Federal prosecutors dismissed all immigration charges against former Postville [Iowa] meat plant manager Sholom Rubashkin today, one week after a South Dakota jury convicted him of 86 business-fraud charges.

The decision spares Rubashkin a second federal trial on 72 immigration-related charges. But the former vice president at Agriprocessors, Inc. still could spend the rest of his life in prison. The maximum sentence for his convictions adds to 1,255 years. 

Federal jurors convicted Rubashkin last week of all but five of the 91 business fraud charges listed in a 163-count indictment. But supporters of Rubashkin, the former vice president at Agriprocessors, Inc. in Postville, continued to maintain that he had done nothing illegal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan Jr., one of three federal prosecutors who argued the case, wrote in court papers that any further convictions “would be entirely eclipsed by (Rubashkin’s) recommended guideline sentence on the counts for which he has already been convicted.”

Deegan said Rubashkin has already been convicted of the most serious charges listed in the indictment. Dismissing the charges also will avoid an extended and costly trial and lessen the inconvenience to possible witnesses, he said… 

Deegan also said the jury’s verdicts on several of the fraud and false statement counts were premised, at least in part, upon Rubashkin knowingly making false statements to the bank with regard to the harboring of undocumented aliens at Agriprocessors Inc…

U.S. District Judge Linda Reade issued an order this afternoon which granted the prosecution’s motion to dismiss the immigration charges.

Rubashkin lawyer Guy Cook said he viewed the dismissal of the immigration charges as a victory for his client…

Rubashkin is being held in the Linn County Correctional Center in Cedar Rapids. He is awaiting a ruling by Reade on a request by his lawyers that he be released on bail while he is awaiting sentencing.

Cook said he plans to file a motion this week for a new trial, based on what the defense believes are legal errors in the prosecution and trial of the case. If the new trial motion is not granted, an appeal will be filed, he said.

Wednesday bail hearing turned testy

A bail hearing for Rubashkin turned testy Wednesday when a prosecutor accused him of lying in court.

The bail hearing in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids followed Rubashkin’s conviction last week on 86 counts of financial fraud. His attorneys argued he should be allowed to remain free on bail until he is sentenced. Prosecutors claimed he is a flight risk.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan said Rubashkin committed bank fraud when he was released on bail following his initial arrest in October 2008. The accusation sparked a heated exchange between Deegan and Rubashkin, who was on the witness stand.

"When you testified at trial, you didn’t give truthful testimony, did you?" Deegan asked.

"I think you’re lying under cross-examination," Rubashkin responded…

When he was first arrested, Rubashkin’s attorneys said his ties to his 10 children, the expectations of the Jewish community and the financial support of thousands of donors would keep him from leaving the country.

Deegan argued Wednesday that things have changed: Now that Rubashkin faces a certain jail sentence, he’s more likely to leave the country and take his family with him, using the money from donors.

An eminent rabbi was so exhausted after three days of constant cocaine-fuelled partying with escorts that his pimp grew worried and cancelled that day’s supply of girls, a jury was told.

Rabbi Baruch Chalomish, 55, who has a £6 million fortune, was a scholarly academic, an accomplished businessman, a charity giver and a dutiful family man until his first wife died of cancer and his world fell apart.

He turned to alcohol in his depression, then took refuge in cocaine, spending up to £1,000 a week. He lived in squalor, seeking comfort from prostitutes, Manchester Crown Court was told.

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee on Thursday opened the first public hearings into the Fort Hood shootings, with several legislators asserting that the incident in which 13 people were killed was a terrorist attack by a homegrown extremist who may have slipped past law enforcement and military authorities… 

At the Congressional hearings, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said that the Nov. 5 shootings allegedly carried out by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was a “homegrown terrorist attack” and that law enforcement and military agencies may have failed to act appropriately…

But Mr. Lieberman’s hearing made only limited headway because the Obama administration has refused his requests for witnesses from the F.B.I. and Defense Department. Mr. Lieberman said he had spoken with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Mr. Gates, who told him they would cooperate with his inquiry, but did not want to compromise the criminal investigation.

As a result, Mr. Lieberman proceeded with several non-government experts and former officials, including Frances Fragos Townsend, formerly the homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush. She expressed concern that “political correctness,” and fear of intruding on Major Hasan’s free speech rights, may have interfered with the sharing of information earlier this year, when an F.B.I.-led counterterrorism team examined his e-mail exchanges with Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known radical cleric, but found nothing amiss.

The administration has irritated some lawmakers by trying to delay their inquiries into the shootings, though some committees have postponed investigations, such as the Senate Armed Services Committee. Instead, officials from the Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have provided closed-door briefings for some lawmakers.

Military and law enforcement agencies are also conducting their own internal inquiries…

"We have to remember that line. That’s precious."

From CBSnews.com:

Democratic Rep. Artur Davis is the the only African American in Congress representing Alabama, and he was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to vote against the House Democratic health care bill earlier this month. And yesterday, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson apparently called him out for it.

"You can’t vote against health care and call yourself a black man," Jackson said Wednesday night, the Hill newspaper reports. Jackson made the remarks at an event hosted by the CBC Foundation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Jackson’s presidential bid.

Jackson later told the Hill he "didn’t call anybody by name," but he noted that the state of Alabama could benefit from health care reform because of its relatively high poverty levels. In a statement to the Hill, Davis avoided conflict with Jackson.

"One of the reasons that I like and admire Rev. Jesse Jackson is that 21 years ago he inspired the idea that a black politician would not be judged simply as a black leader," he said. "The best way to honor Rev. Jackson’s legacy is to decline to engage in an argument with him that begins and ends with race."

"Do you know how many women get cancer who are under 50? Did you know that breast cancer is a more virulent strain prior to 50? The higher likelihood of death?

"And what is the downside to the mammogram procedure? Cost.

"How do you think they are going to save all this money? To the extent they do save money, it will be things like this. Don’t get a mammogram. It saves too much.

"Weren’t we told that preventive care would save all this money? Isn’t this preventive care?

"Societally speaking, preventive care does not save money."

"It is almost impossible to understand what is at stake here and support these bills."

"Has a trial lawyer ever saved your life? How about a drug company?"

About a tenth of medical expenses are due to legal expenses. That’s the same proportion that prescriptions make up.

If you want to know how well government will run healthcare, check out how well they’ve done providing the swine flu vaccine. Vaccine makers can be sued for any problems. What’s their incentive to produce if their pay is limited?

From the New York Times:

A group of female House Republicans used the upset over new guidelines on breast cancer screening issued by an advisory panel earlier this week to highlight what they view as the dangers of government-administered health care and the Democrats’ bill to revamp the system.

It’s “an example of how government-run decisions could be made,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington State, who gathered other female members of her caucus to condemn the findings on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force, said Monday that women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, and that doctors should stop teaching women to examine their breasts on a regular basis.

“This is how rationing began, said Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. “This is the little toe in the water and this is how you start getting health a bureaucrat between you and your health care.”

The women stopped just short of questioning the motives of the government panel as Democrats and the administration look for ways to cut costs should they get their bill through Congress.

“The timing is very curious to me,” Ms. McMorris Rogers said.

The women are joining a chorus of criticism from the medical community, the general public as well as bloggers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a breast cancer survivor who has cosponsored a bill that would promote the early detection of breast cancer in young women said Tuesday the new guidelines were “very disturbing.”

Bad Dog

People always say I’m sarcastic. An Orthodox Jew. Are you Jewish? I get that question all the time. Were you born Jewish? You have a good vibe. Very sexual. Erudite. Funny. Insecure. Didn’t your parents give you enough attention growing up?

Where are you from? What do you do? Are you gay?

On the make. Climber.

People try to ascertain if I am reliable and trustworthy. Am I who I say I am? What’s my agenda? Am I safe? Am I a threat, and if so, in which ways?

I come into insular communities all sweetness and light and years later they discover they have a "pen-wielding Rosemary’s baby" in their midst.

Are you going to write about this? Will you put this on your blog?

What’s your story?

People tend to hate me or love me. Many people are so deeply suspicious of me that there’s no point to trying to win them over. The harder I try, the least effective I am.

What is extraordinary about you? Give it an Indian name.

Big Sky

My thirst for glory and recognition. My ability to judge dispassionately. "Luke is a nice guy but an absolute snake." Haha! I love that. I slither through the grass and then I rise up and my fangs fan wide and my forked tongue spits out and I am ready to bite.

I can blend into the diverse communities. I can go from homeless to the rich, from pornographers to Orthodox Jews.

I was raised with the belief that I was special. My mother said when she was carrying me in her womb, "This one will do something special for God." I was told that story many time by my parents. They came to regret that, fearing they’d raised a narcissist.

When I was written up in newspapers and magazines, the attention did not surprise me. I always thought that my extraordinary work would receive the recognition it deserved.

It’s been more than two years since I’ve been profiled by anybody, but I believe my glory days lie ahead. I’m struggling through right now but I am headed in the right direction. I won’t long have to do drudgery for a living. Once again thousands of people will pay attention to every twitch of my keyboard.

From the Irish Times:

BOOK OF THE DAY: The Believers: How America Fell for Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Investment Scam By Adam LeBor Weidenfeld Nicolson 255pp, £18.99

WHY ARE people so engrossed by jailed überfraudster Bernard Madoff? White-collar criminals have never been a particular fascination of mine, and it’s hardly news that you can’t trust a Wall Street financier with your money, yet over the past year I’ve succumbed to Madoff mania.

I’ve noted with Schadenfreude the names of Madoffed celebrities, eagerly clicked through slideshows of the auctioned-off mansions and followed the Vanity Fair debate about whether Ruth Madoff, his wife, deserves opprobrium or sympathy, or indeed the $2.5 million (€1.7 million) in property assets she was allowed to keep.

People are fascinated by Madoff because the colossal scale of his deception outstrips all similar scams and makes rogue traders such as Nick Leeson and John Rusnak seem like second-division shoplifters.

Adam LeBor’s excellent book, written with perfect restraint, explores how it came to pass that a staggering $65 billion imploded in December 2008 when Madoff admitted that his investment business was “one big lie”.

Why were so many financially literate people duped by Madoff? Why did they so often break the cardinal rule of investing – always diversify – and give all of their cash to “uncle Bernie”? And why were the many red flags ignored by regulators, allowing the Ponzi scheme to devour money for longer than Madoff himself thought possible?

As the title suggests, the book is not a biography of Madoff but a study of his “cult”. LeBor posits that it helps to think of Madoff as a godlike figure whose sociopathic ability to deceive was outweighed only by the vanity of his victims.

He practised what is known as “affinity fraud”, targeting what was ostensibly his own community, the Jewish elite of Manhattan, Long Island and Palm Beach. In fact, he would not have felt entirely part of their crowd as he was descended from poor eastern European Jewish immigrants rather than from the Yekkes, the rich German Jews who got there first. These urban professional Jews feared (correctly) that the arrival of slum-dwelling “Ostjuden” would trigger anti-Semitism.

LeBor goes along with the theory that, as the eastern European Jews never forgot the Yekkes’ disdain, Madoff would have harboured deep resentment for the country-club base he fleeced for decades. Even after the millions rolled into his successful (and legitimate) share trading company, Bernie and Ruth only made it as far as East 64th Street. The real establishment had penthouses on Park Avenue.

I found out about this book, Breakshot, by accident and a few clicks later, where do I end up? On your site, of course, because you were one of the first to have interviewed not only Kenji but Matthew Randazzo. Did you see that Jerry, the Irvine PD cop blasted in the book retired in good standing in July just around the time the book was released? If I were an OCR or OC Weekly reporter, I’d be all over this.

Hey Luke, nice to see that some things don’t change and glad to hear about you dating a woman your age without having her to convert to Judaism: how refreshing! I hope that you are in love and happy with her, despite all the other struggles. It’s not the best of times for webstars. Joe* was talking about it with Henry Copeland of Blogads the other day, how the pattern of traffics have changed, how it’s harder to compete with all these professional blog sweat houses updating 24/7.

I couldn’t see the tiny "login" in the upper corner until you mentioned it. Of course it works.

I’m reading this book you would find interesting by my friend Adam LeBor, called "The Believers" about how Madoff conned the Jewish NY establishment. He explains a lot of things I didn’t know about the different "Jewish casts" on the East Coast, for lack of a better word, and how Madoff, being of Eastern European descent, was not part of the upper cream and didn’t mind screwing "his own people" because he was not from the same Jewish group as his victims. Adam explains it much better and in proper English.

The teacher insisted that I stand but said I did not have to say the pledge.

(I became an American citizen in 1991.)

If I were covering a president of the United States or anyone in the world, I would not stand. To stand up when someone comes into a room puts you in a sort of obeisance to that person and as a reporter, I would not want to do that. I don’t think I’d bow to the emperor of Japan either.

My preference is to always call rabbis "Rabbi X" unless it is their preference otherwise (such as with Marc B. Shapiro who insists on "Marc" with everyone he meets).

Rabbi Ari Enkin writes:

A rabbi is often faced with some uncertainty as to how he should introduce himself. One option is to introduce himself by saying "Hello, my name is Rabbi So-and-so". However, perhaps introducing oneself with one’s rabbinic title is overly assertive and may appear to convey a sense of arrogance. Another option is to omit the title and allow for those present to figure out for themselves that one is to be addressed by a rabbinic title. Perhaps the manner in which one is dressed or the direction in which the conversation flows might prompt others to automatically address one with a rabbinic title.

Which is the preferred course a rabbi should take?

Eleventh-hour criticism is arising over President Obama’s nomination for United States attorney in northern Iowa of a prosecutor who had a leading role in the criminal cases against hundreds of illegal immigrants arrested in a May 2008 raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.

Those cases, the broadest use to date of tough criminal charges against immigrants caught working without authorization, were emblems of a crackdown on illegal immigration by the Bush administration.

In supporting the prosecutor, Stephanie Rose, Mr. Obama is following the recommendation of Senator Tom Harkin, the Democrat from Iowa who is an important ally — especially in the health care debate because he is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Ms. Rose, a senior assistant United States attorney in the office she has been chosen to run, has also garnered support from criminal defense lawyers in Iowa, including at least 11 lawyers who defended immigrants from Postville. In those proceedings, “she exhibited a level of competence and ability that would be hard to overstate,” the lawyers wrote in a letter in April.

But some defense and immigration lawyers have said that felony identity-theft charges against the immigrants were excessively harsh, that immigration lawyers were not given adequate access to their clients, and that improper contact took place between prosecutors and one judge. They contend that possible civil rights and ethical violations by prosecutors should have been investigated.

“Does she stand by those tactics?” asked David Leopold, the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the national immigration bar. “Would she engage again in this type of prosecution of scores of undocumented workers guilty of nothing more than civil immigration violations?”

The immigration lawyers’ association has not taken an official position on the nomination.

In May, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the identity-theft law could not be applied to prosecute immigrants only because they used false Social Security or visa numbers, as it was in many Postville cases.

Ms. Rose’s nomination was unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee on Nov. 5 and is awaiting a vote by the full Senate.

Ms. Rose declined through a spokesman to comment at this point in the nomination process.

Katherine Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the White House, said: “As U.S. attorney, Stephanie Rose will be a great advocate for the people of Iowa. The president strongly supports her nomination.”

During 12 years in the northern district, Ms. Rose was the lead prosecutor in more than 200 criminal cases and argued 34 appeals, according to a fact sheet provided by Mr. Harkin.

After the raid at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, 270 immigrants entered guilty pleas and were sentenced in four days of fast-track hearings, in temporary courtrooms in a cattle fairground. According to lawyers who participated, Ms. Rose distributed prepackaged plea agreements and was the principal case manager for the prosecutors.

In an interview, Mr. Harkin vigorously defended Ms. Rose, saying she is “extremely bright and well versed with the law, has a lot of self assurance and a good demeanor for a U.S. attorney.”

In the Postville cases, Mr. Harkin said, officials in Washington made the strategic decisions about what charges to bring and what pleas to offer. “Within the powers she had, she bent over backwards to make sure justice was done,” he said.

But at a hearing before the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee in July 2008, Deborah J. Rhodes, then senior associate deputy attorney general, testified that “all of the charging decisions were made by career prosecutors in the local office.”

James Benzoni, an immigration lawyer in Des Moines whose office has secured visas for two dozen Postville immigrants as victims of exploitation, said, “There was a general failure of due process and common decency.”

“You can’t go forward, you have to clean it up, and she’s not going to do that,” Mr. Benzoni said. 

Yisroel Pensack:  Last Thursday, Sholom Rubashkin, 50, former manager of the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse, was found guilty by a federal jury in South Dakota of 86 criminal charges — including bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering — stemming from his role at the Iowa kosher meat plant. Rubashkin, a member of a prominent — some might say, notorious — Chabad-Lubavitch chassidic family, faces a second federal trial next month on 72 immigration-related charges. He was taken into federal custody after the verdicts Thursday night.

According to the Associated Press, Rubashkin last Friday was 

transferred from the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, S.D.

…Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Genz says Rubashkin was moved from the prison Friday morning. He declined to say where he was being taken. 

Rubashkin attorney Guy Cook says he will likely be moved to the Woodbury County Jail in Iowa.

Cook filed a motion seeking his release on bail. U.S. District Court Judge Linda R. Reade will consider the request Wednesday in Cedar Rapids.

Rubashkin faces a second trial Dec. 2 on immigration charges.

All the charges relate to his work at the former Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa…

These have not been helpful techniques for me to sustain relationships.

I’ve been letting a lot of things fester. I tell my therapist about what’s bothering me in my relationship. Then she says, "What if you told her?"

Oh, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to criticize. I don’t want to be needy. I don’t want to impinge.

I’m learning that I can share my feelings without doing any of those things. I often find that when I share my feelings of hurt about a phone call not being returned that she’s mad at me for not calling her before Shabbat.

I called her before Shabbat, but I called her at 12:30pm and she meant right before Shabbat, like 30 minutes before Shabbat.

And I was mad at her for consistently calling me back 30 minutes after yom tov began.

The more emotionally vulnerable I am, the more emotionally vulnerable she is. Then we both understand more about the other and we each feel more emotional safety and we both feel more trust and understanding and we get deeper into each other’s lives.

I often assuming she is thinking X, and I’m just wrong.

She often thinks I’m thinking X, and she’s just wrong.

It’s good to let kisses linger but it’s bad to let bad feelings fester.

