I recently returned from a quick visit to Washington, where I had dinner with a very dear friend of mine. We spoke about many of the burning issues of the day, and at the very end of our dinner he asks; well, what do you think happened to Novak?
For those of you that are not news-junkies, or just hate Bob Novak for converting to Catholicism; on a bright sunny morning he was driving his car on a Washington street where he hit a pedestrian, and did not stop. When the police tracked him down, he did not remember hitting anyone - or having even seen anyone on that street corner.
I turned to my friend (this was before the news about Novak's illness was publicized), and said, " my hunch is either he's going blind - or has a brain tumor." (we both did not think it was a hit and run)
A person I knew, only found out (after years of discomfort) that he had a tumor the size of a basketball , when he took chest x-rays after he had a car accident. Too late to save his life, unfortunately.
A distant relative of mine, was feeling ill for a while, took a stress test, and died in the doctor's parking lot.
....The stories are endless...symptoms of disease, but not quick enough to do anything about it.
The Ramat Bet Shemesh child-rape crisis threw me off the cliff. I thought I had heard it all. The rabbonim gedolim and askonim, to deflect attention away from the sick-scumbag-rebbe-molester, tried to pin the blame on the older sibling of the small child. "The older brother was the child-rapist" - the word went out in the neighborhood from these asher yatzer gedolim.
A woman in Australia, Malka Leifer, runs off to Israel after molesting many female students of hers. No jail - no nothing. All is quiet in Melbourne.
Aron Tendler is free to roam the streets of Baltimore after some twenty years of child-rape and God only knows how many adulterous relationships.
Shalom Tendler gets to open Yeshiva Bircas Yitzchok in Los Angeles, after being fired from the Young Israel and YULA. This abominable panty posek, and alleged adulterer, (much more another time) still stays on the board of the RCC, and the OU is still endorsing his Shabbatons.
Yudi Kolko moves to Lakewood and has no problem joining a shul and hanging around kids, again.
Lazer Ginsburg is actively raising bail money for Colmer, and his mamzer brother in-law, Avrohom Chaim Levin in Chicago, gets to cover-up decades of child-rapists, after this sick wind-bag from the Windy City, sends Brooklyn gift wrapped - Avrohom Mondrowitz - the Ted Bundy of child-rapists!
Shmuel Kaminetzky - The soulless individual, who knowingly sent Moshe Eisemann from Philadelphia to Baltimore - Ner Israel - forty years ago, and whose son in-law, Tzvi Berkowitz covered for Eisemann in Baltimore, is asked to speak at a meeting of victims of yeshiva molestations.
Just one child-rapist - Matt Salomon - the rug salesman from Lakewood - New Jersey, is invited and asked to impart his wisdom to these victimized souls, whose only crime was that their parents wanted them to have a yeshiva education.
We're so friggin' sick that we don't even call the doctor!
EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
84 comments:
The basic story is that my ex wife had remarried. Her husband had recently been in prison for raping his daughters. But he is a highly respected member of a Chasidic community in Brooklyn. A prominent Chasidic rabbi pulled the strings and he was out of prison after having spent only a few days there.
Then he began using my children for punching bag practice. One of my girls called me and asked what to after he attacked her I said call the police.
He was arrested, and yet again no problem he was out the next day. But there was a restraining order on him for about a month. So my ex wife left the kids to go live with him. Then the orthodox foster care agency got them. At that point I found out what was going on and went to the agency with Rav Nelkenbaum the current rosh yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn as a character witness. He knows me very well since the time I had been a bachur in the yeshiva and a avreach (i.e married). the agency ignored Rav nelkenbaum and I. It sounded to me that he was expecting that treatment since also understands the world outside the Gemara. But as a friend he agreed to come with me to vouch for me though he thought it was futile.
Then I went to court and found myself being accused of all types of nefarious deeds by my x and that agency. It seemed bizarre to me and still does. The funny thing is all through the two years I was trying to get my kids out of that agency they were telling me was hell and I also had reason to suspect they were being used sexually by the frum families they had been placed with.— Later that turned out to be true, or so my children told me.
Somehow I was being accused of the very things they were doing. But legally I was what they were calling at the court –non respondent— i.e. not accused of wrong doing.
And here is where it gets weirder for some reason they were able to manipulate the child welfare agency in new to recommend the children be returned to their mother and husband. So I lost the battle and the war. And am still licking my wounds. She is in fact even after most of the kids have left still getting child support and in a few days is a new hearing since I am still paying for two of the children though only one is still living there.
So I have been paying child support for ten years to have a frum child molestor use my children as punching bags and who knows what else.
If this sounds strange to you well join the party.Incidentally I had written at the time of the two year trial to every Jewish and gentile congressman around asking for help. All ignored me except a Hispanic congressman (or senator I forget) wrote back telling me I had to go through the court system
Nowadays I guess sexual molestation is less popular by the frum so I see it in the news. Incidentally the reason the trial went on for two years was they also had a delaying tactic to drag it out. until they could get my ex wife to take the kids back.
I really dont know why the courts did not allow me custody.
The reason for the divorce was that I was learning Torah in Los Angeles but not part of a kollel and my wife went to the head of the Lakewood Kollel (and chasidic rabbis) and they told her there is no mitzvah to learn without getting a salary for it. So she got rid of me.
UOJ, what do you tayne about the rosh yeshiva ben meah, R' Shachne Zohn saying his rebbe the Chofetz Chaim came to him in a chalom and told him to be mefarsem that moshiach is coming soon?
R' Shachne Zohn saying his rebbe the Chofetz Chaim came to him in a chalom and told him to be mefarsem that moshiach is coming soon?
--------------------
I'd tell him to go back to sleep!
The rabbonim you named in earlier in your post and retracted have done nothing in the RBS case.
They remain silent in this terribile story which is rocking our community.
We need guidance.
Contact:Tamar Rotem 0505-986123
e-mail:trotem@haaretz.co.il
Tell her I sent you. All identities will remain anonymous!
UOJ, what can the average Yid do?????
If you want to do something about our illness, you're not an average Yid - you're a kadosh v'tahor!
Stamp your feet in shul - insist your rav speaks about the problem publicly - and urges parents to educate their children. Stamp your feet and raise your voices at PTA meetings! Insist that each and every school install cameras in the classrooms, hallways and parking lots. Each school must do criminal background checks on the entire staff - EVERYONE - including the janitors.....
GO TO THE POLICE PARENTS - if you believe there is a problem. DO NOT GO TO ANY RABBI - ANY - UNDERLINED!
Their interest is protecting the rabbinate - not your children!
Contact me - I'll help you!
I'd like you to entertain another tact in dealing with this issue. It's called withholding schar limud. If you, as a parent, or a a group of parents, suspect, even the presumption of sexual harassment or abuse, then withhold your monthly tuition check. Never pay tuition except on a month to month basis, never give your credit card, and never give head checks. Tell the hanhallah that you will pay as long as your are assured that your child is being treated in a sound way. Sexual harassment training explicity states that if there is a presumption of harassment, the company has to investigate. By withholding the money and doing so in a group you have leverage against the hanhallah. Money talks all else walks. If you or your friends have a suspicion, the bank account of the institution needs to suffer by the same or more as you.
Let's face it: we have a culture that tolerates scoundrels, as long as they are 'frum' scoundrels. Beyond child molestation, we tolerate 'frum' thieves in our midst. Even when they steal from other Orthodox people. The scandal of 'frum' Jews stealing from other Jews, whether outright theft of money, or theft of business or business ideas, is afflicting the entire community. It is rare when a goniff if ostracized or punished. A man gets up early to learn and daven, and then spends the day scheming to steal his friend's business. After he steals the business and ruins lives, he still gets his aliyas and they serve him cholent at the Shabbos kiddush, the rav smiles with him and life goes on. This is one of the terrible sicknesses afflicting the frum world.
were is kolko davening in lakewood
i live in lakewood i need to know were to keep my kids away
If my yashar rav is a relative of one of these rabbeim, how do I tell him he has to speak out in shul? I don't think he will be too responsive.
how do I tell him he has to speak out in shul?
--------------------------
Leave the shul in protest - take everyone you can with you.
What is Matt Solomon's home number?
I believe Kolko is davening in Gissinger's shul on the south side of the lake. Gissinger was involved in the Kyo Monsey tarfus scandal with Weissmandel & Zushe Blech.
http://www.hebrewnational.com/pages/fans/commercials.jsp
I suspect that Conagra is reading the blogs and developed this brilliant Hebrew National video / commercial with a shtoch in mind to Rubashkin. (You may need to upgrade your Flash software before viewing).
Hebrew National, who "answers to a higher authority", says there are "no if ands or BUTTS" in kashrus. They show that it is prohibited for Jews to consume the entire hindquarter of a cow, something that Rubashkin and the OU are in flagrant violation of in producing "kosher" ox tail that is part of the BUTT.
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2008/02/ban-and-banners-concerts-are-forbidden.html
The New Lakewood said...
Kolko sold his house in Flatbush and moved to Lakewood. He's davening in Rabbi Gissinger's shul, 170 Sunset Rd.
Is Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon taking his finger slipping to the next level?
First Lipa Margulies' is allowed to open a yeshiva in Lakewood. Then Yaakov Applegrad moved to Lakewood and now Torah Temimah's star rebbe/principal/pedophile moves to Lakewood.
I sense a pattern.
12:22 PM, February 22, 2008
http://mentalblog.com/2006/10/forgetfulness.html
Check out this hilarious article from Tzemach Atlas. Pesach Lerner showed up for free gourmet food and 5 star lodging at Leib Tropper's gerus circus. Lerner didn't even know why Tropper invited him - Atlas overheard Lerner ask Tropper to explain to him what his fraudulent EJF group is all about.
Atlas wasn't there much longer as Tropper flipped out that a blogger was in attendance and had the police throw him out.
