UPDATED: MURDER IN CROWN HEIGHTS

Voz Iz Neias is reporting a murder on Carroll Street between Schenectady and Utica in Crown Heights. A Lubavitch man was apparently shot in the head and his car set on fire.

Anyone have details?

UPDATE: Voz Iz Neis is now reporting the victim’s name, Ephraim Klein, a 47-year-old divorced father of three. Klein lived on Union Street in Crown Heights and was planning a trip to Israel this week for his son’s wedding. He was shot through the arm and chest, apparently in the heart.

$10,000 reward was announced for information leading to the arrest of the assailant(s).

UPDATE 2: Orthomom notes Y-net’s coverage.

UPDATE 3: Shmais has links to all local TV coverage of the murder.

What Should Jews Do? Darfur Genocide Spills Into Chad

The conflict and resultant genocide in Darfur has now worsened and spread into neighboring Chad. The New York Times reports:

ADRÉ, Chad — The chaos in Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, has spread across the border into Chad, deepening one of the world’s worst refugee crises.

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, which have a long history of violence and meddling in each other’s affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn’t get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan’s policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

Indeed, the accounts of civilians in eastern Chad are agonizingly familiar to those in western Sudan. One woman, Zahara Isaac Mahamat, described how Arab men on camels and horses had raided her village in Chad, stealing everything they could find and slaughtering all who resisted.

The dead included her husband, Ismail Ibrahim, who tried to prevent the raiders from burning his sorghum and millet fields. Like so many others in this desolate expanse of dust-choked earth, she fled west with her three children, much as people in Darfur have been forced to do in recent years.

"I have lost everything but my children," she said, her face looking much older than her 20 years. She is now a refugee, with thousands of other displaced Chadians, in Kolloye, a village south of here.

"We have three bowls of grain left," she said. "When that is gone, only God can help us."

American Jewish World Service has done good work during this crisis. Donations can be made securely online. Edah, the Modern Orthodox breakaway from the ever-calcifying Yeshiva University-inspired ‘Centrist’ Orthodoxy, has made this a front burner issue as well.*

On the other hand, haredim of all stripes and YU’s ‘Centrist’ Orthodoxy have been silent. It is exactly these people who are the first to claim antisemitism and condemn non-Jews for failing to help Jews.

But I wonder – if the Nazis had only killed Gypsies, had set up Auschwitz only to gas and burn them and not us, would Jews have done anything to save them? Should we have? If not, why not?

* [More ideas to help bring security to Darfur can be found on the SaveDarfur.org website.]

“They Brought The Russians To Clean The Streets And The Ethiopians To Guard The Malls.”

The JTA has a new article on the tensions between the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel and the Falash Mura, descendants of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity 100 years ago and who are now returning to Judaism and immigrating to Israel with the backing of the Rabbinut:

Rabbi Yosef Hadane, the [Shas-affiliated] chief rabbi for the Ethiopian Jews in
Israel [and the first Ethiopian Jewish rabbi], said the controversy had mainly to do with confirming which of
the new immigrants truly had Jewish roots.

“They want Jews to come, not non-Jews,” Hadane said.

He also said there were stark divisions between the communities when it
came to religious practice. The veterans, for example, prefer to pray
in the traditional Ethiopian language of prayer called Ge’ez while the
Falash Mura pray in Hebrew. The Falash Mura will also often only eat
food deemed kosher by the Chief Rabbinate while the veteran Ethiopians
follow kashrut standards set by their elders.

The two communities, Hadane said, live fairly separate lives in Israel.

As the JTA notes, rumors about the nature of the Falash Mura continue to proliferate in the Ethiopian Jewish community:

Adding to the sense of alienation are rumors circulating in the veteran
Ethiopian community that some Falash Mura return to Christianity once
they are in Israel, even attending church services. Suspicions have
been heightened by rumors that Christian missionaries who falsely
converted to Judaism are among those immigrating.

I have been told by a well-placed source that at least some of these rumors can be documented, and I am waiting to see that documentation. But, it appears to me the root of some of this is the fear that Falash Mura will use up meager resources, and that Ethiopian Jews will be left even further behind.

