Black Friday - November 28, 2008
(AP) NEW YORK – Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal*Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.
*
AIG spent US$440,000 on spa, resort after bailout, lawmakers say
Bloomberg News - Tuesday, October 07, 2008
American International Group Inc. spent US$440,000 on a conference at a California resort less than a week after an US$85-billion government takeover, lawmakers said.
The bill from the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach included US$23,380 for spa services, according to Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Mr. Waxman led questioning Tuesday of former AIG chief executives Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad as Congress probes events that led to federal intervention.
"Average Americans are suffering economically," Mr. Waxman, a California Democrat, said in his opening statement. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."
The St. Regis, located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, is "devoted to the pursuit of service and elegance," according to its Web site. A "health and wellness" package costs US$600 a night, with a two-night minimum.
The St. Regis expense "seems very inappropriate," Mr. Willumstad told the committee. "I was totally unaware that there was any plan for any conference. Had I been aware of it I would have prevented it from happening."
AIG, once the world's largest insurer, disputed Mr. Waxman's characterization of the conference. Spokesman Nicholas Ashooh said the event had been scheduled a year earlier by AIG's American General life insurance subsidiary as a way to reward independent agents who sell the company's products.
*
Changing Of The Guard at Agudath Israel Keynote Session
November 24, 2008 - Sheraton Hotel - Stamford, Connecticut
A historic transition is planned for this coming Motzoei Shabbos, at Agudath Israel of America’s 86th national convention. The mantle of the organization’s lay leadership will then pass from one rightly celebrated and accomplished askan to another. It will be passing as well from dear friend to dear friend and from one confidant of Gedolei Yisroel to another.
Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, Agudath Israel’s executive vice president for the past decade – and faithful Agudah worker and executive for many decades prior – will be retiring from that post in January, and Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel will be assuming it.
 |
| Shreaton Hotel - Stamford Connecticut |
After "trampling to death" the values of Torah Judaism - for the values of a new flat-screen TV at Wal*Mart (because they could) --- After bankrupting the morals of the Torah, everything that is right, and the way the world sees the Jews, The AIG from 42 Broadway - New York --- GO PARTY!...while masses of Orthodox Jews are left without honest leadership, hope, jobs or food.
The House That Sherer Built - never fails to hit a home-run, "behind" home-plate!
For decades --- this pitiful corrupt group of rabbi-gedolim wannabees - have plundered and trashed every Torah and moral value that defines the Jewish nation. Rachmonim, baishonim, people of the Book, highly ethical, people with an innate sense of caring, family oriented --- a God fearing, children loving, and moral people.
They "criminally" prevented and obstructed any and every piece of legislation that came to the floor of the New York State Assembly, to protect all children in religious schools. They cavorted with the Catholic scum-of-the earth hierarchy to protect child-rapists --- because it was not in their interests to provide transparency to the goings-on in any religious school; whether it be child-rape or massive financial fraud.
The cover-up of child-rape in our community is not new. From what I believe - the cover-up began some 45 years ago in Camp Agudah - under an ignorant bunch, rabbis Teitelbaum and Borchardt. These Agudists never stopped for a fresh breath of ethical air since!
If this were not enough --- Just a few months ago, they sent to Postville, Iowa - nicknamed the Rubashkin/OU junket, the executive vice president of Agudath Israel, Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, (along with 24 other criminal whiskered imbeciles) --- the protege of Sherer --- to negate and dispel any of the "rumors" of criminal activity and kashruth violations by Agriprocessors. Of course, this was sanctioned by the rabbis at the top (of the garbage heap)... the Moetzes Gedolei Torah!
CRIMINALS THAT FORGE SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS - CRIMINALS THAT FORGE ID CARDS - ARE CRIMINALS THAT FORGE KASHRUTH LABELS!
So party on guys --- as the victims of kollel fever grows ever larger and creates more hungry children - as more Jews are left impoverished and homeless, and the number of rabbi-child-rapists - continue to crawl out from under Mattisyahu Salomon's rug --- PARTY ON! PARTY ON!
You criminals managed to survive thus far - only because your pathetic lies traveled throughout the Jewish communities by the speed of horse and buggy and camel caravan, 5 -10 miles per hour; the true Torah message of integrity and morality can now be transmitted by the speed of light --- 186,000 miles per second!
OK, how do we get the feds involved in the fiasco in Brooklyn where the D.A. will not prosecute Orthodox child molesters due to the gedolim's $influence$??? What would it take to get this exposed and looked into on a Federal law enforcement level? The corruption, the witness tampering, the obstruction of justice. When Dov Hikind can say that our community threatens those who want to go to the police, when Nochum Rosenberg's life is threatened, when Charles' Hynes cuts a deal with Margolis negating the wishes of the parents of innocent Jewish chldren for true justice, is there nobody we can turn to?
ReplyDeleteUOJ, what is next in the war on the abuse cover-up? Do you think it is possible to get Bill O'Reilly to do a segment on this because he is a major child protection advocate?
I just can't stand it anymore. The frum world is so fucked up. You describe it so clearly and so directly and so plain in black and white that anyone with half a brain can see it, but to no avail. What more can we all do?
Awesome post. The Agudah has so much blood of Jewish children on their hands. Can they even be reformed or should we try to bankrupt them?
ReplyDeleteTo Anon 6:46
ReplyDeleteBankrupt them - absolutely. That's a no-brainer. Not one more dime of support for ANYTHING they do, no matter how benign.
This is the ONLY way to dislodge the dead wood and give new leadership and new organizations with new priorities and new policies room to grow. Money is their life-blood, and they need to be put on a starvation diet immediately. No money, no power.
WASHINGTON – The government must toughen its monitoring of the $700 billion financial bailout to ensure that banking institutions limit their top executives' pay and comply with other restrictions, federal auditors said Tuesday in the first comprehensive review of the rescue package.
ReplyDeleteThe Treasury Department has no mechanism in place to track how institutions are using $150 billion in taxpayer money that the government injected into the banking system as of last month, the Government Accountability Office concluded in its report to Congress.
Big Three survival bailout requests rise to $34B- AP
ReplyDeleteHumbled and fighting for survival, Detroit's once-mighty automakers appealed to Congress with a retooled case for a bailout as large as $34 billion Tuesday, pledging to slash workers, car lines and executive pay in return for a federal lifeline.
bankrupcy and selloff of assets to Nissan, Honda & Toyota will result in far less layoffs then what the little 3 have in mind. Congress is just pandering to the unions.
ReplyDeletePlease publish the comments that were posted before the levaya.
ReplyDeleteThanks
NEW YORK (Reuters) – American International Group Inc (AIG.N) and the U.S. government have reached an agreement to clear the insurer of its obligations on about $53.5 billion in toxic mortgage debt, the giant insurer said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThe development is part of the U.S. Federal Reserve's agreement last month to buy up to $70 billion of toxic mortgage assets -- collateralized debt obligations -- underlying AIG credit default swaps (CDS), a type of debt guarantee.
AIG's responsibility to post collateral on the $53.5 billion in assets has been suspended, but will resume for any underlying assets that cannot be obtained, it said in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Yitzchok Adlerstein as quoted by Arthur on Nov. 26th:
ReplyDeletePerhaps I am cursed with intellectual dullness.
People are welcome to repost their comments, I'm not able to go through them.
ReplyDeleteTo the anonymous person who is angry (and hokking me to put up his rant) at the Medinat Yisroel for putting an Israeli Flag on the coffin of Leibish Teitelbaum - the Teitelbaum family should have made arrangements with the Neturei Karta to bring the body by camel - and not at the government's expense.
Get over it!
Arthur also wrote last week that the riot at 770 was a one time event.
ReplyDeleteNOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
They are always fighting over there about tearing down plaques and who gets to squat in the building.
More often than not, police are called to break it up.
Legal Actions Needed To Counter Sex Abuse
ReplyDeleteby Marci A. Hamilton
Special To The Jewish Week
It seems that we have constructed a culture that is remarkably sympathetic to the perpetrator of child sexual abuse and indifferent — in many cases, hostile — to the victim. The most recent reminder is Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is sitting on hundreds of files detailing such abuse within the Orthodox Jewish community, and which include one predator admitting he abused a child as recently as two months ago. That means he is hiding the identity of this one, but more likely many, active perpetrators.
Why?
First, he says that most of the victims are in their late 20s or older, which means the statutes of limitations have expired and no prosecution or civil lawsuit could be filed. Indeed, the New York statutes
of limitations for child sex abuse are unconscionably short. Statutes of limitations establish arbitrary deadlines for the filing of charges and lawsuits.
Currently, in New York, criminal charges must be filed by the time the victim is 18 and civil claims by the age of 23. Since most victims need decades to come forward, these deadlines not only deny justice to the abused by prohibiting them from seeking legal recourse, they also offer a virtual guarantee that predators are able to abuse many children before they get caught, if they ever do.
Second, Hikind maintains that the victims spoke to him in confidence. If he were a doctor or a police officer, or one of the other professionals required by state law to report such abuse, he would be in a very different position.
In New York, no doctor, suspecting abuse, can refuse to inform authorities because he or she cut a deal with the victim never to go forward.
A third explanation could be that he is protecting the Orthodox Jewish community, elements of which typically discourage contacting the authorities in such cases. The Catholic Church scandals, followed by sex abuse revelations in virtually every religious community, have proven that our usual trust of religious institutions to do the right thing must be tempered by reality when it comes to sex abuse.
It is not in the interest of the public or the children to defer to religious group’s desire to keep their dirty secrets secret. Child predators thrive on such misguided instincts, finding one victim after another.
And the sad and alarming reality is that at least 20 percent of boys and 25 percent of girls are sexually abused. At the same time, far too many of these crimes go unreported — only 10 percent of victims themselves go to authorities — and most offenders escape responsibility.
As a result, our population is permeated with unnamed victims and predators. We bury these realities so deeply that we have created a culture of unspoken suffering and increased danger.
Equally troubling, in cases of sexual abuse, we tend to protect the status quo at all cost, as Hikind has reminded us. The horrible truth is that the perpetrator who abuses once, far too often abuses again and again. If there is a common refrain among victims, it is that they wish that they had been able to stop their abuser from destroying another child. Not only do they feel shame, but regret and guilt when they inevitably learn that their abuser went on to hurt more children. Meanwhile, the abusers thrive in the shadows.
We have the tools to bring them to light. First, the Brooklyn District Attorney must convene a grand jury to investigate abuse within the Orthodox community just as Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham did in Philadelphia to investigate the Roman Catholic Archdiocese there. The result was a remarkable document that opened people’s eyes to the breadth and depth of the abuse within the Catholic Church and led to important legislative reforms, some already enacted and others still pending.
Second, the New York state mandatory reporter law, which lists professionals and others required to report cases of child abuse to state authorities, should be amended to include elected representatives. It currently includes health care and other professionals.
Finally, and most importantly, New York must enact Assemblywoman Marge Markey’s bill to extend the statute of limitations on child sex abuse and create a “window,” making it possible for those victims whose statute of limitations has expired to file a civil lawsuit against their perpetrators, as well as those who aided and abetted them and the institutions that hid the truth, for a set period of time. Markey’s proposed legislation has been passed, in fact, by the Assembly for the past three years with no meaningful opposition. Sadly for survivors, former Senate President Joseph Bruno inexplicably blocked its movement each time.
This is legislation that should be a no-brainer, unless the legislature is inclined to continue to assist those entities and individuals who would cover-up their own complicity in child abuse. That is a move no elected official should ever be permitted to make.
California and Delaware have passed “window” legislation, extending the deadline for survivors to sue perpetrators and those aiding them, even if the statutes of limitations had previously expired.
New York must get in step. The primary barrier — Bruno — is no longer in the Senate, and his party no longer has a majority. So there is reason to be hopeful the newly configured State legislature will do the right thing. n
Marci Hamilton holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University and is the author of “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children” (Cambridge 2008).
Mortgage fraud up 45% as lenders tighten loan standards
ReplyDeleteMIAMI (AP) — Reported incidents of mortgage fraud grew 45% in the second quarter vs. a year ago, as borrowers misstated financial information to maneuver around tighter lending standards, industry data show.
Florida properties led the way with about one-fifth of mortgage fraud incidents reported in the second quarter, the Mortgage Asset Research Institute reported. California was second and Illinois third, the data show.
In the first quarter, mortgage fraud incident reports had increased 42% vs. the first quarter 2007.
The largest increase in fraud the first half of this year involved borrowers misstating their financial profile to try to get around stricter lending guidelines, the report said.
Some basic examples include false bank statements made on computers and pay stubs with white correction liquid on them, said Jennifer Butts, the institute's director of operations.
The industry has partly been blamed for lax lending standards that helped drive an overheated housing market. Mortgage fraud has cost lenders about $1 billion the past decade, the Mortgage Bankers Association has said.
But it appears fraud reports are increasing partly because lenders are scrutinizing applications and industry employees more closely to reduce risk, said Denise James, director of market planning for mortgage services for LexisNexis, which owns MARI.
Nationally, more than 65% of fraud incidents in the first two quarters were categorized as general application misrepresentation of the buyer's true name or assets. Among the other more common mortgage fraud cases were misrepresentation of income, appraisals, employment history, and debt and assets.
The metro areas of Miami and Tampa were one-two in Florida for mortgage fraud. In California, Los Angeles and San Francisco led the way. Chicago and Rockford were tops in Illinois.
The report concludes that lenders need better tools to find inconsistencies in mortgage applications. Also, the industry needs to share information better and flag suspicious loans from the beginning of the process, the report said.
The report is based on data submitted by the institute's subscribers, which are mostly lenders, about loans originated in the second quarter that were deemed fraudulent.
http://mosherubashkinhitsjews.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteArthur, what about Moishe Rubashkin constantly punching and slapping people & rabbonim at 770 and elsewhere in Crown Heights?
At least we'll have a break soon when he gets sent back to the slammer.
A Costly Alarm System
ReplyDeleteOpening his front door, the Rabbi found himself face to face with the local priest. "Rabbi, may I have a few words with you?" asked the priest.
"Of course, Father," replied the Rabbi somewhat nervously.
"Rabbi," began the priest, "It must be evident to you that in this town we are plagued by thieves. Scarcely a day passes without one of my flock coming to me bemoaning the fact that his house has been broken into. On the other hand, I have noticed that thieves do not bother you Jews nearly as much."
"Father, you are correct."
"Yes, but why is that?" inquired the priest.
"Look at this little box here on the side of my doorpost," said the Rabbi. "It's called a mezuza. We Jews believe that when we put a mezuza on the entrances to our houses, the Holy One, may His Name be blessed, protects both us and our property."
"In that case", replied the priest, "I must have one!"
Not wishing to be the cause of an incipient pogrom, the Rabbi reluctantly handed over a mezuza to the priest.
Some two weeks later the Rabbi was awakened by the sound of someone pounding violently on his door. Dressing himself hastily, he made his way down the stairs.
"Who's there?" the Rabbi asked tremulously.
"Open the door! Open the door!" screamed a voice on the other side.
Leaving the door on the latch, the Rabbi cracked the door wide enough to see the priest standing in front of him, his eyes wild with great distraught.
"What happened?" asked the terrified Rabbi. "Were you not protected from robbers?"
"I was! But these people were worse than robbers!" screamed the priest.
"Who?" asked the rabbi.
"Fundraisers!"
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – The family of a New York man who was trampled to death the day after Thanksgiving by a stampede of bargain hunting Wal-Mart shoppers has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteThe family also filed notice that Nassau County, on Long Island, and its police department will be sued.
The lawsuit against Wal-Mart and the Long Island mall where it is located was filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in the Bronx on behalf of Elsie Damour Phillipe. Phillipe is the sister of victim Jdimytai Damour (DHMEE'-tree Di-MOHR'), and is the court-appointed administrator of his estate.
Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, was crushed to death when some 2,000 customers stormed into the Valley Stream store.
None of the defendants in the lawsuit immediately responded to requests for comment.
Why isn't anyone talking about my sweetheart deal with the DA?
ReplyDeleteI claimed phony tax deductions to Belz and Spinka and all I have to do is pay 4.75 million with no jail time.I even get to keep my Bentley! Ben Brafman did a great job!
