By Jens Manuel Krogstad for the WCF Courier
POSTVILLE - The former chief financial officer at Agriprocessors was hired by the kosher meat plant's new owners in August, and remained at the company even after he pleaded guilty to financial fraud and detailed his crimes in court.
Mitch Meltzer worked as an accountant at Agri Star Meat and Poultry LLC, which bought Agriprocessors last summer, until sometime last week, around the time the Courier called seeking information on Meltzer's position at the company.
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The New York Times
Foreman, left, won by decision, leading by at least 6 points on all three cards (two judges scored the fight 117-109; another had it 116-110).
LAS VEGAS, NV — Yuri Foreman, the fighter from Brooklyn who is studying to become a rabbi, joined the list of Jewish boxing champions Saturday.
Des Moines Register
SIOUX FALLS, SD — A jury has convicted Sholom Rubashkin of 86 federal charges for his part in a massive fraud scheme at his former meat plant, Agriprocessors Inc., in Postville.
Jurors declared Rubashkin guilty of bank fraud, making false statements to a bank, wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering and aiding of abetting.
By David Bedein - The Bulletin
JERUSALEM, Israel — For the past 10 days, the State of Israel has been waging a battle against the New York Times, for what it calls tendentious and unfair coverage of the Jewish state.
Jpost
An Israeli Navy vessel. Illustration Photo.
Special Navy forces discovered weapons and ammunition on a cargo ship overnight Tuesday, after boarding the Francop some 100 nautical miles west of Israel flying an Antiguan flag.
Defense officials said the 140-meter long Francop, captured near Cyprus, was carrying arms sent by Iran and destined for Syria and Hizbullah.
By Joshua Runyan for Chabad.org
Thousands of fans stand for the National Anthem before Game 2 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, N.Y.
The last time the New York Yankees battled the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, Jewish fans wanting to nosh on a kosher hot dog would have had to brown-bag it. And as for getting a last-minute prayer in while wearing the small black leather boxes known as tefillin? Forget about it!
Editors Note: The Seligsons moved to Manhattan as part of their shlichus work with journalists, continuing the work Motti has been doing for Chabad Lubavitch Media Center for a number of years now. They did so with the blessing, permission and coordination of the local shluchim. We wish them much hatzlacha on the new endeavor!
Below is a beautiful article that appeared in today's NY Times about their move:
It dawned fairly quickly on Rabbi Motti Seligson and Shterni Bukiet Seligson that “one-bedroom apartment” was hardly a meaningful descriptor.
Below is a beautiful article that appeared in today's NY Times about their move:
The New York Times
Shterni and Motti Seligson in their new apartment.
It dawned fairly quickly on Rabbi Motti Seligson and Shterni Bukiet Seligson that “one-bedroom apartment” was hardly a meaningful descriptor.
By David Bedein for the Bulletin
JERUSALEM — The offices of Yad Vashem, the Israeli agency that memorializes the six million Jews murdered by their Nazis and their allies, received an extraordinary and even infuriating proposal recently. The grandson of Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commander of the Auschwitz death camp, offered to sell some of his grandfather’s personal effects to the museum.
By Stephanie Strom for the New York Times
Right, Sergey Brin, 8, with the family dog, Boss, in Maryland, two years after the Brins left the Soviet Union for the United States.
Were it not for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, there might be no Google.
Thirty years ago today, Sergey Brin, a 6-year-old Soviet boy facing an uncertain future, arrived in the United States with the help of the society.
By Itamar Eichner for YNet News
WASHINGTON, DC — The United States has removed the import subcharge on dairy products from Israel, following diplomatic efforts exerted by the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Israeli Agriculture Ministry.
Up to now, most of the world's countries exporting milk products to the United States have been forced to pay a levy protecting local production. The financial damage caused to Israel's farmers due to this tax amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.
The New York Times
Dr. Tina Strobos in her Westchester apartment.
The walls of Dr. Tina Strobos’s light-filled apartment here are dappled not only with paintings but also with the many plaques she has received from Jewish organizations, even though she is not Jewish.
Dr. Strobos, a sturdy 89, is honored every so often for the quietly valiant things she did almost 70 years ago as a medical student during the German occupation of the Netherlands: working with her mother, she hid more than 100 Jews who passed through their three-story rooming house in Amsterdam.
By Colleen O'Shaughnessy for KIMT News
POSTVILLE, IA — Most people know of Agriprocessors for a single reason - it's the site of last year's federal immigration raid, one of the largest in the nation's history. But before this event, Postville was known around the country for a very different reason - kosher meat.
