Ex-Passaic official indicted in bribery case

TRENTON — A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted former Passaic City Councilman Jonathan Soto on charges of pocketing $22,000 in bribes from undercover operatives seeking his help in obtaining lucrative municipal and school contracts.

The 15-count indictment adds two misdemeanor charges of attempted drug possession to the conspiracy and extortion allegations that were first outlined in a criminal complaint at the time of Soto’s Sept. 6 arrest.

“These guys are comedians, man,” Soto said by telephone Wednesday. “I don’t even know anything about it. I’ve been indicted on drug charges?”

Soto, fellow Passaic Councilman Marcellus Jackson, city Mayor Sammy Rivera and former Assemblyman Alfred E. Steele of Paterson were among 11 officials rounded up in an FBI sting operation that stretched from Atlantic County to North Jersey. Six of the officials, including Jackson and Steele, have since pleaded guilty to accepting bribes and are awaiting sentence.

Rivera was indicted two weeks ago on extortion and bribery charges and is awaiting trial. He is accused of offering to peddle his official influence in return for $50,000 and actually taking $5,000.

Soto, 32, a social studies teacher at Lincoln Middle School, had been suspended since his arrest. He remains free on $200,000 bail and will be arraigned as soon as the case is assigned to a U.S. District Court judge.

The indictment alleges that Soto extorted bribes from representatives of an undercover FBI company that offered insurance brokerage services to school districts and municipalities.

Soto allegedly accepted six payments from two cooperating witnesses in exchange for assurances that he would influence city officials to help secure contacts for the company.

According to the indictment, Soto was secretly recorded throughout the investigation, starting with a meeting with the FBI’s informants and a Pleasantville school official in an Atlantic City hotel room in October 2006. He agreed to use his official position and influence to obtain insurance brokerage contracts from the city and the school board in return for corrupt payments and took $2,000 at that time, it alleges.

In subsequent conversations, Soto variously referred to payoffs as “cake and green broccoli,” said he could enlist friends in other cities, and agreed to accept two $25,000 payoffs for himself and a conspirator, described as a high-ranking elected government official in Passaic and identified only as “Individual 1,” according to the indictment.

“[Individual 1] giving you the green light for you guys to come down is huge,” the indictment quotes Soto as saying. “Because it won’t just be the city. It will be the city, the [Board of Education] and everything else. The sky’s the limit in Passaic.”

Soto allegedly accepted $5,000 “for the boss,” at a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway and another $5,000 and $2,500 days later at a shopping mall in Egg Harbor Township, the indictment alleges.

After learning that a resolution authorizing the promised brokerage services had been rescinded by his colleagues in his absence, Soto sought to reassure the FBI operative that “the real power is with [Individual 1]” as opposed to members of the council who had voted against the resolution and for its rescission, the indictment said.

Over the next few months, Soto allegedly pocketed two more payoffs of $2,500 and $5,000, acknowledged he had passed on $10,000 to his unnamed co-conspirator and helped engineer the defeat of a competitor vying for the city’s health insurance contract, according to the indictment.

The indictment also contains two counts charging Soto with attempting to possess a controlled substance, which was not identified in the charges.

Soto was recorded saying he was “trying to cop some … weight,” and “that he has to stop smoking,” the indictment alleges. It accused Soto of asking an undercover informant to pay him in drugs rather than money.

Soto said Wednesday that when FBI agents arrested him, they threatened more jail time if he didn’t answer their questions truthfully.

Agents then asked him if he had ever taken drugs in his lifetime, and he said he admitted to smoking marijuana once because “they scared the [expletive] out of me.”

If convicted, Soto could face up to 20 years imprisonment on the conspiracy and extortion charges, 10 years on the bribery counts, and one year on the drug counts.

Soto’s attorney, Jose Ongay, said he was unaware of the indictment.

Three-car crash likely to cause traffic backup on Route 3

A three-car crash on eastbound Route 3 in Rutherford, just east of Route 21, is likely to backup traffic Thursday morning, police said. No injuries were reported.

The crash occurred shortly before 7 a.m., said police, who did not provide further information.

Motorists should expect traffic to slow as the vehicles are cleared from the roadway, police said.

In Clifton, an earlier rollover accident on Route 3 near the Route 46 merger, which temporarily shut down all westbound traffic around 6 a.m., has been cleared, police said. No injuries were reported in that single-vehicle crash.

— Michael J. Feeney Northjersey.com

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President Of Iran,says Israel will fall,

TEHRAN – Iran’s hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his verbal attack on Israel today, saying its days are numbered and predicting that the “filthy Zionist entity” will fall sooner or later.

“I advise you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity which has reached the end of the line,” Ahmadinejad told world powers in a speech in the southern city of Bushehr carried live on the state television. “It has lost its reason to be and will sooner or later fall,” he said. “The ones who still support the criminal Zionists should know that the occupiers’ days are numbered.”

The Islamic republic considers Israel its arch enemy, along with the United States, and its hostility towards the Jewish state has deepened since Ahmadinejad became president in 2005.

Ahmadinejad has drawn the ire of the international community by calling for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map and describing the Nazi holocaust a “myth”.

His latest comments come as Iran faces a third round of United Nations sanctions over its controversial nuclear drive.

Hillary Clinton Wins Again

 Sen. Hillary Clinton will win Florida’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, although party sanctions have stripped the state of its convention delegates and no Democrats campaigned there

Published polls showed the New York senator and former first lady was heavily favored in the state.

