Irwin Katsof forms new alliance

Just received the following statement from someone who identified himself to me but doesn't want his name revealed and he claims to know the true facts.

The facts of the [following] article were all wrong. Irwin has no connection to guma never had a conversation with him and does not even have him contact information. Iriwn is not a billionare and he does not know rabbi tropper. This is a typical example of someone reading the news and then spreading the rumors without actually caring about the facts. That is fine and accepted in todays world but on "daat torah" website???

RaP wrote:

In an important development, it was reported that Irwin Katsof the former top fundraiser and marketer of Aish HaTorah now reputedly a very wealthy man himself (some reports have stated he may be in the billionaire bracket) has now teamed up with Tom Kaplan's estranged nephew and foe of Rabbi Tropper, Guma Aguiar.

Irwin Katsof became a legend in his own lifetime by attracting incredible financial wealth and political recognition for Aish HaTorah and glorifying its now deceased leader Rav Noach Weinberg. He was so successful that he left to run his own business conglomerate The Doheny Group In a recent controversial news report, Katsof brought the Governor of Texas and an elite power elite from Texas to do business with Guma l

"Records obtained by CBS 11 show the governor's airfare and trip costs for he and his wife were paid for by Irwin Katsof, a financier for energy companies around the world. And the man who presented Perry with the Defender of Jerusalem award, Guma Aguiar, owns a company that made billions of dollars in the Texas natural gas industry. Aguiar also created the award given to Perry."

The alliance between Katsof and Guma spells more serious trouble for Rabbi Tropper. Katsof is world-class expert at manipulating politicians, creating events, generating wealth and burnishing images and he is just as committed to unlimited outreach to secular Jews as Guma is, and he has more wealth than Rabbi Tovia Singer.

Avodas HaMelech: Public knowledge & lashon harah

Justice: Harvard Prof Sandel #5

Testimony of dogs sends men to jail

NYTimes

A dog's sniff helped put Curvis Bickham in jail for eight months. Now that the case against him has been dropped, he wants to tell the world that the investigative technique that justified his arrest smells to high heaven.

The police told Mr. Bickham they had tied him to a triple homicide through a dog-scent lineup, in which dogs choose a suspect's smell out of a group. The dogs are exposed to the scent from items found at crime scene, and are then walked by a series of containers with samples swabbed from a suspect and from others not involved in the crime. If the dog finds a can with a matching scent, it signals — stiffening, barking or giving some other alert its handler recognizes.

Dogs' noses have long proved useful to track people, and the police rely on them to detect drugs and explosives, and to find the bodies of victims of crime and disaster. A 2004 report by the F.B.I. states that use of scent dogs, properly conducted, "has become a proven tool that can establish a connection to the crime."[...]

Ezagui case & Chabad

Home Page See Federal Indictment under documents

Ezagui Case from Pidyon Shevuim Trust on Vimeo.

Aish HaTorah:Does G-d care about intermarriage?

Aishe HaTorah

Belinda and I struggled with the idea: Does God care if we intermarry?

"What are we waiting for?" Belinda asked, buoyant yet somewhat confused as we sat facing each other. For weeks we had been talking about the prospect of getting married.

I held back. I was not supposed to marry a gentile, I thought. To do so would be a betrayal of my family, my ancestors, my tradition. Yet it would sound racist if I told her that.

Then I realized: It would sound racist to me as well.

I needed time to think, to read up on intermarriage, to figure things out. Belinda, who is Chinese, and I had been dating for a few months. Never before had things felt so "right," and yet there was an underlying sense that something was very "wrong."[...]

EJF, R' Tropper and Chabad

This post is a bit complicated. I don't have time to translate the Hebrew material or to organize it. Don't waste your time if you have not been following the discussions. I am not claiming the charges are true or taking sides.

First read the letters from these two links

• לקריאת המכתב המלא, בפרסום ראשון - לחץ כאן

• הרב התלונן: המיליארדר איים לחסל אותי

Then read the main article on Haredim site