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Wednesday, April 07, 2010

"How can we maintain that faith when our leaders are unworthy of it?”

A UOJ Issru Chag original riddle - What's the difference between a Catholic "leader" and priest - and a present ultra-orthodox Jewish "leader" and rabbi?

Catholic leaders wear red clothing and black underwear - current ultra-orthodox Jewish leaders wear black clothing and red underwear - Catholic priests wear white collars on their black shirts, current ultra-orthodox Jewish rabbis have black collars on their white shirts!





Op-Ed Columnist
The Church’s Judas Moment
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 6, 2010
WASHINGTON

I’m a Catholic woman who makes a living being adversarial. We have a pope who has instructed Catholic women not to be adversarial.

It’s a conundrum.

I’ve been wondering, given the vitriolic reaction of the New York archbishop to my column defending nuns and the dismissive reaction of the Vatican to my column denouncing the church’s response to the pedophilia scandal, if they are able to take a woman’s voice seriously. Some, like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, seem to think women are trying to undermine the church because of abortion and women’s ordination.

I thought they might respond better to a male Dowd.

My brother Kevin is conservative and devout — his hobby is collecting crèches — and has raised three good Catholic sons. When I asked him to share his thoughts on the scandal, I learned, shockingly, that we agreed on some things. He wrote the following:

“In pedophilia, the church has unleashed upon itself a plague that threatens its very future, and yet it remains in a curious state of denial. The church I grew up in was black and white, no grays. That’s why my father, an Irish immigrant, liked it so much. The chaplain of the Police and Fire departments told me once ‘Your father was a fierce Catholic, very fierce.’

My brothers and I were sleepily at his side for the monthly 8 a.m. Holy Name Mass and the guarding of the Eucharist in the middle of the night during the 40-hour ritual at Easter. Once during a record snowstorm in 1958, we were marched single-file to church for Mass only to find out the priests next door couldn’t get out of the rectory.

The priest was always a revered figure, the embodiment of Christ changing water into wine. (Older parishioners took it literally.) The altar boys would drink the dregs.

When I was in the 7th grade, one of the new priests took four of us to the drive-in restaurant and suggested a game of ‘pink belly’ on the way back; we pulled up a boy’s shirt and slapped his belly until it was pink. When the new priest joined in, it seemed like more groping than slapping. But we thought it was inadvertent. And my parents never would have believed a priest did anything inappropriate anyway. A boy in my class told me much later that the same priest climbed into bed with him in 1958 at a rectory sleepover, but my friend threw him to the floor. The priest protested he was sleepwalking. Three days later, the archbishop sent the priest to a rehab place in New Mexico; he ended up as a Notre Dame professor.

Vatican II made me wince. The church declared casual Friday. All the once-rigid rules left to the whim of the flock. The Mass was said in English (rendering useless my carefully learned Latin prayers). Holy days of obligation were optional. There were laypeople on the heretofore sacred ground of the altar — performing the sacraments and worse, handling the Host. The powerful symbolism of the priest turning the Host into the body of Christ cracked like an egg.

In his book, ‘Goodbye! Good Men,’ author Michael Rose writes that the liberalized rules set up a takeover of seminaries by homosexuals.

Vatican II liberalized rules but left the most outdated one: celibacy. That vow was put in place originally because the church did not want heirs making claims on money and land. But it ended up shrinking the priest pool and producing the wrong kind of candidates — drawing men confused about their sexuality who put our children in harm’s way.

The church is dying from a thousand cuts. Its cover-up has cost a fortune and been a betrayal worthy of Judas. The money spent came from social programs, Catholic schools and the poor. This should be a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. I asked a friend of mine recently what he would do if his child was molested after the church knew. ‘I would probably kill someone,’ he replied.

We must reassess. Married priests and laypeople giving the sacraments are not going to destroy the church. Based on what we have seen the last 10 years, they would be a bargain. It is time to go back to the disciplines that the church was founded on and remind our seminaries and universities what they are. (Georgetown University agreeing to cover religious symbols on stage to get President Obama to speak was not exactly fierce.)

The storm within the church strikes at what every Catholic fears most. We take our religion on faith.

How can we maintain that faith when our leaders are unworthy of it?”


***********************

Vatican blasts anti-Catholic 'hate' campaign

By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer Frances D'emilio, Tuesday - April 6, 2010

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

Herranz didn't identify the lobbies but "defense of life" is Vatican shorthand for anti-abortion efforts.

Also arguing that Benedict's promotion of conservative family models had provoked the so-called attacks was the Vatican's dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano.

"By now, it's a cultural contrast," Sodano told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. "The pope embodies moral truths that aren't accepted, and so, the shortcomings and errors of priests are used as weapons against the church."

Also rallying to Benedict's side was Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who heads the Vatican City State's governing apparatus.

The pope "has done all that he could have" against sex abuse by clergy of minors, Lajolo said on Vatican radio, decrying what he described as a campaign of "hatred against the Catholic church."

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based minister in the United Church of Christ who is faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, described the cardinals' comments as "diversionary counterattacks" that are an affront both to the victims of clergy abuse and to gays and lesbians.

"It makes me heartsick," she said.

Sex abuse allegations, as well as accusations of cover-ups by diocesan bishops and Vatican officials, have swept across Europe in recent weeks. Benedict has been criticized for not halting the actions of abusive priests when he was a Vatican cardinal and earlier while he was the archbishop of Munich in his native Germany.

The mainland European scandals — in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland — are erupting after decades of abuse cases in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and other areas.

In Germany, nearly 2,700 people called the church's sexual abuse hot line in the first three days it was operating, a Catholic church spokesman said Tuesday.A team of psychologists and other experts have spoken with 394 people so far, ranging from several minutes up to an hour, Trier Diocese spokesman Stephan Kronenburg said.

"Most callers reported cases of sexual abuse," he told The Associated Press.

Benedict has ignored victims' demands that he accept responsibility for what they say is his own personal and institutional responsibility for failing to swiftly kick abusive priests out of the priesthood, or at least keep them away from children.

But he has been protected by a vanguard of senior Vatican prelates who are fending off what they contend is an orchestrated attempt to attack the leader of the world's more than 1 billion Catholics.

The Vatican No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, rebuffed questions about the pontiff's silence on the topic, indicating that Benedict was standing firm.

"He's a strong pope," he told reporters after arriving Tuesday in Chile. The Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as calling Benedict a "great prophet of the Third Millennium."

Bertone, now the Holy See's secretary of state but formerly Benedict's deputy when the future pope, then-called Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican's morals office, has himself been swept up in the scandals.

During a May 1998 meeting at the Vatican, Bertone told Wisconsin bishops to halt a church trial against an ailing priest who was accused of sexually abusing 200 deaf children, according to a Vatican transcript. The priest died soon afterward.

"It's not true, it's not true! We have documented the opposite," ANSA quoted Bertone as saying in Chile. "Let's not talk about this topic now, because otherwise we'll be here all day verifying precisely the action taken by me and by his eminence."

On Easter, the most important day in the Catholic faith, the Vatican broke with tradition and began its service in St. Peter's Square with a ringing defense of Benedict delivered by Cardinal Sodano.

The Vatican newspaper quoted Sodano on Tuesday as saying the church is "certainly" suffering because of pedophile priests but he asserted that "Benedict XVI has apologized several times."

"But it's not Christ's fault if Judas betrayed" him, Sodano said. "It's not a bishop's fault if one of his priests is stained by grave wrongdoing. And certainly the pontiff is not responsible."

