http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/trouble-in-the-catskills/
THE JEWISH STAR
Kolko kicked out of one colony but finds another
By Michael Orbach
Issue of July 31, 2009 / 10 Av 5769
In the Catskills this summer, worries about children’s safety are extending beyond the swimming pool.
Yehuda Kolko, the rebbe who pleaded guilty to two counts of child endangerment and who is suspected of abusing dozens of children in his teaching career, moved into a summer home at a development in South Fallsburg, N.Y., on June 12. Pines Estates, where he is renting, is a popular summer destination for Orthodox families and is also inhabited year-round by families connected to the well-known Yeshiva of South Fallsburg, nearby.
On Kolko’s first Friday night there, a summer resident aware of Kolko’s history confronted him in the shul during Maariv and told him to leave the neighborhood quietly, a witness said. When Kolko refused, the man interrupted the tefilah to announce from the bima that Kolko was a child molester and posed a danger to children. When congregants protested, the man at the bima, a student of Rav Dovid Feinstein, replied with multiple Halachic sources to support his action, one of which was Masechet Chullin 8a, which discusses the need to be strict when it comes to matters of danger.
The next day, Shabbat morning, at the Yeshiva of South Fallsburg nearby, the same witness said Kolko was welcomed and called to the Torah for an Aliyah.
Daniel Sosnowik, a resident of Pines Estates who has an eight-year-old son, was shocked. Sosnowik is a captain in the New York City Police Department.
“We have hundreds of kids here,” Sosnowik told the Jewish Star, “Kolko doesn’t belong here.”
When Sosnowik spoke to the gabbai of the yeshiva minyan he was told that Rabbi Tzvi Abba Gorelick, the dean and owner of Yeshiva of South Fallsburg, had declared Kolko to be “kosher.” That night, residents of Pines Estates visited Kolko and apologized for their neighbor’s actions the previous night. When Sosnowik met with Rabbi Gorelick to express his concerns Rabbi Gorelick maintained that the yeshiva must be “neutral” regarding Kolko, Sosnowik recalled. He quoted Rabbi Gorelick as saying that the issue was complicated by the “stigma” associated with child abuse.
One of Kolko’s sons attended Yeshiva of South Fallsburg, Sosnowik said he was told.
“Am I the only one crazy here?” Sosnowik asked, “How could parents do this? How could yeshiva leaders do this?”
Rabbi Elya Ber Wachtfogel, the rosh yeshiva, vigorously denied that Kolko was welcomed.
“We just said we can’t throw him out; nobody knows him!” he exclaimed. “I don’t even know him! I met him for the first time!
People are making these assumptions [about the yeshiva's dealings with Kolko], they are making up things. I heard years ago about him [Kolko]. Some people say yes, people say no…”
Asked if he felt Kolko was a threat to children, Rabbi Wachtfogel replied, “I don’t know.”
“You can ask Binyamin Hirsch,” Rabbi Wachtfogel said, then hung up.
He was apparently referring to Ben Hirsch, president of Survivors for Justice, an organization that advocates for and assists victims of child and sexual abuse in the Orthodox community.
Chaim Bloom, who attends the Yeshiva of South Fallsburg Kollel and lives in Pines Estates said that he wasn’t comfortable with Kolko being around.
“I try to keep away from these things. To be honest, that’s why I live in South Fallsburg and not Lakewood,” he explained. “I didn’t welcome him. I’d never welcome a child molester.”
“I think people are paranoid or afraid of him because of the label he’s been given, which has never been proven in a court of law,” said Jeffrey Schwartz, the attorney who defended Kolko against three criminal charges. “That has nothing to do with any sex-related offense. He was not registered as a sex offender. He never did admit to any sexually inappropriate conduct to any child.”
Schwartz added that he believed that Kolko posed no danger and was “just a sick old man, and should be left alone.” He would let Kolko be with his own kids, he claimed.