Her leading rivals, South Carolina primary winner Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John Edwards, did not campaign in Florida. They opted to concentrate on next week’s “Super Tuesday” contests in states such as New York, California, Missouri and Georgia.

The sanctions make Tuesday night’s results largely meaningless to the Democratic presidential race. Obama described the primary as a “beauty contest” Tuesday, and his campaign issued a statement declaring the race a tie in the delegate count: “Zero for Obama, zero for Clinton.”

But Clinton has pledged to fight to have the state’s delegates seated at the August convention in Denver, and has increasingly stressed the state’s importance since losing Saturday’s hotly contested primary in South Carolina to Obama.

Looks like the former Mayor Of New York is looking for a job

Fresh off his victory in the Florida Republican primary, Sen. John McCain was poised to take another big prize on Wednesday.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani plans to drop out of the presidential race and endorse McCain at an event in California, two GOP sources with direct knowledge of the plans said.

Giuliani was a distant third with the results from Tuesday’s voting almost final.

While Giuliani didn’t say he was withdrawing from the race, he did speak of his campaign in the past tense at one point.

“I’m proud I ran a positive campaign,” he told supporters. “I ran a campaign that was uplifting.”

An endorsement would give McCain added momentum heading into a debate Wednesday night — and the Super Tuesday contests next week.

The remaining GOP White House hopefuls face off Wednesday at a CNN-Los Angeles Times-Politico debate being held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

With 99 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain held a 36 percent-31 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Giuliani had 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who held 14 percent.

A top campaign official from McCain’s camp has been in “ongoing discussions” with Giuliani’s campaign about endorsing McCain’s candidacy, a GOP official familiar with talks told CNN Tuesday.

A source close to Giuliani confirmed that discussions were taking place and said there is talk among the staff that an endorsement could come Wednesday in California. The source said McCain and Giuliani need to talk, but “we are working to make it happen.”

“We have a ways to go, but we’re getting close, and for that, you all have my profound thanks,” McCain said as he claimed victory.

Cop Uses Last Day to Ticket Other Cops

A Middletown police officer spent his last day on the job writing tickets for 14 patrol cars that had expired inspection stickers.

Cpl. Frank Holden says he was just doing his job.

The 26-year veteran tells the Asbury Park Press he retired at the end of the year because Police Chief Robert Oches is hurting morale.

Holden says he spoke to the chief about the vehicles that needed to be inspected several months ago.

The township is investigating whether the tickets are valid because some of the vehicles were out of service.

Driving a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker may result in fines between $100 and $200.

Passaic Council Is A Mess

PICTURE THIS: Passaic 2008. The City Council has scheduled a vote to fill the vacancy on the council created when Marcellus Jackson resigned after pleading guilty to a federal corruption charge. Three council members are present for the vote on Tuesday. Three members, including the president, are absent. The mayor is there in case he is needed to break a tie. But with three councilmen missing, there’s no vote.

In any other city, the main story would be that the missing councilmen — Council President and Assemblyman Gary Schaer, Chaim Munk and Daniel Schwartz — wanted to dodge a difficult vote. Terrence Love, the likely replacement and a Passaic schoolteacher, has the support of the other three council members. Earlier this month, the council deadlocked 3-3 on appointing Love.

Some Passaic residents want Jeffrey Dye to get the seat. He unsuccessfully ran for a council seat in 2005. Approving Love comes with political consequences. Perhaps the council members who were AWOL want to avoid them. Mayor Sammy Rivera told the Herald News last week, “Gary has his own political agenda.”

That may be, but he is not alone. The “Sammy and Schaer Show” has been anything but harmonious of late. “Sammy” — Mayor Rivera — is under indictment. In fact, he was arrested with former city Councilman Jackson. Rivera claims he is innocent, despite federal officials claiming they have him on tape saying he is all too willing to accept a bribe.

Leave that on the side and focus on the facts. The council appears split down the middle. The mayor has the authority to break the tie. So the same person who is under indictment, caught up in the same corruption probe that led to Jackson’s admission of guilt and resignation, probably will be the deciding vote for Jackson’s replacement. Is that irony or just Passaic?

Schaer was unavailable for comment on Friday. He may not want to take a position on either Love or Dye, but he has no choice. Equally unpleasant is that the mayor who is busy trying to raise funds for his legal defense can still have a major impact on Passaic government. It is outrageous that given he was caught in the same net as Jackson, who has pleaded guilty, that Rivera gets a say in who replaces Jackson.

I don’t know why people are walking on eggshells if the eggs went bad long ago. Passaic needs to clean its house. First on the list is reducing the smell of sulfur. According to federal authorities, Rivera boasted that he had the needed votes in his pocket to get what turned out to be a sham insurance contract approved by the council.

The people of Passaic should demand that whoever replaces Jackson be independent of Rivera’s sway. They also should be concerned about the integrity of all elected council members.

Schaer may not win a congeniality award, but he’s a smart politician. Maybe he will run for mayor. Even if he chooses not to run, he has more at stake politically than any other player. He’s found a solid niche in the Assembly. Rivera is correct: Schaer has a political agenda.

Rivera’s agenda is primal: survival. The odds are against him. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie has a 100 percent conviction rate against public officials to date. The Giants should be so favored Sunday.

