Chief Rabbinate declares validity of conversions by "Voyeurer Rebbe"

Voyeuer Rebbe heading to the Mikvah with his Rebbeshe shirt

B"H "Geloibt ze-Gut" thank G-d for that, otherwise we would have massive problems... Many Rabbonim are found to be frauds years later, so are we going to invalidate their prior conversions? "Ein L'dovor Soif" this would be a catastrophe C"V..

The Chief Rabbinate declared that any converts who converted under the auspices of US Orthodox Rabbi Barry Freundel, who was arrested earlier this week and charged with voyeurism, remain entirely valid.

The decision comes following a report on Monday that the rabbinate was reviewing the status of such converts because of the revelations about Freundel, but this has now been denied.

The rabbi is accused of clandestinely filming women showering in the synagogue’s mikveh.

According to the allegations, Freundel spied on women in the mikvah at least since 2012, according to documents filed in Washington Superior Court. He allegedly hid a camera in a clock radio and installed it in the shower area of the mikvah.

Freunel denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

Under certain conditions in Jewish law, if a rabbi on a conversion court is deemed to be unobservant of Jewish law then his conversions might be invalid.

But on Tuesday, the Chief Rabbinate said categorically that there was no question over Freundel's converts.

"After thoroughly reviewing the various aspects of Jewish law on the issue, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel now announces that past conversions of Rabbi Freundel will not be affected by recent events," said the chief rabbinate's spokesman Ziv Maor.

Maor emphasised that "anyone who goes to a local rabbinate in Israel with a conversion certificate signed by Freundel is not expected to face any special problems whatsoever."

It was Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef who took the decision.

Maor noted however that any conversions conducted by Freundel in the future would not be acknowledged by the chief rabbinate.

On Monday, the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest modern Orthodox rabbinical association in the US of which Freundel was a member and a member of its executive committee, ruled that his conversions were valid and that converts who converted with him "remain Jewish in all respects."

Rabbi Seth Farber, director of the ITIM religious services advisory and lobbying group, welcomed the decision having previously held concerns that the chief rabbinate would not follow the RCA's lead.

"I am gratified that the chief rabbinate has learned from its past mistakes and has reassured those who converted that their status is assured," said Farber. "I hope that the rabbinate will use this as an opportunity to review other conversions which they have in the recent past dismissed."

JTA contributed to this repor

Hiker describes how Frum girl IAF Pilot died in Blizzard in Nepal

Tamar Ariel A"H

An Israeli backpacker that survived a snowstorm on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal almost a week ago recalls the loss of three Israeli hikers and their fight to survive.

Eitan Idan was one of the Israeli survivors of the storm, which took the lives of Nadav Shoham, Tamar Ariel, Agam Luria and Michal Cherkasky, reports the Times of Israel (http://bit.ly/1oq2B61 ).

Idan said Ariel, 25, and the first female Orthodox combat navigator in the Israeli Air Force, was exhausted by helping other hikers and reached the point where she could not walk. Shoham helped Ariel by picking her up as she fell over and over again into the snow.

“I remember that Nadav didn’t stop; he kept on catching her. She fell, and he caught her, and she fell, and I’m helping him from the front, and you reach a point where you closely follow the person clearing the snow from the path so as not to waste your own strength clearing it,” said Idan.

The group of Israeli hikers were following a French group of backpackers who had a GPS unit, however, because of Ariel’s exhaustion, they were not able to keep up with them and soon lost site of the group.

Idan said he made the decision to leave Ariel because he knew they wouldn’t be able to continue with her. In that moment, Idan said, “it was clear to me that if we stay, we die.”

He recalled Ariel’s strength in trying to keep moving forward even through severe exhaustion.

“The whole time it was difficult for her, and she fought and even pressed on,” he said, “far more than any other person would have continued, which revealed her strength.”

Idan and another hiker, Shani, made it through the night, but Shoham had frozen to death overnight.

Approximately 40 people hikers, including those from Canada, India, Israel, Slovakia, Poland and Japan, died in the blizzards in the Himalayas last week. Nepalese officials rescued 407 people total, 226 of them foreigners.

