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Monday, July 03, 2017

Sorting Through The Rubble - The Message Is Clear!


The UOJ Vault - June 2009 - 1,324,564 Views

Don't take my word for it!

Don't believe a word I say - unless I can logically and factually back it up. And the same goes for anyone with a message, any message from any messenger. It's either true and can be established, or it's hyperbole and rabble-rousing by clown-type imbeciles, costume and all, with nothing else to say but "trust me", I know what's best for you, your children and everyone that I/we deem a Torah-true Jew.

This has been the mindset for at least two decades, certainly since the passing of Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky z"tvkl. And Rav Yaakov saw this era coming, the era of Yiddishkeit being distorted and shredded by people with absolutely no sense of reality, and the lack of understanding and caring that what was good for the individual, the yachid - was good for the klal - the masses --- and not the other way around.

So, if thousands of kids were herded through a flawed yeshiva system, a system that did NOT care for the individual child, but rather thrived on numbers, and raised funds based upon being the "biggest" yeshiva, with great numbers of kids in their system, the individual - mostly regular great kids, very normal kids that needed unconditional love and attention, would get lost in the shuffle.

Rav Yaakov understood that, Rav Elya Svei did not. The Lakewood gang did not and we are now paying the price; thousands of families that were emotionally forced to engage in this fraud called kollel, are now poverty stricken, and a great deal of them, their parents, and their children paid with their souls. This community induced poverty was a desperate attempt by the Establishment to reel in the masses under the control of a few. If you need organizations and yeshivas to sustain you and your family, who would bite the hand that feeds you?

Entire families are disenchanted with Judaism, not just children. I guess the Agudath Israel can now develop a new government sponsored program -- call it Project NO - and have it headed by one of their own, someone who talks the talk, walks the walk, but when it comes down to the underlying failures of the program, for the inability to comprehend and address the real issues, old and new, he will toe the line of the establishment, rather than standing up for the brutal reality, and those victimized and re-victimized.

It was not that long ago when an acquaintance of mine, a true ben Torah with a large family living in Lakewood, took a chainsaw, and decapitated himself. Other contemporaries of mine have confided in me that they despise what has become of them, and hate waking up in the morning. They have been totally neutered, by them having to rely on their wives supporting them, and regularly signing documents to enable them to receive Welfare in one form or another.

A bright high school buddy of mine died oh so young, by intentionally destroying his body with food and alcohol and God knows what else he consumed to put himself out of his misery. He was not a flunky kindergarten rebbe, he founded and headed a large school.

Another former yeshiva friend, was instructed by his rosh yeshiva to go on a taanit dibbur, stop speaking entirely, until he purged himself from his inclination to gossip and speak loshon hara. He cracked up and spent years in a mental institution. He lives in Lakewood, the last I heard was that he is permanently emotionally disabled.

These are not isolated cases, there are countless horror stories similar to the above that I am aware of.

My educated and informed guess is that Shua Finkelstein in Lakewood put himself out of his misery, because the Lakewood Mafia protected his molester. His molester is part of a family that donates large sums of money to Lakewood - Beth Medrash Govoha. The Lakewood philosophy of dealing with child-abusers in a "respectful and dignified" fashion, in my opinion, played no small role in Shua's death.

It is no coincidence in my mind, that David "Fifi" Zahler, who over the last years developed a close relationship with Moshe Eisemann on the Ner Israel campus in Baltimore, intentionally jumped to his death. Nobody dares to say this publicly, that's why I will.

The System is broken, it collapsed under its own fraudulent weight; the evidence surrounds and envelops you, but you refuse, or are too petrified to deal with this reality!

"Once we could say we didn’t know. Now we know." Borrowing from David Zwiebel's "confession" -- David, we now know as well, you and your organization, Agudath Israel, are pitifully corrupt and morally inept, nobody should be trusting any important life and death issue to you and your cohorts! And that's believing for a brief moment that in fact you now know because you really know or because you were "forced" to know, rather than choose to know. In either case, evidence of sexual child-abuse in Orthodox Jewish schools and camps has been festering out there for some fifty years, including in your own summer camp and in hundreds of your directly affiliated schools, and yet you did nothing to protect these violated children, and did everything to protect the vile child sex-abusers and the criminal, despicable rabbis that protected them.

You all have lost any moral authority on this issue -- and worse, you all deserve to be held criminally negligent and responsible for the thousands of troubled lives and God only knows how many related, self-destroyed lives by children who could no longer bear the pain.

So, I'll have none of your continued lies; when I chose to dig deep into the authenticity of what else you and the likes of you were selling; I became aware of the extent of your involvement in covering up these unspeakable crimes, and I, to my horror, discovered that except for a handful, the rest of you are petty, conniving, mind-thieves without a scintilla of a moral conscience.

The message is so apparent -- none of these rabbis should be able to dictate to you what's in your best interest -- because they are destroying our Jewish heritage to cover up their own crimes, where "d'racheha darchei noam" should be first and foremost; instead they are damning our children and ultimately us, all of us, to an unsustainable and self-destructive life that is causing misery and desperation to the vast majority of Orthodox Jews. We must set up a bulwark that will prevent the espousing of poverty and misery as a way of life, foolproof systems of protecting our children, in and out of yeshivas, from those that would destroy them by enfeebling their minds with their self-manufactured religious rubbish, and not protecting their physical and emotional well-being that were entrusted to their care; that not only is the antithesis of everything Jewish, but it is anti-Jewish!

Rabbis and their underlings, that would protect pedophiles and their enablers at the expense of our children and our families -- whether the crime occurred yesterday or forty years ago, must be treated as amongst the greatest enemies that ever faced the Jewish nation.

These rabbis stand stark naked before us -- and it is ugly! They must be taken down!

219 comments:

1 – 200 of 219   Newer›   Newest»
Anonymous said...

Are there any suspects yet in the fire that burned down shua finklesteins home?

Anonymous said...

Oy Meh Hoya Lonuh!

Anonymous said...

"These rabbis stand stark naked before us -- and it is ugly!"

Oh how the mind reels in horror!

Fact checker said...

I agree that the Agudah is morally bankrupt but I don't think the description here of Lakewood is entirely accurate.

There was a time when every shlemiel went to Lakewood but for many years now it is made to accomodate the best & brightest, save for a few rich and connected bochurim who don't pass the farher. As far the Lakewood chainsaw massacre, R' Elya sang a very different tune after his grave error in that case. He went so far as to say there should be a time limit imposed of 5 years for every kollel yungerman, even the metzuyonim, but he was overruled by R' Chaim Epstein and Rav Schach. Kollel was intended for the best & brightest and should remain that way. There are other yeshivos that are guilty of holding hostage every warm body they can get their paws on.

And yes there are some very powerful figures connected to BMG who are prone to corruption but they usually hide their actions from the larger hanhala.

Yehudah said...

So, then why don't you take them down by releasing the audio recording that you have of Rabbis like Shmuel Kaminetzky, like you promised to do a year ago?

Moetzes Resign! said...

General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this morning, the largest industrial failure in history.

Bim Bam identity said...

Human rights activists are indicating that they might legally challenge the U.S. military's use of Predator drones, a weapon that intelligence officials say is their single most effective tool in combating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Predator spy planes are unmanned aerial vehicles that are virtually invisible when flying overhead. The Air Force uses them frequently in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they are able to track and hit targets from the air when mountainous terrain makes it notoriously hard to send troops.

"That's the spooky thing about the Predator," national security and terrorism expert Neil Livingstone said. "Even if the Predator is directly overhead and you know it's overheard, you still can't see it or hear it. This is kind of like death out of the blue."

Human rights activists are turning their attention to the drone program in part because they say there's no warning to innocent civilians who are in a targeted area.

Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First, a U.S.-based group that advocates universal rights and freedom, said large number of civilians are being unintentionally hit, harmed and killed.

"This is not only a violation of the international laws of war," he said. "It's bad policy."

Opponents of the drones say that the policy could be illegal. The laws of war allow individuals who are engaged in hostilities to be targeted in an armed conflict but strictly prohibit actions against those not engaged.

"Even when you're attacking a legitimate military objective, you cannot cause civilian casualties that exceed the value of a legitimate military attack," Rona says.

"So many of these guys surround themselves with collateral casualties," Livingstone said, and large numbers of women and children are strategically placed around hotbeds of activity. Livingstone makes the point that even if high-value targets are killed in one of these drone attacks, Al Qaeda still can claim a "propaganda victory" because of the number of civilian casualties.

Two high-value Al Qaeda operatives were killed on New Year's Day this year in northern Pakistan. Usama al Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were wanted for their involvement in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. More than 200 people were killed in the embassy bombings, including 12 Americans.

Anonymous said...

does anyone read this that doesnt agree with you coming in. the jews that need to hear these things most dont even know this exists. shame

Chevra Chazerim - Capitol Hill division said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124364352135868189.html

MAY 30, 2009

Lawmakers Bill Taxpayers For TVs, Cameras, Lexus

By LOUISE RADNOFSKY and T.W. FARNAM

WASHINGTON -- Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings spent $24,730 in taxpayer money last year to lease a 2008 luxury Lexus hybrid sedan. Ohio Rep. Michael Turner expensed a $1,435 digital camera. Eni Faleomavaega, the House delegate from American Samoa, bought two 46-inch Sony TVs.

The expenditures were legal, properly accounted for and drawn from allowances the U.S. government grants to lawmakers. Equipment purchased with office expense accounts must be returned to the House or the federal General Services Administration when a lawmaker leaves office.

But as British politicians come under widening scorn for spending public money on everything from candy bars to moat-dredging, an examination of U.S. lawmakers' expense claims shows Washington's elected officials have also used public funds for eye-catching purchases.

U.S. politicians, unlike their counterparts in Great Britain, can't bill taxpayers for personal living expenses. The U.S. Treasury gives them an allowance to cover "official and representational expenses," according to congressional rules, and the lawmakers enjoy a fair amount of discretion in how they use the funds.

The Senate and House release volumes of the reimbursement requests for these allowances, but do not make them available electronically. A Wall Street Journal review of thousands of pages of these records for 2008 expenses showed most lawmaker spending flowed to areas such as staff salaries, travel, office rent and supplies, and printing and mailing.

But it also turned up spending on an array of products, from the car leases and electronics to a high-end laptop computer and $22 cellphone holder. Rep. Howard Berman expensed $84,000 worth of personalized calendars, printed by the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, for his constituents. A spokeswoman for Mr. Berman, a California Democrat, didn't return requests for comment.

The records show that some lawmakers spent heavily in the final months of the year to draw down allowances before the end of December -- a time when U.S. households were paring their budgets and lawmakers were criticizing Detroit auto executives for taking private aircraft to Washington to plead their case for taxpayer funding.

Rep. Hastings, a Democrat, and Rep. Turner, a Republican, made their purchases in the third quarter. Rep. Faleomavaega, a Democrat, bought the TVs for $1,473 apiece in mid-November. Spokespeople for the three didn't return requests for comment.

If lawmakers don't seek reimbursement for all of their allowance money for the year, the remainder doesn't roll over to the next year, but stays with the Treasury. The review showed that the increased year-end spending went not only toward equipment but also to fund year-end "bonuses" to aides.

Members of the public can request specific receipts, but lawmakers aren't required to provide them.

Rahm Emanuel, who resigned from his Illinois congressional seat in January to become President Barack Obama's chief of staff, recorded a $33,000 printing expense in the fourth quarter.

Rep. William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, spent $2,793 on a Panasonic Toughbook laptop, which is marketed to the military, in September, about three months before he lost his re-election bid in a December runoff. A lawyer for Mr. Jefferson, who is facing an unrelated federal bribery trial, declined to comment.

Some members detail small expenses. The office of Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Pennsylvania Democrat, described a $22 expenditure on a Liz Claiborne cellphone pouch.

Other members itemized spending on everything from bottled water to pest control and office plants.

Many lawmakers don't spend their full allocation. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) had $228,000 remaining at the end of 2008.

Baltimoron said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329282377252471.html#printMode

Millionaires Go Missing

Maryland's fleeced taxpayers fight back.

Here's a two-minute drill in soak-the-rich economics:

Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it."

One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.

No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession. However, this is one reason that depending on the rich to finance government is so ill-advised: Progressive tax rates create mountains of cash during good times that vanish during recessions. For evidence, consult California, New York and New Jersey (see here).

All of this means that the burden of paying for bloated government in Annapolis will fall on the middle class. Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O'Malley's "fair share."

Hedge fund imitates UOJ said...

A hedge fund firm that reaped huge rewards betting against the market last year is about to open a fund premised on another wager: that the massive stimulus efforts of global governments will lead to hyperinflation.

The firm, Universa Investments L.P., is managed and owned by Mark Spitznagel

ej said...

There has to be a point where everything can't and should not be blamed on the gedolim and the Agudah. In your narrative there are no grownups in the charedi world.A guy goes into a kolel and ten years later has no marketable skills...blame it on the gedolim. His parents voluntarily depleted their savings supporting their kolel son, blame it again on gedolim.

Simply as a polemical strategy, disregarding issues of free will and personal responsibility, it is far more effective to limit the blame to what the gedolim actually did...known and verifiable cases of covering up child molestations.

If there is ever to be any hope for a renewal of Orthodoxy in a more ehrliche direction this blaming of others as a response to all problems must be given up. The constant yelling at others is the sort of passivity and mindlessness that must be changed.

steve said...

you all deserve to be held criminally negligent and responsible for the thousands of troubled lives and God only knows how many related, self-destroyed lives by children who could no longer bear the pain.This reminds me of the Blackout of 1977 in New York City. Then Mayor Abe Beame blamed it on Con Edison's "gross negligence". The head of Con Ed, Charles Luce said it was all "an act of God". When told of Luce's comments, Beame retorted, "I'm not a minister, I know negligence when I see it."

The same way Luce and Con Ed tried to deflect the criticism from themselves some thirty years ago, the Agudah and their cohorts are doing it today. Last month, Pinny Lipschitz in the Yated finally acknowledged that there is a problem of child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community. While he wrote sympathetically about the victims of abuse, he denied that there was any attempt to cover up the crimes. Instead, he wrote that it was all a gezeirah, a decree from heaven, that these children should be molested. There was no mention of responsibility for the molesters and their enablers.

Similarly, Rabbi Perlow spoke at the Agudah convention and made a vague reference to "tikkun haovar", remedying the past. Of course he did not specify what mistakes needed to be remedied, nor did he take any responsibility. Instead, he said that he and the other Agudah rabbis divined from the Torah that they must "vigorously oppose" the Child Victims Act which would allow abuse victims to sue and expose their molesters.

Unfortunately today, we do not have any public officials like Mayor Beame to call it like it is. Dov Hikind has proven that he is nothing more than a pawn of the Agudah and the Hasidic dynasties. Mayor Bloomberg is too involved with his own ego to care about child molesters, as he basks in the glow of the kavod that the Agudah bestows upon him. Governor Paterson pays lip service to the Markey bill by saying that he is all for it, but does nothing to back it up. Shelly Silver is nothing but a two timing political whore and is probably our biggest enemy in Albany. He teaches Hiking how to play both sides of the fence.

Basically, these corrupt politicians are in bed with our rabbinical leadership and with the Catholic Church. To expect them to bite these hands that feed them is not realistic. It is up to us, the masses, to speak out and to demand justice. We cannot let these criminals get off the hook so easily. God gave each of us the free choice to do good or bad, right or wrong. That these reshaim, the molesters and their enablers, chose to do what's bad and to do what's wrong, was not a heavenly decree. It was their choice, and they must pay for these decisions, as the Torah dictates, Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof. This is the only way to protect our children and to make sure that there are no more cases like Shua Finkelstein, may hashem avenge his blood. Every one should take the time and write to the State Senators and Assemblymen to pass the Child Victims Act. Some of these politicians have not been gotten to yet by the Axis of Evil. They should be voting on this pretty soon. Let us do our hishtadlus and hold these criminals accountable. It's the least we can do. Let's send a clear message that we do not tolerate violent criminals and their grossly negligent enablers.

Upper West Side Fresser said...

http://eater.com/archives/2009/05/breaking_bagelwire_hh_bagels_seized_by_tax_man.php

Breaking news just in over the tipline: "Just came back from H&H Bagels, W. 80th & Broadway. At 10:15 am an official was posting a 'property seized for lack of payment of taxes' sign...bagels were piled high inside, employees inside, but store was closed by officials." A call to the main office confirms that not just one but both locations (the second is on West 46th St.) were shut down and they have "no idea" when they'll open again, but they're hoping to have it all smoothed out by this afternoon.

D in TO said...

To ej

You make a very strong point - essentially, that as responsible adults, we have the personal onus to use our own brains.

But UOJ's thoughts, that our Torah leadership is a huge part of the problem, is most valid. Agudah and its own issues aside, we teach our children from a young age about Mesorah and Emunas Chachomim. Ours has become an almost childlike belief in Torah leadership that insists that only way to protect the Torah and its adherents is by getting all the Bais Yaakov girls to be willing to make great sacrifices so that their Yeshiva husbands can sit in the four walls of the cloistered Bais Medrash and do nothing but learn ad infinitum. No thought is to be placed on the obligations agreed to in the marriage Kesuba of a husband supporting the wife.

Yesterday I heard of a young married Kollel coule in J'lem where the husband is a big masmid and the wife is working three (!) jobs including cleaning other people's toilets to make ends meet. How exactly does this increase Kavod HaTorah?

We need a new kind of leader that will tell these young men and women that earning an honest living is not neged Torah, but is very much part of Torah. That they need not bother learning Bava Kama, Metzia and Basra if they are going to routinely rip off government agencies to pay for their heilige lifestyle. That they need not bother learning Parshas Kedoshim if they live their life looking down on and besmirching as somehow lower those ehriche yidden who (gulp)work.

And don't even get me started on the whole shidduch thing. That's just a microcosm of the Orthodoxworld's problems.

So yes, someone who learned in kollel for 10 years and now has no skills (including teaching and possibly learning too) has only himself and his enablers to blame. But those enablers are not just the shellshocked parents and in-laws. The biggest enablers are the Roshei Yeshiva. Some may be sinister. Most, I believe, are extreme idealists who cannot see the real pain and suffering they are causing.

It does not make them evil or even deceitful. But it also calls into question their ability to lead and their qualifactions to be the conduit of the Mesorah.

At the end ej and UOJ are really saying the same thing - USE YOUR OWN BRAINS.

steve said...

SPEAKING OF THE DEVIL-ER SHELLY SILVER:

Dear Fellow Advocates,

I've been watching and reading about the great to-do over the Agudah's opposition to the Markey bill. I too think this is wrong and shameful of them and no one said it better than you did, Asher on your Op-Ed in the Jewish Week.

Yet, while everyone is busy running with the Agudah story, which if you think about it clearly, is really a smoke screen, it baffles me that everyone is missing the one powerful obstacle to the Markey bill - and that is Satmar and Sheldon Silver - long in cahoots with each other - and in a deadly position to kill the Markey bill and even to kill the Lopez bill. All this is done quietly behind closed doors, without fanfare, but using the right political clout.

Can you imagine Satmar just sitting quietly and doing nothing? If either bill passes, and my son Joel will go after them in a civil suit, they will be destroyed, especially in view of the fact that Reichman is still in the classroom after failing their lie detector test last year! They will not be able to deny harboring a pedophile - they know it since last year - yet they continue to protect him and to put children at risk.

It stands to reason that Satmar will do everything in their power, and they have considerable power with Sheldon Silver in their corner to kill off these bills. Seems to me that our greatest priority should be to find a way to detach Sheldon Silver from Satmar's influence and make him understand that he too is an elected official (is he? I'm not sure), or else to get a loud and clear message across to him that it will place him in an unpopular and therefore unprofitable political position for him to kill these bills. He is currently one of the most powerful figures in the State government, and the legislators, although they must listen to their constituents, listen even more closely to him - this is an unfortunate reality of politics - and Satmar has taken full advantage of this reality as must we.

Sincerely,

Pearl Engelman

Anonymous said...

And let us not forget about shelling out $20,000 a year to send girls to seminary so that they too can be brainwashed and programmed to "live a life of Torah," which includes having children annually, working to support the family financially, raising the children and maintaining a home while making sure that her talmud chacham husband comes home bein hasdurim to fresh cooked meals.

Shelly Silver said...

What do you expect? I know exactly who shmears my bread and I don't just mean my big salary from Weitz & Luxemburg.

Chevra Chazerim - retail division said...

Filed at 4:43 p.m. ET

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- A jury in Michigan says the former head of Kmart Corp. misled investors about company finances in the months before a bankruptcy filing in 2002.

The verdict in the civil-fraud trial was read about 4 p.m. EDT Monday, the first day of deliberations in federal court in Ann Arbor.

Charles Conaway was accused of misleading investors by not disclosing that the retailer was delaying payments to suppliers to save cash.

boog said...

Excrement made to look and smell good:

UOJ;

Zwiebel has 'known' for the longest time of the pedophiles; so has Agudah, TU, and all the other enablers and protectors who have blood on their frum hands.

The only reason Agudah, TU, lip shits, schick, hike-hind, Oh?-Hell!,and other roaches coming out from under the rocks to trumpet their tzidkus on this issue over the past few months is you and your Blog. You have them on the run. This is a fact.

I said last year, here on UOJ, that these Tinaf-Tinofsim were holding up their middle finger to the wind to gauge the wind currents on this developing issue that was garnering increasing publicity through your exposes; that if they detected it was in their interests to get on the clean up the molestation bandwagon, they would not only do so but eventually maneuver to co-opt it, get into the drivers seat, and position themselves to take credit and "lead" the way but in the derech of D-ASS Toiyreh.

Well, it's happening. UOJ, keep shining the light of truth on these Shrotzim-Tinofsim.

As far as Shelly (I don't go to Cop Funerals [IDGCF)) Silver is concerned, the man is a total disgrace.

Imagine, New York having the Tri-fecta Zechus of being represented by co-religionsists such as: Jerold (Time to Chap My Nosh) Nadler, Shelly (IDGCF) Silver, and Chuck-U Schumer.

