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Friday, November 30, 2018

A Chanukah lesson about sexual abuse in our community




by Dr. Asher Lipner ( Chanukah 2009)

What drives survivors of abuse to give up hope, and why there still is hope.

Our community was recently shocked by the news of Motty Borger’s suicide caused by emotional problems stemming from surviving sexual abuse. Dr. Benzion Twerski, Ph.D.  published a response to the tragedy in which he takes the opportunity to sound a call to survivors of abuse to please reach out and get professional help.

As someone who has survived rabbinic sexual abuse, and who has been both a consumer and a professional provider of psychotherapy, I can vouch that it is certainly a good idea to find a therapist who specializes in sexual trauma, who can offer understanding and support. However, as a communal response this approach dangerously oversimplifies the issue of what Dr. David Pelcovitz has called the “unconscionable number of suicides in our community caused by sexual abuse.” Allow me to explain.

Suicide is driven largely by a deep sense of hopelessness, in which an individual feels things will never get better. I have treated and am treating many survivors who experience different levels of suicidality, from ideation and planning, to actual attempts, R”L. They have all expressed a feeling of hopelessness that can overwhelm them at times. While I personally have never considered taking my life, I can fully relate to the profound sense of hopelessness felt by survivors trying to heal in our community.

You see, the first step of psychotherapy focusing on trauma is making sure that the patient is in a safe place, not being re-victimized during the course of the treatment. You cannot effectively heal a shell-shocked soldier still on the battlefield, or a Holocaust survivor still in a concentration camp, or a battered woman who is still in an abusive marriage, or a child abuse victim who is still being molested by a rebby.

As long as our community continues to be an unsafe place for children and others seeking to avoid sexual assault, there is an inherent limitation on what “professionals” can accomplish. To imply that “lack of therapy” is the cause of survivors becoming suicidal, is like saying that the cause of headaches is a deficiency of aspirin in the blood stream. Furthermore, putting the onus for their healing squarely on the shoulders of the survivors is an example of the “blaming the victim” approach that our community seems to love to engage in. It is just like when mental health agencies “specializing” in abuse prevention educate parents to tell their children the difference between “good touch and bad touch”, but they neglect to give parents instructions on how to rid their children’s environment of molesters (i.e. report all allegations to the authorities, and do not send your children to a camp or school that does not have good safety policies or that covers up abuse).

In order for us to really give the survivors safety and hope, we as a community must take serious action to stop the abuse. Until that happens, we cannot “call on the survivors to seek professional help” and then wash our hands and say “Yadeynu Lo Shafchu Es Hadam Hazeh – Our hands have not spilled this blood.” It is enough to make you want to kill yourself.

Whenever there is an arrest of a prominent community figure, Jewish or otherwise, many victims come forward to go for therapy for the first time. Why? Because until the publicity of an arrest, they live in fear that nobody will believe them about their abuser. In our community this fear is justified. Consider the frum therapist a chronically suicidal patient of mine, first went to. When she told him that she had been sexually abused by a prominent rabbi, the therapist refused to believe her because “rabbis don’t act that way.” Even when he accepted her account (because she found another rabbi to believe her story) the therapist still did not want it publicized due to potential “Chillul Hashem.”

There are simply not enough outlets for survivors to be heard and validated in our community. One survivor became suicidal after his letter to the editor of a frum paper describing the anguish of sexual abuse was rejected. A patient of mine who unsuccessfully attempted suicide told me that he felt killing himself was the only way to get heard in our community. I wonder if Motty Borger may have felt the same way.

And what of the prominent community organizations recently exposed as having covered up for abusers under the pretext of the molesters’ rights to confidentiality? This is not any way to get survivors to feel safe and trusting that therapists are truly their advocates. No, survivors have good reason to be wary of sharing their secrets with anyone in our community. They know that their stories are not wanted and will be denied. A teenage Chassidish patient of mine, who went innocently for help to “The Rebbe” of his community was turned away and became profoundly and dangerously suicidal, because “Why should I live if nobody believes me?” Did somebody disbelieve Motty Borger?

Well meaning friends and family of the victim often stand in the way of healing as well. Sometimes they are concerned more for the victim’s own reputation, since the stigma of being a survivor is so debilitating in our community. Other times loved ones, in the ultimate act of betrayal, have more compassion and concern for the molester and his family’s reputation or the reputation of the institution that harbored him, than for the victim. One of the bravest people I know had several psychiatric hospitalizations after her family refused to take her side against a family member who molested her for years. She had multiple therapists from our community during this time but has only found healing by going outside of the community for help. However, she continues to struggle with trying to find a shidduch with shadchanim who still consider her “damaged goods”.

Another “trigger” for symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder such as suicide, is seeing that we allow institutions that have knowingly employed molesters to thrive and expand, while those who speak up for the survivors are vilified and shamed. The sad truth, recently acknowledged in a Yated Ne’eman editorial, is that our community allows molesters to remain in positions of honor and access to children. One man I knew who eventually took his own life, was tortured by the fact that his molester (an older bochur in yeshiva) had become a respected rabbi with all of the trust of the parents in his shul. Another survivor of both sexual abuse and of a suicide attempt was quoted that every time he sees his rapist getting another position teaching children, he feels raped again. The fact that this survivor has reached out to leading rabbis for a meeting and was turned down, has only added to his terrible feelings of loneliness and hopelessness, bringing back suicidal thoughts. Virtually all survivors I know feel that the intensity of the pain of being silenced by their community is worse than that of the sexual abuse itself.

Many survivors feel that their healing is hopeless within our community, which is why so many are abandoning Orthodox Judaism. I myself was once told by a non-frum therapist, who understood the problems of our community, that in order to maintain even a degree of sanity in my own life after being molested by my rebbe as a teenager, I had to choose between either abandoning my community or trying to change it.

Making matters much scarier is the fact that when a molester is apprehended, the entire community comes to his defense and attacks the victim. One survivor I know who did press charges against his molester is clinically depressed (a condition that can sometimes lead to suicide), not because of the abuse, but because the entire community is backing his molester despite incontrovertible evidence of the abuser’s guilt. In Lakewood, a Rabbi was arrested for sexual abuse, and there is a communal campaign to put pressure on the parents of the victim to drop the charges. A Boro Park mother of several children who were molested was told by her children’s Cheder that if she pressed charges against the molester who was “connected, to a Rebbe” her children would be thrown out “on the street.” A Bobover family was literally chased out of the community for daring to report their child’s abuse to the police. The same has happened in Baltimore.

One very frum person I know, who is a survivor of sexual abuse, was hospitalized due to suicide risk. This occurred shortly after we participated in a lobbying trip to Albany for the Child Victims Act (the Markey Bill.) On the way home we heard that the Agudah and Torah Umesorah rabbis had come out in opposition to the bill because they are more worried about lawsuits against yeshivas, news that left all of us struggling with “yiush.”

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the hopelessness that survivors feel, is the way that they have totally given up hope that their leaders can ever be convinced to change. Whereas a few short months ago, the Agudah dinner was protested by survivors who wanted validation, their recent convention drew no such outcry. There was a large group that considered an elaborate “Hafganah” on Thursday night to catch the attention of the powers that be, but in the end despaired of it even touching their hardened hearts. Shockingly, an Agudah insider and apologist told me that the establishment did not even attempt to address solutions to the problem of child abuse at the conference because they themselves have given up on solving it. Talk about hopelessness! Irresponsibly neglecting to talk about the issue of abuse is, on many levels, communal suicide. Sadly, it seems as if it is our leaders who are the ones in need of professional help.

Before I began to publicize the name of my own molester, I was told by a Rov that although it is in principle a Chiyuv to reveal his identity, in our community I should keep quiet, because speaking up is “like committing suicide.” Can you imagine what message this would give to a survivor who is already contemplating suicide like Motty Borger? Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless…

Why I feel that there really is hope

Chanukah is fast approaching. If ever there was a season for hope, this is it. The miraculous story of victory against all odds, with G-d’s help, must inspire survivors in need of salvation. While we all know of the Jewish people’s war against the Greeks, we need to remember that the true existential threat came from inside; from a civil war between the Jewish elitist establishment who had lost their way due to the false gods of greed, lust and power, and a few sincere caring Jews who rallied behind the cry of “Mee LaHashem Aylai! - Whoever is for G-d, come with me!”

Our community has been blessed with some very special individuals, many of whom are survivors of abuse themselves, who have taken up the cause of change. To return Torah Judaism to the way it is supposed to be, where caring for others, especially the most vulnerable, comes before financial considerations, image-consciousness, the reputation of perpetrators’ families, and any other consideration. Let us count our blessings:

We have leaders like UOJ. With vision, courage and passion, he has shown us what can be and what needs to be done. He reconnects us with the integrity and true Jewish values of his illustrious grandfather Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt"l, who was also an American pioneer.

We have The Awareness Center, run by Vicki Polin, the one and only place a Jewish parent can go to find out who are the dangers to their children in our community. A friend of mine, for example gets a call from an “Askan” in Lakewood warning to watch his kids because a molester has moved into the neighborhood. Appallingly, the caller refused to give the name of the molester. Even the government’s “Megan’s Law” sex-offender registry cannot always keep us informed. Recently, convicted serial molester “Rabbi” Baruch Lanner deviously managed to get his name removed from the list, with nary a peep of protest from his former employers and protectors, the OU and NCSY, but The Awareness Center is on top of it, as always.

We have survivors of abuse Joel Engelman, Mark Weiss, David Framowitz, Baruch Sandhaus and Joseph D’angello, the cofounders of Survivors for Justice (along with President Ben Hirsh) who have helped advertise the need for and the method of how victims can utilize law enforcement, and have lobbied so strongly for the Child Victims Act, to extend the time molesters can be brought to justice. If only Motty Borger had been acquainted with these heroes…

We have courageous Rabbanim like Rabbi Yosef Blau, who publicizes from first-hand knowledge the inadequacy of a Beys Din system to solve abuse problems. He was joined by the RCA and the Iggud Harabbanim, in backing the “Markey Bill,” calling on our community to “bite the bullet” of lawsuits against yeshivas or camps. And most importantly, he gives spiritual support and solace to literally hundreds of Jewish survivors of abuse world wide. If only Motty Borger had known Reb Yosef Blau…

We have Assemblyman Dov Hikind who has fearlessly sounded the alarm on his radio show about sexual abuse, and has compassionately reached out to listen to the stories of hundreds of survivors. Dov has fought hard and succeeded in accruing considerable government funds for education of the community and to provide support to survivors.

Recently, we had for the first time in a black-hat community, Rabbi Yitzchak Eisenman and his shul in Passaic inviting survivors of abuse to tell their stories. 300 people were in attendance, on Erev Yom Kippur, and there was much healing in that room. For the survivors, it was worth a hundred therapy sessions. Too bad we didn’t know to invite Motty Borger…

We have Reb Nochum Rosenberg courageously fighting the powers that be with superhuman “mesiras nefesh”. He is fast becoming the “new establishment,” in the Chassidish community, as more and more survivors in pain, with no one else to turn to, find their way to his compassionate assistance.

The Jewish Board of Advocacy for Children (President Elliot Pasik) has for the past year been reaching out (as we all should) to Frum or no longer Frum, Chasidish, Litvish, Sephardic, Modern Orthodox, male or female who have been victimized by rape, incest, rabbinic abuse or any sexual abuse. We offer them emotional support, legal and mental health guidance and “J-BACking” in telling their stories to the public. We successfully lobbied for a law allowing fingerprinting and background checks in yeshivas, and continue to fight for legislating these and other crucial safety steps such as mandated reporting for Jewish and all private schools. Survivor support groups and a retreat for survivors are in the works.