And how far behind is the average Ethiopian Jew?

At an Ethiopian restaurant and bar a few blocks away [from Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market], veteran
Ethiopians gather at the end of the day. Among them is a 23-year-old
who calls himself Jimmy. He is bitter about his life, and says he does
not understand why the country is contemplating bringing more
Ethiopians here.

“We don’t feel like we are part of this
society,” he said. “If the first and second immigration waves did not
work, why should the third and fourth ones work?”

He works as
a security guard, he says, “like every other Ethiopian you have ever
met.” He then repeats a bit of immigrant humor, “They brought the
Russians to clean the streets and the Ethiopians to guard the malls.”

Jimmy said he hopes to fly to Ethiopia in the next few months on a
“trial visit” with a few other Ethiopian Israeli friends to see if,
perhaps, their futures are there, instead of in the Jewish state.

And that says more about the quality of Israel’s immigrant absorption than I could ever write.

More On The Halimi Murder

Caroline Glick has new column on the Ilan Halimi murder. In it, she complains about the lack of coverage given by the Israeli media to this story. She also complains about the silence of the interim government, blaming that silence on their political philosophy and supposed cowardice:

No Israeli government minister, official or spokesman has condemned his murder. No Israeli official has demanded that the French authorities investigate why the police refused to take anti-Semitism into account during Ilan’s captivity. No Israeli official flew to Paris to participate in Ilan’s funeral or any other memorial or demonstration in his memory. The Foreign Ministry’s Web site makes no mention of his murder. The Israeli Embassy in Paris — which has been without an ambassador for the past several months — only publicly expressed its condolences to the Halimi family on February 23 – ten days after Ilan was found. This, when the French Jewish community considers Halimi’s murder to have been the greatest calamity to have befallen it in recent years; when aliyah rates from France rose 25 percent last year; and when Ilan’s mother has told reporters that her son had planned to make aliyah soon and was just staying in France to save money to finance his move to Israel. For its part, as Michelle Mazel pointed out in the Jerusalem Post Thursday, the French press has noted smugly that the Israeli media has not given the story prominent coverage. Halimi’s murder has not appeared on the front pages of the papers or at the top of the television or radio broadcasts in Israel.

Although appalling, the absence of an official Israeli outcry against Halimi’s murder is not the least surprising. Today, the unelected Kadima interim government, like the

Guest Post: Blame The Victim

[This guest post is a follow-up to Dr. Soller’s earlier guest post on the Ilan Halimi murder.]

Blame The Victim:
A Similar Story about the Handling of a Murder of a French Jew
Jerome Soller, Ph.D.

One of the biggest issues for Ilan Halimi’s murder is whether the initial response by the French police was impacted by the victim’s religion and ethnicity and whether there is a resistance to identifying the crimes against Halimi as antisemitic.  Today, I spoke to Howard Copelan, who is the owner and publisher of the High Desert Advocate Newspaper and the owner of Coyote television, as well as a member of our synagogue (www.shaareitefila.com) .  He had a brother-in-law, Frederique Chekroun, who was murdered in France 15 years ago.    While the crime against Fredo was motivated by robbery, there are parallels to the French police response to these crimes against Sephardic Jews.

Mr. Copelan stated the following [4]:

"Distrust of Jews is widespread in the non-Muslim French world (in the right and the left).   When a crime is committed in France against a Jew, there is a suspicion that the Jews caused the problem.  The police might ask, ‘Are you sure he is kidnapped?’  There is a pervasive belief all Jews have money, are dishonest, and not trustworthy.

My own personal experience was when Fredo was robbed and murdered in 1991.  Fredo was a successful jeweler in the South of France.  The family notified the police.  The police assumed that he had run away from town with some of his stock and money.  They wrote it off as a runaway husband, and they told everyone that he had run away.  He became the suspect in his own disappearance.  They went through all of his financial records ad stocks.  They interrogated his wife.  He was a rich jeweler, and it did not even cross their minds that he was robbed and murdered.  They did not look for any other evidence that would support the possibility of murder.  So, they destroyed his reputation.  His wife had to live with that.  His children had to live with that.  When we were in France, a teller at a bank wanted to talk about Fredo’s "running away".  Do you know how disgusting that was?