"Behind the unjust attacks on the pope are visions of the family and of life that run contrary to the Gospel," Sodano said. "Now the accusation of pedophile is being brandished against the church."

He noted that past popes have also been criticized, including the "offensive against Pius XII for his conduct during the last World War as well as that against Paul VI" for his encyclical against birth control, the cardinal said.

Pius has been accused by Jewish groups and some scholars as not having done enough to save Jews from the Holocaust, although the Vatican contends he used behind-the-scene diplomacy to help them. Benedict has hailed Pius as a "great" pontiff, who is being considered for possible beatification.

Vatican Radio, presenting listeners with some of the most vehement counterattacks yet, depicted the church as a victim.

"There are those who fear the media campaign of anti-Catholic hatred can degenerate," Vatican Radio said.

It noted anti-Catholic graffiti on walls of a church outside Viterbo, a town near Rome, and reminded listeners that a bishop was attacked by a man during Easter Mass in Muenster, Germany. The bishop fought back with an incense bowl.

The radio likened the recent campaign to the persecution suffered by early Christian martyrs. "The crowds, incited by the slanders of the powerful, would lynch the Christians," the radio said.

In Munich, meanwhile, an independent lawyer hired by the Catholic church wrapped up his investigation of abuse allegations at the southern Ettal monastery.

"The investigation clearly shows a system of abuse that lasted for decades," Thomas Pfister told The Associated Press.

There were some cases of sexual abuse at Ettal but most victims who came forward were physically abused and most cases took place before 1990, Pfister said in a telephone interview.

The lawyer declined to elaborate as his final report will be published next week.

59 comments:

A LEAP TO FREEDOM said...

A LEAP TO FREEDOM
IN MEMORY OF MOSHE MENACHEM KANOVSKY ZT"L - [THE THIRD YARZEIT] - PART 1

It was at the same time hilarious and loathsome to bystanders. On Friday afternoon, April 13, 2007 (two days after Passover 5767), a 31-year-old ultra-Orthodox lawyer jumped to his death from a 69th-floor office of the Empire State Building in NYC. "Only in New York," said a yokel bus driver, "Only in New York." Visiting tourists dashed to the 33rd street to take pictures of the leg severed below a knee, which sluggish cops didn't cover right away. Theresa Colon, a tourist from Virginia, shrieked: "I cried and got sick to my stomach, I pray he knew who God was."

That lawyer knew who God was. He knew it a lot better than silly southerner Ms. Colon would ever know. I know it because that lawyer was a gifted Jewish scholar and my long time chavrusa at the Ner Yisroel of Baltimore, Moshe Menachem Kanovsky zt"l. I recollect the sleepless nights we spent in Bais Midrash going over and over Gemara with Rashi, Tosafos, Rishonim, Acharonim, and Shulchan Aruch. Moshe Kanovsky polished off many masechtos and knew many Mussar books by heart. Moshe Menachem had really earned his Semicha (the rabbinical ordination).

The New York bus driver was also dead wrong. Not "only in New York." In fact, it started in Baltimore, at the Ner Israel Rabbinical College. And I know it started with rabbi Moshe Eisemann. I reminisce how he would unflaggingly approach Moshe Menachem, I recall that Moshe frequented him on Shabbosos. Was Moshe Kanovsky raped by rabbi Eisemann? I can't say for sure. And I will not make it up about my beloved dead chaver merely to get some people "excited" with the new evidence against gay and pedophile rabbi Moshe Eisemann. But something happened. And it happened when Moshe Kanovsky was a student at Ner Yisroel, and it had something to do with rabbi Moshe Eisemann.

Moshe Menachem suddenly became withdrawn and stopped coming to seder. Through much of the day he slept in his dorm room or listened to Rush Limbaugh's talk show. On one occasion he decided to pour out his heart to one of his rebbeim whom he trusted a lot - rabbi Shraga Neuberger. After that Moshe Kanovsky got even more disheartened. What did "rav Shragi" tell him? I talked with Moshe and his roommates who knew about that conversation. This is the story: rabbi Shraga Neuberger (his shaggy beard still proudly displaying bits of his last dinner) laughed off Moshe Menachem's plea for help and added with an acrimonious wink, "I wonder if you will ever find a shidduch (get married) in your lifetime!" I bear witness that those were rabbi Shraga Neuberger's precise words.

A LEAP TO FREEDOM said...

A LEAP TO FREEDOM
IN MEMORY OF MOSHE MENACHEM KANOVSKY ZT"L - [THE THIRD YARZEIT] - PART 2

Shortly thereafter Moshe Kanovsky left Baltimore for New York City. I doubt that Moshe went there with an intent to be with his father Yaakov. He was always closer to his mother and siblings who lived in Silver Spring (his parents got divorced in Philadelphia when Moshe was eight). Most likely, he assumed that he would get help from his famed uncle rabbi Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe and head of the Agudath Israel of America. Later I discovered that the Rebbe didn't help Moshe Menachem. Was that because his nephew was less important for "der Rebbe" than his relationship with the powerful NIRC, Agudath Israel, and rabbi Moshe Eisemann? I believe so.

Moshe was an educator, a rabbi, a lecturer, Jack-of-all-religious-trades but not a lawyer. Law was never his passion. He had to go to the Cardozo Law School because ostentatiously holy NYC and Baltimore rabbis with much blood on their hands were afraid of his lofty moral standards and did everything in their power to keep him out of the "klei kodesh" field. They also did an outstanding job to fulfill rabbi Shraga Neuberger's after-dinner "prophecy" ("I wonder if you will ever find a shidduch in your lifetime!"). But anyhow Moshe Menachem spent most of his free time learning Torah and helping poor people in NYC with free legal advice and Torah classes.

I had never been a big fan of conspiracy theories, muckraking, or sensationalism. However, I was wholly unprepared to learn about Moshe Kanovsky's suicide. I knew him well as a highly intelligent, kind-hearted, and soft-spoken soul, who knew fairly well even prior to becoming a rabbi what the Jewish Law warns about suicide, and I doubt he could have done it even taking into consideration possible manic depression / post-molestation effects. Likewise, as stated by the newspapers, all his family and friends didn't notice "any significant changes in his emotional state, even as he started working part-time for an attorney in the Empire State Building."

Many posters on the Internet acknowledged that he didn't jump but was pushed out of the window as it appeared from the security cameras' footage. At first it sounds crazy and distorted, but reason out who was that last "client" whom Moshe saw before abruptly interrupting his meeting with him and going to "another room" to jump out of the window? Why were there wrangling statements from Moshe's law firm denying that he ever worked there? What's more, two days prior to Moshe's death, right after Passover, the Vaad Harabbonim (Rabbinical Council of Greater Baltimore) mailed their infamous letter to the members of Baltimore's Orthodox community on the issue of sexual abuse. Moreover, Moshe Menachem died on the day the Baltimore Jewish Times published its cover story on the contemptible sexual predator rabbi Ephraim F. Shapiro!

A LEAP TO FREEDOM said...

