***************** STEVE MOSTOFSKY ESQ. (Updated Photo) AARON SCHECHTER'S PUTZ ENFORCER**************
This isn’t the first time Mostofsky has tried thuggish tactics to suppress the truth about child abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community.
*****WARNING: THE POST BELOW IS IN DANGER OF REMOVAL! IS FOUL PLAY AT WORK? HAVE I TOUCHED A NERVE?*****
I have received a notice from Google that someone is claiming that the post below infringes a copyright (they haven't told me whose copyright, or how it's being infringed), and are "asking" me to remove this post by Sunday, April 13, or else they'll take action themselves.
DO YOU SMELL A RAT?
I have consulted legal advice and I cannot understand how any copyright is infringed by the post below... in fact, I can't help wondering whether the holders of any copyrighted material that may be referred to (news accounts, magazine articles) are actually complaining about it at all.
I AM FIGHTING THIS!
I've had my lawyer write to Google demanding to know who is claiming an infringement, on what grounds, and why whoever made the complaint is authorized to make the claim on behalf of a genuine copyright holder. I will continue to fight for my rights -- and your rights -- to freedom of speech and the telling of truth!
Read the post, if you haven't, and tell me if I'm nuts -- could anyone honestly claim a violation of copyright law here? Whose? I've already learned that Susan Rosenbluth of the Jewish Voice and Opinion (whose May 2005 article is referred to several times in the post) is not complaining, hasn't authorized anyone to complain, and is in fact reportedly furious that the post is being threatened.
I can't say much more until I have solid evidence of who is behind this . . . but this much I will say. IF it turns out that someone falsely claimed a copyright infringement as a way of suppressing some inconvenient truths -- or if I learn that the person making the complaint was not authorized to do so by a valid copyright holder -- then someone may have broken the law, and I intend to hold whoever it is fully accountable! I have rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as well as the Constitution, and I will defend them!
I invite anyone who finds a factual error on my site to let me know... I'm not too proud to correct myself if I do make a mistake. The same goes for an actual copyright infringement: if anyone finds one on my site, tell me and I'll remove it. But let me say, for the record, that I detest liars, cowards, bullies and hypocrites who work secretly, using bogus claims and illegal or dishonest tactics, to suppress an honest discussion of outrageous behavior we all must know about, as Jews and as human beings... and that's just as true even if the malefactors should turn out to be associated with, let's say, a major Orthodox Jewish organization . . . Not that anyone might suspect one in this case . . . Anyway, I'm not saying that this is what happened -- too many facts haven't been made available to me -- but I promise to let you know what I learn as I learn it!
By the way, it is obvious that whoever made the "copyright infringement" claim against the post below is conversant with the detailed and technical provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now, it just so happens that the lawyer for Young Israel -- whose lay president is one Steve Mostofsky -- over a considerable period has been Martin Samson. Samson (as described in the May 2005 JVAO article mentioned already) reportedly tried a legal hatchet job 3 years ago on Rosenbluth and the book written by Amy Neustein and Michael Lesher about how family courts have failed abused children -- after Mostofsky himself (who played a prominent role in Neustein's own abuse/custody case) threatened Rosenbluth to no avail because of her writing about the book. Martin Samson is also an expert on Internet law. Just a fact, my friends... Just a fact... I say no more... yet.
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It seems that Steve Mostofsky, Young Israel’s lay president, is Agudath Israel's legal fix-it man for the burgeoning Hersh scandal. But this isn’t the first time Mostofsky has tried thuggish tactics to suppress the truth about child abuse in the Orthodox community.
In the late 1980s, Mostofsky was law clerk to the notorious Brooklyn Family Court Judge Leon Deutsch. One of Deutsch’s cases was that of Dr. Amy Neustein, whose 8-year-old daughter was switched to the custody of her divorced father by Judge Deutsch, despite strong evidence that the father had sexually abused her. (An eyewitness, a leading child sex abuse expert and the girl’s own statements provided some of the evidence in support.) When an astonished State Senator (now Governor) David Paterson held legislative hearings into that case and others like it in 1989, Mostofsky – as Paterson later told the Village Voice – appeared at Paterson’s hearing, notebook in hand, “with the intention of intimidating mothers whose cases were before Judge Deutsch from testifying to the committee.” Paterson filed a formal ethics grievance as a result.
When Dr. Neustein was slated to appear on Geraldo to discuss her case in December 1987, Mostofsky reportedly called the program’s producers that morning claiming, falsely, that Dr. Neustein was “a paranoid schizophrenic” (there was never such a diagnosis) and that the program would be greatly embarrassed if it persisted in having her as a guest. Rivera was not impressed, and the Neustein case went on to become, in the words of New York magazine, “the best-known cause celebre of its kind,” in which evidence of child sex abuse was allegedly hushed up through the efforts of influential members of the Brooklyn Orthodox community.
But Mostofsky wasn’t finished. Years later (2005), when Dr. Neustein and Michael Lesher published a book on child sexual abuse and family court reform, Mostofsky (by this time the lay president of Young Israel) again tried bullying tactics to suppress the truth. When he learned of the book’s impending publication from an article in The Jewish Voice and Opinion, he personally called the magazine’s publisher and – according to her – “screamed” at her that he would sue her, Lesher, Neustein and even David Paterson for daring to make any statements about the Neustein case or any criticism of Judge Deutsch. At the same time, Young Israel’s lawyer, Martin Samson, wrote threatening letters to the magazine and to the publisher of Neustein and Lesher’s book (though he denied having been asked to do so by Young Israel’s boss Mostofsky). Lesher also took a threatening phone call from David Pollock, assistant director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, who did not deny working in cooperation with Mostofsky. Mostofsky, asked repeatedly to comment, did not deny his role in threatening Lesher – in fact, he would not comment at all.
In the end, no lawsuits were filed. It is worth remembering that Mostofsky had had no official connection with Deutsch or the Neustein case for nearly 15 years, and could not point to a single inaccuracy in any statement Lesher or Neustein had made about the case (or others like it that Judge Deutsch had handled). Yet Mostofsky was prepared to use his prestige – and his lungs – to try to suppress discussion of a case involving allegations of child abuse by an Orthodox Jewish father.
Jeremiah McKenna, former chief counsel to the New York State Senate’s Committee on Crime and Correction (who investigated the Neustein case in the 1980s), was publicly quoted in May 2005 as calling Mostofsky’s actions part of “a continuing conspiracy to conceal the truth of what happened in this case.” And Lesher publicly challenged Mostofsky to explain why the lay president of Young Israel should be trying to suppress a book on child abuse -- (From Madness To Mutiny) -- and the family courts by two Orthodox Jews. Mostofsky did not respond.
And now Mostofsky has reportedly helped orchestrate the arrest (or at least detention) of three concerned professionals whose crime was caring enough about young Isaac Hersh to visit him and obtain his account of his allegedly abusive treatment at Tranquility Bay (for which the boy’s father, Mostofsky’s client, reportedly shelled out some $40,000). The point is that Mostofsky isn’t just another matrimonial lawyer taking another custody case. He’s not even just a lawyer who, with his partner Harvey Jacobs, has on a number of occasions represented Ohel Children’s Home (a bulwark of Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn), and therefore might be expected to help abused Jewish children, not to contribute to their abuse…
No, the Agudah – which he says picked him for this job – knows his history better than that. And so should we. If someone is looking to cover up a nasty story of possible child abuse within the Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn community, well, Mostofsky is a natural. And judging from his record, he doesn’t seem to have many scruples about his tactics.
Maybe it’s time Mostofsky was required to answer some questions – publicly – about his behavior, past and present. Certainly - The Agudath Israel Of America - that bastion of fraud and deceit - also known as Cover-Up Central for child rapists and their enablers - has created yet another link to their infamous and criminal behavior - under the guise of daas Torah.
Incidentally, anyone who wants to read the (very) full article from the May 2005 issue of The Jewish Voice and Opinion can find it on the “Press and Presentations” page of Michael Lesher’s web site, www.MichaelLesher.com. Some people have issues with that magazine and its reporting, but Michael Lesher vouches for the accuracy of everything stated there.
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246 comments:
1 – 200 of 246 Newer› Newest»A Young Israel old timer tells me he's got the goods on NCYI corruption. He told me to get back to him next week for the scoop. He seemed to hint about the 3 Musketeers Mostofsky, Passover Lerner & Chaim Kaminetsky.
I think the NY media should be interested that this Mostofsky Putz can be the head of a major organization.
If it weren't for Mostofsky, Isaac Hersh would have been out months ago. How about if we all let the NCYI know what we think about their president. NCYI should demand inquiry into his actions. How can we entrust a hypocrite like Mostofsky with a role in obtaining the release of Pollard and IDF soldiers when he was actively involved in keeping an innocent child incarcerated in an abusive facility?
Uoj, read this article from the drudgereport, but do not be afraid, for the work you do is lshem shomayim,
Death By Blogging,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?ei=5065&en=1c3f36a3531123cb&ex=1208059200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
As reported on http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Does Anyone Know How Isaac Hersh is doing?
It's been several days since any one reported on how Isaac Hersh is doing. Does anyone know know where he is or who's taking care of him? It's shocking that this case is not making headline news in internationally.
There are many of us who are very concerned about Isaac's siblings who are still living in the home of alleged "child beater", Michael Hersh. Does anyone know if child protection has taken custody of the children -- or has Michael Hersh been able to manipulate them into thinking he's a safe parent?
I personally believe the safest place for Isaac Hersh is back in Texas with his twin brother. I also think the rest of the Hersh children should be sent down there too. They all need to be reunited with each other in a safe environment away from the insanity of Brooklyn. They need to be in a place in which healing is a possibility and where they can receive unconditional love and not be used in some sort of pawn in a rabbinical war.
Does anyone know what's happening with the rest of the children who are being held as prisoners at Tranquility Bay? Where is the public outrage? Why isn't everyone demanding that the national news media do a story about this?
I think Isaac Hersh is still in danger as I think all the children stuck at that "reform school".
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
FREE ISAAC From The Insanity
Isaac Hersh Is Not Safe and NEEDS to be in Houston
Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, Executive Director
The Awareness Center, Inc.
It saddens me to say that Isaac Hersh continues to be used as a pawn. It appears that his father (Michael Hersh), has difficulties seeing Isaac as anything other then an object. He is not looking at what's in the best interest of his child.
It has already been established that Isaac Hersh made allegations of being physically abused by his father while he was living in Israel. Because of the abuse and various other issues his father allegedly agreed to allow Isaac and his brother live in Houston, TX -- with a family friend, Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe.
The Wolbe is a home in which Isaac was provided unconditional love and stability. It is also the home in which his twin brother resides.
According to mental health professionals who are familiar with this case, it is in Isaac Hersh's best interest to return to the Wolbe home immediately. Unfortunately, Child Protective Services and the courts in New York are not looking at Isaac's desperate need to be in a stress free environment, one in which he is familiar and which is away from the insanity, while the legal matters are being addressed.
Currently, Isaac Hersh is staying in the home of Steve (Shlomo Zackheim). The home is smack in the middle of the war zone. It's been reported that Zackheim is a friend of Michael Hersh, and is someone who Rabbi Ahron Schechter has control over.
What is needed is an emergency court order granting Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe temporary legal guardianship, so that Issac can return to his normal routine and begin his healing process. A traumatized child cannot heal while he is in the middle of a psychological war zone. Isaac Hersh NEEDS to be in Houston, under the care of the Wolbe's. Isaac Hersh to be in a safe place, with individuals he knows, trusts and loves.
I happen to know Lesher personally and he strikes me as a man of deep integrity.
From:
http://www.thejerusalemkollel.com/profiles/wolbe.php
Meet Aryeh Wolbe, one of our Kollel Members.
In Aryeh's own words:
"Our father always taught us as children to be concerned for Klal Yisrael[the nation of Israel]- for the Klal and each individual in it. Starting from the small details of chesed, and even by small words of encouragement to people in need. My father, being a businessman and a truly giving person always ran (and runs) an open house. In addition, my greatest inspiration was from a speech that my grandfather gave on a visit to America when I was 13 years old (note - Aryeh's grandfather HaRav Shlomo Wolbe of blessed memory, considered by many to be the greatest, and most important proponent of Mussar [Torah based self-improvement] of recent times). In the speech, delivered at Ohr Sameach Monsey, my grandfather was highly emotional about the devastating situation of what he termed "the Spiritual Holocaust" that is threatening American Jewry. I was so affected, that I decided at that young age to focus my energies, in addition to my learning, towards helping, and being mekarev my fellow Jews. For example, at the age of 17, I started working with youth at risk- drug and alcohol abuse, emotional problems, etc. In addition, the situation of worldwide Jewry also has been a major focus for me throughout the last few years- from the ages of 17 through 22, I traveled to the Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus 9 times, at first working in programs there, including running Seminars and translating and transliterating Siddurim, Machzorim, etc. into Russian, for their use. Eventually, I started my own organization with the purpose of providing, for no charge, thousands of religious articles- tefillin, Mezuzot, etc. I've also worked extensively in America- I taught in Memphis, Tennessee on Torah U'masorah's SEED program on 7 different occasions, was a mentor at the Moodus Kiruv Program, and worked on many other programs.
In light of the above, joining Rabbi Berkovits' Kollel was the obvious choice in which to spend my last few years of learning in Israel. I not only received a strong methodology in Torah study, but also a new, positive, and productive world view. In addition, it's an incredible feeling to be in an institution with a group of future leaders who take their responsibilities to Klal Yisrael seriously.
My plans are to come to a community with little or no solid core of Judiasm, and to make a major impact in returning it to its Jewish roots."
Before joining The Jerusalem Kollel, Aryeh learned in some of the finest institutions of higher Jewish learning, including the Beis Medrash Gevoha of Lakewood.
Aryeh's wife Zahava, was brought up in a home dedicated to Chesed and Kiruv. Her father, R. Eli Gewirtz, is the head of Torah U'Mesorah's Partner's in Torah, one of the leading Kiruv Programs in the United States. Zahava has worked extensively in Kiruv, teaching, and counseling.
Aryeh is now the Executive Director of TORCH (The Houston Kiruv Kollel and Resource Center).
From: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/594/898
Aryeh Wolbe
CEO at TORCH
Houston, Texas Area
CEO at TORCH
Past Director at TIC Group
Founder & Chairman at Ani Yehudi
Recruiter at Partners in Torah
see less
Education The Jerusalem Kollel
Beth Medrash Gevoha
Aryeh Wolbe’s Experience
CEO
TORCH
(Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Religious Institutions industry)
September 2005 — Present (2 years 8 months)
Director
TIC Group
(Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Non-Profit Organization Management industry)
September 2004 — August 2005 (1 year)
Founded TIC as an outreach resource for the Fairfield County area. Developed and coordinated educational activities, such as lectures, One-on-one study programs (Partners in Torah), Executive Learning, Lunch & Learns, Children's programs, Holiday workshops and other community outreach programs.
Partnered with local Federation, JCC, Bureau of Jewish Education, BBYO, Merkaz, and synagogues of all affiliations.
Founder & Chairman
Ani Yehudi
(Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Media Production industry)
June 1997 — September 2004 (7 years 4 months)
Founded “Ani Yehudi”, a non-profit organization that raises funds for publishing and distributing religious articles for Jewish children throughout the former Soviet Union.
Published eight books in transliterated Russian and coordinated the distribution of over 10,000 copies to schools, synagogues
and camps. Currently preparing five new publications for print.
Created, designed and maintain www.AniYehudi.org offering various printable prayer texts, Jewish links and other Jewish
community information.
Recruiter
Partners in Torah
(Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Religious Institutions industry)
January 2002 — January 2004 (2 years 1 month)
Assisted recruitment at Birthright Israel events. Thousands of Birthright participants have joined the weekly tele-partners program of Partners In Torah.
Aryeh Wolbe’s Education
The Jerusalem Kollel
DD, 2001 — 2004
Rabbinically ordained by Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits, Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg and Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu on several areas in Jewish law.
Beth Medrash Gevoha
BA, Talmudic Law, 1999 — 2002
Who is Rabbi Yitzchak Berkowitz?
From:
http://www.thejerusalemkollel.com/index.php
The Visionary:
The Kollel is directed by Rav Yitzchak Berkovits who, in addition to being a leading posek and Jewish thinker, comes with years of experience in Jewish education and preparing students from different backgrounds for rabbinical and outreach positions.
As menahel ruchani of Yeshivat Aish HaTorah for over sixteen years, Rav Berkovits nurtured hundreds of young men and women on their path to Torah observance and continued to guide them through the various stages of growth as dedicated Jews,responsible parents and community leaders. Rav Berkovits developed and taught the Aish Hatorah smicha program guiding over one hundred students through successful completion of many areas of halacha and practical rabbinics.These Rabbis, as well as many others worldwide, continue to consult with him on matters of halacha and Jewish thought.
Rav Berkovits is recognized as a prominent posek throughout the world,and especially within the English speaking community in Jerusalem.He regularly trains groups of yeshiva students as future rabbanim,and his advice on community matters is sought across the globe.He also heads the Kollel Linas HaTzedek network in Israel and in the U.S.,currently numbering ten different evening kollelim dedicated to the study of bein adam lachaveiro -responsibility to one's fellow man.His classes on halachic issues in kiruv have been an important component in many outreach training programs.
Further, Rabbi Berkovits is widely renowned as an original Jewish thinker. His output, in the form of writing, tape and video, has been disseminated throughout the Jewish world.
The Vision:
The Jerusalem Kollel was founded with the intent of inspiring and training kollel students of the highest caliber to assume positions of leadership in waning Jewish communities worldwide.
The concept is simple and just had to be done.The yeshiva community continues to grow at a steadily increasing rate while assimilation is eating away at the dwindling Jewish population. Torah Scholarship is on the rise while ignorance in Jewish values is more rampant than ever. What could be more obvious than enlisting some of the finest products of the yeshiva system to stand at the forefront of the battle against assimilation?
And so, in the summer of 5762-2002, recruitment began for the initial group of twelve students who would form the cornerstone of the kollel-to-be. The kollel opened in the autumn and within months the student body exceeded twenty high quality young men committed to serving the Jewish people. Now starting its 4th year, the Kollel boasts over 60 hand-picked students, being groomed for their future roles.
The first kollel member to be placed assumed a major outreach position in the UK within the kollel's first year, with many more accepting positions since that time. Today, Jewish communities and outreach organizations regularly approach the kollel in search of talent to fill leadership positions throughout the world. Currently, the Kollel already has over 40 alumni working throughout the world for Klal Yisrael: from Seattle to Berlin; from Johannesburg to Edmonton.
The concept has become reality.
In cases of known serial molesters, even arrests, lawsuits, UOJ attacks, Elliot Passik criminal background checks, Ohel sponsored evenings on how to keep your children safe, will never be the most effective way of our community dealing with the problem. There are still many, many people out there who believe Kolko is innocent. You can jail him, but he can get out one day and find a new shul/candy store.
However, while we all have seen the corruption and moral bankruptcy of our Gedolim and leaders in their cruel and cynical turning a blind eye to the victims of abuse, we should keep in mind that they are the ONLY ones who truly have the power to protect us.
If Reb Matisyahu Solomon, who has publicly admitted that the problem exists, and Reb Shmuel Kaminetsky, who has told victims of Matis Weinberg to sue him, and Reb Dovid Feinstien, who has gone out on a limb to protect the Hersh boy, and the Novominsker Rebbe who needs to be reminded of his position on the Moetzes and Torah Umesorah which are organizations not limited to the Boro Park neighborhood, and Reb Aharon Shechter, (ok, we'll have to leave him out, I guess) and Reb Aharan Feldman, of Ner Yisroel would somehow be convinced so that they would actually WANT to stop rabbinic abuse of children, do you know how easy it would be????
These are people who in a matter of minutes canceled a public event in which hundreds of thousands of dollars had been invested. They just as quickly, in the snap of a wrist, destroyed a talented singer's career.
If they would just publish a little note/kol koreh in the Yated or Hamodia saying:
Please, dear parents, keep your kids away from:
Rabbi Mattis Weinberg
Rabbi Yudi Kolko
Rabbi Moshe Eiseman
Rabbi Avram Leizerovitz
The YOB rabbi (Nussbaum?)
etc.
Thousands of Jewish children would instantly be saved. And there would not be a need to even go into any graphic explanation of why. The kool-aid drinkers would follow blindly like they did with the concert. No explanation necessary.
Reb Matisyahu claimed one slipped through their fingers. But its still slipping!!!! Catch it!
Reb Shmuel said that there is nothing more he can do about Matis Weinberg if the Bais Din in Israel won't hear the case. Come again?
As Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz writes, if Reb Shmuel knew that Matis was handing out Treife lollipops to kids he would do more to stop it!
Someone asked Reb Dovid Fienstien why he doesn't publicly tell parents not to send their kids to YTT and he said that any parent crazy enough to do so at this point is hopeless. That is simply not true. They are full of hope. Just change the flavor of the Kool-Aid. Instead of the Oylam/Goylam trusting Margo because he gets to sign concert bans with all of the Gedolim, and gets to start a branch in Lakewood with Reb Malkiel's bracha, just have the Moetzes say its time for a new yeshiva in Brooklyn that actually does not let molesters slip through their fingers (and doesn't let the molesters fingers slip into the students pants.)
The Refuah really lies in the Makka. The same people who created this problem by abusing their power could easily solve it by simply seeing straight and using their power L'tov.
I think these individuals are overwhelmed with fear of their own inadequacies and insecurities and what it will mean if they acknowledge that they have made mistakes, and what it will mean if they publicize ANY black hat rabbi as being sick or dangerous. This is just good old fashioned short-sightedness.
If they would read Yankie Horowitz's articles (he apparently is too afraid of them to even show them what he writes), and if they would read the goyishe papers about the Catholic Church fiasco that cost them over 1.5 billion dollars and counting in law suits, surely they would realize that now is the time to take charge.
If not, then we will have to keep supporting UOJ in his tireless efforts to save as many children as possible, the hard way.
Chaval, al D'avdin Vlo Mishtakchin
For very obvious reasons I can’t sign my name on this. I am so ashamed. In Yeshiva Tiferes Tzvi there was an English teacher who was a rebbe in Hillel Torah in the morning, who took over and calmed things down after the Hillel Torah maaseh. He was fired by the vaad for a lack of class decorum, and for not being a good role model for the talmidim. It was explained that he severed ties with his choshuve family and he must be let go.
As someone without experience dealing with abuse, I was a forceful voice aginst this teacher. The meeting was merely a formality, the teacher wasn’t even invited to explain his side A week after the decision was finalized, Shmuel Pancer z”l called me and said the way this was handled was wrong it’s mammesh retzicha, but whats done is done. I didn’t pay much attention and life continued seeing success in business growth, and my childrens development.
A while later I noticed my teenage son was acting strange. I was confident that Gam Ze Ya’avor, all that fell apart when I met my son smoking at a bus stop on a Friday night. I had a long talk with him, and he said he was molested by someone close to him. We spent thousands on different psychologists, but he said they couldn’t relate to him. He moved out of our home on his own will, we were devastated. We were shoel aitzah with R’ Yakov Horowitz of Agudah, and R’ Orlowek and we were told to quietly watch how things pan out. Our nightmare ended five months later when he came home at last.
He is no longer yeshivish which is understandable, but he had a desire to live a fulfilling life. I asked him who is helping you through this and how much does he charge? He said “I met a rabbi who understands what I am going through and is helping me work through my problem”. For three years he talks about sound advice “rabbi” gave him. He absolutely refused to tell us who “rabbi” was. Last week my son sent me a present to my office. It was the book The Other Side of the Story. He left a note to call him for an explanation. He said “Ta, you know who the rabbi that helped me through everything, who talked with me till 2 in the morning, who helped me more than any doctor or rosh yeshiva is?” I was shocked that the one who helped my son come back to reality was none other than the teacher I so proudly had fired.
