FailedMessiah.com

Donating Money To Haredi Charity Can "Rescue" You From Having To Live Next To A Muslim, Ad Says

The haredi charity Kollel Chatzos published an ad in the Detroit area earlier this month that makes it clear: donating money to Kollel Chatzos, a haredi charity that pays married yeshiva students to study Torah at midnight each weeknight, can "rescue" you from having to live next door to those "individuals" – Muslims.

Ruled Non-Jewish 3 Years Ago By State-Employed Chabad Rabbinical Judge Later Accused Of Corruption And Fixing Divorces, Israeli Woman Decides To Fight Back Now For The Sake Of Her Newborn Daughter

“No convert can sleep peacefully in Israel. [All converts at any time can find themselves hauled into a haredi-controlled state rabbinical court and] interrogated about their lifestyle, and sometimes the conversion can be declared invalid. Now we see added to this circle the children of converts who were born and raised completely Jewish.”

4 Stabbed In Kiryat Gat, Jewish Mob Tries To Lynch Teenage Terrorist, Beats Innocent Bedouin Bystander, No Jews Arrested

The attacker, an illegal worker from Hebron in the West Bank, fled the scene and successfully eluded a massive police manhunt that involved 250 officers – until he was turned in by several of his friends.

In Israel, As Holocaust Survivors And The Poor Suffer, West Bank Jewish Settlers Flourish

As Jewish settlers and haredim are being flooded by the Knesset with millions of dollars in additional discretionary funding, Israeli Arabs got nothing. Israel's social periphery – the poor, the disabled, the abuser, the sexually trafficked – also got no additional funding from the right-wing controlled Knesset, and neither did Holocaust survivors, single mothers or children with special needs.

Following A Healthy, Doctor Recommended Diet But Still Can't Lose Weight? Israeli Researchers Discover Why

Ever wonder why you and friend can eat an almost identical diet, choose the same foods and follow the same recipes, but she loses weight or maintains a healthy weight while you lard on the pounds? Israeli researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science appear to have discovered why.

Illegal Synagogue Built On Stolen Palestinian Land Still Stands – For Now

The temporary synagogue meant to replace the illegal one – if it is ever torn down – was placed on a soccer field adjacent to a secular school, and the secular school's parents are outraged. “It is not the right place for person unaffiliated with the school to be. There are too many pedophiles in the country and we are afraid for our children,” one of those secular parents said.

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against NY State, Haredi Yeshivas, Over Lack Of Secular Education

New York State's Department of Education, its Board of Regents, the haredi-controlled East Ramapo school board, and others are all being sued in a class action lawsuit filed yesterday by parents of students who have been denied adequate secular education by the named haredi yeshivas, including Skvere's Avir Yaakov and Satmar's UTJ and their administrators.

Does Halakha Provide An Easy Way To Avoid Many Shabbat Stove Fires?

It does. Here's what it is, and here's why your rabbi doesn't encourage you to use it.

Openness And Transparency? Not At Chabad In Melbourne

Parents and Friends of [Chabad's] Yeshivah in Melbourne (PFYM),the group that helped force Chabad's top Melbourne lay leaders to resign over Chabad's massive child sex abuse scandal, was promised full cooperation and transparency by the interim lay leaders appointed to manage Chabad. But instead of cooperation and transparency, Chabad's Interim Committee of Management (likely acting in concert with the supposedly ousted former CoM members and the rabbis who led Chabad's decades-long coverup of child sex abuse at its Melbourne Yeshiavah Centre) have completely stonewalled parents and activists even as Chabad was publicly claiming to be reaching out to its community members and working toward healing. But that reaching out, that claimed openness, seems to be just another in a very long line of Chabad PR stunts.

Charges Dropped Against Jewish NYPD Auxiliary Cop

Charges against a a Jewish New York City auxiliary police inspector accused of hacking into law enforcement databases to defraud traffic accident victims have been dropped by a federal judge in Brooklyn.

Chabad's Rabbi "Diamond Joe" Gutnick Claims To Be In Serious Financial Difficulty, Allegedly Won’t Be Able To Pay $55 Million Arbitration Award

Chabad's Rabbi Joseph "Diamond Joe" Gutnick, the Australian mining magnate with a history of questionable business behavior, is now claiming to be nearly destitute. But is that claim simply a ruse meant to help him avoid paying $55 million he owes to an Indian company?

3 More Sentenced In Jewish Divorce Extortion Plot

Three more members of the New Jersey-Brooklyn get (Jewish divorce) extortion ring headed by Rabbi Mendel Epstein were sentenced today, but only two got prison terms.

Don’t Worry, Top Haredi Rabbi Tells French Jews, The Torah Will Protect You And Save You From Terrorism

101-year-old Rabbi Aaron Yehuda Leib Steinman told French Jews not to worry about terrorism. Just increase your Torah study because "the Torah protects and saves."

