The truth will out. The suicide of national-Haredi children's author Chaim Walder let many cats out of the bag, and we don't know yet if anyone will be able to put them back in. Alongside the chilling discoveries about Rabbi Eliezer Berland (who heals through mint candies, who endangered his believers) and his sexual proclivities and the affair of Rabbi Mordechai Elon, who was convicted of two counts of molesting a teenaged boy, Walder was accused by an informal court of sexual offenses against innocent women – rocking the religious world.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
On one hand, it turns out that in a world where everyone sees everything, it's impossible to hide cases like these – just like the Catholic Church was forced to admit to serious sexual abuse. Because the Haredi sector has limited faith in law enforcement, it tries to handle the instances that come up on its own, which leads to disputes about how to handle them, informally.
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu ruled in Walder's case, which led to his suicide. Rabbi Tzvi Tau, spiritual leader of the radical right-wing Noam movement, aired their disagreements. Tau claims that Eliyahu is not a rabbinic judge, and had acted without authority. He is convinced that Eliyahu was under the influence of the Left, which supposedly "invented" the charges against former President Moshe Katzav because Katzav, while president, refused to meet with a delegation of Reform rabbis. He claims that the allegations against Walder stemmed from his refusal to visit former President of the Supreme Court Aharon Barak.
These rabbis' flocks should be reminded that there has been a state here for nearly 74 years, and it has one of the most respected legal systems in the world when it comes to justice being done. We have judges and prosecutors, defense attorneys and police, the vast majority of whom operate according to rules that take into account the defendant's rights as well as those of his victims. Anyone who wants justice would do well to appeal to the national system, and turn their back on legal amateurism that wants to solve criminal problems within the confines of a certain sector.
Meanwhile, in Hungary, the heads of the European Union are searching for ways to cut off countries that have lost a number of democratic characteristics. The most obvious candidate for a change in status is Hungary. Notable EU leaders are defining Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as an existential threat to the EU who sees himself as an example of upholding human rights and the rule of law. One sanction under review would stop the transfer of many streams of EU funding to Hungary, which in recent years had benefited from rebuilt infrastructure with the help of the EU.
Former US President Donald Trump, however, was a close friend of Orban's and declared that he saw him as the most fitting person to lead Hungary ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections this year. A nascent coalition of six parties, from both the Right and the Left, that wants to restore Hungary's democratic character is getting ready to oust him after something similar happened recently in the Czech Republic. That is what most European countries hope will happen.
Take a look at Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 1995 Dayton Agreement yielded a series of understandings after the bitter war between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, but they still aren't calm. Recently, Serbian nationalist leader Milorad Dodik declared that he intended to wrench the Serb territory away from Bosnia, whose population is just 3.25 million, with all of the military and economic implications the move would entail.
Some argue that the winds of war have started blowing because Dodik is involved in various corruption scandals, and wants to distract people. The country has three presidents and two national entities, and it wouldn't be hard to stir up the national tensions of the 1990s, when the Bosnians were fighting the Croatians and both were battling the Serbs. That's just what Europe needs.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
