Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz was born in the town of Willig in Hungary in 1886 into a family of G-d-fearing Sanzer chassidim. At a young age -- when he was already studying Shulchan Oruch Yore De'ah with Shach, Taz and the Pri Megadim -- he had acquired a name as a scholar who brimmed with deep religious passion. He studied under the Arugas Habosem, the B'eer Shmuel, and the Shevet Sofer, Rav Simcha Bunim Sofer --the three leading gedolim of Hungary at the time, and received semichah from them.
A person of deep complexity and contemplation, he pursued Jewish philosophy and mussar privately, and at a young age had completed the entire works of the Maharal, Kuzari, Mesilas Yeshorim, and works of chassidus. He avidly studied the works of Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch in the original German. He saw Rav Hirsch as his ideal because Hirsch had successfully devised a religious Jewish weltanschauung that could stand up to the challenges of modernity. (Nothing showed his diverse interests more than the fact that he spent his entire wedding dowry on buying a set of Zev Yaavetz's history books.)
Although Rav Shraga Feivel appeared an unassuming young man, he had a rare strain of boundless idealism running through his fabric. When he came across the statement in the gemora that, "Were Israel to keep two Shabbosim in a row, the Redemption would immediately come" he promised himself then and there that he would work to draw the hearts of Jews back to their Father in Heaven.
In the early years of the twentieth century, when Jews all over the world were blindly rushing to embrace enlightenment, communism, socialism and every other "ism" besides their ancestral heritage, his dream appeared as unpractical, wishful thinking.
At age 22 he married, and settled near his father's home in the town of Humina. In 1913, he decided to leave for the U.S. for reasons never clearly defined by him. Before he left, he received a brocho from Rav Yeshaya of Krestira, who foretold that he would accomplish great things in America.
The first few years in the U.S. Rav Shraga Feivel spent trying his hand at different professions. Although an expert at the laws of shechita, he saw after a day that this profession did not suit him. He taught in talmud Torahs in New York, Bridgeport and Scranton, before he returned to New York and opened an ice cream business.
Although he still dreamed of opening a yeshiva, he had discovered that in the U.S., all the power was concentrated in the hands of a talmud Torah's president and board of directors, and the principal and teachers were viewed as merely low level servants. He dreamed of succeeding in his business and with the funds, opening his own yeshiva. However, his business was not succeeding as planned, possibly because his head was more in his Torah studies than in ice cream.
Kashruth and educating the public
Rav Shraga Feivel was a lover of Jewish liturgical music; he and chazzan Yossele Rosenblatt became friends and together created The Jewish Light (Dos Yiddishe Licht) newspaper. The intent was to inform the Jewish public about the awareness of their heritage, shmiras hamitzvas, the importance of keeping the kashruth laws; and they wanted to give their secular brothers an alternative to The Forward (and The Workmen's Circle/Bund). He was way ahead of his times; the public was not interested for the most part in their message, and the paper folded leaving them deep in debt.
Rav Shraga Feivel, realizing that his business enterprises were failing, in the summer of 1921, after being pursued by various members of the board, he finally agreed to take a teaching job at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, which at the time was a "talmud Torah" rather than a yeshiva. Many of the teachers were not shomrei Torah and mitzvos, a very sore spot in the side of Rav Shraga Feivel, and added to his hesitancy of joining the school. He was certain that the Torah could only be learned, if taught by frum teachers. A series of illnesses that struck him didn't allow him to take the job until Elul 1923, when he was appointed to teach the eighth grade class.
Rav Nesanel Quinn, a student who had arrived the year before and later became principal of Jewish studies in the yeshiva, recounts, "In the first days after he came to the yeshiva, even the worst students began to feel more positive about their Jewish studies. He tried -- and succeeded -- in making Torah study beloved to them, and in giving them the feeling of closeness to Hashem. They began to keep mitzvos not out of habit but out of deep feeling. He imbued one with pride to study Torah, and that nothing in this world could compare to Torah study."
The Yeshiva Leaps Spiritually
The board hired Reb Shraga Feivel for just six months on a trial basis instead of a year, as they had done with all the previous principals, and if they weren't satisfied, they could fire him. To their surprise, Reb Shraga Feivel told them that he wasn't even interested in a six-month contract. He offered that they could hire him on the basis that if at any point they were dissatisfied, they could fire him on the spot. All the previous principals had insisted on a detailed contract for an entire year.
Rav Shraga Feivel began the next day. He found a group of cool, impassive teachers whose resentment of him bristled under the surface. The teachers too were all of Polish or Russian extraction, and they could not respect the Hungarian man who "lacked up-to-date scholastic and educational training" and proudly sported a beard and payos.
But as the following weeks unfolded, and each teacher had the occasion to meet and discuss topics with him, they soon stood open-mouthed before Rav Shraga Feivel's vast knowledge. The teacher who was expert in Hebrew grammar soon discovered that Rav Shraga Feivel was a giant in dikduk. The teacher whose specialty was Jewish history soon discovered that Rav Shraga Feivel knew far more than he.
Within a few weeks, the entire staff was united in their reverence and respect for the new principal who each admitted towered far above him. Rav Shraga Feivel began his innovative program right away.
On his first day as principal, Rav Shraga Feivel dictated a letter to the members of the board. He wrote them that a person cannot be balabos (board member) over a yeshiva unless he appreciates Torah. He demanded that every one of them attend a Torah shiur at least twice a week. The board members were astonished -- but they complied.
Rav Shraga Feivel gave a shiur in the home of Reb Benzion Weberman where he impressed the committee members with his deep religious, educational and personal ideals. They began to understand that it wasn't sufficient for a child to have a Jewish education only until his bar mitzva years, which was the standard in America until then.
In addition to winning over the rebbes and the parents, Rav Shraga Feivel soon was idolized by the students. They had never seen a principal who taught with such heart and neshomoh. On holidays he made assemblies and parties, and would dance with the students. He would sing soulful songs "Kadsheinu" and "Vetaheir libeinu" with such ecstasy that all the students were swept up with the same emotion.
"It isn't the slightest exaggeration to say that Rav Shraga Feivel blew a new soul into us, of a natural Jewish approach to our Torah. We could clearly sense how the Shechina was present in every class. A new spirit blew in the life of the yeshiva -- and all this he did quietly, without noise, without giving orders."
Torah Vodaath's name began to spread far and wide in New York. There was no longer any need to recruit bochurim for the yeshiva and the problem now became how to find enough room for all the boys. The crowding forced the committee to open classes in rented apartments around the district. Classes were held in the Keap Street beis hamedrash, the Lincoln business school, and the Beis Aaron shtiebel on Division Avenue. At the same time, the spiritual growth fostered by Rav Shraga Feivel kept pace with the physical growth of the yeshiva.
The Mesivta is Founded
The idea of a Jewish high school was still far-fetched. When the end of the year drew near, Rav Shraga Feivel persuaded the parents of the eighth-grade boys to keep their sons in the yeshiva for "just one more year." Rav Shraga Feivel arranged for the youths to study in a local high school at night where courses were offered for adults who had not completed their high school diploma. He knew such a school would have less of an influence on his students than learning in a public school with youth their age. Besides the hours at night devoted to secular studies, the boys studied Jewish studies from early in the morning and even late at night after they finished their secular studies.
When the end of the year came around again, Rav Shraga Feivel convinced the parents to agree to just one more year. And when that year finished, the parents were willing to agree to another year. At that point, he found himself with a group of high school youths whose dedication to Torah study remained strong and unswerving.
Says Rav Nesanel Quinn, one of the students of this group, "Our study day was long and exhausting, but Rav Shraga Feivel pushed us to study Torah additional hours, on our own initiative, as it were, until late at night. I remember that he sat and studied Torah with us every Thursday night until almost midnight, and we felt that Torah study was so sweet that we almost didn't feel tired. Our load of studies was not easy, particularly if you compared it to the study program in a public school. But none of us ever complained. The frequent recesses of course helped to release the tension, but mainly what helped was that in our society, everyone was working hard and no one had it easy. So the heavy load on us wasn't viewed as anything extraordinary. We were so busy with our studies that we virtually had no time to spend on small talk."
When Rav Shraga Feivel was ready to implement his next educational endeavor -- the Mesivta -- he already had a group of older boys who had spent 12 years in intense Jewish education and the idea of continuing Jewish studies after elementary school was becoming more palatable.
When Rav Shraga Feivel asked to open a full high school division, with structured Jewish and secular studies offered within the format of the school in 1927, his request met with resistance from the board. The board, truth to tell, had nobly maintained the elementary school through unflagging and exhaustive efforts, but to undertake the support of a high school on top of that was a burden that the members saw as overwhelmingly difficult and perhaps unjustified.
Mr. Avrohom Lewin, a board member backed Rav Shraga Feivel. Despite the failure of Mr. Lewin's business during the growing Depression that hit America in those years, he staunchly agreed to buy a building at 505 Bedford Avenue for the Mesivta (as Rav Shraga Feivel called the high school to differentiate it from the elementary school, which was called "the yeshiva").
Shortly after Mr. Lewin purchased it, taking out large loans in his name, a real estate agent offered to buy it back from him at a much higher price -- that would have landed him a profit equal to three years of livelihood. But Mr. Lewin passed the difficult trial, and made the building available to the yeshiva. Eventually, the committee board agreed to take the Mesivta under its wing and pay for its cost. However, the burden of running and maintaining it fell upon Rav Shraga Feivel.
It must be emphasized what an immense achievement this was. Not only had Yeshiva Torah Vodaath acquired a sterling name as a yeshiva with undiluted Torah values, but it was the only yeshiva at the time with an excellent high school program. The other yeshiva schools, such as Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef, Rav Shlomo Kluger and Tiferes Yerushalayim, were only elementary schools with at best afternoon programs for public high school students.
Rav Shraga Feivel's concept of the Mesivta program had no parallel in any yeshiva in the world -- and not just because he incorporated secular studies and a high school degree into the yeshiva. This in itself was an act of genius. He understood that for American Jewry to flourish, yeshiva boys must have a secular education. He insisted that his talmidim excel in the secular program as well. When he asked the European gedolim about the issue of secular studies in the yeshiva, the only shaila was could it be housed in the same building as used for limudei kodesh.(There were fanatics on the board, that insisted the yeshiva change its name from Torah Vodaath to a name that did not imply that there was daas outside of Torah. He strongly disagreed with that premise, as did Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Rambam/Maimonides).
(Maimonides studied secular subjects like astronomy, medicine, mathematics and philosophy — a medieval “liberal arts” curriculum. He was particularly captivated by the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plotinus; their ideas persuaded him that reasoned inquiry was not only reconcilable with Judaism, but in fact its central discipline. He had little patience for those who cared more about the prestige of scholars than the merits of their assertions and admonished his students: “You should listen to the truth, whoever may have said it.”) (Commentary on the Mishnah, Tractate Neziqin)
Besides gemora being taught on a high level, he insisted that the curriculum include Chumash and Novi with their commentaries, the meanings of the prayers, knowledge of the 613 mitzvos, Jewish law, and sifrei yirah and mussar such as Sha'arei Teshuvah, Mesilas Yeshorim, and for select students, even Doros Harishonim, the detailed Jewish history book written by Rav Y. Halevi. Many of the latter courses he personally taught. He saw the utter importance of giving his students a solid foundation in Jewish faith and hashkofo that was taken for granted in the European yeshivos.
The atmosphere of the yeshiva was an unusual mix of Litvish learning taught by great Litvish scholars some of whom he brought over from Europe, with chassidic enthusiasm and soul which he himself injected. He integrated different approaches from various groups in Klal Yisroel and knew how to create a harmonious synthesis that appealed to his American students.
Although his influence permeated the yeshiva and every student in it, he humbly kept himself to the sidelines and refused to accept the title of "Rosh Mesivta" or even the more routine title of "Rabbi." He could not be found at the Mizrach of the beis hamedrash during prayers. He was the hinge on which the entire yeshiva turned, but to the unknowing eye, he seemed just an unassuming person filling a nondescript role. Who had ever heard of a man who built an entire yeshiva with mesiras nefesh -- only to refuse to take the mantle of honor it would bequeath to him?
In the shiurim Rav Shraga Feivel gave to the classes of the Mesivta he spoke constantly of Eretz Yisroel and the negative effect of college (he later altered his opinion, and asked Rabbi Hutner to apply for a college charter from New York State, under changing circumstances and an evolving necessity for many talmidim). Had he lived, a college would have been built under the auspices of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:
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| Courtesy of the Mendlowitz Family Archives and Philip Fishman |
In one shiur, to the astonished eyes of his students who didn't know if he was hallucinating or really meant it, he said that the day would come when he would found a kollel avreichim for them to continue their studies in Eretz Yisroel after their weddings. No one in their wildest dreams at the time even considered continuing their Torah studies after their weddings. Each student felt that his hands were full with just remaining in yeshiva for high school despite the disapproval of his parents, the mockery of his neighbors, the haughty looks of his more Americanized friends, and the spirit of materialism and heresy that blew in powerful gusts all around him.
The Mesivta grew, and Rav Shraga Feivel realized his dream of creating knowledgeable, deeply religious and committed Jews. Years later, he created Beis Midrash Elyon in an "unknown" town called Monsey near Spring Valley, where hand-picked married students engaged in high-level Jewish studies and where Torah students went in the summer for a combined program of summer relaxation and Torah study. This was the first kollel of its kind in the United States.
Wellsprings of the Mesivta
Rav Shraga Feivel created soldiers who went forth to Jewish communities outside of New York and founded yeshivas and saved the remnant of religious Jews from going lost. He sent students to found new yeshivos: Lakewood, Telz, and the Nitra Yeshiva, and he gave up his own sorely-needed supporters instructing them to help support new yeshivos that were opening up elsewhere. He founded Beis Midrash Elyon, for advanced Torah study at a kollel level. One of his greatest dreams came to fruition when Torah Umesorah, whose goal was to create day schools and yeshivos all over the world, was founded.
By the time Rav Shraga Feivel passed away in 1948, American religious Jewry was still small and tender, but had deep and strong roots. Yeshivas Torah Vodaath had sprouted numerous rabbis and activists that helped create the prominent religious Jewish communities that we see today spread out throughout the U.S. and Canada.
With the mighty personality of Rav Shlomo Heiman, the rosh yeshiva who taught the older bochurim of the Mesivta from the years 1933-1943, Rav Shraga Feivel produced the first team of Torah scholars of stature on American soil, all of whom had incubated in the classrooms of Torah Vodaath. They continued to reinvigorate Jewish religious life around the globe throughout the twentieth century.
The fabric of the American Jewish community began to change in the 1950s. The flood of survivors and the local religious community opened new yeshivos, the religious community burgeoned, a new religious-American weltanschauung developed which enabled a religious Jew to face American society with confidence and independence.
His love for his fellow Jew was expressed best by Rabbi Weissmandel in his book "The Unheeded Cry." "(Paraphrased) There was no rabbi in the U.S.A. that cared for the plight of European Jewry more than the saintly Rav Shraga Feivel, and helped greatly in the fundraising and hatzoloh efforts to save every Jew possible."
Rav Shraga Feivel took seriously ill in 1948. He was an ardent zionist; he urged his son in-law, Rabbi Alexander Linchner, to go to Israel and save the Sephardi children from secularism. Boys Town Jerusalem was established in 1949, the largest yeshiva/trade school of its kind anywhere in the world.
He asked that he be buried in a non-monumented grave in the Arugas Habosem cemetery on Long Island until the situation in Israel would enable his burial there. He was laid to rest in his final resting place in Bnei Brak. Rav Eliyahu Dessler zt"l, in his will, requested that he be buried next to Rav Shraga Feivel. Until this day, the Kehillas Arugas Habosem has left his original grave empty.
It is not an exaggeration to say that there was no man that impacted the American Jewish landscape with such purpose, clarity of thought, and vision, as the saintly Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, zecher tzaddik v'kadosh levracha.
(Much of the material was taken from Shlucha DeRachmana (written in Hebrew) by R' Aaron Suraski who interviewed many family members. Mr. M. Samsonowitz gathered and had written much of the material. Although this piece had other important figures mentioned in the establishment of the American yeshiva movement, upon extensive research, I had discovered that they were greatly exaggerated to the point of being fabricated, and could not at all discern the true from the false, so I eliminated that material entirely. The above edited piece, is accurate, although not the entire story.)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOhel Insider said...
ReplyDeleteOhel Family Services has in the last few years been getting many government grants.
One of them was for the purpose of opening a domestic violence center. In order to justify the money they receive Ohel must ensnare woman to come for counseling under the pretense that they are being abused. Ohel hires social workers and counselors and makes a nice fee off this. Once they sink their claws into the woman they don't let go very easy because this is a major profit center for them. It can evolve into profit from divorce counseling, children counseling and the list goes on.
Here are the signs to look for if you suspect that your wife is getting involved with Ohel.
Modus operendi: The counselor will first try to get the woman to get her own cell phone so she can contact her discreetly. The counselor has the woman call Ohel at 718 851 6300 and leave a message for the counselor. The counselor will then call back with the appointment time probably when the husband is at work so he wont find out that they are sucking in his wife. Ohel will not come up on the caller id. The caller id will come up as 646718. If you see that your wife has called 718 851 6300 and then has a call back of 646718 you will know that she is in touch with Ohel and you better take action before its to late. Ohel will give her articles, books and lists of items to convince her that she is being abused. You will then hear her use words and talk in ways that she was not familiar with before. Watch out for these signs.
This is being published for the benefit of the Jewish Community by Ohel Insider. I hope to post more information about Ohel and names of its counselors in the future. Anyone else that has information should also share it for the benefit of the community. This is a major scandal ready to break open. The Rabanim are unfortunately all quit about this. Some are paid fat salaries by Ohel. Call Ohel to protest this behavior.
Warning to men in Boro Park
here is the lineup from the internet at Ohel Family Services domestic violence center.
Your wife may already be involved with one of these people.
Http://www.ohelfamily.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=411&Itemid=291
David Mandel
dm@ohelfamily.org
http://www.ohelfamily.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=409&Itemid=291
Esther Rand
ER@ohelfamily.org
Joan Hertz
jehertz1@aol.com
I am debating whether to post allot of sensitive information I have about Ohel the woman that go there and the therapists that work there. I try to alert the men and tell them what will happen to them before its to late. I hope I have been able to save some marriages.
Luke Ford is investigating Ohel. If you have any information contact him.
lukeisback@gmail.com
So is the Mendlowitz family from Galitzia ad migrated down or did Tzanz have chassidim in Ungaren?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like rav SF was mostly influenced by the Yekkish and Oyberlanders even while residing in that sad country.
I am not familiar with the internal operation of Ohel.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would voice my opinion on is the way David Mandel, the chief operating officer of Ohel, handled the Torah Temimah situation after the news about Kolko broke.
By him going to the school, sitting on the dais with Twerski and Margulies, it somehow diminished the role to the TT parents, of the two villains he was sitting next to.
Now, some may claim he was unaware of the criminal Margulies. So be it..he's responsible for not knowing after so many years of credible information that he could and should have access to.
He wanted to speak to the TT parents, fine and well, he could have done it in any shul.
So his irresponsible public behavior should cause pause as to what goes on behind closed doors.
Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum, the ethically challenged executive vice president of Igud HaGanovim of the Rabbinic Alliance of America (see his Security and Exchange Commission record, etc.) devotes his weekly Jewish Press column (that's right, the Jewish Press, the 'voice' of Orthodox Jewry in America, gives a weekly column to a man with a 30-plus-year record of stock fraud and related endeavors) to the Brooklyn kapporot scandal publicized by PETA. Before we get to what seems to be the good news, let's deal with Rabbi Tannenbaum's grasp of fundamental Jewish history:
ReplyDeleteRabbi Karo was born in Spain and, after the Spanish expulsion of 1492, settled in Portugal. In 1497, he moved to Greece and then to Turkey in 1520, settling in Safed in 1535. Rabbi Isserlis was born and lived in Poland and was consulted by the Mechaber (Rabbi Karo) to add a European perspective to the Shulchan Aruch.
This is sheer insanity. Both men wrote codes independent of each other and without each other's knowledge. Rabbi Karo (the Mechaber) got his into print first. Rabbi Issreles (the Rema) was saddened by this. He took his code and rewrote it as a commentary to Rabbi Karo's Shulkhan Arukh. Rabbi Karo did not "consult" with Rabbi Issreles to add a "European perspective" to his code – the Rema simply added that in on his own.
It does not take much to a leader of Jews these days, and Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum is a living example of that rule.
Now, on to the Kapporot controversy.
As I noted a couple of weeks ago, PETA sent letters to NYC's health commissioner and to the Brooklyn DA and other officials complaining about unsanitary conditions and poor animal handling at kapparot centers in Brooklyn, especially the center in Crown Heights which is especially dirty, poorly run, and practices extremely poor animal handling. PETA included pictures and a video.
