THE BOY KNEW THE BUTCHER?
by Simon Jacobson --- The UOJ Archives:
Dear G-d,
It’s been a while. How are You?
Though You didn’t ask, let me share with You how we are. Bluntly put: We’re not doing so well down here.
Last Friday night – as You surely know – a beautiful family was butchered in cold blood. A father, mother and their three children. Just to confirm that You get their names and ages right, to assure them their box seats in heaven, here is the exact spelling of their names: Udi Fogel, 36. Ruth Fogel, 35. Yoav Fogel, 11. Elad Fogel, 4. Hadas Fogel, 3 months.
Yes, You read that right, 3 months old… Throats slashed – all of them. What did they do wrong? They were sleeping in their home in the Promised Land, on a Friday night, after praying Shabbat services and eating the Shabbat meal, reciting blessings and singing Your praises.
Yes, indeed: This happened on Shabbat. On Your Shabbat. And in Your Holy Land. The land that Your eyes “watch from the beginning of the year till the end of the year.”
In Japan, one of Your “natural disasters” – in the guise of an earthquake and tsunami – devastated an entire region, leaving over 25,000 dead, and millions displaced. (Our insurance policies call these “natural disasters” “acts of G-d”– so don’t think You’re off the hook and have been forgotten; all joking aside, when it comes to saving money our insurance companies blame stuff on You, though they don’t necessarily give You the credit when things work out alright).
These two brazen tragedies were publicized, leaving us all reeling, shaken to the core. But surely there were many more tragedies – which You, if anyone, know about more of than all of us – that did not make headlines. How many people are suffering as we speak? Only You know.
Bottom line, things are not very pretty on Earth.
Before anyone tries waxing philosophical, let me acknowledge that I am quite aware that the holiday of Purim is quickly approaching. And we know that Purim is all about Your concealed presence and Your hidden plans. Your name is therefore never mentioned in the entire Megillah, indicating Your behind the scenes orchestration.
We also know that the name of our Purim heroine, Esther, is rooted in the Biblical verse “And I will surely hide (haster astir) My face from you” (Chulin 139b).
We know all this and more.
But pray tell: Did You really have to hide Your face to the extent of allowing, for G-d’s sake, an infant’s throat to be slit??!!
Your hidden face doesn’t get more hidden than when that inhuman butcher dug his knife into the chests and slit the throats of these innocent victims…
You asked us to remember - Zachor - what Amalek did to us. To remember and never to forget. We remember all to well. This Shabbos we will remember yet again. But now, with the latest blood-drenched bodies in Itamar, we don't need a reminder to remember; their blood cries out to us. It's hard to forget what you see with your own eyes.
Our question to You is whether You remember? You also obligated Yourself to fulfill every command You gave us. Do You remember even as your face is shrouded and concealed? Do you remember us?...
My colleague Dennis Prager wrote a heart-wrenching piece, The Other Tsunami, on what type of monster it takes to brutally slaughter children. How unnatural it is for a human being to kill an innocent child, and how much “training” and “education” is necessary to lose any semblance of compassion toward pure children. His chilling words capture the brutal reality of this and other attacks on Jews, and there is no need for me to reiterate it here.
However, what I would like to know, dear G-d, is how You see it? I understand that Your beautiful face is concealed. But how concealed can You get? How much will You tolerate and how concealed will You allow Yourself to become?
Was the Holocaust not enough concealment?
And we would like to know what it’s like to see all this pain from behind Your hidden face?
I also know that in the Purim Megillah You have already planted a tailored response to this and any other tragedy: Life is filled with surprising twists and turns. Just as our lives can turn, in a blink, from normalcy to disaster, one moment the Jews were living in peace, and a moment later, a decree was issued to annihilate the entire Jewish nation, they can also turn as quickly the other way around, from catastrophe to joy.
Purim’s essential message is one of total reversal of fortune – v’nahafoch hu (Esther 9:1), ha'chodesh asher ne'hepach lo'hem (9:22) – the month had been transformed for them from grief to joy, from mourning to a festive day.
Purim is a story of surprises. What you see is not what you get. Everything is turned inside out and outside in, upside down and down side up. We therefore understand that despite the recent calamities, we surely will be redeemed, and our grief and mourning – for the Fogel family – will turn into joy.
We know all this too well. As Jews we have seen the abyss many times, and… survived.
But did we really need yet another slaughter of a pure family?!…
How much grief and mourning will it take to show us that things can be transformed to celebration?
We surely also appreciate all Your blessings, all the gifts that You bestow upon us daily. We are deeply grateful. But that does not compensate for the suffering some of us endure. And indeed, You instructed us to cry out and do whatever we can for those in pain. You created us in a way that our hearts break when we suffer and see others suffer.
We stand in awe and shudder before Your seemingly infinite capacity at concealment…
But with all the profound mystery of Your concealment (sod ha’tzimtzum they call it), and all the secrets behind Your greater plan – will we ever get some respite?!
How does a concealed face look at a baby bleeding to death???
How does it feel from behind the veil? From behind the “hastir astir” (Esther) of your face?
It must be very lonely behind the mask…
What does it look like from “behind the curtain” and the “doors of perception”?
I know You can see it from our perspective as well. And I know that You shed tears when we do. But at the end of the day, You also have the advantage of seeing it from Your vantage point. And we don’t.
That makes all the difference.
Help us out here a bit. We sorely need it.
We have lived in the dark long enough. It’s high time to take off Your mask and cloak, and show us Your face. As You Yourself promised: “No longer shall your Teacher hide Himself behind robe and garment, but your eyes will behold Your Teacher” (Isaiah 30:20), “for they shall see eye to eye” (Isaiah 52:8).
El' Malei Rachamim:
When one thinks of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum one thinks of kana'us, violence, opposition to other Jews of all stripes and his screed/"sefer" against the state of Israel. Is that what we have become, that this is considered 'gadlus'?
ReplyDeleteAnd when one looks at the peiros of this 'Chassiduth', one sees more of the same: brother fighting brother, literally, for control. This is what the Baal Shem Tov came for? Really?? Where is the anivus? The shalom? The Torah? THE AHAVAS YISROEL????
How much longer do these Hungarian-Romanian showmen expect to keep their followers living the lives of peasant Jews from Europe with nothing more than outlandish tisch and family simcha spectacles to inspire?
Lastly: it is very important to understand the historical context of the Besht. Eastern European Jewry were roiling from the double trauma of Shabtai Tzvi and Tach V'Tat. This wasnt a time for kanayus or elitism. It was a time for appreciating every Jews, realizing their well being is whats most important to Hashem, and bringing them closer to Judaism. Yes, he had many great scholars as disciples, but yet the common theme in most stories is the care he had for other Jews and the importance he placed on inspiring their Jewish practice through Chassidic/mystical thought. Yes, there are many silly miracle stories about him, but thats to be expected. But when one thinks of the Baal Shem Tov, one thinks of the founder of a movement that, at his passing, emobodied both Torah and Ahavas Yisrael.
His son didnt inherit the greatest of all Chassidic seats. Nor did the Maggid's son inherit his. Being someone's son didnt necessarily entitle anyone to anything. But by the third or fourth generation, the emphasis on inclusiveness and meritocracy had started to be replaced by dynasties, it was more important who your father was then who you were (with few exceptions). And now we're here. Can you point to ONE single current Chassidic leader who would compare favorably in substance to any Chassidic leader of 150 or even 100 years ago? And spare me about # of followers being the indiciation of anything - living in a land of great health care, govt $ and no pogroms + marrying at 18 will ensure a large following.
Its depressing. A great movement reduced to clowns in shiny jackets fighting with their siblings or putting on fancy weddings for their inbreeding with other dynasties. Sad.
5 Towns Jewish Times:
ReplyDelete"Leib Tropper Scandal Finally Put to Rest
International News
Written by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 04:31
For many Orthodox Jews, it has been a very trying two months.
The confluence of the threefold factors of the shock at the appalling scandal, the silence of those who should not have been silent, and the idea of the seeming acceptance by leading Rabbonim of such lewd behavior was too much for many to stomach. Thankfully, the issues have been put to rest this past Sunday evening, with the signing of a notarized contract by Leib Tropper.
The results were not, by any means, a foregone conclusion. The progression of events went as follows:
Last Tuesday afternoon, leading Rabbinic figures in Monsey met. That meeting was put together by Rabbi Dovid Ribiat and was chaired by one of the most senior Roshei Yeshiva in Monsey, HaGaon HaRav Moshe Green Shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva D’Monsey.
Others present at that Tuesday meeting included Rav Shlomo Breslauer Shlita, Rav of Beis Tefillah; Rav Yisroel Dovid Schlesinger, of K’hal Shaarei Tefillah; Rav Chaim Schabes the Morah D’Asra of Knesses Yisroel in New Hempstead; Rav Shlomo Zalman Kaufman, Dayan of the Beis Horaah Beis Din and Rav Ben Tzion Kokis, Rav of K’hal Zichron Mordechai in South Monsey.
The idea was to have an expanded meeting on Sunday in Yeshiva Beis Mikreh of Monsey. There, the Rabbonim were to sign a Kol Koreh demanding for Tropper to resign all his posts and to leave Monsey. A messenger of the Rabbonim, Rabbi Yehuda Weissler, was dispatched to summon Tropper and to have him make himself available at 10:30 PM. Rabbi Weissler got hold of Tropper by phone and informed him of what the Rabbonim wanted.
In order to forestall the consequences of severe Rabbinic censure, one of the Rabbis, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Schlesinger, associated with a good friend of Leib Tropper, prevailed upon Tropper to sign an agreement at the eleventh hour in which he would both step down and agree to a number of the demands of the Rabbis.
The agreement that Tropper signed began, “In not fulfilling the requirement of Shulchan Aruch that a leader be “Pircho No’eh”, the undersigned is relinquishing his position..” It further stated that he releases all rights and severs any connection he has to his former Yeshiva in Monsey and withdraws forthwith as a trustee of the organization."
