Prominent rabbonim, such as Rabbi Yisroel Belsky and Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, have endorsed the concept of marital counseling and have actively voiced their support for it.
I heard Belsky will be giving a shiur in Hilchos Znius at the beach. Maybe you don't know but Belsky is very religious. He demands that all women attending his shiur must have a majority of their body covered with a towel. He asked me to make sure all rules are followed.
There's no bigger pritzus than seen on Venice Beach on Shabbos. Naked women all over the place and this the OU endorses with Tendler as host? The Lanner scandal is looking like childs play.
Attention All boys at Shaarai Torah In Monsey between the ages of 12 and 17 years:
Yeshiva Shaarai Torah in Monsey under the directorship of Pedophile Mordechai Gimpel Wolmark will be taking a trip to Venice Beach on the Shabbos that Belsky will be lecturing there to the immodestly clad women on Hilchos Tznius.
Following the Belsky lecture, the pedophile Rabbi Mordecahi Gimpel Wolmark will continue his series of discourses for all his attending students on the laws of nidda and Chassanim to be held at the same location, on the beach. As is the practice when in Monsey, New York, on Motzei Shabbos, there will be a trip to the mall where boys who attended the beach lecture will be permitted to visit the local Victoria Secret boutique together with Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark, followed by an open discussion conducted by Rabbi Mordechai Gimpel Wolmark the nationally known sex pervert, on each students personal thoughts on the matter.
Pacific Jewish Center is a unique Torah community, located in the Venice/Santa Monica vicinity of Southern California. Sixty years ago, "The Shul on the Beach" was part of a thriving Miami Beach-type Jewish coastal community. Over time, suburbanization and the introduction of air-conditioning took their toll. The community was down to one shul (this one) and no minyan.
In the late seventies, Rabbi Daniel Lapin and Michael Medved joined together to begin a revitalization campaign.
Daniel Lapin (born 1950?) is a political commentator and American Orthodox rabbi currently living in Mercer Island, Washington, and the founder of Toward Tradition (a conservative Jewish-Christian organization).
Rabbi A. H. Lapin, a nephew of Rabbi Elya Lopian 1872-1970, served as a prominent and outspoken Orthodox rabbi in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and eventually established an Orthodox synagogue (Am Echad) in San Jose, California
Lapin's two brothers, David Lapin and Raphael Lapin, are also Orthodox rabbis and have similar educational backgrounds, having emigrated from South Africa to California. His sister is married to an American rabbi.
Lapin studied in yeshivas in London and Jerusalem, and emigrated to the United States in 1973, becoming a naturalized citizen. Lapin studied under Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in New York, Rabbi Gurwicz in the UK, and Rabbis Mishkowsky and Lifschitz in Israel.
Lapin founded the Pacific Jewish Center, a synagogue in Venice, California that views itself as functioning as part of the recent Baal teshuva movement, encouraging Conservative and Reform Jews to adopt and return to a more observant traditional Judaism.
Michael Medved was a member and is currently a board member of Toward Tradition. Actors Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss, although not politically conservative, participated in that religious community and synagogue. Lapin's teachings are also aligned with Modern Orthodox Judaism, in that while he promotes observant Judaism, he is strongly in favor of observant Jews having interaction with other faith communities (in his view, mostly conservative and observant Christian communities) and broader political action outside of Judaism. This has placed him at odds with some modern Orthodox Rabbis, who do not approve of working with clergy of other religions.
In the early 1990s, for reasons that remain unclear, Lapin left the Pacific Jewish Center and handed over the reins of rabbinic leadership to his brother David Lapin, who led the community until he left in 2003 to run the Eshkol Academy.
Jack Abramoff served on the board of Toward Tradition, including a stint as chairman, and donated the $10,000 a year expected from board members. One year Abramoff met that requirement by sending a check from the Capital Athletic Foundation, an organization Abramoff controlled that has since become a key piece of the Abramoff corruption investigation.[7]
The Washington Post reported on October 16, 2005, that Toward Tradition received a $25,000 donation in 2000 from online gambling company eLottery, a lobbying client of Jack Abramoff and his employer, Preston Gates Ellis, despite Lapin's professed opposition to gambling. Some or all of the money received by Lapin was then transferred to a company run by the wife of Tony Rudy, an aide to Tom DeLay who was instrumental in killing an antigambling bill that eLottery and Abramoff were lobbying against. In a follow-up article published by The Washington Post on January 9, 2006, it was alleged that Toward Tradition was the "non-profit entity" referred to in Abramoff's plea agreement in relation to a $25,000 contribution made by Magazine Publishers of America which had hired Abramoff for a campaign against the postal rate increase. In March 2006, Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy relating to the money his wife had received via Lapin.
Lapin's brother David met Abramoff while he was visiting South Africa during his International Freedom Foundation/Red Scorpion years. He tutored Abramoff in Talmud and Jewish law, during Abramoff's process of embracing Orthodox Judaism.[1]
Abramoff employed David Lapin as the dean of Eshkol Academy, the Orthodox Jewish school Abramoff founded, from 2002 to 2004. Abramoff also directed the Marianas government to give David Lapin a $1.2 million contract for "ethics in government" trainings.[2]
According to a January 4, 2006 article in Newsweek, Lapin urged supporters of President George W. Bush's re-election to give campaign donations through Abramoff, helping Abramoff gain Bush "Pioneer" status among top presidential fundraisers.
Daniel Lapin wrote a response[3] to the Washington Post article where he denies any wrongdoing.
Lapin and his organization Toward Tradition became a participant in the Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal in 2005 because of information that surfaced during US Senate hearings into Abramoff's dealings.
The Senate hearings revealed emails between Lapin and Abramoff, wherein Lapin was asked to create academic awards for Talmudic studies --complete with letters and plaques -- to help Abramoff gain admittance to the Cosmos Club, an exclusive Washington, DC organization. (Washington Post, 6/23/2005.)
"I hate to ask your help with something so silly, but I have been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club," Abramoff wrote. He noted that the club has "Nobel Prize winners, etc. Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none. I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award from Toward Tradition with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like Scholar of Talmudic Studies? …Indeed, it would be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I think you see what I am trying to finagle here!" Lapin responded via email and the two apparently talked by phone. Finally Lapin e-mailed, "I just need to know what needs to be produced... letters? plaques? Neither?" Abramoff replied: "Probably just a few clever titles of awards, dates and that's it. As long as you are the person to verify them [or we can have someone else verify one and you the other], we should be set. Do you have any creative titles, or should I dip into my bag of tricks?".
Subsequently, Abramoff listed two 1999 awards from Toward Tradition and the Cascadia Business Institute on his official bio on the Greenberg Traurig website. [8]
When the story broke in June 2005, Lapin told the Seattle PI "he could not recall the exchange with Abramoff" and had no recollection of the incident. In a formal statement issued in early 2006 Lapin denied having given Abramoff the awards and claimed the emails were a joke:
Anyone familiar with Abramoff’s jocular and often fatally irreverent email style won’t be surprised that I assumed the question to be a joke. ... I regret the exchange. I should have candidly explained that Toward Tradition is not an academic institution and does not issue the kind of awards he described. ... On no occasion did I, Toward Tradition, or any organization with which I was affiliated ever create an award for, or present one to Jack Abramoff.
In October 2006, the House Government Reform Committee released a report [9] which included an October 2000 email [10]from Lapin to Abramoff in which Lapin had listed the details of the three promised awards.
When it comes to stuffing your face with food (the biggest geshmack in life for Agudah Fressers), I like how the Pacific Jewish Center describes it as "Gastronomy". It's a much more sophisticated word.
Rabbi Tendler will be demonstrating the art of "Hegmon"(see Kesubos) on all the Virgins (as King Ach-ash-veirous) has mastered. All under strict Rabbinical supervission "OU".
YeshivaWorld has a report about a fire at the Satmar matzah bakery in Williamsburg, located in the basement of the Krula cheder.
No mention that it is illegal and highly dangerous to store mounds of grain under residences & schools because of the very real threat of spontaneous combustion.
Is that what caused the fire? Are those Satmar putzes putting children at risk?
well if herschel schlechter wont be there,maybe sholom tendler will give me a heter to take a young pilegesh "at the beach" but when i get back to monsey,I have plenty of "HOT" married women who i can harrass the husbands for a Get so i can get myself lots of pilagshim coast to coast!!! cant wait california!!!
I saw a jar of Enrico's sauce in the store under the OU. There is an allergan warning on the label that states the product is produced in the same facility as shellfish.
What kind of "controls" does the OU have to make sure there is no contamination? The same "foolproof" system they had for 12 years with the gefilte fish?
Rabbi Steven Weil is Secretary of the RCC. No wonder he gives sanctuary to Shalom Tender but is quick too boot out of his shul any hapless guy who burps out of turn.
Doctor Is Charged in a Killing, and Her People Bear the Shame By CARA BUCKLEY New York Times February 17, 2008
Dr. Daniel Malakov’s name is still on the placard that hangs outside his office in Rego Park, Queens, even though he was killed three and a half months ago, and even though another orthodontist now works there in his stead.
Inside, across from the polished black desk where a receptionist answers calls in Russian, Dr. Malakov’s degrees and awards still crowd one wall.
His name hangs heavily over the small, proud community of Bukharan Jews who immigrated from Uzbekistan in the early 1990s, and who speak of Dr. Malakov with reverence and sorrow.
Yet the manner of Dr. Malakov’s death has evoked something that this young immigrant group is not used to feeling: shame.
On Oct. 28, a brilliant Sunday morning, Dr. Malakov, who was 34, died after being shot three times in a playground close to his office and near 108th Street, the bustling heart of Bukharan society in Queens. He had brought his daughter, Michelle, 4, to be picked up by his estranged wife, Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova, who is 34 and a physician. The pair had been in a rancorous custody battle over Michelle, and a judge, a week earlier, had given Dr. Malakov temporary custody of the girl. That morning, moments after Michelle ran into her mother’s arms, Dr. Malakov was shot. The gunman fled.
The Bukharan Jews in Queens reeled. Dr. Malakov was widely seen as gentle and humble, and his family was revered. His father, Khaiko Malakov, had been the chief of a major hospital in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic. His uncle Ezro Malakov was a famed musician. His brother, Gavriel, is a physical therapist; they shared the office in Rego Park. His sister, Stella, was a much-loved high school math teacher. She died of leukemia about a year before Dr. Malakov was killed; Khaiko Malakov, distraught, wrote a book about her.
“This is a known family,” said Alex Stanberg, 25, a Bukharan Jew. “Every person likes them.”
He added, “Why this happened, I cannot say. Now the Bukharans are in shame, for the first time ever.” As the days and weeks after the shooting passed, allegations and the investigation into the crime only deepened the bewilderment of the Bukharan Jews.
Late in November, a distant relative of Dr. Borukhova’s was arrested and accused of murdering Dr. Malakov. On Feb. 7, Dr. Borukhova was arrested and charged with arranging the killing. According to the indictment, she and her relative, Mikhail Mallayev, had exchanged 91 phone calls in the days leading up to Dr. Malakov’s death.
She pleaded not guilty, but among the Bukharans in Queens, both Dr. Borukhova and her family had already been condemned.
Within hours of her son’s murder, Dr. Malakov’s mother, Malka, had begun blaming Dr. Borukhova. The next week, in a custody hearing for Michelle, Gavriel Malakov testified that Dr. Borukhova’s mother, Esta, screamed at his father, saying, “You will bury all your kids.”
The condemnation spread. It seemed unthinkable that anyone would arrange for a child to see her own father gunned down. (Michelle is now in foster care, though the Malakovs are trying to gain custody). While the Malakov family is known and respected, few people seemed to know of the Borukhovas before the murder, and Dr. Borukhova’s testimony in family court after the murder that Dr. Malakov had repeatedly beaten her and sexually abused their daughter did little to sway their sympathy.
Long before her arrest, people on 108th Street, recognizing her face from news accounts, began staring stonily at Dr. Borukhova, sometimes falling silent or pointing when her relatives passed by. A few business owners turned members of the Borukhova family away. Some clients stopped going to her office, which she shared with her brother-in-law, Arthur Natanov.
Underlying the shock was a sense of amazement that a woman could have been behind Dr. Malakov’s murder.
“Women are usually respectful,” said Merik Mordecai, 43, a jeweler on 108th Street who is a Bukharan Jewish immigrant. The custody battle, he said, was for a court of law to decide. “What is going on with a Bukharan woman to have decided to do a thing like that?” he asked.
Through a rabbi, Dr. Borukhova and her family declined to comment. Her lawyer stressed that early judgments should not be made.
“Everybody should keep in mind the presumption of innocence, since she has entered a not guilty plea,” the lawyer, Stephen Scaring, wrote in an e-mail message.
But to many, the Borukhova name is already irreparably soiled, partly because they believe she has sullied them.
“I don’t ever want to see her, or her mother, or anyone of her blood,” said a limousine driver and Uzbek immigrant, who would not give his name. “We are all shamed, we are all depressed, because it is unbelievable.”
Bukharans began emigrating from Central Asia in significant numbers in the 1970s, but it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that they left in great waves, most bound for Israel or the United States.
Bukharan Jews have been in Central Asia for about 2,500 years, largely in what became the republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Deeply isolated, they spoke Russian and Bukhori, a hybrid of Farsi and Hebrew. In 2006, there were 17,277 people born in Uzbekistan living in the city, according to the Department of City Planning, but local religious leaders said the number was much larger. Rabbi Itzhak Yehoshua, the chief rabbi of the Bukharans in the United States, estimates that about three-quarters of the roughly 60,000 Bukharan Jews in America, mostly from Uzbekistan, live in New York. The vast majority settled in Queens.
The group is tight-knit. The Congress of the Bukharan Jews of the United States and Canada publishes its own version of the yellow pages, listing the names of every known Bukharan in the two countries.
As with any ethnic group emerging in another country, successes — and failures — are deeply felt. Having a doctor or lawyer or accountant in the family is highly valued, proof of success and acceptance in a newly adopted land. In this way, the Malakov murder was especially devastating.
“The immigrant way of thinking is very sensitive,” said Rabbi Yehoshua, who lives in Queens. “These were two successful young doctors, and after the shock was a feeling of opportunity lost. It’s an American dream that became a nightmare.”
The pairing of Dr. Malakov and Dr. Borukhova had seemed ideal. The couple adhered to the edict of marrying within their community. They were both well educated. Dr. Malakov had a degree from New York University and also studied at Columbia. Dr. Borukhova was a specialist in internal medicine at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island.
But soon after the couple wed in December 2001, the relationship began to falter. Khaiko Malakov said that they often quarreled, especially over how to best raise Michelle, and that Dr. Borukhova’s mother, who lived with them, was deeply critical of Dr. Malakov. Local leaders tried to help patch things up. Rabbi Yehoshua met several times with the couple and their families, but, he said, the problems seemed nearly intractable, and puzzling.
“We believe in the system. We tried to mediate,” Rabbi Yehoshua said. “But in order for me to mediate, I have to feel a cooperation. But both of them were very difficult.
“It was difficult to understand, maybe there were issues I didn’t know about. But they weren’t listening,” he said.
The couple separated after Michelle was born, then reunited, then separated again. Then the custody battle began. After Dr. Malakov’s death, harsh allegations surfaced from both sides, both in and out of court. Dr. Borukhova said her husband’s outward charm disguised a vicious side, and described horrific abuse. The Malakov family said Dr. Malakov told them he was scared of his in-laws.
A state senator from Staten Island, Diane J. Savino, testified in family court that two of Dr. Borukhova’s sisters had approached her on Oct. 18, 10 days before the murder. They had been brought to the senator, a former child services caseworker, by staff members who thought she could help them. The sisters asked Ms. Savino what would become of Michelle if Dr. Malakov could not take care of her anymore. Dr. Malakov had been awarded temporary custody after complaining that his wife had thwarted his visitation rights.
Even now, after Dr. Borukhova’s arrest, the Malakov family fears retribution. A police officer was recently posted outside the home of Dr. Malakov’s parents.
Many along 108th Street said nothing could excuse Dr. Malakov’s murder, or the damage it almost certainly has inflicted on Michelle.
“We are ashamed, of course, but mostly we are so upset at what has happened to this little child,” said a woman wrapped in a floor-length fur coat who was buying fruit at an outdoor market near nightfall one day last week. She knew Dr. Borukhova, she said, and would not give her name. “It’s one thing to do this right in our community. It’s another to do it in front of a child.”
Hillary's disastrous proposal to solve the mortgage crisis.
Richard Thaler and Susan Woodward
The New Republic
Published: Monday, February 04, 2008
Senator Hillary Clinton presents herself as a policy expert and declares her readiness to govern from "day one." But her recent prescriptions for the housing market should cause doubts for thoughtful observers.
Senator Clinton's proposal might appeal to homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages scheduled for a rate increase. But, as with most offers that look too good to be true, this one comes with many problems.
