The Satmar’s Uncharitable Wars of Attrition, Satmar v. Chabad – The Attack on a Chabad Synagogue, Not a Very Jewish Thing to do

SATMAR YESHIVA ATTACKING NY CHABAD SYNAGOGUE IN FIERCE LEGAL BATTLE

A Chabad synagogue in Seagate, New York is under attack by a yeshiva connected to the Satmar Hassidic group, which was renting a space in the synagogue, according to CrownHeights.info.

Rabbi Chaim and Rivky Brikman, two Chabad shluchim (emissaries), were hired as the rabbi and rebbetzin (Rabbi’s wife) of Congregation Kneses Israel of Seagate 28 years ago. The Brikmans founded a Hebrew school, adult education classes and programs for youths, teens and seniors.

Eleven years ago, they were approached by the United Talmudical Academy (UTA), a Satmar Yeshiva from Borough Park that wanted to rent space in the building next to the main synagogue.

Hurricane Sandy destroyed the lower level of the synagogue, and then an electrical fire caused even more damage and left the community without a building or a place to pray.

The Chabad congregation decided not to renew their tenant’s lease since their building had been destroyed. The Satmar Yeshiva verbally agreed to vacate the building at the end of the school year, but then reneged on the agreement and fabricated a lawsuit against the synagogue. This was only the first step in an alleged series of deceit trying to bankrupt the synagogue and to initiate a hostile takeover of the synagogue’s property.

“We have no space in our shul [synagogue]. We’re physically locked out of our building.” Rebbetzin Brikman said in a video published to collect donations for the synagogue. “We have a tenant there who is just playing the system and refuses to leave.”

The yeshiva allegedly fabricated serious accusations against the shluchim and local community members, according to CrownHeights.info. UTA hired armed guards to stand in front of the synagogue to prevent community members from entering.

The group even insisted that the judge order the arrest of Rabbi Chaim Brikman because he hosted a Shabbat Kiddush in the building.

The yeshiva is allegedly attempting to draw out the proceedings in order to exhaust the community’s resources.

 

TO READ THE ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY CLICK HERE.

Rabbi Chaim Brinkman, Your Kindess and Decency Will be Lost in Kings County, NY- The Satmar Own the System…

 

Chabad Shluchim in Seagate Under Attack by Satmar Yeshiva (Ad)

 

Twenty-eight years ago, the Rebbe’s Shluchim to Seagate, NY Rabbi Chaim and Rivky Brikman, were hired as the rabbi and rebbetzin of Congregation Kneses Israel of Seagate, a synagogue with a storied past dating to 1924.

The shul had always prided itself on being a place in which every Jewish resident of Seagate would feel at home, so the Brikmans’ Chabad philosophy of warmth and outreach to every Jew was a natural fit.

In keeping with their mission––as shluchim of the Rebbe––the Brikmans founded a Hebrew school, adult education classes, programs for youth, teen and seniors, transforming what was a relatively small Jewish community into one that is vibrant and brimming with Jewish pride.

Eleven years ago, they were approached by a Satmar Yeshiva from Boro Park to rent space in the building adjacent to the main shul.  Because the shul building sufficed for the congregation’s needs at the time, they rented the space to them.

Then came Hurricane Sandy and destroyed the lower level of the synagogue. Recently, an electrical fire wrought havoc and forced the community out, leaving hundreds of Jewish families without a building and a place to daven.

Left without a home, the congregation chose not to renew their tenant’s lease on the school building after it expired. While verbally agreeing to vacate at the end of the school year, the Satmar Yeshiva reneged on the agreement, fabricating a lawsuit against the shul, the first step in what would become a pattern of deceit trying to bankrupt the shul and initializing a hostile takeover of the shul’s property.

They have fabricated horrific accusations against the Shliach and Shlucha as well as the local community members. UTA of Boro Park, hired armed guards to station themselves in front of the shul to stop community members from entering. They even went as far to insist that the judge order the Shliach Rabbi Chaim Brikman be arrested for hosting a Shabbos Kiddush in the building.

To continue reading click here.

The Satmar-Ruled Brooklyn pt. 4 – Lee Ave. The Modesty Committees -“Gut’s polizei” – And Even Hynes Knew (2013)

Modesty in Ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Is Enforced by Secret Squads

Faceless heads model on Lee Avenue in Brooklyn, where women’s clothing stores have been warned not to use mannequins.CreditCreditTodd Heisler/The New York Times 

 

The Brooklyn shopkeeper was already home for the night when her phone rang: a man who said he was from a neighborhood “modesty committee” was concerned that the mannequins in her store’s window, used to display women’s clothing, might inadvertently arouse passing men and boys.

