Weberman's tiny victim took down a big monster!

Some things are worse even than dying.

The shy, pretty victim, now all of 18, summoned enough courage into her 100-pound body to stand up and face her tormentor yesterday in Brooklyn Supreme Court. For unrepentant monster Nechemya Weberman stole this young lady’s youth, her purity, her very identity.

And he wouldn’t dare look her in the face.

Weberman, the sadistic Satmar freak, savagely sexually abused the young girl for three years, burning her flesh with lighters and telling her she was human garbage. Yesterday, he slumped his gigantic girth into a courtroom chair, looking slightly annoyed, as a Brooklyn judge sentenced him to 103 years in prison.

He’ll likely die there, in the close company of his fellow scum of the earth.

It’s not enough.

His victim’s torment will never end.

She walked into the courtroom, petite and blonde, and spoke in a small voice. But her message rang out into the cheap seats, loud and clear.

She said, heartbreakingly, that the abuse she suffered at the hands of the ghoulish Weberman, 54, which began at age 12, was worse than cold-blooded murder.

For murder victims, the torment, mercifully, ends.

“Personally, I feel that the outcome of abuse is, in a way, far worse than murder,’’ she said, dissolving into tears.

“With murder, the person is dead and it is final. By abuse, the victim experiences death over and over. Again and again.’’

He stared at the table, at his hands, straight ahead. He wouldn’t look at her.

This young lady survived her near-destruction. “I would cover up the burn marks inflicted on my body he used to serve his sadistic pleasures,’’ she recounted.

In fact, she thrived — getting married and attending college classes, her husband said after court.

She had to make it. If only to make sure that this never happens again to another child.

As she spoke, the painfully young woman sounded wiser than her years, as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. She pressed on.

She pointed an accusing finger at her own Satmar community, whose leaders she told me last month resembled the “Jewish Taliban.’’

Her neighbors betrayed her, shunned her, threatened her. And now that she has left a home she loved, the harassment persists.

In a way, the abuse of strangers was even more brutal than that inflicted by the sick and twisted Weberman.

Because the Satmars knew she was a victim of torture by Weberman, who was sent to counsel the girl by her school after she questioned her religion.

And her people — my people — didn’t care about her.

To some in the Satmar realm, keeping Weberman happy, burying his dirty laundry, maiming a child, was easier than finding justice.

This young lady never set out to be a hero. Only to survive. But now, she has to keep going to help other abused children stand up to reprehensible perverts like Weberman.

“I really hope (and pray) that this case sets a precedent and will tell other victims: You have a voice, even if you think no one will believe you and even when you’re scared of being chased and crushed by your community.’’

To the very end, Weberman was defiant.

He declined to speak in his own defense. He didn’t apologize. He refused to as much as glance at his accuser. And his lawyer, George Farkas, continued spinning the fiction that Weberman was the victim of a made-up story.

As Weberman was taken away in handcuffs, one thing became clear. He won’t be out there, getting his hands on young ladies.

For that, we have to thank one young victim who dared cry out in pain.

Victim of Weberman's impact Statement: He Burned My Body"

The statement read by the sexual abuse victim in the Nechemya Weberman case:

Thank you Honorable Justice Ingram for your role during this trial (and beyond). A very special thank you to Assistant DA Kevin O’Donnell and the staff at the DA’s office for your endless hard work and sleepless nights through the trial in order to see justice served.

Standing here, I think back to those years throughout my ordeal where I suffered great psychological damage and fell into severe depression. I clearly remember how I would look in the mirror and see a person I didn’t recognize. I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at the age of 12. A girl who couldn’t look at her own reflection without feeling repulsed knowing what abuse that tortured person was continuously experiencing. A girl who couldn’t sleep at night because the horrifying images of the recent gruesome invasions which had been done to her body kept replaying in her head. A girl who numbed her feelings and froze her emotions every minute of every day in order to stay sane. A girl who was forced to lose any respect for herself. A girl who lost the right to say NO, to an abuser who used and abused her repeatedly for years that seemed like forever and ever. A sad girl who so badly wished she could have lived a normal young teenage life but instead was stuck being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to experience and perform sickening acts for his sick sense of pleasure again and again. I saw a girl who didn’t have a reason to live.