A LEAP TO FREEDOM
IN MEMORY OF MOSHE MENACHEM KANOVSKY ZT"L - [THE THIRD YARZEIT] - PART 3

Questions. Questions with no definitive answers... We want to rid our religion of child molesters, but we disregard the fact that they are not pure rapists. They deliver inspiring lectures, possess a compelling writing style, raise generations of students, establish important connections. Make an effort to uproot these potentates! The iniquitous child-molesting rabbis groom many disciples wholly saturated with their venom who later occupy positions of authority to safeguard their teachers. A parallel comes to mind with the students of the wicked Balaam (who was a sexual pervert too and, according to Sanhedrin 105b, even had relations with his donkey). Balaam's disciples of today also fit nicely with their definition in the Mishna in Pirkei Avos (5:22) as having "an evil eye," "an arrogant spirit," and "a greedy soul."

A small number of people cover up for rapists because they sincerely believe the molesters were slandered, other craven underlings lick the ass of the mighty and powerful because they are no different than them. We know that a person who is a sexual predator or enabler flouts his own religious doctrines. That's the reason the Agudath Israel is a cringing supporter of all Catholic bills - the people whose ancestors were systematically tortured to death and burned at the stake by that very Catholic Church itself!

Eisemanns are covered up by hobnobbing Ner Yisroel and Baltimore Mafia leaders because they are one and the same: all of them need to live in luxury edifices, take expensive vacations, and be "respectable." Learn from the Agudath Israel! That name means "a bundle" or "a bunch" in Hebrew. In truth, they do work like a bunch of thugs. We also need to group together. Until that happens, we will be ignominiously defeated every step of the way! Firing single email shots from behind your browser can't help a great deal. We need to establish an incorruptible, powerful, and brave organization outside the Internet. We need a place to go to where we will never be betrayed by our leaders who are in reality self-appointed narcissistic cowards!

Until that happens, we will be doomed. What happens when you speak up in Baltimore against the "religious" atrocities of explosive, disgruntled, but still "infallible" leaders, who effectively hold all power in their hands? You will be chased out of all shuls by their NIRC-dependent bellowing from the pulpit mealy-mouthed rabbis, ostracized by the indignated and held in thrall to the establishment "community," get threats in the mail, and face mud-slinging and character assassination. You will be forced out of town like rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau's daughter who was molested by her dad. Because at this point in the real (not virtual!) world only these criminals have the real dominance.

• • •

The gist of Passover is freedom. One very unwell person on the Internet made a crafty calculation that Moshe Kanovsky was falling down from the Empire State Building for 4.9254203994149455 seconds. It's really irrelevant if Moshe Menachem jumped himself or was plunged by mobsters, because we know who is responsible for his death, which in actuality started many years ago at NIRC. But I believe that in those final five seconds of his short bright life he (like the Jewish children in the days of the Talmud who jumped off the Roman ship to drown themselves in order to escape molestation) was really free. Free from rabbi Moshe Eisemann's sexual improprieties, free from rabbi Shraga Neuberger's sardonic laughter, free from his uncle's hypocrisy. Free from that heinous tinged with cynicism lie that we now call "Orthodox Judaism," which is in reality inimical to every single thing the Torah-true Judaism stood for all the erstwhile generations of our pure grandparents. And those five seconds of freedom were worth an entire life in this world.

Anonymous said...

Event: Baruch Lebovits Sentencing Monday, April 12
What: Protest
Start Time: Monday, April 12 at 9:30am
End Time: Monday, April 12 at 1:30pm
Where: Criminal Courthouse 320 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Anonymous said...

>He knew it a lot better than silly southerner Ms. Colon would ever know.<

And why is Ms. Colon 'silly'?

Kol Dmay Achicha Tzoakim Alai said...

A LEAP TO FREEDOM,

You're 100% correct and 100% wrong.

Yes, these monsters do protect and enable the molestors but it is not only Baltimore.

All over the frum world this occurs because of the "shitta" of protecting the good name of charedisim.

I live in a city in Eretz Yisroel which works no different from Baltimore.

Molesters are protected (and allowed to teach young innocents). Brave people are cast-out and "banned".

We even have one Rav (the darling of Artscroll) who bans these heros from his shul. Another Rav (son-in-law of NIRC's Aron Feldman) feels that he can handle situations by moving molestors to other communities.

Even the great UOJ is afraid to speak out against these rabbinic thugs.

Tropper is Troubled said...

Götterdämmerung in Monsey. 1.

(The term Götterdämmerung in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the gods that brings about the end of the world. The term Götterdämmerung is occasionally used in English, referring to a disastrous conclusion of events such as the defeat of Nazi Germany that had an ideology in part based on Norse mythology. –Wikipedia)

The latest news (or NON-news) from Monsey is NOT good.

The town founded and built-up by saints such as Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky and Rav Simcha Wasserman, and that has become home to masses of ehrliche Torah communities that fled the congestion and grime of Brooklyn for the healthier climes of Monsey and its surroundings is now at the epicenter of a storm unleashed by one of the most evil and corrupt “rabbis” in recent times, the abominable Leib Tropper, the menuval shebemenuvalim, the vilest of the vile, unmasked by real live tape and video recordings of him and his equally corrupt wife Leba engaging in sex in exchange for conversions to Tropper’s new so-called "ultra kosher" brand of EJF conversions.

Latest news, and the artificially imposed "news-blackout" is horrible, and the stunning silence makes it worse. Tropper has been slapped with a restraining order to stay away from his own yeshiva. He has counter sued. Marshals have come to padlock the doors of the Kol Yaakov yeshiva’s offices. Judges orders are flying in all directions. Rabbis and communities are at each other’s throats in Monsey. It is a bloody showdown!
First off, the rabbis in Monsey having the guts to oppose Tropper, with the honorable Rabbi Ribiat at their head are to be commended. But they are also to be rebuked: For not moving quickly and ruthlessly enough, midda keneged midda, against the quick-silver and utterly ruthless Tropper once they had him nailed.

Tropper is Troubled said...

Götterdämmerung in Monsey. 3.

In one way it’s maybe a good thing to see who the Tropper snake is bringing out of the grass to support him as he and his wife stand revealed as a literal naked lowlifes.

On the other hand, the Monsey rabbis who have the guts to stand up to the Tropper monster must realize that they are in a war to the death. It is either them or Tropper. If Tropper wins he will wipe them out.

Of course, guiding Tropper in all of this, or at least certainly setting a terrible example, is Tropper’s ultimate strategic rabbinical adviser infighter and bully Aaron Schechter of the Chaim Berlin yeshiva in Brooklyn, who kicked out dozens of college-going talmidim, fought to the death to kick out his own yeshiva’s mashgiach ruchani, the independent strong-minded Rav Shlomo Carlebach (not the singer), brushed off the demands of batei din, including those of Rav Moshe Feinstein and Satmar’s CRC, to come and account for his actions and to settle, and instead welcomed into his arms the likes of obsequious and fawning gangsters like Tropper, Michael Hirsh and other misfits like Nate Segal and Ephraim Lazerson who, like Tropper, kiss Schechter’s tuches a few times a week to keep it clean and shiny and so he supports them in their immoral acts and abuse of other Yidden as they meander through life in klal work.

May Hashem grant strength and wisdom to the Monsey rabbanim who have finally seen the evil of Tropper and have joined the battle to rid Monsey of his detritus, in keeping with ubiarta hara mikerbecha. No one said this was going to be easy, but it is doable.

Tropper is Troubled said...

Götterdämmerung in Monsey. 2.

