In Toldos Aaron, some are pleased the case of the Meah Shearim mom is going to trial, confident the Jerusalem District Court will serve as a forum to reveal the state’s plot against the mother and chareidi community, confident her true identity as a devoted mother will be known to all.
The state appears equally confident however, explaining no less than 125 doctors, nurses, department heads and hospital support staff appears on the state’s witness list, to bring testimony to support the state’s contention that the mother abused her son, starved him, and interfered with and hampered medical treatment.
The state maintains that the mother’s abuse resulted in many problems and is responsible for stunting C’s growth and contributing to the convoluted medical picture that left doctors confused for a prolonged period.
In Meah Shearim, one of the questions being asked is if so many people knew of the child’s condition, referring to the state’s witnesses, they will be compelled to file legal action against all of them for remaining silent and not taking action on behalf of the small child, whose condition was permitted to deteriorate to near starvation.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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48 Responses
Soon the truth will be known, but hopefully the friends and family will come out as well to testify. Usually, then they are scared off, and dont want to come forward.
So this baby had 125 doctors treating (read, experimenting on) him?!?!? What ideal witnesses!
If they’ll add the 120 Mks, they’ll have 225 witnesses! And if they’ll dig up some judges from Sodom, they’ll make it to the Guinness World Book of Records of the most witnesses against 1 Me’ah She’arim mother.
Can someone tell me why there were no investigations on the doctors of Hadassah?
An employee is a poor witness in a case in which the employer has a major stake. Hadassah is as much a defendant as the mother, so Hadassah employees are poor witnesses.
You mean: if it turns out the accusations are true, they do not want the mother to go to jail for causing harm in the first place, but at the same time they want the doctors to be punished for “letting it happen”????
Is this the logic? Or did I miss something?
So 125! doctors, nurses, department heads and hospital support staff saw this child and knew that there is something wrong with him and for 2! years they kept quiet and didn’t do anything about it and let him suffer and suffer and suffer.
Then after 2 years, when the mother wanted to switch hospitals, these 125! “righteous” doctors, nurses, department heads and hospital support staff, all got an instant revelation from Heaven (or Prosecution) that now is the appropriate time to publicize this top kept secret that they were all involved with treating the child for the past 2 years and did nothing about it.
So why is not the head note of this news as follows “Toldos Aaron is confident that the Jerusalem District Court will serve as a forum to reveal the state’s plot against the mother and chareidi community,”
it seams that YWN is more happy to phrase it the other way. וד”ל
A lesson deduced from this case:
Every patient that escaped intact from the clutches of the doctors, nurses, social workers and what not and were not indicted for some concocted crime to save the skin of the staff of the hospital, is obligated to BENTCH GOIMEL.
I visit Yeshiva World almost daily and although this story is a “news” story it shows how low we,Klal Yisrael, have sunk in the middah of tznius. This should be a private matter between officials and the family. Not splattered all over the place for poeple to give thier Daas like they know everything. I’m talking to you too.
The state is already changing its tune. Instead of saying that she abused the child, they are now saying that she contributed to confusing the Doctors leading them to to convoluted medical procedures. Are the Dr’s so incompetent that they wrongly treated. The family has always blamed the Dr’s for the mistreatment, and now it seems that the Dr’s are admitting that but blaming the Mother.
It is obvious that this case is nothing more than a modern day witch hunt. I only hope that through the trial process, a major scandal in hospital mistreatment will be uncovered.
The way it works is if a ‘mandated reporter’ fails to report abuse then he is liable for neglect. An equal crime.
ny100k: What is your source for your statement “The state is already changing its tune. Instead of saying that she abused the child, they are now saying that she contributed to confusing the Doctors leading them to to convoluted medical procedures”?
Concerning your further statement: “Are the Dr’s so incompetent that they wrongly treated. The family has always blamed the Dr’s for the mistreatment, and now it seems that the Dr’s are admitting that but blaming the Mother”, my understanding is that there was a high level of trust and cooperation between the mother and the hospital until a few months ago when she began to worry that they were doing unnecessary tests and procedures more for the purpose of training medical students than trying to cure the patient. At that point she was advised by one of the prominent medical askanim to move the child to a different hospital and the hospital, realizing that it was exposed to malpractice action, decided to go on the offensive and things started spiraling.
At this point my speculation is that the hospital and the prosecutors and hoping to put pressure on her to accept a plea bargain and thereby avoid a trial which could be dangerous to them and expensive for the mother. Please daven that justice be done.
BTW, seemingly once the child was moved to another hospital he improved rapidly.