I would cover up the burn marks inflicted on the body he used to serve his sadistic pleasures. Every time I would look at it, I would get flashbacks and feel my body burning all over again. I would cry until my tears ran dry.

But now, with the help and support of sooooo many officials, family members, friends, supporters and of my dear husband, I finally stood up and spoke out. I gathered all my inner strength and courage to go through this battle. A battle of justice, to right in some small way the terrible wrong, to prevent further evil, to protect the innocent, and most of all, to heal. It continues to be a rough battle that brought me, my parents and my family great humiliation and intimidation, aggravation and rejection, strain and loss of business too great to describe. However, this same battle was one of righteousness. A battle that was the voice of other silent victims coming forward to bring this perpetrator to justice. Unfortunately, the others could not or would not publicly testify. Many were too scared to face the opposition and repercussions from the community while others had already passed the statute of limitations. But we were all one voice as they were with me in spirit. These others have identified themselves, sharing their painful story amidst a flow of familiar tears, while privately cheering me on for what they themselves were unable to follow through with.

I really hope (and pray) that this case sets a precedent and will tell other victims, “You have a voice even if you think no one will believe you and even when you’re so scared of being chased and crushed by your community.” Just know that you DO have supporters who will stand by you and ultimately truth will prevail and justice will be served. For religious Jews it is important to note that according to the leading authorities of Torah Law, bringing sexual predators to justice not only does not violate any law including the law of Messirah but is a great and proper thing to do.

Now when I look in the mirror and see my reflection, when I look at my body and see the burns, I can finally look and see past the pain. I can look and see some justice. I can see the other young girls who are now saved from going to and suffering from this monster. This trial prevented them from experiencing the horror I went through. I can finally look at my reflection and be happy that G-d gave me the strength to hold out and stand up for what is right. I can proudly say that even though I have suffered so much as a young girl but I somehow came out as a strong woman.

As for my abuser, how were you able to stand here and deny the torture of all these years? All the abuse and pain you inflicted? You played around with and destroyed lives as if they were your toys! As if they were yours to claim! This kind of physical, sexual and emotional abuse doesn’t just disappear in a vacuum. It takes years and years to heal, possibly to never fully recover. Personally, I feel that the outcome of abuse is in a way far worse than murder. With murder, the person is dead and it is final. By abuse, the victim experiences death over and over, again and again. The abused is never completely dead but instead keeps dying day in and day out with no end to the repeated dying.

Honorable Justice I would like to ask that when you proceed with the sentencing for the crimes committed by my abuser, that even though he will never have a sentence equivalent to the suffering he inflicted, without the slightest bit of mercy or regret, upon innocent, helpless and defenseless souls, that you have in mind to protect and have mercy on his many victims and to protect his potential victims from ever having the opportunity to hurt them. Thank you.

Weberman gets 103 Years, Video

 With her voice quivering and her slender body shaking, an Orthodox Jewish teen repeatedly violated and sexually tormented by her community counselor in Williamsburg, starting when she was just 12, bravely asked a judge  to bring this “monstrous perpetrator” to justice.

Judge John Ingram did not fail her, sentencing 54 year old Nechemya Weberman–a father of 10– to 103 years in state prison, noting of the beautiful, blonde victim “Her youth was taken away from her.”

The victim, now 18, stood just six feet from her convicted molester, as she emotionally recounted three years of being forced to perform sexually deviant acts in the counselor’s home office, which had 3 locks on the door. The girl was ordered into therapy in 6th grade, when she dared to question the strict dress code of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg.

Her parents paid Weberman $150 a session, and the girl testified instead of counseling her, he forced her to perform oral sex the first time she sought treatment.

The molestation escalated to include Weberman’s attempts at intercourse, the girl had testified.  She often attended counseling three days a week.

In a packed courtroom, the teen emotionally told the judge about the toll the abuse took on her:

“I think back to the years of my ordeal,” she said. “I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin, a girl who couldn’t sleep at night….when images of the gruesome invasion of her body kept playing in her head….performing sickening acts for his sick sense of pleasure.”

