Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Rabbi Dovid Cohen; Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services - On The Hot Seat



Al Capone

Capone leaving court during his 1931
trial for tax evasion. (CHS DN-96927)




http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a16028/News/New_York.html

06/10/2009

by Staff Report

The halachic adviser to Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, which receives millions of dollars in state and federal money, told a Bergenfield, N.J., synagogue audience in 2007 that tax evasion is permissible under Jewish law as long as one doesn’t get caught, according to people in attendance.

The adviser, Rabbi Dovid Cohen, a Brooklyn-based, highly respected halachic expert who also serves as one of three rabbinic guides to Nefesh International, a network of Orthodox mental health professionals, is said to have made the comments about tax evasion during a Shabbat talk at Congregation Beth Abraham in Bergenfield in February 2007.

Now, more than two years later, the repercussions may be taking a toll on Rabbi Cohen and his reputation.

Several in attendance at the talk said that Rabbi Cohen gave an extended response to a question from the audience, asserting that tax evasion is permissible under Jewish law, as long as there is no realistic possibility of being caught, thus causing a chillul hashem, or desecration of God’s name.

The justification was based on the rabbi’s apparent belief that the reason the rabbis of the Talmud forbade stealing from a non-Jew was only out of fear of anti-Semitism.

Virtually every halachic source agrees that tax evasion, as well as theft from non-Jews, is categorically forbidden.

Rabbi Cohen allegedly told his audience that he was making his controversial remarks on Shabbat — he is also said to have asserted that, like the biblical Esau, non-Jews still hate Jews — knowing he was not being recorded, and that if subsequently questioned about his statement, he would deny it.

The rabbi told The Jewish Week on Monday that the statements attributed to him were "totally misunderstood" and that he "repudiated" them.

Based on letters obtained by The Jewish Week, it appears that at least seven people in attendance at the lecture wrote to or called the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis, where Rabbi Cohen, though not a member of the RCA, served on its prestigious Va’ad HaPoskim, a group of halachic authorities. Some of the letter writers sought to have Rabbi Cohen removed from the panel; others simply attested to their having heard the rabbi make the remarks, which he denied to the RCA.

The RCA appointed a committee to look into the matter, and concluded that, based on Rabbi Cohen’s assurance that he opposes tax evasion and affirms treating non-Jews with full respect, the matter was closed.

But last week, without fanfare or notice, the RCA disbanded the Va’ad HaPoskim.

Some speculate that it may have come about in light of recent reports in the Jewish press regarding Ohel, with which Rabbi Cohen is affiliated. Others note that the RCA passed a resolution at its annual convention last month calling on congregations not to give honors to those who engage in unethical conduct.

"So how would it look if one of their halachic authorities is alleged to have approved of cheating on your taxes?" one source noted.

In response to a query from The Jewish Week, RCA Executive Director Rabbi Basil Herring explained that the Va’ad HaPoskim move was taken "to avoid confusion." He said that while individual members of that group will be consulted on halachic matters, as in the past, the RCA’s halachic decisions will continue to be made by its Va’ad Halacha, made up of RCA member rabbis.

But according to an RCA official, "the catalyst for the move was the Rabbi Cohen issue."

The official, like most others contacted for this report, asked not to be named out of concern about repercussions.

Asked in an e-mail whether it was appropriate for Rabbi Cohen to continue to serve as halachic adviser for the group, an Ohel spokesman did not respond.

Rabbi Cohen, an American-born graduate of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, with a pulpit on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, has a longstanding reputation as one of the most respected and practical-minded authorities in the charedi community.

"He has taken courageous positions" on matters of domestic and sexual abuse, according to Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, the outgoing executive director of the Orthodox Union. Though some halachic experts are reticent, as is Ohel itself, Rabbi Cohen has encouraged victims in some cases to go to civil authorities, including the police.

Rabbi Abraham Twerski, a psychiatrist and fellow halachic adviser to Nefesh International, said Rabbi Cohen is one of the most "highly respected" rabbis and "one of the most flexible halachic experts" who is unafraid to take lenient positions.

Both rabbis expressed surprise at the controversial statements about tax evasion and non-Jews attributed to Rabbi Cohen.

But another leading rabbi, who described himself as a longtime friend and admirer in many ways of Rabbi Cohen, said that though he had not heard of the tax evasion statement before, he found it "consistent" with the rabbi’s views on non-Jews.

"The irony is he’s a big liberal in the haredi world," the rabbi said.

Others recalled that Rabbi Cohen is no stranger to controversy, and that at a Nefesh International conference in 2000, he suggested that women in abusive marriages stay in the marriage for the sake of their children. After much heated discussion, he apologized the next morning.

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

http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-many-survivors-did-harav-dovid.html

Lo ta'amod al dam re'echa. We are forbidden to stand by and do nothing!

I keep hearing about cases in which survivors of childhood sexual abuse went to Rabbi Dovid Cohen for help. Each of these cases Rabbi Dovid Cohen stated that he didn't believe the survivors or that the cases were unsubstantiated.

Rabbi Dovid Cohen is the halachic advisor
(advisor on Jewish law) at Ohel (a mental health center in Boro Park). I think it's also vitally important to note that there have been many complaints about Ohel over the years regarding the training and education of those who work in their programs for survivors and offenders. I've also been told that if a therapist at their agency suspects a child is being abused, they need to get the ok from Rabbi Cohen prior to making hot-line reports.

Many Victim Advocates like myself have been saying over and over again that our rabbis DO NOT have the education or training to collect forensic evidence nor know how to conduct victim sensitive interviews. Our rabbis NEED to be working as if they are all mandated reporters. Meaning if they SUSPECT a child is being abused and or neglected -- they pick up the phone and make a hot-line report.

We all NEED to start demanding that when a rabbi hear disclosures they IMMEDIATELY help those who have been "allegedly" victimized contact child abuse hot-lines and or make police reports. Let those who are trained conduct the investigations. The way cases have been handled in the past NEEDS TO STOP TODAY!

The goal is to protect our children from ANY POTENTIAL HARM!!!

Here's a list of some of the cases in which Rabbi Dovid Cohen said were unsubstantiated. If you know of more please post them:

  1. Simcha Adler
  2. Yohannan Berkowitz, PhD
  3. Rabbi Lewis Brenner
  4. Rabbi Ephraim Bryks
  5. Rabbi Moshe Eisemann
  6. Rabbi Eliezer Eisgrau
  7. Shmuel Juravel
  8. Rabbi Solomon Hafner
  9. Rabbi Yaakov Menken
  10. Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz
  11. Rabbi Ben Zion Sobel
  12. Rabbi Mordecai Tendler
  13. Rabbi Matis Weinberg

READ THIS TOO!
Was HaRav Dovid Cohen Threatened?

94 comments:

KIRYAS JOEL said...

Brooklyn teen charged with assaulting cop in KJ
June 10, 2009 6:00 AM

KIRYAS JOEL — A 19-year-old Brooklyn man has been charged with assaulting a police officer and other offenses for his role in an egg-and-bottle-throwing melee Monday that involved as many as 200 people, state police said.
Troopers say they chased Joel Farkas after seeing him throw eggs and struggled to subdue him, leaving one trooper with minor injuries. Farkas was arraigned in Monroe Town Court and released; the other charges were resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct.
The fracas began around 2 p.m. Monday when Orange and Rockland Utilities workers started to remove decorative lights that had been strung between poles in preparation for the wedding that night of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum’s granddaughter.
cmckenna@th-record.com

Stefan Colmer said...

No disrespect to Rabbi Dovid Cohen, but I used the alias Dovid Cohen when I fled to Israel. With such a common name I'm surprised the authorities found me so fast.

Shame on Agudath Israel of America and Torah Umesorah said...

Survivors for Justice began June 9 running a series of eight radio commercials in English, Yiddish and Hebrew, warning that “there is an epidemic of unreported sexual abuse in the frum community,” and urging passage of the Markey bill. Television commercials will follow. The legislation has become a bitter battleground for Jewish abuse survivors who are outraged that some Orthodox Jewish organizations, including Agudath Israel of America and Torah Umesorah, have joined the Catholic Church in opposing the bill.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, the spokesman for Agudath Israel, agreed: “Our objection was and remains the window provision [temporarily] lifting the statute of limitations.”

exposemolesters said...

Please read the Forward article and lend your support for the passage of this bill. It is of utmost importance and YOU can help make it a reality!

Click Here!

Anonymous said...

Mothers need to protect their children from sexual predators

In Michigan, the mother of missing 5-year-old Nevaeh Buchanan says person of interest and registered sex offender George Kennedy was like a "father-figure" to her daughter. Mother, Jennifer Buchanan, admits to looking past Kennedy's previous child sexual offense and allowing him to build a relationship with her daughter.

While my sympathies go out to this mother over the disappearance of her daughter, we can all learn a lesson from this mother's mistake. Buchanan minimized this predator's offense and put her daughter directly in harm's way. Allow me for a moment to speak from personal experience and be a voice for survivors and children everywhere.

As a child, my own biological father severely abused me both mentally and physically. I was just 10 years old when his abuse became sexual. After four years of silently dealing with my father's abuse, I finally got the courage to tell my mother. My mother's reaction was a common one: denial. She became a contributor, if not an equal contributor, to my abuse.

In my early 20's, after years of brainwashing, denial, and silent suffering, my brother was able to validate my abuse. As a child, he had suspected my abuse and placed a tape recorder in the bedroom, catching my father's abuse in the act. My brother's tape marked the beginning of a very long and difficult healing process: confronting my father, saying goodbye, forgiving, and eventually having the courage to press charges. Despite all of these revelations, my mother continued to deny and minimize my father's abuse, leaving our relationship behind in order to continue a relationship with him.

Though my situation differs from little Nevaeh Buchanan, the lesson here is the same. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and a mother of a 3-year-old little girl, I find myself wanting to scream out, "Mothers - Protect your children!" Current statistics indicate that at least 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. We need to use the National Sex Offender Registry to our advantage and not be in denial about the potential of these predators. Be on the lookout for common signs of sexual abuse in your child:

1. Unusual interest in or avoidance of all things sexual in nature.

2. Aspects of sexual abuse in drawings, games, or fantasies.

3. Sleep problems or nightmares.

4. Sudden fear of a person or place where the child was previously comfortable.

5. Depression, withdrawal, eating disorders.

We have come a long way in our country in bringing awareness to childhood sexual abuse, but with an estimated 60 million survivors in our country today, we still have a long way to go. Mothers - be a voice, a protector, and an advocate for your child. If ever you need help with identifying or reporting abuse, please call the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4ACHILD.

Amanda Richardson is author of 'Saved From Silence.'

David Wolpe said...

An Isolated Crime, Not a Movement

When I heard the news about today's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, I was just leaving for lunch with my friend and colleague, Rabbi Steven Leder. I think his reaction was exactly right. He said that this was the end of something, not the beginning of it.

The radical right wing craziness that led to this despicable act was once very widespread in the country, the hate mongering Father Coughlins and their ilk, are reduced to this pitiful, malevolent display. Should we use today's shooting suspect, an 88-year-old maniac, as a symbol of anything? I think not. There are real, powerful and genuine anti-Semitic threats in the world.

The infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion pamphlet, the most potent anti-Semitic forgery in history, is available in fine hotels all over the Arab world. In Europe some very ugly symbolism is used in speaking of Israel that goes far beyond the normal critical boundaries. But this? It is an isolated and ugly hate crime, and I would not want it to be representative of anything other than the small, angry and benighted man who committed it.

YouTube said...

A law enforcement official said Wednesday that James Von Brunn, an elderly white supremacist, is being investigated as the prime suspect in the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

they don't represent me said...

The regular haredim, who are members of the sane mainstream, never belonged to this radical clique. Hundreds of thousands of haredim never saw equivalence between Israeli security officers and those responsible for the gas chambers in Nazi Germany. They do not hurl stones at cars traveling on Shabbat and don’t beat up teenagers in the framework of the “modesty squad.”


Indeed, regular haredim also do not want to see the Shabbat trampled upon. The sane haredim are also hurting in the face of driving and other forms of public Shabbat desecration. However, it is clear to the normal haredim that the way of the “diaper-throwing mob” is not their way. Protests on behalf of the Shabbat were always held, but the objectives were different, and the way was different, and mostly saner.


However, aside from the unequivocal statement that members of the “sect” don’t represent me, do I represent the ultra-Orthodox street? I don’t know. Yet for the time being, no well-known Sephardic or Lithuanian rabbi such as Rabbi Yosef and Rabbi Elyashiv endorsed the recent events.

