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Asher Lovy

@HareianiBlog

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Survivor, Director of @zaakahny , lapsed blogger, Jew somewhere in Orthodoxy, appreciate fish, maker of kugel, haver of many opinions. This is me.

A Protest Near You
Joined June 2017
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Mazal tov to LGBTQ students at YU!!! Happy Pride!!!
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Talia Avrahami was explicitly fired from Magen David Yeshiva for being transgender and nothing more. The rhetoric coming from the school and community off the record was sickening.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Shifra Yocheved Horowitz, a victim of Chaim Walder's, was found dead in her apartment of an apparent suicide. She reportedly was extremely affected by Walder's suicide and took her own life. After two days out of contact with her friends she was found dead.
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Asher Lovy
8 months
"A sex strike is not the way to fix this problem. We have a halachic mechanism for fixing gett refusal and this isn't it." Sure but when's the last time you kicked a gett refuser out of shul confronted them for their abuse of their wife or even made them a little uncomfortable?
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Be angry that Shifra Horowitz died. Be furious. Refuse to shut up about it until every friend, family member, rabbi, and community leader knows who she was and why she died. It's not a tragedy that just happened it was a murder committed by an indifferent community. #לאתשתוק
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Asher Lovy
2 years
@alisonturkos @lyft $25M is a slap on the wrist and the fact that survivors see none of it is a slap in the face. I'm guessing they didn't give you or the others any voice in this at all?
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Asher Lovy
2 years
All I'm saying is that if you've never been asked to find a rav for a chassidish girl scared that her brother impregnated her while raping her so she could ask for a heter to get an abortion, maybe shut the fuck up about it. 🧵🧵🧵
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Asher Lovy
3 years
This is the consequences of not believing survivors and taking their allegations seriously. This is what happens when a community fights so hard on behalf of an abuser and ignores the consequences to their victims. Her death is not only a tragedy but a crime.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
For everyone complaining about the fact that the New York Times got involved in the issue of frum education, let me ask you, where else should people concerned about this issue in the community go? Der Yid? Der Blatt? Yated? Ami? Mishpacha? YWN? Hamodia?
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Every day survivors of sexual abuse die by suicide because they aren't getting the support they need from the people around them, because they're told they're liars, opportunists, not tznius, or because they're dismissed by their community for not fitting the mold.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Wow. I'm actually in shock that this is happening. Wow. Yasher koach @MordyGetz . This is what the proper communal response to 20+ allegations of sexual assault against women and children should look like.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I know I'm repeating what many (like @ShulimLeifer and @trayne_wreck ) have said over and over about their own experiences as activists in the frum world, but when people accuse us of hating the community or not caring about the people, nothing could be further from the truth.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Shifra Yocheved Horowitz is only the latest in a long line of people who died because of the community's indifference. Sadly she won't be the last if the community doesn't radically change it's approach to sexual abuse. May God avenge her blood.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
3 years
Internal reporting doesn't work, and if you need any evidence of that I'll send you the list of CVA cases against Agudah, Camp Agudah, Torah Temimah, Ger Yeshiva, Bobov, Satmar, Mogen Av, Ohel, Ohel, Ohel, Chai Lifeline, Hamaspik, Kranczer, etc. All it does is lead to coverup.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
To anyone experiencing suicidal ideation, I've been there. I've attempted suicide twice and survived and I can't begin to describe how glad I am that I did. Please reach out for help. Text HELP to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line or call Lifeline at 800-273-8255.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
I've had a bunch of discussions with a bunch of people over tge last few days about the New York Times article on yeshiva education (or lack thereof) and there's one point that keeps coming up that I feel is important to address.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I hope they're sued into oblivion. This disgusting trabsphobia in our communities should carry a severe cost.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Spend a few years doing the work I do and you'll realize really quickly why easy access to abortion is critical.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
What bothers me so much about that argument is who counts as "the community?" Does the community include people who live within it who do want better education and are too scared to voice that opinion out loud?