No matter how many witnesses come to the table none of you will believe them. Instead you insult the hard working doctors and law enforcement officers who work very hard every day and spent years in school (even if they are right or not in this case). Next time you get hurt in Eretz Yisroel and need an ambulance, treat yourself and see how well you do. The overwhelming majority are testifying against the mother (which is a fact in this case) and very few are with her. That alone tells me something in this case. And dont go and tell me everyone hates Frum Jews, you learn to deal with it and move on.
She is guilty as charged. The prosecutors have proof through medical tests, the boy was badly bruised, and psychological tests. If you dont believe the dozens of doctors and physiologists then maybe 9-11 never happened either G-D forbid. The defendants (you guys) are just complaining and calling for anti-semitism. Sounds similiar to the Robert Gates case with the cop arresting him in MA. Wise up. Case closed
Please, why do so many have to have missed the message of the 3 weeks. I am an American physician and I can tell you without question that this is a delicate and complicated matter. There is ALWAYS the assumption that a frum mother with children, would NEVER do anything to harm her own child. Even if someone would see something before their eyes, they assume that they didn’t see it correctly. A mother can make up excuses, stories, can state that a previous nurse said or did something and fool people for quite some time. These matters are complicated, require time to catch, time to figure out, and time to prove.
Chas V’Shalom to think that hundreds of Jewish and frum physicians & nurses who spend 100% of their working time caring for thousands upon thousands of the cholei Yisroel, with love & caring a with mesiras nefesh, suddenly have conspired to crucify this one frum mother. Do you really think they have nothing better to do with their time? Do you really think that they have suddenly become rishoim? Do you really think that they want to anger and alienate the very community that they serve, their main customers? Do you really believe that hundreds of Jewish Doctors & nurses, many of whom are frum themselves, would conspire to experiment on one frum pediatric patient? Are you out of your minds? Are you so detached from reality? Are you so full of hate and suspicion and paranoia? Many of the commentators above should be ashamed of themselves. The Loshan HoRah against the Hospital where hundreds if not thousands of people work hard every day to help others is unfair, cruel, thoughtless, and simply disgusting.
You have questions? Don’t we all! Let the process take it’s course. There are attorneys defending her, there are prosecutors pressing charges, there is an open courtroom and a judge. Why rush to say horrible accusations against hundreds or thousands of Kllal Yisroel or against this one poor woman, when in fact you and I know next to nothing of the actual facts.
If it turns out that in fact she has done this to her own child, it is an outstanding accomplishment for the staff to have figured it out and proven it. They will have saved this young child’s life, they will have saved this psychiatricly impaired mother from having killed her own child, they will have achieved getting her diagnosed so that she can receive treatment, and they will have done all of this good with the tremendous mesiras nefesh of having to face an enraged lynch mob who have threatened their lives, threatened to destroy their hospital, and have been called every foul thing known to the frum world.
It is well known that when doctors went on strike far less people died, and it says that even the best doctor is a rotzeach. It is far better to stay away from doctors as much as possible and try to go only to natural doctors.
The essential question is; If the woman has a mental illness, what is the necessity for a trial? Therapy and help should be forthcoming.
125 people? That variable is just as shady as this entire ordeal. What a mess! Refuah Shelayma for the child and justice for the mother.
I agree with shivisi.
I don’t know what happened, and I’m willing to bet that almost nobody does.
If the mother was suffering from any kind of traumatic stress when the kid started losing weight, she probably doesn’t know what happened either.
Boruch Hashem, a life was saved. Before it was too late.
Proper healing takes place when stress is reduced.
It’s not easy living in a fishbowl.
This family is entitled to as much privacy as is possible under the circumstances.
Curiosity is not a good enough reason to continue airing their laundry in public.
shivisi – it’s nice to have privacy but this case needs publicity. This lady was alone for 2 years, now with all this publicity her baby is on the road to recovery Boruch Hashem.
If the Chareidim hate the State, then why do they go to hospitals run by the State?
I read up an interview in mishpacha last week from dr yair birnbaum. every answer seems to differentiate from other questions asked in a different way. i came out feeling that there are no concrete answers as there for sure is cover up.
DO NOT RIOT (remeber Ganhdhi. MLK, et al)!!!
But yes, the lady doth protest too much!!
125 witnesses? that is ridiculous. SOunds like “the best defense is a good offense” to me.
Typical Israeli behavior – instead of admitting wrongdoing – attack viciously putting your victim on the defensive.
TOV SHE’BE’ROFIM LE’GEHINNOM!