We don't tolerate scoundrels. We rationalize abhorrent behavior. We cannot accept that our own would do what we accuse the "others" of doing. We forget that pointing the finger has 3 fingers pointing back at us and that those 3 fingers are majority. Even by Yidden, majority rules. We have forgotten that we have to improve ourselves, we cannot improve anyone else. There is a book by R' Boruch Adler called Foundations , I suggest you read his piece on Devarim. All may be in the hands of Heaven except Yireh, so we need to work on our own Yireh. We can do so much by example and by not associating with things that we find abhorrent. Instead of Rationali$ing and looking the o$her way, we need to withhold $ when we find things that are wrong. You don't need to organize a boycott of millions to get your message across, just need to behave in a way that is consistent with the way you think.
For example, if you daven in a shul with people who are unsavory and they get an aliyah, then refuse an aliyah letting the gabbai know why. If the Rov objects, withhold the matanah and let them know why. If they yell Dan L'Kaf Zechus, no problem, let them be as equally indulgent of your stand to oppose as they are to look the other way. WE have an enormous arsenal of weapons to fight indolent behaviors and anti-society personalities. WE just have to use them!
I tried to make myself into the big hero with the Chaim Berlin kidnapping scandal.
By David Glovin
Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
sued Chicago-based Wextrust Capital LLC and two of its owners, saying
they used a Ponzi scheme to cheat investors, many in the orthodox Jewish
community, of more than $100 million.
The co-owners, Steven Byers, of Oakbrook, Illinois, and Joseph
Shereshevsky, of Norfolk, Virginia, were arrested today on charges of
defrauding investors by stealing funds they raised through private
placements.
``Defendants have been fraudulently raising money in the various
offerings, each of which purportedly is for a particular investment,
without disclosing that funds raised were actually being used to pay
prior investors in unrelated offerings,'' the SEC said in a complaint
that sought to freeze the fund's assets.
WexTrust has raised at least $255 million from at least
1,196 investors in the U.S. and abroad, the SEC said. WexTrust said in a
January press release that it is a private-equity company specialized in
real estate and investment banking, with offices in New York, Atlanta,
Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg.
``One of the defendants used his extensive connections in the
Orthodox Jewish community to solicit more than $250 million from
unsuspecting investors,'' Andrew Calamari, the SEC's associate director
of enforcement, said in a statement. ``Our complaint alleges an affinity
fraud of very large scale.''
The SEC also sued Byers, the firm's chairman, and Shereshevsky, who
until recently was chief operating officer.
Shereshevsky pleaded guilty in 2003 to bank fraud, the SEC said.
A WexTrust spokesman, David Gutierrez, didn't have an immediate
comment. A lawyer for the company, Jeff Brooke, didn't immediately
return a call.
Operators of so-called Ponzi schemes use money from new investors
to pay off old ones.
The case is SEC v. Steven Byers, 08-cv-7104, U.S. District Court,
Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
WexTrust took down their website. This is what the headline used to read:
WexTrust Capital has a proven track record of protecting its clients' assets and delivering a superior return-on-investment
Shereshevsky was the WexTrust COO "until recently".
Was he kicked out?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3o3s7oe30hQ&refer=home
According to authorities, Byers and Shereshevsky used money raised from private placement investors to fund the firm's operations and repay earlier investors. The government claimed that, for example, $9.2 million raised by the company from investors would be used to buy and operate seven properties that would be leased to the U.S. General Services Administration.
``The seven GSA properties, however, were never purchased, the monies raised to purchase the properties were used for some other purpose, and investors were not informed,'' Garcia said.
A private placement is a negotiated sale in which securities are sold directly to investors, rather than through a public offering.
60 Percent
Byers owns 60 percent of WexTrust, and Shereshevsky owns 20 percent, the SEC said. WexTrust is owner of at least 120 entities formed to acquire real estate interests, and it conducted at least 60 private placements between 2005 and 2008, the SEC said.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Glovin in Manhattan federal court at dglovin@bloomberg.net
Colmo the Homo has been calling rabbonim from Rikers Island to ask kashrus shaylos.
The israeli court system, is almost as corrupt as the israeli rabbinate !!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1008094.html
I have been speaking to some rabbonim by the Chassidishe & Litvishe. They are telling me that they support R' Nuchem Rosenberg and are mishtoymem that he is being hunted like an animal. But, and this is a BIG BUT, they are afraid to get involved because Satmar has marked him as a target. Satmar doesn't really care about collateral damage and will beat the living daylights out of anyone who fits their twisted definition of apikorsim & menivulim.
A rov tells me he is disgusted that Lazer Ginzberg is raising money to bail out Colmer but says that believe it or not, Colmer is smooth enough and Lazer naive enough that Lazer actually believes that Colmer didn't do anything.
Pentagon distrust of Jewish engineer leads to death of GIs and Marines.
Pentagon affirms that man's faith led to spy accusations
Army employee was suspected of working for Israel because he was Jewish, a report says.
..."It is kind of hard to get back a reputation," Tenenbaum said. "When I came back to work in 1998, I was told by high-level people that my career was over. What I have seen is that was true."
Now, Tenenbaum has a 62-page report from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense declaring that he "was subjected to unusual and unwelcome scrutiny because of his faith and ethnic background."
The report was issued July 13 after U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, intervened.
Early newspaper reports of the accusations against Tenenbaum were published based on legal documents that federal officials later said should have been kept under seal.
"He's gone through hell," said lawyer Mayer Morganroth. "He still works for TACOM but they don't give him any meaningful assignments, anymore." ...
Pentagon: We thought engineer was Israeli spy because he's a Jew
...Tenenbaum's lawyer told the Free Press that the investigation led the Army to shelve his client's Humvee armor project in 1995, a move that he said cost the lives of ill-equipped American soldiers deployed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
R' Nuchem is capable of taking care of himself. I hope he stays safe...should be able to get a concealed weapons permit.
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/2008/08/11/1266/lewin-herzfeld-assertions-are-fallacious/
This is sick, but Nat Lewin, who is on the Agudah & Rubashkin payrolls has just attacked the rov of his own shul, Rabbi Herzfeld for daring criticize Rubashkin. Lewin is raving in the public letter like a madman.
Nat Lewin and his hysterical hyperbole:
"frenzy ... very little basis in fact, pilloried AgriProcessors ... driven federal and local law-enforcement personnel to threaten dire consequences (oh so the NY Times gets everyone to jump up and press criminal charges?) ... Insult was heaped on injury ... the vigilantes ... contradicts the unanimous opinion of highly respected and universally recognized kashruth-certifying agencies that have repeatedly endorsed ... it takes a little digging beneath the surface of Rabbi Herzfeld’s assertions to demonstrate how fallacious ... vicious reports to authorities led to the destruction of the Temple"
Lewin is really desperate. Of course Rav Salanter did not give a personal hechsher on a bakery. I'm sure Lewin is smart enough to figure that out. Lewin then asks misleading questions to smear Rabbi Herzfeld. I heard the story in yeshiva the way Rabbi Herzfeld intended that Rav Salanter was disqualifying something based on the circumstances.
one again thanks to UOJ we have another expose
what happened two the two girls in beis yaacov of miami beach that tried to commit suicide and what about the girl who was caught selling drugs in nmb who was underage who goes to beis yaacov
but they all must want kollel boys
What Lewin, Lubinsky and Getzel Rubashkin are beginning to realize is that they cannot defend Rubashkin and Agriprocessor's ethical actions. Lewin's only defense of Rubashkin is that Herzfeld's version of a mussar story is too ambitious. The purpose of Mussar was to correct ethics, a lesson that Lewin clearly has not learnt in all his historical research on the Rabbi Yisroel Salanter story.
Rubashkin's behavior violates the spirit of the Torah. A book that was originally written to protect worker and animal righs is now being distorted to protect the abusers.
Getzel, Lewin and Lubinsky the more you talk, the more your corrupt philosophy is exposed.
Herzfeld is right even if his version of the Rabbi Salanter story is different than the one that the Lewin is using as a proof.
I doubt Herzfeld made up the story, probably just heard a different version than Lewin.
How wrong is Lewin to contradict his Rabbi in public in order to defend one of his paying clients. He should be ashamed of himself. Shame on Lewin for doing that. He should have had someone else write that article. He definitely is a Nogea b'davar.
"Aug 11, 2008
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a U.S-based company and two of its owners, saying they used a Ponzi scheme to cheat nearly 1,200 investors, including a number of Orthodox Jews, out of more than $100 million.
The two owners named as defendants in the case are both Orthodox Jews.
Considerable repercussions within the Orthodox Jewish community are expected, as many Orthodox Jews throughout North America were involved either as investors or as venture capitalists raising money for the firm.
The firm’s chairman, who owns 60% of the company, and a former chief operating officer who owns 20%, were arrested today on charges that they stole funds raised in private placements. The SEC is seeking an order freezing the company's assets.
According to the SEC, the company raised at least $255 million from at least 1,196 investors. While marketed as investment entities earmarked for specific investments, similar to the funds raised by private equity firms, the money was used to fund the firm’s operation and to pay off prior investors. “Defendants have been fraudulently raising money in the various offerings, each of which purportedly is for a particular investment, without disclosing that funds raised were actually being used to pay prior investors in unrelated offerings,” said the SEC complaint.
In one instance in 2005, the company raised $9.2 million from investors, allegedly to be used to buy and operate seven specifically identified properties. In fact, the defendants never purchased the properties; the properties were not even available for sale at the time.“The monies raised to purchase the properties were used for some other purpose, and investors were not informed,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia.
According to the SEC complaint, one of the defendants pled guilty to a felony charge of bank fraud in June 2003, but this detail was illegally withheld from investors. In addition, in form filings, the man was not identified as a controlling person of the company and his former conviction was not disclosed. Also, said the SEC, both defendants failed to pass proper licensing exams.
“Our complaint alleges an affinity fraud of very large scale. In this case, one of the defendants used his extensive connections in the orthodox Jewish community to solicit more than $250 million from unsuspecting investors. Affinity frauds are especially pernicious because the victims tend to let their guards down in circumstances where they might otherwise proceed with much more caution," said an SEC associate.
