Rabbi Ephraim Padwa Filmed Secretly About Child Abuse

Moshe Friedman loses this round on coed classes

THE HAGUE - The Belgian judge who forced a girls' school to admit two sons of Moshe Friedman refused a separate petition to enroll the haredi Orthodox pariah's daughters at a boys' yeshiva.

According to the Belgian Jewish publication Joods Actueel, the judge on Monday cited procedural issues in rejecting the motion by Friedman, a father of eight who filed a request for an injunction against the Yavne Yeshiva, a boys' religious seminary.

Last month the judge issued an injunction ordering a girls’ school, Benoth Jerusalem, to admit two of Friedman’s sons. They started studying there on Jan. 7.

Friedman, 40, is an anti-Zionist campaigner who has been excommunicated by the institutions and many members of Antwerp’s haredi community, including the Jewish school that refused to enroll his children. In 2006 he attended a conference of Holocaust deniers in Tehran and hugged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

In rejecting Friedman’s petition against the Yavne Yeshiva, the judge said she could not issue a temporary injunction in summary proceedings on a “permanent issue.”

Benoth Jerusalem is appealing the injunction forcing it to enroll the two boys, Joods Actueel reported.

Video of Sarai Sierra, Staten Island woman missing in Turkey, released

ISTANBUL — The husband of a New York City woman who went missing while vacationing alone in Istanbul was interviewed by police Tuesday in hopes of helping the search.

Police meanwhile released security camera footage of Sarai Sierra, 33, who has been missing since Jan. 21, when she didn’t take her flight back to New York. She arrived on Istanbul on Jan. 7 with plans to practice her hobby of photography on her first trip outside of the United States.

Sierra’s husband, Steven, and brother David Jimenez arrived in Istanbul late Monday. The state-run Anadolu Agency said U.S. Consulate officials accompanied the two to the police station where Steven Sierra made a deposition to police who specialize in missing persons.

The security camera footage shows Sierra eating alone in the food court of a shopping mall near the hostel where she was staying and walking around the mall, dressed in jeans, a brown leather jacket and a winter hat, her hands in her pockets.

Another image shows her walking along a main shopping street, wearing earphones. Police did not say when the images were recorded, but Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper said the images were from Jan. 20.

Hurriyet, quoting unnamed police sources, said Turkish officials were not notified about the disappearance until Jan. 25 and said the delay was hampering the search.

Before she went missing, Sierra, the mother of two, had been in regular contact with her family and friends, and told relatives she planned to take photographs at the Galata Bridge — a tourist landmark that spans the Golden Horn waterway and is lined with fishermen.

Police have said Sierra made an excursion to Amsterdam, Netherlands, from Istanbul on Jan. 15 and travelled on to Munich, Germany, on Jan. 16 before returning to Istanbul on Jan. 19. Police were trying to determine the reason for her visit to the European cities.

Report links A-Rod, Gio Gonzalez to performance-enhancing drugs

As spring training dawned in 2009, Alex Rodriguez faced the cameras and confessed to his use of performance-enhancing substances from 2001 to 2003.

“My mistake … I was immature and I was stupid,” he said then.

Yet that very same year, the New York Yankees star was supplied with performance-enhancing drugs, according to a report posted Tuesday by Miami New Times. The newspaper cited 16 records from a now-closed Florida clinic that indicated Rodriguez was provided with human growth hormone and other substances as recently as last year.

The report also linked Washington Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez, Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Melky Cabrera, Oakland Athletics pitcher Bartolo Colon and San Diego Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal to the clinic.

Cabrera, Colon and Grandal all were issued suspensions by Major League Baseball last year after failing drug tests. The other players, including Rodriguez, are at risk of suspension following an ongoing MLB investigation. Under the league’s drug policy, a positive test is not the only evidence that can warrant a suspension.