I remembered what Shmuel told me during the Nine Days only weeks before his tragic petirah, “How much tzaros happen to klal yisroel, because of sinas chinam. I know what the teacher went through as a kid, I’ve known him since he was ten years old. He made a painful decision and is no different than a yasom who it’s assur to bother them. Hashem watches out for people like him, you didn’t ruin his parnassah, you killed his purpose. Money can’t replace that, I’m scared for everyone involved, I was against the decision”.
Just like Mordechai of the megillah was respected by rov echav, not all echav, this Mordechai is the same, both were doresh tov l’amo putting aside their personal hurts and helping protect the needs of klal yisroel. I apologize on behalf of all who wronged you, who are now suffering in assorted ways.
Rabbi Motty Finkel was right and I was wrong. Please forgive me and all who wronged you. We judged you without being in your place. We embarrassed you in public, please accept our public apology.
Rabbi Finkel Chazak, Chazak, V’Nischazaik. Your aidelkeit, and warmth which we saw as weakness are your greatest strengths. May you, you wife and kids have good health, nachas and parnassah in abundance.
Seems Ben Brafman and Mostofsky
could start a partnership!
DEEP SHAME!!!!
NY Magazine doing an in-depth expose on Molestor-protectors NCSY and Agudah finances?
Who is funding these obstructionist$.
UOJ Enforcement Division said...
Where does this Putz Yonason Tendler live and daven?
12:12 PM, April 04, 2008
====================================
last i heard he lives in seagate and has a small yeshiva . dont know if this is his current situ..
"lives in seagate and has a small yeshiva"
Any affiliation with the following who have / had yeshivos in Sea Gate?:
R' Michel Spitzer and lehavdil Yehuda Pollock from Fallsburg?
http://www.forward.com/articles/13095/
World-Famous Cantor Allegedly the Target of Entrapment Plot
Scheme Said To Have Involved Hidden Hotel Camera
By Anthony Weiss
Thu. Apr 03, 2008
Forward
Naftali Hershtik, the cantor of the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, has been the target of an entrapment scheme allegedly orchestrated by one of his former students, according to information obtained exclusively by the Forward.
The rumors began weeks ago, when Israeli papers reported that an unnamed cantor had been lured by a young woman into a hotel room wired with a hidden camera, in an attempt to trap the cantor in a compromising position. The Forward has learned from sources close to the case that the target of the entrapment was Hershtik — one of the most famed and respected cantors in the world — and that the man being accused of arranging the plot is Israel Rand, a former student of Hershtik’s.
Photographs of Hershtik, 60, and the young woman, taken by a hidden camera, were sent anonymously to Hershtik’s employer, the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, in an apparent attempt to have Hershtik fired, according to synagogue officials. The Great Synagogue suspended Hershtik, but has since reinstated him, and its officials there are now defending the star cantor.
“It’s a classic case of entrapment except for one fact — that, to my knowledge, the chazzan [cantor] did not fall into that trap of any consequence,” said Rabbi David Fuld, president of the Great Synagogue’s board. Fuld said he reviewed photographs that were sent to the synagogue and that they showed “nothing of significance” that happened between Hershtik and the young woman.
Israeli papers reported this week that the Israeli Ministry of Justice had drafted indictments against a prominent cantor and several others for their roles in the scheme. In an e-mail message to the Forward, David Fadida, a spokesman for Rand, said: “To the best of my knowledge and for your information, there has been no draft indictment by the Israeli Ministry of Justice!” When asked if Rand was involved in the attempt to entrap Hershtik, Fadida denied it, saying that Rand would have no reason to attempt to entrap the “prominent cantor” because Rand is better paid. Fadida accused Hershtik of attempting to divert attention to Rand from himself because “he was coughted [sic] with young women in hotel.”
Although rumors have abounded in the Israeli press speculating why Rand might have attempted to ensnare Hershtik, the Forward has been unable to confirm this information.
The scandal turns the spotlight onto the universe of star cantors, where celebrity and flamboyant artistry intermingle with the demands of religious piety. Hershtik is one of the world’s most revered and influential cantors, credited with almost single-handedly sustaining and reviving the classical cantorial arts. Rand, who was born in 1963, is considered one of the rising stars of the new generation of cantors whom Hershtik helped train.
In both stature and pedigree, Hershtik is in ways a throwback to the so-called “Golden Age of Cantors,” the period from the late-19th century until World War II, when cantors commanded princely salaries, drew throngs of worshippers to their services, and sold hundreds of thousands of records. This era began to wane in the postwar years, as the grand cantorial style was largely supplanted by more informal, participatory services.
Born in Hungary to a cantorial family and raised in Israel, Hershtik functions in this classical cantorial tradition of Eastern Europe. He emerged as a major cantor in the early 1970s, as the cantor of London’s Finchley Synagogue.
Perhaps even more importantly, in 1984 Hershtik co-founded the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute, a school that trains cantors in the classical style, and which has taught many of today’s most important and celebrated cantors, including Yitzhak Meir Helfgot, Eric Moses and Gideon Zelermeyer.
One of those students was Rand, who is still listed on the school’s Web site as one of its prized students. In addition to a successful concert career, Rand was cantor at the Hampton Synagogue and its New York City affiliate, the New York Synagogue, from 1994 to 2005. Both synagogues are led by Rabbi Mark Schneier, and both have risen to prominence, and attracted wealthy members, in part because of their programs of cantorial music.
According to his Web site, Rand is currently the chief cantor at the Great Synagogue of Ramat Gan for the High Holidays. In a twist worthy of soap opera, his old position at Schneier’s operation is now held by Netanel Hershtik, Naftali Hershtik’s son and a prominent and respected cantor in his own right.
In 1982, Naftali Hershtik was hired as cantor of the newly constructed Jerusalem Great Synagogue and promptly established the synagogue as one of the international centers of cantorial music. Founded in 1982, the Great Synagogue is where Israel’s power elite come to pray. (The Israeli papers have reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Shimon Peres, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish, among others, have all attended the Great Synagogue during the High Holidays.) Hershtik performed at the Great Synagogue and, when on tour, arranged for other preeminent cantors to make appearances in his stead. Over time, these Great Synagogue cameos became prized as premier platforms for both established and aspiring cantors.
The entrapment story first appeared in the press when the newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that a tape had been discovered in a private investigator’s office during an unrelated raid. None of the dramatis personae was named. On March 17, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that a young woman claiming to be a graduate student in musicology approached a “world leading cantor” and asked to interview him for a paper on “cantorial art and liturgy.” She allegedly called him several weeks later with follow-up questions and asked him to meet her at her hotel.
Pictures taken by a camera in the hotel room were then sent to the Great Synagogue, arriving sometime before Rosh Hashanah of 2007. Great Synagogue officials familiar with the contents of the tape contested a report in Yediot Aharonot claiming the tape depicted a sordid sexual affair.
There was “no passionate sex,” said Zelli Jaffe, vice president of the Great Synagogue’s board, who told the Forward he has seen the entire tape. “No sex.”
Nevertheless, on February 11, Asher Schapiro, the chairman of the Great Synagogue’s board, sent Hershtik a letter stating that “we have decided you will no longer appear as a cantor at this synagogue.” Fuld told the Forward that the letter was sent without the board’s authorization, that it has been retracted, and that Hershtik remains the Great Synagogue’s cantor.
According to Jaffe, Hershtik has sued the Great Synagogue, a suit that is still pending. In addition, he filed a complaint with the police concerning the scheme.
Hershtik, meanwhile, continues to tour and perform. Over the Sabbath of March 28 and 29, Hershtik and the choir from the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute appeared at the New York Synagogue before a packed audience. Although most of the singing was done by the institute’s students, and by Netanel Hershtik, Naftali Hershtik did lead a few prayers, demonstrating his still-powerful tenor voice. Both the Friday evening and Saturday morning services closed with duets between the two Hershtiks.
Jaffe said he expects Naftali Hershtik to lead services at the Great Synagogue this coming Sabbath.
the time has come to expose the fraudulent organizations among us. such as: Agudas yisroel, yeshiva university, RCA, RCC, etc.... I do not want to hear about the "good " that they do! the halacha is clear
"IF A MISSIONARY GIVES YOU A CHUMASH TO LEARN FROM YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DISPOSE OF THIS CHUMASH!!! therefore chazal teach us not to possess anything from reshaim lest it influence you! I,m angered and disgusted that RAbonim have robbed my innocence of "rabbinic respect and honor" by acting so corruptively.here is a link where rabbonim committed a chilul hashem!
http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=2564
Mostofsky is as guilty as Isaac's father and R' Aaron Shechter. He didn't have to take this case or stay with it if he felt it was unethical. He was an active participant in all this. Hope the NCYI gives him the boot, but if not he will definitely get it after 120.
Happy to hear about Herstik. One of the all-time greats!
Who is really behind the sting?
The Spinka Rebbe was recently
spotted at a wedding in Toronto
Canada!
Anyone out there know how a person
on bail can travel to a foreign country?
Yoanasan Tendler's account in
Jewish week makes no sense.
The Yeshiva TT was paying back
previous loans to his 'foundation'-
fine. How then does this explain his dishing out funds to Kolko?
the whole thing stinks to gehonim!
To anon 2:37
Your comments are sincere just as they are a stinging rebuke to our leaders. I think the problem lies in the gemara of "pnei hador kipnei hakelev". A dog follows its master. Leaders are supposed to be out in front taking courageous positions at their own personal expense.
Our leaders are taking positions that have no personal risk whatsoever to their positions of power with the frummie black hat community. Sheitels concerts bugs these are all frummer than the next guy positions, softballs.
Chuseve Mechanchim Molesters, Rosh Yeshivas sitting on their moetzes who endorse child imprisonment, these are all hot potato issues, uncomfortable issues in the black hat community. How will the YTT or CB supporters react, maybe they will withold their agudah donation checks this year.
No chance. Forget about it not happening. In fact in order to prevent "chareidei bashing" and the "Chilul hashem" that will come out from the exposure of these stories, they will do everything in their power to suppress these stories.
This is their thinking. It hasn't changed in thirty years. Only a massive collapse of the system will bring about change. The cracks are starting to appear. The inaction with Kolko and Hersh story, contrasted with the Lipa concert fiasco, has even the most faithful scratching their heads big time. Its being talked about in every shul and mikve. People have no way to explain this stuff to their kids and our kids today can't be fooled.
Yumim Yageedo
I know Mr Mostovsky for MANY years- he is a dedicated hard working - hard fighter for jewish causes- there are 2 sides to this hirsh story -dont believe all ths BS on this page and hte lashon hara spread. Mr mostofsky is a fighter for yiddish causes
How come in the last 13 years Rabbi Belsky always found a HETER at the OU, never did he say something is OSSUR? Rabbi H. Schachter is the only one that ASSERED anything.
There is a song at the OU...Rebbi, Rebbi, make me a HETER.....
If I'm not mistaken, a 16 year old can file for legal emancipation in most states - any of you guys out there attorneys who could contact the boy? Once emancipated in NY he could go live with his foster parents in TX. Just a thought.
It is true that Mostofsky has fought for many yiddish causes,but don't let that blind you. In this case he was fighting to keep a Jewish boy in an abusive environment. There are two sides to every story, and he was on the wrong side. Do some research and come to an unbiased conclusion.
It is very hard for a 16 year old in the state of NY to get emancipated
Anyone who remembers the Shai Fhima kidnapping case from the early 1990s (google Rabbi Helbrans and see what he is up to with the ladies in his Canadian kehillah) and many other cases will realize that things are not always as they appear to the public.
Maybe we should pause or before concluding anything with regard to the Isaac Hersh case, let alone condemn personally some of the people involved, several of whom were clearly trying to do the right thing.
This is obviously a very complex and sensitive case. I do not know Mostofsky at all, but I am not sure that bloggers should serve as judge, jury, and dare I say executioner while the facts are not all in.
Let's hope those who have brought him back to the States have done the correct thing and he is getting the care he needs.
And maybe we should grant the family some privacy at this delicate stage.
Isaac will need some privacy to try to get his life back together.
Do the right thing, and give him the privacy he needs.
The poll question is not fair. If there are genuine gedolim we do not have complaints against like R' Moishe, R' Yaakov & lehavdil bain chaim lechaim R' Zelik, that means that we have no chisaron in emunas chochomim when we see the Agudah poster boys for what they are and lose all respect for them for covering for various criminals.
but I am not sure that bloggers should serve as judge, jury, and dare I say executioner while the facts are not all in.
----------------------------
There happen to be "bloggers" that have all the facts - and dare say that Mostofsky is a scumbag!
The Jewish Blogmeister is reporting the following:
Rabbi Yisroel Belsky: Speaking Out on Music Ban?
I'm not even sure that the yeshiva world has this information yet:It is public knowledge that the latest ban of the the "Big Event" has unfortunately given many a reason to lose faith in "daas torah". I was told by a very reliable source that Rabbi Yisroel Belsky is getting ready to publish a response to this ban in a Jewish Newspaper to be named shortly. The reason for the response: he never signed the kol koreh (shocked?!). I haven't looked that deeply into the whole episode regarding how much of a forgery it was but I always suspected as usual it was a lie to some degree. Now if Rabbi Belsky did not sign it, how much more likely that many others did not. I await to see this letter and the reaction it receives. There is no question that things of this nature should be left to one's own Rabbi to decide.
Rabbi Yisroel Belsky is getting ready to publish a response to this ban in a Jewish Newspaper to be named shortly. The reason for the response: he never signed the kol koreh (shocked?!).
------------------------
You don't believe that lie - do you? Of course that rat-weasel would say that - he's one foot out the OU! HE'S LYING STEVE! He OK'd his name added to the list! There may be no formal signature...Belsky the low-life - he'll say anything!
LOL! I'm just reporting what this putz blogger heard. If Belsky never signed it, why did it take him so long to say so?
Whew!!!! I thought we lost you Steve!
The "blogmeister" is the Jewish music blogger putz that's been defending Michael Hersh. I just thought we can all use some comic relief.
Just canceled the Hatzoloh call:-)
Both the the rabbi, who heads a kollel in Houston, at whose home Isaac Hersh lived and the principal of the local Yeshiva High School that he attended, have publicly said that Isaac is a normal boy. Even if that were not the case it is shocking that any religious Jew, who bothered to read any of the information readily available through google, could have sent a Jewish child to Tranquility Bay. How can anyone derive from Torah sources that the way to deal with a troubled teenager is to place him in a non-Jewish environment where his will is broken (if not his bones) until he submits to the schools total authority. A "school" surrounded by barbed wire with no certified teachers, no mental health professionals on the grounds and an optometrist as the only doctor.
Yosef Blau
this is not a comment. This is for the blog author. I just wrote a comment that I second the motion, Mostofsky is a scumbag. If you post it please post that it was written by anon. Thanks!
In a way Mostofsky is the worst of the bunch. Mr. Hersh is mentally ill, R' Aaron Shechter has negios (Doesn't want to admit that there is a problem with his talmid), but Mostofsky did not have to get involved and should have known better.
EDITED! Anon:
If you have that person contact me directly, I will be able to verify your claim. What you wrote, I have to verify directly with the person - before I put it up! My only agenda is the truth - wherever that may be!--
---------------
A reader writes:
I think you left out a significant fact in the Amy Neustein case.
Chezi Goldberg z"l dedicated his life to trying to bring peace between Jews.
Leaving out important facts to promote your own agenda only creates conflict based on deceipt. Be fair to your readers.
if you are so quick to believe this boy that his dad abused him, why aren't you believing amy neusteins daughter that her mom is nuts?
I know the facts in the Hersh case and I believe Amy. As I said - let that person contact me directly.
one more thing, you said by the lipa ban that the rabbonim never contacted lipa to hear his side, have you contacted the hersh's lawyer before vilifying him, and hear what he has to say? or did you just listen to amy neustein, who has zero actual knowledge of this case, considering she is not involved in it at all?
Edited!
...... if what she said is true, why did she lose on appeal, were those judges out to get her too,.................... that you don't believe, uoj? you pick and choose sides depending on what side rabbonim are on?
------------------------------
Third time - have that person contact me!
how does one contact you?
You don't need to contact the Hersh's lawyer. You can read what he has to say in The Jewish Star and you can read what everyone else says as well. If your IQ is above a 90 you will probably be able to figure it out. I guess Mostofsky should have kept quite, but he opened his mouth to the press and gave himself away.
has anyone here realized that the guy who paid for this whole thing didn't give his wife a get for a really long time, yossi sharashefsky.
i did research on him when the story broke, here is what i found:
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/21073/edition_id/21/format/html/displaystory.html
So far, besides Goldstein's, there is only one other publicly known case of kedusha ketana in the last few years -- that of Suri and Yossi Sharashefsky's daughter in Brooklyn. Yossi Sharashefsky, however, did not have his act validated by a religious court, as Israel Goldstein did. Several Orthodox rabbis, therefore, have said they do not consider it to be as serious a concern as the Goldstein case.
what a piece of work, marrying off his young daughter, and he is passing judgment on abuse?
Now that Rav Yosef Blau Shlita
has weighed in, a Rav of
uncompromising integrity and truth,
there is no question in my mind that a terrible deed has been done
here!
What was wrong with leaving the kid
with Rav Wolbe, a great yid who
is the son of the great Rav Wolbe
zt'l and an expert with youths
at risk!
There is a stench here that reaches
form Texas to CB!
Funny- I dont see anything about
the Hersh story on Yeshivaworld!
I may by contacted by e-mail:
a_unorthodoxjew@yahoo.com
I would request that I speak to the person involved directly - no intermediaries. Kindly - in that e-mail, give me a phone number - preferably a listed number with that person's name - and best time for me to call.
Sincerely...
YNet News
April 6, 2008
As her three-and-a-half-year-old comatose son continued to lie in his hospital bed, a Jerusalem woman was indicted Sunday by the Jerusalem District Court of abusing him and his four-and-a-half-year-old brother.
The court also indicted a family friend accused of conducting a "tikkun" (exorcism) on the children under the influence of a rabbi who fled to Canada.
OK, who is it? And should I expect his arrival here in MD any day?
There is NO child abuse problem in the Orthodox Jewish community, we don't care even if the victims keep popping up by the thousands. Robert Kolker is an anti-semite. UOJ is a disgruntled yeshiva guy. Lipa Margolis is a Godol. Aron Twerski and David Mandel from Ohel are anshei emes. Now stop bothering us with the facts.
http://www.yimidwood.org/bulletins/YIMBU0308.pdf
Mostofsky is no longer President or on the board at Young Israel of Midwood. Does he still daven there / live around there?
http://www.amyneustein.com/pubs/jv0503sherry.pdf
I cried when reading how this poor little girl was abused, almost to the point of dying, and how the monsters responsible like Steve Mostofsky can be big shots at the Agudah & Young Israel.
Anonymous said...
Funny- I dont see anything about
the Hersh story on Yeshivaworld!
......................
I said the samething....
Sounds like the Yeshitworld is like the Jewish Press .. they dont want any negative stuff
I love Rabbi Blau's short and to the point snippets. His integrity and ability to realize his own mistakes makes him the superhuman he is. If not for him & Rabbi H. Schachter I wouldn't be frum today.....and I never even met them! Heck, I'm not even a card carrying MO!
Put stones on a hot plate . . . when they are boiling, put them on the bodies of the children and then they will be cleansed."
Check out YWN today and it's story/positve reader comments about a "Frum" Chareidi guy who set off a riot on an EL-AL to Kiev because they showed a movie.
These behaimas and YWN don't have a clue.
But not a peep about Hersh & Schecter.
Thanks to VIN for providing the answer:
Israel - Rabbi Elior Chen, the spiritual authority behind a group accused of systematically abusing children in a Jerusalem family, has fled to Canada with one of his supporters.
Chen is supposed to meet the other members of the group in Canada, where the family of one of the members lives. Chen fled with Joseph Fisher, whose name was not mentioned in an indictment filed against the mother of the children suspected of being abused by Chen's followers.
The rosecutor's office is considering issuing an international warrant for Chen's arrest. During a search of his home, police found journals that document the violence.
Chen's two followers were ordered to discipline the children by beating, burning, pushing and shaking them, and tying them up as a way of "correcting" their behavior. A 4-year-old is still hospitalized and is in a vegetative state. Police suspect that Chen's supporters also doused the children in hot and cold water and broke their bones with hammers and blows.
The mother was charged with forcing the children to eat feces, beating them unconscious and locking them up in a suitcase for three days.
Chen and his supporters chose Canada in part, a source said, because "the extradition law is tough" there. "Only in very exceptional cases does Canada extradite," he said. [haaretz]
U/D: 04/07/08. 11:13
Israeli police say they have begun extradition proceedings against Rabbi Elior Chen.
Officials at the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv were not immediately available for comment Monday. [AP],.
Perfect. The Vicki Polen Beis Znus Congregation needs a rabbi. Shapiro can be gabbai. We've got that child porn distributor cantor from Nova Scotia. Maybe Kolko can be in charge of membership. Open up shop at the old Bud Schmidt Buick on Reisterstown. Heck with the Econolodge on the next block they can host Shabbatons.
Steve Mostofsky & Ozzie Orbach used to daven at the Young Israel of Redwood in Canarsie.
Guess who used to be the rabbi there before Jungreis?
Moshe Faskowitz who is Ephraim Bryks's mechutan & Michelle Tendler's 1st cousin.
Faskowitz quit the RCA to protest their pursuit of his molesting relatives.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE6DB173FF935A35752C0A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Ed Koch appointed my wife Sylvia to be chairman of the New York City Planning Commission.
I should also mention that Faskowitz currently has a shul & yeshiva in Hillcrest, Queens.
Mostofsky's corrupt predecessor as NCYI President is Chaim Kaminetsky, also of Hillcrest, Queens.
Editorial Observer
The Vatican and Globalization: Tinkering With Sin
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: April 7, 2008
It’s hard to erect rules to last forever. The recent suggestion by a bishop from the Vatican’s office of sin and penance that globalization and modernity gave rise to sins different from those dating from medieval times seemed to many like an acknowledgment that the world is, indeed, changing.
Church Norms encoded hundreds of years ago to guide human behavior in a small-scale agrarian society could not account for a globalized postindustrial information economy. Polluting the environment, drug trafficking, performing genetic manipulations or causing social inequities, new sinful behaviors mentioned by Msgr. Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the Vatican Penitentiary, are arguably more relevant to many contemporary Catholics than contraception.
“If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a value and resonance that is above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalization,” Monsignor Girotti told the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Sin, however, doesn’t take well to tinkering. Many Catholic thinkers reacted strongly against the idea that new sins were needed to complement, or supplement, the classical canon. They accused the press of exaggerating Monsignor Girotti’s words. Their reaction underscored how tough it is for the church to manage a moral code grounded in eternal verities at a time of furious change.
The Vatican has long been riven by this tension between dogma and the outside world. Yet it could apply to any religion: it’s hard to rejigger the rules when truth is meant to be fixed forever.
The core benefits of religions, unlike other, worldly institutions, often relate to the afterlife. Some social scientists argue, however, that many benefits of church membership are to be had this side of death. The gains are not unlike the advantages of a club of like-minded people. Religions provide rules to live by, solace in times of trouble and a sense of community. Some economic studies suggest that this can promote higher levels of education and income, more marriage and less divorce.
