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Tuesday 30 July 2013

Harassment charges linked to Rabbi Chaim Halpern investigation dropped

From: www.hamhigh.co.uk

hamhigh

Shlomo Feldman, 28, and Samuel Erlanger, 37, were set for trials as part of ongoing investigations into orthodox rabbi Chaim Halpern, 54, leader of Divrei Chaim Synagogue in Bridge Lane, Temple Fortune.

Mr Erlanger, of Powis Gardens, Golders Green, was due to appear for trial at Willesden Magistrates’ Court facing one charge of harassment without violence on July 11.

Mr Feldman, of Lynmouth Road, Stamford Hill, was due for a trial at the same court on Friday facing three charges of harassment without violence.

But both trials were abandoned after the complainants in both cases withdrew support for the prosecutions.


Rabbi Halpern was arrested and questioned in February on suspicion of sexual assault and perverting the course of justice. 

He is due to return to police in August.


Beth Din Ruling Forbidding Children To Go To MIkveh


Monday 29 July 2013

Kiryas Yoel - Shimon Zorger, Missing Autistic Boy B"H Found


A 10-year-old autistic boy from Brooklyn who went missing Sunday in Orange County has been found.

A New York State trooper spotted Shimon Zorger on the property of a local girls' school in the village of Kiryas Joel around 9 a.m. Monday, police said.

"He was a little reluctant, but we called for some citizens to come alleviate the child's fears and he came with the trooper and he's being reunited with his parents," said Capt. Brendan Casey.

"We are grateful for the overwhelming outpouring of concern and support from our loved ones and all of our friends and neighbors as well as the rescue personnel involved in the search," Zorger's family said in a statement. "Our son is in good condition at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center. As we move forward we ask that you honor our family's request for privacy so we can focus on his care. Thank you."

The little boy was visiting his grandparents when he wandered away from their yard around 6 p.m. Sunday.

A massive flood of community volunteers from as far away as Brooklyn worked alongside state police and other agencies through the night looking for Shimon.

"They brought bloodhounds, helicopters, BCI units, troopers from all over," said Kiryas Joel Public Safety Director Moses Witriol. "We worked hand-in-hand together."

Authorities said the boy has wandered off before, sometimes dozens of blocks away from his Brooklyn home. There was concern that overnight, he would have become disoriented and lost in the rain and unfamiliar surroundings.

"Every minute that goes by without a result, you become anxious so to see this ending, it's a very good feeling," said Witriol. "The community is happy that there's a happy ending to it."

Officials said Shimon's parents had just ordered a GPS device for him to wear around his neck that would allow them to communicate with him if he did wander off. The device had not yet arrived by the time they left to visit his grandparents.


Sunday 28 July 2013

בטלפונים הכשרים החדשים אייקון שאפשר להקליט כל אחד ולעקוב אחר כל צעד שלו - בקודמים ככל הנראה רק בחלק



אקדים החקירה לא הסתיימה, אנחנו בודקים את כל סוגי המכשירים החדשים ולא רק בלקברי, מה שלמדנו עד כה, שבטלפונים החדשים הכניסו אייקון עוקב ויש מי שיכול לעקוב אחר כל אחד, ולא רק שאפשר, אחרי חלק עקבו ואף הניחו בפניהם את השיחות להוכיח מה דיברו ומה עשו

את החקירה התחלנו לפני כמה חדשים בעקבות תלונות על האזנות, היה זה מקרה של שידוך שמישהו חשף וידע כל פרט, התברר כי הוא הצליח להשיג הקלטות של כל שיחות הטלפון של אותו אדם. תחילה חשבנו כי מדובר בהאזנה בדרך כפי שעושים גם בטלפונים האחרים, אבל במשך הזמן באו עוד עם סיפורים מזעזעים, מתברר כי 'טוהר המחנה' ועוד כאלו שעוסקים בענינים שלא אכתוב כאן - בעתיד אביא פירוט מדוייק עם שמות - עקבו אחר אברכים ואנשים פרטיים, עד כדי כך שהם ידעו דברים אישיים מאוד, עקבו אחריו ואחרי מי שעימם דיבר ואף הוזמנו לשיחת בירור