Before moving to Pines Estates, Kolko lived in the summer-home community of Mesorah Woods in Woodridge, NY. On July 5, a community activist, Rabbi Levi Goldenberg, said he was asked by a concerned parent to help get Kolko out of the community. He described the parent as “very anxious.”
“They seemed afraid of the guy,” he said. “The women were very concerned, watching their kids and not allowing them out of their sight.”
Goldenberg said there were no legal means to force Kolko out of Mesorah Woods, since Kolko’s plea deal with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office did not require him to register under Megan’s Law, the registry of convicted predators.
“Maybe he did teshuva,” one resident told Goldenberg, “but let him do teshuva somewhere else.” Kolko was persuaded to leave Mesorah Woods and moved to the Pines Estates on July 12th.
Sosnowik, the NYPD captain, was disheartened by the entire episode.
“Kolko pleaded guilty to child abuse charges. He didn’t have to. He is guilty. If it’s good enough for the criminal justice system it should be good enough for us.”
"Rabbi Tzvi Abba Gorelick, the dean and owner of Yeshiva of South Fallsburg"
ReplyDeleteOwner of a Yeshiva?
It's the return of the Hot Kolko Club!
ReplyDeleteabba gore-lick is a sick old man too
ReplyDeleteSpinka Rebbe At Agudah Asifa! He belongs on the Agudah dais right there with Avremel Schorr!
ReplyDeleteMom of decapitated baby: 'I didn't mean to do it'
By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer Paul J. Weber, Associated Press Writer – 27 mins ago
SAN ANTONIO – A Texas mother accused of decapitating her 3-week-old son screams "I didn't mean to do it. He told me to!" while her sister pleads for an ambulance to bring help in a desperate four-minute 911 call released Wednesday.
Otty Sanchez, who police say told them the devil made her kill and mutilate her only child, cries "I love him" and says she's stabbed herself in the heart and stomach while her sister tries calming down the 33-year-old mother.
At one point during the frantic call, Priscilla Garcia tries reassuring her sister that she is alive. "Otty, this time I told you to come to me," Garcia says.
"I tried, but you told me that you died," Sanchez responds.
"I'm not dead, Otty," Garcia says. "I'm standing right here talking to you."
Sanchez, 33, is charged with capital murder in the slaying of Scott Wesley Buchholz-Sanchez, who authorities found decapitated and grossly mutilated in a bedroom of her sister's house early Sunday. Police say Sanchez chewed off three of her infant's toes and ate parts of the brain. She used a knife and two swords in the attack, according to police.
Garcia tells the dispatcher that her sister has stabbed her child and that blood is all over the bed.
"She's gone crazy last night. She was hearing voices," Garcia says. "She kept bringing me the baby. And finally she calmed down and I took her back the baby. And now I just woke up to hear screaming."
She continues, "The baby is dead. The baby's dead. Please, somebody come."
During the call, the dispatcher instructs Garcia not to touch the baby or anything in the area. The call ends with the dispatcher saying help is on the way.
Sanchez, who had been hospitalized after the killing, was being held on $1 million bond at the Bexar County jail. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether she had an attorney.
Scott W. Buchholz, the infant's father, said Sanchez suffered from postpartum depression and that she told him she was schizophrenic a week before the slaying. Buchholz, who said he also is schizophrenic, said he wants her to receive the death penalty.
A family member has said Sanchez had been undergoing psychiatric treatment and that a hospital called looking for her several months ago. Gloria Sanchez, the mother's aunt, said her niece had been "in and out of a psychiatric ward."
In May 2008, Otty Sanchez's mother, Manuela Sanchez, called police after her daughter didn't return from a trip to Austin, saying she was concerned about her daughter's safety. Manuela Sanchez told police she suspected her daughter was into drugs and specifically told police she wasn't suffering from any mental issues.
Buchholz last saw Sanchez and his son the day before the killing. He said Sanchez had moved in with her parents a week earlier, leaving him July 20 after being briefly hospitalized for depression but released that same day.