Such a club needs strong, believable rules. Like marriage, membership will be more valuable the more committed the other participants are to the common cause. Demanding rules — say celibacy, or avoiding meat during Lent — help enhance the level of commitment.
Strict rules, says the Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker, screen out free riders who wish to enjoy the benefits of membership but are unwilling to invest the necessary zeal in the enterprise. Rules provide commitment devices — like 10-point plans to stop drinking. And they tie members closer by substituting taboos — like drinking and dancing — with acceptable activities, like prayer or Sunday school.
Larry Iannaccone, an economist at George Mason University who has studied religions, notes that some of the most successful, like Jehovah’s Witnesses or Pentecostal Christians, which have very fervent congregations, have strict requirements. Religions relax the rules at their own peril.
“Religions are in the unusual situation in which it pays to make gratuitously costly demands,” Mr. Iannaccone said. “When they weaken their demands they make on members, they undermine their credibility.”
The Vatican is particularly attentive to these strictures. Catholicism has lost traction in many parts of the world. Only 24 percent of American adults identify with the church, though more than 31 percent say they were raised Catholic. In Italy, only about one in four respondents to a 2002 poll said religion was very important.
Many traditionalists attribute the church’s decline to the weakening of its strictures. They believe it was damaged by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which tried to bring the church closer to the people, proclaimed religious freedom, embraced people of other Christian faiths and acknowledged truth in other religions.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that the church has been pushing the other way. Pope Benedict XVI has brought back rites abandoned after Vatican II and reasserted the church’s hold on truth.
In this context, it could be tricky to update sins in a way that could de-emphasize individual trespasses and shift the focus to social crimes bearing a collective guilt. New sins might be a better fit for the modern world, but they risk alienating the membership.
Witness tampering & intimidation
http://www.amyneustein.com/pubs/jv0505sherry2.pdf
Young Israel's Pesach Lerner
JCRC's Robert Pollock & possibly Sylvia Deutsch
Martin Samson, lawyer for Young Israel & Leon Deutsch
A Sudden Attack Sparks Crusade
by Ellis Henican
February 21, 1997
Newsday, Queens
The house is no different from the other houses on the block.
Not so you'd notice anyway.
Bedrooms upstairs. A kitchen down. A spacious living room. Just
another big house on Gateway Boulevard in Far Rockaway, a residential block like blocks all over the borough.
Which is precisely the point.
The Bais Ezra Community Residence, as the house is called, is for mentally ill adults, an alternative to the big snake-pit institutions where most mental patients once were parked.
"It's a perfectly wonderful idea," Michele Miltz was saying. "Perfectly wonderful, depending on what kinds of problems the particular clients have."
That's a distinction this 37-year-old mother of five has learned
about the hard way.
Miltz was a staff nurse at the Bais Ezra house, looking after the
residents' medical and dietary needs. One day in 1993, she was in her small office on her second floor, doing paperwork.
"I was sitting at my desk," she recalled. A resident named Jeffrey
came in.
Jeffrey asked about a dental appointment Miltz had set up. "I told him, `It's not a problem. It's a regular appointment. We'll talk about it before you go.'
"The next thing I noticed I was flying through the air."
Jeffrey was about 5-foot-9 and 200 pounds. Miltz is 5-foot-2 1/2 - inches and 115 pounds. He did not have much trouble overpowering her.
Miltz was wearing a red V-neck dress that day. "He grabbed me on the V," she remembered. "He tossed me up in the air. My head hit the floor. Then he dragged me what must have been 10 feet, and he jumped on top of me.
"He was sitting on my knees. He pulled my dress above my head. My bra was up at my throat. His hands were around my neck. He had me pinned like that. The worst part was that I couldn't scream."
Four times, Miltz said, she faded out of consciousness. "The more I
twisted, the angrier he got," she said.
Eventually, some other staff members rushed to help. After a
difficult struggle, they pulled Jeffrey off.
It's been almost four years now since that horrible day in that
average-looking house. But the echos haven't even begun to fade.
Miltz says her health has never been the same since the sexual
assault. She was bruised and battered and wracked with pain. Her back was in a brace for months. She's had two major operations on her right leg. A third is planned.
She has filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit that is winding its way toward trial. In court papers, she says Jeffrey had been involved in seven previous outbursts at the home.
And suddenly, Michele Miltz finds herself at the center of a hotly
contested political debate that goes far beyond her own case.
The fight for victims of the on-the-job assault.
Like many people in her position, Miltz was told to make her claim
with the state's notoriously stingy Workers Compensation Board.
But Miltz' lawyer, Alan Kestenbaum, said last night he has found a way around that general rule. He isn't suing Bais Ezra, Miltz' direct employer. He's suing another nonprofit group, OHEL Family and Childrens Services, the agency he says is responsible for supervising
the Bais Ezra home.
"They really are one and the same," Kestenbaum said. "OHEL is
responsible for the day-to-day operations of Bais Ezra."
David Mandel, OHEL's chief, disputed that claim yesterday.
"OHEL did not do anything wrong and was not negligent," he said in a written statement.
"Therefore, OHEL is taking the necessary measures to defend itself against an unmerited lawsuit."
Through an aide, Mandel declined to answers questions about the suit.
This whole issue of Workers Comp is suddenly hot, after the recent
big-dollar settlement of a lawsuit against Saks Fifth Avenue. The case was brought by a Saks executive who was sexually assaulted by a security guard.
"The Miltz case is yet another example of why Workers Compensation sells workers short," said Manhattan attorney Elizabeth Mason, who represented the woman in the Saks case.
Mason, the National Organization for Women and other groups have been pushing for a change in State Law, allowing lawsuits by victims like these. Legislation has been proposed by Assemb. Catherine Abate of Manhattan.
"I never thought I would become a crusader for something like this,"
said Miltz, who lives with her family in Long Beach. "I have a
daughter who's retarded. So I'm not the lock-em-all-up type."
The Queens district attorney considered criminal charges against Jeffrey, but decided not to proceed. Jeffrey has since been moved, prosecutors said, to a more secure institution. (Miltz reports she was horrified to see him one day at the camp her daughter attends.)
For her part, Miltz said she's eager to help get changes in the
Workers Comp law. "I'll speak," she said. "They can use my name. I'll do whatever I can.
"If they want me to," she added, "I'll even bring the bra."
Newsday Photo by Audrey C. Tiernan- Michele Miltz tells her horror story of how a sudden attack on the job has changed her life and made her a crusader.
I'm another putz lawyer involved in this criminal enterprise. You can see my picture here.
http://www.internetlibrary.com/samsonmar_bio.cfm
Martin H. Samson
Partner
Davidoff Malito & Hutcher LLP
605 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10158
mhs@dmlegal.com
phone: (646) 428-3250
Martin H. Samson is a partner in the New York law firm of Davidoff Malito & Hutcher LLP. For the past 25 years, Mr. Samson has represented clients in complex commercial litigations in both federal and state courts. Mr. Samson also specializes in litigation and corporate representations for clients conducting business on the Internet, regularly counseling clients on matters addressing online defamation and trademark and copyright infringement.
Prior to joining Davidoff, Malito & Hutcher, Mr. Samson was a litigation partner at Phillips Nizer LLP from 1990-2006. Mr. Samson learned his craft at Shea & Gould, with whom he was associated from 1982 until 1990.
Education:
UCLA School of Law, JD, 1981
Duke Univ., AB, 1977, magna cum laude
I was with Martin Samson when he used to be at Phillips Nizer. Besides looking like Yudi without a beard, here is my bio:
http://www.phillipsnizer.com/attorneys/kolkodan_bio.cfm
Daniel M. Kolko
Associate
New York Office
dkolko@phillipsnizer.com
phone: (212) 841-0741
fax: (212) 262-5152
From 1977 to 1979, Mr. Kolko was a Confidential Law Clerk with the New York State Court of Appeals. Since that time he has been a litigator in the New York Metropolitan area, with Parker, Chapin, Flattau & Klimpl, Suozzi, English & Klein, and Kreindler & Kreindler.
Seems like the Chaim Berliner's don't like some of the messages so they are trying killing the messengers and they have launched strikes online against Vicki Polin for her way of stating and reporting the Isaac Hersh/Micahel Hersh/Aron Shechter case all over the place.
Se examples at
http://jewishmuzic.blogspot.com/2008/04/awareness-center-and-isaac-hersh.html
Thursday, April 03, 2008
The Awareness Center and Isaac Hersh
I feel at the very least this information should become public:
This information was emailed to me:
The Awareness Center is making a big stink about Michoel Hersh and Rav Aharon Schechter but she has a terrible reputation in terms of stealing money and acting inappropriate.She even said on live TV that she sacrificed baby's together with her family when she was younger.How sick is that? She is not even frum!!!Why is she allowed to operate? There are no Rabanim that back her.Naomi Rogen says not to trust her.
Jewish Blogmeister said...
My stance is very simple...if you want to take a hit at somebody (namely Hersh) be ready to take what you give. I'm simply giving a voice of the other side which the media in general has done little to publish. These btw are not my words I'm simply publishing an email with information given to me and I reserve the write to do so. If I feel there may be something unfair I will withdraw it.
Hi. Every Blog and website that we asked about their decision to post such horrible things about Rav Aharon and Michoel at least responded to requests for clarification, even the Daily News...except the awareness center. Here is her response and that is the reason we are not trying to bring any other group to task.
Dear Friends,
The Awareness Center will be on an extended sabbatical starting tomorrow, April 3, 2008, until which time we have enough funds to hire staff to keep up with the demands.
It's been a pleasure getting to know all of those who we have met over the years and are hopeful someday that the need for an organization like The Awareness Center will diminish.
If you would like to make a donation send checks to the address listed below.
Sincerely,
Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, ATR-BC
Founder, Executive Director -The Awareness Center, Inc.
(the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault)
P.O. Box 65273, Baltimore, MD 21209
and
http://jewishmuzic.blogspot.com/2008/04/isaac-hersh-saga-continuesupdates.html
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Isaac Hersh Saga Continues...Updates...
I recently posted an article about possible lies that were being told in relation to the Isaac Hersh story. A personal friend of mine has spoken to me and he's deeply involved in the case. Evidently anyone who dares to take the side of Michael Hersh and his family are going to have their names dragged through the mud and called the most hideous names. Case in point is Zvi who I know personally to be a great person and has helped my family as well as many others. Yet in comments made elsehwere people would like like to condemn him and it makes me sad to see it. In my humble opinion the truth has yet to present itself and I think the media has been to some degree one sided in smearing the name of the Hersh's ( which of course they feel is quite deserving). I'm only presenting the side that's not getting much of a voice as they should have a right to be heard.
Here are some updates:
Regarding the allegation that Mr. Hersh was running from abuse charges in Israel, here is a quote from an insider to the whole case:
"The charges of abuse in Israel were made by the same anonymous person or people that have filed a number of complaints against the Hersh’s in NY and Michael can give you the documents, if you would like to have them. The case in Israel was closed and ended in favor of Michael. Note that anybody of organization can be accused it’s the outcome that counts."
Regarding the issues of Kosher food and the allegations about abuse in the camp:
"An attorney for the Hersh family, Shlomo Mostofsky, who became involved in the case at the request of Agudath Israel of America, maintained in an interview that “the child was in a number of different places. Every single place he was at sent him home. At times he was suicidal. He would attack his siblings in the house. “Someone who knows [the parents] since childhood is prepared to testify that he saw the kid go after his mother with a broom,” Mostofsky said, adding that psychiatric evaluations impacted the family’s decision to take drastic action. Friends of the Hershes, who know the family well, called The Jewish Star on Monday, eager to vouch for the parents, saying that they had witnessed Isaac’s behavioral problems and observed firsthand his strained relationship with the family. Isaac’s mother survived cancer a number of years ago while the family lived in Israel. That may have led to problems at home for Isaac and his twin brother, Sol, who also does not live with his parents today. Mr. Mostofsky said that according to his client, “Rav Aharon knew the place wasn’t kosher, that there was no Judaism there, and the feeling was that he needed a place like this or he wasn’t necessarily going to get through life –– that it was pikuach nefesh.”
Anonymous said...
Hello. I deeply involved in the case and I want you to know that the parents were always hoping that it would pass and that they would be able to find the right psychiatric doctor for him.
Not very long ago he was admitted to a facility in the USA that kept him for 2 weeks and then released him since he showed some improvement, but it did not last.
They sent him to a foster family in Texas but after a couple of moths sent him back home because he was too difficult to handle. That is when Rav Aharon gave the green light to send him to a boot camp as he was deemed a danger to himself and to his family.
I hope I cleared this up a bit. if you have any questions I will always be happy to provide the answer.
I can't rest while this choshuve family is getting swallowed alive.
I remember months go, when the Wolbe's in Texas called up the Hershs apologizing for not being able to continue hosting Isaac. They were at their wits end with him. They couldn't control him and he was making their lives very difficult. He was kicked out of the school there too and had gotten in trouble too many times. THEY BEGGED MICHAEL TO COME AND GET HIM. I remember this because at the time, I was contemplating taking him in. I didn't tho, because my family was opposed to a dangerous teenage boy living with us.
The Chaim Berliners are cultists - led by crazy-man Schechter. Rabbi Yosef Blau verified the correct version of the story.
http://www.ujafedny.org/atf/cf/%7BAD848866-09C4-482C-9277-51A5D9CD6246%7D/Poverty_Report2004.pdf
In determining how the JCRC's Robert Pollock got involved with Mostofsky & Deutsch, let's see who is possibly connected here.
JCRC is the UJA's Jewish Community Relations Council.
Another UJA entity is the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty which is stacked with all kinds of Chaim Berliners and other suspicious persons.
At UJA itself you have Matthew Maryles from Young Israel & Tisch from Artscroll / Mesorah.
The Met Council CEO is Willy Rapfogel who was involved in extricating Isaac Hersh from Jamaica.
1st Vice President is Izzy Englander, a close disciple of R' Aron Schechter.
Vice President is Pro-fresser Richard Stone of Columbia U. He's VP of the OU and on the board of Torah Umesorah. He was once Assistant Solicitor General of the United States. By the age of thirty, Professor Stone had argued a dozen cases in the US Supreme Court.
Executive Consultant is R' Dovid Cohen.
On the board of directors you have Abe Biederman from Boro Park, all-purpose prostitute / shill for hire Menachem Lubinsky, Rabbi Haskell Lookstein and Chaim Berliner Saul Kamelhar. Kamelhar is a mechutan with a lawyer Klein who used to daven at Frankel's shul.
...for trying to evaluate, help and seek the release of 16 year old Isaac Hersh from the clutches of the brutal Jamaicans that run "Tranquilty Bay" on their happy little island, this was the psychologist who was part of the team that flew down there last week and who were then summarily arrested there on the orders of Michael Hersh/Aron Shechter/Steve Mostofsky but were only saved by the US consulate after the intervention of the US State Department:
http://media.www.yucommentator.com/media/storage/paper652/news/2004/08/30/News/Azrieli.Adds.Full.Time.Psychologist-704056.shtml
Azrieli adds full time psychologist
Appointee Also to Join Administration
Allen Srulowitz
Issue date: 8/30/04 Section: News
Among the many additions made to Yeshiva's undergraduate faculty over the summer, a prominent member of the New York Jewish community was brought on board to the Yeshiva administration and will teach at its graduate schools.
Dr. David Pelcovitz, formerly clinical professor in psychiatry at New YorK University School of Medicine and director of psychology at North Shore University Hospital-NYU School of Medicine, has been appointed professor of education and psychology at Azrieli's Graduate School of Jewish Education. He will also serve as special assistant to the president on important issues relating to the Jewish community.
Dr. Pelcovitz's charge is to prepare the university's hopeful rabbis and educators to deal with problems that may arise within their future communities. Prior to the appointment, Dr. Pelcovitz taught courses in pastoral psychology, which is the counseling aspect of a rabbi's job, at the Bella and Harry Wexner Kollel Elyon and Semikha Honors Program at the university's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Grief counseling, marriage counseling, counseling of at-risk children, and counseling of depressed children and adults are all now part of a rabbi's job description. Rabbis and teachers also need to know for what to be aware as signs of any kind of emotional difficulties.
Dr. Pelcovitz will also be involved in training the university's resident advisers and junior mashgichim. "This," said Dr. Pelcovitz, "is part of Yeshiva's effort to improve its counseling program."
While Dr. Pelcovitz's responsibilities do not include counseling individual students, he will, he said, counsel any student who seeks him out. Aside from the random student seeking him out, Dr. Pelcovitz describes his role in student counseling as once removed from the student. He will provide training to the people who actually provide counseling.
In spite of Dr. Pelcovitz's existing prominence in the academic community, he claims to have not been looking for a new job, crediting his joining Yeshiva to its president Richard M. Joel. "Because [President] Richard Joel is a pretty persuasive guy," said Dr. Pelcovitz. "I know it sounds corny, but there is something very appealing about helping to train the future educational leaders and rabbis of the Jewish world."
Dr. Pelcovitz received a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Parenting Path. His expertise lies in family trauma, at-risk youth, and child abuse. His recent research in trauma involved counseling family members of September 11 terror fatalities and survivors of terrorist attacks in Israel.
And
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:PgfttNTTHEUJ:spider.mc.yu.edu/news/articles/article.cfm%3Fid%3D100937+%22David+Pelcovitz%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Yeshiva University - What's New at YU:
Dr. David Pelcovitz Invested as Occupant of Straus Chair in Jewish Education
Apr 1, 2005 -- Dr. David Pelcovitz, professor of education and psychology at Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, was installed as the occupant of the Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Chair in Jewish Education at an official ceremony in Geraldine Schottenstein Cultural Center on Thursday, March 31. The chair endowed by Moshael and Zahava Straus in memory of their parents, will be at the Azrieli School with a joint appointment at Stern College for Women.
“I would like to thank Moshael Straus for his generosity and vision and for the wonderful appointment of Dr. Pelcovitz to this chair. This gift will allow us to expand the vision that Moshael's leadership has brought to the school,” said Dr. David J. Schnall, Azrieli dean. “We celebrate the mandate, the calling and the mission of continuity of our people that this appointment will help make possible.” Dr. Schnall also lauded Jewish educators who dedicate themselves to serve the Jewish people and who are “the core that moves our university.”
Karen Bacon, PhD, The Monique C. Katz Dean of Stern College for Women, also thanked Mr. Straus for his "largesse that will enrich so many women." Chancellor Norman Lamm also expressed gratitude to Moshael and Zahava Straus for their gift and noted that they are the youngest benefactors of YU and presented them with a symbolic chair as a token of appreciation.
Mr. Straus, founding chairman of Azrieli’s board, secretary of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and a YU board trustee, said he was personally honored that Dr. Pelcovitz accepted the position of occupant of the Straus chair. “We need resources to train teachers and rabbis,” he said, “and this is a very appropriate way to honor my parents.”
YU President Richard M. Joel invested Dr. Pelcovitz and described the critical role he plays in advancing Azrieli and its commitment to Jewish education. “In moving the university forward we needed a serious scholar, a professional and a ben Torah (an observant Jew) to spearhead efforts to help the Jewish community, which he has done throughout his career. We honor David Pelcovitz at the same time that we honor the Straus chair with David Pelcovitz.”
In graciously accepting the honor awarded to him, Dr. Pelcovitz said, “Moshael Straus epitomizes the mission I am about to assume: that of educating and serving the Jewish community.” He delivered the inaugural address of the Straus chair on the topic of “The At-Risk Adolescent in the Orthodox Jewish Community.” He concluded by paying tribute to the Strauses for “lighting lights of inspiration for the community, educating educators and helping parents to hug their children.”
Does anyone know if Steve Mostofsky is following all this and crapping in his hoyzen?
I was going to email it to him but the big bully would probably threaten to sue me too.
(Spitzer's no tzadik, but he was in good company here it seems...)
From The Jewish Daily Forward:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Young+Israel+of+Fifth+Avenue+synagogue&btnG=Google+Search
Spitzer’s Office: We Found ‘Significant’ Problems At Young Israel
By Nathaniel Popper
Fri. Dec 09, 2005
The office of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was riven by an investigation of an Orthodox synagogue organization, but the one thing all members of the attorney general’s office agree on is that the office found “significant” problems at the synagogue organization that have not previously been disclosed publicly.
Spitzer’s office began looking at the organization, the National Council of Young Israel, in 1999, when the council made a routine application to the attorney general for a new mortgage. The mortgage was for a nursing home operated by the National Council in a suburb of New York City. The inquiry, routine in the case of a refinancing application by a non-profit, soon uncovered a $6.5 million liability that the nursing home had to the New York department of health.
The investigation was passed to the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which, prior to 2002, identified some $215,000 in illegal loans made to the organization’s former president, Chaim Kaminetsky, who was also the administrator of the nursing home. Those loans, which contravened state charity law according to the attorney general’s office, were paid back, some before the investigation and some afterward. In addition to the loans, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit identified close to $5,000 in payments on behalf of Kaminetsky’s relatives.
The attorney general’s office also identified $130,000 in payments that went to the National Council’s executive vice president, Pesach Lerner, and were not backed up with contemporaneous documentation. The National Council provided explanations to the attorney general’s office for many of these payments, including $50,000 that was described as a loan to Lerner, and $25,000 described as an adjustment for sick days, according to the attorney general’s office. In the end, $20,000 was not accounted for and the attorney general’s office decided to hand the case over to state and federal tax authorities.
Spitzer also said that the National Council had governance problems that his office worked to correct.
A lawyer for the National Council declined to respond to specific allegations. In declining to respond, the attorney cited an earlier article written by the Forward that contained a factual error, corrected a week later, about the sale of the National Council’s headquarters building in Manhattan.
“We are surprised by your new convoluted inquiries which appear to have been suggested by those with various axes to grind,” wrote Kenneth Fisher, a lawyer for the National Council.
“We are proud of the work done by our professional staff, rabbis, lay board and volunteers, including the planned sales of some of our real estate interests which were approved by Attorney General Spitzer’s office after extensive review of our operations and procedures, and which will enable us to continue our services to our more than 150 member congregations for many years to come.”
Multiple messages left at Chaim Kaminetsky’s home and office, seeking comment, were not returned. Kaminetsky left the National Council and works today as the president of the Highland Care Center, a nursing home in Jamaica, N.Y.
Only one element of the attorney general’s investigations of the National Council has previously been made public. In 2002, the National Council needed the attorney general’s approval when it decided to sell its Manhattan headquarters, which also housed a member synagogue, the Young Israel of Fifth Avenue. The synagogue sued to block the sale. Some members of the attorney general’s office were also opposed to allowing the sale.
The dispute was settled in August 2005, when a member of the Young Israel of Fifth Avenue agreed to buy the building and allow the synagogue to remain. As a condition for the attorney general’s approval of the sale, the National Council agreed in court documents to use $4 million from the proceeds to set up a trust that cannot be dissolved until the nursing home Medicaid liability is repaid to the state.
The liability had been accrued after the nursing home was granted not-for-profit tax status in the 1980s. Medicaid payments are calculated, in part, based on tax payments, and as a result the exemption should have lowered the nursing home’s reimbursement rate. According to a letter from the National Council’s lawyers, the organization was told in the 1980s that the department of health would lower its reimbursement rate, but the department never did so.
The attorney general’s office says that after the liability was uncovered, the state department of health began recouping the money by withholding a set amount from Medicaid payments to the National Council’s nursing home. To date, the attorney general’s office said that $1.5 million of the liability has been recovered.