The girl had testified that Weberman had forced her to watch porn in his office and then copy what she’d seen on screen during their sessions.

The victim was not permitted to testify about one, specific form of sexual torture she attributed to Weberman and his porn fetish: his use of a lighter to drip burning fluid on her stomach, which left her with scars.  But she referenced that activity on Tuesday during sentencing.

The teen said “I feel the outcome of abuse is far worse than murder,” shortly after she had cried, as she demanded to know why Weberman won’t admit his crimes.

“How were you able to deny the abuse all these years?” the teen asked.  The girl noted other abused teens were afraid to come forward, adding “You treated us like toys that were yours to abuse.”

“Unfortunately, the others would not come forward,” she said. “But we were all one voice and they were with me in spirit.”

Assistant District Attorney, Kevin O’Donnell, pointed out to the court the severe repercussions suffered by the girl’s family, when they went to police instead of rabbinical authorities:  “She was treated like a piece of dirt, while the defendant was treated like a god.”

Weberman received dozens of letters of support from his family and community members hoping the judge would be lenient. But the prosecutor observed, “Doing good deeds and being a child molester are not mutually exclusive.”

Weberman’s defense attorney, George Farkas–who plans to appeal the conviction–told the court: “Nechemya Weberman is innocent of the crimes charged.”

When Weberman,  who unsuccessfully took the stand in his own defense, was given a chance to address the judge, he said just three words: “No, thank you.”

Judge Ingram noted how witnesses had been intimidated in this case and said, “This cannot be tolerated in a free society.”  He urged victims of abuse to report the crimes “to stop the sex predators.”

When Ingram sentenced Weberman to 103 years in prison–out of a possible 117 years he faced–the teen girl wept from a front row seat in the courtroom, her new husband by her side. The teen married several months before the trial began.

Her husband, Boorey D — who once owned a cafe in Williamsburg — told PIX11 News he was put out of business by Weberman’s Orthodox supporters, who took away his Kosher certification.

When PIX 11 asked Boorey how nervous his young wife was, before making her victim impact statement, he said: “Trust me, we didn’t sleep nights for this statement!  She’s brave. I respect her for everything she’s done.”

Nechemya Weberman was taken away in handcuffs, back to his prison cell.

The teen girl who faced him down in court will be resuming college classes–and working hard to put the ordeal behind her.

The girl’s family, meantime, has fled their home in Williamsburg, fearing community retaliation — because of the lengthy sentence Weberman received.

Satmar publishes kids comic book showing Israelis sending Orthodox Jews to Auschwitz death camp

Satmar gone crazy and evil! What is ironic ... is that his uncle, the first Satmar Rabbi was saved by the Zionists from the Nazis!

Israelis laughing as Jews are being shoved into cattle cars by the Nazis

Satmar, which is a fierce anti Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization, published a children’s comic book, which was distributed for free showing Israelis laughing while sending orthodox Jews to Auschwitz death camps, according to photos published on the internet.

The group published the book as their leader, Grand Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, is currently in Israel, teaching the public about the evils of Zionism.

Israel is holding national elections this week, which the Satmars view the participation in the elections as worse than rape and murder.

The

comic book shows Israelis beating Orthodox Jews, cutting off their side locks, ripping their tzitzit, taking away their skullcup and plotting their murders.

It paints Israeli doctors as kidnappers and killers of Orthodox Jewish children. One picture shows Israelis laughing while a ship with hundreds of orthodox Jews is sinking in the sea.

Ordinary Israelis were outraged after seeing this comic book. “This book is even worse than what the Nazis published,” one man told news reporters.

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the first Satmar Rebbe was saved from the Holocaust by a Zionist, Rudolph Kasztner, who Oskar Schindler of Schindler’s List fame called the bravest man he ever knew. Kasztner saved more Jews from the Holocaust than any other Jew was able to do.

Satmar has spent the past 68 years smearing Kasztner.

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum – whose anti-Zionist theology and behind-the-scenes attempts to scuttle Zionist outreach in Satmar and surrounding areas eventually cost hundreds of Jews their lives – refused to thank Kasztner for rescuing him or even acknowledge that he had been rescued by Kasztner.