Mastery and vulnerability are big words in my therapy these days. When I master things and people, I feel confident. When I struggle, I feel vulnerable.

I’ve been sick a lot since Rosh Hashanah. This makes me feel vulnerable.

I’ve done some good writing despite this in my storytelling class. This makes me feel confident.

I have not been earning much money from my blogging (or other work). This makes me feel vulnerable.

I’m making moderate progress with my Alexander Technique training. I have two years to go before I am certified. This makes me feel vulnerable. I have no idea how I will pay my remaining $15,000 tuition. This makes me feel really vulnerable.

During much of 2009, I was dating someone who had left me twice — for another girl! That made me feel really vulnerable.

I completed my conversion to Orthodox Judaism. That made me feel mastery.

My position in Orthodox Judaism is still tenuous. That makes me feel vulnerable.

When I am mastering my life and have a secure income coming in, I’m less vulnerable to the ups and downs of love.

I feel like I am on the right path in my life but everything is a struggle, so I feel vulnerable.

I had a friend tell me today: "Living in conformity or living in rebellion are just two sides of the same coin. Neither one is living in freedom. I’m 65 and I’m just learning this."

I love washing dishes. I grew up in a cold home. My dad believed in fresh air, so even in winter, the windows were often open and gales blew through. By washing dishes, I could plunge my arms into hot water and warm up. It also gave me a concrete feeling of accomplishment.

Happiness is cleaning up a mess.

The yoga class was very crowded. He opened the door and scanned the room. It’s a big room, did he have to squeeze in beside me? Guys are so obvious. OK, Rina*, stop being uber-bitch. I deigned to ask him if he had enough space; not like I would have scooted over if he hadn’t. He said yes. Whoa – those eyes – big and blue exuding wickedness and delight. They held the promise of…what? His hair was sandy grey and his nose upturned. A face as not-Jewish as they come. He wore black sweat pants with a blue dress shirt. Where was he coming from, looking half formal and half slob? His feet stuck out from the bottom of the pants. His big toe was wide and round. He had hobbit feet and not very big. Not very promising if I were making deductions about his ****. But he was tall. I like that. What was his deal? I wonder if he knows that I’m Jewish? Damn, they can always sniff it out.

The earth moved, literally.

"Earthquake?" he mouthed.

 I nodded.

I’ve never seen a man who looked like that talk to a woman, a strange woman.

It was hard to focus for the rest of the class. His sexual energy was piercing, but oh God, the way that he looked, the tzitzit hanging out, the beard, the yarmulke, it was enough to dampen the desire of any modern girl.

When class ended and we were rolling up our mats, we finally spoke. God, that voice, it was deep and gravelly, the accent heavenly, yet it threw me off, another puzzle piece in the mystery. He was Australian.

I mentioned that I was taking a Hebrew class. This was the litmus test. If he did not react, I would know that he was simply chatting with me out of politeness. But his eyes lit up and he looked at me anew. Not just a cute ass, but a tribe member as well.

I asked him to have tea because I wasn’t ready to let him go quite yet. He told me that his father was an outcast Seventh-Day Adventist minister and he was a blogger. This was getting stranger and stranger, but I liked that he was a writer like me.

As we left the building, I surprised myself and offered him a ride. This is a big city, you don’t let strangers in your car. Plus, he had yoga breath. Maybe I just wanted to show off the brand new Infiniti G37S, which is better than sex most days of the week. All week I had f****** the car alone. Now I liked having a witness.

He seemed so straight-laced, I was surprised when he suggested a ride on the PCH north. I was wary, but my decision making was already questionable that evening. I could feel the metal between my legs, the purr of the engine, the fear in his eyes, yes I was getting excited.

Finally, at 85 mph, he told me we had reached his comfort threshold. So, he was a risk-taker, but measured.

He was wearing a leather jacket when we pulled over to walk on the beach. He had previously mentioned that he was sick. I asked him if he was OK walking at night in the cold by the ocean and he said yes. In fact, he seemed revived by the ocean, like meeting an old friend.

He walked straight out to the end of the jetty, again, the risky brave behavior with a dose of caution. I liked it. He turned me on and made me feel safe.

I was surprised when he offered his hand to help me over the slippery rocks. I had never seen a bearded Jew touch a woman before, not even on the hand. What was his deal?

The decisive moment came and went. I mean, a movie perfect moment, the ocean spraying our faces, the moonlight overhead. He moved in close and I just about puckered but he didn’t complete the pass.

I was relieved. I had yoga breath too. I took him home, both of us refreshed by the seaside jaunt. I wondered if I would see him again. I kind of liked him but he made my stomach hurt.

When we went to the movies, the Arclight on Saturday night, I had to steel myself against the looks of consternation on the other moviegoers’ faces. Here was this super-Orthodox guy walking in with a pretty, obviously not Orthodox women. Oh God, give me courage. I did wear a long skirt but still there was no mistaking the visual disparity between us and the odd stares of people passing. Does he know that people stare at him?

My outfit had a two-fold purpose. The long skirt was to let him know that we were from the same Jewish world. Yet below it, I wore skimpy panties and freshly shaved legs. Above I wear a cream sweater and no bra so he might notice the shadow of my nipples.

During a Q&A with the director of the film, he whipped out a video camera. I was mortified. Everyone knows that’s illegal. He was making me uncomfortable and on the way out he held my hand. Please, please, don’t let me bump into anyone I know. How would I ever explain this?

On the dark roof of the parking structure, I was surprised when he put his hands along my sides but not unhappy. At least nobody could see my choice of date.

We went for a ride and parked like a couple of teenagers on Mulholland Drive and moments later we were shooed away by the police. We found a quiet place to park and talk. I coyly placed my foot on his lap to test his reaction. When he gently rubbed it and touched even higher on my leg, he passed the test.

We put the seat back and he rubbed my breasts, him lying flat on his back and me on my back stacked on top of him like a couple of pancakes. I was bored. I wanted him to flip me over and make out with me hard. After all, that’s what his eyes promised. Was he being respectful? Was he even into it? Is he thinking about the Torah? An idea for a blog post? Fantasizing about an ex? Is he wondering whether to put potatoes in the pea soup?

Now I know more about Luke but not much. He ****s me for hours at a time without moaning or grunting. Even though he is in constant motion, there is a stillness, a repetitive heaviness in the act. It is reliable and methodical, risky but measured like Luke himself.

Is he releasing everything? Sperm? Anger? Sickness? Childhood? Rage? Lust? Passion?

Is it the fact that it’s me, someone age appropriate, bright, Jewish and pretty? He can finally release his cruel intentions on this girl, this girl who represents thousands of years of Yiddishkeit, whose DNA shouts Mount Sinai.

By pounding and pounding, he is proving his worth and sincerity. ****ing me he is saying **** you to all who don’t see him as Jewish or worse those who see his Judaism as mockery. All the built-up shame and rage comes pouring out of him, like I don’t matter. Yet I do. I can tell by the way he kisses me, licks me, holds me tightly, asking me over and over, are you OK?

Don’t get me wrong, I need the pounding as much as he does. No matter what, who or how long, I never feel filled up, but he comes close. I want to **** him until I am beyond sense, incoherent and in pain, until all visuals and thoughts disappear, into the single act of smell, sound, touch and pleasure. Pure being, pure rebirth, another chance.

Sex is the life raft. I don’t want him to stop. I hate when he pulls out. The illusion is over. We become two separate people again, which saddens me to my core. But when we talk in the dark, our scents mingling, candle burning low — about our families, religion, work — then it’s not so bad. An invisible thread of conversation connects my **** with his ****. And I feel slightly better.

When we part tonight, I know I will need many many chocolate chip cookies.

Songs:

1. "Don’t Let Him Go" (Cronin) – 3:47
2. "Keep On Loving You" (Cronin) – 3:22
3. "Follow My Heart" (Kelly, Richrath) – 3:50
4. "In Your Letter" (Richrath) – 3:18
5. "Take It on the Run" (Richrath) – 4:02
6. "Tough Guys" (Cronin) – 3:50
7. "Out of Season" (Cronin, Kelly) – 3:07
8. "Shakin’ It Loose" (Richrath) – 2:25
9. "Someone Tonight" (Hall) – 2:40
10. "I Wish You Were There" (Cronin) – 4:28

Nineteen eighty was a tough year for me. On the afternoon of Yom Kippur 1979, my father delivered a controversial talk before a thousand people at our Seventh-Day Adventist Pacific Union College (PUC) in the Napa Valley questioning the foundational doctrine of the church — choseness.

In January, my parents moved to Washington D.C. so my dad could organize a defense of his views. I stayed behind at PUC with friends. I was out of my dad’s shadow and I could have a childhood and do all the things normal kids do such as eat candy and talk to girls.

I started listening to pop music, tuning in at night to radio stations KNBR and KFRC.

In the summer of 1980, my father had his ministerial credentials taken away by the church and he moved to Auburn and set up his own non-denominational evangelical Christian foundation Good News Unlimited.

I was outside the warm bosom of the Adventist community for the first time and I felt desolate. My father said we belonged to the invisible church of Jesus Christ but that did not make for much practical community.

I went to a non-Adventist school (Forest Lake Christian School) and was surrounded by sinners who ate meat and did not keep the Sabbath. In my first semester I failed two classes (Algebra and Spanish) and ended up with a D average.

My few sources of solace included trips to PUC and listening to pop music at night under my pillow (most of my favorite songs are from this time).

I think it was on the powerful Los Angeles radio station KFI that I heard my first REO Speedwagon songs.

I remember us moving into a new home (7955 Bullard Drive, Newcastle, CA, 95658) in 1981. We had eight acres.

One evening a neighbor had a party in our honor. My ****** wanted to come without a bra but my dad made her go home and change.

It was a little awkward socializing with the un-churched. I did get into one good conversation that night. It was with Bob McKee. He lived about a mile away. He said his son Kevin, my age, liked a band called "REO Firewagon."

I became friends with Kevin and hung out at his house. About the only band that we both liked was REO. The other music that I liked he said his mom listened to (Kenny Rogers, Ann Murray, etc).

During one weekend trip back to PUC, I found out that my old classmate Valerie had the REO Speedwagon album "Hi Infidelity."

Late one Saturday night with the lights out and the record playing, I tangled myself up on the couch with a half dozen of my former SDA classmates. All that human contact! It was glorious. I had never felt so much. I’d never even kissed a girl. Now they were all smushed against me. I was covered in girls. It felt like they were raining down from Heaven.

God, couldn’t you let it linger?

I ran my hands over Holly’s butt. She was wearing those fashionably tight Levi jeans that made me love America. She had long black hair and was absolutely gorgeous. She was way out of my league. I couldn’t believe that she’d let me touch her.

Conquest goes to the bold!

This was the kind of Good News that I could get behind.

For a few minutes, I felt I was outside the loser’s circle.

Then Valerie’s mom came in and turned on the light and we all whooped and screamed and tumbled to the floor laughing.

We kinda cleaned up our act after that and within an hour I was on my way home.

You don’t understand how much touch meant to me. My mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was one. I went on to live with about a dozen different families while she took three years to die. I didn’t get the affection I needed and I’ve been looking for it ever since.

My father hates to be touched. I grew up thinking I hated to be touched too but deep inside I wanted to be touched. When people tried to touch me, I pulled away. I remember in seventh grade I had the most beautiful teacher and I was dying for her to touch me, but whenever she did, I jumped. She eventually stopped touching me. And then I told her to shut up and she wanted me to consider home schooling.

I cooled my mouth and stayed in PUC Elementary.

During the summer at PUC before seventh and eighth grades, I’d gather at the pool in the afternoon with some of my classmates and we’d play keep away games. When the girl you guarded got the ball, you put your arms around her and tried to take it away. I was awkward and more violent than affectionate but it was a licit way to touch. My girl those summers was Jeanie, a chubby blonde. We never kissed. We never did anything. We just comforted each other through awkward years.

She once called my home but my mother put the fear of God into her and she never called again.

I’ll never forget mom racing down the driveway that evening to ask me, "Who’s Jeanie? She just called for you. I told her you can’t talk to girls."

Overcome with embarrassment, I tried to get out of that conversation as quickly as I could but mom was persistent.

I felt like a right wally when I went to school that Monday and tried to explain to Jeanie about my parents.

I remember my brother got a girlfriend when he was this age and my dad marched to the girl’s home and broken up the relationship.

I became normal by touching girls. When my parents ran short of money, I enthusiastically moved to public school in tenth grade — Placer High School in Auburn.

When I was a Junior, Alice, a freshman, was my first kiss.

It took place in the school newspaper room (I was the News Editor, she was just a cub reporter). She stuck her tongue down my throat and I felt like I was drowning in saliva.

When I recovered, I figured that any girl who’d put her tongue down my throat would be willing to do anything, so I started pawing at her furiously. While kissing me violently, she fought my hands away from her tender parts.

I was so shocked and embarrassed, so afraid that I had been a lousy kisser, that I couldn’t talk to her for the rest of high school.

She later became Auburn’s mayor.

My next girl was also a freshman. She was blonde, my first blonde, and she had a tight body.

It was a Saturday night at Dr. Zane Kime’s house in the winter of 1982. Saturday nights are glorious times for Seventh-Day Adventists because you are no longer under law but under grace. I met her at the party and we went up to the loft with her fat friend and we talked.

I must’ve been charismatic that night because it only took about half an hour of conversation before my fumbly advances led to her leaning in and kissing me. She had the sweetest lip gloss and she let her kisses linger. I was direct and forceful, thinking about penetrating her mouth with my tongue, but she slowed me down, took control, and showed me the joys of gliding.

She glided her lips over mine. She pressed her lips into mine. She sucked on my lips and then explored the inside of my mouth with her tongue. She didn’t just stick it right in. She knew that underneath my masculine swagger, I needed to be romanced.

I loved the lingering feel of her lips gliding over mine. Glide, glide, glide. Suck. Gentle bite. Glide, glide, glide. Her tongue nips in and curls around my mouth, eventually meeting mine and letting me suck her deep. Then out she comes and glides her lips over mine.

This is Heaven!

All I had to do was follow her lead and after about an hour of kissing, I was good for life. I would never get any complaints in this department.

At school on Monday, I started telling people about what I did. I said my girl didn’t have the most beautiful face — it was scarred with acne — but she had a hot bod and she knew how to kiss.

My comments got back to her, but she laughed and made out with me again anyway.

One day she joined my friends in a game of touch football. I was the quarterback this time and she was my receiver.

We never got into a relationship. I didn’t ask her for her phone number and I didn’t write her letters.

I have no idea what happened to her. We saw each other about three times and that was it.

Before I learned to kiss, I had my time on the couch at Valerie’s house one Saturday night in 1981. My friends were all over me. We were all smushed together listening to Hi Infidelity and dreaming about sexual sin. We could lie on top of each other without being emotionally vulnerable. We were just rough-housing but in the tender way that Adventist kids had. It wasn’t a scary one-on-one encounter, it was more of a group hug.

The music rocked. It promised adult treats. We were growing up and we were happy. We were all alone and it was dark and we could gently sense each other and giggle about it. We accepted each other. There were no adults. There was no authority. There was no rejection. We were one.

I was so happy. I had my arms full of what I wanted most.

Holly, I wanted to keep on loving you, but life forced me to take it on the run.

On the album Hi Infidelity, the last song ("I Wish You Were There") was my favorite.

I know a place where you can go
When you’re flyin high or layin low
And I’ve got the time
I’ve got plenty to spare
I’ve got the time, and I’ve got the place
I just wish you were there

I’ve got the will (yeah) to have you around
Whether you’re up, or whether you’re down
And I know the way
To make you shine
I’ve got the will, and I’ve got the way
I just wish you were there

I hear it is a very sexual place. A great place to get into trouble. Sure, there are lots of classes and spirituality, but it’s the sex that sticks in my mind.

Some innocent girl is enjoying the hot tub and the next thing she knows some stranger is going down on her and she’s liking it.

It sounds very seductive and dangerous.

According to Esalen.org:

Esalen. The word itself summons up tantalizing visions of adventure, of unexplored frontiers, of human possibilities yet to be realized. There is the wonder of the place itself, 120 acres of fertile land carved out between mountain and ocean, blessed by a cascading canyon stream and hot mineral springs gushing out of a seaside cliff. There is the delicate and subtle Big Sur air of a late afternoon in May, the midnight mist of July, the drenching February rain. There are October nights so clear the Milky Way can light your walk along the darkened garden path. And always there is the sound of the sea.

I hate waiting for my calls to be returned. I feel unloved. As every minute ticks by, I feel less important. If I was a big shot, my calls would be returned right away. If she depended on me, she’d return my call right away. But she does not depend on me. I depend on her. Do I? Oh, God forbid.

I am a manly man, no? I am strong and independent. I blaze my own trail on this here blog. I’m not dependent on this woman. I do not need her. I’m not clingy, God forbid. I don’t chase her. Or do I? How much do I chase her? I give her lots of room, right?

So I called her motzi Shabbos. 6pm. That was almost two hours ago.

It’s Saturday night. What is she doing?

Why does she always wait until after Shabbat before she calls?

I told her that it was important to me that we spend Yom Kippur together. And then she does not call until I am at Kol Nidre.

Damn, at least I’m getting a blog post out of it.

I’m going to take the man’s role in this relationship. Therefore, I should make peace with being the pursuer. But it’s been almost a year now. I read that these things switch. First one party is the pursuer but if this role doesn’t switch then the relationship is doomed. One party can’t do all the pursuing until the end of time?

I judge my importance to people by how long they take to return my calls. I think this is a fair and accurate perception.

So how important am I to her? I am medium. She rarely goes a day without returning my call. At least I’ll get an email.

She told me that email was not an appropriate way to return her call, but email is the way she often returns my call.

What did that bloke Big say in Sex and they City? She can reach me whenever she wants, but I can’t reach her.

Well, that’s because she has a real job. I don’t have a real job. I have a patchwork of inadequate jobs and every month I’m falling further behind financially.

Rabbi Cohen’s conversions are accepted everywhere in the Jewish world. They will typically cost about $5,000 each, about ten times the price of conversions through the RCC and the Beit Din of Los Angeles (if you don’t count the cost of instruction).

His other services cost similarly.

Check out these photos of Rabbi Cohen with various great rabbis, including the Lubavitcher rebbe.

Rabbi Cohen is from Morocco and he learned in Lakewood.