Some members of the National Council’s governing bodies have said that even after the attorney general’s involvement with the National Council, governance problems have continued at the organization. A lawsuit regarding the governance of the National Council was filed earlier this year by a member of the National Council’s delegate’s assembly — the organization’s top governing board below the board of directors. The suit, filed by Ira Sturm, whose father is a former executive vice president of the National Council, said the National Council leadership had violated the organization’s constitution by not allowing for proper oversight.
The National Council’s constitution mandates that the delegates assembly meet at least three times a year, approve the budget once a year and elect a president every two years. According to Sturm’s lawsuit, none of these conditions have been fulfilled since the current president took over in 2000. Sturm, who belongs to a Young Israel synagogue in Woodmere, N.Y., withdrew the lawsuit earlier this year and declined to comment on it. But another member of the delegates assembly — from the Young Israel of Fifth Avenue — said that the points Sturm made about the delegates assembly were still true.
“They really should be held to a higher standard,” said Victor Bellino, who was president of the Young Israel of Fifth Avenue from 2000 until earlier this year, and a member of the delegates assembly during that time.
Bellino, whose synagogue will become independent of the National Council under the deal worked out in the sale of the Manhattan property, said, “I’m glad we’re getting away from them.”
Unkosher for Passover Lerner was oh so worried about the eviction of Jews andf their shulls from Gaza, but he didn't when it came to evicting the shull on his office doorstep he was all for it (why not, there was a secen figure dollar rainbow in it for the NCYI! So aftre unkosher for Passover Lerner pushed out long-time exec vp Rabbi Ephraim Sturm, he went to work... and one of the first "great things" he tried to do was...well naturally push out and destroy a Young israel shull (what else are Young israel shulls meant for but for destruction by greedy balebatim and even so-called rabbis) as reported in the New York Times:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405EEDB133BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63
Metro Briefing | New York: Manhattan: Synagogue Wins Reprieve
By DANIEL J. WAKIN (NYT); COMPILED BY MARIA NEWMAN
Published: September 11, 2003
An Orthodox Jewish synagogue in the Flatiron district has won a reprieve from eviction and a legal victory over its umbrella movement, the National Council of Young Israel. On Tuesday, a ruling by a judge in State Supreme Court, Debra A. James, rejected the National Council's petition to sell its headquarters, which also houses the Young Israel of Fifth Avenue synagogue. The judge said the council's board of directors failed to follow the proper procedures in voting to sell the six-story building, at 3 West 16th Street, to a developer for $5.4 million. Rabbi Israel Wohlgelernter said, ''Maybe they'll see the light, the light that Jewish law forbids selling a synagogue.'' In her ruling, the judge also rejected the synagogue's claim that it, too, was an owner of the building. A lawyer for the umbrella group said it had not decided whether to appeal or to hold another board meeting to approve the sale. Daniel J. Wakin (NYT)
The Jewish Daily Forward:
http://www.forward.com/articles/shul-dispute-nears-end/
Shul Dispute Nears End
By Nathaniel Popper
Fri. Aug 19, 2005
After a lengthy court battle and an investigation by the New York attorney general, an Orthodox synagogue union will be allowed to sell its Manhattan building.
The initial efforts to sell the building drew a lawsuit from the congregation that it houses, Young Israel of Fifth Avenue. Leaders of the congregation opened court proceedings three years ago to stop the sale, saying that it would result in their eviction. After months of deliberations, this week the congregation and the National Council of Young Israel struck an agreement that would allow the sale of the building to a member of Young Israel of Fifth Avenue.
The congregation has approved the agreement already, and leaders of the National Council were set to vote on it Wednesday night, after press time. If the deal is approved, the parties will make a court appearance on Friday to finalize details. Young Israel of Fifth Avenue will then sever ties with the National Council and take a new name.
Lawyers for both Young Israel of Fifth Avenue and the National Council declined to comment on the agreement.
The proposed sale of the building sparked a lengthy investigation of the National Council by the office of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The attorney general’s office looked into past financial irregularities at the National Council, which represents about 200 congregations.
Last fall, four years after the investigation began, Spitzer’s office approved the sale. But the congregation’s lawsuit continued to stand in the way of the organization’s efforts to finalize a deal with Howard Neu, a Cleveland-based buyer.
The congregation filed its lawsuit in 2002, after the National Council entered into a contract to sell the property for less than the assessed market value to Neu, who was rumored to have ties to Pesach Lerner, national executive director of the National Council.
Under the agreement reached this week, the congregation will drop its lawsuit and the building will be sold to a member of Young Israel of Fifth Avenue, Steven Ancona, who has said he will allow the congregation to stay in the building.
Dear Birds Of A Feather,
Can you kindly e-mail me with your e-mail address. I would like your cooperation on something I'm looking into.
Thanks,
UOJ
A Kashruth Alert regarding the reliability of Mexican meat & poultry products was allegedly disseminated by the Orthodox Union. In fact, the Orthodox Union did not disseminate this alert in any fashion and does not have any knowledge regarding the Shechita processes in Mexico.
More OU Kosher Alerts
It's David Pollock, not Robert Pollock, who is Associate Executive Director of the JCRC
David Pollock. - pollockd@jcrcny.org
David Pollock is a liaison for the Jewish community with law enforcement officials and is active in the development of intergroup relations strategies for the Jewish Community.
Pollock has gained a degree of expertise in understanding legal boundaries regarding Jewish institutions. He will begin to help NCSD members to establish parameters for interaction with unruly, offensive, or otherwise unwanted synagogue visitors.
Pollock is also Administrator of the Universal Torah Registry and has played a key role in Development of the methodology employed by the Torah Registry. He is also heavily involved with the NYPD “Torah Task Force” – an elite unit of detectives and prosecutors who pursue and prosecute those who steal traffic in looted religious articles.
The idea of a Torah registry was born in 1982 under the guidance of Rabbi Israel Miller, then the Senior Vice President of Yeshiva University and a member of the Board of Governors of the OU, and Rabbi Emanuel Holzer, Chairman of the Rabbinic Kashruth Commission of the RCA. Consultations with Rabbinic authorities verified that a unique, invisible mark could be placed on Torah scrolls but an applicable methodology remained elusive.
A lot of people are now aware of Young Israel corruption thanks to UOJ.
Chaim Kaminetsky now gets sneered at by people when he's out shopping or davening.
Last week he was buying some food and he was spotted by a member of a local Young Israel. The fellow ran into the store as Kaminetsky was leaving and opined out loud to all the shoppers that Kaminetsky, Lerner & Mostofsky should all go to prison.
It's shocking that prominent Boro Park pediatrician Dr. Susan Schulman is mixed up in this whole mess with Orbach, Mostofksy & Ohel and has been heard saying at an Ohel meeting that she could be imprisoned for assisting in Ohel cover ups.
Working in concert with Mostofsky are Judge Leon Deutsch & court appointed psychiatrist Arthur Green ... are any of these lowlife gangsters officially Orthodox?
UOJ said it best:
Ensuring at Ohel that no cover up gets uncovered.
That kind of has a nice ring to it so let me paraphrase ...
At no time were any cover ups uncovered.
What's the din if you cover up penetration?
The metzius of a din penetration is that it remains covered up.
The Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday convicted a 59-
year-old man from Netanya of committing indecent acts against his daughter over a period of two years, when she was aged between seven and nine.
The acts were carried out almost daily in the family's living room and in the girl's bedroom while she was sleeping.
In his ruling, the judge noted that in 2002, complaints were filed against the man for allegedly abusing his daughter, son and his daughter's friend between 1995-1996. However the case was closed due to lack of evidence.
The girl, now an IDF soldier, turned to her father in court and told him she was testifying against him so that her younger brother wouldn't end up like him.
The same court also indicted 24-year-old Beersheba resident Yishai Cohen on Sunday on suspicion of committing indecent acts against three minors.
Yishai was arrested last Wednesday in Bnei Brak after he was identified by a six-year-old girl as the man who had abused her. He then confessed to having committed indecent acts against the other young girls.
More lies from the secular Jerusalem Post. They are anti-semites.
We need to look into how Judge Deutsch became a judge of a different court after being removed from the bench.
How did the operatives backing him accomplish this when so much heat was on from State investigators along with politicians like David Paterson, Jerrold Nadler and Susan Alter?
I wonder if Ed Koch had anything to do with it.
Rabboisai, we have another opportunity to be mekayem the important mitzvah of Pidyon Shvuyim. You all heard about the travails of the heilige Mekubal(and Mekabel) Rabbi Elior Chen who was forced to hide and seek refuge in the galus of Canada. Since he wears a beard and a hat (the payos are a big plus also), he definitely qualifies for Pidyon Shvuyim funds. There will be a collection started at your local synagogue. Please give generously as you did in the past for such noble causes as in the cases of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz,Rabbi Bernard Mutterperl, and Rabbi Yudi Kolko. You will be doing a tremendous mitzvah and the funds you donate will ensure that Rabbi Chen will remain free and can return to EY to spread his deep knowledge of Kabbalah and his parenting skills to thousands of eager students. This will also ensure that the next generation of children will be raised and disciplined in the proper way-the way espoused by Rabbi Chen and by such wonderful parents as Rebbetzin Bruria Keren(btw there is also a PS fund being set up for her), Joel Steinberg, and Miriam & Michael Hersh. Forget the so-called "victims" of "abuse", and remember the words "spare the rod, spoil the child". These "victims" were all recruited by UOJ anyway, just ask attorney Jeffrey Schwartz. These are not "victims", these are the beneficiaries of these heilige mechanchim that are being villified by the likes of bloggers such as UOJ. So give, and give generously to free these pure, innocent and wonderful parents and educators. As the brilliant attorney and Daf Yomi Lamdan Schwartz teaches us that it is a great mitzvah to help free mechanchim like Kolko. Schwartz was brilliant in defending another wonderful parent, the father of Nixzmary Brown, and other notables, such as his classmate at Yeshivah of Flatbush, neo-Nazi Michael Kneitel. Make sure you give enough to so that Schwartz gets paid in full for defending Kolko, and help free Rabbi Elior Chen. Can you think of any more worthy causes?
Question said...
Working in concert with Mostofsky are Judge Leon Deutsch & court appointed psychiatrist Arthur Green
-----------------------------------
Concerts? Daas Torah already banned all concerts. Time for another kol koreh.
Or should I say Steve.
Very interesting that Kneitel was in the same YOF class as that Putz Jeff Schwartz.
The Lubliner rov & rosh yeshiva, R' Meir Shapiro must be turning in his grave that this bulvan Schwartz tells the velt that being mesayeya yedei ovrei aveirah is what he "got" out of Daf Yomi.
Shucks! now evry time there is the word extradition mentioned in an article they have to write about me as well.
Israel seeks extradition of rabbi from Canada
Print article
Refer to a friend
© AP
2008-04-07 17:44:47 -
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police have started extradition proceedings against an Israeli rabbi who fled to Canada after being suspected of abusing the children of one of his followers, a police spokesman said Monday.
Rabbi Elior Chen and his followers are suspected of abusing two children, aged 3 and 4, who were burned and severely
beaten with hammers, knives and other instruments, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The 3-year-old suffered permanent brain damage, he added.
Rosenfeld called Chen «one of the main suspects» in the case. Though he has not been charged with a specific crime, «He's definitely connected to the abuse,» Rosenfeld said.
He said Chen had fled to Canada in recent days. The children's mother was charged with abuse last week and remains in jail.
Although police said they were still investigating the motive behind the abuse, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported that Rabbi Chen was trying to cleanse the children of Satanic possession.
In journals describing the abuse, the rabbi wrote, «Put stones on a hot plate . . . when they are boiling, put them on the bodies of the children and then they will be cleansed,» Yediot reported.
The Haaretz daily quoted an unidentified friend of Chen's who said the rabbi chose Canada because «the extradition law is tough» there. It was not known whether Chen holds Canadian citizenship, and the Canadian Embassy did not return messages seeking comment.
In a similar case, complicated extradition laws helped New York Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz evade extradition for 23 years when he fled the United States for Israel in 1984 after being charged with sexually abusing children. Mondrowitz was finally arrested last fall and remains in jail in Israel.
Isaac Hersh was screaming in Laguardia airport that he was being kidnapped but NO ONE came to his aid! It's like when those Fressers in Kew Gardens saw Kitty Genovese being savagely stabbed to death and no one did anything.
I'm a former member of the Chabad Community (30 years), a graduate of its yeshivas, a former Chabad House outreach worker, and former resident of Chabad communities in the U.S. and overeas (and, to my advantage & disadvantage, a BT).
I'll never forget the instructor at Hadar HaTorah from a leading Chabad family, who in all seriousness, believed and taught that the world was FLAT.
Here's another one: very many families with "Yichus" will not make a shidduch with a baal tshuva, as he or she is a "ben niddah". This social rule is sometimes relaxed when the potential mate comes from a wealthy background -- or (more frequently), there is a certain physical or other "defect" in their own child. A "defect" in this sense could be an attraction to the outside world, such as going to movies, listening to non-Jewish music, or other behavior deemed too modern and unacceptable.
Jews from the Mediterranean basin and Near and Mid East (generally all lumped together as "Sephardim", fall into the same second class citizen category when it comes to marriage with old Eastern European families with "Yichus". This is true even when the families in question were all Torah observant.
As far as the "Yichus" of at least some of the old White Russian Chabad families, a little historical research reveals ancestors that were horse thieves, pick-pockets, and other less than holy people -- and, please, don't forget the anarchists, Bundists, Zionists (Israeli President Shazar is one example), various flavors of socialists, and good old communist commissars who are in almost old Russian Chabadnik's family tree if you give it a good shake.
Ethiopians and other Jews with non-Caucasian features are on the lowest rung on the social scale by far -- all this is WITHIN the observant Jewish communities.
As for Gentiles, the word "Goy" is constantly used in a disparaging and derogating sense, as is "Shvartza" and other negatively charged ethnic labels.
You've already touched upon business ethics in your blog. I can't speak for the Litvishe communities -- maybe some of them follow Reb Moshe's pesak forbidding bingos as institutional fund raising devices (Reb Moshe was concerned about the ethical issues of gambling and of the possibility of temptation and theft).
Chabad doesn't, and there are Chabad Houses funded by charity bingos in which the bingo workers are paid salaries (contrary to state rules, which insist on volunteers only) and the Chabad shaliach is skimming money off of the top for his own personal use (all cash, not reported as income, and a felony, if caught and prosecuted).
A West Coast Shaliach was charged some years ago with drug money laundering. He got off because (1), he had a good lawyer, (2) he claimed he thought the money was to be used to smuggle Iranian Jews out of Iran to join their relatives in the US, & (3) he happened to live in a state with a relatively small Jewish population without a Glatt Kosher prison section and benefited from the respect and credibility most Americans accord clergy.
The head of one of the Chabad Yeshivas I attended ran a "Work-Study" program scam to obtain Federal funds. In my naivety at the time I signed some forms that I only realized later put me at risk, as well.
How about all of the families in Brooklyn on Section 8 assistance and food stamps, who are helped by local Jewish macherim in the frum Brooklyn communities to get on programs they do not qualify for, according to the income guidelines? Of course, on the application forms, their income qualifies them, because the bulk of their salary is given to them in cash, off the books (this "black" economy flourishes in the frum sections of Brooklyn, the same as in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem).
I have great sympathy for most of these families that are "working" the system in this way, since with the cost of tuition to the private Jewish schools their children attend and the cost of glatt kosher food, their personal situation can be seen as one of actual "duress".
But what about the community leaders that support this system?
Or what about the "block voting" of whole Jewish communities, such as Satmar, Bobov, etc. and the nepotism and cronyism present at all levels of frum Jewish organizations?
How many unqualified Cheder "Rebbe's" are out there only because they are someone's son-in-law? And the damage to the young children that suffer under their charge?
How about the K-12 schools (illegal according to NY state law) in the Chassidic neighborhoods of Brooklyn where whole generations of boys are deprived of basic English language reading and writing skills? (the girls are for the most part literate in English -- sex discrimination, anyone?)
The only reason these schools are allowed to exist is the block voting previously mentioned. Thank you, Noah Dear ....
And, before I forget, there is the matter of the "honorees" at Yeshiva fund-raising banquets.
I loved it when Rabbi Herson of Morristown managed to get Henry Kissinger in the '70s or 80's as the headliner of one such banquet. Here was a man, according to Matti Golan in "The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger", who deliberately delayed the delivery of planes, munitions, and supplies to Israel during the middle of the Yom Kippur War -- going over the head of Caspar Weinberger, and deceiving Nixon, who had personally authorized the shipments. All this, in the name of "real-politique" and his personal agenda to prevent a total defeat of the Egyptian and Syrian armies, so that HE could step in and do his "shuttle" diplomacy to negotiate a truce.
How many Israeli soldiers died until Golda sent Rabin (ambassador at the time) to Nixon to inquire about the delay in the arrival of the military supplies and Nixon found out what Henry was doing behind his back and immediately reversed Kissinger's orders (as well as cursing Kissinger out)?
And how about Kissinger's non-Jewish trophy wife, who wanted to visit the Kotel when they were in Jerusalem, but old Henry refused to go?
All this from a German Jew, who as a teen-ager used to chant the Torah in his father's Washington Heights shul and whose father died as Shabbos observant Jew.
I bet Rabbi Herson made a lot of money off of that dinner, though.
And how does that jive with the Lubavitcher Rebbe's widely known demands that American government to do all it can to diplomatically and militarily support Israel?
Seems like the Rebbe's views were overlooked when Henry could help Rabbi Herson raise some funds.
In Yeshiva fundraising, money -- not ethics -- rules, and many is the time that some macher is honored -- frum, not so frum, or unobservant -- whose personal and business ethics range from highly questionable to being beyond the pale with time serviced in jail to prove it.
Did I mention the well-known Chabad family that ran a shoe store on Kingston Avenue and scammed the government out of thousands of dollars with false invoices for orthopedic insoles and shoes for people on qualified government programs.
They left for Israel hours before the FBI knocked on their door and now live in a big house on Kfar Chabad and enjoy prestige and local leadership status?
Or how Rabbi Ashkenazi of Kfar Chabad ignored the activities of a child molester -- the son of a well known family on the Kfar -- and discouraged reporting these incidents to the police?
Too bad that Chabad in general does an excellent job in training prospective Shlichim in how to dissemble to the general Jewish and non-Jewish public.
I am NOT taking away or refusing to acknowledge all of the good work done by Chabad around the world -- only stating that it comes at a price and with a hidden agenda and set of beliefs and commonly accepted social practices that most of their less than observant supporters would find distasteful, if not abhorrent. And this is true whether the Shaliach is a "moshichist" or "anti-moshichist" (which you quite correctly point out is a major case of dissembling, AS BOTH CAMPS BELIEVE THAT THE LATE REBBE IS REALLY THE MOSHIACH -- the difference lies in the practical matter of what to say to potential recruits and DONORS).
Please, I do not want to hear some technical kvetch or pilpul justifying or excusing the abuses detailed above. The rabbinical establishment is as involved in perpetuating the existing system in all observant and ultra-observant communities as the macherim and the stam Jew in the street is. Lone voices of protest from within these communities are usually on internet blogs and are anonymous, due to legitimate fear of reprisals. And the few rabbis who are not in agreement with the way things are usually keep their opinions to themselves -- again, for fear of reprisals and problems with making acceptable shidduchim for their children.
Enough for now .....
http://feedjit.com/
To see where people are logging in from. I wonder if it can be fine tuned to see when the scumbags from the "heiliger" mosdos like YTT & Agudah are taking a peek.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/04/how-racist-is-t.html
I think everyone can agree now that Shmarya has gone completely off the deep end.
He's degenerated to trying to find things in seforim now to attack Yiddishkeit over and is all bent out of shape here over hilchos tumah vetaharah.
He says this proves that Jews are just as bad as Nazis. When even his usual supporters are shocked at him and dispute it, he growls like a bulldog and chews their heads off.
i need to know what case martin samson from davidoff and malitto is involved with
http://lukeford.net/Images/photos/rcc7.pdf
In Luke's main post he omits what the court papers show here that Rabbi Nachum Sauer was also accused by LA Superior Court of participating in the RCC fraud.
Lakewood's Rocky Stefansky was working with toen Gershon Spiegel who never gives up his slimy fighting tactics.
Meir Silver is a rebbe at a Jersey Shore yeshiva. He learned in Passaic & Lakewood and hails from Toronto. Reuven Silver is his father who was the rav of an Agudah outpost in Toronto.
The other side hired Shmiel Fried. They say that Fried is a diabetic and sometimes can't make it to beis din.
It's not clear if the Gershuni here is related to the old time talmid chacham in NY who employed creative guidelines at his hashgacha.
http://lukeford.net/Images/photos/rcc8.pdf
They ordered Haberman to pay over 600 grand. How much of it was a "knas" before the court stopped this fraud?
It seems the original deal was that Rocky Stefansky provided startup money in exchange for a 70% stake in the company.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080405/NEWS/747634431/1006/news
Tests find salmonella in poultry
By Orlan Love
The Gazette
orlan.love@gazettecommunications.com
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified Wapsie Produce in Decorah and Agriprocessors in Postville as having elevated levels of salmonella in the poultry they process.
Between 10 percent and 20 percent of samples taken at both plants were found to be contaminated with salmonella in recent tests, according to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.
"It comes from the farms. It's nothing we're doing," said Agriprocessors plant manager Sholom Rubashkin.
Chickens are a major carrier of salmonella bacteria, and improperly handled or undercooked poultry and eggs is the single largest source of salmonella food poisoning, which sickens more than 1 million people and kills about 500 each year in the United States.
Both Wapsie Produce and Agriprocessors failed their previous tests, with salmonella found in more than 20 percent of samples, according to Laura Reiser, a spokeswoman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Poultry processing plants are required to have pathogen reduction plans in place to eliminate cross-contamination, she said.
The Clintons have been moving millions of dollars into their own foundation. They get a tax writeoff even though the money stays there and is not distributed to any charity.
"Mainstream media" like the Washington Post, etc, have been downplaying the story just like Jewish newspapers have been downplaying the crimes against Isaac Hersh.
http://www.ottumwacourier.com/local/local_story_095230008.html
In Postville, population 1,400, a strictly religious Jewish butcher from Brooklyn, N.Y., purchased a vacant slaughterhouse. Using kosher techniques, he and his partners quickly found success, and in a way, so did Postville.
“It jump-started the town,” Bloom told the Courier after his presentation at the Fourth annual Diversity Conference held Friday at Indian Hills. “People were dying off or leaving Iowa; the slaughterhouse had been vacant for over a decade. The town is flourishing. And it’s one of [few] Iowa towns that has increased it’s population: [It’s] doubled from 1,400 to 2,800.”
The success came at a price. When he came to town to write his book, it felt like he had walked into a civil war, he said.
The assertive, loud and strangely dressed Hasidic Jews weren’t interested in making friends. They wanted to worship, work and keep to themselves.
And that can cause trouble. When summer rolls around, Iowans start up their lawn mowers. The Hasidic Jews weren’t interested in mowing their lawns. That doesn’t go over well in a town that gives out a “Lawn of the Week” award, Bloom said.
And when the Hasidim saw there was not enough parking on the street, they parked on their lawn.
“People were infuriated,” said Bloom.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i5c05b6a8dfbf0a33e82086293fd9cccb
N.Y. Emmys
By Paul J. Gough
April 7, 2008
WCBS also won for hard news coverage of a single story for "Red Light Rabbi" by chief investigative reporter Scott Weinberger. Weinberger was laid off last week as part of WCBS's cost cutting.
http://wcbstv.com/investigates/rabbi.isaac.heschel.2.240124.html
by Scott Weinberger
NEW YORK (CBS) ― You see it all over the city, an unmarked car with emergency lights flashing trying to make it through traffic. But have you ever wondered while you're sitting in gridlock what the emergency was?
