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Two teenage girls have been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to blow up a synagogue in Lyon, Newsweek reported on Friday, citing French news websites.

According to JSS News and Europe 1, a source from the French security agency the Central Directorate of Homeland Intelligence revealed that two Muslim girls, aged 15 and 17, were arrested in the Tarbes and Venissieux neighborhoods a week ago, after authorities uncovered a plan to carry out a suicide bombing inside the Great Synagogue of Lyon.

The two were indicted on August 22 for conspiracy to commit terrorism, reported Newsweek.

An unnamed security source also revealed that the two teenagers had never met, but communicated only via social media.

“These girls were part of a network of young Islamists who were being monitored by security services,” the source was quoted as having said. Security services are becoming increasingly concerned with online radicalisation, particularly following the proliferation of videos created by jihadist groups such as Islamic State.

Anti-Semitism has been on the increase in France over the last few years, but there has been a surge in anti-Semitic incidents since Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s self-defense military operation in Gaza to end the rocket attacks from that region.

Protests in Paris during the fighting in Gaza were initially banned but held anyway and descended into chaos.

Similar demonstrations saw hundreds of Muslim extremists attacked a major synagogue in Paris, provoking clashes with Jewish youths who rushed to defend the site and worshippers trapped inside.

There have been anti-Israel protests throughout Europe as well, including many which have descended into anti-Semitism. In Berlin, footage of one such protest showed hundreds of demonstrators chanting in German, “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come on out and fight on your own”.

“Jews in France or Belgium are being killed because they are Jews,” Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), told Newsweek.

“Jihadism has become the new Nazism. This makes people consider leaving France,” he added.

In a statement released on an online forum, the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), one of France’s leading anti-Semitism watchdogs, remarked that synagogues have become increasingly popular targets for Islamists and terrorists. The excessive measures taken to secure Jewish places of worship have turned them into “semi-fortresses”, they said.

BNVCA attribute the recent spike in anti-Semitic crimes in France to the influence of unnamed political parties and sections of the media, which “pillory the Jewish state fighting against the Islamic state in Gaza”.

They also called upon the French Interior Minister to take all possible security measures to foil further attacks, particularly during important Jewish festivals like Yom Kippur, which begins in early October. “Jewish citizens are increasingly pessimistic about their future in France,” the statement added.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184569#.VATq2PldW4U
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With a cantor singing a benediction, more than two dozen black-hatted rabbis from around the world arrived here this week to reopen a Jewish centre attacked and gutted during a 2008 killing rampage by Pakistani militants.

Men from Chabad-Lubavitch, a New York-based Hasidic group, carried a large Torah scroll into the building to officially mark the centre's rebirth and memorialize Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka Holtzberg, who along with four guests were killed during the 60-hour siege. More than 160 people were killed in the Mumbai attacks when armed men trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group, alighted from boats and stormed two hotels, a railroad station, restaurant and hospital, along with the Jewish centre.

"For reasons we will never know and never fathom, six pious people along with 158 others were torn from our grasp in the most barbaric and inhuman of ways," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chair of Merkos L'lnyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, said during the ceremony. "Today, we fulfil a promise which was made at the funeral of Rabbi Gabi that we would rebuild."

The seven-storey centre will include a $2.5-million museum, yet to be completed, that will be the first in Mumbai to memorialize all of those killed in the attacks. One of the centre's floors will be left raw, with pockmarks and blast holes behind glass barriers to remind visitors of the devastation.

On another floor, designers intend to rebuild the Holtzbergs' simple apartment, including its kitchen and living room, to show Indians how Orthodox Jews live. Signs in the kitchen, for instance, will explain the tenets of kosher cooking.

"The point is to show Indians that these people are not that distant from them," said Nick Appelbaum of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, which designed the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. "It will be Jewish life explained."

Jews have been in India for thousands of years, but their numbers have dwindled. So while Mumbai may be one of the most colourful cities in the world, with a populace sporting a kaleidoscope of turbans and topis, saris and kameezes, Indian media and spectators greeted the fedora and tzitzit-wearing Hasidim on Tuesday with open-mouthed wonder. Bemused rabbis were trailed through the centre by packs of photographers as if they were Bollywood royalty.

Missing from the ceremony was Moshe Holtzberg, the Holtzbergs' seven-year-old son. Moshe was rescued during the attack by his Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel, who snatched up the blood-soaked toddler and dashed outside during the siege. Moshe and Samuel are still living in Israel at Moshe's grandparents' house, and counsellors deemed the trip inappropriate for him, rabbis said.

The centre's reconstruction was delayed by India's vast red tape and a court battle in Mumbai between the Holtzbergs' parents and the Chabad-Lubavitch order over who controlled the property. The two sides dropped the case in 2011, with the organization assuming stewardship and George Rohr, a New York financier, paying for the rebuilding.

The attack on the Jewish centre was the last piece put together by Lashkar-e-Taiba and the subject of the most heated debates within the group and its affiliates, according to Adrian Levy, co-author of The Siege, a book about the attacks, who interviewed Lashkar cadres and military sources in Pakistan.

The Lashkar leaders most closely associated with the Pakistani government worried that attacking the Jewish centre would earn the enmity of the United States, which had largely ignored the group. But others wanted to expand the group's mission beyond attacking India to attract support from the larger jihadist community, and attacking Jews did that, Levy said. The militants were eventually told by trainers that "the lives of Jews were worth 50 times those of non-Jews," according to the Indian police.

