Leib Tropper spent his way into the rabbinic elite—and, even after his fall, those other rabbis are unwilling to condemn him
By Allison Hoffman - Tablet Magazine | 7:00 am Jan 19, 2010
CREDIT: Photoillustration by Tablet Magazine; Tropper photo from RationalistJudaism.com; background photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
In May 2007, Leib Tropper arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, to preside over a grand conclave of prospective converts to Judaism sponsored by his Eternal Jewish Family organization, which offered “Cadillac conversions” to non-Jews as part of an effort to seize control of the conversion process outside of Israel. Buoyed by a $4.8 million infusion of cash from the billionaire Thomas Kaplan, an oil and mining mogul who is currently president of the board at the 92nd Street Y in New York, the fast-talking rabbi with global ambitions and a smooth line of patter had offered would-be Jews a special treat: an all-expenses paid weekend of discussions on topics like “Becoming Part of the Jewish Family” at the Arizona Biltmore, a spa resort on 39 acres at the foot of Phoenix Mountain that is part of the Waldorf-Astoria chain.
While offers of Ayurvedic massages and luxury accommodation may seem at odds with the somber, discouraging face that ultra-Orthodoxy has traditionally turned to prospective converts, Tropper, by most accounts, did not seem particularly interested in relaxing halachic codes to accommodate the modern world. A biblical literalist, he played an active role in an effort by a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to ban the books of another rabbi, Nosson Slifkin, who believed that the world is older than the Jewish calendar—that is, 5,770 years. In 2006, among his other duties, he took it upon himself to retroactively invalidate the conversion of a woman who subsequently dared to violate ultra-Orthodox codes of modesty by wearing pants.
As a newcomer to the fraught business of conversions—and, according to people who dealt with him, someone who could at times be an abrasive individual—Tropper appears to have been willing to augment his personal power at the expense of his conversion candidates, a vulnerable group whose well-being is supposed to be protected from oppressive behavior by millennia of explicit rabbinical teaching and practice. To his students, he presented himself as a learned teacher who could help them reach the God they yearned for. In the billionaire Thomas Kaplan and his multimillionaire nephew Guma Aguiar, Tropper found a pair of patrons who, in exchange for access to the leading halachic authorities in New York and Jerusalem, would help the rabbi reinforce his newfound influence over the conversion process with lavish spectacles in American cities like Phoenix and Boston as well as at the luxurious David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem. In addition to paying for food, drink, and hotel rooms at five-star hotels, Tropper also used Kaplan and Aguiar’s millions to curry favor with some of the most elevated rabbinic authorities in the world—including Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, one of the ultra-Orthodox world’s pre-eminent scholars, and Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar.
The world of spa vacations at the Biltmore was a long way from Tropper’s home base in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Monsey, New York, where the rabbi ran a small yeshiva, Kol Yaakov, that specialized in “returning” non-observant adult Jews to Judaism. For more than two decades, Tropper—who was born into a rabbinic family on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and educated in Jerusalem—instructed returnees to Judaism, called ba’alei teshuva, on the laws of Torah in a modest brick-and-stucco house outfitted with a basketball hoop in the narrow parking lot out back. He got his start at Ohr Somayach, one of Monsey’s largest adult yeshivas, but splintered off to start Kol Yaakov in 1981 with help from a late New York couple, Louis J. Septimus and his wife, Edythe, for whom the school’s building is named.
The backing provided by Kaplan and Aguiar, Kaplan’s now-estranged nephew, was on an entirely different scale. The largesse provided by the two men over the years—at least $8 million, according to financial documents filed with the IRS—gave the rabbi entree into the insular world of the Israeli rabbinate—a cloistered group of men who, with the approval of the Israeli government, determine who can and cannot be considered a Jew, whatever their level of religious observance. By the time Tropper got to Phoenix, he could offer their imprimatur to reassure nervous hopefuls that he was the one conduit to becoming “a real Jew.” “If we ever make aliyah, there isn’t going to be any question of my Jewishness,” one Tropper graduate, Lucia Schnitzer, told the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix before the 2007 Biltmore weekend. “If my daughter wants to marry a Kohen, there isn’t going to be any question.”
In the past month, Tropper has been undone by the emergence of audio and video recordings that seem to indicate he tried to use his position to coerce a student, Shannon Orand, into having sex with other men in exchange not just for her conversion to Judaism but for cash. According to a student who answered the door at Kol Yaakov on Sunday, he remains in charge of the yeshiva, but Dovid Jacobs, Tropper’s former right-hand man, told Tablet Magazine the rabbi has been removed from his positions at both Eternal Jewish Family and its parent organization, Horizons Bais Achiezer, which have separate offices a few miles away from the yeshiva, in the neighboring town of Suffern. Tropper did not respond to requests for comment.
In the weeks since Tropper’s downfall, none of the rabbis who facilitated his meteoric rise in the Jewish world—men whose lives are devoted to the pious observance of God’s word—have stepped forward to publicly condemn Tropper for his violations of ultra-Orthodox codes on modesty and extramarital sex, let alone for his apparent willingness to use his position of religious authority to exploit the single mother of two young children for sex. The deafening silence parallels the response from the Roman Catholic Church after allegations of widespread child abuse surfaced in 2002; in diocese after diocese, bishops chose to protect the abusers, and settle generously with the victims, rather than forthrightly condemn what any parishioner would rightly see as an abomination in the eyes of God. “A community is measured by how it responds to something like this,” said one ultra-Orthodox rabbi. “The right-wing yeshivishe world is in damage control.”
As recently as November, when Tropper’s son got married, the list of rabbis who either attended or sent blessings included Elyashiv, and Reuven Feinstein, the son of the Rav Moshe Feinstein, who died in 1986, the most respected ultra-Orthodox halachic authority of his time. In addition to his impressive lineage, Reuven Feinstein is a widely respected figure in his own right and the head of the Yeshiva of Staten Island—which received a $3 million gift from Kaplan and Aguiar’s family foundation in 2008. Tropper gushed on his blog after the celebration, “The chuppah looked like a who’s who of the Torah world!”
In the wake of Tropper’s resignation from EJF, in mid-December, Feinstein declined to condemn Tropper’s activities or distance himself from EJF. Indeed, Feinstein issued a statement indicating he would increase his work with Eternal Jewish Family, to ensure that the organization would “continue to be guided by the highest halachic standards.”
To some, Feinstein’s circumspect response to the Tropper scandal was reminiscent of his silence on two other recent scandals involving sex and the abuse of rabbinic authority, both of which involved members of Feinstein’s family, [the sons of his sister and brother in-law, Rabbi Moshe Tendler]. One, Mordecai Tendler, was dismissed in 2006 from his post at a synagogue in Spring Valley, near Monsey, after a congregant accused him of seducing her into an affair with threats the she’d never find a husband unless she slept with him. A few weeks later, Tendler’s brother, Aron, resigned as principal of an Orthodox day school in Los Angeles amid allegations that he had “inappropriate” relations with female students.
Feinstein, of course, wasn’t involved in either of those incidents. But Feinstein’s willingness to take strong public stands on abstract questions of morality—including some as minute as whether or not men can return handshakes proffered by women (they can, to avoid embarrassing the other person)—only underscored, to some, his unwillingness to say even a single word about much more obvious abuses of Jewish law and halachic authority by eminent rabbis within his professional and family circle. (Feinstein did not return a message from Tablet seeking comment.)