It's Party Time.

LVF said...

boog, your "cut the crap style" is simply put, amazing, entertaining & beutiful, I love ya bro!

btw, it was just shavuos, so here is a bit humor of "inyunei deyoime", hashem came to lakewood and asked if they want the "tairah", so they asked what does it say there, hashem replies "shayshes yomim taseh melacha", he was quickly told they were not interested.

Frankel's Shul said...

Otisville, NY - The Federal Correctional Facility at Otisville is home to 1,205 prisoners while the facility is rated for 844.

Kollel-man said...

I agree with the above post, that the problem of kollel has nothing to do with the Gedolim.

You see, I am a kollel-man dying to go to work for a long time, yet my father-in-law and the entire family will stop talking to me if I go to work. So at this point, I'm stuck in Kollel.

My Roshei Yeshiva have advised me to go to work, but at this point I am not prepared to create a family feud. So I will stick it out and be miserable and take my shver's money until I get the guts to have my extended family stop talking to me because I actually work for my money and I'm not heilig enough.

You can't blame this one on the Gedolim. R' Matisyahu PUBLICLY said two years ago in Lakewood that he believes men should work and not women........

The problem is the egos of the fathers, the shvers, the wives (seminary...), and many times the kollel guys themselves.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Kollel-Man;

Your case is part of the scam that your father-in-law and your wife bought into.

They force you to stay in kollel against your wishes; as far as Salomon, the guy speaks out of 8 sides of his mouth.

Misery is misery - be a man and do what's in your best interests! Forcing you to do something that makes you miserable, how crazy is that?

Bail out my friend!

Malach HaMovies said...

UOJ,

I predict that the next disappointment (After Rabbi Yakov Horowitz) for the victims will be Dov Hikind. As much as he claims that he's for the victims, he won't go against Dovid Zweibel and his other friends in the Agudah. He's already talking about modifying the Markey bill.

The former "BIG JDL" and "DEFENDER OF JEWS" tough guy will fold under pressure from Satmar and Agudah and WILL NOT VOTE FOR THE BILL !!!

Mark My Words !!!

Dov ! You have been given notice. If you become a turncoat we will throw you out of office.

Anonymous said...

Bemechillas Kevodcha:

Reb Kollel-Man by all means if you have an actual, factual, realistic plan kol hakavod, by all means bolt.

But, if you are currently being supported by a generous shver who needs it for his own ego to say you are in learning while he pays schar batalah to you to sit and do nothing, and all you have is a pie in the sky idea of how great the business world is, and you'll come up with the next scam to become a millionaire overnight, STICK IT OUT. The real world is vicious, far more nasty than your worst chavrusa could ever be to you. Especially in this economic environment, be smart not dreamy.

One should never be FORCED to do something they don't enjoy doing, but you need a real solution before jumping into the shark infested waters of business.

Anonymous said...

Torah Temimah Contacts

Rav Shmuel Schlessinger 718-438-0219 2:00-4:00pm/after 10:00pm
Rav Binyomin Margulios 718-871-2958 11:00-12:30pm
Rav Heshy Basch 718-435-8322 10:30-11:30pm
Rav Lipa Geldwerth 718-232-4808 7:00-8:00pm
Rav Yirmiyah Gugenheimer 718-633-2865 8:30-9:00pm/10:30-11:30pm

steve said...

Malach,

Hikind already bailed out a long time ago. He specifically stated that he agrees with the ACLU and is against the Markey bill, even though he is one of the sponsors. He said this to the face of several victims at a Sunday morning gathering in April at a West Side synagogue. He already folded under the pressure of Neiderman and Satmar in the Reichman affair. He refuses to reveal the names of over one hundred child molesters that he has "files" on. It is a waste of time and an exercise in futility with this politician. Hikind claims that Shelly Silver told him that he could use his office for whatever he needs to deal with this issue. Dov has been a good talmid of Shelly, learning to play both sides of the fence.

steve said...

http://tinyurl.com/mrjaxu

Passaic predator case shows change in Orthodox community's responseAn Orthodox community in North Jersey is trying to reconcile the arrest of one of its own on charges of attempting to have sex with two 14-year-old boys.

Already a convicted Megan's Law offender, 48-year-old Mitchell Levinton of Passaic Park was working for a kosher catering company in 2006 when he befriended the boys and invited them to home, where he exposed them to pornography and graphic sex, Passaic County authorities said this week.

The boys told investigators he then offered them money for sex, but that they refused.

The charges come at a crucial moment in the history of Orthodox Jews nationwide, as they try to determine how best to deal with predators in their midst.
Levinton, who is being held on $300,000 bail in the Passaic County Jail, spent nearly a year in jail and was placed on lifetime probation after being convicted of a sex crime involving an adult in Atlantic City.

He already is awaiting sentencing on a lewdness conviction for exposing himself to a 17-year-old developmentally disabled boy in Passaic in May 2008.

Those unfamiliar with the Orthodox faith are only just discovering the struggles its people are dealing with. And yes, there are similarities to the scandals within the Catholic Church -- with prior incidents handled, for want of a better term, in-house.

"[M]any of the Rabbanim, therapists and parents knew very, very well about the danger that this individual presented to children," said Rabbi Asher Lipner, Ph.D. "He had been arrested several times prior.

"Some rabbis chose to cover it up by refusing to alert their congregations," said Lipner, who is vice president of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children and an advocate for the victims of abuse. "Who knows how many more children had to pay the price for this decision."

Lipner has tried to get the community to turn to law enforcement authorities when such incidents occur. His religion actually requires criminals be turned over to secular authorities, he said. Those who don't are guilty of "idly standing by the blood of your neighbor."

“Some people feel ... if you publicly name a rabbi as a molester, you are ‘anti-rabbis,’ or if you publicly criticize a yeshiva that acts irresponsibly you are ‘attacking yeshivas,’ or if you say the Orthodox community has a problem, just like everybody else, then you are ‘anti-Orthodox’," Lipner said in an interview with Jewish Week.

Indeed, critics within the Orthodox community have said that abusers often weren't recognized for what they were. People simply couldn't believe it could happen.

Orthodox leaders also apparently believed that if they counseled the abuser -- or perhaps moved him someplace else -- the trouble would end, community members say.

Such “behind-the-scenes" agreements obviously have failed, as the number of publicly-cited victims have increased. But they've also taught the community a lesson -- at least in Lipner's eyes.

In turn, the Orthodox community's attitude toward sexual predators seems to be changing, he said.

The “fear so many have of speaking up is based on a stigma that is illogical and disappearing with education and awareness,” Lipner said.

The Jewish Board of Advocates for Children (www.jewishadvoctes.org) has called for mandated reporting of suspicion of abuse by rabbis and teachers in yeshivas; mandated fingerprinting and background checks of all employees in yeshivas; mandated safety plans with full transparency and written instructions to parents; and mandated firing and punishment of employees for any sexual or physical abuse.

Cookie fressers mad at Ezra Merkin said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/business/31archway.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

May 31, 2009

Oh, No! What Happened to Archway?

By JULIE CRESWELL

SITTING in his office in April last year, Keith Roberts, director of finance for the Archway & Mother’s Cookie Company, stared in shocked silence at the numbers on his desk.

He knew things had been bad — daily reports he had been monitoring for 6 months showed that sales at the company had been dismal. But the data he was looking at showed robust sales.

“Where on earth had these sales come from?” Mr. Roberts recalls thinking.

Tired, but intrigued, he began digging through records until he reached the conclusion that Archway, based in Battle Creek, MI, was booking nonexistent sales.

He reasoned that sham transactions allowed Archway, which was owned by private-equity firm, Catterton Partners, to maintain access to badly needed money from its lender, Wachovia. Mr. Roberts’s investigation eventually caused Wachovia to pull its financing lines, helping push Archway into bankruptcy last fall. Two other food companies picked off much of its assets earlier this year for $42 million and are churning out the brands’ cookies again.

The Catterton partners, former employees say, were never seen at Archway. Catterton and Insight nonetheless collected about $6 million in management fees during their nearly 4 year tenure running Archway.

A multitude of lawsuits have been filed in connection with Archway’s collapse, including suits brought by former employees & distributors.

Scott Gallagher, an independent distributor, was drowning in cookies, as Archway force-fed him more than he could possibly sell.

For Mr. Gallagher, who had been a distributor in Denver since 2000, it seemed to involve a lot of hocus-pocus.

“Normally I would have $4,000 of product physically sitting in my truck, but they were charging me for $14,000 worth of cookies. Cookies that didn’t exist,” Mr. Gallagher said.

Some also believe that Archway altered its ingredients. Mr. Gallagher said that as time went on, he ended up having to eat a lot of cookies that he couldn’t sell. “I noticed, over time, they were getting worse & worse.”

Mr. Zinzer is more blunt: “Our cookies turned to crap. They were nowhere near as good as they used to be.”

A former employee inside the headquarters, who declined to be identified because of continuing litigation, said that as the company’s troubles worsened, the company began using less expensive ingredients.

Some distributors saw a significant increase in the numbers of cookies they received where the package hadn’t been sealed, leaving vendors unable to sell them.

When Mr. Pfeifer called Archway, however, to get a credit for the opened cookies, rather than simply filling out a form as he had done in the past, he said he was told he had to cut the individual seals on all of the wrappers.

“Clearly that was meant to deter me from asking for credit. I said, ‘Forget it,’ ” Mr. Pfeifer said. “I took it all to the dump.”

Scrambling for solutions, Archway considered selling off assets while also trying to restructure its debt through a finance company owned by Cerberus Capital Management, the hedge fund.

Cerberus had its own auditors examining Archway’s books. Cerberus & its financing company declined to comment for this article.

Archway never properly accounted for $400,000 in stale cookies that Elite returned.

LAST October, the P.A. system in Archway headquarters squawked and a voice asked employees to gather in the cafeteria. In a 5 minute presentation, Mr. Knobloch said the company was discontinuing operations.

“It was terrible. You had people crying. They were very upset,” said Mr. Pechawer, who attended the meeting. “There were people who had worked there for 30 years & now everything was gone.”

Catterton also has other headaches. It is among scores of firms that have been subpoenaed by Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York attorney general, as part of his investigation of corruption involving public pension funds.

Lipa Geldwerth said...

If Eli Greenwald wants to call to apologize for exposing Kolko and Margo, he can call anytime.

5th Ave shul fresser said...

I was wondering where Ezra got those stale dreck cookies that he donated for kiddush.

Anonymous said...

The Mashgiach at RCC certified Mashu Mashu http://www.lajewishpages.com/kosher/Mashu-Mashu-Kosher-Restaurants---Chinese-208-36.html in Los Angeles is registered sex offender David Mazlin....http://www.familywatchdog.us/ShowList.asp Zip code 91607

Do you know how many frum Morons voted for him? said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/world/middleeast/02prexy.html?hpw

June 2, 2009

Obama Talks of Being ‘Honest’ With Israel

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — President Obama indicated on Monday that he would be more willing to criticize Israel than previous administrations have been, and he reiterated his call for a freeze of Israeli settlements.

His comments, on the eve of his first trip as president to the Middle East, where he is scheduled to give a speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday, were made as Israeli officials dug in their heels against a settlement freeze. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that halting construction in settlements in the West Bank would be equal to “freezing life,” and, therefore, “unreasonable.”

Mr. Obama declined to say what he would do if Israel continued to balk at halting all construction. But he said that Israel needed to hear the truth, as he saw it. He also said that in the past, American officials had not been willing to call things as they saw them. “That’s part of a new dialogue that I’d like to see encouraged in the region,” he said.

Mr. Obama leaves Wednesday morning for a five-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany and France. Israel is not on his itinerary.

Many in the Muslim world are waiting to see what Mr. Obama will do if, as expected, Israel ignores his request on the settlements. When asked about this during the NPR interview, Mr. Obama indicated that he was not yet ready to stipulate an “or else,” despite the fact that several American presidents before him have demanded settlement freezes in Israel and been ignored.

“The United States has to follow through on what it says,” Mr. Obama said.

He added: “I haven’t said anything yet because it’s still early in the process. They’ve formed a government, what, a month ago?”

Mr. Obama also dismissed criticism that he should not deliver his speech to the Muslim world from Cairo because of Egypt’s poor record in upholding human rights. “It’s a mistake to suggest that we’re not going to deal with countries around the world in the absence of them meeting all our demands,” he said. (Tarti desasri)

R' Elya Spitzer said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/nyregion/02emperor.html

Federal court records unsealed on Monday at the sentencing of the last of the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. defendants and a defense lawyer’s comments afterward provided the most detailed public account to date of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s involvement with the ring’s prostitutes.

Mr. Spitzer, according to the documents and the lawyer’s comments, met regularly with Emperor’s Club prostitutes, sometimes in cities outside New York and Washington, over 18 months to 2 years, using a variety of aliases and paying with postal money orders.

Frankel's shul bar association said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/nyregion/02rosenberg.html

June 2, 2009

Jerry Rosenberg, Jailhouse Lawyer, Dies at 72

By SEWELL CHAN

Jerry Rosenberg, who was spared the death penalty for the 1962 murders of two New York City police detectives, and who became a pioneering jailhouse lawyer and a legal adviser for the leaders of the Attica prison uprising in 1971, died on Monday at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, N.Y. He was 72, and the state’s longest-serving inmate at his death.

Mr. Rosenberg, who was admitted to the prison’s medical unit in 2000, died of natural causes, according to a spokesman for the State Department of Correctional Services, who said he could not provide further details because of privacy rules.

“Of all the jailhouse lawyers, he was the greatest and the best known,” said Ronald L. Kuby, the defense lawyer, whose former law partner, William M. Kunstler, worked closely with Mr. Rosenberg during the Attica uprising. “He came of age in prison before there was widespread access to counsel for post-conviction proceedings.”

Mr. Rosenberg had already served nearly four years in prison for a robbery conviction in Queens when he was arrested and charged with killing two off-duty police detectives, Luke J. Fallon and John P. Finnegan, in a botched robbery of the Boro Park Tobacco Company in Brooklyn on May 18, 1962. It was the first double homicide of New York City police officers in 35 years, and about 1,000 officers were assigned to the manhunt. Mr. Rosenberg turned himself in, on his 25th birthday, at the offices of The Daily News, then on East 42nd Street.

Mr. Rosenberg and an accomplice, Anthony Portelli, were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. In 1965, the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, upheld the convictions but condemned the Police Department for severely beating a witness who testified at the trial. Later that year, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller commuted the death sentences, saying that they could not have been imposed under a new law that virtually abolished capital punishment in the state.

Mr. Rosenberg began his prison sentence on Feb. 19, 1963. Another man, James Moore, who began serving a sentence for murder on July 12 of that year, is now the state’s longest-serving inmate, officials said.

Mr. Rosenberg, who always maintained he was not guilty of the killings, studied law through correspondence courses; he received a bachelor’s degree in 1967 from the Blackstone School of Law in Chicago.

Nicknamed Jerry the Jew — “he developed that moniker at a time when it was not politically incorrect,” Mr. Kuby said — Mr. Rosenberg soon became a well-known advocate for fellow inmates. (There is no record that he was ever admitted to the bar.)

During the Attica uprising in September 1971, which resulted in 43 deaths, Mr. Rosenberg was the chief legal adviser for the uprising’s leaders. After the State Police retook the prison, Mr. Rosenberg was transferred to Sing Sing, in Ossining.

Over the years, in various prisons, Mr. Rosenberg worked as a porter and as a substance abuse counselor. From 1996 to 1999, he was a paralegal assistant in the law library at Wende, where he had been held since 1991.

Jerome Rosenberg was born on May 23, 1937. Prison officials said that Mr. Rosenberg had at least two brothers, a wife and a son, but that they were not permitted to identify them and did not know whether any of them was still living. At the time of his arrest in 1962, Mr. Rosenberg was reported to have had a young daughter by a former wife.

Mr. Rosenberg was the subject of a biography by Stephen Bello, “Doing Life: The Extraordinary Saga of America’s Greatest Jailhouse Lawyer,” published by St. Martin’s Press in 1982 and later made into a television movie, starring Tony Danza, in 1986.

In the biography, Mr. Rosenberg is quoted saying that anyone who was to become a lawyer ought to “do some time in jail.”

Chevra Chazerim - NY State Tax division said...

http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090529/NEWS05/905290356&template=printart

Among the increases taking effect Monday:

- Consumers will have to pay state sales taxes on all purchases over the Internet from retailers that also have stores within the state. Expected revenue: $9 million this year and $12 million next year.

- Doubling the state fee on auto-insurance policies from $5 to $10. Expected revenue: $48 million.

- Increasing the auto-rental tax from 5 percent to 6 percent. Expected revenue: $8 million this year and $10 million annually in future years.

- Extending the sales tax to black-car and limousine services. Expected revenue: $26 million a year.

- Creating a use tax on businesses that use vehicles, including cars, planes or boats, that are owned by out-of-state affiliates, to transport their employees, partners and stockholders into the state. Expected revenue: $4 million this year and $6 million annually in future years.

Within the Metropolitan Transportation Authority region (Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Putnam and Orange counties, plus New York City and Long Island) an additional 5 percent tax on car rentals will also take effect Monday. It's part of a $1.8 billion package of higher taxes and fees lawmakers approved earlier this month to subsidize mass transit in the region.

Most of that money, $1.5 billion, will be raised by a new tax on payrolls of 34 cents per $100 that was imposed retroactively to March 1 but won't be collected until Oct. 1. Public schools will be reimbursed by the state for their payments.

Higher fees on drivers' licenses and learners' permits in the MTA region kick in on Sept. 1 and a new 50-cent charge on taxicab rides in New York City takes effect Nov. 1.

Shmarya groupie said...

Orthodox Judaism sucks but we just love Black culture!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/education/02educ.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Orr Academy High School on Chicago’s West Side.

Many of its 1,200 students have been incarcerated or kicked out of other schools, and its in-house day care center minds 35 babies each day while their mothers are in class.

From yener blog said...

June 01, 2009

Sholom M. Rubashkin: Messianist

Agriprocessors former boss and many of his Jewish employees – including schochtim – are Chabad messianists. How did KAJ and the OU put their kosher supervision marks on Agriprocessors' products?

Sholom Rubashkin wearing a "Yechi" messianist yarmulke declaring the late Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson the messiah late last month in Postville.

All pictures can be clicked on to enlarge.

A reader wants to know how the OU and other kosher supervisors could put their supervision marks on Agriprocessors' products when Sholom Rubashkin and many of his Jewish employees are messianists. Didn't the OU (and KAJ) promise not to do this?

The answer to the above question is simple: Money – it talks and theology walks.

To give themselves a fig leaf of respectability, the OU and KAJ made a deal with Rubashkin: No messianist paraphernalia – Yechi signs, yechi yarmulkes, etc. – allowed in Agriprocessors.

Outside – in the synagogue, cheder, yeshiva, private homes – any and all messianist material and behavior allowed, but not endorsed.

A smarmy deal made by smarmy people.

Now here are a few pics of Sholom Rubashkin's dining room in his Postville home. Taken late last month, these should help you understand how much money Rubashkin had.

Comments:

Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin is not a moshichist. His god and messiah are the greenback.

In Chicago, there is a man who used to be the primary shochet at one of Rubashkin’s slaughter houses dedicated to lamb (I believe it was in Indianapolis). The guy is a meshichist and is one of the leaders of Chicago’s Meshichist storefront synagogue. The Agudah and CRC made an issue about this, and he was ceremoniously dumped. It took a few months before Rubashkin lamb was available in Chicago (perhaps this was SMR way of punishing the city).
I would think that a meshichist would stick up to for his kind? Hide him? Not SMR!
SMR believes that Schneerson is going to rise from the dead and save the world, couldn’t schneerson save SMR’s company???
I am not a meshichist and I don’t know the shochet, but I just found it revolting that SMR, who would walk with a big Yechi yarmulke, send his daughter to the meshichist girl’s school in Chicago, would, for money, dump someone who believed the exact thing as he did. To add insult to injury, I think said shochet or his wife taught SMR’s daughter. I just find that gutless. (again, I am not a meshichist. But there is nothing worse than someone selling out his own kind.)
Considering that SMR likes to compare Postville to Nazi Germany, I find it only apropos to compare SMR behavior to those of the Kappos.

Posted by: yankele | June 01, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Agri used to send rabbonim out to Colorado to the Swift plant to slaughter lamb. The sides were sent back to Gordon or Postville for cut-up.

Posted by: state of disgust | June 01, 2009 at 12:20 PM

Ahavah said...

To D in TO (and Anon 3:29):

"be willing to make great sacrifices"

This is not the solution to the problem, it IS the problem. The "sacrifices" being made are the children, the elderly parents, the civic and social and religious obligations, the home and marriage life - Judaism can't survive when the one who is supposed to be holding the fort (the home) together is never there and the kids are being raised in herds by strangers, the aged parents are pushed off into nursing homes, there is no time for charity or civic work that could help improve the community, no time for gardening or sewing or anything that could help make the home more self sufficient, and so on, and so on. Women have been sold into slavery to the goyim and then everyone's surprised the marriages are empty and crumble, the kids are lost and OTD, and quality spiritual time with God is impossible? This whole paradigm is not just a gross violation of Pirkei Avot, it's total insanity. You couldn't have TRIED to do more to destroy the basis of Judaism, the home, than this idiotic innovation.

Ahavah said...

Kollel-man:

So, let them stop talking. Imagine all the peace and quiet that will follow. You have to answer to Hashem for your own, individual choices. How are you going to explain this to Him? You don't have to explain anything to them. Quit whining and step up to the plate!

bewhiskered said...

They have been totally neutered, by them having to rely on their wives supporting them, and regularly signing documents to enable them to receive Welfare in one form or another.The only ones who have been totally neutered are the mindless followers who initially got themselves involved in this idiocy, because they didn't want to work לכתחלה. Having the little wife go out and hustle up a living, while they are מבטל away the entire day, was simply too good a deal to resist.