The two teenage militants who attacked the Jewish centre, also known as Nariman House, were among the last to be killed by Indian commandos in part because the house is situated in a crowded alley whose residents refused evacuation. Commandos eventually dropped into the house from a helicopter hovering above, and one Indian commando was killed in the raid.

Rabbis of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement said that the centre never closed but simply moved to a series of temporary locations. A Shabbat dinner was served the very night of the commando raid in 2008 and every Friday since, they said.

There are more than 4,000 such centres in 80 countries, including nearly 1,000 in cities throughout North America.

Rabbi Israel Kozlovsky and his wife, Chaya Kozlovsky, are the group's current representatives in Mumbai. The centre hosts local Jews, expatriate executives, travelling business people and backpackers who want a place to pray, study or eat a kosher meal.

Kozlovsky said that the 2008 attack did not deter him from moving to India from Israel. He pointed out that the attackers were all Pakistanis, and he said that India has far less overt anti-Semitism than Europe.

India has the world's second-largest population of Muslims, and while radical Islam is rare here, there are signs that its presence may be growing.

Kotlarsky, a bear of a man with a long white beard, said the reopening was a deeply emotional moment for him because he had sent Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife to India and counselled them weekly.

"We are not going to be intimidated by acts of terror," Kotlarsky said, his voice rising. "It will only spur us to spread more light and more kindness and goodness in the world."

http://m.therecord.com/living-story/4804455-mumbai-jewish-centre-reopens-after-2008-terror-attack/

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A few months after moving from Canada to a remote part of Guatemala to find religious freedom, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews have been forced out of their homes in a bitter conflict with hostile villagers.

The Lev Tahor community packed its bags on Friday in San Juan la Laguna around 150 km (93 miles) west of Guatemala City, to board buses bound for the capital after weeks of friction with sections of the local population.

Verbal abuse, threats to cut off power and eject them by force were the last straw for the Jews who began arriving in March from Canada, where the Lev Tahor group’s strict religious ways had clashed with authorities.

Founded in the 1980s by Israeli Shlomo Helbrans, the Lev Tahor practice an austere form of Judaism. Winning admiration from some Jews for its devoutness, the group is condemned by others as a cult-like sect.

Helbrans declined to be interviewed, but another Lev Tahor leader in San Juan, rabbi Uriel Goldman, fielded questions about the group, which granted extensive access to Reuters as it prepared to leave the lakeside village.

Goldman insisted most of the Guatemalan villagers were friendly toward the black-clad men, women and children of the Lev Tahor but that the group was pushed out by an aggressive minority he said were motivated by local politics.

“I don’t understand why they don’t want us, we’re doing nothing bad here,” said the bearded Goldman, who like other men in the Lev Tahor, which means “Pure Heart” in Hebrew, has his head shaved and wears sidelocks beneath a black hat.

According to Goldman, a council of elders in San Juan issued an ultimatum to the Lev Tahor, saying water and electricity would be cut off if they did not leave. “They also warned us they would remove us from the village by force,” he added.

Miguel Vasquez Cholotio, a member of the elders’ council, said the villagers decided to expel the group because they refused to greet or have physical contact with the community.

“We felt intimidated by them in the streets. We thought they wanted to change our religion and customs,” he said.

Eschewing technological trappings such as television and computers, daily life among the Lev Tahor, whose women wear body cloaks similar to a burqa, is steeped in religion.

Rejecting the state of Israel because it views the Jews as a people in exile, the Lev Tahor hope to find land elsewhere in Guatemala to build 30 houses to resettle the 200-odd strong community, Goldman said.

Around 60 members of the group left San Juan during the night with the rest set to follow.

In Canada, critics and some relatives of Lev Tahor members accused the group of keeping children in unsanitary conditions, promoting underage marriage and of physical abuse.

Leaders of the group dismissed the allegations and said the Lev Tahor were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

http://m.forward.com/articles/204877/canadian-hasidic-sect-ousted-from-unlikely-refuge/?

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An old-time Pocono resort in operation since 1953 has been sold.

The Pocono Record newspaper reported that the Daniels Top-O-the-Poconos Family Resort near Canadensis sold last weekend for $1.3 million.

Three generations of the family operated the business since 1953. The newspaper reported that the resort was purchased by a congregation of Hasidic Jews that plans to use it as a Jewish campground, according to Bob Starrett, an agent with ReMax who brokered the sale.

The property stands on a 40-acre mountain site that had about 30 different structures on the property. Most were for lodging, but there is also an indoor swimming pool, tennis courts, an outdoor pool and several ballfields.

The resort featured a large banquet hall that hosted a lot of weddings and other events over the years. That, along with the hospitality business, brought in about $1 million a year, according to the newspaper.

Starrett said owners Chuck and Matt Daniels sold the business because revenues declined, maintenance costs went up, and the public was looking for the conveniences of new style water parks.

The new owners officially took over Sunday.

http://www.timesleader.com/news/business/50218127/Old-time-Pocono-resort-sold-for-$1.3-million#.VAAAD_ldW4U
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A group of buyers from within Brooklyn's large Satmar Hasidic community is in negotiations to buy a development site that takes up an entire city block in Bedford-Stuyvesant near the south Williamsburg neighborhood where members of the Jewish religious sect have extensive property holdings.

