January 11, 2009. Day 16 of the War in the South
Bet Shemesh, Israel.
Our Guest Ariel...
Today I met with Ariel Yered. He's nine years old this week. He was sitting in a class of enthusiastic kids from Shomria, now relocated to the Ramat Bet Shemesh Community Center. He's a small blonde kid, frail looking, with glasses. There's a teacher at the front of the class, and another teacher with Ariel, sitting by his side.
The international media barely mentions that Hamas has been firing mortars, rockets and missiles at Israeli civilians for "eight years". That eight year barrage started with Ariel.
On April 3rd, 2001: Ariel - then a 15-month-old baby boy - was severely wounded in his head and spinal column from the shrapnel of a 3 inch mortar shell that, without warning, landed and exploded at his side outside his home in Atzmona. By a miracle, that shell missed a pile of inflammable gas-containers by just 5 meters (Ariel was half a meter from the gas!)
Ariel lay in critical condition for weeks, while thousands prayed for his life. Innovative operations were performed, including removing a portion of his skull and replacing it with a special helmet; the doctors returned the bone two and half years later. Ariel's condition improved with time, dramatically.
On August 15th 2005, Ariel was forcibly evacuated with his family from his home, along with 600 neighbors in Atzmona, and 8000 other residents of Gush Katif, as part of the Israeli Government's disengagement plan. He spent half a year in "City of Faith", a makeshift refugee camp, near Netivot, until they moved to temporary prefabricated homes "Caravillas" in Shomreia.
Lema'an Achai was there for the Yered family and helped them to establish a kindergarten in the "City of Faith" - they are grateful to this day.
This week, Ariel Yered was again within range of "Grad" missiles from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Ironically, many of the missiles are being launched from the ruins of Gush Katif, including his old home village of Atzmona. Like most ex-Gush Katif residents, Ariel Yered's temporary flimsy house has no protected room, and no bomb shelter within sprinting distance. His school was closed down by the Home Front Command; the school therefore accepted Bet Shemesh's offer to host them - the whole school.
Ariel's school is just one of many schools and yeshivot which have relocated from the rockets and missiles in the south, to Bet Shemesh. (located 45km from Gaza - just beyond the 40km range of Hamas missiles!)
When I saw him today, courageous, young Ariel, who has experienced more horror than any human should, was all smiles, and asked me to thank everyone who has helped bring him and his classmates out of the line-of-fire, to take refuge with us here in Bet Shemesh, with Lema'an Achai.
"Many many thanks" - from Ariel.
(Thanks also to Ariel's father Yossi Yered for explaining the details of this story to me.)
WHAT LEMA'AN ACHAI IS DOING FOR THE SOUTH
Lema'an Achai is spearheading the Bet Shemesh War Relief Program, in alliance with the Municipality, the community centers, schools, many charities and an 'army' of amazing volunteers.
KIDS: As it is during the school year, and all schools and yeshivas have now been closed down in the south by law, there is a big demand for school groups to relocate in Bet Shemesh. Groups have arrived from Ashdod, Kireat Gat, Sderot, Shomreiya, Netivot, and others...
Around a thousand kids!
These groups have come by organized buses, complete with teaching staff, and are being housed in various Bet Shemesh community centers and schools. They arrive each morning, and go home after school hours. More are due to come.
When I compare it with the the refugee-camp environment of our relief programs for the Northerners in 2006, the overwhelming feeling is that everything here is 'under control' with these kids. They are good kids, well cared for by their regular teachers and staff.
Their needs today are for catered food (they bring sandwiches from home, but need this supplemented for a long day), for activities/games during the breaks, and for recreational outings.
FAMILIES: At this point, families are moving from the South to Bet Shemesh in a sporadic fashion (this contrasts with the organized groups of families who came down from the North to Bet Shemesh in the last war).
These families are being matched up with host families by the Bet Shemesh Municipality and by Ezrat Achim. As of today, the supply and demand is balanced (actually more willing hosts than families).
Some hosts would find it helpful to have extra food - so we are looking to establish cooked food collection points for host families (we did this last time very effectively). We are also looking at setting up family-to-family hostings for shabbat/weekend - a major community wide project - if there is enough demand for this.
STUFF FOR THE SOUTH: Bet Shemesh Community Centers are continuing to collect useful items to deliver to the South. Toys, books, heaters, blankets, are all welcome.
FUTURE: Nobody knows how long this war will last, nor the nature of the imminent needs of our brothers and sisters just a few minutes drive south of us. Or even if we, ourselves, may require help; as just an extra half-liter of rocket fuel would put Bet Shemesh in range.
We are prepared and preparing for all contingencies.
Please donate today www.IsraelWar.org , and encourage your relatives, friends and communities to do the same - because we are able to keep 9 year old hero, Ariel Yered, and another thousand school children, safely out of missile range, ONLY because of our generous donors.
We ask that you also spare a moment, to pray for the successful mission, and the safe return, of all our brave soldiers.
Besorot tovot - we should hear only good news!
More Ways to Donate:
USA Tax Deductible: "US Friends of Lema'an Achai", PO Box 532, Oceanside, NY 11572-0532, USA.
UK Tax Deductible: "British Friends of Lema'an Achai", c/o Nava Kestenbaum, 96 Rigby Street, Salford, Manchester, M7 4BQ, ENGLAND.
Canadian Tax Deductible: "Shaarei Tefilla Charity Fund", C/O Murray Shore, 31 Marwill Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3H 3L2, CANADA.
Israel Tax Deductible: "Lema'an Achai", The Lema'an Achai Center, 40/7 Nahal Lachish, Ramat Bet Shemesh, 99093, Israel.
By Phone 24/6 Donations Hotline (Hebrew): 02 99.999.33
To Volunteer Locally: Hotline Ezrat Achim: 02 9999822
Bet Shemesh Municipal Hotline: (Ms Shula Erev): 02 9909845
In the happy event that the war finishes, and any funds remain, they will solely be used for helping families in desperate need.
David Morris, Chairman
Rabbi Avrohom Leventhal, Executive Director
Lema'an Achai - It's All About Caring
www.lemaanachai.org
david@lemaanachai.org
Direct Tel: +972 2 9997107
Office: +972 2 9991553
Fax: +972 2 9992398
40/7 Nahal Lachish
Ramat Beit Shemesh,
99093 Israel.
Please pray for the injured soldiers!
YAAKOV YISRAEL BEN YARDENA - Shrapnel from bomb went through his neck.
HOSHEA BEN MIRIAM - serious
DVIR BEN LEAH - serious
RAFI BEN DINA - serious
NOAM BEN ALIZA - one leg amputated, doctors fighting to save the second
LI'EL HOSHEA BEN MIRIAM - serious head injury
NERIYA BEN RIVKA - serious head injury
YITZCHAK BEN NAVA - moderate shoulder injury
NETANEL BEN NAVA - moderate shrapnel wounds
"Ma'ayin yavo ezri - Ezri ma'im Hashem"
66 comments:
This is an incredibly moving story...
Kol Hakavod to Lema'an Achai; and especially to Rav Chaim Soloveichik, Lema'an Achai's founder & possek, who is one of too few Rabbonim who have taken a firm stand against child molesting.
Well done Lema'an Achai! Well done Rav Soloveichik!!
All Jews should be Proud!
Why aren't there more organizations like Lemaán Achai?
They assist people on the highest level, address issues in the frum community that no one else will and always take the moral high ground.
I urge everyone to support this worthy organization with as much (and perhaps even more) as they are able!
An open letter to Annie Lennox
By YORAM DORI
I cannot claim that I am familiar with music in general, and with British music in particular. Therefore, regretfully I must note at the outset of my letter that until two days ago, I did not exactly know who you are.
When I saw the fervor with which you demonstrated at the anti-Israeli demonstration in London and your interviews in which you slandered my people and my country in their efforts to defend the lives of our citizens in the southern part of our nation, I decided to write to tell a short story about what is happening in our country.
No, I do not intend to recall the efforts of your government during World War II to prevent Jews - the brands snatched from the fire - to reach their homeland, Israel. I have not come to settle the account of my father who, fleeing from Austria when the Nazis entered that country, was caught at sea by a British destroyer and who, with great initiative, threw all his documents into the sea and thereby foiled their intention to send him back to the killing fields. To be fair, I'll not salute your people for the Balfour Declaration, although you deserve it.
I ONLY want to introduce to you to a sweet Israeli child, joyful and full of life, whom I got to know when I accompanied President Shimon Peres on a visit several days after his having been injured.
Let me introduce you to Osher Tewito - an eight-year-old child, like any other child, British, French or Palestinian. He lives in Sderot, a small town in the south of the country. Osher, like most children his age, is a fervent soccer fan. Although I did not visit his home, I assume that photographs of David Beckham, John Terry or Wayne Rooney hang on the wall of his room, and his life's dream, surely, is to meet one of these stars in person. I learned that Osher was good at playing soccer (sometimes - as children go - he preferred it to lessons) and that he had an even greater dream in his heart: to become at least like Yossi Benayoun from Dimona, who stars for Liverpool.