We have the incredibly successful online support group allusshefellech.proboards.com, run by an amazing young woman, “Little Sheep”, where over 50 frum female survivors, young and old, get together anonymously, supervised by a therapist, to give each other chizuk and to learn from each other’s experiences. If only Motty Borger had known of the parallel group for men, AY-YNhorah.proboards.com, just getting off the ground…

We have strong supporters Mark Appel, Sherree Belsky, Pearl Engelman, Michael Lesher, Dr. Michael Salomon, Maury Kelman, Pinny Taub, Debbie Fox and Aleynu, Basya Litman and the SOVRI helpline, Rabbi Marc Dratch and JSAFE, Elaine Witman and the Shofar Coalition, Mitch Morrison, Eli Greenwald, Elie Hiller, Michael Brecher, Rabbi Zev Smason, Yerachmiel Lopin, Beth Kaplan and Sacred Lives, and many, many more, too many to list here, ken yirbu. These include the 240 proud signatories of last year’s JBAC “Yom Kippur resolution,” which can be viewed at www.jewishadvocates.org (at the end of the Position Paper).

We have Failed Messiah, and other bloggers like Frumfollies, who have informed us of the cover-ups, and who give survivors a place to vent their feelings and find others who know first hand the dark truths of our community.

We are few (me’atim), but the revolution is growing. Like in the Chanukah victory, we will need to battle those of the powers that be in our community who choose to pursue power, image and financial security for their institutions, making the mistake decried by all of our Neviim - neglecting the most vulnerable and the most in need of protection and support.

But Chanukah teaches us that a little bit of light can push off a lot of darkness. A small group of people banding together with courage and faith can merit Hashem’s miraculous salvation for themselves, for all the Motty Borgers still among us, and for all of Klal Yisroel. We must continue to unite against tyranny and to reach out to survivors to tell them we want to hear their stories, that we believe them and that we care and we want to give them back their hope. “Even if a sharp sword is placed on your neck, never give up on Hashem showing mercy.” (Gemorah, Brachos) With G-d’s help there is still hope. There is always hope.

A Freilichin Chanukah.

Asher


79 comments:

Anonymous said...

Disgusting OU behavior.

An American rosh yeshiva is privately telling over that R' Shneur Zalman Revach, the big kashrus boki in Eretz Yisroel, called them about his findings with worms in fish. He wasn't aware that the OU's m.o. is to just ignore problems when it's a huge market segment with a lot of money at stake. Instead of thanks & cooperation he got some young shnook mechutzofim half his age arguing with him & brushing him off like he's a nobody.

The rosh yeshiva says he wants to get up befarhesya to say the OU is untrustworthy but he is sure they will start a smear campaign against him in retaliation.

Anonymous said...

Happy Hannukah.

Anonymous said...

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_13963869

Investigators today ruled out suicide in the death of a prominent corporate attorney found fatally wounded outside his Rolling Hills Estates home.

Although no weapon had been recovered at the scene of the Monday night shooting, detectives initially refused to rule out the possibility that Jeffrey Tidus' gunshot wound was self-inflicted.

Today, however, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Dave Dolson said investigators have determined the killing was a homicide.

Dolson says detectives have spoken to several people who suggested theories about embittered individuals harboring a grudge against Tidus, who successfully litigated many cases for a string of high-profile corporate clients.

The Sheriff's Department has added two extra detectives to help solve the case, Dolson said.

Tidus, 53, was shot on the driveway outside his house in the 4600 block of Sugarhill Drive. He died Tuesday morning at County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

The Tiduses were members of Temple Menorah in Redondo Beach, where Rabbi Steven Silver was waiting for the Coroner's Department to complete its work so he could conduct a funeral. Jewish law requires that funerals occur as soon as possible after death.

Montreal said...

http://www.thesuburbannews.ca/content/en/2921

A rally is being held 11:30 a.m. today, Wednesday Dec. 9, in front of La Porte Grecque Restaurant at 4600 Sources in Dollard des Ormeaux to pressure a man to grant his ex-wife a Jewish divorce.

Rachelle Hecht, a 31-year-old St. Henri resident, and Eric Seltzer, 33, were divorced civilly three years ago. But the atmosphere between them since has been far from civil, judging from comments and accusations from both sides via interviews with The Suburban. Hecht wants her former husband, who has since remarried, to agree to a Jewish divorce. Several local rabbis are expected to participate in the rally, as they did three years ago in another attempt to pressure an ex-husband to agree to a religiously-approved divorce.

According to Jewish law, both parties must agree before a couple can be granted a divorce, called a get.

“We recognize, in divorces, it’s never perfectly beautiful and clean,” Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz told The Suburban at the time of another pressure rally in Snowdon. “To use what is a requirement of Jewish law as leverage in negotiations is completely unacceptable. What you are doing is using Judaism to extort and hurt another person. It’s like beating your wife with a Bible. Everyone who has any sense of connection to Judaism should be appalled by it.”

Hecht told The Suburban she thinks the get is not being granted out of spite.

“I received an e-mail from him to basically pay him for half of his salary while we were married,” she said. “Without a get, I can’t remarry and any children I would have would be considered illegitimate, because they would be born out of wedlock. It’s not only important for me, it’s important for future generations of my family. Even if I decided to marry a non-Jewish person, any children of mine would still not be considered Jewish. That’s an unfair thing to do to future generations — I don’t have any children right now, but I’d like to someday.”

She added that her father, and officials of the Jewish court of the Va’ad Hair and other rabbis have tried to appeal to Seltzer for a resolution. “[In response], there were various requests for different things.

“This is not something which should be given on condition. The demands were pretty outrageous. There’s no religious reason for him not to sign the papers.”

Reached by The Suburban, Seltzer said he had very specific reasons for not agreeing to a get.

“I feel that before we can resolve the get, she needs to return to me all the money that she wasted, and that I earned [through my job], on cocaine,” he said. “There was three and a half years of cocaine abuse, where she refused to work, to keep the house clean. I worked 70 hours a week, and she spent all my money on cocaine. Over four years, we spent almost $80,000 on cocaine.

“I never refused anything to her. Unfortunately, we have to resolve the issues one step at a time. From the beginning, I was very civil about the matter and I just wanted to be able to cover the debts we incurred together. They were unwilling to budge in any way, shape or form.” Seltzer said he was not even personally approached to resolve the issue — that, instead, people around him were approached.
Seltzer said he finds the rally at his workplace, planned for today, to be “comical.

“I will partake — ‘down with this evil man, boo on him!’ — unfortunately, she’s only giving half the story.”

Asked to respond to her husband’s accusation, Hecht admitted that she did use cocaine during their marriage, but she was not alone in doing so.

Contacted Tuesday morning, Seltzer said : “I don’t deny that I partook in the activity with her, but as far as her saying one thing has nothing to do with the other, you can’t close the book until you read the last page.”

Daniel Adler said...

Daniel Adler, 61, was arrested in Stony Point, N.Y., and charged with assault. Police said Adler had been solicited by a Sears Home Improvement telemarketer and had agreed to an appointment but that when the employee arrived, Adler allegedly punched him in the face. Adler said he had scheduled the appointment only to "advise" Sears, in person, to stop calling him.

Ruttner from Monsey said...

http://www.lohud.com/article/20091114/NEWS03/911140333/-1/SPORTS/Monsey-man-charged-with-stealing--156G-from-welfare-programs

A 58-year-old Monsey man has been accused of stealing $156,000 from welfare programs by the county as part of its continuing investigation into fraud.

Benjamin Ruttner is accused of filing false information to illegally obtain $89,000 in federal rental subsidies from November 2004 to November 2009. He is accused of stealing $67,000 in food stamps and Medicaid benefits from May 2006 to August 2009.

Through his attorney, Kenneth Gribetz of New City, Ruttner denied the Rockland District attorney’s charges of second-degree grand larceny and second-degree welfare fraud.

The charges carry a prison sentence of four to 14 years, and the judge could order the repayment of the benefits.

Ruttner has been released on $5,000 bail. He is the father of 12 children and works as a custodian at a local synagogue, Gribetz said Friday.

"He’s totally innocent of these charges, and he’s anxious to prove his innocence," Gribetz said. "He’s a well-respected man in the community, has gone to school locally and has been a resident for a lengthy period of time."

Ruttner, who lives at 5 School Terrace, became the latest person arrested during a continuing crackdown by the District Attorney’s Office and Rockland Department of Social Services.

More than 60 people have been arrested on charges of stealing from various government subsidy programs since June 2008 following joint investigations by the Rockland Special Investigations Unit overseen by Executive Assistant District Attorney Gary Lee Heavner and the DSS special investigations unit.

Ruttner was arrested Thursday.

He was originally ordered held on $100,000 bail by Haverstraw Justice Peter Branti. His bail was dropped to $5,000 on Friday by a higher-court judge, Gribetz said.

Ruttner is accused of filing false information understating his income and financial assets so he could qualify for public assistance, District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said.

Ruttner is accused of not reporting several bank accounts with substantial deposits, Zugibe said.

Ruttner filed the documentation when he went to recertify for public assistance — a yearly mandate. Social Services interviews potential recipients and those reapplying, and cases are referred to the District Attorney’s Office for investigation if there’s strong evidence of abuse.

The county has said the system has detected $2 million annually in potential fraud. Those people include many who must recertify for benefits, aside from first-time recipients.

Zugibe said he instituted a program for his office to work with Social Services to investigate and prosecute fraud after he took office in January 2008.

After the first arrests of 43 people in June 2008, the county offered an amnesty program, allowing people to admit taking funds illegally and repay them without facing jail time.

Few people came forward, and the program now calls for more severe penalties, such as jail or prison.

Ruttner also is accused of stealing from the Section 8 rental subsidy program overseen by the Rockland agencies for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"To all those who commit this illegal conduct: We will find you and prosecute you," Zugibe said.

Yahoo Mintz said...

http://www.prweb.com/releases/Kars4kids/Woods/prweb3282654.htm

Lakewood, NJ (PRWEB) December 2, 2009 -- Kars4Kids has put in a plea to Tiger Woods asking him for his recently crashed vehicle. If the national car-donation organization receives it, its resale, they explain, will benefit a great many children.

Belsky said...

http://www.citizensvoice.com/news/courts-police/police-blotter-11-19-09-1.429023

A Wilkes-Barre man was charged Wednesday with suspected drunken driving in connection with a hit-and-run crash in the South Main Plaza the afternoon of Sept. 18.

Police were called to the plaza after Walter F. Belsky, 56, struck a vehicle in the area of the Smoke Shop and traveled across the plaza to Pizza Fellas.

Upon arrival, police witnessed Belsky walking out of the pizza shop with an unopened 24 oz. can of Keystone Ice beer.

Belsky got in his vehicle and attempted to drive away, but was stopped by police.

Police suspected Belsky was under the influence of alcohol. Officers viewed beer cans strewn around the interior of the car and a half-empty beer can in a cup holder in the center console, police said.

Belsky, of South Franklin Street, was uncooperative during questioning and refused to perform field sobriety tests, police said.

Investigators determined Belsky's driver's license was already suspended, DUI related.

