And the only reason we're getting them to acknowledge the huge problem of child sex-abuse, is because of the Information Highway.
If there would still be the Yated and Hamodia only, even the Jewish Drek, there would be no acknowledgment at all.
So we're not fooled, at the least, I'm not.
I'm in a unique position to know what makes these guys tick, and be an outsider.
Whatever the motivations of Rabbi Horowitz are regarding the Markey Bill, the Insider that he really is, blindsided him. And I do not say that as necessarily a negative; he has a long and successful record of accomplishments and has made a dent in getting this problem out in the open.
What I am saying is; that he can't possibly understand that his aligning himself with the anti-Markey proponents, negates, in the eyes of sex-abuse survivors and their families, a genuine life-long hurt that does not go away with a Rebbe's bracha, or interpretation of some rosh yeshiva's "daas Torah."
So while I'm certain that he is a very sensitive and caring individual, by cozying- up with the anti-Markey people, he demonstrated, at least to me, that his "caring" is limited. And that's where the Insider that he is, hurt him in the eyes of the masses.
It is my perception of that "additional" lack of sensitivity to all the people in the past that were hurt so very badly, that has caused my discomfort with his decision to go anti-Markey! You can't write off ruined lives, suicides, crippled dreams and a complete lack of caring by leaders, with an article in The Jewish Press. The rabbis that were in a position to fix this chronic, tragic problem, knew, and did everything they could to intimidate the victims and empower the criminals.
UOJ
Click On Image To Enlarge:
Submitted last week:
ReplyDeleteThe notion that nobody else is capable of representing Orthodox interests besides for Agudah is arrogance at its worst.
Every city has a Jewish Federation with counseling services for children, adults, disabled people, and teenagers. They actively lobby for all things needed in the community. They offer job placement services, free loan funds, and college scholarships to help pay for seminary too. They are a compassionate group who cares about every Jewish person. They don’t force their Jewish observance levels on their clients. So, it’s not like they are going to force you to become Reform in order to help you. In the communities where Agudah has almost no footing there are still vibrant frum communities. YOU have to make the call for help.
For those concerned about employment discrimination, there is something called the government. The Department of Labor has an entire section called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who works to protect the rights of all employees from discrimination and harassment. Look them up in the phonebook, set up an appointment, and tell them your issue. If it’s truly discrimination, they will handle your case for FREE. YOU must find your voice to stand up for your rights.
For all instances of discrimination there are more resources than you can imagine. Call the accrediting agency, report the discrimination, and press the issue. In cases of truly discriminative behavior, the American Civil Liberties Union will represent you for FREE. Discrimination affects everyone, a company, or organization cannot deny access based on a discriminatory practice. There are laws to protect you.
For zoning problems, unless it’s a legitimately discriminatory practice of a zoning board, nothing will help. If it’s a discrimination problem, call Chabad. Chabad is THE name in zoning discrimination battles. If YOU are too prejudicing to call Chabad, you don’t deserve a meeting place where Hashem should dwell.
The joint statement in question is THE reason why Agudah will be torn down. In the political arena, credibility is the key to success. The statement was an ad hominem attack on victims’ memories, and a denial of credibility of all senior citizens. It placed the value of the real estate of the community above the concern for the children filling those properties. Hence, politicians are being beaten up from all sides to disassociate themselves from Agudah.
Lehman Brothers, Freddie Mac, and General Motors should have taught us that NO ONE IS TOO POWERFUL TO FALL. Putting out a statement which smacks of arrogance, boomerangs against you in the political arena. Politics demands that you be POLITICALLY CORRECT no matter how correct you are. Agudah misread the President’s education meeting as an endorsement, as if to say that they are in good standing. The joint statement wiped ALL good will towards Agudah, and their causes down the drain.
Updated 5/3/09:
The only sustainable solution to help the Orthodox Jewish community have any shred of credibility is with unity. The Orthodox Union is well respected, and capably represented within the inner circle of the White House. They have come around on Lanner. They have implemented safeguards protecting children, and are a consistent voice on issues facing the Orthodox community.
It is time to rally behind the Orthodox Union. Agudath Israel is walking into a hornet's nest in Washington. The animosity on The Hill is everywhere. The joke is, "The Jews are moral, look at their position on protecting their own children".
Zweibel, Shafran, and Kalish can spin until the cows come home. They have lost all credibility and shred of good will with their position statement.
A Fellow Frum Lobbyist
We know that "yesh koneh olamo b'sha'a achas, v'yesh m'abed olamo b'sha'a achas" - despite all the good a person has done, he can R"L ruin it all in one moment. It's not like missing one question on a test and going from an A to an A-. its like going from an A to an F!
ReplyDeleteIt hurts to say this, as I also have great respect for R' horowitz, but I really think its possible that r' horowitz has undone much of what he has accomplished with his current stance. Until now, his position has been that the children come before kovod, yeshivos, etc... but now he sings a different tune.
The markey bill is a critical moment in the fight against abuse. All moments are not created equal.
how can anyone in there right mind give them a dime
ReplyDeleteare you kidding
in the past 10 years aguda has single handedly together with the moetzes done more to destroy torah true yiddiskiet then anyone else
the coverup of molesters is a true human disgrace of historical preportions
they should honor madoff
Ha! They're honoring Ron Coleman. Ron is an expert on ethics. Ha! I know him. Ron is one of the most unethical people himself! But he knows how to lecture on ethics! Haha!
ReplyDeletewhy are they honoring ron coleman, a world famous bodybuilder?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4WDlbqME4Y
thats like pinter writing a book on ethinks and jewish faith and artscroll publishing the book even after he gets eight years for fraud
ReplyDeleteplease call your congressman and ask if they are aware aguda has protected molesters
and if 30 people call i assure you aguda wont be able to get thru the doors as easy as they do know
When Iyov heard that the two sons of Aharon had died, he was highly distressed.
ReplyDeleteHe declared (Iyov 37:1): “For this my soul trembles.” -- Vayikra Rabba 20:5
What is the connection between the death of the sons of Aharon and the suffering of Iyov, and what can we learn from this?
The Gemara (Sota 11a) states that Pharaoh had three advisors with whom he consulted regarding the fate of the newborn Jewish boys. Bilaam recommended that the
babies be murdered by being cast into the Nile River. For this, Bilaam was eventually punished by himself being killed by the sword. Iyov was silent, withholding any input into Pharaoh’s dastardly plot, and for this he ultimately suffered a great physical ordeal. Yisro escaped so that he would not have to answer at all in opposition to the inevitable scheme of Pharaoh. For this Yisro was rewarded in that his descendants merited to learn Torah.
Several improprieties are ascribed to Nadav and Avihu for which they were deserving of suffering an untimely demise. Among them is the story of the time when they were walking behind Moshe and Aharon, and Nadav said to Avihu, “When will
these two old men die, and you and I will lead the generation!” Many commentators expound upon the nature of this surprising statement, but in any case, we might ask why Avihu also deserved to die. It was Nadav who did the talking, while Avihu simply
listened and heard his words. The answer seems to be that if one hears words that are highly inappropriate, he should not merely remain silent and ignore that which is intolerable. If he does, he is culpable and punishable.
This is the lesson that Iyov derived from the incident of Nadav and Avihu. He then understood that he, too, was guilty of collaborating with Pharaoh and Bilaam by simply remaining silent at a moment when a critical remark needed to be said.
What we are witnessing in the world today, is frightening. A potential pandemic of an unknown illness, crushing financial problems, and people crying out to Hashem to save the Jews from themselves. We see how an organization which was founded with good intentions, has given up on hundreds if not thousands of hurting neshamos.
Rabboisai, we can't sit back and watch how our religion is besmirched by this organization. Do not support the Agudath Israel.
Your continued support or silence to their mockery of Judaism will be repayed. And, the price is very steep.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
ReplyDeleteRabbi Menachem Zupnik & The Lizard
In Mesechta Pesachim (Daf Gimel Amud Beis) the Gemarah tells the story of three Kohanim who were discussing the size of the share of Lechem Hapanim they received.
One Kohen said, "I received like a ful (a bean)." The second Kohen said, "I received like an olive." The third Kohen said, "I received like the tail of a lizard (an unclean creature)."
[Due to the Kohen's blatant disrespect for the Holy Lechem Hapanim] he was investigated and disqualified as a Kohen. Rashi says they found out he was a challal - the product of a marriage forbidden to a Kohen.
The Gemarah then discusses why they would check a Kohen who already serves. The Gemarah offers a second view that it wasn't a disqualification in his lineage, rather, as Rashi explains, when a Kohen acts in a way that is improper for a Kohen, he is disqualified. The Gemarah again discusses the first view, explaining that perhaps he was investigated because his behavior suggested something wrong with him.
A man who is a Kohen, and is involved with holiness all day, yet the holiness has no effect on him, and he still behaves and talks like a common street bum, must have something wrong with him. Either something in his lineage or his behavior disqualifies him.
Rabbi Menachem Zupnik is a Kohen and a Rabbi. He works as a Rabbi. A job that requires one to be busy with Torah and tahara and kedusha. Not only that but he claims to be a Kohen, a man who performs Birkas Kohanim, and who would serve in the Beis Hamikdosh. A man like that should be refined and humble, and respectful, and peaceful. "The Torah's ways are peaceful."
Yet, Rabbi Zupnik refers with disrespect even to Rabbis much more knowledgeable then he (such as Rav Meir Stern, Shlit"a, and Rav Shmuel Meir Katz, Shlit"a), let alone to ordinary people. Rabbi Zupnik sows machlokes and discord wherever he goes. Rabbi Zupnik shows a blatant disrespect for the holy Torah, and all it stands for.
Is such a man deserving of the title Rabbi? Were we to live in the time of the Beis Hamikdosh, Rabbi Zupnik's status would be investigated, similarly to the Kohen in the story, and Rabbi Zupnik would be removed, not only from his position as a Rabbi, but surely from his status as a Kohen.
Is there a problem with Rabbi Zupnik's lineage? Quite possibly, according to the first view in the Gemarah. But whether there is or is not a problem, surely there is a problem with Rabbi Zupnik's behavior, which according to the second view in the Gemarah would disqualify him from serving as a Kohen.
Have you used Rabbi Zupnik for a pidyon haben? If so, ask a competent Rov if it is necessary to re-do it, based on this Gemarah.
*********************************
Rabbinic emotional abuse is just as bad as any other kind of abuse.
ExposingZupnik.com
ExposingZupnik.blogspot.com
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Ron Coleman's one of Leib Tropper's students, if I recall correctly - so what did you expect?
ReplyDeleteUpon consultation with our great sages, the Agudath Israel of America has decided:
ReplyDeleteFor the neshoma of a niftar we'll fight. Especially when money is involved.
Living neshomas being destroyed are not as important.
Correcting the 3 big lies that have been spread about the Child Victims Act (A2596):
ReplyDeleteThe Lie: The CVA window singles out private institutions, because it does not also remove the 90-day notice of claim requirement for public institutions.
The Truth: The CVA window also permits victims of public entities to avoid the statute of limitations, because claims against public institutions brought under federal civil rights law (42 U.S.C. § 1983) are not subject to the 90-day notice of claim. Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131 (1988).
The Lie: Private institutions will go bankrupt as a result of the CVA window.
The Truth: No school or other private institution had to file for involuntary bankruptcy when a window was in place in California or in Delaware. One voluntary bankruptcy was filed by the San Diego Diocese, which then voluntarily withdrew its bankruptcy petition. Over half of the claims paid in California (which involved various churches and other private groups) were paid by insurance proceeds. No services were affected, because the vast majority of social services’ funds come from the government and tax proceeds.
The Lie: The New York Assembly has many options to protect children from sexual predators.
The Truth: The CVA window is the only proven method of identifying unknown child predators. A vote against the CVA is a vote to enable child predators to continue to sexually abuse New York’s children in the home, private, and public institutions. The CVA is the only path to the truth and the liberation of children from their sexual abusers.
For more information, see www.sol-reform. com
He lives on Staten Island and probably davens together with Shafran at the Agudah there.
ReplyDeleteMortgage & real estate agents are generally liars but even they don't deny this anymore:
http://www.gefenfinancial.com/newyorkmortgages.cfm
Housing Bubble Myth
By: Dovid Winiarz
Attention Homebuyers- Attention Homebuyers!!! There is NO housing bubble. This is the word from Staten Island mortgage expert, Dovid Winiarz, president and chief mortgage manger of Gefen Financial Corp.
Hilton New York
ReplyDelete1335 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10019
Tel: 1-212-586-7000
Fax: 1-212-315-1374
WARN THEM OF THE DANGEROUS MOLESTERS THEY ARE HOSTING ON MAY 17,2009. THEY MUST BE WARNED OF THE POTENTIAL LIABILITY, IF AN AGUDATH ISRAEL ATTENDEE COMES IN CONTACT WITH AN UNSUSPECTING CHILD.
AGUDATH ISRAEL AND NAMBLA SHARE THE SAME PLATFORM REGARDING SEXUAL ABUSE. AGUDATH ISARAEL MUST BE STOPPED.
Yeyasher Koach To:
ReplyDeleteThe National Council of Young Israel
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
For assisting in the Feinberg matter.
The Agudah is just using the issue to try to show they are relevant. But, they forgot that NCYI, and OU do advocacy better than them.
Agudah is irrelevant, and on the road to perdition.
