“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l

Friday, July 2, 2021

Chabad Shliach In Boston Stabbed Multiple Times


 A Chabad Shliach in Brighton, MA was stabbed multiple times, Thursday afternoon.

Sources say that Rabbi Shlomo Noginsky was stabbed just after 1:00PM outside his Chabad House, known as the “Shaloah House” on Chestnut Hill Avenue near Dighton Street.

Boston Police have a suspect in custody. A motive was not known.

Noginsky was rushed to a local hospital, but was being transferred to Boston Medical for major trauma.

His name for Tehillim is Shlomo ben Zlata Miriam.

According to a report, Noginski was sitting on the front steps of the Shaloh House on his cell phone. The suspect approached him, drew a gun and asked Noginski to take him to his car. When the suspect attempted to force Noginski into the car, the rabbi tried running across the street to a small park called Brighton Common, where the suspect stabbed Noginski multiple times in the arm. As the rabbi tried to fend off the attacker he raised a commotion, finally causing the suspect to flee. The suspect was apprehended by police almost immediately.

Thursday, July 1, 2021

Nathaniel Sommer Was Cleaning for Pesach in Fatal Monsey Assisted Living Fire

 

A father and son charged in a deadly fire at a suburban New York assisted living facility had been performing a pre-Passover cleaning ritual that involves heating kitchen utensils to burn off traces of forbidden food, the Journal News reported.

It remains unclear what specific role Rabbi Nathaniel Sommer of Monsey and his son, Aaron Sommer, allegedly played in the March 23 fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley that killed a resident and a firefighter, the newspaper reported.

The Sommers were arraigned Tuesday on charges of manslaughter, assault and arson in connection with the fire and are due back in court Friday. Information on their attorneys wasn’t available.

Volunteer firefighter Jared Lloyd and a 79-year-old resident of the facility were killed in the fire, which caused a partial collapse of the building.

Records show that the Evergreen Court fire was reported about 90 minutes after the Nathaniel and Aaron Sommer had left the facility after preparing the kitchen for Passover, the Journal News reported.

It remains unclear what specific role Rabbi Nathaniel Sommer of Monsey and his son, Aaron Sommer, allegedly played in the March 23 fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley that killed a resident and a firefighter, the newspaper reported.

The Sommers were arraigned Tuesday on charges of manslaughter, assault and arson in connection with the fire and are due back in court Friday. Information on their attorneys wasn’t available.

Volunteer firefighter Jared Lloyd and a 79-year-old resident of the facility were killed in the fire, which caused a partial collapse of the building.

Records show that the Evergreen Court fire was reported about 90 minutes after the Nathaniel and Aaron Sommer had left the facility after preparing the kitchen for Passover, the Journal News reported.

Angry Sheitel Wearer

 

This "letter to the editor" appeared in the FJJ (Flatbush Jewish Journal) 




Rabbinical Court Rules Lawyers of Get Refusers Will be Sanctioned

 

Lawyers who act to prevent the giving of a get (Jewish divorce document) and harm divorce proceedings can be slapped with sanctions, the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court ruled in a groundbreaking decision earlier this week.

Av Beth Din Rabbi Meir Freeman, along with Rabbi David Berdugo and Rabbi Yitzhak Rabinowitz, issued the ruling after a husband who refused to give his wife a get stated that he was not opposed to issuing the divorce, but was doing so because his attorney had advised him to in order to benefit in financial negotiations against his wife.

In order to conduct a divorce under Jewish law, a husband is required to give a divorce document known as a get to his wife. Until the document is handed to the wife, the divorce cannot take effect. An issue that has arisen from this requirement is that some husbands refuse to give their wives a get for a number of reasons, including as revenge and as a blackmail tool, thereby preventing them from remarrying. Wives whose husbands refuse to issue a get are referred to as agunot ("anchored" or "chained" in Hebrew.)
Rabbinical courts often use sanctions in order to pressure husbands into issuing the get to their wives. In Israel, the sanctions are legally recognized and can include a variety of measures, including bans on exiting the country, holding a drivers license and managing a bank account. Husbands who refused to issue a divorce can even be imprisoned in extreme cases.
The wife in the recent case began proceedings in the rabbinical court due to her husband's worsening cognitive condition which she feared could eventually make it impossible to receive a get if proceedings continued for too long. The wife was represented by attorneys Orit Lahav and Batya Cohen from the Mavoi Satum organization, which works to help women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce. 
The attorneys of the wife subsequently filed a request to the rabbinical court to place sanctions on the attorney, leading the husband's attorney to announce that the husband was now ready to issue the divorce. The husband's attorney demanded, however, that Mavoi Satum cover his legal costs.
The rabbinical court denied the husband's attorney's request, ruling that the lawsuit was not considered vexatious litigation (legal action meant solely to harass someone) since it is "not inconceivable that there will be cases in which it can be proved that a husband who is required to grant a divorce refuses to grant the divorce only due to misconduct by his attorney."