Rabbi Samuel Ohana in the San Fernando Valley has a small Sephardic Beit Din. He also does Orthodox conversions to Judaism which are accepted by Israel’s chief rabbis.

Rabbi Ohana taught Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar in Morocco. He was his rebbe.

Rabbi Ohana hates to promote himself so his Beit Din stays small.

No matter what anyone does, no matter what the RCC does, they can’t shake Rabbi Ohana’s connection with Shlomo Amar. He’s connected.

Rabbi Ohana charges modest fees for his Beit Din services.

Rabbi Elchanan Tauber has a Beit Din in Los Angeles.

Rabbi Avraham Teichman of Agudath Yisrael makes most of his money from issuing national hashgacha (kashrut certification). He’ll typically clear $10,000 per factory. Putting hashgacha on a local restaurant such as Pico Kosher Deli (under RCC supervision) earns about $200 a month.

The delicacy about the religion in question — condescending, politically correct and deadly — is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: "Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center."

Ah yes, those Jersey men — so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — A Jewish businessman accused of defrauding investors of $1.7 billion reportedly has left his home in Sydney fearing for his safety.

South African-born Barry Tannenbaum has “relocated to what he perceives to be a safer location,” his lawyer, Darryl Ackerman, said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that his client was not fleeing prosecution.

South African authorities issued an arrest warrant for Tannenbaum last month along with his Swiss-based associate Dean Rees, who also is implicated in the Ponzi scheme. The scheme is believed to have duped about 800 investors in several countries who allegedly were promised returns of up to 200 percent.

Tannenbaum, whose assets also have been frozen in South Africa, denied the “wild allegations” as “conjecture and speculation” when the alleged scheme was revealed in June.

The Sydney Morning Herald tracked him down to Sydney’s North Shore, where he had been living with his family for several years. His children attended the local Jewish school and Tannenbaum had been a member of an Orthodox synagogue.

Tannenbaum, who comes from a family of well-known philanthropists in South Africa, is pictured on the Lubavitch.org Web site holding a Torah scroll he helped donate to a Chabad house in South Africa in 2006.

As the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yona Metzger, is not qualified, Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Amar, has handled all Beit Din matters since 2002.

Rabbi Amar initially was beholden to Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef (comparatively accomodationist for an Orthodox rabbi) and Rabbi Elyashiv (chareidi) but these days he sides more with Rabbi Elyashiv.

When the conversion controversy erupted, Rabbi Omar initially said he would not accept RCA (the rabbinical arm of the Orthodox Union) conversions.

So the RCA sent a representative to R. Amar to make a deal.

You’d think they’d send someone prestigious like Chicago’s Gedaliah Dov Schwartz. Nope. Instead they sent a comparative pisher, Basil Herring, who got rolled.

Basil Herring is about 45. Gedalia Schwartz is about 85.

Rabbi Schwartz could’ve walked in the room and said, "You’re wrong. I know what I’m doing with these conversions. You need to back down."

Basil Herring had no such prestige. He went and surrendered. So now Rabbi Amar can decide which RCA conversions he accepts.

If you allow people who are not competent to handle conversions, you are not helping. If you do not allow competent people to handle conversions in their town, you are not helping.

Helping with what?

With the influx of about a million Russians in the early 1990s, Israel was flooded with people who were not Jewish. There needed to be a comparatively easy way for these people to become Jewish. Rabbi Haim Druckman took on the problem upon the assignment of his superior rabbi in the early 1980s.

Rabbi Schwartz wanted to take this meeting with Rabbi Amar but Basil Herring insisted on going himself.

Sioux Falls, S.D. ­ A jury has convicted Sholom Rubashkin of 86 federal charges for his part in a massive fraud scheme at his former meat plant, Agriprocessors Inc., in Postville.

Jurors declared Rubashkin guilty of bank fraud, making false statements to a bank, wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering and aiding of abetting.

The jury found him not guilty of five counts of violating a law requiring payment of livestock providers within 24 hours.

Rubashkin’s attorney, Guy Cook, said they will appeal the decision.

Rubashkin, 50, was immediately taken into custody. As he was led out of the courtroom, he blew a kiss to his family and well-wishers.

A decision will be made Nov. 18 on whether Rubashkin can post bail. A sentencing date was not set.

Rubashkin had been offered a plea deal by federal prosecutors prior to the start of the trial, but told supporters that he would not accept because he was innocent, a close family friend told The Des Moines Register today.

The Rabbi Shea Hecht, chairman of the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education, said Rubashkin’s supporters urged him to take the offer, which would have included prison time.

But the Rubashkin meat plant in Postville, had "moral problems" with the proposal and insisted that he had done nothing illegal, Hecht said.

The plea-deal conversation took place during a meeting with Rubashkin and his lawyers in Crown Heights, a Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood and Rubashkin family stronghold, Hecht said.

Hecht said it happened shortly before Yom Kippur, a major Jewish holiday, which this year began at sunset on Sept. 27. Hecht said Rubashkin’s legal expenses – paid by a Brooklyn-based defense committee, of which he is a member – have already exceeded $1 million.

Cook declined to comment about the plea-deal.

Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Rubashkin falsified sales records to defraud the plant’s St. Louis-based lender. The fake invoices and shipping papers created the illusion of sales that had never happened, and allowed Rubashkin to borrow more out of a $35 million credit line.

Rubashkin also allegedly diverted customer payments into the wrong bank account, when the money should have gone directly to lender. Prosecution witnesses testified that Rubashkin used the money for personal expenses and to keep the plant running.

The five-man, seven-woman jury began deliberations on the case Monday afternoon after a nearly month-long trial with more than 60 witnesses and reams of financial documents. They continued deliberations on Tuesday, had Wednesday off in observance of Veterans Day, returning on Thursday. The jury returned to the courtroom at about 4:40 p.m. Thursday.

Rubashkin still faces 72 immigration-related federal charges as well as state allegations that he violated child labor laws. The federal immigration trial is set to begin in December in Sioux Falls.

Agriprocessors Inc. was the site of a May 2008 immigration raid that led to the arrest of 389 immigrant workers. Rubashkin was first charged in late October 2008, but insisted that he was innocent.

Yisroel Pensack:  Eighty-six is the numerical equivalent (gematria) of Elokim, the name of G-d denoting His attribute of judgment.

What does he want? What is his vision?

He strikes me as a man who toes the party line of charedi leader Rabbi Elyashiv in Israel.

Rabbi Bess has isolated Modern Orthodoxy’s two Los Angeles scholars — Yehuda Bukspan and David Rue (Los Angeles Beit Din).

People would ask questions of Rabbi Bukspan and then report back to Rabbi Bess who’d use their information to push Rabbi Bukspan to the margins of the Orthodox community.

Rabbi Bess is a master politician, a builder of coalitions and a grand strategist.

Writers are often attracted to other creative folks, including other writers. Nothing wrong with this in a general sense, mind you. We all love who we love, and what’s not to love about another witty, smart and talented person? The problem financially speaking, however, is that other writers very often have the same basic financial issues: low, irregular pay, no benefits, poor finance skills, tendencies toward flakiness and risk-taking, and such. Two incomes are theoretically better than one, but two sporadic incomes accompanied by everything else that comes attached to the writing life isn’t necessarily as much better than one would expect. And don’t forget: Kids may happen. They often do.

DF comments: The Kahana video really makes one pause, for many reasons. You see his repulsive antagonists, including that idiot Gopin, shouting that land for peace was the solution. Yet here we are, almost 20 years later, and you still hear leftists claiming land for peace will work. The human mind must have an infinite capacity to believe in fantasy.

It makes me think also how obnoxious it is for 18 year old kids to publicly challenge a man nearly three times their age. No embarassment, no recognition that they are dealing with a man who thought about their juvenile attacks 30 years before they were born. Not long ago I was thinking how overly obsequios yeshivah bachurim are to their rebbeim. Maybe they are, but this video is a good corrective to see the other side is just as bad.

NACHUM LAMM WRITES: DF, like I said, check out Gopin’s blog. *He* still believes in all this nonsense, perhaps now more than ever.

"nearly three times their age."

He was more than that at the time.

You have to love how Gopin refers to him as "Meir," and R’ Kahane casually replies, "Nu, ‘Meir,’ OK, ‘Meir’ it is," and keeps on referring to Gopin, the much younger man, as "Rabbi."

Gopin’s buddy at least laughs at R’ Kahane’s jokes at their expense; Gopin seems to be frozen.

The absolute best is the little question and answer session on the Sanhedrin:

Kahane: Is Judaism democratic?

Gopin: [Silence. Crickets chirp. Titters from the audience.]

Kahane repeats the question.

Gopin: Well, the Sanhedrin made its decisions via a vote of the majority…

Kahane [as if he hadn't heard that clearly]: What was that? A vote?

Gopin [not getting it]: A vote of the majority…

Kahane: A vote?

Gopin: The Sanhedrin made its decisions…

[Now, citing the Sanhedrin here is a giant non-sequitor if not a perfect concession, and a bunch of possible responses bubbled through my head. But Kahane, bless him, nailed the perfect response on the spot.]

Kahane: And how many non-Jews sat on the Sanhedrin?

Gopin: [You can’t hear the crickets only because the audience is laughing too loud. He tries a bit more, but the argument is clearly over. Come to think, Gopin lost the argument the second he called Kahane a Nazi; Godwin’s Law had just been invented, but Kahane sums it up pretty well in response.

Just checked out Lopatin’s page. Didn’t expect much from him, considering his most famous congregant(s), but…I just gotta wonder what it is about Maimonides graduates and Rhodes Scholars who really get into Islamic studies and develop Stockholm Syndrome.

Reason number one modern Orthodoxy has problems catching on with some (especially in Israel)? Lunacy like this.

ZALMAN ALPERT WRITES: Marc,
Things were not always so great at Brandeis.
My brother Nate was there from 1969-1973 and was essentially the only student with a kippah the whole time.. There were a sprinkling of other Orthodox students male and female. with a number of Baale teshuva. In 1973 things started to change.
There were also several orthodox students in the NEJS graduate program several of whom have become well known scholars and academics.
A elderly rabbi Rabbi Mann acted as the kashruth supervisor . Kosher food was available and there were Shabbat services as well as Sabbath meals.
But essentially the atmosphere and the administartion was more interested in attracting non Jewish students (like the daughter of Hugh Hefner Christy) than Orthodox ones.
You are correct about rabbi Albert Axelrod. My brother found him helpful open minded and kind.
The Bostoner rebbe was active on the campus at that time and some students traveled to Brookline for Shabbath. There certainly was no orthodox rabbi on campus but several faculty were ordained rabbis.
Why the picture of Rabbi Twersky, was he always bearded or was the beard grown after his father died.Does his beard make him greater than lets say his brother in law in Israel who is clean shaven ?
Twersky was obviusly a great academic scholar but calling him Talner rebbe takes away from his real and primary identity which was professor and scholar not rebbe.
I do hope that the MO community does not fall into the same trap of our right wing brothers and create mythical figures. Rather celebrate the greatness of the scholars we admire.It would be interesting to see a critical and frank discussion of the relationship between Dr. Twersky and his father in law as well as the whole Twersky family in Brookline (Talner branch).
Lew Lehrman the almost governor of NY if he was almost governor then Dukakis and McGovern were almost president of the USA. Lehrman lost in a landslide and his cadidacy was of a sacrificial nature as the GOP put him up as he funded his own campaign. I believe he owned a chain of drug stores. His greatest moment was visiting the bobover rebbe and some moron put a shtreimel on his head.

ARYEH WRITES: As someone who was at Brandeis as a student during part of Dr. Shapiro’s (I know he would want me to call him Marc, but I am giving him his due kavod) tenure as well as another that of another Orthodox advisor, I would echo all of the stories mentioned here. There are several other interesting stories about Orthodox life at Brandeis that may be worthy to point out.

1. Orthodox students chartered a club through both Hillel and the student senate which was initially called BOG, Brandis Orthodox Group, but quickly became BOO, the Brandeis Orthodox organization as it still known today. It under the aegis of BOO that the Beit Midrash was opened.

2. The Kosher cafeteria at Brandeis is I think failry unique. It is operated in the same dining hall as an unkosher cafeteria. All students, regardless from which kitchen they get their food, must keep their food on a tray. No food is allowed on the tables. During my time, this was enforced by the then elderly Rabbi Mann and volunteer kosher cops (student committee).

3. I agree with Dr. Shapiro that the NEJS faculty resources, along with the fantastic library and archives, are underappreciated by undergraduates.

4. I recall the issue of the Torah procession slightly differently. The issue was raised, debated, learned and the shailah was asked. However, I thought the practice became that a man would carry the Torah on the men’s side to the back. At the back there was a table. The Torah was placed on the table, and then picked up by a women who carried the Torah on the women’s side. I recall the limiation on the teshuva being the unique kiruv nature of college.

6. The horrendous terorist murder of Allysa Faltow A’H who was on a junior year abroad program shacked the community badly.

5. Since my graduation, I know that Chabad has established a growing presence just off-campus.

Finally, with respect to Rabbi Lopatin. I davened in that shul for a few years when I was living nearby. At the time, he did not hold like this, but held that Birchot HaShachar was not to be said out loud by the Baal Tefilah. The Ball Tefilah said out loud "Baruch Atah" so you knew davening started and then picked up only with the ending of the full paragraph, thus avoiding the "issue".

S. comments: "That picture of R. Soloveitchik doing the mitzvah tantz is hilarious. Is it only me, or does the frozen half smile on his face look like internally he is feeling a cross between mortified and nauseous?"

Marc B. Shapiro blogs:

The Memoirs of Nahum N. Glatzer (New York, 1997), pp. 126-128. Although Glatzer left Orthodoxy, in his younger years he studied in R. Salomon Breuer’s yeshiva in Frankfurt, and also with R. Nehemiah Nobel. As such, he understood Orthodoxy very well. Glatzer, who died in 1990, was retired when I came to Brandeis in 1985. To my great regret, I never took the trouble to interview him as I did with Prof. Alexander Altmann, who retired from Brandeis in 1976. On pp. 129-130 of Glatzer’s memoir we find the following, which I am sure will interest many readers of the Seforim blog.

In 1944 Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (called “the Rov” by his followers and admirers) published in Talpiot a major article, “Ish ha-Halakhah” (the Halakhic Personality). The essay, written in a most beautiful Hebrew style, not only claimed for the observance of Jewish law the central place in Jewish life, but denied the—however circumscribed—validity of any other approach. The Halakhah demands a complete control of the Jew, to the exclusion of an emotional state of mind to accompany the halakhc function. There is no rightful place for, or justification of, a state of excitement or religious agitation, say, in the ceremony of blowing the shofar on New Year’s Day; what matters, and matters exclusively, is the proper execution of the ritual.

This exclusion of the emotional side of religion bothered me when I read the essay. I planned a polemic reply but was dissuaded by my colleagues. I happened to visit New York and voiced my feelings to Professor Louis Ginzberg, the great Talmudist. I expected him to agree with me and object to the rigid stand of the Rov. The cautious Ginzberg did not wish to commit himself, or to say something that could be quoted as a criticism of his Talmudic colleague. He, therefore, did not go beyond saying: “I like my whiskey straight,” which was a mild complaint against the Rov’s combination of Halakhah and philosophy. The only reference that could be interepreted as an admission of esthetics into the realm of religion was Ginzberg’s telling of the Gaon of Vilna (brother of Rabbi Abraham, Ginzberg’s forebear in the seventh generation), who near death admired the beauty of the etrog that was brought to him, since the day was one of the Sukkot festival days.

(The Rov, apparently, would have felt: Never mind the etrog’s beauty. What matters is that the citron is without blemish and the benediction is properly pronounced.).

I was disappointed that Ginzberg did not wish to take seriously the younger man’s question. In the meantime, the Rov changed his position and realized the wider dimension of faith. If you wait long enough . . . [ellipsis in original]. Yet, even with the changed position on the part of the Rov, Ginzberg, were he alive, would insist on having his whiskey straight.

Professor Marc B. Shapiro blogs:

Although he might not be fired, any Modern Orthodox rabbi who stated as follows would also be in hot water, as the congregation would be outraged: “One is not allowed to admire gentiles or praise them.” The writer of these words goes on to say that collecting baseball cards is also forbidden. “While it may be that some people trade them only for financial gain, the reason for collecting the cards is more likely because of an appreciation and admiration for the personalities depicted on them. This is forbidden.” Quite apart from the terrible lack of judgment in putting the first sentence (“One is not allowed to admire gentiles or praise them”) into an English language book (for obvious reasons), should we be surprised that a halakhist who thinks baseball cards are forbidden is one of the poskim of the formerly Modern Orthodox OU? See R. Yisrael Belsky, Shulchan Halevi (Kiryat Sefer, 2008), pp. 132, 133. (For another ruling against baseball cards, see R. Yitzhak Abadi, Or Yitzhak, Yoreh Deah no. 26.)

A friend of mine recently wanted to pay cash to have his car repaired but first he got the permission of his chareidi rabbi.

Professor and Orthodox rabbi Marc B. Shapiro blogs:

If you want to understand why three hasidic kids are sitting in a Japanese jail, this responsum provides all you need to know. Can anyone deny that it is this mentality that explains so much of the illegal activity we have seen in recent year? Will Agudat Israel, which has publicly called for adherence to high ethical standards in such matters, condemn Klein? Will they declare a ban on R Yaakov Yeshayah Blau’s popular Pithei Hoshen, which explains all the halakhically permissible ways one can cheat non-Jews? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t declare that members of your community strive for the ethical high ground while at the same time regard Mishneh Halakhot, Pithei Hoshen, and similar books as valid texts, since these works offer justifications for all sorts of unethical monetary behavior. The average Orthodox Jew has no idea what is found in these works and how dangerous they are. Do I need to start quoting chapter and verse of contemporary halakhic texts that state explicitly that there is no prohibition to cheat on one’s taxes? Pray tell, Agudah, are we supposed to regard these authors as legitimate halakhic authorities?

DF posts: 1. You cant expect orthodox rabbis to speak out against cheating on taxes, or misleading goyim. Because it would destroy the wine industry. Meaning, a great deal of orthodox society is contingent on the view that Christians are idol-worshippers.

Were the Meiri’s view adopted, it is true that people will eventually stop the "shtik" with government and non Jews. However, adoption of his view would also change the face of orthodoxy in an entirely different direction. All [most] the laws of yayim nesech would be out the window, for example. All the laws of bishul akum, gone. Chalav Yisrael industry, gone. Pas Akum industry, gone. Kemach, Geffen, Tov Taam, – gone, gone, gone. Kedem, Kesser, – gone and gone.