NOW, YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE GEMARA WAS GETING AT.
#5- Could it be that the mother wanted to switch hospitals when she heard they were going to press charges?
This is no witch hunt.
As someone who was a patient in hadassa for close to three months, I received the best care .. interesting ,no?
#13 The story is bad enough as it is why are you making up “facts” about the case. “The prosecutors have proof through medical tests, the boy was badly bruised, and psychological tests.” Has never even been suggested. Keep reading all the trash that is on line
#17 The Fact? What Facts? That is exactly what we hope to find out at the trial. Your faith in the medical establishment tells me you have never dealt with hospitals at all in you life. Hashem should help you further
Dr. D (#14): Your argument is well-reasoned but it does not address the inexcusable surpise arrest of this pregant mother in a welfare office, her hands and feet having been shackled and her incarceration with common criminals until voices of reason were brought to bear. That is hardly the way a civilized, enlightened country should treat someone suspected of being mentally ill. Not to speak of the kvod of a bat yisrael.
Dr D,
Since your trust the court system so much, and what will happen if the mother is proven innocent and a victim of attempted cover-up for experimentation and malpractice?
You nicely wrote out all the possible results of exoneration of the hospital, but, by “mistake”, forgot to say, “on the other hand, if…”.
Thankfully, this child has gotten good medical care from an alternate hospital, after possibly being maltreated and experimented on for months on end (who would think an woman from the community to have the savvy to catch on, right?), and now it’s time to close your tongue, put it to rest by perhaps eating some ice cream, and davening for all concerned.
Perhaps you can spend some time devising the best method of tearfully begging Mechila from this mother if the courtroom decides she is innocent. Or if the courtroom of Hashem decides she is innocent. Use creativity, because it’s sure gonna have to be a passionate request for Mechila…
POR: My source is from the Indictment. Therein it claims that the mother confused the Dr’s leading them to treatments. So the state admits what the mother and family have said all along, that the loss of hair and lack of growth was a result of the “confused treatment”.
If there is a clear case, with videos and pictures as the state’s press release says, then why the need for 125 witnesses? It is clear they are hoping to threaten the mother into a corner in hopes she settles for some type of guilty plea.
frumimaof3,
I guess because some people didn’t get autopsies a few short years ago, all the people who were unfortunately autopsied against the family’s wishes really weren’t, it was just an optical illusion.
And the doctors caught in an Israeli hospital saving BODY PARTS for research purposes instead of handing them over to the families after autopsy for burial was really just eating cereal and milk in his lab, looking at pictures of body parts, because there were certainly many people whose body parts were NOT held in this doctor’s lab for his edification.
And as for the doctors and nurses who engineered and facilitated the wholesale ripping away of tiny Yemenite babies from their parents, selling them for top dollar to the Ashkenazic families, really didn’t do it, they were just playing with dolls in the pediatric playroom, because many Yemenite babies DID get returned to their families when they recovered from illness, so if many got returned, the doctors and nurses just COULDN’T have performed these atrocities.
Therefore…you got great care, which brings us to the conclusion that the hospital could do no wrong to any of its patients.
Your logic is exquisite.
And sad.
Pray for Justice but don’t hold your breaths. The state-sponsored hospital will bury their crime, together with a few chareidim ch”v if necessary, just as they did with the autopsies and the parsha of the 2,000 stolen Yemenite children.
I don’t know for sure who is guilty.But there was a published report a while back that the 2nd most corrupt government in western countries is Israel
ny100k, thanks. Thinking further it seems that the threat to bring 125 witnesses could be a way of pressuring the mother to accept a plea bargain, since the legal fees to pay lawyers to sit in court and cross-examine all those witnesses must be enormous. The idea of agreeing to let the family move to England (where the father comes from) might be the best solution for all sides, out of sight out of mind. Still, the Eida was pushing for an investigation by the State Inspector General, who is more likely than the prosecutors or the courts to be impartial and who presumably has the power to get all the relevant information and punish those who fail to cooperate honestly.
The tzibur is asked to be mispallel for the mother, Yenta bas Yocheved.
I do not claim to know what happened.
Personally, I still advocate a redirection of the Oilem’s attention to other topics.
However, I would like to present a question to all those who keep questioning why an arrest MIGHT at times be unfortunately necessary, even if the root of the problem is in fact psychiatric:
How do you get a defensive, aggressive patient, with a defensive, aggressive family, from a defensive aggressive community into an evaluation against her will????? You need a diagnosis to admit somebody to the hospital against their will!