Pat Robertson said...

Kids Become Gay Because of Sexual Abuse from Men

On today's The 700 Club, Pat Robertson was asked what to do if your son tells you he's gay:

"I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems. There may be a very few, but there are so many that have been made homosexuals because of a coach or a guidance counselor or some other male figure who has abused them and they think there's something wrong with their sexuality. So you need to get deep into why he is what he is, instead of just saying, 'Well, he's a homosexual so how do I handle him, and how do I be Christian?' Well, I think you ought to tell him, 'Listen, son, you know, here's what the Bible says about this, and it's called an abomination before God, so I've got to tell you the truth because I love you'...I mean, if somebody's on their way to hell, they'll -- I mean, you've got to love them to rescue them."

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Dan Savage says it's not an insult to gays, it's an insult to Christians: "If you buy into Robertson's theories on origins of homosexuality then you have to embrace a highly unflattering picture of Christian America. If Pat is right then all those fundamentalist Christian churches, schools, counseling programs, and summer camps—the whole parallel Christian universe—are teaming with sexual predators."

another mondrowitz said...

NYC doctor admits sex abuse of 13-year-old boy

Associated Press - June 11, 2009 12:15 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) - A pediatrician has pleaded guilty to molesting a 13-year-old male patient in his Upper West Side Manhattan office.

Dr. Jaime Cortes (kawr-TEZ) pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree criminal sex act. He admitted committing various sex acts with the youth.

Manhattan Justice Thomas Farber said he will sentence the 47-year-old physician on July 28 to five years in prison and five years of post-release supervision.

Prosecutors say Cortes began soliciting the child for sex when he was 10. They say he gave the boy cell phones and money, and sent him inappropriate text messages and photographs.

Cortes also has offices in Brooklyn and Queens.

Prosecutors say an employee in his Manhattan office reported the physician to authorities.

Marine Corps officer and Chaplain Rabbi Dr. Morton Pomerantz said...

In a breaking Newsmax.com story, Pomerantz delivers a blistering assault on president Obama’s troubling and dangerous game of moral equivalency:

“Obama’s clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned in to hear him [in Cairo]. Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. He apparently felt that he could easily take retribution against the Jews for the atrocities Obama implies they are guilty of.”

Tuvia Stern said...

Next I want to have my daughter's sheva brochos in the jail gym with my hero Avi Shafran in attendance and my other hero, yudi kolko, providing the candy to the children.

http://www.heebmagazine.com/blog/view/1807/1



Looking for the perfect place to hold your son’s Bar Mitzvah? Well, according to The New York Post, Tuvia Stern locked down the most exclusive digs in town—literally. Stern, a wealthy New York inmate, convinced his correctional officers to let him have his son’s Bar Mitzvah in his lockup’s gym last December. Apparently, the wealthy scam artist was so happy with the way the event turned out that he held his daughter’s engagement party in the same venue.



Mayor Bloomberg put the kibosh on any future festivities today after he launched an investigation into the jailhouse coming-of-age ceremony. Serious party foul, Bloomberg. Serious party foul.

penetration scheinberg said...

It is my understanding Colmer sodomised the yingerlech, but is that the same as penetration?
---
His defense attorneys argued at his arraignment last year that Colmer did not move to Israel to escape law enforcement agencies, but rather had moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey and ultimately to Israel in order to escape the death threats that followed him.

“My client is not concerned with the criminal justice system, but of the public outrage over rumors,” his defense attorney had said, in an attempt to have his bail lowered.

However, according to the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, Colmer fled after he realized he was under police investigation for the sodomy of the two teenage boys. Sodomy in this case refers to Colmer allegedly performing oral sex on the boys on numerous occasions between January and March 2006.

Why Markey Deserves Our Support said...

Written by Elliot Pasik

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/39636

Rabbi Lipa Margulies said...

dats rite.. i im a rabbi. it is net nice to cull me an obese moran end a hungerian schmuck. i just spoke to yidi kolko end i told him he is the best rebbe ve ever had in toire temimeh...

Anonymous said...

Moses I. Feuerstein, 1916-2009

Moses I. Feuerstein (“Moe”) left an incredible legacy to the American Orthodox Jewish community.

Moe’s leadership skills were evident even when he was a young student at Yeshiva University (YU). A visionary and a doer par excellence, he founded and served as the first editor of the Commentator, the official newspaper of Yeshiva College. After his graduation from?YU?in 1936, Moe attended Harvard Business School. His education served him well when he began working with his father, Samuel, and his brother, Aaron, at Malden Mills. Moe, a lifelong Bostonian, was a leader of the Brookline,
Massachusetts Jewish community, and was active in the Young Israel
of Brookline.

The first American-born OU president, Moe served in this role from 1954 to 1966, infusing new energy and purpose into the Union by advancing several causes that the OU is identified with today, including kashrut certification, youth work (NCSY), political action and synagogue services. Moe was also chairman of the Executive Committee of Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, where he worked for more than three decades to make the day school movement a vibrant force on the American Jewish scene. Amazingly, he held both of these prestigious positions before his fortieth birthday.

At a time when the day school movement was in its infancy and American Orthodoxy was fragile and insecure, Moe worked to fortify and invigorate the American Orthodox world.

Prominent in the business world yet deeply devoted to Torah and mitzvot, Moe served as a role model for his generation, teaching young Orthodox Jews that one need not sacrifice commitment to Torah to be successful in the secular world. Bridging many worlds, Moe was also able to maintain relationships with gedolim across the Orthodox spectrum. He was extremely close to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik while at the same time had a strong relationship with Rabbi Aharon Kotler and Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky.

Moe is survived by his siblings; his wife of sixty-five years, Shirley; and numerous children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Arabs Suck said...

French murder trial suspended after shoes thrown

Reuters
Thursday, June 11, 2009 12:20 PM

PARIS (Reuters) - The trial of 26 men accused of torturing and murdering a Jewish man in 2006 was suspended on Thursday after their leader threw his shoes at lawyers, witnesses said.

Youssof Fofana, who has said he killed 23-year-old Ilan Halimi, hurled his shoes across the courtroom at the legal representatives of the victim's family. Throwing shoes at someone is a powerful insult in the Arab world.

"He wasn't worked up," the defense lawyer for another of the 26 accused said. "The president of the court suspended the hearing in a calm tone." It was not clear when the hearing would be resumed.

Halimi was kidnapped for more than three weeks and severely tortured in a case that shocked France and highlighted the issue of anti-Semitic violence in the country's multi-ethnic suburbs.

The trial is being conducted behind closed doors, with no press or public allowed, at the request of two of the defendants who were minors at the time of the killing.

According to a prosecution lawyer, Fofana's shoe throwing occurred during the presentation of evidence by doctors who examined Halimi's body.

During his time in detention, Fofana, who is French of Ivorian origin, sent a stream of letters containing anti-Semitic abuse to magistrates investigating the case.

(Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Crispian Balmer)

Isaac Ebstein said...

A pervy pita peddler admitted today to inappropriately touching a young boy who frequently bought cookies at his bakery.

Isaac Ebstein, 50, owner of Queens Kosher Pita in Kew Gardens Hills pleaded guilty to first degree attempted sexual abuse and attempted endangering the welfare of a child in Queens Supreme Court.

Ebstein befriended the victim and drove him around Queens in his car while touching the boy's genitals. The horrifying abuse took place over a two month period in 2002 when the victim was a mere 10 years-old.

When reached at Brooklyn home, Ebstein referred us to his lawyer Mike Barsky who had no comment.

He will likely be sentenced on June 16 to one year's probation and weekly sex offender counseling for a year.

Queens Kosher Pita said...

Baker Traded Cookies For Sex
Posted on Friday, 12 of June , 2009 at 2:07 pm

QUEENS—The owner of Queens Kosher Pita in Kew Gardens Hills has pleaded guilty to sex abuse charges involving a 10-year-old boy who used to go to the bakery for cookies and whom he had befriended.



Issac Ebstein, 50, of 415 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, the owner and baker of Queens Kosher Pita, located at 68-36 Main St. in Kew Gardens Hills, appeared before Queens Supreme Court Justice Sheri S. Roman on June 8 and pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted sexual abuse and attempted endangering the welfare of a child.



Sentencing is scheduled for June 16 at which time Justice Roman indicated that she would sentence the defendant to one year’ probation and weekly sex offender counseling for a year.



In pleading guilty, Ebstein acknowledged that he took advantage of the young boy, during which he drove around Queens with the boy and touched the boy’s penis and had the boy touch his. The abuse took place on three occasions over a two month period between Jan. 1, 2002, and Dec. 31, 2002



“The defendant has pleaded guilty to having taken advantage of the innocence of his young victim”, district attorney Richard A. Brown said. “As a result, the child has been severely traumatized and emotionally scarred for life. Fortunately, the defendant’s guilty plea will save the youngster from having to testify and recount the situation that he endured.” 6-12-09

Barbara Dorris said...

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1244779580261550.xml&coll=1

"This ruling helps protect New Jersey's children," said Barbara Dorris, outreach director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "When victims are given chances to act, kids are safer. When victims are denied such chances to act, predators walk free and youngsters are violated."

The victim's lawyer, Victor Rotolo, said the decision gives credence to victims' struggle with their abuse.

"It acknowledges that there is a particular sequence of injuries that these kids go through," Rotolo said.

Pressing charges against an abuser is still a "difficult process" to go through, said Rubino, but the Supreme Court decision will be significant to "hundreds and hundreds" of victims who have been reluctant to pursue civil cases.

Mary Fuchs may be reached at mfuchs@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341

yocheved said...

Great article by Marcia A. Hamilton

The Maturing of a Movement: Statute of Limitations Reform for Sex Abuse Victims
By MARCI A. HAMILTON
Thursday, June 11, 2009

When the California legislature passed amendments to its statute of limitations on child sex abuse in 2002, no one knew that its members were initiating a revolution for child sex abuse survivors. The key innovation was the "window" legislation, which gave survivors one year (2003) to file claims even if the statute of limitations for their claims already had expired. In this column, I'll consider the growing influence of this important law and its supporters.

The Facts Learned from the California Experiment

There is no question that the California legislation was passed in part as a response to the public revelations about the cover-up of child sex abuse by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, stemming from the investigative reporting in the Boston Globe. But the legislators did not pass the window legislation to apply solely to the Church. The legislators took what they had learned from the problems with the hierarchy of the Church – the fact of pervasive and hidden child sex abuse – and then passed legislation to benefit all victims of child sex abuse. Thus, the legislation was not at all anti-Catholic, but rather anti-child abuse. Courts reached this obvious conclusion repeatedly, with Melanie H v. Sisters of the Precious Blood being the leading decision.

In California, over 1,000 survivors came forward (about 850 from the Catholic Church). No one knew, though, what the benefits or costs of the window would be. It was a large experiment. Now that the claims have been litigated or settled, however, there are important facts that we have learned for the first time, or that reinforced facts unearthed by previous studies:

First, window legislation is not just good for victims. It is good for everyone. Windows divulge the perpetrators' and their enabling institutions' ugly secrets. In California, the names of over 300 perpetrators who had never before been named publicly were released. And the bishops' role in placing children's needs below public appearances was also elaborated. Making that information public is a benefit to every parent and child.

For rest of article go here:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20090611.html

shimon said...

People should show their disdain and refuse to patronize the Queens Kosher Pita establishment that pervert Issac Ebstein owns.

Ramat Beit Shemesh said...

Jonathan Rosenblum defends the Rabbis of Ramat Beit Shemesh ---

*

(Partial)


Think Again: Those primitive haredim - yet again
Jun. 11, 2009
Jonathan Rosenblum , THE JERUSALEM POST

One of the first lessons I learned practicing law was that there are usually two sides to a story, no matter how compelling your client's version. My lawyer's antennae were pricked last week by a front-page article in this paper headlined: "Haredi parents take on sexual abuse of children. Ramat Beit Shemesh parents increasingly frustrated with leaders' denial of problem." The piece portrayed two parents who bravely bucked "the stringent cultural norms" of their "tight-knit haredi community in Ramat Beit Shemesh" to seek redress for the alleged sexual abuse of their children.

Another hero of the piece was David Morris, director of Lema'an Achai, who promoted his organization's efforts to assist haredi parents versus the rabbinic authorities who, in many cases, end up "believing the perpetrators' story over the victims." Morris speculates that there is an epidemic of child abuse in Ramat Beit Shemesh based on the wild claim that every case investigated by the police represents 1,000 others not investigated.

