Dear UOJ,
I wanted you to know that "On the Rabbi's Knee," New York Magazine's feature story from last spring about allegations of molestation against Rabbi Yehuda Kolko of Yeshiva Torah Temimah, has been nominated for a 2006 National Magazine Award under the category of "public service" journalism.
All of us at the magazine are very proud of this story. But most of all we are grateful to David Framowitz, who was so brave in coming forward and speaking on the record about his experiences. Our hope is that this nomination will bring greater visibility to the issues raised in the story.
Many thanks to David -- as well as the many others who were so helpful in publishing this story.
Below is a link to all of this year's nominees for the National Magazine Awards, which are produced by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
http://www.magazine.org/editorial/national_magazine_awards/winners_and_finalists/468.cfm
Many thanks again and all the best,
Bob Kolker
Contributing Editor
New York Magazine
The Orthodox Jews and their Catholic-Priest Problem --
New York Magazine* ....nymag.com
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23 comments:
what will happen to this award if kolko is found innocent?
i guess it will add to kolko slander suit against kolker, uoj etc
PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!
Association Of Advanced Rabbinical & Talmudic Schools
11 Broadway, New York, NY 10004
(212) 363-1991
Broadway bros of agudah.
Call and tell these scam artist rabbis and professionals that if they don't investigate the molestation in thier accredited schools we will go to the US Dept. of Education and lobby to have the accrediting license revoked.
Come on guys and gals. This just might work in a huge way. Imagine the roshei yeshivas like Kaminetsky, Feinstien and the Lakewood mobsters with thier laymen cohorts and aguda being forced by threat of losing govt funding to have to get rid of the molesters and enablers and have to report this to the feds.
For the sake of our children and the future of yehadus hachareidus do it now and again tomorrow and the day after... till they get it.
UOJ, please help me get this rolling. We did it before with mass mailings and phone calls. We can do it again. Mee lashem eilie! For god and his little lambs, we shall persevere!!!!!!!!!
Association Of Advanced Rabbinical & Talmudic Schools
11 Broadway, New York, NY 10004
(212) 363-1991
Anonymous said...
what will happen to this award if kolko is found innocent?
i guess it will add to kolko slander suit against kolker, uoj etc
6:51 PM, March 14, 2007
Halachacly Kolko is to be considered a nuef. What ifs are hypothyticle gibberish. The torah cannot be wrong on this matter. I think the torah view on Kolko has been thoroughly expounded over the last year and rehashing it now is pointless. Your threat of slander suits is toothless in a legal sense and is similar to Tendler's last stand tactics. I'm not sure why I even bothered to respond to your stpidity.
what will happen to this award if kolko is found innocent?
Not likely. There are at least three alleged victims suing in civil court. That means there are three adult witnesses that will testify in the criminal proceedings. I'm sure the defense will try to impeach their memories, but with multiple adult witnesses the case does not look good for the defense.
So far I've only found two kinds of false accusations. Small children manipulated being manipulated by someone (therapists, investigators, prosecutors, parents), and young teen girls trying to damage a teacher. This case is neither one of those situations.
For sure there are sometimes innocent people arrested and even convicted. The Duke lacrosse team's alleged rape is just one case of prosecutorial and police misconduct (DAs can mess up both ways, so the Mondrowitz case is not that unique). The McMartin case is the best known among a number that the Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz has championed. Just recently right here in Oak Park a teacher's conviction by a jury was subsequently overturned by the trial judge when he reviewed new evidence on the investigation turned up by the defense and the Detroit Free Press.
He was a accused by the mothers of a 4 and 5 year old that he raped the boys in an empty classroom. Police never questioned three instructors in a special-education classroom where the assaults allegedly occurred. All three now say the crime could not have occurred there because the classroom was occupied at all times that day by students and at least one teacher. This may have been a case of the mothers looking for financial gain.
So yeah, accused pedophiles and molesters are sometimes innocent. And even if Kolko is convicted of the charges there will be his defenders that point to cases I've mentioned.
These aren't small children or vindictive young teen girls. These are adult men.
Let me ask you? How many Catholic priests have been acquitted when the witnesses were adult men. As those cases have shown, teen boys and men are very reluctant to come forward in the first place because of gay stigma.
Do you honestly think a teen or adult male will falsely accuse a teacher of homosexual conduct with them?
What's a nuef?
Kudos to you Bob for putting the article together in a professional and dignified manner.
Posted with permission fom Michael.
I URGE EVERYONE TO CALL IN PLEASE!
Michael Lesher.. mlesher@att.net wrote:
Dear UOJ:
I just noticed that Brooklyn D.A. Charles "Joe" Hynes will be on Brian Lehrer's radio show on WNYC (820 AM, 93.9 FM) at 10:00 am on Thursday and will be taking call-in questions. (A notice from WNYC is attached below.)
I thought perhaps some people might want to call in to ask him why his office decided to walk away from the Mondrowitz case in September 1993 and still won't revive efforts to bring him here for trial, though there's no legal bar to doing so (let him cite the case law if he claims there is); why he dropped charges against Shlomo Hafner in 2000 after being asked to by a panel of rabbis to do so, despite strong evidence of guilt from professionals; why Hafner's alleged victim and victim's family were never consulted in the decision to drop charges, as required by New York statute; and how he plans to deal with any pressure he receives from the community in the prosecution of Yehudah Kolko.
