Organizations affiliated with New Square filed the two highest bids to lease or purchase Hillcrest Elementary School from the East Ramapo Central School District.If the Board of Education maintains the three bids, Congregation Yeshiva Avir Yakov is the likely winner with an offer to buy the property for $3. Read More »
Chaptzem Blog! 
Monsey couple spared jail after repaying $76G stolen from welfare programs
A married Monsey couple were spared jail time today because they repaid $75,899 stolen from welfare programs.Lawyers for Nathan and Mindy Myski also convinced the judge that the couple stole to take care of their large family following losses in the real estate market. Read More »
Court rules against village charging Hasidic developer for attorney fees
A state Supreme Court justice has declared it illegal for the village to charge a Hasidic group attorney fees for legal advice on the group’s request to open a yeshiva at the old Lake Anne resort. Read More »
Drug bust at Israel airport, Hasidic Jews arrested
Police say they’ve arrested a pair of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men suspected of trying to smuggle $1 million of pure cocaine into Israel from Brazil.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Thursday that the two former seminary students, aged 21 and 20, were stopped at Israel’s international airport overnight. Read More »
New Square among bidders for closed East Ramapo school
The East Ramapo school district has received three bids for the purchase or lease of the Hillcrest Elementary School, with two offers from the nearby Hasidic Jewish village of New Square, officials said. Read More »
Hasid Pleads Guilty to Sodomy
A Brooklyn man from Borough Park’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community was sentenced Wednesday for sexual acts with an underage boy. Read More »
Build a Wall, Brooklyn Judge Orders Couple
A bitter divorce case in Kings County Supreme Court led to a judge’s unusual order that the battling couple build a wall in the middle of the house, while their divorce is pending. Read More »
Thousands of Orthodox Jews from All Over the U.S. will Gather in Washington, D.C. to Protest the …
The “True Torah Jews,” an organization dedicated to informing the world that not all Jews support the Zionist state of Israel, would like to inform all that thousands of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews will take part in a major demonstration on Tuesday, July 6, at 2: 00 PM in front of the White House. Read More »
Famed Kutsher’s resort charts new course – again
The Catskills without Kutsher’s? Like a bagel without cream cheese. A pickle without dill. Gefilte without fish. But over the winter, it looked as if the last of the great family-run Catskill resorts in Monticello would not open for its 103rd season. Read More »
There’s a New ‘Silly’ Chachka in Town
Nextrendz Imports, Inc. strategically aligns with Launch Consulting, LLC to present the first Jewish-themed bandz to the market. Kids, Parents, Grandparents and even Rabbis are scouring stores and the Internet to get their hands on rubbery little bandz shaped like Jewish Holidays, Noah’s Ark, Aleph Bet, Shabbat and Jewish Symbols. Read More »
Albany drops plan for grants to rabbinical students
Gov. David Paterson must cancel his plan to let students at rabbinical schools like Kiryas Joel’s claim state tuition subsidies in order to kill $600 million in public-school aid that lawmakers added to his budget. Read More »
Ex-slaughterhouse exec appeals fraud conviction
Attorneys on Friday appealed the conviction of a former Iowa kosher meatpacking plant executive accused of bank fraud, saying the judge wrongly allowed jurors to hear evidence about a massive immigration raid at the plant and the 27-year prison sentence was unjust. Read More »
Russian math genius rejects $1M prize
Russian Jewish math genius Grigori Perelman is refusing the million-dollar Millennium Prize for solving one of the most difficult open problems in mathematics, the Poincaré conjecture.The Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., confirmed Thursday that Perelman had called last week to refused its prize, but said he gave no reason. Read More »
‘Jewish Jacko’ Michoel Streicher sentenced to at least one year in prison for grand larceny
The self-described “Michael Jackson” of Orthodox Jewish music was sentenced Tuesday to a maximum of three years in prison for swiping $36,000 from a devoted fan. Read More »
Kosher Cookbook Writer Visits Soup Kitchen for the Hungry
At a time when demand for food is increasing on a weekly basis, the widely-celebrated kosher cookbook author Susie Fishbein visited Masbia soup kitchen Thursday to launch Masbia’s new “Book Dinner at Masbia” campaign, in an effort to help to keep their doors open. Read More »
The 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America
