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LAWSUIT DOCUMENTS AT THE END OF THIS POST! SCROLL DOWN!
***PRESS RELEASE***
$10 Million Dollar Lawsuit Filed Against YESHIVA TORAH TEMIMAH & LIPA MARGULIES, Alleging Sexual Abuse by Rabbi Kolko
What: Attorneys Jeffrey Herman and Adam Horowitz of HERMAN & MERMELSTEIN, P.A., and Michael Dowd, Esq., announce the filing of another ten million dollar lawsuit against YESHIVA TORAH TEMIMAH (based in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn ) in connection with the alleged sexual abuse of a minor child by RABBI YUDI KOLKO. According to the Complaint:
The victim, identified as John Doe No. 6, was enrolled as a student in TORAH TEMIMAH, where Rabbi Kolko was a rabbi and teacher.
When JOHN DOE was approximately 11-13 years old and a student at TORAH TEMIMAH, JOHN was sexually abused by Rabbi Kolko on multiple occasions. The abuse took place at various locations, including, without limitation, Rabbi Kolko’s private office in TORAH TEMIMAH and the basement of TORAH TEMIMAH.
Rabbi Margulies, the head administrator at Torah Temimah, knew of allegations that Rabbi Kolko was sexually abusing boys at Torah Temimah years before John Doe No. 6 was abused.
Despite the fact that Rabbi Margulies knew of allegations that Rabbi Kolko was sexually abusing children and was unfit to be a Rabbi or teacher at TORAH TEMIMAH, he took no action to protect the young male students at his school and continued to give Rabbi Kolko unfettered access to young children.
A copy of the lawsuit is available upon request.
When: Monday, March 31 at 2:00 p.m.
Who: Attorneys Adam Horowitz and Michael Dowd
Where: On public sidewalk in front of Yeshiva Torah Temimah
555 Ocean Parkway
Brooklyn , NY 11218
- Jeffrey Herman previously filed four (4) other cases against Yeshiva Torah Temimah alleging sexual abuse by Rabbi Kolko.
- Mr. Herman stated: “The allegations of this Plaintiff are similar to the allegations of the other boys who claim that Rabbi Kolko sexually abused them, and are very disturbing.”
_________________________________________
CONTACT INFORMATION: JEFFREY HERMAN, ESQ. or ADAM HOROWITZ, ESQ. @ 305-931-2200
MICHAEL DOWD, ESQ. @ 212-751-1640
HERMAN & MERMELSTEIN, P.A.
Attorneys At Law
18205 Biscayne Boulevard
Suite 2218
Miami, Florida 33160
www.hermanlaw.com
179 comments:
we need an investigation about the beis yaacov of north mioami beach
they say that leizerson on beis yaacov in north miami was begging parents not to publicize that a girl ran away on friday night shabbaton to be with her non jewish boyfreind. they aslo had to be mechallel shabbos to call the police and use her computer (the only thing done right)
the school pretends to be frum and makes all sorts of rules but if you pay full tuition like fruchthandler did for his grandaughter then they take your kid even though she has told many classmates stories about what her family does and why they sent her to florida
Bruria Keren, the wacko who dresses like the Taliban, whipped her kids with electric cords and let them have sex with each other is married to a shnorrer who collects money overseas. He may have interrupted you during shacharis at Landau's shul or rang your doorbell on a Sunday.
The London Jewish Chronicle is reporting that he just returned from a shnorrfest and was arrested upon landing at Ben Gurion Airport.
http://www.michaelgdowd.com/jsp2209483.jsp
Practice Areas: Sexual Abuse; Sexual Harassment; Domestic Violence; Clergy Abuse; Criminal Defense; Commercial Litigation.
Admitted: 1967, New York; 1978, U.S. District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
Law School: St. John's University School of Law, LL.B., 1966
College: Fordham University
Biography: Author: "Dispelling the Myths About The Battered Women's Defense: Towards a New Understanding," Fordham Urban Law Journal, Volume XIX, Number 3, 1992; "Battered Women: A Perspective on Injustice," Cardozo Women's Law Journal, Volume 1, Number 1, 1993. Adjunct Professor: Trial Advocacy, Emory Law School, 1982-1990; Pace Law School, 1993-. Chairperson, Board of Advisors, Pace University Women's Justice Center, 1991-.
Born: Queens, New York, June 18, 1942
Will there be live news coverage of the press conference
After YTT everyone should head down to Chaim Berlin & Hatzolah headquarters.
After reading the commentary from "Weinberg Horrors" and the history of Moishe Eisemann, I just don't get it.
Was old man Neuberger that big of a dope that he would let his yeshiva become the dumping ground for multiple molesters?
First, did R' Shmuel Kaminetzky tell anyone about Eisemann's history?
Second, why would Neuberger be scared of R' Aron Schechter who was just a young shnook in the 1970s?
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stspit0325b,0,2105492,print.story
Spitzer may revive his public life post-scandal
BY ELIZABETH MOORE
elizabeth.moore@newsday.com
8:41 PM EDT, March 24, 2008
Gary Hart was headed for the Democratic presidential nomination when extramarital cuddles aboard a yacht called Monkey Business brought his public life to a humiliating end.
Twenty years later, he's the picture of gravitas, an Oxford-trained think-tank chairman on the Council of Foreign Relations.
Bob Packwood, the Oregon senator forced from office in a sexual-abuse scandal, found a less distinguished but probably more lucrative new life as a Washington lobbyist, while Gary Condit, the California congressman who admitted an affair with a slain intern, briefly operated two Baskin-Robbins franchises.
So yes, Eliot, there's life after scandal. Even as he announced his resignation on March 17 amid a federal probe of his dealings with a prostitution ring, Eliot Spitzer, New York's steamroller-in-chief, sounded as ambitious as ever, vowing to "go forward" with the belief that "our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." After patching up his family life, he vowed, "I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children."
Other comebacks
Martha Stewart has moved on from her obstruction-of-justice sentence with nary a backward glance. Sotheby's former chairman Alfred Taubman emerged from his price-fixing prison term slimmer, wrote a book, endowed some academic centers and returned to Hamptons respectability. Even Marv Albert, the NBC announcer accused of forcibly sodomizing and biting a woman in a hotel room, was back on the air two years after pleading guilty to reduced charges.
Arzt and others say Spitzer's most promising role model may be junk-bond king Michael Milkin, who paid $200 million in fines and went to prison on six felony counts in 1991. He emerged from prison in 1993 and launched the world's leading philanthropy on prostate cancer; in 2004 he was lauded in a Fortune magazine cover story as "The Man who Changed Medicine."
Consultant Hank Sheinkopf sees the type-A Spitzer 10 years from now heading a public-policy foundation "of his own, that he controls, where he can determine how the money is spent, to whom it is given and he can control every portion of the programs that come out of it. ... allows him to try to control the political environment in some small fashion again."
For now, Spitzer has little hope of disappearing into the woodwork while he works out his atonement. He is recognizable anywhere in America, chased by the curses of his many enemies on Wall Street and in Albany.
Even for those better liked, the indignities prove hard to swallow.
Such was the fate of Sol Wachtler, chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, after he was arrested on the Long Island Expressway in 1992 for a bizarre series of harassing letters to a lover that would be attributed to having bipolar disorder. After a 15-month prison term, Wachtler began teaching at Pace Law School to fulfill his community service requirement, until staff complained his offense had rendered him unfit.
He was hired at Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University, where he'd been a commencement speaker, only to have trustees intervene. He finally was hired as an adjunct professor at Touro College, where he teaches to this day. In 2003, efforts to get his law license back were rebuffed, after he gave an interview to Newsday expressing his hope to regain his name and place in society.
That turned one of the most gregarious men in politics press-shy, but Wachtler has devoted himself to a new calling that draws insight from his own frailties: lobbying for reforms in the way the criminal justice system treats mentally ill prisoners. He won his law license back last October. But atonement only goes so far, Wachtler told a group of Albany-area junior high school students last week.
is there anyway we can watch this online? can anyone tape this and post it online?
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=2241
Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Shlita, Bans Arab Labor
Asked later if his words should be publicized, Rabbi Kanievsky said: “Certainly,” according to News First Class, investigative journalist Yoav Yitzchak’s news site. Rabbi Kanievsky went even further, saying that Jews should refrain from employing any non-Jews, not just Muslim Arabs, and instead grant livelihood to Jews, unless there exists a huge disparity in the costs of the labor.
For several years a revival of the concept of avodah Ivrit—Jewish labor—has been taking place in the Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria regions, particularly in hilltop communities. Though a website listing Jewish labor businesses was closed down after a lawsuit from an Arab advocacy group funded by the New Israel Fund, a new hotline and e-mail account has been set up to provide avodah Ivrit solutions.
The hotline, for everything from gardeners, heavy equipment operators, painters, cement mixers, and handymen to catering and restaurants, can be reached by e-mailing mokedai@gmail.com
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a5360/News/New_York.html
Tenants Take On Yeshiva
by Walter Ruby
Special To The Jewish Week
When Eugenia Patskina was informed last February that her new landlord would refuse to renew her lease on the comfortable studio apartment in the Manhattan Beach section of Brooklyn, the then 88-year-old woman became so overwrought that she had to be rushed to a nearby hospital in an ambulance.
Patskina, who has occupied her studio since shortly after arriving in America from Moscow in the early 1990s, is legally blind, and suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and declining kidney function. She depends on longtime friends and neighbors in the two-story red brick apartment building she calls home to take her out for short walks in the evening after her Medicare-provided caretaker goes home for the night. If forced to move to a new apartment in a different area, Patskina fears, she will be homebound in the evenings and with no one to turn to for companionship.
The plight of Patskina and of other residents of the 25-apartment building at 35-45 West End Ave. began early last year when the building was purchased for $4 million by the nearby Mesivta and Yeshiva Gedolah of Manhattan Beach. The yeshiva’s principal and trustee, Rabbi Joshua Zelikovitz, who is also the rabbi at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center directly across the street, immediately informed the residents that he planned to convert their building into classroom space for the yeshiva, which already holds title to two other buildings on the block. Therefore all of them would have to move as soon as their one-year leases ran out.
Zelikovitz reassured the building’s most vulnerable residents — Patskina and seven other elderly Russian immigrants with Section 8 subsidized units for which they pay an average of $100-200 a month — that he would help them locate alternative affordable housing in the neighborhood.
Yet over a year later no such apartments have been found. Residents charge that the rabbi and his real estate agents have offered them only a handful of possible apartments, all of which were either filthy and decrepit or could be attained only by paying prospective landlords a bribe of some $10,000-$20,000, which landlords in the area customarily demand before accepting Section 8 tenants, according to city housing advocates.
Meanwhile, Zelikovitz has filed eviction notices against most of the tenants of the 16 apartments that are still occupied while refusing to accept the rent payments they have sent him.
“The rabbi promised at the beginning he wouldn’t evict me, but now I have received an eviction notice,” said Patskina, who said she is unable to sleep these days out of fear of imminent eviction. She added, “I am Jewish and assumed all my life that rabbis were kind and compassionate. Never could I have imagined that a rabbi would deny me the right to live out my last years in dignity.”
Unlike the residents of an adjoining apartment building just down the block at 59 West End Ave., who vacated en masse after the Mesivta took over their building five years ago and refused to renew their leases, the occupants of 35-45 have banded together to resist Zelkovitz. The tenants believe the rabbi does not really plan to expand the Mesivta after he empties the building of its tenants. Instead, they believe he wants to sell both properties and a large parking lot in between them at a huge profit to developers who will likely knock down the buildings to make way for luxury condos.
“We are filing a motion of discovery in Brooklyn Housing Court because we have strong reason to believe [Zelikovitz] has an ulterior motive in his plans for this building,” said Jonathan Twersky, a Legal Aid lawyer who is representing the occupants of 35-45. “He promised to turn 59 West End Ave. into classroom space when he took it over, but appears to be using it primarily as a dormitory [for some of the yeshiva’s students].”
Twersky noted that a section inserted into the New York State Rent Stabilization Code in 1982 allows not-for-profit agencies to take over residential properties and refuse to renew the leases of existing tenants if they use the building for educational or charitable purposes, but not if such properties are subsequently used for residential purposes.
Michael McKee, the treasurer of Housing PAC, said that allowing not-for-profits to take over residential buildings and expel their tenants, a tactic employed by universities like NYU and Columbia as well as by many Brooklyn yeshivas, represents “a huge loophole that ought to be repealed. To allow any landlord, even if he is representing a not-for-profit, to eliminate affordable housing is unconscionable at a time when such housing is in ever shorter supply in New York.”
Pat Singer, president of the Brighton Neighborhood Association, a community group that supports the tenants at 35-45 West End Ave., is convinced that the Mesivta intends to flip its buildings on West End for condos, a plan she believes is reflective of “a rapid construction of luxury buildings in Brighton and Manhattan Beach that is driving middle-class people out of the neighborhood. Rabbi Zelikovitz has no rachmones [mercy] to frail elderly people who have nowhere else to go.”
Kenneth Lazar of the New York City Buildings Department confirmed that inspectors from his agency went to 59 West End Ave. on three separate occasions over the past year after hearing complaints from neighbors that the building was being used primarily as a dormitory, but were refused entry to the facility.
According to Lazar, “The building was supposed to be a multi-dwelling building, but was apparently converted into a dormitory. In 2006, an application was finally filed to change the building’s designation to a synagogue, yeshiva and dormitory, but it was disapproved [rejected] by this department.”
Zelikovitz refused to speak to The Jewish Week, but his attorney, David Berger of the Brooklyn-based law firm of Tenenbaum and Berger, insisted that the Mesivta has done nothing wrong.
According to Berger, “The Mesivta’s original plan was to turn 59 West End into a school building, but then they realized it couldn’t accommodate the growing student body so they decided to buy 35-45 and use it as the yeshiva building instead.” Berger insisted Zelkovitz has no plan to “flip” 35-45 West End into a condo once the residents have left. “If he did that the former tenants could sue him retroactively” for violating the proviso that they can only be removed if the place they lived is actually used for educational or charitable purposes.
Yet Berger contended that Zelkovitz does have the right to sell 59 West End to developers despite the same stipulation because “the former residents of 59 West End left willingly after the Mesivta took it over. So he is free to sell the building to Donald Trump if he desires.”
Michelle Brunelle, 55, a longtime resident of 35-45 and the principal organizer within the building of resistance to Zelkovitz, has contacted several local politicians about the situation but has received little response. She attributes the lack of response to the political power of the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center (MBJC), where an influential real estate developer, Rubin Margules, is president.
The only politician who has tried to find alternative housing for residents of 35-45 West End is State Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz (D-Sheepshead Bay), who said he found his hands tied by the vagaries of Section 8 program regulations. Cymbrowitz recently introduced a bill in the State Assembly to eliminate the loophole allowing not-for-profit organizations to take over residential buildings and expel their tenants, but acknowledged that even if his bill passes, it will not be possible to apply it retroactively to protect the residents of 35-45 West End Ave. Still, Cymborwitz said, “A landlord may legally do as the rabbi is doing, but he has an ethical and moral obligation to his tenants.”
Margules sees the situation differently. “No matter what the tenants seem to think, the building belongs to the Mesivta and not to them,” Margules said. “It looks like the tenants are playing tough. They won’t take [alternative apartments] that don’t please their fancy tastes.” Margules added that Zelikovitz is “a very honorable person who has behaved toward the tenants in a menschy manner.”
Yet according to Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, president of the New York Board of Rabbis: “Any person connected to a Jewish value system has a responsibility to the poor, and, by that token, a landlord has to be concerned about the welfare of elderly people living in Section 8 apartments. The growth of the yeshiva must be coupled with sincere efforts to relocate these people. Wholesale removal is unacceptable.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/frenzy-during-mccain-photo-op/
March 19, 2008, 7:32 am
Frenzy During McCain Photo-Op
By Michael Cooper
JERUSALEM — Pandemonium broke out here Wednesday when Senator John McCain made the traditional pilgrimage to the Western Wall.
Photographers got into fistfights with security officials, and Mr. McCain and his traveling companions — Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and Senator Lindsey Graham — found themselves in the middle of a pushing, shoving mob of photographers, soldiers, police officers, and tourists.
There did not appear to be any injuries, but several pairs of sunglasses were damaged in the mini-melee, which drew astonished stares from an assortment of tourists and Yeshiva students.
The frenzy was set off when many photographers complained that they were unable to get the photo that the photo-op was designed for: a shot of Mr. McCain placing a note into a crack in the wall. The women photographers, who had to stand in separate area, shouted that Mr. Lieberman was blocking their shots. Many of the men were blocked by security forces and other journalists.
With the name of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky increasingly being found on just about every proclamation and charity request, Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Kanievsky, Rabbi Chaim’s son, issued a proclamation titled “Statement of Clarification,” advising that many charitable requests, whether from individuals or organizations, were never reviewed or approved by his father. In order to confirm Rabbi Chaim’s endorsement, Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya makes himself available and can be reached at (001) 972-3-6194166 or 972-50-4144443.
"Kaminetzky told him that Eisemann was an excellent rebbe!"
So why aren't the Neubergers furious with him?