Someone who received the letter leaked it to Brooklyn haredi rabbis who initially spouted off about PETA's alleged agenda to stop shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) in America. The rabbis organized a meeting and the leaders of Agudath Israel, Satmar and even Lubavitch (home to the Crown Heights kapporot fiasco) came.
What they were treated to was a presentation on many kashrut-related violations at these street kapporot centers, violations of other halakha (like reusing live chickens over and over again which defeats the purpose of kapparot), health and safety violations and tzaar baalei hayyim violations. The rabbis passed a resolution meant to govern this year's kapparot centers:
…The session directed that all kapparos centers be prohibited from allowing chickens to be in the sun all day, that the birds be protected by an awning or improvised roof, and that the birds be sprayed with ample water periodically. In addition, the session focused on health concerns.
Dr. Yitzchok (Richard) Cofsky of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center Brooklyn, reported that holding a chicken will not impart an infectious disease. However, if chicken feces somehow become embedded under one’s fingernails and are somehow ingested, severe stomach cramps are possible. However, Dr. Cofsky assured the session, chicken feces ingestion will not develop into an infectious disease. In response, the assembled rabbis regulated kapparos centers to have adequate supplies of surgical gloves as well as alcohol hand wipes.…
Will these directives be followed? Who knows. Until PETA's letter, nothing had been done to deal with the problem. Rabbi Tannenbaum notes:
…The KIS 2003 recommendations have been repeatedly circulated. Now is the time to finally heed their alarm. A continuation of kapparos kashrus abuses cannot be allowed to continue. The kosher consuming public must become sensitive to this issue and register its outrage.…
So why would PETA's letter work here but not work as well in dealing with Rubashkin?
Because most of the rabbis have no financial links to these kapporot operations, and receive little if any, money from them. Rubashkin, however, has many rabbis in his employ and he writes many checks that benefit various yeshivot, schools and synagogues. Trite as it is, follow the money. Money may not be able to buy you love, but it can buy you rabbis.
That said, let's hope these guys can stop kapporot abuses. If not, let's hope the government can do that, instead.
The list of participating rabbis, which includes Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Weireb of the OU, the Novominsker Rebbe and many others, is posted after the jump.
This is the greatest inspiration that i ever read. thankyou.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful bio.
ReplyDeleteAnother great tzaddik and changer of the world celebrates a yahrekeit on 3 of Elul:
Rav Avrohom Yitzchak Hakochen Kook
A few historical corrections are in order
ReplyDelete1) Re Dos Yiddishe Licht - it wasn't just Reb Shraga Feivel and Yossele Rosenblatt - it was other people who farfihred them and made that dream into a nightmare. There is more info on it in the biography of Yossele by his son I believe.
2) "in the summer of 1921, after being pursued by various members of the board, he finally agreed to take a teaching job at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, which at the time was a "talmud Torah" rather than a yeshiva."
What do you mean ? YTV was a full-day Yeshiva then, even though it was modern and Zionistic.
3) "They began to understand that it wasn't sufficient for a child to have a Jewish education only until his bar mitzva years, which was the standard in America until then."
Some context is necessary here. In those days not everyone finished high school, most went to work earlier in life, college was a rarity. You can't look at it without taking that into account.
4) Mesivta Torah Vodaas started in 1926.
5) "It must be emphasized what an immense achievement this was. Not only had Yeshiva Torah Vodaas acquired a sterling name as a yeshiva with undiluted Torah values, but it was the only yeshiva at the time with a high school program."
What about Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchok Elchonon ?
There are some other haoros that could be made, but the above will suffice for now.
Very nice, UOJ.
ReplyDeleteHere is a Point/Counterpoint to your posting:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/894252.html
"Idol-worship" indeed.
Tinofes personified.
It is read "Satmar Chassidim", but pronounced "Baal Peor".
Hashem Yiracheim.
"There are some other haoros that could be made"
ReplyDeleteLike the genayvos of former YTV bus driver Lipa Margulies.
To Boog at 3:43 am
ReplyDeleteBoog, don't you ever get some sleep? or is it elul and your soul will not let you sleep? hey! I don't blame you, rosh hashana is around the corner.
Ratner's, open from 1905 to 2002, proudly served cheese blintzes to Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Robert Kennedy. Mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky held court in the back, and Ratner's served as the watering hole for celebrities such as Al Jolson, Walter Matthau and Groucho Marx.
ReplyDeleteIn 2007, Belsky helps certify Le Marais for OU & Agudah fressers and smears the ex-mashgiach without having spoken to him.
UOJ:
ReplyDeleteWas this caused by your chevra?
Eli Goldwasser and his dad had better watch out, the feds are onto his modus operendi. Stay tuned.......
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070816/NEWS03/708160356/1023/NEWS07
I wonder if Neuhoff's grandfather was the waiter in Ratner's serving Bugsy and Meyer Lansky in the back.
ReplyDeleteIt is not an exxageration to say that no man has impacted the Orthodox landscape to expose the phony rabbis and protect our children than UOJ.
ReplyDeleteHey Ex;
ReplyDeletehey, Bro, You'se gotta a prablem??
I can't win with youse guys.
I take a hiatus (that's a break for you unwashed masses) and I get slammed.
I come back, make a coupla posts and get a noogy.
Kiss it, on both sides.
I wouldn't give Boog a noogie. I would give him a wedgie and hang him by his underwear from the doorknob of the YTT boiler room.
ReplyDeleteKolko should get a "swirlie". You hang him upside down by his feet, lower his head into the toilet bowl and flush repeatedly.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's another one for you Satu Marie lowlives:
ReplyDeleteYour Helige Admor, Reb Aaron, Shlita,
the one who washes his dirty underwear in Arkaos, vill nisht fooren mit ah Zionistisha airline, so he goes via Europe (OK )but makes his connection in Germany? Germany?! for crying out loud! You can connect in:
Zurich
Heathrow,
France
Italy
Mucho flights and mucho time slots.
Just check on www.kayak.com
No Shame, No Heart, nuthin.
Reb Aaron, Shlita; you're a low-life tinaf tinofes.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2007/08/shmitah-5768.html#comment-8326183153907421383
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
Rabbi Yisroel Belsky sits on the beis din directed by Gershon Tannenbaum.
Thu Aug 16, 10:08:00 AM 2007
Anonymous said...
Rabbi Belsky sitting on ...is not a kashah, it's a Rai'ah.
Thu Aug 16, 10:35:00 AM 2007
Koko;
ReplyDeleteI saw you recently and you look like S--T!
You should have a Hatzola truck trailing you, just in case you suddenly keel over.
Taking it's toll, hey Big Guy?
Ah Rachmonus on your wife and kids.
Vos hoben zei gezindegt?
Giving Kolko a swirlie would be cruel and unusual punishment banned by the Constitution. Don't you know that perps have more rights than victims?
ReplyDeleteThat's right Twerski. The poor al Qaeda terorrists in Guantanamo that my law firm represents get swirlie-like waterboarding by big bad CIA interogators. Even though Arab enemy combatants have no rights under the Geneva Convention, we have to afford them more protections that the American people they want to murder.
ReplyDeleteKolko already told me how terrified he is of getting swirlied by other prisoners in jail. He wants me to convince the Bureau of Prisons to redesign toilets to preclude anyone's head getting shtupped in.
ReplyDeleteMargo is wondering if Ronnie Schreiber switched sides. He can make something like a shower cap in prison orange with a YTT emblem to lessen the severity of a swirlie.
ReplyDeleteBoog, I hope you gave Cocoa a piece of your mind when you saw him.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad UOJ didn't arrive on the scene earlier. He would have put my sitcom out of business.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Twerski. That's why I push for molesters getting less than the minimum sentence. You know how molesters always get attacked by other prisoners more than anyone else.
ReplyDeleteIn Mondrowitz's case, I can't allow for any jail time at all.
Someone commenting on Gilligan censoring posts on Hirhurim points out that "Taliban" in the Afghan Pathan language means "Student".
ReplyDeleteHertz Frenkel said...
ReplyDeleteBoog, I hope you gave Cocoa a piece of your mind when you saw him.
___________________________________
Nope. Thought about it and quickly nixed it as I figured that in today's Dor Tapuchos climate, he'd get excited, keel over, and I'd get arrested.
Awesome UOJ. It is noteworthy that Rav Shraga, a Yid from Hungary, was able to grasp and integrate the secular education program into the American yeshiva program. How he understood that so well, I guess can be summed up by the title of the book, shlucha d'Rachmono. My uncle is a talmid of his, I printed this out for him, and he said with tears of love that this is a tiny fraction of the gadlus of his rebbe.
ReplyDeleteLOUIMA'S HAUNTED HIGH LIFE 10 YEARS LATER
ReplyDeleteBy LEONARD GREENE and STEFANIE COHEN
THEN . . .Louima in '01 at his humble Brooklyn pad.
I hope louima is homeless in 3 years. By blinging himself out and buying all of these things, he will need to incite another riot and hope for another beating to continue to support his lavish lifestyle. Free Volpe!!!
posted by johnnyClick here to comment July 30, 2007 -- Don't let the bling fool you.
Nothing, says Abner Louima - not the majestic home in Miami, not the in-ground swimming pool out back, not the stable of luxury cars in the driveway, not even the gold bracelet with his nickname, "Babou," spelled out in diamonds - nothing, comes close to erasing his horrific memories.
"I am healed, thank God," says Louima, the Haitian immigrant whose name became synonymous with police brutality and whose ensuing civil suit resulted in a historic $8.75 million payout by the city.
"But I still have little complications from time to time, a little pain. It's definitely more intense around the time of year when it happened."
Louima, 40, is as understated as he is soft-spoken. When he says "it," he is talking about the summer morning nearly 10 years ago when he became the victim of one the city's most unspeakable abuses of power.
Louima was arrested Aug. 9, 1997, outside a Brooklyn nightclub after he was mistaken for a man who scuffled with police called to break up a fight.
After being beaten in a squad car on the way to the 70th Precinct station house in Flatbush, Louima was hauled into a station bathroom, where an angry officer shoved a wooden stick from a plunger into his rectum.
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Hey kolko! if you see them boog fellas with the uoj caps on and a plunger or even worse than that a broomstick, I got 1 peice of advice for you, RUN!!!
Is Kolko still hanging around kids? Where does this slime of no shame daven at? How is he supporting his wife and children? Yahser Koach to anyone who has these answers.
ReplyDeleteDid Louima call himself Babou or Babboon ?
ReplyDeleteKolko made his millions already. He doesn't need employment teaching kids to feed his family, just to feed his sick perversion.
ReplyDeleteHe used to daven mostly by that sick Hungarian shul Weinfeld's. He's since been going there only at night. He may be davening by Lipa Geldwerth. I tried getting it out of people in the vicinity of L & 22nd but they are refusing to reveal his whereabouts.
He's been banned from Lake Compounce thanks to UOJ and Bob Kolker but he's still hanging around kids at Silver Lake. He also seems to have been chased away by UOJ from proctoring tests at YOB.
I wonder if it's a coincidence that Louima got Louimaed in the 70. The same precinct as YTT, Weinfeld's & Yudi Kolko's pad. Must be the bad hashpoah that effected the NYPD.
ReplyDeleteUoj, can you repost that narrow bridge video clip, I can't find it.
ReplyDeleteWell said anoyomus 9:15. For every thing everyone has against Charedim MO hasn't done any better.
ReplyDeleteThe main website for the film is here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.narrowbridgefilm.com
Trailers for the film are available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23PJUB76L98
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2858431796056068698
Israel Moskovits
IzzyComm Motion Pictures
icmpinfo@gmail.com
SEE THE SHAIGETZ AND FRAUD YISROEL BELSKY:
ReplyDeleteDownload the Belsky files here:
http://savefile.com/files/53776
(copy & paste)
Wife swapping in Teaneck ?!!!!
ReplyDeleteYa gotta be kidding!
I've seen some of those Teaneck wives.
The grass is definitely NOT greener on the other side.
YOWZA!
In case he doesn't even know it, someone tell Harry Maryles he's been run over by a truck.
ReplyDeleteIs Arugas Habosem the name of the Pupa kehilla?
ReplyDeleteI bought the last of the brisket at a store before Shabbos. It was 1.75 pounds. Some fresser in line after me was upset there was no more. I couldn't believe he was serious when he lectured me that someone doesn't have a right to take more than a pound when no one else can get. He actually, just short of demanding, ask that I open the package and give him .75 lbs. I refused. The loser left the story all grumpy and yelled at 3 people on his way out for blocking his path.
ReplyDeleteArugas Habosem was originally known as the Tzelemer kehilla.
ReplyDeleteWhich Beis Medrash Elyon talmidim "founded" Lakewood? Lakewood was found in White Plains in 1943 by R' Nosson Wachtfogel who learned in Kelm. He was there BEFORE R' Aron Kotler.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone familiar with the poor neshoma known as "Mendel the coat rack", he learned in Tzelem in Williamsburg before taking ill.
ReplyDeletePeople would have to pretty low to wife swap. Any am haaretz knows the chomer haissur.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger the issur, the bigger the taivah.
ReplyDeleteThere is some divorced lowlife who tells everyone he has semicha who is using those telephone lines for hooking up with women. He purposely looks for women committing adultery. He tells the women that he has more desire for them because they are forbidden. I heard this from a secular woman who was widowed. She related what this putz told her, hoping that she was married.
ReplyDeleteHey Mr.Greedy, you'd better ask me mechila for making my Shabbos brisket-less. Shabbos is supposed to be mayain Oylam Habo but you made it sans my favorite fresserei.
ReplyDeleteA female reporter has been posing as an abused woman and has been going to Ohel Family Services domestic violence program. She is ready to do a story on them
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vosizneias.com/19894/2008/09/01/jerusalem-former-members-of-mishmeres-hatznios-it-is-a-military-like-organization-we-get-paid-by-how-many-bones-we-break/
ReplyDeleteBoog, let these mofo's try their bone breaking, pyscho tactics here, and they better pray the uoj swat team leaves them with both of their knee caps intact!
You say it like no other.
ReplyDeleteMan do you speak the truth and i have witnessed the whole truth in life.
ZZ
True gedolim have failings and make mistakes like RSFM.
ReplyDeleteHe changed his mind about college before his petirah and had no problem admitting to it ( for some) although he was against it most of his life.
RSFM ztvk"l WOULD SPIT IN YOUR FACE
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2006/11/reb-shraga-feivel-mendelowitz-zl.html
ReplyDeleteTuesday, September 02, 2008
"WE ARE LOOSING OUR KIDS"! WHY?? -READ THE POWERFUL ANSWER!!...
TODAY IS THE YORTZAIT OF REB SHRAGE FEIVEL MENDELOWITZ, OB"M 3 ELLUL
The author of the basic following article was the great gaon and tzaddik Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz OB”M, founder of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas.
And if I say: ‘I will not make mention of him nor speak anymore in his name’ then there is in my heart a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I weary myself to hold it in, but cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9)
I use the above prophetic words as a preface to my article concerning kashrus, because this article will not bring honor to me. On the contrary, I will be attacked with ridicule from many sides. But what can I do? A fire is burning within me and hopefully within thousands of Jews like me…A fire, which cannot be extinguished.
The Kashrus question has recently been discussed in the Yiddish press, but only one side of the question, viz. concerning unscrupulous purveyors & butchers who sell treifos or questionable products without a reliable hechsher or with a false one.
The religious press is silent about this problem, perhaps because of the honor of the Rabbis, or, perhaps, because of other …. reasons. The honor of the Rabbis is dear to me too. But, the honor of the Torah which is lying in the garbage, and the honor of the truth, which is trodden under foot, is dearer to me. Where there is Chilul-Hashem we do not impart honor to a Rabbi, I, therefore come forward with an accusation.
I Accuse!
I accuse many Rabbis, Kosher certifiers & their Rabbis, who grant hechsherim, who knowingly or otherwise, or out of neglect, permit non-kosher meat & other allegedly kosher products to be processed & sold under their stamp of approval both wholesale & retail; the seller is an unscrupulous person with a Torah sanction.
I accuse many Rabbis & Roshei Yeshiva, who although they themselves have no part in the hechsherim, nevertheless, know about them & still remain silent, at times may even be indirectly sanctioning them. There is a sort of mutual reciprocal agreement to keep quiet & sanction each other including their false hechsherim. Perhaps it’s because they wish to avoid Chilul-Hashem. They forget that where there is Chilul-hashem we do not impart honor to a Rabbi etc.
I accuse the very great Rabbis, Roshei Yeshiva, the leaders of our people, because of internal strife. These disputes are not for the sake of heaven; if one says something is prohibited the other must say it is permissible, if one says something is contaminated the other must say it is pure (vidu’y Erev Yom Kippur). It is impossible to bring order & reliability to the chaotic kashrus situation, especially & including the kashrus standards of meat and poultry.
I accuse the Rabbis, Roshei Yeshiva etc. because of whose negligence; the laws of chalav- akum have virtually been forgotten. I know that there were (not any more, due to chalav treifa) various heterim for this, but they apply only when it is i m p o s i b l e to obtain chalav-yisroel. In our situation, however, with a little concerned effort of the individuals, order could be brought to this chaos, and “if one can be good, why should he be bad?”
I accuse our orthodoxy, for sleeping the sleep of Choni Ha’Maagil, who slept seventy years. They are completely unaware of what is happening around then and how our strongest ramparts are being smashed by our internal foes. They are unaware that all our holy traditions & takanos are being trampled underfoot, that our three thousand year old heritage has all but completely disappeared. Yet, Orthodoxy sleeps, but how much longer?
I accuse our orthodoxy, do you know that all of the fortresses of Judaism, which have heretofore protected us from destruction, the only one left is kashrus, that other mitzvos are observed very laxly even in orthodox homes? And now kashrus too is being smashed!? Yet we sleep, but how much longer?
I accuse the very great Rabbis, Roshei Yeshiva, Rabei-im & Menhalim etc. don’t you see what has become of your youth? Don’t you know that Jewish children have become tramps, gamblers, gangsters, candidates for the electric chair, and all kinds of “ist’s” only because they have been raised on neveilos & treifos R”L, yet you sleep, but how much longer?
Don’t you know that going to the mikvah every day to purify yourself will be to no avail? Not even all the waters in the world can help, with a sheretz-tamei (a carcass of a creeping thing), not in your hand, but inside of you! And when you daven every morning and evening, or when you learn your daily shiur or seder, don’t you know that the breath that emanates from your mouth is the breath of sin? Because it reeks of neveilos & treifos!
Yet you sleep, but how much longer?
When you wash your hands for bread, or when you make Kiddush on Shabbos, and your table is bedecked with all sorts of delicacies, and you say with each bite, “in honor of the Shabbos”, you are angering hashem when you break bread. Yet you sleep, but how much longer?
I know that you will reply, “ Jacob is small & poor”. But look what Jacob’s brother on East Broadway has accomplished, how he erected a fortress through the poor laborers, a fortress against Judaism, because he has united forces. Yet you sleep & do nothing, but how much longer?
Gentleman! Do a little soul searching and see how far you have strayed; remember that our parents have sacrificed their lives for Kiddush hashem; they allowed themselves to be burned in order to uphold our holy Torah, whereas you are not required to make any sacrifices; with but a handful you can save the situation and our youth, Yet you sleep, but how much longer?
Fellow Jews, have you no fear for the great and terrible Day of Judgment? In that day you will no longer be able to come up with excuses (I didn’t know) or with a shrug of the shoulder.
(R’ Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz Z”L)
And I ask you “how much longer?” And I say,
“you sleepers, awaken from your slumber!”
*
[WE CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF ASCERTAINING THE
*
KASHRUS STANDARDS BEING USED BY THE
*
MOISDOS / CAMPS YOUR CHILDREN ATTEND !
*
e.g. are they using Supreme, Kesser, KAJ, Rubashkin,Aaron's meat products R"L? ,
*
GOLAN, Morning select, AHAVA dairy items? ]
*
They SHOULD BE using PRODUCTS THAT ARE OF A KASHRUS STANDARD ACCEPTABLE
*
TO ALL.
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TOMCHEI SHABBOS & BIKUR CHOILIM SHOULD ALSO ADHERE TO A
*
KASHRUS STANDARD ACCEPTABLE TO ALL.
Tali"ban" ban ban !!
ReplyDeleteThe ketanim are knocken themselves out with one kol koreh after another, read the jpost article of the next thing with a hechsher coming near you, "MUSIC".
Copy & Paste
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1220353263659&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--realestatefraud0827aug27,0,4026644.story
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK - A one-time hotshot manager and investor in the Manhattan real estate market was arrested Wednesday on charges he cheated banks, family members and other victims out of more than $17 million.
Paul Hochfelder was awaiting arraignment in state Supreme Court on multiples counts of grand larceny, forgery and other charges. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.
