FailedMessiah.com

Haredi Scammer Dina Wein Reis Finally Sentenced

Wein Reis defrauded companies out of at least $20 million as she led the life of a New York City socialite, art collector and giver to tzedaka, haredi and Orthodox Jewish charities.

Sikrikim Stone Firefighters, EMTs In Mea Shearim

Haredi Sicari gang members reportedly attacked rescue workers and firefighters last night in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood.

Jewish Federation Lies

What happens when a telemarketing call from your local Jewish Federation makes claims that are false?

A Life Under Haredi Terror

"When I moved to Beit Shemesh 13 years ago with my family, we joined a warm, embracing community that was part of a culturally diverse city. Unfortunately, this diversity reared an uglier side…when religious extremists began threatening, harassing and attacking women in public.…the violence and harassment worsened to the point that they could no longer be ignored.…I was hit in the head by a rock thrown by an ultra-Orthodox man, religious extremists tried to lay siege to my daughter's [Zionist Orthodox grade] school and began a campaign of harassing and threatening our young [grade school] girls.…"

Mashgiach Intentionally Pours Pot Of Scalding Water On Employee, Gets Unbelievably Short Sentence

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced a haredi mashgiach (kosher supervisor, often but not always a rabbi) from Betar Illit to only five months in prison and a $2,226 fine for intentionally dumping a pot of scalding water two years ago on an employee of a factory that he supervised.

Is Judaism A Cult?

"There are factions in Judaism which want you to lose your identity for the sake of the identity of the leader or group. In fact, for some this is placed as an ideal. In that sense they are cult-like, and I would argue not natively Jewish. In native Judaism everyone is seen as an individual and respected for their own uniqueness no matter what level they are on."

Video: Alleged OU Extortion And Mafia Tactics

A restaurant owner in Jerusalem alleges the OU bullied him, extorted him, and tried to ruin his business.

Daily News Reporter Wins Jewish Media Award

New York Daily News reporter Simone Weichselbaum, who has covered many of the haredi child sexual abuse stories of the past half-decade, just won the 2013 Be’chol Lashon Media Award for her reporting. The award is meant to recognize outstanding journalism that represents the diversity of Judaism.

Did Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Plagiarize Responsa?

Did Israel's Ashkenazi haredi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger plagiarize teshuvot from other rabbis to make his own books look more important? Ma'ariv alleges that he appears to have done just that.

Rubashkin Family Fundraising Email

"…The deadline to file this petition is in 5 months and we have barely started yet (there is a massive amount of work) because we don’t have funds to move forward. We desperately need to raise the funds to pay for this legal team as we’re running out of time.…"

Video: The Knesset Conflict Between Yair Lapid And The Haredim

Video – with subtitles – of the heckling and shouting by haredi MKs at Finance Minister Yair Lapid as he tried to speak in Knesset last week.

Free Broadway Tickets!

You, Failed Messiah reader, can win a pair of tickets to a great new Broadway play (yes, BROADWAY, that Broadway – the Great White Way), Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties, starring Jessica Hecht, Judith Light and Jeremy Shamos.

Learning From Tragedy – Or Not, As The Haredi Case May Be

"Levaya [funeral] details to be announced. He is survived by his rebitzen [wife] and children. Zaka [the largely haredi search and rescue organization] officials add there are no signs of foul play and they hope police will not seek to perform an autopsy."

BBC Cancels Documentary That Claims Most Jews Were Not Exiled By Rome After Temple Destroyed

At last minute, the BBC has canceled a documentary that claims to show that the exile of a large part of the Land of Israel's Jews by the Romans after the Destruction of the Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba revolt that followed a half-century later never happened.

Hiddush Report Finds Israel Among The Worst Countries For Freedom Of Marriage And Divorce

"Israel received the grade of "0" [the worst grade possible] due to severe restrictions that limit the options for legal marriage and discriminate against certain populations. These severe restrictions on freedom of marriage put Israel alongside countries that are among the worst offenders of violating marriage rights."

