http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201111/mothers-alleged-sandusky-victims-speak-out
On Tuesday morning, the tide of momentum against the Penn State football program and head coach Joe Paterno became even more overwhelming. A ninth alleged sexual assault victim of former coach Jerry Sandusky has reportedly come forward. A press conference scheduled for 12:20 ET was canceled as a report surfaced in the New York Times about plans for Paterno's exit. And most importantly, an exclusive story in the Patriot-News gave voice to two mothers of alleged victims.
Their stories are specific, extensive, and chilling. And both mothers accuse Penn State officials of doing too little to prevent tragedy.
"I'm so upset," the mother of a 24-year-old, who authorities are calling Victim Six, told The Patriot-News exclusively. "My son is extremely distraught, and now to see how we were betrayed, words cannot tell you. To see that Graham Spanier is putting his unconditional support behind [former Penn State athletic director Tim] Curley and [resigned Vice President of Business and Finance Gary] Shultz when he should be putting his support behind the victims, it just makes them victims all over again."
***
For the mother of another former child, who is now being called Victim One, trouble started when Sandusky, a volunteer coach at the boy's Pennsylvania high school, wanted to help discipline him for bad behavior. The two had met through Sandusky's charity for needy children, Second Mile.
"I said, 'No way, he's my kid,'" the mother told the Patriot-News.
Soon after, her son, then 15, started asking about a database for "sex weirdos."
She called the high school principal and was told to come in "right away."
The principal was in tears. The boy, upon telling his mom what happened, also broke down.
Central Mountain High School officials contacted the authorities immediately.
The boy was "very afraid" of Sandusky, according to the mother. When told to say no to the coach, he told his mother he couldn't.
When asked why not, he said, "You just don't do that.
***
The story told by the mother of "Victim Six" is every bit as haunting, if not more so. After Sandusky gave her son a tour of the Penn State football locker room in 1998, the boy came home and told her, "If you're wondering why my hair is wet, we took a shower together."
He then ran to his room.
The boy later told his mom there was another child in the shower with him and the coach. That boy was 11.
The mother called police. An investigation started. The mother confronted Sandusky in his home, with the police listening in another room.
According to grand jury evidence, Sandusky told the mother of Victim One: "I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead."
But Sandusky was cleared.
"And you're going to tell me that Spanier and Paterno weren't informed of something that was that huge that [the district attorney] was in on it but Spanier was kept in the dark?" the mother told the Patriot-News. "I’m just not that stupid. I’m so upset I just can’t believe it."
Sandusky's attorney, contacted by the Patriot-News, denies all charges. Scott Paterno, Joe's son, said Penn State lawyers assured him his father was never told about the 1998 report.
According to the grand jury presentment, Sandusky had eight alleged victims. Six shared showers in Lasch Building at Penn State, which houses the football program.
Both mothers suffered for several years, only to learn over the weekend that Penn State officials did not report the incidents to police.
"I'm infuriated that people would not report something like that," the mother of Victim One told the Patriot-News. "I still can’t believe it. I'm appalled. I'm shocked. I'm stunned. There's so many words. I'm very mad. They could have prevented this from happening."
14 comments:
UK Express:
"DEATH OF THE EURO
November 11,2011
By Macer Hall, Political Editor
PREPARATIONS were under way last night for the break-up of the euro as Europe’s debt crisis spiralled out of control.
[Photo caption: City insiders yesterday speculated that the “death warrant” for the euro had already been written]
As Treasury officials worked through the night to soften the impact on Britain, David Cameron warned that the single European currency was facing its “moment of truth”.
Business Secretary Vince Cable went further and spoke about “Armageddon” while Brussels officials warned that the chaos threatened to plunge us all into a new recession.
Ministers are understood to be deeply concerned that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel are secretly plotting to build a new, slimmed down eurozone without Greece, Italy and other debt-ridden southern Euro- pean nations.
Well-placed Brussels sources say Germany and France have already held private discussions on preparing for the disintegration of the eurozone.
At the same time, City insiders yesterday speculated that the “death warrant” for the euro had already been written, with a new economic bloc dominated by Germany and France almost certain to emerge in its place.
Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners, said the single currency experiment had failed.