“The man said, ‘Do the neighborhood a favor and take it out of the window,’ ” the store’s manager recalled. “ ‘We’re trying to safeguard our community.’ ”

In many neighborhoods, a store owner might shrug off such a call. But on Lee Avenue, the commercial spine of Hasidic Williamsburg, the warning carried an implied threat — comply with community standards or be shunned. It is a potent threat in a neighborhood where shadowy, sometimes self-appointed modesty squads use social and economic leverage to enforce conformity.

The owner wrestled with the request for a day or two, but decided to follow it. “We can sell it without mannequins, so we might as well do what the public wants,” the owner told the manager, who asked not to be identified because of fear of reprisals for talking

In the close-knit world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, community members know the modesty rules as well as Wall Street bankers who show up for work in a Brooks Brothers suit. Women wear long skirts and long-sleeved, high-necked blouses on the street; men do not wear Bermuda shorts in summer. Schools prescribe the color and thickness of girls’ stockings.

The rules are spoken and unspoken, enforced by social pressure but also, in ways that some find increasingly disturbing, by the modesty committees. Their power is evident in the fact that of the half dozen women’s clothing stores along Lee Avenue, only one features mannequins, and those are relatively shapeless, fully clothed torsos.

The groups have long been a part of daily life in the ultra-Orthodox communities that dot Brooklyn and other corners of the Jewish world. But they sprang into public view with the trial of Nechemya Weberman, a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidim in Brooklyn, who last week was sentenced to 103 years in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing a young girl sent to him for counseling.

Mr. Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, testified during his trial that boys and girls — though not his accuser — were regularly referred to him by a Hasidic modesty committee concerned about what it viewed as inappropriate attire and behavior.

The details were startling: a witness for Mr. Weberman’s defense, Baila Gluck, testified that masked men representing a modesty committee in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, N.Y., 50 miles northwest of New York City, broke into her bedroom about seven years ago and confiscated her cellphone.

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, who prosecuted the Weberman case, has now received allegations that members of a modesty committee forced their way into a home in the borough, confiscating an iPad and computer equipment deemed inappropriate for Orthodox children, officials say. Allegations have also surfaced that a modesty committee threatened to publicly shame a married man who was having an affair unless he paid the members money for what they described as therapy.

“They operate like the Mafia,” said Rabbi Allan Nadler, director of the Jewish studies program at Drew University in Madison, N.J.

Rabbi Nadler, who testified at Mr. Weberman’s trial, said that modesty committees did not have addresses, stationery or business cards, and that few people seemed to know where their authority originated, though it was doubtful, he said, that they could continue operating without the tacit blessings of rabbinical leaders.

“They walk into a store and say it would be a shame if your window was broken or you lost your clientele,” he said. “They might tell the father of a girl who wears a skirt that’s too short and he’s, say, a store owner: ‘If you ever want to sell a pair of shoes, speak to your daughter.’ ”

In Israel, there have been similar concerns. Though no modesty committee was overtly involved, there has been anger over ultra-Orthodox zealots who spit on and insulted an 8-year-old girl for walking to school through their neighborhood in a dress they considered immodest.

In Brooklyn, Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who has represented the heavily Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park for 30 years, said that he had never met a modesty committee member, but that “there are a lot of independent operators that believe they are protecting God and have to do this kind of stuff, and that’s sickening and gives us all a black eye.”

“If you want to advocate modesty,” he added, “do your thing, but when you stuff it down my throat physically, that undermines us and hurts us.”

Hasidic leaders contend that the modesty committees are nothing more than self-appointed individuals who, indignant at some perceived infraction, take matters into their own hands.

“These are individual people who decide to take on this crusade,” said Rabbi David Niederman, who as president of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg is a sometime spokesman for the Satmar Hasidim. “You see posters telling people do this and do that. It does not represent an authorized body.”

But many Hasidim say they have seen or heard how a shadowy group of men seeks to pressure parents to rein in children who wear dresses too short or stockings too thin, or who chat on cellphones with friends of the opposite sex. One family reported being harassed because the wife had stepped outdoors with a robelike housecoat rather than a long dress.