5 Towns Jewish Times:
ReplyDelete"Leib Tropper Scandal Finally Put to Rest
Tropper also agreed to move out of Monsey within a few months.
The exact wording of the document states as follows:
To the Rabbonim of Monsey, under HaRav HaGaon R’ Moshe Green Shlita, and HaRav HaGaon R’ Shlomo Breslauer Shlita:
1. In not fulfilling the requirement of the Shulchan Aruch that a leader be pirko no’eh, I am permanently and irrevocably resigning from all positions, severing all connection and relinquishing all titles and decision-making authority with respect to Kol Yaakov Torah Center, Inc. a/k/a Yeshiva Kol Yaakov (“Kol Yaakov”), effective immediately, including without limitation the position of Rosh Yeshiva, maggid shiur, trustee, and all other positions in connection with the institution, administration, or students of Kol Yaakov.
The document was signed by Leib Tropper and notarized by Robert Simins.
The Rabbonim and those involved in making sure that the process has kept on course, have, in the past few weeks, received numerous messages attempting to interfere with the proceedings from various individuals. They remain undeterred both by the attempts at interference and numerous forms of harassment that include phone calls to their homes throughout the night, taxicabs falsely ordered to their homes, and threatening calls. One individual even received a rifle scope sent to his home. The latter incident is still being investigated.
Some askanim have expressed disappointment that the agreement did not deal specify specific future activities in which he would refrain from partaking. However, it was pointed out to them that the Kol Koreh can still be signed in the future, if the situation will warrant it.
The Rabbis in Monsey have been attacked and vilified by all corners. Their actions, however, have always been above board and their motivations have always been to act on Kavod Shamayim. They were not acting based upon hate of any individual, nor by the desire to cover up. These men have acted Leshaim shamayim, and are wise, scholarly, Talmidei Chachomim, who embody the highest ideals of what the Torah requires of leaders. They have, for the past few weeks, left the Ohel shel Torah to deal with this situation.
Although the Rabbis in Monsey are alone in publicly revealing their hand, it should be noted that there have been a number of Gedolei Torah in America and in Eretz Yisroel who have been instrumental in ensuring that the this assault on Kavod Shmayaim the past two months not continue. They have, behind the scenes, guided many of the askanim who have been involved.
The entire incident has been a source of enormous disappointment to the Torah communities both in the United States and in Eretz Yisroel. The silence has been deafening. The silver lining of the entire sordid cloud is the fact that a new class of Torah leaders has emerged that stands up for Kavod Shamayim and is undeterred by threats, vilification, and harassment."
NOTE: Farakhan y"sh gets most of his financial help from the likes of Ghadafi, and he's about to go broke without it, so he lashes out at America and Israel, see what this dangerous nut has to say:
ReplyDeleteHotAirPundit:
"March 19, 2011
"Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?"
Farrakhan Blasts Obama For Calling For Qaddafi to Step Down (Video)
Farrakhan goes on a rant on Chicago radio about Obama calling for Qaddafi to step down, this is from yesterday
YouTube video: Farrakhan warns, advises Obama on Libya (9 minutes)
Louis Farrakhan with radio host Cliff Kelley on WVON-AM 1690 Chicago
FARRAKHAN: "I warn my brother do you let these wicked demons move you in a direction that will absolutely ruin your future with your people in Africa and throughout the world...Why don't you organize a group of respected Americans and ask for a meeting with Qaddafi, you can't order him to step down and get out, who the hell do you think you are?"
Too late, "brother", they've already bombed the hell out of maniac Ghadafi on good ol' Purim as a modern Haman bites the dust. Maybe if Farakhan likes Ghadafi so much he should take a flight there with all of his followers and defend and fight for Ghadafi. Bon voyage!
Arutz Sheva/Israel National News:
ReplyDelete"Uprising in Syria: Assad Begins to Yield to Pressure
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Adar Bet 14, 5771, 20 March 11
Unprecedented protests in Syria for political freedom have forced the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to release 15 school children who were arrested in demonstrations, during which at least five people were killed.
Assad had been unable to suppress protests and withstand pressure that forced concessions from other Muslim countries in the past two months while toppling the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and threatening the Bahraini and Libyan rulers.
Syrian security forces used to tear gas to break up anti-government crowds at a funeral for two protesters who were killed on Friday, when police gunned down five people in violent clashes. Approximately 10,000 people had gathered and demanded more religious and political freedoms.
Assad, whose regime is branded by the United States as supporting terror, has expressed confidence that his iron grip will not be threatened. "Syria is insulated from the upheaval in the Arab world,” he has stated, insisting that he “understands his people's needs and has united them in common cause against Israel."
The United States condemned the violence, and a White House statement said, “Those responsible for today’s violence must be held accountable. The United States stands for a set of universal rights, including the freedom of expression and assembly, and believes that governments, including the Syrian government, must address the legitimate aspirations of their people.”
Analysts doubt that the protests pose any near-term threat to Assad.
“Syria was always going to be a tough nut for pro-democracy activists to crack,” TIME magazine noted. “It is a country where NGOs and political parties other than the ruling Ba'ath have long been banned; and where dissent, however mild, is viciously crushed. The omnipresent secret police, who are much more visible these days, and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad they serve, have instilled a public fear so heavy, it's almost tangible.”
It added, however, that the protests Friday and Saturday represented a drastic change and quoted Syrian dissident Ayman Abdel Nour as saying, "It is the start of a Syrian revolution unless the regime acts wisely and does the needed reforms."
TIME concluded, “The barrier of fear Syrians must surmount is significant if they are to seriously take on the regime, but then again, as protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and even Libya have proven, so too are the opportunities."
To me, the grandson and great grandson of Holocaust survivors and Holocaust martyrs, I'm sickened to the extreme seeing and hearing the garbage and filth that Rabbis spew (in general and) to the famous and never ending question: What about the six million. With things like: 'Nobody, besides a select few, were learning in the pre-war era', or the classic 'Who says they were bad things? And who says they were good people?' and every other crappy answer, these rabbis don't rise much higher than Holocaust deniers, because while they don't deny it, they rationalize it and water the catastrophe down greatly. So you mean to tell me, that the brutal gassing and extermenation of 6 million (I don't really care how secular) innocent people is 'Not a bad thing',or the 1 million children that were brutally slaughtered were 'Not Good People', you are not much better than Ahmedinijadd and his cronies denying it ever happened so the world will cease supporting Jewish Holocaust and Zionist organizations. I personally, despite the fact that I was never there, have not 'forgiven' or rationalized Gd's actions; the ones who do are treading over the bodies of the martyrs.
ReplyDeleteI hope UoJ posts this or something related.
I"m not really sure what you mean to say. Do you mean to say that events of the Holocaust prove that there id no G-d? Or that this G-d is evil?
ReplyDeleteIf you do mean to say that, then all I will say is that you may want to read a book called "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" by Rabbi Shmuel Waldman. Available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.
Try to be intellectually honest with yourself, and read the book.
If you don't doubt that there is a G-d, and you agree that this G-d is probably a Good G-d, then your issue is simply that you don't understand G-d's ways.
Nobody understands G-d's ways. Even those that have given different answers for the Holocaust, really don't know, and most don't even claim to know. They are just guessing.
The truth is, that as soon as one intelectually admits that there must be a G-d, as there is no other way to understand this world, (Read the above mentioned book) and as soon as one realizes that this G-d is inherently a Good G-d, we must also realize that we don't understand everything that G-d does, and that He doesn't want us to understand.
In fact, G-d may do these supposedly bad things solely to give us a test, and to see if we will continue to believe in Him. Just like G-d tested our forefather Avraham Avinu.
Frankly, there are very few people in the world that have a perfect life. Every person has problems and challenges. These are all personal tests from G-d, to help each and every person grow from these personal tests and become a better person, and to fulfill G-d's purpose for each and every individual.
If we would each know what our purpose on this world, it would be too easy. G-d wants us to struggle, and grow, and earn our reward in the next world.
There is no answer to the question of "why did G-d allow the Holocaust?" The answer is that G-d doesn't want us to know the answer. He wants us to continue to believe in Him, as a Good G-d, and to accept his Judgement, and to continue to grow, each one of us in our own personal way.
whats the big deal . just get rav elyashiv and rav kanievsky to send him a personal letter. no one can argue with them . right? and if he still doesnt comply then put out a kol koreh and get the vadd hatznius to do thier fine job of harrasment .
ReplyDelete>>G-d wants us to struggle, and grow, and earn our reward in the next world.<<
ReplyDeleteConsidering that many frum people have quite cushy lives -- with their biggest worry about where to vacation for Pesach or which silver menorah to get for their son-in-law and in light that there are countless millions going to bed hungry tonight, that's rich!
I know that the ways of Gd are hidden; believe me, are they ever. But, just as the gemara says,one who encounters pain should sift his deeds, meaning that pain in this world is our actions coming back to haunt us. Even though i don't believe this should be taken at face value, it makes people's personal suffering a little easier to understand, albeit mine and your detailed questions on each action and 'reimbursement'.But the extermination of the Six Million? For what action, exactly?
ReplyDeleteI believe that the notion of trying to understand Gd is arrogance is virulent, hateful garbage, because Gd requested of us to emulate him and there is no way one can truly emulate through blind following. i'm sorry, call me a apikores, but I believe that.
Now, the trend of being 'metaretz' the Holocaust is a disgusting and henious crime, in my opinion. To say, in the words of an Aish rabbi, 'Who says they were good people/bad things?' ( a play on the title of Harold Kushner's bestseller) is a horrible disgrace to the six million. Read my previous comment.
And, everyone knows, but nobody answers, the basic question of why we all have to go through a system of s'char ve'onesh just because without it, it is considered 'bread of embarrassment'. How pointless sounding. Find me one semi-decent answer to that.
ABC News:
ReplyDelete"China Rejects Google Accusation on Email
China rejects Google accusation that it is disrupting email services
BEIJING March 22, 2011 (AP)
China is rejecting accusations of interfering in Google's email services.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu referred questions to the Cabinet's news office but said China did not accept such accusations.