“Undoubtedly it has failed. We know the concept of a single currency was flawed right from the start. There were too many big differences, in language, in culture and in the economies. There is absolutely no chance of the euro surviving in its current form. It cannot happen.
“There are limits to what the markets, the people and the voters will accept. That doesn’t mean the euro won’t carry on with fewer members, but it has been a failure.”
Stephen Lewis, of Monument Securities, said the search for some sort of Grand Plan or mega-fund to save the euro was corroding the whole project.
“Whatever they do, the underlying economic divergence will still exist,” he said. “It may be that there is no solution and that it would be better to finance an orderly break-up of the euro.”
Economist Nouriel Roubini said on Twitter: “It will be soon an end-game for the eurozone: restructurings and exits till break-up. Slow motion train wreck.”
And Gideon Rachman, of the Financial Times, said: “The euro is not an end in itself. The single currency is just an instrument, aimed at promoting economic prosperity and political harmony across Europe.
“As the evidence mounts that it is doing the precise opposite, it is time to think not about how to save the euro but about how to scrap it, or at least allow the weakest members to leave. Rather than insisting that the break-up of the euro is unthinkable, Europe’s leaders need to start planning for it.”
The secret plans being drawn up are for the creation of a “smaller eurozone” consisting of “fewer members” who would push towards economic and fiscal union.
Britain would be excluded from the new economic grouping, to the delight of many Eurocrats.
French and German officials have already set up a secretive cabal known as the “Frankfurt Group” to pursue their federalist agenda and bully Britain.
The Brussels source insisted the plan was not about creating a two-tier Europe but a radical re-drawing of the entire euro project."
"DEATH OF THE EURO
Mr Cameron, in his starkest assessment of the crisis yet, confirmed that the Government was engrossed in contingency planning for the unravelling of the single currency.
“If the leaders of the eurozone want to save their currency then they, together with the institutions of the eurozone, must act now. The longer the delay, the greater the danger,” he said. “Here in Britain, outside the euro, we must prepare for every eventuality, and that is exactly what we will do.”
Mr Cable went even further by conceding that officials were examining the dangers of an “Armageddon narrative” in the eurozone.
Confirming that the Government’s contingency planning for a euro break-up was well under way, he said: “We have a plan. There’s a lot of scenario planning, thinking about all possible outcomes. We have to deal with the world as it is.”
He added: “I don’t think we should be panicking, and although the situation is very difficult and we’re inevitably affected by it, I think the extreme pessimism and gloom really isn’t justified in this case.”
Conceding that preparations for an economic doomsday scenario were under way, he said: “Certainly it affects our trade and potentially, in this Armageddon narrative, it affects the banking system, but we’re not there yet. We have a very clear commitment to stabilising our own country’s finances, and for shifting the base of the economy and its investments into manufacturing.”
Official European Union statistics yesterday slashed the growth forecast for the eurozone next year from 1.8 per cent to 0.5 per cent and raised fears that Britain will be hit by the fallout from the euro crisis.
And in a chilling admission that the continent’s debt crisis is having an even more ravaging impact than previously expected, EU finance commissioner Olli Rehn said: “Growth has stalled in Europe and there is a risk of a new recession.
“This forecast is in fact the last wake-up call. The recovery in the EU has come to a standstill and there is a risk of a new recession.”
The revised economic forecast from Brussels slashes predicted growth levels by nearly two thirds compared with six months ago. A section of the report dealing with the British economy said: “Risks from the euro-area sovereign debt markets and the banking sector heighten this uncertainty. As such, a contraction in Gross Domestic Product in at least one of the next few quarters cannot be ruled out.
“However, the outlook for corporate investment and net exports still appears positive enough to justify a forecast of modest positive growth, with the economy expanding by 0.7 per cent in 2011, 0.6 per cent in 2012 and 1.5 per cent in 2013.
“The substantial downward revision from the spring forecast is explained mainly by the bleaker outlook for household consumption, corporate investment and exports, offset partially by slower expected import growth.”
In Italy, the threat of crippling interest rates eased slightly as the country’s banks bought £4billion of Government debts and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confirmed he will quit at the weekend."