There is a famous line in the movie “the Good the Bad and the Ugly” when at one point “the Ugly” (Eli Wallach) is “cornered” while in a bath tub filled with bubbles. The avenger starts giving a little speech and in an instant he is shot down by bullets flying from under the bubbles in the bathtub and Eli Wallach utters the immortal line: “IF YOU GOTTA SHOOT, SHOOT, DON’T TALK !!!” And this has been the BIG MISTAKE of those rabbis fighting Tropper. They are talking, writing, and going to and fro but they fail to grasp that only firm, uncompromising action that will send Tropper packing and out of Monsey FOREVER and it’s the only thing that must be done now, otherwise Tropper will fight and scream and bring down the house with him, like upon a crumbling “Third Reich” undergoing a Hitlerian-induced Götterdämmerung!
Tropper does not play by any rules, he makes them up as he goes along to suit his own ends, or rather he plays by the rules of the COSA NOSTRA, which your average goody-two-shoes rabbi trained to have middos tovos and to be dan lekaf zechus cannot even begin to grasp in real terms. Tropper is 100% a gangster who has the ability to learn Talmudic masechtas. Think Esav. Think Yerovam ben Nevot. Think Shabtai Tzvi. These were all highly gifted men but they were 100% rotten to the core and only being buried in the ground can “cure” them. As the Rambam explains that for certain sins, like massive Chillul Hashem berabim uvefarhesia of which Tropper easily qualifies, can only be atoned with the eventual death of the sinner. Short of that he and his accomplices, whoever they are, in this case it’s his wife, rabbi Shlesinger and now rabbi Kramer in Monsey, and there are more, must be shunned, sent into exile, to a “Devil’s Island” ir hamiklat.

Anonymous said...

Moshe Kanovsky also did work for a fresser lawyer who works with the Agudah. The lawyer acts like he doing chesed for the Klal but he is angling to get publicity for himself and doesn't give a hoot about the nitzrach.

R' Elya Spitzer said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/fashion/08Spitzer.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

HERE is Eliot Spitzer on MSNBC with the host Ed Schultz, railing against fallen Wall Street titans who regain power (“absolutely insane”). There he is on Fox’s “Good Day New York,” taking swipes at Andrew Cuomo (“he has to answer the hard questions”) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (“I don’t like politicians who vacillate”). He’s lunching regularly at power restaurants like Michael’s (telling the waiter, “Silda wants me to have the salad”), holding hands with his wife at charity galas, attending a private salon at Tina Brown’s. Writing his twice-monthly Slate column, “The Best Policy.” Teaching undergraduates at the City College of New York, lecturing at Harvard about ethics, parsing the meaning of love on BigThink.com.

It’s been scarcely two years since Mr. Spitzer, his ashen-faced wife at his side, seemed to have written his political obituary, with his taut-jawed, almost lipless grimace of resignation as governor of New York, following disclosures that he was a client in a prostitution ring. Now he is emphatically back, seemingly everywhere.

For public figures whose falls have been as spectacular as that of Mr. Spitzer’s, there are many time-tested paths to image rehab. Seclusion. Prison. Good works. The seminary.

None of those options, it seems, are for Eliot Spitzer.

“Most people faced with that kind of disgrace would disappear off the face of the earth for a longer period of time,” said Howard Rubenstein, the public relations impresario. “But there is a lot of curiosity about him. And he is a publicity steamroller” — a reference to Mr. Spitzer’s expletive-garnished self-description as a “steamroller.”

Info Please said...

The following comment was posted o Frum Follies. Can someone please post more information and elaborate a bit more. If this is true, then....

***********************************
"I beg all of you please listen to the truth and encourage mr lopin for his encouraging low life bastards who murder young boys and teens lives one after another without anyone saying a word it seems it is a apedemic now this one from monsey?” the latest about this rabbi Kokis ! taking advantage of young boys its sick they should all sit in jail untill they cant move anymore and hurt more youngsters ! I think that Tropper is GUILTY of adultery but this Kokis who takes adantage of young talmidim should be in jail! please get all these people like lebovits and kokis and all their friends behind bars!"

Paul Mendlowitz said...

How much blood is on Shmuel Kaminetzky's hands who sent Moshe Eisemann from the Yeshiva of Philadelphia to Ner Israel in Baltimore, knowing that Eisemann is a danger to children?

There are no words....

Shake up the "Gedolim" said...

I assume Shmuel Kaminetzky has never been asked about Eisemann? I assume that Schechter has never been asked about giving the finger to the holy R' Moshe Feinstein?
I assume the Novominsker has never been questioned about why he copped out in his infamous remark regarding Flatbush and Borough Park? I assume Rabbis Feldman, Berkowitz, et al have not been asked about Moshe Eisemann?
I think it is time that these guys began to feel uncomfortable in their shoes. Someone out there must have the access and the nerve to confront these men. I know they are likely always surrounded by their entourage, but it must be done.

Just Asking said...

What, exactly, is Rav Shlesinger's role in this?

What's his motivation?

What the f*%#! said...

Ask them?

Yes. And we must ask Ahmadinejad about his nuclear intentions.

While we are at it, we should ask Bernie Madoff why he stole so much money. And Reverend Wright about why he is such an antisemite.

Ask them????!!!!!!

How about asking the NY Times to expose them and then the FBI arrest them and put them on trial?!

Shake up the "Gedolim" said...

What the F... - I'm not holding my breath about the NY Times or the FBI. Perhaps you are? Pressure them on a regular basis so they are always uncomfortable, not knowing who will speak up next...on the other hand, we could wait for the NYT and the FBI. I predict that if we wait for the NYT and the FBI, the status quo (silence of the "gedolim") will continue ad infinitum.

What the f%#@! said...

Shake up...

I am not holding my breath about the gedolim being made uncomfortable.

As for the NY Times and the FBI...the Catholic Church felt the same way a few short years ago, and look where they are now.

We must pass the Markey bill and have more lawsuits against these crimnals. If you still want to make them uncomfortable, how about a letter writing campaign, newspaper ads, public protests by groups of people like the tea parties, etc.?

I objected mostly to the way you said "ask" them, which sounded like you thought they might have an answer.

No disrespect intended...

Shake up, et al. said...

No, I didn't think they would have an answer that was the slightest bit acceptable. Public protests and letter writing campaigns would be great. Ads in Jewish papers would be fine. I would not want them in the large metropolitan papers for chillul Hashem purposes, but I am open to discussion about that one. As I have stated in prior posts over time, the blogs alone, helpful as they are, are not enough.

Kew Gardens said...

Ephraim Bryks molested kids in Queens too?

People are coming out of the woodwork to say just that.

Bryks is being protected by his brother in law Paysach Krohn, his mechutan Moshe Faskowitz (rosh yeshiva of Madreigas Haadam in Hillcrest), Rabbi Nisanov (the de facto head of the Charedish Bocharian faction) and by the Queens Vaad.

Developing ...

Trying to get the victims to UOJ & Vicky.

Anonymous said...

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/brooklyn/attempted-abduction-of-boy-in-brooklyn-20100409-kc

A 10-year-old boy walking along a street in Borough Park was pulled toward a car by a man who tried to take off with him.

Police say the boy was on 48th Street between 14th and 15th Avenues on Thursday evening when the man approached him. The boy managed to escape.

Cops searched the area and arrested the suspect three hours later near 43rd Street and 15th Avenue.

Agudah Fresser said...

http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/man-bites-off-more-than-he-can-chew-dislocates-jaw-on-huge-sandwich/19423893

A Georgia man bit off more than he could chew -- literally -- when he dislocated his jaw while trying to eat a super-sized sandwich.

Vatican Moetzes Agudath Yisroel said...