Belsky was taken to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital for blood-alcohol testing, but he refused.

He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, driving with a suspended license, and accidents involving damage to an attended vehicle.

me too said...

Asher: thank you for mentionning that not being believed can lead to suicidal thoughts/attemps.

I am not from a jewish-orthodox background.

I was fondled by my father in my teens. At age 39, I revealed this to my family, and they slammed the door in my face. This is when I went suicidal, though it never came to serious attempts.

Thanks for pointing out that there might be a connection.

I also want to tell you: the culture of silence does not only exist it OJ, but in any social context.

My family is, theoretically, very open. But when it comes to revelations that they feel could endanger them, they just suffocate them (and the person who makes them too, if need be). And they also make statements contrary to their fundamental beliefs in order to protect themselves from the revelation.

I congratulate UOJ for fighting the culture of silence.

Anonymous said...

Leib Tropper and the EJF getting undone due to getting caught in serious sex scandal?

Low Klass said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/arts/television/11barry.html

December 11, 2009

Gene Barry, Actor of TV, Film and Stage, Dies at 90

By MICHAEL POLLAK

He won a Tony nomination in 1984 for his performance as Georges, the less flamboyant half of a gay couple, in “La Cage Aux Folles,” the first Broadway musical in which the principal lovers were gay men. Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Barry sang his love songs “with tender directness.”

Gene Barry was born Eugene Klass on June 14, 1919, in New York to Martin Klass, a jeweler, and Eva Klass. He was attending New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn when he won a singing contest and a scholarship to the Chatham Square School of Music. While studying there, he began singing on the New York radio station WHN.

He soon went from the Catskills to Manhattan bistros to Broadway productions, making his debut in the labor musical “Pins and Needles.”

From the 1950s through the 1980s, Mr. Barry appeared in scores of television specials and series, including “Playhouse 90,” “General Electric Theater,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Fantasy Island,” “The Love Boat,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

Yerachmiel Lopin, frumfollies blogger said...

Asher,

Great article. practically another whole chapter on what is wrong and yet another chapter on why we should not get too discouraged. Yasher Koach.

Thank you, UOJ for posting this article.

I have posted a chanukah drashah by one of our meyuchasim from the world of cover-up artists on his three cardinal mitzvos, yehareg v'al yaver (We get killed with prison sentences so don't do them.). The Meyucahas is the ChaptzemNisht Rebbe of the Otisville Federal Penitentiary, a place full of Jews who don't worry too much about thsuvah because the first step is that nasty business of feeling bad about what you did and admitting it. Of course the big 3 are avoiding loshan horah, avoiding mesirah, and supporting pidyon shvuyim.

The drashah is full of words of inspiration for felons everywhere. He may not be a gadol like the head of the moetzes whose speech about Znus was promoted by UOJ before Sukkos, but still you can learn a great deal by reading it. If not at least you can laugh. Please come to frum follies to read it at:

http://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/chaptzemnisht/

I have submitted it by email to UOJ because I want the kavod of wearing a cap from him. However, I am concerned that he has not clarified the exact shiur of the brim and whether it has 3 union hechserim, etc. But I will depend on his judgment. He is at least as honest as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Jonah Metzger. On the other hand Metzger is more efficient. He has been known to get more weddings done in a night by having his car driver sign the ketubot in the car and not waste any time leaving the getaway car.

Have a happy Chanukah, take the time to learn torah from the ChaptzemNisht Rebbe, and keep up the good fight against the chazer fressing temple desecrators. Eventually they will be forced to hit the road to the various Federal and state mosdos for felons.

Yerachmiel Lopin

Bim Bam and Pelosi want to tax you to death said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/business/11vat.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

But with economists like Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard predicting that federal tax revenues will need to rise by 20 to 30 percent in the next few years, politicians may hold their noses and decide this tax is the least worst option.

“Of course, we want to take down the health care cost, that’s one part of it,” Ms. Pelosi told Charlie Rose of PBS. “But in the scheme of things, I think it’s fair to look at a value-added tax as well.”

Vatican imitates Agudah said...

*** The Vatican statement made no mention of any possible resignation. ***

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/11/world/AP-EU-Vatican-Ireland-Abuse.html

Filed at 10:21 a.m. ET

VATICAN CITY (AP) --Pope Benedict XVI is deeply disturbed by a child sex-abuse scandal in Ireland and will write a letter to Catholics there on the church's response to a report that found the church shielded more than 100 child-abusing priests from the law, the Vatican said Friday.

Benedict met at the Vatican with senior Irish clergy to discuss a possible response to the devastating report issued last month.

A Vatican statement released after the 90-minute talks said the pope studied the report carefully and expressed his ''profound regret.''

''He was deeply disturbed and distressed by its contents,'' the statement said. ''The Holy Father shares the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland.''

Attending the talks at the Vatican were Irish Cardinal Sean Brady, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and the Vatican's representative to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza.

The report found that church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese failed to inform authorities about sexual abuse by priests, while police failed to pursue allegations under the belief that church figures were above the law.

The damning revelations led to private debates among Catholic bishops over whether any of their number should resign.

The Vatican statement made no mention of any possible resignation.

It said the church would ''continue to follow this grave matter with the closest attention'' and examine how to ''develop effective and secure strategies to prevent any recurrence.'' Benedict's letter to the faithful of Ireland ''will clearly indicate the initiatives that are to be taken in response to the situation.''

The 720-page report found that dozens of church leaders in Ireland's most populous diocese kept secret the record of child abuse by more than 170 clerics since 1940.

Police and social workers charged with stopping child abuse didn't start getting cooperation from the church until 1995. This opened the floodgates to thousands of abuse complaints expected to cost the Dublin Archdiocese euro20 million ($30 million).

Sholom Rubashkin said...

http://www.crownheights.info/index.php?itemid=22853

UOJ would get a kick out of this. I just added Tort Putz Twerski & Jeffrey Schwartz to my legal team. I figured they were effective for YTT.

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

1) Jay Allan Shanoff
http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/pdfs/17850.pdf

2) Max David Miller
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Calgary+arrested+separate+Internet+child+luring+cases/2326292/story.html

3) Jaskaransingh Ramburn
http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/pdfs/17833.pdf

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/12/08/12075851-sun.html
...
A Toronto man who teaches French at a private Jewish high school has been charged with sexually assaulting a young woman.
...
School spokesman Rabbi Scot Berman said the suspect has been teaching at the school since January 2002.
...
Jaskaransingh "Jask" Ramburn has been charged with sexual assault, sexual interference, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual touching.

Police are asking anyone any information to call 416-808-3200 or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS.
...

Anonymous said...

JWB says:
Scumbag child rapist and his scumbag enablers.

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/21633/charedis-raise-funds-rapist

Charedis raise funds for rapist
By Marcus Dysch, November 5, 2009
A strictly Orthodox community is running a fundraising campaign for a convicted child molester who avoided jail by hiding in London for two years.

Nachman Stal lived secretly among the Charedi community in Stamford Hill, north London, having fled Israel in 2006 after being found guilty of sodomy and indecent assault of a minor.
...
A fundraising committee spokesman, who asked not to be named, said: “We are trying to raise a large amount both for legal fees and also to support the family. We are doing what we can to help.
...
“There’s lots going on, we have a committee of volunteers. There was a function, a reception, that was endorsed by all the local rabbonim.”

Stal was convicted in 2006 of raping a boy under 16 in Tel Aviv between April and May 1998 and also of indecently assaulting a boy under 16 in the city between December 1998 and February 1999. He fled before he could be sentenced.
...
Asked about Stal’s conviction, the committee spokesman said: “I won’t go into the case, I am purely a link to his family. But the incident was over 10 years ago. People knew him very well while he was here and nobody could say he is a danger to the public. It was one incident.”
...

Anonymous said...

Jay Shanoff from Thornhill Ontario plays in the Bnai Brith baseball / basketball league & was given an MVP award in a ceremony at Rabbi Taub's shul (Leib Pinter's mechtan).

Anonymous said...

The Toronto Sun article quoting Rabbi Scott Berman from Bnei Akiva means the molester was teaching at the Ulpanot Orot girl's high school.

Decades ago when the baal habatim used to control the local Ner Israel yeshiva, mesivta bochurim would openly date Ulpanot girls and the rosh yeshiva couldn't do anything about it.

HUGE OU SCANDAL EXPOSED said...

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=14041

Read all the previous posts linked here too.

What do you expect from the OU when people are in charge like Belsky and Genack who cover up treif gomur all the time?

Asher Lipner, Ph.D. said...

To anonymous of 5:22:

Thank you for sharing your story. If there is anything I can do to be supportive please feel free to contact me via email lipnera@gmail.com

You are a courageous person to have chosen to live and survive and also to tell others of your story. Keep up the good work!

As for other parts of society also silencing victims, as a therapist, I know this to be true.

However, consider what it is like when your "leaders" who are believed by society to represent the authenticity of a 3000 year old religious tradition are the ones who are enforcing the code of silence? Consider that if a victim in our community speaks out, there is a seriuos concern for their reputation, their children's ability to be accepted in schools, and in some cases even their phsyical safety.

So with us, it is not only a person's family and the family of the abuser that pressure the victim. It is the entire community, led by its religiuos leaders.

This is not to discount the superhuman obstacles of a rejecting family. It is only sort of adding insult to injury so to speak.

Asher

Both versions of the story are correct said...

Just emailed a new piece of satire that Blogger will not allow through.

I wonder if this is the result of Kolko filing an official complaint just like he had material about him removed from Wikipedia.

vi bist du gevein? said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRyVMr9fKw8&feature=related

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

They will be caught, exposed, convicted and jailed.

Their time is at an end.

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/08/1009591/australian-jewish-studies-principal-jailed-for-porn

Australian Jewish studies principal jailed for porn
December 8, 2009

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) -- A former Jewish studies teacher was remanded to custody while awaiting sentencing for his participation in a global child porn ring.

Sentencing for Paul Benjamin, 41, a one-time deputy principal of Jewish studies at the Emanuel School, was set last Friday in Sydney’s District Court for Dec. 22. Benjamin, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, faces up to 18 months in prison.

He was one of 22 men arrested last December during a bust of a child pornography racket involving people in more than 50 countries.

Benjamin resigned from the Emanuel School following his arrest and was not believed to have been involved in illegal activity there.

Anonymous said...

http://www.theday.com/article/20091212/BIZ03/312129831/1070/NWS12

Icahn bails out Trump

Published 12/12/2009

Anonymous said...

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/12/12/commentary/op-eds/doc4b23fa796f376376479032.txt

Wake Up Before Obama Destroys The US

BY HERB DENENBERG, FOR THE BULLETIN
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2009

Chazak V'ematz! said...

Asher,

Nice post..Kol hakavod to you!

There is one organziation missing from your post...Lema'an Achai in Israel(www.lemaanachai.org).

This orgazniation has courageously stood up to protect children in a community known for protecting and harboring abusers.

For their bravery Lema'an Achai has received nothing but attacks from the holy rabbis of Ramat Bet Shemesh including "Rav" C.Z. Malinowitz and "Rabbi" Alan Kornfeld. These so called rabbonim have called on their flocks to withdraw funancial support from Lema'an Achai to disable them from doing their holy work.

Kudos to them for having the conviction to stand up and do what is right.

Bostoner bust said...

