'Rabbi' plays Noah

What is the sudden interest "rabbis" are having with animals? Can't they think of a more worth while pet project, something to do with, gasp, the human flock?

Jewish Exponent:

Standing in a grassy synagogue courtyard, Chiquita obviously didn't understand the words coming out of Rabbi Barry Blum's mouth - all of the 3-year-old chihuahua's attention was focused on the treat in the man's hand.
"God opens his hand and satisfies every living thing with love and favor," said Blum, who then fed the small dog.
Dianne Shames, who brought her beloved pal to see the rabbi, seemed pleased after he said a blessing for her pet.
"She's like a part of the family," said Shames. "She brings a lot of pleasure to our family."
Larry Cetlin also brought his pet, Murphy - which he characterized as a "Llapso" - before the rabbi, wishing the pooch a lifetime of good health.
"It's cheaper than dog health insurance," joked Cetlin. "I enjoy it, the dogs enjoy it, and it's a very short service."
The rabbi saying a prayer for each pet was just the beginning of Congregation Beth El-Ner Tamid's "Blessing of the Animals" event held on Nov. 20. Congregants were also treated to a petting zoo, complete with chickens, rabbits and a goat, as well as presentations by representatives from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind. ..
The event was set to coincide with the Torah portion of Noach, who saved the animals of the world by bringing two of each species onto his ark when the world was flooded...

Israeli poll; Likud dead

Bloomberg News:

..A poll published in Yediot Aharonot today showed Sharon's party will win 34 out of the Knesset's 120 seats in the March 28 election, one more than the same pollster forecast last week.
Likud will lose 30 of the 40 seats it won in the last parliamentary election, putting it in fourth place behind the Labor Party and ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, the poll conducted by Mina Tzemach of Dahaf Ltd. showed. In a Nov. 22 poll, Likud had 13 seats.
Labor would get 27 seats, up one from last week, enabling Sharon to assemble a parliamentary majority if the two parties form a coalition, according to the telephone poll of 500 likely voters, which had a 4 percent margin of error...

Monsey Wal-Mart proceeding

A place to hang on motzei shabbos:

Journal News

The developers of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at the former Rockland Drive-In Theater in Monsey presented preliminary plans to the Ramapo Planning Board last night.
National Realty & Development Corp. of Purchase is seeking to build a single, 35-foot-high building on the 22-acre site for use as a 215,000-square-foot Wal-Mart...

Monsey man hits a 'Druggie'

Journal News:

A Nyack man was struck by a car and seriously injured as he crossed Route 59 early yesterday.
Marcos Mazariego, 32, of 150 Depew Ave. remained in Nyack Hospital last night in serious but stable condition with several broken bones, Spring Valley police said.
Mazariego was struck by a car driven by Shlomo Gold of Monsey at 1:25 a.m. on Route 59.
Police said Gold was driving west on Route 59, about a quarter mile east of New Clarkstown Road, when the pedestrian was struck, Sgt. Jack Bosworth said.
Investigators believe Mazariego was under the influence of alcohol and drugs at the time, Bosworth said.

Porush: Sharon like Mussolini

Typical Israeli discourse! :

Haaretz:

MK Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism) compared Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
In a Knesset hearing regarding the state of Israel's religious councils, Porush criticized the prime minister and his son, Omri, whom he claims interfered in appointments to the councils.
During his speech, Porush said, "Sharon greatly reminds me of the Italian Benito Mussolini. Mussolini also left one party and established his own. He also served as prime minister until he founded a dictatorship and became a duce. Sharon is already talking about a presidential regime in order to do whatever he feels like with the state. Duce Sharon."

Is this how you get the secular to stop hating charedim?

Eichler seeking frum voting block

The disparate Frum groups couldn't agree on which way to drive down a one way street!

Arutz Sheva:

Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, formerly representing Agudat Yisrael in parliament, is working to draft joint "red lines" for all right-wing and religious political parties...
Ideally, Eichler would like to see a joint commitment by the right-wing and religious parties that any future coalition must include all or none of them. However, barring that, he is working on a minimal agreement that the religious Zionist parties will fight legislation that could harm the interests of Hareidi Torah institutions and the Hareidi parties will fight legislation that harms the interests of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
The first stage in forming his envisioned right-religious coalition, Rabbi Eichler said, is forming a single Hareidi bloc including Shas, Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah. However, Eichler admitted that such a bloc is difficult to generate. Shas, he said, is concerned about losing traditionalist, but not Orthodox, voters to the secular parties should the Sephardic movement agree to join Ashkenazi Hareidim in one party.

Trenton auctioning on Shabbos

For all those Lakewooders buying up the ghettos:

Trenton Times:

TRENTON - Forty-eight city-owned houses will go on the auction block Dec. 10....

City officials said they received a complaint that the auction occurs on the Jewish sabbath, preventing some Jews from participating. They can send representatives, officials said.

B & H profiled- again!

Whoever is doing B & H's p.r. better get a fat bonus!

A.P. :

Every morning except Saturday, the buses stop at a bustling corner of Manhattan, and bearded men in dark suits and felt hats, some clutching prayer books and speaking Yiddish, step onto the sidewalk and disappear into a brick building.
But this is not a yeshiva or synagogue.
This is B&H Photo-Video, one of the biggest and most famous camera stores in the world.
On any given day, 8,000 to 9,000 people pass through the front door a block from Madison Square Garden.
Known as "Beards and Hats" because of the many Hasidic Jews who work there, B&H has become an authentic New York experience. Shopping there is akin to ordering a pastrami on rye at Katz's Delicatessen.
It is a loud and frenetic scene that involves fast-moving lines of customers, all pushing and elbowing to reach the cash registers. Above the bearded cashiers, conveyor belts move merchandise from one counter to the next.
"I live in Minnesota and the sensibility is not always Midwestern," said Alec Soth, a photographer with the legendary Magnum agency and a B&H customer for a decade. "It's a little more abrupt. But they're cheap and they have a huge selection."
For many, the store has become indispensable. If you can't find it elsewhere, B&H probably has it. When NASA needed a rare lens years ago, it turned to B&H.
"They are the 800-pound gorilla in the photo specialty business," said Greg Scoblete, an editor at Twice, a trade publication that covers the consumer electronics industry.
But don't expect any miracles when you walk into B&H. Asked recently when the nano iPod would be in stock, a salesman laughed and said: "When the Messiah comes, and then he's going to want one."
B&H executives refuse to discuss sales figures at the privately held company.
Ask how many cameras B&H sells every year and Herschel Jacobowitz, the company's chief information officer and business director, answers: "How many quarts of water are in the Hudson?"
Ask how business is going and you get this: "Baruch Hashem," or "Blessed be God" _ meaning, roughly, "Thanks to God, things are good." (Store Manager Eli Daskal said he has always been told that the name B&H comes from "Baruch Hashem.")
One indication of B&H's success that cannot be concealed sits in the Brooklyn Naval Yard: a nearly 200,000-square-foot warehouse that feeds its online division, which represents about 70 percent of B&H's business.....
Since moving to its current location in 1997, B&H has expanded rapidly, advertising aggressively on the radio. Already, B&H has outgrown its giant store. By April, B&H executives hope to double the retail space.
The company employs 800 to 900 people, many of them religious Jews. The store closes each Friday afternoon until Sunday in observance of the Sabbath, and on about a half-dozen Jewish holidays each year.
Richard Spiess, 34, a salesman at B&H for 2 1/2 years, said there are some advantages to being non-Jewish in such a heavily Jewish environment.
"We get a lot of nice holidays off," he said.

Peres makes it official

Jerusalem Post:

"The best man to lead Israel to security and peace is Ariel Sharon," said a stoic Shimon Peres, speaking from his Tel Aviv office Wednesday night in an expected announcement that he was leaving party politics.
"This is a very difficult day for me…I've decided to choose the country over the party."

Bloomberg News:

``In the current political set-up, it is impossible to advance the peace process without forming a coalition dedicated to peace and development,'' Peres said during a press conference broadcast from his office in Tel Aviv. ``I believe the man best suited to stand at the head of such a coalition on the basis of his record is Arik Sharon.''
Peres, 82, referring to the 77-year-old prime minister by his nickname, said he will no longer be an active member of Labor and will dedicate the rest of his life to helping end the conflict with the Palestinians.
He declined to answer questions about whether he would quit the Labor party or run for parliament in March with Sharon's new Kadima party...

Zaka going bankrupt

Needing terrorism to survive?

Sydney Morning Herald:

A Jewish charity whose bearded, skullcap-wearing volunteers rush to the scene of every suicide bombing in Israel is facing bankruptcy following the decline in Palestinian attacks.
Members of Zaka were among the first to arrive at every incident, sifting through wreckage to gather the body parts of victim and bomber alike, in accordance with Jewish law.
The work of Zaka is so thorough that it has often been used to help forensic experts. The group is known as the Fourth Emergency Service, after the police, fire and ambulance services, as its coverage of Israel is so extensive.
But the de facto end of the Palestinian intifada this year has led to a reduction in donations...
Members of the 1400-strong volunteer network respond to all incidents to ensure the deceased's body is treated with the appropriate dignity as demanded by the Jewish Torah. With a fleet of 34 ambulances and 150 motorcycles, it costs Zaka $A82,000 a month to cover its costs...