Reuters:
"Mild-mannered Murdoch shrugs off Mafia jibe
By Keith Weir
LONDON | Nov 10, 2011
(Reuters) - Sorry seemed to be the easiest word for James Murdoch Thursday, the contrite News Corp executive keeping his cool even when branded a "Mafia boss" during tense exchanges with British parliamentarians investigating phone-hacking.
Recalled to parliament after a hearing in July which ended with his octogenarian father Rupert getting a custard pie in the face, Murdoch junior rolled with the verbal blows, his face flushing red at times during a hearing lasting almost three hours but his mid-Atlantic drawl remaining steady.
Dressed in a sober dark blue suit with a poppy in the lapel, he took a leaf out of his father's book with a series of apologies for a scandal which has shaken the British establishment and raised doubts about the 38-year-old's suitability to succeed Murdoch senior.
"I think the whole company is humbled by this," said Murdoch, echoing his father's line to committee in July that this was the "most humble day" of his life after it emerged that reporters on the News of the World newspaper had hacked the phones of murder victims.
Murdoch's mild manner was tested when burly Labor MP Tom Watson, himself a victim of snooping by a private eye hired by the now defunct tabloid, asked Murdoch if he was aware of the term "Omerta," meaning a Mafia-style code of silence.
"I'm not an aficionado of such things," said Murdoch,
Watson, abandoning his usual forensic approach, then pressed on with his Sicilian simile.
"You must be the first Mafia boss in history who did not know he was running a criminal enterprise," said Watson, to audible gasps from witnesses in the cramped committee room.
"Mr Watson, please, I think that is inappropriate," said Murdoch, sounding genuinely taken aback.
Sitting alone at a desk behind a superfluous "James Murdoch" nameplate, the media executive was facing members of parliament who have pursued the scandal doggedly for years despite the company's efforts to dismiss it as the work of a rogue reporter.
"At various times, and I am sorry for this, the company moved into an aggressive defense too quickly," said Murdoch, chairman of News International, the British newspaper arm of the wider News Corp group that includes the Wall Street Journal and the 20th Century Fox film studios.
The stakes were high for Murdoch, who has faced questioning that he misled the committee about when he knew how far the rot went at what was Britain's best-selling Sunday tabloid.
"Murdoch's career on the line as he faces MPs," read the headline in the Guardian newspaper on the desk of one of the journalists who had queued for hours for a front-row seat in a hearing. It was broadcast live on British news channels otherwise preoccupied with Europe's financial crisis.
Wearing steel-rimmed glasses, Murdoch listened intently to questions without interrupting, his hands clasped together as if to help keep his emotions under control.
Any code of silence, real or imagined, among senior News International staff has been well and truly broken, with Murdoch placing the blame for the handling of the saga on former News of the World editor Colin Myler and ex-legal chief Tom Crone.
Murdoch showed he had a respect for the family, if not in the Mafia sense, when MP Louise Mensch, a former chick-lit author, told him that she would have to leave the committee after her questioning to pick up her children from school.
"Good luck," replied Murdoch, himself father of two school age children, with a benevolent smile."
UK The Telegraph:
"France plots eurozone 'breakaway group’
France is drawing up plans to create a breakaway organisation of eurozone countries with its own treaty, parliament and headquarters – a move that could significantly undermine the existing European Union.
[Photo caption: David Cameron said Britain was 'contingency planning' for a possible break up of the eurozone]
By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels
10 Nov 2011
The proposal would see a formal "union within a union" created, but would lead to a significant deterioration in Britain's influence in Europe.
David Cameron is drawing up urgent plans to stop Britain being "railroaded" into agreeing to decisions taken by the new eurozone bloc.
France and Germany are understood to want to strengthen the union between eurozone countries with new taxes and legal measures to stop nations borrowing and spending too much in future.
Weaker countries such as Greece could even be barred from the new eurozone, under radical suggestions from some of those involved in discussions over the plan.
It comes amid growing concerns that France could be the next nation to become embroiled in the single currency crisis.
Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, said France was "in danger of being picked off by the markets in the coming weeks and months".
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has warned Mr Cameron that unless he accepts unconditional changes to the Lisbon Treaty a split will take place, leaving Britain isolated and in a voting minority within the EU.