Let me guess. Shmarya is not mekabel but believes that the perp had a black hat instead of Black skin?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/weiss/2009/05/top-hoops-recruit-charged-with.html
May 4, 2009
John Wall of Word of God Academy in Raleigh, the most highly recruited prospect in the class of 2009, has been arrested and charged in connection with misdemeanor breaking and entering, Raleigh police told the Raleigh News and Observer today.
Wall, a 6-4 point guard, averaged 21 points, seven rebounds and nine assists this past season. He is the No. 1-ranked point guard in the country by Rivals.com. Authorities said Wall, 18, was charged with misdemeanor breaking and entering in connection with an April 27 afternoon break-in at an unoccupied house for sale at 3924 Laurel Glen Drive in Raleigh.
Wall is being romanced by Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina State, Memphis, University of Miami, Baylor and Kansas. North Carolina at Chapel Hill has also expressed interest.
Two other people were also charged in the April 27 crime. Bria Renea Draughn of Raleigh was detained while walking along a nearby street. Reginald Leonard Jackson II of Garner, was detained when he returned to the residence, police said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/world/middleeast/05meshal.html?hp
ReplyDeleteMay 5, 2009
Leader Says Hamas Will be ‘Part of the Solution’
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ETHAN BRONNER
DAMASCUS, Syria — The leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas said on Monday that its fighters would stop firing rockets at Israel for now and reached out in a limited way to the Obama administration and others in the West, saying the movement was seeking a state only in the areas Israel won in 1967.
“I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period,” the leader, Khaled Meshal, said in the course of a five hour interview with The New York Times spread over two days in his home office here in the Syrian capital.Speaking in Arabic in a house heavily guarded by Syrian and Palestinian security agents, Mr. Meshal, 53, gave off an air of serene self-confidence, having been reelected a fourth time to four-year term as the head of the Hamas political bureau, the top slot in the movement. His conciliation went only so far, however. He repeated that he would not recognize Israel, saying to fellow Arab leaders, “There is only one enemy in the region and that is Israel.”
But he urged outsiders to ignore the Hamas charter, which calls for the obliteration of Israel through jihad and cites as fact the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Mr. Meshal did not offer to revoke the charter but said it was 20 years old
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8032339.stm
ReplyDeleteFather David Neuhaus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism, sometimes finds a discreet welcome at a reform synagogue
“There is only one enemy in the region and that is UOJ.”
ReplyDeleteFiled at 5:13 p.m. ET
ReplyDeleteSANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- A federal judge has ruled that a history teacher at a Southern California public high school violated the First Amendment when he called creationism ''superstitious nonsense'' during a classroom lecture.
U.S. District Judge James Selna issued the ruling Friday after a 16-month legal battle between student Chad Farnan and his former teacher, James Corbett.
Farnan's lawsuit alleged that Corbett made more than 20 statements that were disparaging to Christians and their beliefs.
The judge found that Corbett's reference to creationism as ''religious, superstitious nonsense'' violated the First Amendment's establishment clause. Courts have interpreted the clause as prohibiting government employees from displaying religious hostility.
Rabbi Horowitz's voice was not silenced, he chose to oppose the Markey Bill, in my opinion, a monumental and fatal error in judgment.
ReplyDeleteRegardless if the Bill passes or not, Yankel Horowitz will have to live with that decision.
History is replete with careers destroyed because of moments of weakness. While I am not willing to write him off because of the good he's done, his standing with the weak and silenced voices, can never be the same.
Yankel, I call it as I see it.
UOJ
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vosizneias.com/31162/2009/05/04/orthodox-chicago-il-groups-appeal-decision-undermining-jewish-grandfathers-wish/
ReplyDeleteI knew an alter kluger Yid who figured his ausvarf son who married a shiksa would contest the will if his offspring were left out. He left the little goyim $5,000 each without making any comments and his Yiddishe aineklach $100,000s. The ausvarf was infuriated and tried to contest the will anyway without much legal basis.
What benefit is there in allowing the F word in a post here? Have we descended to such a low level?
ReplyDeleteMenachem Zupnik is one sick #$%*. I'd love to see UOJ take him down. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he's a child molester because he's always hanging around with kids, and has the type of ego that molesters frequently have.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of if Zupnik is a molester or not, UOJ should take him down because he uses his rabbinic power to abuse people. Abuse is not always sexual either.
What's so shlecht with the F word?
ReplyDelete41 People Are Killed in Wedding Attack in Turkey
ReplyDeleteBy REUTERS 6:09 PM ET
Forty-one people died when gunmen attacked a wedding party in southeastern Turkey, a provincial governor said.
So Shmarya thinks he is killing two birds with one stone today. He attacks the Bush Administration and the Orthodox Jewish Attorney General Michael Mukasey for the DHS treatment of Rubashkin's illegal immigrant employees. The kicker is that whatever policies were in place at DHS were under the purview of Alberto Gonzales, a Hispanic. To paraphrase Abba Eban, Shmarya never misses an opportunity to distort reality by attacking Orthodox Jews.
ReplyDeleteFiled at 8:35 p.m. ET
ReplyDeleteLAS VEGAS (AP) -- Nevada authorities filed criminal charges Monday against the political advocacy group ACORN and two former employees, alleging they illegally paid canvassers to sign up new voters during last year's presidential campaign.
ACORN denied the charges and said it would defend itself in court.
Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now had a handbook and policies requiring employees in Las Vegas to sign up 20 new voters per day to keep their $8- to $9-per-hour jobs.
Canvassers who turned in 21 new voter registrations earned a ''blackjack'' bonus of $5 per shift, Masto added. Those who didn't meet the minimum were fired.
''By structuring employment and compensation around a quota system, ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud,'' Masto said. She accused ACORN executives of hiding behind and blaming employees, and vowed to hold the national nonprofit corporation accountable for training manuals that she said ''clearly detail, condone and ... require illegal acts.''
Law enforcement agencies in about a dozen states investigated fake voter registration cards submitted by ACORN during the 2008 presidential election campaign, but Nevada is the first to bring charges against the organization
Nobody says it like you do UOJ.
ReplyDeletehttp://lohud.com/article/20090415/NEWS03/904150415/-1/newsfront
ReplyDeleteHow does UOJ like my latest act as Vice-President and pro-fressor of political science at Touro?
Rabbi Horowitz:
ReplyDeleteWe know you're reading this site. This is our message to you. We opened up our hearts to you. We told you more than we ever told anyone in the world. We trusted you. We thought you were a hero, a person who could withstand criticism and speak freely. We thought wrong.
You stole our souls. You chose the manmade Torah, over Hashem's Torah YOU preached for years. Look in the mirror tonight, and you will see the face of Rabbinic Abuse. You fooled us bad. You have no justification.
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/04/23/1004603/augudath-joins-white-house-meeting-on-education
ReplyDeleteAgudath Israel of America was part of a Monday White House meeting of private school advocates to discuss education. A press release issued by Agudath notes that the meeting with the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Joshua DuBois, and Domestic Policy Council staffer Roberto Rodriguez, was organized by the Council for American Private Education and included director of government affairs Rabbi Yehiel Kalish.
April 28, 2009
ReplyDeleteYankel ZT”L
[Rabbi Dovid Landesman is a veteran mechanech and the mechaber of a sefer on Netziv.]
Today - Yom ha-Zikaron L’chayalei Tzahal - is one of the most difficult days for me in the calendar year. Every year the day accentuates the fact that I am really not sure who I am - a chareidi, a chardalnik, a dati leumi. Truthfully, my lifestyle and more certainly that of my children, would cast me in the first group. However, while I served in the IDF and did miluim for almost twenty-five years, I am in many ways a proponent of the Eidah ha-Chareidis, for I respect their uncompromising fealty to halachah and their intense efforts to achieve kirvat Hashem.
But, today, when a significant portion of am yisrael mourns the chayalim who gave their lives enabling a Jewish community to be built and thrive in Eretz Yisrael, I find myself angry - nay, overwhelmingly perturbed - by the fact that the overwhelming majority of chareidi Jews ignore this day. It is not my intention to debate whether or not a non-halachic state has any standing. Rather, I simply wonder what happened to elementary hakarat ha-tov. I can accept that standing at attention while a siren blares might not be an appropriate form of public mourning, but how many b’nai Torah are learning mishnayot today?
Let me tell you a little about my friend Yankel zt”l and perhaps you’ll understand my frustrations. Yankel Friedman was a chavrusa of mine in Yeshivat Beit HaTalmud in Yerushalayim. As a ben yeshiva who fit the criteria of Torato um’nato, Yankel was officially qualified to receive a deferment from service in the IDF. But Yankel was uncomfortable with the idea of someone serving in his place and he was never quite sure that his hasmada was adequate enough to really free him from service. Make no mistake, Yankel was a true ben Torah, but he had a conscience that gave him no rest.
Yankel often spoke of his dilemma with the rosh yeshiva, Rav Dov Schwartzman shlita, and together they came up with a plan. Yankel enrolled at Yeshivat ha-Kotel and was officially made part of the hesder unit there. He continued to learn in Beis ha-Talmud and only joined the ha-Kotel boys when they went onto active duty. These types of quiet arrangements were not unusual in the late 60s and early 70s - quite a few boys from Chevron made similar arrangements with the knowledge and co-operation of Rav Yechezkel Sarna zt”l. Yankel finished his hesder service in June 1973 and returned to learn full time in Beis ha-Talmud. In the summer of that year he became a chasan and his wedding was scheduled to take place on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan.
Yankel was extremely active in Peylim and in Elul of 1973, I accompanied him on a trip to Tzfat to encourage teenagers to register in dati schools. We spent the day visiting families throughout the city, and at about 11:30 we were ready to leave and travel back to Yerushalayim. As we got into my car, Yankel told me that he wanted to detour through Akko as he needed to visit a family there. I told him that we would only get there at about 12:30 and it wasn’t right to visit someone at that time. Yankel smiled and said, “you’re right but I need to pick up my watch.” I looked at him like he was crazy but he simply said: “You’ll understand when we get there.” I suggested that we call ahead from a pay phone, but Yankel told me that the family had no telephone.
We drove to Akko, arriving close to 1:00. As we pulled up in front of the house, I noticed that all the lights were on and the entire family was waiting outside. The mother and father grabbed Yankel and smothered him with kisses, and led us inside where they had set a lavish meal for us. There was no way that we could refuse to eat, so I found myself enjoying a true seudat melachim in the middle of the night. When we finished, one of the daughters - about 16 or 17 by my estimate - approached Yankel and gave him a box with a magnificent gold watch. Yankel thanked her and put the watch on his wrist, got up from the table and motioned to me that we could leave. He said not a word to the parents about the watch, simply said goodnight and that he would stay in touch.
When we got back into the car, I asked Yankel to explain. He told me that the watch was a present from his kallah. I asked him how the girl got it and he explained that two weeks earlier, he had visited the family in Akko and had spent hours trying to convince the 16 year old daughter to transfer into a religious high school. The girl had told him that while she was open to the idea of learning about religion, she did not feel that she was capable of keeping Shabbat as would be demanded by the school. Yankel told her that he was convinced that she could and offered her a deal; if she could not make it through a Shabbos, he would give her his watch as a gift. The young girl agreed and had left him a message that week in the Peylim office that he should come to Akko and take back the watch because she had managed not to be m’chalel Shabbat as he had predicted.
I asked Yankel if his kallah knew about the story and he admitted that he had not told her, adding that if I opened up my mouth, he would break every bone in my body.
On Yom Kippur 1973, Yankel’s hesder unit was called up. He was davening in the yeshiva but when he heard the sirens, he realized that war had broken out. He left after Minchah and went to the Old City to meet up with his group from Yehivat ha-Kotel. On erev Simchas Torah, Yankel’s tank was hit as they crossed the Suez Canal under the command of Arik Sharon. Yankel’s tank was the second to cross and as it drove onto the pontoon bridge, an Egyptian shell hit the tread, disabling the tank. Another shell hit the closed turret, jamming it so that it could not be opened.
The stalled tank held up the tanks behind which were now sitting ducks for the intense Egyptian artillery fire. Standard IDF operating procedueres in these circumstances is for the tank behind to push the disabled tank out of the way. Yankel’s tank was pushed off the bridge into the Suez Canal where he and three fellow soldiers drowned.
I think of Yankel often, although not as often as I should. I wonder where he got the kochot ha-nefesh to be the person that he was. I think of other soldiers who fell - some with stories of extraordinary heroism and mesirat nefesh and some anonymous to me. I am not here to give mussar, I am here only to ask that you think about Yankel and thereby bring an aliyah to his neshama.
Chaval al d’avdin v’lo mishtachnin.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/04/29/1004777/agudath-informs-about-flu
ReplyDeleteAgudath Israel sent information on the swine flu to its more than 600 educational institutions.
The Tuesday memorandum to the yeshivot, bais yaakovs and day schools Agudah services included a question-and-answer sheet prepared by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It also included a sample letter to parents, prepared by the New York State Education Department, that schools can easily modify for their own use.
The memo also notified schools how they can remain up to date with the latest information on the spread of the disease and which Agudah functions they can stuff their faces at.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/03/1004875/gingrich-remove-iranian-regime
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (JTA) -- Newt Gingrich at the AIPAC policy conference called for ousting the regime in Iran and bombing its missile sites.
Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a likely presidential candidate in 2012, in his address faulted the last Bush administration and the current Obama administration for engaging with Iran as long as it is led by theocrats who threaten Israel.
