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Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Agudah to UOJ: Welcome Back
It appears that the Agudah, with their pathetic grasping at straws of controversy to appear relevant, has resurrected UOJ -- the Patron Saint of Children Who are Sexually Abused by Religious Figures and Those Who Harbor Them. UOJ, after being 'outed' this spring by some self-appointed thugs who believe themselves to be defenders of Torah and Gedolim, slipped into the background with a farewell post just before Rosh Hashanah. Sadly, it appeared as though UOJ would relegated to asterisk status in Jewish history, despite his valiant and timely attacks on a viciously apathetic status quo that preferred the spiritual murder of Jewish children over decisive action.
And all was quiet as Rosh Yeshivas, executive directors, and some yeshivishe egomaniacs in the sleepy slum of Waterbury, CT. rejoiced at the miraculous bullet dodging they had just witnessed. Evidently, the 'humiliation' weapon -- a thin reference to ruined shidduchim and tainted yichus -- had succeeded in preserving the perversity of ultra-orthodox apathy.
But something was afoot. Deep within the bowels of 42 Broadway, across some shiny overpriced conference table, the Wizards of Was realized that their destiny lay in murdering the mandate bearer: blogs. Ironically, if they would actually read the blogs instead of dismissing them as the tools of Satan, they would have been able to resurrect themselves and actively contribute to the betterment and solidification of American Orthodoxy. Instead, they took the short way out.
"Let's bash blogs," the Daas Torahniks declared. "We must create a new enemy, now that the Nazis are gone, Jewish busdrivers can wear yarmulkes to work without fear, we've given up on "at-risk" kids (poorly trained mentors are the answer....right?), and we've selected our guest of honor for this year's dinner..." The obvious answer was blogs.
The dispensers of Daas Torah, concerned with the impact blogs were having on their destructive hegemony and possible ramifications that would have on future fundraising seconded the motion. "Blogs are bad," they bellowed. "We must rid our homes and neighborhoods of blogs." Then they returned to worrying about why the frummest girls schools produce graduates who ignore tznius, despite 14 years of subversive inculcation, and how to close the Pandora's box of frummer-than-though kashrus which has inexplicably led to America's most religious neighborhood to eat traif meat for half a decade.
Blogs are bad. Blogs are bad. Yeah, let's stick it to that UnOrthodox fellow. Who is he anyway to blame us for child molestation? We TOLD people that separate seating weddings would solve everything. And as long as they don't listen in the Five Towns, we can't be held responsible for what happens to little boys in Brooklyn."
So the convention program, with a half dozen cutsie teaser ads were drafted and everyone was happy. "Blogs are bad!," said the Agudah big shots. "When we're done with them, we'll be able to ridicule molestation victims with impunity in the Jewish Week." The Daas Torah dispensers cried, "Blogs are Bad. And now, we can get back to banning intangible objects, like books and sheitels, which we can burn, and actual people whom we can besmirch, excommunicate and threaten. It was so much easier in the old days."
But they didn't count on themselves making the same mistake as they have made time and time again: life moves fast. People forget. They are busy. If things go away, they are forgotten. It's the same reason why sexual molestation victims fade away. If people forget, their pain is buried, for they themselves to choke on, alone. But when old news gets dredged up. When books that appear objectionable are given attention, or banned, they take on a life of their own. When forgotten blogs are given main stage forums at major fundraising events....they return to life.
And so, UOJ, in all his glory has been vindicated and resurrected, unlike the Agudah, which is as pathetic and irrelevant as it has been for the past decade, UOJ has attracted a well written,logical counterpart:
http://rabbimatisyahusalomon.blogspot.com
which features a several thousand word letter detailing the vast and grievous gaps in communal leadership and compassion by our so-called gedolim.
The progeny of UOJ also provides an lucid timeline of events that led up to UOJ and more importantly the serious lack of judgment, compasison, and leadership of the dispensers of Daas Torah. And, incidentally, offers a nod to the one straight shooter of our generation, Rabbi Avigdor Miller, who told certain askanim, to, so to speak -- damn the torpedoes and blow this mother sky high. (I paraphrased a bit).
