Members of Temple Beth Shalom reform temple of Clifton enter the sanctuary during a recent Simcah Torah service at Temple Ner Tamid of Bloomfield. The two congregations merged over the summer, and Beth Shalom’s Torah scrolls were subsequently added alongside Ner Tamid’s.
(News Source NorthJersey.com/PBJN)
Join in the community-wide Passaic-Clifton Siyum. Five years ago, over 300 people – representing every shul in the community – participated in a siyum on Torah, Neviim, Kesuvim, Mishna, and Shas Bavli. Take part in the upcoming siyum scheduled for Shavuos 5769. Demonstrate the Achdus and Ahavas Hatorah that is sure to have an impact on world, community and personal events
Letter says Jewish group not up to code
PASSAIC — The city has told one of two Passaic-based Orthodox Jewish volunteer ambulance squads that it must shut down because the squad isn’t up to city code.
But the squad’s founder called the city’s action “harassment” and questioned why the other Jewish squad wasn’t scrutinized.
On Monday, the city sent a letter signed by its law firm, Scarinci & Hollenbeck, to David Kaplan, 26, founder of Hatzolah EMS of North Jersey, saying the squad wasn’t in compliance with city law.
The letter said Hatzolah must shut down operations by the end of the day on May 19 if it did not fulfill the requirements of proving that all volunteers are qualified and that the squad has insurance that covers any legal action against the city up to $2 million. The requirements are outlined in a 2004 ordinance.
Kaplan said his squad does meet city requirements and showed necessary proof to the city last September. A letter to Kaplan from former Mayor Samuel Rivera, dated Sept. 12, states that Hatzolah is qualified to provide emergency medical services in Passaic and that a certificate remains in effect for two years from that date.
But Acting Mayor Gary Schaer said to the best of his knowledge Hatzolah had not met all the city’s requirements.
Hatzolah is licensed to operate by the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services, although a license is not necessary to operate, said spokeswoman Marilyn Riley.
As of Wednesday, Hatzolah had not provided documentation to the city, Kaplan said. But Hatzolah is continuing operations anyway, he said, because Kaplan believes the city’s letter is unfair and unfounded.
To complicate matters, a second Hatzolah ambulance service with a similar name — Hatzolah of Passaic/Clifton — has never been used informally by the city and is not on the list of squads the city uses. Hatzolah means “rescue” in Hebrew. The squads are local chapters of a worldwide organization that has volunteer ambulance squads in Jewish neighborhoods.
Greg Hill, the business administrator, said the city has not checked whether the second Jewish squad is violating city law. Schaer, an Orthodox Jew, said he asked Hill on Tuesday to verify that all private ambulance squads comply with city law. Passaic has only the two Hatzolahs as private squads.
The city’s paid squad, which has two ambulances, is overseen by the Police Department. When both vehicles are in use, the city calls other municipalities and private squads to ask if they can dispatch an ambulance immediately. Andy White, police spokesman, said Kaplan’s Hatzolah has been called in recent months after the Clifton squad and a private company based at Hackensack University Medical Center.
Last week, the City Council entertained a resolution that would formally add Kaplan’s Hatzolah to the city’s list of mutual aid services. But the resolution was defeated by a 3-3 tie vote. A tie means the measure is rejected.
The three Orthodox Jewish council members voted against the resolution, while the three Hispanic members voted in favor.
Schaer, who proposed the resolution, said he voted against it because he believes Hatzolah was stoking ethnic divide in the city.
“Picking up an ambulance group that’s working primarily in one part of town — I don’t think it’s a good idea, if we’re continuing our fight to unite Passaic,” Schaer said.
Kaplan said Hatzolah serves the entire city, not just Jews.
“It’s ludicrous, because the whole point of doing 911 is we service anybody. We don’t ask them, ‘Are you Jewish? Are you Orthodox?’ when someone calls,” Kaplan said. “Gary Schaer has furthered the stereotype that we only want to help ourselves.”
Hatzolah gets an average of 600 calls a year to its direct line, Kaplan said. He did not know what percentage was Jewish.
Councilman Gerardo Fernandez said he supports the squad.
“We never had a problem before. We voted for it. I voted ‘yes’ because they’re providing a service with the community. They’ve been doing it all along,” Fernandez said.
On Tuesday, Schaer said that the letter sent to Kaplan was purely out of concern for public safety.
“It’s not my personal feelings at play here. This affects the health and welfare of city residents,” he said. “What’s relevant is what’s in compliance.”
Reach Karen Keller at 973-569-7158 or kellerk@northjersey.com myheraldnews.com
Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex in northeast Iowa Monday morning to execute a criminal search warrant for evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, said Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman.
