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.
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I love this – I seriously have to start reading you more often – if only the comments section were as exciting as Vos Iz Neias
Comment by Heshy Fried — August 3, 2009 @ 8:56 am