כשבדקנו מצאנו שהכל בא מאותו מקור מי שקשורים עם אלו שהכינו ועבדו על הטלפונים הכשרים שבהם יש היום אייקון שמאפשר לעקוב אחרי כל מי שרוצים. לא ברור לנו אם זה נעשה בשל לחצים או בגלל רצון לסחוט, קיים חשד רציני כי מי שעומדים מאחורי זה אינם רק מי שיש להם ענין ב'טוהר' המחנה' אלא בלעקוב ואף לסחוט כפי שעשו למישהו בשבועות האחרונים

לנו אין עוד ספק כי בחלק לפחות מן הטלפונים הללו יש דרך איך לעקוב אחרי כל מי שיש לו טלפון כזה, אנחנו ממשיכים בחקירה וכשיהיו לנו מסקנות מלאות נביא אותם כולל פרטים ושמות. מן החומר שיש כבר עכשיו מתברר כי מי שעומדים מאחורי הטלפונים הכשרים הם קבוצת מושחתים, שלא האינטרנט ודומיהם מפריעה להם אלא מצאו דרך להתעשר לא רק על ידי מכירת טלפונים אלא הרבה יותר בדרך אחרת

יתכן ולא תהיה ברירה ונערב בענין את המשטרה וגורמים אחרים, אנו המומים מן האינפרומציה ובעיקר מאיך שהקלטות 
של שיחות של אנשים פרטיים בטלפון הכשר נמצא בידיים של סחטנים

Cambrian News Editorial comment - Candles ban seems disproportionate

From: www.cambrian-news.co.uk

Cambrian News Ltd.

YOU CAN’T argue in favour of taking risks with fire. Yet there remains something odd about Aberystwyth University suddenly telling hundreds of Jewish people from Europe’s biggest Hasidic community in north London they can no longer rent the Pentre Jane Morgan student village because they’re in the habit of lighting candles on a Friday night.

The Stamford Hill visitors have been coming to Aberystwyth and staying in university accommodation and lighting candles on a Friday night every August for more than 20 years. Lighting candles – usually two – on a Friday night to welcome Shabbat – the Jewish day of rest – is for them an indispensable ritual.

It was apparently never regarded as a problem. Until last year, when the visitors were told candles were out.

“Unfortunately, last year there was more than one incident involving lit candles with this visiting group,” the university said.This Jewish community, saddened at missing its regular fortnight in Aberystwyth, suggested an answer - the candles could be enclosed in glass holders, a practice followed in many Jewish households.

The university said no. They had taken legal and health-and-safety advice.The university’s reaction seems disproportionate. Candles are being lit all the time without loss of life or property. All that’s necessary is for a little care to be taken. How else are we supposed to manage during power-cuts?

Should churches cluck worriedly and consign their antique candlesticks to locked chests never to be used again? May we be assured there are no elegant silver candelabra lurking in a cupboard at Plas Penglais, and that if there are they will never again grace a dinner table presided over by a current or future vice-chancellor ?

Glass holders would surely be an adequate safety measure.

If they are considered good enough protection - as they are - for numerous ancient churches and cathedrals, which are always lighting candles when hundreds of people are present, why not for a student village in Aberystwyth - on a total of just two Friday nights over a whole year?


Author: cambrian



Stones and eggs hurled at Hasidic Jewish boys in sickening attack in Sheerness

From:  www.kentonline.co.uk

KentOnline Logo...

Sheerness High Street

Stones have been thrown at a coach carrying Jewish boys before they were egged in a sickening attack in Sheerness.

Witnesses saw around seven teenage boys and girls hurling missiles at the vehicle and shouting "go back to where you came from".

Moments later, the group of 10 to 14-year-olds were set upon again with eggs.

Now a coach firm is warning ethnic minority groups not to visit the Isle of Sheppey in the wake of the attack.

