We regret to inform our readers of the passing of Peretz Sontag ע״ה The body of Peretz Sontag, the father of seven from Pomona who had been missing since March 14, was found Sunday afternoon in Harriman State Park, officials said. Sontag was located with his black 2012 black Kia Optima off a roadway in the park, Ramapo police Detective Lt. Mark Emma said. He was found by a hiker not related to the search. His department notified Sontag's wife, Tammy, of the discovery, and state parks police are handling the investigation, Emma said. "What can I tell you? It's just a tragedy," Sontag's uncle, Shimon, said shortly after receiving the news. "They're all distraught. It's a mess. You've got seven children. The whole family is heartbroken." Sontag said state park police found his nephew and were not treating the death as a homicide. A funeral will likely take place tomorrow and Peretz Sontag will be buried in Israel.
This happened over a decade ago but still fresh in the mind of the now grown up Amrom Kruman. His father, Avraham Shlomo Kruman, a Neturei Karta guy, and his mother a Satmar lady locked up their 8 year old Amram in a basement because he dared speak during the reading of the Megillah on Purim! They didn't even come down once to see if he is still alive.
Darren Aronofsky wrestles one of scripture's most primal stories to the ground and extracts something vital and audacious, while also pushing some aggressive environmentalism, in Noah. Whereas for a century most Hollywood filmmakers have tread carefully and respectfully when tackling biblical topics in big-budget epics aimed at a mass audience, Aronofsky has been daring, digging deep to develop a bold interpretation of a tale which, in the original, offers a lot of room for speculation and invention. The narrative of the global flood that wiped out almost all earthly life is the original disaster story, one that's embraced by most of the major world religions, which means that conservative and literal-minded elements of all faiths who make it their business to be offended by untraditional renditions of holy texts will find plenty to fulminate about here. Already banned in some Middle Eastern countries, Noah will rile some for the complete omission of the name “God” from the dialogue, others for its numerous dramatic fabrications and still more for its heavy-handed ecological doomsday messages, which unmistakably mark it as a product of its time.
Yated editor Rabbi Pinchos Lipshitz is an anti Semite. I’m sure that sentence will raise some eyebrows. That’s because he really isn’t an anti Semite. But if I were to follow his lead (and those of like minded individuals in his community) this would be an article of faith. His abhorrent attitude about clearly observant Jews whose only goal is to serve Klal Yisroel is spread all over his latest editorial. And it is filled with hate.
What he and others have said or implied is that the things said by non Charedim about Charedim should be considered anti-Semitic. Just substitute the word Jew for the word Charedi in many of those columns and the world would be screaming anti Semite at whoever uttered them.
His editorial is filled with the usual crop of hyperbole, lies, and innuendos. Here is one of the more egregious lies:
People can disagree, but to call 50,000 frum, peaceful people murderers because they gathered to daven is abhorrent...
This falsehood has been repeated numerous times by various Charedi media. It is based on Yori Yanover’s ‘cry from the heart’ about Charedim avoiding being subjected to a military draft which can entail dying for one’s country - while everyone else is subjected to that possibility. To say that this is calling them murderers is not only a flagrant distortion of the truth, it is designed to whip up the anger and animosity of his crowd. And just like any big lie, the more it is repeated, the more it is believed. That is what makes this type of yellow journalism so disgusting. They are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of masses of observant Jews so they resort to hyperbole, exaggeration, distortion, and outright lies.
The rest of his article is filled with derision, invective, and ridicule about religious Jews. He doesn’t even acknowledge that someone like Rabbi Dov Lipman is observant, calling him a Kipa wearing Jew as though it was some sort of disguise and not an indication of his being observant!
Here is a particularly disturbing comment:
Those who stoke fires, create diversions, and fuel division in the pursuit of any goal expose themselves as guilty of hypocrisy and a refusal to examine the real facts the way they are. Throughout the ages, we have been victimized by blood libels. It is shameful that religious people are now utilizing the methods of Eisov and tactics of Haman to further their agendas.
I agree with the first sentence: Those who stoke fires, create diversions, and fuel division in the pursuit of any goal expose themselves as guilty of hypocrisy and a refusal to examine the real facts the way they are.
But it is the pot calling the kettle black. It is Rabbi Lipshutz and his fellow travelers that stoke those fires, create diversions, and fuel division. And he has the nerve to say that religious Jews are using the methods of Eisav and the tactics of Haman? We are not the ones lying about things. He is!
