Spiritual leader of Syrian Jewish community enters guilty plea

YNet

The spiritual leader for the Syrian Jewish community in the United States has entered a guilty plea in a massive federal corruption probe in New Jersey.

Rabbi Saul Kassin of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty in a Trenton federal courtroom Monday to one count of unauthorized money transmitting.

The 89-year-old is the chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and New Jersey.
 
Kassin was among five rabbis arrested in July 2009 and charged with money laundering using charitable non-profit groups they or their synagogues controlled.

 

Emmanuel: allegations that sex abuse is behind segregation

Channel 2 news Hat tip Joel Katz

Here's a heads-up on a Israel Channel 2 TV program "360" investigative report.

what was really behind the segregation in Emmanuel's school.

360 reports that the origin of the conflict involved allegations of sexual abuse by rabbi in Emmanuel.

The allegations created conflict between the 'ba'aleh teshuva' population and the haredi population.

Only later did the segregation take place.

Channel 2 http://reshet.ynet.co.il/Shows/360/ Monday 21:00 March 28, 2011.

Joel

Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel
http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/

Emmanuel: allegations that sex abuse is behind segregation

Channel 2 news Hat tip Joel Katz

Here's a heads-up on a Israel Channel 2 TV program "360" investigative report.

what was really behind the segregation in Emmanuel's school.

360 reports that the origin of the conflict involved allegations of sexual abuse by rabbi in Emmanuel.

The allegations created conflict between the 'ba'aleh teshuva' population and the haredi population.

Only later did the segregation take place.

Channel 2 http://reshet.ynet.co.il/Shows/360/ Monday 21:00 March 28, 2011.

Joel

Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel
http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/

The Eruv crisis in the Hamptons:The thin Jew LIne

City Show

Readership - South Korea & Iran

Just noticed in my statistics of readership by country - that there are a significant number of readers from South Korea & Iran. 

I would appreciate hearing from these readers what they find of interest?

Supreme Court to Weigh Sociology Issue in Wal-Mart Discrimination Case

NYTimes

When the Supreme Court considers on Tuesday whether hundreds of thousands of women can band together in an employment discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, the argument may hinge on the validity of the hotly disputed conclusions of a Chicago sociologist.

Plaintiffs in the class-action suit, who claim that Wal-Mart owes billions of dollars to as many as 1.5 million women who they say were unfairly treated on pay and promotions, enlisted the support of William T. Bielby, an academic specializing in "social framework analysis."

A central question in the case is whether he should have been allowed, in preliminary proceedings, to go beyond describing general research about gender stereotypes in the workplace to draw specific conclusions about what he called flaws in Wal-Mart's personnel policies.

"Bielby made a conclusion that he had no basis to make," said Laurens Walker, one of two University of Virginia professors who coined the term for the analysis almost 25 years ago. "He hasn't done the research." [...]

The alienation of American Muslims

CNN

The community is growing more defensive in the face of what many here say is a national climate of suspicion reminiscent of the period immediately after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Graves in Yaffo are apparently not Jewish

YNET

The tombs uncovered near Andromeda Hill in Jaffa belong to pagan worshipers buried next to domesticated pigs, according to the latest findings revealed during excavation works at the site.

For the past year, the site has become a political and religious hotspot, with ultra-Orthodox frequently protesting what they claimed was the desecration of Jewish graves.

BCHOL

עצמות יהודים? התמונה אומרת הכל! • צפו והזדזעו
'אתרא קדישא' נערך לטקס קבורה פומבי לעצמות שפונו ממתחם אנדרדומה ביפו • עדות שצולמה במקום מוכיחה באופן חותך: מדובר בעצמות נוצרים • צפו

Abuse: Cyberbullying:5 Essential Parenting Tips

Time

Cyberbullying is back in the news, most recently because of a so-called "smut list" published online that targeted 100 teenage girls, some as young as 14, for being promiscuous. So Healthland asked two bullying experts — Elizabeth Englander, author of Understanding Violence, and Jonathan Singer at the Temple University School of Social Work — for tips for helping parents teach kids to avoid, cope with and understand the harm of digital abuse:

Make sure your kids know cyberbullying is wrong. Many kids don't understand that when they write down and disseminate feelings of frustration, jealousy or anger toward others online, it can quickly escalate into problems in the real world. They also tend to think that what happens digitally "doesn't count" and that digital abuse doesn't hurt, especially since parents usually focus on their kids' behavior in person.

Lawsuit:Magnets defeat push button locks

NYTimes

Yeshai M. Kutoff was house-proud, having bought a home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, for his family of five. And as an Orthodox Jew, he bought push-button locks for the doors — an accommodation for the Sabbath, when many of the devout do not carry keys.

When a neighbor told him that the locks he had bought could be opened by a powerful magnet costing about $30, Mr. Kutoff was perturbed. “It does bother me that other people could easily figure it out,” he said. Mr. Kutoff did not buy a magnet to see for himself. “It doesn’t interest me to know how to break into my own lock,” he said.

If this were a problem with security software instead of errant bits of steel, a company could send out a patch. If this was someplace other than the United States in the 21st century, Mr. Kutoff might have called a locksmith. But because it is the United States in the 21st century, lawyers are involved.

Jesuits Settle Sex Abuse Claims For $166 Million

NRP

In one of the largest settlements in the Catholic church's sweeping sex abuse scandal, an order of priests agreed Friday to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order's schools around the Pacific Northwest.

The settlement between more than 450 victims and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus also calls for a written apology to the victims and disclosure of documents to them, including their personal medical records.

"It's a day of reckoning and justice," said Clarita Vargas, who said she and her two sisters were abused by the head of St. Mary's Mission and School, a former Jesuit-run Indian boarding school on the Colville Indian Reservation near Omak, Wash., in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The abuse began when they were as young as 6 or 7, she said. "My spirit was wounded, and this makes it feel better." [...]

Brain-Damaged Mom Granted Visitation Rights With Triplets

Fox News

A judge issued a tentative written order Friday allowing a woman so badly brain damaged by medical errors during childbirth that she can no longer walk, talk or eat temporary visitation with her 4-year-old triplets.

Superior Court Judge Frederick C. Shaller issued the ruling after a two-week court hearing over the parental rights of Abbie Dorn, a 34-year-old who is being cared for by her parents at their Myrtle Beach, S.C., home. The order will stand until a trial date is set in the case, said Dorn's attorney, Lisa Helfend Meyer.

Dorn's parents, who are suing for permanent visitation, want the children to visit for two weeks every summer and a week in the fall and spring, but an attorney for Dorn's ex-husband argued during a hearing earlier this week that their mother was so badly injured giving birth that she is no longer capable of being a parent. [...]