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/12/11/a_year_after_collapse_fresh_outrage_at_madoffs_deceit?mode=PF

In a lawsuit filed last week, Congregation Beth Pinchas in Brookline, best known for its charismatic spiritual leader dubbed the Bostoner Rebbe, said it invested $850,000 over 14 years with New York financier J. Ezra Merkin, a fellow Orthodox Jew who funneled billions of dollars in clients’ money to the convicted swindler.

Beth Pinchas accused Merkin, his fund Ascot Partners, and its auditor of “misrepresentations and other wrongdoing which facilitated a massive Ponzi scheme’’ and caused the congregation to lose a substantial portion of its savings, according to a complaint filed in Superior Court in Massachusetts.

The financial loss is a significant blow to the small but prominent Hasidic congregation, which is grieving the death of the rebbe, Levi Horowitz, who died in Israel last Saturday after a long illness. The congregation is one of a number of Orthodox organizations, including Yeshiva University in New York and the Maimonides School in Brookline, that have lost money by investing with Merkin, who seems to have functioned as Madoff’s outreach to the Orthodox community.

“The loss of money through Merkin was doubtless deeply painful to a small congregation with limited resources to begin with,’’ said Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. “Merkin is an Or thodox Jew and everybody knew him. He’s the same guy Elie Wiesel lost money from, and nobody knew he was simply taking your money, taking his percentage, and sending it off to Madoff. Everybody had a sense this guy was a holy guy - president of a synagogue, his father was a Holocaust survivor. Everybody thought he was squeaky clean.’’

Another group of investors - the “indirects,’’ in the parlance of Madoff victims - invested through so-called feeder funds, such as Ascot Partners and can’t even get the $500,000. This week, Picard denied claims from nearly 8,500 of the indirects, ruling that they were ineligible for the coverage because their investment accounts were not with Madoff, but rather with the feeder funds.

These victims, such as Beth Pinchas, have had to instead sue the firms that gave their money to Madoff and any deep-pocketed, third-party players involved in the ordeal.

The fund companies generally are fighting back, including Merkin, Fairfield Greenwich Group, and Tremont Advisers Inc., all of which have denied wrongdoing.

Other targets of lawsuits are Wall Street firms that serviced Madoff-related accounts and fund auditors. Beth Pinchas, for instance, also sued Ascot Partners’ auditor, BDO Seidman. In response, the firm said in a statement, “It is understandable that investors affected by the massive fraud at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities are frustrated and angry. However, it is unfortunate that these investors would seek to blame others for their own investment decisions.’’

Merkin, who has been sued by Picard and New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, for losing $2.4 billion in client funds, declined to comment.

Many victims are looking for ways around the trustee. Gaytri Kachroo, a Boston lawyer who represented Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos, is trying to help some investors by bringing their claims directly to the SEC. It’s an unusual gambit, demanding money from a regulator, but one that her clients hope will at least stir things up at the agency they blame most for their troubles. The SEC declined to comment.

Agudah Fresser said...

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/22252/agudath-israel-send-the-white-house-hanukkah-cheer/

Agudath Israel Sends the White House Hanukkah Cheer

Orthodox group’s head meets with, praises adviser Axelrod

BY ALLISON HOFFMAN | 3:00 PM DEC 11, 2009

We have absolutely no idea whether Rabbi Yehiel M. Kalish, the Chicago-based director of government affairs for the Orthodox advocacy group Agudath Israel, was among the 500 or so people to score a coveted invitation to next week’s White House Hanukkah party. However, he did apparently get to spend 45 “quality minutes” in the West Wing with David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior adviser. According to an email update Kalish circulated earlier today (not online), he called on Axelrod to talk about school vouchers and federal funding for parochial schools—a key issue for the Agudath, whose members primarily send their children to yeshivot—but also digressed into other issues, like Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s security. According to Kalish, Axelrod responded by recounting his childhood fundraising efforts on behalf of the Jewish National Fund, which involved carrying “blue and white pushkas” around the Lower East Side. Kalish explains that’s all he needed to hear: “We feel strongly that Mr. Axelrod takes this issue as seriously as we do,” he wrote. Mr. Axelrod: consider that Agudath Israel’s Hanukkah present to you.

Dr. Danny Tamir - Boro Park said...

By Frank Donnelly
December 11, 2009, 5:36PM

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An internist sacked from Staten Island University Hospital last year, stole a prescription pad before being terminated, then illegally used it to prescribe amphetamines, prosecutors allege.

Danny Tamir, 33, of the 2000 block of 58th Street, Brooklyn, began working at University Hospital’s Ocean Breeze campus around July 1, 2007, said a law-enforcement source. Tamir, who had a “limited license” to serve as an internist, was terminated about a year later due to poor performance, said the source.

Before his firing, Tamir allegedly took a hospital prescription pad, even though he had lost any privileges to use it, according to court papers and a source.

Between July 19 and Nov. 23 of this year, he allegedly wrote prescriptions for at least 60 pills of Adderall, a drug used to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

Tamir gave the prescriptions to another person, who obtained the pills at the drug store, court records said.

The state Department of Health and the district attorney’s NYPD detective squad launched a probe which resulted in Tamir’s arrest yesterday.

He was arraigned today in Stapleton Criminal Court on four felony counts each of forgery and unauthorized use of a profession and one felony count of criminal drug possession.

He also is accused of four misdemeanor counts of using fraud or deceit to obtain controlled substances, said a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan.

Anonymous said...

There is a SY Mark Benun who gives money to Yeshiva of Flatbush. Lido is owned by a Leon Goldstein.

http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/property-owner-mark-benun-pleads-guilty-on-bogus-6m-bronx-building-sale-at-67-79-east-161st-street

A Bronx property owner pleaded guilty today in Manhattan federal court to charges that he fraudulently sold a commercial building for $5.9 million earlier this year, authorities said.

According to prosecutors, Mark Benun, 35, partnered with another company to buy the building at 67-79 East 161st Street in 2006 for $9.5 million.

Benun, who brokered the deal, was given a 25 percent interest in the property, while the other investor, identified in city property records as Lido Realty of Brooklyn, held a 75 percent interest, according to the US Attorney in Manhattan.

Despite his minority interest, Benun sold the property in February 2009 for $5.96 million using forged deed and mortgage documents, prosecutors said.

Following the bogus sale, Benun wired at least $450,000 to other bank accounts, and in addition withdrew about $1.4 million which he used to buy gold bars in Manhattan.

Benun was the owner of a real estate investment firm called MBM1 Owners, located at 275 Madison Avenue.

He pleaded guilty to four counts of interstate transportation of stolen property, and faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of at least $250,000 for each count, as well as forfeiture of the illegal proceeds, at his sentencing scheduled for March 19.

Monsey said...

http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=1202436292528

12-14-2009

A former New York City Law Department attorney admitted Friday that he had defrauded two victims in a mortgage scam to pay off gambling debts.

Hugh A. Zuber, who worked in the Law Department's special federal litigation division, pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud before Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck.

Zuber, who invented both a state court lawsuit and a federal bankruptcy proceeding in a desperate attempt to avoid detection, ripped off one victim for $198,820 and a second for $185,151. He will be ordered to pay those amounts in restitution, forfeit $301,250 and pay a fine of between $6,000 and $60,000 when he is sentenced by Judge Richard M. Berman.

Federal Defender Sabrina Shroff said she plans to argue at sentencing that Zuber's actions were aberrational and that "he led a law-abiding life for many years," before succumbing to gambling.

"I hope Judge Berman accepts what has been recognized by the psychiatric community as an actual disease," Shroff said.

Zuber remains free on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond.

Zuber, 39, of Monsey, N.Y. faces a stipulated guidelines sentence of between two years and three months and two years and nine months in prison, but he is free to argue for a lower sentence under the terms of his plea agreement with Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark D. Lanpher.

Zuber was arrested in June for crimes involving two properties, one in Spring Valley, N.Y., and one in the Bronx. He resigned from his job with the Law Department, where he had been earning $79,250 a year, effective June 8.

He persuaded the two owners to sell their properties to an entity that he formed, Alana Property Management, without disclosing it was managed by his sister and controlled by his brother.

Zuber said in court that he had sold the properties "on terms that were worse" than he, the sellers and purchasers initially agreed to.

He persuaded the sellers to take some cash but also to accept 10-year notes for the remainder. The notes supposedly would be secured by a mortgage on the properties.

Zuber admitted that he then mailed his victims checks, if only for a while, "so they would not detect the fraud. I knew when I did this my actions were illegal and wrong."

At one point, Zuber met with one of his victims at the Corporation Counsel's office after Alana Property had stopped making payments on the "mortgage." He falsely assured the seller that he had filed a lawsuit against Alana Property in state court.

He also lied when he later showed the seller documents purporting to be from the judge handling the nonexistent "bankruptcy" of Alana Property -- Eastern District of New York Bankruptcy Judge Carla E. Craig.

Zuber was recorded by the FBI on Dec. 22, 2008, telling one seller that "I didn't tell you any of this before. I'm just going to tell you the truth ... about four years ago, in 2004, I had a gambling problem ... during that time, you came into my life."

Zuber, the father of three young children, told Magistrate Judge Peck that he had been attending gambling counseling for more than a year.

A conference has been scheduled before Judge Berman for Dec. 23.

Zuber, a graduate of Albany Law School, worked at Jacob, Medinger & Finnegan before moving to the Law Department in October 2007.

Both Versions Are Correct said...

www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/sports/golf/12woods.html

Asking for understanding from fans & fellow
molesters, Yudi Kolko announced Fri. that he would take an “indefinite break
from trying out every luxury bungalow colony” to try to rebuild his personal
life. Kolko, the top-ranked big mouth in the world, has not been seen in public
since crashing his old Plymouth in an early morning accident. He's spent the
last 2 weeks in his Lakewood NJ home, recovering from injuries & hearing a
flood of reports of flatulent indiscretions that has swamped the worldwide
airwaves.

By abandoning his summer tours for an unspecified time,
Kolko leaves the Agudah without its No. 1 mascot, Silver Lake without its No. 1
ratings driver & Bungalow Putz Neuhof worrying who will be left building
their brands. It wasn't clear how he arrived at the decision or whether it was
made in consultation with Lipa Margulies or Yankel Applegrad.


The reaction from Regency & Kochav / Merchav, 2
luxury colonies, closely followed Kolko’s statement. Abraham Fruchthandler, the
president of Camp Morris, said luxury bungalow putzes could go on without Kolko,
but not for long without consequences. “We’ve obviously putzed around without
Kolko before,” Fruchthandler said, “but we all know how much better things smell
at kiddush on the lawn when Kolko has sampled the cholent. We’ll adjust, but I
guess a lot depends on what the definition of ‘indefinite’ is.” Asked whether
there was a tradeoff between Kolko’s absence & the Eckstein media circus
that would accompany his return, Fruchthandler said: “I’m not as concerned as I
am about missing him darshaning like a big mouth. When he had a sore throat a
year ago, we didn’t have him mouthing off that Chaim Berlin rebbeim make more
than YTT's.

In his 3rd statement since the accident drove him to
seclusion, Kolko used his site to reiterate & amplify profound apologies for
the fallout from the reported multiple farts to which he had alluded but not
admitted. “I'm deeply aware of the disappointment & hurt that my indigestion
has caused to so many people, most of all my wife & kids,” Kolko said. “I
want to say again to everyone that I'm profoundly sorry & that I ask
mechila. It may not be possible to repair the damage I’ve done, but I want to do
my best to try Beano anti-gas medication. “After much cheshbon hanefesh, I've
decided to take an indefinite break from luxury bungalow colonies,” he
continued. “I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father &
person.”

