Simon Wiesenthal Baptized By Mormons

Gary Motokoff of Avotaynu.com reports that the Mormon Church has posthumously baptized Simon Wiesenthal.

Former Haredi Comfronts His Haredi Molestors – On Camera

Breaking Silence(Translated from Hebrew to English)Ma’ariv Dec,http://www.nrg.co.il/online/11/ART1/523/767.html
As a Charedi (ultra-orthodox) child he had been through a series of
molestations and attempted rapes. Even after he left the religious
life, he suffered from nightmares and sleepless nights. Now Menachem
Lang decided to gather his courage, confront his attackers, and force
the Charedi world to deal with its demons. Dressed as [...]

16 VIDEOS: Dylan Live 1976

Tzemach Atlas has posted a great video of Bob Dylan singing Idot Wind live in 1976. I searched YouTube for more videos from that concert and found 16 live videos made in 1976. I’m posting one, Shelter From The Storm, here. The rest can be viewed on YouTube. These are really great. Enjoy.

Sephardi Kiruv

Lots of of really beautiful women, too. Watch for the beautiful Ethiopian girl.
[Hat Tip: C-Girl.]

Pedophile Brooklyn Rabbi Steals House From Stricken Cancer Victim

The New York Post’s Alex Ginsberg reports:
A devious cabal that included a pedophile rabbi stole a half-million-dollar home from a cancer-stricken woman, using a forged power of attorney to sell it and pocket the profits, Brooklyn prosecutors charged yesterday.
According to investigators, Margaret Franklin’s Crown Heights home was stolen in August 2004 after Nathen Farkas, 31, [...]

Haredi Rabbi’s Fraud Caught On Video

Remember that haredi rabbi who illegally used police lights and sirens to get through traffic in NYC, not for any emergency, but for everyday business. Someone has posted the CBS video of this creep on YouTube:

Best part? The guy’s a diamond dealer.
[Hat Tip: Leah, who has an interesting post on this, as well.]

The Rebbe’s First Cousin

The Rebbe’s first cousin, a daughter of the Rebbe’s father’s brother, was Israeli poet Zelda Schneerson Mishkovsky. Known simply as Zelda, she won the Bialik Prize and was widely read – and loved. Born in Russia in 1912, she passed away in Jerusalem in 1984. She had made aliya with her mother in 1926. [...]

And New Orleans Floods Again …

Author Patty Friedmann lives in and writes about New Orleans. Last week the Katrina-ravaged city got a heavy rain, the worst since last year’s hurricane. The city’s pumping system failed and the streets and some homes flooded. I asked her about this and she was kind enough to write a small piece on her out-of-New-Orleans-family [...]

Dennis Prager Debates Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein About Problems In And Future Of Orthodoxy

And this at a conference sponsored by the OU’s West Coast division, no less. Luke Ford was there and – unlike Rabbi Adlerstein – has posted audio of Prager’s talk, Adlerstein’s response, Prager’s response, the Q & A, and Prager’s closing remarks. Rabbi Adlerstein on CrossCurrents will not even list Prager’s challenges to current halakhic [...]

Syrian Jews and Converts

OrthoMom has a post on the discussion going on in the comments to my post on Judy Feld Carr regarding Syrian Jew’s refusal to accept converts. She also has her own post on Judy Feld Carr here.

Jewish Week on Jewish Concubines

Plegish.blogspot.com is covered in this brief article from the NY Jewish Week. (It seems the JW misspelled the blog’s url. Wonder if this was intentional?)
Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudath Israel’s spokesman, says this about pilegish:
While conceding that the practice is not a sin, Rabbi Shafran said “many things are permitted but not engaged in. This is [...]

DovBear Apologizes

As some of you may know, an anonymous blogger has found instances of plagiarism committed by uber-JBlogger DovBear. DovBear has apologized and corrected many of the 14 posts in question. (At least two examples given by DB’s antagonist were not plagiarism at all.) DB notes that his antagonist did not contact him with the allegations [...]

Nittlenacht 2006: If Blogs Existed 2000 Years Ago

It’s often stated that blogs are the modern day equivalent of pamphlets, like those (largely anonymous) pamphlets we know today as the Federalist Papers. I wonder what the world would look like today if blogs and the Internet had existed 2000 years ago. Would Jewish the rabbis have blogged? Would the Sadducees? Beit Hillel? Beit [...]

Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse in Israel

The LA Times has a brief history of sexual abuse and harassment in Israel, along with coverage of the attempts to rectify this.