This דור תהפוכות has somehow ignored the תורה:

ששת ימים תעבוד

And, has also ignored the following משניות:

יפה תלמוד תורה עם דרך ארץ

אהוב את המלאכה

וכל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטלה וגוררת עון

But, the worst of it, is that this over the top כולל חברה, is still incapable of being מודה על האמת- and, will most probably remain so, to the detriment of themselves and their families.

We have been taught by חז"ל of a מומר להכעיס, and a מומר לתיאבון. Perhaps, in times such as these, we should add a new category of צדיקים להכעיס.

D in TO said...

To Ahavah Gayle

It would help if you actually read the post you are commenting on before you go into your (well reasoned and largely correct, but nonetheless) rant. You insinuate that I meant that the kollel lifestyle is some sort of solution to a problem. Please reread my post before quoting me with no context and then intimating the exact opposite of what I wrote. It might save you from looking foolish, which would be a shame since you have so much to offer this conversation.

kolel in North miami beach pays 100k said...

rosh kolel gets 100G

lookng for kolel guys wanting to live in nmb and get 45K plus benefits



the rosh kolel of NMB was asked to leave by Rabbi zwieg in yeshiva elementary

he was rumored to have been fired for insubordination

when he was fired he joined a kolel that was seeking a rosh kolel

he negotiated a salary of 1o5k for 3 years

he than demanded and changed the kolel board for banking and placed it in his name together with his wife and mother in law to complete control of operation

the board on the letterhead is in name only having no power

the community is not in favor of him at all

he also has established a shul in the community that is illegal
his kolel has not paid rent money due to the other shul that they learn in during the week over 12k
resulting in tough questions for his brother in law rabbi ephriam shapiro the rabbi of shaarie tefila

Agudah Fressers International said...

(CNN) -- The World Health Organization announced Tuesday it is still considering increasing its pandemic alert level to phase 6 because of growing worldwide cases of the H1N1 virus, or swine flu.

What an idiot said...

Deri hopes English will help him return to politics

Jun. 1, 2009

Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST

How do you say political comeback in English?

That's what former Shas chairman Aryeh Deri is learning in the month that remains of his political exile before he is legally permitted to return to political activity.

Deri is taking a specially designed, intensive eight-hour English course at the Berlitz language school on King George Street in Jerusalem, sources close to him said on Monday, confirming a report in Ma'ariv. They said he was also taking refresher courses in French, which was his native language in Morocco.

A moratorium on Deri engaging in politics will end in July, seven years after he was convicted of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust, crimes that involve moral turpitude.

Deri's associates said he had not decided in what framework to make his comeback, but he hopes to climb high on the political totem pole and he realizes being able to speak English could help.

"He wants to be involved in negotiations that can bring about Middle East peace," a source close to Deri said.

The courts prevented Deri from running for mayor of Jerusalem in November, ruling that the moratorium could not be waived even though the seven-year minimum was set in law after his conviction.

Ma'ariv reported that when he entered politics 25 years ago, Deri received advice to learn English from one of his spiritual mentors, the late Rabbi Eliezer Shach.

Whenever English courses have been taught at the Knesset, the classes have been filled with lawmakers from Shas, which for years has had the fewest number of English-speaking MKs. The only current Shas MK who speaks English is Nissim Ze'ev, who once served as a rabbi in New York.

A source close to current Shas chairman Eli Yishai said he took English courses when he was minister of industry, trade and labor in order to do his job better. They said he would continue the courses soon.

"He understands English a lot better than he speaks," the source said.

Yishai's spokesman declined to comment about Deri.

Deri himself did not return phone calls, but perhaps he will if he reads this article in his English class.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1243872308677&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Manchester Putz said...

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8802281343

TEHRAN (FNA)- Rabbi Aharon Cohen from the anti-Zionist movement of Neturei Karta on Monday called for global sanctions against Israel.

"Sanction against Israeli goods must become global," Rabbi Aharon Cohen, a Neturei Karta member from Manchester, England said, speaking in a conference on "Palestine: Duty of Nations" here in Tehran on Monday.

"We must uproot the regime (Israel), sanctions are not effective unless they are global," Cohen reiterated.

Condemning Israel's onslaughts on the defenseless people of Palestine, Rabbi Cohen noted, "We must display that Zionism is bad for all, both for the Palestinians and the Jews as well as the whole world."

Reminding that Zionism is against Judaism, he stated, "Anti-Zionism does not mean anti-Semitism."

Neturei Karta (Aramaic for "Guardians of the City") was founded nearly 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel, believing only the Messiah could do that. Estimates of the group's size range from a hundred thousand to less than a million.

In recent decades its members have shown up to protest at international conferences and pro-Israel rallies.

For years, pro Israeli Jewish groups tended to dismiss Neturei Karta as eccentrics. Then came the Holocaust conference in Iran, where five members of the group rubbed shoulders with delegates who deny the Nazi slaughter of Jews, but they did not reject the Holocaust. Rather, they spoke in support of the issue very openly, and said that during the World War II, Nazis massacred millions of Jews. A glance through the news - also available on FNA's Persian Archive - proves this simple fact that they were free to speak their own words and they did during the conference in Tehran.

State Senator Carl Kruger said...

I represent Flatbush which is why I am in bed with Lopez, the SYs and the Agudah Fressers.

And I'm really glad to see that Dov Hikind is folding like a cheap camera.

http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2009/05/28/brooklyn_graphic/news/brooklyn_graphic_newsrwcaemi05282009.txt

Under a counter proposal, introduced by Assemblymember Vito Lopez and Senator Carl Kruger, the language is essentially the same with the exceptions being there is no one−year window.

The Lopez⁄Kruger bill also adds an additional two years — or until the victim is 25 to bring civil and criminal prosecution.

Additionally, the bill includes public schools and not just private institutions.

Lopez argues that some of these cases go back 50 years where the school no longer exists and the abuser may be dead, but the Catholic church, because of its structure, would still be liable for millions of dollars worth or damage.

Public opinion is also divided over the two bills.

“I’m a survivor of abuse 60 years ago and this has been going on for centuries,” said Brooklynite Joe Byrnes and a member of the national organization SNAP (Survival Network of those Abused by Priests).

Byrnes said that both Catholic and Jewish victims have shown support for the Markey⁄Duane bill.

Kids between the ages of five and 10 have been abused for years by nuns, priests, ministers and rabbis while religious institutions have been covering it up and these victims should have the right to sue, he said.

But Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, which advocates on behalf of Jewish day schools, said the one−year window clause could put a lot of private schools out of business.

“Under this proposed bill one can theoretically bring a claim against an administration that is no longer there, where insurance records are lost and where there is no record of the victim even enrolled in the school,” said Zwiebel.

“It would put a severe financial strain on institutions we regard as the lifeblood of this community,” he added.

Currently the two bills have yet to be put for a vote before the Assembly, and Assemblymember Dov Hikind said a compromise should be reached.

Srul Weingarten said...

http://lohud.com/article/2009905290360

Monsey rabbi to appeal conviction for sexually abusing daughter

Steve Lieberman
slieberm@lohud.com

A 59-year-old Monsey man sentenced to 30 years in federal prison has filed papers seeking to appeal his conviction for sexually abusing his daughter.

A U.S. District Court jury in Brooklyn convicted Rabbi Israel Weingarten in March of taking his daughter out of the United States to Israel and Belgium and sexually abusing her.

Weingarten taught children for the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community. He ran a Satmar school in Belgium and worked for religious elementary and secondary schools in Brooklyn.

His daughter, now 27; a son; and their mother testified against Weingarten at trial and underwent questioning from him. Two other daughters testified on his behalf and accused their mother of molesting their older sister.

Weingarten's appeal will be based largely on the grounds that he was forced to represent himself at trial and did not voluntarily waive his constitutional rights to an attorney, according to his lawyers, the law firm of Lorandos & Associates in Washington, D.C.

Attorney Demosthenes Lorandos has not yet filed the appeal papers.

The basis for the appeal was contained in papers seeking to dismiss the verdict, said Ashish S. Joshi, an attorney with the firm.

In those papers, the lawyers claimed Weingarten became estranged from his attorneys and wanted new lawyers to represent him.

The legal papers state Weingarten repeatedly told U.S. District Court Judge John Gleason that he didn't want to represent himself, he wanted to get other lawyers but because of his situation, he had no choice but to represent himself.

The legal papers state the judge refused to adjourn the case for Weingarten to find new lawyers or assign him new counsel. The judge assigned his two lawyers to assist him at trial.

The motion papers also claim witnesses could have testified that Weingarten's daughter lied, but his lawyers never went after the witnesses. The lawyers denied those accusations.

Gleason rejected the motion to dismiss the guilty verdict and set a new trial.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn opposed the motion and wrote that the judge made Weingarten aware of the pitfalls of being his own lawyer.

The jury convicted Weingarten on all five counts of transporting the victim in foreign commerce with intent and for the purpose of sexually abusing her during the spring and summer of 1997.

Gleason sentenced Weingarten earlier this month. The rabbi is being held in the federal lockup in Brooklyn.

Prior to the sentencing, the victim and her older brother, 29, read statements detailing the horrors of being physically and mentally abused by their father.

They said their father brainwashed his children and his wife.

Six of Rabbi Israel Weingarten's children — from left, Shmiel, Yoil, Chayeh, Sheindl, Chaneh and Yakev — and their uncle, Alfred Weingarten, said they believed thr rabbi was not guilty of sexual abuse. (File photo by Akiko Matsuda/The Journal News)

Rabbi Yehuda Levin tells Agudah, OU and Young Israel to stop davar assur said...

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=127&id=19424&t=Advocates+of+gay+marriage+advocate+coercion

Speaking on behalf of an alliance of Orthodox rabbis of the U.S., Rabbi Yehuda Levin declared that it is prohibited under Jewish law for anyone to support any political candidate who supports the homosexual agenda.

“We hereby declare that it is prohibited according to Jewish law for anyone to vote, financially support or honor any candidate for public office who supports the political homosexual agenda which includes, but is not limited to: Homosexual marriage and/or adoption, the so called Employment Non-Discrimination Act which forces religious institution or adherents to hire and not fire flagrant ostentatious homosexuals, enshrining the homosexual agenda in school curricula and any similar legislation or movements.

It is late in the game as we take note of the following:

#1 The Federal Court’s Parker decision in Massachusetts denying parents the right to remove their children from classes teaching homosexual propaganda like Heather has 2 mommies to 5-7 year old children. This is also being planned by school officials in Alameda County, California, and various other locations across the country.

#2 A Methodist Church in New Jersey refuses to rent out their wedding hall for a lesbian commitment ceremony. They lose their non-for-profit tax status.

#3 The New Hampshire legislature votes for same gender marriage and refuses to pass any amendment which would exempt clergy from being forced to solemnize these marriages.

#4 Canada has fined clergy for merely writing letters to newspapers citing religious opposition to parts of the homosexual agenda.

#5 Swedish Pastor Ake Green imprisoned for preaching in his church about Biblical opposition to homosexuality.

#6 Recent British regulation would force churches to hire flagrant homosexuals as youth leaders. And the list goes on.

For too long, we have ignored the constant ever encroaching outrageous advances of the militant homosexual agenda and their allies in the media and politics. We are now at the midnight hour. If we don’t push back now, we will be absolutely unable to continue living our religious lives in these United States.

We join the Central Rabbinical Congress of Chasidic Jews who issued such an edict 25 years ago but then shelved it. We call upon them as well as all Orthodox Jewish Rabbinic and Civil groups including Agudath Israel of America, the Rabbinical Conference of America, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the National Council of Young Israel, etc., to join with us and create a united Orthodox Jewish front to defend ourselves from this frontal attack on our most basic religious values and freedoms.

For far too long, craven politicians have been buying our community’s allegiance by pandering to our institutions, giving them government grants in return for our votes despite their kowtowing to the increasingly powerful and power hungry homosexual lobby. We must break our addiction to these government funds and tell the politicians: they may be going to Hell, but we are not going with them!

Agudah Fresser for Governor said...

http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/052809/njConspiracyTheoristEyes.html

May 28, 2009

A Jewish man from Guttenberg has eyes on the governor’s mansion — and a platform focusing on his theory that the United States, and specifically the National Security Agency, is responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

“You can believe me on 9/11 or not,” said Jeff Boss, a former independent running as a Democrat. “But I do want to win, and there are great things I can do for New Jersey as governor.”

The incumbent, Gov. Jon Corzine, has no serious challengers in the May 28 Democratic primary, but Boss, eccentric theory and all, will join Corzine and Phillipsburg businessman Roger Bacon on the ballot.

Boss, who has also run for United States Senate and president, runs a website sketching out his theory in capital letters. In a homemade campaign video, he claims the NSA has made several attempts on his life, has placed GPS tracking devices on photocopies he’s made at Staples, and put a surveillance device in his car.

“One of the reasons I got into politics is that I have a family member who was a top aide to President Bush who, six months before 9/11, was talking about the attacks and naming names. She was bad-mouthing Jews,” he said in a telephone conversation with NJJN. He declined to give her name, but added, “Since then, I have taken five videos of people admitting they knew about the attacks beforehand.”

His other platform issues include getting rid of tolls on the Garden State Parkway and replacing that revenue by raising tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike for out-of-state vehicles, lowering property taxes, and legalizing sports betting and using the proceeds to offer free college to all NJ residents. He also supports lowering car insurance by creating a law-enforcement unit dedicated to insurance fraud, reinstating tax rebate checks, and preventing illegal immigrants from working on union job sites.

Boss was raised in North Caldwell and said he was a longtime member of Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex in Caldwell, where he became a bar mitzva.

The Steinger scumbags said...

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/832398

Mutual Benefits Con Man Joel Steinger

NYS Senator Carl Kruger said...

And I hope UOJ's people don't start harassing me!

http://www.nysenate.gov/senator/carl-kruger

District Office
2201 Avenue U
Brooklyn, NY 11229
Tel: (718) 743-8610
Fax: (718) 743-5958

Albany Office
913 Legislative Office Building
Albany, New York 12247
Tel: (518) 455-2460
Fax: (518) 426-6855

Email: kruger@senate.state.ny.us

Jacob Perlow said...

http://www.nysenate.gov/photos/2009/may/08/hunger-near-crisis-level

Carl Kruger neglected to mention that he also represents Boro Park.

Anonymous said...

This guy dresses like a chareidei rabbi and has semicha and is the BIL of a rosh yeshiva here in Passaic. He also is known for having an open-house on Shabbos for singles, especially women:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/morris_county_doctor_pleads_gu.html

Friends of Agudah and Belsky said...

Part 1

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05312009/news/regionalnews/molest_bill_pols_catch_holy_hell_171795.htm

By REUVEN BLAU and BRAD HAMILTON, NY Post,, May 31, 2009

Thou shalt not blackmail.

Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio threatened state lawmakers by vowing to close churches in their districts -- and blame them for the closures -- if they dared support a bill making it easier for people who were sexually assaulted as kids to sue, legislators told The Post.

They said the dark warning came during a "legislative breakfast" at DiMarzio's Brooklyn residence, as he told the gathering of about 20 state and city politicians that he would retaliate against Albany lawmakers if they backed the Child Victims Act.

The controversial bill -- which could be heading for an Assembly floor debate as soon as June 8 -- seeks to extend the statute of limitations for lawsuits involving the rape or molesting of youngsters. It could cost the Church hundreds of millions in payouts to victimized parishioners.

Two lawmakers said the bishop brazenly bullied them during the coffee-and-doughnuts gathering at his stately brick residence in Clinton Hill on Oct. 21.

"He said, 'If it passes, we will close a parish in each of your districts and we will tell your constituents that it was your fault,' " said one Assembly member who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"I was shocked," he said. "I've never seen a threat like that made at any lobby meeting."

A senator who asked not to be identified said: "The hair on the back of my head stood up. In my years of Catholic schooling, we were never taught to be so vindictive, and here's my bishop saying, 'I'll close a church in your district.' "

A City Council member said: "He brought up this bill, and he went on a tirade about it, saying, 'We'll have to close churches, and you'll be the ones responsible for it. It will be your fault.'

"He basically threatened the room. I was appalled."

The author of the legislation, Queens Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, did not attend the breakfast, but she said lawmakers who were there told her about DiMarzio's remarks.

"People take offense at that," she said. "Legislators do not want to be threatened by anyone. You don't close parishes just because a state legislator votes on a particular bill."

The assemblyman who spoke to The Post said DiMarzio's ploy backfired -- the lawmaker was so put off that he signed on to Markey's measure as a co-sponsor.

"Her bill was not on my radar screen, but the obnoxiousness of his threat made me take a look at it," he said.

DiMarzio, 64, is the leader of the Brooklyn Diocese, which oversees 1.6 million Catholics at 198 parishes and schools in Brooklyn and Queens.

He has spearheaded an intense lobbying effort against the bill, which would give new hope to hundreds whose civil claims that they were sexually abused by priests or educators were tossed out because they were filed too late.

Currently, alleged victims can file suit when they turn 18 but not after age 23. The bill would extend that window to age 28.

It would also suspend all limits for one year, allowing anyone whose claim was previously dismissed on statute-of-limitations grounds to relaunch the lawsuit.

It was unclear exactly how many people might be affected, but in 2006, the state Court of Appeals tossed out a $300 million suit by 42 litigants against 24 priests in the Brooklyn Diocese because the plaintiffs waited too long to file.

Part 2 said...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05312009/news/regionalnews/molest_bill_pols_catch_holy_hell_171795.htm

The bishop's spokesman emphatically denied that DiMarzio threatened the lawmakers.

"There's no question about it being blackmail," the Rev. Kieran Harrington said. "If the legislators are saying there's a threat involved, they're trying to create a story where there is no story. We're dealing with an anti-Catholic bias that's pervading the New York state Assembly."

DiMarzio was merely pointing out to the pols that the diocese would be financially devastated if the bill becomes law, he said.

"The consequences for our community would be profound," Harrington said.

DiMarzio also took the fight directly to Markey, a five-term incumbent, when she was up for re-election last November, actively campaigning for her opponent, Republican challenger Anthony Nunziato.

"There was literature calling me anti-Catholic," said Markey, a Catholic whose three adult children all attended Catholic schools.

DiMarzio last month turned to Congressman Joseph Crowley, the Queens Democratic Party chair, asking him to put pressure on Markey over the bill, according to a high-level Assembly source.

Crowley angrily rebuffed him, the source said.

"Crowley in effect told the bishop, 'You're a paper tiger. You went against her and failed.' He told the bishop there was nothing he could do," the source said.

But Crowley denied that the exchange took place.

"I have not had a conversation with the bishop since last year," he said.

Markey's camp criticizes the bishop for engaging in bare-knuckle politics.

"Aside from the separation of church and state, there's an unseemly quality of getting involved at this level," said one of her aides, who asked not to be quoted by name.

Additional reporting by Fredric U. Dicker, David Seifman and Angela Montefinise

Israel Belsky SHLITA said...

DiMarzio is mamash a feste guy!

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06012009/news/regionalnews/bishop_is_defiant_on_threats_171910.htm

BISHOP IS DEFIANT ON THREATS

By EDMUND DeMARCHE and LEONARD GREENE

A Brooklyn bishop accused of using his bully pulpit to blackmail legislators over a molestation bill he opposes said yesterday he has no plans to repent.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio told state lawmakers that he would close churches in their districts -- and blame them for the shutdowns -- if they backed a bill making it easier for sexual-assault victims to sue local parishes, which was first reported by The Post.

DiMarzio, who made the threats months ago during a legislative breakfast at his residence, said he'd gladly preach the same sermon again.

"This bill is going to bankrupt the church," DiMarzio told The Post yesterday after a confirmation ceremony at a Bay Ridge church where spoke about love and forgiveness. "We are going to close parishes in these districts if this bill goes through. I'm not going to deny that I said that."

The strong-arm tactics outraged several legislators.

One politician was so put off by DiMarzio's tirade that he signed on to the measure as a co-sponsor.

But parishioners in the bishop's home parish said he's doing the right thing. "The Catholic Church is always targeted," said Joe Ramos, 37, a member of The Cathedral Basilica of St. James in downtown Brooklyn and a card carrying member of Agudath Israel of America. "The bishop's job is to protect the church."

DiMarzio said he would not apologize for his position -- or his style. "I threaten everybody," the bishop said, laughing. "I can't help it. It's the position."

Drs. Gil Lederman and Phil Silverman said...

http://www.silive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/12436731079780.xml&coll=1

A federal judge has dismissed the bulk of multibillion-dollar lawsuits brought by the families of 20 Italian nationals allegedly lured by Dr. Gilbert Lederman to Staten Island University Hospital for cancer treatment with unrealistic promises of cures.

The judge, however, let stand medical malpractice claims by two plaintiffs against Drs. Lederman and Philip Jay Silverman, along with a wrongful death claim by one of those plaintiffs against the two doctors. He tossed all other claims against those physicians.

All 20 patients died shortly after receiving the cancer treatment, which, they allege, was aggressively marketed between 2001 and 2003 and later discontinued.

Dr. Lederman made headlines years ago for allegedly coercing fatally ill ex-Beatle George Harrison into signing his son's guitar. He settled the resulting legal dispute with Harrison's family in January 2004, after which he left University Hospital for Manhattan's Cabrini Medical Center.

The plaintiffs will appeal the fraud-claim dismissals, said their lawyer, Bruce G. Behrins of the Clifton firm of Behrins & Behrins.

"The dismissal by Judge Glasser of 18 of the 20 lawsuits we brought on behalf of the Italian nationals against Staten Island University Hospital and its parent, North Shore-Long Island Jewish [Healthcare Inc.] is, in my opinion, a total miscarriage of justice," Behrins said yesterday. "Staten Island University Hospital and North Shore-Long Island Jewish engaged in a moneymaking scheme by perpetrating a massive fraud on the public, in general, and 200 Italian nationals, in particular."