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Asher Lovy
3 years
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Ifyou've never been involved in a case where someone was raped by a relative & because they're not allowed to drive they have to beg their mother to get them a pregnancy test because their period was late after being raped, I don't really want to hear your shitty opinions.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
There's absolutely no reason a trans teacher should be any less eligibile to teach at a school, or any reason they should have to out themselves to do so. To anyone who feels misled, ask yourself why it matters.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Maybe if you've never had anyone crying to you on the phone about how terrified they are of being pregnant because they know they won't survive it and can't afford an abortion, stick your "principled conservative" nonsense where the sun don't shine.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
I can't believe I have to spell this out, but I'm going to anyway. Saying you hope that allegations of abuse aren't true is not the same as saying you wish the victims hadn't been abused.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
In Whatsapp groups people were saying absolutely grotesque things about her simply for having the temerity to exist as a trans person. Discussions took place to decide how to fire her to avoid a lawsuit.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
I cannot recommend strongly enough that this letter be widely read and shared. In it a survivor of Chaim Walder speaks out to Rabbi Eisenman of Passaic, who translated it. Her letter is visceral and powerful and deserves our utmost attention.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
It's critical that this moment is not remembered as the moment the frum community solved the problem, but as the moment that many realized how serious the problem was. This is where it starts, not where it ends.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
And to those who may feel that she mislead the school by not disclosing her identity, she isn't required to and its illegal for the school to ask.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Does it include the people who are there because they were born into a community that exacts a heavy and unreasonable penalty for deviating from the top down rules?
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Asher Lovy
2 years
This is like when Birmingham shut down its public parks and pools rather than desegregate them, or when Virginia school districts closed schools rather than have desegregate schools.
@DBashIdeas
David/Dovid Bashevkin
2 years
🚨 YU undergrad suspends all clubs
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Side note, because some of my audience is very conservative (which I'm totally fine with, hey guys). I used to be very anti abortion until I started having to help arrange and pay for abortions for frum survivors of sexual violence impregnated by rape. 1/
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Not the bigoted reason why it matters, the real reason why it matters. Look deep within yourself to find what's broken about you that someone's trans identity disqualifies them from doing a job that has nothing to do with their gender.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
As of today, alleged child sex abuser Rabbi Shlomo Adelman is no longer principal of TABC.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Growing up I was terrified of aneurysms. I heard stories constantly in Boro Park of people dying suddenly of aneurysms and was terrified that I could contract one without knowing and die at any moment. When I got older I found out that aneurysm was a euphemism for suicide.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Because that's what I've seen in my ten years of doing the work I do - a community pretending that it has no problems because as soon as one appears they throw it out and disclaim any responsibility so they can keep pretending that they're better in every way than everyone else.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
It really does seem lately like religious freedom is less about ensuring that people can wear the heheaddresses they choose, swear or affirm in the way the choose, and keep their sabbath in the way they choose to just straight up being able to discriminate in any way they choose.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Rabbonim and gedoilim aren't experts in sexual abuse or child protection policy. Their opinions on it mean as much as mine on hilchos shmittah. Nothing. If a Rav tries telling you to do anything other than report sexual abuse to the authorities, ignore him. he's wrong.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Two points in the gun control issue. First to address the bullshit coming from Republicans about blue states having higher death by gun rates than red states. Spoiler alert, it's the opposite of what they're claiming.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Matzav and VINNews ran gleefully vicious attacks on her, outing her publicly, posting pictures of her and her family, and fueling an absolutely horrific storm of hatred in their comments sections before quickly removing the articles.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Are we not now considering sexual abuse and domestic violence violent crimes? Is financial fraud not crime? Are we not considering its victims part of the community? Are we pretending not to have a massive drug and alcohol problem even though we do?
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
. @RabbiLinden @RamahBerkshires and @NationalRamah sued for alleged coverup of sexual assault of a camper at Ramah Berkshires in '18. Notable quote from complaint allegedly from Linden re assailant: "I don't really think this is that big of a deal, he is just a horny little boy.”
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Asher Lovy
3 years
So in other non-Walder related news, it's disturbing lately how many people are posting about the @YUathletics team and then quietly deleting comments from people who bring up the alleged rape committed by a member of the team.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
No doubt they were asked to do so by Magen David after the school administration realized that having their strategy for firing a trans teacher for being trans broadcast proudly in the press might cost them heavily in court.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
It's a very American attitude, ironically, insisting you're exceptional in every way when you demonstrably aren't.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Who decides who is and isn't part of the community and who does and doesn't matter?
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
3 years
Read @avitalrachel 's fantastic 2018 article for the @jdforward in which she tells the stories of Orthodox Jewish women who had abortions.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
3 years
It's interesting seeing the Chaim Walder case become such a Flashpoint. No doubt it's the culmination of many years of work by survivors speaking up, activists pushing the issue, and a huge reserve of pent up frustration at the community's general indifference.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Does it include people who for whatever reason were part of the community and left, either because they stopped believing in the religion, had negative experiences within the community, or just decided it wasn't for them, and now find themselves harmed by their lack of education?
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Boro Park resident Fishel Sherman, previously charged with sexual abuse and let free through a diversion program, has been re-arrested for child sexual abuse.
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Asher Lovy
1 year
HAHAHAHHAHAHAAH "Technical difficulties" huh?