WHAT AROUSED MY SUSPICIONS? For one thing, not one local rabbi was quoted. Nor was there any indication that any had even been contacted. The story fit a little too neatly into familiar stereotypes of the haredi world. First, the portrayal of the community and its rabbinic leaders as hopelessly backward, with no knowledge of psychology or awareness of the darker side of human nature. Second, the idea of a community so insular that it would rather let its children be traumatized for life than address its problems or seek outside help.

I have many friends in the English-speaking community of Ramat Beit Shemesh "Aleph" and know many of the communal rabbis. And, frankly, the application of these stereotypes to them seemed preposterous. For starters, ba'alei teshuva comprise a very large percentage of the community - in some shuls almost 100 percent. These are not people with no knowledge of the outside world, who have never heard of sexual perversions, or whose every behavior is shaped by generations-old social mores. Few of them would silently endure the sexual abuse of their children, or tolerate rabbis they viewed as passive in the face of such abuse.

Rabbi Efrayim Byrks said...

What do I need to do to become a prison security guard?
-

http://www.denverpost.com/technology/ci_12574182

A female inmate awarded $1.3 million because she was sexually assaulted by a prison guard was victimized during a period in which 197 reports of sexual misconduct were made against state prison staff.

exposemolesters said...

http://tristatehomepage.com/content/fulltext/?cid=75931
======================================

An astonishing 60% to 80% of all sexual abuse cases go unreported in the US every year.
That's hundreds of thousands of kids who never tell.
So if a child is brave enough to tell you, experts say, you have to know what to do first.
Or in this case, what not to do, at all.

You probably think you'd know how to act if a child tapped you on the leg and summoned the courage to tell you he'd been sexually abused. The logical thing is to start asking questions, like who did it, and you'd want to know dates and times. That's the way our adult brains work.
It turns out, that's the worst thing you could do.

Child Advocate Melanie Doty says, "No, we're not going to do that. We're going to get down with the child on their level, and the first thing we're going to do is confirm with them - I believe you."
Doty says, well-meaning adults should choose their words carefully in the minutes after a child discloses abuse. If not, it could hurt the prosecution when they go for a conviction and it could keep a child from ever telling again.

So what are you supposed to do?

Doty says after you're down on their level and after the child knows you believe them, speak calmly and allow them the to tell you as much as they're willing to tell.
No direct questions.

"Absolutely not. Interrogating or interviewing a child or drilling them for questions can actually do more harm than good. It can be traumatizing to a child."

If it helps you, write down what you're hearing. You may need it later.
Because there will come a time when you have to make a report.
"In the state of in, we are all mandated reporters. Obligated. Mandated. It's the law. We have to make a report."

Doty says, none of know if we'll be the one to receive a child's disclosure so it's up to each of us to know how to properly react, if we are the trusted, chosen ones.

You can learn more about child sex abuse prevention and body safety education this weekend:

"We Care" Project Workshop
9 to 1
@ Holly's House

As Melanie Doty put it - this workshop is open to all adults - moms, dads, teachers, preachers, even checkers at the grocery store.
It's the kind of information everyone ought to know.

Avi Shafran the putz said...

If I could interject here with my naked thoughts please. Margaret Markey is a disgrace! How dare she try to bankrupt our yeshivot and mikvas with her far fetched theories.

Agudah was doing a service to all victims of child sex-abuse by sweeping their fairy tale claims under the rug and saving them embarrassment. Is this how Marge repays us?

around the blogs said...

Sidebar on UOJ...

http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/

Due to developments of last week, the New York Assembly vote on the Child Victims Act (A2596a-b) will take place during the week of June 15th, not Tuesday, June 9. Look for an update from our office tomorrow.

Michael A. Armstrong - Office of Assemblywoman Margaret Markey
718-651-3185, 917-279-8437 armmic@earthlink. net

wsj said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124468099761804581.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Fight Over Bringing Old Accusations to Court
Sex-Abuse Scandals Lead States to Revise Statute of Limitations; Opponents See Risk in Relying on Stale Evidence

rabbi shloime 'crocodile tears' mandel said...

I need to beat up some more boys in my yeshiva because they had hair that was too long. It has also come to my attention that some yob boys were spotted talking to some girls at the pizzeria and deserve big zets when I see them. My brother yanky has already volunteered to pull their pants down while yudi nussbaum and I dish out the punishments.

Yeshiva of Brooklyn said...

We laugh and berate the students who were sexually assaulted in our school, because we would rather just make believe it never happened. Besides, haven't you people heard of tough love before?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0612/1224248687544.html

A PUBLIC inquiry into the handling of complaints against the former Drogheda surgeon Michael Shine must be established immediately, say a number of organisations supporting child victims of rape and sexual assault.

The organisations – One in Four, the Rape Crisis Centre, the Children’s Rights Alliance, Barnardos and Dignity 4 Patients – have also called for a compensation scheme for victims of the disgraced consultant surgeon.

Shine was struck off the medical register last November by the Medical Council. The council received 29 complaints against him about inappropriate behaviour against young men and boys. It pursued nine and found him guilty in three cases.

It is alleged, however, that he sexually abused over 130 young patients at Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda between 1964 and 1996. Both young men and boys, and young women and girls were allegedly assaulted.

Alleged assaults were typically carried out during medical examinations when parents and other staff were not present. Some young patients were repeatedly assaulted as both outpatients and as inpatients in the 32-year period.

There were emotional and angry statements given by victims at a press conference in Dublin yesterday, hosted by the Dignity 4 Patients organisation which was established in 1995 to support Shine’s victims and to fight for a public inquiry.

The press conference was also attended by representatives from One in Four, the RCC and Barnardos as well as health spokespersons from the Labour Party, Jan O’Sullivan, and Fine Gael, Dr James Reilly.

Bernadette Sullivan, a former nurse at Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital who founded Dignity 4 Patients, said Shine was enabled to operate for three decades by colleagues who turned a blind eye and by the Medical Missionaries who ran the hospital and who, she say, mishandled complaints.

Shine was tried in respect of three complaints, following a Garda investigation, at the Circuit Criminal Court in Dundalk in 2003 and acquitted by a jury after a full trial.

Ms Sullivan expressed concern that senior medical colleagues of Shine were called to defend him, while the DPP failed to call any expert witness against him, including medical personnel counselling his victims.

She said if original complaints against him, made to the hospital, had been properly handled he would not have been able to continue assaulting young patients. She said she had been seeking a meeting with Minister for Health Mary Harney to discuss an inquiry.

“I met Brian Cowen three weeks ago and asked him to intercede with Mary Harney to get a meeting. “We have not been given a meeting and she has not been in contact with me.”

In their joint statement the support groups said yesterday: “We call on Mary Harney to establish an independent inquiry to investigate the way in which the many credible allegations of sex abuse against Michael Shine were handled. The inquiry must examine the role played by the Medical Missionaries of Mary, the Health Board, the hospital authorities and the gardaí in allowing a powerful medical consultant to continue to sexually abuse young boys with impunity.”

The organisations also called on the Minister to put a compensation scheme in place for the victims.

A spokesman for the Minister said a meeting with Dignity 4 Patients was “being arranged”.

Rape Crisis 24-hour helpline 1 800 778888

Queens Kosher Pita said...

No jail for molester: Plans return to Kew Gardens bakery

BY Nicole Bode
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, June 13th 2009, 4:00 AM
DeCrescenzo for News

The Queens Pita Bakery in Kew Gardens.
Related News
Articles

* Bronx mother admits to fatally bashing tot
* Cops hunt T-shirt-shrouded pharmacy robbers
* Perv who molested teens on quick path to freedom

A Queens bakery owner who admits he molested a 10-year-old boy who came in for cookies isn't going to prison - and plans to be back at work next week.

Issac Ebstein, 50, pleaded guilty earlier this week to luring the child into an abusive friendship five years ago at Queens Kosher Pita in Kew Gardens.

He was released without bail and is expected to get a year of probation and sex-offender counseling when he's sentenced. He will not have to register as a pervert.

Prosecutors cut the deal to spare the victim from having to relive the ordeal.

"The child has been severely traumatized and emotionally scarred for life," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

"Fortunately, the guilty plea will save the youngster from having to testify and recount the situation that he endured."

Ebstein befriended the boy after he came into the bakery to buy treats, authorities said.

On three occasions in 2002, he invited the boy to drive around with him - then touched his genitals and had the boy touch his.

The abuse came to light this February when the boy, now a teenager, told his parents, prosecutors said.

Ebstein pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted sexual abuse and attempted child endangerment. He declined comment when reached at his home.

A woman at Queens Kosher Pita said Ebstein would be back to work tomorrow - a prospect that horrified neighborhood residents.

"If he works here, I will pull him out myself," said a customer named Claudiu, who had just learned about the guilty plea. "There's no way he's coming back here. If he does, we won't buy here anymore."

With Zak Failla

sfj said...

http://survivorsforjustice.blogspot.com/2009/06/keep-on-doing-what-youre-doing.html
------------------------------------

The message from our friends in the Assembly is to keep the phone calls coming. We are making real progress in preparation for the Tuesday June 16, 2009, Assembly vote on the Child Victims Act of New York, (the "Markey/Duane Bill" Assembly Bill Number A2596) a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey.

Please take the time to call daily to express your support support of the Child Victims Act of New York and ask for an update on the status of the bill.

Make sure to say that you fully support the Child Victims Act of New York (the “Markey/Duane bill”) and that you will be voting for legislators who vote in favor of the bill.

The legislators' offices log every telephone call they receive. Our calls will allow them to show how strongly the public is supporting the bill and reassure any legislator who has been intimidated by the Catholic Church and others.


Remember, five minutes of your time may save a child’s life.

Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey
30th Assembly District, Queens
DISTRICT OFFICE
55-19 69th Street
Maspeth, NY 11378
718-651-3185
Albany Office
Legislative Office Building
Room 654
Albany, NY 12248
Tel: 1-518-455-4755
E-mail Address: MarkeyM@assembly.state.ny.us

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
64th Assembly District, New York City
DISTRICT OFFICE
250 Broadway
Suite 2307
New York, NY 10007
212-312-1420
Albany Office
Legislative Office Building
Room 932
Albany, NY 12248
Tel: 1-518-455-3791
E-mail Address: Speaker@assembly.state.ny.us

Again, remember, five minutes of your time may save a child's life.

Thank you all for your efforts on behalf on our children.

Anonymous said...

shlomo mandel is one of many fraudulent "rabbis" who preaches to others to follow the torah and have good middos. he is such a hypocritical pompous piece of drek. he and his freaky rabbonim have literally ruined the lives of many kids that I know personally.

mandel is a slimeball and hashem will discipline him and the freaks who assist him in his sickening facade!

penetration scheinberg said...

This is not a fair ruling. There is no proof that penetration ever occurred. After checking with Lipa Margulis and yudi kolko, we concluded that if there was penetration it was not proven.

Eda Haredit molestor sentenced to 5 years

Jerusalem District Court finds Avraham Katz, turned over to authorities in rare move by separatist Eda Haredit sect, guilty of three counts of sodomy and indecent assault against minors

Aviad Glickman
Published: 06.15.09, 18:36 / Israel News

The Jerusalem District Court sentenced Avraham Katz (40), an ultra-Orthodox man from the Meah Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, to five and a half years in prison and 10 months probation Monday, after finding him guilty of three counts of sodomy and indecent assault against minors.


Katz was tried after the separatist anti-Zionist Eda Haredit sect – in an uncharacteristic move – turned him into authorities.


The indictment against Katz details three cases, which took place in mid 2006, December of 2007 and May of 2008. According to all three accounts, he would approach teenaged boys, lure them to accompany him and once they were alone he would touch them in various ways for his own sexual gratification, sodomizing at least one of his victims as well.

Katz pleaded not guilty on all counts, telling the court that the allegations were libelous and no more than rumors spread by his estranged wife, who he refused to give a divorce.


Nevertheless, the honorable Jacob Zaban, Raphael Carmel and Gila Steinitz said that the offenses he was convicted of were "heinous and portrayed against minors, who lacked experience and understanding (of his actions).


"Katz's behavior indicated a perverse perception of reality and of a deviation from acceptable norms." The fact that he demonstrated no remorse, they added, Illustrate that he must be kept away from society.

Notwithstanding the verdict, the judges did not order Katz to pay any damages, since he has been deemed destitute.


