Much of the best reporting on Orthodox Jewish life these days occurs on The Jewish Star.
A Brooklyn father who sent his son to an abusive boot camp for delinquents in the Caribbean is suing a Far Rockaway couple and 30 others for $411 million, claiming they destroyed his reputation. The lawsuit has the blessing of Rav Aharon Schechter, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, according to a lawyer for the main defendant.
Michael Hersh made national headlines in 2008 when he had his then 16-year-old son, Isaac, taken from his home in the middle of the night and shipped to Tranquility Bay, a privately owned correctional institution in Jamaica. Former students were suing the institution then, claiming physical and mental abuse. Months later, Isaac got word of his forced captivity to a friend. Friends and family members launched an effort to pressure the Hersh parents to release him. In March of 2008, after nine months in Tranquility Bay, Isaac was freed after several community members, including Dr. David Pelcovitz, chartered a plane and rescued him.