Rabbi Teitelbaum went to his grave 35 years after being rescued without ever saying anything positive about Kasztner, Zionists or the State of Israel.

Israelis cutting off the side locks of an Orthodox Jewish boy

Satmar Rebbe says voting in Israeli elections forbidden according to Torah but taking your brother to gentile court is ok!

The Torah explicitly prohibits a Jew to take another Jew to a gentile court in Parshas Mishpatim; no where in the Torah says that it is prohibited to vote in the Israeli elections, yet here we have a leader of thousands of Jews mis-leading his naive flock.. The Rebbe have been in the gentile courts for years fighting about millions of dollars of valuable real estate...

Weberman slept and abused married women .. Daily News investigation

The unlicensed Hasidic counselor slated to be sentenced Tuesday for sexually abusing a Brooklyn girl, violated at least 10 others — including teens and married women he counseled, a Daily News investigation revealed.

She wasn't the only one.

Nechemya Weberman, the unlicensed Hasidic counselor slated to be sentenced Tuesday for sexually abusing a Brooklyn girl, violated at least 10 others — including teens and married women he counseled, a Daily News investigation revealed.

The self-proclaimed religious adviser even invoked Kabbalah — a form of Jewish mysticism — to convince his victims that having sex with him was kosher.

“He’s a monster,” said a man whose daughter was repeatedly brutalized by Weberman a couple of years before the victim at trial came forward.

The beautiful, 18-year-old Brooklyn woman testified how Weberman, 54, touched her private parts, forced her to perform oral sex and ordered her to reenact porn during a three-year period that started when she was only 12. The disgraced Satmar counselor was convicted of all 59 counts against him last month.

Other women who were sexually abused by Weberman refused to speak publicly for fear of retribution. But those close to them described a pattern of nurturing and grooming where he would shower outcast teens with attention, take them on road trips — and even buy them lingerie.

He told one young victim, “That ‘I learned Kabbalah and we were a couple in another incarnation,’ ” said a friend of the woman.

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, who runs a Jewish youth program, said he was told by victims Weberman used the Kabbalah line on them too.

“The intimate acts he was performing were intended as a form of repentance for sins committed in their previous lifetimes,” said Horowitz.

He would tell teens who had been deemed troublemakers for being immodest, “No one will ever believe messed-up kids like them,” said Horowitz.

“A master manipulator,” said Rhonnie Jaus, chief of the sex crimes division at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.

Weberman used women’s lowly standing in the ultra-Orthodox community to prey on the vulnerable, sources said.

“He is probably the only male who has ever given them the time of day and listened to them,” said a law enforcement source. “He had a huge amount of psychological hold over them.”

The father who spoke to The News about his daughter’s ordeal refused to give details about what was done to her, but other sources said her experience was similar to the sick deviations described by the victim at trial.

“Not only the sexual abuse,” the father said, “but the psychological abuse. . . . Why?”

He said his strong religious beliefs kept him from reporting Weberman when he heard of the attacks.

The father was assured that Weberman would stop counseling girls — and was shocked when charges were lodged against the counselor in February 2011.

The News found five additional people who said they were aware of Weberman’s misconduct years before he was arrested.

The criminal case finally came about, sources said, after the victim was told by friends that her adviser “was a known pervert.”

“It’s a common occurrence in cases we deal with,” said Kevin O’Donnell, the lead prosecutor in the case. “Kids can compartmentalize, justify, somehow live with their own abuse and most of them think it’s happening to them only and nobody else.”

He added that hearing of other victims “frequently prompts someone to come forward.”

No other alleged victim has been willing to press charges against Weberman — out of fear of being ostracized or because the statute of limitation had expired.

“It’s very difficult to go with only one victim. We always want to have more than one victim,” Jaus said. “And when you know there are more out there, it is hard, very hard . . . but you do the best you can.”

Prosecutors have stated in court they are aware of four married women and two underaged girls who were bedded by Weberman. The News has since found four more.

The prosecution attempted at trial to have the jury hear from other Weberman victims — including a woman who had sexual relations with him while he was her marriage counselor. She refused to speak with The News.