The SEC complaint alleges that the defendants are conducting at least four ongoing frauds intended to raise money to pay back investors from prior offerings.
A spokesperson for the company had no immediate comment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/nyregion/12kingsland.html?pagewanted=print
August 12, 2008
Two Years Later, the F.B.I. Still Seeks the Owners of a Trove of Artworks
By ERIC KONIGSBERG
The paintings share real estate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives,” its “Most Wanted Terrorists” and the National Sex Offender Public Registry. In fact, when the F.B.I. posted a detailed listing of 137 artworks of fuzzy provenance from the collection of the late William M. V. Kingsland on Monday, the case had top billing on the department’s home page.
“Stolen Art Uncovered: Is It Yours?” read the headline. And the teaser: “In 2006, a treasure trove of art — some of it stolen — was found in a New York apartment. The search is on for the rightful owners.”
Actually, the search has been on for almost two years — though complications have conspired to slow things down, including a) the difficulty of tracking down the rightful owners of works that, if they were stolen at all, were probably stolen about 40 years ago, b) the fact that the likely perpetrator of the alleged thefts is dead, and c) the fact that few of the rightful owners appear to know or care that the artworks have turned up in this particular collection.
The curious case of William Milliken Vanderbilt Kingsland, a threadbare eccentric and an amateur genealogist of the Upper East Side, began in the summer of 2006, when, a few months after he died (at the age of either 58 or 62), it was discovered that his birth name was Melvyn Kohn, that he resided not on Fifth Avenue but in a small apartment on East 72nd Street, and that he had not — counter to his claims — attended Groton or Harvard, nor had he once been married to a French royal.
He left no will, and the apartment turned out to be full of artworks — including a bust by Giacometti that has since been valued at $900,000 to $1.2 million and a small painting by Giorgio Morandi that would eventually be auctioned for about $600,000 — that turned out to be stolen. (The Morandi was subsequently returned to the care of the Manhattan public administrator, who oversees legal details for the intestate.)
Some of the art in Mr. Kingsland’s collection does appear to have belonged, in the legal sense of the word, to him. But the F.B.I., brought in to sort through the trove, discovered that of the more than 300 pieces found in his apartment, — including stolen works by Picasso, Copley, Fairfield Porter and Odilon Redon — most anything of commercial significance was difficult, at best, to verify as his.
“It sort of ended when I had received questions about around 20 things, and I had to put it aside,” said James Wynne, the F.B.I. agent supervising the case. “And now we’re hoping that by listing all the things that might still have questions attached, more people will come forward to claim them. Or not.”
In the months after Mr. Kingsland’s death, the Office of the Public Administrator consigned the art to two auction houses before anyone realized they were stolen. “Christie’s got whatever was high end,” Agent Wynne said. Colin Stair, an auctioneer in Hudson, N.Y., got the rest.
In October, Mr. Stair sold more than 200 pieces in Mr. Kingsland’s collection, for about a total of $200,000. One painting, a 1790 Copley portrait of the Second Earl of Bessborough, sold to an art dealer for $85,000. The dealer, Alex Acevedo, quickly looked into the painting’s history and found that it had been stolen in 1971 from the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.
Specialists at Christie’s, meanwhile, were having a similar experience. The Giacometti (which Mr. Kingsland had apparently used as a door stopper) and four paintings — two Porters, a Redon and a Kurt Schwitters — had all been reported stolen in the 1960s. “We had to cancel the sale of the Morandi, and another piece, by Jean-Baptiste Bosschaert, was pulled after the catalog was printed,” said Toby Usnik, a spokesman for the auction house.
Agent Wynne said receipts for a handful of the pieces in Mr. Kingsland’s apartment were uncovered. “He went to the sort of junior-collector auctions sometimes,” he said. “They used to call it Christie’s East, and at Sotheby’s, it was called Sotheby’s Arcade.”
That still leaves 105 pieces of unknown ownership in Christie’s possession.
If nobody comes forward who can make an ironclad claim to any of these works, said the public administrator, Ethel J. Griffin, they will indeed be auctioned off and the proceeds turned over to Mr. Kingsland’s estate. And as it happens, four first cousins of Mr. Kingsland’s and an uncle have contacted her office to declare themselves his rightful heirs. But Christie’s has valued the works in question — including the stolen Giacometti and Morandi pieces — at about $2.4 million.
Factoring out the valuable artworks that Agent Wynne has already discovered to have been stolen, most of the pieces unaccounted for are worth $1,000 to $2,000 each, according to Christie’s assessment.
Agent Wynne, 54, who tends to refer to all manner of artworks as “things,” may give the impression that he is lacking a certain reverence for the material in question, but he is as familiar with the landscape of the art market as, say, Corot was with the French countryside. The agent has specialized in art theft at the F.B.I. since 1987, and he said of a drawing in Mr. Kingsland’s collection that is listed as a Corot: “Well, you know what they say about Corot, don’t you? He did 500 pictures and there’s 2,000 of them in the United States.”
Many of the Kingsland artworks, Agent Wynne said, appeared to have last belonged to galleries in New York, but it was difficult to track down when they were last seen. “What happens is, you call these people, and you’re talking about prehistoric history,” he said. “Some of these galleries have since closed. You try to find the pieces in the artists’ catalogues raisonnées, and sometimes it says ‘whereabouts unknown,’ and sometimes it says it belongs to somebody else who’s dead by now.”
In the case of a painting by the French artist Boudin, Agent Wynne said he contacted the son of the owner listed in the artist’s catalogue raisonnée, “who said that in his recollection, the thing had been loaned to a museum in Florida and that it had disappeared.”
Archie Bunker
Of course Nat Lewin will write in defense of Agri but that in itself is not a crime.You very conveniently only quote those parts of his article that conform to your agenda. "Lewin is raving in the public letter like a madman."Why don't you quote his article in it's entirety? I think that he makes some very valid points.Why don't you allow the readers on this blog to make their own decision as to whether "Lewin is raving in the public letter like a madman"?I am not not defending Agri here but I am defending the validity of Lewin's statement and his right to defend Agri.
Entire article
Nat Lewin
In a front-page article asserting that minors had been hired to work in an Iowa kosher meat-packing plant and in an editorial calling the plant the modern equivalent of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” the New York Times joined the media frenzy that has, over the past two months, with very little basis in fact, pilloried AgriProcessors, the country’s leading kosher slaughterer and packer of beef, and driven federal and local law-enforcement personnel to threaten dire consequences to its owner and employees. Insult was heaped on injury when an Orthodox rabbi in Washington, D.C., joined the vigilantes and published an Op-Ed piece in the Times of August 6, claiming that the news accounts “call into question whether the food processed in the plant qualifies as kosher.”
This nationally published challenge to the kashruth of the AgriProcessor product contradicts the unanimous opinion of highly respected and universally recognized kashruth-certifying agencies that have repeatedly endorsed – even while the media attack was ongoing -- the ritual acceptability of AgriProcessors’ product. Nonetheless,
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Ohev Sholom Synagogue in Washington (where the author of this response has been a member for the past 40 years) – a young rabbi who has achieved great success in reviving, for Jewish residents, a neighborhood that had been abandoned by its Jewish population and has electrified the entire Washington Jewish community with innovative programs – raised ”questions” about AgriProcessors’ kashruth in this widely read forum.
Rabbi Herzfeld’s column cites the following three grounds for questioning the religious suitability of AgriProcessors’ meat: First, he says that “there is precedent for declaring something nonkosher on the basis of how employees are treated.” The precedent he cites is that Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, the highly respected 19th century founder of the “Mussar” movement, is, according to Rabbi Herzfeld, “famously believed to have refused to certify a matzo factory as kosher on the grounds that the workers were being treated unfairly.” Rabbi Yisroel Salanter is as gold-plated an authority as one can imagine. If he actually said that unfair treatment of workers renders a product non-kosher, one would have to give that ruling great weight.
Second, Rabbi Herzfeld cites allegations in an affidavit filed by the immigration authorities who raided the AgriProcessor plant in Iowa on May 12 to arrest illegal aliens employed there. He says that the affidavit alleges “that an employee was physically abused by a rabbi on the floor of the plant.” Rabbi Herzfeld says that “this calls into question the reliability and judgment of the rabbi in charge of making sure the food was kosher.” If, in fact, the “rabbi in charge of making sure the food was kosher” did assault an AgriProcessors employee, I would share Rabbi Herzfeld’s doubts regarding that rabbi’s “reliability and judgment” on issues relating to kashruth.
Third, Rabbi Herzfeld points to the arrest of “two workers who oversaw the poultry and beef division” for “helping illegal immigrants falsify documents.” He says that if these supervisors “were willing to break immigration laws, one could reasonably ask whether they would be likely to show the same lack of concern for Jewish dietary laws.” This is a reasonable question if, as one might assume from Rabbi Herzfeld’s description of the arrests, the arrested supervisors had any responsibility whatever for AgriProcessors’ compliance with “Jewish dietary laws.”
But it takes a little digging beneath the surface of Rabbi Herzfeld’s assertions to demonstrate how fallacious they are.
First, the Reb Yisroel Salanter story that he describes as “famous” does not appear in any biography of Rabbi Salanter that I have been able to find. Rabbi Hillel Goldberg’s marvelous history of the Mussar Movement titled “The Fire Within,” which has a comprehensive section on Rabbi Salanter, tells only of his having advised his students that, when they were preparing matzos for Passover, they should not overwork or make excessive demands of the female workers who were kneading the dough and otherwise preparing for the matzo baking. That same account appears in a Hebrew volume titled “Bikkurei Shai,” written by the Chief Rabbi of Givatayim, Israel.
I e-mailed Rabbi Hillel Goldberg to ask him whether he had ever heard that Rabbi Salanter had refused to certify the kashruth of a matzo factory because it was unfair to its workers. He replied that the only story on this subject that he knew of was the one that had appeared in his book. He added that it was not likely that Rabbi Salanter would ever have given a certification (“hashgacha”) on matzo because he “famously” avoided acting as a community rabbi. And I myself wonder whether it is not an anachronism for Rabbi Herzfeld to ascribe to the mid-19th century the community practices of today. At a time when all matzos were being hand-baked (and the rabbinic controversy over the kashruth of machine-made matzos was still several decades in the future), what “matzo factory” was seeking the “certification” of Rabbi Salanter?