According to a person familiar with the talks, a partnership led by Nachman Leibowitz, Fishel Deitch and Avrumi Brach is negotiating to buy the Cascade Linen Factory, a sprawling former industrial building, for $60 million. That's double what its current owner, Mike Kohn of the firm Alliance Private Capital Group, paid for the site in April 2013.

Boosting the site's value, according to a source, is a rezoning of the area late last year that pushed up the amount of residential space that can be built there from 250,000 to as much as 450,000 square feet. The developers also have the option to build an additional 100,000 square feet of commercial space.

The market for development sites in that area has jumped in value as major upcoming construction projects nearby like the Domino Sugar factory have established it as the next frontier for gentrification.

Sources say that the developers plan to build a residential project for members of the Satmar community.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140828/REAL_ESTATE/140829840/price-of-big-bklyn-laundry-site-doubles-in-year
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The case against an man accused of taking photos of a sex-abuse victim as she testified in a blockbuster 2012 trial took a major hit Tuesday when a Brooklyn judge ruled the photos inadmissible as evidence because court officers didn’t follow search- and-seizure laws, court papers show.

Yona Weissman, 24, was charged with contempt after court officers caught him with photos on his phone of a 17-year-old girl on the stand in the trial of her Hasidic counselor, Nechemya Weberman, who was later convicted of abusing her.

But Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Michael Gerstein ruled Tuesday that while the officers were allowed to seize Weissman’s phone when they suspected he had violated courthouse rules against photography, they should not have “compelled” him to show them the photos without a warrant.

“Nobody saw him take photos in the courtroom. Without the photos there’s no evidence against him,” said Weissman’s defense attorney, Izzy Fried.

Weberman was convicted of abusing the girl and is serving a 50-year prison sentence.

“We are reviewing the decision,” a Brooklyn district-attorney spokeswoman said.

http://nypost.com/2014/08/27/sex-abuse-victim-court-photos-inadmissible-as-evidence-judge/
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A village resident has filed a complaint in Sullivan County Supreme Court to stop the vote on whether to dissolve this village into the Town of Mamakating.

According to papers filed by Samantha Boodram, a July state Supreme Court decision means the petition that forced the vote is now invalid.

That decision said that a 2006 annexation of Mamakating land into Bloomingburg was illegal since residents of that land didn't vote on the annexation as required by the state constitution.

Thus, the Bloomingburg voters who signed the dissolution petition and live on the previously annexed land are no longer residents of the village, the complaint says.

The legal papers specifically mention signatures from the Amberlite Trailer Park, which was illegally annexed into Bloomingburg. The Aug. 20 complaint also states the signatures from the Godfrey Meadows apartments area annexed in 2000 — are invalid for the same reason.

The complaint says 328 registered voters live in the village, and 20 percent of them would have needed to sign the petition to force the Sept. 30 vote.

Eighty-two voters — more than the 20 percent — signed the petition to force the dissolution vote. But because 23 of those voters live in the areas the court says wasn't actually annexed, their votes — and the petition — are invalid.

And because of the uncertainty over who lives in Bloomingburg and who lives in Mamakating, the complaint says, the actual population of the village can't be determined.

Boodram could not immediately be reached for comment.

A Mamakating Planning Board meeting about a proposed private girls' school linked to the planned housing development at the center of the controversy — Shalom Lamm's 396-home Hasidic development on land that was annexed from Mamakating — is scheduled for Tuesday night.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140826/NEWS/408260330/0/SEARCH
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The Monroe Town Board voted in a 3-1 decision to give Kiryas Joel lead agency status in the environmental review process over their new proposal to take 164-acres of land from the town.

The new plan was proposed last week after a highly-contested proposal for 507-acres has been continually delayed by the state for months.

http://westchester.news12.com/news/monroe-town-board-votes-to-give-kiryas-joel-lead-agency-status-in-164-acre-land-deal-1.9149034
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A visiting rabbi from Jerusalem was threatened and verbally abused by a gang of youths in a shopping mall in Western Australia on Monday.

Rabbi Avraham Shalom Halberstam, known as the Stropkover Rebbe, is visiting Australia on a lecture tour. On Monday he and his assistant were set upon by up to six pro-Palestinian youths at a big mall near a Jewish suburb, according to an eyewitness.

Danny Mayer, a modern Orthodox Jew who went to pick up the two ultra-Orthodox Jews, told JTA: “I’m a bit shaken from [Monday]. I’m the one who pretty much rescued the rebbe.”

He added: “They were surrounding him, so I raced over to get him into the car and they surrounded the car screaming, ‘You are killing babies in Gaza.’”

Mayer said the teenage gang got “very agitated” and started banging on the car and spitting on it.

“I’ve been in Israel for seven years,” added Mayer, “and it wasn’t too far from being in an Arab village and trapped in a car. We absolutely felt threatened.”

“The rebbe is shaken but OK,” he said.

The youths ran away when Mayer started taking photos on his phone, he said. “The wider community needs to know that Jews around the world are being affected because they are Jews,” Mayer said.

The incident has been reported to police and close-circuit TV footage is being checked.

