The UOJ Archives - April 21, 2009
I can't be intimidated!
I will not let our people be taken-in by the tyrants who would prefer to keep the sanctity of their club membership limited to the inhumane dregs of society. It is no longer cool to be an idiot - fooled by every ridiculous proclamation in the name of Torah.
I will attack mercilessly and relentlessly - and continue to mock the sub-humans who conspired to let our children die a thousand deaths, rather than admit Judaism is flawed - because all humans are flawed. This was a conscious decision by the moronic imbeciles --- they chose to sacrifice as many kids as it would take - rather than admit that the Jews are no different than other humans when it comes to illness. All kinds of illness.
Mental illness is illness!
Is there less mumps and measles among the Jews than the other nations? Are there less physical ailments of every kind - among the Jewish people? Are there less heart attacks?
The fact that the rabbis consciously, knowingly, intentionally, with malice and forethought....made a conscious decision to let the "few (thousand)" kids die - an entire lifetime of death - makes them no different than any other cold-blooded murderer.
They knew - they discussed the molestation issues over the years - IT WAS THEY WHO DECIDED - TO CONTINUE THE FRAUD THAT JEWS DON'T SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESS AND SEXUAL PERVERSIONS AS ALL THE OTHER NATIONS -- AND WAS AN INTENTIONAL COVER-UP THAT CONTINUES UNTIL TODAY! {Witness the fight that the Agudath Israel is waging to block the Markey Bill.}
I will strike preemptive attacks against them with every possible bomb in my arsenal...regardless of the collateral damage.
The original rabbinic defenders/gedolim claimed that they were ignorant of the problem. Really.....The entire rabbinic establishment shipped Mondrowitz off to Israel in the middle of the night in the 1980's to avoid him talking to the police, including Elya Svei, Shmuel Kaminetzky and Ohel Family Services "rabbi" in-chief, Dovid Cohen!
Moshe Eisemann was shipped off to Baltimore from Philadelphia in middle of the night some forty years ago by Svei and Kaminetzky.... rather let him play with Baltimore kids than perhaps a Philly boy. Not that they cared about the Philly boy....it was their business that concerned them.
Don't be fooled! These rabbis are the armpits of the world. Because they refuse to shower themselves with the truth! They choose lies! They live by lies! They don't care who gets hurt! I will root them out - and protect our children and families - because nobody else does or will! (Others are finally joining this battle)
Now you know the UOJ doctrine!
*************************************************
Dear UOJ,
I am a communal figure and mental health professional from the US that also holds a residence in Israel. I am quite familiar with the Akiva Kagan case and the lack of response on behalf of the community and its leadership.
My involvement in the case stems from a connection to the family of one of the victims. Perhaps one could say that this "jades" my opinion but let me also say that the Rabbonim involved are NOT aware of my connection.
The 3 young victims who have already given testimony are quite credible for their ages. Their stories are consistent and fluid in regard to facts. The times, places and circumstances all "pan out" and there is no variance throughout the testimony. I have been in touch with both Child Protection Center and the Police as an advocate for the families. The investigators believe that abuse did happen at the hand of this man and police continue to gather evidence.
Meanwhile these families have to deal with trauma set upon them. It affects not only the victim himself but all of the siblings and of course the parents. Innocence and purity have been stolen from these children. In one case in RBS the child (at 7!) no longer wishes to wear a "charedi" kipa or do anything that associates with his rebbe.
Imagine being violated by the one who is supposed to bring you closer to HaShem?
Several of the community rabbonim became involved from "day 1". They were quick to suggest that the molestation was done by someone other than the rebbe. Then they wanted to contain the story by using a therapist from their "camp. All of the families that I have spoken with have told me that other than the initial call to follow their instructions not one of the rabbonim involved has contacted them regarding the welfare of their children or how they could help. Thank G-d there are a few brave and upstanding rabbis in the community who have been supportive.
The incredulous part of this sad story is that another school could take this man into the classroom. Many parents have come to the families to ask about the case. The identity of the families was made known to the suspect and his wife by the school and their rabbonim. This infringement on the privacy of the family is another grave infraction on the part of the rabbonim.
Yes, ultimately it is the molesters who commit the crimes. They are sick and need treatment and removal from children if not from society as a whole. But equally culpable are those individuals who, in the name of preserving the name of the community, continue to sacrifice our children on the alter of "Chilul HaShem".
They, are in fact, the greatest perpetrators of Chilul HaShem and must be dealt with.
Kol Hakavod to you!
AP
ReplyDeleteFederal bank insurance fund dwindling
Tuesday September 16, 7:49 pm ET
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
Federal bank insurance fund dwindling, regulators consider options for replenishing it
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Banks are not the only ones struggling in the growing financial crisis. The fund established to insure their deposits is also feeling the pinch, and the taxpayer may be the lender of last resort.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., whose insurance fund has slipped below the minimum target level set by Congress, could be forced to tap tax dollars through a Treasury Department loan if Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest thrift, or another struggling rival fails, economists and industry analysts said Tuesday.
Treasury has already come to the rescue of several corporate victims of the housing and credit crunches. The government took over mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and helped finance the sale of investment bank Bear Stearns to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Eleven federally insured banks and thrifts have failed this year, including Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bank, by far the largest shut down by regulators.
Additional failures of large banks or savings and loans companies seem likely, and that could overwhelm the FDIC's insurance fund, said Brian Bethune, U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight.
"We've got a ... retail bank run forming in this country," said Christopher Whalen, senior vice president and managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday that the country's commercial banking system "is safe and sound" and that "the American people can be very, very confident about their accounts in our banking system." FDIC officials also have said 98 percent of U.S. banks still meet regulators' standards for adequate capital.
But fear is growing on Main Street as well as Wall Street about the likelihood of multiple bank failures and the strain that would put on the FDIC.
The fund, which is marking its 75th anniversary this year with a "Face Your Finances" campaign, is at $45.2 billion -- the lowest level since 2003. At the same time, the number of troubled banks is at a five-year high.
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has not ruled out the possibility of going to the Treasury for a short-term loan at some point. But she has said she does not expect the FDIC to take the more drastic action of using a separate $30 billion credit line with Treasury -- something that has never been done.
The FDIC's fund is currently below the minimum set by Congress in a 2006 law. The failure of IndyMac Bank in July cost $8.9 billion.
NOW THIS!
Fed Readies A.I.G. Loan of $85 Billion for an 80% Stake
By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED and ERIC DASH
Published: September 16, 2008
In an extraordinary turn, the Federal Reserve was close to a deal Tuesday night to take a nearly 80 percent stake in the troubled giant insurance company, the American International Group, in exchange for an $85 billion loan, according to people briefed on the negotiations.
In return, the Fed will receive warrants, which give it an ownership stake. All of A.I.G.’s assets will be pledged to secure the loan, these people said.
The Fed’s action was disclosed after Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and Ben S. Bernanke, president of the Federal Reserve, went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening to meet with House and Senate leaders. Mr. Paulson called the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, about 5 p.m. and asked for a meeting in the Senate leader’s office, which began about 6:30 p.m.
The Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase had been trying to arrange a $75 billion loan for A.I.G. to stave off the financial crisis caused by complex debt securities and credit default swaps. The Federal Reserve stepped in after it became clear Tuesday afternoon that the banking consortium would not be able to complete the deal.
Without the help, A.I.G. was expected to be forced to file for bankruptcy protection.
The need for the loans became necessary after the major credit ratings agencies downgraded A.I.G. late Monday, a move that likely to have forced the company to turn over billions of dollars in collateral to its derivatives trading partners worsening its financial health.
Until this week, it would have been unthinkable for the Federal Reserve to bail out an insurance company, and A.I.G.’s request for help from the Fed of just a few days ago was rebuffed.
But with the prospect of a giant bankruptcy looming — one with unpredictable consequences for the world financial system — the Fed abandoned precedent and agreed to let the money flow.
Jewish Family & Child Services of Toronto was involved in at least one cover up of molestation at a shul but in this case, they went to court to remove children from the home where their own parents were sexually abusing them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.canlii.org/en/on/oncj/doc/2000/2000canlii22546/2000canlii22546.html
ONTARIO COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
JEWISH FAMILY AND CHILD SERVICE OF TORONTO,
Applicant,
— AND —
R.A. and J.G.,
Respondents.
Before Justice Geraldine F. Waldman
5] V.K.A. is now 11 years old. She was apprehended in August of 1999 after her parents were arrested for sexual exploitation and possession of child pornography. There were subsequent additional charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching. The police, as a result of information received, obtained a search warrant and searched the A. apartment. During the course of the search, the police found numerous pictures of the child V.K.A. that were provided as exhibits to the court. In some of the pictures, V.K.A. was clothed but posed in sexually evocative poses. In others, she was partially clothed, and again, was posed in sexually evocative ways and, in two pictures before the court, the child was photographed nude, with her legs spread open, exposing her vagina.
[6] The police also have various e-mails sent to another man, some purportedly from Ms. R.A. and others purported from Mr. J.G., the father, in which there is a discussion about the child’s sleeping over at this man’s house and the man’s being given permission by the parents to have sexual relations with her. The contents of the e-mails are very graphic and very disturbing.
[7] In addition, there were disclosures from V.K.A. herself that she had been in bed with her parents and that her father asked her to rub his penis with her hands, which she did. Her mother was awake when this occurred and it was her disclosure that this type of behaviour had occurred on several occasions. These disclosures resulted in the second set of charges.
Whew. Just when I thought the old UOJ mellowed.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/09/15/the-deregulators-should-be-embarrassed.aspx
ReplyDeleteThis is not the end of the world. There is much worse to come.
As I write, the stock price of Lehman Brothers is 20 cents a share, and overvalued at that. What once was a prudent nice German Jewish private investment bank started out more than a century and a half ago and then ran after strange Gods. And look where it got them. Do you remember Herbert Lehman, governor and U.S. senator from New York? It was his father and uncle who opened up shop.
What comes next is impossible to say. But I'd bet that CitiGroup is due for some more serious price shedding and maybe even a trip to the emergency room from which it might or might not emerge. A part of its salvation thus far is that its exposure is so huge and so dispersed that certainly no one in house -- and surely not Robert Rubin -- has any grasp of what has happened.
Merrill seems to be in the process of being acquired in a bargain basement, barely disguised sale to Bank of America. Nobody seems to know the details, including the principals. Or maybe especially the principals.
Now AIG, which seems to insure everything and everybody, fell $6.60 today, down to $5.15, accelerating its descent by 56%. This calamitous fall has, however, been occurring for months and months. Its 52-week high was in the very low seventies. And it's been lower than $5.15. Yes: you could have bought it at $3.40. Damn.
As to the insurance guarantors of debt, MBI and Ambac (in which I must confess to be profiting from a big short position) has resumed its downward slide. Down, I believe, to nothing. Or maybe 20 cents, like Lehman.
What united all of these institutions is they bribed or cajoled or sweet-talked the three rating agencies to give them highly inflated ratings. The three are Moody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch. Just wait till the legal suits start piling up against them for rating fraud. An ancillary part of the fraud is while they systematically overrated the corporate sphere (many of the companies now in deep doo-doo had triple A ratings only months ago) they underrated public agencies so they would have to pay for their loan guarantees.
So actually it is the rating agencies which are (at least) partially responsible for the collapse of the markets. This is the worst case of hyper-inflation in grading there is. And, if there is a just God (as opposed to a strange God), there will be hell to pay.
I know everybody wants to blame the Bush administration for this calamity. And it certainly hasn't helped. But the fault goes back to Bill Clinton who took up the call of deregulation and ran with it. Like with everything he did he did not look back. No, that's a bit unfair. It goes back to Ronald Reagan who (not single-handedly but with the boy geniuses at his side) destroyed the airline industry in America.
Rating agencies are a public trust. You should not be able to buy yourself a high rating or haggle for one. Hear, hear: More regulation. No embarrassment in saying so.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080914/FREE/309149950/0/information
ReplyDeleteUOJ & Boog are probably going to laugh that WaMu CEO Alan Fishman is a Brooklyn boy who used to head Independence Bank and then did a short stint as Chairman of Ralph Herzka's Meridian Capital.
The Federal Republic Of Nigeria seems more solid than the U.S. Govt. Don't forget to send them your Social Security number as well!
ReplyDelete----------------------------------
Dear Mr. UOJ,
THIS IS TO OFFICIALLY INFORM YOU THAT (ATM CARD NUMBER; 4278763100030014) HAS BEEN
ACCREDITED IN YOUR FAVOR. YOUR TEMPORARY ATM NUMBER IS (8-22).
SECONDLY WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOU ARE STILL DEALING WITH THE NONE OFFICIALS IN THE
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YOUR PAYMENT THROUGH OUR SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTER @ CENTRAL BANK THAT IS THE LATEST
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ANY ATM MACHINE IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD, BUT THE MAXIMUM IS FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER
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YOUR PAYMENT.
KINDEST REGARDS,
MR. DAVID MARK.
SENATE PRESIDENT.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122158705277343865.html
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel won't step down from his chairmanship at the House's tax-writing committee, his lawyer said Tuesday.
"Mr. Rangel has not considered, nor has it ever been on the table, that he would step aside from his current position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee," said Lanny Davis, the attorney for Rep. Rangel, a New York Democrat. Mr. Davis said Rep. Rangel is going to hire a forensic accountant to examine the last 20 years of his financial records, which will be forwarded directly to the House Ethics Committee.
Speculation has grown in recent days that Rep. Rangel, who has admitted that he failed to report $75,000 in income from a rental property in the Dominican Republic, would temporarily give up his chairmanship. With only two months before the congressional elections, Republicans have been hammering Democrats who received political contributions from Rep. Rangel and saying that his actions undermine Democrats' promise to clean up ethics in Washington.
Rep. Rangel met Monday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mr. Davis said at the meeting she "told Mr. Rangel that she was pleased with the initiative he's taken to in effect authorize an investigation of himself with full transparency …
Rep. Rangel has been meeting with colleagues, including Ways and Means members, Congressional Black Caucus members and the New York delegation, to talk with them about the cloud he has been under since news of the unreported income. Newspapers have also reported that Rep. Rangel used congressional stationery to raise funds for an academic center named after him and questioned whether it was appropriate for him to have access to four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem.
Republicans have been pressing for Rep. Rangel to give up his chairmanship. Even some Democrats have said privately that, politically, it would make sense for him to do so. But Rep. Rangel's backers said his colleagues are supporting him, and some members of Congress are leery of setting a precedent that newspaper reports could endanger a lawmaker's position.
Rep. Rangel "believes the facts should prevail, not innuendo or editorial opinion or the partisan actions of the House Republican leadership, and his colleagues agree with that position," Mr. Davis said.
I was treated to an all-expenses paid vacation at Charlie Rangel's Dominican resort. The place is state of the art so how could there possibly be any fraud?
ReplyDeleteHey Shafran you putz! If you had bailed out AIG on Friday, it would have only cost $20 billion. After they were downgraded and you finally jumped in, the price was $80 billion.
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143670579134187.html
At a meeting held at the Fed offices, Mr. Paulson, Mr. Geithner and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox addressed a group of about one dozen banking chiefs. Their message was steadfast: They would not put up money to assist in salvaging Lehman. In the meetings with Mr. Paulson were his chief of staff, Jim Wilkinson, and two advisers, Dan Jester and Steve Shafran, both of whom used to work at Goldman Sachs.
The European Central Bank was also in a state of high alert on Sunday, with employees in divisions from money-market operations to financial stability camped out in the bank's 37-story glass-and-steel tower in Frankfurt, preparing for what Monday might bring. "We are in the hands of the Americans," said one employee. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Rabbi Shea Fishman, a veteran UOJ observer, is en route to Frankfurt to monitor weather patterns.
McClatchy Co. said it will cut 1,150 jobs, or 10% of its work force, and cut its dividend in half, sending its shares down almost 9% in after-hours trading, as the newspaper publisher struggles to cope with declining advertising.
ReplyDeleteThe third-largest U.S. newspaper company previously cut 1,400 jobs, or about 10% of its workforce
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122159737818944545.html
ReplyDeleteWachovia Corp. named Kenneth J. Phelan chief risk officer to succeed Don Truslow, who is retiring, in the latest executive change at the struggling bank.
The bank has shaken up its executive ranks after former Chief Executive Ken Thompson's ouster earlier this year due to rapidly climbing losses from some of its investments. New CEO Robert K. Steel is moving quickly to put his stamp on the bank by hiring new executives.
Wachovia's stock has plunged since its now-ousted leadership led a poorly timed, $25 billion acquisition of California mortgage lender Golden West Financial. In July, Wachovia reported a record loss of $8.9 billion, largely because of its mortgage operations, for the second quarter and slashed its dividend to five cents. The company also said then that it planned to lay off 6,350 workers and leave another 4,400 positions open.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122158666529443897.html
ReplyDeleteQuest Resource Corp. terminated its chief financial officer amid an internal investigation into a questionable transfer of $10 million to an entity controlled by the company's former chairman and chief executive.
The natural-gas producer and its master limited partnership, Quest Energy Partners LP, fired David Grose, who had already been placed on paid administrative leave, effective immediately, based on his involvement in the transfer of funds to a business controlled by former Chairman and CEO Jerry Cash.
Mr. Cash, who led the company from 2002, stepped down on Aug. 25 after the transfers were discovered days earlier. The company began its investigation after receiving an inquiry from the Oklahoma Department of Securities. According to a civil suit filed by the agency, Mr. Cash repeatedly transferred funds from Quest and at least one of its affiliates to Rockport Energy LLC, a Texas business he controlled. He is alleged to have then used the funds for personal benefit.
A special committee investigating the transfers said "significant additional work remains to be done to confirm the full extent of inappropriate uses of the companies' assets and their effects on the companies." The committee couldn't predict when the investigation would be completed, nor could it provide what the results will be or if any assets will be recovered.
LOS ANGELES -- Three days after a commuter train crash killed 26 people, the spokeswoman for rail agency Metrolink resigned after being criticized for public statements she made over the weekend indicating that the agency was responsible for the accident.
ReplyDeleteThe move comes hours after Metrolink's board held an emergency meeting, after which it tried to distance itself from spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell's statements. In a statement after the meeting, the board characterized Ms. Tyrrell's early statements concerning the crash as "premature" and agreed to defer to the National Transportation Safety Board, going forward.