Both Versions Part Two said...

Kolko & his wife Edith have been married for many
years.

Some Flatbush Hungarian jerks at the Luxor bungalow
colony, also issued a brief statement of support.

Kolko’s decision will likely shift the focus of
speculation away from daily updates on his methane gas attacks to what date
he'll return to the molesting he's dominated since 1967. His recent pattern has
been to skip Shavuos at Regency & begin his schedule in Woodridge in June.
From there, to begin his run-up to little boys in bathing suits at Lake
Compounce, Kolko would normally release gas bubbles in the pool in Vacation
Village & what was formerly The Pines in South Fallsburg.


Under normal circumstances, the odds on Kolko missing
Compounce would be astronomical. But the circumstances since the car accident
have been anything but normal. Kolko’s noisy sphincter has been the No. 1 topic
on every outlet from Internet posts to magazines at heimish grocery checkouts to
reports in mainstream news media.

Before the events of Nov., expectation had been building
for the 2010 bungalow season. Kolko was kicked out of 6 colonies in 2009, none
of them shabby. Next year was looked on as another opportunity to add to his
total, perhaps attempting to stay at Twin Bridges in Hurleyville.


He finished his Website message with another plea for his
family to be left alone. “Again, I ask for privacy for my family,” he wrote,
“and I'm especially grateful for all those who've offered compassion &
concern during this difficult period.”

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper the mythmaker, he doesn't know Pinter but he loves compliments.

A wonderful thing about owning your own blog is that you can indulge your own love of myth-making. Tropper excells in this great digital art-form, as he recently posted both a denial an self-praise.

This one is a classic: "Rabbi Leib Tropper Does Not Know Rabbi Leib Pinter Posted by Rabbi Tropper Posted in EJF Posted on 01-12-2009 About a year ago an article on a blog mistakenly featured a picture of Rabbi Leib Tropper with a caption that read “Rabbi Leib Pinter”. The author of the blog was notified of the mistake by a reader and corrected the situation. Recently, Rabbi Leib Tropper has been associated with Rabbi Leib Pinter on several blogs but the fact is that they don’t know each other. Rabbi Tropper does not know who Rabbi Pinter is, he has never worked with Rabbi Pinter and he has never even seen his picture."

And this is so funny:

"Letter to Rabbi Tropper from an EJF Seminar Participant Posted by Rabbi Tropper Posted in EJF Conferences Posted on 07-12-2009 Dear Rabbi Tropper As a couple who have just returned from the Eternal Jewish Family Hebrew speaking seminar at the Lavi Hotel, we would like to express our deepest gratitude and admiration for the invitation to such an event. It was extremely inspirational and informative. The speakers were expert in their content and delivery. Each presentation was moving and relevant. We were deeply moved and horrified by the statistics of assimilation. Each attendee, we are sure left the conference, as we did, with the feeling of urgency to act to prevent this silent holocaust. We are already using the information and techniques that we were taught on the seminar. The setting, we felt, was also relevant since the Galil presents many a challenge in terms of its mixed Arab-Jewish population, as well as the missionary activity occurring in many of the irreligious kibbutzim. Thank you for the opportunity for personal growth afforded by the conference, for the opportunity to forge connections with other organizations and for the pleasant break !! Much success in all your endeavors for the sake of the suvival of our people. Yours sincerely, Moishe and Tamar B."

Welcome to Tropper's La-La-Land, like Alice's Wonderland nothing is what it appears to be, where the EJF scheme is lauded and Tropper's past associations are denied!

Anonymous said...

On this holiday of freedom chanuka i am convinced more then ever that we are on the path to victory despite the mainstream orginazations thank you all asher you are my hero of the year

Tropper is Troubled said...

Tropper's nemesis Guma Aguiar cozies up to Chabad, again.

Tropper and his supporter Tom Kaplan may not like Guma Aguiar, but it seems the big Chabad rabbis can't seem to get enough of him:

"Developing Relationships, Businesspeople, Professionals Work With Chabad Leaders To Advance
Jewish life
Chabad Lubavitch Headquarters News, November 16, 2009...In an address to the general session of the event, Mr. Guma Aguiar, energy industrialist and owner of the Beitar Jerusalem football team, spoke about the life-altering effect Chabad's work had on him. Raised without any Jewish observanace, Aguiar did not know that he was Jewish until he was 26 years old.

A chance encounter with Rabbi Moshe Meir Lipszyc of Ft. Lauderdale, led Aguiar to deepen his spiritual connections. Aguiar has since become an active philanthropist supporting Jewish outreach in Israel and the Diaspora. Mr Aguiar says he draw[s] inspiration from the Shluchim he so admires.

'It is our duty to reach out on all levels,' he said. 'From the community to the individual, we must bring the message and the legacy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to fruition.'"

Tropper can't be happy to hear that Guma is invoking the "legacy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe" at a time when Guma is also fighting legal battles against Tropper's main supporter Tom Kaplan and against Tropper himself in bais din over missing philanthropic funds from Guma that Tropper has not accounted for.

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

And so it continues ....

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/12/tiger-woods-of-chereidi-world.html

There is an ancient saying that there is always something in the Jewish world corresponding to what goes on in the non-Jewish world.

There will soon be a major earthquake upon the publication of the information which was associated with the following excerpt from an email I recently received. The information is being verified. However it was also sent out to a number of others who will probably be the ones to actually publish the explosive and disgusting material. It will result in the effective end of a very powerful figure.

me too said...

@asher lipner:

I completely agree that it is very important to fight the silence.

All the more so since it is completely hypocritical to overlook aveirot that are very strongly prohibited by Torah, some of them even with death penalty.

I think it is general societal problem, that societies where it happens tend to look the other way, while condemning it in theory.

The same phenomenon happened when some inhabitants of a small french village decided to denounce the pedophile acts of their honoured school teacher.

The reaction was exactely the same "he is innocent, he is an excellent teacher, no-one can prove it happened, the rest of France will point their fingers at us, whoever tells (or even worse: tells the media) is a traitor."

What I want to say: this problem is not easy to eradicate, you really have to go on the razors edge.

What is worse: even if you get to uncover cases of the past, victims of the present will still have huge difficulties in finding help.

When you look up the statistics of crisis intervention centres against pedophilia, you will see that they mostly deal with cases of the past.

Tropper Sex Scandal said...

Kindly listen to this new audio selection wherein one of the females present in the Tropper Sex Scandal video admits that the events actually occured and participants are identifiable.

Further materials pertaining to the Tropper Sex Scandal have not yet been released.

Submissions

Any person or persons wishing to submit confidential reports of abuse by Rabbi Leib Tropper or the organisation known as the Eternal Jewish Family are invited to send whatever information they deem appropriate to:

bobX@anonymousspeech.com

Tropobserving said...

UOJ, how come you haven't posted the Tropper audio files?

Bim Bam identity said...

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/11/exclusive-leaked-justice-department-memo-terrorists-to-be-moved-to-camp-gitmo-illinois/

Dr. Alan Mendelsohn said...

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/florida/v-print/story/1265639.html

Today, Mendelsohn, 51, is accused of being a crook.

An indictment returned by a Fort Lauderdale federal grand jury last week portrays the eye doctor as a boastful rainmaker turned criminal opportunist: He is accused of defrauding doctors and other major contributors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations.

Mendelsohn, who pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday, used the money to support a more than comfortable lifestyle, prosecutors say. He spent it on himself, his mistress and his four children's private schools -- including donating $250,000 in political funds to his medical school alma mater when his son sought admission, the indictment says. It is illegal to divert political contributions to personal use.

He also conspired with an unnamed ``accomplice'' to set up a series of political action committees and corporations to conceal the illegal diversion of donations to state lawmakers -- including one unnamed public official who received $87,000, the indictment says.

In another instance, he's accused of moving $150,000 through one corporation to his mistress, ``falsely'' representing to the IRS that it was for a public education program advocating eye-cancer screening for kids. In all, records show Mendelsohn raised more than $2 million for his three political action committees.

Wall Street Journal said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574544192422005878.html

Read here how Lubavitcher Bocharian putz Lev Leviev is burning investors with him out of $100s millions.

"Mevakshei Hashem" on Ave K said...

Is this Yehuda Levin's shul?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTBeLSfrL8k&feature=player_embedded

After the media exposed Toiv from East 24th, these guys jumped in to grab all their car donation billboards. This is hilarious. They send out a Black guy named "Markowitz" to say that "Schwartz" is in charge, who probably doesn't exist.

Moetzes Resign said...

ROME (AP) Italian news reports say Premier Silvio Berlusconi has been punched in the face at a rally.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-centarian-sex-offender,0,6110217.story

100-year-old "Unrepentant" Pedophile Set Free, Still Considered Threat

BUFFALO, NY - New York's oldest registered sex offender has moved from a halfway house for released inmates and into a place of his own, after completing his latest term in state prison for molesting little girls.

The judge who sentenced him said at the time that she expected him to die behind bars.

But 10 years after his last arrest, as Sypnier prepared to shed the closely monitored lifestyle of the halfway house, its director warned that the spry and active Sypnier has not changed from the manipulator who used his grandfatherly charm to snare and rape victims as young as 4.

"Whether he's 100 or 101 or 105, the same person that was committing these crimes 10, 25, 30 years ago still exists today and has an unrepentant heart," said the Rev. Terry King, director of Grace House, which has twice taken Sypnier in from prison.

Six months after marking his 100th birthday in the Groveland Correctional Facility - becoming the first New York inmate to reach the milestone while incarcerated the retired telephone company worker now says he wants to get to know the youngest members of a family that has disowned him.

"I'll tell them I never harmed any children," the father, grandfather and great-grandfather told his hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News.

Being grandfatherly was how the 5-foot-5, 150-pound Sypnier found his victims, authorities say.

After his most recent arrest at age 90 on charges of raping and sodomizing a 4-year-old girl and her 7-year-old sister, his neighbors in the suburb of Tonawanda recalled what appeared to be a kindly Sypnier offering rides to adults, handing out money to children so they could buy candy, and baby-sitting.

The victimized sisters called him "Grandpa," their mother said at the time, adding that it "was a total shock" when police showed her sexually explicit pictures of her girls found in Sypnier's apartment.

Sypnier's convictions date to 1987, when he was given three years' probation for sex abuse. He spent a year in prison for sexually abusing a minor in 1994.

A relative once came forward and said Sypnier had molested her while she was growing up, former Erie County prosecutor Frank Clark told the News. Authorities wonder what else might lie in Sypnier's past.

"People don't start to become pedophiles at 78," Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita told the AP.

Sypnier says he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, despite twice pleading guilty in the case involving the sisters.

"Those children crawled into bed with me because they were frightened, but there was never any sexual hanky-panky," Sypnier told the News.

Sypnier initially pleaded guilty in 2000 to two counts of rape, 15 counts of sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child for molesting the Tonawanda girls, as well as three in Buffalo.

An appeals court threw out the conviction in 2002 after Sypnier claimed he was confused at the time, leading to another plea the following year to a lesser charge.

In sentencing Sypnier to as many as 10 years in prison, state Supreme Court Justice Penny Wolfgang told him she expected he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.