The incident comes less than two weeks after the walls of Perth’s only Jewish school were painted with graffiti that read “Zionist scum.” It also comes in the wake of police confirming that a Perth-based Islamic preacher who described Jews as “filthy rapists” won’t be prosecuted under the state’s race-hate laws.

Ian Britza, a state lawmaker in Western Australia, told JTA: “I was absolutely horrified. I condemn it in the highest possible terms.” The state government should publicly condemn it and even offer the rebbe a public apology, he said, adding, “I’m not ashamed to be a friend of Israel.”

Halberstam, who runs several yeshivas in Israel, leads the Hasidic sect that originates from Stropkov, a town in Slovakia.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/article/israeli_rabbi_attacked_visiting_mall_in_australia

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A Hasidic Jewish village has mounted a legal challenge seeking to halt a casino proposed for Orange County in upstate New York, arguing that officials in nearby communities failed to consider the environmental impacts of the project when they signed on in support.

The lawsuit filed by the village of Kiryas Joel alleges that the proposed Live! Hotel and Casino in South Blooming Grove would burden the local sewer system and generate traffic, noise and other negative impacts for the surrounding area.

Kiryas Joel is a community of 23,000 about 50 miles north of New York City. In the lawsuit the village notes that its population is mostly Hasidic, and that casino gambling is "contrary to the religious beliefs of this community."

The suit seeks to halt the project and annul agreements between casino developers and officials in South Blooming Grove and the town of Blooming Grove. Developers looking to win one of four available upstate casino licenses are required to gain approval from the host communities.

Cordish Companies and Penn National Gaming are the developers behind the proposal, one of several competing for an upstate casino license.

"As a policy matter, we do not comment on litigation, but we are extremely disappointed at the Village of Kiryas Joel's effort to try to deny jobs and important new tax revenues to South Blooming Grove," Penn National said in a statement.

Messages left Friday afternoon with officials in South Blooming Grove, Blooming Grove were not immediately returned.

New York state has authorized up to four casino licenses to be divided among three upstate regions: the Albany-Saratoga area, the Southern Tier-Finger Lakes region and the Catskills and mid-Hudson River Valley.

A state board is now evaluating the applications and is set to make its recommendations this fall.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Hasidic-Village-Sues-to-Block-Casino-272489961.html
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The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty is considering hiring Rabbi Moshe Wiener, head of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, to replace departing CEO David Frankel, the Forward has learned. Frankel’s surprise departure, which the Forward first reported August 20, comes just a year after the former Wall Street executive replaced Met Council CEO William Rapfogel, who pled guilty in April to stealing more than $1 million from the organization.

Wiener is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement and would be the first ultra-Orthodox Jew in recent memory to lead a major mainstream non-Orthodox Jewish charity.

Three people close to the Met Council told the Forward that Wiener was under serious consideration for the job.

Wiener’s office referred the Forward to the Met Council for comment; spokespeople for the Met Council did not respond to the Forward’s inquiries.

The Met Council has been in turmoil since last July, when Rapfogel was fired and arrested in connection to a conspiracy to steal from the organization. Two other former top-level employees also eventually pleaded guilty.

Rapfogel is currently serving a prison term at the Hudson Correctional Facility in upstate New York; he is not eligible for parole until 2017.

Under the terms of a settlement between the New York State Attorney General and the Met Council reached in December, the charity must submit the names of top-level hires for approval to a handful of regulatory bodies, including the Attorney General.

Wiener has led the JCC of Greater Coney Island since 1981. The group, which has a $10 million annual budget, is a member of the Met Council’s network of local JCCs and provides social services in south Brooklyn.

“He’s very well respected among the [Jewish Community Council] directors,” one person close to the Met Council said of Wiener.

The JCC directors have been in conflict with Frankel during his year at the organization as the groups have been asked to renegotiate their agreements with the Met Council. Many of the directors are ultra-Orthodox, particularly those based in Brooklyn.

Though widely admired by his colleagues, Wiener is a far different pick to lead the citywide organization than both Rapfogel and Frankel. Rapfogel, prior to his arrest and guilty plea, was a consummate political operator, with particularly close ties to New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the state’s most powerful political figures. Frankel was the city’s Finance Commissioner under Michael Bloomberg.

Wiener, for his part, lives in the Lubavitch stronghold of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and wears a long grey beard and a black hat. His group received over $5 million in government funding in 2012, suggesting he has strong political ties. But he’s also steeped in the world of ultra-Orthodoxy. In a lecture posted on the website torahcafe.com, he can be seen discussing why ultra-Orthodox men wear beards.

“If they’re going from Rapfogel to Frankel to Wiener, it’s like going from New York to California and back in a day,” said one former Met Council employee who asked not to be named to protect relationships. “You need to be able to maneuver in all worlds — in the secular world, in the modern Orthodox world and in the Haredi world.” If Wiener is hired, his selection would reverse a structure that has defined Jewish communal service in New York City in recent decades: While mainstream Jewish institutions have spent increasing resources helping ultra-Orthodox and Russian Jews, top positions in the groups have remained in the hands of non-Orthodox or modern Orthodox Jews.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews lead local and specifically ultra-Orthodox charities, but major mainstream Jewish institutions like the UJA-Federation of New York, FEGS and the Met Council have never been led by members of ultra-Orthodox communities.

