A Rabbinical Decree (g'zeirah) to the Jewish community in Cairo in the year 1167, believed to have been written by Maimonides, anonymously, as his first act as a Jewish leader.
"In times gone by, when storms and tempests threatened us, we used to wander about from place to place; but by the mercy of the Almighty we have now been enabled to find here a resting place. On our arrival, we noticed to our great dismay that the learned were disunited; that none of them turned his attention to the needs of the congregation.
We therefore felt it our duty to undertake the the task of guiding the holy flock, of inquiring into the condition of the community, of "reconciling the hearts of the fathers to their children," and of correcting their corrupt ways.
The injuries are great, but we may succeed in effecting a cure, and - in accordance with the words of the prophet - "I will seek the lost one, and that which has been cast out I will bring back, and the broken one I will cure" (Michah iv, 6).
When we therefore resolved to take management of the communal affairs into our hands, we discovered the existence of serious evil in the midst of the community, etc...."
According to the gedolei Eretz Yisroel:
ReplyDelete"Hashem is testing the sense of safety and security of Jews both in America and Eretz Yisroel with an unaccomplished person from (your city of) Chicago. Hashem is causing these tragedies as a result of the burning machlokes in (your city) Chicago. Machlokes and redifus in one location cause an effect to happen in other parts of the world. It is up to the askanim in (your city) Chicago to cause the machlokes to stop and make achdus return. Then klal Yisroel can again benefit from a shefa elyona."
Filed at 2:57 p.m. ET
ReplyDeleteLOS ANGELES (AP) -- The former head of construction giant KB Home was convicted Wednesday of four felony counts in a stock option backdating scam.
A federal jury in Los Angeles found Bruce Karatz guilty of two counts of mail fraud, one count of lying to company accountants and one count of making false statements in reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
There are some people in Beit Shemesh who are very angry to see which rabbis in their town received Kol Yaakov's money.
ReplyDeleteThey say that the rabbis on the list are the instigators of the riots.
Tropper and the Chicago Community Kollel both support rodfim and baalei machlokes. By flattering rodfim who act brazenly they will both meet the same fate.
ReplyDeleteAs Chazal say:
"From the day that flattery gained power, judgments have been perverted and deeds have become corrupted. A flatterer brings Hashem's anger into the world and his tefilla is not received. He is called a defiler of the land and causes the Shechinah to depart
from the Jewish people; he brings about exile and falls to the depths of Gehinnom."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/nyregion/22yards.html?hp
ReplyDeleteAnd that putz thief Leib Pinter thinks he's the mechaber of "Don't give up".
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/business/economy/22prevent.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteIn Detroit, where the unemployment rate exceeds 15 percent, the city chose to broadcast the availability of more than $15 million in housing aid, contrary to the advice of experts at social services agencies who feared an unruly money grab. They counseled that applications for cash assistance be handled by established agencies, like legal aid clinics and shelters.
Instead, in early October, the city invited the public to file paperwork en masse at a downtown convention center. Word spread that money would actually be handed out. More than 30,000 people jammed the facility.
Fights broke out and the police were dispatched to restore order, according to the city. Tens of thousands of applications were submitted by people who were not eligible.
Amram Bendahan, the Hollywood, FL youth director who was fired amidst accusations that he molested boys, took the Bnai Sephardim synagogue to Beis Din in Miami (Rabbi Pincus Weberman)in an attempt to force the synagogue to pay out his 10 year contract.
ReplyDeleteThe synagogue discovered that Bendahan was wanted on a felony child abuse charge in GA (molesting a 6 year old) and victims from Toronto were also identified.
Bendahan's Hollywood, FL house is for sale and he plans to go to Israel.
http://www.congregationohevshalom.org/about_rabbi_weberman.php
ReplyDeleteRabbi Weberman came to Miami Beach in 1960 from his rabbinic position at First Congregation Anshe Sfard in Arverne, New York. He founded Ohev Shalom Congregation in 1960. He has held the position at Ohev Shalom Congregation since then.
Rabbi Weberman is the president of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of South Florida. He serves as visiting professor of Talmud and Jewish Law at Landow Lubavitch Center, Talmudic University of Florida, Torah Chaim College, The Kollel at Bal Harbor and at Bais Yaakov of Miami.
He serves as police chaplain for the Miami Beach Police Department, Miami-Dade Police Department and the U.S. Department of Justice ATF. He is on the staff of the Miami-Dade county Medical Examiner, serving as the community liaison.
Rabbi Weberman is the recipient of awards from the City of Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, South Florida Institute of Criminal Justice, Jewish War Veterans, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Israel Police, South Florida Shomrim Society, U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Enforcement Services, U.S. Department of Justice ATF, Miami Beach Police Department, International Conference of Police Chaplains, Knights of Columbus, Greater Miami Jewish Federation, Ponevez Yeshiva, Lubavitch Yeshiva, Mesivta of Greater Miami, Bais Yaakov of Miami, Miami Beach Executive Club and the Kiwanis Club.
Rabbi Pinchas Weberman has also been an important figure in Leib Tropper's Eternal Jewish Fraud.
ReplyDeletehttp://daattorah.blogspot.com/2008/03/ingathering-of-jews-or-proselytes.html
Kulanu is another organization that proselytizes to Latin and South American "conversos" and encourages them to make aliyah to Israel.
One of the Rabbis involved with Kulanu as well as several other projects outreaching to "anusim' and "conversos" is Rigoberto Manny Vinas.
Vinas, born of Cuban Gentile parents who believe they are "conversos" received smicha from Yeshiva University and is currently the spiritual leader of the Lincoln Park Jewish Center in Yonkers. Much of Vina's work, which began in Rabbi Avi Weiss' Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, involves outreaching to "anusim"/"conversos" and encouraging them toward aliyah to Israel.
Incidentally, Rabbi Pinchas Weberman, who was listed on EJF's cached website as the Av Beis Din of an approved Conversion Court has a son, Rabbi David Weberman who married Esther Vinas, the sister of Rabbi Rigoberto Vinas.
-----------
Only Lubavitch, Tropper & Left wing modern orthodox have been running after Hispanics to convert them.
R' Moshe Sternbuch poskened that people that can prove they come from Marranos have a din of safek mamzer. He encourages Hispanics to not research their yichus.
On the previous UOJ post about Margo, there were a lot of comments published today that contain important information.
ReplyDeleteCheck it out.
Diamondcard would view this as a lowball offer :o)
ReplyDeletehttp://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/visa-buying-cybersource-for-2-billion/?hpw
Visa, the giant credit card company, said Wednesday that it would buy CyberSource, an online payment processor, for about $2 billion.
Visa, which is paying $26 a share in cash for a company that processes about a quarter of all online payments made in the United States, said it expected the deal to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
CyberSource serves almost 300,000 merchants, Visa said, and the deal will take advantage of Visa’s ties to financial institutions as well as its “global presence to more rapidly drive international expansion of CyberSource’s products and services.”
By Carol D. Leonnig
ReplyDeleteWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Justice Department has begun investigating potential abuses of public office by former congressman Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) and his aides, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
A team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors who specialize in public corruption appears to be focusing its preliminary inquiry on large payments Massa's campaign made last month to his top congressional aide and the decision to renew the lease for the lawmaker's personal car within days of his announcement that he would not seek reelection.
The inquiry is being jointly led by the Justice Department's public integrity section and the fraud and public corruption unit of the U.S. attorney's office in Washington.
Federal prosecutors served a former Massa staff member with a request to preserve all phone records, e-mail, BlackBerry accounts and other documents relating to Massa's campaign and congressional office. Debra Katz, an attorney for the former staffer, confirmed Wednesday that prosecutors contacted her about her client's documents and knowledge of the payments.
On March 3, Massa announced that he was resigning amid reports that the House ethics committee was investigating allegations that he sexually harassed and groped young male staffers in his office. The following day, Massa's campaign paid $40,000 to his chief of staff, Joe Racalto, a key witness in the ethics investigation, The Post reported last week. The campaign also paid $31,896 on March 3 to renew a car lease for a campaign vehicle for Massa.
What's wrong with sexually harassing young male staffers?
ReplyDeleteHow does UOJ already know when my house has been listed for sale for less than 2 days?
ReplyDeletehttp://southflorida.blockshopper.com/property/514206072440/4021_n_41st_court
4021 N. 41st Court
Hollywood, FL 33021
Neighborhood: Hollywood Central
Subdivision: Hollywood Hills
Owner: Karen And Amram Bendahan
For Sale History for 4021 N. 41st Court
Listed for $299,900 on April 19, 2010
AGENT:
Tammy Stern
Sales History (2001-present)
$196,000 on August 29, 2001
B: Amram Bendahan, Karen Bendahan
S: David A Cohen, Teresa M Cohen
The bottom of this webpage lists all my neighbors.
http://www.brsweb.org/youth/poster.pdf
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Amram Bendahan did anything bad when he was NCSY's technical coordinator for Shabbatons in my Boca Raton shul?
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:b54PQsI_ShMJ:www.facebook.com/amrambendahan+%22amram+bendahan%22&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
ReplyDeleteThe putz took down his Facebook page but you can see in the cache here who his friends are.
Rabbi Breier, Rabbi Black, etc
April 21, 2010
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (JTA) -- The U.S. Department of Justice again has declined to intervene in the sentencing of a convicted kosher meat executive.
Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer wrote in a letter Monday that concerns about the sentencing of former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin were best raised with the presiding judge in northern Iowa, Linda Reade, or with local federal prosecutors.
Breuer's letter, addressed to Rubashkin's attorney Nathan Lewin, follows several appeals for examination of the case. Federal prosecutors are seeking a hefty sentence for Rubashkin's conviction on fraud charges. Sentencing is due to take place this month.
April 21, 2010
ReplyDeleteJERUSALEM (JTA) -- Two more suspects were arrested in Israel's Holyland real estate scandal.
Former Bank Hapoalim Chairman Dan Dankner and Yaakov Efrati, the ex-head of the Israel Lands Authority, were arrested Wednesday on charges of bribery. Danker is suspected of bribing Efrati to approve land-use changes for the Holyland residential complex in Jerusalem, which benefited a company owned by Danker's family, according to reports.
Danker stepped down as head of Israel's Bank Hapoalim after being accused of offering risky lines of credit. He is under investigation in a different case by the National Fraud Unit for breach of trust and several criminal offenses.
Also Wednesday, prosecutors investigating former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's role in the Holyland affair denied that they are negotiating with Olmert's former bureau chief Shula Zaken for her testifying against her former boss.
Olmert's precedessor as Jerusalem mayor, Uri Lupolianski, was arrested last week in connection with the corruption scandal.
Phew! It's a good thing that I bought Israel Discount Bank instead of Hapoalim.