In the fall of 2006, Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton and his pal Gary Ginsberg, now an executive vice president of Time Warner Inc., began working on a list of the 50 most influential rabbis in the U.S. Read More »
Turk arrested for plot to kill rabbis
Police arrested Ismet Rencber, a mason in his twenties from the eastern city of Kars, upon his arrival in Istanbul after tracking him for sending an anonymous threat to the city’s synagogue, the newspaper said. Read More »
Why buying Kosher food can be good for you
Most people don’t really know what Kosher food is. Some think it’s just anything that is marketed to Jewish people. Other’s think it means that it’s okay to eat, such as when someone says something in general is Kosher. Read More »
Upstate Hasidic woman wins $5 million settlement for truck crash
This dough could buy a lot of matzo balls.An upstate Hasidic woman won a whopping $5 million legal settlement ina lawsuit over a Sept. 11, 2007, crash with a Brooklyn kosher-meat delivery truck in which she was seriously injured.Eva Bickel, 50, suffered a brain injury and broken bones when the truck crossed yellow lines on a Monroe, N.Y. Read More »
Hasidic New York Reggae in The Park
There once was a time when Matisyahu seemed cool. The weed-smoking hippie turned Hasidic rapper blended worlds that seemed destined never to meet and created danceable music that was unique to the American mainstream.That was in 2006. Read More »
Supporter says Rubashkin prosecuted to justify Agriprocessor immigration raid
More than a hundred orthodox Jews gathered outside the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids Tuesday as the former executive of a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Sholom Rubashkin was convicted on multiple counts of financial fraud. Read More »
Census: Largest upstate NY cities not growing
Census estimates show upstate New York’s largest cities continue to have flat or declining populations.Buffalo had an estimated population of 270,000 last year, a loss of almost 1,000 people from the previous year for the struggling Rust Belt city. Read More »
Hasidim file land-use lawsuit against S. Blooming Grove
A Hasidic group with plans to restore an old clubhouse at Lake Anne is suing the village, saying it plotted to prevent Hasidic Jews from developing in the municipality. Read More »
Ramapo Gets $1.4M In State Housing Money Toward Building Affordable Condominiums on Elm Street in
A quasi-government Ramapo land development agency has been promised $1.44 million from a state government affordable housing agency toward the construction of 36 condominiums at a 48-unit complex on Elm Street in Spring Valley.The current construction is the first of a three-phase plan to build 132 units in 11 buildings on the eight-acre site. Read More »
New people come forward saying Rabbi Baruch Lebovits molested them, too
New sex abuse allegations – at least one stretching back more than a decade – are surfacing against a once-respected Brooklyn rabbi recently convicted of molesting a teen.A 29-year-old Borough Park man went to cops last week saying that Rabbi Baruch Lebovits fondled him in a ritual bath, known as a mikvah, when he was just a teen. Read More »
Family: Investor’s Death No Suicide
A millionaire Brooklyn investor recently plunged to his death in Midtown, but his family isn’t buying the story that he committed suicide, according to reports.Police said that Solomon Obstfeld jumped from the 19th floor of the Essex House on June 9. He landed on the 2nd-floor rooftop. Read More »
Private investigation firm hired to dig into shady business man Solomon Obstfeld’s ’suicide’
A private investigation firm has been hired to review the death of a wealthy Brooklyn investor who plunged from the terrace of his posh Essex House condo.The medical examiner has ruled the June 9 death of Solomon Obstfeld a suicide. Read More »
NY suburb settles suit over Jews’ `Shabbos House’
A New York City suburb has settled a civil rights lawsuit and will allow Orthodox Jews to gather at a house near a hospital so they can visit patients on the Sabbath without breaking their religious laws.The village of Suffern had denied a variance from single-family zoning. Read More »
Chabad followers flock to rebbe’s Queens grave
Thousands of admirers and followers of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson flocked to his Cambria Heights gravesite Tuesday 16 years after his death to pay their respects to the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Orthodox Judaism. Read More »
Orthodox Jews face jail over integrated school
A group of ultra-Orthodox Israeli parents of European origin are facing jail for refusing to obey a court ruling ordering them to let their daughters study with Jewish girls of Middle Eastern descent. Read More »
Hasidic man held up by gunman