The appointment could also have implications for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which has played an increasingly prominent role in American Jewish life in recent decades. “The possible appointment of a Lubavitch head of a major Jewish organization signals the success of Lubavitch in crossing boundaries between Orthodoxy and the rest of the Jewish world,” said Steven Cohen, a leading sociologist of the American Jewish community.

http://forward.com/articles/204547/met-council-considering-lubavitcher-rabbi-moshe-wi/?
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A state grant of $42,750 was awarded to Bloomingburg to aid in its process of dissolving itself into the Town of Mamakating.

According to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office, the Sullivan County village was one of three municipalities in the state to be awarded money Wednesday under the state Local Government Citizen Re-Organization Empowerment Grant program. The process was sparked by a petition signed by 82 Bloomingburg residents requesting to dissolve into Mamakating in response to developer Shalom Lamm's proposed 396-unit Hasidic housing project, which some residents have feared could overwhelm their village

Village residents are set to vote on Sept. 30 on the referendum to dissolve. A presentation of the plan will be made Sept. 23 by the Laberge Group of Albany, the consultant team hired to explore and help develop the dissolution plan.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140821/NEWS/140829966/-1/SITEMAP
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TThe streets of North Miami Beach look different since the murder of Rabbi Joseph Raksin. At Northeast 175th Street and 8th Court, in the heavily Orthodox neighborhood where he was killed, a memorial of candles is arranged in a Star of David that the community keeps lit. Police officers have stepped up their patrols, filling the streets at all hours.

Raksin, a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect who was in town from Brooklyn, N.Y., to visit his grandchildren, was shot on the morning of Aug. 9 while walking to synagogue on the Sabbath. Though police say no evidence has emerged that anti-Semitism was a motive in the crime, or that the killing was linked to several other recent hate crimes, Raksin’s murder has raised unsettling questions about security in the Miami Jewish community.

It also has the community contemplating security measures already common at Jewish institutions throughout Europe and South America.

“We don’t know if Rabbi Raksin’s murder was a hate crime or not,” said Jacob Solomon, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. “We do know that it followed local anti-Semitic incidents. We do know that it happened in a climate of a worldwide dramatic increase in anti-Semitic behavior. It happened in a climate of peak concern about anti-Semitism.”

About two weeks before Raksin was killed, a North Miami Beach synagogue was spray-painted with swastikas and the word “Hamas.” Cars in nearby Miami Beach were smeared with “Jew” and “Hamas” in cream cheese. The day after Raksin was killed, a vandal scratched a swastika and an iron cross on the door of a car parked for the rabbi’s memorial service.

The incidents raised the specter that anti-Semitism, which has been on the upswing worldwide since the start of hostilities in Israel and Gaza, is a growing risk on the sunny streets of southern Florida.

The Miami-Dade Police Department has said that all indications in its investigation point to the killing as being an armed robbery gone wrong, and Jewish communal officials have praised the police handling of the matter. Still, the murder has placed the Jewish community on edge.

“A lot of people are convinced that this is a hate crime,” said Mark Rosenberg, a local resident and a chaplain for the Florida Highway Patrol.

‘A lot of people are convinced that this is a hate crime’

As a result, local Jewish organizations have intensified their focus on security. In a joint statement by the Anti-Defamation League, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, the American Jewish Committee, the Greater Miami Rabbinical Association and Chabad, local leaders said they were refocusing on coordinating security with police, increasing security training and greater public awareness. A spokesman for the Chabad community of North Miami Beach also told JTA that local institutions were hiring additional armed security guards and planning to install more security cameras.

“For decades, institutions in South America and Europe have been hardened, meaning bollards in front of their doors or large cement planters or guards or volunteer groups that provide neighborhood watch services,” said the federation’s Solomon. “Climatically, we are definitely moving in that direction.”

Solomon also noted that while there were anti-Semitic overtones to some local protests of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, the protests generally were small, isolated events.

Crime is also nothing new to the residents of North Miami Beach.

For now, daily life has resumed, but with a fearful edge

“North Miami Beach in particular is open to neighborhoods that are not good neighborhoods,” said Rabbi Phineas Weberman, a chaplain with the Miami-Dade Police Department.

According to statistics compiled on City-Data.com, the rate of rapes, assaults and robberies in the city of North Miami Beach, which covers part of the area’s heavily Jewish neighborhood, have all been significantly higher than the national average for more than a decade. Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade Police, which protects the rest of the neighborhood, said the district had been “an active area” for shootings in 2014.

For now, daily life has resumed, but with a fearful edge. CBS 4 Miami reported that on the most recent Sabbath, residents walked to synagogue in clusters for safety. The local community has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Raksin’s two assailants, who remain at large.

“From a Jewish perspective, from a moral perspective, of course a hate crime makes a huge difference,” Rosenberg said. “But from a safety perspective, for a residential neighborhood, it doesn’t really matter. You don’t want to live in a neighborhood where people get shot.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/miami-jews-fret-over-security-after-rabbis-murder/
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A group of Monroe property owners have filed a new petition to annex land into Kiryas Joel, carving out 164 of the 507 acres they had included in an earlier annexation petition that has been stalled in Albany.