Weberman, who is facing 117 years in prison, declined to meet a reporter at the Manhattan lockup where he’s being held.

His defense team — which vowed to appeal — also complained about being precluded from presenting certain evidence.

“I don’t think they have other victims,” defense lawyer Michael Farkas said of prosecutors after the trial ended.

“A lot of people were willing to give them information and I am very suspicious [of that information].”

The list of victims identified by prosecutors and found by The News includes at least four married women now ranging in age from their 20s to their 40s — three of whom he counseled. The other lived in his building.

The other six victims are not married, but all of them went to him initially for counseling.

One of the witnesses the defense called to the stand was a runaway who ended up living in Weberman’s office for three years. She denied any inappropriate behavior on his part, even when grilled by prosecutors about getting caught in a compromising position with him.

“He still has her in his grip,” said a friend of hers.

Would-be assassin aims gun at Bulgarian opposition leader's head and pulls the trigger, Video

A Bulgarian politician today survived an extraordinary assassination attempt when a man stormed the stage and held a gun to his head as he was giving a speech. Fortunately for Ahmed Dogan, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the weapon misfired giving him time to react and hit the would-be assassin's hand out of the way. Before he could attempt a second shot the unidentified suspect was tackled to the ground by security guards and delegates attending the conference in Sofia. Television footage showed the man jumping out of the audience and interrupting a speech by 58-year-old Dogan, who has led the party for almost a quarter of a century. In a split second, he raises the gun to Mr Dogan's head but it appeared to misfire. The politician then knocked the gun away and fell to the floor as he attempted to flee. Security guards and delegates rushed onto the stage where they wrestled the attacker to the ground. A separate group surrounded a shocked Mr Dogan in a protective shield. Politicians then appeared from the audience and begin rained blows on the suspect as he was pinned to the ground. He was later pictured being taken away by police bloodied and bruised. 'Ahmed Dogan is in good health. Everything is under control,' Movement for Rights and Freedoms official Ceyhan Ibryamov told journalists. Police said they arrested a 25-year-old man from the Black Sea town of Burgas who was also carrying two knives. The liberal MRF party represents ethnic Turks and other Muslims who make up about 12 per cent of Bulgaria's 7.3 million-strong population. Dogan is seen as one of Balkan country's most influential political figures. Two years ago he was acquitted after a high-profile corruption trial into payments he received as a consultant for a hydro power project. The MRF was a junior partner in the previous Socialist-led cabinet before switching to the opposition following the 2009 elections. In 1996, former Prime Minister Andrei Lukanov was found shot dead near his home in Sofia, though attacks on politicians are rare.

Turner admits to anal and oral sex with a 14 year old but gets no prison!

Two members of Rockland’s Orthodox Jewish community have pleaded guilty to charges of sexually abusing children, heartening children protection advocates who have been pushing for increased awareness and prosecutions of such cases. A third man is facing pre-trial hearings in County Court. A 58-year-old Monsey man admitted in court Friday that he had anal sex with a 14-year-old boy. The admission came after a judge promised the man a sentence of 10 years’ probation to spare the child from having to testify. Moishe Turner of 5 Dana Road, a heavy-set man with a long beard streaked with gray, had been accused of having anal and oral sex with the boy on seven occasions during July 2011.
Turner was the second person who avoided incarceration this week by pleading guilty to a sexual crime involving a child. He’s been free on $75,000 bail and awaits sentencing March 19. Herschel Taubenfeld, 33, once a teacher in the New Square Hasidic community, admitted forcible touching a young boy during 2011. The admission came in exchange for six years’ probation on a misdemeanor charge handled in New Square Justice Court. Taubenfeld originally had been charged in December 2011 with with 10 counts of forcible touching, 10 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and 10 counts of third-degree sex abuse, all misdemeanors .
Another man, Dovid Kohn of Monsey, 59, faces 40 criminal counts of having oral sex with a girl when she was between 12 and 15. Kohn is currently challenging telephone conversations between him and the girl taped by police as inaudible at pretrial hearings in Rockland County Court. Prosecutors and Ramapo police said the girl, now in her 20s, remains a witness in the case. Shmuel Dym, 32, of Monsey is fighting his guilty plea to sexually molesting a boy. Supreme Court Justice William Kelly has twice turned down Dym’s request to withdraw his guilty plea.