For ten years, they did not treat it as a possible murder.  He was the most successful case of disappearance in French history (because he was dead).  About 8 years ago, there was a huge storm and his body was uncovered from a sandbar two miles from his home.  At that point, the French police had no leads or suspects.  They did not even apologize.  I believe if he had been a gentile Frenchman, it would have been a totally different story.  Like Halimi (a North African name that means "My Hope"), Checkroun also has North African origin.  They were both Sephardic Jews, so you get both the latent antisemitism and the dislike of all Algerians in France."

It important to see how the experience of the Chekroun family fifteen years ago was similar to the experience of the Halimi family.  It is consistent with the following issues raised in an article from the European Jewish press [1] (which could have been more accurately titled: "Blame the Victim"):

"The French government was wary about drawing too heavy a link between the criminal gang responsible for Halimi’s murder and anti-Jewish sentiment, however.  Past incidents in which apparently anti-Semitic crimes turned out to be staged or committed for other motives seemed to lie behind its cautious stance.  A government spokesman, Jean-Francois Cope, told French radio that while there were ‘strong suspicions’ of anti-Semitic motives in ‘this horrible affair’, investigators were still getting to the bottom of the case. ‘Absolutely everything must be done to know all the details’ before conclusions about racism or anti-Semitism were drawn, he said. [3]"

Meanwhile, Marie Helene Amiable, communist mayor of Bagneux, the suburb where Ilan was murdered, organized a silent march on Thursday evening and refused banners against anti-Semitism.  It is ironic that some in France will censor signs that protest about antisemitism, but not recognize the existence of antisemitism or criticize the causes of antisemitism.  Thankfully, on Sunday approximately 100,000 people protested [1].

Likewise, I hope that Jews in other parts of the world will start to rally behind the French Jewish community, as this is an issues that impacts all Jews everywhere.  Israeli media, such as the Jerusalem Post and Ha’Aretz, have also heavily covered the events in France.  For example, an Israeli newspaper wrote

"As was the case in World War II, today the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world is being targeted for annihilation by an enemy bent on world domination. Ilan Halimi’s monstrous murder is just the latest sign of this disturbing reality. [2]"

References:

1. European Jewish Press, Tens of thousands denounce racism and anti-Semitism in France, February, 2006,

2. Carolyn Glick, JPOST, Israel’s non-reaction to the antisemitic murder of Ilan Halimi, February, 2006,

3. Shirli Sitbon, European Jewish Press, Jewish community pushes inquiry on Ilan Halimi murder, February, 2006,

4. Jerome Soller, Interview with Howard Copelan on the Murder of Frederique Chekroun, February, 2006.

Is The Bogeyman Pastor Out To get You?

Again proving that Israelis do not really understand America, Shlomo Shamir of Ha’aretz has this one-sided foolish article about the ‘threat’ Evangelicals pose to America and Jews. Shamir’s piece is based on the new book by Rabbi James Rudin, formerly of the American Jewish Committe. I knew Rabbi Rudin years ago from our work on the NYC Jewish Community Relations Council’s Taskforce on Missionaries and Cults. My experience with Rabbi Rudin is positive. I found him to be a kind, caring compassionate man of high ethical standards. Although an ordained Reform Rabbi, he had affection for Orthodoxy, including Chabad. I think his fears in this case are overblown, perhaps because of his years combatting Christian missionaries, but I do not doubt his sincerity.

Rabbi Aron Tendler – ‘Martyr’?

Rabbi Aron Tendler and a small group of his congregants in Israel for a bar mitzva were a barred from entering the Temple Mount because they did not have ID. Rabbi Tender is claiming discrimination. But the need for ID is very well known. Why didn’t Rabbi Tendler’s group have any ID?

