http://tzedek-tzedek.blogspot.com/2009/09/article-about-denial-by-survivor-of.html
By A Guest Writer - A Survivor of Abuse
I was one of those “kids at risk” who went off the derech and no one could figure out why. I was from a chashuv family. I was a good kid, a quiet kid. I had everything going for me. My grandfather was a Rosh Yeshiva. No one knew, or wanted to know, that for years I was molested in the yeshiva by my grandfather the Rosh Yeshiva and also by some of his students. One of those students was my father. When I tried to talk about it no one believed me. They said I was crazy. They said I was lying. They said I was saying it to get attention. (I could think many better, less painful, ways that I could have gotten attention!) They said I had a memory problem. They said I had a “vendetta” against my father. They said everything they could think of to try to discredit me and to avoid the truth. They were in denial.
What's unusual about my story is not that I was molested by frum yeshiva bochurim and a Rosh Yeshiva. Child sexual abuse knows no social or religious boundaries. I believe it happens far more than we care to contemplate. What is unusual about me is that I came back to my roots and I am now living a fulfilling Jewish life. I know so many who went through similar experiences and never looked back. Their souls are lost to Judaism forever.
It took years of soul searching and healing to come back. Child sexual abuse is one of the hardest minhagim for families to change. It's pain and shame handed down from one generation to the next. Until someone swims against the tide of denial, stops the flow, builds a dam, and changes the minhag child sexual abuse doesn't go away on its own.
As I began to heal, It slowly became clear to me that I was not created in my abusers image of God, and that they did not own Torah. It became clear to me that the frum talmidai chachamim who abused me perhaps really were frum and really were talmid chacham...But they had a serious problem that they didn't have the tools or support to deal with. They suffered from an addiction they couldn't even admit to themselves that they struggled with. So they passed the molestation problem down to me, and to other children. For years I battled the current of denial, nearly drowned in it, lost my entire family because of it, and eventually thank God dealt with it, for me, for my children and grandchildren, for the future of klal yisroel.
Or so I thought.
A few years back I made Aliyah and moved to Ramat Bet Shemesh. I thought that I was in a safe place to raise my children. Then, last summer my sons first grade rebbe was accused of molesting some of his classmates. It was horrible, and retraumatizing for me. It brought back my own past. I was ready to leave again, this time for good.
Not because it happened. These things happen in every community. But because of the denial. Denial hurts worse then the actual acts of abuse. When I, or my child, is sexually abused our world is ripped apart. One of the saddest affects of abuse is the loss of trust. Trust in oneself, trust in people, trust in God and in the Torah community. It's hard enough believing that the unthinkable happened. That someone I trusted could molest a child. But when my reality is assaulted at every turn by the people I turn to for support it creates deeper and deeper wounds. Denial is our best defense against that which is too horrible to imagine. But it is insidious and hurtful. It takes a lot of courage to face denial and challenge our existing beliefs.
When I saw what the family of the victims went through because of denial I knew I had to speak up. I wish people would think twice about the possible affect that some of their thoughtless comments have on an already traumatized person or family.
We condemn and our horrified by holocaust deniers and yet we do the very same thing to victims of sexual abuse within our community. Survivors of child sexual abuse have gone through a personal holocaust. It would be unthinkable to question the memories of a holocaust survivor. We wouldn't grill them for details of their experiences. We would wait and see if they needed to talk. Neither would we deny them the need to speak of their experiences. Why do we do these hurtful things to people who have already been so hurt and traumatized by sexual abuse?
If you find out that someone, or someone's child has been a victim of abuse:Offer your empathy and support and ask how you can help.
Just listen.
Don't try to defend the alleged perpetrator because you know them or trust them and can't imagine them molesting.
Perpetrators of child sexual abuse are addicts not monsters.
My father and grandfather were not monsters. They did many good things in their lives. Molesting me was not one of them. Their actions caused a lot of pain.
Don't try to place the blame on someone else.
Don't try to figure out if the child is “lying.”
Frum children especially, don't know how to lie about this.
Believe that something bad happened.
Know that no person would willingly offer themselves to the frum community for the kind of stigma and punishment that families of individuals who have been abused go through when they dare to speak out.
The community reaction of denial and blaming the victim is far worse than the abuse.
Know that until your own child is a victim you really don't understand.
Don't put your child into a school where an alleged perpetrator is teaching.
You are supporting community denial when you do that. You are enabling perpetrators to continue molesting.
Let's end the denial and keep our children safe!
A grateful survivor.
"Until someone swims against the tide of denial, stops the flow, builds a dam, and changes the minhag child sexual abuse doesn't go away on its own."
ReplyDeleteOur Rabbi in Chicago, Rabbi Finkel told us the same thing. IT'S UP TO EACH OF US to stop the cycle of abuse. It's either your FOR it or AGAINST it. Once a victim acts on the sickness, he is NO LONGER A VICTIM, HE's A PERPETRATOR.
We took Rabbi Finkel up on his challenge to find meaning in our life. Many of us are on our way back or have already arrived. We were treated like GARBAGE by the community and the so called "Rabbis" because we were challenging the way things were done in Chicago for ages. We have our own Rabbi who went through the same treatment for turning the tide.
We are so proud to have stood up, and still stand up against all garbage thrown at us. The MORE DIRT THE RABBIS AND COMMUNITY THROW AT US, THE CLEANER WE FEEL. We won't continue the chain of abuse. Thank God he came into our lives when we finally hit bottom and strengthened us and challenged us to make a life for ourself.
IF WE CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU!! We know how bad off we were yet OVERCAME, YOU CAN ALSO!! Don't give up, you can do it. It might take a REAL RABBI to help you along, we found ours, we hope you find yours. They exist in every city, please find that man and give it a try.
STOP THE CYCLE! TAKE THE KNOCKS PEOPLE WILL GIVE YOU! IT MAY BE HARD! IT MAY HURT! BUT, WHEN YOU DO IT, THERE'S NO FEELING LIKE IT!
Rabbi Finkel thank you for throwing us a lifeline when we were about to drown. You should reap the benfits of your work and have Nachas from your kids and future generations. Working for no money shows the dedication and care you have for suffering souls. By us spreading your teachings, you have no idea how many people's lives you have touched.
SHANA TOVAH!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203585004574392620693542630.html
ReplyDeleteWarning: The Deficits Are Coming!
The former head of the Government Accountability Office is on a crusade to alert taxpayers
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/09/wextrust-case-receiver-seeks-return-funds
ReplyDeleteBy Tom Shean
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 6, 2009
The court-appointed receiver in the WexTrust Capital fraud case may be seeking the return of money from an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Norfolk and a Virginia Beach law firm.
In an August report to the federal court in Manhattan, receiver Timothy Coleman said he "has made formal written demands on 30 parties for payment in connection with various claims."
The Securities and Exchange Commission contends that WexTrust and two of its owners, including Joseph Shereshevsky of Norfolk, bilked investors by diverting $100 million of funds to unauthorized uses.
Coleman's office said Friday he wasn't available to comment on his pursuit of WexTrust assets, and his report doesn't name any parties.
One could be the B'nai Israel congregation in Norfolk, where Shereshevsky is a member and had been a significant contributor. Several of the congregation's members suffered heavy losses after putting personal savings into WexTrust. Rabbi Chaim Silver of B'nai Israel declined to comment in an e-mail Friday.
Ruiz is the proper Hispanic spelling before we changed it to Reis.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/feds-ny-businesswoman-was-high-class-grifter-1.1426078
Court records show Reis' operation — under a variety of names — targeted dozens of other companies over the years, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Beech Nut, Nestle, Revlon and Kraft.
At least a half-dozen lawsuits have been filed against Reis, but the cases generally have been settled out of court. Many victims don't sue because they're embarrassed at having been had, said Donald deKieffer, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has helped prepare several lawsuits against Reis.
"She's very self-possessed, confident and an enormously good liar," he said.
Friends and relatives paint a different picture of Reis, describing a deeply religious woman who is adored by her husband and three sons and gives vast amounts of money to charity and the arts.
Her husband, David Reis, said in a letter to the court that his wife had endowed a computer room for a hospital for children in Tel Aviv, and Barbara Haskell, curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, praised Dina Reis for her support for the facility. Her brother-in-law and sister, Harold and Naomi Moskowitz, wrote that she had paid for bar mitzvahs for orphans and helped dozens of people get food and medical treatment.
"She is incapable of seeing someone in less fortunate circumstances and not do something," (with stolen money) they wrote.
DeKieffer estimated Reis has made nearly $100 million over the years through the alleged scam. She has homes in New York, Florida and Jerusalem.
"If you're good at it, you can make a whole lot of money by being a scam artist. And that's what she was," he said.
http://www.thechuckknoblog.com/2009/04/legend-of-john-sterling.html
ReplyDeleteI'm not Dina Wein-Reis's brother in law but my original name was also Harold Moskowitz. I'm so ashamed of being Jewish that I get that detail edited out of websites like Wikipedia whenever someone posts it.
Part one
ReplyDeleteDavid Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal . He attended Harvard University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.
He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College. He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.
Dr. David Kaiser
History Unfolding
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten! And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
Part Two
ReplyDeleteAnd finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning..
As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s.. In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory.
Conservative "losers" read it right now.
Part Three
ReplyDeleteAnd that is only the beginning..
As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s.. In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory.
Conservative "losers" read it right now.
And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,
How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... . .. change. And the people surely got what they voted for.
If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.
So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.
Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
I choose to believe the evidence.. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe---and why I believe it.
I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.
David Kaiser
Jamestown , Rhode Island
United States
While I feel some of the pain of the writer of this article, I am aware that the goal is not the telling of his personal story for its cathartic value. The goal is clearly to tell the public of the horrific experience that is relived in the next generation, and that the severity of the subject is that the damage is long lasting. That is an important message. This article is one of many being added to the stacks that have graced the pages of UOJ and other sites. I am among the many who wish there were not so many cases, and that the community can accomplish something with all the discussion and talking that has been ongoing for over a year.
ReplyDeleteI must take issue with one of the statements: “Perpetrators of child sexual abuse are addicts not monsters.”
I believe that this statement is not necessarily true. There are perpetrators who are not addicts, and there are addicts who are not perpetrators. Let me explain.
There are sexual addictions, far more than the public would care to admit. This category of problems comes in many flavors (and well known in the frum community). Some of these addicts compulsively seek partners everywhere, others prefer the fantasies and viewing of explicit materials, others are involved in other aberrations. A fraction (sorry, no statistics) involve children, and among them some act on these impulses while others satisfy their addictions in other ways.