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Asher Lovy
2 years
. @Anzovina nails it again with a very difficult daf. The gemara is a legal text from 1500 years ago, it's not going to conform to our modern sensitivities and understanding of reality. 🧵🧵🧵
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
I don't usually put food posts on here, but every bit of this food is homemade from scratch and I'm pretty pleased with that
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
What regularly disgusts me about the charedi community is how it routinely ruins the lives of kids whose sins are those of childhood, while so easily forgiving child molesters, thieves, homewrwckera, and abuse enablers.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
But I can't shake this compulsion I have to make sure that no one in the community I come from ever has to experience the abuse I experienced. When a victim reaches out I have to help them. When an institution covers up abuse, I have to expose them. I don't have a choice.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
So to anyone accusing me and my fellow activists of not caring, I'd tell you to go to hell but you're already buying your own ticket. We care more than you ever will.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
But what I really resent is when people accuse me and other activists of not caring about the community, because in gonna be the one to help their kids when their families call them moisrim and abandon them.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
I'm going to be staying up until all hours trying to help them get justice, or find the resources they need, or talking to them, not the people telling me I don't care. I'm the one who will be there for the survivors discarded by the community accusing me of not caring. Not them.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Regarding the letter I posted last night sent by the administration of Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore informing parents about the arrest of Zev Steen for possession and distribution of child pornography, there are a few things I want to address.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
3 years
Being confronted with that reality made me staunchly pro choice. W/ regard to halacha, you'd be surprised what qualifies for heterim, including mental health concerns. A lot of halacha, especially around abortion, happens when no one is looking.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
We do it bevause no one else is, because we wake up in the morning with an intense and acute awareness of the people in the community who are suffering needlessly and can't speak for themselves. For me it's the victims of sexual abuse who have been forced into silence.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I find it very strange when people accuse me of being a liberal when I post about alleged sexual abusers and urge people to take the allegations seriously for three reasons. 1) It implies that the conservative position on sexual abuse is to keep it quiet and cover it up.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
3 years
But here's the truth. Abortions are often absolutely necessary, and bans, even with exceptions, mean that people who *even you believe need one* won't be able to get one. Unless abortion access is available to everyone, the people who need them won't be able to get them.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
6 years
Here's #whyididntreport : I tried. I really did.
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Asher Lovy
8 months
This has been everyone's problem, but everyone has been shirking their responsibilities. Especially men. Take a look at any discussion regarding gett refusers anywhere, in person or online, and you'll see men justifying the practice or washing their hands of caring.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
If they try telling you that talking about abusers in public is lashon hara, ignore them. They're wrong. It's the literal definition of toeles harabim. You could be saving a life.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
1 year
Breaking: Jacob Daskal Pleads Guilty to Transporting Minor with Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity. According to the plea deal, Daskal wil be accepting a sentence of between 14 and 17.5 years in prison followed by 5 years supervised release.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
1 year
In light of the challah bake that was supposed to be taking place today on behalf of now-convicted child rapist, Yanky Daskal, @zaakahny be hosting a virtual challah bake this Thursday 7/20 on behalf of his survivor and all survivors. It's about time we celebrate them.
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Asher Lovy
10 months
*** Gershon Selinger Pleads Guilty to Abusing Another Child*** Following the release of his interview with @MendyTV , another survivor came forward against Gershon Selinger with allegations of sexual abuse.
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Asher Lovy
8 months
Now suddenly the possibility of this communal problem actually becoming everyone's immediate problem scares people? It should. It should have scared everyone when the first mesurav denied his wife a gett.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I've been sent this screenshot by a buncha people today, apparently it made its way around WhatsApp. Is this what being famous is like? 🤣
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Asher Lovy
2 years
But the only way they can get away with doing that is by deciding unilaterally that some, sorry, many children within the community don't matter enough to be counted.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
But as far as the community was concerned every single one of those kids there, most of whom had also experienced sexual or physical abuse, was no longer part of the community, despite being raised and still living within it.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
I couldn't be prouder of the @ZAAKAHNY volunteer team. They're incredible, and did an incredible job yesterday.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
This tweet nails it. Chaim Walder had the access to children he had, and got away with his abuse for as long as he did, as a direct result of the fame and love his books bought him in the community. There can't be justice without recognition of that fact. This is so important.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I'm not saying this to glorify myself, believe me I'm not a martyr. It's not our of any unique bravery or heroism that I do this work, I just happen to be privileged enough to be able to safely do it and I want to use that privilege responsibly. I don't want or need the praise.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
Finally, it's inappropriate in such a letter to caution against gossip. Such declarations are too often used to silence necessary, important discussion about the issue of sexual abuse in general and the relevant case in particular.
