Introduction:
I am not a historian, but the information that I intend to share with you in this and future posts, reflect an unbiased and accurate picture of Torah Vodaath post the passing of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ztvk"l. It is information that I gathered firsthand from people that were directly involved in the yeshiva. It is what a psychiatrist would call repressed memories, that come back to haunt you when certain triggers are set off.
There are no books to sell here, there will be no sensationalism for that end, or manufactured half-truths because of any particular agenda, or outright lies to distort the record. This is the correct historical record for the present and future generations, painting a picture of the distortion of the legacy of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz's vision for American Orthodox Judaism, fueled by corruption, greed, thievery, incompetence, by no less a figure than one he trusted and appointed menahel of the yeshiva.
There are many lessons to be learned.
First and foremost; the rewriting of history by booksellers must forever be depicted for what they are, booksellers for a profit. Sensationalism, the turning of humans into gods sells; agenda-driven rewriting the lives of rabbinic historical figures, must be exposed for the naked profiteering that has dominated the Orthodox Jewish world for at least the last twenty years. Much of the information will shock many because of the brutal honesty, but there will be no compromise of the facts for any one's benefit, nor am I concerned about creating additional enemies. I don't care now, nor did I really ever care.
This post is not about me, but as I present the facts, please do bear in mind, that ever since I could speak, I voiced my opinion on just about everything; and my life was shaped by the vast array of cumulative unique experiences, not the least being blessed to be born into my family.
Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (RSFM) ztvk"l passed away in 1948, and entrusted Yeshivah Torah Vodaath to four people. Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky (RYK), Rav Reuvain Grozofsky (RRG) as roshei hayeshiva, Rav Alexander Linchner (RAL - the financial rosh yeshiva and secular studies principal - a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim), and Rav Gedalya Schorr (RGS) as menahel of the yeshiva, (Rav Nesannel Quinn was to be the day to day principal of the high school or mesifta.)
Their duties were clear; RYK and RRG were in charge of the Yeshiva and it's policies, whether it pertained to chinuch, curriculum, admittance, and all policies that affected the yeshiva, including Bais Medrash Elyon -- the post-graduate division and kollel in an (obscure) town called Monsey, N.Y., directly or indirectly. RAL and RGS were to take instruction from the two roshei hayeshiva. RRG was to be the rosh yeshiva heading Torah Umesorah and Bais Medrash Elyon. Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky was charged with leading Torah Vodaath, and assisting him was to be Rabbis Linchner and Schorr. All in all, there was no doubt as to whom the leadership of the yeshiva was left to, the two senior Rosh Yeshivas. That was the will Of Rav Mendlowitz.
RSFM's passing left a void in the yeshiva; one person in the hanhala told me it was like coming home to a house after the levaya, trying to avoid the left-over belongings of the deceased. The pain was deep, but the yeshiva had to function in the shadows left by perhaps the greatest visionary of Orthodox Jewry in the United States ever, particularly in the Yeshiva world.(I'm not factoring in the large number of chassidim and the greatness of too few of their Rebbes that immigrated after the War.)
RSFM's greatness of machshava is apparent now more than ever for the "blueprints" that he left, how an American yeshiva bochur should be educated.
The two roshei yeshiva, RYK and RRG were from the same school of Litvish thought and background, RAL was born in America, went to Europe to learn under the Chofetz Chaim, RGS was born in Poland to Gerrer Chassidim, came to America as a youngster and was a student of Torah Vodaath, but traveled to Europe to learn by Rav Aaron Kotler for a brief period in the 1930s and came back to America before the decade was up.
It did not take long for the personalities of three of the roshei yeshiva to begin showing signs of discontent with Gedalya Schorr, the designated menahel.
The first public flashpoint came in a meeting held circa 1956, regarding the deepening financial crisis facing the yeshiva. Rav Reuvain Grozovsky, zechuso yagen aleinu, had a stroke and was immobilized and unable to speak, but attended the meeting.
Benjamin Feldman had recently taken the helm of the board of directors; he was a financially successful rag merchant in lower Manhattan. But nobody ever accused him of being smart.
At that meeting, Feldman proposed selling the house that Rebbetzin Mendlowitz a"h lived in at the time, after he would be sub-dividing it from Bais Medrash Elyon in Monsey. All in the room were shocked at this proposal except Gedalya Schorr, who was aware in advance of Feldman's proposition, and assured Feldman that he would support him.
The room broke out into a war zone. Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky stormed out, Rabbi Reuvain Grozofsky could not speak but tears flowed out of his eyes while his body trembled. Rabbi Alexander Linchner and Mr.Binyomin Wilhelm confronted Feldman, and Wilhelm to his everlasting credit, smashed Feldman over the head with a chair. Feldman was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
To be continued....
what a sick world we live in. what about the mitzvah of not oppressing the widow?
ReplyDeleteis it like kolodny about not going to arko'oys.
these frummies are big, humungous fakes!
how is it that the yeshiva is in the hands of so many menuvolim like belsky, reisman his lacky etc today?
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB125132312054961821.html
ReplyDeleteThe FBI knew Shlomo Dwek was breaking the law as early as 9 years ago but didn't pursue him over it.
Mayseh avos siman lebonim.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to smash a chair over Feivy's head!
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford rebuffed his lieutenant governor's call for him to resign, saying he will not be "railroaded" out of office and plans to finish the last 16 months of his term. Sanford in June admitted having an affair with an Argentine woman, a revelation that led to questions about the legality of his travel on state, private and commercial planes. Lt. Gov. André Bauer called Wednesday for him to step down, saying, "The serious misconduct that has been revealed along with lingering questions and continuing distractions make it virtually impossible for our state to solve the critical problems we're facing without a change in leadership."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand R' Menashe Klein.
ReplyDeleteHe says he heard Sefer Nishmas Avrohom says beshem R' Shlomo Zalman, the Tzitz Eliezer and lbc"l Rav Elyashev that molesters must be handed over to the police BUT HE DOESN"T HAVE THE SEFER TO LOOK IT UP.
Menashe Hakuttun's beis medrash is just down the Avenue from Biegeleisen seforim store where he can buy or browse the sefer.
I'm being dan lekaf zechus that he is losing it in his old age.
R'Gedalya Schorr was born to a Ruzhiner chosid not Ger.
ReplyDeleteHis relationship with Ger started with his marriage to his wife who's maiden name was Izby from Detroit.Her father was a devoted Gerrer Chosid.RG'S came to the USA at the age of 12 approx.
Just for the record
When did Margo commence driving a bus or mopping floors for Torah Vodaas?
ReplyDeletePatience Everyone...
ReplyDeleteWe have waited a long time for this story. Let the man write.
PS-Margo isn't even a pimple on anyone's radar yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/fashion/27SKIN.html?pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteGetting “good hair” often means transforming one’s tightly coiled roots; but it is also more freighted, for many African-American women and some men, than simply a choice about grooming. Straightening hair has been perceived as a way to be more acceptable to certain relatives, as well as to the white establishment.
Although legions of black women in America straighten their hair (including Michelle Obama), hair salons specializing in natural styles have proliferated, and more black women are working with their virgin hair. Many wear their twists, locks or teenie-weenie Afros (known as TWAs) with an attitude — proud to have not given in to the pressure to straighten hair.
Patricia Gaines, the founder of Nappturality.com, a pro-natural Web site, points out that dyeing one’s Afro puffs or double-strand twists blond isn’t viewed as conforming to a Euro-centric look. “It’s never been about color with black women,” she said, referring to the tint of one’s hair. “If it’s blond hair and it’s nappy, it’s still nappy.” (A term she uses proudly, though some use it as a slur.)
For Professor Banks, making a choice is crucial, not the resulting hairstyle. “If a black woman makes a choice to relax her hair, or to cut all her hair off, or just do nothing to it, it’s empowering to make that choice,” she said, noting that black women on plantations didn’t have that luxury.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125132927204562111.html#mod=article-outset-box
ReplyDeleteOne of Boog's favorite rabbis having problems with his next-door neighbor.
Mayor Wildes is an orthodox Jew.
They are also backing his anti-Israel agenda.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forward.com/articles/112554/
WASHINGTON — President Obama appealed to a group of rabbis to help him pass health care reform legislation.
“I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” Obama said on the conference call on Wednesday, according to Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim congregation in Alexandria, Va. Moline was quoted by the Washington Jewish Week, which was tracking the rabbi’s posts from the social networking Web site Twitter.
“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama said. The president concluded by wishing the rabbis a “Shanah Tovah.”
Moline later deleted the Twitter feed, saying that it was a “huge mistake.” The conference call, organized by the Reform movement but including about 1,000 rabbis of all denominations, was supposed to have been off the record.
Times Herald-Record
ReplyDeleteAugust 27, 2009
MONROE — The big house set back in the woods at the end of Cliff Court has been a source of mystery and irritation for neighbors on the quiet cul de sac in recent months.
Vehicles come and go at all hours, and several times, whole groups of them have sped up the driveway with emergency lights flashing.
Once, the Hasidic boys who study at a makeshift school inside the house spilled out into the neighborhood in pursuit of a bear.
And perhaps the oddest: Neighbors have watched drivers pass black, plastic garbage bags from one vehicle to another at night at the end of the driveway.
What's going on at 21 Cliff Court?
At the moment, it's clear that a school is operating there, although neither the owner of the house nor the men running the school will discuss it.
The Town of Monroe building inspector concluded as much on Aug. 3, when he counted four boys outside and spied 11 black hats inside by peering through a garage window.
He wound up citing the owner for converting the three-car garage and basement into classrooms without building permits, along with six other code violations.
That hasn't stopped classes. On Wednesday morning, despite the violations and a foreclosure cloud over the property, teenage boys could be seen studying inside the garage. One was sent outside to report that no adults wanted to answer questions.
Isidor Landau, the Spring Valley man who bought the newly built house for $800,000 in 2004, later referred questions to his attorney, whom he wouldn't identify.
The property remains in the hands of a limited-liability corporation Landau transferred it to, although the mortgage company that lent him and his wife $640,000 for the house foreclosed on it in June, claiming that payments stopped last year.
It's unclear what town approvals, aside from building permits, were needed to create a school in the house, which the town classifies as a single-family home with an accessory apartment and taxes accordingly. Property-tax bills totaled nearly $29,000 last year.
Neighbors say the house — one of eight on the block — initially was used to board some of the Eastern European women who clean homes in neighboring Kiryas Joel.
http://www.forward.com/articles/112920/
ReplyDeleteNow I get it.
Shmarya is friends with the frey anti-frum "rabbi" Andy Bachman.
Bachman & Reform leader Eric Yoffie have been attacking Birthright Israel as a trojan horse for kiruv. It drives them nuts that Birthright & JEC on the Upper East Side is funded by billionaire Michael Steinhardt who wants to frum to set the agenda even though he is personally an atheist. So basically what these shnorrers are doing is not giving a red cent while whining that they should be given power in these organizations.
Shmarya has been attacking Steinhardt and Birthright lately over various issues which I suspect is in concert with Bachman. Bachman is a shnorrer and kovod zucher who is in cahoots with the King of them all, Shmarya. The two clowns quote each other on their blogs.
Hey! I'm from Englewood, New Jersey!
ReplyDeleteI would let that tinhorn dictator Ghaddaffi into town if I can cut a deal to get the OU into Libya!
Was there a purpose in being metzyir the almana of RSFM or was it just for the heck of it? Did they want the real estate for profit or did someone want to live in the house?
ReplyDeleteI would like to thank Rabbi Genack for appointing me as managing editor of the new OU Press.
ReplyDeleteMy credentials as someone who fudges the truth when need be must have really helped my resume.
Was there a purpose in being metzyir the almana of RSFM or was it just for the heck of it?
ReplyDelete*
The yeshiva needed money for sure, but it was the first blatant attempt by Gedalya Schorr through the Board, to "grab" control of the finances, which of course would give Schorr and the Board control of the yeshiva.
Why would the board listen to Schorr? Were they promised a cut? And surely some board members must have been opposed or suspicious and tipped off R' Yaakov and the others.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/27/arts/AP-US-Real-Life-Law-Order.html
ReplyDeleteJustine Faeth's favorite show is ''Law & Order Special Victims Unit.'' The Manhattan office assistant recently used sleuthing skills she picked up from the show to help police catch a man accused of a string of robberies.
The suspect walked into the production company where Faeth works. Police say he stole an employee's purse, an iPod and a wallet.
Before leaving, he drank water and blew his nose. Faeth saved the cup and tissue. Investigators used DNA samples from the items to track down and arrest a suspect.
On Thursday, Faeth appeared on NBC's ''Today'' show. Actress Mariska Hargitay, who plays a ''Law & Order'' detective, called in to express her ''awe.'' They even discussed the possibility of Faeth doing a walk-on.
Gumshoe:
ReplyDeleteI'll get back with you.
As you know many are interested in the history of Orthodoxy and how it developed in the postwar years. Your revelations about YTV will be an important part of the story.So far the story you tell is every bit as exciting and interesting as you said it would be. I am confident I am speaking for many others in expressing our gratitude for this narrative. Hopefully at some point others will be encouraged to say over what they know and remember of that period.
ReplyDeleteMy only puzzle so far is why in your appreciation of RSFM you omitted all mention of Binyamin Wilhem. As you know the published accounts you relied on, as well as other published material give a great deal of weight to Mr. Wilhem's contribution. What is it about Wilhem besides being the grandfather of Rabbi Belsky that ties him either to Rav Schorr or whatever elsr you find so pernicious? My intuition tells me your erasure of Wilhem is important, but my ignorance prevents me from saying much more.
why was the post on moses kolodny removed? were you also threatened with arko'oys?
ReplyDeleteI'm on the move today, I will respond to Evanston Jew and Gumshoe late tonight.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Kolodny post; I decided not to get involved in family feuds, it does not serve the community well, which was the intended purpose of this blog.
Lawsuits are no concern of mine; I always have the supporting documents.
UOJ
UOI, you are a cop out. Obviously you got pressured from the other side. The point is that the side has pressured you be honest about it.
ReplyDeleteif you felt that way, why did you publish it in the 1st place.
It is newsworthy and important for several reasons:-
1) This man has made himself into a celebrity by having Mishpocho do a write up on him last december.
2) he works for agudah
3) if you stand up for juctice, the sickening brooklyn behavior of making up lies with false allegations of child abuse and going to arko'oys needs to stop.
It is obvious that you have been pressured or bought off etc...
Police: Sex offender, wife arrested in 1991 kidnap
ReplyDeleteBy JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A woman who was snatched from a bus stop as an 11-year-old child in 1991 turned up at a California police station after 18 mysterious years, and a convicted sex offender and his wife were arrested in the kidnapping.
Jaycee Lee Dugard was reunited with her mother, who was overjoyed to learn the daughter she feared dead was actually alive and well.
It was not immediately clear how Dugard spent the 18 years since she was abducted as a blond, ponytailed child outside her South Lake Tahoe home.
Police said she recently walked into a Northern California police station with Phillip Garrido, 58, one of her alleged captors. He and his wife Nancy Garrido, 54, were arrested for investigation of kidnapping and conspiracy on Wednesday, police said.
Phillip Garrido is also being held for investigation of rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and sexual penetration, said Jimmie Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa Sheriff's Department.
Phillip Garrido has a conviction for rape by force or fear and was paroled from a Nevada state prison in 1999, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteWow !! I guess this is the opening shot. By the way, i worked for Feldman in the early 70's - one of my first jobs. If it's the same one they had a place in the SOHO district of manhattan right below Canal street.
My seat and shoulder belts are secured (i hope).
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteBelow is from the Boystown jerusalem website. Rabbi Linchner founded Boystown in 1948. I assumed that he was living in eretz yisroel at the time. So how could he be in Brooklyn at the same time ??
So obviously he wasn't living in Israel at that time. Or maybe he was there for a few months out of the year. I'm sure that you could enlighten us.
About Boys Town Jerusalem
Established in 1948 to provide a home and education for young immigrants to the newly-created State of Israel, Boys Town Jerusalem has become one of the country's largest and most respected educational institutions.
Boys Town was founded by Alexander S. Linchner, a Brooklyn-born rabbi who, after the Holocaust, devoted his life to building a school for the children of immigrants who poured into Israel from countries around the world. His goal: providing them with a quality education that would prepare them to build the State of Israel with technological skill and traditional Jewish idealism.
Today, the beautiful, 18-acre Boys Town campus in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem is one of Israel’s major technological training centers. Approximately 800 students, ranging in age from 12 to 20, live on the campus, with a capacity to house up to 1,000. The children and grandchildren of immigrants from 45 countries on six continents, they mirror the ethnic diversity of the Israeli population. More than 75% come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and require substantial scholarship assistance. No student is ever turned away from Boys Town due to inability to pay tuition.
In addition to receiving a fine technological and academic education, Boys Town students are deeply imbued with traditional Jewish values and ideals, and pride in their Jewish heritage. As a result, Boys Town graduates are proud to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and then go on to build fine Jewish homes and families, while making important contributions to their communities and the State of Israel. Among Boys Town’s more than 6,200 graduates are many engineers, technicians, educators, fine craftsmen and professionals.
And from your previous post...
