Thursday, January 24, 2008

Yeshiva Tuition Nightmare!



Yeshiva Tuition Nightmare

Be fruitful and multiply (pru urevu as they call it) is one of the Torah’s Commandments. Hey, the bright side of looking at it is it’s a mitzvah that’s pretty doable, pardon the French. It’s one of those commandments that most frum Jews have no problem conforming to, for the most part. The opposite spectrum of that would be a mitzvah that’s extremely beyond reasonable expectations, so it seems, such as vahavta leriach komocho. Is it too much to ask of a fellow Jew to respect other human beings and to come to their aid in their time of need? In the same way that one would be repulsed by those who deceive the klal by selling them non-kosher chicken and meat to consume, so too they should be just as ambitious and determined to speak out and demonstrate the unacceptable repulsive conduct of those who enable abuse. At fresser events, the "Glatt Kosher" turned out to be pure treif meat which thousand upon thousands of yiddishe neshamas - Rabbis, gedolim, Jews of all kinds were consuming treif meat. Isn't that in itself a wake-up call? Is it too much to expect from the average Jew to intercede and help other Jews, instead of shamelessly watching silently as their Jewish brethren are being psychologically and physically abused? Is it too crazy to start holding parents responsible and accountable for refusing to protest or say a word against the brutality taking place right under their noses?

So you go under the covers one Friday night with your spouse and make sweet noises until dawn. You keep in mind that this is

an essential act of planting seeds for future generations to come. Before you know it you become a parent and have a baby boy.

Inside you’re ecstatic that your first is a boy and not a girl - although you convince yourself that had it been a girl you would have been just as gratified and satisfied. And it’s true, all you really care about is that the baby is healthy. You make a Shalom Zachar and thank the almighty for giving you such a nice present. Mazal Tov, Mazal Tov!

You become a father. Your wife becomes a mother. Your parents now become proud Grandmas and Grandpas. How beautiful it is. Before you know it, your

baby gets older and it’s time to send him to a Yeshiva. It’s your first child so the average $8,000 - 15,000 annual tag of tuition is not exactly

affordable, but you still manage to make ends meet, because you are able to hold down to a ‘decent’ paying job. Then one day your wife says to you, honey; I’m pregnant, again.

You can hardly contain your glee. you’re in seventh heaven. You can’t wait for the day you will become a father for the second time. And then

comes the delivery, it’s a baby girl. Mazel Tov. Mazel Tov! You’re totally delirious. On your second try you have managed to accomplish what many

cannot ever do in a lifetime, and that’s fulfilling the mitzvah completely with the hasgachas badatz on it -

affixed with gedolim signatures, which says one must have at least one boy and one girl. You and your wife are now proud parents of

two healthy wonderful children. Time passes by quickly and your little baby girl is now a five or a six and it’s time to find a good school for her. You search for a nice

Jewish girls school. It’s going to be another big financial burden. For your child though, you would do anything. Your tuition bill is now running you over $20,000 annually for both of your kids. As it is, you have other bills that need to be paid. You're not Donald Trump. You get a second job to make ends meet. It’s the only way.

Time passes and by now you have 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...... children. You thank Hashem everyday for the beautiful children he gave you

as a gift. However, times are not so good anymore. Even with your decent paying job, the cost of Yeshiva tuition for all your kids

has taken its toll on you. You can no longer afford the outrageous tuition asking price. It’s too much of a financial burden on you.

To add insult to injury, you discover that three of your children are in need of special education. You enroll them in the B’tach program (run by Chaim Berlin). They claim in their slogan that

“their door is open to everybody.” You soon discover that their claim is as real as false teeth. You can’t help but shake your head and laugh at the outright lies and deceit. You try too keep things in perspective. You remind yourself that B”Tach is just one example; but that there are many more Yeshiva’s and institutions that are downright dripping with similar thuggish tactics and unethical behavior patterns. You learn that money is the only language they understand. Despite all of that, for a special education school who claim to be professional and qualified, you realize that you sure aren’t getting a buck for your dollar. What you are getting in return for your investment in your child's education, is a lot of grief and being royally ripped of by some phony unqualified money hungry institution that has now caused you to take a closer look on how Judaisms should not be practiced.

The stress has reached its peak. You just cannot handle it anymore. Your wallet is empty and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Combine the ridiculous $20,000 - $30,000 per child for this ‘special education’ school and you just want to rip the hair right out of your head.

Then one day you get a phone call from the pit-bull money collector. He screams and yells bloody murder at you for being behind and late on your tuition fees. When you try to explain him the dire straits you find yourself in, he admonishes you for having the nerve to complain. Just give me some more time, you try and reason with him to no avail. You are rudely told that your children can no longer attend school until tuition balances are paid in full. You protest again. The bloodhound money collector continues to degrade you as if you were a criminal.

You are told to go knocking door to door and collect from complete strangers,

so that you can pay B’tach the tuition balance. Your financial nightmare gets even worse when this creep continues his threats about paying up or being forced to find another school for your kids. On top of that, you come to a sudden realization that the

staff and “special ed” teachers are nothing to write home about either. What kind of certification credentials do they have anyhow you can’t help but wonder, because

they sure don’t show it. The Yeshiva bulldogs treat you like you committed a crime - all because why?

Because your not rich enough to afford the tuition? Does that make any sense? That’s a reason to treat and talk to someone who unfortunately is in such a predicament with such utter disregard? The kind of values and manners they adhere to is sickening and it makes you so angry. By now you have totally lost it. You agonize over your misery.

Your sholom bayis is down the drain. You begin to reexamine your faith in Judiasim. You begin to have serious and legitimate doubts.

Suddenly, a thought creeps up on you. You receive a flash and envision the future. You see your children happily attending Public School.

You see them getting a fine education with dedicated professionals who are committed to your children’s best interests. You have no more Sholom

Bayis issues because financially you are secure and the children are well taken care of. No more do you have to suffer the wrath and

tongue of some sleazy bloodhound chastising and degrading you. Thank G-D no more threatening phone calls and meetings. You no longer

suffer anxiety over tuition bills because you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Your children are attending school where boys and girls

are classmates. You make sure to educate and talk to your children about sex and how to protect themselves from a sexual predator. You are Jewish

and know damn well the Rabbi child molestation epidemic that exists. Your kids are no longer in “Jewish” schools but child molesters could be

of any ethnic origin, gender, race, or color you constantly remind your child. You’re a secular Jew now, you don’t fall for any of the crap that are spewing

out of the mouths of so called “poskim” and “gedolim”. You remain traditional and try to keep some semblance of your orthodox Jewish past. You have

a Jewish soul you keep on reminding yourself. You vow to have the tradition continue by reminding your kids to marry a Jew, although not necessarily an orthodox Jew.

Life is good now. You like your job. And best of all, you no longer are financially burdened to the degree that it messes with your life and psyche. You can never ever forgive

the Yeshivas for the ugly and terrible manner in which they dealt with you. Inside though, you are crying for what could have been. You had good intentions. You had wanted

your children to thrive in a nice Jewish Orthodox atmosphere, just like it was when you were growing up. You ask forgiveness from the almighty for living a different lifestyle that you had not envisioned when you started a family. You make a simple vow. You will do good to all. You will harm none. Your children will be respectful, well mannered, and hopefully get into a good college where they will be filled with the knowledge and determination to lead a successful life. You may not be “frum” so to speak. You may get the hostile stares and rude comments by others who can’t empathize with your situation. That’s when you say to yourself, see... I’m Jewish. I’m a mentch. I have derech eretz. I’m real. Who needs to be a fake, a hypocrite, and a phony? With those thoughts in mind, you wish your wife and children a good night. You fall asleep and have a dream. You see the following comment that was

posted on the Unorthodox Jew blog.

Pirush Ombudsman said...

“Ombudsman said...

A rov spoke about the Spinker shtinkers on Shabbos. He was visibly shaken by the chilul Hashem so far and from what will emerge when all the shoytim who gave the money are rounded up.

He did not justify their actions but made an excellent point that yeshivos are partially to blame for demanding ridiculously high tuition fees. Outside of Brooklyn, as in suburban NY-NJ and even Queens, tuition runs between 10 to 30 thousand per child.”

You can’t help but relate to that helpless, degrading, humiliation that was once you. You wish you could solve this problem so that no other folks suffer such. You’re devastated

that no solution for this crisis is on the horizon. You think about all the stuff orthodox Jews waste money on. What if each caring Jew would put aside five dollars a month towards a tuition fund that will be used in helping those in dire financial straits? There are so many tzedakah funds, why not one for this purpose? A thought creeps up on you.

What about the Yeshivas, do they deserve 10-30 thousand dollars per child? Are they so fantastic? Why the outrageous tuition fees to begin with? Why be so greedy?

They have bills to pay? So do everybody else. If a Yeshiva has so much emunah and bitochon like they lecture their students and parents to have - then again, why the crazy asking fee? Shouldn’t they trust in hakodosh baruch hu, rather than resorting to unforgivable attacks on Jews who are struggling to make ends meet because of ridiculous tuition prices?

You wish you had an answer. You wish you had a solution. You begin to cry. You wake up in a sweat. Just another nightmare!

Also check out the posting "is yeshiva tuition driving you over the edge" and Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis piece `A Blight On All Of Us`.

http://exposemolesters.blogspot.com/2007/02/is-yeshiva-tuition-driving-you-over.html

97 comments:

exposemolesters said...

According to this logic, how much is a "Torah" education for ones child worth? By this same token of logic, shouldn't the Yeshiva's NOT ask for an exorbitant unrealistic endless amount of $$$$$? The Yeshivas financial vulnerability is predetermined on Rosh Hashonah, why the ridiculous and unreasonable asking price?

Additionally, girls education according to these thought revelations, are not equal to boys, so again, I ask, why are these preposterous financial burdens and onus being placed on the parents?
=================================

http://jewishworker.blogspot.com/2005/07/yeshiva-tuition-updated.html

The gemara in Beitzah daf 16a states as follows:
כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים לו מראש השנה עד ראש השנה חוץ מהוצאת שבתות והוצאות י"ט והוצאת בניו לתלמוד תורה
The income of a person is fixed from one Rosh Hashana to the next except for what he spends on shabbos, yom tov, and the Torah education of his sons

From this gemara we see that whatever a person spends to teach his sons torah, Hashem will pay back and is not considered part of his income. In other words, if his income was set at $x and he paid $y for his son's torah education he will still end up with $x dollars, the same would apply if he spent $0 on his son's torah education he would still end up with $x. This would seem to imply that tuition payments for boys do not take away from a person's income. Of course, the Gemara was talking about Torah education and since tuition includes payment for secular studies as well that would not be included. In addition, the Gemara only talks about boys where you have a chiyuv to teach them Torah, however, by girls since there is no chiyuv the money spent would come from your income.

This is just food for thought. This gemara should make everyone think twice about how they view their income and their plans to increase it.

exposemolesters said...

http://www.jewcentral.com/school_tuition.html

Don't Pay Taxes, Pay Yeshiva Tuition: The Tax Break For Paying Yeshiva Tuition [3 out of 5 star rating in 1 votes]
Gelt$10,000? $12,000? $14,000? For 1st grade?! Yep, that’s the reality of Yeshiva tuition. Ever climbing, ever growing, ever ridiculous. The unfortunate reality is that if you want to send your child to Yeshiva those are the kind of numbers you come to expect. So it may come as a bit of a relief to know there is a way to save for your child’s education and get a tax break for it. Make no mistake; we are talking Yeshiva here, not college (there are many ways to save for college tax efficiently, but not as many for Yeshiva). I am referring to getting tax breaks while saving for Yeshiva. Oh yes, it can be done.

exposemolesters said...

http://orthomom.blogspot.com/2007/02/spitzer-proposes-aid-to-yeshiva.html

Spitzer Proposes Aid to Yeshiva Parents
This week's Jewish Star has some interesting information regarding NY Governor Eliott Spitzer's 2007-2008 budget proposal:

Parents who send their children to yeshiva could save a few dollars on taxes, thanks to a short paragraph in Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s 2007-08 state budget proposal.

The proposal calls for a $1,000-per-child tax break for parents who send their children to private and parochial schools and whose yearly gross income is less than $116,000. Families whose gross income is between $116,000 and $125,000 still benefit. For every $1,000 above $116,000 in gross income, a family will simply save $100 less per child. For example, a family that sends three children to yeshiva and has a yearly gross income of $118,000 will be able to take a $2,400 deduction.

The deduction applies to parents of children in kindergarten through 12th grade. It is expected to cost the state about $25 million, the budget memorandum reported.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America supported Spitzer’s move. “That Jewish day schools are now getting a serious look from the governor can only be a good thing,” said Howard Beigelman, the UOJCA’s deputy director of public policy, in an e-mail. “Our community will benefit from Governor Spitzer’s attention to our children.”

This is very heartening, especially since in 2006, when asked about his position on tuition tax credits, then-Attorney General Spitzer seemed unsure about his position on them - he was against them before he was for them.

Well, it's a start.

exposemolesters said...

http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2006/06/yeshiva-tuition.html


Yeshiva Tuition

Mrs. Zlata Press, in Prospect Park Yeshiva Alumnae News 2006, p. 5 in response to a complaint about tuitions and how hard it is to make ends meet:

[QUESTION:] ...My second question is, "WHERE IS THE INCOME IN THE YESHIVA GOING TO?" Even in a class of 30 where there is $6,000 in tuition, no teacher that I know of makes anywhere near the $180,000 that supposedly is coming in. How is the money being apportioned? I would very much like to see the expense accounts of Yeshivas. Where is the money being spent/wasted? Is the money going into the hands of a few? Why do all Yeshivas have a closed-book policy? Why does not ONE Yeshiva open up its books for the public to look at? Are they hiding something?


Click here to read more

[ANSWER:] ...So where is all the money going to? First of all, 30 students are not each paying $6,000. When three siblings attend one school, parents are not charged full price for each child. A few children in the class are paying minimal tuition. Unemployment, illness, single-parenthood, real cash-flow problems afflict many in our community. Families owe tens of thousands of dollard. Some of that money will never be collected. The school writes off lareg unpaid tuition bills not infrequently. Yes, the school is collecting aggressively. High school students are sometimes not given programs and books before a significant payment is made. (How do you feel about that?) School administrators need chochmas Shlomo and a heart of gold and of stone at the same time to collect tuition.

A few people dishonestly avoid paying when they can afford to but no one in the financial end of chinuch thinks that that is the norm. (Dr. Marvin Schick, president of R.J.J. and an osek b'tzarchei tzibur par excellence, wrote a moving study of the financial hardship felt by Jewish schools across the country.) I asked Rabbi Leib Kelman your question. He told me that this past year tuition coming in and salaries going out (teachers, administrators, guidance personnel, maintenance staff) just about equaled out. (Salaries constitute about 80% of expense.) On top of salaries, the school has significant expenses for utilities, supplies, insurance and building maintenance.

I asked Rabbi Kelman your question about "closed books." He said that board members review a detailed financial report of income and expenses every year. If Prospect Park is hiding anything as you asked, it is probably hiding the identitiesof your lovely, upstanding middle-class neighbors who are sorely in arrears in tuition payments!

I think it's great that Mrs. Press allowed the question to be published and wrote a lengthy, caring and honest response. I just still wonder why at least summary financial statements are not made available. Then again, unaudited statements are... unaudited. And paying for an accountant to audit the school's finances is no small expense.

exposemolesters said...

http://www.jlaw.com/PressReleases/00-11-07.html

Agudath Israel press release re: Yeshiva Tuition Tax Deduction?

INCOME TAX DEDUCTION FOR RELIGIOUS SCHOOL INSTRUCTION?

Agudath Israel Cites Scientology Case, New Law in Jewish Parents' Appeal

Parents of children in yeshivos will be able to take a federal income tax deduction of the portion of their tuition payments that goes toward religious instruction, if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit accepts arguments put forth by Agudath Israel of America.

The Orthodox Jewish organization has filed a brief in the appeal of a lower court decision that denied a Los Angeles Jewish couple's attempt to claim precisely such a deduction. Michael and Marla Sklar seized upon a precedent - the Internal Revenue Service's agreement with the Church of Scientology to allow its practitioners to deduct the cost of certain religious studies and services as charitable contributions on their income tax statements - to make the claim that their children's religious instruction in two Los Angeles yeshivos merited no less consideration.

Though the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that payments to the Church of Scientology for religious training exercises are not deductible as charitable contributions, in 1993 the Internal Revenue Service reached an agreement with the church, which was later leaked to the press, in which it pledged "not to contest the deductibility of Church of Scientology fixed donations in connection with qualified religious services." In 1994, Mr. and Mrs. Sklar claimed that the portion of their tuition payments to Yeshiva Rav Isacsohn Torath Emeth Acadamy and Emek Hebrew Academy for their children 's religious instruction - fixed by each of the two yeshivos at 55% of their total tuition payments to the school - should be entitled to the same standard of deductibility.

The lower court rejected the couple's claim and refused even to consider as evidence the precedent in the Scientology case, prompting the Sklars to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which is presently considering the case.

Agudath Israel's amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief, written by New York-based tax attorney Jay A. Friedman in conjuction with the organization' s chief legal counsel David Zwiebel and associate counsel Mordechai Biser, makes the argument that the Scientology case is relevant and fully analogous to religious instruction payments like the Sklars'. The brief argues that religious education in yeshivos qualifies as an "intangible religious benefit" - which, under Congress' 1993 amendments to the Internal Revenue Code, may be received by a donor without in any way affecting the deductibility of the donation.

The dual instructional model that is the hallmark of the yeshiva day school movement makes "each school, in effect, two schools in one: a religious studies school whose function is to educate students in the traditions of the Jewish faith; and a separate secular studies school whose function is to provide a secular education in accordance with the requirements of state law."

That portion of tuition that is clearly allocable to the religious studies program should accordingly be seen as a tax deductible contribution, says Agudath Israel, especially in view of the IRS's policy with respect to the Scientology payments.

The brief concludes with a citation of a recent article on the Sklar case in Forbes' Magazine, whose headline includes the question: "What makes tuition paid for classes in one religion more deductible than tuition for classes in another?"; and which tells its readers: "Is your family's religious education deductible? It depends on your religion." That response is entirely unacceptable, asserts Agudath Israel, and the Court of Appeals now has the opportunity to insist that yeshiva religious studies payments be treated no less favorably than Scientology religious studies payments.

For further information, please contact Rabbi Avi Shafran (212) 797-9000.

Anonymous said...