Some Google users in China have reported experiencing difficulties accessing their email service in recent weeks. The company said in a brief statement Sunday that its engineers had determined there were no technical problems with the email service or its main website.
China has strict controls over the Internet and blocks many international social media sites, including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The controls have intensified since pro-democracy protests erupted across the Middle East, setting the Beijing authorities on edge."
•Multiple women from his shul in Monsey accused him of seducing them, including married women.
ReplyDelete•He denied the accusations for years.
•An audio tape exists of Tendler trying to seduce a married woman. He never denied that it is his voice on the tape.
•Allegedly, Tendler's wife Michelle came home one day to find Tendler at home and a naked woman in her shower. Tendler denied knowing the woman and Michelle filed a report with the Ramapo Police regarding trespassing.
•Tendler had a "white noise" machine mounted outside of his office at the shul and office in his home. He often met with women behind closed/locked doors and used the device to conceal and sounds that may come from inside the room.
•Tendler had sole control of a charity fund established by his shul. He used those funds to pay-off the women to keep them silent. Countless tens-of-thousands of dollars are unaccounted for, and Tendler refused to give his shul an accounting of how the funds were used.
•A few years ago he seduced Adina Marmelstein, a single woman. He allegedly promised her that he would leave his wife for her. They were together constantly. Adina traveled to Israel to be with him, etc, etc, etc.
•Eventually, Adina realized that Tendler was using her. She allegedly taped their conversations.
•Adina sought help from other people in the community. With her help, a semen sample was collected which was later matched to Tendler using a hair sample collected from Tendler's son, Aharon Yosef.
•The RCA (Rabbinical Council of America) hired an independent private investigator to research the allegations. At the end of the investigation, the RCA expelled Tendler from their organization.
•The Monsey Rabbinical community held an investigation and Din Torah. Tendler refused to appear to defend himself. The committee, which represented all streams of Orthodoxy (Chassidic, Yeshivish and Modern), co-signed a p'sak halacha (which I posses) stating that Tendler is guilty of the accusations, confirmed the DNA evidence, and ruled that Tendler is unfit to serve in any rabbinical position.
•The psak was written by Rav Benzion Wosner. Anyone wanting more information should contact Rav Wosner, Rav Feivel Zimmerman, Rav Orbach of Forshay, Rav Avrohom Yaakov Schorr, Rav Cohen (from Blueberry), Rav Chaim Schabes, Rav Yisroel Ciner, Rav Schwartz (of Wesley Hills), Rav Yosef Yitzchok Rosenfeld or any other Monsey Rav. They have all seen the signed psak, and some are among the rabbonim who signed it themselves.
ReplyDelete•Tendler was fired from his position at Yeshiva University and his role at the Rockland County Board of Family Service.
•Tendler was fired from his shul.
•Adina allegedly revealed to Tendler that she was leaving him and that she had taped their conversations (possibly including sex acts). He offered her $40,000 for the tapes. This conversation, too, is taped.
•Adina filed suit against Tendler, claiming that he violated professional conduct rules by seducing her while he was serving as her counselor/therapist.
•The case was dismissed, because "seduction" is not ground for legal action in New York, and the professional relationship (therapist) was not considered credible.
•Tendler never denied in court that the allegations themselves were false, but only that they are not grounds for civil suit.
•Tendler tried to intimidate various parties throughout this process by filing multiple lawsuits in Bais Din (in the US and Israel) and secular court. In all cases (except one, see below), Tendler withdrew the case when the defendant(s) agreed to the suit and their intention to call witnesses, including the women accusers and DNA experts.
•The only Din Torah that Tendler didn't withdraw was one filed with a Bais Din that is known to be unashamedly corrupt (known in rabbinic circles as the "Agudas HaGanavim").
•For the last few years, Tendler has been mostly laying low. During the week he davens at his father's shul and on Shabbos he has a small minyan in his house with his few supporters (Yitzchak Friedman, Grossman, Schrantz, Scheiner, Esquenazi, Sofair and Liebling).
•Members of his father's shul are concerned that Tendler will try to take control of the shul when his father is no longer able to serve in that role.
Mordechai Tendler thinks this is 2011 and wiki-leaks is for real. Does he not understand that he is dealing with the Charedi community that is still in caveman mentality. Does he not accept that Charedi Neanderthals do not use the internet for anything productive, only for pornographic and destructive purposes. Regardless of whether he is innocent or guilty of all of the charges (and nothing was ever proven or substantiated in a court of law or in beth din), Tendler does not understand that he is soiled, his name muddied, and his reputation destroyed. This has nothing to do with the truth. No matter how many email addresses and screen names he will expose, Tendler is in the garbage pile of history. Even if he proved that every single last one of his accusers was a prostitute, whore, mental case, deliberate nut-job, etc., it is too late. The only way he could possibly save himself is for him to find a cure to cancer. Then, all of this smelly garbage would only be a footnote to history. Other than that, Tendler continues to be a headline in the National Enquirer.
ReplyDeleteThe Community is invited to
ReplyDeletea fascinating lecture
THE CONVERGENCE OF SCIENCE AND JUDAIC LAW
Appreciating The Divine Wisdom of the Ancient Jewish Sages
RABBI MOSHE D TENDLER
Thursday, March 24th 8:00 PM
BEIT DAVID HIGHLAND LAKES SHUL
2600 NE 209TH STREET
AVENTURA, 33180
(305) 935-4140
call the shul let them know
Thank you, UOJ.
ReplyDeleteI know youre intellegent enough not to buy garbage the same way many do.
It's time for Moshe Tendler to man up about his sons and his brother -very ill people that are responsible for damaging the reputation of the "Rabbinate"...and who have caused so much pain to the Jewish community.
ReplyDeleteHe has NOT changed one mind about his view of brain death, time of death; I suspect and have every reason to believe he has become an old, angry, senile man.
Time for him to drop his distorted agenda, and tell us about the Shisgal girls as well. He knows exactly what I mean!
south florida is becoming a haven for molesters asulteres and gropers
ReplyDeleterosh kolels that allow adultery and now cant get a visa to montreal. The rosh kolels wife has told him she isnt moving from florida to montreal
then you have rabbis that dont release tapes of who is in thier shul to the police so they can destroy evidence of molestation in the community
then you have shuls that bring adulteres like tendler to speak to glorify the tendler family
please call beit david and ask them why they are allowing tendler to speak
so come to florida if your a crook
The fact that R' Moshe Feinstein took Moshe Tendler for a son in-law, has to be viewed through the lense of the era of Jewish America back in the 30's/40's. The Jewish man pool was tiny, and this was the choice of R' Moshe's daughter, not him. She brought him a done deal.
ReplyDeleteSo, I don't want to hear, oh, RMF must have known what he was doing.
Although I am in total agreement with MT on the metziza b'peh ritual , the science is irrefutable, his other views seem shrill and combative, rather than thought out and reasonable, to boot, the science is debatable.
The Tendler name is MUD - and in my opinion, represents a group of seriously disturbed/mentally ill people that are lumped together by their DNA.
BUYER BEWARE!
South Florida - you forgot Av Beis Din running a prostitution ring until one of the "candidates", Dora M. starts extorting the "erliche yidden" who were with her. One guy goes and files for a restraining order against at the Dade county courthouse where the prosecutor doesn't wear a kippah or have a beard, but is a member of the shul where the Av Beis Din used to be the Mora D'Asra.
ReplyDeleteThe Rosh Kollel of adultery/former pedophile principal/harboring the convicted sex offender sits on the same Beis Din along with his wife's brother. His wife has a good reason to not want to go to the frigid north and that is that her husband will not keep her warm at night because he has been out with little boys the whole time that they have been in Florida.
please comment number 21 please provide more details as to the case with dora M
ReplyDeletethe roshkolel of adultery is being honored as a founder of the nmb kolel that was in existance long before he came to NMB
Guess that was part of his package to leave
he leaves his wife his debts and the children who he groped/destroyed and moves to montreal where his wife told him she isnt going
guess the yeshiva gedola of montreal didnt do their homework
Dora Moreira is a candidate for gerus with Rabbi Neal Turk (former Rabbi of Beth Israel in Miami Beach). Moreira and in some cases along with her daughter has been having relations with a number of "frum" men, both visitors and locals.
ReplyDeleteDora is now extorting these men (many of whom hold high positions in the Jewish community).
Dora has also become VERY friendly with Neal and Laura Turk in what appears to be a Tropper-esque type of relationship.
didn't do their homework? or are hoping he will share his little boys with the rabbis there? in south florida pedophila is a social sort of thing, so many of the rabbis are into it. montreal is obviously jealous.
ReplyDeletethe latest pedo-club hangout is safra,btw where the new talmud torah provides plenty of material for its groping teacher and the rabbi of the shul who won't let any of the mothers wait for their sons in the building because it is "not tznius". the teacher who was a student of the rosh of groping himself the former head of the NMB kollel, takes the little boys one at a time to his car which he parks behind the shrubs and out of the view of the security camera for "gifts" and toys.
The notion of haschgacha seems to be the norm in Haredi Judaism but is Haredi Judaism normative? It depends what you mean by normative. If compared to the Judaism of the Spanish Rishonim, NO compared to the Rishonim from France probably YES.
ReplyDeleteNormative Judaism had a concept of Ailu V'Ailu Diveri Elokim which Haredi Judaism does not recognize.
Haredi Judaism has adopted a Catholic like version of authority (infallibility of the self appointed Godol or gedolim of the moetzet) discarding the long held principal of Ailu V'Ailu.