Agents are also executing a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States, he said.
Immigration officials told aides to Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, that they expect 600 to 700 arrests. About 1,000 to 1,050 people work at the plant, according to Iowa Workforce Development, the state’s employment services agency.
Chuck Larson, a truck driver for Agriprocessing, was in the plant when the agents arrived. “There has to be 100 of them,” he said of the agents.
Larson said the agents told workers to stay in place then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers, to stand to the left.
“There was plenty of hollering,” Larson said. “You couldn’t go anywhere.”
When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic
ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Postville did not confirm or deny that anyone had been detained, but went on to say that the children of those detained would be cared for and that “their caregiver situation will be addressed.”
“They were asked multiple times if they have any sole-caregiver issues or any childcare issues,” Ort said.
Aides to Braley said they have been told that “hundreds” of arrests are expected because the action is more of an “investigation” than an immigration raid, and specific individuals are being targeted for arrest as part of the investigation.
Counts described the events in Postville as a “single site operation.” He said he was not aware of any other immigration raids being conducted elsewhere Monday.
Postville Police Chief Michael Halse said he did not know anything about the raid until Monday morning.
Postville is a community of more than 2,500 people that includes natives of German and Norwegian heritage and newcomers who include Hasidic Jews from New York, plus immigrants from Mexico, Russian, Ukraine and many other countries.
The Agriprocessors plant, known as the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, is northeast Iowa’s largest employer.
About 200 Hasidic Jews arrived in Postville in 1987, when butcher Aaron Rubashkin of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood reopened a defunct meat-packing plant with his two sons, Sholom and Heshy, just outside the city limits. Business boomed at the plant, reviving the depressed economy while pitting the newcomers against the predominantly Lutheran community.
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said that the Postville immigration investigations were warranted despite concerns that federal official violated the constitutional rights of people in past raids.
“Remember our concern has not been about whether or not there should be raids,” Vilsack said. “It’s the way the raids have been conducted and the way in which American citizens’ rights have been violated by virtue of sort of a roundup process that’s used and what we think are inappropriate and unconstitutional actions on the part of immigration officials.”
Vilsack and others have alleged that immigration officials used humiliation, opposite-sex searches and long periods of secrecy in the Dec. 12, 2006, raids at Swift & Co. in Marshalltown, Iowa, where 90 people were arrested on immigration charges. UsaToday.com
A Jewish rabbi, Roman Catholic and Episcopalian priests, a federal prosecutor and two sherriffs took the witness stand today to heap praise upon a popular Muslim cleric as his attorneys began presenting their case for why he should not be deported.
Mohammad Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson faces deportation for allegedly failing to disclose on his 1996 green card application that he had been arrested and pleaded guilty to aiding the terrorist group Hamas in an Israeli military court three years earlier.
His attorneys argue that Qatanani was detained administratively, convicted in absentia and subject to interrogation tactics Israel’s top court later outlawed as torture.
Among the witnesses subpeonad by Qatatani’s lawyers was Assistant United States Attorney Charles McKenna, who described numerous trips to the Paterson mosque as part of an effort to create better understanding between law enforcement and the Muslim community.
As an example, he said investigators often interpreted the tendency of Muslim women to not look them in the eye as a sign of deceit. Through the dialogue at the mosque, they realized it is routine in Arab culture for women not to look men outside their family in the eye.
“It’s important for us to have leaders in the Islamic community who will be accepting of us and give us inroads in the community,” he said.
The sheriffs of two north Jersey counties echoed McKenna’s statements that the mosque’s open door policies had helped investigators become more familiar with cultural aspects of the Muslim community.
But they also described a more personal connection they had made through their cooperation with Qatanani.
“When I’m in his presence, and he does have a presence, this small, unassuming person, he doesn’t say “boo” but he gives me a better feeling of peace,” said Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire. “I feel better as a person to be with him.”
Jerry Speziale, the sheriff of Passaic County echoed McGuire’s testimony saying Qatatani “radiates peace.”
Christopher Brundage, one of two Department of Homeland Security attorneys serving as prosecutors in the case, pressed Speziale and McGuire, asking if they would have different opinions if they had known about Qatatani’s alleged ties to Hamas.
Speziale said he would need to see proof of the conviction himself. McGuire said, “It would surprise me,” but added, “it cannot change my mind about what I have observed.” NJ.com
Passaic New Jersey Mayor Samuel Rivera will plead guilty on Friday tomorrow ( 05/09/2008 ) to taking bribes last year.
The mayor will be resigning from his office tomorrow. He will plead guilty for a plea deal. As more will come we will update you.
