FailedMessiah.com

Video: Modern Orthodox Developer Speaks Out Bloomingburg "Hate"

Shalom Lamm, the controversial Modern Orthodox developer building 396-unit Satmar shtetl in Bloomingburg, New York, speaks out against the vandalism that has plagued some of his properties.

Scandal-Plagued, Haredi-Controlled School Board To Reappoint Law Firm It Pledged To Remove

"This serves to reinforce public opinion that [board president] Yehuda [Weissmandl] and the rest of the board does not care about community opinion or [about] trying to find common ground on any level."

Prayers For Murdered Boys’ Safe Return Were Not In Vain, Top Haredi Rabbi Insists

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the Ashkenazi haredi world’s #2 mainstream leader, said tonight that even though the three Zionist Orthodox teenage boys kidnapped in the West Bank on June 12 were found murdered this morning, the prayers of tens of thousands of Jews for them to be safely rescued were not in vain because, in their their deaths, the murdered boys brought many Jews closer to God.

Government To Step Up Enforcement Of High Court Ruling Prohibiting Forced Gender Segregation On Public Buses, Sidewalks

Despite High Court of Justice rulings against it, forced gender segregation continues on so-called mehadrin buses in violation of the law. Female passengers are often intimidated by verbal insults and  threats from haredim and sometimes are assaulted if they refuse to move to the back of the bus. Additionally, the fear of being humiliated by screaming haredi men and possibly assaulted compels many women to sit in back even though they do not want to.

Baruch Dayan HaEmet: 3 Kidnapped Zionist Orthodox Boys Dead, Bodies Found

19-year-old Eyal Yifrach and 16-year-olds Gil-Ad Sha'ar and Naftali Frenkel have been found dead near Hebron.

 

Report: Kidnapped Zionist Orthodox Teens' Bodies May Have Been Found

The IDF reportedly fears the bodies of three kidnapped Zionist Orthodox Israeli teen boys kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank alone at night three weeks ago may have been found.

 

Israeli Police Use Force To Stop African Asylum Seekers From Marching To Freedom

On Sunday, Israeli police used force to break up a three-day desert sit-in by hundreds of African asylum seekers who fled a detention center and marched toward Israel’s border with Egypt.

Israeli Cabinet’s Ministerial Committee For Legislation Blocks Public Buses On Shabbat

“There needs to be public transportation on the Sabbath, but not in such a sweeping fashion so this special day is not harmed, also for the nonreligious.”

Israel’s High Court Rules Rabbinical Courts Overstepped Their Authority To Try To Force Mother To Circumcise Her Toddler

In a dramatic 6-1 ruling, Israel’s High Court of Justice removed the case of a divorcing couple and the fight over their baby’s circumcision from the state rabbinical courts, prompting an explosion of condemnation and anger from haredim.

Kiryas Joel Satmar Bans 3-Year-Old Girls From Wearing Short Socks

"…And in light of the fact that there has been a lapse in standards by some people [in] that girls from the age three are going dressed with short socks. Therefore, at a meeting which was held by the Rebbe [i.e., Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum, the Kiryas Joel Satmar Rebbe], it was decided that: Households who do not take care of this issue (even in times when one is not in school), their children will not be accepted into our schools, which has been established to educate out children to behave themselves according to the Torah.…"

Almost 80% Of NYC's Daycare Vouchers Reportedly Given To Haredim, Leaving Others Without Help

Of the city’s total of 13,400 low-income child care vouchers, 28% were used at schools and day cares in Williamsburg; another 21% in Borough Park. Even outside of those neighborhoods, yeshivas and other Jewish religious organizations were by far the biggest recipients of the funds: Of all the low-income vouchers used at formal day care centers and schools in January 2014, nearly 80% were paid to Jewish religious programs, according to city data obtained by the Center for New York City Affairs.

Video: Dov Hikind And Borough Park Shomrim Discuss Child Safety

In a brief newly released video, New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (Borough Park) discusses child safety for haredim with Borough Park Shomrim coordinators Yanky Daskal and Motty Katz.

Bobov Bans Summer Campers From Having Cellphones

The Bobov hasidic movement in Brooklyn has banned all summer camp children from having any type of cellphone – even ones without Internet access. Any child found with a cellphone will be kicked out of camp. For students who need to call home, the camp head/principal will provide special kosher cellphones to use. But those phones must be immediately returned to him after the student makes his call. Could this ban really be in place to limit reporting of child sex abuse?

