A 66-year-old Jerusalem man was indicted on charges of sexual assault and sodomy Sunday in a Jerusalem district court. The charges stemmed from a series of rapes and sexual assaults which took place in a Jerusalem mikva (ritual bathhouse) where the accused worked.
According to Sunday’s indictment, the suspect, Haim Shragai, raped three local teenage boys over the course of three years.
The victims ranged in age from 13 to 16.
Shragai helped manage the mikva where the attacks took place, Behadrei Haredim reported, and used his position to trap his victims.
Authorities say Shragai would approach the teenagers while they were using the mikva, and blocked their exit if they tried to escape.
When the teens refused to submit to his demands, Shragai would threaten to leave the victims locked inside the facility, and warned that he would tell the victims’ parents that they were guilty of various offenses. In some instances, Shragai showed his victims pornographic material, then threatened to tell their parents.
After each incident, Shragai would pay the victim a small sum, usually several shekels.
The prosecution has requested that Shragai be denied bail and be held in custody until the end of his trial.
New leaked documents appear to show a pattern of surveillance of Jewish-owned homes in Jackson, New Jersey. Attached emails show the practice was discussed over a span of several months among upper-level township officials, including council members, zoning officials and the township’s chief counsel.
One must wonder why the township was monitoring lawful activities conducted in the privacy of resident’s homes, and with whom they were doing it with. It appears the township used spies in unmarked cars to monitor houses on a regular basis, who kept detailed notes on the otherwise benign activities at private properties.
The writer is adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools, Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, congregational rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California, and has held prominent leadership roles in several national rabbinic and other Jewish organizations. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and served for most of the past decade on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His writings have appeared in The Weekly Standard, National Review, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Jerusalem Post, American Thinker, Frontpage Magazine, and Israel National News.
There are moments in life when a person gets “discovered.” Entertainers perform for decades before getting “discovered.” So it is with the writers of great books, the thinkers of great thoughts, the leaders of political movements. Often, when they finally experience their breakthrough, they inevitably are asked: “Where were you all this time? What were you waiting for?”
November 2017 has been the month of Tzipi Hotovely. She finally — finally! — has been discovered.
I have been following the Deputy Minister from her earliest notices, even as she was just emerging as a novice within the Likud. An Orthodox woman. Law school graduate. Quite photogenic and telegenic. Incredibly brilliant. Well spoken. Fabulous command of English. Uncompromising in her support for the Jewish right to Yehudah and Shomron (Judea and Samaria). Kind-of “too good to be true.”
Lindsay Neathawk first saw the Arch of Titus on a visit to Rome in 1998. A teenager at the time, she could not have imagined that two decades later she would make the first hi-tech replica of the ancient monument’s famous “Spoils of Jerusalem” panel commemorating Roman forces’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Holy Temple in 70 CE.
Using cutting-edge digital tools, Neathawk, a graphic designer and owner of a sign carving business in Williamstown, Massachusetts, spent a straight 49 days last summer creating the replica.
The replica is made of high density urethane foam and weighs around 1,000 pounds. It is a one-to-one copy of the panel on the monumental arch erected on Rome’s Via Sacra, the “Sacred Road,” around 82 CE, shortly after Emperor Titus’s death. One of three interior relief panels on the arch, “Spoils of Jerusalem” depicts Titus’s triumphal procession into the Eternal City in July 71 CE. Roman soldiers are seen carrying sacred vessels of the Jerusalem Temple, and at the center is the seven-branched golden menorah.
The replica produced by Neathawk in collaboration with VIZIN: Institute for the Visualization of History, is based on three-dimensional and polychrome scanning conducted in 2012 by an international team of scholars led by cultural historian Dr. Steven Fine, founding director of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies.
Fine, an expert on the Greco-Roman period, immersed himself in the study of the Arch of Titus, and last year published a book on the Menorah and its evolving symbolic significance over 3,000 years.
Fine’s enthusiasm for the monument rubbed off on Neathawk, 37, who decided to take on the Spoils replica project despite having never carved anything bigger or more complicated than signs for local merchants.
“This project was in a totally different league, both in terms of size and intricacy,” Neathawk said.
“But our motto is, ‘If you can think it, we can do it,’ so we went for it,” she said.