Hochfelder, 37, made his name as a founder and chairman of Max Capital Management Corp., once one of the city's largest landlords of commercial property, including the Helmsley building on Park Avenue. In 2003, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed him to the city's Latin Media and Entertainment Commission along with luminaries including actors Antonio Banderas and Jimmy Smits.
Amid mounting financial troubles in recent years, Hochfelder came under investigation after borrowing millions of dollars from two banks, a business partner, his uncle, an in-law and a childhood friend.
Prosecutors allege he secured the loans by forging signatures and claiming he had a stake in property he never owned. They say he used the money on personal expenses and previous debts.
"He was very good at convincing people he was a successful entrepreneur," District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Wednesday while announcing the indictment. "He was very persuasive."
Morgenthau said Hochfelder could face additional charges stemming from schemes involving other properties including The Sagamore resort, on Lake George in the Adirondacks, and The Westin Aruba Resort, in the Caribbean.
City Hall had no immediate comment.
“Associated Press-AOL Health poll: When people are dealing with mountains of debt, they're much more likely to report health problems, too. And not just little stuff; this means ulcers, severe depression, even heart attacks… perhaps 10M-16 million are "suffering terribly due to their debts, and their health is likely to be negatively impacted," says Paul J. Lavrakas, a research psychologist and AP consultant who analyzed the results of the survey. Those are people who reported high levels of debt stress and suffered from at least three stress-related illnesses, he says.”
ReplyDeleteFitch Ratings on Tuesday released a wide-ranging look at option ARMs that paints a decidedly negative picture for the mortgage markets over the next 36 months. In fact, the picture is a downright scary one: the bottom line is that most outstanding neg-am mortgages won’t get out of 2011 alive, thanks to forced recasts.
ReplyDeleteFitch analysts said they now expect roughly $29 billion in option ARMs to recast to higher monthly payments by the end of 2009, and an additional $67 billion to recast in 2010
Declining treasury yields will bail out some subprime borrowers, but not Alt-A Pay Option Arms. 80 percent of pay option arm holders make only the minimum payment. That is all they can afford (if they can even afford that). The time bomb is negative amortization, and that time bomb goes off when negative amortization hits contract levels (typically 110% percent but as high as 125%).
The result? Fitch said it expects 90-day plus delinquencies — already ranging from 10 percent to 24 percent, depending on vintage — to more than double after recast for 2004-2007 vintage loans. It gets worse: Fitch also estimated that the potential average payment increase on the re-casting loans to be 63 percent, representing on average an additional $1,053 due each month.
“Mortgages Ltd. has gone in less than two years from being Arizona's largest private commercial real-estate lender to a company plunged into bankruptcy following the suicide of its CEO, Scott Coles… The company's undoing was the result of heavy investment in a falling market, investors pulling out and a shortfall of cash. The collapse has cut off payments to thousands of panicked investors and stalled several of the Valley's biggest commercial projects.” (Arizona Republic, Aug. 31)
ReplyDelete"Option ARM Time Bomb About To Explode"
ReplyDeleteSounds like my boych after fressing a big Rubashkin steak.
http://www.housingwire.com/2008/08/28/prime-foreclosure-starts-surge-past-subprime-in-july/
ReplyDeletePrime Foreclosure Starts Surge Past Subprime in July
By: PAUL JACKSON
August 28, 2008
There can be no remaining doubt that the nation’s mortgage crisis has become a problem for prime credit borrowers: data released by the HOPE NOW coalition on Wednesday finds that prime foreclosure starts have finally moved ahead of subprime foreclosure starts, for the first time since the industry coalition began collecting data in July of last year
A recent report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the number of people newly infected each year with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, is 40 percent higher than previously estimated. The report, based on new technology that allows more precise estimates, found that 56,300 people around the country became newly infected in 2006, well above the 40,000 cited in recent years.
ReplyDeleteJERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel was transfixed on Wednesday by the deaths of two children who police believe were drowned by their mothers, cases that stirred emotions already reeling from the suspected killing of a girl by her grandfather.
ReplyDeleteA court ordered the mother of a boy, aged four, held for nine days for police questioning on suspicion that she drowned him on Tuesday in a bathtub in their apartment in Tel Aviv.
The woman's lawyer said her client, who has not been charged, was suffering from mental health problems.
On Friday, police arrested the mother of another four-year-old boy and said she had drowned him at the beach and had described her son as a burden.
Police are still searching for the body of Rose Pizem, whose grandfather -- her mother's live-in lover -- is suspected of killing the four-year-old and throwing her corpse into a Tel Aviv river in a suitcase.
The girl's disappearance and the boys' deaths have been dominating media coverage in Israel and stirring a national debate about child abuse in a country where a quarter of the population is under the age of 15.
"The instinct that is embedded so deep in us, to protect our children, received a terrible shock over the past week," columnist Anat Medan wrote in Israel's biggest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. "Suddenly, it became clear that the child who yells 'mommy' doesn't always receive a hug and a kiss."
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
ReplyDeletethe (alleged) molester is teaching again!
At the beginning of August, I wrote about a frum "therapist" (in quotes because he is not certified as a therapist but took a course with a frum organization) who was caught for sexual molestation. At the time I got some of the details wrong, and was waiting for developments before posting on it again. Since then I have heard some developments, and wanted to point out something.
The police were not brought in on that case. They ran a private investigation, very similar to the way the molestation case in a school in RBS was handled.
The difference is the follow-up. The case of the molestation in RBS was handled by bringing in the private investigator (which in hindsight many are saying was a bad move), yet when the investigator hit a brick wall and could no longer continue, the rabbonim gave those involved the ok to contact the police.
In the case of the "therapist", the police were never brought in - the rabbonim said we cannot hurt his parnassah (a direct quote someone, with firsthand knowledge of the case, quoted to me) and therefore they allowed him to continue working in the field, although they required certain changes to his practice to ensure it not happen again.
But on to some developments in the molestation case of RBS.
As mentioned, the case has been passed on to the proper authorities; the police and the city welfare department. An investigation was opened, and that allowed the children and families the opportunity to get the help and therapy they required.
What is shocking is a development that just occurred this week. As we all know, school finally started this week. This fellow, the teacher who allegedly molested 1st grade children under his tutelage, was not meant to be teaching in a school. The police however cannot, at this point, stop him from being given a job in another school. They can only do so once he has been formally charged (i.e. they feel they have enough evidence to indict). This teacher has been given a teaching job in another school in the neighborhood!
The school knows about the investigation and accusations against him. Why they would hire him, I have no idea. What can they possibly gain by having him as a teacher, no matter how good of a teacher he might be, that would offset the risk of him being found guilty and ruining their name? What could possibly offset the risk of him molesting children in their school? I cannot understand why they would be willing to take the risk of hiring him, despite the threat he brings to the school.
While he might be keeping a low profile now, and will be sure not to do anything that will raise any suspicion, eventually something will happen and he will hurt more children. He is an alleged sexual offender under investigation and he should not be teaching children (or anybody perhaps) until the investigation is completed and he is cleared. The safety of the children should come first, especially considering the strength of the allegations.
A separate, but connected, note:
A program called "Safe Kids" was recently launched and is backed by Lemaan Achai. This program is a general resource for any concerned parents or children in the Ramat Bet Shemesh neighborhood.
The objective is to bridge the current gap that exists in the community, between concerned parents & kids doing nothing - and their reporting their concerns to the police (which many are reluctant to do). This will enable those who need professional help to obtain it, and abuse incidents can be avoided.
Concerned parents and kids are advised that they may call Safe Kids without revealing their identity. They will be given expert professional advice, along with general advice about what to look out for in their child, and what to do about it. The handlers at Safe Kids will not give out specific information to callers concerning the details of this or other cases.
Safe Kids can be reached by calling 9991553, ask for "Safe Kids", between 9-13.00 Sunday through Thursday.
Any parent who suspects their child might have been affected by an incident of abuse and wants to know what the signs are, or any parent who might have information but are uncertain what they should do about it, is urged to contact Safe Kids. The sooner this happens, the greater the chance that incidents harming our children will be prevented.
Dear Unorthodox Jew
ReplyDeleteThe brewing child molester scandal in Ramat Bet Shemesh has taken another twist. Although the case is now under police investigation, the suspect has re-appeared as a teacher in another school. The school is called "Toras Eliahu" and the teacher's name is Akiva Kagan.
NEW YORK (AP) GMAC subsidiary ResCap says it is closing its retail mortgage operations, reducing its workforce by 5,000.
ReplyDeleteWhile that French woman seemingly did not even go through a ceremonial Rabbanut gerus, there is a huge problem with the Dati Leumi rabbis who think they have to manufacture as many fake gerim as possible to stack the West Bank demographics against the Arabs. These tzioni rabbis are cheered on no less by the likes of Shmarya who likes the demographics idea and especially loves that he has another device to stick it to Charedim.
ReplyDeleteIn Israel, A Clash Over Who Is a Jew
Ultra-Orthodox Contest Conversions
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 30, 2008; Page A01
ASHDOD, Israel -- Yael converted to Judaism in 1992, and for the next 15 years she lived in Israel, celebrating the major holidays and teaching her children about the Jewish faith.
But when she and her husband sought a divorce last year, she said, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in charge of the process had some questions. Among them: Did Yael observe the Sabbath? Did she obey the prohibition on sex during and after menstruation?
Dissatisfied with the answers, the rabbis nullified her conversion. Yael did not need a divorce, they ruled, because she had never been married. She had never been married because she had never been Jewish. And because she had never been Jewish, her children were not, either.
"I was in shock. I couldn't believe it," said Yael, 43, who would allow only her Hebrew name to be published out of privacy concerns. Blond, blue-eyed and athletic-looking, Yael is baffled by the ordeal. "My kids grew up Jewish," she said. "They don't know anything else."
Yael's personal trauma has become a cause for Israeli soul-searching over what it means to be Jewish, a term that carries both religious and ethnic dimensions. The case has set off a roiling debate between those who see themselves as saving Judaism and those whose first priority is to safeguard the Jewish state.
On one side are ultra-Orthodox leaders who are using their long- standing dominance of Israel's rabbinical court system -- which has authority over marriages, divorces and conversions -- to tighten restrictions governing who can become Jewish. They see themselves as defending the religious purity of a people who, according to their interpretation of Jewish law, need to live apart from other groups.
Those on the other side are much more concerned with demographics: They believe that at a time when the number of Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is poised to surpass the number of Jews, Israel needs all the converts it can get. This group includes secular Jews, but it is led by the religious Zionists, who form the core of the settlement movement in the occupied territories and who feel it is their duty to populate the biblical land of Israel.
The stakes have escalated since Yael's conversion was tossed out: When she appealed to the High Rabbinical Court of Israel, it not only upheld the original decision but also threw into doubt the legality of thousands of other conversions.
"There is a cultural war going on between various segments of Jewish society," said Benjamin Ish-Shalom, chairman of the Joint Institute for Jewish Studies. A trim man with a philosophical bearing who relishes any discussion of Judaism, he helps administer a government-funded education program for Israelis who need help getting through the rigorous process of conversion.
Over the past two decades, Israel has admitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, over the objections of ultra-Orthodox leaders who spoke out against allowing non-Jews to enter the country. Many of the immigrants lacked the paperwork to prove their Jewish ancestry. Others had fathers or grandparents who were Jewish, but did not qualify as Jewish themselves because Judaism is passed down through mothers. Until now, ultra-Orthodox leaders have not acted as forcefully to invalidate immigrant conversions.
To Ish-Shalom, facilitating conversion has been good for the converts, good for Judaism and good for the state. "Israel needs people. It needs loyal people," he said.
At the moment, there is rough parity between the Palestinian and Jewish populations in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, according to Eliyahu Ben-Moshe, a demographer and former deputy director of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. Because of a high Arab birth rate, Ben-Moshe said, they are expected to establish a clear majority in the coming decades -- a terrifying prospect for Israeli policymakers as the well of diaspora Jews who are willing to immigrate to Israel dries up.
The ultra-Orthodox, Ish-Shalom argues, are damaging that effort by requiring converts to heed strict standards. Ultra-Orthodox leaders don't disagree. They believe that God originally expelled the Jews from the land of Israel because of their lack of religious devotion and that the secular nature of the modern Israeli nation is unacceptable. As a result, many are anti-Zionist.
"There's something more important than the state of Israel and Zionism," said Moshe Gafni, a member of Israel's parliament who represents the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.
Wearing the customary ultra-Orthodox uniform of black pants and white shirt, Gafni speaks forcefully and with deep conviction: "Unlike Christians, we Jews are not missionaries. If someone really wants to join the Jewish people, we're going to make it difficult for them."
Gafni's view is rooted in his interpretation of Jewish law. To him, there are two kinds of Jews: those who were born of Jewish mothers into the faith, and those who can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are willing to abide by Jewish law and accept the hundreds of mitzvoth, or commandments, that govern an observant Jew's daily life.
To admit others, he said, would be to destroy the integrity of a community that, according to God's will, needs to stay distinct.
While the ultra-Orthodox are only about 11 percent of Israel's Jewish population -- approximately the same share as the religious Zionists -- they have wielded increasing power in recent years as high birth rates swell their numbers. Ben-Moshe said he expects them to double their share of the Jewish population within the next 20 years.
Israel's notoriously unstable political system, too, has helped raise their influence: Mainstream Israeli politicians usually need ultra-Orthodox parties in their governments to build a majority coalition.
Over time, the ultra-Orthodox have grown bolder in challenging the Israeli government's efforts to convert non-Jewish immigrants.
Unwittingly, Yael became a part of that campaign when her husband filed for divorce.
A Protestant by birth who grew up in Denmark, she moved to Israel in 1988 to be with her Jewish boyfriend. Because there is no civil marriage in Israel, she needed to convert to marry him here. The process took a year of intense study of Jewish prayers, holidays and traditions.
"Ordinary Israelis don't know half of what I learned," she said while sitting at her kitchen table in this city by the Mediterranean. Like most ordinary Israeli Jews, her level of observance was not up to the standards of the ultra-Orthodox.
Still, she had no idea that her conversion could be nullified -- especially 15 years after the fact. In their 51-page decision, the rabbis in Ashdod who heard the divorce petition wrote that "most of the converts lie to the rabbis when they promise to keep the mitzvoth after the conversion . . . How can one bury one's head in the sand and continue letting into the vineyard of the Jewish people these total non-Jews?"
Yoseph Sheinin, chief rabbi of Ashdod, did not take part in the ruling, but he praised it as a means of correcting the government's mistakes. "The idea of Zionism was to bring Jews here. The moment they brought Gentiles here, they bankrupted the movement," he said.
When Yael appealed to the High Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem, she was again subjected to tough questioning -- most of it focused on prohibitions relating to sex. "It was all about our private life -- our very private life," she said. "It was simply terrible."
In a lengthy ruling, the Jerusalem judges attacked Rabbi Chaim Drukman, a religious Zionist who oversaw Yael's conversion along with thousands of others as part of an aggressive government effort to increase the Jewish population of Israel. Every one of those conversions, the court ruled, should be called into question.
Drukman said the decision strikes at the heart of the Zionist project. "We feel a responsibility for the people of Israel," he said, his bookshelves lined with copies of the Talmud. "They don't. They only care about their small circle."
Indeed, the backlash against the ruling has prompted proposals for alternative courts that would take a more lenient view of Jewish law, or the institution of civil marriage.
Susan Weiss, a lawyer whose Center for Women's Justice is handling Yael's appeal to Israel's Supreme Court, said she is hoping that the case helps to "change the system from its roots."
Until then, however, the government and the rabbinical courts continue to work at cross-purposes -- with the government spending millions of shekels annually to bring people into the fold of Judaism, and the courts trying to keep them out.
Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, a major advocate for easing the conversion process, used to "pound on the table and say, 'If I had to convert, I would not pass,' " said Avigdor Leviatan, head of Israel's conversion office.
GMAC was recently bought by a frum guy, Ezra Merkin, whose father Hermann was Chairman of the Board at YU. The guy is nebich taking a bath in that investment.
ReplyDeleteCLICK THE ABOVE LINK AND LOOK WHAT THE JEWISH PRESS ALLOWED IN THEIR PAPER THIS WEEK BY RABBI HOROWITZ.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Horowitz somehow snuck this in when we were not looking.
ReplyDeleteThere is no problem of sex abuse in the Jewish Community!
Sources:
Avi Shafran
Marvin Shick
Mattisyahu Salomon
Shmuel Kaminetzky
Yaakov Perlow
ALBANY -- Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sent out more than two dozen letters last week to gas stations in the Hudson Valley, Albany area and the Southern Tier, including New York City, calling on owners to halt what he called "surcharges" for customers using a credit card, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported.
ReplyDelete"These misleading signs and the credit card surcharge both violate New York law," wrote Cuomo.
On Cuomo’s insistence, undercover investigators discovered gas stations were allegedly attracting customers with false advertising, including listing only the lower cash prices on street signs. Cuomo called this practice "bait and switch" as consumers only realized the difference after they paid with credit cards.
While Cuomo’s office received complaints from across the state, Long Island was reportedly the area with the highest rate of alleged fraud, with an estimated one-third of gas stations reported.
Acheinu kol bais Yisroel hanisunim b'tzarah u'bashivya....
ReplyDeleteCONTACT THE SCHOOL AND TELL THEM AM YISROEL'S CHILDREN ARE IN HARMS WAY AND WE WILL NOT TOLERATE IT! TELL THEM TO GET RID OF AKIVA KAGAN TODAY - TOMORROW IS TOO LATE!
Torat Eliyahu
Nachal Arugot 15
991-6137
992-0658
999-7765 (Main Office)
fax 999-8434
Rav David Taksha, principal 057-3177731
Is Akiva Kagan related to any of the American Kagans?
ReplyDeleteAnd is he a Chofetz Chaim aynickel?
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a13347/News/New_York.html
ReplyDeleteA Charge Of Double Betrayal In Williamsburg
Joel Engelman thought he had a deal. The Satmar rabbi who he says molested him would stay away from children. He now charges he was violated twice
by Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week
Joel Engelman was 8 years old the first time he was summoned to the principal’s office at his Satmar school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Not knowing what he might have done to provoke the call, Joel was nervous, as his principal, Rabbi Avrohom Reichman, had a reputation for being strict.
Much to his surprise, however, when he arrived, the principal put him on his lap and began “to change character,” talking to him like a “loving granddaddy,” Engelman told The Jewish Week. But what the principal at the United Talmudical Academy did to the boy that day — and several times a week over the next two months — was far from grandfatherly, Engelman charges in a suit he filed last week.
It alleges that in
1993, Rabbi Reichman, now 57, regularly molested him, and that the Satmar school, United Talmudical Academy, later committed fraud by agreeing to dismiss Rabbi Reichman — and then reneging on this once the criminal statute of limitations had passed.
Engelman’s sexual abuse allegations are the latest in a string of such charges made by former male yeshiva students in ultra-Orthodox schools in Brooklyn.
Last April, Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, a first grade teacher at Yeshiva Torah Temima in Flatbush, pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child after being charged with several counts of sexual abuse. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes defended the last-minute downward plea bargain, citing the young age of the plaintiffs who would have had to testify at a trial.
Several civil suits pending against Rabbi Kolko and the school seek a total some $50 million in damages.
The suit filed by Engelman, however, is the first to emerge that involves the Satmar community, one of the largest chasidic sects in the city. Repeated calls to Rabbi Reichman and to UTA for comment were not returned.
“He would swivel the chair from right to left and ask me, ‘How are you? How was your day?’ Engelman said, recalling his meetings with Rabbi Reichman as a child. “And then he would start touching me, starting at my shoulders and working his way down gradually, until his hands passed over my genitals.”
According to Engelman, now 23 and far removed from the insular Satmar community, the rabbi would rub and fondle him for about 15 minutes, all the while asking him how he was doing and what he was thinking. Engelman remembers trying to escape, to no avail. When the rabbi was finally finished he would utter the word — “Dismissed” — and then elicit a promise from Joel not tell his parents what had happened.
And Engelman kept that promise — for about 10 years, after enduring bouts of anxiety, drug use and suicidal thoughts he says were brought on by the abuse. “I realized that this was controlling my everyday life,” Engelman said. “I have a lot of trouble trusting people. I cannot trust anyone.”
When he finally mustered the courage to confront Reichman, in April, the statute of limitations on a criminal prosecution was drawing near. A letter from Engelman and his family to Reichman stipulated that if Reichman were to resign from his position in the yeshiva and also in a Satmar-run summer camp, where he taught, Engelman would take no legal action.
He thought he had a deal that month, hammered out with Satmar officials acting on UTA’s behalf. But in court papers filed last week, and first reported on The Jewish Week Web site last Wednesday, Engelman is alleging not only sexual assault and abuse but also “breach of promises and oral contract” in a $5 million civil suit against Rabbi Reichman, UTA and the Satmar Bungalow Colony — a Satmar children’s summer camp in White Lake, N.Y. Rabbi Reichman was videotaped by Engelman in July teaching at the summer camp, though apparently he had not been teaching at the school since Passover. Engelman said he has since learned that Rabbi Reichman is the camp’s principal.