Information taken from Times of Israel

Chareidim riot in Yerushalyim like the Shvartzes in Ferguson

"Women of the Wall" campaign posters encouraging girls to celebrate their bat mitzvah with "WOW" seen being posted on public transportation buses in Jerusalem. October 12, 2014.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they should put these ads on buses that pass thru Chareidie neighborhoods, but to riot? And damage properties? What are these guys teaching their children?

 Dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews hurled stones and slashed the tires of buses bearing ads promoting female worship at a key Jerusalem holy site, Israeli police said Tuesday.

The attack, which happened on Monday night in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood, underscores the still simmering tensions in Israel over religious extremists who want to separate the sexes in public spaces.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police units were dispatched to quell the violence in Mea Shearim where about 50 men slashed tires and pelted the buses with stones.

The ads were posted by the group Women of the Wall, 

which seeks to achieve gender equality at the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray. The advertisements showed girls and women wearing prayer shawls and holding a Torah scroll - rituals seen by many Orthodox Jews as reserved for men only.

Video footage on the YNet news site showed the words “end the obscene pictures” spray-painted on a bus.

The ads aimed to promote Bat Mitzvah ceremonies for girls at the Western Wall. The coming-of-age ceremonies for girls are only allowed to be held at a nearby prayer site, designated for worshippers who don’t follow the Orthodox tradition adhered to at the main area of the Western Wall.

For boys, Bar Mitzvah ceremonies are held at the main Wall area. The Women of the Wall does not consider the nearby area an appropriate worship site.

“This is only about gender roles and discrimination against women and the image of women,” said Shira Pruce, a spokeswoman for Women of the Wall. “If those were boys in the ads, this would not be a news story.”

Many ultra-Orthodox oppose the Women of the Wall’s struggle for rights to equal worship at the Western Wall and view the group as provocative. The women have endured arrest, heckling and legal battles in their struggle to worship at the Wall as men do.

The extremists have faced criticism in recent years from Israel’s predominantly secular society, which has complained about attempts to ban mixing of the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces. Ultra-Orthodox have defaced posters and billboards bearing photos of women, which they consider immodest.

A court last year decided that the women should be permitted to pray as they choose but the Women of the Wall says it is still prevented from worshipping with a Torah scroll at the Wall.

About half of the Women of the Wall ads, which have run on dozens of buses since the campaign began on Oct. 12, have been vandalized, Pruce said, citing the company that handles the advertisements. The ad campaign was the group’s first and it had no role in deciding what routes the ads would run, Pruce said.

The religious practice at the Western Wall follows Orthodox traditions, meaning wearing skullcaps and prayer shawls and reading from Torah scrolls is reserved exclusively for men.

By contrast, the more liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, the largest denominations in the United States which are marginal in Israel, allow women to wear prayer shawls, be ordained as rabbis, lead services and read from the Torah.

Will Tzippy Livni leave the Coalition? Netanyahu opposes her "Conversion" Bill that would allow Reform Rabbis to Convert Geirim!

Tzippy "the bitch" Livni, never met an Arab that she didn't love. It's high time for her to leave the coalition and crawl  back to the  Gaza tunnels!

She is the architect for calling for the uprooting of communities in Judea and Samaria.

Tzippi with Abbas

Now, let's see if she actually does what she threatened! 

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has announced that he opposes the Conversion Bill sponsored by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and her Hatnua party, and that he supports the hareidi position regarding conversions, reported Amit Segal on Channel 2 Monday.

After months in which heavy pressure against the bill was brought to bear by hareidi factions, elements in the Jewish Home and the chief rabbis, Netanyahu decided to remove the bill that was sponsored by MK Elazar Stern (Hatnua) from the agenda of the next government session.

Netanyahu reportedly told the heads of the coalition factions that if the law comes up for a vote as a privately sponsored bill, he will make sure it does not pass.

If the report is accurate, Netanyahu's decision could lead to a coalition crisis, since 

Livni has threatened in the past that she will bolt the coalitionwith her party if the law is not advanced.