At a Sunday evening briefing, the NTSB confirmed the Metrolink engineer ran through a red signal, which led to the collision. The safety agency is investigating reports that in the minutes before the crash, the engineer was exchanging text messages with a few teenage railroad enthusiasts nearby.
AND THE ENEMY WILL BE DESTROYED!
ReplyDelete-------------------------------
Amen! Amen! Amen!
uoj, thanks for all that you do, I as many others am with you every step of the way.
Dear UOJ,
ReplyDeleteI am a communal figure and mental health professional from the US that also holds a residence in Israel. I am quite familiar with the Akiva Kagan case and the lack of response on behalf of the community and its leadership.
My involvement in the case stems from a connection to the family of one of the victims. Perhaps one could say that this "jades" my opinion but let me also say that the Rabbonim involved are NOT aware of my connection.
The 3 young victims who have already given testimony are quite credible for their ages. Their stories are consistent and fluid in regard to facts. The times, places and circumstances all "pan out" and there is no variance throughout the testimony. I have been in touch with both Child Protection Center and the Police as an advocate for the families. The investigators believe that abuse did happen at the hand of this man and police continue to gather evidence.
Meanwhile these families have to deal with trauma set upon them. It affects not only the victim himself but all of the siblings and of course the parents. Innocence and purity have been stolen from these children. In one case in RBS the child (at 7!) no longer wishes to wear a "charedi" kipa or do anything that associates with his rebbe.
Imagine being violated by the one who is supposed to bring you closer to HaShem?
Several of the community rabbonim became involved from "day 1". They were quick to suggest that the molestation was done by someone other than the rebbe. Then they wanted to contain the story by using a therapist from their "camp. All of the families that I have spoken with have told me that other than the initial call to follow their instructions not one of the rabbonim involved has contacted them regarding the welfare of their children or how they could help. Thank G-d there are a few brave and upstanding rabbis in the community who have been supportive.
The incredulous part of this sad story is that another school could take this man into the classroom. Many parents have come to the families to ask about the case. The identity of the families was made known to the suspect and his wife by the school and their rabbonim. This infringement on the privacy of the family is another grave infraction on the part of the rabbonim.
Yes, ultimately it is the molesters who commit the crimes. They are sick and need treatment and removal from children if not from society as a whole. But equally culpable are those individuals who, in the name of preserving the name of the community, continue to sacrifice our children on the alter of "Chilul HaShem".
They, are in fact, the greatest perpetrators of Chilul HaShem and must be dealt with.
Kol Hakavod to you!
This week, the chatter among eBay insiders is all about the possibility of mass layoffs.
ReplyDeleteThe talk was sparked Monday by an article in Barron’s, which cited a report by Wedge Partners, a small Colorado investment-research firm. Wedge suggested that eBay was preparing layoffs that could hit up to 10 percent of eBay’s 15,000 employees.
AIG's collapse is the scariest yet. A $1.1 trillion company that operates in 130 countries. If the Fed didn't bail them out the global economy would have imploded.
ReplyDeleteThe Putz Superintendant of NY State Insurance, Eric Dinallo, is on CNBC right now. He refuses to answer exactly when & why the govt decided to bail out AIG with taxpayer money.
ReplyDeleteDow Jones down 200 points.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=74401&catid=23
ReplyDelete09/12/08 -- Former executives of American International Group Inc. NYSE:AFF, have agreed to a $115 million pretrial settlement to end a civil fraud lawsuit in Delaware.
The case began six years ago. The Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana sought $1 billion on claims AIG Chief Executive Officer Maurice Greenberg, Chief Financial Officer Howard Smith and two vice chairmen, Edward Mathews and Thomas Tizzo, overpaid commissions to companies the men controlled, Business Insurance reported Friday.
The suit also said the executives over-compensated themselves as officers of C.V. Starr & Co., which had business tie-ins to AIG.
"At times relevant to this case, Starr was controlled and owned by top AIG executives," a chancery court ruling in 2006 declared.
The plaintiff's attorney Stuart Grant called the settlement "fantastic," but, Greenberg's lawyer said his client wouldn't pay out of his own pocket.
"Mr. Greenberg, who built AIG into the largest and most successful insurance company in the world, will not make any payments in connection with this settlement," said Lee Wolosky.
"The preponderance of the settlement -- $85.5 million -- will be paid by insurance carriers."
http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080916/REG/809169978/1036
ReplyDeleteFormer Hilfiger finance exec cops to stealing $19 million from company
Bodner faces up to 40 years in prison; made illegal payments to himself
By Matthew Scott
September 16, 2008
The former CFO of Tommy Hilfiger Handbags & Small Leather Goods pleaded guilty today to mail fraud and wire fraud charges in the theft of more than $19 million from the design firm over a seven-year period.
Martin Bodner, 60, faces up to 40 years in prison for making illegal payments to himself, personal creditors and one of his sons from the company’s accounts. According to court papers filed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Bodner stole approximately $19.09 million from the middle of 2000 to December 2007, when he was fired.
As CFO, Mr. Bodner used his control of the Hilfiger company’s payroll to execute his scheme. According to court documents, he used phone calls and other interstate wire communications with the New Jersey and California facilities of the payroll services company used by the firm to secretly increase his salary and bonus payments, reimburse himself for phony expenses, and arrange for one of his sons to be paid approximately $225,500 in salary, even though he didn’t work for the company.
Mr. Bodner also issued “hundreds of checks to various payees” to pay for several cars, personal credit card bills, homeowners insurance payments for a house and two apartments he owned, and even a bill for decorating services.
As part of his plea, Mr. Bodner has agreed to forfeit a home in Sands Point, N.Y., a Manhattan apartment, three cars and other property. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 5.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/09/15/italian-man-catches-wife-in-bed-with-priest/?icid=200100397x1209301730x1200566875
ReplyDeleteAn Italian husband returned home early from work to find his wife in bed with their local priest. Following the shock discovery, the man stormed into the local bishop's office in Chioggia, near Venice, and demanded an explanation. Later police were called to calm him down.
The 53-year-old priest was described as a specialist on the Bible (although he seems to have forgotten at least one of the Ten Commandments), as well as a good friend of the couple. Whether this makes his behavior more or less palatable is up to--well, a Higher Power. Meanwhile, the local bishop Angelo Daniel has now confirmed that the adulterous priest has been sent to another parish for "reeducation." Bishop Daniel added: "I have always respected the priest in question and I will continue to respect him. You cannot discount all the good a person has done in their life just because of one mistake."
MetLife says Lehman, AIG investments total $800M
ReplyDeleteWednesday September 17, 9:58 am
MetLife says it has $800 million in Lehman and AIG net direct investments
NEW YORK (AP) -- MetLife Inc. said its net direct investments in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and AIG total about $800 million.
The insurer said the investments include debt, equities, and derivatives. The figure also includes common stock of about $10 million. MetLife did not break down how much is invested with each of the companies.
MetLife said it has also made secured loans to affiliates of Lehman, "which are fully collateralized."
"MetLife is continuing to assess the recoverability of these investments," it said in a statement late Tuesday.
Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, and AIG on Tuesday got an $85 billion federal emergency loan to keep it afloat.
In morning trading, MetLife shares fell $2, or 4 percent, to $54.89.
ABUJA (Reuters) - A Nigerian Muslim court Monday detained an 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives after he failed to heed a call by local leaders to divorce all but four of them.
ReplyDeleteThe authorities in central Niger state charged Mohammed Bello with "insulting religious creed" and "unlawful marriages" after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him until September 7 to comply with Islamic sharia law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives at a time.
The preacher, who lives with his wives and some 170 children in the town of Bida, pleaded not guilty to the charges at an Upper Sharia Court in the state capital Minna.
Look out for Hank Paulson knocking at your door with a book of rabbinic endordsements!
ReplyDeleteMarket Update
10:35 am : The Treasury is setting up a temporary financing program at the Fed's request. The program will auction Treasury bills to raise cash for the Fed's use.
The initiative aims to help the Fed manage its balance sheet following its efforts to enhance its liquidity facilities over the previous few quarters.
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stiffened rules against manipulative short-selling after a market rout pushed American International Group Inc. to the brink of collapse and triggered Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteThe SEC adopted two regulations today forcing traders and brokers to close out short sales on all stocks, amid concern investors are driving down prices by flooding markets with sell orders. A third rule makes it a securities fraud when sellers deceive brokers about delivering borrowed shares to buyers.
``These several actions today make it crystal clear that the SEC has zero tolerance for abusive'' short-selling, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement on the rules that take effect tomorrow.
Lawmakers and regulators are questioning whether short sellers have contributed to a crisis by spreading false information and using abusive tactics to attack companies. Hedge funds and other investors argue that poor business strategies are to blame, not short sellers.
In traditional short sales, traders borrow shares that they then sell. If the price drops, they profit by buying back the stock, repaying the loan and pocketing the difference.
The SEC rules approved today target so-called naked short- selling, in which traders never borrow shares from their brokers. The agency is concerned that such a strategy can free investors to manipulate prices by placing unlimited sell orders.
Sounds like a yeshiva!
ReplyDelete----------------------
NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. government has been reaching out to large banks in an effort to organize a buyout of the beleaguered Washington Mutual Inc., according to a person briefed on the talks between regulators and banks.
The obstacle, however, is that
"no one knows what's in their books,"
the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. There could be, he said, "a minimum amount of value there."
A New York Post report Wednesday citing unnamed sources said regulators have reached out to Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings PLC, among other institutions. The Post noted that no discussions of a deal between any of those banks and Washington Mutual were under way.
Shares of Washington Mutual have plummeted in recent weeks amid continued concerns about mounting losses in the bank's lending portfolios. In early trading Wednesday, they rose 6 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $2.38.
Washington Mutual shares have fallen 49 percent over the past month and are off 83 percent for the entire year. Shares of Washington Mutual closed Tuesday at $2.32.
During the second quarter, Washington Mutual lost $3.33 billion, or $6.58 per share, as it set aside more than $8 billion to cover souring loans in its mortgage portfolio.
Washington Mutual's net charge-offs, or loans written off as not being repaid, totaled $2.17 billion during the second quarter. Non-performing assets at the bank rose sharply during the second quarter as well to 3.62 percent of total assets, from 2.87 percent just three months earlier.
Washington Mutual has been among the banks hardest hit by the slumping housing and mortgage markets. Since the middle of 2007, mortgages have increasingly defaulted, forcing nearly all banks to set aside more cash to cover borrowers who are no longer paying off their loans.
Treasury 3-Month Bill Rates Drop to Lowest Since at Least 1954
ReplyDeleteBy Sandra Hernandez
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury three-month bill rates dropped to the lowest since at least 1954 as a loss of confidence in credit markets prompted investors to abandon higher-yielding assets for the safety of the shortest-term government securities.
Investors pushed the rate as low as 0.233 percent on concern that credit market losses will widen after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the federal takeover of American International Group Inc. The rate banks charge each other for short-term loans relative to Treasury bills rose to the highest since the stock market crash of 1987.
The AIG rescue ``smacks of sweeping the problem under the carpet rather than solving it in a structural sense,'' said Padhraic Garvey, head of investment-grade debt strategy at ING Bank NV in Amsterdam, in a note to clients.
ReplyDeleteAIG has 75 million customers, many of whom may lose their insurance policies.
ReplyDeleteHank Paulson's the "US financial system is sound" speech - is tantamount to Mondrowitz claiming Kolko's innocence!
ReplyDeleteHBOS Plc, the U.K.'s biggest mortgage lender, slid as much as 52 percent today on speculation it may not have access to funding.
ReplyDeleteLloyds of London is in talks to take them over, but they will probably back out and let taxpayers foot the bill before jumping in later to pick up the best parts like a bunch of vultures.
That's what Barclay's Bank did this morning in paying $1.75 billion for the Neuberger Berman investment bank division of Lehman Brothers while ignoring the rest of the company.
Mr. Ponzi, we're looking for someone with your credentials to be honored at the next Agudah Fresser dinner.
ReplyDeleteMorgan Stanley slid $6.88, or 24 percent, to $21.82 after Whitney and Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Guy Moszkowski reduced their fourth-quarter profit estimates, citing the rise in financing costs.
ReplyDeleteRussian Emergency Funding Fails to Halt Stock Rout (Update3)
ReplyDeleteBy Alex Nicholson and William Mauldin
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Russia poured $44 billion into its three largest banks and halted stock trading for a second day in a bid to stem the worst financial crisis since the devaluation and default a decade ago.
AIG Chief Executive Officer Robert Willumstad, 63, will be replaced by former Allstate Corp. CEO Edward Liddy, 62.
ReplyDeleteAIG declined $1.66 to $2.09 at 10:36 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Willumstad, the former Citigroup Inc. president who left the bank in 2005 to seek a CEO position, was named to AIG's top post in June. His predecessor, Martin Sullivan, was chief for three years until being ousted after two record quarterly net losses. Maurice ``Hank'' Greenberg reigned at AIG for almost four decades until he was forced to retire in 2005 amid regulatory probes.
AIG rejected a bid for a joint investment by Allianz SE and J.C. Flowers & Co. on Sept. 14, said two people with knowledge of the offer.
Allianz, Europe's biggest insurer, and Flowers, the New York-based private equity firm run by J. Christopher Flowers, proposed the cash infusion to help AIG fend off a liquidity crunch, the people said.
The Dow is down 333 points only 2 hours into trading. Things are being exacerbated by rumors on the street that Morgan Stanley is looking for a buyer.
ReplyDeleteHousing construction plunges in August to lowest level in 17 years, showing depth of crisis
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (AP) -- Construction of new homes and apartments fell to the lowest level in 17 years last month, showing the country is still gripped by a severe housing downturn that has triggered billions of dollars of losses and is reshaping the structure of U.S. finance.
August foreclosures hit another record high
ReplyDeleteThere were 304,000 homes in some stage of default last month, and 91,000 families lost their homes.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: September 12, 2008: 9:51 AM EDT
Reuters
ReplyDeleteMorgan Stanley and Goldman slide as HBOS in takeover talks.
Barclays gets Lehman's North American banking and capital markets units for a Wall Street song.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (Reuters) - In one $85 billion fell swoop, the U.S. Federal Reserve may have wiped out what credibility it won resisting Lehman Brothers' rescue plea and opened its door to countless other companies to come calling for cash.
ReplyDeleteBy providing a massive loan to American International Group on Tuesday, just two days after refusing to use public funds to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy, the central bank also invited tough questions on how exactly it determined whether a company was too big to fail.
"They pretended they were drawing a line in the sand with Lehman Brothers but now two days later they're doing another bailout," said Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.
"We're essentially continuing a system where profits are privatized and...losses socialized," Roubini said, adding that auto makers, airlines and other struggling businesses would no doubt be asking for government help too.
Some economists warned that investors had caught on and were betting on future bailouts by selling stock and buying bonds in struggling firms. That ends up pushing down a company's share price, which can exacerbate its troubles.
"If the message is that any time something like this pops up we're going to wipe out the equity and coddle the bondholders, that is its own sort of moral hazard," said Michael Feroli, an economist with JPMorgan in New York.
JPMorgan's Feroli said the Fed could have chosen to let AIG fail, just as it had done with Lehman.
"We don't know if the disease would have been worse than the medicine," he said. "We'll never know. But we know we lived through Lehman."
He said the central bank needed to clearly explain when and why it would act to salvage a company in jeopardy or face the prospect of a long line of companies seeking bailouts.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who has stayed out of the public eye during the Lehman and AIG drama, is due to testify before a congressional committee next week and can expect some pointed questioning, Feroli said.
"He needs to provide some sort of clear demarcation of what is or is not a systemic risk."
"Of the many unconventional actions taken by the Fed in the current crisis, this may likely prove to be the most controversial and should make Bernanke's...testimony on Capitol Hill an interesting event."
Bank of Ireland became the latest bank to cut its dividend, causing a sell-off in Irish banking shares.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vosizneias.com/20433/2008/09/17/brooklyn-ny-shame-not-threats-led-to-dr-twerskis-resignation-hikind-i-will-not-stope2809d/
ReplyDeleteUOJ! Something is really bad in Baltimore. Moshe Eisemann is still at Ner Israel Rabbinical College. He tutors students at his apartment on Yeshiva Lane and sometimes has sex with them. Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Aaron Feldman and Mashgiach Rabbi Beryl Weisbord constantly cover up for him. UOJ, please, please stop this horrible crime!
ReplyDeleteThere have been a few spot shortages of money here and there but the economy is healthier than ever!
ReplyDeleteSocialism, 21st Century Style
ReplyDeleteby Floyd Norris - THE NEW YORK TIMES
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The government Tuesday nationalized the American International Group, the financial giant that could not find anyone else willing to lend it the billions of dollars it needed to stay afloat.
That is not the official version. Fed staffers, who briefed reporters at 9:15 Tuesday night, don’t even want us to say the government will control A.I.G. The government will name new management, and will have veto power over all important decisions. And it will have a warrant allowing it to take 79.9 percent of the stock whenever it wants. But they contend there is no control until the warrant is exercised.
President Truman once tried to nationalize the steel industry, arguing that a strike that halted production in wartime created a national emergency. The Supreme Court ruled that was illegal. This time, however, the company agreed to the nationalization. It was the only way to get the cash it desperately needs.
The Federal Reserve and the Bush administration believe the threat of defaults by A.I.G. on a lot of unregulated derivative contracts creates a national emergency. It’s too bad they didn’t think of that when they were opposing any efforts to regulate those markets. That would have been interfering with free enterprise. This move, somehow, is not.
The official line is also that taxpayer money is not being put at risk, since the $85 billion loan is well collateralized. No group of banks was willing to make such a loan, so you have to wonder if the collateral is really that good. And the government will not say if it will loan more should that be needed to keep A.I.G. from collapsing.
It was said that only a conservative anti-communist such as Richard Nixon could overcome domestic opposition to talking to what was then called Red China. Perhaps something similar is at work here. Can you imagine what conservatives would say if a liberal Democrat had moved to nationalize major financial companies?
http://www.kroll.com/about/library/fraud/
ReplyDeleteSeptember 15, 2008 -- The average company loss to fraud has increased by 22% largely driven by the credit crunch and tough economic climate, according to the latest Kroll Global Fraud Report. Companies lost an average of $8.2 million to fraud in the past three years, compared to last year's figure which stood at $7.6 million. The figures are a result of a survey Kroll commissioned from the Economist Intelligence Unit of 890 senior executives worldwide.