LOS ANGELES (AP) 1985 letter shows future pope resisted defrocking pedophile priest, citing effect on church.

Pesach in Cancun putz said...

Monica Beresford-Redman, the wife of award-winning 'Survivor' producer Bruce Beresford-Redman, who has been missing for two days in Cancun, was found dead Thursday in a sewer at the resort where they were on a family vacation, a Mexican official said according to the AP.

The official from the attorney general's office in Quintana Roo state, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said police have named the TV producer as a suspect in his wife's death.

No cause of death has been determined, however Reforma.com was reporting Thursday that Beresford-Redman may have been strangled.

A witness at the Moon Palace Resort told officials that the couple had been seen arguing on Sunday.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/nyregion/09abuse.html?hpw

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Orlando have settled a lawsuit brought by a woman assaulted in 2004 by a priest who broke into her house in Florida, the woman’s lawyer announced on Thursday.

Neither side disclosed the terms of the settlement. The woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, accused church officials of failing to protect her from the priest, the Rev. Wladyslaw Gorak. He left New Jersey that year for what was supposed to be a three-year ministry in Florida.

The woman’s lawyer, Adam Horowitz, claimed that the Newark Archdiocese had known about Father Gorak’s “dangerous sexual improprieties with women” when the vicar general in Newark, Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli, signed an April 2004 letter approving the move to Florida.

In the letter, Bishop Serratelli — now bishop of Paterson, N.J. — wrote that Father Gorak had “good moral character,” no criminal record and no behavioral problems that would compromise his fitness for the ministry.

A lawyer for the archdiocese, Charles M. Carella, said on Thursday that “when Serratelli wrote that letter, it was 100 percent true.” Mr. Carella said church officials learned about complaints in New Jersey involving Father Gorak only after he was charged in the Florida break-in and assault. A spokesman for the archdiocese said Father Gorak had requested the move because he had a skin problem that would be eased in a warmer climate.

Father Gorak appeared at the woman’s house in Lakeland, Fla., in October 2004, broke the chain on the door and began ripping her clothes, according to news reports. “She literally ran out of her home in just her bra and panties,” Mr. Horowitz said on Thursday. “He literally terrorized her.”

Father Gorak pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges that included burglary, assault and aggravated stalking, news accounts said. He was sentenced to four years’ probation and ordered to seek treatment and counseling.

Father Gorak, 54, who uses the name Walter Fisher, is still a priest

Menachem Youlus said...

http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/20924/

A Holocaust-survivors' group has asked Maryland to launch a fraud investigation into the sale of reclaimed Holocaust-era Torah scrolls.

The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants requested a probe into the work of Rabbi Menachem Youlus and Save a Torah Inc., a nonprofit foundation that supports the rabbi's finding, purchasing and restoring of European Torahs, in a letter to state Attorney General Douglas Gansler.

Four Maryland synagogues have bought scrolls from Youlus.

A January Washington Post article suggested that the dramatic stories told by the rabbi of the scrolls' origins were false.

Shmuel Tendler said...

Yes, he is a Tendler cousin.

http://www.app.com/print/article/20100402/NEWS/4020371/Big-debts-close-small-Jewish-school-in-Lakewood

Big debts close small Jewish school in Lakewood

By ZACH PATBERG

By the winter of 2008, Bais Yaakov Elementary had all but crumbled. In debt to the Internal Revenue Service for nearly half a million dollars and delinquent on its mortgage, the girls' school of about 65 students stood almost solely on the crutches of last-minute donations.

Court papers reveal that, starting in February 2007 and stretching over two years, a power struggle emerged between two camps that played out in several lawsuits alleging, among other things, fraud, mismanagement and rigged elections. The lawsuits cast blame for the closure of the boys school and preschool and resulted in coups and restraining orders.

The "common thread," the school stated in a bankruptcy action plan filed in November, "was a dispute between two competing visions of how to deal with the massive financial problems of the Debtor."

The camps consisted of one led by Rabbi Shmuel Tendler — head of Congregation Sons of Israel, which has longstanding ties with Bais Yaakov — and the other by the school's later investors, namely Frederic Todd, Menachem Kantor and Eliyahu Weinstein.

Isaac Braverman, a Tendler supporter, in early 2007 sought through a rabbinical tribunal and secular court to block a loan the school board was securing to pay off the IRS. This led to court scrutiny of the school's finances and eventually new school board elections that brought Tendler's people in. The Todd camp fired back in April 2008 by suing the board for back payments and asking the court to "terminate its (the school's) operations."

Another election was ordered. Power shifted once again. And the following months brought more court filings, including Tendler's attempt to block the August 2008 Chapter 11 filing, followed by complaints accusing Tendler of fraud, election tampering, allowing a pregnant employee's health insurance to lapse and refusing to return Torah scrolls worth $75,000.

Tendler's opponents are not without controversy. Weinstein, a 34-year-old real estate investor and major contributor to Bais Yaakov, has been accused in several lawsuits of bilking millions from investors across six states. Attorneys have alleged he is hiding his assets in charities.

Chicago said...

Assistant Executive Director of CRC Chicago & member of OU's RCA.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2136376,agudas-achim-suit-rabbi-lefkowitz-040110.article

Synagogue's board sues rabbi, sons for taking nearly $63,000
Comments

April 1, 2010

BY LISA DONOVAN Cook County Reporter/ldonovan@suntimes.com

The synagogue may be shuttered but the power struggle at Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation in Uptown rages on.

The latest salvo came Thursday when one group, which has identified itself as the synagogue’s board of directors, filed suit claiming the congregation’s long-serving Rabbi and his sons took nearly $63,000 from the struggling congregation and used it to gamble and purchase everything from a bicycle to Chinese food and even car insurance.

“It’s not true, I didn’t do anything with that account and neither did my sons,” Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz said of the lawsuit filed against him.

He believed that the local rabbinical court couldn’t make a finding in the matter and that, because it’s binding arbitration, the case was closed.

The synagogue, 5029 N. Kenmore, has been closed since 2008, when some members of the congregation questioned how Lefkowitz handled donations.

Since then, two factions have formed, with Stephen Turk claiming he’s president of the board of directors and Lefkowitz’s son Levi saying he holds the position, the rabbi said.

An attorney for Turk declined comment, but the fraud suit calls on the rabbi and his sons to return the money, including cash withdrawn from an ATM at the Majestic Star Casino in Gary, Ind.

YTT payroll said...

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/152625

Services at an East Valley synagogue will remain uninterrupted as its rabbi faces child rape charges in New York.

The Shabbat, or itinerary of Jewish services, mostly for Friday and Saturday at Temple Beth Sholom Synagogue of the East Valley, 3400 N. Dobson Road, Chandler, is continuing, according to a woman at the synagogue who answered the phone on Thursday.

Rabbi Bryan Bramly, 45, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree rape in the parking lot of the synagogue on March 22 by members of the U.S. Marshals Child Predator Apprehension Team and detectives with the New York Police Department’s Manhattan Child Abuse Unit, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Diane White, president of Beth Sholom Synagogue, told the Tribune that Bramly is on administrative leave, but would not say if the leave is with or without pay.

YU said...

http://www.yucommentator.com/closetators-stolen-1.1282957

Only a few hours after distributing the Purim edition of The Commentator, the newspaper’s staff found that hundreds of copies were stolen and thrown out. Ostensibly, this was in reaction to what the perpetrators perceived as an embarrassment of Roshei Yeshiva in the satirical issue. Thus far, three different students have been identified as culprits, two of whom were caught via security tapes.

