http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3759455,00.html
Haredim attack Jerusalem mayor's entourage
As Nir Barkat visits prominent rabbi in capital's Ezrat Torah neighborhood, he is surrounded by ultra-Orthodox crowd who throw stones at his car. Police call for backup, escort mayor out of neighborhood. Barkat: I will not succumb to violence
Efrat Weiss
A radical ultra-Orthodox mob encircled Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's car as he left the neighborhood of Ezrat Torah where he visited a prominent rabbi. Stones were thrown at his car, which was damaged in the incident. Barkat managed to leave the neighborhood after the police stepped in with reinforcements to escort his entourage out.
The incident occurred on Hana Street in Jerusalem where the mayor made a "personal visit" to a prominent rabbi who invited him to talk. The Jerusalem Municipality reported, "A radical group of haredim threw stones at his car, damaging the vehicle, and surrounded it."
According to the municipality, "The police, who escorted Barkat, needed to call for backup. Minutes later, they successfully cleared the way for the mayor."
Barkat himself responded to the incident: "I will not succumb to violence, and whoever thinks he will make strides through violence and bullying is incorrect."
The United Torah Judaism faction harshly condemned the attack. "The UTJ faction harshly condemns the attack against the mayor who made a courtesy call of respect to the holy rabbi from Kalin at his residence in Shikun Chabad. Violence is not the way of the Torah," the haredi faction said in a statement.
Deputy Mayor Yitzhak Pindrus (UTJ) expressed his dismay at the violent incident. "I am simply shocked by those who think they observe the holy Sabbath and yet forgot that it says in the Ten Commandments, 'Thou shall not steal.' The Torah teaches us that it is forbidden to cause damage with one's money, and certainly with one's body," he told Ynet.
The mayor has recently evoked the anger of the ultra-Orthodox community for allowing two of the city's parking lots to remain open on Saturday in order to ease the parking problem in the city. In recent weeks, haredim have protested, sometimes violently, on the weekends.
Dozens of haredim were arrested at the height of the protests for attacking policemen, throwing stones, and causing damage. A few weeks ago, the municipality also received veiled threats in an email sent to Barkat and his deputy.
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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Speaks
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39469/good-jews-bad-choices-busted-rabbis-leave-us-wondering/
Good Jews, bad choices? Busted rabbis leave us wondering
Thursday, August 6, 2009 | by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
It’s become pretty rough being a rabbi in New Jersey, where your friends call you to ask whether you have a phone in your cell.
OK, lame joke, but this is one of the hardest columns I’ve ever written. How do you deal with the images of rabbis on the walk of shame, accused of money laundering and organ trafficking? How do you respond to charges of religious hypocrisy, and answer the unaffiliated Jews who use such outrages as justification for rejecting observance?
I guess you do so humbly. Here are the lessons I have culled.
• Rabbis are human, partly good and partly bad, like anyone else. Judaism recognizes no Jesus figure who is above the struggle between his inner angels and his inner demons.
Rather than any of this serving as an argument against religion, however, the opposite is true. Because men and women gravitate to greed as well as grace, and are prone to corruption as well as correction, we require a framework of law and the sprinklings of holiness to live righteously.
• Our community needs a moral and spiritual renaissance. We are good, law-abiding, generous people, but money is becoming too important to us. We all want nice things and to live in upscale communities, but such wishes must forever bend to the need to live humbly so we can serve as moral exemplars to our children, and to practice charity with our neighbors.
We require a renewed articulation of Judaism’s most important values, and an even firmer resolve to live by its tenets.
• Like everyone, there are two kinds of sins of which we rabbis can be guilty: Sins of commission and sins of omission. Commission involves serious wrongdoing.
But for a rabbi, omission can be even graver, as it can involve a failure to inspire the community to choose the Western Wall over Wall Street and spiritual growth over material acquisition. In this sense, no rabbi is completely innocent.
• The accused rabbis should be judged charitably. They were not Bernie Madoff, who used stolen money to buy a penthouse or a yacht. Several are men with long histories of sacrifice and selflessness.
Running a yeshiva, synagogue or school, with their incessant demands for funds, can be soul-destroying. It’s hard not to feel like a beggar — or to be made to feel like a beggar — as you run from one donor to the next. A friend who runs a successful Jewish day school quoted to me the words of Rivka: “I have come to loathe my very life.”
Not that this could ever justify the accused. It does, however, serve as a sober reminder that many of them were merely looking to fund communal institutions but were tragically compromised in the process. Some say they deserve our contempt. I respond that they deserve our compassion. The exception, of course, is the man accused of trafficking in human organs.
• Those who wish to justify the jettisoning of their faith on these and similar scandals should remember that there’s a difference between hypocrisy and inconsistency. The former involves proclaiming a belief for public consumption that one privately repudiates. The latter involves believing something but not always summoning the courage to live by one’s convictions.
• My dear friend Mark Charendoff, an exemplary leader who heads the Jewish Funders Network, wrote of the rabbis in the Jewish Week of New York: “There is a special place in hell reserved for these individuals. Not only did they play the part of pious clergy while pursuing their criminal paths, but they made religious and charitable institutions into (one hopes unwitting) accomplices.”
Before disagreeing with Mark, in the interests of full disclosure I should reveal that I feel a residue of bitterness at his having bested me in Newsweek’s list of America’s most influential rabbis. As it is, my fragile ego is hanging by a thread.
But hell, the state most distant from God, is surely reserved for people like Hitler and Osama bin Laden — people with no active good in them whatsoever. But these men, who chose community work over more lucrative professions, should still be applauded for the good they have done, even as they should be condemned if they are guilty of the transgressions for which they stand accused.
• Before we give up on rabbis or the Jewish community, let’s keep in mind that many questions remain to be answered. For example, how many rabbis were approached who turned down the FBI informant? And as far as the Syrian community is concerned, remember that few are as renowned for their generosity, philanthropy and devotion to the needy.
I have spent my life trying to bring Jewish values to the public. I know how much damage is done to that cause when rabbis are led away in handcuffs. Indeed, when I contemplate my own imperfections, I question whether I always do justice to the title myself.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the author of 20 books and the founder of This World: the Values Network. This piece first appeared in the Jerusalem Post.
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Rally in Honor of Shabbos: Rabbi Aharon Feldman - Part 1 (WITH CHILD SEX-ABUSE RAGING IN BALTIMORE'S JEWISH COMMUNITY, THE FOCUS WAS ON CHILLUL SHABBOS, JUST BRILLIANT!)
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58 comments:
I hate Baltimore. I hate the abuse and how they have swept it under the rug. I hate the never ending Rabbis who decided to weaken the foundation of everything the torah stands for. I hate the lies and the fake talk. The fools are the Baltimore "leaders" and their hyocritical stance.
Message to Avi Shafran, Shlomo Mandel, Lipa Margulies and Aharon Feldman. Child abuse IS a problem. To cure it your denials must cease.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1103136.html
Haredi rabbis must speak out in child-abuse cases
During one of the stormy meetings between representatives of the Jerusalem authorities and the go-getters of the Eda Haredit, at the height of the riots against the arrest of the mother suspected of starving her son, one ultra-Orthodox man turned to defend his community by claiming that the rioters were a tiny minority gone wild.
What he meant to say was: Don't make so much fuss out the burning of a few trash bins and the closing of a couple of streets. Just like the seculars and the religious Zionists, we too have our bad seeds.
At first glance, the explanation is sensible and even soothing: Look, even the ultra-Orthodox themselves admit it's just a few hot-tempered individuals. They'll calm down in a day or two, and peace will reign over Mea She'arim for another 40 years. But an in-depth look at the "minority" excuse reveals that the leadership disease reaches all the way up to the Hasidic courts.
The protest of the ultra-Orthodox against the internment of a woman from their community can, perhaps, be understood. The notion that the rioters are a marginal minority spun out of control, offspring of the radical and anti-Zionist dynasty of Toldot Aharon, is also quite acceptable - after all, demonstrations spinning out of control are hardly a Hasidic invention. But how is it possible that there was not one righteous man among the council of Torah sages to stand up for that miserable child and demand someone look into the well-being of his brother?
Is there not one leader on the council that would dare condemn the goons terrorizing social workers? The silence of the Torah scholars amounts to an agreement that pinning yellow stars to children's clothes and calling a Jewish doctor "Mengele" is acceptable.