Here is yet another lie:
The people who give those speeches, write those articles, and post and publish them are using their words to further their battle against the much despised lomdei Torah.
Does he really believe that people like me despise Lomdei Torah? And that our mission is to battle them? Whether he believes it or not, it is a lie. And frankly I think it is a deliberate lie. Any sane person who reads any of my posts on this subject knows that it’s a lie!
Here is a ridiculous question he asks:
Might it be that the secular camp and their Orthodox enablers are the inciters? Might it be that those who so vehemently decry the chareidi leadership are guilty of far worse?
Vehemently decry? Who among us has said anything vehement about Charedi leadership? I certainly haven’t. That I and others like me strongly disagree with some of what they say is not done with any kind of vehemence. Certainly not anywhere near the vehemence expressed by Rabbi Lipshutz in this editorial. Is Rabbi Lipshutz ready to call Rabbi Berel Wein a Kippa wearing Jew? …an Orthodox enabler of secular Torah haters?
Rabbi Lipshutz also takes umbrage at another comment made by Yori Yanover:
The post-Holocaust Haredi world is all about fear. Fear of new things. Fear of books. Fear of voices. And above all, fear that the education a young man receives during his 20 years in a Haredi yeshiva is worthless, because as soon as he encounters the outside world, those 20 years would vanish, melt away like cholov Yisroel butter on a skillet.”
While I agree that this was worded indelicately, how false is it, really? This too probably stoked the fires of hatred… which is Rabbi Lipshutz goal in repeating it. He wants those fires to be stoked – against detractors!
But is it not fair to say that there is a fear of books that do not exactly parrot the Charedi version of history; books that turn human beings into heavenly angels; free of sin; born that way from the womb, and staying that way till the tomb?
Is it not true that they reject for their students in Israel any secular education – if not out of fear, then out of the belief that it is Bitul Torah – wasteful of the time one should instead be studying Torah? Is it not true they fear the kind of challenges one might face on the outside world (e.g. the internet)? ...that it would shake their beliefs and that 20 years (of the Charedi version of Jewish education) might vanish, melt away?
Rabbi Lipshutz says nothing to dispel these notions. He just says: ‘There you have it’. As if to imply that these challenges are so absurd they do not justify a response.
Really, Rabbi Lipshutz? I think they do. Because without any explanation, these values are exactly what Charedim constantly espouse. How many times have I heard the argument that history is only as important as the inspiration it can provide. So that any bio that does not make its subject larger than life and ignores truths about a Gadol that makes them uncomfortable, is worthless… and perhaps even detrimental. They do in fact fear facing the truths of history.
Rabbi Lipshutz uses this paragraph to ‘prove’ that a war is being waged against Charedim. And fuels the outrage with the claim that food is being taken out of the mouths of Charedi babies because entitlements have been cut.
That is total distortion of the facts. Why every single able bodied Charedi who chooses not to work should be entitled to welfare that is basically designed to help those who cannot help themselves - is beyond me. This is not taking food out of the mouths of babies.
As I’ve said a million times, we do need to support the elite Torah students among us. They should be given a fully divinity exemption and be paid a living wage. But to do that for every single able bodied Charedi just because he wants to - is unfair and wrong. And reducing (not eliminating) welfare to them is not taking food out of the mouths of babies.
I doubt that Rabbi Lipshutz will respond to anything I wrote here. Probably because he can’t. But even if he does ‘respond’ it will not be with any rational arguments or proofs. It will be with more lies; more innuendos; and more distortions. He will not prove his position at all, just as he did not do so now. He will instead attack, attack, attack and continue to promote the ‘big lie’ until he’s satisfied that everyone believes it.
Dummy Danielle in wedding dress, Meir (Bugeye) Kin on right!
The wedding was a modest affair, held in a reception hall overlooking an artificial lake tucked behind a suburban strip. But just minutes after it ended, the bride and groom hurriedly scurried past dozens of protesters here who were chanting “Bigamist!” and “Shame on you!”
One of the wedding guests on Thursday evening glared at the demonstrators, repeatedly hissing: “Mazel tov. Mazel tov. Mazel tov.” The bride, in a lace and sequin floor-length gown, grasped the hand of her husband and looked at the crowd in silence.