Co-Chairmen of Initiative:
David Gerstley, YLC Member, contact: david.gerstley@us.pwc.com
Shlomo Koyfman, YLC Member, contact: shlomo.koyfman@yale.edu

The YLC has begun the “Jewish Tuition Initiative” to explore, discuss and grapple with the issues facing Jewish education today. The articles appearing below have been gathered and presented to the YLC to help shed light on the many complex questions surrounding this issue.

The YLC would like to thank Mr. Moshe Bane for his presentation of these materials.

We encourage members of the Jewish community to help build this data base of information which will help broaden awareness and knowledge of current issues and proposals. To submit materials for this website please email them to Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch, YLC Director at schonbuchd@ou.org.

Anonymous said...

Yeshiva Torah Temima keeps raising their tuition - and the meshigoyim parents still send their kids there.

Anonymous said...

I guess R'Shloime Mandel needs to raise tuition so that he can pay for Nussbaum the sadist perv.

Anonymous said...

As long as this is not my very own daughter, I couldn't care less what happened to her.
-----------------

Shabbat burglar ties up rabbi’s daughter

24 January 2008

By By Dana Gloger

THE VICTIM of a terrifying burglary has spoken of her ordeal in which she was tied to a chair at her elderly parents’ home while the intruder stole valuable family heirlooms.

Shoshana Cofnas had been staying at the flat, in Higher Broughton, North Manchester, last Shabbat, when she came face to face with the burglar in her parents’ bedroom, at 11 o’clock in the morning.

“He was hiding behind the door,” she said. “I was very shocked. He told me to be quiet and sit on the chair. He then tied my legs to the chair.”

During her ordeal, Ms Cofnas’ 95-year-old mother, Bertha, was in the bath being helped by her carer.

There was no money in the bedroom, and Ms Cofnas, herself a full-time carer to her parents, said her main fear was how the burglar would react.

“I didn’t know if he had a knife or a weapon and I didn’t know what his next move would be if he didn’t find any money. So I told him there were silver candlesticks in the lounge and to take those.”

The man left the room, and, a few minutes later, she managed to untie herself and struggle free.

“I took my chances and went into the lounge to see if he’d taken the candlesticks,” she said.

When her mother and the carer came into the lounge, the carer noticed that her handbag containing bank cards and mobile phones had been taken, and Ms Cofnas told them what had happened.

“I wasn’t going to say anything. I thought if I could keep it from them I would. It was Shabbat morning and my father was still at shul and I didn’t want the whole of Shabbat disrupted because of this,” she said.

“I’ve got a picture of the incident in my mind constantly, but it has not put me back too badly, and I’ve had a lot of support from friends and the community.

“It has shown me that we must be much more vigilant. In this area we take things for granted and assume it’s safe. We’re a bit lax about keeping doors open, especially on Shabbat when we go from house to house.”

Ms Cofnas’s father, Rabbi Jerachmiel Cofnas, a one-time rabbi at Birmingham New Synagogue, and also aged 95, said: “The carer left the door open and that’s how the burglar came in.

“It could have been much worse. We are pleased that nothing more serious happened. Both my wife and my daughter are trying to get over it.”

The burglar took two pairs of Shabbat candlesticks. One pair were large silver ones which had belonged to his wife’s grandparents.

The intruder is described as white, aged in his early 40s, 5ft 5in tall and with short, mousey brown hair. He had discoloured and uneven teeth and was wearing grey clothes.

Anonymous said...

Rabbis get serious about matching up singles
Newsweek
Published: 1/24/2008

The rise of interfaith marriage is a sensitive issue among American Jews, and now two powerful forces in the religion are teaming up to do something about it: rabbis and JDate, the top matchmaking Web site for Jewish singles.

For the first time in its 10-year history, the site is offering a bulk rate to rabbis who want to buy membership accounts for congregants. According to Gail Laguna, JDate's vice president of communications, singles who sign up through their congregation get a slight discount on the site's $149 six-month subscription fee.

"This is a way for us to break down the walls of the synagogue," said Rabbi Michael Cahana, of Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, Ore.

The rabbis who negotiated the rate are also picking up the tab. Rabbi Donald Weber of Temple Rodeph Torah in Marlboro, N.J., has paid out of his own pocket for 24 six-month subscriptions. Cahana and Rabbi Kenneth Emert of Temple Beth Rishon in Wyckoff, N.J., who purchased a dozen three-month memberships, anted up using money from their synagogues' discretionary budget.

"When I heard that another rabbi was putting his money where his mouth is, I did too," says Emert, whose offer includes one stipulation: "No mothers, no grandmothers." Singles, in other words, have to sign up themselves.

Anonymous said...

This is my kind of a Rabbi!

Rabbi: Reforms worse than Muslims

Following question from 12 year-old girl invited to a cousin's Bat Mitzvah - Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba rules Orthodox Jews forbidden from attending Reform events, entering Reform synagogues – deeming them worse than Muslims

Neta Sela
Published: 10.25.06, 01:16 / Israel Jewish Scene

A new Halacha ruling issued by Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba instructs Orthodox Jews to steer clear of participating in any events held by Reform Jews and prohibits entering their synagogues. These new restrictions have turned the attitude towards Reform Judaism into one less tolerant than extended to Islam. The Rabbi's ruling was posted to the Beit-El Yeshiva website, after one of the visitors submitted a question on the matter to the Rabbi.....

Anonymous said...

Who cares about zoning laws, we violate them all the time.
-
Board hears rabbi, town zoning case

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — The Zoning Board of Adjustment began hearing testimony Thursday night in a case to determine whether a rabbi is operating a house of worship in his home.

Paul Sweda, who lives next to Rabbi Avraham Bernstein, has asked the board to make the determination. Houses of worship are permitted in residential areas, but require a use variance, which Bernstein does not have.

About 75 people attended Thursday's hearing, which had been moved to the Freehold Township Senior Center to accommodate the larger-than-usual crowd expected.

The case proceeded Thursday after the board denied a request from Bernstein's attorney, Gerald Marks, to adjourn the hearing because of a court brief he said the township filed. According to Marks, the brief said an ordinance defining a house of worship would not be enforced until a court determination was made on it---

Anonymous said...

The Jewish Standard - http://www.jstandard.com
‘Dividing Jerusalem is unacceptable’
http://www.jstandard.com/articles/3780/1/‘Dividing-Jerusalem-is-unacceptable’
Rabbi Pesach Lerner

By Rabbi Pesach Lerner
Published on Today


It is written in tractate Berachot page 5B of the Talmud that "a captive cannot release himself from prison."

There are many reasons given for this phenomenon. A prisoner is often incapable of effecting change on his own behalf. He may be overcome with grief and closed from supporters or paralyzed by fear of retaliation from his captors. One may suggest that the prisoner lacks the proper information to effect change, and lives on perceived hope alone, while an outsider may be better informed and unfettered and therefore able to respond and act accordingly.
‘Dividing Jerusalem is unacceptable’

It is written in tractate Berachot page 5B of the Talmud that "a captive cannot release himself from prison."

There are many reasons given for this phenomenon. A prisoner is often incapable of effecting change on his own behalf. He may be overcome with grief and closed from supporters or paralyzed by fear of retaliation from his captors. One may suggest that the prisoner lacks the proper information to effect change, and lives on perceived hope alone, while an outsider may be better informed and unfettered and therefore able to respond and act accordingly.

I have visited the people and land of Israel many times since the announcement of the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and since the trial balloon announcements of the division of Jerusalem. These visits have allowed me the opportunity to meet with Israelis from all walks of life — people in government, rabbinic leaders, executives in religious organizations, and the "amcha," the people on the street.

Many Israelis feel like prisoners in their own country. They do not know what to believe or whom to trust. Religious organizations are concerned that if they challenge government decisions, they may lose aid from Jewish organizations and crucial government subsidies. This leads to feelings of disillusionment, betrayal, and despair. Many want to react but do not know how.

"A captive cannot release himself from prison" seems to fit our brethren in Israel, today.

Diaspora Jews, the outsiders, are here to help. On a recent visit to Israel, I noticed the overwhelming belief that a division of Jerusalem was not possible. I shared with them the perspective from outside Israel that a division of Jerusalem was to the world a viable option. I encouraged the Israelis to make it known that dividing Jerusalem is unacceptable to Jews both inside and outside the country. They did just that.

Together, two groups, of insiders and outsiders — the office of the Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel and the National Council of Young Israel — called upon synagogues worldwide to dedicate a Shabbat, the weekend of January 18-19, in honor of Jerusalem. This Shabbat was a time to pray for the unity of Jerusalem, discuss the current situation, and act on behalf of a united Jerusalem. Hundreds of synagogues in the United States and Israel participated. Through American efforts, the chief Ashkenazic and Sephardic rabbis have issued critical statements calling for Jews across Israel and the diaspora to take action against this possible divide. It is important that Jews around the world continue to voice their opinions and make sure that the Israeli leadership hears them loud and clear.

Many of us have met with the senior Israeli rabbinic leadership from across the religious spectrum. We have shared with them what we perceive are the realities of the situation, the security concerns of American and Israeli experts, the concerns of so many Americans who send their children to Israel to study and live, and they have listened. I believe we, diaspora Jewry, have influenced their view of the situation.

There are many people in Israel, Israelis and Americans, who upon seeing the activities of individual American organizations have become active themselves. Just recently, the One Jerusalem organization, under the leadership of former refusenik and Knesset Member Natan Sharansky, announced a strategic alliance with the American-based Coordinating Council on Jerusalem to keep Jerusalem united under Jewish sovereignty.

"A captive cannot release himself from prison," but those of us on the outside, working with those in Israel, hopefully can and must and, God willing, will succeed.

But are we really outsiders?

We all have family, friends, and associates in Israel, often in Jerusalem. We speak for them. We have all yearned, prayed, financially supported, and in our own way fought for the establishment of Israel, for the unity of Jerusalem, for the security of Israel. We have earned the right to express our opinion.

We have been told for decades, by every Israeli prime minister, by every Israeli president, by every mayor of Jerusalem, that we are one, the Jews of Israel and the diaspora. We have been told that Jerusalem, indeed all of Israel, belongs to Jews worldwide. Well, we believed you. We are one, and Jerusalem belongs to all of us. And we have the right and obligation to speak out.

We are U.S. citizens and our American government is applying pressure upon Israel. We have the right and obligation to speak out to our government.

The Israeli government, seemingly, is not listening to its own Knesset, the majority of whom are against the division of Jerusalem. Maybe it will listen to the voices of the American Jewish community. We must raise our voices loud and clear.

Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, founded the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem.

Anonymous said...

The Broken American Male and How to Fix Him
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
St. Martin's Press
320 pages; $24.95

Two hundred pages into his 300-page new book The Broken American Male and How to Fix Him, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach describes a poignant evening when he is called upon to comfort a bereaved mother. He succeeds where others have failed, using his trademark mix of empathy and creative thinking. He is indeed a gifted counselor. On that tough evening, Boteach took his wife, Debbie, with him. He wasn't asking her to augment his work from her abundant experience and intuition. What he wanted was, in his own words, to impress her and to remind her that he's a good man.

Anonymous said...

How dare they allow a black to be a Rabbi!
-------------------------------

First African American female rabbi-to-be is breaking barriers with personal story

CLEVELAND -- Alysa Stanton spent years trying on different roles in life. It wasn't until she converted to Judaism at the age of 24 that she found her calling.
"I was studying Judaism and knew I found home," Stanton said.

She tells her story from convert, to student, to impending rabbi, in a one woman show. Her stories of racial and religious barriers at times painful to hear.

"It brought tears to my eyes," said one woman.

"It was provocative," said another.

"My mission is to break barriers and provide hope and build bridges to all races," Stanton said after the show.

After the performance, the audience met to discuss racial and religious tolerance.

Stanton will be ordained in another year. She is currently in school at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Anonymous said...

Case of Informant Reverberates Through L.A.’s Orthodox Community

By Rebecca Spence
Wed. Jan 23, 2008

Los Angeles - The scandal that has emerged since a Hasidic rebbe and others were charged late last month with defrauding the federal government of tax dollars has caused shock waves beyond Hasidic circles, with even Modern Orthodox rabbis addressing the issue in impassioned sermons.

The pressure was particularly great at the 900-family Modern Orthodox Beth Jacob Congregation, in Beverly Hills, where the government’s chief informant in the case, Robert Kasirer, is a member. Rabbi Steven Weil delivered a sermon January 11, causing what must have been an awkward juxtaposition for many congregants: The prayer books they were using were donated by the Kasirers and emblazoned with their name.

Indeed, the question of Kasirer — the FBI witness who turned state’s evidence against the Hasidic rebbe in exchange for a lighter sentence on previous fraud charges stemming from his health care business — seems to be weighing most heavily on people’s minds, according to Los Angeles rabbis interviewed by the Forward. In traditional Jewish law, if a Jew reports another Jew to the government, he is deemed a moser, and in some interpretations, a moser’s actions are punishable by death.

The issue of mesira, or informing, has prompted a round of collective soul-searching in segments of Los Angeles’s Jewish community.

“People are very shell-shocked about the whole thing on many levels,” said Rabbi Daniel Korobkin, a West Coast representative of the Orthodox Union. “Number one, that our neighbors and friends are implicated, and number two, that an act of mesira on this level was perpetrated by one of our own.”

According to Korobkin, a Modern Orthodox rabbi who is also the spiritual leader of Los Angeles’s Yavneh Hebrew Academy, “the majority” of Orthodox rabbis in Los Angeles have already spoken about the tax-fraud case in the weeks following the indictments, with some touching on the mesira issue and others simply decrying the criminality of what allegedly occurred.

Elazar Muskin, the rabbi at Young Israel of Century City — a Modern Orthodox congregation that is Los Angeles’s second-largest Orthodox synagogue — said that he addressed the case from the pulpit. He condemned in the strongest terms the act of cheating anyone, and particularly cheating the American government of taxes.

Weil declined to say exactly what he spoke of in his sermon on the case. But according to Marc Rohatiner, a past president of Beth Jacob Congregation who still serves on the synagogue’s executive board, and who attended the January 11 Sabbath service, Weil did not address the issue of mesira. Rohatiner, 54, said that Weil roundly condemned the alleged criminal behavior and said that it could not be rationalized in any way. Weil also reportedly emphasized that the Modern Orthodox community could not point fingers at the ultra-Orthodox: “The people involved in this were people just like us, clean-shaven, wearing the same type of kippot that we wear.”

On December 19, 2007, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office handed down a 37-count indictment to five ultra-Orthodox institutions and eight people, including a chief rabbi of the Spinka, an ultra-Orthodox sect that originated in Romania in the 19th century. The indictments allege that the chief rabbi, Naftali Tzvi Weisz, and others, including four men from Los Angeles, were engaged in a far-reaching money-laundering scheme. The scam, which started in New York and stretched to Los Angeles and then to Tel Aviv, allegedly began in 1996 and involved millions of dollars being funneled through a web of five Brooklyn-based charities. All defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A prominent Modern Orthodox rabbi here, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case, said that Kasirer’s plea bargain has compounded his problems. “He’s certainly a persona non grata across the board,” he said, referring to Kasirer. “Everybody is just disgusted with the idea that a person tried to save himself by hurting others.”

Kasirer could not be reached for comment.

In 21st-century America, the laws of mesira are up for a wide variety of interpretations. While a moser in the Talmud could be killed for his actions, and some in more right-wing corners still hold this to be the case, many others contend that given the high comfort level of Jews in America today, the same standard created when Jews lived under hostile governments cannot be applied. “The reason that mesira was seen as the equivalent of a capital crime is that when you handed a Jew over to secular authorities, courts and prisons were run like independent fiefdoms, and prisoners often did not emerge alive,” said Yitzchok Adlerstein, adjunct chair of Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School. “You were theoretically costing someone their life, and that is not true in America,” he explained.

Kasirer, a fixture in this city’s Modern Orthodox community who has ties across the denominational spectrum, was a regular attendee at Beth Jacob Congregation for more than 10 years. His father, Jacob Kasirer, was a prominent Jewish philanthropist who donated the funds to build the Bais Yaakov School for Girls, located on Los Angeles’s Beverly Boulevard.

Since word of the scandal broke, Kasirer has requested that his name be removed from the prayer books and from other dedications. The synagogue, however, has not yet determined how it will proceed. Kasirer and his wife, Debra, remain members of Beth Jacob, where her family has worshipped going back multiple generations. A room at the synagogue bearing the Kasirer name was dedicated six-and-a-half years ago by Kasirer’s grandchildren and by his wife.

Kasirer’s legal troubles stretch back more than 15 years. In 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud complaint against the health care entrepreneur, charging that from 1996 to 1999, he and his business associates at Heritage Healthcare of America defrauded hundreds of municipal bond investors who had invested $131 million to finance what they thought was the building of an facility to aid people afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease. According to a 2003 report in the Los Angeles Business Journal, Kasirer’s wife also received more than $1 million in salary and consulting fees from Heritage Healthcare. Moreover, the article states, Kasirer cited a minimum of $122,208 in monthly living expenses.

Ultimately, in October 2004, Kasirer struck a deal with the federal government in which he would plead guilty in exchange for serving as an informant in another investigation. This led Kasirer to wear a wire for the government until 2007, in order to help it nail down the Spinka tax-fraud case.
Wed. Jan 23, 2008

Anonymous said...

The tuition piece is masterful. I am a normal Jew struggling to make ends meet. I too had to deal with a nasty money collector. My heart goes out to anyone who find themselves to be in such a horrible situation. Hatzlacha Rabah to the wonderful job you are doing!

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable! They blame the whistle blower but not the spinka shtinka rebbe!

This is the same tactic of child molester enablers. Blaming the messenger as usual.
--------------------------------

Righteous Indignation: How Are We To Understand the Alleged Spinka Scandal?

By Allan Nadler
Wed. Jan 23, 2008

The Hasidic Rebbe, or “Grand Rabbi,” is no ordinary Jewish spiritual leader. Unlike rabbis in other denominations, from Reform to the fervently Orthodox, the Rebbe in Hasidic communities is much more than a teacher, adjudicator of Jewish law and community leader. He is nothing less than a conduit between his followers and the Heavens; a man believed by the faithful to be immaculately holy, endowed with a direct line to God Himself and thereby blessed with supernatural powers that include miracle-healing, divination and the magical granting of every imaginable human need, from bequeathing children to the clinically barren to endowing wealth to the chronically impecunious. A classic Hasidic adage assures that it is within the Rebbe’s power to bestow believers with “offspring, long-life and sustenance.”