"We need to recognize that there are some regimes we will never be able to cut a deal with because they are in fact evil," he said Sunday, the opening day of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, which drew nearly 7,000 delegates.
Gingrich likened negotiations with the current Iranian regime to negotiating with Adolf Hitler, and called for "enforcing the disruption of gasoline supplies until the Iranian economy broke, the ayatollahs were ousted and a new regime was in place without a single shot fired." That earned thunderous applause.
The Georgia Republican also called for a military strike to destroy missiles in Iran and North Korea.
"I favor taking out Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites," he said.
The Obama administration is intensifying outreach to Iran as well as sanctions in trying to get the Islamic Republic to end its suspected nuclear weapons program. Part of its strategy is to persuade the Iranian regime that the West does not seek its ouster.
Gingrich also said, to applause, that the U.S. must recognized that "the leading funder of Sunni extremism on the planet is Saudi Arabia, and that rather than bow to the king, we need a national energy policy to liberate the United States." The "bow to the king" language was a reference to Obama's bow to Saudi King Abdullah at the G-20 summit a few weeks ago.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--nyctransitwoes0430apr30,0,6073241.story
ReplyDeleteALBANY, N.Y. - State legislative leaders are reviewing Gov. David Paterson's secret plan to bail out New York City's mass transit system, which could include a revised payroll tax to reimburse school districts for their cost.
There is a Meiri on Maseches Taanis daf 21 that viruses jump from pigs to people. The Agudah ignores that fact just like they ignore the psak of the gedolei hador to call the police on molesters.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/virus+another+name+would+make+pork+producers+much+happier/1548607/story.html
Swine flu got its name because, at a molecular level, the virus most closely resembles strains known to infect pigs. But so far there is no evidence the human illness has been transmitted from pigs, said Stephen Shafran, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alberta.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/201149
ReplyDeleteLinda Shafran, publicist for "The Jerry Springer Show," said Springer has been very busy lately. But his pop-culture circus of a daytime talk show is taking the week off.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Albany/20090413/204/2883
ReplyDeleteEven in Hard Times, Albany Offers a Feast of Pork
by David King
April 13, 2009
It is sometimes hard to calculate what one person's contribution to a community is worth. But for the residents of the 43rd New York State Senate District it is clear what former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno meant to them in terms of cold hard cash.
All told, Bruno's items in the 43rd district totaled $6 million.
Try to imagine what that $6 million a year meant to Bruno's rural district and what it will mean to lose it. Try to imagine what wielding that amount of money means to a politician and his or her ability to be re-elected and what it would be like to be able -- as Bruno was -- to allocate how much every other senators can hand out.
Here is a sampling of organizations across the five boroughs that are scheduled to receive some of the larger allocations of Assembly member items:
Black Equity Alliance of New York City: $34,500
Chinatown Manpower Project Inc: $166,000
Gay Men's Health Crisis: $133,000
Harlem Week, Inc: $50,000
Jamaica Chamber of Commerce: $180,000
Latino Commission on AIDS: $179,000
New York Junior Tennis League: $62,500
Queens Theater in the Park, Inc: $61,500
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Albany/20090413/204/2883
ReplyDeleteMultiple sources reported that even Assembly Democrats were shocked and angered in 2006 to find out that Silver had awarded $7 million in member items to his district. An article by the New York Sun from that time detailed how legislators were forced to plead for member items in front of Silver rather than simply send a written request.
In 2007 Andrew Cuomo began reviewing member items to determine whether there was any conflict of interest between legislators and the groups they benefit.
That process has not stopped Silver from distributing millions of dollars to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which is headed by the husband of Silver's chief of staff. This year the group is scheduled to receive $687,000 in Assembly member items alone.
Silver fended off criticism earlier this week, telling reporters, "Take a look before you criticize and find out how small the state's contribution is to the overall services they provide." But critics point out that there are many worthy, underfunded organizations across the state that do not get millions of dollars from the legislature. Evidently they have not tickled Silver's fancy.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083066.html
ReplyDeleteAn ultra-Orthodox man was yesterday sentenced to two years in prison and six months' suspended sentence for sexually molesting three boys to whom he taught Torah studies. Dan Gavriel Hajaj, 36, was found guilty of luring the children to hidden places, giving them alcoholic drinks and then molesting them. Tel Aviv Magistrate Hanan Efrati also ordered Hajaj to pay each boy NIS 8,000 in compensation. The magistrate said Hajaj's acts were "disgusting and severe, as they were perpetrated against religious minors who trusted him as an adult, a teacher and a religious man."
There is one VERY important lesson to learn from Rabbi Horowitz's monumental self destruction.
ReplyDeleteThe pasuk says explicitly, "The bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and causes to switch the words of the righteous".
As a paid pseudo employee of Agudah, Rabbi Horowitz felt he must follow his superiors. As a dean of a day school he felt he had to follow the death march of Agudath Israel/Torah U'Mesorah.
A hero by definition is a person distinguished by exceptional courage, nobility, and strength. He was blinded, and switched his entire belief system. Rabbi Horowitz is not a hero, he was a red herring for the Agudah Gestapo.
Baruch Hashem, he finally showed his true colors before more unsuspecting people revealed more private information to him.
Rabbinic abuse is also a crime. What a fraud.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, an embattled agency, has been criticized by advocates for being too cozy with industry.
ReplyDeleteThe agency is headed by acting chair Nancy Nord, who has been a lightning rod for Democrats in Congress and consumer advocates though defended by manufacturers.
Nord, a former Eastman Kodak Co. lobbyist, came under fire for accepting at least three trips, worth thousands of dollars, from industry, purportedly to share information about CPSC priorities and discuss toy safety. Many on Capitol Hill have been demanding her resignation.
Nord defended the trips as legal and bemoaned the overall criticism as unfair.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/education/05gifted.html
ReplyDeleteThe number of children qualifying for gifted kindergarten programs in New York City public schools rose by 45 percent this year, the schools chancellor announced on Monday.
Critics have said that the programs were too often bastions of white privilege
Nancy Nord is right. The Agudah & National Council of Young Israel have poskened there is nothing wrong with accepting an all-expenses paid 3 hour tour of any facility in need of a cover up, especially if it's a state of the art facility like Rubashkin.
ReplyDeleteMORE WONDERFUL NEWS FROM BALTIMORE: THE CAPITAL OF SHMUTZ:
ReplyDeleteVia Failedmessiah, from ABC news:
Alleged Victims Say Told Not to Report Abuse to Police
"They are willing to protect the community at the expense of the children," said a woman who claims she was abused by her father, a rabbi, and who asked to be identified only by her first name, Nanette. The woman's father did not return repeated messages seeking comment.
She said that when she began discussing the accusations against her father, her rabbi said if she continued to speak about it publicly, no other Orthodox Jews would be willing to marry any of her siblings. She says her family refused to speak with her.
"My sister told me until I stop the slander, she can't be my sister," she said.
"One of the things they say is when people speak out like this it causes desecration of God's name," she said. "But the real desecration to God is that they are willing to protect the community at the expense of the children."
Tamir Weissberg says he was abused by three Orthodox men over the course of several years.
The first time was at summer camp when he was in the fifth grade, when he said the adult son of the camp director invited him and several other boys into his tent one night and fondled them. He says he never told anyone until years later.
The person he accuses of molesting him was convicted in 2006 of unrelated charges of trying to contact a child over the Internet for sex. He was sentenced to 262 months in prison.
When he was a student in the Midwest, Weissberg says a school administrator allowed him to make phone calls from the administrator's room. One day, Weissberg says, the administrator showed him a pornographic magazine and asked Weissberg to masturbate in front of him.
Similar instances continued for several months, Weissberg says, until he tape recorded the man offering him money to masturbate in front of him.
When he took the tape to the head of the yeshiva, "He said 'If I hear a word of this from anyone I will make your life miserable.' And he took the tape away," Weissberg claims.
The administrator and the school's head rabbi did not return repeated calls for comment.
Weissberg, now 27, says he left school at 15 and returned to Baltimore feeling isolated and depressed. He says his parents were heartened when a family friend began spending time with him.
Weissberg says the friend, a lawyer, invited Weissberg to his apartment to watch a movie. After watching "Fargo," the lawyer suggested watching another movie, and put on a porn film, Weissberg says. "I started screaming, I freaked out," he said.
Weissberg says when he told his rabbi what had happened, the rabbi said he would look into it, but later responded that the lawyer had denied the allegations.
"He was someone I respect and a man of God. For me to have to sit there and tell him that, to no avail, it was a big slap in the face," he said. "I was ignored completely."
He says eventually the lawyer was asked to take a lie detector test and, when he admitted what had happened, he was asked to leave the Baltimore Orthodox community. No criminal charges were ever filed.
The rabbi, Moshe Heinemann, said he did not recall the lawyer admitting what had happened or asking him to leave the community. He declined to discuss the allegations further. Several other Baltimore rabbis declined to discuss the issue of sexual abuse.
"It was really shoved under the rug and ignored. I'm resentful for all that," Weissberg said. "It's something that people always think it's not going to happen to my kid. We don't want to hear about it.
"Unfortunately, we live in a society where there are a lot of sick people," Weissberg said. "Just because you're Jewish doesn't mean you're excluded from that. It's a fact of life of the world we're living in."
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=7376057&page=1
ReplyDeleteIt also says that Hikind will now hand over names of molesters to prosecutors.
If that means Charlie Hynes, then what's the use?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe Satmar unterveltnik Duvid Niederman must be taken down. He is pulling a Scheinberg that molestation is not abuse and is lying through his teeth that even that didn't take place.
ReplyDeleteThat's horrible that even secular employers were firing Engelman because he went public that he is a sex abuse victim.
ReplyDeleteAren't there lawyers that can pursue this pro bono?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/SgBQUYn-nVI/AAAAAAAADiw/eYcTdNRCgZA/s1600-h/rav+landau
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know who is buying meat from Arabs in Ramallah and putting forged heimishe hashgochos on it?
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2009/05/aguda-dinner-may-17th.html
ReplyDeleteJust when we thought we already had more problems than we could handle from UOJ, Lakewood rov R' Yudel Shain is warning everyone not to eat the Rubashkin meat at the Agudah dinner.
This is mamash geferlach!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/business/05roomservice.html
May 5, 2009
Hotels Roll Back Frills of Room Service
The recipient of the Rav Aharon Kotler award at the Agudah dinner is the Jewish Observer.
ReplyDeleteBesides the ridiculousness of awarding their organization's own propaganda organ, R' Aharon must be turning over in his grave considering the lies in that rag of a magazine like Ohel's / David Mandel's feature cover up of child abuse.
Court Says Temple Had No Notice Of Fallen Eruv, Dismisses Trip Suit
ReplyDeleteMark Fass, NY Law Journal
A Queens judge has thrown out a slip-and-fall case filed by a woman who allegedly tripped over a temple's "eruv" wire. Eruvs, thin wires strung about 15 to 18 feet above ground, are used by Orthodox Jewish communities to create a symbolic walled courtyard in which the strictures against carrying things in public on the Sabbath are relaxed.
Supreme Court Justice Augustus C. Agate ruled that plaintiff Peggy Egar failed to establish that either Congregation Talmud Torah, which strung the wire, or codefendant St. John's Episcopal Hospital, where the accident took place, had constructive notice of a recurrent dangerous condition.
"[P]laintiffs contend that a question of fact exists as to whether the eruv constitutes a dangerous condition because the eruv wire fell in a different location approximately one year prior to the accident, and that single incident gave defendants constructive notice of the hazard which caused [this] accident," Justice Agate wrote in Egar v. Congregation Talmud Torah, 2849/2006.
The Queens Supreme Court decision will be published Friday.
"The evidence relied upon by the plaintiffs of the single occurrence to raise a triable issue of fact is not sufficiently time or site-specific to support a claim of constructive notice," the judge said.
New York City's Department of Transportation publishes an eight-page "Procedure Governing the Installation of Eruvs" for communities intending to erect the wires.
"The Eruv shall consist of an unadorned string, approximately 1/4 of an inch in thickness," according to the guidelines. "The detailed plans and drawings must show that the Eruv will not hang lower than fifteen feet above the sidewalk and eighteen feet above the roadway."
Congregation Talmud Torah first put up its eruv in 1976, according to an attorney for the temple. Since then, the congregation has extended the length of the wire from approximately three miles to about seven miles.
Ms. Egar alleged that she suffered traumatic head injuries when she tripped over a fallen section of the eruv while exiting St. John's Episcopal Hospital's Far Rockaway teaching center in March 2003.
Under New York tort law, Ms. Egar had to demonstrate that the defendants either created the condition or had actual or constructive notice of the defect, the judge wrote.
Ms. Egar argued that the defendants' knowledge that the same wire had fallen in a different location a year earlier constituted constructive notice of the danger.
Justice Agate disagreed, and threw out the case.
"[T]here is no evidence in the record that the defendants or their agents created an allegedly dangerous condition or that defendants were made aware of any such condition which could have caused plaintiff to trip and fall," he wrote.
"The single incident of the eruv falling a year before this incident certainly does not constitute evidence of a regularly recurring condition of which defendants must be aware.... Moreover, no notice can be inferred where, as here, plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that any prior complaints of the fallen eruv on March 31, 2003 were made known to the defendants."
Leonard F. Lesser and Renee Simon Lesser of Simon Lesser represented Congregation Talmud Torah. Ms. Lesser said the length of the eruv contributed to the temple's lack of notice.