The AWOL councilmen have a responsibility to the people of Passaic. Whether Munk had jet lag, as reported, and that is why he missed the council meeting, or whether there were legitimate reasons that Schaer and Schwartz were no-shows, there can be no excuse for their absence at the next scheduled council session.

There are boundaries, real and imagined, that separate the Jewish, Hispanic and black communities of Passaic. Leaders forge alliances, shape compromises and find a way of governing for the greater good of all. They take stands, even unpopular ones.

But most of all, they show up. NorthJersey.com

Passaic City Councilmen Munk,Schwartz,Schaer Skip Council Meeting For Their Own Agenda

PASSAIC – The City Council will try again next week to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of a disgraced councilman.

Mayor Samuel Rivera said he will call a special meeting for Monday so the council can vote on the appointment to the seat formerly held by Marcellus Jackson, who resigned in December after pleading guilty to a federal corruption charge.

The council had put the appointment of Terrence Love, a teacher at School 8, on the agenda for Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting, but the absence of three council members forced the meeting to be canceled for lack of a quorum.

Absent were Chaim Munk, Daniel Schwartz and council President Gary Schaer.

Munk said Wednesday that jet lag prevented him from attending the meeting.

“I just got back from Israel. … I was knocked out,” he said, adding he had returned home Friday.

Schaer and Schwartz did not return phone calls for comment.

Their absences angered fellow council members and some city residents, who felt their lack of attendance was an attempt to thwart Love’s appointment. On Jan. 8 the council deadlocked on Love’s appointment, with Schaer, Schwartz and Munk voting against it. If the council deadlocks in a 3-3 vote on Love’s appointment, the mayor must cast the tie-breaking vote, according to municipal law. Rivera attended the meeting ready to cast a vote.

On Wednesday, Rivera said he believed Schaer wanted to avoid making a decision about the appointment because he feared controversy. Many in the African-American community support black activist Jeffrey Dye’s bid for the seat. At the Jan. 8 meeting, a number of residents told the council they supported Dye’s bid. Love, 37, who is black, ran for the council in 2005 but lost.

“Gary has his own political agenda,” Rivera said Wednesday.

The three council members who showed up — Joe Garcia, Gerry Fernandez and Maritza Colon-Montanez — expressed frustration with the members’ absences.

“I guess some of my colleagues don’t care what’s going on in the city,” Fernandez told dozens of annoyed residents before canceling the meeting.

Afterward, Fernandez said, “Were they all sick? Is there a sickness going around Third Ward Park?” The three absent members live in the area. “It’s a clear attempt to put their agenda ahead of the city’s business,” Fernandez said.

E-mail: mandell@northjersey.com

New Jersey – Rabbi Issues Warning Against Yeshiva Week Vacation in Florida

 

New Jersey – A local Orthodox rabbi has joined colleagues in warning about the high risk behaviors of some students who spend the so-called yeshiva week vacation in Florida.

In advance of yeshiva week, Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler of Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David in West Orange sent an e-mail to synagogue families urging them not to send their children to Florida unsupervised.
“In past years, there has been activity which has been unbecoming of Orthodox Jews, involving abuse of alcohol, drug use, and promiscuous behavior. At times, there have been very tragic results,” wrote Zwickler. “We are obligated as parents to educate our children and keep them safe even if they feel that our actions are not in their best interests. This is a matter of life and death on many levels.”

“I don’t want to sound negative,” Zwickler said. “The bottom line is that parents have to be vigilant. As much as kids want their space and want their parents to stay out, they are still kids and we have to do parenting,”he said. [njjewishnews][vin]

Mayor Rivera Pleads Not Guilty

 

Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera, one of 10 public officials caught up in a statewide FBI sting last year, pleaded not guilty to bribery and attempted extortion today.

Rivera, 61, was indicted by a federal grand jury last week for allegedly accepting $5,000 in cash from an insurance brokerage firm in exchange for his help getting contracts. The firm turned out to be a front for the FBI.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll help you out. I’ll help you out,” Rivera told an undercover FBI informant last year during one secretly recorded conversation, according to the two-count indictment.

During a hearing in federal court in Trenton today, U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson set Rivera’s trial date for March 24. The mayor’s attorney, however, said he would seek a delay until summer.

“We expect to receive the government’s evidence shortly. Without it, we really can’t evaluate the case,” Klingeman said after Rivera’s arraignment. “Mayor Rivera looks forward to his day in court as he continues to run the city of Passaic.”

Rivera faces up to 20 years in prison. Some of his fellow defendants, including former Assemblyman Alfred Steele, have pleaded guilty while others, such as Orange Mayor Mims Hackett, have also vowed to fight the charges. Nj.com

How do I get to the Super Bowl?

 

With less than two weeks to go before Super Bowl XLII, here are some options for die-hard Giants fans who want to be in the stadium on game day:

* Stubhub.com has about 2,200 tickets for sale, ranging from $2,200 to $9,600. The average price: $4,000. Spokesman Sean Pate predicts prices will go down in the next 10 days, and advises fans to wait until two to three days before the game. “That’s normally when people will get the best value.”

* Ticketnetwork.com, formerly ticketliquidator.com, has about 980 tickets for sale, ranging from $2,850 to $12,000. A 40-person suite is available for a cool $240,000. “If you get your friends together, it would be a little over $6,000 each,” said CEO Don Vaccaro.

* Yoonew.com is an electronic exchange that allows users to trade tickets like stocks. Fans who predicted their teams would make it to the Super Bowl bought “futures contracts” early in the season for as low as $125. Now that the Giants made it to the big game, the futures are good for tickets. Tickets are available for sale until three days before kickoff.