Sanchez brought "Baby Scotty" over to see his father the day before the slaying, and Buchholz said she became irate when he asked for copies of the birth certificate and other documents, then left in a huff with the baby.
Priscilla Garcia called 911 before 5 a.m. the next morning. Police say the killing took place in a bedroom and that no one else was injured.
JWB says:
ReplyDeletehttp://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/editorial-sins-of-our-fathers/
Editorial: Sins of our fathers
In Children, Editorial, Mayer Fertig, Michael Orbach, Opinion, Rosh Hashanah, Sexual abuse, Tisha B'Av, Yom Kippur on July 29, 2009 at 8:19 am
Issue of July 31, 2009 / 10 Av 5769
In April 2007, the Baltimore Jewish Times published the accounts of three victims of Ephraim Shapiro, a former congregational rabbi and principal of the Talmudic Academy in Baltimore. Their accounts of sexual abuse at Shapiro’s hands were harrowing. Shapiro, a revered member of the community, had unsuperv ised access to hundreds of children.
By the time the article ran, Shapiro had been dead for over seventeen years — he died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1989. Phil Jacobs, executive editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, characterized it correctly: Shapiro’s memory “remains ‘alive’ in the memories of so many. His collateral damage is everywhere.”
The Baltimore Jewish Times was heavily criticized for publishing the story. Two prominent rabbonim had asked that Shapiro’s name be kept out of print; Rabbi Moshe Heinemann demanded that his community prohibit the Baltimore Jewish Times in their homes. Jacobs, a survivor of sexual abuse himself, was ostracized.
“I was running into nuances wherever I went. I got emails. I never had my life threatened but I was asked to leave town. It impacted my family; it impacted my participation in the Jewish community as a practicing Jew. It hurt a lot and it still does.”
Later, more victims came forward to report sexual abuse they suffered at Shapiro’s hands. The exact number of children molested by Shapiro remains unclear.
Less than a year later, Ephraim Shapiro’s son, Yisroel Shapiro, was convicted of almost identical sexual abuse charges.
Yosef Kolko was arrested two weeks ago on charges of sexually assaulting a minor at a day camp in Lakewood, New Jersey. One source involved in the arrest suspected that Yosef had been abused by his uncle, Yehuda Kolko, who is thought to be guilty of widespread sexual abuse.
Michael Sabo, whose case we detailed last week, attended Yeshiva Torah Temimah where Kolko taught, and a sleepaway camp where Kolko once worked. Asked if he was one of Kolko’s victims, Sabo told the Jewish Star that while he did not remember being abused and did not think he was abused, his therapist told him the abuse was “repressed.” By the time you read this, Tisha B’av may have ended. The month of Elul, and the Yamim Noraim, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, are just ahead. We will again pray to be forgiven for our sins. This year, perhaps, we have new sins to add to our list — sins of negligence and ignorance, and through our negligence and ignorance, a new
culpability.
If there is anything we, as a community, can learn from these horrific events, is that wounds still bleed. They not only scar, but fester. Sexual abuse does not go away. Most of the victims of Kolko, Mondrowitz, and Shapiro will lead happy meaningful lives, carrying their tragedies like unwanted baggage. Some will become outspoken heroes who seek to prevent sexual abuse like Phil Jacobs and Joseph, the father of Sabo’s alleged victim. Still others will remain silent and keep their sorrow to themselves. And some may never find solace and may be accused of molestation themselves, creating still more
victims in a truly vicious cycle.
There is no moral to this story, nor is there a happy ending. There is only vigilance and caution. As a community, we have sinned. Our fathers have sinned. As last week’s Parsha states: “I, the Lord thy G-d, am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.”
We have only repentance left.
Rabboisai - WAKE UP!!!
ReplyDeleteYudi Kolko is a danger to your children!!!
A child molester will always have an "urge" to molest children.
They are like drug addicts and drunks.
Just like for drunks you must take away the booze and for addicts you must take away the drugs. with child molesters you must take away their need - children.
