable prices and good choices of salad and if you want something a bit fancy shmanchy, they have excellent cakes. They also have a range of soups and the like in the fridge which is very handy for mums who work. All Mums work hard, whether they are in home bound businesses or looking after family or with outside businesses going. Mini Bites website is:  http://www.mini-bites.com.au/
Then there is Nogga Cafe in Carlisle Street. I do not go there,  as it is quite expensive and I have not been there for a year plus. The last time I went I was charged $8.00 for a boreka that I could buy for $2.50 at Hamishe Bakeries up the road a bit. It was actually from Hamishe Bakery. I decided if I could walk up the road a little to buy the same mushroom boreka over five dollars cheaper, than that is the better option to have it at home with a coffee I have made myself.
I did eat there once when it was first opened and I cannot remember exactly who I went there with. A friend from Sydney, I think. Extremely expensive and while it was good food, you have to be reasonably priced to survive. It is better to have the volume of trade, than an elite 'exclusive' clientele with deep pockets who want to pay through the nose for coffees or snacks or meals and especially if there is nothing unique about what you are buying. http://www.nogga-cafe.com.au/
The cafes that are unique and have really interesting menus I feel, are defintely Amalya's Cafe, Milk & Honey looks interesting and definitely Sweet Crumble. The food in Amalya's and Sweet Crumble looks fresh and is unique to these cafes. This is especially true of Amalya's. Anyway I have put up the available websites of these places so feel free to explore them if you are in Melbourne or from out of town and have some great gourmet Kosher experiences. :-)

Vicious emails and what to do about them..

Among a whole lot of other emails, I received this in my emails last week. It was a hard week and I am in the process of finding work and trying to finish some stories off for a competition. I was abused and stalked by a woman at a lag be Omer function who I really do still pity but want nothing to do with her. The fact that she was pointing to my son and egging her son on to him or me shows the level of depravity and idiocy that I will not sink down there.  Here is the email I received and the comments I have put on it are in blue. This is from someone who knows her and who I now believe never liked me but befriended me for reasons which become obvious.

It started with

I should have listened to all the people in the community who told me that you were mentally unstable and that you slept with some black goy to have a baby irresponsibly at an old age.

I always knew that was the opinion of some in the closed community I was moving in with my son and at one stage he was at a school which shall remain nameless because there are too many good and decent people who are a part of that same community. Why let them destroy the name of a whole institution?  I knew that a woman who I had flatted with and is the mother of several children had obviously said rather negative things about me because it was her children who were one Shabbat telling my then three year old son at the bottom of the stairs to the women’s section ,’Oh, Nir we hate you. Nir you are a goy. We hate you. Your mother is a dog. We hate you.’  Now that was not a whole community. That was one sick individual that I chose to ignore because it was beneath my dignity to respond to such stupid behaviour.

I had my son at 49. I do not consider that old. I had 5 years of IVF treatment before I had him both here and in Israel. I do not need to go into details but I was married to the ‘black goy’ that this woman refers to. I do believe I have a perfect right to sleep with someone I am married to and only to someoneto whom  I am married.  Like most women I wanted to be married and to have a family. That is a fairly normal biological drive and I was not sleeping with anyone except my husband.  That I feel is quite normal. I have far more concerns about people who sleep with people who are not their husband and they are meanwhile married to someone else. Anyway it is no one’s business my past marriage.

I didn't want to believe them and thought I saw the good side of you until you showed me your real selfish vicious self proving all of them to be correct. I am not a close friend of Pinni's but, when I read your unprovoked attack on her I saw you are really a mean person. I should have listened to them instead of wasting time listening to all your paranoid stories about how you were constantly being conspired against, and before I gave you tzedakah and free food and a chance to be on my radio show. I should have paid attention when they told me you could not be trusted to be relied upon. Before you took out the long knife to stab me in the back with.

No sure who was being stabbed in the back here but her emails have gone to quite some people and that is a bit strange if you really like some one as a friend you do not take your battles out in the public area. You need to fight fire with fire and not let yourself be bullied.
There is more.

 No wonder your teaching career is in the toilet--it doesn't take long for the education system to see that you are indeed mad. You think anyone in this community is jealous of you when you cannot stay married, get or keep a job, make a single dollar from your writing, manage to rub two coins together, or manage even one child properly?  You are deluded and have a grandiose view of yourself as some master educator and fancy yourself a brilliant writer while you are merely a legend in your own mind. You think people are jealous of your stupid little pathetic blog? Gimme a break, how pathetic!

