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Friday, September 14, 2018

UOJ & Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz Of Yated Ne'eman Collaborate On A Shabbos Shuva Drasha Heard 'Round The World!

A UOJ Archived Parody! September 21, 2009

Agudath Israel



The fascination with this group's downfall and the manner in which they hoodwinked shrewd, intelligent people seems bottomless. Why is the public appetite for details about how they defrauded people so insatiable?

The thousands of people who were wiped out spiritually when the web of deceit ripped apart, have yet to be quantified. Is it because they abused the trust of so many? Is it because they took every last dime of emunah? Is it because they took the lies from rabbis/gedolim when they knew that, and passing it off to the next sucker in line? Is it because of the unprecedented number of people whose trust they abused and lost?

Is it the spectacular amounts of cover-ups that they supposedly gobbled up that is driving the public's obsession with this group?

They are not the first group of crooks and sociopathic liars, and they won't be the last. They are not the first persons to look into people's eyes and lie to them. The world is, regrettably, full of fast-talkers who sweet-talk people into a variety of schemes aimed at fleecing them.

Most of us have had the experience of talking to habitual, bold-faced liars - and realizing that we are being lied to. Most people are intelligent enough to at least be on the lookout for charlatans.

It is true that we live in a period when we are more susceptible to those who are blessed with the gift of oratory and the ability to offer glib optimistic promises. It is doubtful if the current president-elect would be in his position if he wouldn't have been blessed with the gift of oratory. There are many other individuals in leadership positions who are looked up to by a variety of people strictly because of the way they communicate and not necessarily because of their superior knowledge or intellect. Can it be that the fascination with Agudah is that people are enamored by their salesmanship abilities?

What is so different about this group of rabbis? Why is everyone so fascinated by their capers?

These fabulously pathetic Jews generally view themselves and their lives as more important than those of the little people who have to sweat over a blatt gemora. The culture of power and privilege that comes with their immense phony emunah makes these Jews feel superior to common folk. With a multitude of subordinates like Zwiebel, Shafran and Weinberger catering to their every need and want, and a way of life that defies description, they seem to inhabit a parallel universe.

But it's more than that. The delusion of superiority enjoyed by the rabbis is reinforced by the masses who pay homage to them. Even rabbis who speak out against the worship of money, defer to the rich and bend over backwards (very far) to please the wealthy in their community.



Why?..... Speak to any Swiss banker!

A rabbi commands respect and attention wherever he goes. People point him out when he walks into a room and seek his counsel on various matters, most of which he often knows nothing about.

Everyone wants to be associated with gedolim and, more often than not, the barometer of tzidkas is the size of the rabbi's beard and hat. Usually it matters not how corrupt the rabbi is.

With very few exceptions, this is the way of the world. Honesty is viewed as naivete. One who declines to participate in an Agudah Convention because of the dubious ethics of that group of child-rape enablers, or refuses government benefits he may not be entitled to, is scorned as a fool.

The hardworking electrician or craftsman who works from early in the morning to late at night, never overcharging and remaining fastidious about paying his taxes, may not earn any one's admiration. It's the one who cuts corners, gives dishonest answers on government forms, overcharges and plays fast and loose with the rules who often seems to be more respected for his accomplishments.

An honest middle class man who pays his tuition and is punctilious in the giving of maaser and charity to the less fortunate isn't respected enough for his integrity and reliability. The same goes for the kindhearted fellow who doesn't push his weight around trying to dictate what others should do and does not let child-rapists run loose in his Borough Park two inches of backyard.

We have in our midst people of sterling character, individuals who are intelligent, capable and resourceful, who can envision solutions and follow through on a project to completion. These people realize that all their talents and possessions are gifts from Hashem. They remain humble and G-d fearing. It is this kind of person whom we need in positions of leadership, not the idiots we have now.

Unfortunately, however, we don't appreciate these people. We look for people with glitz and glamour of shtreimels, spudiks, Borsalinos, and the ganovim surrounding them. Awed by their success in duping people to buy them huge amounts of yeshiva real estate with private toilets and basements for their rebbes, we put our trust in these people, imagining that they possess the brilliance and competence to lead us to success.

Then, suddenly, our eyes are opened when we see the rabbis taken down by the cheapest UOJ tricks in the book. We are astounded. How were successful Jews taken in by these thieves? How did they allow themselves to ignore the most basic laws of trust that relatively unsophisticated people are familiar with?

The very people who inspired so much envy and hero-worship, and who we turned to for advice and guidance, have been exposed as fatally blinded by their hunger for more money and power. It fascinates people to realize that the rabbis are no smarter than they, and may even be less intelligent. Middle class people are amazed to see that the wealth they so covet is fleeting and meaningless, while the money they have given to fraudulent rabbis was used for the thieves own gain at the expense of the community.

The media will get over its obsession with child sexual molestation in the Jewish community; the public will soon lose its fascination with this story. Yet, long after the allure of these criminal incidents fades, we must remember its lessons.

Don't rush to respect these rabbis again. Don't become enamored by people who seem to to tell you the truth no matter what the situation. Don't judge a person by the black clothing he wears. Be a true Jew -- eliminate the middleman - go direct to the manufacturer! What kind of Jew buys retail?

Remember that sechel - common sense is a Divine gift intended for the recipient to better mankind and those around him. He who uses his gifts wisely has fulfilled his obligations and accomplished what is expected of him. The one who disburses his largess to worthwile mosdos of Torah and chesed has earned eternity for himself and his loved ones. He who squanders it in selfish pursuits or phony tzedakas and thieving yeshiva owners, leads an empty and purposeless life. He fritters away the benefits he could have accrued in this life and wastes numerous opportunities for eternity.

People who lead honest lives don't chase after phony promises and empty words of fraudulent rabbis behind the rainbow. They have their emunah the old-fashioned way - the Torah hakedosha. They avoid subterfuge and dishonesty. When asking sheilos, they take great care to diversify, never putting all their eggs in one rabbinic basket.

They know that nothing works in a straight upward curve; life has its ups and downs that affect every sphere of faith. Now its the down --- kick your kids out of kollel and force them to go to work.

Enough with these bums hamming it up in the Lakewood coffee room. Stop the checks to them and to the Kotlers --- tell Malkiel and Aron to get real jobs. Shenky can get them traffic cop jobs in a jif! You - parents - are expected to work yourselves dead so your kids can putz around in Atlantic City?

Even though your kids are devious, lazy bandits, don't become broken and give up hope when things are pointing down. Maintain your emunah and bitachon. In the good times, don't flaunt your success and don't force others to conform to your meshugasin of attending lavish yeshivah dinners and conventions. Remain committed to the greater good at all times. Tell the rabbis who knock on your door with their hands out, to kiss off!

We are currently experiencing a spiritual depression as well. Many good people are losing not only their emunah but their savings and the possessions they worked so hard to earn. Everyone we know seems to have been forced, at least somewhat, to lower their standard of living. In the dark as to what tomorrow will bring, many are now cutting back on all forms of spending and holding on to what they have.

People upon whom charitable organizations depended to continue their work are no longer in a position to be of much financial assistance. People with hearts overflowing with the desire to help, and who formerly supported yeshivos and enabled them to maintain genaiveshe real estate holdings, the golden chain stretching back as far as the thief was able to deceive you, are themselves broken-hearted and in need of support and mercy. Nothing like a good molesting by a rabbi to get them to appreciate how lucky they really are.

In difficult straits, rabbis, yeshivas and Jewish organizations will find themselves various unethical schemes to attain wealth and success by taking moral shortcuts. When tempted by dishonesty and duplicity, one has but to remember Margo's downfall. In the end, the truth always emerges, but the rabbis' have short memories, are short on brains, and have been shortened by untrained mohelim.

Frauds and lies will only get you so far. Eventually, the treachery will catch up with you. Together with your wealth, all those adoring friends who couldn't do enough for you will disappear.

Everything temporary comes to a crashing end. Only truth is enduring. Shidduchim for your kids will disappear unless you create some new fraudulent Ponzi scheme -- and Agudath Israel will get the government's money to teach you exactly how to pull it off! Project Dope!

At times like these, we search for things that will uplift and inspire us positively. Neginah, song, has the power to do that in unparalleled ways. Good Jewish music is intended to reach the recesses of our neshamos and make us into better people. Simple poetic words of timeless truth when combined with proper music have a way of doing just that.

Sing and declare "Toras Hashem Temimah" loud and often! Beseech God with "Achas Shoalti", and remember our only source of sustenance when singing "V'yiten L'cho Elokim M'tal Hashomayim...."

[The Lord's Torah is perfect, it restores the soul. The Lord's testimony is reliable, it makes the simple person wise.












Track Title: Toras Hashem
Composer: Feivel Mendlowitz
Ensemble: The Choir of Pirchei Agudath Israel of America
Conductor: Stanley Sperber
Language: Hebrew
Album/Collection Title: Pirchei Sings - Ani Maamin
Label: Pirchei Records
Country of Publication: USA
Archived by the Trustees of Dartmouth College


There is one thing I ask the Lord, one thing that I desire --- That I might dwell in the Lord's house all the days of my life, witnessing the Lord's goodness and contemplating in His sanctuary.

And the Lord giveth from the dew of the Heavens....


CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:


As these hit songs proclaim, let us stay strong and cling to our beliefs. Let us cast aside the alma deshikra that tempts us every day from the bowels of 42 Broadway, and strengthen our connection to the One Above and His Torah. In that merit, we will be zoche to greet Moshiach Tzidkeini, may he come speedily, in our day.

{Contact the Yated for the original undoctored article - Pinny you owe me one --- a check to Survivors For Justice would be a good start!}




205 comments:

1 – 200 of 205   Newer›   Newest»
Anonymous said...

Why do you suppose Mondrowitz hasn't been extradited yet? You don't think there are powerful Ger Chasidim that are protecting him? You think he’s doing it all by himself?

Furthermore, to seriously imply that there are no enablers is to be completely oblivious to what has been going on in the Torah world for many years. Do you think that the Rosh HaYeshiva of Torah Temimah was not Kolko's enabler? And even if you do, do you think he’s the only one?

I also believe that were cover-ups in the past to protect certain Mosdos - and that enabled molesters to operate without fear of punishment. Those involved in those cover-ups are household names. Do you really think it would have been possible for multiple years of molestations by various sex abusers w/o these kinds of ‘enabling’ cover-ups?

What the 'evil' blogs have done is exposed these kinds of things to the public. They have let the light of public outrage shine upon a major flaw in the Torah world... a flaw that was perpetrated by some of its leaders in order to protect the reputation of their institutions.

But instead of protecting it, they ended up besmirching it because those cover-ups have now been exposed and have made matters much worse. Now - not only does the world know about abuse in the Torah world - they also know about the cover-ups!

And who do those rabbis blame for all the Tzoros? Not themselves - but the evil blogs for exposing the truth so that there can be some justice for the victims. And then they have the Chutzpah to try and justify those cover-ups after the fact and condemn the bloggers for exposing the truth.

It's time to clean house! It's time for true Torah leaders to arise and do the right thing. It's time to protect the victims and not the institutions. Yeshivos that survive because of wrongdoing that was covered up do not deserve to be saved. It doesn't matter how much 'Torah' they learn there - if even one sex offender molests one additional victim because they covered up his crime to save themselves!

Harry Maryles | Homepage | 01.03.09 - 11:08 pm | #

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Anonymous said...

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/12/16/2008-12-16_brooklyn_psych_ward_a_snake_pit-1.html

Tuesday, December 16th 2008, 4:00 AM

Despite several probes after the negligent death of a woman in its emergency room, Kings County Hospital's psychiatric ward remains a hellhole for its vulnerable patients.

The psych ward - known as G Building - has been the scene of a half-dozen violent attacks since August, including the rape of a female patient by another patient in a day room, the Daily News has learned.

The most recent incident occurred Thanksgiving weekend when a patient tried to strangle another patient, a source said.

"There's been a real spike in violence over a sustained period," the source said.

A lawyer for the city revealed the attacks in a letter to Brooklyn Federal Magistrate Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, who is presiding over a suit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the state Mental Hygiene Legal Service against the hospital.

Lawyer Emily Sweet wanted to fax the letter to the judge under seal, but Matsumoto ordered the shocking disclosures be made public.

"We regret to inform the court that there have been several reported recent instances of alleged patient-on-patient violence as well as inappropriate sexual contact among patients," Sweet's letter begins.

The letter refers only to the Thanksgiving incident as being confirmed, but the source said a suspect in the rape has been arrested.

In a tragic twist, the rape victim was being treated at the hospital for depression related to having been raped earlier.

Investigators are looking at two other reported incidents of sexual abuse involving patients, a brawl involving five patients and an allegation that a staffer hit a restrained patient in the eye while trying to administer medicine intravenously, the source said.

The Justice Department and the civil rights division of the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office began investigating G Building after allegations that hospital police had used excessive force there.

The feds are also monitoring the probe into the June 19 death of Esmin Green in the psychiatric ER. She had been left unattended and died facedown on the floor as staff and security guards ignored her.

The feds are expected to release soon a "findings letter," a precursor to government legal action. The letter will outline violations at the hospital.

Sweet told the judge immediate measures have been taken "to reduce the likelihood of further such incidents."

The city Department of Investigation also is looking into whether hospital staff doctored medical reports to cover up neglect of Green while she was in the emergency room.

Anonymous said...

Rav Yisroel Belsky has stated numerous times that he agreed with Rabbi Herbert Bomzer position that since Mondrowitz is already in Israel, we in the USA should not seek his prosecution. Rav Belsky explained that the original indictment against Mondrowitz came from the exclusive testimony of non-Jewish children that claimed they were molested. There was never any testimony at the grand jury from Jewish children. Accordingly, Rav Yisroel Belsky insists that there is no proper or valid testimony to permit masirah and to support the charges as they presently exist. Accordingly, Rav Belsky says that Mondrowitz should be allowed to return to his family and those seeking criminal justice should seek other goals in life.

Anonymous said...

Brooklyn, NY - The Rabbinical Alliance of America, Igud Horabbonim, established in 1942, has a current membership of almost 850 Rabbis across the Western Hemisphere, serving as leaders of congregations, religious, educational, and charitable organizations. The greatest concentration of rabbis in the United States is in the Greater New York City Metropolitan Area, directly reflecting Jewish population demographics. Brooklyn in particular has the largest Jewish population in New York City. Consequently a large number of rabbis reside there, serving its Jewish population.


The ongoing Torah conferences, conducted by the Igud, celebrate Rosh Chodesh with a formal seudah (banquet) as formulated in the Shulchan Aruch. These monthly gatherings represent a continuing source of Da'as Torah, where prominent member rabbis deliver erudite lectures to assembled scholars and convene to discuss and resolve issues that confront and challenge Torah observance.

Advertisement:

Every Rosh Chodesh, a different member rabbi hosts a conference at his synagogue or institution. The success of the Rosh Chodesh Conferences is discernable in the celebrations of Torah learning and immediate attention focused on any breach of or innovation in our holy tradition.


The Igud Rosh Chodesh Teves/Chanukah Conference was held on Sunday morning, the 7th day of Chanukah, December 28, 2008, at Khal Mevakshei Hashem, 3011 Avenue K, Brooklyn. Rabbi Yehuda Levin serves as its Rav. Rabbi Levin is renowned for his Herculean efforts in battling to uphold morality here in the United States, as well as in Israel. His efforts have brought him to the forefront of efforts to preserve family values, earning respect from all segments of society and religious clergy.


Rabbi Levin, as host Rav, provided an enjoyable dinner, complete with cheese blintzes, jelly doughnuts and potato latkes. Rabbi Yoshua Y. Lustig, Igud Dayan and author of Li Yehoshia formally opened the conference with the recital of Tehillim 130. Torah luminaries, Igud President, Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht and Igud Rosh Beth Din, Rabbi Herschel Kurzrock, graced the session with their presence.


Dov Hikind - Jewish Hero


In his introduction Igud Director, Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum described the Honorable Dov Hikind, New York State Assemblyman, representing the predominantly observant communities of Boro Park and Flatbush, as a contemporary Jewish hero. Documents seized after the first World Trade Center attack reveal that Assemblyman Hikind's name was on the terrorists' assassination list. The New York City Police Department provided Hikind with 24 /7 police protection until the terrorist cell was apprehended, tried, and incarcerated.


Hikind also faced down threats from the Israeli Government on Israeli soil during the Gush Katif expulsion. In Gush Katif he came under Katyusha rocket fire and had to run for shelter. During the recent Second Lebanon War in July of 2006, Hikind led a support group to Northern Israel while most of the population there had been evacuated. During these and other trips to Israel, Hikind never hesitated in going straight to the front, regardless of threats.


Serious Problem, Serious Consideration


Hikind's efforts in combating child sex-abuse within the observant community have received much media attention. The response to his campaign has been an outpouring of support from all segments of the frum community.


Surprisingly, some voices of criticism have been heard. However, the self-anointed critics have not presented any solutions and the problem persists. Assemblyman Hikind, as part of including all community leaders in his enormous undertaking, attended an Igud Horabbonim Rosh Chodesh meeting.


Dov Hikind Fighting Abuse


Assemblyman Hikind reported to the assembled rabbis on his current campaign to battle child sex abuse within the observant community. The reluctance to report molestation cases to authorities results in compounding the problems, sometimes with devastating results. Overcoming that reluctance could possibly be achieved by the creation of an intermediary entity that would ensure that offenders are either put on the road to proper behavior or punished accordingly.


Hikind, who has undertaken the effort and is boldly confronting the horrors, literally is not sleeping at night. Rabbi Benzion Twerski, a noted observant psychologist, was to lead Hikind's original task force panel.



Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht speaking
However, Dr. Twerski, one of the leading professionals working with addictions and youth-at-risk in the observant community, resigned in face of unspecified threats. Assemblyman Hikind is continuing his efforts in fighting sex abuse within the observant community and is working on developing a campaign that would achieve very specific goals.


Rabbi Joseph Rosenbaum, DDS, Rav of the Yong Israel of Vandeveer Park, shared the accepted medical opinion that molesters are diseased and must undergo therapy. Failing that, molesters must be reported to the proper authorities and should be imprisoned.


Igud President Speaks


Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht, Igud President, who spoke immediately after Assemblyman Hikind, conceded that the problem is greater than he imagined and that, generally, congregational rabbis are not trained to deal with such problems.


At the last Igud Rosh Chodesh meeting, President of the Board of Rabbi of Flatbush, Rabbi Herbert W. Bomzer, noted that he has served as a congregational rabbi for decades, as well as a long-serving rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, and during all that time, never has such a problem been brought to him.


Rabbi Harry Rabinowitz, a highly respected Torah educator, indicated that he had heard rumors of problems at other institutions, but that he had never had to confront such a problem. Rabbi Hecht continued to say that the Igud Horabbonim thanks and applauds Assemblyman Hikind for his ambitious efforts and encourages him to continue his important work until a satisfactory plan is in place that would enable such problems to be properly and effectively dealt with within the community framework.

Anonymous said...

Come on uoj, you should be able to get a better, more updated picture of this gerer tinof, jack ass litzman.

Anonymous said...

Child Molested in Crown Heights Mikvah
January 04 2009

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — At 4:12pm, Friday, Erev Shabbos, a child called the Shomrim hotline asking for help. The child stated that he was just molested at the Empire Shtibel Mikvah and the perpetrator was still in the Mikvah.

Numerous Shomrim members arrived on the scene within seconds. After speaking to the child, they requested for Police to further investigate. The members had the suspect, a 23 year old Israeli, wait for Police.

The child told the Police what happened and the officers, then walked suspect to precinct, for further questioning by detectives.

After being interrogated at the precinct the suspect was formally arrested on charges pertaining to his crimes.

In case of an emergency never hesitate to call 911 and Shomrim at (718) 774-3333 24/7

Anonymous said...

Tremendous words of chizuk! Thank you, UOJ for putting things in their proper perspective for all of us. Instead of weakening one's bitachon in Hashem, these rabbinical scandals should only serve to strengthen it. We must all remember that we have a direct line to the Almighty and we don't need any intermediaries. The true rabbis are the ones that teach and guide properly, not the corrupted ones that UOJ talks about.

Arthur said...

Reb UOJ
How can you say such terrible things about Agudas Yisroel? Don't you want to belong to the "elite Of Torah Judaisim" as they called themselves in an add about their forthcoming convention,in,if my memory serves me correctly,the Jewish Mess a couple of years ago.?
"Join the Elite of Torah Judaisim" was the exact term they used and you don't want to be part of this "Elite"? Shame on you.(On second thought maybe they were referring to the chocolate Co. that goes by that name)

Arthur said...

Important
http://www.honestreporting.com/a/breaking_point.asp

Anonymous said...

Shame on you! These two pieces are in complete violation of plagiarism laws. You wanna make fun of the whole world, go ahead and do so; but to take someones work and twist it into your own shameful, cynical and deceited piece and an abomination.

Anonymous said...

On Yisroel Belsky's grave it will be written "pedophile protector" over the words "Please Deposit Your Garbage Here - Follow Our example"

Anonymous said...

What is the scoop on Abraham Twerski
of Milwaukee?

Anonymous said...

Outrage at Boro Park Y alleging child molester still has access to center

BY SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU

Sunday, January 4th 2009, 10:51 PM

An accused Brooklyn child molester charged with fondling a boy inside a Boro Park Y six years ago still frequents the kiddie-packed center, the Daily News has learned.

Arthur Samet, 48, was arrested in October and charged with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child beginning in December 2001 at the 14th Ave. YM-YWHA's Jacuzzi, according to court records.

The victim, now 19, came forward last fall to report the alleged crime.

Officials at the Y were stunned to learn of the alleged incident.

"This is the first time I am hearing about this," said Boro Park YM-YWHA director Ellie Kastel, who was shown court documents detailing the encounters by a News reporter.

"I am very disturbed that we weren't informed. It is very important to us to protect our children," Kastel said.

Asked if Samet will lose his membership, Kastel replied: "I will do what my lawyers tell me to do."

Samet was arrested in 2007 on a charge of sexual misconduct, but the victim later refused to prosecute because of intense pressure from the Jewish community, police sources said. The case was later sealed.

In the current case, investigators wanted to protect the victim from outside influence and did not officially notify the YMHA, sources said.

Prosecutors took up the case even though it was six years before the teen came forward, because state law gives child victims of sex abuse up to five years past their 18th birthday to tell authorities, said a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

The teen told investigators in October that Samet molested him inside the Y three times, between December 2001 and March 2002. At least one instance occurred while they both sat inside the Y's Jacuzzi, sources said. Samet refused to comment at a December court appearance. His lawyer, Richard Finkel, said Samet is a "family man."

The issue of molestation has become more visible in the insular Borough Park community in recent months because of several arrests. Samet is the third man charged with sexually or physically abusing a child.

With Alison Gendar

simonew@nydailynews.com

Anonymous said...

I am against dishonest Swiss bankers of any kind.

Anonymous said...

Abraham Twerski is from Pittsburgh.

The Twerski brother from Milwaukee is no longer living. I heard that Rav Gifter was opposed to his hashkofos.

Anonymous said...

Published on - 10:52 04/01/09
Mondrowitz Victims Looking for A Framework

By Ruth Sinai

Abraham מונדרוביץ '

Organization of orthodox Jews who fell victim to attacks sexuality בקהילותיהם U.S. Supreme Court asked to load up a framework of Abraham מונדרוביץ, Gur Hasid U.S. attack on a dozen youths Onmlt Israel.

The request is supported by two affidavits of exceptional orthodox men, founders of the organization named "justice for the survivors", agreed to disclose the identities and tell how מונדרוביץ 'youths attacked them in the early years of the -80.

"The organization is working to bring to trial winners underground sex offenders under the wings at the norms were Haortodoksiot prevent חשיפתם Umitzoi court with them," please read. "Disable מונדרוביץ 'U.S. ... Send a clear message to those who injured sexually , communities similar in Israel are closed, authorities from New York to Israel to act as ability to protect our children and the prosecution of these שמעזים hurt them. "

The state court announced that it opposes the application on the grounds that the status of victims of crime extradition proceedings and that the law does not square the two mentioned are not seeking an indictment filed against מונדרוביץ 'in the United States.

מונדרוביץ 'introduced himself for therapy for victims sexually assaulted, but according to the indictment filed against him in the U.S., he himself attacked the patient.

After the indictment was filed in the mid -80, מונדרוביץ' fled to Israel in hiding in וחי, detected until last year was arrested. Now He manages a fight against the U.S. demand for surrender.

Please, submitted by the Ministry of Yigal Arnon & Co., seeking argue, Baruch Sandhous and Mark Weiss that even though Israeli law does not grant the status of victims of crime extradition proceedings, other laws have recognized the rights of victims of crime it is important the court will allow them to explain the impact on the victims if the appeal מונדרוביץ 'confirmed.

Declaration submitted said that by the meeting which studied the treatment due to problems with his behavior. First, "ניחם" מונדרוביץ him with kisses וחיבוקים and after several meetings on the same,he violated
וליטף the sexual organ.

Anonymous said...

Why are people so against me and my YeshivaWorld & Lakewood Scoop websites?

http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/12/yeshiva-world-loosing-its-advertisers.html

Yudel Shain even put back up the item where almost 100 people posted insults.

Anonymous said...

(CBS/AP) When he ran for president, Bill Richardson touted more than an adventurous style and impressive resume. He was the guy who embraced flaws as a strength, the one who said the American people "don't want blow-dried candidates with perfection."

A federal grand jury investigation into what could be a serious flaw, however, has led New Mexico's governor to a tough decision to leave the national political stage - at least for now.

Richardson on Sunday withdrew as Barack Obama's nominee to be Commerce Secretary

A federal grand jury is looking into how Beverly Hills financial services company, CDR Financial Products, earned a $1.5 million state contract after contributing to Governor Richardson's political action committees.

Anonymous said...

What is his connection to Averick, his "expert" on ..... of children in-laws?

Anonymous said...

I commend you Yeshiva World News. Undoubtedly, you are willingly passing up on hundreds or thousands of hits a day. There are stories that you won’t publish. There are details that everyone will have to seek elsewhere to delight in. The articles that you publish 99% of the time will be accurate, balanced and true to fact. And for the 1%, know that you are an authentic, sensitive, frum and ehrlich news site.

Eckstein is Hashem's shammes. He knows what's important to write and what isn't. Just like Pinny "dASS Torah" Lipshutz knows what's important to discuss. Eckstein is even better at least he wrote abot the Shevacch meat scandal, while Pinny ignored it.

Ah! How gevaldig Daas Torah is! We are a light unto the nation!

What a Kiddush Hashem!

Anonymous said...

I myself am very close to the family, I came home at night and my family told me about the tragic news they saw on YWN .The next day I got a phone call from a friend of mine asking me if I was going in to be Menachem the family, when I responded in the affirmative, he told me he thought he’d just let me know that the other website (you all know which Reshoim I’m referring to) was “singing a different story”

They are no words to describe the sadness and anger that I felt. I was sickened! How dare they publish such an article?? Where is their Yiddishe conscience?

Boruch Hashem, I am not a “frequent customer” of that website, but we all know that the sustenance of these people depend on their advertisers. So I emailed all their advertisers with a plea that they not support such a “butcher”. Of course my plea went unheeded.

I can assure you that as far as I’m concerned, anyone seeking advertisement and publicity through their website will from now on get “negative advertisement” and I wouldn’t even think of giving them an ounce of business. And that includes all the Tzedoko organizations. If you don’t have the moral decency not to finance such a Loshon Horah Laundromat, I do not trust you with my Maaser money!!

I do think though that if these advertisers would get more than one complaint, they will reconsider their support of Loshon Horah. Albeit not for the right reasons, but Mitoch Shelo Lishma Ba Lishma.

This is an all out war against the Kofrim and Maskilim amongst us.

P.S. Everything was said and done Al Pi Daas Torah, I’m in contact with a few different Rabbonim about the issue

Anonymous said...

Survivors Meeting - NY Civil Window Bill Informational Meeting

I was just informed that the Survivor meeting scheduled for tomorrow (January 6, 2009) in Brooklyn was canceled.

The Awareness Center is having a survivor speak out at the Mapleton Library on Jan. 26th in which we hope you will all attend.

Sincerely,
Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, ATR-BC
Founder and CEO

-----------------
Jewish Survivors of Sexual Abuse Speaking Out in Baltimore, MD

When: Sunday, January 26, 2009 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Where: Mapleton Public Library
1702 60th St.
Brooklyn, NY

Reservations Required - Seating is Limited
RSVP: The Awareness Center, Inc.
443-857-5560 or e-mail: info@theawarenesscenter.org

Jewish Survivors of sexual violence rarely provided an opportunity to speak out against the heinous crimes committed against them as children or as adults.

This educational event is designed to give those who have been victimized the opportunity to educate our community on the issues, ramifications and offer support to others who have been touched by sexual violence.

This event is FREE and open to the public, yet reservations are required due to space limitations.

The Awareness Center is the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault.

Speakers include:
Michael Dowd, Attorney at Law
Ava Miedzinski, DDS - Survivor of child sexual abuse in a Jewish day school.
Vicki Polin, Founder - The Awareness Center, Survivor of incest.
Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg - Advocate for those sexually abuse orthodox children
More speakers will add soon

Arthur said...

The Necessity of Israel
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 02, 2009
Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons. -- Associated Press, Dec. 27
WASHINGTON -- Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the last three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.
This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage -- or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb -- will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.
For Hamas the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children's program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey's path to martyrdom).

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.
That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza -- peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.
What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.
The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There's only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel's very existence.
Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world's opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire -- exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d'etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.
Israel's only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence -- the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.
Hamas' rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire.
If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost again. It can ill afford to lose any more wars.