Child molesters also need to get pschological help to deal with their sickness. Unfortunately, Yudi Kolko's friends and family don't want to understand the seriousness of his sickness, therefore permitting him to be near children and not getting him any help.
As a result, your children are at serious risk.
Let me ask you -would you let a drug addict into your bungalow colony or would you like a drunk person walking around your children? Of course not!!
So why do you let Yudi Kolko be near your kids?
Ah, I understand, he can't be all that bad, right?
Or, he must have done t'shuva.
Or, it's all made up.
People - wake up!!!
For over 40 years Yudi Kolko has been quietly and agressively molesting young boys.
The oldest victim that we know of is a 55 year old who was molested by Yudi in the Mirer Yeshiva dorms some 40 years ago and the youngest is today 9 years old. This 9 yr old boy was sexually molested by Yudi only 3 years ago in Yeshiva Torah Temima.
In between these two individulas are tens if not hundred of victims. Some of these victims are destroyed for life.
Is that what you want to possibly happen to your sons and grandsons?
Yudi Kolko has a sick urge to "touch" young boys. This need can be satisfied very quickly and quietly, basically in less than a few minutes, without your even knowing or seeing that anything happened.
Are you actually and realistically able to watch your sons 24 hours a day, all the time? Can you actually protect your children when you know that there is a child molester hanging out in your community?
Do you have any idea what happens to your children after they are sexually molested?
Do you have any idea what hell your child will go through after he might become Yudi Kolko's next potential victim?
Do you have any idea what emotional "tzoros" your family will have?
Please, for your kids sake - tell Yudi Kolko and his family that they are not welcome and ask them to leave.
JWB says this is how Agudath Israel's partner in crime the Catholic Church acts:
ReplyDeletehttp://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20090729.html
(Excerpt)
...
The ugliest confrontation to date, which was engineered by the bishops and pitted believers against survivors, occurred in front of Lopez's office. A handful of Jewish and Catholic survivors have been staging a protest there for weeks. DiMarzio organized a group of believers to march in support of Lopez's opposition to the Child Victims Act. Two busloads of people were taken to the neighborhood and told – contrary to the facts, as noted above -- that the CVA did not apply to public institutions and that it would bankrupt the dioceses, causing losses of services. About a dozen survivors, who had been raped as children by priests and rabbis, stood across the street holding signs in favor of the Child Victims Act. When the survivors confronted the sadly uninformed marchers with the truth about the bill and the misinformation from the bishops and Lopez, they told me directly, some of the marchers actually threw coins at the survivors.
...
You just can't stop sticking your molester snout in people's faces, can you?
ReplyDeleteThere's no reason why you have to lounge around every luxury bungalow colony in the Catskills. Plenty of people go to Lakewood for the summer so you could just stay home if you wanted to. But no! Arrogant Yudi Kolko has to make a scene.
http://avikolko.blogspot.com/2009/07/you-gotta-know-facts.html
ReplyDeleteHere I go again. I came up with this silly anecdote so I could indirectly defend cousin Yossi and Tatty again in the punchline.
in what context did Rav Elya Ber mention hirsch? was he seriously reccomending contacting him?
ReplyDeleteNine Days of 2009:
ReplyDeleteOn the first of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
rioting in the Holy City.
On the second day of the 9 Days
charedim gave to me
uhh...more rioting in the Holy City.
On the third day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
Munchausen's by proxy.
On the 4th day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
a poor example of the field of psychiatry.
On the 5th day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
the biggest frickin' chillul Hashem I ever did see.
On the 6th day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
2 mail thieves who are Sfardi.
On the 7th day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
a millionaire couple on section 8 from Monsey.
On the 8th day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
a lecture by the Agudah
telling each attendee,
to do business honestly,
while they oppose the Markey bill "vigorously."
On the 9th day of the 9 days
charedim gave to me
a coke smuggling fraud named IAZ.