It's 2 A.M., I just finished watching the levaya of the holtzberg kedoishem on chabad on-line, There are no tears left, especially after rewatching the clip of the ceremony in the mumbai synogouge with little moishi's cries of IMA! IMA! bringing the entire place to tears.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing to say aside from accepting the fact that the world just lost some of its emeser "GEDOILEM", the holtzberg kedoishem, they are what we all should envy to be, true ehrlich yidden for the sake of bringing our fellow brethren closer to the one and only above.
This past weekend, the agudah held its annual convention of chelm, the ketanim that were paraded on stage this past weekend, a shabbos that had the entire klal yisroel and civilized world at large in mourning, are a bunch of cold hearted dunces at best, this convention should have been canceled at all cost as the news out of India got here,to hell with the money they put in to make this shabbos happen, they did it to lipa, causing him hundred thousand plus in damages all in the name of torah, but no, the convention is kosher, with all these fressers wandering the hallways showing off their wives, Shame on you aguda! you are worthless! and stop representing me.
Uoj, please some words of tanchimin if possible, the oilim is hurting, & chazak for what you did this past shabbos, going to a chabad house.
R' LVF,
ReplyDeleteI can't find the appropriate words, perhaps by the shloshim.
We all can learn from Chabad - what ahavas Yisroel means.
I have no words!
"Arthur also wrote last week that the riot at 770 was a one time event.
ReplyDeleteNOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!"
I was referring to a Physical altercation between one group and another.Yes there have been a number of times when ripping down of plaques occurred and the police had to be called in to stop this from becoming a recurring event which it did become anyway.However I would not call these events riots.
As for Moishe Rubashkin punching out people,it sounds like something he is capable of doing even though I never witnessed this myself.
This was sent in by a good friend; definitely a worthwhile read!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/the_rabbi_and_the_terrorists.html
Since we're speaking about the Agudah convention I was told that the only mention of the Kedoshim that they managed to get out between bouts of stuffing their mouths was some fleeting moment about "Acheinu Hakedoshim".No mention of names, affiliation or otherwise.Between fressing and patting themselves on the back they had no time for such narishkeit.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not department.
ReplyDeleteThe contingency plan if GM, Ford & Chrysler are not bailed out by Congress with taxpayer money is trying to shnorr from Big Oil.
It's not clear what's in it for the oil companies as people will fill up their gas tanks whether the vehicles are domestic or foreign.
R' Arthur,
ReplyDeleteFerd are ferd --- did you ever see a cow become anything but a cow?
Touro College has been forced to settle a law suit alleging sexual discrimination in pay, with the EEOC. Part of the consent agreement mandates that all staff have to take a course on the laws regarding sexual discrimination.
ReplyDeleteAfter they take the course, will Touro continue to pay its female staff less than men for comparable work?
Why won't the frum women who work there band together for a class action suit?
After all, they are cheating frum women of fair pay.
But, of course, they line the correct pockets, and no one will stand up for these women...or their families.
For shame.
A new song by Yossi Green in honer of the Shluchim
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMFbnkpX-fE
The international media have already morphed the horrific slaughter in Mumbai into the murky realm of euphemism and apologetics.
ReplyDeleteAl Jazeera and The Guardian label the terrorists “gunmen”; CNN calls them “militants.” Some analysts identified the underlying cause as the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Psychological guru Deepak Chopra called it the result of “collateral damage” from the US war on terrorism and the Iraq war.
But how does the especially bloodthirsty attack on Mumbai's Nariman-Chabad House fit into this puzzle palace?
The New York Times theorized that Chabad House may have been an “accidental hostage scene.” The BBC initially chose to hide the Jewish character of the target by describing it as just “an office building.” Al Jazeera refused to show Chabad House as the site of the carnage. Some Western media outlets unsympathetically labeled victims there as “ultra-Orthodox” or “missionaries.”
Contrary to these fantasies, the all-too-obvious truth is now being confirmed:
* The Times of India reported that some of the terrorists, claiming to be Malaysian students, rented nearby space in order to scout out Chabad.
* The Indian doctor who conducted the post-mortems related in a shaken voice that: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th [the first day of the attacks] itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed.”
* The only captured terrorist, Ajmal Kamal, confessed under interrogation that his fellow murderers were specifically ordered to target the Jews killed at Chabad.
It's not only close India-Israeli ties that the terrorists wanted to destroy. It's likely that Mumbai's age-old history of hospitality to Jews made the Nariman-Chabad House a strategic target.
Mumbai is notable for two distinctive Jewish communities: Bagdhadi Jews, whose ancestors first arrived as traders about 250 years ago, and the Bene Israel, descendants of Judean Jews shipwrecked off the Indian coast 2,100 years ago. Among traditional Hindus forbidden to press oil from seeds, the Bene Israel found a welcome niche as the “Saturday Oil Presser Caste.” Experiencing almost no discrimination, they were accorded high status in Indian society - one served as Gandhi's personal physician.
Now the survivors and loved ones of all the innocent victims of the Mumbai massacres begin the heartbreaking task of picking up the shattered pieces of their lives. But the families of the Chabad House victims have to also live with the double standard that lets the world look the other way when Jews are targets of terror.
At a house of fellowship and prayer, nine religious people were bound, tortured and executed because they were Jews - just as Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had his head cut off in Pakistan because, as he told his kidnappers, “I am Jewish.”
Terrorism may not succeed in destroying our civilization - but politically correct euphemisms and apologetics are already crippling our ability to defend it.
One cameraman who saw armed police refusing to open fire on the Mumbai terrorists lamented that he didn't have a gun instead of a camera. Yet what the world desperately needs today is not armed media, but reporters brave enough to tell the truth.
Did the jihadists who tore up Mumbai last week rely on party drugs usually associated with Western decadence to stay awake and alert through their three-day killing spree?
ReplyDeleteBritain's Telegraph newspaper suggests they did, citing unidentified officials claiming physical evidence shows the assailants used cocaine and other stimulants to sustain their violent frenzy. And if the notion of self-anointed holy warriors on a coke-binge sounds incongruous, the report also maintains that the killers imbibed the psychedelic drug LSD while fighting advancing security forces.
"We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists, and later found drugs in their blood," the Telegraph was told by one official, whose nationality and relation to the investigation were also not specified. "This explains why they managed to battle the commandos for over 50 hours with no food or sleep." (See the terror in Mumbai.)
The hallucinogenic and sensory-distorting effects of LSD make it an unlikely combat drug, even for kamikaze assailants who were, after all, seeking to kill as many people as possible before their own inevitable death. But the suggestion that the Mumbai jihadists may have amped themselves up on stimulants typically forbidden by their strict Salafist brand of Islam strikes some experts as plausible, particularly within the twisted jihadist logic in which holy ends justify impious means.
"We've never seen instances of operatives using drugs in attacks before, but we've also never seen the kind of open-ended, insurgent-style strike of civilian targets by Islamists prior to Mumbai," says Jean-Louis Bruguière, who retired this year as France's chief counter-terrorism investigator to take a top post in the transatlantic Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. Bruguière had no information to confirm or deny the reported cocaine binge by Mumbai assailants, but he believes that discounting it out of hand would be naive.
"Why wouldn't attackers do something forbidden by their religious practice — to take drugs or anything else — that could help them achieve what they consider the far more important goal of their plot in striking a blow for God?" Bruguière asks. "Adepts of the Takfir wal-Hijra sect will adopt what Islam considers impure behavior of enemy societies, like drinking alcohol, eating pork, and wild living, to better prepare attacks for those same societies.
That's what Mohamed Atta and the other 9/11 attackers did while plotting in the U.S. If terrorists feel jihad justifies impious acts to prepare strikes, why wouldn't that rationalization not also apply to carrying attacks out?"
Independent French terror expert Roland Jacquard is a little more skeptical of the report, however, at least as far as it claimed some of the fighters had used narcotics to numb themselves to pain as death approached. Though he understands the strategic logic of assailants using stimulants to overcome fatigue as their attack wears on — conventional armies, including the U.S. military, have used stimulants to counter combat fatigue — he does not believe the stern Salafist prohibition of soporifics would be ignored as the end loomed.
"We're talking about people who think they're killing for God, and who are certain they'll attain paradise by slaying innocent people. The most powerful drug they could ever find is already in their head before the attack starts," says Jacquard. "There's a very strong anti-drug culture among Salafists — most don't even use tobacco. And extremists with any drug experience usually say Islam is what allowed them escape it."
The Telegraph story also quotes an official saying traces of steroids had been found in the bloodstream of Mumbai attackers — something the unnamed source says "isn't uncommon in terrorists". If so, it's a well-kept secret that runs counter to jihadists' disdain of external "impurities" being used to attain physical fitness they often extol. But for Bruguière, wrangling over those kinds of details is simply a counter-productive attempt to create a precise, predictable stereotype of a terrorist in what is, in fact, a diverse, rapidly-changing, amorphous milieu of extremists. (Read Mumbai's Terror is Over, but Panic Persists.)
"It's now clear the Mumbai group was connected to the Pakistan-supported Lashkar-e-Taiba, but it take a while before we know how close and structured that relationship was, and how much autonomy the attacking unit was operating with," Bruguière says. "LeT is keen to export its fight throughout the region and world, but will do so in loose relationships with myriad extremist movements out there. Some will use car explosions, others kamikaze bombers, and others insurgent terrorists who — just maybe — decide to use drugs to keep their strike going longer. If we want to prepare for the way we may be attacked next, we have to start considering all the ways we haven't been attacked yet, as well as the ones we know."
During the opening night plenary session, R' Gedaliah Weinberger spoke about "excess" and "wasteful spending". Talk about hypocrisy! Most of the crowd was there for the entire FressFest, spending thousands of dollars. Talk about excess! See you Rabbi at the Pesach hotel!
ReplyDeleteMUMBAI, India – The only gunman captured during the terror attack on Mumbai says he was promised that his impoverished family would get $1,250 if he died fighting for militant Islam, security officials said Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteThe captive, 21-year-old Ajmal Amir Kasab, is from Faridkot village in the Punjab region of Pakistan, according to the two Indian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details gleaned during a week of interrogation.
Kasab was arrested hours after the three-day rampage began the night of Nov. 26. Photographs of the young man walking calmly through Mumbai's main train station — assault rifle in hand — have made him a symbol of the attacks that killed 171 people, including 26 foreigners.
India has blamed the banned Pakistan-based extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the carnage. But in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, expressed skepticism that the man in custody is a Pakistani citizen.
According to the Indian security officials, Kasab was a day laborer, like one of his brothers, before joining Lashkar. He recounted being told that if he was "shaheed" — or "martyred" — his family would receive 100,000 Pakistani rupees, or about $1,250, they said.
Kasab said that he and the nine gunmen killed during the attack were hand-picked for the Mumbai rampage after intensive Lashkar training, the officials said.
He told police that after landing by boat in Mumbai, the attackers split into two-man teams. Kasab and another gunman, Ismail Khan, took a taxi from the waterfront to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, where they killed 54 people before fleeing. They planted a bomb under the driver's seat of their taxi that exploded later, apparently so it would divert police during the attacks.
Kasab also said the team brought in bombs to be placed outside the entrances of the two luxury hotels that were attacked — timed to explode four hours and 57 minutes after they were set — and were intended to kill the police that the militants believed would surround the buildings.
Two bombs outside the Taj Mahal hotel were defused by police. A third bomb, at the Oberoi hotel, was set off by police in a controlled explosion.
Kasab also said the gunmen took amphetamines to stay alert during the attacks, the security officials said.
There are many looking for words of tanchumim (comfort) regarding the massacre in Mumbai. Correctly people are calling these slaughters, terrorists. They had no purpose except to terrorize and to cause chaos and death. I feel that when HKBH created this moment He was reminding us that we need to be looking to Him. When Moshe Holtzberg was crying "Eifoh Ema" could he not have been crying for Sorah, Rivkah, Rochel or Leah? Should we not have been crying along with him, this little boy. I knew Leiby Teitelbaum from when he was a teenager in Belle Harbor. I sat with him and watched as he grew up into a man of impeccable repute and integrity. He was and will always be the good boy who grew up into a great man. I can remember when he went to Montreal and when he would return. His heart grew in Montreal. He had a tremendous love for Yidden of all kinds. He was a scion of Satmar, but he was a Yid. He didn't care for labels, and that's what his father and grandfather (the Nirbater) had inculcated into him. It didn't make any difference what you wore as long as your heart was directed toward Heaven. The Torah was one for all Yidden and it believed in strengthening that Torah in all Yidden. You can disagree with Satmar's shitta on Zionism and the Medina; that's a prerogative that you are freely granted. Leiby wouldn't argue with you regarding the political bent of Begin or Nethanyahu - he would argue that shmiras Shabbos is important to Yidden and that Yidden need to be close to Hashem.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I saw Leiby was at a family simcha. He was busy walking around the room greeting every one he knew. He was happy to be home and to bring his beautiful family to see Zaidie and Bubbe. The Volover Rov had a son who, like Avrohom Avinu, embodied his teachings and values. Yitzchok was born from Avrohom, had Avrohom's features, Avrohom's mannerisms, they couldn't be differentiated one from the other. I can't think of any words of nechama to say save I watched a good boy grow up to become a great man. I'll miss him.
Thank you R' Boruch!
ReplyDeleteWith great sensitivity, yet also with great pain, I wish to write the following:
ReplyDeleteThis week we all read that the relatives of Mumbai terror victim Aryeh Leib Teitelbaum asked that his casket not be draped with an Israeli flag. The deceased was a member of the Satmar community, which as we know is not a fan of Zionism. We can say that it despises the movement that established the State of Israel, and strongly objects to the existence of our state.
Of course, it was the family's right to make the request, and we should have honored their request. It wasn't proper, and we did not have to drape Teitelbaum casket with an Israeli flag before he was brought aboard the Israeli Air Force plane.
It is with great regret and pain that I am writing the following lines: The casket should have been left behind on the runway at the airport in Mumbai; we should have let the relatives send it to Israel by mail.
By Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky
ReplyDeleteHow does one manage
Not to cry
As he ponders
Wonders, “Why?”
He chose them
Not “Me,” not “I”
To write the saga
Of Mumbai
What’s there to write?
What’s there to say?
About a morbid
Dreadful day
A day of carnage
In Bombay
Brought to our homes
From far away
A world so distant
So far-flung
The banner of Hashem
Was hung
A song of comfort
Was once sung
And now it mourns
Its martyred young
Who did not know
Someone who’d gone
And felt the warmth
of Nariman?
An oasis of Yiddishkeit
In a foreign land
Where Yidden came
To bond
To band
Where golus took
A tiny break
An Indian respite
Where somehow
Diverse worlds would meet
And everyone would fit
But terror’s sword
Reached far and wide
And found us ’round the world
Yishmael’s flag
It would not hide
Its filthy wrath unfurled
A tearful lesson
Did us teach
A thought we all must know
That until we
Correct the breach
There’s no place they won’t go
To run
To hide
We all can try
But where we are
Is still Mumbai
Not the comforts
Of Boro Park
Nor fancy homes
In Sutton Park
Can keep the light
From turning dark
A bustling metropolis
Where the Torah’s
Words do reign
A tiny, lonely shtetel
Somewhere in the Ukraine
Are no safer than
The Nariman
Where Yidden
Came to pray
To find a breath
Of ruchniyus
In the smog of
Old Bombay
A hotel
In Netanya
Or a bus in
Tel Aviv
A rural street
In Iowa
Where Yidden
Hardly live
There’s golus in Bnei Brak
And hatred on the wall
Skinheads in Toronto
And bombs in Montreal
There’s always a reminder
That nowhere
Are we free
And that there is
No “type” of Yid
For every “them” is me
No matter where we’re standing
Whatever street you’re on
We need the understanding
Of “Golus Nariman”
No matter where we travel
No matter where we fly
Golus seems to find us
For everywhere’s Mumbai
There are no sects in golus
And no rift does exist
For we are “one”
To all of “them”
To every terrorist
But if everywhere is golus
And all Jews are just one
Perhaps there is nechama
In the mayhem that was done
We were all shot together
We limp as we are maimed
The dreadful storm we’ll weather
With each bullet that they aimed
We’re Toldos Avram Yitzchak
Chabad and Bobov, too
We are Israeli tourists
And a Mexicana Jew
Maybe we are still standing
Indeed we’re still alive
But maybe we are Moishele
The baby who’d survive
For Klal Yisroel’s yasom
Whose tears wet every heart
Is the symbol of our history
A message to impart
That no matter how they’ll kill us
Whatever time or where
Moishele will yet live on
A hope for our despair
Amongst the smoke and rubble
A babe ‘mongst the reeds
A plant amidst the trouble
The Almighty always seeds
Until Moshiach’s heralding
When all the dead revive
The Moisheles declare our fate
“Klal Yisroel will survive!”