Anonymous said...

I was just informed that I made a mistake in the last e-mail sent out. We have two different upcoming speak-outs. One is on Jan. 26th in Brooklyn. The other is on Feb. 8th in Baltimore. Attached is our fliers on both events. Please feel to print them out and share them with everyone you know. The Awareness Center is in hopes you will be able to attend one or both of the events.


Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, ATR-BC
Founder and CEO

The Awareness Center, Inc.
(the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault)
P.O. Box 65273, Baltimore, MD 21209
www.theawarenesscenter.org
443-857-5560

Anonymous said...

I've been going to the mikva for 20 years and I have NEVER seen anything improper!

its totally public, there are enough witnesses to make a nut behave....
besides in CH I guess

Anonymous said...

Would the library in the main mikvah teaching about TAHARA be named after the city's most prolofic molester butcher, Miller. It was dedicated by her friends in Peterson Park (Chicago wife swapping mecca)in honor of having an open house for people to sleep in. Peterson Park is the area made famous by the Shabat scandal where she molested and slept with a Telshe-Chicago bachur.

Is their any wonder Chicago still employs a mikvah rapist as a shul rav?

Anonymous said...

Dearest Head in the Sand,

1. gerrer dude in bnai barak videotaped propositioning young boys and touching the genitals of these boys. Press went in with a hidden cam when the wife found out and set the reporters on him.

2. menashe klien's mikve is the favorite pick up spot for the same bobover dude who sings grammen by mordche duvid bobover's tishen.

3. Deszer mikve off 16th avenue was so famous for the funny business going on there at all the hours of the day and night that they had to install security and keep a record of everyone who comes there and at what time.

4. Ask Rabbis horowitz, twersky, rosenberg and others involved how many willy boys were introduced to the homosexual lifestyle by men in the mikvaot there.

Ignore the facts, send your sons there and wonder why they rebel as teenagers, join alternate lifestyles, experiment with incest or rape children. Ask hatzoloh and shomrim how prevelant this is.

Anonymous said...

first u say most prolific molester butcher (miller) then u say "her". get your story straight please. AND USE NAMES.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Please pass this important article around to everyone.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:new_york_times:cb8ff6ecc265d9a21e4b40686c3aded7

Anonymous said...

I've been living in NYC for 31 years and never saw a murder, therefore the murder rate in NYC is 0.

Arthur said...

"I've been going to the mikva for 20 years and I have NEVER seen anything improper!

its totally public, there are enough witnesses to make a nut behave....
besides in CH I guess"
I've been going to various mikvohs in CH for somewhat more then 20 years and I've never seen anything improper which really proves nothing so lets not make this into another CH issue.As to the individual who has posted a rant against all mikvohs ,we don't condemn all yeshivas because of the incidents that occur in a few.The same applies to mikvohs.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Regarding mikves and yeshiva basements --- none of these sickos intend to get caught, a fraction do.

There's "grooming" that takes place first --- if these animals in the initial stages are successful, they ply their trades privately.

So DO NOT necessarily expect to see Fridays an hour before Shabbos or yom tov, active animals openly on the prowl in the mikves.

Studies suggest that child-rapists are smarter than the average person, atleast when it comes to their illicit activities.

Anonymous said...

UOJ,
Thanx for validating the problem with the mikve, the favorite hunting ground for men who are not rabbis. There you get more than a thumbnail preview of the crop. The fact remains that minors are forbidden by law to gain entrance to a public bath-house for both moral and sanitary reasons. I think we need a grassroots effort to ban anyone under age from going into these potential lion's dens. A worthy cause indeed. Dina d'malchusa overrides a canceled ezrarian law. Especialy when a shower suffices for though who choose to live up to this defunct minhag. Imagine if a nude colony opened up next to your bungalow colony. Or if a publicbathhouse in the village sense opened on your block. This is virtualy the same potential problem only worse, cause your kids are encouraged to go.

Anonymous said...

Please!! a few kapitlech tehilim if possible, our brother in harm way can use it, my heart is bleeding.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3651165,00.html



Gaza: 3 soldiers killed, 20 injured in friendly fire incident


Friendly fire in northern Gaza claims lives of three soldiers, leaves one critically injured, three in serious condition; 24 others sustain minor injures



Hanan Greenberg Published: 01.06.09, 03:22 / Israel News




Cleared for publication: Three IDF soldiers were killed and 24 others were injured, one critically and three seriously on Monday evening, in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza.



Among the fatalities were two officers and a soldier. Colonel Avi Peled, commander of the Golani Brigade sustained minor injuries in the incident.

Fighting in Strip intensifies as IDF kills some 100 terrorists. Hamas steps up attempts to target IDF forces, fights back with mortar fire, snipers, explosives
Full story



The injured were triaged and cared for on site before being airlifted to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem and the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. All of the families have been notified.



According to the IDF Spokesman's Unit, the grave incident occurred when a tank, deployed as part of Operation Cast Lead, accidentally fired a live round at an abandoned building in Jabalya, in which Golani forces, who were operating in the area, took cover.



According to available information, shortly after 6 pm, a blast took out part of the building, causing some of its walls to collapse and injuring the entire force.




Earlier Monday, the IDF explored the possibility that the building collapsed due to the detonation of explosives in it – an option which was ruled out as the details of the incident unfolded.





Casualties rushed to hospital



The injured were extracted under the cover of heavy IDF artillery fire and with the assistance of IAF helicopters which dropped illuminating bombs in order light their way.



Colonel Peled reportedly refused to leave the scene despite his injuries, opting to see to the rescue and triage of his troops. He sought medical care only after the last of his troops were evacuated.

Peled's conduct and actions, said an IDF source, show courage and "personified the kind of behavior the IDF expects of its commanders in such times."



Peled, a former Egoz Brigade and Battalion 51 head, assumed command of Golani last summer. Prior to his Golani assignment Peled headed the Gaza Division's southern brigade. It was during that time that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas, but a subsequent military inquiry found no fault in Peled's conduct.

Anonymous said...

Only In Chicago....... said...

Is their any wonder Chicago still employs a mikvah rapist as a shul rav?


How many times do I have to ask you to put up or shut up? You continue to sit on information that puts the rest of us and our children at risk. If you aren't going to share the info, realize that you are as bad and as evil as the person you allege to exist.
Stop ranting and kvetching if you can't produce the goods!!

Anonymous said...

How many times must I warn you?????

Get your passport.
And for your family.

Be ready to run.

Will there be suicide bombers in American cities very soon? I think so.

(Will Israel attack Iran very soon??????)

Anonymous said...

http://honestlyfrum.blogspot.com/2009/01/censorship-in-charedi-community-is.html

From My Uncle the Netziv, a book sent out as a fundraising tool by the Lakewood cheder which was later recalled because it said that the Netziv allowed secular subject to be taught in Volozin to The Making of a Gadol, where the mafia of morons made R' Yaakov Kaminetzki's son rewrite a biography because they didn't like some things that he put in there about his own father (I have a copy of it, the most controversial thing is that it says he read news papers). YWN (check out the link, it's funny stuff) regularly omits stories about fraud and abuse in the charedi community yet is more than happy to report on them when they happen in the M/O community. There were two stories this past week which highlight this nonsense still currently taking place. The first one I saw on DovBear, there was a story in Mishpacha magazine this past week about the White House kitchen being kashered for the chanukah party, and there was a picture in taken of the mashgichim in the kitchen with Mrs. Bush. Mishpacha chose to change the caption of the picture and photo shop out Mrs. Bush. The funny thing is that these morons didn't realize is that you can still see her reflection in the silver foil that is covering the counter. The next story is a sad story about a guy in Baltimore who allegedly committed suicide on a bridge. The initial reports were that is was a car accident and that is what was reported by VIN and YWN. After the police report surfaced showing that it was a case of suicide Vos Iz Naies choose to update his story showing the true cause and apologizing for his initial misinformation, yet the Eckstein at Yeshiva world left the original FALSE story up. I understand being sensitive and not wanting to post a story like that out of feeling for the family, but don't leave the original false story up, if your report doesn't match the facts TAKE DOWN THE STORY. But what can we expect from a community that ca do no wrong and any problem is "swept under the rug". As we all know there are no problems of mental illness or abuse in the charedi community, they are all due to a lack of learning and were invented by the Modern Orthodox to make the charedim look bad.

Anonymous said...

http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2009/01/censored-text-from-lakewood-high-school.html

Friday, January 02, 2009

A censored text from a Lakewood high school Jewish history class

Anonymous said...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cdr6-2009jan06,0,2483303.story

From the Los Angeles Times

CDR, at root of Richardson probe, is no stranger to suits

The Beverly Hills financial advisory firm is facing several claims of receiving kickbacks.

By William Heisel

January 6, 2009

The Beverly Hills financial advisory firm at the center of the investigation that derailed New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's hopes of becoming commerce secretary has had a series of run-ins with federal and state agencies -- and a growing list of former clients is now suing it for allegedly bilking local governments.

CDR Financial Products Inc. and its owner, David Rubin, are the subjects of continuing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Justice, which became public when investigators searched CDR's offices in November 2006.

Rubin developed a niche helping state and local governments earn money on the cash raised through bond issues. Governments typically receive a lot of money from investors upfront, which can't be spent all at once. Rubin's firm advises governments on how to invest that money before it is spent on projects.

But about 20 different cities, counties and school districts are now suing Rubin's firm, alleging it steered them to banks that paid CDR kickbacks.

CDR's spokesman, Allan Ripp, disputed the allegations and said the company has always done what it's paid to do: provide sound financial advice.

"We want to emphasize that in all of these investigations and the leaks of the investigations there has never been a question of competence or performance or even ultimate value," Ripp said.

CDR is just one of many defendants in the lawsuits by local governments, which also name banks such as Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp.

"CDR has not been a household name like Lehman and Bank of America and JP Morgan but they were integral and intertwined in the whole scheme," said Nanci Nishimura, a partner at law firm Cotchett Pitre Simon & McCarthy in Burlingame, Calif. "A lot of what we know about how these big banks were doing business was triggered by the FBI's raid on CDR's offices."

Rubin, 47, is an entrepreneur who was born in Mexico City to Israeli parents. They later moved to the Los Angeles area, where Rubin graduated from an Orthodox Jewish school. He never graduated from college but did earn a financial advisor's license before starting his own firm in 1986.

CDR was initially called Chambers, Dunhill & Rubin. But there were no partners named Chambers or Dunhill. Ripp said the names were added to make the one-man shop sound more established.

CDR eventually grew to about 25 advisors and other employees around the country, providing advice on more than $150 billion in transactions. It has since shrunk to about a dozen employees, Ripp said. He served as a housing commissioner for the city of Los Angeles from 2003 to 2005.

Rubin earned enough money over the years to buy an 8,000-square-foot home in Hancock Park with an assessed value of more than $5 million, according to property records. He has donated heavily to Israeli and Jewish charitable causes.

And he and his firm have given about $200,000 in recent years to political campaigns, mostly for Democratic candidates, including $2,300 to Barack Obama in September and $4,000 to Obama's pick for secretary of the interior, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), when he first ran for the Senate in 2004.

CDR's name has surfaced during several political scandals, including the indictment of a city treasurer in Philadelphia. CDR was not accused of wrongdoing, but it was alluded to in the indictment as one of the firms that gave the treasurer gifts, including Super Bowl tickets, in exchange for a shot at doing business with the city.

Richardson's case involved $100,000 in donations that CDR made in 2004 to help Richardson's push to register Latino voters and to pay for the Democratic National Convention that year. A grand jury in New Mexico is investigating whether CDR won a state contract to do financial advisory work because of those donations.

"The timing of the donations is unfortunate, but they were intended to help causes that are in line with Mr. Rubin's long-held beliefs -- not to influence the bidding process," Ripp said. "Anyone who is familiar with the way these contracts are awarded would know that you can't buy your way into one."

In August, Los Angeles sued CDR and more than 40 other financial institutions for allegedly rigging bids on financial instruments, driving down the city's rate of return.

"We're filing these suits because we believe it's time these corporations are held accountable for systematically cheating our taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars, and doing so in clear violation of state law," Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said at the time.

The firm is also being sued by the counties of Fresno, San Mateo, Contra Costa, Alameda and San Diego, among others.

As evidence, one of the suits cites an e-mail in which a Bank of America employee details how the bank paid more than $45,000 in fees to CDR even though CDR "was not involved in some way in the transaction." Instead, the employee said that "the CDR fees have been part of the ongoing attempt to develop a better relationship with our major brokers," the employee wrote.

In October 2007,the SEC settled one case against CDR and AIG SunAmerica Life Assurance Co., ordering them to stop certain financial arrangements but imposing no fines. The agency had accused AIG and CDR of failing to disclose a fee arrangement they had with each other when setting up a deal to sell $650 million in tax-exempt bonds in Florida in 1999 and 2000.

william.heisel@latimes.com

Times researcher Scott J. Wilson contributed to this report.

Anonymous said...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-mafia6-2009jan06,0,262315.story

From the Los Angeles Times
COLUMN ONE

Police in Israel grapple with a mafia gang war

Daylight bombings, bystander deaths and the occasional rocket attack have laid bare the shortcomings of Israel's formidable security apparatus in dealing with the crime wave.
By Ashraf Khalil

January 6, 2009

Reporting from Jerusalem — His name rhymed with Al Capone and he came to a bad end behind the wheel of a rented white Volkswagen.

Until the moment a bomb planted on his car exploded on a Tel Aviv street, mob boss Yaakov Alperon was living large. He and his Carmela Soprano-blond wife, Ahuva, were media darlings who even took part in a 2006 reality show in which a famous Israeli model moved in with their family.

After her husband's assassination in November, a tearful Ahuva went on Israeli television to plead for an end to the violence. "I'm left with seven orphans," she said. "I beg you, don't look for revenge."

But as he stood over his father's grave, one of her sons appeared to have vengeance on his mind: "I will send back that person to God," he said. "He won't have a grave because I'll cut off his hands, head and body."

Israelis are fond of saying they "live in a rough neighborhood." But chances are they aren't talking about what's been happening recently in this country of 7 million.

An over-the-top gang war between Israeli crime families, complete with daylight bombings, bystander deaths and the occasional rocket attack, has laid bare the shortcomings of the country's formidable security apparatus.

"In many respects we are losing the battle," said Menachem Amir, a criminology professor at Hebrew University.

Organized crime blossomed here in the 1980s and '90s while security forces were focused on Palestinian terrorist threats. By the time Israeli authorities truly began to grapple with the problem a few years ago, they faced a sophisticated global network of gambling, prostitution and drug trafficking, with Los Angeles as one of its hubs.

Court documents and interviews with Israeli law enforcement officials give glimpses of a criminal tapestry that includes an assassination in Encino, alliances with violent L.A. gangs and the establishment of an Israeli-directed drug pipeline from Europe straight to Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Israeli law enforcement officials admit they've been caught flat-footed and are scrambling to catch up, using increased surveillance, tougher laws and partnerships with more experienced agencies in the U.S. and Europe.

"We're about five years behind the criminals," said Arye Livneh, head of the government's newly created witness protection program, which won't even begin protecting prospective mob informants until next summer. "This is a tiny place. It's not easy to hide someone in Israel."

Israel is a heavily militarized country where weapons flow freely. While the intelligence agencies and army vigilantly watch the borders for Palestinians intent on carrying out attacks, Israeli criminals use the country's tightknit social connections to steal guns, explosives and antitank missiles from the army.

"Why would you bother smuggling weapons into Israel?" Amir said. "Everybody has weapons."

The country's mandatory military service also produces a uniquely trained recruiting pool for the mafia. Amir Mulner, a reputed mob boss and explosives expert, reportedly learned his lethal skills in the army.

"A lot of Israelis, they get out of the army and they don't have a job. They're for hire," said Amir, the criminology professor.

Now the Israelis, with help from their American counterparts, say they're gaining ground. In August, police in Jerusalem arrested reputed mob boss Itzhak "Big Friend" Abergil and his brother Meir on drug-trafficking and other racketeering charges, filed by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. The pair await extradition to the States for trial.

Israeli officials hail the Abergil case as proof that they're making strides in dealing with local mafiosi, and developing sophisticated global approaches to combat sophisticated global criminals.

"These cases require a lot more work and a lot more creativity," said Gal Levertov, director of the department of international affairs in the Israeli state attorney's office. "We're trying to cope with this new global phenomenon."

The Abergil trial should be the latest test for a legal template established in the 2006 prosecution of former ecstasy drug kingpin Zeev Rosenstein. In a precedent-setting arrangement, Rosenstein was charged in America, arrested in Israel and extradited, sentenced to 12 years in prison, then shipped back to Israel to serve his time.

After Rosenstein's arrest, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told reporters that the country's law enforcement agencies were beginning to turn the tide against the mafia.

"This is a long-term battle that requires plenty of patience," Rosenfeld said at the time. "It won't be decided by knockout but rather by points."

But today, the growing confidence and capability of the Israeli police are being badly undermined by their inability to contain a series of violent feuds between the top families -- many of them tightknit clans of Arab Jews who emigrated here from Egypt and Morocco. The string of public shootings, bombings and rocket attacks has killed and wounded dozens of bystanders.

One local law enforcement official, speaking off the record because the investigation was continuing, said Alperon's assassination appeared to be the work of Mulner, the explosives expert, who reportedly took control of many of Rosenstein's operations.

Alperon and Mulner have been locked in a personal dispute for years; in 2006, a meeting between the two to arbitrate a turf dispute ended with Alperon stabbing Mulner in the neck, according to local crime reporters.

Police have yet to charge anyone with Alperon's killing, but they arrested Mulner shortly afterward on a relatively minor change, possibly to get him off the streets and blunt the cycle of retaliation.

The Abergils, meanwhile, have waged a turf war with the Abutbul family, according to police and local journalists. The prize at stake: control of drug trafficking and gambling operations in Israel, Europe and the U.S.

Itzhak Abergil's brother Yaacov was gunned down in front of his family in June 2002. Two months later, Felix Abutbul, known to police here as one of the original Israeli godfathers, was shot to death outside a casino he owned in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

Abutbul's children have carried on the feud, according to several Israeli crime reporters.

In July, Charlie Abutbul was seriously wounded when assassins opened fire on a restaurant he owned.

Several times in recent years, Israeli hit men have resorted to using shoulder-mounted antitank missiles to attack the armored cars of mob bosses.

"That's one of the most worrisome things about these killings in Israel -- they are not only criminal, they are sloppy and lots of other people get victimized," said Levertov, of the state attorney's office.

Public outcry against the mobsters and the seemingly overmatched police force reached a peak in July. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on an Abergil family associate at a beachside restaurant in Netanya, killing a young mother in front of her family.

"For a long time now, methodical and familial crime has been one of the most organized institutions in the country," said a November editorial in the daily newspaper Haaretz. "The enforcement agencies, by contrast, are lagging behind."

Israel's size -- smaller than New Hampshire -- greatly hinders one of the key aspects of any organized crime prosecution, inducing mid-level mafiosi to turn informant and testify against their bosses. Put simply, Israeli police have been unable to protect their witnesses, and several cases have fallen apart when witnesses either recanted their testimony or were killed.

In December 2005, convicted murderer Yoni Alzam was poisoned in his prison cell the day before he was to testify in a mafia trial.

"If someone gives testimony, the day afterward they will be killed with their family," said Livneh, head of the nascent witness protection department. "Israel is very good at fighting terror. We have to reach the same level of ability in fighting crime families. The danger is the same."

ashraf.khalil@latimes.com

Batsheva Sobelman of The Times' Jerusalem Bureau and Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem and Joe Mozingo in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Anonymous said...

www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-faithtorczyner103.6719033jan03,0,2550249.story

Another casualty of Bernard Madoff: the definition of 'Jew'
January 3, 2009

As a child, I didn't know that the word ''Jew'' could be used as a verb, that millions of people the world over believed that my family and I were, by dint of our ancestry, avaricious, unethical scoundrels. Instead, I was always taught that Judaism was a religion of ethics and honesty.

In school and synagogue and home, rabbis and parents inculcated in my peers and in me the biblical lesson (Deuteronomy 16:20), ''Justice, justice shall you pursue.'' The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) warned us that the first question a Jew will be asked in the afterworld is, ''Did you engage in commerce honestly.''

Jewish law (Tosefta, Chullin 2:24) demanded of us, ''Distance yourself from ugly behavior, and from anything that might resemble ugly behavior.''

Ethical behavior was inseparable from the laws of kosher, Shabbat and family purity.

As I entered adolescence, though, I saw people throw pennies at Jews to insult their supposed greed. I studied ''The Merchant of Venice'' and heard the Christian tale of the betrayal of Jesus, read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and saw copies of vicious Nazi and Muslim propaganda cartoons.

I was accosted by a group of teens in a Long Island Rail Road car; they informed me that ''Jews buy Sprite because it's cheap.''

Even some Jews displayed this malignant view of their own ethnicity and religion; seven years ago, then- Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell, a Jew, quoted his father's observation that ''the guys who spend the longest time in synagogues on Saturdays are the biggest crooks Monday through Friday.'' And so I learned that, indeed, much of the world didn't translate ''Jew'' as I did.

Many Jews fight this malicious rendering of ''Jew'' by promoting the Torah's ethical instructions. From The Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem to the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University in New York to Bais haVaad l'Inyonei Mishpat in Lakewood, N.J., to many similar efforts, Jews devote significant time, effort and, yes, money, to sustaining righteous behavior among Jews.

Particular Jewish individuals stand out for their achievements in this area as well; from philanthropists to political leaders to jurists to unheralded businessmen, there are many positive ethical role models within in the Jewish community.

But despite these efforts, every new Jew-related scandal reinforces the negative stereotype and negates the positive work of all of those institutions and individuals. Whether a Michael Milken or an Ivan Boesky, a Sholom Rubashkin or a Bernard Madoff, it seems that, every year, one or two Jews gain notoriety for their criminality and thereby reinforce in the mind of many the old message that the Jew is unethical, the Jew is self-serving, the Jew is greedy.

Never mind that the behavior of one man or even a handful of people cannot possibly be brought as proof of the character of millions. Never mind that Madoff has single-handedly destroyed many, many charities which served Jewish causes. The image that remains in the eyes of the world is that this Jew bilked people out of billions of dollars.

This wound is, to me, Madoff's deepest crime and most lasting legacy. I fear that years after the people who lost their money are gone, generations after the charitable foundations and the people they served are gone, this scandalous rendering of ''Jew'' will remain in the popular lexicon -- and Bernard Madoff will be cited as proof.

By nature and training, I try to look for some positive result even in the midst of devastation.

It's hard to find any upbeat note in this cacophany of destruction, but, perhaps, there will be one, small, positive result: I and others will feel all the more compelled to preach to our communities, and to teach to our children, that most basic of Jewish lessons (Leviticus 20:7): ''You shall sanctify yourselves, and you shall be sanctified, for I am the Lord your God.''

Mordechai Torczyner is rabbi at Congregation Sons of Israel, Allentown.

Anonymous said...

Seven years ago, then- Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell, a Jew, quoted his father's observation that ''the guys who spend the longest time in synagogues on Saturdays are the biggest crooks Monday through Friday.''

Anonymous said...

http://www.midwestagnet.com/Global/story.asp?S=9587831&nav=menu1585_4

On Sunday, dozens of Jews from around eastern Iowa and mostly the Postville area came outside of the jail to say they want to see equal rights for Jews.

The demonstrators set-up a menorah outside of the Dubuque Law Enforcement Center where the jail is housed Sunday afternoon ,on the last night of Hanukah.

"Today is the 8th day of Hanukah. Hanukah is a festival of freedom, of lights, and it's supposed to celebrate freedom from oppression," organizer Amy Dickel said.

The demonstrators say Sholom Rubashkin is being oppressed, held because he is Jewish.

Anonymous said...

http://www.midwestagnet.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?ClipID1=3285480&h1=Agri%20Arrest%20Protest&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=156567&LaunchPageAdTag=News&activePane=info&rnd=97423634

Anonymous said...

Here he is giving musser to YU students that if Rubashkin did anything bad, they were gorem it but not being upgeheet enough in bain adam lechavairo.

What about Shafran & the Agudah treating abuse victims like pieces of garbage?

http://www.yuobserver.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=e61bcc95-e13d-47aa-8c19-21abe46630cf

TEIQU's symposium came in the wake of months of news coverage regarding the AgriProcessors scandal in Postville, Iowa.

... Shafran's point that a scandal of national proportions happened because of individuals being remiss in bein adam lechaveiro [personal interaction], and the dramatic cause-and-effect demonstrated by the scandal should propel the community to look inward and improve.

Arthur said...

An open letter to the world: Sorry, no apologies
By DAVID BREAKSTONE


'Not by might and not by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." Ironically, it was this verse from Zechariah, read on the Shabbat of Hanukka, that was being chanted in synagogues throughout the world several days ago, precisely as Israel's air force was embarking on a display of might and power that it rarely demonstrates. So, do we believe in the message of our prophets or not?




1 With our reservists being called up by the thousands and our troops having into Gaza, I recall as well another chant, an echo of the first, and one that was no less sacred to me in my formative years: "Fighting for peace is like f--king for virginity." Both phrases continue to resonate within me, together giving expression to the cherished commandment of the Jewish tradition that we are to seek peace.

How, then, do I reconcile my unabashed support for the current military operation in Gaza with the values that I hold so dear? The answer is a complex one, but in its simplest form I would offer that we really are not fighting for peace; we are fighting to protect ourselves and for our right to some normalcy in our lives. Few, if any, are under the illusion that this military campaign is going to result in peace. Hamas has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel, and no amount of bombs is going to alter that. The problem is, neither is any amount of diplomacy. The Hamas covenant explicitly rejects negotiations as a legitimate form of struggle against the Zionist entity.

Being the stubborn people that we are, however, we have repeatedly refused to accept this reality. Just over six months ago, we and Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-brokered "lull" in the use of violence against one another. Our hope was that our avowed enemy would use this period of calm to invest its resources and energies in promoting the social agenda on which it rose to power, and in the meantime reconcile itself - without ever having to say so out loud - to living alongside its hated adversary. Our fear was that Hamas would instead take advantage of the opportunity to act with impunity that it had bargained for to enhance its firepower. Unfortunately, it was our fears that were realized and not our hopes.

Overwhelming force is the only way to fight terrorists
DURING THE past half year of relative quiet, a full 538 mortar shells and rockets were launched against Israel, and on December 21, Hamas unilaterally declared an end to the tenuous respite in its holy war against the Jewish state. Until the very last minute, our leaders were scurrying around the region, and calling around the globe, in an anxious effort to grasp at any diplomatic straw that might have prevented the renewal of all-out violence.

Leaders of Arab states were actively supportive of these efforts. So were leaders of the free world, particularly in Europe and the United States.




Nevertheless, Hamas chose to intensify its barrage of missiles rather than talk, its commitment to our destruction apparently even stronger than its will to survive. As the number of rockets exploding in southern towns and settlements surpassed 80 per day last week, and with the wounds inflicted by more than 5,000 such explosions over the past eight years still raw, our military and political leaders, having exhausted all diplomatic options, determined that enough was enough.

CLEARLY THEY were giving expression to the public mood as well. Some 90 percent of the country's citizenry supported the initial strikes against Gaza. But only a few days later, the question has already arisen as to whether or not our response has been disproportionate to the threat we are trying to fend off. A perfectly proportionate response, of course, would have been to fire one missile into Gaza for every missile fired from it. Or, perhaps, proportionality requires calculating the number of missiles per capita raining in on the population of Sderot and its environs, and sending an equivalent number back to terrorize the civilian population of Gaza City. That would give them a taste of their own medicine, wouldn't it?

We are, however, long past the point where dispensing medicine can do any good. Instead, we are interested in radical surgery, in eliminating as much of the cancer of radical Islamic terrorism as possible before it metastasizes throughout the region, and eventually the entire world. If someone, somehow can offer us a noninvasive procedure that will allow us to do that, I am confident with every fiber of my being that we will opt for it, even if the method is considered chancy and unproven.

We have taken risks numerous times in the past and, despite repeated disappointments, we will be prepared to do so again. We really are a peace-loving nation; it is all of our children who have been asked to cross the border, and on the other side of it are real human beings, good people among them who are no less deserving than we of the tranquility Hamas has denied us all. Our tradition, however, demands not only that we seek peace, but also that we choose life. I am deeply sorry about the terrible suffering of the innocent that we are perpetuating within Gaza, but under the circumstances, I offer no apologies.

The writer is a member of the executives of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, where he serves as head of the Department for Zionist Activities.

Anonymous said...

An Open Letter to all Achenu Bene Yisroel

After learning about the heart rendering appeal of the Gedolei Torah to intensify our Tefilos and Torah learning during this very trying time for Klal Yisroel, we have undertaken to join and aid them in their prayers.

The Medrash Rabah and the Yalkut relate that during the war against Midyon, for every one that went out to battle there was a designated person whose task it was to pray and learn for him.

The Great Gaon and Sage Rebbe Chaim Kanievsky, Shlit”a when asked about this tradition pointed out that Dovid Hemelech, as well continued and instituted the practice, that for every individual who was in combat, there was another person selected for the specific task of praying and learning for him.

Therefore in order to continue and accomplish this Minhag, we ask soldiers and/or their relatives who would want a "partner" in Torah and Tefillah to email maortlmo@gmail.com or fax 011 9728 9450027 and give their Hebrew name and mothers Hebrew name without any other particulars such as family name or other identifying factors, so that we may disseminate them among those who heed the call to add Torah and Tefiloh for the sake of those who find themselves in jeopardy ח"ו. Anyone who finds himself or herself ח"וin danger or in shelters because of the war may also feel free to call or email to the above.