* Travel agencies have access to information from dozens of companies specializing in sporting events, including Esoteric Sports, which has Super Bowl packages available for $5,800 per person, according to Rick Ardis of Ardis Travel Agency in East Rutherford.

New Jersey Executed 61,150 Babies last year but gets rid of the Death Penalty For Murderer’s

 

I assume many others like me were shocked and disheartened to learn that New Jersey is No. 2 in the nation in its abortion rate (“New Jersey abortion rate remains 2nd in U.S.,” Page A-1, Jan. 17). A state that just ended the death penalty still allows that penalty for 61,150 babies a year.

The number of abortions nationally was given as 1.21 million a year. If that number of newborns was killed each year, there would be a tremendous outcry. Yet because the victims of abortion are unseen, this barbaric practice continues. The other victims are the mothers, who will usually suffer untold emotional distress in the future.

It is hard to see how our country will remain great and good while allowing this widespread killing of millions of helpless and innocent babies.

Patricia D. Keene

Harrington Park, Jan. 17

With sadness, I read that 61,150 unborn babies were killed last year by abortionists in New Jersey (“New Jersey abortion rate remains 2nd in U.S.,” Page A-1, Jan. 17).

Shame on us. To be ranked at the top of the list in this brutal, reprehensible operation is a disgrace and shows how far we have fallen. New Jersey has turned upside down — abortions at the top, values and morals at the bottom.

We have Safe Havens, homes for unwed mothers, adoption, Birthright, Turning Point, pro-life help to keep your child. It’s never too late to change, New Jersey, to become compassionate and loving. Next year let us help to save 61,150 babies. We can do it. Let us help one another.

Mary Ellen Carney NorthJersey.com

Lost police submachine mysteriously turns up

 

Wayne police have found a rapid-fire submachine gun that had been missing for at least two weeks.

But they won’t say exactly where the nine-millimeter weapon turned up on Monday.

It’s still not known who took the MP5 gun, which can shoot 700 to 900 rounds per minute, or how long it was missing from the department’s arsenal.

But the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department is running tests on the weapon to make sure it wasn’t used in any criminal activity.

Meanwhile, Wayne police and county officials are conducting a criminal investigation to determine how the gun went missing.

Clinton gains added help for N.J. push

New Jersey politicos and volunteers responded to Hillary Clinton’s four-alarm call for help in New Hampshire three weeks ago.

Now, some of Clinton’s New Hampshire operatives are returning the favor.

Sylvia Larsen, the New Hampshire state Senate president who is known for her high-energy turnout skills, will assist the New Jersey operation in the final weekend before the Feb. 5 primary, Larsen and other campaign officials said Friday.

Clinton advisers are expecting Larsen and her colleagues to work the phones, knock on doors or provide the kind of strategic advice that helped them secure Clinton support amid the post-Iowa Barack Obama fever that swept through New Hampshire.

Larsen and other Democrats deployed a fierce, fundamental strategy of identifying solid Clinton supporters and those who were undecided. Volunteers did the bulk of the work, but “clearly there were times I was at the phone banks, calling and recalling,” Larsen said. “By election day, we knew where our solid support was.”

Clinton supporters describe Larsen’s trip — at the request of Clinton fund-raiser John F.X. Graham of Verona and U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. of Paterson — as a thank-you but also as a hedge against the turnout uncertainties of a first-ever presidential-only primary in the dead of a New Jersey winter.

The standard voter data that allow party officials to identify declared Democratic voters may not be enough this year: It doesn’t tell them who is a Clinton supporter and who is likely to vote for Obama.

Further complicating matters are voters who have not declared their affiliation with either party, which represent most of New Jersey’s electorate. These voters typically participate in the November contests but not in primaries.

But because of the novelty of the new primary and the intensity of interest this year, the campaigns are expecting many to show up on Feb. 5. Independents can declare their party affiliation at the polls on primary election day.

That’s where Larsen and her colleagues could help. “She has expertise that we hope to tap,” said Brendan Gilfillan, a spokesman for Clinton’s New Jersey campaign. NorthJersey.com

Protesters say police roughed up Arab family while family was resisting arrest

PATERSON — More than 200 Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans marched and chanted slogans Friday against police tactics that left members of a Syrian-American family injured and facing felony assault charges.

“Justice to the Muslim community,” they shouted as they held placards above their heads. “Justice to the Haq family. Bring the abusers to justice.”

The crowd gathered outside City Hall to protest the bruises, a broken nose and deep gashes that three members of the Haq family — mother, father and eldest son — suffered after they allegedly grappled with three police officers Wednesday inside their Dakota Street home.

The officers came to investigate a 911 call of adult-on-child domestic violence at the house. Police say the eldest son, Saer Haq, 26, threatened to kill the officers.

The melee ended when the officers arrested the three Haq family members who allegedly assaulted them: Saer Haq; his father, Sammy Haq, 52; and his mother, Montha Haq, 49.

Also arrested was Ammar Haq, Saer Haq’s 21-year-old brother, and a neighbor, Gunnur Kulaksiz, 42.

Police officials maintained that the officers’ response was appropriate under the circumstances. They say Saer, Sammy and Montha Haq jumped on the officers as they were trying to arrest Saer Haq, who has an arrest record that includes several resisting-arrest offenses and one assault charge stemming from a Feb. 14, 2005, domestic violence complaint, according to police records released Friday.