BRAVO! R' Kaminetsky
ReplyDeleteI'm sad, happy, angry and unsurprised by all of this.
ReplyDeleteWhy sad? I'm sad because of all the children whose lives have been destroyed by these evil selfish bastards. And I'm sad because the leadership went tribal and turned inwards, protecting the criminals and retaliating against the victims. But I'm also heart sick at what this is going to do to Jews and Judaism. It will drive a lot of Jews away from their people and their peoples' religion. It will drag the reputation of Judaism through the mud. It will break open the communities while police and lawyers shine lights in all the dark corners. It didn't have to be that way. If the fur-hats had taken steps themselves or at least not shut out the reformers and the civil authorities it wouldn't have turned into this cluster fuck.
On the other hand I'm happy that the lights are shining and the roaches are scurrying. It's past time this happened, and if it takes a bunch of dead rabbis to accomplish it - babyrapers don't live long in prison - at least the children will be protected, and the Haredi communities will learn to deal with reality.
Angry? Oh Lord am I angry. I'm angry at the perverts and child molesters. I'm even angrier at their enablers, the ones who make the excuses and coerce the victims. Most of all I'm furious that a mule-headed traditionalism has forced it to get to this point.
But in the end I'm not surprised. Heavily authoritarian, patriarchal, insular religious communities have a lot of this. Authority gets tied up with entitlement. That includes sexual entitlement. The most important thing is obedience to G-d's Infallible Representatives and maintaining solidarity against everyone outside the sect. Look at any basic material about the dynamics of cults. We've seen it in the Catholic Church, New Religions, the FLDS, Protestant groups and Islam. We Jews are human. There's no reason to believe we would act any differently.
Back to the previous discussion about UOJ, I think he gets more credit that Steve gave him.
ReplyDeleteBesides all the things UOJ has done behind the scenes that he doesn't publicize, there are other outcomes he was behind or likely behind.
He forced the retirement of Shea Fishman from Torah Umesorah.
He may have forced the retirement of Shmuel Bloom from the Agudah and certainly forced the organization to stop opposing legislation to register sex offenders.
He may have forced the suspicious retirement and probable ouster of Aron Twerski from Hofstra University.
About half the board of Torah Vodaath now has it in for Yisroel Belsky and would like to get rid of him.
He forced the resignation of Dr. Tuvya / Chaim / Charles Neuhoff as "school psychologist" of Torah Temimah.
He provoked an uproar in the 5 Towns regarding Rabbi Scheinberg resulting in many people stopping their visits to him when he hangs out by Aryeh Ginzburg's house.
He may have had a hand in the ouster of Shalom Tendler from from Young Israel.
After getting Kolko out of YTT, he also stopped him from proctoring tests at YOB and taking camp kids to the Lake Compounce water park.
He handed confidential files to Edgar Bronfman before Israel Singer's ouster from World Jewish Congress.
He got Leib Pinter kicked out of the Mirrer yeshiva office.
He may have been behind Artscroll editing Paysach Krohn's books to remove the lies meant to whitewash child rapist Lipa Brenner.
There must be other items I don't recall right now.
http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/763205
ReplyDeleteThe Fall of the House of Rubashkin
As the nation's largest kosher empire implodes, Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox Jews begin to break ranks
By Elizabeth Dwoskin
published: December 03, 2008
http://www.jewcy.com/post/agriprocessors_gift_keeps_giving
ReplyDeleteNow Agriprocessors' court-appointed trustee, Joseph Sarachek of New York, is trying to restart production and pay workers – at least those workers who play ball with the company.
In effect, Sarachek is running a plantation with slavery replaced by indentured servitude. If workers come back to work, they will be given back wages owed to them in dribs and drabs. If they do not come back to work, they will need to wait for the final bankruptcy settlement – which means they likely will never see any money. Secured creditors like banks get paid first, and Agriprocessors has more debt now, including potential fines, than industry experts I've spoken with believe it has equity.
Sarachek told me Friday that he wants "everyone" to be repaid, but said the "budget" he has been given and US bankruptcy law prevents him from doing more for workers.
Sarachek's press release announcing the possible resumption of production and repayment of selected workers tells workers to contact plant spokesman Chaim Abrahams with questions.
Abrahams – a fierce Rubashkin partisan and a fellow member of the Chabad-Lubavitch hasidic sect – is one of the figures in Agriprocessors most distrusted by workers. Throughout the 6 1/2 month crisis, Abrahams has defended almost every action of the company. He has repeatedly denied the company abused workers or shorted their pay.
Abrahams also tried to silence Postville's community radio station, KPVL, and fire or censor its main on-air personality, Jeff Abbas. Abrahams is especially upset by Abbas' airing of interviews done with former workers, calling the bad news about the company "divisive" and bad for Postville.
Abrahams sits on the radio station's board. The station is a nonprofit, and Abrahams should have resigned from that board immediately after the May 12 raid. He did not. Instead, he tried to use his position and influence to remove Abbas.
Along with running KPVL, Abbas stepped in to fill the void left by city inaction. As Agriprocessors workers found themselves broke, hungry and sometimes homeless, Abbas lobbied state officials to bring in relief. When the mayor heard that Jewish families were going hungry because they lacked kosher food, he turned to Abbas, who led a successful emergency drive to get kosher food for Postville's Jews.
Before that, Abbas started an impromptu 7-day soup kitchen and food shelf in Postville's multicultural center next to his radio station to augment the existing 3-day-per-week community food shelf. The city objected to this use of the multicultural center and repeatedly tried to shut the Abbas soup kitchen/food shelf down. At the same time, the city made no attempt to pick up the the slack that this shutdown, if successful, would bring.
On Friday, November 21, state, county and city officials, along with volunteers like Abbas, met in Postville to try to coordinate relief efforts. Under pressure, the city agreed to use Turner Hall, an unoccupied city-owned landmark, as a relief center.
According to volunteers (and according to the sign posted on the building's entrance) the relief center was supposed to be open seven days a week, staffed by volunteers.
But, when volunteers showed up Saturday morning, they found the building locked tight. No one from the city came to open it or returned their calls. Hungry Agriprocessors workers were left on the streets to fend for themselves – a situation the city has seemed quite happy with these past few months.
Among Agriprocessors' dispossessed, Abbas has become the go-to person for all types of help. He has helped find dozens transportation home – whether that home is Indianapolis or Palau, the South Sea island where some of the newer Agriprocessors workers are from.
So when one of those dispossessed heard others talking about robbing stores and holding Rubashkin family members at gunpoint to get the money owed them, the worker made a beeline to Abbas.
Abbas smartly recorded the worker's story and then called the county sheriff (it was too early in the morning to call Postville's tiny police department, which was closed). After that, Abbas called the mayor and a prominent member of the Jewish community. He did not air the threat because he did not want to create panic.
Three hours after first informing law enforcement, Abbas decided the threat should be publicly available information, so he sent the audio to me. I published it immediately and urged the Jewish community to take precautions, including evacuating its private school.
Abbas's decision infuriated both Postville's city administration and the Jewish community – even though at the time I posted the audio reinforcements from the county sheriff had still not arrived in Postville (they were "on the way," a law enforcement source told me, and should be arriving "soon"; remember, this is three full hours after Abbas first called), and Postville's tiny police force did not have the capability on its own to handle the threat.
Iowa media picked up on the threat, the JTA later blogged about it, and the attention helped push through the coordinated relief effort mentioned above – the same relief effort the city is now undermining.
Meanwhile, we also recently learned that the undocumented Agriprocessors workers released from federal prison after serving five month sentences for aggravated identity theft are being supported entirely by St. Bridget's Catholic Church.
The workers have to remain in the country until they testify at Agriprocessors' and Sholom M. Rubashkin's trials, along with the trials of other indicted Agriprocessors managers. But they have no means of support. Their temporary work permits arrived weeks after their release and, in any case, jobs are very scarce in Postville these days.
But that scarcity of work does not apply to the Rubashkin family.
I asked Agriprocessors' trustee, Joseph Sarachek, if Rubashkin family members like Sholom M. Rubashkin's brother, Heshy (also an Agriprocessors VP) or Sholom M.'s son Getzel would be employed by the company if production restarts Monday or Tuesday.
"Yes," Sarachek said.
I asked him why.
"I need their experience," Sarachek replied.
Ditto for Chaim Abrahams, the Agriprocessors spokesman and would-be censor who Sarachek named point man for workers' questions.
"It's like triage," Sarachek said, "I have to work with what I've got."
UOJ once exposed the owner of Mr. Broadway restaurant, across the street from J-II Pizza in Manhattan.
ReplyDeleteThe guy had purportedly been advertising himself as an icon of morality and goodwill to his workers before the State Attorney General nailed him with a $300,000 penalty for all kinds of abuses like forced overtime without pay.
What if Yoni was left behind?
ReplyDeleteJuly 4, 1976 Entebbe. A young colonel with a bright future is shot from a tower at Entebbe airport during a lightning rescue raid. As his life is ebbing one of his fellow soldiers demands that all surviors get on the plane. When one soldier demands that Yoni be carried home, the ground leader argues that it is too dangerous, one of ours is gone, he's dead, leave him here. The other soldier refuses, Yoni is one of ours and we will take him home. The soldier who would leave Yoni behind waxes regretfully and worries about the safety of those who are still alive; those who can run to the plane and get out. The soldier who wants Yoni to come home at all costs knows the danger but refuses to leave his beloved leader behind.
It couldn't have happened this way - so you would think.
Mr. Haber compares the ineptitude of a government with regards to carrying out its' duties to bringing home the remains of soldiers in the field. Yes, Mr. Haber, the Holtzbergs, the Teitelbaums, the Kruman's are all soldiers. They are leaders in the field. They fight a war whose ramifications you cannot fathom as you shallowly decry the insult to a nation that you demean in the same breath as you insult your fellow countrymen. THEY ARE JEWS. They were killed because they are Jews. The monsters that hijacked that Air France 747 segregated the Jews and would have killed them all to send their specious argument to the world that Jews (Zionists, Communists, Racists, that they are) have forfeited their privilege to attain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Mr. Haber, I watched Leibish Teitelbaum grow from a good boy to a great man. I watched him as he was not only disseminating Torah; he was messengering gemilat hasodim. His Chabad compatriots and his Bobover friend were front-line soldiers in the war against the enemies of Jews everywhere. They exemplified what a soldier should be representing, to the world, regarding his nation. Mr. Haber you argue that piece of cloth is the ultimate representation and it's denigration was too much for your psyche. I argue that it is not a cloth that will mark the life of these people but their unabashed love of Jews. Leibish Teitelbaum was clothed in ahavas Yisroel. When a young man first stepped into his father's shteibel in Belle Harbor NY, it was Leibish Teitelbaum who would be asking questions - not the Jewish geography questions - but the penetrating questions of caring, concern, uplifting the person. Leibish Teitelbaum didn't need a flag to identify with Jews. He had a simchas hachaim which identified him as a Jew.
I feel for you Mr. Haber. I feel that you are rent by the bereft behavior of your country - this beloved and beautiful land. They would not have left Yoni behind at Entebbe any more than they would have concerned themselves with what coat, hat or flag Leibish Teitelbaum preferred. Yoni would have shed bitter tears over these deaths. Leibish Teitelbaum was 5 when Yoni died at Entebbe. I told him the story. I told him about Yoni. Leibish Teitelbaum would've had Yoni in his house, anytime, for a schnapps, a piece of kugel, a schmooze. Leibish Teitelbaum didn't walk through the streets of Yerushalyim except with simchas ha chaim and ahava for every Jew. Look at the pictures of whom came to his levaya, they weren't all Satmar. They weren't all Charedim. They weren't all Zionim. They were all Jews.
Mr. Haber, when you're in America and you want to see what Jews here teach about Jews in Israel, go to the Volover Rov. I've sat at that table and I sat there for many years from Belle Harbor to Boro Park. I've seen the angst and the pain etched on the Rov's face when Jews were killed or injured in Tel Aviv or Ashdod. He didn't ask if they were Satmar or Bobov or Ger or from the Mir or from Brisk. The Rov doesn't care where a Jew is from and that he inculcated into his children.
Mr. Haber, you have maligned a people known for their chessed and good deeds over the handling of a funeral - secular or not secular. It is a disservice to the niftarim, the soldiers of Israel, and to the people of Israel. Symbols are not more important than people. Yoni was a person. He would've understood and kept silent and stood amongst the Jews in Meah Shearim to pay repects to fellow soldier.
FailedMessiah.com
ReplyDeleteCovering Orthodox Judaism Since 2004
Hikind has not "changed the world" yet but he has accomplished more in this "non talking community", far more, than anyone else has ever done, to get them to "start talking".
"Start talking" to whom? To Hikind so that he can collect files and theN "present" them to the rabbis, with the molesters names crossed out? No, he as accomplished NOTHING to date. The one who has accomplished more than anyone is UOJ. He singlehandedly got Kolko out of YTT after forty years. It was his blog that got the victims to talk, not only to the press but to the police. The same with Colmer. If it wasn't for UOJ's campaign, Kolko and Colmer would still be molesting children today. So your assertion that Hikind has accomplished more than anyone is ridiculous since he has accomplished zero to date. On top of that, he lied through his teeth by stating that he will make sure that Reichman of UTA is not in a classroom come September, even if he has to hold a press conference in front of the yeshiva. Well, Reichman is still teaching and there was no such press conference. Go ask Pearl Engelman how much Hikind has accomplished.
If anything, he has reinforced Omerta with his stubborness in not revealing the names of the molesters. The message he is sending is that the identity of these molesters is sacred and that we must protect them and their families at all costs. He is even willing to go to jail to protect these bastards. Like the menuval storeowner that was mentioned on his radio show that met up with his victim some fifteen years later and said "he's sorry". This after sexually abusing him and countless others for years.
Dov protection of this criminal puts countless children at risk. Even if the SOL expired, he can still reveal the identities of the perps so that the community knows to keep their children away from them. It's about time you realize that Dov is a politician, period. It's all about the grandstanding. Like the Assembly bill that Elliot Pasik wrote mandating background checks and fingerprinting in private schools. It's been sitting in the Assembly for two and a half years now, where Dov sits, like those hundreds of files sit. They all sit while Jewish children are being destroyed in this plague.
Posted by: steve | December 03, 2008 at 10:18 AM
Steve,
If you think that UOJ is so effective and has accomplished so much more than Hikind, please explain why, in your opinion, does Hikind have a few thousand case files and why UOJ doesn't.
I challenge UOJ to come to Williamsburg and Borough Park and ask these same thousands to talk to UOJ.
I guarantee you that "Mr effective UOJ" will not get, not even a fraction of what Hikind got, if anything at all.
First of all, you have no idea how many hundreds, if not thousands of victims that UOJ has counselled over the years. I do know for a fact. Secondly, talk is cheap. Like the Williamsburg case where Hikind guaranteed that Reichman would not return. All Hikind has done is set up a de facto system to deal with the problem "internally" without involving the police. This is the same faulty system that has gotten us in this mess to begin with.
Posted by: steve | December 03, 2008 at 10:49 AM
Do you honestly believe that Hikind would have had anyone at all, coming forward to him, (never mind thousands of cases), if a "Law" existed which forced Hikind to disclose everything he knows?
Again, what have you accomplished by getting people to "come forward" if you are still protecting and enabling the molesters? Show me how many victims that Hikind convinced to go to the police, then I will be impressed. UOJ was directly or indirectly responsible for removing the following molesters from chinuch and/or society:
Yehuda Kolko
Avrohom Mondrowitz
Stefan Colmer
Moshe Eiseman
A.M. Leizerowitz
Yehuda Nussbaum
How many has Dov removed in his illustrious political career? How many years did he keep silent while DA Hynes protected Mondrowitz? Kolko? He has a lot to answer for and a lot to accomplish before he warrants any praise.
Posted by: steve | December 03, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Steve,
The more years someone is doing anything, the more will be accomplished as time goes on.
UOJ is at it for many years. Hikind is at it only for several months.