Rodriguez retained Sitrick and Co., a Los Angeles-based crisis management firm, which issued a statement on his behalf dismissing the New Times reporting on Rodriguez as “not true” and the clinic records as “not legitimate.” A spokesman told reporters Rodriguez denies using any performance-enhancing drugs during the 2009-12 period covered in the New Times report.

Gonzalez took to Twitter with a denial that read in part: “I've never used performance enhancing drugs of any kind and I never will.”

In a statement, MLB said it was “extremely disappointed to learn of potential links between players and the use of performance-enhancing substances” but was “in the midst of an active investigation.” MLB investigators already had traced a link between the rise in positive drug tests last season and supplies from South Florida, according to reports last week on ESPN and in the New York Daily News.

Rodriguez, 37, underwent hip surgery this month and is expected to miss at least the first half of the coming season. His slugging percentage has declined for five consecutive seasons, and the Yankees owe him a guaranteed $118 million on a contract that extends through 2017.

Israel - High Court Rejects Rabbinate, Keeps Husband In Jail For Refusing To Give GET

Israel - Mavoi Satum (“Dead End”) announced that the High Court of Justice struck down part of an order of the Rabbinical High Court, the result of which is that a husband refusing to grant his wife a divorce will remain in prison until the court hears a full petition filed by the wife.

Under Orthodox Jewish law, which governs the country’s divorce law, a Jewish woman may not remarry unless her husband consents to divorce her, even if he is refusing in contempt of court.

The Rabbinical High Court decision that was struck down was issued by a three-rabbinical-judge panel, including Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, and was about to lead to the release of the husband, whom the court itself had imprisoned.

The Rabbinical High Court’s order had conditioned keeping the husband in jail for refusing to give the wife a divorce on her dropping a separate action against him.

The High Court’s order was technically an interim order to keep the status quo, at least until it can review the full facts and legal issues of the case.

The interim order struck any condition that could lead to the husband’s imminent release and upheld the portion of the Rabbinical High Court’s order that provided for keeping the husband in prison for at least another six months.

The wife has been seeking a divorce since 2002. Since 2006, the husband had been obligated by the rabbinical courts to grant his wife a divorce.

Between 2006 and October 2012, the Rabbinical High Court increased the sanctions against the husband, to try to convince him to grant his wife a divorce.

In October 2012, the Rabbinical High Court finally ordered the husband imprisoned, having found that his refusal was unwavering, and that the most harsh sanction it could impose was warranted.

But on December 18, 2012, the Rabbinical High Court conditioned the husband’s continued imprisonment on the wife’s permanently dismissing a separate family court action for damages against the husband.

The wife had already withdrawn the separate damages action, so no action was actually pending at the time.

However, an action which is withdrawn, as opposed to an action which is permanently dismissed, can be refiled later.

The Rabbinical High Court essentially demanded that the wife refile her action with a request that it be permanently dismissed, so that she would never be able to refile it.

The wife’s attorney, Hadas Grossman, had already agreed to have the action dismissed permanently, on condition that the husband grant a divorce.

But the Rabbinical High Court denied this compromise, declaring that permanent dismissal of the action was a precondition to any continuing of the husband’s imprisonment and would not be linked to the granting of a divorce itself.

In a January 8, 2013 decision, the Rabbinical High Court specifically cited the violation of its exclusive authority over measures used to compel a refusing husband to give a divorce as the basis of its readiness to release the husband if the wife did not dismiss the separate action, even though the court, on the merits of the case, was ready to continue his imprisonment.

The wife’s petition to the High Court, filed on her behalf by Mavoi Satum, was filed on an emergency basis to prevent the husband’s imminent release, which would have taken place on Thursday.

Mavoi Satum director-general, attorney Batya Kahana Dror, said, “We are happy that we succeeded in stopping the unethical and unconstitutional decision of the Rabbinical High Court to free a divorce refuser from prison, the goal of the decision of which was to conduct a jurisdictional battle between the venues [the rabbinical and family court venues] on the backs of the women” whose requests for a divorce are being refused.