Kaminetzky told him that Eisemann was an excellent rebbe!"
So why aren't the Neubergers furious with him?
--------------------
Potential criminal and civil liability make for strange bedfellows!
I remember one of the Zelikovitzes in yeshiva. He was a pushy jerk who tried to squeeze in an extra chair against the rules of the yeshiva. He used slimy pressure tactics when people complained it was already squished without him trying to worm his way into the row.
Is it just bubbie mayses or is there any truth to the rumors that the original rosh yeshiva allegedly plagiarized a sefer?
any truth to the rumors
Was old man Neuberger that big of a dope that he would let his yeshiva become the dumping ground for multiple molesters?
First, did R' Shmuel Kaminetzky tell anyone about Eisemann's history?
---------------------------
Rabbi Herman Neuberger was not informed about Eisemann - just the opposite - Kaminetzky told him that Eisemann was an excellent rebbe! Unfortunately - Rabbi Neuberger got involved in a cover -up once he realized the potential damage to Ner Israel!
Shmuel Kaminetzky and through his son in-law Tzvi Berkowitz, were actively involved in intimidating victims in keeping quiet. Shmuel Kaminetzky has blood on his soul as well as Tzvi Berkowitz.
I'm not certain that Rabbi Herman Neuberger knew the extent of Eisemann's illness - I just don't know - although he was aware that Eisemann was sick.
Very sad!
Tenenbaum & Berger representing Zelikovitz are in the same building as Steve Mostofsky and Richard Klass.
Seeking clarification from UOJ, Boog and other readers.
Readers of Shmarya's blog are vehemently denying that Shereshevsky did anything wrong. They insist he was framed by his ex-wife and that he did not steal any diamonds.
Can anyone verify?
ruben margolis was the owner who derfrauded people about the browns hotel
he is a close freind of dov hikind
can anyone tell me if he did time
fruchthandler sent his granddaughter to north miami beach after she was thrown out of other schools
his daughter tells all sorts of stories about the mothers house
let schechter say something about that household
After reading the commentary on "Weinberg Horrors"...
Where is this to be found?
On the Isaad Hersh entry of UOJ it only opens up the comments until where it was holding by 300 or so even thought the nuber says 344.
UOJ Could you please post what new information has come to light about Reb Shmuel's involvement and knowledge of Eiseman's sickness. I really need to know this. Thanks.
It is a chutzpa that Rubin Margolis supports the fraudulent Kabbalah Center but that's because they used Browns for get togethers.
He also bought Grossinger's. Does anyone know what happened with that?
Margoles is a Yekke who ran for State Senate in the 1980s. He must be well connected because the NY Times ran a 4 page puff piece on his real estate companies many years ago.
He's also a big shot with ZOA & the Jerusalem Reclamation Project.
At no time was there any press conference in front of YTT today.
Applegrad,
You're going to learn the hard way like me that video evidence can be produced that proves you're lying.
Need I remind everyone that Lipa Margulies is an honorable man?
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=58562&ATypeId=1
Kosher bakery owner jailed after feeding wife pills to kill unborn child
07/03/2008
By Dana Gloger
The owner of two London kosher bakeries and a kosher restaurant has been jailed for putting abortion pills into his wife’s breakfast.
Gil Magira, 36, from Hendon, North-West London, pleaded guilty to using an instrument to procure a miscarriage and was sentenced to three years and nine months at London’s Old Bailey last Friday. He has already served nine months, which will be discounted from his sentence.
It is thought to be the first offence of this type to be prosecuted since the Abortion Act came into force almost 40 years ago.
Magira, the Israeli owner of the Bonjour bakeries in Hendon and Stanmore and the Lemonade restaurant in Hendon, had a phobia of becoming a father.
On finding out that his wife Anat Abraham, 39, was pregnant in 2006, he begged her to have an abortion. When she refused, he bought abortion-inducing drugs over the internet.
In February last year, he crushed the pills into a sandwich that he made Ms Abraham for her breakfast.
Shortly afterwards, she began to experience stomach pains and asked Magira to take her to hospital.
A doctor confirmed that she was not miscarrying, but the next morning Magira put the remains of the drugs into her breakfast cereal. He said that he feared that if he did not follow the instructions and use all of the pills, then the foetus might become deformed.
Three days later, Magira confessed his actions to psychologist Limor Abramov, who encouraged him to tell his wife what he had done.
Simon Mayo, prosecuting, said when Ms Abraham found out about the drugs, she finished the relationship and “was concerned for her own safety and that of her unborn child”.
Magira attempted suicide in May last year by taking an overdose of tranquillisers.
Despite her husband’s attempts, Ms Abraham gave birth prematurely to their son Matan on May 20 last year.
In a victim-impact statement, she said: “When I found out Gil had poisoned me I was in deep shock. I realised I had lived with a person for 10 years that I didn’t really know. The way it was done was inhuman.”
Defence counsel Jonathan Goldberg QC spent over two hours unsuccessfully trying to persuade the judge to pass either a community penalty or a suspended prison sentence.
He told the court that the relationship between Magira and his wife was “plainly truly destructive” and that he was frightened of her.
“She was more of a mother to him than a wife. She was the dominant personality. Certain Israeli women can be a tough breed,” he said. He explained that when the couple married in 1999, they agreed not to have children. Ms Abraham already had a 14-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.
But prosecutor Mr Mayo said that Magira had in fact agreed to have a child with his wife.
The defence argued that, since the birth of his son, Magira had accepted it and was “deeply ashamed of what he did.
“He now says he wants to play a part in his son’s life. He is ashamed of the scandal it has brought his religious family in Israel. He knows what he has done was wrong and that he has sinned against his own religious law and the criminal law,” Mr Goldberg said.
Sentencing, Judge Oliver Sells said that the maximum sentence for the offence was life. “This case merits a sentence of immediate imprisonment,” he said.
The three shops owned by Magira are now being run by Ms Abraham.
http://www.masslive.com/metrowest/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-13/1204878148108060.xml&coll=1
By PETER GOONAN
pgoonan@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD - The city filed a countersuit this week against the manager of the vacant Longhill Gardens Condominiums, saying he should be required to reimburse the city approximately $80,000 for the costs of relocating tenants and securing the troubled property.
The counterclaim was filed in U.S. District Court and follows a federal lawsuit filed in January by the property manager, Shalom Segelman of Waterbury, Conn. In his suit, Segelman accuses city officials of malicious prosecution and of violating his religious rights.
In a 34-page response, City Solicitor Edward M. Pikula and Senior Legal Counsel Harry P. Carroll denied Segelman's allegations, saying the city's prolonged efforts and court action seeking to force Segelman to correct code violations at Longhill Gardens were reasonable and justified.
The city denies any constitutional violation or violation of state and federal law.
"Springfield is a Massachusetts municipal corporation, an artificial being, and as such could entertain no malicious intent," the city responds among its defenses. "Springfield's behavior was not so outrageous that it shocks the conscience."
The city claims it incurred costs of $79,626.08 for relocation expenses for tenants and for boarding and securing the buildings off Longhill Street. The city is asking the federal court to order the reimbursement of those costs plus interest and legal fees.
The condominium complex was vacated, boarded up and secured in recent months, as ordered by Housing Court Judge William H. Abrashkin.
Segelman accused city officials of moving forward with a Housing Court hearing in October on a Jewish holiday, saying he was unable to attend as "an observant Orthodox Jew." He was subsequently jailed for contempt of court at a facility where kosher food was not served, he said.
Segelman's suit claims the city's actions against him were arbitrary "and showed a deliberate indifference to the validity of its claims against Segelman and Segelman's rights to liberty and property."
The city claimed Segelman failed to correct "severe common area code violations which materially impaired the health and safety of the residents..."
Segelman was jailed for civil contempt of court from Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, at the Hampden County House of Corrections, which did not provide him with kosher meals, the suit states. His lawyer was able to arrange for the meals, his suit states.
Segelman was released from jail after obtaining an emergency stay, pending a ruling on his appeal of the contempt finding.
Segelman is the manager of Longhill Omega LLC., the majority owner of the Longhill Gardens.
People,
I urge you to visit this site http://stop-klein.blogspot.com/ and tell krasna yeshiva what you think of their lowlife nazi menahell.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/25/db2502.xml
Roland arnall, who died on March 17 aged 68, founded America's largest sub-prime mortgage business and in 2006 was appointed United States ambassador to the Netherlands in controversial circumstances.
A one-time street-corner flower-seller, Arnall founded his California-based mortgage company, Ameriquest, in 1979. The firm, which described itself as "proud sponsor of the American dream", specialised in offering mortgages to people with weak credit histories and became the nation's largest sub-prime lender.
It was one of the first mortgage companies to use computer databases to target borrowers, and advertised widely on television and through sponsorship - including the Rolling Stones' tour of America in 2005.
Profits soared during the housing boom of the 1990s, but Ameriquest became an early casualty of the subsequent sub-prime "meltdown". The remnants of the company were sold to Citigroup last year.
Arnall's fortune was estimated at $1.5 billion, and he and his second wife, Dawn, became generous donors to candidates of both main political parties - but particularly to President George W Bush.
In 2006 the Washington Post reported that the couple had raised at least $12.5 million for the president since 2002, making them Bush's largest single fund-raisers. They also gave financial support to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California.
In addition Mrs Arnall had contributed $5 million to a pro-Bush lobby group known as the Progress for America Voter Fund, and co-chaired the 2004 Republican convention.
But Arnall's company was dogged by allegations that it had engaged in improper and predatory lending practices by, for example, lying about borrowers' incomes to enable them to obtain loans they could not afford, and misleading borrowers about the terms of their loans.
In 1996 the company paid $3 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of exploiting older, female and minority borrowers, by allowing its mortgage brokers and employees to charge such customers an additional fee of as much as 12 per cent of the loan amount.
A subsequent series of class action lawsuits, involving law enforcement agencies and financial regulators in 49 states, alleging systematic fraud, falsification of documents and dubious sales tactics, were settled out of court in 2006 by Ameriquest's parent company (which at the same time admitted to no wrongdoing) with a payout of $325 million - one of the largest-ever consumer protection settlements. More than 200 branches were closed down, with nearly 4,000 employees losing their jobs.
When President Bush nominated Arnall for the post of ambassador to the Netherlands in August 2005, the announcement was controversial on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Republican-controlled Senate vetoed his appointment several times before finally confirming it by a narrow margin in February 2006, after the class action settlement.
Roland Arnall was born on March 29 1939 to East European Jews (his father was a tailor, his mother a nurse) who had fled to Paris. He spent his childhood in a French village, where his family pretended to be Catholics to evade the attentions of the Nazis, and was unaware of his Jewish ancestry until the war ended.
The family then moved to Canada, then on to the United States, settling in California. Arnall and his brother opened a flower stall on the streets of Los Angeles, before Arnall began investing in apartments and other businesses. Ameriquest was born in 1994 out of the Long Beach Savings and Loan company, which Arnall had set up in 1979.
In the 1970s he helped to found the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. He was also a generous benefactor to animal shelters and Jewish charities and, during his short time as ambassador to the Netherlands, strove to improve understanding of Europe's Muslim minority.
Arnall's term as ambassador was due to end in 2009, but he stepped down earlier this month in order to care for his son, who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.
He is survived by his wife and by his son and daughter.
http://www.forward.com/articles/12934/
For a few months, the former head of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, quietly served as an adviser to the American Jewish Congress. But when one of Singer’s old enemies found out about it, he made sure the work would not last.
Stephen Herbits, a former WJC secretary general who fiercely defended Singer for years, then turned against him in early 2007, wrote a spirited letter to the AJCongress, throwing a host of accusations against the man who had been responsible for many of the Holocaust restitution agreements of the 1990s.
“It is no surprise to me that Israel Singer’s brief association with the American Jewish Congress was marked by double-talk, obfuscation and controversy,” Herbits wrote to AJCongress President Richard Gordon on January 18, offering to brief the board on the issue.
Singer’s position with the AJCongress was unpaid, but within a few weeks — and after a spate of unrelated internal feuding at the AJCongress — Singer was unceremoniously dropped. At the same time, Isi Leibler, another former WJC official and a longtime Singer foe, has been lobbying several other Jewish organizations with relations to Singer to sever their ties with him.
The decision to drop Singer came about not only because of his prior role at the WJC; the AJCongress had its own internal political battles. But the heated response to Singer’s role demonstrates how the feuding that nearly destroyed the WJC a year ago still goes on, long after the major players have moved on to new arenas. For Singer, a former champion of the Jewish world, it has meant a never-ending stream of public attacks and legal challenges from Herbits and beyond.
“I can’t say what craziness drives these guys to do this,” Singer told the Forward in written comments. “What I can say is that these efforts are and always have been disingenuous, dishonest, and in the pursuit of a political and personal agenda.”
Singer was ousted from the WJC in March 2007 amid accusations of financial misdeeds that began with the discovery of a controversial transfer to Geneva and then London of $1.2 million from a WJC account in New York. An investigation by New York’s then attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, concluded in January 2006 with a report that found no criminal offense but criticized the WJC’s haphazard financial management and ordered that Singer be prohibited from making financial decisions in the organization.
While the organization initially stood by Singer, Herbits eventually joined the accusers. The president of the organization, Edgar Bronfman, soon fired Singer. A few months later, Bronfman resigned.
A year later, the combatants have left the scene, but the battles have never died.
Herbits sent a report to both the New York attorney general and the Internal Revenue Service when he left the WJC last September; he took the unusual step of urging the attorney general to reopen the probe into both Singer and the WJC.
“There may be attempts to portray this report as a personal position paper or as a vendetta in the final days of the Secretary General,” Herbits wrote. “However, as with all previous filings to the OAG, this report presents facts.”
Herbits also initiated a lawsuit against Singer, on behalf of the WJC, that was kept alive after Herbits’s departure. On February 26, however, that suit was dropped without prejudice, but it is not clear what legal steps will happen moving forward.
The WJC’s new secretary general, Michael Schneider, said in a statement that the decision to withdraw the lawsuit was taken “because it is very possible that the prior claims do not adequately reflect the full extent of what might be demanded at a future date pending further examination of the facts.”
Schneider declined to elaborate.
In addition to Herbits’s legal parries, Singer’s original foe, Leibler, has fought against the remaining positions that Singer has retained, including his leadership posts at the top two Holocaust restitution organizations. In late January, Leibler also urged the Jewish organization in charge of relations with the Vatican to deny Singer any role. Leibler did this in an e-mail to Rabbi David Rosen, chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations. Leibler wrote that Singer was attempting to “whitewash” his reputation by attaching himself to Jewish organizations.
“If he had any sense, he would have quietly disappeared and concentrated on enjoying his grandchildren,” Leibler wrote. “Alas, the dybbuk clings to him.”
Rosen had written to Leibler earlier, defending his organization’s handling of Singer, and said that he had “no desire to kick someone especially when he is down.”
Singer’s supporters say that he is the victim of a political and personal vendetta, and also that his enemies are circulating allegedly incriminating documents despite the fact that the WJC already conducted a thorough combing of its records during the 18-month-long probe by Spitzer.
As has been the case from the beginning of the WJC wars, the ongoing fights have revolved around the interpretation of financial documents — some newly disclosed, some old.
One of the documents, which was referenced for the first time last September, when Herbits wrote to the attorney general, is a 2002 letter addressed to Singer’s wife from Zvi Barak, an Israeli attorney who has been at the center of the WJC controversy. The letter proposed that Singer’s wife, Evelyne, obtain an ownership share in a duty-free shop in Romania.
In the March 12, 2002, letter, Barak was apparently trying to draw Singer’s wife into a business venture that would obtain a duty-free store at the airport in Bucharest, Romania. According to the letter, Barak was proposing to act as a trustee in the name of Singer’s wife for the 5% share that a corporation called “Palo Alto (2001) Holding Ltd” would obtain in the duty-free business.
“I will transfer any dividend that ‘Palo Alto (2001) Holding Ltd’ will get from the above company to any account you designate,” Barak wrote, according to a copy of the document.
The document is written on the letterhead of Solar International Finance Limited, a company controlled by Barak that was involved in the money transfers that initiated the attorney general’s probe of the WJC. Because of Barak’s refusal to provide information about Solar, the attorney general prohibited the WJC from having any further dealings with the Israeli lawyer.
The letter is signed by Barak but not by Singer’s wife. In the end, the duty-free store was not sold to anyone and the Romanian authorities decided to close it. To Singer opponents, this is proof that he has been less then forthcoming.
“Singer misled me and the WJC in our efforts to investigate, because he never gave a full explanation about those connections to Barak,” Herbits told the Forward.
Singer’s supporters said that though Barak had repeatedly drafted business proposals and submitted them to Singer over the years in an effort to lure him into the private sector, Singer never took that step. The Forward was shown documents suggesting that Barak sent the same document that was sent to Singer’s wife to at least two other people, offering the same business arrangement.
“For the record, of course I don’t own any part of this company — and neither does any member of my family,” Singer wrote to the Forward. [Full disclosure: Israel Singer’s son, Elie Singer, is the founder of The Jewish Channel, which is producing a series of television shows involving Forward staff members.] “This was apparently an offer that was made to a bunch of individuals, with the same type of document,” he wrote.