The life of Osher Tewito changed in a day. It was the 45th birthday of his father Rafi. Like every good child, Osher went with his older brother, Rami, to buy a gift for their dad. Rami and Osher, who discovered on their way to withdraw money from the bank that they had forgotten their credit card at home, returned to get it, and on their way back their world was shattered. Suddenly from nowhere and for no reason, a Kassam rocket exploded near them. Osher was severely wounded and Rami was also wounded, but less severely. Osher, the soccer player and fan, lost his left leg and his right one was severely injured.
You can understand the significance of losing a leg, in general, and for a boy who plays soccer in particular. By the way, the psychological harm is no less than the physical, which is in itself difficult - we Israelis are no different than anyone else in that regard, though you might have thought otherwise.
OSHER IS undergoing a long and painful rehabilitation. We are all hoping that we will see him run and scamper again in youthful exuberance. The surgeon who operated on him is optimistic and, immediately after the operation, said to Osher: "The day is not far off when we will see you again on the green soccer field." In the meantime, Osher has moved with his family from Sderot to another town 40 kilometers away from the border. (We are, after all, a small country and 40 km. is almost the center of the country.) There, he is undergoing the rehabilitation process, distanced - so he thought - from the shelling, and far from Hamas.
But that turned out not to be the case. During the past two weeks Hamas decided that it was not interested in continuing the quiet along the border and opened fire with Grad missiles on a million Israeli citizens.
For your information, there are civilians also in Israel. There are women and there are children. Not all are soldiers. Osher's new town has also absorbed indiscriminate firing. A Katyusha rocket hit a kindergarten. Fortunately we had evacuated the children in time. Another hit a school. Osher, with an amputated leg, now has 15 seconds to reach a shelter. A little complicated, don't you think, Annie?
And the child asks, as one of your songs is titled: "Why?"
By the way, although I do not wish to go into politics but only to deal with the human angle, it would nevertheless be worthwhile to remind you that Israel left Gaza, withdrew all its soldiers from there, dismantled its settlements, and left the vegetable and fruit hothouses from which they made their livelihood. At the same time, we provided and continue to provide electricity and water to the residents of Gaza.
What have we received in return?
A rocket on Osher Twito.
The writer is a senior adviser to President Shimon Peres.
To Annie Lennox, from Sderot
January 3, 2009 by forecasthighs
[Singer Annie Lennox has joined high-profile campaigners to call for an end to Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip.]
Here’s some imaginary fan mail from Sderot:
Dear Annie,
We’re huge fans of yours down here in Sderot; you’re a talented musician, and so beautiful - when are you coming to visit us? We heard you called the latest violence on Hamas in Gaza “a pornography of violence”.
Have you seen the mini-series of constant rocket attacks on Sderot called “Endless Terror”? It’s into its 8th season.
We love your music, especially this song:
The sun’s still shining in the big blue sky
But it don’t mean nothing to me
Oh let the rain come down
Let the wind blow through me
I’m living in an empty room
With all the windows smashed
And I’ve got so little left to lose
That it feels just like I’m walking on broken glass
And if you’re trying to cut me down
You know that I might bleed
Cause if you’re trying to cut me down
I know that you’ll succeed
And if you want to hurt me
There’s nothing left to fear
Cause if you want to hurt me
You’re doing really well my dear
Now everyone of us was made to suffer
Everyone of us was made to weep
But we’ve been hurting one another
And now the pain has cut too deep…
So take me from the wreckage
Save me from the blast
Lift me up and take me back
Don’t let me keep on walking…
Walking on broken glass
Over at Rabbi Horowitz', the Gerorists are attacking the good rabbi about Mondrowitz. They are also attacking Sheree Belsky for mentioning their admorim's covering up for him, and for allegedly posting on Shabbos. Here is one of the Gerorist agent's post and my response:
37. Open Letter to Rav Horowitz: Re.Comment No. 15 1/11/09 - 5:54 PM
Rav
Regarding the outrageous Comment No. 15 above
the Gerer Rebbes both here and in E"Y and the chasidim are protecting the monster Mondrowitz
Our investigation indicates that it was posted by a Jewish woman on Shabbos. Accordingly, it is Chilul Shabbos BeFarhesia (public desecration of the Sabbath), which CHAZAL (the Rabbis of the Talmud) equated with Avodah Zarah (idol worship) R"L.
The content itself is obviously Hotzaas Shem Ra Al Gedolei Yisroel (malicious libel of leading Torah scholars), R"L.
This abomination has been viewed by hundreds of good Jews in the 24 hours since the end of Shabbos.
Why was it allowed to appear here?
Why was it not removed immediately after Shabbos?
Unless you make major changes to rectify the situation, I join my Rabbinical colleague (above) in sincerely recommending that you abandon the Internet.
If I were you, I would temble and be scared of Din VeCheshbon to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for these major transgressions!
39. 1/11/09 - 7:01 PM
steve
#37, Baruch Hashem I am not you and hopefully not too many other Jews are like you. We are dealing with a plague where thousands of our children have been and continue to be victimized by these sick monsters, and all you can think about is a woman that may have posted a comment on Shabbos? How dare you chastise Rabbi Horowitz who has worked selflessly and tirelessly for the sake of our children? What have you ever accomplished in your pathetic existence that you can come here and malign the good rabbi who at least has a heart? Who at least cares about what has happened to these innocent neshamos, while your "holy" admorim have worked tirelessly to try and protect the Mondrowitzes of the world? You remind me of the Hamodia (the Ger version of Al Jazeera), which refuses to mention anything about this plague (the number one cause for kids at risk), but jumps to attack an IDF rabbi for riding in a jeep on Shabbos to help a neighhboring town hit by Hamas rockets! You and your cohorts are as much of the problem as Mondrowitz and the child molesters. You need to have your head examined, or your heart, because you obviously don't have one. How can you sleep at night knowing what is happening to little Jewish children on a daily basis? I can tell you that I haven't slept peacefully in over two years since the Kolko case was exposed. I will not rest until this plague has been eradicated and until Rabbi Horowitz and the good people who do have a heart, win this war against these child molesters and enablers. AND THIS WAR WILL BE WON, BEEZRAS HASHEM!
I heard that a 24 yr old Boro Parker that acted as a broker for Madoff was killed last week while visiting Australia.
In what appears to be a mafia hit, there was reportedly not much left of the body for kevurah.
The niftar's name is Safran though I'm not sure of the exact spelling.
How Do I Explain Israel's Actions in Gaza?
By Aron Moss
Question:
I am the only Jew in my office, so I face a daily barrage of questions about Israel's actions in Gaza. I don't know who appointed me as Israel's spokesman and I am not armed with the answers. Can you help?
Answer:
At times like this, each one of us becomes an ambassador for Israel. Even if you don't agree with everything Israel does, any decent person must stand up for Israel's right to self-defense.
We can leave the military and political issues to the experts, but we should all be clear on the moral questions raised by this war. Let's look at a few of the most commonly asked questions.
Q: How can Israel justify killing civilians if their intent is to crush Hamas?
A: The death of innocents is a tragic inevitability of war. Our hearts go out to all those caught in the middle. The sad fact is that the Palestinian people are being held hostage by Hamas. Just as it is clear that Hamas is morally culpable for any harm done to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli hostage that they hold, so too are they culpable for the fate of Palestinian innocents amongst whom they hide. A civilian who is killed while being used by a terrorist as a human shield is a victim of the terrorist, not the Israeli army, who does not target innocent civilians.
Q: Isn't Israel's response a bit disproportionate?
A: If Israel's purpose was to take revenge, then perhaps the question of "proportion" would apply here. But Israel is waging a defensive war. In war, you don't measure your response to the enemy by what they have done to you in the past, but rather by what needs to be done to stop them from attacking you. Israel must destroy Hamas' capability to continue shooting rockets at Israeli cities. Israel's actions are proportionate to the present and future threat, not just the damage done in the past.
Q: Doesn't Israel understand that they are just creating more terrorists? The anger and fury at Israel as a result of bombing Gaza will only make more people want to join Hamas.
A: Feelings of frustration, anger, fear and rage do not make you into a terrorist. A culture of death and an education of hate does. Israel doesn't need to do anything to create terrorists - Islamic extremism does that - but Israel must act to destroy those who threaten its people.
Q: Hamas indeed has a militant wing, but it also does a lot of good. They are responsible for social programs, educational projects and humanitarian work in Gaza. By destroying Hamas, Israel also destroys all the good they do. Aren't we demonizing a group that is not all bad?
A: If a serial killer also happens to volunteer for his local hospital, has donated money to an orphanage, and looks after his ailing grandmother, he is still a serial killer, and he and the threat he represents must be treated as such. The danger he poses far outweighs the concern for any good he may do.
Q: By using violence, how is Israel any better than its terrorist enemies?
