Don't fall in! Amazingly realistic 3D images on pavements across America and Europe: Video

From Piccadilly Circus to an incident at Waterloo this eye-opening 3D street art is probably the best on the planet.

Not only do these incredible pastel drawings on pavements across the world look realistic by themselves - but when passers-by jump into the scene they take on a life of their own.

As well as his London creations, U.S. street artist Kurt Wenner, 53, created a playboy's bachelor pad in a Singapore Airport, a magic carpet for children to ride over an Arabian fantasy city and a grand prix car for local female drivers to try out during the Bahrain Grand Prix.

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Under the carpet: Mr Wenner's The Flying Carpet photographed in Bettona, Italy

Piccadilly Circus? A three-dimensional street painting called The Belgian Underground photographed in Brussels, Belgium

U.S. street artist Kurt Wenner, 53, created this work, called Incident at Waterloo, in London

Bradley Wiggins gets involved in the artwork by riding along a jungle scene called St Paul's and London Craning Skyward

Mr Wenner invented a new geometry that creates compositions that appear to rise from or fall into the ground.

Using his homemade pastels, he can take up to seven days to complete his intricately detailed large-scale drawings, sometimes longer depending on the weather.

More...

• It's Christmas cake...but not as you know it: Food artist creates turkey and trimmings out of sponge, chocolate and buttercream icing
• London, by Instagram: Unusual exhibition of images taken and edited in 2012 using smartphones

Mr Wenner's innovative style draws on religion and classical mythology.

Mr Wenner began his career in Rome, inspired by the city's centuries-old tradition of street art.

Mr Wenner explains: 'The pieces look real because they are calculated to be perfectly and mathematically accurate.'

Incredible: A three-dimensional street painting called Women Driver photographed at Bahrain Grand Prix in Bahrain

Adventurous: The Northwest Fantasy photographed in San Francisco, California

Mr Wenner's Titania Encantado photographed in Burgos, Spain

Grand Canyon Trail photographed at National Geographic Grand Canyon Visitor Centre in the U.S.

Sustainable: A 3-D painting by Mr Wenner called Greenpeace / Million Signatures

Hellish: Dies Irae, based on a 13th century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano

Awe-inspiring: Mr Wenner's incredible 3-D sea dragon photographed in Kaosiung, Taiwan

Arizona republican says Israel operates murder squads in the U.S. and did the Shootings in Sandy Hook

The lunatic Mike Harris on Press TV 

 An Arizona republican, Mike Harris, blamed the Connecticut school shooting and several other shootings that happened recently in the United States on Israeli death squads, according to video uploaded to the internet.

It did not take long for the anti-Semites in the world to somehow blame the Jews for the recent unimaginable tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when a gunman killed twenty young children and six adult staff members, after killing his mother, before finally turning the gun on himself.

This week, an American journalist told Iran's Press TV that the shooting was a "revenge killing in the
United States sponsored by Israel" in response to international support at the United Nations
last month.
The journalist, Michael Harris, is an editor at Veterans Today, a website best known for its anti-Semitic and anti-Israel conspiracy theories.
During his interview with Iranian media, Harris, once a Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, said that "Israel has been operating death squads for a long time now in the United States."
Harris insisted that the Israeli "revenge squads" have been killing innocent U.S. citizens from Tucson, Arizona, shooting in which Jewish Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, but survived, while six others were killed.

Jacob Ostreicher jailed in Bolivia freed on bail!

Jacob Ostreicher, an Orthodox Jew from the Unites States, who was jailed in Bolivia, was released on bail, according to official reports.

After 18 months of wrongful imprisonment in Bolivia, Jacob Ostreicher, was released today on bail.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn), a confidant and defender of the Ostreicher family after the imprisonment of Jacob Ostreicher, called the occasion "the beginning of the end of the nightmare for Jacob Ostreicher.” The court issued its order today, according to reports. Ostreicher has been cooperating with authorities who took down several prominent figures since his arrest, according to reports.