The petitioners haven't withdrawn the larger annexation request they submitted in December, which is on hold until the state Department of Environmental Conservation chooses a lead agency for the environmental review. The new petition is limited to 71 parcels of unincorporated Monroe land on Kiryas Joel's northern and eastern borders, which form gaps between the village and neighboring Woodbury.

Steven Barshov, the attorney representing the petitioners, said Thursday that his clients wanted to pursue a “manageable, bite-sized” petition that made their rationale for annexation “easier to understand.”

“I think it presents a picture which is a little more manageable,” he said. “It's easier to focus on a specific group of properties.”

He stressed that his clients intend to prepare a full environmental impact statement for the 164-acre annexation request, lest anyone suspect the purpose of reducing the land size was to skirt environmental scrutiny.

“The environmental review will be equally robust,” Barshov said.

Still unclear is whether the Monroe and Kiryas Joel boards can entertain an annexation petition that encompasses land included an another petition that is still active. Barshov said he believes they can, but will discuss that issue with attorneys for the town and village.

Daniel Richmond, a White Plains attorney representing the citizens group United Monroe, which has challenged the previous annexation request, said he's still researching the legality of simultaneous petitions with overlapping properties.

“It seems to me that they're sort of creating a mess here,” he said.

The DEC must decide whether the Monroe Town Board or Kiryas Joel Village Board will oversee the environmental review for the 507-acre annexation request, since both boards asked to be named lead agency. The DEC has delayed making that decision for months, effectively putting the petition on hold.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140821/NEWS/140829945/-1/SITEMAP

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An accused hit-and-run driver charged with killing an Orthodox Jewish couple and their unborn baby is finally headed to trial in Brooklyn.

Julio Acevedo, 45, faces up to life in prison if convicted in the crash that killed Nachman Glauber and his pregnant wife, Raizy, in Williamsburg on March 3, 2013.

“On Oct. 14, I will bring you to Brooklyn. We will be doing a hearing on the 14th and pick a jury on the 15th,” Judge Neil Firetog told Acevedo, who took part in Wednesday’s court proceeding through a video hookup.

Acevedo was driving nearly 70 miles per hour when he crashed into a livery cab carrying the Glaubers, both 21-year-old Hasidic Jews, prosecutors have said.

The ex-con then fled the scene and was arrested in Pennsylvania, they said.

Acevedo previously served time for murdering the man who inspired rapper 50 Cent’s stage name.

http://nypost.com/2014/08/20/driver-accused-in-deaths-of-expecting-couple-heads-to-trial/
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Local elected officials, along with Jewish, Christian and Islamic leaders came out in force on Wednesday in Crown Heights, to address what they are calling religiously motivated assaults on Brooklyn residents.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams called the meeting that took place on the corner of Albany Ave and Union Street, the same site where a 24-year-old Hasidic man, Avrohom Wolosow, was punched last Wednesday by three black men.

“We have an obligation to raise our voice when a member of our Jewish community is assaulted for no reason at all,” said Adams. “We have an obligation as Brooklynites and New Yorkers to state that will not happen in our city.”

Over the past month, there have been at least five reported incidents police are investigating as possible faith-based hate crimes, including two assaults against Hasidic residents in Crown Heights; two separate incidents– one of eggs thrown, and another of racist chiding– outside mosques in Midwood and Bayridge; and an arson and attempted robbery of a church in East Flatbush.

“People have come to New York from all across the world to escape religious and racial persecution,” said City Councilmember Laurie Cumbo. “When we begin to attack one another because of our race, religion, or sexual orientation, we begin to erode the very fiber of this country and of Brooklyn. When one person in this community is harmed, we are all harmed.”

Members of the Jewish community reached out to Adams to call the press conference, concerned about what they characterized as a return of “the knockout game” and a rising tide of anti-Semitism across the city, adding, they felt that the mayor and the NYPD were not doing enough to address it.

“There’s very deep concern about criminal acts taking place directed against individuals in the Jewish community within Crown Heights,” said Assemblymember Dov Hikind of Brooklyn’s 48th District.

“One of the perpetrators was pursued [by police] and was let go. We don’t know why; we don’t understand. It just doesn’t make sense. No one should be afraid to walk the streets because of their religion, because of the color of their skin, because of what they believe in.”

It was unclear whether there was evidence to suggest that the attacks against the Jewish residents were in fact religiously motivated, and when pressed, neither the 71st Pct community affairs department nor the office of the Brooklyn Borough President could confirm.

However, Chanina Sperling, executive director of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, was certain that, because the victims were not robbed, they were targeted solely because of their faith.

“This assault that took place here Wednesday night at midnight, he was attacked because he was a Jew,” spewed Sperling,. “He was wearing a black hat, a Yamaka and the perps that came over to him didn’t ask him for money, they punched him because he was a Jew!”

“The following day at 4:00pm, a young little Jewish boy minding his own business riding his bicycle on President and Troy sees a group of African Americans coming against him, so he moved to the side,” said Sperling. “When they passed him, they punched him because he was a Jew, because he had a Yamaka!”

Also in attendance were Assemblymember Karim Camara, Council Member Mathieu Eugene and Public Advocate Letitia James.