A: That is as ridiculous as saying that a woman who fights off an attacker is no better than her attacker. Israel would not touch Hamas if Hamas would stop sending rockets and suicide bombers into Israel. Israel seeks to live in peace with its neighbors; Hamas and its allies seek to destroy Israel, no matter what Israel does.
There is a world of difference between the Hamas terrorists and the Israeli soldiers. The Hamas terrorist seeks violence as a way of life; his aim is to sow war and death. For the Israeli soldier, war is a necessity, and a moral duty, because Israel's citizens are being attacked and innocent lives are being threatened. The Hamas terrorist seeks to maximize civilian casualties; the Israeli soldier does everything in his power to minimize them.
The Hamas terrorist fears times of peace, because then he has no purpose. The Israeli soldier dreams of a time when peace will reign. Then, the Israel Defense Force will be made joyously redundant, as "one nation will not lift a sword against another nation, and they will no longer learn to wage war".
Wishing for only good news
My friend has asked that we all say Tehillim for her brother who is in the ICU due to an as of yet unknown cause. The doctors are not hopeful but as Jews we don't ever give up.
Eliyahu Chaim ben Rena
Sheree's response to the Gerrorists:
42. What would the Sanderin Say? 1/11/09 - 9:04 PM
Sherree
To "Warning and #37/41". How can YOU call yourselves Frum, Torah abiding Jews and be motzi Shem Rah on me? How can you possibly even think that I would be mechalel Shabbos and post on Shabbos? SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!! What investigation, what an outright lie!!!!! You should all be ashamed of yourselves and ashamed of making up such a lie instead of caring about the childen/victims/and survivors of abuse.
The reason that Rabbi Horowitz is not answering you is because he knows that YOU are perpertrating a HUGE CHILUL HASHEM as he knows I am in MIAMI and Shabbos starts one hour later here than in New York. But YOU are so narrow minded and judgmental that YOU have to promote a lie, an evil viscious lie and be motzi shem rah to promote your own threatening and horrific agenda. SHAME ON ALL OF YOU!!! YOU OWE ME A PUBLIC APOLOGY.
As for what I said, how was that foul mouthed? I did not say one bad word, what I said was that I didn't understand how the Rebbe did not put Mondrowitz in Cherim? Why was that "foul mouthed"? Why do you make that such a big issue? chassidim have been put in cherim for much lesser crimes.
I have spent Shabbos reading a book about the beloved Rav, Rav Avraham Hakohen Pam z"tl. One of the most gentle and loving Jews and Roshei Yeshivas and Rebbeim of our time. If only every one of you had the zchus to have spent some time in his presence you would act differently, your priorities would be different and you would appreciate yiddishe neshomas on a different level. And you would understand clearly and without a doubt what a true Gadol and Rav really is. These were the Rabbonim that I grew up with. These are the Rabbonim that I looked up to. These are the Rabbonim that we are missing today!!!!
One more thing, even if YOU don't want to post YOUR name, if YOU are speaking as a messenger for YOUR RAV, who is insisting that RYH, do something, you are obligated to reveal who YOUR RAV is
UOJ,
Check this out from VIN !
I know that you have lots of stuff on your plate. But you must do something about this!!
Imagine yeshiva bachurim on a flight for only men and 5-6 perverts are on the plane with them. Hashem Yishmor !!! There is obviously no way that they can get off the plane. A good part of the flight is in the dark. Many bachurim WILL be molested (not mentioning the many lawsuits against EL AL).
This is a disaster waiting to happen !! Please help !!
Tel Aviv - Will El Al shortly start operating glatt kosher flights? Haredi (ultra-orthodox) travel wholesalers are in talks with El Al to buy flights from Israel to New York reserved exclusively for the haredi community. If they take place, the flights will operate over the Passover and other holiday periods, and conditions on board will be adapted to suit the community's modesty requirements.
For several years, El Al has been selling designated flights to Kiev to the haredi public. On these flights, on which all seats are sold in advance by haredi travel wholesalers, there is total seggregation of the sexes, no films are screened, the food served is kosher to an extremely strict standard, and there are no women among the flight attendants.
El Al CEO Haim Romano told "Globes" today that if the haredi wholesalers undertake to buy all the seats on the flights, El Al will respond positively to the request.
Advertisement:
"Just as in the past we sold a flight to Japan to the Bank Leumi workers' committee and met their request for special service on the flight, so we will act in this case. As far as we are concerned, there is no problem in meeting the conditions set by the sector as long as they are reasonable," Romano said.
"Nor do we have any problem in the wholesalers determining seating arrangements on the aircraft to suit the requirements of modesty, but I must emphasize that if there is even a single non-religious person on the flight who demands regular service, El Al will meet that demand, and the flight will become a regular flight in all respects," he continued.
"We sell the flight at full price, so I presume that the ticket prices will also be normal, unless someone in that community intends selling them at reduced prices and absorbing the difference at his own expense."
Why Gaza? Here's why.
http://www.israel-wat.com/pps/israeli-children.pps
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/panel-for-hebrew-charter-school-advances/
January 12, 2009, 4:38 pm
Panel for Hebrew Charter School Advances
By Elissa Gootman
A proposal to create the city’s first Hebrew-language charter school has just been approved by a committee of the New York State Board of Regents. If the full board ratifies the committee’s decision on Tuesday, as is widely expected, the school would open in Brooklyn’s District 22 this fall.
The school, to be called the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, would begin with 150 kindergartners and first graders, and is designed to eventually serve 675 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Students would be chosen by lottery, with preference for residents of the district, which includes the Sheepshead Bay, Mill Basin and Midwood neighborhoods.
Charter schools are publicly financed but independently operated, and this one is being backed by philanthropists including Michael H. Steinhardt, a retired hedge-fund manager who has given tens of millions of dollars in recent years to programs dedicated to boosting Jewish identity among young people. Sara Berman, Mr. Steinhardt’s daughter and a former parenting columnist for The New York Sun, is the charter school’s lead applicant.
At Monday’s meeting, eight Regents voted in favor of the proposal, one abstained and one, Saul B. Cohen, a Regent from Westchester County, voted against it, suggesting the proposal be sent back for further clarifications.
Mr. Cohen questioned whether a Hebrew-language school was truly needed in a district that is relatively high-performing, and whether a broad swath of students in the district, which is predominantly black, Hispanic and Asian would be interested in learning Hebrew. (The district also includes neighborhoods with large numbers of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Israel.)
“It’s a way of getting a good private school with public funds,” Dr. Cohen said.
The school’s planners have taken pains to assure state officials that it would not cross the church-state divide, and are in negotiations with a candidate for principal who is not Jewish but who has experience in dual-language education.
The Hebrew charter, which the city Education Department approved in October, is being planned nearly two years after protests engulfed the city’s first public school dedicated to the Arabic language and culture. That school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, is not a charter; it is run by the city’s Education Department.
There is a little boy 1 1/2 who is clinging to life. Please say tefillot. His name is Aharon Raziel David Ben Aliza.
Moishele neshomele-Lipa S.
http://www.mahnishmah.com/system/scripts/modules/admin/pages/show_page.cgi?p=6613
http://www.nbc13.com/vtm/news/local/article/missing_indiana_pilot_faces_lawsuits_divorce_and_fraud_investigation/54343/
Photo of 38- year-old financial planner Marcus Schrenker.
Schrenker operates a private wealth management investment group called Icon Wealth Management Inc. or “Icon Group” located in Indianapolis, Indiana.
An Indiana pilot who authorities say jumped out of a private small airplane while flying over Alabama also faces lawsuits filed in Indiana and Maryland, a pending divorce from his wife and is being investigated for securities fraud by the Indiana Secretary of State Office according to a report from NBC 13 HD’s Indianapolis sister station WTHR-TV.
Authorities in Childersburg, Alabama believe 38-year-old Marcus “Marc” Schrenker, parachuted out of a plane that flew over Alabama and later crashed in a Florida swamp Sunday night.
Childersburg Police tell NBC 13 HD News that a man approached an officer saying that he was involved in a canoeing accident. Officers drove Schrenker to the Harpersville Motel where investigators say he checked in under a different name and then later fled.
NBC 13 HD News background research on the Indiana pilot reveals that Marcus Schrenker is a 38- year-old financial planner. Schrenker operates an Indianapolis located private wealth management investment group called Icon Wealth Management Inc. or “Icon Group”.
Schrenker is also a previous owner of the now closed Heritage Wealth Management which is also a private company in Indianapolis.
According to NBC 13 HD’s sister station WTHR-TV, The Indiana Secretary of State Office is investigating Schrenker’s investment company “Icon Group” for securities fraud.
As for pending lawsuits NBC 13 HD News found one Indiana and one Maryland lawsuit against Schrenker’s old company, Heritage Wealth Management. The Maryland lawsuit was filed by OM Financial Life Company of Baltimore and states that the company seeks more than $230,000 from Schrenker for “Unjust Enrichment”. In the latest lawsuit, Kansas Company Creative Marketing International is suing Schrenker for “Breech of Contract “and losses incurred from doing business with Schrenker.
