TO ALL SURVIVORS OF ARON TENDLER – WE NEED YOUR HELP!
"I have been after Aron Tendler for over 5 years. I have pleaded with major rabbis (who knew what he had done and was doing) to stop him - they refused to help. When I went to a very well known rabbi/psychologist and told him of a "rabbi" who had severely molested teenage girls and who was now a rabbi of a shul, the rabbi replied "maybe he doesn't have access to children!!!" I pleaded with him to intervene - He would not. This rabbi would not even let me tell him Tendler's name!
When I went to a well known Rabbi of a well known yeshiva for advice (I had not told him who it was yet, only that he was a rabbi in California) he told me I should talk to Aron Tendler about it and he would be able to do something. He told me I could trust Aron completely.
I told him that I couldn't do that since Aron Tendler was the one I was talking about.
I pleaded with him to intervene and get him away from the shul and possible future victims. He would not.
I spoke to a rabbi from the RCC several times over the last 5 years. Each time he pushed me off saying they were looking into it. Then he told me that the RCC couldn't do anything because in exchange for Aron stepping down from the RCC, they signed a confidentiality agreement with him. When I called him another time he told me that the shul board was looking into it and that he had in his possession an inappropriate email that Aron had sent to his daughter's friend, BUT "he didn't think he had enough to do anything with it."
A year ago Aron came to Baltimore – he tried to buy a house here. Certain people in the community were able to stop him from doing so. He told the rabbis that he had received "in- patient therapy" and was "rehabilitated." The rabbis said that he still could not stay because there were victims of his in the vicinity and it would cause them great distress. He promised that he would not move there and that he would find somewhere else to live. I kept on asking the rabbis if he was still there – they said he was in the middle of moving out.
THAT WAS A YEAR AGO.
He has not moved anywhere.
He even had his address changed to a Baltimore address. He has been living with his daughter until now and has no intention of moving anywhere. I went back to the rabbis and "they told me that they are not sure what they can do at this point." How can this be happening????? No one in Baltimore has been told about this man. He is free to go wherever he wants and to interact with whomever he wants.
THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!!!!
I am a victim of rabbinic abuse myself. I know the devastating effect this has on survivors. I know how to stop this but I need your help! Please contact me at - stoptendler@gmail.com. - You don't need to tell me who you are – you just need to hear my solution. We need to protect potential victims and we need to help heal his many survivors. We need to show the rabbis that we will not tolerate their weakness and inabilty to protect our community from sexual predators, here in Baltimore, or anywhere."
145 comments:
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-dolly23-2008jul23,0,7376600.story
Dolly becomes a Category 1 hurricane
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-et-bale23-2008jul23,0,2734969.story
Christian Bale denies assault
The 'Batman' actor is arrested and released by London police after his mother and sister file a complaint.
By Janet Stobart, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 23, 2008
LONDON -- Did Batman attack his family?
Christian Bale was arrested and released Tuesday and then denied allegations made by his mother and sister that he had assaulted them Sunday night. The arrest reportedly was delayed until after Monday night's glittering European premiere of the actor's latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight."
http://www.modbee.com/life/faithvalues/story/364931.html
Another Torah stolen
A Torah scroll valued at about $30,000 stolen from a St. Louis-area synagogue is one of a handful of Torah scrolls taken in the past year in the United States, mystifying police and the Jewish community. No one seems certain of a motive -- why a Torah rather than copper or other valuable items, the rabbi wondered -- but speculation includes a hate crime or selling the sacred documents on the black market.
Dear UOJ,
May I humbly beg taht you differentiate between the various "Tendler" clans. Rav Yosef in Baltimore is a Tzadik and a Yashar. Even if someone would disagree with some decision he made as a Menahle, there doesn't exist a single Menahel who doesn't have enemies or families who are upset with them. Please bbe cafreful with the Tendler name and use t resposnsably. Thank you.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/07/21/2008-07-21_ratted_out_by_american_express_charges_p.html
A disgraced lawyer has sued American Express for $4 million for telling cops where he was hiding while on the run from charges that he had sex with two underage sisters.
James Colliton, once a $500,000-a-year tax lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, contends the credit card company breached its rules by telling authorities that he had used the card in February 2006 to pay for gas in Ontario, Canada.
"Is that why you pay fees to American Express - so they can spy on you?" Colliton said. "They're willing to sell you out."
At the time of his arrest, Colliton was wanted in New York on charges that he had paid a woman so he could have sex with her 13- and 15-year-old daughters. The so-called Lolita Lawyer, who had already served 19 months in jail, pleaded guilty last October to rape and patronizing a prostitute.
Colliton insisted he wasn't running from the law and had gone to Canada only to attend some harness races.
"You're not a fugitive if you sign into a major chain hotel using your driver's license and your American Express card," he said.
In his suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Colliton says Canadian authorities would never have "falsely arrested" or "unlawfully detained" him on immigration charges if American Express hadn't revealed when and where he had used his credit card.
"That's not why I gave them 20 years of fees and thousands of dollars in profits," he said. "They spied on me."
Colliton, 44, has sued Cravath, Swaine & Moore in federal court, claiming the firm owes him $950,000 in salary, bonuses and vacation pay. The registered sex offender also sued Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and two assistant prosecutors.
"When people stop violating my rights, that's when I will stop filing lawsuits," he said.
An American Express spokeswoman said the company had not yet received a copy of Colliton's lawsuit.
Well, there have been spot shortages of liquidity here & there but things should be back to normal in no time.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, July 22nd 2008, 10:13 AM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Wachovia Corp. reported a surprisingly large second-quarter loss Tuesday, deflating Wall Street's hopes that the nation's big banks are weathering the credit crisis well. The nation's fourth-largest bank by assets said it lost $8.86 billion, is slashing its dividend and eliminating 10,750 positions after losses tied to mortgages soared.
The OU's Nathan Diament, who was in Obama's class at Harvard Law and used to shoot hoops with him, came under criticism here last year for cheering on Obama in newspaper interviews.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/07/21/2008-07-21_barack_obama_faces_tough_task_to_please_.html
Obama told pro-Israeli lobbyists last month that Jerusalem must "remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." He and his campaign quickly retreated, saying Jerusalem's final status was up to the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate.
Nathan Diament, public affairs director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, said Obama "blew it" with that speech. The controversy "raises the magnification of the microscope" on his trip "because people are going to be watching even more closely," he said.
"What people in our community are looking for - to put it in very Jewish terms - is to try to get a better sense of what's in Obama's kishkes, what's in his gut," Diament said. "People will be watching when he's on the ground there more for the body language than sound bites."
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn), who is strongly leaning toward Republican John McCain, predicted Obama will lose Jewish votes. "What does he really stand for? What does he really believe?" Hikind asked.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/07/18/2008-07-18_cops_say_lawyers_ran_midtown_brothel.html
Cops said Posner laundered the sex profits through Voter March, a nonprofit voter registration organization he founded.
"He's a lawyer who specializes in tax matters so he knew how to go below the radar," said Sgt. Christopher Koch of the NYPD's VICE club unit.
Posner, once known as the king of nuisance lawsuits, brought a landmark $16 million suit against his then-4-year-old son's nursery school in 1992 for letting the child run out of his classroom.
The club last made news in March when it was sued by a securities trader who claimed he was seriously injured when a lap-dancing stripper swiveled and slammed him in the face with her shoe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/nyregion/19brothel.html
A lawyer who fervently contested the result of the 2000 presidential election and started an organization advocating voter reform used it to hide profits from another venture, the police say: a strip club that offered more than dancing.
The lawyer, Louis Posner, ran the Hot Lap Dance Club out of a fifth-floor loft in Hell’s Kitchen, where the police said the wealthy clientele paid as much as $5,000 for sex with dancers in private rooms.
The authorities raided the loft on Thursday night and arrested Mr. Posner, his wife, Betty, and 19 others on charges that included money laundering and promoting prostitution. No clients were arrested.
According to the police, Mr. Posner, a 52-year-old tax lawyer, funneled the club’s money to an account for Voter March, the grass-roots demonstration organization he started shortly after the 2000 election that has been largely inactive since 2004. He deposited money into several other accounts, the police said, adding that the amounts were low enough to avoid raising a red flag at the Internal Revenue Service.
Investigators seized $570,000 from 13 bank accounts and two safety deposit boxes held by the Posners, all of which could be traced back to the dance club, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.
The defendants, who include dancers and other club employees, were scheduled to be arraigned on Friday night in Manhattan Criminal Court. If convicted on the top charge of money laundering, Mr. Posner could face up to 15 years in state prison.
Four dancers were arrested, according to the criminal complaint filed in court on Friday, one of whom, Cassandra Malandri, performed in pornographic films under the name Alexia Moore.
The club is at 344 West 38th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, in a building that includes both commercial and residential spaces. To get to the club, one must walk through an industrial hallway, take a freight elevator to the fifth floor and ring a buzzer on a door that says “Members.” A membership card and $50 are required for admission, according to the police. The cards were obtained through e-mail and by word of mouth, the police said.
The club had a bring-your-own-alcohol policy, but undercover detectives were able to secure alcohol by tipping employees, police said.
The police learned of the club in July 2007 as part of a narcotics investigation, according to Sgt. Christopher Koch, a supervisor with the Police Department’s Vice/Club Team.
A detective came across an advertisement on Craigslist for a lap dance club and, after responding to it, he received a link to the club’s Web site, according to the criminal complaint.
During an undercover detective’s visit to the club last August, a dancer told him that there was a “house dealer of cocaine,” who “made rounds at midnight,” the complaint said. One of the employees introduced the detective to a man who went by the name Lou, who told him he “was the boss,” according to the complaint. Some of the women called him “Daddy,” the complaint said.
On one occasion, Lou told the detective he had a source on the Police Department’s payroll and would be able to detect an officer, the complaint said.
http://www.cjp.org/page.aspx?id=179345
The bitter feud between the two brothers fighting for spiritual control of Brooklyn's Satmar community has spilled into the corridors of City Hall.
Their battle centers on the fiscal-year 2009 budget.
Through City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's discretionary fund, Brooklyn Councilmen David Yassky, Simcha Felder and Bill de Blasio dished out an unusually large sum to a new social-services group affiliated with Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, whose congregation is based in Rockland County's Kiryas Joel community.
Meanwhile, a rival organization tied to Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum in Williamsburg saw its funds slashed amid citywide budget cuts.
Supporters of Zalman Teitelbaum are enraged that the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg received $150,000 less this year from the council - though it still managed to secure a hefty sum of $210,000 - as United Jewish Community Advocacy Relations and Enrichment (UJCARE), a six-month-old group affiliated with Aaron Teitelbaum, received $205,000.
UJO supporters question the fairness behind giving a new organization so much cash.
"The UJO has at least three decades of providing social services to the community in the Williamsburg vicinity and has done so in an excellent manner," said William Rapfogel, executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which works with the UJO. "To bring in an organization that has zero experience at a time when cuts are being made to those organizations with exemplary track records makes no sense."
The council typically hands out several thousand dollars to groups receiving money for the first time. Like many groups in limbo because of the recent "City Haul" slush-fund scandal, UJCARE cannot receive money until its credentials are vetted.
The new organization and the councilmen behind its allocation insist the group provides food distribution and other essential services to a broader geographic area than UJO.
Sources on both sides said Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn), who is running a difficult race for the state Senate this year, pushed for a large amount of funding for UJCARE.
"They are not the only new organization that got funding," Felder said. "The fact that [UJO and Met Council] got cut is not good, but we shouldn't be immature little children and complain about someone else getting money. The issue should be making sure that you get what you need and what you deserve."
"REDEFINING BAD" - SOUNDS LIKE MY BANNER HEADLINE FOR THE NEXT AGUDAH CONVENTION!
----------------------------
Two Troubled Banks Each Post Billions in Losses
By ERIC DASH - N.Y. TIMES
Published: July 23, 2008
Can the bad news for banks get any worse?
After the last week brought another round of woeful quarterly results from the industry, capped by news on Tuesday of multibillion-dollar losses at the Wachovia Corporation and Washington Mutual, that question is nagging banking executives and their investors.
Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America, insisted this week that the industry was turning the corner, after his company reported a mere 41 percent drop in profit. Many investors seem to see signs of hope in red ink that once would have shocked them.
But it has now been a year since the credit crisis erupted, and, so far, the optimists have been proven wrong time and again. Skeptics say it could take years for banks to recover from the worst financial crisis since the Depression. And even when things do improve, the pessimists maintain, banks’ profits will be a fraction of what they were before.
There are many reasons for caution. Home prices continue to decline, and defaults are accelerating on a wide range of loans. As lenders struggle, loans are becoming even more scarce for hard-pressed consumers and companies. That, in turn, could slow any recovery in the broader economy.
For now, at least, some investors seem to have become so inured to the bad news that results that would have once been viewed as disastrous are now seen as good, or even great. The sober phrase often used on Wall Street to describe solid corporate results — “better than expected” — has been replaced by “not as bad as feared.”
“We are resetting expectations for bank profitability, and we are re-exploring what our expectations should be going forward,” said Christopher Whalen, managing partner of Institutional Risk Analytics.
“We are redefining bad.”
That was clear on Tuesday, when Wachovia posted $8.9 billion second-quarter loss — and its subsequently stock rose 27 percent.
Shares of Washington Mutual, rose 6.2 percent as that company reported a $3.3 billion loss. Investors cheered even though Washington Mutual said a record number of borrowers were unable to keep up with mortgage payments.
Fifth Third Bank and KeyCorp, two lenders based in Ohio, fell short of analysts’ earnings estimates and posted big losses, but their share prices shot up, too.
SunTrust Banks of Atlanta reported a 21 percent drop in profit, reflecting bad real estate loans. No matter. Its stock rose 16 percent after telling investors it would not need to raise capital after selling its stake in Coca-Cola.
Longtime industry executives warned that investors may be getting ahead of themselves.
“The market believed that this bad news was going to get dramatically worse — quickly,” said John Kanas, the former chief executive of North Fork Bank. “The bad news is going to get dramatically worse, but it will take time.”
For many banks, the housing crisis is entering a new — and potentially even more dangerous — phase. The problem is no longer subprime mortgages or complex investments tied to them, but rather the slowdown in the economy, which will make it more difficult for companies and consumers to keep current with their creditors.
Banks are pulling back. In the last six weeks, lending nationwide has remained flat after peaking at a record high, according to Federal Reserve data.
“We’ve gone from a credit crisis to a credit crunch,” said Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist of his own research firm. “It could be more damaging to economy than it has so far.”
The recent bath of bank results underscored that many borrowers are in trouble already. Wachovia reported a sharp rise in defaults on so-called pay-option mortgages that were a hallmark of the housing bubble. Plunging home prices, particularly in Florida and California, have left 14 percent of the bank’s customers with zero or negative equity in their homes. Wachovia’s big portfolio of commercial real estate is suffering losses too.
The problems extend beyond well beyond housing. Delinquencies on auto, credit cards, and home equity loans have worsened across the industry. Even affluent people with sterling credit scores are falling behind on payments, as results this week from American Express showed.