The Hasidic Jews, from London, were visiting the town to go to the beach after a trip to Diggerland in Strood on Tuesday afternoon.

A window on the coach was smashed as it turned into High Street from Millennium Way. Luckily, no one was hurt.

One person - who saw the incident, but did not want to be named for fear of repercussions - said: "They were saying '**** you - go back to where you came from'.

"I couldn't believe some of the things they were saying."

The vehicle then moved to the car park in nearby Trinity Road, where witnesses said the group of 10 to 14-year-olds from London were set upon again with eggs.

West's Coaches Limited, which is based in South Woodford, London, had to send a replacement service to pick up the passengers and take them back home.

Director Nick Brown said his business is £1,000 out of pocket to pay for a new window and having to divert another driver from the capital.

He said: "The people on the coach were pretty shaken up. In the future we will have to warn ethnic minorities about bringing them to Sheppey."

He added abuse was also aimed at the driver, who is of Indian descent.

Heather Thomas-Pugh, chairman of Sheppey Tourism Alliance, said: "We are extremely disappointed that this sort of behaviour has happened on our island.

"When people take the time and trouble to come and visit us, they should expect Islanders to provide a warm welcome.

"It is incidents like this, from a minority, that prevent the Isle of Sheppey being seen in the correct light."


A Kent Police spokesman confirmed officers were called to reports of criminal damage at just before 1.50pm. It is not currently known if it is being investigated as a hate crime.


Thursday 25 July 2013

Father not guilty of raping daughter

From: www.thejc.com

The man was found not guilty of all charges at Wood Green Crown Court in north London

The man was found not guilty of all charges at Wood Green Crown Court in north London

A father accused of leading the gang rape of his daughter along with a family friend has been found not guilty on all charges.

The father, 45, from north west London, was accused of sexual assault, causing or inciting sexual activity, rape, conspiracy to rape and perverting the course of justice. His friend was charged with two counts of conspiracy to rape. Neither of them can be identified for legal reasons.

The trial at Wood Green Crown Court lasted a month, and on Monday the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all charges.

For the full story, see this week’s paper edition of the Jewish Chronicle.