The fastest growing types of fraud were information theft (27%: up from 22%) and regulatory and compliance breaches (25%: up from 19%), both up by more than five percentage points from last year's survey.
The construction and natural resources sectors suffered the most incidents of fraud, due in part to the continuing rise in oil prices and an industry shift to higher-risk areas. Healthcare, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology saw an increase in problems with corruption and theft of stocks or assets, while travel, leisure and transportation reported increases in regulatory and compliance breaches and information theft or loss.
More than four out of five companies surveyed (85%) have suffered from corporate fraud in the past three years, up from 80% in last year's survey. For larger companies the proportion suffering from fraud rose to 90%.
Commenting on the findings, Blake Coppotelli, senior managing director in Kroll's Business Intelligence & Investigations division said: "The findings show that fraud is not only widespread, but also growing and we expect to see this increase further as conditions become tougher for business and the full impact of the credit crunch unfolds."
One of the largest bus makers in the U.S., Motor Coach Industries International Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, burdened with about $505 million in secured debt and hit by a "sharp decline" in new orders.
ReplyDeleteMotor Coach, based in Schaumburg, Ill., says it is out of money to operate and will be plunged $60 million further into the hole over the coming weeks. The company is asking to borrow $282 million immediately
WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - KB Home Inc's (KBH.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) former chief executive and chairman, Bruce Karatz, has agreed to pay more than $7 million to settle charges that he participated in a scheme to backdate stock options, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday.
ReplyDeleteKaratz, who did not admit to or deny the allegations, has also agreed to be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for five years.
Moshe 12:16 - can you back up your info on eiseman?
ReplyDeleteIf so email me immedietly at stoptendler@gmail.com
http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2008/01/ex-husband-gets-jail-time-for-keylogger.html
ReplyDeleteIt’s taken almost two years but a Schenectady man has finally admitted to putting spyware on his ex-wife's computer and logging her activity. David Monty who pleaded guilty to stalking and felony eavesdropping now faces a sentence of 18 months to 3 years.
According to court documents, Monty created a blog in his ex-wife's name and disclosed information about her clients. He also emailed this information and blog links to the five physicians she worked for. He collected information by intercepting her E-mail, Instant message conversations and passwords. She was soon fired and had to search for new employment.
Much of his sentence has already been spent in Schenectady County Jail and he could be eligible for parole this spring. The victim who said “It’s done and over with and I can get on with my life” also acknowledged she’ll be writing letters encouraging the the parole board to keep Monty safely behind bars for his full sentence. She also received a five year order of protection.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/Postville%20Job%20Fair%20Low%20Res.jpg
ReplyDeleteThe Long Prairie division of Rosen, a $2 billion non-Jewish company supplying Hebrew National has come to Postville to poach away Rubashkin employees with the lure of $11 an hour starting wage + benefits as well as a signing bonus as high as $3700.
CALL TO ACTION: Rabbi Benzion Twerski Caving in to Thugs
ReplyDeleteThe concept of bullying survivors of sexual violence, their family members and those who advocate for them is nothing new. It's been going on for years. The same sort of thug behavior occurred with many cases in which The Awareness Center was involved (i.e. ex-rabbi Mordechai Gafni, ex-rabbi Mordecai Tendler, ex-rabbi Matis Weinberg, etc.).
It is understandable that there are those who feel the need to cave in to the bullying behavior, yet what one must remember is that be doing this allows sex offenders to go free -- leading to the creation of more individuals (adults and children) who will become survivors of sex crimes.
When those in leadership positions give in to this sort of thug mentality, how do they expect those who have been victimized to ever respect them?
According to statistics 1/4 of the population in the United States (including the frum community) have been sexually abused by the time they have reached the age of 18. Many believe that the lack of intervention by our rabboniom in cases of sexual violence has lead to many Jewish survivors walking away from our faith.
According to Bos Iz Neias, Rabbi Benzion Twerski, Ph.D., graduated with a Ph.D. in psychology from University of Pittsburgh in 1985. He studied in Yeshivos in Scranton, PA, Baltimore, and Jerusalem.
If Rabbi Benzion Twerski is one of the leading professionals in youth-at-risk and addictions in the Jewish community, how is it he could cave into the pressure of those who defend sex offenders? Why is it that he did not call the police and report the treats?
Healing can not occur in our communities when our leadership are to afraid to stand up and protect those who need them the most.
Please call Rabbi Benzion Twerski and let him know how you feel about the message he sent out to all survivors of sex crimes and also to those who use bullying and extortion to protect sex offenders.
Vicki Polin
Executive Director - The Awareness Center
www.theawarenesscenter.org
Poaching employees is a classic anti-Semitic act of Amalek!
ReplyDeleteShmeckelstein won't allow comments on why his friend Simcha Felder is a problem.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/23317/VIDEO:+Simcha+Felder's+Concession+Speech.html
(EXCLUSIVE VIDEO LINK AT END OF ARTICLE) As was announced last night on YWN, Simcha Felder lost the race for Kevin Parker’s current seat in the NYS Senate. Felder’s two-term limit as NYC Councilman is ending, and was hoping to land himself in Parker’s seat.
http://www.jewishpress.com/content.cfm?contentid=35974
ReplyDelete"The rabbanim are not talking halacha," Rabbi Moshe Tendler told The Jewish Press. "They're issuing a political statement."
Last week two leading haredi rabbis, Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, and former Sephardic chief rabbi Rav Ovadia Yosef, sent a letter to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich - who is in charge of the Western Wall area - asking him to reaffirm a 40-year-old ban on Jewish entry to the Temple Mount. The move came a month after Israel's Haaretz newspaper published photographs of Rabbi Tendler atop the Temple Mount, which set off a storm in the haredi community. Rabbi Tendler, a Yeshiva University rosh yeshiva and biology professor, is the son-in-law of the late Rav Moshe Feinstein, the leading American halachic decisor of his time.
"As time passed," the three rabbis wrote, "we have lost knowledge of the precise location of the Temple, and anyone entering the Temple Mount is liable to unwittingly enter the area of the Temple and the Holy of Holies."
Rabbi Kanievsky added that "entrance to the Temple Mount, and the defilement of the Holy of Holies, is more severe than any of the violations in the Torah."
Dow Jones down 450 points.
ReplyDeleteBut molesters can rape children and we don't want Nuchem Rosenberg to stop them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/35/31_35_bm_billboard.html
A billboard hyping the sexy teen drama “90210” has some members of Williamsburg’s Hasidic Jews all worked up.
The ad, which is visible from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, depicts a handful of swimsuit-clad actors and actresses lounging in a pool — starkly violating the Hasidic interpretation of at least two Jewish laws, neighborhood leaders say.
“In Jewish law, it is forbidden to see any part of a lady that is not dressed — and having men and women swimming together is also not permissible, even if they are fully clothed,” said Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organization, who last month protested against a risqué ad by the clothing retailer H&M on the same roadway.
But another problem with the sign is the location itself.
“People from our community pass by this daily,” said Niederman, who noted that the BQE is the primary route for Hasidic Jews who shuttle between communities in Williamsburg and Borough Park. “They are bringing Times Square to our home. What’s OK over there is not OK over here.”
Hasidim say their complaints to the company that owns the billboard — much like the careers of the original “90210” stars Luke Perry and Jason Priestley — have been ignored.
“We have called them and I’m very surprised that they are turning a deaf ear,” said Williamsburg resident Simon Weiser. “It’s real racy and it doesn’t belong in our community where you have children who aren’t used to seeing these images.”
Some therapists told The Jewish Star that there are some distinctions between the cases occurring in the Five Towns and ones in Brooklyn.
ReplyDelete“In terms of my own practice, a lot of the cases in Brooklyn center around teacher/rebbe student abuse,” said Gavriel Fagin. He is a forensic social worker and adjunct professor at Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work, who lives in Woodmere but maintains a practice in Brooklyn.
“The situations that I’ve been involved in the Five Towns, by and large, have been with older community members with younger community members. That could be a 17-year-old with a 9-year-old; a 25-year-old with an 1-year-old. But it has not been a teacher-student interaction,” Fagin said.
It's not just Tendler. Some moron Charedim don't listen to Rav Elyashev either who says they are mechuyev to vaccinate.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221142462333&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
ISRAEL HAD 260 TIMES THE US MEASLES RATE
The measles outbreak that affected 1,438 Israeli children in 11 months since the middle of last year seems to have petered out, but new US statistics show how bad it was. Prof. Yona Amitai, a pediatrician and former head of the Health Ministry's department of mother, child and teenage health, calculated that the ratio of measles in Israel was 260 times that of the US, which reported only 131 cases in the past six months.
The outbreak was reportedly triggered by a hassid who had the measles and came to Jerusalem to attend the wedding of a relative of his rebbe. The infectious disease spread among unvaccinated hassidic children in the capital and then to other haredi communities in the country. There was criticism that the health authorities should have taken action earlier to increase the vaccination rate in the haredi community.
I (a female) grew up in an ultra-orthodox/orthodox community, and was routinely sexually abused by a an esteemed brooklyn institution's yeshiva bochur 11 years my senior. I was 5/6/7/8 years old.
ReplyDeleteToday I am in my mid twenties. If you passed me by on the street you might think i'm a perfectly normal person, sophisticated and intelligent even.
My three sisters are married and have kids. I'm still wondering if i might be a lesbian. I'm still trying to focus on reality instead of instinctively falling back on the defense mechanism i created as a child: dissociation from reality. I'm still trying to feel less ashamed of my existence. I'm still trying not to indulge my ever present, unnaturally strong, pain.
Every man that begins a relationship with me ends up regretting it: I cannot trust, I cannot believe intimacy. This is not merely thoughts i need to change. This is the way i am now wired. If i could easily change it, i would have done so already. I try with vigor.
Because there is nothing else I would like more than to experience genuine love. To experience a breath of fresh air without shame. And to be the person i would like to be without perpetually self sabotaging myself.
After severe internal chaos, that includes a suicide attempt when i was 16 and countless agonizing episodes, I understand that the only way i can achieve that is by fighting myself every day.
I will do that. I will fight every day in order to be just to my own self. But by now, I am well aware that it will never be easy.
The pain and the consequences of sexual abuse truly cannot be understood.
I am sure, or perhaps i am just thinking ideally within the context- that this yeshiva bochur who now has five beautiful kids, and learns Torah every day, has asked god for forgiveness.
But that is actually the TRUE injustice of sexual abuse. The perpetrator can liberate himself. The victim CANNOT.
Sexual abuse, like another commentator said, is truly a cancer.
What incredible anger I feel when i learn that the effort in the orthodox community went towards eradicating the possibility of hope, concern, understanding and aid. Shame, true true shame on this community.
If only i had been armed with some knowledge as a kid that it was not me who had to feel ashamed. IF ONLY MY PERPETRATOR HAD HEARD A COUPLE OF WORDS ABOUT THIS CRIME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
What callousness. What selfishness. What outright immoral behavior this response from the orthodox community is. Keep hiding, keep idolizing only your image as a religion, and eventually if it isn't already, the orthodox community will be nothing but stupid savages.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a13435/News/New_York.html
ReplyDeleteby Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week
A second former student of Rabbi Avrohom Reichman alleged Tuesday that the Satmar yeshiva teacher sexually molested him as a child, State Assemblyman Dov Hikind reported this week.
But, reflecting an endemic problem known well by law enforcement authorities, Hikind said that despite his entreaties, the alleged victim and his family refuse to report the case to the police.
“Just an hour ago, I had a man here I know, who shocked me and told me that this same person molested his son,” Hikind said, referring to Rabbi Reichman. “I told him, come on, let’s go [to the authorities].” But, Hikind added, “He absolutely will not do anything.”
The father, “a chasidish guy from Williamsburg,” told Hikind that his son, is now “looking to get engaged” — a goal certain “to be imperiled due to the stigma of being a victim and the communal apathy toward “informing” to the secular authorities, were he to go public with his charges.
Hikind reported that the former student is now “18 or 19,” which means Rabbi Reichman’s alleged acts remain within the statue of limitations for criminal prosecution. The father told Hikind that when his son was in elementary school, Rabbi Reichman had regularly touched him in “inappropriate places.”
“The guy was giving me all the encouragement in the world,” Hikind reported, referring to the politician’s recent push against what he believes is a serious pedophilia problem in Orthodox Brooklyn. “He was cursing [Rabbi Reichman] furiously. He’s telling me, you gotta do, you’ve gotta do. But I couldn’t get him to move to first base. This is an example of why we’re having such difficulties.”
The development was but the latest in a recent rash of rabbinic sexual molestation allegations in Brooklyn’s Orthodox neighborhoods. Last month, Joel Engelman, now 23, filed suit against Rabbi Reichman, the Satmar bungalow colony where he worked and the school that employs him, United Talmudical Academy, in connection with sexual molestation he says he suffered at Rabbi Reichman’s hands at age 8. But because Engelman’s age puts the alleged acts beyond the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution or civil suit, Engelman’s lawyer is seeking entrée to the court with a novel legal theory , the success of which is uncertain.
A secretary for an administrator at United Talmudical Academy said Wednesday the school’s “administration has said we will not give any information on this case.”
Last April, Rabbi Yehuda Kolko of Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Flatbush was convicted on two counts of child endangerment. Several of his former students have filed suit against him, the school and its administrator, Rabbi Lipa Margulies, who, they alleged, continued to employ Rabbi Kolko despite numerous warnings about his conduct.
Another alleged abuser, Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, now awaits extradition from Israel to Brooklyn, where he has been charged with sexual abuse of children while working as a child counselor out of his home.
Many say that the few cases in which people have come forward — often as adults — constitute just the tip of an iceberg, and that the communal leadership in Brooklyn Orthodox communities are in denial about their situation.
Hikind, who has made the issue a personal crusade over the last couple of months, says he has assembled a dossier of “hundreds” of cases. With the help of a community task force he is now seeking to form, he plans to assemble a registry of alleged abusers based on alleged victims whose charges the panel finds credible. He has threatened to broadcast the alleged abusers’ names if rabbinic leaders do not then act to keep them out of community schools.
Michael Dowd, an attorney prominent in this area of law, said Hiknd’s plan would increase the legal liability of school administrators and community rabbinic leaders by robbing them of the excuse of ignorance if the alleged abusers molest again.
But Hikind’s own legal position once he has assembled his information could be problematic, he said.
“As an assemblyman, if [Hikind] learns of crimes that are presently prosecutable, what would compel him not to disclose this to the DA?,” he asked.
Dowd, who is representing the plaintiffs suing Torah Temimah and Rabbi Margulies, said Orthodox communities may believe they have the right to resolve such issues internally. But “in a pluralistic state — and by that I mean both New York and the United States — we don’t get to excuse illegal conduct because of our religion.”
Hikind affirmed the legitimacy of this question. He said he has scheduled a meeting for next week to determine just how his task force will deal with this issue.
“It’s an unbelievable responsibility that rests on us,” Hikind said, referring to the information he has now amassed.
Meanwhile, Dr. Benzion Twerski, who had been tapped to head Hikind’s Task Force but abruptly resigned from it last week, now denies he left due to threats to his safety.
“The intimidation is primarily based on the shame that my family would endure,” he told The Jewish Week.
In a letter posted last week on the Orthodox news blog Voz Is Neias, Twerski elaborated, “For several days, I was approached by individuals, some stating that they would cross the street if they were to meet me while walking with their children. Others told me they would not accept my child into their class if assigned. Others used euphemisms that I refuse to repeat. Family members were likewise confronted by all sorts of comments and phone calls. My married children had been told to fear ever getting shidduchim [marriage partners] for their children.”
Last week, Rabbi Twerski told The Jewish Week he was being “prosecuted in the street for daring to join such a venture” and had resolved to quit “to protect myself, my family and reputation.”
“He was basically forced to resign,” Hikind said then. “He was literally put up against the wall. ... The point is they got to him, they threatened him.”
But Twerski stressed this week that he was not in any physical danger. “The implication is that I need bodyguards to move around the community. That is simply not true. I walk the streets in Borough Park with as much safety as anyone else.”
Pressed on whether he seriously feared for the marriage prospects of his young grandchildren, Twerski said, “It’s not that I’m fearing that my grandchildren won’t have who to marry. That would be silly. The idea over here is — and this is the way my children said it to me — we don’t to have to live in shame. The reality is that shame about all of this is not going to change quickly. And basically I would have chosen to force my children to live with that. The cause is a noble one. The question is, the process. ... This is really, really delicate.”
Indeed, despite declarations by both men of a shared vision for the community task force, Twerski appeared to significantly differ from Hikind in some respects on this point.
Hikind, for example, appears determined to broadcast the names of alleged child molesters if communal leaders do not act. And he consistently urges individuals who have been molested to go immediately to secular law enforcement authorities with their accounts.
Twerski told The Jewish Week, “There’s got to be something that takes the appropriate level of caution. The ones that should get reported should, and very few people say differently. But the question is how to go about doing that so you don’t put the wrong guy there.”
He believes allegations need to first be verified within the community, though by who is unclear. He conceded that the police have the best expertise to investigate such allegations but seemed to favor a system in which “an independent panel, with poskim [experts on religious law] and professionals on it, completely external to the school” would look into matters first.
Twerski said it might also be possible for the school in question to carry out the investigation but noted, “You can’t leave it completely internal because that creates an easy opportunity to cover it all up.”
Whatever the ultimate makeup of the initial inquiry panel, it appeared implicit in Twerski’s vision that the initiative on how to handle such an allegation would be communal — and lay specifically with communal leaders— rather than with the individual alleged victim.
“We do have to have a system that allows the right thing to be done,” he said. “The people who have to get reported will. There’s going to be people that the community accepts widely as the ones that say, we authorize going to court.”
The system has “been misused in the past,” Twerski acknowledged. “[But] I believe it’s been misused because of a tremendous lack of knowledge. I think people simply don’t know, there are rabbis who don’t know. There’s a lot of education that needs to go on.”
“The lack of knowledge is staggering and very bothersome,” he said. “It’s evolution not a revolution. It’s not going to happen that fast. The tendency is that the community responds with fear to drastic moves.”