"She explicitly told Cameron that if there was no treaty change at the level of the 27 EU members then others will peel off, which is not what she wants," a senior EU diplomat told The Daily Telegraph. According to diplomatic notes, Mr Cameron is pushing for "concrete and effective mechanisms" to "ensure essential economic interests of non–participating member states are fully protected".
Friday is expected to be another crucial day in the ongoing crisis as Italian politicians vote on plans to cut public spending and delay retirement.
European leaders are hoping the vote will be passed, paving the way for Silvio Berlusconi to be replaced as prime minister.
Greece on Thursday finally installed a new prime minister – Lucas Papademos, a former central banker – and the country is expected to unveil its national unity government today."
"France plots eurozone 'breakaway group’
EU diplomatic sources indicate that Britain is fighting France and Germany to resurrect the "Ioannina compromise", which would allow a blocking minority of countries to stop the new eurozone vanguard bloc pushing decisions through the EU.
The mechanism, named after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Greek city 17 years ago, was abandoned by Tony Blair during negotiations for the Treaty of Nice in 2000.
A Government spokesman said: "Discussions about possible further changes to the EU treaties are at a very early stage. But we are clear that any changes would need to protect the rights of those countries in the EU but outside the eurozone, and ensure that any additional enforcement measures would not apply to the UK as a result of our opt-out from the single currency." Any proposals to change the EU treaties must also be agreed by all member states."
Jean-Claude Piris, a former senior EU official, has come out of retirement to "help the eurozone in the current crisis" by working on a blueprint for the new union and its separate institutions. Mr Piris is the "eminence grise'' of EU legal texts and is credited with the Lisbon Treaty, the failed EU Constitution and their predecessors, the Nice, Amsterdam and Maastricht treaties.
He has argued that it would be “far better” to create “an avant-garde group, probably based on the current 17 members of the euro area” than attempt treaty change.
“Willing euro members would conclude an additional treaty compatible with international and EU law,’’ he wrote in a paper circulated last week. ''This would contain additional obligations for them, as well as a definition of the organs and rules that would govern their supplementary co-operation in the best way possible.”
The emphasis by Mr Piris on “willing” members and ''additional obligations’’ has stoked rumours, denied in Paris, that Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is trying build a smaller eurozone without the highly indebted or bailed-out countries of Greece, Ireland, Portugal or Italy.
Speaking yesterday, Mrs Merkel insisted that Germany would not support a smaller eurozone.
“We have a single goal and it is to stabilise the eurozone as it is today, to make it more competitive, to make progress in balancing budgets,” she said.
Michael Meister, the Bundestag finance spokesman for Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said “such a shrinking process would be deadly for Germany”. He added: “It would be a deadly development for an export country like Germany"."
ABCNEWS:
"Newt Gingrich Urges Herman Cain to “Answer the Charges”
Nov 8, 2011
By Arlette Saenz
Newt Gingrich, who has stayed out of commenting directly on the sexual harassment allegations facing Herman Cain, urged the businessman to respond to the claims against him and to make sure he’s accurate and forthcoming with the truth because he “owes the American people.”
“I think when you move from anonymity to a person standing up in that setting and saying something, so now there’s a real – there’s a person. It’s not just some anonymous tip. Clearly Herman Cain has to answer the charges . He has to explain what happened. He has to do so in a way that’s convincing ,and I think that that’s unavoidable,” Gingrich told Jake Tapper in an ABC News/Yahoo interview today. “I think he both owes her that but he also owes the American people that and I hope he can do it well. He’s a good friend, and I hope he has an answer that satisfies people he has to have an answer and it better be accurate because if it’s not accurate it won’t stand.”
Gingrich has experienced a recent rise in the polls, placing fourth with 12 percent in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released last Friday. The former speaker of the House acknowledged Romney will make it to the final two in the race for the GOP nomination, but Gingrich said his eye isn’t on the Massachusetts governor but instead he’s focusing on snatching the undecided voters.
“There’s a big opportunity for an alternative candidate. That doesn’t mean that Romney can’t get the nomination. He’s smart. He’s working hard. He has a lot of money, access to large amounts of money, and he may be able to beat whoever ends up as the alternative. In the end it comes down to sort of which of the guys do you want. He’s clearly one of the last two because of the sheer scale of his resources,” Gingrich said. “My job I think is to reach out to the 75 or 80 percent who aren’t currently committed to Romney and say here’s a set of solutions that would actually get us back on the right track. If it succeeds, then Romney will have the problem of stopping me. I’m not worried about stopping Romney. I’m worried about reaching that 75 or 80 percent who aren’t committed to him.”