Second, a closer look is warranted at Rabbi Herzfeld’s assertion regarding the case of the abusive “rabbi.” Nowhere in the government’s affidavit is any accusation reported against any rabbi whose job was “making sure the food was kosher.” The term “rabbi” is used interchangeably throughout the affidavit with the term “Hasidic Jew.” Obviously, any employee on the floor of the AgriProcessors plant who had a beard and wore a yarmulke was described by the government’s Guatemalan informant as a “rabbi” or “Hasidic Jew.” If one such Jewish employee – with no responsibility for kashruth – abused an employee, it does not “call into question the reliability and judgment of the rabbi in charge of making sure the food was kosher.”
Third is Rabbi Herzfeld’s reliance on the arrest of two supervisors. Would the arrested supervisors – who, one assumes from Rabbi Herzfeld’s question, are either certifying rabbis or, at least, Hasidic Jews responsible in some manner for kashruth --show the same disdain for Jewish dietary laws as for American immigration law? Rabbi Herzfeld does not tell us that the two arrested supervisors were named Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza and Martin De La Rosa-Loera – supervisors at AgriProcessors whose concern or lack of concern for Jewish dietary laws is as irrelevant as one can imagine.
At a time of the year when we recall that vicious reports to authorities led to the destruction of the Temple, Rabbi Herzfeld might take a more careful look at the grounds for his public allegations.
Nathan Lewin is a Washington attorney who has represented AgriProcessors in the past and is currently participating as counsel in the defense of the company and its owner.
Talk about out of control. You think Kolko joining a shul in Lakewood is bad? How about convicted child molester Jerry Brauner being chosen as Baal Tefilah on Tisha B'Av? As UOJ says "Al Eleh Ani Bochiya"!!
http://chaptzem.blogspot.com/
To post of 1:51 PM, August 11, 2008 who says: "Yossi Shereshevsky said... I tried to make myself into the big hero with the Chaim Berlin kidnapping scandal."
The Chaim Berliners are no big heros either with one of their big stars, David Shick, rotting in jail for even bigger real estate fraud, while they take care of his kids and family in the Chaim Berlin yeshiva, not to mention Israel Englander and Mahir Reiss and other "hero" dudes they have taken millions in donations from...
So Arthur thinks it's normal that someone paid by Rubashkin publicly attacks his own rov?
Me thinks that any normal person would agree with me that he should have recused himself in this case and that Lewin is otherwise full of crap. See the video where Lewin debated PETA and the Jewish Press op-ed where he attacked the NY Times.
"I am not not defending Agri here"
Two negatives equals a positive.
"I am not not defending Agri here"
Please excuse the typo.
I'm sure you realized it was one but why not get a cheap shot in when you have the opportunity to do so.Se lavie.
"Se lavie"
Was that supposed to be "c'est la vie?"
:)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/business/12wextrust.html
By DOW JONES
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged WexTrust Capital and its affiliates with fraud on Monday, alleging that the company ran a Ponzi scheme that raised at least $255 million by targeting members of the Orthodox Jewish community.
The S.E.C. said WexTrust’s principals, Steven Byers and Joseph Shereshevsky, deceived at least 1,196 investors since 2002. The defendants diverted at least $100 million to unauthorized purposes, according to the S.E.C.’s complaint.
Mr. Shereshevsky, the agency said, is a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2003. He took the lead in soliciting investors through his wide-contacts in the Orthodox Jewish community, the S.E.C. said.
The S.E.C. asked for an emergency order to freeze the defendants’ assets and place the WexTrust entities under the control of a receiver to safeguard assets.
”Affinity frauds are especially pernicious because the victims tend to let their guards down in circumstances where they might otherwise proceed with much more caution,” said Andrew M. Calamari, the S.E.C.’s associate director of enforcement.
The complaint said WexTrust entities conducted at least 60 securities offerings through private placements and created approximately 150 entities, ostensibly to fund commercial real estate ventures. Instead, the defendants allegedly diverted funds to pay returns to investors in prior offerings or to pay their own expenses.
Mr. Shereshevsky and Mr. Byers could not be reached for immediate comment as they were attending a meeting at 42 Broadway in lower Manhattan.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/08/bris-again.html
Does anyone know who sent Yudel Shain this video of me performing an improper bris?
There is rumored to be big news set to come out of Lakewood in connection to Shereshevsky.
I also use that clamp that all the rabbonim assered for bris mila but I'm too much of a coward to answer any questions except through my lawyer.
Well, Paysach Krohn may not be happy, but that's the most geshmake video I've seen in a while!
That's nothing, Kolko. My shvogger Paysach Krohn brings me along to many of the pre-screenings before the videos get out. Nisht der zelba zach when you're there in person.
Ahuva said
"Se lavie"
Was that supposed to be "c'est la vie?"
Definitely right.The truth of the matter is I was born in France,I will not say how many years ago,but don't speak the languge at all.We arrived in the USA when I was 9 months old.Ye can't win im all.
"So Arthur thinks it's normal that someone paid by Rubashkin publicly attacks his own rov?"
"Me thinks" you are nit picking.So I'll do the same.
Lewin never stated that that Hertzfeld was "his own" rov.He did say that he's the Rav of the schul in which he has been davening in for the last twenty years.Hertzfeld has not been the Rav of this Schul for twenty years.Davening in a schul does not necessarily mean that you accept the Moreh d'asreh as your "own Rov".
So there.Now we're even.
Hey Arthur, I know there's something in the water in Crown Heights because Rabbi Osdaba does not allow anyone to filter for crustaceans even if they want to. I don't even have to ask the question about your locale.
It is NOT normal to publicly criticize the rabbi of the shul where you daven when you are being PAID to pen that criticism.
Anyone with a fibre of morality can figure that out.
And another thing. You sound like an ignorant "meathead" when you complain about the excerpt. Have you ever read the Wall Street Journal editorial page? They always poke fun at writers who use the kind of hysterical wording that Lewin does and they pick out all the examples to show how numerous they are.
When it comes to nitpicking it is you who wrote the book.
Archie bunker
Wow!!!You really floored me.I must of stepped on someones toes here.I didn't realize I'm dealing with an "intellectual" that actually reads the Wall Street Journal.How's your stocks doing?
My "respect" for your "wisdom" has now reached a new height.Your usage of "complimentary" and "wise" adjectives to describe me has suddenly revealed to me why you use the name Archie Bunker.Very appropriate
YWN Report: Rav Shteinman Shlita Gives a Bracha for Georgia
August 12, 2008
According to a Tuesday evening report appearing on Ynet, Rav Aaron Yehuda Leib Shteinman Shlita has responded to a request to give a bracha to Georgia. According to the report, the request came from none other than Georgian Premier Vladimir “Lado” Gurgenidze.
The story actually began last winter when rabbonim from Vaad L’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel visited with the premier, at which time they presented him with a letter from Rav Shteinman. The letter has since earned a prominent spot on the prime minister’s wall, in which the Rav Shlita refers to Georgia as “a kingdom of grace,” Yediot goes on to report.
The Vaad chairman, Rabbi Shimon Brook, received a phone call from the prime minister on Tuesday morning, seeking a bracha from Rav Shteinman, asking if the “old rabbi is still alive?”
Receiving a positive response, the premier reportedly stated, “I hear he is a holy person. Can he pray for our country?”
Not wasting time, Rabbi Brook visited Rav Shteinman in Bnei Brak on Tuesday and a bracha was indeed given.
When Rav Brook asked if the vaad should send a delegation, Rav Shteinman reportedly stated they should not because “there is fire there”.
Arthur uses the same kind of annoying arguments that Getzel Rubashkin does in his new foray into blogging. I wonder if they are related as Getzel's grandmother (Sholom Rubashkin's mother) is from France.
'Snag said...
"Arthur uses the same kind of annoying arguments that Getzel Rubashkin does in his new foray into blogging. I wonder if they are related as Getzel's grandmother (Sholom Rubashkin's mother) is from France"
Why is it that when someone disagrees with your views it becomes "annoying"? This is a blog where everyone airs his or her views and if someone disagrees they have the right to respond in an intelligent manner.I assume this is so because we the posters are Torah observant Jews, more or less, and therefore behave with a certain modicum of respect for differing opinions .Of course it's annoying,(in a generic way),when someone disagrees with us but I don't think that was your intent here.Lets not react in a knee jerk reaction by using character assassination when someone disagrees with the true or imagined avlehs that are sometimes espoused on this blog.
As stated on my first ever post on this blog I said that I am in no way related to the Rubashkins.Reb UOJ can testify to this as he knows something of my familial relationship.
Arthur, I'm sure no one will make a big deal over your sloppy grammar & spelling when you make fun of other people's sophistication. It's the overall maturity & finesse expressed in your comeback at 7:33 pm that must REALLY impress the readership.
Steve Mostofsky is very busy with this case in Brooklyn family court.