There are perpetrators of sexual acts with others who either do not consent or are below the age of consent. This behavior is technically violent and abusive, whether the scene is dramatic or appears to be consensual. The category which comprises much of the discussion is this latter one. Whether the individual is addicted or not is hardly relevant. There is damaging behavior inflicted on an innocent victim, and this is the crime. Being addicted is sometimes cited as a defense, but is really irrelevant. The addict has multiple outlets that are victim free, regardless of how sick or depraved they may be.
Understanding this, one must recognize that the perpetrator of sexual abuse has been “violent”, and that this behavior is that of a “monster”. The situation might be that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where there was part of the personality that was quite normal while the other was capable of doing monstrous things. But I would hesitate to dismiss the “monster” thing so quickly; neither would I rush to use ‘addiction” as a defense.
Context: Look how rosh yeshivas whitewash their own crimes against humanity with the help of their choice talmidim after they had both connived to kidnap and sent away Isaac Hersh to a Mormon-run boot-camp called Tranquility Bay on Jamaica in the Bahamas that resembles a concentration camp and that led to a climactic rescue effort to snatch Isaac Hersh from the jaws of his tormentors.
ReplyDeleteReference: Latest Hamodia in English, "Community News": Page C18, 13 ELUL|Photos of the Week|SEPTEMBER 2, 2009:
"R-L: Michoel Hersh [yup, it's him], father of the bar mitzvah bachur [and father of Isaac Hersh]; Yehuda Hersh, bar mitzvah bachur [what will be his fate and mazel at the hands of Hersh and Shechter?]; Harav Aharon Schechter [glumly reclining behind a shtender unsmilingly]; Harav Pinchos Kahn [ever the captive of his job, looking down at the floor]
(Below a photo of: "Harav Aharon Teitelbaum, Satmar Rebbe, during a visit to Monsey", next to a photo of: "The Burshtiner Rebbe speaks to the bachurim at the Radoshitzer yevivah", and above a photo of: "Harav Yosef Menachem Deutch, Dayan in the San-Klausenberger community in Boro Park, gives a shiur to the talmidim of the San-Klausneburger Yeshivah".)
I'd give $100 to know who was that rosh yeshiva.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/nyregion/07conflicts.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteSeptember 7, 2009
City Board Set Up to Monitor Ethics May Have Conflicts of Its Own
Isn't the survivor lucky to live in RBSA...a community that encourages and protects child abusers.
ReplyDeleteAnd when organizations and individuals stand up for the kids...they get banned and ridiculed.
Way to go Malinowitz!
Anonymous of 10:34 PM, September 06, 2009:
ReplyDeleteYou are correct.
Individuals who fully comprehend their own "Bechira Chofshis" - complete freedom of choice - will typically label these molesters as nothing less then monsters.
Individuals who DO NOT fully comprehend the meaning of their own "Bechira Chofshis" - will CHOOSE to defend and dismiss abusers with labels such as addictions.
I KNOW because I'm a victim too. It also took me "years of soul searching and healing to come back". However, when I did come back, I looked squarely in the face of the evil and called a spade a spade, and with that I bought my own freedom of choice.
Lo Suches Aincha Alayiem - we are commanded NOT to have pity on them!
Although painful to the victim; the following needs to be said: if "Denial hurts worse then the actual acts of abuse" then stop defending and denying (figuritively speaking) "Hashem's abuse" - those that violate the worst sins of his Torah!
V'hamivin Yovin
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/un_orthodox_sex_life_smear_siShG0wEtJeGJyMhSEDLmK
ReplyDeleteUn-Orthodox 'sex life' smear
Gal rages at rabbi
By BRAD HAMILTON
A Jewish woman from Brooklyn says she's fighting a "Scarlet Letter" smear campaign -- against a prominent rabbi who's allegedly slamming her with lies about her sex life
"He said that I have an underground, sexually promiscuous lifestyle and exposed my kids to it," says Asia Teper, 33, of Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, a fixture in Flatbush and member of the Orthodox Union and Yeshiva Torah Vodaas.
The campaign began about two years ago just as Teper's ex-husband, Shagra Kohn, 34, was becoming ultra-Orthodox, Teper said.
He grew a beard and sidelocks and befriended influential members of the Orthodox community, including Belsky, she said.
The rabbi pleaded for donations for Kohn in a letter in 2007 to Lifestyle, a free magazine that focuses on religious issues and is widely read in observant circles in Brooklyn.
An accompanying article, using pseudonyms for the couple, blasted Teper's "descent into the abyss of immorality."
"Because Lifestyle is a family magazine, we will spare the details of [her] moral descent. Suffice it to say that without regard for her husband or children, she embraced a lifestyle that was, and remains to this day, the very antithesis of a Bas Yisraeli [daughter of Israel] and Aishes Chayil [woman of valor]."
Teper, of Marine Park, said Belsky went to her kids' school and handed out copies of the magazine, making it clear the article was about Teper.
"The school decided I wasn't religious enough, and now they won't talk to me. It's because I was dating someone. I wear pants and shorts when I go out jogging, and I don't cover my hair."
Teper confronted Belsky.
"I went to the rabbi and said, 'I'm just trying to raise my kids.' And he said, 'Your husband is more religious than you.' "
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/un_orthodox_sex_life_smear_siShG0wEtJeGJyMhSEDLmK
ReplyDeleteBrad Hamilton • NY Post
A Jewish woman from Brooklyn says she's fighting a "Scarlet Letter" smear campaign -- against a prominent rabbi who's allegedly slamming her with lies about her sex life.
"He said that I have an underground, sexually promiscuous lifestyle and exposed my kids to it," says Asia Teper, 33, of Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, a fixture in Flatbush and member of the Orthodox Union and Yeshiva Torah Vodaas.
The campaign began about two years ago just as Teper's ex-husband, Shagra Kohn, 34, was becoming ultra-Orthodox, Teper said.
He grew a beard and sidelocks and befriended influential members of the Orthodox community, including Belsky, she said.
The rabbi pleaded for donations for Kohn in a letter in 2007 to Lifestyle, a free magazine that focuses on religious issues and is widely read in observant circles in Brooklyn.
An accompanying article, using pseudonyms for the couple, blasted Teper's "descent into the abyss of immorality."
"Because Lifestyle is a family magazine, we will spare the details of [her] moral descent. Suffice it to say that without regard for her husband or children, she embraced a lifestyle that was, and remains to this day, the very antithesis of a Bas Yisraeli [daughter of Israel] and Aishes Chayil [woman of valor]."
Teper, of Marine Park, said Belsky went to her kids' school and handed out copies of the magazine, making it clear the article was about Teper.
"The school decided I wasn't religious enough, and now they won't talk to me. It's because I was dating someone. I wear pants and shorts when I go out jogging, and I don't cover my hair."
Teper confronted Belsky.
"I went to the rabbi and said, 'I'm just trying to raise my kids.' And he said, 'Your husband is more religious than you.' "
Teper said Belsky and other rabbis have raised thousands of dollars for Kohn, even though her ex has stiffed her out of $30,000 in court-ordered child support, court records show.
Kohn owns a catering company and has filed numerous motions against Teper since she got full custody of the girls, ages 10 and 12, in 2007.
During a deposition he admitted to cheating on his 2005 income taxes, and in July he was arrested for contempt after he yanked the daughters out of an upstate summer camp and disappeared for six days.
The kids were returned unharmed. Kohn is facing charges in Fallsburg, NY.
The couple, who were both born in Israel and came to New York as teenagers, met through friends and were married in a religious ceremony in 1995 and legally in 1998.
Though they are still legally hitched, Kohn remarried in a religious ceremony to his pregnant girlfriend, records show.
Teper, an insurance-claims adjuster, got remarried on Thursday to her longtime fiancé, also in a religious service.
Belsky and Kohn did not return calls seeking comment.
Teper, of Marine Park, said Belsky went to her kids' school and handed out copies of the magazine, making it clear the article was about Teper.
ReplyDelete***
This behaima is the Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Vodaath and the Masmich?
Shame on the present board and Chaim Leshkowitz!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/SqRwigN4bKI/AAAAAAAAD9g/kVZWUVAiy2k/s1600-h/sayagh.jpg
ReplyDeleteNever a dull moment in Lakewood.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/africa/08sudan.html?hp
ReplyDeleteSudan Fines Woman Who Wore Pants
The proper dikduk by the way is Yisroel Halevi Belsky.
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post.html
ReplyDeleteרמב"ם-ועיין כסף משנה המקור- "פשוט"
יב במה דברים אמורים, בדברים שבין אדם לחברו; אבל בדברי שמיים--אם לא חזר בו בסתר--מכלימין אותו ברבים ומפרסמין חטאו ומחרפין אותו בפניו ומבזין ומקללין, עד שיחזור למוטב: כמו שעשו כל הנביאים לישראל
SDR said...
Just a side point. If going to archaos gives one the din of a rasha then what about Satmar, Bobov etc? The KJ Rebbbe was the keynote speaker at the asifa for R' Shneur's yahrzeit a couple of years ago in Lakewood. What gives?!?!?! What's good for the goose...
Anonymous said...
Notice how they give him respect in the beginning of the letter (HY"V, Hashem Yishmeruhu Vichayehu)and then proceed to call him a rasha that has no cheilek in olam haba.
He grew a beard and sidelocks and befriended influential members of the Orthodox community...During a deposition he admitted to cheating on his 2005 income taxes, and in July he was arrested for contempt after he yanked the daughters out of an upstate summer camp and disappeared for six days....stiffed her out of $30,000 in court-ordered child support
ReplyDeleteIn Belsky's eyes, the father is more fit to raise the children because he grew a beard and payos. The mother is unfit and is exposing her kids to her "sexually promiscuous lifestyle" because she wears pants and doesn't cover her hair. Never mind that the father is an admitted tax cheat, a deadbeat dad and a kidnapper. That's all muttar as long as he wears a beard and befriends "influential" members of the community. Not only that, he fits right in with all the other tax cheats and deadbeats in the community. Why, they are even raising money for this bum. If Mondrowitz, Kolko and Rubashkin qualify, why not this criminal as well?
There are always two sides to every custody battle. However, this article shows exactly what is wrong with our leadership today and what their values are.
Steve's explanation might be more fitting if the Novominsker made a public appeal to raise funds for Shraga Kohn.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to Belsky, you need to know how much money he's putting in his own pocket, or as UOJ would say, under his mattress.
Belsky gets involved with Mendel Epstein, Peretz Steinberg, child rapist Ephraim Bryks, etc, when there's some big payola involved, taking the side of whoever shmeared him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/asia/08taiwan.html
ReplyDeletehe prime minister of Taiwan resigned Monday after widespread criticism of the government’s response to a deadly typhoon and said that his successor would replace the entire cabinet this week.
Also involved in the Hersh scandal is convicted sex offender Steve Zakheim who remains a big macher in Hatzolah.
