Elul 5764 • September 2004 • VOL XXXVII/NO. 7 U.S.A. $3.50 (Outside NY area $3.95)/Foreign $4.50 CLICK HERE FOR TABLE OF CONTENTS THEJJewishewish Elul 5764 • September 2004 OOBSERBSERVERVER U.S.A.$3.50/Foreign $4.50 • VOL XXXVII/NO. 7 THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN) 0021- 6615 is published monthly except July and August by the Agudath Israel of This is the full Table of Contents of the print edition of the America, 42 Broadway, New York, NY10004. Periodicals postage paid in Jewish Observer. The web edition contains only a selection of New York, NY. Subscription $24.00 per articles (indicated in COLOR). Click on the title to go to the year; two years, $44.00; three years, $60.00. Outside of the United States beginning of that article. Navigate using your browser’s menu (US funds drawn on a US bank only) $12.00 surcharge per year. Single and other options. copy $3.50; foreign $4.50. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Observer, 42 Broadway, NY, NY 10004. Tel: 212-797-9000, Fax: 10 The Branja Conspiracy:The Israeli Elite’s Usurping of Power, 646-254-1600. Printed in the U.S.A. Yonoson Rosenblum RABBI NISSON WOLPIN, EDITOR EDITORIAL BOARD RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS “V’CHOL BANAYICH… AND ALL YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE STUDENTS OF HASHEM…” Chairman RABBI ABBA BRUDNY 20 Accommodating Children with Special Needs, Mrs. Leah Steinberg JOSEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI YISROEL MEIR KIRZNER 28 Parents at Risk, Rabbi Hal Klestzick RABBI NOSSON SCHERMAN PROF. AARON TWERSKI 34 Avoiding the Risks of Unthinking Parenting, Rabbi Noach Orlowek DR. ERNST L. BODENHEIMER Z”L RABBI MOSHE SHERER Z”L 38 Equal Time:Giving Our Daughters a Chance, Rabbi Shmuel Gluck Founders MANAGEMENT BOARD AVI FISHOF, NAFTOLI HIRSCH 41 READER’S FORUM – “Confronting the Dangers of the Internet ISAAC KIRZNER, RABBI SHLOMO LESIN NACHUM STEIN – Revisited” (Continued) RABBI YOSEF C. 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Feldinger Statement of Policy Leimanstrasse 36 4051 Basel, SWITZERLAND The Jewish Observer has devoted a great deal trolled to every possible degree, our THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not of space to the perils of the Internet and gedolim recognize that many people and assume responsibility for the to the need for everyone to be extremely businesses require its use, and therefore it Kashrus of any product, vigilant in its use. We have echoed the pleas has not been banned. This is why we accept publication, or service advertised of our gedolim that it should not be in use, advertisements listing website addresses, in its pages unless it is an unavoidable necessity, and then but in no way does this imply that the © Copyright 2004 only with all suitable safeguards. While its gedolim or The Jewish Observer condone dangers must be recognized and con- casual use of the Internet. September 2004 VOLUME XXXVII/NO. 7 SUBSCRIBE TO THE JEWISH OBSERVER! CLICK HERE. Yonoson Rosenblum “THE ARROGANCE OF terms of efforts by Israel’s old elites to point of view of democracy…, this poses ISRAEL’S ELITES” – REVISITED maintain their dominant role in estab- a not inconsiderable problem.” lishing public norms. Those elites, she Though Gavison’s focus was the sraelis have coined the term the said,“have a natural tendency to aggran- Supreme Court, she also touched on the branja (clique) to describe a small dize the power of the Court in order to connection between the power of the Igroup of less than a hundred men curb or restrain the process of democ- Court and the media, another of the and women concentrated in the judici- ratization [of Israeli society].” remaining bastions of old elite power. The ary, media, and the law enforcement sys- That Court, due to Israel’s unique accumulation of power by the Court is tem who exercise inordinate influence judicial selection system, which gives the aided and abetted by the sympathetic over Israeli public debate and power over three Supreme Court justices on the judi- media in two ways. First, the media con- elected officials. cial appointments committee virtual con- vey the impression that the judicial phi- Nearly five years ago, we published in trol over the process, has, in Gavison’s losophy of Court President Aharon these pages a lengthy critique of the man- opinion, become “a closed sect, which Barak is shared by all right-thinking ner in which Israel’s traditional elites is uniform and self-perpetuating.” Too