The bill would allow the rabbi of any city to open a religious court for conversion – thus ending the Chief Rabbinate's control of the conversion mechanism. 

The Jewish Home demands – along with the Chief Rabbis – that only a rabbi who is recognized as being capable of acting as a dayan (religious court judge) or one who has been approved for performing conversion by the Chief Rabbinate will be able to open a beit din for conversion.

"In the face of the wave of anti-Jewish legislation, we will take action to strengthen the Jewish identity of the state of Israel,” Jewish Home Head Naftali Bennett told his faction's MKs several months ago.

Beit Shemesh politicians present plan to divide city in half, FINALLY!

Finally! They are coming "tzim seichal" ...(they are finally getting smart).   The Non-Chareidim work their tuchess' off, place their children in the IDF, pay taxes and they have absolutely no say in governing their own city! This is asinine! It gets worse, the Chareidim throw stones on the their Non-Charidie neighbors that are in the army, and spit on their little girls on the way to school!
I would also erect a huge wall dividing the city.
Read the following Jerusalem Post Report!

Eight members of the City Council in Beit Shemesh have drawn up preliminary proposals to divide the community between its haredi and non-haredi neighborhoods and create two municipal authorities.

Beit Shemesh resident and Yesh Atid MK Rabbi Dov Lipman presented the proposals to Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Sunday.

Beit Shemesh has been a center of intercommunal fighting between haredi and non-haredi residents in recent years as the two communities have clashed over the allocation of municipal resources, the expansion of the city, and a general cultural confrontation.

Local elections in the city in October 2013, won by incumbent mayor Moshe Abutbul of Shas, were found by the courts to have been unduly perverted by haredi activists. Repeat elections were held in March in which Abutbul prevailed by a narrow margin.

According to eight of the nine members of the opposition within the Beit Shemesh municipal council who now advocate splitting the city, Abutbul and his administration has refused to bring them into the coalition.

Shortly after the vote, Eli Cohen, who lost the mayoral election to Abutbul, along with leaders of the other non-haredi parties, presented a document setting out the basis on which they would agree to join Abutbul’s coalition.

The document stipulated that plans for the expansion of the city be revised to ensure construction for the non-haredi sector, requested that neighborhood administrations be established and given their own budgets, and that the administration for the Old Beit Shemesh district be entrusted to a non-haredi representative.

In addition, they requested a cultural center, sports center and library whose construction has suffered from extensive delays be completed along with other municipal amenities but did not make any demands for administrative portfolios, the party leaders emphasized.

Cohen and other non-haredi leaders argue that their requests have been ignored and Abutbul has not worked to include them in running the city.

“We wanted to build a model for cooperation in this city, but it hasn’t happened,” Cohen told The Jerusalem Post.

We weren’t the ones to build a separation wall in a school, it was the municipal administration, and it was the municipal administration which refused to include the opposition in the running of the city.

“We have set principles for cooperation, but they have been rejected. There is no option now but to divide the city, because there is a complete chasm in the perspective of how to run the city. The haredim are building a haredi city without care for the city’s diverse and multi-cultural nature.”

Lipman, who came to public prominence campaigning against the haredi municipal administration, said basic services have not been provided to the city’s non-haredi community for years, and mentioned the failure to build the cultural center, library, soccer field or city swimming pool, as well as the designation of “tens of thousands of housing units” for the haredi population.

“As a resident of the city and one of the leaders in the battle against religious extremism in the city, I have come to the sad conclusion that the only way to save the city is to think out of the box,” he said. “Given the direction which the city leadership has chosen, coexistence is not a possibility, and separate municipalities is the only way to insure that the city survives and that all residents have all of their needs met.”

A request for comment from Abutbul’s spokesman was not received by press time.

A Giyores that the Voyeur' Rebbi Converted, Speaks Up!