Rahm Emanuel's Rabbi Takes Over At Yeshivat Chovevei Torah

“My father was always involved in shul, but he felt rabbis schnorr off the community, and he didn’t want me involved in that,” Lopatin told me. “I think he wanted me to go into Jewish communal life, professionally, but his big thing was that the State Department could influence things more, so when I went on the Rhodes I was studying to be an expert on the Middle East.…[later] My mother had just passed away, and I decided, I’m just going to be a rabbi,” Lopatin said. “I’m very interested in Islamic fundamentalism, but it wasn’t where my passion was.”

Video: Israel Police Called "Nazis" At Meron Lag Ba'Omer Celebration

Haredim (and one Hilltop Youth) call Israel Police "Nazis" at Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's supposed tomb outside Meron, Israel yesterday, Lag Ba'omer.

Disaster At Mount Meron

"It wasn't a pretty picture. People charged at every bus that arrived, trampling each other. Some were injured and fainted. It's unclear what caused the failure."

What Else But Evil? Lag Ba'omer In London's Satmar Community

What other word can describe the sight at the Lag Ba'omer bonfire last night at Satmar's Toras Chesed synagogue in London, England, if not evil?

Ramapo Reportedly Allows Another Illegal Hasidic School To Open In Private Home

The Town of Ramapo is again allowing the illegal conversion of a private home into a hasidic yeshiva, and it’s doing so without holding any public hearings or getting comment from the new school’s unhappy neighbors.

Video: Lag Ba'omer In Kiryas Joel

The lighting of last night's Lag Ba'omer bonfire in Kiryas Joel led by the Kiryas Joel Satmar Rebbe Aharon Teitelbaum.

Drafting Haredim The Work Of Satan, Chief Rabbi Says

"For the sins of multitudes, folly entered the minds of the few – it is the work of the Satan. Our salvation is wholly dependent on the Torah. The Satan instilled in their minds the folly that putting an end to the yeshivas will rid [Israel] of economic or security problems. Turning the yeshiva students into enemies, god forbid. They protect us, their Torah safeguards us all."

Rabbi Blocks Burial Of War Hero’s Father

When Genadi Drobitsky died of cancer recently, there was nowhere to bury him. True, there was a cemetery in Nahariya and it had open plots. Dobritsky’s son – a war hero who died in battle – is buried there, and Dobritsky himself had requested to be buried in that cemetery, as close to his son as possible. But it the burial was blocked by Nahariya's chief rabbi.

Rubashkin Fundraising Continues

Former glatt kosher meat baron Sholom Rubashkin lost at trial, lost on appeal and was denied by the US Supreme Court. Now his family is raising money to file a 2255 motion in the hopes that this will set him free.

Rabbi Busted For Allegedly Supplying Prisoner With Drugs

The rabbi heads a yeshiva at the Shita prison in northern Israel. He allegedly gave Itamar Sha’altiel, who is serving a life term for murder, cigarette boxes containing an unknown drug on at least three separate occasions. In return, Sha’altiel allegedly gave the rabbi money and other goods.

Police Ask Prosecution To Indict Haredi Rabbi Who Once Voided All Zionist Orthodox Conversions

The Lahav 433 – National Crime Unit said that following a complaint in 2010, [Rabbi Avraham] Sherman was questioned under caution and that over the course of the probe, police determined that he “made the decision to release from jail a man who refused to give his wife a divorce after he [Sherman] was exposed to outside pressure that influenced his decision in the case, which was decided without following the usual rabbinical court procedure.”

Haredi Modesty Sign In Midwood, Brooklyn

A haredi modesty sign posted in Midwood, Brooklyn yesterday.

Bus Driver Charged In Child Sex Abuse Case

Police spokeswoman Leonie Johnson said Donald Cornell, who was a bus driver at the Orthodox Adass Israel School in Elsternwick and Melbourne's [Chabad] Yeshivah Centre, was charged with six counts of indecent assault on March 19. The offences date from the late 1980s and are alleged to have been committed against a 15-year-old girl.