It remains unclear what the future of Eternal Jewish Family will be. Kaplan has served as the organization’s chairman; his attorneys told Tablet last week they don’t know whether he will remain in that role. The group currently has a caretaker leader, after the rabbi initially announced as Tropper’s replacement—Elya Wachtfogel, head of a yeshiva in the Catskills hamlet of South Fallsburg, New York—subsequently released a letter saying he had not, in fact, taken the position. “The rumors which were spread of late regarding the EJF organization, alleging it is under my direction, are in error and baseless,” Wachtfogel said, in a handwritten declaration. Nothing further about Tropper, or his transgressions, was said.
If the silence of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate is meant to keep members of their community in the dark, and shield the authority of the rabbinate from shame, it has been countered by outraged discussion on ultra-Orthodox blogs, whose commenters have been following the money that passed through Tropper’s organization—and venting their anger at the ongoing silence from the halachic establishment.
One anonymously written blog, The Unorthodox Jew, called on Feinstein to shut down “this house of prostitution.” A commenter on the blog called for a letter-writing campaign to “as many Orthodox-affiliated Jews as possible, alerting them to the unworthiness of our so-called ‘gedolim’”—a Hebrew term used by ultra-Orthodox Jews to refer to their leaders. “King Lear should be obligatory reading in the ultra-Orthodox world, along with All the King’s Men,” wrote another person. At another highly critical blog, Daas Torah, a commenter wrote: “The chillul hashem”—insult to God—“of Tropper’s scandals is only getting worse with time like a festering untreated cancer.”
One of the few religious authorities to speak out publicly on the Tropper case has been Aba Dunner, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, a group that publicly opposed Tropper’s incursion onto its turf even before the scandal; last week, Dunner published an op-ed in the Five Towns Jewish Times, a New York-area paper catering to Orthodox readers, in which he accused Eternal Jewish Family of conducting a “bounty hunt” for new Jews, by allegedly paying local rabbis to funnel intermarried couples into its fledgling conversion courts.
“Tropper is a fraud,” Dunner wrote. “The organization he created is in his image and is therefore a fraud too. The creators of that image are fraudsters and hucksters who are trying desperately to keep the line to Mr. Kaplan’s millions open.”
86 comments:
Why is it that he become influential and famous in the Chareidi world only after he threw money and banquets around.
I didn't think that the requirement to become a "Gadol" was having access to a lot of cash.
Shows how much I know regarding Judaism
There is no way in the world that R' Yaakov Kaminetzky would have given permission to have Tropper name the yeshiva after himself -- especially knowing that Tropper had anything to do with Louis Septimus, never mind that Louis Septimus had his name on the same building that R' Yaakov had his name on!
R' Yaakov despised Septimus!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/business/19whistle.html?em=&pagewanted=print
Does anyone know if Tropper is hiding money he stole from Guma in offshore accounts?
Have you thought for a momment that the rabbonim's silence is not without extreme pain. They drank water from Tropper well. One may not throw stones into a well they drank from.
They don't own their Istitutions to the degree that they could return all ill-gotten funds through this con-man.Even if they did, they would feel bad to get up & curse him out. I am sure they are crinching their jaws in agony, while UOJ laughs away at them.
The Chofetz Chaim never took funds from mechallei Shabboss for his Yeshiva, had they followed that motto, they may not have fallen into the Tropper well.
More so it is hard to find fault in people you need or needed, & they have difficulty in being Kofuy Tov.
I am sure they really wish someone greater than them will come out, but I guess that someone is waiting for them. We all make mistakes their mistake was taking his money.
Reb Scach was an employe at Ponevez he didn't have to answer to any manipulator so he could say what was needed to be said, even against holy Artscroll.
Bye Bye Bim Bam and your fraud Socialist Hell-care.
http://www.nytimes.com/
Republican Wins U.S. Senate Seat in Massachusetts
By JEFF ZELENY 15 minutes ago
Martha Coakley has conceded the Senate race to Scott Brown in a stunning victory in Massachusetts that will erode the Democratic supermajority in the Senate.
Completely outrageous! A republican hasn't won in Taxachussetts for 40 years. I knew those Orthodox Jews in Brookline Mass. where up to no good! They probably got Oorah to give that pickup truck to Scott Brown. This guy is even anti-homosexual which is unfathomable.
I find it beyond belief that R' Shmuel Kaminetzky seems to embrace the very people who the Tatte R' Yaakov ztl despised the most. How does he come within dalet amos of Margulies and Louis Septimus's benificiary Tropper?
Is anyone gonna point out that I was against Tropper from the beginning, & never took a dime from him?
Old Torah Vodass,
R. Shmuel long ago betrayed his father when he became a money fresser.
Same as Reuven Feinstein who betrayed his father for money. He also betrayed his father whose hazmanah was never answered by Aaron Shechter. Yet he sits on the Moetzes with Shechter
The only thing big about the moetzes is the title, and the agudah is the band of loyalists who cover up for each other. They are helpless to confront wrongdoing. They crossed over to the sitra acher a long time ago.
UOJ,
Why did R. Yaacov despise pencil moustache Louis?
Why did R. Yaacov despise pencil moustache Louis?
*
He was a known philanderer, a sheigetz that frequented nightclubs, (R' Yaakov said this from the bima in the bais medrash of YTV on South Third St. during the height of the machlokes with Gedalya Schorr), colluded with Gedalya Schorr and the then yeshiva bookeeper Rabinowitz, to embezzle perhaps millions of dollars from the yeshiva from the Batei Elyon scandal and who knows where else. In addition, a well-known attorney who worked in the mail-room at the time, saw huge numbers of stock trades sent to George Schorr & Louis Septimus c/o Yeshiva Torah Vodaath on East 9th st.
The sale of YTV property to "Batei Elyon Corp." was rife with forged deeds filed in the County Clerk's office, "notarized" by Louis Septimus employees, and NO money ever reached YTV.
All this was going on while the yeshiva was in turmoil because of the inability of the yeshiva's auditors, the CPA firm of Weldler & Weldler, discovered grave inconsistincies in the books and their frantic attempt to create a forensic accounting for the new incoming board.
Trusted sources have confirmed beyond a doubt that Aron Schechter of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn is shamefully leading the silence, and directing the refusal to condemn and threfore covering-up of the Tropper sex scandal at Agudath Israel of America and by its so-called Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah which Schechter dominates with his two Chaim Berlin buddies Yaakov Perlow and Aron Feldman.
As a ruling Agudist troika, backed up by Abe Fruchthandler's money, is thereby contributing to the massive Chillul Hashem that will keep on growing until Tropper's true behind-the-scenes rabbi, Aron Schechter shuts him down for good, removes him from his position as head of Kol Yaakov, and shuts down the Kol Yaakov yeshiva because of Tropper's known sexual predatory behavior.
In addition, all of Tropper's Moony-musmachim and any present and former students must be considered as suspects of belonging to Tropper's twisted cult of perversions that lie beneath a facade of calculated "frumkeit".
The Monsey kehilla - stand up and throw the bum out of your sullied town - founded by the heilege Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt"l.
"his two Chaim Berlin buddies Yaakov Perlow and Aron Feldman."
UOJ while I am no fan of Rav Feldman you should leave him out of this. He is the only RY who saw through Tropper from the start.
How do you like Obama throwing me under the bus? He refuses to take any blame that voters are angry at him so he bashmutzes me and says I ran the worst campaign ever.
What an az ponim.
Strong Aftershock Hits Near Haitian Capital
By MARC LACEY 29 minutes ago
The 6.1- magnitude temblor was the most powerful to hit Haiti since the initial earthquake on Jan. 12.