"This is the first good news we have received in relation to Ostreicher, and we are all very optimistic," Hikind said. "We hope that Jacob will be reunited with his family in Brooklyn, New York, soon. I could not be prouder of our community to be involved with the Ostreichers for everything they do and constantly keep in mind his situation. We are all still praying. Almighty hears us," Hikind added.

Ostreicher family members are currently in Bolivia, where he has reportedly been sentenced to house arrest with bail set at 100,000 bolivianos or $14,265.30.

Two letters: Two points of view on Chassidic life styles in response to the Weberman verdict

FmrHassidicGirlReply

December 13, 2012 at 5:42 am

First, thank you for writing such an in-depth article on this topic.

I was born and raised in the Hassidic community and have totally left that world. I am, what you would consider, “Off the Derech”, or to some a “goyita”.

When I decided to leave about 6 years ago, it wasn’t that common (at least for a girl), to leave the community. Today, the amount of women who run away from the Hassidic cult is reaching numbers no-one ever dreamed of, and although those within the cult call us a “nebech”, the fact is the only nebech’s are those that are mentally and physically enslaved by this rotten, mind and life destroying cult.

Many of my friends today where raised in modern homes, the kinda jews my former community would make fun of, in Yiddish they would be described as “zei zennin mamesh goyim” (they are literally gentiles) or “zee geit ungetien vee ah shicksa” (she dresses like a non jewish female), mind you we where commenting on women, that by all standards where dressed more modest than 99.9% of the planet.

But what I found is that girls from modern homes are not all that rebellious, they keep shabbos, they keep kosher (no, they do not panic over how long the rabbis beard was, who gave the hechsher), they date jewish men only. But, I and the others who came from the extreme background, we keep nothing.

The Hassidic cult becomes more and more extreme as time goes by, more rules, more madness and more hypocritical.

It’s a sign how far jews have fallen when you think that you can live in the United States and have something like a vaad, NO vaad is good, NONE, only someone who has been hypnotized by living to long is this Boro Park/Williamsburg world can even suggest, taht a vaad is something that is a good thing.

The problem is you are slow learners, the nasty truth will start showing up more and more, people will associate a hassidc jew with pedophilia, patronizing prostitutes, and grand larceny. You will realize that the more you dictate to others what to do, the more it will backfire.

It is already backfiring, you are losing many many kids, when we leave we go all the way, and guess what, when I walk in a mall and I see a group of chassidishe girls, and I start talking Yiddish their eyes light up, they feel like the “mashiach” arrived, if their mom or some older hassidic dominatrix isn’t around them, they start talking to me, and never do they ask me “why I left” all they say is “I wish I can do the same thing”, many take my number, many end up calling and many end of leaving.

And for those of you who think we are a nebech, and “oh my god, she must have such an emty life” get a grip on reality please. In short it’s called freedom, I celebrate and do things as I wish, I went to school, a normal school, and started my own business.

While, the rest of America made sure to give women equal rights, the hassidic community turns a woman into a slave, a dirty thing, something that is used to make kids and chulent.

The boys who left and went off the derech, almost all that I know of do very well, they are smart, motivated and most importantly happy, only someone in the hassidic cult thinks, that the rest of the world is sad.

A while ago Saturday night (motzai shabbos), myself and several friends where shopping at a mall, two girls walk by, obviously Hassidic girls, and I proceed to tell them “A gitta voch”, they smile and proceed to come over and talk to me.

They were both 21 years old (alte meidlach/old girls by hassidic standards), and I could relate to their pain, the real pain, they do not want to get married yet but the family is pressuring, their parents had no clue they were in the mall, they needed to lie, they wanted to go out to the city, so they asked me if I can go with them, I said yes, the problem is they must be home at a certain time or their mom will call the shomrim, the hatzallah, a rabbi and a kabbalist in Israel.

They said that in a week or so they have a wedding to go to of a classmate; it’s a real chasidishe wedding, so it ends like 3am or later, that night is a great night for them to go to the city.

They call me using a prepaid cell phone (something commonly used by criminals), and I pick them up from the wedding hall about 11o’clock.