Cop Who Savagely Beat And Kicked Handcuffed Defenseless Palestinian Teen With US Citizenship Gets No-Jail Sentence Despite Being Caught On Camera Committing The Crime

There's no justification for terror, but if you want to understand the rage many young Palestinians feel, a rage the Shin Bet says contributes heavily to the ongoing wave of Palestinian terror Israel is now facing, read this post.

Yeshiva University, Still In Financial Straits, Pays President Richard Joel $2.8 Million In 2014

YU President Richard Joel earned $2.8 million in 2014, a year when YU’s operating deficit was $150 million, the value of its endowment dropped $90 million, and YU was forced to sell off $72.5 million in real estate. That same year, Moody’s dropped YUs debt rating to junk status, where it remains today.

Government Bid To Amend Draft Law To Further Delay Haredi Draft Likely Illegal, Defense Ministry Legal Expert Says

The government’s attempt to amend Israel’s draft law to help more haredim dodge the draft is likely illegal, a formal legal opinion by the Defense Ministry’s legal advisor Miri Frenkel-Shor and given to Knesset members yesterday says.

Israel Mishandles Sex Crimes Against Children, Does Little To Stop Child Prostitution, Few Perpetrators Ever Punished, UN Report, Knesset’s Own Research, Show

A recent report issued by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child sharply criticized Israel for mishandling sex crimes against children, human trafficking of minors, and children exploited for prostitution – the Knesset's own research arm's findings support the UN's claims.

In Defiance Of Court Ruling, Haredi Kotel Rabbi Blocks Women From Holding Hanukkah Candle Lighting Ceremony

Women of the Wall (WoW) wanted to hold their own official state-sponsored Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony at the Kotel (Western Wall) or have the official male-only ceremony modified to allow female participation, but the haredi state-appointed rabbi of the Kotel, Shmuel Rabinowitz, refused to do either.

Court Rules Transgendered Ex-Haredi Woman Can Be Cremated

The Jerusalem District Court has rejected a petition filed by the estranged haredi family of a transgendered woman, May Peleg, to block Peleg’s cremation.

Jennifer Lawrence Hunger Games Movie Posters Censored Over Fears Of Haredi Vandalism, Violence

Posters advertising the opening of the new Hunger Games film starring Jennifer Lawrence are posted throughout Israel, and the posters all feature Lawrence’s photo – except for for the ones posted in Jerusalem and in the haredi city of Bnei Brak. In those cities, Lawrence has been photshopped out.

I Left Hasidic Williamsburg To Become A Woman, Male Descendant Of The Baal Shem Tov Says

Sruly Stein, who left the Brooklyn hasidic community four years ago, is now in the process of transitioning to be a woman. As you might expect, people within the hasidic community are appalled, and some have voiced that confusion and disgust through some pretty awful text messages and the like, and many people don't understand why she didn't just suffer quietly inside the community and keep up appearances so as not to shame her family and their wider hasidic community – especially because Stein is supposedly descended from the founder of the hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov.

Jews, Usury, And The Birth Of Modern Finance

"…Anxious to catch the Italians and lured by interest rates as high as 43 percent, German cities cleared the field of incumbents. Augsburg expelled its Jews in 1438 and used the gravestones from the Jewish cemetery to build a new city hall. A textile trader named Hans Meuthing became the first Augsburger to try finance on a major scale. He made a large loan to Archduke Sigmund of Tyrol, which was backed…by the output of the Schwaz silver mine. Others jumped in, replacing Jewish lenders on transactions, large and small. The German satirist Sebastian Brant noted the development in his best-selling Ship of Fools (1494): 'You borrow ten, eleven's due. They're more usurious than the Jew. Their business now the Jews may lose, for it is done by Christian Jews.'…"

Chabad's Yeshiva Centre To Hold Reconciliation Evening With Abuse Victims

Chabad's Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne, Australia – the locus of at least a dozen (and likely two to three times that) cases of child sex abuse covered up by Chabad – is holding an evening of reflection, understanding, healing and regret with a panel that include at least one of those victims, Manny Waks. The problem, it would seem, is that Chabad's harassment of victims is ongoing, and it's kind of hard to reflect, understand and heal while that is ongoing. The evening is important to Chabad, though, because just weeks afterward, the Royal Commission investigating the abuse and coverups at Chabad will release its report and recommendations, and the more repentant Chabad can seem, the less chance there is that those recommendations will include criminal charges against its rabbis.

Kabbalah Centre Sued Over Alleged Attempted Rape By Its Leader

The now-former co-director of the Kabbalah Centre International gave a student Vicodin and alcohol, then touched her inappropriately and tried to have sex with her, an attorney told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury today.