You haven't answered my prior two questions but I'll ask you 3d question anyway.
If UOJ is at it so many years why are there only a handful of names which you mentioned and why isn't he being subpoenad instead of Hikind?
If Hikind has thousands then UOJ must also have thousands if not millions..... so why isn't UOJ going public with a few thousand names?
And if UOJ went to the Police with thousands of names, why are there no thousands of arrests, under UOJ belt?
And if OUJ did go to the DA but the DA is protecting the Orthodox community anyway, obviously Hikind couldn't do any better than the ineffectiveness of UOJ on the SAME THOUSANDS of cases.
Hikind says he has hundreds or thousands of cases. How many names doe UOJ have?
Why no hundreds of thousands of arrests or "going public" with names by the HUNDREDS and by the THOUSANDS, by "Mr UOJ"?
If UOJ is such an effective SUPERMAN why does he only have One handful of 5 or so names, under his belt after so many YEARS that UOJ is doing this, while Hikind has Hundreds or Thousands under his belt, in only a few months at the same game?
Posted by: | December 03, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Mr. Blankety Blank,
UOJ has been an blogger for three years. Dov Hikind has been a State Assemblyman representing the Orthodox community for 25 years. The anonymous blogger in three years has accomplished more than the Assemblyman, who is supposedly representing the interests of the Orthodox community , has in TWENTY FIVE YEARS!!! If anything, Dov has aided and abetted the Agudah and his other cronies in covering up for the molesters. His silence during the same twenty five years in the Mondrowitz case was deafening. So before you crticize UOJ, let's look at the score: UOJ 6, Hikind 0. This is while Hikind had a twenty two year head start and his lofty political position and influence. Unfortunately, he has repeatedly used his political clout to protect and defend the enablers and molesters. His indefensible record speaks for itself. If he's sincere about teshuvah, then let's see him come through on at least ONE of his promises. Just one!
Posted by: steve | December 03, 2008 at 12:33 PM
R' Boruch:
ReplyDeleteYou have proven yourself to be an eloquent and inspiring baal machshava. Let's hear more from you - how about a guest post?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1091925/Iran-arrests-49-citizens-wearing-satanic-Western-style-clothes-haircuts.html
ReplyDeleteThis is sick.I just can't believe this gibberish can be taken seriously.I understand that the heiliger "Yid" ("Goi"?) came out with a deranged article but I haven't seen it yet.
ReplyDelete" Mumbai Terror Attack: Further Evidence Of The Anglo-American-Mossad-RSS Nexus
By Amaresh Misra
03 December, 2008
Countercurrents.org
Now who has the last laugh? That is the question; I only have pity for those who cannot see reality and who were so glib to buy into what the media and political troubleshooters were saying about the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Consider this:
As a BBC report notes, at least some of the Mumbai attackers were not Indian and certainly not Muslim.Pappu Mishra, a cafe proprietor at the gothic Victorian Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, described "two sprightly young men dressed in black" with AK47s who were "foreign looking, fair skinned."Gaffar Abdul Amir, an Iraqi tourist from Baghdad, saw at least two men who started the firing outside the Leopold Cafe. "They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed," Amir told the BBC.
According to Andrew G. Marshall, the ISI "has long been referred to as Pakistan's 'secret government' or 'shadow state.' It's long-standing ties and reliance upon American and British intelligence have not let up, therefore actions taken by the ISI should be viewed in the context of being a Central Asian outpost of Anglo-American covert intelligence operations."The presence of "foreign looking, fair skinned" commandos who calmly gunned down dozens of people after drinking a few beers indicates that the Mumbai attacks were likely the work of the Anglo-American covert intelligence operatives, not indigenous Indian Muslims or for that matter Arab al-Qaeda terrorists. The attacks prepare the ground for the break-up of Pakistan and the furtherance of destabilizing terrorism in the Middle East and Asia. The Mumbai attacks had little to do with India or the relationship between Muslim Pakistanis and Hindu Indians."Pakistan's position as a strategic focal point cannot be underestimated. It borders India, Afghanistan, China and Iran," concludes Marshall. "Destabilizing and ultimately breaking Pakistan up into several countries or regions will naturally spread chaos and destabilization into neighboring countries. This is also true of Iraq on the other side of Iran, as the Anglo-American have undertaken, primarily through Iraq, a strategy of balkanizing the entire Middle East in a new imperial project." (See Marshall's Divide and Conquer: The Anglo-American Imperial Project.)
Now I ask specifically: WHO HAS EGG ON THE FACE? MY DETRACTORS OR ME?
Andrew Marshall is a respected author; he is clearly saying here that terrorists looked like Anglo-American covert operatives and that the entire Mumbai operation was an attempt by Anglo-American forces to destabilize India and push it further into the Israel-US orbit. Marshall also says that Americans are keen to dismember Pakistan--it is clear that in this project, America needs India as a firm ally--it cannot afford Indo-Pak friendship at least on a long-term basis. The Mumbai attack thus was multi-layered--and one of the reasons could be to warn India that the Anglo-American elite has the power to penetrate India, with the help of its own people. Clearly, the attackers would not have come from the sea route without some kind of a connivance of Gujarat and Maharashtra Governments with the terrorists, and the connivance of RSS type Hindutva elements as I will prove later in the piece.
This afore-mentioned report appeared on the BBC, a news agency which pro-west, Muslim-haters and all NRIs love to see. NOW I ASK THESE PEOPLE: why are you adopting double standards? Now a BBC report is incovenient because it militates against your idea of what happened in Mumbai?
Even the Indian Government is aware of this reality. That is why it is not issuing statements in a hurry and that is why the kind of Islamo-phobia seen earlier after Bomb Blasts is not being seen now.
A second report is more shocking--some news channels captured it but then it went off air:
One Police officer who encountered the gunmen as they entered the Jewish Center (Nariman House) said the attackers were white. "I went into the building late last night" he said. "I got a shock because they were white. I was expecting them to look like us. They fired three shots. I fired 10 back".
The Nariman House affair brings the Mossad angle to the fore. Two of the `hostages' killed in the Narimam House were identified as Rabbi Gabreil Holtzberg and his wife Rivka. They ran the center as spokespersons of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.
Now the Chabad movement is one of the many sects within Israel and Judaism. But of late it has come under the Zionist influence. Now what is Zionism? A brief digression would suffice: Zionism is the political ideology of racist Jews, just like Hindutva is the political ideology of a section of `race conscious' Hindus. Just as a majority of Sanatani Hindus have opposed Hindutva, a majority of Jews oppose Zionism and its fascist-anti-religious tone.
In opposition to the teachings of Judaism, the orthodox Jew religion, Zionists want to dominate the world; they see the `Jewish race' as the most important, almost divine, race in the world. Zionists are opposed to democracy and even the concept of naitonhood. Zionists believe in creating murder and mayhem as a matter of policy.
In America, Zionists have entered into an alliance with the American elites--the White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) forces--which rule America. The reasons for this alliance lie in the way the Zionist agenda matches with that of the American corporate and WASP elite and is beyind the scope of this article.
People who do not understand Zionism will never be able to understand what happened in Mumbai.
Back to members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement killed at Nariman House--people have asked how come the Rabbi and his wife were killed if Mossad is involved in the Mumbai terror attack?
The answer to this is being forwarded by Jewish anti-Zionist websites. They also detail the sectarian history of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement:
The attack on Mumbai spotlights the ultra-orthodox (haredi) Chabad-Lubavitch community and its international outreach network. When Chabad outreach (keruv) started in the 1950s, it seemed rather intellectually dishonest because the organization used nostalgia for a never-existent Jewish past as a hook to enmesh secular or secularized Jews in ultra-orthodox (haredi) practice as hozrim bitshuvah (returnees, sometimes improperly called baalei tshuvah), but on the whole the activity was mostly harmless in contrast with current Chabad activities, which long ago crossed the border into dangerous territory.
As the Lubavitcher organization has become larger and wealthier -- partially because mobilization for keruv has brought large contributions, members have shown a propensity for corruption.
Yet, the Lubavitchers have worked closely with Jewish racists like Lawrence Summers and Alan Dershowitz in the ongoing attempt to control discourse on American campuses. The wealthy Russian Lubavitcher hozer bitshuvah Lev Leviev openly supports Zionist terrorism and settlement building in the Palestinan occupied territories. Possibly because of Leviev Chabad-Lubavitch has openly become involved in Putin's struggles with Russian Jewish oligarchs.
Still, there is an even more sinister aspect to the Lubavitcher organization.
Because Lubavitcher outreach offices are located in some of the most important political, corporate and university centers throughout the world, the Lubavitchers have put together a network that is incomparable for corporate and international espionage as well as for the secret exchange of information. Because Chabad Houses could potentially act as safe houses, where there would be no record of a person's stay.
Most people do not take the Lubavitchers seriously, but I have visited Chabad houses and encountered senior Israeli government or military officials (and probably intelligence agents). One can easily imagine that Neocon intelligentsia trying to develop a relationship with Hindutva (?????????) intelligentsia or politicians might have used the Chabad Nariman House as a meeting place.
Here a Jew is saying that he has visited Chabad houses and that he has seen covert operations going on and the involvement of senior Government and military officials of Israel. This Jew writer is also talking openly about a Neo-Con-Chabad-Hindutva tie-up!
The Jew writer mentions the Mossad involvement in Chabad Houses:
Because the Lubavitchers provide an unconditional welcome to all Jews in the hope of bringing them closer to the Lubavitcher way of life, the Lubavitchers have been open to potential subversion by Israeli intelligence organizations. Mossad and Shin Bet found it quite easy to penetrate the haredi community during the Yossele Affair. Jewish politics has often involved infiltration and subversion of one political group by another. The David Project Israel Advocacy organization has used its educational programs as a means to infiltrate more mainstream Jewish communal organizations with radical Islamophobes and Jabotinskian Zionists.
To Zionize haredi groups that practice outreach, the Israeli government need only give encouragement to Zionistically indoctrinated Hebrew-speaking young people to participate in outreach programs, and in a few years the targeted haredi community is thoroughly enmeshed in Zionist thinking while Israeli intelligence organizations have a new crop of saya`nim in place ready to serve in Zionist covert operations.
What is a sayanim? Go to the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayanim and it states that "Sayanim (Hebrew: "helpers") is a term used to describe Jews living outside Israel who volunteer to provide assistance to the Mossad.[1] This assistance includes facilitating medical care, money, logistics, and even overt intelligence gathering, yet sayanim are only paid for their expenses. No official number is known, but estimates put the number of sayanim in the thousands. The existence of this large body of volunteers is one reason why the Mossad operates with fewer case officers than fellow intelligence agencies"
Now back to the link
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/12/
chabad-lubavitch-dangerous-game.html
from which I was quoting the Jewish writer originally. He says that the Lubavitcher shluchim (outreach emissaries) Gavriel Noach and Rivka Holtzberg fit the `sayanim' profile to a "T" -- especially Rivkah.
So the two people killed in Nariman House fit the Sayanim, that is Jews outside Israel who volunteer to provide assistance to Mossad, profile!
NOW WHAT OTHER PROOF DO YOU WANT?
The Jewish writer of the afore-mentioned link himself asks the question: WOULD MOSSAD HAVE KILLED THE RABBI AND HIS WIFE IN NARIMAN HOUSE?
AND HE PROVIDES THE ANSWER:
Zionists have always used dead Jews to build sympathy for Zionist goals and as cover for Zionist crimes against humanity.
Ben-Gurion explicitly stated that he would sacrifice German Jewish children for the sake of Zionism while the Zionist leadership probably learned the benefit of sacrificing Zionist operatives from the 1946 Kielce Pogrom. In this incident (Jewish) Soviet and Zionist agents probably worked together to make sure that surviving Polish Jews chose emigration to Palestine over a return to Poland.
Because the Kielce Zionist recruiters were killed during the pogrom, the events leading up to the pogrom was rendered forever unobtainable.
Some reports of the Mumbai attack indicate that the Holtzbergs rented space to the attack planners over the past few months and thereby helped make the operation far more effective.
An opportunity to interrogate the Holtzbergs would have helped investigators immensely.
AGAIN WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?
Another piece of massive evidence: In a telephone interview with CBC News from outside the Center (Nariman House), freelance journalists Arun Asthana said that there are reports that some of the militants had stayed at a guest house there (Nariman House) for upto 15 days before the attack. "They had a huge mass of ammunition, arms and food there", Asthana said.
Now other reports have also confirmed that a huge mass of food was ordered by the residents of the Nariman House. This food was enough for 30-40 people for several days. Why was this amount of food ordered? Also why was Nariman House not assaulted till the very last? A Gujarati Hindu resident of Mumbai came onto TV on CNN-IBN to say at around 3.30 AM or so, that for two months suspicious activities wree going in Nariman House. A lot of foreigners were seen coming in and going out. This matter was reported to the Police. But no one took action.
The CNN-IBN did not repeat the news; then it was only when the common people of Mumbai threatened to storm the Nariman House the NSG commandos were moved in--why this delay in assaulting Nariman House when only two terrorists were holed in there?
This is sheer official complicity and nothing else--AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE WHOLE NARIMAN HOUSE AFFAIR IS A MUST.
Then it was reported that " somehow surprising to learn that the terrorists in Cama hospital in Mumbai were fluently speaking Marathi. The terrorists who are said to have fired in Cama hospital talked to an employee clad in civil dress in Marathi, reports a Marathi daily 'Maharashtra Times'.
The newspaper said the terrorists who targeted ATS chief Hemant Karkare, police commissioner Ashok Kamte and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar were speaking Marathi fluently.
The newspaper claims the terrorists having fired at two watchmen in uniform asked the other beside them on gunpoint in Marathi, 'You are here an employee?' The employee caught the legs of the terrorist and said, 'I am not working here. My wife has suffered from heart attack and I have come here to admit her.' The terrorist asked him again in Marathi, 'You are speaking true or false?' The employee answered, 'No, by God I am speaking true.'
On this the terrorist let him go.
NOW WHAT DO WE MAKE OF THAT? Another report says that traditional Jews of Mumbai who have migrated to Israel speak fluent Marathi and are known to have been recruited by Mossad!
The death of Hemant Karkare remains a mystery. All official versions are contradictory: some say he was killed near CST, some that he died near Cama hospital, some near Metro cinema, and some that he was killed while in a Police jeep. Also, where did the bullet hit him? Some say on the neck and some near the heart. Karkare was shown on TV wearing a bullet proof vest--he could not have been shot in neck in that case, unless there was a sniper waiting for him.
Also if he was shot near heart, then when did he take out his vest? No one has even bothered to answer this question. Also, another facet is coming to light: that Karkare was killed near Cama--but Kaamte and Salaskar in the Metro shootout!
Intelligent people--what do you have to say now? It is becoming obvious that...
1. Several terrorists might have been white
2. Were they International mercanaries? If yes, then from which country? Who collected them? It is well known that Mossad and CIA have several mercenary organizations, including so-called Jihadi ones on their list. They create Jihad and manipulate Muslims disaffected by the Islamophobia in the world. Some of them might have been used in the Mumbai attack. But why were they carrying American, British, Mauritian and Malaysian passports?
3. Who were the Marathi speaking Karkare killers? The lane next to the Cama Hospital is a deserted one--it goes straight to the backyard of the Mumbai CID Headquarters. Anonymous sources in the Police have revealed that Karkare was taken there, by a joint team of anti-Karkare, pro-Hindutva Mumbai Police officers, and Chota Rajan men. Now Karkare was opposed to Chota Rajan. Salaskar was anti-Pradeep Sharma, another Mumbai senior Police officer now in jail, for working as Rajan's shooter. So the Marathi speaking terrorists could either have been Jews with some connection to Mumbai--or hired killers of the Hindutva brigade or men of Chota Rajan.
4. It seems that several things went on simultaneously--the Mahrashtra Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh was in Kerala when the Mumbai attack began at 9.30 PM on 26th November. Then by 11PM Deshmukh had informed the Home Minister Shivraj Patil--the latter has started proceedings to send the NSG Commandos. So Deshmukh knew about what was happening by 11PM--then why was there no Mumbai Police on various locations between 9.30 and 1am, the time when Karkare arrived? The Mumbai ATS is a separate organization. it does not lead the Mumbai Police. So the 40,000 strong Mumbai Police was absent from the scene of action between 11pm to 1am and then Karkare arrived and he was killed along with his men!