Why exactly is Schechter protecting Tropper? We haven't even seen any IRS documents showing he took his money, or at least not yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/nyregion/20budget.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
Just wait for all these new taxes because I promised the unions not to lay off any State employees.
You will pay up to $2200 a year for each kid getting EI services.
You will have your STAR property tax break reduced.
Local districts will raise your taxes because the State is cutting funding to them.
And a 65 cent tax on each 2 liter bottle of soda.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/01/13/18635184.php
Obama's IG Scandals Deepen: House Opens Investigation
http://ifawebnews.com/2010/01/11/financial-investor-firm-indicted-in-connection-with-1-million-fraud/
A Brooklyn, N.Y., man and his financial firm located in New Jersey both face numerous charges for allegedly misappropriating funds from a relative for personal expenses, following a grand jury indictment.
Samuel S. Franco, 58, formerly of the Oakhurst section of Ocean Township, N.J., and his limited-liability company, Signature Investment Holdings, with an address matching his New Jersey home, were both named in the document by a Monmouth County grand jury regarding the receipt of a $1 million client investment used for personal expenditures.
According to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, Franco established Signature Investment Holdings, a financial investment firm, in 2001 and maintained sole control of the company.
An investigation by the prosecutor’s office began following contact from the attorney of the alleged victim. That inquiry revealed that in August 2005, Franco allegedly solicited a relative to invest $1 million with his firm in exchange for a guaranteed return of 20% by the end of that year.
A written agreement between the parties allegedly indicated that Franco would invest in the purchase and sale of European bank instruments, but officials said Franco never invested the money nor did he return it to the alleged victim in 2005. In 2006, Franco made numerous representations that he would return the $1 million along with profits made from the investment, but those funds have yet to be paid, prosecutors allege.
An audit of a bank account for Signature Investment Holdings indicated that Franco used the funds for personal expenses, including the remodeling of a Florida condominium and payments to Mercedes Benz and American Express.
Franco faces charges including one count of second-degree failure to make required disposition of property received and second-degree misconduct by a corporate official. He faces a maximum potential sentence of 10 years in state prison, if convicted of any of the second-degree charges.
The grand jury indictment also charges Signature Investment Holdings with second-degree failure to make required disposition of property received, which could lead to a potential $450,00 fine and dissolution of the firm if a conviction is rendered.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100107/FREE/100109937
Troubled real estate developer Shaya Boymelgreen is slated to get evicted from his U.S. headquarters in Brooklyn by Monday, after a lengthy legal battle with his landlord.
Mr. Boymelgreen was originally scheduled for eviction last year, but the process was blocked after two companies claiming to be subleasing space from the developer attempted to push him into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. However, on Dec. 11 a U.S. Bankruptcy judge ruled that the eviction should proceed. Yesterday, the Brooklyn's sheriff's office slapped a five-day eviction notice on the building at 752 Pacific Ave.
Mr. Boymelgreen has been leasing the building since 1999 from Henry Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein sued Mr. Boymelgreen in 2006 after learning the developer sold his 40-year lease on the building to Forest City Ratner without permission. The building lies within the Atlantic Yards project footprint. Forest City needs to raze the building so it can construct its development, which is slated to include an arena and 16 towers. However, last year a New York Court ruled that eminent domain can be used to clear the site.
Last May, the New York state Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Weinstein could evict Mr. Boymelgreen. Mr. Weinstein had said that Mr. Boymelgreen stopped paying rent after that.
The lawyer representing 752 Pacific LLC and Pacific Street Park Corp., the companies that tried to force Mr. Boymelgreen into bankruptcy, said his clients declined to comment. Mr. Boymelgreen failed to return a call.
The pending eviction is just the latest in a series of serious setbacks for the developer.
Last August, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued an order demanding that LibertyPointe, a bank Mr. Boymelgreen co-founded four years ago, cease and desist its risky lending policies. In October, it was ordered to raise cash within 30 days and had failed to do that by the end of November.
Mr. Boymelgreen remains the bank's chairman even though he isn't involved in daily operations. The bank is under fire from the FDIC for numerous infractions, including operating with too many bad loans and inadequate loan loss reserves. The FDIC also says the board of directors failed to supervise policy sufficiently.
Additionally, Mr. Boymelgreen is saddled with stalled projects, including a planned residential tower in Chelsea. Meanwhile, he is facing a tide of lawsuits alleging everything from failure to repay loans to fraud and negligence, as well as breach of contract related to the construction and sale of two condominium projects.
That's exactly right leave R' Aron Feldman out of this.
His brother and nephew in Atlanta refused to cooperate with EJF as well even though they are related by marriage to R' Shmuel Kaminetzky.
Ahron Schlechter is as irrelevant as yesterday's post. He cares about only one thing. Gelt.
R' Aron Feldman, I'm told, was at the Moetzes meeting on December 29, 2009 and agreed that the Tropper incident required NO response from the Moetzes/Agudath Israel.
Aron Feldman also feels that it's OK to have Moshe Eisemann continue to live on the Ner Israel campus.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/01/25/2009-01-25_teen_sex_rap_for_principal_of_bensonhurs.html
So pedophile Emmanuel Yegutkin was finally arrested on Sunday but it took Hatzolah another two days to act and they only suspend him.
Chaim Berlin must be pulling all the strings here like they do with Michael Hersh and Steve Zakheim.
And who knew that this putz Heshy Jacob from the Lower East Side is one of their puppets too?
Old TV:
Some piece of work R' Yaakov's son turned out to be.
I meant yesterday's Post (NY tabloid.) Who appointed these bums in charge? Anyone who ever meets Schlechter can see right away that he's a nobody.
I came down to the Moetzes meeting with Tort Putz Twerski. Our input was that Tropper will be all right as long as they install a window on his office in Kol Yaakov.
Is it possible that leaving Eisemann on Yeshiva Lane is the best solution?
If he's not going to be arrested, wouldn't it be easier to keep an eye on him there? Or is Neuberger and company still allowing him unrestricted access for kids to come to his house?
"UOJ Chairman of the Board
I meant yesterday's Post (NY tabloid.)"
*
I was just getting ready to call for new elections:-)
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1954960,00.html?xid=thepage_newsletter
Not a word about the fact that Hassan was a Muslim, they did not even mention his name!
How many times was Rubashkin's and Dweck's religion repeated in every single story reported by the media?
I'm not paranoid, but I did know that this exact scenario was going to happen.
What happened with the updates of Agudath Israel of ILL? Is it as ILL as east coast Agudah?
Rabbi Levin is pretty much a straight shooter (even if his Puppet DS is not).
We need to force Ner Israel to banish Eisemann from their campus. As long as he is welcomed there (as well as Artscroll), he is still subject to Kavod in the Torah world. I know an individual who runs a blog that has a posting where he mentions and praises Eisemann. Now Eisemann was just one little quote in the piece, but the fact that he gives him any kavod at all is offensive. I know him personally and conveyed my feelings to him, but he stated he couldn't believe me (loshon hora) and that he knows several people who say how wonderful a guy Eisemann is. Anyhow, the blogger refuses to take down the posting which mentions Eisemann even on the "off chance" that the stories are true. I asked him what if someone who was injured by Eisemann saw this positive mention of Eisemann, it would hurt them even more. He obviously was unimpressed.
I know the principal of a day school who said to me that on his first day at NIRC, Eisemann asked him if he slept with his hands under or over the covers. He added that Eisemann seemed effeminate, for whatever that is worth.
We all probably know several guys who are products of NIRC. We should force them to make a statement one way or the other about what they believe to be true about Eisemann.
I still want to know the full story regarding what caused the NIRC bochur, A"H, to jump from the bridge in December, 2008. I have heard bits and pieces that it might relate to Eisemann, but I don't know. My gosh, this bochur and Motty Borger don't just do what they did for no reason.
I don't normally post anonymously, but I must for personal reasons. At least one person will recognize who I am, maybe two.
I just noticed the Tablet article took note of my proposed letter writing campaign! itchiemayer
1) Mordecai Tendler was accused by multiple women of sexual improprieties.
2) Multiple batei-din found him incompetent to serve as a Rabbi and that the accusations of sexual issues are indeed true. The most substantial psak was written by Rabbi Benzion Wosner of Monsey, and co-signed by over a dozen rabbis - ranging from YU, Modern, Yeshivish and Chassidish. Rabbi Chaim Schabes, who had previously been friendly with Tendler and has a shul next-door to Tendler, co-signed the psak. The psak states clearly that DNA evidence proves Tendler’s guilt, among other very specific details.
3) Mordecai Tendler **never** denied the allegations against him. His case was dismissed from court based on Tendler’s defense that seducing married women is not a valid basis for civil suit. Nothing more. See Supreme Court of the State of New York County of New York case #05117629 (Justice Jane Solomon)
4) After investigating the accusations, and giving Mordecai Tendler plenty of opportunity to defend himself, the following organizations severed their relationship with him (employee or otherwise):
- Yeshiva University (where he was paid to give a weekly shiur)
- Kehillat New Hempstead (the shul he founded)
- Rabbinical Council of America
- Jewish Family Service of Rockland County
- Lma’an Bnos Yisrael (agunah support organization)
5) There is an audio cassette of Tendler attempting to lure a woman into his home for sex. The tape was played to many Rabbis and leaders in the Monsey Jewish community, including individuals in the organization listed above.
6) The Rabbinical Council of America hired the Texas-based firm, Praesidium, a risk-management company that was also used by the Catholic Church to investigate its priest-sex scandals. Praesidium. Praesidium recommended that Tendler be suspended from the RCA based on the outcome of their investigation. (The RCA did not release details of the investigation’s findings.)
The following are not facts, but are details provided by reliable witnesses. Take this with a grain of salt, if you choose.
A) One of Tendler’s accusers recorded tapes of her sexual encounters with Tendler. When she told Tendler about the tapes, he offered her $40,000 for them. That offer is also on tape.
B) A semen sample was obtained by one of Tendler’s accusers, and sent to a lab to compare against a sample of Tendler’s son’s hair. The DNA lab confirmed that the semen is Tendlers (paternity DNA testing). Tendler declined to participate in an independent DNA test to disprove that the semen is his.
That inquiry revealed that in August 2005, Franco allegedly solicited a relative to invest $1 million with his firm in exchange for a guaranteed return of 20% by the end of that year.
Another Madoff wannabe. What's interesting is that Franco was living at the time in the same community as Shlomo Dwek who was busy with his own Ponzi scheme. Dwek however was only charged with bank fraud (for the PNC Bank bad check scheme and the $13M Amboy Bank scam where he claimed to be using the money to purchase pre-sold Manhattan real estate). Dwek had scammed members of his community to the tune of $156M besides the banks which he owed $185M (mostly from fraudulent loans). His scams included getting unwitting investors to invest in a golf course which was never for sale, forging signatures of relatives to obtain mortgages on their properties, using phony sales contracts of phony properties, etc. However, none of the community members filed any criminal complaints against him because of mesirah. Dwek returned the favor by mosering some of their rabbis and other community members. Why the other banks and lending institutions have not turned him in to the Feds is probably to protect themselves from prosecution for approving all those illegal loans/mortgages. It would be interesting if this Franco guy gets more jail time for his $1M swindle than Dwek for his $340M scams and schemes. Meanwhile, Dwek and his family are living it up in Baltimore under Heinemann/Feldman "supervision" and protection. His FBI sting victims are due in court some time this month.
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/dwek/creditorlistasofnov12006.pdf
Is that a joke about Levin being a "straight shooter"?
You didn't hear him on the tape once linked here where he was pulling a terroristic Belsky to cover up for abuse in Telz?
He was also on the Agudah's special beis din that let Kolko and Margo get away home free without cooperating.
Some "bais din", Aaron Twerski, Shmuel Kaminetzky and Avrohom Chaim Levin...it's enough to truly make you ill.
Geneivas Daas Mammash, pure copyright infringement!
There is only one Special Bais Din and that's in Chicago. Rav Levin, Cohen and myself know how to solve problems internally. We make sure Rav Schwartz is out of town or asleep when we decide cases on our four person panel. Even in the case of the Touhy Mikvah Rapist Rabbi, we knew not to shter his family chas veshalom and kept it quiet.
Moetzes resign!
http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/unioncity/index.ssf?/base/news-0/126354031434780.xml&coll=3
Shimon Haber, 34, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares in Newark to one count of conspiracy to launder money to conceal and promote unlawful activity.
Haber faces a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was released on $100,000 bond pending his April 28 sentencing.
gues what the rabbis are busy with in north miami beach
while drugs , eishes ish are existant in the coimmunity and the rosh kolel covers up for a husband who slept with eishes ish and now claims he doesnt know
can you guess what there busy with
theanonymous emails that exposed it
wow impressive work by the kolel and community rabbis
http://www.newser.com/article/d9cu35v00/calif-deputies-say-man-savagely-kills-dog-runs-naked-in-tennis-club-pours-coffee-on-head.html
A man savagely killed a dog, ran naked through a tennis club and poured hot coffee on his head before he was finally arrested early Wednesday, Orange County sheriff's deputies said.
Haber faces a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine
Haber is one of the guys that Dwek set up for the FBI. His crime was introducing Dwek to Moshe Altman. Here's another guy that could spend more time in jail than the guy who stole $340M and destroyed countless lives.
http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/444997-Former_Raymour_Flanigan_executive_sent_to_prison.php
A former executive of Liverpool, N.Y.-based Raymour & Flanigan received a year and a half prison term for taking kickbacks from subcontractors he hired for the company, The Hartford Courant reported.
Benjy Orbach, 46, a vice president of operations for the Top 100 company between 2005 and 2008, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill here to pay Raymour nearly $527,000 and pay more than $267,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, the report said.
He pleaded guilty in October to mail fraud, tax evasion and "illegally structuring cash transactions."
Eisemann asked him if he slept with his hands under or over the covers.
Because, after all, people never move arms or legs in their sleep. Anyhow, the only way you can sleep with your arms over the covers is to leave your shoulders and chest exposed. Why bother with covers then?
UOJ,
Nu,When can we have another YTV post?
http://riverdalepress.com/full.php?sid=11162¤t_edition=2010-01-21
Most people would probably be pleasantly surprised to receive an out -of-the-blue call from their rabbi.
But when phones rang and someone claiming to be Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale was on the line asking for small donations, recipients knew something was awry.
A handful of people have called HIR to alert the synagogue that a person identifying himself as Rabbi Weiss asked them for a credit card donation of $10 — complete with card number and expiration date. Not a single one complied.
According to Rabbi Steven Exler of HIR, one person, who knew Rabbi Weiss well and did not recognize the voice as his, asked if something was wrong. Was he sick?
Another offered to drop off the donation in person and when the caller insisted on a credit card payment, the would-be victim knew something was up. Others were aware that rabbis at HIR do not make a practice of ringing up members for small donations.
According to Mr. Exler, the first complaint came a few weeks ago, but because of its singularity, the synagogue discussed it internally but held off on notifying its members. But when more calls started coming in last week, leaders at HIR knew something had to be done.
Mr. Exler said recipients of the calls were not limited to members of HIR, and that in at least one case, the name of another local Jewish organization was used. Leaders at HIR believe the perpetrator may have been using a local phone book to get in touch with potential victims, Mr. Exler said.
On Jan. 13, Zev Steinberg, executive director of HIR, sent out an e-mail alert explaining the scam and advising anybody who gave up their information to notify the authorities, the financial institution associated with the account, other financial institutions and credit bureaus.
The legitimacy of donations being made to HIR can be verified by calling 718-796-4730, people at the synagogue said.
The 50th Precinct, though made aware of the situation by HIR, had not taken any reports of related fraud, according to police.
http://www.chabad.info/index.php?url=article_en&id=17020
Clashes disturbed the Shabbos peace over the weekend in the synagogue formerly led by the recently deceased Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Arad, Rabbi Ben Tzion Lipsker, Z"L. For the second time in less than a month, police in the desert resort town were called to Arad’s central synagogue to calm angry worshipers after Gerer chassidim blocked a three-year-old girl from seeking her father in the men's section.
Members of the chassidic sect have been showing up in increasing numbers and creating provocations at the community’s synagogue, which recently underwent a merger with the city’s Chabad-Lubavitch congregation.
Incidents have included loud attempts by Gerer Chassidim to drown out prayers when led by the synagogue’s new spiritual leader, Rabbi Yaakov Mendelzohn, son-in-law of the deceased Chief Rabbi and a member of the Chabad community.
Eyewitnesses report that others deliberately pretended to kick little girls on their way out of the synagogue’s courtyard in order to anger the mothers waiting outside. Several Gerer chassidim spat at a group of women standing near the synagogue entrance after services, among them the widow of the late Chief Rabbi and his daughter, Rabbi Mendelzohn’s wife.
Three weeks ago, a Gerer chassid hurled a chair at Mendelzohn during the meal that follows the Shabbos afternoon service. A fist fight erupted, prompting neighbors to call the police, who threatened to close the synagogue if the violence did not stop, but failed to arrest the perpetrators.
http://www.app.com/article/20100118/NEWS06/100118005/Victims-outraged-when-diocese-seeks-to-pay-ex-priest-accused-of-molestation
Victims outraged when diocese seeks to pay ex-priest accused of molestation
Abuse victims ask judge to forbid any payments
MAUREEN MILFORD • THE NEWS JOURNAL • JANUARY 18, 2010
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100115/COMM/1150322/-1/NEWS
Rivera told village police he spent two weeks in jail on the criminal mischief charge, and that the night he got out on bail, he just decided he wanted to go for a walk. He went next door to the track, according to a statement that's on file in Village Court, and molested a horse.
The Tropper-Schechter fatal attraction. 1.
"Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway said...Why exactly is Schechter protecting Tropper? We haven't even seen any IRS documents showing he took his money, or at least not yet."
Long before Tropper ever dreamed he would meet his two billionaire piggy bank cash cows, the calculating Tom Kaplan and Guma Aguiar, Kaplan's wild bronco nephew, he had become an experienced leecher of big funds to set himself up in his Monsey wolf's lair as he licked the behinds of any rabbi or rebbe who could further his cold ruthless ambitions, no matter what it took.
When young Tropper was in Israel when he left P. Scheinberg's school-for-scoundrels-yeshiva Tropper worked for Ohr Somayach where he was fired by its then founder and boss Noach Weinberg. Weinberg was himself later pushed out by Nota Schiller and Mendel Weinbach, but he just went on to found Aish HaTorah that as everyone knows has become the deluxe model of non-Chabad Charedi kiruv. But the hatred between Tropper and Noach Weinberg remained. They were probably birds of a feather and too similar to each other in global ambitions -- with one huge difference while Weinberg was easy going and comical (and ruthless), Tropper was pent up came across as blunt.
In the end Tropper reached Weinberg's global status through the now doomed EJF, but Tropper was undone when he was fired from Ohr Somoyach by the same issues that destroyed him and EJF: He has always been and always was a sociopatic sexual predator. His style of "kiruv" and public speaking is to come on strong and to literally rape the minds of his listeners so that what follows next, be it them being stunned and lying supine before him allowing him to "penetrate" them emotionally and psycchologically or doing it literally with his now openly known rape fantasies of sexually ravishing vulnerable women and even men in acts of self-gratification, draculian blood thirstyness and sado-masochistic dominance by crushing those below him to the point that they have no personalities and will left. If this sounds like a cult, something like Scientology or worse, it most definitely is!
Tropper was booted out of Ohr Somoyach In Jerusalem and left to help set up a so-called American branch (it's vague what his mandate really was and what he was supposed to be doing then), but others that were involved could not stand him. A sane group led by Rabbi Y Rackowsky and R Braun (aided by a R Schor) made sure to lock out any Tropper influences and they built the now successful Ohr Somoyach of Monsey, while Tropper went about setting up his own yeshiva about 30+ years ago, dubiously named "Kol Yaakov" about which many lies have been told, and noone can ever get a straight story.
The Tropper-Schechter fatal attraction. 2.
"Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway said...Why exactly is Schechter protecting Tropper? We haven't even seen any IRS documents showing he took his money, or at least not yet."
Back in America over 30+ years ago Tropper set about travelling on "kiruv trips" and womanizing feverishly all over America. His marriage finally floundered and his wife Leah (Margolin) wanted to divorce him, but he refused, made her into an agunah, peferring to play the field with all the groupies he was meeting and all the tricks he was learning from his cousin the singer Shlomo Carlebach.
All this time Tropper refused to give his wife a get and he had no conscience about making her into an agunah. Sociopaths and psychopaths have NO conscience, the reasons are complex. Maybe he was abused himself as a kid, one of the most common reasons.
A young dude like Tropper was in over his heads and what was he to do?
As fate would have it he met another bird of a feather through some mutual students the tough guy and street smart Brooklyn born and bred bully Aron Shechter of Chaim Berlin, a master manipulator and power player who had just gained power in Chaim Berlin yeshiva from his own rebbe, Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner.
Shechter, with Hutner and Hutner's son in law, Yonosan David, aided by Avi Fruchthandler had partaken in demolishing the career and professional life of their own yeshiva's own highly popular brainy mashgiach ruchani also named Shlomo Carlebach a heroic Holocaust survivor and first cousin to the singer by the same name.
From Tropper's perspective Shechter was just the right mentor and overlord he needed in the yeshivisha world and from Shechter's side Tropper was another good overheated cog to build an empire of influence for himself.
Both would come to regret this fatal love fest they ran for over 30+ years with each other. Tropper has done the unforgivable, proven to be afool, and Shechter is now forced to come clean or else face ruin in the court of public opinion, a hard dillemma for a master puppeteer who always stands behind his puppets.
The Tropper-Schechter fatal attraction. 3.
"Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway said...Why exactly is Schechter protecting Tropper? We haven't even seen any IRS documents showing he took his money, or at least not yet."
A wide-ranging and deep friendship has flowered between Tropper and Shechter for over 30+ years.
The more experinced Shechter helped Tropper to give his wife a get and smooth over the new marriage to a baalas teshuva who knew nothing about Yiddishkiet but did have a great body, the now infamous Leba (Laurel Blond) Tropper, with now proven kinky habits of body and mind.
Tropper knew what Shechter craved: subservience, and provided the new Chaim Berlin then overtaken under Shechter for over 30+ years with sprinkles of subservient talmidim who served as a "yeast" to those around them giving examples of how to be subservient to a master (helping to spawn a Shechter "chasidus" that has nothing to do with the yeshiva world or with true Yiddishkeit), not the unconventional rowdy types that Rabbi Hutner so much enjoyed.
While Hutner, who died in 1980, was also dictatorial and controlling, he was very comedic and emotional and intellectually OPEN MINDED allowing boys to attend Brooklyn College and having at one time set up a college with R SF Mendlowitz (they had obtained a charter from the NY Board of Regents already) for talmidim from Chaim Berlin and Torah Voda'as to have yeshiva and collge under one management (the idea was stopped by R Aron Kotelr). Hutner was from europe, he saw much, he was a disciple of Rav Kook and had been for a short while in the University of Berlin as well as being a long-time friend of YU's JB Soloveitchik and Rabbi MM Schneerson of Lubavitch.
Not so Shechter, he has no friends, only allies and subservient lackeys! Unlike Hutner, Shechter hates humor, even though he has a fake smile on his face all the time, he is cold, calculating and ruthless all the time. Hutner would never stomach a type like Tropper agrduate of Scheinberg's school-for-scandals-yeshiva.
Hutner disliked Scheinberg intensely claiming he was the only rabbi he knew who could take normal talmidim and turn them into "baalei teshuva" while Shechter on the hand loves the BT types, perhaps it's because he is one himself, the Shechter family were not that religious and belonged to Young Israel synagogues.
Archie (Aron) Shechter (now in his mid 80s but still fully in control of all his faculties) knew better than his parents of course, he sensed the new wave of farfrumte frumkeit on the horizon, he would be one of its leaders and along comes Tropper (now 60, but then he was not yet 30) a perfect lieutenant to fill Shechter's Darth Vader visions of a dark empire under his control.
But it was going to blow up in their faces, with the dark revelations about Tropper and the discredited EJF twisting in the wind like a dead man being hanged slowly on athick rope, and end just like it ended for Darth Vader, the dark side was going to lose in the end with Tropper going down and Shechter being umasked as the "emperor" faking smiles (he already showed his ruthless side in helping to send Isaac Hersh to a concentration camp for kids and Jamaica and supporting the crazed BT father Michael) when in fact he was flashing secret disabling and misleaading lightning at enemies of the Shechter/Chaim Berlin/KolYakov/EJF axis of evil that must now give and accounting or else be shut down and face eternal ostracism.
The Tropper-Schechter fatal attraction. 4.
"Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway said...Why exactly is Schechter protecting Tropper? We haven't even seen any IRS documents showing he took his money, or at least not yet."
So now to the above quote, that has it wrong, or misses the time line of earlier history, because there was a time when the cash flowed from Shchter/Fruchthandler/Chaim Berlin to Tropper/Kol Yaakov. In addition, later, the cash then DID flow from Tropper/Kaplan/Guma to Shechter/Chaim Berlin as has been made public already.
From earlier years, IRS records show that Tropper received infusions of cash from none other than Avi Fruchthandler the chairman and then president of the Chaim Berlin yeshiva to the tune of multiple $10,000- donations MANY times over. This could only have been done if ultra-cult leader Aron Archie Shechter the bully from Brooklyn had authorized and encouraged it!
This can be verified by anyone willing to do the research of official IRS filings required by US law and open to the public of records pertaininng to the philanthropic giving from the "Alex and Ruth Fruchthandler Foundation" through which the Fruchthandlers give their donations to a variety of causes.
The Alex and Ruth Fruchthandler Foundation and other Chaim Berlin-connected donors probably gave at least about $100,000 over the years to keep Tropper and his dinky-stinky culty Kol Yakov "yeshiva" afloat.
That was in the years when Tropper struggled a lot BEFORE he lured in and hypnotized the two naive BT Billionaires, Kaplan and Guma. There are plenty of confirmed stories from the olden days, that match what he did nowadays, that when he finally did manage to raise some cash for his perpetually cash-starved "yeshiva" Kol Yakov that he spent the money on himself.
From what Shannon Orand has revealed one can only assume that he spent money on buying sexual favors from and for all sorts of people. Tropper is a confirmed sex addict. He needs to fornicate like a dope addict needs his next fix. He even got himself a new kinky-horny sexually hungry spouse, Leba/Laurel who enjoys it as much as he does. It just proves how sick they are.
Many have already written and stated how Tropper tricked people into working for him with false promises that he never delivered. He probably used the same sexual blackmail on many others that was revealed about his treatment of Shanno Orand. It is now proven that he is a smooth-talking con-man, too bad the naive rabbis in Israel fell into his moral ponzi scheme, with him doing the dolling out of cash in return for trix from the gedolim prostituting them as if he was their "madame" and they were his "johns" such a busha and a charpa that he has now unleashed, the fatal Chillul Hashem that is going to swallow up a lot of people, including the ruthless Shechter with the fake cheshire cat smile that hides his Captain Hook with glinting teeth outlook.
They cannot fight "the Force" of Hashem Yisborach forever with their lies, falsehoods and cover-ups!
The Tropper-Schechter fatal attraction. 5.
"Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway said...Why exactly is Schechter protecting Tropper? We haven't even seen any IRS documents showing he took his money, or at least not yet."
Proof that Shechter of Chaim Berlin, one of Tropper's selected "36" takers, was on the take from Tropper/EJF/Kaplan/Guma:
Remember this?:
"Jewish Billionaire Sues Prominent US Rabbi Arutz Sheva, 10/08/09:
According to an email in Aguiar's inbox dated December 10, 2007 with the subject "36 names," Mrs. Shain, a secretary at Rabbi Tropper's Horizons organization, writes to Aguiar:
"The following are the 36 rabbis Rabbi Tropper reviewed - most of them with you. The ones in bold have not ever received checks from us. All the rabbis that I didn't note their place of origin are from Israel… I will catch up with the other lists tomorrow."
The email was sent from Mrs. Shain's Horizon's address to Aguiar's address with a cc to Rabbi Leib Tropper.
Subj: 36 names Date 12/10/2007
The following are the 36 rabbis Rabbi tropper reviewed - most of them with you. The ones in bold have not ever received checks from us. All the rabbis that I didn't note their place of origin are from israel.
I have tendinitis on my right hand. I will catch up with the other lists tomorrow.
Mrs. Shain.
1)Rav Yehuda Addas
2)Rav Shaul Alter
3)Rav Shmuel Auerbach
4)Rav Shalom Cohen
5)Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv
6)Erloy Rebbe - Rav Yochanan Sofer
7)Rav Boruch Ezrachi
8)Rav Dovid Feinstein - US
9)Rav Shmuel Kaminetzky - US
10)Rav Chaim Kanievsky
11)Rav Nissim Karelitz
12)Rav Boruch Dov Povarsky
13)Rav Shmuel Deutsch
14)Rav Aaron Schechter - US
15)Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
16)Rav Moshe Shapiro
17)Rav Yitzchok Scheiner
18)Rav Chaim Stein - US
19)Rav Aron Leib Steinman
20)Rav Moshe Tzadka
21)Rav Mendel Weinbach
22)Rav Nota Schiller
23)Rav Shmuel Wosner
24)Rav Ovadiah Yosef
25)Rav Eliyahu Levine - US
26)Rav Elya B Wachtfogel - US
27)Rav Reuven Feinstein - US
28)Rav Reuven Meir Katz - Israel
29)Rav Shmuel Eliezer Stern - Israel
30)Rav Meir Hershkowitz
31)Rav Naftaly Kaplan - Israel
32)Rav Schreiber - Israel
34)Rav M Marcus - US
35)Rav C Solomon - US
36)Rav M Y Lefkowitz
The email from Mrs. Shain listing 36 rabbis. Email addresses are blurred to protect privacy.
Regarding the list, Aguiar says, "I didn't know these particular rabbis. He [Rabbi Tropper] did, or he said he did. The fraud committed by Tropper is currently being investigated by authorities in the United States." Aguiar is referring to Rabbi Tropper's part in a multi-billion dollar law-suit in which Aguiar faces off with several parties including his uncle and aunt Thomas S. Kaplan and Daphne Recanati Kaplan. Rabbi Tropper is scheduled to be deposed in that trial later this month.
Before Aguiar began to suspect that his donations were not reaching the designated beneficiaries, Aguiar continued to work with Rabbi Tropper to widen the scope of beneficiaries to rabbis from other camps. Aguiar says that Rabbi Tropper claimed to consult with rabbis from a more diverse portfolio of factions affiliated with Torah Judaism."
kolel rabbi in nmb makes a decision for womens rights
this went out in nmb
My husband came home from shul a couple of nights ago with the shocking story about what is happening right now in our community.
I am totally shocked and upset to find out that the Rabbi’s in the community decide whether or not we as wives are entitled to know our own medical health conditions and risks.
How is this so?
Apparently the innocent wife in this sad story is the true korben. When concerned people tried to warn the wife about possible medical ramifications, the Rabbi told the woman that the story is totally untrue and warned the woman not to listen to any outside sources and that listening consists of loshon hora. Yet – the story is true! This wife is at risk of getting this disease!
What gives a rabbi the power to decide whether or not we the wives should have access to knowledge that will impact our health? Is it the amount of the contributions that we give to our shul????
We are aware that money buys silence and allegiance – but up to a point. How can we as women just stand by and watch this travesty unfold?? We have to get together, and talk about it – with one another. We have to call our rabbi and protest.
Women in our country just a few years back were not allowed to vote. The women banded together and got the power. So too now we have to band together to protect ourselves and our family. I vote that this innocent wife should be told the truth and that she should be the one to decide what precautions and actions she should take. I am sure that if you were the wife involved, you too would also want to know.
Talk to your friends – ask them what they think.
John Edwards admits fathering 2-year-old daughter of campaign worker
USA Today - 48 minutes ago
NBC says Edwards is not talking about the issue personally in part because he still faces a federal investigation into whether he illegally used campaign moneyy to cover up the affair. The network also reports that Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, who is being treated for cancer, are separated
Clarification:
In the above Tropper is Troubled post of 5:30 AM, January 21, 2010, the names were highlighted by myself in Tropper is Troubled, and they are NOT the names that "Mrs Shain" of Tropper's office is referring to as being "in bold".
The names are part of a list released by Guma Aguiar to Arutz Sheva in his interview, and I highlighted the names of rabbis whose names are being discussed on this blog.
Thank you.
Has anyone been following Colmer's current status? I believe he was due for a parole hearing recently.
If I understand the inmate info. correctly, on the NYS Department of Correction website, it seems to indicate that Colmer has not been released on parole, and is not due for another parole hearing until July 2011. Can anyone confirm that this is correct?
Does this mean that he has already had a parole hearing, and was denied? I hope that at the very least he has to serve his full sentence. Personally, I would throw away the key.
I hope Bubba and Pedro don't get mad that I'm on the Rikers payphone all the time calling rabbonim to ask kashrus shaylos.
Tropper is Troubled said...
The Tropper-Schechter fatal attraction. 5.
....................................
not a bad expose...
but you need dig a little deeper.
if not for aaron schechter and his ilk tropper would have been gone from kol yaakov some 25 years ago.
tropper also got schechter involved on the wrong side of many divorces and common disputes...
ask around...
the amount of damage he's done and the suffering hes caused is truly staggering
Oh God Of Destruction
Hey God, God of Destruction
would you please take a break from crushing babies to death and listen?
If you can't stop killing, maiming and destroying on its own merits
maybe you could do it because this earthquake, hurricane, tsunami, fire and flood stuff
makes you look bad
you look dated
you look cruel
Hey God, God of Destruction
enough spilled blood already
Weren't chimneys filled with the smoke of babies enough for you?
You remember that, don't you?
You took a prolonged nap, a little R & R
Like Martha Coakley on vacation
you let it all slip away
you couldn't be bothered
Hey God, God of Destruction
We won't be in shul this Shabbos
and we won't say anymore prayers to you
We looked behind the curtain and found it empty
and we've finally said "enough"
I really enjoy 'Tropper Is Troubled's posts for their amazing moral clarity and biting humour. Keep 'em coming!!
it seems that when Yisroel Mayer Weinberg was hired by Torah Temimah, several satmar communities around the world knew he was sexually abusing his daughter. So why would Lipa not have known that. Lipa is a criminal but his business model includes good teachers. So how, in investigating Weinberg for the hire could he havenot known these things about Weinberg. And then, why was weinberg's tenure so short. Surely he wasnt let go because of sex abuse.
what blackmail did/does Kolko have on Lipa
Yisroel Mayer Weinberg
I think you mean Weingarten.
tropper is troubled dude makes mistakes that a true insider wouldn't make. for example, while it is true that R Hutner wanted to study in the university of berlin, the sridei esh talked him out of it. in "Larger Than Life" vol. 2 there's a letter from the University chronicling the dates the Chabadske was there and it says that R' Hutner never attended!!!
After the pogrom in Hebron in 1929, Rabbi Hutner spent some years as a wandering scholar. First, he returned to Warsaw, from there going to study philosophy at the University of Berlin, but not for degree purposes; he was not interested in degrees or the jobs they could offer, but only in the actual material that the university taught him. During this period he wrote Torat HaNazir, on the laws of the Nazarite. He spent time familiarizing himself with the intellectual milieu of Germany.
http://www.fresnobee.com/nation/story/1791658.html
Emergency declared in 5 California counties
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/business/economy/22modify.html
The Obama administration has begun to consider a new push to reduce loan balances, while debating the proper mechanism, according to banking officials.
“They are looking at equity forgiveness,” said a financial industry executive who speaks regularly with Treasury officials. “There have been a lot of meetings on that.”
But the details are messy, requiring a complex balancing of competing interests. Not least, the owners of first mortgages are unwilling to accept losses by writing down loan balances unless the pain is shared by the owners of second mortgages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/world/middleeast/22israel.html
Israelis have been watching with a range of emotions, as if the Haitian relief effort were a >>> Rorschach test <<< through which the nation examines itself. The left has complained that there is no reason to travel thousands of miles to help those in need — Gaza is an hour away. The right has argued that those who accuse Israel of inhumanity should take note of its selfless efforts and achievements in Haiti.
Does this bother anyone else?
There are only 8 sentences in this "article" from the **Aggrandize (myself) Yisroel of America** and they put their names in 10 TIMES!!! That has got to be a Guinness World Record for self aggrandizement!
**AGUDATH ISRAEL** CALLS FOR BETTER TRAINING, GREATER UNDERSTANDING, AFTER PLANE DIVERSION
NEW YORK - After a U.S. Airways Express flight from New York to Louisville was diverted because an Orthodox Jewish 17-year-old wore his tefillin on the plane, prompting concern on the part of a flight attendant who was unfamiliar with this practice, **Agudath Israel** of America issued the following statement to the general media:
For several years, **Agudath Israel** of America has worked closely with TSA to sensitize the agency to the various religious objects and practices of Orthodox Jews; this effort has been led by Rabbi Abba Cohen, Esq., **Agudath Israel's** Washington Director and Counsel. **Agudath Israel** has also reached out to airlines in America and throughout the world to promote a greater understanding of Jewish prayer rituals.
**Agudath Israel** has advocated for, and continues to support, enhanced training for flight attendants.
"To facilitate training and awareness, we recently created a brochure explaining Orthodox customs for individual airlines, and are happy to share this brochure with other airlines," said Rabbi A. D. Motzen, **Agudath Israel's** Ohio regional director, who oversaw that project.
"At the same time," said Rabbi Mark Kalish, national director of government affairs for **Agudath Israel** of America, "we have also cautioned members of our own community to understand that many citizens may not be familiar with Jewish prayer rituals, and that they might consider explaining the practice to individuals in authority before boarding planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transit."
**Agudath Israel** of America is fully aware of the challenges we face as a nation regarding the need to prevent terrorism and exercise extreme caution, but we hope that this incident will raise awareness among airline leaders, the traveling public, and members of our own community about the need for greater training and a higher level of understanding of Orthodox practices.
UOJ,
YOU ASKED FOR IT, YOU GOT IT! READ SHAFRAN'S LATEST SCREED ABOUT HAITI AND THE AGUDAH'S NON-RESPONSE TO THE TROPPER SCANDAL:
http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2010/01/22/the-earth-trembles/
"The very week of the recent catastrophe in Haiti, a national Jewish newspaper published a comic strip featuring grotesque depictions of religious Jews and aimed at disparaging Jewish outreach to other Jews. And another Jewish newspaper ran an editorial placing the alleged ugly sins of an individual at the feet of Jewish rabbinic leaders, simply because the presumed sinner, before he was exposed, had arranged for several respected rabbis to deliver lectures and had encouraged people to make donations to their institutions. Having thus “established” guilt by that association, the editorialist demanded that every Orthodox organization and rabbinic leader publicly condemn the alleged sinner or be smeared themselves with sin. Then he mocked rabbinic authorities as a group for, instead of issuing condemnations of sinners, rendering decisions on social and halachic matters, as if that were not precisely what rabbis are for."
Avi is 100% correct about blogger and media lashon haraniaks. This is what I have divined from Hashem.
I don't know what Avi Shafran is hocking about.
At no time was there an earthquake in Haiti.
At no time were planes crashed into Lower Manhattan.
At no time was lashon hara spoken.
Oops, scratch that last comment off.
Artscroll is a fraud. Published in-law book by an incompetent woman and her enabler. Money is the name. Does anyone know how this Twersky is related to the Milwaukee rebbe?
all the tricks he was learning from his cousin the singer Shlomo Carlebach.
What tricks? SC was a tragic case and doesn't appear to have engaged in any real predatory behavior. SC's thing was frottage. Most of his victims probably didn't even know what he was doing or that he was getting off doing it. Even the women that know that he rubbed them are ambivalent about him.
All these attempts to link people by virtue of familial relationships are sleazy. We're taught not to punish a son for a father's acts and vice versa. How much the more so if we're going after cousins and uncles?
The reason why the Haiti earthquake happened is because of rampant human rights violations against children. It is a country where more than 60% of children were sexually abused. The police and prosecutors turn a blind eye towards abuse and threaten those who speak out against it.
New York/New Jersey with the help of rabbinic and prosectorial corruption is ripe to be Ground Zero for the next catastrophe. Many Jews will be affected because they stood by without doing anything to uproot the corrupt powers in their midst.
This interview is a farce.
Rabbi Ribiat is more afraid of exposing big name rabbonim than telling the truth about Tropper.
Rabbi Wachtfogel is pretending to have no involvement while installing his nephew as the head of EJF.
The Badatz of the Eidah Charedis has had the tapes authenticated with Hollywood experts.
There is a "kol" against Tropper just as existed against Mordechai Tendler who virtually every rabbi in Monsey condemned in the strongest terms.
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=5754
Rabbi Dovid Ribiat heads the Kollel Ohr Yaakov of Forshay in Monsey NY, and is regarded as a prominent Halachic authority across the US. He is also the author of several Seforim, including the world-renowned four-volume work on the 39 Melochos of Shabbos. On January 21, 10 he graciously consented to the following interview regarding the Tropper scandal:
rabbis cover up for mishandling of womans affair
Rabbi Tzvi Eliyohu Meir Schmelczer says he doesnt want to hear evidence its loshon hora
A flyer has been circulating in our area written by a cowardly anonymous author. His senseless words are full of blasphemy, deriding an unnamed rabbi. Since he does not specify the target of his insults, we take his words to be an insult directed to the Rabbinate as a whole.
He is guilty of disgracing the scholars and is considered to be an Apikorus who lost his share in the world to come (see Sanhedrin 99B Yoreh Deah 234:6). He is also subject to excommunication (Cherem), which would not allow him any honor in a synagogue nor may he be counted to a minyan (see Yoreh Deah 334:47 Choshen Mishpat 27:2).
This person subjects himself to be plagued with a disease for which there is no cure (see Shabbos 119B).
His only way to redeem himself and to be freed from such curses is to humbly approach the one whom he meant to insult and beg for absolution. Afterward, he should appear before a Bais Din and plead for release from Cherem.
הרחמן הוא ישים שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל
Rabbi Yerucham Bensinger
Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Groner
Rabbi David Lehrfield
Rabbi Ephraim Leizerson
Rabbi Yosef Y. Marlow
Rabbi Tzvi Eliyohu Meir Schmelczer
Rabbi Ephraim E. Shapiro
Rabbi Pinchas Weberman
The reason why Agudas Yisroel didn't speak badly about Hagaon Harav Rav Leib Tropper Shlit"a the chosheve rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Kol Yaakov in your chosheve city of Monsey is because not only did he not commit a sin, in fact what he did was a gevaldige mitzvah. It shtait mefurash in the Toirah Ve'ahavta es haGer, you must love the Ger. He knew she would be megayer and he was showing her how much a ger is supposed to be loved. The complainers are again being more careful with yenem than with what comes out of their mouths. It's mammish azoi with inyanei kashrus. The mashgiach is the only one to passul a company for tarfus not the hamoin am dovrei lashon harah. People have no idea of the chomer ha'inyan of lashon harah.
Rabbi Matthew Solomon 1/23/10 in Monsey
There seems to a Kalman Baumann formerly of Miami Beach who is working with Elchonon Zohn in Queens on Zohn's latest scam called the National Association of Chevrah Kadisha. Yudel Shain has been all over this.
What do you Floridians know about Baumann?
He even got himself a new kinky-horny sexually hungry spouse,
You guys are so jealous at rav Tropper
The whole Agudah-Shafran concept that Chilul Hashem is caused by publicizing the sins of some rabbis is discounted by the Tosefta Yuma (Chap. 4) which states that hypocrites are supposed to be exposed in order to prevent a Chilul Hashem (Yuma 86b) a. in order that people should not learn from them b. in order that when heavenly punishments are to afflict these persons, people are not going to doubt the heavenly judgment (see also Rambam Hilchos Deyos perek 6 Halacha 8)
Of course the person who perpetrates these sins is guilty of Chilul Hashem.
Bozoer Rebbe = Ronnie
There is something to be said about perversion running in families. Look at the Tendlers, the Kolkos, etc.
Shlomo Carlebach's womanizing is a very complex topic that can't just be dismissed with a slight of hand from Ronnie.
To the person who constantly writes the "Tropper is Troubled' posts. Please tell me how I can contact you through email. I'd like to discuss some things you've written about. Thanks.
He even got himself a new kinky-horny sexually hungry spouse
You see he is a real tzaddik, only real tzadikim get this sachar and it is in the Olam haz'e
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