A 30-year-old Hasidic man, who was talking along Seven Springs Road in the Town of Woodbury late Friday night, was held up by three men, one of whom was armed with a handgun.Town Police Monday said the victim was walking at 10: 30 p.m. when a car pulled up and three men, wearing hoodies, got out and demanded his money. One of the men had a gun. Read More »
Kosher Dogs & Mets
Kosher Sports claims the Queens Ballpark Co. violated a 10-year contract giving it the exclusive right to sell Kosher hot dogs and knishes at Mets home games, by barring it from selling on Friday night and Saturday, in Brooklyn Federal Court.http: //www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/11/New Complaints. Read More »
S.L. synagogue hires third-generation rabbi
A third-generation rabbi, Ilana Schwartzman, has been hired to lead Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City.Schwartzman, now assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, N.Y., will replace Rabbi Tracee Rosen on July 1. Rosen, who led the congregation for six years, has been on sabbatical since December. Read More »
Suit challenges Orange County, Kiryas Joel settlement
A new lawsuit challenges the validity of three actions Orange County took in February to settle litigation with Kiryas Joel over the village’s proposed water pipeline and the county’s sewage treatment plant in Harriman. Read More »
Md. Teacher Marks 75 Years In Classroom
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and a loaf of bread cost about 8 cents, Paul Miller began teaching.That was 1934, and the 93-year-old Miller has been teaching math ever since. Read More »
Honda hoodwinked
A thief stole jewelry and electronics from a car on S. Fifth Street on June 3. The driver parked his car near Havemeyer Street at 10 am, but when he returned at 4: 50 pm, he found the driver’s-side window smashed and his phone, computer and gold bracelet gone.He also lost a fur-covered hat of a style popular among Hasidic Jews. Read More »
Mill Basin Kosher Deli out to prove fast food businesses’ lower prices don’t mean more food
He’s saving kosher delis – slice by slice.Mill Basin Kosher Deli owner Mark Schachner is waging a one-man war against fast food chain restaurants – determined to debunk the myth they’re better bargains than his traditional kosher deli. Read More »
Rubashkin acquitted in child labor case
Kosher meatpacking executive Sholom Rubashkin was acquitted in an Iowa state court of child labor violations.Rubashkin was found not guilty on all 67 counts of child labor violations, relating to 26 teenagers from South America who worked at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. Read More »
Cotto finishes off fearless Foreman in 9th round
Yuri Foreman may have lost his WBA junior middleweight championship to Miguel Cotto, but he gained a huge measure of respect for his courage last night in a wild main event as boxing returned to Yankee Stadium. Read More »
Genes set Jews apart, study finds
Jews of European descent living on opposite sides of the globe are more closely related to one another than they are to their fellow countrymen, according to the largest study ever conducted of what it means genetically to be Jewish. Read More »
Rubashkin jurors break for weekend; no verdict yet
Jurors in Sholom Rubashkin’s child labor trial are getting the weekend off before they continue deliberations.Judge Nathan Callahan dismissed the panel of seven jurors shortly after 4 p.m. Friday after they didn’t deliver a verdict. They are to report to the courthouse Monday morning to continue their task. Read More »
East Ramapo sets June 15 budget revote; cutbacks criticized
The $196 million school budget plan approved by the Board of Education on Tuesday retains some of the programs that would likely be cut under austerity, but the proposal has been criticized by some for including funding for nonmandated busing while cutting more than $700,000 from vice principals and department heads. Read More »
Charter bus that left New Square wedding flips over
A charter bus that was carrying a wedding party back from the Hasidic village of New Square in Rockland County, flipped onto its side while on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey Wednesday morning.The bus was carrying 25 people back to New Jersey from the wedding of a grandchild of the grand rabbi at New Square. Read More »
KJ battle over zoning board
A new lawsuit against Kiryas Joel and its main religious institution raises the question of whether the village has a legitimate zoning board of appeals to settle zoning disputes and grant relief from local codes.Such panels are standard features of local government. Read More »
New Zealand bans Kosher slaughter
The Jerusalem Post – New Zealand’s new animal welfare code, which took effect Friday, mandates that all animals for commercial consumption be stunned prior to slaughter to ensure they are treated “humanely and in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge.”The regulation has shocked the Jewish community. Read More »