Barak did not return requests for comments.
In his report last fall to the attorney general, Herbits returned to many of the themes that had been explored by the attorney general’s probe two years earlier, suggesting that many issues were never properly resolved. Herbits used his evidence not only to implicate Singer and the WJC but also to question the conclusions of the attorney general and the “Assurance of Discontinuance” that ended the investigation.
“The AG’s report and Assurance of Discontinuance contain material false statements, untruths and improper conclusions,” Herbits wrote.
The attorney general’s office did not return repeated inquiries about the status of the probe.
Reprinted from Cayman Net News
caymannetnews.com
Editorial: Smoke and fire at Tranquility Bay
Published on Monday, March 31, 2008
The recent announcement that the government is to send a high level delegation to investigate the suitability of Tranquility Bay in Jamaica is a welcome development in the ongoing debate over the treatment received by young people at that facility, including three children from the Cayman Islands.
Shortly after the announcement of the visit came news of yet another lawsuit filed in the United States over the conditions at Tranquility Bay.
Predictably, this included a restatement of many of the allegations made previously in relation to Tranquility Bay in court testimony and in the media.
Although Tranquility Bay offers the promise of turning troubled youth into focused achievers, the walled-off camp with barred windows has been called a nightmare.
“It’s a modern-day concentration camp,” said Maryland lawyer Joshua Ambush.
Children have been beaten, forced to eat their vomit and made to stand in painful contortions for hours, according to an earlier law suit filed by former students against private boot camps, including Tranquility Bay.
As we reported in an earlier editorial on this topic, according to court documents filed in Virginia, Tranquility Bay is referred to as “a dangerous facility” and the court heard testimony as to “the maltreatment of the students, of the unsanitary conditions that these children are forced to live in.”
Two young people that completed the programme at Tranquility Bay, in telling the court in Virginia of their experiences, used words like “emotional torture, filthy, maggots, parasites, lack of medical treatment, abuse and physical restraint.”
The judge in that case ordered the immediate return of the child in question to the United States.
Since Cayman Net News has been running a short series of articles highlighting the questionable merits of sending one of our troubled juveniles to Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, we have been contacted by authors and former “students” and obtained hundreds of pages of court documents.
Numerous complaints have been voiced and posted online alleging ill treatment, inadequacy of academic offerings, unqualified staff and inhumane treatment of minors.
Tranquility Bay is typically referred to in all of this as a prison in all but name and, in fact, its soothing but misleading name belies the harsh reality behind its doors.
Given the fact that it is more than likely a place of detention rather than the “specialty boarding school” it claims to be, surely the issue of basic human rights and, especially, the rights of children are very relevant in this context, especially in the light of the current discussion on this topic as part of the constitutional review process.
Each of us has a fundamental right not to be imprisoned or otherwise detained except after conviction of a criminal offence in a fair trial, although this simple concept has sometimes proven to be elusive to the Cayman Islands judiciary.
We therefore wonder (a) whether there is a legal basis for the effective imprisonment of young people in this manner and (b) if there is claimed to be such a legal basis, whether the laws of the Cayman Islands that permit this do in fact conform to the internationally accepted standards of human rights.
The Minister for Health and Social Services Hon Anthony Eden has acknowledged that “first and foremost it is our responsibility as a Government to provide the best care for our juvenile offenders,” and we hope that this guiding principle will be uppermost in the minds of the officials that travel to Jamaica.
We also hope that they will not be deceived by outward appearances and self-serving promotional efforts, which is reportedly another specialty of the organisation that runs Tranquility Bay.
We are hesitant to conclude that there is in fact a fire at Tranquility Bay based only on the observable smoke but, in this case, there is an awful lot of smoke.
The children sent to Tranquility Bay may not be fully responsible for their own inappropriate behaviour and it does no one any good just to ship them off to a facility that has such a dreadful reputation. Out of sight, out of mind is just not an acceptable solution for this country.
The government says it has already budgeted for a purpose built facility in East End to house 18 young people, and we therefore urge all concerned to make the construction and commissioning of this new facility a matter of the utmost priority.
Our children deserve nothing less.
you know whats funny-
kolko is going to get the last laugh- alot of us will ask him mechilla- i believe that these are just overzelous lawyers looking for some desperate people to all make a quick buck at a yeshiva that has produced thousands and thousands of bnei torah - is it possible Rabbi kolko is guilty? 100% is it possible he is innocent 100%...the point is that all this is complete lashon hara that causes NO good to anyone...the only one who has what to gain are the lawyers who are making money
My question is -- if none of us were in the room where kolko supposedly molested these boys - then how can we all talk lashon hara about him?
how do we know he is guilty?
we dont even know who uoj is? UOJ what are you? Who are you? Did Kolko molest you? what is your reason for leading this "cause" against temimah? i think tell us who you are and what you stand for and then your "causes" and what you say would have more significance. i had rabbi kolko - as well was in camp as an employee of his and only have great to say about him
Hey anon Putz at 4:39. You make zero sense.
I thought the last of these die hard Kolko defender putzes had faded away long ago.
Did today's fool wake up from a 12 month coma?
see: http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId=44328&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=paedophile&srchtxt=1&srchhead=1&srchauthor=1&srchsandp=1&scsrch=0
"It has been known to social services in Jerusalem for decades that there are much higher levels of abuse of women and children in the strictly Orthodox community than among the general population. But, out of deference to the charedi leadership, such matters are rarely publicised."
Online, no rabbi can hide from his accuser
08/06/2006
Jewish Chronicle
Alex Brummer
Organised religion does not go out of its way to expose inappropriate behaviour. For decades, the Catholic diocese of Boston in the United States chose to cover up and pay off families of children involved in an abuse scandal rather than acknowledge it or allow it to reach the public courts.
It has been known to social services in Jerusalem for decades that there are much higher levels of abuse of women and children in the strictly Orthodox community than among the general population. But, out of deference to the charedi leadership, such matters are rarely publicised.
The world is changing, however. Dissidents from China to Syria are able to use the world wide web to share their experiences of human rights violations. And even societies as closed as the charedi community are vulnerable to the medium of the modern whistle blower: the weblogs.
Blog material is not readily susceptible to independent verification — which is one reason why the mainstream media treats it with caution. It has nevertheless become a powerful tool for those who feel wronged. Just how powerful is evident from a profoundly disturbing recent story in New York Magazine on alleged child abuse in the strictly Orthodox community of Brooklyn.
The lengthy report by Robert Kolker — “On the rabbi’s knee. Do the Orthodox Jews have a Catholic-priest problem?” — has apparently divided America’s Jews.
New York Magazine has a reputation for excellent writing. Founded in 1968 to challenge the more intellectual New Yorker, NYMag now reaches more than 1.8 million readers a week.
The Robert Kolker article tells the story of a 12-year-old boy in Brooklyn — now an adult with his own family living in Israel — who was systematically abused as a child by a teacher at an ultra-Orthodox school. The teacher, it is alleged, preyed upon young boys while giving them rides to school. It is also claimed that he engaged in similar behaviour at the yeshivah summer camp in which he had a personal financial stake.
The boy — David Framowitz, now 48 — was unable to put his memories behind him. He tried to forget about his alleged tormenter, Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, but found it impossible. So, after a visit a few years ago to his old neighbourhood in Brooklyn, he decided to Google the name of the teacher concerned. He found a link to a blog which identified his former teacher as “a known paedophile.”
As a result of these events, Framowitz has now launched a £11m lawsuit against Kolko and Yeshiva Torah Temimah of Flatbush, Brooklyn, over alleged molestation on 15 occasions between 1969 and 1971 at the yeshivah and at Camp Agudah in the Catskills. He was listed as a “John Doe” plaintiff to protect his privacy but decided that putting a name to the case would strengthen its credibility.
The NYMag writer argues that the Framowitz case “could be the tip of an iceberg.” He goes on to to write: “Rabbi-on-child molestation is a wide-spread problem in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and one that has long been covered up, according to rabbis, former students, social-service workers, sociologists, psychologists, victims rights advocates and survivors of abuse interviewed for this story.”
Framowitz’s family history of losing a father young in Toronto and being transferred to the charedi community when his mother remarried a strictly Orthodox husband may have made him particularly vulnerable. The boy lacked the support structure around him in which he could share his complaints. It is alleged that the head of the yeshivah involved, named in the lawsuit as Rabbi Lipa Margulies, preferred to sweep the matter under the carpet rather than take disciplinary action.
Parents tried to deal with matters in the traditional way by going to the head of the yeshivah rather than to the secular authorities. The latter would have attracted the stigma of being labelled moisrim — traitors who hand people over to outsiders.
Whatever the forces behind this reluctance, ultimately Margulies and other rabbis contacted decided the parents’ claims did not require any action to be taken.
Much of the background in the Kolko case has been aired on a blog called “Un-Orthodox Jew,” which has become a home for complaints about the behaviour of the charedim. It has registered more than half a million hits in a year.
Part of the American media has rallied to the defence of the charedi community. The Jewish Week, which reaches 90,000 households, noted: “While we commiserate with the obvious pain of the accusers, we are constrained to reiterate our concern with anonymous, unproven charges being accepted as fact.” And the Jewish Week is certainly correct to point out that many frivolous lawsuits do occur in the American courts under the no-win no-fee system. Moreover, the world of blogs is filled with material of dubious origin.
But the magnitude of the evidence presented by the NYMag is a warning that, unless the strictly Orthodox community adopts a degree of transparency alien to its traditions, it will find it difficult to command the respect of the wider society.
Alex Brummer is city editor of the Daily Mail
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId=50838&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=abuse&srchtxt=1&srchhead=1&srchauthor=1&srchsandp=1&scsrch=0
Why bloggers terrify the rabbis
08/03/2007
Miriam Shaviv
In recent days, the Charedi rabbis of Gateshead and Manchester have banned their followers from accessing the internet, using computers or mobile phones, without a written permit from religious leaders. Many Charedim, they said, had “fallen prey to the immoral lures” of the web.
The implication was that Charedi children are threatened by the easy availability of pornography online — and this is a major factor. But the true threat of the internet, as far as the Charedi community is concerned, and the major impetus behind the bans both here and in the US, lies elsewhere — in the world of internet weblogs.
These online diaries have proven truly subversive in Charedi society. In a community in which conformity is key, blogs have been used to vent frustrations, question the rabbinic leadership and express doubts about the Charedi belief system — with guaranteed anonymity.
There are dozens of blogs written by disenchanted Charedim in the USA, the UK and Israel, in English, Ivrit, and even in Yiddish. There is also heavy Charedi participation in other blogs written by questioning Jews from across the Orthodox spectrum. Together, they generate many thousands of hits each week, and have become the medium of choice in the Charedi street.
Those considered particularly “threatening” fall into three categories. First, there are those which discuss issues of theology, such as godolhador.blogspot.com, whose anonymous author stopped posting after an astounding half-a-million hits, many of them from deep inside the yeshiva world. Did God really write the Torah? Does He really exist? How do we know that Judaism is the true religion? The intensity of the discussions was such that the author of the blog himself gradually shifted from a defence of orthodoxy to more open skepticism.
Second, there are those that critique the Charedi way of life, such as the Stamford Hill-based www.theshaigetz.blogspot.com. Often written by Charedim leading double lives, these blogs provide a forum to grumble — about everything. Ongoing subjects include the role of women, endemic poverty, unpopular rabbinic edicts, and the continuing pressures to have many children, to conform, and to appear ever “frummer”. These discussions often end up as open attacks on the rabbis’ authority.
Third, there are blogs which have been instrumental in exposing sexual predators in the Charedi community. One blogger, “Un-Orthodox Jew” (theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com), used his site last year to “out” a teacher at a Brooklyn yeshivah for allegedly molesting students, and claim that the school had covered up the abuse. The postings led to a lawsuit against the rabbi and the school. They also generated an outpouring of contempt for the rabbis who allegedly preferred to protect one of their own over the assaulted boys.
The blog was the subject of a direct public attack by former Gateshead Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, now at America’s premier Charedi yeshivah in Lakewood, New Jersey, who claimed that a better method of dealing with such issues was to “sweep them under the carpet”.
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, admitted in 2006 that “in recent years… the authority of daas Torah [the rabbis] has been significantly undermined… Most troubling has been the proliferation of internet blogs where misguided individuals feel free to spread every bit of rechilus and loshon hora [gossip and slander] about rabbonim and roshei yeshivah [yeshivah heads], with the intended effect of undermining Torah authority in our community”.
But is “banning” the net an effective response — and does it address the real problem?
The concerns about the Charedi community expressed on blogs cannot be suppressed forever. Rather than banning the medium, the rabbis should address the message — the rumblings of discontent below the surface.
The digital world spells the end of the strategy of cultural self-isolation, the defence mechanism for traditional Jews and Judaism first suggested at the beginning of the Enlightenment more than two centuries ago. As communications devices of all sorts get smaller, cheaper and more multi-platformed, we are approaching a situation where every television channel, plus the entire web, can be accessed from a pocket-sized device. There is no longer any such thing as a hermetically sealed society.
What must replace it is an education towards responsible choices. Every group — including the Charedi sector — can retain its followers only by positive motivation. Perhaps a promotion of Chassidic simchah, or joy, would be more effective than the dour, repressive — and King Canute-like — ban.
Miriam Shaviv is Comment Editor of the JC
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2008/03/indictment_hussein_funded_lawm.html?hpid=news-col-blogs
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday accused a Michigan nonprofit executive of funnelling money from Saddam Hussein to pay for a 2002 trip to Iraq by three House Democratic lawmakers, according to the Associated Press.
The AP says the dates of the 2002 Iraq trip correspond to those of an infamous visit to the country by Reps. David Bonior (Mich.), Jim McDermott (Wash.) and Mike Thompson (Calif.). Their trip, which came in the heated run-up to the war, sparked controversy and drew heated criticism from many war supporters who suggested that they were doing the public relations bidding of Hussein.
This was not the same episode that Vicky Polin appeared on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102880.html
One woman's trip to a taping of Oprah Winfrey's talk show took a nasty turn when she was injured in a mad dash for seats inside the program's Chicago studio, a lawsuit claims.
The woman, Orit Greenberg, seeks at least $50,000 in damages, the Associated Press reports. Greenberg claims Harpo Studios failed to control audience members on Dec. 5, 2006, telling them to sit wherever they wanted -- allegedly stirring a stampede for the front row that knocked Greenberg down a flight of stairs, causing her "severe and permanent injuries."
The Miami Herald just broke the story this evening that this putz is now under criminal investigation.
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 31, 2008; 12:00 PM
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced his resignation today, citing "personal and family matters." He has come under pressure from Congress for his refusal to answer questions about a federal lawsuit and whether he tried to steer land to a business friend.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033001880.html
Al Gore Launches Ambitious Advocacy Campaign on Climate
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/107824.html
Published: 03/31/2008
A fifth lawsuit was filed against a New York yeshiva alleged to have covered up the molestation of several students by a rabbi.
Two Miami attorneys filed the $10 million suit Monday against Yeshiva-Mesivta Torah Temimah in Brooklyn alleging that their client, identified only as John Doe No. 6, was abused on multiple occasions as a student in the mid-1990s by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko.
The suit claims that the yeshiva's head administrator, Rabbi Lipa Margulies, who is also named as a defendant, should have been aware of credible accusations against Kolko for at least 25 years prior to the plaintiff's alleged abuse.
Several former students have accused Kolko, a former teacher and assistant principal at the school, of sexual abuse. At least four other pending lawsuits have alleged that the school knew of Kolko's activities and took no action to protect the students.
Kolko was the subject of a 2006 story in New York magazine which said that molestation of young boys by rabbis was a "widespread problem" in the fervently Orthodox community. He is also facing criminal charges brought by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.
So did Margo forbid anyone from leaving the building this afternoon or even going to the windows, upon pain of the death penalty?
Why is Jeff Herman only seeking $10 million against Kolko & Margo but as much as $50 million against Epstein?
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/03/05/0305epstein.html
Third alleged victim files sex suit against Jeffrey Epstein
By LARY KELLER
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH — Another woman filed a federal lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday, alleging that he turned a massage she gave him at his Palm Beach mansion into a sexual episode when she was 16 years old.
Identified as Jane Doe No. 3, she is seeking more than $50 million, the same as two other Jane Does who filed similar lawsuits in the past six weeks. All three lawsuits were filed by Miami attorney Jeffrey Herman.
Herman subsequently withdrew the first Jane Doe's lawsuit because of squabbling by her parents over the litigation. The girl may refile the lawsuit after she turns 18 in May and can make her own decisions, Herman said.
Other alleged victims also have contacted him, Herman said. "I do anticipate more cases," the Miami attorney said.
In the latest litigation, Jane Doe No. 3 alleges that she was recruited by a former college student, Haley Robson, to give Epstein a massage for money at his waterfront home late in 2004 or early in 2005.
The lawsuit alleges that, while on the massage table, Epstein sexually touched Jane Doe No. 3, then masturbated. She is suing on grounds of sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
"She felt intimidated. She felt scared," Herman said. Jane Doe No. 3 made only the one visit to Epstein's home, he added.