“I stand with them today to say we are at peace and we want to remain at peace,” said James. “No more knockout attacks; no more attacks against individuals based upon their religious garb. It will not be tolerated. And if in fact you commit this crime on these streets or on any other streets, you will prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“We have an obligation as Brooklynites and New Yorkers to state that [this] will not happen in our city,” said Adams. “We must match our desire to stamp out any form of hate, to come together as responsible Brooklynites.

“We believe in the concept of one Brooklyn, with Yamakas, religious collars, crosses, the Star of David, all of us are here together with one message: We will not tolerate violence against any group.”

http://www.bkreader.com/2014/08/beep-adams-elected-officials-and-religious-leaders-stand-united-against-hate/
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the preliminary recipients of $340 million in pre-kindergarten funding yesterday. While none are in the Bensonhurst area, there are two in Borough Park - Mothers Love and Sunny Skies DC Corp.

Provided state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli approves the awards, Mothers Love (1681 49th Street) will land $214,287 from the state and Sunny Skies DC (4228 10th Avenue) will receive $500,000 as part of a program that is awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for 81 school districts and community-based organizations across the state.

The funding, which is included in the 2014-15 state budget, is the first installment in the governor’s commitment to invest $1.5 billion over the next five years to build a statewide universal full-day pre-kindergarten program.

The city Department of Education is slated to land nearly $300 million to build its universal pre-kindergarten program for all 4-year-olds in the city – which stems from Cuomo’s promise to pay for such a program in lieu of Mayor Bill de Blasio raising taxes to pay for it, as the mayor had originally aimed to do upon taking office.

The funds slated for private daycare operators are to fill the gap in the number of seats required to meet the need, which the Department of Education alone does not have the space for.

“Training and educating young minds is one of the smartest investments we can make as a state, as studies demonstrate that pre-kindergarten has a long lasting, positive influence on our children’s education and future success,” Cuomo said in his press release. “The state budget this year included a major investment in early education, putting New York state on the path to become just the fourth state in the nation to establish universal full day pre-K. The awards we are announcing today will enable tens of thousands of children to attend pre-K classes, and represent another step in the State’s work to prepare our students to compete in the 21st century economy.”

As part of state and city officials push for a full-day pre-kindergarten program, numerous lawmakers and educators, including Cuomo and de Blasio, stressed that studies have shown that children who participate in early education programs are more likely to read at grade level and graduate from high school than those who do not.

“We are proud to have Governor Cuomo as a strong partner in making pre-K for All a reality for the children of New York City,” de Blasio said in the same release. “This funding represents a powerful commitment by the State to build a new, stronger education foundation that will transform our schools. We are working tirelessly to make good on this opportunity to deliver new pre-K options, improve existing ones and build a high-quality system that lifts up every child.”

http://www.bensonhurstbean.com/2014/08/borough-park-groups-slated-land-hundreds-thousands-dollars-pre-k-funding/
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Sholem Aleichem (Sholem Rabinovitch, 1859-1916), is best known as the man behind “Fiddler on the Roof,” the 1964 Broadway musical that – even after 50 years – keeps on keepin’ on.

Because of the worldwide success of “Fiddler,” Sholem Aleichem has been embraced as the Yiddish writer who almost single-handedly created a warmly nostalgic vision – I should say “version” – of the “Old Country” as embodied in the fictional shtetl of Anatevka in 1905 Tsarist Russia.

In “Motl, the Cantor’s Son,” the author presents an equally compelling vision of Jewish immigrant life on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and in the Bronx. Part I, influenced by Sholem Aleichem’s first stay in America in 1906 and serialized in 1907-1908, concerns the efforts of the young Motl’s family and friends to overcome obstacle after bureaucratic obstacle on the way to finally booking passage on a ship to America. Part II, serialized in 1916, when the author was back in New York, begins on Ella’s (Ellis) Island. However, the book was not finished when Sholem Aleichem died on May 13 of that year.

Motl, whose father Peysi the Cantor dies in the “Old Country” between the first and second chapters of the novel, is just under the age of 9 when he begins to tell his story; and he is a little more than 11 by the final page. Throughout the narrative, Motl remains a clear-sighted, light-hearted, unsentimental observer of the human condition; he tells the reader what he sees with a minimum of emotional overlay. Motl’s almost obsessive curiosity makes him an excellent “objective” reporter: When his brother Elye is given a silver watch for a wedding present, Motl comments, “I’d give anything to own a watch like that. What would I do with it? I’d take it apart to see what makes it tick.”

It is in Part II of “Motl” that Sholem Aleichem displays the full flowering of his exuberant celebration of what I am calling “Yinglish,” that rich amalgam of Yiddish and mangled English spoken by the huddled masses of Eastern European Jews struggling to find their way in America during the first two decades of the 20th century.

With the help of Hillel Halkin’s brilliant translation, the reader is treated to such marvelous linguistic inventions as tsobvey (subway), kerredshiz (carriages), moofink pikshez (moving pictures) and shooinkahm (chewing gum)

We learn that “a rahlehskeyt is a shoe on four wheels. You put it on and roll away.” We also learn the correct pronunciation of furniture: “It turns out that the word is neither feinitsheh nor foinitsheh. It’s firnitsheh. Go figure.”

Motl describes in considerable detail the struggles of his family and friends in their hard-scrabble efforts to make a living: “A dzhahb (job) in a shahp (shop) is no treat. It starts at seven-thirty every morning, and you have to allow an hour for travel plus time for morning prayers and a bite to eat. You can figure out for yourself when that means getting up – and you want to be on time, because you’re docked a half day’s pay for each five minutes you’re late.”