Tuesday 23 July 2013

The New York Times - The Faithful’s Failings

The New York Times

From: www.nytimes.com

The men were spiritual leaders, held up before the children around them as wise and righteous and right. So they had special access to those kids. Special sway.
And when they exploited it by sexually abusing the children, according to civil and criminal cases from different places and periods, they were protected by their lofty stations and by the caretakers of their faith. The children’s accusations were met with skepticism. The community of the faithful either couldn’t believe what had happened or didn’t want it exposed to public view: why give outsiders a fresh cause to be critical? So the unpleasantness was hushed up.
This is not a column about the Catholic Church.
This is a column about Orthodox Jews, who have recently had similar misdeeds exposed, similar cover-ups revealed.
And I’m writing it, yes, because the Catholic Church over the last two decades has absorbed the bulk of journalistic attention, my own included, in terms of child sexual abuse. There are compelling reasons that’s been so: Catholicism has more than one billion nominal adherents worldwide; endows its clerics with a degree of mysticism that many other denominations don’t; and is just centralized enough for scattered cover-ups to coalesce into something more like a conspiracy. The pattern of criminality and evasion has been staggering.
But some of the same dynamics that fed the crisis in Catholicism — an aloof patriarchy, an insularity verging on superiority, a disinclination to get secular officials involved — exist elsewhere. And the way they’ve played out in Orthodox Judaism illustrates anew that religion isn’t always the higher ground and safer harbor it purports to be. It can also be a self-preserving haven for wrongdoing.
Early this month, 19 former students of the Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by two rabbis in the 1970s and 1980s who continued to work there even after molestation complaints. The rabbis were also allowed to move on to new employment without ever being held accountable. School administrators, the lawsuit alleges, elected not to report anything to the police.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, the president of Yeshiva at the time, admitted as much in an interview with The Jewish Daily Forward. He said that when accusations against a faculty member were “an open-and-shut case,” he’d let the accused person “go quietly.”
Back then there was less alarm about, and understanding of, child molestation, he said. Back then he was also steering Yeshiva through grave financial hardship. A sex-abuse scandal wouldn’t have been a great fund-raising tool.
“The school made the conscious and craven decision to protect its reputation,” Kevin Mulhearn, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told me Monday.
Is such a defensive mind-set really a relic of a less enlightened past? Earlier this year a prominent scholar at Yeshiva University, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, was caught on audiotape at a conference in London telling Orthodox leaders that Jewish communities should set up their own review boards to evaluate any complaints of child sexual abuse and determine whether to bother with the police. This contradicts state laws on mandatory reporting for teachers, counselors, physicians and such.
Schachter further discouraged police involvement by warning that accused abusers could wind up “in a cell together with a shvartze, in a cell with a Muslim, a black Muslim who wants to kill all the Jews.” Shvartze is a harshly derogatory racial term. Yeshiva University condemned the remarks but seemingly didn’t discipline Schachter, who didn’t respond to my request Monday for comment. Neither did Rabbi Lamm.
Rabbi Schachter’s aversion to law enforcement isn’t isolated. The ultra-Orthodox group Agudath Israel of America has taken the position that observant Jews should get a green light from a rabbi before notifying police about suspected molestation. It’s precisely this sort of internal policing that the Catholic Church did so disastrously, leaving abusers unpunished and children in harm’s way.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews in particular have prioritized their image and independence over justice. They have shunned Jews who took accusations outside their communities; in fact, Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, has cited that as a reason for minimizing publicity around child sexual abuse cases among Orthodox Jews. But over the weekend hechanged tacks and gave The New York Post the names of some 40 convicted people.