Read the rest here:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1103136.html
I ves told thet yidi kolko vill net supervise de kinderlarch mit de svine-flu diegnosis. He vill insted vear a pretective mesk during de phisical exem, vich is mendetory fir evree boy he meets in bugelow colonies.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3761107,00.html
Chief rabbi: We must thank Druze for their contribution
In response to Rabbi Shlomo Aviner's comments that non-Jews should not serve in IDF, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger says, 'We have everlasting alliance with Druze; tangled halachic complexities should not be mixed with security matters'
This whole thing where certain writers of the press have suggested that the FBI is picking on the jews, stating comparisons with the Rubashkin and Deal NJ, money laundering, body organs setup.
The fault lies entirely on the shoulders of these jews who knew the high stakes it involved when they decided to commit their illegal activities.
it is not an excuse to say that jews are being singled out by the feds, as if to imply that these money launderers, had they been not jewish, would have been left alone. Please. First of all it's not true. And second, even if jews are being targeted, what are they doing committing crimes in the first place and thinking that they are entiled to get away with it because they are "jewish."
You do the crime you do the time.
It is not generally admitted in the media that both homosexual and heterosexual child abuse occurs with an alarming frequency among Jews.
by Ian Mosley
An article by Reverend Ted Pike notes “the Orthodox Jewish community struggles to contain what has been a closely guarded secret: pedophilia… In a previous e-alert, “Pedophilia: Thriving in Judaism’s Right Wing”, I related how an Orthodox Jew, Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn assemblyman, is attempting to address… ‘a taboo subject’ among the Orthodox. Since Hikind broached the subject on his radio show this summer, ‘dozens of people have come forward with stories about children being molested in the Orthodox community which strictly follows Jewish law… Dov Hikind says as many as four people a day have come to him over the past three months with painful accounts of secrets often kept for decades, accusing more than sixty individuals.’ ... ‘One rabbi and psychologist told Jewish media outlets he was hounded into quitting a task force on child molestation days after Hikind appointed him to lead it…’ Six former students are suing an Orthodox school in New York for allegedly covering up the abuse of Rabbi Yehuda Kolkol, charged with sexually molesting boys… the existence of pedophilia is not Orthodoxy’s best kept secret. What truly cannot be uttered by the Jewish community or media worldwide is that the Talmud, Judaism’s highest legal authority, encourages pedophilia.”
Another article – this time from JTA – reports “An Israeli spiritual leader who allegedly abused children will not receive refugee status in Brazil. The decision announced Monday by Brazilian authorities means that Elior Chen, the leader of a Jerusalem religious sect that allegedly has abused children, could soon be extradited to Israel. Chen can appeal the decision… An Israeli investigation continues into allegations that Chen’s abuse of one woman’s children led to two of them, aged 4 and 5, being hospitalized in March in critical condition and another, 3, remaining in a persistent vegetative state. Chen allegedly urged his followers to abuse their children, including beatings, forcing them to eat feces and pouring household cleaners into open wounds, to ‘correct their corrupt souls.’ An international arrest warrant was issued for Chen in April. He originally fled to Canada. His wife and children reportedly are hiding in Belgium.”
It’s interesting how these Jews are able to flee from one country to another. Could there be a kosher network of child molesters that helps criminal fugitives of this sort? We all remember how the Jewish media gleefully reported on child molesting in the Catholic Church. Very few people ever mentioned that the child molesting epidemic took place after the Catholic Church embraced various dubious liberal policies, the worst of which was tolerating allegedly non-sexually active Gay men in the seminaries. This of course led directly to the child molesting scandals that has caused serious damage to the reputation of the Catholic Church. The percentage of child molesters in the Catholic Church could turn out to be relatively small compared to the percentage in the Jewish community.
Every couple of months, there is a story like this somewhere in the media, where some big name rabbi or cantor or Jewish businessman is caught with his trousers down – and not with high – priced hookers. Why is this activity so pervasive among Jews? Is this what Jesus meant when he called the Jews “children of satan” in John 8:44?
Jerusalem riots expose tension between ultra-orthodox Jews, state
JERUSALEM — "Zionist blood libel!" blare hundreds of posters pasted on walls lining the streets of Jerusalem's reclusive Jewish ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Mea Shearim.
In Jerusalem, on the front lines of the Middle East conflict, tensions not only run high between Israelis and Palestinians, but also across the deep divide between the authorities and ultra-Orthodox Jews, also known as Haredim.
Few people foresaw how opening a car park on the Sabbath and the arrest of an allegedly abusive ultra-Orthodox mother could spark some of the worst Jewish unrest the Holy City has seen in years.
The ultra-Orthodox community has long been ambiguous towards the Jewish state created in 1948, whose laws may sometimes come second to rabbinical rulings. Its most extreme sects vehemently oppose Israel's existence.
Rioting erupted last month after Jerusalem's secular Mayor Nir Barkat ordered the opening of a parking lot near the tourist-packed Old City on Saturdays, the traditional Jewish day of rest.
Prominent rabbis called for a mass mobilisation in protest at what they consider to be profaning the Sabbath, and for three straight weekends police clashed with thousands of stone- and nappy-throwing Haredim in and around Mea Shearim, bastion of the ultra-Orthodox community.
Just as tensions were seeming to ease after a compromise was reached, the Haredi community was further enraged over the arrest in mid-July of a woman suspected of starving her three-year-old son.
Police and state prosecutors allege that the mother, who they say is mentally ill, had deliberately starved the boy, who was taken for treatment at the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital weighing a mere seven kilos (15 pounds).
The family, from the radical Toldot Aharon sect, says it had turned to the welfare services for help with the "sick" child, "after which the persecution immediately started", according to family spokesman Dudi Zilbershlag.
A picture of the flesh-and-bones toddler was leaked to the press and sent shockwaves across both the secular and Haredi societies, and the case has dominated Israeli news ever since.
Clashes quickly broke out in and around the narrow, crowded streets of the Haredi neighbourhood. Dustbins were set alight, traffic lights were smashed and black-clad protesters hurled rocks at police and municipal vehicles.
Police are pelted with stones and rubbish almost every time they enter Mea Shearim.
"The Zionist-Hadassah-police axis of evil is in the process of vilifying us. An organised blood libel!" screams one of the hundreds of posters on the walls known as Pashkevils which present rabbinical decisions to the faithful.
"The Hadassah hospital has declared war against the Haredim... dreadful stories of doctors' barbaric treatment of Haredi patients who fall like easy prey in their hands!" charges another.
Mea Shearim and adjacent Haredi neighbourhoods were abuzz with blame for the "Zionists", with Hadassah hospital doctors described as the enemies of Haredi Jews.
Doctors and other Hadassah staff received hundreds of telephone threats and were also verbally abused by irate protesters outside the medical centre on Jerusalem's outskirts.
The "starving mother", as she's been dubbed, has since been released under house arrest and is undergoing psychological treatment, but is still not allowed to see the boy.
Although she is from one of the most radical and closed ultra-Orthodox sects, the case touched a raw nerve within the entire community, which showed a rare unity in battling the authorities.
Zilbershlag says the case "hurt every Haredi in the country".
"The Haredi public considers this case a betrayal by the authorities that strengthens the conspiracy theory... I don't remember in the past 20 years such incitement against the ultra-Orthodox public," he says.
"The brunt of the responsibility for bringing up and educating the children in the ultra-Orthodox society lies with the mothers, and this is why the mother became so symbolic in the eyes of the public."
The Orthodox Jewish community makes up about one third of Jerusalem's entire 750,000-strong population.
"The police and the media are using the same methods used by the Nazis to show that the Haredim are violent and evil," according to Yosef, a 26-year-old Haredi who refused to give his full name.
"The Haredim are being persecuted. There is serious doubt whether the allegations are true," he says quietly, standing by a Pashkevil in the heart of Mea Shearim, sporting the traditional black hat and jacket and long sideburns.
Moishe Feldman, a reporter for Hakol Haharedi radio, says the case united the ultra-Orthodox because it touched on one of the few things the community's different and often rival sects agree on -- rejecting state involvement in what are perceived to be internal affairs.
"The Haredi rabbis said at all the rallies that "police will not teach us how to raise our children," says Feldman.
"Usually when there are severe cases of child abuse and other serious crimes, the Haredi community tries to resolve the issue without police involvement.
"This story turned into a general fight between the (Haredi) public and the welfare services, the Hadassah Ein Karem hospital... If we do not fight this case and prove that this is a blood libel, the Haredis say, then we will continue to suffer because of the authorities."