They get into the car and they ask if I can make a stop at some office building, I say, hey what’s going on? Well, one of the girls has access to the office and she keeps some pants and shorter skirts there, clothing not allowed in her house. They go in, change, and they emerge as normal looking girls, and not girls from the 1950’s. We had a great time at this beautiful lounge in NYC, they spoke to men while shaking in their boots, worrying if lighting will strike them, but nothing struck them, just reality!

I ended up taking them back to this office, they changed back into the cultish clothing, and I dropped them off to their homes. One already left her family B’H (yes, I just said that), she’s a great girl, she will remain Jewish as she respects and loves, shabbos, and will without a doubt marry a Jew, but she wants nothing to do with this radical Hassidic movement, a movement that started 300 or so years ago, but really radicalized itself the past 100 years. Wait, so Jews until then where not really Jews as god intended them to be?

So what is the point of this whole megilah I just wrote?

Well, it’s designed to serve a few proposes.

a) To educate those who do not understand the mindset, of those who leave the cult, and to reassure you that we are far from nebachs and if anyone is a nebach it’s those within the cult.

b) To tell those considering leaving, that there is real hope out there, there is a life to be had after the pain and differing you endured, some mental pain only, while some physical pain, as some parents still think this is the 1800’s and forgot you will get thrown in jail for hitting a person, you child or someone else’s, (will anyone ever expose the physical abuse still going on in yeshiva’s or is that ok because it’s a rabbi that’s administering the spanking?).

c) To give the yentas something to do, you can now get on your phones, make a three way call so you can have 2 other yentas on the line, then try to review all weddings of the past few months, and narrow down what girls left early, maybe it’s Ruchie, no maybe it’s Sheindy nah it can’t be, no It must be Malkie no but she always reads the Tzena Rena and wears extra thick shtrimp etc.

d) To give the vaad more work, now that they read this story, they can, ban women from going to malls, ban women from having keys to a office, and force people to end weddings early or force girls to bring their mom to all weddings, all the while wondering “I wish she would of posted the name of this lounge she went too, I’d love to hook up with some nice girls”.

Have a Happy Chanukah everyone, the main thing is, be happy, living in misery so someone else is happy, is borderline psychotic.

loving yiddishkeitReply

December 16, 2012 at 10:53 am

So sorry to read your comment..however, having grown up in a place you despised…I am sorry to say that you only speak for a small percentage of girls or boys who come from homes where parents are robots and follow blindly. Most of us, including myself had wonderful parents who guided us and taught us right from wrong. We had a radio, read…etc. I am not saying that every parent allowed for that, but that still would not give you or anyone “permission”, yes I said it permission to leave the faith and become mechalel shabbos.
There are many options for those who feel they need a broader yiddishkeit and it is available to them. We have hundreds, yes hundreds of kids with degrees in various fields, making a nice living.We are not a closed minded community, like you wish to state and make a Chillul Hashem by besmirching us to the world out there.
Yes, we have all kinds of crazies out there…but what society doesn’t? I don’t know what type of home you came from, and I know they exist…of course they do…but they are not the MAJORITY, THEY ARE THE MINORITY…
YES….I’M sure there are girls and boys who are not happy living within “this” community…I don’t doubt it….
It’s a pity they don’t actually discuss it with their parents in a nice way and allow for some “changes …you be surprised today how many understand that not everyone can adhere to the very strict rules and would give leeway instead of losing their child to the outside world and as seen by you ….to Yiddishkeit.
We love all our children. I am a grandmother with grandchildren…my friends are all of the same understanding as I am..
I wish you could have made a decision to go for all those things you wanted, like education….whatever it is that you wanted within the framework of yiddishkeit….because we all know, you can. You chose to go away out of rebellion to the Ribbono shel Oilem and for that you will have to pack cheshbon one day. It is between the One Above and you…nobody else. We still love you all the same. I have close family members in your shoes…We all have bechira when we are handed things that don’t seem to conform with our “feelings”. Life is tough and there are many challenges to handle. That is what Hashem wants of us and a time to test our faith. It is not random that he chose to put you into your family. Knowing your nature, it was something Hashem chose for you to see where you want to take all this….and you made your choice…however, it does not have to be permanent..Hashem is waiting for you…for me…for all of us …to do what he wants and what the Torah asks of us.
I love you, you are one of us…a loving yiddishe daughter of our NATION…and that will never change. You are welcome to come back whenever your seichel will dictate that your “kind of happiness and freedom” in the end…is no freedom at all.
Every freedom needs rules…otherwise it is not freedom, it is chaos!!!
Love you.