Interesting that I am supposed to have a grandiose view of myself as a writer when this person was the one giving me compliments. I do not think of myself as a writer yet, as I have not even published a book. I have never let compliments go to my head as I know that being a good writer is keeping your feet on the ground, whether you do it professionally or just as a hobby. I am just a hobby writer as yet. Getting noticed in a few competitions, a writer, it does not make. Sustained hard work does and being self critical and analytical. And being published helps.

 Most good writers will tell you that it is 10% inspiration and 90% hard yakka which is the actually hours of writing and then editing. All writers write differently. Some like my self pour stuff onto paper and then spend a lot of time editing and redrafting. I find once you get going, a story can write itself but you have to find the time and the quiet place to let it roll out.  Other writers will craft down the words almost perfectly at once but they write slowly and methodically. I have always seen myself as a wannabe writer. Most people do not call themselves writers until they have their first book out. 

 I often find I turn a page or two of writing into maybe a paragraph if I edit because I think of a lot of things as I write. My characters and what I want them to say. My plot themes and where does it start and where does it end? You can start with one idea that you want to write about loss and that is a wide topic to deal with. You might write about grieving the loss of a child, friendship, loss of a partner, divorce, house, childhood, innocence and many other things. It can be such a broad range of stories dealing with the topic on different levels. For me, the main thing that drives my writing passion is not about other people, otherwise I would not have something to write about every day. It is about themes in life, distressing and coping and understanding events on one’s life and analysing them. My stories may not be to everyone’s taste and of course there are critics like the writer of these numerous emails which I have decided to publish in their entirety with my answers over the next few days.  I feel great pity for this person as she seems to imagine I spent my time talking about her and the level of vitriol in these letters I have received means that this person really dislikes me and probably never did like me. I believe now that she just picked me up in order to dump me and hold me to ridicule at some later stage. I was warned quite openly about her and always answered that I have found her a kind, funny and amusing companion and workmate. Far from stabbing her in the back, I have supported and defended her.

And a woman who has lived your life in the manner you have has real chutzpah to stand in self righteous judgment of others like SD or Pinni or Mandy Radofsky or the 'sluts in sheitels' as you labelled this community. You think you are some paragon of Jewish womanhood? Ha! you think people admire the mess you have made of your pathetic life? Ha! Those in glass houses!

I do not stand judgement on anyone but I live my life in keeping with my beliefs. I wear a head covering and a sheitel or wig on Shabbat. I have been doing so since 2006. I am a mother of a child and deem it my responsibility to be shomer Negia among other things. When my husband left me when I was four months pregnant with my son and I was in a permanent teaching post at Narrandera in NSW I decided I would not let another man touch me ever again.  I realised Hashem had given me the greatest gift of nurturing a small human being to adulthood and I must do it right and cannot make mistakes, any more mistakes in my life. Yes, I have had very bad judgement in husbands and even partners when I lived a lifestyle that was promiscuous in that I did sleep with people without being married to them and I will be the first to admit it. But that is in my past and I intend to make sure it stays as past behaviour. However the yetzer ra (Negative Impulse)  is a hard thing to control and a head covering reminds one, who you are and what you have to live up to. It is my tzitzit if you like.

In fifteen years there was only one man in my life and that was my husband for the first six years. It has been liberating to be single and I do not feel any compunction to be married to anyone. If I were to meet a person who treated me with respect and shared my religious beliefs and lifestyle as well as would be a suitable role model for my son, then it might be a different story but as yet, I have not and nor am I looking. I feel nothing is to be gained by going out with anyone when I am unemployed and penniless as this woman so rightly points out. Her negative comments are quite laughable as she obviously sees me as a bit of dreck under her feet, so it is almost amusing to think about why she went out of her way to befriend me if it was not to just pull me to pieces in a rather nasty fashion. She is quite bully. But I do know how to handle bullies and will give her a taste of her own medicine.

I have never said a thing against Mandy Radofsky who is a very down to earth person. I made a comment about ‘sluts in sheitels’ and it was in reference to people who will cover their hair and sleep with men or even have intimate relationships with other women  and then they go around being ‘holy’ and speak the sort of lashon Hara against me that has been spoken. I am not paranoid and I am not stupid either.  If you want to sleep with a man, or have a same sex relationship, do not cover your hair and do not pretend to be frum. That is hypocritical and I will and others will have more respect for a woman who presents herself as what she is and not under some holy facade. At least it is honest.