ReplyDeleteRav Shraga Feivel took seriously ill in 1948. He was an ardent zionist; he urged his son in-law, Rabbi Alexander Linchner, to go to Israel and save the Sephardi children from secularism. Boys Town Jerusalem was established in 1949, the largest yeshiva/trade school of its kind anywhere in the world.
There is a din in Shulchan Aruch that is mechayev being mefarsem against Kolodny, regardless of whether it stems out of a personal dispute or not.
ReplyDeleteAlso take note that Rebbi Akiva Eiger offen ort says that anyone motzee mammon with goyishe court becomes possul l'eidus as well.
And just who is Kolodny? He's Zweibel's shick yingel who covers up various documents as they view us peons in Klal Yisroel as being on a need-to-know basis.
UOJ, you have railed against the Agudah's selective suppression of information and hard copy documents. Why give Kolodny a free pass now when he's between a rock & a hard place? Kolodny is a farce as the definition of archive is records that are open to the public.
Gumshoe:
ReplyDeleteThe reality was that the board of YTV at the time controlled the checkbook, which is a good idea for a yeshiva to do provided the board knows what they're doing.
Feldman needed Schorr, and Schorr was smart enough to manipulate Feldman for his own purposes, which was to take control of the Yeshiva.
At the time, as Malach Hamovies pointed out, Rabbi Linchner was commuting between Israel and New York regularly, R' Reuvain was deathly ill, and Schorr knew it was just a matter of time until his number came up. So he calculated that siding with the board was the way to get where he wants to go.
I played chess with RGS during a few summers in Camp Torah Vodaath (as well as Leibel Reznick); each game took a week (about 45 minutes a day). R' Schorr was a very patient and brilliant man. The idea of sub-dividing BME, once again rose its ugly head years later, when Louis Septimus was chairman of the board.
Evanston:
Mr.Wilhelm was indeed a very important figure in the founding of YTV and was close to RSFM; after 1948, his role in the yeshiva was non-eventful, and was marginalized by the "new money people". By the time the "war" broke out in YTV, full scale in the sixties, Wilhelm was an old man and out of the loop.
Malach:
Boys Town was founded after RSFM's petirah in 1948, perhaps RAL did indeed conceptualize BTJ right after that. I'm fairly certain that the doors opened in 1949, initially with Rav Quinn (his brother in-law) as co-founder. He had dual residences and commuted between them until the late fifties when he left YTV altogether.
More for another time.
There is a din in Shulchan Aruch that is mechayev being mefarsem against.....
ReplyDelete***
It is not smart for me to get involved in personal feuds; people are sending me all kinds of copies of hazmanas and other legal documents on their matters.
I made an error in posting the dispute, am not ashamed to admit that after reconsideration, the error in my judgment was glaring, so I took it down.
Better story. Would you be interested in posting Hazmanos issued to a leading yeshiva, one that you have posted against the titular head, saying that it is a waste of time to show up at a Bais Din? I can email you the details.
ReplyDeleteUOJ,
ReplyDeleteRe: RAL - That's what i thought. Thanks for the clarification and of course for providing historical accuracy.
And as you mentioned there is much more...
You should then have a seperate website then to publicize all those people who break shulchan oruch and especially all those botei din and toyanim, borreirim and dayonim who break shulchan poruch. I believe you are part of the establishment no matter how much you deny it, the only way to clean up the arko'oys and bais din system is to have a HALL OF SHAME and by not doing it you are personally responsible for the most wicked aveiros and genaivahs because you are in a position to change things.
ReplyDeleteYou are turning into a charlatan, you have no right to run away from your responsibilities.
let the public decide what is legitimate, stop being paternalistic, set up a seperate but linked website. Let the Agudah, Satmar, and all the corrupt rabbis and those who frequent them like prostitutes be exposed. otherwise, you are exactly the same as those whom you knock, identical but worse because you will be a hypochrite.
Incitement to Murder
ReplyDeleteThe New Republic
Published: August 27, 2009
Israelis are furious about an article printed in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet last week accusing the Israeli army of killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. The article linked accusations supposedly made by several Palestinians in the early 1990s with the arrest of a Brooklyn Jew several weeks ago on charges of illegal trafficking in organs.
Never mind that the author of the Aftonbladet article readily admits that he has no proof connecting the Brooklyn arrest with his charges—or that the Palestinians he quoted in his article have since denied making those accusations in the first place. In the current discourse in Europe on the Middle East conflict, the most outrageous lies about Israel become credible. No real proof is required to accuse the Jewish state of crimes that seem to be dredged from Europe’s oldest and darkest fantasies about the Jews. It is Israel’s responsibility to prove it is innocent.
The scandal would not have been possible without decades of one-sided reporting about the Middle East conflict, along with increasing demonization in recent years. When Israel is repeatedly cited in the Swedish media as the main obstacle to peace, when Swedish churches single out Israel as a target for boycott, the inevitable result is a resurrection of anti-Semitic motifs. In critiquing Israel, there are no longer standards or shame.
Lena Posner, president of the Official council of Jewish Communities in Sweden, described Israel’s response to the Aftonbladet affair as disproportionate, and even appeared to defend the Swedish government’s silence, the Israeli effort was substantially undermined.
Accusations like the Swedish blood libel aren’t just a threat to Israel’s good name, but could become a physical threat to Jews everywhere. The Israeli “crimes” raised by Aftonbladet are precisely the kind of rationale used by terrorists to incite violence against Jews. In the current atmosphere, where the most inconceivable conspiracy theories involving Jews are readily believed by millions in the Muslim world, Aftonbladet’s recklessness is, potentially, an incitement to murder. The Israeli government should treat it as such.
R' Yudel Shain posts copies of seruvim all the time, including the one against Kolodny.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think you erred and "glowingly" so? Because Perlman was also behaving badly? You could point that out without taking sides.
This is a din Shulchan Aruch and a very easy mitzva to chapp arein.
Reuters
ReplyDeleteOf all the cottage industries you might expect to find in the West Bank, the crocheting of Jewish skullcaps by Palestinian hands seems one of the oddest.
But creating the colorful cap, known in Hebrew as a "kippah", keeps hundreds of women busy in villages like Deir Abu Meshal, which have been making the religious headgear for their Jewish neighbors for some 40 years.
Almost every house in the village of 3,000 west of Ramallah makes the little caps. It's a social event as well as a helpful cash-earner. Women bring their wool and needles to each other's home to crochet and chat.
"We make qors (the Arab name for kippah translates as 'disc') while having a gossip," said Umm Ali. "We meet each other and we make money at the same time," added the mother of three, whose husband is unemployed.
The women make around five caps a day, worth about 12 shekels ($3) each.
"Women here can't sit down without knitting. We've gotten used to it," jokes Ruqaya Barghouthi.
Six Palestinian skullcap dealers distribute the wool, needles and the models to women in this village and 10 neighboring villages.
The finished articles are collected each week and shipped to Israeli retailers. The skullcaps are also exported to the United States.
"The kippah business is what makes my shop busy. Women buy stuff from the kippah money they earn," said Riyad Ata, whose grocery store serves as a collection point for finished caps from some 100 women.
Observant Jews wear a kippah, which means dome in Hebrew, to cover the head in acknowledgement of the supreme God.
The women of Deir Abu Meshal, known for its traditional dress embroidery, say that to them it's merely a business.
They say they have no qualms about furnishing skullcaps for the people of the occupying power or the Jewish settler, who may be living on Palestinian land.
They say the work is convenient: they don't have to travel.
"Without this knitting business, people here would be very poor," said Nema Khamis, 50, who passed on her skills to her five daughters and daughter-in-law.
Palestinian weavers used to make the traditional keffiyeh, the chequered Arab headscarf that late leader Yasser Arafat made a national Palestinian symbol. But much of that business has now gone to China, where costs are lower.
I agree with UOJ's decision to remove the post.
ReplyDeleteHere's my two cents regarding the current rise in cases of divorce in the frum community. These days every husband is accused of "abuse". It's the catch-all phrase used nowadays which means "my husband is an asshole". If you look at your wife crooked you've abused her. If you weren't in a good mood or didn't thank her properly for dinner you've abused her. Tav lmeisav is dead, unfortunately. If women today don't get their storybook marriage to Prince Charming, it's off to court. It doesn't matter if kids are involved -- she needs to get away from the horrible abuse no matter what the cost to the children. Many of these women suffered from depression (or worse) for years before they got married, but that doesn't matter. It's now all the husband's fault. 9-11 was also the husband's fault. Psychologists and therapists can't help, because the second they say something to the wife that she doesn't like, she's out the door.
We can learn musser haskail from him. Adam ki yamus baohel.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/nyregion/28tent.html
Colonel Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, will be coming next month to address the United Nations, and logistics are complicated by the Bedouin-style tent he uses to greet visitors.
Qaddafi wanted to plunk his tent in Central Park, but New York officials rejected the idea. Next was the Libyan-owned estate on Palisade Ave.
Many Americans are incensed at the Libyan leader for his sponsorship of terrorists & prefer that he not come at all. Englewood is a city with a large Orthodox Jewish population, a community that particularly detests Qaddafi because Israel has been a favored target of terror.
In fact, Englewood’s largest yeshiva is right next door to the estate. Another neighbor is Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has strode the national stage on Oprah Winfrey, acting as a mentor to Michael Jackson & writing the book “Kosher Sex”. His Web site bills him as “Rabbi Shmuley, America’s Rabbi.”
On Wednesday, the rabbi addressed reporters on his lawn. He sounded like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca” lamenting, “Of all the gin joints in the world, she walks into mine.”
The rabbi said, “When you have a financier of terror moving in, it’s very unnerving.”
What's more, workers installing a 2,000-foot black metal fence around the Libyan compound have cut down 10 of his trees & his chain-link fence. He is considering a lawsuit.
It's still not clear that Qaddafi will visit Englewood. Rep. Steve Rothman, the area’s congressman, said he had been told by the White House & State Department that Libya had not decided where Qaddafi would stay.
Mr. Rothman said that when the Libyan government bought the 5-acre estate in 1982, it signed an agreement that the only residents there would be the Libyan ambassador, his family & a maintenance worker. Englewood officials concede the agreement would not restrict a guest camping out on the lawn.
For the past decade, no one seemed to be living on the estate, and it was allowed to go to seed, with overgrown shrubs & grass. On Wednesday, with an armada of trucks parked on the grounds, it was clear that new sod & a lawn-sprinkler system were to be installed & that the roof on the house — a 3-story, 25-room structure known as Thunder Rock — was being replaced with red stone. Because of damage to neighboring properties, the city issued a stop-work order, but it has been visibly ignored.
“They don’t care how much money they spend on fines because they have an endless supply of oil money,” said Rabbi Boteach, 42.
Rabbi Boteach, 3 congregational rabbis & Mayor Michael Wildes have called for a rally on Sunday to protest the Libyan visit.
It was hard to find anyone along Palisade Ave who was happy about the visit.
“I’ve heard, he’s a terrible guy, and I don’t know whether he should be living in Englewood,” said Osidis Fernandez, manager of a clothing store, who was having lunch at Englewood Bagel Cafe.
Mr. Wildes said he had been receiving 100s of calls & e-mails from upset residents. Salt, he said, was rubbed in earlier wounds by the extravagant Libyan welcome given last week to Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, released from prison after having been convicted of the 1988 bombing of a jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. Mr. Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, was released on compassionate grounds. The Libyan government had assumed responsibility for “the actions of its officials” & had agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to victims.
Mr. Wildes said “I have every problem with a person who admittedly blew up a plane killing 38 New Jersey residents & has the audacity to give a hero’s welcome to a terrorist. To remove his rubbish free of charge is insulting.”
The rubbish remark was a reference to the city’s unresolved battle to collect taxes on the estate. The Libyans have claimed diplomatic properties are exempt. Mr. Wildes said a visit by Qaddafi would cost $20,000 a day in police overtime & other expenses.
9:46
ReplyDeleteMaybe boys and their parents be taught that Barbie is a dangerous concept.
Wives don't feel abused when they are not complimented or thanked, ONLY when they are torn to bits by their husband and his family's warped values. When Size 3 is FAT, and the stooge and his parents "know" what styles are PRITZUS, and "know" how a sheitel is "supposed" to look, AND ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO VERBALIZE IT, THEN it IS abuse. When the husband gives "PUNISHMENTS" when his wife does something his Royal Highness doesn't like, THAT is abuse. When a husband and his family THREATEN OR INFLICT bodily injury, that IS abuse.
Bais Din is the WRONG place to turn to get out abusive situations, receive the neccesary protection, and regain their dignity. Wives who are willing to choose the STIGMA of divorce, rather than the ABUSE (in every imaginable way) of themselves and children at the hand of the husband and his family, deserve ALL THE CREDIT IN THE WORLD.
If what YOU claim is true, WHY ARE YOU S-C-A-R-E-D TO GO TO COURT????
9:46 and 11:44 are both correct.
ReplyDeleteMen AND women can be abusive and both use the special skills they were endowed with to perpetrate the abuse.
And yes, there are women who falsely claim abuse when none exists except her own and has her creative roster of unwarranted "punishments" to manipulate her significant other.
The Associated Press - 14 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteLOS ANGELES - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Monterey counties as wildfires burn large areas and threaten homes.
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The jackpot for tonight’s drawing in the Mega Millions multistate lottery rose by $8 million to $333 million because ticket sales were stronger than expected, said Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the New York Lottery.
ReplyDeleteThe odds of winning the prize, the second-biggest in North American lottery history, are about 1 in 176 million.
New York State authorities are investigating reports that a Leopold Margulies has been hoarding tickets at Brooklyn bodegas, allegedly with funds drawn from a non-profit organization at 555 Ocean Parkway.
The matter came to the attention of authorities, according to witnesses, after a mysterious figure with a brown beard showed up at a political function earlier this week and handed a large envelope containing documents and photographs to NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The Attorney General's office would not comment on the encounter.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13219200?source=most_viewed
ReplyDeleteIf there was ever an argument to castrate child molesters or keep them locked up their entire lives, the time is now.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid14868457001?bctid=35659319001
ReplyDeleteNeighbors called the Sheriff about girls living in Garrido's backyard but nothing was done.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=15269622&ch=4226713&src=news
ReplyDeleteYou can run but you can't hide!
Plenty of properties to dig up.
ReplyDeleteBy TERRY COLLINS, Associated Press Writer – 4 mins ago
ANTIOCH, Calif. – The twisted kidnapping case of a woman held captive for 18 years in a secluded backyard compound took another disturbing turn Friday as authorities searched the home of her alleged captor for evidence in the murders of several prostitutes and new evidence surfaced of missed opportunities to arrest him years ago.
Officers executed a search warrant at Phillip Garrido's Antioch home for clues in the unsolved slayings, Contra Costa sheriff's Capt. Daniel Terry said.
Several of the murdered women's bodies were dumped near an industrial park where Garrido, a sex offender, worked during the 1990s.
Garrido and his wife, Nancy, were charged Friday with kidnapping 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard in 1991. Authorities said they held her and two children she had with Garrido as prisoners in a backyard encampment.
Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf said a neighbor reported three years ago there were people living in tents in a backyard encampment at the home of Garrido.
The deputy who interviewed Garrido in November 2006 gave him a warning that people living outdoors was a code violation. The deputy did not go into the backyard of the house located in an unincorporated area of Antioch, about 45 miles northeast of San Francisco, Rupf said.
More suspicion and curiosity on the deputy's part could have uncovered the secret encampment where Dugard allegedly was held, he said.
They "missed an opportunity" and there are "absolutely no excuses," Rupf said, apologizing to the Dugard family.
The neighbor who called authorities three years ago also told them Garrido was psychotic and had a sexual addiction. Rupf said the deputy who visited the home did not know Garrido was a registered sex offender, even though the Sheriff's Department had the information.
Garrido's father, Manuel Garrido, also told The Associated Press Friday that his son is "absolutely out of his mind."
BBC News - 19 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteA man and his wife have denied abducting California woman Jaycee Lee Dugard when she was a child and holding her in their home 18 years.
Yasher Koach to David Morris, who is unquestionably a Jewish hero in the tradition of UOJ. He can wear with pride the badge of honor of having been publicly attacked by Jonathan Rosenblum. Many of us can only hope for such Kavod, and must make due with the Novominsker Rebbe's criticism at the Agudah Convention, which did not mention names. Even UOJ, who was lambasted by Rabbi Salamon at the Agudah convention, was not named.
ReplyDeletePROBLEM:
However, I must criticize Morris's choice of David Mandel as the educator of the community. Perhaps David Morris does not read UOJ and is not aware of what a fraud he is.
What would it take, UOJ, for us to educate him about the facts:
1. Mandel spoke at YTT to prop up Margolis as an honorable man, AFTER the Kolko scandal was public.
(source: UOJ)
2. Mandel allowed Stephan Colmer to "drop out of" therapy and did not alert the authorities, and Colmer went on to molest other children. (source: The Jewish Week)
3. Mandel put on a similar event to the one Morris is doing, in Baltimore where he told the parents a)not to go to the police but to go to the rabbis if their kids are molested and b) not to "look in the shadows" for stories.