Meir Kin, the new husband, has been divorced for more than seven years, under California’s civil law. But he has refused to give his previous wife the document known as a “get,” as required by Orthodox Jewish law to end a marriage. In the eyes of religious authorities, the
woman he married in 2000 is what is called an agunah — Hebrew for chained wife. Without the get, the woman, Lonna Kin, is forbidden under Jewish law to remarry.
Jewish law prohibits men from taking multiple wives. But Mr. Kin, according to several rabbis here, apparently relied on a legal loophole, which says that if a man can get the
special permission of 100 rabbis to take a second wife, he is able to do so.
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Protesters outside Mr. Kin’s wedding in Las Vegas denounced him for not giving his wife a divorce document called a get.CreditIsaac Brekken for The New York Times The case has become a powerful symbol for what activists say is a deepening crisis among Orthodox Jews — hundreds of women held hostage in a religious marriage, in some cases for years after civil cases have been settled. According to the intricate religious laws dictating marriage and divorce, only the husband has the power to grant a divorce.
“What has happened here is really shameful,” said Rabbi Kalman Topp, who drove from Los Angeles to protest the wedding, along with other rabbis and congregants from Orthodox synagogues there. “Not only is he in clear violation of Jewish law, but he is utilizing and corrupting Jewish law to commit cruel domestic abuse.”
Ms. Kin, who runs a real estate company, and her supporters say that Mr. Kin, a physician assistant, is demanding $500,000 and full custody of their 12-year-old son in exchange for the divorce. And they cast doubt on whether he really has the support of 100 rabbis. Reached at his Las Vegas home on Thursday, as a photographer took pictures of him and his bride in the driveway, Mr. Kin declined to comment.
Traditionally, Jewish communities relied on the threat of ostracism to persuade a recalcitrant husband to give his wife a divorce, but many say the threat became far less potent as these communities opened and spread out. In recent years, Orthodox activists with the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, which organized the protest at Mr. Kin’s wedding, have tried to publicly shame men into giving the get.
When a congressional aide refused to give his wife the decree several years ago, protesters wrote to the congressman, created sophisticated social media campaigns and protested in front of his Washington apartment. Last year federal prosecutors filed charges against a New Jersey rabbi whom they accuse of taking tens of thousands of dollars to kidnap and torture recalcitrant husbands refusing to give their wives a religious divorce.
Ms. Kin’s nearly decade-long fight for a religious divorce illustrates the limited power of such women.
“This is not supposed to happen, that even with all these people against him he can marry anyway,” Ms. Kin, 52, said in a telephone interview from her home in Monsey, N.Y., where she lives with their son and three daughters from a previous marriage. “I would like to find a man who could be a good life partner, to have the kind of marriage my parents have. I want to marry someone and have a life like that, but now I am chained to a dead marriage.”
When she heard several weeks ago that Mr. Kin planned to remarry, Ms. Kin said she felt a momentary sense of relief — it was a clear sign that he was ready to move on with his life. But his new marriage could make it even less likely he will give her the document she desperately wants.
“He’s basically a bigamist,” she said, “and basically, I’m just stuck.”
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Ms. Kin of Monsey, N.Y., says she has fought for years to be free from the chains of what she refers to as “a dead marriage.”CreditAndrew Sullivan for The New York Times
The couple first separated in January 2005, shortly after Ms. Kin filed for divorce in New York. But she withdrew the motion, on the advice of a lawyer who later told her that it would be easier to secure a get if her husband initiated the civil divorce. Mr. Kin then moved to Los Angeles, and filed for divorce there six months after he arrived. Long before the divorce was finalized in 2007, she said, he told her he never planned to give her the religious document.
Typically, such disagreements are adjudicated by a religious court made up of three rabbis, known as a beit din. Mr. Kin was approached by a local rabbi with a list of several such religious courts his wife would be willing to submit to, but he has not responded, according to Rabbi Yehoshua Fromowitz, who runs the Ahavas Torah Center, a synagogue here,
Instead, Mr. Kin, who in recent years moved to Las Vegas, has repeatedly insisted that Ms. Kin agree to binding arbitration from one particular religious court based in Monsey that is controversial and has been widely denounced by rabbinical authorities in the United States and Israel. Several leading rabbis, including the chief rabbinical office of Israel, have said they would not accept a divorce document signed by this particular court. Mr. Kin has said that the head of the beit din, Rabbi Tzvi Dov Abraham of Monsey, granted him dispensation to marry again.