Just out of curiosity
ReplyDeletewhy is rabbis wife not leaving to montreal with him
is it because of his groping behavior
and are we talking about the former head of the north miami beach kolel rabbi schmeltczer
something schmels in NMB and montreal
Getting rid of Gadaffi is getting as complicated as getting rid of Tropper! While everyone agrees he's a problem and and a gonner and he's gotta go, but it's a case of confronting a stubborn sly snake who knows how to exploit the weaknesses of his foes and plays them off against each other. Just read the following confusion that getting rid of Gadaffi is generating and compare that to the exact same comedic stupidity that Tropper unleashes among his foes:
ReplyDeleteMail Online (UK):
"Who's in charge? Germans pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart
By Daily Mail Reporter
23rd March 2011
* Tensions with Britain as Gates rebukes UK government over suggestion Gaddafi could be assassinated [even though the US had Saddam Hussein hanged?]
* French propose a new political 'committee' to oversee operations [they need to make up for their Vichy days]
* Germany pulls equipment out of NATO coalition over disagreement over campaign's direction [they should just invite Gadaffi and family to become a German citizen]
* Italians accuse French of backing NATO in exchange for oil contracts [and them not?]
* No-fly zone called into question after first wave of strikes 'neutralises' Libyan military machine [why can't people handle success?]
* U.K. ministers say war could last '30 years' [such crap, it's gonna be over in a few days]
* Italy to 'take back control' of bases used by allies unless NATO leadership put in charge of the mission [Berlusconi must be getting bored with his prostitutes if he's finally focusing on this]
* Russians tell U.S. to stop bombing in order to protect civilians - calls bombing a 'crusade' [ah yes, they were allowed to bomb into the ground, Chechnya, Georgia, and invade Hungary and kill millions in the Gulags, that was "not" a crusade?]
Deep divisions between allied [rabbinic] forces currently bombing Libya [Kolyaakov] worsened today as the German [Aguda] military announced it was pulling forces out of NATO [JUDAISM] over continued disagreement on who will lead the campaign.
A German [Aguda] military spokesman said it was recalling two frigates [gedolim] and AWACS [KOLLEL] surveillance plane crews from the Mediterranean, after fears they would be drawn into the conflict if NATO [JUDAISM] takes over control from the U.S.
The infighting comes as a heated meeting of NATO [JUDAISM] ambassadors yesterday failed to resolve whether the 28-nation alliance should run the operation to enforce a U.N.-mandated no-fly [no-chochmas] zone, diplomats said..."
why should she go? for the past 12 years has spent most of her time with her mother while he is "busy" molesting little boys. when he was thrown out of the yeshiva with a deal (ask rabbi zweig or rabbi ira hill)that they wouldn't tell as long as he did not go into chinuch, her brother got him set up in NMB. now after the aishes ish scandal, she has had enough and who would blame her.
ReplyDeletehow to know if you son's principal is a pedophile...... if he moves to a new community and doesn't bother to bring his wife.
http://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2009/10/rabbi-hershel-schachter-explains-laws.html
ReplyDeleteR’ H Shachter: There is NO issur Mesirah
i heard she ( mrs schmelczer )
ReplyDeletetild him not to be involved with the individuals that committed the eishes ish. Rabbi( and i use the term loosely) decided that since the persons brother gave him his 110k salary he would allow him into the kolel.
he didnt listen to his wife then failed to raise money for the kolel so he left
even though he is not supposed to be around young adult boys his family got him a job in montreal but he wanted toronto but they calleed members of the community and decided after hearing information about him they removed thier offer. Montreal believed schmeltczer and never checked him out with the right people.
I heard members of the community and her beis yaacov students are offering to pay his wife for counseling sessions . They want them gone from nmb .
IF his brother in law wasnt ephriam shapiro he would have been thrown out like a dog
"UOJ" - "The Un-Orthodox Jew" said...
ReplyDeleteThe fact that R' Moshe Feinstein took Moshe Tendler for a son in-law, has to be viewed through the lense of the era of Jewish America back in the 30's/40's. The Jewish man pool was tiny, and this was the choice of R' Moshe's daughter, not him. She brought him a done deal.
The way I heard it from a Posek who had some shimush From R' Moshe is that he was happy his daughter was frum at all since she attended communist schools while they were still living in Russia.
nmb wants the "big dog" gone from the community but why doesn't anyone care about the children in Montreal. and what about the deal the "big dog" signed with rabbi zweig not to be in chinuch and rabbi zweig won't tell?
ReplyDeleteephraim shapiro's name doesn't get too far these days since shapiro sits on the tropper south gerus beis din/brothel.
specialty of the house-lovely hispanic women who "visit" with their daughters and then later extort the choshuvadik bnai torah who received them.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Police-Search-for-Missing-Boy-in-Brooklyn-125413653.html
ReplyDeleteThe murderer of little Leiby Kletzky who was abducted in broad daylight on a busy Boro Park street is Levi Aron from East 2nd St around Ave C.
Was Aron a known child molester? It is rumored he is. Police Commish Ray Kelley would say only that he had no arrests to that affect but was arrested for public urination. He also said the NYPD would be speaking to Memphis police where Aron lived for 2 years.
Levi seems to be from the Aron family in Kensington who sent boys to Torah Vodaas.
After butchering little Leiby into pieces, Aron reported to work at Empire Supply on McDonald Ave as if nothing happened.
A question for Eckstein. Why do you name Aron on YWN and call him all kinds of names while you refuse to name molesters who also in effect murder little kids?
A question for Eckstein. Why do you name Aron on YWN and call him all kinds of names while you refuse to name molesters who also in effect murder little kids?
ReplyDeleteA better question would be --- why don't you name all of these names, so that scum like this will be locked up and kept away from precious, pure neshamos?
If only we would stop hiding the dirty laundy, so many lives would litteraly be saved.
IF someone covered for this scumbag at any time, that fool has blood on his hands and should be prosecuted for murder as well.
UOJ, I implore you, find out the truth! Don't stop until the job is done!
I remember Yosef Aron from YTV. The kids used to call out to him: "Feef, Machine" because he was built like a cyborg. That family has issues
ReplyDeleteBelsky may or may not defend Aron on the murder, depending if there is any incentive but I think UOJ will agree that Belsky will no doubt defend Aron on the public urination charge.
ReplyDeleteIt's really getting sick out there. Not a butchering of a little yingel, but still. There is a shvantz named Avrohom Rabinowich making chilul Hashem in a story that is so prust that I can't link the article. This guy is seriously screwed up, excuse the pun. He got semicha from YU but then started dressing charedi with a frock and uphat and then got dayanus from the Rabbanut. Then another big change. He marries a woman who is not frum and becomes the rabbi of a Conservative temple on Long Island. He starts driving on Shabbos to a fleabag motel to be with multiple zoynas at the same time. The press was given the videos and of course shows his most charedi looking pictures. The attorney representing him Jeff Lewisohn is a modern orthodox guy from the 5 Towns who represented Tuvya Rokach who molested at least one kid in Monsey.
ReplyDeleteYasher koach to the staff at the dental office of Dr. Yehuda Sorscher. They escorted the police inside the office in the middle of the night and spent hours going through files to track down the monster Levi Aron. Dr. Sorscher does a lot of dental tzedaka work on those who cannot afford dental procedures. Dr. Sorscher's son is a rov and huge talmid chochom who has taken heat from Agudah losers for poskening that child molesters must be reported to the police.
ReplyDeleteThe FBI has impounded Aron's car and is going over it with a fine tooth comb. Sounds to me like they are investigating other molestation cases as Aron's confession and bloody carving knives are enough for the murder conviction.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI remember Yosef Aron from YTV. The kids used to call out to him: "Feef, Machine" because he was built like a cyborg. That family has issues.
ReplyDelete*
Please e-mail me everything you know...the years in YTV...his rebbes...friends...classmates....
btw the big dog as you say is TZVI ELIYAHU SCHMELTCZER WHOSE WIFE IS REFUSING TO GO TO MONTREAL
ReplyDeleteSHE IS FED UP WITH HIS GROPING EVEN THOUGH he has tried to cover it up well
recently someone that he tought in elementary before florida came forward about him and his groping.
whty dont people ask his brother in law ephriam shapiro before he speaks about his BIL also known as the serial MOLESTER
my apologies my previous post should have said there is evidence that schmeltzer is a serial groper not molester but i fail to see the huge difference between the two.
ReplyDeletethey both cause huge and permanant scarring to young yeshiva boys
and once again lets ask 2 questions
why would a man leave miami where he is a rosh kollel to become a rebbe in a high school unless he knew people where on to him
why is his wife not going with him (the excuse that her mother needs her doesnt wash when her brother is a choshuv rabbi in fla and takes care of her.
ABC News is reporting a huge development with Levi Aron. He was taken by detectives late last night from the precinct to a hospital for DNA sampling to see if he is a match to unsolved murders and molestation cases.
ReplyDeleteABC is also reporting a bizarre twist that Aron may have taken Leiby to a chassuna in Monsey the night before killing him. Leiby may have been left in his car as Federal investigators have interviewed a number of the wedding party including the chosson & kallah and no one recalls seeing Aron with a little kid.
Dov Hikind angrily told Fox this morning that he is hearing that little Leiby WAS seen at the chassunah which means that some guests and family may have lied to FBI agents. The chassunah was an Aron family affair. Hikind says he is mindboggled that no one would question why a little kid was with Levi Aron.
ReplyDeleteLevi Aron was also given a psych evaluation while at the hospital. Not by a wishy washy Psy D like me, but rather by a full fledged MD.
ReplyDeleteAron has been having financial problems
ReplyDeleteKings County Civil Court
Index Number: CV-005102-11/KI
Case Name: CAPITAL FINANCIAL CREDIT LLC vs. ARON, LEVI
Case Type: Civil
Classification: Consumer Credit
Filing Date: 01/18/2011
He was sued in 2000 after he seemingly caused a car accident. That may have given him the idea to sue someone in 2008 in another accident case through a lawyer on Coney Island Ave off of Ave J that sounds like a slimy Russian. The case is still ongoing but was adjourned when Aron wasn't able to show up to trial yesterday due to "prior engagements".