“The defendants fraudulently induced Joel Engelman to enter into this exchange of mutual promises, and oral contract,” the suit alleges.
It also claims that various Satmar officials investigated Engelman’s allegations and found that “there were multiple, credible complaints of sexual abuse made against Reichman.”
“I really didn’t want to get this in the courts,” Engelman told The Jewish Week. “Had [the school] done things differently [and fired Reichman], I probably wouldn’t have sued. This is the last thing I wanted.
“They could have admitted the guy had a problem,” Engelman continued. “They could have said, ‘We’re very sorry this happened to you.’ They could have dealt with this honorably, but they didn’t.”
Rabbi David Niederman, the only community official who would agree to speak with The Jewish Week, expressed skepticism that school officials had ever agreed to the deal Engelman proposed.
He viewed Rabbi Reichman’s return to the summer camp after his initial suspension from the school as an indication that UTA officials did not ultimately find sufficient evidence to back up Engelman’s allegations.
“It’s only normal when charges like this are brought to suspend the teacher in question and conduct your investigation,” said Rabbi Niederman, a confidant of the Satmar sect’s grand rebbe and head of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, a community-wide advocacy organization. “That’s a totally normal reaction. Then, when you have gathered your information, you act on what you have found.”
Rabbi Niederman himself had initial contact with the case but says he quickly turned the matter over to “people who have the time and expertise to deal with this.” At his request, Rabbis Meshulem Jakobowitz and Zalman Leitner — part of an informal committee that “deals with sensitive social and religious issues in the community” —got involved, mediating between the school and Engelman. Reached by The Jewish Week, Rabbi Jakobowitz declined to comment. Neither Niederman, Jakobowitz or Leitner are defendants in the suit.
Rabbi Niederman disclaimed direct knowledge of what happened afterward. Engelman disputes this, claiming that one of the rabbis he worked with on the abuse issue told him of regular calls he received from Rabbi Niederman, a senior community leader, requesting updates.
Efforts to reach the rabbi in question, whom neither Engelman nor Rabbi Niederman would publicly name, were unsuccessful.
Today, Joel Engelman is a thoughtful and intense 23-year-old who works as a graphic designer. He is tall and slim, with long hair and a narrow beard, and he favors jeans and heavy metal T-shirts (he plays drums in a heavy-metal band on the side). His life in Greenpoint — he no longer keeps kosher or the Sabbath — is about as far removed from the cloistered life of Satmar Williamsburg as is possible.
In nearly three hours of interviews over several days last week, Engelman spoke candidly about his life, weaving a tale of long-held secrets and sexual abuse not just at the hands of the rabbi but by older teenage boys and adults as well. It’s a tale of shattered faith and, ultimately, flight from the Satmar womb in which he was raised.
“I felt that the world was upside down,” Engelman says now, looking back over what he sees as the “hypocrisy” of Rabbi Reichman and other rabbis. “We had the holiest of guys telling us not to look at ‘non-kosher’ things, but look what [Reichman] did in private.”
What the rabbi allegedly did became a private hell for Engelman. Within several months of the onset of the abuse, Engelman began to change. He started having panic and anxiety attacks, and nightmares. He would often roll around on the kitchen floor crying and became unable to sleep at night.
His schoolwork also began to suffer, as he could no longer concentrate in class. “I was spaced out,” Engelman remembered. “I didn’t concentrate and I didn’t care to concentrate. I didn’t want to think about [the abuse] but I was constantly thinking about it.”
His parents took him to a doctor who prescribed medication for the anxiety, but never spoke to the boy, so the story of the abuse never came out.
But it turns out that the alleged abuse at Rabbi Reichman’s hands was not the first time Engelman had been subject to such acts. A month or so earlier, he says he was repeatedly sexually abused by a 13-year-old boy, a neighbor who attended the same school. The teen, Engelman said, had threatened to kill him if he ever told his parents.
Engelman’s older sister, inquiring why he was always late getting home from school, figured out from his vague responses what was going on and told their parents. “Why didn’t you tell us?” they asked me,” Engelman said. Their concern came across to 8-year-old Joel as blame, not an atypical interpretation for a young child, according to psychologists. And he was scared to reveal to them that this had happened again — with Rabbi Reichman, no less — fearing that they would see it as his fault.
Engelman’s parents would eventually complain to Rabbi Reichman, telling him about Joel’s abuse at the hands of his 13-year-old schoolmate. Engelman was told that the boy was beaten up (he never knew by whom); the older boy never touched Engelman again. But soon after his parents reported the abuse to Reichman, the rabbi called Joel into his office for what would become the first fondling session, he alleges, the strict principal becoming a sweet grandfather to an innocent 8-year-old. To this day, Engelman wonders whether Rabbi Reichman took his prior abuse as a cue that he was perhaps primed for more abuse, a vulnerable target.
By the time he was 13, Engelman says he couldn’t trust anyone. But he was hoping to get a fresh start at yet another yeshiva. (His parents had removed him from UTA several months after Reichman’s alleged abuse began for unrelated reasons). As it turned out, it was “hell on earth,” the teen studying 15 to 16 hours a day. At this point, he wanted out, often wishing that someone would kidnap him. He was even resigned to having to live on the street if he had to. When he witnessed another boy, a friend of his, being “groomed” for abuse by an older man’s obvious flirtations, his own past history of abuse came rushing back. “I saw abuse all around me,” Engelman said of those days.
At 14, Engelman started to hang out with Puerto Ricans on the fringes of his neighborhood. He snuck around, changed his clothes, hiding all of this from his family. He says he dropped acid. He felt trapped. He still kept kosher and Shabbos, but he wanted out.
Finally, at 18, Engelman was able to leave his old neighborhood, moving to Bensonhurst. He joined a heavy metal band, playing the drums (he was always interested in music; his parents bought him his first drum set). Yet he was still tethered to his old life, continuing to keep kosher and Shabbos, the sole Jewish guy in the band.
That year, living at a safe remove from Williamsburg, he finally broke the long secret and told his parents about the abuse he suffered at Rabbi Reichman’s hands. “They were shocked,” Engelman recalled. But they believed there was little recourse available, he said.
n
It turns out that a key to helping Engelman finally confront Rabbi Reichman was recently finding out that he may not have been the only victim. One former student of Reichman’s came forward to Engelman’s brother, who told Joel. Eventually, through various community activists, Engelman began making presentations to school administrators and boards of directors about sexual abuse in the community — identifying himself as a victim and drawing on his own experiences.
At one of the presentations at a Satmar school, Rabbi Reichman’s name was mentioned. A board member offhandedly said he recalled a complaint about the rabbi from five years ago but that nothing was done.
This second report of another victim was the spark to action Engelman needed, realizing that other kids were likely suffering what he had gone through.
Engelman consulted with his family about confronting Rabbi Reichman, and they decided to write a letter, which the elder Engelman would deliver to Rabbi Reichman. It was just before Passover of this year.
The letter, written in Yiddish (an English translation is part of the civil complaint), is plainspoken and laden with emotion. It begins: “We wish to let you know that since our son, Yoel Nechemia is a victim of you, you MOLESTED him as a child — you corrupted his soul, you were the cause of many years of anguish and suffering from him as a result — and because we know of other children who were victimized (molested) by you at least from 1993 until now — therefore you are a danger to children.”
It goes on to say that the family will take no further legal action if Rabbi Reichman agrees to resign his position as teacher at UTA and the upstate summer camp. The letter, signed by the Engelman family, ends: “The One Above should give you the right thoughts to have mercy on your family and take correct action.”
On the day his father delivered the letter, Engelman waited for two hours outside the rabbi’s Williamsburg home. He wanted to confront him face to face. “He was scared [expletive],” Engelman remembered. “Here I was, this heavy metal guy, dressed up in leather. He tried to get on my good side, saying ‘Oh, you lived on U Street.” I told him: ‘I will do everything and more than [what was written in] the letter if you come back to the school after Passover.”
Engelman said the rabbi told him that this wasn’t the right place to talk about this. He remembers the exchange vividly, the rabbi never denying what had allegedly happened. “You know exactly what you did.”
“What did I do?”
“You put me on your lap.”
“So what?”
“I am here to tell you that I am on top of this and it’s up to you.”
The next morning, Engelman recalled, a representative of UTA showed up at Engelman’s father’s workplace, saying, “We have a zero tolerance policy for abuse and we are going to take care of this. If he is found guilty, which we will investigate, he will be out the same day.”
Throughout a week of negotiations, Engelman said, the school made repeated promises to remove Rabbi Reichman from his teaching duties, and he was in fact removed from UTA after Passover. When Engelman got wind, however, that in July the rabbi was teaching at the Satmar Bungalow Colony, he put up fliers at the camp warning parents that the rabbi — “someone who is a great danger to your children, a danger to their body and soul — was in their midst. He then traveled to White Lake with a videographer and filmed the rabbi teaching a class.
n
Engelman’s case rests on what experts say is a risky legal strategy.
His attorney, Elliot Pasik, argues that United Talmudical Academy and the Satmar officials who helped negotiate the supposed deal with his client, perpetrated a fraud. He claims in court papers that the “defendants’ motivation was the expiration of the criminal statue of limitations for sex crimes on the 23rd birthday of Joel Engelman on June 24, 2008.”
“Satmar officials admitted to my client that Avrohom Reichman had committed child sexual abuse,” Pasik said. “They even administered a polygraph by a reputable company, and Reichman failed. The same Satmar officials admitted there were other credible complaints of child sexual abuse against Reichman.”
Pasik continued: “[Satmar] took advantage of Joel. They promised him that [Reichman] would not be working with children. Joel wasn’t looking for money — just keep him away from kids and he would forgo criminal prosecution. Once the school year was over, they put him in the Bungalow Colony. They broke their promise. An oral promise is enforceable.”
But Rabbi Niederman, noting that UTA had seen fit to ultimately return Rabbi Reichman to a job working with children, said he doubted some aspects of Engelman’s account. “If someone is addicted [to molesting children], why aren’t there more kids who have come forward in all these years?” he asked. “To say they were afraid — the kids or the parents — in this day and age doesn’t make sense. Parents are much more vigilant now about these kinds of issues.”
He voiced confidence in UTA’s integrity in investigating the matter. “If UTA wanted to cover up things, why would they take back this melamed [teacher] if they knew there was another case out there?” he asked.
Indeed, Engelman’s case may prove a hard one to make.
“The reliance argument [when a case is based on relying on a promise] makes perfect common sense but hasn’t worked all the way up,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo Law School. “States like Pennsylvania and New York have been resistant to it. The view is that if the statute of limitations [SOL] is being misapplied it is up to the state legislature to change it.
“This case just shows that the SOL is too short. When a 23-year-old can’t get into court, the SOL is too short. The majority [of abuse victims] come forward in their 40s. This reinforces that another state legislature that needs to act. When children are young [and within the SOL] they are often not psychologically ready to come forward. It can be very frustrating.”
n
The Satmar yeshiva boy turned drummer and graphic artist is sitting in a diner on East 57th Street, drinking a cup of coffee and reflecting on his long ordeal. In one sense, Joel Engelman’s break with his native community is complete. And yet, he cannot walk away. “I often wonder why I am putting myself through this,” he muses, acknowledging how difficult it has been to dredge up old memories and confront his abuser.
“I don’t live that life anymore and it would be easy just to forget about all of it and move on. But then I think about how another kid might be suffering what I went through, and I realize I can’t.”
And so the lawsuit has brought all of the bad feelings back in a rush. He says he is coping, though. And he hopes coming forward with his story will result in changes in the way the Orthodox community deals with the kind of sexual abuse he says he faced. Mostly, he wants to prevent what happened to him from happening to another child.
“He’s still out there,” Engelman said of Rabbi Reichman. [Without legal action], what is going to stop [UTA] from taking him back, from another school taking him?”
Breaking the general silence in the ultra-Orthodox community on the issue of sexual abuse is seen by experts as a key step.
“Our community has to address some of the hypocrisy of strictly not tolerating even minor adult sexual activities that are outside the realm of halacha, while remaining silent when otherwise frum people are sexually abusing children,” said Dr. Asher Lipner, a psychologist who treats victims of sexual abuse within the frum community. “Psychologically, it is devastatingly painful for its victims to come to terms with, and there is the need for society to teach out to its victims and to comfort them.”
“In order to change [this situation],” Lipner continued, “concerned parents need to lobby their yeshivas to develop safety protocols, to teach the children about safety and to agree to oversight by some kind of outside watchdog. Otherwise, I’m afraid that this will not be the last that we hear of school cover-ups for child molesters.”
Throughout her son’s torturous ordeal, Pearl Engelman told the Jewish Week the family was solidly behind him. “We cooperated with [Joel] on this,” she said. “His main objective was to get this man away from children. ... We tried to do this in a way that would be the least humiliating and shameful to [Reichman’s] large, extended family, who are really innocent.
“Our community, the Satmar community, and the whole chasidishe community, owes Joel a debt of gratitude. He’s very young to do this; most victims are much, much older when they confront these issues. He is putting himself on the line to protect other children from this type of trauma.”
According to Engelman, Rabbi Reichman reads from the Torah in the shul, which is considered to be a great honor. “People don’t believe he could possibly be an abuser,” Engelman said. “If that guy did that, then the world is over.”
Engelman says Satmars are reluctant to try to change things within their community, for fear that change will undermine the whole communal structure. “No one voluntarily says, ‘We want a better system. Any change will bring down the whole system,” Engelman said.
But he hopes that by standing up and telling his story publicly, change may eventually happen.
“Without shaming and lawsuits [nothing is going to change],” Engelman said. “That’s what happened in the Catholic Church, in the Boy Scouts.”
all should now ezra merkin from GMAC was directly responsible for the fall from grace of the fifth ave synagouge he rammed a lousy rabbi down the troats of the mispalleim so many have left resulting in him funding the whole shuil
ReplyDeletehe was banned from ramaz ball games for insulting the coaches and the referees
There is a mentally disturbed individual who pops up every couple of years to smear Ezra Merkin on the internet. He usually frequents stock boards of companies that Merkin owns and stands out for raving like a lunatic with his poor spelling & grammar.
ReplyDeleteMerkin's lawyers know who it is but have decided he is a waste of time to pursue.
As far as I know, there are several other billionaires & multi-millionaires still davening in Ezra's shul including Ira Rennert. The shul is not so large to begin with that "many" people could leave.
Name one person who left, you big mouth. And they don't count if it's because the rabbi won't be megayer a shiksa they want to marry, leading them to one of the fake rabbis elsewhere on the UES.
Is Felder one of the gorems of molestation at YTT? You got to see this video.
ReplyDeletehttp://blip.tv/file/1224171
Rabbi Levin: "JUST SAY NO"!! to Simcha Felder for State Senate
GO TO UOJGROUP.BLOGSPOT.COM--- NOT FOR THE WEAK OF FAITH!
ReplyDeleteUOJ,
ReplyDeleteThe name of the Ramat Bet Shemesh molester is finally out. Now people will know how to better protect their children.
And what about his enablers?
Rabbi Elimelech Kornfeld
Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz
Rabbi Shmuel Zalman Eidensohn
Rabbi Dovid Taksha
are all community leaders who knew about this man and allowed him to teach in another school.
They all have the power and influence to make certain he didn't enter a classroom.
Yet they did what they do best, looked the other way and tried to cover up another travesty in the Charedi world.
Akiva Kagen!? Woah!
ReplyDeleteI knew an Akiva Kagen who was teaching at 2nd grade students at Torat Elyahu. But that was a few years ago and he had already been there for a few years. He did not just surface there recently. Now I have not seen him for a few years. May be he left and came back? Are there to cheder rebbes named Akiva Kagan floating in the same circles?
The one that I know is Israeli and was originally dati leumi. I originally met him at Yeshivat Ateret Kohanim 17 or 18 years ago. He went the hareidi route. That is how he was when I met him years later.
Now for clarification sake so that there should be no mis-identification on my behalf or anyone else's. Can somebody help me out and describe to me this Akiva Kagen guy that everybody here is talking about? What is his background, age etc...
Ezra Merkin got a lot of people and moisdos to invest with him in GMAC. he used his position of power as the president of the 5th ave Syn to take lots of money from people. He is hated by many people in the shul, he lords over everyone there. He has used his tzedaka positioins 9board of YU etc) as a means to raise his profile. Beware this man
ReplyDeleteSICKO SEARCH STALLED
ReplyDeleteHASIDIC KIN MUM
By REUVEN BLAU
Posted: 4:35 am
August 31, 2008
Detectives fear a serial sex predator is stalking Borough Park, and are frustrated by the lack of cooperation they're getting from one victim's family, The Post has learned.
The Hasidic family of a 14-year-old girl sexually assaulted on Aug. 3 is not helping detectives hunting her attacker, according to a police source familiar with the investigation.
"The detectives have hit a stone wall right now," the source said. "Beyond a basic interview, they are not getting any cooperation."
The family appears concerned about the girl's identity getting out, which would greatly limit her chances of eventually getting married within the tight-knit religious culture, community leaders and neighbors said last week.
Based on DNA evidence, police have connected the attack to the predator who snatched a 4-year-old Hasidic girl on July 16, 2007.
Detectives suspect that the fiend is a serial sex attacker, and that other victims may not have come forward, according to the police source.
"Serial rapists by definition don't stop at one or two," the insider said.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the area, acknowledged the sociological hurdles the police are facing.
"Unfortunately, the shame and all these other concerns come in the picture," he told The Post. "But this is something that we have to overcome in our communities.
"Sometimes these concerns, real or perceived, overpower the need to protect the community from evil criminal individuals. For someone not to cooperate verges on a violation of law."
The police were careful not to identify the 4-year-old victim last summer, but many in the close Hasidic community quickly found out.
"Everybody knew everything about everything," one neighbor said last week. "There were text messages sent out with the exact location."
After both assaults, the NYPD quickly parked a mobile command unit in the area and added foot patrols.
Over the past several weeks, the department has also positioned sporadic roadblocks near where the girls were snatched and found.
rblau@nypost.com
I called the cellphone of the principle in israel, and simply asked in hebrew, is akiva kagan still at your school? his answer was "WHO ARE YOU"? when I responded a yid from america, he slammed the phone down the on me.
ReplyDeleteEither he is a real "gentleman" to work with, or is a bit over the edge from all the publicity he got for hiring an alleged child mollestor.
I urge anyone who has a few minutes to please call this number and let him know what a crime he is commiting by employing a child molestor.
Rav David Taksha, principal 057-3177731
http://vdare.com/collins/080903_tobin.htm
ReplyDeleteThis is a case of Pat Buchanan's people imitating UOJ or JWB.
The Archbishop of Rhode Island blasted ICE for the Rubashkin raid, so they are blasting him as a hypocrite who covers up child sex abuse.
Speaking of morality, on which Tobin has opined so vigorously as it related to our civil laws on immigration, it is perhaps worth mentioning that the AP has just reported:
"The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence will pay $1.3 million to four people who said they were abused by priests." [August 30,2008]
That same AP story stated:
"Bishop Thomas Tobin and the Providence diocese did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the agreement."
The AP also noted:
"In 2002, the diocese reached a $14.25 million settlement with 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse in Rhode Island who filed lawsuits. The cases involved allegations against 11 priests and a nun."
I really don't like to comment on blogs while at work but I am quite surprised to see Ezra Merkin under attack on this blog of all places.
ReplyDeleteEzra is also an owner of Cerberus where Dan Quayle is a partner and is buddies with such super-investor figures as Leon Black & Robert Kravis.
I really doubt what's being said here but I'm going to look into it.
Bartley,
ReplyDeleteI still think I am correct since Rose's mother's maiden name is Renault, like the goyish carmaker, and has a very Catholic sounding given name.
just answer one question about merkin
ReplyDeletehow much money did he getfrom moisdos for gmac and 2 is it true yes or no that he was banned froma ttending his childrens sports games at ramaz
the answers are over 25 million dollars and also yes banned from all sports activities
Bartley,
ReplyDeleteHe is Israeli. Tall, reddish ("gingy") and very thin.
Yes, he taught at Torat Eliyahu, left for another hunting ground and is now back.
the great rav shrage. I cant stop crying.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"Yes, he taught at Torat Eliyahu, left for another hunting ground and is now back."
My blood is cold. This is going like a proverbial cliche, I can't believe it. I would not subscribe this sort of behavior to him. What is the background of the story. Are they sure it was him. Meaning were there many complaints about him?
It seems lately that there are a large number of Rabbinical Committees that have been springing up. These are committees that are formed (usually in Israel) to cover various aspects of life. A long-standing one is the Committee for Kedushas Shabbos. Others that have sprung up in the not-too-distant past include the Committee for the Purity of the Camp (covering various tznius concerns), the Rabbinical Committee for Communications (covering cell phones), the Rabbinic Committee for Transportation (the driving force behind mehadrin buses and erecting mechitzos on airplanes). A new committee, the Committee on Jewish Music has arisen to govern various musical styles. What are the most pressing problems in Jewish music today according to the committee?
