EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
Friday, January 28, 2022
Thursday, January 27, 2022
“Even in Hitler’s Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.” Expanding on his theme that Americans would soon face greater difficulty in escaping tyranny than did those persecuted by the Third Reich, he went on to say: “Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide.
The crackpot of Camelot (and other kids of famous Jews)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Sam from Philadelphia might be nuts but such people are less lonely than they used to be
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Bobby Kennedy, is a conspiracy theorist and an anti-vaxxer. He’s also an environmentalist lawyer, progressive talk-show host, and near-embodiment of horseshoe theory, having become something of a pin-up for Covid-era cranks.
According to Scientific American, this scion of Camelot has, since 2005, “promoted anti-vaccine propaganda completely unconnected to reality.” According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, his Children’s Health Defense organization claims “unvaccinated children are healthier than vaccinated children” and condemns the parents of vaccinated children for “enrolling their kids in experimental Covid vaccine trials.”
On Sunday, Kennedy Jr. spoke at an anti-vaccine mandate rally in Washington, DC, telling the crowd, “Even in Hitler’s Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.” Expanding on his theme that Americans would soon face greater difficulty in escaping tyranny than did those persecuted by the Third Reich, he went on to say: “Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide. Within five years, we are going to see 450,000 low orbit satellites — Bill Gates has his 65,000 satellites alone — [which] will be able to look at every square inch of the planet 24 hours a day.”
In living memory, it was de rigueur for lofty newspapers and even loftier historians to portray the Kennedys as America’s liberal aristocracy, non-rhotic royalty born to rule by dint of their cheekbones and their ideals. At least the boosters of yesteryear had Jack and Bobby to work with, even if Teddy’s vehicular adventures posed some difficulties. Today, no amount of journalistic fawning or hagiographic history can maintain the myth that this clan are anything grander than the Cape Cod Kardashians.
It shouldn’t need saying that the situation in the United States does not exist in the same moral universe as that of Germany under the Nazis. It shouldn’t need saying that, actually, you couldn’t hide in an attic like Anne Frank because the Franks were eventually discovered and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen. (It also shouldn’t need saying that the Franks didn’t hide in an attic “in Hitler’s Germany,” but in Amsterdam, to where they had fled Hitler’s Germany.)
Whether you object to vaccine or mask mandates on libertarian grounds or you believe the virus, vaccines and health measures are part of a nefarious conspiracy, it’s important to remember these three things: 1) it’s not the 1930s, 2) you’re not living in terror of the Gestapo, and 3) nothing you believe is happening, not even in your most fevered imaginings, is remotely comparable to the systematic campaign to exterminate the European Jewry.
Attempts to link Covid management measures and those overseeing them to the Shoah and its perpetrators are becoming more frequent on the right, including from Republican lawmakers and Fox News hosts. The hijacking of the Yellow Star symbol is now routine at protests. The criss-crossing of anti-vaccine-mandate and anti-lockdown sentiments with far-right conspiracy theories about one-world government, planned crises and the 2020 presidential election has exposed more people to the latter and, for some, imagined confluences lend credence to content they might previously have recognized as extremist or racist.
Many conspiracy theories are or eventually become about the Jews but some are wholly separate from antisemitism. What social media has done is to unleash a great syncretic moment for conspiracism, allowing for previously discrete strands to merge, whether in their logic or simply in their mood music of paranoia. It matters less whether the Jews are the “Them” you have in mind because there are now so many ill-defined “Thems” that the more they interact, the greater the likelihood they’ll lead back to the Jews in the end.
Yet the same social media that makes this possible also makes it possible to be better informed in real time than any previous generation about the scale of global antisemitism. It is, or in theory should be, easier to know that 60 percent of religious hate crimes in the United States are against Jews; that Canadian Jews, who make up 1 percent of the country’s population, are on the receiving end of 15 percent of its hate crimes; that antisemitism accounts for one in four religious hate crimes in Sweden, where Jews make up 0.1 percent of the population. It should be easier than ever to know about Colleyville and Monsey, Oxford Street and the north London convoy, Har Nof and the Hypercacher.