A week after being arrested on extortion charges, Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III of Hoboken has bowed to enormous pressure and will step down, the New Jersey governor, Jon S. Corzine, said Thursday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteMr. Cammarano, 32, a Democrat who had been a councilman before being sworn in as mayor on July 1, was among more than a dozen New Jersey political figures arrested by federal authorities on July 23 in a huge corruption scandal that centered on Hudson County. His resignation comes two days after that of Dennis Elwell, the mayor of Secaucus, who was also charged.
The authorities say Mr. Cammarano, both before and after his June election, accepted $25,000 in cash from an undercover cooperating witness, Solomon Dwek, who posed as a developer looking to gain government support for his projects in several New Jersey counties.
Study: Child porn possessors likely abusers
ReplyDeleteBy: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
March 19, 2009
People convicted of possessing child pornography are likely to have sexually abused many children, a study has found.
The Journal of Family Violence published in December a study that examined 155 inmates convicted of child pornography possession with no indication during trial that they had inappropriately touched children. Through the course of treatment, however, 131 inmates admitted to having at least one hands-on sexual offense.
Of the 155, 40 had a criminal history of abusing children before being caught with child pornography. They reported during therapy having abused an average of 19 victims each. The remaining 115 with no known history of child abuse reported abusing an average of nine victims.
“It is safe to say there is a correlation, and it may be significant,” one of the study’s two authors, U.S. Marshals Service psychologist Michael Bourke, told The Examiner. The legal system and treatment providers “often treat these as two dichotomous groups: hands-on offenders and hands-off,” Bourke said. “This study shows that notion should be challenged.”
Prosecutors recently incorporated that idea in their argument for a lengthy sentencing for 53-year-old Thomas “Randy” White of Arlington, who was convicted of child pornography possession and is expected to be sentenced Friday. “Child pornography offenses include a significant element of danger, because there is a strong correlation between viewing these images and then acting upon them to sexually abuse children,” they wrote.
Bourke said the study should also be applied to provide greater depth to police investigations. “Right now investigators go out, get a warrant and find child pornography, and the case is closed. ... They should be going out and trying to identify children who may need help after coming in contact with [the child pornography possessor],” he said.
When they do, they’ll have to address the issue of gender and age crossover, Bourke said.
The study also found that offenders who reported having male victims were very likely to have female victims as well. There’s little sexuality in a young child or infant, Bourke said.
With that in mind, Bourke said, police should be questioning children of both genders about inappropriate contact, not just the children of the gender found on a sex offender’s computer.
“We don’t want investigators to stop after interviewing little boys in the neighborhood when little girls may have been abused, too” Bourke said.
gorelick is tinaf.
ReplyDeleteTime for another ASS-IFFA.
Hey D-ASS Toiyrah, KISS MY ASS-IFFA.
Can someone please explain to all of us why the archivist of the Agudah is defendin g and aiding and abetting his daughter who has gone to arko'oys?
ReplyDeleteMan am I surprised that R' Elya Ber is so out of the loop. He still thinks what he heard from Lipa Geldwerth and the Agudah years ago holds true, that UOJ is Ben Hirsch.
ReplyDeleteIs the Agudah archivist still Rabbi Kolodny or who is it lately?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the Jewish Star portrayed me as a normala guy and not some kook or Ron Kuby of the frum world who twists the Talmud out of context to defend every child rapist and murderer.
ReplyDeleteIs Levi Goldenberg otherwise known as Leon Goldenberg of Tomchei Shabbos?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vosizneias.com/35890/2009/07/29/south-fallsburg-ny-fallsburg-yeshiva-vigorously-denies-it-has-welcomed-acused-abuser/
ReplyDeleteMost VIN posters usually take the wrong side of every issue but most of the posters on the Yudi Kolko story say he is guilty and should get the hell out of South Fallsburg.
One of the only putzes defending Kolko there compares the story to Kamtza & Bar Kamtza.
http://www.vosizneias.com/35890/2009/07/29/south-fallsburg-ny-fallsburg-yeshiva-vigorously-denies-it-has-welcomed-acused-abuser/
ReplyDeleteYesterday at 05:51 PM
Anonymous Says:
In Far Rockaway, a non-Jewish man was arrested and accused of molesting a Jewish child in the mikvah on Roosevelt Court. There were no witnesses. The boy was special needs. The case was dismissed. Guess where the man still works?