Additional notes on Schrenker’s life according to WTHR-TV; Schrenker is currently going through a divorce. Divorce filings were entered in Indiana court records on January 6, 2009. Schrenker is believed to have military experience and is trained in special operations. Schrenker’s “YouTube” internet website indicates that he is an avid acrobatic pilot.
Did UOJ force the departure of that useless putz Robert Rubin from Citigroup? He got in there because he was one of Clinton's boys and made over $100 million by while driving the bank into the ground.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/09/banking-citigroup-rubin-biz-wall-cx_lm_0109rubin.html
Citigroup: Bye Bye, Bob
Liz Moyer, 01.09.09, 04:05 PM EST
Robert Rubin will leave the megabank behind after a tumultuous decade.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2009/01/report_financial_adviser_tried.html
An Indiana financial adviser who authorities say faked his own death by parachuting out of his plane as it crashed into a swampy area of north Florida is missing again.
Police are combing the woods of Alabama looking for 38-year-old Marcus Shrenker, an Indianapolis pilot and president of Heritage Wealth Management who went missing Sunday after his single-engine Piper Malibu crashed.
Shrenker had been dogged in recent weeks by a host of personal and legal problems; insurance regulators are investigating Schrenker for allegedly misappropriating clients' money, a federal court in Maryland had recently ordered him to pay $533,000 to a life-insurance company for "unearned commissions" and last month an insurance firm filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Indianapolis, claiming Schrenker owes more than $1.4 million.
His wife, Michelle, also filed for divorce just before New Year's Day.
Late Sunday, Schrenker had issued a distress call as his Destin, Fla.-bound plane flew near Birmingham, Ala. Military jets were called in to help as Schrenker told air-traffic controllers that the plane's windshield had "imploded" and that he was bleeding. The six-seater crashed moments later.
Authorities examined the crash site and presumed Schrenker was dead.
But on Monday, a visibly wet Shrenker, wearing goggles made for "flying," was spotted by a police officer in Childersburg, Ala. He allegedly told the officer that he had been in a canoeing accident with some friends and handed the officer his driver's license before being taken to a nearby hotel.
After discovering who he was, police went back to the hotel to find Schrenker missing. He had checked in under a fake name, paid in cash and fled into the nearby woods wearing a black toboggan cap.
Schrenker has been described as an accomplished pilot with a knowledge of getting through tight situations; He was hired as a consultant for a news series about airport security by WTHR-TV, an NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, after the Sept. 11 attacks, demonstrating security lapses at the facility using hidden cameras.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtM5QBS-5rw
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/obama-to-select-genachowski-to-lead-fcc/?hp
January 13, 2009, 8:59 am
Obama to Select Genachowski to Lead F.C.C.
By Stephen Labaton
President-elect Barack Obama intends to nominate Julius Genachowski , an adviser on technology issues and longtime friend, to become the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, advisers to Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Genachowski, 46, was a major fund-raiser for the Obama campaign who also played a leading role in the campaign’s highly successful online strategy.
Bob Rubin is not alone. Forces in the govt are now pressuring Citi to force out Chairman Wim Bischoff.
What doesn't make sense to me however is that they want to replace him with "Buckwheat" Parsons who is the biggest supporter of another Citi loser, CEO Vikram Pandit.
At least he didn't stage a "break in" of his office on Shabbos.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/13/missing.pilot/
(CNN) -- An Indiana financial manager who apparently tried to fake his death by crashing his airplane left on a motorcycle he had stashed in his parachute landing zone, authorities said Tuesday.
Marcus Schrenker fled Harpersville, Alabama, on a red motorcycle he kept at a storage unit leased under an assumed name, officials said.
Schrenker told the leasing agent at the storage facility that he would be back for the motorcycle Monday, the U.S. Marshals Office said.
The motorcycle -- a 2008 Yamaha street bike with saddlebags -- was brought to the storage unit by someone in a brown pickup and trailer, the Marshals Office said.
When authorities searched the unit late Monday night, the motorcycle was gone, and some damp clothes had been left on the floor, the Marshals Office said.
The Time Clock Has Run Out: Israel Ready to Strike Iran
Monday, January 12, 2009 3:56 PM
By: Jim Meyers
Informed sources in Washington tell Newsmax that Israel indeed will launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities soon – possibly in just days as President George W. Bush prepares to leave office.
The reason: The time clock has begun to run out. Iran is close to acquiring a nuclear device under the control of its radical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in June that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in as little as six months.
That six-month period has passed.
Reports of Israel’s decision to imminently launch strikes, although unconfirmed, would seem to contradict the Bush stance outlined in a front-page New York Times story last week, which asserted that Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran’s main nuclear complex.
The Times said Israel was rebuffed after it requested from the U.S. specialized bunker-busting bombs that it needs to attack Iran’s nuclear complex at Natanz. The U.S. also reportedly nixed permission to the Israeli warplanes to fly over Iraqi territory to reach Iran.
Israel’s requests to the U.S. for military assistance came as the Jewish state was reportedly angry over a U.S. intelligence assessment in late 2007 that concluded Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons.
But an investigative report circulated by IAEA chief ElBaradei late last year disclosed that Iran was continuing to carry out uranium enrichment and had already established 6,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium, of which 3,800 were then in operation.
American intelligence officials now estimate that the figure is 4,000 to 5,000 centrifuges, enough to produce about one weapon’s worth of uranium every eight months or so, according to the Times.
The IAEA report estimated that Iran has obtained two tons of enriched uranium since its enrichment program was restarted at Natanz two years ago.
Last year 100 Israeli jets took part in an exercise over the eastern Mediterranean that was interpreted as a dress rehearsal for a possible attack on Iran.
And on Sept. 6 Israel launched an air attack against a site in Syria believed to be a nuclear-related facility containing material delivered by North Korea.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton predicted that Israel would stage a raid against Iran's nuclear facilities if Barack Obama won the presidential election.
Bolton stated that he believed the Israeli attack would take place sometime between the day after Obama's win and his inauguration on January 20.
In an interview with FOX News, Bolton reasoned that Israel wouldn’t be able to hold off a strike on Iran any longer than that given Obama’s more conciliatory approach to Iran.
The Israeli government “would have to make a judgment whether to [strike] during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor,” Bolton added.
William Perry, U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, said that Obama would face a major crisis in his first few months in office over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Perry, speaking at a foreign policy conference on Jan. 8, said that Iran is "moving inexorably toward becoming a nuclear power" and “it seems clear that Israel will not sit by idle while Iran takes the final steps toward becoming a nuclear power."
And former CIA officer Robert Baer, author of the new book “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower,” told Newsmax in October that Iran was at that time probably months, if not weeks, away from war with Israel.
The repercussions of an Israeli attack are not clear.
Though Arab states remain openly hostile to Israel, many who belong to the Sunni branch of Islam fear the rise of a nuclear Iran, a nation dominated by Shiite imams. Gulf states like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been quietly pressing the U.S. to take action against Iran – and may secretly root for an Israeli attack.
But Iran, even without nuclear weapons, is a regional power. If attacked, they are likely to press proxy terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to launch offensives against Israel and possibly the U.S.
Iran has warned in the past that it would launch a “missile blitz” against Gulf states if it is attacked.
And last July a senior Iranian official said the Islamic Republic would destroy Israel and 32 U.S. military bases in the Middle East if Iran is attacked over its nuclear program.
“Israel and 32 U.S. military bases in the region would not be out of the reach of our missiles and would be destroyed," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Mojtaba Zolnour as saying in a speech.
Zolnour is the deputy of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
Even more ominously, Iran has reportedly carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the U.S.
U.S. Economy on Brink of Disaster
Monday, January 12, 2009 11:02 AM
By: Arnaud de Borchgrave
When "IOUSA" made its documentary film debut last August, it soon earned the sobriquet "fiscal wake-up tour."
Its unrelenting gloom toted up a $9 trillion federal debt, a $738.6 billion trade deficit, and the news that each U.S. citizen now owes $30,000.
But all the stats are already hopelessly out of date, as evidenced by CNN's two-hour Saturday update of "IOUSA," repeated on Sunday, starring Dave Walker, president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and former U.S. comptroller general under three presidents; Pete Peterson, chairman of the Blackstone Group, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and former chairman and CEO of Lehman Bros.; Bill Bradley, former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate; and Alice Rivlin, former director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The all-star cast was supplemented by cameos by Warren Buffett; two former Federal Reserve chairmen, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan; and two former treasury secretaries, Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin.
On the short list for an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary, "IOUSA" revisited by CNN's Ali Velshi and Christine Romans, co-anchors of "Your Money," piled on with stats that put the United States among the world's failing nations as it plunges into another Great Depression.