To bond with us and receive a name of your "partner" please email or fax the above.

May Klal Yisroel in the merit of joining together, speedily see a successful end to this trial and campaign as quoted in the Parsha "without loss of life."

Rav Simcha HaCohen Kook Rechovot
Rav Levi Yitzchok Horowitz Bostoner Rebbe

Anonymous said...

http://www.mondovisione.com/index.cfm?section=news&action=detail&id=79697

CFTC Orders Brooklyn-Based Commodity Pool Operator And Its Principal To Pay $1,350,000 In Restitution And Civil Monetary Penalties For Fraud, Misappropriation, And Furnishing False Documents To The National Futures Association
19/12/08

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today filed and settled charges of fraud, filing false documents, and misappropriation of customer funds against a registered commodity pool operator, Innovative Capital Management, LLC (Innovative), and its principal and sole owner, Yehuda Belsky (Belsky), both of Brooklyn, New York. The CFTC order requires Belsky and Innovative to pay, jointly and severally, a total of $1,250,000 in restitution to five pool participants and a $100,000 civil monetary penalty. The order also imposes permanent trading bans on Belsky and Innovative and permanently prohibits them from applying for registration with the CFTC.

The CFTC order, issued on December 19, 2008, finds that from approximately September 2006 through February 2008, Belsky and Innovative fraudulently obtained funds totaling $1,250,000 from five commodity pool participants. Instead of using the solicited funds to purchase commodity futures and/or options contracts—as represented in solicitation materials—Belsky and Innovative misappropriated at least $385,000 of those funds, created false commodity pool account statements misstating the net asset value and monthly rates of return of the pool and then delivered these fraudulent statements to pool participants.

The order also finds that, during a routine audit by the National Futures Association (NFA), Belsky and Innovative provided NFA with (1) fraudulent account statements purportedly prepared by the futures commission merchant where the pool’s account was maintained and (2) fraudulent bank statements that falsely inflated the amount of pool funds on deposit at that bank.

The CFTC would like to thank the NFA for its assistance with this matter.

The following CFTC Division of Enforcement staff were responsible for this case: Philip Rix, Joseph Rosenberg, Elizabeth Brennan, Steven Ringer, Lenel Hickson, and Vincent A. McGonagle.

Anonymous said...

Rabbi Chaim Kohn's brother lost over $3 billion with Madoff.

Madoff Scheme Takes New Toll
Wall Street Journal - Dec 24, 2008

Over the past 10 days, Bank Medici Chairwoman Sonja Kohn and her husband, Erwin, have been scrambling to reassure European clients

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a3wajvLaNx.A&refer=europe

Bank Medici’s Herald USA and Herald Luxemburg funds put all their money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, Chief Executive Officer Peter Scheithauer said today in a telephone interview. The Vienna-based bank is 25 percent owned by Milan- based UniCredit SpA.

Bank Medici, founded in 1994 by Kohn, 60, focuses on asset management, investment banking and international private banking. Kohn wrote the book “Alternative Investments” and founded New York-based Eurovaleur Inc. She has been an adviser to the Vienna Stock Exchange, where she negotiated partnerships with Dubai Financial Markets and the Shanghai Stock Exchange, according to Medici’s Web site.

The two Medici Bank funds stopped redemptions on Dec. 11, Scheithauer said. The funds were sold to institutional investors, with 93 percent from around the world and 7 percent from Austria.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b202d0fe-d8c8-11dd-ab5f-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html

Austria takes control of Bank Medici
By Eric Frey in Vienna and Francesco Guerrera in New York

Published: January 2 2009 12:38 | Last updated: January 2 2009 18:45

Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50bn fraud on Friday claimed its biggest victim to date as the Austrian government was forced to take control of Bank Medici, which might have lost more than $3bn in the scandal.

Vienna has appointed a supervisor to run the private bank – the first time a government has had to step in to oversee a victim of the “Ponzi scheme” allegedly committed by the New York financier.

Bank Medici, which channelled up to $3.6bn into Mr Madoff’s asset management firm, said on Friday it would challenge the government’s decision to take control of its management.

“We want to appeal the FMA’s [Austrian financial regulator] ruling because the legal preconditions for a government takeover are not there,” said Andreas Theiss, Bank Medici’s lawyer. “The bank is not a retail bank and clients’ assets are not at risk.” Mr Theiss added that Bank Medici’s funds were still intact even though they had dropped in value enormously. “It does not mean that the assets themselves are gone,” he said.

The bank said Vienna’s move to appoint Gerhard Altenberger as government commissioner with veto power over the bank’s decisions was “in violation of the law” .

However, Sonja Kohn, Bank Medici’s president and majority stakeholder, has said she will co-operate with the authorities. Bank Medici’s two chief executives, Peter Scheithauer and Werner Tripolt, resigned on Friday, though Mr Tripolt is expected to be reappointed to a new managing board.

Bank Medici had an estimated $3.6bn under management when Mr Madoff was arrested in New York.

Most or all of the money is believed to be invested in Madoff funds, though no specific figures about the breakdown of Bank Medici’s asset allocation have yet been released.

Ms Kohn founded Medici as an investment boutique in 1994, using her contacts to Mr Madoff to attract business from eastern Europe, Italy and the Middle East. The bank has no relationship to the Florentine Medici family.

Bank Austria, UniCredit’s Austrian subsidiary, holds 25 per cent of Bank Medici but said its exposure was limited to its equity in the bank, which is about €1.5m ($2.1bn). But Austria’s largest bank may face civil lawsuits because it was actively promoting some of Bank Medici’s funds.

Anonymous said...

A Hamas rocket just landed in Gedera, the furthest the animals have reached yet and the first attack in the center of Israel, injuring a 3 month old infant.

Arthur said...

" Dina d'malchusa overrides a canceled ezrarian law. Especialy when a shower suffices for though who choose to live up to this defunct minhag."
If you were to say that under age children should not be sent to a mikvah without adult supervision,father,brother etc.I would agree with you all the way.However when you state that "Dina d'malchusa overrides a canceled ezrarian law." your likely to open up a pandoras box of problems.It's only one small step towards assering schitta because of all the abuse that is prevelent in this area.To the non Jewish mind ,which is not educated in the fine dividing line between Halocha and Minhag ,whether existant or not, the question of Dina demalchusa would apply to both.
Going to the Mikvah has become a fact in Jewish life. Mikveh is and has been a minhag Yisroel not a "defunct minhag" for tens of thousands of Jews ,Chassidish and otherwise, for hundreds if not thosands of years. It is not just the practice of a " "canceled ezrarian law." Minhag Yisroel din hu and according to some even more binding then a clear halocha.And what happens on erev Rosh Hashono and erev Yom Kippur when it is a clear halocho?
Taking a shower in place of a Mikvah?Shades of conservitive "theology" ,even for Tvilas noshim.
When their are sexual predators prowling the streets we don't stop our children from leaving the house.We, at the least, educate them what to watch out for and how to protect themselves.The same should be done for mikvah.

Anonymous said...

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- German billionaire Adolf Merckle committed suicide by throwing himself under a train, “broken” as his business empire crumbled under a growing burden of debt, his family said.

The 74 year-old businessman was hit yesterday evening near his hometown of Blaubeuren, 44 miles southeast of Stuttgart, a police officer said in an interview. His body was found on the tracks at around 7:30 p.m. about 300 yards from his home and a suicide note had also been found.

New York based money manager Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, 65, who may have lost client funds invested with Bernard Madoff, apparently killed himself in his Madison Avenue office, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Dec 23.

Kirk Stephenson, who helped start Luqman Arnold’s investment company Olivant Ltd., committed suicide, a U.K. coroner’s court judged last month. Stephenson, 47, jumped in front of a train on Sept. 25 at a railway station in Taplow, 28 miles west of London.

Anonymous said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=avVbvjSt2W.4

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- New York University obtained a court order extending a ban on J. Ezra Merkin transferring millions of dollars of the university’s funds related to investments with Bernard Madoff.

The university asked New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard Lowe in Manhattan today to restrain Merkin, along with his Gabriel Capital LP fund and Ariel Fund Ltd., from withdrawing, liquidating or dissolving assets. Lowe agreed and said he will order a preliminary injunction hearing on the ban.

Gabriel Capital, a $1.5 billion hedge fund, plans to liquidate after incurring losses on investments with Madoff, Merkin said in a Dec. 18 letter to investors including NYU. The fund lost 39 percent of its value this year through Nov. 30, he said. NYU had about $94 million invested in Ariel, which operated as a limited partnership with Merkin and Fortis Bank, according to the lawsuit filed in state court in Manhattan. Ariel and Fortis are also named as defendants.

“Without making disclosures in the quarterly reports to investors, and in the face of an extraordinary number of ‘red flags,’ Merkin, for years, simply turned over a substantial portion of Ariel’s funds to Madoff for management,” NYU said in its complaint.

Maertens said in court papers that NYU first invested with Ariel in December 1993, with a $20 million investment of endowment funds. It invested $10 million more in 1997. He said Merkin met with university officials in October and suggested NYU invest with Madoff. Maertens said the university refused to authorize such an investment.

“It is shocking in retrospect that Merkin concealed at that moment he had already invested NYU’s money with Madoff,” Maertens said.

The university also objects to Merkin’s claim that he would continue to seek payment for “expenses” related to managing the fund.

“It would be outrageous for him to take any further monies from the fund,” Maertens said in an affidavit filed with the court.

Anonymous said...

I have information that the IRS is investigating who hid money with Madoff overseas.

It's also highly suspicious that one of Madoff's sons had divorce papers served on him by his wife on the day of Bernie's arrest. Obviously, the sons knew something was coming before they claim to have known.

The judge may revoke Bernie's bail today as he was caught mailing $100 million in jewelry to relatives. CNBC is reporting that the relatives reported the mailings to the US Attorney's Office.

Anonymous said...

http://ny.therealdeal.com/articles/leviev-planned-to-market-apthorp-for-552m

By David Jones

Israeli real estate mogul Lev Leviev floated a plan in November to put the struggling Apthorp condominium conversion up for sale for more than $550 million, according to court records reviewed by The Real Deal.

Leviev claimed in the court documents that the Apthorp board of directors agreed to hire CB Richard Ellis to sell the building for $552 million and that managing partner Maurice Mann rejected it. Mann's lawyer told The Real Deal there was no such agreement and that putting a distressed asset up for sale would make it impossible to sell condos.

In addition, Leviev, who owns half of the Upper West Side building, wants to have Mann removed from the conversion, alleging that he not only rejected the plan, but has also engaged in excessive spending and illegally "warehoused" apartments at the building, according to court records. The Leviev emergency injunction filing was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Leviev was out of the country and not immediately available for comment.

One week ago, Leviev urged the New York State Supreme Court to place the Mann dispute before a rabbinical arbitration board, called the Beth Din of America, in order to prevent the building from going into foreclosure.

Mann, a veteran New York developer, agreed to buy the apartment building at 390 West End Avenue, for a record $426 million in 2006 at the height of the market. Leviev later stepped in to become his partner in the investment, and the two agreed to convert the 163-unit rental building into one of the most expensive condominiums in the city, selling for more than $3,000 a square foot.

In March 2007, Anglo Irish Bank agreed to provide a $393 million first mortgage and Apollo Real Estate Finance Corporation, a unit of Apollo Real Estate, agreed to provide $135 million in mezzanine financing, which would help finance the deal and provide for a $95 million renovation.

Amid slumping sales, Mann filed a $500 million suit against Anglo Irish Bank, Apollo, Petra Fund REIT and Guggenheim Structured Real Estate claiming that Apollo wrongfully declared the loan out of balance and tried to force him into making a $22 million "ransom" payment to keep the building out of default. He alleged that Apollo Real Estate was a rival bidder for the Apthorp in 2006, and wanted to use this opportunity to snatch the building away from him. When asked about his relationship with Leviev earlier this month, Mann told The Real Deal, "It's a business relationship," without elaboration.

Mann's attorney Theodore Steingut said the Leviev allegations are "completely without merit," adding that placing the building up for sale in November would have been "suicidal" in the current economic climate.

Steingut said there was no warehousing of apartments, that certain employees were allowed to live in the building because they were needed for the renovation work and that there was a provision in Mann's agreement with Leviev for a rabbi from the Beth Din to settle the dispute.

The Apthorp was acquired for $2.6 million per unit, which was a record price for New York real estate. Under the Martin Act, the conversion was a non-eviction plan, which meant that the new owners could not legally evict more than 80 rent stabilized tenants, some who were paying less than $1,000 a month.

Tenants say the owners have since gone after rent-stabilized tenants with frivolous lawsuits, claiming that the building is not the primary residence of some tenants, and making other claims that are a bit more creative.

"There was a lawsuit against a woman on [the top floor]," recalled Ron Blumer, president of the Apthorp Tenants Association. "She put some plants outside of her window and they claimed she infested the building with ants. The judge laughed them out of court."

Steingut, Mann's attorney, denied that there were any "improper" measures taken against tenants.

So far, sales have been slow. Court records indicate that the Apthorp had one contract signed in early December for $6.1 million and had contracts out for two additional sales.

Streeteasy.com says there are eight apartments at the Apthorp on the market at prices ranging from $3.45 million for a 1,750-square-foot, two-bedroom unit, up to $15.5 million for a 6,197-square-foot, five-bedroom apartment.

There is a January 9 deadline to reach an agreement with the lenders.

Arthur said...

From "Honestly Frum"
"In light of the current war in Gaza, yesterday the Moetzes issued a statement calling on us to increase our davening and learning. What is glaringly missing from this statement is any mention whatsoever to davening for the safety of our soldiers and Tzahal. We understand that the charedim believe that there is no need for the army and those who serve are wasting their time because they are really the ones keeping the peace through learning (disclaimer: I believe in all of the statements of chazal that you need people to learn and fight and that those who learn do in fact serve just as vital a role as those who fight, hence hesder). However the reality is that young men and woman are being moser nefesh and putting their lives on the line by going into a war zone to defeat Amalek and these rabbonim can't see a need to add to their little press release a line about davening for the safety of our troops, what gives? Even if you want to disregard the tefila for the tzahal, which has no mention whatsoever of the treifa medina, but rather is purely a tefila for the safety of the armed forces (see text below), is asking for people to merely recite extra tehillim for the troops too much to ask? Yes, we realize that many people in the army are not frum and do not deserve our prayers due to their lack of frumness, and most of the frum troops are evil Zionists from hesder yeshivos where their learning doesn’t really count for much because it comes from a warped hashkafa, but what about those in the nachal charedi, don't they at least deserve to be davened for? Is it wrong to ask for special tefilos to be said for those that have the guts to do what those in the charedi community in Israel feel they have no need to do? I urge you to e-mail Avi Shafran asking him to have the Agudah issue a statement requesting that he urge his shuls to recite extra tefilos for Tzahal. His e-mail address is: shafran@agudathisrael.org
Posted by Honestly Frum at 10:54 AM "

Anonymous said...

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090106/FOREIGN/652254645/1011/NEWS

Yemeni Jews living in Amran governorate, about 60 km north of the capital Sana’a, have demanded to be relocated quickly following a recent increase in attacks and threats coming in the wake of Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip.

This comes at a time when security concerns had already increased after Moshe Nahari, a Jewish teacher was gunned down in Rydah’s market in Amran on Dec 11.

Abdulaziz Hamud al Abdi, a former military pilot admitted that he killed Moshe Nahari following a warning that Jews should either leave the area or convert to Islam.

Students protesting against Israeli attacks on Gaza stoned Zaher Salim, a Yemani Jew, on Sunday causing some facial injuries for which he was hospitalised.

“Salim was going out of my house when some people attacked him with stones. He was seriously injured and hospitalised. They said they are children, but who is behind them. Where is the government to protect us?” said Masha bin Yahia, a Yemeni Jew in Amran.

Witnesses said police arrested some of the attackers and are searching for the others. However, Ha’em Yaish, a Jewish teacher, said the police response to the attacks was inadequate.

“We have been subjected to threats, abuse and even throwing hand grenades at our houses every now and then. We do not know why,” Mr Yaish, father of five children, said. “We reported these harassments to the police. They arrested some but released them without taking any action.”

Saying that his family had lived peacefully with most Muslims, Mr Yaish added that perhaps “the leniency of the people in charge here with the perpetrators has pushed the momentum of the attacks. The protesters attempted pounding my house and were banned by some of my neighbours. They have sacred my children. They threatened to kill us in retaliation for what is happening in Gaza. We have nothing to do with that. Our life is becoming intolerable. Our school and synagogue have been closed for three weeks.

“I want to move to Sana’a as soon as possible to first find a safe place for my family and then see how to sort out the selling of the house,” he said.

After Moshe’s murder in December, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, discussed with Jewish community leaders a plan to relocate Jews from Amran to Sana’a.

“Arrangements have got underway for the relocation which will start early this week,” said Mohammed al Shaief, a leading member of the ruling General People’s Congress.

According to the official Saba news agency, Mr Saleh ordered authorities to allocate a plot of land in Sana’a and two million riyals for every Jewish family from Amran.

Mr Yaish said some of the Jews already sold their houses and were expecting to be moved to Sana’a on Sunday. Now, according to Col Abdullah al-Shulaif, general director of Rydah, the Jews will be moved to Sana’a on Wednesday.

“Representatives of the Jews met today with the governor of Amran Kahlan Abu Shawarib and he asked them to give the keys of their houses to the governor office and they are free to come back to them whenever they want or sell them. We have also finalised today … the arrangements of their transfer to Sana’a on Wednesday.

Fifty flats in the tourist city in Sana’a have been located for them,” he said yesterday.

But Mr Yahia said he and his family would not leave their house. “If the government wants us to move to Sana’a, they should compensate us,” he said. “I live here with my family in a three-storey house whose cost is about 40 million riyals. Who is going to buy … it?”

He said Jews are afraid that tribesmen in Amran, where about 400 Jews live, want to buy their houses at extremely low prices.

“Tribesmen want to control our houses. Nobody can buy my house except the government. It should pay us now or provide security for our houses until we sort out their selling. I share its ownership with my four brothers living abroad,” Mr Yahia said.

Mahmud Taha, an Amran-based journalist who has been following the plight of Yemeni Jews, attributed the increasing intimidation to sensational reporting by some Arab broadcasters of the Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

“Reporting of some Arab satellite TVs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is sensational and emotional. This has influenced the Arab public including local tribesmen here negatively,” he said. “Some people here think then these Yemeni Jews are involved in what is happening to the Palestinians; some even think they are agents for Israel.”

He also said some Jews’ improved living conditions also might have made their neighbouring Muslim tribesmen envious.

“You know some Jews migrated to the UK, US or Israel and their remittances have improved the living conditions of their relatives in Amran; they built nice houses and owned cars. Some people here felt jealous and started saying ‘why the Jews have this or that’,” Taha said.

This is certainly not the first time Jews in Yemen have felt the need to relocate to protect themselves.

Sixty five Jews living in the northern governorate of Sa’ada were forced by supporters of al Houthi rebels to leave the area in 2007. The remaining Jewish community in Sa’ada was then moved to Sana’a after they were told to convert to Islam or leave. According to Rabbi Yahia Yusuf, the Jews of Sa’ada, who now live in a protected compound near the US Embassy in Sana’a, do not consider returning to Sa’ada.

As recently as the early 1950s Yemen was home to about 50,000 Jews, but most migrated to Israel. Fewer than 500 remain.

Anonymous said...

Why are they blaming Merkin now for the Madoff investments after they were told it's ok by Ira Millstein? Because the board doesn't want to be forced out or sued?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=agi2s78EFGR4

Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ira M. Millstein, a corporate- governance specialist for four decades, helped clear the way for Yeshiva University’s millions of dollars in losses in a fund with ties to the Madoff scandal.

Millstein, a senior partner of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said in a letter seen by Bloomberg News that Yeshiva had “followed procedures adequate to prevent either the appearance or the reality of a conflict of interest.” The September 2000 opinion cleared financier J. Ezra Merkin to continue to accept Yeshiva as an investor as long as Merkin’s role was disclosed, according to a person familiar with the matter. Merkin was a trustee who served on the investment committee at the New York school.

Yeshiva invested in Merkin’s Ascot Partners LP, which channeled money to Bernard Madoff, the man now accused of defrauding multiple investors of $50 billion. Madoff served as a Yeshiva trustee at the time of Millstein’s letter.

“Mr. Merkin fully complied with Yeshiva’s disclosure and other policies concerning its investment in the Ascot Fund,” said Andrew Levander, a lawyer for Merkin, in an e-mail today.

Millstein, 82, turned down requests for an interview. Rick Matthews, a spokesman for Yeshiva, declined to discuss the Millstein letter. Madoff has declined requests for interviews since his arrest.

Ties to Einstein College

Millstein is “a leading expert on antitrust, government regulation, and corporate governance matters, having counseled over 50 corporate boards,” according to the Web site of Yale University’s School of Management in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a senior associate dean for corporate governance at the school, as well as a visiting professor.

One prominent division of the management school was renamed the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance two years ago. The lawyer is also a former chairman of the board of overseers of Yeshiva’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

In September 2000, Sheldon Socol, then Yeshiva’s vice president of business affairs, sought Millstein’s advice about “investments in funds that are managed by members of the investment committee.” At least two members, including Merkin, were already doing business with the school, according to the individual with knowledge.

At the time of the letter, the investment committee was considering making an investment in a fund managed by a third member of the committee, according to the individual.

In his letter, Millstein said that members of the investment committee could do business with the school, provided they met criteria.

No ‘Blanket’ Prohibition

Under the guidance laid out by Millstein, committee members with business relationships must disclose them, and the board must vote to authorize a transaction without counting the person doing business with the school. The transaction must also be fair.

“There is no reason why the board or its committees should institute a blanket rule prohibiting members (or major donors) from doing business with Yeshiva,” Millstein wrote.

Matthews, the Yeshiva spokesman, said in an e-mail Dec. 18 that the school has conflict policies “consistent with those of other major educational institutions.”

“While these issues are under review it is both inappropriate and premature to provide any further information,” Matthews said in a Dec. 29 e-mail.

Disclosure to Yeshiva of board members’ business interests wasn’t enough by itself to ensure sound investing, said Hank Higdon, an executive recruiter who found chief investment officers for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Georgetown University in Washington and the chief executive officer for Stanford Management Co., a division of Stanford University in California.

“The travesty is the lack of due diligence, the lack of doing homework,” Higdon said in an interview on Dec. 29. “That’s where they fell down and that is inexcusable. You cannot assume that everything is OK because someone is on your board and has a good reputation.”

Anonymous said...

http://www.yemenpost.net/61/LocalNews/200810.htm

In Wednesday's court session, relatives of the murderer of a Jew in Amran attacked one of the soldiers at the court and publicly threatened to cleanse the victim's family and all Jews in the area.
Lawyers and a journalist were also threatened.

In the session held in the Amran Penal Court and which the murderer didn't attend, the lawyers of the murdered Jew family requested trial procedures to be held in Sana'a instead of Amran claiming no security is provided at the Amran Penal Court as the relatives of the killer are marring the trial.

Lawyers said there would be no justice in the trial as no protection is provided for the justice seekers.

As a result, chairman of the court ordered three of the relatives be jailed and two of them be referred to Prosecution for investigation.

The measure was taken in connection with illegal acts these people committed during the session.

Owing to developments, the hearing has been delayed until January 12.

In response, the Attorney General asked the Amran Penal Court to send the case file to his office in Sana'a and that the victim family move to Sana'a as well.

Prosecution in the last hearing asked to transfer the case to Sana'a due to lack of security in Amran province for lawyers, journalists and the seekers of justice.

On December 11, chief rabbi's brother in Amran Masha Yaesh was killed by a local who said he shot dead the Jewish for the sake of Allah. The murderer Abdul Aziz al-Ubaidi was arrested shortly after the murder.

He confessed to the killing.

He is now on trial, although some reports said earlier he suffers from mental illness.

Al-Ubaidi was a former pilot in the Yemeni Air Force.

Two years ago, he was convicted of murdering his wife. Jews in Amran claim they have started to experience intimidations by some locals and they appealing for government protection.

After the latest incident and responding to Jews' complaints, President Saleh ordered authorities in Sana'a to grant a land plot and YR 2 million for every Jewish family in Amran. Jews then should sell their properties in Amran and relocate to Sana'a to build new houses in a special area for them.

Anonymous said...

http://www.jewishjournal.com/thememo/item/pro-jihadists_plan_synagogue_protests_how_to_respond_20090106/

In my email this morning comes word that one group of pro-Hamas, pro-Jihadists supporters is encouraging aligned American Jews and others to go to synagogues on Friday night or Saturday morning and stage a protest.

“Jews especially should be doing these actions,” encourage the protest organizers. The plan is to enter shuls in groups of 3-4 “and – in dignified firm and unemotional voices – repeat “STOP THE KILLING.” The protesters plan to bring along a video camera to record the congregants’ responses.

“I see no possible legal impediment to this. The public, and certainly Jews – cannot be barred from entry to the services,” says the organizer email. “And it will be extremely hard for the synagogues to enforce exclusion.”

Finally, perhaps in an effort to explain why the pro-Hamas supporters are targeting U.S. Jews – when they always claims their beef is with Israel and Zionists, the email reads: “The Jews of America must be confronted with their clear responsibility – far more than complicity – in the mass murders, occupation, and forced starvation of the people of Palestine.”

I doubt this will happen here in Los Angeles or almost anywhere, because the organizers are better at bluster than deeds. But assuming that someone or some few do actually show up and interrupt services, I have some basic advice. Let them.

These kooks are looking for confrontation and looking to generate YouTube-worthy outrage. Their goal is really publicity and self aggrandizement.

If the protestors do not leave or allow services to continue, then, and only then, would I recommend asking security – but never members of the congregation – to step in. If at all possible, have the police arrest and remove the protestors.

At all times, keep in mind the goal of the protestors is to make Jews look aggressive and angry. Don’t be either. Don’t give them the video they so crave of seeing Jews in America acting in a fashion that is unbecoming of our people.

Anonymous said...

http://www.jconline.com/article/20081225/NEWS03/812250322

Authorities are warning Lafayette-area churches and congregations to be cautious of a man, possibly posing as a Purdue University student, who they suspect has swindled dozens of several hundred dollars.

The man, whose name is believed to be Alan M. Farha II, was able to get $300 from Temple Israel on Wednesday morning, said Officer Janet Shepherd of the West Lafayette Police Department.

Rabbi Audrey Pollack said Fahra -- who was well-dressed and carrying a backpack -- told her he recently moved to the community and was a graduate student at Purdue.

Fahra allegedly said his father died in Israel and that he needed money to fly home. After writing Fahra a check and dropping him off at Purdue, Pollack decided to look him up online.

"I was shocked. I thought I would find something with a connection to Purdue," said Pollack, who came across an article published in April in the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune about Fahra's alleged scams.

"He seemed to know a lot about the Jewish community. He mentioned knowing rabbis in other communities whom I know and described having attended services there. He had his facts straight."

Pollack and Shepherd expressed concern that Fahra may try to use the same story at other area congregations.

"Our concern is that he is going to hit all the churches in town, especially with it being Christmas," Shepherd said.

She said Fahra cashed the check before Pollack learned that he may be a con artist.

Tippecanoe County's shared Records Management System for law enforcement shows that Fahra was in Lafayette on Nov. 2, 2006, Shepherd said. He gave a Lafayette police officer an Indianapolis address and said he was looking for Lafayette Urban Ministry's homeless shelter.

LUM executive director Joe Micon said Wednesday that he was not familiar with Fahra.

Capt. Zim Schwartze of the Columbia Police Department in Missouri said Fahra is suspected of swindling dozens of churches and some businesses in mid-Missouri between February and May.

The department has issued a warrant for his arrest.

"Each time, he gave a hard-luck story -- that he needed money to get to a funeral because a family member died," Schwartze said Wednesday. "He was very believable. The money he got was substantial. We're talking about $300 to $400 at a time."

Detectives have tracked him across the country, including to Washington, D.C., Dallas and, most recently, Oklahoma City in November, Schwartze said. Alan Farha II is believed to be his real name.

Anonymous said...

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/longisland/ny-pojani055987639jan05,0,6177335.story

Isaac Toussie's father had his own conviction tossed

dan.janison@newsday.com

January 5, 2009

President George W. Bush's first-ever retraction of a pardon - for convicted real-estate scammer Isaac Toussie - has the potential to become a defining legal precedent. If so, Toussie, 37, will have found the weirdest way yet to follow in the footsteps of his businessman father Robert Toussie - who long ago had the U.S. Supreme Court void his own conviction for having failed to register for the draft.

The elder Toussie, now 67, drew attention in the pardon furor because he contributed $28,500 in April to the Republican National Committee and $2,300 to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign five days later. In October, Toussie made $2,300 donations to GOP Sens. Norman Coleman of Minnesota and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

Today, after some GOP boosters called anti-Iraq war demonstrators traitors, and after the 2004 "Swift-boating" of veteran and Democrat John Kerry, who knows? Maybe Bush the "pardon decider," or his handlers, found Robert Toussie's once-famous but long-buried draft-dodge case as embarrassing as his campaign checks or the routine photos of the two shaking hands.

There are military veterans among the home buyers still suing Isaac Toussie and his companies, claiming they were sold poorly built houses at high prices. The younger Toussie pleaded guilty in 2001 to submitting false mortgage documents to a federal agency, and in 2002 to mail fraud for his role in selling the Chandler Estate in Mount Sinai to Suffolk County at an inflated price.

