Week in Review: July 31, 2009Click here to watch in High Definition (HD)
Major New Acceptance for Triangle-K/Hebrew National As KosherThe legitimacy and trustworthiness of the Triangle-K kosher supervision agency are often maligned in the kosher-keeping community, for reasons that are most often not clear at all (1, 2, 3, 4). One thing that’s been pushing a re-evaluation of Triangle-K, particularly in liberal Orthodox areas, is the fact that it’s been certifying Hebrew National’s meat for a few years now, with Hebrew National using particularly-humane methods of slaughter — something the liberal Orthodox are especially eager to find, in light of the Agriprocessors situation.
And now Rabbi Asher Lopatin — a leading liberal-Orthodox rabbi, member of the RCA, and often known these days as Rahm Emanuel’s rabbi — has changed his position on Hebrew National: Read more
This Week in the J-Papers
With the next round of Jewish weeklies sure to be awash in coverage of Thursday’s arrest of 44 people — including three mayors and four rabbis — allegedly involved in bribery and money laundering, my next run-down will pay significant attention to that topic. But that wasn’t the only sting operation this week that touched the Jewish world. On Tuesday, following a joint investigation by the FBI and Israel Police, officers arrested 11 people allegedly connected to a $25 million lottery scam which targeted elderly Americans. But even as these two new scandals begin their journey through the federal courts, another one in Denver looks to be coming to an end…
According to The Intermountain Jewish News, the Colorado man dubbed “the Bernie Madoff of Denver,” Arnold Zaler, has agreed to plead guilty to four of the original 30 counts of federal mail, bank and wire fraud charges brought against him last year. The indictment alleges victims lost more than $3 million after investing in Zaler’s Kosher Meats (a meat market/restaurant) and Kosher Korner (a hot dog vendor). This comes after Zaler jumped bail last March and fled to Israel for eleven months, where he got into even more hot water.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors passed a motion requesting the county’s $9 billion pension fund divest itself of any assets or funds from companies doing business with Iranian energy resource development interests. The move has strong support from LA Jewish Journal editor-in-chief Rob Eshman, who writes “divestment and sanctions offer an effective tool in pressuring the regime in Iran toward collapse, or at least convince it to stop its rapid march toward developing nuclear weapons.”
The Forward reports on the messy divorce of “America’s most storied Jewish union”, UNITE from the national hotel union HERE, and how it may be stalling passage of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress.
There were 609 antisemitic incidents in England within the first six months of 2009, compared to 544 all of last year — this according to The Community Security Trust, which finds negative reaction to Israel’s incursion into Gaza to be behind the rise. British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis tells The Jewish Chronicle that “we simply cannot tolerate those who seek to use foreign conflicts to justify racism and criminal acts against any UK citizen,” while Board of Deputies chief executive Jon Benjamin noted “all those lazy or malicious commentators who feed those perceptions by talking about Jewish lobbies and Zionist influence should reflect on the impact of their words.”
Following a recent summit between 16 American Jewish leaders and President Barack Obama, Orthodox Union President Stephen Savitsky tells Canada’s Jewish Tribune that he would have been more vocal to the President about supporting the growth of Jewish Settlements in the West Bank “if there was time, if we’d been there a little longer,” but that “there was not a lot of time to get into some of those issues.” But that doesn’t satisfy Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice-president of the National Council of Young Israel, who was not invited to attend. He tells the JT that “I’m not happy that people are walking out and the media reporting that it was a shoo-in. I would have hoped that somebody would have re-focused the conversation.”
The Jewish Press talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Storozynski about his new book, The Peasant Prince, tracking the life and times of 18th century Polish revolutionary Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Among his accomplishments was serving as the American Continental Army’s chief tactician leading up to the pivotal Battle of Saratoga, and raising a cavalry unit composed of 500 Jews (known as the “bearded army”) during the failed 1794 “Kosciuszko Uprising“.
The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent previews the upcoming International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference (which runs August 2-7 at the Sheraton Philadelphia Center City Hotel) with a look at how the Internet has revolutionized genealogy research. Sites like JewishGen.org are being used by American Jews to find their ancestors, while a growing number of European nations are making digitized civic records available online.
As part of a new program called the Constellation/Automated Critical Asset Management System (C/ACAMS), Baltimore county’s police department has reached out to local synagogues to help build its database. “After 9/11, the idea was to build a database for first-responders,” Detective Frederick Carter tells the Baltimore Jewish Times, adding “this information is for police and fire departments to have as a response tool in case of an emergency.” Those synagogues who choose to participate are asked to provide emergency contact information, the size of their building and hours of operation, the number of occupants as well as optional floor plans, electrical systems, generator locations, evacuation and security procedures.
Does a Synagogue Involved in the NJ Corruption Probe Even Exist?Rabbi Michael Fish is one of several rabbis indicted yesterday, and criminal complaints and news reports say he’s the rabbi of “Congregation Sheves Achim” in Brooklyn.
According to several non-profit registries, there is only one organization with “Sheves Achim” in the name in New York State, and that’s “Cong Sheves Achim” of 3054 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn.