Newt Gingrich painted himself as an alternative to Obama based on his commitment to enhance opportunities and incentives for those aiming to create jobs in this country.
“I like job creators. I’m the opposite of Obama. I like people who create jobs,” Gingrich said. “I don’t believe in class warfare and I think in that context you’ll see a huge increase, in fact I tell people – the recovery becomes late on election night as people realize they’re going to have a new president with a new program and a new attitude.”
But while Gingrich is experiencing a bit of a boom, he acknowledged that he may be tested soon and his handling of that trial will predict how he’d perform as president.
“Sooner or later, something will happen and either I’ll be able to deal with it or I won’t. If I do then there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be the nominee and I just think that’s the nature of this business,” Gingrich said. “If you can’t make it through the campaign, you probably can’t do a very good job as president”."
Haaretz:
"24.12.09
U.S. rabbi involved in sex scandal led fight against Israel conversions
Rabbi Tropper filmed demanding sex for himself and for friends in exchange for conversion certificate.
By Yair Ettinger
It is hard to imagine a more embarrassing situation in which to find an exclusive ultra-Orthodox organization - a group that was a standard-bearer in the fight against "breaches in the wall of conversion" and "the penetration of complete gentiles into the vineyard of Israel."
These breaches pale into insignificance in comparison with the accusations against the man who heads the organization itself: according to the claims, Rabbi Leib Tropper of Rockland County abandoned the apparently stringent Halakhic standards of his Haredi organization and established a conversion process based on his most private impulses.
A report in the New York Post earlier this week revealed a sensational story about "a prominent Orthodox rabbi has been caught on tape discussing his apparent love affair with a shiksa he was converting to Judaism."
The woman involved is 32-year-old Shannon Orand of Houston, who still seeks to convert from Christianity to Judaism. The bulk of the report deals with embarrassing comments that the rabbi made during a phone call, during which he was recorded demanding the woman perform a number of sexual services for himself and his friends in exchange for granting her a conversion certificate.
Only at the very end of the Post report is it mentioned that at the start of the month, Rabbi Tropper resigned from his position as head of the Eternal Jewish Family organization, which dealt with conversions. But the connection to the group is in fact the story's punch line, making the affair another incident in the ongoing crisis in the world of conversion.
This connection also explains the extent to which an alleged case of blackmail has rocked the rabbinic world in Israel and the United States, and also has a complex relationship with the business dealings of the chairman of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, Brazilian Jewish entrepreneur Guma Aguiar.
Rabbi Tropper's stated goal in founding the Eternal Jewish Family was to "fortify the walls of conversion," amid an ideological debate between the Haredi and national camps in Israel."
"U.S. rabbi involved in sex scandal led fight against Israel conversions
While functioning as a well-known rabbi in the New York area and head of the Kol Yaakov yeshiva, Rabbi Tropper enlisted wealthy Jews in the Haredi fight against to non- ultra-Orthodox conversions, especially those carried out by special conversion courts in Israel headed by Rabbi Haim Druckman.
As such, the doors of senior Haredi officals were thrown open to him, including that of Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv, a leader of the Lithuanian Haredi sect, and rabbi Tropper himself had the title of gaon ("most learned") bestowed upon him by the ultra-Orthodox press - all because of his efforts and comments against conversions by the Conversion Authority, against the "infiltration" of gentiles into the people of Israel.
When news of the affair began to emerge two weeks ago, posters denouncing Tropper were plastered across the Haredi city of Bnei Brak, whose title commanded: "Leave impurity." The text's anonymous authors threatened that if he did not quit the organization, "We will publicize our voice aloud, accompanied by pornographic pictures and shocking video clips." The rabbi did indeed announce his resignation, but failed in his efforts to hush up the affair.
It was leaked to American Jewish bloggers, the audio tape was posted on YouTube, and the Post published the story (under the headline "Tal-mood for love: Sex-tape rabbi tries to 'share' hottie," referring to one of Tropper's demands in the tape).