Now all the analysts from S&P and Fitch are ducking out from UOJ and the Feds in my hiding place. They're afraid of being criminally charged for giving AAA ratings to every shtick dreck financial institution.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that funny that Tendler is belittling Rav Chaim Kanievsky. When it suited the Tendlers, they were lying with their Low Klass friends that Rav Chaim was on their side against the RCA beis din.
ReplyDeleteThe immediate aftermath of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy will be a massive and manic flight to liquidity and withdrawal of funds and credit from banks, S&L's, insurance companies and brokerages, leading to more failures.
ReplyDeleteNothing can stop it at this point.
The FDIC, which insures bank depositors up to $100,000, is basically out of cash. They normally are funded by premiums charged to healthy banks. They are turning to the Fed/Treasury for additional funding. Expect the FDIC to collapse after the next bank failure or two. In desperation, the FDIC is recalling retired employees to come out of retirement to help with the crisis; there isn't time to train new employees, which can take years to complete.
ReplyDeletehttp://thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c41_a13438/News/Short_Takes.html
ReplyDeleteAvrom Pollak, president of Star-K, said Empire Poultry “made their first production” of beef one day last week in Wichita under a lease arrangement with A.D. Rosenblatt Glatt Kosher Beef.
“It was a start,” Pollak said. “They do plan to become a major player in the [meat] market.” Rosenfeld insisted, however, that no final decisions have been made.
But one knowledgeable source said it was believed that Empire was looking to get even with Agriprocessors for its decision to start kosher poultry slaughtering, cutting into Empire’s market share.
The move came as rumors spread throughout the kosher food industry that Agriprocessors was in its “death throes,” with little likelihood of lasting until the High Holy Days, according to an industry source.
Meanwhile, the kosher meat shortage is driving up the price of meat. Lubinsky said prices have increased by about 15 percent and that “some retailers are taking advantage and putting a premium on everything they sell.” He said he has heard that prices may jump another 15 percent by the end of the month and the start of the High Holy Days.
More from the Jewish Week:
ReplyDelete"Rabbi Chaim Schwartz of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, a kosher supervisory organization, described the kosher meat shortage as “severe” and said that butchers tell him they don’t know when supplies will arrive."
This is only true if these fools are still trying to order from Rubashkin. At least in NYC, no one is without meat when ordering from other vendors. This is a ploy by stores to raise prices. Is Rabbi Schwartz really this naive?
http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/1558813/silencing_dissent_and_hushing_up_scandal/
ReplyDeleteSilencing Dissent and Hushing Up Scandal
By MICHAEL J. SALAMON
Two items recently crossed my desk. The first was an article that appeared in The Jerusalem Post written by Matthew Wagner entitled "Haredim move to silence 'treif' music". It was about a movement to ban musicians who produce or perform any music which the Guardians of Sanctity and Education deem inappropriate. Musicians playing such music would be banned from playing in wedding halls, their CDs would be banned and their concerts disallowed.
The other item was a breaking news piece from JTA indicating that Rabbi Benzion Twerski had resigned from a task force in formation being brought together to deal with sexual abuse in the Orthodox community. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, also an Orthodox Jew, is establishing the task force to deal with this scourge. Twerski resigned because of the many threats against him and his family made by several individuals from his community.
When taken together these two items suggest such a profound and disturbing conflict regarding the current goals of the Orthodox world, of which I am a member. If music is so important, is not the emotional welfare of members of the community even more so? How can music be a threat and abuse not be? While some may argue that this is not the message to be learned, that the insular community is seeking ways to deal with the sexual abuse problem discreetly, it is clearly not so when someone as prominent and discreet as Twerski can be so horrifically threatened. But, he is not the only one to receive threats. Apparently so have musicians. The canceling of a recent concert is evidence of this.
IN MY work I too have received threats, most recently for suggesting that the rigid shidduch approach to dating seems not to be working. What this approach has accomplished in recent years is to increase rigidity and unrealistic demands for a spouse; rates of domestic violence are increasing and so are the divorce rates.
There seems to be little balance left in the Orthodox world. There is no allowance made for harmless pleasure and those who abuse are given a free pass. Those who attempt to stand up are threatened.
Still there is a commandment that states "V'chai bahem"; we should live by the rules. That command, however, requires that the rules are such that one can live according to them. Additionally, we have lost sight of the adage "yesh chochma bagoyim," there is knowledge, as well as arts and music, among the nations of the world that is meant for us to share. I believe that is why much of our liturgical music comes from a host of sources including the church. And our great rabbis have not simply accepted it but enjoyed and encouraged this music.
When I look at the increasing rigidity that these events objectify, I think of how we are pushing people away instead of bringing people closer to the core values of Judaism. I also reflect on the experience of Ayan Hirsi Ali, currently a member of the Dutch Parliament, reared as a devout Muslim who was forced to evaluate the oppressiveness of her religion. She became a vocal critic of the religion to the point where she has had to go into hiding. At the end of the day, she may be the model that our children follow if we do not find a way to balance the needs of our society with those of a firmly religious leaning. Pushing people too hard will only force them to push back.
To suggest that the decisions of a few vocal individuals make are the only correct approach and allow them to steer us away from doing what must be done is simply illogical. Every society has its ills. So does ours. We must find productive ways to deal with these ills if we are to survive.
As Yossi Shereshevsky's shver, it's one thing if I put up bail money by having all my real estate secured, but how did he convince his gardener to pitch in too?
ReplyDeletehttp://hamptonroads.com/2008/09/5-million-bond-offered-secure-investors-release
By Tom Shean
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 4, 2008
A Norfolk resident being held in government custody on charges of securities fraud is prepared to post a $5 million bond, secured in part by his father-in-law's home and the home of his gardener, according to a filing in federal court in Manhattan.
Joseph Shereshevsky, a part-owner and former chief operating officer of the investment company WexTrust Capital, was arrested three weeks ago on charges that he and a business partner defrauded almost 1,200 investors by diverting $100 million of their funds to unauthorized uses.
A federal magistrate in Norfolk afterward denied Shereshevsky's request for bail. Because of his frequent overseas travel and his contacts in Europe, Africa and Israel, Shereshevsky is a flight risk, Magistrate Tommy Miller said in his order to detain Shereshevsky.
"His lengthy history as a con man convinces the court that he would not respect an order of release on any conditions," Miller said.
Shereshevsky, who is being held at a federal detention center in Brooklyn, is scheduled to appear at a Sept. 22 hearing on the criminal charge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Steven Byers, WexTrust's chairman and its majority owner, also was arrested on fraud charges related to the unauthorized diversion of investors' funds. Byers, of Oak Brook, Ill., was released last month on a
$4 million bond, secured in part by real estate.
In a memorandum supporting Shereshevsky's new bail request, his attorneys argue that their client "has substantial, if not overwhelming, family ties" and poses no risk of flight. Bail, they said, is essential to help his attorneys prepare for trial.
Without Shereshevsky's assistance, "the ability to present an effective defense, or even make competent suppression motions, may well be seriously impaired," the memorandum, filed Tuesday, said.
And even if Shereshevsky presents a risk of fleeing, the government must demonstrate that no conditions could be imposed that would reasonably assure his attendance in court, his attorneys contend. Shereshevsky, they said, would consent to home confinement with electronic monitoring and
permission to leave for religious observations and events, medical visits and meetings with his attorneys.
To secure the proposed bond for Shereshevsky's release, his father-in-law, Alan Verschleisser, is prepared to put up his primary home and a commercial property, both in Baltimore, the filing said. In addition, Shereshevsky's gardener, Lisa Handke, would put up her home on the 900 block of Elkin St. in Norfolk.
Also, 10 of Shereshevsky's relatives and friends are willing to sign a $5 million surety bond "as a testament to their belief that he is not a danger to the community or a risk of flight," the filing said.
Included in the document are excerpts from about 40 letters from family and friends describing Shereshevsky's charitable endeavors and his ties to the community.
http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2008/09/16/091708_1a_padilla.html
ReplyDeleteTuesday, September 16, 2008
Family of the fugitive whom Duane “Dog” Chapman is chasing on the Front Range say the famous bounty hunter has repeatedly threatened them during the course of his investigation.
Chapman, however, said he and his posse, featured on the A&E television show “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” have done nothing out of the ordinary.
Tony Padilla, father of Mesa County fugitive Marco Padilla, said Chapman and his crew over the past two weeks have shown up at his Aurora home and threatened him.
“I don’t know what to do,” Padilla said. “I swear to God. This is scary.”
Tony Padilla said Chapman and company threatened him, swore at him and demanded as recently as Monday night that he say where Marco is staying.
“I don’t know where he’s staying,” Padilla said. “I don’t know his phone number. Marco has changed his number.”
Marco Padilla, 32, is wanted on a $150,000 failure-to-appear warrant after he failed to show up for sentencing in a 2007 drug case in Mesa County.
Chapman and his crew, according to a police report filed Tuesday, also have harassed Elizabeth Padilla, Marco’s sister in Aurora. Padilla, according to the report, allowed Chapman, his wife, Beth, and his crew to search her home in August. Their interactions took a turn for the worse, the report said, when Chapman and his wife tailed her Sept. 10 after she left a Wal-Mart.
“When she got out of the vehicle, (Padilla) stated that Beth Chapman approached her and stated, ‘You don’t want to (expletive) with me, you stupid (expletive,)’ ” the report said.
The bounty hunter and his crew rolled into Grand Junction two weeks ago and announced they were going to pick up a dozen Mesa County fugitives wanted on a variety of methamphetamine-related charges.
Last week, Chapman reportedly apprehended four of those fugitives in Arapahoe and Denver counties.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/09/judge-allows-10-million-bail-investors-release
ReplyDeleteBy Tom Shean
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 5, 2008
A federal judge in Manhattan ruled Thursday that a Norfolk businessman arrested last month on fraud charges and detained by the government can be released on a $10 million bond.
Ten relatives and friends of the defendant, Joseph Shereshevsky, agreed to sign the bond, Martin J. Siegel, a New York attorney who is representing Shereshevsky, said after the bail hearing. Each of the 10 will have to be interviewed by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan to determine that they are financially responsible, Siegel said. Only five of the 10 can be family members, he said.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N), the giant U.S. savings and loan beleaguered by mortgage losses, has put itself up for sale, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20080905_Ex-Boeing_exec_indicted_in_kickback_scheme.html
ReplyDeleteEx-Boeing exec indicted in kickback scheme
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/09/08/2008-09-08_sheldon_silver_all_about_outoftowners__h.html
ReplyDeleteSheldon Silver all about out-of-towners & himself
Tuesday, September 9th 2008, 12:04 AM
Completing the Silver trifecta are commuting negligence lawyers, who benefit from Silver's ongoing opposition to tort reform.
That would probably include any commuting lawyers at Weitz & Luxenberg, the firm where Silver is "of counsel" for remuneration he declines to disclose.
http://www.daashakohol.com/files/Siruv1.pdf
ReplyDeleteAnother Rubashkin enabler.
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20117136&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568864&rfi=6
ReplyDeleteYou pass any legislation that the faygelach want which is why you are endorsed by Gay City News but you can't protect yeshiva kids from molesters?
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/08/22/swindle_plea/
ReplyDeleteA Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty to fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property in connection with the fraudulent sale of a retired New York City correction officer’s Cambria Heights house.
Moses Brach, 31, of 182 Lynch St., Brooklyn, who works in his family’s fish market, was charged in the case along with his brother, Joel Brach, 27, of 137-68th 70th St., Flushing, who was employed at a Queens real estate brokerage firm. The brother is a fugitive who is being sought internationally.
“This defendant took advantage, allegedly along with his brother, of an elderly man’s poor health by swindling him out of his home”, Queens district attorney Richard A. Brown said. “Fortunately, the victim, who suffers from dementia, was able to remain in his home and civil litigation is underway to ensure that he may remain there as the rightful owner. Fortunately, the scheme was uncovered after the victim’s eldest daughter, a New York City police officer, became suspicious of various transactions and reported the matter to my Economic Crimes Bureau.”
Joel Brach is believed to have fled to Israel. Moses Brach, employed at the family-owned 18th Avenue Kosher Fish Store in Borough Park, Brooklyn, pleaded guilty Thursday in Supreme Court in Kew Gardens before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth C. Holder to one count of fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to pay $50,000 in restitution and his check in that amount was personally delivered to the victim hours later by the prosecution.
Brown said that, according to the charges, 71-year-old Hoesey Walker sought the aid of Home Engergizer, Inc., a real estate brokerage company formerly located at 189-07 Jamaica Avenue in Hollis, in February 2007 to assist him in the purchase of real estate. Joel Brach, an employee of Home Energizer, allegedly handled the transaction involving Walker’s purchase that same month of two properties – one in Brooklyn and the other in Queens – for a total of $1.37 million.
The dastrict Attorney said it was further charged that shortly after the purchase of the two investment properties, Walker’s daughter, New York City police officer Kim Walker, discovered that her father had begun to exhibit signs of dementia and did not understand the financial consequences of purchasing the two investment properties. Officer Walker also discovered, it was alleged, that her father’s primary residence at 114-121 228th Street in Cambria Heights had been sold.
It is further alleged that the Cambria Heights residence was sold in March 2007 to the Brachs for $440,000 and that the equity proceeds from the sale of the house – $211,000 – were placed in a Wachovia joint banking account in which the Brachs and Walker were listed as the account holders. An investigation by the district attorney’s office determined that the account had allegedly been opened in March 2007 in Joel Brach’s name only and then his brother’s name was added as an account holder, and then finally that Walker’s name was added as an account holder – unbeknownst to him and only after the sale of his residence.
Finally, it is alleged that Mr. Walker was not present at the closing, which took place at 8 p.m. at the defendant Joel Brach’s Flushing residence. As a result of the sale, it is alleged, a check was made payable to Mr. Walker in the amount of $211,000 – which was then deposited into the Wachovia account that the Brachs had established.
Brown said that the existence of the check and the account came to light when a Wachovia representative contacted Walker and his family due to the suspicious nature of the deposit. At the request of the district attorney’s Office, the account’s assets have been frozen and remain frozen.
Brown noted that, as a result of the sale, a mortgage in the amount of $407,537 in the names of the Brachs was filed against Mr. Walker’s property and that mortgage is near foreclosure. Prior to the sale, Mr. Walker only had a mortgage of $187,633 on his property.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Wednesday a "next wave" of financial pain may come from overseas if foreign entities stop buying U.S. debt.
ReplyDeleteThe billionaire mayor spoke before an audience at Georgetown University, telling them it's not clear who is going to continue buying U.S. debt as financial firms try to cope with a crisis of confidence on Wall Street.
The mayor is scheduled to meet Thursday morning with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox.
Before becoming mayor, Bloomberg made a fortune by launching a financial information company that bears his name, and he has more credibility than most politicians on economic matters.
Thursday, September 18, 2008,
ReplyDeleteHONG KONG (AP) Hong Kong recalls a Chinese dairy's products after finding chemical tied to tainted formula.
This guy was arrested by undercover cops who staked out the block for parking meters that kept getting broken. He was caught in the act vanadalizing them with his bare hands.
ReplyDeleteHungarian Fressers shop at this store so they can feel good paying 5 times more for fruit than at any other store.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/dining/20figs.html
Streaked gold and green, candy-stripe figs from California look too beautiful to eat. But slice one of these exquisite fruits in half and you’ll see why Dan Spitz, the founder of the Orchard, a produce market in Brooklyn, calls them raspberry figs. The inside is the color of raspberry jam and even has a similar sweet-tart flavor and texture, thanks to the crunch of tiny seeds.
At the Orchard, 1367 Coney Island Avenue (Avenue J), Midwood, the figs are $19.99 a pound. A flat, about four and one-half pounds, is $80 and can be delivered for $20 extra: (718) 377-0800.
Even if Standard & Poor, Fitch and Moody's don't get criminally charged for the bogus ratings they benefit from, they will get sued into oblivion.
ReplyDeleteNoahide: World Morality Crashing
ReplyDeleteby Tamar Yonah
Terrorism, murder, sexual promiscuity, blasphemy, cruelty to animals and all that is evil in the eyes of G-d must be fought, says Ray Peterson, a Noahide living in the USA.
Noahides, or the "Children of Noah," are Gentiles who believe that the Torah was given to the Jewish people by the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and adhere to the Seven Noahide Laws which were set forth in the Book of Genesis (Bereishit) and elaborated upon in the Talmud. The Noahide movement has seen a resurgence in the last decade, with non-Jews around the world espousing belief in the Torah, rejecting other religions such as Christianity, and committing to live by the Torah laws set forth for non-Jews. The Seven Noahide laws are:
Prohibition of Idolatry
Prohibition of Murder
Prohibition of Theft
Prohibition of Sexual Promiscuity, including homosexuality, adultery, and perverse acts
Prohibition of Blasphemy
Prohibition of eating the flesh of an animal which was taken while the animal is still alive
Requirement to establish Laws and Courts to exercise justice
Speaking on Israel National Radio's Weekend Edition, Peterson remembered the horrors and the lessons of September 11th in his weekly audio segment.
Peterson described the day he and his wife found out about the terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He describes the shock Americans felt, and their questioning as to how G-d could let a tragedy like this happen. Peterson goes on to attribute the evil acts of September 11th to man rather than G–d, saying mankind has free will to determine whether it will do actions for Good or for Evil.
Peterson also warned listeners not to assume they are already keeping the Noahide Laws without trying, citing the example of the North American practice of eating "rocky mountain oysters," a delicacy which is gleaned during the castration of bulls while they are still living, making them not "kosher" for non-Jewish consumption.
Peterson, who runs the website www.NoahideNations.com, states that the way to fight evil, is to do positive actions. He describes his personal experiences of volunteering to help others and through it, being paid back many times over.
Bloomberg reads UOJ.
ReplyDeleteSorry! We're reusing the cups to save money now.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=31005
(Crain’s) — Solo Cup Co. plans to shut down its Highland Park factory and headquarters, cutting about 420 manufacturing jobs there, and move its corporate offices to Lake Forest.
Aiming to reduce production costs, Solo expects to shift about 200 of the Highland Park jobs to seven of its other U.S. plants, including one in Downstate Urbana and another on Chicago’s South Side. The company plans to close its Highland Park factory next July.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1021404.html
ReplyDeleteHamburg rabbi dismissed over charges of forged ordination
By Assaf Uni
Germany's Jewish community is up in arms over the dismissal of the Hamburg community rabbi at the beginning of the month.