The plaintiffs allege they came to University Hospital under its newly established International Patient Program (IPP) for cancer treatment. They allegedly paid $17,500 up front, excluding travel costs from Italy to New York and back. They were influenced by an extensive advertising campaign based in Naples, Italy, and on the Internet, court records say.

Behrins said the hospital and Dr. Lederman promised unrealistic success rates, depending on the type of cancer, of between 88 and 94 percent.

However, the patients' conditions progressively deteriorated after receiving the non-invasive treatment.

"How can any reasonable individual perceive that as anything but false advertising ... [and] fraudulent misrepresentations?" Behrins asked yesterday.

Judge Glasser, however, said the plaintiffs failed to substantiate the fraud accusations, dismissing them as "purely conclusory."

He also said the alleged deceptions occurred in Italy, and even if proved, "would be beyond the reach of New York's consumer fraud statute."

Behrins contends the fraud occurred through the mails and is therefore a federal racketeering violation.

The families of two decedents, Giuseppa Caramanna Bono and Gemma Emilia Caberti Amato, met those legal thresholds regarding malpractice against Drs. Lederman and Silverman, and those claims can stand, Glasser ruled.

The judge also said a question of fact exists whether Ms. Caramanna Bono's death was caused by malpractice. Consequently, her family's wrongful-death claim against the two doctors could proceed.

Bim Bam the sleeper cell said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/us/03nuke.html?hp

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said information that shows where nuclear fuels are stored “can provide thieves or terrorists inside information that can help them seize the material, which is why that kind of data is not given out.”

Mr. Obama characterized the information as “sensitive but unclassified”

Betting against the Agudah and Satmar said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/business/03litigate.html

June 3, 2009

Investing in Lawsuits, for a Share of the Awards

By JONATHAN D. GLATER

Richard W. Fields says he has come up with a win-win financial strategy for the downturn. He is investing in lawsuits.

Not in trip-and-fall cases, mind you, but in disputes that are far larger, more costly and potentially more lucrative, often pitting major corporations against each other.

Mr. Fields is chief executive of Juridica Capital Management. which runs a fund that invests in one side of a lawsuit in exchange for a share of any winnings.

“It’s always a good time to invest in litigation,” Mr. Fields said, though he added that the weak economy helped. “When the recession started to bite, the phones started ringing off the hook. Last year, we looked at 122 cases and we made 17 investments.” A small but growing number of investors are exploring this idea, helping companies avoid some of the risks and costs of litigation in exchange for part of any money paid out when the case is settled or resolved by a court. After all, it can be costly to hire lawyers, who may charge close to $1,000 an hour at the most elite firms.

Credit Suisse has a unit devoted to this kind of investing. Juris Capital, a Chicago firm backed by two hedge funds, also does it. Several other hedge funds do, too.

“Given the conditions in the economy, you have a set of circumstances that are pushing both clients and law firms” to look for outside investor help, said David Desser, managing director of Juris.

Companies often jump at the chance to have an investor help pay for litigation, and lawyers usually appreciate having money set aside to pay them.

Firms in this business do not reveal which cases they invest in, but they claim strong returns. Shares of Juridica Investments, the fund, have risen 24 percent since they began trading on the London Stock Exchange in December 2007. The company’s average investment is $7.5 million, Mr. Fields said, and it has about $200 million under management.

Juris typically invests $500,000 to $3 million in a case, Mr. Desser said. He would not identify the company’s backers, but said that “on the portfolio as a whole, our returns are well in excess of 20 percent per year.” He added, “We’re certainly beating the market.”

Anonymous said...

By EILEEN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writer

Published: Wednesday, Jun. 3, 2009 - 6:44 am

WASHINGTON -- The man charged with the Arkansas military recruiter shooting might have considered other targets, according to law enforcement officials.

A joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press said officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.
"Out of an abundance of caution, and in light of newly discovered information, the FBI cannot rule out additional subjects, targets, or the potential for inspired copy cats who might act out in support of the original act," the intelligence assessment said.

Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammed has pleaded not guilty to Monday's deadly shooting in a suburban Little Rock shopping center where Pvt. William Long, 23 was killed and Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18, was wounded.

Authorities said Muhammed targeted soldiers "because of what they had done to Muslims in the past."

Boog gets results said...

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/senate-leader-pushes-for-income-disclosure/

ALBANY — Senate Democrats have begun what could be a significant push for tougher oversight of state lawmakers, long one of the weakest aspect of the Capitol’s ethics laws.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, the Senate majority leader, Malcolm A. Smith, said he would like to see legislation that would require individual lawmakers to disclose all sources of outside income.

“That would be my ideal,” Mr. Smith said. Most members of the Legislature have second jobs, but currently, they are not required to make public any clients they have or the exact amount they earn off the state payroll.

In his remarks, Mr. Smith also said he did not believe that lawmakers holding leadership positions, including himself, should earn outside income. Mr. Smith, who formerly ran a title insurance business, shut down that company when he became majority leader.

The combined efforts of the Senate and the governor could put added pressure on the Assembly, where the speaker, Sheldon Silver, has in the past opposed efforts to give any independent body ethics oversight of the Legislature. (The current legislative commission is jointly appointed by the speaker and the Senate leader.) Moreover, Mr. Silver has long resisted calls that he disclose his clients at Weitz & Luxenberg, a prominent tort law firm where he is of counsel.

Mr. Smith said he hoped that the two houses could jointly pass ethics reform and income disclosure legislation. But if there was no movement from the Assembly, Mr. Smith said, he would push the Senate to pass such legislation on its own.

“If in fact we get to a point where it is clear that there will be no support from the other side, I might decide to take a different tactic, because I think the issue is that important,” Mr. Smith said.

Leopold Margulies said...

New York City will establish a 10-member bedbug advisory board to tackle a growing infestation of the blood-sucking insects, under legislation that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed on Wednesday.

Vus hut Pupa Chassidim mit Chuck Schumer? said...

http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48753050-senator-chuck-schumer-8-million-in-new-federal-funding-to-help-hire-americorps-m#

June 2, 2009 -- U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today announced that the Corporation for National and Community Service will provide a total of $7,719,922 to 13 community centers in New York City. The funding will hire 1,338 AmeriCorps workers to help New York City students improve their education.

Yeshiva Kehilath Yaakov/Community LEAD, “Leadership Education and Development,” will receive $277,052 to hire 42 AmeriCorps members.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

A chassidishe girl was raped by a bus driver for a chassidishe yeshiva in Borough Park. The parents and the school refuse to call the police.

I'm looking into the developments.

WATCH YOUR KIDS!

Leopold Margulies said...

Don't look at me. I'm only a bus driver for bucherim!

(C)Harm City-Baltimore said...

UJ,

are the drivers yidden in BP? i've been in BP a hundred times but never looked at who drives the busses.

Malach HaMovies said...

The Agudah Rabbis "Agonized" for years about what must be done with the molester rabbis and their enablers. But there was no agonizing when it came time to destroy Lipa Schmeltzer or some tiny wig store on coney island avenue in brooklyn !!

The "gedolim" don't delay when it comes to destroying innocent hard-working jewish men of their parnossa. Then they act very swiftly.

And that's why they are all Vantzen. All of them !!

Charlie Hynes said...

This airline is Irish. Belsky told me he hasn't decided yet if this makes a nafka mina for him.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/budget-airline-to-charge-for-toilet-use/?hp

Faced with an annual loss for the first time in two decades, Ryanair, the European budget airline, confirmed on Tuesday that it plans to start charging passengers for the luxury of using the toilet on its jets.

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s outspoken chief executive, told The Guardian that the airline plans to ask Boeing to add a credit-card reader to toilet locks and wants to reconfigure its 737-800 jets, adding space for six additional seats by removing two of the three toilets. “We are flying aircraft on an average flight time of one hour around Europe,” Mr. O’Leary argued, “what the hell do we need three toilets for?”

Yanky Horowitz Is A Farce said...

UOJ:

It's time to remove the shameless two-faced Yanky horowitz from your hall of fame.

Yanky Horowitz can shove his Markey plan up his and the Moetzes posterior.

Ahavah said...

To D of T:

My intention was to agree with you, more or less. You have jumped into the middle of a long-running series of posts and comments that I have made on this very topic, including several long articles that touch on this issue and this type of economic and cultural suicide on the UOJ GROUP blogpage.

I don't know what community you are from, but you and anon seem to think that individuals are making these stupid choices on their own - but "kollel guy" is actually the more representative situation. It is the Ravs and Rosh Yeshivas that have created this ridiculous paradigm and enforce it with social terrorism, ostracizing people, casting aspersions on their children to ruin their shuddich opportunities, and so on. The pressure is real and palatable and most people simply do not have the outside support and resources to break away.

Many are not educated enough to WANT to - they BELIEVE it when their Rav tells them they're poor because they don't have enough faith or don't pray correctly or don't give to the right "charities." The Ravs tell them it's their own fault money doesn't fall from the sky - and the Rav speaks for Hashem, so they buy it hook, line, and sinker. At no time does the Rav tell them it was stupid in the first place to have a child every year with no means to support it, buy a house when they had no real income, and so on.

No - going to the Rav with your problems is a waste of time, because they have a vested interest in pushing the status quo. They don't want people to be educated and get real jobs, pure and simple. If they did, they would be exposed to science, history, biology, medical knoweldge, and economic knowledge that will inevitably cause the Rav's ponzi schemes to come crashing down. They are parasites living off of the kollel culture. If more men went out to work, the Ravs themselves would have to go out and get real jobs - and they sure don't want that.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Ahavah:

Your above comment is remarkably accurate! There is not one word that I disagree with!

Moish Finkel aitzah to Michael Inzelbuch said...

You could be mighty and powerful one day, but you are the city garbage the next. When you are being dragged through the mud, nobody cares who you try to take down with you. Once a person who has the goods on you comes forward, it's too late for revenge. When the fight gets too tough, someone will report you.

Michael, I did the same bully tactics as you did. No one dared try to stand up to me. No one dared to challenge my authority.

Until, they did.

I was taught the hard way. If people have the goods on you, use your brain not your guts.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

I am in total disagreement with Rabbi Horowitz's position on Markey; I'm not ready to discredit his entire life's work over one grievous, very misinformed opinion.

I'm hoping he'll come around - so I'll keep his photo up for the "avar" and the "asid" -- come around Yankel - somebody put something in your Pepsi.

Joe Putz said...

C(Harm) City,

who do you think is driving buses exactly? Whether they are Chassidish like Margo (former Torah Vodaas bus driver) or not, they are not exactly the upper crust.

There is a huge problem even when they don't molest of them leaving kids at the depot because they are too lazy or absent minded to check the seats. A Russian driver with Chaim Berlin was arrested for that a couple of years ago.

boog said...

The Bim Bam at Work:

Posted by "Adam" on http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/

(x) Government takes control of the banks
(x) Government takes control of the car companies
( ) Government takes control of health care
( ) Union thugs start taking over more and more businesses following the passage of “card check” bill
( ) Unemployment rate rises as businesses can no longer afford to hire employees due to union demands
( ) New census report results in new redistricting that gives Democrats a huge advantage in future elections
( ) Political speech from the opposition is regulated on the airwaves using “diversity” requirement
( ) Gun control law enacted to require every single privately owned firearm be registered with the feds
( ) Government takes control of insurance companies
( ) National sovereignty is lost to a globalized version of the European Union
( ) More and more U.S. tax dollars are funneled into the IMF and used for welfare in foreign countries
( ) Our kids are subjected to mandatory "volunteerism" via Obama’s “youth corps” as specified in the new GIVE bill
( ) New energy taxes and drilling bans result in $5 per gallon and rising at the pump
( ) Government steps in with price controls on gas, resulting in shortages and long lines at the pump (Carter, the sequel)
( ) Government takes control of all oil/energy companies
( ) Rolling brown outs and government mandated power rationing occurs nation-wide
( ) Everyone stops buying our treasury bonds, resulting in the fed having to print massive amounts of new currency
( ) Inflation goes through the roof as stimulus spending comes home to roost and the money presses are running overtime
( ) Government blames the rich for high prices and steps in with more taxes, subsidies and price controls
( ) Grocery store shelves start running empty due to federal price fixing
( ) New taxes on companies and the rich drive the productive citizens out of business or out of the country
( ) Restrictions are placed on foreign travel, visa extensions are no longer granted
( ) Companies are banned from relocating overseas, causing many to go out of business
( ) Severe economic downturn continues as unemployment rises even further
( ) The presidential two-term limit is removed and new executive powers are added with increasing frequency
( ) Social Security goes bankrupt. Private 401K accounts are nationalized and redistributed
( ) Health care is severely rationed as the system nears bankruptcy. Deaths among the elderly skyrocket
( ) A-bomb made in Iran goes off in New York harbor
( ) Iran Nukes and totals Israel. Bim Bam appeals to his Muslim brethren to "settle" the remaining Jewish survivors as close to Jerusalem as possible
( ) Public panics and turns what few freedoms it has left over to the government in the name of “safety”
( ) Guns are seized from all citizens
( ) NATO forces are brought in to help enforce martial law and gun confiscation
( ) Crime, disease and starvation are rampant
( ) Criminal gangs now control the flow of most goods through a black market
( ) Transition to a third world economy controlled by an oligarchy of corrupt socialists is now complete
( ) Your own kid reports you to an equality enforcement officer for trying to grow your own food
( ) You die in a prison labor camp where 40% of the nations population is enslaved to extract “from each according to his ability,” the product of which is given “to each according to his need.”
___________________________________

Way to go Adam!

The Bim-Bam (Manchurian Candidate) Identity.

Wake up America! Make a difference in 2010.

Sounds like Obama's "Fairness Doctrine" for right-wing radio hosts said...

Have you heard of Shmarya's latest totalitarian rule?

If he doesn't like your style, you are banned from commenting on his FM website unless you post under your real full name and provide him with the email address that you usually use.

"Welch" was banned tonight about 30 minutes ago with Shmarya listing the conditions for him to be able to post again.

Anonymous said...

A Jewish girl raped on a school bus and no one is reporting this? Have we gone mad? This is a Child Protective Services matter in that the parents have failed to protect this child in their refusal to report, and this is a crime which will be repeated unless / until the alleged perpetrator is reported.

Yudi Kolko said...

Is Harvard anywhere near Lake Compounce?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/education/04harvard.html

Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college.

King Ferd of Saudi Arabia said...

So the US economy is in shambles but Obama is busy fawning over me and the rest of the Arabs like a fool.

I love it!

UOJ Gets Results! said...

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20090603_ap_personofinterestinchildrapebeatenbymob.html

A man described by police as a person of interest in the rape of an 11-year-old girl is in critical condition after being beaten by an angry mob in Philadelphia.

Police say about a dozen West Kensington residents pummeled 26-year-old Jose Carrasquillo (kayr-uhs-KEE'-oh) for several minutes with fists, feet and wooden sticks Tuesday afternoon after they recognized him from a photo distributed by police.

Officers then arrived and took him into custody.

Lt. Frank Vanore says Carrasquillo was admitted to Temple University Hospital with head injuries.

Talmidei Finkel said...

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/chicken-injected-with-beef-waste-sold-in-uk-1696407.html

Muslims and Jews conned into eating meat bulked out with cow and pig products

Cafes and restaurants across Britain have been selling chicken secretly injected with beef and pork waste, The Independent can reveal today.

In a hi-tech fraud run by firms in three EU states, food manufacturers are making bulking agents out of porcine and bovine gristle and bones that help inflate chicken breasts, so that they fetch a higher price.

The swindle was only detected by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) using new scientific techniques because the non-chicken material had been so highly processed it passed standard DNA tests.

Thousands of restaurateurs and cafe owners are likely to have been conned into buying chicken containing the powder – which binds water into chicken breasts – while diners have been unwittingly consuming traces of other animals when eating out.

The fraud has been taking place for at least the past two years, and still continues because of inaction by the authorities in three EU states, believed to be Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

The European Commission rebuffed British demands to ban beef and pork proteins from being added to chicken when first detected in the UK and Ireland in 2001 and 2003. Then, action was taken against a chicken company in the Netherlands and the authorities thought the problem had gone away.

When complaints began to surface again last year, the FSA launched a secret investigation to ascertain whether chicken – the most eaten meat in the UK – was being adulterated again. At first, scientists could not find any non-chicken protein because the meat had been "de-natured" (made unrecognisable). The Central Science Laboratory in York and York University developed special DNA market tests.

"It's like Olympic drug tests; they stay one step ahead of the testers," said a source close to the investigation.

Manufacturers in Germany and Spain are thought to be making the protein powders; Dutch firms inject them into chickens sold on to UK wholesalers supplying the catering trade.

Using a new DNA marker technique, the FSA tested five protein powders from three companies. All five were found to contain a non-poultry material identified as bovine collagen. Further tests found the presence of porcine material in two powders.

Tests picked up traces of beef in one of three chicken breasts.

In a report passed to The Independent, the FSA noted: "The study of a small number of injection powders used in chicken breast products has indicated the presence of undeclared, mammalian peptides, i.e., from a non-poultry source in the samples analysed. The analyses applied indicate the presence of bovine collagen in all the powders sampled and suggest the presence of porcine collagen in some of the powders."

It added: "Certification accompanying the powders claim they are produced only from a poultry source, however, the analytical results suggest this claim could not be substantiated."

Manufacturers can legally add water to chicken, for instance to improve succulence, but must declare water content of above 5 per cent. Fresh chicken meat sold by supermarkets or butchers cannot have any added ingredients. When the FSA alerted its continental counterparts, the factories involved were inspected but no legal action has been taken.

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=Bill+Surkis&cf=all&scoring=n

Former B'nai Brith director faces child pornography charges
Last Updated: Friday, May 29, 2009 | 6:38 PM ET
CBC News
The former regional director of B’nai Brith in Quebec has been charged with possessing child pornography.

Bill Surkis appeared Friday at the Montreal courthouse. He had turned himself in to police earlier this month after a police investigation resulted in an arrest warrant issued in his name.

Police were notified after a computer repair shop found several questionable video files on Surkis's PC.

Surkis brought his computer in to the shop for repairs after it became infected with a virus.

He left his post as director of B'nai Brith Quebec two years ago.

Surkis was the dean of education at John Abbott College for 22 years. He is also a prominent member of Montreal's Jewish community and was an executive director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre.

He was released on bail with several conditions, including that he not be in the company of minors, he avoid areas where minors gather, and not use his computer to access the internet.

He also had to surrender his passport and agree to not leave Quebec.

Surkis returns to court on Sept. 24.

Politically incorrect said...

Why should anyone trust Shmarya with their name and personal contact information?

He's a guy who turned his back on all kinds of people who befriended him for 20 years by suddenly turning on them like they are his arch-enemies. His old friend & still current neighbor Manis Friedman made some shoot from the hip remarks about retaliating against violent Arab terrorists so what does Shmarya do? He drags Manis through the mud in public and told the Forward newspaper about supposedly private conversations he had with Manis over the years to crucify the guy.

There are all kinds of people who Shmarya has stabbed in the back even if he mooched countless free meals from them over the course of 25 years that he was a baal teshuva.

Shmarya is sick.

Jane LeMond-Alvarez said...

http://www.theinjusticefiles.com/

Thank you for reporting on child abuse - any media that puts child abuse in the forefront is good. I have followed hundreds of cases of child abuse only to find children being returned to their abusers over and over. In many cases, the children have been killed. For those that have been killed, I sadly enter their names to my traveling memorial Wall of Tears. Check out www.theinjusticefiles.com Just look at the facts: According to the U.S. National Statistics: Direct costs of child abuse: Hospitalization: $6,205,395,000. — Chronic health problems: $2,987,957,400. — Mental health care system: $425,110,400. — Child welfare system: $14,400,000,000. — Law enforcement: $24,709,000. — Judicial system: $341,174,702 Total direct costs: $24,384,347,302 Indirect costs of child abuse: — Special education: $ 223,607,830. — Mental health and healthcare: $4,627,636,025. — Juvenile delinquency: $8,805,291,372. — Lost productivity to society: $ 656,000,000. — Adult criminality: $55,380,000,000. — Total indirect costs : $69,692,535,227. Total: $94,076,882,529

Hungarian Putz with sons in YTT said...

What's wrong with those UOJ followers in Philly beating up a guy like that? I can control my emotions and never said a cross word to Margulies and Kolko.

Monsey said...

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202431196226&NY_City_Attorney_Arrested_for_Mortgage_Fraud_Forgery

An attorney with the New York City Law Department who had a gambling problem was arrested Tuesday for mortgage fraud that involved inventing a lawsuit and forging the signature of a bankruptcy judge.

Hugh Zuber, 38, of Monsey, N.Y., allegedly used the Corporation Counsel's office for a meeting with one of his victims in one of two schemes to defraud property sellers in the Bronx and Spring Valley of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Zuber, an assistant corporation counsel who works in the special federal litigation division, made his initial appearance Tuesday before Southern District of New York Judge Theodore Katz on one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of forging a judicial signature, which carries a maximum of five years.

He was released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond and is expected back in court on July 2. Zuber is being represented by Federal Defender Sabrina Shroff.

Zuber, a graduate of Albany Law School, worked at Jacob, Medinger & Finnegan before moving to the Law Department in 2007. He has been suspended from the agency without pay.

The criminal complaint (pdf) unsealed Tuesday by the Southern District U.S. Attorney's Office states that Zuber agreed to represent a Bronx property owner in the sale of a building on Creston St in 2006. Zuber arranged to sell the building to Alana Property Management LLC for $950,000 in 2007.

What Zuber did not disclose was that he had formed Alana Property himself and that it was controlled by his brother, who is referred to in the complaint only as "co-conspirator-1."

The terms of sale were $400,000 in cash with the remaining $550,000 in the form of a 10-year note that was purportedly secured by a mortgage. Alana Property, which was managed by Zuber's sister, used false information to secure a $705,000 mortgage. Zuber also made $55,000 in attorney's fees from the transaction.