And speaking of “sustenance,” at least one contemporary Hasidic Rebbe is allegedly also blessed with the power to grant sophisticated money-laundering and tax-evasion services to his supporters. When the Grand Rabbi of the Boro Park clan of the Spinka Hasidic dynasty, 59-year-old Naftali Zvi Weisz — or as he is reverently known to his followers, “His Honored Holiness our Master, Teacher and Rabbi of Spinka, Shlita” — was busted by federal agents in Los Angeles on December 19, along with his gabbai, or personal assistant, Rabbi Moshe Zigelman, and four co-conspirators, on charges of having defrauded the American government of almost $35 million, the Hasidic world entered into paroxysms of shock, dismay and anger. The mood of this deeply insular ultra-Orthodox community only darkened further as copies of the 45-page federal indictment detailing no fewer than 37 criminal charges against the Rebbe and his cohorts, as well as the juicy FBI transcripts richly documenting the surveillance methods employed to uncover the Spinker Rebbe’s elaborate schemes, hit the Internet.

But the lion’s share of the Hasidic community’s anger was directed not at the alleged crimes of their Rebbe, but rather at the FBI’s informant. Referred to in FBI documents only as “RK,” the informant cut an immunity deal with the government years ago and was the key figure in blowing the whistle on the Rebbe’s alleged scam. The New York Yiddish weeklies published under Hasidic auspices, as well as numerous comments on a variety of Hasidic Web sites, all cried foul — demanding a community-wide inquest to unmask and root out the “evil spy and informer” who betrayed and defamed the Holy Spinker Rebbe, Shlita...

Anonymous said...

The kenyans responsible for covering up sexual abuse should just remember to do what I always do. DENY and play DUMB.
----------------------------------

Sexual Abuse of Children Increasing in Kenya
By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
25 January 2008

Schlein report - Download (MP3) audio clip
Schlein report - Listen (MP3) audio clip

The United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, reports sexual violence against women and children in Kenya is increasing. UNICEF is urgently appealing for $3 million to provide emergency protection for children and women who have been displaced by post-election violence in the country and for those who remain in their home communities, but are at risk of violence and exploitation. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

The UN Children's Fund says there is less ethnic violence now than during the post-election rioting last month. But, Kenya remains dangerous and children and women are at particular risk for violence and abuse.

UNICEF's Chief of Child Protection in Kenya, Birgithe Lund-Henriksen, says children are being raped. In a telephone interview from Nairobi, she tells VOA there are no accurate figures on the number of rapes or other cases of sexual abuse, because children and women are afraid to talk about the attacks.

"We have heard of children as young as two and also women as old as 70 being raped," she said. "And, I think it is a combination of rape and various forms of sexual harassment. And there is a serious threat that if any official reporting that takes place that there will be reprisals against the women and against their children. So, you can understand that everyone is very reluctant to speak about it."

Anonymous said...

The little kinderlach I raped knew me very well. This sexual abuse report is zicher true.
*************
Reporter: Suzanne Hobbs
Idaho Releases Yearly Report on Sexual Abuse

Posted: Jan 24, 2008 05:44 PM

The Idaho Attorney General's yearly report on sexual abuse cases is out. It shows one disturbing fact that has not changed in all these years. It's that the abuser is almost always a person known and trusted by the victim and the victim's family, as with the Bonneville County case of Scott Wolfley, now admitting to molesting a young relative.

Of all 430 criminal cases filed in Idaho between July 2006 and June 2007 against adult and juvenile defendants, there were just three cases in which the defendant was a stranger to the victim.

Seventy-two percent were acquaintances, 8% were natural parents, 6% were step-parents and 9% were other relatives. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says this yearly report reinforces that it is essential that parents know the people with whom their children spend time and remain vigilant that those in relationships of trust with their children do not seek to exploit that trust.

Governor Butch Otter says it's among the government's highest priorities to protect our children, and that's why this report is so important. Otter says it begins with gaining knowledge about the threats, and stopping the cycle of abuse from continuing to another generation.

Other key findings in the report are the number of cases filed from the previous year was down-- 26 fewer cases against adults and 13 fewer cases filed against juveniles. Forty-four percent of the victims of adult defendants were between the ages of 12 and 15 and 29% were 11 years old or younger.

Sixty-four percent of the victims of juvenile defendants were 11 years old or younger.

These are only the cases that are prosecuted. It's believed that many other child abuse cases go unreported each year, says Bruce Pickett with the Bonneville County Prosecutor's Office.

Bruce Pickett: "Communication is the key. Kids can be told at a very young age what's an appropriate touch and what's an inappropriate touch, and children need to be told that it's okay to talk about that with a parent - that if someone touches them, they can tell the parent, they will believe them and trust them. When a young person is molested sexually at a young age, it can affect them for the rest of their life."

The full report is available from the Idaho Attorney General at www2.state.id.us/ag.

Anonymous said...

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=f59c82a4-91ea-44d8-a246-32842f9008b9

A Canton man charged with videotaping sexual acts with a young girl and multiple other offenses has been indicted by a St. Lawrence County Grand Jury.

According to the Watertown Daily Times this morning, 61-year-old James Morgan Hannan of Jones Road was indicted on eight counts of felony 1st degree Sexual Abuse and two counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child for his actions involving a 9-year-old girl at his home last July. Police allege that the acts took place as far back as 2005, but the charges only reflect incidents from this July.

Investigators alleged that Hannan engaged in multiple acts with the young girl and videotaped those acts, including; touching her in a sexual manner, forcing her to paint his penis with lipstick and then wipe it off, perform sex acts using a vacuum cleaner and candy, and giving her a pornographic magazine.

The endangerment charge stems from a 4-year-old who was allegedly in the same house at the time the activity was going on.

The investigation began when the girl's parents, who had become suspicious of his activities, filed a complaint with state police.

Hannan has been free on $10,000 bail since his arrest in July.

Anonymous said...

When I get a chance to molest boys during bar-mitzvah lessons, or doing school hours, I make sure to hug, kiss, and fondle their private areas. Then I call up their parents afterwards asking why their son is upset with me.
------------------------------
Bath Man Charged With Sexual Abuse

A Bath man has been charged with sexually abusing two children. New York State Police arrested 28-year old Jamerson Abeel who lived at the Old Field Trailer Court in Bath.

Police say Abeel had sexual contact with two children under the age of eleven at a Town of Bath home earlier this year.

They charged him with sexual abuse, endangering the welfare of a child and unlawful possession of marijuana.

Anonymous said...

sexual abusers are welcomed in the nursing homes that I run.

Grim pattern to reports of abuse
By TOM JACKSON

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Register photo/ABIGAIL BOBROW Detectives Jared Oliver from the Erie County Sheriff's Office and Al Jenkins from the Perkins Township Police Department leave the W. Cedarwood Drive home of accused rapist John Riems Wednesday.

PERKINS TWP.

The details about John R. Riems' alleged assaults against nursing home residents seem grimly familiar to social workers. They say assaults against mute and helpless victims fit a pattern.

The victims of sexual abuse in nursing homes tend to be people who "are just not able to defend themselves because of physical disabilities or cognitive impairments or just general frailty," said Sharon Merriman-Nai, co-manager of the National Center on Elder Abuse.

"We do typically see if we have those kinds of complaints, the victim is someone who is not generally a good reporter," echoed Beverley Laubert, Ohio's Long-Term Care Ombudsman. Laubert's office investigates complaints about nursing home care in Ohio.

Riems, recently fired from his position as a nurse at Concord Care and Rehabilitation Center, is accused of raping a 55-year-old man unable to talk or see because of a stroke.

A fact sheet on elder sexual abuse from the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault says perpetrators are most likely to be male, and victims most often are women older than 70 who are "totally dependent or functioning at a poor level."

It's difficult to know how often sexual abuse of the elderly occurs, Merriman-Nai said. Sexual abuse in general is underreported, she said, and institutional abuse is even more difficult to find out about.

Experts who have tried to study the incidence of elderly sexual abuse have offered a wide range of estimates of how often such cases are actually reported. These range from 1 in 5-6 instances of sexual abuse to 1 in 14, Merriman-Nai said.

Common sense suggests that if criminals tend to select victims who cannot communicate, "that would certainly go into the mix as to why they go undetected," she said.

The Ohio Department of Health does not keep separate statistics on sexual abuse of nursing home residents, but lumps it in with verbal, physical and mental abuse, corporal punishment and involuntary seclusion, said department spokeswoman Sara Morman.

She said 31 cases of all types of abuse were recorded last year in Ohio.

Laubert said loved ones of nursing home residents should be alert for changes in behavior that signal possible sexual abuse.

"People just need to be alert to anything that's different, trust their instincts, just like the loved one you reported about (in the Riems case)," she said.

A resident becoming withdrawn, less expressive or tearful could be a sign of trouble, Laubert said.

"We've seen people who, if someone reaches out to hug them, might jerk back," she said.

Anonymous said...

Sexual Abuse Victim Speaks To VA General Assembly
By WMDT STAFF -- WMDT 1/24/2008

A victim of sexual abuse urged the Virginia General Assembly to increase funding to catch sexual predators. Alicia Kozakiewicz was kidnapped and held in a basement when she was 13-years-old. While she was there, she was repeatedly raped by 38-year-old Scott Tyree.

Kozakiewicz said she spoke about her experience to explain first hand to lawmakers the horrors of sexual abuse and why more funding is a must.

Anonymous said...

This is an outrage! I will never allow anyone to sell a Yeshiva, even to help pay for the so called victims of sexual abuse.
--------------------------------
LA Archdiocese Offices Sold for $31M

By JACOB ADELMAN – 2 days ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660 million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.

Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries will move to office space on the grounds of a cemetery, Tamberg said. Others will consolidate in four of the building's floors that church officials will lease from the new owner, Tamberg said.

Tamberg did not know what would be on the building's other eight floors.

Jamison Properties president David Lee did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking details.

Cardinal Roger Mahony announced last year that the archdiocese would sell the Catholic Center and other church properties to raise money to settle hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits. Church officials had identified about 50 other nonessential properties that could be sold to fund settlements.

The deal reached last year with sexual abuse plaintiffs settled all 508 cases that remained against the archdiocese, which also paid $60 million in 2006 to settle 45 cases that weren't covered by sexual abuse insurance.

The Catholic Center is the archdiocese's first major sale aimed specifically at paying for the settlement, Tamberg said.

Ray Boucher, the lead plaintiffs' attorney, did not immediately return calls for comment on the sale.

The headquarters building on Wilshire Boulevard was donated to the archdiocese in 1995 by drug store operator Thrifty PayLess. The company moved after the area was hit by the 1992 race riot, sparked when several white police officers were acquitted in the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

At the time, the building was valued on county books at $18 million, though real estate experts said it was worth no more than $7 million if sold to be leased out office by office.

Anonymous said...

What a Tzadik!

"For those who could not afford it, Gerszberg “would make sure” the tuition was covered, she said."

Anonymous said...

73 years old? That means I have quite a few years left to continue molesting.
-----------------------------------
Alleged molester’s cases may be joined

By BURTON SPEAKMAN, The Daily News, bspeakman@bgdailynews.com

Prosecutors sought Friday to combine two cases against a 73-year-old Logan County man accused of sexually abusing two young girls, arguing he had similar motives with both victims.

John Cabbage, 91 Old Quality Road, Lewisburg, is charged with nine counts of first-degree sexual abuse, 12 counts of first-degree rape, 13 counts of first-degree sodomy, one count of second-degree sexual abuse, nine counts of second-degree sodomy and 12 counts of first-degree rape - crimes alleged to have occurred more than two decades ago. He’s also charged with a more recent crime, one count of first-degree sexual abuse.

That crime allegedly occurred on June 8, 2007, while all the other charges are based on what prosecutors say Cabbage did to a different victim between September 1980 and September 1982, according to the indictment.

But while more than 25 years separates the cases, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Ross said, they’re similar enough that they should be wrapped into one trial.

“The evidence in these two cases shows a common method,” he said.

Cabbage held a position of trust with both victims, Ross said, emphasizing that the earlier crimes are needed to show jurors that the more recent incident wasn’t isolated, nor a mistake.

“He used his position of trust to make it appear if he was trying to educate or help (the victims),” he said.

The girls were then fondled or otherwise abused for his sexual gratification, Ross said. In both cases, Cabbage is accused of fondling their breasts; in the older case, the relationship is alleged to have continued into sexual intercourse - something Ross said was prevented recently, thanks to the indictments.

Cabbage’s counsel, Hopkinsville public defender Leilani Krashin, argued against the move, saying the prosecution must prove more than similar circumstances.

“In sex crimes, methods are inherently going to be similar,” she said.

Instead, she argued, the crimes must match a “signature” - in other words, there should be definitive similarities in multiple aspects of the cases. And while the alleged method in these cases are similar, the alleged victims were three years apart in age.

Circuit Judge Tyler Gill said he would review the arguments, and plans to make a decision within the next few weeks about whether the cases will be tried together or separately.

Gill also set a trial date of April 28 for the case, though a second trial date will be set later if Gill rules the cases must be tried separately.

Krashin said she’s currently talking with the prosecution about resolving the case before that; in order to avoid a trial, a plea agreement would have to be reached by April 24, Gill said.

Cabbage remains in custody at the Logan County Jail on $500,000 bond.

Anonymous said...

This guy is learning my tricks on how to abuse girls on airplanes.
---------------------------------
Airplane child molester

Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 - 08:01 AM

By NBC News Channel

An air traveler is facing charges that he molested a 13-year-old girl in the seat beside him on an Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to Phoenix last Thursday.

The man, Shawn Cole, is now facing federal charges.

Cole appeared in federal court and immediately waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

In court documents obtained by 12 News, a Phoenix police officer says Cole struck up a conversation with the victim and they began to watch a movie together on Cole's laptop computer.

Both Cole and the victim had blankets on their laps.

Around 1030pm, the victim closed her eyes to rest and that's when she says Cole put his hand in her lap and inside her pants repeatedly.

A flight attendant confronted Cole and asked if he was traveling with the victim.

Cole said yes, the victim said no, at which point she was relocated.

After landing at Sky Harbor, Cole denied the allegations then admitted to touching himself.

In an email, Hawaiian Airlines confirms the girl was traveling with a parent and were originally seated together but at some point separated.

The victim says she was awake during the alleged incident but was too scared to say anything.

Cole will remain in federal custody until his detainment hearing next Thursday.

A Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson calls the incident "disturbing" and goes on to say they "hope he will be held accountable for his actions."

Anonymous said...

I started moving around my assets. Any child molester should be smart enough to do this.
-------------------------------
Long sentence for child molester from Greentown

Milford - Larry Lamar Oglesby, 43, formerly from Greentown, was sentenced to 26 years to 52 years of incarceration, Thursday, for the charges of rape of a child, aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault.

The Pennsylvania State Police charged Oglesby last January for his acts against three different juvenile victims. Oglesby pled guilty to the charges in August of last year.

Before the sentencing, President Judge Joseph Kameen also found Oglesby to be a sexually violent predator under Pennsylvania’s version of Meghan’s Law.

First Assistant District Attorney, Bruce DeSarro, who prosecuted the case, stated that the Oglesby’s crimes came to light because of three courageous young people who came forward and disclosed to the police what had happened to them. DeSarro stated the community owes a great debt to the victims because not only did the victims’ disclosure lead to Oglesby’s conviction but also led to the conviction of another sexually violent predator. DeSarro explained that one of the Oglesby victims caused the victim of another man to come forward leading to that man’s conviction for molestation charges and a sexual predator designation last year.

During the sentencing hearing, Judge Kameen stated the he found not only the crimes shocking, but also found Oglesby’s lack of remorse as equally shocking. DeSarro stated that since Oglesby’s arrest last January he has been incarcerated at the Pike County Correctional Facility but that he will be serving the remainder of his sentence in state prison.

Anonymous said...

Child Molester Kenneth Parnell Dies in Prison at 76

Convicted Kenneth Eugene Parnell known for kidnapping Steven Stayner in 1973 and for being the North Coast’s most famous criminals, has died of natural causes while serving a life sentence.

Parnell, 76, died Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, corrections officials said Tuesday quoted by local media sources.

Parnell kidnapped 7-year-old Steven Stayner in Merved on December 4, 1972 and kept him for almost 7 years pretending he was his father and telling him that his parents could no longer afford him.

On February 14, 1980, Parnell abducted 5-year-old Timothy White of Ukiah in 1980. He was arrested after the two boys hitchhiked to Ukiah and went to a police station. Parnell was caught and convicted to seven years in prison and was paroled to Berkeley in 1985 after serving five years.

Stayner was the younger brother of Cary Stayner, the motel repairperson who was sentenced to death for killing three tourists and a Yosemite park naturalist in 1999. Steven Stayner died in a motorcycle accident in 1985.

In 2004, Parnell was sentenced to 25 years to life after he tried to abduct another child. According to prosecutors, he asked the sister of his former caretaker to deliver a 4-year-old boy to his Berkeley apartment in exchange for $500, but the woman went to police instead.

Parnell’s criminal history began at age 19 when he reportedly abducted and sodomized a 9-year-old Bakerfield boy in 1951. He also was convicted of robbery and grand larceny for using a gun to rob a service station owner of $150 in Salt Lake City in 1960.

“Kenneth Parnell’s death brings to a close his long criminal history of violating young children,” Tim Wellman, the Alameda County deputy district attorney who prosecuted him in the 2004 case told the San Francisco Chronicle.

In an interview with The Chronicle in 2003, Parnell said he had no intention of harming the boy and that his only desire regarding the boy was to experience the “love and respect” that a son has for a father. He added that he wanted to buy a boy and a girl and raise them like a family, as he had had no luck with women.

Anonymous said...

"Jews, of course, like all people, are subject to base urges, including competitiveness and aggression. But our religious tradition teaches us that here-and-now urges are to be overcome by force of will when they lead to bad behavior, and that their essences are to be channeled into positive directions. The Talmud has G-d announcing "I have created an evil inclination," and then adding, "I have created the Torah as its sweetener."

The final word in that passage, tavlin, is often mistranslated in this context as "antidote"; but it elsewhere refers to a spice or sweetener that makes food more palatable.

Our religious tradition thus teaches that the inclinations that derive from the animal side of our natures must not be given free rein. But at the same time, it also teaches - and was teaching thousands of years before Freud - that raw human energy can be channeled toward constructive purposes.

Judaism lauds work and looks down on idleness; but it also commands the Sabbath as a day of rest. It insists on sexual restraint; but it also mandates marriage and family life. It frowns upon indulgence but includes festive celebrations. The Torah doesn't deny Jews leisure, pleasure or food; it guides us instead to control our desires, to harness them and express them in clearly prescribed ways, times and places. "

Anonymous said...

Caring for others.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. סוד החלומות במדע ובקבלה

Anonymous said...

Israeli setllements story I

Anonymous said...

Israel's Chief Rabbi

Anonymous said...

The Path to Inner Peace, Part 1

Anonymous said...

Short Vort on Parshat Yitro

Anonymous said...