A natural thought from drivers who on any given day deal with some of the worst traffic in the country -- average commute time 90 minutes -- is "this guy must be headed to a serious emergency."
Or is he?
CBS 2 caught up to one such unmarked car in a heck of a hurry.
Scott Weinberger: "Can you tell me what emergency your are responding to?
Man: "Excuse me?"
Scott Weinberger: "What emergency are you responding to?"
The man's name is Isaac Heschel. His official looking black Crown Victoria is his personal car. However, the lights and sirens he admits he paid someone to install.
Heschel is a rabbi who volunteers his time as a chaplain to the MTA and Port Authority Police, but both agencies said he has no right to have emergency lights, or drive like this.
Scott Weinberger: "Why do you have lights and sirens in your car?"
Heschel: "There are reasons for that sir."
We first learned of Rabbi Heschel's unusual driving habits from a home video sent to CBS 2 by a member of law enforcement who wants to remain anonymous. Sent with the tape was a note that claimed Heschel was putting pedestrians and other drivers in danger.
We had to see for ourselves. So, on the ground and in the air we followed Heschel for days, and what we found was stunning.
At crosswalks he used lights to move pedestrians along. And if traffic gets too bad he drives the wrong way up a street.
Remember, he is not a cop. He is not going to an emergency.
Heschel is actually a 47th Street diamond dealer with some multifaceted perks. Not only does he get to take the fast lane to work, a sweet free parking spot was always waiting for him. Heschel avoided tickets by using a special parking placards.
Scott Weinberger: "Why don't you use the same placard everyday?"
Heschel: "It's a matter, uh ... there's reasons for it."
Scott Weinberger: "Can you tell me what they are?"
Heschel: "It depends what I'm doing that day."
It was on the way to the Diamond District that day we saw Heschel's official looking car use the HOV lane to avoid a major traffic jam on the Prospect Expressway.
When lights and sirens aren't enough, not even a tie up at the Lincoln Tunnel stops our reckless rabbi. The lights flash; he gets out and actually moves several traffic cones, and then drives past a Port Authority Police checkpoint without ever being challenged.
Scott Weinberger: "What was the necessity for you to use your lights, to remove cones, to go through a closed entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel?"
Heschel: "Sir, I don't think what I do I need to discuss with you."
While Heschel seemed unconcerned, others were.
"It goes to show us that that we have some vulnerabilities from people who pretend to be official emergency vehicles," former FBI agent William Daly said. "They could be used to transport explosive devices."
Once Heschel realized what our cameras had captured he changed his tune and said he was sorry.
"We all make mistakes and when I make a mistake I apologize, and that's basically what I'm saying to you," Heschel said.
Because of his use of lights and sirens, both the MTA and Port Authority Police told CBS 2 they have decided to part ways with Rabbi Heschel.
On the main page for Chaim Berliners it says he was in Chaim Berlin from '45 to '50. Did he drop out and go to public school?
http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/list.htm?regId=215819921
William Wiesner
Mesivta Yeshiva/Chaim Berlin, BROOKLYN, NY, Class of 1952
Alexine A. Fenty Public School 139, BROOKLYN, NY, Class of 1952
Walt Whitman Intermediate School 246, BROOKLYN, NY, Class of 1954
CUNY Brooklyn College, BROOKLYN, NY, Class of 1961
Erasmus Hall High School, BROOKLYN, NY, Class of 1957
Israeli ex-president rejects plea deal - By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Israel's former President Moshe Katsav called off a plea bargain Tuesday that would have required him to admit sexual misconduct to avoid jail time, a surprise turnaround in a sordid saga that has captivated Israelis for nearly two years.
Katsav appeared in a Jerusalem court and unexpectedly said he was rejecting the deal because he wants to clear his name.
The move was a gamble: under the plea deal, which Katsav had previously accepted, prosecutors would have dropped the most serious charges against him and Katsav would have avoided jail time.
Katsav stepped down in late June after four female former employees accused him of a series of sex crimes, including rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Katsav, 62, walked into the court alongside his wife Gila on Tuesday for a hearing that was ostensibly meant to approve the prearranged plea bargain. But he told the judges he was rejecting the deal — and risking possible prison time — in the hope that a trial would clear his name.
"Moshe Katsav made a moral decision," said Avigdor Feldman, one of Katsav's lawyers. "He is aware of all its implications."
The largely ceremonial post of president is seen in Israel as the nation's moral compass. Katsav was replaced by elder statesman and Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres.
Claims that Katsav used his position as Israel's head of state to force himself on women were the most serious allegations ever brought against an Israeli leader.
Katsav resigned two weeks before his seven-year term was to expire as part of the much-criticized plea bargain that dropped planned rape charges and other sex charges — counts that could have landed him in prison for 20 years.
Civil right and women's right's groups staged large rallies to protest the deal, in which he would have pleaded guilty to indecent acts, sexual harassment and obstruction of justice. He would have received a suspended prison sentence and been required to pay damages to two of his four accusers.
But the deal would also have required the former president to plead guilty in open court. Katsav has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he was a victim of a political conspiracy.
Feldman said the ex-president changed his mind after he was convinced by his legal team that the prosecution did not have enough evidence to convict him.
"We believe that Moshe Katsav, based on the evidence, is innocent, even under this minor indictment that was the basis for the plea bargain," he said. "He told me time and time again: 'I am innocent. Why do I have to admit to a plea bargain that includes crimes I did not commit?'"
Attorney General Meni Mazuz will now have to decide whether to press another indictment against the former president.
Gershon Speigel is the son of Rabbi Bernstein Speigel a"h.
I hope his foods wasn't chazer like his son.
http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/2008/04/jerusalem-mother-charged-with-child.html#8299126351973252061
Vicky Polin will not allow me to post any comments this week about Mostofsky but is allowing this comment that casts Dr. Amy Neustein as an abusive nut who harmed her daughter.
Why is this really strange?
Vicky used to bash Ozzie Orbach & take Neustein's side like here in 2005:
http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/2005/12/how-many-alleged-sex-offenders-does.html
Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz is a strong supporter of "alleged" sex offender Mordecai Tendler. Faskowitz was also a strong supporter of "alleged" sex offender Ozzie Orbach. How many other "alleged" sex offenders is Rabbi Faskowitz friendly with?
-----------------
Vicky has since removed Ozzie Orbach's profile from her other website, The Awareness Center, and will probably remove that 2005 post once she realizes it is still up.
What caused Vicky to turn against Neustein?
Gershon Spiegel is a fraud who is well versed from his yeshiva days of undermining any psak beis din against him.
He now uses these thuggish tactics he developed for profit in helping others manipulate the system.
By the way, does anyone know what happened with that scandal at his father's shul? The members were accusing him of theft in trying to sell the building & pocket the $15 million.
JWB once wrote on Steve I Weiss's blog that Ozzie Orbach also considers Faskowitz's cousin Mordy Tendler to be his "rov".
I find it quite telling that after all the invitations I extended to speak with a certain person - I never heard back from them. The venomous e-mails and comments sent my way - are sport for me. Read the Einstein post - the arrows sent in my direction - have no bearing on me whatsoever - I'm immune and fearless!
There are certain communications, that are now in the hands of the FBI. Keep 'em coming! I'm actually able to pick up the phone now - and talk with just about anyone in the U.S. government!
http://scilib.univ.kiev.ua/doc.php?6721613
This is a different version of the story than that that appears in the Jewish Voice newspaper.
Some interesting details (the first was actually in the other article but not mentioned here yet):
Dr. Max Bulmash of Boro Park & South Fallsburg was investigated for assisting in Ohel cover ups, especially where one child was beaten to death by his mother.
City Council President Andy Stein tried to help Neustein but didn't get anywhere. This may back up "Gumshoe's" suspicion that Ed Koch was working with the bad guys.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta who was then Giuliani's newly appointed head of the Administration for Children's Services, refused to release any files.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney appealed to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno for a federal review of the case (her office was informed that the matter had been referred to the Department of Health and Human Services).
"Amy Neustein "is the victim of a criminal conspiracy," says Jeremiah McKenna, former counsel to the state senate's now-defunct Select Committee on Crime for 17 years"
According to Jeremiah McKenna, the Ulster County D.A. initially pursued charges against Orbach but dropped the case after someone from the BSPCC called the office to say the child had recanted the abuse charges. But BSPCC agent Robert Sloan later testified to the exact opposite in court. Ulster County assistant D.A. John Prizzia says he spoke to Sloan, telling the Voice, "I do have in my notes that she had recanted," but that he could not remember whether it was Sloan who told him so. Both Neustein and her mother were interviewed by BSPCC, but a full six months after the allegation, Orbach had not. When contacted by the Voice, Sloan refused comment.
On October 21, 1986, Brooklyn Family Court judge Jeffrey Gallet issued a preliminary order removing Sherry from her mother's custody on the grounds that Neustein had failed to attend a psychological evaluation. According to McKenna's report, Sherry Neustein was removed and placed in foster care for 16 months without a legally required hearing and on the basis of a preliminary court order that did not cite grounds for removal. "That order is illegal on its face," insists McKenna, who has campaigned gratis on Neustein's behalf since 1987. "At the minimum, the removal of Sherry Neustein from her home violated the Constitution, our state statutes, decisions of our highest court, and decency," he wrote in a 1987 memo to State Senator Christopher Mega. When reached by the Voice, Judge Gallet refused comment.
Judge Leon Deutsch--who inherited the case from Gallet--awarded permanent custody to Orbach. The judge's decision relied in part on the findings of Dr. Arthur Green, a court-appointed psychiatrist, who has gained a reputation for testifying against divorced mothers in custody disputes. Green claimed that Neustein suffered from "circumscribed psychosis," leading Judge Deutsch to label her as "paranoid delusional" and to blame her for brainwashing Sherry into believing she had been abused. But questions have been raised about the credibility of Green's assessment.
In 1986, five experts on incest charged him in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence with making "many unsubstantiated claims that could mislead clinicians and legal decision makers...to the detriment of a large number of children...who have actually been sexually abused."
Court-appointed psychologist Steven Klee, who examined Sherry, submitted an April 1989 affidavit to the state senate suggesting that the "early onset of this disorder [anorexia nervosa] would raise the suspicion that she might have had a very early introduction to sex...." But Judge Deutsch barred Klee and Dr. Winston Price, who also examined Sherry, from divulging their suspicions.
When Andrew Stein wrote to former Child Welfare Administration commissioner Robert Little about the Neustein case, he characterized Deutsch as "notorious for his rulings against women in child custody cases." In another sex abuse case heard by Deutsch, he was accused by the mother's lawyer, Steven Mandel, of attempting to persuade the Bureau of Child Welfare that the mother had "brainwashed" her children into believing they had been abused--although an official's report substantiated the abuse.
Neustein could not, however, get the heart of her case heard on appeal. Moreover, State Senator Paterson--who examined the case in 1989 and 1993 hearings--contends that Justice William Thompson, who presided over one of Neustein's appeals, approached him at a political fundraiser and "warned me to cease my inquiries into the Neustein case." Thompson denies the allegation.
Veteran child welfare caseworker Rosalie Harmon--who was handed a 30-day suspension in January for a comment she had made on the Elisa Izquierdo case on World News Tonight--also took heat on the Neustein case. In 1992, when she inquired about Sherry's file--all she wanted to know was whether the girl was alive or dead--her sworn affidavit indicates she was severely reprimanded. According to Harmon, Sherry's file shows a history of inaction.
*** Ohel Children's Home is an Orthodox community bulwark, which shares officials with such groups as the Orthodox Union and the National Council of Young Israel. Marcel Weber, an attorney for Ohel, is board chair of the Orthodox Union. Power brokers, including State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Mayor Giuliani, have been feted at Ohel functions. Orbach's former brother-in-law, Martin Berger--who has denounced Neustein and serves as Orbach's spokesperson--has a cousin, Sendy Berger, who sits on Ohel's board of directors. Rabbi Israel Kravitz, the only rabbi to testify on Neustein's behalf at Paterson's 1993 hearings, told the Voice: "The others are afraid. The opposition frightened them." When asked to identify the opposition, he names Ohel Children's Home. ***
In a tape of the May 1987 evaluation session with Dr. Arthur Green that Neustein secretly recorded, Green tells her he had already spoken with the judges and others involved in the case who "think it [the sex abuse] didn't happen." The American Bar Association Code of Judicial Conduct states that a judge is compelled to recuse himself in any proceeding "in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
In a June 1995 letter to the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department, Paterson alleged that he received a phone call from State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox spokesperson. He claims Hikind "issued a stern warning to me that I should not hold the hearing. The assemblyman insisted that Dr. Orbach is innocent of sexual abuse." Paterson also wrote that council member Una Clarke advised him "that if I proceeded with my investigation, the Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic community would be coming after me, and that it would be unlikely that I would ever be elected to office again in New York City." Clarke says she does not recall the comment. Moshe Faskowitz, Orbach's rabbi at the time, told the Voice: "Ohel probably called Hikind and said, 'Get Paterson off our back."' Hikind did not respond to the Voice's repeated requests for comment.
Orbach and Martin Berger paid Paterson a visit in his Harlem office, Paterson says, to persuade him not to hold the hearings. When contacted by the Voice, Berger confirmed that the two men met with Paterson to tell him that the hearings would "upset" Sherry. He later referred to Paterson as a "jerk" and a "liar" and to Congressman Nadler, also a Neustein advocate, as an "idiot." Berger says that in 1993, before Paterson's hearings, the two men also met with Hikind. Berger contributed to the assemblyman's campaign in May 1993 because "he's very good for the Jewish community, and that's my way of thanking him." Although refusing to allow Paterson, Nadler, and others to see Sherry, Berger furnished the Voice with a 1992 videotape of the child's bat mitzvah in which a noticeably thin, but not malnourished, Sherry celebrates with her friends.
http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A215390
This Idaho newspaper says they tracked down Sherry Orbach's email address at Columbia University and asked her if she wrote the letter to the Jewish Press. Sherry said she did. Don't forget that Michael Lesher was open to the possibility that Sherry was brainwashed into believing revisionist history.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- In a sign that the U.S. housing market may weaken further, an index of sales contracts on previously owned homes fell 1.9% in February from the prior month, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday.
The index, considered a leading indicator of existing home sales, was down 21.4% from the February 2007 level.
The IMF also announced today that the credit crunch could approach $1 trillion.
Why would anyone suspect me of working with the bad guys? Who cares if I'm friends with the Deutsches and just some alter bocher faygelleh from Greenwich Village?
Someone asked about attorney Martin Samson. He is involved in the cover up for Orbach-Mostofsky. See the Jewish Voice articles from 2005 on Michael Lesher's website.
http://www.fkiwsb.com/attorneys/partnerscounsel.shtml#weber
MARCEL WEBER
mweber@fkiwsb.com
Feder, Kaszovitz, Isaacson, Weber
Skala, Bass & Rhine LLP
750 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York 10022-1200
Telephone: 212-888-8200
Telefax: 212-888-7776
Mr. Weber's practice covers all phases of civil litigation, real estate, estates, and estate planning, as well as commercial and corporate matters. His clients include the State of Israel, which he represents on estate matters in the United States.
Before joining the firm in 1974, Mr. Weber was in private practice, specializing in the same areas. Mr. Weber received his undergraduate degree from Yeshiva University in 1956 and his JD from New York University Law School in 1960. He is Chairman of the Board of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and is also active in other communal organizations.
http://www.clubi.ie/dyslexia/links.html
A Judge's Story, Judge Jeffrey Gallet
Jeffrey H. Gallet is a Judge in the Family Court, State of New York USA. Judge Jeffrey H. Gallet has Learning Difficulties. This is a short article outlining the Jeffrey's own personal experience of Learning Difficulties, including being accused of cheating in an IQ test.
How do you stay sane UOJ or do you?
----------------------
It depends who you speak to....
Who is this David Shipper who acts as Hatzolah's lawyer? His name doesn't come up anywhere. He's not even registered with free directories and is seemingly not on Google.
please post the link for ostrofsky and samson
http://www.ohelfamily.org/docs/ohel_outlook_may07_v20_qxp_ohel_outlook.pdf
With a list of Officers.
Read these 3 articles in order & Samson pops up somewhere.
http://www.amyneustein.com/pubs/jv0503sherry.pdf
http://www.amyneustein.com/pubs/jv0505sherry2.pdf
http://www.amyneustein.com/pubs/jv0506sherry3.pdf
He's got my vote! It's about time!
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Louisiana Lawmakers Consider Castration for Sex Offenders
FOX NEWS.COM
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
BATON ROUGE, La. — Castration could be a sentencing option for some sex offenders in Louisiana under a bill approved by a state Senate judiciary committee.
The bill by Senator Nick Gautreaux, an Abbeville Democrat, requires a judge to order treatment for certain second-offense sex criminals with a specific drug designed to diminish male sexual urges — if a medical expert agrees that the treatment would be effective.
An offender who doesn't want the treatment could opt for physical castration. Gautreaux says some offenders may indeed want castration in hopes of avoiding the drug's side effects or permanently ending the sexual urges that led to their crimes. His bill goes next to the full Senate.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday he has no regrets about his decisions as head of the central bank and said the U.S. economy is already in recession, although it is hard to say how deep or severe it will be.
"We are in the throes of a recession," he said in an interview on CNBC cable business news network.
Reviewing his record as Fed chair, which has come under fire as financial and housing market turmoil have damaged the broader U.S. economy, with world-wide reverberations, Greenspan said the central bank followed a rationally constructed policy based on data it had at the time.
"I have no regrets on any of the Federal Reserve policies that we initiated back then because I think they were very professionally done," he said.
"Clearly, certain of our anticipations of what would happen as a consequence of those policies were off, but there's no way of avoiding that," he added.
(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Vatican: pope will speak on abuse crisis By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer
26 minutes ago
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI recognizes the damage and pain caused by the clergy sex abuse crisis and will seek to heal wounds during his U.S. trip next week, the Vatican's No. 2 official said Tuesday.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Benedict will deliver a message of "trust and hope" when he meets American clergy at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
Benedict "will try to open the path of healing and reconciliation," said Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state.
The abuse crisis has caused "so much suffering for the victims, for the families of the victims and above all to the church because it was a contradiction with the great educational mission of the church," Bertone lamented during the 30-minute interview in the frescoed Treaty Hall of the Apostolic Palace.
U.S. dioceses have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in claims since the crisis began six years ago in Boston, where Cardinal Bernard Law ultimately resigned as archbishop. Nearly 14,000 molestation claims have been filed against Catholic clergy since 1950 — a substantial chunk of them in recent years.........
If it weren't for Mostofsky, Isaac Hersh would have been out months ago.
didnt mostofsky take the case a few weeks ago?
FDA triples death count linked to tainted heparin
Updated 21m ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixty-two deaths now are associated with contaminated batches of the blood thinner heparin, triple the previous estimate, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday.
That doesn't mean people still are dying — the latest deaths the FDA knows of occurred in February, the month Baxter International recalled contaminated batches.
But dozens of deaths weren't reported to the agency when they happened, only later after the tainted blood thinner made headlines.
On Tuesday, the FDA posted a month-by-month mortality count on its website, showing that a sudden jump in allergic-style fatal reactions actually began last November — possibly signaling the time when the contamination began.
The FDA's investigation found a compound derived from animal cartilage sneaked into supplies of raw heparin coming from China. Although scientists haven't yet proved the compound triggered the reactions, it is the chief suspect.
Until now, the FDA has linked the contamination to 19 deaths from allergic-style reactions. Patients who receive heparin often are so sick that it's impossible to prove the cause of death, however, and Baxter has put the death toll at four.
Tuesday's report shows the FDA has learned of 103 deaths among heparin patients since January 2007, 62 of them associated with allergic-style symptoms. The report includes deaths among users of all brands of heparin, not just Baxter's.
Allergic reactions are rare with heparin, the FDA's data shows. Three such deaths were reported in all of 2006, and 13 from January to October 2007.
Then began the spike: Eight such deaths last November, 12 in December, 16 in January and 11 in February. (Two more deaths couldn't be dated.)
Heparin is derived from pig intestines and China is the world's leading supplier.
Investigators have not determined where in the supply chain the contaminant was introduced.
On Wednesday, the FDA will urge 82 manufacturers of medical devices that contain or are coated with heparin to test that their supplies are contaminant-free.
Most of the recalled heparin so far was in vials, large doses used mostly for patients getting heart surgery or undergoing dialysis. But smaller amounts are used for numerous other purposes, such as coatings on stents and catheters.
elior chen suspect in israeli abuse case seen tonight(tues) in toronto. someone will have rachmanus on him and invite him for pesach....then they will be shocked!! when they find out who he is. just like the guy in lakewood-everyone is shocked. how about not being so trusting all of the time?
Most Jewish institutions are as corrupt as the other secular or other religions are. We are told that the more we learn Torah the better we become. . . Sad to say I don't see the more religious institutions as being any holier. I used to think that the Singer brothers' made up the stories of Warsaw but I now believe them to be basically true.
Could someone please explain to me why as a thinking Jew I am to swallow the precept of "If they tell you right is left and left is right you have to abide by their ruling."
Is it mesirah to report on corruption and corrupt in our heilige institutions?
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a7197/News/National.html
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
When a congressional committee examines how nearly $300 million in government contracts for an arms deal to Afghanistan’s army and police was given to a tiny Miami Beach-based company led by 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli, it is expected to question how the company, AEY Inc., qualifies as minority-owned, as was listed on the application.
Minority-owned companies, also classified as “disadvantaged,” receive preferential treatment in the awarding of contracts.
Those close to the case, which made front-page headlines last week in The New York Times, note that since 1984, chasidim have qualified under that category, along with Hispanics, African Americans, Indians and others. (Jews are not otherwise categorized as a minority.)
David Packouz, a 25-year-old licensed masseur, who is listed as vice president of the company, told
The Jewish Week that neither he nor Diveroli are chasidic, that he was only a consultant to the company, and that he was unaware of the minority-owned designation on the application.
Diveroli declined to comment. But attention into the workings of AEY Inc., and how it managed to procure such a major, lucrative government contract, is growing in the wake of the lengthy investigative article in the Times, which suggested that the company may have been involved in illegal arms trafficking and that the arms may have been substandard.
Packouz’s father, Kalman, a rabbi who is executive director of the Aish HaTorah Jerusalem Fund, said his son had not been involved in the company for the last 10 months and “is not involved in all this.”
“I know that Efraim Diveroli has been doing this [arms dealing] since he was 17, and that he has been successful at being able to fulfill contracts,” Rabbi Packouz said.
Diveroli’s grandfather, Angelo Diveroli, 73, of North Miami Beach, said his grandson has records to prove that all of his transactions were legal. “The military checked him out” before awarding him the contracts, he said. “They came to Miami Beach. No one gets $300 million in contracts for nothing. They checked. He was awarded the contracts because he had a good price. He didn’t steal the contract. He made a bid and they checked his credentials.”
He said his grandson started his business from scratch with only a computer in a “tiny apartment in Miami Beach.”
Young Diveroli started his company after both he and his father learned the business from Diveroli’s uncle, Bar-Kochba Botach, the owner of Botach Tactical in Los Angeles, a military and police supply company. Botach told The Times, “They just left me and took my customer base with them. They basically said, ‘Why should we work for Botach? Let’s do it on our own.’”