Is it the Isaac Hersh case?
http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fcasfamily/FCASFamilyAppearance?courtId=0&attorneyId=3155386&sortOrder=1&Name=MOSTOFSKY, STEVEN ZACHARY
Attorney Name/Firm Name: MOSTOFSKY, STEVEN ZACHARY
File# Docket# Judge Part Appearance
Date/Time Purpose(s) Attorney Type / For Court
77033 V-28604-05/05A Honorable Robin K. Sheares 12A 09/03/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
77033 V-28604-05/05B Honorable Robin K. Sheares 12A 09/03/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
6512 F-11898-07/08C Elizabeth Shamahs, FCSM 23 09/04/2008
9:30 AM Return of Process Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
60876 AS-26693-07 Honorable Jeanette Ruiz 8 09/08/2008
10:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
60876 AS-26694-07 Honorable Jeanette Ruiz 8 09/08/2008
10:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
60876 AS-26695-07 Honorable Jeanette Ruiz 8 09/08/2008
10:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
131249 V-11745-08 Honorable Robin K. Sheares 12A 09/10/2008
11:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02040-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02041-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02041-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Fact Finding
Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02042-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02042-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Fact Finding
Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02043-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02043-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Fact Finding
Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02044-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02044-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Fact Finding
Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02045-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02045-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
9:30 AM Fact Finding
Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02040-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
11:00 AM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02041-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
11:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02042-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
11:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02043-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
11:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02044-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
11:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02045-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/11/2008
11:00 AM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02041-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/22/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02042-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/22/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02043-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/22/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02044-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/22/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02045-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/22/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
111398 V-03995-07/07A Honorable Robin K. Sheares 12A 09/22/2008
10:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
111398 V-03996-07/07A Honorable Robin K. Sheares 12A 09/22/2008
10:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Petitioner Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02041-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/24/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02042-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/24/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02043-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/24/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02044-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/24/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
62474 NA-02045-05 Edward W. Yuskevich, Court Attorney Referee 40 09/24/2008
9:30 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Interested Party Kings County Family Court
55700 NN-01255-05 Rubye J. Williams Esq., Court Attorney Referee 51 10/23/2008
12:00 PM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
55700 NN-01256-05 Rubye J. Williams Esq., Court Attorney Referee 51 10/23/2008
12:00 PM Permanency Planning Hearing Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
55700 B-33988-06 Honorable Bryanne A. Hamill 1 10/23/2008
12:30 PM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
55700 B-33989-06 Honorable Bryanne A. Hamill 1 10/23/2008
12:30 PM Motion Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (18B) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/17/2008
11:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/17/2008
11:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/17/2008
11:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/17/2008
11:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/17/2008
11:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/25/2008
10:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/25/2008
10:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
122320 V-28271-07 Honorable Bernard J. Graham 3 11/25/2008
10:00 AM Conference Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent
Mostofsky, Steven Zachary (Retained Attorney) for Respondent Kings County Family Court
http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fcasfamily/Attorney#search_result
I'm Ohel's lawyer registered with Family Court although I don't have any cases pending currently.
Archie Bunker said...
"Arthur, I'm sure no one will make a big deal over your sloppy grammar & spelling when you make fun of other people's sophistication. It's the overall maturity & finesse expressed in your comeback at 7:33 pm that must REALLY impress the readership."
As I said in my previous post,if you don't have anything intelligent to say,or someone says something that doesn't jive with your premise,character assassination will always do the trick.
According to the Federal complaint, Yossi Shereshevsky went by the alias Joseph Heller. His ex-wife sued him for divorce under that name:
Court: Kings Civil Supreme
Index Number: 020730/1996
Case Name: SHERESHEVSKY,SUSAN vs. HELLER,JOSEPH
Case Type: Uncontested Mat2 Abandonment
Disposition Date: 06/16/1997
NOI Filed: 01/31/1997
Disposition Deadline: 05/04/1998
Calendar Number: 1996-012884U
RJI Filed: 07/11/1996
Justice Name: WILLIAM RIGLER
Attorney/Firm For Plaintiff:
SUNSHINE & GOLDBERG Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Status: Active
16 COURT STREET
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 11241
718-625-2022
She also got a restraining order against him.
To Snag and Archie Bunker
A little eidelkeit in your day to day behavior in relating to others and the way you post here or any other site can go a long way in getting people to agree with you.Try it sometime.It can become a habit.
I knew UOJ was overambitious vanting $20 million for each kid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/us/13brfs-SETTLEMENTIN_BRF.html?ref=us
The Archdiocese of Chicago said it had agreed to pay more than $12.6 million to settle lawsuits by 16 people who accused priests of sexual abuse. “My hope is that these settlements will help the survivors and their families begin to heal and move forward,” the archbishop, Cardinal Francis George, said in a separate statement in which he apologized for the abuse.
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/2008/08/12/1274/herzfeld-v-lewin-round-2/
Response to Nat Lewin
by Shmuel Herzfeld
Nat Lewin is one of our finest congregants and has always been a terrific advocate for the Jewish people. Obviously, our entire community is struggling with this difficult issue which asks us to balance the requirement of due process while not turning our backs on heart wrenching allegations that strike at the core of our identity.
I will not engage in a back and forth argument in this forum, but it is important to address the argument about the legitimacy of the position cited in the name of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter.
Many sources on this topic are cited in an article by Rabbi Avi Gisser, Chief Rabbi of Ofra, Israel in his article for Ma’aglei Tzedek, an organization in Israel that seeks to unite laws of kashrut with concerns for how workers are treated. The article is available on line at www.edah.org/mtzenglish.pdf.
The story about Rav Salanter was one story from a genre of Rav Salanter stories that might have been cited. Here is a small portion of Rav Gisser’s article:
According to Rav Kook, what our generation needs, especially now, is to add fuel to the great flame of social justice that stems from a deep awe of G-d. Three anecdotes from the life of Rabbi Salanter demonstrate this. Once, Rabbi Salanter visited a new matzah bakery in order to check its work practices and level of kashrut. He reviewed all the manufacturing procedures extensively and observed the intense labor and toil of the employees. At the end of Rabbi Salanter’s visit, the bakery owner proudly asked him, “What does the rabbi say?” He answered, “The Gentiles accuse us, G-d forbid, of using the blood of Christian children in matzah. While this is not the case, from what I have seen here, there is indeed a violation of the prohibition on blood in food. The blood of the workers is mixed with the matzah! I will not certify this bakery as kosher.” In another case, Rabbi Salanter was asked what demands particular attention when baking matzah. He answered: “One must be scrupulous not to yell at the woman kneading the dough.” He was also quoted as saying, “It is prohibited to enhance your mitzvot at the expense of others.” One day Rabbi Salanter was hosted by a rich man. When he performed the ritual hand-washing before the meal, he used a sparing amount of water. He was asked, “Doesn’t the Torah say it is praiseworthy to wash with a lot of water?” He answered,
“I can only do that in my own home. Here, however, I must consider the needs of the servant who must carry the buckets of water.” When attending large dinners, Rabbi Salanter also hurried to finish eating quickly in consideration of the waiters and other workers, who had to wait until the end of the meal to go home. “Justice, justice you shall pursue in order that you may live in and inherit the land.”
Rav Gisser’s article is published with a powerful statement immediately following it. Here is a portion of that statement:
Out of concern for Israel’s moral and humane character as a Jewish State, respecting all its citizens, in which justice is one of its basic principles, we wish to announce a social seal, committing all who believe in justice and morality. We hereby request all business proprietors to respect the dignity of their workers and visitors, both regarding to conditions of employment, and also assuring accessibility to people with disabilites. We ask all for whom the Jewish humane character of Israel is important to be aware of just consumerism, and to buy only in places holding the social seal.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/345/story/436085.html
Concern about the ethics of kosher production is not new. Around 1949, Rabbi Yosef Breuer argued in an essay that being kosher also requires "strict application of the tenets of justice and righteousness," including honesty in business and concern for the welfare of others.
Nat Lewin is wrong when he writes
“And I myself wonder whether it is not an anachronism for Rabbi Herzfeld to ascribe to the mid-19th century the community practices of today. At a time when all matzos were being hand-baked (and the rabbinic controversy over the kashruth of machine-made matzos was still several decades in the future), what “matzo factory” was seeking the “certification” of Rabbi Salanter? ”
See http://tinyurl.com/6nkmxv where Rabbi Shmuel Singer writes “In France, in 1838, Isaac Singer invented the first machine for baking matzah.” Reb Yisroel Salanter lived from 1809 to 1883. Clearly all matzos were not hand baked in the mid-19th century, which was during his life time.
http://njjewishnews.com/justASC/2008/08/11/ethics-shmethics/
Lewin is almost exclusively concerned that Herzfeld would challenge the kashrut of the plant under ethical grounds — and if Lewin has even a shmidgen of unease about the human toll of the mounting allegations against the plant, it is not to be found in his rebuttal.
Instead, a lawyer to the core, he tries to discredit the historicity of Herzfeld’s reference to Rabbi Israel Salanter, who according to Herzfeld “refused to certify a matzo factory as kosher on the grounds that the workers were being treated unfairly.” Lewin can’t find a solid scholarly reference to the Salanter story — implying that if the principle of judging a factory’s kashrut by the treatment of its workers was not established by a 19th-century sage, it can’t possibly be an operable criterion.
“No Salantar — no justice.” Try that on a bumper sticker.
It’s an odd gambit on Lewin’s part, because if the plant has been “pilloried” by the press and if Herzfeld is one among many “vigilantes,” as he asserts, what difference would it make what Salanter did or didn’t say about ethics? If the allegations are untrue, and Agriprocessors is a legal and ethical paragon, why argue over what constitutes the “ritual acceptability” of kosher meat? It would have made more sense to have written, “Even if we accept R. Salanter’s opinion as genuine, it does not apply in a case in which a factory has not been proven to have abused its workers.” But then, Lewin would have lost his opportunity for a “gotcha.”
The other two points in his rebuttal — emailed around by Lubicom, one of Agriprocessors’ pr firms – are similarly narrow and pilpulistic. Basically, he absolves Agriprocessors of any responsibility for those it employs.
Missing is any sense of a larger picture — like the one captured in a devastating editorial in the Forward that recounts the past two years of journalistic and government investigations, and the sordid history of the Rubashkin family that runs the plant. What remains stunning is the degree to which the kashrut and legal authorities closest to Agriprocessors continue to deflect the ethical and legal implications of the allegations. When it comes to whether kashrut should have an ethical component that rises above what happens on the slaughterhouse floor, their stance is essentially, “we answer to a lower authority.”