A bill of rights for Jewish converts

BETHANY S. MANDEL OCTOBER 20, 2014, 2:51 PM

​ [Israel Time]​

I am one of Rabbi Barry Freundel’s converts. He was my sponsoring rabbi and is the first signature on my RCA conversion documents. For a long time, I’ve been angry about my conversion, conversion in general and how I have been treated in the Jewish community post-conversion. I’ve been hesitant to speak out because I was afraid of rocking the boat, which holds not only myself, but also my husband and child(ren). Given this scandal, which has rocked my whole world, including my conversion boat, I’m no longer afraid to speak my mind.

Much of what is written about conversion is from the perspective of born-Jews and rabbis. Few converts are willing to speak out. We are afraid. We are victimized. We are threatened and judged. Which is why I’ve decided to make for myself and other converts a Bill of Rights. These are the things I deserved during my conversion and deserve now, afterwards, but have been too afraid to demand.

1. Converts are in a state of persistent limbo. During the process we are never told how long it can or should take. We cannot get married if we are dating, we cannot date if we are single. We lose control over the most important choices in our lives and hand them over to men with whom we are unfamiliar for an indeterminate amount of time. I was unable to give a new job a start date, to give my former job proper notice, sign a lease on a new apartment or set a wedding date because I was kept in the dark about how much longer my conversion could possibly take. Days? Weeks? Months? A year? Several? This is psychological torture. A rough estimate and a clear plan for how to move forward to get to the finish line, the mikvah, is the least that a convert deserves.

2. We have no safe governing body or individual to turn to if we feel as we have been victimized, manipulated or lied to by our rabbis. The RCA is not this body.

3. The reasonable costs associated with conversion should be clearly laid out from the outset. This is a complaint I have heard many times, though thankfully not from my converting Beit Din. Conversion candidates well into the process, after having invested a significant amount of time with a Beit Din, have been told about mandatory fees in the thousands of dollars they were unaware of at the outset of their work with a group of rabbis.

4. Communities have welcoming committees for Jews who move to the area but nothing in place for converts in the process. In order to convert many individuals have to leave their
homes and move to strange towns or cities. They are left to eat Shabbat meals alone, isolated from the social groups that born Jews form via their families, camps, schools and youth groups. Welcome the ger, even before they become a ger. This obligation stands for both communities on the whole, and for rabbis. I do not know a single convert who, after finishing the process, did not have trust issues with rabbis after the treatment they received during their conversion. My conversion personally taught me to be fearful and wary of rabbis, and given the situation that has transpired with my conversion rabbi, that personal wariness has been validated this week. Rabbis should be aware of the damage that the process does to the spiritual and emotional health of their congregants during conversion and take special care to rebuild rabbinic trust and relationships with those among them that went through a conversion process.

5. Converts are constantly asked to discuss extremely personal questions by strangers in social settings. We are not aliens from another planet. Most converts, including myself, try to avoid mentioning my status at any cost to strangers at meals, parties and events in order to prevent these sorts of intrusions into our personal lives and choices. So no, random person across a 15-person Shabbat lunch table, I don’t want to yell over the din of conversation my personal spiritual journey. I refuse to even entertain this conversation from now going forward. It’s an invasion of my privacy for the sake of someone else’s curiosity.

6. Help us with matters of Jewish ritual. This falls on rabbis and community members alike. When a convert gets married, makes a bris or bar mitzvah for their sons, we are flying blind. We have no mother to call to ask how things are done (though I am personally blessed with an incredible mother-in-law). If you know a convert about to go through a significant life change, ask them if they need help. If a congregational rabbi knows a member of their community is about to make a wedding, bris or bar mitzvah, offer to help not only with logistics and halachic advice on how it is done properly, but also with suggestions how non-Jewish family could be included in some way if they choose to be. We should not have to ask with fear how a parent or sibling could participate in our wedding in a meaningful way.

7. If converts are expected to provide their “papers” proving their Jewishness for a school, synagogue, or wedding ask born Jews for the same. I will never again provide my documentation until my husband is also asked to provide a photo of his parents’ ketubah or a photo of a gravestone of an ancestor.