Quebec wants Montreal yeshiva closed
Quebec’s education ministry is seeking a court injunction to shut down a private Jewish school in Montreal for not maintaining scholastic standards.The Académie Yeshiva Toras Moshe has offered an extensive religious education to Jewish boys in Montreal’s tony Outremont neighbourhood for half a century. Read More »
Hasidic Jewish reggae rapper draws partying crowd at Mayfair
In a concert that was equal parts religious service and party — OK, probably a good deal more party — Hasidic Jewish reggae rapper Matisyahu held an audience enraptured for an hour and 40 minutes Thursday on the opening night at Allentown’s Mayfair festival. Read More »
Ousted Edison rabbi plans protest over chaplain post
Township police chaplain Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg, who was terminated from the paid position Thursday, said he plans to hold a demonstration outside town hall to protest his termination if he doesn’t hear back from township officials.”Right now, I’m waiting for a counter-offer from the mayor,” he said. Read More »
Deadlocked East Ramapo board puts off decision on school budget
A rancorous East Ramapo Board of Education meeting ended shortly before 2 a.m. today in deadlock with no decision made whether to ask voters to approve a new budget or just accept an austerity spending plan for the 2010-11 school year.The school board will try one final time to come to a decision on how to deal with the defeat of a $198. Read More »
Judge lets Bway Triangle suit move forward
City officials criticized a judge’s ruling last week allowing a lawsuit against a major rezoning initiative to move forward — saying that the decision to allow the suit to continue would delay construction of new housing on the South Williamsburg site. Read More »
Lakewood police probing bias incidents against Orthodox
Authorities are investigating a series of bias crimes in which Orthodox Jewish pedestrians are being targeted with eggs, police said.Three suspects have been charged with bias intimidation and others are being sought in connection with four incidents last week, police said.On Wednesday at about 8 p.m. Read More »
Right of Religious Congregations to Import Alcoholic Beverages Questioned
The religious congregations in Quebec are evading the provincial liquor authority and are importing alcoholic beverages for sacramental purposes from outside the province. Read More »
Police Recruits to Learn About Tolerance in the City
Nassau County Police Department recruits will get the opportunity to learn about tolerance and acceptance on Tuesday when they take part in a workshop hosted by the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove and the Anti-Defamation League of New York. Read More »
Suit Alleging Racism In Brooklyn Zoning Moves Ahead
Even though a Community Board and the City Council approved the rezoning an industrial area in Williamsburg for low-rise housing, a judge blocked any development in order to hear a lawsuit claiming that the process to rezone the area favored whites and Hasidic Jews over other minorities. Read More »
Rubashkin trial: Former workers take stand
4: 25 p.m., Waterloo, Ia. — Court is adjourned until Monday morning.Abner Lopez Azurdia started assembling boxes and weighing meat at the kosher slaughterhouse when he was 15. He did not offer details on how many hours he worked, or if he was around chemicals or dangerous equipment.Azurdia said he has no legal status in the U.S. Read More »
Jury to Decide if U.S. Government Induced Men to Attempt Bombings of Synagogue, Community Center
A jury will decide whether four men accused of plotting to blow up a Bronx synagogue and a Jewish community center were induced into participating in a government-manufactured scheme designed to entrap the defendants, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.James Cromitie maintained that a government informant infiltrated a mosque in Newburgh, N.Y. Read More »
Rubashkin in hospital; trial delayed until Friday
Sholom Rubashkin’s child-labor trial will resume Friday after an infection landed the former Agriprocessors Inc. executive in the hospital on Sunday.Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids admitted Rubashkin on Sunday, and he was expected to remain through at least today, his family said. Read More »
Brooklyn’s Oldest Orthodox Synagogue Celebrates Birthday
The oldest Orthodox Jewish synagogue in all of Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island — one of the few remnants of the non-Hasidic Jewish community that thrived in Williamsburg until the 1960s — celebrated its 141st anniversary on Sunday with a dinner that attracted several well-known figures from the legal and political communities. Read More »