"The sheer notion of him wandering the streets unattended or unsupervised is a scary proposition," King said.

Sypnier was released on parole in 2007, only to be returned to prison in 2008 after failing to attend sex-offender counseling.

He completed his term in November and will be on parole through 2012.

Until then, he's forbidden from using e-mail, chat rooms or social networking sites, hanging around playgrounds or schools, or spending time in bars.

Although his age makes him New York's oldest registered sex offender, there is at least one older offender elsewhere.

Bert Jackson of Utah is 103 and living under home confinement.

Yasher koyach to Asher Lipner said...

I know you from Lakewood & hope I have the opportunity to personally commend you one day.

I agree with everything you said except when you gave a favorable mention to Shmarya.

Shmarya is not one of the good guys. Shmarya's goal is to drive people away from Yiddishkeit and is using abuse and every other issue he latches on to as a means to accomplish it.

Don't be fooled by Shmarya.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

I'm having difficulty downloading the Tropper audio - please send or post a simple link to the audio.

UOJ

Mintz and Oorah said...

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/alleged_ponzi_scheme_ensnares.html

Alleged Ponzi scheme ensnares Kars4Kids

By Ted Sherman/The Star-Ledger
December 12, 2009

Kars4Kids has a punchy radio jingle that drives some people crazy.
But the Lakewood-based nonprofit organization — which solicits car donations for disadvantaged children — is now one of dozens of charities embroiled in a federal court fight involving allegations of a massive, international Ponzi scheme.
At issue are millions in payments to Kars4Kids and more than 60 other registered charities, some of which appear to have quickly kicked the donations back to the donors, often in the space of days, according to court papers.
The allegations don’t involve money that’s generated when cars are donated to the charity. Instead, the court papers suggest the man at the center of everything, 34-year-old Eliyahu Weinstein, made multimillion-dollar payments to Kars4Kids and other charities as a way to hide assets.
Weinstein, a member of Lakewood’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and a former used car salesman, is being sued by former partners across two continents who say he duped many of them — most of whom are also members of Orthodox Jewish communities — promising to invest their money in projects that did not exist.
The court filings say Weinstein diverted the funds as part of a complicated pyramid scheme, and also accuse him of trying to hide the money by funneling it through nonprofit organizations like Kars4Kids, as well as two religious charities now the focus of federal money laundering investigations in New Jersey and California.
Parking money in a charity would be like putting it in a secret Swiss bank account, keeping it hidden from creditors, angry investors, the government, or civil court judgments. It might then be redirected in any number of ways.
Attorney Ari Weisbrot of Hackensack, who is representing one of the investors, contends the paper trail of money had all the hallmarks of an elaborate scam.
"There may be potentially legitimate explanations for those transfers," he said. "But in my opinion, they carry the scent of money laundering."
Weinstein, through his attorneys, denied any wrongdoing. He has not been charged with any crime and has not been not mentioned in any of the documents connected with either criminal probe.
In a recent letter to the federal District Court judge in the case, he called the accusations against him "frivolous, scurrilous, baseless allegations of fraud" which he said "seek to tie me to money laundering by innuendo."
He said he had repaid many of his investors millions of dollars, in one case "arranging for repayment by transferring to plaintiffs ancient scrolls that experts have concluded are over 1,200 years old that he estimated at being worth between $8 million and $12 million. He said he repaid another by transferring rights to the purchase of certain properties in Israel.
Kars4Kids officials called the allegations "wildly speculative," and said the payments cited by Weisbrot were the result of the sale of real estate.

part 2 said...

In the civil fraud complaints filed against him, Weinstein has been accused by former partners in North America and Europe of taking more than $470 million through complex real estate deals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Great Britain and Israel. The deals, they allege, never materialized and the money disappeared. In at least two cases, former partners say he sold property he did not own.
Weisbrot, who represents Florida investor Harvey Wolinetz, believes the funds were used to repay other victims.
Bank records obtained in the course of the litigation show that Weinstein sent more than $84 million out of his accounts to as many as 69 charities. According to court documents, an incomplete accounting shows more than $38.4 million of that subsequently came back as checks to those who Weinstein owed money, or to companies tied to him — sometimes within days. In several cases, checks he wrote out to one charity were cashed by the organization after they were endorsed by one of his own employees.
"While under other circumstances the payments would be praiseworthy, the fact that the same money later reappears for Weinstein’s personal use leads to only one conclusion — he is using these organizations to hide his assets," charged Weisbrot in one court filing. "It is without dispute that Weinstein sent tens of millions of dollars to entities that he controlled — disguised as charities — and then filtered the money back to his own uses."
If the allegations are true, it would mark the first evidence of a common thread between the country’s two biggest federal money laundering investigations — one in New Jersey, the other centered mostly in California.
The records obtained by Weisbrot show some of the money went through a charity operated by Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, the principal rabbi at Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal. Ben Haim was charged in July with money laundering, as part of a undercover sting operation by the FBI.
Other checks tied to Weinstein were paid into another charity, an organization tied to a separate underground money laundering investigation by federal prosecutors in California.
Brooklyn attorney Gary Ginsburg, speaking for Weinstein, said there could be any number of explanations for the transfers besides money laundering, but could not explain the circumstances of the transfers.
"There are other alternatives. How about if you loaned money to an institution and they were returning the loan?" suggested Ginsburg.
A lawyer for Kars4Kids said the payments, through a wire transfer, were only the result of a property sale.
"We have no reason to believe anything untoward has taken place," said attorney Ronald Coleman of Glen Rock. "There has been no attention from law enforcement. We’re not a party to this case. And we’ve made all the documentation we have available to the lawyer in the case."
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey declined comment.

R' Binyomin Ruttner said...

http://www.lohud.com/article/20091113/NEWS03/911130384/Monsey-man-charged-with-stealing--156G-from-government-subsidy-programs

This guy is also the rov of his father's old shul on 73rd Ave in Hillcrest, Queens, where he goes every 2nd week for Shabbos.

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

Expose them. Put them in jail. Throw away the keys.

Their protectors and enablers should be exposed and made financially bankrupt. They are already morally bankrupt.

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/41806
...
Breaking from the past, Rabbi Zweibel included child molestation as one of the problems that must be dealt with at a community level. Dina D'Malchusa Dina would require us to report every incident to the proper authorities. However, Rabbi Zweibel did not say that. The recent attempt to pass the Markey Bill in the New York State Legislature would have opened a window to allow civil suits against child molesters for their crimes retroactively beyond the statue of limitations. The Agudah issued its position as being against the Markey Bill. Was that the Agudah's application of Pidyon Shvuyim? The Agudah's message that the community must strive for absolute fidelity to all laws is admirable and commendable, but it must also be tempered with mercy and recognition of our Torah commitment to the mitzvah of Pidyon Shvuyim.
...

Anonymous said...

smeltzer the rosh kolel in north miami beach b
is fighting many efforts to expose molesters in the community

he has welcomed a man who was convicted of exposing himself to children and is on the molesters list into the kolel and even gives him kovod

he fights efforts to expose molesters in fl

Both versions of the story are correct said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8411198.stm

Yudi Kolko is under observation in Lakewood's Kimball hospital after being attacked by a bris milah in Beis Medrash Govoha.

His doctor Tuvya Chaim Neuhof said it would take a few weeks for Kolko to make a full recovery.

He said Kolko's nose and two shirt buttons were broken in the attack and that he had lost his appetite for smoked salmon.

A 42-year-old man, described by Torah Temimah officials as having a "history of mental illness", has been charged with aggravated assault.

Dr Neuhof said Kolko had had to undergo a CT scan in the hospital but did not yet require any tailoring on his shirt.

Like most fatheads from YTT, he travels with a large team of body guards and aides but Kolko is a gregarious figure who likes to grope ordinary people.

He is also a divisive individual in yeshivishe politics, with opinion polls showing a broad split between voters.

After decades of personal scandal involving his private life, he has become an even more polarising figure.

"He suffered a big trauma to his face with two evident scratches on the upper lip, one external and one internal which needed Chapstick," he said.

He is believed to have been struck full in the face by a souvenir model of the Agudah convention dais.

Dr Neuhof said Kolko was still not quite sure about what happened to him.

After the attack on Sunday morning, Kolko, looking dazed, was helped to his feet by aides and put in Eckstein's helicopter. He got out and tried to climb on the copter to show he was all right, before being flown away.

And upon arrival at the hospital, Kolko, who had egg all over his face, had his lawyer Scott Tulman take questions. He said he was fine, noting that he had plenty of time to get home before Shabbos.

It was a typical show of defiance by an unrepentant molester, says the Awareness Center's Vicky Polin.

However the Asbury Park Press reported that Kolko had told one visitor later that he thought it was "miraculous" that he did not lose a cufflink in the attack.

There are said to have been scuffles between hecklers in UOJ caps and Avremel Schorr's security staff during the bris and before the attack.

At the hospital, Kolko's spokesman, Lipa Geldwerth, said he was worried about the "atmosphere of 'sinas chinam' instigated by Ben Hirsch & Eli Greenwald in the air".

The attack was condemned by Moetzes President Jacobo Perlo. "This is truly a bad day for all the heimisher, and it's the duty of all Agudah forces to ensure that this does not go back to the summers of violence against Kolko at Catskills brissen."

Israel Belski, leader of the far-right Hazamanna League said what had happened was an "act of terrorism" and called the attack "a worrying sign".

Police have charged a purported member of JBAC with aggravated assault for hurling the miniature replica at Kolko.

The replica of the dais, famous for its shtreimelach & hamburgs, was initially said to be made of metal but later reports suggested it was paper mache.

Kolko was previously assaulted at a bris, when one of his sex abuse victims struck him at a Sullivan County bungalow colony.

His attacker, a former YTT talmid, reportedly told police he had attacked Kolko because he had molested him. Kolko suffered a bruise.

Kolko has been under increased pressure in recent months.

His private life has been in the spotlight, amid allegations that he farted on acquaintances & complete strangers alike, after which even his own son Avi threatened to stop chaffeuring him around.

He has dismissed accusations of ties to Belsky's Mafia, and criminal cases against him have resumed after stunts by Charlie Hynes giving him immunity were overturned.

A week ago tens of thousands of UOJ supporters attended an anti-YTT rally on Ocean Pkwy.

Whoah said...

I can't believe you haven't posted the Tropper files yet. What's going on?

Margo's accountant said...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new Internal Revenue Service unit set up to catch rich tax cheats hiding their wealth in complex business entities is rapidly taking shape with the hiring of hundreds of employees.

The IRS high wealth unit, part of a broader effort to combat international tax evasion, is focusing on "the entire web of business entities controlled by a high wealth individual," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told a tax conference this week.

Another IRS official told Reuters "hundreds" of people have already been hired to staff the new unit, including some from within the agency.

"We have drawn top talent within the IRS that have expertise involving wealthy individuals as well as examination of their related entities," said Mae Lew, an IRS special counsel.

The high-wealth unit is focusing on trusts, real estate investments, privately held companies and other business entities controlled by rich individuals.

While use of sophisticated legal structures can be legal, in other instances they "mask aggressive tax strategies," Shulman said.

Tax authorities in Japan, Germany and the UK have also created similar units.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a $387 million boost for the IRS for the fiscal year that started October 1, in part to fund the high-wealth unit. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure on Sunday.