ReplyDeleteEmail and/or fax the English weekly HAMODIA to protest their re-writing of history and the whitewashing of crimes against humanity by posting a photo of Michael Hersh, condemned kidnapper of Isaac Hersh, on its gedolim picture pages:
ReplyDeleteEditor@hamodia.com
Letters@hamodia.com
Photos@hamodia.com
Fax: 718 853 9103
Context and caption:
"Community: Page C18, 13 ELUL|Photos of the Week|SEPTEMBER 2, 2009: R-L: Michoel Hersh, father of the bar mitzvah bachur; Yehuda Hersh, bar mitzvah bachur; Harav Aharon Schechter; Harav Pinchos Kahn"
Protest to the English language HAMODIA how can they overlook what happened a year ago when the young Jewish teen Isaac Hersh was kidnapped by his own father with the consent and blessings of his rabbi Arone Shechter and then they both fought to keep the boy on Tranquility Bay camp in Jamaica, Bahamas against the will of other family members (grandparents), rabbis and community activists.
Only after a three person rescue team (Rabbi Wolbe from the Houston Kollel, his father from Monsey and Dr. Pelcovitz of YU) took the initiative to fly down to Jamaica and rescue Isaac, with the help of a human rights organization filing suit in Federal Court, and even an appeal to Senator Hillary, was Isaac finally rescued.
The fallout was huge. It was reported in the Jewish and general media. Michael Hersh was fired from his high-paying office job at Hatzola of Flatbush, and a split in Agudath Israel's Moetzes erupted when Shechter refused to back off his backing of Michael Hersh and the imprisonment of Isaac and the censure of Hersh to release his under-age son, leading to Rav Shmuel Kaminetzky calling Shechter a "rotzeach" to his face, and R. Dovid Feinstein refused to back Shechter while people from the Lower East Side were key in pushing the rescue of Isaac from Tranquility Bay/Michael Hersh/Aroin Shechter. The Chaim Berlin Yeshiva crowd stood by cowardly as one in their midst was dragging their name in the mud as he pulled the wool over Shechter's eyes.
Now the HAMODIA has the audacity and chutzpa to publish a photo of Hersh and Shechter rejoicing together as if "all is well" and as if nothing ever happened, counting on public amnesia.
Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky and Dr. Pelcovits signed a full-page warning in the Jewish Press against the events that took place in the imprisonment of Isaac Hersh and that under no circumstances are any Jewish parents to ever send their child to a facility like Tranquility Bay for ANY reasons whatsoever!
Email and/or fax the HAMODIA to protest their re-writing of history and the whitewashing of crimes against humanity:
Editor@hamodia.com
Letters@hamodia.com
Photos@hamodia.com
Fax: 718 853 9103
For reference, this was the context and the caption that followed:
"Community: Page C18, 13 ELUL|Photos of the Week|SEPTEMBER 2, 2009: R-L: Michoel Hersh, father of the bar mitzvah bachur; Yehuda Hersh, bar mitzvah bachur; Harav Aharon Schechter; Harav Pinchos Kahn"
http://projects.nytimes.com/crime/homicides/map
ReplyDeleteClick on "Race / ethnicity of perpetrator" for murders in NYC
61% are Black
29% are Hispanic
3% are Asian
Only 7% are White
But if you listen to Shmarya and his lockstep followers, Orthodox Jews are the biggest evil on Earth.
Shmarya bans me and other readers when we criticize him and his followers, claiming we are being inflammatory. He also erases what we write.
Here are some examples of what Shmarya's followers have written in the last 2 days and which Shmarya deems fit to remain on his blog:
There are various people using screen name like Ah-Pee-Chorus, Mr. Apikoros and other variations of identifying with kefirah. They refer to frum Jews as "Frum-bags", etc.
Robert Wisler: "Haredim are sons of bitches, they truly are"
"Orthodox Jews are nurtured on the knowledge that they are superior to those outside their group and therefore feel entitled to exploit them and trample on their rights and property. Elderly people are NOTHING to the yeshiva'leit.
Led by the hareidim's inexcusable and inhuman behavior toward their fellow man, we Jews are on a quick sure path to another round of oppression as happened in Europe during the 1930's."
Seymour: "Haredim are a cult and have nothing to do with the people who are Jewish ... they are nuts"
WoolSilkCotton (another failed Chabad BT like Shmarya): "The orthodox strike me as being neurotic, paranoid, self-centered, more than a a bit sociopathic, unfriendly and just downright nasty."
Last week when Shmarya mentioned R' Moishe Feinstein's shita on cholov Yisroel, AH-pee-chorus called R' Moishe a "small minded idiot who irrationally perverts halacha". Barry called cholov Yisroel a form of "child abuse" for "illegally taxing" a child staple. Shmarya goes on to add that Beis Shammai "snuck through" the "infamous" gezeirah by murdering talmidim of Hillel.
VIN reports, from Haaretz: "Famous NY Rabbi Allege Billionaire Threatened to Kill Him In Jerusalem Hotel
ReplyDeleteA prominent U.S. rabbi is accusing Guma Aguiar, the billionaire energy industrialist and patron of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, of assaulting him in a Jerusalem hotel in April while the rabbi served as a prosecution witness against the businessman in a civil suit in Florida. Aguiar - who was born in Brazil, raised in the United States and now spends part of the year in Israel - is accused of entering Rabbi Leib Tropper's room at the David Citadel Hotel, assaulting him and threatening to cause him further harm.
At the time of the alleged attack, Tropper was testifying at Aguiar's trial on embezzlement charges brought before a Florida court by the businessman's uncle, Thomas Kaplan. The plaintiff claimed Aguiar misused funds slated for charitable purposes because he believed he was the messiah, a claim Aguiar called "absurd." In June a judge dismissed the case.
On May 24 Tropper, who heads the Kol Yaakov Yeshiva in Monsey, New York, filed a criminal report, and police opened an investigation into the allegations. Tropper told Jerusalem police that on the day he was scheduled to leave Israel he asked hotel staff to help him with his luggage, and when he opened his door he was stunned to see Aguiar and one of his bodyguards - at least one of whom reeked of alcohol - standing next to the bellboy.
Tropper said Aguiar pushed his way into the room, cursed at him and ordered the bellboy to leave. He then pulled off Tropper's glasses and threatened to throw him out of the window.
Tropper said Aguiar told him, "I'll throw you off the ninth floor. You better take a look at the city, because it's the last time you'll see Jerusalem."
When hotel security staff present threatened to call the police, the businessman allegedly said, "I know all of the police in Jerusalem, and they'll listen to me."
Aguiar's bodyguard then restrained him, and returned Tropper his glasses. A hotel security officer soon arrived, and Aguiar and his bodyguard left the scene. Tropper said he required medical attention after the incident.
A U.S. court has filed a restraining order keeping Aguiar from the rabbi and other individuals involved in the trial.
A police investigation was launched following Tropper's report, but closed after only two weeks due to what police called "lack of evidence."
Tropper then filed an appeal to the State Prosecutor's Jerusalem office, claiming that the police hardly collected any testimony from him, the hotel's chief of security or any of the other hotel staff present during the alleged altercation. Aguiar himself was also not questioned.
Last week police notified Tropper's attorney that his appeal had been accepted, and the case against Aguiar would be reopened.
A spokesman for the Jerusalem police confirmed yesterday that the case against Aguiar had been reopened, and that he is scheduled to be questioned in the coming days on suspicion of assault and intimidation.
Aguiar effectively rescued the cash-strapped Beitar Jerusalem soccer club with a bailout to the tune of $4 million in July. Officials at the club declined to comment yesterday on the alleged assault.
Last month, Haaretz reported that Aguiar claimed he had been assaulted by anti-Semitic policemen in Florida, after he was arrested on charges of driving under the influence and drug possession in Broward County in June."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/08well.html
ReplyDeleteWhat are the symptoms of swine flu? When does it become an emergency?
In children, the warning signs include fast or troubled breathing, bluish or gray skin, and persistent or severe vomiting. If a child isn’t drinking enough fluids, is unusually hard to wake up, is not interacting or is so irritable that he or she doesn’t want to be held, you should call your doctor.
Adults with severe symptoms may also complain about pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen, sudden dizziness and confusion.
Children with underlying neurological problems should be quickly seen by a doctor if they run a fever. In otherwise healthy children, the main warning sign is that the child seems to feel better, then appears to relapse with a high fever. This signals a bacterial infection that must be treated with antibiotics. Even though such infections are seldom severe, the child should be seen by a pediatrician as quickly as possible.
Tropper's gerus scam is funded by Guma's uncle Thomas Kaplan. Guma, who is married to a shiksa originally approved by Tropper, had a falling out with Tropper and switched his large donations to Chabad. Guma is a bully and threatened to sue Rabbi Doniel Eidensohn unless he removed all references to his wife's gerus from his website.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/policy/08webobama.html
ReplyDeleteObama Rallies Supporters on Health Care
There's lots of Background to the latest VIN and Haaretz report about the Leib Tropper/Guma Aguiar conflict, and be'ezras Hashem I will try to relate it in the days to come.
ReplyDeleteGuma Aguiar is the nephew of Dr. Tom Kaplan, son of Kaplan's sister Ellen who married a Brazilian gentile Otto Aguiar while in Brazil. They had both become evangelical christian missionaries and so was Guma when they moved to the USA.
At some point they started getting more interested in Yiddishkeit, Guma claims it was through Tovia Singer (of "Jews for Judaism") as well as a local Chabd Rabbi in Florida. But Tropper claims it was through him since he had somehow gotten to know Kaplan and then persuaded Guma to come to Tropper, where Guma called himself "Yehuda Kaplan" and even donated a sefer Torah to Tropper's kol yaakov yershiva after renouncing being a christian.
From then on Guma, who was Kaplan's business partner in Leor Energy, both became major mega givers to Tropper to the tune of tens of millions of dollars to support Tropper's travels, lifestyle, kol yaakov heshiva, his "horizons" outreach lectures, and the new EJF-Eternal Jewish Family organization that was designed to act as a major recruiter of gentiles married to Jews to get them converted through so-called EJF approved batei din, all in the name of raising "higher standards" for conversion.
Guma with his mother Ellen, firmly under Tropper's spell, set up the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation about six years ago to pump money mostly to Tropper and the new EJF operation and they succeeded in luring hundreds of prominent rabbonim and roshei yeshiva to attend EJF events.
While Guma was dispensing millions of dollars of his own to Tropper and EJF, behind the scenes Guma was secretly involved with a young Brazilain woman, Jamie, while Tropper kept this a deep dark secret from the rabbis at EJF events, and all while Guma refused to go along with Tropper's demands that Jamie convert as Tropper wished with all the chumras.
