Meah Shearim Mother Meets Son for First Time Since Ordeal

12
>>Follow Matzav On Whatsapp!<<

chaimkeh-smallFor the first time since the affair with the Meah Shearim mother became public, the mother met with her son, Chaimke. The meeting was held at the Schusterman Center in Yerushalayim. Psychologists and representatives from the Ministry of Welfare were present at the meeting. According to those present, the young boy hugged his mother and refused to leave her after the meeting.

Several times in the past weeks, the mother had been scheduled to meet her son, but each time it was postponed for various reasons.

Yerushalayim District Court Judge Moshe Ravid ruled last week that the mother may keep in touch with her son. The decision allows the mother to keep in touch via telephone and meet her son under the supervision and assistance of the psychological and social personnel on behalf of the family.

{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}


12 COMMENTS

  1. This Judge has provided a way forward as would be expected in any other western country. Kol HaKavod.

    There is one thing that no-one seems to be able to define. Now that the mother is out of the equation on a day to day basis, just exactly what is the health of this child. Has he improved, and if so by how much? Has he stayed the same or has he deteriorated further?

    Something tells me that this little boy will end up being the star witness for the prosecution. If he has developed significantly in the last couple months… that would not look very good for the defense.

  2. Or, the opposite.

    The possibility of malpractice and experimentation at the hospital may be a large part of this.

    He was not only away from his mom, he has left the hospital. Furthermore, even if he stayed, they would have been unable to continue a possible pattern of malpractice at this point, after accusing mom.

    May Hashem send a Yeshuah quickly.

  3. And now that he left the hospital, he suddenly is doing very good. Makes on wonder what the hospital was “doing” to him, to buttress their case.

  4. It is hard to believe that many of the posters to this and other sites really accept what is being suggested, namely that a major Israeli medical center whose doctors are respected the world over deliberately used a child for “medical experiments”. Does that really make any sense to anyone? I know many of the staff at Hadassah Ein Kerem and I cannot believe it for one second. I can belive that there waqs a serious culture clash between the parents and the hospital staff. I have seen in my own hospital fierce arguments between non frum medical staff and parents over, for example, the perceived vital medical need to feed an infant non chalav yisrael formula. The staff simply cannot understand the parent’s objections. The parents do not properly explain themselves or engage in seeking possible alternatives. They simply stand their ground shouting and screaming. That leads to the what I have described as ‘culture clash’. Incidentally the worst issues arise with educated baalei teshuva.

  5. is the matter being investigated properly
    both re the practices of the hospital and of anything else?
    is it helpful for the welfare of all concerned to have all this published all the time?

  6. #5 in the original hospital he was supposedly doing terrible. As soon as he was transferred out, he began a miraculously quick recovery.

  7. BBB #5.

    You are not on top of the news. He left Haddassah Ein Kerem for a different hospital where he improved by changing his diet and allowing him to eat regular which Haddassah did not allow

  8. In recent months, there has been this ongoing bizarre story of a wonderful frum mother of several children from the Toldos Aharon Kehila in Yerushalaiyim who was put in jail. The only “crime” that she committed was that she moved her sick son out of the hospital he was in, where he was getting virtually no meaningful treatment, to another hospital where she felt he would be treated better.

    It is noteworthy that at about the same period that this story was developing, on the other side of the world, another story was developing that, albeit was a totally different case, still had several stricking parallels to this episode in Yerushalaiyim. As the various problems of this other event are ongoing issues, B’Ezras HaShem, we should try to examine them.

    I. A few months ago, there was an article about this other story posted here on Matzav. Now, let us briefly review from the beginning what the story was.

    In the town of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, a Mr. Anthony and Mrs. Colleen Hauser’s twelve year old son, Daniel, is badly coughing, overly tired, and has a swollen neck. So on Jan. 21, 2009, they take him to their family physician, Dr. James Joyce, who thinks he may have, Lo Alaynu, Yener Machla. They thus go to Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, where he is diagnosed with Stage IIB Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Dr. Bruce Bostrom there perscribes six chemotherapies followed by radiation.

    A bit latter, Daniel has difficulty breathing, so he gets his first chemotherapy shot. Follow up X-rays show a shrunken tumor. However, the boy reacts very badly to the shot with severe vomiting. The fact that one of the aunts died from chemotherapy also makes the family concerned about this treatment for their son.

    Furthermore, the family, which is Roman Catholic, joins a spiritual group called the Nemenhah Band. This small Midwestern organization follows American Indian practices, heavily stressing natural healing. Doing some research, the mother gives her son some natural remedies, including a diet of organic food and ionized water.

    As the Hausers do not return for more chemotherapy, Dr. Bostrom reports them to Brown County Family Services. The county files a petition with the court, and on May 9, 2009, the family is brought to trial. On May 14, 2009, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg declares the parents guilty of medical neglect and orders them, that by May 19, they must get a new X-ray and have an oncologist.

    On May 18, the mother and her lawyer take Daniel to Dr. Joyce for an X-ray. In this X-ray, the tumor is back to its original (before chemo) size. Realizing what this means, she tells her husband that evening that she is going away and takes her son and flees Minnesota! The drama gets wide coverage, with the media, numerous web sites, and countless internet posted comments heavily vilifying Mrs. Hauser and her son.