The first is its enormous scope. The plan is essentially to repudiate, revoke, or compel the revision of millions of contracts. There are approximately eleven million mortgages in America with adjustable rates, with a total value of more than $2 trillion dollars--a lot of money, even by Washington standards. Even restricting the plan to the 3.4 million subprime ARM loans (roughly $700 billion) would require an intervention of massive scale.
An even more serious problem with Hillary's proposal is the nature of the solution it proposes. When someone takes out a loan with a low, so-called "teaser rate" that is scheduled to increase in a couple years, the investors who put up the money for that loan are counting on at least some of the borrowers to hold on to their mortgage long enough to start paying the higher rates. Without the promise of this increase, the initial rate would have had to be much higher. As economists like to say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
What would happen if scheduled rate increases were halted? Although it might make some borrowers happy, such a freeze could potentially poison the mortgage market and quickly exacerbate the slump in housing prices. If lenders and investors do not receive the interest payments they expected, they will be wary going forward. Should they avoid providing funds for adjustable rate mortgages, since the government would have just proven that the terms can be changed if difficulty arises? Should they avoid all mortgages, since the government now seems to prioritize short-term concerns for borrowers? Maybe they should avoid lending in the United States altogether?
Such a policy would clearly send a dangerous message far beyond our borders. Two trillion dollars of U.S. national debt is held by foreign governments. Interest rates on this debt are low in part because foreigners trust the U.S. to pay back its loans as promised. The rates would surely be higher if its holders thought the U.S. could renege on its promises to pay. But this is precisely the expectation America would encourage by unilaterally changing the terms on $2 trillion in mortgages held by investors around the world.
Senator Clinton's policy amounts to a command-and-control approach to economic policy in which the government announces prices and tells suppliers what to produce. Undertaking such an intervention can only raise interest rates on mortgages (and maybe other interest rates as well) as markets attempt to incorporate risk premiums to cope with possible future interventions. Promising the American people that you can fix things by just lowering their interest rates is dishonest, a fairy tale that won't come true.
Richard Thaler is a professor of economics at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. Susan Woodward is an economist at Sand Hill Econometrics, and formerly served as chief economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Remember the days when someone would convince and fellow jew to commit to eating cholov yisroel as opposed to stam. Back in the day the arguement went that for the same price, maybe a little more your dairy would be the highest quality of kashrus. Have you noticed how dairy prices have shot up? I did a quick price comparison with cholov stam products. you would think there was a proportional increase right?
Wrong!! Cholov yisroel is DOUBLE the price. Check it out for yourself - yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese. Some cases almost double, others more than double. what's going on here?
The only thing Hillary cares about is pandering to low income voters. The leftist elite are all smitten with Obama so the only kind of voter she has any chance with are those holding subprime mortgages. The whore doesn't give a rat's behind what it will cost the country to get into the White House again to use as her personal playground and piggybank.
I am the Letter Writer. In my shul I posted this publicly with all names - mine, the Rav HaMachshir (Gornish) and the establishment (Meisner's catering on Ave I).
Most people did not care and did not comprehend any issue. Some turned it into a kashrus issue - which it isn’t and certainly not my intent. Some turned it into a loshon hara issue - which it isn’t. Do your own research. Some of my chaveirim were grateful that it was brought to their attention for reasons of their similar personal standards. The Rav of my shul was the most upset because he found this out through me - and that it was not the establishment (which had just catered in our shul the week before) that advised him that they changed shechita - but he also wants shalom and not chalila any machlokes.
Because the reactions were so adverse, I have no interest in becoming the centerpiece of a Flatbush controvesy which will inevitably be distorted.
It is an issue of transparency and disclosure to the kosher consumer. Neither a Rav HaMachshir nor a kosher food establishment can change a decade long policy of the shechita it carries - without Notice.
Interestingly, the Rav HaMachshir has not yet posted public Notice of a change in the establishments under his supervision that occurred a full month ago. When advised of my shul Notice he called and attempted to pressure my Rav to change his shul policy as to which shechita the shul allows. That is shocking.
I have always had full 100% confidence in the establishment and never ate there because of its hashgacha (which is private and not institutional) persay. I now am not sure what to think. I am actually quite shaken.
A Very Disappointed Kosher Shopper
Comment by ben avrohom — February 18, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
The Gornish sideshow was because he started allowing Rubashkin after telling people for years it was no good. He started allowing it one day and looked like the velt's fool 2 days later when Breuers kicked Rubashkin out.
Estelle’s, a woman’s clothing store (Jewish-Heimishe proprietor) located in Flatbush, New York (1380 Coney Island Ave), regrets its error in selling Dinomoda jackets. The content label of these Dinomoda (German) jackets lists: 48% Leinen/Flachs, 34% Schurwolle/New Wool, 18% Polyamide/ Nylon
The store has promised to do everything in its power to avoid such mistakes in the future. It also offered a full refund to anyone who purchased a shatnez outfit.
Yudel Shain said... Originally the store told customers that there isn't any shatnez in the garments they sell.
A garment suit was purchased & brought to the Flatbush Shatnez Lab & they told the customer that it is Shatnez & the label also said wool & linen.
The customer brought it back to the store & notified them that it contains Shatnez....
A few days later another customer bought a similliar suit at the store & brought it to the Flatbush Shatnez center-They noticed something odd "the label wool & linen WAS REMOVED! but it also was declared as Shatnez.
The customer brought it back to the store & notified them that it had Shatnez.
After that a Flatbush Rov & his Rebetzin went to check on the situation in that store, and concluded shockingly that the store keeper knowlingly kept putting back for sale the suits containing shatnez, some with the wool/linen removed.
2923 AVENUE N, BROOKLYN Inspection date February 7, 2008 Restaurant name CAFE HADAR Phone 718-252-5146 Violation points 25 Violations Single service item reused Non-food contact surface improperly constructed Improper plumbing Dented can Inadequate garbage handling Wiping cloths improperly stored Improper use of utensil Food not protected from contamination Trans fat food served
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times.
The newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.
The Financial Times said the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the U.S. banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.
(Reporting by Mark McSherry; Editing by Valerie Lee)
I'm surprised that they hit the restaurant with that violation instead of tagging it to 555 Ocean Pkwy. Margo had me outsourcing those items on the cheap instead of buying new items for the YTT dining room.
Herbie Bomzer would come next door to Mirrer yeshiva and shlep bochurim away from seder to get a minyan for his gerim chuppas. If he was being mevatel all that learning, it had better have been legit.
Now that I hear Bomzer charges so much money to make a new Jew, I want part of his cut. I was one of the guys he dragged over in the middle of seder. He made me sit around for an hour or two while they were hocking around and trying to get the show on the road.
R' Shmuel Berenbaum zl, when asked, said it's a mitzva to make a minyan for a ger to get married and that bochurim could leave the beis medrash. I don't think he knew Bomzer was running a factory.
I'd love to see Cynthia McFadden from ABC Nightline corner Bomzer again and ask how he can justify taking so much money for himself when he uses a bunch of unpaid yeshiva bochurim for hours on end.
Herbie is part of my "Rabbinical Council". I'll have to engineer some trumped up charges against McFadden if she even thinks about it. Kinda like what I did to that guy who was running in the last election against me.
The whold mindset is wrong. Many rabbis and orthodox Jews have the mindset that they are allowed to operate outside the laws of the United States of America. Its true for taxes, matza factories, shlug kapores, Lag B'Omer bonfires, and even child sex abuse. There's a pattern here. Rabbi Svei, may he have a refuah shleimah, tried to solve the problem by himself. So did other rabbis. That's the way it was done in Europe, so it should be done same way here.
But pre-war Eastern Europe is not America.
So they made a mistake.
What's remarkable is - they're still making the same mistake. Nothing has changed. Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon and Avi Shafran, speaking for their crowd, believe that the yeshivas can still operate outside the boundaries of American law, even when it comes to sex abuse. Secret rabbinic courts, unmonitored by the government or G-d forbid, even other Jewish people, should adjudicate criminal rabbinic sex abuse cases.
The Weinbergs, the Sobels, and everybody else need to be vomited out of the Jewish people and delivered to the government.
Anonymous- Your analysis makes a lot of sense. But whereas not knowing that we are in 21st century America would explain some of the economic sins of our community, feeling that the anti-semitic government is out to hurt us so "deena d'malchusa deena" does not apply, it is hard to understand how using even an antisemitic government from Europe would be a problem when dealing with a destroyer of Jewish Children, a Roydef who is Nitan Lhatzilo Bnafsho. I wonder if it would even be a problem to give him over to the Nazis, yemach shmam, if there was no other way to protect Jewish children. Not that that would be my first choice, but A) No government was as bad as the Nazis, and B) for some people, nothing else works. I did hear of a case where Shomrim took a molester onto the roof of a yeshiva and warned him that they have a heter to throw him off if they catch him again. Still, in the U.S. even this would not help as much as police involvement.
The Baltimore Vaad Harabonim sent out a letter after last Pesach (following a big expose in their newspaper there) in which they said that it is a "well established halacha" that a molester is a roydef. They said that sometimes his name must be publicized and sometimes police involvement must be FACILITATED by the rabbis.
Tomorrow night, in Baltimore, there is an evening for parents sponsored by the rabbonim on how to keep your children safe.
However, unlike the letter states and the program advertises, the rabbanim are still more interested in keeping the molesters safe, as Rabbi Eiseman and Rabbi Eisgrau are still teaching and have not been publicized by the rabbanim to be a threat to the community.
I don't know if the "We're still in 19th century Europe" defense extends to this type of hypocrisy and cynical manipulation of the community's parents. I think it is just blatant power hunger of the rabbis, and denial, and cruelty towards children.
I'm the one who wrote Reb elya's legacy..., but its only letting me post anonymously.
UOJ, you are 100% right. Now is not the time. Please remove my entire posting and save it for a more appropriate time.
For now, we need tfillos and zchusim. Rabbi Svei has dedicated his entire life to the Klal and to Torah. His financial dealings in his yeshiva are impeccable. His love of Torah and Bnei Torah is legendary. Hashem should grant him a Refuah Shleima Bkarov.
Tomorrow night, in Baltimore, there is an evening for parents sponsored by the rabbonim on how to keep your children safe.
This was posted on Phil Jacobs' blog. I think the commenter is spot on:
What’s the big need for an educational evening? Parents should call the police, and rabbis who know about it should do likewise instead of covering up. This was covered in the letter they sent out. Did you not get the memo? Or what part of “No more coverups!” didn’t you understand?
What we need is for an evening training the rabbis on how to listen to victims and not sweep their stories under the carpet like in the past. Parents know what to do, but the community does not let them do it. Parents and children complained about Rabbi Eiseman, and about Rabbi Eisgrau and about others and were shushed. Phil informs the public and is ostracized. There is not such a big need to teach parents about sexual abuse. There is a HUGE need to teach our leaders common sense and common decency.
I'm the Anon. poster who wrote about the Eastern Europe mentality.
I was referring to rabbis like Rav Svei, and those from his older generation.
UOJ is right. There is reishus. Margulies richly fits that category. The protectors of Eiseman also, whoever they may be. There are others.
Hannah Arendt wrote a book: The Banality of Evil. It was about Adolf Eichman, Hitler's architect of the death camps. He was a manager. Banal and boring. Like the engineer who drove the train back and forth to Auschwitz. Amoral, no conscience. Unfortunately, we have many stinking, rotten Jews today who fall into this category. Yeshiva administrators who push pencils, and never pause to think what they're doing. Never feel a child's emotion. Never feel how parents are cracking under the burden of tuition. At the end of the week, they get their paycheck, dust off their Borsalino, and waddle back and forth to shul on Shabbos. Knock down a few shots at the kiddush. They just don't give a damn. They stink, and I hate their guts.
Same for the morons at Aguda, Torah U'Mesorah, and the Orthodox Union. Collecting nice checks, good benefits, vacations, all the holidays, get home two hours before Shabbos. If they're big names, they lecture on Pesach cruises. Screw them. They don't give a crap about us either. Their big message: Don't get drunk on Purim. Make sure you're seen crying on Tisha B'av. Duh.
Elliot Passik and Sherree have suggested a parents organization to give parents more power to unite and stand up to powerful moysdos that don't acknowledge or feel a need to listen to individual families. If we are not going to name these corrupt moysdos here or anywhere in public (try getting something written about abuse in a particular yeshiva in Yated or Hamodia or even Mishpacha), then maybe a parents group would bring serious problems to the fore and the strength of numbers would force the schools to pay attention. Rabbi Horowitz, to me it does not seem like it is enough to say that each individual parent has the freedom to change schools. It reminds me of what a friend of mine once said in defense of yeshivas in general. That there's nothing wrong with the system, but bochurim (and presumably parents) need to watch out not to get hurt. So we don't have to fix the schools, we just have to protect our own individual child from the damage that can be done to them in the shool? In some communities there aren't that many schools to choose from, and if you want one with your hashkafa (modern, litvish, chasidish, chabad, satmar, whatever) you really are limited even in New York City (Eer Hakodesh). Also, if you want a frum school that has a good safety policy about protecting children, you apparently have to start looking to really different hashkofos such as Catholic schools or some public schools which have been FORCED to adopt real measures to protect their students. So trying to pull your kid out and switch schools is not a viable answer for parents in the long run.
The problem with the parents organization idea is that nothing ever happens in our community without the haskama of the gedolim. People are just too lazy, afraid, unmotivated, non-thinking, etc. and too FRUM to advocate any change in our traditional way of doing things. The only way this idea of parents having more of a say, such as Elliot and Sherree argue for, or making mutual contracts such as Dr. Twersky has suggested, is if the "Gedolim"/Rabbanim approve, endorse, sign on, anounce and proclaim that this is allowed and encouraged. Otherwise we all know it will be business as usual.
When it came to the issue of human hair sheitels, or bugs in the water, or bugs on vegetables and strawberries, or the issur of the internet, or the need for more modest dress, or the issur of having pictures of ladies modeling sheitels in a sheitel store (which men go in there?), the rabbis speak and people listen. When it came to the takkanos about the chassunas and espenses, the rabbis spoke but noone listened, because the rabbbis themselves couldn't listen to their own decree, due to the need to go the weddings of rich supporters of their mosydos. But if the rabbis would speak on the need of parents to demand better for their children's chinuch, and to at least demand their physical and emotional safety, parents would listen and begin to unite for change.
If the rabbis would speak. Their silence is deafening.
I just saw a t-shirt that read "Procratinators of the world unite....tomorrow."
Case in point. Big yeshiva in Brooklyn (not mentioning names) is exposed to have covered up child molestation for decades. Somebody asks a Gadol why he is allowing parents to continue to send their kids there. He says, and I quote, "If parents are crazy enough after all that exposure to continue to send their kids there, then what can I do." I don't understand. If parents were crazy enough to allow their kids to use the internet, he would do something and has. If parents were crazy enough to allow their daughters to join the Israeli army to serve their country, he would do something and has. If parents were crazy enough to ffed their children unfiltered water, he would do something and has. If parents allow their children to smoke cigarettes, even, rabbis have denounced this. But if parents are REALLY CRAZY enough to expose their children to an extemely unsafe environment in which there are absolutely NO precautions taken against severe psychological trauma, and if it occurs it is denied and covered up, then what can he do?
If even a handful of gedolim would have even slightly encouraged parents to think twice and to choose carefully a safe school for their children, if they would have even expressed the slightest shock and dissappointment with the yeshivah for neglecting childrens safety for so long in such a criminally negligent manner, do you think that the yeshivah would still have the same full enrollment it has? Do you think it would be in the process of successfully starting a branch in Lakewood?
I have mixed feelings about the following event that is going to occur this week in Baltimore. I don't want to suggest anyone who wants to learn "how to keep their children safe", go to this event. Only go if you want to see first hand how the rabbonim of Baltimore is mimicking the Catholic Conference of Maryland, then this is your opportunity.
This political event is sponsored by Ohel Children's Home and Family Services, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Phil Jacobs and Shofar Coalition of Baltimore, which is a spin-off of Esther Giller and the Sidran Foundation. The soul purpose is to make the orthodox Jewish community believe the rabbonim care and want to make changes. Unfortunately, the fact is the Vaad of Baltimore is not trustworthy organization and only care about protecting their assets and image of themselves and the alleged and convicted sexual predators they call "friends".
Even though the event sponsors (Ohel, Hopfer and Gottlieb) will not allow questions, make it a point to ask Rabbi Hopfer:
How many years must go by before he will allow the Eisgrau survivor to see her siblings? What needs to happen prior to him warning the Baltimore community about his findings on the case of Rabbi Moshe Eisemann? Why is it that he told the administration at Ner Israel to "retire" him immediately, yet won't do the right thing and warn the community about this alleged sexual predator?
T Minus 7 weeks to the Shabbos Hagodel Droshos by these Roshos.