Global forces now can override most anything that monetary and fiscal policy can do, said Alan Greenspan, "and central banks have increasingly lost their capacity to influence the longer end of the market."
Fiscal irresponsibility is now a calamitous cycle that poses a bigger threat than al-Qaida and its plans to attack the United States with a weapon of mass destruction.
David Walker, the Paul Revere of a total economic and financial collapse on the present course, says the United States has a fiscal cancer "that is growing within us." And "if not treated, it will be catastrophic for our country."
Cliches about growing our way out of it now ring hollow. But other cliches have America running on empty and about to go over the cliff.
The National Debt Clock in New York ran out of digits as it raced past $10 trillion to $10.7 trillion and still rising.
"IOUSA" explains that the first perceived crisis with national debt took place after the Revolutionary War, and that revolutionary governments took action under George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
Budget deficits and national debt remained under control for many years, even during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. And there really wasn't a problem, says the documentary, until the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan's huge tax cuts, and then early this decade, with George W. Bush's huge tax cuts — coupled with the Iraq war, whose estimated cost is $1 trillion.
President Bill Clinton finished his eight years with a surplus and an economy that had expanded 50 percent in real terms, and a GNP of $10 trillion, one-quarter of the entire world economic output.
Clinton also left office with a jobless rate of 4 percent, a 40-year low, while the economy grew 15 million jobs.
Today, counting all those who have dropped off unemployment rolls for part-time work or no work, 21 million Americans are either jobless or underemployed, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Average workweeks also are being cut back. Some employers now shorten workweeks as a way to keep some on the payroll. And as the baby boomer generation begins to retire, "IOUSA" asks if there will even be any Social Security benefits left to collect.
Overextended entitlement programs and debts to foreign countries are becoming impossible to honor.
Unfunded entitlements are calculated at $53 trillion, or $175,000 per person. America has to mend its spendthrift ways, the documentary says, or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.
The documentary follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker as he crisscrosses the country explaining America's death-wish fiscal policies to average citizens. "We've become a culture that wants it all now, but doesn't want to pay for it." So we borrow $3 billion a day from other countries, chiefly China, to keep up the world's highest standard of living, based on conspicuous consumption.
The United States has mortgaged its future to foreigners with promises to its own people it can't possibly keep. China, with $1.3 trillion in U.S. paper, could decide its strategic interest is no longer compatible with America's — and quit as America's banker.
How do we get Americans to save more? Overspending still dominates the lives of U.S. citizens. The Chinese save 35 percent of what they earn; Americans save less than 1 percent, the lowest of any developed country.
Singapore, Chile and Australia, for example, have mandatory savings — outside of government control. "IOUSA" says there should be stronger incentives to save, because without savings America has no future.
Americans are now shocked to see their 401(k) retirement savings accounts losing their allure, as many employers say they no longer can afford matching funds. The government, for its part, is taking in more than it can pay out.
Isn't that how Ponzi schemes work?
Oh crap, now UOJ will figure out what's happening if we go ahead with the plan. Rabbi Margulies was going to stage his own suicide out of Eckstein's helicopter.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's top legal officer said on Tuesday his office is investigating frauds perpetrated on charities caught up in the scandal of accused swindler Bernard Madoff.
"We are looking at frauds on charities and people who may have defrauded charities" in the Madoff case, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo told reporters after a news conference on an unrelated matter.
"I don't want to comment on who we are investigating or not by name," he said, adding that the probe was "not looking at Mr. Madoff" himself at this time.
Authorities say the veteran money manager, who was charged with securities fraud by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, confessed to a $50 billion investment fraud a month ago.
Big banks, the wealthy, funds and charities have all declared themselves victims of Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market.
Cuomo, whose office has not previously publicly declared a probe of the purported worldwide Madoff fraud, said the impact of the alleged scam on charities and other groups in New York had given his office "great cause of concern."
"These are important charities and not-for-profits to the state of New York," he said. "We have a particular interest in protecting charities in the state and regulating charities."
BOSTON (Reuters) - Robert Jaffe, a key middleman who helped investors put money with accused financial swindler Bernard Madoff, failed to show up at a meeting with Massachusetts regulators on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Secretary of State said.
The state's top securities regulator, Secretary of State William Galvin, had issued a subpoena last month to Jaffe
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50C5JX20090113
61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism
Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:32pm EST
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Morrell declined to provide details such as the identity of the former detainees, why and where they were released or what actions they have taken since leaving U.S. custody.
"This is acts of terrorism. It could be Iraq, Afghanistan, it could be acts of terrorism around the world," he told reporters.
The Pentagon said it considers a former detainee's return to terrorism "confirmed" when evidence shows direct involvement in terrorist activities. U.S. officials see a "suspected" terrorism links when intelligence shows a plausible link with terrorist activities.
"Propaganda does not qualify as a terrorist activity," the Pentagon said in a statement.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478045,00.html
Three men suing ConAgra Foods Inc. over frozen chicken they ate while in prison got their day in court Thursday.
The suit, which seeks $100,000 in damages, was filed by Christopher Butts, Henry Butson and Corydon Cochran, who say they ate part of the chicken while serving prison terms at Lee Adjustment Facility, in Beattyville, Ky., where some Vermont inmates are sent because of crowding in Vermont jails.
Butts and Cochran were in court for the trial Thursday — bringing the specimen with them, in a brown paper bag.
Butson, who's serving 25 years to life for the fatal 2003 shootings of his ex-girlfriend and a man she was seeing, participated by speakerphone from prison.
Each acted as their own attorney for the proceeding, questioning the others in court.
Butts, of Killingly, Conn., told U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions that he bit into a piece of microwaved Banquet chicken that contained pus, grain and corn after buying it at a prison store in November 2005.
Butts spit it out and got sick, had diarrhea for a week, lost weight, was harassed by other inmates and can no longer eat chicken, he said.
"I was sick. I don't know if it was psychosomatic. I had diarrhea, I just couldn't put anything in my mouth," said Butts, who served four years for a fatal drunken driving crash and is now on probation.
ConAgra attorney Gary Stewart, of Harrisburg, Pa., suggested that Butts may have had the flu since he'd visited the prison nurse two days before for other symptoms.
Stewart asked the judge to throw out the suit, saying Butts never proved the chicken was defective because he didn't have it tested.
Butson and Cochran, who acknowledged they didn't get sick from the chicken, are seeking emotional damages.
"Frankly, the only injury you sustained was a phobia of seeing chicken?" Stewart asked Butson, of St. Johnsbury.
Stewart said they didn't suffer physical injury so they can't seek emotional damages under Vermont law.
Sessions refused to admit the chicken into evidence, saying it had been handled by others in the three-year interim. He also questioned whether they had proved that the chicken was truly defective.
Cochran, of Cabot, said he didn't care about the money; he just wanted ConAgra to take responsibility for any wrongdoing.
ConAgra spokeswoman Cindi Hartman testified that the company had received no complaints in 2005 like the one at issue.
Sessions didn't rule Thursday. He will later, he said.
"It's essentially a legal issue whether there's sufficient evidence to show ... that the object found in the chicken was defective."
Carlos Alberto Montaner
Madrid, Spain
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born writer, journalist, and former professor. He is one of the most influential and widely-read columnists in the Spanish-language media, syndicated in dozens of publications in Latin America, Spain and the United States. He is also vice president of the Liberal International, a London-based federation devoted to the defense of democratic values and the promotion of the market economy. He has written more than twenty books, including Journey to the Heart of Cuba; How and Why Communism Disappeared; Liberty, the Key to Prosperity; and the novels A Dog's World and 1898: The Plot. He is now based in Madrid, Spain. Close. Carlos Alberto Montaner
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Gaza's True 'Disproportion'
The Current Discussion: What's the most likely outcome of Israel's invasion of Gaza? A wider war? A Hamas defeat? Just more of the same?
Israelis are being accused of suffering too few casualties in their confrontation with the Hamas terrorists. Those who reason thus usually speak the words "disproportion" or "asymmetry" in an indignant tone. While at this writing close to a thousand Arab Palestinians have died or been wounded as a result of the bombings, the Israeli losses amount to just over a dozen.
Tel Aviv's critics -- from whom an anti-Semitic stench often rises -- do not say whether Israel should increase its quota of cadavers or if it must reduce the Arabs' quota to achieve the reasonable proportion of blood that will soothe the peculiar itch for parity that afflicts them. Nor do they specify the morally permissible number of casualties to end the rain of rockets that for years has been constantly falling on the heads of Israeli civilians.
This demand for "proportionality" can only be called surprising. Until this conflict began, history books everywhere always expressed great satisfaction and a certain chauvinistic pride when a nation's army inflicted on the enemy a large number of casualties, vis-à-vis a trifling price paid by "our boys." Israel is the only country expected to behave differently and, in fact, it does; I know of no other nation that announces where and when it will drop its bombs, thus enabling civilians to evacuate the territory. Of course, in this it behaves asymmetrically, because the Hamas terrorists, forever eager to cause the greatest damage possible, never announce when or where they will launch their rockets against Israel's civilian population.