The current scandal is not the first in which the Eternal Jewish Family and Tropper have been involved. Tropper recently accused Aguiar of assaulting him in a Jerusalem hotel in April while the rabbi served as a prosecution witness against the businessman in a civil suit in Florida. Aguiar - who recently resigned from the organization - is accused of entering Rabbi Leib Tropper's room at the David Citadel Hotel, assaulting him and threatening to cause him further harm.
At the time of the alleged attack, Tropper was testifying at Aguiar's trial on embezzlement charges brought before a Florida court by the businessman's uncle, Thomas Kaplan.
As part of a war of slander between the pair, a notice was published in the Haredi newspaper Hamevaser, according to which rabbis close to Aguiar gave up their stringent halakhic demands with regard to his wife. The notice alleges that the businessman is "married to a woman who underwent a very dubious conversion."
Tropper's associates claim that Orand, the tape and the posters are all connected to this legal dispute. One of the associates told Haaretz that, "Guma Aguiar succeeded in throwing Rabbi Tropper to the trash"."
5 Towns Jewish Times:
"Rav Dunner Responds to EJF Attack
Written by 5TJT Staff
10 January 2010
By Rabbi Aba Dunner
It is long established pattern of the hired cheer-leaders of the ejf to attempt to blacken the name of anyone who criticizes their activities in any way - the pot of gold that the ejf has found is worth $25 million and counting and who wants to lose out on that? but it is clear who the real ganef is in this sad story - it is anyone who associates themselves with this organization whose sole function is to leech as much money as possible out of Mr. Kaplan. The feeble attempts to publish fact sheets in the jewish media demonstrates what and who they are - no serious or well meaning organization finds it necessary to print fact sheets stating that they are not low-lives, not ganovim, etc etc. this is usually a
given in any moisad - and if they have to publish something of this
nature it can only be that they are and always have been goineiv daas habri'os on a giant scale.
Some real facts:
EJF is an organization entirely funded by a (well meaning) secular Jew whose interests are the preservation of wild cats which are endangered by encroaching civilization and the preservation of Jewry which is endangered by intermarriage. His solution for the latter is to encourage the non Jewish partner to convert - the same approach taken by the reform and more recently, the conservatives. The EJF has a rolodex containing botei din across the USA to which it refers potential converts which it claims to have selected and vetted. Many of those botei din have expressed surprise that potential geirim were being referred to them - small and relatively inexperienced, instead of being
sent to the big established botei din in the major centers of
yiddishkeit. The reason is simply that the ejf refers cases which it
claims are ready for giur to a small beis din that will accept their recommendation when a larger more established beis din would not
consider the case in any way suitable. (additionally the ejf besmirches the name of botei din with track records measured in decades and whose credentials are impeccable but who have the temerity to question their
judgement and qualifications) Rabbonim from small towns across the USA were continually surprised over the last few years that intermarried couples who they reckoned were unready for giur - even though they might qualify with a year or two of work - were leaving town and returning a
month or two later having been converted through an ejf recommendation and officially having been mentored successfully by the ejf. In many of these instances the levels of observance were insufficient to start with
and diminished subsequently with many ending up only nominally
practicing Jews."
"Rav Dunner Responds to EJF Attack
To burnish their credentials as the only chareidi purveyors of geirus, the game plan was to present themselves as the most chareidi organization out there by buying their way into the chotzer of the Gedolim by giving kickbacks to the various individuals who attempt to surround the Gedolim. By steady drip feeding of a few thou here and there to help with a chasuna or pay off some choivos or support a pet project, tropper managed to buy his way in and then parade his ability to get photo ops as if that made him a ne'emon of the Gedolim. The story that he was telling was that all botei din and mekarvim in the USA were not to be trusted with the future
of klal yisroel and only someone with his dikduk bemitzvos particularly in the areas of kiruv was in the position to handle it properly. This from a man whose personal habits until this time had been a matter of concern to all who knew the facts and whose yeshiva had not managed more
than a minyan of balei tshuva at any given time. In the kiruv world he was not regarded as even a side-show, particularly because of his habit of telling anyone who would listen that only he knew about kiruv and that everyone else attempting it is a charlatan.
