The lengths these guys will go to smear a person without any reason other than they know he knows about Margo's theft of the Torah Vodaath name and was willing to voice his criticism in public. The school must be shut down.
To those who still stand by Margo and TT - you certainly deserve to do so. Fools!
Tuvya is a real lowlife, compromising his professional integrity for a little kovod and maybe a bissel gelt from the biggest rasha on Ocean Parkway. Shame on you!
The following study should prove interesting when discussing whether there are verifiable statistics regarding sexual abuse in the Jewish community and whether the repressive nature of certain halachos might contribute to sexual deviancy.
The Sexual Life and Observant Women Study
The latest issue of YCT's student journal, Millin Havivin is now available online. It includes a report by Dr. Michelle Friedman on a study of Orthodox Jewish women and sexuality, which will be the subject of a formal paper in the future. The saddest point in the article is as follows: Sadly, we found the same statistics for sexual molestation and abuse of girls and teens as in the secular population. One quarter of our respondents reported sexual molestation as girls or teens. While patterns of molestation varied somewhat from secular studies, we must face up to the fact that, contrary to popular belief, traditional religious life does not guarantee protection for girls and teens in this arena. The study also looked at the role of the laws of nida in Orthodox Jewish marriages. The standard theory, most famously articulated by Rabbi Norman Lamm in Bed of Roses and propounded by chosson and kallah teachers ad nauseum, goes some like this: With the institution of taharat hamishpacha... a marvelous domestic miracle occurs: the honeymoon lasts throughout the greatest part of one's active life! The drama of love-without-sexual-contact followed by the loving union of husband and wife and their being together is repeated every month. In a previous post, I noted how the Dr. Friedman's study seemed to debunk this "Bed of Roses" theory. According to the report cited in my prior post: About 400 married Orthodox Jewish women in New York and Israel filled out anonymous questionnaires. Researchers found that 72.1 percent of married Orthodox Jewish women were emotionally satisfied and 70.4 percent were physically satisfied.
The results were compared to a 1999 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that 93 percent of American women from various denominations were physically satisfied, and almost 90 percent reported a high level of emotional satisfaction
I still don't know what Neuhoffs credentials are. Is he truly a certified child psychologist? How could it be that 'tuvya' said he does not know about child abuse and he had to research the issue? I just don't get it.
As an aside, I wonder if Neuhoff did tell margulies that he wouldn't take the job and margulies went behind his back and put his name on the list anyway. I wouldn't be surprised by anything at this point. Except why I still have very close family members in the yeshiva (obviously I have no control).
They smeared this poor guy because they assumed it was him for the diatribes made by UOJ against the theft of the name Torah Vodaath. He was very critical in public about Torah Vodaath essentially giving Margulies a pass. It doesn't get worse than this.
I bet this whole bit about attempting to "out" you was a Torah Temmimah operation. Be strong !! Chazak !! Don't let them take you down. I can't believe R' Belsky was in on this crap. I went to YTV in the 70's and remember the rebbies constantly going on strike because of low salaries or not getting paid.
At the time, Rabbi Belsky was one of those rebbies. They might not have suffered so bitterly if YTV had all that money that was stolen.
That Chaim (Neuhoff) emailed me again. He is f-cking begging for rachmones!
He claimed to me naive, and not realize what he was getting himself into, which does seem possible.
What do you say?
----------------------------------
I SAID NO! UNLESS A FULL APOLOGY WAS SENT TO THE FAMILY THAT WAS SMEARED UPON BELSKY'S AND MARGULIES'S INSTRUCTIONS!
LET'S NOT FORGET MARGULIES WAS THE THIEF THAT STOLE THE NAME TORAH VODAATH, WHY NOT NOW GO AFTER THE FAMILY THAT FOUNDED IT, BECAUSE A MEMBER OF THAT FAMILY CHALLENGED HIM?
...I was recently approached by Torah Temimah to work on a very part-time basis as school psychologist for the coming year. I have since declined this offer due to a possible misperception...
- Neuhoff
Caught with his pants down (no pun intended!) What a LIAR!
Chaim Neuhoff taunted us daily, taunted PM's kids on a daily basis, by phone and e-mail, trying to convince us that he caught UOJ when he himself knew he was wrong. Are there bigger rashaim in the world than Chaim Neuhoff and his gang? Goes after his kids? Daily? He is a very sick man.
File name uoj2.pdf Document Type PDF Document File size 483531 bytes Page size 8.5 x 11.0 inches PDF version 1.4 Page count 56 Encryption Encrypted Title Uoj is Paul Manilow Content Creator pdfFactory Pro www.pdffactory.com PDF Producer pdfFactory Pro 2.23 (Windows XP) Creation Date 08/05/06 Author Rabbi Y. Kleinman
mr.rosheyshiva did say that he works in the same office as kleinman and that kleinman created the document, but that kleinman is not mr.roshyeshiva. for whatever that's worth. if it's true, I hope that scum is worth the beating that kleinman is taking for him.
tuvya neuhoff has two lies up on his blog:
1) "Question: How sure am I that I have the right man? I am 100% sure!" And yet he claims in a personal email that he is not really all that sure!
2) he left up his claim that he is not employed by ytt, while an official letter sent out by ytt claims the opposite, and even has a voicemail number assigned to him!
is chaim/charles tuvya really only 34 years old? what a shnuk! he really is a naive dupe who got in way over his head. I feel bad for his family. He really ruined things for them. It's not their fault.
See this link which indicates that Charles Neuhoff is not a Dr., as the TT letter claims, but is Charles Neuhoff, M.A. If accurate, this is a serious breach of ethics, to say the least, on the part of TT and Mr. Neuhoff.
Chaim-You destroyed your career over what? Aligning yourself with Margolis and Belsky will haunt you the rest of your life. How big a fool does one become for nothing? A former friend
Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz once asked the Chazon Ish why he did not hold a certain Torah scholar in the same high esteem that others did. The Chazon Ish replied that the person in question was incapable of rising about his personal self-interest. “A person can have any number of shortcomings and still be considered a great man,” explained the Chazon Ish. “But being thrall to one’s self-interest is different. It is not a singe fault, but an all-encompassing blemish. His teaching of Torah will be tinged with self-interest, his davening will be tinged with self-interest, even his acts of chesed will be tinged with self-interest.”
"Just because your son is one of more than a thousand talmidim in the yeshiva, is no reason for him not to be regarded as an individual. The yeshiva makes efforts to belie the myth that large and efficient means impersonal."
Yes sir folks, the yeshiva wishes to make clear that Yudi Kolko would like to PERSONALLY molest your son. If your son hasn't been "touched" yet by Kolko, please sign up now for next summer's event at Lake Compounce while space is still available, or we can arrange a private audience now in Brooklyn by appointment.
After investigating the allegations against Yudi Kolko, we officially banned him from the park. If he should ever show up at our property, we will have him arrested.
Neuhoff gets the lifetime achievement award. The other bozos were already at sea when the storm hit. Neuhoff paddled out to join Margo's sinking ship.
At least Neuhoff will still command a little respect when he gets his butt kissed once a year at the Agudah convention. And maybe Shea Fishman will come by erev Shabbes to shine his shoes.
"at the end of the day, emulating Jesus, we will admit the wrong"
Hey Johnny boy, it only took you bums 500 years to "apologize" for all the atrocities committed by Tomás de Torquemada and the other miscreants running the "Holy" Inquisition. Even the Anglicans were cussing over the fake & belated apology. British seaman drifting near Spain were also seized & burned at the stake as "heretics".
I suppose the Franciscan Friars / Dominican Monks who publicly burned the Talmud in 1200s Paris were emulating Jesus too. They certainly must have been eager to hide a censored Talmudic account of Jesus being excommunicated for being a womanizer.
Alas, the ways of Jesus. Forging through Europe in the form of the Knights Templar & the Crusaders, hacking apart women & babies in the Rhine valley.
Mel & daddy Gibson must be proud of you, Johnny boy.
The Church is still cannonizing criminal bishops you lying hypocrite.
P.S. - The Staten Island yeshiva is housed in a former monastery. When a wall was taken down for renovations, a secret priestly stash of booze bottles & hard core porno was discovered.
when are you goping to get back to the real issues?
Enough of all this stuff!!
___________________________________ THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE!! The UOJ blog is not only about the molestation issue. It is about exposing the fraud and corruption in our institutions. Molestation has become the central issue, but it is not the only issue. After the lawsuits, newspaper and magazine articles, community uproar, etc., instead of being contrite and laying low for a while, Margulies decided to add more sleaze and corruption to his long rap sheet. First he kept Kolko on at Silver Lake, allowing him to chaperone thousands of kids, from his and other camps, to a water theme park. Then he tried to deny this through his lawyer and had Kleinman (RY) post threats on his blog to anyone who suggests that they are lying. All this while hiring his goons (pretty weak and lousy ones at that), Neuhoff and Kleinman to smear an innocent man with the blessing of chief mafioso Belsky. When one is so steeped in sleaze and corruption, it is impossible for him to change his ways, especially at an advanced age. That is why this "institution" must shut down and sell its property. It is being run by corrupt individuals, from the rasha yeshiva (Margo), the administrator (Kleinman), the shrink (Neuhoff) to its teachers (don't be surprised if Yudi makes a cameo appearance come September).
why does ytt claim to be the best yeshiva in the best neighborhood with the best boys with the best rebbeim with the best faculty with the most boys in the best yeshivos in ey with the best everything and yet they have the worst psychologist (if he even is one, and if he is not for more than a few years, and even then I'm not sure getting a degree from a school that is ranked as the worst 15% is worth much). Could it be becuase they have the best molestor?
Hello, Catholic Priest. You've asked a strong question. I have an answer, but I need to develop it more in my mind, and perhaps do a little bit of reading, before I post it.
The answers from my friends on the blog were inappropriate, for the most part. The Catholic Church has made great strides in recent years, vis-a-vis its relationship with the Jews and Israel. Your questions are raised in good faith ,and you deserve a better answer.
Though, as I commented, I believe that the Catholic Priest may have an agenda for posting here, his comments should be taken to heart by serious Jews.
Here is a Catholic clergyman whose worldview is no doubt informed by the reforms of Vatican II. He openly accepts the choseness of the Jewish people and rejects replacement theology. He freely volunteers his affection for Jews and Judaism, and recognizes the moral standing of Halacha.
And he sees rabbis acting badly and other rabbis trying to avoid even acknowledging the bad behavior.
It isn't UOJ who is causing this chillul HaShem.
It isn't even Kolko. He's just a criminal pervert.
No the chillul HaShem is caused by the Margulieses and Belskys of the frum velt, not to mention Tuvya and the other guy, and their groupies who call us bums, losers and lowlifes. They think they can hide behind "anonymous" or fake names, but their brazen attitude is obvious even to non Jews.
At that, my fellow Yidden, is the definition of chillul HaShem.
When a Jew acts badly in front of goyim, it is literally turning something sacred into the profane, the mundane, the petty. Jews are bnai Yisrael. We are literally called by His name, and our struggles with Him are a witness to His very existence. When rabbis obfuscate and deflect, and when we allow them too, we have sullied our name and His.
The answers from my friends on the blog were inappropriate, for the most part. The Catholic Church has made great strides in recent years, vis-a-vis its relationship with the Jews and Israel. Your questions are raised in good faith ,and you deserve a better answer.
Anon,
I considered whether I was being fair to the Priest and I share some of your concerns. However, while many of us Jews may have a blind spot when it comes to recognizing that the RCC of today is not the same RCC of the Inquisition (which btw, had no true jurisdiction over Jews who remained true to their faith), believing Catholics and other believing Christians may be incapable of not preaching Jesus.
I believe that the good father was posting in good faith. I just think the comments about WWJD amount to proselytizing Christianity in a Jewish venue. We should be able to go on a Jewish blog, addressing internal Jewish problems, without having to contend with folks consciously or unconsciously preaching Jesus to us.
If I want to blog about Jewish messianic aspirants who died without seating on the throne of David HaMelech, well I suppose that's what Shmarya's blog is for.
The blog's resident "priest" is suspect if you ask me. He's either a piss poor missionary with no social skills, Orthorev excersing his sense of humor or some other troublemaker just egging people on for kicks.
If you are choices B and C, I will remind you of the severe issur of claiming you are a Notzri or any other Oved Avodah Zarah.
I wrote my comment before I read your last comment which I definitely did not like.
Now I doubt you're a priest - "xxxx-bag"?, that's a bad term for all clergy.
Quoting the New Testament to orthodox Jews? Some of you guys just never stop trying to convert us. You're not supposed to do that anymore. That phase is over.
Criticing one of our rabbis? You don't know all the facts. And neither do we, by the way, but we know a lot more than you do. The rabbi you named happens to deeply respected in most quarters. At most, he made a mistake in the adjudication of a sex abuse incident. A terrible mistake it may have been, but mistakes are what secular judges and juries do all the time, and they don't get the condemnation that you've just leveled. I detect a double standard here, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by not saying something else.
I could not have said it better, this blog is about the global corruption of the "leadership" which manifests itself in so many different aspects of our lives.
Molestation in yeshivas and the intentional and ongoing coverup is probably the primary example of what happens when we permit the likes of Belsky and Margulies to be considered by many as bona-fide leaders.
They are thugs in black clothing, nothing more. The battle against them and the likes of them has just begun. I will drag them through the streets until they die, hopefully a misa meshunah, and then some.
There's no way that I will rest until these gangsters and child killers are destroyed.
Does anyone find it just a little strange that a galach is commenting on this blog? Is it just me or am I being paranoid? Could it be possible that uoj's enemies are behind this to give doubt to frum people about uoj? I really wonder...
yeah, why are 1 or 2 priests suddenly commenting on the blog so often? where were they until now, and why the sudden interest? there was no recent newspaper article or anything. and the recent posts were nothing spectacular from an outsiders perspective.
I don't have the time to write a polished, well thought-out answer to your question about why some of our rabbis are not apologizing and responding to our abuse problem as they should, and besides, you don't deserve it based on your last comment, but I will give it a few sentences and minutes.
Some of our rabbis are acting like priests.
Some of your priests are acting like rabbis.
What do I mean?
We Jews do not believe that JC is a Divine figure (part of your trinity). We have the one Divine G-d, period.
Man is composed of two inclinations - good and bad, yatser tov and yatser harah.
We Jews take whatever physical inclinations we have - such as our sexual nature - and channel it for good purposes, and imbue it with holiness, i.e., marriage, and bearing children.
The Torah acknowledges that our greatest prophets and leaders have erred, Moses, King David, and others. We are also warned not to judge them. We are smaller than insects compared to them. But they erred nevertheless, in the eyes of G-d.
Moses and King David were both married, as all of our leaders are. They bore children.
Your priests don't get married.
Your Popes have a doctrine of Papal Infallibility. We don't have this doctrine.
JC is portrayed as a perfect Divine being, i.e., without sin.
In denying the sex abuse crisis, not just for years or even decades, but for centuries, your priests were basically emulating JC - denying the sexual inclination, trying to appear like lilly white choir boys, trying to appear, in short, as divine, wihtout human physical form.
Only when the Boston Globe and others exposed it, were your most important priests forced to act like rabbis - acknowledging the problem and fixing it.
We Jews, unfortunately, live in Chiristian countries, and some of your culture rubs off on us - like denial, and clergy infallibility, and trying to appear without sin. So some of our rabbis have been acting like classic priests of old.
Nevertheless, we have some rabbis and communal leaders who have not denied the problem and are trying to fix it. I'm not going to mention their names, because you don't have the merit of reading them.
Finally, the extent of the Catholic Church child sex abuse problem compared to the Jewish problem is like comparing Niagra Falls to a faucet that just started leaking.
Also censored out of the Talmud by the Vatican is the name and identity of the real father of Jesus, a gentile named Pandora (One might be tempted to suggest it, but there is no relation apparently to Pandora's Box). Miryam (Mary) was desperate for a cover story, coming up with that "Immaculate Conception" by G-d fantasy.
Rabbi Yonosson Eybeschutz was once challenged by the Bohemian Archbishop to prove Judaism & disprove Chistianity with a single word. He quickly answered "Im" bechookosai tailaichu, which stands for aino melech, elah mamzer, eemo Miriyam. The Archibishop told him he would have him executed if he did not appreciate his quick wit.
So much for the Father, the Son & Casper the friendly Ghost.
When one is so steeped in sleaze and corruption, it is impossible for him to change his ways, especially at an advanced age.
At 51 is there any hope for me?
___________________________________ Ronnie, you're a lost cause, totally beyond redemption!! Just kidding, you know we all love you, even frummies have a soft spot for you.