Instead, Guma dumped Tropper and went to Rabbi Herbert Bomzer in Brooklyn, along time YU rabbi who has been involved with Orthodox conversions for decades, who did the conversion of Jamie Aguiar, and then Guma and Jamie started giving tens of millions to Chabad, Nefesh BeNefesh, March of the Living and bought the Jerusalem soccer team, making a splash in the media and proving that he did not need Tropper to get the limelight in the Jewish world. This made Tropper crazy as hell!
Tropper and his ally rabbi Nochum Eisenstein (who runs a strict haredi bais din for conversions in Isreal) based in Jerusalem, and both went ballistic. They went to Rabbi Eidensohn's Daas Torah blog and had a poster called "Roni" call Guma and his wife and Bomzer and the Chabad rabbi they donated to the vilest of names and curses. Guma subsequently threatened Rabbi Eidensohn to take down the posts, but they were mostly about Tropper and his tactics that about Guma in any case.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1211630/Height-folly-Sarkozy-accused-ordering-20-short-people-stand-make-look-statuesque.html
ReplyDeleteSarkozy's shortlist: 5ft 5in French President packs stage with tiny staff to make himself look taller
By PETER ALLEN 08th September 2009
Mr Sarkozy, who is notoriously sensitive about his height, did not want a repeat of the fiasco in June when he was caught using a footstool when delivering a speech alongside Gordon Brown and Barack Obama during the D-Day commemorations.
Both the 5ft 11in Prime Minister and 6ft 2in American towered above him when they used the same podium.
When Mr Sarkozy, 54, and his wife Carla Bruni, 41, met up with Mr Obama and his wife Michelle in the French city of Strasbourg earlier this year, Mr Sarkozy was again widely mocked for standing on tiptoes during a photo shoot.
This time Mr Sarkozy has been accused of manipulating his media image for political ends.
'Mr Sarkozy wants to look like a tall, impressive statesman and thinks nothing of altering reality to suit this,' said another Faurecia worker.
This corrupt Black putz set the stage for school lunches so I could pull off my fraud in the 1970s.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/nyregion/08hughes.html
September 8, 2009
Charles Hughes, 68, Dies; Led Union Until Disgrace
By BRUCE WEBER
Charles E. Hughes, who led a municipal labor union for 30 years, winning substantial gains for part-time workers in New York City schools and becoming a political power broker, but whose career ended ignominiously with a corruption conviction and a prison term, died Aug. 30 in Manhasset, N.Y. He was 68 and lived in Queens.
The cause was a heart attack, his daughter Charisse Rose said.
From 1968 to 1998, when the national union, suspicious of malfeasance, suspended him, Mr. Hughes was president of Local 372, District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents more than 20,000 lunchroom aides, crossing guards, substance abuse counselors and other school employees, most of them black or Hispanic women. Most work part-time for hourly wages, but during Mr. Hughes’s tenure, their health benefits were greatly expanded and members became eligible for a city pension. He also negotiated a compensation schedule that allowed them to receive paychecks through the summer.
Mr. Hughes was an especially ardent advocate for greater participation of the city schools in the Child Nutrition Act, the federal program that subsidizes school breakfasts and lunches.
All this came to an end in February 1998, when the District Council became alarmed at the dwindling bank account of Local 372 and informed Afscme, which appointed an administrator to replace Mr. Hughes. The next year, Mr. Hughes was indicted on charges of stealing about $2 million from the union (including $700,000 in unearned overtime) and of using the money, among other things, to pay for a European vacation for himself and 14 friends and reward friends in Millen, Ga., his hometown, with no-show jobs.
District Council 37 itself was put into trusteeship in December 1998 as corruption was found to be rife within its ranks. In 1999, Mr. Hughes became one of 38 district officials to be indicted on a variety of charges, including embezzlement and vote fraud. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced to three to nine years in prison. He served six, most of it on work release.
BOSTON - Former sportscaster Bob Gamere pleaded guilty today to child pornography charges.
ReplyDeleteGamere, 70, was charged last October with using his home computer to send multiple people e-mails with child pornography videos attached.
He could have faced at maximum of 70 years in prison if found guilty of all the charges. In a plea agreement, federal prosecutors are seeking a five-year sentence.
Gamere, of Brookline, originally pleaded not guilty to two counts of transporting child pornography videos and one count of possessing child pornography.
Gamere's lawyers did not return a call seeking comment.
Gamere was a popular sportscaster and also hosted the Boston television bowling show, "Candlepins for Cash" from 1973 to 1980.
Gamere will be sentenced on Dec. 8 if U.S. District Judge William Young accepts today's plea agreement. If the judge does not go along, the case will go to trial.
http://www.vosizneias.com/19209/2008/08/11/pikesville-md-baltimore-jewish-community-and-its-kosher-food-shops/
ReplyDeleteI've got this big smile on my face because me and the Star-K are getting away with giving a job at my store to convicted child molester Yisroel Shapiro.
Bob Gamere was a Yankee play by play announcer for one season, in 1970. Some say he was fired because he referred to Minnesota Twin Paul Ratliff as "The Rat". Now we know who the real rat is.
ReplyDeleteLeib Tropper has a troubled history that most people, certainly his talmidim and backers either don't know about or block out.
ReplyDeleteMuch of this can be found on the web though. He has no formal secular education beyond elementary school and is proud of it. He is well-read though and can quote all sorts of classical authors that he has learned to do in his kiruv speeches to secular audiences. He is very charismatic and speaks in a scary roaring voice that frightens the average well-bred secular American Jew into either disgust or mind-numbing paralysis and suspension of judgment and personlity which then allows Tropper to spring his trap, ensnare his stunned prey and make them into his followers, forcing them to wear yeshvish levush overnight, learn 18 hours a day and cut of contacts with family mebers. If this sounds like a cult, it is!
He is also able to cultivate rich donors with the above techniques and calculated charm offensives.
This is how whe ensnared both Dr. Tom Kaplan, a mysterious brilliant American Oxford educated PhD and successful investor in mineral mining to his side. It happens to be that Kaplan's sister Ellen Kpalan Aguiar has at least one son named Guma ("Yehuda") who was also Tom Kaplan's business partner. They founded and then sold the Lior Energy company that made billions of profits from gas deposits in Texas. The origins and detaials of this venture are shrouded in mystery. Only Kaplan and Guma know what happened and how it was done.
It is not clear who was the real innovator and founder of Lior Energy. Both Guma and Kaplan had roles in it. They are now battling each other in US courts over this question and the final verdict has not been handed yet.
In the meantime, to match their business success, they both founded and supported a new family foundation called the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation, which they then also had a fight over controlling in court, but a Florida jury awarded the case to Guam Aguiar because simply Guma and his mother Ellen Aguiar had signed the incorporation papers making it an open and shut case.
This was a big blow to Tropper who drew heavily on the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation name for support in all sorts of ways, starting with the literal tens of millions of dollars he got from it for all his own causes like horizons, kol yaakov yeshiva, unlimited travel and international presidential lodgings, like the luxury Jerusalem hotel he was in when Guma supposedly came to his room, and to launch the controversial EJF junket, which Tropper hoped to leverage into a tool to becoming a "gadol" in his own right by controlling all geirus and even kiruv worlwide. More about this later.
After all the time and effort he had put into making Kaplan and Guma his own disciples, Guma then sprouted his own wings and told Tropper to go fly a kite. Tropper saw red and has been resorting to a series of unending dirty-tricks, to be explained in later posts, to attack Guma and his newly converted wife Jamie, as well as attacking Rabbi Herbert Bomzer relentlessly for welcoming Guma and Jamie and granting Jamie an Orthodox conversion to Judaism.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Food makers must alert government officials of potentially contaminated products within 24 hours under a new rule designed to help federal regulators spot food safety issues sooner.
ReplyDeleteThe Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday unveiled a new electronic database where manufacturers must notify the government if they believe one of their products is likely to cause sickness or death in people or animals.
Regulators said the database will help the FDA prevent widespread illness from contaminated products and direct inspectors to plants that pose a high safety concern.
''There's been a lag time; we learn about problems after people get sick,'' said Michael Taylor, senior adviser to the FDA's commissioner. ''This is intended to inform us of contamination problems before people get sick.''
Shmarya would be proud of ex-Lubavitcher Levertov.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.record-eagle.com/northernliving/local_story_248205609.html
Denise Levertov
Her father, raised a Hasidic Jew, had converted to Christianity while attending university in Germany. By the time Denise was born he had settled in England and become an Anglican parson.
Her mother, who was Welsh, read authors such as Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy aloud to the family. Denise was educated entirely at home, and claimed to have decided to become a writer at the age of 5.
http://theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/38964/Social+Workers+Concerned+Regarding+Meah+Shearim+Mom.html
ReplyDeleteWhy is Yeshiva World insisting on reporting LIES AND LIES AND LIES ENDLESSLY??? There is absolutely no truth in the fabrications from the Social Workers and Prosecutors whose goal is to ruin orthodox families. They’re simply jealous of the beautiful lives the orthodox Jews lead.
Is there no end to your MOTZI SHEM RA? Aren’t you scared now in the days of Elul before your own judgment to report such fabrications?
Once again you are caught in the net of the Satan, the Left media, whose only purpose is the motzi shem ra following their distortion of the news by giving the impression of the mother’s cruelty. Once again the media lied to the public.
The mother got permission to see her child and she indeed saw him for a minute but WAS FORCIBLY REMOVED FROM HIM by a wicked, vicious, heartless Social Worker who as soon she walked in and noticed the mother with the child, IMMEDIATELY CHASED THE MOTHER OUT - Mengele’s style of separating the mothers from their children. And this is an eye witness account and not as you say “she declined when she learned such a meeting must take place in the presence of social workers.” Lies and lies and lies! (Then they wonder why they’re called Nazi or Gestapo.)
Those people who are the axis of evil, the Prosecutors, the Social Workers and the Police, and have no problem killing innocent protesters, definitely HAVE NO PROBLEM FABRICATING LIES against this innocent wonderful mother.
If these reshaim were truly so concerned for the welfare of this child and her other children, actually did just the opposite BY FORCIBLY SEPARATING THE MOTHER FROM THE CHILD, which according to psychologist involved in this matter testified that this had an extreme negative effect on this child and will take a long time to heal.
So you, Yeshiva World, trust these reshaim - who generally are either single, divorcees, and those who are married have no more than 1 child and a dog - and blindly accept what they’re saying as fact? Time for you people to stop this nonsense and do tshuva. Their cruelty and wickedness does not have to be aired by Yeshiva World.
I don’t care if you decide that the truth might offend some talkbackers on your site and yourself and would therefore not publish this. At least you read it and the message came through to you to stop being motzi shem ra.
Comment by Bar26
Outrageous. Disgusting. Appalling. These are the words used by the media to express feelings over the recent release of the only man convicted in the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. While Scotland was trying to be “humane” with their release of the dying mass murderer, the terrorist then received a hero’s welcome complete with a parade and dignitaries upon returning to his homeland. No shame, just glorifying the villain for all of the world to see, not to suffice with just letting him return quietly to his family to spend his final days.