"Part of our argument was that [the previous fallen wire] may have been in an entirely different location," she said.
Rose M. Day of Great Neck represented Ms. Egar. Ms. Day did not return a call for comment.
New York Esrog Distributor Bound by Israeli Judgment, Court Rules
ReplyDeleteJoel Stashenko, New York Law Journal
An etrog, a fruit used during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot
A New York-based distributor of esrog, a fruit used by Jews during the observance of Sukkot, the ancient harvest festival holiday, must abide by an Israeli arbitrator's $66,000 judgment against him, a federal judge in New York has decided.
New York courts are generally prohibited from disturbing awards made by foreign arbitrators under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §§201, 207.
None of the narrow grounds for denying recognition of a foreign arbitral award under the convention are present in this dispute over the esrog, which is Hebrew for "citron," said Eastern District Judge Brian Cogan in Schwartzman v. Harlap, 08-dv-4990.
"Respondent cannot use this Court to obtain a second bite of the esrog," he wrote.
Yaakov Harlap of Queens, N.Y., ordered esrog from Israeli grower Betzalel Schwartzman. Harlap, also identified in the ruling as Jacob Charlap, contended that the esrog was substandard and that he had not agreed to pay for part of the shipment under a 2005 contract with Schwartzman. He also maintained that Schwartzman violated a clause making Harlap the exclusive U.S. distributor of Schwartzman's esrog by selling fruit to another U.S. outlet.
Both sides agreed in a handwritten note on the contract that Rabbi Eliezer Stern of Western Bnei Brak, Israel, would arbitrate any disputes over the transaction.
Stern ruled that Harlap owed Schwartzman $66,000, a finding that was challenged in Israeli courts before the action was withdrawn and resubmitted to Stern. Rabbi Stern ultimately affirmed his initial determination against Harlap.
In addition to challenging the substance of Stern's decision, Harlap contends Stern was biased against him because Stern provided the hakosher [sic], or kosher certification, on the esrog grown in Schwartzman's orchard. Harlap argued that he did not know about the relationship between Stern and Schwartzman until after Stern made his first arbitral determination.
Judge Cogan wrote that it is a "fundamental aspect" of U.S. policies on arbitration that arbitrators must disclose any relationships that could compromise their impartiality. But the judge added that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has avoided "dogmatic rigidity" when interpreting the impartiality of arbitrators and has rejected efforts to avoid recognition of arbitrators' rulings when a complaining party knew or should have known about a relationship involving an arbitrator and a party.
"The motivating concern of these cases is that an arbitral litigant should not be allowed to sit back, hope for a successful outcome, and then raise the alleged non-disclosure only if he is unhappy with the result," Judge Cogan wrote, citing Lucent Technologies Inc. v. Tatung Co., 379 F.3d 24 (2d. Cir. 2004).
The contract provided for Stern or the Belz rabbinical group to declare the esrog kosher, which added significantly to their value when distributed in the United States. Harlap should have known that Stern would receive a fee from Schwartzman for doing so, Judge Cogan held.
"Respondent's argument boils down to his contention that at the time he signed the agreement, he knew it was possible, and allowable, for Rabbi Stern to give the kosher certification, but he did not know, at the time of the arbitration, that it had actually happened," Judge Cogan wrote. "That does not matter."
The judge noted that Harlap raised the same non-disclosure argument in the Israeli court that he advanced before Judge Cogan.
"He then withdrew that objection and agreed to resubmit the matter to the very same Rabbi Stern about whom he is now complaining," Judge Cogan wrote. "There is no doubt that even if respondent originally had a valid complaint of non-disclosure, which I hold he did not, he waived that right by resubmitting the dispute back to Rabbi Stern with full knowledge that Rabbi Stern had been engaged to give the kosher certification."
Harlap is seeking to appeal Judge Cogan's ruling. The businessman contends that the judge, who ruled from submissions in the case, did not have accurate information about the court proceeding or arbitration in Israel.
Harlap, who appeared pro se, argued that he did not adequately get to tell the judge his side of the story.
"We were not given the opportunity to represent ourselves," he said in an interview.
Darren Oved of Oved & Oved praised Judge Cogan for weighing and rejecting Harlap's claims without allowing the Eastern District court to be used to "raise all the same issues over and over again" that were settled by arbitration in Israel.
"His decision was detailed, it was thorough," Oved said in an interview. "[The judge] went through the law properly."
Judge Cogan rejected Schwartzman's request that Harlap pay attorney's fees. Harlap's "mild opposition" to paying the $66,000 "does not nearly constitute the kind of bad-faith conduct" to merit the award of attorney's fees, the judge said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-fTt3cbNHo&feature=player_embedded
ReplyDeleteHow does UOJ know where my client escaped for a day during chol hamoed?
please publish the number for neiderman and his UJO organization
ReplyDeletethen all you avid readers of the blog call the US justice dept and fbi and tell them there is fraud and and an attempt to hinder justice
I always knew Agudath Israel was full of it. Looking forward to seeing you guys fail, and be plastered on the news.
ReplyDeleteIs this true? I won't link the blog because it's full of apikorsis but here is what the blogger says:
ReplyDeleteThough there are serious sexual problems in Breslov (the head of the yerushalim cheder was put in jail for raping the children in his cheder a few years ago--or at least that is what I saw in an israeli newpaper at the time-I forget which one)
I asked Shmarya and a few other well-placed friends in government to verify the allegations of money laundering and voter fraud by the Agudath Israel. So far, we all did not find anything at all to substantiate those allegations.
ReplyDeleteIf the anonymous commenter wants to back it up, please do, or I'll remove the comment.
UOJ
Moishe Finkel,
ReplyDeletemaybe your old chavrusa Pinny Lipschutz knows. It might be one of the "noted askonim" that he is mechabed in the Yated.
Chumra Research Institute announces Graduate Programs for fall
ReplyDeleteSecular influences on the frum community have reached an all time high. We have tried to stem these influences with bans and chumros, but to no avail. We are losing members to college, jobs and general secular doings that have no place within the frum community. We have tried to ban vegetables, sexual foods, concerts, sheitles, advertising with women, internet, television, etc… and where has it got us? It has helped stem the rise in our members whom are going off the derech, but we cannot go it alone. That is why we are pleased to announce the first ever fully accredited 100% kosher graduate school for those who want to help stem the secular influences of goyim, modern orthodoxy and some of those among us who wear bend down hats.
Chumra Research Institute or CRI is accepting qualified candidates for its fall semester. In order to qualify for this program there are several factors in which play into your acceptance. In order to adhere to the highest quality of students which will be the leaders in our tyrannical control of the orthodox community we cannot accept anyone who is not frum from birth, anyone from a family with members off the derech, people who’s father does not have a beard, does not wear woolen tzitzis and does not speak Yiddish fluently. All applicants must also go through a full physical and physiological test in order to insure that they can function under threatening and sometimes violent backlashes from people who are angry at the legislation of bans and chumras you will eventually be proposing.
CRI will be offering multiple degree and certificate programs. Eventually we plan on having campuses at each of the frummest cities in the United States- Eretz Yisroel has no shortage of people ready and willing to propose limitless bans and chumros- the shortage is here in America, in Lakewood- where women still disobey last years ban on arm swinging when they walk and in Boro Park where sheitle stores still display pritzusdick pictures in their window displays to lure husbands away from their wives in search of untznius advertisements. In Monsey, where the heimishe yidden still sit and eat pizza in coed restaurants- there are too many instances to name- but dare I say that we have a long way to go- and the need for educational programs like CRI is imminent.
The Chumra Research Institute will be offering the following degree programs:
Masters of Science- Chumras and Bans: Concentrations in ban psychology, chumra propaganda through WEB 2.0, independent study and research on what to ban next, looking at the fallout from different bans and chumras.
Masters in Chumra Economics: There is a whole economy based on the chumros that we will eventually legislate. . Kosher water, bug free lettuce, vegetable wash, even the mechitzas needed for large weddings- all come into play when you risk alienating your friends and neighbors by not listening to chumras.
Certificate- How to make chumras into halacha: The whole point of chumras are so they can become the law of the land. Just look at separate seating at weddings, now many people will not attend a wedding which is 100% halachically ok because it has separate seating. We will teach you proper tactics in convincing people that your chumra is in fact halacha (applicants should have a firm understanding of gemara and arguments)
PhD: We are offering an independent study Doctorate program to become a full fledged signer and proposer of bans. Your name will be featured with gedolei yisrioel whenever they propose a ban and you will not even have to physically sign the document- it will be similar to pork barrel legislation.
In order to apply for the PhD program at CRI you must come up with several propositions for bans and chumras. We have done some research in the field already and have made several advancements toward our ultimate goal, which is to ban women completely- thereby reducing the need for many bans. In order to ban women from the public sphere so they are reduced to robots that can make food, clean toilets, do laundry and have children.
Here is a list of possible bans and chumras compiled by the Chumra Rsearch Institute:
Glasses: glasses magnify an object and therefore they might be used to focus on untznius objects more clearly. Only reading glasses will be allowed.
Urinals: This should have been banned long ago, it allows for possible pornographic transgressions, when one looks to his neighbor.
Music: because it appears that anything too passionate will arouse someone.
Cities with beaches located within their city limits: coastal Israel is banned, including Bnai Brak due to its proximity to beaches, also Long Island as well as Brooklyn and Queens since pritzus lurks around. Miami now, why not these in a few months during a chumra lull?
Phones: actually during the old days the Rabbis wanted to ban them because it was feared that people would be able to speak loshon harah easily. Well guess what, its only time before phones will be banned. They allow for unsupervised talking to people of the opposite sex including all those goyishe operators and the credit card hot line ladies in India, where they worship sheitles.
Banks: Interacting with women is assur, and at the bank, the bullet proof mechitza is not enough, since it is see-through reminiscent of Lincoln Square synagogue. ATMS will still be allowed during the daylight hours- since after dark there is possibility of yichud.
Restaurants without mechitza’s: I cannot believe more restaurants other then Greens in Williamsburg have not instituted this as law. I mean weddings and bar mitzvahs have separate seating, why not the restaurant.
Public Restrooms: Because some one in the upper echelons owns shares in Depends diapers or the fact that stall doors cannot always be locked and some folks may be aroused at the thought of a naked person sitting next to them doing their business.
Mattresses: Because sex is just for babies and it shouldn’t be that enjoyable at least for the women anyway.
Cars with manual transmission: Because bad thoughts may enter ones mind when handling the stick shift.
Women cashiers: What if one day they didn’t slam your change down on the counter. Possible touching may occur causing bad thoughts.
Coca-Cola as well as whole milk: The bottle’s red color is untznius. Maybe New Square and Golden Flow will have to change the whole milk color of red to black. Because black and white means a person is whole.
Stairs: Ever notice that when a person walks up the stairs their outfit becomes tighter. Especially women, their skirts may reveal that they are in fact women, and it may be possible to make out an ankle underneath the bullet proof stockings. I propose ramps o a slight incline to be determined by scientists as which angle will allow optimum rise versus less tightening of the clothing.
Escalators without mechitza’s: What if you were going down and saw a woman in a short skirt going up? Such nisroynos should never have to occur.
Coed airplane flights: Hey why should we allow the sexes to sit together on airplane flights? First of all what happens when the lights are turned down and it becomes all romantic. It is possible for your seat mate to lean her/his head on your shoulders by accident. You may have to “talk” to a women chas vashalom.
Women from kissing the mezuzah: When they kiss it they raise their hands in a very untznius way and that should be assur.
Ice cream: Because licking your lips is so sexual even when half a tofutti cutie is lodged between the person’s teeth.
Chairs for women: They should ban chairs, because when women sit down you can see that legs lie underneath their robes. I propose slanted chairs that cause women to lean on them making it much more tznius.
Robes: Robes might be replaced by garbage bags in the future. This comes from an inside source and we are waiting for the official announcement.
Summer camp: Based on previous chumras the goal has been to ban fun, summer camps are way too much fun. They are also notorious places for child molestation, which should be banned too- because apparently it's fun.
Why hasn’t Craigslist officially been banned? Or is the internet ban a sweeping ban. Funny because in the Hamodia many of the advertisements feature email addresses and websites.
Envelopes: Licking is very seductive.
Windows: Looking at the shmutz walking down the street, a shonda.
Williamsburg: They say it’s the new hipster and artist capital of the city, not a good place for frum yidden to be.
Summer: PRITZUS- maybe we can build will build a ghetto in the arctic, where no pritzus can ever exist.
Calculators:Internet access may be possible
http://www.unitedjewish.org/
ReplyDeleteUnited Jewish Organization Headquarters of williamsburg:
32 Penn Street
Brooklyn NY 11211
T 718-643-9700
F 718-643-6581
United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, Inc. (UJO) was founded in 1966, as a Family Preservation Center, to help families in need living in the predominantly Hassidic community of South Williamsburg. Today, the UJO serves and represents more than 50,000 community residents and 148 not-for-profit religious, educational, charitable organizations and civic associations that serve the Jewish communities of Williamsburg, Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Who do we serve?
• People who want to understand and apply for Government entitlement benefits and social services.
• People who want information and enrollment services in a managed care plan for Medicaid, Family Health Plus, or Child Health Plus.
• Senior Citizens elderly in need of assistance and the
homebound, with in home services, such as homecare,
and meals on wheels
---------- Forwarded message
ReplyDeleteSubject: New administration's actions
Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U. S. needs to
know....
