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Forum -> Parenting our children -> School age children
Ds friends told him about CW, and he’s traumatized
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Bnei Berak 10




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 2:43 pm
daffys wrote:
Why was he EVER treated as a moral authority? A book writer is an entertainer only! We were given the Torah as our guide and this should be our only moral authority.

I live in on bnei brak.
CW was 100% viewed as a moral authority. He was the manager of 'child and family center'
He received the prize called Magen Hayeled from the hand of the Prime Minister. So yes, he was the ultimate religious chareidi authority on children.
He had radio shows every week
Wrote columns in it least two weekly Shabbos leaflets.
He had summer camps in bnei berak Jerusalem and haifa.
He was employed for decades at Yates Neeman. He was the ultimate kosher lamehadrin child friendly item that even the strictest chareidi litvish parent would allow into their home. Every book of course came with an approval of Bet Din Rav Karelitz. Could even be they had more than one approval.
Grandparents bought them books for their grandchildren. Parents bought for their children.
So no, This was not just a book writer, this was indeed *The* authority and on top of it a whole enterprise of so many more items.
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Bnei Berak 10




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 2:54 pm
As I don't own any of this books I don't have that problem.
In Israel I would *indeed* lift my eyebrow if I found his books on display in a religious home. What you have on your walls and book case reflects your values.
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daffys




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 2:55 pm
amother [ Camellia ] wrote:
Surprised Surprised
I have no words.
This is not a random rapist from Yenem. I'm not even going to try arguing you on why this line of thinking is just beyond twisted.
your right.. I didn’t read my post before posting and this specific sentence does sound bad…I’m trying to explain that we read so many books and we don’t have any details about the authors personal life and moral standards.
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Chayalle




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 2:56 pm
daffys wrote:
your right.. I didn’t read my post before posting and this specific sentence does sound bad…I’m trying to explain that we read so many books and we don’t have any details about the authors personal life and moral standards.


I think in the US we didn't know of his accomplishments like they did in Israel (or maybe some people did. I didn't. I viewed him as a very talented author.)
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Bnei Berak 10




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 3:02 pm
daffys wrote:
your right.. I didn’t read my post before posting and this specific sentence does sound bad…I’m trying to explain that we read so many books and we don’t have any details about the authors personal life and moral standards.

That's why it was so dramatic when things where uncovered.
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amother
Lemonchiffon


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 3:03 pm
So important to speak to our kids about this.

The one difference I had from what most of you are saying is that I did not tell my kids that he committed suicide because he couldn’t handle the reality of his life now. 1. Because I don’t want to give them the idea that suicide is a way out of taking responsibility for their actions 2. Because I truly don’t believe it is the truth in this specific case. I told them that the suicide was the last of his evil acts. He did so much bad and he wanted to do one last bad thing by abandoning his wife and kids and by not allowing his victims to see him brought to justice.

Such a hard topic and so hard to know how to talk to our kids about it…
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amother
Camellia


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 3:05 pm
daffys wrote:
your right.. I didn’t read my post before posting and this specific sentence does sound bad…I’m trying to explain that we read so many books and we don’t have any details about the authors personal life and moral standards.

Well if we really have no clue, I hear you. Most people aren't rapists though. And it's irrelevant because here we DO know about his personal life and moral standards, so we must act appropriately and remove the books from our home and schools. Especially if mesorah comes from the home and from our rabbanim (school) we need to be setting the ultimate example for our children.
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amother
Tomato


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 3:52 pm
OP, beofre my kids had a chance to hear it in school I headed it off myself and used it as a great way to reinforce touching safety.

I reviewed the Lets Stay Safe book with them, and by the touching part told them, "see how this could be about anybody....there are some sickos in this world that hide as good people and really do bad things to kids in secret...and we just found out about someone and everyone, even adults, is horrified and its ok for you to feel horrified too....im going to tell you who it is....Chaim Walder, the author you love so much, was doing this to children in secret while he pretended to be a wonderful person. We always need to remember that if anyone, even someone who we know is wonderful, touches us in a wrong way, we always tell our parents, no matter who it was..." etc. I showed them the list of Rabannim I had at the time, who advocated to throw away his books, told them we listen to Daas Torah and anyway dont want books in the house by someone who hurt us, and threw them out.
I told them about his suicide as well, and stressed it is completely against halacha and very very unusual, and the right thing for him to do wouldve been to get proper help.

They all absorbed the message, mourned the loss of their favorite books, and moved on. When they told me everyone in class was discussing it "like crazy" I was glad I had prepared them with the proper view.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:04 pm
daffys wrote:
There is respect and there is moral authority. I respect Donald Trump for his accomplishments but he is not my moral authority. I can respect many people but I do not base my moral standards on them. My mesorah comes from my parents and my rav. A random respected gentleman/educator/rav will have my respect but I will not use his words to guide me. And therefore I don’t see what’s wrong with reading a book that a rapist wrote. If justice Kavanaugh will write a book will you ban it from schools?
And there are plenty of professors who aint saints. They might be removed but their books aren’t banned. That’s liberal wokeness.