“The police department and the police are justified to use whatever force to affect an arrest,” Police Chief James Wittig said after the protesters left City Hall to rally before the Public Safety Complex on Broadway.

Some protesters said they were not so much bothered by the fact that the five were arrested but that three of them were bloodied in the process.

“How much force do they need to arrest people?” said Mohammed Latif, 29, who traveled from Linwood in Atlantic County after seeing images of the injured family in an Arabic-language newspaper. “That just reminds me of Abu Ghraib.”

Wittig said: “How about the police officers who were injured?”

Two of the officers involved were treated at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center for minor injuries and released.

Friday’s protest was mostly peaceful, minus a short tussle between protest organizer Hani Awadallah and Mayor Joey Torres, in which the mayor tried to keep Awadallah from grabbing a microphone used during the mayor’s short press conference. So Awadallah used his voice instead. He shouted into the cold afternoon air:

“We came here in peace and we will be leaving in peace.”

Corzine coming to Passaic County to discuss toll-hike proposal

Governor Corzine is scheduled to come to Passaic County to discuss toll increases on New Jersey’s highways and other parts of his plan to restore the state’s finances.

The meeting at the Passaic County Technical Institute’s auditorium at 45 Reinhardt Road, Wayne, has been scheduled for Feb. 6 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Those wishing to attend should RSVP by calling 609-777-2510 or e-mailing passaic.rsvp@gov.state.nj.us.    NorthJersey.com

Passaic Mayor indicted

Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera was indicted on two counts of corruption today, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Rivera, 61, was arrested along with 10 other public officials in the FBI’s September 6th corruption bust. He is charged with accepting a $5,000 bribe in exchange for influencing local government contracts. The indictment states that Rivera intended to later be paid $50,000 for further help in peddling influence to make an undercover company the broker of record for city insurance services.

According to the indictment, Rivera told a cooperating witness that he could get them the necessary number of votes on the city council.

“I can get four votes easy, easy, easy,” the indictment quotes him as saying.

The indictment also alleges that when the insurance company’s presentation was questioned by a Passaic employee, Rivera responded “I make the [expletive] decision. And the council. And believe me, I’ve got the four [expletive] votes on the Council. So let’s stop [expletive] here and let’s get this thing rolling.”

If convicted, Rivera could face a maximum of 20 years in prison for the attempted extortion charge and 10 years for the bribery charge.  politickernj.com

Israel kills Islamic Jihad leader

Israeli troops have killed a leader of the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad during a raid in the West Bank. Walid Obeidi was killed during an exchange of fire in the village of Qabatiya, near the northern town of Jenin, officials and witnesses said.

Two of Obeidi’s bodyguards were wounded and arrested, the group said.

Islamic Jihad is a small radical group that has launched most of the rocket fire from Gaza in the past two years.

Its armed branch has also claimed responsibility for suicide attacks in Israel.

The Israeli army said that troops had attempted to arrest Mr Obeidi, described as the head of the armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad movement in the West Bank.

He refused to surrender and was killed in an exchange of fire, the military said.

The death followed a major Israeli raid in Gaza City on Tuesday.

At least 19 Palestinians were killed during one of the deadliest days of violence in recent months.

Israel said the incursion was an attempt to stop militants firing mortars into Israel.

Reports of more rocket fire followed the raid. Israeli radio reported that two rockets landed in open fields in southern Israel early on Wednesday.

The violence comes after Israeli and Palestinian Authority negotiators began talks on Monday on core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – borders, Jewish settlements, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. BBC News

Jewish groups condemn attacks on Obama

 

Leaders of the Jewish organizations in the United States issued a joint letter Tuesday night condemning the email being distributed both in Hebrew and in English attacking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. In the email, Obama is depicted as a Muslim pretending to be a Christian and seeking to take over the White House and handing it over to the control of al-Qaeda. In an open letter to the Jewish community, the leaders said that they would not endorse or oppose any candidate for president, but felt compelled to speak out against “certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent”. “Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama’s religious beliefs and who he is as a person.”

‘Make A decision based on factual records’

The letter was signed by Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League; William Daroff, vice president of the United Jewish Communities; David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee; Nathan J. Diament, director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; Richard S. Gordon, president of the American Jewish Congress; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Phyllis Snyder, president of the National Council of Jewish Women; and Hadar Susskind, Washington director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

There is great importance to the fact that Jewish leaders from all sides of the political map joined forces in this letter. “These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion,” the letter said. “We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.”

The Jewish leaders warned that “attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. “Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.”  Ynet

Israel to evacuate 2 settler outposts

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces were on their way Wednesday to evacuate two settler outposts in the West Bank, officials said, amid U.S. insistence such encampments be dismantled to pave the way for a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The outposts consist mostly of tents and have no permanent structures, Israeli defense officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. At least one of them, Shvut Ami, has been evacuated several times in the past.

As part of the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, President Bush pressed Israel last week to evacuate dozens of outposts.Israel promised under a 2003 peace plan to evacuate about two dozen of the more than 100 outposts that settlers set up on disputed land to prevent its transfer to Palestinians in a future agreement.

Since approving the deal, Israel has done little to dismantle the outposts. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier this week that the outposts were a “disgrace,” but officials said it was not clear if any of the bigger outposts with permanent structures would be evacuated soon. Nj.com

Explosion kills 1, injures 9 at New Jersey metal casting plant

CARLSTADT, N.J. (AP) — An explosion at a metal casting plant about a mile from Giants Stadium killed one person and injured nine others, three critically.