The other day I got a call from RG, perhaps a relative of Eli G's, who runs a camp and school for "kids at risk". He's no fool and told me he's had about a dozen parents arrested for abuse, without even thinking about asking a shailah, and he's got connections better than Neuhoff.
He disagrees with the tone of your blog though and suggested that instead of using time to post here, that I should get involved in some kind of "positive" project.
It was good mussar, and I've been mulling it over.
A hammer can be used to knock down a wall as well as build shelter for the homeless.
NP: Dvorak - Sym. # 9 "New World" / Sibelius - Sym. #2 - Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Paul Paray (one of ours). Mercury Living Presence - fabulous sounding recording with terrific color and dynamics.
the galach said: "Gather strength from Jesus, and, as stated in John 12:17, "expel the evil from thine midst"
hey buddy, it is bad form to cite a secondary source when primary material is available. Furthermore, it is bad to plaigiarize; just ask Ronnie all about copyrights and stuff. Es shtayt in toyreh, uve'arta hara b'kirbecha - expel the evil from thine midst.
The Torah acknowledges that our greatest prophets and leaders have erred, Moses, King David, and others. We are also warned not to judge them. We are smaller than insects compared to them. But they erred nevertheless, in the eyes of G-d.
Unfortunately, frum hagiography not only won't let us judge them, it won't let us openly use them as role models for tshuva, jumping through hoops to minimize their sins.
This is extended first to personalities of the Tanach, then to historic rabbis, and finally, in our own day, to self appointed gedoyoyoylim. Hence the fact that Eybeshutz is still regarded as an authoritative rabbi while modern scholarship and no less an authority than R. Yakov Emden considers him to have been a follower of Shabtai Tzvi.
hey buddy, it is bad form to cite a secondary source when primary material is available. Furthermore, it is bad to plaigiarize; just ask Ronnie all about copyrights and stuff. Es shtayt in toyreh, uve'arta hara b'kirbecha - expel the evil from thine midst.
Actually, when I was looking for the quote I cited from Tehillim, all the top Google listings cited the NT Peter first, though some of them acknowledged the NT writer was quoting Tehillim.
I guess that what happens when someone appropriates your sacred texts.
When I worked at DuPont doing IT support, I spent a lot of time working at other people's desks. When I'd see a religious Christian's calender with verses in English from the Tanach, like some Psalms, my brain would recognize that I knew the pasuk, but I'd have to translate it back to Hebrew to figure out what it was.
Unless they know each other from before, I find it hard to believe that Ronny Greenwald would call Schreiber up out of the blue because he noticed him posting on a blog.
Ronnie, you're a lost cause, totally beyond redemption!! Just kidding, you know we all love you, even frummies have a soft spot for you.
Actually, one of the things that most distresses me is the way that Tuvya and the other guy's cheerleaders like to throw out the "bums, losers and lowlifes". It is as though they have denied the possibility of tshuvah.
So much of what they say and how they act resonates in such a non Jewish manner.
As I've mentioned, the other guy posted my phone number that I sent to him privately. I've been called by a couple of people and though we disagree, the conversations were what one should expect of two Jews. There was respect. There was warmth.
Partly as a result of contacts like this I have deliberately started spelling it "froomie" to distinguish pashut frum Yidden from those more concerned with social conventions and protecting their community's image than with being authentically Jewish.
BTW, if you want to show how soft your spot can be, if you have any friends or relatives in the Detroit area, I can always use invitations for Shabbat or Yom Tov meals. I can't always rely on a kiddush at Young Israel or Bnai Israel.
Jesus v Belsky? For real? Gimme a break. UOJ, where has your sense of humor gone? What a joke! You really need a vacation. Repeat, Jesus v Belsky. Nice job, Johnny.
There is a lot of innueundo here about Neuhoff, Kleinman and other characters conspiring on & off blogs to harass people. Could UOJ or someone please do a public service & explain in detailed, easy to understand English, what exactly is happening?
Unless they know each other from before, I find it hard to believe that Ronny Greenwald would call Schreiber up out of the blue because he noticed him posting on a blog.
My yetzer hara won out. I wasn't going to respond because I deliberately didn't mention his name. However, Really Now is essentially calling me a liar. Which I am. Frequently. Though not in this case.
Before the phone call I had no contact with RG. Never even heard of him. He saw my number posted over on the other guy's site and called me. I think it was Monday afternoon. We had a very nice conversation and he seems like a very nice gentleman. I pushed back a little on his concerns, but his call made an impression. He also asked me to give his regards to a local g'vir who is prominent enough in the frum velt that he's on Artscroll's board of advisors (ever notice that they only give the cities of folks who don't live in NYC as though the default location of Jews is Brooklyn Ir HaKodesh?). How would I know the two are even acquainted with each other?
Out here in the Jewish sticks, so to speak, how would I even know who RG is or the fact that he runs a camp and a school?
Sheesh.
You can carry the prostrate problem only so far.....
There's a joke in here somewhere. One of my rebbes, Leonard Alfred Schneider, a'h', (definitely not a saint, but still a very funny man - look it up on Wikipedia), would be disappointed (if he hadn't OD'd before I discovered his oeuvre). So this will have to suffice.
A guy goes into a doctor's office for an appointment. Sitting down, he notices an older Jewish man, so he strikes up a conversation with the man.
"So what are you seeing the doctor for, reb yid?"
"I.. I... I... s s s see him ffffor mmmine pppprescription refills," the old man stuttered. "He ggggives mmmme sssssamples. On a fffffixed income, it hhhhhelps. He's mine nnnnephew. A gggggutter kkkkkkkindt.
Ssssso tell mmmmmme. VVVVVos vvvvat are yyyyou hhhhere fffffor?"
The man replied, "I have an enlarged prostate."
The old Jew asked, "Vos is das, enlarged ppppprostate?"
And the man replied:
"Ich pish vi du redst"
(Good thing mom's first language was Mamaloshen - I went to a day school - I had to ask her how the punchline went)
NP: Sailin' Shoes - Ma'aseh Katan (the pun just don't translate well)
UOJ, This catholic priest "Father John" is a fraud. He is the same guy who has been trying to start a blog about Belsky but wasn't getting any responses. First it was "The Belsky Papers" three buffoons, then it was something else,four buffoons. Now he figures to get more attention posing as a priest, quoting the NT to make himself believable. Notice the same background on each blog. UOJ, you don't need this idiot to tell you about Belsky. Please do not indulge him anymore. Same goes for all the readers.
With great apologies for arousing your ire, I still do not understand why I am being villanized and viewed as sub-human.
Nobody viewed you as subhuman. I'll try to use terms more familiar to you than galach, the Yiddish term for priest. It means "shaven", since traditional Jews typical wore beards and the Catholic clergy was often clean shaven. It's not a disparaging term at all. Certainly no worse than Mackeral Slapper.
I, for one, appreciate the perspective of someone from the RCC as it relates to how religious institutions' first reflex is to defend the institution, not the individuals harmed.
Most here, though, object to your using this venue as a mission field. I understand the importance, to Christians, of the Great Commission, but your continued attempts to morally one up Jews with quotations from the New Testament are hardly giving good witness.
Look, although you hate me because I am catholic, I am definitely not against you. As stated, we have done much talking in our inter-faith clergy sessions and all men-of-faith respect the Jewish religion.
Two points. Jews have a good reason, based on about 1700 years of Church history, since the Nicean and Lateran councils, to be skeptical of Catholics. While the church hierarchy in Rome always made sure there was plausible deniability, there is no question that Catholic clergy have instigated murderous violence towards Jews. While it's true that post Vatican II, most Catholics seem to have dropped the judenhasse, it also seems that the most traditional of Catholics, the paleo variety like Pat Buchanan, can't let go.
The other point is that you are completely wrong about "all" men of faith respecting the Jewish religion. If you go to the MEMRI site, you can unfortunately see scores of examples of Muslim religious leaders, at authoritative Muslim seminaries, like Al-Ashar in Cairo and Al-Imaan in Riyadh, speaking the most hateful Jew hatred you can imagine. Sure, there are some pacific Sufis, but Sayyid Qutb is much more influential in modern day Islam (btw, he criticized "racism" in the US, while reviling Jazz as "created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires"). Was not Qutb a "man-of-faith"?
Although it may be hard and emotionally troubling to admit this, one of your great leaders rivals the corruptness of the very worst in the Catholic Church.
Are you blind and deaf? Can you not tell that this very fact is what motivates many of us? That we realize that some of our leaders are acting not like Jewish leaders, but like goyim. Before you accuse me of bigotry, you accept the fact that Jews are to be a nation of priests, with better standards than the gentiles (and yes, I know it can also mean heathen).
Again, as many in our group have wondered- how can the Rabbi not be openly question by other religious leaders about his recent conduct?
Because openly questioning someone like that would expose them to some very thuggish behavior.
Also, people compartmentalize. When someone is revealed to have a secret life, like when a priest is revealed to have a secret family replete with "wife" and children, most that only know his public life are shocked. Nobody, Catholic or Jewish, wants to believe something bad about someone "good". In the case of the rabbi under discussion, I know a fine young man who is a student of his and thinks very highly of him. The young man, whom I've known since he was in kindergarten, has great morals, good judgement and is nobody's fool. But he only sees one side of this rabbi.
People on this blog only see my composed, edited thoughts. They've never seen me in a full boiling rage. Ask my ex wife and you'll get a different picture.
Judaism teaches that people are both good and evil at the same time. An inclination towards the good as well as towards the evil. Our yetzer haRa, our evil inclination, has access to all our capacities and talents. Just like our lizard brain has access to a human's cerebral cortex. We are very smart lizards sometimes. And lizards were not made in the image of the Creator.
May all those men-of-faith against child abuse stand strong in their conviction and ... [excerpt from the funnies supplement deleted]
Your continued citation of the NT on this blog makes your agenda clear.
Answer this question, please, posed in good faith:
Are you not trying to spread belief in Jesus here? Are not all of your conscious actions intended to fullfil the great commission?
NP: Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat (what a surprise, another great dead guitar player)
YTT Gangsters For Dummies said... There is a lot of innueundo here about Neuhoff, Kleinman and other characters conspiring on & off blogs to harass people. Could UOJ or someone please do a public service & explain in detailed, easy to understand English, what exactly is happening __________________________________ Easy to understand English? Hmm..let me try... Chaim and his friend said some not nice things about a nice Jewish man and his nice wife. That is not a nice thing to do!!
anon 5:16 is a perfect example of why we need publicity and outings. the word of mouth has to get around somehow and people are too stigmatized to do it face to face or over the telephone. only anonymous forums are feasible at this time.
hopefully shlomo/jack mandel will fail to deliver and uoj will proceed with the free advertisement of his lovely abu ghraib style terrocracy.
Sorry for not being more specific. Based on posts I've read, I am wondering about the following:
Who else is helping these stooges Neuhoff & Kleinman do the dirty work besides Belsky?
What exactly was the nature of harassment executed by Neuhoff?
What I'm driving at with this question is that he probably violated some state / federal statutes. Speaking of which, I believe that it is also a violation of state law for some unlicensed shmuck to claim he is a psychologist and counsel children, even if he has a degree. Elliot Spitzer's office handles those issues.
I hope Neuhoff, Belsky and Kleinman is pursued for slander, etc.
The fact that all these tuchesses like Neuhoff and Kleinman are on Margo's payroll plays right into the organized conspiracy that Jeff Herman will be presenting to the judge.
does anyone care to explain the process of what makes one a certified psychologist? I imagine there would have to be a high school diploma followed by a BA, then I get lost. Does there have to be an MA and a Phd followed by State Certification and actual work experience?
thanks for clarifying.
p.s. farleigh dickinstudent university is in NJ - if that makes a difference.
The fact that all these tuchesses like Neuhoff and Kleinman are on Margo's payroll plays right into the organized conspiracy that Jeff Herman will be presenting to the judge. Read em & weep.
-----------------------------------
on the contrary, read it and laugh. Jeff will have a hard time convincing the judge to ignore the statute of limitations and anything that makes his job easier is a good thing. I can't wait to buy a condo overlooking the ocean (parkway).
I put it in quotes because you're not a priest. You don't think like a priest, you don't write like a priest. An American priest would never quote New Testament to orthodox Jews, and say "xxxx-bag".
You write that "you hate me becaue I am Catholic". You claim that I consider you "subhuman". Never said either. I don't believe either. You're not a priest. But you are a liar.
Get off the blog, buddy, you're a Jew-hater.
But, before you do, I'm getting the last word to answer you back.
The Rabbi issued a summons to a litigant with whom he had a potential conflict of interest. I say potential because if the process had gone further -which it never did - the conflict of interest point could have been raised by the affected litigant, and that is when the Rabbi could have recused himself, and referred the case to another Jewish court.
The "facts" that you cite are not facts, more proof you're not a priest. The Rabbi has never been heard on any of this. Due process requires that both sides be heard -duh. These are allegations at this point, credible allegations, yes, but still allegations. More proof you're not a priest. Nor a very good imposter.
Another allegation is that the Rabbi engaged in coverup. No. It is being alleged that as a rabbi, he should not have acted as an advocate, essentially, for an accused child molester. This is a real claim, but everybody, including child molesters, are entitled to have their advocates. Maybe not this Rabbi, for this molester, and that's the claim. The argument essentially is that this respected Rabbi should not have lowered himself by associating himself in advocacy for this child molester. This is how much the Jewish people hold our Rabbis in great esteem - we don't want a personage like this Rabbi associated in any way with a molester.
The argument essentially is that this "respected" Rabbi should not have lowered himself by associating himself in advocacy for this child molester.---------------------------------------------
RE,
I agree in principle with your advocacy position of the accused rabbi.
Since this is not a court of law, we are entitled to judge his "respectabilty" by his actions over a long period of time.
This rabbi has been in the forefront of protecting this child molester and another friend of his that is a convicted felon/pedophile. This has been demonstrated over and over again.
His latest action of issuing a hazmana to a person who was trying to do the right thing for the klal, was sort of the final slap in the face to the collective us. In reality he was trying to shut him up, you know that and so does any thinking person.
This rabbi has been deemed unfit by many of his peers in various other circumstances.
If you examine his latest act of permitting a person to go after an assumed "mevaze gedolim" without even a phone call to that person; and BTW they both have s'micha from the same institution, signed by the same rabbonim, his actions speak a lot louder than any advocate for him can possibly put into words.
So I agree that in a formal hearing, he will have the ability to attempt to defend himself, and you may even choose to represent him if you so desire, but we have every right to look at his behavior and scream to the rafters that he is unfit to be a rabbi in Klal Yisroel.
The CPA essentially answered his own question. No matter how many impressive degrees you have, you must be licensed by the state. The state will not grant a license unless you have bonafide intern experience.
If Neuhoff spends one minute counseling these kids, he could have the AG's office swarming all over him.
Hey Tuvya Chaim Charles, take a hike back to your bungalow & stay there through the winter, you putz.
Me & Margo have already thought up a great defense argument if Spitzer comes after Neuhoff. Since Neuhoff has already been publicly discredited on the UOJ blog, everyone must know that he's not a real psychologist anyway, so he's not fooling anyone by being a poser.
And will you meanies please stop making fun of my hairdo.
A PhD candidate is someone who is in school going for his/her PhD. It's a process that could take anywhere from three (as an advanced student)to ten plus years to complete.
The process for becoming a psychologist is the following:
A bachelor's degree in psychology is nothing. A master's degree in psychology is a little more than nothing.
You can become "certified" as a school psychologist, which means you have a mater's degree in school psychology, but you cannot, under any circumstances open a private practice. You can work in a school, agency, clinic, etc.
A "license" in psychology is only open to someone with a doctoral degree in psychology (PhD, PsyD, or EdD). Only after one has finished years of coursework, a dissertation, had supervised internship, received the doctoral degree and completed post-doc supervised work, can someone apply to take a test to become licensed. Only after this lengthy process can one call themselves a psychologist.
What has a beard and acts like an animal? Who wears Tzitzis, but acts like the Poretz of the town? Who covers their heads with a Yarmulka, but allows children to be molested? Who preaches yiddeshkeit, but doesn't follow what they preach? Who defends Molesters unconditionally, based on their version of the Torah?
Hmmmm. Wonder who fits into those categories, Margo? Mandel? Kolko? Belsky? anyone else?
I wonder why are there so many people who leave yidishhkeit, and then I look at how the people sworn to protect our children act or don't act, and certainly, that is a big reason why we have people who sway from the jewish religion.