Estranged Haredi Family Tries To Block The Wanted Cremation Of Transgender Woman Who Was Once Their Son And Brother

“The moral obligation to honor the will is the family’s prerogative and there is no legal validity to other instructions. Cremation is contrary to Jewish law,” the haredi family's attorney – who referred to May Peleg only as a male – insisted.

Two Brooklyn Haredi Men Sentenced To Prison For Traveling To New Jersey To Violently Extort Divorce Consent From Recalcitrant Husband

Two Brooklyn, New York, men were each sentenced today to more than three and a half years in prison for crossing state lines as part of a plan to violently coerce a recalcitrant husband to grant his wife a religious divorce, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced today.

8-Year-Old Hasidic Boy Killed After Running Into London Street To Flee Fireworks

An eight-year-old hasidic boy was killed after he fled fireworks shot in his direction and ran into a normally quiet residential street in east London.

Haredi Rebel Faction Threatens To “Ignite” The Streets Of Israel In Opposition To Haredi Draft

“Of course we will stage protests [against the new haredi draft amendment]. We are planning right now and we will ignite the streets and do everything so that this amendment does not pass its second and third readings in Knesset.”

 

Report: Abuse Of Palestinian Prisoners Widespread On "Haredi" IDF Base

"It was the culture of the base. Everyone beat [the Palestinian prisoners].” Even the officers allegedly knew it went on but they didn't try to stop it. A text message was found on one of the soldier's mobile phones. It read: "Burn Arabs in the name of God."

Video: Large Haredi Parade And Demonstration In Support Of Haredi Draft Dodgers

Haredim from the vehemently anti-Zionist Edah Haredit umbrella organization and from Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach's non-hasidic Ashkenazi haredi rebel faction staged a parade and demonstration in Jerusalem Saturday night to protest the jailing of two haredi draft dodgers. The draft dodgers are treated like royalty and are carried on the shoulders of other haredim as loud hasidic music blares. Children are dressed in concentration camp uniforms and pulled in a wagon draped in barbed wire to show that the Zionist government is a Nazi government. And signs carried by some haredim equate serving in the IDF with converting to another religion.

“Fourth Strand” Of European Ancestry Originated With Hunter-Gatherers Isolated By Ice Age

The first sequencing of ancient genomes extracted from human remains that date back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period over 13,000 years ago has revealed a previously unknown “fourth strand” of ancient European ancestry.

Audio Of Phone Call Between Alleged Victim's Mother And Accused Rabbi

The audio recording made under police supervision between a Rabbi Steve Karro, who is accused of molesting an 11-year-old girl, and the girl’s mother.

Chabad Rabbi Convicted Of Aggravated Criminal Sex Assault Against 15-Year-Old-Boy

Forty-eight-year-old Chabad Rabbi Aryeh "Larry" Dudovitz was convicted today on child sex abuse charges in a bench trial. Although many Orthodox and Chabad rabbis in Chicago knew Dudovitz had confessed to the crime to the CRC's beit din, not one of the rabbis reported Dudovitz to police and Chabad allegedly stymied the original police investigation.

Haredi Man Sentenced To Four Years In Prison For Traveling To New Jersey To Violently Extort Divorce Consent From Recalcitrant Husband In Rabbi Mendel Epstein Case

An associate of the "Prodfather" Rabbi Mendel Epstein has just been sentenced to four years in federal prison for his role in a kidnap-extortion scheme meant to get a woman a get (Jewish bill of divorce) from her recalcitrant husband. 

Defend Honor Of Convicted Felon Kabbalist With Your Very Bodies! Haredim Told

Defend Sefardi haredi kabbalist and convicted felon Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto's honor with your very bodies! Israeli haredi wall posters say.

Followers Of Haredi Rabbi Physically Assault Press Photographers Outside Israel’s Supreme Court

Approximately a dozen press photographers were reportedly assaulted by supporters of Sefardi haredi kabbalist Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto outside a hearing at Israel’s Supreme Court today. Court security and police apparently did nothing to stop the assaults. No arrests appear to have been made.

Knesset Votes To Suspend All Criminal Penalties For Haredi Draft Dodgers

Early today, along strict party lines Israel’s parliament the Knesset passed an amendment to Israel’s military draft law. The amendment postpones all criminal penalties against haredi draft dodgers until at least 2023. Non-haredi Jewish Israelis, however, will continue to face criminal penalties if they dodge the draft.

Chabad Yeshiva Has Holy Ark Shaped Like Chabad's International Headquarters

The aron ha-kodesh (holy ark that houses Torah scrolls) in Chabad's Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch in Sao Paulo, Brazil is shaped as a replica of 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York – Chabad's international headquarters where the late Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson had his office.