Once people fall behind, “the likelihood that they will make good on the debt is much lower than it has been in the last five to 10 years,” said Michael Poulos, a financial services consultant at Oliver Wyman in New York. “If we have significant unemployment or a recession, that is what I would worry a lot about.”
Commercial loans may be a ticking time bomb. Bank of America showed a sharp increase in charge-offs related to small business loans this quarter. But bigger companies are increasingly squeezed.
“Up until this quarter, the majority of all the credit problems have been tied to one single issue: the decline of residential housing market,” said Gerrard Cassidy, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets. But if unemployment and the economy worsen, “then you are talking a traditional recession and the effects it has on commercial loans.”
Robert K. Steel, a former under secretary of the Treasury who recently became the chief executive of Wachovia, offered a measured assessment of the industry’s prospects on Tuesday.
“The reality is that we are really in challenging times in terms of the economy, housing, and financial services,” Mr. Steel said. “I can’t tell you that the improvement will be smooth and continuous, and the odds are high there will be new challenges that we will have to face.”
(Many, many Unilever brands are under the OU like Hellman's, Slimfast, etc)
A recent marketing campaign for Unilever's Axe deodorant for men raised the hackles of the ultra-Orthodox community when the corporation sponsored a poolside party for teens, DJed by a topless Hungarian disc jockey flown in for the event, and attended by other partially-clad young women.
Unsurprisingly, despite Unilever's written apology to the Haredi community, its leaders remain unsatisfied. Rabbi Gabriel Papenheim, who chairs the Kashrut Committee for Badatz, told TheMarker that the matter was initially to have ended with their apology, but Badatz is now demanding that an apology also be published in the secular press. "The
insult was to the secular community no less than to us," he said. Papenheim added that if Unilever refused, the Badatz leaders would convene to decide on sanctions against the company.
Advertisement
Unilever, whose revenues largely come from the Haredi and religious sectors, is careful to keep its brands separate, and to avoid provocative advertising. In its campaign for Dove products, for instance, the company scrupulously avoided the use of women in T-shirts to avoid offending the religious-Haredi sector. But Axe is known for its more provocative public relations style, partially adapted to the brand's campaigns overseas.
Kol Hai radio announcer Mordechai Lavi interviewed several outspoken leaders of the community in a program broadcast last Monday, who called on the Haredi sector to avoid buying Unilever products. "They need to be taught that anyone using callous, cheap and substandard advertising techniques for their products will be rejected by the community. Their apology and clarification should be done through secular media, to make sure that no others will follow suit," said one interviewee. "The Haredi community is not silent and will not be silent," another raged.
But Unilever's response is not likely to soothe ruffled feathers. "Axe is an international brand that operates according to the international company's strategic advertising policy. The brand sponsored a private event. Unilever respects all of its customers, including the Haredi sector, who have been its loyal customers for decades. We apologize to anyone who was hurt by the event, and will try to be more careful in the
future," the company said.
Just to set the record straight, Rabbi Yosef Tendler covered up and continues to cover up for his old Lakewood friend Moshe Eiseman, whom he knew was a sexual predator for many, many years.
Yonasan Tendler was alleged in a Jewish Week article to be involved in a scam to pay Yudi Kolko hush money that came to him from Margolis at YTT, and was laundered through Tendler's "Gmach". He was asked about it and did not deny it only saying that Kolko has not been convicte yet in a court of law.
Add this to Morechai, Aron and Shalom, and you have a poster family for America's Most Wanted.
I think these Unilever brands are also under the OU:
Wish-Bone
Bertolli
Country Crock
Knorr (Israel division only)
Lipton
Breyer's
UOJ should take down the RCC for the Tendler cover ups.
And why not name the other rabbis involved from outside the RCC?
Ben & Jerry's is under Chof-K
http://www.startribune.com/business/11214811.html
An animal welfare campaign scored a major hit Wednesday when it pressured Ben & Jerry's Homemade, makers of Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia ice cream, to dump a Minnesota egg producer accused of mistreating its chickens.
The campaign by the Humane Society of the United States became an embarrassment for Ben & Jerry's when a news report surfaced this week that the company bought the eggs for its ice cream and frozen yogurt -- about 2 million pounds a year -- from Michael Foods Inc.
Michael Foods became a Humane Society target over animal welfare violations sparked by a video taken inside a Michael Foods plant.
A day after the story appeared, Ben & Jerry's CEO, Walt Freese, told the Associated Press that dropping Michael Foods "seemed like the right thing to do."
A spokesman for Michael Foods said late Wednesday that the company had no comment.
The undercover video, shot last winter in Wakefield, Neb., shows dead and dying chickens stuck in cages. Some of the images show small cages shared by seven or more birds. A narrator says birds died of starvation and thirst. The images have become the centerpiece of the campaign to stop an industry practice of using "battery caged" hens for egg production.
The campaign has focused on Michael Foods, saying the company does not follow voluntary guidelines issued by an industry group, United Egg Producers, that require 67 square inches of space for each bird. That's about two-thirds the space covered by a standard sheet of paper. "Michael Foods doesn't even follow these extremely modest guidelines," said Paul Shapiro, a spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States.
A Michael Foods spokesman told the Associated Press that the company plans to give more space to its chickens that will exceed the guidelines, which Shapiro said was a small step in the right direction.
"They should do the right thing and end confinement of birds in battery cages," he said.
No one at Ben & Jerry's had given much thought to where the eggs came from before learning of the cage-free campaign, said Sean Greenwood, a spokesman for Ben & Jerry's.
"We're not chicken experts; we're ice cream experts," he said.
The ice cream company, founded in 1978 by childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, has long billed itself as a progressive organization concerned with issues far beyond the nation's sweet tooth.
A statement on its website says Ben & Jerry's "seeks to meet human needs and eliminate injustices," adding that the company's focus includes sustainable agriculture on family farms.
The ice cream company was only the latest to succumb to pressure from the Humane Society over caged hens. Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joe's and several university food service companies have also signed on to the campaign.
Michael Foods sells eggs to industry buyers and under its own retail labels of Better'n Eggs (OU), Crystal Farms, Simply Potatoes and Diner's Choice.
The company is one of the nation's largest wholesalers of egg products. Its eggs turn up in a range of products including Twinkies and Hellmann's mayonnaise (OU).
The public relations blow delivered Wednesday comes at a bad time for Michael Foods. Not only has the company struggled lately -- reporting a 40 percent drop in profits in its first quarter this year -- but rumors of an impending sale have shown up in the industry press this month.
A report citing industry sources said owner Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston was auctioning the company for close to $1.5 billion.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20080718.html
Why A Federal Judge Was Right to Dismiss Former Congressman Gary Condit’s Most Recent Defamation Suit Against Journalist Dominick Dunne For Comments Relating to Chandra Levy’s Murder
By JULIE HILDEN
The Kariti / Saftlas sotah, is she the ex-daughter in law of Saftlas from R' Sruly Reisman's Agudah who is VP at Standard & Poor?
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/16609/
Disgraced Rabbi Seeks to Relaunch Career, Despite Sex Allegations
July 17, 2008
Ben Harris
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK
A disgraced American rabbi with a tangled history of alleged sexual misdeeds is relaunching his career as a religious mentor and backtracking from an apparent confession he signed two years ago.
Rabbi Mordechai Gafni acknowledged his "sickness" in 2006, after several students at his Israeli institute claimed they were lured into sexual liaisons through deception and psychological manipulation. For decades, Gafni had been dogged by claims that he engaged in improper sexual activities, including allegations that he molested two teenage girls.
Now he is back with a new Web site that directly challenges the claims against him.
Based in Salt Lake City, Gafni -- now known as Marc -- is a practitioner of a Kabbalah-inspired philosophy called evolutionary spirituality.
Denies That He Confessed
In a statement on the controversy posted to his Web site, Gafni said that the relationships he engaged in while in Israel were all "mutual and consensual," broke no laws and did not involve an abuse of authority.
He said that the letter he wrote was misunderstood to be a confession that he acted improperly.
"I believed that writing the letter would, in some measure, end the attacks, and give me time to heal and think things through," Gafni wrote on his site, MarcGafni.com.
He did not respond to requests for an interview.
A former Orthodox rabbi and later a leading figure in the Jewish Renewal movement, Gafni first gained attention in 2004 when The New York Jewish Week reported on longstanding accusations against him.
Gafni told the paper that one of the girls was troubled and had made up the story, but he did acknowledge a sexual relationship with the other girl when he was a 19-year-old rabbinical student.
"I was a stupid kid, and we were in love," Gafni told The Jewish Week. "She was 14 going on 35, and I never forced her."
In response to The Jewish Week's reporting, several prominent rabbis -- including Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Arthur Green, Joseph Telushkin, Saul Berman, Tirzah Firestone and Arthur Waskow -- rallied to Gafni's defense, saying that the evidence of impropriety was not convincing.
Two years later, after the news broke in Israel, several of those same rabbis backtracked, arguing that the new accusations were different from the old ones.
Waskow recently said in an interview that he has reviewed the material on Gafni's Web site, and still sees "nothing whatsoever to change my mind about the wisdom of the decision that several organizations made two years ago that he should not continue to teach under their auspices."
A section of Gafni's new site dedicated to the controversy includes letters on his behalf from several religious leaders, attorneys and counselors, as well as the report of a forensic psychologist who administered a polygraph test.
Gafni's Web site is filled with allusions to his problems and explanations.
"Marc Gafni struggled with the question of whether to teach conventional spiritual wisdom in a conventional spiritual context, or to follow a more post-conventional style of teaching and living," says his biography. "This tension brought great dynamism to his work, but also caused some dissonance."
Now the biography says that Gafni will focus on "intense inner spiritual and psychological reflection on the course of his life," in addition to "partnering with social activist leaders to create a new, grass-roots human-rights movement."
"While Marc Gafni will continue teaching, he wishes to do so as a spiritual 'artist' rather than as a rabbi, guru or formal teacher," says the Web site.
One of Gafni's defenders is Rabbi Gershon Winkler, a New Mexico rabbi who runs Walking Stick, an organization that combines Jewish teachings with Native American wisdom.
"Do I believe that the women here experienced pain? Yes, I do," Winkler wrote in a letter posted on Gafni's site. "Do I know that this is not a story of abuse of sexual harassment as it was reported in public forums? I am sure it is not. Do I believe that the pain caused by all of us to Rabbi Gafni far exceeds the pain that anyone else can claim to have experienced? Absolutely."
In the letter, Winkler admitted that he fathered a child with a student, carried on several "intimate relationships" with students over the years and said that he is currently in a relationship with two women.
'Movement Grew Considerably'
Many in the Jewish Renewal leadership, he asserted, have engaged in similar sexual behavior, including some who are now critics of Gafni.
Waskow, one of the leading figures in the Renewal movement, rejected that line of argument.
"If there were, years and years ago, people in this or any other movement who did behave in ways that we would now find ethically prohibited, it was precisely because of the experience of the pain and emotional disasters and spiritual disasters created by that kind of behavior that we adopted the ethical rules that now apply," he said.
"Maybe some of that did take place, but we grew enough to decide this was not a good idea," he said. "What he's describing as hypocrisy is a shift over a 25-year period of time in which our movement and people in our movement grew considerably."
Winkler said that he believes it's wrong to insist on an "across-the-board" ban on sexual relationships involving rabbis and followers, teachers and students, and counselors and patients.
Gafni, he added, is a victim of sexual McCarthyism.
"I think it's extreme," stated Winkler. "I think it's a sexual ethic that's made out of paranoia."
JWB will love this picture of a beaming David Jacobson.
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=2766
“If you don’t provide the mortgage for us to purchase this Jewish home, we will begin picketing outside your bank.” The loan was approved.
Hard to believe, but this was the action leveled by Lester Kaufman, OHEL Bais Ezra’s first executive director, to a major bank in New York 30 years ago, in securing the first residence for Jewish developmentally disabled individuals in New York State. On Thursday, July 10, OHEL celebrated the 30th anniversary of the opening of this first residence.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1002418.html
Growing number of minors are sexual abusers
By Ruth Sinai
The number of children aged 12 and under who have perpetrated sexual assaults against members of their families has nearly doubled over the past two years, according to a report published Monday by the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.
The number children in this age group who were listed as victims of sexual assault also nearly doubled over this period, the association said. But while professionals in the field believe that this increase is due mainly to increased reporting, there is a consensus among them that the number of children who sexually assault other children is genuinely growing.
Data from the Welfare Ministry's child investigation service indicate a similar trend. In 1990, only 2.9 percent of all children up to the age of 14 who were suspected of committing sexual abuse were aged six to eight. In 2006, however, the proportion rose to 6.8 percent.
According to police data analyzed by the National Council for the Child, a decade ago, 57 percent of all minors suspected of committing sexual abuse were 12 to 15 years old. In 2007, however, the proportion rose to 65 percent.
Professionals say that many factors have contributed to the drop in the age of the assaulters. These include increased awareness of the problem, which has increased the rate of reporting even among conservative populations such as the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs; children's exposure to pornography and violence on television and the computer; parents' absence from the home and a general lack of supervision; and earlier sexual maturation.
The Education Ministry's unit for preventing abuse of children and adolescents describes a similar trend.
In 2004, about 50 percent all requests by teachers and other school professionals for a consultation about children who had committed sexual abuse concerned children in kindergartens and elementary schools.
In 2007, however, this group was the subject of 75 percent of all requests for consultations.
"We are definitely seeing deviant and harmful sexual behavior at younger and younger ages," said Shosh Zimmerman, director of the Education Ministry's unit for preventing abuse.
Zimmerman, along with representatives of the Welfare Ministry and other relevant agencies, served on a committee that formulated a plan in 2004 for dealing with children under the age of 12 who sexually abuse others. She said that her ministry has begun to train psychologists to treat such children, and implementation of the plan will begin this coming school year.
The chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, MK Rabbi Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad), commented: "The data place a mirror in front of Israeli society, which is becoming increasingly ugly."
The Kariti / Saftlas sotah, is she the ex-daughter in law of Saftlas from R' Sruly Reisman's Agudah who is VP at Standard & Poor?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/books/review/Max-t.html
Maimonides treats a lot of people who have no insurance and a lot who have no English and a good number who have neither. Yet the hospital must cure the sick and do it in a world of stretched budgets, expensive diagnostic equipment, worn-out employees, demanding and stingy insurers, and bewildered patients.
Success under these conditions would seem impossible. Something has to give, and that something, Salamon suspects as she begins her reporting, is the experience of being a patient. A 1995 report commissioned by the hospital found “a culture of nastiness.” Maimonides had put a decade of work into healing itself before Salamon’s arrival, but the memory of the charge remains, and the larger forces pressuring the hospital seem to make improvement unlikely.
A feud between two oncologists threatens to torpedo the hospital’s new cancer center. Physicians’ assistants cry when laid off. The hospital tries to recruit a well-known oncologist from the glittering staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan, the Yankees to Maimonides’s Dodgers. One lead player in this drama is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Borough Park, whose members feel a special claim on a hospital that was founded to meet their needs. Whether their volunteer ambulances take patients there can make or break Maimonides. “How is the recruitment of Dr. Borgen going?” the wife of a local rabbi asks the hospital’s president, Pamela Brier, one day. As Brier points out to Salamon, “There were no secrets in Borough Park.”