Newly formed Agri Star CEO Hershey Friedman recalled, “people called us up, in reality we had calls from rabbis from different parts of the United States asking what's going to be with them, where will they get their supplies.”
By Peter Kohn for the Ausralian Jewish News
Illustration Photo - Rabbi Osdoba inspects a knife used to slaughter cows at a meat plant - 2006
AUSTRALIA — According to media reports, the findings of a review into ritual slaughter, which have been leaked, will allow shechitah to continue, even though Australian standards require that animals be electrically stunned immediately after ritual killing.
Shechitah, or Jewish ritual slaughter, has historically been asserted as the most humane method of killing animals for food.
By Itamar Eichner for Y Net News
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the World Economic Forum in 2006
An anti-Semitic remark or a compliment? Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on students in his country to learn from the Jews how to make money through scientific achievements and wise real estate investments.
In a speech delivered during a ceremony opening the new academic school year at the Yildiz Technical University, Erdogan spoke about his close friend, late Jewish businessman Üzeyir Garih, who was stabbed to death in 2001.
By Paul Vitello for the New York Times
An elevator rider at Cooperative Village in Manhattan.
NEW YORK — Tangible things occupy the days of most building managers in New York City. Hot water, floods, bugs, rent checks and so on.
But last week, newly added to the tenant issues facing building managers like Harold M. Jacob, who runs a co-op on the Lower East Side where Orthodox Jews inhabit a substantial portion of the 2,500 apartments, was this almost ontological question:
By Grant Schulte for the Des Moines Register
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA — The former manager of Postville's kosher meat plant goes on trial this week to face allegations that he cheated a bank, laundered more than $1 million, concealed months of fraud and failed to pay livestock providers on time.
Sholom Rubashkin will confront 91 fraud-related charges Tuesday in a trial that could effectively send him to prison for the rest of his life. The former executive at Agriprocessors Inc. will step into a Sioux Falls, S.D., federal courtroom with his wife, Leah, and their children for a legal struggle that could last four to six weeks.
QATAR [YNet] — Former Israeli billionaire Haim Saban is holding negotiations for the purchase of 50% of the al-Jazeera television network from the Qatari government, Egyptian newspaper al-Mesryoon reported Wednesday. The negotiations are said to be conducted through an Egyptian mediator.
The World Boxing Association (WBA) has announced that Junior welterweight stalwart, Dmitriy Salita, an observant Jew, is to fight for the WBA light-welterweight title in December. Unbeaten Salita is to fight Amir Khan for the title. Khan is an English-born Muslim who won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics.
By Sarah Maslin Nir for the NY Times
Rabbi Joshua Metzger, director of Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan, stood in Bryant Park on Monday near a sukkah, constructed to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
NEW YORK — Last month, Bryant Park hosted the white tents and devotees of Fashion Week. This month, it’s been replaced by another temporary structure with very different guests: a large sukkah, or ceremonial hut, where Jews pray and dine in celebration of the eight-day harvest holiday of Sukkot.
Illustration Photo.
Today, the national Transportation Security Administration (TSA) declared a special travel period for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The travel period will begin approximately on Wednesday, September 30, 2009, and end on approximately on Tuesday, October 13, 2009. This policy will allow observant Jewish travelers to carry their Lulavim and Etrogim in airports and through security checkpoints. (During the Sukkot holiday, Jews utilize four species of plants as part of their daily prayer service. See Leviticus 23:40.)
By Rebecca Dube for the Forward
Lustrous Linings: Ultra-Orthodox Jews who insist on dark colors on the outside can let their inner selves sing out loudly.
To outsiders, the long black coats worn by Haredi men might all look the same.
Upon closer inspection, though, there’s nothing uniform about them. Enterprising tailor Mendy Sacho, 25, has built a successful couture business in Toronto over the past three years, catering to a mostly Orthodox clientele who like a bit of flair with their frum. Now, he’s expanding to serve American clients with a store in Brooklyn that he hopes to open by Hanukkah.
By Matthew Lysiak and Wil Cruz for the NY Daily News
BROOKLYN, NY — A hate-monger blanketed a stretch of a Brooklyn neighborhood with “Kill Jews” notes Wednesday - weeks after a similar incident in two other communities.
Residents along Third Ave. in Bay Ridge woke up to find hundreds of two-inch handwritten signs bearing the ugly message in black marker.