Education Ministry Issues Civics Teachers’ Guide That Downgrades Democracy, Promotes “Ethnic-Cultural” Non-Pluralistic “Nation-State” In Which Minorities Are Second Class Citizens

"…An ethnic-cultural nation-state is a basis for strong solidarity among a majority of citizens because of the national connection between them.…[A democratic political culture] does not exist to an equal extent in all democracies and it is not a necessary condition for defining a state as democratic.…[There is] tension between the value of pluralism, which encourages multiple opinions, and the value of agreeing, which strengthens unity…"

Israeli Orthodox Rabbis Hold Conference On Rabbinic Sex Abuse

In the wake of a series of recent cases of rabbinic sex abuse, most prominently the case of leading Zionist Orthodox Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg, who headed a yeshiva and several other institutions in Sefat, Zionist Orthodox rabbis are holding a one-day conference today in Jerusalem on rabbinic sex abuse, how to recognize it, and how to combat it.

Picture of the Day: The Haredi Draft And The Holocaust

Haredim linked to the vehemently anti-Zionist Edah Haredit haredi umbrella organization and the non-hasidic haredi rebel faction headed by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach held a large anti-draft protest in Jerusalem last night after two haredim who dodged the draft were jailed by the IDF. As a part of that demonstration, Edah Haredit staged the following street theater meant to show fellow haredim that serving in the IDF is a spiritual Holocaust that will decimate haredim just as the actual Holocaust did.

Haredi And Zionist Orthodox Policy Of Exclusion Of Conservative And Reform Movements Is Damaging Israel’s Security And Its Future, American Jewish Leaders Say

“This is a much more urgent issue than people realize,” Dov S. Zakheim, a former senior-level US Defense Department official in the Regan administration and the JREC’s chairman, said at a lobbying session according to a report in the Times of Israel. “What this does,” Zackheim continued, “is further stimulate those Jews [who view Israel as a bully and the Palestinians as its victim] and alienate others.”

An Almost Unknown Holocaust Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of a sad day in world history, a Holocaust anniversary most of us likely have never heard of.

Site Of Greatest Paris Carnage Is Theater Once Owned By Jewish Family

The Bataclan Theater, the site of one of the several coordinated terror attacks Friday in Paris, was owned by a Jewish family until two months ago and had previously been threatened by Islamic terrorists.

Rabbi Dov Lior: Paris Goyyim Deserved To Be Murdered In Terror Attacks Because Of What Their Ancestors Did To Jews In The Holocaust

"The wicked ones in blood-soaked Europe deserve it for what they did to our people 70 years ago," Lior said of Friday's terror attacks in Paris tonight while speaking at the funeral of Ya'akov Litman and his son Natanel, two West Bank settlers murdered by Palestinian terrorists late last week.

Wave Of Coordinated Bombings And Shootings Kills As Many As 129 In Paris

This a breaking story and its moments before Shabbat. It appears several suicide bombers and shooters – likely Islamic terrorists – set off bombs, randomly shot people and took hostages. The attacks, some of which are still ongoing, took place at a large soccer stadium; a theater where an American rock band, Eagles of Death Metal, is playing; and at several restaurants. The hostages were taken at the theater.

Do We Need Religion To Be Altruistic?

Can an atheist really be altruistic? A common claim made by religious fundamentalists, including haredi kiruv rabbis and Chabad shluchim is that without God and religion, people would not be kind, helpful and giving to others. We wouldn't support a children's cancer charity or an old age home, or help feed the poor if there wasn't a religious basis for doing so. But is that claim true? Science has studied altruism and found several reasons that cause people to act kindly, even without religion to guide them. In other words, the proper question might really be, are people who give in the name of religion really acting on inherent altruistic impulses all living creatures seem to have, impulses that have an evolutionary basis?

The Haredi Rabbi And The Accused Mobster

In a report about new evidence against accused mobster Shalom Domrani, Walla! News reports that Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, the Sefardi haredi kabbalist who was convicted of bribing a senior police officer in a different case, was caught on tape promising Domrani a ten-year US visa and assistance to move to New York and set up shop there.

Picture of the Day: Gender-Segregated Israeli Bank

A bank in the haredi city of Bnei Brak has a gender-segregated service counter, which appears to be a violation of Israeli law.

Thousands Of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries Cheer Against The Peace Process

"It has nothing to do with the Temple Mount!,” Gerlitzky told his supportive fellow Chabad emissaries. “It has nothing to do with their economic situation and has nothing to with what you hear in the media in Israel or outside Israel. It is has to do with one thing only and that is – the Israeli leadership vacillates, they do not believe and are not confident themselves that Jews are the rightful owners of all of Eretz Yisroel [the biblical Land of Israel] and therefore the Arabs exploit this weakness as an opportunity to pressure more and squeeze out incessant concessions."