There are 70 characters in this story. Doctors David Kho, Steven Konstadt and Samuel Kopel make appearances, as do Chris Kam, Lisa Keen and Nella Khenkin, social workers, and Carol Kidney and Eileen Keilitz, nurses — and that’s just the K’s. At times, “Hospital” seems to resemble the institution it chronicles: frenetic but without much forward movement. The stars are clearly the big-earning doctors. One surgeon is known as the $3 million man. Another “does almost 300 hips a year.” As a director of nursing points out, conveying the nurses’ skepticism about anyone’s ability to stem the abuse handed down the hierarchy, if a surgeon wants to keep cursing at the staff, it’s hard to believe the hospital is really going to intervene. “If you’re successful you’re allowed to do anything,” Brian De Palma says in the introduction to a recent edition of “The Devil’s Candy.” As in Hollywood, so in Borough Park.
To me, the big surprise in this book — I can hear the doctors out there laughing — is how much hospitals, even nonprofit community hospitals like Maimonides, think about money. As administrators there say, “No margin, no mission.” I was under the impression that hospitals have to treat anyone who comes to the emergency room, but there are many definitions of “treat.” Hospitals have to stabilize patients, it seems, but they do not have to cure them. If patients can walk and their wallets are empty, they can be walked to the door. Administrators track the performance of all the doctors. Operations are a gold mine and admissions are good, but only if the patient doesn’t stay longer than insurance permits. “We don’t want more of the elderly, complicated patient,” the head of the cancer center says — actually says! — at a meeting.
This is madness, and it’s a madness that, all the characters in Salamon’s story acknowledge, works against the daily job of curing the sick and allowing the dying to die with dignity. A hopeful note — maybe this sobering book’s only one — is struck in the last pages by Martin Payson, the hospital board chairman, who says, “I believe eventually we’ll have a single-payer system, because this system is insane.” To which many readers will respond, echoing the hospital’s namesake, that no matter how long the messiah takes, “I will wait daily for his coming.”
Hey Yossi Kleinman, I said that already.
As soon as my father, Elly Kleinman, finishes paying off Mendel Epstein and the Novominsker Rebbe, I get to marry my zona aishes ish, with the heter meah rabbonim from these tzaddikim. Who said money can't buy happiness? I've been banging her for so many years in a motel, it's time to settle down.
Yudel Shain says the Novominsker is not involved with Kleinman, contrary to rumors. One of Yudel's readers says the main culprit is R' Reuvain Feinstein.
Why pursue a chiyuv misah with an ayshis ish if there are so many single women around? And to think these bums are in chinuch, he (was) at a kiruv yeshiva and she a "mashgicha ruchnit" at the Manhattan Beach day school run by Jewish Press publisher Jerry Greenwald. The Low Klass school still won't get rid of her by the way.
Of course I'm involved. I have Fat Reuvain rolly polly , Rubashkin fresser doing my dirty work. Kleinman is my guy.
Mr. Paulson must also acknowledge, more clearly than he has so far, that he is asking Congress to approve a plan that puts taxpayers at great risk. He has been playing down that risk to date, feeding public insecurity rather than reducing it.
In an interview on Tuesday with reporters and editors at The Times, Mr. Paulson said the risk of taxpayer loss was lessened because Fannie and Freddie had “good” collateral for any loans they may receive. But the audit of the two companies by federal regulators is not yet complete, and, in fact, questions remain about the quality of the assets the companies hold and guarantee.
On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that 15 percent of their portfolios —$780 billion — is composed of assets that are subprime or Alt-A, the level just above subprime. The budget agency believes that there’s a better than 50 percent chance that the government would never have to step in to bailout the companies. But if it had to, the sums could be huge.
Mr. Paulson should be upfront with Americans about the risk and explain that the best way to deal with it is to develop a comprehensive response. He should also be frank about the far worse risks of delay and inaction. Foreign purchases of Fannie and Freddie obligations comprise a big chunk of the billions of dollars that the United States needs every day just to balance its books. Confidence in the companies is inseparable from confidence in the dollar itself.
The president must lead and Congress must act, and in a timely way. The nation’s leaders bear enormous responsibility for their inaction as the financial crisis developed. They should not compound that sin by failing to take the necessary, if politically unpopular, steps to clean up the mess they helped to create. And they must take those steps soon.
Yeah, you know what's weird? R' Reuvein is the only rov who says that Ralbag is good on Frito-Lay corn chips which is why the spacey bochurim in Staten Island fress them.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin On Agriprocessors and the Uri L'Tzedek Boycott That Wasn't
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin needs to do a little more research. If he does, he'll quickly find that…
…Uri L'Tzedek has little factual support for its conclusion, and that the boycott was ended prematurely:
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Explains his Involvement with Uri L'Tzedek in a July 18 Letter Sent to the Jerusalem Post (posted on Uri L'Tzedek's website)
In the July 9th online edition of the Jerusalem Post, [Chabad rabbi and sometime spokesperson] Rabbi David Eliezrie wrote a far reaching article about the controversy concerning the Iowa based leader in kosher meat production Agriprocessors. Since my name – or at least my former name (I am identified as Rabbi Steven Riskin whereas 25 years ago I officially changed my name to Shlomo Riskin) is mentioned, it behooves me to explain my involvement and present stance regarding Agriprocessors.
Uri L’Zedek is a burgeoning Orthodox Social Action Group, paralleling Maagalei Zedek in Israel, which insist that Kashrut and Yashrut, ritual concern and ethical sensitivity, must go hand in hand. I am proud to say that one of the leaders of Uri L’Zedek is a beloved student of mine Shmuly Yanklowitz, and in the classes that I give on Yoreh Deah to our Ohr Torah Stone semicha students, I constantly stress the biblical emphasis on compassion as a major source for the laws of kashrut (“Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk”, “For the soul is the blood of the animal”, etc.) as well as the teachings of Rav Kook in his Sefer Hazon regarding the moral ambiguity in eating meat. Hence when Shmuly informed me of the findings concerning Agriprocessors, and when I could not find a clear denial by the leaders of Agriprocessors I gave Shmuly the right to sign me on to his petition. When a leading rabbi, whom I deeply respect and consider a beloved friend told me that he feels that Agriprocessors were maligned, I asked him to please supply me with corroborating facts and I would then publish a retraction. I never received such facts.
At the same time, I am pleased to report that Shmuly has found the leadership of Agriprocessors cooperating and attempting to right whatever wrongs were going on in the plant. For that reason it was correctly decided to remove the boycott and give Agriprocessors every possibility of correcting the situation.
I believe that a strengthened Agriprocessors – in every area of halakhic concern - can only result in a true Kiddush Hashem and increased appreciation of Jewish Law.
When Rabbi Shlomo Riskin wrote those words, Agriprocessors workers were still buying their own safety equipment, the vast majority of new hires had left in disgust, and workers were still complaining about short pay and missing bonuses, along with slumlord rents. And they many were getting most of their food from the Catholic Church's food shelf, because Agriprocessors and Jacobson Staffing made no provisions for them.
If Rabbi Riskin did not know these facts – and that seems to be the case – then one man is responsible for that omission: Shmuly Yanklowitz.
Perhaps this was an oversight on Shmuly's part, perhaps not. Either way, it would seem Rabbi Riskin's endorsement of the boycott's lifting was based on incorrect information. As such, Rabbi Riskin should insist Uri L'Tzedek resume the boycott – unless Rabbi Riskin is satisfied with the cosmetic changes made at Agriprocessors.
Who said there's no crisis?
Yahoo! Alerts Yahoo! News - Wednesday, July 23, 2008,6:55 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) Paulson says sweeping rescue bill will be key to turning the corner on housing crisis
Shmarya says, "Rabbi Shlomo Riskin needs to do a little more research." That's the story of Rabbi Riskin's life. He is constantly quoting Jewish sources to make his points, usually with extreme confidence that they back him up. However, when I look up his sources, either they don't say what he says they do, or he has bent them totally out of shape. Either way, it's obvious that he never looked at what he was quoting. If he had, then he would be totally dishonest, and that he is not (I hope).
http://www.prweekus.com/5W-Orthodox-Jewish-group-at-odds-over-statement/article/112777/
5W Public Relations and an Orthodox Jewish social justice group are at odds over 5W's role in disseminating the organization's statement after another blogger found a misidentified comment allegedly traced back to the IP address of a 5W employee.
The comment in question was a statement from Uri L'Tzedek, calling for an end to a boycott of 5W client Agriprocessors – a kosher and non-kosher product manufacturer - on the EssentialEstrogen.com blog posted under the name “Uri L'Tzedek.”
EssentialEstrogen.com blogger Lynda Waddington traced the comment in question, posted July 8, to the same IP address that FailedMessiah.com blogger Shmarya Rosenberg found leading to the home computer of 5W SVP Juda Engelmayer, which had allegedly been used to post comments purportedly from another Agriprocessors' critic.
Although the press release allegedly posted by 5W is the same one that the Uri L'Tzedek's group had drafted, the group's leadership denies that it asked the agency to distribute it.
“[Co-director Ari Hart] and I had never been in touch with [5W PR CEO Ronn] Torossian until [July 18], and we had certainly never been a client of theirs, nor have we ever instructed them to do anything, nor would we have wanted that,” said Shmuly Yanklowitz, Uri L'Tzedek co-director. “We were boycotting the Agriprocessors company, and they are the PR firm for them.”
5W PR CEO Ronn Torossian said in numerous e-mails that his agency was told to disseminate the statement.
“The press release was provided to us by the organization in advance of public release, and we were tasked with its distribution,” Torossian said, via e-mail. “The release is exactly as it appears on Uri L'Tzedek's Web site; it does not offer any additional or alternate messages than the one that Uri L'Tzedek issued to our client and to the public.”
Torossian declined to name the person he claimed had authorized 5W to distribute the Uri' L'Tzedek statement.
The “Uri L'Tzedek” comment on EssentialEstrogen.com was left around the same time as those left at FailedMessiah.com, though it was posted prior to when FailedMessiah discovered the comment. Torossian has subsequently said the agency has “instituted internal measures to ensure this cannot happen again.”
“I was working on an article about [Allen] being impersonated, and then I started reading on FailedMessiah.com about how…computers from [Engelmayer's] home had been used, and I checked that IP address [on FailedMessiah.com] and checking the [comment] on my site, it was from the same IP,” Waddington said.
Members of both Heksher Tzedek, the group that 5W reportedly impersonated a rabbi from, and Uri L'Tzedek said they are considering legal options.
Asked if Agriprocessors is still employing 5W, Menachem Lubinsky, president and CEO of Lubicom Marketing, a consultant to the processor, said the company would have no further comment on the matter.
R' Yudel Shain is reporting that Rubashkin is looking to move all operations to some Latin American dictatorship away from the prying eyes of US Law Enforcement.
Don't be fooled! Rubashkin hired/bribed this Jim Martin guy - a former government prosecutor - well-connected and well-respected, to have the unwitting illegals take the fall for Rubashkin.
He is working the system - and I'll venture to guess - at most - Rubashkin will get a slap on the wrist!
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331047779&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Analysis: Talansky’s main allegation collapses
By DAN IZENBERG
In taking over the cross-examination from Eli Zohar on Monday, attorney Nevot Tel-Tzur defused the most serious allegation raised by prosecution witness Morris Talansky against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his close friend, Uri Messer.
In his testimony to the court during direct examination on May 27, Talansky was asked about several bank transfers amounting to $210,000 and £25,000 from Israel Development Ltd., a US-based company that he owned, to Messer’s Bank Leumi account in Jerusalem. He had told the court he knew nothing about them.
When first asked about a $100,000 transfer on October 21, 1999, Talansky told the court he had no idea who had given the order to transfer the money.
“I asked that the matter be investigated and that we find the original signed document and whoever signed it because I have certain suspicions about this affair,” Talansky told State Attorney Moshe Lador on May 27. “I know what they are in my mind but I have no basis in fact. Why I would give Uriel Messer $100,000 that year I have no idea.”
Talansky pulled no punches regarding who he thought had ordered the transfer. It was Messer, he told police during his interrogations.
But Talansky was wrong. It wasn’t Messer, but him.
On Monday Tel-Tzur presented to the court the instructions for the bank signed by Talansky, ordering Kalman Walker, a branch director at Israel General Bank, to make separate transfers of $100,000, $60,000 and $50,000 to Messer’s bank account. He also submitted a memo to the court ordering a clerk to transfer £25,000, as per Talansky’s orders.
Talansky had no choice but to confirm that the signature on the orders was his own. Thus ended ignominiously the most serious charge against Messer and, presumably, Olmert, originating in the May 27 examination.
Once again, Talansky did not look good at the end of Monday’s long testimony. In fact, each day makes him look less and less like a credible witness. It could be that his memory is abysmal. It could also mean worse things. Tel-Tzur accused Talansky of lying to the court.
The day’s events also indicated that the state’s original demand that Talansky undergo pre-trial testimony may have done it far more harm than good. It certainly did not look that way in the heady days after Talansky’s direct examination on May 27. After he gave that testimony, half the country was clamoring for Olmert’s head.
Two months later, Talansky is in disgrace.
Had the prosecution had more time to collect evidence before putting Talansky on the witness stand, it might have had the time to discover and study key information like the signed instructions to the Israel General Bank.
But it first came across the documents either shortly before or some time after the May 27 hearing. Had the prosecutors had them in hand, they would not have questioned Talansky about the matter and saved him and them from embarrassment.
Jim Martin, a high ranking Republican, can work the Administration to produce desired results but even he cannot make all of Rubashkin's problems go away.
The raid was prompted by Democratic Senators and there is too much evidence in the hands of Federal investigators. There is no question the Rubashkins will do some jail time.
As far as party affiliations, most politicians are corrupt, it just so happened that the Democrats brought about the current predicament.
There is no question the Rubashkins will do some jail time.
------------------
I'm not convinced! Heavy fines yes - very doubtful they'll do any jail time!
If Rubashkin wiggles out of doing time it will be thanks to the 3 Musketeers, the OU, Agudah and National Council of Young Israel.
Their sleazy lawyers will be gallivanting all over the White House, Capitol Hill and the J. Edgar Hoover building.
Nathan Diament, Nat Lewin, David Zweibel, Steve Mostofsky and Marty Samson will use all kinds of guilt trips about "anti-Semitism", manipulation and warped legalese to call off the hunt.
I see Arthur is at it again. It doesn't take much to bring out his true colors. The big mouth hypocrite's latest tirade of accusing people of watching pornographic videos is a page out of the Shafran book of smears.
No jail time for Rubashkins.
There must be some rabbinic corruption and child molestation in Japan.
TOKYO (AP) Japan's weather agency says a magnitude 6.8 quake struck off the coast, with no tsunami danger.
I think Saftlas davens at Lazer Ginzberg
That would be the 2nd soyteh mayseh that took place at Lazer Ginzberg's shul. In the first case, the soyfer Zalman Anderson wrote the get and additional shtar of osser lebaal veossur leboyel.