Tendler, grandson of the famous halachic
authority Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, said that he and his congregants did
not bring ID or other valuables with them because they had been at the
mikveh [ritual bath] and were afraid that while they were immersing
themselves their valuables would be left unguarded.

According to Jewish law, it is necessary to purify oneself in a mikveh before entering the Temple Mount.

Also, Tendler felt that it was preferable from a halachic point
of view to leave all mundane items outside the Temple Mount out of
respect for the holiness of the place.

Of course, the simplest way to solve that problem would be to have one of the group watch the valuables while the others use the mikva, and for the others to watch his belongings while he uses it immediately after. As for the "mundane items," ID – required in Israel and necessary for security reasons – would not fall under the category of "mundane items" Rabbi Tendler claims to be worried about.

So why leave the ID behind? Maybe this. Rabbi Tendler is under a cloud of suspicion. He has been accused by multiple women of sexual abuse and harassment. He resigned from his rabbinical post (effective later this year), in part, it is alleged, because of these allegations. Becoming a hero of sorts to his congregation’s base by being ‘persecuted’ by Israeli security services weeks after Amona may help him regain his post.

For those of you uncertain about the actions of the security service, what they did is called Profiling. It is in large part why Israel is as safe as it is.

Haredim Force Close Of Town’s Only Movie Theater

Ha’aretz has a story about Kiryat Gat’s only movie theater, which was closed after 18 months of operation, in part due to a Chabad-led haredi boycott of the shopping mall where the theater is located. The issue? The mall and the theater were open on Shabbat.

The secular population is up in arms. The haredim are celebrating their victory. But what will be the result?

More and more secular people will move to Beer Sheva or other cities, Kiryat Gat will become a haredi enclave, and the population of Israel will be further divided.

One of the main complaints raised by the secular population is youth boredom and violence caused in part by the lack of movies and the like on Shabbat. The city, which has a religious mayor and deputy mayor, has apparently not addressed this concern. While I support non-violent protest – including the mall boycott – I do not support the abandonment of the secular population and its needs. That haredim – Chabad included – have not addressed those needs speaks volumes about their true intentions.

Programs that conform to Shabbat laws but that are not religious in nature can be set up by the municipality. Many sports and games can be played as well – although all this may require ignoring the haredi views on these specific halakhot and relying on Modern Orthodox views instead. This is most likely the reason why these programs do not exist.

This should never have been a religious v. secular issue. There are secular people who support Shabbat laws and who encourage businesses to close on Shabbat. And there are religious people who argue that the state should not be involved in any aspects of religion, including enforcement of Shabbat laws. But the haredim rushed to make this exactly that, in order to strengthen their political base at the expense of national unity.

In the long run, losing the nuances of this debate hurts everybody, haredim included. But haredi leaders do not understand that.

100,000 Protest Halimi Murder In Paris

100,000 people, including leading politicians, demonstrated in Paris Sunday to protest the murder of Ilan Halimi, the French Jew recently murdered by a Muslim gang.

In the first significant American coverage of this story, the Wall Street Journal ran a detailed piece (not online) Thursday.

Our coverage by Dr. Jerome Soller can be read here.

The yellow hand signs at the demonstration (seen in the above photo) most likely read "Keep Your Hands Off My Buddy." The yellow hand with that slogan is the symbol of SOS Racisme, a group of Parisans of all faiths and backgrounds founded by my friend, French novelist Marek Halter in the early 1980’s.

Kopul Rosen #4: Chabad & The Gospel Of Mark

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen writes in this week’s Something Jewish:

I find it fascinating that the Gospel of Mark in the
New Testament contains a similar story of a man being warned not to
reveal a miraculous healing, but publicizing it anyway. It seems that
it’s not just the Second Coming that some people in Chabad are
borrowing from Christianity! If people can invent nonsense like this to
bolster their belief systems, then every story they tell becomes
suspect. Myths and lies certainly won’t help bring ‘Moshiach Now’!

It
was my mother’s Yahrzeit this week. Out of respect for her memory, let
alone my father’s, zl, I hope someone in Chabad has the integrity and
authority to put an end to this for the sake of its own good name.

