Madoff Trustee Seeks $19.6 Billion From Austrian Banker

NYTimes

The trustee seeking money for victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud has sued Sonja Kohn, an Austrian banker, seeking $19.6 billion in damages and accusing her of masterminding a 23-year conspiracy that played a central role in financing the gigantic Ponzi scheme.

Amid an avalanche of lawsuits filed in recent weeks as the trustee nears a Saturday deadline to file claims, the complaint against Ms. Kohn stands out for its stark allegations of criminal behavior and the size of the financial recovery sought.

“In Sonja Kohn, Madoff found a criminal soul mate, whose greed and dishonest inventiveness equaled his own,” the trustee, Irving L. Picard, said.[...]

Oy Vey! Belief in Santa used to bolster Jewish self-esteem

Jewish Week

My 3-year-old nephew, his voice raspy from a recent cold, has been directing a long-winded narrative my way. I catch only a few words, but they startle me: Santa will be sliding down chimneys, and then there will be presents.

“Oh really?” I say, my eyebrows rising, inwardly vowing to speak with my sister.

Although my sister and I did not grow up in a strictly observant Jewish home, Christmas remained a world apart. When the revelers caroled in our Queens neighborhood, I listened from a safe distance, peering behind porch curtains. When holiday lights twinkled through the windows next door, I stared, enraptured, envious. If I reaped some small compensation from my Jewish identity at Christmas time, it was the satisfaction of sharing in the adult secret. Santa Claus was a fake.[...]

Baruch Hashem! Stormy weekend ahead as winter finally arrives in Israel

Haaretz

Snow expected on Mount Hermon and Golan heights, heavy rains throughout Israel, accompanied by very strong winds and possible floods. [...]

Millions of illegal immigrants drive without license or insurance

NYTimes

It was just another suburban fender-bender. A car zoomed into an intersection and braked too late to stop at a red light. The Georgia woman driving it, an American citizen, left with a wrecked auto, a sore neck and a traffic fine.

But for Felipa Leonor Valencia, the Mexican woman who was driving the Jeep that was hit that day in March, the damage went far beyond a battered bumper. The crash led Ms. Valencia, an illegal immigrant who did not have a valid driver’s license, to 12 days in detention and the start of deportation proceedings — after 17 years of living in Georgia.

Like Ms. Valencia, an estimated 4.5 million illegal immigrants nationwide are driving regularly, most without licenses, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Only three states — New Mexico, Utah and Washington — currently issue licenses without proof of legal residence in the United States. [...]

Crown Heights Beis Din issues orders not to report anyone to police

Daily News

A Brooklyn rabbinical court has a new commandment for the thousands of religious Jews under its jurisdiction: Thou shall not snitch.

The Beth Din of Crown Heights has ordered an estimated 10,000 members of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect not to gripe about cops or blab about crimes to outsiders.

"No one shall bring to any media outlet information about any resident that could, if publicized, lead to an investigation or intensified prosecution by any law enforcement agency," reads an edict issued last week.[...]

Education:Success measured by resume & test scores?

NYTimes

It isn’t often that a third of a movie audience sticks around to discuss its message, but that is the effect of “Race to Nowhere,” a look at the downside of childhoods spent on résumé-building.

“How do you help your children balance when the whole education system is pushing, pushing, pushing, and you want your kids to be successful?” Alethea Lewis, a mother of two, asked a roomful of concerned parents who had just seen the film, a documentary, last week in Bronxville, N.Y., at a screening co-sponsored by the private Chapel School.

With no advertising and little news media attention, “Race to Nowhere” has become a must-see movie in communities where the kindergarten-to-Harvard steeplechase is most competitive. [...]

Rav Sternbuch: Behind the Fire

'Christian Conservative' Should Replace Jewish Speaker, Some Texas Pols Say

Fox News

The race to lead the Texas House of Representatives has taken a religious turn, with some conservatives in the state suggesting that the speaker of the House, who is a Jewish Republican, should be replaced by a "Christian conservative."

Over the past month, in a spate of e-mails and political pitches, conservative opponents of incumbent Speaker Joe Straus have said they want him replaced not because of his Jewish religion, but because of his betrayal of Republican principles. [...]

Jerusalem Post Editorial: Let the rabbis go

JPost

Close to 300 rabbis, including dozens of city rabbis who receive salaries from their respective municipalities, have signed a declaration forbidding Jews to rent or sell property to Arabs.

Such rentals or sales, claim the rabbis, cause economic and spiritual damage to neighbors by precipitating a fall in property values and increasing the possibility of intermarriage. Selling or renting to Arabs also creates the potential for bodily harm since “there are those among them [Arabs] who are our [Jews’] enemies and endanger our lives.”

The rabbis have also urged communities to use various means of coercion against anyone poised to sell or rent to an Arab, including “to advertise his name in public, to distance him, to prevent trade from being done with him, to prevent him from reading from the Torah and so forth until he reverses his decision that causes harm to so many people.” [...]