Thirty-seven years ago, news reports described how Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, said to be charming and academically brilliant, went into business manufacturing children's clothing and became a millionaire while still in his 20s. Unfortunately, Toussie failed to register with the Selective Service when he turned 18 in 1959, purportedly because his "pacifist beliefs" prevented contact with the military, even to claim conscientious-objector status. Looking back, that sounds like an odd stance for someone who in 2008 would contribute to the hawkish McCain, but circumstances do change over four decades. A Toussie lawyer didn't return a call to his office Friday.

A jury found Toussie guilty of dereliction - a conviction initially upheld on appeal. But in 1970, the Supreme Court overturned it, 5-3. The feds had said Toussie had a "continuing duty" to register until he turned 26 in 1967. Justice Hugo Black wrote for the majority that no such duty existed, so a five-year statute of limitations for charging Toussie had expired in 1964, five years after the time he was required to register.

"Completely illogical," fumed the dissent, joined by then Chief Justice Warren Burger.

Hundreds of thousands of other draft-evaders were granted an unconditional pardon by President Jimmy Carter seven years later, in the wake of the Vietnam War.

Remarkably, legal experts say the fate of the second Toussie's conviction could change pardon policy - a generation after the first Toussie v. U.S. was decided.

Arthur said...

I usually don't agree with this guys views but this time he's right on target.

Jan 5, 2009 20:41 | Updated Jan 6, 2009 19:40
Straight Talk: Overwhelming force is the only way to fight terrorists
By SHMULEY BOTEACH
So Israel invades Gaza and the world thinks it's a disproportionate response to the Hamas rockets. Which begs the question, what would have been a proportionate response?

When the Allies fought Hitler, they bombed Germany's cities indiscriminately nearly every night for years, seeking to inflict the maximum number of casualties, nearly all of whom were civilians. In Dresden and Hamburg, which they bombed toward the end of the war when it was already clear that Germany was toast, they killed more than half a million civilians in just a few evenings. Harry Truman, of course, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 350,000.

Ah, but Hamas is not Germany and Gaza is not Japan, you say. These were formidable military machines and maximum force had to be deployed against them. That made sense. But what's a couple of rockets? And Hamas is a joke anyway. Get over it.

This gets to the very heart of the matter. The world perceives the Palestinians as weak and the Israelis as strong, when in reality terrorist organizations are much stronger than any democracy. Democracies make themselves weak by subscribing to humane standards of fighting. No matter how strong their tanks, they won't send them crashing into kindergartens. No matter how powerful their jets, they won't deploy them against hospitals. No matter how formidable their artillery, they won't use it against shopping malls.

BUT THE terrorists are all-powerful. Unconstrained by any tinge of moral restraint, they will kill pregnant women, dismember infants and detonate the infirm. They kill whom they want, when they want and for as long as they want. Remember the brutal decapitation of Daniel Pearl and the all-powerful posture of the terrorist killers who slit his throat?

Those who live without moral restraints claim a godlike power to define right and wrong and to take life as they see fit. It is one of the reasons that people have always been drawn to evil. Going over to the dark side has its appeal, as Darth Vader discovered. Decency is incredibly limiting, while wickedness gives people an inordinate sense of dominance.

Witness the constant stream of statements coming from the Hamas leadership. Every day we hear how they're "going to make Gaza an Israeli graveyard," they'll transform their streets into "rivers of Israeli blood," or some such other blather that reflects their perception of themselves as all-powerful deities with the power to strike millions at their command.

Which is why there can be no compromise with terrorism; the only proportionality that can be used in fighting cold-blooded killers is overwhelming, maximum force. They can only be fought to the death, since their megalomania precludes the possibility of compromise. Proportionality is not a concept that can be employed in fighting those whose belief in their own power is unlimited. Morality and a respect for innocent civilian life is the only constraint that should limit a democracy in fighting those who operate without constraints.

It's bad enough that democracies have one hand tied behind their backs by their willful and laudable insistence on moral constraints. Their other hand - the military arm - must therefore compensate by employing every available means to crush the terrorists utterly. Nations must, of course, protect innocent civilian lives and minimize collateral harm to innocent bystanders. But short of this, nations must bring all their power to bear on extinguishing the dark night of terrorism.

When the body has cancer, the medical profession deploys every means at its disposal to eradicate it. There is no proportionality. Radiation, chemotherapy and anything else that works is sent into the battle when dealing with a disease that will otherwise snuff out life.

I should add that the destruction of Hamas is far more for the benefit of the Palestinians than the Israelis. It is the Palestinians who must live under the barbaric cruelty of an organization that terrorizes its citizens even more than its enemies.

One of my friends in the media was talking to me about how Israel is just as bad as Hamas - just as culpable as the terrorists. Rather than engage in a useless debate, I employed a variation on JFK's argument in the famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech of June 1963. OK, they're the same, I said. So I suppose given the choice of living under Israeli or Hamas control, you would just flip a coin? No, he said, he would never live under Hamas, under any circumstances whatsoever.

So much for the two sides being equal.

Which is why Israel's one million Arab citizens did not elect to live under the control of either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, even though they had every opportunity of voting with their feet and leaving Israeli governance for Palestinian governance once those two regimes were established. In Israel they may have their complaints, but they can protest against the government, petition the High Court and enjoy every freedom. Under Palestinian control they face summary execution for merely being accused of collaborating, as we are seeing in the current conflict in Gaza, without so much as even a makeshift hearing.

And this argument is what gives the lie to all those who claim that their opposition to Israel is motivated by their concern for the Palestinians. If they really cared, they would never want a radical, hate-filled organization which teaches young Palestinians that their highest calling in life is to blow themselves up while committing murder. They would want real peace and prosperity for the Palestinians. For that matter, whoever claims to care about the Arabs throughout the Middle East should protest against them having to live under the House of Saud, Bashir Assad, Hizbullah and other assorted Arab governments which are the great enemies of Arab human rights, press freedoms and political liberty.

Or maybe they really don't care all that much about the Palestinians and just have an irrational dislike of Israel.

Arthur said...

Israel's Response IS Disproportionate
December 30, 2008
By Jonathan Mark
JewishWorldReview.com

I condemn Israel's disproportionate attack on Hamas because, so far, it has only lasted four days and I would like to see a proportionate response that terrifies Hamas for seven years, the years that have filled Sderot and neighboring towns with nightmares, death, amputations and trauma coming from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza.

Perhaps a proportionate response would have Gaza's leaders fearful of being killed every day for the next two years, as Gilad Shalit has been terrified of torture and death every day for the last two years in his solitary Gaza dungeon.

A proportionate response would have Hamas mothers and fathers as fearful for their children's lives as Shalit's mother and father have been fearful for Gilad's life.

A proportionate response would have Gaza's children crying for their mommies and daddies, the way at a Hamas pageant earlier in December a Palestinian actor dressed as Shalit got down on his knees, mock-begging in Hebrew for his Ima and Abba while the Gaza crowds laughed.

A proportionate response would so intimidate Hamas that they will grovel and, as a "gesture," send cocoa and jam into Sderot, the way Israel has groveled in response to rockets from Hamas, sending cocoa and jam into Gaza. Imagine Churchill sending cocoa and jam into Berlin as a humanitarian gesture after - during - the bombing of London.

A proportionate response would be one that will convince Hamas there is no military solution, no solution but surrender. They can then call surrender a "peace process," if they like, just as the mostly unanswered attacks on Jews have convinced some Jews that there is no military solution but surrender to any and all demands. They suggest a euthanasia by the euphemism of "peace process," that Israel become what some are already planning to call "Canaan," a non-Jewish state of all its citizens.

A proportionate response will convince Palestinians that if they insist that the starting point to peace negotiations is that no Jew be allowed to live on the West Bank, the proportionate response will be that Israel's starting point in negotiations is that no Arab be allowed to live in Tel Aviv. Horrible to contemplate? Fine, let there be a proportionate negotiation.

A proportionate response to Hamas, one might gather from the European scolds, would be as if the United States, after Pearl Harbor, would bomb just a few Japanese fishing boats and call it a day, believing the war would have ended with that.

A proportionate response will begin to remind Jews that there is no peace process like victory, just as Israel's decade of disproportionate restraint and self-doubt has convinced young Palestinians that their victory is inevitable, like Aryan youth in 1933 singing "Tomorrow Belongs To Me."

Let it be said to Israelis and Jews everywhere, in the words of Churchill: "You have enemies? Good. It means you've stood up for something." But remember: A war (and Hamas has repeatedly said this is war) is never won if you are disproportionately kind to someone who wants to destroy you and, failing in that, demands with indignation that you not destroy him.

When meeting that enemy, be proportionate.

Anonymous said...

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081214/FREE/812149996/0/KEYWORDS

Donald Trump faces tower of troubles

Mogul Donald Trump's brand is beginning to look damaged and dated as the company misses loan payments, faces lawsuits and suffers downgrades.

Anonymous said...

http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/avi-schick-spitzer-deputy-leaving-state-development-agency

Avi (ben Marvin) Schick is "resigning" from the Empire State Development Corp, a govt entity.

Anonymous said...

The steamroller doesn't fall far from the tree.

http://www.observer.com/2008/meet-avi-schick-new-york-s-new-steamroller

Meet Avi Schick, New York's New Steamroller

Avi Schick’s foray into the world of economic development has been swift. Less than two years ago, Mr. Schick, 41, was a deputy in the state attorney general’s office, the lead prosecutor on Eliot Spitzer’s suit against former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso.

His supporters, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver among them (don't tell Boog), speak of an intelligent, active, competent official who has been a highly effective administrator for the projects in his purview.

His critics—who include numerous government officials, business executives and others who have worked with him—paint almost the inverse picture, claiming they find Mr. Schick forceful, uncompromising and often slow-moving, to the point where having a working relationship with him becomes difficult. Comparisons to the steamroller model of Mr. Spitzer, his former boss, are myriad.

Mr. Schick seems to have a large set of detractors, particularly surrounding his dealings in Lower Manhattan. Numerous officials from multiple spheres of government, downtown residents, people in the business community, and others who have worked with him claim, in often caustic terms, that Mr. Schick has carried a prosecutor’s mentality with him to his job, working poorly with others and rarely yielding in his positions, slowing progress on projects.

“He’s impossible to deal with,” said one former government official. “There’s no sense of collegiality or team spirit.”

Anonymous said...

Is UOJ causing problems for my boy, Avi?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/nyregion/20schick.html

Mr. Schick’s departure from the agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, follows that of Patrick J. Foye, its co-chairman, who resigned under pressure in March. Since then, Gov. David A. Paterson has been looking for a new chairman and a new structure for an agency that had been hobbled by internal disputes among its top executives, the collapse of a $1.8 billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and other high-profile problems.

Mr. Schick, a lawyer, joined state government in 1999, when he went to work for the newly elected attorney general, Eliot Spitzer. During his eight-year stint, Mr. Schick, a former rabbinical student who more closely resembles a blocking fullback than a religious scholar, handled two important cases. He led the case against Richard A. Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, who was ordered to repay $100 million of a compensation package that Mr. Spitzer contended was in violation of state laws regarding nonprofit institutions.

Anonymous said...

Spitzer, you're looking like an even bigger putz right now.

http://www.bangornews.com/detail/96540.html

According to a National Public Radio report, even former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer invested with Madoff

Anonymous said...

What happened to the Agudah of MIKE TRESS Z"TL.It was a built on helping the yochid and now it has turned into a regular bureaucracy.UOJ ONE PROBLEM PLEASE DON'T PUT DOWN HAGAON R' ELCHONON,HE WENT BACK TO BE WITH HIS TALMIDIM AND HIS KEHILLA,HE COULD HAVE EASILY STAYED IN THE USA.

Anonymous said...

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20232242&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574908&rfi=6

More disappointment was expressed in Richmond Hill on Sept. 10 when a veteran state official immersed in a scandal was exposed. Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Richmond Hill) was arrested that morning on federal charges of corruption for allegedly taking bribes from entities doing business with the state.
Following a months-long undercover FBI sting, which included checking bank records and intercepting communications, federal agents charged Seminerio with allegedly pocketing $500,000 in bribes through a fake consulting firm he created in April of 2000.
Seminerio’s lawyer, Ira Cooper, said on Nov. 29 that he was engaged in plea negotiations to keep his 73-year-old client, who is in poor health, out of jail. Apparently, those negotiations fell through because Seminerio was indicted for fraud on Dec. 10. According to the indictment, the allegedly ailing assemblyman pocketed $1 million — double the amount initially cited — during his eight-year scheme.

Anonymous said...

I live on Argyle Rd in Kensington. My office is at 26 Court St, same building as Jewish Press fatso nephew Richard Klass.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_293/winningsurogate.html

Nora Anderson, who won the primary and general elections for New York County Surrogate and is to take office as one of Manhattan’s two Surrogate Court judges on Jan. 1, was indicted on Dec. 10 in connection with fundraising for her candidacy in the September Democratic primary.

At the same time, Seth Rubenstein, 81, head of the law firm where Anderson is an attorney, was also indicted for the same violations in connection with Anderson’s primary race.

The indictment by the Manhattan district attorney charges that two financial disclosure statements that Anderson for Surrogate had filed in August were false.

One statement said that Anderson herself had contributed $100,000 to her campaign on Aug. 20 and the other statement said that Anderson had loaned an additional $150,000 to her campaign.

The indictment says that Rubenstein was the true source of both the contribution and the loan.

Rather than make the loan directly to the campaign committee, Rubenstein transferred $150,000 from his personal account to Anderson’s personal account and Anderson wired the sum to the campaign committee, according to prosecutors. If Rubenstein had made the loan directly to the campaign, the campaign would have had to pay the loan back by Primary Day or be considered an over-the-limit contribution.

By law, there is no limit to a contribution or loan a candidate may make to her own campaign.

The indictment charges both defendants with four felony counts of offering a false instrument for filing, two felony counts of falsifying business records and two misdemeanor counts of violating the law that contributors’ true names must be used. The defendants also face two misdemeanor counts of violating the contribution limits of the election law.

Rubenstein’s attorney, Frederick Hafetz, said, “Mr. Rubenstein’s activities were totally within the election law. He has had a long and distinguished career and he will be vindicated in a trial.”

By press time this week, it did not appear that the indictment would prevent Anderson from becoming Surrogate. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s office said in its statement announcing the indictment that “she is to take office” on Jan. 1. However, after she is sworn in, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct would have jurisdiction.

Anonymous said...

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9623037&nav=menu183_4_34

Child Molester Held Beyond Prison Term

Anonymous said...

In New Hampshire, peeing in public has become costly. The new law makes public urination or defecation a violation punishable by up to a $1,000 fine.
To be guilty, the person would have to know the act would affront or alarm someone else.
The legislation was meant to correct a gap in current law in which public urination was sometimes prosecuted under indecent exposure laws, which could land urinators on a sex offender registry.

Copyright 2008, CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/219c89e0-dc4e-11dd-b07e-000077b07658.html

Merkin to step down as chairman of GMAC

By Bernard Simon in Toronto and Joanna Chung in New York

Published: January 7 2009 00:08 | Last updated: January 7 2009 00:08

Ezra Merkin, a US money manager whose funds have been among the casualties of the alleged Bernard Madoff swindle, is set to step down soon as chairman of GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors.

Mr Merkin’s departure is likely to be linked to conditions set under last month’s $6bn aid package extended to GMAC by the US government. The bail-out requires the company to appoint an independent chairman.

Anonymous said...

LA TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean' by Edward Kritzler

To escape the reach of the Spanish Inquisition, some Jews turned into swashbuckling adventurers, according to Edward Kritzler's history.

By Jonathan Kirsch
November 28, 2008

More than 40 years ago, Edward Kritzler came across a journal kept by a 17th century English buccaneer in which he found an intriguing reference to "divers Portuguese of the Hebrew nation." Thus began his research into an obscure and mostly forgotten aspect of Jewish history. "Forget the Merchant of Venice," writes Kritzler. "[H]is New World cousins were adventurers after my own heart: Jewish explorers, conquistadors, cowboys and, yes, pirates."

"Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean" begins with one of the enduring horrors of history -- the Inquisition. Driven out of Spain and Portugal by royal decrees that compelled them to convert or leave, the Jews of the Iberian peninsula sought refuge wherever they could find it, including the far-flung colonies in the Americas. But the friar-inquisitors inevitably followed the conquistadors, and so the Jewish refugees found themselves at risk even in the New World.

Strictly speaking, only Jews who had converted to Christianity came under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but the inquisitors acted on the assumption that few if any Jews ever submitted themselves to an earnest conversion. So it was that conversos with Jewish blood in their veins were routinely searched out and condemned as "secret Jews" by the Inquisition. A new refuge was needed, and the most daring ones managed to make their way to various colonial backwaters.

"Since all Spanish conversos were forbidden in the New World, it made no difference if one was a true convert, an atheist, or a covert Jew," Kritzler writes. "All were there illegally and therefore subject to persecution."

The real theme of Kritzler's book, in fact, is the startling variety of strategies for survival that Jewish refugees embraced. Some pursued the traditional roles of broker, trader and financier, but others were considerably more inventive. "Outlawed in the civilized world and vulnerable in the Diaspora, Jews became skilled in ways to find and explore new lands," explains the author, who points out that Jews were especially in demand as pilots, cartographers, and makers and users of astronomical tables and nautical instruments. "When Jewish expertise was needed, prejudice took a backseat to expediency. . . ."

Many of the episodes in Kritzler's compelling book will be truly startling to the non-specialist reader. When the original Spanish settlement in Jamaica turned out to be a dismal failure, for example, a decision was made to repopulate the island with Jewish conversos: "Jamaica for the Jews," as Kritzler puts it, "or the colony goes under." What's more, the success of the settlement was essential to the task of ridding the sea lanes of pirates who preyed on Spanish treasure ships: "If it meant dealing with converted Jews to ensure their safety and prevent the strategic colony from becoming a pirate base, so be it."

But Jews were to be found among the pirates too. Kritzler introduces us to more than one Jewish buccaneer, including a remarkable man named Samuel Palache, a "pirate rabbi" who sent a flotilla of privateers to operate against Spanish shipping in the Mediterranean under the flag of Morocco in 1611 even as he served as the rabbi of the first synagogue in Holland. "Carved on the bow of his ship was a phoenix," writes Kritzler. "It was his way of saying that the Inquisition might burn individual Jews, but could not destroy their ancestral faith."

Although Kritzler seeks to cast his characters in a heroic light, he is willing to describe some of their less appealing exploits. The Jewish community in the Brazilian town of Recife, for example, owed much of its prosperity to the local slave trade: "Jewish merchants, as middlemen, also had a lucrative share, buying slaves at . . . auction and selling them to the planters on an installment plan -- no money down, three years to pay at an interest rate of 40-50 percent." But he also takes care to point out that "Arabs controlled the East African slave trade," and, in West Africa, "men from Sweden, France, Denmark, Portugal, Germany, Holland, England and Spain sailed slave ships and manned the slave forts."

The unfortunate title of "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean" understates the scope of Kritzler's book and the scale of his achievement. Not all of the Jews we meet were pirates, not all of the pirates were Jews, and not all of them operated in the Caribbean. What Kritzler has actually written is an ambitious and expansive history of a mostly unexamined aspect of the Jewish expulsion from Spain and Portugal during an especially active era of the Spanish Inquisition. And, to his credit, the author often pauses to provide the complex and highly nuanced back story -- political, diplomatic, economic and religious -- to the colorful personalities and exploits that he describes.

Any reader hoping to encounter a Yiddish-speaking version of Capt. Jack Sparrow will have to look elsewhere.

Kirsch is the author of 12 books, including, most recently, "The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God."

Anonymous said...

I'm against civilian deaths of any kind. Even innocent civilians.

Arthur said...

Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard--she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. (Aviv's bio is noted at end.)
He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
Now for his future predictions…. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again a s they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke--that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are
truly effective. For example:
1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.
2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.'
3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates. Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airp ort when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they go to the restroom, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel, security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (I. E., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities (New York, San Francis- co, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.).
The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says ter rorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.
Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S.. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts.
The world is quickly going to become 'a different place,' and issue like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.
On an encouraging note, he says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny.'
He al so says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'hom egrown' - having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to theMiddle East. These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.
Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact - SOON.
So, what can America do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence . We need to, instead, follow Israel's, Ireland's and England's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help.
We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies.' Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.
Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago , someone tried to steal the briefcase!
In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained that an unattended bag or package woul d be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag.' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves.. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.
Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about ours schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!)
He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel.
Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
Aviv says that the U. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, b l ackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated. How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.
Aviv's Bio as f ollows:
He holds an M.A. in Business from Tel Aviv University and is President and CEO of Interfor, Inc., an international corporate intelligence and investigations firm.
Interfor, Inc. is now based in New York, with offices around the world. It was founded in 1979 and provides foreign and domestic intelligence services to legal, corporate and financial communities around the world. Interfor, Inc. also conducts investigations into terrorism and Mr. Aviv now serves as a special consultant to the U. S. Congress, and other policy makers, here within the U. S. on issues of terrorism, fraud and money laundering. Interfor's services encompass white-collar crime investiga ti ons, asset search and recovery, corporate due diligence, litigation support, fraud investigations, internal compliance investigations and security and vulnerability assessments. Since its inception, Interfor's asset investigation services have recovered over $2 billion worldwide for its clients.< BR>
A leading authority on terrorist networks, Mr. Aviv served as lead investigator for Pan Am Airways into the Pan Am 103-Lockerbie terrorist bombing. He was featured in the recent film, Munich, as the leader of the Israeli team that tracked down the terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team. Before founding Interfor, Mr. Aviv served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force (Major, retired)
leading an elite Commando/Intelligence Unit, and was later selected by the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) to participate in a number of intelligence special operations, serving in many countries in the late 1960s and 1970s.
While working as a consu lta nt with El Al, Mr. Aviv surveyed the existing security measures in place and updated El Al's security program, making El Al the safest airline in business today. Most recently, Mr.. Aviv wrote a book entitled, 'Staying Safe: The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business.'< BR>(2004, Harper Resource)
He has been a featured guest on ABC Nightline, FOX News, CNN, BBC Newsnight, ZDF (German National Television) and RAI (Italian National Television)--and has been featured in numerous articles in major magazines and newspapers worldwide.

Anonymous said...

Melamine byproduct in more US infant formula

FDA test results reveal melamine byproduct in more U.S.-made infant formula


The Food and Drug Administration says the industrial chemical melamine and a byproduct cyanuric acid have now been detected in four of 89 containers of infant formula made in the United States, doubling previously reported positive results.

The Associated Press reported previously undisclosed FDA tests, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showing that out of 77 containers of domestic infant formula tested, a can of milk-based liquid Nestle Good Start Supreme Infant Formula with Iron contained traces of melamine while Mead Johnson's Enfamil LIPIL with Iron had traces of cyanuric acid.

The FDA has now updated its response to the AP's FOIA request by posting results of 89 tests on its Web site. Those results show that two additional containers of Enfamil LIPIL with Iron had traces of cyanuric acid.

Separately, a third major formula maker -- Abbott Laboratories, whose brands include Similac -- told AP in November that in-house tests had detected trace levels of melamine in its infant formula.

Those levels were below what FDA found in the other formulas, an Abbott spokesman said, and below any national safety guidelines. FDA tested 37 different Abbott Laboratories formulas and had no detections.

Abbott Laboratories, Nestle and Mead Johnson make more than 90 percent of all infant formula produced in the United States. In addition to the Abbott formulas, the FDA tested five Nestle formulas, 21 Mead Johnson formulas and 26 products of a fourth company, PBM Products. Mead Johnson is a unit of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

Melamine at much higher levels was recently found to have contaminated milk products around the world and has been implicated in the sickening of nearly 300,000 babies in China and killing at least six infants there. Melamine is rich in nitrogen, which registers as protein on many routine tests. Authorities say the melamine was added to Chinese formula to artificially boost its protein levels.

The FDA and other experts said they believe the minute melamine contamination in U.S.-made formula had occurred during the manufacturing process, rather than intentionally. The U.S. government quietly began testing domestically produced infant formula in September, soon after problems with melamine-spiked formula surfaced in China. No Chinese manufacturers of infant formula have met requirements to sell their product here, according to the FDA.

Melamine can legally be used in some food packaging, and can rub off into food from there. It's also part of a cleaning solution used on some food processing equipment. Mead Johnson officials said the FDA had informed them of the test results and they were confident the levels of cyanuric acid are so low that they do not pose a health risk to infants. The company said it is considering changing the cleaning solutions it uses on its manufacturing equipment to reduce cyanuric acid contamination.

Though melamine is not believed harmful in tiny amounts, higher concentrations produce kidney stones, which can block the ducts that carry urine from the body, and in serious cases can cause kidney failure.

To date, here are the FDA results for detections in U.S.-made formula:

-- Two samples tested from one can of Mead Johnson's Infant Formula Powder, Enfamil LIPIL with Iron had cyanuric acid at levels of 0.412 and 0.31 parts per million;

-- Three samples tested from one can of Mead Johnson's Infant Formula Powder, Enfamil LIPIL with Iron had cyanuric acid at levels of 0.304, 0.406 and 0.248 parts per million;

-- Three samples tested from one can of Mead Johnson's Infant Formula Powder, Enfamil LIPIL with Iron had cyanuric acid at levels of 0.247, 0.245 and 0.249 parts per million;

-- Two samples from a can of Nestle's Good Start Supreme Infant Formula with Iron detected melamine at levels of 0.137 and 0.14 parts per million.

Before the contamination was disclosed, federal food regulators had said they were unable to set a safety threshold for melamine in infant formula. After the news reports, however, the agency set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula, provided a related chemical, including cyanuric acid, is not present. None of the formula has tested above that threshold.

Associated Press Writer Justin Pritchard contributed to this story.

Anonymous said...

Oil loses most in seven years as inventories jump

By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch
Last update: 3:50 p.m. EST Jan. 7, (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures tumbled 12% Wednesday, marking their biggest one-day percentage drop in more than seven years, after government reports showed U.S. crude inventories jumped last week and as data indicated deteriorating troubles in the economy.

Anonymous said...

Did you get your passport yet?

WARNING:

Make sure your family's passports are ready to go. Have easy access to cash, memorize your PIN numbers (to be used elsewhere), and be ready to run.

[As heard from Israeli Intelligence official]

Anonymous said...

Ireland orders new probe into Catholic sex abuse

Associated Press Writer Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 32 mins ago

DUBLIN, Ireland – The Irish government ordered a new investigation Wednesday into how a Roman Catholic bishop mishandled complaints against sexually abusive priests in his diocese.

The decision by Children's Minister Barry Andrews raised pressure on Bishop John Magee to resign — but he vowed instead to cooperate with the new probe, the third involving his southwest Irish diocese of Cloyne.

Magee apologized last month after a church-appointed investigator found that he failed to tell police promptly or fully about allegations against two priests since 1995.

Andrews said the bishop appeared to have obstructed that investigation and had offered misleading accounts to investigators from a second, government-ordered audit into how each Catholic diocese across Ireland polices its priests.

As a result, Andrews said, he was ordering a third body — a government-appointed commission currently probing the Catholic Church's handling of more than 400 abuse cases in Dublin since 1975 — to extend its work to Magee's diocese.

Andrews, who himself has suffered public criticism for his alleged failure to act more quickly, also published the government-ordered audit Wednesday — a year after his office received the document.

He noted that the auditors had not found any serious shortcomings in any of Ireland's dioceses, including Magee's. Andrews said he couldn't reconcile that finding with last month's damning report from a church-appointed investigator, Ian Elliott.

Andrews stopped short of calling for the bishop to resign, saying this was a matter for Pope Benedict XVI. But he noted that the Cloyne diocese "needs a fresh start."

In a statement, Magee said he wanted to stay in his post so that he could enact a range of child-protection policies that have long been spelled out in church and government policy documents.

Elliott's report into specific allegations in Magee's diocese found that the bishop and his senior advisers fielded complaints from parishioners about two priests from 1995 onward — but told the police nothing until 2003 and little thereafter.

One priest, who was accused of molesting a younger priest when he was just a boy, was encouraged by Magee to resign. But the investigation found that the bishop shielded the abuser's identity from police — and considered such concealment "the normal practice" for the church.

The other priest, a career guidance counselor in a convent school, was accused by several teenage girls and grown women of molesting or raping them since 1995. One complaint came from a woman who had a consensual sexual relationship with the priest for a year — then saw him develop an intimate relationship with her teenage son.

Anonymous said...

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U.S. Terror Attack � 'Ninety Days at Most'
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Counterterrorism expert Juval Aviv spoke with FOX Fan Central about what Americans can do to protect themselves in case of a terror attack.

Do you believe another terrorist attack is likely on American soil?

I predict, based primarily on information that is floating in Europe and the Middle East, that an event is imminent and around the corner here in the United States. It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could happen in the next few months. Ninety days at the most.

What advice do you have for individuals that have the misfortune of finding themselves in the middle of a terror attack?

Since mass transportation is the next attack, when you travel to work have with you, a bottle of water, a small towel and a flashlight. What happened in London is exactly a point to look at. Those people who were close to the bombs died, then others were injured or died from inhaling the toxic fumes or getting trampled. The reason you take a bottle of water and a towel is that if you wet the towel and put it over your face, you can protect yourself against the fumes and get yourself out of there.

Don't be bashful. If your gut feeling tells you when you walk onto a bus there is something unusual or suspicious, get out and walk away. You may do it 10 times for no reason, but there will be one time that saves your life. Let your sixth sense direct you.

Try to break your routine. If you travel during rush hour every day, try to get up a little earlier and drive to work or take the train when it’s still not full. Don’t find yourself every day in the midst of rush hour. Terrorists are not going to waste a bomb on a half-empty train.

What portion of the American infrastructure do you believe is at the greatest risk for a terror attack?