The Jock and the Jew Part 1

Anonymous said...

Hillary, you will never defeat me!

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The New York Times
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January 27, 2008
News Analysis
Obama Weathers Attacks to Triumph
By PATRICK HEALY

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Senator Barack Obama proved in South Carolina on Saturday that he could not only endure everything the Clinton campaign threw at him in the most confrontational week of the presidential contest so far but also that even in a Southern state he could draw support across racial lines.

Still, his victory came in large part because Mr. Obama was able to turn out significant numbers of black voters, a dynamic that will not necessarily prove as decisive in the 22 states that hold nominating contests on Feb. 5.

If the results buoyed the Obama team, it left the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton facing a new set of questions. Her advisers’ steady attacks on Mr. Obama appeared to prove fruitless, if not counterproductive, and the attack-dog role of former President Bill Clinton seemed to have backfired.

Indeed, surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that many Democrats who believed Mr. Clinton’s role was important ended up voting for Mr. Obama.

Last week, Clinton advisers believed Mr. Clinton was rattling Mr. Obama and drawing his focus away from his message. The results on Saturday indicated, instead, that voters were impressed with Mr. Obama’s mettle and agreed with him that the Clintons ran an excessively negative campaign here.

“The criticism of Obama ended up really helping him going forward, I think,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, an influential black Democrat who remained neutral in the primary. “If he ends up winning the nomination, he will definitely face an onslaught of attacks this fall, and he may look back on South Carolina as the place that toughened him up.”

Mrs. Clinton may have won the last two nominating contests, in New Hampshire and Nevada, but she is now left to decide whether she needs to reassess her strategy as the race shifts from a state by state battle to a national scale.

South Carolina voters showed little taste for the Clintons’ political approach. They said in exit polls that their main concern was the economy; during an all-out campaign blitz on behalf of his wife here, Mr. Clinton spent the last week highlighting Mr. Obama’s record on Iraq and his recent statements about the transformational nature of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers were minimizing the importance of South Carolina even before polls closed, saying the primaries in Florida on Tuesday and in a swath of states on Feb. 5 were of more importance. But she will have to reckon with the rejection of her candidacy by black voters and the mixed support she received from white Democrats and younger voters here — two groups she must have by her side in order to build a cross-section of support in the coming contests.

“The Clintons will now have to deal with a perception of hollowness about her strategy, that she is leaving it to her husband to take care of things and allowing him to overshadow her political message,” said Blease Graham, a professor of political science at the University of South Carolina.

Mrs. Clinton also had trouble competing here with Senator John Edwards, the third Democratic candidate, who decisively won among white men.

Still, Mr. Edwards is now 0 for 4 in Democratic nominating contests. His electoral future is in even more doubt after South Carolina, his native state, where he emerged victorious in the 2004 primary as a presidential candidate.

The campaign now moves in several different directions for all three candidates.

Tellingly, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton were leaving South Carolina on Saturday night for two states that, like this one, have moderate political constituencies that do not often embrace Democrats in presidential general elections. Mrs. Clinton flew to Tennessee to hold a rally with black voters in Nashville — and even deliver her concession speech there — while Mr. Obama was headed to Georgia, which also votes on Feb. 5.

If South Carolina is any guide, the sizable numbers of black voters in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee will prove a boost to Mr. Obama in the Feb. 5 primaries. His victory may stir fresh excitement among voters there and in his home state, Illinois, as well as in other places where he is building support, like California and even Mrs. Clinton’s political base, New York.

He also has bragging rights about a new coalition of support: About as many South Carolina white men voted for Mr. Obama as voted for Mrs. Clinton, and 70 percent of white voters said they would be satisfied if Mr. Obama won the Democratic nomination, according to exit polls was conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool of television networks and the Associated Press.

More than half of black voters in the state said the country was definitely ready for a black president, while only about a quarter of white voters reached the same conclusion. By contrast, about one-third of both South Carolina whites and blacks said the country was definitely ready for a women president, the exit polls showed.

“Obama’s victory will leave him with some strong talking points — especially that he can continue to expand his voting base into a conservative southern state,” Professor Graham said. “His team comes out of this able to say that he’s acceptable to white southern men. And the Clintons come out of this facing questions about how their attack strategy seemed to fail.”

Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting.

Anonymous said...

By Michael D. Shear and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 26, 2008

SARASOTA, Fla., Jan. 26 -- Sen. John McCain of Arizona accused former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney of having once supported a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, sparking an angry demand for an apology from Romney, who called the statement "dishonest."

Both Republicans abandoned all pretense of civility as they campaigned across central Florida in advance of the state's primary Tuesday. Recent polls show a dead heat between McCain and Romney, and the winner here would gain a huge boost as the nomination fight moves to 21 states a week later.

Stumping in Fort Myers on Saturday, McCain went on the attack first, linking Romney with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.): "If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher."

He added to reporters that "one of my opponents wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster."

Romney, who said in April the military should consider a "private timetable" but not public deadlines, shot back: "That's dishonest, to say that I have a specific date. That's simply wrong . . . I know he's trying desperately to change the topic from the economy and trying to get back to Iraq, but to say something that's not accurate is simply wrong and he knows better."

Later, Romney added that McCain's comment on Iraq is "simply wrong and it's dishonest, and he should apologize."

The heightened tension between the two men represented a climax of...

Anonymous said...

January 27, 2008
Egypt Warns Hamas About Border Violence
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM — Egyptian riot police used armored vehicles to try to restrict Gazans from taking cars into Egypt on Saturday, and the Egyptian foreign minister warned of “provocations” at the border. He said that at least 36 Egyptian security officers had been hospitalized, some in critical condition, after confrontations with Palestinians.

In a thinly veiled rebuke to the militant group Hamas, which runs Gaza, the Egyptian minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said in Cairo that Egypt would show restraint but not at the cost of Egyptian lives.

“The Egyptian decision has been to allow in the sons of Gaza to ease their suffering,” he said. “This was the Egyptian decision taken a few days ago and we are still holding to it.”

He added that the Egyptians wanted to regulate the entry and exit of Gazans and talk with the “concerned parties” to devise a new border system. But it was unlikely that Egypt would tolerate a continued confrontation with Hamas.

After Israel severely tightened its import restrictions on Gaza, to try to force a reduction of rockets and mortar shells fired into Israel, Hamas breached the border with Egypt in nearly 20 places early Wednesday morning.

Hamas explosives blew down large sections of the wall that Israel had built just inside Gaza to protect its forces, which used to patrol along the Egyptian border in what was otherwise a no-man’s land. The border itself is marked by a low concrete wall topped with barbed wire, which is easily breached.

Traffic over the border remained heavy on Saturday, but residents of the Egyptian towns Rafah and El Arish reported severe shortages of supplies and a growing fatigue with the Palestinian influx.

In El Arish, Said Aghlaby, 48, a taxi driver, said: “It’s getting tiring. We can’t take all these people. They’re sleeping in the streets.”

He said he had to wait in line seven hours for gasoline, and could not get a full tank. “I’ve never seen so much garbage,” he said, “and I’m used to seeing garbage: I’ve lived in Cairo.”

Mr. Aghlaby said he was happy to help the Palestinians.

“They’ve been through a lot of suffering, and we can’t refuse to help them,” he said. “But it can’t go on forever.”

In Rafah, a cafe was down to its last 12 bottles of water, which were priced at the equivalent of 90 cents, instead of the normal 27 cents.

But in Gaza, Egyptian cars and trucks were also seen, delivering supplies to stores and supermarkets as well as sightseeing.

In an interview published on Saturday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, decrying the use of violence and the factional struggle among Palestinians between Fatah and Hamas, invited both groups to Cairo for talks.

Hamas accepted; the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, repeated his stance that he would not meet with Hamas until it apologized for its “coup” in Gaza and handed power back to the Palestinian Authority.

An Abbas aide, Nabil Shaath, said that Mr. Abbas would travel to Egypt after meeting the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, here on Sunday. Mr. Abbas will once again push Mr. Olmert to accept his presidential guards’ taking control of the Gazan side of the crossings from Israel and of the border with Egypt, despite Hamas’s control over Gaza.

Israeli troops remained on high alert along its border with Egypt, watching for militants from Gaza trying enter Israel through the Sinai desert.

Nadim Audi contributed reporting from El Arish and Rafah, Egypt.

Anonymous said...

January 24th, 2008
Sylvester Stallone Endorses McCain. Coolest Endorsement Yet?
by Fin Gomez

From Fox and Friends Executive Producer, David Brown: ”John McCain was on Fox and Friends this morning - we had an interview which will air Friday with Sylvester Stallone - Stallone endorsed McCain during the taped interview - on Fox & Friends today and let McCain see the endorsement - the sot and the reaction are golden.”

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade: “I talked to this famous actor. I asked him who he was endorsing and here’s what he had to say.”

Sylvester Stallone: “I like McCain a lot. A lot. And you know, things may change along the way, but there’s something about matching the character with the script. And right now, the script that’s being written and reality is pretty brutal and pretty hard-edged like a rough action film, and you need somebody who’s been in that to deal with it.”

Fox News’ Steve Doocy: “Look at that, you go the endorsement of Sylvester Stallone, congratulations.”

John McCain: “I’m going to Philadelphia and running up the steps.”

Anonymous said...

Dead priest to be named in sexual abuse suit

Trevor Wilhelm
Windsor Star

Friday, January 25, 2008

Wayne Thibert was a freckle-faced outcast when his priest befriended him, then spent the next six years sexually abusing him while warning him his soul was in jeopardy if he didn't comply.

Those are among the allegations of a lawsuit Thibert's lawyers have filed against the London diocese. The lawsuit alleges the late Rev. Lawrence Paquette sexually assaulted the boy repeatedly at St. Gregory church and rectory in former St. Clair Beach, in his car and in hotel rooms across Southern Ontario.

"I was an outcast from a lot of things," said Thibert, 51. "I guess he might have seen that. He became my friend."

Thibert's lawsuit is one of six the London law firm Ledroit Beckett will announce Monday during a news conference in Sudbury. The law firm is also launching legal actions against the diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and a religious order called Congregation of Resurrection in Ontario, alleging sexual abuse by five other priests. Those lawsuits allege the abuse of minors in North Bay, the Sudbury area and Field, Ont., at an all-boys high school and a centre for troubled youth, among other places.

Lawyer Rob Talach said three of those priests have been either criminally charged or convicted.

Ledroit Beckett has also represented more than 30 victims of Rev. Charles Sylvestre, who died in jail last year after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting 47 young girls.

London diocese spokesman Mark Adkinson said he couldn't comment on the allegations against Paquette.

"The only thing I can say is these are the first allegations we've ever received about Father Paquette," he said. "We take every allegation very seriously and will do an investigation."

The allegations haven't been proven in court. Talach said that as far as he knows, Paquette was never criminally charged.

Thibert is seeking $4.5 million in damages against the London diocese, claiming it was negligent and failed in its duty to protect him.

He said he's had trouble holding down jobs, has a long history of sleep disorders and has struggled with depression through out his life.

The lawsuit alleges Paquette, who died in 1986, abused Thibert as a priest at St. Gregory parish and chaplin of St.Gregory school.

The abuse included fondling, masturbation, oral sex and digital anal penetration, according to the lawsuit.

During this time, Paquette continued as Thibert's priest, which included hearing his confessions.

"In order to facilitate the abuses Paquette also engaged in a pattern of behaviour which was intended to make the Plaintiff feel that his soul was in jeopardy," the lawsuit alleges.

Thibert said the abuse began in 1966. He was 10.

The first time, in a change room for altar boys at the church, is seared into his memory.

"I just stared out the window of the church," said Thibert. "I didn't know what was happening. I never knew anything about sexuality at that age. He put me up on a cupboard. He laid me up there and started touching me. He proceeded to give me oral sex. I'm only 10. I had no clue."

The abuse lasted six years, until his family moved to Crystal Falls in Northern Ontario. Thibert said Paquette even visited the family once up north and abused him there.

"I didn't want to tell my parents," said Thibert. "They'd never believe me."

At age 13, he ran away to a cousin's house in Chatham. His parents picked him up the next day. As a punishment, they told him he could no longer spend weekends away with his priest. He didn't let on how happy he was.

"That was a good punishment," said Thibert.

The first person he told was his wife, just before they got married several years later. Shortly after that, he told an older brother.

But he kept it a secret from his parents. Thibert's father died in Jan. 2007. Then, in March, he heard his 78-year-old mother and an aunt talking about "how great the priest was."

It was more than he could take.

"It just brought me down," he said. "I decided to do something. It's not right."

With his alleged abuser dead, Thibert said he launched the lawsuit to bring awareness to the problem of sexual abuse and hopefully prevent it from happening to someone else.

"If I can save somebody, I will be happy," he said.

twilhelm@thestar.canwest.com or 519-255-5777 ext. 642

Anonymous said...

Utica man charged with sexual abuse
Jan 25, 2008
By JENNIFER FUSCO
Observer-Dispatch

A Utica man was arrested Thursday for touching a 6-year-old boy in a sexual manner, according to the Oneida County Advocacy Center.

The child reported the incident to his mother in late December, who then called the police, according to Inv. John Dellerba, a Utica Police Investigator assigned to the Oneida County Child Advocacy Center.

David W. Mast, 59, of Brinkerhoff Ave., was charged with first-degree sexual abuse, a felony, police said.

The incident happened on Elm Street, police said.

Mast was arraigned in Utica City Court and sent to the Oneida County Jail with bail set at $20,000.

He is due back Jan. 28 in Utica City Court.

The victim will be offered counseling through the Child Advocacy Center, police said.

Anonymous said...

EDITORIALS

Women and children suffering in camps

Publication Date: 1/27/2008

As post-election violence escalates in various parts of the country, thousands of people are each day fleeing their homes to seek safety in makeshift camps, becoming known as internally displaced people, or IDPs.

It is now recognised that women and children are bearing the brunt of the raging conflict, and now the red light is on. Sexual abuse has been thrown into the equation, and these two vulnerable groups are suffering double jeopardy.

First, they have to deal with the trauma of being violently uprooted from comfortable and familiar environments to live under deplorable conditions where their existence is dependent on relief efforts.

Then, it is emerging that sexual violence targeting women and girls is rampant in the camps. It follows that the recovery of women and children already traumatised could be fundamentally compromised.

Reports from the internal refugee camps paint a grave picture indeed, and there is a likelihood that the cases coming to the attention of aid workers could just be the tip of the iceberg.

The cases of sexual abuse recorded by aid workers occur at various levels. On one, women and girls are raped during the actual violence. For instance, in the first two days of the violence, 56 cases of rape were recorded in Nairobi alone.

Similarly, during the first day of mass action last week, the Nairobi Women Hospital admitted eight girls, the youngest aged 12 years.

And these are victims who are lucky enough to obtain assistance from responsible people and members of relief agencies. Many more could be suffering silently.

The next level of sexual violence is taking place inside the camps where circumstances of the moment have thrown strangers–men, women and children–into living communally in school halls and tents. In some areas, women and children are living in makeshift structures that are not secure enough to keep out would-be sex predators. Their safety is further compromised by the fact that most of the informal camps lack lighting, and many of the attacks are carried out in the dark.

At another level, the deprivation that informs the lives of the IDPs has bred a situation where desperately impoverished young girls are sexually exploited in order to get some food or clothing.

Given the foregoing, it is evident that even as efforts to resolve the political crises that has precipitated the violence get underway, the country will soon have to grapple with this problem that is silently ravaging the lives of women and children in camps.

Therefore, there is urgent need for both preventive and rehabilitative measures. These are to minimise the risk of sexual attacks and the management of post attack effects.

In these days of HIV and Aids, sexual assault can be lethal unless the victim seeks medical help within 72 hours and has access to post-exposure prophylactic kits that are critical in preventing victims from contracting the virus.

In a conservative society like ours, rape often goes unreported because victims fear stigmatisation. IDPs need to understand that reporting rape could be a matter of life and death, but this will only happen through provision of relevant information by government departments or humanitarians groups.

Since rape is a crime, law enforcement agencies have the responsibility of securing IDP camps to prevent it. This might involve screening people living the camps to identify and isolate known sex pests.

However, it is most important to bear in mind that the increase in sexual attacks is a direct offshoot of the breakdown of law and order and the consequent collapse of social mechanisms. In our situation, there is no substitute for peace in ensuring women and girls are safe from sexual depredation.

Anonymous said...

My whole marriage fell apart because of the expensive yeshiva tuition. I find the overall education in yeshivas to be horrible. The yeshiva money collectors that I have encountered have ice running through their veins. No morals, stuck-up lowlifes!

Anonymous said...

Jeff Herman is suing me.
-------------------------------
Billionaire friend of Prince Andrew sued

By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 26/01/2008

Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire friend of Prince Andrew, has been accused of preying on girls as young as 14 in a £25 million lawsuit filed by one of his alleged victims.

The girl, now 17 and identified only as Jane Doe, claims that in 2005 Mr Epstein lured her to his home in Palm Beach, Florida, after offering to pay her £150 for a massage.

As soon as they were in a bedroom together, he demanded she remove her clothes and sexually assaulted her, according to a lawsuit filed in a federal court in West Palm Beach on Thursday.
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Lily Ann Sanchez, Mr Epstein's lawyer, said the girl's allegations were false and motivated by money. The 55-year-old bachelor financier was introduced to the Duke of York by his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell.

Mr Epstein has stayed at Sandringham and was a guest at the Queen's birthday party at Windsor in 2000.

In return, Prince Andrew went on holiday with Mr Epstein in Thailand.

During the trip the prince was photographed surrounded by topless women on a yacht.

The teenager is also at the centre of a criminal case against Mr Epstein in Florida, said Jeffrey Herman, her lawyer.

In that case, following an 11-month undercover police investigation, Mr Epstein has been charged with soliciting a prostitute.

Police claim he regularly paid young women to give him massages while he sometimes groped them.

The financier faces up to five years in prison if he is found guilty.

The teenager's lawsuit, which is also being brought by her father and stepmother, alleged that the billionaire had "a sexual preference and obsession for underage girls".

Mr Herman claimed the alleged sexual assault followed a regular pattern.

Using a Palm Beach student to recruit other teenagers, Mr Epstein lured "economically disadvantaged underage girls" to give him massages in a bedroom at his Florida home, at £100 to £150 per session, the lawyer claimed.

There he would disrobe and tell the girls to do the same before committing various sexual "acts", said Mr Herman.

As a result of her encounter, the girl experienced "confusion, shame, humiliation, embarrassment and the assault that sent her life into a downward spiral", the lawsuit alleges.

Mr Epstein's lawyer said the girl told the billionaire that she was 18 and that, regardless, he did nothing inappropriate with her.