ReplyDeleteIn Letter to Sentencing Judge, Justice Dept. Veterans Claim Rubashkin is Being Treated Akin to First-Degree Murderer
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK — A former federal judge and a former U.S. attorney have authored a letter to the judge in the Sholom Rubashkin case, criticizing the recommendation of prosecutors that Rubashkin receive life in prison. The letter describes the government's sentencing recommendation as “draconian” and notes the federal sentencing guidelines equate Rubashkin's suggested punishment to those convicted of first-degree murder.
“Indeed, remarkably, the Government's guidelines calculations seemingly call for the Court to impose a significantly longer sentence on Mr. Rubashkin than he would receive for second-degree murder, kidnapping, rape of child or providing weapons to terrorist organizations,” said the letter, signed by Brett Tolman, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Utah, and the Hon. Paul G. Cassell, who was a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Utah from 2002 to 2007, was previously an Associate Deputy Attorney General and Assistant United States Attorney, and is the current Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.
Judge Cassell is a leading advocate for federal sentencing reform, and testified before Congress on several occasions against mandatory minimum sentences. He was one of the leading judiciary voices questioning the complex federal guidelines that were mandatory until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the guidelines advisory and invalidated provisions making them mandatory in United States v. Booker in 2004.
“Whatever may be said about Mr. Rubashkin's offenses, it is not logical to say that they are as serious as a first degree murderer,” the letter said. “Moreover, it is simply not true to say they are more serious than second degree murder, rape, kidnapping or arming foreign terrorist organizations.”
The letter is addressed to the Hon. Linda Reade, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, who will announce Rubashkin's sentence on April 29, 2010.
Rubashkin was convicted last year of bank fraud for his role as an executive with the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The sentencing recommendation submitted by prosecutors to the court earlier this month is inconsistent with the sentencing of other corporate executives convicted in comparable cases.
Prosecutors and the U.S. Probation Office have calculated the total offense committed by Rubashkin at level 45 under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, but the federal Sentencing Table caps at level 43. An offense level of 43 is punished with a life sentence under the sentencing guidelines.
The Tolman/Cassell letter notes that “the basic problem seems to be that the guidelines make 'loss' the primary driver of sentences. And the loss table mechanically moves sentences higher and higher based on loss alone, inexorably moving upwards regardless of whether the sentence remains proportionate to the crime.”
Part Two
ReplyDelete“Imposing massively lengthy sentences in white collar cases is not only wasteful of taxpayer dollars, but it is insulting to the victims of violent crimes,” the letter said. “It is hard for victims of truly violent crimes to understand why defendants who have violently harmed them should receive a far shorter prison sentence than (if the Government's recommendation is followed) Mr. Rubashkin.”
Rubashkin's attorneys have asked the court to impose a sentence no greater than 72 months, noting his positive history and character, his extraordinary family circumstances, and the arbitrary nature of the now-advisory guidelines used by prosecutors. They emphasize that Rubashkin's conduct was not done for personal gain, that he did not intend any loss to the bank, and that a 72-month sentence would allow the Bureau of Prisons to place Rubashkin in a facility with experience in effectively and humanely incarcerating observant Jewish inmates.
Rubashkin was originally indicted for employing illegal immigrants, an offense that has been punished with probation or a short prison term. After seven superseding indictments and the court's order separating the trials on immigration charges from the bank fraud charges, prosecutors chose to proceed to trial on the bank fraud charges so as to increase Rubashkin's punishment. Interest was paid on all of the money drawn by the allegedly fraudulent loan, and the bank acknowledged that it received approximately $21 million in profit from the interest payments.
The bank loan was not paid in full because the government's immigration raid on Agriprocessors caused the company to declare bankruptcy. The bank “called” the loan when Agriprocessors could not continue to make its payments. The May 2008 raid included military helicopters and more than 600 federal agents, and was widely criticized for the extreme tactics utilized by prosecutors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The raid destroyed the company and had disastrous lasting effects on the community of Postville and the kosher meat industry.
http://tribune-democrat.com/local/x351843378/Cambria-County-Court-Report-03-28-2010
ReplyDeleteKathleen Belsky, 46, 600 block of Summit Avenue, Johnstown, identity theft and unlawful device-making equipment. Sentenced to one to 23 months in county prison and an additional five years probation. Ordered to pay $2,711 in costs and fines.
Still Arthur, it does not address Rubashkin's other alleged crimes, crimes that include bribing a public official, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, etc. And Rubashkin has continually refused to cooperate with the government, show remorse, accept responsibility for his actions, or pay restitution.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ojs.dekalbga.org/servlet/page?_pageid=54,303&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30
ReplyDeleteWhy can't I find Bendahan's criminal record?
Is Dekalb not the right county?
http://www.5tjt.com/international-news/6751-honorifics-and-honor.html
ReplyDeleteBy Rabbi Avi Shafran
on Friday, April 09, 2010
This year, the yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Zahava Braunstein, the 25th day of Adar, fell out in the thick of the recent brouhaha over an Orthodox rabbi’s conferring of a rabbinical title on a woman. For anyone who knew Rebbetzin Braunstein, or even of her, the coincidence carries a lesson.
Mrs. Braunstein was a “rebbetzin” because she married a respected rabbi. Had she been married to a layman, though, and known simply as a “Mrs.,” she would have been no less a gift to the Jewish people, no less influential, no less a Jewish educator, no less a Jewish leader. It was not her title that garnered her the reverence of thousands of women of all ages around the world. It was, rather, her words, her care, her deeds, her teaching, her guidance, and her example.
I only met her twice, both times when she brought groups of students to Agudath Israel’s offices to hear a presentation. I knew at the time that she was the sister of my dear friend and colleague Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, today Agudath Israel’s executive vice president. But had I known just who she herself was, I’m not sure I would have felt comfortable speaking in the presence of someone so accomplished.
But she didn’t revel in the renown or the respect she earned. In fact, she preferred the title “Mrs.” to that of “Rebbetzin.” She would sometimes say that if everyone in the Next World were given an hour to return to this one, some would surely use the hour to study Torah, perform a particular mitzvah, or recite Psalms. She, though? She would head straight for the kitchen to make a hearty soup for her children and grandchildren.
Not an image that would sit well, I imagine, with those who aspire to titles like “Maharat” or “Rabba,” the natty neologisms being chanted these days by some. The contrast between those chanters’ ideals and Rebbetzin Braunstein’s example is stark.
At a recent conference of a group called the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, the woman on whom a rabbinic title was conferred spoke of the “fight to confirm women as spiritual leaders”; called women Orthodox clergy a “dream” to be “vocalized”; insisted that Jewish institutions “must train women” for the role; and implied that Orthodox women currently lack “a voice in shaping and contributing to our community as spiritual leaders.”
There are many reasons why every recognized poseik across the Orthodox spectrum has rejected the concept of a woman rabbi. Among the reasons are objections based on particular technical requirements of a rabbinic role; others are based on the decisors’ judgment of what is sociologically proper in Judaism—a judgment of no less halachic import to a truly observant Jew.
But what became apparent to me, listening to the presentation and reading reports of the JOFA conference, is that, beyond all those valid concerns, the entire enterprise is misguided in its essence. Because the motivation of those brandishing the cause of women rabbis—notwithstanding all the high-sounding rhetoric about filling a need and benefiting the community—seems clearly to be the shattering of a perceived “glass ceiling,” an “advancement” of “women’s rights,” an end to “discrimination.”
The rabbah-rousers do apparently seek to serve—but their master seems to be feminism, not Judaism.
(Is that Agudaism, not Judaism to protect molesters?)
Rabbi Yaakov Wagner, who was previously indicted for theft of over $13,000 from Yeshivat Rambam between January 2007 and May 2009, plead guilty to the charges brought against him. In exchange for his plea, R. Wagner was given a suspended 2 year prison sentence with unsupervised probation (meaning, he does not have to serve jail time). R. Wagner can appeal to the court in one year’s time to receive probation before judgement, which would mean that all record of the case would be expunged from the system within a few years time. As a prerequisite, R. Wagner made complete restitution of the missing funds, in part to PNC Bank and in part to Yeshivat Rambam directly.
ReplyDeleteR. Wagner was sworn in and asked if he was of sound mind to make a guilty plea. Judge Timothy Doory asked R. Wagner if he understood that by pleading guilty, he was waiving his right to a trial, and to his right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, to which R. Wagner acknowledged. The State’s Attorney then presented evidence in support of R. Wagner’s guilty plea. The State’s Attorney noted that Yeshivat Rambam’s bookkeeper, in the process of normal financial reviews, noticed a unusual number of checks made out to the defendant.
The evidence presented consisted of seven checks, the first in January of 2007, the final six from March, April and May of this year. The checks ranged in value from $1300 to close to $5000. Â Some of the checks were made out to “Cash,” others were made out to R. Wagner directly, with forged signatures. In addition to copies of the checks, the State presented photographic evidence of R. Wagner in various banks cashing or depositing the checks; the photos clearly show R. Wagner at the bank at the time the checks were deposited. The State’s Attorney stated that if called, representatives from Yeshivat Rambam would testify that R. Wagner did not have authorization to cash or write checks on behalf of the school, and that R. Wagner was not authorized access to the school checkbook. R. Wagner was paid an annual salary of $80,000. The judge heard this evidence and agreed to accept the guilty plea, and asked R. Wagner if there were any community service or therapy programs that he would like to be ordered by the court to undertake as part of his probation; R. Wagner declined.
In a brief interview after the trial, R. Wagner told BaltimoreJewish that despite his guilty plea, he maintains his innocence
Bendahan's sale sign went up 3/28/10. The MLS listing is newer.
ReplyDeleteBendahan has a lot of enemies in Hollywood, FL, mainly the parents whose sons he molested.
Bendahan is still wanted in Georgia for felonious child abuse and the Georgia State Attorney General would like to extradite Bendahan, but Georgia, being nearly bankrupt as a State does not have the funds to allocate for extraditions.
The GA State Attorney General turned the case over to the FBI after discovering Bendahan's whereabouts and also that he was using several different Social Security numbers.
Bendahan's protector and defender Rabbi Motty Breier could blow his future legal career if he knowingly gives false testimony to the police in order to protect his buddy, Bendahan.
The Agudas Yisroel Bais Binyomin hall was packed this past Sunday morning, April 18, for Agudath Israel of America’s Dina D’Malchusa legal seminar for businesses.
ReplyDeleteSeminars addressing a combination of issues pertinent to yeshivas, gemachs and shuls are also set to take place in Cleveland on April 25th and Chicago on May 11th.