Monsey yeshiva fined

Journal News:

The owner of a College Road building was fined $15,000 this week for operating an illegal school for boys, despite a state Supreme Court injunction that prohibited it.
Congregation Beth Abraham, which owns the 65 College Road building, pleaded guilty Monday before Ramapo Town Justice Sam Coleman to three counts of the violation of operating without a site plan and without conditional-use approval from Ramapo's land-use boards, Deputy Town Attorney Michael Specht said.
Each count carries a $5,000 fine, but the third count could be reduced if the congregation complied with the town's planning and zoning code, Specht said.
The school has until Friday to vacate the site, and the town will conduct inspections, he said.
The owner was expected to start the application process soon with the town's Planning Board, Specht said.
The town approved the two-story home as a rabbi residence and a mikvah, or ritual bath, but in 2003, following neighbors' complaints, a building inspector visited the site and reported seeing about 30 students at the school, Specht said.
In February 2004, state Supreme Court Justice William Sherwood approved the town's injunction to stop the owners from using the site as a school, Specht said.
The owner's attorney, Kevin Conway, had argued that the school was allowed under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, Specht said. Conway, a Nyack-based attorney, could not be reached for comment yesterday...

Kiryas Yoel left out

Times Herald-Record

When Orange County leaders held a summit on human rights May 31, they deliberately kept the county's most obvious cultural conflict from even coming up during a day-long discussion about diversity and discrimination.
As a result, an eight-page conference summary just released by the county Human Rights Commission fails to mention that the Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel and its neighbors have been fighting for almost two years over the village's potential expansion and its plans for a 13-mile water pipeline.
Not a word about the resulting accusations and denials of anti-Semitism or anti-Hasidic bigotry, nor about the tangle of development and ballot-box issues that often put Kiryas Joel and its critics at loggerheads. I
nstead, the summit report blandly summarized a session on "The Diverse Communities of Orange County" by saying: "It was evident that there are many in our county who are interested in hearing about each other's cultures, suggesting that other venues for this cultural exchange might be possible." Michael Amo, the county lawmaker who represents Kiryas Joel, unloaded last week when the report was presented to a legislative committee. "We have, obviously, major issues regarding the relationship" between Kiryas Joel and neighboring towns, he said. "And I was surprised to see that no one was on the advisory committee from Kiryas Joel, nor was any of the panelists."
Christine Sadowski, a vice-chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission, replied: "We very intentionally, actually, did not include them on the panel for the fear that it would become the only issue discussed. And the thought was that in this very first summit, to try to have the discussion and range of issues to be as broad as possible."
She later added that summit planners worried that discussing Kiryas Joel would stir up election-year politics.
Sadowski also said that County Executive Edward Diana's office eventually invited Ari Felberman, Kiryas Joel's government relations coordinator, to serve on a panel, but that he declined because the summit was being held the day before a Kiryas Joel election.
Jeffrey Berkman, a county legislator from Middletown, joined Amo in criticizing the conference report, saying it ignored not only Kiryas Joel but the larger issue of "religious intolerance."..

JDate includes sinners

At least Frumster lives up to its' name:

JTA:

For all the nice Jewish boys looking for other nice Jewish boys — and nice Jewish lesbians looking for love — JDate.com has come to the rescue.
The popular Jewish online dating site expanded its search capabilities this month to allow gay men and lesbians to seek matches. The Web site, which is popular among Jews of all ages, now asks people for their gender and the gender they’re searching, allowing men to search for men and women to search for women.

Rav Yurukansky Israel levaya

The levaya in Erets Yisroel took place at Mir Yeshiva where the speakers were: Rabbis Aryeh Finkel, Don Segal, Yackov Laizer Schwartsman, and the niftar's son Avrohom. The Mir Rosh Yeshiva was buried in Har Hamenuchos.

Peres joins Sharon

With Sharon and Peres together, Kadima will have a hard time explaining what specifically it stands for? Going tough on the Palestinians? Appeasement? Giving old politicians a paycheck?...

ABC:

Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres will announce on Wednesday he is quitting the Labor Party and supporting Ariel Sharon in Israel's March 28 election without joining the prime minister's party, Channel 10 TV said.
Channel 10 said Peres, attending an Israeli-Palestinian soccer match in Barcelona, conveyed his decision to one of its reporters accompanying him on the visit.

Stopping computers in Lakewood schools

Does your child being proficient in computers make her at risk?

One parent of Lakewood's elementary school Bais Faiga, strongly thinks so.

Greatly disturbed his daughter is unnecessarily being taught computers in school, which will make it easier for her to use, the father got a number of other parents in the class and Reb Mattisyahu Solomon's backing, and they're demanding either stop teaching, or create another class for their daughters.

They are looking to halt all elementary schools in Lakewood from teaching computers.

Is it necessary for children to learn computers? Learning in high school seems adequate.

Shas leader unimpressed

Arutz Sheva:

Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai said Tuesday that the public is unimpressed with the migration of politicians between parties.
"It is funny to see that politicians are taking part in a game of 'A Star is Born' (popular Israeli talent show similar to American Idol –ed.) and it seems that it is not by chance that elections will be held after Purim," Yishai said. "The present election campaign revolves around the height of ideological issues. I am certain the public is more impressed by the migration of birds than by the migration of politicians."

Abramoff update

Another one caught in Abramoff's huge (and quickly sinking) net:

Political Wire:

"New evidence is emerging" that Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), "the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Jack Abramoff, got political money arranged by the lobbyist back in 2002 shortly after the lawmaker took action favorable to Abramoff's tribal clients," the AP reports."
The revelation came as Dorgan took to the offensive Monday, saying there was no connection between the $20,000 in donations he got from Abramoff's firm and tribal clients in spring 2002 and a February 2002 letter he wrote urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund the tribal school building program."

Chabad Shluchim convention

Lubavitch.com

Shoppers, fresh from the streets of a city mad with holiday glitter swept into the lobby of the New York Hilton and found themselves in a different world. Eddies of buddy groups, the boys who played basketball in the yeshiva gym and grew up into spiritual leaders the world over, who only saw each other over the four-day International Conference of Shluchim clustered alongside the lobby sculpture. Newlywed young, wise eyed sages, the thin, the not-so-thin. Ginger headed, blond, gray streaked, speaking a polyglot of Hebrew, Yiddish, English, Russian and French. Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim--2,769 representatives--had come to town and the night was theirs....

Conservatives to welcome intermarried

Further evidence of my hypothesis that Conservative Judaism is: Reform Judaism minus fiteen years!

Changing its' long held belief and practice, Conservative Judaism now joins the Reform, and will begin to be friendly and welcoming to the intermarried, in an effort to get the non-jewish partner to convert.

JTA:

How should Conservative Judaism cope with dwindling membership, growing intermarriage rates and societys increasing religious and political polarity, while remaining true to its base in halachah, or Jewish law?
Those are some of the vexing questions the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism will tackle when it convenes Sunday in Boston for its four-day biennial...
The challenge comes as Conservative Judaism, which once set the agenda for American Jewry, has lost its numeric edge, dropping from 43 percent of affiliated Jews in 1990 to 33 percent in 2000, according to the two latest National Jewish Population Surveys. Conservative Jews are older as a group than the Reform or Orthodox, yet they hold most of the key positions in Jewish communal leadership, contributing to the aging of that leadership.
Meyers insists the Conservative movement is strong and says enrollment in day schools and camps is up, even as the movements outreach to young adult Jews is languishing.
In an effort to stem the hemorrhaging of membership in Conservative synagogues and soften the movements image of being cold and unwelcoming to the intermarried, Rabbi Jerome Epstein, the USCJs executive vice president, will unveil a far-reaching initiative on keruv, or outreach, directed primarily at interfaith families in Conservative congregations...
The Conservatives are broadening their embrace of the intermarried just two weeks after Reform leader Rabbi Eric Yoffie proposed at that movements biennial that Reform congregations ask non-Jewish spouses to consider conversion.
Are the two approaches converging? Not really, Meyers says.
Maybe at the edges Conservative is becoming more Reform, he acknowledges, but the two movements are distinctive. The Reform movements position is that each person and rabbi is autonomous and does their own thing, while we believe in halachah and mitzvot. We have a clear idea of how people should behave. ...
Everyone in the movement agrees its important to deal with outreach to the intermarried, we just havent yet come to agreement on how it should be done, which is fine, he says.
Epstein expects that the new openness will impact the movements Camp Ramah and Solomon Schechter day schools, both of which place restrictions on children of non-Jewish mothers. The day schools, for example, require such students to convert within a year of admission...

Reform Isreal goes to court

There's nothing like spreading failture!

The Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center filed seven High Court petitions on Tuesday demanding that the Orthodox monopoly on local conversions be ended.
Earlier this year, the Reform and Conservative movements scored a judicial coup when the High Court ordered the state to recognize their converts who had studied in Israel but completed the conversion procedure abroad.