In other words, a lot of people’s jobs are riding on maintaining the preposterous fiction that Americans today are no different than the star worshippers of 2000 years ago. So, good luck advancing the Meiri’s view.

2. You are right that Rav Belsky has changed. And it’s noticeable in the OU. I have noticed that OU is now labelling many products simply as "D" or "Dairy", even when they are only produced on equiptment that also produces dairy, and the product itself doesnt have a drop of milk in it.

[Of course, OU also labels products as dairy even when the amount is less than 2% and hence bottol, but at least that's a chumrah they've been following for many years.] It would be nice if the OU was upfront with the chumrahs it was following, thus allowing people who didnt care for that approach, and who werent aware of the OU’s policies, to make their own decisions.

JUMPED POSTS: How can an orthodox jew possibly say we live in a ‘moral’ society, when the most unprecedented rate of murder in the entire history of the world, in the most horrific setting possible- one’s very own offspring, is going on all around us? Do you accept the Halachah that it is murder- the highest IMMORAL crime possible, or do you not? OR, heaven forbid, say Halacha is one thing, truth another?

YU GRAD POSTS: Prof. Shapiro, while we certainly should ostracize Rabi Menashe Klein for his crazy views, what about Rabbi Dovid Cohen, who is a much more mainstream figure? As was reported in the Jewish Week and as was personally witnessed by me, he publicly said in front of one hundred people that tax evasion is permissible if you will not get caught. When subsequently questioned in private as to the justification for his views in light of the pesak in CM that such activity is forbidden, he responded that one can assume that such statements were just put there for fear of the censor. He therefore also said that gezel akum is permissible. As far as I know, he is the first posek to have said such a thing in one thousand years. He has been saying these things for many years and many people are familiar with his views on these issues. The RCA should be credited for breaking ties with him but has the Agudah world done so? What about Ohel, AJOP and Nefesh? Why do we condemn the frum criminals of the past year — after all if RDC is acceptable then why are those who follow his views to be condemned? One cannot answer that even RDC would prohibit tax evasion and theft if it would cause a Chillul Hashem because there is no doubt that the people involved thought that there was not a material chance that they would be caught. At worst they just made a poor judgment as to the possibility that Dweck would be cooperating with the feds.

Another point in your post that relates to this very disturbing issue is the historical revisionism that you discuss at the beginning of your post. When RDC spoke in Bergenfield, he said in front of one hundred people that he would deny his comments if people were to quote his statement on tax evasion. He also said that he was only making these public comments on Shabbos because he knew that there would be no taper recorders. RDC, true to his word, denied everything when questioned by the RCA about this despite the many witnesses who could testify to the contrary. That was not surprising — after all that is what he said he would do. What was most surprising was the harsh criticism that one YU RY had for those who told the RCA the truth. He told them that telling the RCA what happend was a complete lack of "kavod harav" and he did his best to make sure that the RCA would not discover what happened. He said this even though he knew that 100 witnesses could testify as to what happened. As one might guess, many of the witnesses did come forward and many in the RCA ultimately realized that this YU RY had misled them.

MARC SHAPIRO POSTS: Certain rabbis have the title attached to their name, so it makes sense to speak of them with their title: Rav Moshe, the Rav, Rav Kook — but for others (and this includes Rabbenu ha-Gadol R. Weinberg) a last name is fine.

If you want to see kavodike titles, see my Hebrew articles in Milin Havivin. In Hebrew the convention is different.

I mean, the title is by now so attached to them, that to refer to them without it, would be very strange.

MICHAEL MAKOVI POSTS: I was frequenting the Frum Teens forum, and someone asked whether it is permissible to cheer at a sports game, since the players are all gentiles. The moderator said he’d ask one of the gedolim. I responded that just the previous day, I had read Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz’s eulogy for a Catholic cardinal in the 1975 edition of Affirmations of Judaism.

(The 1923 edition of Affirmations of Judaism, same title and author, is an entirely different book. I might add that the 1923 Affirmations is an absolutely marvelous book, and would probably serve as a better introduction to Judaism than many books being written today. That is, assuming Rabbi Hertz’s endorsement of Kaplan’s concept of Judaism as a civilization doesn’t get Rabbi Hertz put in herem. (He uses Kaplan to uphold a concept of Judaism not very different than Rabbi S. R. Hirsch’s view in "Religion Allied to Progress" and "Judaism Up to Date", regarding Judaism governing all aspects of life. And cf. Rabbi Benzion Uziel’s concept of the Torah as our national charter.) And see Rabbi Hertz’s Early and Late for a fascinatingly consistent conflation of "Positive-Historical" and "Orthodox".)

———————————

Regarding historical revisionism of what one’s own ancestors have done, I am reminded of what David Glasner wrote on the Seforim Blog, about how Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner’s own descendants have forgotten his Zionism, thus paving the way for Rabbi M. S. Glasner’s inclusion into the Frankel index of commentators on the Mishneh Torah.

Regarding Gorelick the younger, Professor Shapiro writes, "He published an essay in Or Yisrael attacking the Artscroll Talmud and his reason was simply incredible. He claimed that anything that tries to make the study of Talmud easier is to be condemned. He also argued that Talmud study is not for the masses, but only for the elite. … According to Gorelik, if the masses want to study Torah, they can study halakhah or Aggadah and Mussar."

I don’t see what is so incredible about this position. The Gemara itself states that only 100 out of 1000 will progress beyond Tanakh to Mishnah, and only 10 out of 1000 beyond Mishnah to Gemara! Yes, today, academic and intellectual achievement by the laity is greater in general, and if one has learned in university, then presumably his Torah learning should be commensurate. Still, the fact that only ONE percent of people learned Gemara back then….!!!

On this subject, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner writes in his "Zionism in the Light of Faith" ():

"And as to the manner in which Talmud will be studied in the land of Israel, a reduction in the number of those who study Talmud need arouse no fears, for the present situation is not healthy and is in the category of a deplorable necessity. The healthy and the natural doctrine is the following which was mentioned by the Mishnah in Avot, that we cited above and is implied by the Midrash in Midrash Rabbah at the beginning of Leviticus (chapter 2): [Rabbi Glasner cites the teaching regarding 100 of a 1000, 10 of a 1000, etc.]

"What a golden fruit would this doctrine yield in the land of Israel. The entire people, more or less, would be involved in the study of the Holy Scriptures, and a not inconsiderable portion would also be engaged in the study of the oral torah that is organized in the Mishnah, while the students who distinguish themselves in the study of Mishnah would be selected to devote themselves to the study of Talmud. From these would emerge true Torah scholars and giants of Torah, similar to those whom we knew in the bright era of Israel. Even without this, the situation in the land of Israel would be more healthy and more natural if only a small portion of the people will turn to Torah studies at the highest level, that is Talmudic study. It would be healthy and natural if higher Talmudic studies would be reserved to a small portion of the people, in the manner in which the tribe of Levi, which constituted eight percent of the people and did not participate in the ownership of the land and whose assignment and profession was to be the spiritual leaders of the nation, was sanctified and separated from the people to devote themselves to the study of Torah at the highest level. In contrast the other tribes, which constituted 92 percent of the people took part in various mundane occupations and were only free on the Sabbath and Holy Days to provide their souls with spiritual and moral nourishment."

"And so is it told in the Midrash: ‘When Israel was in the desert, before they entered the land of Israel, the Torah said to the Holy One Blessed Be He: "A man under his vine and a man under his fig tree." What will become of me?" For in the desert the entire people devoted themselves to the study of Torah, because they had no other worries. The Holy One Blessed Be He replied to the Torah: "I have another partner that I will give you, which is the Sabbath day, for Israel are idle from work and enter to the houses of worship and the houses of study and devote themselves to the study of Torah.’ The working man fills the Sabbath day with Torah study."

By 1980, there were only two Orthodox synagogues in the community — Young Israel of South Beverly Hills and Beth Jacob. There wasn’t a kosher restaurant. There was Pico Kosher Deli (under different manager) which observant people wouldn’t eat in because they did not trust the kashrut. There was a black non-Jewish guy who was the primary cook who’d be drinking coffee with real cream while cooking the meat.

In the early 1980s, Young Israel of Century City started as a breakaway minyan from Beth Jacob. They simply wanted their own minyan (like Benny’s Minyan) but Rabbi Maurice Lamm would not permit it. So they moved out and davened in a room at the Ramada Inn.

This breakaway ended up costing Maurice Lamm his job. His successor at Beth Jacob, Abner Weiss, had no problem with multiple minyanim.

Beth Jacob is filled with old timers. They’re not interested in helping people becoming observant.

YICC is for those who were raised Orthodox. They’ve designed a shul that converts and baalei teshuva (newcomers to Orthodoxy) are unlikely to feel comfortable in. In the late 1980s, Bnai David was struggling to become Orthodox.

Into the neighborhood in the late 1980s comes Aish HaTorah. It’s an outreach organization. It wants to help people. It wants to spread Orthodox Judaism. It became hugely successful. Aish Los Angeles now employs nine rabbis.

Aish is a warm shul. It wants to help you grow. Growing spiritually has been the in-thing for the past 20 years.

Aish is on the far left of charedi Judaism. It’s faux chareidi with all sorts of stuff about sports and TV and other sweeteners on its website Aish.com.

YICC is the most right-wing Modern Orthodox shul in Pico-Robertson. Women don’t dance with Torah scrolls there on Simchat Torah. They do at Beth Jacob and Bnai David.

Rabbi Kalman Topp at Beth Jacob has impeccable left-wing Orthodox credentials. One of the rabbis (Dovid Cohen?) he beat out for his position was to the right and went to Mir yeshiva.

There’s no reason to expect that any of Pico-Robertson’s Modern Orthodox shuls will move to the right in the years ahead, even as the community around them becomes more chareidi.

Shaarey Zedek in the Valley is a right-wing Orthodox shul. Shaarey Tefila in Hancock Park is holding on as a centrist Orthodox shul. Everyone there wants to be part of a Modern Orthodox shul, but their kids are moving away. They don’t want to be a Modern Orthodox in a charedi neighborhood. The shul is getting steadily older. Eventually the charedim will take over.

YULA boys and girls high schools have moved to the left under their new principal Rabbi Heshy Glass. His predecessor, Dovid Landesman, was to the right.

Wikipedia says: "Former headmaster Rabbi Dovid Landesman was recently replaced by principal Heshy T. Glass. Rabbi Landesman went to a new all-boys, Orthodox Jewish high school Aish Tamid, after leaving very recently due to differing opinions of the proper way the school should run and its main philosophy as well as the role of the principal in general. Rabbi Dovid Landesman was and remains today one of the most accomplished and influential Rabbis ever to have held a position in YULA."

YULA’s fundamental problem is that its rabbis are way to the right of the students and their parents.

Rabbi Shalom Tendler was another force keeping YULA to the right. He left in 2004 to start his own center-right yeshiva — Mesivta Birkas Yitzchak (on Crescent Heights and Pico Blvd). Rabbi Tendler does not want to appeal to a wide variety of students. He only wants the elite and he has siphoned off YULA’s and Yeshiva Gedolah’s best students. He wants no more than 120 kids.

Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy is the biggest Orthodox primary school in Los Angeles but it has had increasing competition over the past 15 years from Maimonides (to the right), Ohr Eliyahu (to the right), Yavneh (to the right).

Even though Beth Jacob owns Harkham Hillel, Beth Jacob’s former rabbi Steven Weil sent his kids to Yavneh.

At Hillel, Rabbi Menachem Gottesman had the philosophy that every Jewish kid who wanted a Jewish education there could get one. That many kids whose parents were not observant of Jewish law.

Rabbi Gottesman was the school’s fundraiser so he always got his way. He was more of a businessman than an educator. He hired educators.

Rabbi Gottesman did not want to shmooze all the pulpit rabbis in LA, so they did not send him their kids, and the student population at Hillel dropped.

Dr. Marc B. Shapiro blogs:

t is actually Aish Hatorah that has done more to “normalize” intermarriage than any other organization in the Orthodox world. Not only does Aish Hatorah do outreach to the intermarried (something we can all appreciate), but they use various intermarried Jewish celebrities in their publicity, and have even honored these people at their events. I am not saying that they are wrong in what they do. After all, the old approach to intermarriage doesn’t work today, and although I find something distasteful about using an intermarried celebrity as the poster-boy to invite people to a Torah class, I see how people can disagree. But about one thing there can be no doubt, and that is that R. Aaron Kotler would be turning over in his grave if he saw what this supposedly haredi organization has done when it comes to tacit acceptance of intermarriage.

• Israel displays ancient coins: link
• Boxer studying to be a rabbi: link
• When is a rabbi not a rabbi?: link
• 1890s style back in fashion: link
• Protests expected against Intel’s opening its Jerusalem office on Shabbos: link
• The Forward encourages investigating the compensation at non-profits: link
• Chairites pay more attention to small donors: link

There is a new issue of Kol Hamevaser: The Jewish Thought Magazine of the Yeshiva University Student Body on the topic of "Family and Community." The whole issue is available here: link. Also, those who would like to subscribe to automatically receive a PDF version of new editions of the paper should send an e-mail to kolhamevaser@gmail.com.

• The Modern Orthodox Response to Orthopraxy by Eli Putterman
• Prayer: A Call for Philosophical Inquiry by Sarit Bendavid
• Rabbinic Leadership Reexamined by Alex Luxenberg
• On the Virtue of Followership: Ein Melekh be-Lo Am by Noah Cheses"Am le-Badad Yishkon:" Must the Singular Nation Always Reside Alone? by Nicole Grubner
• An Interview with Rabbi Yaakov Neuberger by Staff
• Be Not Overly Modest: Tseni’ut and the Inability to Speak About Sex by Emmanuel Sanders
• An Interview with Mrs. Shani Taragin: Part One by Staff
• Shemirat Negi’ah and Reality by Nathaniel Jaret
• Reality Check: Lo Tikrevu le-Gallot Ervah and Shemirat Negi’ah by Shaul Seidler-Feller
• Musar’s Incomplete Victory by Rabbi Yosef Blau
• "A Yid iz Geglaychn tzu a Seyfer Toyre" by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
• Don’t Read This Essay by Reuven Rand
• Beginning the Conversation: A Review of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ Weekly Readings of Be-Reshit by Shlomo Zuckier

Oldest Member writes: I find it amazing that the "Who is a Jew" article is the second most e-mailed NY Times article, according to their website.

Two observations: (1) The Times really is the house organ of the Jews. (2) Even secular Jews care about this issue. I don’t think there are enough religious Jews among Times readers to make the story #2.

NACHUM LAMM POSTS: The funniest part of the British story is that instead of admitting non-Jews, the school has essentially gotten around it by limiting enrollment (as it had not been before) to Orthodox kids. So the result has been more limited enrollment than before. Congratulations to the courts for screwing things up even more, but then that’s what they do best.

Charlie, do you think the US courts can’t order yeshivot around? Of course they can. Have you never seen those "non-discriminating" notices in papers? In any event, separation or not, this is clearly against British traditions. But tradition, of course, means nothing to leftists.

The "body" of Steinsaltz is really just a translation, while Artscroll’s is almost a running shiur.

I found it cute when, in an article in the New York Times announcing the completion of Artscroll, there was a picture of R’ Scherman with a Steinsaltz on his desk.

Steinsaltz takes into account facts of history, realia, science, geography and so on from "external" sources that Artscroll ignores. Take the references to "Sunday people" in Avoda Zara (learning it now) that Artscroll simply cites Rishonim as referring to some Babylonian sect when, obviously (see the context etc.), it is referring to Christians.

So if you want to understand the Gemara as traditionally learned, Rishonim and all, Artscroll is for you. (Although Steinsaltz has that as well.) If you want more factual correctness- including different girsaot and so on- take Steinsaltz. (Although, again, Artscroll has that, the Hebrew, interestingly, more than the English.)

He’s a primary text guy like the old fashioned rabbis. Marc Gafni, David Hartman in Jerusalem, Ari Kahn, Emmanuel Rackman, the top Talmud instructors at Yeshiva University, these are primary text guys. They deal principally in the primary texts of the Jewish tradition — Tanach, Talmud, commentaries.

Then there are the popularizers who seem to do most of their reading in English and then take the best of ideas they come across and put them into their own words. These are people like Joseph Telushkin, Dennis Prager, Norman Lamm, Steven Weil.

Primary text guys such as David Hartman tend to look down on popularizers such as Dennis Prager.

I place Rabbi Gershon Bess — the man behind the RCC — with the popularizers. Even though he immerses himself in primary text, he does all his publishing in English. I don’t believe he’s published a scholarly article in Hebrew. It seems weird to me that the most powerful Orthodox rabbi in Los Angeles, a charedi rabbi at that, does all his publishing in English.

White also asked Rubin to donate money to the 2004 presidential campaign of Reverend Al Sharpton. Public disclosure of a contribution to Sharpton “would destroy me personally,” Rubin said, according to telephone transcripts from the Philadelphia trial. White suggested sending the money to White’s federal political action committee. On April 4, 2003, Rubin donated $5,000 to the PAC. The same day, the PAC wrote a $1,000 check to Sharpton.

D. emails: Don’t talk about your dad, mate! Listen up and listen good, Sunny Jim. You may think you’ve analyzed your dear old dad, but I’m here to tell you that, like everything else in your bloody life, you’re well off the fair-dinkum rails. This might play with that mentally disturbed woman with whom you’re driving, but let me tell you both that, as a son, you’re a fair-dinkum disappointment. A bloody sinker! I would have straightened you out right quick if it hadn’t been for your stepmum. My impulse was always to stake you to a termite mound, shove a cane toad in your gob, and then give you a fair-dinkum wallop in the chin with a cricket bat. Perhaps if I had done that, you wouldn’t have turned out to be the mewling, self-pitying, goldbricking fraud that you so obviously are. One of these days, I’ll dig out your lungs with a fair-dinkum garden trowel, mate. Don’t think I won’t.

I saw some obstacles to my dream. Missionary work, particularly among the black people of Africa, seemed scary and unsafe. Also, I wasn’t that excited about Christianity. I was more interested in this worldly change. I didn’t want to be a professional Christian.

My greatest accomplishment is my blogging, in particular my 1998 scoop about Marc Wallice, the likely source of a string of infections in the porn industry.