The ejf then went about organizing conventions of Rabbonim and Roshei
yeshivos in the USA again trumpeting the terrible standards of giyur and their qualifications to solve the problem. Many attendees enjoyed being flown to Washington or the Davids Citadel or Kibbutz Lavi all expenses paid but were surprised to be invited seeing as they were largely not
involved in giur. Very few of the participants were top ranking poskim with expertise in the subject and while they were often high level talmidei chachomim and Roshei Yeshivos, they would not necessarily be consulted on this topic. However, given that the names of the worlds preeminent Gedolim were being thrown around as if they had personally checked and verified the activites of the ejf and because so many other
prominent Roshei Yeshivos were present, most relied on it all being real Meanwhile in the field the real agenda was Mr Kaplan's which is to get the largest number possible to become Jewish and therefore botei din were encouraged to convert people shipped half way across the country
and cleared by the ejf. To find the customers, the ejf offered money to local rabbonim and mekarvim to find them intermarried couples to attend their seminars - not couples where the jewish hald was moving towards yiddishkeit: anty intermarried couples would do. They were also hiring
field workers to go and find intermarried couples - a sort of giur bounty hunt - and were offering organizations money,which to their credit many refused, to allocate staff to this very dubious purpose which it is unlikely they were telling the gedolim!. Additionally, they
were trying to break into the European market where stringent standards were already in place through the efforts of the CER over the previous ten years. If they could buy their way in there, they would be able to add the number of geirim being processed around Europe to their bottom
line and justify the millions that they were milking from Mr Kaplan. The problem was that tropper's personality is so obnoxious, that when he showed up to address a European Rabbinic convention, he yelled at the assembled (very bemused) rabonim that they were all frauds and charlatans and that only he knew the real path to kiruv. He had a hissy fit and stormed out of the room when one of the (by now very amused)
rabbonim had the cheek to ask him a question."
"Rav Dunner Responds to EJF Attack
To keep this happening while diverting attention away from the real activities and towards the chareidi image being projected, Lubicom PR agency headed by Mr Menachem lubinsky was running a big-time campaign to keep the operation going. The seminars and the venues, the speakers and
the message were all coordinated by Lubicom - who apparently billed
around $500,000 last year for their efforts. When has a serious klal organization had its image and message manufactured by a PR company? Yiddishkeit isnt a detergent or automobile which needs hard sell and message management and when something claiming to be yiddishkeit does,
it should be immediately a cause for suspicion. It must be noted however that they do a great job as they have successfully managed to position ejf as a mainstream and serious organization and create an image in the mind of unsuspecting Gedolim and public. They have also done a wonderful
job post-tropper-fiasco of fighting a rearguard action with limited weaponry and under very adverse conditions. They produced some gloriously meaningless press releases designed to say nothing at all while the damage assessment was underway. They were all over the blogs with whole-hearted defenses of the defenseless which could not be attributed to them. The Rabbi Wachtfogel press release was clearly not cleared by him and his subsequent disavowal of it shows that they are happy to cheerfully publish letters in other peoples names without consent. They spread the usual quarter-truths and innuendos mixed in with a good dosage of plain old-fashioned sheker - the prime example of which is the mealy-mouthed puff-piece mentioned above that most frum news outlets were paid kesef molei to run. (some were honest enough and brave enough not to run it and were subjected to a barrage of abuse by
lubicom/ejf)
Rabbi Blum who apparently heads the organization after the tropper
scandal and Rabbi Wachtfogel refusal is a nice young man who until now was an office manager on a regular secretary/PA salary. He has suddenly been promoted to the top of the organization; apparently troppers replacement, on the basis of this paltry experience. He is the man who
is now going to be the recognized scourge of bad geirus and mouthpiece of the gedolim. He is however, nothing more than a straw man for lubinsky, etc who wish to steer clear of the limelight. (interestingly enough, in the weeks preceding the eruption of thescandal, Lubinsky and
Yisrael Freedman were attempting to ease tropper out of the driver's
seat into a more nominal role. Did they know something was wrong? Did
they just feel that tropper was losing credibility? In any event, the publication of the offending material certain provided them with a fast-track to remove him from the organization entirely. Another interesting twist is that suddenly ejf purports to be a player in the kiruv field - is this a way of buying themselves a new place at the table now that giur seems to be turning toxic in the chareidi world? Do they think that perhaps they can buy off some kiruv professionals and become man de'omrim in the field of outreach which is much more acceptable to the frum world?) Tropper is a fraud. The organization he
created is in his image and is therefore a fraud too. The creators of that image are fraudsters and hucksters who are trying desperately to keep the line to Mr Kaplan's millions open. The chareidi world feels
diminished and tainted and wishes they would go away and the chilul
Hashem would stop."