Compare Washington Post Headlines of Tuesday & Wednesday

Tuesday's Headline 


Wednesday's Headline


Jewish Black diversity chief out after failing to mention Islamophobia in statement rejecting antisemitism

 

A Black Jewish diversity chief at a nonprofit group for children’s book authors resigned amid backlash after she neglected to specifically condemn Islamophobia in a statement denouncing antisemitism.

April Powers, chief equity and inclusion officer at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, issued a statement this month saying the organization denounces “all forms of hate, including antisemitism,” citing an uptick in crimes against Jewish people. Critics apparently took issue with Islamophobia not being specifically mentioned in the statement.

Ms. Powers apologized in a statement announcing her resignation Sunday, saying she “neglected to address the rise in Islamophobia, and deeply regret that omission.”

“As someone who is vehemently against Islamophobia and hate speech of any kind, I understand that intention is not impact and I am so sorry,” she wrote. “While this doesn’t fix the pain and disappointment that you feel by my mishandling of this moment, I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies and resignation from the SCBWI.”

Ms. Powers, who introduced herself as being Black and Jewish in a welcome video last June, explained in a postTuesday on her personal Facebook page that she was not fired or forced to resign from the nonprofit, Newsweek reported.

The organization’s executive director, Lin Oliver, issued a statement Sunday accepting Ms. Powers’ resignation and apologizing to “everyone in the Palestinian community who felt unrepresented, silenced or marginalized.”

“SCBWI acknowledges the pain our actions have caused to our Muslim and Palestinian members and hope that we can heal from this moment,” Ms. Oliver wrote.

Jewish Doctoral Candidate Who Wanted To Prove Justice System Was Racist Against Blacks Was Stabbed To Death By Black Man In Chicago

 

Anat Kimchi, a 31-year-old Israeli-born doctoral candidate and scholar at the University of Maryland, wrote a paper published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology in 2019 attempting to prove America’s criminal justice system was racist against “young black offenders” and “black drug offenders.”

While visiting Chicago over the weekend, Kimchi was ambushed and stabbed in the back and neck while walking near a homeless encampment at 401 South Wacker at around 3:35 p.m. Police said witnesses told them the assailant was a homeless “slim black male with long dreadlocks who wore a red bandana and a blue tank top,” CWB Chicago reported.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that police know the man who fatally stabbed her and are “scouring the various homeless encampments downtown” to find him.

While speaking with CBS 2 Chicago, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown expressed bafflement that Kimchi would walk on such an “obscure route” which only leads to a freeway and an underpass with a homeless encampment.

Given her field, one can imagine she may have purposefully gone to the encampment to see first hand the horrible oppression that “white supremacist America” was subjecting these disadvantaged, underprivileged victims of white supremacy to due to no fault of their own.


Viznitz Yiddish Newspaper about Florida Tragedy...." I'ts only a couple of Chabad families.l"

 

I wasn't going to print this but once they themselves printed it in their own newspaper, Kol Berama, for the entire world to see , I decided to post it.

Loose translation of the circled sentences

"People originally thought that only a couple of Chabad families perished in the Florida Condos, yes indeed, it is a very big loss, and a terrible tragedy, but it's not something that one has to turn the entire world around."

Shul Sign in Yerushalyim about the Air conditioner

 


Sign in Katamon Shul reads:

I'm Cold/I'm Hot 
There hasn't been a Gabbai born yet who can figure out the exact comfortable temperture for everyone
We did everything we can
If you are hot, sit underneath the air conditioner
If you are cold, bring a sweater

Not always good to help someone