Kopul Rosen 1, 2 & 3.

Kopul Rosen #3: More Lies From Rabbi Tuvia Bolton

The publication of Rabbi Jeremy Rosen’s exposé of Chabad’s twisting and exaggeration of his father’s story has drawn a lot of attention inside Chabad. And the author of Chabad’s most deceitful version, Rabbi Tuvia Bolton of Kfar Chabad, Israel, has taken to promising at least some readers that he would correct and update his version. One such reader emailed me with a link to Rabbi Bolton’s "correction," which turns out to be an edited version of the story that replaces Rabbi Kopul Rosen’s name with the anonymous "Rabbi J.," and that keeps many of the lies of the original version intact. And, Rabbi Bolton nowhere mentions his errors or publicly apologizes for lying about Rabbi Rosen’s relationship with the Rebbe, and his passing.

How can anyone trust anything Chabad publishes or says when its rabbis lie like this?

[Hat tip: Shoshana.]

[Here’s a PDF of Rabbi Bolton’s "corrected" version: Download tuvia_bolton.pdf

]

UPDATE: Rabbi Ariel Sokolovsky has kindly forwarded Rabbi Bolton’s weekly parsha hashavua email, in which Rabbi Bolton ‘apologizes’ and promises to post a "revised" version on his website’s archives:

APPOLOGY
[sic] I have been informed that some of the details of last week’s (Parshat Yisro)

story are incorrect.  Mainly that, unlike what I wrote, Rabbi Kopol [sic] Rosen’s
relation to Chabad in fact had always been positive. My appologies.  A
revised
edition will be published in our archives.

That "revised edition" contains the lies noted immediately above.

Guest Post: Muslim Gang Tortures and Murders French Jew, US Media Silent

"They lynched him alive, they burnt him, they cut him simply because he was Jewish,” Ilan Halimi’s mother told French Television. (Photo:EJP)

The following article by Dr. Jerome Soller, Ph.D., is the third in a series of guest posts. If you want to guest post, please send me an email.

Muslim Gang Tortures and Murders French Jew, US Media Silent
By Jerome Soller, Ph.D.

I appreciate the opportunity to post this guest article in failedmessiah.com, which is providing a great resource for differing viewpoints in the Jewish community.  Last week, I heard about this tragedy, which was getting no exposure in the US Jewish or mainstream press.  This event impacts Jews everywhere, whether they are Chassidim, Haredi, orthodox, conservative, reform, reconstructionist, or secular. Throughout this article, I include references to reports from other sources (as I do not live in France).  The primary reason I am writing this article is the lack of US media coverage.  In the future, this article may be supplemented by a first-hand account of a friend, whose Jewish relative was murdered in France ten years ago.

In January, a pretty woman (whose friends were gang members) came into the shop of Ilan Halimi (a 23-year old French Jewish mobile telephone salesman).  They spoke several times on the phone, and then arranged a date.  On January 20, 2006, Ilan went to meet her and was kidnapped by a Muslim  gang in Paris (called the "Barbarians").  Four of six of the gang’s previous kidnapping targets were Jewish.  After the kidnapping, Ilan’s family received over 650 phone calls, Internet messages, and other forms of contact during a  three week period from the gang, while the family was cooperating with the French police [4].   ”When we said we didn’t have 500,000 euros to give them they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi (Ilian’s uncle) stressed. “They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us. [6]" During his captivity, Ilan had his head covered, was starved,  stripped naked, cut, burned, and tortured in other ways. According to a poster on another web site, "they had castrated him, cut off his fingers, and gouged out his eyes. [10]" People in the neighboring apartments were aware of the hostage, but did nothing.  When the family could not reach the gang’s financial demands, the gang left Ilan to die.  He was rescued and died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital.  The French police arrested fifteen suspects.