The senior Diveroli said his grandson is “now living in a rented apartment. People think he lives in a mansion. Not true. He is a hard-working person. He works with Asia, which is a 16-hour time difference, so he works day and night.”
He called his grandson a “genius who knows everything about weaponry. He could tell a weapon a mile away. He is a very religious boy. He’s not chasidic, but my grandson studied in yeshivas all over the world, [including in] Baltimore and Jerusalem.”
The elder Diveroli disclosed that his grandson is more than an arms dealer because he has contracts for a variety of products with countries in South America and Central America.
“Whatever they need he supplies,” he said. “And it’s not just weapons. There are things like machinery, agricultural products and tractors. ... Whatever is on the Internet he supplies. He finds a good price. He is a businessman in his blood.”
Asked about allegations that some of the munitions his grandson sent to Afghanistan were manufactured in China, making their procurement a violation of U.S. law, Diveroli replied: “He says it’s not true. We have lawyers that are going to clarify everything.”
The senior Diveroli said it is possible that some of the munitions sold to the U.S. came from China, but he insisted that his grandson did not deal directly with China.
“We have an embargo with Cuba,” he explained. “But if you go there, you find many American products [sold to Cuba from other countries]. If he bought it from you and you got it from China, how would he know?”
The Army last week suspended AEY from any future government contracts pending an investigation into the Chinese ammunition and Diveroli’s claim that he sold munitions made in Albania.
As the government investigation was started, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee launched its own inquiry into the arms shipments. A spokeswoman for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chair, said invitations to appear before the committee April 17 had been sent to Diveroli, Packouz, the company’s vice president, and Levi Meyer, its general manager.
“We’ll look at the federal contracts awarded to AEY to supply weapons and munitions to the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the spokeswoman said. “The committee will also be looking at the performance and compliance with U.S. laws and government contracting regulations. And I believe we’ll try to understand how the company got the contract and how well it performed. It’s too early to say what our next step will be. We’ll wait to see what the investigation reveals.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/no_testimony_without_immunity.php
No Testimony without Immunity, Man
By Paul Kiel - April 4, 2008, 11:31AM
House oversight committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants the twenty-something senior executives of AEY, Inc. to appear for a Congressional hearing. You know, just to hang out and chat about how they managed to bag a $300 million contract to provide munitions to Afghan forces, and then allegedly lied about where they were coming from.
But they're not going to come easy, The New York Times reports:
Marc D. Seitles, the lawyer who represents David M. Packouz, the licensed massage therapist who is AEY’s former vice president, said he had sent a letter to Congress saying Mr. Packouz would speak publicly only if he was granted immunity from prosecution.
Mr. Packouz, 25, left AEY last spring and had no contact with the company since, Mr. Seitles said. Without immunity, he said, “I cannot allow my client to testify in this matter, and if he is subpoenaed he will invoke the Fifth Amendment.”
AEY and particularly its president Efraim Diveroli do have a lot to worry about. Federal investigators are digging to see if Diveroli committed a crime by promising in a contract to deliver Hungarian ammo, when he was in fact delivering forty year-old Chinese ammo (itself prohibited). And Government Executive reports today that AEY might have also misrepresented itself as a disadvantaged business, allowing it to pick up much more business.
It seems highly unlikely that Congress would even consider immunity for either Diveroli or Packouz, so either Waxman's planned hearing later this month will be deferred, or the two will spend a lot of time respectfully pleading the Fifth.
Packouz is also a scrap metal company entrepreneur. Here's his record on file with the State of Florida:
Sunbiz.org Record
The company is oddly named "Intelliterran."
Odd name for a "scrap metal" industry. Methinks Davie was importing ammo and munitions from foreign countries under the aegis of "scrap."
I wonder how the DHS feels about that?
David Shipper is Heshy Jacob's henchman..They send Shipper to do the dirty work for Jacob..
GEDOLIM - START YOUR PREPARATIONS FOR MORE ASIFAS BANNING THE NEW INTERNET!
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'The Grid' Could Soon Make the Internet Obsolete
THE TIMES
Monday, April 07, 2008
The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
These Amalekim are varfing broadbands & grids at us but the ananei hakuvod are protecting Boro Park.
Where in Toronto was Elior Chen seen?
He shouldn't be allowed inside any shul.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/04/technology.html?showComment=1207754760000#c4300908672722905331
Hello,
I recently learned of a factory farm - namely Vreba Hoff, (Hudson MI) that has a contract to provide whole milk to a processing plant in KY to ship powdered kosher milk to Israel. I tried to contact International Dairy Foods Assn. which I believe is handling the process but I can't get there on the internet. I can't even put in a peep.
I contacted a Rabbi and asked him what he thought of the situation and it was negative. He said that he would not want to consume this product. But he thought it could be "technically" kosher but he was dismayed.
Vreba Hoff Dairies have many outstanding fines for environmental abuses. They lop off the tails of their cows, keep them awake most of the time with artificial lighting for round the clock milking (3 times a day )because they shoot them up with artificial bovine growth hormones which makes the udders swell so big that it makes it difficult for them to walk and they are done being "productive" after 3 pregnancy cycles ( their calves are yanked from them at once and fed a blend of artificial milk and cow's blood) and then they are turned into Mc Burgers. It's a severely shortened life for them
Vreba Hoff is in serious litigation for multiple environmental violations spanning the last (at least) 4 years. They have polluted multiple streams and rivers and damaged a lot of crop land and disintegrated roads in MI ... while excepting no accountability. It's ugly.
Please explain to me how a company with business practices like this can even be considered as kosher. I thought it was all about the respect - for the animal, environment/community/ ????? doesn't that have to do with cleanliness? For everybody?
I am not Jewish but I grew up in a diverse community, I only knew a little but always appreciated the experience. You can't put a price on that.
I sincerely hope that you would like to keep your reputation intact. If this kosher certification is wrong in any way, shape or form - please give it your utmost attention.
I realize that food has to go global BUT that is even more reason to scrutinize it more closely. Can you find the missing link between of the NY certifying firm for Vreba Hoff for me? Information is power and too much of our food is processed in the dark. That's just not right...here and now .. for so many reasons.
Thank you so much for listening.
Peace,
Teri Reinhart
bfwm1993@aol.com
April 9, 2008
Looming Deficit Impedes Federal Housing Agency
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are counting on the Federal Housing Administration to rescue hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure by helping them refinance from risky subprime loans to stable government-backed mortgages.
But the F.H.A., the government agency that insures home loans for many first-time, minority and lower-income buyers, is grappling with financial woes of its own.
Housing officials say the agency will face a deficit for the first time in its 74-year history, starting in the fiscal year that begins in October. And they blame a rapidly growing and increasingly troubled sector of the F.H.A.’s mortgage portfolio, known as the seller-financed down payment loan program, which has suffered from high delinquency and foreclosure rates in recent years.
UOJ,
What is your email address?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/business/09leonhardt.html
April 9, 2008
Economic Scene
For Many, a Boom That Wasn’t
By DAVID LEONHARDT
How has the United States economy gotten to this point?
It’s not just the apparent recession. Recessions happen. If you tried to build an economy immune to the human emotions that produce boom and bust, you would end up with something that looked like East Germany.
The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500.
This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?
In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed the test in a way that arguably no other country ever has. It became, as the cliché goes, the richest country on earth. Now, though, most families aren’t getting any richer.
“We have had expansions before where the bottom end didn’t do well,” said Lawrence F. Katz, a Harvard economist who studies the job market. “But we’ve never had an expansion in which the middle of income distribution had no wage growth.”
More than anything else — more than even the war in Iraq — the stagnation of the great American middle-class machine explains the glum national mood today. As part of a poll that will be released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center asked people how they had done over the last five years. During that time, remember, the overall economy grew every year, often at a good pace.
Yet most respondents said they had either been stuck in place or fallen backward. Pew says this is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in almost a half century of polling.
The causes of the wage slowdown have been building for a long time. They have relatively little to do with President Bush or any other individual politician (though it is true that the Bush administration has shown scant interest in addressing the problem).
The slowdown began in the 1970s, with an oil shock that raised the cost of everyday living. The technological revolution and the rise of global trade followed, reducing the bargaining power of a large section of the work force. In recent years, the cost of health care has aggravated the problem, by taking a huge bite out of most workers’ paychecks.
Real median family income more than doubled from the late 1940s to the late ’70s. It has risen less than 25 percent in the three decades since. Statistics like these are now so familiar as to be almost numbing. But the larger point is still crucial: the modern American economy distributes the fruits of its growth to a relatively narrow slice of the population. We don’t need another decade of evidence to feel confident about that conclusion.
Anxiety about the income slowdown has flared at various times over the past three decades. It seemed to crescendo in the first half of the 1990s, when voters first threw George H. W. Bush out of office, then, two years later, did the same to the Democratic leaders of Congress. Pat Buchanan went around preaching a kind of pitchfork populism during the 1996 New Hampshire Republican primary — and he won it.
Then came a technology bubble that made everything seem better, for a time. Record-low oil prices in the 1990s helped, too. So did the recent housing bubble, allowing families to supplement their incomes by taking equity out of their homes.
Now, though, we appear to be out of bubbles. It’s hard to see how the economy will get back on track without some fundamental changes. This, I think, can fairly be considered the No. 1 economic project awaiting the next president.
Fortunately, there is an obvious model waiting to be dusted off. The income gains of the postwar period didn’t just happen. They were the product of a deliberate program to build up the middle class, through the Interstate highway system, the G. I. Bill and other measures.
It’s easy enough to imagine a new version of that program, with job-creating investments in biomedical research, alternative energy, roads, railroads and education. On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama all mention ideas like these.
But there is still a lack of strategic seriousness to the discussion, as Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution notes. After all, the United States spends a lot of money on education already but has still lost its standing as the country with the highest college graduation rate in the world. (South Korea and a couple of other countries have passed us, while Japan, Britain and Canada are close behind.)
The same goes for public works. Spending on physical infrastructure is at a 20-year high as a share of gross domestic product, but too much of the money is spent on the inefficient pet programs championed by individual members of Congress. Pork barrel spending does not add up to a national economic strategy.
Health care and taxes will have to be part of the discussion, too. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health pointed out to me that a serious effort to curtail wasteful medical spending would directly help workers. It would spare them from paying the insurance premiums and taxes that now cover that care.
E-mail:
a_unorthodoxjew@yahoo.com
This guy is an anti-Semite affiliated with Patrick Buchanan but he did manage to dig up a lot of information.
http://vdare.com/sailer/080406_quinones.htm
Once you spend a few hours on Google checking into the nature of Diveroli's extended family, the case becomes less baffling.
For example, the budding international arms merchant's mom, Miami Beach mother-of-five Ateret Diveroli, was once treasurer of a dubious children's charity named "Time for Kids" that collected (but failed to disburse) hundreds of thousands of dollars in the name of … Michael Jackson!
The business connection between the disgraced King of Pop and Efraim's mom is her brother (and Efraim's uncle) Shmuley Boteach, whom Slate.com called "one of the world's most prominent rabbis." The relentlessly self-promoting Shmuley was the "spiritual advisor" to Jackson and numerous other celebrities.
Shmuley is now host of the TLC network reality television show Shalom in the Home when he's not debating Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God. (As of press time, God had no comment on either Shmuley, Hitch, or Jacko.)
Roger Friedman reported on FoxNews in 2001 that Shmuley's British charity went out of business after a scathing report by the British Charity Commission:
"The inquiry established that a number of apparent inappropriate payments were regularly being made by the founder of the charity, Rabbi Boteach and his wife."
The father of Shmuley and grandfather of Efraim is Yoav Botach, who was recently threatened with a huge (and hilarious) palimony suit:
“Makeup artist to the stars Judith Boteach thought she had found true love when it took four people to carry all of the flowers and jewelry lavished on her the day multimillionaire Yoav Botach proposed marriage.
“Boteach said she learned a month after their Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony that her groom hadn't obtained a California marriage license…
" ‘This is the largest palimony case in American history,’ said Robert W. Hirsh, Boteach's attorney, who explained that his client cannot fight for alimony since she and Botach were never legally married.
“According to court records, Botach co-owns 144 commercial and other properties in Los Angeles, as well as Botach Tactical, a nationwide distributor of police and military equipment. But Boteach is seeking access to financial documents to determine the defendant's assets. ‘We would not be surprised if his net worth is $700 million,’ Hirsh said.
(I don't know why some members of the family spell the name "Botach" and others "Boteach.")
The only one of Efraim's extended family ties that the NYT deigned to mention was that Efraim's training for his $300 million business came as a salesman at the Los Angeles weapons shop managed by his uncle Bar-Kochba Botach. Yet, the lengthy NYT investigative report failed to mention Botach Tactical's notorious reputation as possibly the world's most customer-hostile merchant. Nor did it reveal that Congresswoman Maxine Waters has been trying to throw the gun shop out of the violence-afflicted South Central LA community. (By the way, Uncle Bar-Kochba claims to be Israeli.)
For your convenient edification, I've collected details on the whole clan here.
Nor have many noticed that the extended family's various arms dealing companies are registered in federal databases as "minority-owned" and/or ethnically "disadvantaged." It turns out that the federal government declared Hasidic Jews to be a disadvantaged minority for purposes of minority business encouragement in 1984I
But is the Botach / Diveroli extended family actually Hasidic? To qualify for affirmative action, it's not enough to be Orthodox; apparently, you are supposed to wear the Hasidic hat and beard. Yet, in young Efraim's two mugshots (for assaulting a parking valet and for drunk driving in his Mercedes), he has just a little Miami Vice stubble. Similarly, the only known photo of Efraim's grandfather Yoav (as seen here listening to his son Shmuley orate at a fatherhood awards banquet) shows him clean-shaven.
As Barack Obama might say, in large part the AEY scandal is "A Story of Race and Inheritance."
Of course, he wouldn't say it in public, and neither will the MainStream Media.
http://nieonline.com/miami/teenspeaks/articles.cfm?ID=4&themonth=jan
His sister is a journalist with the Miami Herald
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49808,00.html
And speaking of Jackson, at last we have some answers about what happened to the infamous charity started in the fall of 2000 by the King of Pop and Shmuley Boteach (pronounced Boh-tay-ach).
The charity, called Time for Kids, was supposed to be part of Jackson's Heal the World Foundation. But, as this column reported Feb. 18, Heal the World had been almost completely shut down at the same time Jackson was announcing this new effort with Boteach. Jackson's personal accountant, Barry Siegel, wasn't even sure the charity still existed.
Now, the 2000 IRS filings for Boteach's Oxford L'Chaim Society have been made available by guidestar.org, and they tell an interesting story.
The filing was signed on Sept. 26, 2001, by Deborah Boteach, Shmuley's wife and the mother of his seven children. It was received by the IRS on Oct. 22, 2001, indicating it includes the money raised by Jackson and Boteach at an event at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 14, 2001.
That event, a panel on child welfare that included TV talk show host Chuck Woolery and lawyer to the stars Johnnie Cochran, was supposed to be raising money for the Jackson/Boteach charity.
But the subsequent tax filing shows no money was given to children or any charitable causes at all. What it does show is a total of $203,185 collected from direct public support. At the same time, the charity's expenses totaled $259,432. All but $20,000 of that was spent on staff salaries and office expenses.
Listed on the IRS filing are an organization president, secretary and treasurer. The latter two, this reporter discovered after making some calls, are Boteach's sister and mother. The sister, Ateret Diveroli, repeated exactly what the mother had: "I'm not part of that anymore."
Mrs. Diveroli insisted to me that her brother was "very honest" and had stopped working with Michael Jackson "because nothing was happening. He wasn't doing anything."
Nevertheless, Mrs. Diveroli could not explain what the Oxford L'Chaim Society was supposed to be doing with their tax-free bundle of money.
From the Heal the World Foundation Web site: What is Heal the Kids? "Heal the Kids is the latest charitable initiative of Michael Jackson. It is dedicated to promoting nurturing relationships between adults and children, and to fostering programs that help children gain the love, attention and quality time they need to prosper and flourish."
Boteach had a good time with the money collected from sympathetic contributors. He lists $19,028 for "promotional" costs, and another $13,480 on unspecified "outside services."
The main difference between the 1999 filing and this new one is that at least in the previous instance, Boteach claimed to send money to the real L’Chaim Society in Oxford, Cambridge, U.K. Not only are no charitable donations listed this time, but Boteach also failed even to fill in the line on the form explaining the purpose of his charity.
Boteach does list 10 separate anonymous donations from individuals, with most of them in the $5,000 range. One, however, was for $100,000.
The Carnegie Hall event was sponsored by the Seminar Center of New York City, which no longer seems to be in business. Their Web site has been disabled and their phone numbers no longer work. Looking back, the people who attended this thing and gave their money included a middle-aged woman wearing a fire-engine red T-shirt that red on one side "Michael Let Me Hug You" and on the other "Leave Him Alone — Stop Filthy Press."
Last year this column reported that Boteach — who is famous for lecturing around the world on the subject of "Kosher Sex" — had been prohibited from having his own pulpit in the United Kingdom after the British Charitable Commission investigated him for fraud. The commission accused Boteach of using funds for the Oxford L'Chaim Society there for an expensive home. The L'Chaim Society of Oxford has since changed its name and disassociated itself with Boteach.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/03/hey-feds-theres-this-thing-called.html
Efraim Diveroli's ludicrous little company certified as "Disadvantaged?"
Because he's a Hasidic Jew. Or at least he claims to be on this federal form. (Efraim's cousin, Michael Jackson's favorite rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the son of the owner of Botach Tactical, started out as a Lubavitcher Hasidic rabbi although he seems to be more freelance today.)
In fact, I just learned, all Hasidic Jews, such as the Botach/Boteach/Diveroli clan, are eligible for federal ethnic preferences! I had no idea ....
An alert reader pointed out in the comments to an earlier post this old NY Times story:
Reagan Grants Hasidim 'Disadvantaged' Status
New York Times, Jun 29, 1984
They were talking about it in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn yesterday. Bearded men in dark coats under a hot sun, men known for their deep spiritual values, their belief in education and hard work, their pride in self-reliance.
They were all Hasidic Jews, and they were talking about President Reagan's decision, announced Wednesday, to add them to a list of minority groups considered ''disadvantaged'' by the Government.
The list already includes Hispanic people, blacks, Indians and other groups that are considered by the Government to have encountered severe economic problems because of discrimination.
The designation means the Hasidim are able to apply for Federal assistance in running businesses. They will also be eligible for programs that set aside work for minority-group businesses.
Holy cow ... affirmative action?!? Is that why the Syrian Jews of Brooklyn have gotten so rich?
An Amazon.com reviewer of a book about the Hasidic Satmars of Williamsburg notes:
As a result of their low level of education and literacy, Satmar hasidim, to a much greater extent than most Orthodox Jews, fit poorly into the modern economy; professional jobs are of course off limits. According to the author, 1/3 of Williamsburg Hasids have incomes below the poverty line, and the median Jewish income in Williamsburg is one half the median family income in New York City (which in turn is below the median family income for NYC suburbs). In several parts of the book, the author goes out of his way to brag that in 1984, the Satmar were "offically designated a disadvantaged minority" by the U.S. Commerce Department (by which I assume he means that they are eligible for easy access to federal contracts under affirmative action regulations - though the author is not very clear about this). In fact, he states that this decision was "the most significant factor" in "the development of the entreprenurial spirit" among the younger hasidim. Somehow I find it troubling that a community can, by undereducating its members, become voluntarily poor and then gain "affirmative action" protections that were intended for communities that become poor through discrimination.
Here's former NYC mayor Ed Koch's statement of disbelief that the Reagan Administration made Hasidic Jews an official disadvantaged group.
I'm not real clear on just what affirmative action goodies Hasidim are eligible for as a disadvantaged minority -- clearly, they can get help from the Minority Business Development Agency, but I'm not sure what else. If you know, let me know.
Despite, or perhaps because of, their Commitment to Service and Federally-Certified Ethnic Disadvantage, the Botach / Boteach family of LA is wildly wealthy. Luke Ford points out today:
This Week The Botachs Married Off A Daughter At The Century Plaza Hotel
I’m told there were 800 guests for the wedding of the daughter of Shlomo and Dalia Botach. Shlomo is Yoav’s brother. The daughter is [celebrity rabbi] Shmuley Boteach’s cousin.
How do they afford it? The Botachs own much of downtown Los Angeles. They live under the radar in the modest Pico-Robertson neighborhood. They send their kids to Hillel and YULA and get scholarships because of their large families. No one dreams of the vast amounts of money this family accumulated. Yoav (Shmuley Boteach’s father) is the largest owner of warehouses in California. Rumored to be Israelis, their roots are Iranian. [More]
The Century Plaza is the big Hyatt Regency hotel in Century City, right next door to Beverly Hills. Their wedding reception package starts at $132 per guest, so that's six figures right there.
http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=2578
Rabbi Avrohom Union was the Botach’s downstairs neighbor in the duplex while he was rabbi of Young Israel of Beverly Hills (Pico and Shenandoah) and got a dead sheep head left on his doorstep as he was preparing to issue a letter condemning the Kabbalah Centre. He never sent the letter.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/03/general-theory-of-afghan-ammo-swindle.html
Have you ever tried to buy a camera from the ads in the back pages of a camera magazine? There are pages and pages in tiny type offering better deals than you could get from any local store. A friend bought a camera from one once, and it turned out to be a horrible experience. The package showed up very late, was missing essential pieces, and when he called to complain the customer service rep acted hostile and tried to sell him more stuff he didn't want rather than fix his problem. The representatives of the camera shop became highly abusive over the phone.
I asked him what city the shop was located in? Brooklyn.
And what time do they close business on Friday? 2 pm.
Well, there you go ...
There are a whole bunch of Hasidic-run photography dealers in New York City. Some of them, such as B&H (which is jokingly said to stand for "Beards & Hats"), are quite honest and have done very well for themselves over the years.
On a bulletin board on Photo.net, customer Steve Levine says:
"Interestingly, B&H was the first "Hasidic" owned camera store that decided to treat customers like human beings. In the pre-B&H days, all of the NYC camera stores were nearly impossible to deal with."
Many of them still practice bait-and-switch and other simple con techniques. They hook you in with too-good-to-be-true advertised prices, then proceed to make your life a nightmare as you try to get them to live up to their promises and they try to badger you into buying even more junk. Here, for example, is a voice mail from a customer service rep at one of these firms: "I'm going to break your neck."
When their reputations get too bad, they simply switch to another name and carry on.
Efraim Diveroli's uncle's gun shop in LA, Botach Tactical, is very similar to the NY camera stores of ill-memory. It lowballs prices in its ads, then, when it has got you hooked, proceeds to abuse you. Maybe it has a couple of the items on hand, but if you aren't the first to call in, it puts your order in a queue until it sees if it can negotiate a deal with the manufacturer. You might get your ammo eight months later. In summary, you get what you pay for.
So, Diveroli was just applying the family/ethnic tradition to federal contracts. You put in a low bid, assisted by Diveroli's AEY, Inc. certification as owned by a disadvantaged minority (Hasidic, although Diveroli sounds like a Roman Jewish name -- i.e., not Ashkenazi, which the Hasidim are -- but Diveroli's celebrity uncle Shmuley Boteach was ordained as a Lubavitcher Hasidic rabbi, although he has since broken with them) for affirmative action purposes. If the feds bite on the bait, well, you hustle like hell to come up with something that will make it so that the feds will be more willing to accept the crap you foist on them than dealing with you and your lawyers.
Why the Hasidim?