Community intimidation is why 17 of the 19 plaintiffs in the Yeshiva case are identified only as John Doe, said Mulhearn, their lawyer, who mentioned another insidious wrinkle reminiscent of Catholic cases.

One of the abusers, he said, used religion itself to muffle a few abused boys. The rabbi allegedly invoked the Holocaust, which their parents had survived, telling the boys not to cause mom or dad any more suffering with a public stink.

Monday 22 July 2013

Rabbi Chaim Rapoport responds to Jewish Chronicle article







Rabbi Chaim Rapoport

The senior rabbi that a Jewish girl turned to for assistance, who then went on to provide character evidence for her abuser, has sent the following comprehensive statement to Tzedek in response to last week’s article in the UK’s The Jewish Chronicle (http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/109571/she-told-police-she-was-abused-her-friends-made-her-pay-price),
Rabbi Chaim Rapoport writes:
I have stated my opinion in numerous public forums that paedophiles, as all criminals who constitute a threat to society, should be incarcerated in jail, if necessary – for life, the primary reason being: to protect their potential victims from abuse. I have likewise stated unequivocally that victims and those with knowledge or reasonable suspicion of abuse in the Jewish community must report such cases to the legal authorities in order to ensure that the victims are fully supported, the criminals are penalized and society is protected. I decry those people who exhibit a grotesque lack of sympathy or attempt to belittle the trauma suffered by victims, or, worse still, perversely portray the predators (and their active or passive accomplices) as the victims and cruelly penalise and ostracise victims and their families. I support institutions that are designed to help victims. I myself have been instrumental in setting up support apparatus for victims and have asserted myself to help them in every possible way. Now to the issue at hand:
The case of Mr. Levy and Ms. Goldsobel (both of whom had previously come to me for counseling) went before a Crown Court jury on two occasions. Ultimately verdicts of not guilty on all rape charges and any other charges relating to post-16 activity were entered on the court record. The court was however satisfied that sexual conduct had started before Goldsobel was 16 and that it followed as a matter of law that she could not have consented to that activity, regardless of whether she had been a willing partner. Yet, when sentencing Levy, the judge stated explicitly that he does not constitute a threat to society.
From a Jewish perspective, even if the woman was over the age of 16 when (as the defendant claimed) a long-term consensual sexual affair began, the relationship undoubtedly constituted a transgression of Jewish Law and arguably an ethical misdemeanor. It was in this context that I stated in court that the age of legal consent is somewhat arbitrary, because whether a girl is 15 or 16 does not mitigate the religious misdemeanor and cannot truly be determinant in deciding whether the relationship was exploitative in nature. A clandestine relationship between a 16 or 17 year old girl and a man some ten years her senior may well be exploitative and constitute a breach of trust. Therefore, even according to the defendant’s version of the events, the woman was correct in not allowing the matter to be ignored and when she consulted with me, I offered her empathetic advice, encouragement and pastoral support. It is for this reason that, even before the case came to court, I counseled the defendant on penitential and spiritual ‘rectification’ and prescribed measures for his continuous ethical and religious rehabilitation, including the provision of financial assistance for the sexually offended.
Given the defendant’s personal and family circumstances, his current lifestyle, and the assertion (shared by the judge) that he does not constitute a threat to society, it has been argued that in his case punitive and corrective measures other than jail may be more appropriate and helpful. It was in this context that I gave a current character reference about the defendant whom I have observed on an almost daily basis and personally counseled on many occasions. I have witnessed, over a number of years, his penitence and his progressive transformation from the religiously and morally wayward paths of his younger years. It is my impression that he is now a changed man, an ethically responsible member of the community in addition to being a good husband and father to his (soon) six young children. It is of course beyond my remit and area of expertise to determine the nature of the penalty, but it is my prerogative, if not duty, to provide the judge with information that may be relevant to his decision.