ReplyDelete2/4 beats
Improper use of electric bass, guitars and saxophones
Goyishe African music and beats
Rap and reggae music
Ok, whatever. I don't want to get into a whole discussion on what is Jewish music and what isn't. Personally, I believe that music bleeds through cultures and that just about all "Jewish music" today originated from non-Jewish origins.
It seems to me, however, that there is an upswing in the number of Rabbinic Committees that have formed of late. As such, here are some of the news stories that you should be looking out for in the future:
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The Jewish residents of Jerusalem were shocked today when the Committee for Ma'achalim Tehorim (Pure Foods) announced a ban on all pizza stores, pasta parlors, Chinese and Japanese restaurants and almost all other shops where foreign and ethnic foods are served (aside from Jewish foods, of course). Rabbi Jacobson, the leader of the committee issued a strongly worded condemnation of these establishments. "It is unconscionable that Yidden are putting foreign, goyishe foods in their stomachs. Do you think the Chofetz Chaim ever ate pizza? Do you think that the holy Gr"a would have stopped to eating Chinese food? It's been said that 'you are what you eat.' HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us the mitzvah of keeping kosher so that we could always maintain purity both inside our bodies as well as outside. Just because a pizza has no pork or meat doesn't mean that meets the standard of proper food for a Jew to eat. It has to not only be kosher, but an authentic Jewish food. With the backing of the gedolim, we are going to make sure that only authentic Jewish foods are served in our resturaunts." The Committee announced it's plans to scan the menus of every resturaunt in Jerusalem in the next six months, and instruct withhold kashrus certification from foods that are deemed "foreign, strange, or that has signs of improper seasonings."
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The clothing industry in Israel was rocked to the core today when the new guidelines by the Rabbinical Subcommittee on Clothing Colors announced their new regulations and guidelines for the Jewish state's garment industry. Millions of yards of fabrics in various colors which had been purchased by dress and shirt manufacturers have now been banned and cannot be made into clothing for the hareidi community. Rabbi Canner, spokesman for the Subcommittee, explained the regulations. "It's all very simple and it's not really restrictive. Men can have a shirt in any color that they want, so long as it's white. We recognize that women need more choices in their clothing than men and so they will have a choice between black, ebony, obsidian, jet, onyx or midnight. To compliment those colors they can choose white, off-white, ivory, eggshell and lily." The committee fully expects all clothing stores to be following the new guidelines in the next few weeks, before women begin shopping for outfits for Yom Tov.
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Huge bonfires went up all over the country this week, as parents rushed to destroy games that did not meet the new guidelines of the Rabbinic Committee on Children's Recreation. "There are games and activities that our children are engaging in that can virtually destory their pure neshamos," said Rabbi Eliyahu Danner, head of the committee. "We, as parents and mechanchim are responsible for the spiritual upbringing of our children, and we must do all we can to shield them from the horrible influences of the outside world." Among the banned games are Clue (due to the murder theme), Careers (the game shows working as a lechatchila, and not a b'dieved), Life (people having children while riding around in cars in NOT a Jewish value and, again, there is no emphasis on learning), Stratego and Battleship (war and killing), Trivial Pursuit (it has cards, which are unJewish as well as an emphasis on unimportant information) and Scrabble (the possibility of making words that are improper is just too great). Among the games permitted to remain are checkers, chess and tiddlywinks. However, those games are only permitted for girls since "boys should be learning all the time and not wasting their time playing silly board games," according to Rabbi Danner.
The Wolf
look into mr mrkin and i dont think youll be happy but what you see
ReplyDeleteyou may see a man whose father was an incredible jew well respected worldwide and a son who spends a lifetime and his money working with artscroll YU all for kovod while kniving all people in the back along the way
in addition ask how many ramaz families lost money with gmac
New York Times Editorial
ReplyDeleteBy MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 29, 2008
OBAMA'S TROUBLING INTERNET FUND RAISING
Certainly the most interesting and potentially devastating phone call I have received during this election cycle came this week from one of the Obama's campaign internet geeks.. These are the staffers who devised Obama's internet fund raising campaign which raised in the neighborhood of $200 million so far. That is more then twice the total funds raised by any candidate in history – and this was all from the internet campaign.
What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that can't be broken and no ethics that prevail.
Obama's internet campaign started out innocently enough with basic e-mail networking , lists saved from previous party campaigns and from supporters who visited any of the Obama campaign web sites.
Small contributions cam e in from these sources and the internet campaign staff were more than pleased by the results.
Then, about two months into the campaign the daily contribution intake multiplied. Where was it coming from? One of the web site security monitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly coming in from overseas internet service providers and at the rate and frequency of transmission it was clear these donations were "programmed" by a very sophisticated user.
While the security people were not able to track most of the sources due to firewalls and other blocking devices put on these contributions they were able to collate the number of contributions that were coming in seemingly from individuals but the funds were from only a few credit card accounts and bank electronic funds transfers. The internet service providers (ISP) they were able to trace were from Saudi Arabia , Iran , and other Middle Eastern countries. One of the banks used for fund transfers was also located in Saudi Arabia .
Another concentrated group of donations was traced to a Chinese ISP with a similar pattern of limited credit card charges.
It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sources other than American voters. This was discussed at length within the campaign and the decision was made that none of these donations violated campaign financing laws.
It was also decided that it was not the responsibility of the campaign to audit these millions of contributions as to the actual source (specific credit card number or bank transfer account numbers) to insure that none of these internet contributors exceeded the legal maximum donation on a cumulative basis of many small donations. They also found the record keeping was not complete enough to do it anyway.
This is a shocking revelation.
We have been concerned about the legality of "bundling" contributio ns after the recent exposure of illegal bundlers but now it appears we may have an even greater problem.
I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started to come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.
If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00, that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions? That would also be 13 million contributions would need to be processed. How did all that happen?
I believe the Obama campaign's internet fund raising needs a serious, in depth investigation and audit. It also appears the whole question of internet fund raising needs investigation by the legislature and perhaps new laws to insure it complies not only with the letter of these laws but the spirit as well.
IS IT RIGHT FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES TO HAVE AN INVESTMENT IN WHO BECOMES OUR NEXT PRESIDENT??? IF YOU ARE IN AGREEMENT WITH THIS, PLEASE PASS IT ON.
The fact that the NY Times allowed this to be printed is amazing in itself.
Mr wolf,
ReplyDeletebrilliant !!
Is there a significant difference between Torah veIDaas, Torah uMadah and Torah uDerech Eretz, since all encourage secular education? In particular is there any difference in the sort of secular knowledge/culture that is permitted?
ReplyDeleteI believe all three versions of Torah with supplementary knowledge, are similar --- but with different slants.
ReplyDeleteI can speak to the Torah V'Daas version.
RSFM was convinced that a true yirei Hashem (through ahavat Hashem), would be able to choose studies that:
A- would not affect his emunah.
B- Create a well-rounded Ben-Torah, with knowledge that would enhance his self-respect and standing in society as a model Jewish person. (Imagine if you will --- if Spinoza, Einstein, Milton Friedman, Henry Kissinger, Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg,......and thousands others of that caliber, would have remained religious Jews)
C - Education in the sciences and mathematics, properly studied, enhances the Torah view of briat haolam, not the other way around.
D - Education opens up the doors to jobs for religious Jews...not everyone is cut out to run a business. Poverty breeds discontent and misery.
was RSFM your grandfather?
ReplyDeletecall the perpetrators protectors in rbs
ReplyDeletesave our kids!!
Rabbi Kornfeld of the Gra Shul
Kornfeld, Harav Elimelech
Nachal Ayalon 19/8
RBS A
9920485 (H)
the school
Torat Eliyahu
Nachal Arugot 15
991-6137
992-0658
999-7765 (Main Office)
fax 999-8434
Rav David Taksha, principal 057-3177731
Rabbi Shmuel Zalman Eidenson, the head of the Kupa Shel Tzedaka of RBS and of the Talmud Torah
Eidensohn, Shmuel
Nachal Revivim 14/8
RBS A
9998790 (H)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/nyregion/23ritual.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all
ReplyDeleteAnother meal program, in a yeshiva on 18th Avenue, is run by the Ger sect; it is known for its copious food and for using real silverware, not plastic. On one recent night, the generous spread included herring, potato salad, pickles, pepper steak, three different chicken entrees, a plate of cold cuts, chicken soup, and rugelach for dessert.
The Ger program feeds perhaps 150 men a night for a suggested donation of $12. Regulars include Mayer Kagan, 39, a wristwatch seller whose wife and six children stay in a Catskill bungalow in Kiamesha Lake.
“I miss my family during the week, but I can come here and have company — we sit, we schmooze what’s in the news,” Mr. Kagan said.
Though less homey than the supper clubs, several restaurants in Borough Park have also become popular with the summer bachelors, including Big Fleishig’s Express, a glatt kosher one on 16th Avenue.
A frequent customer, Mark Fuchs, said his wife and four small children were staying in a bungalow community in Monticello. After he finished his chicken dinner, his cellphone rang. It was his son Shloimy, 5, calling to show off his spelling skills. After hanging up, Mr. Fuchs sighed and said, “They’re up there having a ball and I’m down here paying the bills.”
Big Fleishig’s owner, Moshe Samuel, works the counter and teases the men that they are helpless without their wives. “You should see them come in here, the first week their family is away,” he said, while ringing up orders on Monday night. “They’re like lost lambs. Their wives always tell them what to eat, so they can’t even order for themselves.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23sun1.html?pagewanted=2
ReplyDeleteSome 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens; of those, more than six million may be illegal immigrants, according to informed estimates. None of the pending bills would cover them.
If nothing is done to slow current trends, the number of people in this country without insurance or with inadequate coverage will continue to spiral upward. That would be a personal tragedy for many and a moral disgrace for the nation. It is also by no means cost-free. Any nation as rich as ours ought to guarantee health coverage for all of its residents.
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Cerberus Capital Management's core hedge funds clients have opted to withdraw the majority of the money in the funds, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday [Aug 21].
ReplyDeleteClients owning more than $4 billion of the $7.7 billion in assets in the Cerberus Partners hedge funds have opted to liquidate their holdings, rather than allow Cerberus to collect its typical fees and continue making new investments, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Cerberus executives hope that some investors who have opted for withdrawals can be convinced to change their minds, the paper cited the people familiar with the matter as saying.
If one hears someone make a beracha on stolen food, one should not answer Amein. Piskei Tshuvos 215:11
ReplyDeleteRav Yisroel Belsky has seemingly made an exception for food in the YTT dining room stolen from the government by Margulies to sell to the bochurim.
www.yudelstake.blogspot.com
ReplyDeletefor more on Harav Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz ZATZAL.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/nyregion/24robbers.html
ReplyDeleteOne September day last year, a 20-year-old man from East Harlem hoping to get a job with the city sat down at a computer in a building near City Hall and took civil service exam No. 8309.
The man, Bernard Witherspoon, had graduated two months earlier from Borough of Manhattan Community College with an associate’s degree in liberal arts. He had been working part time at a Bed Bath & Beyond store, but he decided to take the exam because it was the first step to becoming a New York City correction officer. His aunt worked as a correction officer, and so did several relatives of his best friend, Raylin Footmon.
Nearly a year later, Mr. Witherspoon’s life has taken a dramatic turn: He sat last week inside the Manhattan Detention Complex, not as a guard but as a prisoner, about six blocks from where he took the exam, as his family tried to raise his $25,000 bail. Mr. Witherspoon and Mr. Footmon were two of the four men who the police said held up a Harlem restaurant supply store on Aug. 13, a robbery thwarted by the 72-year-old store owner, who shot the men with a 12-gauge Winchester shotgun.
Mr. Footmon, 21, and James Morgan, 29, the oldest of the four and the only one who was armed, were killed. Shamel McCloud, 21, who was wounded, was released from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center on Aug. 15. Mr. Witherspoon, now 21, underwent surgery to his arm and hand and was discharged from the same hospital on Tuesday.
“I’m not a naïve mom,” said Mr. Witherspoon’s mother, Patricia Witherspoon, an assistant school teacher who lives with her son and his two younger sisters in the Lehman Houses public housing complex in East Harlem. “He was really a good kid. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. He really was.”
The confrontation in Harlem seemed to strike a chord in the public imagination — here was a simple, Western-style parable of the everyday heroism of a man who used deadly force to protect his workers and his store. But that reality coexists with another, less publicized narrative: That while the four men may have put their lives and the lives of others at risk, not all of them fit the stereotypical profile of violent offenders. Some of their relatives were stricken with both grief and disbelief, wondering how and why the men they knew put themselves in that position.
Raylin Footmon had one previous arrest. Last June, he was charged with robbing a Queens gas station attendant; he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal facilitation, was given a conditional discharge and served no jail time.
“No matter what people might say, they did not know him,” Umar Abdul-Jalil, an imam who is the Department of Correction’s top chaplain, told those gathered. “We knew him. He was a good son.”
In the days after Mr. Footmon’s death, many of his relatives learned a startling secret. But it was not about the robbery. Mr. Footmon had recently found out that he had become a father, though he had not yet told his mother. Pinned to the white interior of his coffin was a small photograph of his infant son, Nasir Elijah Shakur Footmon.
He neglected to mention that Orthodox Jews are the driving force behind this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/08/21/2009-08-21_gov_david_paterson_blames_call_for_.html
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson blamed a racist media Friday for trying to push him out of next year's election - launching into an angry rant that left even some black Democrats shaking their heads.
"The whole idea is to get me not to run in the primary," Paterson complained on a morning radio show hosted by Daily News columnist Errol Louis.
He suggested that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the country's only other African-American governor, also is under fire because of his race.
"We're not in the post-racial period," Paterson said.
"The reality is the next victim on the list - and you can see it coming - is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than trying to reform a health care system."
An Upper East Side family's dream vacation aboard a luxury yacht in the Galapagos Islands turned into a nightmare they'll never forget.
ReplyDeleteInstead of basking in memories of a lifetime, the family is coping with the emotional fall-out from the suspected attempted rape of their 13-year-old daughter by a yacht crew member, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Their lawyer, Andrew Weinstein, blames the travel agency Abercrombie & Kent - which bills itself as offering the "finest travel experiences in the world" - for failing to provide adequate protection for the travelers who paid more than $100,000 for the exotic vacation package.
"Unfortunately [the victim's] life will never be the same ...and Abercrombie & Kent did not even have the decency to refund the cost of the trip," said Weinstein of the Manhattan law firm Weinstein & Mazurek.
"They should be ashamed of themselves."
Abercrombie & Kent spokeswoman Pamela Lassers said in a statement: "We respect the privacy of the situation and can't comment on a pending lawsuit."
The 13-year-old's parents, who are not identified by name in the suit, run a medical clinic in Manhattan and their two teenage daughters attend a prestigious private school, Weinstein said.
According to the complaint, the family departed for Quito, Ecuador, on Christmas Day 2008 accompanied by maternal grandparents, an aunt, uncle and two cousins. The itinerary included a flight from Quito to Baltra Island in the Galapagos and seven nights on the Eclipse, a luxury yacht carrying 48 guests.
None of the passenger cabins aboard the Eclipse were equipped with locks, according to the lawsuit.
About 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 1, crew member Henry Herrera, who had been serving as the family's waiter, allegedly slipped into cabin No. 8, where the teens were sleeping, and climbed on top of the 13-year-old.
"Just relax, you will like this," Herrera said, according to the complaint.
The girl was able to shove Herrera aside and he fled as she screamed for help.
Herrera was arrested at the next port of call in Santa Cruz, Ecuador. The family has hired a private detective to determine the status of the criminal case.
Despite the family's wish to immediately return to the U.S., they were told it was impossible because of the remote location.
The teen now sees a psychiatrist for anxiety, depression and insomnia, and her grades in school have suffered, the suit charges.
"Travelers considering an Abercrombie & Kent vacation should not assume simply because they are paying a huge sum of money for their trip that they and their children will be safe," Weinstein said.
Officials Weigh Circumcision to Fight H.I.V. Risk
ReplyDeleteBy RONI CARYN RABIN
Officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for boys born in the U.S. and whether it should be offered to adult men with risky sexual practices.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/health/policy/24talkshows.html
ReplyDeleteOn Fox News Sunday, Jim Towey, director of faith-based initiatives during the administration of George W. Bush, said end-of-life counseling is already taking place for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. He criticized the Veterans Administration for using a booklet called “Your Life, Your Choices” to help injured veterans decide which medical treatments they would choose. On one page, he said, veterans are asked “What makes your life worth living?” and some of the choices include confinement to a wheelchair, placement in a nursing home and severely burdening a family’s finances Such questions, he said, were “kind of pushing people toward a predetermined conclusion.”
The booklet, he charged, was written by a proponent of assisted suicide during the Bush administration but he said he managed to block its use in 2007. Last month, he said, the Veterans Administration reinstated it.
The New York Post broke the news this morning: jailed Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff is dying of cancer. The Wall Street Journal this morning confirmed the news with sources familiar with the situation. Still unclear: what type of cancer Madoff has.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Post, quoting an inmate at the federal prison in Butner, N.C. in which Madoff is serving his time, Madoff is taking about 20 pills a day for his cancer. “He talks about it all the time,” said the inmate. “He’s not doing very well.”
A handful of questions yet to be answered: Why didn’t Madoff report this to Judge Denny Chin prior to sentencing? Often, judges will reduce sentences — or even give deferred prosecution agreements — if a defendant is seriously ill. (Of course, maybe Madoff and his lawyer, Ike Sorkin, figured there was no chance of his getting a reduction that would make a difference, given his life expectancy.
Of course, we’ll report further news as we get it.
A few other interesting tidbits unearthed by the Post:
That “a bare-chested Bernie has been killing time at the prison participating in Native American religious purification ceremonies.” The ceremonies involve “praying, using heated rocks to induce sweat and smoking from a ceremonial pipe.”
Madoff is hanging out with a “homosexual posse,” although the relationships are reportedly purely platonic, say sources.
Various “gangs” at the prison are trying to recruit Bernie to their crews. They’re regularly cooking sandwich wraps for him back at their cells.
Madoff was quickly assigned a job in the prison’s engraving section when he first arrived, but last month he was transferred to a job painting fences.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/21/1007382/ukraine-ou-official-arrested-for-embezzlement
ReplyDeleteUkraine OU official arrested for embezzlement
August 21, 2009
KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) -- Ukraine's secret service detained the chairman of that country's Orthodox Union chapter on charges of embezzling community money.
Dmitry (Daniel) Shuval, 27, the chairman of the Kharkov Jewish Community Orthodox Union, was arrested in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk past week, where he was hiding.
Shuval is suspected of having gambled and lost at least $1 million on the London Stock Exchange.
According to the Ukrainski Novyny newspaper, he leveraged six apartments that belonged to the Kharkov Orthodox Union to raise the money.
Shuval is reportedly facing charges of business fraud and feigning his own kidnapping.
Local Jewish activists were appalled. Dmitry Baranov, a former leader of a progressive congregation in Kharkov, told JTA that the charges place the community in "disgrace."
The Orthodox Union has focused its efforts in Ukraine on Kharkov, the country's second largest city and the home of the Josef K. Miller Torah Center, established in 1992. One of the main goals of the Kharkov program is to encourage aliya.
An estimated 400-500 people -- mainly students and their family members -- take part in O.U.-organized activities throughout the year.
The London Beth Din ordered the board of an Orthodox synagogue in Sydney to make a six-figure payout to a prominent rabbi it tried to lay off.
ReplyDeleteLast Friday’s ruling by the rabbinical court ends a bitter dispute between the Mizrachi Synagogue in Bondi and Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, who won an injunction in the New South Wales Supreme Court in March to stop synagogue members from voting on a resolution to lay him off.
In a statement, Gutnick, who worked part time as the synagogue's rabbi while also serving as a judge on the Sydney Beth Din and rabbinic administrator of the New South Wales Kashrut Authority, said he had been “fully vindicated” by the ruling.
The cash-strapped synagogue's board had argued that it could no longer afford to retain the services of the rabbi, who was first appointed to his post in 1987.
But Gutnick had argued that he was granted life tenure, which entitled him to retain his salary until he is 80. The board argued there was never a formal agreement.
The three judges ruled that although there was no “clear indication as to what was agreed between the parties,” Gutnick should receive his annual salary of $67,000 until he reaches the normal retirement age of 65 -- a total of $1 million over 15 years. But because the synagogue is facing financial ruin, the judges then ruled that Gutnick should be paid $168,000 immediately and about $4,000 a month from 2012 until 2024.