A Las Vegas rabbi declined to perform the wedding on Thursday. The groups protesting say they believe Mr. Abraham traveled from New York to officiate. He did not return repeated phone calls for comment.“The rabbinical court system is such an ad hoc system where any man is able to call himself a rabbi and any three rabbis are able to call themselves a court, so that even if it’s not accepted by anyone, he is able to hide behind this,” said Rabbi Jeremy Stern, the executive director of the group that organized the protests against the wedding. “What empowers him to continue is the support of friend and family and community. We need everyone to say clearly we will not tolerate this kind of behavior.”
Mr. Kin, according to several members of the small Las Vegas Orthodox community, has worshiped at two synagogues affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, which is known for welcoming a broad array of Jews. The rabbis at those synagogues do not count him toward a quorum needed for prayer because of the controversy over his divorce case, but they have declined to publicly rebuke him or force him out, according to Rabbi Shea Harlig, the head of Chabad of southern Nevada.
Mr. Stern and other rabbis supporting Ms. Kin say they will continue to press that Mr. Kin be exiled from the local Jewish community.
Ms. Kin is still holding out some hope she will receive the get — she communicated with Mr. Kin by email as recently as this week, she said, and she continues to send her son across the country several times a year to spend time with his father.
Little is known about Mr. Kin’s new wife, Daniela Barbosa, who is said to have recently emigrated from Brazil. Friends who attended their wedding refused to answer questions from a reporter. If their marriage were to disintegrate, she, too, would need to receive a get for a religiously valid divorce. Although rabbinical leaders outlawed men taking multiple wives in the Middle Ages, the practice is biblically allowed.
“We’ve outlawed this for thousands of years,” Mr. Fromowitz said. “It is totally unacceptable.”
But Mr. Fromowitz conceded that Mr. Kin had historical precedent to rely on. After all, he said, the biblical patriarch Jacob had four wives.
The Chareidi community has been afflicted with an abundance of gatherings, protests, assemblies and rallies in the past few weeks. I think that it’s time to hold a prayer vigil to pray for the cessation of all vigils. It bothers me to no end why I can’t comprehend the thought process behind this all. What are they trying to achieve? Why are they doing this? Am I missing something or are they simply dumb and possibly arrogant?
I think that these gatherings are not a means to a goal, rather a goal in and of itself. I came to this conclusion as I was walking today in the streets of Boro Park and noticed the absence of even the slightest change in women’s apparel from the pre ‘Tznius Asifa’ era. How could it be that the organizers proclaimed a massive success while the facts on the street clearly show otherwise, I wondered. It must be – I concluded – that the goal of the modesty gathering wasn’t to implement change at all. The goal was simply to have a successful gathering. And to that extent they succeeded beyond expectations. The hall was filled to capacity, many rabbis occupied the seats on the multi layered platform and most of all, it created a huge sensation. Obviously, that’s all that the organizers wanted to get out of this gathering, hence the celebration for the success.
The same can be said in regards to the huge prayer rallies that were held in Jerusalem, London and New York. The objective must have been to have a huge rally and nothing more. What else could have been the objective? This is why the participants were having a difficult time explaining to the media why they are there. How can you tell a reporter that tens of thousands of people got together on Wall Street so that they can feel good about themselves? Instead, many participants tried explaining how the Israeli government is persecuting them by requiring them to take equal responsibility for their country. This in turn happens to sound even more asinine than anything else.
One Chasidic caller to the Michael Savage show thought that he could easily explain how studying the Torah is the same as serving in the defense forces, but to no avail. Michael Savage takes the guys belief apart with simple rational. (I recommend that you listen to it in its entirety, pure entertainment.) I genuinely felt bad for that guy. He, and most of the people who attended the rally for that matter, believed that this was the reason for the protest. They don’t know the real and obvious reason behind the protest, to have a successful protest.
This mentality can be found in other areas of Chareidi life as well. When the Shomrim patrol unit holds a fundraiser drive they publish articles and flyers detailing the enormity of their organization. You can find data on their budget, how many walkie talkies they have, how many patrol cars and how many members. Not once have I seen any data on their effect on the crime rates in the areas that they patrol (even though they probably do have an affect). The emphasis shows that Shomrim is here to be Shomrim rather than actually reducing crime.
