jewishbloggers
Blogs
A fugitive in hiding for more than a decade pleaded guilty Monday to fleecing the government out of millions in education and poverty grants. Read More »
Chaptzem Blog! 
Sullivan County home prices
There’s a reason so much of the Sullivan County map is colored blue. The high end of the market is gone.“Up to $150,000 is a saleable number these days,” said Bill Rieber, owner of Rieber Realty. “Beyond that it’s difficult. The high-end buyers just aren’t out there now. Read More »
Regulators shut LibertyPointe Bank in NYC
Regulators on Thursday shut down LibertyPointe Bank in New York City, boosting to 27 the number of bank failures in the U.S. so far this year following the 140 brought down in 2009 by mounting loan defaults and the recession.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over LibertyPointe, with three branches, $209.7 million in assets and $209. Read More »
$1M fund to fight sex abuse in Orthodox Jewish communities hasn’t been used
None of the nearly $1 million set aside to tackle sex abuse in New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities has been spent, even as another program set up to help scrambles for cash.The state has earmarked $950,000 since April 2009 to fund Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s plans to teach Hasidic Jews to speak up against child molestation. Read More »
Google gives city bikers bum steer
A helmet may not be enough to protect cyclists from Google Maps’ latest feature.The search engine rolled out a “bicycling directions” option yesterday that is filled with potentially fatal flaws, including routes that cut across Central Park’s treacherous tranverse roads and steer cyclists to truck-riddled thoroughfares. Read More »
Kiryas Joel weddings spur vandalism; dissidents say rivals responsible
It took a few days, but the vandals finally got back at Isaac Srugo for marrying off his daughter last week in a ceremony that the Hasidic community’s main congregation had not sanctioned.Srugo woke Monday morning to find the latest handiwork of the self-appointed marriage police: a gallon of white paint poured down the windshield of his SUV. Read More »
Brooklyn Rabbi Baruch Lebovits convicted in sex assault on boy, faces decades behind bars
A Brooklyn rabbi faces decades behind bars – and sentencing on the eve of Passover – after a jury quickly convicted him of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Rabbi Baruch Lebovits showed no reaction as Brooklyn Supreme Court jurors found him guilty on eight of 10 counts after three hours of deliberations. Read More »
Bagel lovers tell rabbis: Don’t pick on our lox
A group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis is waging a schmear campaign against a staple of the Jewish diet: lox.Smoked salmon should no longer be considered kosher, they say, because the fish often contain parasitic worms.But some Jewish New Yorkers aren’t taking the lox-down lightly. Read More »
Rabbinical Board Of Flatbush Endorses Joe Lazar For City Council
The Rabbinical Board of Flatbush Political Action Committee, which consists of 80 Rabbis, announced today their endorsement of Joe Lazar for City Council in the 44th Council District Special Election on March 23rd, 2010. Read More »
A Jewish Ritual Collides With Mother Nature
Last Saturday morning, as a blizzard sputtered out its last squalls over Passaic, N.J., Chaya Leah Smolen sent her husband and several children off to synagogue. She issued the children a message that might seem to contradict the essence of winter motherhood: do not carry any tissues.To that admonition, she added others. Read More »
Federal judge dismisses Hasidic charity’s attempt to recover $500K seized in N.J. corruption bust
A legal challenge by a Hasidic charity over the seizure of its bank accounts after last summer’s sweeping money laundering and corruption sting has been thrown out by a federal judge.U.S. Read More »
From Skinhead to Orthodox Jew
When Pawel looks into the mirror, he can still sometimes see a neo-Nazi skinhead staring back, the man he once was before he covered his shaved head with a yarmulke, shed his fascist ideology for the Torah and renounced violence and hatred in favor of God.Pawel in the Warsaw synagogue. Read More »
Race heats up for 44th District City Council seat
With money to spare and endorsements raining down faster than a summer thunderstorm, the two frontrunners in the special 44th District City Council race are galloping toward the March 23 election.The district covers Borough Park and parts of Bensonhurst, Midwood and Kensington. Read More »
Former Candidate Nachman Caller Endorses Joe Lazar For City Council
Former City Council candidate Nachman Caller endorsed Joe Lazar today in the Special Election for Brooklyn’s 44th Councilmanic District.Nachman Caller, a distinguished lawyer, accountant, community leader and Talmudic scholar, praised Joe Lazar for his fiscal expertise and integrity. Read More »