The accident occurred Tuesday morning at Tec-Cast, an aluminum casting company located in a pocket of industrial plants and warehouses about a mile north of the Meadowlands sports complex. Workers were performing maintenance on an air pressure vat used to cast molten metals into machine parts, police said.

Workers were fixing a door on the approximately 4-foot wide vat shortly after 8 a.m. when it exploded because of air pressure that had built up in the back, said Capt. Franklin Smith of the Carlstadt Police Department.The explosion was heard — and felt — in neighboring buildings along the 300-yard-long cul de sac.

“I heard the explosion,” said Juan Muniz, who was working in an adjacent building about 20 yards away from the Tec-Cast building. “My whole building was shaking. It was scary.”

Mario Gomez, 61, of Jersey City, a maintenance supervisor at the facility, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Gomez was killed when the vat exploded, blowing off the door and scattering pieces of metal that struck him and the other workers.

Seven of the injured workers were taken to area hospitals. It was not clear if the other two declined treatment.

Three of the injured workers were in critical condition at Hackensack University Medical Center Tuesday afternoon, according to hospital spokeswoman Peggy Schunk. Two others remained at the hospital and were in good condition, Schunk said. She did not give specific details on their injuries, citing hospital policy.

Two injured workers were treated and released from Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center, according to hospital spokesman Craig Schmalz. Their injuries ranged from scrapes and bruises to knee and ankle injuries.

Tec-Cast officials did not respond to telephone requests for comment, and workers and company officials left the building without commenting to reporters.

A woman who answered the phone said she was in another building and did not know what was happening.

About 45 employees were in the building at the time of the explosion, Smith said.

Racial slur leads to fine in Passaic

One man who decided to use a racial slur learned a costly lesson.

The man called a Passaic Public Works employee the N-word, and that’s when the worker got even.

New Jersey reporter Toni Yates has the story.

Department of Public Works employee Aregawi Kishen says he took his complaint to a judge to make a point

“The N-word is a word that comes with a negative affect,” he said.

He hopes the Clifton man who called him by the racial slur back in September got more than the $150 fine. He hopes he also learned a permanent lesson.

Kishen says he doesn’t know how the encounter digressed in the first place. He said he had his truck parked on the corner of Washington and Hoover streets. He doesn’t even think the truck was blocking the man’s car.

But he says the man jumped out and hit him with a barrage of racial slurs.

“He got angry and he called me a million names, and finally the N-word,” Kishen said.

Passaic joined that surging nationwide effort last year to ban the N-word. But to be fined for using it? Passaic mayor Sammy Rivera, who appointed the judge who leveled the fine, agreed with the action.

“At least fined,” he said. “It’s everybody’s city, everybody’s country.”

“All the lives we lost behind that,” one area resident said.

The resident spoke openly and honestly outside City Hall about how stinging the word can be.

“I even went to jail behind that,” he said. “Honestly, for a caucasian calling me that. Me acting out on it got me four years in prison.”

Kishen’s case was decided yesterday. He feels comfortable now putting the matter to rest and forgiving his offender.

“The gentleman, he apologized,” he said. “And apology accepted,

Winter Storm Was Canceled

 

Winter storm was canceled this morning have a nice day.

Passaic 2 car M.V.A.

 Passaic N.J.—  At about 5:00 Pm  two-vehicle accident on Van Houten Ave and Park Ave sent 2 people to the hospital with head and neck injuries. One of them was a child.

Injuries suffered by both of them involved were not considered serious, and the individuals were taken by E.M.S. to Saint Joes Hospital in Paterson.

 No other details were available Sunday evening.

Brooklyn, NY – ALERT!! Thief Goes To Avelim To Steal Pushkas

Brooklyn, NY – Community Alert!

 

The Misaskim organization has informed VIN News to alert the community about the following.

There is someone going around to menachem aveilim calls, and while he distracts the aveilim, swipes all pushkas from the residence. He shows up the day before the mourners end the shivah week. The suspect has been successful several times already, including recently in Borough Park, exiting with 8 pushkas.

He employs various tricks, pretends to donate money, and then runs. The public is asked to be on the lookout. We will post more details as we receive the information.. Vin News

You Can Save A Life ; Just take a fiew minutes and wipe the Ice/Snow off your car

 

Above is a picture of a car that was smashed from falling ice. Please be considerate for your fellow freinds. Please take the extra fiew minutes to clear snow or ice off your car. Please use caution when driving leave extra time.

It was unseasonably warm last week, but it didn’t keep me from encountering people who sympathized — just barely — with this column’s call to ban the kind of road hazard that we call the Snow and Ice That Fall Twice.

That’s the kind of white junk that leaves the other guy’s car or truck, hits your windshield and makes your whole life flash in front of you. You know the kind:

* The Route 17 kind that killed Ridgewood’s Michael Eastman nearly 12 years ago.

* The Route 287 kind that caused Hawthorne’s Bob and Mary Mahon to chase after the car whose icy load smashed their windshield last year.

* The Route 80 kind that ran Kinnelon’s Tara Varner and her 2-year-old off the road last month.

Shouldn’t New Jersey fine drivers whose vehicles carry snow? Currently, statute 39:4-77.1 makes it illegal only when it causes damage or injury.