Just excerpts posted here including this gem:
In 1999, Las Vegas’s Temple Beth Sholom was holding a dinner to fête the new mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman. Adelson, a member of Beth Sholom, had recently pledged two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the temple’s new-building fund. The dinner was to be held at the Venetian, but Mayor Goodman said that he would not cross the picket line, and synagogue officials decided to go elsewhere. Adelson excoriated Beth Sholom’s rabbi, Felipe Goodman. Rabbi Goodman told the Review-Journal that Adelson had been “so verbally abusive. I was very upset because no one had ever talked to me like he talked to me.” After the dinner took place at the Four Seasons, Adelson withdrew his pledge to Beth Sholom. He gave large sums to the local Chabad, a branch of the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitchers, for the construction of a new center.
http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=2440
Adelson opposed both Olmert and the peace conference, which was held in Annapolis in late November. The Zionist Organization of America, to which Adelson is a major contributor, ran a full-page ad in the Times, headlined, “SECRETARY RICE: DON’T PROMOTE A STATE FOR PALESTINIANS WHILE THEIR 10 COMMANDMENTS PROMOTE TERRORISM AND ISRAEL’S DESTRUCTION.” The “10 Commandments” referred to the constitution of Fatah, Abbas’s party. “Osama Bin-Laden and Hamas would be proud of Abbas’ Fatah Constitution,” the ad stated. Two weeks before the start of the conference, a Washington, D.C., think tank that shares office space and several board members with the Republican Jewish Coalition—another organization to which Adelson makes significant contributions—circulated an article on its Listserve which asserted, “Olmert is now chasing peace with the Palestinians at all costs, in a desperate attempt to secure his place in world history.”
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service, Adelson was even more disparaging about Olmert’s motivation. Olmert has faced several corruption investigations, all focussed on the period before he became Prime Minister; Adelson suggested that Olmert was trying to divert public attention from them, and was making concessions to the Palestinians in order “to stay out of jail.” (The most recent investigation of Olmert, which became public in early May, seems to have increased Adelson’s chances of achieving his objective. Olmert has admitted accepting donations, mostly in cash, from an American businessman for his election campaigns since the nineteen-nineties, but he insisted that he did not take any money for his personal use, and denied allegations that he had accepted bribes. He has said that he will resign if he is indicted.)
In early November, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, who is widely respected in Washington, was scheduled to appear with Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, at the opening of the Saban Forum, an event in Jerusalem organized by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
Adelson phoned the event’s chair, Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman, and asked him to contribute to a campaign that he was organizing against the Olmert government; Saban declined. Adelson then asked if he would sign an ad; again, Saban refused. Whereupon, Adelson accused him of funding anti-Israel research at the Saban Center. Saban was surprised, but suggested that when the center’s director, Martin Indyk, was next in Las Vegas he and Adelson could talk. Not long afterward, Indyk met with Adelson at his office at the Venetian, on the Las Vegas Strip. According to a person familiar with what happened at the meeting, Adelson berated Indyk for hosting “terrorists” like Fayyad, who he said was a founder of Fatah. Indyk is said to have replied that Fayyad was never involved in terrorism and was not a member of Fatah, and that Adelson’s problem was really with Olmert, because he dealt with Fayyad. Adelson stood his ground, and declared that the Olmert government was an illegitimate government and should be thrown out. (Indyk declined to comment on what he said was a private conversation. Saban confirmed his exchange with Adelson.)
Adelson has long preferred a low profile in many of his political activities. But one of his maneuvers did appear in the press. He has been a generous donor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the dominant lobby of American Jewry regarding U.S. policy toward Israel. Since the nineties, Adelson has helped underwrite many congressional trips to Israel, sponsored by an AIPAC educational affiliate. (Adelson pays only for Republican members.) Last year, he contributed funds for a lavish new office building in Washington, D.C., for the organization. In November, shortly before the summit, he learned that AIPAC was supporting a congressional letter, signed by more than a hundred and thirty members of the House of Representatives, that urged the Bush Administration to increase economic aid to the Palestinians, an initiative that the government of Israel also supported.
Adelson was furious.
AIPAC is not accustomed to being attacked publicly from the right; its critics generally charge that its conservative policies toward Israel favor the status quo over a peace accord. But AIPAC has traditionally insisted that it seeks to further a close American-Israeli relationship, whether the government of Israel is left, right, or center. In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Adelson said of AIPAC’s support of aid for the Palestinians, “I don’t continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they want to jump.” AIPAC has not made any policy shifts, and it is not clear whether Adelson will continue to contribute to the organization.
When Adelson was merely rich, he wrote checks for causes that he favored and for politicians whom he supported. Occasionally, he demanded to be heard. But he did not expect to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy, or in Israel’s strategic decisions, or in the fate of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. That was before he acquired many billions of dollars. (He has assets of twenty-six billion dollars, according to a Forbes list published in March.) His political expenditures and his expectations have increased proportionately. Not long after Bush’s encounter with Adelson last October, an Israeli government representative said that Bush, describing it to another Israeli official, had remarked wryly, “I had this crazy Jewish billionaire, yelling at me.” (The Israeli official does not recall the conversation; the White House said that it had no comment.)
In July, 2001, Adelson met with a Vice-Premier of China, Qian Qichen, in the historic Purple Light Pavilion, in Zhongnanhai, where foreign dignitaries are often received. Adelson was impressed, recalling later in trial testimony that it was “a very regal looking environment.” He was accompanied by Bill Weidner, the president of his company, Las Vegas Sands, and Richard Suen, a Hong Kong businessman with connections to top Chinese officials, who was a friend of Adelson’s brother Lenny. Suen had helped arrange the meeting, after asking Adelson the previous summer whether he might be interested in obtaining a gaming license in Macao. According to Suen, Adelson told him that such a license would be like getting “the brass ring,” and described himself as “a man with a grand vision and a big pair of brass monkeys,” who “would like to leave a visible footprint in history.”
Macao had an enormous geographic advantage as a gaming destination. Gambling flourished in China until 1949, when the Communists took over and banned it as a capitalistic vice. But the Chinese remained avid gamblers, and gambling continued in Macao, a Portuguese colony an hour by ferry from Hong Kong. For nearly forty years, Stanley Ho, a controversial businessman, had enjoyed a gambling monopoly, but Macao was plagued by prostitution and violent crime, and dominated by triads, or Chinese mafia. In late 1999, soon after Macao was turned over to the People’s Republic of China as a special administrative region, rumors began to circulate that Ho’s monopoly was coming to an end; a limited number of new gaming licenses would be issued.
In the 2001 meeting, Qian, who was well briefed on Adelson, pointed out that during the Second World War China had accepted more than twenty thousand Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Adelson had been warned by Suen that Chinese officials find the subject of gaming distasteful, so he should not broach it. (As Suen wrote to Adelson, the Communists had banned gambling not only because it was against party principles but because “it has been a curse to my people way back in history like opium. It destroyed thousands of families from the bad old days to now.”) Adelson spoke, instead, about his experience in the hotel and convention business.
Adelson opened the $2.4-billion Venetian Macao—with canals and stripe-shirted gondoliers, as well as an extensive shopping mall and a five-hundred-and-forty-six-thousand-square-foot casino, which is the largest in the world. Since the Sands Macao opened, his personal wealth has multiplied more than fourteen times, and, according to the Times, in the two years after his company went public he earned roughly a million dollars an hour.
Now Las Vegas Sands plans to create “the Las Vegas Strip of Asia” on Cotai—an area of reclaimed land between two small islands, connected by bridges to Macao’s peninsula—spending an additional ten billion dollars to build a dozen new hotels, with twenty thousand rooms, and adjacent casinos. The hotels will include some of the world’s most famous brands, including the Four Seasons; all the casinos will be owned and operated by Las Vegas Sands. At a groundbreaking ceremony, in March, 2007, Adelson said that many members of Congress criticize China for its human-rights record, but he added that he liked the way the Chinese run their country. “People seem to be living a good life in China,” he said. “Look at the incredible progress China has made. How can someone say they’re doing the wrong thing?” He added that those who don’t approve of the way China is governed need not go to the country. “I don’t think the U.S. should be the policeman of the whole world,” he said.
Suen has yet to profit from the role he played, and in 2004 he filed a lawsuit against Adelson and his company in Clark County District Court, in Las Vegas. He alleged, essentially, that Adelson and Las Vegas Sands had an agreement with him to help obtain the Macao license and then reneged after it was won. A letter signed by Weidner, shortly after the July, 2001, trip to China, details an arrangement whereby Suen would receive five million dollars as a “success fee upon opening of the resort” and an “ongoing 2% of the net profit to the resort.” (Las Vegas Sands maintains that no formal contract existed and that Suen’s role in procuring the license was negligible. “We’re not deadbeats,” Adelson said in testimony. “We owe people money, we pay them.”)
On the morning of April 17, 2008, Adelson arrived at the Clark County courthouse in a Maybach limousine, accompanied by his wife and a bodyguard, and followed by a second vehicle, with additional bodyguards. Since 2001, Adelson has suffered from a condition known as peripheral neuropathy, which makes it difficult for him to walk. With his bodyguards in tow, he maneuvered an electric scooter along the courthouse corridor; when he arrived at the courtroom, he declared, “I brought my own chair,” and, standing with the help of his wife, glared at a half-dozen reporters assembled there. Adelson’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin—he recently represented Roger Clemens on Capitol Hill, defending him against accusations of steroid use—had argued that “confidential, private or trade secret information” in the case made “media access to the trial . . . impractical and prejudicial.” That request had been denied. (Adelson occasionally grants an interview to the business press, if the story is narrowly focussed, but he will not coöperate if the aim is a more comprehensive portrait. As he told me, explaining his refusal of my repeated requests to interview him, he admires the way that Kirk Kerkorian, the ninety-one-year-old majority shareholder of Nevada’s largest gaming company, MGM Mirage, conducts himself—“and Kirk never talks to the press.” Adelson added, “Someday, I’ll write my own book.”)
who was the first case there? Saftlas doesn't daven there, his father and brother do
To Misnagid
The fact that you have to resort to name calling instead of answering my questions proves my point.
If you believe and state that watching a sicha on a video of the Rebbi in which Torah is discussed and the "M" word is used, is avodah zorah and yeihoreg vial yaavor,and one is better of watching in flight videos of who knows what kind of shmutz for 17 hours,then by extension the same appliies to watching porno videos.
Instead of using character assassination and making such nonsensical ,moronic statements,use some intelligence,if you have any, for a change.
Oh, the hypocrisy!
Arthur constantly launches into all kinds of behavior that does not follow Torah standards while criticizing others.
If UOJ for instance watches a farbregin video that is not avoda zara but when some nutbar Meshichist puts up a dozen TV screens to cover every diner in a small restaurant he is turning it into avoda zara.
You preach about character assassination while you are dan lekaf chova that someone watching in-flight video is davka watching pritzus. There are options that are not. In-flight services have greatly expanded and include many options including those appropriate for very young children.
You're also getting to be a real bore as your ad hominem attacks are becoming too wordy.
Is this the Saftlas that learned in R' Itche Knobel's yeshiva in Hewlett?
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/07/kashrus-alert.html
Anonymous said...
Some yeshivos do not allow any outside food. there are several reasons for this:
A - Some shvache homes are not careful with unreliable hashgochos
B - The yeshiva would be achroy and could be sued if an allergan issue injures another child or worse chas vesholom.
C - There is a corrupt monopoly with a caterer who serves garbage leftovers from simchos. When kids start bringing their own wholesome food to eat, the caterer goes running to a corrupt hanhala member he is in cahoots with to "asser" any outside food mit a takonas hayeshiva doch.
D - The yeshiva is worried about ill-feeling or kinah between haves & have-nots.
The next 2 reasons were actually stated by BMG officials nogaya to having a fridge for private food
E - In the words of R' Lazer Stefansky, it's costing the yeshiva electricity for private fridges
F - In the words of Yankel Pollock, "we don't want the bochurim to get bakvemt (too comfortable / megushem). We want them to want to get out of the dorm as soon as possible & get married. You know, I sat around for many years in the dormitory."
It's too bad Borat didn't embarrass Ronn Torossian during the movie. 5W represents Pamela Anderson.
There is child abuse that is sexual, physical & emotional.
This is culinary child abuse.
Man, Vicky Polin is going to have a cow!
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/07/kashrus-alert.html?showComment=1216843980000#c1586465179190594100
Anonymous said...
In one yeshiva I learned in the food was very bad and sometimes not edible. The rebbeyim told us we should force ourselves to eat the food because we are being mevayesh the caterer who sees bochurim don't want to eat his handiwork. This is mamash an avlah. The yeshiva should have done something to improve the situation instead of heaping guilt trips and all the onus on the bochurim. There were even many instances of bugs - alive or dead - in the food because the kitchen was filthy and he had no plan in place for insect control. In effect, the rebbeyim were also promoting achilas shrotzim.
TO THE VAST MAJORITY OF LEIDEKGEIRS IN YESHIVAS AND KOLLEL....GET OFF YOUR BEHINDS - HAVE RACHMONUS ON YOUR PARENTS - AND GO TO SCHOOL DAY OR NIGHT!
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Career to Count On: Accounting Is More Popular Than Ever
by Vicki Salemi, ClassesUSA.com
If the enrollment numbers are any indication of its widespread appeal, crunching numbers is cool.
According to the American Institute of CPAs, more than 64,000 students graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting in the 2006-2007 school year, the largest number of accounting graduates in at least 36 years.
Rock-Solid Jobs
"Accounting is a very stable and well-anchored career path," says Denny Reigle, director of academic and career development of the AICPA, a national professional association of CPAs with more than 350,000 CPA members.
Jody Queen-Hubert, executive director of co-op and career services at Pace University, adds, "Businesses always need accountants; the demand is there. Understanding how an organization manages its finances is critical to understanding how the business operates, and students need to cut their teeth in the trenches of an organization."
Supply and Demand
"The issue is really this: Accounting firms need more accountants than ever directly related to regulation," says Karen A. Berger, associate dean and director of undergraduate programs at the Lubin School of Business at Pace.
In fact, the already stable profession increased in demand thanks to the passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, also known as Sox. This legislation was passed in 2002 in order to reduce and eliminate abuses in financial reports, accounting and transactions, and other activities that have damaged credibility in the field. For instance, CEOs and CFOs must sign statements confirming their review and judgments that the financial statements are accurate.
Recession-Proofing
Although strict regulatory requirements in effect for several years created an increased need for more accountants, the sizzle appeal right now may be attributed to the capricious financial industry.
Marjorie Platt, professor and head of the accounting department at the Northeastern University College of Business Administration, explains, "As Wall Street faces serious layoffs, quantitatively oriented students may decide to focus on accounting rather than finance. We've seen our number of majors continue to grow over that past year while the number of finance majors is flat or trending down a bit. Since the two subjects are highly related, it may not take a lot of extra effort or coursework to refocus one's major."
Rah-Rah Recruitment
Another factor contributing to the appeal of accounting, says Queen-Hubert, is a focus on recruiting students on campus. "Accounting firms recruit heavily from college campuses and have been trying to jazz up their image. They have worked hard at trying to attract younger students with sophomore summer leadership programs, internships for juniors, and job offers before students hit their senior year. The image of a boring bean-counter is no longer what firms are projecting."