And the vile shmutzy way you write in the emails you sent me reveals that under your phony prim and proper facade you are in reality a lowlife. Who else but a lowlife could even think u[ let alone write of such disgusting things in such a gross manner. It is so obvious that your attacks on others are all to cover up your own moral degradation.

I am not sure I even want to go there with what this woman has said. I have few friends in the community and they are very decent people. I do not understand what she is talking about when she is accusing me of moral degradation. She is the one who is hanging out with an accused child molester and yes he may have done Tshuva but he has still done an incredible lot of damage to others that has to be dealt with. In not one email to me, has she shown an ounce of compassion for SD’s victims. She has called one victim “a mental case” and stated that he “fantasised the whole thing” because SD is really a sweet, innocent and lovely kind person???????  Maybe he is to her and those who he wants to support him and I am not saying that she should not be loyal to an old friend of twenty years or so. But her vicious unprovoked aggression against me is amazing. I am still reeling and think I have no option but to publish this to show the world what those  who want to defame and to degrade the families that have come out to see that justice is done, for what they are.

The victims’ lot in life is hard enough. When an adult human being breaks the boundaries of a child’s innocence it hurts something in the human being and it is very difficult to heal. It takes patience and years of love and tough love to bring that child back to what he or she was, is and can be. Effectively it is rape and rape is bully behaviour. It is someone taking something from another person that is not theirs to take. We have guidelines in Torah for all facets of life. This week in parsha Emor we read about the Kohanim and how they have to consecrate themselves and keep themselves holy. We are a holy nation. We should not belittle ourselves and bring ourselves down to this level of depraved behaviour. Our children are holy and we need to protect them and nurture them. Not to destroy them by protecting and supporting a perpetrator of child abuse against the victims. I am also not for hanging, drawing and quartering the abusers especially if they were or are of a young age when the abuse occured. However they need to be brought to justice for everyone's sake and dealt with. They need to be given the right counselling and incentive to heal their sickness. Child abuse is a sickness.

If by shmutzy she means the way I write, then so be it. Horses for courses etc. I write from the heart and it is not to her taste. So be it. Frankly after this and other abusive emails, her writing and her lack of compassion for others is not to my taste either. There are many things I will not agree with but I will condemn the lifestyle and not the person. Persons can do Tshuva. But do you think doing REAL TSHUVA  is easy??? No and it is not a HEY presto, WOW WEE WHIZZ BANG thing, put on a kipa, or a sheitel, keep a sort of kashrut, be kind of shomer mitvot, pick and choose here and there what we will or will not keep. It is darn hard work and every step you take, means that sometimes you slip and have to go right back up again. Work harder. It takes years and years.

And of course a person such as yourself who is such a loser and has nothing going for them in life gets relief and a feeling of self worth by kicking others when they are down like SD. How cowardly of you for it is so easy to pick on those who are down,  or on those whom you perceive as weaker. You are actually the bully!

Thank you. By your words you have shown jut what sort of sad person you are. You are so sad. Sadder than anyone I know and I felt increasingly sorry for you when I read your email.

You want to write about me on your blog? Oh yeah, go ahead and play that game and keep in mind that two can play at it and I have access to a much wider audience than you ever would and that the damage I could inflict on your already very sullied reputation could be far more damaging to you and your son than anything you could ever dream of inflicting on me. If I want to I can make it so that not only won't you ever get another job in the educational system but that you would be foolish to ever show your face in the entire Jewish community again. Don't test me.

My sullied reputation? This is quite delusional. What have I done in the last nine years or fifteen years to be honest that has been wrong? I lead a very quiet life and modest life. Why would I write about you??? What really is there more to say. Very little and you are slanderous in what you are saying.

You are not my friend.

All I can say to that statement now is ‘Thank G-D you do not consider me a friend.’  Despite the way you have behaved to me, I still consider you a human being, but a very flawed and sad one.  You are one very sad lady. I have not wanted to hurt you ever, but I see that the only reason you befriended me was because you thought you could build me up and then tear me down and leave me in pieces. You are a classic bully. You hang out with a bully and a quite cruel one. You have no sympathy for his victims or for his family.