There is a Drashos HaRan which states that a community board of leaders requires a multiplicity and variegated voices. A community board requires a spendthrift and a miser and regular people as well. He compares it to the Ktores. In the years prior to WWII Churchill was viewed as a warmongering alarmist. I think that UOJ & Rabbi Shain make an important contribution and were it not for them, Yahadus & kashrus would be in worse shape than it is today. They are responsible for many changes, and for people taking their jobs more seriously because someone is watching. Once I spoke to R' Yudel about canned vegetables w/o hechsherim, and he was right on the money. Eventually the OU switched its policies on that. BeKitzur, the Ran is the way to go.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26162393/
According to federal documents obtained by WAVY.com, the men agreed to fabricate a story when the offerings fell through.
In one instance, Shereshevsky allegedly said, "In the next month and a half he'd be able to come up with two million bucks and that this was better than somebody going to jail."
WAVY.com spoke with one of Shereshevsky's in-laws at his home Monday night.
She said, "That's not the person I know. So unless...I don't know what to say, I really don't."
Shereshevsky is a member of B'Nai Israel in Norfolk. Monday night, Rabbi Chaim Silver met with his family.
"They're very strong, they're very confident in their father and husband's innocence," said Rabbi Silver.
Rabbi Silver says he's known Shereshevsky for three years.
"Shereshevsky is a very generous and caring human being. He has given of himself his resources to this community," said Rabbi Silver.
According to federal documents, Shereshevsky pleaded guilty to one count of Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud in 1994.
As for the charges Shereshevsky faces now, "They are very big figures. Things that I simply can not relate to and they are things that have not been proven," said Rabbi Silver.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/08/documents-ponzi-scheme-exploited-community-ties
Shereshevsky became known in the religious community through his charitable and educational activities, including support for the Orthodox Jewish day school in Portsmouth, Toras Chaim - the Rabbi Chaim Shereshevsky Institute of Mesorah Learning.
Barney R. Siegel, its president, said, "No reaction, no comment," when asked Tuesday about Shereshevsky, who has been a director of the school.
Shereshevsky, 52, and Byers, 46, were arrested Monday on criminal charges filed in federal court in Manhattan. Shereshevsky is scheduled to appear in federal court in Norfolk this afternoon to determine whether he should be released on bond or detained.
Shereshevsky, whom the SEC said also goes by the nickname "Jossi," worked his way into the local Orthodox Jewish community in Norfolk's Ghent section.
Orthodox Jews are among the most traditional and religiously observant members of the Jewish community. Orthodox families walk to Sabbath services on Saturdays, the men often in trademark black fedoras, the women with their hair covered.
Although there is no precise census of the community's size, the B'nai Israel synagogue on Spotswood Avenue has 225 member families, according to its Web site.
When he arrived in Hampton Roads in 1999, Shereshevsky lived in a room provided by a friend and used the assumed name "Heller," said Stanley and Nancy Peck of Norfolk in a suit filed against WexTrust in November. He began working for the owners of an apartment complex and promoted real estate investments on their behalf.
Later, the Pecks said, he married their niece and began referring to them as "Uncle Stanley" and "Aunt Nancy."
Because of the trust that Shereshevsky cultivated, they bought a real investment from him, the Pecks said in the suit, filed in Norfolk federal court.
When their investment performed badly, Shereshevsky promised to compensate them with real estate investments put together by WexTrust. However, Shereshevsky, other WexTrust officers and the investment company failed to meet their obligations, the Pecks contended.
John Russell Jr., a Richmond attorney who represents the Pecks in their suit, said Tuesday that he repeatedly sought proof from WexTrust that the properties in the Pecks' real estate investments existed.
"I could never get anything" from WexTrust, he said.
Until a few months ago, he had been negotiating with WexTrust's lawyers over a possible resolution, and "all of a sudden, things collapsed," Russell said.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/08/12/orthodox-jews-targeted-in-alleged-255-million-ponzi-scheme/
A confidential informant within WexTrust reportedly told federal investigators that when the investors became suspicious, Byers told him to “blame it on the lawyer, blame it on something.” On another occasion, the informant said, he was instructed by Byers on how to deal with inquisitive investors: “When people call you … all you have got to say is … ‘look, I wasn’t there, I wasn’t part of it, I don’t know for sure.’”
According to court filings, the two suspects were raising money from new investors to pay a return to earlier investors. In one instance, federal prosecutors said, Byers and Shereshevsky raised millions of dollars to buy a hotel in Phoenix, diverting much of the money to fund WexTrust. WexTrust also was involved with diamond mines in South Africa and Namibia, according to SEC documents.
Comments
Met Shereshevsky on a plane from Heathrow to NYC last month where he made a fairly convincing presentation of his diamond mining venture in Africa. Ultimately, it failed to pass muster during the vetting process, so I passed. Nonetheless,he was very convincing…there but for the grace of G_d!
Comment by prudent investor - August 12, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Menachem Lubinsky, the truth-challenged Gerrer chasid who handles much of Agriprocessors PR and who is a member of Agudath Israel's Governing Board and a former VP, spins an incredible tale of alien landings and, no, strike that, a massive conspiracy to stop shechita and hurt Agriprocessors, led by?
The evil, evil union and its dupes in the non-Orthodox Jewish community.
Before you read this tale of Elvis sightings and the Trilateral Commission, I want you too see an especially important quote from the tale:
Strangely, I watched some of this unfold after the positive media coverage of the visit of the 25 rabbis on July 31st which followed a similar visit by Sue Fishkoff of the JTA, with essentially the same positive findings.
Fishkoff was given unprecedented access to the plant and to Sholom Rubashkin, its VP and (former? maybe not) CEO.
Why did Fishkoff get that access?
Because she wrote what pretty much everyone in the book and news businesses calls a love letter to Chabad – her book on Chabad after the Rebbe, which is, to say the very least, remarkably light on messianism, inter-Chabad fighting, and any negative information on the movement or its former leader.
And then we have another reason: Sue Fishkoff is a very close friend of George Rohr, who is Chabad's major US funder.
Past her access, Fishkoff's reports on Agriprocessors – not nearly as favorable as Lubinsky claims, by the way – do one consistent thing: They never mention Chabad or Lubavitch. In Fishkoff's reports, Agriprocessors owners are either "Chassidim" or "Orthodox" and from Brooklyn, but never Chabad or Lubavitch.
Fishkoff is writing, I'm told, a book on the kosher food industry. To do that she needs cooperation from the Orthodox and haredi Jews who produce kosher food – and to get that, she need cooperation from Lubinsky.
That Kosher Today is allowing Lubinsky to write about Agriprocesors, a company he works shills for, is unethical. But to allow him to smear non-Orthodox AND Orthodox Jews on the pages of Kosher Today in defense of his client Agriprocessors is remarkably corrupt.
And that is a true indication of the state of kosher food and kosher food supervision today.
And now, ladies and gentlemen – Elvis is in the shtiebel:
http://www.koshertoday.com/sixthsense.asp?8011
My Sixth Sense
Menachem Lubinsky is the founder and co-producer of Kosherfest, the annual trade event for the kosher food & beverage industry and is the editor-in-chief of KosherToday. The views expressed in this column do not represent the opinions of KosherToday's publishers and are those of the author alone.
To comment on My Sixth Sense editorial, please email: editor@koshertoday.com
How the UFCW duped the Jewish community into becoming its agents - August 11, 2008
As the head of the PR firm that represents Agriprocessors, I poured over many documents the other day to make sense of the continued vendetta against the glatt kosher meat and poultry processor. I especially felt the urge to do a bit more probing following my visit (along with some 25 rabbis) to Postville on July 31st where I and the other visitors left with the feeling that something smells here, and it wasn’t the meat. What we saw was a clean, well-run plant with many happy employees. So here’s my theory on why the Agriprocessors just refuses to go away:
I believe that the event that triggered the onslaught against Agriprocessors was the infamous PETA video back in 2005 that allegedly showed the abuse of some animals, albeit that it was never flagged by the USDA, which supervises every aspect of production. While the plant was never shut down by the government, the company called in experts and made significant improvements in the months that followed, all of which are plain to see. This occurred at about the same time that the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) had lost large amounts of its members over a period of several years. It had not succeeded in getting the management of Agriprocessors to agree to come under its wings and the company’s membership also did not seem enthusiastic, as was evidenced by at least one vote. The UFCW also had its share of problems with other large livestock companies, namely Smithfield Foods, and it was even at loggerheads with the mega Wal-Mart chain that also refused to come under its umbrella.
The reaction to the PETA video by the Jewish community was music to the UFCW leadership. Jews, led by the secular media, most notably the Forward, historically a left-leaning Labor Yiddish publication that eventually became an English-language weekly, were outraged. Taking the high moral ground, they were prepared to throw Agriprocessors, which had already been vilified in a book by Steven Blum and in other media for its Chasidic invasion of an Iowa hamlet, to the dogs. Even the Orthodox appeared lame in their defense of Agri. The UFCW probably could not believe their luck that Agri was essentially without a strong base. For the first time in a long time they found a powerful ally, a group that also had the ear of the American media, that would help them win, and win they must. What followed was a series of Forward articles charging abuse of workers and the unofficial creation of a new coalition that included the Forward, the St. Bridget’s Church in Postville, and a group of Conservative rabbis led by Rabbi Morris Allen of Minneapolis. For a while the UFCW did its own dirty work, placing ads in Jewish newspapers and even making electronic phone calls that an OSHA report of gross violations amounting to $182,000 showed that the kosher food produced by Agri was not safe (the violations and fines were subsequently reduced and the fines totaled $42,000). Then came the departure of Khal Adath Jeshurun as one of the main kosher certifying agencies at Agri, which (while a business decision, as KAJ itself said) again became the basis for an ad campaign and the calls to Jewish households in many Orthodox neighborhoods. They were told that KAJ left because they did not trust the kashrut.