This dilemma is faced daily by people in the medical and public welfare arenas.
Additionally:
Restraints are unfortunatley still aometimes deemed necessary in psychiatric Units. Medication is still sometimes administered by force to unwilling inpatients. A psych ward can be a traumatic place.
This is a very painful reality.
Why cant you just wait for the trial to find out what really happened. Unfortunately, there are many cases of FRUM families abusing children across the globe and it has been hidden from the public’s eye. We should try to stop it and allow people who are guilty to be punished. I hope she did not do this to her child, but who are we to judge? do we know all the facts, medical reports, data ect?
#32- You say my logic is warped.. you are comparing today’s doctor’s with their medical knowledge to those of over 60 years ago..
Hadassah Ein kerem is one of the leading hospitals in the world.
you honestly, have no proof but you assume b/c it’s the “zionists” that they must be wrong and the Meah Shearim mom must be a tzadekes.. ABUSE exists even in the Chareidi community. WAKE UP!!!!!
Do you honestly think that a hospital would risk being sued just for a blood libel???
These aren’t Nazi’s .. these are Jews in the 21st century.. who have more medical knowledge than you will ever have..
My daughter was taken care of quite nicely in the baby area for two weeks. I also witnessed the care in the NICU there.. The professionalism was immense.
#34- number one corrupt gov’t is the USA!
I will attempt to answer question 28. It’s long and it’s an educated guess at the facts.
Yes, the arrest of this poor pregnant woman and the reported shackling of her and placing her in a common prison is awful. Unfortunately, she had to have a “surprise” arrest as a preventative measure since the charedei community is known for helping “unzera” to escape the “evil Medinah” and they flee the country and hide out in another country’s charedie community. The family moves and then the possible abuses could continue. Unfortunately, there have been such actual cases like this recently.
Having said that, one should ask, “Did they have to place her in a prison with criminals? Couldn’t they have placed her in a hospital’s locked psychiatric unit as this is what they were saying the problem was?” That IS a valid question, but the answer may be fairly simple but technical. I don’t know the legal system in Eretz Yisroel well enough to know if the police had that as a legal option. In the U.S., there are strict rules that vary from state to state that MUST be met before the police can perform an “Involuntary Commitment” to a psychiatric unit. You may want to look up that term in Wikipedia. If the Israeli law system requires that the Police first have a hearing and are required to first have an independent psychiatric exam, BEFORE the Police can involuntarily commit someone to a psychiatric unit, the police have no choice but to first place the person in jail, get a hearing to prove to a judge that there is valid reason to need an involuntary commitment and then get a psychiatric exam. If this is the law in Israel, this law PROTECTS you all from being snatched by a police officer who would stick you against your will into a psychiatric unit.
This is what appears to have happened. Now the interesting twist to the events. Since the psychiatrist said that he thought she was not psychiatricly ill, they could not commit her to the psych unit. They then worked out a deal to let her out of jail under house arrest. It also meant that she knew what shew was allegedly doing and the prosecution would now be changing the charges to willful child abuse, a criminal charge, which would mean jail. After that happened, the psychiatrist changed his mind and said that she really could be psychiatricly ill! So, now that she is already under house arrest, they will not likely involuntarily commit her into a psych unit. If the prosecution proves their case, her psychiatrist will state that she’s psychiatricly ill so that she won’t go to jail but will have her children removed from her care until she is determined to be healed from her illness by her psychiatrist.
To answer #29. I did not forget about the other possibility. Perhaps she is innocent and the hospital blew it and maybe that will be the outcome at trial. I focused on the other possibility because most of the comments expressed the inability to see the possibility that the hospital staff as a rule try their best (although their are always exceptions). Why assume the worst in some of the best people out there, people who spend every day living and working to help others.
Please note that I stated that none of us know almost ANY of the real facts and none of us should jump to conclusions. Let the process take its course & then offer an opinion. Lastly, if it is determined that the mother had abused her child and suffers from a serious psychiatric illness, what transpired was good. Saved the child’s life, saved the woman from her own illness, saved the other children, and offers hope for the future. She will not be evil, she will be sadly ill and in need of a refuah shlaimah b’soch she’ar cholei Yisroel.
To all of those with their own idiotic attacks upon physicians in general, daven every day that you & your entire family & chaveirim should never get ill. But if for some unfortunate reason, Hashem should decide that one of those should, you have 2 choices.
1) Daven to Hashemk that since Hashem is the one that made them ill, Hashem should heal them & stay away from doctors and hospitals.