8. The conversion process for those of Jewish heritage should be accelerated and unique. I was born to a Jewish father and was raised Reform. I didn’t know I wasn’t halachically Jewish until a college Birthright trip (thank you to my tour guide who gently explained that inconvenient truth to me). While in the process I was treated with the same unacceptable dismissiveness and disdain afforded to girls who were converting for marriage. Intermarriage is the biggest threat to Jewish life in America. Help those of patrilineal descent, many of whom try to convert Orthodox, correct the mistakes of their fathers. They should be welcomed back into the Jewish people, not turned away like mutts at a dog show.

9. Converts deserve to be treated with the same love and care as Jewish orphans from the moment we become Jewish. We are given new names, we become the sons and daughters of Avraham, the patriarch, who is no longer with us. We are asked to renounce our families in many ways. My deceased father, a born Jew, is not listed as my father on my
ketubah. Even I, as a patrilineal Jew, have given up a great deal of my relationship with my Jewish family to become Orthodox. I can no longer spend holidays with my family, I can no longer eat their food. Immediately after conversion, I married into a wonderful family with whom I can do this, but I will never again sit at my aunt’s Passover table and hear my uncle complain about the length of the Haggadah, and that brings me much sadness. Jews who enter this people as adults without a significant other, as I did, have even less. They spend Shabbats alone, they scrounge for holiday invitations, they receive the absolute worst shidduch recommendations for potential marriage partners, if they receive them at all. A corporate lawyer does not deserve to be constantly matched with the likes of a janitor just because he happens to be another black convert (yes, this happened to a friend on a serial basis). There is no group in the United States or Israel (that I am aware of) whose sole mission is supporting converts acclimation into the Jewish community after their conversion. A fraction of the money spent doing kiruv could be set aside for a project of this nature. A convert may not be a born Jew, but we are still Jews in need of outreach and support.

10. We should not have to live in fear about the status of our conversions in perpetuity. I should not be afraid that the actions of a rabbi on my Beit Din could mean my conversion won’t be universally respected somewhere down the line. My first instinct hearing reports of Rabbi Freundel’s improprieties after shock was fear. Fear for my status, fear for what it would mean for my daughter and unborn child. I have lived an Orthodox Jewish life since the moment I emerged from the mikvah. I should not have to be afraid of how the actions of others who I have no control over (but who at one time yielded plenty of control over me) could affect myself or my children. I have no indication that my conversion is in any way jeopardized at this moment, and I have asked around plenty to ascertain if there is (I want to make that crystal clear for other Freundel converts). Yet, I live in the real world where I have seen this happen too many times already.

A Tribute to Joey Diangello aka Yoel Deutsch

The Family of Yoel Deutsch will not be sitting Shiva for him, so don't bother trying to find out where the Shiva is. Some Rebbele decided to go against Halachic norm and told them not to sit. Ironically, The Mordechai, a Rishon and a commentary on the Talmud records in Mesactas Sanhedrin, that the Rabbeinu Gershom had a son that converted to Christianity, and that the Rabbeinu Gershom sat shiva for him twice, once when he converted and once when he died! Joey remained a Jew to his unfortunate death!
But this Rebbele knows better.

The Short Vort

Good Morning!

Today is Monday the 26^th of Tishrei 5775 and October 20th, 2014

Good Bye Joey

I received the phone call at about 11 AM.

Joey Diangello was no longer among the living and was going to be buried today in the Monsey cemetery.

The details of the burial seemed to be shrouded in mystery and it was unclear what time the burial would take place.

On account of the lack of clarity and to avoid any sort of discomfort for anyone, I did not attend.

I have not seen Joey Diangello since 2010.

I was told that he was born ‘Yoel Deutsch’ into a Hasidic family in Williamsburg.

He apparently attended a Chassidic educational institution in his youth and I can imagine that he must have arrived home on Friday afternoon with a parsha sheet with questions and Torah thoughts eagerly waiting to share them with his parents.

I can imagine he sang songs in Cheder with the Rebbe and the other Jewish children and was no doubt taught that Hashem and His people are kind and beloved.