(source: YouTube courtesy of the Awareness Center)
4. Mandel put out a video telling parents how to keep their kids safe but did not mention Child Protective Services or law enforcement. (source: The Forward)
5. Mandel consistently bills himself as an expert on sexual abuse (source: Morris's own press release) when he has zero training on this or any mental health issues and is an MBA and the "CEO" of Ohel, in charge of getting as much money from sources like the Mayor, by any means possible, if you know what I mean. (source: The New York Times)
6. Mandel proposed that there should be compromise in dealing with statutes of limitations for child molesters such as a one year "amnesty" not unlike tax amnesty or that for overdue library books for those who "turn themselves in". He further proposed putting a cap on what a victim of abuse can sue for. (source: The Jewish Star)
7. Mandel worked closely with the Beys Din in Lakewood to cover up for molesters that he "treated" in Ohel's sex abuse program, instead of following the law of mandated reporting to the authorities. The program in now defunct as is the Bays Din. (source: The Jewish Week and Lakewood sources)
8. Mandel, when it was reported that Ohel had paid Avraham Mondrowitz as a consultant to treat Ohel's foster care children, wrote that Ohel never "employed" him, and that Ohel "is not against" his extradition. (source Vosizneias)
9. Mandel has chosen to avoid working with Survivors for Justice, the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, UOJ, and even Dov Hikind's Task Force, and instead has set up his own program with the D.A. to continue to have molesters referred to Ohel for treatment even though there is no longer a program for such treatment. (source, VIN, D.A.'s press release, etc.)
UOJ, what would be the best way to inform David Morris and the Ramat Bet Shemesh parents that there are much better choices available who will tell the truth about the problems of abuse and what needs to be done in the community. Ohel has blown it so bad and discredited our community and has much blood on its hands. Part of educating the community about the problem of abuse is to educate them as to the institutional cover ups and denial and minimization that is done by the powers that be, first and foremost Ohel run by David Mandel. It is a perversion of all that is true to put him up as an educator on this topic, not to mention that it is also an insult to all survivors of abuse everywhere.
Why are they charging Garrido with rape? Maybe he had the two children with the girl through artificial insemination.
ReplyDeleteLaw enforcement authorities were in Phillip Garrido’s house at least three times in the last three years, but never discovered that a young woman he had allegedly abducted 18 years ago was living there along with the two children he had fathered with her, the sheriff of Contra Costa County said on Friday.
ReplyDeleteErika Pratt, 25, who lived next door to the Garridos two years ago, told The San Francisco Chronicle that she was continuously “freaked out” by Mr. Garrido’s behavior, and, when she popped her head over the fence, she had seen his secret compound. There were tents, sheds and pit bulls, she told the newspaper, and water hoses leading from her house next door.
“He had little girls and women living in that backyard, and they all looked kind of the same,” Ms. Pratt said. “They never talked, and they kept to themselves.”
Ms. Pratt said she had called Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputies to investigate, but that officers “told me they couldn’t go inside because they didn’t have a warrant. So they just told him they’d keep an eye on him.”
Ms. Dugard, 29, and her two children had apparently lived in a collection of ragged tents and sheds secreted behind the Garridos’ home.
Fred Kollar, the under sheriff for El Dorado County, where South Lake Tahoe is located, said one tent was completely sound proof. Despite a massive search for Ms. Dugard, and a story on the “America’s Most Wanted” television program, police had little clue about her whereabouts for two decades.
Does anyone know why Touro College is running an ad that has a big head shot of David Mandel on it?
ReplyDeleteAnd on a lighter note, David Mandel came on here this morning to praise the mesiras nefesh of Moammar Qaddafi.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/08/41_people_indicted_in_44_milli.html
ReplyDeleteA Beachwood man has been accused of orchestrating what officials say is the largest mortgage fraud scheme in the history of Ohio.
Uri Gofman, 36, was indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury along with 40 people and four companies in a conspiracy prosecutors say involved 453 homes in Cuyahoga County and $44 million in fraudulent loans.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that 79 percent of these homes eventually fell into foreclosure and that the scheme has contributed to the blight and loss of property values in neighborhoods where Gofman and his associates bought and sold homes.
Just over half of the homes were in Cleveland, nearly all on the city's East Side, which has been particularly devastated by foreclosures and seen home prices collapse. The foreclosures led to $787,000 in delinquent property taxes, prosecutors said.
"Gofman and his criminal associates saw Cuyahoga County as a breeding ground for fraud, capitalizing on the subprime [mortgage] industry's relaxed standards and our high rate of foreclosures," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said at a news conference in front of a home sold by Gofman on Kildare Road in Cleveland Heights.
The charges come after an 18-month investigation by the Cuyahoga County Mortgage Fraud Task Force, which is comprised of state, local and federal law enforcement officers.
The scheme, prosecutors said, involved both nonexistent and fraudulent loans and was carried out by Gofman, his friends and family, a bank loan officer, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, title agents and straw buyers who were paid to buy Gofman's houses.
Prosecutors estimate the scheme produced $31 million in illegal proceeds -- $20 million of which went to Gofman.
The indictment against Gofman includes one count of racketeering, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years, and multiple counts of theft, tampering with records, telecommunications fraud and money laundering.
Prosecutors also allege that illegal proceeds from the enterprise were deposited in European bank accounts by a Ukrainian rabbi who flew in to Cleveland, picked up large sums of cash and flew out on the same day. County prosecutors have enlisted the help of the U.S. attorney's office to recover that cash.
The rabbi was not identified by name.
According to the indictment, the fraud scheme typically worked this way:
Naum Simkhovich recruited people at his East Side synagogue to purchase houses at sheriff's sale or from banks that had taken properties back after foreclosure. Gofman and Naum Simkhovich provided the purchase money for the properties.
A company controlled by Gofman, Real Asset Fund, then filed paperwork with the Cuyahoga County recorder's office showing it lent money to the buyers to fix up the homes. Those buyers applied to a bank to have that loan refinanced.
But prosecutors say the bank loans were fraudulent because Gofman never actually lent any money. The bank-loan applications also purported that extensive repairs were done to the properties. Prosecutors allege that the applications overstated the extent of the repairs.
Fifty of those bank loans were processed at a Solon branch of First Place Bank, which is based in Warren. The loan officer, Steve Greenwald, 43, of Solon, was charged with racketeering, theft and tampering with records. Prosecutors said Greenwald earned $700,000 in salary and commissions in 2004, when the bulk of those 50 loans were made.
The indictment alleges that Gofman's brother, Igor Gofman, 47, of Beachwood, supervised crews that repaired the homes and got them ready for resale. He also has been charged with conspiracy, theft and tampering with records.
Prosecutors said Igor Gofman overstated the extent and cost of repairs to the properties, inflating their value.
Regarding the spiking divorce rates and resulting nasty custody battles they cause, there is one very wise solution. A renowned posek in town advised kallahs marrying boys from problematic mishpachas to use birth control to avoid being caught in the abuse cycle. It's a lot simpler to solve these problems before a baby is there.
ReplyDeleteDear Survivor of Abuse
ReplyDeleteThank you for your (underserved) accolade, and I appreciate the 'backgrounder' you provide on David Mandel.
Over here in Ramat Bet Shemesh we're still at ground level on child abuse, digging up some grim past, and working on building a better future community response.
I don't think there's anyone out there (correct me if I'm wrong) who has championed the cause of abused Jewish kids, and has achieved universal admiration for it. UOJ, Rav Twerski,and David Mandel..et al have evoked a decidedly mixed response from the adults. (Me too actually, come to think of it..).
Over here, we're planning a series of presentations and educational programs on this topic, and are very open to ideas for future speakers. (Even if they are controversial, such as David Mandel, and/or have made mistakes and misjudgements).
Any suggestions?
After seeing this blog I felt I needed to get my story out there. I am not trying to make Orthodox Judaism evil in my account, I am just trying to tell my story and true feelings. I have great respect for people's beliefs Orthodox or not and do not wish to make anyone seem bad.
ReplyDeleteI am 20 years old grew up Orthodox although I am not Orthodox now. I became depressed when I was 15 and was in 9th grade at Ner Israel in Baltimore. When my depression became worse in 10th grade Rabbi Tendler and Rabbi Cook (who was my Rebbi in 9th grade) decided that I should leave. I have not heard from them since. I feel that I once I became a burden because of my depression they discarded my like a piece of trash.
I then went to Talmudical Academy of Baltimore which is similar to to Ner Israel. But my depression got worse and worse until I try committing suicide multiple times and was hospitalized. Eventually I ended up in a therapeutic boarding school for my senior year of high school and stopped practicing Judaism all together.
I may or may not have become severely depressed if I wasn't Orthodox but it certainly didn't help. I got no help from Ner Israel who discarded me, or from Rabbi's and the Orthodox community in Baltimore.
Because my parents and the religious community couldn't put their religous feelings aside for a moment to help me in my battle with depression, I feel that GOD will exact punishment on them for this sin. I feel that Orthodox Judaism is at the point where the religion is the only thing that matters, and that people with differing opinions and those with isses can be discarded for the sake of worshiping GOD. It is my belief that that someone's relationship with GOD is personal and its okay to do it your own way. But what GOD will never every forgive is hurting other people and not caring for others. Loving other people and treating them equally and with respect is a basic principal of humanity. So if you can't to that you have no purpose in this world.
I have recently started a blog to write an account of my story. So if anyone is interested check it out at: http://confusedteenstory.blogspot.com/
Dear Rabbi Morris,
ReplyDeleteIn truth, there are many voices that need to be heard on this subject. Ohel has been involved in treating many survivors so regardless of their mistakes (and misjudgments), they know a lot about the problem. Perhaps their biggest ongoing mistake is in not reaching out to work together with others and attempting to monopolize the community's voice on this issue for which there needs to be a host of voices.
Having said that, it is great to hear that you are taking a different approach than many of the communities here have taken of having a one time event "telling" parents what they need to do to protect their kids.
Suggestions for educators/speakers are as follows:
Rabbi Yosef Blau, Mashgiach Ruchni of Yeshiva University, and leading rabbinical supporter of victims of abuse and thier families. He has published and spoken widely on this topic, is a huge Talmid Chacham and a courageoud leader.
Rabbi Marc Dratch, Direoctor of JSAFE and executive member of the RCA who have been at the forefront of raising community awareness.
Elliot Pasik, Dr. Asher Lipner and Bracha Goetz of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children are experts in the legal, clinical and societal issues that need to be addressed by our community for prevention of sexual abuse.
However, perhaps the people who can teach us the most are the survivors of abuse themselves.
David Framowitz, who lives in Israel, Mark Weiss and Joel Engleman as well as Joel's mom Mrs. Pearl Engelman are all people who have courageously taken on the establishment that has sought to keep the issue swept under the rug. Joel, Mark and David are the founding members of Survivors for Justice. They have spoken publicly and for the news media and have begun a community service radio advertisement campaign, and have written articles on how to prevent children from suffering what they went through.
UOJ has not made public appearances as of yet, but we are all waiting anxiously for him to "reveal himself" and to impart his knowledge and wisdom, as he has been a major leading force for change in our community. He has shown a particular interest in helping your community, as you know, as many people from there have reached out to him.
Vicki Polin, while controversial in her approach, and not orthodox herself, has likewise brought the issue of sexual abuse in the orthodox community to light possibly before anyone else, when she started the Awareness Center back in 2001. She also has Orthodox rabbis and clinicians on her board of directors such as Dr. Vivian Skolnik and Dr. Michael Salamon.
Hella Winston and Gary Rosenblatt of the Jewish Week have written and published extensively on the problems and solutions facing our community on this troubling issue.
An educational approach that utilizes the widest scope of expertise and experience is
(according to Chazal at least) the wisest, as they say "Eyzehu Chochom, Halomed Mikol Adam."
Good luck with your efforts and as UOJ would say, Chazak!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3768376,00.html
ReplyDeleteThe Tel Aviv Religious Council's ritual objects department has called on the wide public not to use a shofar (ram's horn) made in Morocco during the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
The department workers say they have examined the shofarot, thousands of which have already been distributed to stores, and discovered that they were glued with polyester - making them unfit, as far as Jewish Law is concerned.
"The import of shofarot from Morocco began last year, and we didn't realize what a big mess it would be," says North Tel Aviv Rabbi Aryeh Levin, head of the ritual object's department. Rabbi Levin notes that the Moroccan shofar can be identified according to a ring attached to its mouthpiece.
"There are two main factories in Israel which produce shofarot, in Tel Aviv and in Jaffa," adds the rabbi. "In these factories the shofarot are polished and sharpened under supervision. It's disrespectful bringing a shofar prepared by an Arab on Shabbat into a synagogue."
Avraham Ribak, owner of Bar Shehet Ribak Israel Shofarot on Tel Aviv's Nahalat Binyamin Street, says the shofarot imported from China in recent years have also been discovered as impure, embarrassing both rabbis and the public of buyers.
"The Chinese shofarot are smeared with pig fat," he says. "Several rabbis permitted the shofarot from abroad without even checking them."
Eldad Mizrachi, chairman of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Religious Council, stressed in response that "the ritual objects department's activity is preventing a great obstacle from the public. This matter must be enforced, and the law prohibiting fraud in the entire ritual objects industry should be amended if needed."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/29/INJ019DHLF.DTL
ReplyDeleteWhen he served as deputy attorney general, now Attorney General Eric Holder gave a "neutral leaning positive" recommendation that led to President Bill Clinton's pardoning of gazillionaire fugitive Marc Rich, who was on the lam in Switzerland hiding from federal charges of fraud, evading more than $48 million in taxes, racketeering and trading oil with Iran in violation of a U.S. embargo.
Holder also had a role in the 1999 Clinton pardons of 16 Puerto Rico independence terrorists - members of the bomb-happy FALN or the splinter group Los Macheteros - who had been convicted on such charges as bank robbery, possession of explosives and participating in a seditious conspiracy - even though none of the 16 had applied for clemency. As the Los Angeles Times reported, two of the 16 refused to accept the pardon - as it required them to renounce violence - while another later was killed in a shootout with federal agents.
During his confirmation hearing in January, Holder refused to explain why the Clinton Department of Justice changed its earlier position against the 16 commutations - citing Clinton's claim of executive privilege.
So you'll forgive me if I don't buy into the argument that, as a simple lawman, Holder had no choice but to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate alleged abuses during CIA interrogations of high-value detainees.
The Clinton Justice Department didn't even make the 16 terrorists disclose pertinent information about the crimes they committed, just as they tied no strings around Rich. Yet 10 years later, Holder's Justice Department won't give a break to CIA officials desperate to stop another terrorist attack.
The state of Jewish Community is in jeopardy. On one hand we lose thousands of jews every year to intermarriage. On the other hand, we fight among ourselves and shake the very foundations of our faith. What is wrong with us that for thousands years we still didn't learn our lesson and we bring the destruction upon our heads again and again.
ReplyDeleteAs I said On UOJ's Sidebar, Ehud Olmert is an honorable man! (so is Moshe Katzav)
ReplyDeleteFormer Israeli prime minister Olmert indicted
Associated Press
JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities indicted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on corruption charges Sunday, the first criminal indictment ever filed against a current or past Israeli prime minister.
Olmert, who stepped down earlier this year over the corruption issue, is accused of illegally accepting funds from an American backer, double-billing for trips abroad and concealing funds from a government watchdog.
He faces charges that include fraud and breach of trust.
The charges filed in a Jerusalem court on Sunday first surfaced when Olmert was still prime minister, although Olmert allegedly committed the offenses while serving as mayor of Jerusalem and later as a Cabinet minister, before being elected prime minister in 2006.
Olmert, who denies any wrongdoing, issued a statement through a spokesman saying he was confident his name would be cleared. "Olmert is convinced that in court he will be able to prove his innocence once and for all," the statement said.
The Justice Ministry refused to detail the length of a potential sentence, but Moshe Negbi, an Israeli legal expert, said the maximum sentence on the fraud charge alone was five years.
Any political comeback by Olmert would be highly unlikely unless he is cleared. "In the immediate future it doesn't seem possible, but it all depends on the court," Negbi said.
Two former Cabinet ministers recently sentenced in separate corruption cases have received multiple-year prison sentences. Avraham Hirchson, a former finance minister and an Olmert confidant and appointee, was sentenced to five years for embezzlement in June, and another former Cabinet minister was sentenced to four years for taking bribes.
The case that did the most damage to Olmert when he was still in office involved funds he allegedly accepted from Moshe Talansky, an American businessman who allegedly funneled large amounts of money to Olmert in cash-stuffed envelopes. Talansky's testimony last year helped turn public opinion against Olmert and played a large part in forcing him from office.
The indictment said Olmert used his connections to help Talansky's business, but did not charge Olmert with accepting bribes.
In another case, Olmert was charged with double-billing nonprofit organizations and the government for trips he took abroad and then using the extra money to pay for private trips for his family.
Olmert was replaced as prime minister in March by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. He left politics and is currently a private citizen.
The charges against Olmert were part of a slew of allegations that drove down Israeli confidence in the political system during his time in office.
In addition to the charges against Olmert's finance minister, another Cabinet minister was convicted of sexual misconduct and the country's former ceremonial president, Moshe Katzav, was charged by several women with rape and sexual harassment and is currently on trial.
is UO JEW,a grandson of RSFM ?