Friday 19 July 2013

Sex-crime victim tells how community snubbed her for taking case to court

From: www.thejc.com

Defiant: Yehudis Goldsobel refused to be silenced — even waiving her right to anonymity to speak out
Defiant: Yehudis Goldsobel refused to be silenced — even waiving her right to anonymity to speak out

By Anna Sheinman, July 18, 2013

A young Orthodox woman who was sexually abused as a child has broken her silence to talk about the despair of being betrayed by her own community.
After years of suffering at the hands of a long-time family friend, Yehudis Goldsobel finally reached out for help. But after reporting the crimes to the police, rabbis refused to acknowledge her suffering, her family were driven from their synagoue, and kosher shops refused to serve them.
Now, as father-of-six Menachem Mendel Levy, 41, begins a three-year jail term for two counts of sexual assault, his victim, now 27, has waived her legal right to anonymity to speak out in a bid to encourage other victims to come forward.
“Since the sentencing the reaction from the community has been really upsetting. I’ve had people closing doors, I’ve had people stop talking to me.
“I think some people thought it was contagious, going to the police,” she said.
“Members of my family have been requested to not return to the synagogue, other members threatened to leave if we continued to attend. We have been asked not to enter certain shops for fear they might lose customers.
“Other members of the community have said the reaction is my punishment from God for being what they see as less Orthodox.”
Levy, who Yehudis’s mother described as “like a brother”, used to come to the family home in Edgware to babysit, help Yehudis do her homework and take her on drives in his car.
It was on these trips, including a visit to Homebase and a drive to a Chanucah party, that the abuse began.
Giving evidence in court, she said that he would abuse her at any time and any place, including on a plane to Israel when they were surrounded by family members, and in the back of a Royal Mail van he had access to.
She said the assaults escalated into continuing rape.
The first trial ended in deadlock when the jury could not reach a decision, but Levy was convicted at the retrial of sexual assault, although he was acquited of rape.
Levy argued that their sexual contact was a consenting extra-marital affair which began when she was over 16. The jury were shown a birthday card she had written to him after she had said the abuse began.
“When the card was produced, I actually vomited. The fact that he still had it made me sick, I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t want to touch it.
“The first trial was horrific,” she said. “It was like being in a boxing ring, someone punching and pounding."
The sentencing hearing was attended by a large number of men from the community in north-west London.
Rabbi Chaim Rapoport, who until last year held the medical ethics portfolio on the Chief Rabbi’s cabinet, gave evidence as a character witness for Levy, calling him the “embodiment of repentance”, despite the fact that Levy pleaded not guilty and is appealing against both his jail sentence and his conviction.
When the rabbi was asked what Levy was repenting, he said it was the breach of trust, and added that in Jewish law: “The age 15, 16, 16 and a half would be seen as somewhat arbitrary”.
Ironically, Rabbi Rapoport is one of the people Yehudis went to for support when she first decided to reveal the abuse.
Speaking of his comments to the court, she said: “I was mortified. I was embarrassed to be Jewish. It was the last straw for me.”
Contacted this week, Rabbi Rapoport declined to comment.
For Yehudis, the process of coming to terms with her experience has left deep scars.
“I’ve gone through every possible emotion. When I first understood what had happened I was in shock and denial. It was too much to even begin to process.
“It’s pathetic that I didn’t know what sexual abuse was. I didn’t know what rape was. When he started doing things to me, I didn’t know they were sexual.
“When he contacted me and tried to rationalise it as a meaningful relationship, when he said he had cared for me, it was worse than disgust. It was so arrogant, so selfish.
“I had, maybe naively, always thought the first thing he would say to me would be an apology. Then I got angry. The rabbis did nothing to help, I was in despair.
“I was a little lost sheep knocking on doors. Your whole life you are told if you are ever in trouble you turn to the rabbis and here they were turning away from me.
“When I finally told the police I was so relieved, it was like leaving a pile of bricks at the door.
“The conviction was a relief, it was over. It just meant that somebody else believed me. I had been living in a world where nobody else wanted to acknowledge it.”
She said that she still suffered nightmarish memories of the abuse.
“I do get flashbacks, at the most inconvenient moments, like when you’re driving at 70 on the motorway. But they are getting less.
“Some things do still trigger. Feelings, smells… when I see a red van my heart switches in my stomach and I just freeze. It could be just a few moments, or it could ruin the rest of my day.”
Sitting at a table in the window of a coffee bar in Edgware, she acknowledges that the effects of the trial process will live with her forever.
“You become desensitised. I can talk about sexual abuse for hours, which isn’t normal,” she says.
“It felt like being stripped bare to your insides. I felt very vulnerable and exposed, always looking over my shoulder.
“It’s a lonely procedure, it’s very foreign. There was no step by step. I didn’t know what I was allowed to say and what I wasn’t. You needed a life translator. I couldn’t think what the secular words were.”
The turning point for her came when the police team dealing with her case decided to take a course of Jewish education.

“The police were trying hard to learn,” she said, “I felt they were on my side.”
Because of her experience, Yehudis has created a charity, Migdal Emunah, to help victims of sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community.
It counsels those who have suffered abuse and holds their hand through the police and court process.
“It started because I started talking about my story,” she said.
“It’s been amazing. The best part of it is that victims realise they’re not alone. They all speak the same language and can share their experiences.”
Her charity now has five counsellors, who meet clients privately and in groups. All the counsellors are Jewish, because, she says: “My view is ‘let’s fix it from within’”.
Clients pay what they can afford — the charity is currently supporting between 20 and 30 people.
“It’s a horrible messy process,” she said, “but I’d like to think we can help with the feeling of being alone.”
Migdal Emunah’s next step is education. “Things like ‘this is my body’, ‘no means no’, and appropriate touch,” Yehudis explains.
She describes a book that every Orthodox girl in her community receives at 10 or 11, with a purple coloured jacket, which describes things like the menstrual cycle, but not sex, rape, or abuse.

“There needs to be a new purple book,” she says.
She does not feel that abuse is more widespread in the Orthodox community than in the wider community, but she says: “We just don’t deal with it. We victimise the victim.”
After the years of suffering, she says she has now found her purpose in life.
“The abuse took my teenage years away from me. There’s nothing I can do to change the past, but it makes me all the more determined to have a full life, to not live in the shadow of his abuse.
“It motivates me, it makes it all the more important to shout from the rooftops, so no one else will have to go through what I did.”
And what are her goals, ultimately? “Breaking the silence, educating, creating awareness.”
She laughs. “There’s a lot to do.”