Dov-Levy Barsilay was fired after community leaders allegedly discovered that his ordination certificate was not valid.
Barsilay, 60, accused the community leaders of trying to deprive him of his retirement pension, which he was about to negotiate before being dismissed.
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"We had to act on the evidence to prevent damage to the community. The diploma Barsilay presented was clearly fraudulent," said community president Ruben Herzberg.
Barsilay denied the accusation and told the media he was considering taking legal action against the community leadership.
Barsilay was appointed community rabbi in Hamburg in 1993. At the time, he presented an ordination certificate that had been issued in 1986. The local media reported that his ordination certificate had been issued by the Netanya rabbinate. But a clerk in the office of Netanya Chief Rabbi David Haim Chelouche yesterday confirmed that the rabbi had sent a letter, in response to a query from Hamburg, saying that the people who signed the ordination had not been authorized to do so.
In a telephone conversation with Haaretz, Herzberg said the sole reason for Barsilay's dismissal was the fact the ordination certificate was no longer valid. "There were rumors for quite a while, and we decided to check up on the matter," he said. "In an official letter we received from the rabbi in Netanya, it was determined that the certificate is not valid. We showed this information to Barsilay, and to his lawyer, during a hearing that took place two days before we announced that we were canceling the contract. The explanations that he gave us were not convincing."
Herzberg vehemently denied accusations lodged against him by the former chair of the Hamburg Jewish community, Andreas Wankum, that he and his administration belong to the "radical left," and that Wankum was simply indulging in "fantasies."
Herzberg added that the Jewish community was reeling in shock after it discovered that its rabbi of many years had not been properly ordained. He noted that despite the dismissal, Barsilay will be eligible for a pension from the state, noting that this was not a factor in the decision to fire him.
"It looks like a conspiracy against him," said Wankum, who served as chair of the Hamburg Jewish community until last summer. "The community's new leadership is extreme left and wants to reshape the community. Barsilay's dismissal is part of that."
Wankum, a businessman and member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, said "members of the Jewish community are shocked by the way the dismissal was done, on Sabbath eve. The Jews in Germany are in a very delicate situation, this kind of conduct does not improve their status."
A few community members have published a letter denouncing the dismissal.
Barsilay, who is in Israel now, believes the main reason for dismissing him was to prevent paying him retirement pension. "In two weeks time I would be eligible for early pension," he said. "They had to find something to pin on me to justify firing me."
"The new management wanted me to give them classified material about one of the members [of the community leadership], and I couldn't do that," he said.
He said he would take legal measures against his dismissal and that in addition to the ordination issued in Netanya he had another rabbinical ordination.
Herzberg would not respond to questions from Haaretz. He told the German media that the only reason for Barsilay's firing was his invalid ordination certificate. The Chief Rabbinate in Israel said it was "not familiar with the affair."
I agree with "UOJ fan" - nothing can stop it at this point. Those "in the know" have already or are in the process of moving their funds to pay off debts and mortgages and invest what's left in commodities funds. The average guy on the street will have no such luck - they'll lose a lot of value in their insurance, retirement and stock investments and panic and try and withdraw it. At that point (and we're pretty much there), a snowball effect takes place and the whole house of cards comes crashing down. What you've seen so far is just the tip of the iceburg. The "powers that be" were focusing on holding oil prices down before the election and lost their grip on the mortgage mess issue. Having lost it, it will be extremely hard to get it back - and even govt bailouts won't really help now, because overseas institutional investors know good and well that there isn't enough tax revenue in all of the US to pay all those obligations plus the obligations for social welfare and military action that we already have. The US is beyond actuarily broke - we're deep in the hole and everybody knows it. Where will these hundreds of thousands of financial industry workers find jobs, class? "Ain't gonna happen."
ReplyDeleteThe one responsible for permitting Kolko and others like him to molest hundreds of young boys throughout the years is Yisroel Belsky of Camp Aguda. He knew about the molestations but chose to be silent. His job in the Catskils was more important than the lives of all those children being destroyed. This must be pointed out for all to know.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3594634,00.html
ReplyDeleteAn askan who helps agunos.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=vn20080904054302422C710740
ReplyDeleteJerusalem - Israel's High Rabbinical court has ruled against a man who sought to avoid paying a divorce settlement because his former wife stripped before his friends while they were married.
The court pointed out that the man had not objected to his wife's behaviour at the time and that he had photographed her as she took off her clothes in front of his buddies, the English-language Jerusalem Post said on Wednesday.
The man later hung photos of his naked wife in their bedroom.
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/mailing-attacks-silver-over-handling-of-rape/85095/
ReplyDeleteThe race to unseat the speaker of the Assembly is heating up with the release of a mailer attacking Sheldon Silver for his handling of an allegation of rape against one of his top political aides.
The Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, appears at the Democratic National Convention alongside Senator Clinton, Governor Paterson, and the New York State delegation in August 27.
The mailer was sent out yesterday to more than 35,000 residents in the Lower Manhattan district
The Dow Jones is down again today.
ReplyDeleteThey say that State Street Financial is in trouble now.
Shoulda ran for prez.!
ReplyDelete-------------------------
Mike Bloomberg: Next Wave of Crisis Looms
Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:55 AM
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Wednesday a "next wave" of financial pain may come from overseas if foreign entities stop buying U.S. debt.
Officials: NY state could lose 40,000 jobs, $3B
ReplyDeleteThursday September 18, 1:03 pm ET
By Michael Gormley, Associated Press Writer
Projection says New York state could lose up to 40,000 jobs and $3B in taxes over 2 years
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A new projection shows Wall Street's meltdown will likely cost New York state up to 40,000 private sector jobs and $3 billion in tax revenues over the next two years, two state officials said Thursda
The revised numbers in the snapshot of worst case estimates was done Wednesday at the highest levels of New York's state government.
The projection is worse than Gov. David Paterson predicted just Tuesday when he said the state could lose some $1 billion in revenue because of upheaval in the financial sector.
Wall Street is a major economic force in New York state, generating one-fifth of the state's revenues each year.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to comment on the fiscal analysis.
Both hits would be substantial. The total New York state budget including federal funds is about $120 billion, and the state has about 7.25 million private-sector jobs.
State officials used the model of the fiscal damage to New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, Gov. George Pataki said it was the worst financial hit to New York since the Great Depression 70 years earlier.
The new analysis includes the stock market drop, lost revenue from transactions and projected lost income tax revenue from Wall Street jobs.
Three of the five major U.S. investment banks -- Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch -- have either gone out of business or been driven into the arms of another bank. The two remaining banks, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, are under siege.
The only reason I have for the last few weeks been writing about abuse is precisely due to its far-reaching and devastating effects on so many lives. And not just for now, but for generations to come. Everything we build and teach our children, all our investments and dedication to good, all our moral standards, our entire education system, can be wiped out in one fell swoop when we or our children are violated.
ReplyDeleteI have been trained in the Torah way of thinking that any question we have must be framed in objective context, and weighed by various moral criteria that help us achieve some clarity. This is especially true for controversial and emotionally charged issues, due to their subjective effect on all of us – fear, anger, vengeance, shock, disbelief, and all the other complex feelings evoked by abuse.
The first of all ethical and Torah axioms must be stated at the outset: No one has a right to in any way violate in any way the body or soul of another human being. Indeed, we don’t even have the right to mutilate our own bodies, because your body does not belong to you; it is “Divine property.” Let alone someone else’s property. No crime is worse that assaulting another’s dignity – which is compared to the dignity of G-d Himself, being that every person was created in the Divine Image. Even a hanged murderer must not be defiled and his body not left to hang overnight because it reflects the Divine Image. How much more so – infinitely more so – regarding a live person and innocent child…
Abuse, in any form or shape, physical, psychological, verbal, emotional or sexual, is above all a violent crime – a terrible crime. Abusing another (even if it’s intangible) is no different than taking a weapon and beating someone to a pulp. And because of its terrible long-term effects, the crime is that much worse.
What do we do with violent criminals? We punish them. Once it has been determined that abuse was perpetrated, there should be consequences, both for the perpetrator and as a deterrent to other potential violators. The actual consequences need to be determined by local legal and Torah standards by the authorities on location. If for any reason the Torah authorities cannot deal with the situation, the only recourse is the same one employ for murderers, thieves and other criminals: legal action.
The next question is this: What are our obligations as parents, teachers, writers, website editors, or just plain adult citizens, when it comes to abuse?
On one hand we are talking about protecting innocent people from criminal predators, which clearly is a major obligation and priority concern. On the other hand, we do have laws prohibiting embarrassing people (even criminals) in public, always hopeful, allowing people to correct their ways. We have laws about avoiding gossip and speaking ill about others (loshon hora), and not feeding into the base instinct of “talking about others” or “mob mentality” witch-hunting expeditions.
We have several obligations when we see or know about a crime, as well as obligations to prevent further crimes:
1) A witness to a crime who does not testify “must bear his guilt” (Leviticus 5:1).
2) “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14), which includes the obligation to warn someone from a danger we are aware of. If you see someone walking down the street and you know that further down the block there is an uncovered pit in the ground or a man with a gun, you are obligated to warn him.
If we are aware of a predator we must do everything possible to protect people from him.
3) “Do not stand still over your neighbor's blood (when your neighbor's life is in danger)” (Leviticus 19:16). It’s interesting to note that this commandment follows (in the same verse) “do not go around as a gossiper among your people,” suggesting that gossip is an issue only when no life is in danger. But if a life is in danger then “do not stand still” even if means speaking about it in public.
4) “You must admonish your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him” (ibid 17).
If one does not admonish, then he is responsible for the other's sin (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive 205; see Shabbat 54b. 119b). Though at the outset rebuke must be done “in private, kindly and gently,” not to embarrass him publicly (Arkhin 16b; Sefer HaMitzvoth, Negative 305), but if it doesn’t help, the obligation is to admonish him in pubic (Rambam Deos 6:8. Shulchan Aruch HaRav Hilchos Onaah v’Gneivas Daas 30).
This is true even about a crime that does not affect other people. All the care taken about public shame is because the crime does not affect the public. And even then, there are situations where the admonishment must be done publicly. By contrast, in our discussion about abuse, which affects others, all these restrictions do not apply: Embarrassment of a criminal is never an excuse a reason to put anyone else in potential danger.
Based on the above, I would submit that the following criteria to determine whether to publish and publicize the name of a molester:
1) The abuse must be established without a shred of doubt. Because just as we must protect the potential victims of abuse, we also are obligated to protect the reputations of the innocent, and not wrongly accuse anyone without evidence or witnesses.
2) Publicizing the fact will serve as a deterrent or even possible deterrent of further crimes, or will warn and protect possible future victims. If that is true, than “loshon hora” (speaking ill about someone) does not apply. It would be the equivalent of saying that it is “loshan hora” to warn someone of a weapon-wielding criminal who may cause harm!
If however publicity will not serve any benefit to the public, then there would be no reason to mention an individual’s name. For instance, if abuse took place years ago, and the crime has recently surfaced, unless publicizing the name could potentially protect future incidents, what point would there be to exposing the identity of the abuser? He may even have done teshuvah and been rehabilitated.
Even if he caused great damage to those he abused, and his victims want to get even and publicize his name, that alone may not be enough reason, unless it may help prevent future abuse. What may require further research is whether public shame in this instance is a legitimate form of punishment. This also touches upon the laws of forgiveness, which include the exception that one need not forgive if the perpetrator still needs to be humbled or if in the process the victim is being hurt.
3) Even if a name is not publicized, the issue of abuse itself must be addressed for the same reasons stated: To make the public aware of the dangers, to protect innocent children.
The argument that publicity will give the community a “bad name” and “why wash our dirty laundry in public?” does not supersede the obligation to protect the innocent from being hurt.
Anyone who suggests that abuse must be overlooked, because (as one person told me) it “happens all the time” and “by many people, including our leaders,” or for any other reasons – is not different than ignoring any other crime, and is in itself a grave crime.
One could even argue, that the greatest “Kiddush Hashem” (sanctifying G-d’s name) is when a Torah based community demonstrates that it doesn’t just mechanically follow the laws or isn’t merely concerned with reputations and shidduchim, but that it sets and demands the highest standard of accountability amongst its citizens, and invest the greatest possible measures to protect its children from predators, create trust and absolutely will not tolerate any breach or abuse. That the greatest sin of all is ignoring or minimizing crimes being perpetrated against our most innocent and vulnerable members: our children.
In conclusion: The bottom line in all matters regarding abuse is one and only one thing: Protecting the innocent. Not the reputation of an individual, not the reputation of the community, not anything but the welfare of our children. In every given case, whether to publicize or not, whether to take any other action or not, the question that must be asked is this: What is best for the potential victims? Will or can this action help prevent someone from being hurt or not? If the answer is yes or even maybe yes, then the action should be taken.
Obviously, this has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, due to the different nuances in every given situation. And of course, there will be instances when there are exceptions due to unique circumstances. Therefore, it is vital that competent, sensitive and educated authorities be consulted when a question arises.
My writing is not meant to serve as a “psak halacha,” a legal ruling. Rather, simply an attempt to frame the issues in terms that can help us discuss the issues and come away with some measure of clarity.
Legal rulings require more in-depth review and analysis by experts, preferably by more than one, to establish a consensus.
But one thing is clear: The crisis has reached a boiling point where is must be addressed and brought to the attention of the public, if nothing else, to make everyone aware of the dangers, the long-term consequences and the zero-tolerance policy that needs to be applied to every form of abuse.
Anything less would be irresponsible, immoral, and, yes, is some way complicit.
* * *
Efshar der NY Mets but I don't do nutting to no one, not even to a ketzelle.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/18/national/main4457717.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4457717
(CBS/AP) A trial has begun in the case of a baseball player-turned-actor accused of brutally killing a cat in a jealous rage after complaining that his ex-girlfriend cared more for the feline than she did for him.
Assistant District Attorney Leila Kermani said the cat named Norman died with broken teeth, broken ribs, a broken leg, a torn tongue, massive internal injuries including bruised lungs and a bruised liver and a chest cavity filled with blood.
"The defendant, in a fit of anger and rage, beat a defenseless animal to death," Kermani told the jury in her opening remarks Wednesday. "The defendant killed Norman simply because he was an angry, jealous and drunken bully."
Former New York Mets baseball minor leaguer Joseph Petcka, 37, is on trial on charges of aggravated cruelty to animals for killing Norman on March 27, 2007, after a night of heavy drinking. He faces up to two years in prison if convicted.
Petcka's lawyer, Charles Hochbaum, admitted his client kicked the 8-year-old tabby and "swatted him really hard" after the cat bit him, but he said his client did not mean to kill him.
"This was a tragic accident," Hochbaum said. "It was not intentional."
Hochbaum complained the district attorney's office never offered his client a plea deal. He said outside court he believes that was because of the publicity the case attracted and the urgings of cat fanciers.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/09/18/student.debt/index.html
ReplyDeleteMyRichUncle.com is the most recent lender to suspend its private student loan program, joining the ranks of major financial institutions like Wachovia and Bank of America and companies specializing in student loans such as College Loan Corporation and Campus Door, which was backed by Lehman Brothers
"Due to continued disruptions in the capital markets, combined with the continued demand we have experienced this year, we are reaching funding capacity limits,"
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/aig.singapore/index.html
ReplyDeleteHundreds of customers flocked to the Singapore office of troubled insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG) on Wednesday, many hoping to pull their investments and policies from the company.
The crowd formed just hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve Board authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend $85 billion to a crumbling AIG.
http://www.rttnews.com/ArticleView.aspx?Id=701329&Category=Private%20Equity
ReplyDeleteGMAC to close all retail mortgage offices, lay off 5,000 employees
There is a rift in the Republican Party over the future of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, with Republican presidential nominee John McCain calling for his dismissal and President George W. Bush vocalizing his support for the Chairman.
ReplyDeleteCox has come under scrutiny in light of the unprecedented financial turmoil that has resulted in the collapse of financial institutions that were the bedrock of Wall Street, requiring extraordinary steps from the government.
In remarks delivered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, McCain called for the removal of Cox, stating that the Chairman has "betrayed the public's trust."
http://www.jewishpress.com/content.cfm?contentid=36327
ReplyDeleteWednesday, September 17 2008
We have long marveled at the often mindless criticism directed by local media outlets against New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, someone who has been returned to office by the voters in his district for more than thirty years and designated Speaker by his colleagues in the Assembly for the past 12 years (six two-year stints).
We admit up front to being greatly appreciative of the things Speaker Silver has done to protect the rights of Jews to pursue their daily lives in accord with their particular religious needs. But even putting that aside, the fact remains that Mr. Silver has regularly given voice to the majority of New Yorkers who are routinely ignored by a facile and one-dimensional media and ignored by a mayor who has difficulty brooking dissent. And for that he is routinely demonized as some dictatorial ogre and as if his positions have absolutely no rational basis.
The contretemps over the West Side stadium and congestion pricing come immediately to mind. And if the recent past is any guide, the issue of mayoral control of the city's public school system and some proposals about selling the Brooklyn Bridge and other facilities will provide new occasions for similar attacks.
The recent primary campaign was a great lesson in point. On Sept. 13, the New York Daily News noted on its editorial page that although New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver garnered 68% of the votes cast in his district in the Assembly primary election last week, in hard numbers that added up to 6,743 votes.
"At bottom," the News lamented, "It is grotesque that the slim tally of 6,743 votes will give Silver such a disproportionate say over the lives of 19 million New Yorkers."
Really? Does anyone know how many votes Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, received in the 2006 election in the 8th Congressional District in San Francisco? She got 80% of the vote - but in actual numbers that translates to 110,989 voters who actually voted for her. Yet Ms. Pelosi calls the tune, in very large measure, for 300 million Americans. Does anyone ever recall seeing an editorial in the Daily News or anywhere else calling attention to these numbers? Mr. Silver's vote tally comes out to .037% of the total population of New York State - Pelosi's comes to .036% of the total population of the United States.
And what about Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate? His numbers? Nevada has a population of 2,495,529. In the last election Sen. Reid got 494, 805 votes, or 61% of the total vote in his state. Does anyone recall reading any complaints about how 61 percent of voters in one state have such a disproportionate influence on the politics of the country?