Cathy Eastman understands this because the vehicle whose icy load crushed her husband’s skull was long gone by the time police arrived. Tara, Bob, Mary and most of the 2,000 readers who sent me petitions early this year also get it.

But not some folks I’ve encountered. “There are thousands of SUVs, many driven by women,” said Pequannock’s E.L. Quigley. “They can’t clean ice off the tops of their vehicles.”

Ray R. also sympathizes, but:

“Do you have suggestions for clearing … snow from an SUV that’s been out overnight WITHOUT damaging the hood, roof rack or moon roof?” asked the Fair Lawn man. “Pushing snow off is easy, but after past storms, thick solid ice and packed snow didn’t budge after the car’s heater was on for 20 minutes.”

* Run a garden hose over the car with the heater running, but do this for short periods to avoid cracking the windshield.

* Put old cardboard, canvas or a rug over the vehicle before it snows, and yank it off after the storm.

* Run the engine for an hour, long enough to free frozen snow, or at least to help clear it.

Some consider all this unnecessary. One woman, 72, said: “If I can clean my SUV, so can anybody.” Cathy Eastman, who’s 5 feet 1, says she does it. NorthJersey.com And Passaic News.

HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 9 PM THIS EVENING TO 12 PM EST MONDAY

Car Plunges off Route 21 and falls to the ground upside down;

Passaic New Jersey —Three people escaped death early Sunday morning after the car they were riding in plunged off rt 21 onto a local street , police and fire officials said.The male driver and the two passengers were able to escape from the vehicle before Police and E.M.S arrived.

The accident happened on Rt 21 but the car fell about 15 feet to the ground upside down  near Columbia and Passaic street. According to police, the driver of the car lost control of the vehicle around 1 a.m. The car struck the guard rail, flipped over and took a  tree down and fell to the ground. The rear window of the car popped out, allowing an escape route. Police said the driver and passengers were taken by Hatzolah Of North Jersey And Passaic E.M.S as well as Paramedics from the scene. Their conditions are not known at this time but they were transported to Saint Joes Trauma Center

In a Strange Land

THINGS US ARMY CAPTAIN ANDREW Shulman finds the trickiest about being a Jewish chaplain deployed to Baghdad: passing the physical fitness test, finding new congregants – “Sometimes it’s Cohen who’s not Jewish and Flannigan who is,” he says – and strictly observing the Sabbath. In Iraq, says the 41-year-old Orthodox Jew from Malden, “every day’s a Monday.”

Conspicuously missing from Shulman’s list of hardships are the mortar and rocket attacks that occasionally jolt Camp Victory, the sprawling American military complex around Baghdad International Airport where he lives, sharing a trailer with a helicopter pilot. Or the merciless violence that rages just outside the fortified walls of the military base, where he has been stationed since May, counseling soldiers of all faiths, holding Jewish holiday services, and distributing Seder kits, prayer booklets, and spiritual guidance to Jewish service members all over Iraq.

This is perhaps because for Shulman, who is married and a father of two, his journey from a sheltered childhood in Beverly Hills to being one of only three Jewish military chaplains in a country that until recently listed the destruction of Israel among its official goals is as shocking, in retrospect, as coming under a rocket attack from Iraqi insurgents.

When Shulman was little, the whole world seemed Jewish. “Stuff that wasn’t Jewish was weird,” Shulman recalls, reclining on his living room couch in Malden under a picture of Jerusalem’s Old City during a two-week leave from the war in the fall. Shulman’s parents, transplants from New York who pepper their conversations with Yiddish words, sent little Andrew first to various Jewish private schools and then to Beverly Hills High School, where students could take Hebrew as a foreign language. Shulman took Spanish. He was “looking for something more exotic,” he explains.

This adventurous streak resurfaced in 1994, when Shulman quit his job at a nonprofit that promoted environmental programs in San Diego and went on a trip that began in India and ended in a yeshiva tucked into the limestone maze of Jerusalem’s Old City. Shulman stayed and studied Judaism there for the next few years. He met his wife, Lori, at the yeshiva, and their first daughter, Zohar, who is now 7, was born in Jerusalem.

In 2001, Shulman and his family moved to Boston, where he worked organizing speed-dating events for Jewish singles, and then to Malden, where he worked at Congregation Beth Israel. By 2006, he again “was looking for something different.” Browsing the Internet one night, he came across a US Army chaplaincy website. A year ago, Shulman reported to the Army’s chaplain school at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. “In the school, you do push-ups,” he says, shuddering at the memory. In May, he was on a plane to Iraq. He is stationed at Forward Operating Base Striker, a section of Camp Victory. “It can be intimidating,” Shulman says, to be the only guy on a military base housing more than 50,000 uniformed troops who goes to the dining facility in a yarmulke.Continued…

Most of the troops he counsels are Christians from the Fourth Battalion, Third Aviation Regiment of the Combat Aviation Brigade of the Third Infantry Division. Many are grappling with family lives disrupted or damaged by lengthy deployments. The two dozen or so Jewish members of his congregation – which includes troops and a US Embassy official – come for holiday blessings and simple religious advice. This is “mostly Judaism 101,” says Shulman. “It’s not like you’re doing the bar mitzvah or slaughtering chicken.” According to Rear Admiral Harold L. Robinson, a rabbi whose Jewish Chaplains Council in New York endorsed Shulman for chaplaincy, Shulman’s commanders’ comments about his work have been “amazingly complimentary.”