Kolko should be banished to a lepers colony. I rememeber, almost 30 years ago he molested my employee's kid, and guess what, when she went to complain to the Hanhalah, she was told to "Keep quiet, orwe'll throw your kids out of yeshivah and make sure that 'No other Yeshivah will accept them'".
ReplyDeleteShame on these Mechanchim and Raabonim.
As the Novi says "Yodeichem domim moleihu".
I worked for a year with convicted sex offenders in an incarceration unit here in Phoenix at the state hospital. These are the vilest vermin on earth. Not one took responsibility for their crimes, blaming the victims most of the time. I heard that, "she came on to me". The she was a five year old . Or "she/he consented". The "consent"was given by a child to have sex, can you imagine such thinking? Statistically, a pedophile will have dozens, if not hundreds of victims before they are caught, convicted, and jailed. Look it up, I'm not exaggerating the magnitude. Also,even if the perpetrator does t'shuvah,which I am doubtful of, the victims suffer all their life. That t'shuvah doesn't alleviate their pain. I believe that there's a special Gehinnom for these child molestors and the people who protected them . We have to be aware of this problem, and deal with it effectively, to protect our greatest treasures, our kinderlach.
ReplyDeleteMany people would be surprised if I left my name with this email. Yudi kolko tried to molest me many years ago. I was a smart enough 11 year old to run away. I never talked about it whixh is one of the greatest regrets of my life. He is a sick man that needs help and our tefelos but we must not let him be put in nisyonis since he refuses to keep away from them himself
ReplyDeleteIs Ben Brafman (great guy-Lawyer) going to be invited to deliver annual Mussar shmueses at Agudah organized ASS-IFFA's on Business Ethics?
ReplyDeleteAt what point does this moral rot/decay get reversed and eliminated?
You can call the Agudah to find out who their archivist is. ALternatively search the web please.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Agudah held of the shulchan oruch. draw your own conclusions...
JWB says Rabbi Adler Speaks Out Against Rabbi Max:
ReplyDelete1)The article:
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/local_news/rabbi_adler_speaks_out_against_rabbi_max/13744
Rabbi Adler Speaks Out Against Rabbi Max
MMAE spiritual leader addresses Rabbi Max situation.
July 31, 2009
Phil Jacobs
Executive Editor
2)The text of the sermon
http://www.mmae.org/rabbi_max_sermon.pdf
(Excerpts)
SHABBAT SERMON
July 11, 2009/Tammuz 19, 5769
Rabbi Elan Adler
The Rabbi Max story: What happened? What now?
Ever since the story about Rabbi Max’s conviction broke on April 12th, there has
been hushed talk about what happened, could it have happened, did it happen,
what else happened….for the past three months, our congregation has been in the
news- radio, newspapers, television and the Internet. A week hasn’t gone by
where the Jewish Times didn’t write an article, an op-ed, or print letters to the
Editor about Rabbi Max and the congregation he served.
....
And yet, while all of this is true, it doesn’t absolve Rabbi Max from taking
responsibility for the shame and embarrassment he has brought upon himself and
upon the synagogue, and it doesn’t excuse him from going to each person he has
harmed to confess and ask for forgiveness. After speaking with several clinicians
and therapists who have victims of Rabbi Max as quiet suffers because no one
would believe them, and after hearing victims themselves, most of whom have
no interest in having their names publicized and no axe to grind publicly, it is
clear that we don’t know the full extent of the story.
...
Can anyone verify this?
ReplyDeletePinny Lipschutz is running around saying R' Dovid Soloveitchik called the arrest of the Yerushalmi woman who injured her child an "alilas dam" aka blood libel.
And even if it is true why is Pinny conveniently ignoring sensible opinions to the contrary from R' Nosson Tzvi Finkel and others?