I'm not getting your analogy.
There have to be more people you give moral authority to than just your rav and parents. If not, maybe redefine respect. Because the respect I have for many people - mechanchim and mechanchos, community leaders, rabbanim from other communities, rebbetzins, many other people - is not the same as the respect I have for whoever occupies the office of POTUS. Maybe we just need more words for respect.
And for better or for worse, in EY he WAS given moral authority. And ok, so let's not give him moral authority. He wrote books about people at their most vulnerable. He was found to abuse people at their most vulnerable. Uch.
He achieved fame and probably $$$ in his career. He was known for doing what he did - writing, counseling - well. By that metric, you would respect him just like Trump. Not as a moral authority but respect on some level. I still can't get past the stira of my immediately previous paragraph. And it's not something I SHOULD get past.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:09 pm
daffys wrote:
your right.. I didn’t read my post before posting and this specific sentence does sound bad…I’m trying to explain that we read so many books and we don’t have any details about the authors personal life and moral standards.


Roald Dahl was a nasty piece of work. But he didn't write books about Idk, how to have a happy successful marriage.
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amother
Camellia


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:11 pm
PinkFridge wrote:
Roald Dahl was a nasty piece of work. But he didn't write books about Idk, how to have a happy successful marriage.

And his children's books are disappearing off the shelves of Jewish day school library's, I know many no longer have the kids read his work.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:14 pm
amother [ Camellia ] wrote:
And his children's books are disappearing off the shelves of Jewish day school library's, I know many no longer have the kids read his work.


People still read his books because he never posited himself as anything but an entertainer.
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amother
Camellia


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:18 pm
PinkFridge wrote:
People still read his books because he never posited himself as anything but an entertainer.

Because of his well known, rabid anti-Semitism Jewish day schools would rather not put their stamp of approval on his books. Everyone can do what they want in their own home, but a school has a responsibility to go above and beyond. My parents certainly let books in our home with more adult content than my day school ever would.
Thats the point, school libraries should be a place that is safe.
ETA- in the case of CW it seems pretty clear that most rabbanim have spoken and said his books shouldn't remain in the home and certainly not the school libraries.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:20 pm
amother [ Camellia ] wrote:
Because of his well known, rabid anti-Semitism Jewish day schools would rather not put their stamp of approval on his books. Everyone can do what they want in their own home, but a school has a responsibility to go above and beyond. My parents certainly let books in our home with more adult content than my day school ever would.
Thats the point, school libraries should be a place that is safe.
ETA- in the case of CW it seems pretty clear that most rabbanim have spoken and said his books shouldn't remain in the home and certainly not the school libraries.


I don't remember having heard about his antisemitism. Not surprised.
And yes, schools definitely are going to edit their collections more than private families will. I can let my high school kid read something but the school might say let's not start with it.


Last edited by PinkFridge on Tue, Jan 11 2022, 8:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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amother
Natural


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:33 pm
Yes, finding out that there is evil in the world is traumatizing.
Finding out that your own parents are not to be trusted can be even more traumatizing.

Hiding things from children is something the previous generation thought was the right thing to do to make children feel safe. It did the opposite.
Kids are not stupid. You can't hide anything from them. Instead, make them feel safe by being a constant, someone in their life that they can always trust and who they can turn to.
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basyisrael18




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 7:02 pm
Bnei Berak 10 wrote:
Sheltered or not, you simply cannot afford NOT to have the discussion.
As you have seen, they will find out sooner or later. Do you prefer them to hear it from you or from their peers?
This is not the time to chicken out.


And you can use that discussion to talk calmly about keeping safe from predators. If you haven't yet had that discussion with your kids, please do! It's a must nowadays, unfortunately.

My husband and I are taking a course "Sacred Not Secret" by psychologist Elisheva Liss to learn how to teach our future children about s-xuality in an age-appropriate, non-scarring fashion that will prepare them BeH for fulfilling happy lives with their spouses. (Similar topic - either they will hear it from you or they will hear it from their peers in a traumatic way that they may not recover from.) The course has a section about how to talk to children about predators in a way that will not traumatize them. https://get-intimate.mykajabi.com/SNS.
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amother
Sage


 

Post Tue, Jan 11 2022, 10:24 pm
I am happy when I was growing up I never heard a discussion about suicide, not a frum person involved in suicide, not about frum people going to jail, not about molestation.

Bh we felt safe and protected by parents, and didnt work with such difficult concepts

childhood was so much happier............
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