Crime is eliminated only if community desires to be just - G-d doesn't cause corruption

Daas Torah page 286

Malbim (Job 31:38 Summary): Why doesn’t G﷓d destroy all the wicked people in order to remove their wickedness and sustain mankind - especially since they live like the wild beasts of the forest separate from others and thus it would be possible to obligate them without harming others. … The answer lies in understanding the nature of reward and punishment. Reward and punishment is not something distinct from the commandment but is in fact inherent in the action of the commandment. For example a person who controls his lusts and desires will be healthy while one who runs after his desire for meat with become sick and be crushed by suffering. Therefore a community which strives to do good and kindness and to administer proper justice and uproot crime will live in tranquility and security without any crime and disorder. In contrast if there is perversion of justice there will be an increase in murder and robbery… G﷓d prepared the nature of man that he should gather together in communities and that people should help each other and should work to destroy criminals and murderers who destroy civilization and that they should administer proper justice in the land. By this means man will survive since the good people are always greater in number than the bad… Consequently the administering of justice to the wicked who destroy civilization has been given over to mankind who by their nature will uproot evil. If evil overcomes the good and if there is no justice then man will be no different than the fish of the sea. Thus man himself determines whether he will live under anarchy and crime. Therefore why be upset with G﷓d when society is corrupt?

Breslav טלטלה ב'שובו בנים': הרב ברלנד נלקח למקום מסתור

http://www.kikarhashabat.co.il/%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%A8-%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%93.html

http://www.bhol.co.il/Article.aspx?id=22111

Claims regarding life based on arsenic questioned

Newsweek

We have seen this movie before: scientists hold a press conference to announce much-hyped results (cold fusion in 1989, the Martian rock with signs of life in 1996). Then other researchers check out the claims, which proceed to vanish like a rabbit in a magic show. We have also seen the movie in which a leading science journal publishes a paper making extraordinary claims only to see them shown to be seriously flawed, as in recent claims about the genetic basis for longevity in Science, that other scientists raised serious doubts about.

So the concerns being raised about last week’s press-conference announcement, and Science paper, by researchers at NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, the U.S. Geological Survey, and elsewhere that bacteria scooped from Mono Lake are able (when grown in the lab) to incorporate arsenic rather than phosphorous in its nucleic acids and enzymes are not exactly surprising. The thrust of the claim is that this represents a new way to live—that although all previously known forms of life on earth use phosphorous in the backbone of their DNA and RNA, this bug can use arsenic, which is usually poisonous. That challenges the dogma that life requires the Big 6: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. If there are other ways to be alive, the likelihood of life on other planets rises. [...]

Pnei Yehoshua - the righteous suffer for the sake of others

Daas Torah page 284

Pnei Yehoshua (Berachos 5a): If one can not find a sin that justifies the suffering then it is suffering of love. Rashi explains that G﷓d afflicts undeserved suffering in order to increase the reward in the World to Come. Why should G﷓d afflict the tzadik when there is no need for the suffering - since no person would torture his friend in order to give him extra presents. And the question seem even stronger since all the worlds belong to G﷓d and He can freely give them to whomever He wants. Furthermore this gemora also states that the World to Come is only given through suffering. Why should this be? An obvious answer is that the soul is not capable - even after it has separated from the body - to receive the light of the transcendent World to Come without suffering…. However this explanation doesn’t fit the language of Rashi that the purpose is to receive greater reward than his merit. The explanation of Rashi could be that the undeserved suffering is to atone for the sin of other Jews as we see in Sanhedrin (39a)… Thus G﷓d does not want the world destroyed. If he brings suffering on the average person it is possible he won’t accept the suffering willingly and will rebel - Heaven forbid! Therefore He brings the suffering on the righteous who are willing to accept it with love for the sake of all Jews. Since this tzadik brought merit to the masses by his suffering, he receives his own reward and also their reward in the World to Come. He also obviously receives the portion of the wicked who have lost their portion in the World to Come. This latter explanation seems to be the understanding of Rashi while the original explanation seems to better fit the language of the gemora.

Israel Sees Hopeful Signs in Collapse of Peace Talks

NYTimes

When it became clear a month ago that American and Israeli officials were negotiating a partial, one-time, 90-day Israeli settlement construction freeze in exchange for American military hardware and diplomatic guarantees, few analysts applauded.

Instead, they asked: Would pro-settler Israeli cabinet ministers accede to another freeze? Would the Palestinians accept a freeze that did not include East Jerusalem? And beyond that, how could the two sides solve enough in 90 days to prevent the talks from collapsing and, in the worst case, setting off violence?

With Tuesday’s announcement that the White House had abandoned that approach and was no longer asking for a settlement freeze, it became clear that those questions had grown too big to ignore. Officials said that every element of the deal posed profound difficulties, and that the wisest course was to step back and start over. [...]