Raus SCHNELL
http://www.gazette.net/stories/04162010/policol170351_32553.php
ReplyDeleteRabbi Ariel Sadwin is president of Maryland Council for American Private Education, which comprises a diverse group of nonpublic schools in the state. He also serves as the mid-Atlantic director for Agudath Israel of America
http://niagara-gazette.com/opinion/x250448623/GLYNN-Upstate-short-changed-on-its-share-of-pork
ReplyDeleteIt’s easy to understand why upstate taxpayers are fed up with the unfair system in Albany when it comes to doling out the pork.
Our area Assembly members, for example, appear far down on the list of the lawmakers getting less than the average $300,00 in member-item funds.
That’s basically the money earmarked for projects in the individual lawmaker’s district.
At a glance, Sen. Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, is the undisputed ‘Prince of Pork,” as the tabloids dub him. The former majority leader, who lost his title in the sophomoric coup last summer, brought home a staggering amount of bacon for his constituents, $5.7 million.
His projects, all in the Big Apple, included the Black Spectrum Theater, a day care center, a community center, and the Agudath Israel of America.
The Braunsteins are major Chaim Berliners. No wonder why shvogger Zweibel plays kow-tow to Schechter.
ReplyDeleteBERLIN (AP) -- A leading conservative Roman Catholic bishop in Germany has written to Pope Benedict XVI offering to resign amid persistent allegations of physical abuse and financial misconduct, the Augsburg Diocese said Thursday.
ReplyDeleteBishop Walter Mixa wrote a letter to the pope on Wednesday, the Augsburg diocese said in a statement, offering to step down in hopes of allowing a ''new start'' for his diocese.
Avi Shafran's father R' Simcha, who is on the Baltimore beis din, learned in Novardok in the alter heim.
ReplyDeleteHe was known as Simcha Shafranovitch but changed his name when immigrating to America.
Please come help us be mechabed another criminal
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/54319/Chareidi-MKs-and-Askanim-Visiting-Lupoliansky.html
Chareidi MKs and askanim may be seen visiting former Jerusalem Mayor, R’ Uri Lupoliansky, who remains under house arrest in connection to his alleged involvement in the Holyland bribery investigation.
The first notable seen visiting the former mayor in his Jerusalem home was MK (Yahadut HaTorah) R’ Moshe Gafne, who spoke with him for about 30 minutes.
Others seen visiting Lupoliansky in a showing of support and solidarity include Rav Chanoch Ziebert and Rav Kuperberg. A number of Agudas Yisrael people and other askanim have also visited, chareidi media agencies report.
There are Tropper disciples who were convinced of Tropper's guilt after hearing the tapes and seeing the video.
ReplyDeleteNow they are "not sure" and defying all logic, common sense, basic instinct and even the what the Torah tells us as per Rav Sternbuch.
All of this because Chaim Berlin's Schechter is trying to reprogram their CPUs that Tropper is "innocent" and being "framed."
Apparently, not everyone among us is human. Some are robots and androids who are programmed to think a certain way.
http://terminator-5-movie-trailer.blogspot.com/
UOJ should play John Connor.
The memory of molesters should be blessed I tell ya
ReplyDeletehttp://jmm.pastperfect-online.com/00005cgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=61280CB1-560A-4475-816A-300566037428;type=102
Black and white photograph of a wedding taking place at Agudas Achim at 4239 Park Heights Avenue. Rabbi Simcha Shafran is marrying Pauline Kahn on March 13, 1949, and Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro is officiating.
It is my father (may he be well)’s wedding, to my mother of blessed memory. Although faces are not shown, it is quite clear to me that Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro, of blessed memory, is officiating under the chuppa (only his nose and moustache showing); I don’t recognize the man to his right. the man behind my father the groom is likely Moishe Kahn, my maternal uncle of blessed memory (I recognize the shape of his chin and neck); he, along with his mother (my grandmother) Rebbetzin Esther Kahn of blessed memory, were the proprietors of the Central Hebrew Book Store for many years. My grandmother is standing behind and to the right of my mother. The little girl behind her may be Rita (Smelkinson) Bleich, who currently resides in Olney.
The above description of this image was given to Danyelle Dorsey by Rabbi Avi Shafran on 12/12/2005.
On December 20, 2005 the JMM received a letter from Rabbi Yehoshua Shapiro with several identifications. They are as follows (copied in exact wording from the letter):
I thought that you may appreciate the identifications of several people in that picture. I am enclosing a copy of the photo with ”identifying arrows” and names of four individuals that I recognize and know were at the wedding. I have shown the photo to several friends and family members and feel confident in identifying the following personalities
#1 Rabbi Ephraim F. Shapiro, rabbi of Agudas Anshe Sephard (1941-1955), officiating at the wedding.
#2 Rabbi Jacob I. Ruderman, founder and dean of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, officiating at wedding (Bridegroom Rabbi Simcha Shafran was a student at the Ner Israel Yeshiva).
#3 Rabbi Yaakov Blumenkrantz, Administrative Director of Ner Israel Rabbinical College and congregant of Agudas Achim Synagogue.
#4 Mr. Moshe Kahn, brother of the bride - Pauline Kahn - and former owner of the Central Hebrew Book Store, located on Reisterstown Road.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/04/19/1011656/upcoming-rabbinical-parley-to-address-womens-leadership
ReplyDeleteAt the RCA convention this coming weekend, they will vote on making a rule, aimed at Avi Weiss vesiyato that you cannot be an RCA member while also a member of a group of apikorsim, or even just a group with hashkofos that is too much to the Left of the RCA.
Meanwhile, there is a Queens Vaad caterer on the board of directors of a group of apikorsim mamash, which the Queens Vaad feels is no reason to require that he have a mashgiach, something that goes against the Queens Vaad's own rules.
The Queens Vaad thinks people are stupid when they cough up the phony excuse that the caterer's name wound up on the group's executive letterhead "by accident".
It must also be a big "accident" then when this caterer goes around bashmutzing R' Hershel Schechter for not allowing Avi Weiss talmidim into the rabbonus. (The group the caterer helps lead is not Avi Weiss's, but something much worse that doesn't even pretend to be orthodox.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/nyregion/23hire.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteApril 22, 2010
A Pastor’s Job Offers Become a Curse
http://www.broadwayworld.com/columnpic/she2.jpg
ReplyDeleteArtscroll politely declined to publish this biography of Frankel's shul.
http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/new-square-appoints-vaad-to-deal-with-sexual-abuse/
ReplyDeleteHow many mishpuches did the Rebbe kick out of town when they told him that Heshy Brier molested their kids?
"Still Arthur, it does not address Rubashkin's other alleged crimes, crimes that include bribing a public official, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, etc. And Rubashkin has continually refused to cooperate with the government, show remorse, accept responsibility for his actions, or pay restitution."
ReplyDeleteNobody said it does but he was not tried for the above alleged crimes.Lets remember, as you say "alleged" not convicted.As to restitution, to whom and for what?
The man has gone through enough punishment already for his "lack of remorse,non cooperation with the government,and lack of responsibility".
Genug with being mikatrig on another Jew because he happens to be a "Lubab".I'm not being paranoid. Just one look at the comments and posts of most of his rabid accusers on this blog and other blog sites and the "Lubab" issue seems to be of paramount importance in his case.
Arthur, take a look in the Rambam hilchos teshuva. It is a serious problem if someone never owes up to what he did. It is meakev teshuva.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can't be serious that he doesn't know who to pay back? He surely knows who at least some of them are and in any case he refuses to cooperate with the government whatsoever to help accomplish that. If he refuses to pay back he does not have a chelek in Olam Haba (see Mesilas Yesharim).
People are incarcerated for a long time when refusing to cooperate with the government, even when the non-cooperation is for something far more petty like refusing to identify themselves.
While some readers might like to yank your chain about Lubavitch, I think they would have the same reaction to the Yekke Moish Finkel if he hadn't been allowed to flee the country.
R' Arthur,
ReplyDeleteI believe you mentioned on an older comment that you are of ill- health.
I would suggest that you lay off the blogs for a bit; a lot of these comments about SMR's potential sentence, and the lightness of which the majority view "life" chas v'shalom, can make a healthy person ill.
Yes, SMR is a convicted felon, but he's no Charles Manson and we can only pray that his sentence is meted out according to the crimes he's been found guilty of.
http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/30028/interview-sara-hurwitz-orthodox-rabbi
ReplyDeleteWho is this chassidish guy Yissocher Katz who is helping prepare women from Avi Weiss's circles for "semicha"?
The shul in Chicago that hired a woman assistant rabbi is under RCA rabbi Asher Lopatin who earlier poskened al pi "Shitas Brisk" that White House Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel can speak on the phone about the economy on Rosh Hashana. Lopatin also gives him aliyos even though he is married to a shiksa.
Does anyone know if Asher Lopatin has authored any books that I can distribute?
ReplyDeleteYashar Yashar!
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/blagojevich-wants-to-subpoena-obama/?hp
ReplyDeleteApril 22, 2010, 3:53 PM
Blagojevich Wants to Subpoena Obama
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2010/04/person-who-calculated-this-bit-of.html
ReplyDeleteThe person who calculated this bit of information has been a professor at The University of West Virginia in Morgantown, West Virginia for the last forty some years.
I never looked at the clunker program in such depth----
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care
Bendahan's arrest warrant-
ReplyDeleteState of GA, Dekalb County, Criminal warrant #279705 dated 9/1/1988.
for felony charge against a six year old boy.
The warrant predates the online system and can only be verified manually. I have a copy of the warrant in my possession and will email a scanned copy to UOJ upon request.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/assets/photos/32/31/32_31_broadwaytrianglehearing2_z.jpg
ReplyDeleteMe, Vito Lopez & Greenfield von da election vhich means dat Avrum Reichmann vill still be molesting in Satmar.
http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2010/04/20/real-housewives-of-nj-star-teresea-giudice/
ReplyDeleteOn the (upcoming) May 3 premiere of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa’s daughter Gia, 9, says she’d never marry a Jewish guy and makes a gesture mocking Hasidic Jews’ long, curly hair when referring to Jewish people. But Teresa shoots back in a conference call with her co-star Dina Manzo today, Apr. 20, : “I can’t control what my daughter says. Kids say dumb things … what, am I going to be crucified for it?”
By the way, Teresa: We definitely think Gia, who was eight, at the time was old enough to know not to say something like that AND she must have learned this behavior somewhere … we’re not saying Teresa taught her these things but seriously, Teresa. What’s that about apples falling near the tree?
Or maybe she reads Failed Messiah
Also, Teresa addressed her husband’s alleged DUI arrest Jan. 14 when he crashed into a pole in his hometown of Montville Township, N.J., after having dinner in NYC with his wife and friends. He was charged with driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, careless driving, and failure to maintain his traffic lane.
Allow me to ask on UOJ's behalf.
ReplyDeletePlease email the Bendahan warrant to a_unorthodoxjew@yahoo.com
Bendahan arrest warrant was just emailed to uoj.
ReplyDeleteI had sent the court papers a few months ago back when this whole thing broke in Hollywood FL.