Isn't there something fishy here? Obviously the Mumbai Police was kept deliberately away between 11pm and 1am, the time period when terrorists were killing people merrily. Then Karkare must have been told--and he went there expecting Mumbai police personals to be there--but there were none or only a few! And he was killed!
Amaresh Misra is a freelance writer, historian and poet. He is the author of Mangal Pandey: The True Story of an Indian Revolutionary; Lucknow: Fire of Grace: The Story of Its Renaissance, Revolution and the Aftermath, and more recently War of Civilizations: The Road to Delhi and The Long Revolution. He can be contacted on misra.amaresh@gmail.com
In the Wake of Mumbai: An Agnostic Jew Considers Chabad
ReplyDelete"Like many agnostic Jews, I have my own experience of Chabad.
I first encountered them years ago on Los Angeles’ LaBrea Avenue, when a rabbi from one of their “Mitzvah tanks” (mobile vans) stopped me on the sidewalk. He asked if I was Jewish and, if so, when was the last time I had “laid tefillin” (put on ritual phylacteries). Frankly, I couldn’t remember if I ever had and recoiled from the invitation. I was again accosted by one of their number – with the same invitation - in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. This time I let him do it. Hey, when in Rome….
But this all meant little to me beyond minor cultural/anthropological interest until I again met some Chabadniks in LA who were helping substance abusers. For scraggily bearded “whackos” dressed in weird hats and ill-fitting Eighteenth Century Polish business suits they seemed to be going about it in a surprisingly sympathetic and even modern way. Later – I was then researching my novel about Jewish fundamentalism Raising the Dead– I joined a study group led by a Chabad/Lubavitcher rebbe in Westwood. Most of the members were from the music business, cool characters in trendy haircuts out to find God (or G-d, as they would have it). These dudes and dudettes – guilty perhaps about living lives of sex, drugs and rock & roll - were on the edge of self-parody, but the rabbi was able to engage with them on their “groovy” level and his own spiritual one simultaneously. I was impressed. (It is important to remember about Lubavitchers that they are rather different from other Hasidic sects that tend to be insular. The Chabadniks emphasize outreach, not just to Jews but to all in need.)
Still later, my wife and I, though both agnostics, thought we should do something for the Jewish education of our five-year old daughter, for cultural reasons at least. Most of the Sunday schools we investigated, however, were pretty pathetic and scarcely educational enterprises until we discovered “Chabad of Mt. Olympus.” We giggled at the humorous name, which derived from the location of the rabbi’s house in an aging Los Angeles tract development, but we enrolled our daughter in the school. It was a good experience, even if we had to put up with a lot of atrocious food at various Passover events, etc. (Cuisine is not Chabad’s long suit.) But the school was educational. Trailing behind my daughter, I learned a few things about my tradition myself, and yet nothing was ever imposed on me. I wasn’t even really proselytized.
And that’s the point. Chabadniks really are religious Jews in the best sense. Whether we admit it or not, Reform Jews from my background are hardly religious at all. It’s more of a social club. There’s nothing wrong in that, of course, as long as you are honest about it. But it should give a hint why the Chabadniks are more mainstays in the War on Terror than Reform Jews whose values and views often veer more towards John Kerry than Moshe Dayan.
Which leads me to the topic of the hour – Mumbai. It’s clear the young Lubavitcher couple murdered by the terrorists, Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg and his wife Rivka, were the finest of human beings. They were dedicated to promoting goodness in the world in the deepest spiritual sense. They wished only the best for all humanity and also did their best to encourage it, in fact gave their lives for it. You don’t have to believe in G-d or even God to understand that. Their horrifying deaths reminded this agnostic that there is indeed something called evil in the world.
So now what do I do? What, indeed, do we all do?
UPDATE: The Times of India and other sources are reporting the terrorists did thorough reconnaissance of the Mumbai Chabad Center in advance of their action, apparently staying there disguised as Malaysian students, no doubt under the good offices of the Holzbergs. Somebody should tell the New York Times who, as of this writing, is still reporting the Jewish center as an “unlikely target.” In fact, at first the Times seemed to disbelieve the center could have been a target at all. But that’s no surprise. They have missed Jewish target stories, even the most important ones, in the past:
The reason is that the American media in general and the New York Times in particular never treated the Holocaust as an important news story. From the start of the war in Europe to its end nearly six years later, the story of the Holocaust made the Times front page only 26 times out of 24,000 front-page stories, and most of those stories referred to the victims as “refugees” or “persecuted minorities.” In only six of those stories were Jews identified on page one as the primary victims.
Nor did the story lead the paper, appearing in the right-hand column reserved for the day’s most important news – not even when the concentration camps were liberated at the end of the war. In addition, the Times intermittently and timidly editorialized about the extermination of the Jews, and the paper rarely highlighted it in either the Week in Review or the magazine section.
As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same."
http://www.wpix.com/landing_fact_finders/?Shocking-Sex-Abuse-Allegations=1&blockID=152046&feedID=1128
ReplyDeleteWho is this ferd coming out of YTT yelling at the reporter from Channel 11?
http://www.wpix.com/landing_fact_finders/?Shocking-Sex-Abuse-Allegations=1&blockID=152046&feedID=1128
ReplyDeleteFact Finders
Shocking Sex Abuse Allegations
December 3, 2008
Dark secrets are emerging from a local, religious community that's known for its modesty and old world values.
PIX 11 has learned that a prominent, Orthodox Jewish leader will meet with the Brooklyn District Attorney to talk about allegations of sexual abuse in religious schools and homes.
Mary Murphy has more in a Fact Finders report.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Survivors For Justice email address: info@survivorsforjustice.org
Hotline Number: 1 (877) 735-1420
Contacts:
Joel Engelman
Mark Weiss
The Eaazi blog cited by Arthur is authored by a goyishe anti-Semitic nut from Boston by the name of Joachim Martillo.
ReplyDeleteHis philosophies include Arabist and neo-Nazi garbage.
Archie,
ReplyDeleteI was only listing the molesters that he removed from chinuch and/or society. The difference between UOJ and Hikind is that one backs up his talk with action and the other is all talk. When UOJ threatened to send out letters to the entire Brooklyn community about Kolko, he did it. When he threatened YTT and Agudah with a lawsuit, he got Jeffrey Herman involved and did it.
Meanwhile Hikind stated unequivocally on his radio show that Reichman will not be back in a classroom at UTA. These were his exact words, broadcast on the radio for all to hear:
"If I have to go public, if I have to hold a press conference outside the yeshivah, I will do that! This guy is not going back to the classroom in September. We will make sure that will not happen.”
Maybe he should change his name from Dov Hikind to Ephron Hikind.
Posted by: steve | December 04, 2008 at 12:48 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/health/02rage.html?em=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteDecember 2, 2008
Arrogant, Abusive and Disruptive -- and a Doctor
http://jta.org/news/article/2008/12/02/1001302/yeshivas-response-to-controversial-graduate-shines-light-on-open-orthodoxys-dilemma1
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (JTA) -- A liberal Orthodox rabbinical school's response to the controversial action of one of its graduates highlights the challenge facing progressives in the Modern Orthodox community.
Rabbi Darren Kleinberg participated this summer in a mixed-denominational beit din, or religious court, in Phoenix, where he runs an adult education organization, that oversaw the conversion of a girl less than a year old and her immersion in a mikvah.
Kleinberg, a 2005 graduate of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a liberal Orthodox rabbinical academy in New York City, was approached by a couple who had adopted a child they planned to convert under the auspices of a female Conservative rabbi. Though he knew his participation in the beit din would not grant the conversion Orthodox legitimacy, Kleinberg still agreed to participate in the conversion ceremony because he felt close to the couple.
Chovevei Torah issued a statement distancing the school from Kleinberg's action. The Riverdale seminary had considered declaring that it could no longer recognize Kleinberg as an Orthodox rabbi.
“This violates the standards and principles of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and YCT categorically rejects this action,” said the statement, published in October on several blogs. “Rabbi Kleinberg's statements and actions should not be assumed to be representative of YCT's positions and principles.”
The Kleinberg episode illuminates the challenges facing Chovevei Torah, which as an avatar of so-called “open Orthodoxy” occupies a fragile perch at Orthodoxy's left-wing frontier. The institution, founded by the Orthodox activist Rabbi Avi Weiss, repeatedly has been a target of conservative elements who charge that the school has drifted beyond the Orthodox pale.
Established to foster a less insular, less exclusivist and more intellectually open brand of Orthodoxy than its mainstream competitor, Yeshiva University, Chovevei Torah has had to perform a delicate dance to preserve its Orthodox credentials.
“I think Chovevei is trying to move the community forward, but it has to be concerned that if it goes too far, too fast that its graduates will be jeopardized,” said Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, the founding president of Michael Steinhardt’s Jewish Life Foundation and a leading liberal Orthodox rabbi. “I think they're doing their best to protect their students.”
Since its establishment in 1999, Chovevei Torah has struggled for acceptance in the Orthodox mainstream. Some Orthodox synagogues that considered hiring Chovevei Torah graduates as rabbis have been pressured not to do so.
Weiss applied to the main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group, the Rabbinical Council of America, to have Chovevei Torah accredited as an Orthodox rabbinical school, but said he pulled the school’s application when the process become too arduous.
Instead, Weiss and another liberal Orthodox rabbi, Marc Angel, founded the International Rabbinic Fellowship in an effort to provide an institutional umbrella for Chovevei Torah rabbis and to advance a more liberal rabbinic approach to a variety of hot-button issues.
Weiss has been an outspoken critic of the mainstream Orthodox rabbinical establishment, which he says limits the discretion of local rabbis in rendering decisions on halachah, or Jewish law.
Yet even Weiss, who has placed the liberalization of conversion standards at the top of his reform agenda for Orthodoxy, would not countenance Kleinberg's cooperation in a mixed-denominational beit din.
“There are limits and there are standards,” Weiss told JTA. “And participating in a non-halachic beit din violates those standards.”
Kleinberg long has been Exhibit A in the conservative Orthodox case against Chovevei Torah, which has graduated 43 rabbinical students. He has written articles that Orthodox critics charge border on heresy, such as suggesting that the concept of Jewish chosenness be revisited and that the Bible portrays God as imperfect. And he participated in a panel discussion about the film “Sentenced to Marriage,” a scathing critique of the Israeli Orthodox Rabbinate's grip on civil matters of marriage and divorce.
Kleinberg says his actions this summer were not contrary to Jewish law and that Chovevei’s reaction is emblematic of the narrow approach to halachah that open Orthodoxy was supposed to reject.
At issue here, Kleinberg says, is whether Jewish law requires a kosher beit din -- that is, one comprised exclusively of men, according to Orthodox interpretation -- at the mikvah portion of the conversion ceremony. Kleinberg says it does not and that his action therefore was in line with Orthodox strictures.
However, Kleinberg readily concedes, if he had been asked to participate in a ceremony that went even further, such as one that accepted the testimony of women as witnesses -- which clearly violates Orthodox strictures -- he would have gone ahead anyway.
“The way this issue has been dealt with suggests that the same lines in the sand between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, between us and them, are still in place,” Kleinberg said, suggesting that Chovevei is not more progressive than institutional Orthodoxy on the “big issues -- the issues that validate non-Orthodox rabbis as legitimate rabbis and non-Orthodox movements as bona fide expressions of Judaism.”
While Kleinberg is concerned primarily with Jewish peoplehood and lowering barriers between denominations, for his relatively young alma mater establishing clear boundaries may be integral to its success.
“When you have a new institution like Chovevei Torah, then it has a public that wants to know what it stands for,” said Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, a teacher of Jewish thought at Chovevei Torah. “That audience does want to know were the edges are. Because YCT is an open Orthodox yeshiva, they want to know how open are you.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science/earth/04meat.html
ReplyDeleteCheck this out!
IRAN UPDATE
ReplyDeleteDecember 4, 2008
MARCHING TOWARD NUCLEARIZATION
Iran Approaches Another Nuclear Milestone
How far is Iran from a “nuclear breakout capability,” in which it acquires enough low enriched uranium to quickly refine and build a nuclear bomb? The answer, says a new report by a prominent Washington think tank, is “not very.”
“The November IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards report on Iran states that Iran had produced a total of 630 kilograms of enriched uranium hexafluoride... [of which] about 425 kilograms [is] enriched uranium,” David Albright, Jacqueline Shire, and Paul Brannan write for the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). “ISIS has estimated that about 700-800 kilograms of LEU... would give Iran the capability to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon.”
The Islamic Republic, in other words, is roughly halfway to the raw material for a nuclear weapon. And, Albright, Shire, and Brannan say, if it begins to operate a total of 6,000 centrifuges – a goal that Iranian scientists announced earlier this year – it could generate enough low enriched uranium for one bomb in roughly four months.
The result? “Although some media reports in November 2008 concluded prematurely that Iran has reached a nuclear weapons capability, Iran is moving steadily toward this capability and is expected to reach that milestone during 2009 under a wide variety of scenarios,” the ISIS study says.
Here’s hoping the incoming administration is paying attention.
www.committeeonthepresentdanger.org
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/business/02flier.html
ReplyDeleteAgudah fresser story from Davos.
Regarding the story with Rabbi Feivelson that got you very upset ...
ReplyDeleteBais Yaakov girls are told the same thing b'shem other roshei yeshiva elsewhere.
The reason they don't want the bochur to open the door for the girl (it's specifically a car door and not a door of a house, lounge etc.) is unless the skirt is very, very long and wide, women's skirts rise up well above their knees. That's why.
When I first heard it the person that told it to me didn't tell me it was only about car doors. The second time I heard it I asked my wife about it and she explained it to me.
I've never heard this from Rav Feivelson, I think this has been standard talk now from all the roshei yeshivos and mashgichim in US.
Can someone explain why I should hear the evidence prior to rendering a verdict???
ReplyDeleteI have information from inside the OU that they are now certifying a restarted Agri beef operation in South America.
ReplyDeleteSince when did the court give funding and permission for this? Or are the Rubashkins and their crony trustee shifting funds around in a "creative" way?
I am the original "Archie Bunker".
ReplyDeleteTo the fellow(s) who is pasting comments from other blogs in the name of myself, Steve and others, at least do us the favor of doing it in order so the logic flows as at the original postings.
Thanks
I would like to comment, that although life moves along, it will forever be an indelible scar on my heart - the slaughter of innocent people in India.
ReplyDeleteWe are required by the Torah to officially mourn for relatives with prescribed aveilut periods depending on the relative.
But - as Torah Jews - whatever level of observance - we must mourn for people we may never have met - just because that's what humanity is about.
Life may move on - but lest we forget --- for the families of the murdered and tortured --- life stops --- and can never, ever be the same!
So please do not interpret the posting or even the leitzonus I'm so "guilty" of doing and encouraging, as a sign that I can ever forget this particular tragedy(s) in India.
I believe little Moishele's heart became part of mine last week!
steve said...
ReplyDeleteDuring the opening night plenary session, R' Gedaliah Weinberger spoke about "excess" and "wasteful spending". Talk about hypocrisy! Most of the crowd was there for the entire FressFest, spending thousands of dollars. Talk about excess! See you Rabbi at the Pesach hotel!
_____________________________________
Weinbergers sponsorship of the Shabbos tent for the Skvere rebbe on Beford Ave. was not "excess"?
Then What was it?
DEAR uoj AND READERS
ReplyDeleteIF WE HAVE TO LEARN ANYTHING FROM THESE TRAGEDIES PLEASE LET US TAKE ONE THING TO HEART
THE PEOPLE KILLED ALL WERE KEDOSHIM
THERE ARE NO WORDS AND I AM OF THE VAYIDOM AHHARON PEOPLE.
THERE PLACE IN GAN EDEN IS ON THE HIGHEST LEVELS
PLEASE LET US REDEDICATE OURSELVES TO PLACING MOLESTERS IN JAILS EXPOSING THE FAKE RABBONIM AND PLACE JUDIASM BACK ON THE PEDESTAL
uoj YOU HAVE AN EMAIL
YK
The unspeakable tragedy at the Chabad House in India reminded me of the numerous Chabad Houses that I have been privileged to visit over the years. The shluchim work purely l'shem shamayim and their mesirus nefesh is second to none. Whether it's gathering together a minyan in the most remote locations or providing kosher meals three times a day for travelers, their gemilus chesed and ahavas yisroel is exemplary. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for their holy work.