"The epidemic of child-molestation threatens an entire generation of children,” said Monsey-based Rabbi Noson Leiter, founder of Help Rescue Our Children. “Many of these molesters are arrogant, narcissistic, deceptive, and downright evil. Even though some of them appear unable to control themselves, that is because of choices they repeatedly and intentionally made.” The increased prosecution of sex attacks on children within the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox community has been welcomed by advocates for children. The advocates said police and prosecutors are just skimming the surface, arguing there are unreported sexual attacks on children.Leiter, a leader of Torah Jews for Decency in Monsey, said Taubenfeld’s guilty plea “is a trail-bl azing case — the first in which a survivor from within New Square prosecuted a molester within the community.” He said he hopes other families will find the strength to come forward and fight off community pressure not to report sexual abuse. He praised the Ramapo police for their efforts when told about children being abused. "Taubenfeld's own admission to molestation charges also confirms that current New Square leadership who clearly failed to stop this vile, manipulative ‘educator’ and is unqualified to deal with the molestation crisis,” Leiter said. 
Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said the religious community has been more open with police and prosecutors. He said historically the major issue confronting law enforcement was the “insular community often protected the accused at the expense of the victims.”
Zugibe said he was encouraged by the Taubenfeld case. He said families in the religious community have “recognized finally that if you protect the victims all you are doing is creating a new generation of offenders and victims.”
“In the latest cases, particularly Taubenfeld, I have to credit the community for being more forthcoming,” Zugibe said. “We have a long way to go. I am hopeful this is a new trend.”
Families face being kicked out of the religious community and having their children denied schooling and services.
The family of the boy abused by Turner faced pressure from the community leaders to drop out of the case, authorities said.

Turner faced seven years in state prison under the felony charge. The case was down for a pretrial hearing with Ramapo Detectives Peg Braddock and Robert Fitzgerald ready to testifyProsecutor Jennifer Parietti said Friday in court that Zugibe approved the no-prison sentence for Turner She told Kelly that she supported the sentence “to spare this victim the difficulties of the trial.”
“The victim is under tremendous pressure,” she said. “This plea will relieve that.”
Turner admitted he had anal sex with the boy under questioning from Parietti in July 2011. He admitted he knew the boy was 14, making him incapable of consent under the law.
Turner’s lawyer, former District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, said after court that he’s not aware of any rabbi or religious community leader putting pressure of the boy or his family.
“Our hope is the victim can go on with his life,” Gribetz said. “There was no pressure from the community. I think justice will be served. Our client is very sorry and he’s happy to put this behind him.”
Turner, who prayed before court, doesn’t speak fluent English. He speaks Yiddish and needed a translator to tell him what was being discussed in court and for his responses.
Kelly and Gribetz made sure Turner agreed he was voluntarily pleading guilty to the charges and signed a waiver giving up his right to appeal.

Journal News "Cowards" remove Gun Owner Data

New York - New York’s new gun control law may be the nation’s toughest, but it also includes broad new privacy provisions allowing would-be gun owners to shield their identities from reporters and the public.

It is part of the swift reaction to a suburban New York City newspaper’s publication last month of an interactive map with the names and addresses of thousands of permit holders. The Journal News defended its publication of public records, but it was inundated with complaints and even threats, and on Friday the newspaper pulled the information from its website.

“I am personally grateful that the Journal News will never be able to do something as dangerous and idiotic as this again,” said Republican state Sen. Greg Ball, who helped draft the provision.

The provision allows handgun permit applicants to ask that their personal information be kept secret for any of several reasons: if they are police officers, witnessed a crime, served on a jury in a criminal case or are victims of domestic violence. More vaguely, they can claim that they fear for their safety or they might be subjected to unwanted harassment.

Permit holders can also ask that their personal information from previous applications be withdrawn from the public record, for the same reasons.