Get your Kosher L'Pesach Barf Bags ready as you will listen to their flatulent oratory exhorting you to "cleanse" yourself of the sinful Chometz that has enveloped you during the year. They will exhort you to 'Remember Yetzias Mitzrayim' and that you should use it to motivate yourself to higher levels of Toiyreh, Avoideh, and Yiras Shomayim!
Feckless Flatulent Frauds! All of you Dass Toiyreniks!
Bill Will Extend Child Sex Abuse Civil Suits By Barbara Pash Baltimore Jewish Times February 19, 2008 http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/article/bill_will_extend_child_sex_abuse_civil_suits/
A bill to extend the statute of limitations in civil suits related to child sexual abuse is being considered in the Maryland General Assembly. The bill was introduced by Del. Eric Bromwell (D-8h), of Baltimore County. It is based on a similar bill that was unsuccessfully introduced last year by Sen. James Brochin (D-42nd), also of Baltimore County.
“The two bills are slightly different in wording,” Mr. Bromwell said of his HB 858 and Mr. Brochin’s 2007 SB 575, “but the intent is the same.”
HB 858 would increase the statute of limitations within which a victim may bring a civil claim from the current seven years after turning age 18 to 32 years after age 18. In order to qualify, the victim must provide a certificate of merit from an attorney and a psychiatrist or psychologist.
In addition, HB 858 contains a one-year, four-month-long “window,” starting January 1, 2009, during which victims for whom even the extended statute of limitations has passed may bring a claim under certain conditions.
Mr. Bromwell said he was spurred to introduce the bill because he has met victims of child sexual abuse through his professional and personal life. “It’s one of the most heinous of crimes,” said Mr. Bromwell, who is employed in private industry.
Victims often have difficulty acknowledging the abuse until later in life, he continued. “People are getting out of college, starting their families and for victims of abuse, that’s usually not the case. They may have difficulty with relationships and employment. I know many cases where people come forward well after their 25th birthday.”
Other bills dealing with child sex abuse and the time frame for civil suits have been introduced in the General Assembly over the years. The current statute of limitations is the result of a 2003 bill. In 2006, Mr. Bromwell and then-Del. Pauline Menes unsuccessfully co-sponsored a bill to extend the age to 42 years. The bill passed in the House of Delegates but failed in the Senate committee.
Mr. Brochin’s bill in 2007 met a similar fate. His bill had a window to file claims regardless of the victim’s current age, but it also failed in the Senate committee to which it was assigned for a hearing.
Mr. Bromwell said he had talked with Mr. Brochin about the latter cross-filing a Senate version of his bill. “But in the end, I decided to have the bill only in the House. His Senate bill didn’t make it out of committee, so I decided to take a different approach,” said Mr. Bromwell.
Mr. Bromwell also decided to put a cap on the statute of limitations rather than extending it indefinitely, as Mr. Brochin’s bill had.
“It may not be what everyone wants but I have an obligation to put in legislation that has a chance to pass,” said Mr. Bromwell.
Mr. Brochin is outspoken about the intense pressure he came under last year while his bill was being considered. He talks specifically of the Maryland Catholic Conference, the public policy group of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Archdiocese of Wilmington and Diocese of Wilmington.
Petitions against him were passed out at Catholic churches, Mr. Brochin claimed. Alumni of Calvert Hall, a Catholic high school in Baltimore County, were told that tuition would be raised because of his bill, resulting in hundreds of e-mails from them.
“It got brutal, ugly and intense,” said Mr. Brochin, who added that he “did not get pressure from other organizations” on the bill.
As it happens, Mr. Bromwell is a graduate of Calvert Hall. Nonetheless, people attending Catholic churches have been asked to contact him about the bill, he said, and he is feeling heat from the Catholic Conference, “more so than on any other issue I’ve had in my six years here.”
“The legislation is being seen as aimed at the Catholic Church. But it’s clearly a bigger issue than that. It spans many religions and organizations. It’s not fair to classify it as aimed at the church,” said Mr. Bromwell.
Mr. Brochin agreed. He has been following the series in the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES written by executive editor Phil Jacobs about allegations of child sex abuse in the Baltimore Jewish community.
“The work that Phil did is incredibly important,” said Mr. Brochin. “It showed this is not only a Catholic question. We have to give everyone a chance for justice.”
A civil suit requires what Mr. Brochin called a “discovery process,” during which information must be supplied by whomever the suit is against, whether “it’s the Archdiocese or [Yisroel] Shapiro,” about whom Mr. Jacobs wrote and for whom an April 1 court date has been set.
“It’s important to open the books and find out if anyone else is doing this and where they are,” Mr. Brochin said of the discovery process.
Phone calls to the Maryland Catholic Conference were not returned by press time.
The Maryland Jewish Alliance is “probably not” taking a position on Mr. Bromwell’s bill, according to Melody McCoy McEntee, director of government relations and public policy for the Baltimore Jewish Council, an agency of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore The alliance is the lobbying coalition of the Associated, BJC and the Washington, D.C. federation and groups.
“That is a tort reform bill,” Ms. McEntee said of Mr. Bromwell’s bill. “We are trying to expend our energy on other things that prevent child abuse, not so much tort reform. It’s not an issue that is unique to the Jewish community.”
Ms. McEntee said the alliance is supporting two House bills, HB 400 and HB 410, that deal with neglect of a child and that require reporting instances of such.
“Our position is, we are focusing on prevention and treatment. We are trying to do all we can to make sure that kids are not abused and if they are, they are getting to treatment,” she said.
Mr. Bromwell’s bill is not scheduled for a hearing until March 20. However, on Tues. Feb. 19, more than a dozen House bills dealing with sex offenders are being heard in committee. Mr. Brochin said the large number of bills reflects a growing public awareness of the problem.
“Legislators are hearing from their constituents,” he said. “Despite some gains, we haven’t gone far enough.”
Several experts said that Mr. Bromwell’s bill, to extend the statute of limitations, is particularly important.
In the “survivor community,” said Dr. Mesa Leventhal-Baker, medical director of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, “they feel left out, at a loss how to finish some of these cases or to move on. When they finally come forward, they have no legal form to do so.”
It wasn’t until the 1980s that the issue of child sex abuse came to attention, spurred by a number of highly publicized cases across the country. “Maryland was behind the curve but we are now seeing some improvement in the state,” she said. “But some communities, the Jewish community in particular, is still behind the times in recognizing this as an issue.”
Vicki Polin, of The Awareness Center: The Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault, an international organization based in Baltimore, echoed the sentiment.
“A bill like this is absolutely important. Most people don’t come forward until they are in their 40s and 50s, when they start reflecting on their life,” she said.
Dr. Joyce Silberg is coordinator of the trauma services for children at Sheppard Pratt Hospital and executive vice president of the Leadership Council, a coalition of child abuse experts who promote information and education of the public and media. According to Dr. Silberg, the abuse a person undergoes is often not fully understood until adulthood.
“The triggers can be having their own kids, or their own kids reaching the age they were when they were abused,” said Dr. Silberg who, in her private practice, has seen many such examples. “These are powerful memory triggers.”
Dr. Silberg has written a chapter for a new book on sexual abuse in the Jewish community. Titled “When The Vow Breaks,” it will be published by Brandeis University Press in 2009. She interviewed several people in the Jewish community, including Mr. Jacobs.
“This is not just a Catholic issue,” she said of child sexual abuse, “and the purpose of the book is to show that.”
However, there is a difference in the legislative arena. The Catholic Church is “highly organized and centralized, so when they lobby against a bill they can be a formidable opponent,” Dr. Silberg continued. “If a rabbi is accused of this, the rabbi or his congregation might lobby against a bill but it’s not the whole Jewish religion.”
Mr. Bromwell does not know if his bill this year will be any more successful than Mr. Brochin’s bill was last year. A number of states of have similar legislation, and that might make a difference to Marylanders.
“Awareness about the issue has grown,” said Mr. Bromwell. “I’ve gotten a lot of positive responses.”
Federal Law Under federal law, there is no statute of limitations for the criminal prosecution of offenses involving the sexual abuse of a child.
Alaska, Delaware and Maine have no statute of limitations for victims bringing civil actions of childhood sexual abuse. Wisconsin is considering eliminating its current statute of limitations. The following states have a statute of limitations greater than seven years after the age of majority for victims of childhood sexual abuse: Connecticut (30 years), Ohio (12 years), Pennsylvania (12 years) and Wisconsin (14 years).
Also see: http://www.childvictimsvoicemaryland.com
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer Continues To Commit Soul Murder
I have mixed feelings about the following event that is going to occur this week in Baltimore. I don't want to suggest anyone who wants to learn "how to keep their children safe", go to this event. Only go if you want to see first hand how the rabbonim of Baltimore is mimicking the Catholic Conference of Maryland, then this is your opportunity.
This political event is sponsored by Ohel Children's Home and Family Services, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Phil Jacobs and Shofar Coalition of Baltimore, which is a spin-off of Esther Giller and the Sidran Foundation. The soul purpose is to make the orthodox Jewish community believe the rabbonim care and want to make changes. Unfortunately, the fact is the Vaad of Baltimore is not trustworthy organization and only care about protecting their assets and image of themselves and the alleged and convicted sexual predators they call "friends".
Even though the event sponsors (Ohel, Hopfer and Gottlieb) will not allow questions, make it a point to ask Rabbi Hopfer:
* How many years must go by before he will allow the Eisgrau survivor to see her siblings? * What needs to happen prior to him warning the Baltimore community about his findings on the case of Rabbi Moshe Eisemann? * Why is it that he told the administration at Ner Israel to "retire" him immediately, yet won't do the right thing and warn the community about this alleged sexual predator?
_______________________________ The institute for advanced professional training at Ohel Children's Home and Family Services
Presents "How To Keep Our Children Safe" When: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 8:00 PM Where: Congregation Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion - 6600 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore, MD
Welcome: Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb (Congregation Shomrei Emunah)
Introduction: David Mandel Chief Executive Officer Ohel Children's Home and Family Services
Presenters: Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer Congregation Shearith Israel
Dr. David Pelcovitz (self appointed) Nationally recognized authority on parenting, adolescent development, and other child-related issues Gwendolyn & Joseph Straus Chair in Jewish Education Azrieli School of Jewish Education, Yeshiva University
I think if anyone is going to the Hopfer lecture last night that they shoudl download the following flyers put out by the Awareness Center and demand that Hopfer respond to the allegations made against him of covering up for sex offenders.
Also ask Hopfer why it's ok for Ben Fleischman to talk pictures of children who are not orthodox? http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Fleischman_Benyamin.html
CALL TO ACTION: Case of Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro
Demanding Transparency and Accountability from our Religious Leaders!
December 28, 2007
Back on April 11, 2007, the Vaad HaRabbonim/Rabbinical Council of Greater Baltimore signed a letter and made public a statement about dealing with "Abuse in Our Community".
To this day the members of the Vaad who signed the letter have not been held accountable for the issues they addressed. For the last four years the rabbonim of Baltimore have been aware that allegations were made against Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro, yet did nothing more then have him stop teaching bar mitzvah students -- and then helped in arranging for this alleged sex offender to have a job working for Wasserman and Lemberger's. The status quo in the Baltimore community has been to ensure those who are alleged to have molested children have a way to make a living, yet doing nothing to help those who have been sexually violated.
It's a well known fact in the orthodox community of Baltimore that Yisroel Shapiro daven's (prays) at Congregation Darchi Tzedek synagogue, located on Seven Mile Lane. This is a synagogue in which children can be seen running in and out of. One would think that Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz's first concern would be to make sure the children of his shul were protected and to start asking if any children might have already been molested so that he could assist in them getting help. To this day Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz has never issued public statement warning his congregants of the fact that Shapiro was arrested and charged with child molestation. Unless a parent read The Awareness Center's web page, has been reading blogs or another parent told them, they are unaware that there is an alleged sexual predator amongst them.
The Awareness Center is asking that everyone contact Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz and the Baltimore Vaad HaRabbonim Rabbinical and ask them to:
1.
Make public the plan they established to notify parents in the community of the potential dangers of their children being left alone with Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro.
2.
We are also asking that this statement include the safety plan created when Yisroel Shapiro is davening at Darchi Tzedek or any synagogue. They also need to make public the safety plan they established for Wasserman's and Lemberger," the retail business in which Shapiro is employed and also for any other public location Shapiro may enter.
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer - President
Vaad Harabbonim of Baltimore
410-358-3450
Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz
Congregation Darchei Tzedek
410-653-1688
410-486-0445 (Rabbi Horowitz)
7307 7 Mile Lane
Pikesville, MD 21208
Members of the Vaad HaRabbonim
1. Rabbi Elan Adler, Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation
Rumor has it some Rabbi in Brooklyn is about to get arrested for money laundering. Something to do with an investigation about a "outreach" center...All I know is that Rabbi is a "Fat" guy..more to come.
Coming soon to New York!-- ----------------------------
New criticism for Saudi religious police By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 19, 4:36 PM ET
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Saudi Arabia's religious police are under attack again over what critics consider heavy-handed enforcement of the country's gender segregation policies and other strict social rules.
This time the case involves an American businesswoman who went with a male colleague to a Starbucks branch in the Saudi capital and ended up in jail for sitting in a coffee shop with a man who is not a close relative.
The brief detention of the woman, identified only as Yara, drew headlines in Saudi media, prompting one writer to call the Feb. 4 arrest "an abduction." A local rights group called for an explanation from the religious police. A senior U.N. official described it as "harassment."
Responding to the criticism, the religious police issued a statement published Tuesday by Saudi newspapers that said officers were justified in their actions.
Islamic law does not allow police to ignore the prohibition against a woman "sitting with a man who is not a relative and exchanging words and laughter with him," said the statement by Abdullah al-Shithri of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
The commission added that it reserved the right to take legal action against Abdullah al-Alami, a columnist for the newspaper Al-Watan who accused the religious police of abducting Yara.
Yara's story, which first appeared in the English-language Arab News, is one of a string of incidents that have provoked a public outcry against the commission.
Last year, members of the religious police were put on trial in two separate cases, each involving the death of a man in custody. Judges dropped charges against them, but the unprecedented trials provoked calls for reforming the religious police.
Controversy over the police also flared last year when a women who had been gang-raped by several men was sentenced to six months in prison and 90 lashes for being in a car with an unrelated man.
The religious police enforce the kingdom's strict Islamic lifestyle. They patrol public places to ensure women are covered and not wearing makeup, men and women don't mingle, shops close five times a day for prayers and men go to a mosque to worship.
While many Saudis say they support the idea of having the commission because its mandate is based on several verses in the Quran, they also say it should be regulated because the free rein it has long enjoyed has led to some of its members overstepping their duties.
Yakin Erturk, the U.N. special investigator for violence against women who recently visited the kingdom, was quoted by Arab News as saying Yara's case was "a telling example of harassment."
"She was subjected to humiliating and illegal treatment before she was released," Erturk said.
The National Society for Human Rights said it wanted to know why the commission officer was not escorted by a regular policeman and did not have an identity badge, according to Arab News.
A close relative of Yara, who is a Salt Lake City native living in Jiddah with her Saudi husband and three children, said she had on no makeup when she was detained and was dressed in the black cloak that women are forced to wear in public in Saudi Arabia.
The relative, who agreed to discuss the case only if not quoted by name, said Yara, 37, went to Starbucks just to use its wireless Internet connection after being told power was out at the office her company is opening in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
A male Syrian colleague joined her in the coffee shop's crowded family section, reserved for women and families, the relative said. He said Yara was quickly taken away by religious police, made to listen to a lecture on sin and forced to sign papers admitting she had been in illegal seclusion with a man who is not her husband. She was released 5 1/2 hours after her detention.
The Editorial Page Who Was Fidel Castro? (By Avi Shafran?)
Fidel Castro, who died in 2006 (give or take three years), "said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president," Reuters reports.
What kind of leader was Castro exactly? Reuters doesn't say, but it offers us some clues:
[Castro is] retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution. Seized power in an armed revolution, check. Then there's this:
"To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honor in recent days of electing me a member of parliament . . . I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept--I repeat not aspire to or accept--the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief," Castro said in the statement published on the Web site of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper. Hmm, Communist Party. That may be relevant. The story goes on:
A charismatic leader famous for his long speeches delivered in his green military fatigues, Castro is admired in the Third World for standing up to the United States but considered by his opponents a tyrant who suppressed freedom. So he was a "charismatic leader" and was considered "a tyrant who suppressed freedom"--but only by his opponents. In contrast:
The bearded leader who took power in an armed uprising against a U.S.-backed dictator in 1959 had temporarily ceded power to his younger brother after he underwent emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding in mid-2006. So the fellow Castro replaced was definitely a dictator. As for Castro himself, who knows?
And it isn't even just Reuters. The Associated Press calls Castro an "unchallenged leader," while the New York Times characterizes him as "one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world." (That fellow in North Korea--he's all-powerful, but not as all-powerful as Castro.)