ReplyDeleteI regret coming across as harsh and overly critical towards the Chabad movement. My words were only directed towards the messhichists and it was purely out of love and the desire for them to see the light and return to their roots. May Hashem bring them back b'tshuvah and we merit to see the coming of mashiach soon, amen.
Anonymous 7:25
ReplyDeleteYes, it is sad that such a great deal of chillul Hashem results from the actions of frum Jews. But trying to keep these things secret and silent has just allowed a corrupt, decadent and criminal power-mongering "elite" set up a structure which hurts victims and protects fellow criminals. These things HAVE to be brought out into the light of day, or nothing changes.
Indeed, by pretending that outside laws and standards don't apply to us, we live under defacto mafia control - we lack basic rights and protections that average Americans enjoy. We are fish in a barrel - and the predators and having a field day - and those who try and speak out are subjected to social terrorism. It simply cannot go on. A society that fears the light of day is a society living in darkness - and that's where we are, in a deep mire of pure unadulterated evil. Trying to shield evil with secrecy has not saved a single person from being victimized. It has allowed evil beings to roam among us with impunity, in disguise.
Yes, we will be embarrassed, but I would rather be ashamed than let my children be victims of this sick and perverted culture. If you'd rather throw your kids to the wolves, that's your option of course. Every culture has its share of evildoers - those who look for such news items to smear Jews would have looked for news items to smear Jews under every nook and cranny. You won't change their already anti-semitic minds by hiding evil. Only by speaking out vigorously against evil do we show we do not tolerate it and abhor it. Keeping silent about it only makes it appear that, like the Catholic church, we are in fact condoning evil and only give lip service to denying it when we are caught red-handed.
That's not who we want to be (I hope).
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you say about the way that Torah Tmimah has finally seen the light. NOT! That putz rebby, Mary Murphy tried to interview said that Kolko's case was "thrown out of court" so it was "all a smear campaign". How in the world can Jewish parents continue to send their kids to such an establishment. How can our community continue to support it and honor its leader? Will the madness never end?
Dov Hikind keeps saying that he tries to get the victims to go to the police.
ReplyDeleteVicki Polin and Marci Hamilton keep saying he should hand over the names of the victims.
If our community or any of our rabbis gave a damn about their children, there would be a public expression of compassion for the victims and people would offer them money and honor for heroicly coming forward ANONMYOUSLY!
We are all guilty. All of us. Why are there no 20,000 dollar rewards offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those who harm Jewish Children????
When the Monsey chicken guy had to flee and his kids were at risk for shidduchim, Rabbi A.J. Soloveitchik told his son that the Rosh Yeshivah would personally see to it that he gets a good shidduch.
For the son of a maachil treifos l'rabbim we have such compassion, but for victims of sexual abuse we leave them high and dry????
They should be rewarded financially, and honored with a kiddush!
And Dov, if you told them that they are not alone but that all 1000+ would go together to the police, maybe they would be more open to it. Rent out Beys Chinka on Cortelyou St., bring in Jennifer Molinari of the NYPD sex crimes unit, and have a "Hatzalas Nfashos" event!
Come to think of it, why doesn't Survivors for Justice do this? Or UOJ? We now know that 1000+ victims were willing to tell their story to Dov. Why did they trust him? Because he cares! If we care, they will trust us. If they believed the police cared about them, they would trust them. We need to show them that they are cared about by all the kinderlach who need protection!
Ahavah,
ReplyDeleteThis "chillul Hashem" thing is driving me (us) nuts!
Belsky used "Hashem's" vehicle - the "beth din" --- in place of the Sanhedrin at the time of the Bet Hamikdosh, to stifle the truth and harm our children.
Margulies refused to go to our Sanhedrin to let us air our grievances! Now there's chilul Hashem? Really! Now?
First of all, Amen, you should be here for many more years, Reb UOJ.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, do you have any doubts who Zweibel, Shafran, Weinberger, Gottesman, et. al. are grooming? Its not Yankie Horowitz. Its not Rabbi Blau. Who are these young bnei Torah you are referring to who could eventually lead?
We have Reb Malkiel Kotler, Reb Tzvi Berkowitz, Reb Yisochor Frand, Reb Sruli Reisman, Reb Shalom Kaminetsky and Reb Elya's son, etc. And then there's the "Gedolim of the Round Table of Chinuch in the Yated"
There are plenty of corrupt young losers to take the place of the old ones.
Only lawsuits (that require changing the statute of limitations laws)on the scale of the Catholic Church will stand a chance of waking the sleeping Giant from our slumber. The question is how many yeshivas will have to be destroyed and how many rabbis locked up? It's the only way.
I'll tell you over from R' Yaakov ztvk"l. I had a problem - I was in a position to appoint a rav in a shul - but he had no experience at all as a rav. He was a weak speaker, and knew how to tick off people. But I saw a good heart and mind and what I believed was integrity.
ReplyDeleteR' Yaakov said to go with my instincts - he knew them - and he said - I quote "der makom macht der mentch oib er iz a mentch". "The position makes the leader/mentch -- if the person is a mentch".
So --- take a "mentch" if you can find one, and force him to lead!
We have Reb Malkiel Kotler, Reb Tzvi Berkowitz, Reb Yisochor Frand, Reb Sruli Reisman, Reb Shalom Kaminetsky and Reb Elya's son, etc..
ReplyDelete--------------------
For this group you must make a bracha "mishana habriyot"!
If this Tzadekes meumos haolom delivered little Moishele from the bottomless evil that was about to swallow him, then we can, with the eibershtes help, rid the world of all the evils that sadly permeate the Torah world today.
ReplyDeleteJERUSALEM (CNN) -- The world knows her as the daring nanny who, clutching a 2-year-old boy, pushed past the havoc in a terrorized Mumbai and risked her life to keep the toddler safe.
Sandra Samuel bravely saved the life of Moshe Holtzberg, 2, but says she sees no heroism in her actions.
Sandra Samuel bravely saved the life of Moshe Holtzberg, 2, but says she sees no heroism in her actions.
But Sandra Samuel sees no heroism in her actions amid last week's terror attacks on India's financial capital that killed nearly 180 people -- including baby Moshe's parents, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka. She only wishes she could have done more.
"Even today, I am thinking I should have sent the baby and done something for the rabbi and his wife," Samuel told CNN in an exclusive television interview in Israel, where she now lives.
Samuel and Moshe were among the few to make it out of the Chabad House alive after gunmen stormed the Jewish center, killing the Holtzbergs and four others.
Israel's Chabad movement has set up a fund to provide for Moshe's care. He is being looked after by members of the community, although who will serve as his guardian has not yet been established.
The nanny says she came face to face with a gunman late Wednesday, the first night of the siege. "I saw one man was shooting at me -- he shot at me."
She slammed a door and hid in a first-floor storage room and attempted to reach the rabbi and the others on the second floor.
Overnight, Samuel frantically tried to call for help as gunfire and grenade blasts shook the Chabad House.
Samuel says she emerged early the next afternoon, when she heard Moshe calling for her. She found the child crying as he stood between his parents, who she says appeared unconscious but still alive.
Based on the marks on Moshe's back, she believes he was struck so hard by a gunman that he fell unconscious at some point as well.
"First thing is that a baby is very important for me and this baby is something very precious to me and that's what made me just not think anything -- just pick up the baby and run," Samuel said.
"When I hear gunshot, it's not one or 20. It's like a hundred gunshots," she added. "Even I'm a mother of two children so I just pick up the baby and run. Does anyone think of dying at the moment when there's a small, precious baby?" Video Watch Samuel describe the escape »
Outside, chaos flooded the streets as people tried to make sense of the massacre that killed at least 179 people and wounded 300 others. Ultimately, she and Moshe reached safety at the home of an Israeli consul before arriving in Israel, where she is considered a hero.
advertisement
In the aftermath of the attacks, Moshe asked for his mother continuously, Samuel says, and he is learning to play again -- though he likes the nanny close by. And while she still has nightmares of the horrific siege that took hold of Mumbai, Samuel, a non-Jew and native of India, said she will stay in Israel for as long as Moshe needs her. Video Watch as Samuel describes boy asking for his mother »
"Yes, yes, they said it is important I am here," she said. "Me, I just take care of the baby."
AP IMPACT: Bailout's option to buy bank stocks not attractive option due to plunging stocks
ReplyDeleteStock intended to eventually earn taxpayers a profit as part of the Bush administration's massive bank bailout has lost a third of its value -- about $9 billion -- in barely one month, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Shares in virtually every bank that received federal money have remained below the prices the government negotiated.
Leaders of the major Orthodox Jewish organizations pledged to work together “to do everything in their power to protect schechita (kosher slaughter) in the U.S.,” at a special session on Friday of the 86th National Convention of Agudath Israel of America.
ReplyDeleteAvi Shafran, the director of Public Affairs for the organization, said that it was important “to recognize kashrus for what it is and what it is not.” He was referring to the attempts by conservative rabbis to add a Hekhsher Tzedek, verifying that production met all requirements in the treatment of workers, animals and the environment, which was strongly repudiated by the organization’s Council of Torah Sages.
Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the COO of the Kashrus Division of the Orthodox Union (OU) agreed, but added that kashrus agencies must still be sensitive to those concerns even outside of the context of kosher supervision. Rabbi Elefant warned that despite meat shortages, kashrus agencies “must adhere to the highest standards of kashrus.”
Rabbi Moshe Edelstein, Kashrus Administrator of K’hal Adas Jeshurun (KAJ), in reviewing the history of schechita in the U.S., singled out PETA for its opposition to the slaughter of all animals, including schechita. But the rabbi suggested dialogue with PETA to see if kashrus officials can possibly address some of their concerns without affecting the integrity of schechita.
Rabbi Shafran also took issue with the media coverage of the events at Agriprocessors, calling it “overblown and totally out of proportion.” He particularly singled out a major national newspaper that referred to the Postville plant of Agri as a “jungle.”
Confirming fears that taxpayers could lose out, the economist Mark Zandi, of Moody’s Economy.com, said that automakers probably needed much more than their requested $34 billion and perhaps as much as $125 billion. He predicted that the automakers would ask for more money by next fall.
ReplyDeleteOil sank to $42 today and Merrill Lynch is now predicting it will bottom out at $25.
ReplyDeleteAfter being sent home to Detroit empty-handed two weeks ago, the chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler made a show of contrition: driving to the Capitol in some of their most fuel-efficient vehicles to deliver the detailed reorganization plans that Congressional leaders had said were lacking last time. But within moments of the opening gavel it was clear that even a flawless presentation might not be enough.
ReplyDeleteMr. Shelby grilled the executives about how they got to Washington, suggesting he regarded driving as a stunt. “Did you drive or did you have a driver? Did you drive a little and ride a little? And secondly, I guess are you going to drive back?”
That prompted Mr. Dodd, laughing, to interject: “Where did you stay? What did you eat?”
Now, not everyone agrees to this theory. I heard that Shimshy Sherrer told someone about Kolko that even if it was true he was molesting, it was a mitzvah to keep him in the classroom to avoid chillul Hashem. This was what his father would have wanted. It was also the "shita" of Rabbi Neuberger, A"H
ReplyDeleteRabbi Moshe Sherer WOULD NEVER say
anything like this. His son is a low-life. The rabbi in a shul of low-lives. I knew his father and he's probably turning over in his grave.
Reading Miriam Shear's experience with Rubashkin and the rabbonim who supported them, has strengthened our resolve to rout out pursuers from our midst. Organized crime is organized crime, regardless of how the person dresses. No one has control over another person, no one has the right to intentionally inflict harm or mental anguish onto others, and no one who acts this way has the right to hide behind the community to cover for him.
ReplyDeleteThe actions of the former Chicago Community Kollel fellow, has sullied our view of the kollel. We hope to impress our dissatisfaction to Rabbis Francis and Zucker at the kollel dinner, this Sunday night. The trouble this individual has caused from his days on the Yeshiva Tiferes Tzvi board keeps growing. The ripple effect his business activities will cause to our community is frightening. He is no different than a terrorist willing to sacrifice his life, in order to harm as many people as possible.
It's true that there are a bunch of lowlives at Shimshy Sherer's shul.
ReplyDeleteI once went to daven mincha there. I was too late for their minyan but their maariv was early enough that I could still daven my mincha shmona esrei with their maariv shmona esrei even though I am noheg Litvishe zmanim.
2 grubba, peasant am haaratzim who are in charge over there started making fun of me out loud in front of people that I don't have a clue for davening mincha so late.
These losers have no idea that I was allowed to daven mincha then according to any posek.
If anything, Sherer's shul was davening maariv too early to be yotzei according to MOST poskim.
And even if I didn't have a clue, how could these arrogant jerks be malbin pnei chavero barabim?
Oh that's right, because when you represent the Agudah you can do whatever the Hell you want.
I never davened there again and because the rest of Brooklyn is full of other lowlives just like at Sherer's shul, I moved out in gantzen.
Agav, I learned in top yeshivos, and I could never stand the kind of full-of-it kovod zuchers who hang out by my yeshiva dinners.
Oil $41!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/sports/football/05weapon.html
ReplyDeleteWell, I couldn't get Leib Pinter off the hook but let's see what happens with my latest shmuck client, Plaxico Burress.
Robbers in drag get millions in Paris jewel theft
ReplyDeleteBy JEAN-PIERRE VERGES – 49 minutes ago
PARIS (AP) — Armed robbers — some disguised as women — snatched euro85 million ($108 million) worth of diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a Harry Winston boutique on a posh Paris avenue in one of the largest jewel heists in history, officials said Friday.
The gang of three or four robbers threatened about 15 employees with handguns and hit some on the head before taking the jewels from display cases from the store near the Champs-Elysees, said a police official, who was not authorized to be publicly named under agency policy.
At least two of the bandits were men wearing wigs and women's clothes, the official said. The robbers also spoke a foreign language at times and appeared to know employees' names when they robbed the store before it closed early Thursday at the height of Christmas shopping season.
The brazen theft was among the world's costliest jewel heists. Five years ago, thieves plundered 123 maximum-security vaults in Antwerp, Belgium, stealing $100 million (euro78.96 million) worth of diamonds in the biggest theft in the world's diamond-cutting capital.
Ronnie tagged along to D.C. in the auto exec convoy. He was tasked with fixing them his signature hamburgers with pickles, Spanish onions and gazpaucho.
ReplyDeleteThey had a problem though when they got to a tunnel. Ronnie's bicycle was on the roof rack of one of the SUVs and couldn't make clearance.
56 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteBOSTON (AP) — A man in Massachusetts is appealing a $100 ticket he got for driving to a hospital in the breakdown lane of a gridlocked Boston highway while his wife was in labor.
John Davis of Dracut says his wife Jennifer's contractions were three minutes apart on Nov. 18 when a state trooper pulled them over for using the breakdown lane.
The couple says the trooper made them wait five to 10 minutes while he wrote a ticket for another car on Route 2, asked to see Jennifer's belly to prove her pregnancy, then issued them a ticket.
The couple made it to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. Their daughter was born five hours later.
State police say no discipline is likely for the trooper.
Thinking of handcuffing a Norwegian male escort to a wall?
ReplyDeleteThink again.
That's what Boy George learned Friday when he was found guilty of false imprisonment in a London court.
The former Culture Club singer, tried under his real name George O'Dowd, denied falsely imprisoning Audun Carlsen at his London apartment in April last year, but after a two-week trial, the jury found him guilty.
O'Dowd told police he suspected the Norwegian of stealing pictures from his computer, and so handcuffed him while he searched the man's computer for evidence.
The escort, Audun Carlsen, said the singer handcuffed him and beat him with a chain because he refused to sleep with him.
Boy George will be sentenced later.
This is not the singer's first brush with the law. In 2006 he performed community service in New York City after falsely reporting a burglary. Police who responded to his call found 13 bags of cocaine in his apartment.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteAnyone that believes Moshe Sherrer did not participate in the coverup of Kolko and Mondrowitz should be banned from commenting on your blog.
By Michael Levenson
ReplyDeleteBoston Globe
Posted: 12/04/2008 07:21:07 PM PST
A small-town Massachusetts police chief who authorities say promoted, organized and profited from a firearms exposition where children were encouraged to shoot machine guns and where an 8-year-old killed himself with a Micro Uzi was charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter.