Something happened... H.R. 1388 was passed yesterday, behind our backs.
You may want to read about it. It wasn't mentioned on the news... just
went
by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.
Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the
USA. This is the news that didn't make the headlines...
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure
of
$20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and
"conflict victims" in Gaza.
The "presidential determination", which allows hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was
signed
on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides
a
free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who
have
displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement
(Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.
Let's review...itemized list of some of Barack Obama's most recent
actions
since his inauguration:
His first call to any head of state, as president, was to Mahmoud Abbas,
leader of Fatah party in the Palestinian territory.
His first one-on-one television interview with any news organization was
with Al Arabia television.
His first executive order was to fund/facilitate abortion(s) not just
here
within the U. S., but within the world, using U. S. tax payer funds.
He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees
halted.
He ordered overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.
He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and
the
"terror attack" on 9/11.
Now we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian
refuges to move to, and live in, the US at American taxpayer expense.
These important, and insightful, issues are being "lost" in the
blinding bail-outs and "stimulation" packages.
Doubtful? To verify this for yourself:
www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
PLEASE PASS THIS ON... AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW
WE are losing this country at a rapid pace.
JWB says: Baltimore needs the Markey bill urgently. Many of the Baltimore cases referred to by ABC news have been referred to in the Jewish Times and posted on the internet.
ReplyDeleteThe camp director, school administrator and the lawyer are all known.
Who in Baltimore doesn't know the name Shmuel Juravel?
see: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Juravel_Samuel.html
Shmuel Juravel was indicted on March 29, 2006, on the offenses of using a computer to persuade, induce and entice a minor to engage in prostitution or other sexual activity, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2422(b) (Count One); traveling in interstate commerce for the purpose of attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2423(b) & (e) (Count Two); and, knowingly possessing material containing images of child pornography, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2252A(a)(5)(B) (Count Three). On August 10, 2006 he plead guilty to three counts of traveling to have sex with a child and use of the Internet to entice a child to engage in illegal sex acts. Samuel Zev Juravel will spend 262 months in jail and a lifetime of supervised release. He also faces a fine to be determined by the court upon sentencing. There is no probation, no parole and no appeal. That was the plea agreement.
And he is but one of many Baltimore monsters.
What has the leadership of the Baltimore Orthodox community done? Shifted these predators to other communities.
http://blogs.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/philjacobs/
This Community Enabled the Molestations
by phil Jacobs - Editor Baltimore Jewish Times
(Excerpt)
...
Another longtime community rabbi, when asked about these recent allegations, perhaps said it best: “This is an old story. It’s a story that is part of the culture of this community. In some ways, it was true of Rabbi [Ephraim] Shapiro as well.” The late Rabbi Shapiro allegedly molested hundreds of boys and girls while spiritual leader of Agudas Achim and then the Talmudical Academy.
...
What kind of protest can we have at the Agudah dinner? UOJ, do you want to organize this by coming up with an idea that will bring media attention, quiet, civil protest. Kaddish for the victims? Signs saying Long Live UOJ! And Rabbis keep your hands off my did! And Do not contribute money to protectors of child molesters.
ReplyDeleteOr, alternatively, just passing out well worded fliers explaining the betrayal by Agudah of the kinderlech and asking all the donors to please do the right thing and beg their "leaders" to reconsider?
Or stink bombs? Milk in the chicken soup? Try to get in to the A/V guy and replace the Yissochor Frand video with "Capturing the Friedmans?"
How about a good old fashioned UOJ vote and lets see how many people would be willing to participate?
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteBreslov abuse scandal information and links.
1) http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/02/breslov-leaders-allegedly-cover-up-abuse-ostracize-parents-divide-familes.html
2)http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/02/israeli-tv-expos%C3%A9-on-breslovs-molestation-scandal.html
Arthur's 2:52 post is horrifying.
ReplyDeleteAgudah has written about:
*Anti-Gay marriage, calling it a social issue.
*Pro-Molestation, to avoid ruining their most precious real estate.
*Anti-Darfur II, against Holocaust denial.
*Pro-CAP funding increase, to increase revenue on their real estate holdings.
*Pro-Madoff scandalous behaviors, to desensitize the population to the harmful nature of criminal activity.
*Anti-Birth control comment by Nancy Pelosi, in order to increase fresh neshamos to be molested.
But, not one word about the issue Arthur talks about. Unless sharia laws are okay with them, this ought to scare people.
The Agudah is more concerned with their money, than klal yisroel's safety.
AGUDAH HAS SERVED THEIR PURPOSE, IT'S TIME TO CLOSE THEM DOWN.
FAST!!
Maybe Agudath Israel will file an amicus brief to help "Rabbi" Appleman run off with the cash.
ReplyDeleteThey are desperate for free infomercials nowadays.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/opinion/05ashcroft.html
ReplyDeleteBy JOHN ASHCROFT
Published: May 4, 2009
I CAN imagine the Treasury secretary’s face turning pale as he is told by the attorney general that one of the financial institutions on government life support has been indicted by a grand jury. Worse, I can imagine the attorney general facing not too subtle pressure from the president’s economic team to go easy on such companies.
This situation is hypothetical, of course, but in March, the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, warned Congress that “the unprecedented level of financial resources committed by the federal government to combat the economic downturn will lead to an inevitable increase in economic crime and public corruption cases.” Yet no one has discussed the inherent conflict of interest that the government created when it infused large sums of money into these companies.
The government now has an extraordinarily high fiduciary duty to safeguard the stability and health of companies that received hundreds of billions of bailout money. At the same time, the Justice Department has the duty to indict a corporation if the evidence dictates such severe action — and an indictment is often a death sentence for a corporation. The quandary is obvious. How, then, does the Justice Department bring charges against a corporation that is now owned by the government?
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/05/news/companies/chrysler_loans/index.htm
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.
This revelation was buried within Chrysler's bankruptcy filings last week and confirmed by the Obama administration Tuesday.
Obama hints at tougher line on Israel
ReplyDeleteTimes of London Online - 1 hour ago
The Obama Administration has signalled a tougher approach towards Israel ahead of fresh talks on the Middle East peace process by insisting it must endorse the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteMore articles on abuse in the orthodox community in the current YU Observer.
http://www.yuobserver.com/
Several bloggers (including UOJ) are mentioned in the Rav Blau interview.
"This revelation was buried within Chrysler's bankruptcy filings last week"
ReplyDeleteShoytim! We told them to bury it under the carpet!
AIG bonuses four times higher
ReplyDeleteThe 2008 AIG bonus pool just keeps getting larger and larger.
In a response to detailed questions from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the company has offered a third assessment of exactly how much it paid out in bonuses last year.
And the new number, offered in a document submitted to Cummings on May 1, is the highest figure the company has disclosed to date.
AIG now says it paid out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work performed in 2008.
That is nearly four times more than the company revealed in late March when asked by POLITICO to detail its total bonus payments. At that time, AIG spokesman Nick Ashooh said the firm paid about $120 million in 2008 bonuses to a pool of more than 6,000 employees.
Rabbi Horowitz is so scared of a full frontal assault of his beliefs, that he has turned his site into a fortress. No comments are allowed without being reviewed by independent adminstrators who can arbitrarily reject all comments. Agudah is proud that Rabbi Horowitz is representing the children, and it looks like they care. But, in fact it is only another propaganda tool in Agudath Israel's arsenal of confusing the masses.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Horowitz is entirely irrelevant. Those who are more openminded, and respected his candor, have learnt the hard way that he is a wolf in lamb clothes. A double talking, backstabber is not a definition of a leader. The hardcore Agudah members have seen him turn on Agudah's ideals and beliefs when he was being lauded by the openminded crowd, a "M.O." rabbi is not what they want.
He could write whatever he wants, but will be ignored and despised. The pain of the victims who exposed their innermost secrets to the fraudulent masquerader, is now unbearable. No halfbaked apology can ever appease those Rabbi Horowitz betrayed.
Pathological -governed by a compulsion; compulsive a pathological liar (Websters New World College Dictionary, 2005)
ReplyDeleteHatred - strong dislike or ill will; hate (ibid)
If we look into the pshat of Kamtza and bar Kamtza we recognize a pathological hatred of the host toward bar Kamtza. Regardless of what acts would be taken toward appeasement, the host would not be appeased. In turn bar Kamtza turned this incident into a crusade of pathological hatred against the Perushim and in turn all Yidden. It's stated that the Rabbis did nothing to prevent the embarrassment and insult to bar Kamtza. I put forth that no amount of persuasion could have moved the host to accept anything that bar Kamtza offered or would do to appease and placate the host. Short of killing or otherwise ostracizing bar Kamtza, sitting by and doing nothing was the path of least damage to the Rabbonim. There sitting out the argument wasn't about inadequacy but about the realization that these two pathological fools couldn't see where their actions would lead. They couldn't address each other civilly or give each other the benefit of doubt. They may have had genuine aspersions to cast at each other, but their involvement of others was worse than their mutual dislike.
This argument regarding the Markey bill is, in my opinion, taking on some of the elements of Kamtza and bar Kamtza. When Rabbi Horowitz expresses his opinion and it heralds and takes up the cudgel to break the heads of the molestors; he is a hero. It's his opinion and it has it's detractors. When he opines that this legislation, the Markey bill, is not good; he gets his head handed to him, although some call him hero. The mob (host) can't be appeased regardless of what Rabbi Horowitz has handed them in the past. And the mob swings between the two positions and at a point the mob becomes one, throwing out the baby with the bath water and offering up a korbon that is damaged.
Rabbi Horowitz is not a hero or a backstabber. He is offering his insight based on his experience. If you go to a doctor who has been treating you for your entire adult life and he tells you you will die in 6 months, you go to a second doctor. If that doctor tells you you will live to 120, does that mean you can kill the first doctor or besmirch him to all who will listen to you? Is it okay to kill Rabbi Horowitz when he doesn't follow the mob? No, any more that it was okay to transfer the hatred for the host to the entirety of Klall Yisroel. The Rabbonim of the 2nd Beis HaMikdash had a grave quandry, they had no power, they couldn't effect any punishment. They were dealing with a well connected pathological hater who couldn't be appeased and whose honor took precedence over the lives of his fellow Yidden. They were dealing with an equally well connected pathological hater who couldn't be appeased, the host. Had they had the power, they would have risen up and thrown both out of the Klall as rodefim.
Today we are in the same quandry. We have no power. Our Jewish courts are for the most part dens of corruption and capricious decisions. We cannot elect our Yiddishe leadership and they know it. We can choose to be like bar Kamtza or we can choose not to be. In the case of Rabbi Horowitz I think I'll choose not to be like bar Kamtza. Regardless of his opinion and how it was formed in this instance I won't dismiss him outright. I choose whether I agree or disagree and I choose whether to continue to receive his opinions tomorrow as I did yesterday.
Boruch,
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can explain the logical rationale Rabbi Horowitz has in opposing the Markey Bill. In my aniyas daas I have not been able to find any.
FROM SHMARYA'S BLOG, AN URGENT MATTER:
ReplyDeleteRebecca Mosseri--- Rivka bat Yaffa will soon need O+ blood. She is a 16 year old girl who has just been diagnosed with Leukemia.
All those who are interested in taking part in this Great Misva should contact Baily at 212-894-8263. She works with Chai Life Line, and is in charge of the blood donations
UN demands Israel compensation for strikes in Gaza
ReplyDeleteBy JOHN HEILPRIN – 1 hour ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A U.N. investigation on Tuesday accused Israel of spreading false statements about its attacks on United Nations schools and other facilities during the Gaza military campaign — including one reported to have killed more than 40 people — and formally demanded compensation.
The investigation ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon found conclusively that Israeli weaponry — some containing white phosphorus — was "the indisputed cause" of attacks on several schools, a health clinic and the world body's Gaza headquarters.
Put on the defensive against widespread international criticism and accusations of possible war crimes in Gaza, Israel denies that it intentionally struck the compounds, and says it was forced to act against militants using the buildings and other civilian areas for cover. Israel said the material its government presented to the U.N. was largely ignored in the final report, which it called "biased."
Israel's deputy U.N. ambassador, Daniel Carmon, called the report "biased" and "one-sided."
Further, he said the commission was "betraying" Israel's confidence by going beyond the scope of what it was supposed to investigate.
"The spirit of the report and its language are tendentious and entirely unbalanced and ignore the facts as they were presented to the commission," Israel's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The commission prefers the positions of Hamas, a murderous terror organization, and by doing so misleads the world public."
Ombudsman,
ReplyDeleteMaybe he has a logical reason but then maybe he doesn't. The art of pilpul leaves me baffled at times although it's supposed to enlighten and elucidate the sugya.
In my time we discussed the issue of deterrence and punishment. The sugya, le'havdil, was the death penalty. It was a back and forth battle then and now. The main question was between deterrance and punishment. Which is the death penalty? Is it a deterrent or is it a punishment? Easy, you say, it's both. Or maybe it's neither. To be a deterrent a law must be enforceable. For example, going through a red light is against the law. But it is selectively enforceable and therefore you and I will drive through red lights. If there were to be police or cameras at every corner and fines levied for each offense and publicity of such, the enforcement of the law would be a strong deterrent.