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/07/31/after-182-billion-taxpayer-rescue-is-aig-on-the-verge-of-colla/
ReplyDeleteAfter $182 billion taxpayer rescue, is AIG on the verge of collapse?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1200059/pigs-sea.html#ixzz0Lzc2lKPW
ReplyDeleteIf I get kicked out of South Fallsburg, Applegrad says he can get me a spot in this place.
Mich. man jailed for assault during Monopoly game
ReplyDeleteThu, 30 Jul 2009 06:04 pm
AP - A game of Monopoly has landed a Michigan man in jail. WDIV-TV reported a 54-year-old man was playing the board game Saturday night with a female friend when he tried to buy Park Place and Boardwalk from her.
Pinny Lipshitz is like the immature kids in yeshivishe high schools who are chalashing to get into Brisk and always make a point of mentioning AJ and various associations with Brisk.
ReplyDeleteHe plays the same game defending Rubashkin writing that the Agri rav hamachshir Weissmandel told him some vort from R' Berel.
Pinny also looks at it as a marketing tool thinking the oylam will take his shtussim seriously if he drags in a mention of Brisk.
Peter Cammarano III, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., who was arrested July 23 in a huge state corruption sweep, resigned effective at noon on Friday
ReplyDeleteCammarano declared to FBI informant Solomon Dwek that, once in office, he would divide the world into three categories: “the people who were with us” all along, “the people who climbed aboard in the runoff,” and those who were “against us the whole way.”
Of this last group, the complaint quotes him as saying, “They get ground into powder.”
Although Brisk holds that Tzionim are choshud on retzicha, something doesn't sound right to me as Briskers are also careful to get facts from reliable sources, otherwise known in Brisker sforim as the ubiquitous "Ish Neeman".
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Tzionim would go azoy veit here to doctor videotapes and I don't think R' Dovid would go that route either.
Filed at 11:32 a.m. ET
ReplyDeleteLONDON (AP) -- The British government said Friday that it plans to ban private organ transplants from dead donors to allay fears that prospective recipients can buy their way to the front of the line.
Three Bank of America Directors Resign
ReplyDelete07/31/09 - 05:35 PM EDT
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (TheStreet) -- Three Bank of America(BAC Quote) directors have resigned, the firm disclosed Friday in an SEC filing.
The putz doesn't mention that his brother Mark Borovitz is a convicted fraudster.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jstandard.com/index.php/content/item/9247
Rabbi Neal Borovitz of Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge ... is “absolutely appalled” when rabbis cross the line into criminal behavior. “I have the sense that within their own communities they live according to Torah,” he said, and that somehow they think the ethical precepts don’t apply in their relations with the secular world.
“There is one law for everyone,” he said. Jewish teaching doesn’t say “don’t steal from Jews, it says don’t steal.”
When rabbis are arrested, it’s a “shanda,” an embarrassment to the Jewish community at large. “I find it tragic,” Borovitz said.
Borovitz said he will be raising the issue in his sermons, and it is an especially relevant subject in view of the timing — the season of introspection that begins with Tisha B’Av and culminates with the High Holy Days.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/federal_authorities_issue_subp.html
ReplyDeleteFeds search for more as N.J. corruption investigation widens
by Josh Margolin and Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger
Thursday July 30, 2009, 5:05 AM
Seeking more evidence and, perhaps, additional targets, federal investigators have issued a flurry of subpoenas in connection with a wide-ranging corruption investigation that has rapidly altered New Jersey's political landscape.
Officials in Hoboken, Jersey City and Ridgefield -- communities where mayors were led away in handcuffs last week -- confirmed Wednesday they have received subpoenas demanding records, e-mails and letters connected to those arrested and to any development projects they allegedly discussed with a wire-wearing FBI informant.
Additional subpoenas were served at town hall in Secaucus, where Mayor Dennis Elwell resigned following his arrest, and at the state Legislature in Trenton, according to legislative and law enforcement officials.