The administration took disciplinary action against the students in question, with Dean David Himber carrying out judicial hearings for each of them. After the hearings, Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Hershel Schachter went to Dean Himber’s office to express his support for the involved students, even calling their actions mitzvot. He later informed The Commentator that he had done this without actually having seen a copy of The Closetator. Rabbi Schachter was later informed of the precise content of the paper, and was rumored to have retracted his support of the students involved.

These three were not the only ones offended by The Closetator. A group of students attempted to start a protest where the students who study in the Glueck Beit Midrash would abandon the new Center. The idea was that the exodus of students would grab administrators’ attention and cause them to rethink their treatment of the students who were caught.

Reform rabbi putz imitates Agudah said...

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/rabbi_calls_media_coverage_of_church_abuse_scandal_one-dimensional/

In an interview with CNA on Tuesday, Rabbi Jack Bemporad commented on the recent media onslaught concerning the Holy Father, calling the coverage “one dimensional” and saying that the depiction of the Church in the media has not been given “proper context.”

Rabbi Bemporad, director of the New Jersey-based Center for Interreligious Understanding, was recently quoted as a lone voice in an Associated Press article in which other Jewish leaders denounced the papal preacher, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, for his comments likening the media depiction of the Church to anti-Semitism.

In the AP article released on April 2, and in a follow up interview with CNA, Rabbi Bemporad defended the papal preacher. Although the rabbi believes Fr. Cantalamessa used a “poor example,” ultimately, the preacher's “point is correct.”

What the preacher intended to indicate through his homily, Rabbi Bemporad said, was that “you can't collectively condemn the church for what some priests and some individuals in the Church may have done.”

Uri Messer said...

By ARON HELLER (AP) – 1 day ago

JERUSALEM — An Israeli court suspended the corruption trial of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday, a day after a longtime confidant of the ex-premier was arrested in a multimillion-dollar bribery scandal.

Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem when the bribery allegedly took place. It is not clear whether he was implicated in that case because there is a partial gag order on it.
The money allegedly changed hands to promote several real-estate projects, including a large development in Jerusalem that required a radical change in zoning laws.

On Wednesday, police arrested six men suspected of involvement in the case. Among them was Olmert's longtime confidant Uri Messer, who police suspect acted as a middleman, funneling bribes to a high-ranking city hall official who was not identified. The other suspects included a former city hall official and property developers.

Messer was responsible for Olmert's campaign finances and the two were partners in a law office.
Olmert is standing trial on separate corruption charges that include illegally accepting funds from an American supporter and double-billing Jewish groups for trips abroad. Messer has been questioned numerous times over the charges.

The formal charges against Olmert include fraud and breach of trust. Israel's Justice Ministry has not said what penalties Olmert could face, but the fraud charge alone could carry a prison term of up to five years.

The incidents in question date from his time as Jerusalem mayor and later as a Cabinet minister, but emerged after he was elected prime minister in 2006.

American supporter, businessman Morris Talansky, said he had given Olmert hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of it in envelopes stuffed with bills. His testimony helped galvanize public opinion, and in late 2008 Olmert was forced to resign.

OU Crony Watch said...

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=infdco20100402678

Not bad that the OU can recoup $350,000 from a company unauthorized to use their symbol, under the Lanham Act.

The question is, how much does the OU owe the public when they knowingly allow their symbol to stay on food that is not kosher or safe to eat?

Bim Bam identity said...

http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=36695

So, I’m asking. What’s happening with Gerald Walpin’s lawsuit against the Obama administration?

Walpin was the former inspector general overseeing the “Corporation for National and Community Service,” the entity that runs AmeriCorps. His job was to detect and eradicate fraud and waste in the spending of nearly one billion taxpayer dollars. Last June, Walpin was suddenly fired by the Obama administration.

Now why would Obama do that?

Coincidentally (yes, I’m tongue-in-cheek here) Walpin and his able staff of fraud detectors were at the time completing an investigation into suspected misuse of nearly one million taxpayer dollars granted to St. HOPE Academy in Sacramento, Calif., headed by former National Basketball Association star Kevin Johnson, a prominent Obama supporter.

Walpin had marshaled evidence that funds intended to aid students were diverted to such things as a chauffeur for Johnson, car washes and political campaigning. (Johnson was later elected Mayor of Sacramento). The probe threatened the flow of billions in federal “stimulus” money to Sacramento.

Walpin’s abrupt firing flouted Congress’ 2008 enactment of a statute to protect inspectors general from political interference. It expressly prohibits the removal of an inspector general without at least 30 days’ advance notice, with the reasons provided to Congress.

Notably, then-Sen. Obama co-sponsored that law; after capturing the Oval Office with phony rhetoric about “change,” and “transparency,” he promptly violated it when an inspector general was looking at one of his friends.

Anonymous said...

This week’s parsha, Parshas Shmini instructs us about kosher food. We are taught to identify the kosher animals by the two signs. A kosher animal has split hooves and it chews its cud. There are four animals that have only one of the two necessary signs, and are therefore not kosher. The Torah enumerates each one of these four.

אך את זה לא תאכלו ממּעלי הגרה וממפרסי הפרסה-
את הגמל כי מעלה גרה הוא ופרסה איננו מפריס טמא הוא לכם.
ואת הַשפן כי מעלה גרה הוא ופרסה לא יפריס טמא הוא לכם.
ואת הארנבת כי מעלת גרה הוא ופרסה לא הפריסה טמאה הוא לכם.
ואת החזיר כי מפריס פרסה הוא ושסע שסע פרסה והוא גרה לא יגר טמא הוא לכם.
The Kli Yakar points out that the psukim should have given the missing signs as the reason for these four animals being unkosher. The Torah, however, seems to be emphasizing the one sign that they do have as the reason for their being unkosher. We might have mistakenly thought that because they have one kosher sign, this makes them half kosher. Not so!! Their one kosher sign adds uncleanness to their already unclean state. In the words of the Kli Yakar, שסימן טהרה שבכולם מוסיף טומאה על טומאתם.
Why? Why does the possession of one out of the two kosher simanim make these animals “especially” not kosher?
The Kli Yakar explains that this is because the presence of one kosher siman might mislead a person into thinking that these animals might be kosher. The misleading sign is “especially” what makes these animals not kosher.
This would explain a certain phenomenon. The chazir, the swine, has become the symbol and trademark of tarfus, of everything unkosher. The chazir is different than the other three animals which possess only one kosher sign. The siman of the chazir is the split hoof. The split hoof is the external sign. Chewing the cud is internal. The split hoof is especially misleading because it is so conspicuous. The chazir also makes a point of ostentatiously sticking it out for all to see.
Hypocrisy is the most repulsive and treacherous of all the negative character traits.

Anonymous said...