A former teacher who now manages the fortunes of a string of multi-millionaires, Mr Epstein, has homes in New York, Mexico City and London, and a private island in the Caribbean.

He was sued last year by a woman who claimed he had sex with her at his Manhattan home in 2000 when she was 16.

The age of consent in New York is 17. Mr Epstein's lawyers also deny the unsettled New York allegations, which actually relate to a man living as a woman.

In the Florida case, it was revealed that the teenager's father admitted three federal fraud charges in 2001 relating to arranging fraudulent loans as a mortgage broker.

Anonymous said...

I had been a student at BHI my class was the least cared for class we had the most fights with other schools and bullyed a lot of other kids but our class was united. Rabbi German is a very good person outside of school but he does have a temper that is way out of control. I have seen him physically abuse students many times some were my own class mates. He never touched me but he has beat on some students constantly.

Anonymous said...

As for Rabbi Khan, yes he is he isnt literally "sex crazed" but that is the only thing on his mind. He mentioned to students on many occasions things like "I f***ed your Mama last night" students usually responded with threats or things about his attractive wife lol. He learned Russian curses from the students and used the words directly at students. His trademark "angry move" was when he puts his kippa in his mouth thats when you know you gotta run or hes about to catch you by your clothing or arm.

Anonymous said...

pearl kaufman she was my favorite lol. I at one time remember he having an insult match against a parent of a girl from the school it was a kodak moment. She sat in her office at all times only comming out to pick on some kid. walked around in her multiple fur coats and pointing out students who wore jeans and open shirts and harassing them. She used to put on a show for rich people who came to Be'er Hagolah to donate money by making everyone have the dress code and clean the classrooms if someone didnt have the dresscode the were sent home. When the sponsors arrive you have limited access anywhere.


BHI does spread Jewdism to one group though the girls section, most of the girls who come out of BHI turn out to be religious or follow religion because of their upstairs faculty and aspecially Mrs. Hollander she is the reason those girls become religious and she is a great teacher when she taught my class one year... the minority who dont ohhh man you wouldnt want to see them we call them BHI hoe's or bitches hence the code name BHI Bitches and Hoe's Institution All in all to me BHI was a good experiance just because of one thing. My class was as a brotherhood i spent 6 years of my life with them and by now each one of my classmates is like family. Hope this helps = ]

exposemolesters said...

Anons,

Your insight has helped a lot. Thanks for sharing it with us. You're welcome here anytime.

Mrs. Hollander is amazing. She does a lot of wonderful things. The girls school is run MUCH better then the boys school. It's a shame the same can't be said about the boys. There is also a young lady there who is amazing. If you know her name please post it here. She wears glasses, runs a Russian camp during the summer. She is single. Fantastic human being!

Anonymous said...

Rabbi beaten in Ukraine

Published: 01/27/2008

A rabbi and teacher was severely beaten on a main street in the eastern Ukranian city of Dnepropetrovsk.

Rabbi Dov-Ber Baitman, a teacher at the Jewish educational center Shiurey Torah, was assaulted and severely beaten by four men after evening classes on Jan. 24.

The assailants have not been identified and no arrests have been reported.

Leaders of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community say the assault is connected to other anti-Semitic incidents in the region and appealed to the Ukrainian Secret Service to conduct a thorough investigation.

Anonymous said...

Party's spiritual leaders issue statement saying Shas will resign government once Israel begins discussing fate of capital with Palestinians

Neta Sela
Published: 01.27.08
Israel News

Shas' Council of Torah Sages convened Sunday at the home of the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and announced that Shas would quit the government once negotiations with the Palestinians over the fate of Jerusalem begin.



"The moment Israel starts discussing Jerusalem with the Palestinians, Shas will immediately resign from the government," the council's secretary Rafael Pinhasi stated..

Anonymous said...

01/23/2008
Town Endorses Law On Child Sex Abuse
By:Robert Wargas

The town of Southold is joining the New York Coalition to Protect Children in the support of state legislation that would extend the statute of limitations on child sex abuse acts, said Town Supervisor Scott Russell.

Having already passed through the New York State Assembly with nearly unanimous bipartisan support, the bill now is in the state Senate.
Officials resolved at last week's town board meeting that such legislation is necessary because "sex crimes against children are damaging to the most vulnerable in our society and the predators should not be permitted to roam freely after a limited time."
The bill would extend the time period in which offenders may be prosecuted for sexual crimes committed against a child younger than age 18. The statute of limitations on child sex crimes would be extended to five years, but that time limit would not begin running until the child has reached age 23 or until the crime is reported to the authorities - whichever happens first.
The bill is being sponsored by NYS Senator Ken LaValle (R-Selden), who could not be reached for comment, as of press time.
New Suffolk Drainage Improvement Project
Officials have begun the bidding process for the New Suffolk Drainage Improvement Project.
The town beach in the New Suffolk area floods frequently due to the high water table, Russell said, and officials want to install underground drainage catch basins to prevent runoff into the bay. The town budget allows for bids of up to $350,000, Russell said.
Fishers Island Sewer District
Although Fishers Island has had a sewer district for about a century, the town board finally formalized its presence in a resolution at last week's board meeting.
Russell said Fishers Island residents created the sewer district years back, when approval wasn't necessary. Now, the recent resolution recognizes the district under current law.
"Talk about crossing the T's and dotting the I's," Russell quipped.
Aquatic Invasive Species Eradication Grant
The town will receive a $50,000 New York State grant for the removal of phragmites, tall aquatic plants that Russell said "choke the life out" of certain waterways such as Marion Lake in East Marion.
Since getting rid of phragmites is no easy task, they will have to be dug out and then incinerated, Russell said.
The supervisor believes that phragmites, along with road runoff, are slowly killing the waterways and that this grant is only "a drop in the bucket" in terms of addressing the whole issue.
Goldsmith's Inlet Dredging A Success
According to Highway Superintendent Pete Harris, successful dredging at Goldsmith's Inlet has led to clear waterways. The dredging was completed at a cost of approximately $40,000, and no other work should be required for at least a year, he said.

exposemolesters said...

http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html?gclid=COSdlMqImJECFQM-QQod_w4-Hw

Statistics
Submitted by darceyw on Thu, 2005-09-15 17:57.
Key Facts

* Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted.
* One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men.
* In 2005-2006, there were an average annual 232,010 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.
* About 44% of rape victims are under age 18, and 80% are under age 30.
* Since 1993, rape/sexual assault has fallen by over 60%.

Rapes Still Not Being Reported
The National Crime Victimization Survey includes statistics on reported and unreported crimes in America. Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes, with more than half still being left unreported. Utilizing services such as The National Sexual Assault Hotline can help encourage victims to get help and report what has happened to them so that more perpetrators can be brought to justice.

Males are the least likely to report a sexual assault, though it is estimated they make up 10% of all victims. Young females are four times more likely than any other group to be a victim of sexual assault.

Is the incidence of rape and sexual assault increasing or decreasing in America?
Have you heard about crime declining? It is true (as best we can tell). While figures for any single year are considered somewhat unreliable because they are based on a small sample size, the more-reliable longterm trend looks extremely good. Since 1993, rape/sexual assault has fallen by more than half.

2006 Statistics
In 2006, there were 272,350 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assaults according to the 2006 National Crime Victimization Survey (PDF, 287KB).

Because of the methodology of the National Crime Victimization Survey, these figures do not include victims 12 or younger. While there are no reliable annual surveys of sexual assaults on children, (PDF, 37KB) the Justice Department has estimated that one of six victims are under age 12.

National Crime Victimization Survey, 2006

Anonymous said...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948977.html

Gazans belong in Sinai, says Chief Rabbi Metzger
By Saul Sadka

LONDON - Gazans should be transfered to the Sinai Peninsula where a Palestinian state could be constructed for them in the desert, according to Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, in an interview with the British weekly "The Jewish News."

Metzger also said that while Muslims should be allowed to pray in the mosques on the Temple Mount, Muslims "have no connection to Jerusalem", and must recognize that Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. Muslims have Mecca and Medina, "you don't need a third place."
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Metzger called for Britain, the European Union and the United States to assist in the construction of a Palestinian state in the Sinai Desert. According to Metzger, the plan would be to "take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains, buses, cars, like in Arizona. This will be a solution for the poor people - they will have a nice county, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace."

Anonymous said...

I am against women Rabbis of any kind!
--------------------------------

Barbara Kay on women Rabbis and "the freight train of feminist ideology"
Posted: January 28, 2008, 5:16 PM by Yoni Goldstein
Barbara Kay

The Hartmann Institute, an Orthodox Jewish educational institution in Jerusalem, has announced that henceforth it will begin ordaining
women rabbis. The institute's name caught my eye because the charismatic Rabbi Hartman is originally from Montreal, where I live,
and because my own (Reconstructionist) rabbi is very enamoured of the Hartman mystique; he regularly attends (and raves about) retreats
Rabbi Hartman organizes for Diaspora rabbis’ continuing education.

Anonymous said...

I applaud the Ukrainian Secret Service for getting the bad guys and saving my good friends the Ukrainian Jews.

Published: 01/28/2008

A special Ukrainian Secret Service unit reportedly detained a man who attempted to vandalize Kiev's main synagogue.

The incident reportedly took place overnight Saturday, when the vandal was caught by a field investigator for the Secret Service unit on the counteraction of xenophobia and intolerance as he attempted to paint anti-Semitic graffiti on the synagogue walls.

According to the Secret Service press service, the arrested man attempted to escape and resisted arrest.

During an interrogation that day, the would-be vandal reportedly confessed that someone had offered him money to vandalize what used to be known as the Brodsky Synagogue.

The Secret Service turned over the case to local authorities; it was unclear what charges the vandal would face. Ukrainian courts often prosecute cases of ethnic violence as hooliganism to avoid Ukraine’s hate crimes statute, which carries more stringent penalties.

The chief of the Secret Service's special department and its press secretary refused comment when contacted by JTA.

Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis, told JTA that the incident “is a provocation” to the Jewish community.

Anonymous said...

Russian chief rabbi thanks people for saving Jews from Nazi

Moscow, January 28, Interfax - Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar paid tribute to people who saved Jews from extermination during WWII on the Holocaust Memorial Day.

"I think that on this Holocaust Memorial Day we should recall not only the horrors, the ditches where executed people were thrown into or gas chambers and crematoria, but also the greatest examples of mercy given by righteous members of various peoples," says a Lazar statement received by Interfax-Religion.

"We will never forget the Holocaust tragedy; we will never forget the heroic feat of those who risked their lives to save Holocaust victims. We will never stop thanking them," he said.

Fascism "was a direct result of atheism that spread throughout Germany and some other countries in the first half of the 20th century," he said, adding that the Nazi performed pagan rites and sent rabbis and Christian clerics to concentration camps.

"Militant atheism inevitably caused extensive repressions and genocide everywhere - in Hitler's Germany, in Lenin's and Stalin's Russia, in Pol Pot's Cambodia and now in Myanmar," Lazar said.

However, the righteous men "made their choice despite all the circumstances. They were guided by their spirit not by logic," he said.

Anonymous said...

Italy: Naples rabbi refuses to meet mayor

Naples, 28 Jan. (AKI) - The chief rabbi of the Italian city of Naples, Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello, has snubbed the mayor, Rosa Russo Jervolino, by refusing to attend a city initiative to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

In a letter released to Adnkronos International (AKI), the religious leader of the Naples' Jewish community said he was not welcome at a function on Monday after comments made by the mayor, Jervolino, on the Middle East several months ago.

"I will not meet our mayor since I will be at the University of Federico II for the presentation of the book, Judaism and Literature, an appointment that I made well before this, and as usual, the mayor's invitation was late," the letter said.

"Anyway, I don't believe I could meet Jervolino calmly after last October, when he faced a peace delegation of Israeli-Palestinian guests hosted by our city, provincial and regional governments, when he compared the Middle East political situation to the Nazi occupation, confusing the victims whose vile execution we want to commemorate," the letter said.

"I want the dead to rest in peace: for this I cannot meet those who are capable of such statements and I feel instead that it's incumbent to mark this painful memory and persecution of my people with a book that records Jewish contribution to world literature."

After the rabbi's withdrawal, another leading member of the city's Jewish community declined his invitation to the city event.

Fabrizio Gallichi, advisor to the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI) announced he would not take part in the event accusing the Neopolitan council of failing to show solidarity to the Israeli people.

"We have never heard a single word of solidarity for the victims of the missiles from Gaza or Lebanon that were killing, and are killing, victims and renewing terror?" Gallichi said in a letter sent to the head of Naples' Jewish community, Pier Luigi Campagnano.

As well as Monday's event, Naples city council has organised two exhibitions on Nazi persecution to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

Anonymous said...

http://www.mankatofreepress.com/letters/local_story_028205352.html

My View: Legislature should revisit nonproft law

By Tony Filipovitch

— One of my favorite Yiddish stories is about a rabbi who was counseling a married couple who were quarreling. His assistant overheard him assuring each one separately, “Of course, you are right.” So the assistant questioned the rabbi afterwards, “I heard you say that each was right, but that cannot be!” “You know,” replied the rabbi, “you are right!”
The Minnesota Supreme Court filed a ruling on Dec. 6 in the case of Rainbow Child Care Centers vs. Goodhue County. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Russell Anderson found that if a nonprofit organization does not provide goods or services free (or at considerably reduced rates), it should not be exempt from property taxes. Justice Sam Hanson, writing the dissent, argued that free (or substantially reduced) provision of goods and services should not be the determinant for nonprofit property tax exemption. And they both are right.
Anderson pointed out that the property tax exemption for nonprofits is restricted by state statute to “institutions of pure public charity” (along with other institutions, like public schools, public hospitals, colleges and universities, churches and houses of worship). Based on a 1965 Minnesota Supreme Court statement that “(c)harity is broadly defined as a gift…,” the chief justice argues that not all charitable nonprofits (as the term is used by the IRS) are “pure public charities”; for that to happen, the organization must give something away. A worthwhile purpose, even on a nonprofit basis, is not sufficient by itself. The opinion goes on to explain that the gift does not have to be entirely free; where a fee is charged, a “substantially reduced” fee for recipients of charity would qualify.
Hanson, on the other hand, argued that it is the purposes that make an institution purely charitable, even if the services are provided for a fee. As happened in this case (child care provider in Red Wing), often there are no comparable “for-profit” competitors to establish a basis for determining whether a fee is “substantially reduced” from a fair-market price.
The chief justice makes a good point — the Legislature used language that targeted only certain ones of the “charitable” organizations listed in the IRS Code Section 501(c)3. In addition to public charities, the IRS code includes religious and educational institutions (which are listed separately in the statute), along with institutions which focus on science, public safety testing, literature and the arts, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. If we as a state wish to provide property tax exemptions for, say, an animal shelter run by a Humane Society, perhaps the problem lies with the Legislature and not the court.
But Hanson has a point, too. If “charity” is broadly defined as a gift, this is not the same as requiring that the gift be to the end-user of the service. An art museum, for example, receives the art on display as a gift (either as a donated object or as funds donated to enable purchase of an object), and the community shares equally in that gift even if there is an admission fee. One could make a similar case for an animal shelter — the community provides gifts to the shelter to feed and care for the animals, even if the end user (the adopting family) pays a fee for the animal they take home.
Hanson also has a point when he argues that a test for “substantially reduced fees” is rarely straightforward. In the case of Rainbow Child Care Center, there were only two other child care centers in the city (and there were significant differences between them and the program provided at Rainbow), and they also were both nonprofits. There was no “fair-market” price that could be determined in this case since there was no private market.
A study by the Minnesota Council on Foundations in the 1990s found that, even in cases where there is a mixed market (for-profit and nonprofit provision), the mix of services and programs are almost always significantly different between the two sectors. For example, Mankato’s Envision 2020 called for “creating a space for the arts community.” Should the Carnegie and the Amy Frentz Arts Centers be treated as the other office buildings downtown, or as “pure public charities”?
The property tax exemption for nonprofits goes back to the time when almost all of the nonprofits were churches or church-affiliated (or at least, that was the fiction). But times have changed, and our policies have not necessarily kept pace. Much of greater Mankato’s Envision 2020 calls on the region’s nonprofits to foster and enhance the quality of life that we enjoy in common, since our local governments increasingly are stretched just to provide basic services. If we are going to continue to rely on the nonprofit sector for “quality of life” issues, we must demand that the Legislature revisit the law and state our intentions more carefully.

Tony Filipovitch is a professor of urban studies at Minnesota State University and teaches and publishes research in nonprofit leadership and management.

Anonymous said...

Last update - 11:09 23/01/2008
Kabbalist rabbi helps the lonely find love on Tu B'Shvat in J'lem
By Yair Ettinger
Tags: Israel, Kabbala, Judaism

Every Tu B'Shvat for the past 10 years, David, a 30-something Jerusalem bachelor, attends a special prayer service for finding a match organized in Jerusalem by the kabbalist Rabbi David Batzri.

David, who says he spends a lot of time looking for a match on the Internet and organizing Sabbath events for unattached men and women looking for their soul mate, says that because of "the abundance and the Internet, people get confused" and cannot find a match. "People have the illusion that they have endless opportunities and can wait, but the bubble bursts. Then after all the failed efforts and the Sabbaths, we recognize that we can depend only on our Father in Heaven."

According to 16th-century Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria, two days a year a year - Tu B'Shvat and Tu B'Av - are the most propitious times for fertility and finding a mate. Rabbi Batzri holds special services on those days that attract hundreds of unattached men and women from all over Israel - as well as worried parents.

Near Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market Tuesday, large drops of rain sloshed down on the 20,000 people who had come for the Tu B'Shvat carnival organized by the municipality. They watched and listened as a group of elderly women put down their bags of fruit and vegetables and danced to music by a band playing Balkan music, as clowns entertained the crowd...

Anonymous said...

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/08012514.html

LifeSiteNews.com
Friday January 25, 2008

Leading US Jewish Rabbi Calls on the Pope to Convene Religious Leaders in New York to Oppose Abortion

By John-Henry Westen

Rabbi Yehuda Levin WASHINGTON, DC, January 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - One of the most riveting and energetic speakers at the March for Life Tuesday was Rabbi Yehuda Levin. No stranger to pro-life Americans, Rabbi Levin has represented more than 1000 Rabbis calling for moral laws. At the March, he made an unusual appeal - asking Pope Benedict XVI to lead religious leaders on the streets of New York in a declaration forbidding faithful to vote for politicians who support abortion.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the Special Emissary to Israel for The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada and The Rabbinical Alliance of America, addressed the hundreds of thousands of pro-life marchers with this message:

"I'm asking the Pope today. Call the Evangelicals, call the Jews and everyone else and declare in the streets of New York in these extraordinary times when babies are being murdered . . . when some are redefining marriage and perverting our youth in society.