The world's most liberal, secular Sureme Court wil continue siding with them until the Jewish State starts living up to her name.

R' Yurkansky levaya

The speakers were: from Mir Yeshiva, R' Shmuel Berenbaum, R' Nelkenbaum, R' Hershel Zolty, R' Leizer Ginsberg, R' Ezriel Erlanger.

From Lakewood, Roshei Yeshivas Rabbis Kotler and Olshin.

Family members included his sons, and sons in law Rabbis Perlstein and Lobel .

The levaya took over four hours. He will be buried in Israel.

R' Elya Yurkansky ZT"L

The Mir Flatbush Rosh Yeshiva was called to his Maker earlier today, after an illness. He was in his late nineties.

His aron first went to Lakewood Yeshiva (he was niftar in the town, where he'd been staying while sick), where tehilim was recited.

Five o'clock pm will be the levaya at his Yeshiva, which he helped lead over many decades.

Lakewood School sets the bar higher

Lakewood's elementary school Yeshiva Bais Hatorah, commonly known as the "Gaon's School", models itself after certain Israeli schools, and follows a very unconventional schooling approach.

The following letter (in part) was sent out to all parents:

General Chinuch Guidlines:

• In compliance with the warnings of the gedolim about the dangers of the internet, it is prohibited to have internet in your home (even if you feel that you have safeguarded against access by children). In the event that internet access is a business necessity, the computer must have a password and be physically locked. Additionally, the Yeshiva must be told that you have internet in the home.
• Non-Jewish magazines and periodicals are not permitted in the home.
• Children should not listen to the radio. (It goes without saying that watching television, DVDs or videos is forbidden.)
• Children may not visit the public library even with adult supervision.
• Non-Jewish reading materials must be carefully screened by parents before being made available to talmidim.
• Talmidim must refrain from following professional sports as it is not in the Torah spirit.
• Talmidim should not play games on the computer or use a game boy.
• Talmidim may not own palm pilots or cell phones.
• Extreme caution must be exercised in relation to trips or visits to non-Jewish places.

In philosophy it may not at all be extreme- but in its mandatory approach?

Israeli Russian Party

Scharansky out, new guy comes in:

JTA:

A Russian Jewish billionaire plans to establish a new political party in Israel.
Arkadi Gaydamak, who came to prominence in Israel recently by buying Jerusalem’s Beitar soccer team, told Ha’aretz on Monday that his new party would be set up in time for March 28 national elections.
The provisional name of the party is Beitar, and Gaydamak said it would appeal to the Israeli mainstream despite his natural following among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Gaydamak, who made his fortune in diamond and arms trading, said that if elected to political office he would seek to improve cooperation between Israel and the Arab world...

Gur knesset member decides

Haaretz:

MK Yaakov Litzman (Agudat Yisrael), chairman of the influential Knesset Finance Committee, is considering not running in the March elections and has turned to his spiritual leader, the Admor of Gur, Rabbi Yaakov Alter, for his advice. Litzman said that he would follow the Hasidic leader's instructions in full.
Alter is likely to order Litzman, regarded as a tough committee chief, to stay on. Litzman has fought for improved child allowances and recently helped to increase state spending on ultra-Orthodox schools by NIS 40 million.

Dershowits addresses Chabad

Isn't the choice of the frum born and bred, now secular, Allan Dershowits a bit peculiar?
What exactly does he have to offer a group of Shluchim who: take the secular and make them frum?

JTA:

More than 2,000 of Chabad’s worldwide emissaries gathered in New York.
The annual International Conference of Shluchim concluded Sunday evening with a gala dinner, keynoted by one of Russia’s chief rabbis, Berel Lazar, and addressed by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
Chabad’s force of emissaries, comprising some 4,000 families in 70 countries, is “the most powerful Jewish organization in the world,” said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, the conference’s director.

How would he define "powerful'?

Bringing Agudah to Lakewood

Friday night at the Convention there was an unscheduled meeting to discuss how to fully bring Agudah, shuls and all, into Lakewood.

In attendance were: The three Agudah Heads, Lakewood head honcho Aron Kotler, and a number of wealthy lakewooders.

Agudah has long wanted a real presence there but due to Yeshiva's fear of losing control it has never materialized.

If you want complete , carte blanche say you better be the only soloist in the choir.

Agudah Convention

Noviminsker Rebbe:

• defended lakewood's freezer against complaints it harms girls. Saying it's necessary.
• said it's beneficial for boys to marry girls their own age.
• he called "cruel and immoral" mothers who put a price tag on their son.

At the raucous Shidduch forum emotions flared with people, even a single girl, loudly proclaiming that the community is not doing enough!

It was suggested; people invite boys and girls for friday night; pay boys to go out with older girls, among other ideas.

R' Mattisyahu Solomon stated that technology has distanced us from Hashem, with traveling vehicles, phones, even lights, often distracting and making it more difficult to serve Hashem properly.

Rabbi Burstyn update

Lakewood's Rabbi Yosel Burstyn is still waiting to see if the District Attorney will bring his case to trial.
In the mean time the universally loved Rabbi is hearing of other allegations about police officer Menk.
I'm hearing an African American lady called Rabbi Burstyn up to say officer Menk threw her daughter to the ground too.
The district Attorney better have all the facts in place before he brings scurrilous charges.

Peres said to join Sharon

Does anyone in Israel believe in retirement?

Jerusalem Post:

Sources in the Labor Party believe that Vice Premier Shimon Peres will join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party in the coming days, Army Radio reported.
Sources close to Sharon told Army Radio that Sharon preferred not to secure the number two slot in the Kadima list for Peres, but would do so if Peres demanded it as a specific condition for joining the party.
At the same time, Labor officials emphasized that Labor Chairman Amir Peretz will not agree to secure a place at the top of the Labor list for Peres, who was head of the Labor Party several times.

It will give Labor the opportunity to brand Kadima as the party of the old and tired, and them as fresh and young.

School Head sued

Do the girls of his school have to know this?

N.Y. Post:

A politically connected rabbi who runs a Brooklyn girls school — once suspected of misusing $700,000 in government grants — is now being accused by another rabbi of stiffing him on a consulting fee.
In the rabbi vs. rabbi lawsuit, filed this month in Manhattan Supreme Court, A. Moshe Possick claims Yehoshua Balkany never paid him $13,500 for work he did at Balkany's Borough Park yeshiva....
..he is being accused of writing three bounced checks..

Email me Agudah Convention happenings

Holocaust remains found

Haaretz:

A joint investigation by German and Israeli police, aided by Yad Vashem, is expected to yield the identities of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, whose skeletons were recently discovered in a mass grave in a suburb of Stuttgart, in southern Germany.
Investigators are working to locate camp survivors in Israel or relatives of the victims, and in the next few days will be approaching them to obtain DNA samples that will enable identification of the 34 skeletons.
Officials at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance Authority said that the possibility of locating the victims' relatives stems from a rare confluence of information sources in the case. Sources involved in the investigation said that if relatives are located in Israel, they might be able to bring the remains for burial here.
The mass grave was unearthed two months ago during construction work near an American army base at Stuttgart airport. Workers found skeletons amid the dirt mounds and alerted the local police, which subsequently uncovered 24 skeletons. Construction work at the site was stopped....

Lakewood shul turns 100

Lakewood's shul, Sons of Israel, celebrates 100 years!


A.P.P. :

...in the spring of 1905, Congregation Sons of Israel was formally incorporated.Now, a century of bar mitzvahs, weddings and funerals later, the legacy of those first families is cemented as Sons of Israel marks its 100th anniversary."In all humility, we are the first Orthodox institution in Ocean County and Lakewood," Rabbi Shmuel Tendler said in an interview this week. "It's something we take pride in."
It's a particular note of distinction in Lakewood, which has morphed from a quiet community with one formal shul in 1905 to a world-reknowned destination for Torah scholars who want to study at Beth Medrash Govoha.
BMG, as the rabbinical college centered around Private Way and Sixth Street is known to many, has long since become the focal point for most of Lakewood's 6,500 Orthodox families."They are the driving force," said Tendler, who studied at the college for 15 years. "We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. The entire community does."...

Two of Lakewood's other long-standing temples are debating their futures.
Congregation Ahavat Shalom, a Conservative synagogue, is said to be in discussions to sell its building and property at Forest Avenue and 10th Street, although Rabbi Lee Paskind has repeatedly declined to comment on any sale.
And Temple Beth Am, a Conservative synagogue, turned down an offer last month to sell its building and merge with Temple Beth Shalom of Dover Township...