Weberman made our daughters into "zoines"

The horrifying saga of the Nechemya Weberman trial and the guilty verdict on 59 or 60 of the consolidated counts has caught the attention of the world.

If the allegations are true, as guilty verdicts tend to indicate, and as the existence of 11 other victims too fearful to step forward indicates, then what we have here is truly sickening.

We have a 12-year-old girl that did not quite meet the standards of the community around her. The school officials refused to admit her back into the school unless her parents pre-paid for therapy—to the tune of $12,900.

And then she suffers three years of horrifying abuse at the hands of the very “therapist” that the school had required her to meet with regularly. Imagine the pain of such a girl who must endure the sickest of acts—with the knowledge that no one would believe her if she told of what was being done to her.

The Navi cries out, “Bagda Yehuda v’soaivah ne’esasa b’Yisrael!” Our schools are named after our heilege imahos and avos. And the matriarch, Mama Rachel, is crying now. Of that there is no doubt.

Our schools have handed over these precious souls to monsters for abuse. And then, when they ultimately come forward, we vilify them and their families. We exclude them from our camps and our schools.

Hakezona ya’aseh es achoseini?

And this was aided and abetted by the kehilah leadership, rachmana litzlan! The kehilah leadership! Not even a brush full of the blackest of paint could put such horrors on a canvas!

Has there ever been such a parallel in our entire history?

During the reign of Nicholas the First, y’s, in Tsarist Russia, we had something close, when he initiated the heartless conscription of precious Jewish children for 25 years in the Russian army. The kehillah leadership selected the recruits. They were from the weakest of the weak, the young boys of defenseless widows. The kehillah had hired vicious people called, “khappers” who would do the vile deeds.

It was the Bubby of Yehuda Leib Katzenelson, who best related the dark history of this time, a history that finds parallel in our very own times now too:

“First I thought that the khappers could only be Plishtim or mizera Amalek. But no, my child, to my horror, to our great shame and horror, the khappers, all of the khappers were, in fact, Yidden. Yidden mit beard un payos! And that is our greatest problem. We Jews are accustomed to attacks, lies, libels, and evil decrees from anti-Semites, yes. This has happened from the dawn of time, and such is our lot in the galus. In the past, our enemies held a cross in one hand and a knife in the other and said, “Jew! Kiss the cross or feel the blade of the knife!” and Jews preferred death rather than conversion. But now there comes Yidden, fruma Yidden, who capture children and send them off to oblivion. Such a punishment was not even listed in the most horrible curses of the toychacha. Yidden spilling the blood of their brothers! And, rachmana litzlan, the rabbanim are silent!”

Her words, so poignant and so painful, describe the fate of this dear daughter of Williamsburg as well, who suffered not once but twice! Once at the hand of her tormentor and again at the hands of our community who so abandoned her.

The horrifying reality is that all this was brought about by the existence of a so-called “Vaad HaTzniyus!” Clearly, we need to do teshuvah. We need a teshuvah so profound and deep that it should shake the very mountains that surround us.

This op-ed does not mean to question the notion of an institution that watches over tzniyus within Torah communities. The need for an oversight committee to ensure that matters between the genders do not get out of hand is established both in the Talmud, the Shulchan Aruch, as well as in the codes and laws of numerous societies and nations throughout history.

What we are questioning, however, is how this particular Vaad HaTzniyus is staffed and operated. The revelations made in this trial and by various people who have been in touch with rabbanim as to their experiences are appalling.

It seems, unfortunately, that we have allowed this institution to run amok, staffed by corrupt individuals, who have lost all sense of propriety in what types of behaviors the Torah demands of us. The Weberman case reveals the tip of the iceberg in how low we have sunk in terms of corruption, extortion, and yes, violations of arayos.