"Pope Benedict we need extraordinary measures.

"If the religious leaders will gather in the city of New York at the invitation of the Pope and declare in the streets it is forbidden to vote for any pro-abortion pro-deviance candidate.

"My dear friends, 20 to 25 per cent of America will surely applaud this, and for the glory of God this would stop another huge amount of baby killing and perversion.

"Please Pope Benedict you have the ability as the largest denominational leader. You who lived through the Holocaust, answer the appeal of this Jew whose mother-in-law bears the brand of Auschwitz, hear our plea. Help stop the American Holocaust of abortion. The Holocaust of a world society losing its respect for life. Prohibit voting for the pro-death and deviance politicians."

LifeSiteNews.com spoke with Rabbi Levin about the proposal during the march. Rabbi Levin said that he had spoken about his proposal with Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, with St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke and also with Senator Sam Brownback.

Rabbi Levin told LifeSiteNews.com that should Pope Benedict undertake the proposal it would be an ecumenical event like none other. "There's almost nothing he can do which would be more ecumenical in the true sense of the word - interreligious inspiring and helping the peoples of this world than to reassert the rightful supremacy of religious leadership over political leadership," he said. "And with one statement in New York supported by the Rabbis and Evangelical leaders and other denominational leaders we can change the balance and start to shift respect for religious leadership back to its rightful place."

Rabbi Levin has asked that all pro-lifers join in his appeal to the pope.

The pope's email as rendered by the Vatican Information Service:
benedictxvi@vatican.va

Anonymous said...

Siberian Community Marks First Chuppa

Monday, January 28 2008
Full Image

TOMSK, Russia – For the first time in many decades and perhaps even a century, the Synagogue in Tomsk hosted a genuine Jewish Chuppa. Chief Rabbi of Tomsk Levi Kamenetsky conducted the wedding ceremony in strict accordance with Jewish laws.

Despite outdoor temperatures of minus 25 below zero centigrade, newlyweds Bella and Yevgeny underwent this traditional rite in full merriment. It is no coincidence that they decided to celebrate this occasion in the local Synagogue, since this is the place where they first met one another. On that fateful day, they were both in attendance for a lecture delivered by Rabbi Kamenetsky, who also serves as a Chabad Lubavitch emissary to this part of Russia.

Family and friends of the bride and groom gathered round to share in this joyous event, in addition to other community members who were interested to witness this tradition for the first time ever. After the groom placed a ring on his brides finger and the Rabbi recited blessings over kosher wine, Yevgeny smashed the glass with his foot and traditional sounds of 'Lechaim' rang out, initiating an extremely merry party.

"A Jewish wedding is a celebration for the entire community and here, in distant Siberia, Jews now also may observe our national traditions, just as they are able to elsewhere in the world," commented Rabbi Kamenetsky.

Anonymous said...

I sure do make my rounds!
---
Religion is topic of live feed

By :DANA DUGAN

The Wood River YMCA will have a live feed of a 92nd Street Y lecture at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30. It will be moderated by Rabbi Barney Brickner. The guests for the second in these programs are writer Christopher Hitchens, author of �God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,� and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, host of �Shalom in the Home� on television�s The Learning Channel and the best-selling author of 18 books.

Cost is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Reserve tickets at 727-9622 or woodriverymca.org.

Anonymous said...

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Zero Tolerance on Child Sex Abuse in Solomons: Fono

http://solomontimes.com/news.aspx?nwID=1297

BY JOANNA SIREHETI

Alarming reports of sexual abuse of children within the country has prompted the national government to take a stand in condemnation of the crime, insisting upon zero tolerance of such unlawful acts.

Deputy Prime Minister, Fred Fono, said that the recent proclamation was in light of accounts received from various members of the clergy, communities, as well as the police that the exploitation of minors was being perpetrated in Makira and Malaita provinces.

Mr. Fono reiterated his government's full support of all efforts by the police to identify and prosecute any persons' guilty of such offence.

He further added a plea to individuals of the general public that may be privy to any information that would aid the authorities in their invalidations to contact the police immediately.

Investigation is in place, according to Deputy Police Commissioner, Denis McDermott, who revealed that 900 people have been interviewed on the matter, which included different members of various communities.

The interviews were conducted by the police and have amounted to lack of formal complaints, or evidence whatsoever, pertaining to child sex abuse.

But Mr. Fono remains adamant that foreigners, particularly Asian loggers operating in the country, are preying on girls as young as twelve.

He warned that steps would definitely be taken to ensure their swift deportation.

Mr. Fono reaffirmed that the government has a lawful obligation to ensure the protection of its young citizens.

Anonymous said...

I hope the Israeli Government won't extradite me to the U.S
-------------------------------

Oregon man accused of videotaping children in sex abuse case

Associated Press - January 28, 2008

STANFIELD, Ore. (AP) - A Hermiston-area man has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing two teenagers in 2001.

Authorities say investigators found videotapes of sex abuse, and they are concerned there are more victims.

Oregon State Police arrested 32-year-old Arthur Blood of Stanfield after a grand jury in Umatilla County indicted him last week.

Authorities say the investigation began January 10 when 1 of the victims contacted troopers to say they were abused when they were 15 and 16.

Troopers say a search of the suspect's home turned up the video evidence.

exposemolesters said...

And the sick get sicker!
==========================

http://www.wktv.com/news/local/14491172.html

As man charged with sexual abuse, his daughter comes forward for newest victims
Megan Koskovich

Jan 28, 2008

UTICA - Today, David Mast of Utica was in Utica City Court for charges of sexually abusing a six year old boy. He waives his right to a felony hearing and the case will now go before an Oneida County Grand Jury. His daughter, Patricia Seigler, says he abused her and her sister when she was just a little girl.

It certainly took a lot of bravery for Seigler to come out in public to tell this very painful story of sex abuse. A story of abuse by a man who, as a child, should have been a person she could trust.

According to Seigler, the abuse started when she was about five or six years-old. She says he would molest her late at night while her mother slept, or when they went on trips.

Seigler says she told her mother about what was happening - but claims her mother never did anything to stop it. It's her younger sister, who Seigler says was also abused by Mast, who told a school principal in 1990 what was happening.

Court documents say Mast was arrested, charged and convicted of first-degree sexual abuse in the case of her sister. He was also charged with two misdemeanors.

Even though Mast was never formally charged with sexually abusing Seigler, she still thinks its important for her to share her story...as a healing process for her, and being a support system for Mast's latest alleged victim.

"If I could say something to that little boy, I would tell him I know what you're going through. Just keep going to counseling, get it all out in the open. Don't keep it bottled up inside because it will destroy you," she said.

Again, Mast will be in Utica City Court Monday afternoon on charges of a completely separate incident. He's being charged with first degree sexual abuse for allegedly molesting a six-year-old boy, which is classified as a felony.

Anonymous said...

Will the real Phil Jacobs please stand up, please stand up!
---------------------------------
http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/

Does Phil Jacobs Support Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer'?

I'm guessing the Vaad of Baltimore decided to put together an education program in their community as a reaction to The Awareness Center's screening of the film 'Narrow Bridge' and the panel discussion afterwards. The event was extremely successful. As a result The Awareness Center is putting on another program in a few weeks. I haven't heard all the details yet I've been told the same speakers will be coming back with a push on the importance of making police reports, speaking out and networking.

Back on January 15, 2008 The Awareness Center put out a CALL TO ACTION: Education The Baltimore Jewish Community On Sexual abuse, when they learned the vaad of Baltimore was putting a program together in conjunction with Ohel (a mental health center in Brooklyn, NY).

Phil JacobsI was shocked to learn that Phil Jacobs, executive editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, attended the Baltimore screening of the film 'Narrow Bridge', yet didn't feel it was important enough to write about in his paper, yet the Owings Mills Times did. I was also shocked to see that Phil Jacobs is promoting the Baltimore Vaad's program on his web page. This is shocking because Phil Jacobs keeps saying he's an advocate for those who have been sexually violated. If he was truly an advocate for survivors of sexual violence wouldn't he be working with The Awareness Center instead of the vaad?

On Phil's blog he states:

If anything, if this is an area of concern for you and your family, please make plans to attend.

A great deal of behind-the-scenes work went into putting this effort together.

It is a sincere step forward.

Phil keeps saying he's writing stories about sexual abuse in Baltimore, yet had not mentioned the number of alleged and convicted sex offenders who daven in Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer's shul or the number of cases in which rabbis Heinemann and Hopfer continue to cover up.

* Rabbi Yaakov Menken
* Rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau
* Cantor Stuart Friedman
* Aron Goldberger
* Martin Kaufman (still waiting for confirmation)

It's shocking to learn that Phil Jacobs would be promoting an event on sexual abuse in which one of the keynote speakers is sex offender enabler -Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer.

If anyone has a photograph of rabbi Yaakov Hopfer or Moshe Heinemann please e-mail them to me at: jewishsurvivors @gmail.com

The Ohel - Baltimore program includes:

* Rabbi David Gottlieb - promised a survivor to do something when the survivors alleged child molester moved to the community. A year has passed and nothing was done. The alleged sex offender is roaming freely attending classes in which minors are present.

* David Mandel - has a degree in Business, has no clinical experience yet continues to speak out as an expert in the child abuse field. Mandel and Rabbi Dovid Cohen have been named by many as helping to cover up sex crimes in Boro Park and other Jewish communities around the globe.

* Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer - who has been advocating for the rights of alleged sex offenders and has a long history of shaming and blaming survivors of sexual abuse.

* David Pelcovitz - a psychologist who jumped on the sex abuse bandwagon when he thought it was a trendy thing to do, yet really does not have the background to be working with survivors.

CALL TO ACTION: Demand the Rabbonim of Baltimore Stop Playing Games! Demanding that when programs are presented about sexual abuse they bring in professionals who actually have the education and experience to be presenting such a program. Contact:

Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb
Shomrei Emunah
Shul Office: 410-358-8604 (Option #1)
Home Office: 410-653-2423

exposemolesters said...

Just in Baltimore alone there are a bunch of slums. They are are the sewage rats disguised as Rabbis claiming to be following the Torah Kehilchoso. Ahggh! It Stinks!

Anonymous said...

A woman Rabbi? I I'm unequivocally against it.
-----------------------------

Rabbis
By Beth Weiss

The word rabbi originates from the Hebrew meaning "teacher."

The term has evolved over Jewish history to include many roles and meanings. Today it usually refers to those who have received rabbinical ordination and are educated in matters of halacha (Jewish law). They are the ones knowledgeable enough to answer halachic questions. Most countries have a chief rabbi they rely on to settle halachic disputes.

The state gives rabbis the permission to perform weddings. Technically, you don't need one; however, it's important to have a rabbi to make sure that the complicated marriage ceremony is done properly. Valid witnesses are needed to make the marriage official. The criteria constituting a valid witness differ among the movements. In Israel, a rabbi is needed for the secular legality of the wedding. The purpose of a rabbi is like that of using a judge or a lawyer in civil matters to ensure that the law is complied with. This differs from the non­Jewish concept of a minister having some necessary mystical connection with God that is required to make the ceremony valid.

The term rabbi was first used in reference to the rabbis of the Sanhedrin during the first century C.E. Throughout the medieval period the term referred to the common man, while the term harav implied scholarship.

Similar to modern times, many of those with rabbinical ordination in the talmudic period pursued other forms of livelihood unrelated to that of a rabbi. Today many rabbis are simultaneously doctors, lawyers, psychologists, etc. By the 12th century, however, the job of rabbi had become a full-time occupation.

Also similar to modern times, the rabbis of talmudic times had many obligations. They were supposed to determine the Jewish calendar, serve as a judge in the rabbinical court, help ensure a form of social welfare in the community, and try to increase religious observance.

The rabbis of talmudic times were the sole authority on the Oral Torah. (This was before Oral Torah was written, and no one had the opportunity to study the law for themselves). The rabbi was also revered as being a figure closer to God than anyone else in the community. He was thought to have the ability to curse and bless individuals. A rabbi has no actual power under Jewish law. While Catholic priests are often used as intermediaries between man and God, rabbis are nothing more than regular people who may be officially recognized through a process of ordination, or informally by virtue of the respect they have earned for their knowledge and righteousness.

Today the role of a rabbi mirrors that of a Protestant minister. He serves the community as an educator, social worker, preacher, and occasionally conducts prayer services. The rabbi is not required to lead prayer services - any knowledgeable congregant can carry out the service. Catholic priests can give absolution for sins, rabbis can't (unless you're asking forgiveness for something you've done against the rabbi personally).

The Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform movements began to grant women semicha in the last few decades. Orthodox congregations do not ordain women as rabbis. They follow the stricter interpretation in the Talmud prohibiting women from serving as witnesses or judges.

Anonymous said...

http://voanews.com/english/2008-01-29-voa65.cfm

Abbas, Hamas Due in Cairo for Talks on Gaza Border
By VOA News
29 January 2008

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and a delegation from the rival Hamas faction are due in Cairo for talks Wednesday on the future of Gaza's border with Egypt.

The factions are likely to meet separately with Egyptian officials. Mr. Abbas has refused to speak with Hamas until it gives up control of the Gaza Strip.

President Abbas has proposed a plan for the Palestinian Authority to take over crossing points in Gaza with Israel and Egypt.

Palestinian boys hauling their purchases in Rafah, 27 Jan 2008
Palestinian boys hauling their purchases in Rafah, 27 Jan 2008

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have crossed from Gaza into Egypt during the past week after Hamas militants blew up the wall dividing the two regions.

The previous week, Israel had imposed a blockade on Gaza in response to Palestinian rocket attacks into southern Israel.

In New York Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council abandoned efforts to adopt a statement on the resulting humanitarian situation in Gaza and the security situation in both Gaza and southern Israel.

The Council's current chair, Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, said the 15 member-nations realized they could not reach a consensus on the issue.

The body began to debate the situation in Gaza a week ago. Passage of the non-binding statement required unanimous approval in the Council.

In other news, an Israeli court indicted an Islamic leader on charges of racism and inciting violence in a speech he made last year protesting an Israeli archeological dig in Jerusalem's Old City near the al-Aqsa Mosque. In the speech, Sheikh Raed Salah called for a new Palestinian uprising and accused Jews of using Palestinian children's blood to bake bread.

The al-Aqsa Mosque is one of Islam's holiest sites. The site is also sacred to Jews.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Anonymous said...

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125078

Rabbi: Jews Must Lead Condemnation of China

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) Rabbi David Druckman, the Chief Rabbi of the northern city of Kiryat Motzkin and an outspoken opponent of Land of Israel withdrawals, says Jews must take the lead in condemning China for its murder of prisoners of conscience in order to harvest their organs.

"The atrocity is so great," Rabbi Druckman says on a recently released video, "that there are simply no words to express it. From a certain standpoint it is even worse than what the Nazis did... to cut organs from people under the cover of medical help for other people is simply astonishing and shocking from every human vantage point."

"It is especially..

Anonymous said...

The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

Shas: Olmert fabricated blessing from Ovadia
Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 29, 2008

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pretended to receive a special blessing from Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in an effort to boost himself politically on the eve of Wednesday's publication of the Winograd Report, Shas officials said Tuesday.

Olmert's office released a statement early Tuesday to a select group of reporters that Yosef called Olmert and gave him a blessing, wishing him well ahead of Winograd.

"Do not fear and do not lose resolve, for I am with you," the rabbi told the prime minister, according to the statement.

The Final Winograd Report: All the latest news and analyses

Reporters immediately called Shas officials asking what the significance of the blessing was and whether it had a biblical context with a deeper meaning. A check of a biblical concordance revealed that the words "do not fear and do not lose resolve" appear in Deuteronomy and Joshua, but the purported quote in its entirety does not appear in the Bible.

Shas officials were asked whether Yosef was hinting at Shas's red lines by referring to Deuteronomy chapter one, verse 21, in which Moses asks the Israelites not to fear possessing the land of Israel.

Or perhaps he was delivering some message about the Second Lebanon War by referring to Joshua 8:1, in which God tells Joshua not to fear conquering the city of Ai.

The Shas officials laughed at the questions and referred them to the Prime Minister's Office. They said Yosef made no such statement to the prime minister and that "the rabbi doesn't use that line."

"The real story is that Olmert requested that the rabbi call him to wish him well," a Shas official said. "The call lasted a minute. For most of the conversation, the rabbi warned Olmert not to divide Jerusalem and reiterated the decision of the Shas Council of Torah Sages that the party would leave the coalition if Jerusalem were negotiated. At the end of the call, the rabbi cordially wished Olmert well, but did not give him a blessing."

The Shas officials said they were not surprised by the request for a blessing, but they were shocked to hear the way the conversation was reported on the radio a few minutes after Olmert and Yosef got off the phone. Olmert's office responded that the blessing did indeed take place and they insisted that the conversation was initiated by the rabbi. They also said the call lasted "several minutes" and not just a minute as claimed by Shas.

At Monday's Kadima faction meeting, Olmert made a gesture to Shas by accepting the party's demand that the Jerusalem issue be delayed until the end of the diplomatic process.

Anonymous said...

The Yeshiva's provide a very iffy education at best. Tuition is way too much for the product that any parent is expecting to get in return.

Couple that with all the abuse that happens in many of these facilities.. and it equates into how much money should these "yeshiva's" be owing to the many victims they abused over the years.

But no. Their attitude is pay up. Yeshivas charge a ridiculous amount of tuition while emotionally and physically abusing the kids under their responsibilities. How immoral. How Wrong. How crooked is that?

They still kept your kids under their constant watch of abuse and misery. They need money to pay their pedophile rabbis so that the 'roshey yeshivas' could live in tax free luxury housing; while the average Jew struggles to make a living.

They should be paying the survivors who survived the hell they were put through as students of a yeshiva that was run like a prison. No yeshiva today is worth the enormously sky rocket high tuition fee.

It's an outright shame how dirty and sleazy a yeshiva's perversenesses can get. Then they wonder why so many jews are going off the derech.

Anonymous said...

We had nothing to do with this.

---------------------------------

More than 50 sea lions massacred in Galapagos

Mon Jan 28

Ecuadoran authorities are investigating the massacre of 53 sea lions that were found with crushed skulls in the Galapagos Islands, the endangered natural reserve's officials said Monday.

The dead animals were in an advanced stage of decomposition when they were discovered on the island of Pinta, scattered in a one-kilometer (half-mile) radius, said Galapagos National Park official Victor Carrion.

"The sea lions, including 13 pups, died because of a strong blow from someone. It was a massacre whose motives the prosecutor's office must clarify," Carrion told AFP.