    The next afternoon, Judge Rodenberg issues a contempt of court order and a warrent for the arrest of Mrs. Hauser. He further threatens that when found, the boy will be in government custody and placed in a foster home. Several police forces and the FBI search for them.

    The next day, authorities announce that the boy and the mother were seen in southern California. Speculation is given that they are trying to go to Mexico where there are many holistic treatment centers for yener machla.

    Realizing that there was no way for them to legally cross the border and that they cannot keep evading the police, Mrs. Hauser and Daniel go back to Minnesota on May 25 and fully submit to the government and its doctors. The judge cancels the arrest warrent and allows Daniel to stay with his family.

    (See: http://kstp.com/article/stories/s944507.shtml?cat=63)

  9. II. Both of these stories, from Meah Shearim in Yerushalaiyim and from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, have numerous important issues and lessons for us. Again, the cases of each story were completely different. At the same time though, they are amazingly the same general story: A mother of several children has one son who is sick. He is placed in treatment for his sickness, but, in certain ways, he gets worse. So the mother attempts to remove him from that treatment to place him in a treatment that she thinks will be better for him. For this “crime,” she is vilified in the secular media, threatened with — or, actually thrown into — jail, and further threatened with the loss of her son.

    Of course, of course, of course, in each case, the respective government is doing this all for the welfare and safety of the boy! But we need to think, is the government really doing a sacred duty of protecting the children of its country? Or, is it one more instance of where the government has become good ol’ “big brother,” who is looking for more and more ways to be able to control our lives and make “the decisions” for us!

    This is very relevant for us right now, for at this moment, the US Congress is seriously considering health care reform. It has turned out to be an exceedingly controversial and emotionally heated issue; the reason it has turned out so controversially heated is this fundamental question: is this a well meaning effort to sincerely make sure that even a poor money strapped person will still be able to get the medical care that he needs? Or, will it be a new mechanism by which our government will be able to have even more knowledge and control of the intimate details and decisions of our private lives?

    In each of the two stories, it is not the government by itself that is going after the mother, rather, the government is acting as the enforcer of the wishes of the modern medical establishment. In the Minnesota case, the mother had tried to go to the field of modern medicine’s nemesis: natural medicine, so the medical establishment (using the government) went to war on her. In the Yerushalaiyim case, it was not any issue of modern versus natural; rather, within the modern hospital world, one hospital was not treating the boy right, so the mother took him out of there. As this could be a big embarrasment or even a big lawsuit to that hospital, the response had to be to try (using the government) to destroy the mother.

    It is thus a bone chilling thought of how much dictorial power this modern medical establishment has. That it has to resort to such low tactics and iron clad force to coerce people to follow its dictates puts a huge question mark on its own validity. That it has so vehemently tried to discredit the natural professions simply brings to mind the statement of Chazal: “Kol HaPosul, B’Mumo Posul” — “Whoever tries to disredit everyone, is just throwing at everyone what are really his own faults.”

    Countless people have been suffering with illness situation that can be greatly helped by appropriate natural healing treatment. For too long though, they were unaware that these whole worlds of healing even existed. It is certainly high time that they be shown the truth and given the help that they need.

    In both cases, there is also the aspect of religion. In the Yerushalaiyim case, the mother is a respected member of the Chareidi Toldos Aharon Kehila in the world famous ultra-religious section of Meah Shearim. We can be well sure that part of the motivation of the medical people who are trying to discredit the mother is part of the whole wicked effort to project to the world the sick lies that the Chareidi Jews are just a bunch of crazy fanatics who have no connection to real life.

    In the Minnesota case, the Hauser’s attornies had — unsuccessfully — tried to present the court with the arguement that using chemotherapy was against the dictates of the Hauser’s particular religion. Now, this religious opposition to chemo of the Hausers IS NOT that opposition to all medical care that we often hear about from certain fanatic religious groups. Over there, there are people who have the — obviously misguided — beliefs that when a person is sick, that is G-D’s decree and we have no right to interfere with what G-D is doing. So the most that they will do is to pray to G-D to spare the person, but it is strictly forbidden to go to any doctor.

    The Hauser’s position of this religious Nemenhah Indian like group though, is NOT that medical intervention is forbidden. Rather, what is forbidden is to do something that HURTS a person. Thus, they are opposed to chemotherapy, for it often does more harm than good for the patient. (See and ponder http://www2.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/2009/05/daniel-hauser-and-chemotherapy-for-patients-with-hodgkins-lymphoma.html, paragraph 3.) Therefore, they prefer to utilize only natural medical treatments, which are much safer. Again, the judge rejected all this, and declared a place where there was no freedom of religion.

  10. commentator #6 — I ask and beg (but no one wants to do the homework because most don’t want to face the truth) that you do a bit of sleuthing about Hadassa — you will find out that they are in the bio research business without ANY oversight of an objective outsider. There had been a report commissioned last year that called for the formation of something like the FDA in Israel, but as of yet, hasn’t happened. Governmental authorities in Jerusalem are in a precarious situation, as Hadassit and they, as well as the wife of one of the Consular heads all are profitting from the bio research. In addition, you have not yet nor has anyone explained how the oncology doctor in charge of this child’s care is still in the employ of this hospital when he blatantly lied about his credentials (posting on the website that he has a Maryland license, when in fact that license has not been valid for years).

Leave a Reply to george Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here