While many of the rules of conduct are announced on Yiddish broadsides posted on trees, lampposts and walls, residents of Hasidic neighborhoods say some store owners have received rough verbal warnings from a modesty committee to stop selling magazines that carry photographs considered too revealing, or articles that dispute the Satmar Hasidim’s belief that Israel should not have existed until the Messiah’s arrival.

The Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, in addition to certifying foods as kosher and adjudicating matrimonial and commercial disputes, does at times remind the Satmar community of the community’s modesty rules. It is made up of scores of rabbis, but it has an address — it is housed on the second floor of a Williamsburg row house — and it signs every decree it issues.

“We give out proclamations,” said Rabbi Yitzchok Glick, its executive director. “We don’t enforce. It’s like people can decide to keep Shabbos or not. If someone wants to turn on the light on Shabbos, we cannot put him in jail for that.”

But Hasidim interviewed said squads of enforcers did exist in wildcat form.

 

 

 

 

To read the remainder of the article in the NY Times click here.

The Satmar-Ruled Brooklyn pt. 2: The Shomrim Acting with Impunity… and Money

Dear Reader:

The following article was not written by LM. We have republished it from another source http://www.patheos.com. It was written by Adam Lee. We did not take the liberty of correcting any typos or grammatical errors but left it as published. We emphasize, with all of our reposts, that the publication to our site should not be deemed to be an endorsement of our site by anyone else, nor an endorsement of their site by us. When there are views in common, we believe they are worth sharing.

LM

 

The Problem of the Shomrim

I’ve written before about the malign influence of New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. They want to shut out the modern world and recreate a medieval theocracy, and because their members vote in lockstep obedience to the commands of their rabbis, they wield outsized political power.

In the Brooklyn neighborhoods and other towns where they’re the majority, they’ve committed one outrage after another: taking over school boards and strip-mining public schools, trying to impose gender apartheid on public spaces, prohibiting boys and especially girls from receiving an education, perpetuating barbaric religious rituals, brutally harassing and persecuting ex-members… and they do all this while shamelessly siphoning government assistance from the society they live in, demanding that others labor to feed, clothe and house them while they engage in lives of endless religious study.

But today’s outrage may exceed all of those.

It comes from a post I saw on Reddit’s popular Legal Advice forum. The poster, who’s a gay man, wrote a plea for help with this title: I am being harassed by the orthodox Jewish “police” in my home. This has been going on for almost 2 years since I moved in. I am at my wits end, what can I do to stop it?

He begins:

I live in Brooklyn NY. I purchased a condo about 2 years ago in a building where a good chunk of the apartments are rented out by Orthodox families. i would say that 45% of the building is occupied by Orthodox families renting and the rest are condos owned + occupied by non orthodox people. I honestly did not care and did not think this would be a problem.

However, it seems the other families in his apartment building don’t share his live-and-let-live attitude. They disagree with his “lifestyle”, so they’ve been trying to harass and intimidate him into moving out:

The issue is that they have been using the Jewish police to harass me. To give you an idea of the shit I am dealing with I’ll tell you what prompted this post. I chose to have a Superbowl viewing party today. About 30 minutes into the start of the party (when there were FIVE people here) I get a knock at my door and standing there are two fake police who try to tell me they got a ‘noise complaint’ and a complaint that we are using ‘illicit substances’ that i have to end my party. We were in my yard at this point literately just talking and smoking (cigs).

Yes, he said “fake police”. We’ll get to that.

But it gets even more shocking. The Hasidim’s harassment has been escalating over time, until it’s come to this point:

Since then, they have been standing outside of my building trying to prevent people I INVITED from entering and have been harassing my guess, treating to ticket them and demanding to search them.

When the poster was asked to clarify, he explained:

the main door opens by buzzer. ill buzz someone in and they will physically stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the doorway and tell my guest that they dont have permission to enter (after i just buzzed them in) and if they try to push past them will physically push them out and threaten to assault them if they keep trying to get in.

now whenever someone is coming over who doesnt have a key I always go down and open the door myself but i have to ask them 15 times to move to let me do so and sometimes have to call the nypd to come and make them move to let people in.

The group that’s harassing this person is called the shomrim, Hebrew for “guards”. They’re a neighborhood watch that’s active in ultra-Orthodox communities. They style themselves a civilian auxiliary whose only goal is to assist the police in protecting their neighborhoods from crime. The reality, according to this poster and to many others who’ve had experience with them, is that they operate as a vigilante mob – harassing outsiders, violently beating anyone they suspect of committing a crime, and treating ultra-Orthodox religious dogma as if it were law.