The free press in the free world is bending over backward not to call Castro what he really was: a communist dictator. Why? Perhaps this is an artifact of the Watergate-era notion of the "adversarial press." Journalists see themselves as standing in opposition to their own government, and since Castro was an enemy of the U.S. that put him on the same side. The enemy of my country is my friend, or at least my "unchallenged leader."
Interviews in Lakewood, Monsey and Brooklyn _______________________
Australia seeking fatter mailmen Tue Feb 19, 12:39 PM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's postal service has increased the maximum weight for mailmen and women by 15 kg (33 pounds) in an attempt to attract more "posties," local media reported on Tuesday.
Australia Post had a weight limit of 90 kgs (198 pounds) for "posties" because its 110cc motorcycles had a safe working limit of 130kg (286 pounds) -- that's 40kg (88 pounds) for letters and up to 90 kgs for mailmen and women fully clothed.
But after talks with motorcycle manufacturer Honda it was agreed the bikes could safely carry a "postie" weighing 105 kgs (231 pounds), said Sydney's the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
But the "posties" will only carry 25 kgs of mail.
The union representing mailmen and women said the 90 kg limit had caused recruitment headaches for Australia Post, but the company denied it had staffing problems.
"Testing found a rise in rider weight up to a maximum of 105 kgs would not have any significant effect on the stability, handling or safety of their 110 cc motorcycle," an Australia Post spokesman told the newspaper.
"By raising it from 90 to 105 kilograms means there will be other people that can now apply," he said.
I see what you're saying, UOJ, but I think your first sentiments are more true, that now is not the time to decide Reb Elya's legacy, good, great or flawed. Now is only the time for our tfillos. I am admitting my mistake for posting without thinking of the timing. Can't you admit that maybe it will make a statement of sensitivity and appropriateness to admit that now is not the time? Your agreeing to remove my postings will make me feel more comfortable posting more info in the future. And I do have more info....Thank you for being understanding.
The primary yeshiva to promulgate this new trend was the Philadelphia yeshiva led by Elya Svei and Shmuel Kaminetzky. Svei a noted and erudite talmud chochom was well known for his kannaus or intransigence.
There was another side of him which was generally unknown and that was his desire and goal to control the Yeshivish movement singlehandedly,after RAK's death. Kaminetzky, not nearly as bright but realized he would make a good front man, did just that. They created the first Ivy League yeshiva. They made it difficult to get in, unless a student was very bright or of course there was money in the family.
In a relatively short period of time,their campus was built with state of the art facilities, and they had no mortgage.
Svei was free to wander off to head Torah Umesorah, and ultimately almost brought the Jewish day school movement to the brink of disaster with his outrageous and outlandish nonsense. What played in New York, did not play well in Peoria. He did not get his way and was forced to leave.
He tried his shenanigans at the Agudah's Moetzes, and again was marginalized, until he left the organization.
His students idolized him, although it was clear to any rational observer of the Jewish scene, that he was losing it and doing way more harm than good. His speeches were long and rambling, and his message was hard line, irrational and incoherent.
Nevertheless, He solidified RAK's ideology of Torah lishma,where it now became shameful for anyone to ever consider doing anything other than becoming a lifer(kollel for life.)
Easy for him to say, he now had a multi million dollar campus paid off completely, and a student base primarily of wealthy kids.He did not take in any Iranians or Russians until he was absolutely shamed into it. Nice guy!
I have just been informed of the existence of this blog and that Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark is a subject among the writers. This is my first time writing.
With permission of my rebbe Harav Moshe Green Shlita, who himself is not well and in great need of a refuah shelaima, I wish to make all the readers here aware that we are doing all that we can to see that Mordechai Wolmark is pushed out of Monsey and out of chinuch forever. There is a kola d'lo passak that Rabbi Wolmark has sexually abused many young talmidim at his yeshiva. The stories about him taking young bachurim on numerous occasions to shopping malls to visit stores that specialize exclusively in preitzus is absolutely true. Rabbi Wolmark had also taken a bachur of fourteen years old, which was under his special care, to be a dayan at the geirus of a young woman and allowed the bachur to see her in the mikveh. Rabbi Wolmark has made it a habit to learn Hilchos nidda and Hilchos chassanim with young teenage bachurim, which is absolutely wrong and something outrageous. According to Rav Green Shlita, there is no excuse for the misconduct of Rabbi Wolmark and that he should leave chinuch on his own and not wait to be forced out with more public disgrace.
Rabbi Pinchus Lipshitz predicted in his toichndikeh toschudike and choshuveh column that if nebech Barak Oiboimeh would win his party's gevaldickeh nomination that he he would be zocheh by a groiseh landslide to the Presidency!
I am sick and tired and nauseated of reading all these Yiddishe Yeshivisims in the Yated. It is improper English!!!!
UGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Your prediction of a landslide is absurd! It would be very close between him and McCain and McCAin would probably win the Electoral College. Many who say they will vote for Obama will switch in the booth.
None of the editor shmekles in ze heiliger yiddshe newspapers advertising Chineese auctions and "heimshe yingerman with a truck" have cottoned onto the fact that: 1) Obama is a Muslim 2) Appoximately 1/2 of his staff are members of Nation of Islam. That's because: 3) Farrakahn lives in Obama's district. 4) Obama has dodged every question about Israel.
Another concert ban, this time it's Lipa and Gertner at MSG. A very strongly worded kol koreh has gone out with many signatures. It didn't take them long to gather up the signatures. I wonder what's taking them so long to issue one against molesters.
HONG KONG — China’s State Environmental Protection Administration said on Tuesday that water quality is barely improving in the main body of water behind the Three Gorges Dam and in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, although the water does meet Chinese national standards for drinking, fisheries and swimming.
Water quality is actually worsening in several branches of the Yangtze River that drain into the main reservoir, the agency said in a water management plan, echoing previous government documents.
The dam has slowed the flow of the Yangtze and this reduces the ability of the river and its tributaries to flush out polluted areas.
Bans are not Chinuch I suspect that some Mishpacha readers are beginning to wonder whether the magazine has developed an obsession with at- risk youth ever since the well-publicized tour of chareidi MKs of the teen hangouts around Jerusalem’s Ben Yehudah Street. The Hebrew Mishpacha recently carried an interview with the highly respected Bnei Brak Dayan Rabbi Yehudah Sillman dealing, inter alia, with chinuch issues and both magazines featured the Novominsker Rebbe’s words to a group of mechanchim under the aegis of Rinat HaLev. In addition, Rabbi Grylak, Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, and myself have all ad dressed aspects of the topic more than once. (For the record, we do not discuss among ourselves or with the editors of Mishpacha what we are going to write about.) Even the English serial “Black and White” touched on it. The objections of some readers on this score would be well taken if we were talking only about the obvious drop-outs from mainstream educational frameworks. If they were an isolated phenomenon, one could argue that they constitute the exception that proves the rule of our overwhelm ing success in raising children whose connection with the Ribono shel Olam is vibrant and positive. But the truth is, that dropouts represent only the most glaring example of a larger problem of alienation. Drop-outs constitute only one end of a continuum — the tip of the iceberg. At the other end of the continuum are the hundreds of bochurim that one sees learning full-blast in the local beis medrash every bein hazmanim. In between, there is a whole range. And so it is among girls as well. Anyone with eyes in his head knows that there are plenty of kids of both genders who are still in regular yeshivos or Bais Yaakovs and, more or less, in uniform, but whose faces do not reflect much enthusiasm for their lives and for whom thoughts of the Ribono shel Olam are rarely upper most in their minds. Signs of alienation among those still in the system are easy enough to pinpoint. Every time a proposal is raised to shorten IDF service requirements, there are protests from certain segments of the chareidi world, who fear that any reduction in chareidi fear of the army will result in many bochurim leaving the yeshivos. That response is itself an admission that there are those staying in yeshivah not out of a love of learning, but for negative reasons: fear that they won’t be able to find a shidduch or fear of army service. Recently, the Jewish Observer pointed to a new phenomenon — or an old phenomenon that now has its own name: Adults at Risk. The phenomenon refers to middle-aged adults who suddenly wake up one day and realize that they have been going through the motions for years, perhaps decades. In normal times, inertia keeps most members of any particular society within its ranks. But, in the long run, in a society such as ours that places many demands on the individual, inertia is not enough. Without the infusion of positive energy, at some point, whether in this generation or the next, social pressure will cease to do the job. That means we must understand the meaning of chinuch. One of the master mechanchim of the last fifty years, Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner, used to say, “One does not educate with issurim.” Bans and efforts to throw up walls of protection around our youth (and ourselves) are, of course, crucial. No one in their right mind would downplay, for instance, the importance of the various efforts to limit Internet use or stifle the development of ever-more-sophisticated Internet filters. Separate seating for men and women on buses serving chareidi neighborhoods is a fine thing, especially during the early afternoon hours when the buses are full both of avreichim and seminary students finishing their school day. But I wonder whether one yeshivah bochur ever went off-the-derech because of the absence of such a separation or will be saved by their existence. Given the proliferation of temptations all around, such separations cannot substitute for learning to keep our eyes in our Gemara and our thoughts where they should be. If we make the mistake of confusing bans and various safeguards with chinuch, we will inevitably fall prey to a number of illusions. One is that all our spiritual problems are a function of the surrounding society. From that illusion follows another: that we can somehow recreate the ghetto and erect walls around ourselves. Anyone who thinks that it is still possible to secure the fort through a multiplicity of lines of defense alone is living in a fantasy world. Again, that does not mean that the defenses are not important. But at best they can do no more than secure us time for the much more difficult task of chinuch and infusing our children with excitement over the privilege of being born to a life of Torah and mitzvos. Without the latter, all our defenses will turn out to be new Maginot Lines, as easily skirted as the French fortifications on the Eastern front were by Ger man troops at the outset of World War TI, Too great a focus on bans can lead to a false sense of security, and distract us from the primary task at hand, which is creating both an emotional and intellectual connection between our children and Torah. No less important than a child’s mastery of the material he is taught is the way that material is internalized. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein used to give the example of a yeshivah student who has just learned the sugya of adam muad l’olam, a human being is always responsible for the damage he causes, in Bava Kama. He breaks his roommate’s alarm clock, and attempts to disclaim responsibility on the grounds, it was an accident. I did not mean to.” That talmid has not yet internalized the connection between his studies and life. Precisely because chinuch is so hard, we all try to push off the responsibility to others, and content ourselves with the role of enforcers of boundaries. Parents leave to the chedarim the responsibility for answering their children basic questions in emunah. Meanwhile the chedarim act as if all such sheilos must have been answered in a proper home, and treat any such questions as an act of rebellion, if not an attempt to negatively influence classmates as well. Similarly, if a boy awakens to a question in his high school years that did not bother him before, the reaction is often that all such questions should have long since been answered. If instead of receiving answers or direction, the student sees that his question provokes anger and confusion, he may wrongly draw the conclusion that there are no answers. Chinuch requires the efforts of parents and professional educators together, and the task of all of us as mechanchim is never done. •
If only the ehrlicher yidden who signed the ban knew that Margo and company would be on it too..........
And the cheap shot of adding the slur against lipa on the bottom to make it look like part of the kol korah the rabbis signed on makes this an obvious evil business definately not lesheim shomayim.
The Big Event Live! A Sheya Mendlowitz Production. Featuring Lipa Schmeltzer and Shlomie Gertner at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden 7:30pm on March 9th Musical Director Yisroel Lamm. SEPARATE SEATING. For more information or to reserve tickets please check out www.nyBIGevent.com or call 718.873.0888.
BTW, here is a suggestion to "Dass Toiyreh" to 'mutterize' these mixed sex concerts:
Have all women and girls don plexifoam masks over their faces so that their features are totally covered just like you now see in all of the Sheitel store windows.
This will surely protect our men/boys from impure thoughts, V'Chuloo.
To all Girls/Women planning to attend:
ReplyDeleteGet fitted and wear steel chastity belts.
Prominent rabbonim, such as Rabbi Yisroel Belsky and Rabbi Mordechai
ReplyDeleteTendler, have endorsed the concept of marital counseling and have actively voiced their support for it.
Sounds like a Purim Sh'pil or a prank... BUT IT IS NOT this is for real! NO SHAME!!!
ReplyDeleteCan you please get that disgusting avi shafran face, off.
ReplyDeleteHeh..Heh...UOJ has Lanner as the new OU logo.
ReplyDeleteI heard Belsky will be giving a shiur in Hilchos Znius at the beach. Maybe you don't know but Belsky is very religious. He demands that all women attending his shiur must have a majority of their body covered with a towel.
ReplyDeleteHe asked me to make sure all rules are followed.
There's no bigger pritzus than seen on Venice Beach on Shabbos. Naked women all over the place and this the OU endorses with Tendler as host? The Lanner scandal is looking like childs play.
ReplyDeleteuou, will shalom get to prove his worthiness of the uoj "Cialis Longevity Award!"?
ReplyDeleteAttention All boys at Shaarai Torah In Monsey between the ages of 12 and 17 years:
ReplyDeleteYeshiva Shaarai Torah in Monsey under the directorship of Pedophile Mordechai Gimpel Wolmark will be taking a trip to Venice Beach on the Shabbos that Belsky will be lecturing there to the immodestly clad women on Hilchos Tznius.
Following the Belsky lecture, the pedophile Rabbi Mordecahi Gimpel Wolmark will continue his series of discourses for all his attending students on the laws of nidda and Chassanim to be held at the same location, on the beach.
As is the practice when in Monsey, New York, on Motzei Shabbos, there will be a trip to the mall where boys who attended the beach lecture will be permitted to visit the local Victoria Secret boutique together with Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark, followed by an open discussion conducted by Rabbi Mordechai Gimpel Wolmark the nationally known sex pervert, on each students personal thoughts on the matter.
I don't agree with everything he has done but that man is near death.
ReplyDeleteR' Elya Svei's body is not fighting infection and his blood pressure is dangerously low.
Eliyohu ben Malka
http://www.pjcenter.com/whoweare.htm
ReplyDeletePacific Jewish Center is a unique Torah community, located in the Venice/Santa Monica vicinity of Southern California. Sixty years ago, "The Shul on the Beach" was part of a thriving Miami Beach-type Jewish coastal community. Over time, suburbanization and the introduction of air-conditioning took their toll. The community was down to one shul (this one) and no minyan.
In the late seventies, Rabbi Daniel Lapin and Michael Medved joined together to begin a revitalization campaign.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lapin#Jack_Abramoff
Daniel Lapin (born 1950?) is a political commentator and American Orthodox rabbi currently living in Mercer Island, Washington, and the founder of Toward Tradition (a conservative Jewish-Christian organization).
Rabbi A. H. Lapin, a nephew of Rabbi Elya Lopian 1872-1970, served as a prominent and outspoken Orthodox rabbi in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and eventually established an Orthodox synagogue (Am Echad) in San Jose, California
Lapin's two brothers, David Lapin and Raphael Lapin, are also Orthodox rabbis and have similar educational backgrounds, having emigrated from South Africa to California. His sister is married to an American rabbi.
Lapin studied in yeshivas in London and Jerusalem, and emigrated to the United States in 1973, becoming a naturalized citizen. Lapin studied under Rabbi Moshe Feinstein in New York, Rabbi Gurwicz in the UK, and Rabbis Mishkowsky and Lifschitz in Israel.
Lapin founded the Pacific Jewish Center, a synagogue in Venice, California that views itself as functioning as part of the recent Baal teshuva movement, encouraging Conservative and Reform Jews to adopt and return to a more observant traditional Judaism.
Michael Medved was a member and is currently a board member of Toward Tradition. Actors Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss, although not politically conservative, participated in that religious community and synagogue. Lapin's teachings are also aligned with Modern Orthodox Judaism, in that while he promotes observant Judaism, he is strongly in favor of observant Jews having interaction with other faith communities (in his view, mostly conservative and observant Christian communities) and broader political action outside of Judaism. This has placed him at odds with some modern Orthodox Rabbis, who do not approve of working with clergy of other religions.
In the early 1990s, for reasons that remain unclear, Lapin left the Pacific Jewish Center and handed over the reins of rabbinic leadership to his brother David Lapin, who led the community until he left in 2003 to run the Eshkol Academy.
Jack Abramoff served on the board of Toward Tradition, including a stint as chairman, and donated the $10,000 a year expected from board members. One year Abramoff met that requirement by sending a check from the Capital Athletic Foundation, an organization Abramoff controlled that has since become a key piece of the Abramoff corruption investigation.[7]
The Washington Post reported on October 16, 2005, that Toward Tradition received a $25,000 donation in 2000 from online gambling company eLottery, a lobbying client of Jack Abramoff and his employer, Preston Gates Ellis, despite Lapin's professed opposition to gambling. Some or all of the money received by Lapin was then transferred to a company run by the wife of Tony Rudy, an aide to Tom DeLay who was instrumental in killing an antigambling bill that eLottery and Abramoff were lobbying against. In a follow-up article published by The Washington Post on January 9, 2006, it was alleged that Toward Tradition was the "non-profit entity" referred to in Abramoff's plea agreement in relation to a $25,000 contribution made by Magazine Publishers of America which had hired Abramoff for a campaign against the postal rate increase. In March 2006, Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy relating to the money his wife had received via Lapin.