Secular Political Party Starts Free Public Bus Service – On Shabbat Only

Activists from the secular left-wing Meretz Party began running a free bus service between Hod HaSharon and Kfar Sava last Shabbat, bringing passengers to and from shopping centers in the the two largely secular Israeli towns. The secular party reportedly plans to continue running the free service for at least the rest of summer, and also plans to run two additional routes – one from Kfar Sava and Ra’anana into central Tel Aviv, and the another one to the Herzliya beach – as well.

Zionist Orthodox Hesder Yeshivas Extend Active Military Duty Service Time Of Students To Help Find Kidnapped Boys

The union of Zionist Orthodox hesder yeshivas, which combine active duty military service with Torah study, announced that students currently serving on active duty in the IDF will extend their time of active duty service to provide additional manpower to help the IDF try to find and return the three Zionist Orthodox teenage boys kidnapped by terrorists in the West Bank more than two weeks ago.

Video: Guns N' Roses Lead Guitarist Plays HaTikva

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, the lead guitarist for Guns N' Roses, plays HaTikva, the song that became Israel's national anthem, backstage in Las Vegas earlier this month.

New Hasidic Community Forming In Waterbury, CT

A new "heimishe" community for Brooklyn ex-pats is forming in Waterbury, Connecticut where a smaller non-hasidic haredi community made up primarily of haredim from Flatbush formed about a decade ago.

Report: Australian Chabad leaders Under Criminal Investigation For Covering Up Child Sex Abuse

Australian police are reportedly investigating senior Chabad leaders in both Sydney and in Melbourne for failing to report child sex abuse as required by law and for covering up the abuse (and, it seems, for sanction harassment and abuse of witnesses against them).

Haredi Girl Sues Principal, School Over Sex Abuse

Parents told The Age at the time that the former principal of the Adass School, Malka Leifer, molested students aged 15 and 16 at her home and probably at school camps, and that one victim had attempted suicide. Leifer is now living in the haredi settlement of Emmanuel in the West Bank, and a resident of the town says Leifer often takes children from the synagogue there to her house for after-school tutoring and to study the Torah, sparking alarm among residents who know of the accusations against her in Australia.

Is Brooklyn's New DA Telling The Truth? (Part 2)

15 to 20 hasidim, most members of the Shomrim street patrol, allegedly savagely beat a gay black college student 7 months ago. Is Brooklyn's new DA telling the whole truth about that beating and the very delayed arrests related to it?

 

Slight Majority Of Israeli Jews Want Non-Orthodox Movements To Have Equal Status With Orthodoxy For Conversions To Judaism And Marriage

62% of Israeli Jews believe Jews in Israel and the Diaspora share a common fate (35% disagree), and that a slight majority of Israeli Jews want non-Orthodox Jewish movements in the country to have equal status with Orthodoxy – which is effectively the state religion the vast majority of Israelis do not practice and have grown to deeply resent.

Modern Orthodox Developer Says Windows Shattered "A Hate Crime"

Modern Orthodox developer Shalom Lamm – who allegedly tried to hide the true nature of his massive Satmar hasidic housing development in tiny Bloomingburg, New York by having a front man pitch the development to village officials as a vacation and retirement community that would be low density and would include a golf course  – is now calling the breaking of windows on three of the commercial properties he owns in the 420-person village “a hate crime.”

Is Brooklyn's New DA Telling The Truth?

15 to 20 hasidim, most members of the Shomrim street patrol, allegedly savagely beat a black college student 7 months ago. Is Brooklyn's new DA telling the truth about that beating and the very delayed arrests related to it?

The Problem With College, Haredi Woman Says, Is that It Makes Haredi Women Give Up Haredi Religion

"…[W]e became accustomed to the idea that there is the Torah and the opinion of the Torah, which are supreme, and all of a sudden we are told in a [college or technical college] seminar that there is another supreme authority – research and science. Everything becomes valid only if it is reliable and proven by research," a haredi woman said, explaining that she knew of haredi women who "removed their [thick] stockings" (worn by haredi women for modesty purposes) after being exposed to this information.

Leading Zionist Orthodox Rabbi Doesn’t Want Haredim To Be Drafted, Thinks New Draft Law Is A Danger To Zionist Orthodox Yeshivas

Baron concluded by warning the law poses a threat to the religious Zionist hesder yeshivas as well, which he did not elaborate on. "I suggest to every dean of our [hesder] yeshivas to read the law carefully, and if they want to they are invited to contact me," Baron said when failing to explain what the threat to hesder yeshivas from the new draft law actually is.