A New York Times article from 2016 has some examples, like this one:

Shortly before 5 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2013, a young black man named Taj Patterson was walking home through Hasidic Williamsburg after a night out with his friends. Mr. Patterson, a fashion student, was drunk. As he made his way up Flushing Avenue, a local shomrim group received a call about someone vandalizing cars. What was soon a throng of more than a dozen people stopped Mr. Patterson on a quiet stretch of Flushing in between Spencer and Walworth Streets. He resisted; there was a scuffle. Mr. Patterson soon lay on the ground with a crushed eye socket, a torn retina and permanent blindness in his right eye.

But while they’re swift to unleash mob violence on outsiders, especially people of color, they take a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude when it comes to crimes committed by one of their own:

“Who is really controlling the Borough Park police station?” asked Joe Levin, a Hasidic private investigator who has clashed with the shomrim. “It’s not the N.Y.P.D.”

A few years ago, Mr. Levin said he handled a divorce case where a husband was beating his wife. One day, he added, the woman was hurt so badly that an ambulance removed her from her home on a stretcher. The police and the shomrim were also at the scene, he said, but no one did a thing when the husband rushed out, flipped the stretcher and knocked her to the ground.

“I saw this with my own eyes — everybody did,” Mr. Levin said.

The worst part is that, because of the Hasidim’s political pull, the shomrim have virtual impunity. The Legal Advice poster says that he’s tried many times to get the real police to intervene and stop this brazen harassment of him and his guests. Even with video evidence, they refuse to act:

An Unconventional Way to Obtain a Get… Satmar Rabbi and Murder Plot

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Rabbi And Member Of Satmar Community For Conspiring To Kidnap And Murder | USAO-SDNY | Department of Justice

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/js/js_1H0BagV0_yWBCoyD6G9pQzg9T5T5Wv2lSk0YbPgykMU.js

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Rabbi And Member Of Satmar Community For Conspiring To Kidnap And Murder

Goal of the Alleged Scheme Was to Obtain a Religious Divorce for the Victim’s Wife

Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and William J. Bratton, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), announced the filing of a federal criminal complaint charging SHIMEN LIEBOWITZ and AHARON GOLDBERG with conspiring to kidnap and murder an individual in order to obtain a religious divorce for that individual’s wife.  LIEBOWITZ and GOLDBERG were arrested yesterday in Central Valley, New York, while meeting to plan the kidnapping and murder.  They will be presented later today before Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman in federal court in Manhattan.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said:  “The defendants are charged with a chilling plot to kidnap and murder the intended victim.  Over a period of months, the Complaint alleges, they met repeatedly to plan the kidnapping and to pay more than $55,000 to an individual they believed would carry it out.  Thanks to the exemplary work of our partners at the FBI and NYPD, Liebowitz and Goldberg are now in custody.”

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said:  “As if the plan to kidnap the victim and force him to divorce his wife in this alleged conspiracy wasn’t bad enough, the plotters allegedly decided halfway through the arrangement to go a step further and add murder to the list of their planned crimes.  Our country protects freedom of religious beliefs and practices, but no one is allowed to plot a kidnapping and murder regardless of their motivation.”

According to the allegations in the Complaint unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:[1]

According to Jewish religious law as observed in certain communities, in order to effect a divorce, a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a “get.”  A woman whose husband will not consent to a divorce is known as an “agunah.”  In the absence of the husband’s issuing a get, an agunah may be released from her marriage only through the husband’s death.

In early July, an individual (the “CS”) contacted the FBI and reported that the CS had been recruited by LIEBOWITZ and GOLDBERG to kidnap a particular individual (the “Intended Victim”) in order to force the Intended Victim to issue a get to his wife.  Like the CS, GOLDBERG and LIEBOWITZ are orthodox Jews.  LIEBOWITZ is a member of the Satmar community in Kiryas Joel, New York (a village in Orange County, New York), and GOLDBERG is an Israel-based rabbi who also maintains a position of prominence in Kiryas Joel.

The CS provided the FBI with information about a conversation he had with LIEBOWITZ and GOLDBERG on or about July 6 or July 7.  During the meeting, which was recorded, the CS feigned interest in participating in the kidnapping.  He, GOLDBERG, and LIEBOWITZ discussed how such a kidnapping might be carried out, including the possibility of luring the Intended Victim to Pennsylvania in order to kidnap him, torture him, and force him to give the get.  The CS, GOLDBERG, and LIEBOWITZ also discussed the possibility of kidnapping the Intended Victim in Ukraine, where the Intended Victim planned to travel in late September to celebrate the Jewish New Year.  GOLDBERG and LIEBOWITZ agreed to advance the CS $25,000 to assist in efforts to plan the kidnapping.  According to the CS, within days of this initial meeting, an envelope containing approximately $25,000 cash was delivered to the CS.