The animals' remains did not appear to have been mutilated, and no cuts were found on their skins or limbs, he said.

The authorities found no other killed animals but they stepped up patrols of the islands, Carrion said.

The Galapagos islands are 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific ocean.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) placed the islands on its list of endangered world heritage sites last year, saying they were threatened by invasive species, growing tourism and immigration.

Anonymous said...

www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/harford/bal-md.ha.abuse29jan29,0,1780079.story
baltimoresun.com
Man indicted in sex abuse case

January 29, 2008

A 53-year-old Forest Hill man is being held on $2 million bond at the Harford County Detention Center after being indicted on charges of sexual abuse of minors, authorities said yesterday.

Thomas A. Kaiser was indicted by a Harford County grand jury Wednesday and arrested Friday.

Kaiser is charged with the sexual abuse of two minors, conspiracy to commit child sexual abuse, production and possession of child pornography, all of which occurred in 2007, according to Harford County State's Attorney Joseph Cassilly.

Kaiser also was indicted on charges of second- and third-degree sexual offense of a 13-year-old girl, which occurred in 1981, according to Cassilly.

There is no statute of limitations for felonies in Maryland, said Jeffrey Michael of the Harford County Child Advocacy Center.

Anyone with information is asked contact the advocacy center at 410-638-3294.

Anonymous said...

I didn't know it was shayach for a lady to molest little boys too. We should get to know each other.
----------------------------------
Defendant in attempted sex abuse pleads no contest (10:08 a.m.)
By Jose L. Medina/Sun-News reporter
Article Launched: 01/29/2008 10:08:30 AM MST

LAS CRUCES — A Las Cruces woman accused of molesting an 8-year-old boy accepted a plea deal this morning as her trial was set to begin.

Michelle Tufts, 30, pleaded no contest to one count of attempting to commit criminal sexual penetration in the first-degree and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in the fourth degree, Dona Ana County senior trial prosecutor Heather Chavez said.

As part of the deal, prosecutors agreed to drop a second count of attempted criminal sexual penetration, Chavez said.

Tufts is a close relative of the boy, but the Sun-News will not identify the specific relationship between the two in order to protect the boy's identity.

Tufts could face a maximum of 10 1/2 years in prison. Prosecutors did not make an agreement in regards to sentencing, Chavez said.

A sentencing date has not been set.

According to court records, the boy's grandmother alerted authorities to the abuse after the boy told his grandmother that he had been shown pornography by Tufts.

The boy, in a safehouse interview, told authorities that Tufts pleaded with him to do things of a sexual nature. He also spoke of being asked to perform another act, but he refused. At one point the boy said he tried

to get away but was followed by Tufts into another room where the incident happened.

The boy described the acts as disgusting and that he was told never to talk about them.

Records show that Tufts allegedly told investigators that she had been going through a period of loneliness, wanting somebody to touch, and that at least one of the incidents the boy recounted was true.

Tufts told investigators that as a child she was made to watch as one of her family members was molested by another family member.

In another 2007 case, court records show Tufts pleaded no contest to a intentional child abuse charge. Chavez said the victim in that case and the victim in the attempted criminal penetration case were not the same child.

Jose Medina can be reached at jmedina@lcsun-news.com

exposemolesters said...

To Fed up,

You are a voice for many out here who feel the same way you do. The yeshiva system and the methods used to financially dole out funds are obviously being mishandled. Additionally, many Rabbis are corrupt and self govern themselves without fear or reprisal of having to be held accountable to anybody. The whole thing is screwed up!

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many years they would give someone like me who is both an abuser and an enabler. I should end by saying that Yudel Nussbaum is a good chaver of mine and deserves to make a parnassa even in chinuch. I will always send him yingerlach for bar mitzva lessons etc. don't makes choyzek of me. I want kovod.
---

Abston sentenced to life in prison for sex abuse

by: BILL BRAUN World Staff Writer
1/28/2008

Former skating rink operator David Abston was sentenced Monday to life in prison on two sex-abuse counts, with 26 other felony counts dismissed in accordance with a plea agreement.

Abston had been charged with sex offenses involving 19 boys. He pleaded no contest to two counts of sex abuse that involved the same child.

District Judge Jesse Harris found Abston guilty of those two counts and sentenced him to two concurrent life prison sentences, which means he must serve one life term.

Harris informed Abston that the life sentence equates to 45 years, and by law he must serve at least 85 percent of that time ' or 38 years and three months ' before he can be considered for parole.

“Sir, I fully expect you to spent the rest of your life in prison,” Harris told the 56-year-old defendant.

Under the 85 percent guideline, Abston would have to live beyond his 90th birthday to be eligible for parole.

Abston had been charged with 22 counts of sexually abusing a minor child, one count of forcible sodomy and five counts of possessing child pornography. Tulsa County prosecutors agreed to drop all but two of those counts.

Abston was accused of abusing the boys over a span of more than seven years in his Tulsa home. The boys ranged in age from 8 to 14 at the times of the alleged offenses, prosecutors said.

The defendant formerly owned and operated the Roller City skating rink in Broken Arrow.

At separate court proceedings, Abston relinquished his rights to a preliminary hearing and to a trial, which means none of the boys had to testify in the sex-abuse case.

Abston was sentenced in August in Tulsa federal court to 30 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in the federal case to placing three images of child pornography on the Internet for distribution.

In federal court, he also admitted that he possessed more than 200 video files of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

The life sentence imposed Monday runs concurrently with the federal punishment.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ktvz.com/Global/story.asp?S=7785305

Oregon man accused of videotaping children in sex abuse case

Associated Press - January 28, 2008

STANFIELD, Ore. (AP) - A Hermiston-area man has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing two teenagers in 2001.

Authorities say investigators found videotapes of sex abuse, and they are concerned there are more victims.

Oregon State Police arrested 32-year-old Arthur Blood of Stanfield after a grand jury in Umatilla County indicted him last week.

Authorities say the investigation began January 10 when 1 of the victims contacted troopers to say they were abused when they were 15 and 16.

Troopers say a search of the suspect's home turned up the video evidence.

Anonymous said...

I'm still free to do whatever I please. You're not going to stop me. You saw how I tried to lash back at all of you with those character defamation bogus suits of mine.
---

Article published January 29, 2008

Baby-sitter's sex-abuse conviction ends with 3 life terms
He pleads guilty; girl, 7, spared from testifying

Judge Stacy Cook composes herself while sentencing Kevin Ware, who was convicted of child rape. (BLADE PHOTOS/AMY E. VOIGT)
VIEW: Kevin Ware-Terry Walker

By ERICA BLAKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER

The sexual abuse that Kevin Ware was convicted of inflicting on a 7-year-old girl entrusted to his care not only brought harsh words from a Lucas County Common Pleas judge but also tears to her eyes.

Judge Stacy Cook sentenced Ware to three consecutive life sentences in prison yesterday for the long-term abuse of the girl. The sentence was handed down moments after the 29-year-old Toledo man entered an Alford plea to three counts of rape of a child under 10 years old.

"You are a monster. You are the worst possible kind of monster. You are the kind of person that brings out the worst possible fears in the hearts and minds of every parent," Judge Cook told Ware.

"I listened to your childhood. And although I cry for you as a child, you are clearly escalating in abhorrent sexual behavior," the judge said.

For two years, Ware cared for the girl in his East Manhattan Boulevard apartment that he shared with his mother. The mother of the victim said she trusted him and did not know anything was wrong until her daughter approached her in April, 2007, and said she was being touched inappropriately.

In fact, Ware committed several types of sex acts with the girl, who was between the ages of 5 and 7 during the abuse, Assistant County Prosecutor Jennifer Lambdin said.

"He raped this little girl every way a person can be raped," Ms. Lambdin told the judge. "If any person deserves consecutive sentences, it's this man. Don't let him be paroled as a young man."

Ware was arrested May 3 at his apartment after Toledo police investigated the girl's statement that included descriptions of assaults. She also said she witnessed Ware having sex with his mother, Terry Walker, who was convicted of gross sexual imposition and sentenced by Judge Ruth Ann Franks in August to four years in prison.

As part of Ware's plea agreement, two counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity oriented material and pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor were dismissed. Ms. Lambdin said investigators found several images of child pornography and photos of the nude victim.

In an Alford plea, a defendant maintains innocence or does not admit committing a crime, but pleads guilty because he decides it's in his best interest. The court treats it the same as a guilty plea.

Assistant County Prosecutor Robert Miller said that one reason the plea was offered was to avoid forcing the young victim to testify at a trial. He added that the type of abuse she sustained "is going to affect her quite a bit for the rest of her life."

"She'll never be the same but at least she doesn't have to go through a trial," he said. "At least now she has a chance at finality and closure and the chance to get counseling."

Ware, along with his four siblings, was removed from Walker's custody nearly 25 years ago and adopted by a couple in Florida.

As a juvenile, he was convicted of attempting to rape his adoptive father's second wife and sentenced to an intensive therapy program.

At age 21, he sought out his birth mother in Toledo.

Defense attorney Jack Viren outlined for Judge Cook Ware's dysfunctional past, including sexual abuse he said Ware suffered at the hands of his older brother. He said Ware has long suffered from severe depression and has been suicidal.

Ware's step-mother, and the victim of his attempted rape, said by telephone from Florida that she was relieved that he "is off the street." She added that since Ware "will never be healed," at least he is "in a place where he can never hurt anybody again."

"He is where he needs to be," she said. "He cannot ever again harm a little child."

The victim's mother hugged her little girl after the court hearing and told her that she loved her. She said that Ware was a "monster" and that her daughter will forever be scarred.

"I trusted him and he betrayed that trust," she said. "I'm just glad he got the sentence that he got and that justice was served."

Contact Erica Blake at: eblake@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.

Anonymous said...

Mishpacha magazine has The Novominsker Rebbe, Rav Yaakov Perlow on its frot cover. Perlow supposedly is talking about taking good care of your kids.

Anonymous said...

This was in the shmated this week.

Letoeles harabim!

In response to sensitivities, we at Oorah are considering publishing a special run of our auction catalogue which will not include any pictures of women. We will only produce this separate catalogue if there is sufficient interest. If your family would be interested in receiving this catalogue instead of our regular one, please call 732-415-7405 or email nowomen@oorah.org.
Please be sure to include your name and address.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3500177,00.html

Ariel man poses as rabbi, rapes woman to ‘repair her soul’

Yonatan Bassa, 38, posed as Rabbi, forced woman seeking counseling to have sex in order to 'repair her soul'; defrauded her of $18,000

Vered Luvitch
Published: 01.29.08, 13:46 / Israel News

The Tel-Aviv District Court charged 38-year-old Yonatan Bassa of Ariel with rape and committing an indecent act Tuesday, after the latter had sexually assaulted a woman who had turned to him for counseling while he had posed as a rabbi.


The indictment states that Bassa would claim to be a rabbi and give Torah lesson to Jewish penitents, or ba’alei teshuvah, even though he was never ordained. In March 2007, he was approached by a woman who had asked for his guidance and help in retuning to the Jewish faith.

Anonymous said...

From Brooklyn To Big Sky
Two pioneering Chabad women light out for the territory, helping set up the group’s first presence in Montana and Wyoming.


Chavie Bruk with her husband, Chaim, at Hyalite Lake in Bozeman, Mont. “We’re trying to get in the groove of Montana.”



by Sharon Udasin
Editorial Intern
Stocked full of kosher meat products from Iowa, an 18-wheeler lumbers across South Dakota en route to Seattle, lurching to a brief stop along Interstate 90 in central Montana. Under snow-capped mountains in Bozeman, a lone, sheitel-wearing redhead drives to a rest area on the highway, waiting for the semi to appear. When it does, she unloads what in Big Sky country is precious cargo — the kosher-certified meat and chicken that helps sustain the handful of observant Jews in this picturesque college town.
Chavie Bruk, 23, moved with her husband to Montana 10 months ago to become the first Chabad-Lubavitch shluchim (emissaries) in the state. The chasidic movement sends young men and women all over the world to make Jewish learning and traditions more

accessible — even in the middle of sparsely populated Montana.
“I think people have a misconception that there are no people [in Montana],” Bruk said. “There is civilization.” Such as the kosher food, which comes every other month via an arrangement with an Iowa kosher meat plant and helps fight off some of the cultural isolation emissaries can sometimes feel.
Last Sunday, Bruk came east to join more than 2,000 female emissaries gathered at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott to mark their final evening together in the five-day annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchos. Honoring the 20-year yahrtzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, the wife of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the women discussed leadership skills, perfected outreach methods and studied Torah.
“It is to inspire and re-energize all the women who came here,” said Pearl Krasnjansky, shlucha to Hawaii. “Before the word multitasking was popular, this is what Chabad women have been doing for decades.”
On Monday, the representatives went their separate ways, to bring refurbished skills and revived spirits across the globe — from Hawaii to Siberia to Montana.
Originally from San Antonio, Chavie Bruk moved to Brooklyn after her wedding and taught elementary school there for a year. Her husband had previously spent a few years in Montana and when he took her there to visit, Bruk fell in love with the sprawling mountains and easygoing culture.
“You don’t go there and just see farms,” she said. “There’s life out there — it’s small, but it’s happening.”
Since moving to Bozeman, Bruk and her husband have trekked through Yellowstone National Park and have begun to take up local sports, including horseback riding and fishing.
“I’m proud to say I’m learning to ski,” Bruk said. “We’re learning to adapt as much as we can. We’re trying to get in the groove of Montana.”
There are approximately 1,500 Jewish families in Montana, of which about 400-500 live in the Bozeman area. The one synagogue in town — a Reform congregation, Beth Shalom — has only a part-time rabbi, and the Bruks provide residents and visitors with more traditional Jewish learning opportunities.
“They have wonderful spiritual gatherings,” said Holly Lifson, a Jewish resident of Bozeman. “They really unite the more observant community in celebrating the holidays.”
The Bruks’ Chabad House offers religious classes every Saturday and Wednesday nights, as well as monthly women’s group meetings. In addition to providing services to community members, the couple also encourages Jewish students at nearby Montana State University to spend Shabbat with them.
Each month, Bruk’s husband travels around the state to visit Montana’s sparsely scattered Jewish communities, offering sporadic night classes and selling Jewish books. Back in Bozeman, Bruk organizes regular holiday parties for the community, including the most recent event on Chanukah, which featured a nine-foot menorah on Main Street.
“The Reform synagogue was the only synagogue in town for eight years,” Lifson said. “This year, the Chabad Chanukah celebration was attended by more people than the Reform [one].”
With the neighboring Chabad couple in Utah, the Bruks are leading a joint community trip in mid-February to Israel, allowing residents to delve firsthand into their Jewish roots.
“We are actually in the process of raising funds and building the first mikveh in Montana,” Bruk said. “Within seven or eight hours all around us, that’ll be the only one.”
At the end of April, another Chabad couple will be heading to Big Sky country, and they'll likely be making use of the same kosher food-bearing truck that rolls through Bozeman.
Following Bruk’s lead, Raizy Mendelsohn, 21, her husband and infant daughter will move to Wyoming in the spring, establishing the first Chabad House in the state. (Only the Dakotas and Mississippi don’t have Chabad emissaries, though those states are visited by neighboring shluchim.)
After spending the past two years running a special-needs Chabad center in Queens, Mendelsohn is ready to pioneer the Midwest as a young shlucha.
She and her husband have already rented a home in East Jackson, Wyo., on the Snow King Resort and near an entrance to Yellowstone. In town, Mendelsohn will find whitewater rafting, horseback riding and mountain climbing.
“The city we’re moving to is not a Wild West city at all — it’s a tourist resort,” Mendelsohn said, chuckling.
She plan to reach out to Jewish travelers. According to Mendelsohn, there are roughly three million tourists in summer, and approximately 35,000 of those people are Jewish. There are only about 500 permanent Jewish residents in the area, she said.
But Mendelsohn doesn’t feel alone.
“Maybe once I get there I’ll more have to deal with reality,” she said. “Right now it’s exciting — I’m standing together with another 3,500 women who have done the same thing.”
After meeting the local residents and tourists in April, Mendelsohn and her husband will devise their exact plans based on community needs. For now, they intend to hold Shabbat minyans and meals, monthly women’s circles and a “Mommy and Me” program for children. And even in the middle of Wyoming, all of their meat will be kosher, thanks to the very same 18-wheeler that serves the Bruks in Montana.
“If we can’t bring a truck in on our own, then we’ll send orders to Chavie’s and pick them up from there,” she said.

Anonymous said...

Beijing Olympics going Kosher with food safety issues driving a mini-boom
By Stephen Wade, AP Sports Writer
BEIJING — Beijing and the Olympics are going Kosher.

The capital's only Kosher restaurant opened 10 months ago, drawing the small Jewish expatriate community, tourists, curious Chinese and even a few Muslims. Business has been so good at Dini's Kosher Restaurant, that part-owner Lewis Sperber is talking about setting up a second branch closer to the Olympic venues in northern Beijing.

Like many restaurateurs and bar owners, Sperber is hoping to benefit with as many as 550,000 foreigners expected to descend on Beijing for the Aug. 8-24 Games.

"What we've thought about is preparing sandwiches and other items at a venue closer than we are now to the Olympic sites," Sperber said. "If people leave the Olympics and want a Kosher meal, we could have a place for them."

Eating Kosher - food that meets Jewish dietary laws - is hardly a raging fad. However, there is a real boom is the number of Chinese factories being certified to export Kosher products. This is driven partially by recent food safety scares in China involving contaminated seafood, pet food and toothpaste.

Kosher certifications in China conducted by the Orthodox Union - the best-known certification body - have doubled to 307 in the last two years. The total number of Kosher certifications is about 2,000, exporters working to reach the world Kosher market.

"I think business will be very overwhelming during the Olympics," said Minette Ramia, who manages Dini's, a modern, pastel-colored eatery located on Super Bar Street, an aptly named alleyway lined with restaurants and bars just down the street from the Israeli embassy.

"From the hygiene side, whether someone is Kosher or not, Jewish or not, people will want food from here because it is considered cleaner and more hygienic being that we're in China," Ramia said. "A Muslim woman came in recently because she can't eat meat anywhere else."

The staff and cooks at Dini's are nearly all Chinese. Waiters bring new Chinese customers a handout to explain Kosher, which is called "Jie Shi" in Chinese - "clean food."

"When Chinese come, I don't think they know what to order," said Zhao Haixia, the assistant manager. "Normally they just rely on us to tell them what's good."

The menu features both northern European (Ashkenazi) and Mediterranean (Sephardic) food traditions. Mainstays like matzo ball soup, chopped liver and Gefilte fish are seldom chosen by Chinese, who more often go for Kosher beef dumplings (Jiaozi) or sizzling beef - Kosher style.

