The Weekly Blotter:
University students, angered that the Government of Israel gives stipends to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students but not to them, clash with police. (Ynet)
Meanwhile, an Israeli city’s Orthodox chief rabbi banned the renting or sale of housing to Israeli Arab students who attend the local college. Why? Because he believes Arab students will “disrupt” the city’s “Jewish atmosphere.” (Jewish Chronicle)
And, not surprisingly, a US Government report accuses Israel of violating the religious freedom of non-Orthodox Jews. (JTA)
Three ultra-Orthodox men caught in a money laundering sting last year plead guilty. (Wall Street Journal)
Alan Dershowitz, Harvard professor and attorney to stars who find themselves in very deep shit, says he isn’t sure if former glatt kosher meat king Sholom Rubashkin is “completely innocent, “ but he is sure Rubashkin’s sentence is “disproportionate” and a form of bias. (Jewish Press)
Rubashkin, a Chabad hasid, was convicted on a mere 86 counts of financial crimes including money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud, and has dozens of immigration charges against him that the feds chose to drop because Rubashkin was already going away for a very, very long time – Rubashkin is serving a 27-year prison sentence. (FailedMessiah)
The family that preys together stays together. Rubashkin’s brother-in-law Rabbi Milton Yehoshua Balkany was convicted of trying to extort $4 million from a hedge fund. He could be sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. (Village Voice)
Israel’s law barring sex offenders from working with or near children is going unenforced. Cops say that’s because they just don’t have the resources to enforce it. (Ha’aretz)
Ethiopian Jewish women are being battered and murdered by their partners at an alarming rate. Even so, these women are reluctant to break their community’s code of silence. Why? (Ynet)
A Chabad hasid wanted in the beating of a NYPD cop’s son is living on the lam in Israel. (Daily News)
The home of a Jewish woman who campaigns against an Orthodox Jewish chicken ritual is defaced, presumably by her ultra-Orthodox neighbors. (Gothamist)
The Antidote:
Dead Orthodox college president Bernard Lander got a one-time $4.3 million payout. Why? Because he built Touro College from scratch and took a yearly salary almost $1 million less than his competitors, like Yeshiva University President Richard Joel, who is paid $1.2 million per year. Even into his 90s, Lander took the subway to work and lived “like a pauper.” (The Jewish Week)
Shmarya Rosenberg publishes FailedMessiah.com. His reporting has been cited in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Columbia Journalism Review, Ha’aretz, Jerusalem Post, Forward, JTA and many other publications. He was named to both the Forward 50 and the Heeb 100 in 2008.
Leave a Reply