Alana Property continued to make payments on the mortgage for 6 months, but when it stopped making payments, Zuber told the seller that he had filed a lawsuit against Alana Property.

He also showed the seller documents purporting to be a 2008 "Order" supposedly signed by Judge Carla Craig, who he pretended was handling the Alana "bankruptcy."

In a 2008 meeting between the seller and Zuber that was recorded by the FBI, Zuber stated, "I didn't tell you any of this before. I had a gambling problem ... during that time, you came into my life."

He told the victim he was paying him the money "because I made the mistake early on." He also said he only stopped the payments because he had lost his law firm job.

Zuber used $210,000 from the Bronx transaction to pay debts held by his brother.

According to the complaint, it was also in 2006 that Zuber represented the seller of a house on Rose Ave in Spring Valley, which sold for $625,000. Zuber did not disclose to the seller that he had a business relationship with the purchaser, referred to as "co-conspirator-2" or "CC-2" in the complaint.

Zuber and his co-conspirator arranged to obtain a $500,000 mortgage with an application that failed to disclose some important facts.

Zuber began making payments to the Spring Valley victim, payments that were supposed to satisfy the mortgage. The payments ceased in May 2008 and, when the seller sent the co-conspirator a letter noting the default, the co-conspirator denied ever having a mortgage or that he owed the victim any money.

The victim told the FBI that he confronted Zuber and Zuber responded that he had "messed up" and the co-conspirator knew nothing about the mortgage. He also promised to resume payments but never followed through.

Another Democrat tax evader said...

Associated Press - June 2, 2009 6:05 PM ET

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) - A grand jury on Long Island has indicted a Nassau County politician on federal tax evasion charges.

Nassau County Legislator Roger Corbin was charged Tuesday with four felonies, including committing fraud by filing false federal income taxes on $226,000 he received from a developer and lying to a federal agent.

Corbin was arrested on May 6 on similar charges. He pleaded not guilty at his initial court appearance.

Defense attorney Thomas Liotti says his client is innocent. He says Corbin intends to run for office again, even if he's not chosen as a candidate by the Democratic Party for his district.

Local U.S. attorney's office spokesman Robert Nardoza says the indictment "speaks for itself."

Failedmessiah.com said...

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz Sells Out, Part 4

Yankie Horowitz continues to sell out the abuse victims he supposedly cared so much for.

Did Rubashkin try this on his cows? said...

http://www.losangeleschronicle.com/articles/view/104568

The complaint filed with the Secretary of Agriculture urges an immediate probe of 50 U.S. researchers for filing fraudulent documents and for performing virtually identical experimentation in violation of federal regulations.

SAEN, a nonprofit group based in Ohio, filed the complaint following an exhaustive, and detailed study of 57 taxpayer-funded research grants valued at more than $110 million over a five year period.

The redundant projects involve the use of outdated technology from the 1960's utilizing crude procedures, which force electrodes directly into the brains of conscious primates. Many of the projects in question are also directly connected to other federal violations including depriving primates of water and the performance of unapproved surgical procedures.

The projects are funded at 26 separate U.S. labs including: Harvard, Stanford, Emory, University of Alabama (Birmingham), University of California (Berkeley, Davis and San Francisco), Johns Hopkins, MIT, Rutgers, Duke, Wake Forest, NY State Psychiatric Institute, Vanderbilt, University of Pittsburgh, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas (Austin), Brown University, Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, Salk Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, City College of New York, Washington University (St. Louis), University of Chicago, University of Chicago, and University of Washington.

Son of Boog said...

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/dirty-money/Dirty-Money-Watch-Rep--46709252.html

Dirty Money Watch: Rep. Timothy Bishop, D-NY

By: KEVIN MOONEY
Examiner Columnist | 6/2/09 5:55 AM

WHO: Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-NY), a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, (aka Card Check).

WHAT: Rep. Bishop received the following dirty money: Communication Workers of America (PAC) $10,000 in 2008 election cycle; $8,500 in 2006 election cycle. (YTT basement?) Boilermakers Union (PAC) $7,000 in 2008 election cycle; $7,000 in 2006 election cycle. American Federation of Government Employees (PAC) $2,000 in 2008 election cycle; $1,500 in 2006 election cycle. Service Employees International Union (PAC) $6,500 in 2008 election cycle; $10,000 in 2006 election cycle. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (PAC) $10,000 in 2008 election cycle; $10,000 in 2006 election cycle. United Steelworkers of America (PAC) $5,000 in 2008 election cycle; $5,000 in 2006 election cycle.

WHY IT’S DIRTY: Multiple officers and members of these unions, including division presidents, secretary-treasurers and business managers, have been convicted since 2001 of felonies ranging from embezzlement, falsifying official reports to government, mail fraud and conspiracy. The Communication Workers of America and the American Federation of Government Employees have had eight convictions, The Service Employees International Union has had nine convictions and The Boilermakers have had 10 members convicted, while the IBEW has had 14 members convicted. The United Steelworkers of America, which includes Paper, Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), has had 30 convictions among its membership. The amounts of embezzled funds range from over $5,000 to over $100,000.

WILL BISHOP GIVE IT BACK: Bishop did not respond to The Examiner’s request for comment.

THE SCORE:
Number of Democrats who have given it back: 0
Number of Republicans who have given it back: 0

YOUR TURN: You can reach Rep. Bishop’s Washington D.C. office at 202-225-3826

Anonymous said...

Is anyone owed a lot of money by Neiman from Perfect Locksmith at the Ave I Shoprite plaza and the other location in Crown Heights? The Ave I location on the Boro Park border was closed not long ago after some kind of freak accident. Neiman's people work out supposed payment plans for delinquent debts and then stop taking phone calls when they don't pay.

Archie Bunker said...

The real reason why Shmarya is angry and issued the latest ban on commenters is two-fold

He made another claim he couldn't substantiate and looked like a fool when proven wrong when he said that Charedim have the highest numbers of mortgage fraud.

He was then embarrassed over allegations that his real beef with Manis Friedman is that Friedman runs a girl's school in Minnesota for Chabad baalei teshuva and didn't set up Shmarya with enough shidduchim that Shmarya was interested in.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Come-on guys!

You are welcome to challenge Shmarya's points of view; let's please stop with the personal attacks.

The same with Rabbi Yakov Horowitz - "hang him", if you desire, for his views on Markey, no personal attacks please!

AP said...

MIAMI – Two men have pleaded guilty in Miami to federal fraud charges involving the supply of prohibited Chinese ammunition to the Afghan military.

David Packouz (son of Aish Hatorah rov) and Alexander Podrizki on Tuesday admitted involvement in a scheme by U.S. defense contractor AEY Inc. to conceal the Chinese origin of ammunition for Afghanistan. AEY had a $298 contract with the Pentagon to supply the ammunition, and authorities say they falsely claimed it came from Albania.
Packouz was vice president of AEY and Podrizki was a company agent in Albania. They each face a maximum of five years in prison.

Still awaiting trial are former AEY president Efraim Diveroli (Shmuely Boteach's nephew) and business associate Ralph Merrill. They have pleaded not guilty.

Rabbinic Member said...

One of the low/highlights of the Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av tefillos is the tefillah Ten Martyrs. It describes is graphic detail what was done to these ten rabbis. One of the most chilling aspects of the story, was a quote from the Torah used as the rationale. They complained about the treatment Yosef received by his brothers. For a few dollars, they sold their own flesh and blood. The passuk says, "He who kidnaps a Jewish child, and sells them, must be put put to death".

Certain elements in the Jewish community have decided to actively oppose the protection of future victims, and the rehabilitation of lives destroyed from previous years. These people have actively decided to sell these neshamos out in order to save a few kopeks.

The Markey legislation is the current version of Yosef and his brothers. When more than half of the Orthodox Jewish community, and elected officials want to see have we learned the lesson of Yosef and his brothers. With one disjointed public statement, the fringe elements in Orthodox Jewry have answered. The answer is NO, we will still sell our brother for a few dollars. What an astounding Chillul Hashem.

How can they say in tachanun, "Despite being despised and ready to be destroyed, we have not forgotten your name Hashem. Hashem please don't forsake us"? They have forsaken the name of Hashem, by selling neshamos at closeout prices.

May Hashem protect those who stand up to rebuild the neshamos that were sold out, and those who prevent further neshamos from being hurt. All members and donors to those organizations that have sold the neshamos, MUST repudiate their actions.

This is an Ais La'Asos. Taking no action is tantamount to approval of the sellout.

(mechiras) Yosef said...

Rabbinic Member of 10:16 AM, June 04, 2009 YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD WITH A HUGE BANG!!!

Anonymous said...

This is the comment that i left on Yankie Horowitz's blog. I doubt that it will be posted.

Yankie,

Of course we're fearful to use our own names. We are part of the community and have kids in the yeshivas as well. We know the consequences if we come out. Why can't you understand that ? By the way, that's how bullies (and the agudah/gedolim) acts. Not only are you parroting their views but you are copying the way they talk and threaten.

By the way, why are you moderating comments ? Why did the Yated Neeman and the Jewish Observer (may it rest in pieces) censor and delete letters and comments for many years. Would you excuse them of being "fearful" ???

I'll tell you who is fearful. It is the Agudah, the Gedolim and the yeshiva heads that allowed abuse to go on for years. Judgment Day is coming for them. And it won't be pleasant.

Posted by: MalachHamovies

Lakewood Talmid said...

I think what the Agudah is doing is worse than mechiras Yosef. The shvotim fort had a din Torah to decide how to deal with him as they really believed in error he was trying to harm them.

The Agudah knows exactly what it is doing in this case, which is to put it's own financial and political interests ahead of pikuach nefesh for tinokos shel beis rabban.

Lakewood Talmid said...

If I may offer my opinion on Shmarya. I think he is a vile and cynical individual who often gets personal himself. He can dish it out but obviously can't take it if he is indeed moderating comments. Has he criticized Yankel Horowitz, YWN, VIN and others for doing the same thing?

Medrash on mechiras Yosef said...

Shteyt in posuk that Yosef asked the Ish where the shevotim went and he answered "holchu mizeh". Zogt der Medrash, holchu mizeh meint holchu mimidas Hakodosh Boruch Hu.

Jacob Perlow said...

Close but no cigar. The Ave I Shoprite plaza is on the other side of Dahill so it's still technically a Flatbush matter and not a Boro Park matter.

Another Ohel "project"? said...

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Associated Press

KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina —

A man used an online advertising service to enlist another man to rape his wife in the couple's home, police said Wednesday.

The 25-year-old Kannapolis man faces first-degree rape and other charges. The Associated Press is not naming him to avoid identifying his wife, a victim of sexual assault.

His wife called police early Sunday morning and said a man with a knife raped her in the bedroom of their home in Kannapolis, about 25 miles northeast of Charlotte, authorities said. Her husband was in the room, police said. Their two young children were also home, but were unaware of what was happening, authorities said.

The husband sought someone in the ads to come to his home and have sex with his wife using "scare tactics," police said. It was without her knowledge or consent, police said.

Authorities are still investigating the identity of the man who attacked the woman and it wasn't known if the husband paid him to do it. The woman was not seriously injured, but was treated at a hospital and released.

Investigators turned their suspicions to the husband after his statement didn't add up and because there were no signs the attacker broke into the home. The husband was jailed Wednesday on $200,000 bond.

Abomination said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/us/politics/03immig.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

June 3, 2009

Bill Proposes Immigration Rights for Gay Couples

By JULIA PRESTON

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Democrat from Vermont who is the powerful chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is adding another controversial ingredient to the volatile mix of an immigration debate that President Obama has said he hopes to spur in Congress before the end of the year.

Mr. Leahy has offered a bill that would allow American citizens and legal immigrants to seek residency in the United States for their same-sex partners, just as spouses now petition for foreign-born husbands and wives.

The senator has said the bill should be part of any broad immigration legislation that Congress considers. To highlight his initiative, known as the Uniting American Families Act, Mr. Leahy is holding a hearing on Wednesday to discuss it in the full Judiciary Committee, bypassing the usual subcommittee hearings.

Also this week, immigrant advocacy groups and labor organizations are opening a nationwide campaign to hold President Obama to his recent pledge to initiate a Congressional debate on immigration legislation later this year.

Small-scale rallies took place on Monday in Los Angeles and some 40 other locations, and immigration groups are converging on Washington on Wednesday for three days of strategy meetings.

The most contentious part of the immigration legislation that the administration supports, which is known as comprehensive immigration reform, is a program to give legal status to more than 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country.

Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, the chairman of the Catholic bishops’ Committee on Migration, wrote that the Uniting American Families Act would “erode the institution of marriage and family,” by taking a position “that is contrary to the very nature of marriage which pre-dates the Church and the State.”

Bishop Wester addressed his letter to Representative Michael M. Honda, a California Democrat who has said he will introduce an immigration bill containing similar same-sex provisions in the House this week.

Senator Leahy’s bill would add the term “permanent partner” to sections of current immigration law that refer to married couples, and would provide a legal definition of those terms.

“I just think it’s a matter of fairness,” he said Tuesday in an interview, noting that a number of American allies, including Canada, France and Germany, recognize same-sex couples in immigration law.

Opponents of the Leahy bill argue that it would foster immigration fraud because it would be difficult for immigration officers to determine whether same-sex couples had an established relationship.

Supporters said the bill would assist about 36,000 same-sex couples nationwide. Rachel B. Tiven, the executive director of Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for gay rights legislation, said the bill had improved chances this year because of recent same-sex marriage victories in Iowa, Maine and Vermont.

Town Car Putz Lefkowitz said...

I thought I told you guys already not to discuss the Agudah in public. Tell me where you are and I'll drive over and roll my window down to argue with you.

Margaret Markey said...

Why Rabbi Horowitz must change his mind 6/4/09 - "Margaret Markey" - Albany

First of all, thank you to Rabbi Horowitz for all the work you do to protect Jewish children.

As far as Markey 2.0, it seems to me that if your community would have been able to police itself over the last 30 years, we would not have any concerns about lawsuits now to begin with. But since nobody has done anything to protect your children legislatively, and Agudah, for example has fought every initiative to protect children, my bill which would flush out of the system all the molesters who have been there for years is necessary.

Secondly, there would be no "frivolous" lawsuits, and false allegations you know, just as there were none in California where the window bill passed into law. This is because the law stipulates that to file suit you have to first prove from a mental health professional that you were molested.

Why conjecture about possible bills that will help find out who is molesting? Why not go with mine, that has been proven in Califoria and Delaware to identify over 360 molesters otherwise unknown to authorities. From what I understand, at the current time, the Orthodox community has gross underreporting of sexual crimes due to concepts like "mesirah", "chilul Hashem" and "lashon hara". The same way that fear of loss of money can be a powerful deterrent to stop yeshivas and all schools from covering up child abuse, it can also be an incentive to get victims to come forward and give us information society needs to know in order to protect its children.

UOJ gets results said...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525088,00.html

A mob of furious neighbors of an 11-year-old girl raped on her way to school in Philadelphia won't be charged for beating a man wanted for questioning in the case.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said Thursday that no charges will be filed against the group of about a dozen residents of the city's West Kensington section who attacked 26-year-old Jose Carrasquillo.

Thanks to Obama's out of control spending said...

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Fixed U.S. mortgage rates jumped to the highest level this year, signaling the Federal Reserve’s plan to lower borrowing costs has stalled.

The average 30-year rate rose to 5.29 from 4.91 percent a week earlier, Freddie Mac, the McLean, Virginia-based mortgage buyer, said today in a statement. The last time the rate was higher was Dec. 11, when it was 5.47 percent. The average 15- year rate rose to 4.79 percent from 4.53 percent.

“That’s quite a jump,” said Donald Rissmiller, chief economist at New York-based Strategas Research Partners. “The more rates go up, the more we need home prices to go down to equalize consumers’ payments. It’s those payments that have brought about a level of stability in housing unit sales.”

Rising rates may deepen the U.S. housing slump and sideline consumers hoping to refinance or purchase their first house.

Frum Lobbyist said...

The very powerful New York teachers union is supporting the new and improved Markey bill. Assemblyman Vito Lopez himself agrees with the bill, but is keeping his bill open and not withdrawing his bill.

This has thrown the Agudath Israel/Catholic Church brotherhood alliance into a frenzy. They relied on the disparate treatement of public vs. private institutions as the key to the deal. The doors of influence here are closing quicker than they expected.

The day of reckoning is quickly approaching. Hang in there fellows!

Thank you Marge Markey for outsmarting the Agudah Fressers! said...

The lying phonies will oppose it anyway. Vito Lopez has already said in response that it's still "crazy" to be able to sue over what happened 40 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/nyregion/04abuse.html

Addressing complaints from Roman Catholic officials and others, the state assemblywoman sponsoring a bill to temporarily lift the statute of limitations on lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of children said on Wednesday that she would amend her proposal to apply to public as well as private entities.

The change would give people who say they were abused in public schools, for example, the same opportunities to sue as those claiming abuse in religious or private schools.

YTT misnaged said...

"Hang in there fellows!"

As well as Margo hanging himself by his own petard!

Jeff Greenstein and Chaim Saban said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/05tax.html

Federal prosecutors are expected on Thursday to indict a former top executive of the investment firm formerly known as the Quellos Group in Seattle as part of an investigation into the firm’s work with questionable tax shelters, according to a lawyer involved in the case.

The executive is Jeffrey I. Greenstein, a former chief executive and co-founder of the firm, according to his lawyer in Seattle, Jeffery P. Robinson.

In 2007, Quellos’s core business was bought by BlackRock Inc., the investment firm. When the deal was announced, Mr. Greenstein agreed to serve as an adviser to BlackRock.

Quellos was a global player in the world of hedge funds and ran one on of the largest “fund of funds,” a basket of hedge funds, which BlackRock acquired.

The impending indictment of Mr. Greenstein, on multiple charges of tax evasion and tax fraud, according to his lawyer, underscores how the flourishing of aggressive tax shelters in the mid-to-late 1990s and early this decade continues to haunt major investment, law and accounting firms, as well as banks.

In 2006, a Senate subcommittee issued a report detailing how Quellos had created and sold bogus tax shelters using $9.6 billion in fake securities transactions that were used by Quellos clients to generate billions of dollars in fake capital losses.

Among the clients of Quellos cited in the report were the owner of the New York Jets football team, Robert Wood Johnson IV; and the producer of the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” children’s show, Haim Saban.

In a statement, another lawyer for Mr. Greenstein, Andrew Levander, of Dechert L.L.P. in New York, said that his client “adamantly denies the allegations in the indictment and looks forward to clearing his name at trial.”

The prosecutor on the case, Mark Bartlett, in Seattle, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Quellos was known as Quadra until it changed its name in 2000.

Sonja Kohn, Ezra Merkin and Richard Joel said...

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/06/madoff200906?printable=true&currentPage=all

I noted in my diary that Sonja Kohn came over from Europe. A kindly Jewish grandmother in her 60s, with puffed-out hair and eclectic outfits, she funneled about $3.2 billion of her clients’ money to Bernie through Bank Medici, which she ran in Austria. She was always thrilled to meet with Bernie, and always sent in staggering quarterly invoices—never less than $800,000—for her commissions. After Bernie’s arrest, I heard rumors that Sonja had gone into hiding to avoid some of the furious Russian investors whose money she had lost.

I was less impressed with J. Ezra Merkin, a big, bearded bear of a man who was the former chairman of GMAC Financial Services and one of our top feeders. Merkin funneled $2.4 billion to Bernie, reaping a sizable commission on every dollar. He and Bernie talked regularly throughout the fall of 2008, either by phone or in person. I never once saw Merkin smile or say hello; when he visited Bernie, he wouldn’t even look my way. The numerous client lawsuits filed against him indicate that he was equally dismissive about due diligence. This was especially damnable in his case because of the millions entrusted to him by institutions such as Yeshiva University, which he invested exclusively with Bernie. It’s interesting to note that the infamous fugitive financier Marc Rich lost approximately $15 million to Bernie through Ezra Merkin. As I told the F.B.I. before the news of Rich’s investment came to light, I had been informed by a reputable source that Bernie and Ruth had had lunch with him recently in the South of France. It’s also interesting that one of the advisers to Merkin’s Ariel fund, which had $300 million with Bernie, was a felon convicted of insider trading. Barred from the licensed securities industry, Victor Teicher had once advised Merkin from federal prison, and he warned him that Bernie’s returns were impossible to achieve.

Bernie chaired a board meeting in our offices for the Gift of Life foundation, which matched donors to recipients in bone-marrow transplants. The people on the board were a veritable Who’s Who, including Ezra Merkin; Fred Wilpon; Charles R. Bronfman, the billionaire Canadian co-chairman of Birthright Israel International; Warren Eisenberg, a founder and co-chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond; Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University; Michael Minikes, former C.E.O. of Bear Stearns; Barbara Picower, head of the Picower Foundation; and Robert Jaffe, Bernie’s longtime feeder from Boston and Palm Beach.
When Jaffe arrived for the meeting in his perfectly tailored suit, he gave me a quick kiss and said, as he always did, “So good to see you, sweetheart.” He slipped a stack of envelopes into my hand, as he did each December, containing gift certificates in varying amounts to the New York wine-and-liquor store Sherry-Lehmann. The largest ones always went to the people who ran the investment-advisory business. “Give them out to everybody next Monday,” said Jaffe. Three days later, when Bernie was arrested and Jaffe learned how much he had lost of his and his clients’ money, he angrily dispatched his son to pick up the gift certificates designated for the staff on 17. Jaffe clearly did not want to share any goodwill with people who may have participated in a scheme that had cost him millions of dollars.

Clueless at the SEC said...

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/06/madoff200906?printable=true&currentPage=all

Bernie didn’t even register with the S.E.C. as an investment adviser until 2006, but nobody noticed or raised any questions. That’s how slick he was.

boog said...

Here Come "The Judge"!

Does Sotomayor have a 'compelling' tax problem?

Sen. Sessions, take a look.