We have put all of our emphasis, right or wrong, on the aviation area. What has happened, in the last two to three years, based on information we have, is the terrorists have realized that they cannot hijack a plane in America soon because the passengers are going to fight back. So they realize what they have been very successful with over the last 50 years in Madrid, London, Iraq, Israel: demoralizing the public when they go to work and when they come back from work.

What they’re going to do is hit six, seven or eight cities simultaneously to show sophistication and really hit the public. This time, which is the message of the day, it will not only be big cities. They’re going to try to hit rural America. They want to send a message to rural America: "You’re not protected. If you figured out that if you just move out of New York and move to Montana or to Pittsburgh, you’re not immune. We’re going [to] get you wherever we can and it’s easier there than in New York."

What more do you think the government can do to protect the public?

Number one, and this is the beef I’ve had with Homeland Security for the last four years, is educating the public on how to deal with those types of events. There’s no education. We’re raising the color code alert and that means nothing to anyone. Whether it’s green, yellow, pink, no one ever educated the public how to identify suspicious items or people. In Israel, so many of them [terrorists] have been apprehended just because people have phoned in. We don’t have that training on campuses, schools or kindergarten.

In Israel, it’s very popular right now [amongst terrorists] to put one device to explode and time another one for five minutes later when it’s all calm, people are getting up and the rescue teams have responded. You need to know all those things and think about those things. The government must pursue that. Law enforcement will never have enough people on the street to detect things. We don’t have that kind of manpower. That’s why the government must enlist the public.

Anonymous said...

Hi I'm thinking of staying in Kollel when I get married. Can someone please tell me the pros and cons

Anonymous said...

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2009/01/07/Sumner-Redstone-and-Viacom-Losses

They call me a megalomaniac but I'm nothing compared to Margo.

Anonymous said...

Kee saaveer memshelles zadon min haaretz

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times

The Atlantic does an analysis of NY Times finances and says they could be insolvent as early as this coming May.

Anonymous said...

Columbia Professors Offer New Proposal
for Preventing Foreclosures

Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School today announced a new joint proposal to stem foreclosures through loan modifications. The proposal, co-written by Professors Christopher Mayer and Tomasz Piskorski of Columbia Business School and Professor Edward Morrison of Columbia Law School, takes aim at privately securitized mortgages, which are at the core of the housing crisis, accounting for more than 50 percent of foreclosure starts.

Research shows that when these mortgages become delinquent, servicers of securitized mortgages opt for foreclosure over mortgage modification much more often than private lenders who service their own mortgages.

The solution, according to the professors, is to facilitate modification, instead of foreclosure, by:

1) Compensating servicers who modify mortgages. Using TARP funds, the federal government should increase the fee that servicers receive from continuing a mortgage and avoiding foreclosure, thereby aligning servicers' incentives with the interests of borrowers and investors; and

2) Removing legal constraints that inhibit modification. The federal government should enact legislation that eliminates explicit restraints on modification and creates a safe harbor from litigation for reasonable, good faith modifications that raise returns to investors.

By the authors' estimates, the plan would prevent nearly one million foreclosures over three years, at a cost of no more than $10.7 billion. It does not raise any constitutional concerns, because it builds on well-established Supreme Court case law. The authors show that this solution is more effective and less costly than alternatives, including bankruptcy reforms involving judicial mortgage reductions, known as "cramdowns," the recent FDIC servicer incentive and mortgage guarantee program.

Homeowners will benefit as much as servicers and investors under this plan, the authors argue, as it promotes cooperation between servicers and homeowners so that homes go to foreclosure only when necessary.

This proposal, coupled with an earlier proposal advanced by Professor Mayer and Columbia Business School Dean Glenn Hubbard for the federal government to reduce mortgage rates, is part of a two-pronged approach to stabilize the housing market and prevent foreclosures.

Anonymous said...

FROM RABBI HOROWITZ' BLOG (WHO BY THE WAY WAS ON THE RADIO TONIGHT):

61. Put off by the Tznius Police 1/7/09 - 12:43 PM
Sherree


I have spoken to victims of Kolko that were sent to Mondrowitz for therapy. Double whamie, these victims were easy prey for the notorious Mondrowitz who then victimized them a second time. In addition, it is time that people heard the stories from victims of R'ME from Baltimore. Because those victims were not 7,8 or 9 years old. Those victims were mesivta and bais medrash boys. Those victims were in their high teens and really thrown off their solid footing. And he admitted to his administration that he is guilty, but has not asked mechilah from his maybe even 100 some odd victims and he is still living on campus, and has not been assered from speaking to students although he no longer teaches. You can check it out in the Baltimore Jewish Times.

We can't sit idly by and just ignore their pain, we have to listen to their stories and take it to heart. We have to empathize with them and show compassion. We have to join with them to find justice and to put their abusers out of business. We have to help them protect OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN from harm.

71. Outraged 1/7/09 - 9:50 PM
Anonymous

As a Talmid of the above-referenced Baltimore Rosh Yeshiva, I am very distressed regarding the ugly comments about him. A distinguished Talmid Chacham who has educated so many Jews with his Shiurim and Sforim should not be dragged into the sewer!
As others have noted, this blog is about Avrohom Mondrowitz. Repeated derogatory comments about someone else -- even if true -- are Lashon Hara!

I am aware of the allegations against my Rebbe. However, Chezkas Kashrus (the principle of innocent until proven guilty) prohibit public comment. A Beis Din or a court of law are the appropriate places for victims to bring their case, not here.

The continued appearance of Lashon Hara at this site renders this a cesspool, like the Goyishe Internet!


72. #71 Deal With It 1/7/09 - 10:03 PM
steve

To #71, I am more outraged than you are. I am outraged about the continued coverup and the continued kavod that people like yourself continue to shower on this molester. The man molested children at least from his days in Philly to his days as "Rosh Yeshiva" (rachmanan litzlan)in Baltimore. The scores of victims are real and they will not go away. DEAL WITH IT!! Your beloved rosh yeshiva/rebbe is a sexual predator! His seforim should be banned and put into genizah. Enough coverups, enough lies and enough burying your head in the sand. The same thing happened with Kolko for forty years until his victims gained the courage to go to the police, to the lawyers and to the media. The same with Mondrowitz. Had it not been for his gentile victims, he would still be sodomizing Jewish children at Ohel in Boro Park. The man you are defending is a violent criminal. DEAL WITH IT!

Arthur said...

Talking about child abuse....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTGbP55HGi8

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous 8:42 PM

Definitely, definitely stay in Kollel.

As the economy gets worse with the implementation of Bim-Bams' Socialist policies, the already financially burdened Kolel underclass will become even poorer and you will then become eligible for TARP Bailout Money! Just imagine; standing in line in the Bailout Money Office together with Larry Flynt. OH! America! What a great country, land of opportunity!

And if Mike Kotler plays his "cards" right, BMG could even become a Holding Bank and receive BIG Bailout Money. They gave Ezra( I never knew that man, Mr. Made-Off) Merkin 6 Bil, BMG deserves at least that. Oyver L'Soichere.

Anonymous said...

From the: 2-State Solution aka No Peace Is Possible With Savages Dept:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129290
Published: 01/07/09, 9:15 PM

Rayyan Trained His Kids to Die

by Maayana Miskin

(IsraelNN.com) When Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan was assassinated in an IAF strike last week, his four wives and 11 of his children died with him. According to his surviving children, the death of the Rayyan family children was not an accident: Rayyan had trained his wives and children to die with him as "martyrs."

Surviving family members spoke to local Arab media and said that in the days before his death, Rayyan has repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" The children would respond, "Yes, daddy, we all want to be with you alive or dead."

Rayyan's adult daughter, Wala, said even the younger children wished to die with their father. "If
In the days before his death, Rayyan has repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?"
you had asked my four-year-old sister Aisha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die as a martyr," Wala told Ma'an news.

One of Rayyan's daughter-in-laws said she was offered the chance to die with the family. She stopped by the family's large home in Jabaliya and was asked by Rayyan if she wished to die with him, his wives and their children. She agreed to die, but later left the building, shortly before the IAF strike.

As it turned out, when Rayyan offered his daughter-in-law the "opportunity" to die he had already received a phone call from the IDF warning him to evacuate his house due to an impending airstrike.

The 11 children who died with Nizar Rayyan ranged in age from one year old to 16. Another son died years earlier when Rayyan sent him to carry out a suicide bombing in Gaza. Two Israelis were murdered in that attack.

Rayyan was one of Hamas' extremist preachers, and believed that those who die fighting Israel die as "martyrs" and go directly to paradise. He encouraged his followers to have several wives and as many children as possible, in order to provide future soldiers in the fight against Israel. He also encouraged Hamas to take over Judea and Samaria and carry out suicide attacks targeting Jews.

Malach HaMovies said...

From Failed Messiah - Incredible !!!

AUDIO: Zev Brenner Was Told Of Mondrowitz Molestations One Month Before Mondrowitz Ran To Israel, Was Told To Be Quiet By Orthodox Leaders

This and much more in Zev's interview with Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz…

Continue reading "AUDIO: Zev Brenner Was Told Of Mondrowitz Molestations One Month Before Mondrowitz Ran To Israel, Was Told To Be Quiet By Orthodox Leaders" »

Anonymous said...

7 hospitals in NY accused of $50M Medicaid fraud

By VALERIE BAUMAN – 1 day ago

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren't standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege.

Another hospital paid people to search homeless shelters and other places for patients to enter a three-day stay in detox in exchange for cigarettes, beer, food, and other items, according to the lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell.

The lawsuits allege those five hospitals and two others fraudulently billed Medicaid for more than $50 million in more than 14,000 different claims.

Both attorneys' offices declined to say why they didn't pursue criminal charges. In both investigations, former hospital employees notified authorities of the issues, dating to 2002.

Five of the hospitals denied wrongdoing Monday, while the others couldn't be reached.

Cuomo said all seven hospitals claimed their detox services were part of a government treatment program but didn't have the required state license.

The lawsuits allege four of the hospitals engaged in a kickback scheme with Missouri-based SpecialCare Hospital Management Corp. to refer patients to the hospitals' detox units.

SpecialCare had an agreement to provide management and administrative services for the detox programs, but the lawsuit alleges it also illegally referred patients to the hospitals for a fee. Cuomo asserts that violates New York's anti-kickback laws.

"SpecialCare at times literally picked up strangers on the street, shuttled them to hospitals where they received treatment that was either inadequate or unnecessary, and then billed the state," Cuomo said in a statement.

The hospitals accused in the kickback scheme are Columbia Memorial Physicians Hospital Organization Inc., in Hudson; Long Beach Medical Center; New York Downtown Hospital; and St. Joseph's Medical Center in Yonkers.

The hospital accused of rounding up the homeless for detox is Queens' Parkway Hospital, which closed in November. The other defendants are the former Our Lady of Mercy in the Bronx and Benedictine Hospital in Kingston.

Spokesmen for St. Joseph's, Benedictine, Downtown Hospital, Columbia Memorial and Long Beach denied the allegations. Parkway officials couldn't be reached. SpecialCare didn't return a call for comment.

"Despite years of investigation, neither the office of the attorney general of the state of New York, nor the United States attorney's office, has articulated any viable claims," said Gary Schulz, an attorney for St. Joseph's.

The state settled for $4.5 million with Our Lady of Mercy, which denied all wrongdoing. Our Lady of Mercy is now run by Montefiore Medical Center and didn't return calls Monday.

Anonymous said...

FAIRBANKS, Alaska – A 70-year-old Brooklyn man was arrested for allegedly urinating on a bouncer at a bar on Sunday morning. The bouncer at Kodiak Jack's told police that he was trying to remove another man from the bar for causing a disruption.

The bouncer said he was trying to calm down the other man when he noticed the man behind him urinating on his leg.

The man was charged with with harassment, indecent exposure and making a false report. He was apparently angry that his friend was being thrown out of the bar.

Anonymous said...

http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/12/22/madoff-blumenthal-charities-biz-wall-cz_cc_1222charities.html

Now at least one attorney general is asking for records to determine if trustees sitting on nonprofit boards failed to perform their fiduciary responsibility to do proper due diligence.

Richard Blumenthal, attorney general for the state of Connecticut, has asked the court-appointed trustee responsible for Madoff's liquidation for the names of Connecticut-based victims, including nonprofit organizations. The attorney general says the issue of nonprofit board liability "is, obviously, by no means crystal clear."

"If they failed recklessly to do the necessary due diligence, we would certainly investigate and take action," Blumenthal told Forbes.com. "If the claim is that a trustee or a board member or that the board itself failed in its fiduciary responsibilities, there would be legal action and they could be held personally and financially responsible."

30 states, including New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have adopted the Prudent Investor Act, which applies to all trustees, including those who oversee charitable organizations. According to the statute, a trustee or board member must act in good faith and exercise the degree of diligence, care, caution and skill that an ordinary prudent individual would use under similar circumstances in a like position. None of the nonprofit organizations that invested with Madoff seemed to be alarmed that he used a three-person accounting firm in New City, N.Y., to perform his audits, which should have been a red flag.

Jurisdiction over charitable organizations typically falls under the state attorney general, who is responsible for supervising charitable organizations to insure donors and beneficiaries of those charities are protected from unscrupulous practices in the solicitation and management of charitable assets. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that an attorney general will investigate and pursue litigation against trustees for their failure to perform their fiduciary duties for a charitable organization that fell prey to Madoff.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office oversees charities across New York, which could potentially give him jurisdiction to investigate nonprofits that invested with Madoff, including Yeshiva University, which lost $110 million. Until recently, Madoff served as treasurer of the Yeshiva University Board of Trustees and chairman of the board of Sy Syms School of Business. Yeshiva's approximately $110 million investment was made in Ascot Partners, a $1.8 billion hedge fund managed by J. Ezra Merkin, who until recently served as a trustee at Yeshiva University and chairman of its investment committee. There may even be a possible conflict of interest, as Merkin managed Ascot Partners.

Anonymous said...

Cultural Diversity Training - What's the reality regarding Israel and the Palestinians?

I put together the following information after a friend of mine from grade school made a few comments on something I posted on my facebook account. I was in shock at their views of the current situation in Israel. I stopped and thought about it and realized I grew up just like them. I figured there are millions of people who think like I used to -- and how my child friend currently believes. My hope is the information I'm providing with help dispel some of the myths that are out there.

Back in 1999 I went to Israel to study at women's seminary in Jerusalem. At the time I knew very little about Israel. I only knew what was in the news. I had never considered what was being portrayed could possibly be biased against Israel.

Prior to going to Israel I had been a practicing psychotherapist who specialized in child abuse and neglect. In my past I had also provided several educational seminars in some gang infested communities on cultural diversity.

When I first arrived in Israel I was a Palestinian sympathizer. I was outraged that my people were denying another group of people their civil rights. Within a few weeks that view changed completely.

During my first few weeks living in Jerusalem I heard story after story on the news about a few Palestinian mothers who were tying bombs on to their own young children, then placing those same young children on a buses in order to murder unsuspecting Israeli's.

I was in such shock. I had thought I heard everything working in the sex abuse field for about 15 years. I mean I had worked with young children who were used in child pornography and child prostitution rings. I really thought I had heard it all.

I remember asking my host family in Israel, why hadn't child protective services get involved? I couldn't understand why the mothers were not being arrested and tried on child abuse/endangerment charges? I just couldn't understand why these mothers who would murder their own children be allowed to keep their other children?

My host family sort of laughed at me at my naiveté. Can you imagine what the news media would do with a story about Israelis removing children from the homes of Palestinians?

The reality is that what we see and hear in the news is not always the reality of what's going on.

The following videos reminds me of what I learned during those first few weeks back in the summer of 1999. I'm hoping it would be a wake up call to those of you who were like me.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eTGbP55HGi8&eurl=

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Im4KE3nkGA0&eurl=

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i3c5uWIDBXY&eurl=


Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, ATR-BC
Founder and CEO

The Awareness Center, Inc.
(the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault)
P.O. Box 65273, Baltimore, MD 21209

www.theawarenesscenter.org

Anonymous said...

Update on Brooklyn 9

see: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/12/nyc-channel-11.html

re: NYC Channel 11 News: Brooklyn DA Has 9 Felony Sexual Assault Cases Pending Against Haredim – Hikind To Meet Da Tomorrow

We are trying to determine the names of the 9 Felony Sexual Assault Cases Pending by the Brooklyn DA in the Orthodox community. Can anyone assist? The list to date is:

1) Yona Weinberg
2) Martin Vegh AKA Boorich Mordechai Vegg (recently convicted, is he part of list?)
3) Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz
4) Stephen Colmer
5) Yakov Kramer
6) Arye Ickovits
7) Arthur Samet
8) ?
9) ?

Anonymous said...

http://www.hamercaz.com/hamercaz/site/news_item.php?id=3309

Anonymous said...

Polaroid Corp. (PRDCQ) filed for voluntary petition for reorganization and seek protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in order to help the 70-year-old photography-film maker's ongoing financial restructuring process.

Polaroid is the latest entity owned by indicted businessman Tom Petters, who was arrested two and a half months ago on fraud allegations.

"Polaroid's financial condition was compromised by the apparent fraudulent acts perpetrated by the founder of Petters Group Worldwide, Polaroid's parent company, and certain of his associates," the company said in a statement late Thursday.

Petters Group Worldwide has owned Polaroid since 2005 and an affiliated company, camera-maker Polaroid said.

Anonymous said...

ALBANY -- Gov. David Paterson's budget would wipe out 21 positions designed to check for campaign-finance fraud and other problems - setting up New York to be "another Illinois,'' a good-government lobbyist said today.

"We already have the most loophole-ridden and lax campaign-finance law in the country, and this will just further decrease the small bit of confidence New Yorkers have in their government,'' said Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters.

Anonymous said...

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - India's Satyam Computer faces a crisis of "unimaginable proportions," its interim chief executive said a day after the chairman revealed profits had been falsely inflated for years.

Chairman Ramalinga Raju resigned on Wednesday in India's biggest corporate scandal in memory, after saying that about $1 billion, or 94 percent of the cash and bank balances on the company's books at end-September did not exist. The company's shares plunged nearly 80 percent.

The scandal, which some analysts dubbed "India's Enron" after the collapsed U.S. energy firm, has cast a cloud over foreign investment in Asia's third-largest economy and over its once-booming outsourcing sector.

It may also increase investors' nervousness about weak corporate governance and oversight in emerging markets, which are reeling from the global financial crisis.

Interim CEO Ram Mynampati said on Thursday that Satyam, India's fourth-largest software company, had contacted its top 100 customers, who account for almost 80 percent of revenue, and had received expressions of support.

Satyam specializes in business software and back-office services for clients such as General Electric and Nestle.

Anonymous said...

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/sports_breaking/37260599.html

Finally, in this era of unprecedented government bailouts, there is an industry worthy of our tax dollars.

In a story that no sportswriter could invent, CNN last night reported that another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis unfolds.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said yesterday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

Things must be tough all over.

Anonymous said...

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20081216_National_Lampoon_CEO_accused_of_stock_fraud.html

A federal sting operation led to charges of kickbacks and stock manipulation yesterday against seven investors, including the chief executive officer of National Lampoon Inc. in Los Angeles.
The local offices of the U.S. Attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission charged that in separate schemes, three sets of investors paid off corrupt stock promoters to inflate stock prices.

At the center of each scheme was a 49-year-old stock promoter from Livingston, N.J., Eduardo Rodriguez.

In addition to Laikin of National Lampoon, the others who are accused of paying kickbacks to Rodriguez are:

Dennis Barsky, 60, a consultant for National Lampoon in Las Vegas.

Richard J. Margulies, 58, chief financial officer of Advatech in Edison, N.J.

Alex Kanakaris, 52, of Newport Beach, Calif., and Richard Epstein, 60, of Parkland, Fla., two investors in Swedish Vegas.

The five were arrested yesterday on charges of securities fraud. Magid said Rodriguez and another stock promoter, Tim Dougherty, 29, of Webster, N.Y., were expected to turn themselves in today.

Marcy (nisht) Goot, a spokesperson for National Lampoon in Los Angeles, had no comment.

National Lampoon, which is listed on the NYSE Alternext, is a media company that holds the title to iconic film comedies such as Animal House and the Vacation series.

According to prosecutors, Laikin, 46, who owns 40 percent of the stock of Lampoon, agreed to pay Rodriguez $60,000 to create artificial volume in the company's stock. Barsky, a consultant for Lampoon, facilitated the payments, the indictment said.

Anonymous said...

By Mike Farrell -- Multichannel News,12/11/2008

Former NBC Universal treasurer Victor Jung was sentenced Thursday to one year and one day in federal prison for his role in a scheme to embezzle about $1 million from his former employer.

An accomplice, former treasury manager James Walsh pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud in August and was sentenced to 21 months in jail earlier this month.

Jung and Walsh embezzled money by removing cash from the safe and used that cash for unauthorized purposes. Jung then set up a dummy corporation—NBC Universal Media Productions—and caused three fraudulent wire transfers of funds from NBC Universal or its parent, General Electric Co., to be sent to bank accounts established in the name of the dummy company.

Jung, according to the indictment, opened accounts at a branch of the Commerce Bank in Manhattan and caused two wire transfers to be sent—one for $575,000 and the other for $238,450—from an account held by GE in Stamford, Conn., to two different Commerce bank accounts.

Walsh and Jung used the money to pay off large amounts of credit card debt and $40,000 for the rental of a summer home in Southampton, N.Y.

Anonymous said...

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2007/gb20071010_765240.htm

Automaker BMW is Germany's most admired employer and a pioneer in profit sharing. So it came as a shock Sept. 30 when an investigative television documentary exposed the Nazi-era misdeeds of BMW's controlling shareholder family, the Quandts. The Silence of the Quandt Family highlighted how patriarch Günther Quandt, grandfather to the generation now controlling BMW (BMWG.DE), built a blood-stained wartime fortune on the back of slave labor and how he sidestepped postwar recrimination.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Progress of sorts!

Child rapist re-sentenced to life
The Associated Press • January 8, 2009 6:46 am

GRETNA — A man whose conviction led the U.S. Supreme Court to ban the death penalty for child rape last year has been re-sentenced and will spend life in prison.


During a brief hearing Wednesday, 44-year-old Patrick Kennedy appeared in shackles before state District Judge Ross Ladart to receive the mandatory life term.

Kennedy, of Harvey, had been convicted of aggravated rape of a juvenile under age 12 and was sentenced to die under a Louisiana law that allowed such punishment for that crime. The U.S. Supreme Court considered whether the death penalty is a disproportional punishment for child rape. Its 5-4 decision, handed down June 25, banned the punishment, effectively eliminating Louisiana's statute as well as similar ones in five other states.

Anonymous said...

Patrick Kennedy is an honorable man.

Anonymous said...

From the Marxist School of Economics:

Bim (Trotsky)Bam's speech today announcing his forthcoming 1 Trillion $timulu$ package is Marxist-Socialism on steroids that will destroy the USA.

Concerned about the USA being attacked by terrorist chemical or nuclear attacks, it's possible. But the threat is also internal as Bim-Bam if not reigned in by principled (oxymoron?) members of the Congress will destroy from within without firing a shot.

A sleeper?

The Bim-Bam Identity.

Anonymous said...

Reserve your taxi now.

January 9, 2009
Pressured by I.R.S., UBS Is Closing Secret Accounts
By LYNNLEY BROWNING

Under pressure from federal authorities, the Swiss bank UBS is closing the hidden offshore accounts of its well-heeled American clients, potentially allowing their secrets to spill into the open.

In a step that would have once been unthinkable in the rarefied world of Swiss banking, UBS will shut about 19,000 accounts that prosecutors suspect have gone undeclared to the Internal Revenue Service.

UBS will transfer the assets to other banks or other divisions within UBS, or will mail checks directly to the account holders, creating paper trails for federal prosecutors who are examining whether UBS clients used such accounts to evade taxes.

The clients now face stark choices: they can cash their checks, and thereby alert the authorities to any potential wrongdoing, or not cash them, effectively losing their money.

Or they can transfer the money to new banks, a procedure which, in the case of foreign banks, requires depositors of more than $10,000 to report the new account to the Treasury Department.

“You can either take that check and throw it in the woods, or deposit it somewhere and get busted,” said a UBS client, who asked not to be named because of the investigations into UBS and its clients. “There’s nowhere to hide.”

Americans can use offshore accounts, provided they disclose them and pay taxes on their holdings. UBS, the world’s largest private bank, said in July that it would stop offering to American clients offshore private banking services that are not declared to the I.R.S. Prosecutors contend that UBS helped wealthy Americans hide about $18 billion, thereby evading taxes of $300 million each year.

UBS clients who open new accounts at other foreign banks must disclose those accounts’ assets to the Treasury Department.

But because prosecutors claim that some UBS clients failed to make adequate disclosures in the past or lied on their tax returns about holding offshore accounts, the authorities may view the new disclosures as criminal evidence, not just of tax evasion but also of money laundering, a more serious offense.

Some tax lawyers, citing recent conversations with the Justice Department, argue that UBS clients who transfer their assets to new accounts at United States banks could also be seen as engaged in money laundering.

“Any movement of money from UBS somewhere else can be a violation of U.S. money laundering laws,” said Bruce Zagaris, a tax lawyer who represents several UBS clients.

UBS is struggling to maintain its centuries-old tradition of Swiss banking secrecy amid mounting legal pressure from the Justice Department to turn over client records.

It began handing over some records last summer, causing consternation in the Swiss banking community. The checks and transfers will create paper trails because they move through bank clearing systems.

Karina Byrne, a UBS spokeswoman, declined to comment on Thursday on whether UBS would turn over facsimiles of documents recording transfers. “UBS is progressing with the closings in an orderly fashion,” she said.

Some American clients who have approached the I.R.S. about disclosing hidden UBS accounts have discovered that the bank has temporarily delayed closing their accounts by up to three months.

The delay could help the clients because the I.R.S. is more likely to become suspicious if offshore money is moved just as account holders come forward.

William M. Sharp Sr., a tax lawyer who represents several UBS clients, said, “UBS has been very supportive of their American clients who have chosen to undergo disclosure.”

Still, he added that “our view is that if the account is closed and funds are moved to another institution, here or abroad, it could make the case tougher for the clients before the I.R.S., because it could be new violations of money-laundering controls.”

Anonymous said...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Illinois House voted overwhelmingly Friday to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, an unprecedented action that sets up a Senate trial on whether he should be thrown out for allegedly trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Impeachment required just 60 votes. The final result was 114-1.

Legislators accused the second-term Democratic governor of letting down the people of Illinois by letting ego and ambition drive his decisions.

"It's our duty to clean up the mess and stop the freak show that's become Illinois government," said Rep. Jack D. Franks, a Democrat.

Anonymous said...

The Chicago mikvuh rapist ruv will be at the yeshiva's dinner Sunday night. He will be neer the front table.

Anonymous said...

Veitzner;

Time to get your cellulite grubber Tuchus off de Koilel and learn how to spell Henglish. How many years you being here in America?

You're a disgrace.

Anonymous said...

BALTIMORE – Mayor Sheila Dixon was indicted Friday on charges that she accepted illegal gifts during her time as mayor and City Council president, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree.

A grand jury indicted Dixon on 12 counts, including four counts of perjury and two counts of theft over $500. She was also charged with theft under $500, fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary and misconduct in office.

The State Prosecutor's Office, which has been investigating corruption at City Hall for nearly three years, said Dixon received holiday gift cards for four years from several people. Prosecutors said the gift cards were to be distributed to needy families, but were instead used by Dixon to buy electronics — including an Xbox, a PlayStation 2 and a camcorder — clothes and other merchandise and also handed out to members of her staff.

"I am being unfairly accused," Dixon said in a statement. "Time will prove that I have done nothing wrong, and I am confident that I will be found innocent of these charges."

Dixon said she would not step down. "I will not let these charges deter me from keeping Baltimore on the path that we have set, or from carrying forward the significant progress we have made thus far," she said.

Dixon, a 55-year-old Democrat, served on the City Council from 1987 through 2007 and as council president from 1999 through 2007. She became mayor in January 2007, finishing the term of Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, and was easily elected to a full, four-year term later that year.

The state prosecutor's investigation began in March 2006, and has overshadowed her entire tenure as mayor. She has consistently denied wrongdoing, and while many political observers were concerned an indictment could come at any time, the mayor nonetheless earned praise for efficient management, shrewd hiring and a coolheaded response to crises.

The indictment against Dixon does not name Ronald H. Lipscomb, a prominent developer who briefly dated the mayor and who was indicted Wednesday on one charge of bribing a City Council member. However, previous court documents leave no doubt that Lipscomb is the "Developer A" mentioned in the indictment who showered the mayor with gifts and took several lavish trips with her in late 2003 and early 2004.

Both were married at the time, although they were separated from their spouses. Dixon has since divorced.

The indictment describes Dixon taking money from a developer that was used to buy expensive gifts — two fur coats and high-end skin products, for example — all while pampering herself with trips to New York City, Chicago and Colorado with stays at lavish hotels.

The documents describe an elaborate scheme by which Lipscomb paid for part of a shopping spree Dixon enjoyed during a stay in Chicago. At one point, Dixon gave $4,000 in cash to a city employee, who deposited it in his personal checking account and wrote a check to pay off part of Dixon's American Express bill, according to the indictment.

Dixon obtained the cash after Lipscomb cashed a corporate check worth $15,000 and the two exchanged several phone calls, the indictment says.

Dixon has never listed any gifts from Lipscomb on financial disclosure forms. At the time of Dixon and Lipscomb's affair, his company was involved in several projects that received tax breaks from the city.

Perhaps more damaging is the allegation that Dixon stole gift cards meant for the poor. For four years running, according to the indictment, Dixon received gift cards that were supposed to be distributed to needy families and either spent them herself or gave them to her staff.