"It's just another copycat lawsuit filed by the same lawyer who appears less interested in the truth than in grandstanding with these press conferences," said Jack Goldberger, one of Epstein's attorneys.
"We now have sworn testimony that girls lied about their age to Jeffrey Epstein and they were careful in being convincing that they were over the age of 18."
Herman said Robson instructed Jane Doe No. 3, "when he asks how old you are, tell him 18 or 19 years old." But, he said, it doesn't matter.
"They were underage girls," he said. "They were sexually assaulted."
In addition to the civil lawsuits, Epstein was indicted on a single count of felony solicitation of prostitution in July 2006 following a lengthy Palm Beach Police Department into his activities with underage girls at his home. A resolution has continually been delayed. The case is on Monday's court docket, but is expected to be reset once again.
"One of the reasons (Jane Doe No. 3) came forward is she is tired of waiting for justice," Herman said.
Why is Jeff Herman only seeking $10 million against Kolko & Margo but as much as $50 million against Epstein?
------------------------
Margulies gets a "volume" discount!
Another quick witted retort by UOJ that has everyone in stitches.
By the way, why hasn't Herman posted the new lawsuit to his website?
What happened at the recent Kolko / Margo court appearances? Didn't Hirschel Tzig say he would be live blogging them?
So did Margo forbid anyone from leaving the building this afternoon or even going to the windows, upon pain of the death penalty?
_______________________
Applegrad was posted at the front door and he prevented anyone from leaving until the lawyers left.
"Applegrad was posted at the front door"
After Bungalow Putz Neuhoff had to resign, it sounds like they have ol' Yankel doing the menial tasks.
I don't understand why Margulies didn't stand there himself. With his big belly no one could have slipped through.
I tried telling Reb Lipa there was nothing to be afraid of but he wouldn't come out from under his desk.
Regarding North Miami Beach, will anyone investigate the inappropriate relationships of a female educator with students? Cover-up, anyone?
they need to investigate the inapropriate behavior of more than one teacher in north miami beach
i had heard they have a few problems in that school and the girls themselves have been talking about a few girls innapropriate behavior with older men
one girl was thrown out last month
we dont even know who uoj is? UOJ what are you?
----------------
I'll get back to you!
Not Good!
-------------
Doomsday cult calls credit cards satanic By Chris Baldwin
NIKOLSKOE, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian doomsday cult sheltering in a bunker say credit cards and food packaging bar codes are satanic, the official negotiating the release of children from the group said on Monday.
"UOJ what are you?"
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/d/doriangraylxg.htm
Dorian Gray, the fictional figure who is invincible, was attacked by mercenaries who couldn't kill him no matter how many times they sliced at him with swords.
When asked "What are you", he replied "I'm complicated"
http://www.foxhome.com/lxg/
Dorian Gray is also affiliated with us and joins us at the yearly Agudah Convention to catch up over the smorg.
UOJ is bringing you oafs down like a ton of bricks ......
....... DOES IT HURT ????
If Kolko molested anyone at Lake Compounce it's worth seeing if Connecticut has a higher limit on punitive damages. That would also be some shlepp for Kolko to get out there from Lakewood.
Hirschel Tzig had a chiddush about R' Eli Teitelbaum a'h.
I never knew he learned in Lubavitch. His father was a Ruzhiner after all.
I am against John Does of any kind.
These pathetic idiots are posting on blogs to defend Michael Hersh.
They use screen names manufactured to appear more credible like "A JEWISH MOTHER" in upper case.
They aren't very bright though as they've inadvertantly typed some lies that were easy to disprove.
Why is it a lesbian predator posing as educator can get off relatively easy, in N Miami Beach?
In contrast, an alleged male 'gay' predator was forced to abruptly relocate to Flatbush in the early 90's, where his CB connections helped, and he recently has offered to help non-Jews convert.
Didn't Rabbi Teitelbaum die last week?
All his heroes like R Aaron Schechter and Rabbi Belsky were proven to be phonies.
Who's the gay predator looking to mass produce gerim? Leib Tropper doesn't like competition.
Tenenbaum & Berger representing Zelikovitz are in the same building as Steve Mostofsky and Richard Klass.
________
So? There are many lawyers in downtown brooklyn, and in 26 court, big friggin deal!
its pathetic but the parents of N M B beis Yaacov are warned if anyone talks they will throw the girls out of school
can you give me names of predators or suspected predators and we will work to get them out of the neighberhood
give the name to lesher via UOJ
ill get it from lesher
if you want to do that post a comment and send uoj an email
My sympathy for Ruben Margolis. A few weeks ago his father past away. Very recently, his older brother Sheldon from Lawrence, a heroin abuser and crack addict, was confined in a drug rehabilitation center. So, we gotta go easy on Rubin.
Aaron, you Schlechter. Vee allowed to diddle the yingelach,not keednep dem. You making us gedoilem loook bed.
Mach tesheeva yetzst.
One of the Fruchthandler boys once did something with a bunch of friends that is completely normal & healthy for boys his age.
His father was upset and said he wants to kill him because the activity is not tzu gepast for a "meyuchiss".
Toby Katz teaches at Bais Yaakov Miami. She is a contributor at Cross Currents alongside such luminaries as Kenny Menken, Avi Shafran & Yitzchok Adlerstein.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/w/will+smith/miami_20146949.html
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Miami uh uh
Southbeach bringin the heat uh
Haha can yall feel that
Can yall feel that
Jig it out uh
Here I am in the place where I come let go
Miami the base and the sunset glow
Everyday like a mardi gras everybody party all day
No work all play okay
So we sip a little something lay to rest the spill
Me an charlie at the bar runnin up a high bill
Nothin less than ill when we dress to kill
Everytime the ladies pass they be like hi will
Can yall feel me all ages and races
Real sweet faces
I only came for two days of playing
But everytime I come I always wind up stayin
This the type of town I could spend a few days in
Miami the city that keeps the roof blazin
Chorus
Party in the city where the heat is on
All night on the beach till the break of dawn
Welcome to miami
Buenvenidos a miami
Bouncin in the club where the heat is on
All night on the beach till the break of dawn
Im goin to miami
Welcome to miami
Verse 2
Pesach hotel and its right on the beach
Temperature get to ya its about to reach
Five hundred degrees
We flow to this fashion show
Agudah Fressers anywhere you go
Yo aint no city in the world like this
An if you ask how I know I gots ta feed the film
Chorus
Verse 3
Dont get me wrong shytown got it goin on
An new york is the city that we know dont sleep
An we all know that R' Elya and philly stay jiggy
But on the sneak miami bringin heat for real
Yall dont understand
Ride my jetskis loungin in the palm trees
Cause you gotta have cheese for the summerhouse piece on southbeach
Water so clear you can see to the bottom
Hundred thousand dollar cars eybody got em
Aint no surprise in the club to see sly stallone
Miami my second home
UOJ,
Would it be possible for you to load these documemnts as a pdf file? it would be easier to read.
Thanks,
YS
Bais Yaakov of Miami
North Miami Beach Florida
T. 305-957-1670
F. 305-957-1677
Hirschel Tzig thinks that the armed robber Rotenberg kid is the son of Lakewood rov R' Mickey Rottenberg. R' Mickey is a Brisker which he thinks would explain the Brisker payos on the picture of Avromi Rottenberg that Eckstein posted. The readers point out there is no relation despite the similar last name.
not tzu gepast for a "meyuchiss"
-------------------------
Vos heist a "meyuchiss"?
A mesarev by R' Moishe Feinstein zt"l un alla gedolim fun der lester dor?
Pathetic said...
One of the Fruchthandler boys once did something with a bunch of friends that is completely normal & healthy for boys his age.
His father was upset and said he wants to kill him because the activity is not tzu gepast for a "meyuchiss".
2:31 AM, April 01, 2008
Posting crap like the above destroys your credibility and just gives your detractors who want to see everything swept back under the carpet live ammunition.
Testimony Before Congress on Dangerous Patterns of Abuse by Large
Corporate Employers
Full story:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news/index_mail.shtml?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-31-2008/0004783582&EDATE=
Why is the Fruchthandler story a problem?
If it's true, I think it is pathetic and putting things in perspective.
Next time there is a press conference in front of YTT, have it start 30 minutes before the kids get out so a bunch of parents are on the outside that Applegrad can't block with his profile.
Anon 10:18,
One more thing you dim-witted putz.
If Margulies would have come to bais din - this whole thing may not have happened.
You are beyond repair!
so is it this lady katz from nmb that is accused of innaoprropriate behavior you need to be specific
please let me know
i need a name before we can mobolize
ABC News got to a parent at the Framowitz press conference.
That putz with the Hungarian accent told the world that Kolko is "a nice man".
The YTT parents are hopeless and almost as evil as Margo himself for propping up that fat sack of drek.
Please explain said...
Why is the Fruchthandler story a problem?
If it's true, I think it is pathetic and putting things in perspective.
10:41 AM, April 01, 2008
Because it says nothing but implies anything the reader can imagine it means about snyone of scores of people.
There are five Fruhthandlers (of AHF's generation).
Each of them have chidren old enought that the story could be about the son of a second generation Fruchthandler.
Depending on the standards of the writer, 'normal teenage activity' can mean anything from bumming a cigerette on Purim to homosexual experamentation.
Not to mention the fact that the writer doesn't even claim to know this ever happened, only that he HEARD it happen.
Even anonymous posters to anonymous blogs should use some standards of common decency.
Basicly, the post comes down to: 'I heard that as a teenager, someone related to AHF did something some people consider normal for a teenager and that part or all of his father's reaction was to point out that it was unfit for a son of a meyuchos family to do such a thing' (which, whther you like how it sounds as a sound-bite, depending on the circumstances might be, EXACTLY how a father should have treated the incident and again, depending on who did what at what age might be a 100% accurate statement).
"UOJ" - "The Un-Orthodox Jew" said...
Anon 10:18,
One more thing you dim-witted putz.
If Margulies would have come to bais din - this whole thing may not have happened.
You are beyond repair!
10:57 AM, April 01, 2008
Post a Comment
What the Hell does that have to do with posting a half-assed story about an unspecified person committing and unspecified act in order to throw mud at AHF???!!!
You are quickly becoming the best arguement the Neanderthals have against the blogs.
But I doubt you'll keep allowing my commnets thru because they aren't venom-filled enough for you.
FYI, AHF was not on RAS's side on the TB incident.
I am the mechaber of the original Fruchthandler comment. I will clarify out of sympathy to the drey kop who is nebich writhing in agony.
I was purposely vague so as not to cause embarrassment to the son, that his father was criticizing him to outsiders.
I will still not provide every detail but let's just say the boy went to a Mets game. It's pretty innocent but still, R' Moishe holds this is assur because of moshav letzim.
I can tell you that what the boy did was even less than this. There are even poskim who encourage this type of activity. BUT, his father was concerned about appearances because some bums might hang out there that might try talking to any girls that might be there. For this he wants to kill his "meyuchiss" son.
These brainwashed Chaim Berlin chasidim obvoiusly worship the Fruchthandlers as much as they do Schechter.
The guy at 11:09 sounds like a 15 year old version of Adlerstein defending R' Shmuel K when he doesn't even know what he's defending him about.
The OU hypocrites have events like this too with something like 25 courses of exotic food.
http://www.ou.org/index.php/jewish_action/article/37375/
....
Feeding the Yetzer Hara
Eight hundred years ago, Maimonides wrote in Hanhagot Habriyot (The Regimen of Healthcare):
If a person cared for himself the way he cares for his horse, he would avoid many serious illnesses. You won’t find a person who gives his horse too much fodder. But he himself eats to excess. He makes sure his animal gets proper exercise to keep it healthy. But when it comes to himself, he neglects exercise even though this is a fundamental principle in health maintenance and in the prevention of most illnesses.
The Torah decrees, “Venishmartem meod lenafshoteichem, Be very careful about your lives,” (Devarim 4:15). We are obligated to preserve our health. Practically speaking, this means we should eat healthy foods and do so slowly. It means we should drink plenty of water and eat only when hungry, and not to the point of being 100 percent full. It also means we should exercise regularly and get enough sleep....
http://theantitzemach.blogspot.com/2008/03/tree-through-generations.html#5532833455115112228
An old time Lubavitcher who learned in "Bedford and Dean" (Lubavitch) and in Torah Vodaas once told me: In Lubavitch we hardly heard about the Rebbe. I had a Gerrer Melamed (Pesachovitch) and he never told us about the Rebbe. In Torah Vodaas, there we had Rabbi Rivkin, there we heard of the Rebbe!!!
Rav Blumenkrantz z"l, was also of Ruzhiner background, who went to Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch.
Please excuse my ignorance, but who is that rabbi on the sidebar holding hands with Aron Schechter?
Why was Margo not personally named as a defendant in the earlier lawsuits?
The Fruchthandlers are from peasant stock. They were peasant farmers, shoemakers, wagon drivers and housecleaners - from both sides.
ah so - now the fruchthandlers are competing with me in de laundry business.
Pathetic said...
I am the mechaber of the original Fruchthandler comment. I will clarify out of sympathy to the drey kop who is nebich writhing in agony.
I was purposely vague so as not to cause embarrassment to the son, that his father was criticizing him to outsiders.
I will still not provide every detail but let's just say the boy went to a Mets game. It's pretty innocent but still, R' Moishe holds this is assur because of moshav letzim.
I can tell you that what the boy did was even less than this. There are even poskim who encourage this type of activity. BUT, his father was concerned about appearances because some bums might hang out there that might try talking to any girls that might be there. For this he wants to kill his "meyuchiss" son.
11:36 AM, April 01, 2008
And you honostly believe that your original post did not leave many if not most readers believing that the activity for which the young man was supposdly rebuked was something so innocent?
Dear Friends:
The following article (abridged) appeared in
yesterday's (Mon, March 31) Jerusalem Post.
Comments may be sent to me and/or letters@jpost.com. Thanks - Rabbi Weiss
TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL
RABBI STEWART WEISS
It is the Season for Scandal. From New York to
Jerusalem, from Bet Shemesh to Melbourne,
shocking tales of adultery and abuse, infidelity
and incest are making front-page headlines. The
latest incidents - a well-known Cantor caught in
the act with another woman, a mother of 12
allegedly whipping her children, several of whom
are said to have had incestuous relationships,
the principal of a prestigious Orthodox Melbourne
school dismissed for sexual molestation - remind
us once again that the Jewish community is not
immune to the problems and peccadilloes that plague society at large.
But they also bring to the fore another complex
issue: To tell, or not to tell. Is it right and
proper - constructive or destructive - to air
this dirty linen in public, to name names, to
splash the story for all to see? Or should we
adopt the "sha-shtill" posture which compliments
the quiet and castigates the whistle-blower?
We have here a classic clash of Jewish values. On
the one hand, individuals have a right to
privacy. While some people crave exposure and
apparently don't have a problem sharing every
aspect of their personal life with the world at
large via Face book, My Space, U Tube, etc, most
folks prefer to remain more or less anonymous
without their ten minutes of fame.
And then there is Lashon Hara, the prohibition of
gossiping, rumor-mongering and character
assassination that may provide passing, prurient
pleasure to the perpetrator, but causes untold,
indelible damage to the victim. Rabbi Israel Meir
HaCohen was known as the Chofetz Chaim, from the
verse, "Who is a lover of life - he who guards
his tongue from speaking evil." He popularized
the notion that tight-lips and forbearance that
is, not everything that CAN be said SHOULD be
said - provides a sure path to integrity, kindness and Jewish unity.
Often, the word not spoken is the truest word of all.
On the other side of the equation are the
public's right to know, and the need to protect
society from those perverse individuals who prey
upon the young or vulnerable. Publicizing
someone's fall from grace, for publicity's sake
only, may be the lifeblood of journalism, but is
the bane of Judaism. Yet protecting others from
being cheated by a con man, or abused by a serial
molester is a societal need that overrides the
individual's right to privacy. Even the Chofetz
Chaim permitted the release of information that
protects a potential spouse or a future employer from being victimized.
In a famous incident, Rabbi Moshe Tendler,
spiritual leader in Monsey and professor at
Yeshiva University, was once visited by a man who
confessed that he had just murdered his wife.
Rabbi Tendler asked the man to wait in his study
while he instructed his secretary to hold all
calls. He then promptly phoned the police and
informed them that there was a killer in his
synagogue. Sanctuary? Rabbi-client
confidentiality? "None of these apply," said
Rabbi Tendler, "when there is a menace to society
on the loose. Our first responsibility is to take
this killer off the streets before he kills someone else."
As disturbing as the crime may be, the cover-up
can be even more disgraceful. In many cases, the
abuses are widely known for some time before
anything is done about them. As in the celebrated
Lanner case in New Jersey, numerous rabbinic
officials were aware that this youth advisor was
abusing young people, but were reluctant to come
forward. They either "did not want to get
involved" or felt the rabbi was too effective in
his position to let him go. Only when someone of
great courage stepped forward did the news come
out; only when the story was picked up by a
courageous editor - Gary Rosenblatt, in this case
- did the case go to court, and justice, of a sort, was achieved.