Please let me know if you need another copy. It is a big file.
Bendahan has since been fired from NCSY, Jewish Boy Scouts and Bnai Sephardim.
Also victims in Toronto from when Bendahan was the youth director there have been identified.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/4203874
ReplyDeleteHypersonic Cruise Missile: America's New Global Strike Weapon
The mission: Attack anywhere in the world in less than an hour.
The rumor going around is that the Oneg Shabbos on Friday night with Rav Schorr will be at a new location to be announced in the morning via e-mail and Calling Post.
ReplyDeleteFiled at 9:55 p.m. ET
ReplyDeleteSTEVENS POINT, Wis. (AP) -- A 41-year-old woman was jailed after police say she went on a blow gun spree. The Stevens Point Journal reported that police got a report at 9 p.m. Wednesday from a 25-year-old woman who said she was walking downtown when she felt something hit her chest. In the next half hour, three more people made similar reports. None were seriously injured.
One of the victims reported she saw the dart shot from a pipe sticking out the window of a black minivan. Police pulled the vehicle over at 9:30 p.m. and found a blow gun, a slingshot and a bucket of rocks inside.
Police arrested the van's driver, Paula Wolf, and said she eventually admitted to shooting the pedestrians. She allegedly told an officer that she ''liked to hear people say ouch.''
Wolf has been charged with recklessly endangering safety. She could not be reached for comment.
I am looking for victims of Chaim Abrahamson who was a 1st grade rebbe for about 35 years in Yeshiva of Spring Valley in Monsey. What did the Yeshiva know and when did they know.
ReplyDeleteSic semper tyrannis -- Latin phrase meaning "Thus always to tyrants." I
ReplyDeleteThere are important commonalities revealing the long-standing ideological and material symbiotic axis of evil that unites Tropper and Aron Shechter of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn that leap out to the trained eye from the sharp comments of "Troppenstein's monster"; "Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway"; "Terminator V" worth analyzing:
"Troppenstein's monster said...There are some people in Beit Shemesh who are very angry to see which rabbis in their town received Kol Yaakov's money. They say that the rabbis on the list are the instigators of the riots."
None other than Aron Shechter gained infamy for launching a real boycott of a sheital macher store that was located in the same area on the other side of the street of Coney Island Avenue about two years ago because it had a couple of posters of female heads wearing sheitals. Evidently some very sensitive kollel guys in Chaim Berlin felt too stimulated by the large pics and ran to big daddy Shechter to tattle tale and would you believe it he came out with a letter, published on YWN, see Rav Aron Schecter Boycotts Flatbush Shaitel Store January 24, 2008. Then soon after that Shechter was one of the leading supporters and signatories of banning the Lipa concert, see Rabbinical Rant Cancels MSG Benefit Mar 3, 2008.
The goals of the thugs in Bet Shemesh are the same as those of Shechter, namely to confront and shut down other Jews, especially if they are Orthodox and defiant, who do not wish to submit to the threats, fist waving and table banging of crazed Charedi fanatics. Just that Shechter acts like the Mafia Don his intentions and orders are the same as his cohorts and the common denominator in this case is Tropper since through Tropper Shechter enables and empowers and brings about the same outrages against civil society whether its on Coney Island Avenue or banning concerts in Manhattan or acting as the literal godfather for Tropper's foul deeds anywhere he sets foot.
If you want to know about Yeshiva of Spring Valley, you can ask my ex-shver. He should know about all the cover ups there.
ReplyDeleteSic semper tyrannis -- Latin phrase meaning "Thus always to tyrants." II
ReplyDelete"Chaim Berlin = My Way or the Highway said...The Braunsteins are major Chaim Berliners. No wonder why shvogger Zweibel plays kow-tow to Schechter."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they are all sworn to allegiance to Shechter. They think he pees au de cologne. And since the Chaim Berlin aparat has done such a good job on the likes of the morally enfeebled and soft as putty Braunstein who fear Shechter and hate his guts but would never stand up to him, like unadvisably confronting a local big time mobster, and Shechter knows this, he ain't no dope, so Shechter therefore figures he can do the same snow job on the even more gullible and weak-kneed and shitting in their pants not knowing what to do at a time like this when mister hot shot kiruv and geirus Leib Tropper himself is revealed to be a first class pimp for the likes world class call girl rings and white slave trafickers. Shechter figures that he can single-handedly based on his vaunted magical powers he inherited in secret from his own rebbe Rav Yitzchok Hutner who must surely be spinning in his grave, that he can uses the Hutnerian-Maharal voodoo to cast his spell with his evil eye and silver tongue and pour his immoral poison in support of Tropper and win the war that Tropper lost long ago.
No normal person would throw Hitler a lifeline when he was in his bunker but of course Shechter is not a normal person and by now it is very evident that he has lost his marbles at the age of 85. He should be sent to a retirement home before he destroys every last vestige of his own institution's shredded and sullied name.
Hellooo Mr. Abe Fruchty...are you with me??? Fire the nutty old geezer before he destroys your business empire too!
http://www.emunahmagazine.com/a-great-man-cared-a-satmar-in-a-chabad-house/
ReplyDeleteThis guy?:
ReplyDeleteChaim B Abrahamson
Clergy at 3 Valencia Dr, Monsey, New York
845-352-8340
Sic semper tyrannis -- Latin phrase meaning "Thus always to tyrants." III
ReplyDelete"Terminator V said...There are Tropper disciples who were convinced of Tropper's guilt after hearing the tapes and seeing the video. Now they are "not sure" and defying all logic, common sense, basic instinct and even the what the Torah tells us as per Rav Sternbuch. All of this because Chaim Berlin's Schechter is trying to reprogram their CPUs that Tropper is "innocent" and being "framed." Apparently, not everyone among us is human. Some are robots and androids who are programmed to think a certain way."
Now this one is such a good joke, but the observation is so true. This is what happens when the glorious baal teshuva movement has been turned into a global cult with mad men behind the steering wheels.
Here you have many sincere gullible BTs who have sacrificed everything to become not just Orthodox but joining the Charedi world against all odds.
And along comes the disgrace and the chillul Hashem created by Tropper the menuval shebenuvalim AIDED by his mentor and protector Shechter, and what are the poor BTs to think and do?
They have been brainwashed to believe in the papal ifallibility of a rosh yeshiva's "da'as torah" and here in full frontal display are not one but TWO roshei yeshiva Tropper and Shechter disgracing themselves by doing evil and then doing the unthinkable by defending it, not to mention the many hundreds of other rabbis and rosh yeshivas sucked into Tropper's web of money and deceit thanks to the blind largess Guma Aguiar (now in a mental home in Israel) and Tom Kaplan (now strangely silent as Tropper goes spiraling down the sewers on his way to gehinom.)
The gullible naive initially Tropper-worshiping but now wisened -up Aguiar (too late for him, he may never be released from the nut house in Israel the way things are going) and Kaplan (now running as fast as he can from the radioactive Tropper train-wreck, a veritable Chernobel meltdown if ever there was one) who are the first and greatest BT victims of this tragedy. They have lost not just tens of millions of dollars, but their good names are destroyed forever, their family unity lies in ashes, their unity and even sanity shattered beyond repair, their good name forever publicly farkakt as they see EJF, Kol Yaakov yeshiva and Tropper go down in flames.
Sic semper tyrannis -- Latin phrase meaning "Thus always to tyrants." IV
ReplyDeleteSo what we have here by the BT world is DENIAL and RESISTANCE as well as the inability to accept that they are facing lies, deceptions and many worse things, THEIR MINDS AND MORAL SENSE ARE BEING RAPED (a literal favorite sexually pervers topic of Tropper and Shechter likes to scream louder than a rapist) SO TO SPEAK AS THEY ARE FORCED TO ACCEPT THE TROPPER/SHCHCHTER DIKTATS as things are still going from bad to worse and it now looks that the Tropper case is going to be the final undoing and downfall of Aron Shechter and perhaps even of his Chaim Berlin yeshiva in his defense of the Tropper pimp, who WAS NOT "FRAMED" -- sheesh, it was Hashem who revealed the truth and tore down the living LIE and hypocrisy of Tropper, Kol Yaakov, EJF, and now of Aron Shechter too.
The poor BTs are being force-fed a menu of lies, much like Stalin fed Stalinism to his people and it all came crashing down the day he was no more. This is also a very good example of the BTs, as they listen to Shechter LIE to them and play with their heads and twist them around his little pinky that he is well-trained to do after doing so for about 80 years (yes he was lays a bullying manipulator!) is nothing but a mass-scale enactment of the Stockholm syndrome:
"In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims...In cases where Stockholm syndrome has occurred, the captive is in a situation where the captor has stripped nearly all forms of independence and gained control of the victim’s life, as well as basic needs for survival. Some experts say that the hostage regresses to, perhaps, a state of infancy; the captive must cry for food, remain silent, and exist in an extreme state of dependence. In contrast, the perpetrator serves as a 'mother' figure protecting the 'child' from a threatening outside world, including law enforcement’s deadly weapons. The victim then begins a struggle for survival, both relying on and identifying with the captor. Possibly, hostages’ motivation to live outweighs their impulse to hate the person who created their dilemma..."
So apt!
But Baruch Hashem, justice and truth are taking place and no one, can fight the TRANSPARENCY that the Internet creates, not even the egomaniac now crumbling aging badly Shechter and certainly as scum bag and cesspool Tropper has learned the hard way.
Sic semper tyrannis -- Latin phrase meaning "Thus always to tyrants."
As Steven Seagal's history of allegedly sexually harassing women comes to light, model Kelly LeBrock recalls her own traumatic experience of being married to the action star.
ReplyDelete"This whole thing is very upsetting," LeBrock, 50, told RadarOnline.com. "I do have children with this man."
According to court papers filed last week, Kayden Nguyen, a 23-year-old former model, filed a $1 million sexual trafficking and sexual harassment lawsuit against the "Under Siege" actor. She claims he hired her as an assistant, but then used her as a "sex toy."
Two other women have reportedly provided sworn declarations to assist Nguyen's lawsuit. Among those women is Ray Charles' granddaughter, Blair Robinson.
Like Nguyen, both women worked for Seagal but quit after he allegedly made inappropriate sexual advances at them.
His lawyer, Marty Singer, denies the "absurd" accusations and claims the actor has "no knowledge of these women."
He added, "The declarations were clearly prepared by Nguyen's lawyer to be leaked to the media to help bolster his client's meritless claims."
Amidst the accusations, LeBrock says she is trying to move forward from her own experience and finish her autobiography.