When is "rabbi" shloime mandel and yob going to pay for the suffering, pain, and humiliation they put their students through? It isn't fair they should get away with it all these years. It makes me vomit every time I pass Ave L and Ocean Parkway and see the building with the sign that says "100 years of chinuch." They should not be boasting. They should be admitting and owning up to their sick crimes. Obviously they couldn't care less, because while they punish students for minor pranks they employ a child molesting "rabbi" by the name of yehudah nussbaum. Why isn't hikind yelling from the rooftops like he promised he would? Where is Hynes? Why is the community so silent? Oh i get it, Charedim molesters are dealt in house, no need to get the police involved, that would be a chilul hashem. I will continue calling parents and advising them of the dangers involved in sending kids to yob. there is no excuse why they shouldn't be shut down and i will celebrate when that day is here.
Eli
We object. 13 years ago is too old of a case to bring to court today,
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Brothers allege sex abuse 13 years later
By Brandi Watters, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
— ANDERSON — Police have arrested a former Anderson resident in connection with sexual abuse that may have taken place 13 years ago.
Detective Mark Brizendine of the Anderson Police Department said two adult brothers who once lived in Anderson recently alleged that former Anderson resident Scott J. Fritz, 46, fondled them in 1996 when the brothers were children.
Fritz allegedly worked with church youth groups during his time in Anderson and police believe there is the possibility that more victims may come forward.
Anyone with information should contact Det. Mark Brizendine at 648-6740.
Fritz was charged with two counts of child solicitation, a Class D felony, on Monday morning and was released on $20,000 bail within hours.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Brizendine originally requested that Fritz be charged with child molesting, a Class C felony.
Due to the five-year statute of limitations for child molestation via fondling, police were only able to charge Fritz with child solicitation, a lesser charge.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the two brothers who allege that Fritz fondled them first met him at the Anderson University pool.
The boys, who were between 7 and 10 years old at the time, began visiting Fritz’s home to watch television and were soon spending the night. The brothers both allege that Fritz fondled them between 10 and 20 times and forced them to shower with him.
Brizendine said one of the two brothers recently came forward with the allegations after 13 years of keeping the molestation to himself because he remembered that Fritz once lived near a school and didn’t realize that the man had left the state.
Once he made his report to police, the man spoke with his brother, who also alleged being molested by Fritz.
If convicted, Fritz could face two to five years in prison.
A published phone number for Fritz could not be located.
Contact Brandi Watters: 640-4847, brandi.watters@heraldbulletin.com
Madsen, 35, is on trial in Webster County District Court for three counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of lascivious acts with a child. The alleged acts took place between July 1, 2005, and July 31, 2008, at Madsen's apartment on Seventh Avenue North in Fort Dodge.
Among the witnesses Wednesday was the 10-year-old boy Madsen is alleged to have sexually abused.
During direct examination, the child said that he was in kindergarten when he met Madsen. He answered questions from prosecuting attorney Susan Krisko, from the Iowa attorney general's office in Des Moines, indicating that he was at Madsen's house, often spending the night either on the couch or on the mattress with Madsen. He also told the court that Madsen would take him to Oleson Park, the bowling alley or they would play video games at Madsen's apartment.
The child testified that Madsen used the child's hand to fondle him, as well as Madsen fondling the child and that there was oral to genital contact between Madsen and the child.
Koll pointed out that in the original deposition, the child answered no to the question about the oral to genital contact.
With his head down in his crossed arms on the witness stand, the child said he didn't know why he changed his answer, but that "I was scared to tell the truth."
----------------------------------
The boy is lying. I have no doubt about it. Just like the boys lied by yudi kolko.
The so-called leadership like Rabbi Aharon Feldman focuses on desecrating the sabbath, and that is fine, so long they do the same by molestation, which we all know they are avoiding like the plague.
Two leading Israeli rabbis have announced this coming Wednesday will be a day of fasting and prayer because of the swine flu epidemic.
The unusual fast day was announced in a joint letter published by Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Israel's chief rabbi of the country's Sephardic Jewish community, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox, coalition Shas party.
The letter said the "evil" swine flu had spread from Mexico over the entire world "because of our many sins."
Noam Shalit: We're not optimistic
Hundreds gather at Western Wall to mark Gilad Shalit's 23rd birthday, his fourth one in captivity. Rabbi Lau says prayer for kidnapped soldier
Ronen Medzini
Published: 08.12.09, 20:54 / Israel News
Dozens of family members and activists gathered at the Western Wall Wednesday evening to mark kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit's 23rd birthday, against the backdrop of recent reports of progress in the talks on his release. Hundreds of people joined them at the place, including Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman.
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau recited a prayer for Shalit's wellbeing and release. The soldier's father, Noam, said before the rally: "We are not optimistic. Had we been optimistic, we wouldn't have come here to pray."
Drug compound kills breast cancer stem cells
Fri Aug 14, 2009 2:54pm EDT
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have discovered a compound that can kill breast cancer stem cells, a kind of master cancer cell that resists conventional treatment and may explain why many cancers grow back, they reported on Thursday.
The discovery came using a new method of screening for drugs that specifically target and kill cancer stem cells, and it could be used to find drugs targeting other cancer stem cells as well, they said.
Many teams have been looking for ways to destroy these master cancer cells in hopes of making cancer easier to cure.
"There is a lot of evidence to suggest now that these cells are responsible for many of the recurrences that are observed after treatment has stopped," Piyush Gupta of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Broad Institute, whose study appears in the journal Cell, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
The problem is that cancer stem cells are rare and difficult to study in the lab because they quickly change into other types of cells. And they are hard to kill.
"It wasn't clear it would be possible to find compounds that selectively kill cancer stem cells," Gupta said in a statement. "That's what we did."
To study the cells, Gupta's team first devised a method for stabilizing cancer stem cells in the lab and getting them to multiply. They then tested them against 16,000 natural and commercial chemical compounds to see which ones were able to kill the cancer stem cells specifically.
That turned up 32 contenders.
They narrowed down this list to a handful of chemicals, and tested these in the lab and in mice.
A chemical called salinomycin hit the target. It was 100 times more potent at killing breast cancer stem cells than Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's cancer drug Taxol, or paclitaxel.
Cancer stem cells treated with salinomycin were far less able to start breast cancers when injected into mice than cancer stem cells treated by paclitaxel. And the treatment also appeared to slow the growth of tumors in the mice.
Gupta said it is not clear if salinomycin will emerge as the best drug compound for killing breast cancer stem cells -- or that it will be safe to use in people with cancer.
But the study offers a new roadmap for drug companies to isolate and test compounds capable of killing the cells.
"We now have an approach that can be used very systematically to find such compounds," he said.
SELF-RENEWING
Researchers are still trying to understand the role cancer stem cells play in promoting different types of cancer, but many teams think they may explain why so many cancers come back even after treatment with powerful chemotherapy and radiation.
"The theory is these cells are self-renewing, which means they can make identical copies of themselves," Robert Weinberg of MIT, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.
"They have the power to generate a new tumor, and they are resistant to existing anti-cancer therapeutics. That suggests the need to develop therapies for cancer stem cells," he said.
Weinberg said it will take several years before therapies targeting cancer stem cells can be used in people. But the finding does hold promise for a new way of looking for cancer treatments.
"Ideally, if one hit the cancer stem cell, sooner or later the bulk of the cells of the tumor, which lack a self-renewal capability, would gradually poop out and the tumor would eventually die just by attrition," Weinberg said.
Cancer is the No. 2 killer of Americans, with about 560,000 deaths annually, topped only by heart disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE57C4XA20090814
Let me be crystal clear. Sexual abuse is an epidemic of massive proportions. It exists and thrives in ALL faiths and religions.
The communities and its citizens have an obligation to put a stop to it in whatever method and fashion that will get the job done, be it a gentile perpetrator or a religious Jew.
The insular Jewish communities have unforgivably turned a blind eye for decades. Daas Torah has refused to address pedophilia, until recently, when it made headlines in the media and there was no hiding from it.
This is not to suggest that ALL of daas torah swept it under the rug. On the contrary - to their credit - some have been very vocal, making their voices heard loud and clear.
I have repeated this numerous times. The Torah and its 613 commandments are sacred. The Rabbis and Jews that adhere to it are good human beings.
The disgust expressed by this blogger and some of the commentators is directed at those who claim to practice it, but contradict themselves when they cover-up, excuse, or stand by silently while their brothers and sisters are struck down, abused, humiliated, and spit on by the very same individuals who claim and act all pious - in the name of the torah, of course.
The priests who touch little boys are scum of the earth. So are the Rabbis and Jews who do the same. To suggest that this blog is biased because of its roots in tackling the "frum" child predators is ludicrous! Yes, surely many have soured on the direction Jewish Orthodoxy has taken, for good reason, but the brunt of it all is to induce a safer society for ALL.