As students meet recruiters on campus and learn more about opportunities, they may also learn about the variety of paths to pursue. Reigle notes that once you earn your accounting degree, the sky's the limit. "Within the accounting discipline, there are an increasing number of specialties such as personal financial planning and risk assessment."
Accounting for an Adrenalin Rush
Tracy Coenen, forensic accountant and author of "Essentials of Corporate Fraud," knows about one such specialty, "Fraud investigation sounds sexy, especially to the younger generation. It's a bit of a twist on traditional accounting roles, which are often seen as boring. The idea of chasing down the bad guys sounds much more interesting than adding up a column of numbers."
Forensic accountants typically put together a puzzle by piecing together a situation, reconstructing financial records, and following a trail of evidence. "Who knew I'd get an adrenaline rush from doing accounting work?" Coenen steps into a client's business to get a quick education as to how things work there and the suspicions of fraud. Next, she gathers data to help prove or disprove fraud, which is contrasted to the role of a traditional accountant who closes the books each month and reconciles accounts.
Many curriculums like Pace University include a forensic accounting class. Their forensic accounting course is a core requirement as part of the internal audit minor.
Full Speed Ahead
As enrollment reached at an all-time high over the past three decades, it seems the popularity of the accounting profession has no intentions of slowing down among students.
Queen-Hubert attributes this to the financial crisis. "In today's world and with the high price tag of a college degree, parents and students are looking for careers that offer long-term prospects and skills that can be portable amongst industries." And right now, accounting seems to add up.
Hey, how come I'm the only rabbi who gets named on UOJ for covering up the Tendler abuses? This is discrimination!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtm.../scilust120.xml
Male lust is blind, research suggests
By Roger Dobson
Men have long been accused of judging women on looks alone, but even the plainest Jane can get their hormones raging, a study has found.
Research involving a group of male students found that their levels of the hormone testosterone increased to the same extent whether they were talking to a young woman they found attractive – or to one they didn't fancy much at all.
After 300 seconds alone in the same room as a woman they had never met before, and in some cases did not find particularly attractive, the men's testosterone levels of the hormone had shot up by an average of around eight per cent.
The study's authors believe the rise in testosterone may be an automatic and unconscious reaction that has evolved in man when faced with a woman, to prepare him for possible mating opportunities.
The rising levels may then fuel more visible changes in male behaviour that occur in the presence of a woman, including a squaring of shoulders, an upright posture, and greater use of hands - and even, it is suggested, a flaring of the nostrils.
The rise in the male hormone may also be the reason why men are more likely to tell women exaggerated stories about their job, career, education and earnings, the researchers believe. The study, published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour, involved 63 male students aged 21 to 25 who were not aware of the purpose of the study.
Their testosterone levels were measured with saliva samples and they were then taken to another room by a researcher under the guise of being there to solve a sudoku puzzle.
In the same room another man or a woman appeared to be solving a similar puzzle, but he or she was in fact acting as the so-called stimulus.
The women were chosen on the basis of being moderately attractive for the student population.
The researcher then made the excuse that he did not have the correct puzzle for the participant and left the room to get it. The two were then left alone to wait together for five minutes. The stimulus people were told to engage in friendly conversation in a natural manner, or allow long pauses if the man elected not to talk.
After five minutes, the experimenter returned with the correct puzzle, and then left the room with the stimulus person.
Fifteen minutes later, the experimenter returned to collect the puzzle from the man, and to take a second saliva sample. Comparison of the saliva tests showed that testosterone levels rapidly increased by an average of 7.8 per cent after the five minute contact with a woman
Men who were rated as more aggressive or dominant types had gone up even higher. The results also show that testosterone levels did not change when they were in the room with another man.
The men were also asked to rate the attractiveness of the woman in the room, and the results show that the testosterone increase was not influenced by the perceived attractiveness of the women.
Leander van der Meij, who led the study at the University of Groningen in Holland, said: "We found a testosterone increase after only five minutes of exposure to a woman. Our results suggest that the increase in testosterone levels that we found, may be an automatic male response that activates receptors in organs and the nervous system to prepare the human body for mate attraction."
The researchers believe the results suggest that one of the ultimate functions of testosterone may be to attract mates. One way it may do that is by orchestrating changes in appearance and behaviour that may increase their attractiveness.
This idea is supported by evidence that dominance behaviours of men increases their desirability as a date and by research showing that men who exhibit more dominant-like behaviour make more frequent successful contact with women.
Mr van der Meij added: "We showed that testosterone levels increased in men after contact with women. This increase is probably an important mechanism through which men acquire partners.
"Testosterone levels rose motivating men to seek mating opportunities. That in turn triggers changes in unconscious behaviour designed to attract a mate. The rise in levels of the hormone bring about changes in way men display themselves.
"Once levels have risen, they can display more dominant behaviour. They talk more with their hands, there is more eye contact, their posture is more upright, and they are more likely to tell stories designed to impress the woman. We known that women can be attracted by these kinds of things. All this, we believe, may be fuelled by the rise in testosterone that we have found."
Dear Midget:
Not to worry - you'll have plenty of company.
"Dig up" any new anti-semites lately?
Actually, I'm a huge anti-Semite that Midget Marvin "dug up" at a fresser banquet for me while he was a shul rabbi in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The royal staff spent weeks preparing everything according to his kosher standards (that may have included Rubashkin).
Everyone around Buckingham Palace knows how much I hate Jews, like when I screamed obscenities about them for hours when I found out that Fergie was fooling around with a Jewish oil baron from Texas. Still, Marvin was a fascinating fellow and I took the time to shmooz him up at my fresser banquet. (It's like the Agudah convention, minus the grubba Hungarians pushing and shoving for the meat carving station)
I also doubt that any of the Rubashkins will serve any jail time. They are well connected in all the political circles. Just look at Rubashkin son-in-law, "Uncle Milty" Balkany who embezzled millions of dollars, among other crimes too many to mention, and yet he got off without doing time. Personally, I just want to see them out of the meat business forever, the sooner it happens the better.
A few years ago there was a yeshiva bochur attacked on a London bus by an insane Arab with a hunting knife. None of the passengers or the driver did anything to intervene as the bochur was stabbed 17 times in the face.
The Queen was obviously advised as a PR stunt to visit the bochur in the hospital. Perhaps she was being represented by rubbish like Lubinsky and Englemeyer.
We in the UK know how the Queen and the rest of the Windsor family hate being within daled amos of a Jew. The Queen's sister once expressed her disgust to Dayan Padwa that Orthodox Jews have so many children. She was rather nasty about it at a public function before marching off in a huff. We were trying to imagine the Queen starting the conversation by the hospital bedside" "Oh, so you got stabbed 17 times in the face?"
The Sorcher brothers, who recently pleaded guilty to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government lunch program, are opening a new yeshiva on Avenue T. This is on the heels of stealing from the government by inflating the enrollment figures in their existing Sheepshead Bay yeshiva. These crooks then took the government food, sold it, took the cash, and fed the children donated leftovers from local delis. They got off by paying a measly $75,000 fine and no jail time. Parents must be warned not to send their children to this yeshiva, or to any of their yeshivos. They are advertising it as "a Modern Orthodox Yeshiva teaching love for the State of Israel and Torah, blah, blah, blah". We know it's all about their love of money.
Read more about these ganovim here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/05/12/2008-05-12_rabbis_face_food_rap.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/05/14/2008-05-14_rabbis_admit_to_cooked_books_in_lunch_ca.html
It seems that whenever Mr.anonymous attacks me he always comes up with the all encompassing word "hypocrite" for want of a better adjective.He does not address the questions I asked him when he first made the ridiculous statement that watching videos for 17 Hrs.on a plane is better then seeing or listening to a sicha of the rebbi in Deli Casba on many screens????? Please clarify from Rabbinic or halachik sources how or why this is avodah zora? 0bnoxious? yes,overkill? yes,ridiculous?yes, but avodah zorah???? "Yaihoreg viall yaavor"?Don't you think that's somewhat over the top? When one sits and watches videos on a plane it's wholesome entertainment but watching a sicha of the Rebbi on even a hundred screens is Avodah Zorah? Lianiyas dati, if anything,its the reverse.
I didn't initiate this "dispute" you did.I didn't mention the Rebbi,sichos,Lubavitch ,Chabad,Deli Casba in my original post.
You seem do be an expert on video content on a plane.I avoid them like the plague.You must be real stupid or blind if you think airplane video or most commercial entertainment videos contain lily white content.
As to being dan likav zchus with all due respect to UOJ ,my crime is no worse then the hundreds of posters on this chosheveshe blog (UOJ I'm not being factious)that don't seem to be very in to being dan likav zchus.
So who's being a "hypocrite"?
http://www.yoy.org.il/newsletter/archives/0702article1.php
Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim’s Annual Scholarship Dinner will be held on Motzai Shabbat Feb. 24, 2007. For the third straight year the Dinner will be held in the beautiful hall at the Roemer Shul in Teaneck, NJ.
The Yeshiva is proud to announce this year’s Honorees:
Rabbi Josh Blass- Rabbinical Service Award
Josh attended the Yeshiva in 1991 and has gone on to fill a number of Rabbinic and educational positions. He is currently the rabbi at Kehillas Bais Yehuda in Wesley Hills, NY.
Adam Melzer- Alumni Service Award
Adam attended the Yeshiva in 1993 and has helped the Yeshiva with entertainment and his speaking skills at various Yeshiva functions.
Invitations have already been mailed out. To find out more about the Honorees and get directions to the Roemer shul, please click here.
Adam Melzer attended Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim in 1992-93. Afterwards, Adam attended Yeshiva University where he was a History major. He then went on to St John's Law School and practiced law for 6 years. Currently, Adam serves as the Vice President of Corporate and Group Marketing for Traveler's Choice in Manhattan.
Adam's interests include learning, Jewish music and basketball. The focal point for Adam's learning the past 5+ years has been the daf yomi due to Adam's story regarding 9/11 (article in the Jewish Observer/Siyum Hashas Commemorative Magazine) which was reprinted on the Ohr Yerushalayim website. In Jewish music, Adam has worked with the Neginah Orchestra, JM in the AM and as a concert producer for quite a number of years. Adam's interest in basketball became realized in coaching which began with his coaching Ohr Yerushalayim's basketball and football teams when Adam was at the Yeshiva. Since then, Adam has coached at HAFTR, YNJ and at the Heschel school.
Lauren and Adam Melzer reside in Teaneck, New Jersey. They have been married for 10 years and have 3 children, Alexandra (age 7), Reuben (age 5) and Judah (age 5 months). Lauren attended Midreshet Lindenbaum in 1992-93 and then attended Barnard where she majored in psychology and minored in Art. She then went to Ferkauf completing her course work towards a clinical psychology degree and is in the midst of pursuing that degree.
http://www.teanecksuburbanite.com/NC/0/182.html
Superior Court Judge Harry Carroll set Melzer’s bail at $50,000 with no 10-percent option and the suspect was ordered to have no contact with the victims or their families.
thatsall i hear every shabos during laining, uoj said this uoj said that.
So is UOJ going to get upset if Melzer continues working with Neginah?
That about sums up Arthur.
He should also take his wife's advice and get outta here before he ties himself in knots.
Sorcher keeps reformulating his yeshiva in that ramshackle building whenever the previous format flops. He is somehow connected to Rabbi London whose old building around the corner was seized by the Feds because of a massive fraud.
A maggid shiur who interviewed there told me he declined the position because Sorcher reeked of money grubbing.
That's pretty funny about the House of Windsor anti-Semitism, considering that Prince Charles owns a cookie company in Scotland under the OU.
Where's Lubinsky when you need him? He'll say it's anti-Semitism to accuse OU clients of anti-Semitism. That or some other tongue-twister.
Missed the Boat said...
"That about sums up Arthur."
Not that I'm going to lose sleep because of your mind boggling and profound statement, but just out of curiosity "what about sums up Arthur"?
Please don't involve my wife in all of this garbage.She happens to be a wonderful person much better then sinister Arthur that "missed the boat."
Hows about getting some kind of semi intelligent answers to the simple questions that I asked, rather then moronic statements.
I take absolutely no responsibility for any of the posts that were published in my name the last couple of days.If anyone was offended about anything that was supposedly written by me,I apologize.
BROOKLYN, NY — The price of a gallon of Cholov Yisroel (higher standard kosher milk) reached $6.40 a gallon in some places in New York State last week.
The soaring prices for kosher milk are part of the steadily rising prices for kosher foods in general.
While the average price for a ½ gallon of the special kosher milk was just under $3.00, it was as high as $3.20 in the Catskills, partially due to the higher costs for transportation.
Milk in general has been going up, largely due to the increased costs of dairy farming which requires a great deal of fuel. In addition, the price of corn that farmers use to feed cows was also skyrocketing.
In New York State, the price of milk is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, which last week raised the threshold price for a gallon of milk in the city to $4.37, citing increased demand and high production costs. The Cholov Yisroel milk was generally 50 cents higher than the regular milk, largely due to increased costs for kosher supervision and distribution.
The higher milk costs are also having an effect on all related dairy items, including cheese, sour cream and yogurts. Jewish organizations say that the recent spade of sharply higher prices for dairy and meat is having a devastating effect on large families and people with fixed income.
They point out that the food basket is nearly a third higher for kosher consumers than it was a year ago at this time, with additional increases pending for both meat and dairy products.
Bakery goods have also gone up dramatically due to sharply higher costs for wheat. Kosher distributors tell KosherToday that the cost of feeding a family this coming Rosh Hashanah holiday will be significantly higher than it was on Passover. “I used to raise prices once or twice a year; now it’s weekly,” said a New York distributor.
Warning to men in Boro Park: Ohel Family Services has in the last few years been getting many government grants. One of them was for the purpose of opening a domestic violence center. In order to justify the money they receive Ohel must ensnare woman to come for counseling under the pretense that they are being abused. Ohel hires social workers and counselors and makes a nice fee off this. Once they sink their claws into the woman they don’t let go very easy because this is a major profit center for them. It can evolve into profit from divorce counseling, children counseling and the list goes on.
Here are the signs to look for if you suspect that your wife is getting involved with Ohel.
Modus operendi: The counselor will first try to get the woman to get her own cell phone so she can contact her discreetly. The counselor has the woman call Ohel at 718 851 6300 and leave a message for the counselor. The counselor will then call back with the appointment time probably when the husband is at work so he wont find out that they are sucking in his wife. Ohel will not come up on the caller id. The caller id will come up as 646718. If you see that your wife has called 718 851 6300 and then has a call back of 718646 you will know that she is in touch with Ohel and you better take action before its to late. Ohel will give her articles, books and lists of items to convince her that she is being abused. You will then hear her use words and talk in ways that she was not familiar with before. Watch out for these signs. Warning your wife could be involved with Joan Hertz of Ohel Domestic Violence.
This is being published for the benefit of the Jewish Community by Ohel Insider. I hope to post more information about Ohel and names of its counselors in the future. Anyone else that has information should also share it for the benefit of the community. This is a major scandal ready to break open. The Rabanim are unfortunately all quit about this. Some are paid fat salaries by Ohel to condone what they do.
http://www.jewishpress.com/displaycontent_new.cfm?contentid=34102&contentname=Elasticizing%20Kashrut§ionid=59&mode=a&recnum=0
"The fact remains that no one has challenged AgriProcessors in terms of its conformity to the laws governing the production of kosher food."