The problem with taking a hush-hush attitude is
two-fold: First, many of these sexual offenders
defy being cured; they will move on to a new
city, a new job, and repeat their abuses there;
the fox always tends to find a new hen-house. By
hiding the facts, there is a danger that the
problem will be transferred from one institution
to another. Secondly, without publicity, the
victims may never be identified and helped. In
the case of the Australian abuser, for example,
one member of the 45,000 strong Jewish community
termed it "a 'wake-up call' that will alert our
students and parents to a real threat that can
attack at any time." Forewarned is forearmed.
Long ago, the Talmud (Moed Katan 17) discussed
the give-and-take of this issue. A prominent
scholar was alleged to have committed various
sexual improprieties. While the rumors about him
were widespread, the scholar was also an
important member of the community who influenced
budding young scholars. The sage Rabbi Yehuda
agonized over whether or not he should publicly
condemn the man and ostracize him. Though this
would justly punish him for his actions, it would
also rob the community of a valuable asset and
could create a Chilul Hashem (desecration of
G-d's name) when it became public. Rabbi Yehuda
chose condemnation, and refused to repeal his decision.
Years later, on his deathbed, Rabbi Yehuda faced
the scholar, and smiled. "Do you now mock me as
well as having condemned me?" asked the scholar.
"No," said the sage. "I smile because I had the
courage to condemn you for your crime, and to
hold fast to my convictions. In heaven, that will
hold me in good stead, and the angels will smile upon me, too."
There is little to laugh about in these lurid
events. Let us just ponder, as we consider
whether to reveal or conceal, whether the
ultimate Judge will smile upon us for the path we take.
Anonymous said...
These brainwashed Chaim Berlin chasidim obvoiusly worship the Fruchthandlers as much as they do Schechter.
The guy at 11:09 sounds like a 15 year old version of Adlerstein defending R' Shmuel K when he doesn't even know what he's defending him about.
11:44 AM, April 01, 2008
This blog could accomplish so much more if garbage and personal insults like the one above did not make it too embaressing to ever mention publicly that one ever looks at it.
No one is more offended by what has happened in the yeshiva world, often at the hands or at least with the silent acceptance of many of its leaders than those who are products of the yeshiva system.
All the nonesense and personal insults turn off the very people who are most offended by the yeshivos and roshai yeshivos who have caused/allowed it to continue.
The very people who got the ball rolling 25 years ago on the Mondrowitz case and set the stage for others to be outted would not have accomplished anything had they sounded like much of the content on this blog and none of them would want their names associated with the Unorthodox Jew.
Now for the tough part: Will you be like those you mock and silence me by rejecting these comments or let it thru and then hurl insults because you have no real answers.
A commenter writes below my comments.
Any organization that permits evil on their staff is as guilty as the criminal/evil individual. The Agudah still counts Margulies as a member and includes him on their letters of certain notices ...like the drinking on Purim letter they sent out.
Chaim Berlin employs an evil/criminal as Schechter - well, they will suffer the consequences, and now the Feds are looking in to their money laundry operations!
Margulies uses the identical argument...that he did not know about Kolko...ENOUGH OF THE LIES!
RID THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT FROM OUR ORGANIZATIONS AND THE RABBINATE!
UOJ
-----------------------------------
One thing should be clarified. There are several community organizations that are being implicated in this ordeal by association, and there is probably no reason that they should be seen as bearing any responsibility whatsoever. In terms of the personal responsibility, the next several days will probably involve revelations that will tell much more than is known as fact.
Yeshiva Chaim Berlin has probably done nothing here. The Rosh Yeshiva was involved, but that would be personal involvement.
The Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah of Agudas Yisroel was also not involved. Rav Schechter is a member of that body, but any involvement of his was not the capacity of a member of the Moetzes, nor of Aguda in general.
Hatzoloh was also not involved at all. That Michoel Hersh was an officer or that Zvi Gluck is a Hatzoloh member is irrelevant.
National Council of Young Israel was also not involved. The attorney, Mostofsky, happens to serve as NCYI’s president, but any involvement of his was via his law practice.
It is common to associate organizational affiliation as a basis for responsibility, but that does not mean that there is any accuracy. None of these organizations should be vilified because of what happened here.
Now for the tough part: Will you be like those you mock and silence me by rejecting these comments or let it thru and then hurl insults because you have no real answers.
----------------
Not tough at all my friend:
When you show me another person who accomplished what I did in the last 3 years - I'll gladly filter out the comments. The raw uncensored feelings of the masses of klal Yisroel are expressed here.
The people who tell you they are turned off by the comments and content are lying!
We got 133,000 hits YESTERDAY!
"The very people who got the ball rolling 25 years ago on the Mondrowitz case"
That's a heck of a long time for a ball to keep rolling which is why the readers are rolling their eyes at your dumb comment
I'll tell you how I know: I am one of those who looks here and at other blogs from time to time.
I have sent many links to many articles to many friends and have thereby raised the awareness of many complacent frum Jews to the problems threatening the very roots of our society and I know that the people who recieve my emails often forward them to their contacts because I have seen my comments about the issues and the need to be aware of these issues come back onto my screen weeks later when they come full circle when someone down the line fowards my remarks not knowing who wrote them in the first place.
I have never done that with anything I read on this blog no matter how important it is.
Quoting this blog would cheapen the value of everything else I ever send again.
We don't know each other but I have deeply personal reasons to enjoy watching several members of the moetzes squirm in their pants right now. If I didn't care if you suceeded I wouldn't write to you, I'd ignore you. (Much as I don't bother writing to the embryo-lovers who make asses of themselves calling 28th day D & C procedure murder or claim spermacidal creams and (male) masterbation are forms of abortion or the libs destroy the democratic party by calling abotion during child birth a woman's right to control her own body or the fags make fools of themselves calling their relationships marraiges or the PETA Pigs destroy the animal rights movement by seeking equality under the law for puppies and humans or Al Gore makes a fool of himself hugging trees or the Meshachisten make a mockery of the rebbeh with their 'zeig heil, yeshi adonainu and pass the kool aid, yavol, herr kommandant'.
I don't bother refuting anything on their websites because I couldn't care less what they do their own cause by alienating the very people who are often the people most likely to help them.
133,700 hits in one day is amazing , espacially since it is unlikely that more than 50,000 - 60,000 of them came from the Moetzes, YTT, etc. ;-)
The issue I raise is the 1,337,000 you didn't get because of the 20% of this blog that is sophmoric, at best.
The Ball that Rolls in Perpetuity said...
"The very people who got the ball rolling 25 years ago on the Mondrowitz case"
That's a heck of a long time for a ball to keep rolling which is why the readers are rolling their eyes at your dumb comment
1:13 PM, April 01, 2008
Post a Comment
While your readers are sitting back and rolling their eyes the same few people are continuing the work they started 25 years ago.
I cannot claim much of a share in their work but I know the main players very well and after they got the ball rolling they kept kicking it down-field. The goals scored when a guy like Kolko is arrested started out with very little fanfare but great personal pain and sacrafice by some of the same people who worked on getting Isaac out of Jamaica last week.
And they did it without sounded like fahrbisiner kvetches.
You just don't get it!
I'm not looking for hits - I'M LOOKING TO FIX THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE RISHAIM!
Every day I want to "retire" - I HATE THE JOB FOISTED ON ME!
But - I will keep doing what works!
The very people who got the ball rolling 25 years ago on the Mondrowitz case and set the stage for others to be outted
I think this qualifies as the most idiotic statement ever posted on any blog. Congratulations my friend. You've earned it! You just made my day. UOJ, where do you find these people? LOL
Would it make you feel better if I sang your praises and kissed up to you like certain CBer's do?
If you cannot change or admit that you could be doing things better, how are you any different than a rosh yeshiva who cannot admit even to greater people than himself that sending a child to TB was a pretty dumb idea?
They claim da'as toirah and you claim your own brand of perfection.
oto zug michnasayim.
steve said...
The very people who got the ball rolling 25 years ago on the Mondrowitz case and set the stage for others to be outted
I think this qualifies as the most idiotic statement ever posted on any blog. Congratulations my friend. You've earned it! You just made my day. UOJ, where do you find these people? LOL
1:45 PM, April 01, 2008
Post a Comment
You are obviuously unaware who the players were back then and who they are now.
As usual, those who have no ammunition with which to attack the message attack messanger instead.
Reminds me of how my kids argued when they were young.
I never claimed perfection - I'm as imperfect as any other human - but constantly working on my imperfections! I'm doing the best - I know how! I've tried the gentleman approach for years - I wasted precious time! My cheshbon hanefesh torments me for not starting my campaign earlier!
Don't kiss up - help fix the vast amount of problems that exist in our communities.
The very people who got the ball rolling 25 years ago on the Mondrowitz case and set the stage for others to be outted would not have accomplished anything had they sounded like much of the content on this blog and none of them would want their names associated with the Unorthodox Jew.
---------------------------------
With all due respect to the wonderful people who got the ball rolling in 1983, they failed because they listened to the "Gedolim" and didn't report Margulies, Kolko and Mondrowitz to the authorities and the media.
Had they done so in 1983, countless lived would have been saved and the "Gedolim" would have learned their lesson then. Instead, we are dealing with self interested entrenched "Gedolim" who think they can continue bullying their way through life.
The only way they will change is if we continue doing what we are doing. They need to be exposed to the world for what they are. If they can't defend their actions to the goyim they so despise then let the chips fall where they may.
We don't need Margulies, Schechter and Belsky. We do need our kids to be healthy and happy.
"UOJ" - "The Un-Orthodox Jew" said...
I never claimed perfection - I'm as imperfect as any other human - but constantly working on my imperfections! I'm doing the best - I know how! I've tried the gentleman approach for years - I wasted precious time! My cheshbon hanefesh torments me for not starting my campaign earlier!
Don't kiss up - help fix the vast amount of problems that exist in our communities.
1:54 PM, April 01, 2008
Structure your message in terms that do not repell the uninitiated and I'll be glad to help you get it out.
People who have been blessed never to have been knocked down by the molesters and runover while by the system while they were down read some of the stuff here and quickly come to the conclusion that they are dealing someone who has a little too much venom in his vains to just be angry at those who create the problems in the yeshiva world and those who allow it to continue.
To the uninitiated, much of what they read here sounds like a bunch of people who want to see all yeshivos closed have found a leader.
You not only managed to make the most idiotic statement in history, you then proceeded to write the longest run-on sentence. One hundred and three words!
To give credit to anyone else but UOJ for outing Kolko, Eiseman, Nussbaum, Leizerowitz, Colmer and their enablers is ludicrous. As for Mondrowitz, I myself tried for years to get people involved, but to no avail. Omerta was in full force. Rabbi Miller zt"l tried and even referred to him as the "Jewish Hitler", but no one was listening. It wasn't until UOJ started his blog and got a bunch of us riled up that Charles Hynes got the message. I do not begrudge anyone his right to state his opinion. But one thing I cannot stand is revisionist history and people that come on here and belittle the accomplishments of UOJ. You and your "players" can roll the ball for another twenty five years for all we care. In the meantime, UOJ will be exposing and locking up criminals.
My Friend:
I'll gladly help you start your own blog; you can then frame your message any way you prefer. I'll even promote your blog here - and let the UOJ readers decide if they're interested in your message and the way you probably will soft-pedal the criminal activity in our community.
Ultimately the readers decide - "which blogs live and which blogs die!" It's Yom Kippur every day here!
Low life looser! Noone got any ball rolling on the Mondrowitz case until Lesher, Pollin and yes UOJ came on the scene. As a one time victim of Mondrowitz in his basement office I take offence of your idiotyc remarks. The only thing that happened 25 years ago to my tormentor was that the soon to be gedolim sent off to hide in ihr hakodesh yerushalayim and the gerrer animals circled the wagons and continue to protect the pig. Why was he allowed into the ger bais medrish after only a short period of being banned? The balls that should of rolled was his and yours, u jerk.
Take me on. I have all the goods on this story.....first hand!
Your history is simply inaccurate.
The people who went after Mondrowitz 25 years ago butted heads with many of the gedolim (your term, not mine). There was only one rosh yeshiva backing them and as long as he was behind them they didn't care what hits they personaly took from the Old Boys Club at the AY.
(See? Icould have made some stupid crack about your history being revisionist history. I didn't because it would have downgraded this discussion to a kindergarden sandbox screaming match.)
I DO know the players of 25 years ago:
Rabbi Cohen of Ohel
Rabbi Fisher of Ger
yada yada....
And what did they acheive?
Your right. They acheived what UOJ could not and will not.
They screwed the community by setting a precedence of coverup and passing the problem on to other places all while ignoring the victims.
While UOJ has triumphed again and again against the molesters and the rabbies eho covered them....all in under 2 years!
Answer these charges or forever hold your piece!
And he ran to eretz yisroel why?
The more I read of this blog the more difficult it is to remember why I concluded years ago that Giligan Student's Hirhurim is the most vile thing on the internet.
Wish I could stay and play some more but I've got to get back to the lousy imitation I do of putting in a day's work for a day's pay.
I'll try to catch up later but to make things easier on me, please enter "One Angry Jew" in the 'From' field on all future insults.
Have fun, kinderloch. Try not to wreck the place while the adults are out.
The people who went after Mondrowitz 25 years ago butted heads with many of the gedolim (your term, not mine).
----------------------
You ignore my point. Had they gone to the police, the DA and the media Kolko and Mondrowitz would have been arrested, charged and convicted and Margulies would most likely have been indicted back then.
"cause there he is among his element. Where power and politics come before young yiddishe neshomas. Where the community leaders are still keeping him from facing justice. Where the little guy is alive and existent only to serve the powers that be. Ban Lipa and the internet but keep the boys between the molesters knees. Damn you all revisionists to hell for eternity for what you have done for the molesters and for what you have not done for the victims. All you long beards will fry in hell forever, Amen
This goes to show how much farther we are behind Catholicism when it come to compassion and doing the right thing. They were brough to the knees by a gun at the pocket book, and with the help of UOJ and the Almighty God so will these accursed cover uppers and loosers of 25 years ball rolling.
Hey ball roller, u just exposed who you are. I recognized those lines as yours the minute i read them. I'll wait for you to come back with some lines you might get from your rabbis or your shrink. For know, adious friend.
I can forgive your twisted reasoning, but not the attacks against one who stands solitary watch over our children.
Yechei UOJ!
I knew I shouldn't have taken another peek until I got home!
Now that you know who I am, why don't you call me?
These comments are making me sick to my stomach.
Why is klal yisrael so quick to jugde each other?
Im crying for my fellow Jews who are so quick to drink up this hot button gossip and destroy the name of a Torah family, rather than -at the least- be dan l'kaf z'chus.
Do you know how guilty we are of shfichas domim? We are killing the reputation of a Torahdik family. 99% of you DO NOT know the story and its a chutzpah to comment, let alone make the father out to be a rasha. Chas v'sholom!
And to involve the members of hatzalah? To harrass them like this? How low have we fallen? This is NOT l'shem shomayim. Theres too much chillul Hashem for it to have been lishmah.
Do you know that the mishmah calls someone who is m'vazeh talmidei chachamim an APIKORES? And there's no chelek in Olam habbah for them.
People are being m'vazeh R' Aaron Shechter- people who dont even reach his ankels in gadlus- in public forums all over the internet. Oy lonu!
We have a lot of t'shuva to do.
There is definitely another side to this story. There hasta be.
Michael Hersh, based on the many wonderful things weve heard about him, has a chazakah for being an ehrlich, straight man.
Please lets not be m'kabel this- its motzi shem ra.
As a side point,
I know the Hersh's very well. They are wonderful people; intelligent, high functioning, well meaning, humble people who only have their childrens best interest in mind. They were blessed with 8 children, two of whom are deeply disturbed.
Isaac (Yitzchok Meir) and his twin, Shlomo Zalman are boys that I know well. They are brilliant, adorable kids with incredible personality... but they are also quite disturbed.
Their parents tried everything under the sun to help them, spending every cent they dont have. These boys have been out of control since they were babies.
Isaac is a danger to himself, as well as to those around him and for many reasons, something drastic hadda be done.
R' Aharon Shechter realizes this and therefore stands alone in his support of the parents decision.
I know the boys well, and I like them A LOT. Theyve stayed at my house, too. I also know that they need a lot of help. Their parents are absolutely wonderful and the community should be ashamed of themselves for butting in now- when they can pat themselves on the back, instead of 10 years ago when it was more private but when they desparately needed help.
Oh, and btw, UOJ
you do realize you're gonna burn in hell for all this, right? You better take a trip to cancoon and start getting used to the hot weather...
I thought these infantile Chaim Berliners at least get a good English education and would know how to spell Cancun.
Well, I am a Chaim Berliner with advanced degrees but I don't allow anyone in my Yeshivas Novominsk to get an education.
Kolko has asserted that he did not have sexual relations with John Doe # 3.
"Michael Hersh, based on the many wonderful things weve heard about him, has a chazakah for being an ehrlich, straight man."
Chaim Berliners must also be pretty shvache lamdonim who can't define a "chazakah"
UOJ must still be in the Purim spirit to allow all these idiotic posts to get through.
Kolko has asserted that he did not have sexual relations with John Doe # 3.
We must never tolerate child abuse
By Jeremy Gordon
It has been a bad month for Anglicans. In the space of two weeks, a church choirmaster, Peter Halliday, then a vicar, David Smith, were convicted of crimes associated with paedophilia. As a Jew and a father, I read these stories in fear of what might be happening in some horrendous dark alleyway of our own community. I desperately want to believe that no God-fearing Jew could fall so low, but I know that keeping kosher provides no protection from the sin of child abuse.
Rabbi Baruch Lanner, the charismatic one-time hero of American Orthodox Union youth group NCSY, is languishing in jail, guilty of “sexual contact” with a minor. Other allegations suggest Lanner’s career of abuse lasted 20 years and destroyed the childhoods of many. Meanwhile Baltimore’s Jewish community is reeling as a slew of abuse allegations are levelled at the late principal of the city’s Talmudical Academy. Again, the allegations are numerous and stretch over decades.
It is not that Jewish paedophilia is solely an Orthodox problem; both American Reform and Conservative denominations have suffered recent moments of shame, with Rabbis Jerrold Levy (Reform) and David Kaye (Conservative) currently serving time for offences relating to child sexual abuse. Yet the strictly Orthodox world has a particularly poor record of facing up to these appalling acts of depravity. Accusations against Rabbi Lanner first surfaced in 1989, but a court made up of leading rabbis from Yeshiva University failed to castigate him, instead attacking the complainant, Elie Hiller. It took 14 more years and another score of abuse allegations before the dayanim, or judges, recanted their position.
“I realise the terrible pain my deeds, or words, inflicted on Elie Hiller and other victims,” said Rav Mordechai Willig, who sat on the rabbinical court, in 2003. “In retrospect we should have refused to hear the abuse case. We didn’t realise that abusive behaviour could inhibit potential witnesses and distort the testimony of those who do appear.” The rabbis, he was admitting, were out of their depth and should have called in experts, be they police or social workers.
It is not clear that anything has been learnt from this terrible case. Several key figures at the Harvard of the strictly Orthodox world, Brooklyn’s Yeshiva Torah Temimah, are being sued for covering up allegations of abuse by a long-time teacher at the school. The accusation, which is denied, is that highly respected figures in the strictly Orthodox world refused to hear evidence against a rabbi. Since the first complainant came forward, many others have emerged and the rabbi at the centre of the furore is now facing criminal charges.
In Baltimore, accusations levelled at a long-time teacher have prompted Orthodox leader Rabbi Moshe Heinemann to sign a letter calling for more action in tackling abuse, while simultaneously calling for a boycott of the Jewish newspaper that made the accusations public.
It is easy, from a rabbinic perspective, to understand the reluctance to deal with accusations of sexual abuse. Rules against lashon hara — speaking ill — are designed to limit gossip, particularly if accusations are unfounded. Rabbis also wish to protect kavod harav — a sage’s honour — and do not want to create a shandah, a scandal that could damage the community at large. But these principles come close to creating an abusers’ charter.
More dangerous still is the issue of mesirah, turning to secular authorities, viewed by sections of the strictly Orthodox world as a kind of treason. Reluctance may be easy to understand, but it cannot be allowed to override other religious imperatives that guide those who lead religious communities — obligations to support the powerless, criticise that which demands criticism and protect the health and well-being of those we serve.
An unfounded accusation causes enormous distress, but we cannot risk even one case of a child victim’s suffering being ignored. In the UK, all religious organisations, youth movements and Jewish social-service agencies need policies that set out how to deal with accusations of abuse in advance of any complaint; indeed, many excellent policies do exist. But we also need a cross-communal, inter-denominational commitment to establish and follow best practice. Outside of some excellent work with youth movements, supported by the UJIA, this does not happen. Furthermore, all denominations need to ensure that professionals trained in the secular world — police, social workers, psychologists and others — are called on to guide communal leaders who lack specific expertise and training in these areas.
This week, the United Synagogue has published a draft document on child protection, including how to deal with cases such as the release into the community of convicted child sex abuser and one-time barmitzvah tutor, Andrew Josephs . May they be blessed with courage and humility and may they never forget who they first need to protect.
Anon 3:21,
There are many places in the USA that offer real therapy to disturbed childred, assuming that the twins are disturbed.
For the record, Tranquility Bay does NOT have A therapist on staff. Pretty odd for a Behaviour modification facility.
Anyone now when the court dates actually start? We have 6 lawsuits, but lipa's not out a red cent yet...
To the person defending the father of the Hersh boy.
How shall i put this.....YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT KNOW HIM AT ALL!!! He is a mamzer, shcmuck to the umteenth degree - he is a son of a you-know-what and deserves every ounce of this critisism he gets. He should be thrown in jail and never see his children again - I daven every day that this happens - people like him are destroying klal yisroel
Jeremy Gordon makes some good points but he is Conservative which is why he calls for interdenominational efforts.
I don't know offhand about the Conservative in the UK, known as "Masorati" (as they are in Eretz Yisroel), but the so called "Rabbinic Assembly" in the US & Canada have been shamefully slow to act against those in their ranks, sometimes only when the Press embarrasses them into taking action.
To the persons that are NOT defending the father of the Hersh boy.
How shall i put this.....YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT KNOW HIM AT ALL!!! He is a malach, Tzadik to the umteenth degree - he is a son of a great man and deserves every ounce of this credit he gets. Y'all should be thrown in jail and never see your children again - I daven every day that this happens - people like you are destroying klal yisroel!!!!
JJ from Brooklyn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas
JJ from Brooklyn makes me wonder if Chaim Berlin is like ancient Sparta from the time of Megilas Esther.
Sparta fought to the death even though there was no hope that very few soldiers could withstand the huge army of Xerxes (Achashverosh)
JJ from Brooklyn
===============================
jj,
shame purim is over because i would love to see you hang next to haman.
Hope you never get to see your grand kids.And while yu daven every day as you claim . Daven that you should have a painful meesa meshuna
so whats with beis yaacov miami
Now would be an excellent time for the Sheitel store diagonally opposite Chaim Berlin to put back those pretty lady modeling pictures in her front window. It will be a true "Hillel", not "Chillel", indeed.
"Hersh you", Schecter.
T Minus 3 weeks to the Shabbos Hagodol D-Roshos.
Boog, you seem so excited in counting down to Shabbos Hagadol.
If you'd like, I can send you the rough draft of my drasha. Just one caveat though. Before I whittle it down it's about 15000 words.
Hey UOJ,
That putz from last night who asked "what are you UOJ" is very insulted that you haven't gotten back to him yet.
Anon at 8:20 pm:
Just because JJ from Brooklyn is a putz, it doesn't mean you have to stoop to his level.
It's generally not a good idea to curse people like that.
Keep it up uoj, your doing great, way better than the guys who rolled mondrowitz's balls 25 years ago, I wonder if meir zilberstein of ger is gonna roll his balls for him on pesach in jail, avremel, did you start counting sefiras haomer already for your supreme court hearing on your appeal, dont get upset if you loose that as well, it would be fun to watch you age in prison here in the us after what you have done to so many innocent children of all faiths, destroyed their souls and some even their bodies as they were no longer able to live with what has been done to them at such a tender age, pigs**t what you are rot in hell!
Now to jj and the other anon. who are protecting aron schechter, kolko and m hersh go move to saudi arabia or iran were they will understand your logic of doing what has to be done to a child that does not behave exactly as the parents want him to, for in my opinion m hersh deserves to lose custody of all 8 children, I dont think that he is mentally stable if he was able to put his son through that hellhole.
UOJ, Once again Chazak U'baruch on your great sacrifice of time, money, effort & probably countless other things that you have given for the klal bifrat and humanity at large, if not for you, my story with leizerowitz would still be sitting on my heart digging a bigger hole from day to day.
Thank you!
May all who destroy a child of god, body or soul, & those who protect the detroyers die a painfull death & rot in hell. AMEN!
Take a look, from "Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America"
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/16256/In+Light+Of+Klal+Yisroels+Current+Situation:+Kol+Koreh+From+The+Moetzes+Gedolei+HaTorah+of+America.html
YW reports on "In Light Of Klal Yisroels Current Situation: Kol Koreh From The Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America
April 1, 2008" that:
"We are in the wake of a terrible destruction, Jewish blood spilled like water in the Holy Land,..."
and adds this:
"And then there are other heartrending tragedies that have suddenly afflicted our community. We are all enveloped in mourning over the calamities borne by Jews in every land."
What are these "other heartrending tragedies that have suddenly afflicted our community"?
Is R, Aron Shechter who is known to write up and compos and ultimately must approve these type of "cool keris" realizing the wrongs of his way? Doubtful. Or are the other's sending a backdoor message that they don't approve of the recent Hersh saga that has so stained their name as well as the goings on a TT and the lawsuits that are coming in at steady rate?
Does anyone really pay attention in any case?
anom at 3:21 PM, April 01, 2008 sounds like 'Tragedy' aka as Fruity himself. You really have to give him credit for his writing skills though.
Woody Allen sues over rabbi billboard
Published: 04/01/2008
Woody Allen is suing a clothing company for advertisements showing the actor dressed as a rabbi.
Allen filed a $10 million lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against American Apparel Inc. for using an image from one of the filmmaker's movies of him dressed as a rabbi.
The text of the billboard and online ads, which were published without Allen's consent, read "The Holy Rebbe" in Yiddish.
The billboards were put up last May in New York and Hollywood. Allen does not commercially endorse any products in the United States, the suit said.
-----------------
American Apparel is owned by known sexual pervert Dov Charney.
>>Several key figures at the Harvard of the strictly Orthodox world, Brooklyn’s Yeshiva Torah Temimah<<
Amazing what some weed will do!
http://www.daashakohol.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=66
Kretchme Pizza Shop
Yossel Motchkin opened the Kretchme several years ago. He attempted to get the Bdatz hechsher but claims that Brook kept delaying, amidst charges that Brook is a part owner in the Kingston Pizza Shop and did not want the competition.
Eventually, after the Vaad HaKohol and Levy Yitzchok Shapiro put pressure on Brook, the hechsher was given, but Motchkin was always complaining about poor treatment, and that Brook looked for ways to harass him by not giving him a supply of cheese and other products.
At some point Brook took the hechsher away from Motchkin. When Motchkin complained to Rav Osdoba, the Rav told him that he does not need a hechsher, and the Kretchme has operated without a Hechsher since.
They have a funny way of saying things,such as calling a concentration camp a "private home of safety" and calling Michail Hersh "a high-ranking member of the Jewish Community in New York" and Isaac Hersh "a Brooklyn boy and a former guest at the facility" etc but this was their report at http://www.radiojamaica.com/content/view/6857/26/
More bad news for local private home of safety
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
A local facility for troubled teens is again in the news overseas.
This follows allegations of the abuse of the son of a high-ranking member of the Jewish Community in New York, by staff at the school.
Isaac Hersh, 16, a Brooklyn boy and a former guest at the facility is back in the U.S. a week after allegations surfaced that he was being abused by staff.
A New York Newspaper said he arrived in New Jersey early Friday morning on a private jet.
According to family members, a New York psychologist, examined Hersh for 90 minutes in Jamaica and concluded that he had been physically and mentally abused.
The "Jewish Week" newspaper reported that the psychologist, a Rabbi and two other men flew here last Thursday after they learned that American officials were going to interview Hersh at the American Embassy in Kingston.
The embassy interview was allegedly in response to a federal lawsuit against the U.S. State Department alleging the boy was being abused at the Jamaican school.
The boy reportedly told consular staff and his escorts that he had been thrown on his face and that both hands were twisted behind him while five people sat on top of him, putting their fingers in his ears.
The 16-year-old also said he was punched in the stomach when he asked to borrow a pen from a counselor.
His father, Michael Hersh CEO of the Chevra Hatzalah Volunteer Ambulance Corps in New York later agreed by phone to have his son released and flown out of the country.
http://www.daashakohol.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76
Moshe Rubashkin is a convicted felon (for passing bad checks) and is presently on probation. The Jewish Community Relations Council and the Metropolitan Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, have both expressed the concern that this may make it difficult to keep public funding that the JCC now has, and that it will make it difficult to get any new funding.
In addition, Rubashkin’s past record raises serious questions about his integrity, and also his judgment.
Finally, the question has been asked how any self-respecting community would elect a public representative that gives such a bad impression of its people.
Emotional Outbursts – Rubashkin has repeatedly lost his temper and made personal attacks and used profanity in public, and in front of politicians and police and government figures.
Personality – Rubashkin is considered to have a good heart and to do chesed for many people. On the other hand, many in the community complain that Rubashkin is untruthful, holds grudges, and takes revenge on people.
Woman, Father Settle $8M Sex Abuse Verdict
Friday, Mar 28, 2008 - 01:52 PM
By Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- A prominent Alabama businessman ordered to pay $8 million to a daughter who claimed he sexually abused and raped her for years, including the night she was crowned homecoming queen, has settled the case.
Attorneys for Montgomery stockbroker Fred M. Blackmon and his daughter, Louise Plott of Birmingham, declined to reveal details of the settlement, including the amount of any payment.
Allen Hammer, who represented Blackmon, a longtime vice president with Merrill Lynch, says he can only say that the case was settled to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.
In court testimony and a sworn statement, the 35-year-old Plott recounted decades of sexual abuse she said began in her bedroom of the family home in an exclusive neighborhood in Montgomery. Blackmon denied all her claims.
The Associated Press has a policy against naming alleged victims of sexual abuse in most cases, but Plott told AP in an interview in November that she hoped to help other incest victims by telling her story publicly.
Counter-cult fighter Rick Ross classes "Teen Boot Camps" as outright cults & he has plenty of links on the page at
http://www.rickross.com/groups/teenboot.html
All the headings below on that page have links to full articles and reports.
Just by looking over the main headings below anyone can see that many kids have died in these camps and just how close Isaac Hersh was to a tragedy like that so that saving him was not just pidyon shevuyim by also vadai pikuach nefesh, and his parents & R Aron Shechter and Mostofsky and their minions would have just said tut-tut and nu-nu & that's-that, the kid is dead and buried and we have "better" things to do in life:
*Jewish family sues Jamaican reform school for troubled teens
*Investigator: School Destroyed Video It Was Ordered to Preserve of Students Being Shocked
*Tense Moments After Boot Camp Acquittal
*Report Recounts Horrors of Youth Boot Camps
*The Cult That Spawned the Tough-Love Teen Industry
*2 arrested in alleged dragging of girl behind van at boot camp
*Senate committee OKs $5 million settlement in boot camp death
*8 Charged in Death at Fla. Boot Camp
*Florida Examines Camps for Delinquents
*Camper who died refused food, cadets say
*Boot Camp Cadet Dies at Fla. State Park
*Attorney general's office asked to investigate academy
*3 men jailed in beating at youth camp
*New law revamps state boot camps
*After death of boy, Florida moves to close its boot camps
*Manatee's boot camp in trouble
*Boot Camp Beating 911 Calls Released
*Boot camp video shows beating of boy who died next day
*A harrowing look at out-of-control treatments for out-of-control teens
*Calls for closure of juvenile boot camps
*Boarding school ordered to refund tuition
*Risky hold often used at kids' camp
*Counselors Fired After Death at Ga. Camp
*State probes boy's death at outdoor camp
*Youth facility criticized; state reports it is making progress
*Utah-based group under fire
*Mom details son's issues at camp-death trial
*Boot-camp witness tells of boy's death
*Experts: Boot camps don't stop violence
*Trial Begins in Teen's Camp Death in Ariz.
*Baja raids shut boarding schools for U.S. teens
*Police Remove 26 Youths From Boarding School
*Program to Help Youths Has Troubles of Its Own
*The last resort
*Parents Divided Over Jamaica Disciplinary Academy
*Teens' 'prison' closed
*Owner of Private Discipline Academy in Costa Rica Is Arrested
*One School That Relies on Therapy
*Parents, Shopping for Discipline, Turn to Harsh Programs Abroad
*Outdoor Therapy Camp Workers Charged in Hiking Death of Boy
*Settlement reached in suit filed by boot camp inmates
*Death Suit With Boot Camp Settled
*Boot Camp Official Pleads Guilty
*Head of Camp in Arizona Is Arrested in Boy's Death
*"Survivor": The Personal Story of One Boot Camp Graduate
*Desperate Measures
*Group Probed in Death Has New Class
*FBI investigating abuse at juvenile boot camps
*States Pressed as 3 Boys Die at Boot Camps
*Boot Camp Proponent Becomes Focus of Critics
*Autopsy results released in death of Arizona boot camp teen-ager
*Arizona Boot Camp Where Boy Died Reopens
*American, Canadian teens removed from Samoan reform camp amid abuse allegations
*Director of Boot Camp Said Faced Probe
*States Pressed as 3 Boys Die at Boot Camps
*Affidavit Says Teenager Sent to Boot Camp Died in Bathtub
*Tough Love, Teen Death
*Teen behavioral centers push 'tough love'
*Accounts Put Darker Cloud Over Camp
*Desert Boot Camp for Youth Is Shut Down After a Death
Four Part Series:
*Why are you crying? Answer: 'My life, sir' - Part 1
*On graduation day, an illusion of hope - Part 2
*A quick transition from 'Sir!' to 'Yo!' - Part 3
*After more than a year, where are the former cadets now? - Part 4
*Boot Camps for Wayward Youths Offer Hope, Help, Hell
*Teen Help sued
http://exposemolesters.blogspot.com/2008/03/breaking-deam-team-are-set-to-bring.html?showComment=1205801220000#c5244874097409264841
R' Lipa Margulis said...