In turn, Israel has not the slightest interest in causing casualties. All it wants is to stop Hamas' attacks the only way it can: by eliminating the terrorists and destroying their arsenals. There's no other way to deal with them. Hamas is not a political organization with which agreements can be reached, but a fanatical gang intent on wiping Israel off the map. To achieve this objective, its members are even willing to turn their own children into human bombs, just to kill the hated Jews.
Here's another very important asymmetry. The Jews build underground shelters in all houses near the border; they close the schools and hide the children at the least sign of danger; they treat the death of a single soldier as a national tragedy; they do everything possible to rescue their prisoners, and protect the civilian population from the consequences of war. In contrast, the authorities in Gaza, drunk with violence, fire their machine guns irresponsibly into the air to express joy or grief (causing numerous injuries), do not hesitate to install their headquarters or hide their guns in schools, mosques or hospitals, use human shields to protect themselves, turn to suicidal terrorists and reward the families of such "martyrs" with money.
One week before Hamas broke the truce and stepped up its rocket attacks against the Jewish state (the spark that set off this conflict), I was in Israel, where I had been invited to deliver a lecture at the University of Tel Aviv. As part of the contacts organized by my hosts, I visited the Wolfson Medical Center to learn about the program "Save a Child's Heart." I was very moved. It is a foundation devoted to providing heart surgery for very poor children, most of them from the Arab world. As it happened, I witnessed the hurried arrival of a tiny 5-day-old girl, who had to be operated on at once to keep her from dying. She was brought in by her mother, a woman in a black head covering that allowed me to see only her tear-filled eyes, and her husband, a small, bearded man who watched with amazement the indescribable kindness with which a group of doctors and nurses treated the baby. The family came from Gaza.
Since the war erupted, I have asked myself constantly what became of them all.
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Posted by Carlos Alberto Montaner on January 12, 2009 2:00 PM
I would welcome guest posters to appear as a headline here. UOJ-like rants would especially be heartening. Steve and all my other good friends...NU?
Hashem yeracheim said...
I heard that a 24 yr old Boro Parker that acted as a broker for Madoff was killed last week while visiting Australia.
In what appears to be a mafia hit, there was reportedly not much left of the body for kevurah.
The niftar's name is Safran though I'm not sure of the exact spelling.
7:53 PM, January 11, 2009
--------------------------------
His name was Chaim Yankel Safran, and is the grandchild of the kemarner rebbi on 59th cor 15th av in boro park, it was in an argentina hotel room that his body was found, and there are 2 stories, 1)he had a stroke 2) he was bumped by the mob, he left a wife with 4 kids, "hashem yishmor utam".
It looks like at least some of the Komarna Rebbes spell their names Safrin.
There are something like a dozen Komarna Rebbes.
The Meah Shearim branch of Komarno had a R' Chaim Yaakov Safrin who was the Rebbe a few rebbes ago.
http://yidvid.blogspot.com/2009/01/r-chaim-yakov-safrin-from-lakewood.html
R' Chaim Yakov Safrin From Lakewood Found Dead in His Argentina Hotel Room
Argentina: Baruch Dayan Emes, R' Chaim Yakov Safrin, who was 25, A"H was niftar. R' Chaim was from Lakewood, he was suddenly Niftar in Argentina, in his Hotel, he leaves over 4 children. He was found with an anurisim. He was found dead and after their family was worried because there had been no contact for more than two days, and they sent people to find him. He lived in the Sterling Forest section of Lakewood. Askunim from America are working to release the body without an autopsy and have it buried in New York.
According to a cousin of the Safrin family, speaking to YIDVID "His wife is Baruch Hashem alive and well in Brooklyn. She was not with him.
http://yidvid.blogspot.com/2009/01/levaya-of-r-chaim-yakov-safrin-who-was.html
The Levaya for R' Chayim Yakov Safrin A"H, who was found dead in his Argentina hotel room (as reported on YIDVID earlier is taking place at 12:00PM at Shomrei Hadas in Boro Park. This morning there was a Hetar Agunah in the Karlsburg Beis Din for his wife.
The body was mutilated in Argentina, either by authorities or because it was decomposed. R' Safrin leaves over 4 children and a wife. Baruch Dayan Emes.
American Askanim say it is very hard dealing with the Argentina authorities. Argentina authorities have released the official reason for his death is "an anurisim". The Argentina government is not known for giving accurate information, as they like to cover up alot of things. It is still, and probably will be for a while, unless a private investigator is hired, unknown what the cause of death is, as his body was left in the room for more than two days. R' Chaim could have very well been murdered and killed. The Argentina authorities officialy had the death "investigated" and according to Argentina authorities he had "an anurisim", don't forget, it can always be a cover-up, there are alot of stories like this.
Maybe this is why Jacob Perlow didn't want to get involved with Kolko.
The Stoliner Rebbe until the 1950s was a Perlow. Are they closely related?
Kolko was of course was kicked out for putting his paws into the pants of every yingel in Stolin.
When he moved on to YTT he got smarter and started grooming select victims so it was easy to manage a cover up.
Louie Glick's son from 47th st. was killed in cold blood in a hotel room in Antwerp and they said he died of a heart attack.
http://yidvid.blogspot.com/2009/01/bocher-attacked-by-arabs-in-boro-park.html
At McDonald Avenue and Avenue M in Boro Park, 3 arabs that occupied a black Lincoln Town Car assualted a Bocher and stole his hat, they then fled the scene. The Bocher was transported to Maimonidies Medical Center with Police. A large crime scene has been set up. More details on YIDVID as it becomes available.
Update: Police are looking for a Black Lincoln Town Car occupied by 3 Arabs. The arabs yelled Arabic Slogans at the Bocher. It was a 14 year old boy on his way home from Yeshiva.
Update: The Bocher was on the way home from Klauzenburg Yeshiva, he suffered head injuries from the attack, the attackers fled the scene.
R' Dovid Cohen is an old friend of Louie Glick.
Around the time of Gulf War I there was a rogue Canadian weapons expert named Gerald Bull who was also knocked off in a Belgian hotel room. He was helping Saddam Hussein develop a "Supergun" that is actually like a real pistol but hundreds or thousands of times the size and shoots mortars as far as missiles can travel.
His assassination, probably at the hands of the Mossad or CIA, put an end to the project.
At Monday’s meeting, eight Regents voted in favor of the proposal, one abstained and one, Saul B. Cohen, a Regent from Westchester County, voted against it, suggesting the proposal be sent back for further clarifications.
Saul B Cohen was President of Queens College in the early 1980's after a series of missteps by the Board of Higher Education. His integrity is beyond reproach and his even-handedness earned him the reputation of being hard hearted to a lot of liberal minions. After Queens College he replaced Ralph Goldman at the Joint Distribution Committee. He was not there long for reasons undisclosed. Knowing President Cohen personally, I would trust him to use all his facility to come to a scholarly and comprehensive decision.
Instead of demonstrating for Rubashkin, Zweibel should be demonstrating outside the UTA yeshiva where the child molester Avrohom Reichman is still teaching. Then he should go to the Shomer Shabbos shul in Boro Park and demonstrate against convicted molester Jerry Brauner who is given the honor of baal tefilah. Then he should go over to Lakewood and demonstrate in front of Rabbi Gissinger's shul where Yudi Kolko hangs out. And then the Aguda should pay for a junket to Israel where Zweibel, Shafran, Weinberger and the other whiskered cows could demonstrate in front of the Israeli Supreme Court for Mondrowitz' extradition. We're more likely to see 90 degree temperatures in NY this January.
A Jewish attorney in the US responded to my recent article The Psychology behind Mumbai and Gaza with this message:“The present situation in Gaza, with the 1.5 million Gazans being choked off from medicines and foodstuffs purposefully by the Israelis, so as to make lives so miserable that they would 'say Uncle' and change government (all the while with Israel carrying out executions of specific individuals in the West Bank and Gaza who they decide, with no court decision or determination by any neutral body deserve execution) is an unholy act.
The reaction of some in Gaza to shoot homemade rockets is entirely justifiable. One would only have wished they could have made such weapons in the Warsaw Ghetto. Now the Israelis, much as the Nazis then, are bombing people in crowded living conditions, in the place with the highest density of people in the world. And you applaud this.“As you applaud this, Jews around the world become more and more reviled and hated for their association with Israel. We are looked upon as being able to commit evil, and all the while calmly and coolly justifying it, much as the Nazis of Hannah Arendt’s description.
The Palestinian people- choked off from goods with which to live, to the extent that they have to make tunnels and walk great distances underground to get foods and medicines to their people- are fighting back in the only way they can. Rather than charge into the Israeli positions and merely be shot, they make their home-made rockets as they have no other choice. If they ceased doing that, Israeli would STILL view it as their right to choke them off and kill whomever they deemed worth killing.“Congratulations.