According to Fine, a handful of other replicas of the Spoils panel exist around the world. Some are casts, and one is what Fine described as “an artful reproduction.” This latest one is the first to use advanced digital tools to not only make a copy of the relief as it exists today, but also to project onto it what it would have looked like at the time of its original creation.
Archeologist Donald Sanders of VIZIN, who oversaw Neathawk’s work, provided her a digital rendering of the panel based on Fine’s scans from Rome. This was converted into code read by Neathawk’s computer numerical control (CNC) carving machine.
Neathawk used her expertise to choose the correct bits for the CNC machine, many of which broke due to intensity and duration of the carving, which on many days went nonstop around the clock.
Exhibition co-curator Jacob Wisse noted that although the $50,000 replica is a crucial element of the Yeshiva University Museum exhibition, it is not the only star of the show. Also highlighted are rare artifacts from all eras on loan from more than 20 individual collectors and institutions, ranging from the Library of Congress in Washington, to the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, to the Istituto Luce Cinecittà Historical Archive in Rome.
“The exhibition is about the changing nature of the Arch of Titus, and not only in terms of physical changes, such as its restoration by Pope Pius VII in the 1820s after its falling into a ruinous state by the 19th century,” Wisse said.
“It also looks at how this monument has been appropriated over the course of history as a symbol by everyone from emperors and popes to Jews and Christians, who re-interpreted the meaning of the arch in modern times,” he continued.
The most notable reinterpretation by Jews in the current era is the State of Israel’s adoption of the Menorah as its official symbol in 1949. Exhibition visitor Bonnie Zaben found this to be of major emphasis, and somewhat at the expense of the Spoils replica.
“I really didn’t expect the Menorah as Israel’s symbol to be such a large part of the show. I was actually surprised that the Spoils replica was not more central. It’s the biggest element in the room, but it is at floor level and placed against a wall instead of elevated as a centerpiece,” Zaben said.
“You don’t even see it immediately upon entering the gallery. It’s on a wall to the left of the entrance,” she added.
Wisse said the replica’s placement was deliberate, with it serving as a point of reference, both literally and figuratively, for the entire exhibition. The layout is such that the Spoils panel is repeatedly in visitors’ line of sight as they walk through the various sections of the show.
“The Arch of Titus – from Jerusalem to Rome, and Back” exhibition runs at Yeshiva University Museum until January 14, 2018.
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox youths from a fringe religious group took to the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday, causing traffic mayhem and shutting down the capital’s light rail service to protest the jailing of young seminary students for draft-dodging. The demonstrators blocked the main entrance to the capital for three hours.
The fresh disruptions sparked anger, with public figures calling on police to take a tougher stance against the protesters.
Police used force to try and disperse the protesters, some of whom clashed with angry motorists and resisted attempts by police to remove them. They also used water cannons and a foul-smelling skunk spray.
Police said they had detained 35 “extremists” who refused to clear the road. One demonstrator received medical treatment from police. Demonstrators later moved on from their original protest and shut the main entrance and exit to the city.
The main entrance to the city was shut for more than three hours despite police efforts, until the demonstrators headed a call from the head of the so-called “Jerusalem Faction” Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach to return to their yeshivas.
The disruption to residents and commuters sparked widespread anger.
“The time has come to end this disruption to the lives of Jerusalem residents. The right to demonstrate is a sacred right when it is done legally. Anyone who breaks the law, for any reason, must be dealt with harshly,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
“The police must use all means at its disposal to disperse the illegal demonstrations. I call on the police to restore normal life in the city,” he said.
Likud lawmaker and Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick also slammed the protesters.
“The demonstrations in Jerusalem now have no connection to Torah,” Glick tweeted. “It is simply hooliganism. I hope that the police will deal with the protesters as they deal with all hooligans.”
Auerbach had announced on Sunday morning that the demonstrators would return to the streets to defend the “dignity of the Torah.”
The protest began at around 3:30 p.m., when dozens of ultra-Orthodox men blocked the busy intersection of Jaffa and Sarei Yisrael streets.
The location, adjacent to the city’s Central Bus Station, is on several main bus routs as well as the track of the light rail, which was canceled from there to the Damascus Gate of the Old City because of the protests.
The statement from the “Committee to Save the Torah World,” which has been responsible for organizing recent demonstrations against the army draft, said that Auerbach had ordered the demonstration “to protest for the dignity of the Torah, which has been ground into dust by the incarceration of 12 prisoners of the Torah world for extended periods. Last week, the Haredi masses took to the streets to protest, and hundreds were arrested and four more prisoners of the Torah world were handed over to the military authorities.”