First, there is the "in-group morality." Some Muslim in Afghanistan loses an eye because his bullet explodes in his gun? Eh ... The taxpayers of America have to shell out more to make up the loss? Eh ...
Update: Of course, in neither of Efraim's two mugshots is he wearing a beard or a hat, so I guess he's Hasidic for federal contracting purposes, but a wild and crazy guy for the ladies.
https://www.fatherhood.org/Gala/07photos/IMG_1981.jpg
I'm surprised UOJ hasn't been on to me before.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/03/amazing-adventures-of-men-with-gold.html
Judith Boteach apparently now runs a Moroccan restaurant, BBC Cafe, in Beverly Hills. An LA Times restaurant review describes her as "Judith Boteach, the charismatic Moroccan American chef and co-owner and her partners Jay and Karine Kaplan and Gabriel Azoulay."
The VP and #2 officer of Diveroli's AEY the firm that got the huge contract from the taxpayers, is 25-year-old licensed masseuse David M. Packouz. He appears to be the son of Rabbi Kalman Packouz (a.k.a., Kenneth M. Packouz) of Miami Beach, author of How to Prevent an Intermarriage. Rabbi Kalman is Executive Director of Aish HaTorah Jerusalem Fund.
There's been a lot of speculation over how young Diveroli got this lucrative contract. One common suggestion is that perhaps he's a big Republican campaign donor.
Yet, the only person mentioned in this posting who has contributed to a Presidential candidate over the last decade, according to OpenSecrets.org, is pawnshop owner turned merchant of death Yoav Botach, who gave $1,000 to John Edwards last year.
OZZIE J ORBACH
704 PENINSULA BLVD
WOODMERE, NY 11598
(516) 295-9067
These young Diveroli & Packouz punks must have watched too many re-runs of the Sopranos.
That incident where they got arrested at the parking lot was pretty serious. Whatever the valet did to tick them off, they beat the living daylights out of him.
Diveroli also has a history with the police for getting violent with his various girlfriends.
Hey Boteachs, you lowlives!
Chen was spotted in Toronto in the Agudah South shul.don't know what/if anyone did anything about it
"Chen was spotted in Toronto in the Agudah South shul"
Very passig that the trail of another child murderer leads to a satellite of 42 Broadway.
With regard to milk: You are quite right when you say milk produced by daries like Vreba Hoff should'nt be considered kosher due to their violations of ethics, animal rights or enivironmental standards. Unfortunately as we saw with the Rubashkin debacle as long as the technical laws of kashrut are being 'observed' the product will be certified kosher. The prime examplar of this thinking was and is the arch apologist of the agudah. The thinking observant community has the power to stop companies like Vreba and Rubashkins instantly - DONT BUY THE PRODUCTS. Alas it will never happen. If we cant bother to protect our kids or wives in Netivot, L.A. N.Y, Johannesburg or Kiryat Gat who will give a @#$% about a bunch of cows?
There is a big Beit Samach Dalet on the Botach Tactical website. I wonder if that was before or after the investigation. And does it stand for Botach Siata Dshemaya?
"as we saw with the Rubashkin debacle as long as the technical laws of kashrut are being 'observed'"
Rubashkin does NOT observe kashruth.
They use bolt stun guns on the "kosher" side which crushes the skull & brain of the animal
They push slaughtered animals from the treif side to the "kosher" side to double their money
They put tremendous pressure on the shochtim to mass produce regardless of proper shechita techniques
They do not check animals for treifa if they were in an accident
They compensate whores like Lubinsky & others to lie about the true state of affairs
Here is someone claiming to know Amy Neustein's daughter Sherry and who takes the side of the father. I wonder if it's the wife of lowlife Arthur Green who was working with Mostofsky & Deutsch?:
http://trishwilson.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/protests_agains.html
The system actually worked, not smoothly, not without its problems, but it did work. To quote Sherry "I, for one, owe my existence as a normal young adult to the family judges, Ohel foster care, and the Legal Aid Society attorney who helped me reunite with my father in the face of considerable opposition in the media".
There are many friends, like myself, that have grown up and know Sherry and her father, stayed over their house over weekends that she has confided to. There is also her aunt, her mother's sister, and her three first cousins that have maintained a close relationship with Sherry.
People are painting a picture of Sherry living locked away in some dark basement with a perverted father. Sorry to disappoint them, Sherry was brought up by a caring father. She has attended the finest schools. She is attending a very prestigious Law School. She worked one summer for a US Senator, spent another summer in Bangladesh, last summer in South Africa, the list goes on.
She is a remarkable young woman that should be allowed to go on with her life. She is one of those people that will make important contributions to society - just let her!
Posted by: Susan Green
susangreen123123@yahoo.com
Michael Lesher responds:
Amy Neustein lost custody essentially because
a psychologist notorious for accused-abuser-friendly
attitudes, Arthur Green, argued that Amy's belief that her
daughter had been abused amounted to a "delusion." (As to the
extensive evidence supporting the charge, Green was tape
recorded saying that he would not consider it because the judge
had already told him no abuse had occurred, though how the
judge could have decided that, in the middle of trial, is a
pretty problem.)
I do not know why Sherry -- if indeed the author of the re-
cantation is Sherry -- has decided, for the first time, to
deny her former claims and insist she was never abused. It
is possible that she cannot remember the incidents from so
many years ago. It is also possible, as suggested in
"Waiting for Sherry: Part II" (linked from this site), that
people with influence on Sherry, who are worried about the
effect of the book Dr. Neustein has just co-written, have
pressed Sherry to make her public statement in an effort to
discredit the book. What I do know is that this statement
marks an abrupt departure from Sherry's original reports,
and that she might easily have prevented a good deal of press
coverage of her case (or at least drastically changed the
tenor of the reports) if she had made such a claim at any
time over a period of many years. It is also in sharp contrast
with the statements of her late grandmother (who gave
eyewitness testimony) and the statements of mental health
professionals and an expert evaluator who interviewed Sherry
at the time this case was before the courts. I note that the
new statement does not attempt to explain how Sherry's grandmother
"lied" or how Sherry herself managed to deceive the experts.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/R_z3PuX5cpI/AAAAAAAABgM/HV6hyIsEGno/s1600-h/scan0008.gif
R' Moishe ztl instructed these buffoons decades ago to fix the problem but they are still in a head scratching fest with Belsky.
As much as I am loathe to give credit to the OU, they are still ahead of some others who even deny there is a problem.
There are some heimisher hashgochos like the Edah Charedis, etc, who did fix this problem and do not rely on the OU for oils.
Diveroli & Packouz will probably plead the 5th on April 17th on Capitol Hill but they have been ordered to report this Friday to be interrogated by Federal investigators. The NY Times is also reporting that that the State Dept has now joined Defense & Homeland Security as the 3rd agency investigating them.
Well, I spoke to that Young Israel old timer but he didn't have much to offer that we don't already know from newspaper reports & UOJ.
Except this:
Apparently Chaim Kaminetsky, all 500 lbs of him, had some monkey business going on with the National Council at another facility he owns, this one in Mount Vernon.
And yes, he is the same Kaminetsky of Pesach with the Fressers.
Sick, Sick & getting Sicker out there.
Last update - 12:43 11/04/2008
'If he said jump off the roof, you'd jump'
By Uri Blau and Yair Ettinger
Tags: Elior Chen, ultra-Orthodox
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer" - Deuteronomy 18: 10-11
Elior Chen grew up in Jerusalem's Romema neighborhood, one of seven children of a mother who worked as the neighborhood's ritual-bath attendant and a father who was an employee of the city's religious council. His father, Yaakov, who had immigrated from Morocco, was a man of action, a fervent Zionist, who served in an elite army unit and been involved in daring operations. However, toward the end of the 1970s he was offered a modest position in the service of the chief rabbis of Jerusalem, and decided to don a black skullcap and give his children an ultra-Orthodox education. He foresaw a future for his son as a brilliant Torah scholar. He purchased countless religious books, including volumes of kabbala, in which the child immersed himself from the age of 12.
Today Elior Chen, 29, is apparently in Canada, hoping to evade the international extradition order that has been issued against him. In Israel, he is suspected of being responsible for one of the worst cases of systematic child abuse the country has ever known. The victims are the children of his disciples, who were prepared to do anything for him, including spilling the blood of their own children and those of their friends.
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Police and prosecutors believe that under instructions from their rabbi, Chen, the accused and parties still at large imposed a reign of terror on the children: beating them on the head with hammers, pushing them against burning-hot heaters, throwing salt on their wounds, tying them with ropes, and gagging and punching them. They are accused, too, of imprisoning them in suitcases and other confined areas, forcing them to eat feces and to drink arrack until vomiting, and made them run around until they fainted.
The apparent victims of most of these acts were two children - 3 and 4 years old, the youngest of eight children of the woman charged this week with grave abuse together with another member of Chen's circle, David Kugman.
In any event, the sixth wedding anniversary of Elior and Ruth Chen this week was marked separately by husband and wife: He is in Canada, along with a disciple, Yosef Fischer, and she is apparently somewhere in Israel with their four children and other followers who have not been arrested.
"I knew [Chen] very well, like a brother," relates a former member of the group. "As I remember him, there weren't concepts like violence involved, but there was a madness that stood out in him. If he said jump off the roof, you'd jump. I am certain he has supernatural powers and the proof is that a mother, whom I know as a sterling woman, a religious woman, takes her son and passes him through fire, as though before Moloch. Is it possible to understand a thing like that rationally? And I tell you that even if the child had died, it would not have upset her. Why? Because she's certain she is doing the best thing for the child."
Do you understand what you are saying?
"You have to realize that there are people who can take you - someone from North Tel Aviv, from Haaretz - and control you. This is a reality, out of your control, and you will do things and all of a sudden wake up and only two years later will you manage to escape the scene ...
"Do you know what the police are getting wrong? They aren't trying to understand this story. They think they are dealing with criminals, or with methods of child-rearing. They don't understand that from the perspective of these people there is a 'correction' going on here, in the spiritual sense, a tikkun [correction] of the soul. And the police don't understand what level of control this is. You are talking about nonviolent people who were not beaten at home, perfectly normal people. Someone simply comes along, gets control of their switch and that's it. They need to be sent for observation, and given about two years before they can understand the gravity of the matter. I wouldn't send them to prison for murder, I'd send the person who made them do what they did, because he's the main thing."
Walking 'wounded'
Elior Chen's bar mitzvah, in 1992, was graced with the presence of venerable ultra-Orthodox rabbis and wheeler- dealers, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi, who knew the boy's father, Yaakov, from the religious council. These rabbis were presented with a wunderkind who devoted hours to holy books. No one imagined these were mostly books about Jewish mysticism - kabbala.
Despite his diligence, the youngster had difficulty getting along in ultra- Orthodox settings. At the age of 15 he was sent to the Oz Leyissachar Yeshiva, where he spent 10 years. From a narrow alley that leads from Joseph Caro Street in Jerusalem's Beit Yisrael neighborhood, steps lead to the second story of a building. Here, beyond an iron gate, Oz Leyissachar operates out of three rooms. Wretchedness prevails there. At the late hour when we visited, three students were trying to rest, sprawled on rickety bunk beds. In the main room, a man with a long beard and earlocks, sucking a lollipop, read a text by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.
Oz Leyissachar was founded by Rabbi Haim Pinto, and intended for youngsters who are on the bottom of the ultra- Orthodox social ladder, some of whom have cut themselves off from their families. The yeshiva is identified with the Bratslav sect, but not formally affiliated with any major branch of Hasidism. Some students have become associated with an anti-establishment group called Pitzuei Hanahal - nahal, meaning "brook," from Rabbi Nachman's "Flowing Brook, a Fountain of Wisdom"; and pitzuei, "wounded," because of their oppression by the ultra-Orthodox establishment. Graffiti is scrawled on the cupboards at the yeshiva: "wanderer," "injured by nerves or anger," "hurt by the cold."
The "wounded" have replaced life at establishment yeshivas with study in independent settings, wandering among graves of holy men and in forests. The group, whose members are unmarried, has been joined by the newly religious and refugees from national religious yeshivas. In recent years, the name "Wounded" has struck terror in the hearts of Arab passersby in Jerusalem's Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood after a number of violent incidents, some culminating in convictions.
Elior Chen was never identified with the hard-core "Wounded," but that was the environment in which he grew up. He excelled in his studies and became Rabbi Pinto's favorite. After some years as a student, Pinto appointed him a ba'al shi'ur (teacher) at the yeshiva. Although he was never ordained, he has since been called by the title of "rabbi" and has attracted enthusiastic disciples, who are impressed not only by his knowledge of kabbala, but by the way he applies it practically.
Rabbi Pinto was also responsible for making a match for his foremost student. A number of years ago he was contacted by Sharon Tel-Tzur, a Bratslav Hasid who had become newly religious and requested his help in transferring Rebbe Nachman's remains from Uman in Ukraine to Jerusalem. Tel-Tzur dreamed of marrying his daughter to an Ashkenazi, but when Pinto offered him the genius of the yeshiva, he could not refuse. The couple married and moved into an apartment in the Beitar Illit ultra-Orthodox settlement.
The popularity of his lessons led Chen to believe that Oz Leyissachar was not "big" enough for him; Pinto was unhappy about the kabbala lessons he was giving.
"He started dealing with kabbala too much," recalls one of Chen's classmates. "Rabbi Pinto would say: 'Don't teach kabbala. Study everything, but young people are forbidden to teach kabbala' ... Five years ago Elior quarreled once and for all with the rabbi. The explosion occurred because of the business about kabbala. Elior left."
Other students left together with Chen. Some of them became members of the circle that coalesced around him, like Shimon Gabai - a main suspect in the child-abuse case, who was found Wednesday and is now in police custody. Others, like D., the separated husband of the woman who was indicted in the affair, who himself is not a suspect, and David Kugman, the other person who was indicted - simply worshiped Chen's "powers." At first he would give lessons in synagogues in the capital's Geula and Har Nof neighborhoods; later he met with followers near his parents' home in Romema.
Canceled wedding
About two years after the Chens' wedding, Tel-Tzur's second daughter met one of Chen's major disciples: Kugman. Today a central suspect in the child-abuse case, he then looked like a good match. "She wanted Kugman because he comes from a wealthy home. She wanted a comfortable life. She had several meetings with him and he looked to her like a refined, nice person," relates a relative.
The intended bride linked up with Chen's group, and members of her family remember that she started to disappear from home. They felt they were losing her to Chen, but say the closer she got to him, the more she was upset by his control over her fiance, says one source: "She said she was not interested in anyone whose rabbi was Elior - she felt Elior controlled him entirely."
The day before the vort (an agreement between the bride's and groom's parents) was sealed, Chen decided he did not like the bride's reservations, and ordered Kugman to call everything off. After this humiliation, the Tel-Tzurs broke off relations with their son-in-law and thus with their eldest daughter Ruth as well. The only one who continued to maintain contact with Ruth was her grandmother, who says she spoke to Ruth about a month ago, after she gave birth to her fourth child, and says: "I am very worried about her. She is a good soul. She is so naive and loyal to her husband."
"Ruth realized that if her husband breaks up the match, it means her father is no longer happy with her genius [husband], her 'messiah rabbi,'" says a family member. "Tel-Tzur told his daughter many times: 'For me your husband is my son-in-law and he will never be my rabbi.'"
Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri, son of kabbalist Rabbi David Batzri, relates that as early as 18 months ago he heard "talk about 'a hidden saint.' A kind of young star with supernatural powers, who was leading a group of Bratslav Hasidim connected to Pitzuei Hanahal. People were saying he was advising people, and doing tikkunim and rituals of applied kabbala for them."
The practice of applied kabbala attributed to Chen has been considered illegitimate in the world of Jewish mysticism ever since it was prohibited by the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria) in the 16th century. Along with the flourishing amulet and "holy water" industry, many kabbalist rabbis engage in theoretical kabbala, such as "revelation of the secrets" of Creation.
The so-called tikkunim conducted by kabbalists are for the most part a kind of prayer, rather than acts associated with applied kabbala - the forbidden realm of "invoking the names" of angels to influence reality. "Hardly anyone engages in those things," explains the younger Batzri. "I believe that this is possible, but I am somewhat skeptical about those things, and I don't believe that a youngster of 29 can do them."
Chen has indeed engaged in "invoking names," relate former friends and members of his family. "He has engaged in applied kabbala and mysticism, and this has attracted many people," says his brother-in-law Nachman Tel-Tzur who, as noted, has cut off contact with him. "Many people have been in contact with him, asking for advice. When he would come to Ashdod, a list of people would chase after him because they thought he works miracles. There were rumors that he cured people in hospitals. I can't rely on that, but I have seen things with my own eyes. He would sit in the house and move things by reciting verses, and he would do things with parchment. One time he looked at the palm of my hand and told me things that I was shocked that he knew."
His classmates relate that Chen's work with applied kabbala began in 2005, after he had left Oz Leyissachar; even before that, all of them are prepared to swear, they saw him perform wizardry. "At first I didn't believe it," relates one of them, who refrains from revealing his name for fear that Chen will do him harm. "The reality was," he continues, "that we would drive at no cost ... from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and then from Jerusalem to the North and back. He would ask how much was needed and then he would say, 'Bring a book,' open it and find cash. Call this whatever you want, I have seen this happen."
Rabbi Batzri says that from the details of the abuse affair, it seems there were attempts to exorcise a dybbuk (evil spirit) from the bodies of the victims, rather than to perform tikkunim, as stated in the indictment. "To me it sounds like complete paganism, like sacrificing children to Moloch. This is a religious rite that does not exist in Judaism. There isn't any religious rite because there aren't any such things in the Jewish kabbala, not even in applied kabbala, which is forbidden. This is exactly how children are sacrificed to Moloch. Only in Christianity and in pagan religions is there a concept like that - to pass a child over a fiery oven so he will burn."
Batzri is convinced that anyone who engages in "invoking names," like Chen, is exposed to danger from "demons and evil spirits," like Samael and Lilith. "Only someone who holds conversations with demons can arrive at passing children through fire.... It's like all kinds of mediums who don't have any connection to kabbala. That is the danger in these things, because it can lead to complete paganism."
In May 2005, on the day opponents of the Israeli pullout from Gaza planned to block roads across the country, the Shin Bet security service exposed a Jewish group that was planning a terror attack on the Temple Mount, intended to spark an all-out war in the Middle East - and thwart the withdrawal. At that time the Shin Bet believed that Avtalion and Akiva Kadosh - two brothers who knew Chen from Oz Leyissachar, and afterward attended his lessons outside - were planning to fire a Lau missile from the Bratslav Shuvu Banim Yeshiva at the Temple Mount, and then hurl grenades at the police who arrived on the scene. At the end of the operation, the Shin Bet said, the two planned to commit suicide. To this end Avtalion Kadosh contacted Eyal Kermani of Rehovot, to help carry out the terror attack and purchase weapons, but Akiva Kadosh got cold feet, and refused to cooperate with them.
Although he did not serve in the Israel Defense Forces, Chen is known as "a very militant, Kahanist figure." Attorney Naftali Wurtzburger, who represented the men under arrest, recalls "a hallucinatory group of Bratslav guys, hallucinatory in the harmless sense - fellows who go around to the graves of holy men and started to talk about how they would bring redemption by blowing up the Temple Mount. The Shin Bet took this seriously and thought they had discovered a new Jewish underground. In the end they realized that this is a hallucinatory story, somewhere in the twilight zone of these people's thinking."
Wurtzburger remembers the major role Chen played in the affair: "The others in the group saw him as their squad commander in a way. He wasn't a sort whom battalions follow, but he did lead this small group. The initiative and the talk ... were attributed to him."
Wurtzburger gained the impression that Chen's authority did not derive only from a dominant personality. "All of their talk was at the religious level. The idea was to bring about redemption by means of a grandiose action, and the messianic atmosphere was always in the background. In the end the Shin Bet also understood that it was dealing with a hallucinatory group." Chen's involvement in this affair unraveled his ties with the yeshiva and with Pitzuei Hanahal, once and for all.
'Hidden saint'
Chen continued to nurture the hard core of his disciples, which numbered 10 to 15 people. After he was released from arrest in the Temple Mount affair, he closed the gates to the group and demanded total loyalty and blind obedience. Even though his reputation as a "a hidden saint" continued to grow, he ordered his disciples not to let people from the outside join the group, which met alternately at his home in Beitar, his parents' home and at the home of D. and his wife.
"We weren't permitted to bring people in, and if this did happen he would be angry," says a former member of the group. "He didn't want other people. Whoever was there, was there; they were stuck to him. There were a lot of people whom he kicked out."
Among the sworn followers were the suspected abusive mother and her husband D., Yosef Fischer, Shimon Gabai, David Kugman, Avraham Mascalchi and at least three other unmarried men, whose identies are protected by the court.
"If someone met a girl and wanted to marry her," relates the former group member, "[Chen] would tell that person not to get married and people would cancel everything. That is what happened with Shimon Gabai, who got engaged and broke the engagement, that is what happened with David Kugman, who was about to get married to Chen's sister-in-law, and that is what happened with Avraham Mascalchi."
Another wedding was canceled this week in different circumstances: Yet another disciple, whose identity is protected by a gag order, was arrested on Monday, just hours before his wedding. He did not agree to hold the ceremony in jail, as the judge suggested at his arraignment.
Only a few of the Chen family's neighbors in Beitar knew the members of the group by name. The children who live on Hazon Ish Street tell about the lively traffic of visitors to the Chens' home, and about another family that lived with them during the weeks before the child-abuse story broke, and then left.
Close to the family's apartment, a kollel (yeshiva for married men) of the Shuvu Banim Yeshiva operates in a trailer. One student there, newly religious, remembers the group of naive men that gathered under the leadership of the neighbor across the way. He remembers the tikkunim they conducted in the street in the middle of the night.
"In that group, [Chen] was the only one from Beitar," he relates. "They would go to the ritual bath together and would go into seclusion. On nights of the new moon, at 2 A.M., he would stand here under the tree with some 10 or 15 people, doing tikkunim. If you want to find him, he is usually in the fields in the area. He is very mysterious. He has lived here for years and no one knows anything about him."
The married men of the group were Chen, Fischer and D., the husband of the mother suspected of child abuse. D. and she were born and raised in the United States in Zionist, Orthodox families. After they immigrated, they lived for a few years in a settlement in Gush Katif in Gaza and then moved to the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem. There D. abandoned the values of religious Zionism and began to take an interest in mysticism. The couple and their children felt comfortable in the Jewish Quarter, where there are many foreign residents who join the ultra-Orthodox communities in the city; D., who dresses in a white robe, is familiar to the residents. The couple sent their children to a relatively liberal Talmud Torah (school for young boys).
D. met Chen about six years ago and became a key member of the group that traveled together to the tombs of holy men, and secluded themselves in the forests near Jerusalem and the Etzion Bloc. "Even though Elior is much younger, D. saw him as a very wise individual. He recognized his special qualities and thought Elior Chen was a spiritual individual with abilities," relates a close friend.
D. opened his home on Misgav Ladach Street in the Jewish Quarter to the group's members, which is how their acquaintance with his children and his wife developed. In their home they came to know Kugman and Gabai, who "would come to their home and study, sitting and talking about the Torah portion of the week, Hasidism, things that people learn at any yeshiva. There wasn't a focus on raising children."
D. and his wife were unusual among the members of the group, mostly because they were well off economically, even though D.'s friend says that "in his time it never happened that the rabbi asked for or received money. D. says that if he had wanted money then, he would have become a millionaire, because of his many disciples."