ReplyDeleteThere are many stories of Gedolim who condemned people who cheated. One was recently posted here (link) on Matzav.com with Rav Chaim Kanievsky telling a bochur he should sit in jail for what he had done (driving without a license). Another is a famous story about a boy who cheated on a test and Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky expelled him from yeshiva. Years later he was indicted on fraud charges, to which Rav Yaakov reflected that if only other yeshivos had not been so quick to accept this boy back, perhaps he would have learned his lesson.
Financial integrity has been at the forefront of our community as of late, and while there are those who are trying to better themselves, there is still a disturbing cavalier attitude that permeates some segments. We thought that recent events would have gotten rid of this attitude, but on the surface at least, it appears that it hasn’t completely gone away.
I know of someone whose rov chastised his kehillah to avoid dealing with people who can cause chillul Hashem. When he tried to act upon this by distancing himself from associates who were indicted, he was met with scorn and resentment, as if he was a frum Benedict Arnold amidst others in the business.
At the same time, for some, the release of a person who commits fraud on a large scale might be cause for great celebration.
To see honesty shunned and criminality glorified is contradictory and embarrassing.
When we glorify those who break the law, we put ourselves in danger, literally and figuratively. We don’t need to give fodder to those who wish to report how hypocritical we are. Do we really need to invite the scrutiny and criticism for which there is no good answer? What message do we send to our young people if we send mixed messages about right and wrong? What about younger people who observe approval from of our society to criminal actions?
And then there are others. Others who may have known what they were doing. Others who we wish the best for and who we want to be returned to their families. While we don’t want people to sit in jail and we empathize with the families and don’t begrudge their return to society, shouldn’t it be an awkward situation, not one of blatant celebration?
Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who we run to for yeshuos and advice won’t give such a person a bracha. Should we be celebratory? What an olam hafuch…
This is a brilliant response to the Forward's attack on Birthright that was egged on by Shmarya and which makes Shmarya, the Reform rabbis and the Forward look like fools. Shmarya is currently throwing a tantrum over the letter and calling Ms. Sugar a "snarky cronyist" and again accusing Steinhardt of "nepotism".
ReplyDeletehttp://www.birthrightisrael.com/site/PageServer?pagename=next_local_ny_announce
An Official Response To The Editors of The Forward:
Dear Forward Editors:
I have only a few moments to write this. I have to get back to memorizing page 32b of Tractate Sanhedrin, as I was instructed to do daily by my partners at the Jewish Enrichment Center. Thankfully, those anti-feminist Orthodox people don't require me to wrap teffilin every day as they apparently did to that poor, unsuspecting Birthright Israel alumnus in Gal Beckerman's article, "Birthright Alumni Center Tied to Haredi Outreach". Then I would certainly have no time to put pen to paper. Fortunately, I have a moment off to respond to Mr. Beckerman's very astute observations about my Birthright Israel NEXT office and its relationship with the Jewish Enrichment Center which he classifies as an "outreach arm of a yeshiva".
Thanks to Gal's terrific journalistic skills and his ability to see through the facts and to interpret them so the rest of us can understand them, I have seen the light. It must be true that an Orthodox person would be incapable of human interaction that didn't include the forcing of his views on others, because "Orthodox" so clearly equals "stealth agenda" and "dangerous". How could I not have seen that? Thanks Gal, I would have gone the rest of my life believing otherwise. Pink slips are being issued in my office to everyone with a yarmulke and a penchant for kosher food as we speak.
And thanks to all those other rabbis of various other denominations quoted in Gal's article. While it's true that they have never attended any of our events or called me to talk about working together, their status as "non-Orthodox clergy" clearly enables them to assess the agenda of our staff members better than I can. After all, I am just a run of the mill Jewish woman, and as I am so often reminded by my Orthodox rabbinic friends, women don't count anyway.
2nd part of the letter
ReplyDeleteGal's articles have not only served as a religious and professional awakening for me, but a personal one as well. Thanks again Gal! If you hadn't pointed it out, I would have never realized that I hold such sway over philanthropist Michael Steinhardt. It was your keen observation that I know his son David since childhood that drew the line for me between Michael's generosity toward the NEXT/JEC partnership and my ability to convince him how best to spend millions of his dollars. Given this new revelation (and I use that word in the least Orthodox sense, I assure you) I can now use my powers for good. In an upcoming Letter to the Editor to the Forward I plan to post my home phone number so that all those seeking funding for their projects might call me. I've got the direct line to Michael -- why shouldn't I use it? Whatever you need - $10,000, $100,000 - I am the girl to get it for you. Good thing Michael is such a push over and that I am so convincing.
Good journalism apparently isn't just about writing a good article. According to The Forward it is about writing two articles, without the benefit of any firsthand experience to accurately describe the subject the author has chosen to write about. Not everyone can do that, but Mr. Beckerman has. Bravo. I so very much appreciate the effort and am grateful for the insights he brings. And I understand completely why he chose not to quote a single person who had positive things to say about the JEC - clearly they have been brainwashed. Glad he caught that before he exposed their rhetoric to the world.
As for me, I will go now to the other side of the mechitza in our office and think deeply about what Mr. Beckerman has said and what it really means. Before I do, I will share a little secret with Mr. Beckerman: I am the Director of Birthright Israel NEXT, NY, not Matt Mindell or Lawrence Hajioff, not Rabbis Yoffie, Brenner or Bachman. What I wont tell him is whether or not I am Orthodox, because frankly, it just doesn't matter. And more importantly, that leaves room for the next article.
Rebecca Sugar Director Birthright Israel NEXT, NY
If every time a man's parents come over to his house to visit they cause a fight with his wife, and inevitably cause Sholom Bayis issues between him and his wife, may he tell his parents that they should not come anymore?
ReplyDeleteThe Shevet HaKehosi brings the Rambam (Ishus 13:14) who paskens that if a women complains that she does not want her husband's mother and sister to come to their home because they cause her grief, we listen to her because a person cannot be forced to have unwanted people sit in their premises. The Shulchan Aruch (EH 74:9) agrees with the Rambam and adds that this applies even the husband's father. The Bais Meir says that the Rambam only wrote about the mother-in-law and sister-in-law because in halacha they are considered a natural nemesis.
The Rema adds a caveat and says that this is only if Bais Din verifies that in fact they are the ones causing machlokes, otherwise we do not listen to her because it is her husband's mitzva and she should not interfere without valid grounds. Bais Din in that case sends someone to investigate the true nature of the feud.
The Shevet Hakehosi says that the Rema is only talking about a case where the husband says that it is his wife that is initiating the machlokes. If however the husband agrees with his wife, then she needs no further proof in order to insist that her in-laws do not to come by anymore. This sad request should of course be delivered with the utmost sensitivity and respect by either the husband or the wife.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/nyregion/09police.html?hp
ReplyDeleteALBANY — Political interference and favoritism infected the highest ranks of the State Police over more than a decade and under three governors, repeatedly jeopardizing the agency’s independence and plunging its leadership into political battles that it should never have been part of, according to a report released Tuesday by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo.
New York - Following Haartez report that HaRav Leib Tropper, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Kol Torah in Monsey, New York, filed a complaint against Guma Aguiar for allegedly threatening to push him out of a ninth-story window, the Brazilian billionaire issued his own account of the incident, According to Israeli Hebrew news site Kikar
ReplyDelete“Between the years 2003 and 2008 Guma Aguiar provided Mr. Tropper approximately $10 million to be distributed among rabbonim, kehilos, social organizations and medical institutions in Israel. The funds were transferred along with a precise list of all of the names of people and institutions the money was intended for and to which the sums were supposed to reach in precise detail.
“Based on an in-depth inquiry conducted last year it was found that most of the organizations the funds were supposed to reach did not receive the money earmarked for them.
“On Rosh Chodesh Sivan, Guma Aguiar encountered Mr. Tropper unexpectedly at the hotel where he was staying. This took place after a long time period during which Mr. Tropper had avoided giving explanations of where the money had gone to.
“Mr. Aguiar expressed his displeasure and even posed piercing questions in order to find out why the money had yet to reach its intended destination. Mr. Aguiar, in keeping with his ways, did not use a single untoward word.
“Tropper’s attempts to obscure his shameful acts through slander and disseminating lies should be denounced. Tropper must return all of the money taken from Guma Aguiar and transfer it immediately to the institutions and organizations that are so sorely in need of donations and support during these difficult times.
“Guma Aguiar expresses his hopes that the legal authorities will act quickly to compel him to return the money for the sake of the needy and prays that no undue outcome results through his endeavors.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133058
ReplyDeleteThat evening, back in Jerusalem, there was a cocktail reception at the very beautiful home of Mr. Guma Aguiar in Yemin Moshe. The former governor was awarded photos and plaques for his deep devotion to Israel as the Jewish homeland. Many Members of Knesset and other dignitaries were there, along with the press of course, and once again Huckabee displayed his modesty, equanimity, and sincerity as he graciously accepted the awards and once again pledged his devotion to Israel.
(Pictured below:) Huckabee with Rabbi Wolpe at Gush Katif Museum
(Is that the Wolpe who is the crazy Meshichist?)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109018.html
ReplyDeleteThe savior of Beitar Jerusalem asserted this week that he was abused by anti-Semitic policemen in Florida, after a newspaper reported the U.S.-Israeli businessman and philanthropist had been arrested on charges of driving under the influence and drug possession in Broward County in June.
"They beat the shit out of me," Guma Aguiar, 32, told Haaretz. "That's how I can sum it up, I got the shit kicked out of me by a bunch of anti-Semitic cops... There's no doubt it was anti-Semitism."
He said he has photos of himself from before and after the incident, when he "walked out of that jail a few hours later with all these bruises and cuts all over my face, and broken fingers."
Aguiar's spokesman, Charley Levine, said Aguiar's lawyers have declined so far to release the photos of the incident.
Aguiar, who supports Jewish causes in Israel and abroad, said police officers beat him because he was wearing a T-Shirt with the word "Israel" and a Star of David printed on it. "The policeman asked me if I don't believe in Jesus," Aguiar is quoted as saying. "After that, they took my mug shot, and I asked them if they also wanted a photo of me smiling. That same policeman responded with a punch. I told him: 'Very good, you just lost your job.' Then the others joined in and beat me."
Responding to a Haaretz query, Jim Leljedal, a spokesman for the Broward County Sheriff's Office, said that during the booking process, "Aguiar became combative and verbally abusive, and was controlled and restrained by police. His arrest and the subsequent use of force were well documented."
The office's official event report - a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz - describes repeated "violent action" by Aguiar, such as trying to head butt an officer. Upon seeing this, another officer "gained control of inmate Aguiar's wrists and applied pressure to his wrist as inmate Aguiar continued to resist," according to the report.