If we look into the halachic sources, the officers of these organizations must be an extension of a beis din. It is sad to say that in this Vaad HaTzniyus, there is no affiliation whatsoever with the community beis din—they are gangs of self-appointed ruffians with little or no Torah training whatsoever, who use threats and intimidations to line their own pockets or to fulfill some psychological need to exert power over others. In short, the Williamsburg community must face up to what we have allowed to develop within our midst.

We have our own home-brewed mafia.

This mafia is not represented by poskim, rabbanim, or by batei dinim. Indeed, our Torah leaders are frightened to take a stand against their excesses. We need to take steps to remedy this situation, and we need to do so now.

Firstly, we must abolish the current organizations now and disenfranchise them from any power base that we can. The Vaad HaTzniyus organizations and everyone involved in them must be directly run by batei dinim and poskim. The beis din must have oversight over every individual involved in these activities and anything said and done must have the approval of qualified poskim.

Secondly, like in other areas of halacha, the beis din should have the ability to consult with trained experts in the medical, psychological, social work, and legal fields to assist and advise in their decision as to what is proper and appropriate. Violations of hilchos yichud with a 12-year-old girl is never appropriate, notwithstanding Mr. Weberman’s horrible and incorrect misrepresentation that hilchos yichud is not a Torah violation.

Thirdly, we cannot have the chillul Hashem of forcing clients, students, or others who may have stumbled to attend “therapy sessions” with non-professionals who happen to be our own family members. Therapists should only be of the same gender as the client, and must be unrelated to the one pushing the recommendation. As Torah Jews we must make every effort to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Here we have what appears to be gross and wholesale “scams.” The chilul Hashem that we have all witnessed here in the past two years is of a dimension never seen in our history.

And finally, we must end the culture of punishing those who come forward. The menahelim of the schools that refused admittance to family of those who came forward must be either removed from their positions or severely warned. They must be identified and told not to do so again. We must learn the lesson of this toeivah that happened in Klal Yisrael and make sure that it never happen again.

In the early 1850’s when the great gaon and tzaddik Rav Eliyahu Shik of Grodno found out about the kehillah’s involvement in the horrible reality of khapping yiddisher kinder, he called upon everyone to “revolt and rebel against the heads of the kehilah, to tear the kahal building to shreds.” He himself ran with an axe in his hand in front of the crowd that had gathered, each man armed with an axe. Before they were stopped they had broken the iron bolts on the door of the kahal building and freed the three young men that were held there.

Our reaction must be to immediately dissolve this Vaad HaTzniyus which forced Yiddishe girls into the hands of a monster. Their names should be recorded and never again must such people be put in charge of such grave matters of responsibility. A vaad of tzniyus must only be direct representatives of choshuvah and leading poskim well respected throughout the Torah world. And no matter who it may be, which meyuchasdika person, we must never forget the holy words of Chazal, “Ein apitropus l’arayos—no one, absolutely no one can be trusted alone in matters of arayos.”

Jewish Boy laid to rest!

- A grief-stricken Newtown began laying to rest the littlest victims of the school massacre, starting with two 6-year-old boys — one of them a big New York Giants fan, the other described as a whip-smart youngster whose twin sister survived the rampage.

Family, friends and townspeople streamed to two funeral homes to say goodbye to Jack Pinto, who might be buried in wide receiver Victor Cruz’s jersey, and Noah Pozner, who liked to figure out how things worked mechanically.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. and Sen.-elect Chris Murphy and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy are among those in attendance.

In front of the funeral home where relatives mourned Noah, well-wishers placed two teddy bears, a bouquet of white flowers and a single red rose at the base of an old maple tree. At Jack’s service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home.

“He was just a really lively, smart kid,” said Noah’s uncle Alexis Haller, of Woodinville, Wash. “He would have become a great man, I think. He would have grown up to be a great dad.”

Noah’s twin sister, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy by 20-year-old Adam Lanza that left 20 children and six adults dead last week at Sandy Hook Elementary School in an attack so horrifying that authorities could not when or even if the school would reopen.