Perhaps he watched his mother light the Shabbos candles on Friday evening and anticipated a warm and love-filled kiss from her as she turned and wished him a Gutten Shabbos.

And I am sure his father blessed him on Erev Yom Kippur that he should grow to become a Torah scholar and a model Orthodox Jew.

When I met Joey, his arms were covered with tattoos depicting scenes I did not want to stare at.

His fingernails were painted with black nail polish and he was drinking large glasses of non-Kosher wine at a rate which made me wonder how a human being could ingest so much alcohol.

He no longer studied the parsha and no longer received a kiss from his mother on Friday evenings.

Who was Joey Diangello?

Was he a successful businessman?

Was he married and did he settle down and have his own child to raise as he thought proper?

He was not a successful businessman and he never did marry and his friends were not to be counted in the hundreds.

However, he did his best to help others.

Most of all, Joey Diangello was in pain.

When I visited him twice in the hospital over the years, he was in pain.

When I spoke to him in Shul in 2009 he was in pain.

And he was in pain when he left this world.

I had not had any contact with Joey from 2010 until this past summer.

Out of the blue I received the following email from him:

“Good morning. There's a TV show called CSI that I never watch but I do remember on scene maybe 6 years ago. Where a male sees his female colleague is not having a gr8 day.

Whn he asks her about it she goes on. About this and that. at the end of him listening "and not interrupting eveb once". She huggs him says, you always have the perfect thing to say, of which I wanna thank u for saying all the prct things when I nEed it. You just listened and thank u.  

Best, Joey”

He went on to say that he read the Short Vort and was touched by what I wrote.

Needless to say, I was touched by his email and encouraged him to visit.

I was disappointed that when he actually took me up on my offer and on Thursday before Yom Kippur, I missed his visit and he later that day he wrote the following:

I just wanted to pass along my hello from earlier today when I (stopped by outside the Shul)  in Passiac to get my hair done.  Have a gr8 rest of yomtov and easy fast

Best, Joey

I was happy though we had reconnected and he called me soon after to tell me had taken up marathon running and seemed to be finally getting into a ‘good place’.

He even sent me a Rosh Hashanah greeting that when I went back to read today sent shivers up my spine:

I just wanna say "Leshana tovah" to you and your family. May this upcoming year b a suicide death free year is all I ask.  Luv, me.

Best, Joey

Joey Diangello came into this world like me and like you.

He had dreams and he had hopes; he had happiness and joy.

No one ever dreamt that at 34 years old his funeral would be held in a flurry of secrecy and misinformation.

No one imagined that ‘Yoeli Deutsch’ would end up as Joey Diangello being quickly and almost clandestinely buried alone in so many ways so far from the Williamsburg of his youth.

I cannot and will not judge Joey Diangello.

I will not iconize him as much as I would never demonize him.

He was a human being with all of the foibles and strengths which come with the human experience.

There is though one thing I will say about Joey Diangello.

Joey Diangello lived a life a pain.

He suffered through his life and he could never escape the pain which constantly hounded him.

And for that pain and for that agony which defined his life I am sad.

I am sad for the man who will no longer write: “May this upcoming year b a suicide death free year is all I ask.  Luv, me.”

And I am sad for Yoeli Deutsch who ceased to exist years ago.

Most of all though; I am sad for us.

For whatever the bloggers will write and whatever the ‘experts’ will say, Joey Diangello did not have to have his life tragically ended at 34.

And for all of us whom he touched and for those of us who attempted to touch him, I cry.

I cry for Yoeli Deutsch who never was and for Joey Diangello who never will be.

And I cry as I wonder what more could have been done and what should be done.

Good bye Joey, I am sorry I missed your visit.