Wake up fakaroos! You destroyed the lives of so many jews. How dare you try to say otherwise. With reckless abandonment, and a pompous attitude, you try to live your fake lives out, as if you did no wrong. What a crime that is. Have you no shame for your despicible and evil actions of the past and present? Do you really think you can insult our intelligence and get away with it? How many more victims must there be before, someone is brave enough to do something about it (aside from UOJ)?
Anyone that trusts YTT with their children is a nitwit. Anyone that still defends the abusers, is contributing in their own way, to their own demise, and the demise of the victims. How would you answer to G-D for that? I tried but i couldn't? I wished i could have done something, but i didn't want to make a chilul hashem? I was dan lekaf zechus, so i couldn't accept this loshon hara?
Tuvya buys a new house on 31 st street on at the end of April with a 300K mortgage. He needs a job to pay the mortgage. Margo offers him to be the to be the coverup man at a very nice salary. Probably turned down by anybody with a half a brain.
One problem. Tuvya knows he's gonna get fried by UOJ. Tuvya's a real genius. Redoubles his efforts with YTT office guy Kleinman to out UOJ. With UOJ gone, coverup/rehabilitation can begin in earnest.
Tuvya covering for his job. Belsky covering for his buddies. Kleinman covering for Margo. What a group.
Which block of East 31st did Neuhoff buy a house on? Where's he going to daven? By Shimshi Sherer? Or is he going to sit on Isaac Gross's lap in the Agudah?
I wonder why are there so many people who leave yidishhkeit, and then I look at how the people sworn to protect our children act or don't act, and certainly, that is a big reason why we have people who sway from the jewish religion.
People leave Judaism because of their own internal motivations. Blaming it on corrupt rabbis is just a rationalization.
I can blame my own disaffections by pointing to this or that menuval with smicha, but ultimately I'm the one who has to decide to keep Shabbat or not.
It's no different than someone blaming their bad behavior on the fact that they had less than stellar parents. Essentially this is a denial of the Jewish concept of b'chirah chofshi, free will.
The problem however is magnified is with young people (or with immature folks like myself). For teenagers, hypocrisy is the worst possible sin. That is because they are not mature enough, usually, to recognize the hypocrite in the mirror. The problem is compounded when they see people in positions of power abuse that power. So they question the legitimacy of the entire edifice of Torah observant Judaism.
They see how being "frum" doesn't seem to result in ethical behavior. And excuses like, "can you imagine how bad he/she would be if they weren't frum?" just doesn't cut it, at least with intelligent kids.
But the motivation is still flawed emunah on the part of the individual.
However, by eliminating the corruption.. scratch that, corruption will be here as long as the yetzer haRa, by reducing the corruption and not allowing corrupt people to keep positions of leadership, we take away that excuse, and those who are disaffected will have to confront their own issues.
And I truly believe that for every menuval there are scores, hundreds, thousands of erlich Yidden who would run in front a bus to save a child.
I can look at Belksy, or I can think of R. Shimon Shapiro who always has a smile and a good word for me. I can think about Margulies, or I can look at R. Shmuel Irons, who isn't a fool and a man from who I can learn anivut from the way that he walks. I can think about the folks who call me a loser, a lowlife and a bum, or I can listen to the mussar R. Daniel Arm gives me with affection.
It's up to the individual.
Chazal teach us that the difference between sin and tshuvah is the difference between east and west, a hair's breadth. You can be in the same spot and travel east or west, simply by a change in direction.
Oskar Schindler was a piece of dreck as a human being. A serial philanderer who openly cheated on his wife, an alcoholic who could never keep a job after the war, and a war profiteer who joined the National Socialists because it was good for business. Yet when the choice was to be made, he did the right thing.
And I think, with some support from the Nevi'im and k'tuvim, that that is what HaShem expects from us - to just make the right choice.
NP: Fillmore East 2-11-69 - The Grateful Dead. The Fillmores were owned and managed by Bill Graham, whose birth name was Wolfgang Grajonca, born in Berlin to Russian Jewish parents. You may think of him as an iconoclastic music impressario, associated with drugs and wild behavior. It was his production crew that built the large public menorah that Chabad of SF lights every year, and he publicly supported Chabad, giving R. Langer and his chevra, prime "table space", among the non-profits that BGP let set up at concert events. Graham recognized that there was more to life than what we see.
Graham "planned" to become more observant:
"I have the hope that others will come closer to their Jewishness because of it, maybe even I will, too. If somebody said, 'Well, Bill, you could set a better example.' I'd say, 'Yes. But better than nothing is this.'
"My involvement may be looked at by some as crude--it's just money. But I think it should be respected. But to be totally straight, I put it there because I think it's a good worthwhile thing.
"I have a fear of not going back [to Judaism] soon enough. I'm 51 and I'm very, very lucky. G-d blessed me with a healthy body, stamina. But I'm beginning to feel I can't have hot fudge sundaes all the time, and I can't play ball the way I used to, and I can't stay up the way I used to. I'd say within another 5 years I'm going to turn somewhere for solace and I know that somewhere will be my religion. The majority of people turn there when we need, rather than when we can give. But maybe ...
"I'd just like to go to shul, and to sit down and feel at ease and learn about what's available. I know I'm going to do that. I just hope I do it sooner, rather than later. There are a number of friends that I have in New York who are older than I am and who were never religious. Some in their 40's and some even in their 60's eventually went back to tradition. The majority of them went there when they were in trouble and they had problems. I hope I go before. Through simcha, through happiness.
"One of these days I'll take the first step, and later on, take another step."
Sadly, Graham was killed in a helicopter crash before taking that first step. But he knew the direction he was going to take.
That first step in tshuvah is a scary one, not unlike Nachshon stepping into the sea.
actually, Mather 21:21 states (Jesus said to them in reply), "Amen, I say to you, if you have faith and do not waver, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will be done.
to uoj,what happened did you fall asleep at the helm? wake up we got work to do as long as those scum are still around you didnt post for 10 complete hours even though people sent them in. LEIZEROWITZ VICTIM FOREVER
Hi Chaver, I am overwhelmed with the amount of e-mails and comments. Literally thousands are coming in, many winding up in the bulk folder and many showing up on Yahoo for moderation with up to 14 hour delays.
I called customer service and they explained that this will happen when everyone is commenting and e-mailing and the same time.
I'm doing the best I can, and working dilligently to address the emergency issues first, and there are many.
What is a "chassid shoteh"? The prime example used is a man who sees a woman drowning and he refuses to jump into the water to save her. Similarly, the YTT administration and defenders think that we are all "chassidim shotim". They spout out halachic terms such as lashon hara, rchilus, and messirah in warning all those who dare question their complicity in the Kolko matter. They make us feel that we are the reshaiim and poshiim by protesting the handling of this affair. They used the same tactics in silencing the victims and their parents over twenty years ago. They made THEM out to be the culprits, not Yudi or his enablers. Our children have been drowning for four decades while we act the part of "chassid shoteh" that they demand us to be. Through Neuhoff's blog, Belsky declared that reading and commenting on this blog is "an absolute violation of hilchos loshon hora" (while Neuhoff's thorough chakira of the blog was lshem shamayim. I'm sorry Rav Belsky, I refuse to be your chassid shoteh, even though you prefer to continue acting like one. Our children deserve better. IT'S TIME FOR ALL OF US TO JUMP INTO THE WATER!!!
UOJ, Please ask the readers to stop posting quotations from the Avodah Zara book. I also suggest that you delete these references. And again, do not engage the idiot who calls himself a priest in any dialogue. Every week he comes up with a new blog, "The Belsky Papers", "Belsky is Gay" and "Yoshka vs. Belsky".
does anybody know who the gabbeh of the skverer rebbi is? and why is he still there after so many allegations of sexual misconduct with some very young (hoz buchrim)? in a chasidus that is so busy sending letters to certain individuals for wallking on the street with their wives and threatening them with expulsion of the community (THE LETTER WILL BE POSTED HERE ON UOJ I'HM IN THE NEAR FUTURE)why are they so protective of this gabbei?
"It's my parnossa" is the famous refrain used by lowlives to defend whatever devorim assurim are an inevitable poel yotzei of their profession.
Funny, the froomies over at the other guy's place complain when I mention my embroidery business. Perhaps they want me to go into more appropriate froom occupations, like begging, diverting public funds, or laundering money for mobsters.
I need to apologize for my previous post, where I denigrated beggars. Compared to most froomie behavior, begging is admirable. It creates an opportunity for someone to do a mitzvah.
August 25, 2006 Mason Sues Jews for Jesus Over Pamphlet By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 9:50 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Saying he's ''as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami,'' Jackie Mason filed a lawsuit against Jews for Jesus for using his name and likeness in a pamphlet.
The $2 million lawsuit seeks the immediate destruction of the pamphlet, which members of the missionary group have been handing out at various points around New York City.
''While I have the utmost respect for people who practice the Christian faith, the fact is, as everyone knows, I am as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami,'' the 75-year-old comedian said in documents filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Founded in the 1970s, Jews for Jesus practices Judaism but regards Jesus as the Messiah.
The pamphlets feature an image of Mason next to the words ''Jackie Mason ... A Jew for Jesus!?'' with information inside that outlines the similarities between Jews and Christians.
''The pamphlet uses my name, my likeness, my `shtick' (if you will), and my very act, which is derived from my personality, to attract attention and converts,'' Mason said in an affidavit.
Susan Perlman, a spokeswoman for Jews for Jesus, said the pamphlet was ''good-natured.''
''Shame on him for getting so upset about this,'' she said Friday.
Mason has starred on Broadway and in films including ''Caddyshack II.''
UOJ should initiate a class action lawsuit on behalf of Klal Yisroel suing Margo and his Khazar henchmen for misrepresenting Yiddishkeit while destroying people's lives.
A seperate suit should be filed over Margo misrepresenting his fat self as Torah Vodaas.
I believe you utterly fail to understand the heinous sin committed by Yisroel Belsky by issuing a "motze shem ra" hazmana to Eli Greenwald.
Today's bais din is the replacement, if you will,of the Sanhedrin. For a rabbi to use the holy power and the authority of a bais din to intimidate anyone, is tantamount to violating the entire concept of midas hadin, the name of Hashem, Elokim! This is not just any sin, his actions erode the very holiness of the rules of our Torah to be exercised in a bais din.
You will say, that has yet to be proven! and I say baloney!
He was on the phone with Margulies prior to Kolko entering his house/bais din, with Margulies orchestrating this ploy. WHY? If Kolko is the plaintiff, why is Belsky conspiring with Margulies?
How else was Belsky involved through the years with Kolko/Margulies? We will find out. Now pause a minute and ponder Belsky's crime!
The undermining and use of the Torah structured court to adjudicate according to halacha! What? Yes, to adjudicate according to halacha, nothing else.
No personal interests, or self-protection, or any other reason than the truth, that's it.
YISROEL BELSKY, YOU'RE A RASHA IN THE MOST VILEST FORM! YOU DISTORT THE TORAH AND THE POWER OF BAIS DIN TO COVER YOUR PERSONAL CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!
I've made a decision. I'm not going to let froomies take Judaism away from me. It's the emmet and my inheritance and their bad behavior is not going make me abandon something beyond valuable beyond measure. They can call me a bum and a loser and a lowlife. So what? When I'm dead, I won't have to account to them for a single thing.
I saw this in a book in shul today. The person writing it is exponentially smarter than I am. He also knows more gemara than Belsky and Fishman combined:
The truth is that such ideal types, people who know no backsliding, have never existed except as figments of the imagination and literary invention. No Jew, not even the greatest leader, saint, or prophet, has ever been free of religious problems, failing, heartaches, and doubts. This is as established principle: everyone who takes the religious life seriously and who is thus ever striving onward experiences setbacks along the way. It is not merely that "there is no one so righteous that he does only good and never sins," but more than this: temptations, doubt, pain, and transgression are the inevitable lot of those who would ascend higher. To be sure, all seekers are not on the same level, and their failings are thus not equally grave. A great person who falls back may still be on a much higher plane than others. In both the material and the spiritual realms, "the righteous man may fall down seven times and yet arise." Though he falls again and again, he continues to grope his way upward. Indeed, this is the strength of the righteous: their ability to endure crisis, to bounce back, and to turn failure into a source of strength. "the [thoroughly] wicked man," on the other hand, "falls once and for all"; once down, he cannot get up. His way is blocked, and there is no way for him to renew his ascent.
In many instances, however, the encounter with the observant community is fraught with disappointment and pain. Such a "turn-off" may discourage the newcomer from pursuing his Jewish quest any further. If people raised on Judaism turn out like this, he may ask himself, why try to get any closer to it? The disillusionment may take different forms. The observant Jews the ba'al teshuvah meets, while being quite punctilious about certain mitzvot, my flagrantly violate others. A particular businessman, for example, my wear a beard and pe'ot, yet turn out to be dishonest in his business dealings, circumventing or deliberately violating the law and even cheating outright. Theft, fraud, and trickery are not unknown among observant Jews, and the fact that a man prays three times a day and puts on an extra pair of tefillin does not prevent him from being a scoundrel. A religious lawyer or worker is not necessarily a more reliable one. The dishonesty may extend even to trade in sacred objects. Nor is sexual immorality unheard of in religious circles. When the ba'al teshuvah discovers all this, he may well come to the conclusion that religious people, with their lofty pronouncements, are no better than the irreligious who do not pretend to special virtue.
Another shocks awaiting the ba'al teshuvah is the abuses specifically connected with religion itself. In the synagogue, for example, he may find a petty and vicious rivalry over honors and responsibilities; quarreling and divisiveness that, however noble the cause, take an ugly turn; and a struggle for recognition, even by the esteemed and important, involving intrigue and character assassination. Along comes a person for whom the Jewish world is all sweetness and light, only to discover that there are factions and cliques, parties and personality clashes. Not only do the inhabitants of this world seem unable to get along with one another but, speaking in the name of Judaism, the desecrate the name of God and sully their own souls. Many synagogues and houses of study also leave a great deal to be desired aesthetically; in fact, they may be positively ugly, filled with cheapness and kitsch, littered and dirty. This too offends the sensibilities of the ba'al teshuvah.
The third and deepest disappointment of all is in the discovery that observant Jews - the "bearers and keepers of the Torah" - are themselves frequently not really interested in Torah! The ba'al teshuvah hears the idle talk in the synagogue and sees the neglect of mitzvot both great and small, even in the narrow realm of ritual. He finds that many of the people he has met in the synagogues and batei midrash lack any inner feeling for either prayer or study, and treat these as rote observances. He finds an alarming degree of ignorance about Judaism itself. Many of the men look like "rabbis" but turn out to be empty of either knowledge or interest in knowing more than they do. The world of the observant is, all too often, a hollow one, devoid of fervor, learning, or event faith.
Naturally, such discoveries are profoundly unsettling.
Protecting children and preventing child abuse and maltreatment does not begin or end with reporting. Efforts to prevent child abuse and maltreatment can only be effective when mandated reporters and other concerned citizens work together to improve the safety net in their communities.
To be most effective, your local CPS needs strong partnerships within your community. By getting to know the staff in your local CPS unit, you will gain a better understanding of how your local program is structured and CPS will better understand how to work more effectively with you.
By working together, we can better protect our vulnerable children.
Additional Mandated Reporter Information
New York State
Office of Children & Family Services Capital View Office Park 52 Washington Street Rensselaer, New York 12144
Visit our website at: http://www.ocfs.state.ny.us
For child care, foster care, and adoption information, call: 1-800-345-KIDS
To report child abuse and neglect, call: 1-800-342-3720
Mandated Reporters Hotline for child abuse and maltreatment reports: 1-800-635-1522
For information on the Abandoned Infant Protection Act, call: 1-866-505-SAFE
State of New York
George E. Pataki, Governor
Office of Children & Family Services
John A. Johnson, Commissioner
Pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services will make this material available in large print or on audiotape upon request.
Haredi Group Balks At Clergy Law ‘Some rabbis may not comply’ with measure mandating report of sexual abuse suspicions, Debra Nussbaum Cohen - Staff Writer
New legislation adding clergy to those professionals who are legally required to report suspected child abuse is being welcomed by a wide range of rabbinic leaders and those who work with victims, but it is being opposed by an influential group in the fervently Orthodox community.
As Catholic Church officials struggle to deal with a flood of lawsuits over the sexual abuse of children by priests, the New York state Senate unanimously passed the measure. The Assembly is preparing a similar bill.
The legislation comes as Manhattan’s largest Reform congregation, Temple Emanu-El, remains silent on the sexual abuse charges against its cantor, though its leadership had information about the allegations before Howard Nevison was arrested last month. (See accompanying story.)
Professionals who come into contact with children — doctors, nurses and dentists, schoolteachers and administrators, psychologists, social workers, child care workers and law enforcement staff — must report to the state any suspected abuse.