ReplyDeleteoes anyone know?
hey browser genius look at the 2 pictures
ReplyDeleteThere's FIRE in both their eyes, look at the eyes
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mortgagefraud.org/storage/gofman%20indictment%20all%20counts.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe Cleveland mortgage fraud saw 45 people arrested plus many more unindicted co-conspirators, many of them not mentioned in press reports.
A bunch of them are kollel yungerleit and kollel veiber from Lakewood and Cleveland (Telz and Beachwood kollel). One guy is the son of a rov who is an ish tahor and yrei Elokim. I really feel bad for the father.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/local_news/difficult_shiva_period_for_murder_victims_family/14212
ReplyDeleteCan I assume that pedophile Scott Greenberg is modern orthodox if Phil Jacobs wrote a puff piece about him in the Baltimore Jewish Times? Is Phil another two-faced Gary Rosenblatt who only bashes molesters when he has a score to settle?
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20534370/detail.html
OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- Baltimore County police said a 51-year-old man found dead with several gunshot wounds over the weekend may have been killed by someone he knew.
Police said Scott Greenberg was found dead Saturday night at his parents' home in the 2300 block of Velvet Valley Way east of Owings Mills.
Greenberg's ex-wife found his body in a pool of blood, police said.
Investigators said they have little to go on and are currently looking into Greenberg's past to look for a motive.
In the early 1990s before he was married, Greenberg pleaded no contest to allegations that he molested a 9-year-old boy who he had recruited to attend the summer camp owned by his family, 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said.
Last year at another family business, an ice cream shop on Reisterstown Road, Greenberg was accused by an 18-year-old girl of inappropriate behavior that she said started when he asked if she would sexually pleasure him, Miller reported. The girl was an employee of the shop who quit after a week.
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20568664/detail.html
Despite the conviction and apparently a court order limiting his contact with children, Greenberg went back to work at the camp, Miller reported.
In 2005, Greenberg again drew the attention of authorities in a child pornography investigation that included agents searching his home and taking his computers and other documents.
According to a federal affidavit, someone using his name and e-mail address answered an online ad for movies and pictures of boys, saying in one e-mail, "I love young boys -- plain and simple."
The affidavit said that in another letter, the e-mailer wrote he'd "love to star along with boys in one of the films."
The advertisement was placed by an undercover agent for the postal inspector, Miller reported, and no pictures were ever sent. Greenberg was not charged.
Miller also reported that Greenberg maintained several online profiles and sought to connect with others who shared his interests.
One former associate of his said that as recently as last year, Greenberg was seeking a photographer to take erotic pictures of him to be used on an online dating service.
http://www.forward.com/articles/112916/
ReplyDelete‘Crazy’ Eddie’s Cousin, a Former Fraudster, Speaks Out on Syrian ‘Subculture of Crime’
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282009/news/regionalnews/oops__charlie_forgot_this_1m_house_186849.htm
ReplyDeleteAugust 28, 2009
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel failed to report as much as $1.3 million in outside income -- including up to $1 million for a Harlem building sale -- on financial-disclosure forms he filed between 2002 and 2006, according to newly amended records.
In all the obits published and specials aired this week, Chappaquiddick gets a few paragraphs, a few minutes, a tidy recapping of the events of July 19, 1969: The married Ted Kennedy, driving late at night with young campaign aide Mary Jo Kopechne, pitches off a bridge and into the water below. He escapes; she drowns. He does not report the accident for 10 hours. He pleads guilty and gets a suspended sentence, two months in jail.
ReplyDeleteIn most of these narratives, Chappaquiddick is told as Ted's tragedy, the thing that kept him from ever becoming president. And in these narratives, he is chastened, goes on to make amends through a life of public service, advocating for the disadvantaged and the downtrodden -- and, especially, women. No one's perfect, right?
But how is it that so many women unabashedly revere Kennedy today? The particulars of Chappaquiddick are especially gory; his behavior after the accident approaches the amoral. Once he broke free and swam to the surface, Kennedy said that he dove back down seven or eight times to rescue Kopechne. Failing, he swam back to shore and checked back into his hotel, and a short time later lodged a noise complaint with the desk clerk. The people in the room next to his were partying and it was interfering with his sleep. Then he asked the desk clerk for the time.
According to the Aug. 4, 1969 edition of Newsweek, that clerk, Russell E. Peachey, told Kennedy it was 2:25 a.m., then asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"No, thank you," Kennedy replied.
*
In 1990, GQ magazine ran a devastating profile of Kennedy. Two 16-year-old girls near the Capitol startled by a limo rolling up, the door opening, Ted sitting in the back with a bottle of wine, asking one, then the other, to join. A former aide who acted as Ted's "pimp." His penchant for dating women so young that one did not know he was the subject of many books. Kennedy, at a swank DC restaurant with his drinking buddy Chris Dodd, throwing a petite waitress on his dinner table with such force that glass and flatware shatters and goes flying. Then Ted throws her on to Dodd's lap and grinds against her. He is interrupted by other waitstaff. He is later caught in the same restaurant, in a semi-private area, having sex on the floor with a lobbyist.
I was told to leave Margo's relatives in the boiler room alone.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25991756-421,00.html
Heathcliffe the giant burrowing cockroach may be world's heaviest insect
http://autos.aol.com/article/interlock-devices-breathalyzer
ReplyDeleteShould Cars Have Built-In Breathalyzers?
"Interlock Devices" Could Be Coming To A Car Near You
Survivor of Abuse, many thanks for your list of recommended speakers on the topic of developing a community response to child abuse.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the support and helpful ideas.
Anyone else reading this is also welcome to contact me with ideas & suggestions: david at lemaanachai.org
New York, NY (AHN) - Author Erin Arvedlund reportedly indicated Friday that New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon will be forced to sell the baseball franchise after incurring heavy Bernie Madoff-related investment losses.
ReplyDeleteArvedlund, author of "Too Good to Be True," a new book about the Madoff fraud, predicted that the Mets sale could come as soon as 2010, according to a FOXBusiness.com report.
The report further added that it was brought about by roughly $700 million in Madoff-related investment losses.
Various reports put the Madoff-related losses suffered by Wilpon to be between $400 million to $700 million.
I hope this has nothing to do with having molested kids at this hotel.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/fire_at_lakewood_motel_displac.html
LAKEWOOD -- One person was killed and three police officers were injured early this morning when fire roared through a motel in Lakewood.
The fire displaced at least 50 to 60 people from their homes at Capitol Motel at 325 7th St., according to police. Residents and workers were evacuated just after 3 a.m., said Lakewood Police Sgt. Ed Rupp.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/local_news/epaper/2009/08/28/a1b_kasman_0829.html
ReplyDeleteThe self-described adopted son of mobster John Gotti wore a wire to record conversations that helped the feds indict 62 reputed mobsters in February 2008.
His cooperation came after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, wire fraud and making false statements. He faces a possible two years in prison.
A former garment district executive, he was the spokesman for Gotti's family during the dapper Don's battle with cancer, gave the eulogy at Gotti's 2002 funeral and pressed his friend, the late Leona Helmsley, to allow a Gotti wedding at New York's Helmsley Palace in 1990.He wasn't allowed to formally join the Gambino family because he's Jewish. He moved to Boca Raton six years ago.
Upset by the way the crime family treated him after the dapper Don died in prison in 2002, Kasman agreed to wear a wire and tell the feds what he knew.
In September, he testified in federal court in West Palm Beach against a man prosecutors described as the leader of the South Florida branch of the Gambino crime family.
Vincent Artuso and three others were convicted in a sweeping racketeering scheme in which they defrauded ADT Security Services of $11 million over five years. Kasman is expected to testify in trials in New York this fall.
A wildfire in the mountains above Los Angeles has surged in every direction, going in a single day from a modest threat to a danger to some 10,000 homes.
ReplyDeleteanonymous 1.14
ReplyDeleteis this a yes or a no ?
The kollel yungerleit were not indicted because someone had merely approached them about "a good investment idea". It was a front man telling them that fraud ringleader Uri Gofman is a smart investor. According to a rov with knowledge of the matter, the yungerleit had no way of knowing there was fraud involved.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gYyyEXtRQHs-e4TFF69zyHtgm0Tg
ReplyDelete(AFP) – Aug 7, 2009
JERUSALEM — An Israeli man is seeking a divorce on the grounds that life coaching sessions turned his wife into a tyrant.
"My wife turned me into a slave," the man said in a divorce request filed with a rabbinical court, the Maariv daily reported on Friday.
"She became even more authoritarian after undergoing life coaching sessions," he said.
Life coaching, which aims to help individuals determine and achieve personal goals, is increasingly popular in Israel.
http://www.asianimage.co.uk/uk/4568500.Fake_doctor_jailed_for_sex_assault/
ReplyDeleteFake doctor jailed for sex assault
12:30pm Thursday 27th August 2009
Police said he had worked within the Indian, Pakistani and Jewish communities in east London.
http://www.hedgefund.net/publicnews/default.aspx?story=10363
ReplyDeleteBradley Ruderman ran a Ponzi scheme that fleeced his own family for $25 million. Ruderman, 46, pleaded guilty on Monday, and could get a 50-year prison sentence.
His Ruderman Capital operated out of Beverly Hills, swindling a total of $45 million behind the bogus claim it returned 60% annually.
Ruderman also touted a star-studded client base, claiming software mogul Larry Ellison was an investor. That too, was a lie.
In truth, Ruderman used $8 million of investor money for himself, and lost over $5 million gambling. The SEC charged Ruderman with fraud in April. He surrendered in May.
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) Walt Disney Co. says it will buy cartoon characters giant Agudah Entertainment for about $4.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.observer.com/2009/slideshow/111911/juiciest-madoff-fruit
ReplyDeleteThe year’s most wildly frothed-over piece of plump New York real estate isn’t officially on the market.
Apartment 6/7B at 740 Park belongs to the disgraced financier J. Ezra Merkin, whose clients lost around $2.4 billion in the Madoff Ponzi scheme. Brokers are talking; enquiring; circling. “I keep hearing, ‘It’s going to come on, it’s going to come on, it’s going to come on,’” one Brown Harris Stevens managing director said this week, “but nothing concrete, nothing solid.”
“I keep looking for Merkin,” another Brown Harris director offered. “And I keep after it.”
“For sure, that thing is coming. It’s not if, it’s when,” a Sotheby’s agent said. They think Mr. Merkin will have no choice but to sell—and that he would reap more than the $32 million that a neighbor got in the building last year.
It’s been a bad year. So far Mr. Merkin has resigned from the General Motors financing arm GMAC, which lost almost $8 billion during his chairmanship; he agreed to a massive sale of his art collection after being charged with fraud by the New York attorney general, who alleges that he took more than $470 million in fees for simply passing clients’ money to Mr. Madoff; he’s even stepped down from his leadership role at Fifth Avenue Synagogue, founded by his father.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090607/NEWS/90602033&appSession=68336041575614
ReplyDeleteIs this why is he is backing Satmar to protect molesters?
Last Name Greenfield
First Name Jay
Organization Kiryas Joel Municipal Local Development Corporation
Title Director
Salary $51,412
Deferred Compensation $14,023
Total Compensation $65,435
It was Rav Salomon of all people, in a stunning turnaround, who gave the psak to call the police on Yossi Kolko.
ReplyDeleteThat's who Belsky was referring to in his attack letter.
Disney is actually buying Marvel Comics for $4 billion. Marvel is owned by Ron Perelman who davens at 5th Ave shul with Ezra Merkin and Ira Rennert.
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/US/Weekend/story?id=8447788
ReplyDeleteWhen the truth comes out about Yudi Kolko and his talmidim, it will be a really heartwarming story.
The Associated Press - 27 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteLOS ANGELES - The US Forest Service says a wildfire in the mountains north of Los Angeles nearly doubled in size overnight
http://www.lohud.com/article/20090828/NEWS05/908280353/-1/SPORTS
ReplyDeleteOther bills signed into law by the governor this week include:
Eliminating the use of the term "oriental" in documents used by state agencies, public authorities and municipalities when referring to people of Asian or Pacific Islander heritage.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/08/27/2009-08-27_girls_stalker_gets_10year_prison_term.html
ReplyDeleteA furious judge threw the book on Wednesday at a pervert convicted of stalking and trying to abduct an 11-year-old girl in her Brooklyn apartment building.
She sentenced first-time offender Bernard Mutterperl to 10 years - sternly rejecting his weepy argument he could get more help for his sick behavior outside prison walls.
"This court has no tolerance for individuals who hurt children," Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango said.
The heavy sentence was the climax of an emotionally charged hearing in which the judge heard tearful statements from victim Xochil Garcia, her mother and Mutterperl - and then took a 30-minute recess.
Reading more than two dozen letters from Mutterperl's family and friends - who argued the crime on Mother's Day 2007 was an "aberration" and an "act of foolishness" - didn't put the judge in a merciful mood.
"This is not a mistake for a nonparent, male stranger to act on an urge to abduct an 11-year-old," she said. "You weren't going to hurt her? What were you going to do to her?"
DiMango was touched by Xochil's description of how she was traumatized by the attack - then revictimized by bullies who pick fights because the media hailed her pluck and courage.
"She lives with a disproportionate amount of terror for a girl her age," DiMango noted sadly.
Xochil, dressed in a white blouse and black slacks, lost her composure as she read a statement.
"You messed up my life....The one good thing that came out of this was I showed other little kids that you can always fight back to the bad person trying to hurt you," said the girl, now 13.
"When I go outside and walk around, I feel like I'm getting stalked," she said. "You make me get panic attacks. You know how it feels to have panic attacks?"
Her mother, Martha Hernandez, said Xochil has been plagued by sleepless nights and thoughts of suicide.
"Every 10th of May, instead of remembering as Mother's Day, it's a very bad day I have to spend," she said.
Xochil was walking into her Midwood building when Mutterperl followed her in, grabbed her and put his hand over her mouth.
She broke free and summoned neighbors, who captured Mutterperl nearby with his shirt and yarmulke stuffed in his trousers.
Mutterperl, 21, confessed that he "has urges to go after children," said prosecutor Jacqueline Kagan.
The Nevada cop who rescued a woman raped by sicko Phillip Garrido 33 years ago lambasted authorities on Saturday for allowing the sex fiend to go free.
ReplyDeleteLong before Garrido abducted Jaycee Lee Dugard, Reno Police Officer Clifford Conrad caught the psycho raping a 25-year-old casino worker he also had kidnapped.
"Someone dropped the ball," the retired Conrad, 66, told the Daily News.
"I thought he got sentenced to 50 years to life, so how he got out after 10 years, I'll never know. I guess a lot of people dropped the ball his whole life."
Garrido was indeed sentenced in 1977 to 50 years for the kidnapping conviction and life for the sexual assault - but he inexplicably served only 11 years behind bars.
Three years after his release, Garrido snatched Jaycee, 11, near a South Lake Tahoe school bus stop in 1991, and kept her as a sex slave for nearly two decades.
Conrad was on routine patrol in the early morning hours of Nov. 23, 1976, when he spotted a car with California tags outside a Reno storage facility.
The cop soon noticed a light flickering under the shed's rollup door, prompting him to bang on it. A disheveled Garrido, shirtless and wearing jeans, opened the door almost immediately.
"I asked him what he was doing in there," Conrad recalled.
Before Garrido could answer, a female voice cried out from inside the warehouse, and a woman emerged from behind a curtain completely nude. She said she had been kidnapped and raped.
Conrad didn't know that Garrido was high on acid and that the storage unit was equipped with various sex aids, pornography, stage lights and wine.
Garrido later told a detective he needed to dominate women to satisfy his sexual urges.
"I said, 'What the hell are you resorting to this for?'" retired Reno Detective Dan DeMaranville, 74, recalled to The News. "He said that's the only way he gets sexual gratification. ... The guy should have been castrated while he was in prison."
The 56-year-old psycho kept Dugard and the two daughters he fathered with her captive in a secret compound behind his home in Antioch, Calif.
Local cops acknowledged they missed an opportunity to save Dugard in 2006 when a neighbor reported the man known as "Creepy Phil" had sexual addictions and kept little girls in his backyard.
The deputy dispatched to Garrido's home left without even setting foot in the registered sex offender's yard.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08312009/news/regionalnews/perv_doctor_hit_with_nys_biggest_bail_187278.htm
ReplyDeleteMove over, Madoff. Meet New York's bail champion.
An allegedly phony Brooklyn doctor accused of sexually abusing patients while they were under anesthesia has the dubious distinction of having the highest bail in the land: either $11 million cash or a virtually impossible $33 million bail bond.
No exact records exist, but several experts say Michail Sorodsky's bond is the highest they have ever heard of.
"You know what they're basically telling him?" said one. "Screw you. You're not getting out."
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Sorodsky, 62, was practicing without a license since at least 1995, administering "treatments" out of his Emmons Avenue office in Sheepshead Bay that may have been harmful, and sexually abusing at least eight female patients.
When he was first charged, in 2008, Judge Cassandra Mullen set a more modest $1 million cash or $3 million bond.
Another judge, Gustin Reichbach, reduced it to $500,000 bond if the alleged perv wore a monitoring bracelet.
"I got a call from the bracelet company numerous times that the bracelet had been tampered with," said the bail bondsman, Ira Judelson. The original conditions were restored.