Claiming the possibility of harassment is “a little bit of a stretch,” said Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association. “It just makes it really easy for anyone to opt out without really giving a particularly strong reason.”

Journal News Media Group publisher Janet Hasson said she too was disappointed with the broad nature of the provision. In a statement after the newspaper took the gun permit names and addresses down, she said the new law didn’t require the removal but “we believe that doing so complies with its spirit.” The interactive map had been viewed more than 1.2 million times since it was posted Dec. 23.

Hasson wrote that the decision to remove the names “is not a concession to critics that no value was served by the posting of the map in the first place.”

“Nor is our decision made because we were intimidated by those who threatened the safety of our staffers,” she said. “We know our business is a controversial one, and we do not cower.”

The Journal News published the gun permit information in Westchester and Rockland counties to accompany an article titled “The Gun Owner Next Door: What You Don’t Know About the Weapons in Your Neighborhood” as part of the newspaper’s coverage following the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

While news and free-speech advocates bemoaned the new law as a restriction on public records, the fallout from the Journal News case also has prompted a vigorous discussion among media organizations about whether to publish such information and how to do it. Media columnists at The New York Times and the Poynter Institute, for example, criticized the Journal News for not putting more context to the personal information. Some have suggested the same public data could have been used to create a map showing handgun permits by ZIP code or city block without revealing specific names and addresses.

“Was the publication of names and addresses with an interactive map newsworthy and beneficial to the public? In the eyes of many that was not necessarily the case,” said Robert Freeman, executive director of the Committee on Open Government.

After the map was posted, gun-rights activists complained that permit owners were being stigmatized, almost like sex criminals, for following the legal requirements of handgun ownership. And they felt the map could guide burglars to their homes. Police groups said the map could lead ex-convicts to the homes of the officers who had put them away.

Opponents of the release of the information retaliated by posting the addresses of some Journal News staffers online, and threats were phoned in and suspicious packages delivered. The newspaper eventually posted armed guards at its offices but did not remove the handgun-permit data from the website until Friday, after it had been seen almost 1.2 million times.

“While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit,” Hasson said.

The controversy even prompted legislation 1,000 miles away. Mississippi state Sen. Will Longwitz said that because of the Journal News piece, he will file a bill to exempt concealed-weapon permits from that state’s public records act.

As criticism grew, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was pushing for a new state gun control law, also in response to the Newtown massacre. He fast-tracked the legislation, saying it had to move quickly to prevent a buying spree of guns that would be outlawed.

When Ball and others insisted on the privacy provision, there was little opposition. One exception was Democrat Thomas Abinanti, who called it an assault on the First Amendment.

“The only way to control government is to know what it’s doing,” Abinanti said. “Now we are going to make these gun permits secret.”

Abinanti said Friday that “legislators and good-government groups and editorials are now waking up to what happened.” He said he expects the Legislature to consider a “cleanup amendment.”

In the meantime, Freeman, from the Committee on Open Government, said the Journal News case offers a reminder to news organizations of what he called “the Aretha Franklin principle.” It’s based on the scene in “The Blues Brothers” movie where Franklin sings “You Better Think.”

“We have to think it through,” he said. “What are the ramifications of our potential actions?”

Black Orthodox Jews .... an Essay & Photos

Nechemyah Davis

The ad, plastered in the subway in the sixties, showed an African-American boy eating a rye sandwich: YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO LOVE LEVY'S. If you were black, in other words, you weren’t Jewish. And to be black and Orthodox—that would mean encountering disbelief at your very existence.

Estimates for the number of black Jews in the U.S. vary wildly, from 20,000 to more than 150,000, with some experts saying the population is too small to accurately measure. But MaNishtana Rison, who has become a prominent voice for Jews of color thanks to his advocacy work and dating website, estimates there are probably only 50 or 60 blacks among the roughly 500,000 Orthodox in Greater New York. “For the most part, we know each other,” Rison says. “It’s what we call Jewish geography—even if we’ve never met, we at least know someone in common.”

Wayne Lawrence became interested in photographing black Jews after he moved to Crown Heights, where memories still linger of the 1991 riots, and noticed a few black Orthodox living up the street. “It’s not that they identify as black Jews, but the fact that they identify as Orthodox,” he says. “What was surprising to me is that they’d want to be a part of something that didn’t necessarily want them there.”