The UFCW ultimately had followed its own manual (outlined in a lawsuit by Smithfield against the UFCW) in getting the grassroots to fight the battle on their behalf. The Forward and by now a whole slew of other press were pouring it on, so much so that Agriprocessors was ultimately referred to as a “Medieval plant” and a “kosher jungle” in major media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The May 12th raid by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was a bonanza that the Unions could only gloat on. The affidavit that accompanied the raid included some ridiculous accusations of drug manufacturing and bomb-making and it quoted the Forward, almost unprecedented for a government agency to support such a document. The scope and brutal nature of the raid were attacked by none other than the New York Times, amongst others, that questioned the immigration policies of the Bush Administration. What followed was almost choreographed. St. Bridget’s would release names of minors to the local Iowa media with graphic details of abuse, the Forward and often the JTA (which did ultimately make an attempt to present a fair and balanced picture) would keep up its attacks, Rabbi Allen would push his Heksher Tzedek to stress that Agriprocessors could not be trusted in its treatment of animals and workers, all to the delight of UFCW officials who were by now convinced that Agriprocessors was on the cusp of either caving in to a Union that would save them or shut down altogether, delivering a powerful message that UFCW will not be intimidated, even if you are Smithfield or Wal-Mart. The victory seemed at hand. All that was still needed was an indictment by the Feds in the aftermath of the May 12th raid.
Strangely, I watched some of this unfold after the positive media coverage of the visit of the 25 rabbis on July 31st which followed a similar visit by Sue Fishkoff of the JTA, with essentially the same positive findings. We saw a new willingness to tighten up all compliance and credible officials who were put in charge. Only days after the visit, the Iowa Department of Labor (headed by a Commissioner who is a former Union official) recommended to the Iowa Attorney General that he indict Agriprocessors for employing 57 minors. Ironically, the Department did its own audit in April ‘08 and found none. It refused to give Agri attorneys the names of minors, if any, so that they can follow their policy of firing underage workers. Agri, in fact, fired four underaged workers in its sausage department when it became aware of their ages. When Agri explained this to the media, a reporter found three new underage workers, but the information most likely again came again from the Church, where many of the immigrants and their families hung out for assistance and where they were allegedly feeding the St. Bridget officials with inflammatory information implicating one another, particularly Agriprocessors. When it wasn’t underaged workers, it was that the company was employing the homeless and most recently Somalis. The UFCW smile must have grown from day to day, particularly after a march on July 27th captured national attention. Their surrogates were doing a great job.
In the meantime, shortages of kosher meat and poultry persisted and prices went sky-high, all because the moralists and ethicists in the Jewish community never suspected that they were being duped by a ferocious union into becoming their agents. No, Agriprocessors is far from perfect, but it is making changes and those who eat kosher certainly deserve better. History will yet judge this strange episode in American-Jewish history as one of the Union’s finest moments. I certainly have gained a great deal of respect for the Union, while questioning so many in the Jewish community. What a shame! (All that remains is for an investigative reporter with courage to put the pieces together.)
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/08/tashbar-of-lakewood.html?showComment=1218593400000#c8734401647042979442
Anonymous said...
Speaking of leidiger Satmar chevra, there was a story years ago with a rov who wrote an article that mentioned Rav Kook. Glick from Hisachdus kleibed through the article but didn't really pay attention. He just went beserk when he saw Rav Kook's name and put a kol korei in Der Yid against the rov, accusing him of "apikorsis".
The rov called Hisachdus and asked them if they are out of their minds and if they actually read the article. They were moyde that they only noticed Rav Kook's name was in it but didn't know what the inyan was. It turns out it was just quoting a shita in kashrus - not hashkofos. Hisachdus never apologized and the rov & his rebbitzen were tzittering for a while that they might get attacked.
Hat tip to Rabbi Yudel Shain for reminding me of this priceless shtikl.
What do you expect from Nathan Lewin, the Harvard Law grad?
The saying goes that in Harvard Law School they teach the following;
When the Law is in your favor & the facts are not … Harp on the law.
When the facts are in your favor & the law is not .. Harp on the facts.
When neither is in your favor .. confuse the issues …
2. Secular Court Permits In-Vitro Adultery
by Hillel Fendel
The Jerusalem District Court ruled on Tuesday that if a married man wishes to participate in in-vitro fertilization with a woman who is not his wife, his wife need not be informed.
Judge Yehonatan Adiel thus nullified a Health Ministry requirement that the wife be informed of the procedure beforehand and allowed to express her opinion.
The Health Minister has no authority to institute the above requirement, the judge ruled, and it is thus null and void. So reported NFC correspondent Ruthy Avraham.
The ruling was made in the case of a man who is in the process of getting divorced, and whose mistress is having trouble conceiving. When the two applied for in-vitro fertizilation, they were informed of Health Ministry guidelines requiring three conditions for the procedure: Court approval, paternal acknowledgement, and that the wife be enabled to have her say on the matter.
In the case at hand, the husband claimed that informing his wife of his reproductive plans is "liable to complicate the divorce process."
Judge Adiel ruled in favor of the husband. "The fact that a couple requires medical help in order to bring a child into the world," the ruling reads, "does not give the man's wife a substantial right to prevent the fertilization - a right that she does not have in normal circumstances where the fertilization would take place naturally without medical help."
Adultery and the Law
The above argument is predicated on the fact that there is no overt prohibition in civil Israeli law against adultery. A Rabbinic Court pleader confirmed to IsraelNationalNews that though an adulterer may be liable to certain sanctions, the civil law does not relate to adultery - as it does not relate to other ethical prohibitions, such as lying - and as such, adultery cannot be said to be illegal.
The judge agreed that for a man to have two family cells in parallel could hurt the first family economically and in other ways, but "this is not sufficient to give the wife a legal right to prevent ties between her husband and the woman, including child-bearing."
Judge Adiel further explained that the Health Minister has no authority to enact regulations forbidding in-vitro fertilization for "social reasons," but rather only for medical reasons. The Minister's authority in this realm extends only to such procedures subsidized by the government or by public health funds, the judge ruled.
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/276331/36/
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has issued a detailed list of inappropriate behaviors for priests, saying they should not kiss, tickle or wrestle children.
The newest version of the archdiocese's Decree on Child Protection also prohibits bear hugs, lap-sitting and piggyback rides.
But it says priests may still shake children's hands, pat them on the back and give high-fives.
Victim advocates who have criticized the Roman Catholic archdiocese for its handling of abuse cases say they support the new measures as a step toward better protection of children.
The Cincinnati archdiocese says it updates the rules every five years. The latest version, issued last week, also mandates background checks for contractors working with children.
Very strange wording. Alacrity means cheerful eagerness. Exactly what is Genack so besimcha about?
The main purpose of Jim Martin seems to be keeping Rubashkin out of prison, not compliance as Agri keeps getting in hot water over abusing employees.
Overall, who trusts Genack that he will drop Rubashkin after criminal charges if he thinks he can get away with status quo? Not me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/opinion/lweb13meat.html
To the Editor:
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld discusses the troubling accusations that have been raised against Agriprocessors and questions the response of the Orthodox Union. We believe that the various social and ethical issues — such as workers’ rights and safety, protection of the environment and animal welfare — are significant and ultimately rooted in biblical and Jewish tradition.
We also believe, however, that the definition, assessment and enforcement of these standards are best placed in the hands of the governmental agencies that have the expertise, resources and regulatory authority to deal with them appropriately.
There are various investigations in progress at the federal and state level. Due process is something to which Agriprocessors is entitled and with which the Orthodox Union will not interfere. Upon completion of these investigations, the Orthodox Union will take swift and appropriate action as warranted.
Our reaction over the past several years has been to respond with alacrity even to allegations. We were responsible for calling in Temple Grandin, a veterinary authority, to visit the plant and recommend appropriate procedures for the treatment of animals. Recently, we insisted that Agriprocessors install a competent compliance officer, and it appointed James G. Martin, a former United States attorney.
For the company to continue to function, it must do so in total conformity to ethical standards and to civil and kosher law.
(Rabbi) Menachem Genack
Rabbinic Administrator and C.E.O.
Orthodox Union Kosher
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/08/schrag_what_is.html
What is Causing the Decline of Illegal Immigration?
By Peter Schrag
Though it hasn't got much notice, there's now fairly wide agreement that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has declined by a hefty 10 percent or more in the past year or so.
But that's pretty much where the agreement stops. Are Mexicans and other illegal aliens being driven home by tougher enforcement, as immigration restrictionists claim? Or is the decline in illegal aliens – from an estimated 12 million-plus to just over 11 million – a trailing indicator of the recession and accompanying decrease in employment opportunities?
In a report issued July 30, the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter restrictions and tougher enforcement, sees the decline at least partly as the result of stepped-up federal raids on workplaces, especially in the Midwest, of the augmented checks at the southern border, and of hundreds of new local and state laws targeting illegal aliens.
Camarota acknowledges that the arrests, imprisonment and deportation of workers like those at Postville are not the single most important source of the decline in illegal immigrants. The Spanish-language press, he says, acting as an inadvertent megaphone for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, has scared them off.
If he's correct, it begs the question of how cruel enforcement has to be to drive the other 11 million out of the country. Camarota agrees that because of the political clout of employers, enforcement has hit workers much harder. He also acknowledges that those who have left in the past year – and those who didn't replace them – may be "low-hanging fruit" on trees where few easy pickings are left.
On the other hand, if it's the shortage of jobs that sent those illegal aliens home, it undermines the pleas of employers that they're suffering a serious shortage of workers. Maybe with better pay and conditions, Americans could be found for at least some of those jobs.
Peter Schrag is the former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee.
From VIN...
Brooklyn, NY - Dov Hikind: Beyond Believe, Heart Breaking Stories I’ve Compiled On Molestation In Our Community, Its A Cancer, My Promise I Won’t Sit Silent.
08-13-2008 - 10:50 AM
Brooklyn, NY - “It happened twice in the mikva…..I was nine…. I never told anyone…I can’t tell my wife….she will never understand…How can she?….She will divorce me and take my children from me….,” fraught with intense pain, Duvid struggled as he divulged the more than two-decade old secret that was eroding his emotional and physical health.
The avalanche of stories of molestation and sexual abuse is overwhelming, personally and professionally. The first-person accounts of abuse have shaken me to my core. I have looked into the faces of victims, of their parents, and there is a void where joy should be. There is a vacuum where love should exist. And there is a disconnect with life and living. Victims live between worlds, the past encroaching on the currency of a beautiful life unfulfilled. It is a rape of the soul.