Then, last month, prosecutors, having found additional victims, brought a new slew of charges and opened a separate case.
At the re-arraignment, Justice Vincent Del Giudice set $10 million cash or $30 million bond on the new case, which added to the original bail comes to $11 million cash or $33 million bond.
His astronomical bail tops even that of such high-flying fraudsters as Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, who was tried in state court, and Ponzi king Bernard Madoff, who was charged federally. Each put up $10 million of his own cash.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090828/FREE/908289988
ReplyDeleteLibertyPointe Bank, an institution co-founded four years ago by developer Shaya Boymelgreen, has been ordered by federal regulators to cease and desist from excessively risky lending.
The bank, which is headquartered in lower Manhattan, was deemed to operating with excessive levels of delinquent loans, setting aside inadequate allowances for loan losses, and overly concentrating its portfolio in commercial real estate lending, according to the order dated July 16 but posted Friday on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Web site.
The bank’s chief executive, Merton Corn, wasn’t immediately available for comment.
LibertyPointe, which operates one branch in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn, caters largely to the Orthodox Jewish community. It had $222 million in assets, $207 million in deposits, and $11.8 million in capital as of the quarter ending June 30. Its total risk-based capital ratio of 8.3% puts it below the FDIC’s definition of a well-capitalized bank, as such it could be forced to raise fresh funds.
In addition, LibertyPointe’s $182 million portfolio seems to have a high amount of troubled assets.
About $13 million worth of loans secured by multi-family properties are labeled as non-accruing, which suggests the borrowers haven’t made interest payments in more than 90 days. About another $10 million in construction loans are also described as such. Non-accruing loans often end up being written off at a loss.
The levels of non-accruing loans amount to more than double the bank’s capital and triple its $7.1 million allowance for anticipated loan losses.
The bank’s chairman, Mr. Boymelgreen, is having troubles in other areas. His company, Boymelgreen Capital, last week notified stock market authorities in Tel Aviv that a subsidiary may default on a bond payment, according to the Israeli newspaper Globes. Last month, another subsidiary sold interests in 12 Sheraton hotels in Israel to reduce debt.
Mr. Boymelgreen’s Manhattan holdings include the old J.P. Morgan headquarters building at 15 Broad Street, which he converted to residential condominiums.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08272009/news/regionalnews/war_of_roses_divorcee_now_in_war_vs__ren_186684.htm
ReplyDeleteChana Taub, 59 -- who gained notoriety in 2006 when a judge forced her and husband Simon to build a wall dividing their Borough Park home -- allegedly evicted a rent-stabilized couple with seven kids from the 52nd Street apartment where she's landlord.
Zvi and Orit Dressler -- who lived in the apartment since 2007 and paid $650 a month -- came home last Saturday to find Taub had changed the locks and brought in a new tenant.
Taub countered that the Dresslers hadn't paid their rent in a year.
Yesterday, she was ordered by a bankruptcy judge to pay late electric and insurance bills for the building, which tenants claim is falling apart.
Outside the courtroom, Orit Dressler and Taub's sister, Esther Newhouse, clashed.
"Go to hell," Orit growled in Hebrew, "You're an idiot," Newhouse spat back.
UOJ, if you wanted to express outrage against the Lakewood roshei yeshiva, you could have noted the source of the videos at Lakewood Scoop and made your own comments instead of linking to that loathsome Shmarya and the take of his self-hating Jewish groupies who are espousing all kinds of anti-Semitism over there worthy of Goebbels, like the comment of all orthodox Jews in dumb black hats that are "smelly and constipated".
ReplyDeleteYou yourself have said that R' Yeruchim Olshin is an ish tzaddik whose only chisaron, "like Rav Pam" is that he cannot fathom the evil that men are capable of.
I agree it was a bizayon Hatorah that he was being mechabed Strulovics. But understand he does not read newspapers and was fed a garbage story that "ante-semittin" were out to get that Satmar bum. And it is very suspicious that Austrians just let him go after they tried so hard to extradite him. There was a lack of evidence which means perhaps others were guilty of the crimes. If that was the case, he was still willing to take the fall for them instead of ratting them out like Dwek.
Strulovics didn't even give much money to Lakewood so it's not like there was a quid pro quo.
UOJ, if you wanted to express outrage against the Lakewood roshei yeshiva, you could have noted the source of the videos at Lakewood Scoop and made your own comments .....
ReplyDelete*
You are absolutely correct about R' Yeruchem Shlita - I too believe he was shlepped into this tragi-comedy by Aron Kotler, who'd sell his mother for a nickel.
He knew and so did his brother Malkiel, these behaimas should leave R' Yeruchim in the bais midrash.
I just loved how Aron Kotler gave that weepy speech at Shtroolovitch's party about how he was moyser nefesh in jail without tefillin and kosher food and that jailer and prisoner alike were makkir the hadras punim of a holy man.
ReplyDeleteIt sounded just like my shpiel that makes Rubashkin sound like an innocent man that was framed by anti-Semites!
yudel shain is probably blocking comments about strulovitz because one of his close relatives can be seen clapping away the whole time on the video. i would also be embarrassed.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/08/the_law_may_be_catching_up_wit.html
ReplyDeleteThe Cleveland kollel guys say they didn't know where they were investing. Does that make sense if the indictment spells out that they engaged in illegal acts?
And who is the indicted lady from Lakewood NJ, Esther Simkhovich?
They'd better hope in Cleveland that the trustee doesn't take away their homes and bank accounts even if they weren't indicted.
ReplyDeleteThere's only so many nebich cases that Pinny Lipschitz and the Novominsker can raise money for.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kidnapped31-2009aug31,0,1096874.story
ReplyDeleteSex offenders move to Antioch area 'because they can'
A small, scruffy, unincorporated area largely surrounded by the city of Antioch is home to more than 100 sex offenders. It's also where Phillip Garrido allegedly held Jaycee Lee Dugard for 18 years
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/29/cbsnews_investigates/main5273636.shtml
ReplyDeleteA former attorney for Toyota has accused the automaker of illegally withholding evidence in hundreds of rollover death and injury cases, in a "ruthless conspiracy" to keep evidence "of its vehicles' structural shortcomings from becoming known."
The explosive allegations are contained in a federal racketeering suit filed in Los Angeles by Dimitrios P. Biller, former managing counsel for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., who claims his complaints about the company's legal misconduct cost him his job.
Company lawyers have not filed an answer to Biller's lawsuit, but have brought a motion to seal the complaint, claiming it is "rife with privileged and confidential information" that Biller, as a former Toyota lawyer, has no right to divulge.
http://www.nj.com/cranford/index.ssf/2009/08/police_news_from_cranford_keni.html
ReplyDeleteA Cranford woman and her juvenile passenger were charged with underage possession of alcohol and other offenses after the vehicle they were in was stopped for speeding on Friday, August 21.
Leigh Belsky, 20, was charged after she was stopped by Sargent Edward Davenport at 11:37 p.m. on Lexington Avenue and was reportedly found to be intoxicated. She was charged with underage driving while intoxicated, underage possession of alcohol and speeding. Her passenger, a female juvenile from Cranford, was charged with underage possession of alcohol.
http://mystateline.com/common/printerfriendly.php?cid=95782
ReplyDeleteCadaver dogs searched for clues in two properties connected to kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido in Antioch, California yesterday and apparently new evidence has emerged that is requiring the search to continue today.
Strulowics was very keen on throwing the big party as a means of rehabilitating himself after the tremendous busha of being dragged away from Lakewood on Shavuos in handcuffs.
ReplyDeleteHe put tremendous pressure on the yeshiva to go along with the farce. He may have been aided by his backers Duvid Niederman and the Satmar Rebbe. And who knows? Maybe Aron sees this as a fundraising opportunity in Satmar kreizen.
כי תצא
ReplyDeleteThe Torah forbids the Ammonite and the Moabite to marry into the community of Am Yisrael. Why?
The passuk gives us the reason – They did not come forward with bread and water as we passed by their land on our way out of Mitzrayim....
Hashem, who sees into the depths of the thoughts of man, saw the evil intention in the seemingly benign behavior, and He recorded it accordingly in the Torah..
*
It has been declared that the greatest danger to Klal Yisrael today is the internet.
This blanket declaration is reminiscent of a story that is told over about the elders of Chelm:
A bridge in Chelm had collapsed. Every day, people who needed to get to the other side kept using the bridge, and every day, there would be new casualties. People simply kept falling into the river! The elders of Chelm held an emergency meeting about what to do. After many hours of deliberations, they finally came up with the ideal solution.
A grand new hospital would be built.
We are taught that there are three identifying sure signs of the members of nation of Yisrael. רחמנים, ביישנים וגומלי חסדים . Am Yisrael are compassionate, modest and do acts of loving-kindness. The greatest danger to Klal Yisrael today is the movement to replace the community of רחמנים, ביישנים וגומלי חסדים with an empty and counterfeit look-alike substitute. We are talking about a mass-movement with a centralized power base that dresses itself and looks identical to the authentic, but inwardly has gone morally bankrupt. The objectives of those that control the movement is to amass as much support as they can and to clear away anyone who does not submit or conform to their quest for power. They aggressively mix into all aspects of the community and seek to take control: the mosdos of chinnuch, the hashgochos of restaurants, shidduchim, distribution of tzedakah money, they even have no qualms smashing shlom bayis, if it so fits their political interests and their quest for power. It is all done with a mask of Torah under a false pretense of yir’as shomayim, so the innocent and naïve won’t withdraw support. The danger of their terrible behavior is the demoralization and dehumanization that results. They gravely interfere with the “bread and water” of Klal Yisrael”.
One of their favorite campaigns is the Shmiras Halashon campaign. No one has yet figured out where they get their heteirim for all the lashon hora that they disseminate.
Here is an incident that happened just this year.
Rav L. had come from Eretz Yisrael to Chicago for a simcha, and had stayed in the Hachnosas Orchim. There, he had met an avreich from Yerushalayim, who was in difficult financial straits, and had come to raise money. Rav L. met him again, a few weeks later, back in Yerushalayim. The electricity had just been cut off from the apartment of this avreich, and he and his family were in the process of being evicted out to the street. A large check that the avreich received in Chicago had bounced. The distraught avreich said that a local community regional dayan of a local heimishe organization told the person who had generously made out the check to the avreich from Yerushalayim not to honor the check when it was deposited.
And what ever happened to all the stories about how Gedolei Yisrael would never turn away talmidim – the Chofetz Chaim would not speak to a certain Rov who came to see him, because he didn’t accept an orphan boy into cheder. Rav Moshe Feinstein would never expel any talmid unless there was absolutely no alternative. Rav Aharon Soloveichik was exemplary in his personal example of accepting all talmidim, even with complicated situations and helping them build their lives.
And what about the traditional trepidation in matters of shidduchim, not to interfere? Kal vachomer in matters of shlom bayis. Breaking up marriages, churban Bais Hamikdash, has become a non-issue, in face of the power machine.
(continued from above)
ReplyDeleteSomeone who has worked extensively with at-risk youth said that it is one thousand percent accurate to say that all the “off-the-derech” problems result from ongoing “small” day to day neglect and verbal abuse of those all around.
בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים – Until Moshiach arrives, we are all vulnerable, we are all needy, we all need חיזוק , we all need the “bread and water”. We all need each other. No one has yet arrived.
אין לך אדם שאין לו שעה – Who is to say what and who is a failure in the eyes of Hashem? Who is to say what and who is a success?
We are given a mandate to share with others the blessings that Hashem gives us. Shidduchim ideas, financial assistance, chizuk in ruchniyus, friendship, whatever.
רחמנים, ביישנים וגומלי חסדים are the three kochos that empower us to overcome the three great klipos of עבודה זרה, גלוי עריות ושפיכות דמים , idolatry, immorality and murder. If the first three are tampered with, how do we expect to shield ourselves from the ugly heads of the three big klipos?
תפסת מרובה- לא תפסת – If you are impressed with your large numbers and your accomplishments, you are living in the dangerous land of imagination. לא תפסת.
לא מרבכם מכל העמים חשק ה' בכם ויבחר בכם כי אתם המעט מכל העמים.
Hashem desires Am Yisrael, for being the smallest of all the nations. We are not in competition with the chinese. No one has to be impressed or intimidated by powerful movements with large numbers. This is a meaningless and dangerous fixation. Let us be brave and withdraw all support from this treacherous pagan phenomenon in our midst. Let us not be afraid to speak up when we see avlos, injustice taking place. Let us not be afraid to dissociate from the avodah zarah of the giant heimishe movements and their sub-parts in their frenzied quest for power and control in the Jewish community.
We end with the encouraging words of the Piyut,
עמון ומואב מהרה תכלה, פדותך לעמך בקרוב תגלה
ציון תמלא מעם אלה, קרית מלך רב אז נעלה
שכן תשכן בתוך עם צבי את אליהו הנביא
I wonder if Strulowics lost his money with Sonja Kohn who lost everything with Bernie Madoff.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210151/Garridos-neighbours-reveal-creepy-Phil-drug-fuelled-orgies-hillbillies.html
ReplyDeleteRogers says 'perverts' in the area were regularly invited over by Garrido for sex, beer and drug parties and that the Garrido home was, in effect, being used as a brothel.
He watched groups of men arriving at the house on hot summer nights. They carried crates of beer. Mainly of Mexican appearance, they lit bonfires, played music and shouted and laughed late into the night.
They also took it in turns to enter a tent erected amid the junk in Garrido's backyard. 'I saw them entering the tent one by one,' he says. 'I saw them bobbing up and down and I thought, "My God, there is something sexual going on in there".'
Once, he peeped through a crack in the fence separating their land. 'These guys were unsavoury looking men,' he says.
'They were drinking beer and smashing the bottles on the ground. I thought they had a prostitute or something in there. I thought it might have been some kind of sex party or something. It happened quite often. They were different men each time.'
The men gave each other 'high-fives' when they emerged from the tent.
Mr Rogers discussed the matter with his brother Dean, who lives along the street. Both men agreed not to contact the police. They have since agonised over whether Jaycee and her two daughters were being 'pimped out' to strangers. 'I hope to God not,' says Dean.
Astonishingly, the area is home to 144 rapists and paedophiles.
'People here live off the grid,' says one local police source. 'That means they use drugs, don't pay taxes and never pay their bills. They live as they want to - and pay no attention to anyone else. And everyone who lives here is very happy with that arrangement.'
The surrounding streets offer another insight into Garrido's twisted mindset as he held two generations hostage for his own sexual gratification. As darkness fell on Saturday, people scurried from dusty yard to yard, buying and selling crystal meth.
Highly addictive and responsible for making users' teeth fall out in a syndrome known as 'meth mouth', crystal meth, also known as crank, is an amphetamine which has swept the U.S. Experts say users experience unstoppable sexual urges.
Locals say Garrido, who had previously been addicted to LSD, was a 'tweaker' - the slang word for crystal meth addicts, whose habit leads to characteristic spasms of twitching - and that he was also reputed to 'cook' the raw materials for crystal meth in an old van in his garden. This 'laboratory' reportedly exploded last month. Again, neighbours did not call police.
That is the Antioch way. And there may yet be far worse to come. With the FBI diggers now in action, Mike Rogers suspects that murder will soon be added to the long list of sordid secrets emerging from his neighbour's home at 1554 Walnut Avenue.
A Phoenix-area pastor has started to draw protesters to his congregation after he delivered a sermon titled, "Why I Hate Barack Obama," and told his parishioners that he prays for President Obama's death.
ReplyDeletePastor Steven Anderson stood by his sermon in an interview with MyFOXPhoenix, which reports that the pastor continues to encourage his parishioners to join him in praying for the president's death.
"I hope that God strikes Barack Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy and I hope it happens today," he told MyFOXPhoenix on Sunday. He called his message "spiritual warfare" and said he does not condone killing.
But a small crowd of protesters gathered around his church Sunday, calling Anderson's words "incomprehensible." And MyFOXPhoenix reported that the sermon, which has drawn widespread attention, led to death threats against the pastor.
Anderson's inflammatory message stems in part from Obama's abortion-rights stance.
In Anderson's controversial sermon, delivered at his Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe before Obama arrived for a speech in Phoenix earlier in the month, the pastor said he wants the president to "melt like a snail" with salt on it.
"I'm gonna pray that he dies and goes to hell when I go to bed tonight. That's what I'm gonna pray," he told his congregation.
The publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Sunday accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, of "bullying" his newspaper by telling an employee he wants the Review-Journal shut down.
ReplyDeleteSherman Frederick alleged in a column in his newspaper that the "full-on threat" was made during a brief exchange between Reid and the newspaper's advertising director Wednesday at a luncheon for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.
Frederick said that as Reid shook the employee's hand, he said, "I hope you go out of business."
While acknowledging that his newspaper does not always see "eye to eye with him on matters of politics," Frederick noted that ad director Bob Brown has "nothing to do with news coverage" or opinion pages.
It's unclear whether Reid's comment was meant in jest. A representative for Reid could not be reached for a response.
http://matzav.com/rav-chaim-kanievsky-served-in-the-idf/
ReplyDeleteRav Shmuel Grossbard zt”l, father of one of the mashgichim in Ponevezh Yeshiva, passed away this past week. His children were surprised when Rav Chaim Kanievsky came in to be menachem avel, and were even more surprised with what he told them shortly after he arrived.