This uoj guy mit his meshigune lawyers is beginning to cause me to have diarrhea. The ganzeh tug I vas in the bais hakesay.
NY yeshiva sued over 'sexual abuse'
By MICHAL LANDO, THE JERUSALEM POST, NEW YORK
A Brooklyn yeshiva and its head administrator are being sued for $10 million over alleged sexual abuse by a rabbi who taught there for several decades.
The lawsuit is the fifth to be filed against Yeshiva Torah Temimah and administrator Lipa Margulies alleging sexual abuse by Rabbi Yudi Kolko.
Kolko was arrested for a second time in September for allegedly molesting a boy at the yeshiva, and then released on bail.
He was previously charged with four counts of sexual abuse, including two felony counts, and with endangering the welfare of a child.
The latest case involves the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, identified as John Doe No. 6, who was enrolled at Torah Temimah between the ages of 11 and 13.
Lawyers say he was sexually abused by Kolko on a number of occasions at several locations, including inside the rabbi's car, and at the yeshiva in his office at the yeshiva and in the basement.
According to the lawsuit, John Doe says that often, when Kolko would press himself up against him in a sexual manner, he would ask, "Does it hurt?"
Attorneys Adam Horowitz and Michael Dowd allege that Margulies knew of allegations that Rabbi Kolko was sexually abusing boys at Torah Temimah years before John Doe No. 6 was a student there.
"Despite the fact that Rabbi Margulies knew of allegations that Rabbi Kolko was sexually abusing children and was unfit to be a Rabbi or teacher at Torah Temimah, he took no action to protect the young male students at his school and continued to give Rabbi Kolko unfettered access to young children," the lawyers said in a press release.
The alleged abuse dates back to the 1980s, and the lawsuit claims Margulies engaged in "tactics of intimidation, threats and coercion and misrepresentations" over years with the "intent of squelching any complaints."
"In this case, our contention is that there were countless instances of notice to Rabbi Margulies about the conduct of Kolko," Dowd said. "His response has been threatening people who made complaints."
Such cases could be compared to recent allegations against the Catholic Church, said Jeffrey Herman, a lawyer involved in previous lawsuits filed against the yeshiva.
"It's similar in the sense of an insular community where these things, unfortunately, allegations that have been around for a long time, never made it to the judicial court system outside the community," Herman said.
What was different in the yeshiva case, according to Herman, was the lack of an "institutional" cover-up.
"This is one yeshiva, which has no connection to other Jewish institutions," he said.
The attorney for Yeshiva Torah Temimah, Avraham Moskowitz, told The Jerusalem Post he had not yet been served with the lawsuit.
In the past, Moskowitz has denied all allegations against the yeshiva. Regarding an earlier lawsuit in 2006, Moskowitz told JTA that the yeshiva "adamantly denies the allegations in the complaints and is sure that when the cases are over, the yeshiva will be vindicated."
The machshirim are also all about the money.
http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/032008/sxKashrutSpecialist.html
by Debra Rubin
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex
March 18, 2008
Price hikes in many basic products may encourage manufacturers to cut corners on kashrut, said a field supervisor for the Orthodox Union.
Rabbi Avrohom Stone warned an Edison audience that prices for basics — particularly flour — have “skyrocketed” in recent months because so much agriculture is being diverted into making ethanol as an alternative fuel.
“Companies are looking to cut back,” said Stone, adding that he feared they may try to circumvent expensive kashering procedures.
Speaking at Congregation Ohr Torah March 8, Stone and fellow kashrut expert Rabbi Yaakov Luban described the detective work that goes into assuring that such companies, stores, and restaurants deserve their kosher status. The event was sponsored by the Orthodox Forum of Highland Park/Edison.
Luban, executive rabbinic coordinator for the kashrut division of the OU and rabbi at Ohr Torah, has supervised local kosher eateries for the Vaad Harabonim of the Raritan Valley for more than 20 years.
Luban recalled an incident from about 23 years ago, when he used his detective skills to outsmart a former local pizzeria owner. Some unlabeled cans raised his suspicions and led him on a search for other infractions. He was about to open a bag of garbage left outside the shop when the alarmed owner snatched it from Luban’s hand and ran down the street.
“I began running after him, my tzitzit flying behind me,” recalled Luban. “I was a lot younger then.”
He saw the owner stuff the bag under a truck. When Luban retrieved it, he found empty boxes of nonkosher cheese. The owner tried to pass them off as old containers, but the truth came out — he had been filling the grated cheese containers at night with the treif cheese.
“This could have gone on for 25 years,” said Luban. “It was really just mazel that I saw those cans. I always felt God was protecting the community.”
Stone, a field supervisor who oversees more than 100 companies, said the number of products earning the respected “OU” certification has mushroomed in recent years thanks to market forces.
A growing number of companies seek a hechsher — kosher certification — because they know it will lead to desired branding among kosher consumers who have shown an unmatched loyalty to brands they know to be kosher, according to Stone.
He reeled off a handful of companies producing kosher products from salad dressing to chocolate as people murmured and nodded their heads in recognition.
“Kashrus is all about money,” said Stone, founder and director of the community kollel in his hometown of West Orange. “Nobody is out there manufacturing and producing any type of food that is kosher with a hechsher unless they can make money.”
According to the U.S. Labor Department, wholesale food prices rose last month at the fastest rate since 2003.
A new twist today in the mishandling of sex abuse allegations at a Buffalo school. Some are questioning why the Superintendent claimed he didn't know about the accusations even though the teacher sent him a certified letter about it.
Doctor James Williams signed for the letter back in November. It's from a teacher who says she saw an aide fondling a student at the Discovery School. But when the accusations finally became public recently, the superintendent said it would have been dealt with sooner had he known about the situation earlier.
Doctor Williams fired an administrator last week for mishandling the investigation. The teacher claims she saw a classroom aide fondling a five-year-old boy back in November. She told the principal and sent the superintendent the certified letter, but nothing happened.
Department spokesman Stephan Mychajliw says "It certainly should have been passed on to the authorities immediately and then let the Buffalo Police Department and Erie County District Attorney's office determine whether or not there is any truth in that allegation."
The superintendent's spokesperson is now issuing a statement saying the superintendent gets "hundreds, even thousands" of pieces of mail a week. They are forwarded to the appropriate department and Doctor Williams does not remember reading this particular letter sent in November.
The family of the five-year-old boy is considering a lawsuit against the school district.
Jeff Herman is either making a mistake or is misquoted by the Jerusalem Post:
What was different in the yeshiva case, according to Herman, was the lack of an "institutional" cover-up.
"This is one yeshiva, which has no connection to other Jewish institutions," he said.
What about Torah Umesorah, the Agudah, the various batei din and last but not least, Belsky?
L'ignorance est toujours prête à s'admirer.
Ignorance is always ready to admire itself
"Stone, a field supervisor who oversees more than 100 companies"
Not bad. Assuming each company only has a single facility, how many times a year do you think these companies see their OU inspector? This guy has the nerve to crticize companies cutting corners nuch dem?
Roland Arnall (1939-2008)
Subprime Pioneer Turned
To Diplomacy, Philanthropy
By STEPHEN MILLER
March 22, 2008; Page A7
Roland Arnall's subprime-mortgage company touted itself in Super Bowl advertisements as "proud sponsor of the American Dream." The company ran into trouble amid allegations of predatory lending, but the story of Mr. Arnall, whose family hid from the Nazis in World War II by pretending to be Catholic, had many elements of the dream he said he was offering to home buyers with poor credit.
Mr. Arnall, who died Monday at age 68, was the founder of Ameriquest Mortgage Co., in its heyday one of the largest subprime-mortgage issuers in the nation. He was also a co-founder of the Holocaust memorial Simon Wiesenthal Center.
In recent years, his companies handed out more than $20 million to state and federal political groups. That included $5 million to organizations that backed President Bush.
Mr. Arnall returned to his native continent in early 2006 as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands. Just before his Senate confirmation as ambassador, Mr. Arnall's holding company, ACC Capital Holdings, agreed to put up $325 million to settle regulators' claims that it charged excessively high mortgage rates and didn't adequately disclose loan risks.
Having stepped aside as head of his companies, he watched from the sidelines as his business crumbled. As Wall Street financiers lost interest in buying subprime loans to be packaged into securities, Ameriquest stopped making mortgages in May 2006. Its loan-servicing operation was sold to Citigroup Inc. in October 2007 along with ACC's wholesale arm, Argent Mortgage Co. More than 270 offices around the nation were closed.
On March 7, Mr. Arnall resigned as ambassador to care for an ailing son. After feeling ill himself and going to the doctor, he was diagnosed with late-stage cancer and died less than a week later.
His two-year stint as ambassador included soothing European allies and helping coordinate Dutch involvement with North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan.
In 2006, he helped bring to America Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who had settled in the Netherlands. Ms. Hirsi Ali gained notoriety for writings challenging the position of women in fundamentalist Islam and was elected to the Dutch Parliament. In addition to receiving death threats in the Netherlands for her outspoken views, she also faced having her citizenship revoked for lying about her name on her asylum application.
As Ms. Hirsi Ali was pondering where to go next, Mr. Arnall called. "He told me he would do anything he could, legally, to help me," she says. She credits Mr. Arnall with getting her a visa to the U.S. Today she is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Ms. Hirsi Ali had more in common with the mortgage tycoon than she imagined. During World War II, when Mr. Arnall's family posed as Catholic to escape Nazi persecution, he was an altar boy in the southern French village of Pont-les-Bains. Only after the war, when his family settled in Montreal, did he learn that he was Jewish and that most of his relatives had perished in the Holocaust.
The family moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s, where Mr. Arnall at first made a living selling flowers on street corners. He later became a developer, and by the 1970s his REA Cos. was one of Los Angeles's largest closely held developers, with projects including large-scale rentals, office buildings and an inner-city retirement residence.
In 1979, he founded Long Beach Savings & Loan. In the early 1990s, Long Beach began selling subprime mortgages to financiers on Wall Street, where the mortgages were packaged into securities and sold to investors. With this new source of funding -- used also by such subprime pioneers as The Money Store Inc. and Equicredit Corp. -- the business took off.
In 1994, Long Beach surrendered its federal charter to become a private mortgage lender. In 1997, Long Beach split into Ameriquest and a publicly traded subsidiary, Long Beach Mortgage Co., which was bought by Washington Mutual Inc. in 1999 and became WaMu's subprime arm.
After surviving a credit crunch during the Asian debt crisis of the late 1990s, Ameriquest prospered in the new millennium as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to the bone. The company advertised widely, and at one time the home stadium of baseball's Texas Rangers was called Ameriquest Field.
But from early in the company's rise to subprime stardom, it was dogged by allegations about its business practices. In 1996, it paid $4 million to settle a Department of Justice suit charging that it discriminated against minority borrowers. Suits brought against the firm in 49 states eventually resulted in the 2006 settlement, in which Ameriquest admitted no wrongdoing.
News reports included accounts from disgruntled employees alleging boiler-room-type conditions at its outlets, where employees pressured customers to refinance their homes. Mr. Arnall blamed rogue employees. Mr. Arnall's critics included Sen. Barack Obama, although Mr. Obama ended up voting to confirm him as ambassador.
Even as he built his business empire, Mr. Arnall was active in philanthropy and politics. In 1977, he joined a young rabbi, Marvin Hier, on a trip to Vienna, where they received permission from veteran Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal to use his name on a new Holocaust center.
Mr. Arnall was a benefactor of a Utah sanctuary for rejected pets, the Best Friends Animal Society, and adopted a cat and a dog from it. "Wherever he traveled, he took his pets with him," says Cyrus Mejia, a Best Friends director.
Mr. Arnall cultivated politicians from the 1960s, donating to governors, including Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Gray Davis. He later gave large sums to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with stacks of Rolling Stones tickets that were used to lure other big donors. Ameriquest gave widely to state legislators while lobbying against laws restricting subprime loans, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.
Mr. Arnall lived well. He owned a 10-acre Los Angeles estate that included the Pink Palace, a Mediterranean-style mansion that had once been home to Rudy Vallee, Jayne Mansfield, and Engelbert Humperdinck, as well as a 30-acre spread in Aspen, Colo. He had the Pink Palace razed in 2002.
Mr. Arnall's return to Europe as an ambassador was fraught with significance for the onetime refugee, says Rabbi Hier, who says he visited Mr. Arnall at the embassy and saw him meeting with Dutch Islamists to try to understand their views.
Rabbi Hier and Mr. Arnall also had three papal audiences, Rabbi Hier says, including one at which Mr. Arnall used some downtime in the papal residence to have himself photographed by his wife in a throne-type chair reserved for the pope.
"I said, 'You may think you're Roland I, but the cardinals will know you're not John Paul II,'" Rabbi Hier recalls.
Perhaps the most striking result of his time in the Netherlands was his bond with Ms. Hirsi Ali. "It was my first taste of close friendship with Americans, and it was wonderful," she says. "In Saudi Arabia and Somalia, the American Embassy is always a place with thick walls. He came from behind the walls and welcomed me."
She says he shared his political views with her, describing "how the welfare state prevented children from succeeding." And, she says, "he told me about his background. He said, 'I believe this kind of life is possible for every child.'"
• Email remembrances@wsj.com
'Mt. Meron is a terror attack waiting to happen'
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 24, 2008
A terrorist attack is waiting to happen on Mount Meron, at the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yohai, the rabbi responsible for daily prayers there warned on Sunday.
"Every week thousands of people visit the site, but there are no security checks whatsoever," said Rabbi Mordechai Halperin, chairman of Moshav Meron, where the grave is located.
"Just this weekend a man who turned out to be an Arab was wandering around the place, apparently gathering information," said Halperin, who plans to present evidence of the security risk to a Knesset committee on Monday.
The security problem is just one of the pressing issues that has been left untouched as various groups vie for control over the holy site.
Halperin said there was also a general lack of upkeep at the site, which he described as dilapidated.
"It is an embarrassment to bring visitors from abroad to the grave," he said.
Other sources said that Meron, a center for nonprofit organizations including soup kitchens, had become an attraction for criminals and the homeless. With Purim over, Pessah a month away and Lag Ba'omer in the offing, the anarchy surrounding the burial place of the founding father of Kabbala, Israel's most visited holy site after the Western Wall, is once again being pushed to the forefront.
Every week, thousands, many of them not religiously observant, flock to the burial site of the talmudic sage who, according to tradition, authored the mystical work the Zohar, in search of a special connection to God that they believe can be obtained only by channeling into the energies of Bar-Yohai.
United Torah Judaism chairman Ya'acov Litzman initiated the discussion in the Knesset two months ahead of Lag Ba'omer (May 23), the anniversary of Bar-Yohai's death, in an attempt to sort out who is responsible for managing the site.
Approximately 500,000 people visit the grave each year on Lag Ba'omer, many of them camping out days in advance. On the night of the anniversary the entire Meron area is alight with bonfires, in accordance with the tradition that Bar-Yohai was taken up to heaven in a burst of flames.
Nearly 2,000 years after Bar-Yohai's death, control over the holy site is still disputed.
According to Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliahu, whose religious jurisdiction extends to the grave, the Sephardi hekdesh, or religious trust, has been responsible for the upkeep of the burial site and surrounding area for centuries.
"The Sephardi hekdesh has had power over the site for at least 700 years," said Eliahu, dating back to the period when Safed became a center for Jewish learning with figures such as Rabbi Yosef Karo and Rabbi Isaac Luria.
In contrast, an Ashkenazi source said that only in recent decades did the Sephardi trust gain control over the central part of the burial site, as a result of a deal reached between the National Religious Party's then-chairman Zevulun Hammer and minister Aharon Abuhatzeira as a part of an attempt by the NRP to woo Sephardi votes.
"But, historically, the place has always belonged to the Ashkenazi hekdesh," the source said.
Shlomo Levi, the head of the Merom Hagalil Regional Council, is interested in securing national control over the site. In the past, Levi has complained that although the site is in his jurisdiction, he "cannot bang in a nail" without getting permission from one of the religious trusts.
In a move seen as an attempt to shake off personal responsibility for what happens at the site during mass visits, Levi has issued orders prohibiting entry that are promptly ignored by the public and the local police. However, by issuing the orders, Levi exonerates himself from responsibility.
The last time Levi issued closure orders that were subsequently ignored was on 7 Adar (March 14), the traditional anniversary of both the birth and the death of Moses. Since Moses's burial place is not known, many commemorate it at Meron.
Ostensibly, the site is run by a national body called the National Center for Holy Sites, created by the NRP and placed under the auspices of the Religious Affairs Ministry.