In similar vein, the chesed organizations boast more amount the amount of chicken and matzos that they distribute than the actual impact they have on poverty. This became such a big deal that in a certain neighborhood there are two competing organizations handing out food for the “needy” for Passover and each is trying to outdo the other with the amount of food that they distribute. This caused that the neighborhood is flooded with available free food, and many families that would be able to get by on their own get food from the organizations that are more than happy to have another recipient to boast about. I don’t feel very comfortable lamenting generosity, I’m just trying to allude to the irony that the goal of the chesed organization isn’t to help or achieve, rather to be a successful organization.
On this episode of Up Close, we hear directly from a woman “chained” in her marriage and whose husband is now marrying someone else. Lonna Kin has been trying for ten years to get a Jewish divorce, or get, from her now-ex-husband. She separated from her husband, (Israel) Meir Kin, in January 2005, and their civil divorce was finalized in May 2007. Yet Meir Kin has yet to give her the Jewish divorce document that would free her from her Jewish marriage and allow her to perhaps remarry and move on with her life — even though as this interview airs he is scheduled to marry another woman. Lonna is known as an agunah, or “chained woman,” stuck in her Jewish marriage. She shares her story, for the first time, in this episode of Up Close. Because of the importance of the topic, we are making the complete interview with Lonna Kin available online in the special extended webcast of the episode above.
And then, what do we mean when speak about “evil?” Why do we act immorally, and why do some of us do so more than others? Author Andrew Michael Flescher offers some answers to these questions in his new book Moral Evil and on this episode of Up Close.
Gotta give credit to Satmar, they allowed the parents to report him to police. No mesira here?
On 03/19/14, the New York State Police in Monroe announce the arrest of Joel Gluck, age 27, from Kiryas Joel, NY, for Forcible Touching and Endangering the Welfare of a Child.
On the eve of 03/17/14, Gluck was at a community gathering in Kiryas Joel and lured a 9 year old child away to a remote area where he forcibly touched the intimate part of the child. The victim confided in his parents of the event and reported it to the Kiryas Joel Public Safety who worked in conjunction with the New York State Police.
Gluck was relased on his own recogizance and is to appear in the Town of Monroe court on 03/24/14 at 5:30 pm.
I received a great deal of comment about my last week’s article on the mental and social regression of a large section if Israeli society. Most of the comments were neither complimentary nor critical but were rather requests for more specifics about the need for change in the mindset of much of Orthodox Jewry here in Israel and in the Diaspora as well.
Still under the influence of Purim and therefore perhaps a little too foolhardy, I will attempt to explain my position more specifically in this article. I think that we can all agree that the two main events in the Jewish world of the past century were the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. These two cataclysmic events changed the present Jewish society radically if not even permanently. Yet much of Orthodoxy inexplicably ignores these two events as though they never happened.
They occupy no space or time in many Orthodox schools and days of commemoration of these events are absent on school calendars. Instead there is a mindset that hunkers back to an idyllic Eastern European world of fantasy that is portrayed falsely in fictional stories, hagiographic biographies and omissions of uncomfortable facts and doctored photographs – to a world that never was
An entire talented and vital society is doomed to live in the imagined past and disregard present realities. And if the view of the present is unfortunately shaped by historical and social disconnect and denial then certainly the longer and equally vitally important view of the future will be distorted and skewed. Sooner or later, reality must sink in and when it does the pain, anger and frustration over past distortions and failures will become very difficult to bear.
The great struggle of most of Orthodoxy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries against Zionism influenced all Orthodox thought and behavior. As late as 1937, with German Jewry already prostrate before Hitler's madness and Germany already threatening Poland, the mainstream Orthodox rabbinate in Poland publicly objected to the formation of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel on the grounds that the heads of that state would undoubtedly be secular if not even anti-religious.
They were correct in that assessment but, since the Holocaust was then an unimaginable event in their worldview, they continued in their opposition to Jews leaving Poland to settle either in the United States or in Israel. Because of this past mindset, the Holocaust is more unsettling – theologically, at least – to Orthodoxy, then perhaps to any other group in the Jewish world.
Much of Orthodoxy chooses to ignore the issue or to contrive very lame excuses and causes for this catastrophe. In my opinion, there is no human answer to the event itself but the event cannot be ignored. One of the consequences of confronting it is naturally an admission that
great and holy men can be wrong in their assessment of current events and future occurrences. Much of Orthodoxy is so hagiographic about its present and past leaders that it cannot bring itself to admit that. As such, the past cannot truly help to assess the present. A false past is almost as dangerous as having no past at all.