Kings Civil Supreme
Index Number: 010788/2008
Case Name: LEVIN, ARON D. vs. PEREZ, CONSTANTINO
Case Type: Motor Vehicle
Track: Complex
RJI Filed: 11/03/2008
Scratch that lawsuit against Perez. It is someone else suing who by coincidence didn't show up to trial yesterday.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't take long for the apologists to start crawling out in defense of Levi Aron. They are saying oh he was distraught from his mother dying of yener machala and before that he had a head injury from an accident. Yankel Pfefferkorn nebich had a head injury but never hurt anyone.
ReplyDeleteThe Detectives bureau has told the Mayor's office that Levi Aron is cold and emotionless during questioning
ReplyDeleteJust my theory. I think Aron dumped Leiby in that particular dumpster because it is across the street from the big al Noor mosque and that would have drawn all suspicions to the Arabs
ReplyDeleteHashem yishmor and may he send the largest measure possible of nechama to the mishpacha. I would like to go out on a limb here and say this is a wake up call against the culture of molester cover ups. Hopefully now there will be enough of a public clamor that corrupt rabbonim will cave.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to know at what age kids are safe to venture out alone. I don't remember names but it was a number of years back that a serial killer had sick fantasies to abduct and kill grown men who were much larger and stronger than average and who certainly had the capability to fight back. One of his victims was a bochur in YU who was over 6 feet tall and 200+ lbs
The police and investigators are urged to interview and meet with the YTV heads. In all cases these evil and very ill people leave traces of their proclivities when they are young.
ReplyDeleteEspecially now that we are certain that Belsky and Reisman are actively protecting child rapists going back to the days of Lipa Brenner.
Basically all the neighbors told reporters that Aron was an oddball who spent excessive amounts of time at playgrounds.
ReplyDeleteIf that isn't a red flag for a pedophile salivating in a place full of kids, I don't know what is.
Beware of lone men in playgrounds!
New York - The heart-wrenching events of the past few days have all of New York in a state of despondency – Jew and non-Jew alike. One walks into the office, into shul, into a food establishment, and encounters solemn, glum expressions, which is a fact reflective of the deep bond that we all share with one another. And like all tragic events in life and in our history, our task must be to take some lesson home from all this senseless tragedy.
ReplyDeleteOne lesson is the ever deepening realization of how much we all care for one another. When Osama Bin Ladin was caught – we all shared that joy – together, because finally the countless victims of that horrific Twin Tower devastation have received justice. Their family members have achieved closure. And when young Leiby was missing, thousands of us reached out and searched.
I don’t know who first asked the question, but it is wrong to express the sentiment of “where have all our heroes gone.”
They are here among us. Heroes laugh with us in times of joy. Heroes help us when we need assistance. And heroes cry with us when there is what to cry about.
Heroes are those in the public service who gave of their time to search and comfort. Heroes are the members of the police department and the FBI. Heroes are Shomrim and Hatzolah, and the many NY politicians who where on scene, such as Assemblyman Dov Hikind who did not move for two days from the command post.
Advertisement:Heroes are the owners of businesses who took of their time and from their business to help others. Heroes are the people that came in from Monsey and the Catskills to help search. Heroes are those who stood outside handing out water to those that were searching.
Leiby Kletzky, alav haShalom, has the merit of letting us see our heroes.
We are all a bit at fault. We didn’t really see them before.
We do now.
But let’s not stop here. Let’s try to make a more substantive change in our regular, every day discourse. Let’s try to not be so critical of others, and start seeing the good. Aharon HaKohen saw the good in everyone, and doing so allowed him to do foster remarkable growth - both in ruchniyus and Dveikus Bashem. Not just in him, but in others around him too.
This is one important lesson.
But there is another lesson too. No one can ever be sure what prompted this evil abhorrent act. No one can truly fathom what lay in the depths of another’s heart. But most people who kidnap or abduct do so for quite nefarious purposes.
And, in our quest to maintain the purity of our souls and those of our children, we have perhaps erred in our observance of an important piece of advice.
We have perhaps ignored the wisdom of of our sages in the classical Jewish sources (Derech Eretz Rabbah) of “Kabdeihu veChashdeihu – Honor others, but don’t assume that everyone is above suspicion.” If we know the person that is one thing, but in regard to strangers there is an obligation to assume the worst. Not that this should be expressed, but at least we should teach our students and our children to be wary.
Let us truthfully ask ourselves the following questions – answer them, and answer them honestly.
Part Two
ReplyDeleteIf a religious individual approached your nine year old child and said, “Excuse me what’s your name? It’s very important..” – would your child answer?
If the person then answered, “Oh, Boruch Hashem, I found you! Your mother was in a terrible car accident, she will be all right but she wanted me to bring you to the emergency room right away!” - What would your child do?
Question number two: Your son is waiting for you at the pool. He is waiting to be picked up. In the meantime someone that he marginally knows, perhaps from shul, offers him a ride home. What will your son do? Will he respectfully decline? Should he?
The prudent answer is yes. And yet, our kids will probably miss the mark.
I know that I, personally, have been negligent and that my child would probably not be distrustful. He would take the ride, in both cases.
If we love our children, we should tell them how to act in such a situation. It is a Derech Eretz Rabbah (chapter five) and a Kallah Rabasi (chapter nine).
The takeaway from lesson number two? Let’s sit down with our kids and make sure that they know – never to go with people they do not know. Let’s also make sure that we create a list of trustworthy people among the subset of people that they do know. This is not alarmist, or over-reactive - it is completely rational. It is what I plan to do this evening.
And, finally, one third lesson. Now again, a disclaimer: It is not known if the motivations of the perpetrator were of a deviant nefarious nature or whether he was just murderously ill. But since this is the modus operandi of most kidnappings, let’s assume that perpetrators of such horror do so because they wish to molest young children.
If so, perhaps it is time to change the way we, as a community, deal with known and identifiable molesters.
Why is it that our “respectable,” reputable and highly regarded media never identify known dangers in our community?
A highly regarded, well-known Posaik told me just today that it is a Mitzvah Lefarsaim - a commandment to publicize such people, as long as we are fairly certain that it is true. It is a Mitzvah lefarsaim. Yet scour the pages of our publications and, with a handful of exceptions, we just don’t find it.
In keeping with the first lesson mentioned above, about looking at the good and keeping a positive tone and outlook, we must take care how we make this change. But a sea change is definitely required. Human life depends upon it.
Change is happening, to that there is no question. Rav Moshe Sternbuch of the Eida Chareidis, and a Talmid of the Chazon Ish zatzal, has always been at the forefront of reporting. Last week a member of Moetzes Gedolei Torah himself went to the police department to turn in a child molester. This week the Bais Din in Crown Heights ruled that there is no prohibition of of Mesirah when dealing with a child molester.
However, it is happening too slowly, and in some areas, sad to say, not at all. In this area, change should not come on tiptoes.
When will we realize that it is not just emotional depression and possible future suicides that can happen – but it is an issue of “lo saamod al dam rayacha” itself?
The author can be reached at aarikatz@aol.com
http://asbee.org/front/frPeople.php?cid=0&feature=frPeople
ReplyDeleteRabbi Joel Finkelstein who is from the left wing of the YU spectrum told reporters today that he will be speaking to his shul about reaching out to strangers, as if that would have prevented Aron from acting on his perverted fantasies.
Personally I think Rabbi Finkelstein missed the boat. The sefarim explain yadeinu lo shafchu by eglah arufah that we are responsible for the murder because by not being nice enough to the murder victim, he lacked the extra oomph to enable him to fight off a predator. Not that the murderer would have called off his bloody intentions.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jul/13/former-memphian-arrested-new-york-case-dismembered/?partner=yahoo_feeds
ReplyDeleteWhere did Aron get money to fly to Orlando for American Idol tryouts? The shmuck has only held low paying jobs, lived in his parents attic for free and drove a beaten up 1990 Honda. I was intrigued by that NY court website and see that his parents are being sued by Astoria Federal bank.
Which member of the Moetzes went to the police last week and regarding which molester as alleged by that article?
ReplyDeleteUOJ has mail re Aron
ReplyDeleteWhy did Casey have to kill Caylee? She could have sent her to me, and I would have molested her, and she would have killed herself, thereby saving her mother all the grief of a court case, and the aguda from issuing assinine statements about the current judicial system in America, the TREIFEH MEDINEH!!!
ReplyDeleteYudi, since when do you prefer maydelach over yingelach?
ReplyDeleteImportant email in UOJ's inbox
ReplyDeleteProminent Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Comes Out Against Agudath Israel Of America Policy
ReplyDeleteIt is time to forever bury the myth that reports of pedophilia can be managed and dealt with by committees of rabbonim, even for a short time. It is time to bury the myth that there is a serious halachic barrier to going to authorities to deal with credible reports of such behavior. Enough baalei halacha have told us that there is no barrier.
Agudath Israel of America, the ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, has a policy: all suspected cases of child sexual abuse must be brought before senior rabbis, who will then evaluate the case and rule on whether police can or can not be contacted.
And this is true, Agudah says, even if a legally mandated reporter suspects child sexual abuse.
Today, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi often used by Agudah as a speaker and who sits on Agudah's West Coast board, has strongly rejected that policy:
Yadeinu Shafchu Es Hadam Hazeh
By Yitzchok Adlerstein • CrossCurrents
After the horror, the disbelief, the shock, the emptiness, I next thought what many others must have.
He had to have been a pedophile. I messaged a colleague, a respected rov, and asked what he thought. I will post it anonymously; I haven’t gotten to him yet to ask to use his name:
I am sure he was, and I am sure he molested many others, and i am sure that there were people that knew and hushed it.
It is time to forever bury the myth that reports of pedophilia can be managed and dealt with by committees of rabbonim, even for a short time. It is time to bury the myth that there is a serious halachic barrier to going to authorities to deal with credible reports of such behavior. Enough baalei halacha have told us that there is no barrier.
Choshen Mishpat 358:12 tells us that those who vex the public can be handed over. Any pedophile does at least that, and poses a danger of doing much more. Moreover, mesirah of a molester exposes him to a safek of danger; pedophiles pose a much greater danger level to many more victims.