Obama prefers Criminal Illegal Aliens in the streets said...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jH_qOu2WXdjfeYUYs4ObnnAvdhagD98K1S400

After getting a roasting by the media for directing his Cabinet to come up with just $100 million in cuts, Obama later proposed saving $17 billion by cutting or killing 121 programs. But the Democratic-controlled Congress has already ignored some of them, most recently on Thursday when a House panel approved $300 million for a program that helps states pay for keeping criminal illegal immigrants in jail. Obama suggested killing the program.

UOJ gets results said...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2009-129

Washington, D.C., June 4, 2009 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo and two other former executives with securities fraud for deliberately misleading investors about the significant credit risks being taken in efforts to build and maintain the company's market share. Mozilo was additionally charged with insider trading for selling his Countrywide stock based on non-public information for nearly $140 million in profits.

The SEC alleges that Mozilo along with former chief operating officer and president David Sambol and former chief financial officer Eric Sieracki misled the market by falsely assuring investors that Countrywide was primarily a prime quality mortgage lender that had avoided the excesses of its competitors.

What about the Black Hats at 42 Broadway? said...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/166142/us_govt_knocks_out_black_hat_isp.html

US Gov't Knocks Out "Black Hat" ISP

Erik Larkin
Jun 4, 2009 4:32 pm

The Federal Trade Commission today announced it has taken down Pricewert LLC, a California-based ISP that it says "recruits, knowingly hosts, and actively participates in the distribution of spam, child pornography, and other harmful electronic content."

According to the FTC's release, Pricewert, which also went by the names 3FN and APS Telecom, provided services for crooks involved with phishing, spyware, botnets and other scourges of the Internet. Per the notice, "the defendant advertised its services in the darkest corners of the Internet, including a forum established to facilitate communication between criminals."

The Rabbanim are amaratsim - they don't know choshen mishpat said...

Rabbi Horowitz wrote: "Individuals fearful of posting their real names on blogs accuse me of cowardice for voicing my against-the-grain opinion and ridicule me for standing with our gedolim and supporting their position -- while at the same time these individuals treat the Markey Bill with fawning reverence, implying that no one dare oppose a single word of it or risk getting thrown under the bus."

Rabbi Horowits - has he lost his marbles? Who exactly are these individuals fearful of posting their names? THEY ARE NONE OTHER THEN THE VICTIMS THEMSELVES, and with their sad first-hand experience they know all too well the need to battle the secret tactics used by molesters. Since the Markey Bill has a greater potential to uncover and create that awareness, they are rightfully treating it with a reverence for the SAKE OF OTHER CHILDREN!!!

Perhaps their also sensing that their one liaison who they finally trusted (after their trusts have been so badly betrayed) who has been on their side since the beginning could've just as well taken a neutral stand instead of inflicting more pain by taking an active opposing position.

Furthermore; by Rabbi Horowitz opposing the bill, he is re-enacting victims trauma! He as well as all the other Rabbanim opposing the bill are actively stripping victims away from their empowerments to go after those who abused them. And even more so; if they continue to oppose the bill and it does not get passed - THEY ARE OBLIGATED B'DINAI SHAMAIM TO PAY for whatever financial losses (of nezek tsar ripoi sheves boshes) victims incur as a result of that opposition!

Maybe these amaratsim Rabbanim should start learning a little Choshen Mishpat. It would serve them well in the next world!

Paul Mendlowitz said...

R' Yankel:

Nobody threw you under the bus, you "begged" the bus driver to run you over.

Let's remember who the real victims are!

Avi L. Shafran said...

It's not entirely accurate to call all of us at the Agudah, Black Hats. Some of us have partially gray hats from dust. It's not my fault that it's difficult to get the stuff out of Borsalino felt.

Ombudsman said...

With all due respect to R' Yankel Horowitz, I have to agree with with UOJ's pirush of his bus metaphor.

It reminds me of the case where 2 Indian Muslims were initially suspected of involvement with the Sept. 11th attacks. While they were cleared as far as that, Federal investigators determined they were guilty of credit card fraud and deported them. The Wall Street Journal was appalled when Reuters or some other media tipshim tracked the shvantzes down in India after their deportation, quoting one of complaining that it was unfair to have been deported and that he was the "real victim of 9/11".

Anonymous said...

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a15987/News/National.html


BREAKING: Melzer Pleads Guilty in Teen Sex Case
by Staff Report


Adam Melzer, the 35-year-old former yeshiva basketball coach charged last summer with child endangerment, pled guilty in a court appearance in Hackensack, NJ on June 3.

A married father and member of the Orthodox community in Teaneck, Melzer was accused of persuading teenage boys whom he coached at a local day school to take naked pictures of themselves several years ago and give the photos to him.

Four youngsters in the community contacted the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and the Teaneck Police Department last summer, leading to Melzer's arrest. Officials believe that more than a dozen teens from the community took part in or knew of the photo requests, but have not come forward to avoid stigma and unwanted publicity.

Melzer maintained his innocence at the time of


his arrest. But on Wednesday, according to Kenneth Ralph, assistant prosecutor in Bergen County, Melzer pled guilty to four counts of endangering the welfare of children. He will be evaluated as a sex offender before sentencing, scheduled for Aug. 28.

Depending on the outcome, Melzer could be sentenced to up to three years in prison or placed on supervised parole for life.

Sources close to the case say that Melzer made a pornographic video with an underage girl and two teenage boys from the community having consensual sex. In court, he admitting "obtaining and showing" a pornographic video to at least one minor, Ralph said.

Melzer is a member of Cong. Beth Abraham in Bergenfield, but after being snubbed there, according to sources, has been attending Cong. Bnai Jeshurun, another Orthodox synagogue, in nearby Teaneck.

Some community members are calling for local rabbis to put Melzer in cherem - a form of religious ostracism - that would not allow him to be a member of a synagogue or be called to the Torah.

Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger of Cong. Beth Abraham, to which Melzer belongs, said his initial response is that an admitted sex offender should not be given religious honors at synagogue services. He added that he plans to discuss with his rabbinic colleagues what approach should be taken in defining an "unwelcome" communal attitude toward Melzer. In addition, the rabbi said it is also important to send "a clear message" of respect to "the youngsters who came forward."

Benjamin Brafman, an attorney for Melzer, said he is “hopeful that Adam’s community will ultimately extend the same compassion and understanding towards Adam that the prosecution and the Court already have.”

Brafman said the disposition of the case, allowing for a suspended sentence, was “in the best interest of all parties.”


He described Melzer as “a fundamentally decent young man” who “clearly has some personal issues to deal with,” adding that “the appropriate remedy is treatment, not incarceration.”

True Daas Torah said...

To The Rabbanim are amaratsim said of 6:06 PM, June 04, 2009.

This is precisely the problem with "daas torah". I've made this point here before, that true Daas Torah is ONLY when one can back it up from sources in chazal. Today we have Boich Daas Torah - whatever sits well with my stomach is Daas Torah - not what is backed up by a tshuva or mamor chazal.

Rabbi Horowitz - with all due respect has he (or for that matter any one of those Rabbanim opposing the bill) ever quoted a source to back them up. NO! you know why - because there is none - it goes against the Torah!

Rabbi Horowitz (and the rest of the Moetses and Rabbanim) will have come to back on this world in a painful gilgul and pay back financially each and every one of those victims that lost out on collecting their Boshes and Pgam should the Markey Bill - with its one year window - not pass.

All these Rabbanim should know good and well that THERE IS NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS in the Torah - and if they cause a loss to a victim (where the defendant abuser refused to come to Bais-Din) they will suffer badly in the next gilgul, to pay back that loss!

Rambam said...

The Gemara in Yuma 86A clearly says that chilul hashem is dependent on the way others perceive the acts.

The Rambam in Hilchos Yisodei hatorah 5:11 writes “and there are other things that are categorized as a chilul hashem, and it is, when well known individuals knowledgeable in Torah do something which the people begin to question as unfitting, even though they are not avairos IT IS A CHILUL HASHEM".

The Putz otherwise known as Borat said...

This menuval claims to be orthodox. He found some shiksa actress he likes and had some phony rav convert her.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/04/meet-the-woman-whos-suing-sacha-baron-cohen-bruno/

Posted Jun 4th 2009 4:53PM by TMZ Staff

This is the woman who is suing Sacha Baron Cohen over the alleged violent attack at the bingo parlor during the filming of "Bruno."

Her name is Richelle Olson. She's 39 years old and lives in Palmdale, CA. Olson claims Cohen came to her charity bingo match for the elderly in the character "Bruno" and began calling numbers in a vulgar and offensive way. Olson says when she tried grabbing the mic away from him, Cohen attacked her, as did several of his cameramen.

Olson says she fell to the ground, suffered brain bleeds and has been forced to use a wheelchair or a walker ever since.

Her friends tell us Olson has deteriorated since the incident. The pic was taken either before or shortly after the alleged attack.

It was first printed this morning by the Antelope Valley Press.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/03/sasha-baron-cohen-sued-for-crippling-humor/

It's all fun and games until someone gets confined to a wheelchair -- which is exactly what one woman is claiming after she was allegedly attacked and left "crippled" by Sacha Baron Cohen (as Bruno) at a Bingo hall in 2007.

Richelle Olson has sued Cohen, NBC Universal and others claiming they told her Bruno was a celeb and would appear and call numbers at the charity bingo game she ran for the elderly in Palmdale, CA. Olson was none too happy when she saw Bruno, whom she describes as an "extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent..."

Olson alleges Bruno used "vulgar and offensive language" and when she tried taking the mic from him, a "physical struggle ensued" and Cohen "offensively touched, pushed and battered" her, causing her to fall to the ground.

She then claims three cameramen and others rushed the stage ... "where defendants attacked [her] for a period of one to five minutes to intentionally create a dramatic emotional response ... while [they] recorded her humiliation and embarrassment."

After the alleged assault was over, the suit says Olson went into another room where she was "sobbing uncontrollably" ... then was rendered unconscious ... "falling forward onto the thinly covered concrete slab, passing out and causing her to hit her head."

The suit says Olson was rushed to the hospital with a "diagnosis of two brain bleeds" -- and that she has been confined to a wheelchair and walker ever since.

Olson -- the Executive Director of Desert Valley Charities -- and her husband are suing for unspecified damages, including loss of marital relations.

Cohen's rep had no comment.

Sleeper Cell Shakran said...

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/06/04/seven-million-muslims-in-the-us-not-likely/

Seven Million Muslims in the US? Not Likely

Posted: 06/4/09

Why is President Obama overstating the Muslim population in the United States?

In an interview before his trip to the Middle East he said: "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

And in his speech in Cairo, President Obama repeated an often-used estimate of the American Muslim population that has little evidence to support it. He said:


"The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores -- and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today -- who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average."

Leave aside the question of opportunity and look at the number. Seven million Muslims? Not likely.

Grubba lipa sues a stripper said...

http://www.wptv.com/mostpopular/story/Strip-club-sued-over-strippers-kick-to-mans-head/IROL6MsNBU2H67bx5JI8LA.cspx

steve said...

I posted the Bar Kamtza letter on Failed Messiah. The letter was sent to Rabbi Perlow by a survivor of abuse in the frum community who happens to be a talmid chacham. He can be reached to give him chizuk at barkamtsa@gmail.com. There will soon be a petition with this letter for those interested in signing on to its message for our gedolim to hear us in support of Bar Kamtsa.

Anonymous said...

The Bar Kamtza letter is also on the web site of Jewish Board of Advocates for Children - www.jewishadvocates.org. Click onto "Forum" on the left side of the page.

UOJ's rebbe also got results said...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Milton-Friedman-Was-ibd-15445499.html?.v=1

boog said...

Curious George wants to know why the sudden 180 about face by Janky Horowitz on the Markey Bill? No comprende.

Have the satu-maries, Moetzes, and Mishpuchas got some compromising information on Janky that they're waving under his nose? Ditto for Hike-Hind.

And to Sleeper Cell Shakran, why the surprise that The Bim-Bam sleeps no more but has now fully come out of the closet to declare his Radical Anti-American Muslimism and Anti-Israel-Jewish stance. The time is right. He has been very well trained and prepared to destroy the USA from within. And he's doing it every day.

Wake Up America! Wake Up Bibi!

The Bim-Bam Identity.

Chevra Chazerim - Banking division said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/economy/05bankrupt.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

In defeating a change in bankruptcy law, the banking industry showed its struggles would not stop it from protecting its interests.

Catholic Bishop imitates Belsky said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/nyregion/05abuse.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn repeated a warning this week that he has leveled at lawmakers for months: If the statute of limitations on child sex-abuse lawsuits is temporarily lifted, as pending state legislation proposes, a cascade of very bad things will happen.

His Roman Catholic diocese and others will go bankrupt. Bishops like him will be forced to close churches and schools. And wrathful constituents will punish the politicians who, in his view, will have made this all happen.

Religious leaders have been part of civic dialogue at least since Moses. More recently, Pope John Paul II and Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York have been considered among the master politicians of their time.

But in the battle over the sex-abuse bill, which has been introduced for several years but never had a chance of passage until now, Bishop DiMarzio has mounted such an urgent and aggressive sally into the political realm that some elected officials and community leaders have questioned whether he has overstepped church-state boundaries.

In the darkest view, some say he entered into a pact with a Brooklyn power broker, Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez — ousting a priest as head of a Brooklyn community group that was tangling with Mr. Lopez. In return, according to this narrative, Mr. Lopez wrote a competing bill that would not lift the statute of limitations on abuse lawsuits.

Under current law, plaintiffs have five years after turning 18 to file suits involving claims of sex abuse during their childhood. Both versions of the pending legislation would increase the period to 10 years.

Under the version of the bill the bishop opposes, any plaintiffs, regardless of age, would have a one-year period to sue over child-abuse charges that took place at any point in their lives, no matter how long ago.

“I respect the line between church and state, but I’m afraid Bishop DiMarzio does not,” said Representative Nydia M. Velasquez, who says many of her Brooklyn constituents were upset about the forced resignation of the Rev. James O’Shea as executive director of an organization called Churches United. “His actions in this matter have been totally inappropriate.”

Both the bishop and Mr. Lopez deny having struck any bargains, or having had anything to do with the priest’s removal. Bishop DiMarzio, the religious leader of 1.5 million Catholics in the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, has not shied away from the political arena since the Vatican appointed him in 2003.

His leading role in contesting the sex-abuse bill, which is opposed by all the state’s Catholic prelates, contrasts with the less-assertive style of Cardinal Edward M. Egan, who retired in April as leader of the neighboring Archdiocese of New York.

Cardinal Egan’s successor, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, a gregarious and reputedly talented political player, has been as opposed to the bill, but less outspoken, since arriving in New York less than two months ago.

Bishop DiMarzio, 64, attributes his passion on the issue to a fervent belief that the diocese, and the social services it provides, would be at risk if people now in middle age were to claim harm by priests who died long ago, for which the church could be liable.

In addition to the financial drain, he said, the adversarial process of litigation would present an “insurmountable barrier to bringing about what is necessary — healing.”

But some politicians feel that the bishop’s advocacy sometimes verges on bullying.

Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey, the Queens Democrat who co-wrote the bill and describes herself as a practicing Catholic, said campaign literature labeling her as anti-Catholic poured down upon the doorsteps of her district in her last re-election campaign. “I have no doubt that Bishop DiMarzio was behind it,” she said.

Extra $5000 in taxes for families with HMOs / PPOs? said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/us/politics/05health.html

Republican frustration with Democratic plans to remake the health care system boiled over Thursday, as Republicans complained about the size, shape and cost of the emerging proposal. But Democratic leaders said they still intended to push a bill through the Senate this summer.

Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said Republicans were being pressed by Democrats to support tax increases to pay for a bill they had not seen, with an unknown price tag.

The Democratic bill is likely to include a requirement for people to carry health insurance, subsidies for those who cannot afford it, and a requirement for employers to contribute to the cost.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said he feared that Democrats, with a solid majority in the Senate and strong support from President Obama, would ignore Republican concerns about a big expansion in the role of government.

Mr. Hatch predicted that such an approach would meet the same fate as President Bill Clinton’s plan for universal coverage.

“If the Democrats go ahead with a purely partisan bill,” Mr. Hatch said, “you saw what happened on Hillarycare, and this will be just as bad.”

Mr. Grassley said many Republicans agreed that Americans should be required to have “insurance of some kind or another.” But he said he and other Republican senators did not believe the government should require employers to provide or pay for coverage of their employees.

In a letter to senators on Wednesday, Mr. Obama came down strongly in favor of “a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans.” Mr. Grassley said Mr. Obama’s letter “was not helpful.”

Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley agreed that Congress was likely, in the end, to limit the decades-old tax break for employer-provided health insurance. Revenues raised from this change could help finance coverage of the uninsured, proponents say.

But much more money would be needed.

“When you look at what the Democrats want to do, the costs are astronomical,” Mr. Hatch said.

Left Wing NY Times worships Obama and Arabs said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/arts/05musl.html

Festival for New York, That Muslim City

Moishe Rubashkin said...

http://chabad.info/index.php?url=article_en&id=14998

Rubashkin's lawyers were back in State Court today, continuing their fight against the newly elected Vaad HaKohol.

Today's hearing concerned a motion made by Rubashkin's lawyers asking for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the new Vaad HaKohol. They were trying to prevent them from supervising the workers at the Jewish Community Council offices and controlling the financial accounts. They argued that the psak din of (Rubashkin crony) R. Osdoba telling people not to vote should be considered an arbitration agreement that could be enforced by the Court. The Judge denied this motion noting that the elections have already taken place and the psak din is no longer relevant.

Rubashkin's five lawyers then argued that the psak din should invalidate the elections and asked once more for a TRO to prevent the new Vaad from taking office. Once again, the Judge denied this motion, once more noting that after the elections the psak din is no longer relevant.

The deposed Vaad members, (who had been suspended from the Vaad by the Crown Heights Beis Din for failing to respond to FOUR summons to a Din Torah,) then entered the JCC offices on Kingston Avenue. They announced to the employees that they were victorious in Court!!??!! and tried to order them around. It is not clear if they misunderstood the Court proceedings, or had something else up their sleeve. The Police were called and they left peacefully.

Of interest is a story concerning summer camp scholarships that took place in connection with these activities. One of the Directors of a camp scholaship fund reportedly send a message to Tzvi Lang. He asked him how they were able to find the funds to repeatedly file actions in Court, that are probably doomed to failure, when they are not helping children who need funds to attend summer camp.

In another development, JCC employees are reportedly asking if they are going to get checks on payday, this Friday. Rubashkin's lawyers have frozen the accounts pending the Court hearing today, and it is not clear if they can be released in time to pay the JCC workers.

Rubashkin, Lang, Plotkin and Yanki Suffern (the contractor who reportedly is on the Rubashkin/JCC's payroll) are expected to continue Court actions to try to invalidate the Vaad elections. Although legal observers think they have little chance, the stakes are apparently high enough for this group to gamble on the unlikely possibility that they could be successful. As an example, it is rumored that two members of the Rubashkin family, who were making a combined salary into the six figures, have already been removed from the payroll.

Ohel said...

http://www.forward.com/articles/107113/

A government-funded video made by New York’s largest Orthodox social service agencies — touted as dealing with child sex abuse — makes no mention of abuse as a crime to be reported to police.

Critics say the video raises questions about Ohel Children’s Home & Family Services, which is heavily supported by taxpayers & deeply involved in the Brooklyn DA’s efforts surrounding child sex abuse in Orthodox Jewish communities. Some Orthodox leaders, critics say, including those at Ohel, have tried wrongly to handle sexual abuse within the community, excluding law enforcement authorities — leading to abuse being covered up & pedophiles remaining free to molest.

“The only way to begin dealing with this is to report sex abuse directly to authorities,” said Lonnie Soury, spokesman for Survivors for Justice, a group of Orthodox sex abuse survivors. “Any organization that advocates anything but that is doing so at the expense of children.”

The Ohel DVD calls child sex abuse in the Jewish community a shande, meaning a scandal or shame, and urges victims & their families to seek counseling.

“What we want to do is evoke action,” declares Ohel CEO David Mandel.

But the word “police” is not spoken once during the video, titled “Ignorance Is Not Bliss.” Nor is sexual abuse ever described as a criminal act. None of the speakers suggest calling 911, child welfare services, or any other authority. The DVD is distributed as a resource for survivors, parents, educators & community leaders.

Brooklyn-based Ohel defends the video.

“This specific video is not about how to report, or who to report to,” said Ohel spokesman Derek Saker.

Mandel refers regularly to the DVD as a resource for people who want to know what to do about child sex abuse; most recently, in a full-page ad published in The Jewish Week, the organization listed watching the video as a “practical suggestion” for community members who want to take action against abuse.

The video begins with testimony from survivors of child sex abuse and the mothers of 2 victims, describing the devastating impact. The presentation then segues into various community leaders explaining why it is important not to shame sex abuse survivors but to bring their stories to light & stop sexual predators.

Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, rosh yeshiva at Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, says in the video, “For victims, I would say it is their duty & a mitzvah to reveal their stories.”

But the video never specifies to whom victims should reveal their stories, or what responsibility adults have to report abuse to law enforcement.

The mother of a boy who was molested, whose story is held up as an example, says she told community members about the molestation because “I wasn't going to let this man get away with it.”

“I didn’t treat it like it’s a secret, because the molesters, this is what they thrive on,” she says.

The woman is not identified & filmed behind a screen to hide her face. She makes no mention of calling police, or sending the molester to prison — the only surefire way to stop a pedophile from victimizing more children.

Aaron Twerski, professor at Brooklyn Law School and a putz on tort law, says in the video, “Every case is a tragedy & the fact that one molester can affect so many makes this a problem that we can’t look away from.”

Twerski does not suggest any legal remedies.

Contacted by the Forward, Twerski said that reporting abuse to police is a complex issue that could not be raised in the video.

“The focus was to alert the community,” Twerski said. “It’s a complex question of who is a mandated reporter. I’m not sure we could do it in that video.”