The men and women he photographed included converts and some born into the faith, some of them Lubavitchers, some who call themselves Hasidic, and others who simply say Orthodox or “observant.” “You have to admire their courage,” he says. “They’re just trying to carve out their own space.”

Nechemyah Davis
Twenty years ago, the hotbed of Brooklyn racism was Crown Heights. I tell my friends to try to educate their children so they know G-d created all kinds of people. My hope is that by talking about it, eventually a person who looks across the subway platform and sees a black guy in a hat withpeyas will think, Maybe he’s not Amish. But we’ll never stop being black. It’s who we are. It can get tiring, but being black and Jewish for us is the ultimate test of how to be righteous. It’s a jungle out there.

Because I converted, my experiences can really set me apart. I was at a friend’s house and happened to mention a bikini, and one of the girls there didn’t know what that was. Part of me was thinking,That’s beautiful, she’s so modest. But the other part was thinking, How blind can you be?

MaNishTana  Rison

Gulienne-Rollins Rishon

Gulienne Rollins-Rison & Manishtana Rison Gulienne: For a while, I thought of myself as ethnically Jewish. I’m biracial, and in middle school people started to ask: “What are you?”
Manishtana: I always knew the person I’d marry would be black and Jewish. My friends would always tease me about how I was holding out for this mythical black Jewish woman. 
Gulienne: As a Jew of color, you’re this mythical creature that supposedly doesn’t exist. He’s been writing a book about his life that’s going to be called Thoughts From a Unicorn.
Manishtana: For better or for worse, I never clicked with the Jewish community. I’ve always felt more at home in the African-American or Caribbean community. I went to synagogue for fifteen years with the same kids, but on the street they’d walk past me. For Jews, there’s this sense that we’re the chosen people, so we think we’re better than you. But when a person’s faced with someone they assume is of a lower rung and then they realize that person is also Jewish, it means they’re also chosen. I think that can be really unsettling. I’ve known a couple of Jews of color who’ve converted, who told me the rabbi said they would no longer need to worry about being black because now they’re Jewish. 
Gulienne: I grew up pretty entitled to my Judaism—everyone knew my family or me. In college sometimes it was different—I’d go into Judaica shops, and the person working there would be like, “Oh, do you know how to use that?”

Zehava Bracha & Baruch Arky

Zehava Bracha Arky & Baruch Arky
Zehava: I obviously look different from a lot of people in our community. Before I got married, when people would try to set me up, they would often set me up with another Jew of color, without considering if we might have anything else in common.
Baruch: I don’t think that people relate to us as an interracial couple. We’re both Jewish, and that seems to speak louder than color.
Zehava: My father was raised Muslim, and my mother was raised Christian. A friend suggested I go to Chabad, so I went for Shabbes dinner and then to shul. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it was so interesting and deep. I realized that all the spiritual ideas I already had, which I had thought were just my own, were also a part of Judaism.

Joseph David Savoy
I come from a very dysfunctional family. My dad killed his stepfather and then served four years in prison. I was born in controversy—like in the Bible when Jacob married two sisters, my dad impregnated two sisters. People feel it’s extreme to be Hasidic, but I just think, Are you kidding me?Considering what I was born into, it’s pretty normal. It gives me structure and focus and order. I feel at peace finally after all these years.

I moved to New York in 2007, and in Crown Heights the Jewish community has been wonderful. But from African-Americans, every day I get looks and stares. I’ve had people yell “Heil Hitler.” One guy threatened to stab me. If there are people behind me and I turn around, they’ll literally jump like they’ve seen a ghost.

Joseph David Savoy

Satmar Rebbi, R' Zalman Teitelbaum in effort to shut down business of Weberman's victim's father!

The Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum went to the offices of a new company, The Jewish Phonebook, meant to destroy the existing phone directory business of the father of the victim of convicted pedophile Rabbi Nechemya Weberman. In an unusual show of support, Teitelbaum put up the office mezuzah:

by FailedMessiah