Although the event was promoted as an opportunity for children to fire machine guns under the supervision of certified instructors, 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj had been supervised by a 15-year-old boy who was "knowledgeable about guns" but not certified as a firearms instructor, Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett said in outlining charges against Pelham Police Chief Edward B. Fleury and two others.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/12/05/2008-12-05_bias_suit_shame_for_eliot_spitzers_dad_f.html
ReplyDeleteBias suit shame for Eliot Spitzer's dad: Four black ex-staffers awarded $1.3M
The Juice has finally been canned.
ReplyDeleteA weary and grim-faced O.J. Simpson was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison Friday for a botched armed robbery in Las Vegas, completing his epic fall from icon to inmate.
Before the sentence was read, the 61-year-old disgraced NFL star - who had rejected a plea deal for less time - choked back tears and softly apologized and begged Clark County Judge Jackie Glass for leniency.
"I wasn't there to hurt anybody. I just wanted my personal things, and I realize I was stupid," said Simpson, dressed in a blue prison jumpsuit, his hands shackled to his waist. "I didn't want to steal anything from anyone. I'm sorry, sorry."
Glass was unmoved.
The no-nonsense judge lectured Simpson after his rambling, five-minute apology, calling his crime "a very violent event."
"Earlier in this case, at a bail hearing, I said to Mr. Simpson I didn't know if he was arrogant, ignorant or both," Glass said. "During the trial and through this proceeding, I got the answer - and it was both."
The NFL Hall of Famer was put away 13 years after he walked away a free man following the sensational murder trial of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in what came to be known as the "Trial of the Century."
Emotionally spent, the father of Ron Goldman told the Daily News Friday he hopes O.J. Simpson will "die a miserable death in prison."
"It was always like salt in a wound, seeing him roaming around, doing his thing," Fred Goldman said in his Las Vegas hotel room, hours after the ex-gridiron great was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison.
"Every day he's breathing is a day Ron isn't."
For Fred Goldman and his family - who never relented in their crusade against Simpson - seeing the Juice led off to prison was a long time coming.
He hit the airwaves in 1995, pleading for justice soon after Simpson was cleared in the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman.
He sued Simpson, eventually winning more than $33.5 million in a wrongful-death civil judgment from the fallen NFL star in 1997.
And he waged a successful court battle against Simpson yet again in 2007 when a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the family the rights to Simpson's "hypothetical" tell-all book, "If I Did It."
"We've made a mission to never let up, to go after the killer. And we've been successful, finally," Goldman, 68, said.
"There's relief in that every time we turn around he won't be rearing his ugly face," Goldman added. "We know if we want him, we know where to find him."
Goldman, initially calm at the start of his 45-minute interview with The News, broke down in tears as he described the loss of his son.
"The pain of Ron's loss is excruciating," he said.
Kim Goldman said she will travel to her slain brother's grave today to deliver the news they've waited more than a decade to hear.
"I have to go there and tell him," Kim Goldman, 37, said.
Dec 7-Jerusalem Post
ReplyDeleteThe Human Spirit: Call-up for candle lighters
By BARBARA SOFER
This Hebrew month of Kislev, the season of Hanukka, began with a call-up for candlelighters. Last Friday, the first day of Kislev, the words of Hallel in my Jerusalem synagogue sounded like a cry of anguish: Please, God, save now! But then our worst fears were confirmed: Terrorists had murdered Rivka and Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, directors of the Chabad House in Mumbai, and their house guests.
In the Diaspora, where the sun had not yet set, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the educational and social services arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, turned to Jewish women through the media, which for a moment were focused on the world family of Lubavitch. Light Shabbat candles, he urged, not for the death of the Holtzbergs, but as a fulfillment of their lives' mission: bringing light.
Thank you, Chabad. Thank you to the thousands of emissaries who brave Herculean challenges to bring Yiddishkeit to the world. Thank you to their parents, who part from tender young couples who will relocate, not for a semester, but for a lifetime.
THE LUBAVITCH shluchim whom Rabbi Menahem Schneerson charged with ministering to the Jewish people everywhere in the world are known as tzva Hashem, God's army. The military terminology isn't metaphorical. Only those with a soldier's strength and stoicism can take on the harsh conditions, the constant discomfort of blazing trails of Judaism through rugged terrain. They head for the wilderness at the difficult period of life when they're bringing up small children. They set up shop in lands with archaic medical infrastructure, far from supportive family and friends, not to mention kosher stores, Jewish schools and synagogues. They bring into the intimacy of their home local and visiting Jews, masses of back-packers, and the ragged and soul-weary.
It's a lifetime service - what we call in Israel tzva keva, the standing army. In Laos and Cambodia, in frozen Siberia, there's nothing watered-down about their Yiddishkeit, but they have a talent for sharing Jewish tradition without eliciting antagonism - an antidote for many who associate religion with coerciveness and politics.
It's not all cheerful dinners. On TV this week, a now-reformed Israeli told how when he sat in an Indian prison for drugs, Rabbi Holtzberg visited him and brought him books and hope. And there's the chronic need for fund-raising. Each Chabad House is independent, and the directors need to raise their own operating budget. That includes the festive meals that all of us Jewish travelers enjoy when we're touring or working abroad. The comforts of Shabbat on the road are also made possible by the sacrifices of these young people.
Lighting Shabbat candles at the Chabad House in Beijing. A talent for sharing Jewish tradition without eliciting antagonism.
And the most amazing part of all is that they do all this and make us feel welcome almost as if we're doing them a favor and not the other way around.
This national service is the mission of both men and women. In Mumbai, the Holtzbergs hosted thousands of guests, young and old, provided classes and religious services. Despite media descriptions of Rivky as "the rabbi's wife," she served as co-director of the center. Over the past two decades, in the memory of the late Rabbanit Chaya Mushka Schneerson, Chabad women have taken on more formal roles of teaching, organizing outreach activities and counseling visitors. Terror victim Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich was reportedly getting help from Rivky on paperwork to move to Israel.
JEWISH TRAVELERS like to swap personal Chabad travel stories. One repeating theme is the wonder at the mix of people sitting side by side at Shabbat tables, breaking halla together. You might meet an acquaintance from Petah Tikva or Poughkeepsie, backpackers from Haifa and Halifax, and an itinerant rabbi or two. Two of the slain this week, Benzion Chroman, a Bobov hassid, and Leibish Teitelbaum, a Volover hassid, were kashrut supervisors. At the gracious Chabad table in Beijing, my husband and I once sat across from three road-weary kashrut inspectors representing three different kosher certifications. They'd spent the weekdays traveling over broken roads to the backwaters of China to inspect food production plants. (If I'd ever thought that certain canned fruit and vegetable products didn't really require kosher certification, I changed my mind after hearing their reports.)
In Jerusalem those men might never have eaten at each other's tables or at the home of a Lubavitch hassid, for that matter, but on the road, Jews of all persuasions join together. That spirit of unity pervaded the unamenable arena of Israeli media coverage this week. As we followed every detail of the horrific tragedy in Mumbai, no one spoke of the victims being secular, religious or haredi. They were simply "Israelis."
HOW DID this attack on a Chabad House fit into the plans of the Mumbai terrorists? According to The New York Times, the Chabad House was an "unlikely target" of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed their series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial centers - "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
Let's look at the other targets: two famous hotels, a tourist cafe, a hospital, movie theater, police barracks. To those of us who live with terrorism, these are all familiar choices of those who want to destabilize the Western world. In addition are the Jewish targets: bar or bat mitzva gatherings, synagogue services, a Passover Seder. Let's not pretend otherwise: At the heart of international jihad lies odium for Israel and Jews.
Much about the terror attack in India remains hazy, but from the beginning Indian officials reported the meticulous preparation and professional execution of the terrorists' strategy. Who can imagine that those who knew the floor plan of the giant Taj Mahal Palace Hotel better than the hotel's security agents would stumble by accident on a hassidic center in a metropolis of nearly 20 million people? It's about as likely as a truck accidentally running into a Djerba synagogue in April 2002 or it being by chance that that wheelchair-bound terror victim tossed into the sea on the Achille Lauro in 1985 was a Jew.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni affirmed that the Chabad House was indeed attacked as a symbol of the Jewish people.
Chabad Houses go way beyond symbolism; they're outposts of the Jewish people living and reclaiming our heritage. Thank you, Chabad. We owe it to your emissaries, who sacrifice so much for the Jewish people, to carry out their mission after their deaths. Lighting candles is a good place to start. But then we must go further to make our homes reflect the values of their Chabad House. The Chabad army fights with bowls of chicken soup, tefillin and the light of candlesticks, with loving-kindness and openness to the other, even when it's not convenient.
Conscription time is right now. Kislev 5769.
Yacov Young is re-releasing the song Nacheim, dedicated in memory of his cousin Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.shmais.com/audio/Nacheim.mp3
Please respond, anyone who thinks as much as i do:
ReplyDeleteI have had a question about NerYisroel that has perplexed me for a while.
Did Rabbi Neuberger address the issue of Rabbi Eiseman's pedophilia with the Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Ruderman, Z"TL, and was he, chas v'shalom complicit in allowing the predator to prey on young bochurim?
Or did Rabbi Neuberger who claimed and whose family and talmidim still claim ALWAYS act only with Daas Torah, actuall choose to decide this one for himself, because he could not risk the reputation of the yeshivah on the possiblity that Rav Ruderman may care more about the boys' safety? Would that not show that in reality the whole Daas Torah concept is a fraud and that those who use it to abuse and to protect abusers do not really even have interest in knowing what people of great integrity have to say?
Could this actually have been true of Moshe Sherrer as well? That he only asked Reb Moshe, Reb Yaakov, et. al. what he wanted to, and somehow gained their trust so that they rubber stamped whatever he in his infinite arrogance decided was Daas Torah?
What Shimshy Sherrer actually based his advice about Kolko on was an actual statement from his father that sometimes lives have to be given up to avoid chillul hashem. This was based on some arcane exmple from a Psak of Reb Moshe about a situation invovling getting a Jew out of Russia but causing a chillul Hashem. Based on this Shimshy understood that his father believed in covering up for rabbis' molestation even if it allowed it to continue.
Now we have Zweibel who will ALWAYS act on Daas Torah that he creates based on his own image. Is it possible that this could end up being a good thing, as maybe he is getting the message that the OYLAM is not gonna take it anymore, so he can relay it to his "bosses" in a way that they will think that it is Daas Torah to reverste directions and stop abuse?
Or is Zweibel so power hungry that he will not want to "give in" to the demands of protecting children, especially when doing so means admitting that molestation does happen and that often it is by rabbis? Will he continue to follow the lead of Shechter, Perlow, Feldman, Levine, Kotler,and yes Fienstien and Kaminetsky, and fight against mandating rabbis and yeshvas to report molestation, and to have saftey protocols to hend ou parents?
Will all the above mentioned gentleman, along with the grand rabbis of Bobov and Satmar and Sqver cut a deal with Dov Hikind in which they "promise to address the epidemic" but without ANYONE going to jail or having their names publicized, chas vshalom?
Full Disclosure:
ReplyDeleteI liked R' Herman Neuberger and had great respect for him, I despised Moshe Sherer because I saw right through him!
Now....I was mishamish R' Tuvya Goldstein zt"l, and spent a great deal of time learning hilchot nidah with him one on one, after work, for 3 years or so, in his office -- what he called b'chavrusah -- what I called rebbe/talmid.
He paskened on the kesem in borderline cases "after" questioning the yunger man if there were issues with fertility, shalom bayit, and other problems in the home. Was the wife unhappy? Was he making parnassa?
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, although I was not there - that if R' Herman informed R' Ruderman about Eisemann or others it went something like this --- the bochurim that keep making up stories about rebbes -- should we keep them in the yeshiva (the bochurim) or should we send them away?
Sherer - NEVER would have brought this to R' Yaakov -- R' Yaakov did not trust Sherer and would have, in my opinion, launched his own investigation.
Zweibel --- as an attorney, knows the legal liability that all of the yeshivas now face. He'll first do EVERYTHING to see if he can "control" the situation --- and may even advise the yeshivas to find counsel.
He will, "and the gedolim" will continue to look away whenever possible --- which is getting tougher to do because of the Internet.
R' Yaakov and R' Moshe were already niftar at the first Kolko "crisis" in the late 1980's.
At The Shabbos Table With Gabi And Rivkah
ReplyDeleteby Joseph Telushkin
Special To The Jewish Week
Walking to the Chabad House in Mumbai on a Friday evening in February 2007, my wife Dvorah, our daughter Rebecca (who is currently living in India) and I were passing half-naked families living on the cement streets. Outstretched hands. Wide, hollow eyes. We literally had to step over swarms of dejected souls.
But entering the Chabad House was like encountering a lighthouse in the middle of a dark ocean. It did not take long to realize that its proprietors, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, were extraordinary people and practitioners of kindness. Thirty-five guests attended the Shabbat dinner, a mix predominantly made up of Israelis, many of them doing business in India, a fair number of Americans and scattered Jews from other countries.
Many of them, we learned, came to the Chabad House often. I remember one Israeli in the group — who had earlier that day, at Rabbi Holtzberg’s request, helped us find a hotel room — telling us that in Israel he was not a religious Jew, but that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Rabbi Holtzberg, and how often he spent Shabbat with the rabbi and rebbetzin.
I have a vivid memory of conversing at length with Rivkah Holtzberg as she was preparing shakshuka for about 30 people coming to a Saturday night Melava Malka. All this, after serving 35 people Friday night and then a big lunch on Saturday. Yet as she told me about Afula, the Israeli town where she was raised, she was very calm and so upbeat, a truly religious neshama (soul).
On Shabbat afternoon, Rabbi Holtzberg pulled out a copy of Taharat Mayim, my grandfather Rabbi Nissen Telushkin’s sefer (book) on the laws concerning the mikveh, which also contains directions on how to build a ritual bath. He told the assembled guests that he had used the book as his guide to building the mikveh in Mumbai.
He handed me the book, with a request that I teach from it. I opened up to my grandfather’s introduction in which he described how he had been driven, in part, to delve so deeply into the laws of mikveh when the Communists seized power in Russia and made it nearly impossible to observe this mitzvah. In societies like India with very few Jews, there are no government obstacles to building a mikveh, but there are few Jews to use it, and I commented on how moved I was that Rabbi Holtzberg had built a mikveh. The pages of his copy were worn from use. I understood that my grandfather’s book had found a sacred home 60 years after it was written.
And later, when Reb Gavriel also taught from the sefer, I recognized on his face his profound joy of learning.
On Sunday he took us to see the mikveh, and we toured the Bene Israel synagogue where it was located. The whole day was magical. A listing of names, founders of the synagogue, was engraved on one wall. One of the people recorded bore the same name as my stepdaughter, Rebecca Menashe. What was apparent as we went around the synagogue with Rabbi Holtzberg was that he was beloved in the community.
At the Shabbat table, everyone was a participant and was called upon to say something. Benjamin Holtzman recalls how Reb Gavriel gave each participant at the Friday evening meal an option, to say something about the parashah (the Torah portion), teach or lead a song, share an inspiring story, or announce some mitzvah they were committing to undertake. It took well over an hour to go around the room, but by that time friendships had been generated and there was a great feeling of oneness among us all.
This holy couple was dedicated to bringing Judaism to the four corners of the earth, and to doing so with carefree spirits. Both Gavriel and Rivkah smiled easily and often. Yet their lives were not easy. They had lost one child, and another child was very sick (both due to a genetic disorder), in addition to the healthy son whose life was saved this week. But they kept their sorrows inside. There was no self-pity about them.
In India’s vibrant business capital, a city also overwhelmed with need and despair, they responded with unending hope. Two beacons of light blazing in the darkness. Two living exemplars of Judaism’s teachings of hachnasat orachim (hospitality), a value so esteemed that the rabbinic sage, Rabbi Judah, went so far as to declare that “hospitality is even greater than receiving the divine presence” (Shabbat 127a).
Reb Gavriel collected inspiring stories around his Shabbat table. Yet, as devastated and profoundly sad as I feel at this moment, I also realize that the sacred lives of these two shluchim was perhaps the most inspiring story of all
UOJ, you were absolutely correct to support John McCain for President, for both America and Israel's survival. But now the Obama bots are trying to cover up the greatest fraud in American history - Obama's ineligibility to be president.