However, with the dismantling of the Religious Affairs Ministry at the end of 2003, the national center was transferred to the Tourism Ministry.
The Galilee District police, who are responsible for security at the grave, said Safed police conducted regular daily patrols there.
"We have designated a community police officer who, together with volunteers, operates in the area," the Galilee District police spokesman said.
"The purpose of their presence there is to give visitors a feeling of security. We recommend that Rabbi Halperin file a complaint at the Safed police station."
Bernanke warns of possible recession
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the economy may shrink over the first half of this year, which would signal the start of a recession. Yet, he didn't offer assurances of further interest rate cuts.
In prepared testimony to Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Bernanke didn't use the word recession. But it's the closest he has come to date to suggesting that possibility, given a trio of crises — housing, credit and financial — that has pummeled the country.
"It now appears likely that gross domestic product (GDP) will not grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly," Bernanke told lawmakers. GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is the best barometer of the United States's economic health. Under one rule, six straight months of declining GDP, would constitute a recession.
Still, Bernanke said that he expects more economic growth in the second half of this year and into 2009, helped by the government's $168 billion stimulus package of tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses as well as the Fed's aggressive reductions to a key interest rate. Nevertheless, the chairman acknowledged uncertainty about the Fed's next steps, notwithstanding the mounting economic woes.
"Much necessary economic and financial adjustment has already taken place, and monetary and fiscal policies are in train that should support a return to growth in the second half of this year and next year," Bernanke said.
To try to limit the damage, the Federal Reserve has aggressively cut a key interest rate, now at 2.25 percent, to spur buying and investing by individuals and businesses. At the Fed's last meeting in March, however, two members dissented from the Fed's decision to sharply cut rates, showing a rare division in the often unified front the Fed shows the public. The dissenting officials favored a smaller reduction.
Nonetheless, many economists had predicted the Fed might drop it key that rate again when it next meets April 29-30.
Housing, credit and financial woes are threatening to push the country into a deep recession. The situation has emerged as a top concern for presidential contenders and a hot-button issue for Congress. It has thrust the White House and the Fed in crisis-management mode.
Faced with mounting home foreclosures and job losses, Bernanke has been under immense political and public pressure to provide relief and help turn around a faltering economy.
"Clearly, the U.S. economy is going through a very difficult period," he told lawmakers, adding that all the problems have weighed heavily on consumers whose spending is indispensable to economic vitality.
Many private analysts believe the economy contracted in the first three months of this year, signaling the start of a recession. The government releases first-quarter results later this month. The economy lost jobs in January and February, with many economists bracing for more losses when the report for March is released on Friday.
Bernanke said he expected unemployment to move "somewhat higher in coming months."
Several years ago there was a talmid chochom who was not a "chaim berliner" who was studying in their bais medrash. Evidently, he was sitting in a regulars place. He was made to feel uncomfortable and told he wasn't welcomed there anymore.
Chaim Berlin P'tach Program is a money making scam.
Aron Shlechter danced with a new sefer torah a couple of weeks ago.
The Shmated has an ad which they are recruiting talmidim for Mesifta of Eatontown NJ.
The yeshiva's Rabbinical board include
Novminsker
Shmuel Kamenetsky
Avrohm Schor
http://exposemolesters.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-memory-of-mercaz-harav-students-hyd.html?showComment=1205367660000#c3090503556871079438
YOB makes me sick said...
Besides being viciously abused as a student in the 90's at Yeshiva Of Brooklyn, I was also emotionally humiliated and made to feel like garbage. I am totally not religious today due to Mandel and his rabbeim.
I came across this blog about a year ago and have been following it ever since. I get even more turned off Judaism by seeing all the vicious rabbis being honored when they should be spit on. For example, why is there shlomo mandel's signature on the Agudah "don't shikur yourself on purim" campaign? Why is lipa maugulis's signature there? Is it normal that they allowed kids under their care to be abused and now they are getting honored?
100 years of brutality is more like it for the upcoming yob dinner. 50 years of crap for TT.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/NEWS/50425379/1006/news
An Iowa City man, Judah Micah Seruya, appeared in court this morning, accused of sexually molesting a 10-year-old boy in Iowa City and Coralville from 2005 to the present.
Seruya, 35, of 1120 N. Governor St., was in the Johnson County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash bond after making an initial District Court appearance on a complaint accusing him of second-degree sexual abuse.
Police said in the complaint the boy told a school counselor and Child Protection Center interviewer about the incidents, which happened at various times. Second-degree sexual abuse is a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2008/04/warranty_firm_probed_for_fraud.html
Warranty firm probed for fraud
by Sam Ali/The Star-Ledger
Tuesday April 01, 2008, 6:42 AM
Law enforcement officials are investigating an Oakhurst company that sold home warranties for allegedly taking money from consumers and then refusing to honor the agreements.
United Home Warranty, which has disconnected its phones, taken down its Web site and left no forwarding address, has vanished, leaving an unknown number of policyholders holding worthless home warranties, authorities said.
Efforts to reach officials with the company failed. One executive, identified by law enforcement officials, hung up when reached by phone.
Mike Utley, a homeowner in Dublin, Ohio, said he came across United Home Warranty over the internet. But soon after buying two separate one-year home warranties last year, he could not reach the company.
"United Home Warranty contracted with me for two years of service and then rejected my first service request for a faulty freezer," he said. "I called and sent e-mails requesting service and got no response."
In April, he wrote a letter to the head of customer service whose name appeared on his contract, "Mr. Kyle Matthews," but the letter was returned unopened, five months later.
Home warranties have been gaining in popularity with both home sellers and buyers in recent years. Warranties provided by companies such as industry leader American Home Shield, typically provide service, repair or even replacement on a home's major systems and appliances.
The average cost for a 12-month contract runs from $350 to 500 and typically cover items such as heating systems, interior plumbing, electrical systems, water heaters, dishwashers and garbage disposals. While legitimate companies have many satisfied customers, the largely unregulated industry has also been the focus of complaints about poor service.
Mike Frosch, president of Chicago-based of the home warranty division of the Warranty Group said it's unfortunate that a few unscrupulous providers are tarnishing the entire industry. Warranty Group, owned by the Canadian company Onex, is one of the leading warranty providers, serving 33 countries.
"Home warranties are an incredible bargain for consumers," he said. "It gives you peace of mind if you are buying a home, but its important to do some research."
Frosch said the Warranty Group's contracts are underwritten by its property and casualty insurance carrier, the Virginia Surety Company.
"It makes a difference," Frosch said. "It's not just a blank home warranty company making a promise. There is an insurance company backing the guarantee. It's important to know who is backing up the program."
Not every company is as forthcoming.
According to information on the Better Business Bureau website, United Home Warranty "is no longer in business."
"The phone numbers the BBB had for this company are disconnected, and directory assistance does not have a listing for this company," the website said. "The BBB's mail to this company has been returned as undeliverable."
The New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs said it has received a number of complaints from consumers about United Home Warranty and has determined the company is now operating out of New York City under a new name -- National Home Protection, according to spokesman Jeff Lamb. Complaints are now referred to the New York State Attorney General's Office, he said.
Department of State records in New York list United Home Warranty's address as 42 W. 38th St., Suite 800, New York. Corporate records show the business is licensed to David Seruya, an Oakhurst resident.
National Home Protection also lists its address as 42 W. 38th St., Suite 800. Records show that both businesses are licensed to David Seruya.
Reached on his cell phone, Seruya refused to answer questions about the companies and abruptly hung up the phone. He also deleted his Facebook account, which featured pictures of himself and his bikini-clad wife after The Star-Ledger sent him e-mails through the website asking him about the home warranty businesses.
"We know (David Seruya) exists, and we know he is connected to these businesses," said Lt. Steven Peters of the Ocean Township Police Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Peters has been investigating United Home Warranty since September after the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center alerted local police about complaints lodged against company. ¶
Some consumers said they were offered Home Depot gift cards worth $50 to buy warranties from United Home Warranty and National Home Protection.
Jennifer King, a spokesperson for Home Depot's northern division said that United Home Warranty and National Home Protection are "in no way connected with Home Depot."
"We take direct action to stop scams that blatantly display the Home Depot logo or name and follow up on complaints of misrepresentation concerning the company" King said.
Elvin Frost, a Randolph resident, said he was cheated by National Home Protection after his boiler failed on April 19, 2007. He said telephone operators sometimes answered the phone "United Home Warranty."
"For about 2 -3 weeks, they were working on getting it approved, but always came up with reasons it wouldn't be covered," Frost said.
During that time, the temperature in his home dipped to 60 degrees, and Frost said he eventually had to foot the $4,000 to replace his own furnace.
"They asked for maintenance records, which I supplied," he said. "They wanted clarification on a problem that occurred, which I supplied. They even spoke with my father, who owns his own licensed plumbing company and who did a repair on my boiler, a few questions regarding the installation. NHP still refused to replace my boiler."
That address for David Seruya is in Manhattan's shmatta district. Home warranties is just an extra gravy scam he was running on the side.
That other home warranty company owned by Onex of Canada might be something to be wary of too. It's not clear if Onex is still affiliated with Toronto fraudsters Garth Drabinsky & Myron Gottlieb who are wanted by the FBI for the Livent scam. Canada refuses to extradite them.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117917688.html?categoryid=15&cs=1
Drabinsky and Gottlieb remain in Canada, as they have done for the entire 6½ years the case has been in the U.S. courts. Until a few months ago they invoked their Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer the allegations or offer a defense.
They also have 16 outstanding fraud and insider trading charges, as well as a civil suit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1999.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/business/01disabled.html
April 1, 2008
Insurers Faulted as Overloading Social Security
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
The Social Security system is choking on paperwork and spending millions of dollars a year screening dubious applications for disability benefits, according to lawsuits filed by whistle-blowers.
Insurance companies are the source of the problem, the lawsuits say. The insurers are forcing many people who file disability claims with them to also apply to Social Security — even people who clearly do not qualify for the government program.
The Social Security Administration defines “disabled” much more stringently than the insurers generally do, so it rejects most of the applications, at least initially. Often, the insurers then tell their claimants to appeal, the lawsuits say, raising the cost.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E1D9143CF930A15753C1A9649C8B63
After a four-year investigation, the Canadian police today charged the two founders of a Toronto theater group that staged hits like ''Showboat'' and ''Ragtime'' on Broadway with defrauding investors and creditors of $325 million.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it filed 19 charges of fraud against the two men, Garth H. Drabinsky, 52, and Myron I. Gottlieb, 59, who started the theater group, Livent Inc., in the late 1980's.
In addition, the police charged two other former Livent executives -- Gordon Eckstein, 50, the senior vice president for finance, and Robert Topol, 47, senior executive vice president -- with taking part in schemes to defraud investors and creditors.
The police said the four men had falsified financial statements for nine years in an effort to misrepresent the financial health of the company.
The four executives surrendered to the police this morning and later appeared briefly in a Toronto court. They were released on bail and will appear again on Dec. 3. Mr. Drabinsky's bail was set at 150,000 Canadian dollars ($95,920).
Livent was started in the late 1980's after Mr. Drabinsky failed in a bid to take over the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, a cinema chain that he helped start in 1979. Livent grew rapidly through the 1990's to become one of North America's biggest theater companies, with properties in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Vancouver.
A group led by Michael Ovitz, the Hollywood agent, bought Livent in early 1998 but within a few months the new owners said that they had uncovered accounting irregularities. The company collapsed that year.
Mr. Drabinsky and Mr. Gottlieb have been considered fugitives in the United States since the United States attorney's office in Manhattan indicted them in January 1999 on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Federal prosecutors charged the two men and the other two executives with taking kickbacks from contractors working on Livent's theaters and hiding losses of more than $60 million.
Mr. Drabinsky and Mr. Gottlieb have denied the American charges and have not shown up for court appearances in the United States.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has also filed a civil complaint against the two men, and the Ontario Securities Commission filed a statement containing accusations in July 2001. The Ontario commission is expected to consider the matter again on Nov. 1, but a spokesman said today that the matter might be delayed pending the outcome of the criminal case.
In the earlier statement, the Ontario Commission accused Livent of modifying its computer system so that financial statements could be altered without leaving a trail that auditors could follow.
Outside companies were also said to have filed false invoices to Livent and received payments from the company, the commission said. Part of the payments were passed to Mr. Drabinsky, the commission said.
Mr. Drabinsky is currently working as a marketing consultant to the Toronto Argonauts football team. As part of his efforts to attract fans, he arranged for Muhammad Ali, the former boxing champion, to appear at Toronto's SkyDome stadium last Sunday.
http://theantitzemach.blogspot.com/2008/04/torah-vodaas-through-ages.html
I was asked to write about YTV, and the ensuing splits and breakups, so I'll give it a shot. I welcome any and all corrections.
The truth is I'm not that familiar with all the details; There may too many to count, really. I'm sure some people were angry that the school opened in the first place; there was RJJ just across the bridge, on the Lower East Side, so why the need for another Yeshiva? "You think you're better than us, Mr. Wilhelm? Our school is not frum enough for you? Your boys can't cross the bridge like everybody else does? I can imagine the screaming going on somewhere in Williamsburg. But Mr. Wilhelm held his own and the school was opened. Then, when "Mr. Mendlowitz" came to town the school really picked up, although most kids still went on to eventually become Mechalelei Shabbos anyway. Such were the times. They started a high school, a mesivta if you will, and the first fruit were soon to be soon on the streets on Willy and the rest of New York. There were boys that became men, and they continued to practice as Jews, even while all their buddies left the fold. All thanks to the mesivta.
Then the first troubles began. It all began when a (Hungarian) lawyer named BenZion Weberman made an innocent-looking trip to the Kantrowitz Hotel in Woodridge, New York. That's where Jews would spend the hot, pre-air conditioning summer days, in one of the many Jewish-owned hotels in the "Borscht-Belt." When BZW announced that he had found a Rebbe, an old man with a long white beard, a Malach. BenZion had seemingly been looking for a Rebbe for himself and his kids, and had been disappointed with the slim pickings available in America. I'm not sure what kind of reception he got from the old man, since the old man didn't like clean-shaven men in modern clothes, but BZW didn't seem to be fazed by that, he still was very much intrigued by him, and wanted his kids to be educated by him as well. He soon found out that the old man is the Rabbi in a nusach Ari shul in the Bronx, and lives there as well, so he began to send his kids there, to be taught the holy texts by the holy man, and the change was soon visible in all of them. Soon, together with the change in dress came the change in theology, and that's where the first splinter happened.
More soon, iy"H.
yoshe kalb said...
According to Jerome Mintz in his "Hasidic People - A Place in the New World" it was Mr Mendlowitz himself who brought some of his students to the "malach" in order for this Amerikaner boychiks to get a feel for an old world chossid.Subsequently the "malach" became sort of a mashpiah for many TVD talmidim teaching them the exact opposite of TVD's (Hirschian)ideology. Ultimately this lead to thr relegation of the "malach"s followers from TVD in 1931.
Anonymous said...
why write about issues of which you obviously didn't do much research- the R' Dovid Liebowitz etc. was before the malach and if you are trying to get to the chabad angle-well the malach didn't see exactly eye to eye with the rashab-why dont you dwell on that aspect!
"Buddy Fuchs said...
My sympathy for Ruben Margolis. A few weeks ago his father past away. Very recently, his older brother Sheldon from Lawrence, a heroin abuser and crack addict, was confined in a drug rehabilitation center. So, we gotta go easy on Rubin."
Hey Buddy ...
I'm a neighbor living near Sheldon Margolis. I know for a long time that Sheldon was a crack addict, but I was unaware that he was using heroin too. What a sicko he is. Surely, from now on I will keep my wife and kids away from that walking talking disease.
We don't need shit like that in Lawrence. He should go back where he came from.
We don't need Shelly Margolis joining his brother here either. One of them is enough.
Shmarya is reporting that Isaac Hersh is in the custody of his father's friend - CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER STEVE ZAKHEIM OF HATZOLAH !!!!
Steve Zakheim is some kind of cousin of YU guy Dov Zakheim who was once the #3 most powerful person at the Pentagon.
It should be noted here that not every Gadol took had this view.
Rav Yitzchak Hutner and Reb Shraga Feival Mendelowitz famously almost succeeded in turning Yeshivas Chaim Berlin into an accredited university.
But Rav Ahron Kotler nixed it. He was considered the Gadol HaDor and other Charedi Gedolim always deferred to his wishes even when they disagreed.
Harry is dead wrong and perpetuating a "revisionist - ArtScroll" type falsehood!
Had RSFM lived -(the charter was obtained in 1948 - and RSFM was niftar soon after) - there certainly would have been a yeshiva college/trade school.
RSFM insisted that American boys needed to be educated - even at the college level - for most boys!
RAK and RSFM disagreed about high school as well - YTV - at one time had the absolute best yeshiva high school under Rabbi Moshe Lonner.
For the historical record - had RSFM lived - WITHOUT A DOUBT - and without RAK's OK - there would have certainly been a yeshiva college!
The closest model today for a yeshiva trade school - was established (1948) by RSFM's son in-law Rabbi Alexander Linchner - in Bayit V'gan - Boys Town Jerusalem!
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