Dead Sea Cosmetics Salespeople Allegedly Sell Elderly And Disabled Vulnerable Adults Thousands Of Dollars Of Unwanted Products

Those pushy, cult-like Israelis who go abroad to sell Dead Sea cosmetics at shopping mall kiosks are at it again. Israeli Dead Sea cosmetics salespeople were escorted out of New Zealand's Lynnmall Shopping Center by security after they convinced an 82-year-old woman to come with them to an ATM, empty her bank account and buy thousands of dollars worth of anti-wrinkle cream and other cosmetics.

Women Can Go To College After All, New Shas Rabbi Says, But Only If It Teaches Every Subject In Conformity To Haredi Law

“This is all under the condition that all lecturers will be eligible to teach according to the ways of our forefathers, and that all the studies and content [taught to students] will be based on the words of our [rabbinic] masters.”

Another Haredi College On Edge Of Bankruptcy, Closure

The Haredi College of Jerusalem, founded and run by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s daughter Adina Bar-Shalom, is reportedly more than $1.7 million in debt and is expected to close.

Modern Orthodox Developer Wants To Open Controversial Hasidic School By September

Modern Orthodox developer Shalom Lamm hopes to open a controversial Satmar hasidic girls school in Bloomingburg in time for the fall semester, Lamm’s attorney told the Mamakating Planning Board Tuesday night.

Satmar Village Of Kiryas Joel Illegally Gender Segregates Streets

The Satmar hasidic Village of Kiryas Joel in upstate New York is illegally gender segregating its streets.

Haredi Charity To Issue Free Smartphone App To Help Prevent Caregivers From Accidentally Leaving Children In Parked Cars

National nonprofit Kars4Kids today announced the upcoming release of a free app to prevent parents and caregivers from forgetting their young children in the car. With the summer only just begun and news headlines already reporting several heatstroke deaths of children forgotten in cars, the Kids N Kars app gives concerned parents a tangible preventative measure they can take to ensure such a story doesn’t happen to them.

Sefardi Kabbalist Whose Charity Allegedly Stole From Holocaust Survivors Sues Network That Helped Expose Him

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto and his chief aide and relative, former pornographer Ben Zion Suky, have filed a $30 million lawsuit in a New York State court against Israeli TV production house Keshet and journalist Ilana Dayan.

Doctor Allegedly Groped Elderly Patient, Asked For Oral Sex

Dr. John Barry Myers, who has regularly prayed at Chabad's Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, Australia for almost 25 years, allegedly groped and requested oral sex from a 68-year-old woman admitted to a hospital for depression and suicidal thoughts, an Australian tribunal has been told. Myers was recently given maftir at the Yeshivah Centre's main synagogue, a Melbourne source who was there when it happened told FailedMessiah.com.

First Book Of Halakhic Responsa Written By Ordained Modern Orthodox Women Published

The book’s authors were ordained three years ago by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and by Rabbi Shuki Reich. Before being ordained, the two women reportedly completed a five-year ordination course and passed tests equivalent to those given by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to men seeking ordination as rabbis. Their ordination reportedly allows them to issue legal decisions for men and women in every area of Jewish law – something so rare, the two women may be the only women in the world to possess it.

Israel’s Shochtim Want To Unionize, Rabbis Vehemently Oppose

“We cannot have a situation in which a rabbi will have to be accompanied by an attorney everywhere he goes in fear anything he says or does will lead to a lawsuit.…A shochet [ritual slaughterer] and mashgiach [kosher food inspector] are trusted agents of the [city’s chief] rabbi and it is unthinkable that an outside organization will try to compel a rabbi to follow its dictates against his will."

Since New Draft Law Passed, Only 1 Out Of 2,996 Adult Haredi Men Who Received An IDF Draft Notice Actually Enlisted, IDF Says

Since Israel’s new military draft law was passed about three months ago, 2,996 haredi men aged 22- to 28-years received draft notices ordering them to report to an IDF induction center for initial evaluation. But of those 2,996, only 1,126 – 38% – actually reported and of them, only 1 haredi man actually enlisted, an IDF Manpower Directorate report presented to a Knesset committee yesterday reportedly shows.