But clergy have been exempt from the requirement in New York since 1828, when the state Legislature became the first in the nation to protect the “clergy-penitent privilege.” The law has stood through the efforts of the Catholic Church and Agudath Israel of America, which have blocked measures for change at the state and local levels.
This time, however, the Church is staying out of the fray, leaving only Agudath Israel, which represents the interests of fervently Orthodox Jews on a variety of issues, in opposing the addition of clergy to the law.
The organization, whose offices are essentially closed for the Passover holiday, is still undecided on whether it will formally oppose the bills, said David Zwiebel, Agudah’s executive vice president for governmental and public affairs.
But, he said, if the law is passed without any exemption for clergy-penitent privilege, some Orthodox rabbis may choose not to comply with it.
“If the law tells the rabbis ‘you’ve got to go to the authorities on this’ and the rabbis feel that, for instance, a case of abuse goes back seven years and the best way to deal with it now is to refer the man to therapy rather than to law enforcement, they will choose to deal with it themselves,” said Zwiebel, who is also an attorney.
“You decide where your first duties and obligations are,” he said.
Illustrating the position of some in the haredi community, an Orthodox pediatrician in Brooklyn who has lectured on child abuse and disseminated tapes of her speeches has said that though she is required to report suspicions of child abuse, she checks with her rabbi to get permission.
Psychology professionals who work with victims of sexual and physical abuse say the new law will likely help their young victims.
It “makes it easier for clergy to do the right thing,” said Herb Neiburg, who directs behavioral medicine at the psychiatric Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, N.Y., and teaches pastoral counseling at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary.
“When something is mandated by law, it takes away the guilt over breaking what used to be this old type of priest-penitent relationship,” he said.
“The tough part will be when clergy hear that other clergy have molested kids. It’s always tough to turn in a colleague, but it has to get done,” said Neiburg. “This law will open that door.”
Leaders of the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and centrist Orthodox movements have all publicly voiced support for the legislation.
But those who work with the fervently Orthodox say it may not work in their community, which is suspicious of secular authority and has its own way of dealing with problems — relying on rabbinic judgment.
“People go to rabbonim [rabbis] to talk,” said David Mandel, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn-based Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services. “This law may discourage people from going to talk to their rabbis if they think that the conversation is going to be on the record.”
That, Neiburg argues, “is like saying that since pediatricians are mandated reporters, no one will bring a kid with injuries that could look like abuse to a pediatrician, and it obviously doesn’t work that way.”
Even so, said Mandel, “the legislation may be premature” for the Orthodox community.
“Legislation will not necessarily dramatically improve the way the Orthodox community handles these issues,” he said. “Continuing to educate the community, to remove the stigma from the victim and his or her family and put the onus on the offender, will make the most dramatic changes.” n
In 1995, for instance, Hynes' office charged Rabbi Lewis Brenner with repeatedly sexually abusing a boy starting in 1992 and ending in 1995, when the boy, then 15, told police. Among other places, the alleged encounters occurred in the bathroom of the rabbi's Brooklyn temple.
In a statement to the court, the boys' devastated parents said he could not even attend school, he was so troubled by "a raging cyclone of hate."
"Our son is with us physically today, but his self-respect, dignity and sense of worth were stolen from him at the tender age of 12," the boys' parents said. "Do you realize that you destroyed a world and our family, Mr. Brenner? You have stolen from our son the very essence of his life, his hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future."
The charges against Brenner initially included 14 counts, including sodomy, sexual abuse, and endangering the welfare of a minor. But a plea agreement whittled the charges down to one felony, stunning a Brooklyn judge.
"Given the nature, gravity and frequency of the sexual contact alleged in the felony complaint, this court was surprised by the People's plea offer and requested of the prosecutor a statement why it was forthcoming," said acting Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Heffernan in a court ruling.
The district attorney's office told the judge that the boy's family agreed to the plea bargain ... Recently, an official of the district attorney's office said the family did not want to go through with a trial.
The plea arrangement left Brenner a free man -- he got 5 years probation.
Brenner is the father-in-law of Ephraim Bryks, a Queens rabbi who was the subject of a story in Newsday on Tuesday.
Two teenagers told Canadian police years ago that Bryks abused them when they were youngsters. Bryks has never been charged with a crime and has denied the allegations.
After Brenner's plea deal, he asked the court to exempt him from the sexual abuse registry on grounds that his behavior occurred before the law was passed.
“People go to rabbonim [rabbis] to talk,” said David Mandel, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn-based Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services. “This law may discourage people from going to talk to their rabbis if they think that the conversation is going to be on the record.”
I laughed ruefully when I read this. The "fervently orthodox" might be reluctant to talk to a rabbi if they think that the conversation is going to be "on the record".
Are not all of our actions, thoughts and conversations "on the record"?
To me this shows how far removed many ostensibly observant Jews are from a true Torah hashkafa. Does not HaShem see and know all? He knows us better than we know ourselves.
By FERNANDA SANTOS KIRYAS JOEL, N.Y., Aug. 22 — As the administrator of this village in southern Orange County, Gedalye Szegedin knows that much of his job revolves around a simple equation: the number of girls who get married is roughly equal to the number of new homes this community will need to accommodate its rapid growth.
Last year, Mr. Szegedin oversaw the construction of 200 houses and apartments, mostly on the outer-lying lots along the eastern edge of this 1.1-square-mile community, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclave about 60 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. By the end of this year, he said, the village will most likely have 300 new homes.
“There are three religious tenets that drive our growth: our women don’t use birth control, they get married young and after they get married, they stay in Kiryas Joel and start a family,” Mr. Szegedin said.
“Our growth comes simply from the fact that our families have a lot of babies,” he added, “and we need to build homes to respond to the needs of our community.”
But developable land is a finite resource here, and not much of it is left. And as Kiryas Joel pushes up against its borders, nearby neighbors in the towns of Blooming Grove and Woodbury are moving aggressively to prevent the community from expanding by incorporating into villages of their own.
“We still have huge tracts of open land in Woodbury, and we want to keep it that way,” said Woodbury’s supervisor, John P. Burke, who grew up in the Bronx and moved to Orange County in 1969.
“We want to make sure that no outside community is able to completely transform the character and the look of our town,” he said. “If we need a village to do that, so be it.”
Kiryas Joel’s population leaped to 18,300 last year from 13,100 in 2000 and 7,400 in 1990, making it one of the fastest growing places in the state, according to the most recent estimates by the Census Bureau. For two years, developers and local officials have been searching for private parcels in surrounding communities, hoping to expand the village through annexation for the third time since it was incorporated in 1977 as an offshoot of the Satmar Hasidic sect of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
After its incorporation, most of the growth was driven by migration from New York City. But now, new arrivals are mostly babies and grooms coming to marry one of the local women.
Worried residents in Blooming Grove, which lies northwest of here, and Woodbury, which lies east, have voted overwhelmingly in the past two months to approve the creation of two new villages. State law allows villages to be established within towns and to set their own zoning regulations, and area officials say the new villages would be able to restrict the multifamily, high-density building that predominates in Kiryas Joel.
Many of the families in those towns also fled the crowded streets of New York City, moving here for the cleaner air, the safer communities and the open spaces, where the closest neighbor may not be so close.
“We’re hard-working people who decided to move up here to pay less taxes and enjoy the quietness of country,” said Garry Dugan, a retired New York City detective and the president of the South Blooming Grove Homeowners Association, the group that began the drive to create one of the villages.
“It’s a shame that it has come to us and them, but we feel like we had to form a village for no reason other than preserving our quality of life,” said Mr. Dugan, who has lived in Blooming Grove for 26 years. “This has nothing to do with their religion.”
It is not the first time that Kiryas Joel and its neighbors have clashed.
Over the years, there have been disputes — over a water pipeline Kiryas Joel sought to build, for example, and whether the state should pay for a school system for its disabled students. There was also an argument in 1986 when 600 Kiryas Joel boys refused to board school buses driven by women. (The drivers are now all men.)
The Satmar Hasidim share what they call a deep mystical connection to Kiryas Joel. They were led here by their founder, the Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who saw in it the ideal place for his followers to raise large families away from the influences of the outside world. Hence the name of the village, which means Town of Joel.
About 3,000 families live here, many of them in boxy wood-frame homes built close to one another, with up to a dozen apartments stacked in four floors.
The village has no parks or public playgrounds, so children play with their colorful plastic toys on small front yards.
A network of sidewalks twirl across the village, so the women, who do not drive, are able to walk to the clinic and supermarket. Baby strollers seem to be everywhere: in the lobbies of buildings, on sidewalks, outside the stores.
“This is a great place to raise our children; it’s easy to keep them away from the distractions of the city,” said Judith Greenfeld, 34, whose family moved here from Williamsburg two decades ago.
All but 3 of her 12 siblings live here.
Mrs. Greenfeld and her husband, Joseph, 35, have five children, three boys and two girls, ages 3 to 13. The median age is 15, compared with 35 for the nation, according to the 2000 census. The village has one of the lowest median ages among communities nationwide with more than 5,000 residents.
The Greenfelds live on a dead-end street, in a third-floor apartment across from a girls’ school. Like most families here, they speak more Yiddish than English and have no radio, computer or television at home. Mr. Greenfeld owns a tile shop in Monroe, just outside the village borders.
His wife helps him run the business, which makes her a rare exception among Kiryas Joel’s women, who are married soon after they graduate from high school, work until they give birth to their second child and then become stay-at-home mothers. The men, meanwhile, board yellow school buses every morning and ride to New York City, to jobs in the diamond district or at B & H, the photo and video store near Herald Square.
Because of the sheer size of the families (the average household here has six people, but it is not uncommon for couples to have 8 or 10 children), and because a vast majority of households subsist on only one salary, 62 percent of the local families live below poverty level and rely heavily on public assistance, which is another sore point among those who live in neighboring communities.
“We just don’t understand why they have to keep pushing their expansionist ideas on us,” said Charles J. Bohan, who is the supervisor of the Town of Blooming Grove and a resident of the new village, named South Blooming Grove.
On Sept. 21, South Blooming Grove will hold its first election for mayor and for a four-member board of trustees. The state must still certify the results of the vote to create the village in Woodbury before elections there can be held.
Mr. Szegedin, Kiryas Joel’s administrator, said his community was not deterred.
"We have several different developers that want to sell land to Kiryas Joel, but if they can’t do it, we can build up,” he said. “We can change our zoning code to allow high-rise apartments. The creation of these villages are not going to stop the growth in the village of Kiryas Joel."
Mrs. Greenfeld agreed.
“People don’t understand the conception of our people, of our religion,” she said. “There’s no government or land or any other authority that can stop us from having babies,” she said while her husband put out a plate of cheese blintzes, strawberries and sour cream.
“If there’s not enough land, families will double up. There’s always going to be room for the new families,” Mrs. Greenfeld said. “And if I have to slice up my apartment in two, I’ll do it, without doubt or hesitation.”
uoj sure has ry by the baytzim. he took down his alternate site which listed BH and his phone # and the main site barely contains any information, and certainly nothing more that 'just the [wrong] facts.'
Justice is a good thing. Let the pieces fall where they may, and let the perpetrators get their just deserts.
The village has no parks or public playgrounds, so children play with their colorful plastic toys on small front yards.
God forbid that children might actually exercise. I wonder how big the cardiac care, diabetes and dialysis clinics will be in 30 years.
Reminds me a little of my daughter's alma mater. For "physical education", the teachers used to take the girls on a walk, a little less than a mile in each direction, to the nearest 7-11 store for Slurpees. Net calorie burn for adult women is about 43 calories per mile. Since calorie burn is related to body weight (hence the amount of work you do), junior high students would burn less. But let's use that 43 calorie figure. Regular slurpees are 118 calories per 8 oz. And who buys just an 8 oz. Slurpee? Even buying the smallest Slurpee means that this "physical education" class meant a net calorie gain of 32 calories. My daughter isn't an idiot - and has a Bianchi mountain bike - she'd laugh about this "gym" class.
It would be interesting to find out what the obesity levels in Kiryas Yoel are.
The lengths these guys will go to smear a person without any reason other than they know he knows about Margo's theft of the Torah Vodaath name and was willing to voice his criticism in public. The school must be shut down.
ReplyDeleteTo those who still stand by Margo and TT - you certainly deserve to do so. Fools!
ReplyDeleteTuvya is a real lowlife, compromising his professional integrity for a little kovod and maybe a bissel gelt from the biggest rasha on Ocean Parkway. Shame on you!
The following study should prove interesting when discussing whether there are verifiable statistics regarding sexual abuse in the Jewish community and whether the repressive nature of certain halachos might contribute to sexual deviancy.
ReplyDeleteThe Sexual Life and Observant Women Study
The latest issue of YCT's student journal, Millin Havivin is now available online. It includes a report by Dr. Michelle Friedman on a study of Orthodox Jewish women and sexuality, which will be the subject of a formal paper in the future. The saddest point in the article is as follows:
Sadly, we found the same statistics for sexual molestation and abuse of girls and teens as in the secular population. One quarter of our respondents reported sexual molestation as girls or teens. While patterns of molestation varied somewhat from secular studies, we must face up to the fact that, contrary to popular belief, traditional religious life does not guarantee protection for girls and teens in this arena.
The study also looked at the role of the laws of nida in Orthodox Jewish marriages. The standard theory, most famously articulated by Rabbi Norman Lamm in Bed of Roses and propounded by chosson and kallah teachers ad nauseum, goes some like this:
With the institution of taharat hamishpacha... a marvelous domestic miracle occurs: the honeymoon lasts throughout the greatest part of one's active life! The drama of love-without-sexual-contact followed by the loving union of husband and wife and their being together is repeated every month.
In a previous post, I noted how the Dr. Friedman's study seemed to debunk this "Bed of Roses" theory. According to the report cited in my prior post:
About 400 married Orthodox Jewish women in New York and Israel filled out anonymous questionnaires. Researchers found that 72.1 percent of married Orthodox Jewish women were emotionally satisfied and 70.4 percent were physically satisfied.
The results were compared to a 1999 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that 93 percent of American women from various denominations were physically satisfied, and almost 90 percent reported a high level of emotional satisfaction
I still don't know what Neuhoffs credentials are. Is he truly a certified child psychologist? How could it be that 'tuvya' said he does not know about child abuse and he had to research the issue? I just don't get it.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I wonder if Neuhoff did tell margulies that he wouldn't take the job and margulies went behind his back and put his name on the list anyway. I wouldn't be surprised by anything at this point. Except why I still have very close family members in the yeshiva (obviously I have no control).
They smeared this poor guy because they assumed it was him for the diatribes made by UOJ against the theft of the name Torah Vodaath. He was very critical in public about Torah Vodaath essentially giving Margulies a pass.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't get worse than this.
Sruli Belsky, you're essentially finished.
ReplyDeleteUOJ
ReplyDeletewhen are you goping to get back to the real issues?
Enough of all this stuff!!
I dont get this, what is going on?
ReplyDeleteso he works for the yeshiva?
and....
forgive my ignorance but i live out of town.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteKudos for 'outing' margulius employee !! Talk about being a "nogaia b'davar" WOW!!
Chaim Neuhoff
ReplyDeleteFEH
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteI bet this whole bit about attempting to "out" you was a Torah Temmimah operation. Be strong !! Chazak !! Don't let them take you down. I can't believe R' Belsky was in on this crap. I went to YTV in the 70's and remember the rebbies constantly going on strike because of low salaries or not getting paid.
At the time, Rabbi Belsky was one of those rebbies. They might not have suffered so bitterly if YTV had all that money that was stolen.
Chaim Neuhoff's e-mail in part to a fellow blogger, begging the blogger to have me remove his personal name and information!
ReplyDeleteTHIS WAS WRITTEN ON AUGUST 16th.
"I am removing links to the blog RY
claiming to out UOJ, and recognize that his claims of authenticity cannot be substantiated 100%,
but the brutality of listing phone numbers and personal information can be."
HEY BELSKY......
ReplyDeleteMY FRIEND TOLD ME TO TELL YOU THAT HE WILL SEE YOU IN BAIS DIN AND IN COURT!
From a friend to me......
ReplyDeleteUOJ,
That Chaim (Neuhoff) emailed me again. He is f-cking begging for rachmones!
He claimed to me naive, and not realize what he was getting himself into, which does seem possible.
What do you say?
----------------------------------
I SAID NO! UNLESS A FULL APOLOGY WAS SENT TO THE FAMILY THAT WAS SMEARED UPON BELSKY'S AND MARGULIES'S INSTRUCTIONS!