The judges also said Gutnick is entitled to recover costs incurred during the injunction proceedings because the synagogue board “bluntly refused” to resolve the issue in front of a rabbinical court “despite repeated requests.”
Gutnick is the brother of Joseph Gutnick, who was a special emissary of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe and a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A new poll shows that 92 percent of Jewish Democrats approve of President Obama's job performance.
ReplyDeleteThe survey, based on calls July 22-24 to 500 self-identified Jewish Democrats, was commissioned by the Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative lobbying organization claiming to represent 43,000 churches. It was conducted by Global Marketing Research Services and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
Along with the nearly unanimous approval of President Obama's efforts, the poll found that 58 percent of the respondents said he was "doing a good job of promoting peace in the Middle East" compared to 16 percent who disagreed. Asked whether the president was being "too tough on Israel," just 18 percent said yes and 55 percent said no.
The survey suggests that despite the Obama administration’s repeated calls for an Israeli settlement freeze, support for the president among American Jews remains high.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9322
ReplyDeleteThe chutzpah of the Catholic Church
By Asher Lipner
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/52561,news,disgraced-reporter-jayson-blair-becomes-a-life-coach-new-york-times-journalist-plagiarism-mental-health
ReplyDeleteDisgraced reporter Jayson Blair becomes a life coach
(WBFO) - The criminal indictment against former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has been upheld by a federal judge. The decision was handed down on Friday, and it rejected a defense motion that attempted to overturn or to delay the case.
ReplyDeleteA trial is scheduled to begin on November second. Bruno is facing eight counts of services fraud, of having made more than three million dollars through the influence of his position as opposed to serving his constituents.
Each count carries a possible sentence of up to twenty years in prison.
http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2009/08/conservative-rabbi-sues-challenging.html
ReplyDeleteYesterday in Atlanta, Georgia, a rabbi filed a state court lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Georgia's Kosher Food Labeling Act (OCGA Sec. 26-2-330 ff.). The complaint (full text) in Lewis v. Perdue, (Super. Ct. Fulton Co., filed 8/9/2009), claims that by defining "kosher food" as "food prepared under and of products sanctioned by the orthodox Hebrew religious rules and requirements," Sec. 26-2-330 ignores the different interpretations in different streams of Judaism as to what is kosher. This, the lawsuit contends, violates the constitutional rights of Rabbi Shalom Lewis who applies Conservative Jewish standards. The suit contends that the law as currently written violates the free exercise, establishment, equal protection and due process clauses of the U.S. and Georgia constitutions. The ACLU which filed the suit on behalf of Rabbi Lewis has issued a press release on the case.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2009/08/ou-israel-article.html
I don't know if the oylam Hatorah realizes just how dangerous this rasha merusha Shalom Lewis is as well as his enablers from the Conservative leadership.
The new head of the Conservative R.A. is Julia Schonfeld. She is the "rov" of the temple in White Plains (Westchester NY). She knows the Conservative are dying but wants to keep herself relevant by fighting the frum like backing Shalom Lewis. What actually set her off was when Norman Lamm recently told the newspapers that the Conservative have written their own obituary. She came out swinging her fists in response and has been fighting ever since.
Shalom Lewis grew up in a YU type home in the Bronx. His father Rabbi Albert, went off the derech and joined J.T.S.. Shalom's temple is in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta where no orthodox Jews reside. For years now he has been badmouthing frum Jews in his Sabbath sermons. He also runs a factory to be "megayer" a multitude of shiksas who have Jewish boyfriends. Shalom Lewis is also an outspoken atheist which is no longer a conflict for Reform and Conservative.
This new Conservative activism has them offering hashgacha service for very little money, competing and taking away accounts from orthodox certifying agencies. They have started to do this in Suffolk County, Long Island and other areas where there are not enough frum people to support paying more for a reliable hashgacha. In Suffolk, a bunch of Conservative rabbis teamed up calling themselves a Vaad Harabbanim. They took away accounts where they now have milk & meat in the same establishment and the meat is Hebrew National.
http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=228521
ReplyDeleteJerry Belsky of Baltimore, of the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee, held a poster showing President Obama with a mustache like Adolf Hitler’s. Under the picture, it said, “I’ve changed,” playing on an Obama campaign slogan.
Belsky said Obama’s health care plan is equivalent to Hitler’s extermination of millions of people.
“They’re going to kill people without putting them into gas chambers,” he said.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090819/NEWS/908190351/1001/NEWS
ReplyDeleteLawyers for an indicted Postville slaughterhouse executive asked a judge this week to forbid the use of 32 plant workers as government witnesses because they allegedly told lies to work in the United States illegally.
Police are investigating the last nights rock attack on Chabad Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz of the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem and other Holy Places. The rabbi was attacked by religious demonstrators as he left the Jerusalem home of Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv. He was unharmed, although his car was damaged. Rabbi Rabinovitz has been criticized in hareidi circles on claims he has contributed to incidents at the Western Wall Plaza and the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi) in Meron and mixing of the sexes at those sites. They have also accused him of cooperating with secular Zionists.
ReplyDeleteRabinovitz has been trying to work out understanding between rival Hasidic groups at the Rashbi site. Recently he arranged for renovations at the complex and tried to bring it into the Holy Sites Authority.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090822/NEWS/908220314
ReplyDeleteKIRYAS JOEL — The bitter fight between rival factions of Satmar Hasidim took a dramatic turn Thursday when mourners hastily dedicated a new cemetery just outside Kiryas Joel to bury a 41-year-old man who died that morning.
One side in the Satmar rift claims Kiryas Joel's ruling faction refused to let Eziel Perlstein be buried in the community's main cemetery unless his father, a prominent member of the Brooklyn-based faction, agreed to drop a lawsuit over burial rights in the Kiryas Joel cemetery and posted $50,000 to guarantee the suit would be dropped.
Those demands were refused.
And so, compelled by Jewish law to bury the deceased as quickly as possible, mourners turned to property in the Town of Monroe where a group is seeking approval to open a new cemetery, adjacent to the graveyard where Satmar founder Joel Teitelbaum was buried 30 years ago.
There in a clearing on Raywood Drive, following a large funeral in Kiryas Joel, men in black suits and hats dug a grave and lowered Perlstein's casket into the ground.
A dedication ceremony had been held at the burial site earlier in the day.
The conflict provided the latest flashpoint in an incessant struggle between feuding partisans of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum and his brother, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, each of whom is regarded by his followers as the grand rebbe, or supreme leader, of the Satmar movement.
State troopers were called to Raywood Drive when boys from Rabbi Aaron's yeshiva gathered near the cemetery dedication and began chanting and singing, but there appears to have been no violence.
Rabbi Zalman's supporters expressed outrage that their opponents would set "extortionate" conditions while a mourning family waited to bury Perlstein, a father of nine.
"Of course, we did not want to give in to that demand," said Joseph Waldman, a longtime critic of Kiryas Joel's ruling faction.
David Ekstein, a leader of Rabbi Aaron's faction, replied that Perlstein wasn't entitled to be buried in Kiryas Joel because he wasn't a member of its main religious congregation and hadn't gotten special burial permission.
Ekstein said his side offered to allow the burial if the other faction brought their cemetery dispute to a rabbinical court and if the Perlstein family paid the standard burial fee of $10,000 — not $50,000.
Some of Rabbi Aaron's followers questioned the legality of burying someone without a cemetery permit.
The application for a cemetery on Raywood Drive went before the Monroe Planning Board for the first time a week earlier, but no decision was rendered.
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/August09/22/KJ_burial%20dispute-22Aug09.html
100 and 200 Yeshiva school teenaged young men that they described as an “unruly crowd” that was placing tree logs and boulders across the entranceway to the existing cemetery at Kiryas Joel.
http://www.forward.com/articles/112467/
ReplyDeleteLander is a longtime community activist and a devoted member of Park Slope’s left-leaning congregation Kolot Chayeinu, which is headed by a lesbian rabbi who is a leading voice in the fight for gay marriage. Yet Lander has the support of Orthodox powerbroker Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an outspoken right-winger whose Boro Park district overlaps with the 39th council district.
So on August 13, the City Council hopeful, who had marched only two months before with his synagogue in a Gay Pride parade, walked through Boro Park with a yarmulke on his head and Hikind — a fierce opponent of gay marriage — by his side.
Hikind — reached in Jerusalem while touring with former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — acknowledged having had a difficult discussion with the City Council hopeful regarding remarks about Israel that Lander had made at his son’s bris.
At the circumcision ceremony, Lander reportedly renounced his child’s right to move to Israel under its Law of Return. “We are thrilled to pronounce you a Jew without the right of return,” Lander was quoted as saying. “Your name contains our deep hope that you will explore and celebrate your Jewish identity without confusing it with nationalism.” The ceremony was cited in a 2004 American Jewish Committee report, “‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism.”
Hikind, a onetime member of the Jewish Defense League, said he found the account of the circumcision “extremely upsetting.” He and Lander had what Hikind characterized as “a very serious conversation, heart to heart.”
“He said some things that were really beyond the pale,” Hikind said, adding: “It was enough to really say I cannot support someone like that.”
And yet, he did. “I do not urge anyone to support Brad Lander because he’s Jewish,” Hikind said. “I urge them to support him because he’s a decent guy and he’ll be effective when they need help.”
Not long after Hikind made his endorsement, though, the relationship was already being tested again.
In June, a debate erupted over a Holocaust memorial and the planned inclusion of markers honoring gay victims of the Nazis. Hikind responded angrily. “These people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust,” he said, standing next to his 89-year-old mother, a survivor of Auschwitz. “To include these other groups diminishes their memory.”
Members of the gay community were outraged by Hikind’s remarks. Several of Lander’s Democratic primary opponents issued statements blasting Hikind, and Lander suddenly had to decide what to do about his new supporter. He released a statement saying that while he was “grateful” for Hikind’s endorsement, he had to “strongly disagree with him on this issue.”
Hikind said that some of his constituents have voiced concern about his backing of Lander.
One of Lander’s opponents in the Democratic primary, Bob Zuckerman, who is Jewish and openly gay, called Hikind’s comments about the gay community “incendiary.”
In the neighboring 33rd council district, ultra-Orthodox candidate Isaac Abraham, is struggling to appeal to voters beyond his Williamsburg Hasidic community. But it’s not clear that even Hasidic voters are going to rally behind him.
New York’s ultra-Orthodox communities, with their large and often poor families, tend to vote for whomever will deliver the most government dollars.
David Luchins, chairman of Touro College, offered example after example where a non-Jewish or non-observant candidate who seemed likely to deliver services beat out religiously identified Jewish politicians.
“Constituent services trumps personal biography every single time in the Orthodox Jewish community,” Luchins said, “without exception.”
http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=7D16B4EE449A410784B7209BBD1E301D
ReplyDeletethis chassidishe rov in richmond virginia is married to a mormon giyores who he met when she was a shiksa because he responded to an ad she placed on craigslist looking for someone to teach her about yiddishkeit
he says the biala rebbe was mattir them getting married even though they knew each other from before
doesn't this sound suspicious?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/nyregion/25juvenile.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteAugust 25, 2009
Report Cites Abuse at State Juvenile Prison Centers
(Aug. 24) -- Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby is calling for Sen. Ted Kennedy to quit.
ReplyDeleteSunday's op-ed is a reaction to the Massachusetts Democrat's plea for a change in the state law that governs how Senate vacancies are filled. Kennedy, who is gravely ill with brain cancer, sent Gov. Deval Patrick a letter last week asking that the requirement for a special election be dropped. The change would ensure that Patrick could quickly appoint a fellow Democrat to serve out the rest of Kennedy's term if the ailing senator steps aside.
Five years ago, when Republican Mitt Romney was governor and Democratic Senator John Kerry was running for president, Kennedy pushed to require a special election at least 145 days after the seat becomes available. Lawmakers changed the rule, so Romney couldn't have picked a GOP senator if Kerry had won the presidency.
Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Bernard Madoff, who is serving 150 years in prison for defrauding investors of billions of dollars, hasn’t been diagnosed with cancer and isn’t terminally ill as a newspaper reported, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.
ReplyDeleteThe New York Post reported today that Madoff was dying from a cancer and that there were rumors he had pancreatic cancer.
“While the N.Y. Post story is full of inaccuracies, and we can’t specifically address all of them, we can tell you that Bernie Madoff is not terminally ill, and has not been diagnosed with cancer,” Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said in a statement.
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/August09/21/Philipson_Waldman_arr-21Aug09.html
ReplyDeleteKIRYAS JOEL – Two men have been arrested by State Police at Monroe after they are alleged to have gotten involved in physical altercation with two safety officers in the Village of Kiryas Joel.
Daniel Philipson, 39, of Monsey, and Joseph Waldman, 58, of Monroe, were each charged with obstructing governmental administration in the second degree and harassment in the second degree.
Initially, a public safety officer was approached by a suspect over traffic conditions on Sunday. The suspect refused to comply with the officer and pushed and kicked him.
Additional public safety personnel arrived and a second officer was punched and his glasses were grabbed and broken by the suspect. A second man approached the officers and grabbed the second officer, physically harassed him.
Philips was also charged with criminal mischief in the fourth degree. Both suspects were issued appearance tickets to Monroe Town Court.
Under state law, Department of Public Safety personnel are recognized as peace officers. Under the law, they operate their vehicles under local public authority as a constable vehicle, by either responding to active police calls or some type of active emergency, just as typical police officers.
UOJ how can you forget to mention all the work he did for the old aguda and his relationship with the then president Mike Tress
ReplyDeletehttp://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/flight-attendant-activates-exit-chute-after-dispute-at-j-f-k-then-flees/?hp
ReplyDeleteA JetBlue flight attendant apparently upset with an uncooperative passenger on a just-landed flight unleashed a profanity-laden tirade on the public-address system, pulled the emergency-exit chute, slid off the plane and fled Kennedy International Airport, a law enforcement official said.
The dramatic getaway was short-lived. The attendant, Steven Slater, 39, was arrested at his home not far away in Belle Harbor, Queens. He was charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000580449&fid=4114
ReplyDeleteWill there be Jews for Malia and Sasha?
If Barack and Michelle Obama's daughters want to follow in Chelsea Clinton's footsteps, they had better hurry.
Shmarya groupie has left a new comment on your post "Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt"l - In Memoriam - ...":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/08/09/2740405/gay-anti-israel-group-to-march-in-montreal
For the second consecutive year, the protest group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will march in Montreal's Gay Pride parade.
The gay Jewish group Ga'avah -- Hebrew for pride -- which is also taking part in the parade, objected to the use of the term "apartheid" but put free speech first.
OU Crony Watch has left a new comment on your post "Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt"l - In Memoriam - ...":
ReplyDeletewww.oukosher.org/.../family_values_make_sally_sherman_foods_a_salad_lovers_delight/
Family Values Make Sally Sherman Foods a Salad Lover's Delight ...
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/08/fda-and-osha-both-come-down-on-kosher-salad-maker/
A maker of kosher salads in New York State is finding itself in trouble with two federal regulatory agencies.
U.F.S. Industries Inc., doing business as Sally Sherman Foods, received a July 21 warning letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and then learned it faces a $247,000 fine from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) largely for failure to correct hazards inside its Mount Vernon facility.
FDA said Sally Sherman's refrigerated ready-to-eat fishery products packed in oxygen-limiting containers including tuna salad, seafood salad, and cream cheese and lox "are adulterated in that they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health."
Since November 2009, OSHA has been trying to get Sally Sherman Foods to provide adequate fall protection, machine guarding, and hazardous energy control for its workers. The agency has proposed the fine because the corrections have not been made.
"The bulk of these sizable fines stem from five instances in which the company agreed to correct specific hazards and did not follow through on that commitment," said Diana Cortez, OSHA's area director. "This situation meant workers at the plant remained exposed to potential falls, lacerations, crushing and amputation injuries or being caught in moving parts of machinery. That is not acceptable."
Currently, its tuna salad, seafood salad, and cream cheese and lox spread are packaged in the oxygen-limiting containers and does not take into account the potential for botulism, toxic formations, and allergens.
FDA said the tuna salad is also susceptible to scombrotoxin.
Its current HACCP plan also falls short because it does not address the hazard of pathogen growth and toxin formation in cooking scallops.
(What kind of controls does the OU have when scallops are processed in the same factory?)
What happened to comments yesterday that were never posted?
ReplyDeleteAre you being hacked again?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/nyregion/10attendant.html?hp
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago, an Air France flight attendant was arrested for stealing the wallets of first-class passengers.
http://www.laweekly.com/content/printVersion/1010620/
ReplyDeleteDid the rich and intrigue-filled Botach family get a pass from Henry Waxman?
Yoav Botach is a wealthy landlord. He founded, and his son now owns, an arms dealership in an unsettling locale for one: South Central. And his grandson was convicted of conspiracy for peddling to the U.S. Army decomposing ammunition — so old it was traced to the factories of Mao Tse-tung — as part of a $300 million contract.
But what is startling in the weird saga of this prominent L.A. family is the silence of Congressman Henry Waxman of Beverly Hills, who led a congressional investigation into the ammo fraud and vowed to get to the bottom of it.
As Waxman said, his inquiry in 2008 aimed to answer a fundamental question: How did Botach's inexperienced 21-year-old grandson Efraim Diveroli "get a sensitive, $300 million contract to supply ammunition?"
Waxman refuses to speak about it with L.A. Weekly. But with an ugly palimony suit simmering between family patriarch Botach and his common-law wife, Judith Boteach, she's now talking. And she points to a contract that may link the South Central arms firm run by Botach's son, Bar-Kochba Botach, to the grandson's disgraced firm, AEY Inc., in Miami Beach.
Yoav and Bar-Kochba Botach refused to comment. (Boteach spells her last name differently because Botach changed his name for simplicity.)
According to Boteach, Diveroli, her step-grandson, who is awaiting sentencing after hawking the Mao-era material, spent summers as a teen at Botach Tactical. She says a 2004 federal contract granted to Botach Tactical implies another connection: On the contract, the Botach firm lists its address as young Diveroli's AEY address — in Miami Beach.
She says that Botach lives in Waxman's Congressional District, and that her estranged husband wields influence with politicians. "Yoav supports a lot of City Council members and the governor. There were lunches, dinners and fund-raisers."
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council President Eric Garcetti attended the Beverly Hills launch of the star-studded charity Turn Friday Night Into Family Night, founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
After Botach's 2002 split from Boteach, she claimed she was unaware they had never been legally married.
L.A. Superior Court Judge Warren Ettinger upheld her claims of assault, battery, emotional distress and unpaid work, and awarded her $250,000 plus legal costs, but rejected her palimony claim.
Her attorney, Robert Hirsh, declared: "We would not be surprised if Botach's net worth is $700 million."
http://www.laweekly.com/content/printVersion/1010620/
ReplyDeleteIn March 2006, the State of Israel accused Botach's brother and business partner in L.A., Shlomo Botach, of "using professional money launderers" to transfer $860,000 from the U.S. through Swiss and Uruguayan banks to an account in Israel, code-named "Ezra 26." The court case covered transfers totaling $331,000.
In court documents translated from Hebrew for the Weekly, Shlomo stated he was moving the money to Israel so that Judith Boteach couldn't access it during the palimony dispute.
But the State of Israel alleged that the money was wired in small batches so that it could be slipped past authorities.
Not everyone is buying brother Shlomo Botach's explanation for why he was moving money to Israel. In 2006, Jaffa District Court Judge Kobi Vardi in Tel Aviv called his stated reason — that he was keeping it out of Boteach's hands — an "unacceptable fabrication."
Vardi said Shlomo Botach was part of a "sophisticated and well-lubricated organization" that intended to launder money.
http://www.details.com/culture-trends/news-and-politics/200902/arms-dealer-efraim-diveroli-and-his-contract-with-the-us-army?printable=true¤tPage=1
ReplyDeleteEfraim Diveroli was a chubby, hyperactive 16-year-old living in an Orthodox Jewish enclave of Miami Beach when he got his first gun, a Ruger .22 caliber rifle. But he had already developed what his grandfather Angelo Diveroli describes as a passion for firearms. "Ever since he was a little boy, I would take him to gun shows and he could identify every model of gun," Angelo recalls. "He's a genius."
In school Diveroli rarely displayed the same focus. At 17 he was kicked out of Hebrew academy for smoking pot. His Orthodox father, Michael Diveroli, who ran various small businesses, was furious. Efraim moved to Los Angeles to take a job with his uncle, who owned a law-enforcement-supply company. It was there, equipping police departments, that Diveroli learned how to bid on government contracts. It was also there that he met Ralph Merrill, a Vietnam vet who knew his way around the international arms market, buying and selling weapons in places like Israel, South Africa, and Croatia. Diveroli absorbed everything he could, and Merrill quickly noticed what he described in a letter as his young friend's "innovative thinking and absolute mission dedication." On his MySpace page, Diveroli later explained this period: "I had problems in high school so i was forced to work most of my teen years," he wrote, "and i probably grew up way to [sic] fast."