Mourners leave after Noah Pozner's funeral December 17, 2012 at the Abraham L. Green and Son Funeral Home in Fairfield, Connecticut. Pozner, a six year-old Jewish boy who, along with 19 other classmates and 6 teachers was murdered by a lone gunman December 14 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  AFP PHOTO / Don EMMERT/VINNews.com  

Family of Noah Posner mourning their loss a day after Adam Lanza opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School killing 27 people, including 20 children. (Photo by Todd Maisel/NY Daily News via Getty Images/VINNews.com)

Noah Pozner

A woman leaves a funeral home before the service for Noah Pozner in Fairfield, Connecticut December 17, 2012. Pozner, 6, was the youngest victim of Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin

‘I WISH TO GOD’ CONNECTICUT PRINCIPAL HAD AN M4 ASSAULT RIFLE: Rep Gohmert

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) appeared on Fox News Sunday and one of the only voices appearing on any Sunday news show defending second amendment rights and advocating for a "more guns, less crime" policy in the wake of the multitude of politicians and media personalities calling for strict new restrictions on gun ownership rights.

Jewish 6-year-old youngest of Newtown shooting victims

A Jewish child was identified as the youngest of the 26 victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn.

First grade student Noah Pozner, the youngest of the victims murdered on Friday, had just turned 6 years old Nov. 20; he will be laid to rest on Sunday.

Israeli news site Ynet reported that Pozner's twin sister is also a student at Sandy Hook but survived the shooting.

Rabbi Shaul Praver of Temple Adath Israel in Newtown told NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon that he spent Friday -- which he termed "the day from Hell" -- consoling Pozner's mother, who is a member of the synagogue.

"I told the mother that was grieving that I personally believe in the eternity of the soul, and I believe that she will see her son again," Praver said. "Other than that theological comment, the rest of it was getting her to think about taking a breath and not trying to plan the rest of her life out right now, because she says, 'What am I going to do without my baby?'"

Praver was among the clergy, social workers and psychologists who arrived at a firehouse near the school where many of the victims and their families congregated after the shooting. On Saturday morning, Adath Israel held a community prayer service.

In response to the question of why such tragedies hapen, Praver replied: "I don't know the answer to that. I never try to present a theological answer to that. I think what's more important is to have compassion, humanity and hold someone's hand and hug them and cry with them."

Praver, who ended his NPR interview with a plea for listeners to pray for the families affected, also said that another friend of the congregation was killed.

Second Deadliest Shooting in American History, 27 Dead 18 are children

London Charedi Rabbis endorse Alleged Sex Abuser

the "tzaddik" R' Chaim Halpern

by Failed Messiah

Rabbi Chaim Halpern allegedly sexually abused several women he was counselling, some of who mustered up the courage to complain to the haredi rabbis who head Kedassia, the umbrella organization of primarily hasidic haredi rabbis.

Kedassia tried to cover up Halpern's crimes, but eventually brokered an agreement with him that saw him resigning from the beit din, religious court, he sat on and from other public leadership roles.

Those resignations were thought by many to be temporary, a fig leaf to stop the complaining women from cooperating with police.

Halpern was allowed to continue to run the synagogue and study hall located in the building where he lives, as well.

That caused a group of Golders Green haredi rabbis to isue their own letter against Halpern saying that Halpern was unfit to be a rabbi.

But hasidm are hasidim, and Kedassia chose to respond to that letter with this disgusting proclamation in support of a man they know to be an abuser.

Here is the letter:

Fishmonger Charged in Bleach Attack on Rosenberg

A Brooklyn fishmonger was charged by the police on Wednesday with throwing bleach in the face of a rabbi who is an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual abuse in the borough’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

The fishmonger, Meilech Schnitzler, 36, of Williamsburg, turned himself in to the 90th Precinct station house around 1 p.m., the police said.

Mr. Schnitzler, identified in state corporate filings as the chairman of the company that owns Schnitzler’s Famous Fish, is accused of tossing a cup of bleach at Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg while he was walking near Mr. Schnitzler’s store Tuesday. The bleach caused burns to Rabbi Rosenberg’s eyes and face and discoloration to his clothing, the police said.