Lori, Shulman’s willowy wife, works part time as a preschool teacher and baby sitter in Malden. She gets worried wrinkles in the corners of her smile when she talks about her husband’s decision. “The whole Army idea was new to us,” she recalls. “I had to think about it and digest it for a while.” Even the chaplain sounds surprised when he discusses his career choice. “It’s kind of unbelievable,” he says. “My grandfather fled Russia to escape mandatory conscription to the Russian army. And a hundred years later [I'm] flying on a Black Hawk to deliver kosher MREs” – that’s meals ready to eat – to soldiers.

Shulman seems to revel in the paradoxes that accompany his deployment, like the time the Catholic chaplain ordered kosher Manischewitz wine for Communion – apparently, it keeps well. Or the wireless Internet access on the base, which allows Shulman to watch via Web camera his wife and daughters eat lunch in the kitchen of their Malden apartment. “Sometimes I’m sitting in the dining facility with a Baskin Robbins Cookies ‘n Cream cup with chocolate sauce poured all over it watching Boston Legal on the plasma on the wall,” he says, “while guys are lined up for all-you-can-eat lobster, and I think, ‘War is hell?’” (At Shulman’s request, Lori called the ice cream company and found out that its Oreo Cookies ‘n Cream flavor is kosher.)

But Shulman’s face momentarily darkens when he recalls his trip to Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, where he has flown several times to meet with Jewish soldiers stationed there. “They had three people who died in their CHUs,” the chaplain says, using the military abbreviation for trailers where the troops live. “Mortar attacks. That was more of a real thing.”

Shulman flew to Kalsu on a Black Hawk, and that part of the trip he recalls fondly: Helicopter rides top Shulman’s list of the best things about being in Iraq. This list is short. The only other item on it is leading Jewish holiday services for American troops in a country that in the Old Testament is known as Babel: “Just such a wild setting to be leading Rosh Hashana.”

Before Anna Badkhen joined the Globe as a Metro reporter, she reported extensively from Iraq. E-mail her at badkhen@globe.com.

Leaving New Jersey for Israel, Jews say they’re going home

EDISON — Cheryl Jacobi had been on several flights to Israel. But this time she was traveling on a one-way ticket.

The oldest of four children from a close-knit family in Edison, Jacobi decided to make aliyah � to immigrate to Israel as a symbol of taking one’s Jewish life to a higher level.

The 23-year-old, who goes by her Hebrew name Yocheved in her new homeland, said she was anything but nervous as she boarded the plane to Israel in late December.

It helped that all 200 passengers on the chartered flight, which was sponsored by the Jewish organization Nefesh B’Nefesh, were also immigrating to Israel.

Nefesh B’Nefesh is a nonprofit organization founded five years ago to make it easier for American Jews who wish to move to Israel.

“We have flown about 14,000 Americans to Israel in the past five years; another 17,000 are in the pipeline,” Charley Levine, spokesman for Nefesh B’Nefesh, said.

He added that Israel needs these people, whom he described as the best and brightest the Western World has to offer, to help the country and the economy to grow.

“I’ve been singing songs about Israel and making maps of Israel since I was little,” Jacobi said, adding that as a child she went to both schools and summer camps that she said were incredibly Zionistic.

Simona Kogan, a departing Metuchen resident also on the flight, said being in a country where she feels connected to the people and the surroundings motivated her to move there.

“But,” she added, “it was a very tough decision because I was giving up everything I knew, the comforts of America, and of course my friends and family.”

Kogan, 25, said that in her new country she expects to make several adjustments, which include learning a new language, living in a home that is far more basic than what she has known in America, and working longer hours for less money.

New immigrants to Israel are entitled to a free five-month course in the Hebrew language as part of their acclimatization.

Jacobi, who made her first trip to Israel before she was 2 years old, said that she plans on taking the five-month course because, while she knows Hebrew, it is only as a second language.

She said she made the decision to move to Israel five years ago during a year at a Jewish seminary in Israel after high school.

A couple of her close high school friends are already in Israel, as are two of her younger siblings, which she said will make the move much easier.

“I find that when I’m here, no matter what city or what part of the country, I feel at home,” she said in a phone call from Israel.

Kogan, on the other hand, had several concerns before leaving � such as being away from her parents, relying on friends and family friends, traveling without a car, and having much less free time.

She also worried about communicating with relatives in America through different means � not to mention taking care of her own finances, bank account, and apartment for the first time in her life.

“Once I got to Israel, I knew I had made the right decision. I felt it. I don’t know, maybe in six months I will be saying something different but for now, I’m still on that high of doing something completely and totally out of the box and being happy with my decision,” she wrote in an e-mail from Israel.

Jacobi said that while she misses her parents, who are still in America because they have to take care of her grandparents, she knows that they will move to Israel eventually.

“Honestly, they are just jealous right now; they wish they could be here too,” she said.

She said a sense of Jewish community is very important to her, and it is something that she never experienced in America.

“There are Jews in America, too, but it’s just not the same feeling here and there,” Jacobi said, adding that after she graduated she couldn’t think of a place in the U.S. where she wanted to settle down.

“I encourage people who are thinking about making aliyah to make at least two or three trips there before they settle down, or they won’t know what they are getting themselves into,” she warned.

Kogan said that it was only until she came back to America that she became 100 percent certain this was what she wanted to do.

“They say being away from something makes you realize how much you miss it and for me, being away from Israel after being there for a year was the final decision to live there for good.” app.com