By 2004, the privatization of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had reached a peak, and Diveroli saw opportunity in the flood of contracts coming out of Washington. With Merrill offering to bankroll him, Diveroli moved back to Miami and took over AEY, Inc., a dormant company his father had incorporated in 1999 as a label-printing business. He appointed himself president and began bidding on a range of contracts, supplying everything from ballistics vests to forklifts. His inexperience was a liability at first. The government yanked no fewer than seven jobs from AEY because of poor performance. Chosen to supply the Iraqi military with thousands of Beretta pistols, AEY explained delays by claiming a plane crash had destroyed important papers. The procurement officer in charge called Diveroli a liar and canceled the contract.
Within a year, though, the fledgling company was juggling dozens of contracts, its performance deficits undetected by overextended Department of Defense regulators. For every problematic job, AEY completed 10 successfully, thanks to the 19-year-old's preternatural drive. "This guy was not a normal kid," recalls one former associate. "To say he was out of his league is not accurate. He's very smart, and a ruthless businessman. Ruthless."
http://www.details.com/culture-trends/news-and-politics/200902/arms-dealer-efraim-diveroli-and-his-contract-with-the-us-army?printable=true¤tPage=1
ReplyDeleteTo keep up, Diveroli needed help. His boyhood pal David Packouz was also struggling to find his way. Packouz's experiments with drugs during high school had led his family to ship him off to Israel. After his return, he attended college for two semesters, then left to become a massage therapist. When the two ran into each other in mid-2005, Diveroli was no longer the goofy kid Packouz remembered from temple. There was a confidence about him. "I saw the potential," Packouz says. "Efraim was very successful." Later that year, Packouz joined AEY.
That meant working 18-hour days scouring the Internet for proposals, contacting foreign governments and arms traffickers, and aggressively pushing for the best price. And it paid off. By the end of 2006, AEY had won 149 contracts worth an estimated $10.5 million.
A month after Diveroli's arrest, the U.S. Army awarded AEY the coveted ammunition contract, explaining later that the company's proposal had represented "the best value to the government." It was a stunning accomplishment for a three-year-old enterprise, let alone one run by a dropout with no military background who weeks earlier couldn't legally purchase alcohol. An Army official told AEY it had beaten out General Dynamics, the world's fifth-largest defense contractor. In a matter of months, the company was negotiating deals with foreign defense ministers, holding meetings at embassies, and taking calls from Army brass. AEY had located caches of weapons in the old Eastern bloc that could be acquired on the cheap, and soon struck a deal in Albania for millions of 7.62 mm bullets. To oversee the operation there, Packouz hired his best friend, Alexander Podrizki, whose main accomplishment, at age 25, was that he had taught English in France for a year.
Like I told the LA Jewish Journal, no one should be mekabel the lashon hara about my nephew Efraim and my other relatives.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm very upset at the Jewish Journal for revealing that LA City Council President Eric Garcetti was one of my groupies at Chabad of Oxford University.
http://www.details.com/culture-trends/news-and-politics/200902/arms-dealer-efraim-diveroli-and-his-contract-with-the-us-army?printable=true¤tPage=1
Perhaps Diveroli knew the scrutiny he was under, or maybe his luck had just run out. But at 5 a.m. on March 5, 2008, he was pulled over in his new $100,000 Mercedes S550 and arrested for drunk driving. A few days later, an explosion at an ammunition warehouse overseen by Delijorgji and Pinari killed 26 people and helped focus global attention on Albania's surplus-arms industry. Two weeks after that, the New York Times published an exhaustive report on AEY and its young president. The investigation not only exposed the Chinese origins of Diveroli's Albanian bullets but alleged that many of the cartridges were more than 40 years old, some so degraded they were unusable. The repercussions were swift and devastating. Government agents raided AEY's unmarked offices. An embarrassed Army quickly canceled its contract. And on June 19, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Diveroli, Packouz, Podrizki, and financier Ralph Merrill on one count of conspiracy and 35 counts of committing a major fraud against the United States. In addition, Diveroli was charged with 35 counts of making false statements to a federal agency. All told, he faces 510 years in prison.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3932127,00.html
ReplyDeleteThe police announced on Sunday that there is enough evidence against Rabbi Mordechai (Motty) Elon, who is suspected of committing indecent acts by force against two minors, to put him on trial.
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/bvdrf_feds-arrest-former-belvedere-tech-executive-1099540.html
ReplyDeleteA federal grand jury has indicted a former Belvedere man on wire fraud and money laundering charges in an alleged $30 million investment scam, authorities reported Monday.
Samuel Cohen, also known as Mouli Cohen, is accused of defrauding 55 investors by claiming his tech company, Ecast, would soon be purchased by Microsoft, according to the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco.
Cohen was arrested on Thursday and made an initial court appearance Friday in Los Angeles. The indictment charges him with 19 counts of wire fraud, each of which carries a potential 20 years in prison, and 13 counts of money laundering, each of which carries up to 10 years.
Cohen could also face up to $250,000 in fines on each count.
One of the plaintiffs, In Spirit, a Woodacre nonprofit serving quadriplegics, said it lost $300,000 in the alleged scam.
Plaintiffs claimed Cohen stashed the money in hidden bank accounts or gave it to family members, including his wife, Stacy Cohen, a writer whose works include "The Kosher Billionaire's Secret Recipe" cookbook.
"What happened to comments yesterday that were never posted?
ReplyDeleteAre you being hacked again?"
*
Yes, and comments are being taken down once posted.
http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=inohco20100805499
ReplyDelete2010-Ohio-3603
Rabbinical College of Telshe, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
U.S. Bank, et al., Defendants.
[Appeal By Rabbi Zalmen Gifter].
No. 93643.
Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth District, Cuyahoga County.
RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: August 5, 2010.
Stephen M. O'Bryan, Patrick J. Krebs, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP, 3500 BP Tower, 200 Public Square, Cleveland, OH 44114-2302, Attorneys for Appellant Rabbi Zalmen Gifter.
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from the judgment of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas denying appellant Rabbi Zalmen Gifter's motion to intervene and granting plaintiff-appellee Rabbinical College of Telshe, through its board of trustees ("the Board"), a permanent injunction against two of the banks that housed the college's accounts. Appellant assigns three errors challenging the trial court's denial of his motion to intervene, the grant of a permanent injunction, and the denial of his motions for reconsideration and relief from judgment. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
{¶ 2} On June 15, 2009, Telshe, through its Board, filed a complaint seeking injunctive relief against U.S. Bank, Chase Bank, Key Corp, Amtrust Bank, and Huntington Bank after the banks refused to allow the Board to replace the names of the signatories on the college's accounts with newly appointed signatories. The complaint alleged that the persons named on the accounts were no longer authorized to act on behalf of the college and, as a result, there was no one with authority to act on the accounts. The complaint alleged immediate and irreparable harm from the banks' refusal to allow the college to place on the accounts the names of those authorized by the Board to act on behalf of Telshe.
{¶ 3} The trial court granted Telshe's application for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") and ordered the banks to take action only upon the direction of the newly appointed signatories. A hearing on the matter was set for June 29, 2009. Prior to the hearing, the college voluntarily dismissed its claims against three of the defendant banks, leaving only Chase and U.S. Bank in the action.
{¶ 4} Appellant Gifter, a former member of the Board, filed a motion to intervene in the action and a motion to dissolve the TRO. The Board opposed intervention and supported the opposition with a copy of a document translated from the Hebrew language captioned "Agreement of the Members of the Board of the Telshe Yeshiva," dated April 24, 2007, and signed by the eight Rabbis, including appellant, who constituted the Board of the Rabbinical College at that time. By their signatures on the document, the individual members agreed, among other things, that "all matters of administration of the Yeshiva, whether in spiritual matters or in materialistic matters or in financial matters, shall be decided pursuant to the determination of a majority of Board members. An individual Board member has no power or authorization to do anything on Yeshiva matters on his own say without the consent of the members of the Board [to determine which matters are in this category is subject to a decision by the members of the Board.]"
I have followed several blogs that use Google's Blogger software.
ReplyDeleteThe only ones that appear to be under hacker attack are the ones that air criticisms and exposes of the Vaad Harabbonim of Queens.
Someone from the Queens Vaad has also been stealing commenter handles of critics to impersonate them with nonsensical contributions as a way of discrediting them.
He does not comment here, because as he expresses on the other blogs, he holds UOJ in absolute contempt as a "yored Gehinnim" and believes it is beneath his dignity to write anything here even though the hypocrite monitors all the UOJ comments as is evident elsewhere. He is also prone to threaten anyone writing about the Queens Vaad that they are going to Gehinnim as well. Some independent rabbonim who read the blogs say there is one particular narrowminded jerk at VHQ who is capable of flying off the handle like that.
Even more ominously, this person has hinted to the identity of critics, possibly using information from illegal hacking and has warned that they are "running out of time" to cease & desist exposing the Queens Vaad before more mafia tactics are deployed against them in retaliation.
Hey Boteachs, you lowlives!
ReplyDeleteThe NY Times left out the detail reported elsewhere about the foul mouthed Jet Blue attendant who went beserk.
ReplyDeleteWhen police raided his house, the homo was in bed with his boyfriend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10tue1.html?hp
ReplyDeleteAfter years of "deliberate neglect", the Justice Department is "finally" beginning to enforce the federal law requiring states to provide voter registration at welfare and food stamp offices. The effort not only promises to bring hundreds of thousands of hard-to-reach (Black & Hispanic) voters into the (Democrat Party) electorate, but it could also reduce the impact of advocacy organizations whose role in registering voters caused such a furor in 2008 (radicals like ACORN who the NY Times loves to protect).
The administration will undoubtedly be accused of acting in a self-serving political way by making it easier for more Democrats to vote. The effort may have that effect. (DUH!)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- New York Democrat Charles Rangel says he's not resigning, despite 13 charges of ethical wrongdoing.
ReplyDeleteIn a rambling floor speech Tuesday, Rangel told colleagues: ''I am not going away.''
Who deleted the posts on the expulsion of Ahavas Torah in Miami?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the real reason I was kicked out of the shul?
NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City's transit agency has approved a bus advertisement that objects to a planned mosque near ground zero and that depicts a plane flying toward the World Trade Center towers.
ReplyDeleteThe ad was paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an organization that opposes radical Islamic influence in the United States. The group's executive director says she doesn't find the advertisement offensive.
The group sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to demand it accept the advertisement, which was approved Monday.
One of the things that gets the Queens Vaad the angriest is when someone mentions on the blogs what their motive is for not improving their sub-standard kashrus.
ReplyDeleteA rosh yeshiva has pointed out that many of the shuls in the borough are populated with ultra-modern people who are barely shomer Shabbos and sometimes not even shomer Shabbos. Many of them are actually anti-frum and the Vaad is terrified to do anything that will offend those who "butter their bread". As a result, the Vaad sends out a former Agudah fresser spokesman with big bushy payos to the Kew Gardens & Chofetz Chaim yeshiva crowds to lie that everything is kosher lemehadrin when nothing could be further from the truth. There is also a financial motive since the VHQ heads are paid huge salaries and they don't want restaurants & caterers falling in the hands of cheaper and more admittedly lax hashgochos like BRC & KKQ.
VHQ's big payos guy compiled a hit list of who he suspects - despite having zero proof - is leaking information to the outside and has been trying to ruin their reputation with rabbonim in town. One fellow used to tip off the rabbonim about things in the community that need to be corrected, but now that the Queens Vaad gangster has sullied his reputation, he can no longer speak to the rabbonim as he is now met with indifference, skepticism or outright hostility.
One problem in the community right now that can't even be raised, involves people throwing birthday parties for their kids in places where the goyishe owners provide treif cotton candy machines. The am haaratzim, including the Vice President of a prominent Queens Vaad shul, think they can simply bring their own candy mix to insert in a treif machine.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/a-record-number-of-children-are-dying-in-hot-cars/?hpw
ReplyDeleteDespite awareness campaigns from child safety advocates and substantial media coverage, the number of children dying in hot vehicles has continued to rise.
#######
There were a couple of incidents in Lakewood with YTT Briskers. In one case the child nebich died. The grandfather who is one of the biggest ganovim & liars around then tried to cover up with a story about SIDS. In a more recent case a couple of months ago, the kid Boruch Hashem survived.
http://twp.lakewood.nj.us/news_story_070909_2.htm
There is a frum company in Lakewood that makes an alarm for anyone chas veshulum forgetting their kid.
http://cso-radio.com/
732-942-1101
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100806/NEWS/100809830
ReplyDeleteFallsburg officials evacuated about 50 bungalows and closed Route 42 Thursday night after chain-reaction accident resulted in a car smashing into a propane tank outside the Irvington bungalow colony.
Police were called around 8:50 p.m. One car had pulled out and smashed into another car, forcing one of the cars to crash into the propane tank and the other to strike several parked cars in the lot.
As a precaution, police emptied out several surrounding bungalows.
I hate it when Shmeckstein covers stories like the Irvington evacuation. About every 3 minutes he has an update in bold red with every inane detail. He almost gets down to which firefighters picked their noses.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/route_17/mosques_imam_moderate_abe_foxman_bigot
ReplyDeleteI trust the Imam and the Muslims at the new Ground Zero "Cordoba" mosque to tell me the truth of what they think about Israel and the United States. After 9/11, the Imam said America shared responsibility for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Now, that same imam refuses to condem Hamas. And he supported the anti-Israel flotilla that led the international political ambush of Israel. This imam is honest. He's just anything but "moderate."
How about all the Jewish leaders and rabbis who call this imam "moderate" and support his proposed mosque? How honest are they?
How many of these rabbis, these professional dialoguers, ever can be counted on to speak up about the state of Islam in the United States - other than to constantly trot out the so-called moderates?
How many of these rabbis - how many Jewish newspapers and organizations supporting the Ground Zero mosque -- had anything to say when Obama's counter-terrorism advisor started calling Jerusalem (the entire city that is ruled by its Colonial Governor Obama, who forbids the building of Jewish apartments there) by its Islamic name, "Al-Quds?" You can watch Obama's advisor calling it Al-Quds here. You can watch that same Obama official, John Brennan, saying that jihad is a legitmate expression of Islam here.
After the attempted bombing of Riverdale synagogues in 2009 - when some Jewish newspapers didn't even refer to the suspects as Islamic. Jewish leaders provided no leadership, no expression for the Jew in the street. Instead, the Jewish leaders held a limited-seating interfaith dialogue that featured a monologue by an imam who was scathing about the very idea that the FBI should dare to even look for possible terrorists in mosques. The rabbis response? They applauded the imam. He was moderate.
I don't trust dialoguing rabbis to warn - or even alert - the Jewish community when, God forbid, the time will come when we'll need a warning in the night as we did in Crown Heights. Jewish leaders tell me to trust these imams and I do. It's these Jewish leaders I don't trust. Oh, I trust them to be nice guys and registered Democrats. I trust them to see no evil and hear no evil. I trust that they'll get invited to the opening reception of the Ground Zero mosque. I just don't trust them about Islam, and their Orwellian definition of "moderate."
It's a perverse world where an imam who assigns blames to the United States for 9/11, who supports the flotilla, who is coy about Hamas -- is the "moderate" but Abe Foxman is the bigot.
http://www.vosizneias.com/61926/2010/08/10/new-york-nba-star-lebron-james-hires-rabbi-to-consult-on-business-affairs
ReplyDeleteTMZ has released information that Miami heat star LeBron James has met with a Rabbi in New York today for spiritual guidance.
They even have a photo of him sitting at a table with Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto, who only speaks Hebrew and is known around New York as the “Rabbi to the Business Stars.”
According to the TMZ article, James wanted spiritual guidance from Rabbi Pinto before a big merchandising meeting that was held on a private yacht off the coast of New York later in the day.
Rabbi Pinto, 37, has met with all sorts of business big wigs and he is considered by some people to be a “spiritual guide” who consults on business matters.
Sounds like a lucrative business for the young Rabbi who was paid 6-figures by LeBron to sit in on the meeting on the yacht where he supposedly met with numerous “big time” retail executives.
Also in the article it talks about how it has been a big off season for some NBA players and the Jewish religion after Amar’e Stoudemire met with rabbis in Israel, and Shaq learned the Hebrew language.
and you fellow that knows kashruth. . . all cotton candy is kosher!!!! No matter what the machine was used for. Do you want to make money giving hashgocho on cotton candy and water and aluminum foil? Yes and the flavorings are fine too
ReplyDeleteIgnore the ignoramous who says all cotton candy is kosher.
ReplyDeleteFlavors and dyes are very prone to be made from insects and other non-kosher sources.
Dear Mr. Kashrus,
ReplyDeleteDo you know anything? Is the dye edible before being placed in the food? What makes the flavoring non-kosher?
Q & A Board - View Post
Author: joe barnathan
E-mail: jbarnathan@msn.com
Date: 9/26/2006 5:05:00 AM
Subject: Cochineal and Gelatin
Message: Dear Rabbi I have read your posts on Cochineal and Gelatin and I don’t believe they have the same status. Gelatin comes from bones the bone by itself is not food (it’s sort of like eating a rock) then it is processed into glue an inedible product by itself. Cochineal is a dye that comes from eggs of beetles the eggs are not kosher and the dye should not be Kosher. Can you please reply.
Thank you and Shanah Tovah .
Reply: Look at the following websites and you will see that carmine are inedible before it hits the foods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/carmine, http://webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/carmine.html, www2.labs.agilent.com/botany/cacti_etc/html/news7.html
CYA
The self-confident "expert" on food ingredients is pushing the fringe opinions of the likes of Rabbi Dr. Sheinkopf who after attending Chaim Berlin & YU was a Conservative rabbi his entire life.
ReplyDeleteIt is dubious of these characters to claim they are only following R' Chaim Ozer Grodzinski's shita on gelatin when today, there are moist remnants added to the dry bones that he never permitted.
There is no mainstream Orthodox kashrus agency that will allow either gelatin or carmine, and for good reason.
And how are you going to make the problem of treif flavorings go away?
http://takosher.com/menu/kosher-certification/
ReplyDeleteSince when does Rabbi Yehuda Kelemer get involved with supposedly glatt meat?
http://www.uos.co.za/kashrut/defaultFull.asp#PROBLEMATIC PRODUCTS
ReplyDeletePROBLEMATIC PRODUCTS / INGREDIENTS / RAW MATERIALS
Meat/Fowl
Many food and beverages contain products/ingredients/raw materials that have components of animal or fowl origin. Examples are: aspartic acid, calcium stearate, magnesium stearate, gelatine glycerides (mono-di), glycerine (glycerol), lanolium lard, pepsin, rennet, steric acid, sterol lactylates, tallow, polysorbates. Many of the above can be produced either from animal or vegetable origin and consequently require reliable Rabbinical Supervision.
Grape
Vinegar, Acetic Acid, Cream of Tartar, Tartaric Acid, Ethanol (Ethyl Alcohol) Enocianina (grape skin extract).
The following is a short list of products that are used in the food and beverage industry that based on the above could be problematic and require reliable Rabbinical Supervision:
1. Enzymes : Many enzymes are obtained from plants, animal tissue and microbial sources. Animal derived enzymes are pepsin, rennet, lyase and catalase.
2. Flavours - artificial and natural : There are more than 1500 flavour ingredients both of natural extract and synthetic chemicals that may be used in the preparation of a flavour formula. Some examples are :
a) Ambergris - an extract of a growth from some whale intestines
b) Castoreun - an extract of beaver glands
c) Civet produced from the secretion of the civet cat
d) Lipase - an enzyme derived from cat glands.
Flavour formulation may also contain a variety of food extracts and concentrates including grape wine and cognac, in addition solvents must be added to the formula some of which are from glycerine, polysorbates which can be from either animal or vegetable.
3. Food Colouring - The colourings are made from either natural or synthetic origin. Some colourings include :
a) Carmine - colouring that is extracted from the dried bodies of female insect, Coccus Cacti
b) Cochineal - a dye derived from beetles
4. Gelatine - Gelatine is produced by extracting collagen from beef, calf and pork.
5. Hydrogenated Oil, Fats and Shortenings - these products can either be made from vegetable, animal or fish.
6. Emulsifiers/Stabilisers/Anti Caking Agents/Anti Foaming Agents - all these can either be produced from vegetable or animal.
All of the above mentioned products/ingredients/raw materials must have reliable Rabbinical Supervision before they can be used in the manufacture of Kosher food and beverages.
http://www.uos.co.za/kashrut/defaultFull.asp#PROBLEMATIC PRODUCTS
ReplyDeletePROBLEMATIC PRODUCTS / INGREDIENTS / RAW MATERIALS
Many food and beverages contain products/ingredients/raw materials that have components of animal or fowl origin. Examples are: aspartic acid, calcium stearate, magnesium stearate, gelatine glycerides (mono-di), glycerine (glycerol), lanolium lard, pepsin, rennet, steric acid, sterol lactylates, tallow, polysorbates. Many of the above can be produced either from animal or vegetable origin and consequently require reliable Rabbinical Supervision.