Why am I proud of it? Because my reporting saved lives.

What did I have to overcome to accomplish this? I was alone in reporting this news. Reporters typically run in packs. I only had my own website. I had no credentials. I had no organization supporting me. I was out on a limb.

I felt like I was bringing down upon myself the wrath of an entire industry. My old sources were turning against me. I felt like a pariah.

It was not a story I could talk about in polite company. It was shameful. Who cares about what happens to porn people? That’s the attitude of mainstream society — that porners are dirt.

I swam in a sewer to report this story. I felt like I was falling into a moral abyss.

In 1997, I faxed a news tip — from the law office in Century City where I worked as a temp — to the Los Angeles Times about the HIV in porn story. I didn’t realize that a copy of everything faxed is spat out by a different part of the fax machine.  Everybody in the office found out about what I had done and they laughed at me. I got fired. I got fired from several temp job for similar blunders.

I covered myself in shame but my good work was eventually acknowledged throughout the mainstream media (60 Minutes, Entertainment Tonight, etc).

I hope that I am flexible, courageous and hard-working enough to break more such stories in the future. I want to be Scoop Luke — the man in the know. I want prestige. I want to be in the middle of the action.

I wonder what I could do to get more scoops. I need to cultivate more sources. I want scoops that are more prestigious than the mayor’s marriage breaking up or HIV in porn. I want to bring down a corrupt rabbi or senator or president.

I am tired. I hope they find a cure for CFS soon.

Let your haters be your motivators.

Nov. 11. I had a nice chat with ****. I didn’t tell her about how much the Vicki* comment Sunday night hurt me. I guess I have just distanced myself. I had a spectacular writing workshop last night. I blew them away with my story.

I wonder how hurt I feel about **** as opposed to sad and resigned. If I am hurt and angry, then I must keep trying. If I am primarily sad and resigned, then it is time to move on.

It bothers me that she is so close with her ex-fiance and other lovers (male and female) and that she taunts me about them and how easily she can get laid.

I can’t get laid so easily. I have such strong Torah values.

I learned in Alexander Technique today about the difference between grabbing with my hands and letting my fingers lengthen as I place them on somebody. I found I could not be contemptuous or provocative while keeping my neck free of tension.

The most important power we have is the power to help select the lens through which we see reality. 

Most people select stories that lead toward cooperation and goodness. But over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged.

That narrative has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so.

This narrative is embraced by a small minority. But it has caused incredible amounts of suffering within the Muslim world, in Israel, in the U.S. and elsewhere. With their suicide bombings and terrorist acts, adherents to this narrative have made themselves central to global politics. They are the ones who go into crowded rooms, shout “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” and then start murdering.

When Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan [reportedly allegedly] did that in Fort Hood, Tex., last week, many Americans had an understandable and, in some ways, admirable reaction. They didn’t want the horror to become a pretext for anti-Muslim bigotry.

So immediately the coverage took on a certain cast. The possibility of Islamic extremism was immediately played down. This was an isolated personal breakdown, not an ideological assault, many people emphasized.

Major Hasan was portrayed as a disturbed individual who was under a lot of stress. We learned about pre-traumatic stress syndrome, and secondary stress disorder, which one gets from hearing about other people’s stress. We heard the theory (unlikely in retrospect) that Hasan was so traumatized by the thought of going into a combat zone that he decided to take a gun and create one of his own.

A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. Hasan was portrayed as a victim of society, a poor soul who was pushed over the edge by prejudice and unhappiness.

There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.

This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.

Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

Every once in a while, a story comes along so jolting that it is scarcely believable. One such story appeared in The New York Times, of all places, this past Sunday, about how the Jews’ Free School in London has been ordered to admit a child whose mother had a non-orthodox conversion after the child’s parents sued.

I will not enter here into the ongoing and bitter divide in England between orthodox and progressive Jews. It was a battle that I witnessed and worked hard to mend through countless essays and public forums over the 11 years that I lived in the United Kingdom. Less so will I address here the very pressing questions of Jewish status as determined by conversion on the part of Judaism’s three major branches. I am a passionately orthodox Jew who is equally passionate about Jewish unity. Our divisions must indeed be addressed and healed. But this shocking story in Britain raises something far more pressing that is of equal concern to orthodox and non-orthodox alike.

What is mind-boggling is that a British court of appeals, which ruled against the school, said that the Jewish community’s ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness through parenthood is ethnically based, discriminatory, and therefore unlawful.

“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. Whether the reasons were “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist makes it no less and no more unlawful.” In an astonishing ruling, the court said that if the child practiced Judaism, then he is Jewish. But to base the decision on his parents was an unlawful emphasis on ethnicity, rather than on religious faith. One can immediately understand the implications for Jews who are not at all observant. Presumably the British government would not consider them Jews.

David Rubin, founder of CDR Financial Products Inc., and two colleagues on Friday pleaded not guilty to criminal antitrust, wire fraud and other charges stemming from an alleged conspiracy to rig bids for municipal investment agreements and derivatives contracts for kickbacks.

A federal magistrate judge in Manhattan set bail for Rubin at far less than U.S. attorneys ­requested.

In remarks that likely foreshadow the arguments that will be made against the charges, Michael McGovern, a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP representing Stewart Wolmark, CDR’s former chief financial officer and managing director, claimed that the government’s portrayal of CDR as an entity at the center of a massive bid-rigging conspiracy is far-fetched.

The case is the first to be brought in the Justice Department’s widespread probe of anticompetitive practices in the muni market, under which 30 to 40 firms and a number of individuals were subpoenaed for information.

But McGovern asked, if there’s a widespread conspiracy, why did the government not name individuals from any other firms? He also suggested that a five-year statute of limitations will lead to the removal of some of the charges.

WOW! Accutane. That’s an unexpected culprit. Now I’m terrified of every adolescent in the country. Just a sensible precaution: if you happen to have an ornery one around the house who’s treating zits and is planning to go on a flight, check the medicine chest to see he or she isn’t taking Accutane. Amazing. It makes them go crazy or, perhaps, "native."

One again, Pipes hits the nail right on the head. It’s comforting to know some of us, at least, have not gone so politically correct we’ve lost the ability to see what’s right in front of our faces.

Daniel Pipes writes:

When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.

 

The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to (allegedly) kill 13 and wound 38 at Fort Hood on November 5th. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of "racism," "harassment he had received as a Muslim," a sense of not belonging," "pre-traumatic stress disorder," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," or being deployed to Afghanistan as his "worst nightmare." Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery."

 

Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article and weblog entry about denying Islamist terrorism) include:

 

• 1990: "A prescription drug for … depression" (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane)
• 1991: "A robbery gone wrong" (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
• 1994: "Road rage" (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge)
• 1997: "Many, many enemies in his mind" (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building)
• 2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
• 2002: "A work dispute" (the double murder at LAX)
• 2002: A "stormy [family] relationship" (the Beltway snipers)
• 2003: An "attitude problem" (Hasan Karim Akbar’s attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
• 2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam)
• 2004: "Loneliness and depression" (an explosion in Brescia, Italy outside a McDonald’s restaurant)
• 2005: "A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member" (a rampage at a retirement center in Virginia)
• 2006: "An animus toward women" (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle)
• 2006: "His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed" (killing with an SUV in northern California)

WASHINGTON — Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings.

But the federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of violence and concluding that no further action was warranted, government officials said Monday.

Major Hasan’s 10 to 20 messages to Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Major Hasan worshiped, indicate that the troubled military psychiatrist came to the attention of the authorities long before last Thursday’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but that the authorities left him in his post.

Counterterrorism and military officials said Monday night that the communications, first intercepted last December as part of an unrelated investigation, were consistent with a research project the psychiatrist was then conducting at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington on post-traumatic stress disorder.

“There was no indication that Major Hasan was planning an imminent attack at all, or that he was directed to do anything,” one senior investigator said. He and the other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying the case was under investigation…

Given the radical views of Mr. Awlaki, however, the conduct of the F.B.I. and the military is likely to come under intense scrutiny from Congress…

The communications provide the first indication that Major Hasan was in direct communication with anyone who espoused militant views. On Monday, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan on his Web site, saying that he “did the right thing” in attacking soldiers preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq.

The officials said the communications did not alter the prevailing theory that Major Hasan acted by himself, lashing out as a result of combination of factors, including his outspoken opposition to American policy in Iraq and Afghanistan and his deepening religious fervor as a Muslim…

The imam whom Major Hasan made contact with is an American citizen born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents. He wrote on Monday on his English-language Web site that Major Hasan was “a hero.” The cleric said, “He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

Mr. Awlaki added, “The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Awlaki was quoted as disapproving of such violence and was portrayed as a moderate figure who might provide a bridge between Islam and Western democracies. But since leaving the United States in 2002 for London and later Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has become, through his Web site, …a prominent proponent of militant Islam.

“He’s one of the most popular figures among hard-line, English-speaking jihadis around the world,” said Jarret Brachman, the author of “Global Jihadism” and a terrorism consultant to the government.

Mr. Brachman said Mr. Awlaki was especially appealing to young Muslims who are curious about radical ideas but not yet committed. “He’s American, he’s funny, and he speaks in a very understandable way,”Mr. Brachman said.

In 2000 and 2001, Mr. Awlaki served as an imam at two mosques in the United States frequented by three future Sept. 11 hijackers. Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi attended the Rabat mosque in San Diego, where Mr. Awlaki later admitted meeting Mr. Hazmi several times but “claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed,” according to the report of the national Sept. 11 commission.

Both Mr. Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, later attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., after Mr. Awlaki had moved there in early 2001. The Sept. 11 commission report expressed “suspicion” about the coincidence, but said its investigators were unable to find Mr. Awlaki to question him.

Major Hasan attended the same Virginia mosque, but it is not known whether they met there.

Mr. Awlaki, who is in his late 30s, had returned to Yemen with his family as a child. He received a religious education in Yemen and later earned degrees in engineering at Colorado State and in education leadership at San Diego State, according to his Web site.

His writings urge Muslims to dedicate themselves to defending Islam, including pursuing “arms training,” in such works as “44 Ways of Supporting Jihad.”

I must say, as an orthodox leaning jew, it is time for us to take out our trash. We are duty bound to do so.

And I do not mean "Peulat Sachir" pablum that Kanefsky, Muskin et. al. have thought of.

I mean the type of Bernard Madoff, Robert Kasirer, Spinka Hasidim, New Jersey Syrina Community, David Rubin, and Israeli Mafia crap.

The orthodox rabbinate should make clear this Shabbat that business behavior that gets jews on the front pages of the newspapers because there is a mafioso shooting at the local synagogue or there is an indictment for tax evastion is UNACCEPTABLE. It is a descration of G-d’s name and it literally puts worshippers and perhaps children in danger. I have to hand it to the Israeli mafia though, when they collect a debt they do not mess around with a hit at the home, they go where the deadbeat is, even if it is at the house of god.

"The agenda is not to have anybody possibly link the fact that the man is Muslim is what he did, as though we are not bright enough to realize that this says nothing about all Muslims. But it says something about him. There’s a percentage of Muslims who try to murder all non-Muslims."

"The under-coverage in the media of the four or five plots of mass murder by Muslims… Is there anybody in his right mind who thinks that all Muslims are a danger?"

"If this amount of murder took place in the name of Judaism or Christianity, we would do soul-searching. When Yitzchak Rabin was killed by an Orthodox Jew, the amount of soul-searching that took place in Israel about what happened to Orthodox Judaism… And it was one guy. And the Orthodox asked, how did we produce such a monster? That’s what they kept asking. It’s easily seen on the internet.

"One hears zero about how did we [Muslims] produce the 9/11 terrorists and the terrorists around the world like that. We’re always told that only seven to ten percent of Muslims agree with Osama Bin Laden. That’s 70 to 100 million people. And they’re all believers. How were they produced? Why isn’t that in the front ranks of questions being posed in the Islamic world? There is minimal non-Islamic solution. It’s within Islam."

"I believe there should be armed people on college campuses. There should be armed people everywhere. …When people who want to murder large numbers of people know that nobody else can shoot them, they are given an invitation to do their bloodshed."

Caller: He was protected from his warning signs for fear of being Islamophobic.

Dennis: I am certain that would’ve been a factor.

"Political correctness is lying because one is a coward."

"The biggest cause of evil is thinking you’re a victim. Walking around thinking that you are a victim is a green light to be despicable, to be evil, and to murder the innocent. It doesn’t say anything about how he was treated. It’s about how he justifies murdering evil people."

"Thomas Friedman, who is eloquent on foreign affairs, has said over and over that all the unemployed in the Muslim world are the fodder for terror. I think that if every Muslim in the world was employed we would have one less terrorist. This guy was employed as a psychiatrist. His medical education was paid for by the U.S. Armed Forces.

"This guy was angry. Not coincidentally, he was unmarried. It’s harder to maintain constant anger if you are married. Somebody will be saying, honey, what’s going on? If you are unmarried, it is easier to keep your lousy moods and perpetuate them."

"If everyone who was picked on murdered, no one would be left on earth."

Nov. 8, 2009:

Luke at Big Sur:

Summer of 1981, same place (Monterey Convention Center):

August 31, 2001:

I drive through Santa Barbara:

Part two:

Part three:

Part four:

I hit Elephant Seals Beach:

Part Two

Part Three:

Driving through Big Sur:

Driving through Big Sur II:

Driving through Big Sur:

Part two to Monterey:

Through Big Sur:

I hike through Big Sur National Park:

Big Sur National Park hike:

I reflect on the book "Effortless Mastery" by Kenny Werner:

Before sunset:

Strolling through Monterey with the sun setting, I am struck by its cleanliness – a sharp contrast to Israel’s trash-strewn cities.

On the surface, the court was considering a straightforward challenge to the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London. But the case, in which arguments concluded Oct. 30, has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain. And in addressing issues at the heart of Jewish identity, it has exposed bitter divisions in Britain’s community of 300,000 or so Jews, pitting members of various Jewish denominations against one another. 

“This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history,” said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. “It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates.”

The case began when a 12-year-old boy, an observant Jew whose father is Jewish and whose mother is a Jewish convert, applied to the school, JFS. Founded in 1732 as the Jews’ Free School, it is a centerpiece of North London’s Jewish community. It has around 1,900 students, but it gets far more applicants than it accepts.

Britain has nearly 7,000 publicly financed religious schools, representing Judaism as well as the Church of England, Catholicism and Islam, among others. Under a 2006 law, the schools can in busy years give preference to applicants within their own faiths, using criteria laid down by a designated religious authority.

By many standards, the JFS applicant, identified in court papers as “M,” is Jewish. But not in the eyes of the school, which defines Judaism under the Orthodox definition set out by Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. Because M’s mother converted in a progressive, not an Orthodox, synagogue, the school said, she was not a Jew — nor was her son. It turned down his application.

That would have been the end of it. But M’s family sued, saying that the school had discriminated against him. They lost, but the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal this summer.

In an explosive decision, the court concluded that basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism — whether one’s mother is Jewish — was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,” the court wrote, “makes it no less and no more unlawful.”

The case rested on whether the school’s test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not. The court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M’s mother rather than whether M considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism.

“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. It added that while it was fair that Jewish schools should give preference to Jewish children, the admissions criteria must depend not on family ties, but “on faith, however defined.”

The same reasoning would apply to a Christian school that “refused to admit a child on the ground that, albeit practicing Christians, the child’s family were of Jewish origin,” the court said.

The school appealed to the Supreme Court, which is likely to rule sometime before the end of the year.

…The case has stirred up long-simmering resentments among the leaders of different Jewish denominations, who, for starters, disagree vehemently on the definition of Jewishness. They also disagree on the issue of whether an Orthodox leader is entitled to speak for the entire community.

“Whatever happens in this case, there must be some resolution sorted out between different denominations,” [Jon] Benjamin said in an interview. [Mr. Benjamin is chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.] “That the community has failed to grasp this has had the very unfortunate result of having a judgment foisted on it by a civil court.”

Orthodox Jews, of course, sympathize with the school, saying that observance is no test of Jewishness, and that all that matters is whether one’s mother is Jewish. So little does observance matter, in fact, that “having a ham sandwich on the afternoon of Yom Kippur doesn’t make you less Jewish,” Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue, said recently.

Lauren Lesin-Davis, chairman of the board of governors at King David, a Jewish school in Liverpool, told the BBC that the ruling violated more than 5,000 years of Jewish tradition.

“You cannot come in and start telling people how their whole lives should change, that the whole essence of their life and their religion is completely wrong,” she said.

A CNN producer’s narrative from 2:25 to 3:25 in the video describes concerns Hasan reportedly expressed to the store owner about a week ago about his upcoming deployment and his possibly having to shoot, kill, injure or fight fellow Muslims in the future.

From 4:00 to 4:36 in the video, a CNN editor reports that the Arabic-speaking store owner said that Hasan had told him that he’s "from Jordan" but was born here. 

From 5:10 to 5:55 in the narration, the CNN editor reports that the store owner said that Hasan was a "devout" Muslim who regularly attended Friday prayer. 

According to an AP report in the Detroit Free Press, "Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ — an Arabic phrase for ‘God is great!’ — before opening fire, the base commander said today."

Joseph Kaplan comments on Hirhurim: As always. R. Broyde’s clear and rigorous analysis is extremely helpful, certainly to me, in thinking through important issues, and we should be grateful to him for allowing Gil to share this analysis with us.

One question that I have about his analysis relates to the question of motive/sincerity. People are complex and they often do things for complex reasons. In this area, for example, a woman may want to be a shul president (to take a particular issue R. Broyde mentions) because (a) she believes as a general principle that woman should be allowed to perform in the public arena to the best of their abilities on an equal par and in the same way as men, (b) she believes that there is no halachic impediment to her doing so, and (c) her talents are such that her being president will be a true service to the Jewish community at large and the particular halachic community of which she is a part, and will thus be a true part of her avodat Hashem. Is this a sincere motive, non-sincere, or mixed? And if it is mixed, how do we parse out the different elements?

It seems to me that the issue of motive/sincerity is a very difficult and tricky one, and may sometimes say more about the rabbi who is deciding the issue presented than the woman/women involved in it. I would be interested in some additional explanation or guidance of how R. Broyde would deal with this aspect of his analysis.