Washington Post on Lakewood

They can't get enought of this. Well at least it's putting Lakewood on the map:

Washington Post:

Religious leaders in a tightknit Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey have instructed parents who have Internet access in their homes to unplug from the Web, else their children will face expulsion from the area's 43 yeshivas, or Jewish private schools.
"We really . . . don't want children to see ladies who are dressed inappropriately. . . . If that one image goes into a child's head, it can wreak havoc with all the religious instruction," said Rabbi Netanya Gottlieb, one of the yeshiva principals, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.
Religious leaders in a tightknit Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey have instructed parents who have Internet access in their homes to unplug from the Web, else their children will face expulsion from the area\'s 43 yeshivas, or Jewish private schools. SETI, or the Search for Rabbis said that the Internet is not inherently evil and acknowledged that it has some benefits for students in completing homework, but that its negatives far outweigh its positives.
The policy also prohibits students from using cell phones, Palm organizers and other handheld devices that have Internet access.
In a Talmudic compromise for adults who do business from home, the Star-Ledger reports, some exceptions may be made for parents who have only e-mail access or who promise to keep the Internet locked in a room or cabinet, like a handgun, out of reach of their children.
In many ways, the rabbis' actions are admirable -- if draconian -- and represent the kind of strictures that almost any parent could identify with. Web Watch respects individual beliefs and strong parenting. Unfortunately for the Orthodox community in Lakewood, N.J., the Internet no longer comes from just a wire. It cannot be unplugged, and attempting to police students' access to WiFi hotspots and other wireless access is about as effective as walking through a shouting crowd with your hands over your ears.
Further, denying the Internet to their children because it carries sexual content is akin to keeping them out of the Library of Congress because it shelves Playboy.
Instead, we'd recommend that the rabbis -- and, indeed, all parents -- check out software such as Kid Defender Lite, which is available for download from sites such as ZDNet and Cnet's Download.com. Kid Defender is not quite a V-chip for the Internet, and it is not infallible. However, it does allow you to monitor what your kid is watching on his computer in his bedroom from your computer in the den. Also, it lets you monitor and block instant-messaging systems and shield children from specific Web sites.
Security software makers such as McAfee and Symantec also give parents some power over what their kids see on the Internet. Comcast and AOL Internet service providers include some parental controls as well.

Franken compares jews to al-Qaeda

Better hope you won't be arrested:

Washington Times:

Comedian and radio talk-show host Al Franken compares Jewish "neoconservatives" to al Qaeda in the December issue of Moment, a magazine of "Jewish politics, culture & religion for the 21st century."
Mr. Franken, a Democrat who is publicly flirting with the idea of running for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in 2008, told writer David Paul Kuhn that neoconservatives "have an incredible arrogance, and hubris, and an unbelievable ability to believe their own hype."
Mr. Franken was asked about what the writer called "the Jewish neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Irving Kristol and his son William Kristol."
"I'm not sure they are particularly devout Jews," Mr. Franken replied. "They come from this Leo Strauss school." ..

Mr. Franken should know about not being "devout", he's married to a non-Jew.

Agudah Convention: Shidduchim

A few points made at the much anticipated shidduchim discussion:

• the mothers of boys should listen and pay attention to girls around the same age as their son
• there should be a Organization to push, prod and help, laymen get and stay involved in making shidduchim

To send me Convention happenings, here's my Email

Lakewood reaction to internet ban

First this: Someone recently recieved permission from one of Yeshiva's poskim to have the internet and was told, when he has guests staying in his house for shabbos he should remove the keyboard.

Now this: The following is an anonymous comment on a previous post regarding Lakewood's internet ban, answering the posed question: "what would you do, if you were the Rov in Lakewood seeing the constant harm the internet, causes or contributes?" :

First of all, I don't believe 90% of the scare stories re. the internet. But if I were the rov, I would arrange for the community to be educated about the dangers and about how to protect against them. If I thought giving up the net was the right thing to do, I would urge people to do so. I would *not* try to tell adults what they may or may not do. I would *not* cynically use the kids' chinuch as a club to beat anyone who disagrees with my view. I would *not* punish kids b/c their parents have a different view than my own. I *would* recognize that ultimately chinuch is the parents' job, and that parents can generally be trusted to make the right decisions regarding their own children. I would *not* try to undermine the authority of parents by pretending that they are not fit to make chinuch decisions.
What's needed is to educate people as to the dangers, not to withdraw from society and stick our heads in the sand. What's not needed is the kanoim's approach (sadly, more and more often the approach of our "leaders" as well) of "my way or the highway."
You'll be interested to know, and perhaps you already do, that many principals at the meetings argued against the coercive approach, and for the approach of educating people as to the dangers. The kanoiom turned a deaf ear. They know best.
And this is in addition to their wilfull blindness as to the real cause of kids' problems. There are very, very few kids who become "fardorben" from the internet. It's the other way around. Fardorbene kids are busy with the internet. But how were they ruined in the first place? Could the oppressive "one size fits all," super-frummie, mehalech of our great leaders have anything to do with that? You bet! But don't expect them to admit to it.
Let the kanoim butt out of everyone's business, and let the "leaders" grow a backbone and begin thinking for themselves. That's what I would advise if I were the rov.

Think education will have the desired affect? Are the Kanoim the ones making the decisions rather then the cooler heads?

Is this ban causing a lot of resentment? Perhaps a backlash...?

Is the internet to much a leviathan to control at all?

Agudah Convention update

Preliminary reports:

A few points from the Noviminsker Rebbe's keynote address at the Convention:

• you have to have rachmunis for the gush kaitif people who were kicked out of their homes, even if you disagree with their ideology
• we need a new tuition fund for parents

The shidduchim forum got very boisterous and noisy with men and woman yelling at each other arguing whether it's the boys fault or the girls fault... whose picky..., and what not. Sounds very tachlis!

One participant proposed shadchanim get paid (100$) just for setting people up! Where do I sign up!

Sephardic genealogical records

Press Release:

The International Society for Sephardic Progress (ISFSP) is pleased to announce that one of the largest and most important collections of Jewish genealogical records, one that includes an extensive amount of Sephardic data, has been made available for public research. The material covers the period from 1870 to the present.
The new online-accessible collection includes over 50,000 records, including more than 35 thousand Istanbul marriage records and some 15,000 death and burial records from other sources including the Chief Rabbinate of Turkey and the Ashkenazi and Italian community records. The data also comes from several Istanbul cemeteries.
Researchers may visit www.isfsp.org/istanbul to access the new genealogical database.

Chabad helping Shas

Read five times to try to figure all this out:

Haaretz:

Members of the Chabad Hasidic movement will assist Shas in the upcoming elections campaign, the ultra-Orthodox party said Thursday.
Shas spokesman Roi Lachmanovitch said that the agreement between Shas and Chabad was reached through MK Amnon Cohen, who is close to billionaire and Chabad member Lev Leviev. Lachmanovitch said Chabad members will help with field work at the Shas election headquarters, and will not be involved in a national campaign as it was in 1996, when it used the pro-Netanyahu slogan, "Bibi is good for the Jews."
Leviev's influence in Chabad is mainly limited to those who have a moderate diplomatic worldview. However, other streams of Chabad, spearheaded by the youth, oppose Shas because its spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had ruled that Israel may give back land in return for peace.
Chabad officials said Thursday that they believe most Chabad followers will vote for Yisrael Beitenu, headed by Avigdor Lieberman

Chabad will: "assist Shas".. ."not be involved"...don't like R' Yosef..."vote for Lieberman"...??#@!&*!!

Letter on lakewood column

Another letter in the A.P.P. responding to the hate spewed column by the Rev. Nunn:

Regarding the Nov. 18 opinion piece by the Rev. Kevin Nunn, "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community," it is undeniable that the influx of Orthodox Jews into Lakewood has altered the community, and old-time residents may regret the changes to the town where they grew up...
Nunn does not approve of freedom of mobility. "By allowing this to continue, by 2010 the demographics will have shifted so greatly that what once was a diverse community will be a predominantly Orthodox Jewish community," he wrote.
In other words, demographic change is bad and must be stopped. This sentiment was undoubtedly shared by many who participated in "white flight" in decades past. It was nasty when applied to blacks moving into predominantly white areas and is equally nasty when applied to other minorities, including Orthodox Jews, who are moving into areas that are not "their own."
Nor does Nunn look kindly on freedom of religion. "Our children are affected due to the private schools that exclude the rest of the children within the community," he writes. Does he believe it is exclusionary policies that prevent non-Jewish parents from spending $3,000 per child per year to have their children study Jewish culture eight hours a day?
Orthodox Jews believe it takes years of intense schooling to pass on a voluminous, ancient tradition, and they are willing to assume crushing tuition payments to achieve this.
Free commerce is also a problem. Nunn says he is appalled that "businesses are being bought. People are offered money to move out of their homes." He does not claim that undue pressure is brought to bear or that Orthodox Jews are artificially driving down the prices of local businesses. No, what bothers him is that homes and businesses are being sold to Orthodox Jews. The fact that a non-Jewish homeowner may want to sell her house at triple the purchase price before the nationwide housing bubble bursts is irrelevant.
Nunn even objects to the freedom of communities to provide charitable services to their members. The existence of the Hatzolah ambulance service, funded by the Orthodox community and staffed by volunteers, is attributed to an Orthodox desire "(not to) defile their sick with the blood of our sick." Does this mean church-sponsored soup kitchens that don't provide kosher food are expressing a desire not to defile their silverware with Jewish saliva? Nonsense. Individuals have the right to define themselves as "communities" based on shared interests, religion or anything else, and they have the right to provide services to their communities without being accused of malicious motives.
The attack on Hatzolah is especially unfortunate given that Deputy Mayor Meir Lichtenstein, a Hatzolah member, saved the life of a member of Nunn's Lakewood Improvement Association at a recent township meeting.Nunn's piece is replete with exaggeration and misinformation.
He asserts that Orthodox Jews enter hospitals through separate doors. Actually, Orthodox Jews do not activate electric devices on their Sabbath, so they enter through manual doors one day a week. Surely Nunn is not suggesting that an Orthodox child who is admitted for an emergency appendectomy late Friday afternoon must spend the weekend alone."Luxuries are afforded such as tax-exempt status for synagogues." Religious and other nonprofit institutions have special tax status in this country. Is Nunn the leader of a church? If so, what is its tax status?
"The preferential treatment toward the Orthodox Jewish community . . . has created . . . discrimination concerning equal housing." Lakewood's affordable housing program, initiated by the Orthodox community, involves NJ HAND, the Lakewood Housing Authority and STEPS (Solutions to End Poverty Soon), and will benefit all segments of Lakewood's population.The only point in the entire piece that may have some validity is the comment that Orthodox Jews rarely greet non-Jews when they pass on the street. It would be nice to keep a friendly, small-town flavor even as Lakewood grows, and all residents should display good manners. This means that Orthodox residents should smile at their non-Jewish neighbors. It also means that non-Jews should refrain from comments like, "They're breeding! The Jews are breeding!" when a young Orthodox mother walks down the street with her infant. Remarks like that one, which I have overheard, tend to have a chilling effect on public discourse.
Nunn's ideal society is one in which an individual's freedom to move, educate his children, sell a home, buy a business, define his own "community," create a volunteer organization or offer culturally sensitive services to customers must meet Nunn's standard of social good.
I prefer a society in which people can make choices of which others disapprove, subject to the Constitution and the law of the land. Fortunately, we do not live in a totalitarian state. We live in the United States of America. And if Nunn exercises his freedom to move in next door, while I may not be thrilled with his choice, I will bring him a cake.
Nechama A.
LAKEWOOD

Republicans most admire: Lieberman

Trying to discover how they really feel:

Bangor Daily News

National Journal's survey of Washington insiders on their thoughts that usually don't make the news. The weekly magazine quizzed 101 members of Congress,... and 137 campaign staff members and others with a close-up look at the political process.The findings, if not revelatory, were at least interesting.

For instance, the members of Congress were asked, "Which interest group or special interest would members of your party buck more often if the group weren't so powerful?"For Republicans, the top choices were the National Rifle Association ("Many [lawmakers] don't feel it is necessary to hunt deer with an AK-47 and armor-piercing bullets.") and Christian conservatives. Democrats wished they could sometimes ignore labor unions ("They have failed to change politically as the economy has changed over the past 30 years.") and abortion-rights groups.

When asked what member of the opposite party they most admired, Democrats chose Sen. John McCain ("He is not afraid to sail into the wind and speak his mind without the political posturing common among other political leaders ...") and, distant seconds, Sen. Chuck Hagel and Rep. Jim Leach.

Republicans most admired Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman ("A man of honor who puts family, patriotism and politics in the proper order.") and, distant second, Sen. Ted Kennedy. The Republican choice of Mr. Kennedy might surprise those who believe talk-radio caricatures, but Washington is often not as portrayed....

92nd st. Y open shabbos

Y... they call themself jewish...? :

N.Y. Times:

Since 1874, the 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association, as the Y is formally known, has offered - in addition to its famed lectures, concerts, and other programs - a fitness center.
And since 1874, the fitness center, along with the rest of the Y, has been closed in honor of the Sabbath, the day of rest that stretches from Friday evening to Saturday evening - Saturday being the busiest day of the week for most gyms.
The gym, like the rest of the Y, caters to non-Jews as well as Jews. And since at least the 70's, former Y officials said, the Y has been pressed to open the gym on Saturdays - but tradition won out.
Starting in January, tradition will bend. The Y recently sent a letter to the 6,000 members of its May Center for Health Fitness & Sport announcing that starting Jan. 13, the gym will be open until 8 p.m. on Fridays and all day on Saturdays...
Some of the Y's rabbinical neighbors were distressed by the decision. "The Y is a magnificent cultural institution that has enhanced Jewish culture in this city," said Haskel Lookstein, the rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, one of the Upper East Side's most prominent Orthodox synagogues.
"I just don't understand why a Jewish communal institution would open up its gym to activities that are so not in keeping with the Sabbath," he said....

British Reform makes history

British Reform, or Liberal, Judaism is- setting the example; starting the trend; creating the wave; going in front;- in destroying, devastating, desecrating: halacha, tradition, culture, the jewish way of life! How tragic.

The Times of London:

RABBIS from Britains Jewish community have become the first mainstream religious grouping to authorise a gay marriage service.
Liberal Judaism, which counts Michael Howard and Michael Grade among its adherents, has produced a new liturgy, Covenant of Love, to coincide with the Civil Partnership Act, which takes effect on December 5.
In accompanying literature, Liberal Judaism says the ceremony may be described as a wedding by rabbis and follows the format of a traditional Jewish wedding service under the chuppah or canopy and with the ceremonial breaking of glass symbolising the brokenness of the world. It also includes a same-sex version of the seven blessings said at heterosexual Jewish weddings.
The service, in a booklet read from right to left and printed in Hebrew and English, invokes God as the divine presence who embraces both male and female. It warns the happy couple as they begin their new lives as consecrated partners: We remember that we live in a world as yet unredeemed, where joys and sorrows, love and hatred, acceptance and prejudice are commingled. ...

May the Almighty open their eyes and let them see His ways.

State of Likud

Anyone but Bibi please!

Jerusalem Post:

The committee members unanimously passed a proposal to hold the Likud leadership primary on December 19, a run-off race a week later and an election for the party's Knesset slate on January 3...

A poll conducted by Prof. Yitzhak Katz for Israel Radio found that the gap between Netanyahu and Mofaz in the race has narrowed. The poll predicted that Netanyahu would win 29 percent of the vote, followed by Mofaz with 22%, Landau 14%, Shalom 12%, Likud activist Moshe Feiglin 8% and Katz 4%.
In a run-off race between Netanyahu and Mofaz, Netanyahu would win, 42% to 33%...

Credit Card benefits Israel

New idea; watch your local organization copy it:

Sun-Sentinel :

South Florida's Jewish community is being courted to get what may be the first credit card to benefit charities in Israel.
While there are hundreds of nonprofits that urge their supporters to make purchases through a Visa or MasterCard that is set up to automatically give them a payment, the focus of the charities is usually in the United States.
The new card targeted to the Jewish community here and across the United States -- being marketed through e-mail blasts and newspaper advertisements this week in Jewish publications -- is called HAS, or Heritage Affinity Services, and was created by two Long Island businessmen.
Some of the charities in the HAS plan include the Jewish National Fund, which plants trees, builds reservoirs and creates parks in Israel; the Gush Etzion Foundation, which creates playgrounds, furnishes schools and assists needy families; A Time, which offers support for couples experiencing infertility; One Family Fund, which provides assistance to terrorism victims; and Chabad's Children of Chernobyl, which takes children from the contaminated areas of Belarus and Ukraine to Israel for medical treatment.
Run through U.S. Bank, the cards issued are Visa or MasterCard."This is the first one in the affinity world that focuses on Israel or another country," said Debbie Bear, relationship manager for U.S. Bank. "They created this organization solely for this card. They are very engaged and dedicated to the cause."
HAS creators Menachem Landau and Zev Dobuler said they are banking on the idea that American Jews want to support Israel, and this is an easy way for them to do so."Credit cards are so heavily used in the U.S. that it was a natural choice to come up with a credit-card product that is not only as good as anything they already have in their wallets, but make charitable contributions, too," Landau said.
So many people are expected to sign up that U.S. Bank is offering a "double-dipping" program in which points can also be redeemed for El Al Airlines and hotels in Israel, among other benefits, in addition to the charities. In addition to money being donated each time a purchase is made, a "bounty is given for each time a card is opened and activated," Bear said.
Tanya Turner, senior vice president at U.S. Bank, won't say exactly how much money goes to the charity from each purchase customers make, saying that's a contractual arrangement...

Interview with hasidic book author

Yesterday On WNYC 820 am radio, Leonard Lopate interviewed the author of "The Unchosen".

Listen to the Audio or MP3

WNYC:

Hasidic Rebels. Outsiders don't hear much about Hasidim struggling to live in or even leave their restrictive communities. Hella Winston gained access to members of Brooklyn's Satmar sect while working on her doctoral dissertation in sociology. Her new book is The Unchosen.

Listen to their discussion whether Chassius is a cult.

Reform urge conversions

More on Reform Judaism's convention:

JTA:

The movement that was the first to welcome intermarried families into its synagogues nearly three decades ago now will focus on actively inviting non-Jews to convert to Judaism...
Addressing a Shabbat breakfast meeting of Reform rabbis, cantors and educators, sociologist Steven Cohen, a research professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, said the Reform movement is the institution best placed to lead the American Jewish community.
“The federation system has abdicated,” he said, “the Conservative movement doesn’t have the wherewithal or the confidence” and the “Orthodox have become sectarian,” Cohen said.
No one in the room disagreed with his analysis.
Neither did Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Hebrew Union College.
“There is an affinity between the ideals marking Reform Judaism — inclusion, pluralism, the individual search for meaning — and the sensibilities that mark most non-Orthodox Jews in the United States,” he said.
Referring to the 20 percent of American Jews who have never affiliated with a synagogue, he said, “if any movement is going to address these people and bring them into the synagogue, it’s the Reform movement.”
That confidence was evident in Yoffie’s Shabbat sermon, in which he urged Reform congregations to find tangible ways to honor non-Jewish members who are raising Jewish children, while not shying away from suggesting that these non-Jews convert...
Some Reform Jews would prefer fewer limits. Debbie Kujovich of Congregation Kol Ami in Vancouver, Wash., said most of her congregation is intermarried, yet her non-Jewish husband is not per
Several options were offered at the biennial for daily shacharit morning and ma’ariv evening services, including a yoga minyan each morning and services conducted entirely in Hebrew, a novelty in the Reform movement.
A new addition was a beit midrash, or study hall, held at the same time as each worship service. Participants studied Torah in chevruta, the traditional partnering method used in yeshiva.
mitted to hold the Torah during services...

R' Elyashiv: try to unite

Arutz Sheva:

Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah Party, has instructed MKs Rabbis Moshe Gafne and Avraham Ravitz to enter into negotiations with Agudat Yisrael MKs Rabbis Meir Porush, Yaakov Litzman and Shmuel Halpert.
The two parties, Degel and Agudah ran in the last election under a unified United Torah Judaism banner.
Increasing tensions led to a significant breakdown in relations leading to the split.
Rabbi Elyashiv is aware that running under independent lists will significantly reduce the number of mandates controlled by the Hareidi sector, which will have negative ramifications in all aspects of day-to-day life for the Hareidi ultra-Orthodox electorate.

Fallsburg jews vote

The Fallburg fight for control continues:

Times Herald Record:

In a county where Mickey Mouse often gets the most write-in votes with just a handful of candidates, someone with 456 write-ins is unheard of.
But Fallsburg supervisor candidate Kenny DeMars got 456 in a month of campaigning, according to the Sullivan County Board of Elections, which counted the absentee ballots, affidavits and write-in votes yesterday.
"And that's a lot," says Elections Commissioner Fran Thalmann. That write-in for DeMars, who had nearly 1,000 fewer votes than four-term incumbent Supervisor Steve Levine, says as much about how Fallsburg is changing as it does about the race. DeMars wants a building moratorium in this town where thousands of homes are proposed. "It's out of control," he says.
Fallsburg might be an old Catskills town with worn bungalow colonies and new second-home developments for ultra-Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn. The eastern Sullivan town might also be a patchwork of hamlets including thriving Hurleyville, the only district DeMars won, and Woodridge, Woodbourne and South Fallsburg, which are jammed in the summer and empty the rest of the year. But Fallsburg is also a town of mountains, lakes, waterfalls and fields that's a magnet for developers, who crave its sewer and water lines.
This is why controlling growth is a top issue for DeMars supporters – even in this town where some 40 percent of all property is tax exempt. "People are really scared of the development," says Joan Thursh of Woodbourne. "They distrust that there's no plan, and they're scared of all the summer people."
Ann Finneran of Hurleyville agrees. She sells real estate, "so you'd think I'm someone who wants more homes." But when she checked the new development of 110 homes in Hurleyville, she saw a grove of antique apple trees destroyed – and the landscape gone. "We need to reign the growth in," she says. Finneran was unsure how to vote until she saw a letter from Levine that accused the DeMars group, FallsburgWatch, of anti-Semitism – a charge DeMars vehemently denies. She learned that a bloc vote of ultra-Orthodox second homeowners backed Levine. She chose Demars.
Levine dismisses the vote as "not much of a message. If it was over 1,000 … " He also says that DeMars had his own bloc, from the SYDA ashram. DeMars sees the vote as a signal.
"They (DeMars supporters) see what Levine calls good growth, and they don't want more of it," he says, referring to hundreds of homes planned for seniors near Morningside Park and for the ultra-Orthodox near South Fallsburg.

Times on Lakewood

As I reported a couple of days ago, here is the N.Y. Times article on Lakewood:



His blogger pen name is Shtreimel, the Yiddish word for the round fur hat that a Hasidic man wears on Sabbath.
He styles himself a heretic, a Brooklyn Hasid with beard and earlocks who does not believe in God, sneaks away to snack on Yom Kippur and sometimes grabs a hamburger that isn't kosher at McDonald's. On three blogs that he has kept - changing them like safe houses out of fear of exposure - he has confided his spiritual misgivings and mused about hypocrisies he sees among Hasidim, like a willingness to beat up adherents of a rival sect.
Students studying the Torah's lessons at Yeshiva Nesivos Ohr, a day school in Lakewood, N.J., were barred from surfing the Internet.
Rabbi Shalom Storch, the principal of Yeshiva Nesivos Ohr, working on the computer in his office.
Pedro Estrada teaching computer applications, for career guidance, at Touro College in Brooklyn. Labs are supervised to avoid private surfing.
Within his community, he scrupulously keeps up appearances because, he said, if he were ever identified as an iconoclastic blogger he would be ostracized and might lose his wife and children.
"People can get connected to each other, and once ideas that are not implanted by the establishment spread, they can explode," said Shtreimel of the Internet, speaking at a Starbuck's on the condition that he and his sect not be named.
Although he and other cyberspace renegades make up a sliver of the ultra-Orthodox world, leaders of insular Orthodox communities are coming to regard the Internet - a gateway to louche American culture and the voices of doubters - as treacherous, even subversive, and are grappling with how far to go in outlawing its use.
Just before Rosh Hashanah, the Orthodox schools and institutions of Lakewood, N.J., a community of 6,500 families in Ocean County, issued a proclamation forbidding children and high school students from using Internet-linked computers.
"Many children (and adults) have fallen prey to the immoral lures that are present on the Internet, and their lives have been destroyed," the seven-page proclamation began.
It barred even adults from going online at home except for the needs of a livelihood - and then only with rabbinical authorization.
Other faiths have also grappled with the Internet, though outright bans are rare. In 2000, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a "user beware" policy that warned parents to exercise some common-sense precautions like filters to ward off pornography.
More liberal Orthodox believers see the Internet as "an unbelievable tool" that must be used with sensible precautions, said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, dean of the Center for the Jewish Future, a division of Yeshiva University.
"Judaism does not believe in a Robinson Crusoe type of lifestyle," he said. "Our responsibility as Jews is to bring light into a larger society, and you don't do that by retreating."
For many zealously Orthodox Jews, the Internet is fraught with paradox. In some ways, it has proved a godsend. Knowledge of the Talmud is spread on dafyomi.org. The site onlysimchas.com is a bullhorn for gossip about marriages and births. At aish.com, a round-the-clock view of the Western Wall in Jerusalem is offered.
One Hasidic sect, the Lubavitch, aggressively uses the Internet to disperse its messianic message on sites such as Chabad.org.
"The rebbe taught that everything in this world is created for a divine purpose," said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Lubavitch, referring to Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the grand rabbi who died in 1994. "The medium itself is neutral. How we use it makes all the difference."
In the heavily Hasidic Borough Park section of Brooklyn, Touro College operates an institution called Machon L'Parnassah - or preparation for a livelihood - which instructs young men and women to use Internet-linked computers for such careers as medical billing. Issac Herskowitz, chief academic computing officer, took pains to note that computer labs are always supervised to avoid private surfing.
So many haredim depend on the Internet for their livelihoods that the irony was not lost on them that the Lakewood ban displayed a keen sophistication about the Web.
Hella Winston, author of "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels" (Beacon Press, 2005), said Hasidim have had to confront the fact that the Internet has sparked Craigslist advertisements for liaisons between "frum," or observant, married people and has made available explorations of maverick philosophers.
And Shtreimel is not alone in posting his doubts in a public forum (conartistic.blogspot.com is his latest address).
Hasidim and other haredim have never been Luddites opposed to technology. But in building what they call a fence to safeguard Torah observance, they discourage enrollment in college, and social contacts between men and women. Some yeshivas will expel a child if they learn the family has a television.
"If television wasn't banned, we wouldn't have kids studying and learning Torah 16 to 18 hours a day," said Rabbi Shalom Storch, principal of Yeshiva Nesivos Ohr, a day school in Lakewood.
In Lakewood, the rabbis were spurred not by worries about dissension but by the dangers of the Internet for young people. They were troubled by online chats they heard about, like one between an 8-year-old yeshiva student on Long Island and a predatory adult.
Shtreimel said that he first dipped into the Internet out of curiosity and soon was confiding his religious skepticism in e-mail messages. Now he gets about 300 readers a day on his blog and savors writing for the same reasons other writers do.
"When I get a comment from a person and he says he likes what I wrote, that's good," he said.

Letters in Paper about Lakewood

Letter in the A. P. P. responding the anti-Semitic rant by the Reverend Nunn:

As a candidate who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Lakewood Township Committee, I was appalled, shocked and dismayed to read the op-ed piece "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community" by the Rev. Kevin Nunn. I wonder what Nunn is teaching his followers.
During the seven-plus months that I was campaigning, I saw a much different Lakewood than the one described by Nunn. I saw a deputy mayor who is an Orthodox Jew (Meir Lichtenstein) rush off the dais to administer first aid to a member of Nunn's group when she collapsed. It didn't matter that this woman was black or that she was not an Orthodox Jew. All that he saw was a person in need of medical treatment and he provided it to her. It did not seem to me, as Nunn puts it, "that they don't defile their sick with the blood of our sick."I wonder if I would have written the same letter that Nunn had written and changed the word Lakewood to Harlem, would the Asbury Park Press have printed it? Or would they have branded me a racist?Nunn says "We could work together. Our children could play together, go to school together and enjoy the bond of unity that strengthens all men through camaraderie and communication to make this one great community." If he was truly interested in that, why did he not once approach me to share his concerns and fears regarding Lakewood? As someone who, in his own words, wants to "enjoy the bond of unity," why did he not once approach me, a Jew with a yarmulke on my head, to see if I were elected how we could work together to help the people that he purports to lead?
The fact that he never once reached out to me leads me to believe that Nunn is not interested in any of the words or concepts that he espouses. He is only interested in one thing: hate.Has Nunn ever bothered to find out why Orthodox Jews send their children to private schools?
On top of my property taxes that I pay, which go to educate his children, if he has any that are in the Lakewood school system, I pay thousands of dollars in private school tuition. I do this, because as an American, I am granted the liberty by our great country to educate my children as I see fit. I want my children to have a religious education, an education that is not afforded to me by the public school system.Nunn also is upset that "luxuries are afforded such as tax-exempt status for synagogues." I wonder if the church that Nunn prays in has tax-exempt status?I can go on and refute all his claims one by one, yet the question will remain: Will this satisfy Nunn? In my opinion, it will not, because he has shown his true colors, that of a person who is filled with bigotry and hate.
I call on all of the good people of Lakewood who I met during the campaign, whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, black or white, to come together in one unified voice and to tell Nunn that he and his hatred are not welcome in Lakewood.
Steven Langert
LAKEWOOD

Charges unfounded, offend community
In his Nov. 18 commentary "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community," the Rev. Kevin Nunn makes some unfortunate and outrageous charges against the Lakewood Orthodox Jewish community and the Township Committee.I am always wary of someone who must state in their opening comments "emphatically" that they are "not anti-Semitic nor racist." The minister then goes on with the most shocking anti-Semitic and racist column that I have ever read in any newspaper.On the one hand, to refute these absurd charges point by point would only lend validity to them. On the other hand, to leave them unchallenged leaves the impression there is a scintilla of truth. I would therefore like to address two points and show how false and distorted they are. This should give a good indication to the truthfulness of the rest.The outrageous charge is made that the Orthodox have "separate entrances to enter the hospital, ride in separate ambulances and seek to police their own community," so "they don't defile their sick with the blood of our sick." The minister knows quite well that the separate entrance to the hospital is used only on the Sabbath and holidays when Jews are not permitted to use the electronic doors in the front. He also knows quite well that the private volunteer ambulance organization has nothing to do with not wanting to "defile their sick with the blood of our sick" as I am unaware of any separate blood bank. It is to address the response time issue for a dispersed community.Nunn's comments bemoaning that by "allowing this to continue, by 2010 the demographics will have shifted so greatly that what once was a racially and socially diverse community will be a predominantly Orthodox Jewish community" sadly takes me back to an earlier time in my childhood when similar charges were made about another group that I would suspect the minister would be more sensitive about.Nunn seems to be disturbed by the power and influence of the Orthodox community in Lakewood. I would remind him of the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power." I would suggest that he do the same and stop trying to tear others down.
Abraham E. Danziger
LAKEWOOD

People choose where to live
The racist opinions in "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community" about the Lakewood Orthodox community resonated with xenophobic people the world over.The fact that people of a certain belief choose to live together in close proximity, pay for their own private schooling and housing, and set up legal, tax-exempt houses of worship is their own choice. The fact that people willingly sell their property to others at market prices is also their own choice. No one is forced to sell their property to others; they do it of their own volition.Demographics in every community shift constantly. Should we evict all the blacks from Harlem that displaced its earlier predominantly Jewish community? Certainly not. Over time as ethnic groups grow and shrink, the communities they inhabit change along with them. To those too racist to realize the dark nature of their thoughts and words, their hypocrisy is clear.
Israel M. Shenker
WESLEY HILLS, N.Y.

Writer's disclaimer belies truth
In reference to the Rev. Kevin Nunn's commentary "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community," the mere declaration that the writer is "not anti-Semitic nor . . . racist" leads the reader to think he is exactly that. This revelation of guilt is a common psychological experience for those who disparage and create an "otherness" for another group.While noble in cause and semantics, the use of the Founding Fathers' "all men are created equal" clause is misleading. It is social institutions that yield commonalities among the people. Yet, because Nunn is in the majority's religion, he feels it is OK to marginalize and defame the Orthodox Jewish community.I hope Nunn doesn't follow the dictates of his forebears: namely, Pope Paul IV's bull of 1555 that led to detaining and placing people of Jewish ancestry into ghettos, forbidding them from owning real estate, making them attend Christian universities, hire Christian servants and wear the common couture of the day and forcing them to wear distinctive badges and clothing.Nunn should live by his savior's teachings: love your neighbor and all.
Mark Kunzler
HOLMDEL

Writer's concerns seem misplaced
Having read and reread the Nov. 18 commentary "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community" by the Rev. Kevin Nunn, I have a number of questions. Why would a man from another county (Monmouth), another town (Asbury Park) and who can't even vote in Lakewood choose Lakewood as his rabble-rousing focal point?Why would a man, who claims to have equality as his goal and lives in a town that has many problems that need solving, choose to turn his back on his home town and instead choose to grace Lakewood with his great insight and sensitivity?The answer is the same as the answer to the question: Why do Ku Klux Klan members choose the towns they choose to infiltrate?Nunn and his followers are lucky enough to be living in a country that holds dear the right to freedom of speech. How sad when a man takes advantage of that right and invokes the name of God in order to create hate. Luckily, most people recognize people like Nunn for exactly what they are.
Gail Gobar
MANCHESTER

Distinctions understandable
Regarding the Nov. 18 commentary "Preferential treatment in Lakewood affects entire community," the claim by the Rev. Kevin Nunn that the organization he represents is not anti-Semitic is ludicrous.Nunn says that minority children are excluded from Jewish private schools. Why would Christian or Muslim children want to go to a yeshiva? He says the synagogues are tax-exempt. Does his church pay taxes?He states that the people have left Lakewood due to their inability to run successful businesses. The last time I looked at our capitalist society, it appeared that anyone with ability, ambition and capital could open a business.Why isn't the minister complaining about the Amish Christian community in Lancaster, Pa.? It appears that his description of the Jewish community would be parallel to the Amish.
Paul Schneider
HOWELL

Accusations toxic, inflame
It is a great relief to read the Rev. Kevin Nunn's declaration that he is not anti-Semitic, and that his Lakewood Improvement Association, presumably embracing some of his best friends, includes Jews.Had he not so declared, I might have been misled by his various accusations — some of them outright fabrications, others slanderous falsehoods, yet others misleading half-truths, all of them toxic and incendiary. He says that Orthodox Jews have "created economic and social discrimination," receive "preferential treatment," are undermining the economy of the community, are taking over, are virtually enslaving a "work force to accomplish their labor," view others as "not good enough" to interact with, will not "defile their sick with the blood" of others, and undermine the Declaration of Independence.As I say, it is a great relief. And the reverend can quote Scripture about righteousness, too.
Rabbi Avi Shafran
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRSAGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICANEW YORK
An abuse of free speech

Iwas stunned to see an article filled with such hate as the article written by the Rev. Kevin Nunn.While the Constitution protects free speech, spreading racism and the like does not do the Asbury Park Press any justice. You are implicitly supporting these thoughts of religious profiling as long as you do not print an editorial separating yourselves from Nunn's comments.I urge you to take the high road and while yes, you can print Nunn's thoughts, make it clear to the folks out there that you support the entire Constitution, which includes the words "all men are created equal."
Michael Rosenstock
MONSEY, N.Y.

The A.P.P. should apoligize!

Agudah backs Alito

Thanks Agudah for telling Capitol Hill "there are Jews who back preserving traditional values".

JTA:

..The national officers of Agudath Israel of America authorized the organization to support Alito’s candidacy for the high court, JTA has learned, and is reviewing the judge’s record before making a formal announcement after Thanksgiving.
The Orthodox group has taken an opposing view from many Jewish organizations on issues such as reproductive rights and the constitutional separation of church and state.
The news comes after the Reform movement voted to oppose Alito’s nomination.