Town Approves Controversial Satmar Mikva

The town of Mamakating, New York’s planning board approved the controversial mikva (ritual bath) meant to serve Modern Orthodox developer Shalom Lamm’s 396-unit townhouse development that – despite many of Lamm’s protestations to the contrary which since have proved false – will be a new Satmar hasidic shtetl.

Did Get Refuser Yoel Weiss Hold His Young Wife Prisoner? A Former Neighbor Believes He Did

"I live on a very quiet block in Flatbush. All of sudden in 2008, they [Yoel and Rivky] move onto the block and he [Yoel Weiss] turns the house he was renting into a warehouse, his deliveries of all sorts coming and going at all hours day and night. The front of the house was strewn with litter.…"

Haredi Colleges And College Programs Discriminate Against Women, Researchers Find

Accommodating haredi demands for complete gender segregation has made haredi colleges and college programs inhospitable and blatantly discriminatory to many women, three researchers told Israeli government officials Tuesday.

State Rabbinic Court Lashes Out At Haredi Rabbi In Controversial Divorce Case Fallout

After facing withering attacks from leading haredi rabbis, the Safed state rabbinical court headed by Rabbi Uriel Lavi has (albeit politely) lashed out at one of its critics in an almost unprecedented publicly released open letter.

Leader Of Haredi Lev Tahor Cult Flees To Guatemala

To no one's surprise – except perhaps for befuddled child protection officials and a judge in rural Ontario, Canada – Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, the convicted kidnapper who leads of the haredi Lev Tahor cult, and many of his followers have fled child abuse allegations in two separate Canadian provinces for the far less regulated backwater of rural Guatemala.

Satmar Hasid Arrested On Misdemeanor Child Sex Abuse Charges

New York State Police in Monroe have reportedly arrested a Satmar hasid for allegedly sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.

Haredi Woman Launches Social Media Campaign To Try To Get Jewish Divorce

Another in a long line of similar cases of haredi and Orthodox women who are trapped in dead Jewish marriages by recalcitrant husbands who try to use withholding the Jewish divorce document to extort their wife and her family to get better child custody settlements – and, quite often, to get large monetary payouts. But this time, there's a twist.

Police Bust Breslov-Linked Haredi Drug Smuggling Cartel

The leader, a haredi man who is reportedly in his sixties, allegedly used haredi men traveling to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s grave in Uman, Ukraine to smuggle the narcotics for him.

Ashkenazi-Run Haredi Girls School Caught Excluding Sefardim, Government Steps In

Israel’s Education Ministry has cancelled the registrations of all students in the new Beit Yaakov high school seminary in the haredi city of Elad because the school discriminated against Sefardi girls who wanted to enroll.

Yeshiva University's Response To The Exposé Exposing Its Allegedly Horrible Financial Practices

Last week, a Jewish Channel exposé reporterd that YU's board, investment committee and its president, Richard Joel, reportedly squandered much of YU's massive endowment through unethical risky investments that often gave some financial or other benefits to investment committee members. Here is YU's somewhat belated response.

Report: Chabad Pedophile Loses Appeal

In December 2013, former Chabad Yeshivah Centre employee David Cyprys received an 8-year sentence for 17 counts of child sex abuse involving 9 children. Cyprys is currently in prison serving his sentence.

Crown Heights Rabbi Pleads Guilty In Get Kidnapping And Extortion Case

Rabbi Sholom Shuchat pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark today to one count of traveling in interstate commerce to commit an act of violence. Shuchat, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was part of team of eleven men, allegedly headed by Rabbi Mendel Epstein and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, who extorted recalcitrant husbands into granting their wives Jewish divorces, known as a get. The gang allegedly used electric cattle prods and other torture devices to force the husbands to grant the divorces.

Brooklyn Synagogue Of Rabbi Behind Many Bans About To Close

Rabbi Avrohom Schorr, who forced Lipa Schmeltzer's BIG EVENT concert to be cancelled and has led many of the other bans in the haredi world, may no longer have a synagogue. His Flatbush shul and powerbase is apparently about to close.

Shas Party Spiritual Head Bans All Women From Going To College

Rabbi Shalom Cohen – whose hateful rhetoric against Zionist Orthodox Jews drew countrywide condemnation earlier this year –  reportedly wrote a position paper/letter in his capacity as the president of Shas’ Council of Torah Sages that rules that teachers who teach in and the subject matter taught in colleges, universities and technical colleges are not in accordance with Torah values and principles and must be completely avoided.