ReplyDeleteVIN "chareidi" news site has been scrubbing truthful anti-Obama posts and allowing leftist Obama-bots to spew their disinformation to the Jews on a matter of critical importance to both America and Israel. Comments posted on VIN CANNOT be trusted to accurately represent Jewish opinion.
VIN posted the fake Obama "certification" as a valid birth certificate.
http://www.vosizneias.com/23827/2008/12/06/washington-dc-supreme-court-to-consider-obama-birth-certificate-case/
The comment below was repeatedly blocked by the Obama shill VIN:
===========================
Obama has committed the greatest political fraud in American history! Why are Jews allowing themselves to be bamboozled by the Islamic fraud Obama? Obama's ultra-left, pro homo, pro feminist, pro tax, pro PLO terror state agenda is contrary to Torah values and Jewish interests on every issue. Have we chosen liberalism over Judaism and EMES? We Jews should be the first to oppose an Islamic imposter seizing power in the U.S. The so-called certification displayed above is NOT a birth certificate! A real birth certificate must list the name and location of a hospital, it must have the signature of an attendant who observed the birth, it must have an embossed seal and signature, etc.
See
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/Obama/Evidence/SAMPLE-HI-BirthCertificate-circa1963.htm
For a detailed expose of the fraudulent Obama "certification of live birth" displayed above, see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2136816/posts
Also see
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0017_0008.htm
proving a Hawaii "certification" can be issued for a child born out of state! Furthermore, as attorney Phil Berg explains in his lawsuit (see www.obamacrimes.com), Obama would have lost his American citizenship when he moved to Indonesia with his father, an Indonesian citizen.
The Obama "naturalized citizen" issue is now before the Supreme Court. They would need four justices to approve --- if the matter gets heard at all. Doubtful --- and the State Court ruling would stand.
ReplyDeleteEven if the Supreme Court does hear it --- it would not be heard until after the inauguration.
Will they rule against Obama once he becomes president? As much a chance of Lipa Margulies telling us the number and location of his Swiss bank account!
UOJ:
ReplyDeleteYou may very well be correct - that the chances of the Supreme Court ruling against Obama are small. But only a constitutional scholar could accurately assess this matter.
It is still very disturbing that so many Jews could vote for Obama, an operative of the hard-core globalist left who is closely associated with the worst anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-white demogogues. What is even more outrageous is when a so-called "chareidi" news site such as VIN could cover for Obama's crimes and denigrate decent people like attorney Phil Berg ( www.obamacrimes.com) who simply wants the US Constitution obeyed. Obama, if not disqualified by the Supreme Court, will no doubt make the forced expulsion of the Jews in Judea and Samaria a top priority. It would appear that the "anti-Zionist" agenda of certain chareidim coincides well with the international left's agenda - ie the forced ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Judea and Samaria under the guise of a phony peace process.
Hey TruthMatters;
ReplyDeleteVa'Yeekahtz Paroh"
Your anger is too little-too late.
The left-wing media made sure this information never got out before and during the campaign.
Interesting to note that when then very popular Henry Kissinger was secstate, there was discussion among the media and Constitutional scholars regarding succession and also as to his ability to gain a waver to run for POTUS. My, how times have changed.
Bottom line is: Bim Bam is a 'sleeper' who will destroy America from within without firing a shot.
We're in for a very rough ride.
The Bim-Bam Identity.
We should all be focused now on freeing Jonathan Pollard. This will be our last chance. Please call the White House and send e-mails:
ReplyDelete202-456-1111
comments@whitehouse.gov
Please pick up the phone now and call and follow it up with an e-mail. You will be fulfilling the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim and will be helping to right a terrible wrong. Tizku L'Mitzvos!
From The Chareidi Welfare State Is Big and Getting Bigger Dept:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vosizneias.com/23871/2008/12/07/jerusalem-experts-urge-change-in-charedi-school-system-to-battle-poverty/
Jerusalem - Regardless of the current global financial crisis, economists and educators warn that the cycle of poverty in Israel is expected to expand even further, due to the Education Ministry's failure to enforce core curriculum on ultra-Orthodox schools.
Several years ago, the High Court has instructed the ministry to include in the curriculums of all sectors several basic classes – math, English, science, citizenship education, history and bible studies – as a precondition for government funding.
However, prior to the opening of the current school year, the haredi parties managed to persuade the Education Ministry to support legislation that allows haredi schools not to teach those subjects while continuing to receive funding from the State.
Advertisement:
Twenty percent of all haredim are poor, although they make up only 10% of the population in the country.
Experts are now warning that the failure to enforce a core curriculum on parts of the student population will lead to a situation in which in several years- time tens of thousands of young haredi people will graduate from schools when they are ill-equipped to integrate into the employment market. Those young people will be doomed to a life of poverty and become a burden on taxpayers. Dr. Daniel Gottlieb, a senior Bank of Israel economist and a lecturer in Ben Gurion University, says that the fact that 60% of all Arabs and ultra-Orthodox in Israel live under the poverty line is linked in part to shortcomings in the education system.
He says that haredi education prevents graduates, mainly men, from integrating into the workforce. "Students, and particularly boys in the elementary school system are deprived of skills that are essential to producing adults able to provide for themselves."
According to Gottlieb, poverty in haredi society could worsen with the disappearance of industries based on low education and low skills workers and the growing demand for academics.
Rabbi Gilad Kariv of the Israel Religious Action Center claims that the new legislation discriminates against haredi students who are deprived of the right to a basic curriculum that would provide them with the general education needed to become a part of society.
"The Education Ministry sentences tens of thousands of haredi students to a life of poverty and is perpetuating ignorance. Only a few would be able to set themselves free of the cycle of poverty.
"Theses students will not study citizenship education, and this, in turn, will increase the rift, alienation and conflict in Israeli society. When they don't study citizenship and history, how can we expect them to sympathize with the principles of democracy?"
Zion Gabay, director-general of Elem, an organization that helps youth at risk in Israel, added that the high dropout rates in high schools in the haredi, Arab and immigrant sectors illustrate the severity of the situation
"Not all haredi youths can continue studying in high school yeshivas, and so a high percentage drops out of the education system entirely and they wander the streets aimlessly or gather to drink alcohol," he explained.
The solution for these alarming data, says Dr. Gottlieb, lies in a fundamental change in the curriculum of haredi schools, for boys and girls alike.
The common practice of mosdos delaying payments to their teachers must end. This is pure "oshek" and is in violation of the Torah. Somehow this has become fashionable and is a ploy to plead poverty and to get more donations at the fancy dinners. The teachers at Bais Faiga in Lakewood have threatned to go on strike because they have not gotten paid yet this semester. I know of certain yeshivos and bais yaakovs in Brooklyn that have not paid their mechanchim since last March!
ReplyDeleteThey have to get it through their heads that delaying payroll is not an option! These teachers do not have unlimited savings where they can forgo pay for nine months! Instead of the fancy marble tiles and cherry wood doors, pay the teachers! Instead of the fancy placques and the new buildings going up, pay the teachers! Instead of lavishing the rosh yeshivos (who sometimes lavish themselves) with fancy cars and fancy homes, pay the teachers! If you can't pay your teachers, or you can't get a bank loan to pay your teachers, then shut down!
Paying the teachers comes before paying the electric bill. Paying the teachers comes before adding a new wing. Paying the teachers comes before opening another kollel.
The problem of screwed up priorities in our communtity only gets worse. First they protect molesters instead of the children, then they pay builders and contractors instead of the teachers, who are woefully underpaid to begin with!
The economic situation is another excuse to shirk responsibility and continue to hold these teachers hostage. When will any rabbi stand up and say this is against the Torah? The teachers must come first. In any other industry would this be acceptable? Nine months late? Would this be acceptble in the public school system? Oh, I forgot, we're not as privileged as the public schools. At least there the children are protected from predators and the teachers are paid.
By Moshe Arens
ReplyDelete'Where have all the young men gone... When will they ever learn?" Pete Seeger, the American troubadour, used to sing. Israelis can nowadays join with a refrain that runs as follows: "They've become juvenile delinquents and gone to Hebron... When will they ever learn?"
Everything that needed to be said in condemnation of the criminal behavior of the youngsters with the flying ear-locks who gathered around the disputed building on the way to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and engaged in vandalism, attacks against Palestinians in the area, and against the police that was called in to restore order and evict then from the building, has already been said. For a long time all Israelis will continue to feel ashamed that Israeli young men and women committed these acts. One question will stay with us: who are these youngsters, most of them raised in religious homes, homes of Zionist idealist settlers in Judea, Samaria, and Gush Katif, children from families that have in recent years sent their sons to the elite units of the IDF to become exemplary soldiers and officers? Where and how have they gone wrong? Where are the sociologists and psychologists who will provide the answer to this question?
WHILE AWAITING the results of such research, one can venture some educated guesswork. The turning point that sent these youngsters off on a deviant tangent was most probably the disengagement from Gush Katif, the uprooting of 8000 Israeli settlers from their homes, and the use of the IDF to carry out this forcible evacuation. In many ways it was the original sin, from which Israel will continue to suffer for years to come. The blow, which was directed at the settlers in Gush Katif was felt by all the settlers in Judea and Samaria and their families as being directed at them, especially as the prime minister stated that it was the intention of the Kadima-led government to continue the process by evacuating settlements in Judea and Samaria. The youngsters in the settlements looked to their elders to avert what they considered a catastrophe, and the elders, backed by a good part of the population of Israel, pleaded with the government and organized mass demonstration in the hope that wisdom would prevail. They stopped short of using violence to oppose the evacuation. No blood was shed in those traumatic days and nights in August 2005, not because of the sensitivity and determination displayed by the army and police, but because the leaders of the settlement movement decided to refrain from encouraging violent resistance to the removal of the settlers from their homes. Is it any wonder that many of the youngsters in the settlements considered their elders as having failed to protect their homes, and that some of them began considering other means of preventing the destruction of their homes in the future?
What is really surprising is that the leaders of the country who had ordered the IDF to carry out the disengagement from Gush Katif, those simple-minded souls who claimed they were waging a crusade for a democratic Jewish State, nor the judges on the High Court of Justice who had approved the blatant violation of the civil rights of those being uprooted from their homes, seemed not to realize that they had set in motion a process of alienation of a significant part of Israeli society from the State and its institutions, on whose periphery a frustrated lunatic fringe would emerge. Nor did they realize they were creating a rift in Israeli society that would threaten the unity of the people of Israel.
There are, of course, those among us who do not care. Those who hate the religious. They do not hate religious Moslems or religious Christians, they just hate religious Jews. They show great respect for the sites in our land holy to the Moslem religion, and the sites holy to the Christian religion, but don't give a hoot for the holy sites of Judaism. Taking steps that might alienate religious Jews living in the settlements in Judea and Samaria, or even their supporters living within the "Green Line," does not seem to concern them greatly. Jewish access to Hebron, the city of our forefathers, or to the Cave of the Patriarchs, or even to the Temple Mount, seems of little interest to them. But the rest of us know we are dealing with a serious problem.
When sociologists and psychologists eventually get around to researching these developments, we may learn what lay behind the ugly scenes we witnessed recently. In any case they bode no good for our society.
And then there's the "Gedolim of the Round Table of Chinuch in the Yated"
ReplyDeleteLet's be fair. The forum is actually the first evidence that some people recognize that even intelligent and experienced educators that are not longbeard Rosh Yeshivas can also have good answers. It specifically does not feature daas Torah personalities, but smart, wise, older chinuch people like aisenstark and bender.
Out of curiosity is there a chance the Delmonico Collection (named not for the owner, but for the hotel the goods were give to Sotheby's at) is owned by Rubashkin?
ReplyDelete8 millon dollars worth of judaica is a lot to sell when you are looking for cash.
(I went to the exhibition at Sotheby's and it was just breathtaking to see these books. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen.)
http://theantitzemach.blogspot.com/2012/06/is-agudath-israel-misusing-reb-chaim.html
ReplyDeleteMore slimy behavior from the Agudah as they misrepresent R' Chaim Brisker as backing them. (The blogger doesn't realize that R' Chaim Oizer also refused to join the Agudah)
And how about the Agudah using R' Meyer Shapiro's picture for their Daf Hayomi? It's chutzpah. Everyone knows that the Agudah voted it down and didn't want this concept of Daf Yomi, its only through the advice of the Chofetz Chaim, that R' Meyer Shapiro took courage and decided to go against the Agudah, only then did it come to fruition. How do they take credit for it? It's clearly documented that R' Meyer Shapiro resigned from the Agudah as printed in R' Chaim Oizer's letter to ("Moreinu") R' Yaakov Rosenheim. Shame on you Agudas Yisroel.
ReplyDeleteThe Agudah lies and deceives just like any other political party. It banks that the masses are stupid fools & imbeciles, looking for fast fixes.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/96309241/R-Meir-Bar-Ilan-on-the-Agudah-Conference-at-Kattowice
ReplyDeleteMeir Bar Ilan may not have had the best outcome himself but at least he had a first hand look in the early days of Agudah
http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/18827095/church-abuse-victim-faces-trial-for-beating-priest?obref=obinsite
ReplyDeleteReminds me when I got beaten up at the bungalow colony Bris.
Shmarya and his groupies got very angry at Archie Bunker when he criticized beastiality advocate Peter Singer, a Professor at Princeton. All they did was scream & yell at Archie without saying anything of substance because they knew he had them on an irrefutable example of how secularism has no bounds. Shmarya then pulled the plug on Archie's IP so that he couldn't respond to their attacks.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/florida-man-charged-bestiality-case-law-loophole-article-1.1100381
Florida authorities are powerless to prosecute a former animal shelter worker accused of performing sex acts on a dog because of a loophole in the state’s anti-bestiality laws — a development that has outraged animal activists.
While a Sunshine State law enacted last year prohibits bestiality, it doesn’t explicitly forbid oral sex with animals, the Tampa Bay Times reported Wednesday.
Now, animal advocacy groups are calling for an amendment to the law after the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office reportedly declined to charge suspect Eric Antunes with animal cruelty for allegedly engaging in oral sex with his girlfriend’s three-legged pit-bull mix.
Rick Chaboudy, executive director of the Suncoast Animal League, told the Tampa Bay Times he wants Florida to “do away with the gray areas” in the anti-bestiality law.
“We need to close up this loose loophole,” Chaboudy said. “This is one of those crimes that you can’t possibly imagine that it goes on, but I’m sure at one point in time, somebody said the same thing about child pornography.”
The alleged images were found on his cell phone, and he was arrested May 1, CBSMiami reported.
Antunes previously worked as a contract employee at the Pinellas County Humane Society and is the live-in-boyfriend of Katerina Williamson, who also worked as the organizations’ medical director, the Tampa Bay Times said. She resigned after his arrest.
Assistant State Attorney Beverly Andringa declined to charge Antunes with bestiality because only one of the six photos found on his cell phone “would meet the strict criteria of the statute,” she told the Tampa Bay Times.
In addition, officials were not sure if that picture was taken before the new laws went into effect, potentially making the case difficult to prosecute, the newspaper said.
Williamson and Antunes declined to comment to the newspaper.
Twila Cole, the Humane Society’s director of development, told CBS Miami that Antunes “was never on the property working unsupervised.”
Another Humane Society employee, Eric Eagle, remembered Antunes as a “strange” man who never talked to anyone besides Williams, he told the Tampa Bay Times.
Despite Antunes’ odd behavior, Eagle added, he never thought his former co-worker had a different kind of affinity for dogs than most people.
“That is sick,” Eagle told the newspaper of the allegations. “I didn’t see anything like that.”
According to R' Nuchem Rosenberg, victims of Dascalowitz who went to the police have been hounded out from davening in Bobov Willy by Bobover Dayan Yechiel Geller & Hatzulah of Willy macher Avrum Follman.
ReplyDeleteSounds like it's shoin tzeit far a nuch an early morning perp walk
Police have not found any sign of blood on Guma's boat. Federal investigators are checking his cell phone records and GPS device.
ReplyDeleteIn 2010, Guma's mother told the media that her son has been having nervous breakdowns due to psychological terrorism from Kaplan, regarding his friend Tropper and over the $2.6 billion from the sale of Leor Energy. Tropper plays dirty so when Guma stopped giving him money, Tropper started spreading malicious rumors about Guma's wife.