Ohel treasurer David Jacobson said...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/12/11/2009-12-11_body_of_former_cyprus_president_stolen_from_grave.html

Body of former Cyprus president Tassos Papadopoulos stolen from grave

Anonymous said...

Kars4Kids writes to respond to the December 12th article in the Newark Star Ledger involving the suggestion that Kars4Kids or any of its related charities have been involved in financial misdeeds, including money laundering or other illegal practices. Not only are any such suggestions completely false the newspaper report is based on unjustified accusations in court papers from a court case that has nothing at all to do with Kars4Kids. Those papers do make serious accusations against a number of charities involving millions of dollars. BUT KARS4KIDS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!

The article states at the very beginning that "At issue are millions in payments to Kars4Kids and more than 60 other registered charities." This is completely misleading. No one -- not even the lawyers who made the original claims -- has EVER said that "millions" of dollars having anything to do with Eliyahu Weinstein have ever been paid by, through or to Kars4Kids. (In fact Mr. Weinstein has never even donated to our charity!) Of all the transactions involving Kars4Kids that the lawyer in question claimed "carry the scent of money laundering," despite the impression left by the newspaper article, KARS4KIDS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!


In fact, the same lawyer who made these claims filed an extensive list in court detailing the "millions of dollars" he thinks may be money laundering, down to the penny. Anyone can download this list from the Internet. It names every one of the 68 Jewish charities he is accusing of possible involvement in this crime and the specific amounts involved. KARS4KIDS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!



The Star Ledger chose to write about the "local angle" -- a New Jersey charity whose name people recognize because of its success. The magnetism of such a story to its readers, when mixed with the "religious wrongdoers" claims, was raw meat to the newspaper. It was prepared to publish this story no matter how desperately it had to cut and paste unconnected "facts" or even unconnected accusations. There are serious accusations against charities in this lawsuit, but KARS4KIDS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!



So what is the Kars4Kids "connection"? A few years ago Kars4Kids was involved with a single transaction with a third party. That third party in turn conveyed money to the defendant in that lawsuit, Eliyahu Weinstein, with no direct involvement of Kars4Kids. Two years prior Oorah, Inc., a related charity, exchanged its old office 421 West County Line Road for the office building located next door to its current headquarters at 1785 Swarthmore. The lawyer involved in the present Weinstein litigation, seeing the name of Kars4Kids in banking records produced in the case, served us with a subpoena so he could satisfy his clients that nothing "went on" with Kars4Kids and his client's money. We resisted the subpoena at first because it was unnecessarily invasive and broad. Our charity has nothing to hide, but is obligated to protect its donors privacy and its own private information. We filed a motion in that court to quash the subpoena and eventually worked out a friendly agreement to give them what they needed to go on with their case. That litigation is going on and involves a large number of accusations, suspected transactions and defendants. KARS4KIDS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!



Kars4Kids is the real deal. We have nothing to hide and because the public has supported our programs so generously we have no need to make money the dishonest way, and never have. There are lots of negative stories out there, unfortunately, that put Klal Yisroel in a bad light, and a lot of people and institutions that bear great guilt for causing Chillul Hashem by their actions. KARS4KIDS IS NOT ONE OF THEM!

Anonymous said...

shmeltzer rosh kollel of NMB IS a molester himself.

He went after my cousin's son. my cousin took his kids out of the school and home schooled them.

Judah Hertz said...

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/12/prweb3322104.htm

I wonder if Mondrowitz is benefiting from all the money I give to the Gerrorists.

Anonymous said...

Shmeltzer's money for the kollel(aka "sex, lies and video") comes from Tropper.

100k for the "Rosh" and 45k for the chaverim.

Both versions of the story are correct said...

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/14/1009706/fundamentalist-christians-tear-down-public-menorah

December 14, 2009

Ocean Parkway (JTA) -- About 200 feinshmecker Hungarians, led by Lipa Margulies spouting anti-UOJ slurs, took down a public Chanukah menorah and hoisted a lead crystal chandelier in its place.

News footage showed the white-bearded Margulies leading the group in chanting anti-UOJ slogans during Sunday's incident. The menorah had been installed by the Jewish Board for Advocates for Children.

The group removed the large, metal menorah, which had been set up on the Ocean Parkway mall, and then placed it upside down at #555, at the base of a statue being built to idolize Margulies. Due to the presence of thugs sent by Belsky, neither police nor onlookers intervened.

"The JBAC can try to stop us, to untraumatize our children," but Hungarian believers will resist, Margulies said, speaking into a sound system. YTT, he said, was a sovereign Hungarian entity, and the JBAC are trying to "dominate people." Allowing the menorah to be set up had been "a sacrilege, an indulgence of anti-molester power today," he said.

Bungalow Putz Neuhof said he is against molestation of any kind and the Agudath Isreal promised to investigate but take no action, according to reports.

Obama Death Panels said...

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/senate-reform-loophole-allows-caps-payouts-some-illnesses/2009-12-11

Senate reform loophole allows caps on payouts for some illnesses

December 11, 2009

Groups backing care for costly diseases like cancer--treatment for which can rise above $100,000 per year--told the Associated Press that they were blindsided. "We don't know who put [the provision] in, or why it was put in," said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network's advocacy affiliate.

Failed Messiah reader said...

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/176389

A Muslim on Saturday night attacked a Habad Rabbi who was conducting a public Chanukah lighting ceremony in Vienna. The Muslim attacked Rabbi Dov Gruzman, who is the principal of the Habad school in the city, as he was lighting a Menorah in a central Vienna square, pummeling him with punches and blows.

The Muslim then bit Rabbi Gruzman, detaching part of his finger. The Muslim was arrested and is being held for questioning. The Rabbi was rushed to the hospital, where doctors rushed to repair his finger, and gave him tests to see if the Muslim had infected him with diseases.

Anonymous said...

Agudah Fressers go to Walt Disney Orlando in droves on Chol Hamoed:

A New York man pleaded guilty today to molesting a swimmer last summer at Walt Disney World's Typhoon Lagoon, the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office said.

Robert Chester Double Jr., 50, was sentenced to five years probation as a sex offender after pleading guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious molestation, prosecutors said.

Double was arrested July 3 after complaints from the parents and guardians of four teenagers at the water park, records show.

The arrest was one of six incidents earlier this year at beach-theme attractions in greater Orlando. Those included the rape of a 14-year-old girl attending a late-night party in the wave pool at Universal's Wet'n Wild attraction on International Drive.

Mental health counselors attributed the unusually large number of incidents to sex predators having close access to children without close parental supervision in what appears to be a safe environment.

Two men charged with molestation were later exonerated. One of them, a Connecticut tourist, blamed his snug European-style bathing suit for giving the wrong impression to pool workers.

Charges also were dropped against an Osceola County father who was accused of improperly touching youngsters in the water at SeaWorld's Aquatica.

In Double's case, he pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge Alicia L. Latimore to inappropriately touching a 12-to-15-year-old girl. Her family was notified of the plea bargain, which involved dropping a second charge and withholding a jail or prison sentence.

As conditions of his probation, Double must report regularly as a sexual offender, not contact the victim or have any unsupervised contact with children under 18 years old. He is also prohibited visiting any amusement park or water park, according to prosecutors.

Court records indicate a tourist from the state of Washington still faces the possibility of trial early next year stemming from his arrest in July on charges of molesting a 13-year-old boy at Typhoon Lagoon.

A 15-year-old boy traveling with the suspect, David Eugene Thomas, also told detectives that Thomas had molested him. The teen was turned over to the state Department of Children and Families until he could be returned to his mother in Washington, according to press accounts.

Queens said...

http://imgsrv.1010wins.com/image/wins/UserFiles/Image/Library320.jpg

The police are seeking the publics help in locating a man wanted in connection with the forcibly touching an eight-year-old in a sexual manner.

The incident allegedly happened at the Queens Public Library in Flushing around 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 28. According to police, the suspect went into the library and forcibly touched the little girl in an unknown manner, and then fled the building, police said.

The suspect is described as a male in his 30's, with blue eyes, medium build and standing about 5'7" - 5'8". he was reportedly wearing a dark jacket, blue jeans and a dark cap.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800 577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.

Sketch provided by the NYPD.

Klein's ice cream said...

No wonder Kolko asked us to make this flavor

http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/09/13/ap-impact-italy-grapples-with-priest-sex-abuse/

Bishop Carraro appeared, he recalled. “The bishop started to touch me, grope me,” he said, running his hands up and down his body, pulling at his shirt and shorts to demonstrate. “I pulled away. But he continued to touch me for 15, 20 minutes. I didn’t know what to do.”

On a subsequent occasion, Bisoli says, the bishop tried to sodomize him with a banana.

You can run but you can't hide said...

FORT COLLINS — A child sex offender wanted in Colorado has been arrested in Belize.

Fort Collins police say 55-year-old Robert Michael Snyder was arrested Friday in Belize City and will be deported.

Police said Monday that Snyder was released from jail Aug. 24, 2008, after he was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of unlawful sexual contact and one felony count of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust in Colorado. He was supposed to serve 10 years of probation after his release and register as a sex offender but disappeared.

After Snyder was featured on the television program “America’s Most Wanted” on Nov. 28, Fort Collins police received a tip that he was living in Belize, where he was an elementary school chess tutor.

Anonymous said...

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (CN) - A private, for-profit mental hospital defamed an attorney by impersonating him on the Internet and accusing him of supporting "pedophile rapists" after he truthfully accused it of abusing patients, the lawyer claims in Westchester County Court.
Glenn Feinberg claims the state Office of Mental Health office fined SLS Residential $110,000 for numerous violations, including illegally restraining and medicating patients against their will, depriving patients of the right to their own clothing and money, and preventing them from communicating with the outside world or leaving the facility.
Feinberg, a partner with Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, says he began picketing SLS in 2006 and blogging about the hospital's mistreatment of patients.
When the institution came under fire for its conduct, Feinberg says, he became the target of a smear campaign.
He says the hospital revealed "confidential mental health information concerning SLS' treatment of Feinberg's family member." Feinberg says the postings appeared on Friends of SLS, a Web site run by the hospital's consultant, co-defendant Marketing Department of America.
Feinberg says SLS also threatened to disclose the psychiatric histories of any patients who participated in a 2007 class action lawsuit. He says a federal judge called SLS "devoid of moral compass" for making the threats.
Comments falsely attributed to Feinberg began appearing on the Internet in 2008, Feinberg says, and videos appeared on YouTube that call him a "saviour to pedophiles" and a "slime ball who should be disbarred."
Some of the posting suggest that Feinberg tampers with evidence to help guilty pedophiles evade prosecution, according to the complaint.
He says Verizon traced the postings to a computer belonging to Charles Bindert, president of Spontaneous Development; he sued both of them.
Feinberg says Andrew Rath, principal of A. Rath Productions, prepared the videos; Rath and his company also are named as defendants.
Feinberg claims SLS faces charges of wrongful death, falsifying records and falsifying testimony. After failing to prevent a patient from murdering and decapitating a woman, SLS concealed that the murderer was a patient at the time, according to the complaint.
Feinberg seeks punitive damages and an injunction.

Anonymous said...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The state's highest court has overturned the conviction of a pediatric neurologist convicted of molesting more than a dozen boys at his suburban Albany office.

The Court of Appeals ruled that 52-year-old Phillip Riback should receive a new trial because a prosecution expert should not have been allowed to define the term "pedophilia" during testimony at Riback's 2004 trial in Albany County Court.