Lapin's brother David met Abramoff while he was visiting South Africa during his International Freedom Foundation/Red Scorpion years. He tutored Abramoff in Talmud and Jewish law, during Abramoff's process of embracing Orthodox Judaism.[1]
Abramoff employed David Lapin as the dean of Eshkol Academy, the Orthodox Jewish school Abramoff founded, from 2002 to 2004. Abramoff also directed the Marianas government to give David Lapin a $1.2 million contract for "ethics in government" trainings.[2]
According to a January 4, 2006 article in Newsweek, Lapin urged supporters of President George W. Bush's re-election to give campaign donations through Abramoff, helping Abramoff gain Bush "Pioneer" status among top presidential fundraisers.
Daniel Lapin wrote a response[3] to the Washington Post article where he denies any wrongdoing.
Lapin and his organization Toward Tradition became a participant in the Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal in 2005 because of information that surfaced during US Senate hearings into Abramoff's dealings.
The Senate hearings revealed emails between Lapin and Abramoff, wherein Lapin was asked to create academic awards for Talmudic studies --complete with letters and plaques -- to help Abramoff gain admittance to the Cosmos Club, an exclusive Washington, DC organization. (Washington Post, 6/23/2005.)
"I hate to ask your help with something so silly, but I have been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club," Abramoff wrote. He noted that the club has "Nobel Prize winners, etc. Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none. I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award from Toward Tradition with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like Scholar of Talmudic Studies? …Indeed, it would be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I think you see what I am trying to finagle here!"
Lapin responded via email and the two apparently talked by phone. Finally Lapin e-mailed, "I just need to know what needs to be produced... letters? plaques? Neither?" Abramoff replied: "Probably just a few clever titles of awards, dates and that's it. As long as you are the person to verify them [or we can have someone else verify one and you the other], we should be set. Do you have any creative titles, or should I dip into my bag of tricks?".
Subsequently, Abramoff listed two 1999 awards from Toward Tradition and the Cascadia Business Institute on his official bio on the Greenberg Traurig website. [8]
When the story broke in June 2005, Lapin told the Seattle PI "he could not recall the exchange with Abramoff" and had no recollection of the incident. In a formal statement issued in early 2006 Lapin denied having given Abramoff the awards and claimed the emails were a joke:
Anyone familiar with Abramoff’s jocular and often fatally irreverent email style won’t be surprised that I assumed the question to be a joke. ... I regret the exchange. I should have candidly explained that Toward Tradition is not an academic institution and does not issue the kind of awards he described. ... On no occasion did I, Toward Tradition, or any organization with which I was affiliated ever create an award for, or present one to Jack Abramoff.
In October 2006, the House Government Reform Committee released a report [9] which included an October 2000 email [10]from Lapin to Abramoff in which Lapin had listed the details of the three promised awards.
http://www.pjcenter.com/leadership.htm
ReplyDeleteIn August 2007, Rabbi Ben Geiger left Pacific Jewish Center to take another position in New York.
As we search for our next Rabbi, PJC is fortunate to have several highly trained lay leaders in our community to keep our shul functioning.
In addition, we have a wonderful lineup of guest Rabbis for Torah learning over 2007-2008.
In early September, we will be announcing our program of exciting, challenging adult learning for Fall 07.
Please contact the PJC office at info@pjcenter.com for further information.
http://www.pjcenter.com/visitingus.htm
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to stuffing your face with food (the biggest geshmack in life for Agudah Fressers), I like how the Pacific Jewish Center describes it as "Gastronomy". It's a much more sophisticated word.
Rabbi Tendler will be demonstrating the art of "Hegmon"(see Kesubos) on all the Virgins (as King Ach-ash-veirous) has mastered.
ReplyDeleteAll under strict Rabbinical supervission "OU".
YeshivaWorld has a report about a fire at the Satmar matzah bakery in Williamsburg, located in the basement of the Krula cheder.
ReplyDeleteNo mention that it is illegal and highly dangerous to store mounds of grain under residences & schools because of the very real threat of spontaneous combustion.
Is that what caused the fire? Are those Satmar putzes putting children at risk?
well if herschel schlechter wont be there,maybe sholom tendler will give me a heter to take a young pilegesh "at the beach" but when i get back to monsey,I have plenty of "HOT" married women who i can harrass the husbands for a Get so i can get myself lots of pilagshim coast to coast!!! cant wait california!!!
ReplyDeleteI,m so proud of sholom tendler that i even made him the vice president of the RCC.see the list at our website rccvaad.org
ReplyDeletePresident
Rabbi Meyer H. May
Rabbinic Administrator
Rabbi Avrohom Union
Director of Kashrut Services
Rabbi Yakov Vann
Kashrut Administrator
Rabbi Nissim Davidi
Honorary Presidents
Rabbi Elazar Muskin, Rabbi Baruch Kupfer
Vice Presidents
Rabbi Amram Gabay, Rabbi Sholom Tendler
Secretary
Rabbi Gershon Bess
Corresponding Secretary
Rabbi Steven Weil
Vaad Hakashrut
Chairman
Rabbi Baruch Kupfer
Rabbi Gershon Bess, Rabbi Chaim Fasman, Rabbi Berish Goldenberg, Rabbi Yaakov Krause, Rabbi Meyer H. May, Rabbi Elazar Muskin, Rabbi Sholom Tendler
Beit Din Committee
Chairman
Rabbi Nachum Sauer
Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein, Rabbi Asher Biron,
Rabbi Amram Gabay, Rabbi Sholom Tendler
Family Commission
Chairman
Rabbi Berish Goldenberg
Rabbi Asher, Brander Rabbi Avrohom Czapnik,
Rabbi Boruch Gradon, Rabbi Nachum Kosofsky
Vaad Ha'ir - Lay Board
Joseph Kornwasser
Co-Chairman
Dr. Irving Lebovics, President
Dr. Mark Goldenberg, Vice-President
Counsel
Benzion J. Westreich, Esq. Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
Last Updated: December 13, 2007
RCC, 3780 Wilshire Blvd #420, Los Angeles, CA. 90010
Copyright © 2006 Kosher Certification. All rights reserved
http://www.enricos.com/phaze2/tff.htm
ReplyDeleteI saw a jar of Enrico's sauce in the store under the OU. There is an allergan warning on the label that states the product is produced in the same facility as shellfish.
What kind of "controls" does the OU have to make sure there is no contamination? The same "foolproof" system they had for 12 years with the gefilte fish?
Rabbi Steven Weil is Secretary of the RCC. No wonder he gives sanctuary to Shalom Tender but is quick too boot out of his shul any hapless guy who burps out of turn.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/nyregion/17uzbek.html
ReplyDeleteDoctor Is Charged in a Killing, and Her People Bear the Shame
By CARA BUCKLEY
New York Times
February 17, 2008
Dr. Daniel Malakov’s name is still on the placard that hangs outside his office in Rego Park, Queens, even though he was killed three and a half months ago, and even though another orthodontist now works there in his stead.
Inside, across from the polished black desk where a receptionist answers calls in Russian, Dr. Malakov’s degrees and awards still crowd one wall.
His name hangs heavily over the small, proud community of Bukharan Jews who immigrated from Uzbekistan in the early 1990s, and who speak of Dr. Malakov with reverence and sorrow.
Yet the manner of Dr. Malakov’s death has evoked something that this young immigrant group is not used to feeling: shame.
On Oct. 28, a brilliant Sunday morning, Dr. Malakov, who was 34, died after being shot three times in a playground close to his office and near 108th Street, the bustling heart of Bukharan society in Queens. He had brought his daughter, Michelle, 4, to be picked up by his estranged wife, Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova, who is 34 and a physician. The pair had been in a rancorous custody battle over Michelle, and a judge, a week earlier, had given Dr. Malakov temporary custody of the girl. That morning, moments after Michelle ran into her mother’s arms, Dr. Malakov was shot. The gunman fled.
The Bukharan Jews in Queens reeled. Dr. Malakov was widely seen as gentle and humble, and his family was revered. His father, Khaiko Malakov, had been the chief of a major hospital in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic. His uncle Ezro Malakov was a famed musician. His brother, Gavriel, is a physical therapist; they shared the office in Rego Park. His sister, Stella, was a much-loved high school math teacher. She died of leukemia about a year before Dr. Malakov was killed; Khaiko Malakov, distraught, wrote a book about her.
“This is a known family,” said Alex Stanberg, 25, a Bukharan Jew. “Every person likes them.”
He added, “Why this happened, I cannot say. Now the Bukharans are in shame, for the first time ever.”
As the days and weeks after the shooting passed, allegations and the investigation into the crime only deepened the bewilderment of the Bukharan Jews.
Late in November, a distant relative of Dr. Borukhova’s was arrested and accused of murdering Dr. Malakov. On Feb. 7, Dr. Borukhova was arrested and charged with arranging the killing. According to the indictment, she and her relative, Mikhail Mallayev, had exchanged 91 phone calls in the days leading up to Dr. Malakov’s death.
She pleaded not guilty, but among the Bukharans in Queens, both Dr. Borukhova and her family had already been condemned.
Within hours of her son’s murder, Dr. Malakov’s mother, Malka, had begun blaming Dr. Borukhova. The next week, in a custody hearing for Michelle, Gavriel Malakov testified that Dr. Borukhova’s mother, Esta, screamed at his father, saying, “You will bury all your kids.”
The condemnation spread. It seemed unthinkable that anyone would arrange for a child to see her own father gunned down. (Michelle is now in foster care, though the Malakovs are trying to gain custody).
While the Malakov family is known and respected, few people seemed to know of the Borukhovas before the murder, and Dr. Borukhova’s testimony in family court after the murder that Dr. Malakov had repeatedly beaten her and sexually abused their daughter did little to sway their sympathy.
Long before her arrest, people on 108th Street, recognizing her face from news accounts, began staring stonily at Dr. Borukhova, sometimes falling silent or pointing when her relatives passed by. A few business owners turned members of the Borukhova family away. Some clients stopped going to her office, which she shared with her brother-in-law, Arthur Natanov.
Underlying the shock was a sense of amazement that a woman could have been behind Dr. Malakov’s murder.
“Women are usually respectful,” said Merik Mordecai, 43, a jeweler on 108th Street who is a Bukharan Jewish immigrant. The custody battle, he said, was for a court of law to decide. “What is going on with a Bukharan woman to have decided to do a thing like that?” he asked.
Through a rabbi, Dr. Borukhova and her family declined to comment. Her lawyer stressed that early judgments should not be made.
“Everybody should keep in mind the presumption of innocence, since she has entered a not guilty plea,” the lawyer, Stephen Scaring, wrote in an e-mail message.
But to many, the Borukhova name is already irreparably soiled, partly because they believe she has sullied them.
“I don’t ever want to see her, or her mother, or anyone of her blood,” said a limousine driver and Uzbek immigrant, who would not give his name. “We are all shamed, we are all depressed, because it is unbelievable.”
Bukharans began emigrating from Central Asia in significant numbers in the 1970s, but it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that they left in great waves, most bound for Israel or the United States.
Bukharan Jews have been in Central Asia for about 2,500 years, largely in what became the republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Deeply isolated, they spoke Russian and Bukhori, a hybrid of Farsi and Hebrew. In 2006, there were 17,277 people born in Uzbekistan living in the city, according to the Department of City Planning, but local religious leaders said the number was much larger. Rabbi Itzhak Yehoshua, the chief rabbi of the Bukharans in the United States, estimates that about three-quarters of the roughly 60,000 Bukharan Jews in America, mostly from Uzbekistan, live in New York. The vast majority settled in Queens.
The group is tight-knit. The Congress of the Bukharan Jews of the United States and Canada publishes its own version of the yellow pages, listing the names of every known Bukharan in the two countries.
As with any ethnic group emerging in another country, successes — and failures — are deeply felt. Having a doctor or lawyer or accountant in the family is highly valued, proof of success and acceptance in a newly adopted land. In this way, the Malakov murder was especially devastating.
“The immigrant way of thinking is very sensitive,” said Rabbi Yehoshua, who lives in Queens. “These were two successful young doctors, and after the shock was a feeling of opportunity lost. It’s an American dream that became a nightmare.”
The pairing of Dr. Malakov and Dr. Borukhova had seemed ideal. The couple adhered to the edict of marrying within their community. They were both well educated. Dr. Malakov had a degree from New York University and also studied at Columbia. Dr. Borukhova was a specialist in internal medicine at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island.
But soon after the couple wed in December 2001, the relationship began to falter. Khaiko Malakov said that they often quarreled, especially over how to best raise Michelle, and that Dr. Borukhova’s mother, who lived with them, was deeply critical of Dr. Malakov. Local leaders tried to help patch things up. Rabbi Yehoshua met several times with the couple and their families, but, he said, the problems seemed nearly intractable, and puzzling.
“We believe in the system. We tried to mediate,” Rabbi Yehoshua said. “But in order for me to mediate, I have to feel a cooperation. But both of them were very difficult.
“It was difficult to understand, maybe there were issues I didn’t know about. But they weren’t listening,” he said.
The couple separated after Michelle was born, then reunited, then separated again. Then the custody battle began. After Dr. Malakov’s death, harsh allegations surfaced from both sides, both in and out of court. Dr. Borukhova said her husband’s outward charm disguised a vicious side, and described horrific abuse. The Malakov family said Dr. Malakov told them he was scared of his in-laws.
A state senator from Staten Island, Diane J. Savino, testified in family court that two of Dr. Borukhova’s sisters had approached her on Oct. 18, 10 days before the murder. They had been brought to the senator, a former child services caseworker, by staff members who thought she could help them. The sisters asked Ms. Savino what would become of Michelle if Dr. Malakov could not take care of her anymore. Dr. Malakov had been awarded temporary custody after complaining that his wife had thwarted his visitation rights.
Even now, after Dr. Borukhova’s arrest, the Malakov family fears retribution. A police officer was recently posted outside the home of Dr. Malakov’s parents.
Many along 108th Street said nothing could excuse Dr. Malakov’s murder, or the damage it almost certainly has inflicted on Michelle.
“We are ashamed, of course, but mostly we are so upset at what has happened to this little child,” said a woman wrapped in a floor-length fur coat who was buying fruit at an outdoor market near nightfall one day last week. She knew Dr. Borukhova, she said, and would not give her name. “It’s one thing to do this right in our community. It’s another to do it in front of a child.”
Hey, what's the big deal with taking dirty money from Jack Abramoff? He bankrolled me and Moishy Pinter for years.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=fda159ff-46c4-4d1b-9a4b-7b628d9fb8d0
ReplyDeleteSubprime
Hillary's disastrous proposal to solve the mortgage crisis.
Richard Thaler and Susan Woodward
The New Republic
Published: Monday, February 04, 2008
Senator Hillary Clinton presents herself as a policy expert and declares her readiness to govern from "day one." But her recent prescriptions for the housing market should cause doubts for thoughtful observers.
Senator Clinton's proposal might appeal to homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages scheduled for a rate increase. But, as with most offers that look too good to be true, this one comes with many problems.
The first is its enormous scope. The plan is essentially to repudiate, revoke, or compel the revision of millions of contracts. There are approximately eleven million mortgages in America with adjustable rates, with a total value of more than $2 trillion dollars--a lot of money, even by Washington standards. Even restricting the plan to the 3.4 million subprime ARM loans (roughly $700 billion) would require an intervention of massive scale.
An even more serious problem with Hillary's proposal is the nature of the solution it proposes. When someone takes out a loan with a low, so-called "teaser rate" that is scheduled to increase in a couple years, the investors who put up the money for that loan are counting on at least some of the borrowers to hold on to their mortgage long enough to start paying the higher rates. Without the promise of this increase, the initial rate would have had to be much higher. As economists like to say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
What would happen if scheduled rate increases were halted? Although it might make some borrowers happy, such a freeze could potentially poison the mortgage market and quickly exacerbate the slump in housing prices. If lenders and investors do not receive the interest payments they expected, they will be wary going forward. Should they avoid providing funds for adjustable rate mortgages, since the government would have just proven that the terms can be changed if difficulty arises? Should they avoid all mortgages, since the government now seems to prioritize short-term concerns for borrowers? Maybe they should avoid lending in the United States altogether?
Such a policy would clearly send a dangerous message far beyond our borders. Two trillion dollars of U.S. national debt is held by foreign governments. Interest rates on this debt are low in part because foreigners trust the U.S. to pay back its loans as promised. The rates would surely be higher if its holders thought the U.S. could renege on its promises to pay. But this is precisely the expectation America would encourage by unilaterally changing the terms on $2 trillion in mortgages held by investors around the world.