“If Not Now, Then When?”-Hillel

Ron Yitzchok Eisenman, Rabbi, Congregation Ahavas Israel, Passaic, NJ  

Subject: In memory of Joseph Diangello This essay was written by Mark Weiss. Today was a difficult yet strangely uplifting and healing day. My friend Joseph Diangello has passed away and I went to his funeral to try to be with him as he departed this earth. I went to the cemetery with my close friends Joel Engelman and Beth Neugarten amongst others and promptly discovered that someone in his family switched the time to an hour earlier so we missed the actual funeral. But then an amazing thing happened.... at the time that most of us thought it would start, more and more people started showing up. Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz came as well and led us in a second graveside service for Joey, ironically a private affair for just his friends and those who cared about him. Some of us spoke and shared memories of Joey. I thought it was beautiful and meaningful for all of us. Afterward we met Joey's sister and brother in law whom he did have a good relationship with for many years. We went to their house and we all sat around the table to comfort his sister and to reminisce about our departed friend. It was nice to hear everyone talking about how Joey had somehow touched their life and despite the fact that some of the family members have sadly decided not to sit Shiva, this experience was at least somewhat of a substitute for that and was very healing for all. Indeed as I was leaving I wished his sister the "Hamakom Yenachem" prayer said to a mourner sitting Shiva. It is important that everyone know that Joey's death was ruled accidental by the New York City medical examiner. He had really started to get his life together in the end. He had a strong will to live and make a life for himself. It is so tragic to lose a friend like him and I hope his passing will inspire everyone out there who is suffering with their own issues to discover the fact that no matter how bleak things seem to be there are many many people out there who care. My phone was chiming all day with messages from people familiar and unfamiliar to me sending words of support and caring which I was able to share with his sister and to everyone in our group. May Joey's memory be for a blessing. We will miss you forever. Rest in peace.

Reform Jews Defile Torah Scroll on Simchat Torah in Kfar Yonah

Reform Jews with unwound Torah.

PR photo

The Orthodox community in Kfar Yonah, located near Netanya, is still reeling from a provocative ceremony held by Reform Jews on Simchat Torah that some are comparing to a pogrom.


Rabbi Uzi Shvietze, the Rabbi of Kfar Yonah, told Arutz Sheva that a relatively small group of Reform Jews announced before the holidays that they intended to hold an “egalitarian” ceremony on Yom Kippur, and brought “a woman from Jerusalem” to conduct the ceremony for them, in a kindergarten that the mayor allowed them to use.


The Yom Kippur ceremony did not particularly bother anyone, said the rabbi, but on Simchat Torah, the day on which Jews celebrate the possession of the Torah, the group went a step further. From photographs that they published after the fact, he said, it turns out that they took a Torah scroll and unwound it completely, from Bereshit to the final verse, and “used it as a kind of 'mechitza', with men and women going up to the Torah and hugging it, touching it... some of them were half dressed or one-third dressed, maybe even one quarter, I did not check.”


"The photos reached us on the day after the holiday and we are all walking around here, crying,” the rabbi said. The act is similar to acts carried out in pogroms by anti-Semites who sought to defile the Torah, he explained. “There are terrible, terrible things,” he said.


"We will not go to war against them,” he insisted, however. “That is what they want us to do. We will do what Jews always did when non-Jews defiled the Holies of Israel. We will cry. We will hold a rally and cry and weep, and call out to G-d.”


In addition, said the rabbi, the community will seek to build a new Torah center or yeshiva in Kfar Yonah, in accordance with the Jewish principle that says darkness is chased away with light.

Reb Lipa Brenner aka Lewis Brenner Dies

Now that he is no longer alive, I will not write about him!

Joel Deutsch aka Joey Diangello buried in secret ceremony

EXCLUSIVE TO DIN:

 Yup, at 1:00pm, Joey Diangello previously known as Joel Deutsch, was buried in the Brick Church Cemetery in Monsey, with a handful of Chassidim giving him his final Good By!
They buried him with the "Modern Jews" 
I guess people that get raped by Chassidim can't get buried with them, they bury them with the "Moderener Yidden"
No friends ...no nothing ...

They didn't want the OTD crowd there so they secretly took care of business.. They blocked the roadway leading up to the grave with vans, and sat in them like a bunch of mafia goons!

Preparing Grave

Tractor digging the grave

Tractor digging grave