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@HareianiBlog
Asher Lovy
2 years
I'm still bothered by something that came up in a conversation I had last night. Why is it that in the legacies of rabbonim who covered up for child molesters and enabled the wholesale rape and sexual abuse of children, their part in it is considered, if anything, an asterisk?
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Asher Lovy
2 years
None of them will publish opposing viewpoints on anything, certainly not this issue. I get the same complaints about my anti abuse advocacy, "why spread our dirty laundry everywhere?" Because I can't actually discuss the issue frankly in the frum media. They won't allow it.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
The ZA'AKAH Shabbos and Yom Tov Mental Health Peer-Support Hotline is available this shabbos and every shabbos by phone or Whatsapp at 888-492-2524. We are not a crisis line, but we can provide mental health peer support.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
By then I'd also attemoted "aneurysm" twice, and lost a bunch of friends to "aneurysm." Then I started working at Our Place and got a firsthand look at exactly how prevalent all these things are. Drug addiction, overdose, suicide, gang violence, teenage pregnancy, all of it.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
The easy thing would be to walk away, completely leave the community and everything about it behind, move somewhere they don't have any reach, and just live a normal life. Believe me I've thought about it.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
These two issues are inextricably connected especially since the anti-YAFFED crowd loves pretending we don't have such problems in our communities and using that as an excuse for denying children a basic education.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
My first op-ed for @JTAnews : "There are those who are hailing the community’s response to the Walder allegations as a sign that it has turned the corner on sexual abuse...That’s a mistake — understandable, but a mistake nonetheless."
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I have the same complaint of the people who in response to the article hurl the baseless accusation that the secular world is a horror show full of drug addicts and crime whereas the communities the NYT is criticizing don't have such problems.
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Asher Lovy
1 year
Last night I got a call from Rabbanit Iris Odani Elyashiv regarding the post I made last week about the challah bake being organized for now convicted child rapist, Yanky Daskal.
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Asher Lovy
8 months
The fact that @flatbushgirl1 had so many people in KJ counterprotesting against Malky getting her Gett just proves that this is necessary. Clearly the community doesn't feel any sense of obligation toward agunos. I
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Asher Lovy
3 years
Disgusting and sickening. Before suggesting a literal crime (obstruction of justice) Lopiansky bemoans the fact that victims are too scared to come forward while in the same paragraph disclaiming any responsibility for that on the part of rabbonim.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
I've been getting calls for years about a certain doctor in Boro Park who has sexually assaulted more women than I can count. It's something of an open secret that he's a sexual abuser and yet no one in power does anything about it. The victims I talk to are all scared to report.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Second, the vast majority of guns used in crimes in the US were purchased legally and then trafficked to criminals. Where are they purchased? Red states with lax gun laws.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
@SEichenstein @nytimes This is such a bald faced lie, Simcha, and you know it. I was picked up and thrown against a blackboard by a rebbi in 2nd grade. In 3rd I was dragged by my arm across the floor and physically thrown out of a classroom, bumping desks and chairs along the way.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
The following updated letter was sent by Bnos Yisroel regarding the arrest of Zev Steen:
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Frum friends, did any of you growing up ever get grounded? I remember the first time I saw someone on TV get grounded by their parents not understanding what that meant. Is it just not a thing in the frum world? I guess spending 10 hours in yeshiva a day is punishment enough 🤣
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Asher Lovy
2 years
. @HannahLebovits posted this very interesting thread about Shovavim, and I wanted to expand a little bit on it. It's an important thread so I suggest everyone read it.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
Or do we just consider such people by definition outside the community and therefore not our problem?
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Asher Lovy
1 year
This is sick. A hafrashas challah event next Tuesday in honor of Alleged rapist Yanky Daskal, former head of Shomrim whose trial for allegedly raping a minor who was living in his house begins on Monday. Funds presumably to be donated to his legal defense I imagine.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
In the ten years of doing this work I've thought many times about walking away from it all, and I keep telling anyone who will listen about how badly I'd like to just fade into the background and live a private, easy life.
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Asher Lovy
2 years
It's critical, especially in communities where historically reporting has been discouraged, that reporting be explicitly encouraged.
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Asher Lovy
8 months
A not as if we all agree that gett refusal is a form of abuse and now we just have to figure out the mechanics of how to make halacha work toward that end. So many in the community, especially men, still feel it's a legitimate form of leverage within a divorce.
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Asher Lovy
3 years
If Lopiansky really cares about victims as he claims to he should work to rectify the reasons why victims are so scared to report in the community instead of throwing his hands up in the air and then suggesting harmful, illegal, stupidity.
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