It is my conjecture that Rabbi Horowitz argues, albeit not explicity, that the Markey bill is unenforceable because it is narrow in it's focus and will not be a deterrent because no publicity will surround any punishment meted out because of the statute. Therefore if the bill is intended to deter a molester or a future molester it won't. The molester will not be exposed because in the mind of the molested there is no punishment to the molester. The psychology of these molester is similar to a nocturnal predator, if no light is shined on them, they will happily chew on your house. Thieves work the same way, they rob in the dark, light deters them.
It's possible that Rabbi Horowitz either doesn't see any deterring light or a dim light that will be of little value in this bill.
I have seen much in the way of bad legislation that has been introduced and passed that was later modified into better legislation. The bill is a good start. It's not perfect. I don't think that we should abandon the issue over the quality of opposing bills that will someway find a compromise position when the final vote is called. I'm mortified that there will be a compromise. I'd rather have a bad bill and the ability to improve than a mediocre bill that no one wants to touch. This is my biggest fear, that the vociferous arguments will cause the politicians to bed themselves with the moderate mediocre and safe position. I think that without vigorous enforcement, which means stepping forward and pointing fingers and bringing proof of molestation to satisfy the law, this bill will not deter the molester or the molester's protectors any more than a bill from Lopez, Schwartz, Gonzalez, Mustafa, Pietraska - you get the idea. The strength of law is it's ability to stop the rational person from doing the irrational. The irrational person will not be dissuaded by any law. But, as with the death penalty argument, the person who is punished by the death penalty and executed is certainly deterred from carrying out any more irrational acts.
Rabbi Horowitz is, in my opinion, correct that education and vigilance and excellent parent-child-teacher communication will protect children. I believe that he is in full support of victims of molestation and abuse. You are unequivocally granted the right to disagree and take issue with his position on the Markey bill. I don't let that undo the 20 or more years of work and accomplishment he has done with children.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - News) has been deemed to need an additional $34 billion in capital, according to the results of a government stress test, a source familiar with the results said on Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThe amount is far higher than published reports had speculated the largest bank might need. It is certain to increase the pressure on Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, whom shareholders ousted as chairman last week.
It may also unnerve investors who had hoped the results of the stress tests on Bank of America and 18 other banks might show the industry was in less dire condition than had been feared. Shares of major U.S. banks have nearly doubled since bottoming out in early March.
Al Pi Daas Toirah:
ReplyDeleteNo one should go to Agudah functions until they start listening the psak of the gedolei hador to turn over child abuser-rodfim to police.
The Agudah is using lies to fight a bill in the NY State legislature that when passed in California & Delaware led to hundreds of abusers being arrested.
The Agudah falsely claims that some alter 70 year old men might start making up lies against yeshivos to bankrupt them. This is not possible for several reasons. There are safeguards built into the law to stop these kinds of actions. Rabbonim like R' Yosef Blau have also said there is an anan sahadi that people do not go public with these kinds of lies.
The Agudah (together with Satmar and Torah Umesorah) covered up abuse for years and are only trying to stop the truth from getting out.
Boruch said:
ReplyDelete"the Markey bill is unenforceable because it is narrow in it's focus and will not be a deterrent because no publicity will surround any punishment meted out"
And is it not publicized when molesters are arrested?
Charges dismissed against couple accused of kidnap, rape of girls
ReplyDeleteBy Tomer Zarchin, Ha'aretz
The state prosecution yesterday withdrew an indictment against an ultra-Orthodox couple charged with kidnapping and raping two girls, aged 6 and 3, citing discrepancies in the girls' testimonies.
A police interrogator decided the complainants' accounts lacked validity even though they had a "factual basis," due to the influence of the girls' families.
Last July, police received complaints that two young girls living in the Jerusalem area had been sexually assaulted by Reuven Weissman, and that his wife Rachel had acted as his accomplice.
"Three days ago I was passing by the [Weissmans'] house when suddenly I saw that man," the 6-year-old told police. "He grabbed me and pulled me into his house. He took me into a room, took off my skirt and underwear and then touched me between the legs."
Meanwhile, the 3-year-old also told police that Reuven, whom she called "the man with the candy," had sexually assaulted her in front of his wife.
The Weissmans, who have no children, were known as a quiet and harmless couple. Soon after the story broke, they became unwelcome in their community. Fliers hung in their neighborhood demanded that they leave immediately, and on one occasion, local residents broke into their house and threatened them.
Defense attorneys sharply criticized how the police interviewed the girls, saying their accounts had been warped by their families' influence. Police child interrogation specialist Keren London particularly came under attack for allowing the younger girl's mother to be present during the questioning of her child.
"I was questioning a 3-year-old, so I brought in her mother to help the girl focus," she said. "I'll admit that the mother was more dominant [during the interrogation] and I take responsibility for letting her in [to the room.]"
Due to the defense's complaints, the child was questioned again by child interrogation specialist Micha Haran last September. During that interview, the child contradicted her previous accounts to police. She told Haran she was laying down when Weissman allegedly molested her, while during her first interrogation she said she was standing up.
The defense also criticized the police for not physically examining the complainants after the alleged rapes, and for taking three months to carry out a reconstruction.
"In my opinion the girl's testimony was tainted by the large number of interrogators, which can be seen in several things she said that are unusual for someone her age, such as, 'They were in it together'," Haran wrote in his report. He also said the girl's description of the room where she was assaulted was inconsistent.
Haran concluded that the girls stories contained "a certain seed of truth upon which the child probably expanded in a way that does not necessarily reflect what happened."
"Children frequently hear things from others that become an inseparable part of their consciousness," said attorney Ariel Atari, who specializes in cases of child sexual abuse. "When they are interrogated it is impossible to tell when they are talking about something factual or something imagined, which is why they may sound perfectly valid even when they are making things up." The state prosecution yesterday defended its original decision to indict the Weissmans, saying it had believed there was enough evidence to convict them, before this evidence was undermined.
"The prosecution received new material that made it change its mind about pursuing this case," it said yesterday. "After much deliberation, we decided not to continue."
Just when you thought Shmarya couldn't get any more weird & outrageous!
ReplyDeleteThe full context here has him attacking Professor Marc Shapiro, a UOJ-like figure who exposes corruption, because in SHmarya's view he does not expose corruption enough. Shapiro mentioned he knows of a rov who had a child as a 17 year old bochur before doing teshuva but will not name him.
Here is Shmarya's discombobulated response that turns it into an attack on Lubavitchers who used to have Black girlfriends!:
"That rosh yeshiva who fathered the child out of wedlock at 17? I know of another rosh yeshiva who did the same – except his wife / live in girlfriend was not Jewish. In fact, she was an African American Christian. This guy was a Chabad hasid, and the Rebbe sent Rabbi Hodokov to fetch guy and bring him to the Rebbe. The Rebbe convinced the future rosh yeshiva to abandon his wife and child and return to Chabad. I'm told he never saw that child again. He married a Chabad woman who is to this day extremely racist as are her children. These children – now married adults – may not–even realize where their mother's racism comes from.
Should I report the story in full? Should I give his name?
I choose not to do it. For years I did not tell or write the story. But there is a purpose to telling it even in this edited form. Chabad is inherently racist. Its theology demonizes blacks (more on this in another post soon) and it calls for complete abandonment of non-Jewish children fathered by Jewish men.
I know a Chabad rabbi who, before he was Orthodox fathered a child with his non-Jewish wife. The rabbi has been a Chabad hasid for 20 or more years and by rabbinical advice (I believe from the Rebbe) has no contact with his first (non-Jewish) child.
Fathering children means accepting responsibility for those children. Children need financial security, protection and parental love.
Instead, based on a Chabad hasidic teaching, Chabad rabbis are known to tell fathers of non-Jewish children to pray for those children's deaths.
(To PC this up, sometimes these rabbis say to pray that the non-Jewish children choose on their own to convert to Orthodox Judaism. To their credit, most Chabad rabbis wisely avoid the subject altogether.)
It takes a certain type of cultlike personality to abandon your small child on the orders of a rabbi. Of course, it's that same type of cultlike personality that allows Chabad to send rabbis to tiny outposts all over the world.
Perhaps a professional historian should explore all this and put it in context for us. The two rabbis I mention may not be gedloim, but their lives shed much light on Chabad today."
End of Shmarya's screed.
It does say that a chotay should be mispalel that his mamzer offspring should be niftar. Of course am-haaretz Shmarya would go bonkers over that as well if he knew of it. The question is why? Is it just because of a combination of his sinah and failure to grasp reason or is it as some have suggested that he has his own psul yichus?
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/05/is-chabad-trying-to-steal-this-synagogue.html
ReplyDeleteI rarely if ever link to Shmarya's abhorrent blog but what does the oylam think of Shmarya's assault here on Elliot Pasik?
Perhaps the Chabadniks that Pasik is representing are lowlives and Rabbi Appelman certainly makes them sound that way. But is there another side to this story? If there is, Shmarya certainly isn't interested in it.
According to a 2001 JTA article, by that year over 30 people had received evaluation or treatment through the program and more were on a waiting list. Half of the offenders were referred through the criminal justice system and half through rabbis and Jewish communal leaders, “whom the community pressured to seek help without notifying authorities,”
ReplyDelete----------------
Does that mean Charlie Hynes broke the law in not keeping them in the criminal justice system?
The fundamental issue in the Appleman story is the same issue facing Agudah:
ReplyDeleteIs a shul or other community funded institution owned by the board of directors, OR by those who donated money to fund the place?
There was membership, dedications, sifrei Torah donations etc. made by people to sustain the COMMUNITY INSTITUTION, not the Rabbi.
In this situation, and in the current Agudah makeup, the boards are making unilaterral decisions without consulting donors who donated money for the best interest of the COMMUNITY, not for the best interest of the board or Rabbi.
Boards and Rabbis cannot look at community donations to the community institution as their personal retirement fund.
Donors beware!
Why didn't the Jewish Weak credit UOJ for that picture of Colmer?
ReplyDeleteShame on Gary Rosenblatt!
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a15703/News/New_York.html
ReplyDeleteWhy did Hella Winston focus on Asher Berenbaum who at least kicked Colmer out of the Mir and not on Lazer Ginzberg who is virtually the creep's bodyguard?
The biggest chutzpa with Hella Winston is that she doesn't mention that I tried to shred Colmer to pieces with the blades of my helicopter!
ReplyDeleteAnd I should get the credit for Colmer's picture on UOJ.
ALL the credit.
Even though I was only one of 25 people who sent it to him!
How did Winston uncover our cover up? I've really been slipping lately!
ReplyDeleteThe people around the yeshiva who know all the details have been pretty tight lipped. R' Shmuel zl was withering away then with cellulitis and other ailments and was not in the beis medrash. I wonder if he told Asher to call the police and his own son didn't listen to him or if they didn't even get the rosh yeshiva involved.
ReplyDeleteWhen the police came to get Rosner 20 years ago, R' Shmuel told them to call 911. He wasn't a child molester, but still.
There was a crazy old Syrian man convicted of statutory rape with a 16 year old girl. He was persona non grata in Achiezer & Shaarei Tzion and came around late nights to the Mir to shout that the SY community paid for the building.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember his name?
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home values in the United States extended their fall in the first quarter, with more than one in five homeowners now owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteYou think the old statutory rapist is the only skeleton in the SY community's closet?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think we joined with Satmar & the Agudah fressers to fight the Markey bill?
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp on Tuesday detailed plans to all but wipe out the holdings of remaining shareholders by issuing up to 60 billion new shares in a bid to pay off debt to the U.S. government, bondholders and the United Auto Workers union.
ReplyDeleteThe unusual plan, which was detailed in a filing with U.S. securities regulators, would only need the approval of the U.S. Treasury to proceed since the U.S. government would be the majority shareholder of a new GM, the company said.
The flood of new stock issuance that could be unleashed has been widely expected by analysts who have long warned that GM's shares could be worthless whether the company restructures out of court or in bankruptcy.
The debt-for-equity exchanges detailed in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission would leave GM's stock investors with just 1 percent of the equity in a restructured automaker, ending a long run when the Dow component was seen as a bellwether for the strength of the broader U.S. economy.
GM shares closed on Tuesday at $1.85 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock would be worth just over 1 cent if the first phase of GM's restructuring moves forward as described.
Once GM has issued new shares to pay off its debt to the U.S. government, bondholders and its major union, it said it would then undertake a 1-for-100 reverse stock split.
Such a move would take the nominal value of the stock back to near where it had been before the flood of new shares. But in the process, GM's existing shareholders would see their stake in the 100-year-old automaker all but wiped out.
The automaker said it expected to draw another $2.6 billion from the U.S. Treasury before a June 1 deadline set by the Obama administration for it to reach agreements with all of its key stakeholders.
That borrowing would take GM's debt to the U.S. government to $18 billion, and the automaker said it expected to have to borrow a total of nearly $27 billion.
Filed at 11:22 a.m. ET
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (AP) -- Bernard Madoff's longtime secretary said Wednesday that she believes the disgraced financier is not cooperating with authorities to protect others, and that he was a flirtatious boss who frequented massage parlors.
Eleanor Squillari, Madoff's secretary of more than 20 years, told NBC's ''Today'' show that she thinks her former boss carefully orchestrated his arrest and that he's protecting others who might have been involved in his multibillion dollar scheme by not cooperating with investigators. She declined to speculate as to whom he might be protecting.
Squillari was asked what she would say to Madoff.
''After I stop crying? I would really want to know why he is not cooperating,'' she said.
Squillari appeared on the program and on ABC's ''Good Morning America'' to promote an account of her time working for Madoff that she co-wrote for Vanity Fair. The 59-year-old Squillari spent two months helping the FBI gather evidence against the former money manager.
In the article, Squillari said her married former boss was flirtatious and made sexually suggestive remarks. She said she once saw him perusing the escort ads in the back of a magazine and said he frequented massage parlors.
''Once, I looked in his address book and found, under M, about a dozen phone numbers for his masseuses,'' she wrote. ''If you ever lose your address book and somebody finds it, they're going to think you're a pervert, I said.''
Squillari said Madoff often made sexually suggestive remarks.
'''Oh, you know you're crazy about me,' he would say to me. Sometimes when he came out of his bathroom, which was diagonal to my desk, he would still be zipping up his pants. If he saw me shaking my head disapprovingly, he would say, 'Oh, you know it excites you,''' she wrote.
Winiarz has a famous brother - - - -Greenfield is related to -- - - -
ReplyDelete"Winiarz has a famous brother"
ReplyDeleteChild rapist "Rabbi" Winiarz-Gafni
"Greenfield is related to"
???
David Greenfield is running for public office where he could be even more dangerous.
ReplyDeleteJust because someone has a rosh yeshiva title, it doesn't always mean that his behavior will be better than or even on par with the general population.
ReplyDelete5 years ago, one rosh yeshiva found out my wife has a masters degree and was a professional grant writer. He wanted her to grant write for him on a commission basis. My wife explained that in her experience it would be virtually impossible to find funds for the particular project he was seeking. He wouldn't take no for an answer and kept insisting she work for him full-time without compensation. When he finally got the message that she wasn't interested, his very petty, vindictive & ugly side emerged. He was pretty nasty to me for the next 6 months.
I decided to be moychel his character flaw. Recently, I offered him a business opportunity on a silver platter where he would be making money for doing virtually nothing. I could do it entirely myself but decided to farm it out to others in name for political reasons. Most people would jump at the chance to make a nice cut for nothing more than taking a phone call or two. But it was still insufficient for the rosh yeshiva. Not only did he DEMAND a much larger cut of the profit but he bellyached to me for an hour about every veite & tzedreyte tziyur about how he could possibly be defrauded, despite a multitude of safeguards that ensure it will not happen. He dared me to give the opportunity to someone else which I did and was gladly accepted. Now the rosh yeshiva is behaving angrily towards me again.
Hella Winston has to focus on the man who probably calls the shots behind the scenes for Ohel when it comes to the issue of reporting child molesters -- that being "Rabbi" David Cohen. UOJ, what information do you have regarding his role in not reporting Mondrowitz and other molesters?
ReplyDeletestop with innuendos and lets give names to stories so we know who is who
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2009/05/copy-of-anonymous-to-yudelstake.html
ReplyDeleteCheck out the lead post today on his Yudelstake website.
Ephraim Bryks is still running around pretending to be a marriage counselor. Despite Rav Yosef Blau warning the public to stay away from that goon rapist, who sometimes acts $$ beshutfus $$ with Belsky, there are people unaware of his sordid history. I'm told that people have been badly messed up by him, including very recently.
ReplyDeleteJWB says:
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to Rabbi Yakov Horowitz's Jewish Press article.
I disagree with Rabbi Yakov Horowitz. The public system has a system for complaints and investigations. The private system does not. That is why we must have the Markey Bill to have expose and remove the predators.
Bcause Rabbi Avrohom Reichman is still teaching in the private system and only the Markey Bill can help stop that (by threat of civil suits).
If Rabbi Avrohom Reichman tried to teach in the public system, anyone could stop that by one phone call which would initiate an investigation into his suitability to teach children. NO such protections exist in the private school system.
Support Markey.
Tell Rabbi Horowitz he is wrong and Agudath Israel is wrong and that children are suffering as a result.
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/39166
OP-ED
Walking The Dog Backwards: Why I'm Opposed to the Markey Bill
By Rabbi Yakov Horowitz
Posted May 06 2009
dovid winiarz does in fact daven at the agudah of staten island. he actually sits about ten feet away from avi shafran.
ReplyDeleteAnother Animal that Must be Stopped said...
ReplyDelete"Ephraim Bryks is still running around pretending to be a marriage counselor. Despite Rav Yosef Blau warning the public to stay away from that goon rapist, who sometimes acts $$ beshutfus $$ with Belsky, there are people unaware of his sordid history. I'm told that people have been badly messed up by him, including very recently."
Can you please elaborate? I know people still around Bryks and within his grasp. also what does he have to do with Belsky?
May 5, 2009
ReplyDeleteThe Vatican's Continuing Jewish Problem
Alan M. Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
As Pope Benedict makes his historic visit to Israel, several Cardinals, Bishops and priests continue to perpetuate the Church's long history of anti-Semitism. Photographs recently surfaced of Father Angelo Idi wearing a swastika as he makes a hail-Hitler salute at a neo-Nazi rally. He belongs to the same group of Fascists that include Bishop Richard Williamson—who persists in denying the Holocaust. But the Church's Jewish problem is not limited to marginal priests or excommunicated Bishops. At least two of the Church's most influential Cardinals, including one who was in the running for Pope Benedict’s job and who remains a leading candidate to replace him, are overt anti-Semites and proud of it.
Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Meridiaga, who is the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has been telling anyone who is willing to listen that "the Jews" are to blame for the scandal surrounding the sexual misconduct of priests toward young parishioners! The Jews? How did Cardinal Rodriguez ever come up with this ridiculous idea? Here is his "logic." He begins by asserting that the Vatican is anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. It follows, therefore, that "the Jews" had to get even with the Catholic Church, while at the same time deflecting attention away from Israeli injustices against the Palestinians.
The Jews managed to do this by arranging for the media which they, of course, control to give disproportionate attention to the Vatican sex scandal. Listen to Rodriguez's own words:
“It certainly makes me think that in a moment in which all the attention of the mass media was focused on the Middle East, all the many injustices done against the Palestinian people, the print media and the TV in the United States became obsessed with sexual scandals that happened 40 years ago, 30 years ago. Why? I think it's also for these motives: What is the church that has received Arafat the most times and has most often confirmed the necessity of the creation of a Palestinian state? What is the church that does not accept that Jerusalem should be the indivisible capital of the State of Israel, but that it should be the capital of the three great monotheistic religions?”
Rodriguez then goes on to compare the Jewish-controlled media with “Hitler,” because they are “protagonists of what I do not hesitate to define as a persecution against the Church.”
When asked whether he wanted to reconsider his attack, Rodriguez replied: “I don’t repent; sometimes it is necessary to shake things up.”
The prime media culprit is, according to Rodriguez, The Boston Globe, which has won numerous journalistic awards for its exposure of the sex scandal and cover-up. The Globe is owned by The New York Times, which is controlled by the Sulzberger family. Hence the Jewish conspiracy.
The problem with this cockamamie theory is that the Jewish community of Boston was very close to, and admiring of, Cardinal Bernard Law, who presided over the archdiocese during the scandal. Law had built bridges between the Catholic and Jewish communities of Boston, and when the scandal was exposed by the very un-Jewish Boston Globe the Jewish community remained largely supportive of Law.
None of the leading media critics, lawyers or politicians who railed against the church was Jewish. Most were Catholic. But that didn't matter to the bigoted cardinal, who along with other classic anti-Semites believes that if there is a problem “the Jews” must be to blame for it.
As James Carrol, himself a Catholic, has characterized Rodriguez's “crackpot” mindset: “When the church has a problem here is the oldest move of all blame the Jews.” Nor is Rodriguez the only current cardinal afflicted with such bigotry.
Cardinal Joseph Glemp, the primate of Poland, has blamed the Jews for Polish communism, alcoholism and collaboration with Hitler. He also accused Jews of trying to kill nuns. Other high-ranking priests, especially in Central America and Poland, have leveled similar anti-Semitic accusations against the Jews and Israel.
These blood libels demonstrate that the Vatican still has a problem with anti-Semitism at the top levels of its hierarchy, even after Vatican II declared anti-Semitism to be "a sin." How can serial sinners like Cardinals Rodriguez and Glemp retain their statures as princes of the Church while continuing to preach blood libels against the Jews?
Anti-Semitism in the Catholic clergy transcends ideological lines. Bishop Williamson and Father Idi are fascists of the hard right. Cardinal Rodriguez is a leftist “liberation” theologist. Cardinal Glemp is just an old fashioned Polish anti-Semite who follows in the footsteps of his predecessors who were also Primates of the Polish Catholic Church (unlike Pope John Paul II, who was also Polish but was philosemetic.)
Pope Benedict is a good man who has generally continued the good work of his two predecessors toward the Jews. But the problem of anti-Semitism is getting worse in the Church, as it is in many parts of the world, especially in Central and South America. The growing influence and success of Cardinal Rodriguez, and the failure of the Pope to condemn his overt anti-Semitism, contributes to the legitimation of this sin among some of the Faithful.
The time has come, indeed is long overdue, for Pope Benedict to speak out and to take firm action against the bigots in red hats that are sullying his papacy and wounding the moral authority of his Church.
The Vatican - A Repository for the Stolen Treasures of the Jewish People
ReplyDeleteBY MANFRED LEHMANN
The greatest adversary of the Jewish people over the past 2,000 years has been the Vatican, representing the Christian Church with its antipathy towards Judaism. In its efforts to defeat Judaism
the church has used many methods. One has been the confiscation and burning of Jewish holy books. After succeeding in destroying hundreds of thousands of sacred Jewish books, there is still a residue of some 800 Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican. For ten years I have led a campaign to recover at least these survivors and have campaigned for their return to their legitimate owners, the Jewish people.
The Story of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library
Much has been written recently about the Jewish claim to some precious, ancient Hebrew manuscripts lying in the Vatican Library. These Jewish Treasures came to the attention of American Jews when in 1987 a selection of 57 of them traveled to various American cities on an exhibit, arranged as a fundraiser by the Reform congregations of the United States.
These exhibits, which began in Miami, were introduced by publicity handouts that glorified the "cultural cross-fertilization" of Christians and Jews during the Middle Ages to which these precious manuscripts allegedly testify. This line was immediately attacked as a falsification of history by those who knew the tragic background of the manuscripts. The Church had for 600 years carried out a ferocious spiritual genocide against Judaism by seizing and burning hundreds of thousands of Hebrew books in order to thwart the continuation of Jewish education. Only a handful—some 800 by the latest count—still survive in the Vatican besides some hundreds of charred fragments salvaged from the pyres of the book burnings.
A group of concerned Jews, knowledgeable in Jewish history, formed the Committee for the Recovery of Jewish Manuscripts and placed ads wherever the Vatican exhibition went asking the Pope to return to the rightful owners—the Jewish people—these surviving Jewish treasures in the spirit of the "Nostra Aetate" of Pope John XXIII. The Committee requested that these manuscripts be housed in the National Library in Jerusalem, the center of research on Hebrew literature.
The Vatican totally stonewalled the request. But after two years, the Vatican sent its Librarian Emeritus, Cardinal Stickler—an Austrian and good friend of Kurt Waldheim—to lecture at Harvard, the last stop of the exhibit. He made the astounding claim that the Vatican got these Hebrew works, not by seizing them from Jews, but as gifts from Italian noblemen and that the "Renaissance" Popes of the 16th century were lovers of Hebrew books.
I, as chairman of the Committee to show the falsehood of his claims, presented him with a copy of the Bull of Pope Clement VIII dated 1592—in the midst of the Renaissance period—which in the most ferocious anti-Semitic language condemned the Talmud and other Hebrew writings as "obscene," "blasphemous" and "abominable"—all to be ordered seized and burned. The good Pope also forbade non-Jews to own, give as gifts or print Hebrew books on pain of torture and excommunication. The embarrassed cardinal had no answer and stalked out of the meeting room.
The campaign of this Committee has had the support of such American personalities as Seymour Reich, Elie Weisel, Rabbi Emanuel Rackman and others. Since the time of the manuscript exhibition in America, the Committee has further researched the origin of the Vatican manuscripts. The Israel Government, through its Institute of Manuscripts, published a report written by two prominent Professors, Aloni and Loewenberg, showing that the largest part of the 800 works originated in a part of Germany where they were seized after a pogrom. One of the Catholic rulers in Germany presented them to the Vatican.
This finding is consistent with the sordid story of the persecution of Jews by the Vatican throughout history.
We found that the burnings of Hebrew books were initiated by Pope Gregory IX. He persuaded French King Louis IX to burn some 12,000 copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1243. He was followed by Pope after Pope. The most ferocious haters of Judaism and Jewish books among them were Innocent IV (1243-1254), Clement IV (1256-1268), John XXII (1316-1334), Paul IV (1555-1559), Pius V (1566-1572) and Clement VIII (1592-1605). They almost succeeded in stamping out Jewish books entirely. Yet Jews continued to pen holy books without letup, and once the printing press was invented, the Church found it impossible to destroy entire printed editions of the Talmud and our other sacred books. Gutenberg, the German who invented the printing press around 1450, is certainly one of our great heroes, since he helped us to victory over our Catholic enemies, who had hoped to blot out our Judaism.
We also found that a part of the seized Hebrew books were not burned but turned over to a special building in Rome reserved for renegade Jews, who were ordered to search for passages in the Talmud that the Church could use to combat Judaism in the public disputations that took place from time to time between rabbis and Jewish converts.