After the incident, Aguiar was screened by medical staff, which noted "injuries to both his wrists, left eye and left flank area." According to an internal police memo, "the action taken by staff ... was necessary to control a violent inmate and were within policy and procedural guidelines."
There was no indication of anti-Semitism, Leljedal said, adding Aguiar never formally complained about his arrest or the treatment he received in custody. Aguiar said his legal team has already compiled "a complete investigative case," but whether he will file charges against the police will depend on the outcome of the suit.
"Guma did not act in any way inappropriately while in prison," commented Levine about the report. "Yes, it's an official police report but we contest what is written there. When the final remaining charge is dismissed we believe it will reflect that our version was the accurate version."
On June 19, the Brazilian-born billionaire was driving on Dixie Highway in Oakland Park when a police officer saw his black Bentley "drifting across the double yellow center line straddling south- and northbound lanes," according to the police report. After seeing this happen three times, Detective Costanzo, of the Broward County sheriff's office, stopped Aguiar's car.
ReplyDeleteAguiar told the detective he had just gotten in from Chicago and wanted to smoke some "weed," according to the report, and the officer noted Aguiar made "repetitive admissions about his cannabis use." After Aguiar failed part of a sobriety test, the officers searched his car and found two glass pipes and "a small plastic bag containing about five grams of cannabis and a small container containing cannabis tar."
According to the report, Aguiar would at times "become angry and stated we would all loose [sic] our jobs and then while in the holding cell he kept banging on the metal bench."
Police released Aguiar on a $200 bail 10 hours after the arrest, and the initial charges of driving under the influence were dropped "because, after reviewing all the evidence presented by police, prosecutors did not believe they would be able to go to court and prove he was driving while under the influence," Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for the Broward state attorney's office, told Haaretz.
Aguiar, who lives in Jerusalem, is still being charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia - two relatively minor misdemeanors, which are not likely to result in more than probation. His next court hearing is scheduled for September 19. "I'm not admitting to anything," Aguiar told Haaretz. "All I'm saying is I got nothing to hide."
In an article published in the sports section of Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this week, Aguiar - who recently became Beitar Jerusalem's main sponsor - denied all charges and suggested the family of his uncle, Thomas Kaplan, with whom he is involved in a billion dollar lawsuit, was behind the incident. "They framed me," Aguiar is quoted as saying. "I'm driving in a $300,000 car, a short time after I left the plane that brought me from Chicago, and they jumped me right away. Does that make sense? It was all bullshit. They set me up."
Kaplan, with whom Aguiar co-founded in 2003 an energy company that is the foundation of Aguiar's wealth, filed two lawsuits against his nephew. A Florida court threw out the first case accusing Aguiar of misusing family foundation funds, but the second case involving the company, recently sold for $2.5 billion, is still pending.
Kaplan's attorney, Harley Tropin, told Haaretz his client "will not comment at this time as there is a pending lawsuit and the court papers speak for themselves."
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1200945.html
ReplyDeleteBY JON BURSTEIN
SUN SENTINEL
A wealthy Fort Lauderdale businessman's allegations that he was beaten up by Broward sheriff's deputies is grabbing headlines in Israel, where he recently made a splash in the sports and philanthropic worlds.
But a Broward Sheriff's Office spokesman said the man's accusations are ``ludicrous'' attacks on the law enforcement agency's reputation with no basis in fact.
Guma Aguiar, 32, has told several Israeli newspapers that BSO deputies brutalized him after arresting him in June after a traffic stop.
He told The Sun Sentinel on Monday that the deputies made ``numerous anti-Semitic remarks,'' but he refused to repeat them.
``It's so outrageous that the Broward Sheriff's Office should be shaking in their pants,'' he said.
``The abuse that took place in the holding cell will never be forgotten. There are a few people who deserve to spend a long time in jail.''
Aguiar became a fixture on Israeli sports pages this summer when he became the main sponsor of the Israeli Premier League soccer team Beitar Jerusalem, infusing the popular franchise with $4 million.
In addition, Aguiar has given millions to Israeli and Jewish charities in the past few years, including an $8 million gift to Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel.
Aguiar, who made his fortune in the oil and gas business, told the newspaper Yediot Ahronot that Broward deputies broke his fingers, punched him and left him looking like he had been in a cage match with boxers Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. In another Israeli daily, Haaretz, he is quoted as saying, ``There's no doubt it was anti-Semitism.''
He suggested to Yediot Ahronot that he was set up -- possibly because of a tangle of high-stakes litigation he is involved in with his uncle, Thomas Kaplan, over the sale of the energy company the family founded.
Harley Tropin, Kaplan's attorney, said the idea that his client was involved in the arrest is ``ridiculous.''
ReplyDeleteBSO reports tell a markedly different story from Aguiar's.
On June 19, Aguiar was pulled over in his 2009 Bentley after a deputy saw him repeatedly drift across the double-yellow center line on North Dixie Highway in Oakland Park, according to the arrest report.
When stopped, Aguiar got out of his car and said, ``Call my lawyer, I'm going to jail,'' the report states.
Aguiar admitted he was smoking marijuana, the car smelled of the illegal substance and the deputy found five grams of the drug as well as pipes stashed inside, according to the arrest report.
Once he was brought to Broward County Jail, Aguiar threatened other inmates and reportedly said, ``I have money and could buy you, Mr. Deputy,'' according to an internal BSO memo.
The memo said Aguiar tried to head-butt a deputy and repeatedly resisted jail staffers.
He was treated by the medical staff for bruises to his head and elbow and redness to his wrists, the memo states.
Deputies took photos of the injuries, but they have been misplaced, the memo states.
``He was stopped because of his driving,'' said BSO spokesman Jim Leljedal. ``He was arrested because of the marijuana and paraphernalia. He was restrained because of his behavior.''
Aguiar had not filed a complaint with BSO about how he was treated in jail. But the businessman said that means nothing, and vowed that BSO ``will be exposed.''
``We got a whole file we're building, and the anti-Semites who did what they did will pay,'' Aguiar said.
Yeah Shmarya, "nepotism".
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't Steinhardt just sit back and let a useless, bitter shmuck like you take charge of his money instead of someone his family has known for decades?
You're just jealous that Steinhardt has the ability to give charity. And this time you have some Reform and Conservative losers along for the grumpy ride because misery loves company.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1113353.html
ReplyDeleteA Florida district court banned industrialist and Beitar Jerusalem soccer club patron Guma Aguiar from coming within 20 meters of prosecution witnesses in a trial between himself and his uncle Tom Kaplan. The ban follows a complaint by Rabbi Leib Tropper, who claimed this week that Aguiar assaulted him and threatened to throw him from the window of a Jerusalem hotel last April. Israel police were not able to explain why the assault investigation against Aguiar was closed two weeks later. Jerusalem district prosecution decided to reopen the investigation following an appeal filed Tropper's lawyer.
By Haaretz Service
ReplyDeleteA Ra'anana nursing home employee was arrested Monday night on suspicion of raping at least four elderly women hospitalized there.
Police said the 55-year-old Kfar Sava resident admitted during questioning to raping three of the women. They are still investigating whether he raped any more women.
The police investigation began after the nursing home's head of security reported at the start of the week that he suspected one of the employees was raping residents at the center.
The suspect, who was tasked with changing clothes, adult diapers and bedding, allegedly took advantage of the state of the women - all between the ages of 75 to 77 and defined as "mentally frail" - and raped them.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/04/crimesider/entry5287943.shtml
ReplyDeleteGo into a synagogue in Queens these days and you may find rabbis learning how to shoot firearms and execute karate kicks.
The ban follows a complaint by Rabbi Leib Tropper, who claimed this week that Aguiar assaulted him and threatened to throw him from the window of a Jerusalem hotel last April.
ReplyDelete****
Senor Aguiar,
Almost does NOT count! If you don't succeed at first.......
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, please continue the posts re: YTV. I'm really sorry to push you. But it's hard to concentrate on anything else, when you've sampled the "Gebruttna Kashka" and the "Ungarisher Vine".
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=105084
ReplyDeleteNow that Guma's soccer team and fans are accused of being racist against Arabs, Shmarya is going to have a real dilemma in backing Guma against Tropper.
I'm really sorry to push you.
ReplyDelete***
Don't be sorry chaver...I need a push here and there.
OK. Thanks !! But i don't want you to get angry or turn you off either.
ReplyDeleteAgain, it might be a push but it's not a shove.
Basically, I and others who went to YTV (especially during or close to that time period) are on Shplikes and want and need the unvarnished truth (which you have).
Hey UOJ, you also said you would explain why you decided to reveal your identity.
ReplyDeleteInquiring minds vant to know.
Not to worry, It's a segula for arichat yomim :)
ReplyDeleteYour esteemed readership is also chalishing to see the documented proof of Margo's thievery from YTV and beyond!
ReplyDeleteI didn't disclose my identity, I put up a picture of a guy I happen to know well and admire :-)
ReplyDeleteVery funny.
ReplyDeleteWhen the question was posed about the portrait, you acceded and said you would be explaining shortly.
That charming devil changed his mind for now..."He" knows what he's doing, trust me!
ReplyDeleteThat could be a major political embarrassment for Huckabee and the group that tagged along to Guma Aguiar's house, including Dov Hikind.
ReplyDeleteAguiar was already arrested in June, so why were they rubbing shoulders with a guy who drives around high on drugs?
Your esteemed readership is also chalishing to see the documented proof of Margo's thievery from YTV and beyond!
ReplyDeleteOmein !! Documentation would be great. However UOJ's and especially Reb Yakov Kaminetzky's (Titain Emes L'yakov)emeser recollections are good enough for me.
Gedult....Everybody wants instant gratification today... enjoy along with me, while the rishaim wake up in the middle of the night, turn on their flashlights and check out UOJ with the Internet they don't have....
ReplyDeleteGuma may have been a little high when he was on that highway and got busted with minor infractions, even George W. Bush was busted for that when he was under 40, but Tropper is intoxicated with raw power as he goes about with outright highway robbery of Guma's ten million dollars coming from the goodness of Guma's generous heart!
ReplyDeleteTherefore Guma's traffic violation is not morally equivalant to Tropper's alleged crimes nor does it justify Tropper's treatment of Guma and his wife Jamie and the alleged misappropriation of ten million philanthropic dollars.
How much tzedaka has Tropper given from his own money, or for that matter how much money has Tropper ever earned from real life and real world work?