Jewish Republicans blast Yoffie

Yoffie should apologize. But in his (and Reform's) mind anti-homosexuality is equivalent to anti-Jews. That is a fact he can't deny.

JTA:

The Republican Jewish Coalition blasted a Reform movement leader for comparing religious right groups to Hitler in their treatment of gays and lesbians. We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said Saturday. Matt Brooks, RJCs executive director, called the remarks absolutely outrageous, unacceptable and offensive. To have the respected head of a major Jewish organization equate other people of faith with Hitler and the Nazis should not be tolerated in this society, Brooks said. URJ spokeswoman Emily Grotta said Yoffie was making a historical reference. He did not say the religious right was akin to Hitler, she said.

Sharon up in polls

Likud is dead. For now.

JTA:

Yediot Achronot and Ma’ariv gave Sharon’s new party — which he tentatively named “National Responsibility” — between 30 and 33 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in the next elections. The biggest challenger, the Labor Party under new head Amir Peretz, was seen winning 25 to 26 seats. The ruling Likud Party, which Sharon quit Monday because of opposition to his diplomatic program, got a projected 12 to 15 seats.

Lakewood young millionaire

PRWEB:

Twenty-five may seem like a young age to be a millionaire entrepreneur, but Issamar Ginzberg is already busy taking his real estate ‘miniglomerate’ public on the OTC bulletin board.
A direct descendant of a long line of Chassidic Masters with lineage stretching back to King David, Issamar Ginzberg is the president of Magnate Equities Corporation. Ginzberg's entrepreneurial spirit was developed at a young age. With his parents blessing, he started his first business at age 6, buying ‘wholesale’ boxes and selling single “Boston baked beans’ in school.The 25-year-old entrepreneur started as a shareware developer at the age of 12, and has been aiming higher ever since.
Ginzberg, a Brooklynite who recently moved to the orthodox Jewish enclave of Lakewood, New Jersey, "I enjoyed the challenge of starting my own business. It was something not many other 12-year-olds were doing," Ginzberg says.
With a personal net worth of over a million dollars, Ginzberg feels confident that taking his company public is the right way to go. “ I am different from the pack. I am differentiating myself from all the real estate investors that are just looking to purchase another small property, and then another small property”, he says. “I am building a great company that will spread way beyond real estate, and over the next several years, will hopefully become a household name."The secrets to our success is focus and determination," Ginzberg says. "perseverance and hard work is our “public domain’ recipe."Starting a business has challenges along with advantages.
Ginzberg stresses budding entrepreneurs must really want and love what they do if they want to succeed. Only then will the sacrifices of time, personal life and the hard work invested in the business be worth it.Ultimately, regardless of the challenges, Ginzberg believes that young entrepreneurs have a big advantage in the business world — their young age.
"Although people will at first wonder if you're capable, once people get to know you, your age becomes an asset. It's what makes you known, the ‘amazing young guy that is making things happen’.
Ginzberg coaches budding entrepreneurs, many older then himself, free of charge as a way to give back to the community and living the American dream.

Lakewood audio

WCBS 880 has an audio interview on Lakewood's internet ban with Rabbi Moshe Weisberg.

Numerous T.V. stations in N.Y. and N.J. had coverage.
WABC; 1010 Wins

Medical Center in Lakewood

TriTown News:

...proposed business incubator/medical center that would be housed in the former Jamesway store at Route 9 and County Line Road, according to Deputy Mayor Meir Lichtenstein.
Lichtenstein is the Township Com-mittee’s liaison to the Lakewood Devel-opment Corp. (LDC), which oversees the municipality’s Urban Enter-prise Zone (UEZ).
Lichtenstein said Rabbi Aaron Kotler of Beth Medrash Govoha (a post-secondary institution in the township) presented the proposal before members of the LDC at their Oct. 11 meeting. If LDC members approve the concept, the project would be eligible for funding with UEZ dollars.
“They have a plan to use the Jamesway or a part of it,” Lichtenstein said on Nov. 18. “They want to use a part of it as a business incubator. They could rent out space to [a start-up] business or provide support services so the applicant could concentrate on getting the business going.”
Lichtenstein said that after a period of time, the fledgling business would relocate in its own facility.
He said a five-year plan also presented to LDC members by director Russell Corby described the area where the Jamesway is located near the border of Howell as the gateway to Lakewood. Its renovation would be a key component of plans to develop the corner shopping area, which has languished for years. ..

Lakewood internet article

I think the publicizing of the ban will have other schools, Jewish and not, pause and consider doing likewise.

Reading the article you feel proud of Lakewood.

The Star-Ledger:

Like so many Americans, Mesh Gelman relies on the Internet for work. But in a move that's likely to complicate his business in international trade, the Lakewood man plans to unplug his home computer from the wired world, shutting out all that's good -- and bad -- about the Web.
Gelman's reasoning is simple: His religious leaders have told him to do so.
The father of four is a member of Lakewood's tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community, whose leaders have declared that Internet access should be removed from homes with school-age children to better protect them from the bounty of sexual images online.
It is more than a suggestion. The community's policy -- formed with the principals of the area's 43 yeshivas, or Jewish private schools, and unveiled in late September -- decrees that any student with home access faces suspension or expulsion on the grounds that even one Internet-corrupted student could sway others.
Rabbi Moshe Weisberg, who has long discussed the dangers of the Web with other Lakewood rabbis, said children are not mature enough to use the Internet and are susceptible to sites sexual in nature, either openly or subtly so.
"Kids can become addicted to the point where it's almost like a drug addiction or an alcoholic addiction," said Weisberg, who runs a social services agency in Lakewood. "Even though there might be some value -- research, schoolwork -- the negatives so far outweigh the positives."
While figures were not available, rabbis said many parents among the Ocean County community's 6,500 Orthodox families have already canceled their Internet subscriptions.
Gelman, who dropped off his 6- and 8-year-old boys at Yeshiva Bais HaTorah yesterday, said he's still trying to figure out how to work at home without the Internet. But, he said, he will, praising the rabbi's policy as "smart."
"The Internet is not a bad thing, but people use it for the wrong reasons," Gelman said. "As a parent, it's hard when kids start asking you things and watching their innocence fall away. You wonder what they can learn on the Web. I know that with one little stroke of the key, you can end up in the wrong place."
While strict, the policy is not absolute. The community's rabbis may make exceptions for parents with e-mail-only access or with home businesses if computers are kept in a locked room or cabinet.
A different section of the policy forbids students from using Palm Pilots, cell phones and/or other hand-held devices with Internet access, though yeshiva principals are not required to expel students if they violate this part.
In a community in which few people have televisions, the rabbis' concerns extend beyond fears about children meeting sexual predators in chat rooms. They also worry about pictures.
"The issue of extramarital sex ... extends to even looking at ladies for pleasure, thinking about other ladies for pleasure," said Rabbi Netanya Gottlieb, principal of Yeshiva Bais HaTorah. "We really ... don't want children to see ladies who are dressed inappropriately ... If that one image goes into a child's head, it can wreak havoc with all the religious instruction."
Elsewhere, attempts to limit Internet use often are criticized as censorship. But Lakewood's Orthodox Jewish leaders said they do not expect any lawsuits.
Indeed, rabbis and people interviewed in Lakewood said there is widespread support for the rules, with little outward opposition save some blogging on the Internet. And they said similar policies in Israel have worked well.
Still, the ban drew some disapproval outside Lakewood.
"I think it's doing a great disservice to the students by prohibiting them from using what is essentially the primary communications medium of our time," said Kevin Bankston of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. Bankston hadn't heard of the policy until contacted by a reporter.
Lakewood's Jews comprise about a third of the township's population, community leaders said. The community began growing in the 1940s with the establishment of Beis Medrash Govoha, a yeshiva that has blossomed into one of the world's most prestigious schools for studying the Talmud.
"This is a self-selected group of people that choose to live in Lakewood," Weisberg said. "Being subject to rabbinic leadership here is completely voluntary ... If you're sending your kid to a private school, you've already made a choice. You want to guide your child in a certain direction."
The rabbis acknowledged that children know more about computers than do adults. When they unveiled the policy Sept. 27 at a large meeting, they had Internet experts on hand to teach parents about Wifi and Bluetooth. About 3,000 people attended.
"This was an education for the vast majority of people there, who had no idea what a (wireless) router was," or that a child could take any computer with wireless capacity around the block and use an unsuspecting neighbor's signals, Weisberg said.
Lakewood's Jewish leaders have been warning the community about perils of the Internet for nearly five years.
"Any practicing rabbi has his handful of cases where really good families, good marriages, have been broken up" because of time spent online, Weisberg said.
If the scene at Lakewood's public library is any indication, the rabbis will not get 100 percent compliance. Last Friday afternoon, six boys in traditional Jewish clothing were surfing the Web.
But the rabbis say 100 percent compliance is not the point; they do not plan midnight raids. Instead, they said they expect community members to use the honor system and sign written pledges that if they do need the Internet at home for work, they will ensure that kids cannot use it...