The alleged scam continued through December 2007, Dixon's first holiday season as mayor. According to the indictment, a city employee gave the mayor gift cards from Toys R Us that were supposed to go to poor children. Dixon gave one gift card to a staffer, and investigators said they found five more at her home when they searched it last summer.

Dixon received a batch of Best Buy gift cards from Lipscomb's company in December 2004 and held onto some of them for a year before using them to buy CDs, DVDs and a video game at a Best Buy store downtown, according to the indictment.

In 2005, Dixon hit up another unidentified developer for gift cards that she said would be used for needy families. The developer paid for 20 Best Buy gift cards worth $25 each, and Dixon used 19 of them, or $450 worth, to buy a camcorder, a video game controller and other electronics, the indictment says.

Dixon's financial disclosure statements for the years in question do not mention that she received any gift cards.

O'Malley, who was mayor during most of the alleged wrongdoing by Dixon, had no comment Friday, said his spokesman, Rick Abbruzzese.

___

Associated Press writer Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md., contributed to this report.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/business/09ubs.html

January 9, 2009

Pressured by I.R.S., UBS Is Closing Secret Accounts

By LYNNLEY BROWNING

Under pressure from federal authorities, the Swiss bank UBS is closing the hidden offshore accounts of its well-heeled American clients, potentially allowing their secrets to spill into the open.

In a step that would have once been unthinkable in the rarefied world of Swiss banking, UBS will shut about 19,000 accounts that prosecutors suspect have gone undeclared to the Internal Revenue Service.

UBS will transfer the assets to other banks or other divisions within UBS, or will mail checks directly to the account holders, creating paper trails for federal prosecutors who are examining whether UBS clients used such accounts to evade taxes.

The clients now face stark choices: they can cash their checks, and thereby alert the authorities to any potential wrongdoing, or not cash them, effectively losing their money.

Or they can transfer the money to new banks, a procedure which, in the case of foreign banks, requires depositors of more than $10,000 to report the new account to the Treasury Department.

“You can either take that check and throw it in the woods, or deposit it somewhere and get busted,” said a UBS client, who asked not to be named because of the investigations into UBS and its clients. “There’s nowhere to hide.”

Americans can use offshore accounts, provided they disclose them and pay taxes on their holdings. UBS, the world’s largest private bank, said in July that it would stop offering to American clients offshore private banking services that are not declared to the I.R.S. Prosecutors contend that UBS helped wealthy Americans hide about $18 billion, thereby evading taxes of $300 million each year.

UBS clients who open new accounts at other foreign banks must disclose those accounts’ assets to the Treasury Department.

But because prosecutors claim that some UBS clients failed to make adequate disclosures in the past or lied on their tax returns about holding offshore accounts, the authorities may view the new disclosures as criminal evidence, not just of tax evasion but also of money laundering, a more serious offense.

Some tax lawyers, citing recent conversations with the Justice Department, argue that UBS clients who transfer their assets to new accounts at United States banks could also be seen as engaged in money laundering.

“Any movement of money from UBS somewhere else can be a violation of U.S. money laundering laws,” said Bruce Zagaris, a tax lawyer who represents several UBS clients.

UBS is struggling to maintain its centuries-old tradition of Swiss banking secrecy amid mounting legal pressure from the Justice Department to turn over client records.

It began handing over some records last summer, causing consternation in the Swiss banking community. The checks and transfers will create paper trails because they move through bank clearing systems.

Karina Byrne, a UBS spokeswoman, declined to comment on Thursday on whether UBS would turn over facsimiles of documents recording transfers. “UBS is progressing with the closings in an orderly fashion,” she said.

Some American clients who have approached the I.R.S. about disclosing hidden UBS accounts have discovered that the bank has temporarily delayed closing their accounts by up to three months.

The delay could help the clients because the I.R.S. is more likely to become suspicious if offshore money is moved just as account holders come forward.

William M. Sharp Sr., a tax lawyer who represents several UBS clients, said, “UBS has been very supportive of their American clients who have chosen to undergo disclosure.”

Still, he added that “our view is that if the account is closed and funds are moved to another institution, here or abroad, it could make the case tougher for the clients before the I.R.S., because it could be new violations of money-laundering controls.”

Anonymous said...

Great article by Ralph Peters of the NY Post:

THE DEMONS OF GAZA
ONLY HAMAS IS TO BLAME FOR THE WAR; ONLY THE PALESTINIANS CAN STOP IT

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01102009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_demons_of_gaza_149549.htm

Anonymous said...

Mazel Tov Mikor Chaim of Chicago!

You moved out just in the nick of time! I guess Yossi was right all along about the phonie!

Anonymous said...

Hmmm ...

Der IRS veisst fin Belsky's mattress?

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/business/09insure.html?em=&pagewanted=print

January 9, 2009

Nationwide Inquiry on Bids for Municipal Bonds

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/business/worldbusiness/10bank.html

January 10, 2009

Iran Moved Billions via U.S. Banks

By VIKAS BAJAJ and JOHN ELIGON

Iranian banks illegally shifted billions of dollars through American financial institutions in recent years, and authorities suspect some of the money may have been used to finance Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Details of the illicit transfers came to light on Friday when New York State and federal authorities announced that a large British bank had agreed to pay $350 million to settle accusations that it had helped the Iranian banks hide the transactions.

The British bank, the Lloyds TSB Group, “stripped” information that would have identified the transfers in order to deceive American financial institutions, which are barred from doing business with Iranian banks, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said. Lloyds acknowledged its conduct and agreed to turn over detailed records of the transactions.

“They went to great lengths to obliterate any identification,” Mr. Morgenthau said.

The district attorney’s office was still investigating nine major banks that might be engaging in similar conduct, but prosecutors declined to name them. Mr. Morgenthau said, however, that money in one transaction was used to buy a large amount of tungsten, an ingredient for making long-range missiles. He said he suspected that other funds might have been used to finance Iran’s nuclear program.

In the current case, investigators were unsure what the money was used for, said Daniel J. Castleman, the chief assistant district attorney. The stripping made it impossible to determine where the money was going, he said. “We don’t know of any money that has gone to any terrorist organizations, individuals or anything like that,” he said.

Lloyds has agreed to examine all of the transactions it stripped to try to determine where the money was headed. In all, Lloyds hid the source of billions of dollars that passed through the United States, prosecutors said. Lloyds also hid transfers from banks in Sudan, which are also banned from doing business with American institutions.

Half of the $350 million Lloyds has agreed to pay will go to the federal government and the rest to Mr. Morgenthau’s office, which will divide the money between the city and the state.

Mr. Morgenthau said he hoped the money, the largest financial penalty his office has ever collected, would provide a boost to tight city and state budgets.

Although prosecutors did not identify specific individuals at Lloyds responsible for the fraud, Mr. Castleman said, “It was a systemic, wide-ranging scheme." The training manual given to employees of Lloyds even included a section on how to strip transactions, prosecutors said.

Banks in several nations are banned from doing business with American institutions, but the United States is particularly concerned about Iran, which it says finances terrorists and runs an illicit nuclear weapons program. Iran denies those accusations.

The investigation into Lloyds goes back to 2006. It was conducted jointly by Mr. Morgenthau’s office and the Justice Department, with the assistance of the Treasury and banking regulators.

According to a deferred prosecution agreement, Lloyds handled $300 million of Iranian transfers and $20 million of Sudanese transfers that ended at American banks. Mr. Morgenthau said billions of dollars of transactions went through American banks but ended outside the country.

Several employees in Lloyds’ international payment processing unit in London removed from the bank’s central system orders from certain foreign banks, according to the agreement released Friday by Mr. Morgenthau’s office. Employees struck out identifying information about the originating banks on printed copies of the payment instructions, which someone then re-entered into the payments system. When American banks received the transfers, they seemed to have originated at Lloyds.

Worried that they might be violating American law, senior officials at Lloyds stopped the stripping operation for Iranian banks in 2004, but transfers from Sudan were stripped as recently as 2007.

Under the agreement between Lloyds and Mr. Morgenthau, no employees, officers or the bank will be charged with a crime unless evidence emerges that the bank or its employees and officers knew that specific transfers were sent to or by terrorist groups or “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.” The agreement lasts for two years.

In recent years, officials in the Treasury have stepped up a campaign to have foreign banks sever links with Iranian banks, which they accuse of providing support for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, in addition to financing Iran’s own nuclear ambitions.

In November, the Treasury barred American financial institutions from handling certain money transfers for Iranian interests that had been previously allowed, closing what it described at the time as the “the last general entry point for Iranian banks.” Certain exceptions are still allowed for humanitarian aid and remittances.

In December, federal authorities moved to seize the assets of the Assa Corporation, which the Treasury says is a front for Bank Melli, Iran’s largest bank. Assa owns a stake in a Midtown Manhattan office tower.

Mr. Morgenthau’s office had been investigating ties between the Iranian government and Assa and a related entity, the Alavi Foundation, since 2006. Mr. Morgenthau said evidence unearthed in that investigation led his office to inquire about money transfers made through Lloyds.

Anonymous said...

can someone please say what the story is in the closet of shmeltzer family from telz
specifically about the uncle was he convicted

can someone please advise

Anonymous said...

Veitzner Cheder Insider said...
The Chicago mikvuh rapist ruv will be at the yeshiva's dinner Sunday night. He will be neer the front table.


Can you be more specific, there will be lots of Rabbis near the front table, remember that children's safety is at stake, now is not the time to protect abusers

Anonymous said...

Yea, as always great article by Ralph Peters. All of his articles are on target.

Ah Shanda V'Charpeh that it's A Goy showing his Balls and saying what our "Leaders" should be saying daily driving home the message to the press and getting the message out there to the world, that it's a fight for survival and that we have nothing to and will not apologize. You hear that Sarkozy? Blair? The U.N.?

But no, our "Leader$" like Agudah, Malcolm (Brown Nose Tuchus Lecker) Hoenlein, and Abe (The Wimp) Foxman keep taking meetings, issuing crap statements, and basically don't match the PR propaganda put forth by the jihadists.

What happened Guys, Your Mohel took your balls with the Metzitzah?
Or you been ca$trated by your wives?

You guys are a disgrace, Get the Hell off the stage.

Hakaras Hatov Department said...

Three Chicago Heroes:

Mordechai "Motty" Finkel
Kreindel Pincus
Miriam Schiller

A Jewish Education For ALL Jewish Children!

Please vote and show Hakaras Hatov! Let your voices be heard!

http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/illinois

Tropper is Troubled said...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Tropper and Nochum Eisenstein.

Only God does not need allies, but humans do. Tropper has had and still has all sorts of allies. Often he lures/hires/bribes them with high gifts care of Tom Kaplan or from Guma Aguiar as he did in the past. Sometimes it is just common ground based on jihadic-style fanaticism.

Such has been the case in the dangerous alliance between Tropper and Rabbi Nochum Norman Eisenstein from Jerusalem of the so-called "VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR" that even has a web presence and link care of the Dei'ah veDibur Shema Yisrael haredi site, another self-appointed global enforcer of only the toughest Ultra-Orthodox standards in conversions, with a ruthless confrontational approach befitting a Chicago operator that was seen in the case of the annulment of the conversions by various Religious Zionist rabbis recently, such as of Rabbi Druckman the Religious Zionist Rosh Yeshiva.

In fact if it was up to Eisenstein he would condemn, tear to shreds and cut off the entire RCA, Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist rabbinate, put them in irreversable cherem, because he is convinced of ideological "correctness" and they, as rational open minded people do not submit to his harsh demands that their conversions are invalid simply because of who they are. He openly posts anti-RCA declarations about the evils of RCA rabbi's conversions, "American RCA "Converts" Loyal Christian" as if the entire RCA is guilty, if this even happened. This hot head is Troppers ally. For quite a while now. Eichenstein's fellow Chicagoan, Rabbi Harry Maryles has posted exposes about Eisenstein on his Emes Ve-Emunah blog, such as "How many more lives will this man ruin? Rabbi Norman Eisenstein, a man who I recall was a known Kanoi when he was still an adolescent student in Skokie Yeshiva has inserted himself into the recent controversy over Rabbi Druckman’s conversions" and "Eisenstein’s War against the Jews" and "Rabbi Norman Eisenstein - supposedly in the name of Rav Elyashiv - said that anyone who believes in an ancient universe (older than 5768 years) is disqualified from being a Dayan, a judge in a conversion court."

But Eisenstein is only rooted in the world of Batei Din and is notorious for twisting the words of Rav Eliashiv, caring nothing for the sensitivities of Jewish kiruv movement, so he is only on board with Tropper on one level, Tropper's outward pitch to haredi bigs that of imposing a "universal standard" for conversions, meaning only the strictest Haredi standards, while Eisenstein does not care at all, in fact being opposed to Tropper's dreams of actively reaching out to gentiles in order to "sell them" conversions, Troppers, and Kaplan's and Guma's and EJF's evangelical inspired goals of converting gentiles and turning them into haredim in conversion mills and factories run by EJF and overseen by the supreme task master Tropper the conversion "conquerer" like a William the Conquerer invading and taking over all the English for himself to rtule as supreme ruler. If this sounds like megalomania, it is. This has caused disruption between Tropper and Eisenstein, but yet they need each other.

Tropper needs the cover of Rav Eisenstein because he is the link and cover with connections to Rav Eliashiv a key part of Tropper's self-defense shield against his critics, namely Rav Shternbuch and the entire Bais Din of the Eidah.

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper loses the RCA and the Orthodox; nothing learned from "How The West Was Won."

Tropper provides Eisenstein ability to have global reach and power by initially being allowed to come to Tropper's events, such as the first EJF conferences where this alliance proved to be a total disaster for Tropper and he could not repair the deliberate damage that Eisenstien unleashed by declaring, supposedly "in the name of Rav Eliashiv" which has never been proven or verified by any reliable sources, that the Modern Orthodox rabbis, meaning those affiliated with Yeshiva University and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) were not valid as dayanim on batei din for conversions because they may hold beliefs that the universe could possibly be older than the six thousand years of creation or that they wore modern and colored clothing.

This caused an uproar and a permanant schism between EJF/VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR and the Modern Orthodox/RCA world that could well have been to Tropper's/Eisenstein's diabolical liking of causing and precipitating an even larger theological schism than already exists between the Modern Orthodox and the haredi worlds.

Tropper loves intrigues, so unlike most people who would have taken credit for the huge explosion had it succeeded and had it not been handled so crassly and crudely by Eisenstein, for a huge final chasm to erupt between Modern Orthodox and Haredi rabbis, something the RCA has since worked on to fix, rather than accentuate.

This was verified by Gil Student and reported on his Hirhurim blog in Conversion and the Age of the Universe:

"A commenter posted here and on other blogs that at this week's conference of the Eternal Jewish Family, R. Nachum Eisenstein announced from the podium that R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv told him that any rabbi who believes that the world is more than approximately 6,000 years old is a heretic and may not perform conversion (link). I have confirmed the essence of the story -- that R. Eisenstein said such a thing to the audience. I have not confirmed whether R. Elyashiv actually told him that." and

Conversion and the Age of the Universe II: "I was contacted by R. Leib Tropper, who presented at the recent EJF conference discussed in this post, and he offered the following clarifications. It is impossible to have truly universal standards for conversion (and dayanim) because the standards of different communities are contradictory and, even if not, would be incredibly restrictive. For example, the Satmar community would demand that Zionists cannot be dayanim because they are heretics."

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper is blackballed by the MO and YU rabbis.

From the day that Tropper gave the podium to his friend Rabbi Nochum Eisenstein to attack the Modern Orthodox rabbinate, Rav Hershel Shechter the YU Rosh Yeshiva, whoi had shsown some curiosity in the so-called "noble principles" of the "universal higher standards" in conversions, and all the YU and RCA rabbis and faculty have blacklisted Tropper and EJF and will have absolutely nothing to do with Tropper in any way or his EJF and all the monies he may have wanted to wave in front of them as blandishments, and as can be seen now, they are the better off for it, regardless of how Tropper tried to spin it and put it back together.

So poor amateur politico Tropper entirely lost the "left" of Orthodoxy forever, that is if he ever had it, but he probably thought he could sweet talk his way and fool them long enough to spring his final plan, whatver it really was in his mind, to set up the EJF as a "reliable" organization that would be liked by all but carrying out his hidden agenda, thanks to the damage inflicted by his buddy Nochum Eisenstein.

It may well be that at that point Guma Aguiar and his wife Jamie and Guma's parents, Otto and Ellen Aguiar saw the light and decided that they would never get anywhere with a barbarian like Tropper leading them hitched as he was to wagon of Eisenstein's jihad against the MO and RZ rabbis and that they would be beter off taking their chances with the Religious Zionist leadership in Israel instead that Tropper loved to malign and hate.

So evidently Guma and co would have nothing of that and off to Israel they went spouting a new found love and zeal for all forms of Zionism and all things Israeli, like buying bankrupt soccer and baskeball teams that must have Tropper eating his guts out that all that money could have been his to play around and use as hooks and ladders to get his way with the world. This often happens when haredi kiruv rabbis do not get their way.

The story with its implications for everyone in the Jewish world is still unfolding.

R' John Edwards said...

RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN) -- Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards talked a campaign aide into claiming he fathered a child born to Edwards' onetime mistress, sources familiar with the issue said Monday.

Andrew Young, former aide to Sen. John Edwards, claims Edwards knew all along his mistress was carrying his child.

Edwards admitted to his affair with Rielle Hunter in August 2008 after months of denials, but said he could not have been the father of Hunter's daughter, who was born the previous February. Former Edwards staffer Andrew Young has said he was the girl's father -- but has recanted and says he made it because he believed in Edwards, lawyers and others familiar with the matter told CNN.

Young was married with children when he claimed to have fathered Hunter's child. He never signed any affidavits or legal papers, however, and reversed his claim after Edwards, as one of the sources put it, dropped Young "like a hot potato."

The news comes as a grand jury in Edwards' home state of North Carolina is investigating payments made to Hunter -- who had been hired as a campaign videographer -- by the former senator's campaign and supporters. Hunter was photographed entering the courthouse where the grand jury was meeting in August.

Neither Edwards nor his wife responded to requests for comment from CNN.

Edwards paid Hunter's production company $114,000 for a series of videos featuring him before and during his 2008 campaign. He said in May that he believed "that no funds from my campaign were used improperly."

Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN that if Edwards willfully failed to report payments to his mistress that could be considered campaign contributions, he could face felony charges that carry prison terms of up to five years.

"A lot of this comes down to civil penalties -- $5,000, $25,000, $50,000," Hostin said. "But there are also criminal penalties -- and when a grand jury is convened, that usually is what the prosecutors are looking for. They're looking for a criminal indictment."

Obama Coup said...

http://www.jewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=40799

SILENT COUP?

By: Editorial Board

Date: Wednesday, September 16 2009

The recent resignation of Van Jones, one of President Obama's cronies, from a midlevel position in the administration over some virulently leftist and anti-U.S. statements is but the latest indication of the disconnect between this president and the American tradition and people.

Although not directly related, the Jones imbroglio tends to confirm what we have been saying of the president's efforts-conducted in an almost coup-like fashion - to foist on the country a plan that would have the government take control of health care out of the hands of private companies and prescribe anti-business standards governing whom to cover.

It's a plan that, notwithstanding the protestations of the president and his lackeys in the mainstream media, will surely increase the premiums of those already covered.

In addition, the monumental tax increases that will be necessitated by the fantastic spending frenzy already initiated by Mr. Obama, which will be followed up by the tremendous cost of adding 40 million people to the health care rolls at public expense, can mean nothing other than a fundamental redistribution of wealth through the tax laws.

There's more: The Washington Examiner reported this week that if the health care plan envisioned by President Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse or game the system. Americans would be required to attest on their tax return that they have "acceptable" coverage - which would give the IRS a basis for investigating the truth of the statement.

Further, the Justice Department has announced it is redirecting the focus of its Civil Rights Division from one of reacting to particular charges of discrimination to one of seeking out systemic patterns of actions by employers that allegedly have adverse impact on minorities.
Of course, this all comes in the context of the massive intrusion into, and virtual takeover of, key sectors of the American economy in the guise of a "stimulus."

Plainly, something monumental is playing itself out here. With each passing day the president offers fresh evidence that, far from being the traditional liberal Democrat many Americans thought they were getting, he is a European-style socialist out to radically transform what remains at heart a center-right nation.

Prudence dictates we sound the political alarm bells loud and clear to those who will be coming to us for our votes in the 2010 midterm elections.

Obama-Rahm-Bo Coup said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/us/politics/22dems.html?hp

The White House’s intervention in the race for New York governor is the latest evidence of how President Obama and his top advisers are taking an increasingly direct role in contests across the country, but their assertiveness has bruised some Democrats who suggest it could undercut Mr. Obama’s appeal with voters tired of partisan politics.

The overt involvement of Mr. Obama’s team in New York, where they have tried to ease Gov. David A. Paterson out of the race, has made clear that this is a White House willing to use its clout to help clear the field for favored Democratic candidates and to direct money and other resources in the way it thinks will most benefit the administration and help preserve the Democrats’ majority in Congress.

The president’s top strategists have recruited candidates — and nudged others to step aside — in races in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. They said they intended to continue this practice heading into the 2010 midterm elections, as well as with an eye to the redistricting fights that will go on within states early in the next decade.

The intense involvement reflects the tactics and style of the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel

“The Democratic Party under Barack Obama did not come into office because of political calculation; it got there because of audacity,” said Representative Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania Democrat who ignored White House efforts to urge him to stay out of a primary race against Senator Arlen Specter. “To be seen like you are selecting winners and losers in a party-boss way will breed some resentment, and in a longer term it won’t bode well.”

Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush, also actively intervened in state races to make sure Republicans were fielding strong candidates. But Mr. Rove faulted this White House for what he described as its clumsy handling of the situation in New York.

“This was particularly ham-handed,” Mr. Rove said. “They shouldn’t have tried this unless they can make it happen. Even then, they should have acted in a way that was subtle, not messy and ugly.”

In Massachusetts, the White House is trying to ensure that the state legislature works quickly to resolve whether Gov. Deval Patrick will be given the power to appoint a replacement for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. That vote could be vital to passing a health plan in the Senate.

UOJ gets results said...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/09/18/unruly.passenger.airlines/

Stricter punishments for passengers behaving badly

You can run but you can't hide said...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/22/2009-09-22_rape_suspect_says_wasnt_me.html

The suspected uptown rapist made a break for freedom at his arraignment Monday night, but only got a few yards before correction officers wrestled him to the floor.

Vincent Heyward sprinted through a back door in the courtroom and into a prisoner holding area after an unidentified young woman - believed to be a girlfriend - took a seat near him and began blowing kisses.

The arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court halted for nearly 15 minutes as sounds of a commotion came from behind a closed door to the holding area.

When it ended, Heyward was brought in - hands cuffed behind his back - with eight correction officers around him.

Police said two court officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle.

Netivot ponzi scam said...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116108.html

Taxman uncovers Netivot Ponzi scam

By Nati Toker and Amit Benaroia

Another Ponzi scheme has reportedly been uncovered in Israel: Tamir Feigelbaum, 36, of the ultra-Orthodox community of Rechasim in Jerusalem, managed millions of shekels for investors, promising monthly returns of 15%. But Feigelbaum's business fell into difficulties, and the Tax Authority launched an extensive investigation after one of Feigelbaum's agents was unable to explain the presence of large sums of money in his bank account.

The business was operated like a Ponzi scheme, said a Tax Authority source. The core principle of such a fraud is that new investors finance the relatively high interest paid out. If too many investors want their money back, the business collapses. The source described Feigelbaum as a regular guy adept in the machinations of the capital market.

The business ran smoothly for years, because Feigelbaum paid interest regularly. It was said the banks were not involved in any loans, and the funds were deposited in his own account. The Tax Authority says the business had not reported income tax during its 11 years of operation.

Feigelbaum's clients - primarily Haredim and residents of outlying areas - lost their entire investment. The police are not known to be investigating the affair.

The Tax Authority says Feigelbaum evaded paying millions of shekels in taxes, and that his annual turnover was NIS 200 million. The state is seeking to collect NIS 73 million.

Feigelbaum reportedly operated a network of 10 to fifteen independent agents, who solicited business on their own behalf. Netivot, where Feigelbaum focused most of his efforts, is believed to have been hit particularly hard. A former Netivot client estimates that 80% of the city's population had invested with Feigelbaum. "Young people are driving around in BMW cars bought with money they made from investing with him," the source said. "They were making NIS 20,000 a month, in addition to their salaries, and living it up."

Feigelbaum reportedly permitted investors to withdraw their principal. "He's a genius. There's no doubt about it. He developed unique methods for making a fortune on the stock market,' one agent says. Nevertheless, like many of his investors he admits he did not know exactly where Feigelbaum had invested, or how he operated. The Tax Authority says Feigelbaum told investors he had invested in high-earning securities.

part 2 said...

Investment with Feigelbaum did not promise a set return. Some agents received 15% a month, and they in turn offered less to their investors, depending on the security demanded. The expiration date - monthly or quarterly - also differed among investors. A source knowledgeable about the probe of the case said some investors had deposited legitimate funds, while others, the investigators believe, had used unreported income.

The Tax Authority is now tracking down the hundreds of investors and has reached dozens so far. Feigelbaum, who was arrested in March, admitted to financial activity but denied the suspicions raised against him.

His agents are suspected of evading taxes on their agent fees. Investors who were unable to explain the source of their funds have also been questioned.

Feigelbaum was released conditionally after his arrest last March. The Tax Authority says he has admitted in the course of the investigation that he has been involved in securities trading since 1998, and that he had not reported the establishment of the business or its revenues to the Tax Authority.

One of Feigelbaum's agents, Shmuel Madar, 43, of Moshav Shtulim near Kiryat Malachi, who was arrested in early April and released conditionally, allegedly has admitted he had invested money with Feigelbaum, brokered between Feigelbaum and other investors and had not reported income of between NIS 700,000 and NIS 850,000 in brokerage fees, but had reported only the interest earned on his investments. He also reportedly said he earned NIS 141,000 on his investments and has still not received brokerage fees due to him of NIS 241,000.

Sources once been in contact with Feigelbaum say he became entangled with a crime family after a demand he return money invested by a well-known rabbi from Netivot. Feigelbaum ceased payments to all of his investors following the incident.

Enough to give Shmarya a heart attack said...

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2008/09/do-taxpayers-need-marriage-workshops

How did he miss this article about an Aish Hatorah rabbi who got a $500k government contract to help Black people stay married?

Michael Lesher Esq. said...

http://tzedek-tzedek.blogspot.com/2009/09/wishing-away-child-abuse.html

Jonathan Rosenblum’s recent attempt to wish away child sex abuse allegations in Ramat Beit Shemesh (“Think Again: Those Primitive Haredim – Yet Again,” Jerusalem Post, June 11, 2009 ) is so full of false assumptions and disingenuous gibes aimed at anyone audacious enough to challenge Orthodox rabbis on the issue (critics just don’t like the haredim, he suggests, even when the critics are themselves haredim) that no short response can do justice to them all.

But the greatest evil of his column lies less in what he says than in what he doesn’t say. For in Rosenblum’s head-in-the-sand world, when a fact reflects poorly on haredi rabbis, it doesn’t even get to see the light.

You’d never know, from Rosenblum’s writing, that anyone had made more than a few careless accusations about child sex abuse in Ramat Beit Shemesh. But of course they did: the complaints – all quoted in recent articles in The Jerusalem Post and in Ha’aretz – were both specific and severe. A mother complained that when she reported her own child’s abuse (with “proof,” according to the article), the rabbis in Ramat Beit Shemesh “called me a liar and said that this kind of thing does not happen here.” Another parent, whose abuse allegation was supported by professional evaluators, spoke of “a combination of denial, protecting your good name and not involving the secular world” which, he said, characterizes his community’s rabbinic leadership. In fact, he told the reporter that “his family was threatened and pressured by community leaders not to pursue the matter with the police,” and even the abused child was “ostracized by most former classmates.”

How does Rosenblum deal with those charges? Simple: he doesn’t.

Nor does Rosenblum, who boasts of his acquaintance with Ramat Beit Shemesh’s “young, worldly and energetic” rabbis, ever tell the reader what those vigorous sages actually know about child sex abuse. One of them is quoted as prescribing “vigilance”; but all their energy and worldliness combined cannot give Rosenblum’s readers a single clue about what they look for in an alleged child sex abuse case, or how they look, or whom they consult, if anyone.

Rosenblum is even silent on what may be the most important question of all: whether these rabbis encourage their congregants to report to police without first seeking a rabbi’s specific approval. Rosenblum suggests vaguely that they must favor police reports on suspected offenders because a prominent haredi rabbi has authorized the practice. (He doesn’t name the rabbi, perhaps because – if Rabbi Elyashiv is the one he means – he misrepresents Elyashiv’s published view as more pro-reporting than it really is.) But if, in fact, the Ramat Beit Shemesh rabbis insist on being the ones who decide whether an allegation may move on to secular authorities, Rosenblum’s defense only means that the rabbis may support reporting a given case, assuming that they themselves are persuaded of the sufficiency of the evidence. How is that standard to be satisfied? Again, Rosenblum doesn’t say.

part 2 said...

The disingenuousness of Rosenblum’s silence on these critical points is particularly offensive when juxtaposed with his sanctimonious outcry against the critics of Ramat Beit Shemesh’s rabbis. In attacking the parents, and David Morris, who has supported them, Rosenblum is uninhibitedly nasty: he accuses Morris, for instance, of making a “wild claim” and demanding that “a teacher should be automatically fired the first time any student complains of untoward behavior, and he and his family stigmatized for life.” Of course, Morris never demanded any such thing.