2) Take them to a doctor and repeat all that you have said to the doctor who is now going to treat the infection, heart attack, stroke, cancer, or whatever that the loved one has! Guess what? The doctor will almost definitely mutter under his breath that such sinas chinam that he or she has been subjected to should be for a kappora, and then go ahead and knock their kishka’s out to help your loved one.
Dr. D:
You write “that this is a delicate and complicated matter” I agree, and I therefore question the tactics and agenda by the police and justice departments treating this as if this were a organized mafya gang they’re going up against.
You further state “Chas V’Shalom to think that hundreds of Jewish and frum physicians & nurses … suddenly have conspired to crucify this one frum mother”
This skews the facts somewhat. Nobody is alleging conspiracy to crucify the mother or malpractice on all the so-called 125 medical witnesses. It is enough for a handful of practitioners to have conspired or at least to have turned a blind eye to what was actually being done by ONE physician, the rest are just as ignorant of the facts as you and me, but they may still be called to testify as to the supposed integrity of that one physician they know or testify as to their interaction with the mother, (most likely in a negative way, if they want to keep their job).
Lets face it, if a colleague of yours messed up and get’s sued in court, you would likely testify as to his integrity etc. even you know the truth about that case that it was an error on his part, wouldn’t you? would that be conspiring to crucify the patient? or just helping out a colleague?
As to your “educated guess” about the Israeli police and their procedures, I would say this much;
Don’t consider your guess an educated one until you have experienced, at least to some degree, first-hand their corrupt law-enforcement as well as judicial systems!
As to getting some concrete facts and the unanswered questions regarding the handling of the hospital, I would advise you to do a search for “meidaamiti” and you should see a site (run obviously by the family) which has documents and info not reported in the media.
#44. Thanks for the reasoned comment. I would be very surprised if the states case is being based upon the testimony of one or two people and using over 100 as character witnesses for the one or two people. The defense can bring in the entire chareide community as character witnesses for the mother. As far as I know, character witnesses in a criminal case doesn’t get anyone very far.
The hospital made it very clear that they and the police only acted after they had definitive covert video documentation. The hospital has made it very clear that once the mother was removed from the bedside, the child gained very significant weight within the first week and has continued to gain weight and they expect the child to recover completely from a physical perspective. The physicians involved have expressed grave concerns for the psychological future for the child. This is usually only stated in the most significant abuse cases. Granted, all of this is conjecture, based upon the released information.
I cannot address accusations of corruption within law enforcement. But I can state that the Israeli Child Protective Services and the Social Services Department were the ones who worked with the physicians and the police. Are we now going to accuse all of the police involved, all of the hard working and dedicated Hospital staff involved in the child’s care for all of this time, all of the social services staff that have assisted the Meah She’arim community all of these years and the Child Protective Services division? That all of them have conspired to protect one bad physician because their afraid of…..????
By the way, if my colleague messes up let’s say by amputating the wrong leg, and I testify that he’s a great guy, wonderful to his kids, a real tzadik in shul, goes to daf yomi, a great joke teller and a super surgeon; how far will that get me with the jury? How about if 200 other doctors walk in and say the same thing? Do you now want to give the victim 2 or 20 million?
Dr. D: thank you for your enlightening explanations about the possible causes for Dr. Weil’s opinion change.
I would never have thought of that!
You mean it is possible he got a call from the lady’s lawyer saying him: You fool, who asked you to write she has no Munchhausen by proxy!. And since he always wants to please his clients, he complied…
I am flabbergastered.
But come to think of it: why not?
Dr. D
I agree with you. Let the facts come out and we shall see what happened. Everyone has judged the case before all the information comes out.
What is a witness list??
At the beginning of a jury trial, both parties to the case may be required to submit a list of prospective witnesses. In a criminal case, it may be used to inform prospective jurors of who will likely testify, thus allowing prospective jurors to state if they know any of the witnesses and would therefore possibly be partial. However, disclosure of witness names can be subject to a protective order.
If either party desires the testimony of a given witness, that party must take the appropriate steps to obtain the witness’s presence at an appropriate time and in an appropriate fashion, and no party should assume a given witness will be produced by the other side simply because that witness’s name appears on the witness list, or has previously been identified as a potential or likely witness. Failure to include a witness on the required witness lists may result in that witness’ testimony being prohibited at trial, or other sanctions. Court rules vary, so requirements in your jurisdiction should be consulted.
http://definitions.uslegal.com/w/witness-lists/
125 corrupt cowards trying to cover up their mistakes.”NEBACH”