“You have no idea why I troubled myself to come console you?” Rav Kanievsky asked.. “I have hakoraa hatov for your father who was my commander in the army and helped me a lot.”
Those present were surprised by what he said that he had served in the army. One of those present had the courage to ask, “The rov was in the army? We never heard this before about our father, and about the rov even more so!”
Rav Kanievsky smiled and related to them, “It was during the War of Independence. I was then learning in the Yeshiva of Lomza in Petach Tikvah. The war started and everyone was drafted to the army - with no exceptions. Of course, we knew nothing, until one day a large vehicle pulled up outside the yeshiva and they said that everybody has to get in to go protect the country.
“Because none of us knew how to hold a gun,they gave us sticks and stones and put us out to guard a large hill. I remember everyone was very scared and Rav Berel Povarsky hid in a bathroom and got out of it. But Rav Moshe Soloveitchik and I, we went, and he was sitting beside me the whole time saying Tehillim while crying.
“Your father, z”l, was appointed as commander, because he was the oldest in the group. Because he was commander, he got the largest stick. When we got there, I asked him what we should do. He told me, ‘You should go up the hill and sit and learn where they can’t see you, but take a stick and two stones, so that if the Arabs come, you can scare them away.’ We sat there for a long time, and after we left the place, we were told the Arabs had shot to that same place.”
When he finished relating this story, Rav Chaim said, “Out of gratitude for then, I have come to console you.”
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City prosecutors are investigating whether a former youth counselor who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a child may have victimized other boys.
ReplyDeleteProsecutors say Adrian Dorsey touched an 11-year-old boy's genitals in the bathroom of an ESPN Zone in May 2008.
Daniel Rothbard, 28, of Merrick has been charged with third-degree rape, third-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree sexual abuse. Police said that a Third Precinct officer found Rothbard in a car with a girl, 15, at 8:25 p.m. in the parking lot of the Westbrook Elementary School. Police said Rothbard and the victim had met online and that he had sexually assaulted her.
ReplyDeleteHis attorney, Todd Greenberg of Forest Hills, said Rothbard is married and has no criminal record. "We know him as a very decent and hardworking young man," Greenberg said.
An elderly Michigan man was arrested Thursday for sexually abusing a woman in front of her 11-year-old daughter, Shelter Island Town police said.
ReplyDeleteWilliam J. Weinstock, 87, of Troy, Michigan, was charged with sexual abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child. Police said the incident occurred in August 2008 and that he surrendered after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Weinstock pleaded not guilty at his arraignment before a Shelter Island Town Justice, where he was released on $2,000 cash bail. He will be back in court at a later date.
Howard Goldstein, 38, a Nassau County Police Department medic was charged with child endangerment after cops caught him with child pornography in his computer and trying to arrange a meeting with a 13-year-old, who happened to be an undercover cop, police said. He was charged with first-degree attempted disseminating indecent material to a minor and 11 counts of attempted endangering the welfare of a child.
ReplyDeleteThe Station Fire may cut power to the city of Los Angeles by this evening.
ReplyDeleteUOJ, get your backup generator ready just in case.
Klal Yisroel needs you to cool down the burning hearts of abuse victims, cheered on by the Agudah "gedolim". Keep exposing those frauds one by one.
Will Chabad remove him from their letterhead?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chabadpw.org/media/pdf/288/OgEH2882052.pdf
Warren Schein, North Hempstead's deputy commissioner of parks and recreation, has been arrested in connection with the theft of $620 in quarters collected from parking meters. Schein, 57, of Richlee Court in Mineola, pleaded not guilty Monday in Nassau First District Court to misdemeanor charges of petty larceny and official misconduct.
Lives near Young Israel of Oceanside:
ReplyDeleteA convicted sex offender with AIDS was charged with exposing a 16-year-old boy to the virus by having sexual contact with him at least twice last year, according to an indictment unsealed in a Riverhead courtroom. Robert Musmacker, 36, of Oceanside, pleaded not guilty to third-degree criminal sexual act and other charges. Judge Barbara Kahn set bail at $500,000 cash and $1 million bond.
http://www.sacbee.com/breaking/story/2150729.html
ReplyDeleteMonday, Aug. 31, 2009 - 2:17 pm
Notorious child molester Jack Louis Sporich is in federal custody and being returned by plane from a Cambodian jail to face charges in the United States.
Sporich, who is believed to have molested more than 500 young boys since the 1960s, faces a criminal complaint of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places and is being returned to this country under the auspices of "Operation Twisted Traveler," an international law enforcement effort aimed at pedophiles who travel as "sex tourists."
Thom Mrozek, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien in Los Angeles, said Sporich was expelled from Cambodia and is being escorted back to this country by immigration officials. He was to be formally taken into U.S. custody when he arrived in Los Angeles this afternoon.
Sporich, 75, is a wealthy former engineer who prosecutors have said has been molesting children since he lived in Illinois in the 1960s. He was convicted in Ventura County of seven counts of molestation and spent nine years in prison before being sent to the Atascadero State Hospital as a "sexually violent predator."
Sporich, who was the focus of a 2006 Bee series on the failings of California's efforts to treat such predators, refused treatment at the hospital and won release in May 2004 after two juries were unable to agree on whether he might reoffend.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/stop-pointing-the-finger-fat-people
ReplyDeleteStop Pointing the Finger at Fat People!
Lydia DePillis
August 28, 2009 | 6:16 pm
A couple days ago, researchers released a study saying that overweight people had significantly less brain tissue than slim people. The crude takeaway: Fat people get stupid. As if obese Americans needed any more stigma! Indeed, the debate lately has turned towards making fat people personally responsible for the effects of their excess poundage. And maybe they should be, right? Obesity is tremendously costly from a public health standpoint—to the tune of $147 billion a year. David Leonhardt thinks the obese should pay higher insurance premiums. Airlines are charging more for people who occupy more than one seat. Heck, they’re even making the planet warm faster. Shouldn’t people feel bad about being huge, if it motivates better behavior?
Well, we also know this: Aggressively stigmatizing fat people is at odds with the love-your-body message meant to guard against eating disorders, as well as predatory weight-loss scams, playground bullying, employment discrimination, and bizarre diet crazes. Pudgy people, with the possible exception of old people, are probably the most disadvantaged demographic in American culture
http://www.freep.com/article/20090830/NEWS05/908300547/1319/Detroit-nearing-financial-ruin--city-s-ex-auditor-says
ReplyDeleteDetroit on brink of financial ruin
As budget balloons, some fear city can't stay afloat
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/columns/james_carafano/Obama-Gates-are-gutting-Americas-defense-industry-56286707.html
ReplyDeleteObama, Gates are gutting America’s defense industry
By: JAMES CARAFANO
Examiner Columnist
August 31, 2009
Fire Spreads to 100,000 Acres
ReplyDeleteFirst Evacuations Ordered Within Los Angeles City Limits; Blaze Burns 53 Homes
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/31/african-born-fruit-merchant-dubbed-russian-barack-obama/
ReplyDeleteJoaquim Crima, an African-born watermelon seller, is aiming to become the first black man to hold public office in Russia -- despite the country's deep-seated racism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/us/politics/01rights.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteBy CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census.
As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush’s appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases in which there is evidence of intentional discrimination.
To bolster a unit that has been battered by heavy turnover and a scandal over politically tinged hiring under the Bush administration, the Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers, a significant increase for a relatively small but powerful division of the government.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former key Bush-era official at the division, has accused the Obama team of “nakedly political” maneuvers.
Good post, UOJ, and I enjoyed your divrei Torah, Chachmei Moetzes Chelm.
ReplyDeleteHe's back.
ReplyDeleteOnce known as Client 9 in an indictment that busted up a prostitution ring, then New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was identified as the man who paid $4,300 for a Mayflower Hotel rendezvous with escort Ashley Dupre. When the news broke, he resigned his office as governor.
That was in March of last year. Ever since, he has worked in his father’s real estate firm. More recently, he has started to burnish his credentials as a financial expert -- you may recall that Spitzer, as New York attorney general, terrorized Wall Street executives by threatening corruption prosecutions. These days, he's making occasional appearances as a commentator on cable news shows and writing for Slate magazine. Also going to Yankees games with his wife Silda, seen with him in the photo above at the Aug. 25 Texas Rangers game. Sort of Rehab 101 for politicians chased from office by scandal.
Now, according to the New York Post, Spitzer is eyeing either a run for state comptroller general or a challenge to New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed to fill out Hillary Clinton’s term.
"There are people around him who want to see him [in office]," one unnamed source told the tabloid. "He sees himself there too. He loves to be in the limelight."
According to the German language newspaper from Austria, Strulowics was nailed in 1994 for tax evasion and sat in 1997 because he claimed he didn't have any money to pay the back tax.
ReplyDeleteWhat the papers did not report is the extravagant chassunah he made in NY shortly afterward.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/08/30/2009-08-30_loaded_landlord_lets_tenants_live_in_squalor.html
ReplyDeleteThe 14-unit building, owned by Bahram (Danny) Hakakian, has 290 open violations - 225 of them hazardous, according to city records. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development ordered Hakakian to fix the roof at 2145 Amsterdam Ave., but he didn't lift a rich finger.
Instead, the city hired a contractor to do the work. Since 2007, the city has spent more than $27,000 on emergency repairs.
Hakakian's lack of attention to a laundry list of problems at the building has earned him a spot on Councilman Bill de Blasio's Slumlord Watch List. The public advocate candidate will launch the list today with the addresses of 41 problem buildings across the city.
http://www.womensrightsny.com/lawyer-attorney-1116647.html
There is a Bahram Hakakian who is an alleged sex offender.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/technology/companies/02ebay.html
ReplyDeleteEBay announced a deal Tuesday to sell its Skype online calling service to a group of private investors, led by the private equity firm (Camp) Silver Lake Partners.
“I hear from very responsible people that he intends to run for office again in New York State — attorney general or comptroller,” Kenneth G. Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot and a man with no love for Spitzer, said in an interview last week. “He’s got chutzpah, we all know that.”
ReplyDeleteSome of Mr. Spitzer’s most dedicated enemies were excited by The Post’s story.
“I’m salivating,” said Roger Stone, the Republican operative and avowed Spitzer hater, on Talk1300 AM in Albany on Tuesday morning. “This man is comic gold. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
The Hartford Courant reports Vernon, Conn., attorney Heather Kaufmann has been charged with using her dead aunt's ATM card and writing a check on the deceased woman's account to her boyfriend, a University of Connecticut law professor, for a combined total of more than $3,200. Kaufmann had previously served as the professor's attorney in October 2007 when he agreed to take a leave of absence after screening a clip of the film "Really, Really Pimpin' in Da South" in his legal remedies class.
ReplyDeleteSioux City had a huge population from Slutzk about 100 years ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ks-drugfraud-indictm,0,4385405.story
Three men have been accused of defrauding thousands of senior citizens across the country through an alleged prescription drug scheme.
Prosecutors on Friday said 44-year-old Grant Wilms, 74-year-old Hermann Wilms, both of Overland Park, and 83-year-old Kenneth Opstein, of Sioux City, Iowa, were charged with 29 counts including theft, false writings and computer crimes.
The Kansas City Star reports that authorities believe the scheme netted thousands of victims across the country and that similar schemes are still running.
Prosecutors say the men operated companies that promised prescription drug discounts. Once a customer provided their bank or credit card information, the men allegedly withdrew money in amounts of $110 or less.
There is a Danny Hakakian and his brother Babak who own the Domus furniture stores in Manhattan. Tough guys to do business with these Iranians.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases09/pr20090804b.html
ReplyDeleteThe Office of the Attorney General through its Division of Consumer Affairs has filed suit against Monmouth County-based furniture retailers for allegedly violating the state’s Consumer Fraud Act, Refund Policy Disclosure Act and Regulations, Deceptive Mail Order Practices Regulations, Delivery of Household Furniture and Furnishing Regulations and General Advertising Regulations.
Spectrum Home Furnishings and many other company names owned by Charles Serouya and his son Abraham, are named as defendants in the state’s eight-count Complaint filed in State Superior County, Chancery Division, in Monmouth County.
“Consumers did not get what they paid for and these defendants did not respond to complaints,” Attorney General Anne Milgram said. “We’re seeking restitution for consumers who spent their hard-earned money and an overhaul of business practices by these defendants.”
Although the defendants maintain a warehouse in Farmingdale, they do not operate any retail locations. The defendants advertised, offered to sell and sold furniture, including chandeliers, lighting and ceiling fans, to consumers via direct mailings (i.e. Clipper Magazine), magazine advertisements and several web sites that they operated.
The state, in its Complaint, alleges that the defendants:
Accepted payment for merchandise and then failed to delivered the ordered merchandise;
Delivered merchandise that was defective or of a different quality or condition than the merchandise ordered;
Advertised merchandise as assembled, then provided consumers with unassembled merchandise accompanied by inadequate or unclear assembly instructions;
Failed to provide consumers with merchandise on the promised delivery date or at all;
Failed to conspicuously post defendants’ return policy at the point of sale on defendants’ website;
Failed to deliver merchandise ordered over the telephone or defendants’ websites within the required six (6) week period and then failed to provide a full refund;
Misrepresented to consumers that a refund would be forthcoming, when such was not the case;
Failed to provide consumers with contract forms or sales documents that include the date of delivery and the consumer’s options upon nondelivery; and
Ignored consumer complaints or made it difficult for consumers to submit complaints.
Rav Aron Soloveichik zt"l and his children take the responsibility to be Noseh B'Ol Im Chaveiro, and Kol Yisroel Areivim Zeh Lazeh very seriously. They consistently look out to protect and stand up for those who others knock down. Ashrei Mi Shezacha to be a talmid of Rav Aron, and lives life based on the actions of Rav Aron.
ReplyDeleteThey are truly, Rodfei Tzedek Mevakshei Hashem.
SHAVAS ANIYIM ATAH TISHMAH. TZA'AKAS HADAL TAKSHIV VISOSHIYA.
ReplyDeletePEOPLE WHOSE ENTIRE MEHUS IS TO BE A CRIMINAL WHO PURSUES OTHERS, DESTROYS LIVES OF INNOCENT PEOPLE WITH ARROGANCE AND CONTEMPT OF THE WEAK, DEFRAUDS THEIR FELLOW JEW, DEFRAUDS BANKS, AND ERODES THE BUSINESS CONFIDENCE OF DEALING WITH AN HONEST JEW, HASHEM WILL REPAY YOU MANY TIMES OVER.
MEDICINE COMES IN 42 FLAVORS. ENJOY THE GOOD LIFE, WHILE YOU STILL CAN. HASHEM DOES CARE FOR THE POOR AND DOWNTRODDEN, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO Y-0-U MADE POOR AND DOWNTRODDEN.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/world/americas/02toronto.html?hp
ReplyDeleteAs the high-profile attorney general for Ontario, Michael Bryant had championed severe and controversial traffic safety laws. On Tuesday, he was charged with criminal negligence causing death and with dangerous driving causing death in an unusually violent episode of road rage involving a bicyclist.
The arrest of Mr. Bryant stemmed from a collision between a bicycle and an automobile in Toronto’s most prestigious shopping district late Monday evening. The episode started off as minor but swiftly escalated, leading to the death of Darcy Allan Sheppard, 33, who was identified as a bicycle courier.
After the collision, Mr. Sheppard apparently grabbed the driver’s side door and held on. Within moments, the police received reports of a Saab convertible racing past the fashionable shops of Bloor Street with a man clinging to its side. Two construction workers doing repairs along the road told CTV, a Canadian television network, that the car accelerated, its tires squealing, before veering into oncoming traffic on the left side of the street.
The workers said that the motorist repeatedly mounted the sidewalk and drove near lampposts in what seemed to be an attempt to brush off the man hanging onto the side.
One of the workers said the driver was “yelling pretty loud and he sounded very, very angry.” The other worker said, “He meant to knock him off.”
Several witnesses said that the clinging man flew off of the car after striking a mailbox. Sgt. Tim Burrows of the Toronto police traffic division said Mr. Sheppard died shortly after arriving at a hospital.
The convertible raced into the covered driveway of a nearby luxury hotel, the witnesses said. Not long after, Mr. Bryant was filmed by television crews sitting in the back of a police cruiser. A black Saab convertible near the hotel entrance had extensive damage on its driver’s side.
Mr. Bryant, a Liberal, was among the highest-profile members of Ontario’s government. In his last role, as economic development minister, Mr. Bryant negotiated the province’s participation in the bailout of Chrysler and General Motors.
But it was as the province’s top law enforcement official that he produced the greatest controversy and acclaim of his 10-year political career.
Among his targets were street-racing motorists. In 2007 he gave the police the power to seize and destroy cars modified for racing even if no charges were lodged against their owners.
After describing such cars as being as dangerous as explosives, he said, “We will crush your car, we will crush the parts.”