On or about August 9, 2016, the CS met with LIEBOWITZ and GOLDBERG in Kiryas Joel, New York.  During this meeting, the CS, GOLDBERG, and LIEBOWITZ discussed additional details of the kidnapping plan, including logistics and the cost associated with a plan to kidnap the Intended Victim overseas.  This conversation was also recorded.

On August 12, 2016, the CS again met with LIEBOWITZ and GOLDBERG, at which time they provided the CS with an additional payment of over $20,000 for use in making arrangements for the kidnapping.  In this meeting, which was also recorded, the CS, GOLDBERG and LIEBOWITZ further discussed their plan to kidnap the Intended Victim in the United States and to obtain the get from him in this country.

Subsequent to the August 12, 2016, meeting, the CS had additional conversations with GOLDBERG, in which GOLDBERG discussed his desire not merely to kidnap the Intended Victim, but also to kill him.

On August 25, 2016, the CS met LIEBOWITZ in Central Valley, New York.  During the meeting, LIEBOWITZ paid the CS an additional sum of about $12,000 to carry out the kidnapping.  Also during the meeting, the CS spoke by phone with GOLDBERG, who was still in Israel, about the kidnapping plan, which the CS and GOLDBERG referred to in code as a “wedding,” as well as GOLDBERG’s desire that the CS kill the Intended Victim.  This conversation was also recorded.

On or about September 2, 2016, the CS had another recorded conversation with LIEBOWITZ, during which LIEBOWITZ indicated his understanding that the Intended Victim would be murdered as part of the plan.

*              *             *

LIEBOWITZ, 25, of Monroe, New York, and GOLDBERG, 55, of Bnei Brak, Israel, are charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which carries a maximum potential sentence of life in prison, and one count each of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 10 years in prison. The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

The charges contained in the Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department, working through the Joint Organized Crime Task Force.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Violent and Organized Crime Unit and Public Corruption Unit.  Assistant United States Attorneys Scott Hartman and Paul M. Monteleoni are in charge of the prosecution.

---

[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Complaint and the description of the Complaint set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.

16-240

USAO – New York, Southern

Download Liebowitz and Goldberg Complaint

Taj Patterson’s, Teenage Victim of Nechemya Weberman’s and Nachum Rosenberg’s Place on LM’s Wall of Courage

Taj Patterson and Others Added to LostMessiah’s Wall of Courage:

1. Taj Patterson, a gay black man who was beaten by a Satmar gang in 2012;
2. the teenage victim of Nechemya Weberman; and
3. Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, the Satmar activist who has encouraged victims of abuse to speak out.

We are adding the above three to our Wall of Courage. The names are related to one another by way of circumstance and timing. The connection between this sexually abused young Hasidic girl and Taj Patterson is Joseph “Yossele” Fried. In the case of the Weberman’s victim, Fried was accused of taking photos for the purposes of intimidation while she testified (for four days) against her abuser for years of physical abuse between 2007 and 2010 when she was just 12. The photos were then “tweeted” across the community. In the case of Taj Patterson, Fried was allegedly one of the Satmar gang members who assaulted him and allegedly took pictures of the assault as it was happening. Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg had bleach thrown in his face following Weberman’s conviction. It is noted that as a result of the courage of Weberman’s young victim, Weberman received a sentence of an unprecedented 103 years in prison.

Joseph Fried, celebrating after charges were dropped.

Taj Patterson’s story began when he was brutally assaulted in December of 2013 as he headed home from a night of partying in Williamsburg. In April of 2014, the Daily News reported that five men were arrested for a “gang assault against black gay Brooklyn man.” The men were Satmar. In 2013 the forward.com reported that the DA, Kenneth Thompson, allegedly has close ties to the Satmar community and in 2015 charges were dropped against two of the five men. On January 6, 2015, the New York Daily News reported that, “Advocates are furious he has taken thousands in campaign donations from bigwigs in the Satmar community, a Hasidic sect that strenuously opposes any secular oversight into sexual molestation accusations. The donations were first reported in The Jewish Week.”