Rabbi Michael Broyde Allegedly Used Fake Name To Tout His Own Candidacy For Chief Rabbi Of England

A series of email messages promoting Rabbi Michael Broyde’s candidacy for the British chief rabbinate were sent to The Times of Israel last fall from an email address linked to one of his alleged aliases. Some of those emails were quoted in the Times of Israel's reporting.

Jerusalem Agrees To Honor Controversial Scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz

Leibowitz repeatedly attacked the IDF's behavior on the West Bank and strongly opposed Israel's right-of-center governments, calling Jewish West Bank settlers “Judeo-Nazis.” But what really blocked naming a street after Leibowitz for the 19 years since his death was the Sefardi haredi political party Shas, which hates Leibowitz because of remarks he made about the spiritual head of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Hard Right Likud Faction Head Says State Wrong To Force Haredi Schools To Teach Math

"I am completely with the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) who reject the State attempt to compel them to add a secular curriculum to Torah studies in their schools: Responsibility for the education of a child lies with the parents – not the state. The state may decide to whom it will award a matriculation certificate. But it is the full right of any individual to forgo that certificate."

Haredi Kotel Rabbi Says Court Ruling Will Lead To “Civil War”

"I will fight wholeheartedly against any harm to the holiness of the Western Wall, and I will not allow the slightest deviation from what is and has been customary at the site for decades…[any change] will face strong opposition and bring about a civil war.”

New Haredi Guide For Resisting Military Draft Tells Haredi Yeshiva Students That The Time May Be Coming When They Will Have To Choose Suicide Rather Than Army Service

A new draft resisters’ guide tailored for haredi yeshiva students reportedly compares the draft of those haredi yeshiva students to the Holocaust and reminds them that, like in the Holocaust, sometimes suicide is preferable to complying with the decrees of an evil government.

Stunning Court Ruling "Liberates" Kotel from Haredim, Gives Sweeping Victory To Women Of The Wall

“Today Women of the Wall liberated the Western Wall for all Jewish people. We did it for the 8-year-old girl who can now dream of having her Bat Mitzvah at the wall and for the grandmother who cannot climb on a chair to see her grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. We did it for the great diversity of Jews in the world, all of whom deserve to pray according to their belief and custom at the Western Wall."

Leading Haredi Rabbi Orders Yeshiva Students To Ignore Draft Notices

Auerbach’s newspaper HaPeles reported that Auerbach told them to announce in his name that because the government’s decision to draft haredi yeshiva students is a “gezeirat shmad [a decree of forced conversion from Judaism to another religion or to atheism]” and an “uprooting” of Judaism, haredi yeshiva students should not answer draft notices and report to recruitment processing centers at all.

Haredim Say Anti-Haredi Sentiment Spilling Out From Knesset To The Streets

"I should stand in front of you in line, you parasite – you steal my paycheck!"

Haredi Yeshivas Lash Out At New Proposed Gov’t Standards, State Funding Cuts

The new proposed government standards for haredi schools and their tie to state funding cuts "would simply spell the end of [our haredi]  schools, as it's out to make them study core [secular] subjects [like math], which simply will never happen. We shall not let it happen."

Adventures In Hasidic Classified Ads

A hasidic talmud torah school needs a new teacher.

New Child Sex Abuse Case In Melbourne's Haredi Community

A Mentions Hearing will be held for Donald Cornell, who is facing six charges over alleged abuse dating back to the late 1980s. Cornell, who is not Jewish, was apparently contracted as a bus driver for both the fervently Orthodox Adass Israel School and the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne.

Only Haredi Rabbis Will "Dictate" What Haredi Children Study, Haredi Pol Says

"It is not about science, math, computers or English, but it is about Yair Lapid understanding it is the rabbonim [haredi rabbis], the Gedolei Yisrael Shlita [the leading haredi rabbis], who will dictate what the children learn, not Lapid, Piron or any other government.”