It is natural and good that many people were not eager to rush to modes of address that themselves could be too sweeping and harsh, with terrible consequences to people and their families. They thought that various types of modus vivendi were possible. By now they should realize that this is not true. Rabbonim cannot handle the issue. We have enough evidence of this. Failure to take notice of this could have been said, figuratively, to be shefichas damim/ bloodshed.
Today, it is no longer figurative.
It is not a stain on our record that it took time to learn the facts about molestation. Reacting far too slowly is a terrible stain, though.
Leiby’s horrific petirah can save the lives of many others – those who could meet a similar fate, r”l, and those victims whose lives are a living death.
I may still be proven wrong, but the analysis will not change. Parents will be speaking about safety to their children. Whatever really happened to Leiby, the fact is that our kids are often in far greater in school, shul and camp than from encounters with detested “others” while walking home.
The greatest aliyah for Leiby and nechamah for his family will come from all of us getting serious about molestation.
If your rov doesn’t get it, think of getting a new rov.
I assume UOJ will now take back the dunce cap he awarded to Rabbi Adlerstein.
ReplyDeleteAdlerstein will never lose his UOJ dunce status!
ReplyDeleteIt took a butchered child for him to realize that heinous criminal behavior against innocent children MUST ALWAYS BE REPORTED TO THE POLICE?
They are reporting on Yudel Shain's blog the following:
ReplyDeleteThe murderer of Leiby Kletzky a"h, Levi Aron, lived in Memphis for a few years and worked at the Kroger's kosher take out section under the hashgocho of Rav Greenblatt. Not clear if he was a mashgiach or just a clerk.
I hope that no one makes any anti-gay slurs against Levi Aron regarding the male sex choice of his victim. That would be inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteYeah!
ReplyDeleteN.Y. issues new marriage forms recognizing same-sex couples
ALBANY — The state Health Department on Wednesday released a new marriage form to recognize same-sex couples
Editorial from today's NY Daily News
ReplyDelete"New York wondered. New York hoped. New York prayed that 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky would be found and returned safe and sound to parents who waited in agony for word of their vanished son.
It was not to be, and the anguish was heightened by the knowledge that Leiby happened into the path of evil on the very first day that Nachman and Itta Kletzky gave their son permission to walk part of the way home from summer camp by himself.
Nachman and Itta waited at the appointed spot. Leiby never arrived. He got lost, asked for directions and encountered a horror that no one could ever have foreseen. In a city of infinite helping hands, in a care for one, care for all Hasidic Jewish community, he chanced upon a man whose mild, unthreatening looks hid the demons of a killer.
Levi Aron, a 35-year-old hardware store employee, told police he could not say why, after driving away with Leiby, he murdered and dismembered the boy. He offered that he'd panicked after realizing Leiby was the subject of an intense search.
The explanation makes no sense, and there will be none because, ultimately, no rationale can ever plumb the currents of a demented psyche.
What is known is that madness has taken a fledgling who was spreading his wings, a son stolen from parents who were lovingly helping him to navigate the world.
And New York grieves"
Leiby a'h went down fighting, inflicting scratches on Aron's arms and wrists.
ReplyDeleteThis just in. While NYPD has already seized 3 computers from the Aron home looking for evidence of molesting other children, the FBI is now digging up the backyard to see if any missing children are buried there.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/photos/photo-of-the-day-slideshow-1309242001-slideshow/levi-aron-arraigned-brooklyn-criminal-court-thursday-july-photo-215139120.html
ReplyDeleteAron must have had a heter from Belsky to take off his yarmulka for the arraignment
I like the African American lawyer who is defending Aron. He reminds me of Kolko's lawyer Jeffrey Shvartza:
A man accused of kidnapping, killing and dismembering an 8-year-old boy who asked him for directions was ordered Thursday to undergo a psychological evaluation after his lawyer told a judge that his client might be mentally ill.
"He has indicated to me that he hears voices and has had some hallucinations," said the attorney, Pierre Bazile.
http://local.yahoo.com/info-11281647-ateres-charna-wedding-hall-new-square
ReplyDeleteThe chassuna that Leiby was taken to was at Ateres Charna in New Square. One side is Aron's mishpuche. The mechutonim are from Monsey & Far Rockavay. FBI showed up today to take the videos.
Change is good - Shiksahs are my dream, after 35 years here at YTT!! Avremel, you heared about this thing called "Facebook"?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/14/2011-07-14_savagery_stuns_sickos_exwife_out_of_character_of_the_levi_that_i_know.html
ReplyDeleteThe second-oldest of six kids, Aron lived with his family before and after his marriage.
His father, who works at B&H Photo, lives on the ground floor of the E. Second St. house with Aron's stepmother. An uncle lives on the second floor.
'Things weren't so well'
Family friends said Aron was rocked by the loss of his mother to cancer a decade ago. His ex called him "more of a mama's boy than a father's boy."
"He was a very odd guy. A lot of unfortunate things happened to him," said family friend Rafi Harel. "I knew his family and things weren't so well. His mother was very, very odd."
His sister, Sarah, who had mental problems, died two years ago. Kivel said she fell and hit her head after mixing up medications.
He went to yeshiva, then got his GED and took continuing education classes at Kingsborough Community College.
Aron spent 17 years as a clerk at Empire State Building Supply, a block from his home.
A colleague said he was temperamental - and couldn't take a joke
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/14/2011-07-14_leiby_kletzkys_killer_levi_aron_worked_as_parttime_butcher_ex_says_cops_doubt_it.html
ReplyDeleteCops said the way Aron dismembered the boy showed some proficiency.
"There's nothing clean about the cuts, but it looks like he went through the joints, like he knew what he was doing," said one investigator. "Was he a butcher? Did he have a job where this skill was needed?"
Aron, who was a hardware store clerk in Brooklyn, worked behind the kosher deli counter in a Kroger's supermarket in Memphis during his brief Tennessee marriage in 2006, the store confirmed. Aron's duties did not include butchering, they said.
Despite no record of previous crimes tied to Aron, investigators say it's hard to believe he didn't do something like this before.
"You don't kidnap a kid for the first time, tie him up in your house, leave, go to work, then come back and kill him then," said one police source.
Investigators said they were confident that Aron attended Monday's wedding reception for Dina Munk and Yakov Morsel at Ateres Charna catering hall in New Square, but did not know if he took the boy in with him, or left him at his attic apartment, or kept in his car outside.
"We cannot say definitively if the boy was with him or not," said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Investigators combed film footage of the wedding celebration for clues and interviewed wedding guests.
Izzy Goldstein, manager of the catering hall, said about 500 people attended the reception and many were kids.
Aron told police the lost boy approached him on a Borough Park street early Monday evening asking for directions to a religious bookstore. He said the offered to take Leiby to a wedding with him and the boy went with him. Police remain skeptical of Aron's account.
At Leiby's Borough Park home Thursday, a steady stream of mourners came to pay respects and sit shiva.
Among them were two important rabbis from Israel, Nosson Tzvi Finkel of the largest Yeshiva in Israel, and Yisroel Hager of Viznitz
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/nyregion/leiby-kletzkys-killing-rattles-jewish-communitys-trust.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteThe authorities and social service officials in Borough Park agreed that attitudes have been changing. Ruchama Clapman, who runs a small agency that deals with drug and alcohol abuse and sexual molestation largely within the pious Jewish community, recalled that 14 years ago when she started her agency she encountered tremendous resistance simply talking about the problems, “and it took many years before the community was accepting that we had these issues in our community.”
“It was hanging out dirty laundry,” she said.
People were afraid that if a victim sought help and a problem became widely known, parents might find it difficult to find matches for their sons and daughters, and social and business relations would be hurt. There was also the often misinterpreted prohibition against mesirah — informing on a fellow Jew to non-Jewish authorities — that was a leftover tenet from a time when European Jews had to deal cautiously with anti-Semitic officials.
Dov Hikind, the local assemblyman, has a radio show that for several years has highlighted the issue of sexual abuse by people in the Orthodox community.
“People were upset at me,” he said. “People were furious. They would say: ‘You’re embarrassing us. We’re dealing with it ourselves.’ They were not dealing with it.”
But they have been more willing to alert the authorities when crimes are committed by other Hasidim or Orthodox Jews. In a spate of cases between October 2008 and October 2009 alone, Brooklyn prosecutors arrested 26 ultra-Orthodox men — rabbis, teachers and camp counselors among them — on sexual abuse charges. Many others have come forward to the Jewish news media and to social agencies.
Mr. Hikind said there was no evidence that sexual abuse or other deviance was any more widespread in the Hasidic community than in other ethnic groups, but what is different, they said, is that the Hasidic community has just begun to grapple with these problems and educate its members.
Ms. Clapman, head of Mothers and Fathers Aligned Saving Kids, said Hasidim were aware that “we have problems that the outside world may have and the outside world is seeping in.”
Joe Levin, a private investigator who works in the Orthodox world, said “some people in Borough Park are very naïve” because “they don’t believe Orthodox people can do bad things.”
The police have a hard time moving Aron in & out of the 67th precinct which is in a Black neighborhood. Hundreds and hundreds of local residents are standing outside and start screaming MURDERER!!!! and try to rip him to shreds every time they see his face. Because of the gruesome nature of the murder even other prisoners in the holding cells are much more agitated than their usual disdain for pedophiles. They grab the cell bars and start vociferously screaming obscenities when Aron is moved around. He is dead meat unless he is in solitary for the rest of his miserable life.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/07/13/leiby-kletzky-murder-in-borough-park-whispers-about-a-loner/
ReplyDeleteSender Berkovits, 62, a professor at Touro College, said he’s known the Aron family for decades. Berkovits and several other neighbors interviewed Wednesday said that the family had had more than its share of troubles, with many saying that Aron’s parents were divorced, as was a sister.
As a child, Berkovits said Aron was normal enough. “In the winter when the days were short and the evenings long, when my children were young, I used to run a program for the kids on the street. They’d just come and play in the shul. Sometimes Levi would come, horse around with the other kids,” he said.