There is no pleasure in trashing fellow Jews (for me at lest), but when cooler heads prevail; when the sand clears, ask yourself this question:
What religion can honestly make the claim that their hands have not spilled this blood?
Some Quotes---
“The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference”
“Every man has his price”
“Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.”
“Child abuse continues to be a significant problem in the United States. It was estimated that in 2001, 903,000 children were the victims of child abuse or neglect. Child abuse is a crime perpetrated on the innocent and the defenseless.”
“Child abuse does not go away, but 90 percent of child abuse is preventable,”
"All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions."
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2009/08/600g_settlement_puts_spotlight.html
$600G settlement puts spotlight on sex-abuse priest at a Jersey City parish
Rev. Carmine Sita,a Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to molesting a teenage boy while at a Jersey City parish more than 25 years ago is at the center of a $600,000 settlement in the molestation of a boy a year later in Missouri.
The Rev. Carmine Sita pleaded guilty in 1982 to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy at some point during the seven years (1976-1982) he was at the St. Aloysius Parish here. In January 1983, he was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to undergo treatment.
By August of that year, Sita had joined the Boonville, Mo., parish, a spokesman there said, after a short stay at the Foundation House, a treatment center in Albuquerque, N.M.
In May 2008, a Roanoke, Va. man told church leaders at Ss. Peter and Paul in Boonville, that he was sexually abused by Sita in 1983, when he was a teenager and he and his family were parishioners there.
"He was clearly molesting again at his earliest opportunity," David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Abusive Priests (SNAP), said of the allegations in Missouri. "It is extremely callous, reckless and deceitful on the part of the churches that kept (Sita's guilty plea) silent."
Read more of $600G settlement puts spotlight on sex-abuse priest in today's Jersey Journal.
Was posted on this thread.
http://exposemolesters.blogspot.com/2006/05/shatnez-checker-and-child-molester.html
Concerned Jew said...
I know it's murder to molest a child, and it's very painful for those close with the victims. It's also important that people be aware of this crime which has spread heavily across ALL religions. However, by the nature of the comments made by the blogger, it seems to be more targeted against the orthodox than the problem of molestation which they share with the rest of the world. It IS wrong to allow known molesters to continue to be in close range with potential victims. But by no means is there any excuse to directly bash the Torah. To bash 'daas Torah' as a whole is to bash the foundation of Judaism. Even if rabbonim acted wrongly - to say that this is a reason not to care about daas Torah (i.e. 'the Torah' (i.e. 'what Hashem wants')) is very wrong. It is one thing to make people aware of -even Rabbi- molestors. It's a very different thing to disrespect EVERY RABBI because of it. Molestation is not at all unique to Orthodoxy, Judiasm as a whole, or any religion, as anyone who has strong desires can fall prey to them (which I'm in no way saying is anything but wrong). The previous comment illustrates that it's a very serious thing to have this blog (-I didn't say 'wrong'-), and to openly state that you don't care about what what ANYONE who spent their life trying to understand the Torah has to say - because a number (regardless of how large) of people who call themselves rabbis did bad things -- is the equivalent of not drinking water because your brother once drowned in a pool. I'm not 'playing the religious card' and am not on yet on such a level to spend every second learning Torah... etc. -but seeing a Jew bash the Torah and those who stand for it (again -I'm not referring to those who are really known molestors, about which people should be aware...)
August 13, 2009
Miguel Grande said...
Great! When you're not murdering innocent people in Gaza, you're out fucking little boys. You call yourselves the chosen People? BWAA-HAAA-HAA-HA!
======================================
This is the previous comment "Concerned Jew" is referencing.
Miguel is probably a Muslim radical lowlife spewing his venom. The reality is we cannot afford to feed these vicious psychos anything they can use against us.
Regrettably, when pedophiles arise and are left free to flourish and grow like a cancer, and Rabbis and leaders look in the other direction - how else do you expect filthy slime buckets like Miguel Grande to react?
He is right in one instance. We are God's chosen people.
Let's act like it!
*However, by the nature of the comments made by the blogger, it seems to be more targeted against the orthodox than the problem of molestation which they share with the rest of the world.
*
Concerned is wrong. Exposmolesters is extremely on target. The focus is on child molestation as a whole. I know this from following the blog and will attest to it.
A lot of it is frum on frum, because a community cares for their own and are thus more familiar with them.
Don't make this sound like frum molestation should not be talked about, because this is what you come across as.
This is like saying the Holocaust shouldn't be discussed because it focuses on Jews and not the non-Jews.
Farmer critically ill after cow trampling
Elderly farmer Harold Lee is critically ill in hospital after being trampled by cows on his farm in Burtle, Somerset.
Mr Lee, 75, was riding a quad bike at the back of the 100-strong dairy herd as he and his son Richard were taking the animals to be milked at Robins Farm, on Tuesday afternoon.
It is understood a fire engine on its way to a road accident was coming in the opposite direction. It had to stop while the Lees tried to move their cattle but they stampeded.
Mr Lee's son Andrew said: ''My father was at the back following the herd, as he always does. He has been bringing in the cattle for 50 years.
''He got off his bike to try to make sure the cows did not damage a car, being driven by a driving instructor which had come up at the back of the herd. He must have been knocked over then.
''He has got head injuries and is in Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. He is critical but stable. He is not conscious at the moment because he has been sedated. It is still very early days for him.''
Mr Lee was airlifted to Royal United Hospital, Bath, after the incident before being transferred to Frenchay.
Charedi Jews are the worst. They are the reason I am a fryer yid now. The rebbeh molested me. The rov in the shul said I should forget about it and move on.
How ironic that the idealization of boorishness and destructiveness, most prominently embraced by the criminal world and Hollywood, should have managed to infiltrate the relatively insular haredi world -- a world that clearly stands for diametric ideals.
The recent arrest and indictment of several—19 according to one source—members of Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey on racketeering, money-laundering and organ-smuggling charges reminds us that this is not the first time Orthodox Jews have allegedly engaged in financial and other crimes.
In 2007, the Grand Rabbi of the Spinka sect of Orthodox Judaism, also located in New York, was indicted on tax fraud and money laundering, along with "several other defendants and five Spinka charities," according to the Los Angeles Times. In March 2009, one of the co-conspirators in that case, Rabbi Moshe Zigelman, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for these crimes. Unfortunately, the list goes on, with rampant sexual abuse charges as well within these tight-knit communities.
The resentment within the Orthodox Jewish community itself concerning such activities is clear from the resultant commentary by one of their own in an "Open Letter to the Money-Grubbing Jews" by Ben Sales, published in the National Jewish Student Magazine:
"Because you make me look bad, me and everyone else who wears a kippah, a long skirt and long sleeves, a black hat, a t-shirt with Hebrew writing on it, a necklace with a silver chai. Every kid who goes to Jewish school and Jewish camp, every college student who attends Hillel, every Zionist and post-Zionist, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Hasidic, secular must now bear the brunt of those who read of your exploits and think: there’s another Shylock, another Madoff, another Jew for whom the bottom line is more important than his own community."
Sales adds, "This concept, as I would think you know, is called a chillul hashem, a desecration of God’s name."
God's word is forever. It is man that has lost his way.
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2009/07/next-generation-kolko.html
YUDI KOLKO ALERT!!!!!
A friend of UOJ writes..
Yudi Kolko has taken up residence -- "for the rest of the summer", according to his wife -- at 162 Laurel Park Road, Fallsburg, NY, which is within the PINES ESTATES complex. His presence there has caused a bit of a stir....there are at least one hundred children there, and a number of parents -- are understandably concerned. Unfortunately, there is ample evidence to believe that the roshei yeshiva at the Yeshiva of South Fallsburg initially told their minions that Kolko is Kosher V'Yashar. While they have quietly moved off that position, it seems that he's unwilling to undo the damage the yeshiva did, by now rightly declaring him a menace to children.
I'm at a loss as to what to do. I think a warning should be posted to anyone with children that's even contemplating renting a place in the PINES ESTATES, advising them to go elsewhere......Maybe, if the kool aid drinking yeshivaleit are effected where it really hurts -- in their pockets -- they might actually rise up against this cancer and throw him out too. I understand he initially rented a place in a Chassidishe colony in Woodburne, but when they got wind of him, they packed his bags for him and threw him out.
Lipa Margulies is an honorable man. He stands up for what's right.
Michael Vick is my hero. I can tell he is sincerely sorry for his actions. Dogs are not human anyway.