Hasidim Try To Force “Immodest” Woman To Leave Town

Rabbi Zushe Horowitz, the rabbi of the hasidic community of Elad, Israel, has reportedly sanctioned and personally participated in a protest held outside the home of a woman hasidim allege has violated the community’s modesty standards.

Rabbi Michael Broyde Caught In Another Alleged Academic Fraud

"The second identity [created by Broyde], claiming to be [Rabbi David Tzvi Keter] an 80-something Ivy League graduate and Talmud scholar in 2010, alleged he’d had conversations with now long-dead sages in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The alleged conversations were used to produce a manufactured history of statements from long-dead scholars that buttressed an argument that Broyde had made in a highly-touted article published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Broyde, in a later publication, subsequently quoted this second identity’s alleged findings as further proof of his original argument."

Chief Rabbis' Reversal On Circumcision Sucking Ritual Ban Done To Protect Chabad

A Chabad rabbi, Yehuda Teichtal, faces a lawsuit and possible criminal prosecution in Germany for having metzitzah b'peh (MBP), the direct mouth-to-bloody-penis sucking done to babies by mohels after the foreskin has been cut off, done to his infant son in violation of German law that requires the highest level of current medical practice to be followed. Israel's chief rabbis' reversal on a plan to ban MBP appears to have taken place to protect Teichtal and Chabad from those legal actions.

Deputy Finance Minister Tells Haredi Radio Audience That Haredim "Can't Be Parasites"

Haredim must “bear the burden together, join the job market, they can’t be parasites on the Israeli public, they can’t keep on with their world view that ‘We don’t work.’”

Teach Core Subjects Or Get No Money, Gov’t To Tell Haredi Schools

"The number of students in educational institutions in the haredi sector is expected to reach 26% of all students in Israel by the end of the decade. The employment and productivity rates in the haredi sector are significantly lower than in the general sector, among other things due to the lack of basic studies which serve as a key component in acquiring the suitable tools for entering the labor market. The key core subjects are Hebrew, mathematics and English.”

"Get Out, Sheigetz!" Satmar Rabbi Bans Uniformed IDF Soldiers From Satmar Study Halls, Synagogues And Yeshivas

"If a Jew enters a study hall [synagogue or yeshiva] with such clothing, haredim should yell at him, ‘Tamei [unclean one], get out of here!’ These clothes defile…To pray with those clothes is like praying while making the sign of the cross, may God save us. These clothes proclaim: ‘Heresy!'"

Satmar Mikva Warns: Do Not Blow Your Nose In The Mikva's Towels

"We are providing tissues here in the mikvah to blow the nose. Its not a normal thing to blow the nose in the mikvah towels. Remember! People take used towel to put under their feet...And also a yid washes the towels.And in general its just not decent. Thank you."

Tax Authority Raids Haredi Businesses In Search Of Tax Cheats

Last week Tax Authority inspectors raided haredi businesses, auditing 137 of them in the Geulah neighborhood adjacent to Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. They also raided and audited other businesses in Ramle and Lod. Both of those cities have large Arab populations along with significant haredi populations. But the inspectors avoided conducting raids in Mea Shearim proper, where the percentage of noncompliant businesses could easily have approached 100%.

Metzitza B’Peh Is A Part of The Circumcision Procedure And Must Be Done, Israel’s Haredi Chief Rabbis Now Say

A letter was released today by the Director of the Circumcision Department of the Chief Rabbinate Rabbi Moshe Marciano. Marciano wrote that the position of the Chief Rabbinate supports the so-called traditional circumcision procedure that includes MBP which, Marciano wrote, is done to ensure the health of the baby.

Gov’t To Slash Haredi Yeshiva Budgets 30%

An Israeli ministerial committee has decided to slash funding of haredi yeshivot, seminaries and schools 30%. The move was reportedly authorized by Finance Minister Yair Lapid and is expected to save Israel approximately NIS 340 million ($94 million) per year.