BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I'm drawn to work & people that provoke thought for me. Even if I don't agree with it - I take it in because I find I learn more from disagreement, about myself and about the way Hashem works in each of us. I used to read a site called THE DAILY OM. The other day the article du jour was entitled BLAMING OTHERS. At the end it said: We do this by forgiving our parents, even if they have not asked for our forgiveness, so that we can be free. We end the abusive relationship with our partner, who may never admit to any wrongdoing, because we are willing to take responsibility for how we are treated. In short, we love ourselves as we want to be loved and create the life we know we deserve. We leave the resolution of the wrongs committed against us in the hands of the universe, releasing ourselves to live a life free of blame. BULLPOCKY!!! I don't buy it. For many many years I was raised by a parent who abused, used and manipulated me - but I was taught that I HAD to l...

In June 2007 I wrote an article called PRISONERS OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. Over that summer I was lucky enough to attend a number of conferences on Domestic Violence Advocacy, an area where awareness & advocacy is still desperately lacking. Aside from my speaking out about the lack of or insufficient responses from law enforcement, a lot of talk circled around faith-based abuse counseling. It seems priests, pastors, rabbis and so on are still trying to keep families together when there is clearly a cunning and remorseless abuser or exploiter in the home. Many don't get verbal, emotional or psychological abuse at all! And worst of all, they have little to no knowledge of what their "forgive & forget" speeches and minimization of the abuse's effects do to children. I made the following honest comments to one group: I grew up in a home where I was insidiously abused. To this day I deal with a profound lack of ego & self-esteem and seem to be a magnet f...

MEGAN MEIER - SUICIDE WAKE UP CALL! Even online, lives can be broken and destroyed. I've been there myself. The cruelty of those who get their kicks hurting & using others online is unfathomable. It's something I will never understand for the rest of my days. My prayers go out to the Meier family. MySpace, Facebook, MSN, AOL, Paltalk, YahooChat... doesn't matter. There has to be accountability for what was done to this child! CNN Transcript of Interview with Megan Meier's Parents AZUZ: And teachers, that's why we urge you to preview this segment, which discusses a teenager's suicide. Now, bullying has been around for a long time, and we've probably all seen some form of it: kids getting picked on for what they wear, something they say, sometimes for no reason at all. With social networking sites, bullying has moved online. Gary Tuchman tells us the tragic story of one teen who became the object of this kind of cyber-harassment. GARY TUCHMAN, CNN R...