Catholic Church helps quash child sex-abuse legislation
August 15, 9:58 AM · Hugh Kramer - LA Atheism Examiner
The Child Victims Act, a bill that would have loosened restrictions on lawsuits involving the sexual abuse of children, has been withdrawn from consideration in the New York State Assembly. In previous years (2006, 2007, 2008) it passed in the Assembly by wide margins but was blocked by the Republican-controlled State Senate. This year though, the Republicans lost control of the Senate and, faced with the real possibility that the bill could pass there, two dozen non-chordate Democratic Assemblymen who had formerly backed it, withdrew their support. The bill, sponsored by Margaret M. Markey (D, Queens), was then yanked from the calendar by the Assembly leadership.
Assemblyman Charles D. Levine, a Long Island Democrat whose district includes mainly Italian-American and Hispanic voters, said, "When it was never going to fly anyway, there was a tendency for many of us who are concerned about victims’ rights to symbolically support legislation like this." Faced with pressure from a letter-writing campaign initiated by the local Catholic Church hierarchy, he withdrew that support.
Support in the Senate has also wavered after two democrats defected to the Republican party. This caused Assemblyman Peter J. Abbate Jr (D, Brooklyn), once a co-sponsor of the bill, to say, “If it’s going to be a one-house bill anyway, why make people take the heat?”
The "heat" was turned up in large part, by pressure from the Catholic Church, a relentless campaigner against this legislation. “We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church,” said Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, a group representing the bishops of the state’s eight dioceses. Cardinals and bishops have visited Albany on several occasions to lobby against it and a statewide network of Catholic parishioners have bombarded law-makers with letters and emails. Allied with the Church in the campaign against the Child Victim Act, are small, disparate groups including leaders of Hasidic and Sephardic Jewish institutions in Brooklyn who also fear costly child sex-abuse lawsuits.
Photo Credit:
1) Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio actively lobbied against the bill (Adams, NY Daily News)
Does anybody know which Rabbis have spoken out against these protests? I would like to think there aren't any who advocate such behavior.
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At least eight ultra-Orthodox men were arrested yesterday for blocking the entrance to Jerusalem's Carta parking lot.
This is the latest Haredi protest against the lot being opened on the Jewish Sabbath.
Police dispersed hundreds of Haredi demonstrators who were trying to block the street leading to the parking lot.
The parking lot protests began in June, and they have continued despite talks between Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and leaders of the Eda Haredit, a particularly strict Hasidic community.
Two weeks ago, 15 ultra-Orthodox men were arrested and one policeman was injured in a particularly violent protest.
That protest was broken up by heavy force, when mounted policemen pushed the protesters back from the road.
The controversy began in June, when the Jerusalem municipality decided to open the parking lot to accommodate weekend visitors to the Old City.
For days the 8-year-old – small for her age, her long dark hair in braids – has not been sleeping or eating much.
Late at night, she finally breaks down and tells her mom why.
The call comes in just before midnight to investigators on the Orange County Sheriff's Department Special Victims Detail – cops who solve sex crimes, about half of them committed against children.
In the morning, county social workers are interviewing the Stanton girl.
By 3 p.m., the investigators – keeping their tactics secret – get the girl's 22-year-old uncle to reveal a horrible secret.
They plot his arrest.
For a unit that deals with the most savage and incomprehensible of crimes – from a 4-week-old Lake Forest boy sexually abused and beaten by his father, to an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor sexually assaulted and beaten in her Rossmoor home – the Stanton case almost could be called routine.
Imagine that.
•••
The mouse pad on investigator Jeff Brown's desk is worn nearly to tatters, but it shows the smiling faces of his three kids and their mother in a faded color photograph.
Family man.
Brown, his hair buzzed short, his body shaped by morning workouts at the gym, is father to twin girls, 10, and a son, 16.
He's been investigating sex crimes – a specialty that repulses most deputies – for nearly a decade.
He and his four investigative colleagues relish it.
During his 22 years in the sheriff's department, Brown has worked the jails, patrol and fraud. But in terms of making a difference, he says, nothing compares to solving sex crimes – especially when they involve young victims.
"You ask anyone in law enforcement why they got into it, and they all say the same thing: to help people," says Brown, 46, his right hand still sore from a scuffle, in early July, with a fleeing suspect in a child pornography case.
"For the first time in my career, I truly feel like I can change things."
•••
Sandra Longnecker, 36 -- married to a cop, the mother of a boy, 6, and a girl, 2 – grew up in Northern California reading true-crime tales.
She's had a lifelong desire to put away people who commit sex crimes.
"My mother thinks I'm sick," she says with a laugh.
Child sexual abuse, child pornography, adult sexual abuse, indecent exposure – Longnecker and her colleagues deal with it all.
Humor is a shield. They're all close friends, going on camping trips together and talking on their cell phones late into the night.
"Instinctively, we're drawn to each other," Longnecker says. "It's almost like we speak a different language."
A lot of what Longnecker and the other investigators say is not printable.
A lot of how her job affects her remains private.
"I'm not going to lie," says Longnecker, her French-manicured nails tapping on a table in a break room. "Are there times when I go home and shed a tear? Yes, of course."
It's a busy day in "The Pit," the nickname for the aging office at sheriff's headquarters in Santa Ana that houses the Special Victims Detail – a euphemism meant to soften the ugly reality of the job.
In The Pit, old desks are placed atop worn brown carpet.
Investigators sit in black-vinyl, high-backed chairs – a prison, of sorts, where they're often forced to spend hours looking into their computer screens at child pornography.
On one wall of The Pit are framed photos and news stories of convicted sex offenders: a female Tustin High School athletic trainer convicted of having sex with a student, an animal shelter supervisor who sexually assaulted inmates, a deputy found guilty of fondling prostitutes.
Near that wall is Longnecker's desk.
And that desk is where the Stanton case lands.
Brown and another colleague, investigator Delrey McKenzie, 46 – married to a cop, mother of a 5-year-old boy – are trying to find a suspected child pornographer.
A tip came in that the suspect, a married father, recently moved to Laguna Beach.
Months ago, the suspect was arrested on a domestic violence charge after he and his wife fought over a computer hard drive. She'd found downloaded pictures of children engaged in sex acts.
The two reconciled, and the wife apparently decided to forget about the pictures.
Not Brown.
Forensic tests confirmed the presence of child-porn images on the man's computer.
Brown and McKenzie enlist the aid of investigator Jason Park and their boss, Sgt. Chris Cormier.
While Longnecker works the phones on the Stanton case, the other four head to Laguna Beach – hunting for the seediest of suspects in the sunniest of settings.
"Sexual abuse and other sex-related crimes like child pornography are very common – it happens everywhere," Brown says, driving his unmarked Crown Victoria.
And there is no typical sex offender, he says. Teachers, cops, relatives, acquaintances – they come in all forms.
Today, the investigators have a chance to nab two suspects.
"Any day we have an arrest is a good day," Brown says.
Would today be a good day?
Tomorrow: Facing reality in the "bubble."
Contact the writer: 949-454-7356 or ghardesty@ocregister.com
The word "suffering" is wrongly used. Most victims know exactly what is happening and should have said they didn't like it while it was happening.***
Suffering in silence: Abuse victims often keep mum for years
By Donna Swicegood | Statesville R&L
It took more than 20 years for one woman to find her voice.
She spent more than 20 years filled with self-doubt and wondering if the man who she said sexually abused her was doing it to someone else.
Learning she could come forward and press charges helped the woman — whose name is being withheld by the R&L because of the allegations in her case — break through the wall of silence.
Delayed disclosure is something most victims of childhood sexual abuse experience, said Nicole Winterhalter, a psychologist at My Sister's House, the battered women's shelter in Iredell County.
Winterhalter said many times the victims feel shame, guilt and worry that they won't be believed. And that feeling only intensifies as years go by.
"They hear those voices in their heads that say it's my fault because I went in there with him or because I sat on his lap," she said.
Lt. Julie Gibson, who heads the Iredell County Sheriff's Office special victim's unit, said it is extremely rare for a child to reveal sexual abuse immediately after it happens.
"It's usually months later, and sometimes years later," she said.
Gibson recalled a sexual assault case that was being tried in Iredell County Superior Court a few years ago.
During jury selection, a prospective juror said, in open court, that she had been sexually assaulted as a child. "She said that was the first time she'd ever spoken about it," Gibson said.
And many don't come forward years later because they think it's too late to prosecute, Gibson said.
That's not true, at least in North Carolina. There is no statute of limitations on prosecuting certain sex crimes, and just last week the sheriff's office charged a man with sexual offenses that the victims, now adults, said happened in the 1980s.
For one woman, who said she was victimized by an acquaintance when she was a pre-teen, she lived with the feelings Winterhalter described.
She also resigned herself to believing it was all in the past and there was nothing she could do in the legal system.