Thursday 18 July 2013

I was betrayed by community, says sex-abused girl



From: www.thejc.com




By Anna Sheinman
July 18, 2013




A woman who was sexually abused by a close family friend has spoken out about her betrayal, first by her abuser and then by the Orthodox Jewish community.

Yehudis Goldsobel, now 27, from Edgware in north London was sexually assaulted by Menachem Mendel Levy from the age of 14. Three weeks ago he was jailed for three years.

Now Yehudis has waived her legal right to anonymity in order to break the silence and speak about the crimes that took her teenage years from her.

She speaks of the “horrible, messy process” of battling through the courts, and how she was ostracised from her community — which she was told was her “punishment from God” for being “less Orthodox”.

She says of her decision to go to the police: “It’s not a triumph, it wasn’t something to celebrate, but it was something I had to do.”

Yehudis has created a charity, Migdal Emunah, to support victims of abuse in the community. 

She hopes that this, along with telling her story, will encourage others to come forward and that by raising awareness no one else will have to suffer as she did.


Full interview to follow

Hatzolah in New York - Big קידוש השם

Orthodox Jewish Camp Counselor Accused Of Inappropriately Touching Boy



SMITHFIELD TWP., Pa. - A camp counselor from Canada has found himself in some hot water in the Poconos. 

A man is accused of touching a boy in an inappropriate way at a camp in Smithfield Township, Monroe County. 

Chisdai Ben-Porat, 19, is free on $20,000 bail. The victim says Ben-Porat came into his cabin at a Camp Dora Golding, a Jewish camp for boys, and touched him. The 12-year-old boy says he was in his bunk Thursday when Ben-Porat came into his room and began to massage his shoulders. The affidavit of probable cause says the boy told investigators that the incident made him uncomfortable and that Ben-Porat quote "took it too far" and put his hands down the boy's pants, massaging his buttocks. The boy says Ben-Porat left the cabin after another counselor came in. 

The affidavit says the boy told camp officials who contacted the boy's parents and state police. Ben-Porat is a Canadian. His Facebook page says he studied at the Ottawah Torah Institute. He was arrested and now faces charges of corruption of minors, unlawful contact with a minor and indecent assault. 69 News made several attempts to get a response to the allegations from the executive director of Camp Dora Golding but our requests for comment went unanswered. 

The Jewish Community has been talking about this story ever since it broke. One web site published a letter allegedly written by the executive director of the camp to parents, outlining the steps taken and the investigation. Ben-Porat was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing on the charges August 24th. Court officials say that hearing has been postponed. 69 News also tried to reach him for comment, but he did not respond to messages.


Wednesday 17 July 2013

אם אידיש היתה שפת המדינה איך היו מדברים האדמורי"ם מסאטמאר וחב"ד?

באנגליה מזהירים שלא להשכיר סרטים בט' באב מי שיעשה זאת ימסרו אותו

From: bshch.blogspot.co.uk


בכל מקום יש מי שמשגיחים עליך דואגים שחלילה לא תחטא, תראו את מה שצילמו היום באנגליה במקום היכן שמשכירים סרטים, איני יודע אלו סרטים כי ממה נפשך, אם מדובר בסרטים לא כשרים מה הענין דוקא בט' באב בכל השנה זה אסור, אבל אם מדובר בסרטים כשרים אלא אסורים בט' באב אפשר להבין שאסור וטוב אם מישהו היה כותב שם כי בט' באב אסור להסתכל בסרטים למי שאינו יודע, אבל ההוספה כי אם תשכיר מבטיחים לו כי ילשינו עליו לישיבה או לרב היכן שהוא מתפלל זה מה שחמור ואסור מפני שבעיני זה מה שגורם שיותר ויותר יעשו את הרע והלא טוב

אם הוא היה כותב את אותו דבר בלי הסוף הוא היה משפיע פי מאה ממה שהוא עשה במעשה הזה. הוא אולי הבריח כמה שפחדו, אבל אלו לא וויתרו הלכו למקום אחר היכן שלא מסתכלים ולא רואים ושם הוא כבר ישכיר סרט שהוא אסור בכל השנה, אז מה הרווחנו

Our Bal Moifes is Mesader Kedushen again tomorrow



Moshe Bunim Meyer is being Poretz Geder again tomorrow ! our Ball Moifes Chaim Halpern will be the Maseder Kedushen at the Chuppah of Meyer's son in Stamford Hill.