So, to the chagrin of every frummie on the dark hatted side of the color spectrum, UOJ is back. Ironically, the very intention of the Agudah, to declare their moral victory over bloggers and reclaim their relevance has instead tossed the moral imperative to bloggers such as UOJ. Blogs are more relevant and necessary than ever before.
As for UOJ, he sounds more mature, and as always -- is dead on correct about the travesty that has been perpetrated over 40 years of inaction, intimidation, and malicious ineptitude.
Welcome back UOJ. Klal Yisroel needs you!
posted by Still Wonderin'
http://stillwonderin.blogspot.com/2006/12/agudah-to-uoj-welcome-back.html#links
34 comments:
UOJ,
When are we going to hear more about YTV ??? How much longer do we have to wait ?? By the way, i was at a wedding tonight and someone told me that a Harvey Waxman was the money man for BME.
He was supposed to pay for the mortgage and other expenses related to Bais Medrash Elyon but kept the money himself.
RGS and Louis Septimus tried to kick him out but to no avail.
And i was told that was the main reason why BME had to close.
Any truth to this story ??
Of all the testimony from the Rubashkin trial, this is what struck me the most. This testimony is from the owner of Waverly Sales, one of the largest sellers of livestock to Agri. By all accounts there was a completely trusting relationship between the two companies with established credit and all. Yet, this man was asked to deliver a victim impact statement in an effort to put Agri’s owner in jail for the maximum time. The following is a synopsis of his testimony:
David Beyer, said their cattle-sales business was reimbursed after a five- to seven-month wait, as the plant moved through bankruptcy proceedings. Nine full-time employees and their families were left in limbo until the case was resolved, he said. The company also had to pay $3,700 in interest on the loan as well as attorney fees, he said. “It was a lot of sleepless nights, wondering whether your employees are going to have jobs – whether you’re going to have a job,” Beyer said.
Rabboisai…
Imagine, this close associate is trying to have Agri’s owner put away for life. Why? Because of the agmas nefesh he suffered for a few months.
If agmas nefesh over a bill paid within a few months is deservent of a 25 year jail term, how much more so is the punishment for a person who radically impacted the life of another person? Imagine the punishment for a person who bullied a child out of school, who wrongfully terminated an employee, etc., you get the picture.
It’s time to do a cheshbon hanefesh and take responsibility for lives impacted negatively through our own hands. It is time to repay the damages caused to others through our actions.
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=12413515
Opryland Resort Evacuates 1500 Guests
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3883672,00.html
5-year sentence handed to mother of Elior Chen's abuse victims
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/05/01/news/aa3_capabusedrop050110.txt
Lawmakers won’t vote on sex abuse bill
We can get Margo arrested when he goes to England
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3883985,00.html
A loophole in British law allows courts to issue arrest warrants against foreign leaders on suspicion of committing war crimes without the attorney general's approval. This means that any Palestinian who learns about an upcoming visit of a "suspicious" Israeli official can ask for an arrest warrant – and it will be approved by the British court.
YWN regrets to inform you of the Petira of Hagon Rav Elazar Dovid Follman ZATZAL, a Magid Shiur (8th grade) for many years in Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Flatbush.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/world/europe/03maciel.html?hp
May 2, 2010
Abuse Case Offers a View of the Vatican’s Politics
By DANIEL J. WAKIN and JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
The two former Mexican seminarians had gone to the Vatican in 1998 to personally deliver a case recounting decades of sexual abuse by one of the most powerful priests in the Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado.
As they left, they ran into the man who would hold Father Maciel’s fate in his hands, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and kissed his ring. The encounter was no accident. Cardinal Ratzinger wanted to meet them, witnesses later said, and their case was soon accepted.
But in little more than a year, word emerged that Cardinal Ratzinger — the future Pope Benedict XVI — halted the inquiry. “It isn’t prudent,” he had told a Mexican bishop, according to two people who later talked to the bishop.
For five years, the case remained stalled, possibly a hostage to Father Maciel’s powerful protectors in the Curia, the Vatican’s governing apparatus, and his own deep influence at the Holy See.
The Rev. Alberto AthiƩ Gallo, a Mexican priest who in 1998 tried to bring allegations of sexual abuse by Father Maciel to the attention of Cardinal Ratzinger, said the Vatican allowed Father Maciel, who died in 2008, to lead a double life for decades.
“This was tolerated by the Holy See for years,” Father AthiĆ© said. “In this sense I think the Holy See cannot get to the bottom of this matter. It would have to criticize itself as an authority.”
Mr. Barba said that in a later phone conversation with Ms. Wegan, she told him it was better for eight innocent men to suffer than for millions to lose their faith. In October 2002, Mr. Barba said he had dinner with Ms. Wegan at a restaurant near her apartment in Rome. She told him, he said, that Cardinal Sodano had pressed Cardinal Ratzinger, who was thought to favor proceeding with a case, to drop the investigation.
I have just posted:
Take the Borger Challenge: See If You Can Listen to His Entire Tape Without Gagging?
http://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/take-the-sammy-borger-challenge/
Filed at 3:36 p.m. ET
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) -- Hofstra University basketball coach Tim Welsh resigned Monday, three days after he was charged with drunken driving and only a month after he was hired.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/04sanford.html
Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina will not face criminal charges stemming from ethics complaints, state Attorney General Henry McMaster said Monday, ending months of investigatation by his office.
“The time has come for our state to put this controversy behind us and move on,” Mr. McMaster said, adding that the governor’s actions did not rise to a criminal level.
The attorney general’s office investigated reports that Mr. Sanford, a Republican, used state aircraft for personal and political reasons, bought business-class tickets in violation of state travel policy, and failed to account for small amounts of campaign money. The issues arose after he acknowledged that he secretly traveled to Argentina in 2008 to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair.
Mr. Sanford has faced several inquiries over the charges. A legislative subcommittee decided not to recommend impeachment, while the Legislature instead voted to censure him. The State Ethics Commission charged Mr. Sanford with 37 violations, including 18 instances when he flew first or business class instead of third class; nine improper uses of state aircraft; and 10 counts of using less than $3,000 in campaign money for personal or nonbusiness expenses.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/may/03/031717/brooklyn-rabbinical-student-dies-tampa-watercraft-/
TAMPA - Nosson Deitsch was following a family tradition.
Of the 12 sons and daughters Zalman Deitsch, one of Brooklyn's leading Jewish scholars, 10 were rabbis or married to rabbis, said Nechemia Deitsch, one of Nosson's older brothers.
Nosson Deitsch, the youngest sibling at 21, was studying at the Lubavitch Yeshiva in Miami, his older brother said. Nosson was almost finished with his studies and about to be ordained as a rabbi.
Now he is being mourned.
On Sunday, Nosson Deitsch was operating a personal watercraft on the north side of the Courtney Campbell Causeway, where he was struck by another personal watercraft, Tampa police said. Deitsch was knocked into the water. He was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital by Tampa Fire Rescue and later pronounced dead. The police department's Marine Patrol is investigating.
If someone were driving a personal watercraft recklessly, that would constitute a crime, McElroy said. The state attorney's office, she said, would decide whether to charge anyone, McElroy said.
Deitsch was in the area helping the Brandon Chabad during the Jewish holiday of Lag B'omer, according to Rabbi Mendel Rubashkin, who is also Deitsch's cousin.
"He came to give a little spark and support to our community," said Rubashkin.
Deitsch had been talking about going on a Jet Ski since arriving here on Wednesday, said Rubashkin.
"He was really looking forward to it," the rabbi said.
Rubashkin remembers his cousin as a "gregarious young man.
"He was always the life of the party," said Rubashkin. "But he took his studies seriously."
May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Investor Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.
Another generic drug maker in trouble. This company is based in Israel.
http://www.fdanews.com/newsletter/article?issueId=13645&articleId=126570
Teva Parenteral Medicines has received an FDA warning letter for good manufacturing practice (GMP) violations — some related to its anesthetic propofol injectable emulsion.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20100504/NEWS05/305049994
OGDENSBURG — A kosher cheese plant on Main Street is behind on its bills, and city officials once again are threatening to foreclose on the property.
City officials say the plant, owned by Toobro LLC, Hewlett Neck, is behind about $160,000 in utilities, rent and taxes. Although officials have not outlined a deadline for when the money must be paid, City Manager Arthur J. Sciorra said the city will seek to close the plant if the outstanding bills continue to grow.
"This is the position we've taken: the city will not subsidize this operation. They must stay paid up and current," he said. "It's going back to the same problem with" Ahava Food Corp., the previous owner.
Toobro began operating the plant, which makes "cholov yisroel"-grade kosher cheese and milk, in May 2009 after the city agreed to sell the plant for a $125,000 down payment, $12,000 monthly rent for 13 months and a closing payment of up to $900,000.
While the company put its down payment in an escrow account, it subsequently missed deadlines that would have allowed its monthly rent payments to be put toward the $900,000 closing payment amount, Mr. Sciorra said.
"It will cost them the full $900,000 with the loss of all their rent, and that adds up to (more than) a million dollars," he said. "When they get this high up and this far behind, I get really nervous."
In 2008, the city took over the cheese plant after former owner Ahava Food Corp., Venice, Calif., failed to pay about $90,000 owed in rent and $618,138 in utility bills.
City Comptroller Philip A. Cosmo said Toobro owes the city about $154,000 in utilities and $6,600 in rent.
This is the third time the city has threatened to close the plant because of past-due bills. In August, unpaid bills reached about $175,000, and in October, the delinquent account was about $155,000.
Schneur Bistritzky, who owns Toobro with his brother, Menachem, declined to comment.
2 comments posted.
By a disgruntled transplant Tue., May. 04 at 7:29 am
Ogdensburg's finest brains are at it again...Why not do the right thing and throw 'em out? Why not? well then the city and the county would have to find a new babysitter for all the felons and drug dealers who put time in pretending to work in the plant. At least with the cheese plant, they know where the criminals are most of the time.
Blogger FGBA found that accountant Abe Roth's old address is on 18th Ave right next door to the Right Place. Meyer from the Right Place was nailed for letting Rubashkin falsely say he shipped millions of dollars worth of meat there.
Abe Roth was also honored recently at the Agudah fresser convention.
https://www.5tjt.com/international-news/7014-our-head-in-the-sand-by-tbt-the-broken-tatty.html
Our Head in the Sand
By TBT - The Broken Tatty • 5TJT.com
We received the following cry for help by one of our readers. The author requested anonymity.
While our community leaders are busy dealing with the very important issues of helping Rubashkin, Grossman, and other communal issues – there is something happening each week and each day that is receiving very little coverage.
It is a ticking time bomb that is about to explode. Many of our kids have lost their direction.
Yeshiva boys are driving on Shabbos. Not only secretly, but out in the open. They are also smoking on Shabbos. Girls and boys are texting on Shabbos and using their iPods on Shabbos too. Our Yeshiva boys are smoking pot. Yes – pot.
Somehow, someway, we have failed to inspire our children in the traditions of our forefathers – to love Hashem and His Torah.
And it is not just the fringe kids. These are children from good families. Good homes.
The blight is happening across the nation, from California to Monsey to Lakewood and Flatbush. A doctor friend of mine recently observed that one of his patients was not wearing Tzitzis. He commented to the young man about it. The young man responded, “Tzitzis? I just woke up. I am not even holding by Tefillin anymore. Tzitzis is nothing..”
We have on our hands a problem of devastating proportion – the new assimilation that we last saw one hundred years ago when our great-grandparents first steeped foot on the shores of this country. Every Rabbi, every Yeshiva, every Torah organization should be having emergency meetings about it. But they aren’t.
I spoke to a Chassidish business colleague and to my utter shock – they are having the same problems in their communities. Their kids are falling and the Rebbes aren’t talking about it.
Rubashkin may be facing 25 years in jail and that is important. But where are the mass meetings about our fallen children? Where are the petitions and Youtube videos about our sons and daughters? I want a mass tehillim rally. I want to hear our community leaders talking about this.
The problem is so pervasive that there is probably not a Yeshiva in New York without a Pot problem or a “not davening” or “not putting on Tefillin” problem. So why aren’t we talking about it? If it is not spoken about – it won’t be addressed. If it is not addressed, we will lose our children and grandchildren forever. Not just for 25 years but forever.
Agudah, Torah UMesorah, where are you?? I await any response.
Sincerely, TBT The Broken Tatty
Head of Jerusalem yeshiva arrested for allegedly shooting student
The rabbi shot the yeshiva boy from the back of a motorbike and fled the scene, eyewitnesses told police.
By Nir Hasson • Ha'aretz
The head of a Jerusalem yeshiva allegedly shot and wounded one of his students in early January.
The rabbi was arrested three weeks ago and is expected to be charged Tuesday with aggravated assault, illegal possession of a firearm and obstruction of justice.
On Saturday night, January 9, police received a report of a shooting incident in Jerusalem's Haredi neighborhood of Beit Yisrael. At the time, eyewitnesses told police that two young men on a motorbike shot a yeshiva student and fled the scene of the crime.
The victim also fled the scene, but was located by police later that night in a hospital in the north.
Police arrested the Jerusalem rabbi three weeks ago along with an associate – allegedly the motorcycle driver.
Police had interrogated the rabbi, who was not initially a suspect, shortly after the incident because of his connection to the student. At the time he told police that he had been on his way to a torah class in the south when the shooting took place.
Police say they have eyewitnesses who identified the rabbi as the shooter, and evidence that the rabbi called the victim from a pay phone shortly before the incident and requested that he meet him at the location at which the shooting later took place.
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=217407
Just shut this DRUG OPERATION down. That's right I said drug operation. I see exactly what goes on in there EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Trucks come and go at 2am, shuffling boxes from truck to truck, into employees cars and small vans that pull up. Now tell me, is that really normal operation for a poultry plant?? This place got nailed on drugs many times in the past, how about you stop worrying about the sewer and see what else goes on in there. I bet you would need a cargo plane to return all the workers to their LEGAL countries on top of everything else.
Comment By Neighbor at 5/4/2010 8:54:49 AM
They've got this wrong! It's all Capt. Sully's fault!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05ntsb.html?hp
Everybody got out alive when a US Airways Airbus A320 hit the Hudson River 16 months ago, but the airplane manufacturer’s assumptions about how it would behave in such circumstances were unrealistic and the crew’s emergency manual was inappropriate, according to information released by the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday morning.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/04/30/2010-04-30_wronged_again_sez_brooklyn_ma.html
A Brooklyn mom who says she's the victim of mistaken identity will have to wait another two months to try to prove she didn't run over a traffic agent's foot.
Chila Lati's trial was scheduled to start Thursday, but prosecutors asked that it be postponed, and now it won't start until June 29.
"I'm so disappointed," Lati said after leaving Brooklyn Criminal Court. "I thought they would just drop the case. Now we have to come back again."
Lati, 39, was arrested in January and accused of attacking a traffic agent after she left a Sheepshead Bay pharmacy to find her car being ticketed.
She was tracked down through the name provided by the pharmacy, and the agent picked her out of a lineup.
But Lati says a different woman with the same name - a relative who has refused to come forward - is the culprit.
As proof, she has a picture of herself at a yeshiva in a different neighborhood just 18 minutes before the incident. She also drives a different car from the one cited, and her lawyer said the prescription from the drug store is for the other woman.
Prosecutors have subpeonaed the prescription, but there was a delay in getting it, so the case was postponed.
What do you know about Gad Grieve? If you Google him, you'll see that he committed major fraud. Apparently some of the people from his former yeshivah, Marbeh Torah in Bnei Brak, were somewhat involved in recruiting investors for him. One of them is Rav Naftoli Elzas, who masterminded the campaigns against "Making Of A Godol" and the Slifkin books.
http://www.communitym.com/article.asp?article_id=100821&article_type=0
SHABTAI SVI – THE FALSE MESSIAH
When Rabbi Yosef Escapa, Shabtai’s teacher, heard that his student claimed to be Mashiach, he put Shabtai and his followers in cherem. Several years later, in 1651, as his aberrant religious practices became more notorious, the sages of Smyrna banished Shabtai from the community. He spent the next seven years wandering through Greece, Turkey and Albania, and over the course of his travels, many Jewish communities expelled him due to his unusual behavior and peculiar ideology. Yet, despite the strong opposition, his charisma and extraordinary scholarship enabled him to attract a relatively large following of ardent supporters.
Despite the cherem and banishment, Shabtai gradually earned widespread fame amongst all sorts of Jews.
Many prominent rabbis were misinformed about Shabtai Svi, and supported his movement. Among the rabbis who supported the false messiah were Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, Moses Rephael de Aguilar,
Moses Galante, Moses Zacuto and Hayim Benveniste. Among the few rabbis who fiercely opposed the popular belief in Shabtai Svi was Rabbi Yaakov Sasportas. Warning against lending support to the false Mashiah, Rabbi Sasportas wrote lengthy letters to all the prominent rabbis of Europe. Sadly, Rabbi Sasportas’ warnings fell upon deaf ears, and he was forced to leave his hometown of Amsterdam.
Rabbi Yaakov Hagiz declared a herem on Shabtai Svi. He and his followers were banished from Jerusalem in Av, 1664.
Concerned that the Sabbatean movement could precipitate a Jewish revolt, eventually the Sultan ordered Shabtai to convert to Islam or be tortured to death. Brought before the Sultan, Shabtai agreed to convert and he cast off his Jewish garb and donned a Turkish
turban. In reward for his cooperation, Shabtai was given a royal title, Aziz Mahmed Efendi, and the position of “Keeper of the Sultan’s Gate” (doorkeeper).
When news spread of Shabtai’s acceptance of Islam, the majority of his followers stopped believing in his messiahship. Some, however, refused to admit their mistake and, following their messiah’s example, converted to Islam.
Even after Shabtai’s death, approximately three hundred families that had converted to Islam and were known as Donmeh
(Turkish for “converts”) stubbornly continued to believe that he would reappear and redeem the Jewish people.
The circumstances surrounding his death are shrouded in mystery, and there are many different accounts of his passing. In Sefer Minhat Yehuda HaRuchot Mesaperot(The Spirits Speak), in the section of Yehezkel, it is told that Shabtai Svi appeared to Hacham Yehuda Fetaya as a demonic spirit. Shabtai Svi told Hacham Fetaya, “I am he, Shabtai Svi. My death was by hanging. I did not repent for my sins…”
http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/week-s-end/miles-to-go-before-he-slept-1.284356
The French government has started digging up kevarim that are 99 years and older.
Here is a disgraceful situation where the rov of Paris and mechaber of Aliyos Eliyahu on the Gra MiVilna was disinterred and left in a moldy box, 120 years after he was niftar.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20100420042306282C564228
Chief rabbi drops threat to sue Aids activist
That so called rosh yeshiva hit man leads a yeshiva of ex-convicts. He himself is an ex-con and "baal teshuva" who served 2 years in prison for attempted murder.
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_14856567#axzz0n1CbrggW
Two women who say they have been run out of Boulder's Jewish community after an argument with a rabbi at Congregation Har HaShem want the synagogue to fund a Jewish ethics lecture series, library and scholar-in-residence program -- all in their names -- to restore their damaged reputations.
They also want to be reinstated as members at Har HaShem -- with their dues waived for the next four years -- a public, written apology from the synagogue's rabbis, and for the congregation to pay for therapy, private religious tutoring and a program of Jewish study in Israel.
According to a lawsuit filed this week in Boulder County District Court, Barbara Brown and Karen Hammer are seeking more than $100,000 in damages from Har HaShem, Boulder's Reform synagogue.
In the lawsuit, the couple accuses Rabbi Joshua Rose of false imprisonment and Rose and Rabbi Deborah Bronstein of intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation. The rabbis deny any wrongdoing, according to their attorney.
They say Brown and Rose got into an argument over the rabbi's failure to provide audio-visual equipment for a class Brown and Hammer were teaching that ended with Rose blocking the door to his office while holding his infant son on his hip to prevent Brown from leaving.
After several requests to leave were ignored, Brown began screaming, causing Hammer, Brown's wife, to run to her assistance from the nearby classroom, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says Brown and by extension, Hammer, were traumatized by the incident, and that trauma was made worse when the synagogue leadership rebuffed their efforts to resolve the matter and shared a letter from synagogue attorney Darren Nadel about the issue with many synagogue members.
"The Nadel letter was later distributed by Congregation Har HaShem to most of the members of the synagogue as part of a campaign to discredit Dr. Brown, Ms. Hammer and the Brown-Hammer Family," the lawsuit says. "As a result of the Nadel letter and the distribution of similar information, Dr. Brown and Ms. Hammer were publicly heckled at a synagogue membership meeting of over 300 people."
The lawsuit also alleges that Har HaShem cancelled the couple's membership and prevented them from being accepted as members at Congregation Bonai Shalom, a Conservative synagogue.
In an interview, Hammer said she and her wife are now unable to worship anywhere in Boulder and have to drive to Denver for services. The long drive detracts from what is supposed to be a day of rest.
Hammer, a corporate attorney with no litigation experience, is representing the couple herself because other lawyers said the case was "too hot" to take, she said.
Hammer said she and Brown tried to resolve the matter privately and filed the lawsuit only as a last resort. She said she hopes people realize the case isn't about Judaism but about clergy misconduct.
"It's not good for any faith to have their clergy acting out, creating victims and then becoming predators," she said
http://www.stljewishlight.com/topstories/297165188206876.php
Itche Meyer, watch out for this so called rabbi who claims he is orthodox.
He does shechita in the Northeast together with a Conservative shochet.
What will the Vaad Hoir do if he starts that nonsense in Missouri?
http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/victims-advocate-accused-of-misconduct/
What does UOJ think now that Vicky Polin and Rav Yosef Blau have turned against this guy believing that he himself is a predator while acting as victim advocate?
St. Louis - Are you talking about Rabbi Green, the newly hired head of school? I have been trying to do research on him. He did speak at an event sponsored by JOFA - Jewish Organization of Feminists Alliance or something like that anyway. If this is all official and the shechita thing is true, then I will write the Executive Board a letter calling them out on their deception.
UOJ - Please disregard and delete the comment I just wrote a couple of minutes ago. I jumped to the wrong conclusion. Thanks.
St. Louis - I'm not too worried about the YCT Rabbi that is taking over at Hillel having much impact on the greater community. I don't think he will impact the Vaad one iota.
On a seperate topic, St. Louis, that was first brought up by you, it should be noted that the machlokes between a local shul and local Yeshiva High School has been successfully resolved, B"H.
Totally true Hershel waxman is a well-known thief who not only stole from mosdos but also besmirched the names of respected askonim such as Louis Septimus. He was jealous of Louis septimus control over the Schwartz fund. Due to waxmans thieving ways YESHIVOS LOST $100 MILLION DOLLARS!
Today he lives in Monsey as if he is the biggest tzaddik around while he is a Rasha gamur....he will receive his due punishment in the Olam HaEmes...
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