The day after Speaker Silver's victory in the primary, New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser, in a column titled "Triumph of the Useless and Undead," wrote: "In the end despite some real opposition and fervent enemies, Sheldon Silver couldn't be killed." And she offered this bit of profundity about Mr. Silver's victory speech: "[It] seems like he wrote it in an undead state....'This campaign was about real people with real needs,' Shelly droned. 'Not about tabloid headlines. Not about mayors and governors. It was about results.' "
Is this what passes for deep political thinking at the Post?
And there was also the Post's already infamous doctored front-page picture of Speaker Silver as Count Dracula, including gratuitous - and incendiary - droplets of blood dripping from his lips, that appeared on the day of the primary accompanied by the screaming headline "POLS SUCK!/ Paterson Rips NY Lawmakers as 'Draculas.' "
The basis for the story was a comment by Governor David Paterson criticizing elected officials who mislead advocates who come to plead their cause. As reported by the Post the governor said, "I used to think legislators practice their own versions of being Count Dracula. They would be very nice to the advocates when they came to Albany. By 5 o'clock, the sun would go down and they would go back to who they are - a bunch of bloodsuckers."
Notice, no mention of any names - and if anything, given the governor's long-time service in the New York State Senate, he was more than likely referring to some of his old Senate colleagues. The connection between the story and the Post's front-page Silver-as-Dracula picture? The story contained the throwaway line that "Among the lawmakers facing significant primary challenges today is Assembly Speaker Silver." That's it.
As a sign of things to come, Peyser lamented in her column that Silver "could hold the fate of mayoral control over the schools in his hands, too." To be sure, Mr. Silver has said the issue of continued mayoral control was not a simple one and the current law has to be "tweaked." Yet even The New York Times, no friend of Mr. Silver, noted that there are issues with the current system of mayoral control that need "to be discussed in a civil climate as the reauthorization process gets under way." And The New York Sun reported on Tuesday that "Business leaders, academics, and activists are offering up a range of suggestions - which include reviving congestion pricing, selling city bridges, and eliminating subway fares altogether - on how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should handle its looming shortfalls."
If Mayor Bloomberg happens to decide to embrace any of these proposals, should that really be the end of rational discussion? And will the media cast Speaker Silver in the role of an obstructionist foe of progress if he decides to take issue with the mayor on those or other matters? We want to say stay tuned, but we know better.
Re: Sheldon Silver
Date 01:09, 09-18, 08
Orthodox Jewry should not support a fellow Orthodox Jew who votes for unlimited abortion, gay rights, and opposes tax relief for parochial schools. Shame on Silver and his supporters.
Yitz Lieberman
Midwood, NY
http://www.jewishpress.com/postcomment.cfm
ReplyDeletePost Your Comment about "The Media And The Speaker"
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Orthodox Jews should also not vote for Silver, who in bending to the corrupt Agudath Israel of America, blocks passage of a bill requiring that yeshivos check staff for child abuse convictions. It seems prudent to vote for any candidate but those endorsed by this newspaper.
Rabbi U.O.J. Groupie
New York City
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-kosherslaughterho,0,3585239.story
ReplyDeleteTroubled meatpacking company Agriprocessors has hired a New York attorney to be its new chief executive officer.
Bernard Feldman will take the helm of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking operation at a time when the company is fighting thousands of state charges alleging child labor law violations at its plant in Postville, Iowa.
Feldman specializes in the reorganization of companies.
The May 12 raid led to the arrest of 389 people on Immigration charges. Company officials say Feldman's first task is restoring the plant to pre-May 12 production levels.
Posted by: Archie Bunker | September 18, 2008 at 01:38 PM
Same guy?
www.floridasupremecourt.org/clerk/disposition/2004/1/02-1297.pdf
Accordingly, Bernard Feldman is hereby disbarred from the practice of law in. the State of Florida.
Posted by: Archie Bunker | September 18, 2008 at 01:43 PM
Feldman, Bernard S Attorney
2631 Merrick Road Suite 201
Bellmore, NY
11710
(516)781-4100
What a farce! Feldman is the lawyer defending Rubashkin in the money laundering scandal!
http://www.newsday.com/business/local/ny-mblosn3849239jun14,0,5775488,print.story
Agriprocessors Inc., said to be the nation's largest kosher meat distributor, is the subject of a federal court suit filed by Kenneth Silverman, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Allou, who alleges that Allou made at least 19 separate payments totaling $2.8 million directly to the Iowa company between July 1997 and March 2001 and did not receive any fair consideration value for those payments. In court papers, Silverman says there is no evidence that Allou was ever in the kosher meat business. Allou distributed health, beauty and pharmaceutical products nationwide to corner pharmacies and giant chain stores like Walgreens and Wal-Mart. But Bernard Feldman, the Bellmore attorney representing Agriprocessors, says his client "will be vigorously defending this claim," adding "we have furnished substantial and voluminous documentation. Agriprocessors has given more than fair and adequate consideration for any monies given to us."
Bernard Samuel Feldman also has a Great Neck office on Cuttermill Rd.
ReplyDeleteThere are actually several Bernard S Feldmans living on Long Island
This is like after UOJ forced Shea Fishman's retirement. The new head of Torah Umesorah is Agudah lawyer "Flunky" Gottesman.
ReplyDeletehttp://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/%E2%80%98shame%E2%80%99-not-threats-led-to-resignation/
ReplyDeleteAnother therapist, who requested anonymity, said that he had received threats because of his activities concerning child abuse in the Orthodox community. He is Orthodox, lives and works in the Five Towns and treats patients across the spectrum from Charedi to Modern Orthodox. His children were threatened, he said, with not being accepted into yeshivot or for shidduchim, and he was threatened with financial ruin.
“There is this situation where there is this virtue police trying to dampen down reality and say it doesn’t exist,” the man told The Jewish Star.
Reformers in the Orthodox community so far have faced an uphill battle.
“There is a problem in our community in which people who try to address issues that the community has swept under the carpet are intimidated by a sensibility … that anyone who tries to change the status quo is a threat,” said Dr. Asher Lipner, a psychologist who works in the frum community.
The mission of the new taskforce is to collect information concerning suspected child molesters and to make that information available to schools. The taskforce also intended to develop a protocol to deal with sexual abuse in the Orthodox community.
According to Hikind, a sexual abuse hotline he set up has been inundated with callers telling stories of abuse inside the Orthodox community –– perpetrated, the callers say, by rabbis, teachers and community members. His office has also met with accused pedophiles, since most victims in the Brooklyn community are afraid to press charges for fear of social stigma.
“If you’re a child molester, the best community to come to is Borough Park, Flatbush, Lakewood or Monroe. Your chances of being arrested are much smaller because people don’t press charges,” Hikind said. “Even if a rabbi gets kicked out of a yeshiva for doing things, he goes to another yeshiva. No one does anything about it.”
While he would not name names or reveal other details, Hikind says some of the cases his office is dealing with have come from the Five Towns and Far Rockaway. He also said he met with a number of Long Island-based therapists to discuss the issue.
Some therapists told The Jewish Star that there are some distinctions between the cases occurring in the Five Towns and ones in Brooklyn.
“In terms of my own practice, a lot of the cases in Brooklyn center around teacher/rebbe student abuse,” said Gavriel Fagin. He is a forensic social worker and adjunct professor at Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work, who lives in Woodmere but maintains a practice in Brooklyn.
“The situations that I’ve been involved in the Five Towns, by and large, have been with older community members with younger community members. That could be a 17-year-old with a 9-year-old; a 25-year-old with an 1-year-old. But it has not been a teacher-student interaction,” Fagin said.
Norman Blumenthal, a psychologist affiliated with Chai Lifeline and North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center, declined to comment on specific cases, but said: “I think we have to sit down with rabbis and educators and work this issue into the curriculum. We have to teach children to protect themselves. The corollary to that is that we also need to teach our children how to deal with their sexual urges and how to address them because we’re not really addressing that. We need to start talking to them about a Torah perspective on sexual urges and expressions.”
Hikind is confident that once the taskforce’s work is presented to rabbinical leaders, they will act.
“I’m not saying we’re going to solve the problem, we’re going to make a difference,” Hikind said. “When you get one pedophile off the street, do you know how many children you save?”
Let's see UOJ's reaction.
ReplyDeleteAll I do is say "Resolution Trust Corp" and the Dow shoots up 410 points.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo that he's going after short seller fressers.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/us/11meat.html?hp
ReplyDelete"For the top manager, Rabbi Genack said, “We want to see a new face, somebody independent ..."
Rabbi Genack, one week before Rubashkin's own lawyer was hired for the task.
R' Henoch said R - T - C - but he meant:
ReplyDeleteReishes - First...
Torah - To be able to follow the Torah appropriately....
Chachmah - one must have wisdom....
Yiddishkeit's market would then not need a bailout!
Crony Bernard Feldman's appointment raises a number of issues regarding independence, attorney client privilege and ongoing state and federal investigations and criminal cases, and other issues of transparency at Rubashkin and the OU.
ReplyDeleteHong Kong recalls dairy products as melamine scandal widens
ReplyDeleteHong Kong has recalled dairy products made by a company implicated in the contaminated milk scandal that has killed four babies in China.
The recall was ordered after tests found milk, ice-cream and yogurt contaminated with the chemical melamine.
Four babies died and thousands are ill after being fed tainted baby milk, and Chinese police have arrested 18 people over the contamination.
One mother says she is angry with milk producers and quality inspection departments.
"I dare not feed by baby with any brand of baby formula anymore and I've already stopped feeding him with it. I can only give him adult food like rice noodles."
And that attorney-client relationship may loom very large when the Rubashkins are indicted and "CEO" Bernard S. Feldman is subpoenaed.
ReplyDeleteHey U.S., welcome to the Third World!
ReplyDeleteIt's been a quick slide from economic superpower to economic basket case.
Rosa Brooks - L.A.TIMES
September 18, 2008
Dear United States, Welcome to the Third World!
It's not every day that a superpower makes a bid to transform itself into a Third World nation, and we here at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund want to be among the first to welcome you to the community of states in desperate need of international economic assistance. As you spiral into a catastrophic financial meltdown, we are delighted to respond to your Treasury Department's request that we undertake a joint stability assessment of your financial sector.
In these turbulent times, we can provide services ranging from subsidized loans to expert advisors willing to perform an emergency overhaul of your entire government.
As you know, some outside intervention in your economy is overdue. Last week -- even before Wall Street's latest collapse -- 13 former finance ministers convened at the University of Virginia and agreed that you must fix your "broken financial system."
Australia's Peter Costello noted that lately you've been "exporting instability" in world markets, and Yashwant Sinha, former finance minister of India, concluded, "The time has come. The U.S. should accept some monitoring by the IMF."
We hope you won't feel embarrassed as we assess the stability of your economy and suggest needed changes. Remember, many other countries have been in your shoes. We've bailed out the economies of Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea. But whether our work is in Sudan, Bangladesh or now the United States, our experts are committed to intervening in national economies with care and sensitivity.
We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.
Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.
Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions.
Now you are facing the consequences. Income inequality has increased, as the rich have gotten windfalls while the middle class has seen incomes stagnate. Fewer and fewer of your citizens have access to affordable housing, healthcare or security in retirement. Even life expectancy has dropped. And when your economic woes went from chronic to acute, you responded -- like so many Third World states have -- with an extensive program of nationalizing private companies and assets. Your mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now state owned and controlled, and this week your reinsurance giant AIG was effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve Board seizing an 80% equity stake in the flailing company.
Some might deride this as socialism. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Admittedly, your transition to Third World status is far from over, and it won't be painless. At first, for instance, you may find it hard to get used to the shantytowns that will replace the exurban sprawl of McMansions that helped fuel the real estate speculation bubble. But in time, such shantytowns will simply become part of the landscape. Similarly, as unemployment rates continue to rise, you will initially struggle to find a use for the expanding pool of angry, jobless young men. But you will gradually realize that you can recruit them to fight in a ceaseless round of armed conflicts, a solution that has been utilized by many other Third World states before you. Indeed, with your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are off to an excellent start.
Perhaps this letter comes as a surprise to you, and you feel you're not fully ready to join the Third World. Don't let this feeling concern you. Though you may never have realized it, you've been preparing for this moment for years.
rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/NEWS/80918024/0/NEWS09
ReplyDeleteIs Genack nuts? Here he is insisting that Feldman can still be classified as "independent".
He then says he has no idea if Sholom Rubashkin is still going to be hanging around and calling the shots.
Is Genack nuts?
ReplyDeleteHe's just another wicked liar.
The posts about issues totally not related to UOJ are distracting. Why must this area be used to post stories about the financial crisis?
ReplyDeleteWhy not stick to the issues of this site?
Anon 6:46, it's people like you who Donald Trump was astonished at last night, asking what planet you come from.
ReplyDeleteWe are in a financial depression not seen since the 1920s that will affect everything UOJ rants about from yeshivos to what not.
I'm the big shot in the Conservative movement who donates sifrei Torah to all the temples.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--developerindicted0918sep18,0,7808162.story
September 18, 2008
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) _ Federal authorities claim a developer gave bribes and corrupt payments to a former Parsippany-Troy Hills Planning Board attorney to help the builder advance his projects.
Edward J. Mosberg, 82, of Union, was indicted Thursday on six counts of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and four counts of bribery. If convicted of all charges, he could face up to 180 years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney's Office alleges that between about 1998 and 2007, Mosberg gave corrupt payments, concealed as favorable real estate transactions, to the attorney, John Montefusco Sr., and some of the attorney's family members.
At the time, Mosberg owned a Morris Plains real estate development company. Montefusco pleaded guilty in February to illegally aiding the developer.
Britain's Financial Services Authority said it is temporarily banning short-selling of shares in publicly traded financial companies. FSA Chief Executive Hector Sants said his organization regards short-selling as a legitimate investment technique, but "extreme circumstances" have required new rules to protect against further financial turmoil.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nj.com/news/ledger/topstories/index.ssf/2008/09/jersey_shore_nurse_charged_in.html
ReplyDeleteA nurse has been arrested for murdering a Jewish patient with an injection. The Jersey Shore Medical Center was fined by the State $475,000 for trying to cover it up. The nurse worked previously at Kimball Hospital in Lakewood.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/18/news/economy/rtc_speculation/index.htm
ReplyDeleteBanking consultant Bert Ely is skeptical about the government getting involved at all. If the government chooses to "prop up the institutions or allows the institutions to offload asset onto a government entity, who's going to take the losses? It's financial insanity. The markets have to clear. Our fundamental problem: an oversupply of housing."
http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2008/0828/front_page/003.html
ReplyDeleteUOJ posted that article that we should expect to see shantytowns. Here's one in Lakewood that was dismantled by police for being a nuisance.
http://jacksontimes.micromediapubs.com/news/2008/0823/community_news/044.html
ReplyDeleteNinth Annual Pig Roast. The pig roast will be held at Pine Park, in the Clarence Brown Picnic area, located in Lakewood. The pig roast is an all-you-can-eat fun filled day
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/08/25/fake_gyn/
ReplyDeleteMost of the newspapers didn't report that all the girls I molested are frum, but this one does.
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080919/NEWS03/809190405/-1/SPORTS
ReplyDeleteMONSEY - A religious organization has asked the county for permission again this year to hold a ceremony involving live chickens on land off Route 59 where a drive-in theater once stood.
But the county, which gave the same group approval to use the land last year, has told ceremony organizer Moshe Lefkowitz that it couldn't grant permission because it doesn't own the property, according to a letter from County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef's office.
Lefkowitz, who was fined $3,000 in January by the Rockland Board of Health for leaving the site strewn with blood, feces, feathers and other garbage that attracted flies and maggots, said yesterday that the ceremony would be held again this year, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 11, but he was not sure where. He said he was in contact with the owners of the Monsey drive-in site.
A lawyer representing the owners of the old drive-in property in Monsey yesterday said no one had contacted him to ask to use the property for the Kapparot ceremony.
Some Jews perform the ritual in the days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the ceremony, a live chicken is held above a person's head and swung or moved in a circle three times. The chicken is then slaughtered and its meat donated to the poor.
"No one ever asked us - and if they did, the answer would be no," said Joseph Appleman, a Cliffside Park, N.J., attorney who represents owners of the 22-acre site. "If we find anyone on that property, we will press charges for trespassing."
Appleman said he and the property owners were shocked to learn -months after the fact - that Rockland County had given permission to the Monsey group last year to keep and slaughter 11,000 chickens on the site.
"It's not their land," he said. "How could they give permission for someone to do something on private property?"
A spokeswoman for Vanderhoef said the county was under the impression that it owned the land when organizers of the Kapparot ceremony asked for permission to use the site last year.
The county leases 5 or 6 acres of the 22-acre parcel for use as a park-and-ride lot.
"We thought we owned it," spokeswoman C.J. Miller said. "It was an honest mistake."
Appleman said the county leased land bordering Route 59, in front of what was once the old drive-in screen. The county does not lease the property behind the screen, he said.
In a letter to organizers of the Kapparot ceremony last year, county officials told participants that "all group activities are to take place in the areas BEHIND the old drive-in movie screen so as not to interfere with commuter parking," according to documents.
The ceremony has been held on the old drive-in site for many years, even though last year was the first time the group apparently asked for permission to do so.
Many residents were alarmed both by the way the chickens were treated and the odors coming from the property.
Chestnut Ridge resident Peggy Hatton said she couldn't understand why the county granted permission last year. She said she didn't believe the county's explanation that it made a mistake last year that wasn't discovered until this year.
"They are just trying to appease the all-powerful bloc vote in the town of Ramapo," she said.
Miller, Vanderhoef's spokeswoman, denied that.
The Hudson Valley Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has gone to the site for the past several years to check on the condition of the chickens.
Marc Kissel, an officer with the Humane Society, said that for several years the chickens were kept in poor conditions - sometimes without food or water - but last year the situation had improved somewhat.
"We want to make sure that while the chickens are in our jurisdiction they are treated as humanely as possible," Kissel said.
Lefkowitz said he would be willing to work with the group again to make sure the chickens were treated properly.
The Rockland Health Department also monitored the ceremony last year to make sure sanitary procedures were followed.
The health commissioner, Dr. Joan Facelle, said yesterday that no one had contacted the department about holding the ceremony this year.