Attorney Ariel Herman, for Katz, said he was going to appeal the sentence, which he called "abnormally harsh."

Koogle said...

A new, rabbi-approved search engine named “Koogle” has started operation, aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel.

The new site, named in a pun on Google and on a Jewish casserole pudding, is meant to let devout Jews search for things they need without encountering sexual material or breaking religious taboos. Even when filters are used on mainstream search sites, explicit results sometimes appear under subjects like “breast cancer” — as users of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) new Bing search service have discovered. (Microsoft took steps recently to make filtering more effective.)

Koogle will not only screen out sexual material or even images of women dressed provocatively, but it will also not offer things like television sets, which Orthodox families aren’t allowed to have in their homes.

The site’s business directory lists categories like Kosher Restaurants, Bridal Gowns, Insurance, Footwear, Children’s Clothing, Fashion & Sewing Accessories, and others.

Though many Orthodox homes don’t have computers, some do, and many Orthodox Jews use Internet cafes — something rabbis had in mind when they encouraged development of the new site.

Koogle will not permit any shopping on the Sabbath, from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday.

newsday said...

State Assembly may vote on sex abuse bill

BY WILLIAM MURPHY AND JAMES T. MADORE | william.murphy@newsday.com. james.madore@newsday.com
10:44 PM EDT, June 15, 2009

A bill allowing lawsuits by people who say they were sexually abused as children could be voted on today in the state Assembly, although even if it passes its fate in the Senate is uncertain amid the chaotic leadership battle there.

Supporters and opponents Monday declined to predict the bill's fate - even as some lobbied to bolster their positions.

New York's Catholic bishops oppose the bill and have urged parishioners to help defeat it.

Assemb. Margaret Markey (D- Maspeth), the bill's sponsor, recently amended it to allow people to sue public as well as private institutions. The bill would drop the statute of limitations for one year, allowing those age 53 or younger who missed past legal deadlines to sue.

Over the past two weekends, Catholics in the Diocese of Rockville Centre heard a written statement at Mass from Bishop William Murphy saying the bill could be "financially devastating," and would divert resources from pursuing the church's mission. Brooklyn and Queens Catholics heard a similar message from Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio.

"Opening a window for the bringing of time barred abuse claims would have a severe negative impact on charitable ministries within the Dioceses, diverting resources from pursuing the Church's mission to the defense of litigation," according to Murphy's statement.

Diocesan spokesman Sean Dolan said Monday: "It gets more and more important for parishioners to understand what's at stake here."

Markey, meanwhile, in an e-mail to supporters, chastised the church for putting "a higher priority on their assets than it does on children, ignoring their own responsibility for enabling sexual abuse."

Bill Bennison of Port Jefferson, a director of the New York Coalition to Protect Children, said, "We've been lobbying, generating support for the bill."

- With staff writer Kathleen Kerr

Karen Flanagan said...

Karen Flanagan, Child Protection Program Manager at Child Wise, said up to 90% of sexual abuse cases are not reported. Of those reported only 5% lead to convictions and this often only occurs because the perpetrator has confessed in Court. Flanagan expressed concerns at the damage inflicted on children when they have to face the perpetrator in court and said that while steps have been taken to improve the Court processing but a lot more needs to be done.

rabbio yaakov hopfer said...

exposemolesters better not pin this one on me. I am in enough dodo already.

School principal faces child sex offense charges

A Queen Anne’s County school principal was arrested today and charged with three counts of illegal sexual conduct involving a 14-year-old girl, Maryland State Police said.

Lowell S. Litton Jr., 39, of Sudlersville was charged with a third-degree sex offense, a fourth-degree sex offense and sex abuse of a minor. According to police, he faces up to 36 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.

Read the complete article by reporter Jacques Kelly on baltimoresun.com.

Avi Shafran the putz said...

What if I turned in my dusty Borsalino hat for a shtreimel made of weasel fur?

JERUSALEM, June 16 (UPI) -- A member of parliament decried a proposed ban on the import of fur, which would eliminate the traditional fur hats worn by ultra-orthodox Jews
.

If approved, the traditional fur hats, or shtreimels, worn by male members of the communities will be outlawed, the newspaper Maariv reported Tuesday.

The proposed amendment to the animal welfare bill, which has gained support in the Cabinet, would ban importing products made of cat, dog and rabbit fur, as well as furs imported from southeast Asia, the newspaper said.

Those violating the law could face up to a year in prison, Maariv said.

aguda hypocrites said...

http://www.forward.com/articles/107924/

The nation’s leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella organization is preparing to go to bat for a disgraced prison chaplain who is accused of giving favors to Jewish inmates.

Agudath Israel of America has drafted a letter to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressing support for Rabbi Leib Glanz, a rabbi affiliated with the Satmar Chasidic movement who is a chaplain in New York City jails. News reports over the last week have indicated that Glanz gave favors to Jewish prisoners and allowed a wealthy Jewish inmate to hold lavish catered parties in the prison for his son’s bar mitzvah and his daughter’s engagement.

A draft of the letter—which has not yet been sent—says that the groups signing onto it are concerned with “the tenor of media reports about Rabbi Leib Glanz.”

“The reports in the media pillory Rabbi Glanz, in the most cynical and derogatory fashion imaginable, for his role in accommodating Jewish prisoners’ religious requirements and helping them participate, personally or vicariously, in milestone family celebrations,” the draft letter says.

While Glanz’s action’s may have crossed lines, the draft letter states, “We also have no doubt that any such improprieties were nothing more than lapses of judgment; and that they emanated from a good place, a heart overflowing with empathy and concern.”

Rabbi David Zwiebel, the executive vice president of Agudath Israel, said that he drafted the letter, but he added that it was still being refined.

“It is not inconceivable at the end of the day that the letter won’t go,” Zwiebel said.

An email listing the organizations that have signed onto the letter included a number of ultra-Orthodox organizations based in Brooklyn. The list also included the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. Officials at both organizations said that they had not, in fact, signed onto the letter and did not plan to.

A top official of New York City’s Department of Corrections has resigned over the scandal. But thus far, Glanz has only been suspended from his job for two weeks.

Yossi G said...

Of course he's writing a letter, he did the same for Rubashkin and many other wealthy indictees. His organization and it's great leaders have protected us with bans on cell phones, internet, Lipa music, incorrectly dating the age of the earth, and strawberries.

I'm still waiting for a letter about child abuse, spousal abuse, Messianism, fraud, Charedi scams, alcohol abuse by minors, protecting criminals, rabbinic molesters, rabbinic endorsement of fraud, and a thousand other "frum" crimes that go unmentioned, encouraging their proliferation.

David said...

Well said, Yossi G.

Whenever a Jew does something that proves to be a complete chillul Hashem-- from the molesters, to the Rubashkins, to Madoff, to this clown who throws lavish parties in the slammer-- you can always count on Agudah to rush in and make things even more appalling and embarassing.

victim said...

The much antipated Child Victim Act may finally reach a vote in the NY State Legislature today. The bill has been aggressively opposed by the NY State Catholic Conference and Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio and Rockville Centre Bishop William Murphy.

The bill has been amended by its sponsor Rep. Margaret Markey to include both public and private institutions. The measure would allow childhood victims of sexual abuse the opportunity at justice in the courts. Since the statute of limitations has long since passed in many of these tragic cases, the bill would allow those abused by priests, nuns, teachers, and other public officials to bring lawsuits against the perpetrators as well as the institutions who covered up the systemic abuse. One amendment to the bill which is not so good but necessary for passage is the age restriction placed on the measure. Only those who have not reached their 53rd birthday would be eligible.

In sum, here's hoping the bill passes so that thousands of childhood sex abuse victims can seek justice and healing.
________________________________

http://tampabay.injuryboard.com
/miscellaneous/ny-child-victim-act-may-come-up-for-vote-today.aspx?googleid=264984

Anonymous said...

You must read this Jewish Week article by Hella Winston

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a16089/News/New_York.html

Colmer Plea Deal Seen Raising Questions

shlomo mandel of yob: resign now! said...

Jailhouse rabbi resigns, faces criminal investigation

By Ben Harris · June 17, 2009

The nearly week-long saga of the prison rabbi who presided over a lavish jailhouse bar-mitzvah may be coming to a close. Last week the New York Post broke the story of the bar-mitzvah soiree and the subsequent suspension of Rabbi Leib Glanz, the prison chaplain who signed off on the affair. Today, the Post reports that Glanz, a prominent Satmar hasid, has resigned along with Peter Curcio, a department of corrections chief.

In case you missed it, the story in brief is this: Tuvia Stern, a financial scam artist who spent two decades as a fugitive, was permitted to host a six-hour bar-mitzvah party in the jail gymnasium, including the use of an outside kosher caterer. Guests dined on fine china and danced the hora, according to reports. The event was such a success that months later, Stern held another party in the jail, this time an engagemet party for his daughter.

A number of interesting details have emerged in the course of the media frenzy that followed the Post's initial revelation. The Times reported that Glanz was known to use his influence to have Jewish inmates transferred to more hospitable quarters, and once there, invited them to his office for kosher treats and the use of his telephone. The Times also found that Glanz met several times in late 2008 with Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who is in charge of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's political operation, though the reasons for the meetings are not entirely clear. Glanz is also under investigation for possible criminal conduct relating to the bar-mitzvah, in particular whether or not department officials were paid off.

But perhaps the juiciest nugget in the pile is this: ultimate responsibility for the bar-mitzvah appears to lie with a Muslim chaplain, Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil, who has his own checkered history. In 2006, he was suspended for two weeks after he made a speech in which he said "the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House," and referred to "Zionists of the media."

So if there's a silver lining in all this, perhaps it's that the anti-Zionist imam and the anti-Zionist rabbi can at least agree that a Jewish convict deserves to celebrate his son's bar-mitzvah in high-style -- even if it's in the city lockup.

Rabbi David Niederman harbors pedophiles said...

A review of those appointments from 2006 to December 2008 shows three meetings with Rabbi Glanz, all in the last third of 2008.

The first, in September, coincided with a major push by Mr. Sheekey supporting Daniel L. Squadron’s successful effort in the Democratic primary to defeat State Senator Martin Connor, a longtime Brooklyn incumbent. Rabbi Glanz is a political ally of Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, who backed Mr. Squadron. And Rabbi Teitelbaum’s longtime Satmar rival, Rabbi David Niederman, backed Mr. Connor — despite Mr. Sheekey’s efforts.

Mr. Loeser, the mayor’s spokesman, said that Mr. Sheekey usually met with Rabbi Glanz and Rabbi Niederman within a few days of each other, in an effort to listen to different perspectives on similar community issues.

For instance, Mr. Loeser said that Mr. Sheekey met Rabbi Glanz on Oct. 27, and with Rabbi Niederman (who was with Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic leader) two days later.

another fraud rabbi said...

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/06/16/1005908/rabbi-in-australia-charged-with-fraud

Rabbi in Australia charged with fraud

June 16, 2009

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) -- An American-born rabbi and his wife living in South Australia were charged in an alleged funding scam for their school.

Rabbi Yossi Engel and his wife, Chana, were charged Monday with 39 counts of dishonestly dealing with documents in connection with the Spirit of David Adelaide Hebrew School they reportedly founded in Adelaide, the Australian Jewish News reported Tuesday.

The Engels allegedly signed fake report cards to justify applications for funding for phantom Hebrew classes.

They are scheduled to appear July 30 in the Magistrates’ Court in Adelaide and expected to plead not guilty, the newspaper reported.

The couple allegedly signed fake report cards between 2001 and 2004 for Jewish students who were registered at other schools in order to prove that the apparent Hebrew classes warranted funds from the Ethnic Schools Board of South Australia.

The Spirit of David Adelaide Hebrew School, which Rabbi Engel claimed was an after-hours institution, was deregistered in 2007, but is believed to have received some $40,000 in funding, according to the Ethnic Schools Board.

The Criminal Investigation Branch of the Adelaide Police reportedly interviewed more than 50 people about the alleged scam.

Rabbi Engel, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., was sent as a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to the Jewish community in Adelaide, which numbers less than 1,000, in 1998. But a rift between Engel and the board of the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation, the city’s only Orthodox synagogue, resulted in the board deciding not to renew his tenure at the end of 2006, sparking a bitter legal battle.

In 2007 a District Court judge found in favor of the board and upheld its termination of Rabbi Engel’s contract.

Lubavitch.com, the organization’s official Web site, still lists Rabbi Engel as director of Chabad of South Australia.