Ohel part 2 said...

While the legal intricacies around mandated reporting may indeed be complex, the moral obligation of ordinary citizens is clear, Soury said: Report suspected child sexual abuse to authorities.

“It’s like someone breaking into your house and hurting you — should that be handled in the community?” Soury said. “No, you call 911 when there’s a crime.”

Soury said that efforts to deal with pedophiles within the religious community have failed because rabbis, principals and other community leaders are not equipped to investigate, prosecute and punish serious crimes. “The community cannot handle it. The community is not law enforcement,” Soury said. “These are terrible crimes against children.”

This is not the first time a video has raised questions about Ohel’s commitment to reporting abuse. Mandel was videotaped speaking at a February 2008 workshop in Baltimore about sexual abuse, during which he seemed to suggest ways to avoid reporting incidents of sexual abuse.

In a response to a question about a father molesting his child, Mandel said, “One of the ways we advise the family to handle this is — for the protection of the family and so that the case does not have to become reportable to authorities, which is a whole separate conversation — we strongly advise and sometimes make a statement that the father needs to leave the house, period.”

A video of his remarks was posted on YouTube by The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based Jewish group fighting against child sexual abuse. At the end of Mandel’s remarks, an unidentified person in the audience shouts out, “What about calling Child Protection [a state agency]?” Mandel ignores the question.

Ohel’s response to child sexual abuse is not just an issue for the Orthodox community; it’s also a matter of taxpayer concern. Ohel runs a large and successful foster care program (ranked No. 1 in New York in 2006), and subsists mainly on government funding. In 2006, the most recent year for which tax documents are publicly available, Ohel received $38 million in taxpayer money, 89% of its total revenue.

The “Ignorance Is Not Bliss” video was produced with a grant from the New York State Office of Mental Health. Spokeswoman Jill Daniels said the amount of monitoring by her agency varies when it funds projects such as Ohel’s, and that she didn’t know how involved the agency had been in the video’s production. Daniels did say her agency’s policy is that anyone who suspects child abuse of any kind should report it to authorities.

Earlier this year, Ohel was selected by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office as a partner in its Kol Tzedek hot line, which is aimed at encouraging Orthodox Jewish victims to report abuse to authorities. Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said he hadn’t seen the “Ignorance Is Not Bliss” video but said that District Attorney Charles Hynes has a good working relationship with Ohel.

“We encourage anyone with knowledge of a crime to call the police. That’s all I’ll say about that,” Schmetterer said.

One unusual aspect of Ohel’s video is that it features an interview with a confessed child molester who speaks behind a screen to shield his identity. The pedophile says that his tactic for molesting children was to ask them how much they weighed, then pick them up to “test” their weight as an excuse to fondle them.

“I’m only one person, but look at all the people I messed up,” the molester says.

The Forward asked Ohel’s Saker what happened to this pedophile and whether his abuse of numerous children in the Orthodox community was ever reported to police. Saker did not respond to the question

Until Shea Fishman wrecked it said...

http://www.jstandard.com/index.php/content/item/day_school_daze/8554

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz created the Torah U’Mesorah, a national umbrella group for day schools; Beis Medrash Elyon, one of America’s first post-graduate yeshivas; and Camp Mesivta, the first yeshiva day camp.

“He almost single-handedly started what became the day school movement,” said Rabbi Saul Zucker, a Teaneck resident who is director of the OU’s department of day school and educational services. “He was very instrumental in recruiting educators, in helping to do fund-raising, and really in spreading day schools, and branching out in cities wherever there was any significant population across the country.”

ABC TV / Walt Disney Co covering up sex abuse? said...

Henry Ian Cusick, who plays Desmond on the show "Lost," is being sued for sexual harassment.

According to a lawsuit filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Chelsea Stone claims that while working on the show, Cusick placed his hand on her buttocks and caressed the back of her body while making moaning sounds.

She also claims Cusick "placed his face on top of [her] breasts, moving his face from side to side." He then squeezed her breasts with his hands.

According to the lawsuit, approximately twelve days after this went down, Stone was let go. ABC and Grass Skirt Productions are also named as defendants. She is seeking unspecified damages.

Cusick's rep had no comment.

Anonymous said...

Rande Gerber, the business mogul husband of Cindy Crawford, is being sued for sexual harassment by a pair of former female employees.

According to a lawsuit filed in March in San Diego County Superior Court, two former waitresses claim they were fired from a restaurant owned by Gerber's company for refusing to give in to the advances of Gerber and other managers where they worked.

On one occasion in 2008, while working at the Moonstone Lounge located in the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, one of the women claims Gerber attempted to kiss her three times during the night, then "put his hand up [her] dress in between her legs in an attempt to fondle her crotch."

The women are suing for unspecified damages.

Anonymous said...

The restaurant Justin Timberlake helped open in NY has just been hit with a sexual harassment suit, after a former employee claims JT's business partners forced her to watch porn to the point she broke into tears.

In the suit, obtained by the NY Daily News, Alison McDaniel alleges "vile" acts courtesy of Southern Hospitality. McDaniel says she was spit on and called numerous expletives.

McDaniel claims Justin's business partners -- Eytan Sugarman and Ronnie Kaplan -- made her watch "pornography while in a locked room... and made fun of her when she began crying."

The suit claims Alison was fired after complaining.

Justin, along with Sugarman and Kaplan and Trace Ayala, are all named as defendants.

Anonymous said...

Walt Disney has a long history of employing pedophile movie producers as wellas pedophiles at Disney theme parks. When the pedophiles touch or rape kids at the parks, Disney tries to cover it up with their internal security who use intimidation and threats against the victims. When ABC News produced an expose on this, Disney bought the network and killed the segment.

Anonymous said...

Police reported that Mark I. Levy, a 59-year-old Bethesda, Maryland, resident, who had been a deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration and "was about to lose his job because of the economy," died of "an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound."

Thw two faced phony goes running to Buchenwald said...

And look how the AP blames it on the Jews.

Filed at 11:14 a.m. ET

WEIMAR, Germany (AP) -- President Barack Obama toured a World War II concentration camp Friday after prodding the international community to redouble efforts toward separate Israeli and Palestinian states in hopes of resolving a conflict fueled by the Jewish nation's post-Holocaust creation.

Moetzes Resign! said...

Filed at 11:22 a.m. ET

ROME (AP) -- Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Friday he would resign immediately if he were shown to have lied about his relationship with an 18-year-old model at the heart of a scandal that has titillated Italy for weeks.

His lawyer, meanwhile, moved to sue Spanish newspaper El Pais for having published photographs of topless women and a naked man lounging at the premier's Sardinian home. Last week, Italian prosecutors seized the pictures and placed the photographer under investigation for alleged violation of privacy.

The photos came to light amid a scandal involving Berlusconi and Naples model Noemi Letizia, whose 18th birthday party the premier attended several weeks ago. Berlusconi's wife cited the premier's attendance at the party in announcing she was divorcing the 72-year-old.

Berlusconi has denied any scandal, saying Letizia is the daughter of an old friend from political circles and that he attended her birthday party because he happened to be in Naples that day. He has accused the center-left opposition of grabbing onto the gossip to try to discredit his party before European Parliament elections this weekend.

Berlusconi repeated Friday there was nothing ''spicy'' in his relations with Letizia and said he would resign immediately if someone could prove otherwise.

''If someone can demonstrate that the premier perjured himself, the premier would have to resign and hide himself the next minute,'' he told state-run RAI radio.

Letizia's ex-boyfriend has said Letizia and several other young women spent a week at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa over New Year's and that he listened in on phone calls between Berlusconi and Letizia, fueling speculation about an inappropriate relationship between the two.

Photographer Antonello Zappadu shot hundreds of photos of the party from outside the villa's gates -- photos which were seized by Rome prosecutors last week at Berlusconi's request.

Berlusconi's lawyer Niccolo Ghedini said he had retained a lawyer in Madrid to file a complaint against El Pais, charging they published photos that were linked to a crime.

Berlusconi has denounced the paparazzi for what he has said was an invasion of his privacy -- a charge he repeated Friday after El Pais published the photos.

''We're talking about innocent photos, but there was a violation of privacy,'' he told RAI.

Asked about why there were naked women at his home, Berlusconi continued: ''Do you take a shower dressed? These girls were bathing in a Jacuzzi inside a private home, and they were assaulted in a scandalous way.''

The photos have also sparked an investigation by Rome prosecutors into alleged abuse of office for the improper use of a government plane. Other photos show friends, entertainers and starlets arriving on a government plane in Sardinia for parties at the premier's home.

Anonymous said...

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:49 AM EDT, June 5, 2009

A New York City woman says her father apparently lay dead for weeks in a minivan while police repeatedly left parking tickets on the vehicle.

Jennifer Morales of Manhattan says it's believed her father, George Morales, died of a heart attack.

Morales said she had last heard from her dad in early May. Morales said she had contacted police; but police say they have no report on record.

A city marshal found the body of George Morales on Wednesday while trying to tow the minivan from beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway overpass. Parking tickets and dust covered the vehicle.

The guy who bought Kolko's old Plymouth said...

http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20090522-7.html

BROOKLYN –Naasir Mehmood, a religious studies teacher convicted of sexually abusing three students, gets a long prison term.

Mehmood, 46, was convicted Nov. 20, 2008, of course of sexual conduct against a child in the first, course of sexual conduct against a child in the second degree, criminal sexual act in the second degree, and endangering the welfare of a child. He was sentenced Thursday to 29 years in prison.

The abuse occurred between the 2003 and 2005. The victims, all siblings, include two girls and a boy, now ages 16, 13, and 8, respectively. The abuse occurred in his home, their home, and in his van. The victims’ parents hired Mehmood to tutor their children in religious matters.

UOJ gets results said...

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-catholic-sex-abuse-brigdeport-connecticut,0,3035843.story

The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that documents contained in 23 lawsuits against pedophile priests from the Bridgeport Archdiocese should be unsealed and available to the public.

By a 4-1 to vote the court dismissed the latest attempt by the archdiocese to keep hundreds of pages of depositions, internal church memos and other documents that detail how top church officials, including then-Bishop Edward Egan, protected abusive priests, shuttled them between archdiocese's and failed to report potential criminal activity to the proper authorities. Egan was later appointed a Cardinal of the New York Archdiocese. He recently retired.

Good work! said...

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Canadian+beer+clue+leads+jail+pedophile/1599924/story.html

U.S. justice officials are crediting a Canadian police officer's investigative smarts — and expertise with beer — for cracking a major child-pornography case that led this week to a 36-year prison sentence for a Maryland man.

In what U.S. district attorney Rod Rosenstein called an "awe-inspiring" international probe by Canadian and U.S. investigators, 47-year-old Timothy Malcolm Beers pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to produce child pornography, sexually exploiting two girls aged three and five, and possessing "a large collection" of illicit materials showing the sexual abuse of these and many other children.

Beers, a resident of Bowie, Md., also agreed to pay $75,000 to each of the two identified victims, and faces supervised release for life if he survives his lengthy jail term.

The key to solving the case was a Toronto police officer's online discovery two years ago of a child-porn photograph in which a particular brand of beer could be seen in the background, according to a 13-page plea agreement obtained by Canwest News Service.

The officer — Det.-Const. Warren Bulmer — was working as part of a global network of investigators, including the RCMP and Interpol, that seeks to identify and rescue the young victims of Internet child pornography.

The breakthrough in the case came in May 2007 when Bulmer gained access to illegal photos being shared electronically by members of a child-pornography ring.

"These images had been intercepted from a public area of the Internet," Bulmer told Canwest News Service.

"There were clues in those images. One in particular had what at first looked like some sort of can or cup. I did some work on that image, enhanced it to the point where I could read enough of the label. And it turned out to be a beer can."

The image-enhancement software showed that one of the adults involved had been drinking "Black & Tan" — a brand of beer produced by Yuengling, a 175-year-old Pennsylvania brewing company.

Bulmer did some research on the firm and discovered that Yuengling's distribution area was "very tight" — only about 12 states in the northeast corner of the U.S.

"And there were only six where Black & Tan was even distributed," said Bulmer.

After an alert was issued to child pornography investigators in those states, a detective assigned to an Internet-crimes task force in Maine discerned another clue in the photograph — an unusual, "Disney brand" pair of child's eyeglasses that could be traced to a limited number of ophthalmologists in the area.

A prosecutor and FBI agent in New York closed the loop. They tracked down a Maryland ophthalmologist who prescribed a pair of the Disney glasses to a girl he recognized as one of the victims in the photo.

The girl's father turned out to be Beers' former neighbour — and his co-conspirator in producing the pornographic scenes shot with Beers' camera.

"Then the FBI got involved," recalls Bulmer, "and eventually they kicked down this guy's door in Maryland."

Warrants executed at the father's house in Annapolis, Md., led detectives to Beers' home.

The images were traced to Beers' computer.

He was arrested last August, and the plea agreement negotiated in the months since then resulted in Thursday's sentencing at a U.S. district court in Baltimore.

The prosecution of the girls' father is ongoing.

Slimfast was founded by a frum guy said...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/TV-Slimming-Star-And-Radio-DJ-Barry-Bethell-Jailed-For-Sexually-Abusing-A-Young-Girl/Article/200906115297042

TV dieting personality and radio DJ Barry Bethell has been jailed for four years for sexually assaulting a young girl after promising he would make her a star.

The 66-year-old, who became famous as the face of SlimFast in the 1990s, assaulted the victim at his home

Archie Bunker said...

I saw a very funny T-shirt being worn that says "Welcome Back Carter" and has a picture of Obama's face on it.

This is sick said...

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98850

Read how Major League Baseball teams are enabling child molesters.

Cardinal Edward Egan said...

I knew I shouldn't have counted on that unreliable putz Zweibel. He told me the Agudah would be filing an amicus brief to bail me out in the Bridgeport case. He did nothing and gave me some lame excuse that UOJ is turning up the heat on the Agudah again and the only briefs they have time for are their own underwear.

Near Lake George said...

June 4, 2009 - 3:44 PM

Randy Simons

Glens Falls, NY -- Thomas 'Neil' Beatty who is a security guard over at Glens Falls Hospital is accused of molesting a girl who is less than 10 years old.

Anonymous said...

Sex offender law questioned in wake of shooting

By MICHAEL GORMLEY | Associated Press Writer

May 31, 2009

ALBANY, N.Y. - At least two of New York's nine most dangerous sex offenders freed under a two-year old civil confinement law have faced arrest on sex charges again, including one who this week shot a police officer then killed himself.

State lawmakers said they'll study the law, designed to restrict and monitor some sex offenders after they leave prison, to see if it's too easy for some offenders to be returned to the streets.

Sheriff Arpaio imitates UOJ said...

http://www.wptz.com/food/19664794/detail.html

States Slimming Down Inmate Meals

Family Members, Critics Raise Concerns

SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer

POSTED: 3:25 am EDT June 5, 2009

The recession is hitting home for inmates, too: Some cash-strapped states are taking aim at prison menus.

Georgia prisoners already didn't get lunch on the weekends, and the Department of Corrections recently eliminated the midday meal on Fridays, too. Ohio may drop weekend breakfasts and offer brunch instead. Other states are cutting back on milk and fresh fruit.

Officials say prisoners are still getting enough calories, but family members and critics say the changes could make prisoners irritable and food a valuable commodity, increasing the possibility of violence.

In Arizona, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said inmates will have to pay for better tasting food at the prison.

Effective immediately, inmates will now be allowed to purchase a packet of food enhancements containing salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise through the inmate canteen at a cost of 50 cents each, Arpaio said.

Fresser said...

http://washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=10890&TM=75711.02

The Washington Nationals have lost much this year -- ball games, fans and now even kosher food.

A gastronomic reliever may soon be on the way, but until it arrives, fans like Glenn Easton will be miffed as they bear yet another indignity in an altogether forgettable season.

"It completely ruins the experience at the ballpark," said season-ticket holder Easton, executive director of Adas Israel Congregation in the District. "It's one thing to watch a last-place team lose just about every game. But when the thrill of eating a kosher hot dog is taken away, that makes it intolerable."

Kosher Sports, Inc., the New Jersey-based vendor that had supplied kosher food -- prepared under the supervision of a trained overseer known as a mashgiach -- for Nats fans since mid-2006 was terminated prior to the start of this season, leaving a kashrut gap at Nationals Park of at least two months and counting.

Marla Lerner Tanenbaum, a principal owner of the team, said that based on information she received from her brother, fellow Nats part-owner Mark Lerner, she understood that the park's kosher food provider was dismissed because "they were a huge disappointment." (Lerner could not be reached for comment.)

Tanenbaum did not specify, however, whether she was referring to Kosher Sports Inc. or to the Nationals former food concessionaire, Stamford, Conn.-based Centerplate, Inc., the stadium-wide food manager with which Kosher Sports had subcontracted. The Nats severed ties with Centerplate early this year after team officials indicated they were disappointed with Centerplate's performance, according to a January article in the Washington Business Journal.

A spokesperson for Centerplate could not be reached for comment -- nor could a representative of Chicago-based Levy Restaurants, which has succeeded Centerplate as the Nationals concessionaire.

Nats spokesperson Chartese Burnett said earlier this week that the kosher food provider was jettisoned due to subpar performance, although she declined to mention Kosher Sports by name. She also said hot dogs that are labeled kosher have continually been available to stadium patrons at various concession stands, but their cooking or handling apparently is not supervised by a mashgiach.

Jonathan Katz, founder of Kosher Sports, initially said in an interview that his firm and the Nats reached a mutual termination agreement culminating what had been "a good relationship for three years."

But after hearing Tanenbaum's comments, he said the Nats management had engaged in activities that made it impossible for him to continue doing business with the club.

For example, Katz said, the Nats failed to fulfill their contractual obligations by incorrectly listing the locations for kosher concessions at the park on the team Web site and elsewhere. "People couldn't find us," he said.

In addition, he maintained, the team refused to reimburse him fully after $8,000 worth of still-fresh frozen kosher food had been thrown out during this past off-season. "I don't know who did the actual tossing," Katz added, "but I know they were instructed by the Nats to throw it out."

Katz also said one of his unused concession carts apparently had been tampered with, leaving it unlocked and therefore vulnerable to possible contamination from nonkosher ingredients.

Tanenbaum said Shalom Kosher Market in Silver Spring apparently will be the next kosher provider, although a Shalom part-owner who was contacted Monday said he was unaware of that.

steve said...

EXCELLENT ARTICLE IN THE JEWISH STAR:

EXCEPTING THE TORAH

In My View
By Joyce Lempel Semel
Issue of May 29, 2009 / 6 Sivan 5769

This year, with the approach of Shavuot, the festival of the giving (and receiving) of the Torah, a Midrash I was taught in day school came to mind more vividly than in recent memory. In the famous story about how the Jewish people came to receive the Torah with the words “Na’aseh V’Nishma,” the Midrash recounts how G-d approached each of the peoples of the world to ask if they were interested in accepting His Torah, only to be turned down one by one.

On and on, G-d approached each and every one of the peoples of the world, and each had the same reaction: “We would accept your Torah except…”

Until, finally, the Midrash relates, G-d approached the Jewish people, who said immediately and without hesitation, “Na’aseh V’Nishma,” we will do and then we will hear.

The story left a powerful imprint on me as a child. But it’s taken on a sort of haunting quality more recently.

After all, in a year when the most famous Jew on Earth is named Bernard Madoff and his name has become indelibly linked with the “einekel” (grandson) of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi Issac Breuer, both paragons and patriarchs of devout Jewish Orthodoxy, the question might be asked: Have we accepted the Torah… or have we too excepted the Torah?

In a year when the largest kosher meat-packing plant in the United States was shut down after repeated accusations of mistreatment of people and animals, an event which has since been indignantly characterized by a leading Orthodox newspaper as a “modern-day blood libel,” the question might be asked: Have we accepted the Torah… or have we too excepted the Torah?

In a year when Agudath Yisroel and Torah Umesorah have openly chosen to protect the institutions they represent with a resolve that many feel leaves children unprotected from terrible dangers at the hands of sexual predators within their schools, the question might be asked: Have we accepted the Torah… or have we too excepted the Torah?

Another story comes to mind. It was related by Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky, dean of the Yeshiva of South Shore, in this paper, about a year or so ago. In the story, Rabbi Kamenetzky describes how his grandfather, Rabbi Yaacov Kamenetzky zt”l, was once approached by U.S. Customs to help capture an ostensibly Orthodox Jewish man who had been smuggling diamonds in his tallis bag.

The dilemma was clear. In fact, the debate on “maasering,” informing on other Jews to the authorities, has again reached a fever pitch in our community on issues ranging from reporting on pedophiles to small and large scale financial crimes.

For his part, Rabbi Kamenetzky’s resolve was clear. The rabbi cooperated fully with Customs to capture the smuggler. The question might be asked: Was Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky excepting the Torah or accepting the Torah?

Finally, a story I was reminded of recently while studying Chumash with my daughter. It is of the encounter of the biblical Yosef HaTzadik with the wife of Potiphar, his Egyptian master. When Potiphar’s wife attempts to entice Yosef into improper behavior, he lays bare his thought process and resolve in the pages of the Torah. He says: “My master has entrusted his entire household to me, holding back nothing, except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such evil against him? It would be a sin against G-d.”

As I re-read this story I thought to myself and said to my daughter, “This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a Jew, Yosef’s pure and simple honesty and trustworthiness. This is what it means to accept the Torah.”

bewhiskered said...

Rabbi Horowitz wrote: "Individuals fearful of posting their real names on blogs accuse me of cowardice for voicing my against....."

Rabbi Horowitz עמו"ש:

No one ever accused you of cowardice- only bad judgment, in your ambiguous objections of 'secularism' to the Markey Bill.

And, as for this newest indistinct argument of individuals not posting their real identities, isn't that totally beside the point, when it comes to the פשוט safety of innocent children? Isn't that what this is really all about, Rabbi Horowitz? Or could it be, that there is a כח אחר מעורב בו at work here?