Two years ago, the Jewish community was shocked and pained to hear of the tragedy of a family in the Rova HaYehudi. This family had become involved with a so-called “mekubal-tzaddik”, who was in reality a very deranged power-crazed psychopath. What resulted from this family’s tragic involvement with him was the most horrible case of child abuse in the history of Israel. The children were closed in suitcases for days, starved, burned with electric burners, fed human feces. The youngest child is still comatose from the beatings he received. The monster “mekubal-tzaddik” had the father and mother divorce in order that he marry the wife as an additional wife for himself. This family was completely shattered. The mother can no longer be married to the father. The children struggle with all kinds of emotional and spiritual issues. And of course, the youngest needs a refuah shlaimah.
Can it get worse??
This monster, who escaped to Brazil, was extradited to Israel to face the courts. Recently, a strange declaration was issued from the auspices of the Rabbonim. The announcement was for “Pidyon Shvuyim”, to raise money for this criminal, characterized as an “upright and G-d fearing man”, who was always well-meaning.., and for his family. This was no joke.
Somewhere, obviously some gross mistake was made. Misinformation? Wrong person? Wrong address? Wicked manipulation? Malicious deceit? What could have happened that the Rabbonim, whom we are told to follow blindly, could have come out with such a bizarre abberation?
The mistake was pointed out to those that were involved. However, the follow-up was far from what one would expect, had this been an innocent mistake. No one took responsibility for the mistake. No full retraction was declared. On the contrary, the idea of pidyon shvuyim was reiterated It was very obvious that there was some foul play at work.
It is becoming more and more clear that the so-called frum establishment today has lost its way. It is deeply corrupt. The Rabbonim who are placed at its head are in no leadership capacity. The youth have no example of idealism and mesirus nefesh to look up to for direction. Everything has become external and for show.
כי אני ה' המעלה אתכם מארץ מצרים להית לכם לאלקים והייתם קדשים כי קדוש אני. (סוף פרשת שמיני)
A gutten Erev Shabbos from Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh.

AP said...

Future Pope Stalled on Abuse Case, Letter Suggests
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 9, 2010
Filed at 4:08 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including ''the good of the universal church,'' according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.

The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle.

The Vatican refused to comment on the contents of the letter Friday, but a spokesman confirmed it bore Ratzinger's signature.

Anonymous said...

Probation Conditions
Weiss under Sex Offender Restrictions for 3 Years

"Probationer may not be in a Mikvah pool or changing area at any time when a minor child is present. [Probationer must] refrain from employment which involves contact with minors."

Candidate for Agudah Sisterhood said...

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/22/1830545/kc-university-of-medicine-and.html

University trades lawsuits with former president Karen Pletz

By LYNN HORSLEY

The Kansas City Star

The Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences filed the first lawsuit Monday morning. It accuses Pletz, the university’s former president, of fraud, lying and misusing funds for lavish entertainment, travel and personal gain.

As university president from 1995 to Dec. 18, 2009, Pletz eventually became one of the highest-paid university presidents in the country. She also was one of Kansas City’s most prominent businesswomen. Less than a week before she was fired, Pletz was honored with the Henry W. Bloch Human Relations Award from the Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee as “a person who lives a life of justice and selflessness.”

Among the key allegations in the lawsuit:

•Pletz directed that hundreds of thousands of dollars of university assets be donated, often in her name, to other nonprofit organizations. Pletz then used those contributions as deductions on her personal tax returns in 2005 and 2006.

The IRS questioned those deductions, and, according to the lawsuit, Pletz eventually admitted they were erroneous.

In December 2004, Pletz took a nine-day trip to San Antonio. She took a $4,000 cash advance and represented the trip as a fundraiser with alumni. In fact, the lawsuit says, Pletz went to Texas “to have elective cosmetic surgery on her face.” She did not meet with any alumni in the nine-day pre-and post-surgery stay.

Pletz took $124,000 in cash advances for 28 trips from July 2001 through December 2008, allegedly for business trips to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In fact, she traveled to an area where her parents own a condominium.

Anonymous said...

http://jewishcolonie.info/index.php?index

Despite having plead guilty, despite having allocuted to three counts of criminal abuse of a child, despite having been thrown out of Chabad, the Weiss Cult in Colonie continues on as if nothing happened. Weiss' wife, Roza, in an email to the cult continues to insist Mr. Weiss is innocent and that the outrage of the Albany Jewish community is "malicious". She further claims the local leadership secretly supports her husband which, of course, is a bald faced lie! She also claims that she and her husband are still Chabad of Colonie, despite the fact that they were thrown out of Chabad months ago!!

http://jewishcolonie.info/Roza-Email-clean.pdf

You can read a PDF of her rambling missive

Red Alert! said...

http://www.aleinu.net/Rabbis/HalachicAdvisoryBoard.aspx

Can you believe this farce?

Shalom Tendler and the rabbis who cover up for him are on the "advisory board" of an organization that purports to deal with sexual abuse!

Albany said...

Any reason why UOJ does not allow headlines that indicate which criminal purveyor of meat is related to pedophile Yaakov Weiss?

Paul Mendlowitz said...

The criminal purveyor of meat is up to his eyeballs in tzures, to somehow link him to the heinous crimes of his relative (not a blood relative either - not that really makes a difference) is to pile on to an already "Shakesperian" tragedy, even though he's got nobody to blame but himself.

A bissele rachmonus is in order....

Archie Bunker said...

While I appreciate that UOJ is sensitive enough to feel the tzaar of yenem, even when that yenem is a flawed individual, there may be a case to link the father in law to the crimes of Yaakov Weiss.

While I am loathe to quote Shmarya as a source, he has alleged that Weiss was a magid shiur in the Postville yeshiva until it became to difficult to manage murmurs that he was molesting boys there which is when he suddenly got out of Dodge to become the disputed Chabad shaliach in Albany, encroaching on another's territory.

Weiss's father in law basically owns the Postville yeshiva and would be aware of anything transpiring there, if not orchestrating it himself.

It also rubbed people the wrong way that Weiss's rebbitzen is both his chief apologist and that of her father when shnorring money at large gatherings of yeshivishe & chassidishe veiber in Brooklyn.

Archie Bunker said...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100410/OPINION01/4100312/-1/BUSINESS04/Guest-column-Madoff-and-Rubashkin-Where-s-the-fairness

Nat Lewin must have gotten to Bob Barr who doesn't seem to be clued in that Rubashkin was caught violating his first parole by destroying evidence.

Speaker for Next Agudah Fresser Convention said...

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/preacher-convicted-of-killing-450692.html?imw=Y

An Alabama evangelist who terrorized his family while impressing audiences at revivals was convicted Friday of murdering his wife and storing her body in a freezer for years.

People who heard Anthony Hopkins' sermons in rural towns around the South sometimes called him a psychic or even a prophet. Yet a prosecutor told jurors that Anthony Hopkins terrorized his wife and young children, isolated them and used the Bible to manipulate them.

"He was the supreme commander of his own little army," said Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips.

After deliberating for 1½ hours, the jury in Mobile also found 39-year-old Anthony Hopkins guilty of rape, sodomy, incest and sexual abuse of a child between the ages of 12 and 16.

Hopkins was arrested in 2008 while preaching at a revival on charges that he killed 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins. Authorities said they were led to the body of his wife by a teenage relative that Hopkins had abused and impregnated.

Investigators say Hopkins killed his wife in a violent fight in 2004 after she caught him having sex with the teenager. They said he then stuffed the wife's body into a freezer at the Mobile home he shared with her, the couple's six children and two of her children from a previous relationship.

Shmarya groupie said...

http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2010/4/9/social-justice-seder-update-tradition/

By Catherine Newhouse
Published April 9, 2010

Students gathered Thursday at Hillel for the Social Justice Seder, a meal relating the Passover story to modern-day social justice issues.

The Social Justice Seder reminds us of what Martin Luther King Jr. said that none of us are free until all of us are free."

Upper West Side said...

http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-exhumed-body-investigation,0,7199000.story

Police are questioning the estranged husband of an Upper West Side money manager, who was strangled and killed on New Year's Eve. Though the incident was previously ruled accidental, cops are now re-investigating her death as a homicide.

Shele Danishefsky Covlin, 47, was found slumped over her bathtub with a gash on her head. Initially, cops thought she had tragically slipped and fallen to her death. But after exhuming her body for an autopsy, medical examiners say the woman was actually strangled.

The UBS exec handled hundreds of millions of dollars for clients, and was scheduled to meet with a lawyer about removing her estranged husband, Rod Colvin, 36, from her will just one day after she was found murdered.

The couple -- who lived across the hall from one another at 155 W. 68th St. -- was also involved in a bitter divorce battle over custody of their daughter and son.

An autopsy was never performed at the time of her death because she and her family are Orthodox Jews. She was buried almost immediately for religious reasons.

Anonymous said...

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) Alabama evangelist found guilty of murdering wife and storing her body in a freezer for years.

Rod Covlin said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/digging_up_secret_slay_Hnx86uB1mMi6BPdjLqTaIN

After her death, Shele's purse and BlackBerry -- which detailed meetings with her lawyer about her will and custody dispute -- were missing, a family friend said.

Authorities now want to interview Rod, who has himself worked in the financial world, about Shele's death, which the medical examiner on Thursday concluded was caused by a "neck compression."

The Manhattan DA's Office is investigating the crime. Rod Covlin -- a top backgammon player who is chairman of the US Backgammon Federation -- has not been charged.

Shele, her dad, Joel Danishefsky, and brother Philip Danishefsky in January 2009 left their longtime positions with the Merrill Lynch unit of the Bank of America -- where they jointly managed nearly $600 million of client funds -- to join the UBS wealth-management division.

Barry Hertz from Flatbush said...

Don't tell anyone that Rod Covlin worked for me at Track Data or the UOJ groupies will bring up again that my wife takes orders from Ohel's David Mandel.

http://usbgf.org/about-us/usbg-board/bio-covlin/

Rod Covlin currently serves as President and Chairman of the US Backgammon Federation.

He was a member of the board and CFO of Pragma Securities, a firm offering algorithmic trading solutions. Prior to that he was CEO of Index Securities, Executive VP of Track ECN, COO of Track Data Securities, and Managing Director at Tradescape (acquired by E*Trade and renamed E*Trade Professional).

Lincoln Square Synagogue said...

http://www.vosizneias.com/46008/2010/01/01/manhattan-ny-upper-west-side-jewish-mother-found-dead-in-the-bathtub-by-9yr-old-daughter/

Lincoln Square Synagogue regrets to inform you of the passing of our member Mrs. Shele Covlin

The funeral will take place Sunday, January 3rd at 10:00 am at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel

The family are members of LINCOLN Square Synagogue

**UPDATE**
Misasskim, and noted activist Mark Myer Apple of Manhattan are to be credited for preventing an autopsy.

Ephraim Buchwald said...

http://njop.org/html/newsletterinterimjan2008.pdf

The Covlins are also supporters of NJOP.

Anonymous said...

We used to buy a lot from this company because they were Shomer Shabbos. Since this happened, the website shows they are open on Shabbos.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/04/09/1011481/babyagecom-ceo-sued-over-anti-semitic-remarks

A former employee of an online baby equipment retailer is suing its CEO for allegedly making frequent anti-Semitic remarks.

In his suit against BabyAge.com, Shlomo Hecht claims that in January 2009 company CEO Jack Kiefer told Hecht “in an angry tone that he did not want a 'Jew Boy Club' in the office” and made it clear that he did not want Hecht observing Jewish holidays, the Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Times Leader reported.

The suit further alleges that Kiefer and other executives “plotted to eliminate all Jewish employees in high level positions, and that Kiefer told Hecht a certain employee was fired because he was a 'typical (expletive) Jew, that is corrupt through and through.'”

Hecht says he was let go last Aug. 25 because of his religion. He is seeking $225,205 for breach of contract and $11,925 for legal expenses stemming from a lawsuit brought by BabyAge in 2009 against Hecht that eventually was voluntarily dismissed.

Calls to BabyAge.com for comment were not returned.

Archie Bunker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/business/10credit.html?ref=business&src=me&pagewanted=print

Everything Obama does is for his Brothas at the expense of the rest of us. Free health insurance, forgiving student loans, free money even if they don't pay taxes and now preventing employers from checking credit history of potential hires:

"They also say it disproportionately screens out minorities."

Rubashkin truck driver said...

Yaakov Weiss was not the only molester in Postville yeshiva. The other one is now living in Crown Heights and has been named in a civil suit. FM had the court documents but Shmarya removed them after people complained he was exposing the identity of the molester's children.

Obama's Uncle Booga Booga from Kenya said...

Filed at 10:03 a.m. ET

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- After three young men and a boy told police last June an Italian priest had been sexually molesting them for years at a shelter for poor children, the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in Kenya announced the church would investigate thoroughly.

Ten months later, nothing has been investigated by the church, its lawyer says, and the Vatican has not been notified.

The accused priest, the Rev. Renato Kizito Sesana, continues to run the facility along with other shelters on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Menachem Lubinsky said...

http://menachemlubinsky.com/about-menachem-lubinsky/

LUBICOM’s marketing division has served a broad cadre of clients such as MCI, Sprint, Coca Cola, Dannon Yogurt, Lea & Perrins, Welch’s, Frito-Lay, Hospital for Joint Diseases, Maimonides Hospital, Brookdale Hospital, Metropolitan Jewish Health System, the Luggage and Leather Goods and Shoe Industries, and more than 150 not-for-profit organizations.

Mr. Lubinsky gained his M.B.A. in marketing and advertising from the Bernard Baruch College of the City University of New York. He served as the founding director of the Boro Park Senior Citizens Center and Project COPE (Career Opportunities Preparation for Employment) a multi-million dollar job-training agency, and then as Vice President of Government and Public Affairs of Agudath Israel of America. In that capacity he represented the nation’s 600 Jewish elementary, high school and postgraduate schools. He was a frequent visitor to Washington, Albany and City Hall, meeting with Presidents, Governors, Mayors and their administration.


Menachem Lubinsky served as president (8 years) and as Chairman of the Board (2 years) of the Metropolitan NY Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, (an agency of UJA – Federation of Jewish Philanthropies) which he has been affiliated with for nearly 2 decades; Vice-President of Agudath Israel of America, (which in 1994 honored him with their Man of the Year Award); a member of the Government Affairs Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council of NY, Domestic Affairs Committee of UJA Federation, the Council of the Jewish Organizations of Flatbush, the Private Industry Council of the City of NY, the NY State Procurement Council and Public Relations Advisory Committee of the Orthodox Union. In July 2002, he was honored by the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry for his efforts to assist Israel’ food industry. He writes a weekly marketing column, Out of the Box, for Hamodia, a weekly Jewish newspaper published in New York.

He and his wife Hindy, a speech pathologist and Director of the Graduate School of Speech and Audiology at Touro College, live in Brooklyn.

chabad of venice beach said...

Shalom Tendler and the rabbis who cover up for him are on the "advisory board" of an organization that purports to deal with sexual abuse!

Why does that surprise you?, Abraham Union the BT rabbi now holier-than-thou rabbi is on the same board as well, he was also on Tropper’s payroll and part of Tropper’s beis din/brothels list