Education is the oft-heard solution to antisemitism, yet as social media has made it possible to be better educated about the persecution of Jews, it has also made possible a radicalization that leads people to claim the mantle of this persecution for themselves and to diminish, distort and demean the memory of the ultimate symbol of antisemitism in the process. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be a crackpot but crackpots are becoming less lonely by the day.
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/robert-kennedy-crackpot-of-camelot/
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
According to the complaint, a former assistant, associate and then head principal “specifically targeted vulnerable boys” for both sexual and physical abuse, “prey[ing] upon children of Holocaust survivors” and then “implor[ing] these children to not add to their parents’ suffering by telling them about his assaults...”
Appeals Court Rules 33 Men Suing Orthodox Jewish Day School Under Child Victims Act Can't Proceed Anonymously
The 33 unnamed plaintiffs "only submitted a short attorney affirmation, which merely repeated the relief requested in the order to show cause and made a single vague statement that plaintiffs might suffer further mental harm should their identities be revealed," the panel wrote. But the panel dismissed the motion without prejudice.
January 24, 2022 at 05:10 PM
5 minute read
A state appeals court has reversed the trial court and ruled that 33 former students of an Orthodox Jewish high school for boys, who have sued the school under New York’s Child Victims Act alleging they suffered years of rampant and sometimes sadistic sexual abuse, may not proceed in anonymity using John Doe labels rather than real names.
But the Appellate Division, First Department court has given the plaintiffs in the 2019-filed suit another chance to show why their motion to remain anonymous should be granted by the lower court. The First Department denied the motion “without prejudice to a new motion or motions supported by proper papers,” after it found the 33 anonymous plaintiffs had “failed to submit sufficient evidence to support the relief requested.”
The opinion from the five First Department justices heavily detailed recent case law addressing the question of the state legislature’s intent, when it passed The Child Victims Act of 2019, regarding whether plaintiffs suing their alleged past abusers may remain anonymous when doing so. Then the panel tersely-but-directly explained that in the pending lawsuit lodged by 38 men against The Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy—Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan, that the 33 men proceeding anonymously had simply not put forward sufficient evidence showing why they should be able to avoid disclosing their names.
“Several New York courts have addressed the legislature’s intent in enacting the CVA [Child Victims Act] with respect to the use of pseudonyms and concluded that the legislature ‘left it up to each alleged victim to determine whether to seek anonymity’ . . . [and] ‘left it to the courts to assess each individual case,’” the appellate panel wrote, citing Doe v Amherst Cent. Sch. Dist., 196 AD3d 9.
“In determining whether to grant a plaintiff’s request to proceed anonymously, the motion court must ‘use its discretion in balancing plaintiff’s privacy interest against the presumption in favor of open trials and against any potential prejudice to defendant,’” the panel further wrote, quoting Anonymous v Lerner, 124 AD3d 487. The panel added that ”a plaintiff seeking permission to proceed anonymously by employing a pseudonym must provide facts specific to the plaintiff that will allow the motion court to exercise its discretion in an informed manner.”
But in the case alleging negligent hiring and negligent retention of school employees who allegedly abused the plaintiffs in various ways during the 1970s and 1980s, the 33 unnamed plaintiffs “only submitted a short attorney affirmation, which merely repeated the relief requested in the order to show cause and made a single vague statement that plaintiffs might suffer further mental harm should their identities be revealed,” the panel wrote.
The “plaintiffs failed to provide any specific evidence as to why each unnamed plaintiff should be entitled to proceed anonymously,” the justices added.
The Child Victims Act, which became effective Aug. 14, 2019, extended the statute of limitations to prosecute sexual abuse against children, giving a one-year window for victims to pursue their claims. (The window was later extended for a second year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.) Under the Act, for example, victims up to age 55 who experienced abuse when they were younger than 18 could bring civil suits during the window of time. Previously the age had been up to age 23.
In the men’s 120-page complaint, they allege that a former school principal and a former faculty member abused then-boys at the school repeatedly in the 1970s and ’80s, and that the school was negligent in never reporting the abuse to the authorities and in failing to take proper action with regard to what occurred.
According to the complaint, a former assistant, associate and then head principal “specifically targeted vulnerable boys” for both sexual and physical abuse, “prey[ing] upon children of Holocaust survivors” and then “implor[ing] these children to not add to their parents’ suffering by telling them about his assaults.”
Moreover, the school official allegedly “used his power as a YUHS administrator to try and keep his victims from reporting his sexual assaults” by, for example, “threaten[ing] to accuse his victims of cheating, to lower their grades, or otherwise harm their scholastic futures.”
“Numerous students nevertheless found the courage to report [the former principal's] sexual abuse to YU and YUHS administrators, but their complaints always fell on deaf ears,” the complaint says.
The former faculty member allegedly was “vicious and sadistic in his abuse.” For example, in 1980 he allegedly “sprayed a young boy’s genital area with Chloraseptic and then violently shoved a toothbrush (with toothpaste)” into the boy. But after the boy and his father reported the act to the school’s vice president, the faculty member was allowed to remain on faculty and law enforcement was never notified about the alleged sodomy, the lawsuit alleges.
Kevin Mulhearn, an attorney in Orangeburg, New York, represents the 38 plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He couldn’t be reached for comment.
Karen Bitar, a Seyfarth Shaw partner in Manhattan, represented the defendants in the appeal, according to the First Department decision. The defendants include the Yeshiva University High School for Boys, members of the school’s board of trustees, and two school officials. Bitar also could not be reached.
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
"ONE - perhaps slipped through our fingers" - Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon Mashgiach ruchani of Beth Medrash Govoha - Agudath Israel Convention November 2006...
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| Chanoch L'naar said Salomon |
Education director in Haredi city named as suspect in child sex abuse case
Mordechai Be’eri accused of molesting several boys when he was a teacher in Modiin Illit settlement some 13 years ago; court extends his detention
Mordechai Be’eri, director of the education department in the municipality of the ultra-Orthodox city of Elad, was arrested last week over child sex abuse he allegedly committed against his students some 13 years ago, officials said Sunday.
The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court permitted the publication of Beeri’s identity, amid suspicions that he abused boys aged under 14 in an institute in the settlement of Modiin Illit, where he was a teacher.
A young ultra-Orthodox man recently filed a police complaint, saying he was 12 when Be’eri, now 70, molested him. Since police opened the investigation, they have uncovered several more allegations of abuse, the Ynet news site reported.
Police on Sunday called on other people who may have been abused to come forward and press charges.
Be’eri, originally ordered held by the court last Wednesday, had his remand extended by several more days.
“We are pleased that the police have apprehended the suspect. Every abuser should know that they can face justice, even many years later,” said a statement from Magen, an organization that aids victims of sexual abuse and is assisting the alleged victim.
The arrest comes as Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community is being shaken by sexual abuse allegations against several leading figures.
In December, prominent children’s author and rabbi Chaim Walder died by suicide after the Haaretz newspaper published a series of stories accusing him of sexually assaulting nearly two dozen people, including children — allegations he had denied.
The Walder story has been hailed as a potential turning point in the approach to sexual abuse cases within the insular community.
An open letter to Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, Mashgiach, Bais Medrash Govoha, Lakewood, New Jersey:
Monday, January 24, 2022
Petitioners … are former members of the Church of Scientology who reported to the police that another Church member [Daniel Masterson] had raped them. They allege that, in retaliation for their reports, the Church encouraged its members to engage in a vicious campaign of harassment against them....
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'Scientologists believe the Holocaust was planned and carried out by psychiatrists' - They also believe --- Scientology forbids members from contacting police to report a crime committed by a member. It instructs members that reporting such incidents is considered a "high crime" and subjects the reporting member to punishment. Scientology utilizes so-called "Fair Game" tactics to "attack, harass, embarrass, humiliate, destroy, and/or injure individuals who Defendants declare to be an enemy of Scientology, known in Scientology as a 'Suppressive Person' …." |
No Arbitration of Claims Against Scientology After Plaintiffs Had Left the Church
From Bixler v. Superior Court, decided Wednesday by the California Court of Appeal (Justices Laurence Rubin, Carl Moor, and Lamar Baker):
Petitioners … are former members of the Church of Scientology who reported to the police that another Church member [Daniel Masterson] had raped them. They allege that, in retaliation for their reports, the Church encouraged its members to engage in a vicious campaign of harassment against them. {[T]hey state no cause of action against Masterson for sexual assault. Instead, they allege causes of action against all defendants for stalking, physical invasion of privacy, constructive invasion of privacy, [and] intentional infliction of emotional distress ….}
After petitioners brought suit in superior court against the Church and related entities and persons, some of those defendants moved to compel arbitration, relying on agreements that provided all disputes with the Church would be resolved according to the Church's own "Ethics, Justice and Binding Religious Arbitration system." That system was created to decide matters "in accordance with Scientology principles of justice and fairness." …
The contract on its face apparently applied to all litigation against the Church:
My freely given consent to be bound exclusively by the discipline, faith, internal organization, and ecclesiastical rule, custom, and law of the Scientology religion … in all my dealings of any nature with the Church, and in all my dealings of any nature with any other Scientology church or organization which espouses, presents, propagates or practices the Scientology religion means that I am forever abandoning, surrendering, waiving, and relinquishing my right to sue, or otherwise seek legal recourse with respect to any dispute, claim or controversy against the Church, all other Scientology churches, all other organizations which espouse, present, propagate or practice the Scientology religion, and all persons employed by any such entity both in their personal and any official or representational capacities, regardless of the nature of the dispute, claim or controversy.
But the court concluded that, as a matter of California law, the arbitration agreement couldn't be enforced after the parties left the Church:
Individuals have a First Amendment right to leave a religion. We hold that once petitioners had terminated their affiliation with the Church, they were not bound to its dispute resolution procedures to resolve the claims at issue here, which are based on alleged tortious conduct occurring after their separation from the Church and do not implicate resolution of ecclesiastical issues….
According to plaintiffs, Scientology forbids members from contacting police to report a crime committed by a member. It instructs members that reporting such incidents is considered a "high crime" and subjects the reporting member to punishment.
Scientology utilizes so-called "Fair Game" tactics to "attack, harass, embarrass, humiliate, destroy, and/or injure individuals who Defendants declare to be an enemy of Scientology, known in Scientology as a 'Suppressive Person' …." Masterson is a television actor; Scientology granted him special treatment when he achieved "celebrity status." To that end, Scientology worked to prevent plaintiffs from reporting Masterson's crimes and, once they did, declared plaintiffs Suppressive Persons. Scientology then mobilized an aggressive Fair Game campaign against them.
According to plaintiffs' complaint, Scientology's directives are that Suppressive Persons are to be silenced by whatever means necessary. Scientology instructs members "to damage the person's professional reputation, file frivolous lawsuits, and harass and surveil 'the enemy.'" Scientology's "policies and procedures encourage and/or instruct followers to 'ruin [the individual] utterly.'" …
Just like written antenuptial agreements to raise children in a particular faith are not enforceable against a parent who has left the faith, Scientology's written arbitration agreements are not enforceable against members who have left the faith, with respect to claims for subsequent non-religious, tortious acts. To hold otherwise would bind members irrevocably to a faith they have the constitutional right to leave….
Scientology argues that petitioners simply agreed to be bound by Scientology dispute resolution procedures no matter what. As Scientology puts it, "An 'irrevocable' agreement to 'forever' waive civil proceedings and submit to Scientology Ethics and Justice Codes in 'any dispute' with Churches of Scientology is a condition for participation in the religion." It argues that this agreement should be enforced like any other agreement.
Scientology engaged in as retribution for reporting Masterson to police after they left the Church. This harassment allegedly arose because of petitioners' relationship with Masterson and their reporting to police, not because of their prior affiliation with Scientology.
READ COLUMN IN ITS ENTIRETY:
Thursday, January 20, 2022
Protecting Children Through Active Bystanding .... I support this organization - run by pros!
Active bystanding is key to protecting children from sexual abuse.
What is Active Bystanding? A “bystander” is a person who witnesses a boundary violation or sees a situation in which to protect children. An Active Bystander is someone who does something about it. Bystanders can play a major role in keeping kids safe by acting when they see a child who needs help. Intervening or taking preventative measures as a bystander can mean the difference between a child being sexually abused or being protected from abuse.
Go beyond theoretical knowledge and learn practical skills for protecting children. In this training you will learn how to be an active bystander in child sexual abuse prevention and response. You will receive examples of boundary violations and inappropriate behaviors, and how you can make spontaneous and planned interventions that reinforce boundaries and protect children. This training builds on the education provided in Stewards of Children®, Darkness to Light’s evidence-based training on preventing, recognizing, and reacting responsibly to child sexual abuse. It is highly recommended that participants complete Stewards of Children® prior to taking the course.
Available both online or as an in-person session delivered by an authorized Darkness to Light Facilitator.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
During the training, you will hear compelling stories from experts and survivors about being an active bystander. You will also:
- learn what it means to be an active bystander.
- learn what actions you can take as an active bystander.
- receive examples of boundary violations and red flag behaviors.
- learn how to make spontaneous and planned interventions.
WHAT ARE THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES?
Darkness to Light is proud to offer this bystander training, which includes:
- stories from featured survivors, experts, youth serving professionals, and parents.
- a course worksheet designed to help reinforce key concepts and serve as a resource guide on bystander intervention.
- interactive discussion about important issues in sexual abuse prevention and how they affect communities and youth serving organizations (facilitator-led only).
- knowledge checks (online only).
Bystanders Protecting Children from Boundary Violations Sexual Abuse can be taken in-person or accessed online at any time. The training can also be purchased as a part of the Stewards Plus package.
https://www.d2l.org/education/additional-training/active-bystanding/
https://portal.drummond.com/VWrtgn6/Store#Category:43888:Online+Asynchronous+Trainings
Organizations
If you are with an organization that provided you with a unique custom link, please ensure you register for a new account with the link. Please select the organization you are with from the drop down below. Use the custom link that populates to create your account.
https://www.d2l.org/online-login-groups/
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Jews Do Not Heal In Churches...Never...
Colleyville synagogue will host ‘healing service’ Monday night at Southlake church
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel will lead the service, which is open to the public, at White’s Chapel United Methodist Church.
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Congregation Beth Israel, which was the site of a hostage situation over the weekend, will host a special service Monday night at a Southlake church, the synagogue announced on Facebook.
The “Healing Service” is scheduled for 7 p.m. at White’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Southlake. It will be open to the public and livestreamed on the congregation’s Facebook page.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker will lead the service, the congregation said, “to help all of us to begin to put this terrible event behind us and be thankful for a good result.”
The rabbi and three others were held hostage for 11 hours during a Shabbat service Saturday at the Colleyville synagogue.
The congregation said social distancing and masks will be encouraged, and that there will be no filming at the service.
We believe that
the Church (the capitalized C in Church represents the global and
universal Church in contrast with the local congregation) is the body of YUSHKA, that it is an extension of YUSHKA'S life and ministry in the
world today, and that its purpose and mission is to make disciples of YUSHKA PUNDRIK. We believe that the Church is ‘the communion of saints,’ a
community made up of all past, present, and future followers of YUSHKA, and that the Church is called to worship God and to support
those who participate in its life as they grow in faith.
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