jurists worldwide. Deep disputes with- maintain control of the national agen- often, she charged, the Court uses its in academia about the Court’s approach da and seek to thwart various democ- power “to give priority to the values of to specific subjects, and about the ratizing trends in Israel society.1 The one group in society at the expense of Court’s judicial activism, in general, rarely immediate occasion for the earlier arti- the values held by other groups.” reach the popular media. cle was the far-ranging criticism of the And when it does so, its methods recall In addition, both the judicial system Israeli Supreme Court voiced by “the period of the philosopher-king, who itself and its fawning media respond to Professor Ruth Gavison, one of Israel’s informs the citizens from on high what any criticism with dire warnings of threats most respected constitutional law pro- their values are supposed to be.”In sum, to the rule of law posed by such criticism. fessors, in an interview with Ha’aretz’s said Professor Gavison, “one court, As Professor Gavison observed, a system Ari Shavit. Professor Gavison explicitly which effectively appoints itself, that is forgiving of any sharp statement framed her criticism of the Court in creat[es] the constitution by means of made about politicians “is hypersensitive interpreting the Basic Laws, and with- about every critical statement directed at Rabbi Rosenblum,who lives in Jerusalem, is a out any of the control mechanisms that the judicial system.” contributing editor to The Jewish Observer.He is also director of the Israeli division of Am Echad, exist in the United States…. From the Ari Shavit expanded Professor Gavison’s criticism of how the media the Agudath Israel-inspired educational outreach 1 “The Arrogance of Israel’s Elites” (December effort and media resource. 1999.) treats the Court to a more generalized 10 The Jewish Observer, September 2004 critique of how the flow of information over the political echelons. signed off on the indictment, knew that to the Israeli public is filtered through Frequently, nothing more is needed Neeman would be forced to resign as a very specific lens: than to open a file for a criminal inves- Justice Minister as soon as the indictment In present day Israel, there exists an tigation, as in the case of Knesset was filed. Even though the trial court almost absolute identity between those Speaker Ruby Rivlin. An investigative file judge summarily dismissed the charges, persons dedicated to the idea of peace on Rivlin lay dormant for four years, with sharp words of criticism for the pros- in its most radical-dovish version and without being closed or a criminal pros- ecution, Neeman never regained his posi- those journalists, lawyers, and aca- ecution initiated. Only when Rivlin, who tion as Justice Minister. In the words of demics, who are charged with setting has been a frequent and sharp critic of Maariv editor Amnon Dankner, those the civic and legal norms and the flow the Supreme Court, was mooted as a pos- “who fabricated a case against an inno- of information…. A certain camp, very sible Justice Minister, did news of the file cent person and obstructed justice to pur- well defined, fulfills three or four leak to select reporters. sue a purely political and ideological functions: they are the players, and the The most egregious case of a crimi- agenda” succeeded. judge, and they both report and explain the process of various media outlets. When Professor Gavison first voiced r. Vicki Shiran, in a study of political her criticisms of the Court, she was viewed as something of a Cassandra. In Dcorruption in Israel from 1948-1997, the last year, however, various aspects of elite power have come under scathing found that not one MK from the ruling party attack from the leading figures within the law enforcement system. had ever gone on trial. Almost all the MKs Last November, Elyakim Rubinstein, prosecuted were religious and/or Sephardi, then the Attorney General and today a justice on the Supreme Court, set off a and viewed as representing subversive storm with a blistering attack on the sym- biotic relationship between certain political forces. investigative journalists, on the one hand, and leading criminal investigators in the police and prosecutors in the State Attorney’s office, on the other. In June, nal prosecution to protect against Nor does the law enforcement sys- current Attorney General Meni Mazuz unwanted elements gaining too much tem treat all prosecutions equally.