The Jewish Press liars are back to their low klass tricks. The paper which sells ad space to Rubashkin is also trying to downplay valid complaints by critics (even if they do have other agendas). But this last paragraph about kashruth integrity is an outright lie. There are many Charedi rabbis who do not allow consumption of Rubashkin product and some are now calling for kashering of all vessels that came in contact with it while hot.
Take note that Jewish Press publisher Jerry Greenwald runs a school that employs a "mashgicha" that is living in an openly adulterous relationship. These lowlives have been seen previously attacking UOJ and lying in the name of Rabbi C. Kanievsky to defend Mordechai Tendler.
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=60923&ATypeId=1
Lubavitch man ‘in contempt’
27/06/2008
By Simon Rocker
The Federation of Synagogues Beth Din has made a siruv — contempt of court — order against the leader of an independent Lubavitch group for failing to appear before it in a dispute with a fellow member.
Chaim Yitzchok Cohen is the founder of the Beis Menachem community in Stamford Hill, London, which openly recognises the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, who died in 1994, as the Messiah.
A claim against him was brought to the Beth Din by Shmuel Dubosky, of Stamford Hill, a former director of Havenpoint Ltd, the registered charity that runs Beis Menachem. According to a Beth Din notice, Mr Cohen received three summons to appear at the court and “has evaded coming to the Beth Din with various excuses”.
It says that Mr Cohen “is to be considered as a sarvan” and that Mr Dubosky “has permission to apply to the civil courts and to take all necessary steps to satisfy his claim [and] permission to publicise this matter.”
A Beth Din spokesman said it could not disclose the nature of the dispute.
But Mr Dubosky said it is “a personal matter, it’s not ideological. I still consider myself Meshichist [believer in the Rebbe as Messiah].” He added that he had resigned as a director of Havenpoint a year ago.
Mr Cohen was unavailable for comment, but a London firm of solicitors, Elliott Stephens, has been instructed to challenge the siruv order.
Jacob Schnaidman, a director of Havenpoint, said that he was “surprised” at the order. “Rabbi Cohen is certainly prepared to meet Mr Dubosky at the Beth Din,” he told the JC.
In the past, Mr Cohen has argued that his group’s messianic veiws are shared by most Lubavitchers, but the Lubavitch Foundation has dismissed it as a “small minority”.
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Berkowitz_Jonathan.html
Yochanan Berkowitz is engaged to an older woman and is set to get married in a few weeks. I wonder if Vicky Polin knows about this. Her blog was not working yesterday.
No surprise here that one of the rabbis covering up for him is Akiva Tendler from UOJ's favorite clan.
>The Jewish Press liars are back to their low klass tricks. The paper which sells ad space to Rubashkin is also trying to downplay valid complaints by critics (even if they do have other agendas).>
So does Pinny Lipschutz of the Yated. Every week he sells ad space to them as well. This is from the paper which glossed over the Shevach story, and never condemned it. With an uncle like A.C. Levin and a Svei as a shver, what can you expect.
>There are many Charedi rabbis who do not allow consumption of Rubashkin product and some are now calling for kashering of all vessels that came in contact with it while hot.>
Which rabbis are calling for this? Even after the Shevach fiasco some rabbis said it’s not clear that you have to kasher. I believe this was Rabbi Tendler’s psak.
>Take note that Jewish Press publisher Jerry Greenwald runs a school that employs a "mashgicha" that is living in an openly adulterous relationship. >
Well, what about all of the Yated "noted askanim and rabbonim" centerfold?
"Rubashkin product ... kashering ... Which rabbis are calling for this?"
Archie is most likely referring to R' Yudel Shain and a modern orthodox rabbi in Washington DC who thinks Rubashkin was using the drugs seized in the raid to upright the sick, treif downer cows for slaughter.
I happen to know that one of the gedolei haposkim holds the same. He usually does not issue psokim like this but was forced to deny through his eidim what some supermarket owner was saying in his name that you DONT have to kasher after Rubashkin. The eidim is a rosh kollel and rov and does not allow any Rubashkin in his establishments.
By the way, I think Lipschitz is R' Elya's nephew, not son in law.
How much older is Berkowitz's kallah?
The stories are true. However, the Queen mother who died recently at the age of 104 was a nice lady who was kind to the Yidden. It's astonishing that she begat those anti-Semites. Charles is too busy womanizing and trying to impress Americans to realize how much mother Elizabeth and her sister hate the Jews.
Aish HaTorah L.A. Childcare Survey
In an effort to strengthen our shul’s childcare program, we would greatly appreciate your answers to the questions below. If you are filling this out online, please return it to tsullivan@aishla.com. If you are filling out a paper copy, please return it to the Aish office. Either way, we would like to have your response before Thursday, July 24th.
Thank you, The Aish Childcare Committee
1. Your name (optional, but helpful):
The yenta also wanted to ask who Berkowitz's kalla is but she was afraid that UOJ would yell at her for being too much of a ... well, yenta. I hate it when she runs in here with some juicy story she picked up on the blog and hocks all my customers a tchynock.
ONE OF THE GREATEST FRAUDS FOISTED UPON THE JEWISH PEOPLE(AFTER PUUTING YANKY PERLOW ON THE MOETZES) IS AISH HATORAH.
Are High Gas Prices Helping the Obama Campaign?
It probably cannot be debated that economic turmoil in general helps the Democratic candidate, but gas prices carry a particular symbolic weight that may reframe the issue in ways favorable to the Republican.
There are the specific remedies that McCain has proposed: a reduction in the gas tax and a relaxation of the moratorium on offshore drilling. The former is a mixed bag electorally. Obama did an admirable job of arguing the issue in the primaries, but the latter is probably worth something to McCain. Offshore drilling polls well, and while the Obama campaign has some good arguments to make about its lack of connection to near term gas prices, it has not really been devoting sufficient bandwidth to the economy to make them.
Secondly, while both candidates have placed some attention to the inexorably linked issues of climate change and energy security, for McCain the emphasis has been energy security / climate change, whereas for Obama it has been climate change / energy security. High gas prices may reduce the public's tolerance for seeing reductions in greenhouse gases as a moral and generational imperative (and a long-run economic imperative) and instead favor a more pragmatic approach that purports to lower gas prices first and ask questions later.
Thirdly, in what is arguably a reversal from the usual Democratic / Republican positions, Obama has run a far more optimistic campaign and that messaging may go over less well when people are grumpy about what they're paying at the pump.
I don't know her exact age, but I just fitted her with new dentures for the vort.
"Arthur Jr. said.."
Nu ich hob zich aingekoift maftir
Disclaimer:I have absolutely no relationship with or knowledge of the above named imposter or his opinions.Please cease and desist from using my name in vain.LOL
She's actually very attractive and young looking. What's wrong with you making some low remark about dentures?
As someone who's great-grandfather owned a dairy, and whose grandfather took me to work on it every summer before his father's death, I can tell you that the rising price of milk has two main factors: transportation costs and feeding cows human foodstuffs (corn, etc.) instead of natural grass pasture. The entire factory farm model is going to be hard pressed, and the price of milk is likely to continue to rise since returning to numerous smaller family dairies is not something giant agribusiness firms want.
In other news, I anticipate that we have entered a period of relative market stability - now, late this summer and early fall, before the election, is the time to attempt to position yourself in a more economically viable manner - nearer to work or mass transit, pay down debts, invest in home gardening, energy conservation, homeschooling materials, relocalizing our businesses, etc.
The "powers that be" will do mighty sleights of hand if necessary to keep things smooth from now until the election is over. Barring any major terrorist incidents, things should be calm for a while. Take advantage of it while it lasts.
Estimates say after the election, the prices of oil products, especially home heating oil and natural gas, will shoot through the root. They are expected to be nearly double last year's prices. Electricity, also, is expected to rise considerably in most parts of the country. And gasoline & diesel, in spite of the current lull, has nowhere to go but up. Recent discoveries and new drilling locations do not mean that "we" have more oil - it means more oil is available to the highest bidders with the biggest demand on the spot market. Demand is still rising far greater in developing countries than here - after all, they're used to a much lower standard of living.
Anyway, use this time wisely.
American consumers spend in excess of one trillion dollars on staple food items, such as bread, milk, sugar, meat, poultry.
Food prices have shot up this year in excess of 10% on average, and will once again - economists predict - at the very least encumber a 10-12% increase in 2009.
As unemployment creeps upwards, and observing the near-collapse of the financial sector(printing money and bailing out fraudulent financial companies is not the answer), I could not agree more with Ahavah's dire analysis.
New York State sues UBS, alleges auction-rate fraud
Thursday July 24, 1:50 pm ET
By Joseph A. Giannone
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday against UBS AG (VTX:UBSN.VX - News), accusing the Swiss bank of deceptively steering customers into auction-rate securities that this year became impossible to sell amid the credit crunch.
The suit, filed in New York state court, accuses UBS of deceptively selling auction-rate securities to customers as cash equivalents. Cuomo also accused unidentified senior executives of wrongdoing, citing subpoenaed e-mails that he said detailed how they dumped $21 million in personal holdings as the auction-rate market collapsed and while the bank still sold the securities to customers.
UBS "continued the fraud after they knew the fraud was revealed for what it was," Cuomo said at a news conference. "After the auctions were failing, they continued to sell the auction-rate securities."
Cuomo said that UBS customers across the United States are holding more than $25 billion in the now-illiquid, long-term paper as a result of the alleged fraud. As of February, UBS had more than 50,000 U.S. customer accounts holding these securities, including more than 7,000 New York accounts.
Funny but sadly true.
http://www.nozzlerage.com/
Yeshivas and Bais Yaakov - Lern zich up foon de "Goyim"
--------------------------
Higher Education is Within Everyone's Reach Thanks to a California School
(ARA) - Want to make more money in your current job? Tired of what you've been doing and want to pursue a different career track altogether? If so, what's holding you back? For most people it's time -- specifically the lack of it.
Between work and family, we all lead such busy lives these days that the idea of taking a couple of years off to earn a degree seems impossible; but what if you could learn all you needed to excel at a career in just a couple of months?
Realizing the need for an alternative to the long, drawn out four year degree, United Education Institute (UEI), a school with seven campuses in California and affiliate campuses in Florida and Georgia, offers certification programs that can be earned in as little as eight or nine months. The areas of study offered at several campuses are business administration, computer systems,
medical billing and insurance coding, dental assistant, medical assistant and pharmacy technician.
Jael Molina, who currently works as a personal assistant for a flooring company, is about halfway through the certification program in medical billing and insurance coding. "A career in the medical field is something I've wanted to pursue for a long time, but with a job and a 4-year-old, I didn't think I'd be able to handle going back to school. UEI has made it very easy for me. They have morning, afternoon and evening classes. At first I tried attending evening classes which didn't work for me, so I decided to come in the morning instead and they accommodated that for me perfectly."
Flexibility is just one of the many benefits UEI students enjoy. They also have the assurance that the courses they are taking will provide them with the skills they'll need to succeed in the career area of their choice. All course material is designed with input from professionals in the field. And once they complete their programs, all students are offered access to career service professionals who can help pair them with companies in need of workers.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Washington Mutual's stock took a hit on Thursday on concern the nation's largest thrift is losing access to some sources of funding.
Many of WaMu's (WM:Washington Mutual Inc
Last: 4.03-0.62-13.33%
4:00pm 07/24/2008
Unsecured creditors are "quietly" reducing their exposure to the troubled bank, according to a report by Kathleen Shanley, an analyst at Gimme Credit, citing information in the company's second-quarter earnings report.
That means the thrift has to rely more on insured deposits and borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Banks for funding, she wrote in a note to investors.
WaMu shares dropped 13% to $4.03 on Thursday.
A WaMu spokesman said the company does not need to rely on funding from outside sources.
"As we stated publicly months ago, Washington Mutual funds all of its business through its banking operations," the spokesman added.
At end of June, WaMu had more than $40 billion in liquidity, or access to cash and other assets that can be easily converted to cash. The thrift stopped using commercial paper, a common source of short-term borrowing for some companies, roughly a year ago.\
However, in the company's results released earlier this week, it said that total deposits fell by $6.13 billion during the second quarter.
According to that same data released by the company, commercial business and other deposits fell by $1.51 billion in the quarter, while institutional brokered deposits fell by $1.61 billion and custodial and escrow deposits shrank by $1.11 billion.
Credit default swap spreads on WaMu's debt widened dramatically on Thursday. Contracts are now trading "upfront," which means investors seeking protection against a default by the thrift must pay fees immediately. These contracts usually require only annual payments.
But when concerns reach extreme levels, sellers of protection demand money upfront too.
CDS on WaMu are currently trading roughly 13% upfront. That means investors seeking protection on $100 million of debt would need to pay $13 million up front and $5 million a year.
Such spreads imply a roughly 50% chance of default in five years or a 24% chance in one year, according to Credit Derivatives Research.
"The market is starting to say when these guys will default rather than if. It's a much more negative stance," Tim Backshall, chief credit strategist at Credit Derivatives Research, said in an interview. "This is the first major, well-known financial name that's gone upfront."
Alistair Barr is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
--------------------------
I predict a statement from Avi Shafran, Lubinsky and 5W --- "We have no unusual depositor activity."
Bill from WaMu is much more pleasant to deal with than stuffy old bankers. Banking there is just as geshmack as a juicy Rubashkin steak at Le Marais.
Please don't try to trace my IP and no, I have no idea who Juda Engelmayer is.
All users of any product of
Agri/
Rubashkin/
Supreme/
Weismandel/
Aaron's et al.
We believed till now that the users can rely on a "Roiv",
we do not believe that is the case any more.
Therefore it would be advisable to also koshering pots, utensils that had any of the above product in them while hot.
It goes without saying check the schools, Yeshivas, Mesiftas that you children attend "if they use any of the above named product, R"L.
If they do, start supplying your children with your own food & organize a concerned parents committee to get the School to stop using.
Save your children & family from TIMTUM
Posted by Yudel Shain
Consumer report writes:
Credit Cards: When you talk, The Fed listens!
The Federal Reserve is taking action to rein in credit card abuses that cost you money and your credit rating -- and only days remain to let them know what you think.
The Fed’s proposed rules are tough, though they’re not a sure thing. The credit card companies don’t want to give up their easy profits. That's why we need you to demand real change! Tell your own story or just your thoughts. The rules would:
* Stop companies from hiking interest rates on existing balances (unless you pay 30 days late).
* Stop them from applying your monthly payment to low-interest debt first.
* Give you time between the bill and the due date so you can always pay on time.
* Stop interest charges on debts paid off the previous month.
More than 18,000 of you have commented so far. You have until Aug. 4 to send in your thoughts -- it doesn't have to be long! Don’t include your account numbers.
Washington Mutual is on the FDIC Watch List
Some revisionist history taking place over at Harry Maryles' blog. A poster named "Chareidi" is challenging Michael Lesher's assertion that the Orthodox communtity was covering up for Mondrowitz:
I should note that we are all still waiting for Mr. Lesher to support his statement that the orthodox community didn't want this case pursued.