You are playing games with the wrong person and I am not about to leave town with my tail between my legs. I may be penniless and on the point of homelessness, but  did I get there by being vicious to others? I see the hand of G-D in all things and if I am to go out on the streets G-D forbid something will come up. It is people like her who have so merrily judged me. I do not judge. I leave that to G-D and if I am to suffer then there is a reason for it and I accept the lesson with love. I do hope she finds a life that is peaceful and good one day.  She certainly has not got it now.  At least I can feel for the victims and see the balance and reality of this situation far more clearly than she can. Sad sad. I would never have published this email of hers if I had not received some quite insane emails and going on in a very childish manner about my blog being better than yours (???) what sort of nutty comment is that?  Plus the threat to spread lashon Hara all through the community about me. I have to protect my son from her and also my self. She enjoys this and she thinks causing people pain is funny. That is what is so sad.

Kol Hakavod - B'nai Akiva children at Mizrachi Shule

B'h

It is always pleasing when you come across children who know the real meaning of rachamim or Chesed in the way they behave and interact with others.
My son has some developmental delay and some things he does not quite catch on to or understand straight away.
Today he asked me if he could bring his football card album to shule. I let him take his album with the cards he has seconds of and some of these special best and fairest cards. So he went off to B'nai Akiva and I went to my Shiur and the sueda shlishit.
Just before the speaker started, a young boy CXXXXX came up to the function room and tapped me on the shoulder and told me that my son was giving out his cards to who ever. He was concerned as were some other boys that Nir was being a bit vulnerable and maybe some kids were taking cards because Nir did not know the value of his cards. Nor did he know how to swap the cards effectively.
When I went down to the playground, here is Nir giving out his football cards, but three or four of the other boys including the boy who had gotten me from the function hall, getting his cards back and trying to explain to him that you just don't give them away.
Nir is desperate at times to be liked and to have friends. He has some rather bad experiences at a school which shall remain nameless a few years back. It happens and sometimes what is a good school for some kids, is not a good school for others. Also there was a woman who has always despised me and her children harassed Nir on at least one or two occasions that I knew. I chose to ignore things and it did not help the matter and apart from anything else and for other reasons, I had to end up withdrawing him from the school for his mental health and safety.
Nir is a very good kid with a lot of good qualities. He tries hard and is friendly and a very trusting sort of child. He loves sport and loves playing with the other kids. He is however over trusting with strangers and that scares me as his mother. I have to instill some sort of caution into him about who to talk to and who he is to go with. I have to work hard at making sure that he does develop more discretion and a healthy sense of being cautious of strange adults. Sometimes I will have to tell him, that not everyone we know is friendly or to be trusted.
Anyway it was a relief to know that there are such good children around that they are also looking out for another child who is vulnerable and a bit naive about the dealings of the football card swapping games. It is about good values or middot instilled in children which comes out in their daily interactions and that is how you know as a parent or educator that you have succeeded in doing something positive in forming future characters or making people who are genuine or positive people and not scoffers and cynical. There are a lot of cynics out there and I myself am a bit cynical. But today I was genuinely happy to see how well my son was treated by these people. He has responded well too.
Kol Hakavod Mizrachi