I'm trying to get some Mondrowitz victims to call in; I don't know if I'll succeed. I just thought it might help to bring more publicity to these issues if Hynes gets taken to task on the air.
If you would like any information from me to back up the statements above, I'll be happy to provide it.
Michael Lesher, Esq.
PLEASE!
Take the time and thank David Framowitz here, without him we would not have been able to succeed in getting this issue out in the open. He is a true Jewish hero!
.....e-mail Robert Kolker and thank him for the great mitzvah he performed for our community. He was an important catalyst for change, and will forever be remembered as a light where there was none.
robert_kolker@newyorkmag.com
Mordy Tendler & Kolko are the Colonel Custers of Klal Yisroel. They're about to be massacred with the Agudah's 7th Cavalry in the Battle of Little UOJ-Horn.
I don't know why that grumbly guy keeps bashing the Lakewood roshei yeshiva. Only the mashgiach did something out of line and he is basically an outsider who recently appeared on the scene. The roshei yeshiva may tell him to tone it down as they have told other employees before him. If he keeps mouthing off, then maybe you have a case.
Pasik yelled back at the mashgiach at Ohab Zedek a few days ago.
I don't know about last stands. Some one night stands with married women, yes!
Oh crap, I knew something was suspicious. Shafran gave me a voucher for horse riding at the stables all the way at the beginning of East 8th St. If he wants to lead a bunch of dopes on a suicide mission as Kolko's cavalry, that's his problem. I'm going to continue hiding out under my bed until the big UOJ storm blows over.
The first comment about Kolko's "innocence" must have been posted by Milton Balkany. There were only some grammatical errors. If it was a YTT Hungarian, the post would be rife with spelling mistakes too.
Negev take out food on Ave J was recently thrown out by the Vaad of Flatbush after 45 years. They also lost their 2nd hashgocho, Rabbi Mendelson from Boro Park. I'm furious that I was lied to by these shmendriks and fell for it. I was duped in part because they took on what I thought was a good hashgocho, the Tartikover Rebbe, Rav Babad. Shortly afterwards, something else may have happened because they closed the store and only do catering now. They no longer have the Tartikover after a short stint and claim to be under the Queens Vaad & ARK. I found out some shocking realities this week. Rabbi Mendelson did not retire. He is still machshir other stores, so I was outright lied to. Negev's crew were bashmutzing the Flatbush Vaad so I spoke to them this week. I'm told that Negev's owner, George Gross from the 5 Towns was repeatedly warned to stop violating hilchos kashrus but he couldn't give a damn about anyone or anything. Among other things he was letting a goy be in charge of broiling livers with no supervision whatsoever. My food industry friends tell me that Negev's current catering business consists of repackaging Mauzone's food as their own.
Also, Friedman's on 13th Ave, which seems to be a magnet for these kinds of lowlives, tried getting into an agreement with Negev to buy meat from them. Friedman's was also previously getting meat from Scheinerman's Treif Spot on Ave J.
The Flatbush Vaad is furious at Babad for taking on Negev despite the detailed warnings they gave. The Flatbush Vaad has officially declared Tartikov as an unacceptable hashgocho which is not allowed in any Vaad establishments.
I feel like strangling Gross if I ever see him again.
Your comment at 8:23 tells it how it is. You go guy! Tischazek!
Does anyone know directions to Fort Abraham Lincoln. I called a heimisher car service in Boro Park but they think I'm crazy and refuse to pick me up. They said they would first drive through Harlem shouting racist jokes before accepting that fare.
Mendel Epstein's shul is on McDonald around Ave F / Ditmas. Does anyone know the exact address? I hope he doesn't pull a Gershon Spiegel, where the shul is mostly alter mentchen who get robbed when the "rov" sells the building to pocket the money.
Treif on Ave J again? Gee whiz! With a name like Gross, it means the Hungarians have the monopoly.
What did Pasik say when he "yelled back at the mashgiach"?
He said the Aguda position, as expressed at their Thanksgiving night convention, resembles the Catholic Church position in England from the 2nd through 16th centuries. They think they're governed by religious laws, and they can do whatever they want. The church believed in doctrines called sanctuary (twisting of ir miklat) - if you commit a crime, you run into the church; benefit of the clergy - this means separate church tribunals, apart from the English common law courts (comparable to Aguda beis dins); and charitable immunity - religious institutions are liable for their torts.
This ended in the 16th century, because of so much clergy corruption, with the Protestant Reformation, and the colonization of America, with the ideals of We the People, and Equal Protection of the Laws. No exceptions for clergy.
The Aguda mindset is to be exempt from American law, and courts.
He praised the RCA for their positions in being in favor of background checks, registry, and for sponsoring the evening.
He said this old Church, Aguda mindset still exists, and that's why the nonpublic schools in New York are exempt from even health and safety laws governing the public schools. This obviously has to change.
From the Department of boo-boos -
Re the above comment at 12:12 p.m., first paragraph, last few words: should be "religious institutions are NOT liable for their torts."
To which RH was he yelling back to and what had the jerk yelled to Pasik about?
I think what Pasik is doing in politics & what UOJ, JWB and the awareness center do underground and what Michael Lesher and Herman/Green do in the courts/legal system and what Kolker did in the press amounts to a terrific line of defense AND offense for those victims of sexual abuse and molestation who have been to long without a voice.
And kudos to Eric, LVF and last but not least David Framowitz and the other Kolko accusers for keeping up the heat here and elsewhere. Go guys go!
BTW, any results contacting AARTS?
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