But more important, Rosenblum’s choice of targets – his selective invective – exposes the real point of his defense. It really doesn’t matter to Rosenblum, finally, whether the rabbis deny the reality of sex abuse charges, cover up for the guilty, and blame the victims. If they do all that, it’s simply proof to Rosenblum that blaming victims for telling the truth really can be better than taking action against those they accuse. The only thing certain is that one cannot criticize the rabbis.

Rosenblum even strengthens this bizarre implication with one of the strangest claims I have ever seen in print: that rabbis choose to stand between victims and law enforcement for the victims’ own good:

The rabbis’ preference for working behind the scenes derives . . . from a considered philosophy about what is best for victims, their families and the community. The knowledge that incidents will be publicized can keep victims or their parents from coming forward. In addition, publicity can lead to hysteria . . .

Well, there you have it, folks: the reporting of child sex abuse cases actually inhibits the reporting of child sex abuse cases. Even worse, it can cause “hysteria.” Wouldn’t want that, now, would we?

All in all, Rosenblum’s column – which claims to disprove the existence of child sex abuse cover-ups in Orthodox communities – is itself a kind of cover-up. Not only does Rosenblum refuse to discuss any of the key questions, he simply assumes they don’t exist.

As a contributor to the first book-length treatment of child sex abuse in Jewish communities (Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities & Child Sex Scandals, Brandeis University Press, 2009), I must add that Rosenblum’s denial is depressingly familiar. But if our communal spokesmen don’t start doing any better than this, we can only be headed for disaster in the long run. The political philosopher Leo Strauss once said of such empty theorizing that it amounted to “fiddling while Rome burns” – and he added these ominously relevant words: “It is excused by two facts: it does not know that it fiddles, and it does not know that Rome burns.”

RBS resident said...

Rosenblum's original article in the JPost claimed that the rabbonim refer all cases to social workers who automatically refer them to the police. This was, of course, false, and was the very crux of the dispute between David Morris and the Rabbonim. So when Rosenblum's article was reprinted in the charedi press, that line was quietly removed. Of course, there was no explicit retraction and admission that he had distorted things.

Rubashkin tracker said...

It was correctly reported on this blog last week that Tevya's Ranch is a Rubashkin front out of Uruguay. The Stonehill Group LLC that registered the corporate name is itself the brand name for some vacuum packed pastrami they are importing. Stonehill Group pastrami has been showing up in Nassau County, NY.

http://www.importgenius.com/importers/stonehill-group-llc.html

It states here that the Rubashkins are also using this company to import malt extract and infant food from Uruguay and crushed pineapple from Hong Kong.

The phone number listed for Stonehill Group in Manhattan is actually a Uruguayan area code.

Rubashkin tracker said...

Rubashkin used the Uruguyan area code to throw people off.

212-354-7000 and 590 5th Ave in Manhattan is also tied to a real estate developer Stonehill Group http://www.stonehillg.com/stonehill.swf and Citra Russian Diamonds http://www.citradiamond.com/ a.k.a. Lubavitcher Ari Chitrik.

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2006/11/05/2006-11-05_construction_zone_nightmare_.html

Chitrik may have blood on his hands through illegal construction causing death according to government reports cited by the NY Daily News.

http://www.tevyasranch.com/

Tevya Ranch website itself is registered to Ari Chitrik too. It is not currently working although there was an ad in the Yated about it promoting the brand and the website.

http://www.vosizneias.com/24985/2008/12/30/new-york-ny-chabad-committee-formed-to-help-rubashkin-defense/

Chitrik is on the Rubashkin "pidyon shvuyim" committee formed mostly of Rubashkin relatives.

One interesting note: the Rubashkins have dumped Menachem Lubinsky for BottomLine Marketing Group (Yitzchok Saftlas).

Politically incorrect said...

Obama spared menthol from the ban because it's the favorite flavor of shvartzas.

Shmarya I'm sure will spin this that there is a frum doctor at the FDA who wants to damage the health of Blacks.

http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20090922/fda-bans-flavored-cigarettes

Sept. 22, 2009 -- As of today, it's illegal in the U.S. to buy or sell most flavored cigarettes.

However, the FDA ban does not include the most popular cigarette flavor: menthol. It does cover every other conceivable flavor, including candy, spice, herb, cola, fruit, and coffee flavors.

The flavored-cigarette ban is the FDA's first major anti-tobacco action since President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in June. The law gives the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products.

The law doesn't let FDA ban cigarettes entirely. But Congress has stated that flavors make cigarettes more appealing to youth and increase their exposure to toxic substances.

Stanley Chais said...

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown on Tuesday filed a civil suit against Stanley Chais, described as the “Madoff middleman,” and will seek to recover $270 million in illicit fees, plus $25 million in civil penalties.

Chais, 82, is a longtime Beverly Hills businessman and philanthropist, who donated some $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes, including Soviet refugees, all of Israel’s major universities, Hillel, Jewish culture and the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He also invested in Israeli high-tech startups.

The first paragraph of the formal complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, reads: “This action is brought against Stanley Chais, an unregistered investment adviser, who over the past 40 years has recklessly and clandestinely delivered hundreds of millions of dollars of investors’ money to his friend and associate Bernard Madoff.

“Chais, who fashioned himself as an ‘investment wizard,’ collected over $250 million in fees supposedly for exercising his skill and judgment in managing investments. In fact, all Chais did was turn over the entirety of his investors capital to Madoff without their knowledge or authorization and despite numerous indicia that Madoff was running a fraudulent scheme.”

Deputy Attorney General Alexandra Robert Gordon, who is prosecuting the case, told The Journal at a press conference that Chais, like Madoff, drew most of his investors from the Jewish community.

Also like Madoff, Brown added, Chais made it appear as if he were conferring a special favor on potential investors by allowing them to join the “club.”

Chais funneled the money to Madoff through three feeder funds – Brighton, Lambeth and Popham – which are also being investigated.

For his services, Chais charged investors an “astronomical” annual fee of 25 percent on all profits, Brown said.

Chais now resides in New York, and could not be reached for comment. At press-time Tuesday, his attorney, Eugene Licker of Loeb & Loeb LLP issued a statement saying that Chais had not yet been served, and had no further information other than press reports.

Charlie Hynes said...

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/a-voice-for-the-poor-is-silenced/

Mr. Wagner reasoned that the Federal Reserve and Treasury were doing a splendid job of looking out for the bankers, so he took up the legal cudgel to protect impoverished homeowners from foreclosure. He and a colleague convinced the F.D.I.C. to substantially write down a mortgage for an elderly client, he waged a decade-long civil battle against a particularly unrepentant house flipper, and grew so frustrated with the inaction of the Brooklyn district attorney in combating mortgage fraud that he took to traveling around Brooklyn on weekends, showing up at forums to challenge prosecutors.

One Saturday last winter, he cornered a wincing deputy prosecutor before a crowd in a church basement in Flatlands. “Most of the con artists perpetrating frauds continue to have a better chance of being kidnapped by Somali pirates than of being prosecuted by your office,” Mr. Wagner noted to hoots of applause.

Weeks later, the district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, announced with some fanfare the arrest of a low-level ring of swindlers, not least a man who had impersonated his own mother. Mr. Wagner was not overly impressed.

“Here’s your headline,” Mr. Wagner said. “ ‘D.A. Accuses Man of Not Being His Own Mother: Charles Hynes is guardedly optimistic that the gynecological evidence will sustain his accusation.’ ”

Shea Fishman said...

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/climate-change-is-on-the-map-and-in-the-spotlight/

September 22, 2009, 3:01 PM

Climate Change Is on the Map, and in the Spotlight

By A. G. SULZBERGER

UOJ gets results said...

LOS ANGELES — More than a thousand police officers and federal agents, many in full body armor, swept through dozens of homes in northeastern Los Angeles before dawn Tuesday seeking members of one of the city’s largest and most violent street gangs.

The study must have covered Dr. Bungalow Putz on Tuvya's blog said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/research/29awar.html

Some medical students have made sexually provocative comments online. Others have used obscene language, or posted video of themselves drunk or using drug paraphernalia.

The first study to assess online posting of unprofessional content by medical students found that it was far more common than the authors anticipated.

The paper, based on a survey of deans of student affairs, was published in the Sept. 23-30 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

UOJ gets results said...

http://news.aol.com/article/rasmussen-poll-anger-at-government/682185

Poll Finds Most Voters Mad at Washington

CNN putz said...

A real estate investment guru who hosted a radio talk show and investing seminars was arrested in Dallas on fraud and identity theft charges, the FBI said.

Clifford Wayne Robertson, 43, of Murphy, Texas, was taken into custody Friday in Dallas by the FBI. He is accused of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly trying to obtain financing since 2007 using someone else's personal information.

Earlier this year, TV station WFAA in Dallas aired complaints from several people who claimed Robertson bilked them out of their life savings. They described a man who built up trust using an inflated resume and operating under a host of business names who got them to buy property sight unseen. What they didn't know was Robertson also ran the companies selling the properties in terrible condition at inflated prices.

He also was accused of running up charges on his followers credit cards.

"You've got a one-man wrecking crew here that is crossing the board on all types of criminal violations -- whether it be identity theft, mortgage fraud, investment fraud, Ponzi schemes," Michael Anderson, assistant special agent in charge at the Dallas office of the FBI told WFAA earlier this year. "Our response to that is he needs to be stopped."

Robertson had been a host on CNN 1190 in Texas, and talked up his investing strategies on the show.

Archie Bunker said...

Steve, you wrote on FM that Bryks has his own shul. What shul would that be? He had a yeshiva in Kew Gardens Hills that the RCA forced him to wind down. He lives in Richmond Hill, a half block outside of Kew Gardens and at least sometimes davens by the big shul on Lefferts.

Ahavah said...

Obama announces to the UN that America is now Israel's enemy.

This morning, just shy of 10:30am, I was in the car - running a bit late - and was listening to NPR. What I heard during the short time I was listening is that 1) Obama told the UN and the world that the UN needs to step in and enforce "peace" treaties and halt any sort of ethnic strife, and then the very next subject of his speech was the idea that 2) Israel must be confined to the pre-1967 borders. Implicit in the proximity, order, and intention of these statements is that Obama plans to use the UN to take away more of the mandated land from Israel and give it to the surrounding Arab nations - in the false name of "Palestine," naturally. Of course, he didn't come out and say it exactly like that - but that is what I heard. As I warned previously, Obama intends to authorize the UN with a mandate to once again shrink the Jewish reservation - this time to barely 1/4 of the original mandate, an indefensible area. In that he follows a long line of dishonorable US Presidents who had no qualms whatsoever about the ethnic genocide their policies caused when they stole land from Native Americans for their "manifest destiny," - which is manifest nowhere except the greedy imaginations of the land grabbers, unlike Israel's destiny which was declared by the prophets a long time before Obama chose sides with Israel's enemies.

Obama, who claims to be a Christian, must not have studied prophecy very well. He has clearly placed himself in league with those who would "divide the land" (per Daniel) and are condemned by God and prophesied to be swept away by history - not a smart move for a guy who hopes to have help from heaven for his country's economic recovery and protection from terrorism from those same Arabs who are chomping at the bit to rid the world of both Israel and America. If he thinks this will buy security for America, he is sadly mistaken.

There is no doubt in my mind that his defacto permission to consider Israel as an "occupier" will lead the Arabs to initiate their own "Final Solution," a Holocaust that will make the European version look like a picnic in the park. Not that Obama cares - but he should, because it won't stop there. The Muslim mentality that has no qualms expelling Jews from their God-given homeland by force will not even blink at using nukes, biological, or chemical warfare against the hedonistic, decadent, imperialist infidels of America. As long as the "pax Americana" exists, no matter how Obama tries to dress it up in UN garb, it is a threat to Muslim domination and Arab expansion and will not be countenanced.

So now we see that the warnings, unheeded, were true - Obama intends to throw Israel under the bus for Oil. The Arabs can destroy the US economy overnight simply by raising the price of oil back to $150 a barrel - and I wouldn't doubt that they have threatened to do so. Unfortunately, they will only uphold their side of the bargain as long as it is expedient for them to do so. As soon as Israel is destroyed, they will promptly reneg on whatever promises they made Obama concerning oil or anything else. Obama is betting this country's future on Islam's willingness to be bound by their word - when history has shown over and over that they have no honor. Well, good luck with that. Prophecy only matters to those who believe in it, after all. Obama knows which side his earthly bread is buttered on, and has acted accordingly.

Hope it tastes good while it lasts, Obama. You made a deal with the devil - and the rest of us get to pay the price for it.

Red Alert! said...

Rubashkin is doling out allotments of meat that middlemen are buying and trying to unload like peddlers with a fleet of trucks, that are white and unmarked, that are showing up unsolicited at restaurants, caterers and supermarkets everywhere.

Besides Tevye's Ranch, Stonehill Group, etc, they are using all kinds of cockamamie labels including "Weissmandel". They are printing out invoices using Quickbooks software and make up the names as they go along. Some of the boxes are in Spanish lettering and have the seal of the Crown Hts Beis Din who are cronies of Moishe Rubashkin.

Because everything is disguised so well, many of the recipients don't even have a clue that Rubashkin is the source. And besides, it's hard to refuse when the stuff is between 20 to 75 cents cheaper per pound.

The most sickening part of this is that the Queens Vaad is reportedly in on the scam and trying to get a foothold in the market for Rubashkin, even to the point where they are calling up establishments who don't want the deliveries and PRESSURING them to take it. Is anyone on the take over there?

Guma Aguiar said...

I heard some of those Rubashkin boxes are even in Portugese. I'll throw that chazirei right out the ventana (window) with Leib Tropper!

Parole board resign! said...

For eight years after Jaycee Dugard's abduction, through the sexual bondage of her teen years and the birth of her two girls fathered by Phillip Garrido, state and local authorities likely had no clue that a convicted sex offender was living at the house on Walnut Avenue near Antioch.
It appears Garrido didn't register as a sex offender in California until 1999, despite his 1976 convictions in Nevada for kidnapping and raping a female casino worker and the fact he was under federal parole supervision over those years.
It may be that nobody ever told him to register, a top federal parole official said.
There may be many others like him — people who were convicted of sex crimes in other states, moved to California and have since flown below the sex offender radar, a state Department of Justice official acknowledged.
"He (Phillip Garrido) came to us in 1999, when he was in that (unincorporated) Antioch address, and since then for 10 years he has registered as required," said Contra Costa County sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee. "I can't account for what happened before that, or even where he was."
State authorities refused to detail Garrido's registration history. But El Dorado County sheriff's officials say Garrido and his wife, Nancy, were living at the house since at least 1991, when police say the couple snatched Dugard, then 11, from her South Lake Tahoe street and brought her back to the house.

Cranston Mitchell, vice chairman of the U.S. Parole Commission, declined to disclose the address that Garrido gave when he transferred to the supervision of a federal parole agent in California in late 1988.

UOJ Gets Results said...

Former teacher, cantor in Toronto charged with sex abuse in Israel

Written by Atara Beck
Wednesday, 23 September 2009

REHOVOT-TORONTO – A former high school teacher and cantor in Toronto is under house arrest in Israel, where he now lives, following allegations of sexual abuse.

An Israeli, the charismatic educator was a shaliach (emissary) at the Richmond Hill campus of the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (CHAT) in 2000-2005. The following year he served as cantor of Shaarei Shomayim congregation for 10 months before returning to Israel.

One of the most highly respected and popular teachers in this community and a winner of CHAT’s Toronto Teacher of Excellence Award in 2002, he was known to inspire youth religiously and had volunteered at several NCSY (Jewish outreach organization) youth programs. A gifted musician with a golden voice, he performed at community events and private celebrations.

“As a community, we are deeply saddened by this news and our thoughts and prayers go out to those who may have been affected.”

At this writing, reports on the arrest have appeared in the Hebrew press only. A story in Ha’aretz claimed that two students had come forth with allegations, and YNET reported there were three complainants. Most of the readers’ comments following the stories were made by students that defended the accused passionately, calling him a tzaddik (righteous person) and accusing those who made the allegations of jealousy and malice.

However, according to another source that wished to remain anonymous, the allegations of sexual impropriety had begun to surface as far back as June, but were kept secret.

Rabbi Glenn Black, CEO of NCSY Canada, spoke to the Jewish Tribune on Monday and expressed his dismay.

“As the largest Jewish youth organization in North America, NCSY has a built-in structure to deal with any type of situation that affects our young people. This includes an office of an ombudsman to whom all cases are referred.

“Personally, I am shocked and saddened by this report and I am in close contact with our international NCSY leadership to send out a full and coordinated response. In light of this new information, we are sending a letter to our membership, inviting them to share their concerns and to assure them that NCSY will do whatever is necessary to protect our youth.

“I hope that during these days of reflection between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we will all pause and consider what more we, as a community, can do to protect our children.”

A spokesperson for the police in Rehovot, Israel, told the Jewish Tribune that Rabbi Avichai Zehavi has been officially charged with sexual abuse and that four families have come forth separately with allegations to date.

Toronto said...

Avichai Zehavi started working in town at the same time that another NCSY molester, Baruch Lanner, was under investigation.

CHAT is a co-ed non-denominational high school. Shaarei Shamayim had a microphone on Shabbos, Yom Tov and even Yom Kippur for years. One rabbi was thrown out when he covered it erev Rosh Hashana so he would not be mechalel. They probably still have an unacceptable mechitzah.

The biggest shul in Toronto is the BAYT led by Rabbi Baruch Taub. He is Leib Pinter's in law and was the head of NCSY for 10 years that Lanner was molesting kids. In 1972, Lanner was threatened with suspension for having sex with two girls but Taub and the boys at NCSY never made good on that threat. Taub's sons are authors and editors at Artscroll.

Hitting Bottom said...

Shmarya is trying to masser on Hatzolah for allowing Williamsburg's Isaac Abraham to respond to calls when his EMT certification has lapsed. There is no law prohibiting Abraham from responding but Hatzolah could be in trouble for keeping him in their ranks.

Very good, Shmarya. So if you succeed in shutting down this frum organization that has saved countless neshomos, you will have plenty of blood on your hands, you sick animal.

Tzfas said...

Yechiel Spira • YWN Israel

Tzfas police are investigating the incident in which a 4-year-old girl fell from the family’s third story balcony, sustaining what was reported as a serious head injury. Officials in Ziff Hospital in Tzfas on Tuesday morning reported the girl’s condition as moderate.

Police report the child’s mother was busy in the house and unaware her child fell off the balcony until neighbors came running to inform her. It appears the child struck the motor portion of an air conditioner below, somewhat breaking her fall, and then hit the canopy of a first floor balcony. Neighbors report this chain of events saved her from a fatal fall.

Zaka responders who were on the scene report the girl sustained multiple fractures and serious head trauma.

Some of the EMS personnel who were operating on the scene confirm that the mother delayed transport to the hospital when she told them she cannot permit them to take her to a hospital until she first confers with a rav. The delay according to most was almost 20 minutes.

Tzfas Police Chief Ron Ofir confirms his investigation is still ongoing and there is a possibility the mother will be charged with negligence.

Albany said...

http://jewishworldnews.org/

The Albany Jewish World is running a paid ad in the print edition (that looks like an article) that Rubashkin son in law Yaakov Weiss, who is on trial for child molestation, is holding Yom Kippur services for families at the Shaker Rd Fire Station, 550 Albany Shaker Rd, Loudonville, NY.

Weiss falsely advertises himself as Chabad Lubavitch even though 770 has thrown him out of the network.

Shmarya groupie said...

I haven't yet figured out a way to blame Orthodox Jews for this, but mark my word, I will!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/health/policy/24grady.html

ATLANTA — If Grady Memorial Hospital succeeds in closing its outpatient dialysis clinic, Tadesse A. Amdago, a 69-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, said he would begin “counting the days until I die.” Rosa Lira, 78, a permanent resident from Mexico, said she also assumed she “would just die.” Another woman, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras, said she could only hope to make it “back to my country to die.”

Hospital officials estimate that two-thirds of the outpatient clinic’s roughly 90 patients are illegal immigrants.

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper's dinghy versus Guma's battleship PR war.

In a previous post with a video from YNet on YouTube of Guma Aguiar playing tennis in it, Guma Aguiar on Sports and Politics in Jerusalem, there were two young pretty females in it, a blond at the outset and a brunnete at the end, and there was a doubt which of those was Guma Aguiar's wife.

Well now a new video has been posted from JPost news that proves that the blond is Guma's wife (well what would you expect, "gentlemen prefer blonds", right?) Guma Aguiar Superstar at which he is celebrating with his new Jerusalem soccer team and there he is clearly showing off his blond knock-out wife and not even bothering to wear a kippa, well at work one doesn't have to, and here he is working with his soccer team. And he's even called a "superstar" to boot.

So what's going on here? In the last year a series of pro-Guma Aguiar videos have been coming out, and it is very obvious that Guma Aguiar has hired really slick and professional publicists to get out the word and plant stories in the media about him, his greatness in business and tzedaka and always giving him the chance to preach about a Jewish religious topic, like the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jews, as he does in the sports videos, and in this interview on Fox News with Mike Huckabee, Mike Huckabee Interviews Guma Aguiar on Fox News Channel.

This he easily learned to do at the feet of his former "rosh yeshiva" Leib Tropper who roped Guma Aguiar in to become one of his biggest financial backers ever and prior to their falling out it was Guma who was paying for Tropper's PR all over the place, but so far no video footage of Tropper speaking has surfaced online because if that were to happen people would be able to judge for themselves the frenzied and perspiring way that Tropper harangues and the way his eyes roll about in his skull as he twists and turns for ways to zap his listeners to induce the right state of shock in them for him to inject them with his invective of his version of gospel truth to make them into his acolytes as he obviously did with Guma Aguiar and Guma's uncle Dr. Thomas Kaplan.

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper has his own blog now Rabbi Leib Tropper’s blog and he's been putting out grandiose articles about himself and EJF since it's inception, to the point of saturation. There are many examples to this, and usually they run something like this, like in Hamodia, May 13, 2009, Page C32

"EJF Joins Kiruv Organizations in New Effort Against Intermarriage

By Raphael Rosenzweig

The Eternal Jewish Family International (EJF) has launched a major initiative on three continents to stem the tide of intermarriage in Jewish communities in the United States, Israel, and Europe. EJF is joining with the largest and most successful kiruv organizations in reaching out to large numbers of Jewish youth with a direct message about the threat of intermarriage to themselves, their families, and the Jewish future.

“This epidemic of intermarriage can only be confronted with straight talk about the dangers of intermarriage,” said Rabbi Leib Tropper, Rosh Yeshiva of Kol Yaakov/Horizons and chairman of the Rabbinical Board of EJF. “We can no longer afford to beat around the bush in the hope that the anti-intermarriage message will somehow penetrate.”

In addition to its own programs through its Horizons division, EJF has already made significant progress with its new partners. Last November it co-sponsored a seminar for student kiruv professionals enrolled in the Ohr Lagolah program of Ohr Somyach, and in March it co-sponsored a major seminar with Nefesh Yehudi in Baden, Austria, for 100 Israeli medical students. Additional seminars are being planned with Gateways and Lev L’Achim. EJF also enjoys good working relationships with such organizations as Arachim and Hidabroot.

In order to unite all the participants in this initiative, EJF will be sponsoring a three-day conference for Rabbanim and kiruv professionals May 24-26 at the Westin Governor Morris Hotel in Morristown, N.J. Harav Reuven Feinstein, shlita, Rosh Yeshivah of the Mesivta of Staten Island and president of EJF’s Halachic Committee, and Harav Shmuel Kaminetsky, shlita, Rosh Yeshivah of the Yeshivah Gedolah of Philadelphia and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel of America, will address the gathering.

The theme of the conference is “Challenges for Intermarried Families Pursuing Conversion in Communal and Educational Settings.” Among the topics that will be addressed are the devastating impact of improper conversions on families and communities, schools’ responsibilities to verify conversions, the necessity of a conversion l’chumrah, and identifying signs of a fraudulent or questionable conversion.

The Eternal Jewish Family was founded in 2005 and is an affiliate of Horizons/Lillian Jean Kaplan Jewish Pride Through Education Project. It is dedicated to promoting universally-accepted standards for conversion in intermarriage and giving Rabbanim and batei din around the world the support they need for this challenging process.

EJF organizes worldwide rabbinic conferences for the purpose of deliberating on universal conversion standards in intermarriage. EJF’s efforts to prevent the tragedy of faulty conversions are endorsed by Gedolei Torah around the world."

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper had Guma in a chokehold for about three years or so more or less, until Guma broke free.

Tropper claimed it was a fight over granting Guma's pretty blond a conversion, but it was obviously far deeper amd much more serious than that. It was about a non-conformist BT telling his deceitful rabbi to take a hike, as if firing a failed guru who was revealed to have clay feet.

It's doubtful that Tropper gave a crap about some dumb blond in any case, what he needed was cash pumped into his ever hungry veins to keep his own by now expensive habits and EJF conferences going and help to fly in the haredi bigs, in glory, glory, Halelukya manner to himself that is what matters to the big almighty Tropper.

How dare an upstart like Guma think that he could set himself up as a spokesman for Jewry and get media attention for himself that Tropper assumed and presumed was reserved for him and him alone. But it has not turned out that way, as Guma's media exposure and battleship size PR drives and battleplans move on, while Tropper paddles away in his dingy, taking on water as he loses credibility with making up exagarated stories about fisticuffs with Guma and Guma demanding that he return at least ten million dollars that he gave to Tropper.

Ten million bucks is a lot of money to get from a disciple, or anyone, now it's all gone badly and publicly sour and Guma wants it back, not just money, but his sense of self, his sef-respect, his dignity and honor, in short Guma is breathing a sigh of relief every day that he is out of Tropper's version of the Scientology cult.

Moetzes Resign! said...

CHICAGO — The president of the University of Illinois announced Wednesday that he would resign, after a scandal over admissions practices that has for months enveloped the state’s premier public university.

The president, B. Joseph White, had been under growing pressure to take responsibility for his role in the scandal, in which, according to an independent state commission, the university gave admissions preference to unqualified applicants who were the children of the wealthy and well-connected.

A majority of the members of the university’s board resigned after the commission released a scathing report in August. And this month, the university’s Faculty Senate approved a resolution supporting the removal of Mr. White and of Richard Herman, the chancellor of the best-known of the university’s three campuses, in Urbana-Champaign.

In the past, Mr. White, 62, has denied that he pressured anyone to admit particular students, although the commission cited at least one situation in which he conveyed to another university official the wishes of Rod R. Blagojevich, who was then the governor, that two applicants be admitted.

Boruch Shlomo Cunin said...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/96590/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-triumph-at-the-chabad-telethon

Leib Tropper isn't the only one using bells & whistles to promote his scam.

Cunin's big breakfast said...

http://havdalah.blogspot.com/2005/12/cunins-big-breakfast_16.html

Can UOJ vouch for this story advanced by blogger Hank Magitz?

Another blog exposing Cunin said...

http://rabbi-cunin.blogspot.com/2009/06/rabbi-bs-fights-wars-of-g-d.html

Here are MP3 clips of threatening phone messages that Cunin himself left for the blog author when he got wind of it.

Seamus O'Putz said...

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/jewish-prisoner-abused-by-lack-of-kosher-meals-1891971.html

By Dearbhail McDonald Legal Editor

Monday September 21 2009

THE Jewish Representative Council of Ireland will inspect the kitchens of a jail after a prisoner complained to the High Court that his food is not kosher.

The case, the first of its kind in Ireland, has been brought by a Jewish prisoner who was extradited to Ireland from the United Kingdom to stand trial for alleged sexual offences.

The prisoner complained to the High Court that his constitutional rights are being infringed by the failure of the Irish Prison Service to serve him kosher food in Cloverhill Prison.

"I should not be punished or tortured, I have not had a proper meal in months and I am entitled to three kosher meals a day without exception," the prisoner told the High Court.

"This is religious discrimination," he said.

"Muslims get Halal food. I feel abused every day of the week, there is nothing in the Irish Constitution that suggests I can be subjected to such abuse.

"If my food is not prepared in accordance with Jewish rules, it is not kosher. If you use the same pots and pans (used to prepare other prisoners' foods) it is not kosher."

Earlier this year a pan-European Chaplains' conference was held in the Netherlands to discuss the plight of an estimated 3,500 Jewish prisoners In Europe.

Rabbis, Jewish community leaders, chaplains, justice ministers, prison officials, jurists and lawyers from 62 countries across Europe attended the three-day discussion.

Rabbi Bent Lexner said...

This is the modern orthodox Chief Rabbi of Denmark. It's not clear what his role in this is but I will look it up in Danish newspapers. The Europeyishe in Brisk and Kol Torah say he is aptly named Bent because of his krumkeiten.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090923/ARTICLE/909231021/-1/NEWSSITEMAP

Danish attorney Eli Heckscher has found himself where no lawyer wants to be -- central to an FBI investigation in what is becoming a high-profile criminal financial fraud case.

Both in Denmark and in the United States, the FBI is probing the role Heckscher played in the alleged $10 million-plus scam run by Sarasota's John and Marian Morgan.

The leading Danish business publication Dagbladet Børsen is reporting that the FBI is putting particular attention on meetings held in Denmark last year between several unhappy U.S. investors, their attorneys and Heckscher.

The two consecutive meetings were held at the private home of prominent Danish rabbi Bent Lexner, Morgan investor Jackie Kreitzman told the Herald-Tribune.

In his defense, Heckscher has told the Danish equivalent of the Bar association that he had been extorted by the U.S. investors and lawyers, Børsen reported Tuesday. Heckscher said he was told that if he did not cough up $500,000 of his own money, the unhappy investors would go to the police.