LET'S NOT FORGET MARGULIES WAS THE THIEF THAT STOLE THE NAME TORAH VODAATH, WHY NOT NOW GO AFTER THE FAMILY THAT FOUNDED IT, BECAUSE A MEMBER OF THAT FAMILY CHALLENGED HIM?
Don't forget:
ReplyDeleteTUVYA IS CHAIM NEUHOFF
1296 E. 10th. St.
Brooklyn, NY 11230
718-501-3708
Blogger Posek is Yisroel Belsky
506 E. 7th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218
718-941-0112
"Tuvya" Chaim Neuhoff was a whore in the Lipa Margulies harem all along. Why am I not surprised.
ReplyDeleteThe extent of his self rightousness is kind of shocking considering who he works for and with.
Good job, Chaim. Look in the mirror now.
...I was recently approached by Torah Temimah to work on a very part-time basis as school psychologist for the coming year. I have since declined this offer due to a possible misperception...
ReplyDelete- Neuhoff
Caught with his pants down (no pun intended!) What a LIAR!
SHLOMO MANDEL:
ReplyDeleteTHIS IS MY FINAL WARNING TO YOU.
GIVE THE VICTIMS OF YOB THEIR DUE, OR YOU WILL BE DEALING WITH ME.
YOU HAVE UNTIL SUNDAY; I THEN GO PUBLIC WITH ALL YOUR DARK SECRETS FOR THE WORLD TO SEE!
Chaim Neuhoff taunted us daily, taunted PM's kids on a daily basis, by phone and e-mail, trying to convince us that he caught UOJ when he himself knew he was wrong.
ReplyDeleteAre there bigger rashaim in the world than Chaim Neuhoff and his gang? Goes after his kids? Daily? He is a very sick man.
The Family
File name uoj2.pdf
ReplyDeleteDocument Type PDF Document
File size 483531 bytes
Page size 8.5 x 11.0 inches
PDF version 1.4
Page count 56
Encryption Encrypted
Title Uoj is Paul Manilow
Content Creator pdfFactory Pro www.pdffactory.com
PDF Producer pdfFactory Pro 2.23 (Windows XP)
Creation Date 08/05/06
Author Rabbi Y. Kleinman
mr.rosheyshiva did say that he works in the same office as kleinman and that kleinman created the document, but that kleinman is not mr.roshyeshiva. for whatever that's worth. if it's true, I hope that scum is worth the beating that kleinman is taking for him.
ReplyDeletetuvya neuhoff has two lies up on his blog:
1) "Question: How sure am I that I have the right man? I am 100% sure!" And yet he claims in a personal email that he is not really all that sure!
2) he left up his claim that he is not employed by ytt, while an official letter sent out by ytt claims the opposite, and even has a voicemail number assigned to him!
not that I'm surprised really.
Blogger Posek Yisroel Belsky will be attending the event below. Anyone that sends in a photo of Belsky holding hands with Lipa Brenner gets $1000.
ReplyDeleteThursday, August 24, 2006 at Ateres Avrohom Hall at 6:15 @ 75 Ross St.
Brooklyn, NY, Chupa at 7:30
Parents: Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Halevy Bryks-CHILD MOLESTER
Grandparents: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipa Hacohen Brenner-CONVICTED FELON CHILD MOLESTER
is chaim/charles tuvya really only 34 years old? what a shnuk! he really is a naive dupe who got in way over his head. I feel bad for his family. He really ruined things for them. It's not their fault.
ReplyDeleteTUVYA IS CHAIM NEUHOFF
ReplyDelete1296 E. 10th. St.
Brooklyn, NY 11230
718-501-3708
I hope that his new neighbors on 31st throw him a nice welcome party. I'll be there, and I wouldn't eat those cookies if i was him ;]
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:uUwg21SAvGYJ:www.aboutourkids.org/aboutour/articles/sibling_conflict.html+%22charles+neuhoff%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1
ReplyDeleteSee this link which indicates that Charles Neuhoff is not a Dr., as the TT letter claims, but is Charles Neuhoff, M.A.
If accurate, this is a serious breach of ethics, to say the least, on the part of TT and Mr. Neuhoff.
Chaim-You destroyed your career over what? Aligning yourself with Margolis and Belsky will haunt you the rest of your life. How big a fool does one become for nothing?
ReplyDeleteA former friend
Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz once asked the Chazon Ish why he did not hold a certain Torah scholar in the same high esteem that others did. The Chazon Ish replied that the person in question was incapable of rising about his personal self-interest. “A person can have any number of shortcomings and still be considered a great man,” explained the Chazon Ish. “But being thrall to one’s self-interest is different. It is not a singe fault, but an all-encompassing blemish. His teaching of Torah will be tinged with self-interest, his davening will be tinged with self-interest, even his acts of chesed will be tinged with self-interest.”
ReplyDelete"Just because your son is one of more than a thousand talmidim in the yeshiva, is no reason for him not to be regarded as an individual. The yeshiva makes efforts to belie the myth that large and efficient means impersonal."
ReplyDeleteYes sir folks, the yeshiva wishes to make clear that Yudi Kolko would like to PERSONALLY molest your son. If your son hasn't been "touched" yet by Kolko, please sign up now for next summer's event at Lake Compounce while space is still available, or we can arrange a private audience now in Brooklyn by appointment.
After investigating the allegations against Yudi Kolko, we officially banned him from the park. If he should ever show up at our property, we will have him arrested.
ReplyDeleteNeuhoff gets the lifetime achievement award. The other bozos were already at sea when the storm hit. Neuhoff paddled out to join Margo's sinking ship.
ReplyDeleteAt least Neuhoff will still command a little respect when he gets his butt kissed once a year at the Agudah convention. And maybe Shea Fishman will come by erev Shabbes to shine his shoes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/nyregion/24disease.html
ReplyDeleteWhen Margo gets his money stripped away in court, maybe some of it could go another Margulies who really needs it.
"Charles Neuhoff, M. A., is a doctoral candidate in psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University."
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is that?
Where is Ortho Rev?
ReplyDeleteshmuel p. said...
ReplyDelete"Charles Neuhoff, M. A., is a doctoral candidate in psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University."
What the hell is that?
it's simple "DICK-IN-SON" thats what he is teaching. LEIZEROWITZ VICTIM FOREVER
"at the end of the day, emulating Jesus, we will admit the wrong"
ReplyDeleteHey Johnny boy, it only took you bums 500 years to "apologize" for all the atrocities committed by Tomás de Torquemada and the other miscreants running the "Holy" Inquisition. Even the Anglicans were cussing over the fake & belated apology. British seaman drifting near Spain were also seized & burned at the stake as "heretics".
I suppose the Franciscan Friars / Dominican Monks who publicly burned the Talmud in 1200s Paris were emulating Jesus too. They certainly must have been eager to hide a censored Talmudic account of Jesus being excommunicated for being a womanizer.
Alas, the ways of Jesus. Forging through Europe in the form of the Knights Templar & the Crusaders, hacking apart women & babies in the Rhine valley.
Mel & daddy Gibson must be proud of you, Johnny boy.
The Church is still cannonizing criminal bishops you lying hypocrite.
P.S. - The Staten Island yeshiva is housed in a former monastery. When a wall was taken down for renovations, a secret priestly stash of booze bottles & hard core porno was discovered.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteUOJ
when are you goping to get back to the real issues?
Enough of all this stuff!!
___________________________________
THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE!! The UOJ blog is not only about the molestation issue. It is about exposing the fraud and corruption in our institutions. Molestation has become the central issue, but it is not the only issue. After the lawsuits, newspaper and magazine articles, community uproar, etc., instead of being contrite and laying low for a while, Margulies decided to add more sleaze and corruption to his long rap sheet. First he kept Kolko on at Silver Lake, allowing him to chaperone thousands of kids, from his and other camps, to a water theme park. Then he tried to deny this through his lawyer and had Kleinman (RY) post threats on his blog to anyone who suggests that they are lying. All this while hiring his goons (pretty weak and lousy ones at that), Neuhoff and Kleinman to smear an innocent man with the blessing of chief mafioso Belsky. When one is so steeped in sleaze and corruption, it is impossible for him to change his ways, especially at an advanced age. That is why this "institution" must shut down and sell its property. It is being run by corrupt individuals, from the rasha yeshiva (Margo), the administrator (Kleinman), the shrink (Neuhoff) to its teachers (don't be surprised if Yudi makes a cameo appearance come September).
why does ytt claim to be the best yeshiva in the best neighborhood with the best boys with the best rebbeim with the best faculty with the most boys in the best yeshivos in ey with the best everything and yet they have the worst psychologist (if he even is one, and if he is not for more than a few years, and even then I'm not sure getting a degree from a school that is ranked as the worst 15% is worth much). Could it be becuase they have the best molestor?
ReplyDeleteHello, Catholic Priest. You've asked a strong question. I have an answer, but I need to develop it more in my mind, and perhaps do a little bit of reading, before I post it.
ReplyDeleteThe answers from my friends on the blog were inappropriate, for the most part. The Catholic Church has made great strides in recent years, vis-a-vis its relationship with the Jews and Israel. Your questions are raised in good faith ,and you deserve a better answer.
RE
Though, as I commented, I believe that the Catholic Priest may have an agenda for posting here, his comments should be taken to heart by serious Jews.
ReplyDeleteHere is a Catholic clergyman whose worldview is no doubt informed by the reforms of Vatican II. He openly accepts the choseness of the Jewish people and rejects replacement theology. He freely volunteers his affection for Jews and Judaism, and recognizes the moral standing of Halacha.
And he sees rabbis acting badly and other rabbis trying to avoid even acknowledging the bad behavior.
It isn't UOJ who is causing this chillul HaShem.
It isn't even Kolko. He's just a criminal pervert.
No the chillul HaShem is caused by the Margulieses and Belskys of the frum velt, not to mention Tuvya and the other guy, and their groupies who call us bums, losers and lowlifes. They think they can hide behind "anonymous" or fake names, but their brazen attitude is obvious even to non Jews.
At that, my fellow Yidden, is the definition of chillul HaShem.
When a Jew acts badly in front of goyim, it is literally turning something sacred into the profane, the mundane, the petty. Jews are bnai Yisrael. We are literally called by His name, and our struggles with Him are a witness to His very existence. When rabbis obfuscate and deflect, and when we allow them too, we have sullied our name and His.
The answers from my friends on the blog were inappropriate, for the most part. The Catholic Church has made great strides in recent years, vis-a-vis its relationship with the Jews and Israel. Your questions are raised in good faith ,and you deserve a better answer.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
I considered whether I was being fair to the Priest and I share some of your concerns. However, while many of us Jews may have a blind spot when it comes to recognizing that the RCC of today is not the same RCC of the Inquisition (which btw, had no true jurisdiction over Jews who remained true to their faith), believing Catholics and other believing Christians may be incapable of not preaching Jesus.
I believe that the good father was posting in good faith. I just think the comments about WWJD amount to proselytizing Christianity in a Jewish venue. We should be able to go on a Jewish blog, addressing internal Jewish problems, without having to contend with folks consciously or unconsciously preaching Jesus to us.
If I want to blog about Jewish messianic aspirants who died without seating on the throne of David HaMelech, well I suppose that's what Shmarya's blog is for.
Mr. Catholic Priest,
ReplyDeleteRE just enlightened me that you may be for real. I apologize for going nuts; I thought it was a fellow Jewboy trying to get me going.
Please leave Jesus out of this, let's stick to the concepts of religion rather than getting into the details of your particular faith.
Thanks...you're welcome here anytime.
The blog's resident "priest" is suspect if you ask me. He's either a piss poor missionary with no social skills, Orthorev excersing his sense of humor or some other troublemaker just egging people on for kicks.
ReplyDeleteIf you are choices B and C, I will remind you of the severe issur of claiming you are a Notzri or any other Oved Avodah Zarah.
Hey, Priest,
ReplyDeleteI wrote my comment before I read your last comment which I definitely did not like.
Now I doubt you're a priest -
"xxxx-bag"?, that's a bad term for all clergy.
Quoting the New Testament to orthodox Jews? Some of you guys just never stop trying to convert us. You're not supposed to do that anymore. That phase is over.
Criticing one of our rabbis? You don't know all the facts. And neither do we, by the way, but we know a lot more than you do. The rabbi you named happens to deeply respected in most quarters. At most, he made a mistake in the adjudication of a sex abuse incident. A terrible mistake it may have been, but mistakes are what secular judges and juries do all the time, and they don't get the condemnation that you've just leveled. I detect a double standard here, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by not saying something else.
I'm still going to answer your original question.
RE
Yaakov R, and Ronnie,
ReplyDeleteI could not have said it better, this blog is about the global corruption of the "leadership" which manifests itself in so many different aspects of our lives.
Molestation in yeshivas and the intentional and ongoing coverup is probably the primary example of what happens when we permit the likes of Belsky and Margulies to be considered by many as bona-fide leaders.
They are thugs in black clothing, nothing more. The battle against them and the likes of them has just begun. I will drag them through the streets until they die, hopefully a misa meshunah, and then some.
There's no way that I will rest until these gangsters and child killers are destroyed.
Does anyone find it just a little strange that a galach is commenting on this blog? Is it just me or am I being paranoid? Could it be possible that uoj's enemies are behind this to give doubt to frum people about uoj? I really wonder...
ReplyDeleteWhich would make the Pope haGalach glachei haGlachim.
ReplyDeleteWhen one is so steeped in sleaze and corruption, it is impossible for him to change his ways, especially at an advanced age.
At 51 is there any hope for me?
Serious question.
NP: Just Another Band From East LA - HaZe'evim
yeah, why are 1 or 2 priests suddenly commenting on the blog so often? where were they until now, and why the sudden interest? there was no recent newspaper article or anything. and the recent posts were nothing spectacular from an outsiders perspective.
ReplyDeleteI smell something fishy.
Listen, Priest,
ReplyDeleteI don't have the time to write a polished, well thought-out answer to your question about why some of our rabbis are not apologizing and responding to our abuse problem as they should, and besides, you don't deserve it based on your last comment, but I will give it a few sentences and minutes.
Some of our rabbis are acting like priests.
Some of your priests are acting like rabbis.
What do I mean?
We Jews do not believe that JC is a Divine figure (part of your trinity). We have the one Divine G-d, period.
Man is composed of two inclinations - good and bad, yatser tov and yatser harah.
We Jews take whatever physical inclinations we have - such as our sexual nature - and channel it for good purposes, and imbue it with holiness, i.e., marriage, and bearing children.
The Torah acknowledges that our greatest prophets and leaders have erred, Moses, King David, and others. We are also warned not to judge them. We are smaller than insects compared to them. But they erred nevertheless, in the eyes of G-d.
Moses and King David were both married, as all of our leaders are. They bore children.
Your priests don't get married.
Your Popes have a doctrine of Papal Infallibility. We don't have this doctrine.
JC is portrayed as a perfect Divine being, i.e., without sin.
In denying the sex abuse crisis, not just for years or even decades, but for centuries, your priests were basically emulating JC - denying the sexual inclination, trying to appear like lilly white choir boys, trying to appear, in short, as divine, wihtout human physical form.
Only when the Boston Globe and others exposed it, were your most important priests forced to act like rabbis - acknowledging the problem and fixing it.
We Jews, unfortunately, live in Chiristian countries, and some of your culture rubs off on us - like denial, and clergy infallibility, and trying to appear without sin. So some of our rabbis have been acting like classic priests of old.
Nevertheless, we have some rabbis and communal leaders who have not denied the problem and are trying to fix it. I'm not going to mention their names, because you don't have the merit of reading them.
Finally, the extent of the Catholic Church child sex abuse problem compared to the Jewish problem is like comparing Niagra Falls to a faucet that just started leaking.
Got it?
RE
"In the name of the Father"
ReplyDeleteAlso censored out of the Talmud by the Vatican is the name and identity of the real father of Jesus, a gentile named Pandora (One might be tempted to suggest it, but there is no relation apparently to Pandora's Box). Miryam (Mary) was desperate for a cover story, coming up with that "Immaculate Conception" by G-d fantasy.
Rabbi Yonosson Eybeschutz was once challenged by the Bohemian Archbishop to prove Judaism & disprove Chistianity with a single word. He quickly answered "Im" bechookosai tailaichu, which stands for aino melech, elah mamzer, eemo Miriyam. The Archibishop told him he would have him executed if he did not appreciate his quick wit.
So much for the Father, the Son & Casper the friendly Ghost.
When one is so steeped in sleaze and corruption, it is impossible for him to change his ways, especially at an advanced age.
ReplyDeleteAt 51 is there any hope for me?