You heard this story first from P.C.J.N
Mr Bush was joined on the red carpet by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (R) and Israeli President Shimon Peres (L) as he was greeted by religious leaders.
The state has filed an indictment against two Jerusalem rabbis on charges of racist incitement regarding anti-Arab statements they made during a rally protesting the establishing of a bilingual school for Jews and Arabs in the capital’s Patt neighborhood.
The defendants are Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri, head of the Hashalom Kabbalist yeshiva, and his son David. They are liable to a prison term of up to five years if convicted.
The event in question took place on January 9, 2006 during a rally a the community center against the establishment of the school. About 200 people came to hear several rabbis speak against the plan.
One of them, Yitzhak Batzri, said, “The Arabs are donkeys and beasts. They are inferior. What do they want? To take our women. They say we are racist. In reality, they are the wicked and cruel ones. They are imbued with the filth of the snake. There are pure and impure, and they are impure. You residents of Patt must not give in.”
David Batzri told the audience, “The establishment of this school is an act of abomination and impurity. One can’t mix impure and pure. Of course we must stay apart from all the nations. You must stand in the breach and prevent this. It is forbidden to mix darkness with light. The nation of Israel is pure. The Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an affliction, a demon, a pestilence.
“Why, one may ask, did God not create them to walk on all fours, since they are donkeys? The reason is that they must build and clean, but must always understand that they are donkeys. There is no room for them in our schools.”
“In the acts they committed as described above, the defendants published something meant to incite to racism,” the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office wrote in the indictment, which was filed in Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.
Attorney Einat Horowitz, who represents The Israel Religious Action Center, which filed the original complaint against Yitzhak and David Batzri and several other rabbis, including Beersheba Chief Rabbi Yehuda Deri, said she was pleased with the decision.
“In the past few years we have been witness to a worrisome increase in racist expressions by rabbis and Jewish religious leaders, who make distorted use of Jewish tradition,” she said in a statement. “This phenomenon obliges the law enforcement authorities to make use of all legal tools at their disposal to eradicate it. The prosecution’s decision, although belated, is a step in the right direction and we hope that it is the harbinger of an increasing severity in the law enforcement policy against racist manifestations.” The Jerusalem Post
Iowa and New Hampshire have spoken and shaken up the presidential races in both political parties. The contest between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will likely be decided in the 20 states in which primaries will be held on February 5. The Republican nomination contest may be more muddled with Huckabee, Giuliani, McCain and Romney all still in the mix – but it too will likely be resolved on February 5. What does this mean? Jewish votes will matter. Among the (too) many states holding primaries on Feb. 5: New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona and Tennessee all with substantial Jewish populations; most of whom are registered Democrats, but there are plenty of Republicans and Independents, and are known to turn out disproportionately to our percentage of the overall population.
While Senator Clinton has had more than a six year senate term to cultivate her relationships with American Jews and become the community “favorite,” Senator Obama has done his share of outreach to the community since he has burst on the scene as well. Thanks to his mayoralty in NYC, Rudy Giuliani certainly in the community, but McCain can come on strong with a long record of support for Israel and Joe Lieberman in his corner (and potentially on his ticket?)
Bottom line: We expect a lot of phone calling, direct mailing, ads in your local Jewish papers, meetings with rabbis and showing up for bagels & lox in the coming weeks – and yes, this is good for the Jews. ou.org
I regret to inform you of the (Petira) passing of the (Gadol Hador) Grand Rabbi, Maran Hagon Rav Shmuel Berenbaum ZATZAL – Rosh Yeshivas Mirrer Yeshiva Of Brooklyn.
UPDATE: The levaya will take place 8:45AM Monday morning at Mir Yeshiva (1795 Ocean Parkway). The aron will leave to the airport at 11:30 promptly.
אוי לספינה שאבדה קברניטה
נפלה עטרת ראשינו פאר הדור ותפארתו
הי גאון הי חסיד
עמוד התורה והחסד
זקן ראש הישיבות משרידי הדור הישן
מורינו ורבינו מרן
הגאון האדיר רשכבה”ג
הרב רבי רפאל שמואל ברנבוים זצוק’’ל
ראש הישיבה דישיבת מיר
הלוי’ה יתקיים בבית מדרשו
1791 OCEAN PARKWAY
ביום ב’ בשעה 8:45 בבקר
ישיבת מיר
The levaya will be leaving the Yeshiva at 11 A.M.