Gefilte fish is a hard sell.

"In China eating cold fish doesn't sound so good," Zhao said.

Like Beijing's noxious air, China's food safety is one the most sensitive issues surrounding the Olympics, carrying the potential to ruin China's $40 billion preparations to use the Games to show off a modern nation removed from its agrarian roots.

One food poisoning case, like one positive doping test - particularly by a Chinese athlete - could grab headlines for weeks and ruin the public relations effort by the communist government.

Following a string of food scandals last year, Beijing organizers launched an aggressive campaign to showcase a new way of monitoring aimed at tracing products from the field to the table.

The government also unveiled the Olympic Food Safety Command Center to deal with food emergencies.

"Precautions must be taken to avert any trace of terrorist attack on our food supply chain," said Zhang Zhikuan, head of the Beijing Industry and Commerce Bureau.

Concern centers on the safety standards of meat, and stimulants used to boost yields. Some fear drugs used in animal feed could trigger positive doping test among athletes.

At least one of the new monitoring systems - coding on packaging to trace the source of production - has long been required for Kosher certification.

"The fact that there is another set of eyes coming through the plants on a regular basis - such as the Kosher auditing or Kosher supervisors - means that the companies, the factories are more careful about hygiene and sanitation," said Rabbi Mordechai Grunberg, who examines Chinese factories for the Orthodox Union.

China's Kosher exports are composed almost exclusively of food additives, spices, vegetables and candies.

"It's like any other product coming out of China," Rabbi Grunberg said. "Outsourcing has gotten easier, quality has gotten higher and the price is cheaper."

Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, who also inspects for the Orthodox Union and owns a part interest in Dini's, said American-based food companies are asking him to conduct non-Kosher inspections of their operations in China. He called them "100 percent" related to recent food scandals in China.

"They don't necessarily want it for Kosher purposes," he said. "They just want to make sure they can guarantee that the standard promised by the company is what's being produced."

The Jewish population in mainland China is only a few thousand and exclusively expatriates - 1,500 in Beijing, 1,000 in Shanghai and 500 in Guangzhou. Several thousand more are scattered in small cities with 4,000 in Hong Kong. Historians suggest a small Chinese Jewish community existed centuries ago in the central city of Kaifeng.

Grunberg is optimistic a domestic Kosher market will develop in China, fueled partly by hygiene issues.

"I think there will be a big market here, and a big market could mean just a fraction of a percent of 1.3 billion. With only that you'll have a bigger market than we have for Kosher in the United States."

Both Kosher and Halal - food prepared following Islamic religious rules - will be available at the Olympic Athletes Village, a requirement of the International Olympic Committee. The Philadelphia-based company Aramark is running the catering operation and will serve 17,000 athletes and officials at dining rooms capable of feeding 6,000 at once on a 24-hour schedule.

The Olympic Kosher kitchen is being lined up by Rabbi Freundlich, the rabbi of Beijing's Jewish community.

"I would be the overall supervisor of the kitchen and have a number of colleagues helping me maintain the Kosher standard throughout the Olympics," he said. "We'd expect to serve 300-400 meals a day, more than twice what I'm told was served in Athens."

Sourcing of most Halal and Kosher products in China is easy - except for meat. No factory has been certified to export Kosher meats from China. Many factories are certified to produce Halal, though exporting Halal meat from China is difficult with some Islamic countries suspicious of Chinese certification.

China is estimated to have a Muslim population of 1-2 percent of its 1.3 billion people, most living in the west of China.

"Normally it's easy to export Halal non-meat products from China, but meat products certified in China are more difficult," said Ray Chueng, a Shanghai businessman who helps factories get Halal or Kosher certification.

"I think even Chinese Muslims are not so careful with Halal things," Chueng added. "They know what you can eat and can't eat, but they are not very careful if things are labeled Halal."

Penny Xiang, deputy director of the Game Services Department for the 2008 Olympics, said 36 food suppliers have been picked for the Games, "all under very close supervision." She declined to offer extra details. In general, Beijing organizers are careful talking about food suppliers, citing security reasons.

"I think the government's food security committee has formulated a special standard for the Olympic Games compared with national standard and World Health Organization standard," she said. Asked how the new standard compared, she replied: "It's probably higher."

She said daily food consumption at the Athletes Village would reach 220,000 pounds with daily rubbish weighing 110,000 pounds.

"Sometimes it's the easiest and simplest things that makes the most complex job," Xiang said. "People think preparing food is so natural, so easy. It comes to you every day and you are so used to it, so you don't think there is any complexity behind it."

"Eating is easy, but serving the right food to people is hard."

Xiang said many of China's "most influential politicians going right to the top," wanted the Olympics to showcase only Chinese cuisine in the Athletes Village. Several proposed preparing 2,000 Peking roast ducks - the capital's specialty - for athletes before the Aug. 8 opening ceremony.

Presumably some would have been Kosher ducks.

"It was ruled out," Xiang said. "We'd need to serve all of this just before the biggest moment for commotion and confusion. Just imagine how that would have been."
The Associated Press

exposemolesters said...

This was in the shmated this week.
=================================
The Rabbonim today are lunatics. Outrageous! I'm not joking, soon they will ban riding a bus that is mixed. These mental midgets are crummy and prust themselves. More chumrahs upon more chumrahs. Yet, when it comes to speaking out about abuse they make very little noise, if any.

Anonymous said...

Legal milestone for abuse victims
Professor Jon Silverman
University of Bedfordshire

There is little doubt that the Lords judgment is a highly significant one - even a landmark.

But it is unfortunate that media discussion has tended to be dominated by the case of the so-called "Lottery rapist", Iorworth Hoare, because the impact is likely to be far more profound on the other class of case - claims for compensation for sex abuse committed many years before.

As Lord Hoffmann says in his lead judgment: "People who commit sexual assaults are seldom worth suing." And Mrs A brought her action against Hoare only after she heard he had won the lottery.

Thus, it is unlikely that we will now see a spate of claims brought by their victims against rapists and sex attackers.

But the position of people who claim that they were abused as children in homes and institutions has immeasurably improved. This is because the law at the moment requires a court to take account of their "state of knowledge" when deciding if they have a legitimate claim for negligence.

'Dragging on'

In other words, they have to establish when they realised that they had suffered a significant injury as a result of the abuse.

My phone has hardly stopped ringing since this judgment
Paul Durkin
Solicitor

In the case of claims against homes run by Catholic charities, for example, this has proved a considerable obstacle and many cases have been bogged down in years of unproductive litigation.

The Lords ruling means that courts will now be able to use their discretion when deciding what it called cases of "systemic negligence".

Solicitor Paul Durkin, of the specialist firm, Abney Garsden McDonald, is representing 120 claimants in three class actions against charities which ran homes where sex abuse is alleged.

"My phone has hardly stopped ringing since this judgment," he says. "Two of these cases have been dragging on for 11 years because the defendants - the charities - have been arguing that the actions are out of time.

"But I believe that the Lords ruling will encourage them to settle now because my clients have a far better chance of proving negligence."

Taking heart

The Lords themselves gave an example where the present law produced a bizarre anomaly. In 1995, a woman sued both her father and mother for sexual abuse committed by the father.

The action was begun almost 10 years after the last act of abuse and was struck out on the grounds that too much time had elapsed. The case against the mother was based on negligence and was allowed by the court using its discretion.

It was this anomaly which persuaded the Law Commission to examine the issue in 2001, producing a report which called for law change which was never implemented by the government because it had wider implications for the limitation on legal actions.

Although there is likely to be a greater willingness by defendants to settle as a result of this judgment, some will, no doubt, continue to argue that they are disadvantaged in having to counter claims of abuse allegedly committed years, perhaps decades, before.

The balance has certainly changed - and survivors of childhood abuse will be taking heart from that.

Anonymous said...

Undercover Video Shows Abuse Of Sick Cows
January 30, 2008(CBS) Undercover video shows sickened cows, too weak to walk, being jabbed with forklift blades, kicked, shocked and even sprayed in the face with powerful jets of water by workers at the Hallmark Meat Packing Company in Chino, California.

"The attempt was to make them so distressed, to cause them so much suffering that these animals would get up and walk into the slaughterhouse," Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle told CBS News consumer safety correspondent Nancy Cordes.

The plant supplies Westland Meat Company, which is a major provider of meat to the USDA's school lunch program.

Wednesday, Westland's president and CEO temporarily suspended operations at the plant saying, "We are shocked, saddened and sickened by what we have seen."

"Downer cows" - those unable to walk because of illness or injury - are restricted from use in school lunches and elsewhere.

Cordes reports that meat-industry officials say there is no way to know if the cows actually entered the meat supply. They point out that the clearly ailing livestock would have had to pass a gauntlet of USDA veterinarians and inspectors before being slaughtered and sent to market.

Nevertheless, the USDA today stopped Westland from supplying meat to federal food and nutrition programs pending the outcome of its investigation.

And while the workers in this video have been fired, the Humane Society says the most shocking thing about the abuse shown here is that it happens all the time.

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/7217289.stm

A North Yorkshire man who suffered sexual abuse as a child has won the right to sue his tormentors in a landmark ruling by Law Lords.

Kevin Young, now 46, claims he was abused at a Catholic boarding school and then by Neville Husband when he was in a Medomsley detention unit in 1977.

Husband was subsequently jailed for brutal sex attacks on teenage boys.

Mr Young's lawyers said they will now pursue civil claims against Catholic Care and the Home Office.

Solicitor David Greenwood, who specialises in child abuse cases, and is representing Mr Young, issued a statement after Wednesday's Law Lords' ruling.

He said: "We pursued the case of Kevin Young who claimed he was sexually assaulted at a Catholic boarding school and by Neville Husband while Mr Young was serving a short sentence at Medomsley detention centre in 1977.

"Husband, who became a church minister after quitting the prison service, was jailed in 2003 after admitting a string of horrific sex attacks on teenage boys."

The abuse itself is the reason why so many victims do not come forward until years after the event.
Law Lord Baroness Hale

Jordan's Solicitors are acting for 10 former inmates at the Medomsley detention centre.

Mr Greenwood added: "Kevin Young was one of the boys most brutally targeted by Husband and in April 2003 lodged a compensation claim against Catholic Care and the Home Office who ran the institutions.

"They tried to block the claim on the grounds that too much time had passed since the attacks took place."

Law Lord Baroness Hale said that victims of child abuse were often reluctant to report it at the time.

She said: "Until the 1970s people were reluctant to believe that child sexual abuse took place at all.

"The abuse itself is the reason why so many victims do not come forward until years after the event.

"This presents a challenge to a legal system which resists stale claims.

"Six years, let alone three, from reaching the age of majority is not long enough, especially since the age of majority was reduced from 21 to 18."

Anonymous said...

So many people are thickheaded. The hypocrisies of the Rabbi's who are called our "leaders" is astounding. I for one can't accept this anymore. Yasher Koach to you for the mesiras nefesh and hard work on behalf of klal yisroel.

Anonymous said...

Charges added in stabbing of German rabbi

Published: 01/31/2008

Attempted homicide charges have been added to the alleged attacker of a Frankfurt rabbi.

The state prosecutor in Frankfurt am Main filed the new charges Thursday against a 22-year-old man of Afghani descent, who was arrested Sept. 13 after admitting he stabbed Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch in the stomach on Sept. 7. The alleged assailant is in custody awaiting trial.

The news comes amid heightened concern about threats against Jewish institutions in Germany. Jewish cultural and religious institutions have increased security measures in recent days.

Gurevitch, 42, was on his way home from Sabbath services when he was attacked. The assailant reportedly shouted, "S--- Jew, I will kill you." Investigators tracked down the perpetrator through a detailed description of the incident posted on the Internet.

The man had denied he wanted to kill Gurevitch and said he was not driven by anti-Semitism. He added that he had felt threatened by the rabbi and acted in self-defense, but the court did not accept his claim.

The alleged attacker also was charged with causing life-threatening injury and threatening bodily harm. Gurevitch remained in the hospital for several days after an emergency operation, but reportedly he was in no danger of losing his life.

Anonymous said...

Thursday, Jan. 31 2008
Orthodox Jews to Join Other Arab Organizations in Protest Against the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) Annual Dinner, and Against the Recent Atrocities in GAZA

NEW YORK, Jan 31, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Place: Outside the Marriott Marquis Times Square, NYC

Date: Thursday, January 31, 2008

The following is a statement by Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesman for Neturei Karta International:

AIPAC: (An Institution Perpetuating Atrocities and Catastrophe)

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesman for Neturei Karta International, Jews United Against Zionism, stated at a recent meeting: "Philanthropists, government representatives and well meaning people, should be apprised of the reality, that supporting Zionism and the State of 'Israel' does not help Jews or Judaism, but on the contrary only helps to perpetuate the tragic impasse and constant bloodshed in the Middle East, both of Arab and Jew.

"Not supporting the State of 'Israel' does not make one, in any way, less of a friend of the Jewish people and most certainly does not label one an anti-semite."

The Rabbi further stated: "The terrible oppression and deaths wrought on the Palestinian people in general and now particularly of those residing in Gaza is yet another example of the awful consequences of Zionism. We Jews true the Torah, issue a passionate condemnation of these latest Israeli atrocities. The deaths and suffering of these people, is only the most recent example of the sixty year toll of human suffering created by the Zionist enterprise in the Middle East.

"History clearly attests to the fact that the Jewish existence in all Muslim countries was mostly harmonious and only since the inception of Zionism has this relationship been destroyed. Remove the intimidation and hyperbole of AIPAC and its ilk, and any logical person will conclude that the difference of religion is not the cause of the deep seated rift between Jews and Arabs. The new ideology, the political movement of Zionism, which culminated in the form of the State of 'Israel,' is the real culprit. In fact, Zionism is the direct cause for the exacerbation of anti Semitism universally."

He further stated: "The Jewish principles of exile may be a shock and a complete surprise to the well-meaning friends and supporters of the Jewish people, but facts cannot be disputed. The Torah explicitly forbids us, the Jewish nation, from having our own State in this Heavenly decreed exile. We must patiently await the day when the Almighty Himself, without any human intervention, will bring the hearts of all mankind together to serve Him in peace and harmony.

"Furthermore, we are forbidden to oppress another people or steal their lands and homes etc. We are commended to be loyal, peaceful citizens in every country wherein we reside."

The Rabbi added that, "It is a great embarrassment to us that the Palestinians have suffered so much for so long at the hands of those who masquerade as representatives of the Jewish people. Zionism is a movement that disregards the Jewish faith and its teachings on every area of life, including its commandment that we seek peace and justice towards all people.

"Rabbis, Orthodox Jewish leaders and laymen, have been fighting Zionism continuously since its inception and up until the present day. True Torah Jews will never accept Zionism and the State of 'Israel.'

"May we merit to see, soon in our days, the peaceful and speedy dismantlement of the State of 'Israel,' and the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophesies. 'And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. No nation will lift its sword against any other, nor will they learn warfare anymore.'"

More information is available on the Neturei Karta International web site www.nkusa.org .

SOURCE Neturei Karta International

http://www.nkusa.org

Anonymous said...

This is an outrage!

A woman cantor celebrates 20 years in a pioneering role

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

January 31, 2008

When Cantor Erica Lippitz arrived at Oheb Shalom Congregation, the clergy wore robes — black on Shabbat, white on holidays. She liked it that way.

“I didn’t want someone looking at my hemline. I didn’t want sexuality to interfere with people’s perception of me. I wanted people to get past the woman part and see me as a professional,” she said.

She doesn’t wear a robe anymore all the time, nor does she need one to hide behind. After 20 years, she has earned her place, as herself, on the bima.

As a recent morning minyan came to an end, Lippitz stayed in the chapel in her striking royal-blue tallit, with matching kipa. She wore a blue silk pantsuit and white turtle neck adorned with a beaded necklace. Congregants gathered around her to chat, to ask a question, to relate who is in the hospital and who has recovered..

Anonymous said...

Sex Abuse Suspect Kills Self After Spencer, IA Standoff
A man sought for a sexual abuse in Wyoming committed suicide after a standoff with police at a hotel in Spencer.

A little after 10:30 Thursday morning, four Spencer Police officers tried to serve a warrant to 49-year-old Allen Harman, who was staying at the Americ-Inn in Spencer.
The officers talked with harman, who did identify himself. But, After several conversations, Harman denied living in Wyoming, or having any warrants for his arrest. Police then asked him to step out of the room.

Mark Lawson, Spencer Chief of Police, says,"After several more requests officers heard what they though what they first through was a muffled gunshot and then 30 seconds later, they heard two more definite gunshots."

After the shots were fired, officers then called for back up and law enforcement officials locked down the motel and evacuated guests and staff.

Officers used a pole camera to see into the second story room and the camera showed the suspect laying on the bed not moving.

Lawson, say,"There was a hand gun nearby, he wasn't moving. Based on this information, it appeared that he had taken his own life and then officers breached the door and confirmed that finding."

Lawson says Harman was wanted in Wyoming for sexual abuse of a minor.

Spencer Police are still investigating this death and they are working with the Clay County Attorney, D-C-I and Wyoming officials.

Anonymous said...

Vatican Insider and Accused Molester Dies
Legion of Christ Founder Never Faced Trial for the Alleged Abuse
By MADDY SAUER

Jan. 31, 2008—

A well-connected Vatican insider who was accused of molesting young priests in training has died. Father Marcial Maciel never faced a trial nor was he punished by the Vatican despite the fact the church had asked him to stop all public ministry appearances.

"Death has freed Father Maciel from being further accountable for his actions," said Paul Lennon, a former follower of Maciel's. Lennon and other former priests in training began speaking out publicly when they became frustrated that allegations of sexual abuse against Maciel had not led to a formal investigation.

A number of former priests had told Vatican investigators they were abused by Father Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, a small but wealthy Catholic order that operates in United States and 25 other countries.

The allegations were presented to Pope Benedict XVI in 1998 when he was a cardinal. Some of the accusers said then-Cardinal Ratzinger attempted to cover up the case because of Maciel's prominence and close relationship with Pope John Paul II.

The then-Cardinal Ratzinger became visibly upset when asked about the Maciel case by ABC News' Brian Ross in April 2002. "You do not ask such questions," he said and then slapped Ross's hand.

While there has never been an official finding of guilt, the Vatican issued a statement in 2006 urging Father Maciel "to lead a reserved life of prayer and penitence."

"Advanced age had already freed him from a full Vatican investigation and trial for sexual abuse," said Lennon.

The Legion of Christ has long stood by Maciel saying that despite the allegations against Father Maciel, "he declared his innocence and, following the example of Jesus Christ, decided not to defend himself in any way."

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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!!!!!!!