$4M ‘Hasidic’ diamond heist staged: cops
Two Diamond District wholesalers were arrested yesterday for staging a bizarre $4 million jewel heist in 2008 involving two purported thieves disguised as Hasidic Jews, in a holdup straight out of the 2001 movie “Snatch,” police said. Read More »
Campaign’s photo (c)op
A candidate vying to replace Brooklyn Councilman Simcha Felder is using a picture himself with a high-ranking cop in uniform in campaign mailings – a move that violates an NYPD rule about uniformed members and politics, The Post has learned.Beneath the picture is a large caption reading ‘Protecting Us. Read More »
Rubashkin Leaves Confinement
Chabad.info has learned that Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin has been released from Solitary Confinement this Erev Shabbos, more than two weeks early of his 30 day remand.The move came just minutes before the onset of Shabbos, allowing Sholom Mordechai to spend the Yom Menuchah in the more peaceful environment of his regular cell. Read More »
Rabbi Accused of Extorting Millions from Hedge Fund
A rabbi known as the “Brooklyn Bundler” for his ability to raise campaign money for (mostly) Republican candidates was charged on Thursday with trying to extort $4 million from a Connecticut hedge fund. Read More »
Brooklyn Day School Dean Accused Of Extortion
The dean of the Bais Yaakov day school in Borough Park, Brooklyn, has been arrested on wire fraud, extortion, false statements, and blackmail charges stemming from an alleged $4 million scheme to extort a Connecticut-based hedge fund into paying millions of dollars to Bais Yaakov and to another school on his behalf. Read More »
Read the new Chaptzem article in the Country Yossi Family Magazine
Make sure to pick up your free copy of the Country Yossi Family Magazine and read the brand new original article ‘The Power of Purim’ written by Chaptzem, the only Heimishe blogger to make the transition from cyberspace to print. Read More »
Bar Mitzvah vs. Boxing at Yankee Stadium
Some might call it excess versus hard scrabble. Others proof that timing is everything.Jonathan Ballan, lead attorney in the financing of the new Yankee Stadium, has booked the stadium of his 3-year-old son’s Bar Mitzvah in June. Read More »
Boy killed in bus horror
A 4-year-old Brooklyn boy running to catch a school bus was killed yesterday morning when he slipped on ice and fell under the rear wheels of the bus in front of his home, police said.Amron Altman was declared dead just after 8 a.m. after being struck on 13th Avenue and 49th Street in Borough Park. Read More »
Brooklyn developer Eliyahu Ezagui found guilty of stealing $18M from Hasidic families
A ambitious Brooklyn developer was found guilty Tuesday of stealing more than $18 million from dozens of Hasidic families and several banks in a massive subprime mortgage scam.Eliyahu Ezagui, 39, preyed on his fellow congregants, sold them condominiums but never gave them the deeds when construction was finished. Read More »
Brooklyn’s Ultra-Orthodox Jew Matisyahu brings unorthodox Hasidic reggae to Winter Olympics
Brooklyn’s own Matisyahu — the ultra-Orthodox Jew with the unorthodox calling — wowed the Vancouver Olympics Monday night with his own unique brand of Hasidic reggae. Read More »
OVERHEARD… on the D train
Two women are sitting across from each other on the D train headed towards Manhattan. Each woman is sitting with a couple of kids and a baby carriage near them talking about their Purim last year. Read More »
Joe Lazar Visits Grand Rabbi David Twersky, Skver Rebbe of New Square
Pinches Yosef Lazar, also known as Joe Lazar, Visited Grand Rabbi David Twersky, Skver Rebbe of New Square, New York – the longest sitting Hasidic Rabbi of any major international Hasidic sect. The Rabbi, although lives in New Square, is at the helm of many educational institutions and synagogues in the 44th district. Read More »
Oh Baby! Maimonides Medical Center’s maternity ward is busiest in the state
Welcome to the city that really never sleeps.Maimonides Medical Center’s bustling obstetrics unit is the busiest in New York State – with a record 7,746 New Yorkers born at the Brooklyn hospital last year.This year shows no sign of letting up.”It’s a little bit like being an air-traffic controller,” said nursing director Carol Kidney. Read More »
Cantor’s sour note
A prominent Manhattan cantor promised to buy an ambulance in Israel on behalf of his Holocaust-survivor mother-in-law — but instead funneled the cash back to his own coffers through a charity run by a disgraced rabbi tied to a massive New Jersey corruption scandal, according to a Manhattan federal lawsuit. Read More »
NYC officials try to contain mumps outbreak
New York City health officials are planning a vaccination campaign in a bid to contain a persistent mumps outbreak.The city’s health department hopes to vaccinate 3,000 people or more in two Brooklyn neighborhoods hit hard by the illness. Read More »