Levy and his father attended Ahavas Achim, a synagogue down the street from their home, just across Cortelyou Road, Berkovits said.
=========
I believe that shul's rov was the alter Kletzker, Rav Pasternak. There is a lot of dysfunction in Kensington that is not limited to the Aron family. The rov's granddaughter is a classic case. She was divorced after being caught on video committing adultery. She is very brazen and has no problem admitting it with the excuse that her husband smelled from poor hygiene. She remarried the lowlife Simon who owns the Simon Sez restaurant on Ave M. He didn't care that she was a sotah. If you know anything about Simon and his business practices at the Dairyland restaurant by Nostrand & Ave T, you won't be surprised. Rabbi Gornish was always concerned that Simon is not really frum but kept certifying him anyway $$$$
There was a huge incident with her one day. She went to the Bertram egg facility in Williamsburg where her ex husband worked to discuss the kids with him. An argument quickly turned very violent. A chassidishe co-worker tried to intervene when she started hitting the ex. She grabbed one of the chassidisher's payos and ripped it right out of his scalp, sending him to the hospital.
The girl used to hang out with the street urchins who spend the whole night on 13th Ave by the Amnon's pizza freak show.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/15/2011-07-15_never_quit_quest_for_love.html
ReplyDeleteChild butcher Levi Aron was a lonely man desperately looking for love.
He married two Jewish single moms - and was then jilted by a fiancée who fit the same profile.
"We both wanted to have a nice Orthodox home," said his second wife, Debbie Kivel of Tennessee, who dumped him after a year.
Even though his marriages didn't work, he continued searching for romance.
When he was arrested for murder this week, his profile on an online dating site was active. He did duets of sappy love songs with women he'd never met on a karaoke website.
It's not clear how Aron, 35, met wife No. 1, an Israeli named Diana Diunov, who came to the U.S. in 2002 for a liver transplant with her daughter, Edita.
They married in June 2004. Seven months later, Diunov was indicted in Manhattan Federal Court for bilking diamond supply companies of $1.7 million.
Aron and Diunov split in August 2005; less than a month later, she married Boris Shvartzman, her co-conspirator in the diamond scam. She's in prison.
Aron also jumped back into the saddle quickly. He married Kivel, a Memphis mom of two, just seven months after his divorce. They met via a Jewish matchmaking site, sawyouatsinai.com, and Aron moved in with her and her young kids.
The marriage lasted less than a year - and again, Aron wasted little time looking for a new wife.
He moved to Florida, where his latest flame lived. She broke off their engagement just weeks before their 2009 wedding. Aron returned to Brooklyn to live in the attic of his parents' house.
Though described as painfully shy, he continued to woo women on the Internet, and like many online daters, he wasn't 100% truthful. On Zoosk.com, he listed himself as "never married."
His Facebook "friends" list was full of pretty women, including celebrities he likely never met.
Can UOJ do legal discovery / subpoena the list of pedophiles that Shomrim has?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/15/2011-07-15_killer_not_on_shomrim_list_of_pervs.html
A Jewish patrol in Borough Park keeps a list of suspected child predators, but Levi Aron's name wasn't on it, the Daily News has learned.
"No one ever complained to us about him," Borough Park Shomrim member Jacob Daskel said.
The list has about 15 names. It was compiled by Shomrim members and is not shared with the NYPD because some rabbis oppose civilian police involvement.
"The community doesn't go to the police with these names because the rabbis don't let you. It's not right," Daskel said.
He said when a resident tells Shomrim they suspect someone is a molester, the patrol finds a picture and shows it to area kids, trying to substantiate the allegation.
"It's against Halacha [Jewish law] to go the police without speaking to the rabbis," said Rabbi Joseph Hershkowitz, 57, who counsels families in Borough Park and Williamsburg.
"We consider Shomrim and Hatzolah [the Jewish ambulance service] family. So you go to family first," said Hershkowitz.
He stressed that the rules apply only when a life isn't in danger. "Nothing supersedes an emergency," he said.
Leiby Kletzky's family first reported his disappearance to Shomrim. The patrol notified cops three hours later.
"We have no problem with Shomrim being notified but we'd like to be notified as well," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
http://newyork.ibtimes.com/articles/180756/20110715/levi-aron-mental-disorder-psycho-leiby-kletzky-murder-dismember-pleads-not-guilty.htm
ReplyDeleteAron's marriage ended violently, when he hit her from envying Kivel's more intimate relationship with her children than him.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/he_was_pegged_as_nabe_creep_ZKRpvaBlyC2HHMzHNm7bQI
ReplyDeleteBrooklyn loner Levi Aron gave people the creeps long before he was charged with slaughtering an innocent child.
The 35-year-old plumbing-supply store stockboy made his neighbors’ skin crawl with the rides he gave neighborhood kids in his clunker Honda Prelude and the way he’d stare at local elementary-school students in a playground.
“The parents on the block wouldn’t want their kids to go near him,” said a neighbor, Chaim Lefkovitz, 39, who added that Aron was prone to furious outbursts.
“Sometimes he would just get angry out of nowhere,” Lefkovitz added. “He was one of those people you stayed away from.”
A family acquaintance, Lee Vogel, 21, said, “There was something strange about him. You know when you see Charles Manson, he has that look in his eye? Levi had that look.”
“Casey Anthony didn’t fit the profile for a killer,” said a colleague. “But looking back now, this guy fit the profile.”
What would we do without Mike Bloomberg?
ReplyDeleteLevi Aron, who has confessed to smothering and chopping up 8-year-old Brooklyn boy Leiby Kletzky, has been called a "sick individual" by Mayor Michael Bloomberg
http://www.5tjt.com/local-news/10924-an-orthodox-private-eye
ReplyDeleteDoes this putz have any credibility or is he just part of the Lebovits cover up?
I don't know Levin. Bo Deitel is the best in the business.
ReplyDeleteHey Bloomberg, shame on you for only calling the Kletzky's on the phone and not making a shiva call in person!
ReplyDeleteAnd Shelly "I don't go to cops funerals" Silver had the nerve to offer comfort to the Arons INSTEAD of the Kletzkys!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/15/2011-07-15_leiby_kletzkys_gruesome_death_rocks_brooklyns_orthodox_jewish_community.html
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that though the community is reeling, he expects it to rally around the confessed killer's family.
"They will make the family as comfortable as they can" and "be supportive," said Silver, an Orthodox Jew. "That's part of their tradition."
But not everyone feels such sympathy. Eva Rosenbluh, who owns an accessory store on 16th Ave., questioned Aron's faith.
"To me, he is not an Orthodox [Jew] because an Orthodox Jew wouldn't do that," said Rosenbluh
Another theory
ReplyDeleteSomething really strange about Levi Aron. He used to go all the time to a bar in Levittown on the Nassau-Suffolk border. Do you know what a huge commute that is from Boro Park to that far out on the South Shore of Long Island? The bar manager told reporters Aron didn't even socialize with anyone.
Could he have anything to do with the unsolved murders of prostitutes out there on Gilgo Beach? The only reason why I doubt it is because that killer, whoever he is, is very smart. He has been taunting police from calls inside crowded places in Manhattan from prepaid cellphones and seems to know how to outsmart investigators
Hey putz! What about the molesters who walked out of your "treatment" program and you never notified the DA?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thejewishstar.com/stories/Baruch-Dayan-Emes,2550?page=2&content_source=
Ohel CEO David Mandel urged parents to explain the tragedy to their children, noting the innocence of Kletzky and the unusual nature of the kidnapping. “A child who did everything right wound up a terrible death. We teach our children about stranger danger, but this is friendly danger, this was a person from the community,” Mandel said. “But the world is basically good and people are safe.”
that woman eva rosenbluh quoted in the article after shelly silver is bad news. she lives in crown heights and owns the blue rose womens hat store on 16th ave in boro park. she is a horrible person and a con artist who will rip off your wives if she can get away with it. nothing in the store has a price tag to help her deceive and manipulate. garbage like her has no business questioning who is really orthodox
ReplyDeleteI knew it! The rumors are that Levi Aron was not really frum anymore. I told you these kinds of things don't happen in the frum community. I have to hurry up and relay this info to Avi Shafran before he writes his next apologist column.
ReplyDeleteIvankala Trump-Kushner will need to find a new social hotspot now that Haskell Lookstein's shul has burned down to the ground
ReplyDeleteAskonim are reporting that they have never seen NYPD detectives cry like when they found little Leiby hacked apart and they have never seen the Crime Scene Unit, who have seemingly seen it all, express shock like over this case. The Police Commissioner also said in yesterday's briefing that there are a lot of oddities and mysteries in this case that he has never seen in all his decades in law enforcement.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know until what grade Levi Aron was in Torah Vodaas?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/ex_tagged_him_as_sex_sicko_aG8KzdvwKd1ry2ZRtP1CSN
ReplyDeleteLevi Aron was a sex-crazed psycho who needed meds to handle a "behavior disorder" during his time in Tennessee, his ex-wife charged in court papers.
In a 2006 protective order filed in Memphis, Debby Kivel claimed Aron was physically abusive and even sneaked into her bedroom once while she was sleeping months after they had separated.
"He approached her as she was trying to sleep and asked her if she would have sexual relations," the document reads.
"The victim states that she refused to do it . . . she fell asleep and when she awoke, Levi Aron was laying in bed beside her and her bra was removed."
Aron's lurid, late-night visit to his estranged wife's bed came after a creepy phone call during which he warned that "if she did not have sexual relations with him, then he would kill himself, period," the order says.
Kivel claimed Aron left her "100 phone calls and numerous text messages," threatened to have her kids taken away and "struck her with a closed fist on her shoulder and on her stomach."
The order also says that "Aron has been diagnosed with a behavior disorder and takes medication for the condition."
While the two were together, the accused child butcher worked as an actual butcher at a kosher deli in a Kroger supermarket in Germantown, Tenn.