But pulling up Google Street View, it doesn’t look like much of a congregation, does it?
And according to the phone book, it is the residential home of a man named Joseph Meisner. When I called that home, a child picked up the phone, and claimed not to have heard of any such congregation, any such rabbi, and that 3054 Bedford Avenue is just a family home with no particular involvement in any Jewish organizations or congregations. The child also said some people had stopped by the day before asking if it was a congregation, and he’d told them it wasn’t.
Which is interesting, because if you look through all the non-profits registered in that ZIP code, 3054 Bedford Avenue comes up more than once — it actually comes up quite a lot.
According to non-profit registries, there are at least 97 non-profits registered to that one address — and having sorted through a couple dozen of them, all claim to be religious organizations not needing to file a non-profit disclosure form 990, so there’s almost no information available about them.
These non-profits seem be exclusively of the Orthodox Jewish type, often listed as synagogues, yeshivas, and the like.
Oh, and just try to find further mention of “Rabbi Mordechai Fish” (or “Mordchai”) unrelated to this probe, anywhere on the Web. I couldn’t, and I found exactly one mention of Congregation Sheves Achim on the Web prior to the crime news, on a Breslov Chasidic events listing:
A born and bred Brooklynite, Rabbi Peretz Auerbach made aliyah many years ago and learned from many masters until he became an accomplished scholar in all areas if Torah. Today he is one of the key figures in Breslov outreach. Rabbi Auerbach is presently working on a commentary on the Zohar in English, b’derekh avodah — as related to spiritual practice, both in prayer, meditation, and the inner work of tikkun ha-middos / self-refinement. The Breslov Center and Congregation Sheves Achim / The Flatbush Minyan are honored to host him for this Shabbaton in Brooklyn on his spring trip to the US.
How A Typo About The New Jersey Corruption Probe Went ViralIt’s hard to tell who first got this wrong, but several news outlets reported that a non-profit called “BCG” was used to launder some of the money involved in these major arrests. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t find any such non-profit.
And the news reports, though quite similar in their wording, offered no more information:
Where else did this run? It’s hard to say, since Google News doesn’t offer great search for finding a specific term in a range of news articles.
But this BCG just didn’t seem to exist. And what FBI source was being used here? Since it appeared the FBI was speaking to multiple outlets, was there someone I could get on the phone.
Actually, it turns out, the relevant information was just within the criminal complaint. But it wasn’t “BCG” that was written about there.
Link to the PDF of the criminal complaint.
The Jewish World We Live In
You’ve really gotta love what it takes to push the largest rabbi-roundup in recent memory to the off-lead position.
When Frum Satire Went to the Egal MinyanOne of the best pieces of satire of both the Orthodox mind and the post-denominational world:
I think the last time I put on something that I would have called shabbos shorts was in the mid 1980’s, you know, those dark shorts that covered your knees that you wore to shabbos parties that gave out pekalechs filled with button candies and fizzer pops?
Week in Review: July 24, 2009Click here to watch in High Definition (HD)
Most Profound Tweets in Jewish History:Our weekly rundown of the tweets you should’ve seen, with a tour-de-force quintuple-tweet from Slate’s resident media expert.
Read more
Oregon Legislation Bans Teachers Wearing Teichels
Here’s a cause over which Jews and Muslims, Sikhs and Mennonites can unite. The Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which awaits the governor’s signature to become law and is meant to expand religious freedom in the workplace, is being protested by religious groups because of a clause that exempts public schools.
The offending passage upholds a pre-existing policy that bars public school teachers from wearing clothing associated with religious devotion:
“No teacher in any public school shall wear any religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher. A school district, education service district or public charter school does not commit an unlawful employment practice under ORS chapter 659A by reason of prohibiting a teacher from wearing religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is joining the American Sikh community to protest the bill, according to a press release from CAIR, and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) has also expressed concern, telling the The Oregonian: “It seems like it would apply to a Muslim woman wearing a hijab or a Jew wearing a yarmulke. … We’re especially concerned about that.”
Oregon’s Gov. Ted Kulongoski expects to sign the bill, according to a spokesperson, “because vetoing it would not change Oregon’s law prohibiting teachers from wearing religious garb.” But religious groups are still protesting, and truly, it’s nice to see people of different religious faiths coming together to stand up for each other:
“This legislation forces Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, and others to choose between their faith and entering the teaching profession,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Those who wear religiously-mandated attire are not proselytizing; they are practicing their faith, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Concerns about religious neutrality in schools can be adequately addressed through professional codes of conduct.”
He said the legislation also raises the question of whether a Christian or Jewish teacher wearing a prominent cross or Star of David would face removal from his or her teaching position.
The vague nature of what can be classified as “religious dress” has even prompted this Muslim group to express concern about the relatively tiny Mennonite population:
“Would this legislation prohibit a Mennonite teacher from wearing a bonnet?” asked Hooper. “Who will determine what is religious attire and what is a personal fashion choice?”
Who indeed? Oregon’s law has kept Sikhs from teaching in the public schools while wearing religious dress, but a lawsuit brought by a Sikh in the 1980s, which upheld Oregon’s policy, was the only challenge the law has seen in the courts thus far.