Senator Clinton's policy amounts to a command-and-control approach to economic policy in which the government announces prices and tells suppliers what to produce. Undertaking such an intervention can only raise interest rates on mortgages (and maybe other interest rates as well) as markets attempt to incorporate risk premiums to cope with possible future interventions. Promising the American people that you can fix things by just lowering their interest rates is dishonest, a fairy tale that won't come true.
Richard Thaler is a professor of economics at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. Susan Woodward is an economist at Sand Hill Econometrics, and formerly served as chief economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2007/05/kashrus-hotline-1-212-990-7238.html#c6561310581394016042
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
Dear R' Shain,
Remember the days when someone would convince and fellow jew to commit to eating cholov yisroel as opposed to stam. Back in the day the arguement went that for the same price, maybe a little more your dairy would be the highest quality of kashrus. Have you noticed how dairy prices have shot up? I did a quick price comparison with cholov stam products. you would think there was a proportional increase right?
Wrong!! Cholov yisroel is DOUBLE the price. Check it out for yourself - yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese. Some cases almost double, others more than double. what's going on here?
The only thing Hillary cares about is pandering to low income voters. The leftist elite are all smitten with Obama so the only kind of voter she has any chance with are those holding subprime mortgages. The whore doesn't give a rat's behind what it will cost the country to get into the White House again to use as her personal playground and piggybank.
ReplyDeleteThe OU sent Their Vebbe Rebbe Belsky to Lakewood this past saturday Night to perform for Purim. He had a full house & he was some comedian.
ReplyDeleteThe OU has some highly paid talent.Get his resume, is he available for Passover entertainment under the OU Rabbinical Supervission?
Public pressure is the only thing that seems to work. Look how desperate Rabbi Gornish is when exposed.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/14686/Out+Of+The+Mailbag+-+To+YW+Editor+(Disappointed+Kosher+Shopper).html#comments
I am the Letter Writer.
In my shul I posted this publicly with all names - mine, the Rav HaMachshir (Gornish) and the establishment (Meisner's catering on Ave I).
Most people did not care and did not comprehend any issue.
Some turned it into a kashrus issue - which it isn’t and certainly not my intent.
Some turned it into a loshon hara issue - which it isn’t. Do your own research.
Some of my chaveirim were grateful that it was brought to their attention for reasons of their similar personal standards.
The Rav of my shul was the most upset because he found this out through me - and that it was not the establishment (which had just catered in our shul the week before) that advised him that they changed shechita -
but he also wants shalom and not chalila any machlokes.
Because the reactions were so adverse, I have no interest in becoming the centerpiece of a Flatbush controvesy which will inevitably be distorted.
It is an issue of transparency and disclosure to the kosher consumer.
Neither a Rav HaMachshir nor a kosher food establishment can change a decade long policy of the shechita it carries - without Notice.
Interestingly, the Rav HaMachshir has not yet posted public Notice of a change in the establishments under his supervision that occurred a full month ago.
When advised of my shul Notice he called and attempted to pressure my Rav to change his shul policy as to which shechita the shul allows. That is shocking.
I have always had full 100% confidence in the establishment and never ate there because of its hashgacha (which is private and not institutional) persay.
I now am not sure what to think.
I am actually quite shaken.
A Very Disappointed Kosher Shopper
Comment by ben avrohom — February 18, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
The Gornish sideshow was because he started allowing Rubashkin after telling people for years it was no good. He started allowing it one day and looked like the velt's fool 2 days later when Breuers kicked Rubashkin out.
ReplyDeleteDid Eckstein miss the boat again or is he trying to cover up the truth?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/14591/Estelle's+Apologizes+About+Dinomoda+Jackets.html
Estelle’s, a woman’s clothing store (Jewish-Heimishe proprietor) located in Flatbush, New York (1380 Coney Island Ave), regrets its error in selling Dinomoda jackets. The content label of these Dinomoda (German) jackets lists: 48% Leinen/Flachs, 34% Schurwolle/New Wool, 18% Polyamide/ Nylon
The store has promised to do everything in its power to avoid such mistakes in the future. It also offered a full refund to anyone who purchased a shatnez outfit.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/02/shatnez-laboratory-series-number-035.html
Yudel Shain said...
Originally the store told customers that there isn't any shatnez in the garments they sell.
A garment suit was purchased & brought to the Flatbush Shatnez Lab & they told the customer that it is Shatnez & the label also said wool & linen.
The customer brought it back to the store & notified them that it contains Shatnez....
A few days later another customer bought a similliar suit at the store & brought it to the Flatbush Shatnez center-They noticed something odd "the label wool & linen WAS REMOVED! but it also was declared as Shatnez.
The customer brought it back to the store & notified them that it had Shatnez.
After that a Flatbush Rov & his Rebetzin went to check on the situation in that store, and concluded shockingly that the store keeper knowlingly kept putting back for sale the suits containing shatnez, some with the wool/linen removed.
http://nyc.everyblock.com/restaurant-inspections/by-date/2008/2/7/794935/
ReplyDelete2923 AVENUE N, BROOKLYN
Inspection date February 7, 2008
Restaurant name CAFE HADAR
Phone 718-252-5146
Violation points 25
Violations Single service item reused
Non-food contact surface improperly constructed
Improper plumbing
Dented can
Inadequate garbage handling
Wiping cloths improperly stored
Improper use of utensil
Food not protected from contamination
Trans fat food served
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Banks in the United States have been quietly borrowing "massive amounts" from the U.S. Federal Reserve in recent weeks, using a new measure the Fed introduced two months ago to help ease the credit crunch, according to a report on the web site of The Financial Times.
ReplyDeleteThe newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.
The Financial Times said the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the U.S. banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.
(Reporting by Mark McSherry; Editing by Valerie Lee)
"Violations Single service item reused"
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that they hit the restaurant with that violation instead of tagging it to 555 Ocean Pkwy. Margo had me outsourcing those items on the cheap instead of buying new items for the YTT dining room.
Cafe Hadar is an honorable restaurant.
ReplyDelete(many having babies that are likewise authentic goyyim) all to the credit of one unscrupulous rabbi in Flatbush named Herbert Bomzer
ReplyDeleteThis is silly Rabbi Bomzer is way more strict than Tropper. Bomzer at least asks them questions and has rabbi sponsor them.
Tropper and his lap dog Pinchus Rabinowitz (give me some gelt leibele) only ask the candidates to sign something.
Herbie Bomzer would come next door to Mirrer yeshiva and shlep bochurim away from seder to get a minyan for his gerim chuppas. If he was being mevatel all that learning, it had better have been legit.
ReplyDeleteNow that I hear Bomzer charges so much money to make a new Jew, I want part of his cut. I was one of the guys he dragged over in the middle of seder. He made me sit around for an hour or two while they were hocking around and trying to get the show on the road.
ReplyDeleteR' Shmuel Berenbaum zl, when asked, said it's a mitzva to make a minyan for a ger to get married and that bochurim could leave the beis medrash. I don't think he knew Bomzer was running a factory.
I'd love to see Cynthia McFadden from ABC Nightline corner Bomzer again and ask how he can justify taking so much money for himself when he uses a bunch of unpaid yeshiva bochurim for hours on end.
ReplyDeleteHerbie is part of my "Rabbinical Council". I'll have to engineer some trumped up charges against McFadden if she even thinks about it. Kinda like what I did to that guy who was running in the last election against me.
ReplyDeleteLeib Pinter davens in the early Motzaei Shabbos maariv by Bomzer. Is he in for a percentage too?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware of the above historical events. Unfortunately, I believe I need to wait to respond. R' Elya...needs a refuah...now is not the time.
ReplyDeleteThere's much I can add and shed light on...now is not the time. I wish R' Elya...a refuah...and rachmei Shomayim.
Let me try to explain.
ReplyDeleteThe whold mindset is wrong. Many rabbis and orthodox Jews have the mindset that they are allowed to operate outside the laws of the United States of America. Its true for taxes, matza factories, shlug kapores, Lag B'Omer bonfires, and even child sex abuse. There's a pattern here. Rabbi Svei, may he have a refuah shleimah, tried to solve the problem by himself. So did other rabbis. That's the way it was done in Europe, so it should be done same way here.
But pre-war Eastern Europe is not America.
So they made a mistake.
What's remarkable is - they're still making the same mistake. Nothing has changed. Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon and Avi Shafran, speaking for their crowd, believe that the yeshivas can still operate outside the boundaries of American law, even when it comes to sex abuse. Secret rabbinic courts, unmonitored by the government or G-d forbid, even other Jewish people, should adjudicate criminal rabbinic sex abuse cases.
The Weinbergs, the Sobels, and everybody else need to be vomited out of the Jewish people and delivered to the government.
Anonymous- Your analysis makes a lot of sense. But whereas not knowing that we are in 21st century America would explain some of the economic sins of our community, feeling that the anti-semitic government is out to hurt us so "deena d'malchusa deena" does not apply, it is hard to understand how using even an antisemitic government from Europe would be a problem when dealing with a destroyer of Jewish Children, a Roydef who is Nitan Lhatzilo Bnafsho. I wonder if it would even be a problem to give him over to the Nazis, yemach shmam, if there was no other way to protect Jewish children. Not that that would be my first choice, but A) No government was as bad as the Nazis, and B) for some people, nothing else works.
ReplyDeleteI did hear of a case where Shomrim took a molester onto the roof of a yeshiva and warned him that they have a heter to throw him off if they catch him again. Still, in the U.S. even this would not help as much as police involvement.
The Baltimore Vaad Harabonim sent out a letter after last Pesach (following a big expose in their newspaper there) in which they said that it is a "well established halacha" that a molester is a roydef. They said that sometimes his name must be publicized and sometimes police involvement must be FACILITATED by the rabbis.
Tomorrow night, in Baltimore, there is an evening for parents sponsored by the rabbonim on how to keep your children safe.
However, unlike the letter states and the program advertises, the rabbanim are still more interested in keeping the molesters safe, as Rabbi Eiseman and Rabbi Eisgrau are still teaching and have not been publicized by the rabbanim to be a threat to the community.
I don't know if the "We're still in 19th century Europe" defense extends to this type of hypocrisy and cynical manipulation of the community's parents. I think it is just blatant power hunger of the rabbis, and denial, and cruelty towards children.
I'm the one who wrote Reb elya's legacy..., but its only letting me post anonymously.
ReplyDeleteUOJ, you are 100% right. Now is not the time. Please remove my entire posting and save it for a more appropriate time.
For now, we need tfillos and zchusim. Rabbi Svei has dedicated his entire life to the Klal and to Torah. His financial dealings in his yeshiva are impeccable. His love of Torah and Bnei Torah is legendary. Hashem should grant him a Refuah Shleima Bkarov.
The retort about "Eastern Europe" mentality, just does not cut it.
ReplyDeleteIn the Ner Israel case I asked - would the Neubergers keep Moshe Eisemann if they discovered he stole $100 out of the petty cash draw?
Would Margulies have kept Kolko under the same circumstances?
The answer is not that they resort to Eastern European mentality, that's too convenient!
Face it rabbosai, there is evil in this world...and many of these evil people are disguised as rabbis. For me, this revelation does not let me rest.
To the "legacy" poster, with your permission I would like to leave your comment up.
ReplyDeleteIt shows a very human R' Elya...he was not infallible, he made mistakes, but he is a person responsible for so much good. That indeed is his legacy.
I keep reading these constant new revelations and its incredible at the deep tinaf coverups and turn the other cheek done by our "Rabbinic Leaders".
ReplyDeleteRotten to the core this Daas Toiyreh.
Tomorrow night, in Baltimore, there is an evening for parents sponsored by the rabbonim on how to keep your children safe.
ReplyDeleteThis was posted on Phil Jacobs' blog. I think the commenter is spot on:
What’s the big need for an educational evening? Parents should call the police, and rabbis who know about it should do likewise instead of covering up. This was covered in the letter they sent out. Did you not get the memo? Or what part of “No more coverups!” didn’t you understand?
What we need is for an evening training the rabbis on how to listen to victims and not sweep their stories under the carpet like in the past. Parents know what to do, but the community does not let them do it. Parents and children complained about Rabbi Eiseman, and about Rabbi Eisgrau and about others and were shushed. Phil informs the public and is ostracized. There is not such a big need to teach parents about sexual abuse. There is a HUGE need to teach our leaders common sense and common decency.
I'm the Anon. poster who wrote about the Eastern Europe mentality.
ReplyDeleteI was referring to rabbis like Rav Svei, and those from his older generation.
UOJ is right. There is reishus. Margulies richly fits that category. The protectors of Eiseman also, whoever they may be. There are others.
Hannah Arendt wrote a book: The Banality of Evil. It was about Adolf Eichman, Hitler's architect of the death camps. He was a manager. Banal and boring. Like the engineer who drove the train back and forth to Auschwitz. Amoral, no conscience. Unfortunately, we have many stinking, rotten Jews today who fall into this category. Yeshiva administrators who push pencils, and never pause to think what they're doing. Never feel a child's emotion. Never feel how parents are cracking under the burden of tuition. At the end of the week, they get their paycheck, dust off their Borsalino, and waddle back and forth to shul on Shabbos. Knock down a few shots at the kiddush. They just don't give a damn. They stink, and I hate their guts.
Same for the morons at Aguda, Torah U'Mesorah, and the Orthodox Union. Collecting nice checks, good benefits, vacations, all the holidays, get home two hours before Shabbos. If they're big names, they lecture on Pesach cruises. Screw them. They don't give a crap about us either. Their big message: Don't get drunk on Purim. Make sure you're seen crying on Tisha B'av. Duh.
Screw them!
ReplyDelete------------------
No disagreement there!
http://www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/ArticleDetails.cfm?Book_ID=936&ThisGroup_ID=346&Type=Article&SID=47#Com_3928
ReplyDeleteElliot Passik and Sherree have suggested a parents organization to give parents more power to unite and stand up to powerful moysdos that don't acknowledge or feel a need to listen to individual families. If we are not going to name these corrupt moysdos here or anywhere in public (try getting something written about abuse in a particular yeshiva in Yated or Hamodia or even Mishpacha), then maybe a parents group would bring serious problems to the fore and the strength of numbers would force the schools to pay attention.
Rabbi Horowitz, to me it does not seem like it is enough to say that each individual parent has the freedom to change schools. It reminds me of what a friend of mine once said in defense of yeshivas in general. That there's nothing wrong with the system, but bochurim (and presumably parents) need to watch out not to get hurt. So we don't have to fix the schools, we just have to protect our own individual child from the damage that can be done to them in the shool? In some communities there aren't that many schools to choose from, and if you want one with your hashkafa (modern, litvish, chasidish, chabad, satmar, whatever) you really are limited even in New York City (Eer Hakodesh). Also, if you want a frum school that has a good safety policy about protecting children, you apparently have to start looking to really different hashkofos such as Catholic schools or some public schools which have been FORCED to adopt real measures to protect their students. So trying to pull your kid out and switch schools is not a viable answer for parents in the long run.
The problem with the parents organization idea is that nothing ever happens in our community without the haskama of the gedolim. People are just too lazy, afraid, unmotivated, non-thinking, etc. and too FRUM to advocate any change in our traditional way of doing things. The only way this idea of parents having more of a say, such as Elliot and Sherree argue for, or making mutual contracts such as Dr. Twersky has suggested, is if the "Gedolim"/Rabbanim approve, endorse, sign on, anounce and proclaim that this is allowed and encouraged. Otherwise we all know it will be business as usual.
When it came to the issue of human hair sheitels, or bugs in the water, or bugs on vegetables and strawberries, or the issur of the internet, or the need for more modest dress, or the issur of having pictures of ladies modeling sheitels in a sheitel store (which men go in there?), the rabbis speak and people listen. When it came to the takkanos about the chassunas and espenses, the rabbis spoke but noone listened, because the rabbbis themselves couldn't listen to their own decree, due to the need to go the weddings of rich supporters of their mosydos. But if the rabbis would speak on the need of parents to demand better for their children's chinuch, and to at least demand their physical and emotional safety, parents would listen and begin to unite for change.
If the rabbis would speak. Their silence is deafening.
I just saw a t-shirt that read "Procratinators of the world unite....tomorrow."
Case in point. Big yeshiva in Brooklyn (not mentioning names) is exposed to have covered up child molestation for decades. Somebody asks a Gadol why he is allowing parents to continue to send their kids there. He says, and I quote, "If parents are crazy enough after all that exposure to continue to send their kids there, then what can I do."
I don't understand. If parents were crazy enough to allow their kids to use the internet, he would do something and has. If parents were crazy enough to allow their daughters to join the Israeli army to serve their country, he would do something and has. If parents were crazy enough to ffed their children unfiltered water, he would do something and has. If parents allow their children to smoke cigarettes, even, rabbis have denounced this. But if parents are REALLY CRAZY enough to expose their children to an extemely unsafe environment in which there are absolutely NO precautions taken against severe psychological trauma, and if it occurs it is denied and covered up, then what can he do?