On Saturday night, the statement explained, committee members visited Auerbach and heard him reiterate “the requirement to continue protesting and taking to the streets.”
Last year alone, the Zionist Israeli Government funded Yeshivas and Kollilim, to the tune of $250 million dollars ....
Now, the Satmar crooks are asking their dopey followers to match the Israeli Governments Tzedakkah dollar for dollar!!
Only a stupid idiot would fall for this craziness ....
Look carefully at the ad .....
on the right on top of the poster they have a small pile representing the $250 million dollars that the Zionists fund Yeshivas and Kollilim, and the left they have a larger pile that they hope will match the Zionist funds!
This is so absurd and bizarre .....
Who falls for this crap??? The Satmar Rebbe in 1957 predicted the end of all Torah institutions in Israel in 20 years, he reiterated this idiotic prediction in June 1967...... Now that he knows better since he is now in the world of truth, he sees that there are more Torah Institutions in Israel than anywhere in the entire world, and there is more Torah learned in the Zionist State than anytime in Jewish History!
A homeless man used the last $20 in his pocket to buy gas for a stranded motorist because he feared for her safety — and what she did next changed his life.
Kate McClure, 27, and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, 38, made it their mission to get ex-Marine and firefighter Johnny Bobbit Jr. back on his feet with a fundraising campaign that has raised more than $65,000.
Bobbit came to McClure’s aid last month, when she ran out of gas on I-95 at night while driving to meet a pal in Philadelphia.
As she walked toward the nearest gas station, he told her to get back in her car and lock the doors.
Bobbit then spent his last $20 to buy her gas so she would get home safe.
“He came back and I was almost in shock,” McClure told The Post.
Bobbit asked for nothing in return — but McClure and her boyfriend stopped by his spot several times in recent weeks, repaying him for the gas money and dropping off clothes.
“We went to Target and got him a big backpack filled with stuff, and he opened the granola bars and offered us one,” she said. “We are like, ‘We just got this for you.’ He’s extremely generous.”
Touched by his selflessness, they started the fundraising campaign for Bobbit with a goal of $10,000 — enough to cover “first and last month’s rent at an apartment, a reliable vehicle, and 4 to 6 months worth of expenses.”
They had no idea it would climb toward $70,000.
“This is nuts,” McClure said of the money they’ve raised through GoFundMe. “It has changed my entire outlook about people, my outlook about people has skyrocketed. It’s the best Thanksgiving that I’ve ever had.”
Bobbit is in “shock,” the couple said.
“We spoke to him yesterday, and it was around $17,000,” D’Amico said. “He kept saying I don’t want to waste this chance.
“We went from a room for four to six months, and now we are looking at apartments for the year,” D’Amico said.
And to their amazement, the money keeps pouring in for the 34-year-old Bobbit, a Marine Corps vet from North Carolina who also worked as a firefighter and paramedic before he fell on hard times.
“It’s like a $100 dollars a minute in the last half hour,” he said. “We got two separate $2000 donations. ”
“Some lady offered to pay his rent for a year,” D’Amico added.
The couple hopes Bobbit will join them for Thanksgiving dinner at McClure’s mom’s home.
“We are going to pick him up. Take him shopping,” D’Amico said.
Bobbit, who hails from North Carolina, has been homeless for a year and half, and began living under a bridge after he was robbed in a shelter.
“He came back from his service in the marines and for some reason it didn’t work out with his wife and it hit him hard,” D’Amico said. “He left North Carolina and started traveling around the United States.”
Bobbit wants to work at Amazon — and a recruiter from the tech giant has already reached out, saying she wants to help him get a spot.
“He’s a genuinely good guy so I think he deserves everything that’s coming to him,” McClure said.
In the video below you can listen to R' Mizrachi, (at 2:58)the "Holocaust denier" state that the reward for Mitzvos such as Tzedakkah or gifting Tefillin for someone is limited, the ignoramus states that once you gave it ... the mitzvah is over!
This goes against Rabbinic Theology that states emphatically that the rewards for all mitzvois are נצחיות, forever...infinite! What boggles my mind is there are people out there that follow this huge Am Ha'Aretz!