What will happen to the other 3 gang members in the Taj Patterson case remains to be seen.

On December 19, 2015 FailedMessiah.com reported on the “Charges Dropped Against Second Hasid in Brutal Assault Against Gay Black Man”

Shmayra writes:

“One of the more than one dozen hasidim, most believed to be Shomrim members, who attacked Taj Patterson in 2013 has had the charges against him dropped more than two years after the gang assault took place in a case Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson, who has become very close to Satmar since his election in 2013, seems to be unwill to bring to trial.”

That post followed a post of April 24, 2014, entitled “Shomrim Meembers Allegedly Obstructed Justice in Taj Patterson Beating Case“.

Shmayra reported in the post:

“In the hours after the Taj Patterson beating, approximately 20 members of Williamsburg’s Shomrim street patrol allegedly went door to door over a 10 block radius from the site of the Taj Patterson beating to erase or destroy security camera footage that would implicate fellow Shomrim members and other hasidim in the beating.”

Charges against the first Hasidic gang-man, were dropped by Brooklyn DA Ken Thomson in March of 2014. This was reported by FailedMessiah in an article entitled, Charges Against Man Who Allegedly Intimidated Witness Against Satmar Child Sex Abuser Dropped.

Shmayra reported as follows:

“A contempt of court charge against well-connected Satmar activist Joseph “Yossele” Fried was dropped yesterday on the eve of Fried’s trial after the Brooklyn DA said its office “did a forensic review and determined there was insufficient evidence” to convict him – a claim some anti-abuse activists and victims question as confidence in the new Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson continues to fade.”

For the text of the articles, click on the title of each article.

The LostMessiah Wall of Courage:

Manny Waks, who has discussed his abuse countless times

Same Kellner, listened to his son, sent someone to jail and then in the spirit of retaliation was himself accused of bribary (charges which were dropped in 2014)

Chaim Levin, accused his cousin of abuse

Ozer Simon, repeatedly abused by Rabbi in Miami

Manny Vogel, repeatedly abused

Schneur Borenstein, abused and now speaks about the Child Victims Act (CVA)

Mendy Raymond, physically abused at Oholei Torah

All of the victims of Malka Leifer, those willing to speak and those who suffer in silence

“Leiby“, child accuser of Skverer Rabbi Moshe Menachem Taubenfeld of New Square whose case should have been a slam-dunk for conviction

Genendy Eisegrau , who was abused by her father for years and is now blogging about her experiences and her recovery

Rabbi Michael Malchior, who has spoken on abuse and created a network for its victims

Shulum Deen, who has written extensively about his harrowing experiences, whose writing has drawn attention to the plight of Skverer children, amongst others

Taj Patterson, a gay black man who was beaten by a Satmar gang in 2012

teenage victim (unnamed) of Nechemya Weberman, who testified for 4 days about her harrowing years of abuse

Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, the Satmar activist who has encourages victims of abuse to speak out and has a BlogSpot site, dedicated to assisting victims

In loving memory:

Sarah Mayer (a/k/a Suri) z”l, 31 hanged herself

Faigy Mayer z“l, who jumped to her death after leaving community

Younger Brother of Mendy Alexander z”l, who committed suicide after years of abuse

Leiby Kletzky, z”l, murdered by Levi Aron, which murder was to have spurred greater protections for children

 

For a related article see:

FrumFollies article entitled:

Williamsburg Celebrates Again at Thompson’s Expense Over Fried Dismissal which begins as follows:

“Satmar was feeling cocky on Thursday (5/8/14) after the Brooklyn DA dropped contempt of court charges against Williamsburg Vaad Hatznius (modesty committee) operative, Joseph Fried. According to DA spokesperson Sheila Stainback’s reply to my inquiry, the DA dropped charges because of “insufficient evidence to prosecute.”

The charges date back to the trial of Nechemya Weberman in late 2012 when courtroom pictures of the testifying victim were circulated on Twitter. At the instruction of the judge, cell phones were collected and four young men were arrested. The unusually-named Lemon Juice was arrested because the Twitter account was in his name. I was sure he was innocent because he was a well-known supporter of the victim. As suspected, Lemon Juice was impersonated on Twitter from the IP address of Moses Klein, a driver to the Satmar Grand Rabbi of Williamsburg, Zalmen Leib Teitelbaum (aka Zaali). (Weberman, like Fried, started his rise to power as a driver to the Satmar Rebbe, Zaali’s father, Moshe Teitelbaum.)”

For the rest of the article click here: