Friday, December 14, 2007

"The Story of Mary Ellen which started the Child Saving Crusade Throughout the World"



SHAME ON YOU RABBI SHMUEL KAMENETSKY - YOU HAVE PERVERTED THE HOLY TORAH!

http://theawarenesscenter.org/clergyabuse.html

Clergy Abuse: Rabbis, Cantors & Other Trusted Officials

Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16).

UPCOMING SPECIAL EVENTS:

Showing of the film "Narrow Bridge"

This film was inspired by the case of Rabbi Yehuda Kolko

Table of Contents


Please note: The Awareness Center looks at Clergy Abuse and Mass Molestation Cases as a Jewish Issue, not a denominational issue. We need to tackle these issues together as a people.

Opening up darkened spaces is a scary, saddening task, but it is a sacred one as well. For as we have been taught by our learned rabbis of the Sanhedrin, "anyone who saves one soul of Israel, it is said about him that he/she has saved a whole world" (Sanhedrin 37/a). Let us be "or La-Goyim", a light to show the way for other nations, by mending our communities without fear or shame.


In order to escape accountability for his/her crimes, the perpetrator does everything in hispower to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence him absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens. -- Judith Lewis Herman

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http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/definition.html

Definition of Terms Relating to Sexual Victimization

(Incest, Child Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Clergy Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment)

The Awareness Center's Brochure

Sexual Assault/Rape - often referred to as rape, is legally defined differently in each state. In New Jersey, the law defines sexual assault as "the penetration, no matter how slight, in which physical force or coercion is used or in which the victim is physically or mentally incapacitated." Penetration is defined as "vaginal intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio or anal intercourse between persons or the insertion of a hand, finger or other object into the anus or vagina by either the actor or upon the actor's instruction" (NJSA 2C:14-1). In most states the law, which is gender neutral, does not specify male or female, but uses the words "actor" and "victim" to describe the persons involved.

Childhood Sexual Abuse and Incest (From ISA) - A betrayal of trust in overt and covert sexual contact or act which possibly includes: touching or non-touching, verbal seduction or abuse, anal or vaginal intercourse, oral sex, sodomy, manual stimulation, direct threats, implied threats, or other forms of abuse between people who are related genetically, by marriage (step-parents to step children), by living arrangements, or in whom a child perceives a trusting relationship, i.e., mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, stepparents, step-siblings, half-siblings, live-in or sleep-over lovers, brothers, sisters, foster parents, adoptive parents, neighbors, family friends, baby sitters, anyone either known or a stranger with a power advantage of any kind over the child, or professionals such as teacher, extracurricular activities instructor, coach, professor, school principal, nurse, doctor, orderly, dentist, technician, therapist, social worker, minister, priest, nun, shopkeeper, landlord, scout leader, laborer, janitor, office worker, pilot, U.S. military personnel, lawyer, judge, police officer, mail carrier, politician, banker, corporate executive, or anyone whose employment or social standing puts them in a position of power over a child. This also includes any adult in a position of power who betrays the trust of a trusting adult.

When this trust between a child and an older child, sibling, parent-figure or adult is violated, that act becomes incestuous. We put full responsibility on the initiator for whatever took place. The child's age may range from conception, newborn, preschool, school age, teenager and older.

Criminal sexual contact - is legally defined as "intentional, non-consensual touching by the victim or actor, either directly or through clothing, of a victim's or actor's sexual organs, genital area, anal area, inner thigh, groin buttock or breast, for the purpose of degrading or humiliating the victim or sexually arousing or sexually gratifying the actor,"

Sexual Harrassment - Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.

Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including but not limited to the following:

· The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.

· The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a non-employee.

· The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.

· Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.

· The harasser's conduct must be unwelcome.

It is helpful for the victim to directly inform the harasser that the conduct is unwelcome and must stop. The victim should use any employer complaint mechanism or grievance system available.

When investigating allegations of sexual harassment, EEOC looks at the whole record: the circumstances, such as the nature of the sexual advances, and the context in which the alleged incidents occurred. A determination on the allegations is made from the facts on a case-by-case basis.

Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring. They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated. They can do so by establishing an effective complaint or grievance process and taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Sexual Harssment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

See also: How To File A Charge of Employment Discrimination

Peer sexual harassment - occurs in a variety of forms that may include sexual assault or criminal sexual contact.Other forms of this type of harassment include sexual comments, noises or gestures that threaten, scare, or make the victim uncomfortable.The behavior of the perpetrator would determine what crime was committed.

Date Rape and Relationship Violence

Maritial Rape - Legal definition varies within the United States, marital rape can be defined as any unwanted intercourse or penetration (vaginal, anal, or oral) obtained by force, threat of force, or when the wife is unable to consent. Rape in marriage is an extremely prevalent form of sexual violence, particularly when women who are involved in physically abusive relationships may be especially vulnerable to rape by their partners.

Domestic Violence - This is NOT the exactly the focus of The Awareness Center. Domestic Violence usually refers to spousal abuse. In some cases there is marital rape and incest (which is a part of the focus of The Awareness Center).

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http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/ZwiMigdal.html

Case of The Zwi Migdal Society

Warsaw, Poland

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sao Paulo, Brazil

New York City, NY

and South Africa, India, China

This page is dedicated in the memory of Sophia Chamys, Rebecca Freedman, Rachel Liberman, and the thousands of other women who were obducted and forced into prostution by the Zwi Migdal Society. According to reports there were members of the Society who were rabbis.

Thousands of naive, impoverished Jewish girls from eastern Europe were sold by Jewish mobsters into sexual slavery. Originally believing they were leaving their homes to get married. Most of these women were from poor families, their parents hoping for a better life for their daughters, were shipped off to various locations. This kidnapping, rape and forced prostitution of young Jewish women lasted from the end of the 1860s until the start of the Second World War.

This hugely profitable (annual revenues of $50 million in the 1890s) commerce in flesh was operated by the Zwi Migdal, a criminal association It was centred in Buenos Aires, with branch offices in several locations in Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; New York City, NY; Warsaw, Poland; South Africa; India; and China.

The first boatload of young Jewish women arrived in Brazil in 1867; by 1913, there were 431 brothels in downtown Rio alone.

Three women --largely illiterate, bitterly poor--banded together to form their own benevolent society: the Chesed Shel Ermess, or Society of Truth. At the forefront were Sophia Chamys, Rachel Liberman and Rebecca Freedman, who also managed to get to a police station, and provide testimony which helped an honest cop destroy the Zwi Migdal in Argentina in the 1930s.

  • Sophia Chamys - was 13 when her father arranged her marriage to a well-dressed stranger from Lodz. She died at the young age of 18. Sophia's "husband" was, in fact, a wheeler-dealer in an international prostitution ring - Zwi Migdal. Chamys ended up, locked in a whorehouse, despised and shunned by the more respectable members of the city's Jewish community, which refused even to give the prostitutes proper burials.


  • Rebecca Freedman - became their leader (the women called her their queen) and made it her mission to perform the sacred tahara ceremony of washing the dead. Deeply religious, she died in either 1984 or 1986, at the age of 103.She was last president of the Society of Truth.


  • Rachel Liberman - more information needed on this hero.

THE POLACAS ("POLISH WOMEN" in Portuguese) first organized in 1906, in Rio de Janeiro, setting up the Jewish Association for Charity, Burial and Religion (ABFRI). Their goals, they wrote in the charter, were: "To set up a synagogue, and there practice all the ceremonies of the Jewish religion. To grant sick members in need of treatment outside the city a third-class train ticket and three pounds sterling. To grant members a third-class funeral." In its heyday, the organization existed in several cities, and several rabbis, all since deceased, were in its employ.

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http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/HistoryChildAbuse.html#Mary

The Real Story of Mary Ellen Wilson

American Humane Society

http://www.americanhumane.org/site/PageServer?pagename=wh_mission_maryellen

The sufferings of the little girl, Mary Ellen, led to the founding of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the first organization of its kind, in 1874. In 1877, the New York SPCC and several Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from throughout the country joined together to form the American Humane Association.

The following is Mary Ellen's story, which marked the beginning of a world-wide crusade to save children. It is extracted from American Humane's Helping in Child Protective Services: A Competency-Based Casework Handbook.

Over the years, in the re-telling of Mary Ellen Wilson's story, myth has often been confused with fact. Some of the inaccuracies stem from colorful but erroneous journalism, others from simple misunderstanding of the facts, and still others from the complex history of the child protection movement in the United States and Great Britain and its link to the animal welfare movement. While it is true that Henry Bergh, president of the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), was instrumental in ensuring Mary Ellen's removal from an abusive home, it is not true that her attorney—who also worked for the ASPCA—argued that she deserved help because she was "a member of the animal kingdom."

The real story—which can be pieced together from court documents, newspaper articles, and personal accounts—is quite compelling, and it illustrates the impact that a caring and committed individual can have on the life of a child.

Mary Ellen Wilson was born in 1864 to Francis and Thomas Wilson of New York City. Soon thereafter, Thomas died, and his widow took a job. No longer able to stay at home and care for her infant daughter, Francis boarded Mary Ellen (a common practice at the time) with a woman named Mary Score. As Francis's economic situation deteriorated, she slipped further into poverty, falling behind in payments for and missing visits with her daughter. As a result, Mary Score turned two-year-old Mary Ellen over to the city's Department of Charities.

The Department made a decision that would have grave consequences for little Mary Ellen; it placed her illegally, without proper documentation of the relationship, and with inadequate oversight in the home of Mary and Thomas McCormack, who claimed to be the child's biological father. In an eerie repetition of events, Thomas died shortly thereafter. His widow married Francis Connolly, and the new family moved to a tenement on West 41st Street.

Mary McCormack Connolly badly mistreated Mary Ellen, and neighbors in the apartment building were aware of the child's plight. The Connollys soon moved to another tenement, but in 1874, one of their original neighbors asked Etta Angell Wheeler, a caring Methodist mission worker who visited the impoverished residents of the tenements regularly, to check on the child. At the new address, Etta encountered a chronically ill and homebound tenant, Mary Smitt, who confirmed that she often heard the cries of a child across the hall. Under the pretext of asking for help for Mrs. Smitt, Etta Wheeler introduced herself to Mary Connolly. She saw Mary Ellen's condition for herself. The 10-year-old appeared dirty and thin, was dressed in threadbare clothing, and had bruises and scars along her bare arms and legs. Ms. Wheeler began to explore how to seek legal redress and protection for Mary Ellen. Click here to read Etta Wheeler's account of Mary Ellen.

At that time, some jurisdictions in the United States had laws that prohibited excessive physical discipline of children. New York, in fact, had a law that permitted the state to remove children who were neglected by their caregivers. Based on their interpretation of the laws and Mary Ellen's circumstances, however, New York City authorities were reluctant to intervene. Etta Wheeler continued her efforts to rescue Mary Ellen and, after much deliberation, turned to Henry Bergh, a leader of the animal humane movement in the United States and founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). It was Ms. Wheeler's niece who convinced her to contact Mr. Bergh by stating, "You are so troubled over that abused child, why not go to Mr. Bergh? She is a little animal surely" (p. 3 Wheeler in Watkins).

Ms. Wheeler located several neighbors who were willing to testify to the mistreatment of the child and brought written documentation to Mr. Bergh. At a subsequent court hearing, Mr. Bergh stated that his action was "that of a human citizen," clarifying that he was not acting in his official capacity as president of the NYSPCA. He emphasized that he was "determined within the framework of the law to prevent the frequent cruelties practiced on children" (Mary Ellen, April 10, 1976, p. 8 in Watkins, 1990). After reviewing the documentation collected by Etta Wheeler, Mr. Bergh sent an NYSPCA investigator (who posed as a census worker to gain entrance to Mary Ellen's home) to verify the allegations. Elbridge T. Gerry, an ASPCA attorney, prepared a petition to remove Mary Ellen from her home so she could testify to her mistreatment before a judge. Mr. Bergh took action as a private citizen who was concerned about the humane treatment of a child. It was his role as president of the NYSPCA and his ties to the legal system and the press, however, that bring about Mary Ellen's rescue and the movement for a formalized child protection system.

Recognizing the value of public opinion and awareness in furthering the cause of the humane movement, Henry Bergh contacted New York Times reporters who took an interest in the case and attended the hearings. Thus, there were detailed newspaper accounts that described Mary Ellen's appalling physical condition. When she was taken before Judge Lawrence, she was dressed in ragged clothing, was bruised all over her body and had a gash over her left eye and on her cheek where Mary Connelly had struck her with a pair of scissors. On April 10, 1874, Mary Ellen testified:

"My father and mother are both dead. I don't know how old I am. I have no recollection of a time when I did not live with the Connollys. .... Mamma has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day. She used to whip me with a twisted whip—a raw hide. The whip always left a black and blue mark on my body. I have now the black and blue marks on my head which were made by mamma, and also a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors. She struck me with the scissors and cut me; I have no recollection of ever having been kissed by any one—have never been kissed by mamma. I have never been taken on my mamma's lap and caressed or petted. I never dared to speak to anybody, because if I did I would get whipped.... I do not know for what I was whipped—mamma never said anything to me when she whipped me. I do not want to go back to live with mamma, because she beats me so. I have no recollection ever being on the street in my life" Mary Ellen, April 10, 1874 in Watkins, 1990).

In response, Judge Lawrence immediately issued a writ de homine replagiando, provided for by Section 65 of the Habeas Corpus Act, to bring Mary Ellen under court control.

The newspapers also provided extensive coverage of the caregiver Mary Connolly's trial, raising public awareness and helping to inspire various agencies and organizations to advocate for the enforcement of laws that would rescue and protect abused children (Watkins, 1990). On April 21, 1874, Mary Connolly was found guilty of felonious assault and was sentenced to one year of hard labor in the penitentiary (Watkins, 1990).

Less well known but as compelling as the details of her rescue, is the rest of Mary Ellen's story. Etta Wheeler continued to play an important role in the child's life. Family correspondence and other accounts reveal that the court placed Mary Ellen in an institutional shelter for adolescent girls. Believing this to be an inappropriate setting for the 10-year-old, Ms. Wheeler intervened. Judge Lawrence gave her permission to place the child with her own mother, Sally Angell, in northern New York. When Ms. Angell died, Etta Wheeler's youngest sister, Elizabeth, and her husband Darius Spencer, raised Mary Ellen. By all accounts, her life with the Spencer family was stable and nurturing.

At the age of 24, Mary Ellen married a widower and had two daughters—Etta, named after Etta Wheeler, and Florence. Later, she became a foster mother to a young girl named Eunice. Etta and Florence both became teachers; Eunice was a businesswoman. Mary Ellen's children and grandchildren described her as gentle and not much of a disciplinarian. Reportedly, she lived in relative anonymity and rarely spoke with her family about her early years of abuse. In 1913, however, she agreed to attend the American Humane Association's national conference in Rochester, NY, with Etta Wheeler, her long-time advocate. Ms. Wheeler was a guest speaker at the conference. Her keynote address, "The Story of Mary Ellen which started the Child Saving Crusade Throughout the World" was published by the American Humane Association. Mary Ellen died in 1956 at the age of 92.

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Case of Rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau

Principal of the Torah Institute

Baltimore, MD

Rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau is accused of physically and sexually assaulting one of his daughters. There have also been allegations that two families were "run out of Baltimore" because they wanted to go to secular legal authorities to deal with the accusations of child abuse against Rabbi Eisgrau. Rabbi Eisgrau is currently the principal of the Torah Institute of Baltimore, MD.

The Baltimore Orthodox establishment stated that they have investigated the charges and found them completely baseless.

A Baltimore police detective attempted to investigate the abuse complaints regarding Rabbi Eisgrau. He stated that he did not find enough evidence to persuade the district attorney to bring charges against Rabbi Eisgrau. The detective also disclosed that he never encountered such opposition to a child abuse investigation from a community as he encountered in Baltimore's Orthodox community.

FYI:

Dear Family

By Eliezer Eisgrau's Daughter

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Dear Family,

You have all turned your backs and walked away from me. My father, my mother, and eleven siblings. All gone.

This reality is very sad. It is disturbing, and incomprehensible all at the same time.

What is the terrible crime I committed that warranted the loss of my entire family? What could cause parents to abandon a child? Siblings to abandon a sister? And a community to collectively turn its back in silence?

I committed a terrible crime. My unforgivable crime is that I spoke the truth about my childhood.

I could no longer keep secret the years of fear and pain. The molestation by my father, and the emotional abuse and neglect of both my parents...

I did try hard to keep it in the family as I had been taught to. I tried so hard to be the daughter you wanted me to be. To be "good" To let it go, and just forget, and somehow be OK... But I was in too much pain. I knew I couldn't continue without help.

I came to you first, remember? But you made it clear that you did not believe that I was really hurt. You made it clear that you would not, and could not, believe me that Tatty molested me nor could you support me. You denied that I had a reason to be in so much pain. I had to go elsewhere for help.

Going outside the family for help and support is a major sin. The louder you shouted that it just wasn't true, that Tatty could never do such a thing, that nothing really happened to me, the louder I had to shout to hear myself over the clamor of your thirteen desperate voices.

Oh, if only It were true, as you say, that a therapist somehow convinced me that the memories are true!!! I would sue the therapist and have my family back!

If only it were true, as you say, that the books I read on the subject of abuse are what put these horrible ideas into my head!! I would burn the books and have my family back!!

If only I were truly sick, or truly mental!! I would then pose no threat and I could have my family back!! Oh, if only I were truly evil and out to "get" my father! But I still love my father in spite of myself. I don't believe that my father is an evil monster. He has caused a lot of pain and refuses to take any responsibility for his actions. He is a human being who has done much good and also much bad. He has a serious problem and I wish he would get help.

Unfortunately It is true that I was sexually molested and abused in our family. If I am real than this did happen. I am a product of YOUR family. Thankfully, there were others who heard and I got the help I needed. I survived and I am doing well! To my siblings and my fathers supporters I say I am none of the things you accuse me of. I am just a women. I have my strengths and limitations just like you. I am a wife, a mother, a teacher, a friend, and neighbor just like you. I play with my children, hug them, kiss them and love them, just like you do. I laugh and cry and feel as deeply as you do. I have a life that is rich and joyful and completely separate from my past, as I hope that you do too. And I have many close friends who truly know and appreciate me for who I am...and know nothing of my past.

But there is no substitute for my family. I miss you. In spite of your denial of my experiences. In spite of your blame and accusations. In spite of you saying that your childhood was idyllic and wonderful...and therefore mine was too. I am truly happy for you that this was your experience and I can not take it away from you. I can only envy you. My childhood also had wonderful moments and happy memories, yet the good memories are overshadowed by pain, sadness, and fear. I wish there was a way you could accept our different experiences, and reconcile.

Perhaps there are those of you who would like to be in touch with me and believe that you can't because Rabbi Hopfer advised you to cut me out of the family. It would be going against "Daas Torah" to speak with me. I am so sorry for your pain. I am so sorry for us that you have chosen a rav who apparently believes that you have more to gain by breaking up our family than by encouraging its healing. Any thinking, intelligent person can see that Rabbi Hopfer's cruel advice, which hides behind the guise of "Daas Torah," sadly, has nothing to do with either.

Tatty, I miss you too.

You have hurt me terribly and I can't fully comprehend what you did to me. I understand why the people who have trusted you do not want to believe me. It is just too overwhelming. I also do not want to believe...I still want to believe that I am wrong. I still want to believe that I have a father who is safe. You loved me and hurt me. You gave me life, and you almost killed me. You will always be the only father I have. I will always need you.

Mommy, I think I do understand why you walked away... You made it clear from the time I was young that Tatty was much more important to you than I was. I believe that on some level you know that my memories of him are true. I believe that you needed him, and still need him more than you ever needed me. You have not been able to let yourself truly see me from the time I was very little. And that hurts. Because I needed you desperately. You are my mother and I needed your protection. I will always need you.

I am a women who was terribly abused as a child. I deal with this reality every day of my life. And because I did not keep the secret, I am now a women without parents or siblings.

With tears and always... hope for the future,

Eisgrau's Daughter.

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http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Hafner_Solomon.html

Case of Rabbi Solomon Hafner

The case involved Rabbi Solomon Hafner, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Bobov sect in Brooklyn's heavily Jewish Borough Park section. Hafner was accused of sexually abusing a developmentally disabled boy during private tutoring sessions.

A Beit Din consisting of five Orthodox rabbis from around New York cleared Hafner, and the district attorney declined to prosecute.

Rabbis' Ruling May Nix Bid To Indict Suspect in Kid-Sex Rap

by Al Guart

New York Post - Saturday, March 11, 2000 (p. 10)

A panel of Orthodox rabbis cleared a Brooklyn rabbi of molesting a 7-year-old boy -- a move that might keep witnesses from the grand jury probing him, The Post has learned.

The panel, reportedly headed by Manhattan Rabbi David Feinstein and two rabbis from Brooklyn and two from upstate Monsey, cleared Bobover Rabbi Solomon Hafner on Thursday evening of any wrongdoing, sources said.

Hafner, 40, was charged last January with sexually abusing a developmentally disabled boy. A grand jury is hearing evidence in the case.

Leading Bobover Rabbi Chaim Tauber was caught on tape yesterday discussing the panel's ruling and predicting it might have an impact on Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes' grand-jury probe of the charges.

"They came out with a resolution that Rabbi Hafner is clean as a whistle," Tauber said on a tape reviewed by the Post.

Asked about the effect the ruling would have on potential witnesses, Tauber said, "They have nothing to cooperate with. They have nothing to say. There is no one coming forward to blame."

Tauber could not be reached yesterday. His wife confirmed such a conversation took place but was surprised it had been taped.

The ruling of a Beit Din -- a rabbinical court -- holds sway over members of Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities, even more than secular authorities.

It is also seen by some as a means of trying to influence Hynes, who has been under fire from parts of the Jewish community for charging another rabbi with witness-tampering.

Last week, Hynes' office lost the case against Bernard Freilich, who was charged with threatening a couple to drop sexual-abuse charges.

"My concern is that actions like this might put a damper on rabbis and others in the community from coming forward with allegations such as this," said lawyer Michael Lesher, who revealed the rabbinical court's ruling to The Post.

"I would like to know what evidence they had and what significance this is supposed to have while a grand jury is pending," Lesher said.

"I am not at liberty to talk about this," Rabbi Feinstein said.

Jewish Court Stymies Reports

The Associated Press - April 16, 2002

By Karen Matthews

New York -- The case of a rabbi accused of molesting more than 20 girls sparked a review of sex abuse policies in Orthodox Judaism's most prominent group, but critics say a rabbinical court unique to the Orthodox branch still hinders abuse claims from getting a full airing.

As the sex abuse scandal among Roman Catholic clergy widens, church authorities across the country are revisiting the way they handle abuse claims and looking again at sometimes decades-old abuse claims.

But for Orthodox Jews, the wake-up call came a couple of years ago with the case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner, who is accused of molesting teen-agers over a long career as an educator and youth group leader.

He resigned in June 2000 from his job as a leader of the Orthodox Union's National Conference of Synagogue Youth and is facing trial in Monmouth County, N.J. He could be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted.

Lanner has denied criminal wrongdoing, but admitted to having had romantic relationships with former students.

"Because of the Lanner case the Orthodox Union has undergone almost two years now of deep introspection and examination of our policies and procedures,'' said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the union, which represents 1,000 mainstream Orthodox synagogues in the United States and Canada.

He said the Orthodox Union has implemented standards for all staff members who work with youth and has set up extensive training sessions.

"We also have a clear way for parents or youth to complain,'' Weinreb said. "We're trying to develop a culture of vigilance and continuous improvement.''

While no one is alleging that sexual abuse is especially common among Orthodox Jews, critics say the rabbinic court or Beit Din, can discourage civil authorities from investigating a complaint.

"As we look at the general issue of the cover-ups of abusers in the clergy, what we find in the Orthodox Jewish community is unfortunately that an institution already exists which allows clergymen to wield extraordinary influence,'' said Michael Lesher, a lawyer and journalist who has written about the issue.

Lesher said that "deeply held tradition'' impels Orthodox Jews to bring a complaint against a rabbi to a Beit Din, where the accuser is often pressured not to alert the police or prosecutors.

In a case that received some local publicity, Lesher and sociologist Amy Neustein have charged that Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes dropped charges against a Hasidic rabbi in 2000 after a Beit Din said he was innocent.

The case involved Rabbi Solomon Hafner, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Bobov sect in Brooklyn's heavily Jewish Borough Park section. Hafner was accused of molesting a young boy during private tutoring sessions.

A Beit Din consisting of five Orthodox rabbis from around New York cleared Hafner, and the district attorney declined to prosecute.

Hafner would not speak about the case, but his lawyer, Jack Litman, said that Hynes ``determined that the complaining witness and his family made up the charges.''

A spokeswoman for Hynes, Sharon Toomer, said the evidence "didn't substantiate the claim'' against Hafner.

But Dr. Katherine Grimm, a pediatrician who is the medical director of the Children's Advocacy Center of Manhattan, said that she interviewed the boy and "there were details that were very hard for a child to be coached to make up,'' Grimm said. ``Nobody had anything to gain from this disclosure.''

Neustein and Lesher suggested that Hynes' office was pressured to drop the case by the religious court, a charge denied by Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, one of the tribunal's members.

"Who is powerful enough to pressure the D.A. and the police to drop the charges?'' Rottenberg said. He added that Hafner served as a camp counselor and pool monitor for 13 years and no one ever complained about him.

In the Lanner case, a Beit Din met in 1989 - more than a decade before he was eventually charged in court with abusing two teen-age girls while he was principal of a Jewish day school - and found that allegations against him had not been proven.

Weinreb said anyone who suspects abuse should go to the police and not to a Beit Din.

"If there's a fire, you call the fire department, you don't go to the rabbinical court,'' he said. "We're obligated to go to the authorities.''

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http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Menken_Yaakov.html

Case of Rabbi Yaakov Menken

(AKA: Kenneth Lloyd Menken, Ken Menken, Yaakov L. Menken, Yakov Menken)

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Spring Valley, NY

Yeshivas Ohr Somayach - Monsey, NY

Bais Medrash Gavoha - Lakewood, NJ and Jerusalem, Israel

Mirrer Yeshiva - Jerusalem, Israel

Kiruv Worker (Jewish Outreach) - International

Founder and Director of Project Genesis -Baltimore, MD

Founder and Director of Torah.org -Baltimore, MD

Founder and Director of TorahMedia.org -Baltimore, MD

Author - The Everything Torah (Book)

Accused of clergy sexual abuse by a young adult female

If you or someone you know was sexually manipulated by Rabbi Yaakov Menken, please contact your local rape crisis center and or The Awareness Center, Inc. at 443-857-5560


CALL TO ACTION: Boycott Events Associated with Alleged Sex Offender, Rabbi Yaakov Menken

December 5, 2007

Download a pdf file of this call to action at: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/MenkenCallToAction.pdf

Over the last few years The Awareness Center has shared information with you regarding the case of Rabbi Yaakov Menken (AKA: Yakov Menken, Kenneth Menken, Ken Menken). Due to the issue of confidentiality we have been limited in what we have made public. The allegations against Menken include sexual harassment and clergy sexual abuse.

Yaakov Menken's alleged modus operandi is to become a father figure to vulnerable young women and eventually manipulating them into having sexual contact with him. Menken is married with children and in his forties. The alleged women he targets are usually in their late teens or early twenties. In 2005 Rabbi Yaakov Menken had a discussion with Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky and confessed to having sexual contact with a very young woman he counseled. He basically blamed the survivor, stating "she came on to me".

Since The Awareness Center became aware of the allegations made against Yaakov Menken we were able to gathered information which included conversations with various rabbonim in Baltimore. It appears that a national Jewish outreach organization which included a relative of the Menken survivors were in a bet din dispute right before and during the time that Rabbi Yaakov Menken was sexually manipulating a young woman from an extremely insulated community.

The survivor was barely out of her teens at the time that Yaakov Menken started his grooming process on her. When Menken got started the young woman had recently moved away from her family for the first time. Menken allegedly marked her as an easy target and began to provide rabbinical counseling to her. It's important to keep in mind that Rabbi Menken was very angry with the survivors relative during this time period and the woman was unaware of the bet din dispute. It is believed that this is part of the reason why Menken picked her as a target and began to lure her in.

Usually when someone goes searching for spirituality they are in a vulnerable state because of some sort of personal crisis in their lives. These are exactly the type of people that Menken allegedly preys upon.

Several Kiruv organizations are partnering up with alleged sexual predator, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, for a Jewish Outreach event that will be featuring Dr. Gerald Schroeder. The problem is that by doing so they are basically saying that Yakov Menken is safe and someone both affiliated and unaffiliated Jews can trust.

The Awareness Center is asking that you boycott all events associated with Yaakov Menken, Project Genesis, Torah.org, Project Genisis and TorahMedia.org. We are also asking that you to call and or write the following people and demand that they stop working with Rabbi Yaakov Menken.

Contact:

* The Advertiser

E-mail: ads.theadvertiser@gmail.com

Phone: 410-764-3787

________________________________

* The Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore

Adam Rosenberg

E-mail: arosenberg@associated.org

________________________________

* The Center for Jewish Education

Larry Ziffer, Executive Vice President

Phone: 410-735-5000, ext. 5005

E-mail: lziffer@cjebaltimore.org

________________________________

* Gerald Schroeder, Ph.D.

HaHish 5, Jerusalem 93223, Israel

Phone 011-972-2-5671233

E-mail: gs@geraldschroeder.com

Rabbi Yaakov Menken

Torah.org - May 14, 2007

http://www.torah.org/staff/menken.html

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the founder of Project Genesis, and creator of many of its sites and programs. You will find hundreds of Torah commentaries authored by Yaakov Menken on this site and elsewhere.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken has been called a ' visionary ' in the field of Jewish Outreach. Project Genesis supports outreach organizations worldwide, while operating Torah.org , the Internet's premier Jewish learning web site. Both Yaakov Menken and his organization maintain open communication with Jews at all levels of learning and education, and Project Genesis is endorsed by Jewish leaders from across the Jewish spectrum.

Rabbi Menken earned his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University in Computer Science, and pursued Rabbinic studies in Yeshivas Ohr Somayach, Beth Medrash Gavoha in Lakewood and Jerusalem, and the Mirrer Yeshiva Jerusalem, before founding Project Genesis in 1993.

Yaakov Menken joined Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in creating Cross-Currents , a journal of traditional Jewish thought, in late 2004. This award-winning web log, or blog, features ten recognized, outstanding Orthodox rabbis and teachers. The name Cross-Currents reflects, in Rav Adlerstein's words, the aspiration "to expose the intersection between two currents: the timeless flow of authentic Torah thought, and the ebb and tide of current affairs."

Recently, Rabbi Menken led the technical development of Contact Loved Ones , an open voicemail system for those displaced by recent natural disasters. This story was picked up by the general media and especially by technical publications.

Rabbi Menken is a veteran analyst of the global Jewish scene. Project Genesis has helped with the hosting of Jewish World Review since its inception, and Yaakov Menken has contributed articles to JWR on tolerance , the value of life , the risks of the Internet (which also appeared elsewhere ) and other topics.


CALL TO ACTION: The Awareness Center is asking that Rabbi Shumel Kamenetzky make a public statement regarding the confession of Rabbi Yaakov Menken.

The Awareness Center - November 19, 2006

It is not often The Awareness Center puts out a warning regarding an individual who is also rabbi. Due to the seriousness of the allegations, the time has come for action to be taken regarding the case of Rabbi Yaakov Menken.

The Awareness Center has recently learned that Rabbi Menken has created two new organizations associated with "Project Genisis". He has began a Kiruv organization (Jewish outreach) called 'e-Kiruv". He is also involved with an organization called Oz Nidberu. There are also rumors floating around that he may be involved in the development of a new counter-missionary organization.

We all have to be aware that it is not uncommon for Kiruv workers and or counter-missionaries to be involved with individuals who are experiencing a personal crisis in their lives. These crisis's includes a death in the family, illness of a loved one, trying to sort out unresolved issues, and even individuals who have been traumatized (victims or witnesses to a violent crime, survivors of childhood abuse, survivors of sexual assault, etc.). Individuals who are experiencing a life crisis are often in a vulnerable state and are more susceptible to being manipulated by sexual predator.

Over the last few years Rabbi Yaakov Menkin was accused of both sexual harassment and professional sexual misconduct. At one point Rabbi Menken had a discussion with Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky regarding the allegations made by one of the women he counseled. The conversation included a confession by Yaakov Menken of having sexual contact with the woman. Rabbi Menken basically blamed the survivor stating "she manipulated him". Rabbi Menken was nearly forty at the time. The young, haredi woman was hardly out of her teens.

Because of the serious and complicated allegations made, the word needs to get out that young, single adult women could be at risk of harm if they share information about their personal lives with Rabbi Yaakov Menkin, especially if the woman is experiencing any sort of life crisis.

Due to the sensitivity of the situation and for reasons of confidentiality we are limited in what we can share with you about the case. What we can share is on The Awareness Center's site on Rabbi Yaakov Menken <http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/menken_yaakov.html>

If you need more information regarding Rabbi Menken's confession please contact Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky.

The Awareness Center, Inc. is also asking that everyone contact Rabbi Kamenetzky requesting that he make a public statement regarding the confession made by Rabbi Yaakov Menken. Contact information for Rabbi Kamenetzky is provided below.

Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16).

Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky

Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia

6063 Drexel Road

Philadelphia, PA 19131

Telephone: (215) 473-1212 Fax: (215) 477-5065

If you or someone you know has had similar experiences, please contact your local rape crisis center and or The Awareness Center, Inc. 443-857-5560

Call To Action:

Stop Funding Programs Organized By Alleged Sex Offender Rabbi Yaakov Menken

The Awareness Center, Inc. - December 24, 2006

In honor of the survivors of Rabbi Yaakov Menken (AKA: Ken Menken), The Awareness Center is bringing the following information to your attention. The goal is to prevent any more individual from becoming the next victim of a sexual offense.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the founder and director of Project Genesis, a Kiruv organization (Jewish outreach). He has put together an educational program that is funded by the Jewish Education Enhancement Projects (JEEP), which obtains its funds through the Jewish Federation of Baltimore (The Associated).

The Awareness Center, Inc. is asking that you contact both organizations and demand they stop funding programs connected to Rabbi Yaakov Menken. We are also asking that you contact those who are advertising Menken's programs. Explain to them that they are putting unsuspecting women at risk of harm.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken confessed to Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky that he had sexual contact with a young religious woman. At the time of the abuse this particular survivor was undergoing "spiritual counseling" by Rabbi Menken. The survivor was bearly out of her teens at the time she was sexually manipulated. Kenneth Menken was nearly in his forties. He was also a married, haredi (orthodox) rabbi.

The young woman describes her experience with Menken as clergy sexual abuse (professional sexual misconduct) During a conversation with Rabbi Kaminetsky, Kenneth Menken stated the young woman "manipulated him into having sexual contact."

Project Genesis has put together the following lecture series, which is funded by The Associated of Baltimore. Each time this program is advertised puts another unsuspecting woman at risk of harm -- by being "counseled" by Rabbi Menken. Please demand that all organizations stop funding activities organized by Yaakov Menken. Also demand that newspapers and magazines refuse to advertise events connected to him. The goal is to prevent one more unsuspecting individual from becoming the next victim of a sex crime.

The Awareness Center is also asking everyone to contact the following speakers. Please help inform them of Rabbi Menken's past history of alleged clergy sexual abuse (professional sexual misconduct). All inquires of his confession should be directed to Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky. (215) 477-1000.

Please ask Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky make a public statement regarding Rabbi Menken's confession and require Yaakov to be in therapy with a highly qualified psychotherapist whom specializes in working with sex offenders. The Awareness Center is also asking that Ken Menken financially compensate the survivor for the pain and suffering he has caused her.

Contact The Following Organizations

The Jewish Education Enhancement Project (JEEP)

rgreenfeld@cjebaltimore.org

410-735-5006

The Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore

Adam Rosenberg

arosenberg@associated.org

The Center for Jewish Education

1) Larry Ziffer, Executive Vice President

lziffer@cjebaltimore.org

2) Rivka Lampert Adler, Director Adult Education

radler@cjebaltimore.org

The Baltimore Jewish Times

Andrew Buerger, Publisher

410-752-3504

publisher@jewishtimes.com

The Advertiser

ads.theadvertiser@gmail.com

410-764-3787

Ner Israel Rabbinical College

Rabbi Aharon Feldman

Rabbi Beryl Weisbord

410-484-7200

List Project Genesis Speakers:

  1. Rabbi Dr. Ephraim Becker

  2. Rabbi Motti Berger

  3. Rabbetzin Tzipporah Heller

  4. Rabbi Doron Kornbluth

  5. Rabbi Zev Leff

  6. Rabbi Noach Orlowek

  7. Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum

  8. Rabbi Ken Spiro

=================================================================

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1196847321935&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

A boy's first train ride



Typical protective parents that we are, my wife and I were apprehensive about putting our 14-year-old son by himself on a train from New York to Baltimore, where he attends the high school division of a respected yeshiva. His planned ride back to school after Succot with one of the postgraduate students had evaporated, though, and so we had no choice.

We asked my father, who is a beloved congregational rabbi in suburban Baltimore, if he might be able to pick Dovie up at the train station downtown and take him to the yeshiva, he assured us, as we knew he would, that it would be no problem. He and my stepmother would do anything for any of their grandchildren.

My wife took Dovie to the train station on our end, and I called her on her cellphone from my office to make sure they had arrived safely and on time. As she described seeing our son off, I couldn't help but recall the story of another Jewish 14-year-old's first solo rail ride.

It was just about the same time of year, around Simchat Torah, but the year was 1939, and the Nazis had just begun their invasion of Poland. The boy's family, along with all the townsfolk, had fled their tiny village in central Poland by foot. Doing their best to stay ahead of the advancing German army, they reached a city called Zembrov, where there was a synagogue and Jewish infrastructure. The family found a temporary place to stay, but the boy had made up his mind, despite the family's dislocation, that he was going to the yeshiva in Bialystok, where, before the outbreak of the war, it had been arranged for him to study.

The parents balked - who could know, they argued entirely reasonably, what lay ahead? - but the boy insisted. Years later, his persistence at the time would make him wonder. Why indeed had he insisted on leaving his family at a time of war? But in the end his parents relented, surely unaware that their son's decision would save his life. With the clothes on his back, a spare shirt, his tefillin, a siddur, and a few apples from his mother, the boy boarded the train to Bialystok. He would never see his mother or father again.

ON THE train, two elderly Jews approached him and asked: "Little boy, where are you going?" He responded, "To the Bialystok yeshiva."

"The Bialystok yeshiva?" they exclaimed. "The Bialystok yeshiva has moved to Vilna!"

The boy hadn't realized - how could he have? - that all the Polish yeshivot had relocated at war's start to the famed Lithuanian city. Having no idea where to go or what to do, he began to panic but then calmed himself with the thought: "Well, I was going to go to Bialystok to study, and so now I'm just going to Vilna instead." When the train arrived in Bialystok, the boy, although he had no ticket, asked someone in the station which train was going to Vilna. When he finally located the track, he saw a train filled to capacity with people - some were hanging from its sides. The boy began to cry but was impelled by something nebulous but powerful to somehow get on the train. It had begun to leave the station but was still moving slowly and so he ran after it along the tracks and grabbed the handrail of the steps to one of its doors. Grasping his handhold tightly, he managed to get one of his feet on the step. As the train picked up speed, people moved in, and, with some settling on the platforms between cars, the boy managed to find a place to sit. He fell asleep, and morning found him in Vilna.

THE REST of the boy's story is equally compelling. He studied, as he had wished, in the yeshiva, but it wasn't long before he and his fellow students were uprooted again. Eventually they and their teachers were sent by the Russians to a work camp in Siberia, a saga unto itself. Although there were many harrowing moments over those months and years, he survived the war, immigrated to the United States and raised a family.

We American-born Jews would do well to more often and more deeply dwell on what previous Jewish generations had to endure. What we call problems wouldn't even register on their radar screens, and realities they faced daily we see only in our nightmares. Reminding ourselves of those facts not only charges us to more deeply respect and appreciate those who came before us, it provides us perspective in our own lives and impels us to be deeply thankful for all the great blessings we have, and all the great adversities we don't.

Dovie's trip was uneventful. His train arrived a bit later than expected but my father was there to shuttle him to yeshiva. When I called my father later that evening to thank him again, he assured me that he was happy to have been of help.

He also mentioned that he had asked Dovie if the train ride had been his first. When Dovie answered in the affirmative, my father told his grandson: "There isn't time now, but one day, remind me to tell you about my own first train trip. It was when I was just about your age."

The writer is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.

91 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2007/12/agudah-to-uoj-welcome-back-again.html#c7018125334950475043

yob abuse said...
According to some people that are in the know, the police came down to YOB in the beginning of the year. They were investigating a case of child abuse by one of their Rebbeim. Has anyone heard anything about this?

8:14 PM, December 13, 2007

exposemolesters said...

This is accurate information. The police made a trip down to YOB in September 2006 and also the beginning of this year. Their investigation has been three-fold. They have received several complaints and accusations of.

a) Rabbi Yehudah Nussbaum sexually and physically abusing kids.

b) a Pre-1a Rebbe punishing students by hitting them.

c) ongoing physical abuse and corporal punishment by the YOB administration against students in the boys and girls devision.

Rabbi Arem of YOB was in touch with some Parents urging them to say there was no abuse whatsoever. There is more information which I cannot divulge at this time.

Anonymous said...

Israel: US report on Iran may spark war

By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press WriterSat Dec 15

Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.

In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also cast doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month.

Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East.

He compared the possibility of such fighting to a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 by its Arab neighbors, which came to be known in Israel for the Yom Kippur Jewish holy day on which it began.

"The American misconception concerning Iran's nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened," Dichter said in a speech in a suburb south of Tel Aviv, according to his spokesman, Mati Gil. "Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat."

Dichter didn't elaborate on the potential scenario but seemed to imply that a world that let its guard down regarding Iran would be more vulnerable to attack by the Islamic regime.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had disputed the U.S. intelligence assessment this month, saying that Iran continues its efforts to obtain components necessary to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran still poses a major threat to the West and the world must stop it, Olmert said.

Israel has for years been warning that Iran is working on nuclear weapons and backed the United States in its international efforts to exert pressure on Iran to stop the program. Israel considers Iran a significant threat because of its nuclear ambitions, its long-range missile program and repeated calls by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for the disappearance of Israel.

Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.

Israel will work to change the American intelligence agencies' view of Iran, said Dichter, a former chief of Israel's Shin Bet secret service agency.

"A misconception by the world's leading superpower is not just an internal American occurrence," Dichter said.

Any future faulty U.S. intelligence on the actions of Palestinian security forces could damage peace efforts, Dichter said.

"Those same (intelligence) arms in the U.S. are apt to make a mistake and declare that the Palestinians have fulfilled their commitments, which would carry with it very serious consequences from Israel's vantage point," Dichter said.

Anonymous said...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934479.html
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 11:42 14/12/2007
Fraud charges could topple Ashkenazi chief rabbi at January 3 meeting
By Yuval Yoaz

The Rabbinical Court of Appeals will convene January 3 for a meeting that may decide whether Rabbi Yona Metzger resigns as Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, sources close to the situation told Haaretz yesterday.

The court will discuss removing Metzger in wake of a recommendation by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann that the chief rabbi be impeached for alleged breach of trust and fraud.

Though the court is not authorized to impeach Metzger itself, legal experts believe the chief rabbi will resign if the court rules against him.

Metzger is suspected of staying at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem for a minimal fee during the Jewish holidays of Pesach, Sukkot and Shavuot in 2003 and 2004. According to the police, he also enjoyed similar discounts at other hotels.

In April 2006, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided not to open a criminal investigation against Metzger over the suspected discounts, but he recommended that the chief rabbi resign.

In response, Metzger filed a petition against Mazuz at the High Court of Justice, arguing that the recommendation he resign was invalid because Mazuz was not authorized to make it. High Court President Dorit Beinisch sided with Metzger, saying that "it appears that the attorney general has placed the cart before the horses."

Mazuz then retracted his recommendation that Metzger resign and handed his report to Friedmann to decide on the matter.

The police probe against Metzger began in 2004 after a TV report claimed he had received discounted lodging at the David Citadel Hotel. Metzger's room was paid by the Chief Rabbinate, while the room where his three children stayed was paid by a religious charity.

The second incident related to the discounts the family was given for its stays at the hotel on four occasions between October 2003 and October 2004. Participants in the affair dubbed the discount for the chief rabbi "the Metzger tariff." Critics chided Metzger for staying at the hotel because he had a state-funded apartment in Jerusalem.

Ahead of the January hearing, the chief rabbi's lawyers relinquished their client's right to a preliminary hearing with Friedmann and announced they would address the Rabbinical Court directly.

In addition, Metzger has told the High Court that he will not sit as a Rabbinical Court member during his own hearing. The chief rabbi's pledge came after the Omets human rights group petitioned to bar Metzger, citing a conflict of interest.

Metzger's lawyers are expected to argue that the court is not authorized to discuss the removal of chief rabbis because it does not appoint them. In addition, they will claim that Mazuz's decision not to open a criminal investigation into the affair proves that Metzger need not resign.

Anonymous said...

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071215/NRSTAFF/71214028

Article published Dec 15, 2007
Rabbi is indicted on sex charges
David Alan Stein, 35, faces eight counts of having sex with a student, records show.

Police say the incidents took place at a boarding school in Guilford County with a 16-year-old student.

By Jennifer Fernandez
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — A rabbi accused of having sex with a student at American Hebrew Academy was indicted this week.
The grand jury also returned murder indictments against three men in two separate homicides and against a woman accused of killing one person and injuring five others in a DWI crash during Labor Day weekend.

David Alan Stein, 35, faces eight counts of having sex with a student, records show. He was the school's director of campus life.
Police have said the incidents, which involved a 16-year-old male student, took place on campus sometime during the 2006-07 school year.

The co-ed boarding school serves 135 high school students and employs 80 people, school officials have said. Students come from all over the world to attend the academy, which combines college preparatory and Jewish studies.

The school is on a 100-acre campus off Hobbs Road in northwest Guilford County.

Also indicted were:
* Aviance Marquita McCollum, 28, of 1907 Oak St., on a charge of felony death by motor vehicle and five counts of felony serious injury by motor vehicle. She is accused of killing Latoya Marquita Simmons and injuring five others Sept. 2 while driving while impaired on Interstate 40/85, records show.

McCollum, who was carrying six children in her car, had slammed into the median. Simmons, 23, and another woman had stopped their van to help after seeing children trying to get out of the car, reports show. The van was still in the left lane of the interstate when it was struck by another vehicle. The impact knocked Simmons into the path of traffic.

* Clarence Nelson Stone, 50, of 3753 Safenight Road, Climax, on a charge of first-degree murder. Stone is accused of killing Denise Ball Collins, 46, on Sept. 12.

Collins' body was found along East Sheraton Road near the Woodlake mobile home park near Pleasant Garden.

* Pedro Louise Sanchez, 16, of 824 Reid St., on a charge of first-degree murder. He was indicted in connection with the Sept. 24 death of Karl Lamont Mark. Sanchez's alleged role has not been explained in court or police documents.

* Donny Troy Mosley, 22, of 2300 Apache St., Apt. A, on a charge of first-degree murder. Mosley's charge also stems from Mark's death. He is accused of shooting and killing the 28-year-old man.
Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jfernandez@news-record.com

exposemolesters said...

YOB is a vicious school. They need to be shut down!

Anonymous said...

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/1/pph/

Planned Parenthood’s Child Molester Cover Up EXPOSED!

Life Dynamics, Inc. (LDI), in partnership with Traditional Values Coalition, is providing irrefutable proof that Planned Parenthood (PP) is deliberately covering up the sexual molestation of girls!

Sexual activity with underage girls is illegal in all 50 states—yet Life Dynamics discovered that Planned Parenthood counselors are willing to cover up sexual crimes against underage girls by adult males!

LDI encouraged a team of girls to call PP clinics and pretend to have been sexually abused by adult males. In case after case, PP counselors willingly ignored state law to cover up these molestations and violations of statutory rape laws! These conversations were taped by LDI.

Each PP clinic that has covered up child molestation must be prosecuted! For additional information on the LDI’s Child Predator project, go to: http://www.childpredators.com

Listen to these tapes and make up your own mind about the motives of Planned Parenthood officials to cover up the sexual molestation of girls!

Anonymous said...

The church sure knows how to sweep their boy problems under the rug. On the other hand I think i'm not as smooth as those catholics, is it shayech they can give me some pointers on how to sweep this shmootz under the carpet?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9670005/

Records show L.A. Catholic abuse cover-up
Church sent accused priests to therapy, new parishes, according to papers
The Associated Press
updated 7:36 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct. 12, 2005

LOS ANGELES - Newly released records of sex abuse claims against 126 priests that are at the core of hundreds of lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles show that church officials for decades moved accused priests between counseling and new assignments.

Attorneys for 500 alleged victims and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles had previously agreed to release the information, but lawyers for accused clergy succeeded in blocking publication, arguing it would violate priests’ privacy rights. An appellate court last month ordered the documents to be released after nearly three years of legal wrangling.

The records conform with the pattern of the abuse crisis that erupted in the American church nearly four years ago. In many cases, the church provided years of therapy to accused clergy, believing the men could be rehabilitated, then assigned them to new parishes, which often resulted in new claims against them.

Still, the Los Angeles Archdiocese appears to have so far avoided the damaging full disclosure forced on other American dioceses by judges and grand juries.

More complete records still sought
Church officials late Tuesday released summaries of their personnel records. By comparison, the files a judge unsealed in the Archdiocese of Boston, where the abuse crisis began in early 2002, contained doctors’ reports, memos from diocesan officials about meetings with distraught parents and other details that revealed an insensitivity to victims. The documents enraged Catholics and forced Cardinal Bernard Law to resign as Boston archbishop.

Raymond P. Boucher, the lead plaintiffs’ attorney in Los Angeles, said the newly released information was a first step, but that complete personnel files should be made public.

“The significance of these files is that they provide a little more information for the public about the church’s knowledge and frankly their participation in the molestation of children, but until the (entire) files are made public, we’re not going to be satisfied,” he said.

Archdiocese attorney J. Michael Hennigan called Boucher’s concerns that the summaries might be whitewashed “nonsense.”

Records cover priests from 1920s
“Ray has not seen the files themselves and has no basis to say that beyond speculation,” he said. “These are accurate descriptions of the content of the files, without disclosing confidential communication.”

The records cover priests who were ordained as far back as the 1920s. Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has led the archdiocese since 1985, had overseen many of the men. A spokesman for Mahony has repeatedly insisted the cardinal wanted to reveal the information to promote reconciliation with victims, but was barred by confidentiality laws.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, accused Mahony of “shameless posturing as some sort of reformer,” while he used legal maneuvers to block a full accounting of his role in the crisis.

“Mahony is grasping at straws to convince his flock that he’s not as awful as many of his colleagues,” Clohessy said. “And as he has for years, Mahony is trying anything he can dream up to avoid having to fully reveal how little he did to safeguard innocent kids from abusive clerics.”

The documents offer details in numerous cases, though much of the information has already been published. In many of the files, there was little mention of child molestation. Instead, euphemisms such as “boundary violations” were used to describe the conduct.

Conviction expunged from record
One priest, who served as a teacher and administrator at numerous Southern California schools, was convicted of molesting two boys and given probation. The conviction was later expunged from his record. A subsequent report was made in 1994 of “boundary violations,” in which he allegedly patted the buttocks of a teenager. He entered alcohol treatment days later and was eventually placed on leave.

Another priest’s file shows the archdiocese received repeated complaints that he engaged in “inappropriate sexual conduct with children” beginning in 1959, but that it did not appear to take significant action against him until 1994 when he was relieved of his duties, according to the documents.

Many bishops have said they were misled by therapists to believe that a sexual attraction to young people could be cured. As church officials’ understanding of sex abuse deepened, accused priests were generally removed from the ministry altogether, Hennigan said.

The archdiocese, the nation’s largest, serves nearly 3.6 million people in 284 parishes. It has posted about 150 pages of summaries from the clergy files on its Web site.

Anonymous said...

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=35227§ionid=3510212

Rabbi Friedman harassed by Zionists
Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:33:28


Austria's Zionist Community leaders have ordered burglarizing the House of the Austrian Chief Rabbi while he was in Iran with his family.

Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman, who is the Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox Anti-Zionist Community of Austria, his wife Lea and six of their seven returned to their home in Vienna recently after almost two months in Iran at the guest house of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

After returning they founded out that all their belongings have been stolen.

"Austrian Zionist Jewish Community leaders have admitted having conducted burglary and theft at my house," Friedman told Press TV on Sunday.

In a statement last week to the Austrian Press Agency (APA) the Austrian Zionist Jewish Community known as the IKG (Israelitische Kultus Gemeinde) officially admitted being behind the burglary, he said.

Accordingly, the family filed the formal criminal complaints against the IKG, and criminal proceedings are currently under way against the perpetrators.

This is not the first time the community commits crimes against its opponents in Austria.

Back in Dec 2002 the IKG --in an unsuccessful raid attempted to occupy and terrorize --attacked the synagogue of Austrians Orthodox Zionist Community headed by Rabbi Friedman.

In addition to the burglary the IKG filed various complaints against Friedman's interviews and lectures at Iranian universities, where he praised Tehran for allowing freedom of speech and free scientific research on the Holocaust.

Last Week the Austrian prosecutors finally rejected and entirely closed all the files against the Rabbi.

exposemolesters said...

www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-rebeccadec14,1,6103253.story
chicagotribune.com
Man pleads not guilty to 251 counts of child sex abuse

By Andrew L. Wang

Tribune staff reporter

December 14, 2007

A Vernon Hills man pleaded not guilty Thursday to 251 counts of sexual abuse or assault against nine teenage boys.

Michael Rebecca, 50, sat in a chair in a Lake County courtroom as Judge James Booras summarized the charges from the bench, a process that took more than 5 minutes.

Last week, he was indicted on 99 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual assault of a victim between ages 13 and 17, aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim between ages 13 and 18 and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim younger than 13. On Wednesday he was indicted on an additional 152 counts of those charges.

Prosecutor Steve Scheller said last week's indictment was for incidents involving four of the boys while this week's indictment was related to the remaining five.

Authorities said Rebecca, of the 700 block of Court of Birch, is a computer programmer who became acquainted with one of the boys through the boy's aunt, a co-worker.

Officials said they think the boy introduced Rebecca to other boys, who in turn brought more boys to the group.

Authorities said Rebecca treated them as though they were in a club.

At Rebecca's apartment, the boys played games that involved sex acts either with each other or Rebecca; boys were rewarded with iPods, video games, DVDs and cash, prosecutors said.

The alleged assaults started when the boys were ages 11 to 13, prosecutors have said. The incidents are believed to have occurred from 2001 to last year.

Rebecca's attorney, James Schwarzbach, declined to comment specifically on the charges.

"I know the prosecutors; they are professionals," Schwarzbach said. "They are going to make sure, and I am too, that this case is heard dispassionately in court and not made into a public lynching."

-----------

alwang@tribune.com

Anonymous said...

Homeless man is arrested in sex abuse
By Pat Reavy
Deseret Morning News
Published: December 16, 2007
A man who police say was inappropriately touching children who live at the Salt Lake homeless shelter as they got off the bus from school was arrested Thursday by Salt Lake City officers.

Kevin Lee Kittredge, 44, was arrested for investigation of sex abuse of a child and being held Friday in the Salt Lake County Jail on $25,000 bail.

Police received a complaint Tuesday that a man would wait at the bus stop for children to come home after school. As the children got off the bus, he would put his hand on their backs and casually let it slide down to their buttocks, said Salt Lake City police detective Jeff Bedard. The inappropriate touching began a couple of weeks ago, he said.

"The kids became increasingly fearful. They were very disturbed and very scared," he said.

Police were notified and patrol officers were told to be on the lookout for the man, who was also staying at the shelter. Thursday, Kittredge was spotted and arrested.

He was booked for investigation of abusing just one 12-year-old child, but Bedard said detectives were checking whether there were additional victims continued Friday to look into whether there were additional victims or if there was any abuse taking place inside the Road Home Shelter. As of Friday, there was no evidence to suggest any abuse happened in the shelter, he said.

"It was crucial we were able to get this guy off the street," Bedard said.

Salt Lake School District spokesman Jason Olsen said the district was also relieved and grateful to the police for catching the man.

"There's no excuse for treating a child this way," he said.

Olsen said the case showed why it is important for children to have an adult they feel comfortable enough with to report such activity, whether that adult be a parent, teacher or a police officer.

E-mail: preavy@desnews.com

exposemolesters said...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/14/2119378.htm?section=justin

No orders to hide child sex abuse cases: Bligh

Posted Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:15pm AEDT

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says any child safety officer who does not report sex abuse to police is breaking the law.

Claims of cover-ups were raised during an external review of a child rape case in the Cape York community of Aurukun and Ms Bligh has asked the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) to again investigate the allegations.

Ms Bligh says she has been assured by the current and former child safety ministers there is no directive for officers to hide abuse cases from police.

"Any failure by any child safety officer to do that is not only a failure of their duty but it is a breach of the law so the allegation is very, very serious therefore it needs investigation and I want to see if there is any evidence for it," she said.

The Queensland Police Union says it is remarkable that child safety officers would withhold information from police.

Union spokesman Denis Fitzpatrick says heads should roll.

"There seems to be an intention on behalf of some members of the Department of Child Safety deliberately not relaying information to police," he said.

"What I am informed of is police are not availed of this information, therefore they can't commence any form of investigation and assist these children."

Calls for intervention

The Queensland Opposition says the "cover-up" claims add more weight to calls for Federal Government intervention.

Liberal leader Mark McArdle says the time for talking is over.

"We need to get an intervention in place immediately in Queensland," he said.

"We need to look at what are the issues in this area, no longer debate if it now comes down to when will it start, what will it be and who will do it."

Earlier today, Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said extending the intervention into Queensland should be the new Labor Government's top priority

Sentencing issues

Meanwhile, a state independent MP is calling for a review of the state's sentencing legislation following the controversial case.

The Member for Nanango, Dorothy Pratt, says the case highlights the enormous variations in the interpretation of sentencing.

Mrs Pratt says she has been warned against making reflections on the judiciary in the past but says while she does not expect support from the major parties, she is representing the views of many people.

"People need to let the judges know that what they are doing is in fact not representing the community expectation," she said.

"The victims are getting a very raw deal but the perpetrators are getting off too lightly."

Anonymous said...

Salem man faces sex abuse charges

December 15, 2007

A Salem man who ran a barber shop in Dallas faces numerous sex abuse charges, police said.

Bruce Elliot Benkle was arrested and charged last month with eight counts of sex abuse III, five counts of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, two counts of sex abuse I and two counts of hindering prosecution, law enforcement officials said.

Benkle, who is in the Polk County jail, is accused of sexually abusing numerous individuals, male and female, ranging in age from early to late teens, at a barber shop on Southwest Fairview Avenue in Dallas. Bail was set at $200,000, police said.

Anyone with information should call Detective Jerry Mott of Dallas Police Department at (503) 831-3527.

--Thelma Guerrero-Huston

exposemolesters said...

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/105912.html

Israeli police, TV hit pedophiles

Published: 12/16/2007

Israeli police collaborated with a television station in rounding up suspected pedophiles.

Setting a precedent for Israeli media, Israel's Channel 10 this month arranged for an actress to pose as a 13-year-old Internet user and troll for pedophiles online. Eleven men were persuaded to come to an apartment on the promise of sex with the "girl," only to find themselves caught in a police sting operation.

Channel 10 aired hidden-camera footage of the arrests, making public the identities of eight of the suspects. Their ages range from 24 to 62 and, according to the television station, they hail from various professions, including the military and high-tech.

Sexual abuse of minors has received more attention recently in Israel. According to police figures, one in six Israelis suffers some sort of molestation as a child.

To ease education on the risks, an Israeli production house is making a children's video about sexual abuse that parents can discuss with their offspring.

Anonymous said...

newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-bc-ny--schooltherapistar1212dec12,0,6561954.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines

NYC school therapist arrested on child sex-abuse charge

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:37 PM EST, December 12, 2007

NEW YORK

A therapist at a Queens elementary school has been charged with molesting a 6-year-old.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown identified the defendant as George Bournias of Public School 84 in Astoria, where the girl was receiving speech and occupational therapy.

Bournias was arraigned Wednesday in Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens on charges of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

His attorney, Holden Thornhill, had no immediate comment.

Anonymous said...

Who is Rabbi Arem? Related to the heimishe macher Heshy Arem who lives just down Ocean Pkwy?

exposemolesters said...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3483629,00.html

14:52 , 12.17.07

Eliyashiv's words of encouragement: put evil away

Haredi Rabbis approve internet use for business

A special rabbinical commission for media issues comes to agreement on internet use 'for business purposes only.' The approval is conditioned on connecting to a server especially for Haredim that filters undesirable content
Neta Sela

Cracks are beginning to form in the high wall of Haredi internet-phobia: The Rabbinical Commission for Media Affairs, established by leading Haredi rabbis, published in the Monday's Haredi press an announcement permitting the use of the internet "solely for business purposes, through kosher means."


Glatt Gambling
Haredi lottery comes to town / Neta Sela
After rabbis issue halachic ruling permitting lottery, a monthly enterprise gets underway: tickets cost 100 shekels and the proceeds go to charity
לכתבה המלאה

The rabbis explained that the need to solve the problem presented by the internet came from the growing use of computer information systems, email and the internet in the business world.



According to the rabbis, "after consulting with experts, we have found a solution to the impasse which will allow those requiring it to access email only or sites connected to their livelihood."



"This special solution was reached after much labor and sophisticated, technical investments aimed at removing the serious dangers of spiritual obstacles and injuries,' reported the Haredi press."The fact is that the evil inclination has in this generation adopted unsupervised technology and computers as the main weapon in its war (against spirituality)."



According to articles, many appealed to the community's Rabbis to find a solution for the problem of the internet as anyone required to use it to provide himself with a livelihood felt like he was "living on the edge."



The rabbis turned to communications companies that provide filtering services to create a solution for the God-fearing community in a special track under their supervision.



The rabbis further clarify their intentions in the announcement: "It is our opinion that our words do not permit using computers, and consequently, not computerized communications, for purposes not essential for business."


'War on the computer blight'

Sunday night a delegation from the commission paid a visit to Lithuanian Chief Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv, who told them that "preventing computerized obstacles (to faith) constitutes banishing abomination and following the Torah's command 'so shalt thou put evil away from among you.'" Rabbi Elyashiv emboldened the delegation in its "war on the computer blight, and (its efforts) to stop the great danger from harming the people of Israel, young and old alike."



Rabbi Yossef Binyamin Halevy Wazner, member of the commission and the son of Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wazner, considered one of the great jurisprudents of the Hassidic community, told his grandson: "Blessed is he needeth not a computer. He that requireth the internet – he shall connect solely through the track supervised by the Rabbinical Commission on Media Affairs."

exposemolesters said...

I do not know if I should laugh or cry!

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2007/12/16/service_offers_rabbis_day_in_and_day_out/5752/

Service offers rabbis day in and day out
Published: Dec. 16, 2007 at 10:48 PM

NEW YORK, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- For $10,000 per year, busy New York Jews can keep a rabbi on call to meet with them anywhere and almost any time.

The service, offered by the Aish New York non-profit Jewish educational center, has four rabbis on call five days a week who meet with clients in conference rooms and at coffee houses to discuss religious texts, relationships, and sometimes even recipes, The New York Post reported Sunday.

Clients of the Executive Learning Program -- who include Kirk Douglas and executives from finance giants like JPMorgan -- say it helps them get in touch with their religion in a way that their schedule would not otherwise allow, the newspaper said.

In return, the center asks clients to make a minimum donation of $10,000 per year -- though some give as much as $250,000 -- and refer their Jewish friends.

For the less well-heeled, the center offers group study sessions and Shabbat dinners for singles, the Post said.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/nyregion/16shun.html?em&ex=1197954000&en=d1bdf10ddf8b0cb9&ei=5087%0A

The New York Times

December 16, 2007
Kiryas Joel Journal
A Display of Disapproval That Turned Menacing
By DAN LEVIN

KIRYAS JOEL, N.Y.

It was late one night over the summer when the Greenberg family was frightened by a menacing phone call. Then came threats, and then vandalized cars. As the days turned into weeks and the police canvassed the neighborhood, knocking on doors and interviewing potential witnesses, they were met with silence.

This was not the troubled streets of the city, nor were the witnesses fearful of gang retribution. Rather, this was Orange County, and the victims — a husband and wife who are members of the Hasidic sect known as Satmars — said they were being harassed by those in their own insular world here.

The woman, Toby Greenberg, told the police that the root of the harassment was her decision to deviate slightly from the culture of modesty that defines and reinforces this Orthodox Jewish enclave of bewigged women in long-sleeved shirts and ankle-length skirts and bearded men in black hats and long black coats.

According to the police, Mrs. Greenberg said she was singled out because she chose to wear denim skirts, long, natural-looking wigs made of human hair, and stockings without a visible seam — traditionally worn because they show that women’s legs are not bare.

The incidents offered a rare glimpse into the strict social dynamics that govern life in this village of 20,000 people, an hour from Manhattan and not far from West Point. It is a place where television and the Internet are forbidden and women do not drive, restrictions intended to provide a haven from the temptations of the outside world.

Occasionally someone defies the social mores — whether it is a young man frequenting bars in the nearby village of Monroe or a woman dressing inappropriately or flirting. That is when the “vaad hatznius,” the rabbinically appointed modesty committee that enforces the village’s rules of behavior and appearance, intervenes.

“If we find they have a TV or a married woman won’t wear a wig, we will invite them to speak with us and try to convince them it’s unacceptable, or next year we will not accept their children into the school system,” said David Ekstein, the vice president of the village’s leading congregation, Yetev Lev, and one of eight men who make up the committee, hand-picked by Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, the town’s spiritual leader.

Mr. Ekstein, 62, the president of an insurance company, said that the committee was widely respected for its role in protecting the community, especially children. “There has to be some kind of watchdog,” he said. “But do we have any real power? We’re not a government.”

In the case of Mrs. Greenberg, he insisted, “This had nothing to do with the vaad or the community.” He called the harassment a “chilul hashem,” a desecration of God’s name.

But weeks after the incidents began, the New York State Police started to investigate the case of Mrs. Greenberg, the 25-year-old mother of a young daughter, and her husband, Yoel, who accused the vaad hatznius of orchestrating the harassment. According to the police, leaflets calling the couple immoral and threatening them with expulsion were scattered in the streets and delivered to their home.

In September, the tires of their Chevrolet Impala were slashed and the warning “Get out, defiled person” was slathered in Yiddish in white paint on a window of their Mazda CX-7. That was when Mrs. Greenberg approached the authorities — a rare move in a community that is loath to attract attention from secular law enforcement.

Hella Winston, the author of “Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels,” said that it was not uncommon for women who defy their strictly codified role in such communities to become targets.

Ms. Winston, an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College, said that because these sects can not legally discipline nonconformists, they must resort to public shaming. “Their power is in fear and intimidation,” she said, though “blacklisting children from schools can at times cross the line into threats and violence.”

The efforts to silence the Greenbergs appear to have worked. Reached at her home, Mrs. Greenberg, with worry in her voice, declined to comment.

Kiryas Joel is no stranger to social discord and outbursts of violence. Since its inception in the 1970s, residents considered to be flouting the village’s stringent rules have been victims of vandalism, beatings and arson, as well as expulsion.

A decade ago, a faction of the town’s Satmars sued its rivals in federal court for religious persecution and intimidation. The dissidents claimed they had been assaulted, their cars set on fire and the windows in their homes smashed because they were defying the authorities chosen by Rabbi Teitelbaum. The two sides reconciled only so that Rabbi Teitelbaum would not have to take the witness stand.

On a recent day, villagers on the main commercial street here condemned the vigilantes and the harassment, although they also voiced disapproval of Mrs. Greenberg’s actions.

“People are hot-blooded. They see her on the street and have asked her nicely to stop wearing tight-fitted clothing, but she wouldn’t listen,” said a woman working at Kiryas Joel Shoes, who identified herself only as Sarah. “If she had behaved as she does inside the four walls of her house, it would have been fine, but on the street is different. She turned it into a dirty public thing.”

And although Sarah, a mother of 11 children, did not condone any efforts to drive the Greenbergs from the community, she said: “They’re not after you if you go off a little bit. You really have to do something to bring shame.”

After two months of fruitless inquiries, the police closed the investigation last month. “Pick any ethnic group and people are suspicious at times,” said Sgt. Warner Hein of the State Police. “They don’t want to be seen as cooperating, even at the expense of tragedies in their own community.”

exposemolesters said...

My bewilderment lies not with Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv's statement regarding the use of the "evil" computers. My bafflement is with his priorities. Eliyashiv has the audacity to lecture us about computers and its dangers, but not about the sex abuse epidemic in the yeshiva's and camps. NOT A WORD ABOUT RABBI/BOY SCANDALS. NOT A WORD ABOUT SWEEPING UNDER THE RUG. NOT A WORD ABOUT HOW COMPUTERS CAN BE A MAJOR DETERRENT AND WEAPON FOR EXPOSING SEXUAL OFFENDERS WHEN ALL ELSE HAS FAILED. NOT A DAMN WORD! However, the evil computers...

"preventing computerized obstacles (to faith) constitutes banishing abomination and following the Torah's command 'so shalt thou put evil away from among you.'"

Elyashiv - either people are feeding you what to say,or you did it on your own; either way you're an old fool!

Rabbi Yossef Binyamin Halevy says: "Blessed is he needeth not a computer. He that requireth the internet – he shall connect solely through the track supervised by the Rabbinical Commission on Media Affairs."

I have my own saying to the two Rabbinical dwarfs above:

"preventing human shmuck obstacles (to faith through the computer/internet or other methods) constitutes banishing abomination and following the Torah's command 'so shalt thou put evil away from among you.'"

"Blessed is he who can see right through the camouflage and bad advice. He that does not require the crutch of the loony rabbinate – he shall connect solely through the track of common sense and good judgment. Blessed is the one who doesn't trust the supervision by the Rabbinical Commission on Media Affairs."

Anonymous said...

Ex-TV host escapes jail for sex abuse


Former TV host Ric Marshall

The former Adelaide TV host Ric Marshall has been given a limiting term by a court for child sex offences.

A former children's television host has been punished, but not jailed, for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy.

Ric Marshall, 78, abused the boy in the early 1970s and organised for him to have sex with another boy of the same age.

Marshall is now bedridden with Parkinson's disease and dementia, and was not in court in Adelaide today for sentencing.

Judge Dean Clayton said, if Marshall were well enough, he would have been jailed for six-and-a-half years.

Instead, the judge set what is called a limiting term.

It means that Marshall will be supervised for the next six-and-a-half years.

Marshall will not be allowed to leave the home where he lives with a carer.

Judge Clayton said Marshall was no longer a risk to the community and it was being spared the cost of finding him a nursing home bed.

Anonymous said...

Posted at: 12/17/2007
By: WNYT Staff

Restaurant owner accused of sex abuse, rape

WARRENSBURG - A Warrensburg restaurant owner now faces 19 criminal charges tied to the alleged sexual abuse of four young women.

NewsChannel 13's news partner The Post-Star reports 43-year-old Anthony Sapienza was arraigned on a grand jury indictment Monday morning.

Sapienza is accused of forcing three of the teenage victims to have sexual contact. He's also accused of rape.

Sapienza owns Sapienza's Pizzeria and Restaurant on Route 9

exposemolesters said...

Worthwhile to read this.

http://www.uticaod.com/homepage/x1091760164

Expert: Children often hesitate to report sex abuse
Dec 17, 2007
By ROCCO LaDUCA
Observer-Dispatch

LEE - Sexually abused children may have their reasons for keeping such traumatic experiences a secret at first, according to child abuse experts.

They may feel embarrassed or that they are somehow to blame for what happened, Dr. Eileen Treacy of Lehman College in New York City said. Perhaps they were threatened to keep quiet, or maybe they simply feel that nobody will believe them.

Whatever the reason may be, the alleged sex abuse of one 10-year-old child in 2000 in the town of Lee remained unheard of for seven years until investigators with the Oneida County Child Advocacy Center recently received a tip, officials said.

Roughly 24 hours later, 70-year-old William James Hawkins Sr. was charged with first-degree sodomy, said Rome police Investigator E.A. D'Alessandro, who is assigned to the advocacy center.

“Some victims tell right away after something happens; some don't disclose for days, weeks, months, years; and some never tell anybody about it - they hold it inside their whole life,” said Kevin Revere, law enforcement coordinator for the advocacy center.

Investigators believe the alleged abuse occurred over a period of years, and additional charges are expected, Revere said. The case has been turned over to the Oneida County District Attorney's Office for possible grand jury indictment, he said.

Hawkins has been released from the Oneida County jail after he posted a $40,000 bond Sunday, jail officials said.

In general, it is more likely that sexually abused children will not tell anyone right away after an incident happens, Treacy said.

Some children may have secrecy imposed them with either threats or gifts, Treacy said. Other children may not even realize at first that such behavior is wrong.
And the closer the relationship is between the child and the abuser, she added, the more likely the abuse will not be disclosed in a timely manner.
If a family member is accused of being the abuser, but no one believes the allegations, then such claims may cause further problems among the family, Treacy said.
The more time that passes, however, the harder it then becomes for an abused child to disclose what happened, Treacy said. These children may build up a level of self-blame wherein they actually believe they somehow contributed to the abusive behavior.
In those cases, abused children may learn to tolerate the behavior, as if it were alcoholism or domestic abuse within their family, Treacy said.
“They put it in a box and it becomes part of their life,” Treacy said of abused children. “They can look normal on the outside, but some of them act up and some of them act inward.”
Because these emotional obstacles may build up over years, it is imperative that investigators know how to talk to potentially abused children in such a way to break through any self-imposed barriers, Revere said.
“You just can't ask anybody to go out there and talk to a child victim of a crime like this and expect to get a disclosure,” Revere said. “We like to turn suspects' worlds upside down, but we don't like doing it with children. Unfortunately, it's the nature of this business.”

Anonymous said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071218/us_nm/heart_usa_dc

Group says heart and stroke deaths fall in U.S.

Death rates from heart disease and stroke are falling in the United States but heart and artery disease remains the leading cause of death, the American Heart Association said on Monday.

An estimated 869,724 people died from heart disease in 2004, compared to 911,163 in 2003, the Heart Association said.

Cancer was the second-biggest killer, taking 553,888 lives in 2004. Stroke, when considered separately from other cardiovascular diseases, was the third leading killer, taking 150,074 lives.

The group predicts that in 2008, 770,000 people in the United States will have a heart attack and 430,000 will have a recurrent attack. Another 175,000 will have a silent first heart attack.

The group projected that 770,000 people will have a stroke in 2008, about 600,000 for the first time.

"These statistics make it clear that cardiovascular disease remains, by far, our greatest public health challenge," said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair of the association's statistics committee.

"Although we have made some substantial strides in understanding the causes of cardiovascular disease, the data in this publication show that we have a long way to go to capture people's attention and to implement the prevention and treatment programs we need," added Lloyd-Jones, who works at Northwestern University in Chicago.

A growing number of Americans are overweight and obese, the heart association said in its latest statistics release.

Only 21.4 percent of male high school students and 18.7 percent of females said they ate at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables -- the minimum recommended to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and stroke.

More than 46 million Americans smoke daily and about 4,000 teenagers aged 12 to 17 begin smoking every day.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Alan Elsner)

Anonymous said...

This punishment is way too severe. 138-year sentence for sodomizing children? Why don't we learn to live and forget. Every person deserves a second chance, especially the Rabbi's who are always there to guide and nurture us.

http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071130/NEWS/711300326/1001

Friday, November 30, 2007

Child sex abuser receives 138-year sentence

Salem man's prison term for sodomizing two children is affected by 2006 law

RUTH LIAO
Statesman Journal

November 30, 2007

A Salem man will spend the rest of his life in jail for convictions of eight counts of sexual abuse, partly as the result of a relatively new law enacted in Oregon.

Michael David Robinson, 35, received the 138-year sentence this week from Marion County Circuit Judge Joseph Ochoa.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Courtland Geyer, a spokesman for the district attorney's office, said he did not know whether the sentence was the longest since the new law, known as "Jessica's Law," went into effect in April 2006.

The law lengthens mandatory sentences for offenders convicted of first-degree rape, sodomy or unlawful sexual penetration if the victim is younger than 12.

Under the law, the mandatory minimum sentence is 25 years.

"This is the worst case of sexual child abuse that I've seen in almost 14 years on the bench," Ochoa said.

Deputy District Attorney Nicole Theobald prosecuted the case, which involved two young children known to Robinson.

Robinson pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree sodomy.

Four of the counts were for crimes committed after April 2006. Robinson's first court appearance was Sept. 24, and he pleaded guilty Tuesday.

Robinson's defense attorney Robert Botta had recommended a 25-year sentence.

Robinson received 100 months for the first count, 110 months for the second count, 120 months for the third count and 300 months each for the remaining counts.

"I want to make sure, sir, that you are never able to injury anybody," Ochoa said to Robinson.

rliao@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 589-6941

Anonymous said...

What you write about Rav ELyashev & Rav Wosner is not true.

They have both poskened that molesters should be reported to the police but corrupt "rabbis" who claim to listen to gedolim ignore what they say about child abuse.

Rav Wosner also had a dayan on his Bnei Brak beis din, Rav Sillman, write a teshuva that a child molester has a din of a rodef. And it goes unsaid what you are allowed to do to stop a rodef.

exposemolesters said...

What you write about Rav ELyashev & Rav Wosner is not true.
=================================

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am breathing a sigh of relief by the information you provided. I still wonder though, why R' Elyashiv and R'Wosner couldn't include in their statement a line or two about sexual abuse prevention via the computers. A computer is a weapon that could be used for good and bad; the same way a gun is a weapon that can be used in a crime or self defense. In any event, if they both are on record as paskening that molesters should be reported to the police and that they have a din of a rodef, then I wasn't aware of such data - and I ask for selicah and mechila of Rav Elyashiv and Rav Wosner. Yasher Koach for setting me straight!

Anonymous said...

BBC NEWS
NYC hails Muslim 'Good Samaritan'
By Alastair Lawson
BBC News

I have friends who are Jews, Christian and Buddhist and would have acted in the same way if they were victims of an unprovoked attack
Hassan Askari
A Muslim Bangladeshi student is to be honoured by the mayor of New York on Wednesday for helping three Jewish people who were being beaten up.

Hassan Askari has been described as a "latter-day Good Samaritan" for coming to the aid of the three, who were attacked earlier this month.

A gang yelling anti-Semitic slogans had assaulted them on the city's subway.

His intervention left him with a possible broken nose, a stitched lip, bruises and two black eyes.

'One family'

But it was sufficient for the attackers to turn their attention on him and allow one of those who was being attacked to raise the alarm and call the police.

"I was brought up to believe that you cannot walk away from an incident like this," he told the BBC.

"I felt I could not just stand there and watch these people being beaten up without doing anything to help.

"I believe we are all members of one family, and my religion teaches me always to come to the aid of my fellow man in distress."

The slightly-built accountancy student - who comes from an aristocratic Bengali family - was travelling from home on 9 December when he saw the attack take place on a crowded train.

Mr Askari has three forefathers who were knighted by British monarchs during the days of the Raj and is a member of the Dhaka Nawab family, an important political dynasty in the Indian subcontinent.

Around 10 people were attacking the three Jews after an argument had broken out.

"As the quarrel turned progressively more violent, scores of people on the train ignored the fight and didn't want to have anything to do with it," said Marc Scheier, a rabbi from the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, who presented Mr Askari with a bravery award earlier this month.

"Mr Askari - like the Good Samaritan - was the only person brave enough to intervene.

"The symbolism of his action at Christmas time is striking - a foreign Muslim coming to the aid of three Jews in an act of kindness and cooperation.

"People often forget that Judaism and Islam aren't so far apart as the radicals from both sides would have us believe. We are both Abrahamic religions and in many respects share a common faith."

'Unprovoked attack'

Mr Askari said that he was "overwhelmed" by the publicity his actions have generated, and "embarrassed" that the American press have labelled him a "hero of the city".

"I have friends who are Jews, Christians and Buddhists and would have acted in the same way if they were victims of an unprovoked attack," he said.

Rabbi Scheier said that he could tell from injuries sustained by one of the three victims that it was a "brutal and extremely violent" attack which would have required "immense courage" from Mr Askari to get involved in.

"He is such a humble and modest man blessed with the most extraordinary bravery," he said.

Ten people have been arrested in connection with the attack and three of them have appeared in court charged with assault and disorderly conduct.

Mr Askari is due to be presented with a medal on Wednesday that will be handed to him either by or on behalf of the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

The student - whose mother, father and younger brother live in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka - says that his long term aim is to return to his beloved home country where he grew up as a child.

"Home is where the heart is and at least there is no subway there," he said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/7149916.stm

Published: 2007/12/18 14:31:08 GMT

exposemolesters said...

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/14877305/detail.html

* Video: Archdiocese: Molestation Suit Against Ex-Priest Too Late

Church Attorney Admits Priest Molested Boys
Archdiocese Still Argues Suit Should Be Tossed, Citing Statute Of Limitations

December 17, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS -- An attorney for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis acknowledged in court Monday that one of its priests "was a child molester and serial predator" of young boys.

Attorney Jay Mercer said that to a judge as he argued that the statute of limitations has run out on a fraud claim charging that the archdiocese deceived an Indianapolis parish that Harry Monroe was suited to minister to young boys.

Monroe has been named in 13 cases that accuse him of molesting boys between 1974 and 1984 at a series of parishes in Indianapolis, Terre Haute and, finally, in remote Perry County along the Ohio River.

"Harry Monroe was a child molester and a serial predator who committed some heinous crimes against young boys," Mercer said in oral arguments for a summary judgment throwing out the fraud claim on grounds the six-year statute of limitations has run out.

Monroe has given a deposition in which he admitted lewd behavior or sex acts with at least five boys. He did not attend Monday's hearing and could not be located for comment. He is believed to reside in or near Nashville, Tenn.

Marion Superior Court Judge David Shaheed did not rule immediately on the motion for summary judgment.

The charge of fraud is the only count remaining in a lawsuit in which a plaintiff identified only as John Doe said he was 10 when Monroe began molesting him in 1977 at the now closed St. Catherine Parish in Indianapolis. The plaintiff now is in his 40s.

At stake in most of the lawsuits is the contention by plaintiffs' attorney Patrick Noaker that the Archdiocese of Indianapolis should be held liable for fraud for reassigning Monroe to different parishes after it learned of the molesting allegations against him. The statute of limitations for child molesting has run out in the cases.

"This case is a case where they found out he was molesting kids at one parish and transferred him to another parish, and we have documentary proof of that," Noaker told reporters after the hearing.

The plaintiff in Monday's case told 6News' Derrik Thomas he believes the archdiocese knew about complaints against Monroe but kept assigning him to different parishes.

"It's made me very, very angry to know the facts -- know how much they knew -- and they kept plopping him around, letting him do it to other kids. It's amazing," the plaintiff said on condition of anonymity.

Though the archdiocese's lawyers are arguing the case should be thrown out because it is past the statute of limitations, Mercer told reporters Monday that the archdiocese wants to pay medical and therapy expenses for anyone abused by an archdiocese employee.

"We ask that anyone who has suffered childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a priest or any employee of the archdiocese come forward and allow us to assist them with a pastoral response," Mercer said.

The plaintiff told 6News that the offer is "way too little, way too late."

exposemolesters said...

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22945750-5000117,00.html

Get in first to protect our children from abuse

Vivien Resofsky

December 19, 2007 12:00am

THE community is outraged at what it perceives to be the inadequate judgments of those in authority with responsibility for protecting children.

But often public outrage wears off all too quickly and the ordeal of children goes on.

Comments by County Court Judge Michael Kelly that children "simply get over it' and a perpetrator and victim "both acquired illicit pleasure" from "experimental lust" have been met with horror and disbelief.

They come after Queensland Judge Sarah Bradley's conclusion that a 10-year-old rape victim "probably agreed to have sex."

It points to the underlying problem about child sexual abuse and why academic research indicates a staggering one in three Australian girls and one in six Australian boys are abused.

If those figures amaze you, it is based on research which has been explained by the Australian centre for Sexual Assault and resembles US studies.

What the judicial comments clearly reveal is a basic ignorance about child sexual abuse.

The fact these people don't appear to comprehend the enormity of the problem indicates the need for wide public education and a change in attitudes.

Judge Kelly and Judge Bradley do not understand that child sexual abuse is not just a "bad experience".

Can you imagine the impact on a child who is repeatedly assaulted by the same person, a person they know and trust?

Yet because they are so confused, scared or so shamed by this person they do not tell anyone. Sometimes the abuse continues over years and the child carries their imagined shame alone in silence.

The silence of victims and ignorance of adults whose role should be to protect children are the allies of sexual abusers.

That's why child sexual abuse should be a public health issue, with a focus on education to change attitudes.

Adults should be given the knowledge about child behaviour which helps them recognise and react responsibly to possible child sexual abuse.

Yet there were no suitable "packaged prevention programs" available in Australia.

Child sexual abuse is a problem in every country and every community. Some, however, are moving in new directions.

Good programs are available from the US which assist development of preventative and protective behaviours.

Despite the facts, we have yet to sustain a movement to prevent abuse.

That's because it doesn't fit into its own category but is often addressed at the periphery of other issues such as domestic violence and sexual assault of all ages.

Government agencies have not accepted the fact child sexual abuse can be prevented through more active action. The solution to the underlying problem is the need for further education, for a mandated reporter in schools who is legally responsible to report abuse.

The epidemic of child sexual abuse cannot be countered when we have not given it the necessary focus, planning, and funding to reduce the damage. To simply bundle it together with other societal maladies camouflages the extent of the problem, as well as its potential remedies. We need a revolution in child sexual abuse thinking that moves away from old and tired approaches and embraces a new way of reaching adults. By continuing with existing strategies that have failed to address and prevent child sexual abuse, state and federal governments are doing our children no favours.

VIVIEN RESOFSKY is a prevention trainer and founder of Prevent Child Abuse Australia

Anonymous said...

December 18, 2007

Granddaughter accuses megachurch leader of sexual abuse

http://www.jacksonville.com/apnews/stories/121807/D8TJNSRG0.shtml

By DORIE TURNER
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA - Add an adult granddaughter to the list of women who say the leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch sexually abused them or coerced them to have sex.

Penielle "Penie" White first told WAGA-TV last week and told The Associated Press on Monday that Archbishop Earl Paulk, 80, co-founder of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church, touched her inappropriately when she was about 8 years old. She said she made the allegations in a sworn deposition a few months ago as part of a lawsuit against Paulk, who is accused by a former church member of coercing her into a sexual relationship.

Paulk has been hit by multiple lawsuits, but does not face criminal charges.

"He started out playful, tickling and sort of fondling," White said in a phone interview. "But as a child, you don't know that's what he's doing."

White said she also was present when her grandfather fondled Jessica Battle, another young member of the church, who later sued Paulk in 2001 for molestation and rape. That case was settled out of court two years later.

Matt Wilkins, one of Paulk's attorneys, denied White's allegations.

"They surprised him," Wilkins said of the on-air interviews given by White and her mother - Paulk's daughter, Beth Bonner. "He spent Thanksgiving at Beth Bonner's house, and Penie was there. They had a loving family Thanksgiving."

Bonner, however, said the family had a meal together on the Saturday following Thanksgiving so that they could be with Paulk's wife, Norma, who refuses to go anywhere without her husband.

"They make it like we were all in family unity, and we weren't," said Bonner, who left her father's church in 1992.

White's assertion marks only one in a long string of sexual allegations to plague the Paulks. At least three women have sued Earl Paulk and his brother, Don Paulk, over alleged sexual misconduct.

In October, the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the family's church. A judge ordered the test at the request of the Cobb County district attorney's office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which are investigating Earl Paulk for possible perjury and false-swearing charges stemming from a lawsuit.

The archbishop, his brother and the church are being sued by former church employee Mona Brewer, who says Earl Paulk manipulated her into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. Earl Paulk admitted to the affair in front of the church last January.

In a 2006 deposition stemming from the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer. But the paternity test said otherwise.

As part of Brewer's lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.

So far no criminal charges have been filed against Earl Paulk. GBI spokesman John Bankhead referred questions to Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head, who did not return a call for comment Monday.

The church began in 1960 with just a few dozen members. At its peak in the early 1990s, it claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. By soliciting tithes of 10 percent from each member's income, the church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress.

Today, though, membership is down to about 1,500 - a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the alleged sexual scandals.

Anonymous said...

http://old.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=16849

Why let sex offenders walk free?

Sex offenders in the Netherlands are walking the streets unpunished.

Of the 15,000 rapes, indecent assaults and so-called "lewd incidents" reported each year, just 1,400 convictions are made, the Justice Ministry's research institute said this week.

The public prosecutor handles only 2,700 cases every year, bringing 63 percent of these to court. In 15 percent of these cases, the suspect is acquitted, compared with 4 percent in general crimes.

The gamble is abundantly clear: rape and sexually assault at will — you are likely to escape conviction.

And what's more, efforts to combat sex abuse get barely a mention in the Dutch government's agenda, given its fixation on terrorism and Islamic extremism. The abused and vulnerable are left abandoned.

Now it's time the tide changed. But how do we fight back?

We must first identify a cause, because rape is at times described as pure violence and power and these elements should not be ignored. Nor should a diverse array of causation factors in child sex abuse be ignored.

But to claim that sex is not part of a crime of sexual abuse is naïve and ignores the very nature of the crime itself: sex.

Should we take preventative action then and ban short skirts and pornography? Or remove erotic billboards that can bring on wanton thoughts?

One reaction was a call for a return to traditional Christian values; to paraphrase: turn off the light and make sex taboo once again.

Or should we go the other way and re-open the street prostitution zone in Amsterdam, perhaps giving frustrated would-be rapists at least some kind of release.

That's not the answer either.

But sex shouldn't be something hushed up. Let's talk about it, enjoy and explore it … and encourage its victims to lodge police reports. There's no shame in being a victim, only society's shame of allowing a victim's silence.

The Netherlands can be proud that the readiness to report sex crimes is slightly higher here than in other countries, which in turn leads to a higher number of recorded offences.

But 75 percent of cases involve a victim and perpetrator who know each other. In more than 50 percent of these cases, it involves a family member or partner, and the remaining cases often involve colleagues, teachers or friends.

More startling is that two-thirds of victims are aged 15 or under — and despite the better-than-average Dutch record, only a small number of all victims lodge police reports.

Abuse strikes at the heart of childhood, the trust of a marriage, the responsibility of profession. And yet it is only the stand-out horrors that grab the headlines.

This is a hidden problem. A taboo.

But where do we have a right, more than anywhere else, to feel safe? It is in our home and our trusted relationships. The vulnerable need our protection, both via prevention and punishment.

Too often it is up to the prosecutor and police to ensure convictions in court, where it is frequently the word of the victim against those of her attacker.

Consider the 13-year-old girl who informed police she was raped in April, May and October 2004, leading to the arrest last month of 17 youths. She might still have to face the suspects in court, despite alleged confessions from some of the suspects.

These 17 are among the 200 youths prosecuted on average each year for gang rapes, a figure that could be much lower than the true number of crimes, the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law warned late last year.

And countless victims, whether abused by adults or youths, are unable to close the door on dark memories; unable to say: "at least he was jailed." (Only 2 percent of sex suspects are women, while 85 percent of victims are female).

So how do we protect women? Our children?

In 25 percent of cases the prosecutor takes on, a lack of "valid evidence" forces an acquittal, so we must shift the weight of evidence in favour of the victims.

We must eliminate their shame and punish perpetrators without mercy to serve as a deterrent.

But most importantly, all teenage boys must be given disciplined education at school outlining the real facts of sex abuse — that he too is a potential future offender and that there is no excuse for abuse.

Stop a rapist young.

11 February 2005

Anonymous said...

December 18, 2007

7-detective team will investigate city's sex crimes

Nicklaus Lovelady
nicklaus.lovelady@jackson.gannett.com

By the new year, the Jackson Police Department expects to have seven detectives solely focused on the city's sex crimes.

Previously, there were five detectives handling not only sex crimes, but also several other types of cases, including child protection.

"Child protection, sex crimes and missing persons were all lumped up in one unit. I chose to separate them into several units to better utilize our manpower," Jackson Police Chief and Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin said Monday.

"A juvenile unit that has a crime against a juvenile should stand alone. It doesn't need to be together with a rape or a missing person."

The child protection and missing persons portion of the current unit will be handled by other units, he said.

McMillin said the change is part of his reorganization of the Police Department since being named chief last month. He said his goal is to assign crimes to those best qualified to solve them.

In recent years, the sex crimes and child protection unit has received criticism because of a perceived slow response from detectives by people in the community.

Hinds County District Attorney Faye Peterson said splitting sex crimes and child protection is the first step in improving those services.

"I never thought child abuse needed to be together with child sex abuse. The technique used to investigate a sex crime is different from the technique for investigating child abuse," Peterson said.

The second step in improving the services is to hire enough dedicated officers to handle the demanding workloads, she said.

"As a detective, you really have to work that case and go the extra mile," she said.

"You have to be there the moment that report leaves the hospital. You're interviewing schools, families, you're talking to (the Department of Human Services). These cases are really hard," Peterson said about sex crimes and child abuse cases.

Peterson said the problem with the unit in recent years might have been a lack of officers available to work the cases.

"I've suspected that there were more cases of child abuse but there were not enough investigators available to work them up," she said.

The leader of the sex crimes unit, Sgt. Holley Haywood, along with two other members of the unit have been reassigned.

Currently there is no supervisor, but McMillin said two detectives assigned to the unit will oversee cases until the overhaul is completed.

"We're looking to bring in two more experienced detectives and we're looking to bring in three more through a selection process," Assistant Chief Lee Vance said.

Vance said the new sex crimes unit will work with the sex crime unit at the Sheriff's Department.

"McMillin feels comfortable with the unit over there and thinks it can provide a model for what we want to do with our unit."

Anonymous said...

Staff writers

December 19, 2007 12:00am

A DEVASTATED teen says the judge who freed his molester, saying he'd consented to his own sexual abuse, should hang up his wig for good.

The young deaf man said Judge Michael Kelly made him feel that confronting his abuser was a waste of time.

"Me and my whole family felt like he was on that bloke's side, just the way he talked," he said.

Why can't we elect Judges like we elect our MPs?? That will ensure the Judges listen to the public they suppose to represent, and we will have real community representation within the justice system. At the moment, the judges are selected from those living in gated community where it seemed they don't have a concept on how the real world functions.

Posted by: Joe of Camberwell 9:47am today
Comment 7 of 7
sad part about all this is the bo will be devistated for the rest of his life, and thebloke gets away with it. i was told by a q.c that said "the people with money will always win and there is no justice" sad that nothings being done and everyone just keeps on going on with life while these bastards are getting away with everything.

Posted by: me 9:17am today
Comment 6 of 7
"Attorney-General Rob Hulls refused to comment". For gods sake Hulls get some guts and say something. What the hell is going on with our government in Victoria. They have become invisible. We have a spokesman or spokeswoman making comments all over the place, but no ministers coming out with anything of worth. The only recent sighting was Lynn Kosky, and lets face it nothing she ever says is of any worth.

Posted by: Trevor C of Melbourne 9:11am today
Comment 5 of 7
This is exactly why we need to reform the sencenting of bad crimes as this. Time to reshuffle the Judges and the laws....they are always open to interpretations. Sucks

Posted by: 221 of melbourne 8:47am today
Comment 4 of 7
Unbelievable.

Posted by: Michael of Attwell 8:14am today
Comment 3 of 7
Surely the most important role of a Government is the protection of it's people, especially children. What a discraceful display by OUR courts, the sad thing is that this is not a once off, next week there will be another similar story about our pathetic Judiciary.

Posted by: Michael David of mt evelyn 8:12am today
Comment 2 of 7
My inexpert understanding of the law is that nobody can consent to sex if under 16 - the whole point of this is to protect the vulnerable. Pity nothing protects us from inept judiciary, yet again.

Posted by: John of null 8:03am today
Comment 1 of 7

Anonymous said...

"I still wonder though, why R' Elyashiv and R'Wosner couldn't include in their statement a line or two about sexual abuse prevention via the computers."

Because probably every anti-abuse blogger has also done improper things. I don't mean to criticize ExposeMolesters because I would also make mistakes if I had a blog but for instance, when R' Hershel Schechter gave his haskoma to UOJ, he mentioned that he also does improper things which is true.

R' Yosef Blau gives his haskoma to Vicky Polin for the Awareness Center but there are problems with it. She says that Brad Hames is a molester but UOJ argues that he is not. Vicky also has credibility issues. She was on the Oprah show claiming ridiculous things and Naomi Ragen says she is a swindling shnorrer who takes money and won't pay back.

I don't think rav Elyashev is mechuyev to officially approve blogs.

exposemolesters said...

Above Anon,

Had UOJ, Vicky Polin, or any other anti-abuse blog out there - saved your child from a molester - or thwarted an attack from taking place - (which we all know that they have succeeded in accomplishing) would you then say to them Thank you very much - but next time do not get involved in saving my kid, or anyones kid - on the grounds that you have credibility issues with that person - would that be a sensible act on your part?

What I said was:

"I still wonder though, why R' Elyashiv and R'Wosner couldn't include in their statement a line or two about sexual abuse prevention via the computers."

What I'm implying is - bloggers have played a major role in uncovering and deterring sexual abuse. I don't think anyone can argue with that. Therefore, based on those facts - why is it so hard for a gadol or a rabbi to include it in their statement which they are already making in abolishing the "evil" computers. I'm not asking R'Elyashiv to approve this blog or anyones blog - but he is mechuyev min hatorah to save lives and prevent further loss of life, and he could have done that by endorsing the use of computers for exposing molesters the same way he is posek that they have a din of a rodef. He could have and in my opinion should have addressed the computers as having a tachlis when all else has failed. He could have, but he didn't, and that's a darn shame!

As far as credibility issues with some of the names you mention, I can only say this. Nobody is perfect. Nobody! However, for all the complaints one wants to bring to the table about credibility - one thing you cannot take away from them. THEY SAVE LIVES. PERIOD!

Anyway, I appreciate the input, and if you have more fire away.

My personal feeling is the Rabbonim and Gedolim are too chicken to do the right thing. They're scared, stupid, and ignorant. It's time for some gadol to take the initiative and go in the derech hayashar. Their weasel mentality is literally destroying lives. How a gadol cannot see this transparent fact is beyond me!

exposemolesters said...

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/

I urge the klal to navigate this site. It has an abundance of useful information.

exposemolesters said...

http://www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZ7PP1YA7C&sub_cat=355

Medical Library

Sexual Abuse Prevention

What to do if you suspect child sexual abuse

If your child does reveal sexual abuse to you, the most important point is to take what your child says seriously. Many children who report sexual abuse are not believed. When a child's plea for help is ignored, he may not risk telling again. As a result, the child could remain a victim of abuse for months or years.

Listen to your child's explanation for disclosing the abuse. Make sure you report the abuse and help your child to understand that the abuse is not his or her fault. Give lots of love, comfort, and reassurance. If you are angry, make sure you let your child know you're not angry with him. Let your child know how brave he was to tell you and that you understand how frightened and scared he feels. This is most important if the child has been abused by a close relative or family friend. Then, tell someone yourself and get help. Talk to your child's pediatrician, a counselor, a police officer, a child protective service worker, or a teacher.

If the abuser is a friend or family member, you may be tempted to try and solve the problem yourself. However, when parents try to stop sexual abuse themselves, they will almost always be unsuccessful. The hard but healthy way to deal with this problem is:

* Face the issue.
* Take charge of the situation.
* Confront the problem to avoid future abuse.
* Discuss the problem with your pediatrician who can provide support and counseling.
* Report abuse to your local child protection service agency and ask about crisis support help.

Talking about sexual abuse can be very hard for the child who has been threatened or told not to tell by the abuser, who is often a trusted adult. It can be just as hard for adults to talk about it if the abuser is someone close to them. Still, in the best interest of the child, the abuse needs to be reported and the child needs to get help.

When abuse is reported, the case is investigated by the police or a social service aency that looks into reports of suspected child abuse. With the help of a doctor, the police or social services will decide whether sexual abuse took place. Sometimes the police will let social services handle the case. This may occur if the child shows no physical injury and the abuser is a family member. When a child is abused by a nonfamily member, the matter is usually handled by the police.

After sexual abuse is reported, what happens depends on the circumstances of the case. The degree of risk of more abuse to the boy or girl is of first concern to the authorities. The offender and/or the entire family may be required to attend a treatment program. The offender may even face criminal charges. If the child's safety is in question, authorities will take the offender out of the home. Usually a child can stay in the home as long as her family will take the necessary steps to protect her from further abuse, such as by asking the offender to leave the home while the problem is investigated. In any event, the child and family will need a lot of support from relatives and friends.

Stay alert to this problem and teach your children what sexual abuse is. Tell them they can and should say "no" or "stop" to adults who may threaten them sexually. Make sure they know that it's okay to tell you about any attempt to molest them--no matter who the offender may be. Let them know they can trust you and that you will not be angry with them if they tell you.

The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages you to take the following steps:

* Teach your child about the privacy of body parts.

* Listen when your child tries to tell you something, especially when it seems hard for her to talk about it.

* Give your child enough of your time and attention.

* Know who your child is spending time with. Be careful about allowing your child to spend time in out-of-the-way places with other adults or older children. Make visits to your child's caregiver without notice. Ask your child about his visits to the caregiver or with child sitters.

* Check to see if your child's school has an abuse prevention program for the teachers and children. If it doesn't, get one started.

* Talk to your child about sexual abuse. A good time to do this is when your child's school is sponsoring a sexual abuse program.

* Tell someone in authority if you suspect that your child or someone else's child is being abused.

Prevention measures to safeguard your children from sexual abuse should begin early since a number of child abuse cases involve preschoolers. The guidelines below offer age-appropriate topics to discuss with your children.

Your child's teacher, school counselor, or pediatrician can help you teach your child to avoid sexual abuse. They know how this can be done without upsetting or scaring your child. For more information on child sexual abuse or other forms of abuse, write to the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse, PO Box 2866, Chicago, IL 60690.

Your pediatrician understands the importance of communication between parents and their children. Your pediatrician also is trained to detect the signs of child sexual abuse. Ask your pediatrician for advice on how to protect your children.

AGE PREVENTION PLAN
18 months Teach your child the proper names for body parts.
3-5 years Teach your child about "private parts" of the body and how to say "no" to sexual advances. Give straight-forward answers about sex.
5-8 years Discuss safety away from home and the difference between being touched in private parts of the body (parts covered by a bathing suit) and other touching. Encourage your child to talk about scary experiences.
8-12 years Stress personal safety and give examples of possible problem areas, such a video arcades, malls, locker rooms, and out-of-the-way places outdoors. Start to discuss rules of sexual conduct that are accepted by the family.
13-18 years Re-stress personal safety and potential problem areas. Discuss rape, "date rape," sexually transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancy.

exposemolesters said...

This another useful site.

http://www.beachildshero.com/preventingabuse.htm

Anonymous said...

The rug in my living room has so much dirt under it. And when I was thinking about dirt, I was thinking ironically how this singer named Matisyahu is destroying the world with his goyish music. Next Agudah convention I will talk about it.

Anonymous said...

UOJ is messing with me? I will not tolerate this chutzpah. Have some respect for a gadol like me and stop your whining. I will keep sending kids to Nussbaum. Even a child molester needs to earn a parnassah; that's why I allowed Yudi Kolko to proctor regents at YOB.

Anonymous said...

I'm known all over, even wikipedia has me. With that said, I leave you with the decision - Would you vote me for President? Ha! I was just kidding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Shafran

Avi Shafran
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Rabbi Avi Shafran is a Haredi rabbi who serves as the Director of Public Affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an organization established to meet the needs and viewpoint of many Haredi Jews in the United States.

Shafran is widely known in the Jewish world as a writer and lecturer. He is the author of a weekly column that is syndicated in the Jewish press in the United States and other anglophone countries, as well as in English language publications in Israel. Many of his articles are directed at a wider Jewish audience, including less observant Jews, and are designed to explain this tradition.

He is very critical of the Jewish Conservative movement's claim of halachic legitimacy. He publicly opposes the possibility of Israel recognizing the legality of Reform and Conservative personal status ceremonies (ie. marriage, divorce, and conversion).

His commentaries are published weekly in the Haredi journal Cross-Currents [1], and are often available at the Jewish World Review as well.

Rabbi Shafran was the principal of a Jewish Day School in Providence Rhode Island prior to his appointment at the Agudah organization. He presently resides in Staten Island, New York. He is the author of Migrant Soul [2], "the story of a descendant of full-blooded American Indians who married an assimilated Jewess" and then began a "spiritual quest" that ended with both as Orthodox Jews. He is also an author of JewThink [3], a book on basics of Judaism.

Anonymous said...

See, at least Rabbi Avi Shafran has respect for me. He has me in his article as the Gadol Hador. He describes me as the most authoritative authority of Jewish law today. Wait a minute. If I just assered the evil computers, that knocks out Avi Shafran articles in a big way. At the same time, I can't openly support anti-abuse blogs; that would be a Chilul Hashem. Besides, i'm not about to deal with the same shame the catholic church has to go through, and also we are supposed to give a cheskas kashruth to the Rabbi. What, you're going to take the word of some kid over a chushivah yid, a chushuvah Rebbe? Wait: I posken that if it is letoyeles, if it's to gain knowledge about the Torah; then it is permissible, yes it's muttar to use the computers and the internet providing you order the filters that we recommend; and with whom we have been in touch with regarding keeping out the filth which wreakth havocth untoonself. Blessed is thee who needthes an evil computer.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/judaism-brain-death.htm

by: Rabbi Avi Shafran

SimpleToRemember.com - Judaism Online
Judaism and Brain Death

WINTER HARVEST

judaism brain death

In a forthcoming book, “Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality,” Dr. Pauline W. Chen writes about the many operations she performed on brain-dead patients for the purpose of procuring, or "harvesting," their organs for transplantation. “They all,” she writes, “seemed remarkably alive.”

This past fall, the prestigious journal Science published a report on a young woman who, after a devastating car accident, was declared vegetative. For five months, she showed no signs of awareness whatsoever. Scientists, though, decided to put her in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner, a machine that tracks blood flow to different parts of the brain and that was only developed a few years ago. When they asked her to imagine things like playing tennis and walking through her home, the scan lit up with telltale patterns of language, movement and navigation indistinguishable from those produced by the brains of healthy, conscious people. The report’s authors, while stressing that the patient may still be classified as “unconscious,” conclude nonetheless that she has a “rich mental life.”

Ten years earlier, a patient like the young woman would have been assumed, for all practical intents, to be – effectively, if perhaps not legally – lifeless. Only the development of a new diagnostic technology has now rendered her more obviously alive. It’s hard not to wonder what technologies might one day yet be developed – or what aspects of consciousness might forever elude scientific instrumentation.

The acronym DCD might be mistaken for some new medium of music reproduction but in fact refers to “donation after cardiac death” – the procurement of organs from people whose hearts have stopped, even if their brains may still be functioning. Such procedures have taken place in many countries, despite the fact that the cessation of heartbeat is not necessarily irreversible. Even some patients whose hearts did not respond to cardiac resuscitation, it is well documented, have “come back to life” – in one case after the lapse of a full seven minutes, certainly sufficient time to harvest a vital organ or two.

The driving force behind the scramble to define death “to the instant” is clearly the worldwide shortage of organs for transplant. This past summer, doctors at the World Transplant Congress in Boston were told how the pool of available organs in the United States could increase by up to 20% if DCD were adopted more widely.

What does Judaism have to say about all this? Saving a life is a most weighty imperative, to be sure, but Jewish religious law, or halacha, does not permit one life to be taken to save the life of another – no matter how diminished the “quality” of the life of the former, no matter how great the potential of the life of the latter.

Halacha requires that death be clearly established, and does not permit any action that might hasten the death of a person in extremis. Any harvesting of organs after cessation of heart function that might not be permanent would be forbidden.

Unrelated to DCD is “brain death” – a diagnosis of irreversible cessation of all brain function, which modern medicine and secular law consider sufficient to permit the “harvesting” of organs before removal of life-support. What does Jewish law have to say about “brain death”? Can a patient with no discernable brain activity but whose heart continues to beat be considered a corpse?

Some rabbis vote yea on that question. And a recent New York Times article about a conference organized by the “Halachic Organ Donor Society,” an organization advocating increased organ donation from halacha-observant Jews, referred to “near unanimity among rabbis on the criteria for organ donation” – presumably referring to the next paragraph’s citation of the chief Sephardic rabbi of the Israeli city of Tzfat, whose criterion is brain death.

But many, and considerably more prominent in the world of halachic discourse, are the rabbinical authorities who do not agree. They include the late Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, who was renowned as one of our generation’s most authoritative halachic decisors, as well as Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv, considered by many Jews to be the most authoritative authority of Jewish law today. Some leading scholars at Yeshiva University too, like Rabbi Herschel Schachter and Rabbi J. David Bleich, concur.

In her book, Dr. Chen writes about her “83rd procurement” when the brain-dead body she sliced open for its organs was that of a young Asian-American woman like herself, who reminded her vividly, so to speak, of herself. She found herself hesitating during the procedure, but managed to complete it, although as she cut the vena cava and watched the patient’s blood drain into canisters, she felt “as if my own life force were draining away.”

Dr. Chen may intend her account to be simply what the title of her book promises, a reflection on mortality. But perhaps another thought for consideration lay there on the operating table, the idea that despite the inevitability of its end, life is holy – and we do well to tread carefully and slowly before considering it gone.

That might explain the feeling she writes she had at the end of that 83rd procurement, an exhaustion born not only of “sleep deprivation [and] overwork” but of “an unbearable grief.”

Anonymous said...

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Ahb8Vfg.HImk6YMPujR7hUypu7YF?slug=dw-clemensquiet121807&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Clemens' denials by proxy only make him look worse
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
December 18, 2007

Dan Wetzel
Yahoo! Sports

George Mitchell essentially called the second half of Roger Clemens' career a steroid-fueled fraud Thursday, devastating his legacy, Hall of Fame credentials and personal reputation.

Rather than responding like the Rocket Roger we knew on the mound – sending the figurative 95 mph retaliatory fastball at Mitchell's chin – we've gotten days of silence, the only official word from Clemens' camp being a brief denial on the pitcher's behalf from his agent Tuesday and an earlier circular, emotion-based, fact-devoid denial from his lawyer.

The latest statement said: "I want to state clearly and without qualification: I did not take steroids, human growth hormone or any other banned substances at any time in my baseball career or, in fact, my entire life. Those substances represent a dangerous and destructive shortcut that no athlete should ever take."

The earlier denial was equally short on detail.

"Roger Clemens adamantly, vehemently and whatever other adjectives can be used, denies that he has ever used steroids," said attorney Rusty Hardin, apparently unaware that adamantly and vehemently are adverbs, not adjectives.

Hardin went on, but the broad-based denial did nothing to attack the heart of nine pages of detailed charges, based mostly from the sworn testimony of Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee.

Lacking anything substantive, Hardin was left to play on emotions – "that's not right, folks."

There was no counter to McNamee's charge, to name just one, that he repeatedly injected Clemens with Winstrol that Clemens supplied during the summer of 1998. There was no comment on the fact that before McNamee claims he began the injections, Clemens was 8-6 with a 3.77 ERA. After the injections, Clemens finished the season on a 12-0, 1.77 ERA tear.

There was no comment on any of the other charges through the years, either.

Meanwhile, Clemens' training partner and friend Andy Pettitte admitted that what McNamee told investigators about him using HGH was correct. So if Clemens is to be believed, McNamee was lying about him, yet telling the truth about Pettitte.

As bad as Clemens looked initially, it gets worse as each day goes by.

Apologists at ESPN have taken up Clemens' cause, calling McNamee a "sewer rat," claiming Clemens is nothing like Barry Bonds and even maintaining he might be the greatest pitcher of all time due to his 354 victories and seven Cy Young awards, even if the legitimacy of many of them are now in doubt.

The attack-the-accuser and muddy-the-water bit can be effective, if dishonest. But with Clemens mum, that's all there is – a four-point defense that's as weak as Clemens' reputation at this point.

1. McNamee is a criminal and therefore can't be trusted.

His crime is distributing steroids, which kind of comes with the territory in a steroids investigation. This doesn't hurt his credibility, it increases it.

Would you find this story more believable if it came from, say, a Franciscan nun who claims she happened to be walking down the street en route to Vespers when Clemens suddenly stopped her and asked if she'd inject him in the rear with Deca-Durabolin?

McNamee is perfectly believable, in part because he's a former New York cop who worked for the Toronto Blue Jays when he met Clemens. The Rocket liked him so much professionally and personally he brought him to the New York Yankees. Later, Clemens hired him privately and hailed him as the nation's finest trainer and a friend.

2. Clemens is the victim of "hearsay."

Hearsay is unverified, unofficial information gained or acquired from another and not part of one's direct knowledge. There is plenty of hearsay in the Mitchell report, but not concerning Clemens.

McNamee's charges are direct, first-person accounts. It's the opposite of hearsay. The allegation of Clemens willingly and knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs is actually more detailed and credible than anything directed at Bonds.

3. When the feds busted McNamee, the only way he could avoid prison was to agree to cooperate with authorities. As a result, he made up stories about Clemens to save himself.

McNamee did agree to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney's Office of Northern California. However, he was warned that if "he should be untruthful in any statements made pursuant to that agreement, he may be charged with criminal violations, including making false statements, which is a felony."

If McNamee is lying about Clemens, he risks going to prison. If anything, lying would have been the dumbest and most unlikely thing he would have done.

Hardin comically pointed out that McNamee once told Sports Illustrated that he and Clemens had nothing to do with performance-enhancing drugs. The lawyer seemed to claim that was the trainer's most truthful statement on the issue.

It isn't a felony to lie to a magazine. It is, in this case, to lie to a federal agent. But in Hardin's world, we are to believe McNamee told the truth to a reporter but lied to the feds, even at the risk of the prison term he was desperate to avoid.

McNamee would have to be a fool to admit to a reporter that he was illegally distributing steroids and an even bigger fool to not admit it to federal agents after he scored a plea deal.

4. Clemens has no way to prove he is innocent. "He has not been charged with anything, he will not be charged with anything and yet he is being tried in the court of public opinion with no recourse," Hardin said.

Clemens is hardly some hapless victim. He's enjoyed decades of victories in this same court of public opinion, and as a result, few Americans could wage a stronger defense against bogus charges.

Clemens' agents, marketers, image consultants, spokespeople and so on have crafted a powerful perception of him. He's been the center of national advertising and marketing campaigns, written the autobiography "Rocket Man" (with Peter Gammons) and done lengthy behind-the-scenes television specials addressing his rigorous training methods. Most media stories about him have been overwhelmingly positive.

The guy has so dominated the court of public opinion that he would enter this fight with a long-standing perception of a good, hard-working athlete. He is an icon to some.

It is that well-cultivated image, perhaps as much as his career numbers, which made the charges against Clemens one of the few parts of the Mitchell Report fans actually cared about.

Wednesday's brief statement from Clemens, through his agent, said in part, "I plan to publicly answer all of those questions at the appropriate time in the appropriate way. I only ask that in the meantime people not rush to judgment."

Clemens and his people are way too savvy to think that is realistic. They've certainly encouraged everyone to rush to a negative judgment of McNamee. By not making a detailed denial now, they are conceding the initial assumptions and almost admitting they have no counterproof at hand. In a crisis like this, if you have a defense, you hit back immediately.

Clemens' plan appears to be to wait until the public forgets the details and he turns to the emotional defense, assisted by top spin masters, in an interview with a sympathetic media outlet. With some media still defending him, he can probably choose the outlet and the conditions.

The court of public opinion might sound ominous and unfair, but it's not a bad place for someone such as Clemens to fight.

Of course, there is only so much that can be done unless he has clear, detailed arguments to counter the clear, detailed testimony of McNamee.

As we approach a week since his legacy collapsed around him, as the lies and syringes finally took him down, the continuing silence makes that seem less and less likely.

Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ok.org/Content.asp?ID=292


Monsey Meat Scandal - What went wrong


As a result of the recent unfortunate occurrence in Monsey, where non-kosher meat was sold as kosher at an ostensibly reliable and reputable butchery, a number of meetings were held by local and national kashrus agencies throughout the area. A variety of solutions were proposed to ensure that this type of incident should never happen again.

In this article, we will try to analyze the situation and see how effective these proposed solutions might be, as well as presenting a realistic approach to avoid future problems.

Let’s begin by examining what actually occurred:

A kosher supermarket in Monsey, NY “sub-let” space to a kosher butchery store. The butcher bought wholesale chicken and meat from many different shechitas (kosher slaughterhouses), then repackaged the chickens and meats with generic labels. The labels would state which kosher slaughterhouse the meat came from and would specify what kosher certification was therefore attached to that meat.

In addition, this butchery, within the supermarket, had additional kosher certification from a respected Rabbi.

As a result of a tip, the supermarket owner discovered two major kosher chicken distributors had stopped supplying chicken to the butchery months ago. When confronted, the butcher said he had gotten chickens from other kosher sources. When checked, those sources proved false. The local rabbinical leaders were contacted, amongst them the Skver Dayan (a judge qualified in Jewish law) who ruled that an immediate search of the butchers’ refrigerators needed to be done.

As soon as the Rabbi’s examined the cases of chickens in the fridge, they discovered the chickens were not Kosher based on the color of their skin, the lack of salt residue used in the koshering process and the presence of their kidneys. Also, no seal or signs were on the chickens or the boxes.

Non-kosher chickens had been substituted and sold as kosher chickens. It is possible that this had been going on for as long as eight years.

I spoke to someone who was involved in certifying the store, and asked him if there was a mashgiach tmidi onsite. He replied, “The owner was an orthodox observant Jew. How should I have suspected he would do this?” It is natural for us to want to trust a business owner when he seems to be a G-d fearing Jew. But we must bear in mind that every business owner is a “nogeiah bidovor” and has a vested interest in the success and profit of his business. This interest could lead anyone, chas v’sholom, to be tempted—especially when he faces other stresses in his life. So it is imperative for the kashrus agency to monitor strictly, even when the owner is a religious person.

Due to human limitations, unfortunately, mistakes can happen on the part of kosher certifying agencies. Regrettably, most agencies have encountered some type of problem over the years. The genuine question is, how does the agency handle the problem, and what steps are taken to rectify it? There are many approaches to dealing with mistakes. You can blame someone else. You can sweep it under the carpet. You can make a big chaotic meeting after which barely any changes are made.

OK Kosher has had to deal with our share of past mistakes. When they happen, our approach has always been one of introspection, in order to determine where WE went wrong and what we can do to improve OURSELVES and our kashrus system. Over the past twenty years, this approach has led to some dramatic changes and improvements in the way we operate. We have upgraded our systems and mashgiach guidelines, as we learn from our own mistakes, and those of others. Our goal is to ensure that mistakes do not recur, and that the possibility of future mistakes is reduced as much as humanly possible, b’ezras Hashem Yisborach.

A meeting of kosher certification representatives and Rabbi’s was held, to discuss what happened in Monsey and to formulate ideas to prevent a recurrence.

These are some of the proposed suggestions that were discussed at the kashrus agency meetings:

1. Only traditional butcher shops should be patronized. Kosher supermarkets should stop selling meat altogether.
2. Meat should be sold only in the original packaging put on by the slaughterhouse.
3. If repackaging is done, then the name of the original producer should not be used, only the name of the present packer/seller should be used on the packages.
4. Use of holograms should be instituted. Holograms are seals that are extremely difficult—some say impossible—to forge
5. Distributors should be forced to take certification. Not all slaughterhouses have a competent distribution network, so outside shippers transport sealed boxes of meat.

Now let’s examine each of these suggestions more closely, to see whether they would have adequately addressed the weaknesses that allowed the Monsey incident to happen.

1. Only traditional butcher shops should be patronized. Kosher supermarkets should stop selling meat altogether.
The owner of the concession was a religious Jew, and was considered to be trustworthy. He therefore was not closely monitored, with disastrous consequences. If he had owned a private butcher store, instead of a concession in a supermarket, would he have been more reliable? What is the difference between a butcher store in its own building and one located in a corner of a kosher supermarket? The problem was not the location. It was the lack of control by the certifying agency and the mistake of relying on the owner.

2. Meat should be sold only in the original packaging put on by the slaughterhouse.
Selling the meat only in its original packaging could be a solution, but is impractical in the near term. The fact is that butcher stores have always been a part of our lives and will continue to be. Meat will continue to come into butcher stores in bulk form, and then need to be repackaged in the store in convenient sized packages.

3. If repackaging is done, then the name of the original producer should not be used. Only the Packer/seller’s name should be used on the packages.
We have been informed by Rabbi Luzer Weiss from the Division of Kosher Law Enforcement at the New York State Department of Agriculture, that the practice of repacking a product with a generic label stating that it is certified by a specified agency is actually illegal.

Nevertheless it is common practice. Let’s assume that the practice of repackaging meats using the original producer’s labels had never been instituted. Instead, re-packers would use labels with their own store names and the names or symbols of their certifying agencies. Would this have prevented the storeowner in question from selling non-kosher meat? No! He could still have done it, using his own labels to label any meat he pleased—as long as those labels were in his possession and NOT in the sole possession of the Mashgiach.

4. Use of holograms should be instituted. Holograms are seals that are extremely difficult—some say impossible—to forge.
The same problem described above (in #3) regarding labels applies to holograms when they are in the owner’s possession, instead of in the sole possession of the Mashgiach. Just as the storeowner in this case had possession and control of the kosher labels, so he would have possession and control of holograms.

There have been instances at OK-certified meat establishments where meat came in from the original slaughterhouse without seals. Our Mashgiach rejected the meat and sent it back to the truck. The (non-Jewish) driver had seals on the truck, and proceeded to put them on the boxes of meat. Of course our mashgiach, under the direction of his Rabbinic supervisor, still rejected the meat. How would holograms help in such an instance (other than to profit those selling holograms)?

5. Distributors should be forced to take certification. Not all the slaughterhouses have a competent distribution network, so outside shippers carry and sell sealed boxes of meat.
If we were to certify distributors under the same system that is currently used in stores, what guarantee would we have that distributors would not do the same thing that the owner of the concession did? And what would cities distant from New York do? They get their meat from various large cold distributors. Would we hypothetically have to certify meat via FedEx to ensure it gets to every Jewish community without interference?

None of the solutions above will guarantee that an incident like this cannot recur. This is because the underlying problem is not with the various stores, the labeling systems, or the distribution system. Rather, the main and essential problem is the total lack of control at kosher-certified meat establishments.

Stories like this do happen and in fact can be expected to happen with the current unsupervised meat establishments in place. This is unfortunately not the first time such a story has happened? Approximately a year ago, a very similar story occurred in Flatbush, NY. A religious Jew with no mashgiach tmidi on the premises was caught selling kosher meat as “strictly Glatt kosher”.

Some people might say that the Flatbush situation was different, because non-glatt meat was being sold as glatt, and the meat was not treif. However, a quantity of plumbas (seals) from an unreliable kosher meat company was found.

Even after this incident however, local certification agencies did not recognize the need to require a mashgiach tmidi. No changes were made to the supervision systems at kosher-certified meat establishments. The owners and operators of kosher meat establishments were able to carry on with free unsupervised reign. So this unfortunate occurrence was just waiting to happen again.

The OK has offered a different suggestion to rectify the situation: The only way to prevent such incidents is to require a mashgiach tmidi in every kosher-certified meat establishment. The mashgiach would have full control of the keys and refrigerators. This has been OK policy at meat establishments for over 25 years. In a meat establishment where a reliable mashgiach tmidi controls all the meat entering and leaving the premises, and has sole possession of the keys to the store and refrigerators, a shocking story like this could never have occurred. And as a consumer, you of course have the power to demand, check and actually verify the presence of the mashgiach tmidi.

This is the foundation of giving reliable Kosher certification to the establishment and not just to the owner, until now only the owner was certified. With a mashgiach tmidi, the kosher certifying agency can say that they are also certifying the store, which is the most important goal.
As mentioned above, there is always room for improvement, therefore another upgrade in kosher monitoring, built on the foundation of a mashgiach tmidi, would be a system to track kosher meat from the slaughterhouse to the store shelves. Nowadays, when you order something online, you can track your package’s exact location from the time it leaves the warehouse until it arrives at your home. Millions of packages a day are tracked in this way. A similar system can be instituted to track meat. The technology for such a system certainly exists.

For example the scanning system at the cash register (already used in the vast majority of stores today) records the exact amount of meat and chicken sold. The mashgiach will have a definite system from his kashrus agency for tracking all the meat that enters and leaves the store, and he will be held accountable for keeping an accurate record of this. The mashgiach will be closely monitored by a Rabbi at the kashrus agency to ensure that the meat is being properly tracked.

As a result of the incident in Monsey, I have personally visited our butcher stores to begin the process of implementing such a tracking system. It is doable, and would help to restore consumer confidence in buying kosher meat. We commend Rabbis Bik, Rabbi Weinberger, and Rabbi Eichenstein from the Hisachdus Harabbonim for the Takonos that they issued to address this issue.

If all reliable kashrus agencies would immediately require a mashgiach tmidi with full control over the keys and refrigerators, in every certified meat establishment, the public could rest assured that a terrible scandal such as the one that happened in Monsey will never be repeated. Additionally we should collectively work toward implementation of a nationwide tracking system.

Non-Stop Meat Supervision – The OK Kosher way

Anonymous said...

http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?mode=a§ionid=13&contentid=19345&contentName=Monsey%20Meat%20Scandal%20-%20Updated

Monsey Meat Scandal - Updated

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

A Monsey butcher who sublets space from a local grocery/supermarket has been found to have been selling non-kosher poultry as strictly kosher. Shevach Meats apparently would sell chickens from Vineland and KJ and repackage them under its own label. Recently, customers had noticed a difference in the chickens -- the color was different and the meat didn't taste as salty (salting is part of the process of koshering). When the owner was notified he reportedly told customers a low-sodium salt was used.

A few days ago, the owner of Hatzlocha Grocery, the store that rented space to Shevach Meats, was told by a meat manager from Kiryas Joel that they were no longer supplying chicken to Shevach. Yet the owner has seen fresh chickens with labels identifying them as Kiryas Joel poultry. Shevach's owner insisted he received them from another distributor.

There was enough suspicion to call in the rav who'd given Shevach Meats its hashgacha. The stock was checked and found to be unosher. Among the reasons given where that the chicken still had intact kidneys (when chickens are koshered all internal organs are removed), and there was no marking or plumba, which all kosher chickens have. There was also the issue of the color and the lack of salt taste.

As reported on the popular Yeshiva World blog (www.theyeshivaworld.com), a group of respected rabbonim issued the following ruling on Tuesday:

1) It is prohibited to eat all meat and chicken which was sold by Shevach Meats. This includes what was sold to catering halls and meats that were sold to/from Hatzlocha Grocery. This includes chicken and meat, from all hechsharim; except for meats which were sold in the original packaging, which have their original stamps and seals on them.

2) You (customers who purchased items from Shevach Meats) must kasher keilim (pots and pans) which were used.
3) Regarding which keilim must be kashered: Each person should speak to his individual rav for a p'sak.

Update: Sunday September 17th was declared a yom tzon (day of fasintg) for the residents of Monsey. Amongst the guidelines set down for the day are: men over the age of 18 should fast; women and girls should not fast, but rather say tehillim and give $18 to tzedakah; anyone weak and unable to fast may give tzedakah instead.

There is an ongoing investigation by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to determine the origin of the chicken, whether it was ever certified as kosher and advertised as such at the store, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department said. Violators are subject to fines of up to $1,000.

There is also an investigation by local Rabbis and kashrus organizations to determine whether butcher shops in other neighborhoods may have purchased meats and chickens directly from Shevach or from the same distributor. Kosher Today is reporting that The Standards Committee of the Association of Kashrus Organizations and the Brooklyn based Hisachdus Harabonim (Central Rabbinical Congress) will hold meetings with their members to discuss the greater kashrus ramifications brought to light by this issue.

Anonymous said...

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2006/09/new_kosher_meat.html

September 03, 2006
New Kosher Meat Scandal Rocks Monsey

A new kosher meat scandal, this time involving a dishonest butcher/wholesaler, is rocking Monsey. It appears that almost everyone in Monsey ate non-kosher chicken and beef, including the biggest rabbis. Click on the link above to read LamedZayin's blow-by-blow report from the belly of the beast.

Anonymous said...

http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2006/09/further-to-meat-scandal.html

Anonymous said...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/760976.html

Last update - 02:21 11/09/2006
Monsey shaken by chicken scandal
By Shlomo Shamir

NEW YORK - Two weeks before Rosh Hashanah, passersby in Monsey, New York were reminded of scenes before Pesach. Jews dressed in Hasidic garb and yeshiva students with long side curls stood around in their backyards immersing pots, pans and metal cooking utensils in steaming vats of boiling water. Instead of practicing their cantorial tunes and their shofar blowing in preparation for the upcoming high holidays, residents in this Hasidic city were busy last week making their pots and pans kosher as is customary on the eve of Pesach.

The kitchen utensils and dishes in thousands of Jewish homes in Monsey suddenly became treif - forbidden for use under kosher food laws - and had to be purified. According to the Jews of Monsey, the reason for the purification was bloodcurdling and exceeded their worst nightmares.

"The kashrut scandal of the century" is how a Yiddish ultra-Orthodox New York weekly defined the discovery that a purportedly ultra-Orthodox Jew, the owner of a butcher shop in Monsey, had been knowingly wholesaling treif chickens to his ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish clients.

"This is a tragedy that screams to the heavens," lamented the paper. "Thousands of Jews, Hasidim and hard-working people, rabbis and students, scholars and sages, pious men and women, mothers and innocent children have tainted their souls by eating carrion, and all because of the money-hungry butcher."

Monsey, the home of a proud, thriving and reputable ultra-Orthodox community and a Hasidic center does not know where to lay the blame.

The main study hall of the Belz Hasidic community held a special prayer assembly in light of "the terrible scandal uncovered in our city, that a kosher butcher store sold treif meat and caused thousands of the city's residents to sin to an unprecedented extent, may God have mercy on us."

"In a voice choked with tears," wrote an ultra-Orthodox newspaper of the assembly, "Dayan (adjudicator of Jewish law) Rabbi Bezalel Tuvia Wettenstein described this terrible incident, explained the halakhic ramifications stemming from the horrifying deception, and instructed the assembly regarding what should be done with the pots and dishes that were rendered unkosher."

The newspaper described the audience of Hasidim as "brokenhearted and grief-stricken, tearfully listening to their dayan's instructions."

Versions of the discovery

According to private conversations with rabbis and local businessmen, as well as fractured reports in the New York media, the owner of the Shevach butcher shop, an ultra-Orthodox resident of Monsey named Moshe Finkel, was discovered to be the culprit. A local businessman told Haaretz that the scandal was uncovered quite by accident.

A Jew who entered Finkel's shop was surprised to see the refrigerator shelves full on a day when he knew there was no delivery of chickens to the city. He told one of the local rabbis of his suspicions regarding the source of the chickens and a local investigation was opened. At first the shop owner tried to explain that he had received the chickens from a kosher slaughtering company in the United States. Then he claimed that they were kosher chickens he had bought from criminals who had hijacked a truck full of chickens. In the end he admitted that he had knowingly sold treif poultry.

Another story being circulated in Monsey is that the investigation began after a newly religious woman told her neighbor that she could taste the difference between kosher and treif chicken, and suspected that the chicken she had purchased from Finkel's butcher shop was treif.

The question troubling local rabbis is how long the butcher shop owner managed to deceive his ultra-Orthodox public and had sold them treif chickens. According to one estimate, he began only recently, while another version states that the deception began months ago.

Not a precedent

"The day the scandal was uncovered is the blackest day in the history of the Monsey community since its establishment long ago," declared Rabbi Menachem Meir Weissmandl in a newspaper interview.

Another source close to the story said that Finkel had been considered a respectable Jew by the community. Interviews with people involved in the kashrut field reveal that the Monsey case is not unprecedented. Less than a year ago, a butcher shop in New York City's Flatbush neighborhood was found to be selling regular kosher meat as "strictly kosher." After the discovery, the store's kosher certification was suspended and the store was closed.

There is also a known case of a Jew who operated two slaughterhouses, one kosher and the other non-kosher. He, too, was suspected of knowingly marketing non-kosher meat under a kosher label. Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief operating officer of the Orthodox Union Kosher Division, known for its "U" inside an "O" symbol, said that the problem is that sometimes the temptation is too great. "Unkosher meat is cheaper and selling it as kosher can be a source of significant profits," said Elefant.

"I am not particularly surprised or agitated by the impure incident in Monsey," said Rabbi Shraga Schoenfeld, one of New York's most well-known and admired rabbis. "When there is no unconditional love between Jews there is also no love for animals. The lesson that should be learned from the events in Monsey is that ultra-Orthodox Jews should stop gossiping and slandering other ultra-Orthodox Jews who are not from their sect."

"Ultra-Orthodox Jews are more meticulous about what goes into their mouths than about what comes out," said another popular Orthodox New York rabbi. After the scandal, the Hatzolah emergency medical services organization in Monsey published a notice to all Hasidim and yeshiva students who "accepted upon themselves daily fasting until after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement)" as a spiritual repairing of the damage caused by eating treif. The notice warns all Monsey residents to fast or perform other acts of repentance only after consulting their rabbis.

Hatzolah also cautions heart patients and stresses that young people should not fast without parental consent and that "even healthy persons should consider that Yom Kippur is approaching," in that it, too, offers the opportunity to repent.

Anonymous said...

So what's the big deal? He did what I advise my congregates to do and that's steal, cheat, manipulate.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7760897?nclick_check=1

Rabbi indicted in tax fraud and money laundering scheme in LA
jmhoks2
Article Launched: 12/19/2007 11:22:20 AM PST

LOS ANGELES—The head of an Orthodox Jewish group was arrested along with several associates Wednesday, accused of operating a sophisticated tax fraud and money laundering scheme involving millions of dollars.

Naftali Tzi Weisz, 59, identified as the Grand Rabbi of Spinka, faces federal charges including conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering, according to a 37-count indictment returned Tuesday. He was expected to make an initial appearance in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities say Weisz helped solicit millions of dollars in contributions to five Spinka charitable groups by promising to secretly refund up to 95 percent of the donations. That way, the contributors could falsely claim higher tax deductions,

In some cases, donors received cash payments through an underground money transfer network involving business owners in Los Angeles' jewelry district, prosecutors said. Contributors also were reimbursed through wire transfers from Spinka-controlled entities into accounts secretly held at a bank in Israel, prosecutors said.

Weisz is from Brooklyn, N.Y., where the charitable organizations are based.

Also indicted were his executive assistant, Moshe E. Zigelman, 60. Six of the seven charged in the case were taken into custody as federal agents conducted searches in Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday morning.

It was unclear whether the defendants had retained attorneys yet.

Anonymous said...

Rabbi indicted in tax fraud and money laundering scheme in LA

Associated Press - December 19, 2007 4:14 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The head of an Orthodox Jewish group and several of his associates were arrested today in Los Angeles in what authorities say is a sophisticated tax fraud and money laundering scheme.

An indictment returned yesterday says 59-year-old Naftali Tzi Weisz (vys) faces federal charges including conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering.

He is expected to make an appearance in L.A. federal court this afternoon.

Weisz is the Grand Rabbi of Spinka, an Orthodox Jewish sect.

Authorities say he helped solicit millions of dollars in contributions to Spinka charitable groups in Brooklyn, New York by promising to secretly refund up to 95% of the donations. That way the contributors could falsely claim higher tax deductions.

Prosecutors say in some cases, donors received cash payments through an underground money transfer network involving business owners in L.A.

Anonymous said...

I give Bar Mitzvah Lessons. I molested boys. I feel bad for this guy, he's in the same boat as I am.

http://wjz.com/local/rabbi.molesting.yisroel.2.614587.html

Dec 19, 2007 5:57 pm US/Eastern

Rabbi Accused Of Molesting Bar Mitzvah Students
Reporting
Adam May
PIKESVILLE, Md. (WJZ) ― At a kosher deli off Reisterstown Road in a Pikesville stripmall, Eyewitness News found Rabbi Yisroel Shapiro, a butcher who jumped out from behind his desk and hid from our cameras when we tried to ask him about new criminal charges that he sexually abused two young boys during Bar Mitzvah lessons.

Shapiro never came out, but a coworker did. The man later yelled at Eyewitness News after we walked out the door that the allegations against Shapiro were "fabricated."

City prosecutors say "Over the past several months, police and prosecutors have conducted an extensive investigation that led to the charges."

The alleged abuse took place at Shapiro's home off Olympia Street in 1988 and 1994. Some neighbors caught wind of the allegations a few years back and posted flyers.

One victim tells police he was forced to chant passages from the Torah as he was inappropriately touched.

"The problem is that we don't know if there's more victims. We know a few but not how many there have actually been," said Vicki Polin.

Polin heads a support group for victims of rabbi abuse. She's concerned that some leaders in the Orthodox community keep abusers quiet.

"They're told they shouldn't report it to secular authorities because it could start another holocaust. Unfortunately, it starts another type of holocaust where an accuser has access to hundreds of children and each time they perfect their skills," she said.

Anonymous said...

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847384286&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

The shmita fiasco
Ed Rettig , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 19, 2007

Now that several weeks have passed and tempers cooled, it may be useful to revisit an issue that arises periodically and has much to teach us about the dysfunctions of politicized religion in Israel.

Every seven years one of the foundational dramas of religious Zionism plays itself out once again as the Zionists in the Israeli rabbinate on the one hand, and the Haredi rabbis on the other, engage in contentious debate and elaborate political choreography over observance of the mitzva known as shmita, letting the land lie fallow.

This time the struggle brought a novel development. The Chief Rabbinate, the government institution that perhaps most embodies the National Religious Zionist vision of the State of Israel, took steps to enforce the more stringent, and anti-Zionist, Haredi ideological agenda regarding shmita.

The result was rebellion in the ranks of the Zionist rabbis; intervention by the Minister of Agriculture to prevent an economic disaster for Israeli farmers; intervention by the Israeli Supreme Court; retreat by the Chief Rabbi; and finally, like the morning after a hurricane, an eerie silence. To understand recent developments, we need to go back to the years of the first and second aliyot, to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

THE FIRST ALIYA took place between 1882-1903. The 60,000 or so participants came mainly from a broad cross-section of Eastern European Jewish society, secular and religious. The first shmita year after the founding of their villages was in 1889. That year saw the pattern set. The farmers argued that leaving the land fallow for a year (and then waiting another year to get a crop in) would render their project utterly uneconomical. The rabbis who led the fervently Orthodox communities that traditionally based themselves on financial support from overseas, argued strenuously that it was critical to carry out the mitzva of shmita in its strictest forms because this reflects the special sanctity of the Land of Israel.

Israeli scholar Avinoam Rosenak points out that the First Aliya settlements were also not economically independent. They were largely financed by Edmond de Rothschild. Therefore, the debate was more ideological than strictly economic. It was and remains a debate about the deeper religious meaning of the settlement of the Land of Israel. Does that value justify flexibility in interpreting the laws of shmita?

For the anti-Zionist fervently Orthodox rabbis in the old Yishuv and their rabbinical supporters overseas, agricultural settlement on the Land was not and is not a prime value. For the pioneers of the First Aliya, and their rabbinical supporters in the National Religious camp, it was and is.

Rabbis sympathetic to the pioneers issued halachic opinions suggesting a resolution similar to selling hametz on Pessah. They proposed that Jewish-owned land would be sold to a non-Jew who was not obligated by the laws of shmita for the duration of the shmita year. The Jewish farmers could then continue to work that land as his agents. This arrangement, known as heter mehira gained the support of the Sephardic Chief Rabbi and the Eastern Jewish communities as a whole.

The controversy returned in 1903 and especially in 1910 with greater intensity. The rabbi of Jaffa, and future first Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, championed the cause of the settlers and issued the heter mehira. For this he was subjected to abuse and isolation within the rabbinic community in the Land, but he stood his ground. For the important stream known as National Religious Judaism, Rav Kook's stand is seen as a foundational moment when their form of Orthodox religious Zionism found itself differentiated sharply from the Judaism practiced by the fervently Orthodox Haredi communities. Kook's pioneering interpretation of the role of Chief Rabbi during the British Mandate established the model against which all who followed him were measured.

WHICH BRINGS us to the recent shmita fiasco. Over the years, the political power of the Haredim has grown considerably within the ranks of the established Chief Rabbinate. The current Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yona Metzger, is a man who faithfully carries out the wishes of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, considered the greatest living Haredi rabbi and an ardent opponent of the heter mehira. Intent on winning the halachic debate and overthrowing the pro-Zionist stance advocated by Rabbi Kook and his students, Rabbi Elyashiv is thought to have supported the election of Rabbi Metzger to the Chief Rabbinate with this goal in mind. Nevertheless, a frontal assault on the heter mehira was evidently considered too incendiary. Rabbi Metzger chose a different tactic, picking up on an earlier and rather ugly event in 2000, when former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron was forced through harsh political pressure to withdraw his support for the heter mehira. Evidently in order to sidestep the need to be seen to take his own stand, the national Chief Rabbinate empowered the local city chief rabbis to make their own decisions.

Twelve city chief rabbis, including major centers like Petah Tikva, Herzliya and Jerusalem, refused to sanction the heter mehira. However, overall the tactic backfired. Since some city chief rabbis approved the heter mehira, Israeli produce grown by Jews was marked kosher in their towns. In the towns in which rabbis refused to legitimize the heter mehira, produce that was sometimes from the same farm was marked un-kosher.

ONE RESULT was outrage in the National Religious camp. Another was acute fear of economic chaos in the agricultural sector. The heter mehira applied to between 80 and 90 percent of the local produce market in Israel. Since so many Israeli consumers tend to pay close attention to kosher certification, delegitimization of the heter mehira and the suddenness and inconsistency with which this was applied nationwide threatened losses estimated at tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars (although it is hard to gauge the accuracy of these widely disparate estimates). The feared collapse of the produce market threatened severe repercussions for related industrial and service sectors (truckers, packing houses, retailers, restaurants etc).

BUT THERE is more to it than money. Indeed, one of the telling points made on the Haredi side was that in these times of prosperity there is no reason anymore to offer allowances to farmers who are no longer "pioneers." The Zionists countered with two points. First, the Haredi rabbis had not supported the heter mehira in the lean years so their credibility in making an economic argument was not great. Second, their cavalier attitude toward the economic losses of the agricultural sector showed how, just as a hundred years ago, they still fail to grasp the religious depth of the connection to the Land.

At this point an organization of Orthodox National Religious rabbis called Tzohar announced an unprecedented rebellion. It stated that it was prepared to issue its own kosher certificates based upon the heter mehira, in open defiance of those local chief rabbis who refused to do so. At the same time, a produce wholesaler filed suit before the Supreme Court, challenging the decision by the Chief Rabbi of Herzliya to refuse to accept the heter mehira. The Supreme Court found for the petitioner and ordered that either the Herzliya Chief Rabbi issue kosher certificates or allow other rabbis to do so.

While some opponents of the heter mehira grumbled about the interference of the Supreme Court, the Chief Rabbinate complied with the Court's ruling. Since then … silence.

FOR AMERICAN Jews and for Israelis who yearn for a new chapter in the relationship of "synagogue and state" this is a very odd development indeed, and a troubling one. Most of us would agree that whatever may be correct in terms of religious doctrine, the state ought to stay out of the game. However, the Israeli system is largely based on anti-religious European notions of religion as a service provided, regulated (and therefore dominated) by the government. This concept has proven destructive of religious culture on that continent.

The shmita fiasco illustrates how society suffers in two ways. The establishment of an Israeli church-like state-appointed hierarchy creates a highly politicized "established church" where the state fills religious functions through its clerical employees. Then, it subjects the actions taken by the "established church" to secular judicial supervision as if they were secular administrative activities of the state like postal delivery, zoning, police work, etc.

No one comes out of this process unwounded. The Chief Rabbinate has been seriously damaged. First it was shown to be something of an empty shell, guided by Haredi ideas and dominated by Haredi political power. Then it was shown incapable of enforcing its policies. The National Religious camp has been forced to confront its loss of power in the chief rabbinate, an arena that ever since Rabbi Kook has been a central pillar of its approach to religion and state in Israel. The Haredi leadership has been shown to seem more concerned with its own strict interpretation of halachic rules than with the welfare of the Jewish people in Israel. The secular courts have been forced to step in, overruling a religious determination by rabbis and increasing the ongoing alienation, so dangerous to Israeli democracy, between secular and religious society in Israel.

Most of all, the Israeli public has been treated to a spectacle of a rabbinate detached from the real life of the people it is supposed to serve. There is that growing feeling that the Chief Rabbinate sees itself serving the needs of a self-conceived religious aristocracy, guided by its own priorities based upon Haredi principles and indifferent to the major dislocations that might have occurred had the Supreme Court not intervened.

A colleague and dear friend who is a former Chief Rabbi of a Diaspora country suggests that "the haredi conquest of the Chief Rabbinate is actually part of a process of dissolution of central authority; a growing diversification; and the beginnings of the development of real pluralism, which will only bring blessing to all."

He may be correct, but my instinct is to think otherwise. The sad state of Judaism in the Jewish State will not know improvement, unless religion can be disestablished and freed from the Israeli State's politics. Perhaps it is time for Israeli society, and for those who care deeply about the future of Judaism in the Jewish state, to take steps to rethink and restructure according to the alternative model of separation of church and state. The shmita fiasco shines a harsh light on the current failed system.

Over time, this may be its major impact.

The writer is Associate Director of the Israel/Middle East Office of American Jewish Committee.

Anonymous said...

My extensive knowledge dealing with the Reform and Conservative movement allows me to comment. Rabbi Susan Talve is making a mockery of what Jews are all about. I am vehemently opposed to this.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/dec/07121808.html

LifeSiteNews.com
Tuesday December 18, 2007

Rogue Woman Rabbi Brings "Womenpriests" to Advent Service to Provoke St. Louis Archdiocese
Susan Talve is a Reform Jewish rabbi and promoter of abortion and special privileges for homosexuals

By Peter J. Smith

Susan TalveST. LOUIS, Missouri, December 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to the St. Louis Dispatch, approximately 150 people from St. Cronan's Catholic Church gathered under a big tarp outside their church in the chilly wind and rain last Tuesday for a prayer service with female rabbi Susan Talve. The move outside occurred after a personal phone-call from Archbishop Burke prompted the parish leadership to cancel Talve's invitation. The advent service turned into just another episode in Talve's campaign for women priests in the Catholic Church, which has provoked condemnation from both Jews and Catholics alike concerned that her rogue actions are damaging Jewish-Catholic relations in the St. Louis area.

Talve, a Reform Jewish rabbi and promoter of abortion and special privileges for homosexuals, brought to the outdoor service two guests, Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath, women who were both "ordained" by a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests at her own Central Reform Congregation (CRC) on November 11. Appeals from Archbishop Burke and the archdiocese to withdraw hospitality for the event in the interest of Catholic-Jewish relations were ignored. Talve hosted the "ordinations" which then set off a storm of controversy and anguish among Catholic and Jewish leaders.

Fr. Vincent Heier, then the director of the archdiocesan Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, described Talve's actions as a huge setback to hard-won Jewish-Catholic relations in the St. Louis area. He declared the archdiocese would no longer participate in interfaith events where Central Reform Congregation is "a leading player."

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Heier said Talve had done the equivalent of a Catholic pastor inviting a Holocaust denier to speak at his parish. The move was a blow to Heier, just now retired from his position, who had dedicated the past 25 years working with the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Interfaith Partnership and Faith Beyond Walls, and other inter-faith organizations. He was described recently by a Jewishlight Online editorial as "a close, consistent and reliable friend" to all faith communities, especially Judaism.

One Jewish reader of Jewishlight, Randee Shenkel, PhD, commented, "Would those who agreed with Rabbi Talve's decision to host the ordination of women priests despite the feelings of the Catholic Church be willing to attend an ordination of rabbis in the Jews for Jesus 'denomination' if the Catholic Church offers to host?"

The Reporter says the president of the St. Louis Rabbinical Association, Rabbi Mark Fasman, personally found it inappropriate that a synagogue would host an event no Catholic parish would allow and stated that a number of rabbis support his position.

St. Louis Dispatch reports that St. Cronan's pastor, the Rev. Gerald Kleba, did not attend the service, but mentions that Sister Louise Lears, a member of the pastoral committee, insisted the event "was not a protest. It was not a demonstration. It was a prayer service."

Anonymous said...

clarionledger.com

December 19, 2007

Holocaust survivor's life story ends at 78

Gilbert Metz spoke often about his struggle in Nazi death camps

Jean Gordon
jmgordon@clarionledger.com

Gilbert Metz, who became known throughout Mississippi and beyond for his moving testimony about surviving the Holocaust, died Monday after a 2 1/2-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 78.

As the only known Holocaust survivor living in Mississippi, Metz frequently was called upon to share his story about his imprisonment at Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps during World War II.

"Listening to people who have actually survived the Holocaust makes it real," said Rabbi Valerie Cohen, who leads Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, where Metz was a member. "It's different when you see the tears on their cheeks when they tell their story. You saw that with him."

A native of French Alsace-Lorraine, Metz was 14 when he and his family were carted off to Auschwitz in 1943. When the Nazis evacuated the Poland camp, he joined 60,000 prisoners on the march to the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany.

Thousands died along the way.

Metz was the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust.

After the war, Metz, then 17, immigrated to Natchez to live with an aunt. He later attended Tulane University in New Orleans while earning money as a window washer.

A decorated Korean War veteran, Metz built a career in the garment industry before retiring in 2000.

Though Metz was known for his gripping stories about surviving the Holocaust, it took years for him to become comfortable talking about that dark period in his life, said his son, Sylvain Metz.

"We'd see the tattoo on his arm and ask him about the number - 184203," Metz said. "He made jokes that he was a secret agent."

By the mid-1970s, Sylvain Metz said, Beth Israel's then-rabbi had coaxed his father into sharing his story with others.

"It seemed to make his life better when he was able to talk about it," Metz said. "It released a lot."

Metz said his father also was known for his strong opinions on political and social matters. And though his father loved his adopted country, he wasn't afraid to speak up when he saw an injustice.

"He was very outspoken," Metz said. "That's something about him that people remember."

Metz recalled how his father grew tired of seeing an illuminated cross every Christmas season on the state's Sillers Building in downtown Jackson. His complaints prompted the ACLU to fight to have the religious symbol removed from the public building.

"When you come from a country where you are actually jailed because of your beliefs, it made him very anxious when you see a symbol that just reminded him of loss of freedom," Metz said.

Historian Stuart Rockoff at the Goldring-Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson said Metz's experience living through the Holocaust made him understand the dangers of hatred toward minority groups.

"The story of the Holocaust is a story that Jews have a responsibility to share with the entire world," he said. "He was the best source of that in Mississippi because he lived through it."

Metz's story has been chronicled by the Shoah Foundation and the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

Metz was preceded in death by his wife of 51 years, Louise. He is survived by three children, Sylvain Metz of Mulheim an der Ruhr, Germany, Helene Johnson and her husband, Mark, of Madison, and Lawson Metz and his wife, Kay, of Clinton, and five grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.

Anonymous said...

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/NEWS01/712190317/1004

December 19, 2007

Town asks federal court to keep out of home worship case

Officials say issue is zoning; Rabbi: It's religious freedom

By KIM PREDHAM
FREEHOLD BUREAU

The township has asked a federal court to refrain from ruling on an ongoing dispute between the township and a local rabbi accused of running a house of worship out of his home.

The township filed a "request of abstention" Monday, asking the U.S. District Court in Trenton not to exercise its jurisdiction over a lawsuit filed by Rabbi Avraham Bernstein, Township Attorney Duane O. Davison said.

The proper procedure, Davison said, is first to allow the township Board of Adjustment to decide its own matter: a request from Bernstein's neighbor, Paul Sweda, that the board determine whether Bernstein's home is a "house of worship," which would violate township zoning ordinances.

The state Superior Court in Freehold — where Bernstein also filed a lawsuit — should then have the power to review the Board of Adjustment's decision, not the federal court, Davison said.

"That's the system," Davison said.

But Bernstein's attorney, Gerald A. Marks of Red Bank, contends that his client's case is an exception to the general process because the township violated Bernstein's constitutional right to freedom of religion.

"It's our position that the township has misread the case law," Marks said.

The controversy between the township and Bernstein has been going on for about eight years, since residents complained about activity at Bernstein's home on Stillwells Corner Road, across the street from the township municipal building.

Neighbors have said that between 50 and 70 people — and sometimes up to 100 — visit Bernstein's home on the Sabbath. Bernstein has contended that 10 to 20 people visit him, Davison has said.

The township — using a surveillance camera that had been set up inside the municipal building and aimed at the home through a window — has put the number of visitors at about 35 to 50 people.

In May, Bernstein filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court asserting that the township had violated his religious rights under the federal and state constitutions, and under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

Bernstein filed a second lawsuit in August, this time with the U.S. District Court. The suit alleged that the township's use of the surveillance camera violated Bernstein's right to worship freely and his access to court, and impaired the use and enjoyment of his property.

Sweda's request before the township Board of Adjustment was also filed in August, according to a municipal document. A public meeting on the matter has been scheduled for Jan. 24.

Anonymous said...

Woman sues Stockton diocese over alleged priest sex abuse
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 12/19/2007 11:38:22 AM PST

FRESNO, Calif.—A 43-year-old woman has filed suit against the Diocese of Stockton, claiming a former Catholic priest defrocked for sexual abuse molested her.

In the lawsuit filed in October in San Joaquin County Superior Court, the unnamed plaintiff alleges Oliver O'Grady abused her when she was a child attending a Lodi parish in the 1970s.

O'Grady has admitted to abusing at least 25 children and has cost the diocese millions of dollars to settle civil sexual-abuse lawsuits.

A lawyer for the Stockton diocese says three additional suits are pending against the diocese.

O'Grady was deported to his native Ireland in 2001 after serving seven years in California's Mule Creek State Prison for molesting two brothers. A documentary centering around O'Grady, "Deliver Us From Evil," was nominated for a 2007 Academy Award.

exposemolesters said...

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_7747203?nclick_check=1

Man alleges sexual abuse in 1980s, sues St. Agnes parish, archdiocese
St. Agnes worker who was 'surrogate uncle' also named in action
BY EMILY GURNON
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 12/17/2007 11:25:37 PM CST

A Twin Cities man who claims he was abused by a St. Paul parish deacon beginning in the 1980s has sued the parish, the Roman Catholic archdiocese and the man he considered his "surrogate uncle."

Benjamin Magler, 26, was in grade school when he became close to Thomas Kemp, a deacon who was employed at St. Agnes parish, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Ramsey County District Court.

Magler attended school at St. Agnes, at 548 Lafond Ave., and served as an altar boy. He sought out Kemp for counseling because of problems he was having at home and developed "great admiration, trust, reverence, respect" for the deacon, the suit said.

But when Magler was in about second or third grade, Kemp began sexually abusing him, and the abuse continued until Magler was between 10 and 13 years of age, the suit alleged.

The court document does not give details of the abuse, and Magler's attorney, Mike Finnegan, said only that it included "touching of the genitals."

Dennis McGrath, spokes-man for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said Kemp was never employed as a deacon at St. Agnes, though he had claimed to be. He was a volunteer.

"He showed up there and offered to volunteer and offered to help out, which gave him access (to the children)," McGrath said.

He did not have information late Monday about how long Kemp was there or when he left.

"He was never an employee of ours," McGrath said.

According to the suit, Kemp's duties included leading
Advertisement
prayer meetings and youth retreats and providing spiritual counseling and instruction to Catholic children.

Magler's attorney said church officials knew what was going on.

"There's a whole bunch of stuff that they knew was extremely suspicious that they did nothing about," including the boy spending an inordinate amount of time with Kemp, Finnegan said.

Magler was coming forward now, Finnegan said, because he wants to protect others.

"His main goal is that no kids have to go through what he went through," Finnegan said. He knew of no other cases against Kemp but said he hoped other victims, to the extent they exist, also gain the courage to come forward.

Emily Gurnon can be reached at egurnon@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5522.

exposemolesters said...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0712/S01082.htm

UN Adopts Strategy To Aid Victims Of Sexual Abuse
Thursday, 20 December 2007, 9:59 am
Press Release: United Nations

UN forum adopts strategy to aid victims of sexual abuse by Organization's staff

In a major step forward in addressing sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations personnel, a working group of the General Assembly today agreed on a strategy to assist victims, ranging from medical treatment and counselling to social support, legal services and material care.

In addition, the strategy commits the UN to helping children born as a result of sexual exploitation and abuse.

"This is an important day for the victims, whose suffering can be reduced with the UN's support," the Chair of the working group, Costa Rica's Permanent Representative Jorge Urbina, said.

The UN, which fields nearly 200,000 people from over 100 countries in its peacekeeping missions, has instituted a policy of zero tolerance against sexual abuse and exploitation ever since the problem surfaced in 2004, when a UN report found that a "shockingly large number" of peacekeepers had engaged in such practices in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The report cited payments for sex sometimes ranging from two eggs to $5 per encounter. The victims included many abandoned orphans who were often illiterate.

Assistant Secretary-General Jane Holl Lute, Officer-in-Charge of the Department of Field Support, called today's agreement an important day for the UN. "This policy represents a long overdue measure to strengthen our policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse," she said.

Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Margareta Wahlström noted that a comprehensive approach to victim assistance throughout the UN "will greatly enhance the efficacy of assistance efforts and therefore make an important difference in the lives of victims."

The strategy was developed in part as follow-up to the 2005 World Summit, during which Member States called for a comprehensive approach to victim assistance. The strategy is one arm of a broader UN effort to address sexual exploitation and abuse by UN personnel that includes prevention, enforcement and remedial action.

The adoption of the strategy today was undertaken by an ad hoc open-ended working group. The Assembly is expected to formally adopt the strategy before the current session closes.

ENDS

Anonymous said...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/auckland/4328486a6497.html


Wednesday, 19 December 2007200712190500
Sexual abuse victim speaks out

For 40 years Euan Cameron suppressed the pain from an experience when he was young.

It wasn’t until he ended up in respite care that he was forced to confront his ultimate demon.

At 13 Euan was sexually abused by a Catholic priest at a Wellington day school.

Being brought up in a generation where a "priest wouldn’t do anything bad", he ended up suffering alone with no one to talk to and found solace in alcohol.

"I always knew there was something I was suppressing, but I couldn’t make friends with my demon," he says.

Euan, 61, got to the point where if he didn’t face it, he was going to die "by committing suicide or by drinking myself to death".

The turning point for the Salvation Army supervisor at Epsom Lodge men’s hostel was his last drinking binge in 2004 when he fell asleep at home in the afternoon and woke to "people stealing my stuff".

"They attacked me and I ended up in Middlemore Hospital and was put in respite care – I was no longer safe to live by myself."

Euan came from a Catholic family, with the belief that everything Catholic was good.

He never told his late parents. "I was sure they would never believe me," he says.

But his mother’s sister "changed her will after I told her, because she was going to leave the church a lot of money".

At the Wellington school, one-on-one tutoring for a year with his French teacher became an activity of ultimate confusion.

"I actually froze when it happened, physically, mentally and spiritually. It was one of total isolation. The most abusive aspect was that priests were God’s agents and we were taught to be pure beings and here was a double standard," Euan says.

"Funny thing is that he was one of the best French teachers I had."

When Euan left school he managed to ignore "the nasty experience" of his youth. He says intimacy was difficult for him, so he had a few broken relationships. "I still have hope that I will find someone," he says.

Ten years ago he read an article about sexual abuse allegations.

He contacted the helpline number of a religious order, a group of priests, who helped him find counselling in his area.

At the Counselling Services Centre in Papatoetoe he learnt to deal with the aftermath of being sexually abused and his addiction to alcohol.

"I wasn’t very good at bearing pain, but my counsellor and I started out on a series of sessions and I learnt to desensitise the experiences I had.

"You can only supress something for so long."

Through counselling at age 53, Euan discovered that the quality of his life was completely his choice.

"The key to heal for an abused person is to arrive at a point to forgive yourself for attracting the experience and to forgive the perpetrator for being the person who acted it out. It is no longer a threatening ogre hanging over me."

As a result of his own experience Euan this year established a support network Origin Recovery Adventures for abuse victims.

Anonymous said...

http://ungaren.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Spinka Rebbe arrested for massive fraud. This is not the first time!
Weisz Routed ‘Donations’ To Calif. Businesses and Israeli Banks, Say Feds

By Charles Maldonado

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — Rabbi Naftali Tzi Weisz, 59, of Brooklyn and Moshe E. Zigelman, 60, also of Brooklyn, were arrested in Los Angeles Wednesday on federal charges in what the U.S. Attorney’s Office is calling a “sophisticated tax fraud and money laundering scheme.”
According to the 37-count indictment, handed down Wednesday by a Los Angeles grand jury, Weisz and Zigelman solicited donations to several Brooklyn-based charities, allowing donors to claim the money as charitable tax deductions.

But, they secretly promised to return between 80 and 95 percent of the money to donors, keeping the remainder as a fee for themselves. The indictment identifies Zigelman as a “gabbai,” or a lay person who helps the rabbi run religious services.

According to the indictment, the scam began in 1996 and ran through the beginning of this year, involving millions of dollars in bogus donations.

Weisz is the grand rabbi of a Hasidic Jewish sect called Spinka and runs several Brooklyn-based charities associated with the group, including Yeshiva Spinka and the Central Rabbinical Seminary. Both are based on 56th Street in Borough Park.

The charities are also named in the indictment. Repeated phone calls placed to the charities from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle were not answered Wednesday.

The “charities” used two methods to hide the money and return it to the “donors,” the indictment said. One was to pass the money through a money transfer network based in the Los Angeles jewelry district.

This was partly managed by a man the indictment calls “R.K.,” a Los Angeles businessman who turned government cooperator in 2004.

The second method was to wire the donations to secret bank accounts established at a bank in Tel Aviv. The money was then used to obtain loans from the Los Angeles branch of the bank, giving the donors access to the money in the United States.

In January of this year, according to the charges, Zigelman and Weisz estimated that they had collected over $8 million in phony donations, securing a profit of nearly $750,000 for themselves. Also arrested Wednesday were Yaacov Zeivald, Yosef Naiman and Alan Friedman, all of California. Three more suspects, Moshe Lazar, Joseph Roth and Jacob Kantor, were not arrested. They are believed to be in Israel.


© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007



This isn't the first time Spinka has been involved in gross corruption. The following story is bizzare because it involves former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and his soon-to-be defunct Kadima party.

When he formed the party back in 2005, Sharon was looking for a vehicle to launder incoming donations without being subjected to scrutiny by the Israeli authorities. Sharon somehow got in contact with the Spinka Mosdos in Boro Park and a deal was cut to launder the money through it with the understanding that the aforementioned Yeshiva would get a cut for every dollar that came in.
Read about it here in Hebrew

exposemolesters said...

Gedolim Poem

Our words are final. We are the experts on Torah. Don't call us Chamorim because we are the Gedolim.

Reporting abuse is a Chilul Hashem as is using the evil computers. Don't knock us for being hypocritical unless you have something meaningful.

Wigs from India is Avodah Zarah, and the water has bugs in it, nothing that can't be fixed and get more people miffed.

Treif Chickens and meat scandals is the new phenomenon, yet the evil computers is the new Holocaust.

Rabbi's molesting boys causes us to lose our tongue, even if the victims are very young.

We like to talk about Shabbos generators and separate seating, rather than child beatings. We are the gedolim and don't call us chamorim.

Yisroel Belsky and Shlomo Mandel are gedolim even though they butchered the Torah.

Don't forget to give us respect or we will continue the drek.

We are the gedolim of chelm. We are repugnant and repulsive, hope you don't find our added chumras too compulsive.

Our words are final. We are the experts on Torah. Don't call us Chamorim because we are the Gedolim!

Anonymous said...

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106023.html

Spinka rabbi arrested for tax fraud

Published: 12/20/2007

The head of the Hasidic Spinka sect was arrested in Los Angeles for tax fraud and money laundering.

Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Weisz and his assistant Moshe Zigelman, both of Brooklyn, were arrested Wednesday on charges that they arranged and profited from accepting inflated charitable donations that saved the donors millions of dollars in federal income taxes.

Over the last 10 years, $8.7 million was solicited by Zigelman, of which the Hasidic Spinka sect kept nearly $750,000. The rest was refunded to donors who then claimed the bogus donations on their income tax returns.

The money was transferred through many sources, including the Los Angeles jewelry district and locations in Israel.

Six other men were charged in the scheme; four were arrested Wednesday. Two others are believed to be in Israel. Five Spinka charitable organizations, all in Brooklyn, were also named in the case.

The Spinka sect originated in Romania and its adherents are centered in Israel, Europe and Brooklyn.

exposemolesters said...

Ever see the movie "Murder In The First" where Kevin Bacon's character says to his lawyer (played by Christian Slater) I'm not perfect, but I ain't no killer!

Anti-Abuse bloggers are not perfect, but we sure ain't no killers!

UOJ has Gan-Eden reserved for him. Many 'gedolim' and 'Rabbonim' have hell reserved for them!

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/nyregion/20rabbis.html?ref=nyregion

The New York Times

December 20, 2007
Hasidic Rabbi and Assistant Are Arrested in Tax Scheme
By ALAN FEUER

The grand rabbi of Spinka, a Brooklyn-based Hasidic sect, was arrested Wednesday with his executive assistant in Los Angeles on charges that they arranged and profited from inflated charitable donations that saved the donors millions of dollars in federal income taxes.

The rabbi, Naftali Tzi Weisz, 59, and the assistant, or gabbai, Moshe E. Zigelman, 60, were charged in a 37-count indictment returned on Tuesday in Los Angeles that named them as the masterminds of the money-laundering scheme, through which the authorities say they reaped more than $750,000 in profits. They were arrested by federal agents while on a fund-raising trip. Six other men in California and in Israel were also charged in the case.

Under the scheme, officials said, Rabbi Weisz and Mr. Zigelman spent more than a decade soliciting contributions for Spinka charities by promising to secretly refund as much as 95 percent of the money to the donors. The donors could then claim tax deductions on the full amount while paying as little as 5 percent, officials said.

In some cases, the contributions were returned as cash payments through what the government called “an underground money transfer network” involving businesses in and around Los Angeles’s jewelry district, the government said.

Three men in California were charged with taking part in the money transfer network: Yaacov Zeivald, 43, a professional scribe from Valley Village, Calif.; Yosef N. Naiman, 55, a tour company owner from Los Angeles; and Alan Friedman, 43, a businessman, also from Los Angeles. A fourth man, Moshe A. Lazar, 60, a diamond dealer, was charged in the scheme as well and was believed to be in Israel, the government said.

The contributions were repaid by a sophisticated series of wire transfers from businesses controlled by the Spinka sect to secret accounts in Israel, the government said. The accounts were established with the help of an official at the Israeli bank, Joseph Roth, 66, of Tel Aviv, who was arrested in Los Angeles, and a Tel Aviv lawyer, Jacob Kantor, 71, who remained at large in Israel, the government said.

According to the indictment, Mr. Roth helped the contributors get loans from a Los Angeles branch of the bank so their money would be available to them in the United States. The contributors could also hire officials of the Spinka sect to repatriate their money for them, albeit for a fee, the government said.

Earlier this year, the indictment said, Rabbi Weisz and Mr. Zigelman determined they had taken in some $8.7 million in contributions solicited by Mr. Zigelman alone. Of that, they held on to almost $750,000, the indictment said.

The case was broken, in part, with the help of a secret cooperating witness, a Los Angeles businessman identified in the indictment only as R. K. In one year alone, before he turned state’s evidence and agreed to record his former colleagues secretly, R. K. contributed about $1.7 million to the Spinka sect’s scheme.

Five Spinka charitable organizations in Brooklyn — identified in the indictment as Yeshiva Imrei Yosef, Yeshivath Spinka, the Central Rabbinical Seminary, Machne Sva Rotzohn and Mesivta Imrei Yosef Spinka — were named as defendants in the case. Calls to them were either not answered or were answered by men who did not wish to discuss the case.

Anonymous said...

http://wcbstv.com/seenon/brooklyn.grand.rebbe.2.615095.html

Dec 20, 2007 11:19 am US/Eastern

Brooklyn Grand Rebbe Arrested In Tax Fraud Scheme
Leader Of Hasidic Group Accused Of Taking Advantage Of Millions Of Dollars In Charitable Donations
Reporting
Lou Young
NEW YORK (CBS) ― A pillar in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community was arrested Wednesday, charged in an elaborate tax fraud and money-laundering scheme that allegedly took advantage of millions of dollars in charitable donations, CBS 2 has learned.

There was shock and disbelief in the tight-knit Hasidic community after news spread that Naftali Tzi Weisz, 59, was arrested in Los Angeles along with his executive assistant, identified as 60-year-old Moshe Zigelman.

Weisz heads a Spinka sect of Hasidic Jews -- one of about 10 groups that trace their roots back to a town in Romania by that name -- in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. To put it in perspective, the Spinka sect is much smaller compared to larger sects such as the Satmar or Lubavitchers.

The 37-count indictment unveiled included charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering.

Authorities say Weisz helped solicit millions of dollars in contributions to five Spinka charitable groups in Brooklyn by promising to secretly refund up to 95 percent of the donations. That way, the contributors could falsely claim higher tax deductions, authorities said.

In some cases, donors received cash payments through an underground money transfer network involving business owners in Los Angeles' jewelry district, prosecutors said. Contributors also were reimbursed through wire transfers from Spinka-controlled entities into accounts secretly held at a bank in Israel, prosecutors said.

The charitable organizations are based in Brooklyn.

Six of the seven charged in the case were taken into custody as federal agents conducted searches in Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday morning.

It was unclear whether the defendants had retained attorneys yet.

Anonymous said...

http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/122007/njPeople4TheEtichal.html

People for the ethical treatment of humans


Can Jewish political impulses be reconciled with religious injunctions?

by Samuel Freedman
a journalist and professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the author of Jew vs. Jew. This article originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post
12.20.07

Midway through his now-famous letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Ala., the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. defended the ongoing protest marches against segregation by quoting the prophet Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

King meant his letter primarily to chastise the moderate clergymen of Birmingham, most of them Christian, who considered the movement’s direct action too radical. And in doing so, he cited many religious figures in the Christian sphere, from Jesus and St. Thomas to Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.

Samuel FreedmanEven so, then and now, King’s words carried an unexpected, unintended rebuke for Jews committed to social justice. One of the whopping paradoxes of the civil rights movement was that the Jews who comprised a disproportionate share of white activists and volunteers were largely ignorant of the theological roots of their idealism. With some rare rabbinic exceptions like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Jack Rothschild, they had to learn their own Bible from the black Christians in the campaign.

The divide between religious knowledge and social action persists in American Jewish life. In the parts of the Jewish spectrum with the strongest involvement in tikun olam, particularly among the secular and unaffiliated, there is the least awareness of the Judaic foundations of that concept. (In fact, there is often an antipathy to religion itself as mere superstition.) In the parts with the deepest knowledge of text and tradition, particularly the Orthodox sector, a formidable apparatus of charities exists almost entirely to serve internal needs.

One of the reasons that the American Jewish World Service, under the leadership of Ruth Messinger, has become such a phenomenon, I am convinced, is that it has overtly connected activism (in the form of Peace Corps-like projects in developing nations) to a disciplined, ongoing study of Jewish texts. It has taken its young volunteers past that inchoate, uninformed sense that there’s something sort of Jewish about doing social justice.

Occupying the unstable center of American-Jewish life, a place defined more by what it isn’t than what it is, the Conservative movement has struggled over the years to reconcile contemporary Jewish political impulses with traditional Judaic religious injunctions. Now at least a partial reconciliation is at hand, and it is one with relevance and resonance far beyond the Conservative movement alone.

People and animals

A rabbi in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul, Morris Allen, has led the movement to create a new form of kosher certification, which he calls a hechsher tzedek. As the name implies, this certification would reflect a commitment to justice on behalf of kosher food companies rather than solely their adherence to the laws of kashrut in food preparation.

Put another way, the hechsher tzedek puts the treatment of human beings at least on a par with the treatment of an animal. Many of the humans in question are Latino immigrants who have filled the labor vacuum in slaughterhouses across the United States and been the victims of both exploitative bosses and nativist bigots. The plant that first caught Rabbi Allen’s attention several years ago is Agriprocessors in eastern Iowa. The facility, which is owned by a Lubavitcher family and produces the most kosher meat of any plant in the United States, has been controversial for nearly a decade. First the journalist and author Stephen Bloom, in his book Postville, depicted the hasidic owners and managers not as the rescuers of a depleted local economy but as harsh, rigid outsiders. A series of articles by Nathaniel Popper in the Forward detailed the below-market wages and dangerous conditions in the plant.

While Agriprocessors inspired the hechsher tzedek — if “inspired” is the word — the certification plan would cover the entire $11.5-billion-a-year industry. To earn the hechsher tzedek, an employer, meaning in most cases a large corporation, would have to pay wages consistent with regional rates, provide employees with health care and vacation benefits, and offer safety training to workers in a language they understand, among other requirements. The hechsher tzedek would augment rather than replace existing certifications, most of them issued by Orthodox va’ads (rabbinical councils).

At this point, the plan is moving gradually yet steadily closer to becoming reality. The Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, has formally endorsed it. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, a respected institution in Jewish philanthropy, has given a $50,000 grant. At its biennial meeting a few weeks ago, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement’s congregational arm, took up a detailed paper citing the textual bases for the hechsher tzedek in the Tanach, the Talmud, and Shulhan Aruch.

Those citations, at least as I read them as a lay person, make a sensible, unforced link between Judaism and this particular form of social justice. As a theological treatise for labor rights, it reminds me of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, a cornerstone of trade unionism in the 20th-century West. It helps, too, that Rabbi Allen was a prominent advocate for increasing kosher observance in Conservative circles before taking up this cause. No one can accuse him of discovering kashrut just in time to change the rules.

I have a hard time imagining that more Jews would become kosher as a result of hechsher tzedek, but the size of the kosher food market suggests that many Jewish consumers, while indifferent to most of the dietary laws, still buy kosher meat for reasons of sentiment, solidarity, or perceived quality. How many of them naively think that glatt — a concept, indeed a social construction, that barely existed in the United States before World War II — connotes some higher kosher status when it’s more like higher price?

So just as idealism and commerce have fruitfully commingled in the booming sales of hybrid cars and the campus protests against sweatshop labor, this kind of cross-pollination could find its Jewish expression in hechsher tzedek. It could provide a living object lesson in the relevance of tradition to modernity, and of the inextricable interplay of Judaism and what we like to think of as a Jewish set of values.

And, for once, we wouldn’t need a Talmud Torah lesson from a Baptist preacher to get the point.

Anonymous said...

Rav Elyashiv and Rav Wosner should have just kept their mouths shut. Approving the internet just for business, and warning of its dangers is laughable. Rabbis are raping kids. but the evil computers is the problem. The gedolim are a despicable demonstration of leadership.

exposemolesters said...

Abuse is a cycle which never ends!

http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2007/12/20/news/5_ogrady_071220.txt

Woman alleges O'Grady abuse in lawsuit
By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

A 43-year-old woman has sued the Stockton Diocese, claiming that former priest Oliver O'Grady sexually abused her several times while she attended St. Anne's School in the 1970s, according to the diocese and two attorneys.

The woman, whose name was not disclosed, says that while she was punished at school, O'Grady sought her out in the guise of soothing her, according to the plaintiff's attorney, Devin Storey, from the San Diego law firm of Zalkin and Zimmer.

O'Grady had the girl sit on his lap and he would tell her a story, which led to the abuse, Storey said. The alleged abuse ended when she was in about the fifth grade.

Storey said he believes that the woman no longer lives in the Lodi area, but he is not sure.

The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 31 at San Joaquin County Superior Court, but it has yet to be served on the diocese. The law requires a mental health practitioner to interview the woman to make sure there is a reasonable basis for the lawsuit, Storey said. That process has been completed, and the lawsuit will be served shortly, he said.

Attorney Paul Balestracci, representing the diocese, said he has seen the lawsuit, but since the diocese hasn't been served, he had to go to the county courthouse to read it.

O'Grady has admitted to abusing at least 25 children and has cost the diocese millions of dollars in settlements of civil sexual-abuse lawsuits.

There are three additional lawsuits against the Stockton Diocese regarding O'Grady, which are pending, Balestracci said.

Oliver O'Grady at a glance
1971-78: Priest at St. Anne's Catholic Church.
1978-93: Priest in Stockton, Turlock, Hughson and San Andreas.
1993: Pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual abuse with children under 14 in Calaveras County. He was sent to Mule Creek State Prison in Ione.
2000: Paroled from Mule Creek and deported to his native Ireland.
2006: Movie about O'Grady's life, called "Deliver Us From Evil," opens at the Lodi Stadium 12 movie complex and other locations. It is now available on DVD.
Source: News-Sentinel staff.

According to an article published Dec. 9 in Ireland's Sunday Tribune, however, the former pedophile priest appears to have gone missing.

Attorneys representing two victims who filed civil suits in Ireland claiming O'Grady abused them even before he moved to California cannot locate him to serve him with court papers, according to the article.

O'Grady has moved twice since 2001 and is not listed on that country's sex offenders register, according to the Tribune.

Victims of clergy sexual abuse were allowed in 2003 to sue dioceses over sexual abuse that would have otherwise exceeded the statute of limitations.

While current state law allows victims to sue until they turn 26 years old, Storey said there is a provision where older victims can file lawsuits within three years after when memory of their abuse returns.

His client repressed all memory of her molestation until she read an article about O'Grady in 2006, according to Storey. Then it all came back to her. At that time, a three-year window began in which she could file a lawsuit, Storey said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

Anonymous said...

Deplorable human beings!

BBC NEWS
Sex abuse pair's 32 years in jail
A husband and wife convicted of sexually abusing children more than 20 years ago have been jailed for a total of 32 years.

There were calls of "scum" from the public gallery at Mold Crown Court as Derek Way, 64, was taken to the cells.

He was given a 22-year sentence, while his wife Iris was jailed for 10 years.

The couple, from Abergele, near Conwy, had been convicted of 27 charges, including rape by compelling a young girl to have sex with different men.

They also sexually assaulted an 11-year-old boy

The pair have been ordered to register with police as sex offenders for life.

Judge John Rogers QC also made a sexual offences prevention order - which means they must never again approach their victims.

'Plied with drink'

Derek Way was told he would probably be released in 11 years time, when he would be 75. He would then be on licence for the following 11 years, the court heard.

The judge described the three years of offending between 1982 and 1985 as "serial sexual assault" upon the youngsters "solely for your own depraved pleasure".

The court heard the girl was 13 and the boy was just 12 when their ordeals at the hands of the couple began.

Derek Way forced the girl to have sex with the boy and also with a 70-year-old man, the court was told.

He also made her have sex with groups of men and took pictures while she was being abused.

"She was plied with drink, and provided with sexually provocative clothing in order to persuade her to undergo her ordeals," the judge said.

The sexual assaults were aggravated by the fact they had been planned, he added.

Psychiatric help

The court also heard one of the couple's victims is now receiving psychiatric help.

Derek Way was convicted of 18 charges - four of indecent assault upon the boy, one charge of attempted serious sexual assault, two charges of inciting the boy to have sex with the girl, seven charges of indecent assault upon the girl, and four rape charges by compelling her to have sex with other men.

Iris Way, 61, was convicted of nine charges - two of indecently assaulting the boy, one charge of attempted serious sexual assault, two of inciting the boy to have sex with the girl, and four charges of indecent assault upon the girl.

The couple had denied all the charges during the two-week trial, claiming the evidence from the boy and girl, now in their 30s, had been made up.

Duncan Bould, for Derek Way, said he was unable to advance any significant mitigation in the case.

Simon Mintz, for Iris Way, said she was in some ways a victim herself, she clearly took a subordinate and subservient role, and she had acted to serve her husband's sexual needs and desires.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_east/7152425.stm

exposemolesters said...

URGENT REQUEST

Yeshiva Of Brooklyn victims from past and present, boys & girls. Please make a formal complaint with the New York Police Department. I will not rest until Shlomo Mandel and the YOB thugs are out of business!

Anonymous said...

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h6JspfLvfvZwoE7Puh-5MsxyDw7gD8TLI4M00

Father Sentenced for Online Sex Abuse

1 hour ago

TORONTO (AP) — A Canadian man who sexually abused his 4-year-old daughter live on the Internet so another man could watch was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison.

An undercover detective who played a key role in catching the 35-year-old man criticized the judge's sentence as too lenient.

The father, whose name was not released to protect the identity of his daughter, was arrested in October 2006, just hours after he used a Webcam to expose his daughter to another man during a chat room conversation.

The father from St. Thomas, Ontario, pleaded guilty in October to seven criminal charges.

In sentencing him, Justice John McGarry called it a "gross case; a sickening case of breach of trust."

"Words cannot describe what is found in those pictures. They are of a three- and four-year-old girl being used by her father for his own sexual gratification," McGarry said.

Paul Krawczyk, the undercover detective who watched the live Internet assault, called the judge's sentence "sad."

"It's just four years. The child has to deal with this for the rest of her life, and not just the child, the mother of the child, the family members of the child," he told The Associated Press.

"The mom said it perfectly yesterday. She said it would be easier if the father was dead. Nobody ever thinks of the children in this," Krawczyk said.

The four-year sentence handed down Thursday takes into account time already served, which means the man will serve another 20 months and will then be on probation for three years.

In a victim impact statement read in court Wednesday by the prosecutor, the man's wife called him a "cruel person" and said she would rather have learned her husband was dead than discover the truth about his "despicable" behavior."

Defense lawyer Bob Upsdell told court Wednesday his client has been physically assaulted twice while behind bars, and has lost 130 pounds since his arrest.

Officials said the man is one of 82 men arrested worldwide as a result of a global police operation involving Internet child pornography, which began with the arrest of another Canadian man.

Anonymous said...

http://www.local10.com/news/14902181/detail.html

The Miami Dolphins are an honorable football team!

* Video: Former Chaplain Of Dolphins Accused Of Sexual Abuse


Former Miami Dolphins Chaplain Accused Of Sex Abuse
Man Comes Forward Publicly To Talk About Abuse

POSTED: 8:11 pm EST December 20, 2007
UPDATED: 8:38 pm EST December 20, 2007
MIAMI -- A former chaplain for the Miami Dolphins is accused of sexually abusing a teenage altar boy over a five-year period in the late 1970s.

The allegations are detailed in a $10 million negligence lawsuit filed Thursday against the Archdiocese of Miami.

Father Donald Walk was also a priest at North Miami's St. James Catholic Church, Local 10's Glenna Milberg reported.

The accuser, now 43 years old, is identified in the lawsuit as John Doe No. 42. In a rare move, he came forward publicly Thursday.

"I've spent many years trying to forget about it. I'm just now coming to terms," said Eddy Carvin, who lives in Northwest Florida. "The church is such a big thing in my heart. You think you're doing the right thing no matter what."

Carvin said he decided to come forward after learning about other lawsuits filed against priests.

"Up until a few years ago, I really thought I was the only one," he said.

Carvin's attorney said Walk used his position as chaplain for the Miami Dolphins to lure Carvin into a relationship. At a news conference, the attorney displayed photographs of Carvin as a teen with team celebrities like Glen Blackwood and Bob Keuchenberg.

In a statement e-mailed to news organizations, the Archdiocese of Miami responded to the lawsuit by outlining its policy.

"We report the allegations to the State Attorney's Office, start the process of healing and reconciliation for the alleged victim and accused, and present all the information to the Archdiocesan Review Board," the statement reads.

Walk worked as a priest at St. James Catholic Church during the same years as Father Anthony Mercieca, who is now implicated in the sexual abuse of former Congressman Mark Foley when Foley was a teenage altar boy.

He was removed from the church shortly after Carvin's mother reported the abuse to church elders. The Archdiocese of Miami transferred him to a church in Southwest Florida mwhere he continued working for years.

Walk is now retired and living in Venice, Fla. His phone number is unlisted. The Archdiocese of Venice, where he last worked, lists his status as a "priest without faculties" which prohibits him from serving as a priest.

Anonymous said...

http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3759037&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

WHAT DOESNT KILL ME: Clarence MP Steve Cansdell says he used the abuse he suffered as a child to become stronger. Yohanna Dent

Clarence MP speaks of sex abuse as a child

21.12.2007


CANDOUR is not something you usually associate with politicians. Add the word brave and the connection becomes even less tenable. But those two words aptly described State Member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, when he sat down to talk about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. Not that he thought it was anything special. On the contrary, he wore his tough childhood not so much with pride, but acceptance. Sent to an orphanage at the age of 11 by a father distraught by the sudden death of his wife, the young Steve was raped by two older boys six months after arriving. I just woke up one night and there were some guys doing things that I didnt know anything about. I questioned it and I was just pushed over and raped by a couple of them, he said. To me, I didnt think it was anything sexual because I was very immature that way and it was just like being bashed up. Ive never had any scars from it; it was just a hard experience along with other hard experiences. Resilient and determined, Mr Cansdell took the experience of his rape and used it as a source of strength rather than a reason for weakness. The Masonic Boys School at Baulkham Hills in Sydney was his first time living away from home, but he quickly learnt to survive in the harsh environment. Although his loving family life had been replaced by strict rules and daily canings, Mr Cansdell said his earlier childhood had given him the grounding needed to withstand the challenges of his new life. But it wasnt easy. I think that experience (of rape) taught me that youve just got to keep fighting, he said. I remember the first Sunday I must have spoken at church or something because I was dragged out the front and given the cane and I wet myself. I think it was just the shock of everything and the fact that there was no support, I suppose. I have a real empathy for people who have been abused and ... for people who are doing it tough. The young Steve stayed at Baulkham Hills for two-and-a-half years and then talked his father into letting him return to Dubbo. That lasted for nine months before he was sent to an orphanage near Orange called Fairbridge Farm. Fairbridge Farm was just as harsh as Baulkham Hills. His time there was made worse by a farmhand that verbally and physically assaulted him, even making the other boys hold him down while he put molasses and chaff on his private parts. After nine months at Fairbridge Farm, at the age of 15, Mr Cansdell ran away and has never looked back. Despite his revelations of abuse to the media being recent, he said he had never been ashamed of his abuse or tried to keep it hidden; it was just something that had never come up. Ive never had any problem talking about it. In fact, if I have young people or even adults talking to me about it then Ill tell them that I was abused and, if anything, it gave me a lot of strength. Mr Cansdell first spoke publicly about the rape two weeks ago. Afterwards, he was overwhelmed by the number of people contacting him to share their stories of abuse and thank him for discussing it so openly. Thats the sort of feedback that Im getting and I suppose, if anything, by telling the papers its broken down that hard shell that a lot of people perceive me to have because of my boxing and because I have been a tough guy over the years. It just shows that you are human, he said.

Anonymous said...

Lawyer gets 25 to 50 years in sex abuse case
12/20/2007, 5:23 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia lawyer found naked in the courthouse with a teenage girl has been ordered to serve 25 to 50 years in prison.

Larry Charles, 51, had pleaded no contest to charges of sexually assaulting the 14-year-old and five other girls.

In court Thursday, one victim testified that the abuse haunts her and has left her unable to trust anyone.

Authorities say a sheriff's deputy making rounds found Charles in a lawyers' lounge with the girl. Charles, a criminal defense attorney, was charged with assaulting six girls, three of them sisters. The other girls say they were 5 to 10 years old at the time of the assaults.

___

Information from: KYW-AM, http://www.kyw1060.com

Anonymous said...

This offender should have had backup by his principal. Why couldn't the abuse be covered up in the same way Shlomy Mandel tried to sweep under the rug for me?
--------

12/20/2007
Astoria ed official accused of sex abuse
By Nathan Duke

A 31-year-old therapist has been charged with sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl at the Astoria grammar school where she is a student, the Queens district attorney said.
George Bournias, of 34-28 29th St. in Astoria, was charged last Thursday with sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. The defendant, who was arraigned before Queens Criminal Court Judge William Harrington and released on his own recognizance, could face up to seven years in prison if convicted, the DA said.

"A child should always feel safe in school," Brown said. "This is a serious allegation. If true, this therapist destroyed the trust of both his students and their parents."

Bournias, who was employed as a therapist at Astoria's PS 84 at 22-45 41st. St., allegedly molested the 6-year-old student at the school on Nov. 20 after he followed her into the girls' bathroom, the DA said. The defendant told the girl that he had to use the restroom, Brown said. Bournias is alleged to have told the student that the boys' bathroom was too far away when she told him that he was in the wrong bathroom, Brown said.

The girl, who was receiving speech and occupational therapy at the school, reported the incident to her mother, who then contacted the police, the DA said.

A spokeswoman for the city Department of Education said that Bournias had been reassigned and would not have contact with students while the investigation is being conducted.

Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.

Anonymous said...

Yudel: Shut up and stop drawing attention to you and I. The kleina kinderlach abuse is our little secret, no one else needs to know about it!