Chareidi | 07.24.08 - 2:52 pm | #
Let's see, a guy rapes scores of young Jewish boys, is reported only by a handful of gentile victims, manages to escape to Israel and hide in plain sight for twenty three years, the DA refuses to request extradition, the DA has a close "inner circle" of Orthodox Jewish supporters, members of that "inner circle" make statements to the media that Mondrowitz should be left alone, and "Chareidi" says this is all normal, there was no coverup! The maniacs also hang out at Harry's joint.
Stamford Hill, London – Williamsburg Controversial Activist Heckled, Flees To Get Police Protection
Published on: 07-24-08 at 07:19 PM
London -
Rabbi Nochum Rosenberg of Brooklyn, New York, and a controversial figure in its Williamsburg-neighborhood Chasidic community, was physically accosted this evening by dozens of angry Chasidim in London’s Stamford Hill, after he visited today that community to assist in a private matter.
Seeing a hostile situation about to erupt out of control, Rabbi Rosenberg managed to flee to a passing police car, which carried him away to safety. He is currently being held under protection of the Met, London’s police force, until his departure and return to the U.S.
Rabbi Rosenberg is well-known for helping establish mikvaos all over the world over the past 20 years. His notoriety has spiked in recent months, however, due to his newly-adopted personal crusade against an internal communal problem which he claims goes ignored and untreated in the Orthodox community: molestation of children.
His advice/support hotline and call-in phone show, which he claims draws 10,000 listeners, has labeled specific prominent rabbis and educators as perpetrators, earning him a ban by several dozen New York rabbonim a few weeks ago on grounds of unnecessarily vulgar and graphic language, not to mention exposure of otherwise reputable individuals.
Mr. Rosenberg appeared a couple of weeks ago on the Jewish talk radio show by Zev Brenner talklinecommunications.com, where he vowed he will not stop his crusade despite a ban against him.
UOJ,
I a bit concerned for the well being of R' Nuchem Rosenberg even though I don't know him. I have called his hotline on 2 or three occassions and it seems like he is sincere and waging your battle on the front line. What can you or we do for him?
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897
Look what's killing people thanks to Sears, Wal-Mart & others.
Rally around Nuchem Rosenberg! Be m'chazek him. Call him, write him, and let him know in no uncertain terms - that he's doing God's work.
July 25, 2008 Full Circle Shrimp
Brands: Full Circle - Aaron's Kosher Shrimp
Products: Assorted Frozen Shrimp Products - And other assorted chazerei
Company: Topco Associates LLC- Skokie, IL - Rubashkin Kosher Shrimp
Issue:
These products are bearing an
authorized OU symbol and are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union.
If Rubashkin heads to the slammer which appears very likely now, this would be one of the very few times that UOJ made a mistaken prediction:
Federal agents found and took almost 100 forged documents from Agriprocessors' Human Resources Department during the May 12 raid. The Fed's description of that find seems to indicate corporate involvement at senior levels.
Jeff Abbas from Postville Radio writes:
I obtained copies of the arrest warrants for the two Agri supervisors arrested three weeks ago. Paragraph 4 of the warant(s) states (referring to actions taken on the day of the raid) -
"4. During the execution of the warrants, agents discovered and seized dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards from offices within the human resources department at Agriprocessors. Most of the cards were attached to paperwork dated May 11th or May 12th, 2008. Additional resident alien cards were grouped in stacks and not attached to any paperwork. Based upon common features, ICE agents determined that the vast majority of the fraudulent resident alien cards were from the same manufacturer. Out of approximately 96 fraudulent resident alien cards, approximately 90 exhibited alien registration numbers which were then assigned to other actual persons."
There are also 5 individual references to 5 different subjects obtaining false paperwork from the human resources office at Agriprocessors.
If Rubashkin heads to the slammer which appears very likely now, this would be one of the very few times that UOJ made a mistaken prediction:
---------------------
Logically and legally, you're correct!
Aaron is not going to do jail time. If necessary, he'll blame himself for lack of oversight.
Hiring Jim Martin was a clever ploy; Martin will vouch for the Rubashkins' credibility, and inappropriately trusting people in management that should have not been trusted - that are now out of the country.
They..(Martin and law enforcement) may even change the subject, by insisting that the government begin extradition proceedings agains the REAL crooks!
And then there's Nat Lewin Esq....a very capable and well-connected shyster.
.....and to top it off I did sort of a Pascal's Wager - I said I "doubted" that they will do any jail time.
I don't recall making any mistaken predictions( many mistakes in other areas of my life) in my "blogging" life....Please refresh my memory.
Warning: shameless plug to follow!
For those of you who want something to put you to sleep this weekend, I have just finished compiling excerpts and commentary on chapter one of Spengler's "Decline of the West" which involves mathematics, language, and world-view derived from a culture's mathematical thought. Comments discuss the relationship between these idea and what's going on in Judaism as well as the economic mess now going on. Not exactly light reading, nor exciting, but something to ponder.
Warning: shameless plug to follow!
------------
Lol! Put it up on UOJGROUP.BLOGSPOT.COM - I'll plug it for you - UNASHAMEDLY!
I hope you read it before you endorsed it so enthusiastically. I can't imagine anyone outside of philosophy students actually enjoy reading this kind of stuff.
Well...you would actually be amazed at the vast array of people that read what goes on here.
I endorse intellect - whether I agree with the hypotheses or not. I've taken my share of philosophy courses, and still read just about anything of value that I have the time for.
So, feel free to express your opinions; after all, we all are entitled to an opinion.
I just wouldn't want to cause you to get more hate mail or anything.
Not to worry! It's fun - some of them belong in Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
Has anyone been conned by Moishe Kizelnik who owns a store on Clifton Ave? Have you sold him electrical supplies only to have him start making up absurd stories about how you supposedly ba'avelled him before he swindles you out of payment?
After I sold him and didn't get paid for 4 months, he begged for more time. After 6 months he says he doesn't want to buy from anyone who pesters him for payment so he is sending the merchandise back. After 8 months now he has sent nothing back as he obviously sold it for a nice profit. He has stopped taking phone calls and answering emails.
His reputation in town is that he's not the kind of guy who will listen to rabbonim.
He has a relative in the industry who was infamous for being a ganav.
I know I am not the only one he ripped off.
If you have been burned by him please respond here and I will give you my email.
That's a pretty standard Hungarian tactic. Make a big fuss and complain, scream, when you have no intention to pay.
Moish Kizelnik is a chasidish putz from Monsey who lives in Lakewood's Villas next to Whispering Pines.
Is he related to Esther Kizelnick from the Yeshiva of Flatbush?
July 25, 2008
Feds Found And Seized Almost 100 Forged And Fraudulent Identity Documents From Agriprocessors' Human Services Department During May 12 Raid
Federal agents found and took almost 100 forged documents from Agriprocessors' Human Resources Department during the May 12 raid. The Fed's description of that find seems to indicate…
…corporate involvement at senior levels.
Jeff Abbas from Postville Radio writes:
I obtained copies of the arrest warrants for the two Agri supervisors arrested three weeks ago. Paragraph 4 of the warant(s) states (referring to actions taken on the day of the raid) -
"4. During the execution of the warrants, agents discovered and seized dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards from offices within the human resources department at Agriprocessors. Most of the cards were attached to paperwork dated May 11th or May 12th, 2008. Additional resident alien cards were grouped in stacks and not attached to any paperwork. Based upon common features, ICE agents determined that the vast majority of the fraudulent resident alien cards were from the same manufacturer. Out of approximately 96 fraudulent resident alien cards, approximately 90 exhibited alien registration numbers which were then assigned to other actual persons."
There are also 5 individual references to 5 different subjects obtaining false paperwork from the human resources office at Agriprocessors.
Regarding Kiselnik electrical and lighting in Fakewood. Why dont u file a complaint with the local commissioners office and the BBB . that will wake him up. His wife is a tuff cookie too so be cautious.
After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries
By JULIA PRESTON NEW YORK TIMES
Published: July 27, 2008
POSTVILLE, Iowa — When federal immigration agents raided the kosher meatpacking plant here in May and rounded up 389 illegal immigrants, they found more than 20 under-age workers, some as young as 13.
Gilda O. says she worked the night shift at the Agriprocessors plant, even though she is only 16.
Audio interviews with three young immigrants who worked at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville, Iowa:
Elmer L., 17
Gilda O., 16
Joel R., 15
Now those young immigrants have begun to tell investigators about their jobs. Some said they worked shifts of 12 hours or more, wielding razor-edged knives and saws to slice freshly killed beef. Some worked through the night, sometimes six nights a week.
One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”
At first, labor officials said the raid had disrupted federal and state investigations already under way at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher plant. The raid has drawn criticism for what some see as harsh tactics against the immigrants, with little action taken against their employers.
But in the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants, teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said.
Out of work and facing deportation proceedings, many of the immigrants say they now have nothing to lose in speaking up about the conditions in the plant. They have told investigators that they were routinely put to work without safety training and were forced to work long shifts without overtime or rest time. Under-age workers said their bosses knew how young they were.
Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in Iowa for a company to employ anyone under 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant.
In a statement, Agriprocessors said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker found to have presented false documents to obtain work.
To investigate the child labor accusations, the federal Labor Department has joined with the Iowa Division of Labor Services in cooperation with the state attorney general’s office, officials for the three agencies said.
Sonia Parras Konrad, an immigration lawyer in private practice in Des Moines, is representing many of the young workers. She said she had so far identified 27 workers under 18 who were employed in the packing areas of the plant, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, including some who were not arrested in the raid.
“Some of these boys don’t even shave,” Ms. Parras Konrad said. “They’re goofy. They’re teenagers.”
At a meeting here Saturday, three members of the House Hispanic Caucus — including its chairman, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois — heard seven immigrant minors describe working in the Agriprocessors plant.
Iowa labor officials said they rarely encounter child labor cases even though the state has many meatpacking plants.
“We don’t normally have many under-age folks working in our state,” said Gail Sheridan-Lucht, a lawyer for the state labor department, who said she could not comment specifically on the Agriprocessors investigation.
Other investigations are also under way. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is examining accusations of sexual harassment of women at the plant. Lawyers for the immigrants are preparing a suit under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations.
Federal justice and immigration officials, speaking on Thursday at a hearing in Washington of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said their investigations were continuing. A federal grand jury in Cedar Rapids is hearing evidence.
While federal prosecutors are primarily focusing on immigration charges, they may also be looking into labor violations. Search warrant documents filed in court before the raid, which was May 12, cited a report by an anonymous immigrant who was sent to work in the plant by immigration authorities as an undercover informant. The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” Jewish managers oversee the slaughtering and processing of meat at Agriprocessors to ensure kosher standards.
Page 1 of 2
(Page 2 of 2)
In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,” the informant said, adding that the blow did not cause “serious injuries.”
So far, 297 illegal immigrants from the May raid have been convicted of document fraud and other criminal charges, and most were sentenced to five months in prison, after which they will be deported.
A spokesman for Agriprocessors, Menachem Lubinsky, said the company could not comment on an active investigation.
“The company has two objectives in mind: to restore its production to meet the demands of the kosher food market and to be in full compliance with all local, state and federal laws,” Mr. Lubinsky said. Reports of labor violations at the plant “remain allegations only, that no agency has charged the company with,” he said.
The Agriprocessors kosher plant here has been owned and operated since 1987 by Aaron Rubashkin and his family. His son Sholom was the plant’s top manager until he was removed by his father in May after the raid. The plant’s products are distributed across the country under brands including Aaron’s Best and Aaron’s Choice.
Most of the young immigrants were hired at Agriprocessors after they presented false Social Security cards or other documents saying they were older than they were.
But in an interview here, Elmer L. said he had told floor supervisors that he was under 18. He asked that his last name not be published on advice of his lawyer, Ms. Parras Konrad, because he is a minor in deportation proceedings.
“They asked me how old I was,” Elmer L. said. “They could see that sometimes I could not keep up with the work.”
Elmer L. said that he regularly worked 17 hours a day at the plant and was paid $7.25 an hour. He said he was not paid overtime consistently.
“My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,” he said. “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.”
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.
Gilda O., a Guatemalan who said she was 16, said she worked the night shift plucking chickens. She said she was working to help her parents pay off debts.
Another Guatemalan, Joel R., who gave his age as 15, said he dropped out of school in Postville after the eighth grade and took a job at Agriprocessors because his mother became ill. He said he worked from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. in a section called “quality control,” a job he described as relatively easy that he got because he speaks English.
But he said he and other workers were under constant pressure from supervisors. “They yell at us when we don’t hurry up, when we don’t work fast enough for them,” said Joel R. He and Gilda O. did not want their last names published because they are illegal immigrants and they were not arrested in the raid.
Most of the young immigrants have been released from detention but remain in deportation proceedings. Ms. Parras Konrad said she will ask immigration authorities to grant them special four-year temporary visas, known as U visas, which are offered to immigrants who assist in law enforcement investigations. Iowa labor officials are considering supporting some of those requests, Ms. Sheridan-Lucht said.
Agriprocessors executives said they had begun an overhaul of hiring and labor practices, starting with hiring a compliance officer, James G. Martin, a former United States attorney in Missouri. In an interview, Mr. Martin said the company had contracted with an outside firm, the Jacobson Staffing Company, to handle its hiring, and new safety officers, including one former federal work safety inspector.
Mark Lauritsen, a vice president for the International Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried to organize the plant, said he remained skeptical. “They are the poster child for how a rogue company can exploit a broken immigration system,” Mr. Lauritsen said.
http://www.frumsource.com/news_detail.asp?news_id=1241
Hillary Clinton pays visit to Lakewood home of David Lichtenstein
LAKEWOOD — Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton visited the township Thursday night to raise money at a private gathering inside the home of a prominent developer.
"It's probably a tough call for a lot of us," said Democratic-leaning Rich Kizelnik, who is Orthodox and owner of Lakewood Lighting Gallery. "But in the end, they all go for whomever the Vaad says."
We wish UOJ would stop with all the dire economic predictions. Many rebbeim & kollel yungerleit are now 6 months in being paid.
That comment about Hungarian tactics is spot on. Kizelnik yelled loudly about all kinds of shtussim and didn't let me say a word before hanging up on me. Only liars and cheats communicate like that.
I know how to file a complaint with the BBB but I don't know if they take non-consumer complaints.
Which commissioner are you referring to?
His wife at least seemed like a nice lady but her father's reputation preceeds him. Leibush Gross from Sea Gate got out of the business by selling out to the Sunshine light bulb company in Brooklyn. Why was a comment left about her?
FDIC shutters two more regional banks
The 28 branches of 1st National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank, operating in Nevada, Arizona and California, were closed late Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/nyregion/25walmart.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Kizelnik's relatives in Monsey are egging on the Chassidish oylam to stop Wal-Mart with protests that the store is not tzniusdik.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZKeAiOWdEH4J:workingfamiliesforwalmart.com/working-families/action.walmartwatch.com/walmart.com/P360/+kizelnik&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=27&gl=us
They also ganged up with the left wing unions.
The real motive of course is that Wal-Mart is competition to their store.