Bibi Moves and letting go of things

B'H
Well things have looked up politically in Israel. I feel it is a very positive move that there is now in place a 94 seat strong coalition headed by Bibi Natanyahu in the 120 seat strong Knesset. He has made some interesting and very astute political moves in the last few days. He may still surprise us further.
In all things there is the hand of Hashem if the right keli or vessel is made in this world for it. My viewpoint may not be as sophisticated and knowledgeable as some, but I do feel that we see the way that events are panning out in Israel, big changes are afoot.
They will have to annex Judea and Samaria if Israel is to survive politically and in its entirety. They cannot allow the left wing groups in Israel continue to give away land. Gush katif failed miserably and look what has happened to the towns and communities of southern Israel. daily rocket attacks and the like.
We must remember that Bibi is also now an ovel (mourner) and has recently lost his father Benzion at 102 years old. We all live in the shadow of our parents and when they pass we have to dig deep into emotional resources to see life in a very different light and we understand on a deeper level just how much we depended on them.  We always do miss them, even ten years down the track or twenty years. Especially people who we have not always agreed with, we still gain enormously from the exchange of ideas and different understanding of life and values.
I lost my mother a year or so ago to dementia and that is a grieving process in and of itself. It is actually worst because you have a body, but no mind, just a person who giggles inanely and does not answer your questions and is off somewhere else. A person who will dredge up things from the past about you and your father's family that she can remember and they are all bad. It is worst to lose a person to a failing mind. You need to live with the fact that the person is no longer coherent or making sense. That brings me to my next point.
When people are dead and gone there is not a need to dredge up their 'misdeeds' if they could be called that. It is upsetting to see people's names bandied about and taken out of context and what he did misconstrued. There is a certain Rabbi who I quite loved as a person and his name has been brought into a rather ugly affair in court at the moment.
Yes he could have handled incidents a lot better. But he did not and he is not here to defend himself and that is what is upsetting that these decisions are being slammed in the media and in court. I abhor the actual dragging of his name through the mud. He had a great heart and he more than anyone would have been grieved by this whole mess and would have taken a lot of guilt on himself.  He did a lot of good in the Melbourne Jewish Community and it has to be all wiped out because of one individual who was not behaving like a normal human being. It will be that individual who will  pay the price and his family unfortunately who will lose a father and a son for a while.
We are wiser in handling incidents like this now. We realise that sometimes deviant behaviour in teens and later in life, can be serialised by the perpetrators who if left unchecked get better and better at hiding what they do. It is a sickness that caught early can be cured in many cases. It is like all addictions though and the change has to come from the person themselves.
There are so many good people being hurt in the Melbourne Jewish community and so many individuals who have had their lives tainted by the misdeeds of one man, it should be a lesson to us all and not just in the Jewish community. There are so many people out there who are survivors of abuse and incest and they are coping barely with their lives because of the damage done to them in their early years.
The Rebbe said somewhere that a child is like a seed and if you mark the seed it remains marked in the adult tree. I think in terms of the spiritual and think if only we can through prayer change this world for the better and the individuals within it. The time when tshuva is complete, the offender or one who has hurt individuals has gained the forgiveness of those he has hurt.
That means gaining forgiveness of his family first, the mother of his children, his children, his mother and father, his silbings because he has hurt and let them down and he needs to beg the forgiveness of all those he has hurt - his victims and their families and it has to be sincere.
If another person trys to tell me that this is all about cheap media publicity and money, I will be very very angry. This is not about people with mental problems. This is about real people,  a good frum family and other families who have been deeply deeply wounded by the actions of one man and it was not treated correctly. They were not treated correctly or respectfully.
There are times when I wish the whole world could link up and forgive each other one day. That we could be at complete peace within ourselves. But first we have to go there into a very deep inner space. Few people want to travel there. It is too scary. They have to face themselves and that is often what they run from most.
You only find it when you have reached a point of such utter sorrow that the only thing to turn to is to G-D. You do not ask why. You understand things about yourself and others with such pain searing clarity you can begin to laugh again because it really is not important but it is of such great importance.Therein is the paradox. The Torah is the ultimate essence of life, wisdom and knowledge. We need Torah in our lives and throuogh that is peace. We find our truths each one of us. There are frum people with little Torah at times and there are secular people who are very good people who are closer to the Torah truth than some who have studied it all their lives. Something I do not quite understand but I have seen it. It intrigues me.
Shabbat shalom