You have managed to become just like those who killed so many from 1942 to 1945. You are a sick psychopath and I will not read or view your letters. I will delete them all as you have deleted yourself from humanity. You call yourself a Jew. I am a Jew. You are a rabid animal.
”This letter – like many other voices we are hearing today -- is a sad demonstration of how confused so many of our brothers are; how ignorance and misguided idealism can lead people of good faith to such inhumane conclusions, as to define the monster as the saint, and the people yearning for nothing but a single day of peace as the Hitler’s living among us.
YYJ
QUINCY, Fla. – Federal authorities say the pilot at the center of a plane crash mystery has been found alive in northern Florida after he apparently slit one of his wrists.
U.S. Marshals spokesman Michael Richards says 38-year-old Marcus Schrenker was apprehended around 10 p.m. EST Tuesday in a tent at a campground in Quincy.
Richards says one of Schrenker's wrists was cut, but he's alive and in custody.
Authorities believe Schrenker let his plane crash in the Florida panhandle and apparently parachuted to safety.
Schrenker's plan was to have the plane crash in the Gulf of Mexico where it wouldn't be found but the putz didn't put enough gas in the plane so it fell short of the target.
He had to have had an oxygen tank with him because you can't breathe at 25000 feet where he bailed out. You also have to be really strong to open the cockpit door at that altitude.
Butta-Putzo is a student there.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-liwait105993734jan10,0,2991542.story
Waiter serves fear at Jewish wedding in Woodbury
matthew.chayes@newsday.com
January 10, 2009
A waiter at a Jewish wedding who is considering converting to Islam interrupted the celebration's final prayers with recorded Arabic chants of "God is great," sparking fear among the 700 guests of a terrorist attack, Nassau police said Friday.
Stephen Buttafuoco, who was fired from Morrell Caterers at Woodbury Jewish Center, had gone to a Manhattan rally opposing the Israeli campaign in Gaza a day earlier, recording protest chants on his cell phone.
Following an investigation, Buttafuoco, 23, of 27 Chelsea Ave., West Babylon, was arrested Friday and charged with felony aggravated harassment, police said. A grand jury will consider whether to also charge Buttafuoco with disruption of a religious service. Neither the caterer nor the synagogue could be reached for comment.
The guests couldn't at first decipher the angry-sounding chants blaring over the public address system shortly after 1 a.m. Jan. 4. "They just figured it was the children playing with the DJ's microphone," said Nassau Det. Sgt. Michael Marino.
But when they heard "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great," "followed by some kind of demonstration of anger," Marino said, the guests became frightened.
"They thought that this could lead to some kind of terroristic act," Marino said.
Buttafuoco, who will be arraigned Saturday in Hempstead, told detectives that he was trying to privately disrespect Judaism and didn't realize the recording was being played throughout the building, just in the sanctuary, where he was. He couldn't be reached for comment.
Police said he was not arrested until Friday because detectives wanted to rule out terrorist connections.
Police said Buttafuoco told detectives he is not related to Joey Buttafuoco, the man involved in a notorious 1990s love triangle with Amy Fisher.
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/01/oscarwinner-accused-of-sexual-assault.php
Oscar-Winner Accused Of Sexual Assault
Joseph Brooks, who copped an Oscar for Best Original Song of 1977, has reportedly been copping more.
Police are investigating the charges of 4 actresses who said the writer of You Light Up My Life had them come to his New York home for auditions where he allegedly assaulted them. The job postings were all on the internet.
According to the allegations, when the women answered the ad between March and May of last year, the 70 year-old -- who also directed the film version of his ditty -- told them they'd be playing hookers. Who had to have drinks and perform sex acts with him. You'd think that might have been a tipoff.
Police are also checking whether the women might have been drugged, according to police spokesperson John Sweeney.
newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/friday/news/ny-nygott095992187jan09,0,3112266.story
Prosecutors: Body of Gotti neighbor dropped in acid
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
January 9, 2009
It was a dark time on 85th Street in Howard Beach in March 1980 when 12-year-old Frankie Gotti, son of the then-mob captain, was killed in a traffic accident while riding a dirt bike.
The boy's father, the late John Gotti, who went on to become Gambino crime family boss, went from raging fury to tearful depression. Gotti's wife, Victoria, grief-stricken, would walk to local baseball fields near Cross Bay Boulevard late at night in the vain hope she would find her son alive, said family sources.
In a story that is a staple of mob lore, John Favara, 51, the neighbor who was driving the car that struck Frank, disappeared and was never found. Police said the murder was carried out by Gambino gangsters.
Over the years, police, informants and news reports claimed Favara's remains were buried or dropped in the ocean.
This week, tales of Favara's demise were resurrected as prosecutors alleged in court papers that his remains were dissolved in acid by Charles Carneglia, a mob associate of the Dapper Don.
-Click here for vintage 47 photos from John Gotti's funeral
-Click here for photos of John Gotti's family
-Click here for photos of John 'Junior' Gotti
Carneglia, 62, a reputed Gambino soldier, is currently under indictment in Brooklyn federal court on murder and racketeering charges. Prosecutors have accused Carneglia of complicity in five murders - but not Favara's. He is also charged with trying to shake down the unidentified owner of a nightclub in Westbury in 2007. Carneglia was in court yesterday as U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein set Jan. 20 for jury selection.
In court papers, Brooklyn federal prosecutors stated that among the uncharged crimes in Carneglia's past was his disposal of Favara's body. Carneglia told two informants, identified as CW2 and CW3, that he put Favara's body in a barrel of acid, said prosecutors.
In an even stranger twist in the saga, court records indicate that CW2 is actually Kevin McMahon, who as a 12-year-old loaned Frank Gotti the dirt bike he was riding when he was killed. McMahon has been identified as a witness in the Carneglia case.
Favara's family couldn't be reached for comment.
Gotti's widow, Victoria, who once reportedly went after Favara with a baseball bat, didn't want to comment yesterday. But her daughter, Victoria, of Old Westbury, said the resurrection of the story was upsetting.
"Let them prove it; they have a better shot at finding Jesus Christ's bones," said Gotti's daughter about the latest story of Favara's fate.
She said that after her brother died, McMahon came to the house asking how he could be compensated for the bike crushed in the accident.
"I never looked at that kid again," Victoria Gotti said.
In court yesterday, the judge on the case bantered with Carneglia, who has a General Education Development diploma. "You should have stayed in school like your mother told you," Weinstein told a smiling, nodding Carneglia.
"We are going to give him the very best trial he ever had," Weinstein said.
-Click here for vintage 47 photos from John Gotti's funeral
-Click here for photos of John Gotti's family
-Click here for photos of John 'Junior' Gotti
Players in mob tale
CHARLES CARNEGLIA: Lived on the same street in Howard Beach as John Gotti and is a reputed soldier in the Gambino crime family. Carneglia told government informants that he disposed of the body of John Favara, who killed Gotti's son in a traffic accident, by using acid, according to prosecutors.
JOHN FAVARA: A service manager at a Castro Convertible Store in New Hyde Park, Favara, a neighbor of the family of John Gotti on 85th Street in Howard Beach, struck and killed Gotti's son Frank, 12, as he rode a dirt bike. Favara claimed to have been blinded by sunlight when the accident occurred in March 1980. In July 1980, Favara was seen by witnesses being abducted at his store parking lot and shoved in a van. He was never seen again.
FRANK GOTTI: The son of the mob boss had borrowed the bike on which he was riding from neighborhood friend Kevin McMahon. He is buried at St. John Cemetery in Middle Village in the same crypt as his father.
JOHN GOTTI: The late Gambino boss who died in 2002, Gotti, grief struck about his son's death, would reportedly sit alone at home and cry. But he also reportedly terrorized underlings in fits of rage over Frank's death. Gotti was in Florida at the time of Favara's disappearance and told police he didn't know what happened.
VICTORIA GOTTI: Frank's mother, she once tried to assault Favara with a baseball bat after the tragedy. When interviewed by police about Favara's disappearance she denied knowing what happened to him but said she wasn't sorry if something bad had happened. She claimed Favara never apologized.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/09/04/2008-09-04_janitor_held_in_500g_heist_of_torahs.html
Janitor held in 500G heist of Torahs
By Nicole Bode and Edgar Sandoval
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, September 4th 2008, 9:34 PM
A live-in custodian for a Queens synagogue has been busted in last month's heist of eight sacred Torahs worth $500,000, police said Thursday.
Eric Giraldo, 23, spent the past four years getting paid to clean the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills before deciding to clean out the silver-covered Hebrew scriptures from their holy case, staff and police said.
Rabbis discovered the theft before Sabbath services on Aug. 16.
"I knew it had to be an inside job, but I never suspected him," said secretary Lilian Roth, 90. "I never saw him take a thing. He was a big liar."
The sacred texts were discovered Wednesday night in the closet of a Fresh Meadows apartment belonging to Giraldo's pal Alan Lozano, prosecutors said.