At that point, the French police and media downplayed the incident as an isolated incident involving "disadvantaged" immigrant youths and did not mention the victim was Jewish.  The mainstream media and French police refused to give this much publicity or even consider that it might be a hate crime, as the perpetrators were Muslim and the victim a Jewish man.  After all, such publicity might offend the Muslim community, which was already offended by cartoons.  The family of the victim brought attention to the situation.  On February 16, the Paris public prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, said that “no element of the current investigation could link this murder to anti-Semitic declaration or action.[6]” If a black man was lynched by thirteen white men wearing sheets and screaming racist slogans while they burned a cross in his lawn, a reasonable person would at least consider the possibility of a racially motivated hate crime.  "They lynched him alive, they burnt him, they cut him simply because he was Jewish,” Ruth Halimi said on French television.  1,200 Jews from all sections of the French Jewish community (e.g., Chabad, secular, etc.) marched in Paris to ask for truth and action from French government officials.

Due to pressure, the French (who I believe are basically good people) are now considering the possibility of it being an anti-semitically motivated murder.  As the investigation has progressed, pro-Palestinian and Islamist documents were found in the homes of many of the perpetrators.   French Justice Minister Pascal Clement said one of the suspects had made it clear he attacked Ilan Halimi "because he was Jewish, and Jews are rich" [9]. French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy told the French parliament, "The truth is that these hoodlums first of all acted for villainous and sordid reasons – money – but they had the belief, and I quote, ’that Jews have money’ and that even if those they kidnapped did not, the community would rally round”, citing a statement by one of the kidnappers [8].  "We fear that the fact that Ilan was Jewish aggravated his case and caused his kidnappers to behave as Islamists. Why did the kidnappers, once they discovered that Ilan’s family was not wealthy, as they had thought, not let him go and instead tortured him to death?," asked Sammy Ghozlan, head of the French Anti-Semitism Vigilance Bureau [6]. "According to the prosecutor, Halimi was tortured in scenes reminiscent of the abuse of prisoners at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail. [5]"

Are the anti-semitic stereotypes and attitudes that drove this hate crime any suprise?  Much of the Islamist documents in the suspects’ homes likely portrayed Jews as rich and evil.  Some French Muslim comedians portray the Jews as evil and the cause of the slave trade. Articles in the British Guardian [2] and French Liberation magazine suggest that the suspects were inspired by events in Iraq (blamed on the Jews) and films about such events.  For example,  the recent Turkish movie "Valley of the Wolves Iraq" [1][3] is giving the Jewish blood libel mainstream credibility, while it breaks Turkish box office records and will open in the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Russia, Egypt, Syria, Australia, and other places in the world where Jews serve as convenient scapegoats.  Its plot involves a Jewish-American doctor (played by an American actor – Gary Busey) removing the organs of wedding party attendees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for delivery to rich people in the West.   I thought that the only people that typically killed Arab wedding party attendees were "Palestinian" terrorists!?  A friend of mine (Dan Black) suggested the Turks make another movie (called "Palestine: The New Protocols") about the rescue of a "Palestinian" infant from Jews, led by the chief Israeli rabbi played by Gary Busey, before Passover.  I shouldn’t write this in sarcasm, as it might happen (all in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness).  The increase in antisemitism also results from the fact that the French and other communities refuse to acknowledge the existence of anti-semitism and hate crimes committed by Muslims against Jews (or have any sensitivity to their causes), except under extreme circumstances.

When I heard about this tragedy, I was shocked that there was little coverage in the US.  While US news sources had countless articles about cartoons (without showing such mild cartoons for fear of retaliation) and "peaceful" "Palestinian" protests initiated by Hamas, no links to the murder of a Jew existed on any of their main US web pages.  After all, Hamas should be associated with "peace", as they only want to destroy Israel and Jews worldwide.  I guess it is major news that Palestinians had a protest, without anyone being hurt.

I hope that this article creates an awareness of these events, when mainstream US media coverage is lacking. I would also hope that there would be a sense of Jewish outrage over the events in France (and the initial hesitancy to seek the truth), the Turkish blood libel film and similar antisemitic literature (which provides a pretense for future violence against Jews), and the tendency of the media to selectively cover and/or sugarcoat events.  I am afraid that the current lack of a Jewish response emboldens enemies of the Jewish people.  Where are the ADL and other Jewish groups? If not now, when?