Many also called for the resignation of Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who has not been charged but who was heard on tape meeting with the informant in a Jersey City luncheonette to discuss development approvals.
After the council meeting, a trembling and flushed Healy told a throng of reporters he had no intention of stepping down.
Earlier in the morning, about 50 people demonstrated outside City Hall, chanting and hoisting signs that called for Healy, Vega and others named in court documents to step down.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
ReplyDeleteClunkers program dents used-car sales
Dealers cry foul over ‘government handout’ to competition
Sacramento Business Journal - by Melanie Turner Staff writer
New-car dealers say the cash-for-clunkers program has helped jump-start sales, but financially strapped used-car dealers say the federal program could drive them out of business.
Barry Tannenbaum is laughing all the way to the bank. He defrauded half of South Africa in a ponzi scam and got his money out of the country before escaping to Australia. Now the politically correct Australian government won't extradite him back because South Africa is too tough on criminals for their liking.
ReplyDeletethough pinny IS a putz, I have it on reliable sources that r' dovid said that too. ( I heard this b4 pinny printed it) & regarding r'nosson tzvi etc. they didn't comment about the case itself but to denounce attending violent hafganos....
ReplyDeleteFallsburg’s former fire chief cradled his eight-month-old son in his arms and kissed his sobbing fiance on Tuesday after he was sentenced to prison in a conspiracy to burn down a bungalow.
ReplyDeleteJames Smith, 34, a longtime volunteer firefighter, was sentenced to 2-to-6 years on the top charge of arson after admitting to encouraging his uncle, described as mentally disabled, to burn down the Skopps colony bungalow on Laurel Avenue on Aug. 29. He was also sentenced on a lesser charge of conspiracy.
“He put the life of his firefighters in jeopardy and the lives of the community in jeopardy,” Judge Frank LaBuda said before imposing the sentence.
The uncle, Edward Smith, 44, who actually burned down the unoccupied bungalow, was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years. The judge, the prosecutor and his attorney, Stephan Schick, described him in court as being mentally disabled.
James and Edward both lived at the bungalow colony. James was the caretaker, and Edward did odd jobs for him.
Authorities say James hatched the plan to provide a training opportunity for the fire department, and instructed Edward on how to make it look like an electrical fire. The bungalow was going to be torn down.
James Smith’s attorney, Joel Proyect, said James casually mentioned the idea to Edward, who carried it out. As soon as James found out about the fire, he cooperated with police.
“It was an offhand, stupid remark he made,” Proyect said. “It was 10 seconds of his life.”
James Smith’s distraught fiance, Sonia Hatt, while standing outside the courtroom, said the two were sleeping when the fire broke out.
“The fire chief didn’t do it,” she said. “He is innocent.”
James Smith didn’t say anything or react to the sentence. Hatt brought their infant into the courtroom. Smith hugged the baby and kissed his fiance. His wrists were shackled behind his back and he was taken to jail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/nyregion/02demo.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteI never massered on anyone to save my own skin.
Recently, Rabbi Yair Hoffman wrote an opinion piece on another website. He was commenting on the Assifa and described what he considered "the Elephant in the room". He believes that the lack of education, beyond the ability to read, write and do math, is responsible for the crimes plaguing Yidden and perpertrated by Yidden. With great respect, I ask Rabbi Hoffman to go through the universities and colleges of this nation and publish his finding regarding the required ethics, moral behavior, and adherence to the law of the land courses that he finds. Not Plato and Socraties. Not the sociology of human relations. Not business law. The courses that an institution of higher learning requires to instill in their students the moral and ethical responsibility required to live in this nation as law abiding and productive citizens. I ask that he enlist the help of graduates of higher learning, such as Chaim Dovid Zweibel, Steven Mostofsky, Pesach Lerner and others educated beyond mesivta for their recollections of sitting and being instilled by their professors with a higher purpose. The elephant in the room, he may find, is not the ABC's but the entitlement that we have accustomed ourselves to and that we perpetuate by honoring those who have made more of entitlement than of effort. I await his findings.
ReplyDelete