Later that year the province passed a bill to deem any vehicle traveling more than 50 kilometers an hour, or 31 miles an hour, faster than the speed limit to be racing. The legislation, under which more than 10,000 charges have been brought, allows the police to immediately seize vehicles and suspend licenses.
http://www.billdeblasio.com/slumlordwatchlist
ReplyDeleteSlumlord Watch List
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/business/economy/02office.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteFor Commercial Real Estate, Hard Times Have Just Begun
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02offenders.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteThe sheer numbers of sex offenders on the registries in all 50 states — an estimated 674,000 across the country — are overwhelming to local police departments and, at times, to the public
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804468614&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
ReplyDeleteBy ABE SELIG • Jerusalem Post
While other children across the country were beginning their first day back in class, pupils at a Chabad elementary school in Ramat Beit Shemesh were joined by their parents on Tuesday morning in a protest over the Education Ministry's decision to hire a new principal for the institution.
The crowd, which blocked the entrance to the school, was later broken up by police, who arrived on the scene after about an hour.
The parents refuse to allow their children to begin their studies at the school, as long as the new principal, who they say has a history of violence toward children, is employed there.
"This is a principal who has been fired from two other schools in the past for hitting children, and the parents feel he is a danger to their children," a Chabad representative in Ramat Beit Shemesh told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
"The parents feel as though the Education Ministry is forcing them to accept this man into their school," he said.
The parents are also upset that the school's original principal, a Chabad rabbi with 30 years of experience, is no longer working there, and say that they registered their children for the new year with the understanding that he would still be in charge.
"They feel that he is better suited to the job," the Chabad representative said. "And they have a right to be concerned about this new principal."
The parents said they are willing to keep their "strike" going as long as it takes to make the Education Ministry change its decision, and that the school's 300 pupils would find another place in which to continue their studies.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two George Washington Bridge security guards photographed sleeping on the job have been fired, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
ReplyDeleteGiven the George Washington Bridge's iconic status and huge traffic volume, officials have long cited it as a potential terrorist target.
Obama praises Muslims at dinner for Ramadan
ReplyDeletePresident Obama praised the contributions of American Muslims last night at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. “The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country,’’ Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday’s daily fast.
The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps, and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called “a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress.’’
Ironically, Nancy Garrido once worked at a children's center as part of a child abuse prevention program, reports CBS News correspondent Hattie Kauffman.
ReplyDeleteIn 1993, Nancy Garrido may have been alone with Dugard for five months while her husband returned to jail for a parole violation
The Honolulu City Council is considering a bill that would impose up to a $500 fine and/or up to six months in jail for public transit passengers convicted of being too smelly.
ReplyDeleteThe bill will be heard Thursday in committee. It would make it illegal to have "odors that unreasonably disturb others or interfere with their use of the transit system."
It doesn't matter if it's body odor or offensive fumes that emanates from clothes, personal belongings or animals.
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteThe abuse denial and minimization movement of Avi Shafran and Marvin Schick (and others in Agudath Israel) is not going well.
Look at the Jewish Press:
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/40576
...
Why has the sexual abuse of children become such a pervasive problem in our community, when our core values are diametrically opposed to this lowest and cruelest kind of behavior? It's this simple: For generations, frum perpetrators were allowed to get away with it. A few sick individuals were tolerated in every one of our neighborhoods. Each of these sick individuals typically scars more than 100 children. Many of the victims who have been molested repeatedly, grow up and sexually abuse other children, creating thousands of victims. That is how the problem has increased exponentially - it has gone unchecked. Silence may be golden, but not when abuse is involved. Abuse thrives in silence.
...
(Although I would replace "Many of the victims" with "Some of the survivors of abuse")
I guess all it took was the recent conviction/guilty plea of Michal Schwartz Shanbaum, granddaughter of Jewish Press founder Rabbi Klass for child abuse, to wake them up.
Suffolk County's chief executive has been branded the "enabler in chief" of anti-immigrant violence by a civil rights group in a report out today.
ReplyDeleteThe Southern Poverty Law Center charges that County Executive Steve Levy has engaged in "verbal immigrant-bashing" since taking office in 2003 and fueled hatred by proposing county cops "be empowered to detain Latinos solely on suspicion of being undocumented immigrants."
Levy also supervised raids on 11 homes in Farmingville that resulted in the eviction of 200 day laborers and their families, the group says.
When immigrant rights advocates protested the raids, Levy derided the activists as members of a "lunatic fringe."
Levy also dismissed as "Communists" and "anarchists" critics of Mayors and Executives for Immigration Reform - a group he co-founded that "promotes immigrant-cleansing ordinances," according to the center's report.
After an Ecuadoran immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, was murdered in Patchogue by a teen gang "out to hunt Mexicans," Levy "minimized the significance of the hate crime charge," the group charged.
Levy - whose paternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from France and whose maternal grandparents were Catholics from Sicily - did not address the Law Center's charges directly.
"I know I speak for all of the good, law-abiding people of this county in denouncing all acts of crime and violence against all persons," he said in a statement.
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090902/NEWS/909020333/-1/NEWSMAP
ReplyDeleteCharles Brunner, 64, of Brooklyn, N.Y., charged with receiving stolen property, causing an accident involving personal injury, failing to stop and give information or render aid, driving with no license, driving under the influence and not obeying stop and yield signs.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Alex Grass, who founded Rite Aid Corp. and built it into one of the nation's largest drugstore chains, has died of lung cancer.
ReplyDeleteGrass, 82, died Thursday night at his Harrisburg home after a decade-long battle with the disease, his daughter, Elizabeth Grass Weese of Baltimore, said Friday.
Grass also was a philanthropist who contributed to civic, health and educational organizations.
"Alex Grass was larger than life," said Rabbi Peter Kessler of Harrisburg's Temple Ohev Sholom, where Grass was a member and where a funeral is scheduled for Sunday.
Born in Scranton, Pa., and educated as a lawyer, Grass' business career took off after he bought a small health and beauty aids store, the Thrif D Discount Center, in Scranton in 1962. He had expanded the business to 50 stores and renamed it by the time it went public in a $25-a-share stock offering in 1968.
By the time he stepped down as the company's chairman and chief executive officer in 1995, Rite Aid was the nation's largest drugstore chain in terms of total stores and No. 2 in terms of revenue.
His son, Martin Grass, ran the Camp Hill, Pa.-based company for several years but was ousted in 1999 after he was implicated in an accounting scandal that nearly destroyed the company. The younger Grass is serving a federal prison term for conspiracy stemming from an overstatement of Rite Aid's earnings in the late 1990s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/business/global/02weather.html
ReplyDeleteTesco, British Grocer, Uses Weather to Predict Sales
CNN - Elaine Quijano - 2 hours ago
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama is considering giving a major speech detailing what he would like to see included in a bill to overhaul health care, a senior White House aide said Wednesday.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/cops-disgruntled-worker-set-fire-at-inwood-store-1.1410080
ReplyDeleteLet's see if Shmarya can figure out a way to blame this on orthodox Jews in the 5 Towns.
Shmarya has been upgrading his security and it's getting harder for me to sneak around his IT defenses to post a comment there.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210665/Fat-bus-drivers-ordered-lose-weight-breaking-seats.html
ReplyDeleteFat bus drivers ordered to lose weight 'because they are breaking seats'
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/02/white-house-green-jobs-adviser-republicans-assholes/
ReplyDeleteWhite House Green Jobs Adviser: Republicans Are 'Assholes'
Van Jones, the Obama administration's "green jobs" adviser, is seen in a video from earlier in the year calling out Republicans
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08102009/news/regionalnews/council_pols_dole_out_leftover_to_staffe_183865.htm
ReplyDeleteWall Street firms aren't the only places giving out questionable staff bonuses during the recession.
Despite raising taxes and cutting government services, individual City Council members showered their staffs with tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses at the end of the last fiscal year, The Post has learned.
A dozen members transferred unused funds from their accounts for rent and office supplies into their personnel accounts in June, the last month of fiscal year 2009, and six reached by The Post admitted to using the money to paying employee bonuses.
Each member gets $273,000 for all costs and is supposed to return unspent money to the city's general coffers.
The bonuses were in addition to 8 percent raises each council staffer was granted last week.
Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) transferred $24,500 on June 23. His aide would say only that it was for "personnel services," but a source confirmed some of the money went to bonuses.
Two members who did last-minute money shifts did not return repeated calls: Annabel Palma (D-Bronx), who moved $15,000 on June 23, and James Gennaro (D-Queens), who transferred $21,410 on June 30.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/02/critics-decry-obamas-lesson-plan-students/
ReplyDeleteCritics Decry Obama's 'Indoctrination' Plan for Students
A suggested lesson plan that calls on students to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help President Obama following his address to students nationwide is troubling and establishes the president as a "superintendent in chief," education experts told FOXNews.com.
JWB says:
ReplyDeletehttp://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/letters/
Jewish Star
Letter to the Editor 9-4-09
(Excerpt only)
Stop the chain
To the Editor: Abuse is more common in the Jewish community than most people think it is. How can I say that? Well, I am a survivor of abuse, and including myself, I know of five people who were abused within a two-block radius. That is five people too many. Dov Hikind reported getting hundreds of calls from abuse survivors. This means there are probably thousands of Orthodox Jewish people who were or still are being abused.The abuse that I suffered could have been entirely prevented if I had been educated about this topic at a young age. I went through the Bais Yaakov system and not one teacher discussed this topic. If I had been told the basics about the difference between good touch and bad touch, then my abuse wouldn’t have started in the first place.As a result of not knowing, I suffered in silence for four terrible years. I am now traumatized for life. I get triggered every single day. Even just walking out of my house brings horrific memories to my mind. I now suffer every day from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder.
...
JWB says:
ReplyDeletehttp://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/good-touch-bad-touch/
(Excerpt only)
Back to school 2: Good touch, bad touch
How to talk to your kids about a touchy subject
By Mayer Fertig
...
moms and dads need to consider if their children are equipped with the information they’ll need to protect themselves from an adult, or even another child, who seeks to betray their trust. “Parents need to teach their children about good touch and bad touch,” said psychologist Michael Salamon of ADC Psychological Services in Hewlett. “Use themselves and their medical doctors as an example,” he suggested, “how the doctor will never examine them without Mommy or Daddy in the room, and anyone who wants to touch them, unless Mommy or Daddy says it’s okay, they should stay away and tell Mommy and Daddy about it.” Second grade is the latest age to have that conversation, Salamon said, and it should be repeated “at every age”; another therapist suggested children first receive age-appropriate warnings about abuse when they are as young as four years old. Context is important, stressed Dr. Asher Lipner, vice president of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, and a therapist in private practice. “
...
http://calcoastnews.com/news.php?viewStory=172210
ReplyDeleteBy Karen Velie
Sri Lankan Police arrested the overseas agent of the VeAhavta charity, founded by San Luis Obispo attorney Eric Parkinson, for sexually harassing orphans.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/aug/25/forest-hill-trial-set-for-january/
ReplyDeleteForest Hill funeral embezzlement trial set for January
Mark Singer loses motion for separate proceeding
By Daniel Connolly (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
SEC investigation: We missed Madoff
ReplyDeleteCNNMoney.com - 9 minutes ago
Am I the only one that noticed how Shmarya is trying to make the current Falasha issue with yeshiva admissions in Israel into a rerun of 1960s Arkansas?
ReplyDeleteWhile he fantasizes about little kushim being escorted to class by machine gun toting Mishmar Hagvul, a gross exaggeration of the situation, his biggest faux pas in all this is when he quotes Desmond Tutu who inserted himself into the controversy.
Pupu is the anti-Semitic priest from South Africa who took advantage of an invitation to Yad Vashem to slam Israel and the Jews to the international media. Shmarya makes no mention of this since Pupu is his race hustler ally.
Former New Jersey state Sen. Joseph Coniglio has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for using his influence to steer state funds to a hospital where he also served as a consultant.
ReplyDeleteThe Paramus Democrat was convicted April 17 of mail fraud and extortion.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of more than six years.
The former (non-UOJ affiliated) plumber served in the state Senate from 2002 to 2007 and was a member of the powerful Senate Budget Committee.
He was found guilty of one count of extortion and five counts of mail fraud.
The Associated Press
ReplyDeletePITTSBURGH - The Internal Revenue Service is alleging that a Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer owes more than half-a-million dollars in back income taxes.
The IRS filed a civil action Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh. It accuses Mel Blount (BLUNT) of owing more than $631,000 in federal income taxes between 1994 and 2006.
Blount did not immediately return a message left Tuesday at the Mel Blount Youth Home, about 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. It was not clear if he had an attorney.
The 61-year-old Blount was a key member of the Steelers' first four Super Bowl teams, and his 57 career interceptions remain a team record.
Blount retired in 1983 and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989
September 02, 2009 - 2:00 AM
ReplyDeleteLOCH SHELDRAKE - A 31-year-old man who did time for sodomizing a 12-year-old girl in Sullivan County was charged Tuesday with two felonies, under the law that requires sex offenders to register with authorities.
Victor Conklin Jr., who’s been living in Loch Sheldrake, is accused of failing to appear at the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office in January for a mandatory address verification.
An investigation by sheriff’s deputies also revealed that he’d been living in Orange County until the end of last month, when he returned to Sullivan County. He was charged with two felonies under the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act, more commonly known as Megan’s Law.
Conklin pleaded guilty in County Court to second-degree sodomy in 2002.
Shmarya has been on a binge lately to attack Norman Podhoretz and his extended family.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-are-jews-liberals-a-symposium-15223?page=all
JEFF JACOBY
Like Norman Podhoretz, I am often asked by non-Jewish conservatives why American Jews cling so tenaciously to the Left and vote so consistently for Democrats, and like him I believe the answer to that question is theological: liberalism has superseded Judaism as the religion of most American Jews.
I absorbed the lesson that Jews need not vote in lockstep and that voting for a Republican was as normal as voting for a Democrat.
Most American Jews, on the other hand, seem to have learned from an early age that to be Jewish is to be a liberal Democrat, no matter what. No matter that anti-Semitism today makes its home primarily on the Left, while in most quarters of the Right, hostility toward Jews has been anathematized. No matter that Israel’s worst enemies congregate with leftists, while its staunchest defenders tend to be resolute conservatives. No matter that Republicans support the Jewish state by far larger margins than Democrats do. No matter that on a host of issues—homosexuality, abortion, capital punishment, racial preferences, public prayer —the “Torah” of contemporary liberalism, as Podhoretz calls it, diverges sharply from the Torah of Judaism. As Why Are Jews Liberals? convincingly and depressingly demonstrates, the loyalty of American Jews to the Left has been unaffected by the failure of the Left to reciprocate that loyalty.
The Jewish predilection for ill-advised political choices isn’t new. The Bible describes the yearning of the ancient Israelites for a king and God’s warning that monarchy would bring them despotism and misery. Appoint a king, God has the prophet Samuel tell the people, and he will seize your sons and daughters, your fields and vineyards: “He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants. Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
His warning fell on deaf ears: “Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, ‘No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations.’”
The longing to “be like all the nations” is a recurring motif in Jewish history. Baal worshipers in the time of the prophets, Judean Hellenists in the Chanukah story, 19th-century assimilationist maskilim, Jewish socialists enthralled by Marx’s classless Utopia, modern post-Zionists in quest of a non-Jewish Israel—down through the ages, in one way or another, innumerable Jews have fought or fled from Jewish “otherness” and embraced ways of life or beliefs that promised to make them less distinctive. Given the cruelty and violence to which Jews were so often subjected, it is not surprising that many would seek to shed or neutralize their Jewishness.
To deal with the would-be Hitlers of our era—Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Jew-hating mullahs in Iran—-today’s Democrats counsel pacifism and appeasement and endless negotiation. These days it is the Right that calls for strong and decisive action against the enemies of the free world. Today the beleaguered Jewish state’s most unshakable American allies are Republican and conservative. Yet American Jews remain what they have been for so long: unshakably Democratic and liberal.
This liberalism isn’t rational. It isn’t sensible. It certainly isn’t good for the Jews.
Our days and nights are taken up defending ourselves against the enemies of the Jewish people and today the world out there is overloaded with them. When you view this film you can start to understand some of the origins of those who wish to wipe us off the face of the earth.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv8TW2Pts_w&feature=related
ELUL RECALL NOTICE
ReplyDeleteRegardless of make or year, all units known as "human beings" are being recalled by the Manufacturer. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named "Adam" and "Eve" resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect is technically termed, "Serious Internal Non-morality," but more commonly known as "SIN."
Some of the symptoms of the SIN defect:
[a] Loss of direction
[b] Lack of peace and joy
[c] Depression
[d] Foul vocal emissions
[e] Selfishness
[f] Ingratitude
[g] Fearfulness
[h] Rebellion
[i] Jealousy
The Manufacturer is providing factory authorized repair service free of charge to correct the SIN defect.
The Repair Technician, Hashem, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. To repeat, there is no fee required.
The number to call in for repair in all areas is: PRAYER.
Once connected, please upload the burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Hashem, into the heart component of the human unit.. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Hashem will replace it with:
[a] Love
[b] Joy
[c] Peace
[d] Kindness
[e] Goodness
[f] Faithfulness
[g] Gentleness
[h] Patience
[I] Self-control
Please see the operating manual, TORAH, for further details on the use of these fixes. As an added upgrade, the Manufacturer has made available to all repaired units a facility enabling direct monitoring and assistance from the resident Maintenance Technician, Hashem. Repaired units need only make Him welcome and He will take up residence on the premises.