Guma Aguiar is no angel, but neither is Tropper. Their secret relationship is now unraveling in full view of the world, or that part of the world that cares about this kind of stuff. And it doesn't look very good for Tropper or his image. Guma could care less, he is a rough hewn young athletic guy who loves to blow the shofar at the weirdest times, like at Auschwitz recently since he gave millions to the March of the Living and at Meron on his way to celebrating buying the Jerusalam soccer team for another few million. He was also at a Nefesh BeNefesh reception for new olim but did not blow his shofar there it seems. He evidently has his own delusions and he had a good teacher at that, Tropper himself at whose side he learned a lot as he went to Tropper's kol yaakov yeshiva for a while and helped Tropper to found and pay for the Eternal Jewish Fraud enterprise, until he got disgusted with Tropper's demands, not all known but a lot to do with the fact that Guma was living with a Brazilian gentile who refused Tropper's demands and instead she went to Rabbi Herbert Bomzer of Brooklyn for an Orthodox conversion, like Guma's father Otto had also previously done. Guma knows how monopolies do and don't work and he must have figured that Tropper does not have the monopoly on Orthodox conversions, and so went his own way.
But the underlying issues are many, such as what is and what is not correct kiruv rechokim, outrecah or reaching out?
What is going on in the world of Orthodox conversions? with Tropper getting involved in imposing only one standard, his own, on the entire world geirus scene.
Who and what is tzedaka and philanthropy all about and should people like Tropper be handed at least ten million dollars, he got even more, to do as he sees fit to promote himself and his Eternal Jewish Fraud program, and is there accountability?
Where do other supposedly great rabbis fit in and why are they not accountable?
Everybody wants instant gratification today...
ReplyDeleteI think it's been about 3 years...
It's known that Guma has told people that he personally gave R REUVEN Feinstein THREE MILLION DOLLARS to go into R Reuven's own pocket, so what happened to that money and does R Reuven need such a large personal nedava when his mosdos and others are starving for pennies?
ReplyDeleteNow it happens to be that R Reuven Feinstein is Tropper's main rabbinic backer. Tropper makes sure to pump Guma's money to R Reuven while R Reuven will go to bat for Tropper. Nice arrangement. No doubt Guma will get to untie that knot too. That is why Tropper is now running scared by heading for the nearest Israeli police station when he should run to a good beit din that he should know very well are all over Yerushalayim.
Tropper's double dealings, with one set of rules for himself and another for the rest of Klal Yisroel, and belief that he can dictate to everyone since after all he is the "teacher's pet" he brings them nice "apples" from Guma of a few select "gedeileem" that he's bought off, obviously he did not give Guma's money to people who would question him, and his reliance on his over-bloated ego that reeks of delusions of grandeur that anyone within a hundred yards of Tropper can spot, all this has led Tropper down the dark alley of taking money from people who had put their trust in him, much like the Scientologists do, and when people like Guma suddenly decide to leave the Tropper cult, they are targeted much like Scientologists are targeted if they dare leave or question it.
Guma may have been a little high when he was on that highway and got busted, but Tropper is intoxicated with raw power and as he does highway robbery, uses it ruthlessly to crush anyone who goes up against him, and is now facing the Frankenstein results of his own crash and clash with reality checking brought to him care of Guma's anger and desire for an accounting from Tropper as to what the hell Tropper did with his hard-earned philanthropic money, beyond host a few conventions and fly a few hundred rabbis to it to buy them off and shut them up with these small types of bribes while Tropper gets away with highway robbery!
Does anyone know what jurisdiction Aguiar and Kaplan/Tropper are suing each other that we can look up details of the lawsuits?
ReplyDeletehttp://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."
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteWhy the silence about Chaim Malinowitz and his Nuremburg ban on Lema'an Achai?
This protector of pedophiles is trying to choke the only brave organization in Ramat Bet Shemesh to death.
If they are silenced who will stand up for our children?
http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=27549
ReplyDeleteSally Gross, the founder of Intersex South Africa
Born Jewish, Gross later became a Christian and a Dominican priest. This was possible because she was classified male at birth. But Gross is not transexual, she is intersexed.
Gross grew up in Cape Town as an orthodox Jew and did rabbinical studies. She converted to Roman Catholicism in 1976. Following the Soweto uprising in the same year, she became politically active and eventually went into exile. In England, she joined the Dominicans, a Catholic religious order, and after ordination in 1987 taught moral theology and ethics at Blackfriars, Oxford.
Gross was a member of the ANC delegation that met with other South Africans in Dakar, Senegal, in 1987. In 1990, after the unbanning of the ANC, Gross went to teach at St Joseph’s in Cedara.
In 1992, Gross began to explore isssues around her gender and found she was intersexed. This led to her expulsion from the Catholic priesthood. “I was ostracised, stripped of status and even identity, and forbidden to exercise my vocation.” Gross would later find a religious home as a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Gross also encountered problems when she applied for a South African passport. At one point the authorities decided they couldn’t issue a document under any gender. “I had ceased in law to exist as a person,” she recalled.
Gross was interviewed by The Witness in 2000 and the resulting three articles, as well as relating her personal story, also examined the issues raised by intersexuality in a gender-stereotyped society. (These are available as a single article on here)
Gross now brings her story up to date speaking about her changing religious and spiritual outlook, her attempts to heal the wounds of the past, her deterioating health and her involvement in drafting amendments for the Alteration of Sex Descriptions Bill and the Promotion of Equality Act.
Filed at 6:41 a.m. ET
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (AP) -- Taxpayers face losses on a significant portion of the $81 billion in government aid provided to the auto industry, an oversight panel said in a report to be released Wednesday.
The Congressional Oversight Panel did not provide an estimate of the projected loss in its latest monthly report on the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. But it said most of the $23 billion initially provided to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC late last year is unlikely to be repaid.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in June that taxpayers would lose about $40 billion of the first $55 billion in aid.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/09/08/business/09loans.1.395-inline.ready.html
ReplyDeleteThe Yated doesn't profile any lovely couples like this because Orthodox Jews are racist.
Instant gratification.
ReplyDeleteThat's why there are so many older singles, primarily women. If they don't get immediately swept off their feet, they'd rather stay single.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/business/08actuary.html
ReplyDeleteThe American Academy of Actuaries, the public face of a behind-the-scenes profession, is in disarray after quietly sacking its incoming president, then trying to conceal both his ouster and an unpleasant secret from his past.
The president-elect, Bruce Schobel, is one of America’s foremost authorities on the Social Security system. He is also a onetime convicted felon who, according to court records, served time three decades ago for “assault with a dangerous weapon while demanding property” in New Jersey. Few know this, though, because his record has been expunged.
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/19456/
ReplyDeleteRabbis Call for Fasting to Show Solidarity With Palestinian Cause
August 27, 2009 - Bryan Schwartzman, Staff Writer
The group, part of a coalition of 60 rabbis around the country called Ta'anit Tzedek: Jewish Fast for Gaza, is advocating that Israel lift its three-year-old economic blockade, which it claims has resulted in "collective punishment" for Gaza's civilians due to the activities of extremists.
"If you make a group of people so desperate, and so angry, how is it going to end? We're creating a situation where people are dying; we're creating an impossible situation in terms of humanitarian needs," said Rebecca T. Alpert.
A professor of Jewish Studies at Temple University and a Reconstructionist rabbi, Alpert acts as a local spokesman for Ta'anit Tzedek.
Alpert, a longtime critic of Israeli policy, argued that since the Jewish state controls Gaza's air, sea and land space, then it's responsible for the welfare of Gaza's citizens. Ta'anit Tzedek is also calling on Israel to negotiate with Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, in order to facilitate the end of the blockade.
At noon on Aug. 19, about 15 people -- including about half-a-dozen rabbis and several members of the Christian clergy -- gathered at Independence Mall for an hourlong demonstration.
It included the recitation of a number of psalms, the singing of "Oseh Shalom," the blowing of a shofar and the reading of a work by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center, declared the third Thursday of each month a fast day. Alpert said the group hopes to use this day for a monthly public event to call attention to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.
Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, worship specialist for the Union for Reform Judaism, expressed frustration that more Jewish leaders haven't called attention to Israel's "punitive" policies.
Police in Hayward, California, are trying to determine whether Garrido is linked to the 1988 kidnapping of Michaela Garecht, Hayward Police Lt. Chris Orrey said. Garecht and Dugard were of similar age and appearance, both were abducted in daylight and a sketch of a suspect resembled Garrido, Orrey said.
ReplyDeleteIn Dublin, California, investigators said they were also looking into whether Garrido was connected to the 1989 disappearance of Ilene Misheloff, who was 13 when she was abducted.
WASHINGTON — Public disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of health care has jumped to 52 percent, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released hours before he makes his case for overhaul in a prime-time address to Congress.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/long-island/long-island-mug-shots-1.222934?image=9
ReplyDeleteThere must be some mistake here. How is it possible that Blacks were using the name of Barack Obama to commit fraud? Surely Shmarya can come up with some innocent explanation like that Orthodox Jews duped them into doing it.
It was finalment zee end of da road for zis driver after UOJ got involved.
ReplyDeleteFiled at 1:44 p.m. ET
SALABERRY-DE-VALLEYFIELD, Quebec (AP) -- A Canadian man has been sentenced to life in prison for mowing down a woman in a wheel chair as he drove drunk. It was his 19th drunk driving conviction, the court said.
The life sentence handed down by a Quebec judge was the first for a drunk driving conviction in Canada's history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb_o-a4x6Vs&eurl=http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Black-Israelites-in-Brooklyn.aspx&feature=player_embedded#t=206
ReplyDeleteBlogger Rudi Stettner writes that he has bumped into these shvartza supremacists when walking his kids home from shul. He found that someone had recorded them on YouTube.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/buildings_graft_shocker_3FyDTCePvamziXbKSCeOZL
ReplyDeleteGet ready for a wave of landlords getting arrested.
SACRAMENTO — A Republican state lawmaker from Southern California has resigned after he was caught on tape bragging about sex with female lobbyists.
ReplyDeleteEarlier today, Assemblyman Mike Duvall of Yorba Linda had been ousted from two legislative committees. He made the comments to another man during a break in a committee meeting at the Capitol over the summer, and they were caught on a microphone at his desk.
In a recording of the hearing broadcast by KCAL-TV in Los Angeles, the 54-year-old lawmaker talks about a recent sexual escapade with a woman he says is 18 years younger than him.
He then brags about an affair he is having with another lobbyist.
Who cares about Shmarya? Again, Archie, if you have such issues with this guy, start your own blog and (i'm sure) thousand will flock to hear what you have to say.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, for someone who has a problem with Shmarya's issues with frumkeit, you seem to live up to your Archie Bunker namesake.
Your relentless comments are racist and filled with hate.
Take your issues and tissues and gei avek.
A bone fragment pulled from a backyard next to the northern California home where Jaycee Lee Dugard was allegedly held captive for 18 years is probably human, a sheriff's spokesman said Tuesday night.
ReplyDeleteThe assessment was made by a forensic expert who performed tests on the bone recovered last week at a home where Dugard's alleged kidnapper, sex offender Phillip Garrido, once stayed, said Jimmy Lee of the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department.