Well, it's unfortunate that yeshivos are so behind in paying. My biggest concern however is that restaurants are doing poorly since gas prices went up and many are on the verge of closing.
I wonder if UOJ can revamp the comments section somehow.
For example:
Large 'copy and paste' articles that are at best tangential to the post by UOJ can be placed in one area, and the comments section can be more focused on whatever topic UOJ has raised.
The 'stream of consciousness' approach of each and every person posting tangential articles should be reconsidered.
If you aren't being paid for your job, you need to find another job immediately. I have written about this before - the money for all this back pay due is not going to fall from the sky. It's simply not there - and isn't going to be there.
The few who can afford to pay full tuition, and the few more who can pay partial tuition, are far outnumbered by the people who can afford little or no tuition. Yet the Rabbis refuse to endorse homeschool cooperatives and insist on enriching themselves at the expense of their employees and students by perpetuating the unsustainable paid education system. The costs of the dayschools is far in excess of the community's ability to support them, and that is only going to get worse, not better.
So find another job. You are never going to get your back pay, and it's insane to continue working for a boss that you KNOW will leave you in the lurch. This is, literally, life and death for your livelihood and your budget. You can't continue on this way - something has to give, and it isn't going to be the school. They simply don't have and aren't going to have money to pay you.
It's a hard decision, but one you must make. Your family's economic stability must be your first priority. All other issues will fall into place once that's done.
Please post on all Jewish websites
AS WE ENTER THE NINE DAYS LET US FOCUS ON THOSE WHO’S LIVES HAVE BEEN ALTERED:
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS OF PHYSICAL ABUSE
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS OF RABBINICAL ABUSE OF POWER
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS LIVING IN CAPTIVITY
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS LIVING IN FEAR
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS WHO LIVE WITH PTSD, WHO LOSE OUT ON LIFE’S SIMPLE PLEASURES.
• FOCUS ON VICTIMS WHO HAVE SUFFERED FINANCIALLY THROUGH THE ACTIONS OF THEIR ABUSERS.
PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, CO-WORKERS TO SPEND TEN MINUTES BEFORE CANDLELIGHTING FOR THE NEXT TWO SHABBASOS FOCUSING ON THESEVICTIMS. TEN MINUTES TO PRAY FOR COMFORT, SOLACE AND STRENGTH FOR VICTIMS TO REBUILD THEIR LIVES. TEN MINUTES TO FOCUS ON THE PAIN OTHERS ARE GOING THROUGH.
IF ALL JEWS WOULD INVEST IN THIS PROJECT, WE SHOULD SEE THE REVELATION OF MOSHIACH SPEEDILY.
MAY THE WORDS NACHAMU, NACHAMU AMI BE FELT BY ALL WHO PARTICIPATE.
MAY ALL VICTIMS BE GRANTED STRENGTH, HEALTH AND HAPPINESS TO LIVE MEANINGFUL, FULFILLING LIVES.
R' Elya Svei had a talmid there in R' Shneur's days who killed himself in a very brutal fashion. He kept getting deeper into debt and saw suicide as the only escape. It spooked the heck out of R' Shneur who started a new policy of looking for jobs for those who looked like they needed it or for those that weren't really learning. Some of the nebich cases wouldn't listen to the rosh yeshiva and are still hanging around.
R' Elya Svei had a talmid there in R' Shneur's days who killed himself in a very brutal fashion.
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Yes, I called it to the attention of R'Elya and R'Shneur. I told them that he was a person that was emotionally very weak since childhood. I bumped into him about a year before he died - we knew each other as kids. I did what I could for him.
He could not leave kollel emotionally - and both R'Elya and R' Schneur encouraged him to stay put.
There are hundreds of guys on the brink!
There is a lot more to the story than you think with Touro giving an honorary degree to Balkany. Touro has been investigated by Congress for grant fraud.
Check out how many Touro trustees have quit over issues like this including one of the partners from the Apollo Fund which is something like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
Today was the levaya for the Philly mashgiach R' Avrohom Golombeck.
Is this another slimy Hungarian minhag? I was at a trade show where I met some Hungarian putz. He asked me if I know Kizelnik from work. When I replied yes, he asked what do you think of him. I didn't say anything bad about him but it was a trap because it turned out that this putz was Kizelnik's shvogger. Why would anyone do that to someone they've never met?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html
July 27, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Texas to Tel Aviv
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?
You’d have the start of an energy revolution.
The only good thing to come from soaring oil prices is that they have spurred innovator/investors, successful in other fields, to move into clean energy with a mad-as-hell, can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power. Two of the most interesting of these new clean electron wildcatters are Boone and Shai.
Agassi, age 40, is an Israeli software whiz kid who rose to the senior ranks of the German software giant SAP. He gave it all up in 2007 to help make Israel a model of how an entire country can get off gasoline and onto electric cars. He figured no country has a bigger interest in diminishing the value of Middle Eastern oil than Israel. On a visit to Israel in May, I took a spin in a parking lot on the Tel Aviv beachfront in Agassi’s prototype electric car, while his sister watched out for the cops because it is not yet licensed for Israeli roads.
Agassi’s plan, backed by Israel’s government, is to create a complete electric car “system” that will work much like a mobile-phone service “system,” only customers sign up for so many monthly miles, instead of minutes. Every subscriber will get a car, a battery and access to a national network of recharging outlets all across Israel — as well as garages that will swap your dead battery for a fresh one whenever needed.
His company, Better Place, and its impressive team would run the smart grid that charges the cars and is also contracting for enough new solar energy from Israeli companies — 2 gigawatts over 10 years — to power the whole fleet. “Israel will have the world’s first virtual oilfield in the Negev Desert,” said Agassi. His first 500 electric cars, built by Renault, will hit Israel’s roads next year.
Agassi is a passionate salesman for his vision. He could sell camels to Saudi Arabia. “Today in Europe, you pay $600 a month for gasoline,” he explained to me. “We have an electric car that will cost you $600 a month” — with all the electric fuel you need and when you don’t want the car any longer, just give it back. No extra charges and no CO2 emissions.
His goal, said Agassi, is to make his electric car “so cheap, so trivial, that you won’t even think of buying a gasoline car.” Once that happens, he added, your oil addiction will be over forever. You’ll be “off heroin,” he says, and “addicted to milk.”
T. Boone Pickens is 80. He’s already made billions in oil. He was involved in some ugly mischief in funding the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry. But now he’s opting for a different legacy: breaking America’s oil habit by pushing for a massive buildup of wind power in the U.S. and converting our abundant natural gas supplies — now being used to make electricity — into transportation fuel to replace foreign oil in our cars, buses and trucks.
Pickens is motivated by American nationalism. Because of all the money we are shipping abroad to pay for our oil addiction, he says, “we are on the verge of losing our superpower status.” His vision is summed up on his Web site: “We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year ... I have been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. If we create a renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.”
Pickens made clear to me over breakfast last week that he was tired of waiting for Washington to produce a serious energy plan. So his company, Mesa Power, is now building the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, where he’s spent $2 billion buying land and 700 wind turbines from General Electric — the largest single turbine order ever. The U.S. could secure 20 percent of its electricity needs from wind alone.
But Pickens knows he’s unique. Unless, he says, “Congress adopts clear, predictable policies” — with long-term tax incentives and infrastructure — so thousands of investors can jump into clean power, we’ll never get the scale we need to break our addiction. For a year, Senate Republicans have been blocking such incentives for wind and solar energy. They vote again next week.
If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080728/NEWS0301/80728013/0/NEWS
July 28, 2008
Assemblyman Cohen resigns; target of child porn investigation
By GREGORY J. VOLPE
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON -- The veteran state assemblyman alleged to have child pornography on his state-issued computer has resigned his legislative post, a Statehouse source said.
In a letter dated Sunday, but received by the Assembly clerk's office this morning, Assemblyman Neil Cohen, D-Union, resigned effective immediately. He has reportedly been in a hospital under psychiatric evaluation since authorities seized his computer this week. A staffer apparently found child pornography on it.
Cohen, who has been in the Legislature for more than 15 years, represented a Union County district with two powerful Democrats: Sen. Raymond Lesniak and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, who is state chairman of the Democratic Party.
Local Democratic committee members will have until late August to choose a replacement for Cohen to represent the 20th District, which has had three white lawmakers despite a population in which nearly two-thirds of residents are minorities.
The district includes Elizabeth, Kenilworth, Roselle and Union Township.
Cohen, 57, of Roselle, didn't immediately answer his cell phone today.
One lawyer quit after only 2 weeks in that position.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/business/economy/28credit.html?ei=5087&em=&en=7e2250400589bb5e&ex=1217390400&pagewanted=print
July 28, 2008
Worried Banks Sharply Reduce Business Loans
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Anyone listen to Dr. Lipner Saturday night on the radio? If you did, could you perhaps give us a recap?
Check out the hilarious exchanges going on at Shmarya's blog where Sholom Rubashkin's son Getzel has waded in to mix it up. He's currently arguing with Shmarya and 2 readers named Archie Bunker and Paul Freedman.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/07/the-rubashkin-1.html
Here I am. Engelmayer & Lubinsky made me listen to "Hooked on Phonics" first to improve my vocabulary while arguing on blogs.
The articulate Getzel Rubashkin in the comments sounds very much different than the Getzel Rubashkin stuttering away in the video.
"The articulate Getzel Rubashkin in the comments sounds very much different than the Getzel Rubashkin stuttering away in the video."
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/07/5wpr-incompeten.html
Gee, I wonder why that is?
Agav, has anyone seen Engelmayer today?
Any man who chooses to be a ‘rabbi’ (‘true teacher’ of Torah) or a ‘dayan’ (‘judge’), or a ‘mekubal’ (‘kabbalist’) should be doing so Voluntarily. Out of his pure love for Hashem and the Torah. And his Ahavat Yisrael.
If he refuses to do community work voluntarily, and wants and accepts payment for everything he does, such a man should not be leading a community. He should get a job and earn a living. He can collect milk bottles or clean the windows. That is what is called ‘earning a living’.
Torah is learned, studied and taught: out of Love. Voluntarily. But the ‘rabbis’ have turned the Torah into their ‘Profession’, from which they earn money.
We are commanded in the Shema to:
‘LOVE Hashem, your G-d, WITH ALL YOUR HEART, and with all your soul and with all your might.’
‘VE’AHAVTA et Hashem Elokecha BECHOL LEVAVECHA uvechol nafshecha uvechol meodecha.’ (Devarim, Vaethanan, 6:4-5)
Is the ordinary man or woman PAID to pray to Hashem, or to say some words of Torah? No. Has veshalom! But the rabbis are. These men can give ‘lovely’ shiurim that they have rehearsed. But they would not give a shiur without being paid for it.
The true hachamim and rabbis of old, all actually worked at proper jobs and professions.
Wake up! Even a little child could have worked this out. These salaried men can never truly stand for the Torah, because in a case of conflict between a correct course of action according to the Torah, and the rabbi or rav’s pocket – his pocket and position will always prevail.
Pirkei Avot: (2:2)
“Raban Gamliel beno shel Rabi Yehuda HaNassi omer: yafeh talmud Torah im derech eretz, sheyegiat shenaihem mashkachat avon. Vechol Torah she’ein imah melacha sofa betailah ve’goreret avon. Vechol haoskim im hatzibbur yiheyu imahem leShem Shamayim……”
“Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabi Yehuda HaNassi, said: It is good to combine Torah study with a worldly occupation, for working at them both drives sin from the mind. All Torah without an occupation will in the end fail and lead to sin. And let all who work for the community do so for the sake of Heaven………”
When ‘dayanim’, ‘rabbis’ and false ‘mekubalim’ use the Torah for their own power and commercial profit, this behaviour is abhorrent.
No other ‘rabbi’ will ever act against another ‘rabbi’ - even when he knows his colleague is clearly desecrating the Torah. Each rabbi is only worried about losing his own position.
Therefore, the ‘rabbi’, ‘dayyan’ or false ‘mekubal’ (‘kabbalist’) will never effect justice. And he will never truly stand for the Torah or the Honour of Hashem. His pocket will always prevail.
The Torah must never be used for commercial gain and profit. Amm israel can only be lead by those who have the necessary love and respect of Hashem and the Torah.
3. The ‘dayan’, ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ may steal. They steal and siphon off money for themselves, from the community and individuals.
4. The ‘dayan’, ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ will not hesitate to use Lashon HaRA - the ‘Evil Tongue’ - to suit his own ends. Slander and gossip. This is one of the worst acts of murder in Jewish Law – and they know this.
5. The ‘dayan’, ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ may shame and humiliate a Jew in public, even repeatedly. This is one of the most vile acts of murder in Jewish law – and they know this.
6. The ‘dayyanim’, ‘rabbis’ and false ‘mekubalim’ worship idols and other gods. The Avodah Zara in question is Money. Especially the ‘Dayanim’ – the ‘Judges’ who sit on a Beit Din. They only care about their high incomes and retirement packages. They have little or no love for the Torah or Hashem.
In the case of Lubavitch/Chabad, all their rabbis are carrying out a form of Avodah Zarah – strange worship. They are using mediation and intercession. This is completely forbidden, and against the Torah. We are only allowed to pray to Hashem, directly ourselves.
7. When the NAME of Hashem has been taken in Vain – repeatedly - by reshaim, the ‘rabbi’ ‘dayan’ or false ‘mekubal’ will knowingly and willingly, turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the
CHILLUL HASHEM.
This behaviour by so-called ‘leaders’, is abhorrent.
This is an extremely severe and dangerous situation.
There is NO forgiveness for this evil sin and aveirah.
8. The ‘dayan’, ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ may also offer large bribes, tell lies and bring False Witnesses – when he in fact has committed the crime. These are heinous acts of the most despicable kind. This is especially vile when the ‘dayan’ is sitting on a ‘Bet Din.’
9. The ‘rabbi’ may commit adultery. And when he gets divorced, he may spread slander about his own ex-wife, blackening her name – when in fact he was at fault.
10. The ‘dayan’ and ‘rabbi’ may also desecrate Shabbat – if it suits him. He will use physical violence to assault another Jew or Jewess at any time. This evil and venomous behaviour is 100% against the Torah.
1. The ‘dayan’, ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ may use lies. They turn the innocent into the guilty, and the guilty, become the innocent. They will not hesitate to tell lies in the Synagogue.
2. The ‘dayan’, ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ (‘kabbalist’) may knowingly and willingly, deliberately deceive a Jew or Jewess. e.g. in the area of shidduchim, or offering to perform a ‘pidyon nefesh’.
This abhorrent and deceptive behaviour has caused tremendous harm to people who are innocent and trusting.
A further word of advice regarding those who masquerade as a ‘dayan’ ‘rabbi’ or false ‘mekubal’ (‘kabbalist’):
- Do not ever ‘kiss the hands’ of these men (which they might offer to you in public).
- And do not be duped into queuing and waiting, to see them for their ‘brachot’ (‘blessings’). They peddle ‘brachot’ purely for their own selfish gratification and ‘kavod’ (‘honour’).
Their duplicitous behaviour is nothing short of deception and cunning. In short they are abhorant and causing so much harm to amm israel. They prey on the vulnerable, and those who are naïve, unsuspecting and trusting of these pedlars.
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