As was said to you on another site:

כך אמרי אינשי

"When you find yourself in a hole, perhaps, it's time to stop digging."

Perhaps Rabbi Horowitz, it's time to be מודה על האמת as well.

גוט שבת

Yankel Horowitz said...

EDITED VERSION

1) I can't possiblly be wrong now with anything I feel about this subject even if its only indirectly related like the Markey Bill.
2) I carry a bigger weight with the position I choose now, even at the expense of victims and their families
4) I could've just as well not taken any position, at least for the sake of not hurting the victims that already feel so hurt and betrayed
3) although I am not officially part of any moetses, but since I was proven right when everyone else is wrong, that gives me the zchus to take a stand with "Daas Torah" (and be mechazik yidai osai avairah)

Paterson caves in to union extortion said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/nyregion/06pension.html?hp

Boog needs to straighten this moron out. It's outrageous that he's not cutting anything for state workers when every other state is and there's no money.

This means higher taxes for everyone in NY.

NY Times said...

By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — Iran seems to be hurtling toward nuclear weapons capacity, Hezbollah could win Sunday’s election in Lebanon and Hamas is smuggling long-range rockets into Gaza again. So why is President Obama focusing such attention on the building of homes by Israeli Jews in the West Bank?

That, in essence, is the question being angrily posed by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and underscores one of the biggest shifts in American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in three decades.

By NICHOLAS KULISH, JEFF ZELENY AND ALAN COWELL

WEIMAR, Germany —President Obama traveled to the former concentration camp of Buchenwald Friday

Earlier the two leaders met for talks in Dresden, where President Obama declared that “the moment is now” to press for a Middle East settlement.

President Obama said he was dispatching his top Middle East envoy, George Mitchell (who is an Arab), to the region next week to follow up on issues raised during the Cairo speech.

"Israelis are going to have to take some difficult steps.”


(Get ready for this left wing b.s. moral equivalence over Nazi atrocities vs. the Allied defense from Obama & the NY Times): Mr. Obama’s one-day visit to Germany is laden with symbolism. Dresden, in the former East Germany, is for many Germans, a symbol of the suffering of civilians. Germans perished in large numbers when the British and American air forces fire-bombed the city in February 1945, only months before the end of World War II. Military experts still debate whether the onslaught was necessary with the German Army already in retreat.

Moetzes resign! said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/05risk.html

Facing pressure from federal regulators to improve its risk oversight, Bank of America forced out its chief risk officer on Thursday and continued a shake-up of its board.

The officer the bank replaced, Amy Woods Brinkley, 53, was one of the highest ranking women on Wall Street. It also disclosed that Robert Tillman, a former chief executive of Lowe’s, resigned from the board last week, shortly after O. Temple Sloan quit. More board members may depart in coming weeks.

Obama and Democraps spending to oblivion said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/06highway.html

(Obama and Democrats) could wind up spending nearly 10 times as much money on transportation projects as the federal stimulus bill, but outside of Washington, where it has spurred a frenzy of politicking, it has attracted less than a 10th of the attention.

The federal transportation bill is a legislative behemoth that could spend as much as $450 billion on road and transit projects over the next six years.

The most contentious question — how to pay for it all — took on a new urgency this week when officials announced that the source of most transportation money would run dry this summer for the second year in a row.

Lawmakers said they might be forced to bail out the fund this August with $5 billion to $7 billion from general tax revenues, just a year after they provided it with an $8 billion bailout.

As the question of how to pay for transportation has taken on new urgency, the question of what kind of transportation to pay for has not gone away. This year Transportation for America, a broad coalition of (selfish) groups including environmentalists but also the National Association of Realtors and AARP, is calling for more spending on transit and rail, to ease traffic pressure.

Anonymous said...

UOJ,

I hear that a powder keg is about o go off in RBS because of the Jeruslam Post article.

Do you know anything about this?

Malach HaMovies said...

2 incisive comments from Sheree on Yanki Horowitz's website !!

Sherree

Reb Yankie, with all due respect until you stop sidestepping and answer the most pressing question that is driving and motivating the supporters of the bill your arguments still don't hold water. The question still remains:

WHY IN ALL THIS TIME ARE THE PERPETRATORS, PEDOPHILES, ABUSERS STILL IN THE YESHIVA SYSTEM?????????????????????????????????

WHY ARE KNOWN PEDOPHILES AND ABUSERS STILL BEING GIVEN KIBBUDIM AND NOT BEING SHUNNED? One as you well know, is still sitting on the Vaad of the Moetzes Until you have a logical answer to those questions YOU do not have the right to attack any bill that forces accountability and responsibility on said mosdos even to the point of law suits. They have done nothing but thumb their noses in the face of the of the K'lal. We deserve answers and these answers are never forthcoming because there aren't any.

You are looking at it from only one perspective and towing the line mightily and strongly, but their are other perspectives asnd points of view and from where we stand, if the mosdos wanted to play fairly with the victims and more especially to avoid future victims they had it in their power to do so, but they chose notto. They sacrificed more and more children all to protect the kovod of the abusers and now YOU say the Markey bill is flawed. Sorry REBBE I beg to differ, your logic is flawed.

I hope you are fair enough to post this perspective.




71. Sidestepping 6/7/09 - 5:12 AM
Sherree

Reb Yankie, with all due respect the Markey bill does not open ALL yeshias equally because those who are clean and were clean or handled problems appropriately according to halacha and the lawn of the land have absolutely nothing to worry about and if as I know you will claim a false claim should come their way, which is highly unlikely, they will be fully covered by insurance, So ALL yeshivas are not EQQUAL in this case only rht guilty ones.

Furthermore what the Markey bill does more than anythimg else is give victims "leverage" it gives them "the right" to sue. You see Reb Yankie you are missing a very important piece in this puzzle which is one of the reasons I support the bill. It retuns some "rights and dignities" back to the victims who have been stripped of ALL their rights and dignities, common courtesies, etc. most especially by the Agudah, Moetzes...who have refused to meet with them, hear them, or take them seriuosly, seriously enough to fire their abusers and put them out of business.

Why arem YOU yelling that the MARKEY bill is flawed and not the Moetzes' way of thinking and meeting all these years but not removing the pedophiles being FLAWED? wHERE IN ALL THESE ARTICLES HAVE YOU SAID THIS?

mARKEY COVERS TWO POINTS IN HER LEGISLATION, sHELLY SILVER CAN WRITE ANOTHER PIECE OF LEGISLATION TO COVER OTHER AREAS. WHY DOESN'T HE? Why does the non-jew have to do it?

Lets go back even further what does the Torah say a person and his family should get as compensation for abuse, rape ad sodomy? And how should the abuser be punished?

Please post this comment, you have avoided many of my comments.

Boruch said...

Archie Bunker said...
I saw a very funny T-shirt being worn that says "Welcome Back Carter" and has a picture of Obama's face on it.

I wasn't wearing that shirt, although I entirely agree with it. BO (leave out the H and you get the message loud and clear) is the second coming of JC (leave out the E and you get what he thought of and continues to think of himself loud and clear) What really intrigues me and others like me is that the electorate get suckered every couple of elections into believing the marketeers and never digging past the slick and glossy. BO may be President, however he is no leader and less of a legislator. When the heat starts to really burn high - and it will - watch for the most totalitarian moves since Roosevelt. Pravda has already welcomed America to the ranks of Communist nations. As we go like sheeple, they said. They are so right and we are so dumb.

Anonymous said...

UOJ - on a couple of occasions you have noted that there is a connection between the NIRC "suicide" and Moshe Eisemann. I don't doubt that they new each other, but it is a big leap to say that what he learned about Moshe Eisemann somehow caused him to do what he did. How are you so confident on this one.
By the way, this very day I spoke with a Rabbi who was at Ner Yisroel right after Eisemann came there from Philadelphia. He said right off the bat in the first conversation he ever had with Eisemann, Eisemann asked him if he slept with his hands over the cover or under the cover. He also noted that Eisemann had some effeminate ways about him.

boog said...

Lift Thine Eyes and Bow (swiftly):

To Riyadh, Mecca, and Medina to see the true real president of the USA.

The Bim-Bam Identity.

the Monsey Tzadik said...

To add insult to injury, one of the most morally corruptes rabbis ,beheima Leib Tropper tells anybody who listens that Rav Kamenetzky ZTL told him to open his yeshiva kol eisav.

I am telling you, it is sheker vekazav!, Rav Kamenetzky will have nothing to do with menuval like Tropper

Anonymous said...

it was opened by rav avrohom gershon tress ztl

Anonymous said...

i was involved in the mondrowitz scandal.
reb dovid cohen had absolutely nothing to do with the case.

'the hero was reb elya zt'l who single handily caught up with mondo.
unfortunately , he ran to israel.

oldtimer said...

Chaver mendelowitz while you usually have your facts correct im afraid in this post you dropped the ball.As someone who spoke to R Elya Svei about molesters on many occasions i can tell you he was far more progressive about the issue then any other rov i knew.and althouge to prottect the victims he wouldnt always publicize his knowledge but he made good and sure that these predators were never allowed near kids.

itchiemayer said...

UOJ - I was the one who posted on 06/07/09 regarding Eisemann and a possible connection with the Ner Israel Kollelnik from Toronto that killed himself. Is there any substantiation of this?

Paul Mendlowitz said...

Itchie Mayer:

The evidence is circumstantial - we can never know for certain, Fifi is no longer with us.

Because of respect for the deceased and his family (and my attorneys' advice), I decided not to post what I do know.

Good to hear from you - a gut yur!

itchiemayer said...

R' UOJ - Thanks, and same to you!

UOJ gets results said...

http://www.vosizneias.com/63719/2010/09/06/proof-vests/

Shomrim Patrol Get Bullet-Proof Vests

Sruly Singer said...

http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/opinion/more_claims_conference_half_truth_whole_lie

It's about time someone comes to the defense of me and Julie Berman. UOJ thinks he can just present his one sided version of everything!

Ezri Namvar said...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3947529,00.html

The Madoff of Beverly Hills

Jews in Los Angeles fell victim to Ponzi-like scheme by one of community's members Ezri Namvar. Some $500 million go missing as banker, real estate agent allegedly used clients' investments to fund his collapsing businesses schemes

Among the victims of his alleged scheme is a Holocaust survivor who gave Namvar more than $2 million of his savings.

In recent weeks, pressure has mounted against Namvar within the community, forcing him to resign from his synagogue's board and even receiving threats.

Judenrat said...

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/2010/09/03/15242476.html

According to this investigative report, the gvir George Soros was a member of the Judenrat in Hungary and the lowlife was matzdik himself in an interview with CBS. It's not clear why he has not been arrested for war crimes like other Judenrat members have been.

OU Eyepopper said...

http://www.thesimplestdiet.tsfl.com/esuite/home/thesimplestdiet/

It was hard to believe when seeing this guy's ad with an OU seal on a yeshiva's 5771 calendar. Robert Yosef Salvit is selling a line of food called "The Simplest Diet" / "Take Shape for Life" / "Medifast" and calls himself a "Healer" and a "Kabbalist", among other things.

Follow the money said...

http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2010/09/one_is_enough_but_nine_new_jer.html

Dual office holding is a uniquely messed-up New Jersey institution. It allows politicians to enrich themselves, it creates built-in conflicts of interests, and as it works out in New Jersey, it allows dual office holders to build local machines that thrive on patronage. It fortifies the old-boy network.

Under pressure from former Gov. Jon Corzine, the Legislature agreed in 2007 to ban the practice. But in a classic Jersey move, they exempted themselves. Any legislator who had a second elected job at the time the bill passed was allowed to keep it.

As these dinosaurs retire, the number of dual office holders has dwindled. We are down to nine legislators now, all of them listed below in our Roll of Shame.

For now, the Legislature ought to take another crack at this law so it prevents legislators from holding second public jobs, even unelected ones. We are supposed to believe that if a state legislator applies for a job as executive director of a local sewer authority, for example, he or she would receive no favorable treatment. Maybe people in Iowa would believe that, but not in New Jersey, where so many politicians know no shame.

For now, in the spirit of outing them, here is the list of nine legislators who hold second elected jobs.

Sen. Robert Singer (R-Ocean), Lakewood committeeman.

Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), Passaic city councilman.

Boo Boo Bruno said...

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/09/01/2010-09-01_payouts_for_the_crooks_convicted_pols_get_fat_pensions.html

ALBANY - Just because they violated the public's trust doesn't mean they've stopped taking the public's money.

At least 10 ex-lawmakers who've been convicted of criminal charges are still receiving taxpayer-funded pensions worth tens of thousands of dollars a year, a Daily News review of state pension records found.

Ex-Senate boss Joe Bruno, a former GOP kingmaker who is appealing his conviction of honest services fraud, pockets $96,085.

Dick Dadey, executive director of the good government group Citizens Union, said the payouts underscore the need to reform New York's pension system.

"They violated the public trust while in office and so the public should no longer have to pay for their pensions," Dadey said. "Trust is a two-way street, and we shouldn't be asked to continue to pay when they violated their oath of office."

Hahahahaha !!!! said...

You mean pseudo-transparency AFTER Rabbi Shain found out that Shufrah imported "Pesachdik" Chinese cocoa that had no mashgiach.

http://www.kosherspirit.com/Article.asp?Issue=20&Article=265

Responsibility of a Kashrus Agency

by Rabbi Don Yoel Levy (owner of OK)

Tishrei 5771

Last Pesach we had an issue where a shaila came up on cocoa that we certified along with another Rav HaMachshir. At the OK, we are proud that we did not attempt to cover up the issue and blame the certified company. Rather, we showed complete transparency to the consumer public and did not try to place fault on the company. There was actually no shaila found, but the OK tested the cocoa anyway and found that there was no issue.

Charlie Hynes said...

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/09/02/2010-09-02_casting_a_vote_made_me_a_felon.html

You gotta love how I let heimishe molesters completely off the hook but hunt down political opponents with trumped up charges and try to put them away for 28 years over trivial matters.

Bim Bam identity said...

Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama's inaugural address to the nation, and he's referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country.

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don't seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 70 rooms at the 160-room resort. Not exactly cutting back in troubled times.

Reports call the lodgings of Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious, posh and a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost taxpayers a pretty penny.

The Obama modus operandi is becoming clear. From lavish trips to Spain to flying Bo, the President's Portuguese water dog, on a separate aircraft to vacation with them in Maine, to a date night in New York City that cost $100,000, their idea of austerity is really the lap of luxury

Michelle Obama seems more like Marie Antoinette - the French queen who spent extravagantly on clothes and jewels without a thought for her subjects' plight

It's the extravagance of Michelle Obama's glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama's demonization of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy

President Obama insisted that "everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good."

Chaim Roet said...

http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/letters/claims_conference_board_'rubber_stamp'

Claims Conference board, resign!

Anonymous said...

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/con-man-stings-israeli-towns-with-fake-honey-scam-ahead-of-rosh-hashanah-1.312613

Con man stings Israeli towns with fake honey scam ahead of Rosh Hashanah

Police destroy the 11 tons of fake honey and are still searching after the con man, who labeled the fake honey with a well-known brand name.

By Eli Ashkenazi

"Fraud happens ever year, but over the last two years, there has been an upsurge," said Shimshon Herlinger, vice president of the Honey Board.

Honey producers have also suffered from thefts of beehives in recent years, but Herlinger said this problem has declined lately.

"The Border Police's intensive activity to prevent agricultural crime, along with the efficacy of the separation fence (from the Arabs), have produced good results," Herlinger said.

Anonymous said...

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-probe-finds-austrian-billionaire-behind-illicit-money-transfer-to-sharon-family-1.312606

Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff is behind the transfer of $4.5 million to Gilad & Omri Sharon, an investigation conducted by Israel's national fraud squad has concluded.

The investigators are recommending Schlaff be indicted on bribery charges, and that Gilad & Omri, sons of former prime minister Ariel Sharon, be charged with serving as conduits.

For years, Austria refused to let Israel depose Schlaff, claiming Israel lacked evidence. But Israeli officials suspect another motive: Schlaff has excellent connections with Austria's top leaders.

Schlaff began playing games with his interrogators. Viennese sources familiar with the tycoon's tactics said that one morning, Israeli investigators showed up at Austrian police headquarters & waited for hours. Then at noon, Schlaff's lawyer showed up & said his client would not be coming.

A Haaretz investigation into Schlaff also uncovered a long list of other Israeli public figures who benefited from his millions. Schlaff gave his friend Aryeh Deri hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance the former Shas chairman's defense against bribery, for which he was ultimately convicted.

Schlaff recruited a friend, Swiss lawyer Hans Baumgartner & financed his purchase of material relating to Yaakov Shmuelevitz, the key witness against Deri. This material served as the basis for Deri's unsuccessful bid to get the Supreme Court to grant him a retrial.

Schlaff spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy material on Shmuelevitz in Switzerland.

Schlaff also ran a New York nonprofit called the Jaslo Foundation which gave money to Israeli organizations. But the largest donation of all went to the Legal Defense Fund, which financed Deri's legal team.

Jaslo gave $50,000 to finance Ehud Olmert's successful defense against charges that, while serving as treasurer of Likud, he had been involved in a fictitious invoice scam. In reporting to American tax authorities, the foundation listed this donation as "support for Jewish causes."

Israeli police deposed Schlaff employees in their probe of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. This followed the discovery that in 2001, Robert Placzek lumber, owned by Schlaff, transferred $650,000 to a Cypriot company, Trasimeno Trading, which police suspect was controlled by Lieberman.

At the time, Lieberman was serving as infrastructure minister in Sharon's government.

Breslover fresser said...

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.312649.1283813847!/image/4106965030.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_295/4106965030.jpg

New veils to avoid histaklus benoshim.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3950323,00.html

Yediot Achronot interviews accused YU molester Rabbi George Finkelstein, seemingly unaware of his past.

OU Crony Watch said...

London Beis Din takes action after years of slouching by the OU.

Genack & Belsky ignored Rav Hershel Schechter the tanker oils become treif.

http://www.transoceanbulk.com/news-item.aspx?NewsId=47

With a growth of 10-15% per annum, the market for kosher-certified foods and products is booming. In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for kosher-certified flexitanks, particularly in the Far East market, as consumers and manufacturers from multi-ethnic backgrounds search for guaranteed, certified quality.

"Trans Ocean has been working to achieve the highest standards within the Kashrus industry to gain kosher status for our flexitanks," said Edmund Lim, Trans Ocean's Sales Manager for South East Asia.

Kosher certification comes after rigorous inspections, and requires approved manufacturers to follow strict guidelines and monitoring procedures. Trans Ocean's kosher certification covers the flexitank, and all phases of the development and manufacturing process. For Trans Ocean flexitanks, kosher law is extended to the packaging used to transport food products used in the food industry.

"At Trans Ocean, we always strive to be one step ahead", Mr Lim continued. "Kosher is a niche sector, but is a growing market. Our new certification will allow us to offer our market leading bulk services to more customers around the world".

Agudah Fresser said...

Did the Novominsker finally give Shafran the go ahead to admit this or will he get clobbered for writing this paragraph?

http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/44427/the-jews%E2%80%99-jews/

BY AVI SHAFRAN | Sep 7, 2010

Are there then no haredim who are miserly, insufficiently sensitive to the needs of others, or even—how shall we put it?—ethically or morally challenged? Of course there are. And we hear and read about them regularly. We have witnessed truly abhorrent behavior by members of the haredi community over recent years, from what law texts call “moral turpitude” to child molestation to financial shenanigans to outright thievery. And innocent, truly religious haredim are deeply shamed by the hypocrites and criminals among their population. Although not every ugly story turns out to be true, enough have passed the smell—and even the legal—test to convince us haredim that we have much work to do to impress on every member of the community the import of the fact that the Torah governs every aspect of a Jew’s life.

Dovy said...

>>Rav Ya’akov Kamenetzky, zts”l, was also an interesting case. He was a neighbor of mine and, you will pardon the expression, a liberal Jew. He just loved everyone. My shver would come to us in Monsey on Motsa’ei Yom ha-Kippurim and stay until two weeks after Simchas Torah. That was his time to himself, when no phone calls or visitors were allowed in. Only one person was allowed into the house on Chol ha-Mo’ed Sukkos and that was Rav Ya’akov. He would come in and sit with my shver for two hours chatting and laughing the whole time like two little boys – not talking about Torah or politics, but rather reminiscing about the Old Country together. Then, twenty minutes after Rav Ya’akov left, my shver would come to me and say, “M’darf geyn bazuchn Reb Yankev” (We have to visit Rav Ya’akov). We drove over and my shver would come in and wish him a gut
yontef and then leave. Why? It was part of rabbinic protocol: you came to me, so I have to go to you in turn. Hitler did not kill all the Jews, but he destroyed our culture. There is no remnant of that old-time European ethos in this generation.<<


http://www.kolhamevaser.com/2010/08/an-interview-with-rabbi-dr-moshe-d-tendler/

The Chicago Chevra said...

A Gut Gebentched Yahr!!

If you have a chance, this essay is outstanding:

http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2010/09/frumskeptics-operation-5771.html

Bayit veGan said...

http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=186192

A cleaner who worked in a synagogue was indicted by the Jerusalem District Court on Friday on charges of sexual abusing at the place of worship minors between the ages of eight and thirteen. The suspect has also been charged with sodomy and attempted sodomy.

The accused, 45-year-old Gil Dvash, allegedly offered the boys money to help him clean the synagogue and would then engage them with sexual behavior. During the police investigation, Dvash admitted to officers that he committed some of the acts alleged to have taken place between the years 2006 and 2008.

Bryks will be dismantled Bryk by Bryk said...

Does UOJ or anyone know how I can pop a CD of Bryks speaking into the computer and convert it to streaming audio on the internet?

The first CD has Bryks speaking like a big pruste ferd and baal gayva to a bunch of gullible Sephardim at a shiur in a shul.

I also have a much more damaging cassette where he was recorded in private showing his true colors which I first have to burn to a CD.

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