Dealing with the State of Israel is an even more vexing issue for much of Orthodoxy. The creation of the Jewish state, mainly by secular and nonobservant Jews, and by political and military means was not part of the traditional Jewish view of how the Land of Israel would again fall under Jewish rule.
Since it occurred in the “wrong” way and was being led by the “wrong” people it again shook the mindset of much of Orthodoxy.
One of the great and holy leaders of Orthodox society in Israel stated in 1950 that the state could not last more than fifteen years. Well, it is obvious that in that assessment he was mistaken. But again it is too painful to admit that he was mistaken and therefore the whole attitude of much of the Orthodox world is one of denial of the present fact that the state exists, prospers and is the largest supporter of Torah and Jewish traditional religious lifestyle in the world.
It is again too painful to admit that our past mindset regarding the State of Israel is no longer relevant.
As long as large sections of Orthodoxy continue to live in an imaginary past and denies the realities of the present, such issues as army or national service, core curriculums of essential general knowledge for all religious schools, entering the workforce and decreasing the debilitating poverty and dysfunction of so many families, will never be able to be addressed properly.
The solutions are difficult and they cannot be dictated or legislated no matter how popular such steps may appear to be. But the change of mindset to the present must certainly and eventually occur. The Jewish people have always been up to this task and I am confident that we will be able to do so now as well.
Description of letter to R' Gedalya Schorr from R' Aron Kotler!
From Jeffrey Woolf, senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan
This is a description of a letter from Rav Aharon Kotler זצ,ל to R. Gedalya Schorr זצ"ל, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yorah VaDaas. It speaks for itself. I'd only add, that my wife's uncle, R. Moshe Haim Bergstein הי"ד, was a student in Kletzk and managed to obtain a certificate of entry to Eretz Yisrael from Dr. Zerach Warhaftig זצ"ל. R. Kotler told him not to go to Palestine, that he should wait in Kovno for a visa to the United States. R. Kotler left for the US, and R. Moshe Haim made it to the Ninth Fort.
Rebecca a daughter, Susan Golomb sister, Tammy Sontag wife
Looking forlorn from lack of sleep and worry, the family of Peretz Sontag made a tearful appeal for him to come home as they upped a reward offer to $30,000 on Wednesday for information that leads to finding the 50-year-old father.
Many of the Pomona man's family, friends and searchers gathered at an office building off Airmont Road to publicize his disappearance and offer the increased reward .
His wife, Tammy Sontag, stood huddled around a microphone with one of the couple's seven children, Rebecca, and her sister Susan Golomb, making a plea for Peretz to come home.
"Peretz, if you can hear me, I love you so much, the children love you," his wife of 30 years said. "Don't worry. Please come home."
The 27-year-old daughter said tearfully, "Daddy, please come home. We need you, we love you."
Peretz Sontag ran off because of depression brought on by a failing business after an employee ripped him off, a friend and neighbor Chesky Ostreicher said Wednesday. His business involved installing intercom security systems.
Ostreicher said he spoke to Sontag on Friday, adding he sounded depressed and life was too much for him. He said the family had been living in Israel, but financial issues forced them to move back to Pomona.
Sontag is known in the Orthodox community for a kind heart and years of active service for charitable causes. His father Shimon has been influential in Ramapo's Orthodox Jewish community, once leading a village formation movement.
"He's a good friend and he loves his family," Ostreicher said. "I am extremely concerned."
Since Sontag's disappearance Friday, community organizations from Rockland, Orange County and Brooklyn have been searching for him, working with the Ramapo police and other agencies.
The Ramapo watchdog group Chaverim has been among the ground teams along with the Brooklyn-based Shomrim safety patrol, with other supporters searching the area by air in private planes.
The last tangible lead on Sontag's location came Friday afternoon when authorities pinged his cell phone, getting a signal from a cell tower in the Stony Point area, which includes Harriman State Park.
Ramapo Detective Lt. Mark Emma said the general feeling is Sontag had been driving north on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Teams searched Harriman State Park but have not found Sontag or his car — a black, 2012 Kia Optima with New York state license plate FZD-8413.
Emma said police had not found evidence that Sontag used a debit card or his cell phone, which could be out of power or thrown away. Before disappearing, Sontag had been depressed and made reference to harming himself, Emma said.
Anyone with information about Sontag's whereabouts is asked to contact Ramapo police at 845-357-2400 or Chaverim at 845-371-6333.