R' Padwa, who would not allow many great Tzadikim to be Mesader Kiddushin is giving Chaim Halpern his full backing to do it again.


Friday 12 July 2013

Yeshiva University Rocked as 6 More People Accuse School of Sex Abuse Cover-Up

Mushrooming Scandal: More students have come forward claiming George Finkelstein (left inset) and Macy Gordon (right inset) had inappropriate sexual contact with them at Yeshiva University High School for Boys and elsewhere.
Mushrooming Scandal: More students have come forward claiming George Finkelstein (left inset) and Macy Gordon (right inset) had inappropriate sexual contact with them at Yeshiva University High School for Boys and elsewhere.

Six more people have come forward with accusations against Yeshiva University, days after 19 former high school students filed a $380 million suit charging that Y.U. covered up decades of physical and sexual abuse.
Mike Reck, an attorney representing the six, said his clients are disappointed they have been unable to reach a settlement with Y.U. and are poised to file lawsuits.
If the impasse continues, “the survivors have no choice but to avail themselves of the court system,” said Reck, an attorney with the New York office of Jeff Anderson and Associates, a Minnesota firm that specializes in abuse cases.
So far, two former Y.U. high school staff members and a former Y.U. student have been accused of abuse in the lawsuit already filed. Reck says his clients’ suit could reveal three additional people as accused molesters.
His clients, the attorney said, include people who were abused by Rabbi George Finkelstein, a former principal of Y.U.’s Manhattan boys high school. Most say they were assaulted between 1969 and the early ’80s. But Reck says he also represents a woman who says she was abused by Finkelstein during the 1990s, when Finkelstein was dean of the Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School, in Florida.
The woman blames Y.U. for failing to warn the Florida school about Finkelstein even though administrators knew he posed a threat to children when he took up the post in North Miami Beach in 1995.
More than a dozen former students at Y.U.’s Manhattan high school have told the Forward that Finkelstein had inappropriate sexual contact with boys under the guise of wrestling.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, who was president of Y.U. from 1976 until 2003 and just retired as chancellor, told the Forward this past December that Finkelstein was forced out of Y.U. because of his wrestling with boys. Lamm said Y.U. did not inform the Florida school about Finkelstein’s wrestling because “the responsibility of a school in hiring someone is to check with the previous job. No one checked with me about George.”
Finkelstein was alleged to have abused 16 of the former students named in the lawsuit filed July 8 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y. The suit alleges a “massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of [high school] students… facilitated, for several decades, by various prominent Y.U. and [high school] administrators, trustees, directors and other faculty members.”
The assaults are alleged to have taken place during the 1970s and ’80s, at a time when Y.U. faced severe financial problems.
Y.U. said in a statement that it would not comment on ongoing litigation. A spokesman told The New York Times that Y.U. hoped an investigation it commissioned to look into the abuse allegations would be finalized in the coming weeks. “We will address the findings publicly once the report is issued,” the spokesman said.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, principal of the Ramaz School, a respected Orthodox day school in Manhattan, said the abuse allegations had not had “any effect on parents’ decision to send, nor do I think it should have any effect on parents’ decision to send, their children to [Y.U.’s] high school or the college.”
Shmuel Goldin, a leading Modern Orthodox rabbi, said Y.U.’s response to the allegations has been “prompt and thorough.”

Goldin added, “There is a sadness that everyone feels when people have been hurt, and a sense of solidarity with the victims and a hope this will reach a resolution that will bring peace and healing to all involved.”