An article in the R&L about a man charged with sex offenses that happened more than a decade earlier opened her eyes.
She connected with a childhood friend, who also revealed the same man molested her. Both women went to see Gibson. From there, the investigation proceeded.
An arrest followed, and now the case is winding its way through the court system.
Despite the anxiety of an upcoming trial and living with the uncertainty for the past five years, the woman said she's glad she stepped forward.
"I didn't come forward for my benefit," she said, explaining that she firmly believes there were more victims.
After the news of the arrest became public, she said, that belief was confirmed.
"Another person called in (to the sheriff's office) and said he did it to her too," she said. "I cried. One of my greatest fears came true."
Gibson said that's one of the many reasons that victims do tend to tell what happened many years later. They learn there's another child that may be being victimized or that other children were victimized by the same person, she said.
"If there's any chance of what was happening to us happening right now," the woman said. "What about the children of today?"
The victim in this case said she's using what happened to her as a child to help others — by talking with people in prison and by talking about her own experiences.
She also wants to educate parents and other caregivers about sexual abuse — and the people who commit these acts.
"It's not the weird-looking guy," she said.
Gibson said in most cases, the victim and accused know each other and are, in many instances, related in some way.
That often increases the guilt feelings that the victim experiences, Gibson said.
"They don't know how to tell on a parent. They still usually love the parent. Most of the time, this is someone they love and care about," she said.
Gibson and Winterhalter said coming forward may be difficult, but even if no prosecution takes place, the victims usually are glad that someone was willing to listen.
"It says 'No, it was not your fault. No matter what you did, it was not your fault,' " Winterhalter said. "It's important to self-esteem. It's a major relief for most women."
The woman who pressed charges many years later said she's committed to helping others, including the perpetrators, because the cycle of abuse will continue.
"A large percentage of pedophiles were molested themselves as children," she said. "What does that look like for future generations?"
She said that's the reason more victims need to step forward and talk about what happened to them.
"What if the survivors were willing to speak? What a difference that would make," she said.
Even while dealing with the idea of ultimately testifying in court about what happened to her so many years ago, the woman said she's glad she did speak about the abuse she experienced.
"Regardless of what happened, I got my voice," she said.
Pending cases:
- Howard Allen Wood, arrested in 2004 on four counts of first-degree sexual offense and three counts of statutory rape. The case is scheduled to go to trial in September.
- William Ronnie Barnett, arrested last week on charges of first-degree sex offense, second-degree rape and three counts of taking indecent liberties with a child. His next court date is Aug. 24.
The violation of children has often in past years been winked at or hushed into silence by families and friends. The impact on the children continues long into adulthood. Unless these adults can come forward, find their voices, and stand for themselves, they will find themselves suffering in the same bondage of fear and shame throughout their lives. The only way to heal is to bring into the light that which has been hidden in the darkness. I commend anyone who has the courage to stand for themselves, for what is right, and let justice be worked out.
As far as I know, only one slipped through the cracks.
Click on the link. This is a recent picture taken of me in a Lakewood backyard. In fact, Yudi Kolko snapped this beauty.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3762795,00.html
-----------------------------
Rabbi Burstein: Single women not allowed to procreate
Head of Jewish fertility organization says Rabbi Yuval Cherlow has reconsidered approval given to 40-year-old woman to get pregnant from sperm donation
Ynet
Rabbi Menachem Burstein, head of the Jewish fertility organization Puah Institute, said Thursday that "there is not one rabbinical religious authority in the world allowing a single woman to give birth."
Speaking during an event at the Ono Academic College, Rabbi Burstein claimed that Rabbi Yuval Cherlow has reconsidered an approval given in the past to a single woman approaching the age of 40 to get pregnant from a sperm donation.
Bachelorhood
Rabbi: Older bachelors must leave Jerusalem / Kobi Nahshoni
Unmarried haredi men over the age of 20 who are not yeshiva students had better leave capital, rules Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, son of Shas' spiritual leader
Full story
"Rabbi Cherlow said he would go back on his ruling if Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein told him to do so, and he did go back on it," Rabbi Burstein claimed.
Rabbi Cherlow, however, refused to approve or deny this claim. "Those who want to know my stand on this matter should turn to me," he told Ynet.
Rabbi Burstein spoke during a conference held under the title, "Parenthood at any cost?" The rabbi presented the halachic problem in giving a sperm donation to a single woman.
"All the efforts we are making for treatments and insemination are aimed at starting a family, and here the framework of the family is damaged," he said. "Judaism does not permit one person's happiness at the expense of another, and it has been proven that a child born to a single woman from in vitro insemination suffers greatly."
Rabbi Burstein added that his institute was dealing these days with the matter of marriage between homosexuals and lesbians.
The conference was hosted by Dr. Gil Segal, head of the Center for Health Law and Bioethics at the Ono Academic Collage. Dr. Segal noted that Israel was "fertility power, leading the global front in the birth of biological children."
He spoke of the current state of affairs, saying that adoption in Israel was the last choice, and that the Jewish state was fourth in the world in artificial insemination. He noted, however, that there was a trend of seeking "the perfect child", and that 98% of the requests for an abortion are approved, with the reasons for this move varying and including non-fundamental defects.
Hasidim throng to KJ cemetery on anniversary of Grand Rebbe's death
Rival groups pay respects to grand rebbe
By Keith Goldberg
Times Herald-Record
August 17, 2009 2:00 AM
KIRYAS JOEL — The steamy Sunday afternoon sun did nothing to shorten the caravan of cars and buses, or the line of men and boys ascending Schunnemunk Road.
They started arriving at the cemetery the previous night. They came from this village, from Brooklyn, from more distant points like Iowa and Montreal. They came to pay their respects and pray at the grave site of the man who founded the Satmar Hasidic movement.
It's been 30 years since the death of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who is buried in the cemetery of the village that carries his name. His yartzheit — Yiddish for death anniversary — attracts thousands of Orthodox Jews; this year was no different.
It's an event that has a whiff of controversy these days, as Joel Teitelbaum's great-nephews quarrel over who will lead the 100,000-strong Satmar Hasidic sect.
Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, based in Kiryas Joel, and his younger brother, Zalman, based in Brooklyn, have been struggling for control since even before the 2006 death of their father, Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, who succeeded Joel Teitelbaum as grand rebbe in 1979.
Both make separate trips to the grave site, and fights have erupted among their supporters in the past. But Moses Witriol, the village's public safety officer, said Aaron Teitelbaum gave strict instructions to his followers on Saturday: keep it peaceful.
Aaron made his trip quietly to his great-uncle's grave site around midday Sunday. Zalman's visit, about four hours later, was not as quiet. As a state police helicopter circled overhead, his caravan pulled into the cemetery and stopped at the gates, surrounded by hundreds of Hasidic men and boys.
They climbed on cars and elbowed their way, trying to spot him through darkly tinted car windows.
But that was as heated as things got. Zalman Teitelbaum visited the grave site, got back in his car and headed back to Brooklyn.
What would Moses Teitelbaum think about the tension sown by his sons' dispute?
"The father," Witriol said, shaking his head, "he would never have taken it."
kgoldberg@th-record.com
http://www.allaboutcounseling.com/sexual_abuse.htm
All the information you ever wanted to know about childhood sex-abuse.
See.. there are other women who molest children too.
My favorite thing is to slap bochrim across the face when I find them talking with tefillin on in the classroom.
If you’re a female molester or rapist raise your hands in the air and wave.
If you’re indeed one let me know who you are, your address and place of employment, assuming you have one. I wanna get to know you, you sick ****.
For the life of me I cannot understand why men would want to rape or molest a woman. It is just sick, deranged, irresponsible, wicked, selfish, criminal and distasteful.
A lot of molesters and rapists have daughters too. And to think of it, they are some of the most over-protective pricks. They like to feel, fondle, force themselves on women and rape them yet they have their eyes on their daughters 24/7.
But while I blame those sick men who deserve to be locked away for eternity and have their nuts fried in soya oil and their mouths sewed together with tiny electric wires, I also have to call the mothers out for irresponsibility, especially when it comes to your very young daughters.
Many of the women and children walking our streets have been sexually assaulted some way or another. Sometimes I wonder why so many molesters are in this place. Is it a shortage of women?
Anyway back to my beef with the mothers: A lot of them do not give a crap about their children. They are only overprotective but do not communicate with their children, who have held many secrets from them.
Children should feel comfortable talking to their mother about anything, especially when it comes to men, sex and relationships. Most daughters are shy or uncomfortable speaking to their father about such matters therefore they should have an alternative: the mother, who should be able to relate to them – even better – as a female.