During the past year the relationship between D. and his wife began to crack: The veteran Chen disciple found himself outside the circle, whereas his wife remained on the inside and her position grew stronger.
"If there were a constellation of sexual closeness between the rabbi and the wife, that could explain why Chen took the trouble to neutralize D.," says the same source.
Chen ordered D. to leave home and advised him to give his wife a bill of divorce. This past Sukkot D. was thus compelled to leave his wife and eight children, and to stop his visits to the home. At the same time he totally cut himself off from the group. The separation was kept secret, ironically, so as not to hurt the children, as D.'s friend relates. "She didn't want him to be in the home, but they kept up the pretense of conducting themselves as husband and wife for the benefit of those around them. Divorce in the ultra-Orthodox world can harm the children and he was afraid of that."
The strengthening of the wife's position occurred in parallel to her total abdication to Chen's will, to whom she turned when she had difficulty raising her small children in the absence of the father. Chen authorized Gabai and Kugman to "help" in the education of the children, an education that was almost entirely pure torture. Gabai and Kugman took control of the home in the Jewish Quarter and later of the villa to which the wife moved two months ago. The villa, part of the prestigious Wolfson complex in the Shaarei Hessed neighborhood of Jerusalem, belongs to the wife's mother, who lives in the United States and is the proprietor of a well-known Jewish newspaper.
According to his friend, D. "did not really know what was happening there. When he heard the story, he said that it couldn't be happening, that they had gone crazy. How could people do such things to children? He couldn't believe it of his wife and he said that she was a woman who put all her soul into the children. This isn't a family where there was violence, it's a very wealthy family. Now he is in bad shape and he can't sleep at night."
On Monday an ambulance left Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Karem for the Herzog Hospital for nursing care. In it lay a small child of three and a half, hooked up to tubes and machines. His condition is defined as vegetative. This is the eighth child of the mother and D. The doctors at Hadassah have given up hope that he will ever regain consciousness.
At Hadassah, before she was jailed, the mother was able to visit him once, accompanied by police. One of the medical team recalls: "The mother looked calm and serene, completely normal, didn't ask how the child was doing and didn't even ask to see him. There was only one thing she wanted. She said that they have a very important and precious amulet, which is valuable, and she wanted to leave it with the child. That is the only thing she said." The amulet was not found.
Chaim Berlin Approved Farting in Jamaica has left a new comment on your post "THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN ARE STARVING BECAUSE THEIR F...":
http://blogindm.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-is-jewish-music-blogger-writing.html
According to the rulebook, students had to ask permission to pass gas. If a student passed gas without permission, he was disciplined severely. If a student did ask permission, he was escorted to a side area and his gas passing was monitored. If he then didn’t pass gas, he was disciplined severely. It gives you an idea of the type of dehumanizing atmosphere at these places.
I’m not going to focus much on the abuse that occurs at these places, except to point out that the information is clearly available online. Even a few minutes of Googling will provide enough information to scare any reasonable parent away from the Tranquility Bay program, which is apparently the worst of all of these programs.
I am also disturbed by the reception that some, including the aforementioned Jewish music blogger, have given these posts.
First, about the comments. These comments take one or more of the forms listed below.
These commentors suggest that people shouldn’t assume the obvious conclusions are correct because “Da’as Torah,†in this case Rav Aharon Schechter, signed off on Isaac being sent to Tranquility Bay. They argue that no one is qualified to question Rav Schechter’s judgement.
In my opinion, this suggestion is pernicious. Dr. Pelcovitz has confirmed that Isaac was abused at Tranquility Bay. So, whether Rav Schecter was misled by Isaac’s father, or whether he was aware of the issues in advance, it’s clear that he exercised poor judgment here. Especially when he refused to reverse himself after he was contacted by a number of gedolim including Rav David Feinstein and Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky who felt that this was a case of pikuach nefesh, and made him aware of the abusive situation at TB. One does not ignore abuse because a rav, no matter how well-respected, is willing to allow it to continue.
If anything, when taken with Rav Schechter’s recent participation in a number of recent unfair bans including the Lipa ban and the wig store ban, this story clearly demonstrates that Rav Shechter has been more than willing to participate in and even initiate unfair and anti-halachik behavior.
The notion of rabbinic infallibility implied by these commentors has strong negative ramifications for our community and ensures the perpetuation of avlos.
R' Aron Schechter is a specialist at making takkonos for the Bungalow Putzes at Camp Morris.
How about a new one like hold your farts in and let them out once daily in front of the wig store on Coney Island Ave.
According to Luke, Rabbi Weil Has Agreed To Lead The Orthodox Union
He’ll be finishing his job at Beth Jacob in the next few months and by the fall he’ll be out of town.
His official position will be executive vice-president which means CEO.
By the next school year the Weil children will be in school on the east coast. He / they will be back here for the High Holidays. A search is due to begin very soon for his successor.
Interesting that Weil who gives a free pass to Shalom Tendler is tapped for top spot at the OU.
It would be interesting if Weil, who has thrown so many people out of his shul (despite retaining Tendler), would throw Belsky out of the OU.
There’s a gag order in Israel against naming the couple David and Michal Shenbaum (nee Schwartz).
According to an official Israeli document I was emailed (the entire database of the Israeli Interior Ministry has been circulating over the internet — you can look up ANY Israeli citizen and find out their ID number, birthday, relations, etc.), Michal was born in the United States in 1970 and made aliya in ‘71 and her maiden name was Schwartz. Harold and Claudia are his parents. Her parents are Naomi and Yehuda.
She’s apparently the product of Naomi Klass’s first marriage. Did Naomi and Yehuda split while they were in Israel? Naomi apparently got custody of Michal.
David Shenbaum apparently made aliyah in 1993.
Does anyone know this couple and can offer any insights?
I can’t find anything about them on Google.
Anyone have YULA yearbooks from 1985-1988 to check this out? I believe David graduated from YULA around 1986. Naomi went to the Shulamit Yeshiva in Brooklyn.
Hungarian chassidim are the scum of the earth.
They have absolutely no ethics or morals.
They abuse their own children, physically, emotionally and sexually.
Someone should do a study on how many children are abused daily, whether in their yeshivos by their rebeeim or by their own parents. Places like Williamsburgh and Boro park are crawling with all kinds of creeps looking for young victims to satisfy their darkest desires. They hang out at Rebbe's Tishes, Mikvas and other such events.
The Rebbes and 'community leaders' are mum, they say and do nothing about it. As long as there are no concerts and they can continue doing metzitza bepeh without interference from the government, they are content.
Excuse me as I go barf.
They also have zero respect for education and their accent alone is enough to make us all barf.
The question is if Savitsky or UOJ will make a move on Belsky before Weil comes onboard the OU.
It looks like Putz Floyd is a sofek ger.
The Rabbi Aloof character from Kansas (who does sound aloof) says his so called beis din had two other guys from the frey temple that are "yodeye sefer". We posken that a Conservative gerus could be ok if the ger has the right kavannos but because we have no way of knowing from the possul dayanim, it is a sofek.
UOJ thought 42 Broadway has a vested interest in mind control of their subjects. Who would have known they also have a secret agenda on fart control?
"secret agenda on fart control"
They do control what comes out of Shafran's mouth, which is the same thing.
Genug...with the farting...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_(mouthwash)
I never realized it smelled that bad. Maybe I should switch to Listerine.
If Boog is ready to lose it over Matzoh prices, I hope he doesn't live in Monsey where Aron Tendler came up from Baltimore to help coordinate the baking on behalf of his father's "Community Synagogue"
http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v21/mj_v21i33.html#CIC
Shereshevsky from the Hersh "rescue" didn't just try to pull a kiddushei ketana on his daughter. He's also in cherem for leaving his wife an agunah.
I don't get why Fresser Kaminetsky thinks Naomi Klass Mao-er is such a big attraction for his Pesach hotel.
What does she have to offer?
Read the post, if you haven't, and tell me if I'm nuts
YOU ARE NUTS!
"Mr. Soros has been worrying about the fragile state of the markets for years. But last summer, at a luncheon at his home in Southampton with 20 prominent financiers, he struck an unusually bearish note.
“The mood of the group was generally gloomy, but George said we were going into a serious recession,” said Byron Wien, the chief investment strategist of Pequot Capital, a hedge fund.
Mr. Soros was one of only two people there who predicted the American economy was headed for a recession, he said."
Soros is a nut too.
u guys are such asses y do u believe the BS on this page
mostofsky is a good guy and and reb arron is a gadol
UOJ is a troublemaker
A Mother In Israel writes:
I heard Rabbi Metzger on the radio (Channel two) Thursday am and he was asked why the haredi press didn't report about the child abuse cases. He said three things:
1) The abuse is a Baal teshuva phenomenon.
2) Anyone growing up with a haredi education wouldn't beat their children, among other reasons because they don't call their teachers by their first names.
3) The charedi press doesn't consider these BTs charedim so they feel no need to report about it.
Metzger is a PRICK. The man stands accused of fraud, of extortion, of sexual harassment of both females and males – in fact, a panel of senior Rabbinut judges in effect found him guilty of all this before haredim led by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv brokered Metzger's "election" as chief rabbi.
Yet BTs, Jews who became Orthodox at some point after childhood, are the only child abusers in Orthodoxy?
Metzger should be run out of the Rabbinut, run out of Israel and run out of Judaism.
And so should the evil man who made this incompetent, bigoted boob "chief rabbi
UOJ,
Check your email.
Good Shabbos
My guess is that Martin Samson filed a complaint over his website being hyperlinked when someone excerpted his profile. There is a legal shayla about hyperlinks but I was under the impression that the courts ruled there is no infringement.
April 12, 2008
G.E. Earnings Drop, Raising Broader Fears
By REED ABELSON and LOUISE STORY
General Electric, which is widely viewed as a bellwether for the economy because of its diverse operations, stunned Wall Street on Friday by reporting sharply disappointing results for the first quarter and creating widespread concern about the outlook for other companies.
The inability of G.E. to sidestep current market forces underscores just how broadly the credit crisis is spreading through the economy. The company, which has businesses as varied as finance and jet engines, has normally been able to manage weakness in any given sector, making its surprise all the more worrisome.
The weakening outlook for company profits and a poor consumer confidence report pushed the Dow Jones industrial average down by 256 points, about 2 percent, and the other major indexes had similar declines. G.E.’s stock fell 13 percent, its biggest one-day loss in two decades.
“G.E.’s results are telling us that we may have more bad news and worse than expected in the economy,” said Richard Tortoriello, an analyst who follows G.E. for Standard & Poor’s Equity Research. G.E. also reduced its full-year profit projections, telling investors to expect little or no earnings growth in 2008.
Investors have already seen an average profit decline of 20 percent from the 32 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index that have reported their first-quarter earnings, and they are particularly worried about more unpleasant news from the financial industry. Companies like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase will report their results next week, followed by numerous other companies.
The financial sector, which makes up nearly 20 percent of the companies in the S.& P. 500, is dragging down the overall market, analysts say, and the credit crisis now threatens other types of companies.
About 160 companies from the index are expected to report over the next two weeks, and analysts say that with the exception of the energy sector, investors should be braced for more bad news.
“If you think of all the banks that were in trouble last quarter, that’s likely to move into the real economy now,” said Tobias M. Levkovich, chief United States equity strategist at Citi Investment Research.
Did you replace Steve Mostofsky's picture with the chimp because he threatened you about the original that's from his website?
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080412/NEWS02/804120395
A fast-moving house fire killed a prominent Westchester rabbi and his wife early today, sending waves of shock and grief through a tightly knit Orthodox community centered around the synagogue Young Israel of Scarsdale.
Firefighters were called to the home of Jacob S. Rubenstein and his wife Deborah at 43 Baraud Road around 3:30 this morning to find flames had already destroyed the roof and the second floor was threatening to collapse, said New Rochelle Fire Commissioner Raymond Kiernan. Inside, they discovered two bodies.
City fire officials said early this afternoon that they were "leaning" toward a lightning strike as the cause of the blaze. They said there was no indication that the fire was anything other than "a tragic accident."
Neighbors heard a big boom about 3 a.m., fire officials said, but the fire likely started closer to 1:30 a.m., on the roof or an area of the wood-frame structure's attic. The noise may have come from a propane tank that was later found in the back yard.
The remote ignition and the likelihood that the couple were asleep allowed the fire to burn for nearly 90 minutes before firefighters were called. Fire officials said the propane tank probably wasn't as crucial to the intensity of the fire as the amount of time it burned unabated.
Members of Young Israel of Scarsdale were gathering throughout the day in front of the destroyed home and at the Weaver Street synagogue, many openly crying as they heard the news. Some stood outside the rabbi's house reciting prayers in Hebrew.
"We are all devastated," said Eileen Greene outside Young Israel, which began as a fledging congregation at 43 Baraud Road and grew into a thriving community of more than 400 families.
Rubenstein died on a special Sabbath, she said, the one before Passover, which begins at sundown next Saturday. She described him as a beloved rabbi known for his kindness, telling of the time he came to visit her husband after open heart surgery.
"He is a very, very special man," Greene said. "The loss will be horrendous."
The couple had four adult children, according to the synagogue's Web site.
Hundreds packed the synagogue this morning as they went through a traditional service, which seemed to offer a sense of solace and continuity at a time of intense emotion. Assistant Rabbi Jonathan Morgenstern led the prayers. Afterward, many congregants wept as they embraced each other. Many sat alone in stunned silence. Others gathered in the hallway for more than an hour to talk about the deaths that still didn't seem real.
"We're all lost," one man said as he shook his head in disbelief.
"Such a tragedy," another congregant said as he told friends that "this makes all the little worries seem so unimportant."
The assistant rabbi and other synagogue officials said they weren't yet ready to comment publicly, not until at least sundown tonight, which marks the end of the Sabbath.
Rubenstein, 58, was a prominent rabbi in the world of modern Orthodox Judaism. From 1997 to 1999, he served as president of the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis in the country.
He was also deeply involved in Jewish life across Westchester and New York. He was a past president of the Westchester Board of Rabbis and often served as the Orthodox voice at Jewish gatherings.
On Baraud Road, many stunned neighbors and friends struggled to understand the loss.
Susan Schneider, who has lived in the community for 22 years, said Rubenstein was "brilliant."
"He was close to the entire community for 25 years," she said. "He was a father figure to all the children and he was a close friend."
And despite his academic and theological credentials - he was a graduate of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and held a master's degree from Harvard University - "he was a rabbi who didn't stand at a distance," Schneider said.
Fire officials were surprised by the intensity of the blaze, which took at least an hour and between 30 and 40 firefighters to bring under control.
"There was fire everywhere," said New Rochelle Chief Douglas Kelly.
Like the synagogue, that stretch of Baraud Road is in a section of New Rochelle with a Scarsdale postal address.
This morning, the roof was just a skeleton of blackened wood, the inside of the home gutted. More than 10 hours after the initial call, Baraud Road remained closed between Country Ridge Road and Atherstone Road.
In a story that will no doubt be retold in days to come, Jacob Rubenstein once helped New Rochelle firefighters save a neighbor's home.
It was August 2001 and passersby banged on Rubenstein's door to tell him 16 Baraud Road was on fire.
He ran with them to the house, where they smashed through the front door to see if anyone was inside - no one was - and alerted fire officials.
Rubenstein helped firefighters connect a hose to the hydrant.
Gary Stern, Shawn Cohen, Greg Clary and Kathleen Ryan O'Connor contributed to this report.
Check back here for updates and in tomorrow's Journal News.
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080412/NEWS02/804120399
Fire officials: Lightning may have caused fatal New Rochelle fire
Greg Clary
The Journal News
NEW ROCHELLE -City fire officials believe that the fire that killed a well-known rabbi and his wife early this morning started started when lightning struck the roof or a section of the home's attic.
"Because of all the damage, we still don't have a 100 percent definitive answer, but we're leaning in that direction now," said New Rochelle Deputy Chief Louis Dimeglio. "We've spoken to the National Weather Service and they said there were lighting strikes in that area at around 1:30 (a.m.), which coincides with some of the eye-witness accounts that I got from neighbors."
New Rochelle police confirmed that the two people killed in the blaze were Jacob S. Rubenstein and his wife Deborah, who lived at the 43 Baraud Road address.
Dimeglio said firefighters weren't called to scene until about 3:20 a.m. and, by the time they arrived, they found the roof of the wood frame house collapsed and only the masonry walls still standing.
A quick check of the driveway showed a vehicle, which meant people were probably inside, but it was too late to even get into the structure, he said.
"The guys did make an attempt to get in the front door, but they couldn't because of the heat and the fire," Dimeglio said. "It was just overwhelming."
Neighbors had said they heard a loud boom at some point and Dimeglio said that could have been a propane tank that was found in the back yard.
The propane tank's relief valve was open and the container was empty, he said.
There was no evidence that the propane tank caused the fire to spread quickly or contributed significantly to the damage, Dimeglio said, adding that the lightning igniting a remote portion of the house and the length of time the blaze burned before firefighters were called were key factors.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125788
Hey, let's throw up another Pollard smokescreen while Steve Mostofsky aids & abets Chaim Berlin torturing children.
Peoria, IL - Authorities say a man wanted in New York for allegedly kidnapping his two sons has been spotted in Peoria.
Police say 37-year-old Natan Horowitz, also known as Nathan Horowitz, quickly checked out of a Peoria hotel Friday morning after officers were called there on another, unrelated matter.
They say Horowitz checked in April First under the name Sammy Baker, accompanied by the boys, 5-year-old Joseph and 3-year-old Michael.
Hotel employees said they became suspicious of Horowitz's actions and checked a Web site on missing children for information.
Horowitz was last seen driving a gray 1997 four-door Buick LeSabre with New York plates DYP1887. Anyone spotting Horowitz or his vehicle are encouraged to call your local law enforcement agency. The Illinois State Police have been notified and are investigating.
Picture of Horowitz & his 2 sons
http://www.ncmec.org/missingkids/servlet/PubCaseSearchServlet?act=viewPoster&caseNum=13050&orgPrefix=USNY&searchLang=en_US
Joseph and Michael were last seen in the company of their non-custodial father. They may be traveling in a gray 1997 four door Buick LeSabre with New York plate DYP1887. Natan Horowitz may use the first name Nathan. He has a brown skin discoloration on his upper chest. A New York State Supreme Court warrant of commitment has been issued.
ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
New York Division of Criminal Justice Service-Missing Children Clearinghouse
1-800 FIND KID (1-800-346-3543)
R' Yaakov Rubenstein a'h learned in the Mirrer & Radiner yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel. They say he was no slouch in learning either but it was clear if you just spoke to him for a moment that he was an adam gadol in simchas hachaim.
Young Israel of Scarsdale
1313 Weaver St
Scarsdale, NY 10583
(914) 636-8686
yisny.org
The Lower Hudson Journal is reporting that the rov's next door neighbor had a fire in 2001. The rov, not knowing they weren't home, broke his ribs while forcing his way into the burning home to save them.
Boruch Dayan Haemes.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/29/2007-10-29_bronx_politician_issues_hit_list_of_subp-3.html
It's the subprime hall of shame - banks and lenders that issued the most subprime mortgages with ballooning interest payments, forcing New York homeowners into foreclosure.
State Sen. Jeffrey Klein released a list of the 10 lending institutions with the highest number of foreclosures in the city and Westchester Sunday, costing thousands of homeowners their savings, their homes and their hopes for the future.
Topping Klein's list is Fremont Bank, a California-based company that saw 330 foreclosure filings on loans it approved in the city and Westchester between July 1, 2006, and July 31, 2007.
During that 13-month period, 14,561 foreclosures related to the subprime crisis have been filed in the city, Klein said.
Second on Klein's hit list is WMC Mortgage, a General Electric subsidiary, followed by New Century Mortgage Corp., which has gone out of business, and Argent Mortgage, Klein said.
Representatives for the banks could not be reached yesterday or had no comment.
Only part of a lengthy article
http://www.internetlibrary.com/publications/hayor_art.cfm
by Martin Samson
Hyperlink At Your Own Risk
One of the Internet's greatest attributes is the hyperlink, which permits the "surfing" for which the Internet is famous. By clicking the mouse on a hyperlink, the user is transferred from one Web site to another. Typically, the linked sites are created by different individuals. Hyperlinks are found on virtually every Web site, including search engines, where they permit the user to assemble and review a number of sites that relate to a particular topic.
The law concerning the ability to use such links is in its infancy, with no definitive precedent. But after examining three law suits that have challenged uses of hyperlinks, one thing is clear -- the cautious operator of a commercial Web site will either seek permission before linking to the site of another or only use links which transport the user to the home page of another's site.
Hyperlinks are inserted into a Web site by the site's owner, who can create the link without the assistance of the owner of the linked-to site. Under standard "netiquette," such links are added without the permission of the linked site. Such is the case, in part, because the link benefits the linked site by bringing it additional viewers.
Recently, however, a series of lawsuits have drawn into doubt the continued viability of this practice. These suits are driven by a number of concerns, principal among them is the advertising potential of the Web. Advertisers are willing to post ads based on the traffic and number of viewers attracted to a site.
Because a site's home page is generally the page most frequently visited, it is here that the most profitable ads are likely to be found. Linking can be used to transfer a user to pages deep within a site that contain content of interest, by-passing the home page of the linked site on which advertisements appear. The use of links in this manner threatens to dilute the advertising revenue generated by a site.
Linking can also be used to make the content of the linked site appear on the site on which the link is located permitting a site owner to profit from the content on a site he did not create, using it to draw traffic and advertisers to his site.
Some Web site owners also object to linking for the same reasons that traditional publishers, authors or owners of trademarks object to the unauthorized use of their works, such as dilution of trademarks, misappropriation or inappropriate display of their work, and other traditional infringement concerns. Collectively, these concerns have given rise to the challenges to 'linking without permission' advanced in the cases discussed below.
Eat drek, Samson and your buddy Delilah - Mostofsky!
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The general manager of a Shanghai chemical company was jailed for two years on Thursday for selling fake tablets of the male impotence drug Viagra on the Internet, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
I think UOJ should pursue Samson, Mostofsky & co for filing a malicious complaint with Google. There is legal precedent to collect damages.
Judy:
You know I am!
Philistine
1. A member of an Aegean people who settled ancient Philistia around the 12th century B.C.
2. A smug, ignorant, especially middle-class person who is regarded as being indifferent or antagonistic to artistic and cultural values.
3. One who lacks knowledge in a specific area.
adj.
Of or relating to ancient Philistia.
often philistine Boorish; barbarous: “our plastic, violent culture, with its philistine tastes and hunger for novelty” (Lloyd Rose).
[From Middle English Philistines, Philistines, from Late Latin Philistīnī, from Greek Philistīnoi, from Hebrew Pəlištîm, from Pəlešet, Philistia.]
WORD HISTORY It has never been good to be a Philistine. In the Bible Samson, Saul, and David helped bring the Philistines into prominence because they were such prominent opponents. Though the Philistines have long since disappeared, their name has lived on in the Hebrew Scriptures. The English name for them, Philistines, which goes back through Late Latin and Greek to Hebrew, is first found in Middle English, where Philistiens, the ancestor of our word, is recorded in a work composed before 1325. Beginning in the 17th century philistine was used as a common noun, usually in the plural, to refer to various groups considered the enemy
UOJ slapping these Bums with a lawsuit will put their criminal conspiracy against Neustein in the public eye.
Federal investigators will then be under pressure to reopen the case that they smothered upon directions from NCYI.
It looks like Martin Samson is bringing down the house on himself & the Phillistines from the criminal conspiracy to protect Ozzie Orbach.
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