Mr. Schnitzler was charged with felony assault, misdemeanor assault, menacing, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon, Officer James Duffy said.

Rabbi Rosenberg told the police that he recognized his assailant as Mr. Schnitzler, the son of a man he had accused on his blog and call-in line of being a molester. Mr. Schnitzler’s father has not been arrested in or charged with a crime. The rabbi and the Schnitzler family are part of the Satmar Hasidic community.

Rabbi Rosenberg said Mr. Schnitzler spit on the street in front of him about a year ago. He said of the bleach-throwing: “What exactly triggered him to do that, I have no idea.”

Calls to Mr. Schnitzler’s home and business were not answered on Wednesday afternoon.

Rabbi Rosenberg has been an outspoken critic of the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, accusing him of ignoring crime in the ultra-Orthodox community for financial and political benefit. He has also said that, in the past, acts of intimidation against him were not taken seriously by the prosecutor’s office.

The rabbi has asked Abe George, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney who announced his intention to run against Mr. Hynes for district attorney, to act as his lawyer. On Wednesday, Mr. George filed a request for a special prosecutor, arguing that Mr. Hynes’s history of being criticized by Rabbi Rosenberg constituted “a potential conflict of interest in this case.”

But Mr. Hynes said in a statement, “I will vigorously prosecute the defendant in this case, and nothing supports any compelling legal need for another venue or prosecutor.”

Rav Halpern from England may get away with sexually abusing women

After weeks of silence, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations has announced that it will convene a special rabbinic court to hear claims against one of its rabbis of inappropriate behaviour with women.

Rabbi Chaim Halpern resigned as a Union dayan and from other communal roles two weeks ago, after complaints about his counselling sessions for women, but continues to lead the synagogue he runs in his Golders Green home.

The Union — which has been under mounting criticism over its handling over the episode — issued a public notice on Tuesday.

It stated that the head of its rabbinate, Dayan Ephraim Padwa, was “in the process of setting up an independent Beis Din, consisting of prominent and renowned dayonim, to thoroughly investigate the allegations affecting one of our rabbonim”.

The Beth Din — which is likely to consist of three rabbis from Israel — will “hear testimony and examine evidence”, according to the notice. Its ruling would be binding on the Union’s rabbinate.

Until it delivered its verdict, Rabbi Padwa expressed the wish that “no further action nor declaration be made”.

But one north-west London rabbi, who is aware of the complaints, questioned the credibility of the Beth Din and whether any of the women involved would be willing to attend. “It is worth nothing,” he said. “It is going to be one-sided because no one will come to give evidence.”

Rabbis who have previously urged the Union to act “would not co-operate”, he predicted, because “they feel it is just a plan to whitewash”.

Rabbi Halpern relinquished his communal roles after attending a meeting at the home of former London Beth Din head Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu, when a group of six rabbis questioned him over the complaints and heard testimony directly from one young woman.

An associate of Rabbi Halpern — who is the son of Union president Rabbi Elchonon Halpern — has said that the rabbi denied the allegations.

Amid increasing strain between the Stamford Hill-based Union and some of its Golders Green members, it is understood that a wider group of north-west Londonrabbis is considering making public their concerns about Rabbi Halpern. So far they have held back pending efforts to get the backing of some Union rabbis.

But one rabbi has spoken out. Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, head of the Federation of Synagogues Beth Din, said that Rabbi Halpern had “crossed the red lines of accepted rabbinic behaviour” and was “unfit to serve as a rabbi”.

In a bizarre twist, Union leaders this week received an email purporting to come from an American psychologist, “Ahron Hersh Fried”, which cast doubt on the allegations against Rabbi Halpern and suggested that he would probably be cleared .

A senior Union figure suggested that the email be circulated to “relevant parties… maybe even to whoever can get it into the JC”.

But it appears that the email may be a hoax. Rabbi Aharon Hersh Fried is the name of a psychologist at Yeshiva University in New York and he has made it clear that he is not the author of the email sent to the Union.