MYCROFT WRITES: It would appear that Rabbi Broyde is downplaying the importance of tradition. On a purely halachik issue it is atleast possible that a women could lead Kabbalat Shabbat in schul-it is not Tfilah, there is nothing bikdusha so why not? Or onYizkor which also has no minyan required let a women lead the service-there is no halacha against it. Both could be led by a monkey. But I submit that the Rav would not have tolerated such behavior in a schul because of tradition-women leading any parts of what appears to be a service have no place in a schul
One can’t overestimate the importance of minhagim and accepted behavior to the Rav.

NACHUM LAMM POSTS: The Rav didn’t seem too thrilled about women wearing tallit and tefillin, which is certainly a mitzvah.

SETH GORDON POSTS: My first reaction to the essay was surprise and disappointment that it even had to be written; why don’t rabbis consider the halakhic angle first as a matter of course? Isn’t that what they were trained to do?

Is this a consequence of the modern tendency for poskim to make decisions that are yotzei kol de’os instead of picking one shita and standing behind it?

FRIEND POSTS: Following up on Joseph Kaplan’s comment, a fairer judgment is that the hypothetical individual’s only MOTIVIATION is "(C)," her belief that "her talents are such that her being president will be a true service to the Jewish community at large and the particular halachic community of which she is a part, and will thus be a true part of her avodat Hashem." Just as this hypothetical individual views item "(B)," the absence of a halchic impediment, as just that — the absence of an impediment, not an affirmative motivation — the fairer articulation of her "feminist" sentiments in item "(A)" is likely also a mere absence of impediment — "she believes as a general principle that there is no reason that women should not be allowed to perform in the public arena to the best of their abilities on an equal par and in the same way as men."

An analogy: I believe that Jews should be eligible for any public office in the United States. If I choose to run for public office, however, my motivation is not to make that point, but, rather, to get elected.

REUVEN POSTS: n my experience it is not the "equality" that many women are looking for, rather it is the notion that they have relatively little to do in terms of active performance in their religious lives. They no longer want to be bystanders, and prefer a more active role.

It is more personal and not motivated by feminine equality.

I line up, usually, on the Right side of the issue, but it just seems that the root of the problem is that many women yearn to have an active, participatory religious life, and many feel our current state does not fulfill that yearning.

RABBI GIL STUDENT WRITES:

I am in the middle of reading David Gelernter’s eloquent new book, Judaism: A Way of Being. From what I understand, the core of this book is in a series of essays the author published in Commentary a few years ago.

One chapter addresses the following questions:

• Isn’t normative or Orthodox Judaism inherently anti-woman, insofar as its public ceremonies are conducted by males?
• Assuming we reject the idea that women are in any way inferior, aren’t we forced to make basic changes in Judaism?

His discussion is profound and provocative. Later in the chapter, he addresses specifically the issue of women rabbis. Here are some of his thoughts. Note that his discussion is not about the strictly halakhic issues. They have already been addressed on this blog and in my book, although there is always room for further discussion.

Here is a relevant excerpt from Gelernter’s book (pp. 109-111):

Still, the nonexistence of female rabbis in normative Judaism has unquestionably taken on (for some women) the force of tragedy. Judaism can sympathize but can’t do anything about it: if you create woman rabbis, you not only break the law, you break the poetry. And law and poetry are all there is…

Times change. But people don’t go to synagogue to study social trends… Those who long to keep religion up to date miss the point. Religious practices do change, but must be moved as slowly and gently as a brimful glass of wine. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai tells us in a midrash not to change our ancestors’ customs, and cites: "Remove not the ancient boundary stones, which thy fathers have set up" (Proverbs 22:28). Rabbi Yohanan agrees, and cites a different verse: "Heed the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother" (Proverbs 1:8).

The woman who yearns to be a rabbi resembles the openly practicing homosexual who wants the same thing. Both cases suggest a man who yearns to be a hazzan but lacks the ear or voice for it, or hopes to be a rosh yeshiva (the head of a yeshiva is an honored leader of the community ex officio) but lacks the temperament or brains, or wants to be a poet but has nothing to say. In none of these cases can Judaism wave a wand and make the obstacles disappear. Opportunities and limitations are innate in who you are; accepting that fact is one of the stiffest trials of growing up…

In the end, such issues have little to do with Judaism and much to do with character and personality. In Persuasion, Jane Austen describes a woman who had once been rich, married, and happy but is now, though still young, a poor and ailing widow. She ought to be miserable but isn’t. She has been given every reason but has declined them all. "Here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from Nature alone. It was the choicest gift of heaven."

Hasan is an avid Redskins fan. "That was his main entertainment," his aunt said. "He was not a movie watcher. He worked hard and had been studying for years. He buried himself in his work."

Nobody should have to suffer like Redskins fans are suffering this year. It can be too much for even the gentlest of men.

From Sportingnews.com:

Soccer can be a rough game, especially in the top-flight European leagues, where jersey pulls and raps on the shins are basically part of the fabric of the game. But it’s apparently roughest in the Mountain West Conference’s Women’s Soccer Tournament, where BYU beat New Mexico 1-0 in the semifinals and probably only scored a draw in the battle royale.

The two teams combined for what would seem like a stunning 25 fouls, but that’s actually not a huge number: In the three games of last year’s Women’s Final Four, there were 23, 24, and 33 fouls. The shocker is that only one yellow card came out in this game, which seems wildly out of proportion to the amount of brutality in the above video.

But that yellow card did at least go to Elizabeth Lambert, the Lobo who does the dirty work in the above video. Her bio says she "is fearless when making a challenge," which is a nice way to say she will rabbit punch you, yank you down by the ponytail, and slap your face while you are in mid-air. I don’t know why, exactly, she got carded for a fairly routine trip outside the box instead of the other chippiness.

HER BIO SAYS: "Born Elizabeth Ann Lambert on December 29, 1988, in Lancaster, Calif. … daughter of Clark and Diane Lambert … has three siblings, Christine, Keith and Samantha … enjoys camping and surfing in her spare time … favorite food is tacos … sister Christine played college volleyball at the University of Connecticut, while brother Keith played college soccer at Humboldt State University … is majoring in University Studies with a focus on Occupational Therapy."

I’m not going to forget about this woman until she’s brought to justice.

Kyle Koster blogs: Today is not a good day to be Elizabeth Lambert.

The New Mexico women’s soccer player has to wake up with the realization that a large portion of sports-loving America has seen her on-field antics against BYU on Thursday.

And by antics, I mean hair-pulling, punching, slapping, squeezing and anything else that would fall under the umbrella of dirty play.

USA TODAY UPDATES:

Amid a hoard of attention from the blogosphere today, New Mexico announced that Lambert has been suspended indefinitely from all team practices, competition and conditioning activities.

"I am deeply and wholeheartedly regretful for my actions," Lambert said in a statement posted on the school’s web site. "My actions were uncalled for. I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation. I take full responsibility for my actions and accept any punishment felt necessary from the coaching staff and UNM administration. This is in no way indicative of my character or the soccer player that I am. I am sorry to my coaches and teammates for any and all damages I have brought upon them. I am especially sorry to BYU and the BYU women’s soccer players that were personally affected by my actions. I have the utmost respect for the BYU women’s soccer program and its players."

WASHINGTON — Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist.

But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., began having second thoughts about a military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia.

…The former imam at a Silver Spring, Md., mosque where Major Hasan worshiped for about 10 years described him as proud of his work in the Army and “very serious about his religion.” The former imam, Faizul Khan, said that Major Hasan had wanted to marry an equally religious woman but that his efforts to find one had failed.

“He wanted a woman who prayed five times a day and wears a hijab, and maybe the women he met were not complying with those things,” the former imam said.

Click here to watch in High Definition (HD)

According to The New York Times, Hasan was "born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem."  The Times said "he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist."

The Times reported that "Major Hasan had two brothers, one in Virginia and another in Jerusalem, his cousin said…The former imam at a Silver Spring, Md., mosque where Major Hasan worshiped for about 10 years described him as proud of his work in the Army and ‘very serious about his religion.’”

On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made an elaborate but false presentation to the U.N. Security Council about purported weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

On Oct. 19, 2008 — a little more than one year ago — in an appearance on "Meet the Press" in which he endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat, for President over fellow Republican John McCain, Powell, a retired four-star Army general and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former National Security Advisor, said:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

London teacher Kri Ackers said: "The thing to remember about Alexander teachers is that we’re all insecure as hell."

Why is this?

Alexander’s lack of formal training and his low status origins (Tasmania, Australia).

Lack of legal standing for the alexander teaching profession: anyone can call himself an Alexander teacher.

Divisiveness within the Alexander world: after Alexander’s death, several of his students established their own training courses. These men and women had very different interpretations of Alexander’s work, and very different approaches to teaching. These differences have led to bitter disputes with members of the various "lineages" disparaging each other’s work.

Alexander’s racism: a source of profound embarrassment for all of us are his many derogatory remarks about Germany ("as a nation she has no mobility, no poise… We must treat her as mad."), American blacks (called cowards for running away from klu kklux klan lynch parties) and indigenous peoples (ruled exclusively by "savage instincts and unbridled passions").

Probably the biggest cause of our insecurity is that our own standars of use are constantly on display. Whenever Alexander teachers and students get together, you hear putdowns such as "He’s pulling down" or ‘"She’s stiffening."

Lou emails:

Weiling Your Life Away

Luke my man, no offense intended, but why does every scandal wind its way back to Rabbi Weil? Grunstein’s daughter was fond of Rabbi Weil when he was at Beth Jacob, so Weil’s name gets inserted into a story about shady business dealings in New York. David Rubin and Rabbi Weil support common causes, so Weil is injected into a nationwide municipal bond kickback scheme. If Ford recalls several million vehicles, I suppose you or one you of your sycophants will manage to work in the fact that Weil drives an Explorer (with a pick-up rear, no less). Perhaps President Obama will rescind the ban on Cuban cigars, and you’ll mention that cigar afficionado Weil finally approves of a decision made by this administration. He’s just a man, my man, and puts his trousers on one leg at a time like you and I.

CrainsNewYork says:

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint against a New York real estate investor and real estate attorney Wednesday, accusing them of accepting $50 million in kickbacks from a pharmaceutical vendor that served nursing home companies in which they are principals.

Rubin Schron, an owner of the Woolworth Building, and real estate attorney Leonard Grunstein, a partner at Troutman Sanders, participated in the scheme, the government alleges. The complaint says the two men were part of a trio who received a $50 million payment from Omnicare Inc., the nation’s largest nursing home pharmacy, so it could continue to provide services to their nursing home companies, Mariner Health Care and Sava Senior Care.

The government alleges the trio attempted to disguise the $50 million from Omnicare as a payment to acquire a business unit from Mariner that in fact only had two employees and was worth far less than $50 million.

The lawsuit was revealed as the Justice Department announced Wednesday that Omnicare will pay the federal government and several states a total of $98 million to settle Medicare and Medicaid fraud charges.

The suit also dovetails with the news that Mr. Schron and other owners of the Woolworth Building, including prominent real estate investor Steve Witkoff, are considering selling a 51% stake in the building to the Sorgente Group, an Italian firm that also owns a stake in New York’s Flat Iron Building.

Dennis says he has only contempt for non-liberals who voted for Barack Obama because of a feeling. Obama was the most left-wing senator according to the National Journal. Anyone with a mind should’ve known that he would govern as a leftist. Why go nuts over the word "change"? Remember such vapid phrases as "We are the change we believe in?"

"The bubble needs to be cracked. That’s why I would like to run for president. I mean it. I would just like to have these things said at a Republican debate. Let these ideas be out there. Crack that bubble."

* A woman said to me the other day, "Do you think you choose emotionally unavailable women so that you can replay the loss of your mother?"

Dennis Prager writes:

Those of us who are not true believers in expanded government are certain of the following:

If the 1,990-page House Health Care Bill becomes law, the average American will receive worse health care, American physicians will decline in status and income, American medical innovation will dramatically slow down and pharmaceutical discoveries will decline in number and quality. And, of course, the economy of the United States will deteriorate, perhaps permanently.

However, we are also certain that there is one American group that will thrive — trial lawyers. The very existence of a 1,990-page law guarantees years of, if not more or less permanent, lawsuits. And the law actually specifies that states that do not limit attorneys’ fees in cases of medical malpractice shall be financially rewarded. What we are seeing here, therefore, is something unprecedented in our history: Many trial lawyers will earn as much as most physicians, and fewer and fewer physicians will earn as much as successful trial lawyers.

Nothing better illustrates the reorientation — indeed, the transformation — of values that will take place if the Democrats’ health care legislation is passed. Thanks to trial lawyer/Democratic influence, for decades, we have been moving in the direction of litigation-based society. But with a Democratic health care bill, the movement will accelerate exponentially.

• A survey of university presidents’ salaries: link
• Religious Zionists rabbis want kosher cellphone internet: link
• The new shidduch crisis: link
  
• An article on a few J-blogs: link
• NY Post reports on proposed solution to the Shidduch Crisis: link
• Rav Soloveitchik on Lekh Lekha: link

Poster posts: Regarding the shidduch crisis in the Post. I didn’t see all the signatures on the "edict", but I would assume that they were primarily from the Yeshivish and Chassidish worlds, and their words were meant for their groups. I’m not sure what is gained by quoting people not from these groups who have a different mind-set as to what age to marry.

TVT writes: The post headline takes the issue completely out of context.

Those who promote this solution to the shidduch "crisis" are not claiming that some unnatural proclivity for marrying much younger women has developed in the yeshivish community (as implied) by the play on "cradle robbers".

Rather they are attempting to pin the blame of the perceived crisis on a trend that been around forever and crosses all ethnic groups. That is the common 2-5 years of age by which grooms are typically older than their brides.

With the help of some clever but oversimplified statitstical analsysis the "age-gappers" would have you believe that the difference in size between a cohort of dating young men and the girls they typically date is not only the reason why more girls end up single at older ages, but also explains why so mnay girls in the frum community sit around fro weeks and months at at time just waiting for a date.

It can explain the former.

It doesn’t explain the latter.

Rubin, his investment advisory firm and two of its employees were named on Oct. 29 in a federal indictment in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. The nine- count criminal conspiracy case alleges bid rigging and price fixing on investments that CDR brokered from 1998 to 2006. Rubin is contesting the charges.

CDR advises schools, towns and utilities on how to invest their tax-exempt debt proceeds. It also packages credit guarantees that make the bonds of small agencies such as Region III salable to institutional investors.

JOE EMAILS:

You can read the whole thing, but this is essentially what happens. Goatdung, NM raises $25 million to build schools. The town gets the $25 million from investors and the town cannot spend that money right away. So the town has to invest it. Problem is, no one in cornpone NM can invest more than a plug nickel. Plus, these funds have special tax rules, so they must be invested according to certain guidelines. Along comes David Rubin and says, hey, i am a broker, and i know the big investment dudes on wall street who can invest the $25 million for you until you are ready to build schools for your infernal minority population.

What Rubin is supposed to do (and this is what he tells the city fathers he is doing) is line up competitive bids from investment houses and Rubin gets a very small fee. Instead, what Rubin does is line up one investment house to get the business. That investment house offers the town a really lousy interest rate and they get the business because Rubin places it with them. Rubin then gets a kickback from the investment house, who just took the city for a nice hunk of change by giving them a low return – the kickback are small $4,500 a pop – no one would even notice – someone obviously ratted Rubin out.

This is all pretty confusing, especially when you are dealing with dumb stiffs like Governor Richardson in New Mexico who think that the free market means that you can go to the market and get free food with food stamps. Because some of the fraud was so obvious, Rubin would create phony bids, shills, bogus markets – he was basically operating a high finance enterprise like some crum bum on ESPN going all in on a straight draw.

The bottom line is that taking money from goyim is all too easy and probably should not even be against the law. My guess is that Rubin does not go down on this one – he will plea, but no one wants the headache of putting this case in front of an inner city jury – it is too confusing. The bad part of the plea is that Rubin will be enjoined from working in the bond market – but I am sure he can create other entities to do so – Rubin is a sharp jew, i would not lose sleep over him.

I don’t quite understand all the Hebrew or Yiddishisms. Can someone translate them for me?

Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff says on YuTorah.com: "You would think was an article in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles one week ago. Who’s that guy? Luke Ford? You might think that this is Luke Ford in what is that called? A blog. This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in not poskim, but in all the inner workings of the Orthodox world. It sounds like Luke Ford is quoting a rabbi in a sermon today."

I hear: The question that might be asked how will Yavneh do financially with its biggest benefactor busy with the indictment? Will there be fallout to any of the places David Rubin supported or individuals he associated with ala Spinka investigation which will be getting into full blow-out announcement in the next two weeks when announcements are made, prosecutors have said. They are investigating more than 100 prominent individuals who were contributors to Spinka organizations.

So she stopped by a kosher bakery and asked, what in here is kosher?

Everything is kosher, she’s told. So she buys some cookies and brings them in.

We get a writing assignment to eat a cookie and then write what we feel.

I wrote: When I eat a cookie, I feel guilt. I think about my blood sugar level and how close I am to pre-diabetes. I think about my weight, how I am 20 pounds heavier than I’d like. I think about my cholesterol, how my good cholesterol is too low and my bad cholesterol is too high. I think about all the bad things I am doing to myself. I think about how hard I’ve worked to clear them out of my life. I think about the social pressure to conform and to eat a cookie even though I do not want one, even though I just brushed my teeth and chewed some gum, even though I am full. I think about my four recent cavities, my spreading waist, my bouts of the flu. I think about how much nicer the non-kosher cookies seem. I think I am not living my life right.

Overall, the Census Bureau’s latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858. Only three states and the District of Columbia saw higher per capita government outlays than California, while those expenditures in Texas were lower than in all but seven states. California ranked 10th in overall taxes levied by state and local governments, on a per capita basis, while Texas, one of only seven states with no individual income tax, was 38th.

One way to assess how Americans feel about the different tax and benefit packages the states offer is by examining internal U.S. migration patterns. Between April 1, 2000, and June 30, 2007, an average of 3,247 more people moved out of California than into it every week, according to the Census Bureau. Over the same period, Texas had a net weekly population increase of 1,544 as a result of people moving in from other states. During these years, more generally, 16 of the 17 states with the lowest tax levels had positive "net internal migration," in the Census Bureau’s language, while 14 of the 17 states with the highest taxes had negative net internal migration.