___________________________________
Ronnie, you're a lost cause, totally beyond redemption!! Just kidding, you know we all love you, even frummies have a soft spot for you.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteThe other day I got a call from RG, perhaps a relative of Eli G's, who runs a camp and school for "kids at risk". He's no fool and told me he's had about a dozen parents arrested for abuse, without even thinking about asking a shailah, and he's got connections better than Neuhoff.
He disagrees with the tone of your blog though and suggested that instead of using time to post here, that I should get involved in some kind of "positive" project.
It was good mussar, and I've been mulling it over.
A hammer can be used to knock down a wall as well as build shelter for the homeless.
What can we do that is positive?
Our critics like to cite Tehillim Lamed Daled, the source for the title of R. Yisrael Meir Kagan's famous sefer, but it also says סור מרע, ועשה טוב.
This blog is accomplishing סור מרע.
I'm interested in what you and our chevra think might be an appropriate way to עשה טוב.
NP: Dvorak - Sym. # 9 "New World" / Sibelius - Sym. #2 - Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Paul Paray (one of ours). Mercury Living Presence - fabulous sounding recording with terrific color and dynamics.
the galach said: "Gather strength from Jesus, and, as stated in John 12:17, "expel the evil from thine midst"
ReplyDeletehey buddy, it is bad form to cite a secondary source when primary material is available. Furthermore, it is bad to plaigiarize; just ask Ronnie all about copyrights and stuff. Es shtayt in toyreh, uve'arta hara b'kirbecha - expel the evil from thine midst.
Ghostbuster,
ReplyDeleteUmmm. I side with R. Emden regarding Eybeshutz.
Also, RE said,
The Torah acknowledges that our greatest prophets and leaders have erred, Moses, King David, and others. We are also warned not to judge them. We are smaller than insects compared to them. But they erred nevertheless, in the eyes of G-d.
Unfortunately, frum hagiography not only won't let us judge them, it won't let us openly use them as role models for tshuva, jumping through hoops to minimize their sins.
This is extended first to personalities of the Tanach, then to historic rabbis, and finally, in our own day, to self appointed gedoyoyoylim. Hence the fact that Eybeshutz is still regarded as an authoritative rabbi while modern scholarship and no less an authority than R. Yakov Emden considers him to have been a follower of Shabtai Tzvi.
hey buddy, it is bad form to cite a secondary source when primary material is available. Furthermore, it is bad to plaigiarize; just ask Ronnie all about copyrights and stuff. Es shtayt in toyreh, uve'arta hara b'kirbecha - expel the evil from thine midst.
Actually, when I was looking for the quote I cited from Tehillim, all the top Google listings cited the NT Peter first, though some of them acknowledged the NT writer was quoting Tehillim.
I guess that what happens when someone appropriates your sacred texts.
When I worked at DuPont doing IT support, I spent a lot of time working at other people's desks. When I'd see a religious Christian's calender with verses in English from the Tanach, like some Psalms, my brain would recognize that I knew the pasuk, but I'd have to translate it back to Hebrew to figure out what it was.
Copyrights don't apply to things in reshut harabim.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Tanach may be the yerusha of am haMuvchar the western world considers it to be PD.
So copyrights don't apply.
Ronnie,
ReplyDeletePlease send me a phone # or an e-mail address, I know someone who would like to give you work.
Regards
Unless they know each other from before, I find it hard to believe that Ronny Greenwald would call Schreiber up out of the blue because he noticed him posting on a blog.
ReplyDeleteRonnie, you're a lost cause, totally beyond redemption!! Just kidding, you know we all love you, even frummies have a soft spot for you.
ReplyDeleteActually, one of the things that most distresses me is the way that Tuvya and the other guy's cheerleaders like to throw out the "bums, losers and lowlifes". It is as though they have denied the possibility of tshuvah.
So much of what they say and how they act resonates in such a non Jewish manner.
As I've mentioned, the other guy posted my phone number that I sent to him privately. I've been called by a couple of people and though we disagree, the conversations were what one should expect of two Jews. There was respect. There was warmth.
Partly as a result of contacts like this I have deliberately started spelling it "froomie" to distinguish pashut frum Yidden from those more concerned with social conventions and protecting their community's image than with being authentically Jewish.
BTW, if you want to show how soft your spot can be, if you have any friends or relatives in the Detroit area, I can always use invitations for Shabbat or Yom Tov meals. I can't always rely on a kiddush at Young Israel or Bnai Israel.
Ronnie,
ReplyDeleteI know RG...The attraction to this blog is because of the irreverence and no-nonsense tone.
Tell him, as well as his entire chevra, to stop getting up in middle of the night, when nobody is looking, and logging on to UOJ for hours.
You can carry the prostrate problem only so far.....
Jesus v Belsky? For real? Gimme a break. UOJ, where has your sense of humor gone? What a joke! You really need a vacation.
ReplyDeleteRepeat, Jesus v Belsky. Nice job, Johnny.
There is a lot of innueundo here about Neuhoff, Kleinman and other characters conspiring on & off blogs to harass people. Could UOJ or someone please do a public service & explain in detailed, easy to understand English, what exactly is happening?
ReplyDeleteThanks
Really Now? said...
ReplyDeleteUnless they know each other from before, I find it hard to believe that Ronny Greenwald would call Schreiber up out of the blue because he noticed him posting on a blog.
My yetzer hara won out. I wasn't going to respond because I deliberately didn't mention his name. However, Really Now is essentially calling me a liar. Which I am. Frequently. Though not in this case.
Before the phone call I had no contact with RG. Never even heard of him. He saw my number posted over on the other guy's site and called me. I think it was Monday afternoon. We had a very nice conversation and he seems like a very nice gentleman. I pushed back a little on his concerns, but his call made an impression. He also asked me to give his regards to a local g'vir who is prominent enough in the frum velt that he's on Artscroll's board of advisors (ever notice that they only give the cities of folks who don't live in NYC as though the default location of Jews is Brooklyn Ir HaKodesh?). How would I know the two are even acquainted with each other?
Out here in the Jewish sticks, so to speak, how would I even know who RG is or the fact that he runs a camp and a school?
Sheesh.
You can carry the prostrate problem only so far.....
There's a joke in here somewhere. One of my rebbes, Leonard Alfred Schneider, a'h', (definitely not a saint, but still a very funny man - look it up on Wikipedia), would be disappointed (if he hadn't OD'd before I discovered his oeuvre). So this will have to suffice.
A guy goes into a doctor's office for an appointment. Sitting down, he notices an older Jewish man, so he strikes up a conversation with the man.
"So what are you seeing the doctor for, reb yid?"
"I.. I... I... s s s see him ffffor mmmine pppprescription refills," the old man stuttered. "He ggggives mmmme sssssamples. On a fffffixed income, it hhhhhelps. He's mine nnnnephew. A gggggutter kkkkkkkindt.
Ssssso tell mmmmmme. VVVVVos vvvvat are yyyyou hhhhere fffffor?"
The man replied, "I have an enlarged prostate."
The old Jew asked, "Vos is das, enlarged ppppprostate?"
And the man replied:
"Ich pish vi du redst"
(Good thing mom's first language was Mamaloshen - I went to a day school - I had to ask her how the punchline went)
NP: Sailin' Shoes - Ma'aseh Katan (the pun just don't translate well)
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteThis catholic priest "Father John" is a fraud. He is the same guy who has been trying to start a blog about Belsky but wasn't getting any responses. First it was "The Belsky Papers" three buffoons, then it was something else,four buffoons. Now he figures to get more attention posing as a priest, quoting the NT to make himself believable. Notice the same background on each blog. UOJ, you don't need this idiot to tell you about Belsky. Please do not indulge him anymore. Same goes for all the readers.
With great apologies for arousing your ire, I still do not understand why I am being villanized and viewed as sub-human.
ReplyDeleteNobody viewed you as subhuman. I'll try to use terms more familiar to you than galach, the Yiddish term for priest. It means "shaven", since traditional Jews typical wore beards and the Catholic clergy was often clean shaven. It's not a disparaging term at all. Certainly no worse than Mackeral Slapper.
I, for one, appreciate the perspective of someone from the RCC as it relates to how religious institutions' first reflex is to defend the institution, not the individuals harmed.
Most here, though, object to your using this venue as a mission field. I understand the importance, to Christians, of the Great Commission, but your continued attempts to morally one up Jews with quotations from the New Testament are hardly giving good witness.
Look, although you hate me because I am catholic, I am definitely not against you. As stated, we have done much talking in our inter-faith clergy sessions and all men-of-faith respect the Jewish religion.
Two points. Jews have a good reason, based on about 1700 years of Church history, since the Nicean and Lateran councils, to be skeptical of Catholics. While the church hierarchy in Rome always made sure there was plausible deniability, there is no question that Catholic clergy have instigated murderous violence towards Jews. While it's true that post Vatican II, most Catholics seem to have dropped the judenhasse, it also seems that the most traditional of Catholics, the paleo variety like Pat Buchanan, can't let go.
The other point is that you are completely wrong about "all" men of faith respecting the Jewish religion. If you go to the MEMRI site, you can unfortunately see scores of examples of Muslim religious leaders, at authoritative Muslim seminaries, like Al-Ashar in Cairo and Al-Imaan in Riyadh, speaking the most hateful Jew hatred you can imagine. Sure, there are some pacific Sufis, but Sayyid Qutb is much more influential in modern day Islam (btw, he criticized "racism" in the US, while reviling Jazz as "created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires"). Was not Qutb a "man-of-faith"?
Although it may be hard and emotionally troubling to admit this, one of your great leaders rivals the corruptness of the very worst in the Catholic Church.
Are you blind and deaf? Can you not tell that this very fact is what motivates many of us? That we realize that some of our leaders are acting not like Jewish leaders, but like goyim. Before you accuse me of bigotry, you accept the fact that Jews are to be a nation of priests, with better standards than the gentiles (and yes, I know it can also mean heathen).
Again, as many in our group have wondered- how can the Rabbi not be openly question by other religious leaders about his recent conduct?
Because openly questioning someone like that would expose them to some very thuggish behavior.
Also, people compartmentalize. When someone is revealed to have a secret life, like when a priest is revealed to have a secret family replete with "wife" and children, most that only know his public life are shocked. Nobody, Catholic or Jewish, wants to believe something bad about someone "good". In the case of the rabbi under discussion, I know a fine young man who is a student of his and thinks very highly of him. The young man, whom I've known since he was in kindergarten, has great morals, good judgement and is nobody's fool. But he only sees one side of this rabbi.
People on this blog only see my composed, edited thoughts. They've never seen me in a full boiling rage. Ask my ex wife and you'll get a different picture.
Judaism teaches that people are both good and evil at the same time. An inclination towards the good as well as towards the evil. Our yetzer haRa, our evil inclination, has access to all our capacities and talents. Just like our lizard brain has access to a human's cerebral cortex. We are very smart lizards sometimes. And lizards were not made in the image of the Creator.
May all those men-of-faith against child abuse stand strong in their conviction and ... [excerpt from the funnies supplement deleted]
Your continued citation of the NT on this blog makes your agenda clear.
Answer this question, please, posed in good faith:
Are you not trying to spread belief in Jesus here? Are not all of your conscious actions intended to fullfil the great commission?
NP: Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat (what a surprise, another great dead guitar player)
Yaakov R.
ReplyDeleteYou may be correct. I'm sure that someone over on the other guy's blog will accuse UOJ of giving a venue to someone trying to preach belief in Yebozo.
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU HAVE AGAINST YOB?
ReplyDeleteMY SON IS A STUDENT THERE, AND I HONESTLY DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE REFERING TO
YTT Gangsters For Dummies said...
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of innueundo here about Neuhoff, Kleinman and other characters conspiring on & off blogs to harass people. Could UOJ or someone please do a public service & explain in detailed, easy to understand English, what exactly is happening
__________________________________
Easy to understand English? Hmm..let me try...
Chaim and his friend said some not nice things about a nice Jewish man and his nice wife. That is not a nice thing to do!!
Innuendo? That's a big word for you.
To anon @5:16, re YOB, please go to exposemolesters.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThis is getting interesting. The Blogger Priest vs. The Blogger Posek!!
ReplyDeleteanon 5:16 is a perfect example of why we need publicity and outings. the word of mouth has to get around somehow and people are too stigmatized to do it face to face or over the telephone. only anonymous forums are feasible at this time.
ReplyDeletehopefully shlomo/jack mandel will fail to deliver and uoj will proceed with the free advertisement of his lovely abu ghraib style terrocracy.
Anon 5:30 pm,
ReplyDeleteSorry for not being more specific. Based on posts I've read, I am wondering about the following:
Who else is helping these stooges Neuhoff & Kleinman do the dirty work besides Belsky?
What exactly was the nature of harassment executed by Neuhoff?
What I'm driving at with this question is that he probably violated some state / federal statutes. Speaking of which, I believe that it is also a violation of state law for some unlicensed shmuck to claim he is a psychologist and counsel children, even if he has a degree. Elliot Spitzer's office handles those issues.
I hope Neuhoff, Belsky and Kleinman is pursued for slander, etc.
The fact that all these tuchesses like Neuhoff and Kleinman are on Margo's payroll plays right into the organized conspiracy that Jeff Herman will be presenting to the judge.
ReplyDeleteRead em & weep.
does anyone care to explain the process of what makes one a certified psychologist? I imagine there would have to be a high school diploma followed by a BA, then I get lost. Does there have to be an MA and a Phd followed by State Certification and actual work experience?
ReplyDeletethanks for clarifying.
p.s. farleigh dickinstudent university is in NJ - if that makes a difference.
The fact that all these tuchesses like Neuhoff and Kleinman are on Margo's payroll plays right into the organized conspiracy that Jeff Herman will be presenting to the judge. Read em & weep.
ReplyDelete-----------------------------------
on the contrary, read it and laugh. Jeff will have a hard time convincing the judge to ignore the statute of limitations and anything that makes his job easier is a good thing. I can't wait to buy a condo overlooking the ocean (parkway).
Hello, again, "Catholic Priest",
ReplyDeleteI put it in quotes because you're not a priest. You don't think like a priest, you don't write like a priest. An American priest would never quote New Testament to orthodox Jews, and say "xxxx-bag".
You write that "you hate me becaue I am Catholic". You claim that I consider you "subhuman". Never said either. I don't believe either. You're not a priest. But you are a liar.
Get off the blog, buddy, you're a Jew-hater.
But, before you do, I'm getting the last word to answer you back.
The Rabbi issued a summons to a litigant with whom he had a potential conflict of interest. I say potential because if the process had gone further -which it never did - the conflict of interest point could have been raised by the affected litigant, and that is when the Rabbi could have recused himself, and referred the case to another Jewish court.
The "facts" that you cite are not facts, more proof you're not a priest. The Rabbi has never been heard on any of this. Due process requires that both sides be heard -duh. These are allegations at this point, credible allegations, yes, but still allegations. More proof you're not a priest. Nor a very good imposter.
Another allegation is that the Rabbi engaged in coverup. No. It is being alleged that as a rabbi, he should not have acted as an advocate, essentially, for an accused child molester. This is a real claim, but everybody, including child molesters, are entitled to have their advocates. Maybe not this Rabbi, for this molester, and that's the claim. The argument essentially is that this respected Rabbi should not have lowered himself by associating himself in advocacy for this child molester. This is how much the Jewish people hold our Rabbis in great esteem - we don't want a personage like this Rabbi associated in any way with a molester.
UOJ, toss this guy, he's a fraud.
RE
The argument essentially is that this "respected" Rabbi should not have lowered himself by associating himself in advocacy for this child molester.---------------------------------------------
ReplyDeleteRE,
I agree in principle with your advocacy position of the accused rabbi.
Since this is not a court of law, we are entitled to judge his "respectabilty" by his actions over a long period of time.
This rabbi has been in the forefront of protecting this child molester and another friend of his that is a convicted felon/pedophile. This has been demonstrated over and over again.
His latest action of issuing a hazmana to a person who was trying to do the right thing for the klal, was sort of the final slap in the face to the collective us. In reality he was trying to shut him up, you know that and so does any thinking person.
This rabbi has been deemed unfit by many of his peers in various other circumstances.
If you examine his latest act of permitting a person to go after an assumed "mevaze gedolim" without even a phone call to that person; and BTW they both have s'micha from the same institution, signed by the same rabbonim, his actions speak a lot louder than any advocate for him can possibly put into words.
So I agree that in a formal hearing, he will have the ability to attempt to defend himself, and you may even choose to represent him if you so desire, but we have every right to look at his behavior and scream to the rafters that he is unfit to be a rabbi in Klal Yisroel.