References:

1. Associated Press, CNN, Turkish movie depicts Americans as savages, February, 2006,

2. Jason Burke, Guardian Unlimited, Torturer’s Iraq Links, February, 2006,

3. European Jewish Press, German political and Jewish leaders condemn Turkish Iraq movie, February, 2006,

4. Yossi Lempkowicz and David Dahan, European Jewish Press, Halimi’s mother blames police, February, 2006,

5. Yossi Lempkowicz and Shirli Sitbon, European Jewish Press, Anti-Semitism blamed for Paris murder, February, 2006,

6. Yossi Lempkowicz and Shirli Sitbon, Dispute around motivation for murder in Paris, European Jewish Press, February, 2006,

7. Reuters, CNN, France: Anti-Semitic link in death, February, 2006,

8. Reuters, ABS-CBN, France sees racist motive in brutal torture death, February, 2006,

9. Shirli Sitbon, French authorities : anti-Semitism may have played a role in Halimi’s murder, European Jewish Press,

10. Hannah Semesh, Free Republic, Paris: Gang suspected of killing Jew nabbed (Muslim gang not motivated by anti-Semitism say police)

CIRCUMCISION: Are Many Children In Special Ed Classes Becuase Of Metzitza B’Peh?

Writing for the JTA, Debra Nussbaum Cohen recaps the circumcision controversy generated by metzitza b’peh, the oral-to-genital sucking of  the open circumcision wound done by many haredim. The article is good, clear summary of events, and it has some extras that make it really stand out. The first is a quote from Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler of Yeshiva University:

"I’m convinced that many children have been
infected and not diagnosed, and years later they are in special
education in the schools and no one knows why," Tendler said.

On the other side, Rabbi David Niederman of the Satmar-controlled Central Rabbinical Congress tells a whopper and gets away unchallenged:

"There
have been seven cases, allegedly over a span of 15 years," he said. "In
Williamsburg alone we have close to 57,000 people. The overwhelming
majority is very young, so you’re talking about 120,000 brises of
metzitzah b’peh."

Agudath Israel estimates 2000 MBP circumcisions were done in the city last year. Less than 1/2 were done in Williamsburg. If 1000 MBP’s were done in Williamsburg every year for the past 15 years, then 15,000 MBPs were performed. Surely the number is much less than this, in part due to the smaller population in earlier years.

Another way to look at is as follows. 57,000 people. 1/3 are too old or are infertile. 1/3 are too young or single. 1/3 married and of the correct age. So, we have 19,000 potential people. 1/2 are men. That leaves us with 9,500. Women give birth on average about every three years (some more, some less). So 9,500 divided by 3 = 3167 births per year. 1/2 are  baby girls. That leaves 1584 boys to have  MBP. But some of these births take place in the Catskills, London, etc. , so you end up with about 1400 MBPs done in Williamsburg – and that is if Rabbi Niederman’s population figure is not inflated. Again, not factoring in smaller populations each year we go back, we end up with 21,000 MBPs over 15 years, 1/6 of the figure Rabbi Niederman claims.

Why is this exaggeration important? Because of what Rabbi Niederman said immediately after. The quote, now in context:

"There
have been seven cases, allegedly over a span of 15 years," he said. "In
Williamsburg alone we have close to 57,000 people. The overwhelming
majority is very young, so you’re talking about 120,000 brises of
metzitzah b’peh. You tell me, is it safer to give a flu shot or to do
metzitzah b’peh?"

Actually, the risk of serious injury or death from a flu shot is far less than from MBP, which by the most charitable statistic for Rabbi Niederman carries a 1 in 3000 chance of serious illness, maiming or death.

But none of this matters to the haredim:

"We are convinced that it’s not dangerous," [Rabbi Niederman] said.

Not surprising from a community led by a man who cannot do simple math. 

The FBI v. Rabbi Meir Kahane

Rabbi Meir Kahane, the JDL, Kach and the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover. The Forward reports.