These folks pulling up stakes and driving U-Haul trucks across state lines understand a reality the defenders of the high-benefit/high-tax model must confront: All things being equal, everyone would rather pay low taxes than high ones. The high-benefit/high-tax model can work only if things are demonstrably not equal — if the public goods purchased by the high taxes far surpass the quality, quantity and impact of those available to people who live in states with low taxes.

In his recent column in The Jerusalem Post Magazine ("The I’s have it," October 16), Daniel Gordis informs us that out of all the challenges facing Israel and the Jewish world today, this is the real crisis: America’s "unfettered individualism" is corrupting the minds and souls of young American Jews, leading them to abandon Israel.

To try to prove this epidemic of selfishness and individualism, Gordis cites several examples of young American Jews, challenged by their relationship to the State of Israel, who seek to hear a multitude of voices and perspectives on the situation, or act on deeply held values and principles to try to create change. Gordis may find some of those values and principles misguided, counterproductive or even dangerous. But self-centered and individualistic? Since when did challenging ideas and community norms become pampered, selfish behavior?

"Maybe I’ll berate your secularism too? How can you not love God? Boom, boom, boom. How can you not love Torah? Boom, boom, boom. Why do you have to be such a stinkin’ anti-Semite? How can you be such a leftist? How can you hold such idiotic views? Why do you drive so fast next to cliffs? How dare you drink and drive? How dare you fool around with other girls?"

He was really getting into it, imagining himself berating her while…

"If you feel I’m just wrong, then I think you should do that," she says. "You should just get it out of your system and let me know and physically let me know."

"That that’s not OK," he says. "We might play with that."

He remembers something Holly often said to him, "Take out all your hatred of women on me during…."

"I just feel that I’ve been really naughty," she says. "And no one’s going to stop me and no one’s going to oil my hinges."

"I don’t think we’ve done any verbal degradation yet," he says.

"I think I’d like to write an agenda and email it to you," she says. "Just a minor script."

"Yeah," he says. "You can script it all out and we’ll act it out."

"So why are you calling?" she says. "The third time tonight."

"I wanted to discuss something with you. Do you ever have sex because you want to feel better about yourself? You’re not feeling good about yourself and you know if you go out and have sex with someone, you’ll feel like you’re worth something."

"I know you’re like that," she says. "That’s what you told your therapist Monday."

"Oh yeah," he says. "When I’m failing at everything else in my life, it makes me feel good that I can please you.

"I think most people who have sex outside of a relationship must get some powerful rush from it, otherwise the scary parts of sex would put them off. The STDs. The emotional ramifications. You’re bringing a stranger deep into your life, to where you are most vulnerable. They might be psycho. They might get attached."

"I see," she says. "Sometimes, looking back in the past, I’ve done things that I wish I could’ve stopped but I physically couldn’t. I knew emotionally it wasn’t a good idea, that this person is going to get attached, or that this person is too young, and I still went for it knowing full well it was a bad decision.

"It’s like icecream. I’m not hungry but I can’t stop myself.

"It’s not like it happened often. If I’ve randomly hooked up with someone, if it’s been too many months and I’m going crazy, in the moment I feel so good and then afterwards I feel awful. I feel totally split from myself. I crash. I feel terrible.

"I either stay totally celibate. It can be long stretches. Then I feel like I’m losing it and I do something that does not make me feel good. Then I don’t feel like I have a body for so long. I hate not being sexual. It just makes me feel much more human. I crave intimacy so much. A hug every day makes you feel so good.

"Sometimes I worry that I’m with you because I’m depressed now."

Oy vey! Holly said that.

He laughs.

"You can never say I wasn’t honest with you," she says. "The last relationship I was in was years ago. It was after I was very sick. I got so scared. Then this year I got the same fear of dying thing. This existential terror. Normally I’m pretty happy being alone.

"It crosses my mind sometimes."

"Whoever you’re with is a reflection of yourself," he says.

"Ohmigod," she says. "I’m a homeless hairy Orthodox Jew. Oh dear. Oh God."

"But it’s not a reflection of those superficial things," he says. "It’s a reflection of emotional maturity."

"That’s even worse," she says. "Because you’re still completely involved with your parents and haven’t broken away. I’m sorry babe, but it’s true."

Whenever she says, "I’m sorry babe," it always means she isn’t sorry. She’s just feeling contempt.

"So are you!" he says.

"I’ve done a lot of work on it," she says. "It’s not the same at all."

"In some areas, I’m more mature," he says. "In some areas, you’re more mature."

"Ohmigod, that is so terrifying," she says. "For both of us."

"We’re in a similar life situation," he says.

"How?" she asks.

"In some ways, I’m found. I know who I am. I know where I’m going. I know what my mission is. I know what my life is about. I know who my community is. I know what my purpose is.

"On the other hand, you’re conventionally got things nailed down better than I do. You’ve got a higher paying job, you’ve got a nicer apartment, you’ve got a nicer car. But you don’t have your life purpose down. You’re not doing what you love. You don’t know who you are."

"Or maybe I know exactly who I am," she says, "and I think all those things are false. I think those things are crutches."

"What?" he says. "Writing?"

"No," she says, "but believing you have a mission and a purpose. It’s ridiculous to think there’s any meaning in any of this. If your God is real, it means that someone else’s is fake. The sense of purpose is an artificial thing that makes some people feel better. I’m totally in the moment."

"I wasn’t thinking in religious terms," he says. "I know that I am here to write. I spend hours a day doing my greatest skill. That’s my purpose. I’ve been doing it since the fall of 1995. I’m locked in. That’s my mission. I’d like to refine my skill and get better."

"Do you know Pablo?" she asks.

"No," he says.

"He’s a writer," she says. "He was with CAA. A screenwriter. He gave such good meeting. He got called back so many times. He was so one thing. It got to the point where he’d hang out at supermarkets when he knew his friends would be there so that hopefully he’d get some food. He gave up his apartment. He lost his cell phone. He ran out of insurance. His parents stopped helping. Sometimes you have to just get practical."

"Do you think there’s any resemblance between that and me?" he says. "Obviously you do."

"You don’t think there’s a resemblance?" she asks. "It started to occur to me that I wasn’t a good enough writer if I hadn’t made it all of those years. Do you ever think about that? That it might not be a realistic way for you to make an income?"

"Yeah," he says. "That’s why I’ve branched out and started doing writing for businessmen and the like. That’s why I’m training to become an Alexander Technique teacher so I will have an additional skill to make money from."

"People say," she says, "that if you love your art, you should beg, borrow or steal to do it."

"It’s hard to create when you don’t know how you’re going to pay the bills," he says.

"That’s what happened to me," she says. "You know when you are supposed to start saving for retirement?"

"I don’t know much about that," he says.

"Any guess?" she says.

"By age 30?" he says.

"I think it’s about there," she says. "I didn’t know about any of this. You have to think about that now? I was just so horrified. I give a lot of my money to charity."

"I think of saving for my retirement," he says, "by doing as much as I can to advance as a writer and to write compelling content that draws readers and advertisers and to develop new marketable skills that can earn money such as Alexander Technique, etc. So far there has not been a big monetary payoff, but I’m investing in my skills."

"I think about becoming a farmer," she says.

"But you’re Jewish," he says.

"By accident," she says. "It wasn’t meant to be. I never will be again. I just like working in the land. Getting out of the rat race."

"You dreamed about being married to a rich guy," he says.

"It’s so funny when you accuse me of this," she says. "I’ve walked away from the most serious relationships. I’ve never dated anyone who wasn’t super-wealthy, until now. It never affected my decisions or leaving a relationship. I am so humbled by everything that’s happened in my life. It hasn’t turned out how I expected. I don’t mean to judge you, but I worry about you."

"It’s OK with me if you judge me," he says. "Just be careful about when you pronounce judgment. I judge constantly. You judge constantly too. If you think you’re not, you’re fooling yourself."

"Really? You think these things about me," she says, "and you don’t tell me?"

"Of course," he says. "I judge constantly."

"How do you do it?" she says. "How do you judge the totality of someone?"

"I think about you," he says, "and I’m wary. There are dangerous parts to you. There are times when I do not want to be in a car with you, say, if you’ve been drinking. Or you’re mad. Or depressed."

"I get it," she says.

"I judge that I can be a dangerous person and I try to be wary of that," he says. "I’m not having a relationship with you. I try to be present with you. I love you. You love me. But we’re not building a life together. That’s not on the agenda.

"If we were having a relationship and you cut off eleven inches of your hair and I hated that, that would be a serious problem. Because we’re not having a relationship, I may not like it, but it’s not a big deal.

"If we were having a relationship, you’d say more things like, ‘Luke, I can not put up with X.’ ‘This is not acceptable.’ ‘You need to step up in this way.’

"And I’d say similar things. We’d make demands on each other. That’s how I think of relationships. If we were having a relationship, I’d expect you to spend the Sabbath with me. I’d want us to make a Friday night Shabbat dinner every week. The rule, not the exception. If you were my girlfriend, I’d say, I want us to make Shabbat dinners together with a white tablecloth and candles and two challot and a challah cover and the works. Does that make sense?"

"It does," she says. "I don’t know. It’s so weird."

"What were you about to say?" he says.

There’s a long pause.

"It’s one thing to say it so bluntly that we’re not in a relationship," she says. "It’s weird to acknowledge that verbally. We have an intense friendship, but when you just say that, it’s like whoah. Then I say to myself, think about your life. You’re lucky if you have two evenings a week.

"I think about our value systems and then I say, hey, weirder things have happened.

"I don’t think of you as a booty caller."

"No," he says. "In another sense, we are having a relationship. But we don’t make any demands on the other."

"It seems like you are more there in your life to get married," she says.

"Until finishing my Orthodox conversion, that was not possible," he says.

"I hate the expression ’soulmate’, but if I loved it, I would definitely use it on you."

"I’ve thought it as well," she says, "and I’ve never thought it ever."

Click here to watch in High Definition (HD) Billionaire philanthropist Michael Steinhardt delivered a bold speech indicting Jewish leadership for not doing enough on Monday. The speech came at an event touting a study claiming Birthright Israel, which was founded in part by Steinhardt, has done a lot to combat intermarriage. More on the study is in this week’s newscast.

He talked a good game. Like a lot of people in his world, he longed to be in mainstream Hollywood.

"What’s ‘mainstream’?" a TV reporter once asked me. He was confused. All these people in adult entertainment were talking about going mainstream.

That industry was a depressing place. We were all looking for our ticket out. Some made it, such as Evan Wright, who went on to publish two books and numerous essays in Rolling Stone.

I was extremely close with Kendra Jade from 1998-2001. We stayed in touch intermittently after that. For a few weeks, we were as close as a man and a woman can be.

Kendra loves to read. She’s smart. She’s obsessed with serial-killers. She knows how to use her body to get what she wants. She’s had a ton of therapy and is good at reading people.

I have not heard from her in about three years.

Darrah emails:

Your friend Rob Spallone was interviewed by the local media and there’s a video of the interview after porn star Damien Michaels was found stabbed to death in a Woodland Hills motel room.  Rob was supposedly in a car crash with Joey Buttafuoco a while back but I never heard any updates after:

http://pornstarbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/damien-michaels-found-murdered-in-a-woodland-hills-motel/

Kendra Jade will be on VH1’s new sex rehab reality show starting tomorrow night on VH1.   They already have the first episode up on video for some reason:

http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?id=1624841

Luke says: I’d love to diss this show but it’s great. I love Dr. Drew. I wish I could diss him but he seems to be doing good work.

I wonder if I’m a sex addict? Wow, what a painful question. I don’t think so. I’m nowhere as bad off as any of the people on this show. I’ve never cheated on a relationship. I don’t look at porn or masturbate for hours a day. I’m a regular model citizen, a poster child for mental health.

Well, not quite. I have my demons. I’m lucky I’m so down and out, and rooted in my Judaism, or I might be out there chasing sex highs.

Here’s Kendra’s VH1 bio: "Kendra was sexually abused starting at age 2, and was raped in her teens. She moved to Southern California in her early 20’s and quickly became a superstar in adult films. She’s been a darling of the tabloids and linked to Hollywood’s rich and famous, using this notoriety to get out of porn and into feature dancing, but at the same time fell into heavy alcohol use. Kendra left porn altogether eight years ago and married Rockstar Supernova front-man Lukas Rossi. She now manages his career and runs an animal rescue. Kendra has previously cheated on every man she’s ever dated, and wants to break that cycle before she ruins her marriage, the most important thing in her life."

When Cathy Seipp finished reading my memoir, she said, "I don’t know why you didn’t end up with Kendra Jade."

Kendra was the heroine of my book.

She says on this VH1 show: "I was always in relationships with people who for the most part were scandalous."

Ouch!

"People accuse me of breaking up Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s marriage."

"From an early age, I learned that sex equals love. So I used sex the same way some people use food or drugs or alcohol. That’s what validates me."

"I’ve cheated on everybody I’ve ever been with. I have to change…"

"When I was not feeling like I was worth much, I would seek out somebody to have sex with me so that I could feel like…"

Drawing from the faith traditions and personal experiences of people with whom he has interacted, Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein has learned some of life’s most important lessons, and he shares them in his book "The Challenge of the Soul: A Guide for the Spiritual Warrior."

Goldstein is his own kind of warrior; as a black belt in martial arts, FBI chaplain and Army chaplain — he is not your typical rabbi.

"I’ve learned a lot in dealing with people from lots of walks of life," Goldstein said.

From standing at the pulpit to working with the bucket brigades at ground zero in Manhattan, this Brooklyn-based spiritual leader said he has found that oftentimes, the challenges of people in completely different career fields at different times of life can still be similar.

US Magazine says:

While reports emerged Friday of a breakup between Jon Gosselin and Hailey Glassman, the New York Post reports that Gosselin may formally announce it at a Manhattan synagogue Sunday. His romance consultant? Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, his new spiritual advisor.

"I have advised him to end it with Hailey," Shmuley tells the Post. "It is unacceptable to be in a relationship when he is still married and has to take care of kids who are hurting. It is not a healthy relationship."

The paper states that Gosselin, 32, will proclaim his severed ties with Glassman, 22, during a speech at the West Side Synagogue at 7pm Sunday. "Jon will either be remembered as a man who cheats on his wife and is intoxicated by fame, or a man who has fought to redeem himself," Shmuley says.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The diversity and stature of the group made the visit unusual.

"This is the A-list," said Jacob Dayan, Israel’s consul general in Los Angeles, who organized the delegation and said he hopes it will serve as a model for missions from other Diaspora communities. "The idea was to bring a message that we are one people, united. Israelis don’t often hear this tune."

Outsiders are often taken aback by the sparring in Israel, where coalition governments can fall over the slightest offense to one religious faction or another. The Orthodox tend to be more hawkish than their brethren toward the Palestinians. Tension is aggravated by a state-backed Orthodox monopoly over Jewish marriage, burial and conversion.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who is ultra-Orthodox, was booed here last week by an audience made up mostly of American Jews when he argued against equal rights for Reform and Conservative Jews in Israel. "Look at what is happening to the Reform Jews in America because of assimilation," he said. "They are disappearing."

"I am?" she says. "Thanks babe. You like what’s between my ears too? That’s love."

"How’s your piercing?" he asks.

"It’s sore," she says.

"Where is it?" he asks.

"You’ll have to find out," she says. "It’ll be like a scavenger hunt."

"It will be seven minutes in Heaven," he says.

"I don’t know if I’m that kind of girl now," she says. "You’ll probably kiss me kinda hard and surprise me because you don’t know either how to do this.

"Where will we do it?"

"In my closet," he says.

"But you don’t have a walk-in closet," she says.

"In yours then," he says.

"We could do seven minutes in the hovel," she says. "But it is supposed to be a closet where you are sitting on shoes and it is totally awkward and there coats sitting on your head and it is totally dark and everyone’s waiting for you to come out. And your hair is messed up and you’ve got lipstick around your mouth."

"You slut!" he says. "You know how to play this game."

"I’m sure the rest of your class was playing this," she says. "I’m sorry baby. They just didn’t include you. You can’t blame me for that."

"I asked people at Alex," he says, "and they hadn’t heard of it either."

"Every elementary school child knows the game Seven Minutes in Heaven," she says.

"Every slutty elementary school child," he says.

"That’s not true," she says. "I didn’t go to Ethical Culture and all these other schools where people were giving blowjobs at nine and losing their virginity at eleven."

"Oy vey!" he says.

"Yeah," she says. "My friend was at Ethical Culture. She was telling me what they do when they play Doctor. They lick each other at the top of the school on the roof. I was 16 and she was 9. She asked me if I was a virgin. I said yes. She rolled her eyes and said, ‘I’d kill myself if that happened to me.’

"You and I started late," she said. "That’s why we’re making up for lost time."

The Los Angeles Times reports this morning:

Los Angeles Police Department detectives said today they have "strong leads" in the shooting that left two people wounded Thursday morning at a North Hollywood synagogue.

Detective Rich Wheeler says federal authorities are using high-tech equipment to enhance and clarify grainy video footage obtained from the parking garage at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic Orthodox synagogue where the two men were shot as they arrived for a morning service. The footage shows the gunman, officials said.

After determining that the attack wasn’t a hate crime and ruling out terrorism, detectives are now focusing on other motives, Wheeler said.

Dennis Prager said the following was a foolish comment: "There is absolutely no evidence to support any connection to terrorism or a hate crime," said Mike Downing, deputy chief of the LAPD’s Counter Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau.

Dennis: "I am against all hate crime legislation, …but of course it was a hate crime. Do you think the guy meandered into a synagogue just to shoot people? He would’ve been just as happy to go to a 7/11? Isn’t that stupid? There is no evidence to support any connection to hate crime?

"Let me ask you folks: Do you believe if a guy walked into a mosque and shot two Muslims at prayer, an LAPD official would’ve said, ‘There is no evidence to link this to a hate crime.’ Not in your life would they say that.

"When the police start getting politically correct and lying and distorting truth because of political correctness, we are in trouble.

"Maybe it truly was, the guy said, I want to shoot two people. This is my day to do it. And he just happened to pass by a synagogue. If you believe that, you are counter-intuitive."

"We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but they should not jump to the conclusion either that it is not. Just say we don’t have evidence in either direction. My belief is that common sense leads to a better response.

"It drives me nuts that within hours of a shooting at a synagogue, the police anti-terrorism and everybody else are announcing it is not a hate crime. How the hell do you know? It’s odd to think that a guy walked into, by sheer coincidence, and shot people. When they catch this guy, he’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s a synagogue. I thought it was a pool hall.’"