The CPA essentially answered his own question. No matter how many impressive degrees you have, you must be licensed by the state. The state will not grant a license unless you have bonafide intern experience.
ReplyDeleteIf Neuhoff spends one minute counseling these kids, he could have the AG's office swarming all over him.
Hey Tuvya Chaim Charles, take a hike back to your bungalow & stay there through the winter, you putz.
Me & Margo have already thought up a great defense argument if Spitzer comes after Neuhoff. Since Neuhoff has already been publicly discredited on the UOJ blog, everyone must know that he's not a real psychologist anyway, so he's not fooling anyone by being a poser.
ReplyDeleteAnd will you meanies please stop making fun of my hairdo.
No rabbi is above the halacha. Nobody.
ReplyDeleteRabbinic misconduct should be scrutinized.
RE
A PhD candidate is someone who is in school going for his/her PhD. It's a process that could take anywhere from three (as an advanced student)to ten plus years to complete.
ReplyDeleteThe process for becoming a psychologist is the following:
A bachelor's degree in psychology is nothing. A master's degree in psychology is a little more than nothing.
You can become "certified" as a school psychologist, which means you have a mater's degree in school psychology, but you cannot, under any circumstances open a private practice. You can work in a school, agency, clinic, etc.
A "license" in psychology is only open to someone with a doctoral degree in psychology (PhD, PsyD, or EdD). Only after one has finished years of coursework, a dissertation, had supervised internship, received the doctoral degree and completed post-doc supervised work, can someone apply to take a test to become licensed. Only after this lengthy process can one call themselves a psychologist.
To all the fake jews,
ReplyDeleteWhat has a beard and acts like an animal? Who wears Tzitzis, but acts like the Poretz of the town? Who covers their heads with a Yarmulka, but allows children to be molested? Who preaches yiddeshkeit, but doesn't follow what they preach? Who defends Molesters unconditionally, based on their version of the Torah?
Hmmmm. Wonder who fits into those categories, Margo? Mandel? Kolko? Belsky? anyone else?
I wonder why are there so many people who leave yidishhkeit, and then I look at how the people sworn to protect our children act or don't act, and certainly, that is a big reason why we have people who sway from the jewish religion.
Wake up fakaroos! You destroyed the lives of so many jews. How dare you try to say otherwise. With reckless abandonment, and a pompous attitude, you try to live your fake lives out, as if you did no wrong. What a crime that is. Have you no shame for your despicible and evil actions of the past and present? Do you really think you can insult our intelligence and get away with it? How many more victims must there be before, someone is brave enough to do something about it (aside from UOJ)?
Anyone that trusts YTT with their children is a nitwit. Anyone that still defends the abusers, is contributing in their own way, to their own demise, and the demise of the victims. How would you answer to G-D for that? I tried but i couldn't? I wished i could have done something, but i didn't want to make a chilul hashem? I was dan lekaf zechus, so i couldn't accept this loshon hara?
Get Real Fakers!
Tuvya buys a new house on 31 st street on at the end of April with a 300K mortgage. He needs a job to pay the mortgage. Margo offers him to be the to be the coverup man at a very nice salary. Probably turned down by anybody with a half a brain.
ReplyDeleteOne problem. Tuvya knows he's gonna get fried by UOJ. Tuvya's a real genius. Redoubles his efforts with YTT office guy Kleinman to out UOJ. With UOJ gone, coverup/rehabilitation can begin in earnest.
Tuvya covering for his job. Belsky covering for his buddies. Kleinman covering for Margo. What a group.
Which block of East 31st did Neuhoff buy a house on? Where's he going to daven? By Shimshi Sherer? Or is he going to sit on Isaac Gross's lap in the Agudah?
ReplyDelete1339 East 31 Street between Ave M and N.
ReplyDeletehe's going to walk all the way to lippy geldwirth so he can hear emmesah daas toyreh and cover up abuse as it happens.
ReplyDeleteexposemolesters said...
ReplyDeleteI wonder why are there so many people who leave yidishhkeit, and then I look at how the people sworn to protect our children act or don't act, and certainly, that is a big reason why we have people who sway from the jewish religion.
People leave Judaism because of their own internal motivations. Blaming it on corrupt rabbis is just a rationalization.
I can blame my own disaffections by pointing to this or that menuval with smicha, but ultimately I'm the one who has to decide to keep Shabbat or not.
It's no different than someone blaming their bad behavior on the fact that they had less than stellar parents. Essentially this is a denial of the Jewish concept of b'chirah chofshi, free will.
The problem however is magnified is with young people (or with immature folks like myself). For teenagers, hypocrisy is the worst possible sin. That is because they are not mature enough, usually, to recognize the hypocrite in the mirror. The problem is compounded when they see people in positions of power abuse that power. So they question the legitimacy of the entire edifice of Torah observant Judaism.
They see how being "frum" doesn't seem to result in ethical behavior. And excuses like, "can you imagine how bad he/she would be if they weren't frum?" just doesn't cut it, at least with intelligent kids.
But the motivation is still flawed emunah on the part of the individual.
However, by eliminating the corruption.. scratch that, corruption will be here as long as the yetzer haRa, by reducing the corruption and not allowing corrupt people to keep positions of leadership, we take away that excuse, and those who are disaffected will have to confront their own issues.
And I truly believe that for every menuval there are scores, hundreds, thousands of erlich Yidden who would run in front a bus to save a child.
I can look at Belksy, or I can think of R. Shimon Shapiro who always has a smile and a good word for me. I can think about Margulies, or I can look at R. Shmuel Irons, who isn't a fool and a man from who I can learn anivut from the way that he walks. I can think about the folks who call me a loser, a lowlife and a bum, or I can listen to the mussar R. Daniel Arm gives me with affection.
It's up to the individual.
Chazal teach us that the difference between sin and tshuvah is the difference between east and west, a hair's breadth. You can be in the same spot and travel east or west, simply by a change in direction.
Oskar Schindler was a piece of dreck as a human being. A serial philanderer who openly cheated on his wife, an alcoholic who could never keep a job after the war, and a war profiteer who joined the National Socialists because it was good for business. Yet when the choice was to be made, he did the right thing.
And I think, with some support from the Nevi'im and k'tuvim, that that is what HaShem expects from us - to just make the right choice.
NP: Fillmore East 2-11-69 - The Grateful Dead.
The Fillmores were owned and managed by Bill Graham, whose birth name was Wolfgang Grajonca, born in Berlin to Russian Jewish parents. You may think of him as an iconoclastic music impressario, associated with drugs and wild behavior. It was his production crew that built the large public menorah that Chabad of SF lights every year, and he publicly supported Chabad, giving R. Langer and his chevra, prime "table space", among the non-profits that BGP let set up at concert events. Graham recognized that there was more to life than what we see.
Graham "planned" to become more observant:
"I have the hope that others will come closer to their Jewishness because of it, maybe even I will, too. If somebody said, 'Well, Bill, you could set a better example.' I'd say, 'Yes. But better than nothing is this.'
"My involvement may be looked at by some as crude--it's just money. But I think it should be respected. But to be totally straight, I put it there because I think it's a good worthwhile thing.
"I have a fear of not going back [to Judaism] soon enough. I'm 51 and I'm very, very lucky. G-d blessed me with a healthy body, stamina. But I'm beginning to feel I can't have hot fudge sundaes all the time, and I can't play ball the way I used to, and I can't stay up the way I used to. I'd say within another 5 years I'm going to turn somewhere for solace and I know that somewhere will be my religion. The majority of people turn there when we need, rather than when we can give. But maybe ...
"I'd just like to go to shul, and to sit down and feel at ease and learn about what's available. I know I'm going to do that. I just hope I do it sooner, rather than later. There are a number of friends that I have in New York who are older than I am and who were never religious. Some in their 40's and some even in their 60's eventually went back to tradition. The majority of them went there when they were in trouble and they had problems. I hope I go before. Through simcha, through happiness.
"One of these days I'll take the first step, and later on, take another step."
Sadly, Graham was killed in a helicopter crash before taking that first step. But he knew the direction he was going to take.
That first step in tshuvah is a scary one, not unlike Nachshon stepping into the sea.
But it's just a little step.
how did uoj find out that tuvya is chaim neuhoff? (I know that he admitted it, but how was he caught?)
ReplyDeleteWhen will uoj unmask mr.roshyeshiva?
BTW mr.roshyeshiva still has ben hirsch's name and contact info on his blog.
Ben Hirsch's involvement has yet to be proven and demonstrated. It seems ytt just put out his name to dirty him.
"It's my parnossa" is the famous refrain used by lowlives to defend whatever devorim assurim are an inevitable poel yotzei of their profession.
ReplyDeleteWhat better example do we have than Tuvya, who will go to ANY pathetic length to justify being on the take from Margo.
Maybe Tuvya should go into politics as he's already demonstrated what a Lying WHORE he is.
actually, Mather 21:21 states (Jesus said to them in reply), "Amen, I say to you, if you have faith and do not waver, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will be done.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what priest knows what a hazmanah is?
to uoj,what happened did you fall asleep at the helm? wake up we got work to do as long as those scum are still around you didnt post for 10 complete hours even though people sent them in. LEIZEROWITZ VICTIM FOREVER
ReplyDeleteHi Chaver,
ReplyDeleteI am overwhelmed with the amount of e-mails and comments. Literally thousands are coming in, many winding up in the bulk folder and many showing up on Yahoo for moderation with up to 14 hour delays.
I called customer service and they explained that this will happen when everyone is commenting and e-mailing and the same time.
I'm doing the best I can, and working dilligently to address the emergency issues first, and there are many.
Best regards,
UOJ
What is a "chassid shoteh"? The prime example used is a man who sees a woman drowning and he refuses to jump into the water to save her. Similarly, the YTT administration and defenders think that we are all "chassidim shotim". They spout out halachic terms such as lashon hara, rchilus, and messirah in warning all those who dare question their complicity in the Kolko matter. They make us feel that we are the reshaiim and poshiim by protesting the handling of this affair. They used the same tactics in silencing the victims and their parents over twenty years ago. They made THEM out to be the culprits, not Yudi or his enablers. Our children have been drowning for four decades while we act the part of "chassid shoteh" that they demand us to be. Through Neuhoff's blog, Belsky declared that reading and commenting on this blog is "an absolute violation of hilchos loshon hora" (while Neuhoff's thorough chakira of the blog was lshem shamayim. I'm sorry Rav Belsky, I refuse to be your chassid shoteh, even though you prefer to continue acting like one. Our children deserve better. IT'S TIME FOR ALL OF US TO JUMP INTO THE WATER!!!
ReplyDeleteUOJ,
ReplyDeletePlease ask the readers to stop posting quotations from the Avodah Zara book. I also suggest that you delete these references. And again, do not engage the idiot who calls himself a priest in any dialogue. Every week he comes up with a new blog, "The Belsky Papers", "Belsky is Gay" and "Yoshka vs. Belsky".
does anybody know who the gabbeh of the skverer rebbi is? and why is he still there after so many allegations of sexual misconduct with some very young (hoz buchrim)? in a chasidus that is so busy sending letters to certain individuals for wallking on the street with their wives and threatening them with expulsion of the community (THE LETTER WILL BE POSTED HERE ON UOJ I'HM IN THE NEAR FUTURE)why are they so protective of this gabbei?
ReplyDeleteFarkoyft Tzum Gelt said...
ReplyDelete"It's my parnossa" is the famous refrain used by lowlives to defend whatever devorim assurim are an inevitable poel yotzei of their profession.
Funny, the froomies over at the other guy's place complain when I mention my embroidery business. Perhaps they want me to go into more appropriate froom occupations, like begging, diverting public funds, or laundering money for mobsters.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteI need to apologize for my previous post, where I denigrated beggars. Compared to most froomie behavior, begging is admirable. It creates an opportunity for someone to do a mitzvah.
Hey priest, take a hike.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-People-Jackie-Mason.html
August 25, 2006
Mason Sues Jews for Jesus Over Pamphlet
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:50 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Saying he's ''as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami,'' Jackie Mason filed a lawsuit against Jews for Jesus for using his name and likeness in a pamphlet.
The $2 million lawsuit seeks the immediate destruction of the pamphlet, which members of the missionary group have been handing out at various points around New York City.
''While I have the utmost respect for people who practice the Christian faith, the fact is, as everyone knows, I am as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami,'' the 75-year-old comedian said in documents filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Founded in the 1970s, Jews for Jesus practices Judaism but regards Jesus as the Messiah.
The pamphlets feature an image of Mason next to the words ''Jackie Mason ... A Jew for Jesus!?'' with information inside that outlines the similarities between Jews and Christians.
''The pamphlet uses my name, my likeness, my `shtick' (if you will), and my very act, which is derived from my personality, to attract attention and converts,'' Mason said in an affidavit.
Susan Perlman, a spokeswoman for Jews for Jesus, said the pamphlet was ''good-natured.''
''Shame on him for getting so upset about this,'' she said Friday.
Mason has starred on Broadway and in films including ''Caddyshack II.''
That lawsuit gives me a great idea.
ReplyDeleteUOJ should initiate a class action lawsuit on behalf of Klal Yisroel suing Margo and his Khazar henchmen for misrepresenting Yiddishkeit while destroying people's lives.
A seperate suit should be filed over Margo misrepresenting his fat self as Torah Vodaas.
RE and others,
ReplyDeleteI believe you utterly fail to understand the heinous sin committed by Yisroel Belsky by issuing a "motze shem ra" hazmana to Eli Greenwald.
Today's bais din is the replacement, if you will,of the Sanhedrin. For a rabbi to use the holy power and the authority of a bais din to intimidate anyone, is tantamount to violating the entire concept of midas hadin, the name of Hashem, Elokim! This is not just any sin, his actions erode the very holiness of the rules of our Torah to be exercised in a bais din.
You will say, that has yet to be proven! and I say baloney!
He was on the phone with Margulies prior to Kolko entering his house/bais din, with Margulies orchestrating this ploy. WHY? If Kolko is the plaintiff, why is Belsky conspiring with Margulies?
How else was Belsky involved through the years with Kolko/Margulies? We will find out. Now pause a minute and ponder Belsky's crime!
The undermining and use of the Torah structured court to adjudicate according to halacha! What? Yes, to adjudicate according to halacha, nothing else.
No personal interests, or self-protection, or any other reason than the truth, that's it.
YISROEL BELSKY, YOU'RE A RASHA IN THE MOST VILEST FORM! YOU DISTORT THE TORAH AND THE POWER OF BAIS DIN TO COVER YOUR PERSONAL CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!
Yes, Ronnie.
ReplyDeleteyes ronnie, what? c'mon guys, no secrets in public.
ReplyDeleteThe time has come for Tora V'daas and the OU to realize that Belsky has no place in their esteemed organizations. Talk about a chilul Hashem.
ReplyDeleteI've made a decision. I'm not going to let froomies take Judaism away from me. It's the emmet and my inheritance and their bad behavior is not going make me abandon something beyond valuable beyond measure. They can call me a bum and a loser and a lowlife. So what? When I'm dead, I won't have to account to them for a single thing.
ReplyDeleteI saw this in a book in shul today. The person writing it is exponentially smarter than I am. He also knows more gemara than Belsky and Fishman combined:
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that such ideal types, people who know no backsliding, have never existed except as figments of the imagination and literary invention. No Jew, not even the greatest leader, saint, or prophet, has ever been free of religious problems, failing, heartaches, and doubts. This is as established principle: everyone who takes the religious life seriously and who is thus ever striving onward experiences setbacks along the way. It is not merely that "there is no one so righteous that he does only good and never sins," but more than this: temptations, doubt, pain, and transgression are the inevitable lot of those who would ascend higher. To be sure, all seekers are not on the same level, and their failings are thus not equally grave. A great person who falls back may still be on a much higher plane than others. In both the material and the spiritual realms, "the righteous man may fall down seven times and yet arise." Though he falls again and again, he continues to grope his way upward. Indeed, this is the strength of the righteous: their ability to endure crisis, to bounce back, and to turn failure into a source of strength. "the [thoroughly] wicked man," on the other hand, "falls once and for all"; once down, he cannot get up. His way is blocked, and there is no way for him to renew his ascent.