Most of my female friends have told me stuff that they would never dare tell their parents? Why? “Mom would go nuts”, “I would feel uncomfortable telling her that”, “She would be disappointed in me”. These are some of the answers I am getting.
So what is the role of the mother? To ignore?
Mothers, you need to have closer relationships with your children especially with your daughters. Tell them never to be afraid, embarrassed or shy to talk to you about personal matters. Did someone touched you and you felt uncomfortable about it? Did he touch your genitals? Did he threaten you? Did the family friend force himself on you?
Some mothers are little squealing pigs and hogs. They would sacrifice their daughters for a dollar coin. They would rather believe their boyfriend over their own flesh and blood. They have no dignity it seems.
Mothers you have to start speaking to your daughters from early. Stop worrying about how early your daughter will have sex. Stop worrying if she lost her virginity. Stop worrying about when she is coming home. Why? You would never have to worry about anything if you had built a trusting relationship with your daughter.
You should have been open and honest with her from a young age, and showed her an example. Don’t be taking a different man every month and expect that to be a good example, then rant and rave when she asks you permission to date John Doe, her first every boyfriend, at 19.
You slept with half the village when you were 16 but you deprive your daughter of freedom even after age 18.
Let me tell you mothers: no matter how protective you are of your daughter, if she wants to take man she will take man or find time to take man. What you can prevent is her being used and abused and making the right choices.
Communication is key. Ensure she does not hide anything from by simply saying: “Darling, I want the best for you. I wasn’t perfect when I was your age. I made mistakes. I do not want you to make those same mistakes. Also, please, if anything is bother you speak to me about it. Do not hide it. If a man molested or rape you, talk to me, I will be there for you.”
Please, communication, communication, trust, trust. Ensure your child knows about the world of the wolves: these nasty and cunning men who go about their lives daily, taking advantage of young women and stealing their innocence before its time.
Former School Rabbi Sentenced For Sex Acts With Student
Greensboro Police arrested David Alan Stein, the former director with the American Hebrew Academy, after a male student said they had sex.
Greensboro, NC -- A former school rabbi was sentenced nearly two years after his arrest for allegedly having sex with a student.
Greensboro Police arrested David Alan Stein, the former director with the American Hebrew Academy, after a male student said they had sex. The alleged sex acts happened during the 2006-07 school year on the AHA campus.
He was originally charged with eight counts of engaging in sexual activity with a student.
Stein was sentenced to three years probation Monday.
The American Hebrew Academy fired Stein after a student came forward with evidence of the crime. That's when the school notified police.
Source: WFMY News 2
JERUSALEM — Former U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday there should be no Palestinian state in the West Bank and endorsed Israeli settlements there, sharply disagreeing with Washington and much of the world.
A three-day tour of Israel, hosted by a far-right group of religious nationalists, is taking Huckabee to some of the most contentious hotspots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict including a West Bank settlement outpost that even Israel's hard-line government considers illegal and an east Jerusalem housing project that the Obama administration has demanded be halted.
Israel officially refuses to freeze its settlement activity, but officials have confirmed that approval is now being withheld from fresh projects.
Huckabee's opposition to a Palestinian state puts him at odds with the accepted wisdom of both Democrats and Republicans — and to some degree even with conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come out in favor of some form of Palestinian independence.
Speaking to a small group of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee said the international community should consider establishing a Palestinian state some place else.
"The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That's what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic."
The politician, a Southern Baptist preacher and a two-time former governor of Arkansas, praised Israel for giving Muslims access to Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock — also once the site of the ancient Jewish temples — even though the presence of a mosque there "could be considered an affront."
"Israel is a place where they're going to allow other cultures and religions, but don't ask the Jewish people whose homeland it is to completely yield over their ability to live within the context of their country," said Huckabee.
President Barack Obama is calling for a complete freeze on Israeli settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for their would-be state.
We are indeed enslaved! Enslaved not for our happiness, but for the sake of the corrupt institutions and their chief benefactors, the rabbis.
Let's analyze the plight we Orthodox Jews find ourselves in today. We uncovered the corruption in our institutions. We discovered that their halacha, Jewish law, is against the law of man. Primitive man after Avraham Avinu, did not sacrifice their children on the alter in the name of religion, unless you are a Muslim. But we are not much different. We sacrificed our children by turning them over to schools/yeshivas and criminals that have no problem at all permitting our childrens' lives to be destroyed for their personal gain,I call Fascist-Judaism. Fascism is an ideology where there is only one rule of law, the law of the leaders. It has nothing to do with our welfare, nothing.
We now know for certain that every single Establishment rabbi, EVERY SINGLE ONE, knows and knew that there are child molesters posing as rebbes in their schools, and did nothing! Bogus kangaroo batei din, sanctioned these acts by citing every single distortion possible to enable these freaks of nature and their enablers to endanger our children's welfare for life.
LET ME BE CLEAR! The Ger Rebbe is a criminal! Sheftel Neuberger is a criminal! Tzvi Berkowitz is a criminal! Shmuel Kaminetzky is a criminal! Yisroel Belsky is a criminal! Pinchos Scheinberg is a lunatic criminal! Shlomo Mandel is a criminal! Lipa Margulies is the very embodiment of a psycopathic criminal! And WE, YOU, are accomplices to their crimes against humanity!
They turned Orthodox Judaism into a haven for very evil and ill people, but making certain that YOUR children are sacrificed at the alter of their Baal; MONEY!
There is only one God to them, your money, and if your children are their korbanot, so be it. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU , THEY DISDAIN YOU WHILE DESTROYING YOUR LIVES AND YOUR PROGENY!
What is it going to take for you, all of you, to stand up and scream out in disgust?
WHY? WHY? WHY? Leave your children in these schools???? Is there no crime committed in the name of God that you are not able to decide for yourselves, without the help of criminal rabbis? Have your minds been totally mangled into a heap of worthless atoms that are not able to understand that you've been taken? That you have been enslaved for THEIR happiness?
I call upon Sheftel Neuberger to remove Moshe Eiseman from the Ner Israel campus or I will do it! Do you think for one second that I'm going to let you whitewash his illness and permit him to remain surrounded by a thousand vulnerable children?
Rabbi Hopfer clearly ruled that Eiseman is a danger, and verified the claims of Eiseman victims as absolutely true! You Neuberger have NOT snuck in under my radar, I am watching you and will destroy NIRC, the same way I destroyed Margulies' kiddie playground for rebbes if Eiseman is not removed from your campus forthwith! Take this as your only warning!
This IS every bit about ALL of Judaism, not just halacha sanctioned child molestation.If we don't take a stand against the abrogation of the rule of law and humane behavior, we have lost all of Judaism. There is nothing left of Judaism if we permit these psycopaths to destroy every ounce of humanity that exists in our beings.
I have in my database, 2800 plus names of individuals, male and female, who allege to be victims of rabbi child molestation. I will never divulge their names and identities, but they will! One at a time! I had confirmed 17 bona fide Kolko victims prior to going public. So far a few were able to come forward. I understand their plights and encourage them to assess their personal situations carefully before going public.
Mondrowitz victims are coming forward one at a time after a lifetime of torture!
My dear friends, we are at a crossroads. Accept the challenges that lay ahead of us. Do not accept the status quo, we all deserve better. Protest in any way you can, by removing your children from these schools and witholding your hard-earned money from their sham personal, private enterprises.
Stand up in protest before Orthodox Judaism will have no more meaning than the Branch Davidian sect of inhumanity!
UOJ
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3763033,00.html
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Rabbi Elyashiv: Don't visit Western Wall on Shabbat
Leader of Israel's Lithuanian haredi Jews issues dramatic statement saying security cameras placed at Jerusalem holy site causing desecration of Jewish day of rest
Ari Galahar
Published: 08.19.09, 17:34 / Israel Jewish Scene
Supporters of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, leader of Israel's Lithuanian haredi Jews, issued a dramatic statement last week saying that Jews must not visit the Western Wall on Shabbat due to security cameras placed at the holy site, desecrating the Jewish day of rest.
Ynet has discovered, however, that hundreds of ultra-Orthodox worshippers flocked to the Western Wall over the weekend, despite the rabbi's ruling.
One of the worshippers told Ynet on Saturday evening, "I am not affiliated with the Lithuanian faction and therefore do not feel obligated by this halahchic ruling."
Some explained that they had flocked to the Western Wall plaza on Saturday as they had viewed the new ruling as a sort of power struggle between Rabbi Elyashiv's courtyard and the police.