For the last three weeks, I have been immersed in round-the-clock meetings, hearing details no one should hear, referring victims to therapists, and compiling data on the perpetrators who share the same air we breathe. When the victim is one of ours and the molester is one of ours, the suffering is more acute. When it is a neighbor, a friend, a family member, a rebbe, etc., from our community who visits this abomination on our children, and the individual is not isolated or contained, it is a cancer that our society has permitted to metastasize, to grow and flourish into a malignancy.
Has child molestation risen to pandemic proportion in our midst? There is no formal actuarial data to support that, but no doubt predators have been sheltered, secure in the knowledge that the victim’s family will be so shrouded in shame and self-loathing, that denial will rule. When we have more compassion for the pedophile than for the victim, then our communities are doomed to self-destruction. “He’s respected….He’s choshuv….You can’t shame his family. You can’t Adeprive him of his livelihood…It will be a chilul Hashem….” By our own design, have we perpetuated the pain with our silence, reinforcing the shame, and being complicit in the trauma?
The medical literature says that a pedophile’s sexual interest in children is a disease that can not be controlled, and there must be appropriate psychological intervention. It will not go away with wishful thinking or haphazard monitoring.
Elected officials assign staffers to specific issues. There may be a “legislative desk,” a “Medicare desk,” an “Israel desk,” an “anti-Semitism desk,” a “discrimination desk,” etc, to respond to the needs of constituents. And after 26 years in office in the NYS Assembly, I now have a “sexual abuse desk.” No elected official should have a sexual abuse desk; no one should need one. But we do, because the experts say that one pedophile will abuse hundreds of victims, and I am now dealing with the exponential reality of decades and decades of our institutions, our communities, providing sanctuary to the perpetrators.
On my radio show, Miriam bravely recounted the violation of her son when he was eight years old at the hands of the principal of one of the largest institutions in Williamsburg. Repeatedly molested, her son, now in his twenties, is a member of a heavy metal band. The pain is etched on her son’s face. They have tried everything as a family to respectfully address the institution and remove the rebbe from access to children, and they have become mired in institutional politics, because the yeshiva refuses to acknowledge what the perpetrator did, though more than one victim has come forward. The politics of pain will rule no more; not on my watch. No pedophile should find sanctuary in our yeshivas. The perpetrators will get help or they will go to jail; there will be no self-serving wave of the hand, “Eh, the child and his parents are making it up.”
Another victim, Chaim, was molested summer after summer in one of our finest sleep-away camps. The psychic trauma has lingered for decades and shattered his life. He cannot trust. He cannot enjoy. He cannot feel. Unimaginable, unendurable, inescapable, - what sexual abuse does to the mind, the heart, the soul is devastatingly complete. It seizes the soul in a death-grip of terror and revulsion. It may be a passing scent….of grass, of trees…that triggers flashes of memories and overwhelms with painful sensory imagery of the abuse. It may be the feel of a fabric….it’s everywhere and nowhere…..and he remembers what it is like to be a child at the mercy of a vile adult who used his body over and over again…
For every one pedophile/molester there are hundreds of victims, as long as the violations go unreported or unaddressed. The victims can be your son, son-in-law, grandson, nephew…if it is not dealt with….I heard tapes of Chaim’s perpetrator…I couldn’t handle it. It was too much to bear. I couldn’t hear it anymore, how a molester tried to defend and rationalize what he did to his “favorites” in a well-renowned camp. “They didn’t know anything was going on. It wasn’t like they were hurt by what I did.” I. Didn’t. Want. To. Hear. One. More. Defiled. Utterance. Delving into the mind of a pedophile was traumatic. And his rapid-fire clipped speech and articulate manner underscored the banality of his malevolent indulgences. He destroyed this child and others, now adults, and he spoke of it as if it was meaningless to the children. “They were too young. They didn’t know what was going on. It’s nothing. It happened a long time ago.”
From this point forward, the message will be clear from every Rov and every community: Schools and parents have an obligation to come forward to deal with this. If they don’t, then they are complicit in the abuse and will have to answer to another higher desk, after 120 years. That desk, Hashem’s desk, knows the hearts of men, and the purity of conviction, and if you have shielded the guilty, that is the greatest chilul Hashem of all.
We are compiling information which will be presented to rabbonim, material which will be irrefutable, undeniable, inescapable, based upon which there will be a groundswell of support for victims, and an initiative to remove the perpetrators from any and all contact with children.
I can’t bear to hear one more story, but I will. I will hear hundreds if I have to. I’ll cry with as many victims as I have to. And my heart will break, and I will feel desperate to get away from the pain.…but I will get them help. I will listen and I will brush away more tears than I’ve seen in 26 years – my own….for another childhood lost. This will be eradicated from our midst…I’m not a crusader I’m a parent….a grandparent….a man whose mind can no longer process the horrific stories of violations…
If we don’t teach our children to protect themselves from molesters, the molesters will perversely teach them first and paralyze their lives and emotions…There is a part of me that is sorry that I started on this journey of misery and degradation, and there is a part of me which knows that someone has to speak for myriad victims. I haven’t slept well since I launched this mission. I don’t know if I will…again.
There are people who will say that this is a problem which has been around for decades and that it will be impossible to breach the walls that have been put up. But I have faith that with God’s help, we will be able to make a difference in many lives. Are we going to solve the problem entirely? Notoriously, pedophiles are likeable and they blend in well, and formulate a cover story for why they are so involved with your children. Finding every single one and rooting them out, is the province of God. But with God on our side, we have a chance to stanch the loss of our children.
It’s almost too much to bear, but then the phone rings again, and another victim who hasn’t told his narrative to anyone calls, and haltingly asks for a meeting…and I know I don’t have a choice. I’m at 718-853-9616…and I am waiting for your call
Re: Dov Hikind's Letter...
WOW!!!
And the VIN article says it's going into the Jewish Press!!!
Anyone see a JP today? Is that true?
If the Jewish Fress finally gets it that the frum community is fed up, they will switch from attacking UOJ to jumping on Hikind's bandwagon because they think it will sell more copies.
I found this on Luke Ford.net
"I think that you should run a piece on Rabbi Shmuel Hertzfeld. His time has come, since he is a quasi-celeb.
Without any previous knowledge, you might think Hertzfeld is some kind of activist, a modern day Heschel — but Orthodox.
That is not the case. Let me give you some background. You can verify the assessment that I am giving you with anyone who was at YU with Hertzfeld.
Hertzfeld was in YU before Yeshivat Chovevei Torah opened up. Today, a person like him would probably wind up at YCT, but that wasn’t an option then.
He was always a maverick, or, if you will a trouble maker. He would make controversial statements in public, just to attract attention.
His most famous line — which he would repeat and repeat and repeat was, "The only reason guys in YU get married early, is because they don’t have premarital sex." Of course, everyone knew that he and his girlfriend were dating a long time, by YU standards, and only got married after three years of dating.
So, Hertzfeld was some kind of cynical YU guy, doing graduate work at Revel (YU’s graduate program in Judaic studes) — until he met Avi Weiss. When Hertzfeld took the job at Weiss’s shul (Hebrew Institute), he got into the whole "Avi Weiss/Hug everyone/isn’t it a wonderful world/so open-minded your brain falls out" thing. Luke, since you live on the West coast, you are used to such people; in New York, they are a rare commodity. Hertzfeld realized that, instead of making provocative comments that enraged people in YU, you could say the same things, and become the darling of your congregants, because that is exactly what they wanted to hear, a message contra YU.
Then Hertzfeld saw his opportunity. He took a dying shul in the DC area and renamed it "The National Synagogue." What a move! It’s like, there’s a National Cathedral — and a National Synagogue. He got a ton of money from Jonas (of IDT fame) and was soon in business running tons of programing. In a place like Washington, he taped into a niche market for "Open Orthodoxy."
Here’s Hertzfeld, doing his Open Orthodoxy thing, and getting the other rabbis, who belong to the "Vaad of Greater Washington," more and more upset at him. In a sense, he infuriated Rabbi Barry Freundel more than the more right-leaning rabbis. Freundel is a major YU person, very into YU as an institution. Hertzfeld represents a challenge to that.
Rubashkin was Hertzfeld’s coup de grace. He gained two things: first, he presented himself as a social activist, which is exactly the kind of PR that he needs. Second, he "assered," or forbade the meat, which is supervised by establishment groups like the OU. This is a classic trick of rabbis, to forbid something to show your political muscles. Even better, Hertzfeld comes out "frummer" than the other DC rabbis, who are far to his right.
The Times op-ed was a classic Hertzfeld. It brings him back to the days of being a cynical YU smicha guy.
The problem is, that he is nearly untouchable. If YU crucifies him, then he’ll become a martyr for Open Orthodoxy. If they tried to assassinate his character, by bringing out his dirty laundry from his YU days, then Hertzfeld will only gain, since he will become known as "the cool rabbi who allows pre-marital sex." Only time will tell what lies in wait for Shmuel Hertzfeld."
Stanley and Nancy Peck of Norfolk in a suit filed against WexTrust in November...
Later, the Pecks said, he married their niece and began referring to them as "Uncle Stanley" and "Aunt Nancy."
The Pecks are one of the wealthiest families (Jewish or otherwise) in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Their fortune was made in ship fittings and scrap - traditionally Norfolk has been a major shipbuilding center and is home to the US Navy's Atlantic fleet.
why are none of these guys turning up in alleys completely beaten, bloodied, and bruised. i advocate violence towards terrorists, why are we not turning our communities' terrorists in to 6 feet of lumps. i'm a large man who has never gotten into a serious altercation my whole life. i would like to change that. i visualize someone trying something on a relative of mine, and its not pretty.
why no mention of the jewish gay former lovers fighting over custody of their little son? surely it qualifies as a great jewish story. there is kidnapping, fleeing, international intrigue, lawsuits, and designer jeans.
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