....CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE: ARE THEY NUTS OR WHAT?
More nonsense piled on nonsense!
One can get seriously ill reading peoples' attitudes to the sex-abuse crisis at hand in the Orthodox Jewish community. Orthodox Judaism is disintegrating in front of our very eyes...and we're pontificating who is more at fault; the brainless-criminal rabbis or the brainless - idiot plain Jew!
There's been an utter breakdown in our humanity - our brain functions have ceased functioning as humans. We have become sub-animals; rabbis working on the survival instinct of preserving their reputations and yeshivas at all costs - not the God-given intelligence, command and instinct to protect our vulnerable children!
The Torah commands us - in the very essential mitzva of Shiluach Hakan...shalach tishalach es ha'em...send away the mother-bird before you capture the child-bird - because the suffering of the mother is unbearable for her to observe; to see her offspring - hurt, slaughtered or captured.
To me this is - and always was - the essence of our Torah ha'kdosha. Rachamim...caring for our children - indeed the essence of a viable society. The Torah understood that if we, the bnei Yisroel, were to understand the essence of this tzivui Hashem for birds/animals; we would certainly derive there-from that a parent would not be able to bear any pain heaped on their offspring and protect them at all costs; and indeed those are the instincts of normal people.
We mock, rightfully so, the degradation of society at large; look at their kids' heroes and values! Look what is recreation for them! Look at the fatherless children; in many cases the children do not even know - who - the father is - never mind having a parent to actually take care of them.
Have you been to a zoo recently? Ever notice that the mama monkey protects their baby from harm from other dangerous apes? ---------
Now - that - you - know - that there is at least one child-rapist in every yeshiva and many in your girls' schools - as bad as the Tendler Trinity of human garbage - what - are - you - idiot - parents - doing - about - it? --- Planning for Pesach? --- Which fress place serves more main dishes? Which tea room is open 24 hours? Huh? Chaim Kaminetzky cheap on the chocolates - to hell with him, we'll go to Moishe Wein. WHAT!!!! no private seder room? I'm gonna bounce that check on the momzer! -Right?
What will it take for you to realize that these "rabbis/gedolim" that you trusted to care for, and protect at all costs - the essence of the Torah - rachamim...only to now know for certain, that they are the biggest achzorim and menuvalim?--- Not all - but most!
Nothing doing...we're off to Florida, UOJ - don't bother us with your crap! OK!?
Darwin had it wrong - we are less human than the apes and monkeys. Their brains are more developed than ours, they take care of their kids, and we trust the gedolim....
194 comments:
If we dont get every pimping rabbi out there to get in line behind the Blaus and the Shechters and the horowitzs we are going to pull another "open letter to rabbi M. Solomon" piece and start extraditions on other rabbis on the run.
LVF, we're obviously not going to wait for them to act. We waited for 40 years and look what it got us. I just had to put it out there for them to read, so that they can't claim, "there's nothing we can do, nebich, our hands are tied. etc.". There's plenty that they can do if they really want to. Obviously, they are very happy with the staus quo. In the meantime we will continue to bring the molesters to justice, one by one. Leizerowitz is next on the list.
The Chevrah never skimped on chocolates. That was a rumor started by some Hungarian Agudah Fressers who were trying to shake me down for extra nosh to hoard in their rooms.
Gateways are the ones who are cheap, then they have the nerve to shnorr from you gantz Yomtov for "tzedoko".
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?ei=5087&em=&en=f3cfee6abce3bfe4&ex=1201582800&pagewanted=print
Cows get sick often & require antibiotics because they are eating grain in feedlots to fatten quicker instead of grazing.
And look at all the energy expended to produce one pound of meat.
From The Awareness Center's Daily Newsletter:
Has much changed in since 1986?
The Bond Abused: A Jewish Survivor of Incest Breaks the Silence
© (1986) by Sharon R. Lowenstein, Phd
(The following article was originally published in Moment Magazine, January/February 1986, Volume II, Number 2.)
Click here to download: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Incest-TheBondAbused.pdf
http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/2008/01/does-phil-jacobs-supports-rabbi-yaakov_27.html
Does Phil Jacobs Support Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer'?
I'm guessing the Vaad of Baltimore decided to put together an education program in their community as a reaction to The Awareness Center's screening of the film 'Narrow Bridge' and the panel discussion afterwards. The event was extremely successful. As a result The Awareness Center is putting on another program in a few weeks. I haven't heard all the details yet I've been told the same speakers will be coming back with a push on the importance of making police reports, speaking out and networking.
Back on January 15, 2008 The Awareness Center put out a CALL TO ACTION: Education The Baltimore Jewish Community On Sexual abuse, when they learned the vaad of Baltimore was putting a program together in conjunction with Ohel (a mental health center in Brooklyn, NY).
Phil JacobsI was shocked to learn that Phil Jacobs, executive editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, attended the Baltimore screening of the film 'Narrow Bridge', yet didn't feel it was important enough to write about in his paper, yet the Owings Mills Times did. I was also shocked to see that Phil Jacobs is promoting the Baltimore Vaad's program on his web page. This is shocking because Phil Jacobs keeps saying he's an advocate for those who have been sexually violated. If he was truly an advocate for survivors of sexual violence would be working with The Awareness Center instead of the vaad?
On Phil's blog he states:
If anything, if this is an area of concern for you and your family, please make plans to attend.
A great deal of behind-the-scenes work went into putting this effort together.
It is a sincere step forward.
Phil keeps saying he's writing stories about sexual abuse in Baltimore, yet had not mentioned the number of alleged and convicted sex offenders who daven in Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer's shul or the number of cases in which rabbis Heinemann and Hopfer continue to cover up.
* Rabbi Yaakov Menken
* Rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau
* Cantor Stuart Friedman
* Aron Goldberger
* Martin Kaufman (still waiting for confirmation)
It's shocking to learn that Phil Jacobs would be promoting an event on sexual abuse in which one of the keynote speakers is sex offender enabler -Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer.
If anyone has a photograph of rabbi Yaakov Hopfer or Moshe Heinemann please e-mail them to me at: jewishsurvivors @gmail.com
The Ohel - Baltimore program includes:
* Rabbi David Gottlieb - promised a survivor to do something when the survivors alleged child molester moved to the community. A year has passed and nothing was done. The alleged sex offender is roaming freely attending classes in which minors are present.
* David Mandel - has a degree in Business, has no clinical experience yet continues to speak out as an expert in the child abuse field. Mandel and Rabbi Dovid Cohen have been named by many as helping to cover up sex crimes in Boro Park and other Jewish communities around the globe.
* Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer - who has been advocating for the rights of alleged sex offenders and has a long history of shaming and blaming survivors of sexual abuse.
* David Pelcovitz - a psychologist who jumped on the sex abuse bandwagon when he thought it was a trendy thing to do, yet really does not have the background to be working with survivors.
CALL TO ACTION: Demand the Rabbonim of Baltimore Stop Playing Games! Demanding that when programs are presented about sexual abuse they bring in professionals who actually have the education and experience to be presenting such a program. Contact:
Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb
Shomrei Emunah
Shul Office: 410-358-8604 (Option #1)
Home Office: 410-653-2423
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer
(Note: when you call Rabbi Hopfer be aware that his secretary is the daughter of alleged sex offender, Rabbi Moshe Eisemann. Demand she not screen the message and actually gives it to him).
Shearith Yisrael (Glen Ave. Shul)
Phone: 410-466-3060
Fax: 410-367-9183
Rabbi Moshe Hauer
Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion Congregation
410-764-6810
Fax: 410-358-2631
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Look at Phil Jacobs track record on other issues.
First Phil Jacbos says that there was an arson fire at Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Learning. The fire was started by an orthodox youth.
When Etz Chaim re-opened a few years later, Phil wrote about
In 2002, one of a 15-year old boy (Yaakov Menken's intern) committed arson against Etz Chaim, the outreach center of rabbi Shlomo Porter.
The Baltimore Jewish Times first wrote up the incident as arson.
Outreach Center Rebuilds After Blaze 2/7/02
Jewish Teen Arrested In Shul Arsons 2/21/02
Etz Chaim Rebuilds Destroyed Home 3/5/04
Finally, in the October 15, 2004 edition of the Baltimore Jewish Times, Phil Jacobs wrote "Etz Chaim Rebuilds Destroyed Home" 3/5/04
"Rabbi Porter said that the accidental electrical fire enabled him to look at Etz Chaim and start it over from scratch."
January 27, 2008 12:12 PM
Anonymous said...
Look at the people who Phil is working with to put the "Vaad" program together? It's none other then those connected with Matis Weinberg's family and those who covered up his crimes for years.
Phil is just playing games, or is he being manipulated by his therapist to make the Jewish community of Baltimore to look nice?
Look at Luke Ford's page on Menken
http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/yaakov_menken.htm
January 27, 2008 12:14 PM
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/kaufman_martin.html
It's just one big happy family of sex offenders with yeshivishe beards that are allowed to daven at Rabbi Hopfer's shul.
How can anyone take seriously the Vaad Harabanim of Baltimore talking about protecting children? They continue to keep the secret about Rabbi Eiseman from the parents of the yeshivah. MOST bochurim learning in the Beis Medrash do not believe they have anything to worry about from him, and the Vaad is happy that way. Will anyone even broach this subject when the rabbis get up to pay lip service to the issue they clearly don't really believe in? They are much more famous for protecting molesters. They are also good at protecting their jobs, protecting the "good name" of the yeshivah. Protecting the status quo. But protecting the children? PLEASE!!!
A political pundit said on John Edwards, who charged $50,000 for a speech on ending poverty, that we need a new word, because hypocrisy is not enough.
When Yishmael was dying of thirst, Hagar turned away from him, because she couldn't bear to see his death.
This might be the underpinnings of a culture that allows its children to blow themselves up to kill others. They look away from the destruction of their own children.
How, exactly are we any better, if we look away from our children's abuse and destruction because we "can't bear to see it"?????
The most tragic part is, like Steve said, if The powers that be WANTED to do something, it could get done pronto. Look at the Catholic Church (L'havdil?) After over A BILLION dollars in law suits, they decided to do something and its getting done. The Boy Scouts now have been forced by law suits to include in their training a component where each members parents have to sign that they have spoken to them about sexual abuse.
In our society, all you have to sign is that you don't have a TV, the internet, Indian sheitel, etc. NOBODY cares if you actually are involved in your child's safety. Why should they, they're in the business of covering up for molesters!
So that on your left margin is a picture of Adolf Belsky, the low life responsible for many child molestations. I never seen his picture before. Now I know what you mean by walking sewage.
http://aml-cft.blogspot.com/2008/01/first-intl-bank-fined-nis-55m-for-money.html
January 9, 2008
First Int'l Bank fined NIS 5.5m for money laundering
The Bank of Israel has fined First International Bank of Israel (TASE: FTIN1;FTIN5) and its subsidiary Bank Poalei Agudat Israel Ltd. NIS 5.5 million for violating the Prohibition on Money Laundering Law (5760-2000). First International Bank was fined NIS 3.5 million and Bank Poalei Agudat Israel was fined NIS 2 million.
The fine follows the Banking Supervision Department's critical audit of the bank in 2006. The audit found persistent failures by Bank Poalei Agudat Israel relating to money laundering. The audit found flaws in the implementation, monitoring, and training in the regulations of the Prohibition on Money Laundering Law. The audits were given to the banks in June and July 2006.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000295852&fid=942
Subscription required for original article.
http://www.rockawave.com/news/2007/1116/community/020.html
Bungalow Movie Screening Brings Hundreds To NY Museum
By Miriam Rosenberg
He was running for the toilet after fressing too much but didn't make it.
http://www.chroniclet.com/2008/01/13/blotter-jan-13
Agudath B’Nai Israel Synagogue, Meister Road, feces smeared on the front door.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3498489,00.html
Hamodia newspaper on Thursday presented the most important principles for the haredi community in the US, as well as why it is important to vote, according to Rabbi Yechiel Kalish, national director of government affairs of Agudath Israel of America.
"The simple reality is that the government officials check which groups voted, and often take stances on important current affairs according to that. We must guaranteeing political support in terms of the issues which deeply influence us – guaranteeing the safety and wellbeing of our brothers in Israel, the war on anti-Semitism across the world, increasing the governmental aid to our educational institutions, strengthening society's moral climate (by sabotaging the sex offender registry?), improving the quality of the governmental offices in our neighborhoods, protecting our communities and institutions against terrorism."
http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?contentid=28734&mode=a§ionid=1&contentname=Amidst_Affluence%2C_Poverty_Persists_Among_New_York_Jews&recnum=1
According to the Met Council’s most recent report, 226,000 poor Jews live in New York City’s five boroughs, with an additional 104,000 at the near poor level. Large Orthodox families, the elderly, and Russian immigrants comprise the largest portions of the poor pie. Poverty is particularly acute in Brooklyn, and is most concentrated in Williamsburg.
Factors contributing to poverty in New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, said Rapfogel, include young men in kollel, large families, a disproportionate number of elderly, the cost of living an observant lifestyle, and the low federal poverty level: $21,000 for a family of four.
“Somebody can rent a nice two, three bedroom apartment in Mobile, Alabama for $300 dollars a month. In New York you can’t do that,” Rapfogel said.
Another issue, said Masbia soup kitchen co-founder Sender Rapaport, is the all-or-nothing nature of government programs. “The benefits are set up that if you get a job you lose them immediately. And who said the job is paying you enough? Medicaid, food stamps – your account is closed right away. It needs to be a fade-out thing.”
Rapaport’s privately-funded soup kitchen (“restaurant without a cash register,” in his words) serves 160 meals a night in Boro Park, but “every person who comes to Masbia,” said Rapaport, “represents 10 or 20 people who are embarrassed to come – and I would say with women it’s even more.”
Rapaport, 29 and a father of five, said poverty has only gotten worse in the past several months. Not infrequently, he said, he has seen older men and single women rummaging through garbage bins in search of food.
Why do aptly named Balti-MORONS revere Heinemann like some kind of infallible deity?
A NY rov who is very apolitical and rarely criticizes anyone, warns people not to eat in Heinemann's Pesach hotels. He advises that the "standard" is not anywhere near what a frum Jew requires. There is a hotel in the Baltimore area under Star-K that is filled mostly by the locals who would never dare question the Rabbi-Wizard of Oz.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201070776320&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Haredi spiritual leadership, concerned that the Transportation Ministry's coed classrooms for teaching mandatory drivers' lessons might lead to lascivious behavior and sexual fantasizing, opened on Thursday their own alternative, men-only classrooms.
The Council for the Purity of the Camp, an organization representing a wide range of Hassidic courts and haredi Lithuanian Jewry, which receives spiritual guidance from Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and leader of the Ger Hassidic sect, Rabbi Ya'acov Aryeh Alter, arranged for the men-only course to be opened in cooperation with the Transportation Ministry.
"Men were losing their drivers' licenses because they could not participate in mandatory driving theory courses," said Rabbi Yitzhak Ayneh, responsible for the new program.
"Women come to class dressed in next to nothing. It is a terrible stumbling block for many haredi men." Ayneh said there was no need for a special women-only course since haredi women are not supposed to drive.
"Driving is inappropriate for women. Men who get behind the wheel turn into animals. They start up with women when stopped at a red light." Ayneh said there was no outright prohibition against women driving cars. Rather, it was a custom.
"If a woman is alone or is dependent on a car, exceptions are made obviously. And in America it is accepted that haredi women drive. But in many communities here in the Holy Land, if a woman drives her husband is kicked out of the synagogue."
The Council for the Purity of the Camp is responsible for several projects involving the strict separation of men and women in public places. Most of the council's activities are directed at sex-related issues, which are seen by the haredi community as modern secular society's biggest threat to tradition.
For instance, the council has led the battle to segregate public buses so that men sit up front and women sit in the back; it has demanded that cellular phone operators provide special handsets that do not give access to Internet, text messaging, or erotic phone services.
One of the council's most recent gains has been the creation of two separate lines - one for men and one for women - in a post office in Jerusalem's haredi Bucharian neighborhood.
The council is also working on Internet service that would be 100 percent kosher, with no access to porn sites or portals deemed unchaste.
Last month, the council forced the Dan Bus Line to remove a billboard advertisement encouraging military service that ran on the side of buses serving the haredi city of Bnei Brak.
Asian markets fell sharply Monday as traders continued to fear a possible global economic slowdown.
In China, the benchmark index dropped 7.2 per cent to its lowest point in six months. The declines follow concern that a recession in the U.S. could mean less demand for products from China.
"classrooms for teaching mandatory drivers' lessons might lead to lascivious behavior and sexual fantasizing"
This isn't some Putz from Frankel's shul who got locked up for stealing. He davens in a modern orthodox shul in Montreal and has already been held by this corrupt Banana Republic for 8 months.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080127/indian_prison_080127/20080127?hub=TopStories
Sun. Jan. 27 2008 10:28 PM ET
A Montreal man, sentenced to three years in an Indian jail for entering the country without a proper visa, is heartbroken and wants to come home, he told CTV News.
Saul Itzhayek, 42, was sentenced to serve his time in a crowded, filthy jail in the northern Indian city of Motihari last October.
"I wish the Canadian people will continue to support me, because this is wrong to do to people," he told CTV's Paul Workman.
The Canadian businessman's fellow inmates include murderers, rapists, thieves and drug dealers.
"He sleeps on the floor," his sister, Syvia Itzhayek, told CTV Montreal. "I mean, it's a rat-infested jail, there's sewage all around. It's very, very cold because it's an open-air jail."
Itzhayek, a father of two, was arrested after entering India while on a business trip in Nepal.
In a sworn statement, Itzhayek said he sent his driver into India to pick up money that had been wired to him. Indian officials stopped the driver at the border and seized some documents, including Itzhayek's passport and visa.
He claimed Indian police offered him safe passage into the country to collect his documents. Once in the country, he was arrested for violating visa requirements. He has faced no other charges.
His sister alleged that police asked him for a bribe.
"He had about $1,000 on him and he offered it but it wasn't enough for them," she said.
In Itzhayek's sworn statement, he said police wanted 10 times as much money as he could offer them.
Most countries would have simply deported someone without a proper visa.
Since Itzhayek's arrest he has had three visits by Canadian consular officials, but said he was offered very little help.
The prison superintendent seemed sympathetic to the plight of his Canadian inmate and said he would offer him an early release.
"Saul is a very good man," he said. "He's not a criminal."
During Itzhayek's brief interview with CTV News, he was able to record a voice message to his family.
"I love you all and miss you," he said. "I'm still strong so don't worry. I'll be back home."
A group of supporters, including his sister and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem synagogue, are travelling to Ottawa to pressure the government on taking action to secure Itzhayek's release.
"For the last eight months we've waited and we've gotten excuses, we've gotten explanations, but we haven't gotten freedom," said Steinmetz.
The "mental health professional" supposedly quoted on Harry's site is a pathetic fool. Thanks Anon for e-mailing it to me. There's definitely something in the water in Chicago!
