The Rubashkins, brother and nephew of Postville's Rabbi Sholom M. Rubashkin, participated in scheme to defraud the city of Allentown and the US EPA of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They also endangered the families who lived in the area bordering…
…their abandoned textile mill.
Moshe Rubashkin (and even more here) is a federal felon with a long track record of criminal acts.
None of this stopped Moshe Rubashkin from being elected president of the Crown Heights Community Council, a Chabad-Lubavitch run and controlled city, state and federally funded agency. Rubashkin was elected president only months after being released from federal prison on a bank fraud conviction.
Tomorrow, he and his son are due to be sentenced in the Allentown case.
Yeshiva World has posted a Chabad appeal send to various Brooklyn haredi communities to support Rubashkin. Note Chabad is claiming that "enemies" of the Rubashkin family set them up. This even though the feds have the Rubashkins denying ownership of the mill, flipping the mill into various shadow and fake holding companies and doing other illegal and deceptive acts to shield themselves from financial liability and, later, prosecution.
Moshe Rubashkin and his extended family already got a tremendous break from the feds when the US Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania – a very public Republican with very close public ties to Chabad's dear friend in the US Senate, Arlen Specter – charged Moshe Rubashkin only for one count of illegally storing hazardous waste and his son on one count of making false statement.
Apparently, Chabad and the Rubashkins think their big Republican campaign contributions – think the infamous Brooklyn Bundler, Moshe Rubashkin's brother-in-law Rabbi Milton Yehoshua Balkany.
Pidyon shvuyim means ransoming captives:
Monday Morning: Rare Opportunity for Pidyon Shevuyim
November 2, 2008
5:00PM EST: [UPDATE IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] The following letter was submitted to YWN:
Dear Chaver,
The Rubashkin family is well-known in our community for their Ahavas Yisroel and Tzedakah. Lamentably, charges against them have been complicated by the slander of a few former associates looking for revenge.
Tomorrow morning—Monday, November 3—a Pennsylvania judge will sentence R’ Moshe Rubashkin and his son.
It is not for us to act as judge and jury of our fellow Jews. What we can and must do is stand together in support of truth. In particular, it is our responsibility to show a secular judge, a skeptical legal system and a “gotcha” media that our community does not abandon its own.
Please show your support by attending tomorrow’s court proceedings. Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson will address the court, presided over by the Hon. Judge James Noah Gardner.
A bus from Crown Heights provided by the CHJCC will leave Crown and Kingston at 6:45 am and return after the sentencing. For additional information or ride options, please call Mendy Simon at: 917-445-8877.
Information to keep in mind:
Location:
United States District Court
Federal District of Pennsylvania
James A Byrne Federal Courthouse
601 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Time: 10:00 am
Case ID: 07498-1
Please give yourself enough time to pass security and be seated. Remember to bring picture ID for security clearance.
Due to the actions of those looking to hurt the Rubashkins, this case is no longer about the court’s charges, but about our community’s moral commitment to stand up for its own. The turnout at tomorrow’s sentencing will tell the world whether we will support a family that supports us or whether we have hung a fellow Jew out to dry.
UPDATE 8:00PM EST: Chabad website COLLive reports the following: On his way to pray in 770 and the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Ohel, Rubashkin said: “Please daven for my son and myself. I am confident there will be a victory tomorrow and we’ll have a Seudas Hoda’ah. I will be revealing something special then.”
In November 2007 Rubashkin and his son Sholom Rubashkin were indicted on charges of illegal storage of hazardous waste in their Montex Textiles company, formerly located in Allentown, PA, without a permit, and one count of making a materially false statement.
Popular Chassidic preacher Rabbi Yossi Jacobson will address the court, presided over by the Hon. Judge James Noah Gardner.
An appeal for support was emailed to the community this evening saying the charges have been “complicated by the slander of a few former associates looking for revenge.”
The news website stated that the following figures are expected to attend the sentencing: Rabbi Avraham Osdoba, Rabbi Yitzchak Zirkind, Rabbi Shlomo Segal, Rabbi Moshe Bogomilsky, Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld, Rabbi Israel Shemtov, R’ Yingy Bistritzky and Mrs. Devorah Halberstam.
Please say Tehillim for Moshe Yaakov Menachem Halevi ben Rivka and Shalom Halevi ben Feiga Elka.
Tizku Limitzvos!
[Hat Tip: A Reader.]