Choose Life, Not Kiddush Clubs said...

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a16075/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html

victim of Issac Ebstein said...

A council spokesman declined to comment, but a source said Ebstein agreed. Ebstein's victim confronted him in court Tuesday, describing how he turned to drugs to mask his secret pain.

"I've been wanting to do this since the day this happened," the boy, now 17, told Ebstein, who hung his head in shame.

"The pain that I've been through, words can't describe it. You ruined my life. It's not fair. It's not right." He listed the ways the abuse had destroyed his young life: "I lost my respect for religion, use of drugs, loss of self respect."

"If you have done this to anybody else, tell someone. Let the kids get help," the teen added. "I'm sorry," the defendant said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_teen_molested_as_a_child_by_queens_baker_confronts.html#ixzz0IrASHkSy&C

victim of Issac Ebstein said...

The abuse came to light when the victim approached Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, a child abuse advocate who works with the Orthodox Jewish community and urged him to go to authorities.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_teen_molested_as_a_child_by_queens_baker_confronts.html#ixzz0IrAqnCQc&C

shimon said...

Rabbi Horowitz deserves credit for telling Ebstein's victim to go to the authorities, but his position on Markey's bill sets him apart from the very task he just fulfilled - and makes his mindset all the more contradictory. Would the real YH please stand up?

Rabbinical Council of Queens said...

The Rabbinical Council of Queens banned Issac Ebstein, 50, from Queens Kosher Pita in Kew Gardens Hills after he pleaded guilty to luring the boy with cookies and abusing him in 2002.

The council told Ebstein, 50, he had to divest himself of ownership because he was convicted of a "crime of moral turpitude" - or the shop would lose kosher certification.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_teen_molested_as_a_child_by_queens_baker_confronts.html#ixzz0Itdvt4Kh&D

Anonymous said...

He was released without bail and does not have to register as a sexual predator as long as he completes a year of counseling and monitoring.

Prosecutors said the deal spared the victim from testifying about his ordeal.


Sweet deal he received. What is this about letting child molesters off the hook without having to register as a sex offender?

Protecting the pedophiles part one said...

Protecting the pedophiles
By Tamar Rotem
Tags: Pedophilia

For several weeks in April last year, the seven-year-old son of residents of the ultra-Orthodox Ramat Beit Shemesh neighborhood insisted on staying at home. "This was odd, because he always loved to go to school," relates his mother. "All of a sudden he looked scared and tried to find excuses not to go."

Then one day the boy suddenly told his elder brother: "The rabbi touched me."

"The rabbi" is a teacher at the ultra-Orthodox Yishrei Lev school for boys, which the boy attended. "When his brother asked, 'Where did he touch you?'" relates the father, "the boy pointed to his intimate parts."
Advertisement
The parents, who immigrated to Israel from the United States about 10 years ago, are very active in the ultra-Orthodox "Anglo-Saxon" (English-speaking) community in Ramat Beit Shemesh. As soon as the incident became known they received phone calls from rabbis and community functionaries who tried to dissuade them from continuing to investigate, and pressure them to deal with the incident with the help of the Mishmeret Hatzniut modesty patrol from Mea She'arim in Jerusalem.

The parents, who initially submitted to the pressure, ultimately took courage and in August 2008 they filed a complaint with the police. From the questioning of the boy by the police it emerged that ostensibly innocent tickling descended into indecent acts every day during recess over a long period. Parallel to the investigation the parents turned to the school directors, and the teacher was fired. During the following months three other boys from the class also filed complaints against the rabbi with the police.

Protecting the pedophiles part two said...

However, at the start of the current school year the suspect had no difficulty in finding another educational institution in Ramat Beit Shemesh, and has been teaching there ever since.

This week the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office decided to close the case against the teacher for lack of evidence. The boy's parents have appealed this decision. They complain that the case was dealt with in a flawed way after several investigators were replaced during the course of the investigation. Beit Shemesh police dismiss these claims.

Ever since the affair was revealed, the parents have been vulnerable and exposed to a community that is condemning them for having laundered their dirty linen in public, and especially for complaining to the authorities. Later on their names were made public, and rumors were circulated to the effect that it was one of their sons who molested his brother. The father of the family has had to leave his synagogue because of the alienating way he was treated by the congregation.

But the most resounding slap, according to the father, was felt by the family when the principal of the school to which their son, the victim of the abuse, had been accepted during the summer, informed them that he had decided to revoke his acceptance on the excuse that he would need treatment that the school did not have the capacity to offer. "I think they simply want to distance us because we are a family that makes problems," says the father. "My son asked me, 'Daddy, is it because of what happened?' What answer could I give him?"

Unabating affair

The storm around the Yishrei Lev story refuses to die down, especially as other affairs involving sexual abuse of children have surfaced lately. Four 10-year-olds from the ultra-Orthodox Bais Shalom institution for boys filed complaints with police this year against two rabbis on suspicion of physical and psychological abuse. In the course of the investigation it emerged that one of the teachers is also suspected of sexual molestation.

According to a source familiar with the details of the case, the rabbi would yell at the children that they are stupid and dolts, hit them on their sexual organs and twist their arms tightly.

According to Rabbi Tzvi Rabinsky, the director of the Toras Habayis educational institutions, of which Bais Shalom is one of three schools, the management is not obligated to report as long as the cases have not been proven to it. Also, because the investigation of the institution was carried out during vacation time and found that they are clean, there was no need to suspend the teachers.

According to Rabinsky and educational supervisor Rabbi Yosef Juliard, the complaints refer to the two best teachers at the school, and throughout the entire year during which the parents are claiming the teachers abused their children the directors heard only praise of the teachers from parents. Moreover, according to them, one of the families that filed complaints continued to send the complainant's younger brother to study with the teacher who is suspected of abuse.

Protecting the pedophiles part three said...

To support their claim regarding the teachers' innocence, the directors showed a graphological test of one of the teachers in which he came out clear of any suspicion. They say they were prepared to see to all the necessary tests carried out by expert psychologists, but the parents of the children were not prepared to cooperate.

"We initially thought of going to the police, but we can't spill innocent blood. And apart from that the parents of the other children pressed us not to fire the teachers," said Yuliard and Rabinsky. According to them the parents' accusations against the teachers derive from the fact that the teachers sent their children for diagnosis, and there are parents who feel pressured by this.

The second case involves a complaint to the police in December last year by parents concerning the suspicion that their 6-year-old daughter had been molested when she was three by an assistant nursery teacher who is still working at the kindergarten. At around that age the little girl stopped talking and her behavior became problematic. The parents took the girl for various treatments and, as a result, two years later she began to function again normally.

According to the mother, only this year her daughter spontaneously related that the assistant used to strip her naked, tie her up and ask her to touch her body in different ways. "The child had never seen people behaving in a sexual way," says the father, with tears in his eyes. "How could she have imagined all those details?"

In the meantime the case has been closed for lack of evidence because the girl did not cooperate with the investigation. About a year ago, when the suspicion of another case arose and the parents demanded that the institution take action, the kindergarten employee was suspended, but she has since returned to work.

In Ramat Beit Shemesh, the population consists mostly of ultra-Orthodox Jews from abroad, who are considered more open than the Israeli-born ultra-Orthodox. Most of them work and therefore are more connected to the world around them. However, as new immigrants they are prisoners in the hands of the rabbinical establishment that is the captive of the most extreme Israeli ultra-Orthodoxy. The parents' reporting to the police in the three cases has been interpreted by the rabbis and school directors as traitorous to the community.

In all the cases, the children's departure from the schools stirred up a storm. The parents have been cold-shouldered by neighbors and friends, and have had to stop worshiping at their synagogues. As a result of the demands to retract their complaints they are feeling threatened. One family has even left Israel but is continuing to cooperate with police investigators.

Protecting the pedophiles part four said...

In denial

"Instead of looking inward in an attempt to understand how Ramat Beit Shemesh has become a city of refuge for pedophiles and how to stop the plague, they are thinking about how to silence us," said one parent whose child fell victim to sexual abuse.

"There is denial here by an entire community," says Helise Pollack, a former welfare officer from Ramat Beit Shemesh and an expert on children who have experienced sexual abuse, who is treating some of the children. "They simply don't believe the complainants. The people suspected of sexual abuse do not look like monsters. These are people who have families, regular people. They make an excellent impression on their surroundings. What happens is that the victim's family is put on trial."

However, if thus far the community's attitude toward those who decided to complain to the police has been one of condemnation, only now, in the wake of the additional cases, are voices beginning to be heard calling for protest against the silencing of the incidents at the price of exposing children to risk of abuse. Recently fear of the "plague of sexual abuse," as people in the community are defining it, has led to some urgent assemblies of parents to discuss the problem.

About three weeks ago parents whose children are enrolled at the educational institution where the assistant is working convened to discuss what steps to take following a rumor that there has been another complaint against her. A week later, about 15 women met in a private home to hear Pollack and get her advice. "People in Ramat Beit Shemesh are taking the law into their hands," Pollack said. According to her, "Pedophilia is an addiction. Pedophiles must not be around children."

Protecting the pedophiles part five said...

Pollack told the women that if the school does not fire the teacher, they must withdraw their children from the school in order to protect them. Her familiarity with the welfare system, the fact that she is religious and not ultra-Orthodox and the fact that she is Anglo-Saxon in origin have made her the address to which the parents are turning. The women were raised in a society where problematic topics like abuse are not discussed, and as mothers they are now going through a process of opening their eyes and mouths in order to warn their children.

"In ultra-Orthodox society the child's voice is not heard. They prefer to be considerate of the adult," said one mother.

The women confessed to Pollack their bad feeling about the beatings in heder (traditional school for young boys) as a matter of routine - a rabbi who crudely pushes a child's face into the Pentateuch on the table, another rabbi who cruelly twists ears - and said that this reality has to stop.

"Write about us compassionately," one of the women requested after the meeting. "I love this community. "

At another meeting held this month on the issue of sexual abuse, attended by nearly 100 people, the lecturer, a volunteer from the hotline on sexual abuse issues for religious women and girls, apologized for talking about immodest things. "I didn't understand why she was apologizing the whole time," complained one woman. "I got up and said, 'We're talking about child abuse. What does that have to do with modesty?'"

The speaker, D., is the mother of children who studied at an institution where sexual abuse took place. Ever since the abuse affairs became known, she has been acting unremitingly to fight the community's terrible silence. "They are saying that to blame the teachers is murder," she says, "and talking about how rabbinical law prohibits harming their livelihood. But against that, what about the danger of the harm to children? I am asking how it is possible to keep someone who is suspected of abuse at a school with little children."

During the past year 10 families applied to the welfare office in Ramat Beit Shemesh and the National Council for the Child concerning such issues. According to the NCC's director, Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, this represents an increase in the rate of applicants from that neighborhood. However, according to Kadman and Pollack, in Ramat Beit Shemesh a kind of social chaos prevails. "Beit Shemesh has grown at dramatic rates but the welfare office has not been given extra manpower slots. There aren't enough social workers and welfare officers," says Kadman. "Among other things a population has arrived here that is closed and extremist, and requires complex treatment."

The prosecution did not bother to inform the complainants in the Yishrei Lev case that it had been closed, because of a malfunction. This fact added to the parents' overall feeling that they are being punished for reporting the abuse. "If in this particular community, someone who gathers up the courage and complains doesn't get the fastest and best treatment, he will retreat and the whole community will get the message that it is not a good idea to report," says Kadman. "We mustn't miss this window of opportunity."

rabbi ephraim byrks said...

He should sue the media who reported his crimes. That's what I did dating back all the way to my Calgary days of sexually abusing children.
-
LOVES PARK (WREX) - The former leader of a local religious group pleads not guilty to charges he sexually abused a 14-year-old girl.

Steven Giuliano, of Rockford, was in court Thursday on charges that he sexually abused girl he met through a local Jewish group that he was the leader of. Giuliano is no longer the leader of that group.

Loves Park Police say there may be more victims and have asked them to come forward.

Jewish talk radio leads Jay Bernstein and Larry Cohen down unconventional path said...

http://www.examiner.com/x-1423-Baltimore-Celebrity-Examiner~y2009m6d19-Jewish-talk-radio-leads-Jay-Bernstein-and-Larry-Cohen-down-unconventional-path

molester yudi kolko said...