There is nothing in the county sanitary code that would prohibit a large number of chickens being kept in a residential area, she said.
But such a site would have to be kept clean and odor-free, she said.
The Health Department would welcome working with organizers to make sure proper sanitary steps were taken. It also would respond if it received any complaints.
Appleman said he didn't know where the ceremony would be held, but he knew it wouldn't be on his client's property.
In the past, he has granted Ramapo permission to use the land for a religious ceremony connected with the Passover holiday in which bread is burned. But the town in each case assured him in writing that there would be adequate police and fire protection and were provided a copy of an insurance policy shielding the owners from liability.
"If they are slaughtering chickens, they are obviously using knives. What if someone gets hurt?" he asked. "There's not enough insurance in the world for us to allow that on the property."
Reach Jane Lerner at jlerner@lohud.com or 845-578-2458.
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/NEWS03/809180407
ReplyDeleteHealth inspectors will continue to monitor a Monsey restaurant that was fined for numerous health code violations, officials said yesterday at a Board of Health meeting.
If the situation doesn't improve, officials said, the county might consider revoking the establishment's license to operate.
Conditions were so bad at European Homemade Foods that health inspectors closed the restaurant down during a Jan. 29 inspection.
Health officials cited the restaurant, at 82 Route 59, for 18 violations, including numerous live and dead roaches throughout the establishment, mold and grease in the kitchen, food kept at potentially hazardous temperatures and workers failing to use gloves when preparing food.
The restaurant was allowed to reopen a day later after the violations were corrected.
European Homemade Foods was also fined for unsanitary conditions in 2006 and 2004, according to records.
Aron Unger, a representative of the restaurant, reached a settlement with the county Department of Health to pay a $2,900 fine for the most recent violations.
They should get me to manage Rubashkin's worker dorms in Putzville.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/NEWS03/809180407
- 142 NP RD LLC, owner, 142 N. Pascack Road 2, Nanuet, was fined $2,400 for numerous housing violations including holes in walls and in the foundation. Owner Michael Streicher told the board that he had tried to arrange for repairs to be made. The violations have been corrected.
- 142 NP RD LLC, owner, 142 N. Pascack Road, Nanuet, was fined $300 for failure to promptly remove lead-based paint from the building's exterior. The repairs have been completed.
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=204509
ReplyDeleteCONGREGATION MACHZEKEI HADAS OF BELZ 3 NORTH COLE AVENUE, SPRING VALLEY, NY 10977 5/5/2008 1D
Canned foods found in poor conditions (leakers, severe dents, rusty, swollen cans)
Food workers do not use proper utensils to eliminate bare hand contact with cooked or prepared foods.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteSo, when are you finally going to let us know about the conversations that you had with Reb Yakov ?
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=174323
ReplyDeleteCONGREGATION MESIFTA BETH SHRAGA 28 SADDLE RIVER ROAD, MONSEY, NY 10952 5/16/2007 1D
Canned foods found in poor conditions (leakers, severe dents, rusty, swollen cans)
Food workers do not use proper utensils to eliminate bare hand contact with cooked or prepared foods.
Potentially hazardous foods are not stored under refrigeration
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=203142
ReplyDeleteCONGREGATION NOAM E. LIZENSK 100 SOUTH CENTRAL AVENUE, NANUET, NY 10954 4/10/2008 1D
Canned foods found in poor conditions (leakers, severe dents, rusty, swollen cans)
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=169766
Foods or food area/public area contamination by sewage or drippage from waste lines.
The newspaper forgot to mention one of my 5 violations
ReplyDeletehttp://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=196721
EUROPEAN HOME MADE FOODS 82 ROUTE 59, MONSEY, NY 10952 1/29/2008 4A
Toxic chemicals are improperly labeled, stored or used so that contamination of food can occur.
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=133784
ReplyDeleteNACHAS RUACH FOODS 29 LINCOLN AVENUE, NEW SQUARE, NY 10977 1/19/2006 4A
Toxic chemicals are improperly labeled, stored or used so that contamination of food can occur.
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=188604
ReplyDeleteSUSHI METSUYAN 314 SADDLE RIVER ROAD, AIRMONT, NY 10952 10/16/2007 3B
Food workers do not wash hands thoroughly after visiting the toilet, coughing, sneezing, smoking or otherwise contaminating their hands.
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=191074
ReplyDeleteYESHIVA AVIR YAKOV-GIRLS 15 ROOSEVELT AVENUE, NEW SQUARE, NY 10977 12/4/2007 1H
Food from unapproved source, spoiled, adulterated on premises.
Water/ice: unsafe, unapproved sources, cross connections
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=167886
Toxic chemicals are improperly labeled, stored or used so that contamination of food can occur.
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=158262
Potentially hazardous foods are not stored under refrigeration
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=136182
ReplyDeleteYESHIVA BETH DAVID 22 WEST MAPLE AVENUE, MONSEY, NY 10952 2/21/2006 1D
Canned foods found in poor conditions (leakers, severe dents, rusty, swollen cans)
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=147364
ReplyDeleteYESHIVA OF SPRING VALLEY BOYS 230 MAPLE AVENUE, MONSEY, NY 10952 6/30/2006 1H
Food from unapproved source, spoiled, adulterated on premises.
Potentially hazardous foods are not stored under refrigeration
Enough refrigerated storage equipment is not present
http://rocklandrestaurantcheck.com/hazards.asp?SERVICE_KEY=166256
ReplyDeleteZISHE'S HOME MADE BAKERY 40 MAIN STREET, MONSEY, NY 10952 1/29/2007 4A
Toxic chemicals are improperly labeled, stored or used so that contamination of food can occur.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20080918/NEWS05/309189946/0/FRONTPAGE/Ogdensburg+suing+owner+of+plant+to+get+cheese-making+equipment
ReplyDeleteOgdensburg suing owner of plant to get cheese-making equipment
By DAVID WINTERS
TIMES STAFF WRITER
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
OGDENSBURG — The city has filed suit against the owner of the kosher cheese plant to acquire its cheese-making equipment.
The lawsuit was brought after St. Lawrence Food Corp. recently defaulted on loans issued by the city totaling about $500,000. The company used the cheese-making equipment as collateral on the loans.
The agreement called for the city "to take possession of the collateral at its discretion," should St. Lawrence Food Corp. default on its loans. Company officials met with the city last month and still refused to give them the equipment.
"This is just another defense because we want the equipment to stay with the plant," City Manager Arthur J. Sciorra said.
The equipment used as collateral includes several silos, processing tanks and boilers, along with the cheese line processor, water treatment and cooling systems. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the St. Lawrence County clerk's office by Andrew W. Silver of the Silver & Collins law firm in Morristown.
The city acquired the Main Street building and property in late July for delinquent property taxes. St. Lawrence Food didn't pay the 2006 tax bill on the property, totaling $89,000, city officials said.
The city acquired the 30 Main St. building and property to protect its investment out of concern Signature Bank might take the equipment and close the plant.
The New York City bank filed suit in December against Ahava Food Corp., Yoni Realty LLC and Schwartz & Sons Inc., Brooklyn; Lewis County Dairy Corp., Lowville; St. Lawrence Food Corp., Ogdensburg, and Moise Banayan and Ana Banayan, Monsey, for being in default on several loans. The case is pending.
What should I do I know of a situation whereby the man is now 32 yrs old was molested by his first cousin when he was a young, 11 or 12. This went on for several years.
ReplyDeletewhen the 32 yr old broke his engagementin his 20's his sexual abuse haunted him turned to drugs depression and suicide. He is now in an out patient drug facility after being there for 6 months.My question is, his parents never confronted their nephew in the family still allows him now married with children of his own into the family. The abuser's mother and father have no knowledge that the abuse took place. Do I as an outsider with this knowledge have the responsibility to tell the parents of the abuser what took place or mind my own business?
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/17087/
ReplyDeleteI'm one jerk who Edward Mosberg gave a sefer Torah to, as the Conservative rabbi at Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, NJ. I learned by the Ner Yisroel Baltimore rosh yeshiva R' Yaakov Weinberg when he was in Toronto.
I don't hold much hope for the pig roast. The Lakewood Agudah is known for being very skimpy on the fressing. There's more food at a Flatbush sholom zocher than there is around here. I don't know how Applegrad duped me into moving to Lakewood. My only consolation is that my new rov, Rabbi Gissinger, will still hold on to giving hashgochos even if tarfus problems emerge.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Mintz_Juda.html
ReplyDeleteHey Pinchas Klein, what is it about yeshiva losers who become Conservative "rabbis" at Mount Freedom? I'm the convicted pedophile and Torah Vodaas talmid who also had a job there.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26631462/?GT1=43001
ReplyDeleteWhy guys go for outta-their-league ladies
Men hit on hotties despite their own unattractiveness, study confirms
Putnam Investments, one of the oldest US money managers, on Thursday closed its $12bn prime money market fund because of a spike in redemption requests from clients as the crisis sweeping the world’s financial markets spread to traditional money managers and custodian banks.
ReplyDeletePutnam took the action as shares of several of the world’s largest custodian banks, including State Street and Chicago-based Northern Trust, plunged on concerns about the impact of new short-selling rules and the stress in money market funds on their business models. State Street fell as much as 55 per cent in New York trading.
Can someone explain how Mintz got a job as rov of an OU shul in suburban Atlanta when he already had a track record of a child porn arrest and working as a Conservative rabbi?
ReplyDeleteChina tainted milk scandal widens
ReplyDeleteBy TINI TRAN, Associated Press
BEIJING - China's tainted milk crisis widened Friday after tests found the industrial chemical melamine in liquid milk produced by three of the country's leading dairy companies, the quality watchdog said.
Tainted baby formula has been blamed for killing four infants and sickening 6,200 in China since the scandal broke last week. Some 1,300 babies, mostly newborns, are currently in hospitals and 158 of them are suffering from acute kidney failure. Thousands of parents across the country were bringing their children to hospitals for health checks.
The crisis was initially thought to have been confined to tainted milk powder. But about 10 percent of liquid milk samples taken from Mengniu Dairy Group Co. and Yili Industrial Group Co. — China's two largest dairy producers — contained melamine, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Milk from Shanghai-based Bright Dairy also showed contamination.
Hong Kong's two biggest grocery chains, PARKnSHOP and Wellcome, pulled all liquid milk by Mengniu from shelves Friday. A day earlier, Hong Kong had recalled milk, yogurt, ice cream and other products made by Yili Industrial Group Co.
Starbucks Corp. said its 300 cafes in mainland China had pulled milk supplied by Mengniu. Seattle-based Starbucks said no employees or customers had fallen ill from the milk.
It's an old story, that many merchants, especially frum ones, don't like taking credit cards on small amounts of money. They will usually set a minimum of between $10 to $20.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a violation of the agreement they have with the credit card companies. If you report them, they will get a warning letter. Only two complaints get them booted.
If these fressers don't like the rules, no one forced them to sign the agreement. The credit card companies realize that people don't always have cash with them which is a large part of the business model.
Some merchants then try to add a surcharge which is also a violation. Some Chassidishe merchants have smugly referred to this as "schar tircha".
This week my wife was in Phoenix Foods under the Queens Vaad on Union Turnpike. She didn't have cash with her and the guy was upset she was only buying $10 or $11. She realized later that the ganav added a $1 surcharge for his "trouble" without even informing her. The ganav only pays a maximum of 2 to 3 percent to the card issuer which is way below $1.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission takes "emergency action" to temporarily ban the routine practice of betting against stocks, also known as short-selling. The ban, which applies to 799 financial companies, goes into effect today.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like SEC Chairman Chris Cox still has his job -- this despite John McCain's call to fire Cox. And what has Cox done for us lately? He's banned short selling on 799 financial stocks for the next 10 days, according to the Wall Street Journal [subscription required]. The SEC's temporary ban on short selling won't help deal with the underlying problems causing this 100 Year Crash
ReplyDeleteBut the shorts have been pushing down the shares of these investment banks in another way -- a way which in my humble opinion should be illegal. As I posted, in the case of Bear Stearns, hedge funds ganged up to withdraw their money -- from the bank's very profitable Prime Brokerage unit -- and then sold the stock short. In other words, hedge funds may have colluded to damage the bank's business before getting together to short the stock.
This practice may still be going on. Bloomberg News reports that hedge funds have been withdrawing their money en masse from Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) -- I posted about this yesterday. No word on whether the same thing is happening with Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS). Prime brokerage is a huge revenue source for these banks -- it could amount to $11.5 billion in global revenue by the end of 2008, according to Bloomberg. Could hedge funds have shorted these banks' shares before pulling out their money?
There's no telling whether banning this practice would have kept Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER), and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH) from their various ends. But if the SEC really wanted to do something useful, it would ban the practice of investors getting together to damage the business of a company before shorting its stock. Until that practice is made illegal, the hedge funds can continue to harm a bank's business and then profit from the decline in its shares in other ways -- such as buying puts or selling calls.
Shmarya added some musical interlude to his latest post on OU-Rubashkin crony Bernie Feldman.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Dave Frishberg song "My Attorney Bernie"
I'm the guy who UOJ refers to as "this guy Jim Martin who was hired to keep Rubashkins out of prison".
ReplyDeleteI just love it when people stroke my ego. Yesterday's press release from Boruch Shmuel (Bernie) Feldman had some very nice praise of me.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/09/19/biden-on-higher-taxes-be-a-patriot/
ReplyDeleteBiden on higher taxes: Be a patriot!
By Jimmy Orr | 09.19.08
Just when polls show the Obama campaign is moving back up in the polls, the Democratic nominee for vice president links higher taxes to being a patriot.
“Raising taxes in a tough economy isn’t patriotic,” McCain told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “It’s not a badge of honor. It’s just plain dumb. . . . I’m not going to let that happen.”
The media is wrong. So says Ed Morrissey over at HotAir.com, a conservative blog. Morrisey’s complaint is that the media only focuses on one part of Obama’s tax plan: income tax. Morrissey said the media forgets about Obama’s plans for hiking capital gains rates and corporate taxes.
“They never mention that 70% of the country is in the investor class now and will run afoul of the new capital-gains tax rates, or that higher corporate taxes mean higher prices — and more companies relocating outside the US,” Morrissey writes. “Does Obama think that businesses just eat costs? Either prices go up or jobs get cut, the same as they do when Congress arbitrarily raises labor costs by increasing the minimum wage.”
Residential mortgage losses alone could hit $636 billion by 2012, Goldman Sachs estimates, triggering widespread retrenchment in bank lending.
ReplyDelete"This is a deleveraging like nothing we've ever seen before," said Robert Glauber, now a professor of Harvard's government and law schools who came to Washington in 1989 to help organize the savings and loan cleanup of the early 1990s. "The S&L losses to the government were small compared to this."
Hedge funds could be among the next problem areas. Many rely on borrowed money to amplify their returns. With banks under pressure, many hedge funds are less able to borrow this money now, pressuring returns. Meanwhile, there are growing indications that fewer investors are shifting into hedge funds while others are pulling out. Fund investors are dealing with their own problems: Many have taken out loans to make their investments and are finding it more difficult now to borrow.
That all makes it likely that more hedge funds will shutter in the months ahead, forcing them to sell their investments, further weighing on the market.
The lyrics of "My Attorney Bernie" sounds like the description of an Agudah Fresser when Frishberg sings about him ordering at the restaurant!
ReplyDeletehttp://nymag.com/news/features/50263/
ReplyDeleteMorris and Udi: A Story of Unrequited Love
How a Five Towns macher brought down the prime minister of Israel.
By Steve Fishman
Published Sep 14, 2008
ISRAELI PROSECUTOR: Please go on and tell us what you mean by “intense relationship” [with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert].
MORRIS TALANSKY: I really loved the man. I really did.
ISRAELI PROSECUTOR: What was Prime Minister Olmert’s attitude toward you?
MORRIS TALANSKY: He loved me.
Morris Talansky, the rabbi and Long Island businessman whose testimony brought down the prime minister of Israel, instructs me to meet him in Lawrence, a few minutes from his home in Woodsburgh, Long Island. “There’s a kosher Dunkin’ Donuts,” he says curtly.
The Dunkin’ Donuts is in the Five Towns (Hewlett, Lawrence, Inwood, Woodmere, which includes Woodsburgh, and Cedarhurst), the suburban homeland that Jews have carved out of Long Island sprawl. Driving there, I pass landscaped yards—hydrangeas are in bloom—and subdevelopments with gently winding roads. From one I can see a country club, a seat of the Five Towns aristocracy, which is for all intents and purposes exclusively Jewish.
The Dunkin’ Donuts shares none of the neighborhood’s joyful materialism. There’s a Formica counter, a dimpled drop ceiling, and, off to the side, a cheerless sitting area that management has tried to liven up with loud pop music. I spot one seated customer. He is unshaven, with several days of cottony white stubble. He’s pivoted toward me, slumped against the back of the chair.
“Morris?” I ask. I don’t recognize him, though I’d seen him in Israel the week before.
He nods, though barely. He looks worn out.
Morris is angry with the media, which he blames for the recent turn in his life. For a time, his business life was in shambles. Friends peeled away. In shul, people he’s known for years engage in lashon hara, evil gossip, and against a fellow Jew, whispering about his motives, his credibility, his complicated business life.
“I hope God makes them pay for what they did to me,” Morris has said. He means the media.
Of course, it wasn’t the media that got Morris involved in this mess.
Olmert’s attorneys had no choice but to go to work on his reputation. In this project, there was plenty to work with. Morris had done more than his share of yelling, badgering, and, as the defense charged, intimidating in and around the Five Towns. Over the years, his religious and business lives had become completely intertwined. Any half-diligent gumshoe would stumble over Morris’s detractors in Long Island shuls, some of whom were truly afraid of the elderly rabbi. The defense had little trouble painting an unflattering picture. They suggested Morris was a shady hustler who was willing to launder money, bend the truth, and bully those who he believed had done him wrong.
At the Dunkin’ Donuts, Cyndi Lauper plays loudly overhead. Morris appears hurt, offended. His grievances multiply as we talk. He wants an apology. Morris hunches forward. A middle button strains.