Another of the wife’s attorneys, Gali Etzion of Na’amat, said prior to the ruling that “the High Court cannot leave standing the Rabbinical High Court’s decision which harms the fundamental rights of women in Israel, the right to access to [family] courts, the right to ownership and the right to receive compensation for being damaged.”

Yifat Biton from the Temura Center implied that the decision by the Rabbinical High Court had been a power grab, unrelated to the wife’s situation, to roll back the tools of the family courts to pressure men refusing to give a divorce, so that such tools would remain solely within the power of the rabbinical courts.

Mavoi Satum assists women whose husbands refuse to give them a divorce with legal and other proceedings on the issue.



Jpost

Ronald Gilbert, Orthodox Jewish Doctor Shot to Death at Hoag Medical Office in California

A man was shot and killed Monday on Superior Avenue near Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, police said.

Multiple people have identified the victim as Dr. Ronald Gilbert, who worked at Orange Coast Urology, but police have not released the victim's name.

A phone message at the urology office said the office had to close Monday due to an emergency.

Newport Beach Police Department Deputy Chief David McGill confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that the slain man was a doctor but had no other details about him or the alleged gunman, who was taken into custody without incident at the scene, on the second floor of an office building at 520 Superior Ave.

Workers in the building said the shooting occurred in an exam room.

Police said the shooting occurred in an office portion of the building.

"I sit right at the front desk; I would have caught the first bullet," said Becky Calderwood, who works two doors down from the office where the shooting happened. "This is nuts; people are just shooting everyone all the time."

Calderwood said the shooter was an elderly patient.

Shortly after the shooting, police led an older man wearing a baseball cap in handcuffs out of the building.

Authorities received a call about 2:45 p.m. that six or seven shots were fired, according to police spokeswoman Kathy Lowe.

A source with knowledge of the shooting said the building was a medical office affiliated with Hoag.

Lowe said officers found both the victim and the suspect in the area where the shooting occurred when they arrived.

The suspect was taken into custody without incident at 2:50 p.m., according to Lowe.

"We won't know a motive until our detectives have a chance to interview the suspect later tonight," Lowe said.

Kristin Crotty works directly above Gilbert's office. She said she heard gunshots but "blew it off as construction."

She said what she heard sounded like a nail gun, and she didn't know what was going on until she called building services and they told her to lock her door.

A sign outside the three-story medical building says the building houses Hoag outpatient services and lists the Allen Diabetes Center, physicians' offices and a CHOC diabetes center as occupants.

About eight employees wearing white lab coats huddled outside late Monday afternoon, unable to enter the building, but the office was not entirely evacuated.

"I am terrified," Crotty said. "I just want to get home to my family right now."

A neighbor who lives near Gilbert's large hacienda-style home in Huntington Harbour said the family was "really nice."

"I have nothing but good things to say," neighbor Betty Combs said. "They are practicing orthodox Jews. On Saturdays, they dressed to the nines and walked to synagogue."

Anyone with information in the case is asked to call detectives at (800) 550-NBPD or (949) 644-3762.

Israel - 9% Rise in Jewish Divorce Requests in 2012

The Jewish divorce rate rose by a full 5% last year, according to statistics from the Rabbinical Courts, while the number of divorce files opened rose by an astounding 9%.

A total of 10,694 couples divorced through the Rabbinical Courts in 2012, up from 10,210 in 2011. Various statistical measures indicate that there has been a steady rise in the divorce rate in Israel since the 1970s, from about 10% to over 40%. Ten years ago, the number of couples that divorced in the Rabbinical Courts was 9,368.

Tel Aviv leads Israel in the total number of divorces, with 711 divorces in 2012. Jerusalem was second with 705, followed by Rishon Letzion with 488. Afula was at the bottom of the list with just 80 divorces. These are absolute numbers, not rates; they do not compare the number of divorces with the cities' population.

In the course of 2012, a total of 88,055 files were opened in the Rabbinical Courts, compared with 80,636 in 2011. This is a huge 9% rise.