"My agenda is that I pray it is not a hate crime. I hope it is just some nut who wanted target practice on human legs… The last thing I want is to believe that there is somebody who wants to shoot Jews."

"I would bet everything I own that if this had happened at a mosque they would announce, ‘We know it is not a hate crime.’"

I just did a Google blog search and couldn’t find anyone else who made Prager’s obvious point.

TabletMag.com declares in its headline: "L.A. Synagogue Shooting Not a Hate Crime"

How do they know? Because the LAPD says so. That settles it for 99.9% of the media I’ve surveyed on this. If the LAPD says it isn’t a hate crime, then it isn’t a hate crime. People have stopped thinking.

Alison Hoffman writes for tabletmag.com: "Good news: police seem to have decided yesterday’s early-morning shooting at a Los Angeles synagogue wasn’t a hate crime. They’re not really sure what prompted it, and they definitely don’t know who did it, but the main thing, LAPD counterterrorism chief Mike Downing told the Los Angeles Times, is that the two victims weren’t shot on account of being Jewish, but because someone had a score to settle. Which means that the guy who told the paper that the neighborhood where the shooting happened is “like a small Israel” was more right than he probably realized."

Everybody I can find online just accepts Mike Downing’s pronouncement as gospel truth even though the evidence — this guy walked into a synagogue parking lot and shot two Jews on their way to prayer — screams otherwise.

Andrew Silow-Carrol at the New Jersey Jewish News headlines his blog post: "L.A. shooting: ‘A far more mundane crime’

All these people prefer to ignore the prima-facie evidence of Jew-hatred to accept some nonsense handed to them by the LAPD and the quiescent Los Angeles news media.

They can’t even use the word "sex" in the title.

In public, the representatives of Orthodox Judaism are far more squeamish talking about sex than fundamentalist Christians.

As Zev Chafets demonstrates in his book, A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists, and One Man’s Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance, fundamentalist Christians are comparatively free in talking about sex.

The sacred texts of Judaism are not squeamish about talking about sex. The Bible has lots of sex and all the hookers in it are portrayed positively.

I wonder why Orthodox rabbis are so squeamish about in this matter?

I guess this is like divorce. Judaism is the most liberal of the world religions about divorce, but in traditional Orthodox life, those who divorce tend to get shunned.

Sex and intimacy are by no means synonymous.

No wonder that so many people say that Orthodox Jews have sex through a hole in the sheet. It’s not literally true, but we tie ourselves up in knots when discussing sex.

On the other hand, Orthodox Jews seem to be far more free about having sex outside of marriage and talking about it with their friends than the fundamentalist Christians I grew up with. The sex surveys I’ve seen, such as that big one out of the University of Chicago about 15 years, show that Jews (this would be dominantly secular Jews) have far more sexual partners than Protestants and Catholics (the least).

In conservative Christianity, sexual sins are the biggest sins. That is not true in Orthodox Judaism.

Yirmiahu writes on Hirhurim: "Someone who is comfortable having "Talking to your children about sex" on their bookshelf probably isn’t going to have any inhibitions talking about the topic with their kids. Sex may not be a vulgar word but it is a private topic."

Gil writes: "The humorous choice of the title was intended to convey the discomfort of discussing this issue that the book is trying to alleviate. Thank you for attempting to understand."

Skeptic writes: Come on Gil, the criticism is not about the title, it’s about your approach to the issue — the way you use the word intimacy, the way you ask leading questions "Is this really something that needs to be discussed in public?" and then "Do you think there are possible negative consequences of raising this issue onto the communal level?"

We aren’t attempting to understand your humor, we’re trying to understand why you seem as out of touch as the very people Ms. Diament is trying to educate.

Shades of Grey posts: I have seen different ways of approaching the issue of euphemisms, which seem to be based on the situation.

Rabbi Reuvein Bulka uses the term "conjugal relations" instead of "sex". He writes on page 104 of his book that "this phrase is preferred not in order to hide behind a euphemism; rather it is to signify that the intimate expression of marital relations is not simply a biological act".

http://books.google.com/books?id…phemism& f=false

I have seen an article in a family magazine where a frum social worker wrote that engaged couples "feel ahavah for another"; similarly a respected Rav explained in a book that he uses the term "affection" instead of "love" to distinguish from the Hollywood version. Of course, in reality, hopefully spouses actually "love each other" rather than "feel ahavah for one another" !

It is interesting that R. Yecheil Yaakov Weinberg zt’l, choose to be direct in a situation , and wrote “according to Maimonides, if a Jew has sex with a gentile [woman]…”(11/15/65 letter to Prof. Samuel Atlas in TUM Journal). On the other, this was a private correspondence, and perhaps he felt the situation warranted it.

There are those who empahasize the need to be direct in specific cases:

The Tzelem website writes that " This also reflects a deeper sense of what tzniyut means—tzniyut is not being euphemistic with chatanim and kallot, tzniyut is not leaving our youth in ignorance and left to pick up sexual knowledge from the street, tzniyut is not pretending that problems in the realm of sexuality do not exist in our community."

Rabbi Simcha and Chaya Feurman wrote in article in the Jewish Press:

"When teaching children about sexual matters, it is important to be direct and clear because it is so easy for them to misunderstand. In addition, the usage of euphemisms and other indirect methods of discussing sexuality can possibly reinforce an unhealthy degree of shame…".

http://www.jewishpress.com/pager…eroute.do/ 41081

The caveat in all of the above would seem to be that different situations require different modes of expression.

JADED TOPAZ WRITES: Shades of Gray,

How does the Talmud (both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem) generally deal with the concept of euphemisms.

How did R Wolbe deal with the concept of euphemisms.

Neuroscientifically speaking, when possible, I think its best to be brutally honest, precise, detailed, accurate, logical and clinical.

Vague, imprecise, ambiguous and inaccurate is not an ashkenazic minhag.

I guess it depends on the age obviously,but explaining the logical technical neurochemical angles of emotional chemistry,attachement and relationships is a bright idea at some point.

Neuroscience has alot of the logical,somewhat factual answers that psychology just yaps and yaps about endlessly.

Y. Aharon writes: I find no fault with using the term intimacy rather than sex. The former deals with more than the sex act. It describes the general physical and emotional relationship between a man and a woman. This relationship is the key to a satisfying and successful marriage and life. Unfortunately, the current, rather extreme attitude towards tzniut in Hareidi circles tends to engender a great barrier to intergender relations even where it is halachically permitted and encouraged. Girls must be taught that sex is not a necessary evil, but, rather, a divinely ordained way of engendering attachment and life. Boys must also be taught that lesson,and that sex is not only about satisfying male urges. Suitable information about the physical and emotional aspects of marital sex must be provided to young people at an appropriate age and stage in life. The Steipler Gaon, Rav Ya’akov Yisroel Kanievsky, is said to have issued a manual on sexual behavior for marrieds in order to combat the idea that sex is an inherently objectionable activity. That is the rabbinic work that I would like to have distributed rather than lectures about the evils of masturbation. If Mrs. Diament has a sensible and informative book on the subject, then it should be made widely available.

FP writes: The Gemara says a small girl is a shomer for yichud purposes when she is "yoda’as ta’am biah", which Rashi explains as meaning she knows what biah is. This age is about 6-7.

ISTM that they were more matter-of-fact about these matters back in the good old days.

Many of the rabbis agree, however, that some of the most valuable moments of the trip happen between planned events, when they have a chance to meet and get to know one another on bus and plane rides.

"Masks come off. We’re becoming human beings to each other. We become two Jews who have the same passion but express it differently," said Rabbi Adam Kligfeld, from the Conservative Movement’s Temple Beth Am.

He said that during the plane ride to Israel, he and another rabbi agreed to do a "pulpit switch" upon their return to Los Angeles, whereby each will deliver a sermon to the other’s congregation.

Learning is one of the ways in which the rabbis manage to come together despite their differences.

"While we may have difficulty praying together, and we do, we can learn together, and now we even teach together," said Rabbi Laura Geller, from Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, who, like many of the other rabbis, spent time studying at Jerusalem’s Hartman Institute.

"The Torah started us as a people, it must unify us as a people," Kligfeld said.

Gary emails: You are so lazy. In your copy and paste excuse for real journalism, you of all people
ignored the fact that even the JPoat could not identify by name a
single orthodox rabbi admitting to a joint activity with colleagues.
Not one.

Well, fame was one the blessings that God promised to bestow upon Abraham.

Genesis 12:2: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing."

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Alejandro Sisro, 13, will almost certainly never forget what happened Thursday. He came to the synagogue in the morning wearing a new suit, his hair combed, his Torah portion memorized, ready for his bar mitzvah, the Jewish rite of passage. On the way in, he hit a snag — a line of police tape stretching between him and manhood.

For the Sisro family, it meant calling dozens of friends and relatives, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Argentina and Mexico, to alert them that the ceremony would be postponed. Eventually, it was rescheduled for the evening.

The wait was agonizing for Alejandro. "He kept saying, ‘When can we go back? When can we go back?’ " said his mother, Naomi.

In the end, the bar mitzvah ran smoothly — the rhythmic prayers, the handshakes, a pinch on the cheek from the rabbi. The family did have to accommodate a few unexpected guests: reporters and photographers who had been sent to cover the shooting.

"It’s not so bad," Alejandro said. "I’ll get famous because everyone knows I had my bar mitzvah."

The designation of "hate crimes" gives community activists more power and more reasons to go on TV to pontificate.

Police are still seeking the shooter and a motive.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The Anti-Defamation League has expressed deep concern over Thursday’s shooting at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in North Hollywood.

…"Statistics consistently show Jews to be far and away the most frequently targeted religious group, with 74 percent of hate crimes motivated by religion being perpetrated against Jews in Los Angeles County," added Susskind, citing the most recent Hate Crime Report of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.

Orthodox Jew Duke Helfand reports for the Los Angeles Times:

Each Saturday morning without fail, Orthodox Jewish families in North Hollywood emerge from their homes and slowly make their way to the many synagogues along the area’s leafy streets and boulevards.

The observant Jews pass by kosher restaurants, groceries and day schools, welcoming one another with the traditional Sabbath greeting — "Good Shabbos."

Their presence has helped transform North Hollywood into a vibrant Jewish hub, one rivaled in Los Angeles only by the Pico-Robertson and La Brea/Fairfax districts.

"It’s like a small Israel," said Rami Barzilay, 77, owner of Elite Market down the street from the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic Synagogue, the site of Thursday’s shooting that wounded two congregants.

How can the LAPD be so sure it was not a hate crime? Why do the news media accept this as gospel? Two men were shot walking into prayer at a synagogue. That seems like a hate crime to me.

CDR Financial Products Inc. of Beverly Hills, its founder and two other employees of the advisory firm were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to rig bidding on investment contracts sold to local governments.

The indictment in U.S. District Court in New York alleges that CDR and its employees, who ran the auctions for the investment work, awarded the deals to favored firms in exchange for kickbacks. The government alleges that the conspiracy cost taxpayers by allowing the banks to pay below-market rates.

"The Justice Department is committed to protecting the competitive process and will hold accountable individuals and companies who participate in illegal and anticompetitive conduct," Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Christine Varney, who heads the antitrust division, said in a statement.

Indicted were CDR founder David Rubin; Zevi "Stewart" Wolmark, CDR’s former chief financial officer and managing director; and Evan Zarefsky, CDR’s vice president. The charges are the first to result from a more than three-year investigation into the municipal bond market that has drawn in more than a dozen banks, insurers and local government advisors.

Allan Ripp, a spokesman for CDR, said the firm hasn’t had a chance to fully review the complaint. He dismissed allegations that the firm participated in a conspiracy. Rubin’s attorney, Donald Etra, said his client would defend against the charges.

"We believe the indictment has no merit," Etra said. "The bottom line is that David Rubin did nothing wrong."

…According to the indictment, the CDR employees decided who would win investment contracts in advance and solicited sham bids from other institutions to cover it up. In exchange, according to the indictment, the firm received kickbacks, masked as fees for other transactions, on at least 10 occasions from 2001 to August 2005. The amounts ranged from $4,500 to $475,000, according to the indictment.

A bid-rigging count against Rubin and the other employees carries a maximum 10-year prison term, prosecutors said.

David Rubin is the (former?) chairman of the board of the Yeshivat Yavneh day school in Hancock Park. An Orthodox Jew, he’s prominent in Orthodox life in the Fairfax/La Brea/Hancock Park community. He is a cigar buddy of the Orthodox Union CEO Steven Weil, the former rabbi of Beth Jacob who was famous for his no-predators policy.

Rubin’s wife is battling severe cancer.

Here’s some background on David Rubin.

The Jewish Journal wrote on April 13, 2006:

To David Rubin, chairman of Yeshivat Yavneh, a 450-child day school in Hancock Park, the issue is trust.

"Although I support the concept of preservation, I don’t support the process of local empowerment on this issue in our community," Rubin said. "We can’t have an HPOZ controlled by a small group that has developed a double standard."

Rubin says neighbors are much tougher on Yavneh than they are on Marlborough School, a private girls’ school in the area.

I’m trying to figure out which stage of life I am in.

This is my second time listening to this lecture.

I just figured it out. I’m "in the tunnel."

Alison says: Before I tell you about the next stage, which is obviously the King, I will tell you about the stage a man goes through before becoming the King. This happens after all the hard work and intensity of being a prince. We call this time in a man’s life "The Tunnel". A man we know who has been through the tunnel calls this’the descent into darkness before the further you go, the less certain you are.’

"When the tunnel begins depends on when a man started his real career. The Tunnel begins 12-15 years after that. Men are in the Tunnel from six months to three years. In the Tunnel, he undergoes a profound transformation from becoming to being. This is an intense soul-searching time for a man. He’s searching out what he values. This can be regarded as a sacred time in a man’s life.

"In our culture, we call The Tunnel a mid-life crisis… He has to go through this alone and to distance himself from other people."

I started my real career as a writer in the fall of 1995. I was 29.

Krakauer writes that all the evidence points to Trevor Alders as the man who killed Pat Tillman.

What was his punishment? He was kicked out of the Rangers and returned to the Army.

Alders submitted a five-and-a-half page single-space letter protesting this draconian punishment. "The thrust of Alders’s letter seemed to be that the primary victim of the tragedy was not Pat Tillman…but Trevor Alders." (pg. 312)

Krakauer’s book is an angry contemptuous look at the U.S. military’s incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan and is blistering about the incompetent politicians (namely neoconservatives and the Bush administration) who sent them there.

Following Jon’s book, I started reading a completely different approach — "Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood".

This book is all about the U.S. military as a sacred force dedicated to holy goals. The protagonist is a Princeton graduate who enlists because of patriotism, very similar to Pat Tillman. Tillman, however, opposed the war in Iraq.

According to Wikipedia:

Jones reported that members of Tillman’s unit burned his body armor and uniform in an apparent attempt to hide the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.^[14] Perhaps most tragically, his notebook, in which, according to author Jon Krakauer, Tillman had recorded some of his thoughts on Afghanistan, was also burned, a blatant violation of protocol.^[15] Several soldiers were subsequently punished for their actions by being removed from the United States Army Rangers.^[14] Jones believed that Tillman should retain his medals and promotion, since, according to Jones, he intended to engage the enemy and, in Jones’s opinion, behaved heroically.^[14]

Tillman’s family was not informed of the finding that he was killed by friendly fire until weeks after his memorial service, although at least some senior Army officers knew of that fact prior to the service.^[14] According to author and journalist Jon Krakauer’s book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, the extensive cover-up that followed his death included the military ordering Tillman’s comrades to lie to his family at the funeral.^[15] Tillman’s parents have sharply criticized the Army’s handling of the incident; Tillman’s father charges that the Army "purposely interfered in the investigation" because of the effect it could have on their recruiting efforts, while Tillman’s mother charges that "this lie was to cover their image".^[16]

His mother Mary Tillman told The Washington Post, "The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting." Tillman’s father, Patrick Tillman, Sr., was incensed by the coverup of the cause of his son’s death, which he attributed to a conscious decision by the leadership of the U.S. Army to protect the Army’s image.

He also blamed high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public.^[17]

Later, Tillman’s father suggested in a letter to The Washington Post that the Army hierarchy’s purported mistakes were part of a pattern of conscious misconduct:

Michael Bloom, 30, an Orthodox organizer with Hatzolah, a Jewish volunteer medical response team, grew up in the diverse neighborhood. He said there had been instances of Jews being insulted as they walked to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

"This has been going on for years. Everything from "death to Israel" to "dirty Jew,’" he said. "There are gangs in the area. It’s not the safest neighborhood."

Read On

One question that comes to mind for me is illegal immigration. This area is filled with illegal immigrants. Is massive illegal Latino immigration good for the Jews? It does not seem to have been particularly good for the Jews in this neighborhood.

"Diverse neighborhood" seems to be polite talk for a crappy neighborhood. Who wants a diversity of criminals and low-lifes around you? I’d prefer a uniformity of good hard-working people.

"You never played that?" she says.

"No," he says. "What is it?"

"That’s when you spin the bottle and then get into the closet with a member of the opposite sex for seven minutes," she says. "It’s all dark in there and you just feel around."

"I’ve never heard of it," he says.

"You never played Spin the Bottle?" she asks.

"No."

"Doctor?"

"No."

"Wow."

"Did you play Seven Minutes in Heaven?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. "In Seventh grade. Everyone did it."

"You were in yeshiva," he says.

"So?"

"Oy vey. You got into a closet with a boy and let him feel you up for seven minutes while you were in seventh grade?" he asks.

"How do you know I didn’t feel him up?" she asks.

"You’re such a slut," he says. "How can I walk into a room with you and know that every guy and every girl in there has had a turn with you? How do you think that makes me feel? Like I have something precious? Slut!

"I want to play Seven Minutes in Heaven with you."

"Will we be all fumbly and nervous?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"I didn’t even have an boobs back then," she says. "They were all yeshiva boys. This was going on in Modern Orthodox schools [Manhattan Day School]."

"What a shanda for the goyim," he says.

"Good thing they didn’t see what was going on in our parents houses," she says.

"What if that were the only thing that would revive me?" she asks.

"Then I’d say, Baruch Dayan Emet (Blessed is the true Judge)."

"I’m still shocked when I hear Hebrew coming out of your mouth."