Rav Adin Steinsaltz - Teshuvah pp 35-36
More from a very smart man:
ReplyDeleteIn many instances, however, the encounter with the observant community is fraught with disappointment and pain. Such a "turn-off" may discourage the newcomer from pursuing his Jewish quest any further. If people raised on Judaism turn out like this, he may ask himself, why try to get any closer to it? The disillusionment may take different forms. The observant Jews the ba'al teshuvah meets, while being quite punctilious about certain mitzvot, my flagrantly violate others. A particular businessman, for example, my wear a beard and pe'ot, yet turn out to be dishonest in his business dealings, circumventing or deliberately violating the law and even cheating outright. Theft, fraud, and trickery are not unknown among observant Jews, and the fact that a man prays three times a day and puts on an extra pair of tefillin does not prevent him from being a scoundrel. A religious lawyer or worker is not necessarily a more reliable one. The dishonesty may extend even to trade in sacred objects. Nor is sexual immorality unheard of in religious circles. When the ba'al teshuvah discovers all this, he may well come to the conclusion that religious people, with their lofty pronouncements, are no better than the irreligious who do not pretend to special virtue.
Another shocks awaiting the ba'al teshuvah is the abuses specifically connected with religion itself. In the synagogue, for example, he may find a petty and vicious rivalry over honors and responsibilities; quarreling and divisiveness that, however noble the cause, take an ugly turn; and a struggle for recognition, even by the esteemed and important, involving intrigue and character assassination. Along comes a person for whom the Jewish world is all sweetness and light, only to discover that there are factions and cliques, parties and personality clashes. Not only do the inhabitants of this world seem unable to get along with one another but, speaking in the name of Judaism, the desecrate the name of God and sully their own souls. Many synagogues and houses of study also leave a great deal to be desired aesthetically; in fact, they may be positively ugly, filled with cheapness and kitsch, littered and dirty. This too offends the sensibilities of the ba'al teshuvah.
The third and deepest disappointment of all is in the discovery that observant Jews - the "bearers and keepers of the Torah" - are themselves frequently not really interested in Torah! The ba'al teshuvah hears the idle talk in the synagogue and sees the neglect of mitzvot both great and small, even in the narrow realm of ritual. He finds that many of the people he has met in the synagogues and batei midrash lack any inner feeling for either prayer or study, and treat these as rote observances. He finds an alarming degree of ignorance about Judaism itself. Many of the men look like "rabbis" but turn out to be empty of either knowledge or interest in knowing more than they do. The world of the observant is, all too often, a hollow one, devoid of fervor, learning, or event faith.
Naturally, such discoveries are profoundly unsettling.
Rav Adin Steinsaltz - Teshuvah pp. 80-81
Protecting children and preventing child abuse and maltreatment does not begin or end with reporting. Efforts to prevent child abuse and maltreatment can only be effective when mandated reporters and other concerned citizens work together to improve the safety net in their communities.
ReplyDeleteTo be most effective, your local CPS needs strong partnerships within your community. By getting to know the staff in your local CPS unit, you will gain a better understanding of how your local program is structured and CPS will better understand how to work more effectively with you.
By working together, we can better protect our vulnerable children.
Additional Mandated Reporter Information
New York State
Office of Children & Family Services
Capital View Office Park
52 Washington Street
Rensselaer, New York 12144
Visit our website at:
http://www.ocfs.state.ny.us
For child care, foster care, and adoption information, call:
1-800-345-KIDS
To report child abuse and neglect, call:
1-800-342-3720
Mandated Reporters Hotline for child abuse and maltreatment reports:
1-800-635-1522
For information on the Abandoned Infant Protection Act, call:
1-866-505-SAFE
State of New York
George E. Pataki, Governor
Office of Children & Family Services
John A. Johnson, Commissioner
Pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services will make this material available in large print or on audiotape upon request.
Pub. #1159 (Rev. 02/05)
Haredi Group Balks At Clergy Law
ReplyDelete‘Some rabbis may not comply’ with measure mandating report of sexual abuse suspicions,
Debra Nussbaum Cohen - Staff Writer
New legislation adding clergy to those professionals who are legally required to report suspected child abuse is being welcomed by a wide range of rabbinic leaders and those who work with victims, but it is being opposed by an influential group in the fervently Orthodox community.
As Catholic Church officials struggle to deal with a flood of lawsuits over the sexual abuse of children by priests, the New York state Senate unanimously passed the measure. The Assembly is preparing a similar bill.
The legislation comes as Manhattan’s largest Reform congregation, Temple Emanu-El, remains silent on the sexual abuse charges against its cantor, though its leadership had information about the allegations before Howard Nevison was arrested last month. (See accompanying story.)
Professionals who come into contact with children — doctors, nurses and dentists, schoolteachers and administrators, psychologists, social workers, child care workers and law enforcement staff — must report to the state any suspected abuse.
But clergy have been exempt from the requirement in New York since 1828, when the state Legislature became the first in the nation to protect the “clergy-penitent privilege.” The law has stood through the efforts of the Catholic Church and Agudath Israel of America, which have blocked measures for change at the state and local levels.
This time, however, the Church is staying out of the fray, leaving only Agudath Israel, which represents the interests of fervently Orthodox Jews on a variety of issues, in opposing the addition of clergy to the law.
The organization, whose offices are essentially closed for the Passover holiday, is still undecided on whether it will formally oppose the bills, said David Zwiebel, Agudah’s executive vice president for governmental and public affairs.
But, he said, if the law is passed without any exemption for clergy-penitent privilege, some Orthodox rabbis may choose not to comply with it.
“If the law tells the rabbis ‘you’ve got to go to the authorities on this’ and the rabbis feel that, for instance, a case of abuse goes back seven years and the best way to deal with it now is to refer the man to therapy rather than to law enforcement, they will choose to deal with it themselves,” said Zwiebel, who is also an attorney.
“You decide where your first duties and obligations are,” he said.
Illustrating the position of some in the haredi community, an Orthodox pediatrician in Brooklyn who has lectured on child abuse and disseminated tapes of her speeches has said that though she is required to report suspicions of child abuse, she checks with her rabbi to get permission.
Psychology professionals who work with victims of sexual and physical abuse say the new law will likely help their young victims.
It “makes it easier for clergy to do the right thing,” said Herb Neiburg, who directs behavioral medicine at the psychiatric Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, N.Y., and teaches pastoral counseling at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary.
“When something is mandated by law, it takes away the guilt over breaking what used to be this old type of priest-penitent relationship,” he said.
“The tough part will be when clergy hear that other clergy have molested kids. It’s always tough to turn in a colleague, but it has to get done,” said Neiburg. “This law will open that door.”
Leaders of the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and centrist Orthodox movements have all publicly voiced support for the legislation.
But those who work with the fervently Orthodox say it may not work in their community, which is suspicious of secular authority and has its own way of dealing with problems — relying on rabbinic judgment.
“People go to rabbonim [rabbis] to talk,” said David Mandel, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn-based Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services. “This law may discourage people from going to talk to their rabbis if they think that the conversation is going to be on the record.”
That, Neiburg argues, “is like saying that since pediatricians are mandated reporters, no one will bring a kid with injuries that could look like abuse to a pediatrician, and it obviously doesn’t work that way.”
Even so, said Mandel, “the legislation may be premature” for the Orthodox community.
“Legislation will not necessarily dramatically improve the way the Orthodox community handles these issues,” he said. “Continuing to educate the community, to remove the stigma from the victim and his or her family and put the onus on the offender, will make the most dramatic changes.” n
In 1995, for instance, Hynes' office charged Rabbi Lewis Brenner with repeatedly sexually abusing a boy starting in 1992 and ending in 1995, when the boy, then 15, told police. Among other places, the alleged encounters occurred in the bathroom of the rabbi's Brooklyn temple.
ReplyDeleteIn a statement to the court, the boys' devastated parents said he could not even attend school, he was so troubled by "a raging cyclone of hate."
"Our son is with us physically today, but his self-respect, dignity and sense of worth were stolen from him at the tender age of 12," the boys' parents said. "Do you realize that you destroyed a world and our family, Mr. Brenner? You have stolen from our son the very essence of his life, his hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future."
The charges against Brenner initially included 14 counts, including sodomy, sexual abuse, and endangering the welfare of a minor. But a plea agreement whittled the charges down to one felony, stunning a Brooklyn judge.
"Given the nature, gravity and frequency of the sexual contact alleged in the felony complaint, this court was surprised by the People's plea offer and requested of the prosecutor a statement why it was forthcoming," said acting Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Heffernan in a court ruling.
The district attorney's office told the judge that the boy's family agreed to the plea bargain ... Recently, an official of the district attorney's office said the family did not want to go through with a trial.
The plea arrangement left Brenner a free man -- he got 5 years probation.
Brenner is the father-in-law of Ephraim Bryks, a Queens rabbi who was the subject of a story in Newsday on Tuesday.
Two teenagers told Canadian police years ago that Bryks abused them when they were youngsters. Bryks has never been charged with a crime and has denied the allegations.
After Brenner's plea deal, he asked the court to exempt him from the sexual abuse registry on grounds that his behavior occurred before the law was passed.
Heffernan refused.
(Top)
any new (irrelevant) comments about mr. T (the irrelevant) can go here:
ReplyDeletehttp://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=478127&mc=9&forum_id=3
“People go to rabbonim [rabbis] to talk,” said David Mandel, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn-based Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services. “This law may discourage people from going to talk to their rabbis if they think that the conversation is going to be on the record.”
ReplyDeleteI laughed ruefully when I read this. The "fervently orthodox" might be reluctant to talk to a rabbi if they think that the conversation is going to be "on the record".
Are not all of our actions, thoughts and conversations "on the record"?
To me this shows how far removed many ostensibly observant Jews are from a true Torah hashkafa. Does not HaShem see and know all? He knows us better than we know ourselves.
They are more afraid of man than in awe of God.
New York Times
ReplyDeleteAugust 27, 2006
Reverberations of a Baby Boom
By FERNANDA SANTOS
KIRYAS JOEL, N.Y., Aug. 22 — As the administrator of this village in southern Orange County, Gedalye Szegedin knows that much of his job revolves around a simple equation: the number of girls who get married is roughly equal to the number of new homes this community will need to accommodate its rapid growth.
Last year, Mr. Szegedin oversaw the construction of 200 houses and apartments, mostly on the outer-lying lots along the eastern edge of this 1.1-square-mile community, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclave about 60 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. By the end of this year, he said, the village will most likely have 300 new homes.
“There are three religious tenets that drive our growth: our women don’t use birth control, they get married young and after they get married, they stay in Kiryas Joel and start a family,” Mr. Szegedin said.
“Our growth comes simply from the fact that our families have a lot of babies,” he added, “and we need to build homes to respond to the needs of our community.”
But developable land is a finite resource here, and not much of it is left. And as Kiryas Joel pushes up against its borders, nearby neighbors in the towns of Blooming Grove and Woodbury are moving aggressively to prevent the community from expanding by incorporating into villages of their own.
“We still have huge tracts of open land in Woodbury, and we want to keep it that way,” said Woodbury’s supervisor, John P. Burke, who grew up in the Bronx and moved to Orange County in 1969.
“We want to make sure that no outside community is able to completely transform the character and the look of our town,” he said. “If we need a village to do that, so be it.”
Kiryas Joel’s population leaped to 18,300 last year from 13,100 in 2000 and 7,400 in 1990, making it one of the fastest growing places in the state, according to the most recent estimates by the Census Bureau. For two years, developers and local officials have been searching for private parcels in surrounding communities, hoping to expand the village through annexation for the third time since it was incorporated in 1977 as an offshoot of the Satmar Hasidic sect of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
After its incorporation, most of the growth was driven by migration from New York City. But now, new arrivals are mostly babies and grooms coming to marry one of the local women.
Worried residents in Blooming Grove, which lies northwest of here, and Woodbury, which lies east, have voted overwhelmingly in the past two months to approve the creation of two new villages. State law allows villages to be established within towns and to set their own zoning regulations, and area officials say the new villages would be able to restrict the multifamily, high-density building that predominates in Kiryas Joel.
Many of the families in those towns also fled the crowded streets of New York City, moving here for the cleaner air, the safer communities and the open spaces, where the closest neighbor may not be so close.
“We’re hard-working people who decided to move up here to pay less taxes and enjoy the quietness of country,” said Garry Dugan, a retired New York City detective and the president of the South Blooming Grove Homeowners Association, the group that began the drive to create one of the villages.
“It’s a shame that it has come to us and them, but we feel like we had to form a village for no reason other than preserving our quality of life,” said Mr. Dugan, who has lived in Blooming Grove for 26 years. “This has nothing to do with their religion.”
It is not the first time that Kiryas Joel and its neighbors have clashed.
Over the years, there have been disputes — over a water pipeline Kiryas Joel sought to build, for example, and whether the state should pay for a school system for its disabled students. There was also an argument in 1986 when 600 Kiryas Joel boys refused to board school buses driven by women. (The drivers are now all men.)
The Satmar Hasidim share what they call a deep mystical connection to Kiryas Joel. They were led here by their founder, the Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who saw in it the ideal place for his followers to raise large families away from the influences of the outside world. Hence the name of the village, which means Town of Joel.
About 3,000 families live here, many of them in boxy wood-frame homes built close to one another, with up to a dozen apartments stacked in four floors.
The village has no parks or public playgrounds, so children play with their colorful plastic toys on small front yards.
A network of sidewalks twirl across the village, so the women, who do not drive, are able to walk to the clinic and supermarket. Baby strollers seem to be everywhere: in the lobbies of buildings, on sidewalks, outside the stores.
“This is a great place to raise our children; it’s easy to keep them away from the distractions of the city,” said Judith Greenfeld, 34, whose family moved here from Williamsburg two decades ago.
All but 3 of her 12 siblings live here.
Mrs. Greenfeld and her husband, Joseph, 35, have five children, three boys and two girls, ages 3 to 13. The median age is 15, compared with 35 for the nation, according to the 2000 census. The village has one of the lowest median ages among communities nationwide with more than 5,000 residents.
The Greenfelds live on a dead-end street, in a third-floor apartment across from a girls’ school. Like most families here, they speak more Yiddish than English and have no radio, computer or television at home. Mr. Greenfeld owns a tile shop in Monroe, just outside the village borders.
His wife helps him run the business, which makes her a rare exception among Kiryas Joel’s women, who are married soon after they graduate from high school, work until they give birth to their second child and then become stay-at-home mothers. The men, meanwhile, board yellow school buses every morning and ride to New York City, to jobs in the diamond district or at B & H, the photo and video store near Herald Square.
Because of the sheer size of the families (the average household here has six people, but it is not uncommon for couples to have 8 or 10 children), and because a vast majority of households subsist on only one salary, 62 percent of the local families live below poverty level and rely heavily on public assistance, which is another sore point among those who live in neighboring communities.
“We just don’t understand why they have to keep pushing their expansionist ideas on us,” said Charles J. Bohan, who is the supervisor of the Town of Blooming Grove and a resident of the new village, named South Blooming Grove.
On Sept. 21, South Blooming Grove will hold its first election for mayor and for a four-member board of trustees. The state must still certify the results of the vote to create the village in Woodbury before elections there can be held.
Mr. Szegedin, Kiryas Joel’s administrator, said his community was not deterred.
"We have several different developers that want to sell land to Kiryas Joel, but if they can’t do it, we can build up,” he said. “We can change our zoning code to allow high-rise apartments. The creation of these villages are not going to stop the growth in the village of Kiryas Joel."
Mrs. Greenfeld agreed.
“People don’t understand the conception of our people, of our religion,” she said. “There’s no government or land or any other authority that can stop us from having babies,” she said while her husband put out a plate of cheese blintzes, strawberries and sour cream.
“If there’s not enough land, families will double up. There’s always going to be room for the new families,” Mrs. Greenfeld said. “And if I have to slice up my apartment in two, I’ll do it, without doubt or hesitation.”
uoj sure has ry by the baytzim. he took down his alternate site which listed BH and his phone # and the main site barely contains any information, and certainly nothing more that 'just the [wrong] facts.'
ReplyDeleteJustice is a good thing. Let the pieces fall where they may, and let the perpetrators get their just deserts.
The village has no parks or public playgrounds, so children play with their colorful plastic toys on small front yards.
ReplyDeleteGod forbid that children might actually exercise. I wonder how big the cardiac care, diabetes and dialysis clinics will be in 30 years.
Reminds me a little of my daughter's alma mater. For "physical education", the teachers used to take the girls on a walk, a little less than a mile in each direction, to the nearest 7-11 store for Slurpees. Net calorie burn for adult women is about 43 calories per mile. Since calorie burn is related to body weight (hence the amount of work you do), junior high students would burn less. But let's use that 43 calorie figure. Regular slurpees are 118 calories per 8 oz. And who buys just an 8 oz. Slurpee? Even buying the smallest Slurpee means that this "physical education" class meant a net calorie gain of 32 calories. My daughter isn't an idiot - and has a Bianchi mountain bike - she'd laugh about this "gym" class.
It would be interesting to find out what the obesity levels in Kiryas Yoel are.