Kreitzman's attorney, Leslie Rabuchin, called that claim absurd.

In the U.S., Sarasota-based Internal Revenue Service agent Diane Knott, as part of a joint investigation with FBI agent Lynn Billings, is helping investors to write what will become sworn affidavits against the Morgans during a likely criminal fraud trial in Tampa's federal court.

Kreitzman -- a California speech pathologist who took matters into her own hands and flew to Copenhagen in mid-2008 to confront Heckscher and get her money back -- is a key victim and witness.

She is fine-tuning her affidavit, which is to become an essential document in extraditing the Morgans from jail cells in Sri Lanka, where the couple is being held on separate bank fraud charges.

Also along international lines, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have confirmed that they are conducting their own investigation of the alleged fraud. Part of the documentation that the Mounties are believed to be looking at is correspondence this summer between Heckscher and investor Richard Meyer, who claims he lost 500,000 Canadian dollars to the Morgans.

In an Aug. 10 e-mail, Heskscher asked Meyer to sign away his participation in any future civil or criminal complaint against the Morgans or Morgan European Holdings or Heckscher, in return for getting his principal back.

Heckscher's cover letter provided the latest evidence that the Morgans were still working with Heckscher and still seeking to quiet investors' concerns.

The Morgans already have been found guilty by default in an SEC civil fraud case, which accused them of telling more than 100 investors they would earn yields as high as 30 percent per month for their bundled participation in global banking transactions through Morgan European Holdings. Most investors never received any interest payments or got their principal back.

Instead, they found themselves at the receiving end of two years of stalling missives e-mailed to them by Marian Morgan, in which the couple made numerous excuses for the delay in payments, the SEC's complaint says.

During the same time, the couple bought two multimillion-dollar bayfront Sarasota homes, which they still own.

The Morgans now face likely extradition to Tampa to face a federal criminal complaint filed against them on Aug. 24.

UOJ Gets Results said...

BOSTON -- A former Massachusetts rabbi has been indicted on child sexual assault charges dating back to the 1970s, when he allegedly assaulted two of his pre-teen male students, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said Thursday.

A Suffolk County grand jury returned indictments charging Stanley Z. Levitt, 63, of Philadelphia, with four counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14 for allegedly assaulting two former students of the Maimonides School in Brookline, where Levitt was a teacher.

"This was a betrayal of trust in the most awful sense," Conley said. "The evidence suggests that Levitt abused a position of power, respect, and authority to engage in sexual behavior with boys who were too young to resist and too afraid to speak out."

Levitt is charged with offenses against two former students, both about 11 years old at the time of the crimes, Conley said.

One charge stems from a May 1975 incident in which Levitt allegedly visited a Maimonides student who was recuperating at Children’s Hospital in Boston after an accident.

The other three offenses were allegedly committed against a different male student during a three-night visit to Levitt’s Chiswick Road home, also believed to have taken place in 1975.

"It was the tolling provision in the statute of limitations that allowed us to bring these charges," Conley said. "When Levitt left Massachusetts for Pennsylvania in 1980, the clock stopped and left him open to these charges."

Conley’s office learned of the allegations when the Children’s Hospital victim notified Boston police in September of last year.

Levitt is expected to face arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court on Oct. 17.

UOJ Barf Bag gemach said...

The nut Pinny Lipschutz saw fit to print this on page 100 of the Yated Rosh Hashana edition.

YTT's Yankel Applegrad donating a sefer Torah to Pine River Village beis medrash in Lakewood.

Pictured in order are:

The Munkatcher Rebbe with his trademark closed eyes out of a seance.

R' Matt Salomon writing an ois.

Margo writing an ois.

R' Dovid Schustal writing an ois.

R' Moishe Spiegel writing an ois.

R' Yeruchim Olshin (someone should show him the video of Applegrad lying through his teeth on national television)

Yosef Gartenhaus & R' Alexander Pinkovics.

YTT rebbeim dancing.

Eli Goldberg, R' Yisroel Kleinman, R' Mendel Rochlitz & Yisroel Hisiger.

Page 101 features an Agudah Fresser breakfast with pictures of Zweibel and Senator Lautenberg.

Page 102 shows Kolko defender par exellence Lipa Geldwerth holding his head up high.

Avi Shafran should be proud. Porno mag Playboy has the centerfold and the Yated has it's own disgusting centerfold pictures.

Anonymous said...

Vicky says that Stanley Levitt began molesting over 40 years ago and that he lived in Baltimore for a time.

Zusia said...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/09/rabbi_charged_w.html

Stanley Zusia Levitt, 63, allegedly assaulted two students of the Maimonides School in Brookline, where he taught, according to the indictment handed up Wednesday.

One of the alleged victims contacted Boston police about a year ago, saying Levitt visited him at Children's Hospital in Boston on May 1975, while he was recovered from an accident, and that Levitt sexually assaulted him at the hospital. The other alleged victim told authorities he was assaulted on three occasions by Levitt, during a three-night visit at the teacher's former home on Chiswick Road.

Levitt moved to Pennsylvania in 1980. The statute of limitations, increased from 15 to 27 years, allows for the stoppage of time when a suspect moves out of state. If Levitt had remained in Massachusetts, the statue would have expired by now.

Levitt is scheduled to face arraignment Oct. 17 in Suffolk Superior Court.

Jonathan Wolf Huff said...

(09/23/09)

Jonathan Wolf Huff, 40, dean at Urban Assembly Academy of History and Citizenship for Young Men in New York, New York has been arrested on allegations of molesting a 14-year-old boy in his office.

Huff was reportedly arrested on charges of forcible touching, endangering the welfare of a child and sex abuse.

It is alleged that Huff lured the boy into his office during a session of school and allegedly touched the boy’s genitals over his clothes.

Huff came to the attention of authorities on Monday by way of a 911 call.

Huff was released on his own recognizance following arraignment this morning.

He has a court date set for October 15th.

Huff, who has reportedly been with the school for four years, was “Teacher of the Year” at the school in 2007 and was made dean last year. A spokesperson for the Department of Education says he will be reassigned.

Anonymous said...

Please say Tehillim for Dafna bas Dina Malka who was born today and is in the NICU. The next 48 hours are crucial so please have this precious neshama in your tefilos.

Anonymous said...

Today is Thursday the 6th of Tishrei 5770 and September 24, 2009

A letter from a survivor

Dear Rabbi Eisenman,

Thank you for planning the event in your Shul this Motzei Shabbos.

You know me, meaning, you see me in shul and at your shiurim, however, I have never told you who I really am.

I am a survivor.

It began when I was twelve and continued until I was fourteen.

My parents still do not know.

You see me and you see me smile, however, the pain is never forgotten, the pain is always there.

However, I have survived and I thank Hashem for allowing me to survive.

I am enclosing something I wrote for the event you are hosting on Motzei Shabbos.

I know you have and will get ‘flack’ for being so open about this topic.

I know you will get ‘flack’ for allowing survivors to speak irrespective of the fact that they may not be politically correct.

However, you should just know that I and hundreds of other survivors are with you.

I am enclosing something I wrote which describes me and my fellow survivors.

If you want you can send out to the Shul, -please do not use my name.



THE SURVIVOR

No one wants to be a loser.

No one wants to be defeated.

We all want to continue living and to still ‘be in the running’.

No one wants to be eliminated.

The Jewish people are survivors.

In every generation there are those who attempt to destroy us.

However, Hashem saves us from their evil hands.

We live in the United States of America.

There is no one here who is attempting to annihilate us.

There is no one here who is attempting to stop us.

However, even if from ‘without’ there is no one who is standing upon us to destroy us; there are people who are ‘within’ us who are hurting us.

There are people who maybe in our homes and in our schools;

In our Mikvaos and in our sleeping quarters -who are attempting to hurt us.

The crime they inflicted on me was inflicted in the private; however, the pain must be known to the public.

They prey on the unprotected and they look for the most precious of our possessions, our children.

Sometimes these people are related to us and they sometimes can be people we are taught to trust and respect.

When I was hurt, others are so shocked they assumed I was lying, that ‘it can’t be’.

However, trust me, it happened.

Trust me, the pain never goes away.

We just ask that you see us and recognize us for what we are- Jews.

Jews who have behaved like Jews have behaved for the last two thousand years; we survived; and we will continue to survive.

Hear our voices, feel our pain- that is all we ask.

Name withheld upon request.

Does UOJ have any information on this? said...

JWB is alleging over at FM that a secret deal was made to get Toronto child molester Tuvya Rokach back home from Monsey. According to JWB, the Rockland County DA Zugibe was in on it, pulling a Hynes, pressuring the victims to not press charges and to move away from Monsey.

LA Times imitates UOJ said...

http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-fi-harney20-2009sep20,0,2560658.story

Homeowners who 'strategically default' on loans a growing problem

Putzes at the Agudah Fresser breakfast with Zweibel said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/health/policy/25knee.html?hp

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration admitted Thursday that it mistakenly approved a patch for injured knees last year after being pressured by members of Congress and the manufacturer.

The agency promised to re-evaluate the approval.

Internal documents demonstrate that agency’s scientific reviewers repeatedly determined that the device, known as Menaflex and manufactured by ReGen Biologics Inc., was unsafe because the device often failed, forcing patients to get another operation.

But after receiving inquiries from four New Jersey legislators — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December.

All four legislators made their inquiries after receiving campaign contributions from ReGen.

Torontonian said...

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17686&Itemid=86

CHAT Director Paul Shaviv tells the Canadian Jewish News that anyone molested by Avichai Zehavi should contact him. Why doesn't he encourage them to go to the police?

And other detail about Rabbi Baruch Taub. He was also in charge of the COR when pedophile Heshy Nussbaum was prowling around as mashgiach at non-orthodox summer camps under COR kosher supervision. There are several reports that Nussbaum turned to secular and non-Jewish youth after his sexcapades became known in the orthodox community.

Presumably however, Nussbaum at least did his job in ascertaining that no baloney & cheese sandwiches from Taub's relative Leib Pinter were being served.

Yotzei Copenhagen said...

I am trying to get the story from 3 articles in the Danish language press about Rabbi Lexner and the FBI investigation but du skal være logget på for at få adgang til denne del af borsen.dk.

In other words I have to be a registered user of the business newspaper reporting it. I tried signing in but the registration process doesn't seem to be working at this time.

Yotzei Copenhagen said...

I found an accessible article in the newspaper Politiken.

http://politiken.dk/indland/article793485.ece

Årsagerne til møderne hos overrabbiner Bent Lexner var, at samtlige mødedeltagere er af jødisk observans, og at jeg som livslang ven og tidligere partner med Eli Heckscher ønskede at give Eli Heckscher en mulighed for at forklare sig og rette op på de faktiske forhold, således at sagen om muligt kunne afsluttes i mindelighed,« fremgår det af advokat Leslie Rabuchins klage til Advokatnævnet over sin tidligere forretningspartner Eli Heckscher.

(Rabbi Lexner was basically in a position of overseeing a din Torah because the lawyer Eli Heckscher and the investors were all frum. The rabbi is not exactly impartial because he is a lifelong friend and business partner of Heckscher. He agreed the story was fishy and wanted to give Heckscher a chance to explain himself)

Det har fremgået af en tidligere artikel, at denne sag har noget at gøre med en stor skandale i USA, hvor rabinere og borgmestre er tiltalt for blandt andet organsalg, hvidvaskning af penge og korruption. Det er ikke tilfældet.

(Here the newspaper throws in some typical left wing Scandinavian anti-Semitism in gratuitously editorializing that this rabbi is apparently not like the rabbis in the United States who launders money or human organs)

Pesach hotel fresser said...

(AP) – 33 minutes ago

MARFA, Texas — Actor Randy Quaid and his wife have been arrested in West Texas for allegedly skipping out on a $10,000 California hotel bill.
Quaid and his wife, Evi, were taken into custody Thursday afternoon, according to Santa Barbara County sheriff's officials, who said authorities in West Texas informed them of the arrest. A statement from the California agency said it was told by the Presidio County Sheriff's Department that Evi Quaid was restrained after a brief struggle.
Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez declined to respond to questions from The Associated Press.
Presidio County authorities said earlier Thursday that the two were in custody in Marfa but the department wasn't releasing other details.
Santa Barbara County's sheriff's spokesman Drew Sugars says the warrant for Quaid and his wife set bail at $20,000 each. The felony warrant is for burglary, defrauding an innkeeper and conspiracy.
He says detectives haven't been able to interview the actor yet.
A message left for Randy Quaid's commercial agent, Steven Arcieri, was not immediately returned.
Quaid won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson in "LBJ: The Early Years"; but he's perhaps best known for his roles in the "National Lampoon's Vacation" movies, "Independence Day" and "Kingpin."
He also played a hard-nosed sheep rancher in "Brokeback Mountain," then sued Focus Features and the film's producers in 2006, claiming he was compelled to work cheaply when told the film — which earned $82 million at the domestic box office — had no prospects of making money.
Quaid is a native Texan and the older brother of actor Dennis Quaid.

Guma Aguiar said...

Tropper is lucky he was only on the 9th floor.

http://www.gadling.com/2009/09/23/pilot-for-dutch-low-cost-carrier-arrested-for-his-role-in-argent/

Pilot Juan Alberto Poch was about to fly back to Amsterdam when Spanish police removed him from his Transavia plane because of his involvement in the Argentine "dirty war" between 1976 and 1983.

An Argentine court had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Poch, and he'll be deported so he can answer the allegations brought against him.

These allegations are quite horrible. As part of the dirty war, Mr. Poch flew "death flights". These flights were performed under the disguise of "prisoner transports", but in reality, the passengers were drugged, and dropped out of the plane plummeting to their death in the ocean. In total, up to 30,000 people disappeared, and many of them may have been killed when pushed out of one of these flights.

Bungalow Yenta said...

Wasn't there a rov from Copenhagen who ran away with his blond shiksa goyta abandoning his wife and eight kids?

Restaurant fresser said...

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7029998

By Jim Hoffer

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Time and temperature play a huge role in food poisoning.

That's why refrigerated trucks or coolers are critical to getting food to restaurants safely.

Yet, we discovered throughout the region, there are restaurant owners taking big risks with the health of their customers.

It's enough to make you sick: perishable foods being tossed into the back of trunks, blistering hot vans, and open pick-up trucks. We spent weeks undercover watching one food retailer after another load up their vehicles with all sorts of temperature-sensitive foods from fresh chicken and hamburger to raw seafood and boxes of milk and cartons of eggs.

We watched as food retailers operated in what the U.S. Agriculture Department calls the danger zone, where bacteria grows rapidly in unrefrigerated food.

Undercover in Westchester County, we record as perishables are packed into a van starting around 2:30 in the afternoon, including milk, eggs, raw fish. We follow the van. It's first stop to get gas before crossing into Connecticut, where it gets caught in heavy traffic. At 3:37, it arrives outside a Greenwich caterer where workers begin unloading. Using an infra-red thermometer, I'm able to record a temperature inside the van of 96-degrees. Sprouts and sour cream clearly visible in the baking sun. Then at 4:01, workers and the restaurant owner are unloading the rest of the food at a small restaurant around the corner -- after more than 90 minutes exposed in the extreme heat.

When I told the chef about the risk of food poisoning, he insisted that they are careful.

Even after seeing our surveillance video, the chef insists he handles all his food safely.

What we discovered is that no one is monitoring this. It is a part of the restaurant business that is off the radar of both the health and agriculture departments.

But it is clearly a statewide problem that the Rutgers Food Safety expert says should be a top priority of health officials in both states.

If you have a tip about this or any other issue you'd like investigated, please give our tipline a call at 877-TIP-NEWS. You may also e-mail us at the.investigators@abc.com.

Restaurant fresser 2nd installment said...

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7032014

Our undercover cameras went to Long Island and to a delivery service whose way of getting food to restaurants may have you holding your stomach.

HOFFER: What about this van and this van? Do you want to show me what's inside there?
FOOD HANDLER: No, I don't want to show you nothing.
HOFFER: Of course, you don't.

He and his partner were less than happy to see us as they loaded up their unrefrigerated vans for another day of food deliveries to restaurants throughout Long Island.

HOFFER: You've been putting a lot of perishables in unrefrigerated vans?
FOOD DELIVERYMAN: And delivering them in one hour like when you go to the supermarket.

On two different mornings, our undercover cameras captured this food delivery team as they shopped for their restaurant clients at this Long Island wholesale store.

The carts are food orders they've filled that are waiting to be loaded into delivery trucks. It's thousands of dollars in food, much of it perishables that require refrigeration: meats, milk, butter and eggs sitting off to the side in room temperature.

Just after 11 o'clock, they put some of the food into a refrigerated truck, but they're also putting it into unrefrigerated vans. It takes about two-and-a-half hours to finish loading up the van, which pulls out of the parking lot around 1:48. It's first stop is restaurant in Hicksville. The food has been out three hours.

"The practice is not acceptable and it should not be allowed," Don Schaffner said.

Schaffner, the Director of the Food Science Department at Rutgers University, says the conditions we uncovered are ripe for food poisoning:

The potential for something to go wrong is significant and the possibility of making the problem worst by temperature abuse is definitely there.

To limit dangerous bacteria growth, state guidelines require that perishable food be kept at temperatures between 45 and 41 degrees. Exposure above that should be kept to one hour or less.

"Temperature is just simply the most important factor. Anytime you are going to transport food, especially in the summer time, it's critical that those vehicles have some sort of temperature control," Schaffner said.

But our undercover video suggests a delivery service with a total disregard for how heat impacts food.

On the day in question, temperatures were in the 90's. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, and yet they were again loading up their vans with perishables that we spotted sitting out of refrigeration around noon. An hour later, just past one o'clock, they were still filling up the van. We videotaped as boxes of fresh beef and 40 pound boxes of chicken were loaded for delivery. Remember, the food has already been out nearly two hours. The first stop is more than 20 miles away at a Mediterranean restaurant in Rockville Center. There are more stops, at a sister restaurant in Baldwin. The clock keeps ticking as the food inside gets warmer. Three hours later, meats and dairy products were still inside the van.

>>> We should note that we offered to show our findings to state health officials, so far no response. <<<

Arab putz imitates Shmarya said...

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/world/story/859552.html

Egypt's culture minister on Wednesday blamed a conspiracy "cooked up in New York" by the world's Jews for keeping him from becoming the next head of the U.N.'s agency for culture and education.

Farouk Hosny was defeated on Tuesday by Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova in a tight race for the position of UNESCO chair.
"It was clear by the end of the competition that there was a conspiracy against me," Hosny told reporters at the airport upon his return from Paris.

"There are a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position," he said.

Hosny's candidacy raised an outcry because of a threat he made in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. While he later apologized and Israel said it had withdrawn its opposition to his candidacy, several prominent Jewish activists spoke out against him in the runup to the vote.

Anonymous said...

Wed, Sep. 23, 2009

Swedish TV: Vatican knew about Holocaust-denier

By KARL RITTER
Associated Press

A Swedish TV program to be aired Wednesday claims that top Vatican officials knew that an ultraconservative British bishop was a Holocaust-denier when his excommunication was lifted in January.

The program, which was obtained by The Associated Press prior to broadcast, could add new fuel to the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson.

Jews and Catholics worldwide were outraged after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Williamson, along with three other ultraconservative bishops, in an attempt to bring dissidents back into the mainstream church.
The order, dated Jan. 21, came as Sweden's SVT aired an interview recorded two months earlier in which Williamson said he didn't believe any Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.
Vatican officials have said they didn't know about the interview at the time. Benedict later condemned Williamson's remarks and spoke out against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Yet in a follow-up report, SVT says the Vatican had been informed of Williamson's Holocaust-denial shortly after the interview was recorded in November.

Bathurst and Glencairn - Toronto said...

It's a good question if the mechitzah was ever improved at that extremely modern shul where Zehavi was the chazan. The Ner Yisroel rosh yeshiva Rav Friedler told people that it could not be considered orthodox, although they did since get rid of the microphone.

I do not trust the shul's official email that no one was molested. They could not have investigated the matter that quickly and this shul has a history of what I will diplomatically call being inept.

They may be the number 2 simcha hall in town after Taub's BAYIT. I once was at a chassunah there and witnessed a shul officer acting like a rude chazir towards the chosson right before the chuppah as if he was trying to pick a fight with him.

The shul was home to the con artist Kirschner brothers who defrauded the members out of huge sums of money with 2 independent investment scams. The first scam involved non-existent cattle futures and the other non-existent real estate with purported connections to Moishe Reichmann and Donald Trump. The moguls later told reporters that they have never even heard of Kirschner.

One year the shul brought in bomb sniffing dogs leading to a fiasco where they couldn't start Kol Nidrei with the members forced to stand outside in pouring rain. A dog got a positive at a member's locker. The locker was broken open but nothing was found inside. Shul officers accused the member of having stored a firearm there despite not having any proof. Police later determined that the dog was attracted to spilled Scotch whiskey. A component of Scotch is peat moss which is also used in the manufacture of explosives.

BOYCOTT GATEWAYS said...

There is a planned joint seminar in the works between Tropper's EJF and GATEWAYS:

EJF Student Shabbaton with Gateways Stamford, CT
10/16/2009 - 10/18/2009
A Shabbaton in conjunction with Gateways focusing on intermarriage prevention. The event will include 100 students, and staff from both organizations.


Call on anyone you know to protest and boycott the GATEWAYS organizations to stop them from exposing their students to Tropper's fanaticism and EJF's entrapment scams,

Call, EMail and Fax the GATEWAYS people to protest their joint venture with Tropper/EJF:

From GATEWAYS: CONTACT US:

GATEWAYS Main Office

11 Wallenberg Circle, Monsey, NY 10952

Email: office@gatewaysonline.com

Phones:

800-722-3191

845-352-0393

Fax 845-352-0394

GATEWAYS Director of Operations
Rabbi Avrumy Jordan
845-352-0393 x108

GATEWAYS Public Relations Liason
Dr. Robyn Fischer
845-352-0393 x107

GATEWAYS: Director of Russian Programming
Rabbi Mordechai Tokarski
718-332-1506

GATEWAYS: Director of Collegiate Programming
Rabbi Reuven Ibragimov
1-800-742-2228

Director of Special Projects
Rabbi Yisroel Cherns
845-352-0393 x115

GATEWAYS: Event Registration
Ms. Tammi Lit
845-352-0393 x127

GATEWAYS: Webmaster
Mr. Danny Glix
845-290-8726

Agudah Self-preservation Dept said...

Letter in the Yated signed by R' Shmuel Kaminetzky, R' Malkiel Kotler, the Novominsker & Belsky. The Novominsker seems to have backtracked slightly.

It is ossur to use the internet UNLESS you have the new "Matzav" filter. They go on about all the pritzus which they have a big point about but then comes the kicker. They saved the best part for last. The filter also blocks "sources of lashon hara in the Jewish community". The unwritten words here are UOJ & R' Yudel Shain where you will find out the truth.

They sign off by saying that anyone not listening to them and who doesn't go running to buy the filter is a rasha according to the Gemara Bava Basra 57b.

This is interesting in of itself as a meeting over 10 years at the Agudah had R' Elya telling the fressers that they cannot asser internet because people won't listen to them anyway.

Ahavah said...

Dear Tropper is Troubled:

I have greatly enjoyed your posts - so much that I have cut and pasted them into a file so I could keep them. Keep up the good work!

Shalom!

Charlie Rangel said...

Rangel helped preserve a tax loophole benefitting Nabors Industries at the same time he was soliciting donations to the Rangel Center from the company’s chief executive. If Rep. Rangel accepted a contribution to the Rangel Center in direct exchange for legislative assistance for Nabors Industries, he may have committed bribery, deprived his constituents of his honest services, and accepted an illegal gratuity.

Rangel stored his 1972 Mercedes in a House parking lot for several years. The car was covered by a tarp and did not have license plates. Its registration had expired in 2004 and the car did not display a current House parking permit. The space is valued at $290 per month, and must be reported to the IRS as imputed income. By storing an unlicensed vehicle in a House garage without a valid parking permit, Rep. Rangel violated House rules.

Anonymous said...

That's interesting with the dog. I know someone who was stopped by a police patrol with drug sniffing dogs because chocolate has a similar chemical composition to cocaine.

Does anyone know how the dogs react when they come across a publicity hundt like Tropper?

Israel Belsky SHLITA said...

Even though I am mad at Malkiel for letting Kolko's nephew get arrested, I will sign anything with him that stops UOJ and Yudel!

Gateways said...

It's good to give all those people a piece of your mind but the guy running the show and making all the decisions is Gateways owner Motty Suchard, a South African Telzer who lives in Monsey.

But unless there is a huge public uproar, Suchard will just do what he thinks is good for his bottom line. He has blurry principals when it comes to making money and bends the rules all the time. Even if it is a steerah to his purported purpose of kiruv.

BMG Lakewood said...

The explanation that BMG is giving about the arrest of Yossi Kolko is to place the blame with another unspecified molester and his mafia-style enablers. They say they would have preferred that Rav Salomon's beis din had dealt with Kolko but they say the beis din was disbanded as a result of a previous molester who caused a lot of problems when they went after him. Their attitude is, ok so you think the beis din is too tough on perverts? We will disband and let's see how you menuvolim like it when we let the police deal with you instead.

Anonymous said...

Suchard has the Wolfsons bankrolling Gateways. The Wolfsons have a long history of fraud and improprieties that has been documented in the press and excerpted here in previous months.

Jacob Perlow said...

Why do you say I backtracked?

Now that a system exists that blocks UOJ, why should I asser the internet in gantzen?

Anonymous said...

Four owners of Costa Rica-based telemarketing call centers, an employee and a Texas-based list broker have been sentenced for their roles in defrauding thousands of U.S. victims of more than $20 million through a phony sweepstakes scheme.

To date, 39 defendants have been convicted for their participation in Costa Rican-based fraudulent telemarketing schemes based on false claims that the victims had won large sweepstakes prizes.

U.S. District Court Judge Frank D. Whitney of the Western District of North Carolina yesterday sentenced Martin Kalchstein, 63, of Brooklyn, to six years in prison; Jaime Ligator, 68, of Miami, to five years in prison; Michal Zakrzewski, 42, of Montreal, to 126 months in prison; . In addition, Ligator was ordered to forfeit $2.6 million. The defendants, except Kalchstein, also were ordered to pay restitution of $4,291,473, jointly and severally with other defendants. All the defendants were also sentenced to three years of supervised release following their prison terms.

All of the defendants, except Kalchstein, were convicted of conspiring to defraud U.S. residents, most above the age of 55, out of millions of dollars by deceiving them into believing that each had won a large monetary prize in a "sweepstakes contest." According to court documents, calls to victims were made from Costa Rica using computers to make telephone calls through the Internet, disguising the originating location of the calls. Victims were informed that the callers were from the "Sweepstakes Security Commission" and that to receive their "prize," victims had to wire to Costa Rica thousands of dollars for a purported "refundable insurance fee." As long as the victims continued to pay, the co-conspirators continued to solicit more money from them.

Kalchstein, who had already been convicted in the sweepstakes scheme and sentenced to 90 months in prison, pleaded guilty in June 2009 to failure to report to prison and obstruction of justice as a result of fleeing to Mexico, instead of reporting to prison to serve his sentence.

The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Peter B. Loewenberg and Senior Litigation Counsel Patrick M. Donley of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs also provided assistance. The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of the Inspector General; and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Bernard Mutterperl said...

Why didn't the Forward interview my lawyer Leo Kimmel whose law firm is defending these al Qaeda terrorists?

http://www.forward.com/articles/114916/

Jewish Lawyers Take Forefront In Representing Gitmo Detainees

By Nathan Guttman
issue of October 02, 2009.

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — David Remes, a Washington attorney who left a major corporate law firm to take on full-time representation of terrorism suspects held in the American detention center here, recalled vividly one of his early visits to meet with his clients.

“We were a group of lawyers, and the young guard was leading us through the camp,” Remes said. “Then he looked at us and at the huts surrounding the camp’s yard, and said, ‘This looks like a guided tour of a concentration camp.’”

Remes, who established the not-for-profit legal practice Appeal for Justice and now represents 19 detainees, tried to avoid such comparisons and stressed that he sees no equation between Guantanamo and the Nazi camps. Still, he added, “When you consider the way Jews were dehumanized as vermin, there’s an unfortunate echo.”

It is a sentiment born of Remes’s own sense of Jewish identity. And even if Remes’s way of putting it is his own, the source of personal commitment is one shared by many other lawyers representing the remaining 225 Guantanamo detainees in American courts.

Many of these lawyers are Jewish. In fact, Jewish attorneys are considered to be the backbone of the campaign to provide legal rights for the Guantanamo detainees, all imprisoned without charge or trial.

“Among the lawyers who were involved in this from the beginning, and even now, there is a substantive overrepresentation of Jews,” said Joe Margulies, law professor at Northwestern University and veteran fighter for the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees. Margulies and several other Jewish colleagues were the first to take on the cause, and they are still leading the pack in pro bono representation of the detainees tagged by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as the “worst of the worst” of America’s enemies.

Margulies speaks of Jewish understanding of other people’s suffering as “ingrained in our DNA,” and said that Jews understand “what it means to be singled out.”

Others point to the broader set of Jewish values of justice and tikkun olam as the driving force behind their decision to take on these cases. Jonathan Hafetz of the American Civil Liberties Union sees it as “an extension of the participation of many Jewish lawyers in human rights and civil rights causes” dating to the 1960s. “This is the new front,” he said.

Bruce Vargo, commander of the Joint Detention Group, said that since January there have been 750 assaults on guards, most of them involving the throwing of bodily fluids by detainees. “We call this a mental battlefield,” Vargo said.

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