I volunteer to be the swimming
instituter and bathing suit dryer.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-camp19-2009jun19,0,6889456.story
From the Los Angeles Times
SUMMER CAMP CAMPAIGN
A chance to be a kid again
Two innocent victims of their parents' battle with drugs and alcohol will spend a week riding horses, swimming and hiking.
By Juliette Funes

June 19, 2009

Marilyn McKeever's youngest children, Anthony, 8, and Anita, 12, haven't always known the innocence of childhood. After years of drug and alcohol addiction by her and their father, she has fought to give her children a normal childhood, one where it is OK to just be kids and have fun without having to worry about Mom and Dad.

For a week this summer, they will go to Camp Max Straus in the Verdugo Mountains in Glendale to ride horses, swim and take nature walks. Operated by the Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles, the camp welcomes about 120 underserved children with emotional, behavioral or social problems.

McKeever, a single mother of four, has twice lost custody of her children. But while jailed on drug charges, she said she realized she needed to change and has been clean and sober for 10 years. However, she is disabled and unemployed, struggling to keep her family afloat in their Pacoima residence. The children's drug-addicted father has been in and out of their lives and is now in jail.

Living in a household where they either witnessed or heard about drug and alcohol abuse problems, the siblings have had trouble adjusting.

Anita had a hard time in the first years of McKeever's sobriety, worrying that she would relapse and disappear again. Anita also has a cognitive disorder where she can't express her emotions. Anthony is in therapy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"They suffered through my addiction," McKeever said. "We suffered through it, but we're still going strong."

In openly explaining her past to her children, McKeever hopes they learn from her mistakes.

"My kids are in therapy because I don't want them to feel the pain I did as a child," she said. "I don't want them to turn to drugs or anything to feel normal the way I did."

Still, McKeever wants her two youngest children to see that life is not always a struggle and hopes a week away at camp will help them come out of their shells.

"There's so much more to life than going to school and . . . sitting at home with good old mom," McKeever said.

The camp provides children with a great growing experience, said Jennifer Greenberg, a program specialist for Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles. "It's a place to kind of get away and be a kid again," she said.

With $1.8 million raised last year by the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign, approximately 8,000 children will go to camp in Southern California this summer.

The Summer Camp Campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a McCormick Foundation fund, which matches all donations at 50 cents on the dollar. Donations are tax-deductible as permitted by law. Addresses will not be released or published. For more information, call (800) LA TIMES, Ext. 75771, or e-mail familyfund@latimes.com.

Mail donations using the attached form (do not send cash), donate by phone at (800) 518-3975 or donate online at latimes.com/donate.

juliette.funes@latimes.com

jimmy adolf carter said...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is almost beyond understanding. He is trained in nuclear physics, yet when it comes to the Middle East, he’s no rocket scientist. A self-proclaimed champion of human rights, he invariably cozies up to dictators and thugs—no tyrant is too repulsive to embrace. Too intelligent and too experienced to be genuinely naïve, too consistent to be forgiven as erratic or bumbling, one can only conclude that he is driven by ideology. Like so much of the illiberal Left, Carter thoughtlessly favors the “small and weak” over the “big and strong,” instead of asking more pertinent questions of “right” or “wrong.” If a group portrays itself as the victim of “neo-colonialism,” “occupation,” or “racism,” Carter will take up its cause, no matter how vile its principles or conduct.

Let’s examine his latest foray into the Middle East to see if this judgment is corroborated.

June 9: In Lebanon, Carter said: “Oh, I don’t think Hezbollah’s going to create any problems for Obama, or for Lebanon. I think they’re satisfied to maintain the status quo. . . . I think that withdrawing weapons from Hezbollah is out of the question. I don’t think they’re going to even bring it up. And that’s the main thing that Hezbollah wants.” Here, Carter casually endorsed Hezbollah’s status as a private army within the state, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Carter loses no sleep because Hezbollah’s missiles are to be used against Israel..

More..

http://www.examiner.com/x-4814-LA-Middle-Eastern-Policy-Examiner~y2009m6d19-Jimmy-Carters-Middle-East-tour

pervert attacking jewish girls said...

****************PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE****************

A pervert is on the loose and has sexually assaulted teen girls in Boro Park and Flatbush.

Please be aware of the danger and as a precaution do not walk alone.

new york times said...

June 19, 2009
Lobbying Intensifies, but Fate of Sex Abuse Bill Is Up in the Air
By PAUL VITELLO

ALBANY — The political education of Beth McCabe began a few years ago, when she took her turn at the microphone here during a Senate committee hearing on childhood sexual abuse.

As Ms. McCabe, a consultant for nonprofit groups, testified about being abused as a 10-year-old, and saw the pained reaction of elected officials in the hushed room, she had a kind of epiphany, she said: that maybe her personal story — painful and private for so many years — would have the power to change public policy.

It was a moment of pure insight, common to many of the volunteer advocates who have been trawling the Capitol hallways for months, lobbying for a bill that would permit adults to file suit over childhood sexual abuse that may have occurred long ago.

But like many pure insights about politics, it has been tempered and tested by the sausage-making realities of the legislative process.

The bill has been amended twice in recent weeks to mollify opponents, and one of those amendments effectively cut Ms. McCabe out by setting an age limit of 53 for those who could file suits. She is 60.

It has been scheduled for a vote in the Assembly three times in the last week, and postponed at the last minute three times. A chaotic leadership battle in the Senate is partly to blame. Intense lobbying against the bill by the Catholic Church and some Orthodox Jewish groups has played a part, too: Lawmakers backing the legislation have defected, then been re-enlisted by the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey, in middle-of-the-night meetings.

novimnsker tush said...

vais mir. vus vul ich teen mit mineh shtrimel?

rabbi shlomo 'crocodile tears' mandel said...

I made it to the agudah convention at the hilton. What was most impressive to me was the kidush hashem by Mr. Lefkowitz. He had the guts to tell off those kiddie protesters who were yelling like behaimas for us to do something to the rabbi pedophiles we are protecting.

Truth be told, I was hiding from them for fear they would question me about the sanctuary I provide for my chaver & child molester - rabbi yudel nussbaum.

8 YEARS FOR SHUL SCAM said...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06202009/news/regionalnews/8_years_for_shul_scam_175205.htm

New York Post

8 YEARS FOR SHUL SCAM

By BRUCE GOLDING

June 20, 2009 --

A fraudster who preyed on members of his Upper West Side synagogue was sentenced to more than eight years behind bars yesterday by a judge who likened him to a "wolf in sheep's clothing."

Hayim Regensberg, 44, was convicted of running a three-year Ponzi scheme that scammed more than $13 million from investors before it collapsed in 2007.

He recruited his 23 victims -- including a partner at the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell -- from Congregation Ohab Zedek, where Regensberg served as a gabbai, or assistant to the rabbi.

Manhattan federal Judge Victor Marrero slammed Regensberg for swindling the "people closest to him."

The judge also said Regensberg belonged to a "subset of the white-collar criminal," who show up in court wearing the same "mask of piety" they used to disarm their victims.

Regensberg -- who blamed his crimes on a decades-long gambling addiction -- choked up and sniffled while begging for mercy, saying his three young children "need and deserve a father."

Morton Klein said...

President Barack Obama’s refusal to take a stand on protests in Iran stands in sharp contrast to demands he has made on Israel, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, says in a Newsmax interview.

“I think he should take a strong stand to support the protesters in Iran who want to transform that society into one that promotes democracy and human rights,” Klein says. ”But while meddling in Israel’s affairs and making specific demands, he explicitly states he refuses to meddle in Iran’s policies and has said almost nothing.”

Klein says leaders of Jewish organizations are rethinking their support of Obama in light of his attitude toward Israel.

“There are many leaders in the organized Jewish world who have privately discussed this issue with me, and say they are deeply concerned about Obama’s actions and policies toward Israel, and now they’re rethinking their support for Obama during the campaign and the election,” says Klein, whose organization of 30,000 members is the oldest pro-Israel group in the country.

Based on the president’s speech in Cairo on June 4 and many of his foreign policy appointments, Klein thinks Obama “may become the most hostile president to Israel ever.”

Obama’s speech was “inimical to Israel and supportive of the stream of false Palestinian Arab claims concerning Israel,” Klein says. “He is relentlessly pressuring Israel while applying virtually almost no pressure on the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its written obligations.”

As a child of survivors of the Holocaust, Klein says he was particularly offended by Obama’s comparison of the suffering of Palestinians with the Nazis’ murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.

“I found this to be an abominable, odious, and ridiculously false analogy,” he says.

http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/Barack_Obama_Israel_Iran/2009/06/22/227763.html

"frum" is a mental disorder said...

Beit Shemesh rabbis issue modesty rules

City's religious and secular residents find booklets in their mailboxes instructing women to keep hair tied, wear long-sleeved shirts and skirts without slit
Kobi Nahshoni

A rabbis' committee in Beit Shemesh distributed over the weekend a detailed booklet instructing female residents to dress modestly in the city's ultra-Orthodox areas. In the pamphlets, women are ordered to keep their hair tied and their shirts buttoned up to the very end and to wear long sleeves.


The "chastity squad" pamphlets were distributed in mailboxes in the city's religious and secular neighborhoods. They start off with some rhetorical questions: "You don't want to hurt people, right? You're a considerate person, right?"


Chastity Guards
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Full story
Next, the booklets elaborate on the demands for a modest appearance: "Your neck must not show from all sides. On the front – from where the rib bones start; the shoulders – from where the neck slope begins; on the back – from the first bone of the scruff." Each instruction is accompanied by a drawing.


Additional instructions state that the shirt must be wide, long and nontransparent; the sleeves must be long enough so as "not to reveal the elbow in any form or movement"; and the skirt must be long, wide and without a slit.


The rabbis explain in the booklet that "entering a haredi neighborhood obligates us (from a moral aspect) to be considerate of the place's nature and not to hurt the residents' feelings, and to be seen in modest clothing only.


"A modest garment covers every place in need of covering. In addition, it conceals the body's shape. Thus, a tight shirt and a narrow skirt or trousers are considered immodest."


Another page in the booklet includes a "prayer of a Jewish girl", and states that "your modest and dignified clothing shows that you acknowledge the fact that you are the daughter of a king. The modest clothing honors the woman and raises her value. There is so much to regret and to be ashamed of when a daughter's king looks cheap and like a prostitute."


'Bored people looking for action'

Shalom Lerner, chairman of the religious Beyachad faction at the Beit Shemesh Municipality, was one of the residents who found the booklet in their mailbox.


"These are extreme people who must be really bored and unemployed during the summer, and are looking for some action like in Jerusalem. The normal haredim in the city don't support them, and when I showed it to them they said, 'They're harassing us as well with this nonsense.'


"Up to now they would hand out written pamphlets or something printed at home, but now they've invested money in a colorful booklet. They must really be bored," he added.


The Religious Zionism representative at the City Council clarified that the religious and secular public was "adamant not to let them go wild and take over", and promised to bring in reinforcement from the outside.


"We are making progress by building a new hesder yeshiva in Beit Shemesh and absorbing new families," he said. "In the summer we are expecting the arrival of 100 families of new immigrants from the United States."

Two suspected pedophiles arrested in ultra-Orthodox J'lem neighborhood said...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090344.html

Police remanded two men Wednesday suspected of more than 20 sexual attacks on young boys in an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood. One of the two, a 17-year-old, is suspected of attacking an 11-year-old boy who lives in the neighborhood.

The case came to light after the head of the yeshiva where the alleged victim studies told the boy's father six months ago that boy had told him an older boy had accosted him on the bus. The boy said the 17-year-old persuaded him the get off the bus with him, took him to the yeshiva where the older boy studies and molested him in the bathroom.

On the basis of the principal's allegations, the father filed a complaint with the police. On Tuesday, after the boy told his father he saw his alleged attacker on the street, the father called the police, who arrested the suspect. He confessed to nine other attacks on neighborhood boys.

Meanwhile, in the same neighborhood, a 43-year-old man was arrested and remanded Wednesday for molesting boys in recent years. Two teenage boys who complained that the man had molested them said he had attacked at least 10 boys, some of them allegedly friends of his children

Bernard Mutterperl said...

Pedophile Kidnapper Convicted
by Samuel Newhouse (sam@brooklyneagle.net), published online 06-19-2009


By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

JAY STREET — A Brooklyn man who tried to grab an 11-year-old girl out of her apartment building was convicted of attempted kidnapping Friday at Kings County Supreme Court.

Bernard Mutterperl, 21, was convicted before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia Di Mango. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 29 and could receive up to 15 years.