The Jewish Press reports:
ReplyDeleteLast Monday night’s deadline for Congregation Machzikei Torah to abandon its premises at the Zvi Dov Roth Academy of Yeshiva Rambam in Flatbush came and passed. The congregation’s leader, Rabbi Moshe Toiv, says he isn’t going anywhere.
“If they attempt to force us out,” he said, “we’ll call the police.”
For over 30 years the congregation has called Rambam’s high school building its home. This year, however, Rambam rented its entire first floor to the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School - the first school of its kind in New York and only the second in the country - thereby forcing out the congregation.
Rabbi Toiv is outraged. “For over 60 years people have been putting together their pennies and dollars in order to have a place for children to study and learn Torah . But now Rambam is renting [its building] to this new charter school, which by law is not permitted to teach anything of faith. They took out the mezuzahs; they’re going to have to take out my sifrei Torah.”
But Rambam’s president and chairman of the board, Alex Rovt, said Rabbi Toiv is being unreasonable. Rovt, who donates $300,000 to Rambam annually, said the high school is in dire financial straits and needs the rent money from the charter school.
“If I have to choose to pull out a shul or [be forced] to let 110 children go to public school [as a result of Rambam folding], I will choose to pull out the shul,” he said.
“This is my decision and the board’s decision. We took the charter school for a simple reason: to get money. We don’t have money.”
As for the congregation’s future, Rovt said, “Of course, I will not throw him out before Yom Tov . But if they won’t go, we’ll go to the courts.”
MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexican official: Bolivian religious fanatic says he hijacked airplane after divine revelation.
ReplyDeleteAttencion: Senor Guma Aguair
ReplyDeletePor favor de comunicarse con migo despues de tirar al Senor Leib Tropper de la ventana.
Gracias,
Senor UOJ
Hola.
ReplyDeleteIs UOJ as on the ball as I think? That seems a little different than Spanish and Guma speaks Portugese being that he is from Brazil.
This post is dedicated to AndyBee. I would have recommended that he just ignore any post with my signature but he seems to be following every word I write despite his complaints.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804531981&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
SHmarya's followers have been busy with this murder of a yeshiva student by two others, casting them as Charedi. If they would have done the most cursory investigation of the place, as JPost did, they would know it is a BT yeshiva for troubled kids with criminal records.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/117782
ReplyDeleteSTEVEN E. SCHLEIFER, 53, of Monsey, New York, pleaded guilty yesterday, September 1, before United States District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven to one count of corruptly obstructing and impeding the due administration of the Internal Revenue laws. The charge stems from SCHLEIFER´s participation in a scheme to illegally invest in and profit from the New Haven Savings Bank conversion to a publicly traded entity.
Last night's asifah for the "Lichtigeh Neshamos" of the three bochurim in Japan was in line with the Bais Medrash Govoah policy of defending all types of criminal activity regardless of the potential impact of the crime committed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with "encouraging" and "advising" those being supported by others, to give generously to such a worthy cause. A crime committed, is a crime the frum velt must defend at all costs.
ReplyDeleteIt is Bais Medrash Govoah, Agudas Yisroel, and HaMashgiach's firm belief that victims of crime don't deserve compassion or sympathy. What happened was a gezeirah, and it is not on our level to question the Masei Hashem, and it's something the victim has to get over by himself.
Therefore, an asifah for the nidachim of Lakewood hooked to drugs, or other victims suffering from abuse is pashut bittul Torah, and there can be no heter found for such a waste of time. To celebrate a criminal's release from prison, or to arrange asifos for pidyon shevuyim are very vichtig zachen.
All the kvetchers should remember Daas Torah Hevech Daas Bal Habayis. Du bist grubbeh baalei batim un hut nit kain chashivus far lernen.
But, please open your doors and wallets when we come around later this year.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteWhy do I suspect you are one of the Orwellian stormtroopers who tried to shut up Archie when he was still able to speak his mind on Shmarya's blog?
UOJ's blog provides a service of presenting critiques of all kinds of other blogs where the baal habos censors commentary not to his liking.
Various characters do what Archie does and come here to write critiques when they are shut out by Vos iz neas, Gil Student, Harry Maryles, Yehuda Eckstein, Marvin Schick, Avi Kolko and others.
Shmarya has filled plenty of space criticizing that as frum censorship when he is the biggest dictator of them all.
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090909/NEWS03/909090375&template=printart
ReplyDeleteA 50-year-old man who lives in an adult home was charged last night after police said he exposed himself to a group of young children, investigators said today.
Ramapo police were called to Nissan Court in Monsey at 6 p.m. after a group of children reported that a man had exposed himself and and touched himself in front of them.
The youngsters were able to describe the man, investigators said.
Police searched the nearby New Monsey Park Home for Adults on Monsey Boulevard and discovered a man who fit the description given by the children, police said.
The man, a resident of the home, was charged with public lewdness and endangering the welfare of a child, misdemeanors.
Police did not immediately release his identity.
The suspect was released and told to appear in Ramapo Town Court at a later date.
Leib Tropper has only himself to blame for the grim situation he is in facing Guma Aguiar's mighty billionare's wrath.
ReplyDeleteWhen Tropper and Guma met, presumably through the good graces of Guma's uncle Dr. Tom Kaplan who had become a dyed in the wool Tropper disciple, they all bonded together strongly and intimately. They were all going to fulfil each other's big visions and dreams. If this sounds grandiose, it was. Tropper was willing to overlook that at that time Guma was living with his then still not converted wife Jamie and even having kids with her. So what? Tropper had kept his own first wife an aguna for a long time, until one day he bumped into his next wife a pretty model who wasn't even religious, but that was solved after a couple of months of quick brainwashing at a seminary, besides she had excellent connections too, like a sister who was major PR executive in the "Mad Men" style and by now Tropper was swimming deep in the Upper East and West Sides jet set scenes and wanted to make it big time there too. If Steve Riskin could do, so could he. All he needed was mega bucks from blind dsiciples woed by his charisma and supposed Torah spouting status and he was about to get it from Kaplan and Guma to launch his name up high in the Jewish world with constant fake articles in The Jewish Press and other Jewish and even secular media outlets.
By now Tropper has had someone fill out an egomanical "biography" of himself on Wikipedia. Read it carefully. Forget his titles and his half dozen claims of semichas. It clearly says that first and foremost he is the disciple of R Pinchas Scheinberg who must have implanted in him more ideas of grandeur and "saving the Jews" than he needed.
At some point early in his life while in Israel Tropper latched on to the potential of the new kiruv movement in the 1970s. He was hired by Ohr Somayach, even while Noach Weinberg was there. Weinberg soon worked to get rid of Tropper. Tropper never forgave them for tossing him out. He was going to outdo them and outsmart them, and he would recruit from the widening open pools of starry-eyed BTs that were all over the place to create his own brand of Tropper disciples. His method, regardless if he knew it or not, was that of a cult, exactly like Scientology, where the members must give up their personalities, ideas, and most importantly empty their bank accounts for "the cause".
Tropper's sixth and seventh senses are well honed. He has his ears close to the ground and can clearly sniff a trend years before anyone else can, especially in the "saving the Jews" business of which he is a supposed grand leader.
ReplyDeleteAs the 21st century beckoned most of the world's searching Jews were already from mixed interfaith marriages or living with gentiles. The old time BTs were now joined by people with only one Jewish parent, often not the mother, and even gentiles are looking like Madonna's Kabbalah Centre styl some who even wish to become "Jews by choice" many willing to convert.
So conversion to Judaism was now the hot button central problem for many of these spiritual seeking folks that Tropper set out to exploit and he was going to do it under the guise of fighting for higher standards of conversion, what he cunningly called "universal standards" in conversion, the game plan was to sell the higher standards argument to the big rabbis, pay them off with free conventions and a few small grants here and there, and use the big money to launch Tropper's new role of seller and owner of conversions to the world.
Kaplan was a partner in all of this and Guma, and just as Kpaln trusted Guma in the business world, so too they were cofounders and cochairmen of the EJF plot as they set about to finance to the hilt Tropper's and their "dreams" for "saving the intermarried Jews" like a kind of misbegotten step-child new "Reform movement" grabbing at straws when it legitimated patrilineal descent thirty years ago, since Judaism historically forbids reaching out to gentiles to convert them in mass movements, in the guise of Tropper's seemingly very Haredi EJF movement to make everyone into a Tropper approved ger or disciple going well beyond teaching a handful of BTs in Monsey like Tropper used to do.
Tropper latched onto this new cohort very quickly and when Guma Aguiar and Tom Kaplan came along and met Tropper about ten years ago, falling into his by then well-tuned and finely honed entrapment skills, they were putty in his hands as he quickly spun his spider's web and got them hooked on his personality, which naturally he and they equated with "Torah true Judaism" which it was not.
What came out of the nexus and uniting of Tropper, Kaplan and Guma was their brainchild the Eternal Jewish Family (EJF), to be funded by a new philanthropy to be called the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation.
ReplyDeleteFor a long time only Tom Kaplan's name was presented to the world and the haredi rabbonim as being the lay leader of EJF and the Kaplan Foundation. But it was not so. As it transpires, just as Guma Aguiar was an equal partner with his uncle Tom Kaplan in their main Leor Energy gas drilling business in Texas that they eventually sold off for over two billion dollars, likewise they were equal partners in setting up the Eternal Jewish Family and the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation. In fact as a Florida court recently found, Guma Aguiar and his mother Ellen Kaplan Aguiar had more legal authority in the case of the dispute concerning control of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation and awarded full continiung control to them.
The same legal battle is now going on in US courts about who controls the more than two billion dollars that was paid for Leor Energy, and Tropper is running scared that if Kaplan loses the Leor Energy profits case like he lost the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foiundation case, he is up the creek for good and wiil be revealed as the manipulative haredi Rasputin that he is.
So it's no surprise that Tropper will create crazy claims. Break his own nominal principles, which he lacks in case like anay sociopath, run to the antireligious Israeli police in Jerusalem that's beating up Tropper's own haredi brothers and press charages in secular Israeli courst against Guma and then drag that into the case now ongoing in Florida that he needs a "protection order" from Guma. Weird. What does he think Guma is going to do to him? And even weirder, what is Tropper doing being involved in the case of the dispute between Tom Kaplan and Guma Aguiar in the two billion and more profits from Leor Energy?
The only answer has to be that this is like the Scientologists going to fight for what they view as "their" assets, meaning what belongs to their disciples they regard as "theirs" and so therefore in Tropper's eyes, Kaplan's stake in the two billion are not Kaplan's they are his, the mighty Tropper, whom Guma Aguiar has now revealed to be a manipulative crook who cannot account for the ten million dollars he recived from Guma.