When the first attempts were made to negotiate an agreement between the Vatican and the State of Israel, I proposed that the question of the return of the Hebrew manuscripts to the Jewish people should be put on the agenda. To my pleasant surprise this proposal was met with great approval by Shimon Peres, then foreign minister; Shulamit Aloni, then minister of education; and Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin. Their letters of approval make interesting exhibits in our file.
I cannot disclose the status of the negotiations but can report that action is being taken in Rome.
When the Pope recently visited New York the question of the manuscripts was supposed to be taken up with him when he met with American Jewish leaders, but the meeting did not allow any substantive discussions. Chief Rabbi Lau of Israel on a visit to the Vatican did take up the question at my suggestion. We must hope that sooner or later we will have positive results, because if the Church is really intent on atoning for the past sins against the Jewish people, the return of the surviving manuscripts is one of the few concrete gestures the Vatican is capable of making.
A symbolic beginning of the process would be for the Vatican to annul the ferocious Bull of Pope Clement VIII, which is until this day on the books. The ban against the Talmud and other religious Hebrew writings must be lifted, just as the Vatican recently lifted the ban on the writings of the astronomer Galileo! Are we not entitled to the same atonement as the memory of a scientist who died 300 years ago? Time will show if the Church is really serious about atoning for its sins against the Jews.
This article was written in 1995. Dr. Lehman died in 1997
This post did not make the cut of Rabbi Horowitz's new moderation format. So here is one man's opinion.
ReplyDelete***************************************
You start the article by saying:
There are other significant questions come to mind as well when reflecting upon the Markey Bill. Currently, children who attended public school have only 90 days after they turn 18 to file a claim for abuse that occurred in public school. The Markey Bill would not change that in any way. Why would secular legislators in Albany be interested in protecting kids attending parochial schools more than those in the broader population?
The politicians were educated to the nuances of our frum heimishe system, and why our victims are different than the no less affected innocent public school children.
Namely:
*The stigma, and blacklist for shidduchim NOT of the family of the perpetrator, but of the victim.
*The even more powerful day school society (Torah U’Mesorah) that tosses victims and their siblings out of school BECAUSE they were victimized, and sought relief.
*Agudath Israel’s rabbinic and lay leadership’s actions of threatening the personal safety of victims, family of victims, and any supporters thereof.
This education woke the righteous gentiles up to the unique, devastating, and desperate plight of victims, and their families. Hence, the positive reception of politicians involvement to right a wrong. It was NOT to advance an agenda.
You wrote:
Here is another angle that might be playing a part in this. One of the main sponsors of the bill in its current form is Senator Tom Duane, who was also a chief sponsor of the Gay Marriage Bill. Here, too, there is a great deal of tension between advocates for Gay Marriage and the Church. Thus any action taken to embarrass, undermine and de-legitimize the Church in the eyes of the public, directly and profoundly pushes the Gay Marriage agenda forward as it weakens their most powerful opponent. After all, what better way to undermine the moral authority of the Church than to encourage civil lawsuits against it that will drag on for years, drain its coffers and fill the headlines of the tabloids with all its tawdry details day after day?
Again, they are not attempting to force liberal agendas on anyone. They were educated; their emotions stirred, and felt the moral conscience to act.
Pulling an anti-Gay card out of your pocket is extremely disingenuous. The politicians I talk with regularly question why does Agudath Israel state a position on every single issue. Face it, no Agudah member will ever request a gay marriage. So, why oppose it? At least the Catholic Church was respected by the politicians for complaining about the morality of it. Why was Agudah scared to slam immorality, and call it a social issue? If they were scared to call it as it is, keep quiet.
The politicians heard, spoke with, and observed the devastation caused by complete disregard to the welfare of the children. And, they rightfully acted.
The attempt to gain pity and understanding is a highly flawed argument. To quote, “The bill has the ability to cause material damage to themosdos haTorah that our parents and grandparents built over the past hundred years with their sweat and tears”.
No one can say that their parents and grandparents would support an institution when their child or grandchild was affected as well.
The Torah demands that an Ir Hanidachas be burnt down. It doesn’t say burn everything besides for a beautiful shul, or marble school building. Any institution that offers up children as human sacrifices, to protect their assets, deserves to be gutted. Period.
What is most glaring about the article are its omissions.
• A lack of justice for victims: Our bais din system is irreversibly damaged, flawed, and are dens of corruption. No internal measures can ever do justice for the victims lack of trust, feelings of betrayal, and feelings of persecution. NO dayan, rov, rebbe, or rosh yeshiva, will EVER turn on their fellow “Torah true” man, and decide the din al pi Torah that “tawdry tales” may have merit.
• A lack of incentive to fix the system: Hashem told Avraham regarding Sedom, “There is NO fear of God in this location”. The same can be said about the house Rabbi Tress, and Rav Shraga Feivel built. Neshamos, pain, suicides, OTD, drug rehab, doesn’t motivate them. Their wallets speak louder than anything. The ONLY way to affect change is to squeeze, choke, humiliate, and crush all assets they own.
• No concern for victims pain and suffering: The greatest betrayal for victims are seeing a person who by every legal definition belongs in jail, still get Shlishi, Shishi, Guest of Honor, or Yated Ne’eman middle page rewards.
• Poor business decisions: Why would Torah U’Mesorah push a fugitive from Winnipeg into a leadership role in a Queens Day school, while pushing a rebbe out of chinuch for standing up against abuse? Every poor business decision made has repercussions one day. When lawmakers in Albany say, “Even the Catholic Church is not that foolish”, you know there is a problem.
The Mishna warns, “Don’t start up with a young talmid, a young snake, or a young Gentile”. Why?, “Because, when they grow up, they will remember what happened to them, and demand retribution”. Young talmidim, don’t stay young forever. They remember the threats they received, they know what is done to those who try to help them, they know how they are despised by Torah leadership, and they demand retribution.
Rabbi Horowitz, that day has arrived!
UOJ- I know there are bigger problems right now than Bryks. But why he has been allowed to continue counseling? Him and "Shaky" Paysach Krohn the Mohel walk around with many having no idea of their actions. I have an immediate relative married to a Bryks and i don't think my relative has any clue about him or the Lipa Brenner connection. And of course Paysach is right there at all the family events.
ReplyDeleteTo the Anon poster before, please get back to me about any Bryks info you may know and the connection with Belsky.
Thanks,
(C)Harm City
Rabbi Horowitz's analysis of dealing with abuse ignores the critical role of enablers who allow the predators to continue to hurt new victims and keep the original survivors from coming forward. The only institutions that need to fear the Markey bill are those who have protected abusers.
ReplyDeleteEven in family situations it is the silence of others that keep the children suffering.
The attempt to malign the motives of the supporters of the Marky bill is a classic technique to avoid dealing with its merits. I have personally participated in two programs with proponents of this bill and similar ones in other states and heard nothing to support the claim that the survivors and their supporters who spoke or attended the programs were motivated by animus to private or parochial schools.
It is true that the Catholic priests who participated are angry with the church's hiearchy for decades of coverup. The lack of a single law suit after a major scandal in NCSY was because the survivors saw that the OU created an independent commission, accepted responsibility and made changes both in leadership and in procedures.
The yeshiva in Brooklyn which is being sued supported the abuser for decades and still denies that any abuse occured.
To respond, or not to respond.
ReplyDelete'Tis the question.
Hey Blau,
ReplyDeleteWhat am I denying exactly? I don't even know what you are talking about! I run the BEST yeshiva and always have!
"Can you please elaborate? I know people still around Bryks and within his grasp. also what does he have to do with Belsky?"
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are asking two things.
2nd item first: Belsky & Bryks have been together as a tag team for hire in various acrimonius gittin & other disputes. (And no I was never involved with either of those scoundrels.) In one case noted here & on Rabbi Shain's blog, they stuck their snouts into the affairs of the rov of Young Israel in Las Vegas. The NCYI hired lawyers who forced them to back off.
The connection is that Belsky is good friends with Bryks's shver Lipa Brenner, a convicted child rapist who was also behind an $82 million fraud at an ambulance company he owned and which he got away with scott free thanks to the corrupt Brooklyn DA Charlie Hynes.
Bryks is still wanted for questioning by police in Manitoba, Canada. He is also apparently in charge of some Queens Vaad mikvaos thanks to Queens Vaad honcho Peretz Steinberg, another buddy of Belsky & Brenner. The RCA forced Bryks to shut down his yeshiva in Kew Gardens Hills but he is still giving shiurim in many Queens shuls. His chief enablers here are some Bocharian rabbis, his corrupt mechutan (& Tendler cousin) Moshe Faskowitz from Hillcrest and Paysach Krohn, who the gedolei Eretz Yisroel hold is not fit to be a mohel. Krohn had earlier written a fairy tale in one of his Artscroll books to cover up for Brenner. Artscroll had to revise the next edition to edit out the lies.
thank you so much for replying about Bryks, what i didnt see though is how he "Badly messed up people recently" as you said. i really hope you will fill me in.
ReplyDelete(C)Harm City
Also, i am painfully aware of the Eretz Yisroel Rabbonim against Krohn as a Mohel , the video on Yudel's blog is sickening. as someone with relatives involved i make sure to be kept up on any Bryks/Krohn info.
ReplyDeleteMY RESPONSE TO RABBI HOROWITZ:
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, Rabbi, these words do not sound like your words at all. You have been a hero for those downtrodden survivors of sexual abuse, both through your firsthand dealings with them and through your extensive writings on the subject. You fulfilled the words of the navi Yeshaya, "Asheru Chamotz", strengthen the victims, more than any other Orthodox rabbi alive today. That is why I am so shocked and disillusioned by this article and by your position on the Markey bill. I don't think you realize that you are figuratively spitting in the face of these survivors. Instead of giving them strength, you are giving strength to the evil child molesters and to those that enabled them. Asheru Chamotz V'Lo Chometz, give strength to the victims and not to the perpetrators, is how the gemara explains the navi's words.
The argument about public school students not being included in the Markey Bill is the same nonsense being peddled by the Catholic Church, y'mach shemam v'zichram. As poster #1 pointed out, public school students already have legislation passed that protects them such as mandatory reporting, mandatory fingerprinting, and mandatory background checks. A child molester who has been accused once in a public school would be terminated and prosecuted immediately. What legal recourse do we have when one of our children is molested in a yeshiva? If the family comes forward at all, which is highly unlikely considering the stigma attached (shidduchim), what incentive does the yeshiva have to terminate him and turn him over? None. They will most likely deny the charges and muzzle the victim and his family. Rabbi Horowitz, the victims have been muzzled long enough. Furthermore, your assertion that the Markey Bill does not cover public school children is inaccurate. The window also permits victims of public entities to avoid the statute of limitations, because claims against public institutions brought under federal civil rights law (42 U.S.C. § 1983) are not subject to the 90-day notice of claim. (Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131.) Also, if two children are drowning, and you can only save one, would you let both of them drown in protest over the fact that you can't save both? Our children are drowning on a daily basis. We need to enact legislation now that will send a clear message to the molesters and enablers. In California, they were able to expose over three hundred child molesters due to the passage of a similar bill. Meanwhile, not one yeshiva or mossad was bankrupted.
To join forces and use the same rhetoric as the Catholic Church in an attempt to thwart this legislation is a Chillul Hashem. The Carholic Church has their reasons- they have plenty to cover up. We are not supposed to be like them. To quote the same perek in Yeshaya, Kisdom Hayeena K'Amora Daminu. Have we become like Sodom and Gemorrah where our sins have reached such a level that we need to emulate the Church and attempt a coverup? Do we need to continue to muzzle these victims that have been victimized over and over again? They have been victimized first by their molesters (usually multiple times), then by their menahel, then by the community and now by the unnamed rabbis who have once again formed an alliance with the Church. This is not the first time. They did it before when a mandatory reporting bill was introduced in Albany.
Your ideas of fighting this plague of child molestation are all well and good. We need to implement them immediately. However, without legislation and cooperation from the authorities. It is quite obvious by now that we cannot police ourselves. Our rabbis are overwhelmed and do not have the expertise in investigating these cases. Unless there is fear of repercussions to the molester and the institution, there will be no progress. You can hand out leaflets from today until tomorrow to every parent and student about safety and about "good touch and bad touch". The predators are not afraid of you. They are not afraid of leaflets. They are not afraid of any of us here. The only thing they fear is the law. As long as well intentioned people like yourself and the Agudah rabbis side with the Church to help muzzle the victims, you are handing the molesters a victory. You are strengthening them and encouraging them. You are giving them the chizuk their yetzer hara is looking for to continue their criminal behavior. Furthermore, as long as certain rabbis pervert halacha by misapplying the laws of mesira, lashon hara and archaos to cases of child sexual abuse, the molesters will continue to be emboldened. These Zaken Mamres must be stopped and put in their place. The halacha is clear in cases of a rodef that everything must be done to stop him and that includes going to the police. As far as archaot, as long as our batei dinim are powerless and refuse to hear the cases of these victims, they are positively allowed to seek recourse from the secular courts.
I will conclude my words by pleading with you to reconsider your position. Your tireless work on behalf of these victims should not be overshadowed by this apparent mental lapse. We are all human and we all make mistakes. Please have some consideration for these long suffering victims. Asheru Chamotz V'Lo Chometz!
When did UOJ add the picture of himself and become non-anonymous? Did I miss that?
ReplyDelete