On Mother’s Day 2007, Mutterperl, then 19, allegedly approached the victim, a young Latina girl, near her apartment building in Midwood. He attempted to pull her close to him and lead her out of the building, putting his hand over her mouth and telling her to be quiet.

However, when his grip loosened, the girl fled outside the building and cried for help, and her older brother and other neighbors came to her aid. They stopped Mutterperl as he ran and held him until police arrived to arrest him.

Mutterperl, an ultra-orthodox Jewish man, initially denied any sexual intent, then confessed to police that he was a pedophile.

“I, Bernard Mutterperl, have realized for quite some time over the last two or three years that I have a problem that when I see young girls I just want to go after them,” Mutterperl stated, according to reports.

The victim, now 13, testified in the trial and pointed to Mutterperl as the man who had attacked her.

Prosecutors originally asked for $10,000 bail, which was increased to $25,000 by the judge at Muttperl’s first arraignment. He paid the bail and left Rikers Island.

However, one month later a grand jury increased Muttperl’s top charge from unlawful imprisonment to attempted kidnapping and a second arraignment took place in Brooklyn Supreme Court before Justice Di Mango.

The D.A.’s Office asked for $100,000 bail, which the defense attorney had agreed to.

However, Justice Di Mango set bail at $1 million, reportedly saying in response to a defense attorney’s protests, “I’m not bound by the district attorney’s requests.

cure for margo's burping said...

Canadian scientists breeding cows that burp less

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian scientists are breeding a special type of cow designed to burp less, a breakthrough that could reduce a big source of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

Cows are responsible for nearly three-quarters of total methane emissions, according to Environment Canada. Most of the gas comes from bovine burps, which are 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Stephen Moore, a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, is examining the genes responsible for methane produced from a cow's four stomachs in order to breed more efficient, environmentally friendly cows.

The professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science completed primary tests using traditional techniques to breed efficient animals that produce 25 percent less methane than less efficient animals. But more work needs to be done before the long-term impact is known. Moore's study was published earlier this year in the Journal of Animal Science.

"We are working on producing diagnostic markers for efficient animals. We are looking at the next generation of technologies that will enable us to determine the genetics of an animal through a blood test or testing some hairs that you might pluck from the animal," said Moore.

To shrink cattle's ecological footprint ranchers could also decrease the time cows are left standing in the field by getting animals to market sooner. That means breeding cattle that grow faster. Also, through breeding, cattle could become more efficient in converting feed into muscle and producing less methane and waste, said Moore.

Another method already being used to reduce methane emissions is feeding livestock a diet higher in energy and rich in edible oils, which ferment less than grass or low-quality feed.

Farmers in Alberta that feed their livestock edible oils and shorten the time to market can accrue carbon credits that could amount to between one C$1 and C$10 per head.

New Hampshire-based Stonyfield Farm, an organic yogurt producer in which Groupe Danone holds a majority stake, reduced emissions from their cows on an average of 12 percent by adding alfalfa, flax or hemp to livestock feed on a small number of its farms.

"If every U.S. dairy farmer reduced emissions by 12 percent it would be equal to about half a million cars being taken off the road," said Nancy Hirshberg, vice president of Stonyfield's Natural Resources department.

the new york times said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/nyregion/22rabbi.html?hp

A Rabbi With Earthly Connections

Anonymous said...

JEWISH WOMEN’S FOUNDATION AWARDS GRANT TO CHILD ABUSE ORGANIZATION TO HELP EXPAND “STEWARDS OF CHILDREN” PROGRAM INTO DETROIT AREA JEWISH COMMUNITY
Detroit - JEWISH WOMEN’S FOUNDATION AWARDS GRANT TO CHILD ABUSE ORGANIZATION TO HELP EXPAND “STEWARDS OF CHILDREN” PROGRAM INTO JEWISH COMMUNITY

CARE House of Oakland County has been awarded a $4,000 grant from the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit. The money will be used to provide “Stewards of Children” training for approximately 200 adults from Jewish schools and organizations serving young women and girls in the area’s Jewish community. It also will help recruit and train volunteer facilitators to conduct the program.

This will be accomplished through a partnership currently in place with Jewish Family Service, which will work with CARE House to identify specific Jewish organizations that could benefit.

Stewards of Children was developed by the national Darkness To Light organization as an evidence-based sexual abuse prevention training program to educate adults to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse, and motivate them to take action. CARE House’s existing Stewards of Children program will be expanded and altered to meet the needs of Jewish organizations, including any cultural adaptations to ensure appropriateness for the target population.

Explains Pat Rosen, executive director of CARE House, “The program brings the issue of child sexual abuse to the forefront, heightens awareness and provides useful tools for adults to identify signs and symptoms of such abuse. It encourages a proactive response and the establishment of protective systems. Child sexual abuse is something that many are uncomfortable discussing, yet its lifelong consequences, especially when not identified, can be significant and devastating. We are very grateful to the Jewish Women’s Foundation for stepping forward to support this community initiative.”

The interactive training program is conducted by a trained facilitator using a workbook, a video and discussion as the tools to present the program. It encourages a “call to action” for all participants to become involved and to develop a plan within their respective organizations and communities to address the complex issues related to child sexual abuse. The program provides opportunities for volunteers to become trained facilitators.

The Jewish Women's Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit is a grant making and educational organization dedicated to expanding opportunities for Jewish women and girls. The Foundation empowers women as philanthropists, decision-makers and leaders. It currently is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

For more information on the Stewards of Children program, including attending or hosting a presentation, contact CARE House at 248-332-7173.

The mission of CARE House of Oakland County is to be an advocate for the safety of all children and a leading resource in the prevention of child abuse and the protection of children through education, intervention, treatment and research, in collaboration with the community. The programs are housed at 44675 S. Woodward, Pontiac. www.carehouse.org

Yona Weinberg copies child molester Yehuda Nussbaum said...

Brooklyn teen accuses bar mitzvah tutor, former social worker, of abuse

By Scott Shifrel
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, June 23rd 2009, 4:00 AM

A frightened Brooklyn teenager shakily took the stand Monday to accuse a bar mitzvah tutor of repeatedly molesting him.

The boy, who wore dark glasses and a yarmulke, avoided looking at social worker Yona Weinberg as he recounted how the man allegedly took advantage of him in a car, a bathroom and private sessions beginning in November 2007.

"I remember him touching me," said the 14-year-old boy. "He touched my private area."

The boy spoke just above a whisper and nervously played with his fingers. He is one of Weinberg's four alleged victims in the nonjury trial.

Weinberg, a former social worker for the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, may testify in his own defense Tuesday. He faces as much as seven years behind bars on sex abuse and other charges.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/23/2009-06-23_teen_accuses_tutor_of_abuse.html#ixzz0JHJWXYJ6&D

peter said...

The Jewish religion is supposed to be all about moral values and kindness. It is therefore the reason why I have chosen to disassociate myself from it.

You see, I was molested by a "Rabbi" and other "Rabbis" whom I begged to help me refused to get involved.

And now that sex abuse in the orthodox community is leaking to the media, and everyday there is another story similar to mine, it makes it so hard to ever want to go back.

Abraham Mondrowitz said...

Dr. William Ayers is my hero!

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

Prosecutor: Famed Child Psychiatrist Is A Pedophile

June 23, 2009
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- The prosecutor in the case against a famous child psychiatrist wasted little time Tuesday in his opening statement, calling Dr. William Ayers a pedophile looking to “molest little boys.”

Ayres, 77, sat quietly at the defense table throughout statements by prosecuting attorney Melissa McKowan and Ayres' defense attorney Doron Weinberg, who argued his client did not act inappropriately.

Ayres, a former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is charged with 10 counts of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 14 for allegedly molesting six boys between ages 9 and 13 from 1988 to 1996.

He was arrested in April 2007 and has been free on $750,000 bail.

McKowan told jurors that six witnesses will testify against Ayres. She said four other men whose claims fall outside the statute of limitations will also address the court but that it is up to the jurors whether their testimony can be used as evidence.

McKowan said the six witnesses who will testify were children with behavioral issues who sought treatment from Ayres, and were disturbed by the alleged requests he made of them during what he told them were routine medical examinations.

"The boys were simply asked to remove their clothing, and the doctor began to touch, fondle, molest …,” McKowan said.

"The doctor regularly conducted physical exams," she added. "The boys thought they must submit."

Some of the alleged victims told their parents what happened, and some did not mention it until San Mateo police contacted them during the police investigation, McKowan said.

Nonetheless, she said, the witnesses' accounts were accurate and credible.

"Their credibility is based not on what they have done in the past, but based on what they saw," McKowan said.

"These were not legitimate medical examinations, but a ruse of a pedophile to look at and molest little boys," she added.

Weinberg began his opening statements by acknowledging that the examinations occurred, but denying that Ayres molested the boys.

He said Ayres believed that it was a psychiatrist's duty to treat the whole person, including by conducting physical examinations.

Weinberg emphasized that practices in place 50 years ago -- Ayres received his medical license in 1956 -- may not be as common today due to a change in culture.

"There will be evidence that puts (the claims) in a completely different frame," Weinberg said.

He said the alleged victims "elaborated and exaggerated simple medical procedures."

The patients, he added, "were young people with emotionally psychiatric conditions."

Rabbi Avi Shafran said...

Chaim Regensberg and Bernie Madoff are my heroes. Surely, to pull off such a scam it means they have to have good gemorrah cups.

Captain Sullenberger obviously doesn't have the brains, because why would he risk landing on water. I know plenty of people at 42 Broadway who haven't the foggiest notion of how to swim.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a16151/News/New_York.html

After Fraud, A Call For Compassion

shatnez checker and child molester yehudah nussbaum said...

It is a pity what Yona Weinberg has to go through. He probably was checking the private areas of these boys because he wasn't sure if there was any unclean fluids and he didn't want to give bar mitzvah lessons if they were tumeh.

___________________________________

Bar Mitzvah Tutor’s Sex-Abuse Trial Continues Today
by Ryan Thompson (court@brooklyneagle.net), published online 06-24-2009


JAY STREET — The sex-abuse trial of a Bar Mitzvah tutor continues in Brooklyn Supreme Court today, before Justice Gustin Reichbach.

The 29-year-old from Flatbush was indicted for numerous crimes against children. A licensed social worker, Yona Weinberg, is charged with sexually abusing four male students.

The indictment charged Weinberg with Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the Second Degree, nine counts of Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree, Attempted Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree, and six counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child.

The alleged victims, who were 12, 13 and 14 years old, were Weinberg’s students at the Khal Beth Abraham synagogue, where Weinberg gave Bar Mitzvah lessons. At least one other alleged victim was Weinberg’s client at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, where Weinberg was a social worker.

If convicted, Weinberg faces up to seven years in prison.

—Ryan Thompson
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Eli said...

Bad News:

newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stmark2412910436jun23,0,2431779.story
Newsday.com
Controversial child sex abuse bill fails to advance

BY BART JONES

bart.jones@newsday.com

10:55 PM EDT, June 23, 2009

Supporters of a controversial bill to make it easier for alleged child sex abuse victims to sue their abusers thought this was their year to get the legislation passed.

Democrats controlled both the State Senate and Assembly for the first time in years, and the bill had already passed the Assembly three sessions in a row.

But when the Assembly wrapped up its current session early Tuesday in Albany, the bill - like its sponsor Assemb. Margaret Markey (D- Maspeth) - was nowhere to be seen.

The Markey bill would create an "open window" during which the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases would be dropped. Initially, there was no limit on the alleged victim's age, but Markey amended it to cap it at 53 years or younger.

Analysts said a variety of factors contributed to the bill's failure to advance, including what one called an effective lobbying effort by the Catholic Church led by Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, among others. Religious leaders claimed the legislation could "bankrupt" the Church.

"I think she walked into both barrels of a well-organized, well-lubricated lobbying campaign by the Catholic Church," said veteran Albany lobbyist Desmond Ryan, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island.

Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the diocese, said Murphy "played an important role" in opposing the bill, writing columns and meeting with and phoning legislators. The New York State Catholic Conference and other bishops also played key roles, Dolan said.

Beyond the church campaign, analysts and politicians said Markey compounded her problems by amending the bill to explicitly include public as well as private institutions. That provoked added opposition from school officials and other public entities.

A competing bill by Assemb. Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) that did not call for dropping the statute of limitations also drained some support from Markey's bill, analysts said. The Assembly also did not take up Lopez's bill.

Michael Armstrong, a spokesman for Markey, said she was not in Albany on Monday for "personal reasons."