Special 'Shabbat lamp'
It appears that the sweeping order was issued after sources close to Rabbi Eyahiv demanded that the Jerusalem Police reinforce surveillance in the Old City of Jerusalem, using the security cameras.
According to Jewish Law, the rabbi's supporters said, worshippers are not allowed to walk in the Old City due to automatic shots of passersby taken by the security cameras.
The matter has been re-discussed every few months. About half a year ago, Rabbi Elyashiv's associates, police representatives and Old City Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl agreed to install a "Shabbat lamp", which would ensure that the software making the camera's activity kosher is working, preventing a desecration of Shabbat.
However, according to a source involved in the discussions, Rabbi Elyashiv's people then demanded a more tight supervision of the software's "kashrut", and the police would not hear of it.
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"There are people in Rabbi Elyashiv's courtyard who are interested in making a name for themselves through tougher halachic rules at the expense of others," the source said. "Now they want another inspection, although this has already been approved in the past and the 'lamp' enables them to view its activity."
A Jerusalem Police official said in response, "Following talks with the rabbi's representatives and other representatives, a solution has been found and the problem has been solved."
Rabbi Elyashiv's supporters, however, have not issued an order cancelling the previous one so far.
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Obama: Palestinian state now, Israel's security later
Official says U.S. applying 'huge' pressure for total freeze on Jewish construction
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – The U.S. is seeking a deal that will set the final borders of a Palestinian state immediately and negotiate other issues, such as security and water
, at a later date, according to a senior Egyptian official speaking to WND.
The Egyptian official is in Washington alongside his country's president, Hosni Mubarak, who met with President Obama yesterday. The official spoke on condition his name be withheld since he was not authorized to discuss the subjects on the record yet.
Story continues:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107324
Watch video - Woman at town hall yells 'Heil Hitler!' at Jewish man
http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archives/176810.asp?from=blog_last3
We stand united in reserving the right to slap kids across their face if we find they behaved in a manner nisht c'ben torah.
Never will we have any meetings like this article regarding talk against child molestation of any kind. It's unfair to kolko and nussbaum to besmooch their names even if they made a mistake. In donning lekaf zechus we feel they have done teshuva.
Roar for a cure to raise money for children fighting cancer
A boy and a girl with more than a lion’s share of courage each will be celebrated this Saturday at the “Roar for a Cure” Carnival and family fun day on the grounds of the East Hampton Indoor Tennis Club.
Max Plotkin, 6, from Manhattan and Amagansett, and Katy Stewart, 10, from Sag Harbor, are both fighting pediatric cancer and Saturday’s charity event will honor them and benefit charities devoted to pediatric cancer research and Katy’s Courage Fund, which helps the Stewart family with medical and travel costs.
Max Plotkin was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of B-cell lymphoma two years ago and continues to hold the cancer at bay. His father established the Max Cure Foundation and the Max Cure Fund for Pediatric Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, dedicated to researching pediatric cancers, improving treatments and finding cures. The Plotkin family organized Saturday’s carnival, their first charity benefit, to raise money for various cancer causes.
Katy Stewart learned that she had a rare and potentially lethal form of liver cancer in April. She and Max both receive care at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Saturday’s carnival, from 2 to 6 p.m. at 175 Daniel’s Hole Road in East Hampton, will feature games, an inflatable playground, prizes, food and beverages, raffles, auctions, face painting, balloon artists, gift bags, and a live performance by Long Island pop boy band, Push Play. A family package admits a family of four for $200; adult tickets are $100 each. Tickets can be purchased at www.maxcurefoundation.org or by phone, 631-949-4160. The rain date is Sunday, August 23.
Leader of Israel's Lithuanian haredi Jews issues dramatic statement saying security cameras placed at Jerusalem holy site causing desecration of Jewish day of rest
It seems to me the gedolim and leaders are more concerned with desecration of shabbat then they are of child abuse. I am not saying Elyashiv falls into that category as I understand he issued a psak to hand over abusers to the police, but in general everything seems to be don't do this or that and very little spoken or action against pedophila in the jewish community. I think this is a terribly wrong message to send. They should be fair and balanced. They owe us that much.
Shucks! I was just about to trade in my clunker Oldsmobile.
^^^
A New York dealership group says hundreds of its members have left the Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government.
The president of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association says about half its 425 members have stopped offering rebates from the program because they can no longer afford them.
Mark Schienberg says the group's dealers have been repaid for only about 2 percent of the clunkers deals they've made, leaving many short on cash.
The program offers up to $4,500 to shoppers who trade in gas guzzlers for a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Dealers pay the rebates out of pocket then must wait to be reimbursed by the government, but administrative snags have created a bottleneck in unpaid claims.
Great, so while I was being sent to Nussbaum's class as punishment for "misbehaving" this loser was molesting his students.
Yeshiva of Brooklyn, always knew this place was a farce and a detention center
Cellphones, Driving, and Halacha, posted by Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
By Rav Yosef Kanefsky
http://www.jewishjournal.com/morethodoxy/item/cellphones_driving_and_halacha_posted_by_rabbi_yosef_kanefsky_39090804/
This is written as a prayer for the full and speedy recovery of Margalit bat Miriam, who was struck and thrown from her wheelchair by a driver who did not see that the light had turned red, because he was speaking on his cellphone.
The Federal government has begun the slow process of determining whether or not there ought to be national laws regarding cellphone use while driving. All of us who are committed to living according to halacha need not wait for a government decision. The verdict is already in.
The halachik analysis of this issue proceeds in a very linear fashion, beginning in the classical discussion concerning unintentional murder. The Torah, as we read just recently, commands that we create cities of refuge for people who have unintentionally taken the life of another person. By fleeing to the city of refuge, the one who unintentionally took the life is protected from the impassioned wrath of the “blood-avenger” (the kinsman of the victim). In addition to being protected, he also will be paying for his act, as he will remain confined to the city of refuge until the High Priest dies.
In its analysis of this passage from the Torah, the Talmud makes it clear that not all unintentional murder is the same. (For a quick summary of the Talmud’s discussion, see Maimonides’ code, Laws of the Murderer, Chapter 6). Sometimes the death of the victim is truly the result of a freak accident. In this case, the person who caused the accident does not flee to the city of refuge. In the eyes of the law, he is completely innocent. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the instance in which again, there was no intention to kill anyone, but the person who caused the death of the other acted with such carelessness and recklessness, that his actions are classified as “approaching the intentional”. This person as well does not flee to a city of refuge. To quote Maimonides (paragraph 4):
There is also the case of one who kills unintentionally, but his act approaches the intentional, as it involves an act of negligence, or is in an instance in which he should have been cautious but was not. He does not flee to the city of refuge for his sin is too great to be atoned for through his exile… Therefore if the blood avenger finds and kills him, he (the blood avenger) is exempt form punishment.
Putting aside for a moment any uncomfortable feelings we may have about the law of the blood avenger, the larger point concerning the perpetrator’s act is clear. To cause the death of another through an act of gross negligence – albeit unintentionally and without any premeditation – is categorized as a “great sin”, one which legally approaches intentional murder.
What do we know about the likelihood of a driver causing a car accident when he or she is speaking on a cellphone (not to mention texting)? As reported in the NY Times on July 19, the likelihood that a driver holding and talking on a cellphone will crash, is equal to that of a driver whose blood alcohol level is .08 percent – the legal definition of driving while intoxicated. As the Times article put it, “drivers using phone are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers”. The article goes on to quote a Harvard study estimating that cellphone distraction causes thousand of deaths, and hundreds of thousands of injuries per year. The potential for committing a “great sin” is astonishingly high. And the research is not showing that using a hands-free phone significantly reduces this potential either.
As halachikly observant Jews, we go to great lengths to lower our risk of sinning. We do not climb trees on Shabbat lest we inadvertently violate Shabbat by breaking a branch. Many of us do not eat corn or beans on Pesach, lest we come to eat inadvertently eat chametz. On the first day of Rosh Hashana this year, we will actually set aside the Biblical mitzva of blowing shofar, lest we inadvertently carry the shofar through the public domain, thus violating the Shabbat. It is self-evident that our system demands that we not drive while distracted by our cellphone, lest we, God forbid, God forbid, inadvertently injure or kill someone. It’s that straightforward.
If for no other reason though, do it for Margalit bat Miriam.
Great idea. I'll have my 42 broadway boys decorate the outside with pictures of rabbonim. That should solve the urine stench.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3763174,00.html
Lod: Rabbis' pictures put end to public urination
Local religious council employee decided to decorate deteriorating outside wall with images of prominent rabbis, religious symbols, not knowing this would put an end to common indecent practice of urinating on the wall. 'You can't do it near the rabbis watching you,' resident says
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