If even a handful of gedolim would have even slightly encouraged parents to think twice and to choose carefully a safe school for their children, if they would have even expressed the slightest shock and dissappointment with the yeshivah for neglecting childrens safety for so long in such a criminally negligent manner, do you think that the yeshivah would still have the same full enrollment it has? Do you think it would be in the process of successfully starting a branch in Lakewood?
The silence is deafening.
http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about the following event that is going to occur this week in Baltimore. I don't want to suggest anyone who wants to learn "how to keep their children safe", go to this event. Only go if you want to see first hand how the rabbonim of Baltimore is mimicking the Catholic Conference of Maryland, then this is your opportunity.
This political event is sponsored by Ohel Children's Home and Family Services, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Phil Jacobs and Shofar Coalition of Baltimore, which is a spin-off of Esther Giller and the Sidran Foundation. The soul purpose is to make the orthodox Jewish community believe the rabbonim care and want to make changes. Unfortunately, the fact is the Vaad of Baltimore is not trustworthy organization and only care about protecting their assets and image of themselves and the alleged and convicted sexual predators they call "friends".
Even though the event sponsors (Ohel, Hopfer and Gottlieb) will not allow questions, make it a point to ask Rabbi Hopfer:
How many years must go by before he will allow the Eisgrau survivor to see her siblings?
What needs to happen prior to him warning the Baltimore community about his findings on the case of Rabbi Moshe Eisemann?
Why is it that he told the administration at Ner Israel to "retire" him immediately, yet won't do the right thing and warn the community about this alleged sexual predator?
Welcome Tyreh Kinderlech to "Dass Toiyreh"!
ReplyDeleteT Minus 7 weeks to the Shabbos Hagodel Droshos by these Roshos.
Get your Kosher L'Pesach Barf Bags ready as you will listen to their flatulent oratory exhorting you to "cleanse" yourself of the sinful Chometz that has enveloped you during the year. They will exhort you to 'Remember Yetzias Mitzrayim' and that you should use it to motivate yourself to higher levels of Toiyreh, Avoideh, and Yiras Shomayim!
Feckless Flatulent Frauds! All of you Dass Toiyreniks!
Bill Will Extend Child Sex Abuse Civil Suits
ReplyDeleteBy Barbara Pash
Baltimore Jewish Times
February 19, 2008
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/article/bill_will_extend_child_sex_abuse_civil_suits/
A bill to extend the statute of limitations in civil suits related to child sexual abuse is being considered in the Maryland General Assembly. The bill was introduced by Del. Eric Bromwell (D-8h), of Baltimore County. It is based on a similar bill that was unsuccessfully introduced last year by Sen. James Brochin (D-42nd), also of Baltimore County.
“The two bills are slightly different in wording,” Mr. Bromwell said of his HB 858 and Mr. Brochin’s 2007 SB 575, “but the intent is the same.”
HB 858 would increase the statute of limitations within which a victim may bring a civil claim from the current seven years after turning age 18 to 32 years after age 18. In order to qualify, the victim must provide a certificate of merit from an attorney and a psychiatrist or psychologist.
In addition, HB 858 contains a one-year, four-month-long “window,” starting January 1, 2009, during which victims for whom even the extended statute of limitations has passed may bring a claim under certain conditions.
Mr. Bromwell said he was spurred to introduce the bill because he has met victims of child sexual abuse through his professional and personal life. “It’s one of the most heinous of crimes,” said Mr. Bromwell, who is employed in private industry.
Victims often have difficulty acknowledging the abuse until later in life, he continued. “People are getting out of college, starting their families and for victims of abuse, that’s usually not the case. They may have difficulty with relationships and employment. I know many cases where people come forward well after their 25th birthday.”
Other bills dealing with child sex abuse and the time frame for civil suits have been introduced in the General Assembly over the years. The current statute of limitations is the result of a 2003 bill. In 2006, Mr. Bromwell and then-Del. Pauline Menes unsuccessfully co-sponsored a bill to extend the age to 42 years. The bill passed in the House of Delegates but failed in the Senate committee.
Mr. Brochin’s bill in 2007 met a similar fate. His bill had a window to file claims regardless of the victim’s current age, but it also failed in the Senate committee to which it was assigned for a hearing.
Mr. Bromwell said he had talked with Mr. Brochin about the latter cross-filing a Senate version of his bill. “But in the end, I decided to have the bill only in the House. His Senate bill didn’t make it out of committee, so I decided to take a different approach,” said Mr. Bromwell.
Mr. Bromwell also decided to put a cap on the statute of limitations rather than extending it indefinitely, as Mr. Brochin’s bill had.
“It may not be what everyone wants but I have an obligation to put in legislation that has a chance to pass,” said Mr. Bromwell.
Mr. Brochin is outspoken about the intense pressure he came under last year while his bill was being considered. He talks specifically of the Maryland Catholic Conference, the public policy group of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Archdiocese of Wilmington and Diocese of Wilmington.
Petitions against him were passed out at Catholic churches, Mr. Brochin claimed. Alumni of Calvert Hall, a Catholic high school in Baltimore County, were told that tuition would be raised because of his bill, resulting in hundreds of e-mails from them.
“It got brutal, ugly and intense,” said Mr. Brochin, who added that he “did not get pressure from other organizations” on the bill.
As it happens, Mr. Bromwell is a graduate of Calvert Hall. Nonetheless, people attending Catholic churches have been asked to contact him about the bill, he said, and he is feeling heat from the Catholic Conference, “more so than on any other issue I’ve had in my six years here.”
“The legislation is being seen as aimed at the Catholic Church. But it’s clearly a bigger issue than that. It spans many religions and organizations. It’s not fair to classify it as aimed at the church,” said Mr. Bromwell.
Mr. Brochin agreed. He has been following the series in the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES written by executive editor Phil Jacobs about allegations of child sex abuse in the Baltimore Jewish community.
“The work that Phil did is incredibly important,” said Mr. Brochin. “It showed this is not only a Catholic question. We have to give everyone a chance for justice.”
A civil suit requires what Mr. Brochin called a “discovery process,” during which information must be supplied by whomever the suit is against, whether “it’s the Archdiocese or [Yisroel] Shapiro,” about whom Mr. Jacobs wrote and for whom an April 1 court date has been set.
“It’s important to open the books and find out if anyone else is doing this and where they are,” Mr. Brochin said of the discovery process.
Phone calls to the Maryland Catholic Conference were not returned by press time.
The Maryland Jewish Alliance is “probably not” taking a position on Mr. Bromwell’s bill, according to Melody McCoy McEntee, director of government relations and public policy for the Baltimore Jewish Council, an agency of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore The alliance is the lobbying coalition of the Associated, BJC and the Washington, D.C. federation and groups.
“That is a tort reform bill,” Ms. McEntee said of Mr. Bromwell’s bill. “We are trying to expend our energy on other things that prevent child abuse, not so much tort reform. It’s not an issue that is unique to the Jewish community.”
Ms. McEntee said the alliance is supporting two House bills, HB 400 and HB 410, that deal with neglect of a child and that require reporting instances of such.
“Our position is, we are focusing on prevention and treatment. We are trying to do all we can to make sure that kids are not abused and if they are, they are getting to treatment,” she said.
Mr. Bromwell’s bill is not scheduled for a hearing until March 20. However, on Tues. Feb. 19, more than a dozen House bills dealing with sex offenders are being heard in committee. Mr. Brochin said the large number of bills reflects a growing public awareness of the problem.
“Legislators are hearing from their constituents,” he said. “Despite some gains, we haven’t gone far enough.”
Several experts said that Mr. Bromwell’s bill, to extend the statute of limitations, is particularly important.
In the “survivor community,” said Dr. Mesa Leventhal-Baker, medical director of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, “they feel left out, at a loss how to finish some of these cases or to move on. When they finally come forward, they have no legal form to do so.”
It wasn’t until the 1980s that the issue of child sex abuse came to attention, spurred by a number of highly publicized cases across the country. “Maryland was behind the curve but we are now seeing some improvement in the state,” she said. “But some communities, the Jewish community in particular, is still behind the times in recognizing this as an issue.”
Vicki Polin, of The Awareness Center: The Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault, an international organization based in Baltimore, echoed the sentiment.
“A bill like this is absolutely important. Most people don’t come forward until they are in their 40s and 50s, when they start reflecting on their life,” she said.
Dr. Joyce Silberg is coordinator of the trauma services for children at Sheppard Pratt Hospital and executive vice president of the Leadership Council, a coalition of child abuse experts who promote information and education of the public and media. According to Dr. Silberg, the abuse a person undergoes is often not fully understood until adulthood.
“The triggers can be having their own kids, or their own kids reaching the age they were when they were abused,” said Dr. Silberg who, in her private practice, has seen many such examples. “These are powerful memory triggers.”
Dr. Silberg has written a chapter for a new book on sexual abuse in the Jewish community. Titled “When The Vow Breaks,” it will be published by Brandeis University Press in 2009. She interviewed several people in the Jewish community, including Mr. Jacobs.
“This is not just a Catholic issue,” she said of child sexual abuse, “and the purpose of the book is to show that.”
However, there is a difference in the legislative arena. The Catholic Church is “highly organized and centralized, so when they lobby against a bill they can be a formidable opponent,” Dr. Silberg continued. “If a rabbi is accused of this, the rabbi or his congregation might lobby against a bill but it’s not the whole Jewish religion.”
Mr. Bromwell does not know if his bill this year will be any more successful than Mr. Brochin’s bill was last year. A number of states of have similar legislation, and that might make a difference to Marylanders.
“Awareness about the issue has grown,” said Mr. Bromwell. “I’ve gotten a lot of positive responses.”
Federal Law
Under federal law, there is no statute of limitations for the criminal prosecution of offenses involving the sexual abuse of a child.
Alaska, Delaware and Maine have no statute of limitations for victims bringing civil actions of childhood sexual abuse. Wisconsin is considering eliminating its current statute of limitations.
The following states have a statute of limitations greater than seven years after the age of majority for victims of childhood sexual abuse: Connecticut (30 years), Ohio (12 years), Pennsylvania (12 years) and Wisconsin (14 years).
Also see:
http://www.childvictimsvoicemaryland.com
Jewish Survivors
ReplyDeleteFebruary 19, 2008
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer Continues To Commit Soul Murder
I have mixed feelings about the following event that is going to occur this week in Baltimore. I don't want to suggest anyone who wants to learn "how to keep their children safe", go to this event. Only go if you want to see first hand how the rabbonim of Baltimore is mimicking the Catholic Conference of Maryland, then this is your opportunity.
This political event is sponsored by Ohel Children's Home and Family Services, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Phil Jacobs and Shofar Coalition of Baltimore, which is a spin-off of Esther Giller and the Sidran Foundation. The soul purpose is to make the orthodox Jewish community believe the rabbonim care and want to make changes. Unfortunately, the fact is the Vaad of Baltimore is not trustworthy organization and only care about protecting their assets and image of themselves and the alleged and convicted sexual predators they call "friends".
Even though the event sponsors (Ohel, Hopfer and Gottlieb) will not allow questions, make it a point to ask Rabbi Hopfer:
* How many years must go by before he will allow the Eisgrau survivor to see her siblings?
* What needs to happen prior to him warning the Baltimore community about his findings on the case of Rabbi Moshe Eisemann?
* Why is it that he told the administration at Ner Israel to "retire" him immediately, yet won't do the right thing and warn the community about this alleged sexual predator?
_______________________________
The institute for advanced professional training at Ohel Children's Home and Family Services
Presents
"How To Keep Our Children Safe"
When: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 8:00 PM
Where: Congregation Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion - 6600 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore, MD
Welcome: Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb
(Congregation Shomrei Emunah)
Introduction: David Mandel
Chief Executive Officer
Ohel Children's Home and Family Services
Presenters:
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer
Congregation Shearith Israel
Dr. David Pelcovitz
(self appointed) Nationally recognized authority on parenting, adolescent development, and other child-related issues
Gwendolyn & Joseph Straus Chair in Jewish Education
Azrieli School of Jewish Education, Yeshiva University
I think if anyone is going to the Hopfer lecture last night that they shoudl download the following flyers put out by the Awareness Center and demand that Hopfer respond to the allegations made against him of covering up for sex offenders.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theawarenesscenter.org/EisemannCallAction.pdf
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/EisgrauCallToAction.pdf
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/MenkenCallToAction.pdf
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Friedman_StuartCallAction.pdf
Also ask Hopfer why it's ok for Ben Fleischman to talk pictures of children who are not orthodox?
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Fleischman_Benyamin.html
CALL TO ACTION: Case of Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro
Demanding Transparency and Accountability from our Religious Leaders!
December 28, 2007
Back on April 11, 2007, the Vaad HaRabbonim/Rabbinical Council of Greater Baltimore signed a letter and made public a statement about dealing with "Abuse in Our Community".
To this day the members of the Vaad who signed the letter have not been held accountable for the issues they addressed. For the last four years the rabbonim of Baltimore have been aware that allegations were made against Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro, yet did nothing more then have him stop teaching bar mitzvah students -- and then helped in arranging for this alleged sex offender to have a job working for Wasserman and Lemberger's. The status quo in the Baltimore community has been to ensure those who are alleged to have molested children have a way to make a living, yet doing nothing to help those who have been sexually violated.
It's a well known fact in the orthodox community of Baltimore that Yisroel Shapiro daven's (prays) at Congregation Darchi Tzedek synagogue, located on Seven Mile Lane. This is a synagogue in which children can be seen running in and out of. One would think that Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz's first concern would be to make sure the children of his shul were protected and to start asking if any children might have already been molested so that he could assist in them getting help. To this day Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz has never issued public statement warning his congregants of the fact that Shapiro was arrested and charged with child molestation. Unless a parent read The Awareness Center's web page, has been reading blogs or another parent told them, they are unaware that there is an alleged sexual predator amongst them.
The Awareness Center is asking that everyone contact Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz and the Baltimore Vaad HaRabbonim Rabbinical and ask them to:
1.
Make public the plan they established to notify parents in the community of the potential dangers of their children being left alone with Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro.
2.
We are also asking that this statement include the safety plan created when Yisroel Shapiro is davening at Darchi Tzedek or any synagogue. They also need to make public the safety plan they established for Wasserman's and Lemberger," the retail business in which Shapiro is employed and also for any other public location Shapiro may enter.
Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer - President
Vaad Harabbonim of Baltimore
410-358-3450
Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz
Congregation Darchei Tzedek
410-653-1688
410-486-0445 (Rabbi Horowitz)
7307 7 Mile Lane
Pikesville, MD 21208
Members of the Vaad HaRabbonim
1. Rabbi Elan Adler, Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation
2. Rabbi Reuben Arieh, Ohr HaMizrach Congregation
3. Rabbi Menachem Goldberger, Congregation Tiferes Yisroel
4. Rabbi Emanuel Goldfeiz, Congregation Beit Yaakov
5. Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Cong. Shmorei Emunah
6. Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion
7. Rabbi Dovid Haber, KAYTT and Star-K
8. Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, Agudath Israel of Baltimore and Star-K
9. Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, Sheiris Yisroel
10. Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan, Chabad Lubavitch of Baltimore
11. Rabbi Nesanel Kostelitz, Machzikei Torah Congregation and the Community Kollel
12. Rabbi Chaim Landau, Ner Tamid
13. Rabbi Elchonon Lisbon, Bais Lubavitch - Chabad of Park Heights
14. Rabbi Sheftel Neuberger, Ner Israel Rabbinical College and High School
15. Rabbi Gavriel Newman, Beth Jacob Congregation
16. Rabbi Shlomo Salfer, Winands Road Synagogue Center
17. Rabbi Jonathan Seidemann, Kehilath B'nai Torah
18. Rabbi Simcha Shafran, Adath Yeshurun and the Bais Din of Baltimore
19. Rabbi Mordechai Shuchatowitz, Agudath Israel of Greenspring and Av Beis Din of Baltimore
20. Rabbi Shmuel Silber, Suburban Orthodox
21. Rabbi Amrom Taub, Arugas Habosem Congregation
22. Rabbi Y. Zvi Weiss, Bais Haknesses of Baltimore
23. Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, Beth Tfiloh
Rumor has it some Rabbi in Brooklyn is about to get arrested for money laundering. Something to do with an investigation about a "outreach" center...All I know is that Rabbi is a "Fat" guy..more to come.
ReplyDeleteComing soon to New York!--
ReplyDelete----------------------------
New criticism for Saudi religious police By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer
Tue Feb 19, 4:36 PM ET
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Saudi Arabia's religious police are under attack again over what critics consider heavy-handed enforcement of the country's gender segregation policies and other strict social rules.
This time the case involves an American businesswoman who went with a male colleague to a Starbucks branch in the Saudi capital and ended up in jail for sitting in a coffee shop with a man who is not a close relative.