The average time for finalizing a divorce file stands at 106 days.

The numbers do not include divorces by non-Jewish couples, which are carried out through Family Courts or those of the Muslim or Christian religions.

The statistics provide positive news on the agunot front. There was a rise of 168% in the number of women granted a get, or divorce decree, after their husbands disappeared in Israel or abroad. A total of 163 agunot received gets, compared with 97 in 2011.

There have also been more sanctions against recalcitrant husbands who refuse to grant a get. Sixty such verdicts were granted in 2012, compared with 41 in 2011. The sanctions include arrest orders, orders preventing the husbands from leaving the country, rescinding the right to own a bank account and more.

Twenty arrest orders were given against recalcitrant husbands, compared with 13 in 2011. Three private investigator firms were hired to find get refusers in Israel and abroad. A total of 156 protection orders were granted to women, compared with 81 last year.

The statistics make no mention of a study conducted by the Courts when Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Dahan served as Director, which found that there are more women in the category of get refusers than men.

MONSEY - Dovid Kohn pleads guilty on sex abuse case

NEW CITY — With his wife and two daughters sitting in a Rockland courtroom, Dovid Kohn of Monsey admitted today that he had oral sex with one of his daughter’s female friends when the girl was 12 to 15 years old.

Kohn, 60, an Israeli national living illegally in the United States, faces eight years in state prison when sentenced May 7 on his guilty plea to first-degree course of sexual conduct with a child. He also faces deportation.

He admitted having oral sex with the girl between 2004 and 2006. His plea covered 35 felony counts of sexual abuse.

The girl, now 21, reported the acts to authorities last year. At that time she also spoke with Kohn about the sexual acts while wearing a body wire and through telephone calls recorded by Ramapo police.

Kohn challenged the charges, sitting through one hearing on Jan. 21 when prosecutor Arthur Ferraro played audio tapes of his conversations with the girl, whose identity is being withheld. The hearing was scheduled to continue today on the admissibility of the tapes, when he pleaded guilty.

“We’re just happy the victim didn’t have to testify in open court and be subject to cross examination,” Ferraro said. “She was prepared to testify.”

Kohn’s lawyers, former District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz and Deborah Wolikow Loewenberg, said Kohn first found it hard to plead guilty in front of his family. They noted he could have faced 25 years on each of the 35 counts.

“It was a tragedy for the victim,” Gribetz said. “Justice has been done.”

Several other people in the surrounding ultra-Orthodox community have pleaded guilty without prison or jail time. In some cases, victims’ families have been pressured by community leaders to back down and not pursue charges.

Rockland prosecutors say they are getting more cooperation from victims, fighting against pressure

Rabbi Nossom Leiter, an advocate for sexually abused victims in the ultra-Orthodox community, said Kohn’s “plea with prison time should serve as a paradigm of how to confront the molestation crisis, as a community. Sometimes a strong victim can actually force a plea with incarceration.”   Before he pleaded guilty, Kohn spent time talking privately to his wife in court as his lawyers shuttled between him and his family and prosecutors and Judge William Nelson.

Under questioning from Ferraro, Kohn looked toward his wife – who sat stone-faced in the courtroom - before admitting he had oral sex on the girl at his house at 65 Saddle River Road and having the girl performed oral sex on him.

He told Nelson that he knew the girl was a friend of one of his daughters and he felt embarrassed to admit what he had done in front of his wife and two of his daughters.

According to one transcript of their recorded conversation, the woman told Kohn what he had done to her and “you ruined my life,” saying she cut herself and tried to commit suicide. She told him no man in the religious community would marry her because of him.

Kohn told her he wanted to apologize and didn’t want to hurt her. He accused her of trying to blackmail him when she said she would go to the police if he didn’t admit what he had done to her and he would “fight like hell.”