He said Markey's strategy had been a "tandem" approach to get it approved in the Assembly and then move quickly to the Senate. But the standoff in the Senate dashed the plan, he said.

The bill may not be completely dead. Armstrong said he expects it to be introduced at a special session later this year, and even some opponents say it could be revived.

Novminsker Tush, Yanky Perlow said...

We win and you lose... Haha.. Haha.. Mamash I am so happy that Ms. Markey has been unsuccessful. My tefillos were accepted by hakodosh boruch hu... To all those victims I say to you TOUGH NUGGIES ON YOU! haha..haha. Please be moichel zein I can't stop laughing... Hahahahaha..

FORWARD said...

http://www.forward.com/articles/108466/

Sexual-abuse survivors who traveled to Albany, N.Y., with high hopes this past spring got a tough lesson in political reality. The state Assembly’s regular session ended on June 22 without any action on a bill that would make it easier for sex-abuse victims to sue their molesters and the institutions that employed them.

“People are playing politics with innocent kids’ lives. I don’t even know what to think anymore,” said Joe Diangelo, a member of Survivors for Justice, a group that formed last year to support Jewish survivors of child sexual abuse. Diangelo was one of several Jewish activists who joined Catholic abuse survivors lobbying New York State legislators this year, only to see their efforts countered by a strong push against the bill from the Catholic Conference and a few ultra-Orthodox Jewish organizations.

“It’s sad, but by no means are we going to stop,” Diangelo said as he protested outside the office of Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a Brooklyn Democrat who played the most visible role in blocking the sex-abuse bill in the Assembly.

The bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, a Queens Democrat, plans to reintroduce the measure when the legislature reconvenes in January 2010. Markey’s bill would extend the statute of limitations for civil and criminal cases of sexual abuse; more controversially, her bill also would create a one-year “window” during which older victims of childhood sexual abuse could sue their molesters and sue any institutions that covered up or enabled the abuse, such as schools, religious institutions or community organizations. Similar “window” legislation in California led to about 1,000 lawsuits, most of them against the Catholic Church.

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish pt. 1 said...

ASSEMBLY GIVES PREDATORS AND ENABLERS A FREE PASS The New York Assembly has given a free pass to sexual predators of children - of any stripe, sexual orientation or religious affiliation. Enabling individuals and institutions will get a free pass as well. It's not too difficult to conclude that the late into the night wheeling and dealing in the backrooms of Albany was very successful. The transparent collusion between religious institutions and the insurance industry, along with both groups' well heeled lobbyists, has managed once more to put the protection of children in the endangered species list - and this from groups who say they believe in and even signed onto the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. How does one explain a corruption so insidious that it protects sexual predators and their enablers at a cost that trumps the civil rights and lives of all children? Why is it when there is an ever broadening epidemic of child abuse in this country and a veritable pandemic around the world that some states still give more accommodation in law to individual predators, their enablers and facilitators, then to the very real victims of childhood sexual abuse? Perhaps it is easier to understand when one considers that in this country there were animal abuse prevention laws on the books a good ten years before any child abuse prevention laws appeared. Such a pattern continues in New York. Truly, it is heart wrenching to realize that there are churchmen in the state of New York, as elsewhere, who actually oppose the removal of statutes of limitations regarding the sexual abuse of our children. In the state of New York, leaders of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Jewish denominations pulled out all the stops to influence legislators to support their opinion that sexual predators and abusers should not be held accountable, and in particular instances, even threatening legislators belonging to their own denominations. Methinks a federal investigation of conspiracy and collusion is warranted in this matter. Ah, where is the Lord Jesus Christ when putting in an appearance would have really helped? This kind of wheeling and dealing by any religious entity should be unacceptable to all of us who are concerned with the trafficking of individuals for sexual exploitation, because, make no mistake about it, the sexual abuse of children in religious denominations, sects and cults are part and parcel of the wider epidemic and pandemic of trafficking. It is particularly disheartening in light of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See, was one of the earliest signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child while seemingly incapable of grasping the fact that "grooming" a child by buying ice cream cones, may actually fall into the category of "trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation." Is this another example of a “Do as I say, not as I do,” mentality? “Window” legislation, as it relates to civil statutes, is the single most important factor in holding sexual predators and their enabling individuals or institutions accountable.

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish pt. 2 said...

New York’s Markey/Duane bill is rather modest when compared to Delaware’s 2007 Child Victims Law which went from an egregious two year statute of limitation to none going forward and includes a two year civil window for previously time barred cases of childhood sexual abuse - by anyone - and which remains open until July 09, 2009. I was privileged to testify before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in support of Delaware’s child abuse legislation. So imperious are religious denominations’ disregard of children in the state of New York, that the statute of limitations now protects known sexual abusers of children from criminal prosecution forever once short statutes of limitation expire. Now it will only continue. I cannot comprehend the hubris that would occasion the type of behavior that has been so graphically delineated in a number of investigations in the U.S. including the 2002 Suffolk County, NY Grand Jury Report which detailed the clergy sex abuse of children in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Yet churchmen still question the rightfulness of extending the statute of limitations. Why, one wonders, did dioceses in the state of New York not distribute postcards for the members of the Catholic community to sign and send to their legislators in Albany to support the complete removal of statutes of limitations going forward in regard to the sexual abuse of children, criminally and civilly? This is not a matter belonging to what the Catholic Church calls the “deposit of faith,” and, leaving aside the matter of mortal sin for the moment, the sexual abuse of children is a matter of criminal behavior. Can there be any question about the intrinsic evil of the sexual abuse of children or of the fact that such individuals are intrinsically disordered? Certainly not! Church officials who claim that their dioceses, parishes, churches or programs will go bankrupt have produced no data to support such inflammatory statements and in states like California and Delaware there has been not the slightest possibility of that happening. In fact, in addition to settling a $ 660 million dollar lawsuit a few years ago, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California built and paid for a new cathedral that any city in the world would be proud to showcase. It is important to remember that window legislation is not “anti” any particular group; it is pro-child. It forces records, if they exist and have not been destroyed, to be made available in a court of justice and hopefully into the public venue as well. Moreover, there should be no accommodation in law giving more protection to individuals who have been accused of the sexual abuse of children than to the victims themselves. I think the New York Assembly lost an exceptional opportunity this time around to make those who violate and abuse New York's children, along with those who have done so in the past, accountable. They should have followed Delaware's lead in this growing civil rights movement for children but they did not. The children are the losers, again. Sister Maureen Paul Turlish Victims’ Advocate New Castle, Delaware maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com __________________________________________

Sister Maureen is a Delaware educator and a victims’ advocate who testified before the Delaware Senate and House Judiciary Committees in support of Delaware’s 2007 Child Victims Law.

She can be reached at: maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com

glorybe1929 said...

You will never be able to convince any religious leaders to go along with your bill, to hold any of them, plus the Vatican, accountabile. Get the people who have been abused to start rising up in the streets in front of these so called churches,[all over the world] along with those who hold them dear. Let the parishioners that still go to this evil place know you won't allow them to get away with it any more.

I have never been sexually abused by a Roman Catholic clergy but I surely have been Mentally Abused, my whole Roman Catholic life, by a bunch of brainwashing evil MEN who only want you to Pay, Pray? and OBEY! Anyone who stays in it, is supporting the evil that is allowed to continue, century afer century. St. Paul in the middle of the 1st century, said there would be "Anathema" and that prediction is true, right up to this very moment. Get Smart and Realize Exactly What it is YOU have been allowing by your selfishness to stay in this evil place.

Anonymous said...

Yaakov Horowitz and his Agudah buddies must be ecstatic. They get their wish. Victims of childhood sexual abuse will continue to be engulfed in misery while their tormentors get away with their crimes.

giving up said...

The Child's Victim Act of New York will not come to fruition. I wave the white flag and want nothing whatsoever to do with Judaism anymore.

For the Jewish organizations who are in opposition of the one year window - and for the Church lobbyists - you are sick and disgusting hypocrites.

Your masks of piety will be unveiled. I'm just hoping you suffer hardship and misfortune for your evil ways and for the piles of salt you rubbed on the victims wounds.

beliefnet said...

{Excerpt)

Jews in Jail
Jews in America's prisons--and on death row--face discrimination and abandonment, but a few advocates are working to change that

I met Jane Davis at a Jewish meditation retreat a few months ago. Before the meditation retreat began, we spoke briefly in the bookstore and she told me about her work--helping Jewish prisoners.

Jane Davis lives in Atlanta. She grew up in Kingston, N.Y., in a Jewish family and received a master's degree in social work. She worked for several years with gang youth and prisoners but left that world for business and marketing. But something drew her back.

In the early 90s, she began writing articles about prisoners, and in December 1993 she was asked to be a media witness at the execution of Chris Berger. She told me, "I was so affected at witnessing a human being literally fried in front of my eyes, heart and soul, that I came out seeking spiritual support as well as deeper answers to the question burning inside me: 'How did we as a society evolve to this moment of human degradation?' I viscerally knew the oneness of our collective soul. Chris was me and I was him. His eyes stayed glued to mine from the moment he was brought into the execution chamber until the leather flap was put over his eyes."

As a direct result of her being a witness, she founded a nonprofit peace organization "based on honesty, faith, and action." She calls it HOPE-HOWSE, an acronym for her philosophy: "Help Other People Evolve through Honest Open Willing Self Evaluation (and expression)."

From a Jewish perspective, she says, "It could be called tikkun olam in action." (Tikkun olam, literally, "repair of the world," is a Kabbalistic term that these days is generally applied to social action work.)

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Judaism/2000/08/Jews-In-Jail.aspx

5tjt said...

After visiting her doctor, a 27-year-old woman—married and with three small children—discovers that she has an advanced case of cancer. Of course it’s not a simple matter. Not only is there an immediate medical situation that has to be addressed, but also life itself in this family is about to be disrupted on every level. That is, unless there is someone capable of springing into action, getting a handle on the situation, and making certain that all relevant issues are addressed and efficiently taken care of, from contacting the right doctors and hospital to making certain that the children are cared for properly.

The Five Towns, Far Rockaway, and surrounding Jewish communities are populated by fairly sophisticated and accomplished individuals and families. So the question needs to be posed—why is it that when there is a family crisis or emergency we often have to reach outside the community for assistance? That’s a question a young communal activist and member of the local Nassau County Hatzalah has been asking himself over the last year or so.

Boruch Ber Bender’s experience has exposed him to the sometimes complex and even tragic aspects of life, matters that many of us encounter only from a distance. “The fact is that when the unexpected event occurs,” says Rabbi Bender, (son of Rabbi Yaakov Bender, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Darchei Torah) “very often panic and indecision are the first and almost reflexive reaction.” And that’s the juncture at which he sees the role of Achiezer, a new resource center based in the Five Towns that has already helped out in a number of circumstances during the last half year. “Our role in these instances has essentially been to be the ones slightly removed from the ordeal and able to consult with doctors and other professionals about how to best deal with a situation,” he said...

Rabbi Shlomie Mandel the putz said...

Even a rosh yeshivah needs to have his needs taken care of. This could be talking about me---

I entertained and had sex with all kinds of men, from the rich and famous, to Hasidic Jewish business men, from Mafia gangsters, to police officers. Naturally, I had quite a few clients who worked as judges and lawyers. The men of the legal profession were generally respectful, good tippers (often we made about the same hourly wage) and always in a hurry to go back to work. They came to me racked with stress and tension, and left feeling relaxed and blissful. I could take pride in my work. I am convinced that without prostitution the legal system could not function….”

NY1 said...

06/24/2009
Hebrew School Teacher Found Guilty Of Sexual Abuse

By: NY1 News

A Hebrew school teacher in Brooklyn has been found guilty of sexually abusing two students.

The Brooklyn District Attorney says Yona Weinberg, 31, was convicted of sexual abuse in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child.

The DA says Weinberg, a Flatbush Bar Mitzvah tutor and licensed social worker, sexually abused a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy back in May 2008.

Weinberg is due back in court on September 9th for sentencing, where he faces up to two years in jail.

kishke said...

Are you aware that Yona Weinberg is in jail today b/c of R' Dovid Cohen, and that R' Cohen has been reviled publicly and privately for his actions in that case? Are you aware that he is one of the only rabbonim to regularly pasken that the authorities may be alerted regarding credible accusations of sexual abuse? These are facts. If only there were more rabbonim like him. If you really wanted to stop child abuse, you wouldn't attack those who actually take action against it.

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Unknown said...

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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!!!!!!!