Police seized them, but they could be returned to the synagogue in time for the High Holy Days later this month, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Giraldo and Lozano, 28, were charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. They face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Staffers were shocked at the news, calling Giraldo a "sweet person" who kept coming to work after the heist.
Someone who was at the wedding told me that Buttafuoco did this during sheva berochos. The caterer fired him on the spot and called 911. His father is actually a pro-Israel pastor who has a lot of agmus nefesh from him and they argue about Israel all the time. The kid is obviously a psycho. Check out his picture on Newsday. Who smiles like that for a mug shot?
Woodbury on Long Island is also where Rubashkin's "Attorney Bernie" Feldman resides.
http://greenprophet.com/2008/12/29/5573/dung-israel/
Menachem Goldberg, who runs a visitors centre at Kedem, has come up with the extra-ordinary idea of preserving pieces of donkey dung within a plastic cube, that is inscribed with holy writings from the Talmud. Mr Goldberg says that the idea came to him from the Talmudic phrase: (and I quote) “Let the Messiah come…may I be worthy to sit in the shadow of his donkey’s dung”. Make of this what you will!
Stamford Hill, England: In the Stamford Hill section of London, Eveline Kalmenson, a frum woman, who was 83 years old, was found dead R"L bound with duct tape. She was found with her legs bound with duct tape in the bedroom of her home after a robbery. Police are investigating this crime.
http://yidvid.blogspot.com/2009/01/kol-mevaser-calls-idf-roitzchim.html
Kol Mevaser, a Yiddishe news hotline has been updating for Satmar. It all started when R' Hershel Friedman started updating about the war in Gaza, he talked about the fatalities of soldiers etc. Meanwhile, Satmar schools, Chedorim, and Shuls banned Kol Mevaser and hung signs up saying not to call Kol Mevaser because Kol Mevaser is a "Tziyoni" hotline.
Kol Mevaser, worrying that there callers would go down, told R' Hershel Friedman to start talking like Satmar. So he started spreading satmar propaganda against the IDF, and he called them things like ''Roitzchem" and murderers.
Yidden were asked to protest it by calling or sending them an email.
Baruch Hashem, Kol Mevaser took down the ugly words spoken out by Hershel Friedman in his recorded lecture.
A hit list of Belgian Jews was found in a radical Islamist's apartment.
R' Amnon Yizchok, a famous Sfardi speaker and Rav, has called the popular Yiddishe news site 'Bechadrey Chareidim' - bhol - to a Din Torah at R' Nisim Karlitz's Beis Din. R' Amnon Yitzchak says the website writes Lashon Harah, and must be stopped.
The reason Harav Amnon Yitzchok is doing this, is because of what 'Chadrei Charedim' wrote that Harav Vosner Shlita spoke out something against R' Amnon Yitzchak.
The DEA has given Israel 6 cash sniffing dogs, that will be working at Ben Gurion Airport to detect undeclared cash that is being smuggled in and out of Israel.
David Greenfield, from Simcha Felder's office, has lashed out against the new budget plan proposed by the unelected Governor Paterson. Greenfield says it will cause a massive increase in Yeshiva tuition. He urges everyone to call his organization's - "Teach NYS" - hotline. The call will then transfer you to the Governor's office to request him not to cut the Private School benefits. The number is 1-888-720-1961.
A Yeshiva in the Givat Shaul area of Yerushalayim expelled around ten students that received their drivers licenses because the Yeshiva was attempting to stop students from applying for their licenses, and asked Israel's licensing office for the names of the students from their Yeshiva who had recently received their driving certification. The Rosh Yeshiva visited R' Chaim Kanievsky for advice on how to deal with these students. Sources say that R' Kanievsky told the head of the yeshiva that, "A person who categorizes himself as a Ben Torah should not have a license, which takes him out of this category." R' Kanievsky added that R' Shach had already said decades ago that this practice should not be allowed, because aside for the dangers involved, it takes people away from learning Torah, . Therefore, he said, despite his anguish over the issue, the students should be expelled from the yeshiva. The Rosh Yeshiva asked about an additional boy who had also gotten his license only because his father was disabled, and getting around was difficult. R' Chaim Kanievsky responded that that student could be kept in the Yeshiva, but advised him to cancel his license anyway.
A fire broke out last month in one of the Minyanim Shtibelach at the Bikovsk Beis Medresh in London, England, Pinters Shul. There was damage to the Shul. Seforim were also damaged in the fire. There were no injuries reported.
http://yidvid.blogspot.com/2008/12/bais-faiga-remains-closed-as-third-day.html
Update: Meeting taking place right now in R' Matisyahu Solomon's home. Attending are R' Malkiel Kotler, R' Shlomo Kanarek, R' Mendel Rabinowitz, & Mr. Joe Tabak.
Update: Total stand-off continues. No movement. Parents furious at "Daas Torah". Girls are seen 'walking the streets', parents taking off work to watch kids & yungerleit not learning for 3 days does not seem to mean anything to Daas Torah.
Asbury Park Press - Lakewood Bais Faiga Teachers Strike:
CLICK HERE
Update: Last nights scheduled meeting between 'Daas Torah' and teachers was cancelled at the last minute. Teachers will have mud on their faces at end of fiasco. The principle faces expulsion. Mass Bitul Torah continues as yungerliet watch girls stuck at home...
Update: Gedolim that were working to settle Bais Faiga strike last night, were stunned as 4 insane yungerleit climbed through the window of R' Mattisyahu Solomon's office, pushed tables, & terrorized the meeting.
"We acted on the Rosh Yeshiva's Orders". Four Mechutzafim claim they were instructed to storm R' Mattisyahu Solomon's office by a Rosh Yeshiva of Lakewood.
Lakewood, New Jersey: Bais Faiga Girls School remains closed for its third day. Bais Faiga Elementary School has two buildings, the main campus on Courtney Road and the Grater building on Park Avenue. The school has been closed since Monday, when the teachers went on strike. Teachers have been wanting to strike since last week but the Masgiach, R' Matisyahu asked them to hold off (as reported below on YIDVID) as they have not been paid in 2 months. The strike developed after the Mehaheless, together with teachers, claimed that they approached the Lakewood Beis Din led by Rabbi Forscheimer for guidance, and that the Beis Din, with the direct guidance of Reb Shmuel Kamenetsky, decided to call the current strike to protest the non-payment of the already-meager salaries to the teachers. The school, which is one of the biggest frum girls schools in the world, is attended by over 1800 girls. "Daas Torah" caused irresponsible teachers to hand out letters to children about the strike, Mass Bitul Torah is underway in the BMG Kollel today. Thousands of girls are staying home, and parents are forced to stay home from work and Kollel to watch their children. Day camps have been arranged for the thousands of girls without a school. The situation in the boys' school, owned by the same person, is also tense, but as of now there is no strike there.
http://www.myfoxla.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=8086723&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1
The FBI says a JetBlue flight headed from New York to Burbank, Calif., landed in Salt Lake City after an intoxicated passenger caused a disruption.
The FBI's Salt Lake office says about 130 passengers and crew got off of Flight 359 in Salt Lake late Monday night and were re-screened.
Shalom Yarimo was arrested and charged Tuesday in a complaint with interference with a flight crew, a felony.
The FBI says Yarimo appears to be in the U.S. illegally and had been ordered deported from the U.S.
http://www.dailyitem.com/0100_news/local_story_010081411.html
LEWISBURG — A 76-year-old Lewisburg man, charged with assaulting his wife, reportedly told police he hit her after she punched him in the groin.
Charles Pinter, of 81 Turtle Creek Road, allegedly hit her, East Buffalo Township Police said.
According to police, the couple started arguing over an annuity that had become worthless.
His wife suffered a broken arm from the fall she had when kicked in the stomach, police said.
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20238039&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568857&rfi=6
By: ANDY HUMM
01/09/2009
York's LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) Community Center and the Anti-Violence Project are co-sponsoring a Town Hall Meeting on Thursday, January 15 at 7 p.m. at the Center to discuss what to do about the ongoing false arrests of gay men for prostitution in porn shops, a scandal extensively documented by Duncan Osborne in Gay City News. He will be a part of the panel. State Senator Tom Duane and City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, in whose districts these arrests are taking place, are also slated to participate.
For more information, contact Robert Pinter, one of the victims of the police and a founder of the Coalition to Stop the Arrests, at stopthearrests@aol.com.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19780512&id=mpcFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DjMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1964,3044069
Hey, was Leib Pinter sentenced in Federal court as scheduled on Dec. 19th?
http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/Default/Skins/BasicArch/Client.asp?Skin=BasicArch&&AppName=2&enter=true&BaseHref=DCG/1979/01/25&EntityId=Ar00300
Flood, you bum! Is that how you repay me after I honored you at the Bnei Torah dinner?
And they only nailed you because you're a shlemazel. The Feds couldn't prove I bribed anyone else like Gerald Ford, Walter Mondale or Daniel Inouye.
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