The transcript says Kohn told her: “The fact of the matter is because I want to avoid publicity you have a certain power over me. okay, and I understand that. I am apologizing from my heart, but don’t force me to say something that I don’t want to say. You can’t understand that I would like desperately to turn the clocks back.”

Authorities are not sure of Kohn’s identity, though he said in court that he’s lived in Monsey for the past 25 to 28 years.

Ferraro called him a “man of mystery,” comparing his years of sexually abusing the Rockland girl to the actions of Nechemya Weberman, an uncertified counselor and member of the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Jewish community in Brooklyn.

Weberman abused a young woman for three years and was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 103 years in prison.

“What he’s alleged to have done is very similar to Weberman, except he’s not a counselor,” Ferraro said. “We’re not sure of his true identity.”

Ramapo Detective Sgt. John Lynch said other agencies have done a background check on Kohn.   “Basically, we have asked the FBI to assist us in determining his actual identity,” Lynch said. “At this point we are uncertain as to who he actually is.”

He said detectives would look to confirm the information Kohn provided during his guilty plea in court. Anyone with information on Kohn can call the police at 845-357-2400

In court Ferraro questioned Kohn on his background and why he also went by Avraham Perl and had a driver’s license in that name. Kohn hesitated and seemed unwilling to answer.

Kohn admitted Perl was a family name and that he was born in Israel in November 1952 and came to the United States nearly three decades ago. He said he attended yeshiva in Jerusalem and worked on religious documents. In the United States, he did videos and photography.

“I am not a citizen,” Kohn said. “I don’t want to say I am here illegally. I overstayed my visa.”

Nelson told Kohn he would most likely be deported after serving his prison time. Nelson said he would sentence Kohn to eight years – though Ferraro asked for nine years – and 10 years probation, and place him on the sex offender registry. He would pay fees of $1,025.    



BY - STEVE LIEBERMAN - Lohud

WhatsApp Messaging Breached Privacy Laws

WhatsApp, one of the most popular apps in the world, contravenes international privacy laws because it forces users to provide access to their entire address book, Canadian and Dutch data protection authorities said.

WhatsApp, which ranks as one of the world’s top five best-selling apps, is an instant-messaging application for smartphones including Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s Blackberry.

The report comes at a time of increased criticism of internet companies, such as Facebook, over the storing and sharing of personal information.

Produced by California-based WhatsApp Inc, it provides a free internet alternative to SMS, or text messaging, sending more than a billion messages every day.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) and the Dutch Data Protection Authority, in a joint report released on Monday, said the app violated privacy laws because users have to provide access to all phone numbers in their address book, including both users and non-users of the app.

“This lack of choice contravenes (Canadian and Dutch) privacy law. Both users and non-users should have control over their personal data and users must be able to freely decide what contact details they wish to share with WhatsApp,” said Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority.

WhatsApp was not immediately available to comment.

The investigators found that WhatsApp retained the mobile numbers of non-users, contravening privacy laws.

WhatsApp committed to making changes to protect users’ privacy, including allowing the manual addition of contacts, according to the investigators. In September 2012, it introduced encryption for its mobile messaging service, partly in response to concerns raised by the investigation.

The Dutch agency said it would continue to monitor WhatsApp and could impose penalties if privacy continued.

Drew Barrymore: 'Baby Olive will be raised in the Jewish faith'.

During an appearance on The View, Barrymore opened up about her decision to convert to Judaism and her plans to share the religion with her daughter.

"I'm a shiksa. I do the seders and we do Passover," she explained.

"I haven't converted yet, [but] Olive will be raised traditionally. We had a very traditional wedding ceremony with Rabbi Rubenstein and I did the ketubah. We wore the yamakas and we did the chuppah."

She continued: "I'm there, I love it! It's a beautiful faith and I'm so honored to be around it. It's so family-oriented... The stories are so beautiful and it's incredibly enlightening. I'm really happy."

Barrymore recently insisted that she is not ashamed of her past mistakes and plans to tell Olive about her previous struggle with drug addiction.