Agudah is allegedly telling camps and yeshivas to book buses through Rabbi Yehuda Kolko's new booking agency. Why the strong arm tactics to help a convicted sex offender? Because allegedly Agudah believes Kolko – whose crimes are very well documented – is innocent.
DovBear posted a letter from a reader who has a friend in the tour bus booking business. He teaches full time in a yeshiva and does the bus business part time.
For years he's booked buses for camps linked to Agudah. And so he did this year – until they cancelled.
He asked the logical question of these Agudahniks – why are you canceling? I've served you well all these years. My proces are fair. What did I do wrong?
And this is what he heard:
…In the past 20 years, my friend has been arranging buses for all the frum camps and has given them fair prices and excellent service. Two of his biggest accounts were Camp Agudah and Camp Bnos. They booked with him again this year like in all years past. However he received a call a week before the buses were scheduled to go out from the camp administrators saying that they had to cancel. When he asked why, he was told that they were ordered by the higher ups in Agudah to give the business to Rabbi Kolko who needs the parnassah [income] since he is now unable to teach due to the false accusations against him. In the past week several other camps have cancelled buses with my friend and followed the lead of Agudah and Bnos. The other camp directors told him that they were contacted by "gedolim" whom they refused to identify and told to give Rabbi Kolko the parnassah and had no choice but to obey.
My friend said it is ironic that Kolko is rewarded for doing an "aveirah" and he who has spent his entire life doing nothing but mitzvos and chesed has to bear the punishment by losing the customers to Kolko.…
Rabbi Kolko now lives in Lakewood, New Jersey.
Update 7-1-11 at 2:30 pm CDT – DovBear posted a partial retraction today [Hat Tip: DBSesq]:
Kolko's bus company: the other side of the story
Reliable and knowledgable people have told me that Camp Agudah discontinued its relationship with the first bus company because they were unhappy with the service provided. Apparently, there was a big foul up last year. These reliable and knowledgeable people are also claiming that the new bus company is not run by Kolko; however, it has been verified that Kolko is providing other services to the camps. For instance, he runs events and rents facilities as an agent for the camps.
People, if you distributed yesterday's story, please share this one, too.
I don't know the truth, yet, but its important that the information we share is accurate. Based on what I am hearing, I am close to calling "Old Timer's" post a false allegation. We will know soon