BENATLAS.com:
"Joseph Vincent Paterno Tackle
by Ben Atlas on 11.10.2011
Since no one else is going to bring up Joseph Vincent Paterno’s Catholicism. It was the age and the culture when things of this sort have been shoved under the carpet, perhaps for centuries. If the Cardinal Bernard Francis Law kept quite about this, what do you expect from a football coach?"
SALON.com:
"Topic: US Economy
Jul 27, 2010
Are the American people obsolete?
The richest few don't need the rest of us as markets, soldiers or police anymore. Maybe we should all emigrate
By Michael Lind
Have the American people outlived their usefulness to the rich minority in the United States? A number of trends suggest that the answer may be yes.
In every industrial democracy since the end of World War II, there has been a social contract between the few and the many. In return for receiving a disproportionate amount of the gains from economic growth in a capitalist economy, the rich paid a disproportionate percentage of the taxes needed for public goods and a safety net for the majority.
In North America and Europe, the economic elite agreed to this bargain because they needed ordinary people as consumers and soldiers. Without mass consumption, the factories in which the rich invested would grind to a halt. Without universal conscription in the world wars, and selective conscription during the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies might have failed to defeat totalitarian empires that would have created a world order hostile to a market economy.
Globalization has eliminated the first reason for the rich to continue supporting this bargain at the nation-state level, while the privatization of the military threatens the other rationale.
Continue Reading
Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of "The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution." More Michael Lind"
(Note, the Circus Tent-Hirshel Tzig-antitzemac is written by a pro-Chabad Hasid, while the Failed Messiah Blog-Shmarya Rosenberg blog is run by a a now lapsed former Chabad Hasid. They usually agree in their criticisms, but they disagree over criticizing anything to do with the Chabad movement. This may seem like a "storm in a tea cup" but they are two of the most popular, exceptionally well-written, informative and well-run blogs that deal critically with issues surrounding all aspects of Orthodox Judaism.)
Circus Tent-Hirshel Tzig-antitzemach:
"Thursday, November 10, 2011
Still waiting.... (Penn State, etc.)
It's been a week since the scandal broke at Penn State. In that span of days we've heard from a certain "crusading" blogger about Meal Mart Salmonella, battered Jewish women, Reb Shmuel Kamenetzky telling people not to go to the Police when they see abuse, more abuse in the Jewish Community, Israeli Haredis being male chauvinists, the Kletzky murder trial, Reb Nosson Tzvi, but only because his mother was from his neighborhood in S. Paul, and a host of non-issues. Including a very important story about a Ethiopian Jew being named Israeli Ambassador to ----- Ethiopia. But not a word, not one single, solitary word, about the abuse that went on there for years, not just abuse but violation! of young children by the No. 2 man in the University's Athletic Dept. (as far as I'm concerned, as well as the rest f the world.) The fact that America's very bright, non-Haredi students rioted in support of old JoePa, even though he did nothing to stop the violation of young children, also gets no mention. NOT. ONE. WORD. I guess he cares only about Jewish children being abused. Gentiles mean nothing to him. They can all go to hell, huh? Are they not G-d's children, Scotty? Imagine, just imagine if we would do that, support a Rosh Yeshiva who was fired because he did nothing by rioting and flipping over cars. I've been very patient, Mr. Rosenberg. I shall wait no longer.
You are nothing but a two-bit hypocrite, liar, ingrate - yes, ingrate, and worse.
And most of all, you're an embarrassment to your people.
Posted by Hirshel Tzig - הירשל ציג at 11:49 AM
Labels: abuse, Failed Messiah, hypocrisy, Penn State, Scott Rosenberg, Shmarya"
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