to JFK, EL AL Cargo, Bldg. 23
וכל בית ישראל יבכו את השרפה אשר שרף ד’ yeshivaworld.com
Dozens of men’s mikvaot (ritual baths) across the nation are a potential health hazard due to poor accessibility, United Hatzalah of Israel, the haredi rapid-response first aid organization, has warned “If, God forbid, there is a major crisis in a mikve, such as a gas explosion, poisoned water or a collapsed roof, I don’t want to think of the consequences,” Hatzalah spokesman Yerach Toker said on Wednesday. Hatzalah volunteers, he said, had routinely run into serious obstacles that slow down first aid crews when responding to emergencies that take place inside men’s mikvaot. The most common emergencies are heart attacks, drownings and slipping accidents, Toker said. Also, the steamy, humid environment occasionally causes dizziness and even a temporary loss of consciousness. Hatzalah crews complain that after arriving on the scene they are often delayed many minutes at the entrance to the mikve by barriers that prevent non-members from getting inside. The most common obstacles are pay-activated or card-activated turnstiles and doors. “Just a few weeks ago a Hatzalah crew was called to evacuate a man from a mikve who complained of chest pains,” Toker said. “But the volunteers were held up close to half an hour. Fearing that he had suffered a heart attack, the man was prevented from walking. But since the only available exit was via a turnstile, it was impossible to remove the man. “An emergency door was blocked by a closet filled with towels and clothes. But even after the things blocking the door were moved, it was impossible to open the locked door. It took another 10 minutes until someone with a key showed up.” Rabbi Menachem Blumenthal, head of the Jerusalem Religious Council’s mikvaot division, who is responsible for 27 men’s mikvaot, said the problems facing first aid organizations were not new. “We are aware of the difficulties in getting in and out of mikvaot that are governed by electronic turnstiles,” he said. “But an adequate solution is provided as long as there is a caretaker with a key to the emergency door on the premises during opening hours.” Blumenthal said while it was commonly believed that hassidim and Sephardim are the primary users of men’s mikvaot, more Lithuanian haredi men have begun using them. Immersing oneself in a mikve before Shaharit (morning prayers) is considered an act of added sanctity and preparation. Streams of Judaism more aware of Kabbala (the mystical, esoteric aspects of Judaism) emphasize the purification process undergone by immersing in a mikve. Jpost.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just 24 hours after securing an agreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders to resume long-stalled peace talks, President Bush invited the pair to the White House to ceremonially inaugurate the first formal, direct negotiations in seven years.
Capping an intense flurry of diplomacy that salvaged a joint Israeli-Palestinian agreement at nearby Annapolis, Md., to launch a fresh round of talks, Bush planned to meet separately with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and finally to get them together for an afternoon session and declaring the talks formally under way.
After meeting their own low expectations for the Annapolis conference amid intense skepticism, Bush administration officials crowed with delight.
“President Bush has invited them both to the White House tomorrow to inaugurate those negotiations, and the two sides have agreed that they will return to the region and meet on December 12th to continue the process,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters late Tuesday.
Bush, along with Rice, had earlier salvaged a “joint understanding” between the Israelis and Palestinians, who had remained far apart on the details of the statement until the last minute.
But with prodding from the American side, Olmert and Abbas – troubled leaders with fragile mandates for peace – told international backers and skeptical Arab neighbors they are ready for hard bargaining toward an independent Palestinian state in the 14 months Bush has left in office.
“This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it,” Bush said after reading from the just-completed text the statement that took weeks to negotiate and yet sets only the vaguest terms for the talks to come.
“I pledge to devote my effort during my time as president to do all I can to help you achieve this ambitious goal,” Bush told Abbas and Olmert as the three stood together in the U.S. Naval Academy’s majestic Memorial Hall. “I give you my personal commitment to support your work with the resources and resolve of the American government.”
The two Mideast leaders were circumspect but optimistic.
“I had many good reasons not to come here,” Olmert told diplomats, including those from Arab states that do not recognize Israel like Saudi Arabia and Syria. “Memory of failures in the near and distant past weighs heavy upon us.”
Abbas, meanwhile, recited a familiar list of Palestinian demands, including calls for Israel to end the expansion of Jewish settlements on land that could be part of an eventual state called Palestine and to release some of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
“Neither we nor you must beg for peace from the other,” Abbas said. “It is a joint interest for us and you. Peace and freedom is a right for us, just as peace and security is a right for you and us.”
Bush has held Mideast peacemaking at arms’ length for most of his nearly seven years in office, arguing that conditions in Israel and the Palestinian territories were not right for a more energetic role. Arab allies, among others, have warned that the Palestinian plight underlies other conflicts and feeds grievances across the Middle East, and have urged the White House to do more.