"I was constantly raped and abused my whole life," she revealed.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/04/22/2010-04-22_steven_seagals_exwife_kelly_lebrock_says_she_was_constantly_raped_and_abused_my_.html#ixzz0lulKCoWg
Nat Lewin is Ralbag's nephew.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/04/landlord_stanle.php
ReplyDeleteFederal prosecutors in New York filed a civil lawsuit today accusing Upper West Side landlord Stanley Katz and his building super William Barnason with sex discrimination, alleging that Barnason — a high-risk sex offender convicted of raping children — routinely tried to demand sex from female tenants in exchange for reduced rent. He allegedly threatened to evict tenants who didn't comply.
Katz and Barnason are both accused of being responsible for sexual harassment. Katz employed Barnason as a super for eight years for these three buildings: 144 West 73rd Street, 140 West 75th Street, and 142 West 75th Street. The landlord fired Barnason only after the Post's Dan Mangan broke the story on February 1. Barnason had served 14 years in prison for raping and sodomizing three Long Island girls, ages 5 to 7.
According to the complaint filed by the Southern District U.S. Attorney's Office, Barnason groped female tenants and demanded sex in exchange for rent reductions. Barnason, who had keys to all the tenants' apartments, would show up drunk demanding sex, the suit alleges, and when his demands weren't met, he would deny the tenants their mail, as well as basic repairs. In addition, the suit contends, Barnason would "yell obscenities at tenants who would not comply with his sexual demands."
Katz's attorney told the Gothamist in February that the landlord had only recently learned about Barnason's criminal record. Prosecutors, however, claim that Katz was well aware of Barnason's conduct, and even after multiple complaints, "refused to take meaningful steps to address it."
By PETE YOST (AP) – 12 hours ago
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — Federal investigators charged the nation's former top protector of whistle-blowers Thursday with criminal contempt of Congress.
Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch withheld information from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during the Bush administration, according to a two-page filing in federal court by the U.S. attorney's office here.
Bloch had been under investigation for allegedly retaliating against his own employees.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?053+article+News.Local+20100421155154053053003
ReplyDeleteA Hardin County inmate claims through a lawsuit recently filed in federal court that jail staff violated his First Amendment rights with their insensitivity to his religious diet.
Nathaniel David Hammond, 46, has been, according to court records, repeatedly charged this year and last with felony theft and cold check charges and is awaiting formal sentencing on three counts of felony theft and being a persistent felony offender, which he recently confessed to as part of a plea bargain.
Since being transferred Feb. 14 to Hardin County Detention Center from Meade County’s jail, Hammond claims jail staff, including Jailer Louis Lawson, Operations Manager Alan New, two unidentified booking officers and a (Baptist) chaplain, Larry Vance, have refused his right to practice as an “Orthodox Jew.”
In a March 17 civil complaint filed in Louisville’s Western District of U.S. District Court, Hammond says he returned to active Judaism after a stint being “distant from God.”
When booked, however, Hammond claims he professed no religious preference, so the jail didn’t log him as a Jew.
Through a series of nine requests, Hammond said he asked the jail for a change of religious preference status, which, he said, were ignored.
Complaints, subsequently, were filed by Hammond with New and Vance, but he said no one would grant him a change of religious status, nor the Kosher meals he demanded.
“I’m suffering spiritually, emotionally and physically,” Hammond wrote in his pro se complaint. “Every bit of non-Kosher food I take in is a sin.”
Hammond also claims staff at the jail have, on various occasions, referred to him as “whiny Jew boy” and “kike.”
Because of those alleged words, Hammond said he fears for his safety.
He’s asking a federal judge through his civil complaint to impose punitive damages on the jail staff and allow him to serve his time at another detention facility.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/04/22/2010-04-22_white_crook_robbed_banks_in_expensive_africanamerican_mask.html
ReplyDeleteA robber who marauded in a high-quality mask that made him appear African-American was no match for Ohio cops.
Conrad Zdzierak, 30, has been charged with multiple counts of aggravated robbery after robbing four banks and an a CVS pharmacy on April 9, reports ABC News affiliate WFTS in Tampa.
Detectives say Zdzierak was initially able to elude the cops because of his disguise, an expensive silicon mask called “The Player” valued at around $650.
"The suspect seen in the surveillance photographs and that we were looking for, we believed to be an African-American male. The suspect was actually a male, white, who was wearing an elaborate disguise," Springdale, Ohio, Police Lt. Michael Mathis told WFTS.
Investigators believe Zdzierak likely removed the mask between the robberies in order to confuse the cops who believed they were looking a black man.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ReplyDeleteBRUSSELS—Belgium's longest serving bishop resigned Friday, saying he was "enormously sorry" for having sexually abused a young boy about 25 years ago.
The resignation of Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the bishop of Bruges since 1984, was the first from Belgium since a child abuse scandal began testing the Catholic Church several months ago in Europe and the U.S.
"When I was not yet a bishop, and some time later, I abused a boy," Bishop Vangheluwe said in the ...
YSV alum:
ReplyDeleteThe YSV administration KNEW about Abramson since at least 1980. In 1980 he pulled down the pants of a student and started beating the kid in front of the class.
The YSV administration wanted to fire him then but Moish Finkel's shver objected. Since sexual abuse was less KNOWN in the community while Breyer and Twerski were knocking kids unconcious with physical abuse, the administration chose to focus more energy on the more well known problem. Rabbi Flam zt"l made it his business until he was niftar to spend the bulk of his time in the hall near Abramson's class.
Could UOJ post the Georgia arrest warrant?
ReplyDeleteProsecutors said a Miami Beach man accused of running a $880 million Ponzi scheme had a lifestyle so lavish he had a university athletic lounge named after him and once bought a professional athlete a pair of diamond-studded handcuffs.
ReplyDeleteNevin Shapiro, wearing standard handcuffs Wednesday, stood before a judge in Newark, N.J., to face charges of money laundering and securities fraud.
He is accused of leaving at least 60 investors in Florida, Indiana and New Jersey with about $80 million in losses after the scheme collapsed.
Shapiro remained in custody Wednesday with bail set at $10 million.
Federal prosecutors said Shapiro, 41, used a Florida-based company — Capitol Investments USA Inc. — to raise almost $900 million. Investors thought they were buying into a wholesale grocery distribution business.
Prosecutors said Shapiro took at least $35 million for personal use, including $23 million for salaries and commissions for himself, $5 million for a Miami Beach mansion and $400,000 for courtside seats at Miami Heat basketball games. He also spent lavishly on luxury cars, a high-stakes gambling habit and the handcuffs given to an unnamed player, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said Shapiro donated investors' money to athletic groups and charities and got a student athlete lounge named after him at the University of Miami by donating $150,000.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Shapiro.
The charges allege Shapiro:
Promised investors risk-free annual returns as high as 26 percent.
Persuaded investors to put money into a "grocery diversion" enterprise — a practice of buying low-cost groceries in one region of the country and reselling them in higher-priced markets.
Shapiro had no legitimate business holdings, investigators said. They said he kept the alleged scheme going by providing investors with fabricated invoices, fake purchase orders and bogus financial statements whenever one inquired about his returns.
Shapiro is in bankruptcy proceedings, according to the SEC complaint.
Shapiro probably cannot use his Florida home as bail collateral because it is in foreclosure, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo during his court appearance Wednesday.
"Nevin Shapiro is charged with tricking investors with false documents and false promises," U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman stated. "He spent tens of millions of their money on gambling debts, lavish gifts and a luxury lifestyle built on a house of cards."
Shapiro allegedly hid losses from investors by paying out principal to his current clients with money from new investors raised between January 2005 and November 2009.
The money dried up late last year and he was unable to cover outstanding promissory notes, prosecutors said.
if convicted of the securities fraud charge, Shapiro could be sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $5 million. He also faces possible penalties of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of the money laundering charge.
Bendahan is leaving Florida; suffice to say that the documents reveal, beyond any doubt, that he is a very troubled individual, to be kind.
ReplyDeleteI hesitate to post his information because of the nature of his heinous acts that involve his own children. I may reconsider...if I can isolate some of the documents that would not harm the innocent.
UOJ
Hefter boys go to the local DRS yeshiva
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/DA/NewsReleases/2010/022610pitarrests.html
Arrested this morning was:
Isidore Hefter, 59, of Woodmere. Hefter is charged with Repeated Failure to File after not filing state tax returns from 2004 to 2006 and costing the state $25,740 in tax revenue. Hefter is a certified public accountant. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted and is due back in court March 1. He is represented by Harold Ruvoldt, Esq.
You could black out most of the document to show that there is an open arrest warrant.
ReplyDeleteFiled at 10:15 a.m. ET
ReplyDelete(AP) -- Swiss bank UBS AG and accounting giant Ernst & Young have agreed to pay $250 million to settle claims over the financial fraud that nearly wrecked HealthSouth Corp., the Alabama-based rehabilitation chain.
Federal court documents filed Thursday show UBS insurers will pay $117 million to HealthSouth shareholders and another $100 million to bondholders. Ernst & Young agreed to pay $33.5 million to bondholders.
The accountant agreed to a $109 million settlement with HealthSouth stockholders last year.
So this is the reason why Chaim Berlin, Kol Yaakov and many others do not have their tax returns on Guidestar - they don't want the public's prying eyes looking at their finances. But little did they know what the consequences are.
ReplyDeleteIf you give money to any moysad that is booted, you do not get a tax deduction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/us/23exempt.html
As many as 400,000 nonprofit organizations are weeks away from a doomsday.
At midnight on May 15, an estimated one-fifth to one-quarter of some 1.6 million charities, trade associations and membership groups will lose their tax exemptions, thanks to a provision buried in a 2006 federal bill aimed at pension reform.
“It’s going to be an unholy mess once these organizations realize what’s happened to them,” said Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade group.
The federal legislation passed in 2006 required all nonprofits to file tax forms the following year. Previously, only organizations with revenues of $25,000 or more — or the vast majority of nonprofit groups — had to file.
The new law, embedded in the 393 pages of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, also directed the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax exemptions of groups that failed to file for three consecutive years. Three years have passed, and thus the deadline looms.
Bill Solomon, who founded Titan Youth Development in Brooklyn to provide after-school youth sports programs, first learned about the law when a reporter called to inquire about his organization’s status. The charity received its tax exemption in 2005 — but it did not start operations until last year.
“It was merged with another nonprofit — or I guess more like operated under the other nonprofit,” Mr. Solomon said. “I let this one be dormant for a while.”
He said Titan had brought in about $100,000 in revenue in 2009 through fees for service and private donations, so although he did not know about the law, he has an accountant working to prepare tax forms.
The I.R.S. has long complained it lacks adequate data on nonprofit groups because so many of them did not file tax forms. Without basic facts about organizations, the agency has little chance of overseeing one of the most generous tax breaks the federal government offers.
Donors, whose appetite for information about nonprofit groups has increased exponentially in recent years, also struggle, said Robert G. Ottenhoff, who runs GuideStar, an online database of nonprofit tax forms and analysis that many donors rely on. “This is a good thing for the nonprofit sector, even though it will no doubt create a hardship for a pretty significant number of organizations,” Mr. Ottenhoff said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/business/23ratings.html
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — In 2004, well before the risks embedded in Wall Street’s bets on subprime mortgages became widely known, employees at Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, were feeling pressure to expand the business.
One employee warned in internal e-mail that the company would lose business if it failed to give high enough ratings to collateralized debt obligations, the investments that later emerged at the heart of the financial crisis.
A sweeping financial overhaul being debated in the Senate would subject the credit rating agencies to comprehensive regulation and examination by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first time. The legislation also contains provisions that would open the agencies to private lawsuits charging securities fraud, giving investors a chance to hold the companies accountable.
What involvement did Finkels shver have at YSV during 1980? Were there any allegations of molestation made prior to this pants pulling beating incident? If anyone really has any solid info I would be really grateful. I can be emailed at ysvalum@yahoo.com. All will be confidential of course. I am particularly interested in the period prior to 1984 but all information from any period would be appreciated
ReplyDeleteFINAL WARNING:
ReplyDeleteThe gemara in Shabbos says that “V’Ahavta L’Reiacha Kamocha” (Kedoshim 19:18) is the whole Torah. The rest is just an explanation. What does this mean? This Mitzva may explain Mitzvos Bain Adam L’Chaveiro but what does this have to do with Shofar, Tefilin, etc.?
Rabbi Akiva Eiger answers that the gemara Sanhedrin 27b says that the pasuk in the Tochacha (Bechukosai 26:37) that says “V’Kashlu Ish B’Achiv” means each person will stumble when his friend does an aveira. We are all guarantors for each other.
The Chicago Community Kollel is giving chizuk to a rodef by having the Oneg Shabbos in his home this evening. They are giving chizuk to machlokes. They are trampling on the basic tenets of the Torah. The entire SHABBOS OF CHIZUK is not an event which will merit Menuchas Sholom V'Shalva.
Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta said, “The only vessel Hashem could find that could contain brachah for Yisrael was shalom, as it says, “Hashem will give strength to His people, Hashem will bless His nation with peace (Uktzin 3:12).
Choose whether to attend. BUT... CHOOSE WISELY.
V'Hamaivin Yavin!
Good Shabbos!
http://www.dnainfo.com/20100422/upper-west-side/judge-orders-family-say-quiet-custody-battle-over-murdered-moms-kids
ReplyDeleteWhile authorities investigate the murder of Upper West Side wealth manager Shele Danishefsky Covlin in her bathtub on New Year’s Eve, a judge has ordered those involved in the custody battle over her two children to stay mum on the issue.
Supreme Court Judge Ellen Gesmer ordered the victim’s family and its lawyers not to talk to the press, or “disseminate any information in any manner” about the case unless asked to do so by law enforcement officials.
Gesmer also barred the family, including the victim's husband Ron Covlin — a prime suspect in his wife's murder — from speaking to the children about their mother’s death or about the autopsy performed when her body was exhumed weeks after her burial.
Rod Covlin, 36, appeared at the Manhattan court building with his parents and attorney on Thursday.
Danishefsky Covlin’s brother, Philip, is fighting Covlin for custody of the children. Philip Danishefsky also wants to limit Covlin’s ability to visit them.
The children, a 3-year-old boy and an 9-year-old girl, are reportedly living with their paternal grandparents in upstate New York. They have a lawyer representing them, and the daughter is seeing a therapist, according to Gesmer’s order. They are not allowed to leave the state, except for a visit last Sunday to their mother’s family in New Jersey.
Danishefsky Covlin, 47, was found by her daughter in their West 68th Street bathroom on Dec. 31. Police at the time said her injuries, including lacerations on the back of her head, appeared to be “consistent with a fall.” Because she and her family were devout Jews, they refused an autopsy on religious grounds.
But members of her family, along with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, remained suspicious. At the time of her death, Danishefsky Covlin, a private wealth advisor at UBS Wealth Management, was embroiled in a bitter divorce with Covlin. She had expressed fears that her husband “intended to kill her,” according to an affidavit her brother filed in Surrogate's Court and she obtained an order of protection against him, barring him from contacting her and their children.
She was preparing to replace him as the executor of her will and she had already changed her company-sponsored insurance policy to remove her husband as her beneficiary.
Jack Meyer, director of Misaskim, a Brooklyn organization that helps Jewish families deal with the unexpected deaths of loved ones, said they offered to assist the family with a “kosher autopsy” — supervised by rabbis who prepare the examination site so that blood and body parts aren’t lost.
Autopsies “in any shape or form” are not technically kosher, but when Misaskim accompanies the medical examiner, it brings added “dignity and respect.”
But the family told him they weren’t going to do an autopsy at all.
Misaskim was cleared by police to remove some blood from Danishefsky Covlin’s bathroom about 24 hours after she was found, Meyer said.
By February, the family had dropped its religious objections and allowed the DA to obtain a court order for her body to be removed from a Hawthorne, N.Y., cemetery and studied.
The body was delivered to the Medical Examiner’s Office, and after a five-week investigation concluded she had been strangled.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/23/arts/AP-US-Comics-Gay-Archie-Character.html
ReplyDeleteArchie Comics announced Thursday that in an issue out Sept. 1, the long-running comic will introduce its first ''openly gay'' character, Kevin Keller.
The only chessed for Bendahan's son, whom he molested is that after the GA arrest warrant was issued, Bendahan took off for Toronto.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Taub (BAYT) among others participated in a fraud in which Bendahan's former wife in Georgia was informed that he was deceased.
Bendahan's son was subsequently adopted by his stepfather so he does not share the same surname as Bendahan which is a protection for him. I do not believe that anyone outside of the family and some close friends know that Bendahan's son is actually his son.
Recently, however, Bendahan's son has been visiting his father in Hollywood, FL and bringing his own young children to stay in the house for many days at a time. The son has been warned against this by several members of the family and also some close friends.
Bendahan's son refuses to read the psych reports and remains in denial that his father is the monster molester that has destroyed a number of children in Toronto and South Florida.
Family members are very concerned that Bendahan who molested his own son years ago, will also molest his grandchildren who stay in the house.
I do not know if Bendahan has molested his son from his second wife.
I have seen this young man following his father around the shul, apparently trying to keep him from being alone with little boys. I have also seen his son telling little boys in the synagogue to "go sit with their fathers" so "bad things do not happen to them".
I am hoping that Bendahan's son from his current marriage has escaped the molestation that has scarred his brother forever.
If my mechutan from Toronto, Rabbi Taub, was involved in a fraud, I hope he at least made some money off it.
ReplyDeleteBendahan was helping some of Rabbi Taub's donors clean money. Of course some of the "fees" went to support Torah scholars and settlements in EY.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the other Toronto NCSY youth director's role in "Let's Make a Deal".
In case you are wondering who this is, he is the Rabbi of the shul in Boca where Lanner is now a big macher.
http://www.brswest.org/rabbi.php
He and his mentor Lanner share the same tastes in women, that is halachically but not legally adults.
South Florida includes the Southern most point in the US accessible to civilians.
We all know "IT" flows downhill.
It's very easy to pull things over the Canadian tax department. They are like lemmelach compared to the IRS.
ReplyDeleteHefter does not live in Woodmere. He lives nextdoor in super-shpitz Woodsburgh, the same town as "Uncle Morris" Talansky. His house on Ivy Hill Rd is a sprawling estate on the water.
ReplyDeleteThe DRS yeshiva is disgracefully named for 3 living criminals that are banned from Wall St, 3 relatives of each other named Davis, Renov & Stahler.
During the last year, Shafran tried to bring a raaye in an op-ed piece from Nevuzaradon, that even someone who killed thousands of Yiddisher kinder could do teshuva, so al achas kamma vekamma ...
ReplyDeleteLast night we learned the daf Sanhedrin 71. It's mashma from that sugya that Nevuzaradon would not be off the hook. The Radbaz explains the Gemara that ger only has a din of kekattan shenolad dami (Dummy!) for what he did to his own type but not what he did to unzerra before the gerus.
The magid shiur who is a major talmid chochom is not so sure that Shafran can learn like he does and is going to look into it beiyun.
Rabbi Taub is a BT and talmid of R' Aron Schechter.
ReplyDeleteKalman Renov's wife used to do shidduch events together with that crazy thief Dina Wein-Reis in her $10 million beau arts townhouse before she was arrested by the FBI.
ReplyDeleteThose are some shadchantas!
The average haymishe Joe on the street thinks you are crazy if you say anything to criticize gNat Lewin.
ReplyDeleteThey nebich think that everything that gNat speaks is dvar Hashem.
And even when you point out that lawyers lie for a living and that the Mishna Avos says not to be a lawyer (the meforshim say because they lie), and that many lawyers are known to be dishonest when defending high profile criminals, they are so blinded by their one track mind support of Rubashkin, that you are wasting your breath.
Go ahead and shlogg me up and see if I care. No matter how much I have to drey a pshat, I will find a limmud from somewhere else to defend all the tzaddikim in this dor and kedoshei elyon like R' Bernie Madoff!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/23/us/AP-US-Encouraging-Suicides.html
ReplyDeleteMINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A former Minnesota nurse was charged Friday with aiding the suicides of a British man and Canadian woman by allegedly encouraging them to kill themselves in Internet chat rooms.
William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, is charged under a rarely used state law that carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a fine of $30,000.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/23/us/AP-US-Encouraging-Suicides.html
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A former Minnesota distributor of Rubashkin meat, turned 24/7 blogger, was charged Friday in beis din shel maylah with being mayssiss umaydeeach a British man and Canadian woman by encouraging them to go off the derech.
Shmarya (ben Alfred) Rosenberg, 52, is charged under a din shamayim that cannot be calculated by hasagos of oylam hazeh.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/creditors_to_be_repaid_in_solo.html
ReplyDeleteThe multi-million-dollar bankruptcy case against Solomon Dwek came to a quiet end today with a court-approved plan that will repay creditors about 30 cents on the dollar.
The bankruptcy case required the sale of more than 350 properties and resulted in 140 lawsuits filed mostly against banks and investors who profited from the Ponzi scheme.
Other lawsuits were filed against the Deal Yeshiva, where Dwek was employed, as well as several charities that received millions in donations from Dwek over the years.
Dwek, who has been living off a $12,800 monthly allowance paid out of the assets of his bankrupt empire, will continue to receive that money until the case is formally closed. Meanwhile, he recently put up his house in Deal for sale. The large ranch-style home, near the Deal Golf Course, is in his wife’s name, but no one has been living there for months. According to the listing, they are seeking $1.59 million
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1164717.html
ReplyDeleteThe Rishon Letzion Magistrate's Court extended Thursday the remand of three suspects involved in the alleged Holyland bribery affair, after police said that there was sufficient evidence tying the suspects to the case.
The three suspects were Yehoshua Pollack and Eli Simchayof, both of whom served as former deputy mayors of Jerusalem, and Meir Rabin, who police have said could be a key witness in the affair.
Hamodia are pathetic. A front page headline this week says not to panic if you are audited by the IRS and how to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteBy CURT ANDERSON (AP) – 3 hours ago
ReplyDeleteMIAMI — A tax evader was sentenced Friday to 10 months in federal prison after claiming his Jewish parents' experience fleeing the Nazi Holocaust drove him to compulsively hide more than $10 million in secret accounts at Swiss bank UBS AG and other offshore tax havens.
U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan imposed the longest sentence to date for a UBS client against 65-year-old Jack Barouh, even after giving him credit for cooperating in the ongoing investigation and belatedly attempting to come clean with the Internal Revenue Service.
Barouh pleaded guilty in February, the latest in a string of convictions won by the Justice Department after UBS last year admitted orchestrating tax evasion among rich U.S. clients and paid a $780 million fine. UBS also separately agreed to turn over more than 4,450 names of wealthy Americans suspected of dodging taxes through secret UBS accounts.
Jordan noted that Barouh has sought psychiatric help for the Holocaust compulsion, which his attorney described as the desire to "hide and hoard" assets to guard against a potential repeat of the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews during World War II. After Barouh's family fled Austria, they settled in Bogota, Colombia, where Barouh was born.
"He and his family might lose everything, exactly as his parents risked everything in the 1940s," Jordan said in explaining the fear.
"I have lived under the weight of the Holocaust," Barouh told the judge. "Those fears are finally starting to subside."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Neiman said criminal defendants invariably come up with some justification for their illegal actions — and that Barouh's Holocaust trauma is no excuse.
"It does not give this defendant a license to break the law," Neiman said. "Tax fraud is tax fraud."
Barouh, of Golden Beach, founded the luxury brand Michele Watches, which he sold to Fossil Inc. for $50 million in 2004. But court documents show his effort to evade U.S. taxes started much earlier, in 1976, when he began skimming money from his company and stashing it in accounts in Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, Switzerland and Panama.
Eventually, Barouh turned to UBS, where he had as much as $10 million in accounts not declared with the IRS as required. Neiman estimated the total tax loss to the U.S. at over $736,000 from 2002 to 2007, the period covered by the U.S. investigation. Barouh pleaded guilty to a charge of filing a false 2007 tax return.
Although he faced up to 2 1/2 years in prison, prosecutors sought a reduction because he has provided extensive information about two Swiss money managers and one Swiss attorney. Neither was identified in court.
"The information he's provided, we are using," Neiman said. "It is ongoing."
The 10-month sentence was half what prosecutors originally sought, but more than the one-year home detention Barouh requested.
The airborne fungus, called Cryptococcus gattii, usually only infects transplant and AIDS patients and people with otherwise compromised immune systems, but the new strain is genetically different, the researchers said.
ReplyDelete"This novel fungus is worrisome because it appears to be a threat to otherwise healthy people," said Edmond Byrnes of Duke University in North Carolina, who led the study.
"The findings presented here document that the outbreak of C. gattii in Western North America is continuing to expand throughout this temperate region," the researchers said in their report, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens here
"Our findings suggest further expansion into neighboring regions is likely to occur and aim to increase disease awareness in the region."
The new strain appears to be unusually deadly, with a mortality rate of about 25 percent among the 21 U.S. cases analyzed, they said.
"From 1999 through 2003, the cases were largely restricted to Vancouver Island," the report reads.
"Between 2003 and 2006, the outbreak expanded into neighboring mainland British Columbia and then into Washington and Oregon from 2005 to 2009. Based on this historical trajectory of expansion, the outbreak may continue to expand into the neighboring region of Northern California, and possibly further."
The spore-forming fungus can cause symptoms in people and animals two weeks or more after exposure. They include a cough that lasts for weeks, sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, fever, nighttime sweats and weight loss.
It has also turned up in cats, dogs, an alpaca and a sheep.
Freezing can kill the fungus and climate change may be helping it spread, the researchers said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/politics/25campaign.html
ReplyDeleteG.O.P. Threatens Seats Long Held by Democrats
FOXNews.com
ReplyDeletePresident Obama's derision last week of Tea Party activists who don't sufficiently appreciate his tax-cutting prowess earned plenty of laughs at a Democratic fundraiser in Florida, but the truth behind Obama's policies aren't nearly as funny, tax analysts say.
"I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes," the president said, noting the numerous tax cuts pushed by his administration. "You would think they'd be saying, 'Thank you.'"
While a family of four earning $85,000 or $90,000 has seen its tax burden decrease since Obama took office -- thanks to a two-year cut in his stimulus bill and the continuation of tax cuts passed during Bush's administration -- that doesn't tell the whole story, tax analysts told FoxNews.com.
New taxes are on the way, said Ryan Ellis, tax policy director of Americans for Tax Reform, who noted that only one third of the stimulus package is tax cuts, the rest is government spending without revenue to match it. The recently passed health care law also will eventually lead to higher taxes for middle-income families, Ellis said.
On top of that, the Bush-era tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts.
In an analysis by the Tax Institute at H&R Block, which also responded to a request by FoxNews.com, if Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire, the family of four earning $90,000 will see its tax liability increase from $6,769 for 2009 to $9,700 for 2010 and $11,700 for 2011.
If those uncertainties are not enough, both Altamirano and Gene King, a spokesman for H&R Block, noted that the family of four's tax liability is affected by the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is a parallel tax system designed to keep wealthy taxpayers from taking deductions to the point where they don't owe taxes.
Congress traditionally allows an exemption on income that would be subject to the AMT. In 2009, the AMT exemption was $70,950 for a married couple filing jointly. Without a congressional fix this year, the exemption for the AMT drops back to $45,000 for the 2010 tax year, forcing the middle-income family to pay additional taxes above what the regular tax rate and wiping out the value of the child tax credits.
Altamirano said a more troubling concern to her group is the 36 percent of tax filers being carved out of the tax base by having no income tax liability at all. She said that it is possible for a family of four earning more than $51,000 to steer clear of federal income taxes.
"The tax code is being used increasingly as a social welfare tool to redistribute income from higher-income earners to lower-income earners," she said in an e-mail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/world/25schaefer.html
ReplyDeleteA former Nazi-era German soldier who founded a secretive German cult in southern Chile, where he sexually abused about 25 children, died of heart failure at a prison hospital early Saturday, Chilean officials said. He was 89.
The former soldier, Paul Schaefer, was serving a 20-year sentence for the sexual abuse of minors, but he was also under investigation for the 1985 disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler, an American citizen who vanished while on a hiking trip.
The Chilean government said officially that Mr. Weisfeiler, then 43 years old, drowned while trying to ford a river. But State Department and C.I.A. reports that were later declassified indicated that he was probably kidnapped by Chilean state security forces, who then handed him over to Mr. Schaefer’s heavily armed Colonia Dignidad religious sect based nearby. Dozens of opponents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship were tortured at Colonia Dignidad, according to human rights groups.
One military informant said that Mr. Weisfeiler, a Russian-born Jew, was held captive there, and that he was later tortured and executed.
A former nurse from the Luftwaffe, Mr. Schaefer was forced to leave Germany after he was charged with sexually abusing young boys in an orphanage he ran there. In 1961 he founded Colonia Dignidad, an anti-Semitic apocalyptic religious sect about 225 miles south of Santiago. Early last decade it still had about 300 inhabitants, and it still exists but is referred to as Villa Baviera.
Mr. Schaefer ran the sect with a heavy hand, banning almost all contact with the outside world, separating women from men and children from their parents, and controlling intimate contact. While he was never a hunted Nazi, Mr. Schaefer opened Colonia Dignidad for fugitive Nazis to hide out for periods of time.
After Chile’s courts began investigating Mr. Schaefer for sexual abuse charges in the late 1990s, he fled to Argentina, where he hid until he was found in 2005. After being returned to Chile, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing 25 children.
Mr. Schaefer was also sentenced to three years for violating weapons control law after a huge military arsenal was found on Colonia Dignidad grounds, to seven years for homicide and to three years for torture.
The disappearance of Mr. Weisfeiler, who was a mathematics professor at Pennsylvania State University, continues to be an unsolved mystery, and Mr. Schafer was never charged in the case.
I was wondering how UOJ is always ready to strike anywhere.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msc.navy.mil/
The US Navy's Military Sealift Command operates approximately 110 ships that conduct specialized missions, strategically preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and move military cargo and supplies used by deployed U.S. forces, UOJ and coalition partners.
http://www.emunahmagazine.com/funny-sighting-in-front-of-landaus-shul/
ReplyDeleteFunny Sighting In Front Of Landau's Shul
Obama is throwing me under the bus to appease Castro even though I was one of his get-out-the-vote enthusiasts.
ReplyDeletehttp://americas.irc-online.org/am/6722
The arrest of Alan Gross in Cuba last December has proven to be a major headache for the Obama administration.
The embarrassment over the detention of USAID employee Gross on spy charges, and his links to the U.S. government's controversial democracy promotion programs, has shed light on a murky area of U.S. politics and may have far-reaching consequences for the future of U.S.-Cuba relations.
The details surrounding the arrest of Alan Gross were presented in an article on this website in January. Since then, more information has come to light. The U.S. government and much of the media claimed that Gross was helping Jewish groups in Cuba to "download music, access Wikipedia, and read the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was provided on flash drives." However, the leader of the main Jewish group in Cuba said that they had never heard of Mr. Gross. The U.S. government has come under pressure from politicians and members of the Cuban exile community regarding his arrest. At a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing in February, Sen. Robert Menendez accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of stopping democracy promotion programs in Cuba following the arrest of Gross. "For some reason, it seems to me, when it comes to Cuba, the recent actions by the regime to arrest an American citizen have totally frozen our actions," he said during a heated exchange with Clinton. Menendez and fellow Democratic Senator Bill Nelson sent a letter to fellow senators at the beginning of March urging them not to allow their staff to go on a fact-finding trip to Cuba in light of the arrest. Forty members of the U.S. House of Representatives recently signed another letter warning Cuba that improved relations are contingent on the release of the jailed American. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that the last communication that the U.S. government had with Gross was in February, and that during recent U.S.-Cuba talks on migration the United States requested to see Gross, to no avail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnNaslzg5us
ReplyDeleteIf Arthur wants to help Rubashkin, he tell idiots like this to shut the heck up.
The Wall Street Journal learned John Paulson held an investor conference call on Monday as part of an “offensive” against being implicated in a Goldman Sachs Group lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteThe newspaper noted Paulson and his hedge fund Paulson & Co. have been “drawn into a political and legal vortex” after being named in an SEC civil complaint against Goldman Sachs.
Neither Paulson nor his New York company, it should be pointed out, have been named as a defendant in the SEC case.
Still, according to the WSJ, concern about a public backlash which might result in a loss of client capital is dogging Paulson & Co. Scrutiny of Paulson & Co. could strengthen, the newspaper said. Plus, the SEC case could spell a distraction to Paulson & co.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/04/23/2010-04-23_porn_among_daily_duties_of_top_sec_honchos_sez_report.html
ReplyDeleteWhile economy crumbled, top financial watchdogs at SEC surfed for porn on Internet: memo
The country's top financial watchdogs turned out to be horndogs who spent hours gawking at porn Web sites as the economy teetered on the brink, according to a memo released Thursday night.
The shocking findings include Securities and Exchange Commission senior staffers using government computers to browse for booty and an accountant who tried to access the raunchy sites 16,000 times in one month.
Their titillating pastime was discovered during 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, said the memo obtained by The Associated Press.
It says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2-1/2 years since the country's financial system nearly crashed.
The report was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).
Among the startling findings:
- A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When his government computer ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs. He later agreed to resign.
- An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a single month from visiting "sex" or "pornography" sites, but still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material by using Google to bypass the SEC's internal filter. He wound up with a 2-week suspension.
- Seventeen of the randy employees were "at a senior level" earning salaries of up to $222,418.
I heard that they ripped the tuna's throat out.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/kosher_lesson_0sd0LY12PpURlObuPF9MVM
"Iron Chef" Masaharu Morimoto had an interesting challenge at Cipriani Downtown on Wednesday when he butchered a 70-pound tuna under kosher restrictions. He was invited by the Lubavitch Youth Organization to make sushi, sashimi, and carpaccio out of the fish, which was assessed and approved by chief Rabbi of Israel Yonah Metzger. "I spent weeks studying kosher principles to make sure I got it right," Morimoto told Page Six. Mayor Bloomberg and hotelier Morris Moinian were also at the dinner.
John Edwards, has been ordered to submit to a sworn deposition on May 13 in the case of Rielle Hunter v. Andrew Young, according to the Daily Beast. The topic: his steamy sex tape with a maybe already pregnant Hunter and allegations that he used campaign money to keep her hidden away. Of course, being called for a deposition in this case doesn't necessarily mean you'll give one. Hunter's been called five times and hasn't yet shown up.
ReplyDeletehttp://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/04/hedg-fund_manager_michael_stei.html
ReplyDeleteBack in his heyday, hedge-fund titan and New York Sun investor Michael Steinhardt was known for his volatility. Legend has it, he once screamed so hard at a former employee who confronted him about the size of his bonus that the man keeled over and died (to be fair, he was 300 pounds).
Well, this is unpleasant news for the Obama administration. A new report by a group of actuaries at the Department of Health and Human Services concludes that health-care reform will raise costs over the legislation's first ten years.
ReplyDeleteOh, and cuts to Medicare "could drive about 15 percent of hospitals and other institutional providers into the red, 'possibly jeopardizing access' to care for seniors."
Another nephew of Rabbi Pinchos Scheinberg?
ReplyDeleteIt's being reported on BrowardBeat that rumors swirling about Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner have been confirmed: She has resigned her spot on the bench and is joining a private law firm.
In return for her leaving the bench, the Judicial Qualifications Commission investigation involving ex parte communication with former prosecutor Howard Scheinberg during a death penalty trial and her alleged untruthfulness about the relationship will be dropped.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/04/platinum_and_centurion_named_in_scott_rothstein_suit.php
ReplyDeleteLawsuit: New York Hedge Funds Knew Rothstein Scheme Was a Fraud
By Bob Norman, Friday, Apr. 23 2010
The suit includes numerous potentially damning emails from managers of the hedge funds -- including Meir "Mark" Nordlicht and Jack Simony -- that indicate they had knowledge that Rothstein's investment scheme was fraudulent beginning after the Ponzi suffered what one of the scheme's insiders termed a "meltdown" in April 2009.
The problems begin on April 13, when a Platinum general partner, Will Slota, wrote an email to Banyon Chief Operating Office Frank Preve, who had an office at the Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler firm and was working closely with Rothstein on the scheme, indicating that millions in payments had been missed. Slota also copied the email to Nordlicht and two other Platinum managers, Ari Glass and J. San Filippo.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/04/tamarac_corruption_investigation.php
ReplyDeleteTamarac Officials Shaking as Corruption Investigation Heads Into Town
By Bob Norman, Thursday, Apr. 22 2010
The drama is due to a decidedly dirty developer named Bruce Chait, who is cooperating with state prosecutors in a corruption investigation that boomeranged from the recent federal sting operation that brought down Broward County Commissioner Joe Eggelletion and former School Board Member Beverly Gallagher.
Chait, who has been charged with bribery, unlawful compensation, and perjury, is said to be spilling on a whole lot of officials.
I'm glad this is illegal but surprised it is the case in a Liberal State like NY
ReplyDeleteWILLISTON PARK, NY (WPIX) - A Hempstead man was arrested Friday on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, police say, after he approached a 12-year-old girl in the Williston Park Public Library.
Detectives say that Lawrence Aprigliano approached the girl and tried to start a conversation with her and followed her into children's section of the library where he asked for her telephone number. The girl told a library employee and her mother, who rushed to the library.
Police arrested Aprigliano at his 65 Hillside Ave. Home Friday afternoon. He is set for arraignment Saturday in First District Court in Hempstead, NY.
The rest of these crooks may belong to the Iraqi or Iranian shuls out there.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.longislandpress.com/2010/03/06/rice-7-welfare-scammers-rounded-up/
All of those arrested were charged with welfare fraud, grand larceny and offering a false instrument for filing.
All face up to 15 years in prison
Shmuel Cohen, 46, and his 52-year-old wife, Cheryl, of Plainview, allegedly received more than $28,000 in Medicaid benefits and more than $2,000 in food stamps that they did not qualify for between May 2004 and March 2009 by failing to report ownership of two jewelry businesses and income from Cheryl’s job at the North Shore Synagogue. Shmuel also failed to report $25,000 that he received from his mother’s estate, prosecutors said.
Masoud Lovi and his wife, Homa, both 50 and from Roslyn Heights, allegedly received nearly $89,000 in benefits between April 2002 and January 2010, despite the fact that they owned three rental properties in Queens and a clothing business in the Bronx. Masoud allegedly claimed he was an employee at the Bronx business making between $2,000 and $2,500 monthly. The couple, who have three children, deposited more than $2.3 million into their bank account during the time, prosecutors said.
Shahron Solemani Sharifian, 39, and his 37-year-old wife, Arely, allegedly received more than $53,000 in Medicaid benefits between May 2002 and June 2009 by claiming to be earn between $10,704 and $15,600, despite owning his own business, Empire Video Productions, and renting a second home. The couple deposited $665,971 into bank accounts during the time, prosecutors said.
Those are a bunch of modern orthodox guys. Nordlicht is a major donor to Bnei Akiva. Ari Glass, originally from Young Israel of Staten Island, now lives in Riverdale and sends his kids to Salanter Akiva. Jack Simony has ties to both Haskell Lookstein and the co-ed Har Torah yeshiva in Little Neck, Queens.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601203&sid=a10FN1t.vJyE&refer=insurance
Bloomberg reported a few years ago that Nordlicht was connected to the Optionable-Nymex scandal as was Benjamin Chesir who hails from Yeshiva of Central Queens.
There was also a report in a newspaper 5 months ago that Nordlicht had an emergency meeting about Rothstein with disbarred lawyer Melly Lifschitz from the 5 Towns and Michael Szafranski (Shafran / Sharanovitch?) who goes to a Chabad in Florida.
Yael Trump Kushner will be on Fox with Sean Hannity, Monday at 9:00 PM (EDT).
ReplyDeleteReb UOJ
ReplyDeleteThanks for the concern about my health.Maybe "one day" all will be right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgULq1yCz70
http://www.property-casualty.com/News/2010/4/Pages/A-Bigger-Iceland-Ash-Blast-Probably-Coming-Soon-Says-RMS.aspx
ReplyDeleteA second, more gigantic, ash cloud eruption from another Icelandic volcano named Katla is now “probable” a catastrophe modeling firm is warning.
That caution came today from Risk Management Solutions in Newark Calif. just as air traffic disruptions were easing after the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland began dispersing.
In addition, RMS said that Eyjafjallajökull eruptions may worsen again and could go on for years.
The days of halted air traffic were expected to create millions in passenger travel insurance claims and possibly others related to other segments, although the event was generally not seen as covered by business interruption policies.
"If Arthur wants to help Rubashkin, he tell idiots like this to shut the heck up."
ReplyDeleteSaw it.Ignored it.
Theres nuts all over,so what else is new?
Ivanka Trump is definately a shiksa! Please don't call her "Yael." That's a name for real Jews. Besides violating the Sabbath and eating treif Ivanka has been dressing in some very revealing clothes.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Rabbi Lookstein and the RCA have to say about that? They are responsible for this shonda and they should take immediate action to revoke Ivanka's fraudulent "conversion."
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A former Minnesota distributor of Rubashkin meat, turned 24/7 blogger, was charged Friday in beis din shel maylah with being mayssiss umaydeeach a British man and Canadian woman by encouraging them to go off the derech.
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It is not Shmarya who makes people go OTD, It is corrupted people like Tropper, Resenblum and their ilk.
Shmaraya is doing his best to expose those scumbags and like UOJ and R’ Sternbuch he already received his chelek in gan eden for helping to bring Tropper down.
If Tropper did not exist, Shmarya would invent him.
ReplyDeleteShmarya is not interested in ridding frum Judaism of lowlives such as Tropper, like Rav Sternbuch and UOJ do. Shmarya only wants to rid frum Judaism of frum Jews to make them frey like him.
So much of what is written on here is false.
ReplyDeleteAmram Bendahan had a warrant out for failing to pay child support. He never molested a child, he never abused a child. These are falsehoods created by his deranged ex-wife.
Before you allow something to be posted on your website, do yourself a favor and actually do some research.
If his ex-wife was so deranged, why did she get full custody of their child? Explain why Amram Bendahan never went to the hometown of his own child. Any court order would say that Bendahan was able to come to the home town to visit! However, he was too scared because of the felony warrant for child molestation and child support. Yes, do yourself a favor and look at the documents and warrants.
ReplyDeleteAny mareh mekomos for this letter attributed to the Rambam?
ReplyDeleteI saw the ksav yad in the Vatican library years ago. I matched the handwritings of his other kisvei yad. You can only take notes - no copies permitted.
ReplyDelete