The way he worked the meat slicer sent chills up peoples' spines.
"People complained because he sliced the meat so slowly, so methodically, and some realized he wasn't 100 percent," said a member of the synagogue where he got married.
A colleague said Aron was "real standoffish, didn't talk much."
"There were no problems at work, but he stared a lot," the colleague said.
The synagogue member said Aron made people uncomfortable.
"He was weird. No one would have ever described him as friendly or a great guy," the member said. "He had a dead stare and was strange, sometimes unkempt."
Looks like they think there was molestation going on before the murder. NY Post reporting on their website that Aron's mattress is being shlepped to a crime lab.
ReplyDeleteNew details from WPIX
ReplyDelete- This is the 3rd day that investigators and forensics experts are going over every inch of Levi Aron's house. Today they donned bio-hazard space suits. Any ideas what's up with that?
- The FBI's top psychiatric consultant, Dr. Michael Stone of Columbia University, who has researched over 700 serial killers and interviewed many of them personally, says there is no way that Aron has not molested all kinds of kids in the past. This would mean UOJ's theory would pan out that there must be a cover up.
- Aron was taken to the prison wing of Bellevue Hospital after a huge eruption in the courtroom. The other criminal defendants waiting to be arraigned were yelling and struggling with bailiffs that they didn't want to stand anywhere near a sicko like Aron. Detectives are even having a hard time driving Aron through City streets with angry passersby screaming and banging on the vehicle.
- So far at least there are no reports of ra-bonim raising "pidyon shvuyim" funds to make bail.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/15/2011-07-15_i_just_cant_stand_to_see_something_like_this_happening_in_our_community_how_his_.html
ReplyDeleteAmateur sleuth Yaakov German helps cops catch Levi Aron and solve murder of Leiby Kletzky
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/07/04/2011-07-04_father_rescues_son_from_convicted_sex_offenders_kidnapping_attempt_at_beach_over.html
ReplyDeleteFather rescues son from convicted sex offender's kidnapping attempt at beach over holiday weekend
Noch besser for the Queens Vaad if they can send Chaim Schwartz running to shake the hand of their VHQ shul member David Weprin who stands for everything as immoral as Anthony Weiner who vacated his Congressional seat. Schwartz is a specialist at shaking Wiener's hand
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/97488/Op-Ed%3A-Why-Turner%3F.html
David Weprin does not even live in the 9th congressional district. He is an opportunist carpetbagger who the democratic establishment chose on the belief that a religious Jew would be able to hold the seat. That his win would mean the loss of the most Jewish seat in the United States is of no consequence to David Weprin. He is only interested in being a good democrat.
David Weprin who boasts that he is religious not only voted for the Gay Marriage bill, but was one of the sponsors. How a religious Jew can not only vote but sponsor a law which perverts the fabric of our society and the Torah is beyond any lame political excuse. Dov Hikind a fellow democrat together with many other non-Jewish democrats voted against the bill. The reason why David Weprin voted for the bill is simple, politics is more important than his religion and his fellow Jews.
David Weprin is a liberal democrat who would support every Obama program. Given his devotion to his party which supersedes his religious believes and his co-religionists needs and interests, Weprin will undoubtably become Obama with a Yarmulka. Israel is at a very dangerous crossroads. We need a congressman who will stand up to Obama, who is the most anti-Israel President since Jimmy Carter. David Weprin will not only fail to stand up to Obama, but will support his anti-Israel policies in the name of party loyalty. Even former Mayor Ed Koch recognizes the Obama threat and has refused to endorse David Weprin. As the former Mayor, a liberal democrat has said, a Turner win will send shockwaves through the Obama administration and make them think twice on harming Israel.
I urge my fellow Jews to vote for Bob Turner. Do it for the sake of decency, do it for Israel, do it for the Jewish people.
Asher E. Taub, Esq. is a former congressional candidate and aide to Bob Turner.
Chaim Schwartz resign!
ReplyDeleteChaimel always lectures that you can't "pick & choose". How many times has he already shaken the grubba hand of David Weprin who pretends to be a frumma VHQ shul member? It's looking like Chaimel became a talmid of Andrew Cuomo after R' Tzvi Kushelefsky
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/ny-town-clerk-quits-cites-gay-marriage-opposition-20110712-apx
A town clerk in a rural upstate New York community has submitted her resignation, citing her religious opposition to gay marriage.
Laura Fotusky submitted a letter of resignation to the town board in Barker on Monday, saying her religious beliefs prevent her from signing a marriage certificate for a gay couple, as she'd be required to do as a municipal clerk.
She said she'll step down on July 21, three days before New York's law allowing same-sex marriage takes effect.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said elected officials must abide by the rules of the state.
"The law is the law," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. "When you enforce the laws of the state, you don't get to pick and choose."
http://www.qgazette.com/news/2011-07-06/Features/10_Honored_At_Boro_Hall_Gay_Pride_Ceremonies.html
The 10th annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Pride Month (LGBTPM) celebration at Queens Borough Hall on June 29, at which 10 persons were honored, took place 5 days after the New York state senate passed the Marriage Equality Act. The measure was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo that same day.
Councilmembers Daniel Dromm & Jimmy Van Bramer, Queens’ two gay councilmembers, presided. They praised state Senator Toby Stavisky, Councilmember Karen Koslowitz & *** Assemblymember David Weprin, all in attendance, for their support ***.
Weprin called his vote in favor of the Marriage Equality Act the *** most important *** one he has ever cast. Assemblymember Dov Hikind denounced the bill, calling it insupportable & offensive to any Orthodox Jew. Weprin, in rebuttal, said that his children, like their father before them, have been married in Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremonies & like their father, all support marriage equality.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/97532/Who-Reported-Levi-Arons-Car-%26-Plates-To-Shomrim%3F.html
ReplyDeleteSeems like Boro Park Shomrim had Aron nailed but held off reporting him because they wanted to be "dan lekaf zchis".
Idiots! Call in the police and let them sort it out! A child can die while you waste precious time!
http://thejigisupatlas.blogspot.com/2011/07/introducing-9th-congressional-candidate.html
ReplyDeleteIsn't David Weprin the guy who marches with Gay flags?
Isn't David Weprin's best pals the ethically challenged Joe Crowley, Sheldon Silver, Vito Lopez, and Frank Seddio?
They sure are.
Wasn't David Weprin's papa one of the most ruthless dictators who ever ran the state assembly?
He sure was.
http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/197853/3/Does-hearing-voices-equal-mental-illness
ReplyDeleteSenior Health Correspondent Monica Robins spoke to University Hospitals Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Sara West about both the Anthony Sowell in Cleveland and the Levi Aron case in New York.
Both men told police they heard "voices" in their heads.
West says in the case of Sowell, who's accused of being a serial killer of 11 women, she doesn't believe he suffers from a severe mental illness because to be a serial killer requires organizational thought in order to keep killing and not get caught.
In Aron's case, she points to the fact that he told police he killed the 8-year-old boy after he panicked after seeing signs about the missing child. That, West says, also requires rational thought.
It's takka a big tayna on Bloomberg. A child abduction of this sort in NYC has been a once in a generation event. Even if he was tanning at his vacation home in Bermuda, the guy's got a private airplane and billions of dollars to splurge on some jet fuel. Shame on you, Mr. Mayor!
ReplyDeleteGoing into Shabbos there are still two crime scene trucks in front of the Aron house. They seem to be taking the whole place apart inside. A reporter from Reuters tried badgering the dudes in the space suits what exactly they are looking for but they refused to answer.
ReplyDeleteThe United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg (UJO) is urging NYS lawmakers to support and adopt legislation entitled “The Leiby Initiative,” which would grant a $500 annual tax credit to NYC property owners who purchase, install, and maintain surveillance cameras around their property. Security footage was instrumental for amateur sleuth Yaakov German, whose tireless efforts led to the breakthrough in finding Aron.
ReplyDeleteA police source leaked to NBC that Aron was GIGGLING during his confession!
ReplyDeletehttp://gothamist.com/2011/07/15/horse_dies_in_midair_on_el_al_fligh.php
ReplyDeleteA horse being carried on an El Al cargo flight from Belgium to JFK reportedly died in mid-air this morning, and representatives from the USDA are on the scene to perform an necropsy
UOJ WAS RIGHT !!!! Boro Park Shomrim knew Levi Aron was stalking another kid but didn't report it to the police because their rabbonim tell them not to !!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/07/15/071511-news-missing-boy-1-4/
A source close to the shomrim, a neighborhood watch group in the Jewish community, told The Daily that the patrol had been warned about Aron after he allegedly stalked an 11-year-old boy in the past two weeks.
The boy “was walking home on his own block when he noticed a gold car was tailing him,” the source told The Daily. “He kept turning around, feeling suspicious, and kept noticing the car was there, so he broke into a run and quickly went home to tell his parents.”
The car is believed to be Aron’s 1990 Honda, the source said. Leiby, just days short of his ninth birthday, disappeared Monday evening after getting lost on a short walk home from his day camp. Surveillance video showed him talking to a man, and then leaving with him in a gold-colored Honda.
It was unclear if police had been informed about the earlier incident. When asked by the Daily about it, Yankel Daskel, one of the head shomrim coordinators in the neighborhood of Borough Park, said the community has a problem with filing police reports.
“This specific case I am not familiar with, but this does happen often and we do the best we can to service the community,” said Daskel, who has been volunteering for shomrim for more than 26 years. “You need to remember that we are only volunteers. We patrol the neighborhood, and while we encourage everyone to file a police report when something happens, we can’t make them do anything.”
Binyomin Lifshitz, a shomrim volunteer from a neighboring community, spent the last two days combing the streets for Leiby. He said the Hasidic community tends to trust only in the shomrim for policing protection.
The “majority of Jews here are from Eastern European descent, and they have an ingrained lack of trust with authority,” Lifshitz said. “Everyone is taught to go to the shomrim, and not the police because they identify more with us so we fill the gap.”
Aron constantly visited playgrounds and tried to give children rides in his battered Honda.