Riback was a pediatric neurologist at Upstate Neurology Consultants when he was arrested in November 2002. Victims described inappropriate touching and bizarre behavior, such as forcing them to pretend to spit on him.

Riback is currently serving 20 years at the Greenhaven Correction Facility.

Australian Agudah Fresser said...

According to the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault, one study in the 1990s found that a third of children who'd been sexually abused said it had been done by someone under 18. Dale Tolliday, who runs New Street Adolescent Services for those aged 10 to 17 who have abused children, says other studies suggest the proportion now is between 30 and 50 per cent.

This is not widely known but is very important. According to the centre's report, "sibling sexual abuse is significantly more common than sexual abuse perpetrated by a parent [and] tends to be more intrusive and occurs over longer periods of time".

Anonymous said...

http://www.thehour.com/story/479198

By STEVE KOBAK

Hour Staff Writer

A judge at Queens Supreme Court set a bond amount Wednesday for a Norwalk pastor who was arrested Nov. 24 on rape and incest charges.

The bond for the Rev. Phillip Joubert, 48, a pastor at New Light Missionary Baptist Church, was set at $350,000 cash by Supreme Court Justice Robert McGann. He was still being held at the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island at press time Wednesday, and he is scheduled to appear in Queens Criminal Court on Dec. 21.

Queens-based attorney Richard Bensen, who represents Joubert, had not returned phone calls at press time.

Joubert has been held without bond since he was taken into custody by officers from the 112th Precinct of the New York City Police Department as he arrived at JFK International Airport in Queens after a trip to Israel. He was arrested for multiple charges related to the rape of a child.

The alleged sexual misconduct took place during the summer at Joubert's home in Queens, N.Y., according to a source close to The Hour who has knowledge of the case. Another minor was in the house but on a different floor at the time the alleged abuse occurred, the source said.

Adam Hochfelder said...

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/fraud-case-against-real-estate-mogul-moves-forward/

A judge ruled on Friday that prosecutors may move forward with fraud charges against a high-flying Manhattan real estate mogul who is accused of misrepresenting the value of his holdings to borrow million of dollars from partners, family members, friends and banks.

The landlord, Adam C. Hochfelder, who at his peak claimed to own $2.7 billion in New York office buildings, was denied his request to study minutes from the grand jury’s deliberations and to have certain charges that carry prison time dropped.

Justice Michael J. Obus scheduled the next hearing for the case on Jan. 15.

In 1996, Mr. Hochfelder started a real estate company called Max Capital Management. The company owned and managed some stakes in Manhattan properties, including the often-recognized Helmsley Building at the foot of Park Avenue, the Conde Nast building and The Daily News building at 450 West 33rd Street. Mr. Hochfelder was active in the Real Estate Board of New York and in the early years of the real estate boom socialized with some of the city’s biggest landlords.

But in 2004, Mr. Hochfelder resigned from his company amid a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. His troubles quickly mounted; he was swamped by lawsuits from former business partners and relatives. He still tried to arrange real estate deals, however: in 2005, he received financial backing from the Carlyle Group to turn the Tommy Hilfiger headquarters near Bryant Park into condos. That deal soon fell apart.

In August 2008, Mr. Hochfelder was arrested at his Upper East Side apartment and indicted on 58 counts largely involving fraud and grand larceny committed between 2002 and 2008, according to court filings. Mr. Hochfelder requested that the court dismiss the indictment based on the fact that he paid back much of the money he was accused of taking.

But Mr. Hochfelder’s former lawyer, Paul Goldberger, argued that the judge should consider that Mr. Hochfelder’s actions were partly motivated by “psychiatric illnesses or disorder related to various narcotic and alcoholic addictions,” according to a Nov. 5, 2008, filing with the court.

Mr. Hochfelder’s current lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, was more contrite.

“We are continuing to cooperate with the D.A.’s office,” he wrote in a statement. “We hope the D.A. will agree to a reasonable sentence that will finally end this case.”

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

Religious Staff Must be Accountable for Sex Crimes
By Americans United

The First Amendment’s religious liberty provisions do not shield houses of worship from liability when their staff members or volunteers commit crimes, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told the Nevada Supreme Court.

Americans United and several other organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief Dec. 11 in Nevada’s top court asserting that point.

The case in question, (removed) v. Segelstein, deals with a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a cantor at her synagogue after a service. When she reported the assault to the head rabbi, he allegedly ignored the complaint and proceeded to solicit her for sexual favors.

“The principle of religious liberty must not be sullied by making it a shield for criminal activity,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “The First Amendment was never intended to be interpreted that way.”

In the brief, Americans United and the other organizations take issue with claims made by the Roman Catholic Bishops of Las Vegas and Reno and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which argue in their brief that religious organizations should be immune (except in very narrow circumstances) when their employees or volunteers commit crimes like sexual assault.

The brief filed by AU and others states that the bishops and the LDS church are essentially arguing “that religious entities can harm others without accountability and that somehow the First Amendment operates to create a special, religious enclave of those who must be permitted as a constitutional matter to be unaccountable for the harm they inflict.”

Many courts, the brief asserts, have rejected this argument.

“When an employer becomes aware (or should be aware) of behavior that may be harmful and does nothing – or exacerbates the harm as in [this case], the organization should be held liable for the injury that it had the unique ability to avoid through control of the employee or servant,” observes the brief.

The brief also argues that the fact that a house of worship’s clergyperson may have acted as an unpaid volunteer does not automatically shield the house of worship from liability.

“Exempting volunteers from normal agency law simply does not comport with well-settled agency doctrine, or the protection of the vulnerable,” argues the brief.

In addition to Americans United, organizations signing the brief include the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, Inc.; Survivors For Justice; the National Black Church Initiative; Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests; the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children; Child Protection Project; the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse; the Cardozo Advocates for Kids; Sexual Violence Legal News; Children’s Healthcare is a Legal Duty and Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy.

The brief was written by Professor Marci A. Hamilton, who holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.

oldfan said...

UOJ you are really dissapointing everyone by sitting on all this tropper info. as someone who has followed your blog since the beginning i never thought you would 1 dat cover up for the establishment its really disheartening.

Paul Mendlowitz said...

I have been travelling extensively, I am not able to get back to everyone quickly, but I will.

Slicha....

Both versions of the story are correct said...

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=983224

Doctors have ordered Yudi Kolko to spend a second night in hospital after an attack that left him with a broken nose and two broken shirt buttons.

Kolko's first request on Monday was to see the front-page coverage of the attack with a replica of the Agudah convention dais, that newspapers said highlighted political tensions in the heimisher velt.

Already battling revelations over his private life and divisions within the Lakewood oylam, the attack brought some public sympathy for Kolko.

A banner outside Lakewood's Kimball Hospital said: "Yudi Kolko, refuah shlaymeh bemehayreh. Real Agudah Fressers are always with you," The Coalition reported.

His alleged assailant, an unnamed 42-year-old JBAC member, was in an isolation cell in police custody. Police, who had to protect him from angry molesters as they detained him, say the suspect has a history of pestering pedophiles.

The suspect was also carrying a sefer Tehillim and a gas mask in case Kolko tried farting on him, The Coalition reported. His father, "upset" over the attack, tried to telephone Kolko in the hospital but could not get through.

Kolko's red face dominated newspapers on Monday.

"Constipated violence" was the headline on the Klass family's Jewish Press newspaper.

"The assailant is mad but the moral instigators are known even among some rabbonim," said the weekly.

The nut-wing Yated said the attack "highlights the degradation of the yeshivishe climate."

"Friends and enemies, Chassidim and Misnagdim must show solidarity" with Kolko. "What is at stake is nothing less than the bank accounts of Margulies," it said.

Cross Currents said there is a "poisoned climate" in Lakewood. "Pedophile hate is a monster which when unleashed is difficult to control," said a commentary by Avi Shafran on the centrist website.

Before the attack, scuffles broke out after about 10 yungerleit jeered Kolko at the bris, calling him a "menuval".

He shouted back at them "shame on you", drowning them out with the help of a microphone that Avremel Schorr had just grabbed away from the kvatter who was humming a Lipa Schmeltzer niggun.

The flamboyant molester has come under increasing pressure in recent months over his personal affairs.

Last week he dismissed accusations of Mafia ties made by an OU turncoat criminal who exposed Belsky pay-for-play heterim.

Kolko, who began his third stint as a private tutor for Lakewood Cheder boys, said he would not bow to pressure to go to retirement early.

A series of allegations about farting at shalom zachors led his wife Edith to threaten to file for divorce.

Kolko's purchase of the iPhone "fart app" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEpzmcLnxsY) was the last straw for his wife, who is reportedly seeking a $69 million divorce settlement if he doesn't seek rehab through Farters Anonymous.

Kolko's penchant for controversial public incidents has added to the pressure.

"UOJ says I'm a monster. But I'm not a monster. I'm a good boy," Kolko said at Sunday's bris mit a groisa shmaychel.

The NYS Supreme Court in October quashed an amnesty imposed by DA Hynes that would have benefited the YTT molester, who faces child endangerment charges.

The YTT molester faces allegations that he was paid by his friend, Yonason Tendler, 600,000 laundered dollars to give false testimony in two upcoming trials of YTT and Margulies.

Anonymous said...

JWB says:

>The case in question, (removed)
>v. Segelstein, deals with a woman
>who says she was sexually
>assaulted by a cantor at her
>synagogue after a service. When
>she reported the assault to the
>head rabbi, he allegedly ignored
>the complaint and proceeded to
>solicit her for sexual favors.

Friend-of-the-court brief, cover and table of contents:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA
Case No. 49341

(Removed)
Plaintiff and Appellant,

VS.

MICHAEL SEGELSTEIN, SHOSHANA SEGELSTEIN, CHABAD OF SOUTHERN NEVADA, INC., YEHOSHUA HARLIG AKA SHEA HARLIG, DINA HARLIG AKA DEBORAH HARLIG, CHABAD OF SUMMERLIN INC., AND YISROEL SCHANOWITZ.
Defendants and Repondents,

Appeal from the Eighth Judicial District Court
Thc Honorable Timothy C. Williams, District Court Judge
District Court Case No. A46612l

Brief Amicus Curiae of The Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, Inc.,
Survivors For Justice, The National Black Church Initiative, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, The National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children, Child Protection Project, The Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse, The Cardozo Advocates for Kids, Sexual Violence Legal News, Children’s Healthcare is a Legal Duty, Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy, and Americns United for Separation of Church and State


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Authorities.
Statement of Amicus Curiae.
I. Introduction.
II. Argument.
A. Courts Routinely and Appropriately Apply the Law of Negligent Hiring, Supervision and Retention to Religious entities and Individuals.
i. Negligent Hiring and Background Checks.
ii. Negligent Retention and Supervision.
B. Religious organizations Are Not Immune from Fiduciary Duty Laws – The Majority of Courts Distinguish Claims of Breach of Fiduciary Duty from Clergy Malpractice And Allow the Former to go Forward Consistent with the First Amendment.
C. Volunteers May Be Considered Agents of a Principal Under Well-Settled
Principles of Agency Law For the Purpose of Imposing Liability Upon the Principal.
D. There Is No Constitutional Right of Religious Organizations to Punish Crime Victims for Reporting Crimes Committed by Employees or Volunteers to the Authorities.
III. Conclusion.
Certificate of Compliance.
Certificate of Service.