“Me, a gangster? Come on,” he says. His pouty cheeks deflate. His tone says, Look at me. Morris, it’s true, does not look the part. At 75, he’s got cotton-white hair topped, always, by a black yarmulke. His round paunch settles on top of his belt, which he occasionally pauses to adjust. Morris has great-grandchildren, one of whom, he tells me, wanted to know if Zaide really hit people. “Only you, if you’re bad,” he told her. “Then I’ll give you a potch in the tuchis.”
“I’m a victim in all this,” Morris insists. “Definitely.”
Morris was raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, a tough Brooklyn Jew. In his twenties, Morris studied to be a rabbi and worked for half a dozen years in synagogues in Far Rockaway and Yonkers. It was fulfilling work, though not remunerative. Soon he left to work for the family real-estate business. Then, in his thirties, Morris turned to fund-raising for Israeli causes, a job that brought together his talents and aspirations. By 1967, he was one of the American directors of an Israeli group that funded trade schools.
Morris had no shortage of vanity about his good works. Once Olmert ribbed Morris that he was a schnorrer, from the Yiddish word for a beggar. Morris bristled. “I’m a social engineer,” he snapped. As Morris saw it, he shaped events. He put wings on the hospital and raised millions of dollars, $200 million, he said once. People came to him. “Most of my time is [taken up with] people asking me for favors,” Morris once explained. “That’s all I’m doing all day.”
Morris might think of himself as a stranger in a strange suburban land. Still, by the eighties, he’d become a force in the Five Towns. And his good works were a gateway to other, more-worldly ambitions. “He desperately wanted to prove himself by making it big on his own,” says the person who knew him at the time.
Morris worked his way into the business lives of his wealthy friends. “People would invite me to be a participant in their business venture even though many times I didn’t have the minimum [amount] of the investment,” Morris said in a deposition.
By the mid-nineties, Morris was hunting up deals of his own, cross-fertilizing his spiritual and philanthropic connections. “Business opportunities opened up to me,” he says. For years, Morris had led Saturday-night classes in the homes of Great Neck dentists and doctors, religious seekers who needed the guidance of a learned teacher. Morris was a compelling figure, and when a decade ago Great Neck experienced a localized great awakening, when, in a wave, soccer moms turned Orthodox, “Moshe [as they called him] was a big part of that,” says Sandra Levine, one of the soccer moms.
As a businessman, Morris says, he prefers deals based on trust, and so it no doubt seemed natural to return to some of those Great Neck living rooms, this time as a roly-poly investment banker. He encouraged the seekers to get in on his deals: “I’m invested, and you should be” was his usual pitch.
Morris got involved in a motley array of ventures—a satellite company, a business focused on plus-size women. In 2004, Morris was trying to develop a business called Kooltech, based in Far Rockaway, to sell minibars to hotels. Olmert offered to put Morris, “my dear friend,” in touch with Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire hotel owner and, once, a supporter. Though the police pointed to the letter as the quid pro quo for a possible bribe, the deal didn’t quite work out; when Morris called Adelson and told him that the subject was minibars, Adelson hung up.
If Morris’s deals went sour, and more than a few did, he could be a tough customer, by some accounts. He left a trail of lawsuits in his wake, Morris once spent $30,000 on a libel suit that he settled for $60,000. Another time he sued over a few months’ salary he claimed he was owed. Recently he sued the co-founder of the minibar business, who returned the favor by suing Morris.
Sometimes Morris bypassed the courts and chose instead the in-your-face stylings of the tough Bed-Stuy kid. At a wedding, he told a rabbi he was sure had ripped him off, “I’m very angry, and you’re a no-good son of a bitch and a disgrace to the Jews.” Another time, he believed a banker gave him bad advice that he said cost him $300,000. He followed the man up Fifth Avenue screaming and cursing. (A witness claimed Morris also shoved the man, though Morris denies it.) And when a real-estate deal involving some Five Towns rabbis went bad, costing Morris a considerable sum, there were threats mentioned about “blowing up” a car. For Morris, it was an offhand remark tossed off in the heat of the moment. He was simply interested in a settlement. But the rabbis were afraid. Especially when, later, three bulky, hard-looking men showed up at another partner’s house trying to get money back and using the name Morris Talansky. Though it turned out that Morris hadn’t sent them, it raised questions about the company he kept. “There were people who weren’t as nice as me” is all he’ll say.
Olmert’s political rise led to an expansion of his social world. He became friends with the wealthiest people in Israel and traveled frequently to the United States, where he was invited into the homes of some of Manhattan’s wealthiest Jews. “Olmert’s eyes popped out [at the luxury]. All of ours did,” one Israeli official told me.
Olmert fell for New York. He loved its pace, its international air, its many pleasures—the NBA, Broadway, museums, good restaurants (the Tribeca Grill, Union Pacific, for instance). And then, like every successful Israeli politician, he understood the appeal of affluent New York Jewry. “These Jews stayed and decided to get wealthy,” that Israeli official explained to me. “Israeli politicians come to collect their 5 percent commission.” Olmert knew how to play on their guilt in service of a cause that, at least sometimes, was his career.
I ask how he feels about the prime minister’s departure. Olmert is a man he loved.
“I feel the way I feel about the whole thing, very bad,” Morris says. “You know, come on. I don’t know how to describe the whole thing.” There’s a pause. Morris contemplates. Then he’s philosophical. “He’s a guy who gets himself into messes,” he offers, which may be one of their links. Morris knows something about attracting messes. “That’s what I don’t understand about him,” he says. “Maybe it’s a death wish.”
Perhaps, I think, Morris is hurt. He’d helped Olmert so much. When it counted, the Long Island macher had lent his good name, his considerable, if local, influence to the cause of Olmert. For that Morris saw his dream of an undivided Israel abandoned. And he got condescended to by the person whom, as he saw it, he’d helped create. Morris must appreciate the irony: Olmert is chased from office for schnorring of his own, holding his hand out, in effect, to Morris Talansky.
Meltzer Calls Paulson Plan `Social Democracy at Its Worst'
ReplyDeleteBy Bob Willis
Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve historian Allan Meltzer said U.S. government efforts to cleanse financial institutions of troubled loans shouldn't be financed by taxpayers.
``I certainly don't think this is the taxpayers' problem,'' said Meltzer, a professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ``This is not a place exactly with a great big surplus that can afford to do these things. This is social democracy at its worst.''
The 80-year-old economist spoke in an interview after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in Washington that proposed measures to rid banks of troubled assets and shore up financial institutions would cost ``hundreds of billions.''
``If they remove financial losses from the financial institution,'' the government should ensure that ``the financial company will still owe the money,'' he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424881,00.html
ReplyDeleteHard Times Have Tent Cities Rising Across the Country
Thursday, September 18, 2008
www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-slaughterhousewor,0,7320816.story
ReplyDeleteFired Agriprocessors worker sues company
By AMY LORENTZEN
Associated Press Writer
12:20 PM CDT, September 19, 2008
DES MOINES, Iowa
A man who says he was fired from his job as a supervisor at an embattled kosher meatpacking plant in Postville is seeking $3 million in a lawsuit against the company.
after he brought to company officials' attention problems with the handling of sexual harassment complaints.
Orlando Rodriguez Perez claims in his lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court that he was fire after he brought attention to problems in the company's handling of sexual assault complaint. Perez makes several claims against Agriprocessors, including defamation, public humiliation, breach of contract, conspiracy to cover up organized illegal actions and unjust enrichment.
Perez, who is representing himself in the lawsuit, said he was fired in early May. Days later, nearly 400 people were arrested during a federal Immigration raid at the plant.
In a letter filed with the court late last month, Perez asks the company and three officials named in the lawsuit to settle the action out of court.
"Do not allow a jury to make a decision that can be disastrous for your organization," Perez writes in the letter. "You know that my allegations are true. You know that you failed, that you violate the Law, and that your mistake caused my family and me a lot of unnecessary and unjustified pain and suffering."
He said in the letter that if the case goes to trial, he would donate any money a jury awards him to charitable organizations.
In the complaint, Perez said he moved from Raeford, N.C. to work in the chicken area at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville. He said he began working there in February 2008 and was to earn a base salary of $55,000 per year.
He claims he was retaliated against because he told several top officials with the company about some of the situations taking place in the plant, including a lack of sexual harassment training for managers and supervisors on how to respond to such complaints.
In an internal memo, Perez said he detailed his own observations of "improper, illegal and immoral" handling of sexual harassment complaints.
He said in one instance he was asked to translate for an alleged victim to a manager to whom she was making a sexual harassment report. Perez said the manager dismissed the case, telling the alleged harasser to "look for, and find women outside, not here in the plant." Perez claims the manager said he was going to transfer the victim to an area of the plant "where she can not speak more" and referred to her as a troublemaker.
Perez said that a few days after sending the memo to officials he was transferred to the shipping department, where he said he was asked to work 13 hours a day and perform work such as operating pallet jacks and fork lifts without any training.
While in the shipping area, Perez claims he presented ideas to improve the department to his immediate manager, Neal Rawley, and higher-up company officials. But, he said Rawley became angry with him. He said Rawley publicly humiliated and defamed him on two occasions by calling him "disloyal" in front of a group of people and telling Perez that he needed to understand and use the proper chain of command.
Perez claims in the lawsuit that the defendants conspired to remove him from his position because of his interest in presenting "issues that had to be addressed in order to comply with the law and make the company better prepared to face situations in the future."
Perez, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, said in the lawsuit that the defamatory remarks made about him could keep him from obtaining a new military security clearance or an increase in clearance level that he needs to be promoted. He said that could affect the pension he is able to earn at his retirement.
Perez also claims that the company refused to pay him accrued vacation time and relocation money promised in a job offer letter. An attempt to reach Perez by telephone was unsuccessful. He didn't immediately respond to a request for comment to an e-mail address listed in court records.
The lawsuit names Agriprocessors Inc.; Rawley, the shipping and warehouse manager; Gary Norris, the operations manager; and Heshy Rubashkin, vice president of operations.
"Tent Cities Rising Across the Country"
ReplyDeleteThere are fired Agri workers living under bridges because they don't have any money to get back home. Rubashkin has been firing replacement workers left and right, especially the Muslim Somalians because they didn't realize these people take 5 breaks a day to pray before hiring them.
Me & mein zun Heshy, vee don't let anyone sexually harass, not even a female cat!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my mechutan Moish Finkel and his ex-family members had anything to do with those filthy conditions at Yeshiva of Spring Valley.
ReplyDeleteWell, there was some groping of women's private parts here and there by Rubashkin workers, but Rav Scheinberg poskened that only penetration is an offense.
ReplyDeleteYou people are soooo ignorant! Don't you know that sexual harassment can't possibly take place when the facility is state of the art?
ReplyDeleteLehoraaya, when I was there none of the workers were pinching women's butts or making lewd comments.
Orlando Rodriguez Perez shtams from Amalek.
ReplyDelete(This is really Rabbi Yair Hoffman posting but please don't blow my cover!)
ReplyDeleteI bet Mayer Fertig made up that sexual story because he's jealous Young Israel didn't invite him for the 3 hour tour.
MAYBE WE SHOULD LINK OUR BLOGS. I TRY TO ZERO IN ON THE LUBAVITCH AS I DO NOT FEEL THEY HAVE ANY RIGHTS TO REPRESENT BEING RABBIS.THEY ARE ALL RABBIS WORKING IN THE "JEW BUSINESS"
ReplyDeleteWritten regarding the Gay Marriage proposal:
ReplyDeleteThe Agudah statement on this issue is a genuine Chllul Hashem. They wrote, “In Agudath Israel’s view, tampering with marriage in the most fundamental way possible, by abandoning its definition as the sanctioned union of woman and man, is fraught with grave social danger.”
They can’t have the courage to say it like it is. This is a MORAL danger. Social danger sounds like the Reform Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam. This statement has again been turned into water cooler talk around Albany. The Catholic Church who Agudah lobbies with called it a “Moral and Ethical dilemma”, but the Haimishe Agudah calls it a “social danger”.
Agudah even your cousins in the Church know you are the scum of the earth. Agudah must be torn down brick by brick.
Agudath Israel of America and Torah Umesorah – The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, upon consultation with their respective rabbinic leaderships, respectfully submit this statement regarding legislative proposals to amend existing statutes of limitations for civil claims, including claims against schools and other communal institutions, based on allegations of child sexual abuse. We do so only after much serious thought, after weighing all relevant arguments and for the sole purpose of protecting the most fundamental interests of our community.
ReplyDeleteAgudath Israel and Torah Umesorah fully acknowledge the horror of child sexual abuse and the devastating long-term scars it all too often creates. Our rabbinic and lay leaderships are acutely aware of the emotional trauma and damage caused by the perpetrators of such abuse. Our hearts go out to their victims, and we share in their pain. We realize that for too long many victims have suffered alone. We are committed as a community to do whatever we can to root out perpetrators of child abuse from our schools and other communal institutions, and to help victims on the road to healing and recovery.
Indeed, in recent years, as awareness has increased and sensitivity has been heightened regarding the incidence of sexual abuse and its severity, both in the broader society around us and in our community specifically, Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah have taken a number of concrete steps to help ensure that Jewish schools, extra-curricular youth programs and summer camps implement policies and procedures designed to protect children against such abuse. Our organizations have also supported legislative efforts to furnish such protection, including the recently enacted legislation in New York authorizing nonpublic schools to screen all prospective employees through the state’s fingerprint checking system.
With respect to the proposed amendments to existing statutes of limitations, Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah fully understand that the trauma of abuse is often so great that young adults may not be emotionally prepared to file claims against their abusers within the traditional limitations period. Strict adherence to the existing statutes of limitations could thus operate to preclude certain legitimate claims and protect perpetrators of abuse. Our organizations would therefore have no objection to legislation designed to give victims of abuse greater recourse against perpetrators. Nor would we object to extending statutes of limitations for criminal proceedings against perpetrators.
What Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah must object to, however, is legislation that could literally destroy schools, houses of worship that sponsor youth programs, summer camps and other institutions that are the very lifeblood of our community.
To take perhaps the most problematic example of such legislation, bills have been introduced in New York and other states that would create a one year window during which any civil claim based upon child sexual abuse could be brought, even against schools and other communal institutions, regardless of how long ago the incident is alleged to have taken place. One could envision a scenario in which a senior citizen might choose to bring a claim against a school for an incident that allegedly occurred over half-a-century ago when the claimant was a child. The fact that the alleged perpetrator may have passed on, or that the administration of the school may have changed several times since the alleged abuse, or that the school no longer has any records or insurance policies dating back to the time the abuse allegedly occurred, or even any records of the individual ever having attended the school, would be of no moment whatsoever under the proposed bill. The current school administration, entirely ignorant of what may or may not have occurred so many years ago, would be forced to defend the school in a court of law, incur the high expenses of legal fees and diversion of human resources, and face potentially crippling financial liability.
It is important to recognize that Jewish schools are independent entities supported wholly by parental tuition and fundraising. Therefore, the burden of litigation expense or legal liability for ancient claims would fall squarely on an entirely innocent group – the current parent body. Needless to say, in today’s perilous financial climate, as many parents are unable to meet even their basic tuition obligations and schools struggle to remain fiscally viable, this burden would be extremely difficult to bear, and could ultimately lead to school closures.
Stated simply, legislation that would do away with the statute of limitations completely, even if only for a one-year period, could subject schools and other vital institutions to ancient claims and capricious litigation, and place their very existence in severe jeopardy. Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah most vigorously oppose any such legislation.
We must continue to seek out ways to protect our precious children and help eradicate molestation and other forms of abuse. We must also redouble our efforts to help those who have suffered the horrors of child abuse obtain the healing they so desperately need. However, we dare not bring down our most vital communal institutions in the process.
Sorry for the improper wording.
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean I'm a moral misfit in addition to a social misfit?
"What Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah must object to, however, is legislation that could literally destroy schools, houses of worship that sponsor youth programs, summer camps and other institutions that are the very lifeblood of our community ... our most vital communal institutions"
ReplyDeleteMoney may be Margo's "lifeblood" but it's reassuring to hear how highly the Agudah values YTT & Camp Slither Lake. Margo must have been on to something all these years when he called us "the BEST yeshiva". Belsky himself couldn't have drafted a more feste press release!
"Camp Slither Lake"
ReplyDeleteGood one!
Come on, UOJ, where are the comment forms? This is the first I found so far! If you want people to COMMENT on your articles, you HAVE TO ADD such form to each and every article you post. Otherwise, your fight against pedophiles and crooks becomes meaningless - no one can comment and express themselves!!!
ReplyDeleteThe Baltimore Jewish Life has just released a new idiocy by Yitzchok (Yitz) Feuereisen about the late rav Efraim Eisenberg (http://baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=1&ARTICLE_ID=60803). I was repeatedly molested by Feuereisen when I was a student at Ner Israel in Baltimore. He was afraid that I would tell the truth, so he slandered me, and I was kicked out of the yeshiva. So, Feuereisen writes, "May he [rav Efraim Eisenberg] be a מליץ יושר to the members of the Hanhala." A bootlicker, who merited to live next to the yeshiva for all the crimes he committed for them (Google Feuereisen and Ner Israel). People wrote online about Robert (Yitzchok) Feuereisen sneaking into the White House to get Obama's signature, but nobody mentioned the real estate schemes he and his family have been involved in — both in New York and Baltimore. Feuereisen is fantastically rich and incredibly corrupt. Both of these facts allow him to boldly publish such ridiculous neo-Cabalistic crap: "פנים has the numerical value of 180 which is half of the 360 degrees that make up a complete circle. Double, פנים equals the 360 degrees of a full circle. This was the relationship between משה and הקב"ה; it was a complete circle lacking nothing [פנים אל פנים]... Even when he [rav Efraim Eisenberg] spoke softly it was אז בקול רעש גדול. We see this from the ראשי תיבות of his name א"ז (אפרים זלמן)... The gematria of מזבח is 57, the same gematria of the word גדלך; “your greatness,” referring to הקב"ה... רב אפרים’s life seemed to revolve around the number 57. He came to the ישיבה in 1957, part of his phone number was 57, and the year he was נפטר was 5762... Perhaps that is why הקב"ה chose ט"ז סיון, the 16th of Sivan, for יציאת נשמה since the gematria of גבוה, elevated, is 16. רב אפרים was נפטר at the age of 62 in the year 5762. When הקב"ה created the world, he declared after six days of creation, טוב מאד. The words טוב מאד has a gematria of 62."
ReplyDelete