Grape
Vinegar, Acetic Acid, Cream of Tartar, Tartaric Acid, Ethanol (Ethyl Alcohol) Enocianina (grape skin extract).
The following is a short list of products that are used in the food and beverage industry that based on the above could be problematic and require reliable Rabbinical Supervision:
1. Enzymes : Many enzymes are obtained from plants, animal tissue and microbial sources. Animal derived enzymes are pepsin, rennet, lyase and catalase.
2. Flavours - artificial and natural : There are more than 1500 flavour ingredients both of natural extract and synthetic chemicals that may be used in the preparation of a flavour formula. Some examples are :
a) Ambergris - an extract of a growth from some whale intestines
b) Castoreun - an extract of beaver glands
c) Civet produced from the secretion of the civet cat
d) Lipase - an enzyme derived from cat glands.
Flavour formulation may also contain a variety of food extracts and concentrates including grape wine and cognac, in addition solvents must be added to the formula some of which are from glycerine, polysorbates which can be from either animal or vegetable.
3. Food Colouring - The colourings are made from either natural or synthetic origin. Some colourings include :
a) Carmine - colouring that is extracted from the dried bodies of female insect, Coccus Cacti
b) Cochineal - a dye derived from beetles
4. Gelatine - Gelatine is produced by extracting collagen from beef, calf and pork.
5. Hydrogenated Oil, Fats and Shortenings - these products can either be made from vegetable, animal or fish.
6. Emulsifiers/Stabilisers/Anti Caking Agents/Anti Foaming Agents - all these can either be produced from vegetable or animal.
All of the above mentioned products/ingredients/raw materials must have reliable Rabbinical Supervision before they can be used in the manufacture of Kosher food and beverages.
http://www.lohud.com/fdcp/?1281628759506
ReplyDeleteNEW ROCHELLE — The Belgian block curbs and birch trees in Jesse Wasserman's posh neighborhood are a far cry from the mean streets of
this or any other town.
That's what makes his arrest on three counts of armed robbery by New York City police last week so
surprising to neighbors and friends.
"I've lived here 15 years, and everyone's a nice neighbor," said Jacob Jacob, who lives around the
corner from the former prep school student. "I can't believe that this guy would do that."
Wasserman, 17, is charged in a mugging spree in Central Park in which three people were held up at
gunpoint within 40 minutes around midnight Wednesday.
Jacob said he didn't know the Wassermans well, but the house at 1 Taymil Road often has cars coming
and going. He attributed that to the young people living there.
Since Wasserman's arrest, tabloid news reports have painted a picture of a privileged suburban youth-turned-wannabe gangbanger.
Friends told The Daily News that Wasserman hated his upbringing and thought he was from the streets
even though his parents would buy him anything he wanted.
I wouldn't be surprised if that guy is getting that attitude that nothing is treif from Rav Abadi's sons. Rav Abadi would always go with some Daas Yochid from Rishonim that we don't posken like and his sons seem to go a step further.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how this is different than the Conservative movement who do the same thing like using the one shita that you don't have to soak meat.
as this blog rabbis are not reliable. Rav Abadi has proven himself to be!!!!!!!!!!1
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/39579/the-rabbi-of-pot-rabbi-jeffrey-kahn-wants-to-be/full
ReplyDeleteThere was a yeshivish but weird rabbi who was coming into Munkatch in Boro Park to do the same thing until he was arrested.
AP
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is providing $3 billion to unemployed homeowners facing foreclosure in the nation's toughest job markets.
The Treasury Department says it will send $2 billion to 17 states that have unemployment rates higher than the national average for a year. They will use the money for programs to aid unemployed homeowners.
Another $1 billion will go to a new program being run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It will provide homeowners with emergency zero-interest rate loans of up to $50,000 for up to two years.
Because Rav Abadi issues eccentric psak, he was let go as Lakewood yeshiva's posek.
ReplyDeleteAnd most of his so called followers are hypocrites of convenience. If you want all of his wild heterim, you also have to follow his chumros like not being allowed to use cutlery at catered events, etc., which most of you ignore.
One of Gov. Paterson's former top aides was arrested Thursday on a six-count criminal complaint that says he threatened to kill his then-girlfriend on Halloween night.
ReplyDeleteVictim Sherr-una Booker told prosecutors that David Johnson yanked her off the ground by her neck, tore phones from her hand when she tried to call 911 and left her gasping for air in a violent outburst.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/12/2010-08-12_new_yorks_jobless_99ers_channel_anger_in_wall_street_protest_demand_unemployment.html
ReplyDeleteNew York's jobless 99ers channel anger in Wall Street protest, demand unemployment extension
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3935101,00.html
ReplyDeleteA Jerusalem resident Gil Dvash, 45, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of sexually harassing and sodomizing 10 minors over the past few years, after offering them money at a local synagogue.
The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Thursday extended the suspect's remand, with Judge Fineberg ruling that "there is reasonable ground to believe that he committed the acts ascribed to him."
According to the suspicions, the man arrived at a synagogue in the Bait Vagan neighborhood, where the minors were praying, offered them money and carried out his scheme.
He added that the community rabbis were aware of the acts but failed to inform the police.
: Fellow who knows Abadi's Psak. Never said what you said. can use cutlery.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know the reason you hold that Sephardim can just clean their flatware instead of kashering them or using a different set for Passover. What about the ones used to cook food in pots cooking on the fire all year?
Thanks
Reply: Allow me to quote from two dictionarys for the word 'Flatware'
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary says it means - "tableware more or less flat and usually formed or cast in a single piece; especially : eating and serving utensils (as knives, forks, and spoons)"
The MSN Encarta® says - "1. knives, forks, and spoons: knives, forks, and spoons used for eating.
Also called cutlery
2. flat or shallow tableware: dishes used for eating that are flat or relatively shallow, for example, plates and saucers, as opposed to deeper pieces such as cups and bowls"
Now in reference to what you are talking about, if it is used normally in a pot or on the fire it would need either hagala or libun. It would get the same koshering process as the type of process (oven fire or stovetop cooking) it was used for normally.
CYA
Can I have a piece of cake in a non kosher resaurant if I find out the ingredients?
Also, I remeber bits and pieces from past posts but please clarify please: Is there a way I can cook/eat in someones house that is not kosher? If not, and I cook all food at home and bring it, can I use their dishes/cutlery?
Also, If a woman can have "permanent make up" can she also just get a tatoo?
Reply: a) Yes
b) If you put the food in a clean pot & you put it on the fire. & you can use their clean cutlery & glasses & dishes.
c) No.
http://www.thestar.com/article/847059--the-dish-falafel-pita-has-more-calories-sodium-than-big-mac
ReplyDelete“It’s a moist, fresh pita and stuffed into it are nice salads with falafel balls and tahini,” he says. “You could fool yourself that it’s a nice, light snack because it has lots of veggies in a light pita. But I’m curious to see how it really stacks up. I probably need a reality check.”
Well, Chris, here it comes.
The nutrition numbers show the falafel pita has more calories, more sodium and the same amount of fat as a Big Mac from McDonalds.
“This pita has 760 calories, while a Big Mac has 540,” says registered dietitian Zannat Reza. “I think that would be a surprise for a lot of people.”
It is a little bit of a shock since we collectively place the Big Mac at the top of the heap of ultimate in bad-for-you foods.
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/58861/gay-jews-have-a-home-in-jewish-life-orthodox-rabbis-say/
ReplyDeleteTropper sent his talmidim to Rabbi Strulowitz's shul who is now considering signing the "orthodox" pro-gay statement. Rabbi Strulowitz is also an associate of Houston's Rabbi Wender from the Shannon Orand fiasco.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
ReplyDelete(JTA) -- Hispanic gunmen allegedly shot a Chasidic man in the stomach in Brooklyn.
Burech Halberstam, 25, a Satmar, lay on a residential street bleeding after two men reportedly got out of a white car and shot him after midnight Tuesday morning in the heavily Satmar Williamsburg section of the New York borough. Halberstam was talking on his cell phone when he was attacked.
One witness told the New York Post that the attackers laughed after shooting Halberstam, whose father is a rabbi at a Williamsburg synagogue.
Halberstam had surgery and remains in the hospital, according to reports. Police officers questioned him about his attackers.
Hopefully Satmar will show up in front of the VHQ office and Elchonon Zohn's house too when they find out about all the yesomim dug up to sell their plots to freye Russians.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/grave-danger-orthodox-jews-clash-rfr-realty-over-israel-ancient-cemetery
The group, organized by the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, has taken issue with RFR Realty's hotel development in Jaffa, Israel, which, the protesters say, has dug into an ancient Jewish graveyard.
Rabbinical Congress spokesman Daniel Green estimated that between 7,500 and 10,000 protesters were present.
Rabbi William Handler had some choice words to share with The Observer. He harshly criticized Aby Rosen, who heads RFR with Michael Fuchs, calling Mr. Rosen "arrogant," "pretentious" and "empty."
Handler said Mr. Rosen "seeks to make money over the bodies of our sacred dead." He said Messrs. Rosen and Fuchs had betrayed the Jewish faith, comparing them to Bernard Madoff and saying they worshiped "gelt, gelt and more gelt."
A graveyard, he said, is considered a "house of the living," because "souls hover there." Citing the Kabbalah, a sacred Jewish text, he said, "If you disturb the rest of those who are buried, there are very serious consequences."
Such as? "Plague, earthquake, sickness, economic tragedy," Mr. Handler said, adding that any Jews who do not protest are implicated in the crime.
It is well known that Rav Abadi has a problem with cutlery by catered events.
ReplyDeleteThe am haaretz here who is trying to fress new food categories with Rav Abadi's help misses the boat as to why the cutlery is a problem. It is not a kashrus problem. It is a tevilas kelim problem.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Allegations-of-Donald-Duck-Molestation-Scary-or-a-Scam-4694
ReplyDeleteIt's irrelevant if one of many accusations against Disney employees are false.
Disney has a long history of hiring pedophiles and other criminals to work at their theme parks and movie studios. Disney has used mafia tactics to silence the victims and their families. Disney bought the ABC News network to kill an expose that was produced on them.
Please check out the article I read at Newsmax.com:
ReplyDelete/Headline/John--Bolton--Iran--Nuclear--israel/2010/08/13/id/367449?s=al
did I forget that the eruv rav of chareidi Poles and Magyars are geirim and maybe not geiri tzedek. Can they go back four generations or is it three to prove they are Jewish?
ReplyDeletePlease, please, pretty please with a cherry on top:
ReplyDeleteUOJ, we want, we need, we must have the whole story on YTV. Ad mosay?
Please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top:
ReplyDelete*
Who gives the hashgocha on the cherry?
The e-mails are about 70% begging me NOT to post the rest of the story. I'm torn -- between getting the story out so the klal understands how much every mossad must have a set of checks and balances, and family and friends who feel the damage outweighs any good this information will reap.
I'm inclined to put it up anyway!
So please be patient, I need to get clarity that I'm absolutely doing the right thing l'tovas haklal, and not c"v farkert.
I understand the olam's right to know, and that weighs heavily on me.
Needless to say, once out, no rosh yeshiva will ever be trusted again, I mean none!
Also...Rav Schorr was my rebbe, played chess with him in the summer months, took the bus to yeshiva together, had Avremel in my bunk in CTV, and spent many a Shabbos at his table...rather than going to Pirchei...
The words I've written are tearing my heart out!
5 Towns Jewish Times publisher Larry Gordon can no longer hold back from showing his true money grubber, baal gayvah & just plain immoral colors now that Weprin is putting large ads in his newspaper.
ReplyDeleteGordon, in his front page personal column, calls Weprin an "outstanding choice" for the frum community "despite" Weprin supporting gay "marriage" and claims that "mainstream orthodox Jews" support Weprin no matter what over a goy (who is against toyavah).
Gordon makes this absurd claim even while acknowledging that 40 rabbonim signed a letter that it is assur to vote for Weprin, which he squirms while trying to spin it as irrelevant.
Weprin's pathetic ad brags how he steered (taxpayer) money to Ohel and Chai Lifeline and that he fought NYC on something he refuses to name because he personally finds it distasteful (metzitzah bapeh). Another thing he doesn't tell you is that he fought banning metztitzah because he takes his orders from his political Rebbe, the pro-gay Sheldon Silver who for fundraising purposes, listens to certain demands from the Chassidishe oylam.
The words I've written are tearing my heart out!
ReplyDeleteThe Malach Hamovies and others are waiting...
From the Malach Hamovies !!
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/49541
ReplyDeleteThis will probably be the funniest part of the Congressional special election in the 9th District.
David Weprin whines to the Jewish Press that frum people are bashing him with "rhetoric" about his pro-gay hashkofos which he says makes them kfuyei tov because he steered so much taxpayer money to Agudah & Ohel.
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2011/08/ny-9-race-pits-jews-against-each-other
Meanwhile, Weprin held a fress-fest at Abigail's restaurant under Chof-K-Gissinger where you had to pay $1000 to get in and $2500 to get your picture taken with him. He was joined by his pro-gay mentor Sheldon Silver and modern orthodox lawyer Ben Brafman who defends every super rich crook & murderer.
What is Weprin's heter to attend an event this coming Tues night at St Barnabas Church in Howard Beach? Is this from his long list of oh I asked a rov but "I disagree" with his position on intermarriage, gay "marriage", etc, being forbidden under halacha?
ReplyDeleteWill the Queens Vaad send Chaim Schwartz running to the church to shake Weprin's hand? Surely they can come up with a hoyroas shaah to keep Weprin steering taxpayer funds to them.
Meanwhile, most or all of the Syrian and Sefardishe rabbonim in Flatbush have issued a psak assering to vote for Weprin:
http://www.communitym.com/article.asp?article_id=101830&article_type=0
These include: Rabbi Auziel Admony, Rabbi Shemuel Ani, Rabbi Haim Benoliel, Rabbi Gad Bouskila, Rabbi Simha Bunim Cohen, Rabbi Rahamim Harary, Rabbi Shelomo Lankry, Rabbi Avraham Levy, Rabbi Yirmi Levy, Rabbi Max Maslaton, Rabbi Isaac Mohadeb, Rabbi David Seruya and Rabbi Yeshayahu Shammah, Aside from the potential federal legislation on the definition of marriage that could come before the next congress, defenders of traditional marriage wish to demonstrate to those officials who supported the controversial New York law their unmistakable displeasure.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/clueless_bond_pro_is_going_to_be_JoG9e5X3QURIC2MHV4BwCJ
And here is the most telling revealation against Weprin yet. CNBC anchor Charlie Gasparino accuses Weprin of being in the middle of a huge scandal when he worked on Wall St of funneling bribes to corrupt politicians to facilitate municipal bond sales.
We also need to know what the story is with Yeruchim "Phil" Goldfeder who is running for NYS Assembly on the Democrat line in the Far Rockaway district. 5 Towns Jewish Times is promoting this guy as if he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's already suspicious when Larry Gordon pulls out all the stops to support someone and I was wondering about his Republican challenger Jane Deacy calling herself the pro-life candidate, laafukei mai?
ReplyDeleteI called his campaign to ask where he stands on toyavah and abortion. The staffer tried to avoid answering me unless I gave my name & phone number. I refused and commented it's interesting that the campaign doesn't have a prepared answer. It seems like he was trying to bashmeck if I am a haymishe Yid or otherwise to tell me what I wanted to hear. I think he suspected I am a frumma and after his teeth were pulled he said that Goldfeder will follow the law on gays even though he would not have voted for it were he there and that he supports "a woman's right to choose" which is the touchy feely way of saying you hold of abortion.
There are rabbonim who have poskened it is assur to vote for pro-abortion candidates, although not as many as assering for pro-gay. Abortion for the umos is more chomur than for us. It is yehurag v'al yaavor for them even when the uber is a rodef. There have been machlokessen behind closed doors at the Agudah over this.
http://brooklyn.ny1.com/content/top_stories/146245/weprin-outpaces-turner-in-race-for-campaign-cash
Here is a video of Goldfeder tagging along with Congressional candidate David Weprin which is an almost daily occurance. But this video is where the pair get endorsed by the radical public school union UFT that is always fighting to stop government subsidized yeshiva tuition. Does that mean that Goldfeder and Weprin are lying when they say they will fight for such subsidies? These guys cannot win the election without UFT pushing every one of their members to go to the polls. What was UFT promised in return as nothing is free in this town?
(Note in this video that Avrohom Biderman is a Bob Turner supporter)
If Goldfeder is a talmid of Rav Perr at Yeshiva of Far Rockaway then why was Larry Gordon's arranged photo op of Goldfeder seeking "spiritual guidance" with Rav Groner, the son of the old Chaim Berlin mashgiach? Would Rav Perr & the elterre Rav Groner ah hold of Goldfeder's hashkofos?
What is Goldfeder's background? He worked for the Schumer & Bloomberg administrations. They are both pro-gay and Schumer lets Obama get away with trouncing Israel.
It was noted weeks ago on his blog that the big party to introduce Goldfeder to the 5 Towns oylam was hosted by someone who was arrested multiple times for theft & fraud.
R' Shraga Feivel got in right in his time.
ReplyDeleteIn our times, R' Yudel Shain and others who attack the corrupt hashgochos deserve to be commended as Rabbonim nichbodim and yechidei segula. So says R' Chaim Oizer Grodzenski & the other gedolim of that dor.
Does anyone remember when the Queens Vaad's Schonfeld attacked the critics of his hashgocho in a magazine that Queens Vaad restaurants were allegedly pressured to pay for? Schonfeld wrote that you never saw manhigei Yisroel making kashrus an important issue to admonish for. "Spotlight" brought raayos to demolish that and the other foolish arguments from Schonfeld.
Over the summer I was going through Achiezer from R' Chaim Oizer (edition with hagohos of R' Shmuel Deutsch) and came across a moyradik shtikel that pulls the rug out from under Queens Vaad and the others.
Chelek 4 (likutim) siman 14: "It always was that our Avos & Rabbonim were moiser nefesh in every dor for shechita and to warn against maacholos assuros because this is of the yesodos HaTorah and the kedusha of klal Yisroel, something that is obligatory on Rabbonim nichbodim and yechidei segula wherever they may be to stand against the breach to prevent issurim and to be mamshich taharas ukedushas Yisroel"
The following gedolim added their signatures to R' Chaim Oizer's giluy daas:
R' Henoch Eigish, the baal Marcheshes
R' Shimon Shkop
R' Boruch Ber (Kaminetz)
R' Elchonon Wasserman
R' Avrohom Kamai (Mir)
The Brisker Rov
R' Menachem Ziemba (Ger)
And seven other rabbonim on the Vaad Harabbonim of Warsaw.
http://theantitzemach.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post_17.html
ReplyDeleteWhy are the comments sections deactivated on most other pages?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.inkonthis.com/uploads/files/k/md/kosher_1mss1we.jpg
ReplyDeleteBusiness as usual at the Queens Vaad.
And how many of them protect child molesters?
ReplyDeleteOhel's David Mandel - $400+K
Star K's Moe Heinemann - $500+K
Etc
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/When-will-US-Jews-confront-sexual-harassment-and-other-abuses-of-power-519845
Something is very wrong in the Jewish community when the head of an organization can orchestrate changes in the group’s bylaws to eliminate term limits and thereby entrench his power, or increase his own salary or other material benefits.
Anyone who has spent time among the leaders of US Jewish or Zionist organizations knows that more than a few of them harbor a deep-seated sense of entitlement. Some see themselves virtually as presidents- for-life, much in the spirit of Third World tinhorn dictators.
Many of them apparently also believe that they are entitled to wildly exorbitant salaries. According to The Forward’s recently-published annual list of Jewish leaders’ earnings, the top 30 are earning between $409,000 and $818,000 annually. The next 10 on the list are earning at least $308,000. And that doesn’t include the many extra perks.
Compare those figures to the salaries of, say, teachers in Jewish private schools. It says something about a community’s values and priorities if those who spend their time making bombastic speeches and issuing verbose press releases are being paid 10 times as much as those who teach our children. The average salary for all private school teachers in the United States is just $47,000; and many Jewish day school teachers make far less than that.
Sexual harassment, perpetual one-man control, sky’s-the-limit salaries – is there is a common denominator in all these abuses of power? If so, perhaps it is the sense of entitlement, and the lack of accountability, that is all too pervasive among some American Jewish and Zionist leaders. Entitled to keep their jobs as long as they want. Entitled to take whatever level of salary they choose, rubber-stamped by their handpicked board members. Entitled to treat their staff members however they fancy, confident that those who fear being fired will never expose them.
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/stream/OhelsHistoryOfCoveringUpChildAbuseInTheJewishCommunity/OhelsCoverups-Lipner_djvu.txt