Bush seemed to answer the criticism Tuesday, giving detailed reasons why the time is now. He said Israeli and Palestinian leaders are ready to make peace, that there is a wider and unifying fight against extremism fed by the Palestinian conflict and that he world understands the urgency of acting now.
Later, in an interview with The Associated Press, Bush spoke of the importance of giving beleaguered Palestinians something positive to look forward to – and he sketched a grim alternative.
Without a hopeful vision, he said, “it is conceivable that we could lose an entire generation – or a lot of a generation – to radicals and extremists. There has to be something more positive. And that is on the horizon today.”
Negotiating teams will hold their first session in the region in just two weeks, on Dec. 12, and Olmert and Abbas plan to continue one-on-one discussions they began earlier this year. In addition, many of the same nations and organizations attending Tuesday’s conference will gather again on Dec. 17 in Paris to raise money for the perpetually cash-strapped Palestinians.
To attract Arab backing, the Bush administration included a session in the conference devoted to “comprehensive” peace questions – a coded reference to other Arab disputes with Israel. Syria came to the conference intending to raise its claim to the strategic Golan Heights, seized by Israel in 1967, and Lebanon wanted to talk about its border dispute with Israel. Rice told reporters that Syria and Lebanon spoke up, but she gave no details.
But in a sign of the difficult road ahead, Abbas’ speech was immediately rejected by Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that stormed to power in the Gaza Strip in June, a month before Bush announced plans for the peace conference.
Hamas now governs the tiny territory and roughly a third of the people on whose behalf Abbas would negotiate a state. Hamas has refused to drop its pledge for Israel’s destruction, and the United States and Israel consider the group a terrorist organization.
Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters chanted “Death to America” in a Gaza City rally. The marchers, including women in black robes and full face veils, raised their index fingers heavenward in a sign of Islamic devotion, as they denounced the Annapolis conference as a sellout of Palestinian dreams. NorthJersey.com
(IsraelNN.com) Recent statistics presented by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) and the World Bank confirm the assessment of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) that the demographic balance in the Land of Israel is not a threat to the Jewish majority at all; in fact, predictions of Arab population growth in the Palestinian Authority have been grossly overstated, with Jewish birthrates in pre-1967 Israel consistently increasing and Arab birthrates consistently dropping.
‘Demography is a Strategic Asset’
In an article by AIDRG lead researcher Yoram Ettinger, in conjunction with Bennett Zimmerman, Michael Wise and Roberta Seid, the team present what they consider to be the “bottom line” of their statistical study:
“Israel’s demographic establishment has been dramatically wrong: Demography constitutes a strategic asset, not a liability.”
“The claim that Jews are doomed to become a minority, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, is in direct contradiction of demographic reality. Such a claim has yielded demographic fatalism, which has dominated Israel’s academic, media, political and security sectors. It has become a basis for critical national security decisions. However, demographic fatalism is a suicidal prescription – especially in the Middle East – and it has been nurtured by grossly erroneous assumptions. Grossly erroneous assumptions produce grossly erroneous policies.
“There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal. Moreover, the demographic momentum is Jewish and not Arab…. Anyone contending that there is a demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish State is either drastically mistaken or outrageously misleading!”
The AIDRG article appeared in the October edition of Mabat, a publication of Israel’s Intelligence Center.
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to demand that the Palestinian Authority accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in upcoming negotiations. This will be Israel’s precondition for any further negotiations with the PA, according to Channel 2 TV.
The report said that by making this simple demand, Olmert will be forcing the PA to give up its hope of making Israel accept an Arab influx into its borders (the “right of return” of “refugees”). If the PA accepts the condition, it will become that much simpler for Olmert to make concessions of his own
Until now, however, the PA negotiators’ position has been to reject this condition.
According to a report by Ynet, the PA’s negotiating team will refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in the declaration expected to be signed at the Annapolis Mideast summit November 26. Israeli and PA negotiating teams are scheduled to meet Monday following an incident in which lead PA negotiator Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), the former PA Prime Minister, was held up Sunday for half an hour at a security checkpoint on his way to Jerusalem for the meeting.
JERUSALEM – Police raided more than 20 government buildings and private offices Sunday morning, seeking evidence in a series of criminal investigations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, potentially weakening his position ahead of a crucial Mideast peace conference in the United States.
The early morning sweep came just as Olmert’s popularity, which plummeted after last year’s inconclusive war against Lebanese Hezbolah guerrillas, has begun to rebound.
The raid Sunday targeted more than 20 locations, including the Industry and Trade Ministry, the Postal Authority and Jerusalem’s City Hall, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
Passaic - Bergen Jewish News 