A similar story with R’ Avraham Shor with a lingerie store on ave M he had approached the owners in a very nice manner and asked them to at least frost the windows the owners said the same thing its not Bnie Brak the community boycotted that store and the owners obliged
To R' Ben Bernanke:
If you lower the Fed rate on Wednesday more than 1/4 point...I'm gonna have my boyz move you to Chicago...next door to Harry and his "frum mental health professional."
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=03fdb762-3598-4450-8c02-c82b5fe98f08&k=9731
The pathetic Canadian government didn't do anything for their captive citizen for the last 8 months. They are finally getting around to it after even the Catholic Church started speaking up.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946123.html
The mother of my classmate from Bnei Brak told my mother once that she gets pregnant every year to enjoy a vacation in the convalescent facility after the birth. My mother had "only" five children then, en route to a complement of seven. My friend's mother had 12 children, one after another. As a child, I spent quite a bit of time in their home. It was a happy time among the mountains of laundry and stained furniture. And I really did notice that every once in a while her mother disappeared for a few days - apparently to spend her annual vacation in the maternity ward.
Perhaps this is a sad joke, but it reflects the difficult lives of mothers who have many children. One can also learn from a prolific mother's candor that ultra-Orthodox women have various considerations, not always rational ones, behind their motivation to keep on giving birth for as long as they remain fertile.
And you also have to be a balabusta. Seven children, a tip-top home, a cake in the oven for guests. On the other hand, ultra-Orthodox women have been taught not to complain. They do not show the varicose veins in their legs or the endless fatigue. At most, they cry silently in their pillow. Give birth and cry.
The trend of lower birthrates, which is still at an early stage, is part of the drive toward normality becoming evident in ultra-Orthodox society in recent years. This includes the rise of a bourgeois class, exposure to leisure culture, and brand-name consumerism. All this has led to the creation of a different, more relaxed style of ultra-Orthodoxy, even in the streams that are more closed. The cutback in child allowances is another factor, in the sense that the ultra-Orthodox are today more aware of their economic situation and reject poverty as a value. But this is certainly not the whole story.
The women are the key. They can decide that they will go to a convalescent facility not only when giving birth. They have other channels of excellence besides having babies. They can pursue academic studies, open a chain of clothing stores, or become managers and attorneys. Here a new feminine model is being born, the career woman, and it is even permeating the most conservative segments of the population. Phenomena related to exposure to higher education and modernization have quickly followed: later marriages and more unmarried women, and an increase in the divorce rate. Psychological insights about the pressures involved in marriage and raising children are also entering ultra-Orthodox women's conceptual world.
All these are contributing to a slowdown in the birth rate.
Written by the resident felon at the Jewish Fress newspaper, Gershon "the Shvindler" Tannenbaum, who owes all kinds of money to people from mail fraud and stock fraud.
http://www.jewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=28419&contentname=Daf%20Yomi§ionid=58&mode=a&recnum=0
A debtor dreamed that he swore that he was going to repay a debt on a certain day. He asked Radbaz whether he had to take the dream seriously. Radbaz ruled (Responsa IV:99) that although there is an opinion that a person does not have to fulfill an oath or a vow made in a dream, in this instance, when a mitzvah (repaying a debt) is involved, the dream is a signal that Heaven is prompting him to fulfill this mitzvah. He must repay the loan on the day he swore to do so in his dream.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943602.html
Bnei Brak man accused of assaulting six minors he seduced online
By Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent
Prosecutors on Thursday filed an indictment at the the Tel Aviv District Court against a 25 year-old man from Bnei Brak suspected of sodomy, indecent assault and sexual harassment of minors.
The suspect, Avi Patel, is charged with seducing online six minors aged 11 to 15, and convincing them to meet him in person. He is also accused of possessing pornographic pictures of minors.
According to the prosecution, Patel confessed to being a pedophile, and described in an unequivocal manner his attraction to minors.
In his testimony, Patel said, "I am aware of being a pedophile. One thing that is known about pedophiles is that they have a very high sex drive and a strong desire for the object of their attraction."
Professionals who had treated Patel in the past testified that he had refused to accept any kind of help.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/936446.html
Court to rule if suspected pedophile can be named
By Ofra Edelman
A magistrate's court will decide today whether to remove the gag order imposed on the identity of one of seven suspected pedophiles, nabbed following a Channel 10 investigation last week.
The law enables suspects and defendants to ask the court for a gag order on their identities and the charges against them. But few are aware of this right, says Rachel Toren, head of the criminal forum at the Israel Bar Association.
"You see people cover their faces without being aware that they can have the release of their picture and name banned," she says.
The court may issue a gag order on suspects' names and identifying details if it believes this could cause them serious damage and that this damage outweighs the public's need to know. The court may issue a gag order to protect the safety of a defendant, witness or anyone mentioned in the debate. It may also do so to prevent an infringement of privacy.
Attorney Zohar Barzilai, the representative of the defendant whose name was banned from publication, says the court weighs several issues before issuing a gag order on a defendant's name, including his family situation, criminal record, health and suicide risk. If the defendant is ultra-Orthodox, the release of his name could cause him and his wife and children to be ostracized.
The court also weighs the public's right to know and whether the release of the defendant or suspect's name could, for example, warn the public about a dangerous criminal.
"A gag order will only be issued if the damage in releasing the person's identity is extremely grave," he says.
I don't think Tannenbaum, who has been caught red-handed plagiarizing articles in the past and NEVER apologized, wrote that shtikel Torah.
The Jewish Press is keeping a closer eye on him these days because of all the embarassment when they are exposed by blogs. They printed this blurb at the bottom of the page which probably indicates the source:
Meoros Hadaf Hayomi Newsletters is published by the Sochachover Kollel of Bnei Brak, led by Rabbi Chaim Dovid Kovalsky. Meoros Hadaf Hayomi Newsletters in Hebrew and/or English, are available for simcha dedications as well as for memorials such as yahrzeit, shloshim, etc., and are distributed in bulk or by personal subscription, by mail, or by email dafyomi@hadaf-yomi.com. The new Tractate of the Meoros Shas and the new Meorot Hadaf Hayomi CD ROM in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and French, are available by calling 888-5 MEOROT (888-563-6768). Meoros HaShabbos is now available at your Judaica store in Hebrew, English and Yiddish.
It's still a chutzpa that they give Tannenbaum & Klass a joint byline if they are just cutting and pasting someone else's work.
But of course those whores want the public to think that their grubbe am haaretz staff writers are talmidei chochomim.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--religiousritualdi0117jan17,0,7897875.story
Fine for religious rite's messy remains in Rockland County
4:50 AM EST, January 17, 2008
MONSEY, N.Y.
An organizer has been fined $3,000 for leaving a mess on a suburban county's property after conducting an ancient Jewish ritual that involves slaughtering chickens.
Moshe Lefkowitz told the Rockland County Board of Health Wednesday that the fault lay with his 18-year-old son.
Some 11,000 live chickens were on hand at the onetime Rockland Drive-In in Monsey for the kapparot ceremony in September. Some Jews conduct the rite ahead of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. Kapparot entails prayer, symbolically casting away sins by swinging a live chicken overhead, slaughtering the birds and giving them or donations to the poor.
Rockland health inspectors said the former drive-in was coated with chicken remains, insects and trash after the ceremony last year.
http://newsfromrussia.com/news/russia/25-01-2008/103651-russia_mafia_mogilevich-0
A Russian businessman wanted by FBI and Interpol has been arrested in Moscow, offcials said Friday.
The Russian Interior Ministry's anti-organized crime unit’s spokesman said that Semyon Mogilevich was detained late Wednesday, the AP reported.
He is a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen suspected to be a major figure in international crime and has used 17 names to hide himself. The suspect also held passports from several countries. His arrest was formally approved on Thursday.
Mogilevich was detained under the alias of Sergei Schneider.
He was arrested with the head Arbat Prestige - Vladimir Nekrasov – near a supermarket. Both surrendered without resistance.
Arbat Prestige was suspected of evading about $2 million in taxes.
Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich (June 30, 1946 in Kiev, Soviet Union, in Russian Семен Могилевич, also written as Semyon) is a notorious organized crime boss who is believed to control the largest Russian Mafia syndicate in the world. His business activities are alleged to include arms dealing, drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. He is nicknamed "The Brainy Don", because of his business abilities and because he holds a degree in Economics from the Lviv University.
Mogilevich was born into a middle-class Jewish family At the age of 22 he earned an advance degree in economics from the university in Lviv. In the early 1970s he became part of the Lyubertskaya crime group in Moscow and was involved in petty theft and fraud. He served two terms (3 and 4 years) for currency dealing offenses.
FBI put Mogilewich in 2003 on the "Wanted by the FBI List" for participation in scheme to defraud investors in Canadian company YBM Magnex International Inc.
"I encourage you all to view this issue as not so black and white. I also encourage you all to do some real reading and investigating on how you can proactively make our community safer, instead of beating down on the Rabbis who are trying to do just that. We need to take real and big steps to ensure our community's safety. By using our heads instead of our witch hunting skills we can make that happen."
I've made the mistake of re-reading this essay, and it keeps getting worse. Beating down on our rabbis? Witch hunting?
Earth to anonymous "mental health professional": For the past two years, since about early 2006, the orthodox Jewish community in the United States of America has been battered by continuing public reports of child sex abuse being committed in our yeshivas, shuls, other neighborhood venues, and even our own homes. There are multiple criminal indictments and civil suits. Some victims have rebounded, others are broken souls, or are suicides. According to Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, the victim numbers are "staggering."
All of this has occurred on the watch of many, many rabbis who remain in positions of power and influence today. If we're going to have a discussion on how to fix things, it is not merely inevitable, but necessary that we discern who is at fault. Who should we blame, if not the rabbis who are in charge of nearly everything? Should we blame the rebbitzins?
"Beating down" on rabbis? "Witch hunting"? Au contrare. Punct farkert. The threats, intdimidation and even violence have emanted from the pedophiles and their enablers. I'm proud to say - and this is the way it should be and must be - that the victims, their families, their advocates and supporters have hurt nobody. The highest form of civilization is to take a dispute to a court system, or to a legislature, and get it resolved through the rules of due process, and enlightened public discourse, and this is what the victims and their allies have done.
Some things aren't "black and white"? Well, some things are, and child sex abuse is one of them.
Who wrote this essay on Harry's site? Rabbi Avi Shafran?
what a loser you are UOJ for not posting my comments on what a dumb shoteh and fool you are with your analogy to shiluach hakan after the mishna the gemara and the Rambam all say that people who make such analogies such as yourselves are apikorsim. Instead you quickly "change the subject" with more pictures etc. and you've probably began writing your next foolish essay. Rabbi Shraga Feivul would never have made such a blunder.
"Finally, it is important to understand that although most of the high-profile abuse cases are school based, they are only a tiny percentage of the instances of molestation. Abusers are far more likely to be extended or close family members, older kids in the neighborhood, family friends, neighbors and peers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/business/28cnd-econ.html
January 28, 2008
Sales of New Homes Fell by 26% in 2007
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Sales of new homes fell last year by 26 percent, the steepest drop since records began in 1963, the Commerce Department said on Monday.
Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned single-family homes, a large portion of the overall housing market, suffered their biggest annual drop in 25 years.
Prices have also fallen sharply. In December, the median price of a new home fell to $219,200, down 10 percent from December 2006.
For the year, the median price of new homes rose just 0.2 percent, to $246,900. But the median price of a previously owned single-family home fell for the first time in at least four decades, the National Association of Realtors said.
Last month alone, sales of new homes tumbled 4.7 percent, to a 604,000 annual rate, the smallest monthly sales figure since February 1995.
“No matter which way you look at it, the December new home sales report is simply awful,” wrote Dimitry Fleming, an economist at ING Bank.
December capped off a painful year for home builders, who have watched demand dry up as buyers abandon contracts or stay on the sidelines with the expectation that prices will fall further.
A wave of foreclosures and tightened lending standards have made it more difficult to obtain a mortgage, even for buyers with good credit ratings. And banks have been more reluctant to lend in light of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Builders are now trying to lure buyers by dropping prices and throwing in incentives like new appliances. They have also cut back on new construction.
But the strategy has failed to make a dent in inventories: the backlog of new homes on the market ticked up last month to 9.6 months’ supply, the Commerce Department said.
Sales of new homes were down in most regions of the country, with the steepest declines in the South and West.
The Commerce Department also revised down its estimate for new home sales in November, to a 634,000 annual pace. It has originally estimated a rate of 647,000.
The "K" is from Rabbi Dr David Scheinkopf who learned in Chaim Berlin but led a Conservative temple in Syracuse. He comes in to play when the OU refuses to certify items that have gelatin and the like.
The Danones are originally Sefardim from Bulgaria.
http://www.dairyreporter.com/news/ng.asp?n=82785-danone-dannon-probiotic
24/01/2008 - The US arm of Danone could be forced to make a multi-million dollar refund to its customers over allegations that it has used fraudulent health claims to sell some of its Activia and DanActive branded yoghurts.
In a class action filed yesterday against the Dannon company in a California court, a legal team have accused the company of spending $100m promoting clinical benefits of products which the company's own testing disproves.
Should the suit go against Dannon, which represents the interest of Danone in the US, the case could have considerable ramifications for the use of health claims on products, proving a major setback for burgeoning nutritional aids like probiotics.
Both Dannon and parent company Danone were unwilling to comment on the allegations at the time of press, though added that they would be commenting on the civil action soon.
Danon's website claims that the company has for over 10 years worked in with international research laboratories in developing its products.
The case, which has been bought to court by the law firms Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins and Mager & Goldstein, hopes to receive address for Dannon's customers, which it claims have been misled by the company's marketing.
Attorney Timothy Blood, who will represent Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins in the action, said the dairy group had purposely deceived consumers about the products.
"Deceptive advertising has enabled Dannon to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ordinary yogurt at inflated prices to responsible, health conscious consumers," he stated.
The class action alleges therefore that claims on advertisements and labelling for Activia pronouncing that the product is "proven" to improve one's "intestinal rhythm" and "regulate your digestive system" are all unsubstantiated.
On the back of these claims, the class action accuses Dannon of charging a premium of about 30 per cent on the Activia yoghurt.
"In fact, Dannon's marketing for yogurts containing 'probiotics' led to one of the most successful product launches in recent food-industry history," the group stated.
The case action refers in particular to a $100m dollar promotional campaign by Dannon, which it alleges falsely promoted probiotic yoghurts that have earned it an estimated $428m in revenues since 2006.
Despite these health claims, the civil action accuses Dannon of being aware that numerous scientific studies failed to support their claims on the advertised nutritional benefits.
"A study conducted by leading microbiologists and funded by Dannon determined in 2006 that there was no conclusive evidence' of probiotics providing health benefits," the action states.
The report entitled Probiotic Microbes: The Scientific Basis was prepared by the American Academy of Microbiology.
The allegations regarding Dannon's labelling on its yoghurts could be a major blow for other health claims regarding probiotics.
Products aimed at improving digestion at set to drive the health and nutrition market for products over the coming year, according to Julian Mellentin, author of 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition & Health 2008.
Mellentin claimes that probiotics will continue to be a force to be reckoned with as they focus on digestive health - which, Mellentin says, is the biggest segment of the functional foods market.
The report says that in Europe probiotic dairy products account for the lion's share of functional food sales. The reason for this is digestive health is a "wellness" issue, not like cholesterol-lowering or heart health which is a "death and disease" issue.
http://www.progressivestates.org/blog/757/protecting-our-children-states-take-action-against-toxic-toy
Back in May, when testing of baby bibs imported from China revealed high levels of lead, retail giant Wal-Mart claimed to recall the product. The vinyl portion of the bibs exceeded the lead levels set by Illinois for children's products. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said, "We at Wal-Mart are committed to working... to develop industry standards for the elimination of vinyl in children's products." Wal-Mart pulled the product from its shelves nationwide, but only provided refunds or replacements to customers in Illinois.
Fast forward seven months to December: Wal-Mart continued to sell the recalled bibs, not in Illinois where they are banned, but in other states, even though they are the exact same bibs that were banned in Illinois due to high levels of lead. As companies like Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us continue to sell toxic toys, it's become even more imperative that states take action-- which many are doing this year, as this Dispatch will highlight.
Lead is a well-known health hazard. Yet,in some of the toys recalled this summer, the lead content was 180 times the amount allowed by law. According to the American Medical Association, there is no safe level of lead. Moreover, the symptoms of high lead levels can be vague and easily confused with a viral illness risking further damage and exposure. So, why is it appearing in children's toys and products?
When the Washington Toxics Coalition and others tested 1,200 popular children's toys for toxic chemicals, they found that more than one-third of the toys contained lead and other toxic chemicals, including cadmium and arsenic, were found in a number of toys. Toxic toys, according to the Campaign for America's Future, has even disrupted the widely beloved Barbie and Ken relationship.
Last week, the United Steelworkers spearheaded a National Day of Action on Toxic Trade to bring attention to the issue and demand immediate congressional action. Along with community allies, the Steelworkers visited one hundred congressional offices calling on Congress to pass the U.S. Food and Product Responsibility Act. The Act would shift the responsibility for ensuring safe food and products onto the companies producing the goods and the importers importing them. But given federal inaction, it's even more necessary that states pass new laws to stop the poisoning of our children.
Remarkably, or maybe not so remarkably, even when faced with the Wal-Mart example and other overwhelming evidence, Congress has yet to pass anything to stop the import of toxic toys. However, the states have already been taking action to protect the health for our children. As early as 1989, the Coalition of Northeastern Governors drafted the Toxics in Packaging Act, which has been adopted by 19 states, a law which requires that concentrations of four toxic metals (including lead) be reduced to less than 100 parts per million -- a far lower level than the 600 parts per million allowed by the federal government.
California in 2007 became the first state to outright ban most phthalates, a toxic softening agent used to make plastic flexible
Similar to Wal-Mart's disregard of the public, Toys "R" Us recalled 16,000 toy units because of high lead levels in November, yet another 128,7000 toys had been pulled from the same brand in March because of lead and Toys "R" Us had not stopped selling the brand. Last year, 800,000 tainted products were found on the shelves of Toys "R" Us and Dollar General, another company managed by the same big equity firm, leading to recalls -- although only after many of the products had already been sold to children across the country.
A few times, some of my comments from other sites have been "copied" and "pasted" onto this site. This is true for others as well.
I have no objection. But...
For the sake of accuracy, the copying and pasting should be disclosed.
I also have no problem, when the occasion arises, from continuing to comment on this site, as I did a few weeks ago, in response to a comment from "Steve".
Elliot Pasik, Esq.
Long Beach, NY
efpasik@aol.com
Heil Belsky,
Rabbi Yisroel Belsky has been justly renamed Adolph Belsky and Walking Sewage. How has this dreck creature gotten away with all the child molestations that he is personally responsible for which occured at Camp Agudah. Good Job UOJ.
Below are two of the RCA resolutions regarding sexual abuse. If anyone can find anything objectionable in these resolutions, please let us know. Otherwise, please explain why the rabbis refuse to adopt these resolutions and implement them in all our yeshivos?
May 28, 2003
http://www.rabbis.org/
WHEREAS, in recent years there have been reported a number of incidents of sexual, physical and/or emotional abuse perpetrated by rabbis and teachers, including members of the Rabbinical Council of America, against members of the communities that they serve and others, adults and children, in violation of Torah law and of civil law; and
WHEREAS, failure to respond to such cases is a violation of the verse, "Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor" (Lev. 19:16; see Hilkhot Rotseiach 1: 14); and
WHEREAS, it is the duty of the Rabbinical Council of America to protect the integrity and welfare of the members of the community that its members serve; to serve and help its members in times of crisis; to represent to the community the best of Torah values; and to protect the dignity of Torah and Orthodox Judaism; and
WHEREAS, events of the past have proven, to our great dismay, that organizations and individuals have not always dealt with these incidents in the best possible way; and
WHEREAS, rabbis must conduct themselves in ways that are exemplary in their religious, moral and interpersonal conduct, not only because of their personal obligations that are governed by the Torah and the Halachah, but in fulfillment of the ideal of ahavat Hashem, "And you shall love the Lord your God: that the Name of Heaven be beloved because of you" (Yoma 86a)., an obligation that calls upon each Jew to conduct himself/herself in ways that reflect nobly on the Torah and God, and to refrain from any improper conduct in all areas including, but not limited to, sexual, personal, and economic behaviors; and
WHEREAS, the verse, "And you shall be guiltless before the Lord and before Israel."(Numbers 32:22) extends the concerns of conduct to mar'it ayin and heshad, suspicious behaviors, and places a higher responsibility on personal and professional conduct of all Jews, especially rabbis; and
WHEREAS, improper behavior can cause a hillul Hashem, a desecration of God's Name, a transgression that it is more difficult to atone for than for any other sin, so that not even repentance, the atonement of Yom Kippur, and personal suffering can absolve one of this offense (Yoma 86a); and
WHEREAS, the Halachah recognizes that an adam hashuv (a prominent person) is held to a standard of behavior and morality higher than that to which others are held and must refrain from any improper behavior, even if not explicitly prohibited or illegal, lest he cause a hillul Hashem, a desecration of God's Name. An adam hashuv, a well-known and well-respected person, and a talmid hakham, a pious, learned scholar, are expected by others to live according to strict moral standards-therefore, the greater the desecration when they fail to live up to these expectations. Their failures reflect negatively not only upon their personal reputations, but upon the Torah that they claim to uphold and upon the God they represent. Among others, these behaviors include embarrassing one's colleagues due to the nature of the rumors that are spread about him (Yoma 86a), embarrassing one's colleagues by the less-than-dignified activities in which he engages (Rosh to Moed Katan, ch. 3, no. 11) and degrading the honor of Torah (Pesahim 49a); and
WHEREAS, the Mishnah, Avot 4:4, reminds us that sequestering a hillul Hashem will always be unsuccessful: "Whoever desecrates the name of Heaven in private will ultimately be punished in public, whether the desecration was committed unintentionally or intentionally." Hence, a conspiracy to conceal information about abuse will ultimately be made public, creating an even greater hillul Hashem; and
WHEREAS, the Talmud, Berakhot 19b, posits, "Wherever a profanation of God's Name is involved no respect is paid to a rabbi"; and
WHEREAS, R. Akiva explained the biblical verse, "And you shall love your friend as yourself (Lev. 19:18)" by positing, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend." (Shabbat 31a), we are obligated to respect and protect the integrity, welfare and dignity (kevod ha-beriyot) of our fellow humans;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
The Rabbinical Council of America condemns in the strongest terms any act of sexual, physical or emotional violence, abuse or impropriety, perpetrated by any of its members against any child or adult and declares to all victims that the abuse is the responsibility and sin of the abuser and is not the responsibility or sin of the victim; and
The Rabbinical Council of America recommits itself to fulfilling its responsibility for the welfare of the members of the Jewish community at large and the general community as well, especially to those who have been victims or who claim to be victims of an act of sexual, physical or emotional violence, abuse or impropriety; and
The Rabbinical Council of America commits itself to reevaluating its policies and procedures in cases of accusations of acts of violence, abuse or impropriety made against any of its members and to develop and enact, in a timely manner but no later than June 30, 2004, those policies and procedures that will effectively and responsibly respond to accusations made against any of its members including:
• a reevaluation of the role and function of the Vaad Hakavod;
• the adoption of standards, policies and procedures for the reprimand and censure of members of the Rabbinical Council of America, as well as provisions and procedures for the suspension and revocation of membership;
• the adoption of provisions for reporting convicted or admitted abusers to the Placement Committee so that they will be prevented from assuming positions that will place others in possibly harmful situations as well as to develop responsible means to identify abusers to those communities or institutions to which they may move;
• the development of plans to help members who have been involved in improper behavior find appropriate therapeutic support, as well as the development of procedures to help the families and congregants of these members deal with the very trying circumstances they face;
• the education of rabbis in proper conduct in interacting with others as well as in ways to being falsely accused of improper behavior. We are also concerned about the possibility of a false accusation made against a member and commit ourselves to develop means to evaluate the veracity of an accusation and to help and support a rabbi who is falsely accused. We recognize the great difficulties involved in evaluating an accusation and in determining its veracity. The Rabbinical Council of America commits itself, in developing these new procedures, to proceed with careful and responsible deliberation in developing guidelines for investigating and trying to determine the validity of accusations; to take into account the issues of confidentiality as it applies both to the accuser and the accused; to respect the need for integrity and timeliness in the investigative process; and to consult with such professionals as lawyers and psychologists, as well as with victims and their families who can contribute in many significant and important ways in formulating and executing these policies.
• The Rabbinical Council of America maintains that reporting acts or suspicions of child abuse is not mesirah* and commits itself and its members to reporting acts or suspicions of child abuse as required by civil law; and
The Rabbinical Council of America recommits itself and its members:
• to assert responsible leadership in publicly condemning acts of sexual, physical and emotional violence, abuse and impropriety and in formulating
• * to execute educational materials and programs that will educate its rabbis and lay persons in the areas of sexual, physical and emotional violence, abuse and impropriety,
• to execute procedures and policies that will safely, sensitively and effectively protect the members of the community from violence, abuse and impropriety,
• to deal appropriately with its members who have perpetrated such violence, abuse or impropriety; and
The Rabbinical Council of America urges its members to assert responsible leadership in their individual synagogues, schools, organizations and communities in publicly condemning acts of sexual, physical and emotional violence, abuse and impropriety and
• in formulating and executing educational materials and programs in their synagogues, schools, organizations and communities that that will educate the members of their institutions and organizations in the areas of sexual, physical and emotional violence, abuse and impropriety.
• to establish and execute procedures and policies in their individual communities that will safely, sensitively and effectively protect the members of those communities, synagogues and schools from violence, abuse and impropriety, including the proper training and education of all staff members and the publishing of guidelines for acceptable behavior as well as guidelines for the reporting of suspicions and acts of inappropriate behavior, and guidelines for effectively dealing with those reports; and
• The Rabbinical Council of America commends those organizations and individuals that have raised these important issues in our community; that have developed programs that have helped victims of violence and abuse to acquire therapeutic, psychological and legal help; that have furthered public awareness of these issues; and that have furthered the physical safety, emotionally integrity and spiritual well-being of individuals and of our community at large.
May 1, 2007 -- Whereas, we, the Rabbinical Council of America, are deeply committed to the health, safety and security of all Jewish children attending yeshivas and Hebrew day schools, which includes their right to be free of any physical, emotional or sexual abuse or violence; and,
Whereas, we embrace the mitzvah of Lo ta'amod al dam ra'echa, (Do not stand upon the blood of your brother, Lev. 19:16), and we acknowledge the principle, BeHezaika DeRabim, Chaishinan Tfei (when there is an issue that affects the masses, we are vigilant), and how much more so does this principle apply when the health, safety and welfare of school children are affected; and,
Whereas, we acknowledge the devastating affect that even a single act of physical, emotional or sexual abuse can have upon a child, when inflicted by an adult authority figure, and such abuse can have long term serious physical and mental health consequences; and,
Whereas, we acknowledge the legal principle of in loco parentis, which provides that during the school day, the yeshiva and day school stand in the shoes of the parents, and owe the children the high degree of care in health, safety and welfare that parents owe their children; and,
Whereas, we acknowledge the legal principle of parens patrae, whereby the government always has a legitimate interest in the health, safety, and welfare of its children-citizens, regardless of whether they attend public or nonpublic schools, and this interest is reflected in numerous statutes and judicial opinions; and,
Whereas, we take note of the U.S. Congress-mandated report prepared by the U.S. Department of Education, "Educator Sexual Misconduct" (June 2004), which documents the extent of the problem, and at section 12 strongly recommends for all schools employee background checks, registries of abusive school employees, standardized abuse prevention policies, and other prophylactic measures
Now, therefore, it is resolved that
We reiterate support for our 2005 convention resolution, Criminal Background Checks for Workers with Youth; and
We generally support the enactment of decent and humane laws that seek to secure and enhance the health, safety and welfare of nonpublic school children; and
We support the application to the nonpublic schools of the health and safety laws currently applicable to public schools, including
mandatory employee fingerprinting and halachically or legally appropriate background checks;
mandatory written school plans and polices intended to safeguard the life, health, and safety of children, and to prevent physical, emotional and sexual abuse, including appropriate reporting guidelines;
mandatory employee registration and disciplinary hearings;
mandatory emergency health care, including nursing, modern first aid, and modern medical devices, including, defibrillators; and
We call upon members of the RCA to encourage awareness of these issues with their constituencies so as to facilitate detection of abuse in our community.
To the "stinking loser" @1:05,
Before you attack UOJ regarding shiluach haken, read the Ramban's commentary and read the Minchas Chinuch. UOJ did not say that Hashem is merciful on the mother bird, but that we should learn rachmanus from this mitzvah and other mitzvot regarding tzaar baalei chayim. That is exactly what the Ramban states.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=14054
Due to routine water system maintenance by the DEP Mon., Jan. 28, residents in areas of Brooklyn may experience discolored tap water. This water is safe to drink & does not require boiling. Washing clothes with it may tint or stain garments. Letting it settle before drinking is recommended.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/61550-they-said-housing-prices-couldn-t-fall-they-lied
They Said Housing Prices Couldn't Fall. They Lied
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0122sb-monastery0122.html
Meanwhile, observant Jews coming to the Super Bowl or the FBR Open won't have to worry about their dietary compliance if they contact Kosher Stay America, which arranges housing, transportation and food service in accordance with kosher, or kashrut, laws.
At home, keeping kosher is routine. Jewish families know which restaurants to go to, which stores to shop in, and keep their own kitchens kosher.
But traveling can be problematic. They must find a shul, or synagogue, within walking distance of their hotel because they will not drive a car on the sabbath. They must find sources of kosher food. If they're planning to host a party, they must locate a kosher caterer or restaurant.
Kosher Stay America has already been contacted by possible clients from around the country planning to attend the Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3 or the golf tournament Jan. 27 to Feb. 3.
The company has kosher homes to rent and sources for kosher food, including pizza, said Izabela Walker, who owns the company with her husband, Richard.
The Walkers, Orthodox Jews originally from Russia, provide maps to synagogues and kosher markets, lists of caterers and restaurants.
The Harry debacle would be laughable were it not for Jewish lives hanging in the balance. Firstly, whatever "mental health professional" wrote that silly essay - should have themselves evaluated for being such an ignoramus.
Secondly, the stupidity of one commentator who writes that only recently have the Rabbinate come to grips with sexual molestation and prior to that they had no idea that such evils acts can occur by and against another Jew - is most telling of the excuse mesiters who forgive so easily the perpetrators and enablers of abuse. These nut cases have their heads buried in the sand and if society should gain from it - it would be if their heads permanently stayed there!
Shmarya recently made another false claim that orthodox Jews only provide food but not shelter to the poor. The bum is so full of hatred that he will say any lie hoping you can't disprove him.
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=57339&ATypeId=1
11/01/2008
By Simon Friend
Two-hundred of London’s most needy Jews are benefiting daily from a kosher soup kitchen which has recently opened in one of the last places you might expect — Golders Green.
The last known soup kitchens of this kind were in London’s then impoverished East End and died out in the fifties.
But over the past month, New York-born Sam Kahan has been providing food in the mornings and evenings at his home for people who come from traditionally middle-class areas of North-West London such as Finchley and Hendon.
They range from 18 to 60 and enjoy generous, Israeli-style breakfasts, including made-to-order omelettes. Some come every morning for what they say may be the only hot food they will eat that day.
One frequent visitor, Eliezer, a 22-year-old from Hendon, said: “What Mr Kahan offers is invaluable and without him, my life would be a lot harder.”
Mr Kahan and his helpers make no attempt to check whether customers are Jewish, but by advertising the service only by word-of-mouth and by notices in a few local shtiebls, they are confident that it is not being abused.
There is no official kashrut licence, but Mr Kahan, who is Orthodox, buys all the food from the local kosher bakeries and grocers.
The house, in a quiet residential side street off Golders Green Road, is intended to “make the visitors feel that they have a safe haven from the lives they live outside”.
Mr Kahan, who has lived in England for 15 years, has also converted the upper floor into two family-sized suites for those in need of somewhere to stay.
“As yet, there has only been one family staying,” he said. “But I am confident that word will go round to make people aware of the facility.
“I saw my parents do this in Brooklyn. There is no religious motive behind this; it is just an act of tzedakah [charity]. It means a lot for me to help people who don’t have what others have.”
He seeks to use those on the fringes of society to help in the kitchen. Currently, there are three graduates of the special-needs school, Delamere Forest, who help out.
The soup kitchen costs a “substantial” amount of money, Mr Kahan said, adding: “To feed a needy Jew is worth all the money in the world.”
As I wrote earlier, I wish I had the time to write a proper response to this essay which has been kicking around my head all day. Quite frankly, I now feel the need to acknowledge the glimmer of a legitimate point the "mental health professional" (mha)is making.
MHA seems to be saying we shouldn't be too hard on the rabbis who have erred in earlier years in handling the sex abuse cases. There is the mitigating circumstance of "denial", and as the facts slowly unfolded, the rabbis now know better.
Its a fair point, and bear in mind that across the spectrum of modern to Chareidi orthodoxy, the horror of child sex abuse failed to sink into the minds of some very smart rabbis with excellent personal reputations. They failed to comprehend the unlimited power of the yatzer hara. Even when they were told the horrible facts, Chaim the Abuser would promise teshuva - I'll get therapy, and I won't do it again. Failing to balance the dubious promise of teshuva, with the victims' rights to justice, and the rights of children to attend yeshiva and shul free of the danger of sex abuse, many rabbis gravely erred, and....did nothing.
My own educated hunch is that some rabbis did nothing because they failed to do their homework. They failed to read the professional literature about pedophilia - which is incurable - and naively believed in the power of teshuva. They also failed to account for the terrible damage sex abuse does to the victim.
Other rabbis were simply unfocused or apathetic. Or for political reasons, they chose not to get involved. Or, to put it bluntly, they were outright corrupt - they did not want to damage the reputation of their yeshiva, their kehilla, etc.
MHA makes a legitimate point, but its not a strong point. MHA is saying our rabbis are no better than the priests, the Boy Scout leaders, and everybody else who went down the same path.
We are cautioned not to judge previous generations, but my personal belief is that this dictum gives way when we have a tachlis, as we certainly do now. Do we need a change in Jewish management? This is a question that answers itself.
Additionally, up until the present time, there are, relatively speaking, very few rabbis who are on board. Chicago, as I've said, is an exception. There are some others.
New York is a fiasco, and in New York, there are 100,000 children who attend yeshivas. We still have child sex abusers working in yeshivas and other youth settings. We still have the same rabbinic managers employing these abusers. Its disgusting.
So I stand by my initial criticisms of this article. The tone and the content are "not for now". But I think I owe it to the doctrine of fairness to at least acknowledge MHA's point, which is a small point, but it does exist.
Some observations on the mental health professional's latest remarks:
1. The anger is justified. We Jews are dead last in confronting the child sex abuse problem.
At every level of government, federal, and in all 50 states, extraordinarily strong, tough laws have been enacted and enforced. Federal and state sex offender registries, on the Internet, are everywhere. Public and nonpublic schools are doing background checks, whether required by law or not. Mandatory abuse-incident reporting laws exist in nearly every state, and are applicable to clergy and nonpublic school personnel - except New York, where you can draw your own conclusions why. The federal and state criminal incarceration terms for convicted sex offenders are incredibly lengthy, and on top of that, most states have civil commitment laws. Six states have actually enacted death penalty statutes for aggravated cases of child sex abuse. Even for those convicted sex offenders who get released, many states require that they be GPS-monitored; and that they do not live in close proximity to any school or other youth setting.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church does a criminal background check on every employee and volunteer who has any contact with children. Ditto for the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, Little League, and every other youth group you can think of. The Catholic Church has a national educational program, required for all of their employees, on how to stop and detect child sex abuse. Ditto for the Boy Scouts, etc. Their
The Catholic Church also has rules - easily available on the Internet - requiring the banishment of any person who has ever been found guilty in any court or administrative forum of molesting anybody, even once, no matter now long ago.
The Catholic Church has also compensated their victims, and established treatment programs for them.
Our organized Jewish community has - to this very day - done almost nothing which it is capable of doing, and the situation in New York, as I keep saying, is the worst anywhere.
I don't believe the mental health professional is sufficiently focused on any of this, and that is why he discounts the anger. This anger is not irrational, it is valid, it is justified, and it is motivating many people to finally do something about our problem. I add that we would not be where we are on this issue without the anger of someone named UOJ.
Our Rabbis have learned more and grown a tremendous amount and battled against their own inner denial much more so then any other group. A lot of the time they are accused of covering up or protecting someone, when in fact they are doing the exact opposite
I don't know to which rabbis you are referring to, but the rabbis of the Agudath Israel of America, which represents the charedi rabbis, have issued one comment after another proving that they are still very much in denial. If they truly have changed, then why not adopt the RCA edict of 2003 and put it into effect?
Our Rabbis have done more then you or even I can know to help people become informed, and we need to strengthen them through that process and not bash them in order for them to get more work done.
Our issue is not with those rabbis, such as R' Horowitz, R'Blau, R' Shachter and R' Dratch, who have indeed tried to keep the kahal informed. The problem is with the overall establishment of Orthodox rabbis which is still denying and covering up.
People in denial should not be shouted at or persecuted or banned, this makes the defensiveness worse and serves no one
A leader or a person in position of power that is in denial regarding this plague needs a strong wake up call. If that doesn't work, he needs to be removed. Denial equals insensitivity in this case and an insensitive leader is no leader at all.
But while you're yelling and shouting that this one should be fired, and this one should be cut off, realize that what’s going on is your own emotional response to the horror of child sexual abuse.
Unfortunately, we haven't yelled and shouted enough, myself included. Personally, I lose sleep every night thinking about this plague. Am I overreacting? I don't think there is such a thing as overreacting to this churban. It's like telling President Bush that he overreacted to 9/11. Well, this is our 9/11!
Anyone can be a child molester. There is no personality profile for a pedophile, and is usually shocking how normal they are when it's found out.
This is not news. Most of these pedophiles have managed to raise families of their own. They often look like the most respectable gentlemen. Look at the dozens of rabbi molesters. Do they look like your typical predator in a ski mask?
I encourage you all to view this issue as not so black and white. I also encourage you all to do some real reading and investigating on how you can proactively make our community safer, instead of beating down on the Rabbis who are trying to do just that. We need to take real and big steps to ensure our community's safety. By using our heads instead of our witch hunting skills we can make that happen
We've been pleading for years now for the rabbis to institute safeguards in our yeshivot and to appoint an independent council to hear abuse cases. This is the basic safety that is afforded all public school children.
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has warned that 2008 will be a "most difficult year" for the mainland's economy as it came across uncertainties in the global economic situation as well as difficulties in the local economy, according to a report published Tuesday.
"As we often discuss, we fear that 2008 will be most difficult year for the economy," Wen told State Council leaders last week, the South China Morning Post reported, citing a government Web site.
"There are uncertainties in international circumstances and the economic environment, and there are new difficulties and contradictions in the domestic economy," said Wen.
Wen was likely referring to the expected economic slowdown in the U.S., the largest market for Chinese exports, and inflationary pressures at home.
Mainland China's inflation jumped 4.8% in 2007, the sharpest rise in 11 years, in the wake of higher food prices and strong economic growth, forcing the country's central bank to tighten monetary policy by raising interest rates and banks' reserve requirements several times over the past 12 months.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
Geldwerth hung around Kolko for 40 years. He should be kicked out of TT. He had to know.
What we can do, every single person who reads this blog, is start conversations. Talk at the shabbos table, at kiddush, talk with your Rabbi, talk with your school principals, about this issue. Inform them, encourage them, and bombard them with support to get the informatin they need to make the right decision. Use your anger productive to ask yourselves after reading all of this, "ok, what can I do now."
As I said above:
The "mental health professional" supposedly quoted on Harry's site is a pathetic fool. Thanks Anon for e-mailing it to me. There's definitely something in the water in Chicago!
Guys like this are seriously dangerous. And Harry puts it up...
Says much about Harry!
According to statistics from the National Center for Victims of Crime, 46 percent (46%) of children who were sexually violated, were victimized by a family member. Which means the majority of those who are survivors of child sexual abuse are survivors of incest. Most cases are not clergy sexual abuse, or abuse by a teacher, doctor, camp leader or therapist.
The more each and everyone talk about the issues and ramifications, the easier it is for those of us who have been abused to come out and say -- Yes, this happened to me too. There should be no shame placed on those who have been sexually victimized. The shame should only be placed on those who perpetrate these crimes, and those who are involved with the cover-ups.
We all need to be aware that it often takes adult survivors many years to be in a place where they are ready and willing to enter into counseling to begin to deal with the horror of their childhood. In the clinical world it is known that there are certain times that a survivor is more likely to go for help. These times include:
Right after the abuse happened if they tell their parents and or have other support,
When the survivor is old enough and capable of leaving home,
Around the time the survivor is thinking about marriage or get married,
When the survivor or their spouse is pregnant or right after their child is born,
When the survivors own children reach the age they were when they themselves were abused,
But most common is when they are in their forties or fifties. This is an age that most adults can focus in on themselves, they start reflecting on their lives and have the time to deal with things they never resolved.
Elliot Pasik Esq. is dead-right-on! One of the very few people who gets it!
I just re-read Harry's therapist's piece. I can't believe what I read. He's a fraud or very ill...or both!
I kept trying to post this on Phil's blog yet it wouldn't take it. I figured I'd post it here so at least it won't get deleted.
@@@@@@@@
Phil,
Instead of deleting the link to the JS site and the call to action, why not answer the questions?
Phil, why not let us all know where you are coming from? Stop playing game!
You are part of the planning committee who is brining in a sex offender friendly croud. It is obvious you are chumming up with those who cover up sexual abuse in our community.
Phil, can you let us all know where the funds came from for the documentary you are putting together. My bet it's nothing more then a PR piece for the vaad and JFS of Baltimore.
Poor Phil. . .
He's been going around for months to various people letting them know how difficult it has been for him ever since started publishing the series on sexual abuse within the eruv of Baltimore.
I can't buy into his horror that he didn't realize that those with power and affluence wouldn't like it?
For years he's been spoon fed various stories, yet refused to write about them. He was too afraid. He knew what the ramifications would be.
Phil Jacobs knew exactly what would happen. He knew he would be shunned. I say this because he's heard over and over again what happened to those who were molested and tried to do something about it. The survivors lost everything. So has all of those who attempted to advocate for them.
Phil, all you have been doing is wining and dining those you think you can manipulate or use in some way to promote yourself.
Phil, "your poor, poor, pitiful me act" will only take you so far. If you really want to be an advocate for those who have been sexually violated get up off your pity potty and start acting like a man.
Don't enable those who cover up crimes. Start working with those who are really doing the work. It's not those connected to Elaine Witman, Esther Giller, JFS, the Associated or Ner Yisroel. Have you forgotten -- they are part of the problem.
How can the Baltimore Vaad, Rabbi Gotlib, Rabbi Hauer, Rabbi Hopfer, etc. get up in front of the community, and teach how to keep kids safe, when they continue to cover up for the yeshivah which is covering up for Rabbi Eiseman? Is Rabbi Eiseman going to come out of “retirement” to add his opinion on this matter? I actually think he would have the most relevant information to impart on how to keep kids safe from people like him. But these Vaad rabbis are MUCH better at speaking on how to keep molesters safe. They know how to keep the yeshiva’s reputation safe. They know how to keep their own jobs safe. But I don’t see why anyone would believe that they know how to keep children safe. And anybody who works with them, under the circumstances, is giving the wrong message. That you can talk about protecting children while simutaneously actively protect a molester. It is what the Gemorah calls “Chucha V’Tlula”...a joke.
Oh my god! Over the last weeks time 2 new york state ultra orthodox yeshivos dealt with indecent episodes - and in a seemingly very improper way. One was a employee problem (Elliot Pasik's Law might of prevented this one, if not for Aguda teaming up with the church to fillibuster the bill) the other is a more complex scandal.............Stay tuned as the ongoing drama unfolds.
To Steve These are the exact words of the UOJ "The Torah commands us - in the very essential mitzva of Shiluach Hakan...shalach tishalach es ha'em...send away the mother-bird before you capture the child-bird - because the suffering of the mother is unbearable for her to observe; to see her offspring - hurt, slaughtered or captured."
Now here are the exact words of the Rambam in Hilchos Tefila Perek9 Halacha 7 "One who says that the one (meaning G-D) who is merciful on the birds by commanding us not to take the children before sending away the mother he should also have pity on us we shut him up (mishaskin oso) because these mitsvos are chukim and HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH PITY for if they had to do with pity then etc."
Steve do the math yourself, and quite frankly, at this point I'm not sure who's a bigger fool or am haarets you or the UOJ.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/2/31_02heist.html
A jeweler was kidnapped at gunpoint in the Hasidic section of Williamsburg on Dec. 31 and forced to drive to his warehouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where his captors stole more than $1 million worth of gold and jewels.
The jeweler, who asked not to be identified by The Brooklyn Paper out of fear that he and his family would be targeted again, told cops that two men flagged him down at the corner of Wythe Avenue and Williamsburg Street and asked for directions to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Before the victim could answer, the men jumped in the car, one of them brandishing a handgun, and forced the upscale jewelry dealer to drive to his Flushing Avenue warehouse.
Once there, they forced him to disable the security cameras and burglar alarms before they cleaned out the place.
The victim, who has been importing gold and diamonds since the 1970s, then drove the robbers to Clinton Avenue, about five blocks from the warehouse, where they had a van parked under the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway.
The robbers unloaded their ill-gotten booty and made a clean getaway without firing a shot.
The jeweler told police that he didn’t know the men who kidnapped him, although they certainly knew him and his business.
He "particularly liked" artifacts associated with the Revolutionary, Civil and Mexican wars, World War I, black Americana and "anything related to the Roosevelts and Jewish items."
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/ap/NY_Artifact_Arrest.html
The New York State Library doesn't usually sell its treasured historical documents on eBay. So when one history buff discovered a listing on the auction site for a letter written by the nation's vice president in 1823, he quickly figured out something was very wrong.
With a little research, Virginia attorney Joseph Romito discovered that the four-page letter written by former Vice President John Calhoun belonged to the state library, and he alerted authorities.
Investigators placed the winning $1,800 bid on the letter -- eventually learning the seller was a longtime state archivist who stole hundreds of historic artifacts, selling them to pay for home renovations and his daughter's credit card debt, prosecutors charged Monday.
Daniel Lorello, 54, an archives and records management specialist in the New York Department of Education, is accused of stealing items including Davy Crockett Almanacs, Currier and Ives lithographs, and the 1865 railroad timetable for Abraham Lincoln's funeral train. Authorities believe he made tens of thousands of dollars.
"This crime is especially repugnant, because it's dealing with historic documents," state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference Monday. "It's literally stealing the legacy of the state of New York page by page."
Lorello, who lives in Rensselaer, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and scheme to defraud and was released on his own recognizance. He faces up to 25 years in prison.
"These kinds of items ... represent the heritage of all Americans," Romito said. "I am gratified that I had some small part to play in it."
Lorello, who began working at the state archives in 1979, was placed on administrative leave from his $71,732-a-year job. He made no comment as he left court and messages left on his answering machine were not immediately returned.
Officials found hundreds of documents and artifacts in Lorello's home, which they searched over the weekend.
In a handwritten statement released by Cuomo's office, Lorello said he took "more than 300 or 400 items in 2007 alone."
He said he "particularly liked" artifacts associated with the Revolutionary, Civil and Mexican wars, World War I, black Americana and "anything related to the Roosevelts and Jewish items."
Authorities believe the theft goes back to 2002, although it accelerated in 2007.
"I took things on an as-needed basis to pay family bills, such as house renovations, car bills, tuition and my daughter's credit card problem," Lorello wrote.
He said he took many items last year because his daughter "unexpectedly ran up a $10,000 credit card bill."
Lorello also said his pilfering increased after learning that surveillance cameras were scheduled to be installed into the library.
It's unclear how much Lorello made from his sales. In some cases he went to trade shows and exchanged the stolen items for others, authorities said. But officials said in just two sales of Davy Crockett Almanacs -- popular 19th century pamphlets about the frontier hero's exploits -- he received more than $5,000.
Altogether, officials at the attorney general's office believe his profits to be in the "tens of thousands."
"We're working on recovering those documents sold on eBay," Cuomo said. "We're asking the traders to please check their collections."
EBay is working with state officials to obtain the past sales records from Lorello's account.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324785,00.html
Remember Morgan Spurlock? He sent McDonald’s into a tailspin a couple of years ago with his "Super Size Me" documentary. The sight of him vomiting in his car after eating a Happy Meal left a lasting impression.
Now Spurlock is back with a controversial new documentary that was screened to cheers on Monday night at Sundance. "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" takes Spurlock on a mission to do what the U.S. government has not been able to so far: Find the infamous, evil terrorist.
Spurlock traveled to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt and Morocco, interviewing dozens of people from school children to bin Laden family friends. The work was extensive, much deeper and more textured than anything I’ve seen on network news shows.
Indeed, Spurlock travels to bin Laden’s former farm, now a group of abandoned huts in Pakistan. He even goes into one of those caves we keep hearing about, a likely spot where the maniacal architect of Sept. 11 could be hiding. He’s shot at, bullied and reprimanded. Spurlock even had his cameras shut down. But still he persisted.
The result of "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" is extraordinary. Along the way, his meetings with regular people — man-in-the-street-type stuff — in those aforementioned countries are superb.
The most memorable may be with two Saudi high school kids who can only be interviewed with supervisors in the room. They look like hostage victims as they respond to Spurlock’s questions about their freedom and culture; a lot is said in their eyes. Quickly, though, the interview is shut down when the questions get even slightly political.
Saudia Arabia is not the only Middle East country where Spurlock has trouble. In the Hasidic neighborhood of Tel Aviv, he’s taunted and shoved. An old man pushes him away. They are not welcome. Spurlock was actually more welcome on the Gaza Strip, where people were interested in speaking to him. More or less divided treatment greets him in other countries.
The principal of the school where he taught was shown on TV saying he was a dedicated teacher.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325988,00.html
A teacher at a Tokyo school has been arrested for making a group of boys undress at knifepoint and stealing their underpants.
A group of eight boys, aged 12 to 13, were playing in school grounds earlier this month when the 26-year-old man, who teaches at a different school, approached them, Kyodo news agency said.
Two of the boys ran away but he made the other six take off their trousers and underpants, Kyodo quoted local police as saying. The knife touched one boy, causing minor injuries, Kyodo reported.
The teacher is also suspected of taking a mobile phone from one of the boys and making nuisance calls to his home afterwards, Kyodo reported.
Just a reminder that the Dow was up 177 points yesterday and is poised to open higher this morning.
A huge mistake that many rabbonim are making, and I can't believe that so many lamdonim could be so naive to err this way, is their reading of the classic mekor of doing teshuvah for arayos. Chazal say if you see a talmid chochom doing an aveirah at "night" (ervah), al teharher acharav bayom because vadai assah teshuvah.
Chazal obviously mean an adult consentual tryst. They could not possibly mean a maaseh retzicha against children.
People are getting more than one foreclosure notice when they have multiple mortgages on their home. I wonder how the fresser banks fight over repossessing them.
What a chutzpah! This means Paskesz will be next! Then Rubashkin will write another letter citing this!
Hershey Hikes Candy Prices by 13 Percent
By MARC LEVY,AP
Posted: 2008-01-28 17:33:56
HARRISBURG, Pa. (Jan. 28) - Hershey, the nation's largest candymaker, said it is raising the wholesale price of its chocolate bars for the second time in a year as energy and commodity costs spiral higher.
Prices increases are a sensitive topic right now in the industry. Canada's federal Competition Bureau is investigating price-fixing allegations against the Canadian divisions of Nestle, Mars, Hershey and others, prompting an inquiry by the U.S. Justice Department and several lawsuits.
Associated Press
Posted: 2008-01-29 08:29:26
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House plans to vote this afternoon on the $150 billion economic aid package that would mean tax rebates to most income earners. The plan appears to be on a fast track to passage in the House but faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers in both parties are seeking to tack on billions for senior citizens and the unemployed.
Republicans were as eager as Democrats to revamp the plan. Several GOP senators backed the proposal to extend unemployment payments for 13 weeks for those whose benefits have run out, with 26 more weeks available in states with jobless rates higher than 6 percent. Some also have asked for more business tax breaks.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, a Finance Committee member, called the unemployment extension "critical" and said she supported ensuring that the rebates reached the elderly.
Under a plan unveiled Monday by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the Finance Committee chairman, some 20 million senior citizens not covered by the House plan because they don't have income would receive rebates.
It also restores a business tax break dropped during the House negotiations that would permit corporations suffering losses now to reclaim taxes previously paid.
WASHINGTON -- Relaxed, confident and unapologetic, President Bush delivered his seventh State of the Union address Monday, ----------------
Same here!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3500177,00.html
Ariel man poses as rabbi, rapes woman to ‘repair her soul’
Yonatan Bassa, 38, posed as Rabbi, forced woman seeking counseling to have sex in order to 'repair her soul'; defrauded her of $18,000
Vered Luvitch
The Tel-Aviv District Court charged 38-year-old Yonatan Bassa of Ariel with rape and committing an indecent act Tuesday, after the latter had sexually assaulted a woman who had turned to him for counseling while he had posed as a rabbi.
The indictment states that Bassa would claim to be a rabbi and give Torah lesson to Jewish penitents, or ba’alei teshuvah, even though he was never ordained. In March 2007, he was approached by a woman who had asked for his guidance and help in retuning to the Jewish faith.
During this first meeting he asked the woman for money to ‘redeem her soul’, and instructed her to stop psychotherapy as well as all psychiatric medication.
Bassa’s charge obediently stopped taking her prescribed psychiatric medication, and held another meeting with the ‘rabbi’. During this meeting, Bassa told her that they were a husband and wife burglary team in a past life, and must now ‘make amends’ for their past actions.
The woman protested, but an angry Bassa told her that he had conversed with God on this matter, and proceeded to kiss her. The woman then asked Bassa to end their meeting.
The two then met again at a later date, this time in Bassa’s car, whereupon her immediately began to kiss and hug the hapless woman, later undressing and raping her as she wept and pleaded. At the end of their meeting, Bassa warned his ‘client’ not to mention their meeting to anyone, as this was their own private atonement for their sins.
In addition to this aforementioned rape, Bassa is also accused of aggravated fraud. Upon learning that his female client was to receive a large sum of money for injuries sustained during an accident, Bassa asked her for a NIS 12,000 ($3,000) loan for “charity to an impoverished family”.
Additonal 'client' also raped, defruaded
The client refused at first, but ultimately gave Bassa aforementioned sum. He ultimately defrauded her of roughly NIS 74,000 ($18,000).
Bassa is also accused of defrauding and committing forcible acts on another client, who had come to him seeking spiritual guidance under the assumption that he was an ordained Rabbi.
Bassa told his client that she has committed many sins, for which she must atone, and asked her to pay him NIS 2,000 ($500) in order to cleanse her soul. During a subsequent meeting he forcibly committed a lewd act upon the woman, after telling her that having sex with him would atone for her sins.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3474678,00.html
'Fewer rape victims file complaints with police'
Director of the Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women says one of reasons women file less complaints is media exposure recent cases received. Recent survey reveals only 10% of victims file charges
Yael Branovsky Published: 11.22.07, 21:27 / Israel News
Only 10% of women who have been victims of sexual assault file complaints with police, a new survey conducted by the Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women revealed.
According to Director Marit Danon, one of the reasons victims hesitate to approach the authorities is the media exposure of recent legal cases that demonstrated what plaintiffs undergo.
Danon told ynet, "When a victim sees the anguish plaintiffs go through in the media, they think twice before filing charges. This is what happened after the much publicized cases of former President Katsav and Haim Ramon as well as also other cases that have received media attention."
The survey was conducted by Shiluv institute ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25.
Danon added that, according to survey, the public's perception of victims of sexual assault is flawed and misconstrued. "
The survey demonstrates the gaps between the perception and reality. For example, about 20% of the public believe that rape is the victim's fault even though data and testimonies prove that this is not the case. If we manage to change these misperceptions, the psychological barriers will be removed and more women will file complaints."
Public Service Announcement From The UOJ Clinic For Orthodox Jews
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By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
Middle age makes you miserable, so don't blame your job, your kids, your spouse, your income or lack of it, suggests an international study of 2 million people from 80 nations released today.
Researchers from Great Britain and the USA analyzed data spanning more than 35 years on measures such as depression, anxiety, mental well-being, happiness and life satisfaction.
They found that men and women in their 40s were more likely to be depressed and weren't as happy as other ages. Middle age is such a low point for well-being that it's at the bottom of a U-shaped curve that indicates greater happiness among the young and old.
"It's midlife per se," says co-author Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. "It's something deep beyond all the controls in our equation. It's a developing midlife low. It doesn't just happen one year and go away another."
For both sexes, the probability of depression peaks around age 44.
Oswald doesn't have any concrete answers on why such a slump occurs.
"My best conjecture is that people eventually learn to quell their infeasible aspirations," he says. "They manage to get their expectations into line with what they can actually achieve."
The study by Oswald and fellow economist David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., being published in the journal Social Science & Medicine found the same U-shape by age for 72 of 80 countries studied.
"You can be almost certain you will follow this U-shaped curve," Oswald says. "If you are finding life tough in your 40s, maybe it's useful to know this is completely normal."
The research found a less pronounced age factor in developing countries.
Others who study happiness are less convinced this midlife slump is all about age.
"In order to prove that, you can't just prove the other things are wrong. You have to get evidence to measure that," says Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has studied happiness for more than 30 years.
"I'm not saying it's impossible, but I would be careful about jumping too quickly on some biological factor."
Research by Angus Deaton, a Princeton University economist, has found a similar U-shaped curve in some countries, but he says it doesn't hold true globally.
"Young people are happier in some countries, and in some countries middle-aged are happy. It depends on which country," he says. "In my data, it's true if you look some places, older people are really miserable relative to younger people. It's not U-shaped. (Happiness is) just going down."
Despite the skepticism, Oswald says the age factor appears real.
"We're correlating mental well-being with age, having factored out 100 other influences," Oswald says.
"In 2008, social science can't do better than this."
I smell a Tendler!
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The indictment states that Bassa would claim to be a rabbi and give Torah lesson to Jewish penitents, or baalei teshuvah, even though he was never ordained. In March 2007, he was approached by a woman who had asked for his guidance and help in retuning to the Jewish faith.
During this first meeting he asked the woman for money to redeem her soul, and instructed her to stop psychotherapy as well as all psychiatric medication.
Bassas charge obediently stopped taking her prescribed psychiatric medication, and held another meeting with the rabbi. During this meeting, Bassa told her that they were a husband and wife burglary team in a past life, and must now make amends for their past actions.
The woman protested, but an angry Bassa told her that he had conversed with God on this matter, and proceeded to kiss her. The woman then asked Bassa to end their meeting.
The two then met again at a later date, this time in Bassa's car, whereupon her immediately began to kiss and hug the hapless woman, later undressing and raping her as she wept and pleaded. At the end of their meeting, Bassa warned his client not to mention their meeting to anyone, as this was their own private atonement for their sins.
Ex-Staples exec sentenced to 3 1/2 years for embezzlement
BOSTON - A former vice president of Staples Inc. was sentenced yesterday to 3« years in prison for embezzling nearly $600,000 from the office products company. James Dorman, formerly of Westborough, will also have to pay $585,000 in restitution to Staples. The former marketing executive pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering charges for submitting invoices for nonexistent vendors and misusing corporate travel funds to pay for personal travel for himself and three women. Prosecutors said Dorman met two of the women while they were working at strip clubs in Dallas and used his corporate American Express card to buy them diamond jewelry and an all-expenses-paid trip to the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Dorman, 40, was fired from Staples in 2005 after the company became aware of the embezzlement.
Refering to Rabbi Yisroel Belsky as Adolf Belsky sends the message loud and clear as to what he is all about.
People are getting more than one foreclosure notice when they have multiple mortgages on their home. I wonder how the fresser banks fight over repossessing them.
------------------------
Of course I thought of this. Simple---The house goes up for auction -- unpaid taxes go first - the first trust deed goes first - the second trust deed goes second - the third TD goes third - the 4th TD goes fourth - the 5th goes fifth - the shver goes last!!!!!!
To Anonymous 1:21AM,
Again, before you jump to attack and refer to others as "am haaretz", read my comment carefully. I said to look up the RAMBAN (Nachmanides), not the Rambam. You can also look up the Chinuch which quotes the Ramban regarding the mitzvos of Shiluach Hakan, Oso V'es B'no and Shivas Yamim Tachas Imo. In summary, the Ramban says that Hashem gave us these mitzvos which show compassion upon the mother bird/animal, in order for us to apply this to our fellow humans. This doesn't mean that Hashem is showing extra mercy upon the animals. If that were so, the Torah would prohibit schitah. These mitzvos are to teach us a lesson in compassion, exactly as UOJ stated it. The mishnah which the Rambam is quoting (which you are jumping at) states that one who asks Hashem to have mercy on us like Hashem has mercy on the mother bird, they shut him up. Go read the RambaN, and perhaps I will have succeeded in shutting you up.
Steve - I wouldn't waste my time with this twisted idiot.
On a historical note...After the Holocaust RSFM stopped eating meat (circa 1945). He said there was enough killing! He relied on "basar v'dagim v'chol maatamim" for shabbos.
UOJ- why dont you just proclaim yourself the savior of the Jews; you seem to the self annointed conscience of orthodoxy; why not go one step further and become moshiach?
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Well --- I was sort of hoping you guys would do that:-)
Actually...I'm just a seriously humble Jew...doing what every thinking Jew should be doing!
When a rabbi certifies that Ploni the Molester has done teshuvah, and Ploni keeps molesting, that rabbi was objectively, demonstrably defective in understanding human nature and/or the halacha. Kavod should vanish until things change, just like we hope it would for a rav who certified shark as kosher.
Again, with objective standards: a drug abusing physician can be forced to undergo random drug tests as a condition of being allowed to resume his practice.
If he refuses, "Sorry, I don't care how many rabbis sign off, no dice."
But "Sorry, "our understanding has changed" doesn't cut it in the case of someone who 30 years ago was molesting kids.
Heaven and earth should have been overturned to make sure that Ploni never came near a child again. And any rabbi who thinks, or thought then that a molester who isn't so horrified by his actions that he says "Rather than do that again to another innocent child, I'll agree to any kind of regimen of imprisonment or supervision that will guarantee that I'm never around children again" isn't worth the paper his smicha is printed on.
Here's a simple hypothetical: Suppose you had murderers who were in the mental health system rather than prison because of their mental illness. Some mental health professional certifies one of them as cured, leading to his release. He soon kills again. Same mental health professional does it again and again with other murderers who all kill again.
Do we say "oh well, this mental health professional applied the rules properly, followed the right procedures and methods, these are just unfortunate incidents?"
Or, do we say that there is something wrong either with the procedures and methods or with the practitioner, and we'd better
-find out what went wrong
-If the problem is in the practitioner, we'd better never let him near any kind of responsibility again.
-If the problem is in the rules, we'd better either change them or interpret them differently, and by now anybody who defends the old deadly ways had better be removed from any responsibility for people's welfare.
UOJ- why dont you just proclaim yourself the savior of the Jews; you seem to the self annointed conscience of orthodoxy; why not go one step further and become moshiach?
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Avi Shafran, you should not be posting insults against UOJ on company time.
The Rambam himself allows that all chukim are also governed by rational reasons. He offers one himself when discussing shaatnez in the Yad Hachazaka.
I wonder if the reason to not eat meat al pi kabbalah is the same as RSFM's. If I'm not mistaken, Rav Shaar Yoshuv Cohen and lbc"l the Baba Sali are among those who do not eat meat.
Of course today there is an imperative to not eat meat in much of the United States where Rubashkin tarfus is the only sad option.
"The UOJ Clinic For Orthodox Jews"
Are there any franchise territories still available?
Ben Bernanke:
I'm assuming you are not being shmeared by the Wall St. chevra! If you truly care about the American economy and not playing to the financial markets, the Fed rate cut should be 25 basis points...no more!
Adolph belsky is an honorable man.
It's my understanding that these nitpickers even operate in Boro Park.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/01/29/2008-01-29_theyre_in_the_liceremoving_business-2.html
They're the lice ladies of Brooklyn.
A network of a dozen Orthodox Jewish businesswomen has developed a specialty in nitpicking — a profession rooted in Jewish tradition, the women say.
"They say Jewish men make good husbands," laughed Abigail Rosenfeld, who charges about $100 a head and works solo out of her Kensington home. "Jewish women are known to be nitpickers."
These days, the best technique involves less picking and more of a combination of combing and the use of various potions.
The women — who live in Borough Park, Kensington, Flatbush and Marine Park — have known each other for years and have worked together on lice outbreaks across the borough.
Lice are tiny parasitic insects — adults are about the size of a sesame seed — that live among hairs, most commonly on the head, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nits are their eggs.
"Everybody here has a lot of kids, so [the louse infestation] spreads faster," said Susan Sherman of Borough Park, who's been nitpicking for years and is Rosenfeld's best friend from high school.
Sherman recently started LiceBGoners, employing 16 people and charging $75 an hour for a treatment that lasts an hour or two.
Rosenfeld also offered a more serious explanation of her community's specialty. The women have experience checking food for bugs, which aren't kosher.
"Do you know how many bugs you can find in dates and figs, lettuce, celery?" she said.
Because lice are not particular to the Jewish community, the lice ladies' fame has spread far and wide. Sherman tended recently to a family in Connecticut who hailed her as a lifesaver.
Adie Horowitz, of Marine Park, who runs Manhattan-based Licenders, recalled another reason Orthodox women got into the delousing profession about 10 years ago. "There was a tough strain coming in from Israel," said Horowitz. "Now all the lice are resistant to the poisons."
The Lady Bug, a good friend of Rosenfeld's, credited her as a master nitpicking teacher.
"Abby was the first one to develop the method," she said. "She should have patented it, but she didn't."
Rosenfeld's method, developed about 10 years ago, involves repeated combings, first with hair coated in conditioner and then with baking soda. The lice ladies use various versions of a stainless-steel comb with closely spaced teeth to do their work.
"We're social workers and psychologists for panicked mothers," said Dalya Harel, of Lice Busters NYC, who's been nitpicking for more than 20 years and employs eight people.
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/reports/fact_sheet_examples.pdf
Margo is trying to claim that he gets the $300 rebate for every kid in YTT.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/267629.html
Carrell also is concerned that inmates will chose to be members of multiple religions – or even all religions – out of a desire to exploit the system, rather than from sincere conviction. For example, an inmate could profess to be Muslim to get a prayer rug to decorate his cell, or Jewish to have access to Kosher meals.
“I don’t know how somebody can be a pagan and a Catholic,” Carrell said. “That’s like being partly pregnant.”
Gary Friedman, who heads up a committee that advises the Corrections Department on religious matters, agrees. Other chaplains also have expressed concerns with the policy, he said.
“The policy change might seem like something minor to a lay person, but in prison, little things become big things,” said Friedman, who is Jewish and trained as a chaplain.
“How can they be sincere if they don’t follow the dictates of the faith they claim to have a sincere belief in?” Friedman asked. “How can they say they’re Jewish, knowing one can’t self-convert under Jewish law?”
He’s seen inmates convert to Judaism and then contact Jewish organizations seeking money.
The Winnipeg Free Press ran an op-ed Sunday that alleges extremely serious lapses on the part of the OU, lapses that may mean you ate non-kosher food…
THROUGHOUT the 1990s, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp. sold as kosher fish that wasn't, well, kosher. It should have been a scandal, but it wasn't because word never got out.
Even today, if you call the president and CEO of FFMC, as I did, you will find that he knows nothing about it -- he arrived long after this took place and it seems no one with knowledge of it has seen reason to tell the new boss.
So why raise the issue today, more than seven years after it was hushed up?
Because the federal Conservative government has commissioned a comprehensive study of the Crown corporation's less-than-stellar operation, which was created in the late '60s to market all of the catch of the inland fishery. In fact, the George Morris Centre, an international research organization, has recently completed this study and hopefully it will be released soon.…
The FFMC is the largest North American supplier of fish minced to produce kosher fish called "gefilte fish." Its plant is certified by the Orthodox Union (OU), the most respected kosher certification organization in the United States.
To be OU certified, the FFMC employed a rabbi to supervise the processing and cleaning required for the kosher certification. This is very important to all who eat kosher food, whether they are Jews who observe kosher practices or consumers who simply want to be assured that their food has been prepared according to strict hygienic guidelines.
But according to information obtained from employees at FFMC, the rabbi was often derelict in his duties and management knew it.
While he was required to observe the production line at all times, he spent a great deal of time in an office on a computer, or was simply absent.
He was obliged to make sure that only fish with fins and scales were being processed, that species like burbot and catfish were not in the mix. Allowing a catfish into the mix would be as offensive to Jews as dropping pork into ground beef would be to Muslims.
The rabbi inspector was in the employ of the FFMC from the late 1980s until 2000. But for at least the last five of those years, he lived in Kenora and commuted to Winnipeg once every couple of weeks to pick up his Government of Canada paycheque.
In his absence, former workers say they were instructed to make OU labels to seal each box of minced fish, and processing lines were operated at maximum rates without due respect for the Jewish Sabbath and holidays.
Companies like Manischewitz, which markets kosher foods, were paying a two-cent per pound surcharge to the FFMC for OU-sealed product in belief that it was kosher. With several million pounds of this fish being processed annually, those pennies added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a span of 10 years.
All of this information comes from interviews with former workers and documents filed in a lawsuit related to a different matter.…
Depending on how the plant ran, it might not be necessary for the mashgiach (rabbi) to be on the line at all times. That said, I heard of similar behavior from OU mashgichim when I worked an OU Passover run years ago. The plant's management was upset that my co-mashgiach and I insisted on being on the floor at all times supervising the product run.
Why were they upset?
Because the year before the OU mashgiach sat in a little office studying for his drivers exam. He only came out once or twice per 8 hour shift, and then for only a few moments at a time.
Our vigilance stopped non-kosher-for-Passover product from entering the marketplace. But we were never told by the OU to be as careful as we were. We did what we did out of a sense of duty.
But don't come away from this post with the mistaken idea that haredi kosher supervision is somehow better. It is not.
Much haredi supervision relies on the OU. What haredim do often is relabel OU product as their own. And, as the various Rubashkin scandals have shown, even the best haredi supervision assures little.
So was your gefilte fish treife?
Maybe it was, but most likely, it was not.
Why?
Because companies will intentionally mislabel product. If the cases said whitefish or pike, they contained whitefish or pike.
Could there have been a stray catfish minced in?
Sure. But that stray piece of fish is battel, negated in the whole. It did not treife anything.
All this fish scandal proves is that Rabbi Ababdi is correct. You can (and probably should) rely on a product's label and ingredient panel. In the end, it will be far more reliable than any kosher supervision.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/westview/story/4111153p-4707438c.html
Here is the original article.
Stefansky's "Dagim" is also processed in the Winnepeg area. I wonder if it's in the same plant and if the "heimish" hashgocho has also been derelict. Dagim by the way was the subject of a major NY Times expose after 9/11. A Times reporter visited the facility in the Muslim part of the Philippines where the catch is brought and found that several of the employees were al Qaeda terrorists making extra money on the side. At least one rov that I know of started warning his kehillah to refrain from eating Dagim altz chamira sakanta missura.
I don't think there is any way that an OU mashgiach could live in Kenora, Ontario which is really remote. There is a Bnai Brith camp south of Kenora in Lake of the Woods, near the Minnesota border. The mashgiach was probably working at the camp for the Winnepeg Vaad.
Yossel cracks me up. Hey Joe...tell your buba maases to the gedolim. If McCain by some miracle pulls off a GOP win...Yossel is lobbying hard for the job. The only problem is...he won't get it! He's a loser...nobody wants a loser. He's all washed up - OU endorsed laundry detergent without bleach.
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WASHINGTON - Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who nearly won the vice presidency as a Democrat in 2000, says there's no way he'll be Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate should McCain become the party's presidential nominee.
"No, I'd tell him, 'Thanks, John, I've been there, I've done that. You can find much better,'" Lieberman told The Associated Press during an interview Tuesday in his Senate office. "I'm not seeking anything else."
The Connecticut senator said he was unequivocally ruling out sharing the GOP ticket with McCain.
Lieberman's endorsement of McCain in December and the campaigning he since has done in states such as New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina and Florida have stoked speculation that the Arizona senator might choose Lieberman as his running mate.
Lieberman planned to be back on the road for McCain as the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests near.
See Rabbi Senator Joe Lieberman's drasha:
To explain his decision to endorse Republican presidential candidate John McCain, one-time Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman told the Jerusalem Post:
“The rabbis say in the Talmud that a lot of rabbinic law is to put a fence around the Torah so you don’t get near to violating it,” he told The Jerusalem Post on a break from campaigning in Southern Florida on behalf of his colleague. “Well McCain has a series of very clear-headed policies toward terrorism and Islamic extremism [that put] extra layers behind his support of Israel,” he said.
http://www.freshwaterfish.com/FISHMARKET/SUBPAGES/OTHER/Print%20Burbot.pdf
The company is selling Burbot which it describes on this page as looking like an eel.
I believe the Maharal poskens in Tiferes Yisroel on Avoda Zara that since the only scales that are visible on Burbot are very tiny and only with the aid of a microscope (the first microscopes were actually invented in the 1400s), the fish is considered assur since we don't see kaskesses.
http://www.kashrut.com/articles/fishfaq/
In some official OU literature posted here, the OU states they do not allow Burbot because the scales are embedded under the skin.
I find this to be another unacceptable situation similar to Rubashkin where you have treif and kosher in the same facility with inadequate controls.
Stefansky supplied free tuna fish galore when I was there. I'm sure AJ Soloveitchik would not accept it if he was shown the NYT article.
When you follow the link to the "About" page:
http://www.freshwaterfish.com/english.htm
"The Corporation plant is kosher-certified and the largest supplier of fish to the gefilte fish market."
There's also a HUMUNGOUS sized OU logo with the motto: "We are pround to be an OU certified company"
Completely misleading as they also sell non-kosher fish. Let's see if the OU continues to let them get away with it now that everything is being swept back out into public from under the carpet.
The plant is not certified if they process treif fish. They should state that some kosher products are available.
Who does UOJ endorse if Bloomberg doesn't throw his hat in the ring?
Who does UOJ endorse if Bloomberg doesn't throw his hat in the ring?
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I'm betting my Borsalino that Bloomberg throws in his Borsalino.
Here's the way I see it: No party will have a clear frontrunner...or a big enough mandate to win in November. I believe that's how Bloomberg sees it.
I could be wrong....but.....
It's disgusting how Rabbi Suchard from Gateways kisses Lieberman's tuchess when he comes to the hotel. He even let's him give a "drasha" from the bima between mincha and maariv so Lieberman can espouse his left wing B.S. in politics and krum hashkafa in halacha.
The head of a major kiruv organization says that Suchard is a double hypocrite since Gateways, geared to making baalei teshuva, is supposed to be doing anything but allow someone to address the crowd with non-kosher philosophies.
The Agudah as a tax exempt organization is not allowed to endorse or blacklist any particular candidate, but I'm extremely curious. Is Bloomberg's Borsalino of the dusty variety?
http://www.mk.ca/kosher.php
MK Kashrus does allow burbot. I wonder what shita they are somech on.
It's still a problem with catfish and other garbage though.
I asked Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky ztvk"l if he relied on the OU. (In Yiddish it's funnier)
He said YES......pause....for salt!
UOJ- I'm not Avi Shafran as you assumed...heaven forbid someone who reads this blog actually disagrees with some of your almighty pontifications. You scored a few victories by exposing Kolko, Mondowitz, and the other frum scum out there, but it has all gone to your head. You're now the self annointed and self proclaimed beacon of Torah thought and the new savior of the Jews. You've become demented in the process-how on earth could you support Bloomberg for president ? You are a political asshole and selfish self-centered baal gaiva.
Anon is going bonkers because of a presidential endorsement? I mean, Bloomberg has his faults but it's not like he's Billary Clinton.
Get a grip, guy.
I always thought that OU gefilte fish had episs an extra geshmack. It must be the zest from deep red catfish meat.
What UOJ does not know about Bloomberg.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010230
Bloomberg's Bigotry
The New York Sun, stirring up speculation of a presidential run by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, includes a quote that shows why such a run would be unlikely to succeed:
Mr. Bloomberg's freewheeling question-and-answer session was peppered with the kind of provocative, blunt talk that could appeal to some voters while alienating others. "It's probably because of our bad educational system, but the percentage of people who believe in creationalism is really scary for a country that's going to have to compete in a world where science and medicine require a better understanding," he said in one such foray.
If by "creationalism" Bloomberg means the idea that the book of Genesis is an accurate description of the origin of life on Earth, then he is right, at least, that a lot of people adhere to it. A 2005 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 42% believe that "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time." Another 18% believe that "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today." Only 26% endorse the view that "humans and other living things have evolved due to natural processes such as natural selection."
It's hard to see how one gets elected president by insulting the religious beliefs of at least 3 in 5 Americans. Of course, one might defend Bloomberg on the ground that he is a courageous truth-teller, unafraid to stand up for an unpopular view. But one would be wrong.
This columnist is among the 26% of Americans who hold a strictly naturalistic view of life's origin. Yet even we find Bloomberg's remark appalling in its arrogance and ignorance. He suggests that anyone who believes in the biblical account of creation is unqualified to do medical research or any other kind of science. This is a complete non sequitur, and it is belied by this story from the Associated Press:
Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible--exhibited this week for the first time--lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.
Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law--even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters--and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end. . . .
In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.
"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," Newton wrote. However, he added, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."
The AP notes that the Newton papers, according to the exhibition's curator, "complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion." No kidding. When Bloomberg endorses that idea, is he really expressing a devotion to science, or just a fashionable urban prejudice against serious Christians?
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010234
Lifelong Dem Leaves GOP; 'Many' Cheer
New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg "announced Tuesday that he has left the Republican Party and become unaffiliated," the Associated Press reports. The AP notes that Bloomberg was a "lifelong" Democrat until 2001, when he opportunistically switched parties to get a clear shot at the mayor's office. It also itemizes some of his views, and they sound as if they're lifted from the Democratic Party platform:
Throughout his five years as mayor, Bloomberg often has been at odds with his party and [President] Bush. He supports gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control and [federal funding of embryonic] stem cell research and hiked property taxes to help solve a fiscal crisis after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bloomberg is so out of step with the GOP that he opposed the confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice. He is term-limited and thus cannot seek re-election, which means that the Republican line is no longer of any use to him. So why is it news that he is abandoning his Republican affiliation?
Because, according to the AP's Sara Kugler, "many believe [it] could be a step toward entering the 2008 race for president."
To make sense of this assertion, you need to be fluent in the dialect of American English known as Journalese. In Journalese, many can be either singular or plural, and it is a first-person pronoun.
Which is to say, Bloomberg is the candidate of the media, ideologically as well as professionally. The positions Kugler enumerates are all very popular among journalists. And while they are also popular among Democrats, Democratic politicians do not necessarily support them, or support them sincerely.
The Dems have of late been playing down gun control, figuring that they have more to lose than to gain from a strong antigun stand. They would do the same with abortion if they thought it would profit them politically. (The list of Democrats who have gone from anti- to pro-abortion is a long one, as of course is the list of Republicans who've moved in the other direction.) John Kerry in 2004 said he opposed same-sex marriage, though everyone assumed he didn't really mean it, and he was one of only 14 senators to vote "no" on the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.
Bloomberg, by contrast, is a conviction politician, and his convictions match those of the liberal media. As we saw yesterday, he is not even afraid to insult the intelligence of the average American for failing to share Bloomberg's enlightened opinions.
This may go over in New York City, where everyone is above average, but we suspect it will not travel well. Yet while Bloomberg may not get many votes, he'll get favorable enough press coverage to make John McCain jealous.
Science as Belief System
Science is a method of acquiring knowledge, and, contrary to Bloomberg, there is no reason one cannot apply it in some areas and not others. A believer in the literal truth of Genesis might find it hard to be a paleontologist or an astrophysicist, but there is no reason whatever that he couldn't be an excellent metallurgist or epidemiologist.
In a May 2006 commencement address at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg expanded further on his views about science:
Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don't happen to agree with their agendas. Some call it "pseudo-science," others call it "faith-based science," but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it "political science."
You can see "political science" at work when it comes to global warming. Despite near unanimity in the science community there's now a movement--driven by ideology and short-term economics--to ignore the evidence and discredit the reality of climate change.
You can see "political science" at work with respect to stem cell research. Despite its potential, the federal government has restricted funding for creating new cell lines--putting the burden of any future research squarely on the shoulders of the private sector. Government's most basic responsibility, however, is the health and welfare of its people, so it has a duty to encourage appropriate scientific investigations that could possibly save the lives of millions.
He then goes on to make disparaging remarks about creationism, similar to those we noted yesterday.
In truth, global warming as popularly understood is more prophecy than science; the demand to suppress all doubt and dissent is contrary to the very spirit of science. As for stem-cell research, we know of no one who opposes it out of a hostility to science. In fact, we know of no one who opposes stem-cell research, period. What they oppose is stem-cell research that involves the destruction of human embryos, because they believe that embryos have intrinsic value. Whether or not you agree, this is a moral question, not an empirical one.
Science, unlike Bloomberg's conception of it, is neither prophetic nor moralistic. It is simply an approach to acquiring knowledge. Bloomberg seems to have mistaken it for a belief system.
When we hold our annual Fresser dinners at Levana's in Manhattan or Beverly Hills we were scared to publicly announce Catfish as part of our exotic lineup with quail and locusts, so we sneak it into the gefilte fish.
It's like the "BIG BEATLES" in the salad at Le Marais. Eckstein should have another update soon from Belsky that all is fine in Winnipeg.
For me it's simple:
Hillary - Obama for the Democrats -Both of them scare me silly! Marxism here we come!
Romney or McCain for the Republicans - McCain is a ticking time bomb! He spent 7 years in solitary at the Hanoi Hilton - He can't be all there. Romney...well the guy believes in...Never mind. I can't ever vote for Romney!
Bloomberg...imperfect...Free- Thinker has it's pluses in politics. I don't agree with him on his social issues...but he's better than the rest. A straight -shooter..
I'll take Bloomberg any day over the rest. He's the unorthodox candidate...and if he's serious about winning - he can.
What's wrong with me? My hashkofos are probably the closest to Orthodox Judaism of any candidate.
I assume UOJ is concerned about the Mormon belief in Mr. & Mrs. G-d kaviyochel and polygamy?
Mitt Romney still has Kolko's vote because he's going with the pretty boy. ( Yudi was turned off by John Edwards when Letterman messed up his hair).
Maybe I should run for President when I get tired of bouncing on Oprah's sofa. I'm sure UOJ will love my Scientologist beliefs in space aliens. I would be the greatest thing since Dennis Kucinich.
It may not be good for us if a member of the tribe becomes Commander in Chief.
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I respectfully disgree! Now get the H@#$ off my site:-)
I think what really bugs anon is that UOJ makes pronouncements that have an impact on his huge readership.
I am against catfish and other bottom feeders of any kind.
Oh wait ... isn't that what UOJ calls moreinu Rav Belsky? I take that back!!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080117/BUSINESS/760146677/1006&template=printart
By Kara Rowland
A radio industry magazine withdrew a lifetime-achievement award to conservative radio talk-show host Bob Grant, citing racial remarks he made in the 1990s and his support for UOJ.
Radio & Records Inc. had planned to recognize the longtime conservative commentator with its 2008 Lifetime Industry Achievement Award in the District in March. Mr. Grant, 78, airs weeknights on WABC-770 AM in New York City.
But the Los Angeles publication said it would no longer honor him after complaints by board member Rabbi Israel Belsky.
"R&R is sensitive to the diversity of our community and does not want the presentation of an award to Mr. Grant to imply our endorsement of past comments by him that contradict our values and the respect we have for all members of our community," Radio & Records said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Company executives yesterday declined to comment further on the decision to rescind the award.
Mr. Grant, revered by listeners as the father of talk radio, began his broadcasting career in Chicago in the 1940s.
He arrived in New York in 1970 and joined WABC in 1984. He was fired in 1996 in response to on-air comments he made about Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, who was killed in a plane crash.
Mr. Grant described himself as a "pessimist" for predicting that Mr. Brown had survived the crash.
Mr. Grant last year returned to WABC, which is owned by Citadel Broadcasting Corp., after spending a decade at rival WOR-710 AM.
Reached yesterday at his home in New Jersey, Mr. Grant said Radio & Records "should be ashamed of themselves."
"It's contemptible that they would do such a thing," he said. "I smelled a rat right away when I got a hazmana from Belsky only 20 minutes after I posted a comment on UOJ's blog."
Mr. Grant said he found it ironic that the Rev. Al Sharpton is scheduled to speak at the R&R Talk Radio Seminar, where he would have received his award.
"I think it says more than I could possibly say," he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Sharpton did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.
The news of Mr. Grant's rebuke spread quickly among members of the talk-radio industry who seized on the move as an affront to free speech. Industry insiders called for a boycott of the R&R conference, to be held March 13-15 at the Renaissance Washington Hotel as well as the Agudah Fresser Convention. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity interviewed Mr. Grant on his syndicated show, heard locally on WMAL-630 AM.
"Why don't we let everybody say everything, and let the audience ... decide who they want to listen to?" Mr. Hannity said.
Radio & Records reportedly decided to drop the award after receiving e-mails chronicling on-air remarks Mr. Grant made in the 1990s. The list of remarks, compiled by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, was sent to members of the publication's staff by a person not affiliated with FAIR, according to Steve Rendall, a senior analyst with the liberal media-watchdog group.
A 1995 FAIR article by Jim Naureckas, titled "50,000 Watts of Hate," quoted Mr. Grant as referring to Haitian refugees as "maggots" and calling for policemen with machine guns to show up at a gay pride parade. Mr. Rendall said staff members transcribed the comments from tapes of Mr. Grant's show.
"It seems to me that Radio & Records is doing the right thing," Mr. Rendall said. "Without the bigotry, there isn't that much left of Grant."
Asked about his comments, Mr. Grant did not deny that he made them, but noted they were more than 10 years old.
"You mean there's no statute of limitations?" Mr Grant said, calling FAIR a "vicious" group that has targeted him for years "and has not let up."
Phil Boyce, the WABC program director who fired and later rehired Mr. Grant, said he was "shocked and hugely disappointed" by the decision to rescind the award.
"R&R has egg on their face. At the same convention where they are banning Bob Grant, Al Sharpton gets to come and lecture program directors like me about what is good and just and fair on the radio," he said. "Yeah, there are some things that Bob said years ago he shouldn't have said. He paid the price, and that's 10 years ago."
A spokeswoman for the Nielsen Co., which owns Radio & Records, said the parent company is "standing behind Radio & Records."
"The decision is totally endorsed by the senior-most executives at Nielsen," she said.
Hey UOJ and Washington Times--
You are morons- the supposed article from the real Washington Times was altered from the original. Those interested in reading the accurate version can pull it up from the Washington Times website. The original had nothing about UOJ, Belsky, nor the Agudah Convention.
Are you so desperate for ammunition against organized Orthodox Judiasm that you either resort to deliberate distortions, or allow them to be posted as if they were true? You are a disgrace to journalistic integrity, as well as personal honesty.
Then again, arrogance or leitzonos leads even well intentioned people to fraud. Your head has become too big for your streimel or Borsolino or whatever the hell you wear up top. Shame on you.
Steve you're thick and you take the Ramban out of context, again these are the exact words of the UOJ “because the suffering of the mother is unbearable for her to observe; to see her offspring - hurt, slaughtered or captured."
Now here are the words of the RAMBAN (nachmanadies)you quoted "Behold these mitsvas ARE NOT ABOUT RACHMANAS ON THE ANIMALS!! However they are decrees that teach us midos tovas etc. and behold this mitsva has a hidden great meaning and therefore it's reward is great".
FYI The Zohar elaborates on some of the many meanings of this mitsva and he writes that one of the meanings of "lo tikach haaim al habonim"- Do not take away the mother from the children" refers to people who study and learn kabala, in short what he says, is that people who cannot grasp kabala should not in any way deter away others(that's the lo sikach haaim al habonim) who can grasp and learn kabalistic ideas. Since the UOJ is the epotome of one who deters others away as he's made clear his issues with the Ari and the Zohar it fits him very well that his grasp of this Mitsva is that of a little child as he so proudly states "To me this is - and always was - the essence of our Torah ha'kdosha."
What a pity!
http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=1816
It's a scandal in itself how the Winnipeg fish company dumps many millions of pounds of fish in the forests to rot so that no one can benefit from it. This is an illegal practice known as "bushing" to which the government turns a blind eye. Winnipeg is also known for it's infamous Wheat Board, another monopoly. R' Elchonon Wasserman used to lament about the tons of wheat that Canada threw in the ocean when people were literally starving to death.
They note here that Kim Sigurdson is ethnically a Metis. That is a group of mixed race people. They are half native Indian and half European, usually French or Scottish, but Sigurdson is an Icelandic name.
Anon not only has zero sense of humor but is really getting angry. Maybe he hasn't been with a woman in a while.
The Washington Times article is linked so that anyone can see the original. It's plain to see that only a few words were altered in a humorous way that most people would find funny.
GET A LIFE YOU LOSER!
The Dow was up 96 points yesterday. It will be really interesting to see what happens today with the Fed.
The only reason why John McCain won Florida last night is because Hispanics there that are heavily Republican don't like Mitt Romney's shitos about deporting illegals.
Major bushos by the way for Rudy Giuliani. Man did he ever fizzle out.
The Florida retiree crowd that is even more substantial than the Cubans likes the fact that McCain is 72 years old with white hair. Amazing what can propel someone to victory.
The Goylems in Boca, Pompano and Miami Beach that read the NY Times were impressed with the paper's McCain endorsement. That endorsement will hurt McCain in many other states as it only confirms Conservative belief that McCain is a closet Liberal.
If Dubya woulda been successful in Iraq, the frontrunner today would be Jeb Bush who's not even in the running.
TEAM 'SEX' RAGE
GAL SUES HOFSTRA
By TOM LIDDY and STEFANIE COHEN
January 30, 2008 -- A busload of lewd Hofstra University football players sexually harassed a former teen beauty queen who worked for the team by screaming to see her "boobies," demanding sex and locking her in a bus bathroom, the woman charges in a bombshell lawsuit.
Lauren Summa, 23, who worked as an assistant athletic manager for the team while earning her master's at the Long Island college, said she was "devastated" by the players' animal-like behavior - which allegedly included sexist comments, sexual propositions and threats.
Summa, a former Miss Teen Pittsburgh and Miss Teen Pennsylvania, said players routinely harassed her about her football-playing boyfriend, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn federal court.
"If you want to be with a real man, come sit with me," one player allegedly told her before asking her to have sex with him on the bus, in front of the other players.
On the ride to a game in Delaware, the players barricaded Summa in the bathroom, the suit states.
And during a trip to Massachusetts, a coach played the movie "Shadowboxer" for the team. After a graphic sex scene between a black man and a white woman, a black Hofstra player told Summa that all white women want black men, the suit states.
As a result, Summa asked the coach to turn off the movie, which prompted the players to threaten Summa and chant repeatedly: "We want boobies!"
Summa reported the behavior to Hofstra football coach David Cohen, the suit states, but he told her the incident was "not serious" and would only draw unneeded attention to the football program.
She still filed a complaint with the school, and that, she says, cost her the job, despite the fact that Cohen had continually praised her work, the suit states.
She also filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights. As a result of that complaint, she says, the school reneged on another job offer, as an assistant to the office of university relations, the lawsuit claims.
"I am devastated by Hofstra's treatment," Summa said in an e-mailed statement.
Her attorney, Douglas Wigdor, said he plans to demand at least $1 million on behalf of his client.
"We are confident that all matters relating to Ms. Summa were handled appropriately," said Hofstra spokeswoman Ginny Greenberg. "We do not comment on pending litigation."
Cohen would not comment on the charges.
tom.liddy@nypost.com
Druckman Got It Right!
----------------------------
Rabbi: Jews Must Lead Condemnation of China
by Hillel Fendel
Rabbi David Druckman, the Chief Rabbi of the northern city of Kiryat Motzkin and an outspoken opponent of Land of Israel withdrawals, says Jews must take the lead in condemning China for its murder of prisoners of conscience in order to harvest their organs.
"The atrocity is so great," Rabbi Druckman says on a recently released video, "that there are simply no words to express it. From a certain standpoint it is even worse than what the Nazis did... to cut organs from people under the cover of medical help for other people is simply astonishing and shocking from every human vantage point."
"It is especially incumbent upon us as Jews to lead the campaign that expresses total disgust at this phenomenon," Rabbi Druckman says. "Especially us, the Jewish Nation, that suffered the crimes of the Nazis, may their names be blotted out, and those of the Communists under Stalin - who can stand by and comprehend the world's silence at all this?"
Israeli Petition Against Chinese Cruelty
Three months ago, over 220 Israeli rabbis, academics and politicians signed a petition calling for an end to the atrocities taking place in China. Among the signatories were 8 Knesset Members (Hendel and Levy from National Union, Melchior and Cabel from Labor, Kachlon of Likud, and Oron, Gal'on and Vilan of Meretz).
Over 40 rabbis signed, including Rabbis Chaim Druckman, Shlomo Aviner, Yuval Cherlow, Shmuel David of Afula, as well as Temple Mount loyalist rabbis, Moshe Feiglin and leaders of his Jewish Leadership group, and more.
Chinese Torture
China is accused of holding thousands of political prisoners without trial, beating and torturing people who protest being thrown out of their homes, employing slave labor for their mass manufacturing industries, and more. Among the most persecuted groups are the Falun Gong, which numbers at least 70 million members in China alone. Tens of thousands of practitioners of the Falun Gong system of meditation and character-building are ruthlessly persecuted by the government, including having organs removed from their bodies while still alive.
The CIPFG - Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China - has begun a campaign against holding the 2008 Olympics in China. "It will be a stain on the history of the Olympic Games and a disgrace to mankind if these games and these crimes against humanity are held at the same time in China," the organization states.
In the video-taped speech, Rabbi Druckman says that one of the seven Noachide commandments that the Jews are bidden to disseminate in the world is not to murder: "We as Jews must therefore stand at the front lines of this war, and employ every possible tactic in order that the world expunge atrocities such as this."
"When there is evil in the world," he continues, "every person with a human conscience, and every person with intelligence, must protest against it... Jewish Law requires of us to spread values of faith in the Creator and of maintaining the human image throughout the world. The same Torah that tells us to keep the Sabbath and to eat only Kosher food, also requires that we influence all of mankind - as is written, 'From Zion shall go forth Torah and the word of G-d from Jerusalem.'"
"We have to get our outraged objections, as people and as Jews, out to the world in every way possible... In this age of media, there are many methods, such as the torch passing through the countries of the world and will soon get to our region as well, ending with a giant rally here in Israel [on Feb. 18 - ed.]. It is obvious that we all support this initiative and welcome it. We must also do whatever will result in a sharp condemnation of these animals that are doing these things in China. This will help raise the standard of the entire human race in the world, and the more the world improves and becomes more gentle, this will bring us closer to the Redemption and the arrival of the Just Redeemer."
Religious - Not Just in Dress, but in Thought
"I believe that behind the description we carry of 'religious people' there is also real content - not just outer covering, but a genuine way of looking at the world... Certainly this is so in the Jewish faith, whose teachings about ethics and kindness have no rivals... Certainly one who sees himself as a religious person, not just in title but in essence, must join up with activities of this type."
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/africa/news/article_1389043.php/British_tycoon_van_Hoogstraaten_in_mass_pornography_charges
Prosecutors Tuesday implicated British rack-renting tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraaten in pornography charges involving scores of young Zimbabwean women and gave evidence of how he had been trapped in illegal black-market currency dealing.
Papers in the Harare magistrate's court said a police raid on his home in an exclusive Harare suburb had uncovered 150 photographs 'of young local Zimbabwean women photographed in nude and semi-nude states in the accused's bedroom' and some in compromising sexy positions.
Attempts to keep the convicted gangster in custody without bail failed because fraud police in Harare had detained him illegally for four of the six days after his arrest on Thursday.
He and three co-accused were allowed to go free late Tuesday on his lawyers won an order from the Harare high court for his immediate release.
Van Hoogstraaten, 63, made his first millions renting slum tenements in London and Brighton in the 60s, was jailed for four years for ordering a firebomb attack on a rabbi who owed him money
Uoj for president, steve as vp.
There is noone else out there, all who are running suck, and if elected will be a disaster,
Run uoj run !!
The Black players on the Hofstra team are honorable men. I knew them before I "resigned" as dean.
Rav Elyashev said pretty much the same thing a year or two ago.
LVF,
I'll consider...if you agree to become Hasidic advisor to the president:-)
http://www.247wallst.com/2008/01/the-banking-cri.html
As the selling of bank shares has fallen off, Wall St. has begun to believe that the worst of the global banking crisis is in the rear view mirror. Not likely. If investors are surprised that Citigroup (C) fell from $55 to $23, imagine the shock if the bank's shares move to $15. It has happened before.
UBS (UBS) was hit with another write-down for its subprime assets. That brings their total to $18 billion. The bank's loss for the last nine months of the year is over $11 billion. Losses at Societe Generale may have been caused in part by one trader, but the financial firm also took large mortgage-related write-offs.
UBS says it still has $29 billion in subprime holdings. Citi puts that number at closer to $37 billion. The idea that the value of those holdings is suddenly going to get better in a worsening housing market is counterintuitive. It is also probably just plain wrong.
While the State of NY is trying to strong-arm banks to put up $15 billion in credits for Ambac (ABK) and MBIA (MBI), the fact of the matter is that the bond ratings of those agencies could be cut at any time. If they are, the value of the bonds they insure will almost certainly drop. Big banks have exposure to that pool of debt. Bingo. Another round of lay-offs.
Consumer credit is also worsening. Car and credit card debt pools will be beaten up as 2008 goes on. A look at earnings at American Express (AXP) shows the process has already begun. Large banks hold some of the securities backed by these loans.
One estimate puts total subprime write-downs by banks at $130 billion in 2007. The amount of exposure left on balance sheets could be at least that much again and that does not take into account problems at bond insurers and with consumer debt.
Write-offs in Q1 and Q2 of this year will be stupendous. Count on it.
Hofstra is really hated by Blacks. Why? Because the football players are probably the only Colored people in the whole school.
IMHO --- The country had enough of the Bush family...at least for now!
That bum Chaim Kaminetzky touts the chevrah as the ultimate in gashmiyus. He doesn't even come close. He should be ashamed of himself!
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/godiva-chocolate-room-up-for-grabs/20080130064009990001
Godiva is offering an all-chocolate room for one lucky winner to share with his or her mate. Inside one winning box of chocolates -- sold only in North America -- the winner will find a note that they can use to claim their prize.
KIM LAWTON: "Religion has long had an uneasy relationship with U.S. politics. According to a recent Pew Forum survey, nearly 70 percent of Americans agree that it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs, and more than 60 percent say they'd be less likely to support a president who doesn't believe in God. But at the same time, more than four-in-10 Americans say they get uncomfortable when politicians talk about how religious they are.
Candidates from both parties are trying to find the right balance -- a dramatic change from recent presidential elections when many people of faith felt largely ignored by the Democrats. This time around, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in particular have active strategies for religious outreach.
Obama's campaign held a series of faith forums in early primary states, often under the radar because the candidate himself didn't usually attend. The campaign stays in close Internet contact with its religious supporters.
Obama and Clinton have been attending churches on the campaign trail every week. On this Sunday before the South Carolina primary, Clinton visited a predominantly black mainline Presbyterian church."
The Three "P's"...Politicians, Pimps, Prostitutes....
-----------
"Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in particular have active strategies for religious outreach."
WHere did UOJ get that hilarious picture of David Mandel & Shelly Silver from?
Hey UOJ!! How about a Mcain/Bloomberg ticket? could be a winner, no?
According to comments on ExposeMolesters regarding rebbeim at Be'er Hagolah yeshiva in Starett City, Brooklyn:
One rebbe with an out of control temper is savagely beating students.
Another rebbe often tells students "I f***ed your Mama last night". They say sex is the only thing on his mind and add: "He learned Russian curses from the students and used the words directly at students. His trademark "angry move" was when he puts his kippa in his mouth thats when you know you gotta run or hes about to catch you by your clothing or arm."
This is an outrage. I demand pay parity!
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28616.html
It's hard to place a valuation on the anti-discrimination industry. The 89-year-old Anti-Defamation League is the trailblazer, with an annual take of more than $40 million and a $400,000 salary for storied director Abraham Foxman.
BALTIMORE COMMUNITY: YOU DESERVE HIM!!!!!
---------------------
Aron Tendler is living in Baltimore with Naomi and Jeremy
Goldman in the Greenspring area.
Who are the Goldmans? Tendler mishpuche?
That rebbe at Beer Hagolah accused of being a sex maniac is the head mashgiach at a Pesach hotel for a supposedly top notch hashgocho.
Is Hopfer's "Home of the Molesters" Shul in the Greenspring area?
I hope California authorities don't lose interest in Aron Tendler now. Investigators sometimes give up when a suspect moves away.
Shmarye is pushing his support of the gay "pride" parade in Yerushalayim ir hakodesh.
That anonymous big mouth keeps railing against UOJ over arrogance but he's the one who comes across as the pompous putz.
http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1478
Tretyakov had never spoken out about his spying before last week, when he granted his first news media interviews to publicize the 352-page book Comrade J.: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War, written by former Washington Post journalist Pete Earley. The title is drawn from the KGB's code name for Tretyakov, Comrade Jean. The book was released on January 24 and is based on a series of interviews with Tretyakov, who was deputy rezident (station chief) of intelligence at Russia's United Nations mission from 1995 to 2000, and defected to the US as a double agent. His defection was first reported by the Associated Press in 2001. Shortly after, The New York Times broke the news that he was not a diplomat, but a top Russian spy who was extensively debriefed by the CIA and the FBI. He calls his defection "the major failure of Russian intelligence in the United States" and warns that Russia, despite the end of the Cold War, harbors bad intentions toward the United States. Tretyakov does not give details of any work for the US government or his defection, saying he does not want to help his former masters.
Tretyakov directed spy operations in New York and at the United Nations; he says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the Unitede Nation's oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. He names some names, but sticks mainly to code names.
The Washington Post marks that the book also gives quirky insights into how Russian spies operated in New York -- for example the pay phones at Bloomingdale's department store were favored for calling contacts without being bugged. Among the most alarming stories is a claim by a Russian businessman visiting Ottawa in the early 1990s that he kept a nuclear bomb in a shed at his dacha outside Moscow, though Tretyakov says he does not know if it was true. Russian intelligence had tricked and manipulated Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state under President Clinton. "He became an extremely valuable intelligence source." Georgi Mamedov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, was "a longtime co-optee" of the SVR, who met often with Talbott and who "was reporting everything that was said or done by Mr. Talbott directly to us at the Center."
Tretyakov also accuses Eldar Kouliev, Azerbaijan's representative to the United Nations in the 1990s, of being "a deep-cover SVR intelligence officer." And former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Earley notes, "frequently met with Kouliev." And no doubt with Strobe Talbott.
The defector describes five Canadians he says he recruited while stationed in Ottawa and gives their code designations but not their real names. He says he also recruited Alex Kindy, a former member of the Canadian parliament. He claims that Alexander Kramar was the SVR's man inside the much-criticized U.N. Oil-for-Food program -- part of the sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime -- and helped the Russians steal half-a-billion dollars "to line the pockets of top Russian government leaders in both the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies." Also, according to Tretyakov, before the Soviet Union collapsed, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov sent up to $50 billion in Communist Party funds out of the country, although where the money went, nobody knows.
If Tretyakov was not a world-class mole, he was definitely a world-class name-dropper, The Washington Post concludes. Tretyakov, who had been assigned to the Russian mission at the United Nations since 1995 and to Ottawa before that, gave the FBI 5,000 secret SVR cables and more than 100 Russian intelligence reports, according to one US intelligence official cited by Earley. This is an assertion Tretyakov neither confirms nor denies. Earley said he verified as much as he could of Tretyakov's story, and he never caught him exaggerating.
From today's Wall Street Journal:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of an investigation of the subprime-mortgage crisis, FBI officials said. The probe is focusing on accounting fraud, securitization of loans and insider trading, among other areas.
The FBI wouldn't identify the companies under investigation but said it is looking into allegations of fraud in various stages of the mortgage process, from companies that bundled the loans into securities to the banks that ended up holding them.
As previously reported, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking ...
Agudath Israel would do well to heed some of the concerns expressed on the Internet. So now instead of delving into a realm that he perhaps doesn’t completely understand, Rabbi Shafran might want do something productive about the issue of Agunot.
http://oukosher.org/index.php/common/article/ou_position_on_certifying_specific_animals_and_birds/
Belsky's teshuva for the OU on which birds are considered kosher.
"UOJ" - "The Un-Orthodox Jew" said...
LVF,
I'll consider...if you agree to become Hasidic advisor to the president:-)
Sorry Mr president, but i'll have to take a pass on that one, the hassidim are so corrupt and complicated, with fights in every sect, give it a couple of years and its gonna be worse than fallujah, besides, with a new scandal erupting every other week, gonzolaz & rumsfeld will be gold compared to what the media will report about me as head of hasidic department.
Now if there is still an opening in your administration for head of international child molester/abuser swat team, im in.
The Plan!
Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says 'I love New York ' in Arabic.
You gotta love Robin Williams......Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message.
Robin Williams' plan...(Hard to argue with this logic!)
'I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.'
1) 'The US will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those 'good 'ole' boys', we will never 'interfere' again.
2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany , South Korea , the Middle East , and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.
3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.
4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.
5) No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a 'D' and it's back home baby.
6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while
7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)
8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not 'interfere.' They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.
9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.
10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH..learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?
'The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' '
If you agree with the above forward it to friends...If not, and I would be amazed, DELETE it!!
The OU is gearing up for some major damage control and will issue a press release as early as tomorrow.
The company line about the yutz mashgiach, true or not, is that they were "on to him" and had ordered several spy missions to "check up on him" before firing him in 1999.
If Sigurdson is correct, this really puts the spotlight on "due dilligence" from Genack and Belsky & co for taking over a decade to rein in on this disaster.
Symbol Price Change
^DJI 12,442.83 DOWN 37.47 0.30%
^IXIC 2,349.00 DOWN 9.06 0.38%
^GSPC 1,355.81 DOWN 6.49 0.48%
Ben..you putz: You can't even sell your snake-oil to the financial markets! Torah Temimah is looking for an economist...interested contact me - I know a few people there!
Just In!
--------------------
Fed cuts rates boldly; Wall Street wary!!!
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve delivered powerful new relief to people and businesses squeezed by the ailing economy Wednesday, cutting interest rates ever deeper in an effort to avert or at least soften the blow of a recession.
The bold, half-point reduction approved by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and all but one of his colleagues came as President Bush and Congress raced to enact a separate rescue package — including tax rebates for individuals and tax breaks for companies — to help energize an economy in danger of stalling.
Heartened by the Fed's newfound aggressiveness, Wall Street rallied but then pulled back, still wary. The Dow Jones industrials jumped more than 200 points after the announcement but ended up down 37.47.
Commercial banks followed the Fed action by lowering their prime lending rate by the same half percentage point — to 6 percent, the lowest in nearly three years. That prime rate applies to certain credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other loans.
Hours before the Fed's action, the government reported that the nation's economic growth had stumbled to a virtual halt. The economy grew at just a 0.6 percent pace from October through December, and for all of 2007 it logged its weakest performance in five years.
The collapse of the housing market, sour mortgage investments and much harder-to-get credit are weighing on people and businesses alike. Foreclosures have hit record highs, and banks have racked up multibillion-dollar losses. The fallout has shaken Wall Street, catapulted the economy to Topic A among worried families and galvanized political figures, including those vying to be the next president.
"The economy is hanging by a thread," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.
While Wednesday's interest rate cut was welcome, the Fed's blunt new assessment of the economy was sobering for everyone from business owners to people worried about debts to anyone without a job — or fearful of losing one.
"Credit has tightened further for some businesses and households," the Fed said. "Moreover, recent information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets."
In its 9-1 decision, the Federal Reserve dropped its key rate to 3 percent at the end of a two-day meeting. Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas was the sole dissenter. He preferred no change.
It was the second Fed rate cut in just over a week, and the policymakers signaled they were prepared to keep going lower if needed.
There had been a rare, three-quarter point reduction last Tuesday. Bernanke had convened an emergency session after stocks worldwide plummeted, intensifying recession fears. The cuts have helped to restore some confidence among skittish investors, but financial markets remain fragile.
In the gravest challenge to his leadership since becoming Fed chief nearly two years ago, Bernanke must help stem the fallout from both the housing bust and a credit crunch. Wall Street critics and others have taken Bernanke to task for waiting until September of last year to embark on a rate-cutting campaign, accusing the Fed chief of being behind the curve in dealing with the economy's problems.
Bernanke also must be mindful of not letting inflation get out of hand — a delicate and tricky maneuver. Oil prices have receded from $100 a barrel but still remain high. The Fed said it expects inflation to ease in coming quarters but added that it is imperative to monitor developments carefully.
Still, more rate cuts are expected at the Fed's next scheduled meeting in March and beyond. Some economists predict the key rate could drop as low as 2 percent this year, which would be the lowest in four years.
"The Fed needs to throw out a life raft to the economy pending the fiscal stimulus measures," said Brian Bethune, economist at Global Insight.
Even further action might not avert a recession but rather limit the damage. The interest rate cuts will take months to affect the economy, as will any stimulus package approved by the government. Neither effort will quickly cure the root cause of the economy's troubles: a severely depressed housing market and bad mortgage investments.
The economy may actually be declining now. Under one rough rule, it would have to contract for six months in a row for the country to be considered in a recession. The likelihood of a recession has risen sharply over the past year, and analysts increasingly believe the U.S. will be in one during the first half of 2008. The worry is that people and businesses — which turned more cautious at the end of the year — will hunker down, sending the economy into a tailspin.
Bernanke is not expected to cut rates as deeply as did his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, when Greenspan took on the 2001 recession, the economic fallout of the Sept. 11 attacks, a series of accounting scandals that rocked Wall Street and the uncertainty that gripped the country leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
By the summer of 2003, Greenspan had slashed rates to 1 percent, a 45-year low. He held rates there for a year before the Fed began pushing them back up.
Critics contend those low rates helped feed a housing frenzy, in which home values zoomed and investors gobbled up risky loans, known as subprime mortgages, to borrowers with poor credit histories. When the housing market collapsed, the greatest damage was in subprime loans. Banks and other financial institutions have taken big hits on these soured mortgage investments.
---they just announced that Japan's banks will take a 30% cut in profits due to subprime of $4.7B loss this year.
Swiss banks and french banks--japans banks--belgium banks--our banks all getting creamed by the derivatives.
Guys--this is getting near bank collapse and seizure--the FED paniced again today--they know.
Our insurance companies are now broke--upside down and they insure 50,000 muni bonds too----the bond market is crumbling.
This whole financial system is near a flame out.
Who is the FED helping?
The banks and no one else - that's all they care about. If the banks start failing, their ponzi scheme comes undone and they know the the mobs with pitchforks and torches are not far behind in that case...
So, they are destroying our wealth to preserve the banking system's appearance of stability...
The feds see something on their radar they will not share with us. The biggest interest rate cuts in the history of the United States should tell you something is seriously wrong, and it's not just the threat of a plain-vanilla recession.
BLOOMBERG just announced S&P is going to lower the ratings on $534B of mortgages.
Now we see what Ben did---insurance companies collapsing today--bank seizures coming fast---worldwide subprime losses accelerating and our own tanking.
$543B---this is not contained Ben ----------and Bush--it is not temporary--this is a full blown collapse for a decade or more.
BLOOMBERG said it will create losses to the world banks of an additional $265B this year----------
$265B more----------shittttttt-----------------
We only had $130B this year in losses in the USA and now $265B more ----------and our banks need to borrow $300B to keep the wolves away so as not to collapse.
By next week this news will come to roost.
UOJ, I've been thinking about this for some time now.
Our communities are woefully unprepared for peak oil and this economic mess that is fast approaching. We have known these things were coming for the last several years, truth be told. But we have done nothing to make our communities self-sufficient. We are more dependent on cars than ever, our young men are not learning the trades, skills and crafts to keep our communities running when cash and credit and gasoline are hard to come by - indeed, even people on the Orthonomics blog can't seem to grasp that things are going to be very different and we should make some effort to prepare. No one seems to be thinking about how kids will get to the dayschools, or how already crowded families are going to have to make room from grandparents when the "golden retirement" paradigm disappears, or how we'll even get groceries home with no SUVs - presuming there are kosher groceries to be had. In order to live within walking distance of a certain shul (and Hashem forbid they would go to some other shul - those slackers!) very few live within walking distance of their job - or even a mass transit line. And most of us are so far in debt that there's no real way to get out of it anytime soon - with no relief in sight since dayschool tuitions keep getting worse. People can't seem to think outside the box - or their Rabbis won't let them, I don't know which.
But anyway, I was wondering if you could use some of your impressive influence to get people to start thinking about making our communities more self-sufficient and recession-proof (or depression-proof, as the case may be). I know it probably won't help, but it won't hurt to try. If tefillin and Torah scrolls are all we can produce as a community, we're in big trouble.
Lishitaso said...
Steve you're thick and you take the Ramban out of context
UOJ, I know that you told me not to waste my time with this idiot, but Shlomo Hamelech said "Anneh Kesil" when it comes to Torah matters. Mr. Akshan, since you don't trust my translation, I will post the Artscroll english translation (word for word from the Chumash) of the words of the Rambam(Maimonides)and the Ramban (Nachmanides).
RAMBAM(Moreh Nevuchim 3:48)-The reason for this commandment, as for the prohibition of slaughtering a mother animal and its young on the same day (Oso V'es B'no. Vayikra 22:28), is because it is cruel to do so, especially since ANIMALS INSTINCTIVELY LOVE THEIR YOUNG AND SUFFER WHEN THEY SEE THEM SLAUGHTERED OR TAKEN AWAY.
(UOJ: because the suffering of the mother is unbearable for her to observe; to see her offspring - hurt, slaughtered or captured.")
RAMBAN (NACHMANIDES): These commandments are meant to inculcate compassion in people, not, as some think, that G-d himself pities the birds and animals. It is forbidden to say so (Berachos 33b) because G-d permits people to use and slaughter animals for their own needs. Rather, such commandments teach that people should accustom themselves to act mercifully.
Regarding the presidential election, I love the Republican slogan:
SAY NO TO OSAMA, OBAMA AND CHELSEA'S MAMA!
I would vote Republican, whether it's McCain or Romney. I would rather have a Hanoi Hilton prisoner in the White House than a follower of Hanoi Jane. As for Bloomberg, if he were elected, he will find a way to squeeze every last penny out of us. In NYC, he wants to institute congestion pricing, while he tickets you $115 for parking 14 feet from a fire hydrant. This guy will tax us to death. Besides, if he enters the race, all he will accomplish is to take away votes from the Republican candidate which will insure a Hillary victory (chas v'shalom). That's what happened in '92 when Ross Perot siphoned off votes from Bush and Clinton was elected.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/01/kaj-v-weismandel.html#c3729062380077659417
Rubashkin Warning said...
A two-faced store owner trying to cash in on anti-Rubashkin sentiments started telling everyone that he dropped the line because he agrees with the chashashos of kashrus problems. I caught him red handed two weeks later still selling it. I know that he has Lubab Meshichist customers that bug him for it. He had some salamis that he tried to hide behind other things but everything got moved around and you could see them. I asked him why he still has Rubashkin. I was met with denial. When I replied that I saw them, he turned red and quickly said that he sells the whole unit to select customers. When I said they are cut open, he claimed he does it with a knife and not a slicer. He's obviously not being honest and any of his workers could just serve any customer on the slicer.
I don't trust those who now jump on the anti-Rubashkin bandwagon when they knew about the problems at least 6 months earlier.
What's that story that John McCain was accused of doing something scummy to his first wife? I remember something like she waited for him to return all the years and then he just brushed her off like a piece of garbage for another woman.
UOJ, Yudel and all you party poopers should butt out and let us stuff our faces in peace at the Shabbos tish and the Agudah Fresser Convention smorg.
Next you're going to say that the chrein is treif too.
Maybe the fish in New Square was trying to warn us about the OU shlemazals in Winnipeg.
Sounds like "Lishitaso" is just another disgruntled Jerk.
Hillary kissing Sura Arafat was way too much to take. Her whole demeanor is dangerous. Besides, we all know about how she got elected into the senate through the New-Square scandal, with bill doing the pardoning to finish the deal off. everything about her says don't vote for me.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a3845/News/New_York.html
I got Rubashkin to switch me to the more scenic Montana route. If I'm going to keep on truckin' I need some variety.
Ahavah,
Your comments are refreshing in the sense that there are some (too few) people that are smart and get it.
The entire structure in the American Orthodox Jewish communities is one huge economic Ponzi scheme with the ruthless and spineless rabbis at the heads of their organizations/yeshivas...
leading people to disaster and collapse - financially and emotionally.
I did a few posts on kollel fraud, kashrus fraud, and of course the many ugly faces of corruption.
Who benefits???
The answer keeps coming back to haunt me and does not let me find peace. That's the truth.
The Ponzi scheme is crumbling quickly...like water being sucked down a bathtub drain!
I will, in the future, write more on this topic. I invite you to write a full post that I would put up as a headliner.
Thanks for writing,
UOJ
Steve your either thicker then thick or wacked out of your mind. What's wrong with you dude!?
You yourself quote the Ramban as saying "not, as some think, that G-d himself pities the birds and animals. It is forbidden to say so (Berachos 33b)"
That's the point! IT IS FORBIDDEN TO SAY SO! It is forbidden to say that the reason for this mitzvah is because G-D has pity on the birds which is precisely what the UOJ said "The Torah commands us - in the very essential mitzva of Shiluach Hakan...shalach tishalach es ha'em...send away the mother-bird before you capture the child-bird - BECAUSE (DO YOU READ WHAT HE WROTE? BECASUE)the suffering of the mother is unbearable for her to observe; to see her offspring - hurt, slaughtered or captured".
One is supposed to correct this blunder which is what the Mishna says to do-Mishaskan Oso.
The Rishonim disagree whether we can derive from this mitsvah to act mercifully or as the Ramban himself says "it would be better to say that the reason is for our tikun hanefesh so that we shouldn't learn to be achzarius". However they all agree that one is FORBIDDEN TO SAY THE REASON FOR THIS MTSVAH IS BECASUE G-D pitied the birds.
Regarding the Rambam in Morah Nivuchim that you quoted, you left out the rest of the Rambam where he defends himself for saying this against the Mishna. Are you now saying that the UOJ who posts these ACHZARIUS DISCUSTING pictures (and I don't mean the Rabanim I mean the content) is like the Ramabam in Morah Nevuchim which is either one of the most Kabalistic seforim a direct conflict with the UOJ, or has been pronounced controversial and forbidden to learn specifically for such people like yourselves who will misconstrue his words?
How crazily ironic!?
Jewish law would not allow the slaughter of downed animals or seriously weakened animals, would it?
In theory, Jewish law would forbid the slaughter for kosher meat of a downed or seriously weakened animal.
Rubashkin did process several suspect cows and was cited for that by the USDA FSIS.
More than that, no major kosher supervision company or organization supervises the holding pens and transit facilities. None of these rabbis make sure weak or sick cattle are kept out of the kosher food chain. None of them do anything to ensure humane handling of the animals prior to slaughter. None of them even make sure animals have water to drink and, if being held overnight, food to eat.
Rabbis do not enforce tzaar baalei hayyim laws.
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 31, 2008; 5:49 AM
BEIJING -- China on Thursday said it had stopped production at and exports from a company whose insecticide-tainted frozen dumplings sickened 10 people in Japan, in the latest crisis to rock China's food export business.
The dumplings were contaminated with traces of an organic phosphorus insecticide called methamidophos, which caused severe abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhea, Japanese officials said.
Three people in Hyogo and seven in Chiba, near Tokyo, were sickened, some of them seriously, including a 5-year-old girl who regained consciousness after falling into a coma
Legal consultancy Hildebrandt and Citi Private Bank are due to issue a report today, based in part on financial data furnished by 247 firms, indicating that the subprime mortgage crisis and fears of a recession have triggered not only a decline in corporate legal work but also litigation, a practice area that typically gathers steam in down economies. “The current downturn has thus far been a ‘perfect storm’” for law firms, according to Hildebrandt and Citi.
Many firms will increase revenue and profits by only modest amounts in 2008, and “some firms will be down a lot in 2008, with decreases in income,” predicts consultant Brad Hildebrandt (pictured).
Few firms have so far resorted to layoffs or other drastic cost cutting, in part because many experienced healthy growth in 2007, consultants and lawyers say. But layoffs raise another concern: if attorneys are laid off en masse, firms may be caught flat footed when demand for their services picks up again.
But firms are likely to become more ruthless about “weeding out those attorneys who are not performing as well as they should,” says Mr. Hildebrandt. Firms may be particularly apt to prune at the partner level, even though partner firing were once rare, because partners are costlier and sometimes less productive than more junior lawyers, says Dan DiPietro, of Citi Private Bank.
One bright spot for firms has been a wave of litigation, including securities class actions and regulatory investigations, following problems in the mortgage market. But such “pockets of work” are “dwarfed by the larger issues looming ove the entire industry which is the slowdown in the economy generally,” says Regina Pisa, the chairman of Goodwin Procter. “Firms will see their work slow down this year,” she says. “There’s no question about it.”
WSJ Law Blog readers will remember the controversy surrounding Burt Neuborne, the NYU law professor who was awarded $3.1 million by a federal judge for his work administering a $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and Holocaust survivors. A number of Holocaust survivors and lawyers thought he asked for too much money for what should’ve been pro bono work; Neuborne, and Judge Frederic Block, felt the award was justified. (Neuborne had also received a $4.4 million fee in an earlier Holocaust lawsuit.)
Neuborne’s back in court asking for $299,419 in interest to cover the two years during which his fee was delayed by objections from the survivors. If approved, the interest would be paid out of the survivors’ settlement fund. Here’s the NY Sun story, and Law Blog background on the fee flap.
Said a leading protestor of Neuborne’s initial fee request, David Mermelstein from a suburb of Miami, Fla., said: “Shocking is not the word for it. Disgusting is not the word for it. Chutzpah is too nice a word to say about the thing. After getting $3 million, to have the guts to ask for interest?” Another survivor, Leo Rechter of Queens, told the Sun: “He’s setting a precedent on greed.”
Neuborne told the Sun requesting interest is a standard practice. “I can’t understand them,” Neuborne said of his critics. “Does Leo Rechter not understand the concept of interest?” He added: “They’ve succeeded in painting me as a greedy lawyer, when, in fact, my years of service and the restraint I’ve used in billing doesn’t deserve that kind of criticism. But the response I get is that if I ask for interest, I’m poking my finger in their eye.”
Another rebbe busted in YTT. How can that place still exist?
If it still remains open, why isn't anyone checking out the rebbeim there?
A North Carolina judge held an attorney in contempt on Wednesday for reading Maxim magazine during a court session. Judge Kevin Eddinger (pictured) held lawyer Todd Paris in contempt after he saw him reading Maxim magazine with “a female topless model” on the cover, according to the court order. Paris declined to comment yesterday to the paper.
When Eddinger gave Paris a chance to respond he apologized and “stated in his view the magazine was not pornography, was available at local stores and that he did not intend contempt,” the order said. Eddinger fined Paris $300, gave him a 15 day suspended jail sentence that remains in effect for a year and placed him on unsupervised probation, according to the order.
Eddinger wrote in the order that “The contemnor’s (Paris) conduct interrupted the proceedings of the court and impaired the respect due its authority. In addition, the contemnor’s actions were grossly inappropriate, patently offensive, and violative of Rule 12 of the General Rules of Practice. Courtroom staff, law enforcement, members of the Bar and the general public shall be able to conduct courtroom business in an atmosphere free of the display of offensive material as demonstrated by the contemnor, thus necessitating this action.”
The story quotes a cop who was in the courtroom and said Paris came in after the lunch break and sat down on the front bench. He started looking at Maxim while Eddinger was hearing cases, the paper says. Eddinger saw him reading it and called Paris to come to the bench and bring the magazine. Paris reportedly offered to leave the courtroom and discard the Maxim, but Eddinger refused to let him leave and demanded the magazine. After some reported banter, the judge slapped him with a contempt citation, handing the magazine to the clerk and identified it as Exhibit A for the contempt case.
Which YTT rebbe was busted?
Remember the Oregon Supreme Court circumcision case? The case, still going on, pits divorced parents against each other. The father, a lawyer, recently converted to Judaism and wants to circumcise his 12-year-old son, over whom he has full custody. The mother wants custody back and doesn’t want the circumcision to take place. It’s not clear what the kid wants. The lower court dismissed the wife’s challenge, and she appealed.
In this 30-page opinion, the court sent the case back to the trial court to answer the question: What does the boy want? If the trial court finds that M, which is what the court calls him, agrees to be circumcised it should deny the mother’s requests. But if the trial court finds the child opposes the circumcision, the court must decide if it will affect the father’s ability to care for the child.
Seems reasonable, but not to the father and several Jewish organizations that filed an amicus brief arguing that the boy’s attitude about whether he wants the circumcision is not legally significant. They assert that a child is not the decision-maker on such questions, any more than an infant who is circumcised. Further, they argued that the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause gives the father a constitutionally protected right to circumcise his son, arguing that American Jews must be free to practice circumcision because it is and has been one of the most fundamental and sacred parts of the Jewish tradition.
Aligning with the mother was a Seattle-based group called Doctors Opposing Circumcision. Said the executive director of the group: “Parents are free to practice their religion and to have religious beliefs, but they are not free to change the physical body of their child at will.”
The court more or less skirts around the constitutional issue by saying that the boy’s attitude toward the circumcision is key toward determining who should have custody. “That is so because forcing M at age 12 to undergo the circumcision against his will could seriously affect the relationship between M and father, and could have a pronounced effect on father’s capability to properly care for M.”
We look forward to letting you know what M decides.
Wednesday, a federal judge set the bond of William Gallion at $52 million.
Who’s William Gallion? He’s one of the three lawyers accused of taking millions of dollars from their former clients in a Fen Phen diet-drug lawsuit. Along with Law Blog All-Name Team Member Melbourne Mills ($5 million) and Shirley Cunningham ($45 million), the trio remains in a Kentucky jail.
Agudah Amicus Brief
----------------
Shafran is telling everyone that the Agudah came out with their own underwear label!
A rare legal item from the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town tells the tale of a consumer-fraud suit filed by a massage therapist against Bed Bath & Beyond and its linen manufacturers. What’s the beef? Fraudelent thread count.
That’s right Law Blog readers, those silky soft Egyptian sheets might not be what you thought they were. In 2003, the improbably named April White purchased 800 thread count sheets from Bed Bath & Beyond for her massage table. And when “they just didn’t feel like [she] expected luxurious sheets to feel,” she got them tested and, lo and behold, the “800 Naturals” were 408s. So she sued.
Apparently, there’s some controversy over how to compute thread count. “As a fuzzy-accounting offense, this seems less akin to the subprime mortgage crisis than to the Tasti D-Lite calorie-deflation scandal of 2002,” says the New Yorker. But to White’s lawyer Edith Kallas of Whatley Drake, the home-furnishings retailer is “a dry-goods Enron,” as described by the magazine. “They’re preying on people by getting them to buy products for a higher price than they’re really worth,” Kallas said. “Companies should not be able to get away with that!”
Bed Bath & Beyond denies any wrongdoing but last month settled the case. The class description is amusing: “all purchasers between August 1, 2000 and November 9, 2007 of multi-ply sheet sets, pillowcases, down comforters, bedskirts, shams, duvets, and down pillows from Bed Bath & Beyond that were labeled as “plied,” “two-ply,” or “2-ply” shall be eligible to receive “a series of refunds and discount certificates.” White, as the class representative, is set to to receive $2,500; her lawyers, $290,000.
White tells the New Yorker she’s proud to stand up against for thread-count integrity: “Was I going to do something to benefit people at large, or just continue to do small things that only benefit me?”
What’s going on with the Texas judiciary? First, we told you about the troubles of Samuel Kent, a federal judge in Houston. Then, we told you about arson charges leveled — and then dropped — against Supreme Court justice David Medina. (And let’s not forget about the foibles of not a Lone Star State judge, but a prosecutor there, Charles Rosenthal. Rosenthal, the powerful district attorney of Harris County, Texas, issued a public apology Friday to his family and others after a federal court accidentally exposed intimate email exchanges he had with his secretary.)
Now, there’s news about Nathan Hecht, the Texas Supreme Court justice. Reports emerged yesterday that Hecht acknowledged using campaign funds to pay for dozens of flights to his hometown last year, calling the trips campaign-related — even though he’s not up for re-election until 2012.
Hecht reported 42 payments to airlines for in-state trips last year, according to campaign finance records. ”A good bit” of them were for travel to his hometown of Carrollton, he said, where he still owns a home and attends church. ”I feel like it advances my campaign to go up there, and I almost always work when I’m there,” said Hecht to the AP.
Using political contributions for personal use is against state law, and a Texas ethics commission has interpreted the law to ban judges from using campaign donations to pay the costs of commuting between a judge’s home city and the city where the court is.
If Hecht’s name rings a bell, it’s because he was accused last year of abusing his judgeship by serving as one of Harriet Miers’s chief boosters for a spot on the Supremes. Miers and Hecht are close friends and once dated. Miers, of course, has left the government
Avi L. Shafran ... the middle initial is for Fruit of the 'Loom'
Joe...More like "Fruit of the LOON!"
Monster Worldwide’s founder Andrew McKelvey has reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the feds to settle a long investigation into his alleged role in a backdating scheme at the company. Under the agreement with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, McKelvey will acknowledge wrongdoing, but won’t be forced to enter a guilty plea and won’t face jail time.
McKelvey, the company’s former CEO, is also expected to reach a settlement with the SEC in which he will disgorge around $250,000, according to the person familiar with the matter. He’ll also pay back millions of dollars to the company, which was prepared to pursue various legal claims against him, the WSJ reports.
The WSJ reports that the deal’s leniency reflects McKelvey’s poor health. He has pancreatic cancer and his prognosis is poor; it is unclear whether he would be alive to face trial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fruitoftheloom.jpg
THis is the only attire vos passt besides a black suit & dusty Borsalino.
Invei hagefen binvei hagefen.
http://www.fruitguyfans.com/
A very hartzigge moment from the Motzaei Shabbos kumzitz at the last Agudah Fresser Convention.
After everything finishes loading, click on it to play the video.
no longer naive said...
Another rebbe busted in YTT. How can that place still exist?
If it still remains open, why isn't anyone checking out the rebbeim there?
WHAT IS GOING ON? ARE YOU SURE OR IS THIS JUST BS???
It has come to our attention that Ner Israel Rabbinical College administration may be plotting an action "Purimfest-5768". This March, Baltimore Jewish community members who have spoken against NIRC and its gay-shielding policies may receive poisoned Purim food packages (shalachmanot). If you receive a Purim gift from an unidentified source or from someone at NIRC, DO NOT EAT IT! If you develop any symptoms of poisoning within the first two weeks after Purim, immediately contact your local Poison Control Center (1-800-222-1222).
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