WARNING: Continuing to operate a human being unit without corrections voids the Manufacturer's warranty, exposes the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list, and will ultimately result in the human unit being incinerated.
Thank you for your immediate attention.
Please assist by notifying others of this important recall notice.
Have an uplifting Chodesh Elul!
This was probably the Lubavitcher meshulach in Warwick who has a beard down to his waist.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090902/NEWS/909029997
WAREHAM — A Rhode Island man who was seen taunting a Hasidic Jew with racial slurs later charged officers and was subsequently subdued with a stun gun and arrested Tuesday night, according to a report by the Wareham Police Department.
Michael Watkins, 37, of 726 Post Road in Warwick, R.I., was reported to be taunting the man at a Stop and Shop, and the responding officer observed the suspect's vehicle traveling west on Cranberry Highway, according to police. The report notes that the vehicle at first failed to stop, and Watkins, the passenger, was seen throwing a shotgun out the window.
The vehicle eventually stopped, and when the officer stepped out of his cruiser, Watkins charged police yelling and screaming, according to the report. After Watkins refused to come to the ground, he was subdued with a stun gun and brought into custody with the aid of other officers, police said. The shotgun that had been thrown out the window was later found to be loaded.
The driver, Emily R. Putney, 19, of 185 North Fitzwilliam Road, Royalston, was also arrested. Putney has been charged with failing to stop for a police officer, carrying a dangerous weapon, and possession of a large capacity firearm. Watkins has been charged with disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, possessing a large capacity firearm, carrying a dangerous weapon, carrying a firearm without a license, possession of ammunition without a firearms identification card, a firearms violation with two prior violent crimes, and a violation of civil rights.
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteI am a concerned resident of the RBSA community.
Lema'an Achai,the wonderful organziation that among it's amazing work champions for children's rights in Ramat Bet Shemesh is in danger.
Some of the rabbinic mafiosa has "cheremed" Lema'an Achai and will not allow collections in their shuls. In addiiton these chochomim of repute are actively telling people to NOT support Lema'an Achai and all of this because...
David Morris made a comment about the extent of abuse in the community.
So now poor people and innocent children are punished.
What can we do to help?
Filed at 10:01 a.m. ET
ReplyDeleteROME (AP) -- The editor of a prominent Catholic newspaper that demanded Premier Silvio Berlusconi answer questions about a sex scandal resigned Thursday after being caught up in scandal himself.
Dino Boffo, editor of the Avvenire daily of the Italian Bishops' Conference, strongly denied the allegations raised by Il Giornale, a Berlusconi family newspaper that alleged he had been involved in a court case with homosexual overtones.
Boffo acknowledged being fined in a harassment case involving a woman. But he said someone else had used his cell phone to make the harassing calls and prosecutors denied there was any gay angle in the case.
Boffo said he resigned, however, because Giornale's ''barbaric'' attack had hurt his family and Avvenire.
Il Giornale, which is owned by Berlusconi's brother, published the article weeks after Avvenire called on Berlusconi to answer questions about his purported infatuation with young women.
Berlusconi has been on the defensive ever since his wife announced in the spring that she was divorcing him, citing his presence at the 18th birthday party of a Naples model. Italian media subsequently reported that women had been paid to attend parties at the premier's residences and that a high-class prostitute had once spent the night with him.
Berlusconi, 72, has denounced what he says is a media smear campaign against him. He has denied ever paying anyone for sex and says there was nothing ''spicy'' in his relations with the Naples model.
He distanced himself from the Giornale report alleging a gay scandal in Boffo's past, but the damage was already done: Berlusconi's relations with the church, already frayed by his own sex scandal, worsened, with the church canceling a dinner he was to have had with the Vatican No. 2.
The head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, had strongly defended Boffo and expressed regret over the resignation. Bagnasco denounced the ''unprecedented media attack'' against Boffo and praised his long-standing service to the church.
The year 5770 will be the year in which the masterminds and ringleaders of criminal activity against their fellow Jews, those who mercilessly pursue fellow Jews for their own sick pleasures, and those who willingly cover for and give spiritual support to the criminals, will lose their SPECIAL ASSETS and find themselves in the same state of trauma, strain and anxiety as those they harmed.
ReplyDeleteTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ReplyDeleteThursday, September 3rd 2009, 7:12 AM
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. - A slap-happy 61-year-old man is in big trouble for smacking a wailing 2-year-old.
Annoyed with the toddler's sobbing inside a suburban Atlanta Wal-Mart, Roger Stephens slapped the child several times after warning the kid's mother to keep her quiet, cops said.
He hit the girl at least four times.
"See, I told you I would shut her up," Stephens, of Stone Mountain, is alleged to have said.
Now he's being slapped by the law. Stephens is charged with felony cruelty to children.
It was unclear if he had a lawyer, and a telephone call to his home yesterday was unanswered.
Authorities say the girl and her mother were shopping Monday when the tot began crying.
The police report says Stephens approached the mother and said, "If you don't shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you."
Authorities say Stephens then grabbed the 2-year-old and slapped her.
The child began screaming and Stephens was arrested.
Police say an examination showed the girl's face was slightly red.
Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is teaching a political science course at City College.
ReplyDeleteA City College spokesman says Spitzer, who resigned in a prostitution scandal in March 2008, is an adjunct professor in the political science department.
The three-hour undergraduate class is called "Law and Public Policy," spokesman Ellis Simon said. The course began meeting on Tuesday, and will meet once a week for 15 weeks.
Spitzer will earn around $4,500 for the fall term, the spokesman said.
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America: “Senator Kennedy was a towering figure whose contributions to the United States over his lengthy senate tenure are as numerous as they are legendary.”
ReplyDeleteAgudath Israel of America: "Senator Kennedy was one of his generation’s most powerful and eloquent voices against global anti-Semitism."
I am against ....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=11038218
A Texarkana, Arkansas, officer was called to a field in the 1600 block of East 24th Street on Monday, where he found a man engaging in what appeared to be intercourse with a horse.
The officer says he recognized the man as Harry Johnson, a local homeless man and a familiar face to local law enforcement.
Johnson allegedly tried to pull up his pants and run, but was taken into custody without incident.
He's now charged with bestiality and fleeing.
http://www.americancoinop.com/article.cfm?articleID=17976
ReplyDeleteMARATHON, Fla. — The Marathon, Fla., City Council assured residents that the city plans to figure out a way to help the local Maytag Clean Laundry mitigate a $149,000 sewer bill. (Editor’s note: see previous story, City Gives Laundry $260K Sewer Bill after Fire.)
The owner of the property on which the Maytag Clean Laundry sits, Ed Putz, has filed an appeal of the assessment with the city.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Nightline/sex-offenders-live-miami-bridge/story?id=8420696
ReplyDeleteSex Offenders Live in Village Under Miami Bridge
Strict Local Ordinance Requires Offenders to Stay 2,500 Feet Away From Schools, Leaving Few Other Affordable Options
By JEFFREY KOFMAN
MIAMI, Sept. 3, 2009
"1600 block of East 24th Street on Monday, where he found a man engaging in what appeared to be intercourse with a horse."
ReplyDeleteAre they sure that was in Texarkana, Arkansas? The 1600 block of East 24th St in Flatbush is home to both Scheinerman & Toiv's shuls.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1205780.html
ReplyDeleteDeveloper Michael Stern -- the chief witness in a Miami Beach City Hall bribery probe -- has repeatedly refused to return from Uruguay for hearings in his bankruptcy case, prompting a judge to threaten him with arrest.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Mark found Stern in contempt of court after the developer missed a Wednesday court hearing in defiance of a previous order. The judge said he would give Stern one last chance to appear; otherwise, he will order the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest Stern.
Stern's lawyer said his client wants to come back, but a back injury makes it impossible for him to travel.
Stern's former business partners, Ivor Rose and Rita Starr, have also accused Stern of fraud, saying Stern secretly arranged a $4.2 million mortgage on a Collins Avenue building the three owned together. In court papers, Rose and Starr said they never received any money from the loan and said their signatures were forged on loan documents.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sfl-investment-fraud-090409,0,4124361.story
ReplyDeleteThree dozen mostly elderly South Florida investors, including a Holocaust survivor, have been awarded more than $7 million in damages in a case involving former Boca Raton stockbroker Gary J. Gross.
The award, issued Aug. 14, came from a federal Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration, based on investors' allegations of fraud. Their complaints were consolidated into a single case.
The investors said they are angry that state regulators didn't do more to protect them. They also face an uphill battle to get any money from Gross, who has declared bankruptcy.
"There are no assets to go after," said Gross's bankruptcy attorney, Charles Cohen.
The customers said they met Gross through mutual friends or connections at a synagogue. They said he is a very personable man who often took his clients to dinner or attended services with them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/us/04school.html?hp
ReplyDeletePresident Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has sparked a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.
The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.
Some parents said they were concerned because the speech had not been screened for political content. Nor, they said, had it been reviewed by the State Board of Education and local school boards, which, under state law, must approve the curriculum.
“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtiss, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home. “I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”
Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, speaking on the Rush Limbaugh show on Wednesday, accused Mr. Obama of trying to create a cult of personality, comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader.
The Republican Party chairman in Florida, Jim Greer, said he “was appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.” And Chris Stigall, a Kansas City talk show host, said, “I’m not letting my next-door neighbor talk to my kid alone; I’m sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone.”
The first President George Bush, a Republican, made a similar nationally broadcast speech from a Washington high school in 1991, urging students to study hard, avoid drugs and to ignore peers “who think it’s not cool to be smart.” Democrats in Congress accused him of using taxpayer money — $27,000 to produce the broadcast — for “paid political advertising.”
This week, school officials were hearing from parents about the issue not only in Texas, but in other parts of the country as well — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, South Carolina and Utah.
SAN FRANCISCO — Another allegation of sexual abuse emerged Thursday against kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido, when Antioch police disclosed he was arrested nearly 40 years ago on suspicion of drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl.
ReplyDeleteGarrido was accused of sexually assaulting the girl at an Antioch motel in April 1972 after giving her barbiturates, Antioch police Lt. Leonard Orman said.
Garrido was set to be prosecuted in the case but the charges were dropped when the girl refused to testify, Orman said.
The girl and a friend met Garrido, then 21, and another man near the public library and joined them in a car, where they were given drugs, he said.
Details on the case were spotty because so much time had passed.
However, authorities recently reinterviewed the girl and were able to piece together that she awoke at the motel and was raped repeatedly before her parents found her, Orman said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/03/arts/AP-US-Kennedy-Memoir.html
ReplyDeleteKennedy Denies Affair With Kopechne in New Memoir
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/garrido-safety-children-2551103-child-gomes
ReplyDeletePhillip Garrido once printed up a child safety tip sheet for a children's safety advocate, and threw in some extra advice on how kids could avoid kidnappers, according to a news report.
Children's safety advocate Janice Gomes told a Sacramento CBS affiliate last night that she has known Garrido for 15 years and often hired him for child safety printing jobs.
Garrido, 58, has been charged with kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard 18 years ago and fathering two daughters with her.
Gomes told the station that when she hired Garrido to print up a child-safety tip sheet, he had an extra tip: "'Children really shouldn't be walking to the bus stop by themselves. Children are no match for adults,'" Gomes remembered him saying.
Garrido is accused of kidnapping Dugard from a bus stop.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/57029-pelosi-will-let-rangel-hold-post-despite-new-allegations
ReplyDeleteSpeaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will let Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) keep his chairmanship despite his failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets on federal disclosure forms, according to Democratic aides.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/57255-green-jobs-czar-signed-911-truther-petition
ReplyDeleteThe Obama Administration's Green Jobs Czar Van Jones appears to have signed a 9/11 "truther" petition suggesting the government "deliberately allowed" the terrorist attacks.
The Washington Independent's Dave Weigel tweeted a link to this petition on 911truth.org. Among the signatories is Jones, who was then the director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The group confirmed to the Washington Times that it's indeed the same Van Jones.
The petition "call[s] for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."
Jones has been taking a lot of heat from the right for once being a communist and "rowdy black nationalist," in his own words.
Yesterday, a video surfaced of Jones calling Republicans "a**holes."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbPZAMked0
ReplyDeleteA video is circulating on the blogosphere today of a 2008 interview between documentarian Jan Helfeld and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), during which Stark tells the journalist to "get the f**k out of here or I'll throw you out the window."
Stark is no stranger to verbal confrontations. In one example, in 2003 Stark responded to then-Rep. Scott McInnis's (R-Colo.) call for Stark to "shut up" on the House Floor by saying, "You think you are big enough to make me, you little wimp? Come on. Come over here and make me, I dare you. You little fruitcake."
Latest HAMODIAH in English unashamedly publishes a photo of Aron Shechter at a barmitzva of one of Michael Hersh's kids.
ReplyDeleteHave they never heard of Tranquility Bay and how Hersh sent his other kid Isaac to be jailed and "reprogrammed" there and how Isaac had to be rescued after Michael Hersh was sued by a human rights organization, a rescue team was sent down to find and save Isaac, and Rabbi Shechter was forced, with Hersh, to release Isaac from Tranquility Bay on Jamaica, while R Shmuel Kaminetsky backed the rescuers and took Shechter head on, calling him a "rotzeach" for fighting Isaac's rescue, to his face at a meeting.
Now the re-writing of history happens under everyone's nose with cutes pics sent in to the editors at the HAMODIAH. At least the YATED, so far, did not fall for this trick of pasting in a photo of Michael Hersh as if he were some sort of chushuve guy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/opinion/04fri1.html
ReplyDeleteThe Kooks who run the NY Times are demanding in the lead editorial that Obama raise taxes on everyone at all income levels, despite his promises not to.
FACT CHECK: Biden ignores problems with stimulus
ReplyDeleteBy BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE (AP) – 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed success beyond expectations for the $787 billion economic stimulus, but his glowing assessment overlooks many of the program's problems, including delays in releasing money, questionable spending priorities and project picks that are under investigation.
http://www.forward.com/articles/113276/
ReplyDeleteThe Forward is joining the attacks on kiruv.
Reporter Gal Beckerman (& Editor JJ Goldberg in an editorial) are giving credence to David Kelsey's post on Failed Messiah. Kelsey is Shmarya's friend who also went off the derech and tries to dig up dirt on frum Jews.
Aside from this being a story about nothing, Shmarya's and Kelsey's agitation reminds me of a story with Rav Elya Lopian. An outsider once asked him why yeshiva bochurim get so heated when debating a shver sugya in Shas. Rav Lopian explained that they don't have any possessions like gold bullion or real estate. All they have is their pshat which someone is trying to take away from them so they try as best they can to hang on to it.
Losers like Shmarya who are unemployed and live in their mother's basement while smearing orthodox Jews as a full time occupation have nothing in their life except their empty secularism. So when kind hearted people try to inject a little religion into the world, Shmarya and company fight to justify their own existence.
http://www.jewcy.com/post/birthright_israel_wants_you_be_ultraorthodox
ReplyDeleteHere is one of Shmarya's most vicious posts yet, over at Kelsey's blog.
Shmarya uses several anti-Semitic canards to demonize orthodox Jews, describing them as "sweaty bearded men", doing away with the word kiruv/outreach to replace it with "missionary" work and accusing kiruv workers as being part of a "cronyism" racket.
Picking up on his earlier theme to attack billionaire Michael Steinhardt for daring to provide funding to anything orthodox, Shmarya actually accuses him here of "siphoning" money away from non-orthodox causes. That could be true if Steinhardt did something like take someone else's money. But Shmarya is so bent out of shape over Steinhardt's support of kiruv with his own money that he presents outright lies to make Steinhardt look like a criminal.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=4984&tag=rbxccnbzd1
ReplyDeleteApple lawyers tried to hush up exploding iPod reports
J.J. Goldberg is a two-faced opportunist.
ReplyDeleteHe was on that child molestation discussion panel where Gil Student made a fool out of himself, presenting UOJ as both a plain villain and a villain of necessity.
While trying to promote his newspaper to the modern orthodox crowd in Queens, J.J. insisted up and down that he is not anti-orthodox.
I'm coming for you UOJ!!!
ReplyDelete**********************************
Rav Avrohom Schorr, rov of Khal Tiferes Yaakov in Flatbush, will be in Los Angeles this weekend, Shabbos Parshas Ki Savo. Rav Schorr will speak at Congregation Bais Moshe Yitzchok tonight at Kabbolas Shabbos. Rav Schorr will also attend a Sheves Achim tish tonight at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Shai Stern.
Tomorrow morning, he will visit Congregation Shaarei Torah. He will then go to Congregation Kehillas Yaakov, which is led by its mara d’asra, Rav Gershon Bess.
Rav Schorr will give a shiur tomorrow afternoon at Kollel Los Angeles, followed by a drasha at seudah shlishis at Kollel Yechiel Yehuda, the Chassidishe Kollel of Los Angeles.
The weekend will be capped off by melava malka on Motzoei Shabbos at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Shai Stern.
http://www.hakhel.info/ArchivesPrograms/HakhelLaborDay09YarcheiKallah.pdf
ReplyDeleteSchorr Habor has a busy schedule.