Anonymous said...

YOB is run like a jail. The students are the inmates. Shlomo Mandel and his employees run the asylum. They impose the most strictest and craziest rules and restrictions on you. They emotionally drain every ounce of you. They are physically abusive. Mentally, they succeed in breaking and destroying the lives of so many souls. They try and brainwash every kid that's there. Is there a Television in your home they would ask you. I imagine that today they would also ask the question; is there a computer in your home? does it have Internet Connection? YOB would pull kids aside and intimidate them into telling on their parents. If you had a Telivision in your home, phone calls and threats would soon follow by the YOB animals to better get rid of that (box) Television or else we're throwing your kid(s) out of the Yeshiva. Then there were the usual complaints. We don't like the color of your shirt or pants. Your hair is too long. Someone told us they saw you in a pizza store with girls. You're chewing gum. You laughed during minchah. You were a "cutzpanyak", you didn't stand up for your Rebbe when he walked in the classroom. Shlomo Mandel would routinely shake down students and beat them with his fists for smallest of pranks as did his younger brother Yankel. Yehudah Nussbaum on a daily escapade of his, would use that wooden ruler of his to whack students as hard as possible with it. If you cried and showed fear you'd get hit even harder. Nussbaum went through many wooden rulers after splintering and breaking them on students wrists and knuckles. Nussbaum was no stranger to using his hands and fists on boys for not having the place or any stupid thing he wanted to make you miserable for. He and Mandel made a brutal vicious combo in breaking the hearts and psyche of every kid that unfortunately attended that institution.

Students from younger grades would be sent to Nussbaum's class and made to stand against the wall as a punishment. Nussbaum would punish them if they got out of line, but they were usually scared like no tomorrow from this scary psycopathic molesting Rabbi. Nussbaum was the guy that loved to grab students and hold them close to his body and chest while rubbing his filthy beard and face all over them. He's the same vile creature who gropes and fondles you under the false pretenses of wanting students to come up to his desk and read out loud from his chumash. He's a cruel, sadistic, cold hearted creep, Just like his good childhood buddy Shlomo Mandel.

Anonymous said...

2007-12-21

Local Orthodox community in shock after arrest of Spinka rabbi

By Amy Klein, Religion Editor

The Los Angeles Orthodox Community went into shock this week over the federal indictment of four of their own. They were among eight men accused of running a tax fraud scheme funneled through a Brooklyn Yeshiva.

On Dec. 19, Los Angeles authorities arrested six people, including Naftali Tzi Weisz, 59, the grand rabbi of Spinka, a Brooklyn-based Hasidic sect, on charges of creating a money-laundering scheme that worked through financial networks in Los Angeles and Israel. Two of the eight remained at large as of Dec. 21. The four men arrested have been released on bail.

The 37-count indictment against the rabbi, who is being represented by well-known attorney Donald Etra, alleges that he and his gabbai (assistant), Moshe E. Zigelman, 60, raked in more than $750,000 by soliciting millions of dollars in contributions to Spinka charities while promising to secretly return up to 95% of donations.

Four Los Angeles men were among those charged with taking part in the scheme: Yaacov (Yankel) Zeivald, 43, a self-described scribe from Valley Village ; Yosef Nachum Naiman, 55, the owner of Shatz Et Naiman, dba Jerusalem Tours; Alan Jay Friedman, 43, a businessman, also from Los Angeles. All three were released on bail on Wednesday. Moshe (Marvin) Arie Lazar, 60, the owner of Lazar Diamonds here, is believed to be in Israel, according to the federal officials.

Naiman, Friedman and Lazar all reside in the Hancock Park/Fairfax ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, although they are not all Hasidic. Friedman sits on the Board of Directors of the Orthodox Union.

A fifth Angeleno, named in the indictment as R.K., was a member of the conspiracy from 1996 through October 2004 and then became a cooperating witness for the government. The Journal could not confirm at press time the alleged identity of R.K., which was being circulated in the Orthodox community.

"The Fraudulent Charitable Contribution Scheme," according to the grand jury, began in 1996 and continued through 2007, where the defendants would secretly refund to certain Spinka contributors from 80 to 95 percent of their nominal contributions to Spinka charitable organizations," the indictment said. "In this manner, the conspiring contributors could fraudulently claim as tax deductions the full amounts of their nominal contributions to the Spinka charitable organizations, while having actually contributed as little as 5 to 20 percent of the amounts of the claimed deductions. The conspiring contributors could also use the fraudulent Spinka charitable contributions to promote other unlawful activity including, in the case of co-conspirator R.K., the fraudulent concealment of assets from the SEC."

In Los Angeles' tight-knit ultra-Orthodox community in the Fairfax-Beverly, Hancock Park neighborhood, people were quietly talking about the case and were extremely upset that members of their community may have been involved in such a "non-religious" activity.

"One thing is clear: The Orthodox community deplores any attempt to defraud the government of the United States, and there is no excuse for it, and there's no rationalizations that are acceptable," said Rabbi Meyer H. May, president of the Rabbinical Council of California. "It's against the Torah and it's against our moral foundation. At the same time, regarding these specific individuals, they should be allowed to have a fair trial, as everyone is innocent until proven guilty." He also stressed that people should beware of lashon hara, or gossip, of discussing this case, and to keep in mind that there are wives and children and family members who might also be hurt.

But whatever the verdict on the accused, Rabbi May said this should be a wake-up call to the community. "The community should look deeply inside itself to examine its values, its commitment to truth, and its understanding of what God really wants us to be and how he wants us to act. We are here in this world to sanctify the name of God and not to denigrate it."

He stressed that the accused are individuals, not representatives of the Orthodox or Hasidic community. "Ninety nine percent do pay taxes correctly, do abide by the law, do take their positions as citizens of the United States seriously and ethically."

This is not the first time a Hasidic sect has been using their institution to funnel money. In January 2001, outgoing president Bill Clinton controversially pardoned four Sqverer Hasidim who were serving prison sentences of up to 6 1/2 years for bilking $40 million worth of student Pell grants and loans from government sources for a phony school in the Hasidic community of New Square, N.Y.

While no rabbi today would condone any illegal activity, occurrences of tight-knit religious communities defrauding the government dates back to Europe, says Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University. "I think that in Eastern Europe, especially where corruption was rampant, it was very common for Jews to engage in, shall we say, 'extra-legal activities,' when they believed they were doing so not for their personal gain but for the good of the community or for some higher purpose." Since the governments for the most part were corrupt, it became part of the culture, he said - a culture that unfortunately may have at times carried to the United States.

In the New Square case, the money was diverted for Jewish education, he said.

"I think the idea is that Jewish education is so important and so expensive and the folks say to themselves, 'we're forced to pay for public education which we don't use,' and they manage to sometimes justify in their own minds these kinds of activities that are for the sake of a holy end."

But no one condones it, he added. "Naturally in a free country that runs according to law that we vote upon, we do not permit individuals to violate the law."

If convicted, all of the defendants face substantial federal prison sentences, a trial date has not been set.

exposemolesters said...

I went to that YOB Jailhouse,

I am distraught over your post. I am well aware of what went on there. My blood is boiling and my heart is racing. I have some information on Shlomo Mandel that will absolutely put a nail through his coffin. I cannot disclose it right now. Keep in touch my friend.

EM

Anonymous said...

Last Updated: 21/12/2007

Lubavitch rabbi rift
by: Leslie Bunder

Two Lubavitch rabbis have been ordered by the London Beth Din to stop using the Lubavitch name for outreach work and refrain from any fundraising activities for the next six months following a bitter dispute over how the organisation is run.

Mendy and Yosef Vogel who set up The Goan Club in London's West End were accused by Lubavitch UK of "excessive expenditure" in the running of the organisation that was set up to attract young professional Jewish adults and taken to the London Beth Din for a ruling.

The Goan Club put on high profile events attracting guest speakers including Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising giant WPP while Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks attended the opening of the Club and said: “This is the one Jewish space in the midst of the city, that is not a synagogue, that is here for you to relax, unwind, refresh physically and spiritually."

In a letter to Lubavitch funders and supporters, Rabbi Shlomo Levin from the Lubavitch Foundation blamed the running costs of the Vogel brothers Goan Club for a cash crisis at the organisation: "Although these activities attracted large numbers of young professionals, they consumed too much of the funds raised at the annual FoL dinners and other fund raising events. As a consequence the Lubavitch Foundation has been unable to meet its monthly commitments, amassing large debts in unpaid teachers’ salaries, bank loans and unpaid PAYE. This situation reached critical proportions during this year where almost all of the £750,000 raised by FoL was applied to the Gaon Club’s salaries and activities."

Both brothers denied any wrong doing and claimed that their activities only enhanced the reputation of Lubavitch and that its funding did not result in any decline to funding for other Lubavitch work.

Lubavitch sought to gain access to the premises as well as getting access to files and other information and the Beth Din ruling has provided this. The ruling also ordered the brothers to stop any fundraising work for any project they may set up in the next six months as well as to stop using the name Lubavitch and associating themselves with the organisation.

A further case of the brothers taking Lubavitch to the Beth Din is set to be heard at a later date.

Anonymous said...

Click to watch you tube video

Anonymous said...

Just convert to Muslim you like them so much. Such imbeciles!

Anonymous said...

Giuliani Defends Employing Accused Child Molester
Last Edited: Wednesday, 19 Dec 2007, 5:08 PM CST
Created: Wednesday, 19 Dec 2007, 5:08 PM CST
Rudy Giuliani

Presidential candidates promote trustworthiness. As Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani stumped for votes in the Metro, he faced questions about why he trusts an accused child molester on his payroll.

Giuliani talked about energy independence, national security and Iraq but the former New York mayor also talked about his life long friend and employee, who was accused of molesting three boys.

David Clohessy from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests wants Giuliani to fire his friend Monsignor Alan Placa. Placa is accused of molesting three boys in Long Island, New York in the 1970's.

"We think it's inexcusably callous and reckless for a man of Giuliani's stature to have on his payroll a priest who has been suspended by his own bishop for molesting kids," Clohessy said.

Placa was never charged with a crime because the statues of limitations expired by the time the allegations surfaced.

"He has been my friend for many, many years and I have confidence in him," Giuliani said. "I guess the better way to answer this is I trust him."

Despite the cloud of suspicion, Placa has never been convicted much less charged with a sex crime.

Depending on what national poll you look at, Giuliani ranks 25 to 34 percent of the vote, but has 24 percent in Missouri.

A group of 500 Kansas voters asked which candidate is in tune with the needs of Kansans and Giuliani ranked 4th with 12 percent.

Monica Evans, FOX 4 News

Anonymous said...

Arrest could increase sex abuse reporting
JACLYN O (online@rgj.com)
'MALLEY
JOMALLEY@RGJ.COM
December 23, 2007

The case of a Southern Nevada man facing trial after a homemade video depicted him raping a toddler girl serves as a grim reminder of child sex abuse horrors and the importance of reporting it, local experts said.

While child sex offense cases are a constant issue in Washoe County -- typically one suspected offender is booked into jail each week -- social workers and police daily investigate abuse claims. Several times a week, district court judges preside over these cases. But there has been a slight decrease in reports and related criminal justice actions. The reasons for this decline were unknown.

But with the heightened awareness resulting from the October arrest of Chester Arthur Stiles and the explicit videotape that recently surfaced in rural Pahrump, it's possible that more incidents of child sex abuse could be reported.

"Anytime there are programs in school or things hit the press that deal with the sexual abuse of children, we seem to see an increase in reporting," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Dave Clifton, who heads the county's special victims unit. That unit prosecutes violent sexual and child offenders.

"It really helps drive home the importance of reporting these incidents," Clifton said. "These cases happen entirely too much, and I don't think the public realizes that. The amount of times we see these cases is sickening."

Stiles' scheduled arraignment in a Las Vegas court was postponed Thursday until Jan. 9.

Local cases

Washoe County has had its own share of high-profile child sexual abuse cases, with teachers, coaches, youth counselors, firemen and parents named as suspects.

Clifton said the best safeguard for parents is having open lines of communication with their children. He said the dialogue could lead to reporting suspicious behavior before it escalates into actual abuse. Parents can also instill in their children the idea that certain touching and sexual activity is not acceptable and must be reported immediately.

Jeanne Marsh, who is a supervisor in the county's child protective services division, said the Stiles case is shocking but is also a reality check.

"It's unfathomable that someone would take advantage of a child in such a way," she said. "Kids just want to be hugged and accepted, and taking advantage of them is so wrong. This just gets to the core of why we're in this line of work: to protect children."

Police were able to identify the girl in the video after media outlets across the country broadcast her photo. A man had given the tape to the Nye County Sheriff's Office. Deputies suspected the man had held the video for several months and later arrested him on charges of possessing child pornography.

The victim's mother said the girl, now 7, has no memory of the abuse that occurred in 2003. Stiles was arrested on warrants after he fled Southern Nevada. He is also being investigated on charges that he molested other children.

Authorities say child sex abuse is significantly under-reported and sometimes does not surface until years after the abuse has stopped. In the Stiles case, the alleged abuse occurred years before an arrest was made, likely because the victim was too young to understand what was happening, authorities said.

Sometimes, there is no physical evidence because of late reporting, Clifton said. And about 3 percent of his attorneys' caseloads result in no charges being filed for that reason.

In the Stiles case, there was no evidence of abuse until the tape was given to authorities.

Clifton said it's common for child sex offenders to say during sentencing hearings that they had been sexually abused as children.

Marsh said there are some clues that children may be suffering from sexual abuse, as when very young children begin touching their genitals or asking someone to touch or kiss them or dressing provocatively. Older children who might be victims might dress in baggy clothing and neglect personal hygiene. A big clue, she said, is when children seem to know more about sex than they should.

Police say that it's better to report suspicion of child abuse than to ignore it. Some people, such as teachers and health care providers, are mandated by law to report suspected child abuse. A local high school teacher in 2006 was disciplined and criminally prosecuted for not reporting that a friend of hers had molested one of her students during an overnight class trip. When the boy told her what happened, she did not call police and tried to convince him to forget about it. The boy's abuser, a youth counselor, was later convicted.

"I see child victims in the office everyday," said Sgt. Dave Evans, who heads the Reno Police Department's child abuse and sex crimes unit. "(The Stiles) case is another among many, as awful as it is. I don't think you can get any more heinous than the sexual assault of a child.

"These cases have been out there for years," he said.

Authorities say women's boyfriends seem to make up the largest category of child sexual abusers, but offenders are varied. Usually, the suspect knows the child or is a relative.

"Most people can understand being so aggravated and stressed out that you may lash out and hit a child," Marsh said. "But I don't think anyone can ever understand how anyone can sexually abuse a child, some as young as 6 weeks."

Anonymous said...

Child molestation: Is it becoming way too common?

Published Date: December 18, 2007
By Shamael Al-Sharikh, Staff columnist


News reports of the case of the three boys who were sexually assaulted by Asian workers on school grounds have filled the pages both English and Arabic newspapers. MPs are using this case as one more nail to hammer in the coffin of the Minister of Education's career . Xenophobes are using it as an excuse to treat guest workers in a disrespectful manner. Everyone is talking about where to throw the blame in this case, and yet no one is talking about how this is the second major crime of pedophilia in the co
untry, after the Hawally Monster case.

Pedophilia and molestation of children are becoming disturbingly common in this country. While I have no specific statistics on this matter, I seriously worry that the cases mentioned are only the tip of the iceberg. These are the cases that are easy to publicize because the assailants were expatriates, and therefore, are easy to burn at the stake. What about the cases where the assailants are Kuwaitis? What about cases where the assailants are themselves children under the age of 18? What happens when the
assailant is a 16-year old boy molesting a nine-year old boy? What action is to be taken then?!

It is absolutely preposterous that no one, no TV station, no child psychologist, no professional educator, not even a wise politician, is addressing the molested boys' case as a major sign of increasing incidents of pedophilia. Forget the minister of education; we have a much bigger problem on our hands!

Parents need to be aware that child molestation is becoming a major problem and need to take their precautions accordingly. They must be open and straightforward with their children about this issue, and they need to teach them to recognize that there are certain body parts that are unacceptable for an adult to touch, irrespective of whether the adult is their teacher or their babysitter.

Certain signs of affection, such as excessive kissing and hugging from strangers, are dangerous. They also need to teach them that there are places, where they should not be alone without adult supervision, such as a public restroom, or an empty classroom after school, or even the family car with their driver, without a third party present.

Moreover, parents should teach their children that if something bad happens to them, they should tell their parents immediately and there is nothing that they should be embarrassed about. There should be no shame between parent and child; and parents should teach their kids to be honest and direct in regards to these matters.

As for the Ministry of Education, indeed the College of Education, they must ensure that teachers take training courses in recognizing the signs of physical assault and molestation in children. If sex education is taboo in public schools, then teachers should take the initiative to educate their students on how to protect themselves from sick individuals who do them harm.

The approach can be simple and non-controversial, such as telling them never to stay in a classroom alone without a third party present, or never to go anywhere on school grounds or around it without telling their homeroom teacher. If they need to stay after school, then they should do so in a classroom with no blinds or shades and a glass door where students can be visible to everyone all the time. Simple precautions like this can prevent a few kids from being turned into victims.

Teachers should always monitor the students during school hours, especially students in primary school. If not for the sake of their safety, then at least for the sake of their health. A child of this age is bound to hurt himself while playing or faint from the heat. As educators, teachers in both public and private schools must know that their job is not just to teach a subject, but to monitor children and educate them on how to protect themselves.

Furthermore, a teacher must always stay on school grounds to make sure that every single child has been picked up by a responsible adult after school. I have often seen young boys and girls playing near their school after hours and waiting for someone to pick them up, while sick construction workers ogle them nearby. The awful sight makes you cringe with disgust!

Incidentally, I am CONFOUNDED as to why there were Asian workers cleaning the school during the day. I work in an office and our cleaning crew always comes very early in the morning and again very late in the evening. We see very few cleaners in the middle of the work day. Why don't schools do the same thing?
A school should never have anyone present on its grounds other than teachers, students, and school administrators. The cleaning crew, the school bus drivers, even the school guard, and the night watchman should never be allowed to communicate with the students, let alone have the opportunity to be close to them.

The molestation of three boys is a tragedy, but I seriously doubt it will be the last one we hear. If the leaders of the land are busy fighting with the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Education is busy fighting within itself, then safety at our schools will never be a priority, and we will all need to worry about our children in public schools. I wonder how many more incidents like this need to happen before the politics stop and the education begins.

Email: Shamael@kuwaittimes.net

Anonymous said...

The New York Times

December 23, 2007
Orthodox Brooklyn
For a Singer and a Sect: A Rift Amid the Riffs?
By ALEX MINDLIN

OVER the last three years, the most visible adherent of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism has been a strapping 20-something reggae singing star named Matisyahu.

After joining the sect around 2001, Matisyahu became a regular guest and performer at Chabad’s outposts around the world. In songs and interviews, he frequently mentioned Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the movement’s revered spiritual leader. “Youth,” the title track of his second studio album, quotes Rabbi Schneerson’s dictum that “youth is the engine of the world.”

Chabad, which is based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is unique among Hasidic sects for its emphasis on the recruitment of non-Orthodox Jews, and Matisyahu, who goes by a single name, has come to be a sort of unofficial ambassador.

That is why some observers have been shocked over the past few months to see the singer distancing himself from Chabad in a series of public statements.

In an interview in July with The Miami New Times, an alternative weekly, Matisyahu said that he did not “necessarily identify” with Chabad and that he felt “boxed in” by being labeled an adherent. In October, he told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that he was “no longer identified with Chabad.” And late last month, he told The Jewish Week that his affiliation with Chabad “was about becoming part of this machine and feeling like it was taking away from my service of God, not adding to it.”

According to The Jewish Week, Matisyahu has begun praying with the Karlin Hasidic sect, a group based in Israel that screams its prayers to God. Although he still lives in the Lubavitch stronghold Crown Heights, he commutes on many mornings to a synagogue in Borough Park to pray, the newspaper said.

Through his publicist, Matisyahu declined to comment on the matter.

The news of his shifting allegiances has provoked a furious response among some Lubavitch bloggers, who accuse Matisyahu of betraying a movement that nurtured him. But among Lubavitch rabbis in New York, many of whom know Matisyahu personally, reaction has been considerably gentler.

“Some people come to Lubavitch to stay, and some don’t,” said Rabbi Shea Hecht, executive director of a Lubavitch yeshiva in Crown Heights where Matisyahu studied for several years. “We’re happy if we can bring any Jew closer to yiddishkeit,” or Jewishness.

In part, the tempered reaction of Lubavitch leaders reflects a paradox. Though the mainstream public may see Matisyahu as a representative Hasidic Jew, many traditional Lubavitch adherents do not listen to his music, and thus his departure from the sect is not the soul-shaking challenge it might seem.

“I see him in the neighborhood, on the street and in synagogue, and people don’t even know who he is,” Rabbi Hecht said. “He wasn’t really appreciated from the inside of Chabad. He was more of a bridge to the outside.”

Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, the longtime head of Community Board 9, agreed. “No one’s ever called me over in shul and said, ‘Hey, Goldstein, did you hear Matisyahu bailed out?’” he said. “He’s looking elsewhere, and that’s that.”

Anonymous said...

Hey just wanted to put in my two sense and comment on this significant topic of abortions. Of course I am an orthodox Jew and the Torah says you can't cut the fetus out of the mothers womb - for any reason, even if heaven forbid they were raped by a shvartzeh, or how I like to refer to it as African American. Ha! Had you! I'm no racist I tell you. And I promote life, not death. Ahh... Cough... I mean as far as abortions I am pro life, but not when it concerns little boys getting groped and molested by a Rabbi - an Orthodox one nonetheless!
--------------------------------

Chief Rabbinate: Abortions are grave sin

Rabbinic Council of Chief Rabbinate to establish committee to lobby against abortions in Israel. Rabbis: Abortions delaying coming of messiah
Neta Sela

Israel's Chief Rabbinate decided over the weekend that it would establish a special committee that would work to reduce the amount of abortions carried out in Israel.



Both Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger supported the Rabbinical Council's decision.


Women's Right to Choose
Religious party proposes outlawing abortions after 22nd week / Amnon Meranda
Knesset to vote on Shas bill proposal to amend current abortion law, outlaw terminations towards end of second trimester. MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) slams bill as offense to women's rights, says
Full Story

The council made the decision after Dr. Eli Schussheim, director of the anti-abortion organization Efrat, presented the rabbis with facts and figures on the amount of abortions carried out in Israel yearly.



According to Dr. Schussheim, 50,000 abortions occur in Israel every year, only 20,000 of which are legally performed.



The Rabbinic Council, which is made up of the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Rabbi Shaar-Yeshuv Cohen, the Chief Rabbi of Rehovot, Rabbi Simcha HaCohen Kook and Beersheba’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Deri, has decided to have the new committee begin work this coming Saturday.



"The vast majority of abortions are unnecessary and strictly forbidden according to halacha because they are carried out even when the pregnancies do not endanger the mother's health," the rabbis wrote in their decision.



The rabbis believe that these types of abortions are a grave sin which may even delay the coming of the messiah. They base this assumption on an expression uttered by the Jewish sages which can be construed as signifying that the messiah will not arrive until all souls meant to be born to Jewish mothers are in fact born.



The halachic basis for the rabbis anti-abortion position is articulated in Genesis 9:6 which reads: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man."



The rabbis see fetuses as constituting a "man" based on a Gemara passage which states that a fetus in its mother's womb should already be considered a human being.

Anonymous said...

Dnepropetrovsk introduces tzedakah ATM
m

Published: 12/24/2007

A leading Ukrainian Jewish community has introduced a tzedakah ATM.

The pioneering automated machine, or “Tzedakahmat,” which operates like a regular automated teller machine, enables congregants and visitors to make donations for charitable purposes by transferring funds from their credit cards to the Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk. The machine stands in the entrance hall of the community's Golden Rose synagogue.

The technology takes advantage of the fact that today people tend to use such machines more frequently and to carry small amounts of cash with them. Tzedakahmat also accepts cash in Ukraine’s currency, which can be deposited directly into the machine. The machine is associated with Ukraine's Privatbank.

The innovative idea is the brainchild of the leaders of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community, headed by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky, chief rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk and the surrounding region.

Vyacheslav Brez, Dnepropetrovsk's community director, told JTA that such devices may soon be active in other organizations operated by the Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk, a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine.

Anonymous said...

This guy is like me. The only difference is he's a priest child molester and I am a Rabbi child molester.

Article published Dec 24, 2007
Evans makes headlines in '07
Former priest convicted of sex abuse in March
BY SARA REED
SaraReed@coloradoan.com

It took slightly more than 18 months, but 2007 saw the conclusion of the only Catholic Church sex abuse case to hit the city.

On March 26, Timothy Joseph Evans was convicted by a jury of molesting a teenage parishioner during his tenure from 1998 to 2002 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

Two months later, District Court Judge Jolene Blair blasted Evans for his actions, telling him he sullied the names of dedicated clergy and fed the distrust of organized religion before sentencing him to at least 14 years in prison.

Evans never apologized for his behavior but did address it during his sentencing.

"I may love recklessly and foolishly," he said during his May 30 sentencing. "But I love unconditionally."

Nick Gerber, the young man Evans was convicted of fondling, said during that hearing that Evans was a "master manipulator" and a menace to society. The Coloradoan does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Gerber has consented to having his name printed.

The lengthy sentence gave Gerber some sense of comfort.

Following Evans' conviction, some parishioners voiced concerns that it would create a rift within the congregation, something parishioners say they haven't seen.

Ray Sons, a member of the church for the past 15 years, said he hasn't discussed the topic with others at the church, but he hasn't seen any difference in the congregation.

There was sadness following the conviction, and Sons said he still feels sorry for both Evans and his victims.

"But the church moves on," Sons said.

The Rev. Lawrence Christensen, the lead pastor and administrator at the church, did not return a message left at his office last week.

Even if Evans is released at the end of the 14-year sentence, he will have to serve at least four more years for a Jefferson County conviction on similar charges. That conviction came less than two weeks after the Larimer County jury handed down its verdict.

Gerber is also suing Evans and the Archdiocese of Denver for negligence. The case, filed in Denver County District Court, is set to go to trial in June.

Anonymous said...

Thousands sought over child porn
German prosecutors are investigating 12,000 suspected members of a child sex abuse network on the internet - the biggest in the country's history.

A senior public prosecutor said the suspects were accused of downloading or possessing illegal images of children.

The investigation, which has been going on for several months, also points to suspects in about 70 other countries.

An internet provider in Berlin is said to have helped by alerting the inquiry to a huge amount of internet traffic.

"The material was analysed. Then we called for search warrants," said Peter Vogt, head of the central office tackling child internet sex abuse. He was speaking to German radio station Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR).

The suspects include 300 under investigation in the eastern German state of Sachsen-Anhalt.

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It is unfortunate that it has come to this. It is a big darn shame it has come to this. It is very hurtful that it has come to this. But yet, IT HAS COME TO THIS. It has come at the price of a GREAT CHILUL HASHEM. It has come to Hashem having to allow his holy name to be DESECRATED so that his CHILDREN remain SAFE. Shame on all those responsible for enabling and permitting Hashem's name to be desecrated! When you save children you save the future. You save the future you save generations. You save generations you save lives. You save lives you have saved the world!!!!!!!