Lag be'omer and the fires of lashon Hara

B'h
Lag Be'Omer is an interesting time of the year and it is the 33rd day of the Omer when we count 49 days from Pesach to Shavout the festival of weeks or the first fruits. It is a time when Rabbi Akiva's students stopped dying of a plague.Twenty four thousand students apparently had died or been killed up to this time and on this day, the yaitzheit of Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai. We celebrate with a barbeque and bonfires. It is the custom to shoot arrows from a bow and I am not sure of the significance of that but I can look it up.
This year we went to the Lamdeni function and it was great. We were having a good time and I thought to go around to Kantangra Shule to see their show. They usually have a magican or a juggler or some such thing and I might run into people who I know and can wish chag smeach to them.
So we left the Lamdeni bonfire at around 7.15 or so after being there for a couple of hours. My son told me that he wanted to go to the boy's shule which is Mizrachi and I demurred. Silly me not to trust the intuition of a child and maybe it was a message from Hashem about the unpleasantness that I was to encounter at that function.
It was quiet enough when we entered and after seeing a few things and Nir wanted a go on the slot cars. I have had a few things on my mind lately and have been very tired. I sat on a bench and was sitting quietly and reflecting and just people watching which I like to do from time to time.
Suddenly this woman walks up and begins to abuse me in a very snide and childish way. She goes on and on. when I indicated that I was in no mood for this conflict, she snapped,'Oh HO HO so we are not so strong without your computer are you. You slut, you bit of dreck.'  Among other things. I walked away because I was not in the mood for a confrontation. Madam followed me and continued a bit later on. She was walking around with her expensive camera slung around her neck and pretended to take a few photos here and there but took every opportunity to continue to attack me verbally with the most hurtful things she could dredge up from the depths of her obviously very depressed and insane mind.
Examples: I was obviously looking for my son at one stage so she marches up to me,'Ohhhh (laughs manically) Old MUMMMYYY looking for her son. (Laughs again manically) MMUMMYY go find your little boy you fucked up piece of shit. You kid is so screwed up because of you fucking screwball' and some other things that I could not understand because the words that poured out of this woman's mouth were so garbled and incoherent. Then again she walked up to me and told me how when she was married to someone she and her husband and all the single guys including a guy called Moshe used to get together to discuss what a slaggy slut I was and that no man should touch me with a forty foot pole and that I was diseased slag ridden slut and a liar and other things. She made out that I was filth and held her hands out shaking them because she had accidentally brushed against me or I had put my hand out.
Then again when Nir was standing at the slot cars she pretended to take a picture and pointed me out to one of her boys who is about my son's age and was talking and pointing at us and gesturing so I would be in no doubt as to who she was talking about. At that stage I decided to leave the function because I felt that she was hideously unbalanced and what was she trying to do to my son by egging her kids onto him. That was one of the reasons that I with drew my son from a religious school because a woman I had flatted with many years ago was egging her kids on to tease and bully my son and to get other kids to do it. I was aware and have been for many years that this woman has had an unbalanced and insane hatred of me. From the time that I went to mikvah in my conversion process many, many years ago, she has sought to defame and belittle me. Jealousy and anger and hatred are strange things and I do not know what I have done to deserve this sort of hatred but it is a lesson in and of itself.
It is typical mobbing behaviour and it is lucky that I have developed the resources through being bullied myself to understand where these people are coming from. 
I have also received hate mail recently from someone connected to this woman.  I am supportive of an abuse victim and his family in a case before the courts and part of this woman's vitriol and the woman at the lag be omer function's vitriol is because they feel I am unbalanced in supporting the victim of child abuse. I should have empathy for the position of the alleged perpetrator who they feel the media has done this alleged perpetrator wrong. They have given him trial by media. On that account I agree with them, I do not think he should have been named, but that is my personal opinion. Personally I think abuse needs to be dealt with privately and appropriately for the victim's sake and not really for the perpetrators who do rely on the shame of the victims and their silence.  Perpetrators need to be named and shamed after the court cases are finished and they are guilty. There is no point in covering up what they have done because there is really very little chance of rehabilitation in many of these cases because these people cannot help themselves and it is better that they are known so we can protect our kids. The protection of children are uppermost in our minds. I find the overbearing abusive behaviour of both these women to be actually quite staggering in its viciousness and I am going to publish some of the emails I was sent yesterday. This was after I had pleaded with this woman to allow me the emotional time and space to deal with some very disturbing personal issues. I realise now why this woman could have pretended to be my friend when really she did not like me at all. She despises me and must to write such things.

It is all very well for her to have sympathy for her friend and his family. I actually have quite a lot of sympathy for his family. I think they must be going through hell. But my main sympathy has to lie with another man and his family and their extended families because they are good people and they are not as I have heard some people describe them in slanderous and quite vulgar terms. This man has been termed to me as a nutcase and I was told that he should be in a mental institution. Well I guess when you support a person accused of pedophile behaviour and proven cases of it in his back ground, you grasp at straws. That has to have come from the person who is accused of the pedophile behaviour. They want to justify their behaviour and the ugly bullying behaviour is further elaborated on by getting others to bully people who support the victim and their families. That is further known as mobbing or ganging up. If that happens and they can get people to back down then they get away scott free.
It would be very convenient for the pedophiles and for bullies if all their victims were termed as unstable or a screw loose or mental cases. Then they could go on abusing and without fear of retribution.  I am not going to drop my support because of the abuse of two or three or twenty women or because some sick twisted people have decided that I am a prostitute and a slut and want to go around calling me that.
I find it interesting how dealing with bullies has made me more capable of dealing with this situation that has arisen now. It is 8.am and I have received yet another snide and offensive message. I do not wnat to reply and have and feel that I have no need of further replies. This person obviously has it in for me and there is nothing I can do about it but let them continue their lies and their slander and hope that they get a life one day.