The brief detention of the woman, identified only as Yara, drew headlines in Saudi media, prompting one writer to call the Feb. 4 arrest "an abduction." A local rights group called for an explanation from the religious police. A senior U.N. official described it as "harassment."
Responding to the criticism, the religious police issued a statement published Tuesday by Saudi newspapers that said officers were justified in their actions.
Islamic law does not allow police to ignore the prohibition against a woman "sitting with a man who is not a relative and exchanging words and laughter with him," said the statement by Abdullah al-Shithri of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
The commission added that it reserved the right to take legal action against Abdullah al-Alami, a columnist for the newspaper Al-Watan who accused the religious police of abducting Yara.
Yara's story, which first appeared in the English-language Arab News, is one of a string of incidents that have provoked a public outcry against the commission.
Last year, members of the religious police were put on trial in two separate cases, each involving the death of a man in custody. Judges dropped charges against them, but the unprecedented trials provoked calls for reforming the religious police.
Controversy over the police also flared last year when a women who had been gang-raped by several men was sentenced to six months in prison and 90 lashes for being in a car with an unrelated man.
The religious police enforce the kingdom's strict Islamic lifestyle. They patrol public places to ensure women are covered and not wearing makeup, men and women don't mingle, shops close five times a day for prayers and men go to a mosque to worship.
While many Saudis say they support the idea of having the commission because its mandate is based on several verses in the Quran, they also say it should be regulated because the free rein it has long enjoyed has led to some of its members overstepping their duties.
Yakin Erturk, the U.N. special investigator for violence against women who recently visited the kingdom, was quoted by Arab News as saying Yara's case was "a telling example of harassment."
"She was subjected to humiliating and illegal treatment before she was released," Erturk said.
The National Society for Human Rights said it wanted to know why the commission officer was not escorted by a regular policeman and did not have an identity badge, according to Arab News.
A close relative of Yara, who is a Salt Lake City native living in Jiddah with her Saudi husband and three children, said she had on no makeup when she was detained and was dressed in the black cloak that women are forced to wear in public in Saudi Arabia.
The relative, who agreed to discuss the case only if not quoted by name, said Yara, 37, went to Starbucks just to use its wireless Internet connection after being told power was out at the office her company is opening in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
A male Syrian colleague joined her in the coffee shop's crowded family section, reserved for women and families, the relative said. He said Yara was quickly taken away by religious police, made to listen to a lecture on sin and forced to sign papers admitting she had been in illegal seclusion with a man who is not her husband. She was released 5 1/2 hours after her detention.
The Editorial Page
ReplyDeleteWho Was Fidel Castro? (By Avi Shafran?)
Fidel Castro, who died in 2006 (give or take three years), "said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president," Reuters reports.
What kind of leader was Castro exactly? Reuters doesn't say, but it offers us some clues:
[Castro is] retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.
Seized power in an armed revolution, check. Then there's this:
"To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honor in recent days of electing me a member of parliament . . . I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept--I repeat not aspire to or accept--the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief," Castro said in the statement published on the Web site of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper.
Hmm, Communist Party. That may be relevant. The story goes on:
A charismatic leader famous for his long speeches delivered in his green military fatigues, Castro is admired in the Third World for standing up to the United States but considered by his opponents a tyrant who suppressed freedom.
So he was a "charismatic leader" and was considered "a tyrant who suppressed freedom"--but only by his opponents. In contrast:
The bearded leader who took power in an armed uprising against a U.S.-backed dictator in 1959 had temporarily ceded power to his younger brother after he underwent emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding in mid-2006.
So the fellow Castro replaced was definitely a dictator. As for Castro himself, who knows?
And it isn't even just Reuters. The Associated Press calls Castro an "unchallenged leader," while the New York Times characterizes him as "one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world." (That fellow in North Korea--he's all-powerful, but not as all-powerful as Castro.)
The free press in the free world is bending over backward not to call Castro what he really was: a communist dictator. Why? Perhaps this is an artifact of the Watergate-era notion of the "adversarial press." Journalists see themselves as standing in opposition to their own government, and since Castro was an enemy of the U.S. that put him on the same side. The enemy of my country is my friend, or at least my "unchallenged leader."
Interviews in Lakewood, Monsey and Brooklyn
ReplyDelete_______________________
Australia seeking fatter mailmen Tue Feb 19, 12:39 PM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's postal service has increased the maximum weight for mailmen and women by 15 kg (33 pounds) in an attempt to attract more "posties," local media reported on Tuesday.
Australia Post had a weight limit of 90 kgs (198 pounds) for "posties" because its 110cc motorcycles had a safe working limit of 130kg (286 pounds) -- that's 40kg (88 pounds) for letters and up to 90 kgs for mailmen and women fully clothed.
But after talks with motorcycle manufacturer Honda it was agreed the bikes could safely carry a "postie" weighing 105 kgs (231 pounds), said Sydney's the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
But the "posties" will only carry 25 kgs of mail.
The union representing mailmen and women said the 90 kg limit had caused recruitment headaches for Australia Post, but the company denied it had staffing problems.
"Testing found a rise in rider weight up to a maximum of 105 kgs would not have any significant effect on the stability, handling or safety of their 110 cc motorcycle," an Australia Post spokesman told the newspaper.
"By raising it from 90 to 105 kilograms means there will be other people that can now apply," he said.
I see what you're saying, UOJ, but I think your first sentiments are more true, that now is not the time to decide Reb Elya's legacy, good, great or flawed. Now is only the time for our tfillos. I am admitting my mistake for posting without thinking of the timing. Can't you admit that maybe it will make a statement of sensitivity and appropriateness to admit that now is not the time? Your agreeing to remove my postings will make me feel more comfortable posting more info in the future. And I do have more info....Thank you for being understanding.
ReplyDeleteHere is what UOJ once wrote about R' Elya:
ReplyDeleteThe primary yeshiva to promulgate this new trend was the Philadelphia yeshiva led by Elya Svei and Shmuel Kaminetzky.
Svei a noted and erudite talmud chochom was well known for his kannaus or intransigence.
There was another side of him which was generally unknown and that was his desire and goal to control the Yeshivish movement
singlehandedly,after RAK's death.
Kaminetzky, not nearly as bright but realized he would make a good front man, did just that.
They created the first Ivy League yeshiva.
They made it difficult to get in, unless a student was very bright or of course there was money in the family.
In a relatively short period of time,their campus was built with state of the art facilities, and they had no mortgage.
Svei was free to wander off to head Torah Umesorah, and ultimately almost brought the Jewish day school movement to the brink of disaster with his outrageous and outlandish nonsense.
What played in New York, did not play well in Peoria.
He did not get his way and was forced to leave.
He tried his shenanigans at the Agudah's Moetzes, and again was marginalized, until he left the organization.
His students idolized him, although it was clear to any rational observer of the Jewish scene, that he was losing it and doing way more harm than good.
His speeches were long and rambling, and his message was hard line, irrational and incoherent.
Nevertheless, He solidified RAK's ideology of Torah lishma,where it now became shameful for anyone to ever consider doing anything other than becoming a lifer(kollel for life.)
Easy for him to say, he now had a multi million dollar campus paid off completely, and a student base primarily of wealthy kids.He did not take in any Iranians or Russians until he was absolutely shamed into it.
Nice guy!
I have just been informed of the existence of this blog and that Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark is a subject among the writers. This is my first time writing.
ReplyDeleteWith permission of my rebbe Harav Moshe Green Shlita, who himself is not well and in great need of a refuah shelaima, I wish to make all the readers here aware that we are doing all that we can to see that Mordechai Wolmark is pushed out of Monsey and out of chinuch forever. There is a kola d'lo passak that Rabbi Wolmark has sexually abused many young talmidim at his yeshiva. The stories about him taking young bachurim on numerous occasions to shopping malls to visit stores that specialize exclusively in preitzus is absolutely true. Rabbi Wolmark had also taken a bachur of fourteen years old, which was under his special care, to be a dayan at the geirus of a young woman and allowed the bachur to see her in the mikveh. Rabbi Wolmark has made it a habit to learn Hilchos nidda and Hilchos chassanim with young teenage bachurim, which is absolutely wrong and something outrageous. According to Rav Green Shlita, there is no excuse for the misconduct of Rabbi Wolmark and that he should leave chinuch on his own and not wait to be forced out with more public disgrace.
Rabbi Pinchus Lipshitz predicted
ReplyDeletein his toichndikeh toschudike and choshuveh
column that if nebech Barak
Oiboimeh would win his party's
gevaldickeh nomination that he
he would be zocheh by a groiseh
landslide to the Presidency!
I am sick and tired and nauseated of reading all these Yiddishe Yeshivisims in the Yated. It is
improper English!!!!
UGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Your prediction of a landslide
is absurd! It would be very close
between him and McCain and McCAin
would probably win the Electoral
College. Many who say they will vote for Obama will switch in the
booth.
Epes heard fun dem Electoral
College Pinchus?
Eckstein is very upset at UOJ after he saw the updated sidebar today. He thought YeshivaWorld had the monopoly on "Putz on the street" interviews.
ReplyDeleteNot to kick a sick man when he's down but the above post by Mendy says it all.
ReplyDeleteNone of the editor shmekles in ze heiliger yiddshe newspapers advertising Chineese auctions and "heimshe yingerman with a truck" have cottoned onto the fact that:
ReplyDelete1) Obama is a Muslim
2) Appoximately 1/2 of his staff are members of Nation of Islam. That's because:
3) Farrakahn lives in Obama's district.
4) Obama has dodged every question about Israel.
Another concert ban, this time it's Lipa and Gertner at MSG. A very strongly worded kol koreh has gone out with many signatures. It didn't take them long to gather up the signatures. I wonder what's taking them so long to issue one against molesters.
ReplyDeleteUOJ, I e-mailed you the letter. Among the signers are Lipa Margulies and Belsky. Talk about hypocrites!
ReplyDeleteSteve:
ReplyDeleteThanks, I posted the BAN right under the R' Elya Svei post. CHAVAL - WE ARE CRAZY! I will translate it late tonight.
UOJ
China Notes Pollution at Three Gorges Dam
ReplyDeleteBy KEITH BRADSHER
Published: February 20, 2008
HONG KONG — China’s State
Environmental Protection Administration said on Tuesday that water quality is barely improving in the main body of water behind the Three Gorges Dam and in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, although the water does meet Chinese national standards for drinking, fisheries and swimming.
Water quality is actually worsening in several branches of the Yangtze River that drain into the main reservoir, the agency said in a water management plan, echoing previous government documents.
The dam has slowed the flow of the Yangtze and this reduces the ability of the river and its tributaries to flush out polluted areas.
Bans are not Chinuch
ReplyDeleteI suspect that some Mishpacha readers are beginning to wonder whether the magazine has developed an obsession with at- risk youth ever since the well-publicized tour of chareidi MKs of the teen hangouts around Jerusalem’s Ben Yehudah Street. The Hebrew Mishpacha recently carried an interview with the highly respected Bnei Brak Dayan Rabbi Yehudah Sillman dealing, inter alia, with chinuch issues and both magazines featured the Novominsker Rebbe’s words to a group of mechanchim under the aegis of Rinat HaLev.
In addition, Rabbi Grylak, Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, and myself have all ad dressed aspects of the topic more than once. (For the record, we do not discuss among ourselves or with the editors of Mishpacha what we are going to write about.) Even the English serial “Black and White” touched on it.
The objections of some readers on this score would be well taken if we were talking only about the obvious drop-outs from mainstream educational frameworks. If they were an isolated phenomenon, one could argue that they constitute the exception that proves the rule of our overwhelm ing success in raising children whose connection with the Ribono shel Olam is vibrant and positive.
But the truth is, that dropouts represent only the most glaring example of a larger problem of alienation.
Drop-outs constitute only one end of a continuum — the tip of the iceberg. At the other end of the continuum are the hundreds of bochurim that one sees learning full-blast in the local beis medrash every bein hazmanim. In between, there is a whole range. And so it is among girls as well.
Anyone with eyes in his head knows that there are plenty of kids of both genders who are still in regular yeshivos or Bais Yaakovs and, more or less, in uniform, but whose faces do not reflect much enthusiasm for their lives and for whom thoughts of the Ribono shel Olam are rarely upper most in their minds.
Signs of alienation among those still in the system are easy enough to pinpoint. Every time a proposal is raised to shorten IDF service requirements, there are protests from certain segments of the chareidi world, who fear that any reduction in chareidi fear of the army will result in many bochurim leaving the yeshivos. That response is itself an admission that there are those staying in yeshivah not out of a love of learning, but for negative reasons: fear that they won’t be able to find a shidduch or fear of army service.
Recently, the Jewish Observer pointed to a new phenomenon — or an old phenomenon that now has its own name: Adults at Risk. The phenomenon refers to middle-aged adults who suddenly wake up one day and realize that they have been going through the motions for years, perhaps decades.
In normal times, inertia keeps most members of any particular society within its ranks. But, in the long run, in a society such as ours that places many demands on the individual, inertia is not enough. Without the infusion of positive energy, at some point, whether in this generation or the next, social pressure will cease to do the job.
That means we must understand the meaning of chinuch. One of the master mechanchim of the last fifty years, Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner, used to say, “One does not educate with issurim.” Bans and efforts to throw up walls of protection around our youth (and ourselves) are, of course, crucial. No one in their right mind would downplay, for instance, the importance of the various efforts to limit Internet use or stifle the development of ever-more-sophisticated Internet filters.
Separate seating for men and women on buses serving chareidi neighborhoods is a fine thing, especially during the early afternoon hours when the buses are full both of avreichim and seminary students finishing their school day. But I wonder whether one yeshivah bochur ever went off-the-derech because of the absence of such a separation or will be saved by their existence. Given the proliferation of temptations all around, such separations cannot substitute for learning to keep our eyes in our Gemara and our thoughts where they should be.
If we make the mistake of confusing bans and various safeguards with chinuch, we will inevitably fall prey to a number of illusions. One is that all our spiritual problems are a function of the surrounding society. From that illusion follows another: that we can somehow recreate the ghetto and erect walls around ourselves. Anyone who thinks that it is still possible to secure the fort through a multiplicity of lines of defense alone is living in a fantasy world.
Again, that does not mean that the defenses are not important. But at best they can do no more than secure us time for the much more difficult task of chinuch and infusing our children with excitement over the privilege of being born to a life of Torah and mitzvos. Without the latter, all our defenses will turn out to be new Maginot Lines, as easily skirted as the French fortifications on the Eastern front were by Ger man troops at the outset of World War TI,
Too great a focus on bans can lead to a false sense of security, and distract us from the primary task at hand, which is creating both an emotional and intellectual connection between our children and Torah. No less important than a child’s mastery of the material he is taught is the way that material is internalized.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein used to give the example of a yeshivah student who has just learned the sugya of adam muad l’olam, a human being is always responsible for the damage he causes, in Bava Kama. He breaks his roommate’s alarm clock, and attempts to disclaim responsibility on the grounds, it was an accident. I did not mean to.” That talmid has not yet internalized the connection between his studies and life.
Precisely because chinuch is so hard, we all try to push off the responsibility to others, and content ourselves with the role of enforcers of boundaries. Parents leave to the chedarim the responsibility for answering their children basic questions in emunah. Meanwhile the chedarim act as if all such sheilos must have been answered in a proper home, and treat any such questions as an act of rebellion, if not an attempt to negatively influence classmates as well. Similarly, if a boy awakens to a question in his high school years that did not bother him before, the reaction is often that all such questions should have long since been answered. If instead of receiving answers or direction, the student sees that his question provokes anger and confusion, he may wrongly draw the conclusion that there are no answers.
Chinuch requires the efforts of parents and professional educators together, and the task of all of us as mechanchim is never done. •
Article from this weeks Mishpacha page 14
ReplyDeleteIf only the ehrlicher yidden who signed the ban knew that Margo and company would be on it too..........
ReplyDeleteAnd the cheap shot of adding the slur against lipa on the bottom to make it look like part of the kol korah the rabbis signed on makes this an obvious evil business definately not lesheim shomayim.
Read under the signatures of the ban.
ReplyDeleteThe Big Event Live! A Sheya Mendlowitz Production. Featuring Lipa Schmeltzer and Shlomie Gertner at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden 7:30pm on March 9th Musical Director Yisroel Lamm. SEPARATE SEATING. For more information or to reserve tickets please check out www.nyBIGevent.com or call 718.873.0888.
Pinchos Lipshitz...Political Commentator?
ReplyDeleteBest joke I've heard this week!
"The thinking Jewish world..."
ReplyDeleteDoes such a thing still exist?
BTW, here is a suggestion to "Dass Toiyreh" to 'mutterize' these mixed sex concerts:
Have all women and girls don plexifoam masks over their faces so that their features are totally covered just like you now see in all of the Sheitel store windows.
This will surely protect our men/boys from impure thoughts, V'Chuloo.