Given the preoccupation of most Jewish immigrants with putting bread on the table, it is not surprising that Sholem Aleichem invents numerous work-related Yinglish terms like pahnshink deh klahk (punching the [time] clock); he creates such union-related Yinglish terms as dzhenril streik (general strike), awknahzayshn (organization), hiyeh vedzhehz (higher wages).

Nor is it surprising that Jews without money are frequently talking about Christians with money: Rahknfelleh, Kahnegi, Mawgn, Vendehbilt.

Beneath the surface humor of “Motl, the Cantor’s Son,” lies the profound sadness and frustration of millions of immigrant Jews who carry big dreams but are weighed down by their personal shortcomings and are shortchanged by the social and economic conditions they find in America. The world of their fathers is no more, and the world of their thoroughly Americanized sons and daughters is yet to come.

As Hillel Halkin states in his introduction, “The rapid encroachment of English on Yiddish is a central theme in Part II of ‘Motl.’ Put to comic effect there, it is nevertheless a reliable gauge of the speed with which Americanization is taking place.”

Halkin goes on to say that Sholem Aleichem “understood that America was something radically new: a truly gebentsht (blessed) land for its Jews, who in return for its blessings would gladly relinquish the rich ethnic particularity that all his writing was about.”

http://www.jvhri.org/opinion/rabbi-james-rosenberg/1391-yinglish-jewish-language-of-the-new-world
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A Crown Heights man who tried to claim a reward for returning a box of stolen Jewish prayer items was arrested over the weekend for swiping them in the first place, police and sources said.

The suspect, whose name was not released, was picked up at 3:30 p.m. Sunday on Kingston Avenue and Park Place after asking for a reward for the box of tefillin — prayer boxes containing excerpts of the Torah — police sources said.

The suspect claimed he had found the box — which was taken from a member of the Lubavitch Hasidic community — on the street, police sources said. It was not clear when the items were stolen.

The suspect has a long criminal history, all involving larceny, police sources said.

He was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property and was awaiting arraignment.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140818/crown-heights/man-busted-after-trying-get-reward-for-stolen-jewish-prayer-items-nypd
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/08/15/regulating-oral-suction-of-blood-after-circumcision-and-the-first-amendment/
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When Rabbi Joseph Raksin was gunned down last weekend on his way to temple near North Miami Beach, it was the Orthodox Jewish community's volunteer rescue crew, Hatzalah, that responded first and offered aid.

When news spread that Raksin did not survive, the Orthodox community — many of whose members didn't even know the rabbi, who was visiting from Brooklyn, New York — flooded the street in front of Bais Menachem Chabad to pray for his soul. They pooled money to offer a $50,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction.

And it was the Shmira Patrol, the neighborhood watch group, that escorted the hearse carrying Raksin’s body to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport — with lights and sirens — assuring that everything was done by Jewish law before the body was flown back home to Brooklyn.

“You hurt your finger, the whole body hurts,” said Rabbi David Lehrfield, spiritual leader at Young Israel of Greater Miami in Northeast Miami-Dade for more than 30 years. “Whether you knew him or not, it is like a member of our family was killed.”

The slaying of Raksin rocked the neighborhood — about a square mile roughly bordered by Miami Gardens Drive to the north, South Glades Road to the east, Northeast Sixth Avenue to the west and 167th Street to the south — to its core. As violence escalates in the Middle East and elsewhere, many in this tight-knit Jewish community assume they are under attack even as the killers — and their motive — — remain unknown.

“It’s all you think about,” said Leslie Dratler as she unloaded groceries earlier this week at South Florida Kosher Meats, 1324 NE 163rd St. “But we can’t let it stop us from living.”

Yona Lunger, a community activist and member of the Shmira Patrol, said he and everyone else is on high alert and are trying to help police find out who killed the rabbi.

“This is the time for us to come together even stronger,” Lunger said as he drove through the streets of this enclave where most people know one another. “We have to have each other’s backs.”

On Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League stressed the importance of everyone joining together.

“We remain strong, unified and committed to working shoulder-to-shoulder to ensure the safety and security of all individuals and Jewish institutions, especially in the face of increased anti-Semitism here and abroad,” the ADL said in a news release. “We are confident that we will emerge from this tragic time stronger and more united than ever. May Rabbi Raksin’s memory be for a blessing.”

Police have reached out to residents near the site of the slaying in the hope there is surveillance video that could lead them to the suspects.

A Miami-Dade County police detective sent an email Thursday asking the community about a light-colored Toyota Tundra pickup truck with an extended cab and a ladder mounted on top of a camper. The detective stressed that its owner was not a suspect but might have information about the crime, Lunger said.

On the Saturday he was killed, Raksin was doing what is common practice in this community, observing the Sabbath — the day of rest. Observant Orthodox Jews refrain from carrying money and avoid anything that can be linked to work, such as driving or using electronics.

“It’s a tragedy that a guest came in and had such a tragic ending,” said Rabbi Lehrfield. “That a person should be taken like this on his holy day is a slap in the face to a person’s religion.”

About 9 a.m. Saturday, he walked out of his daughter’s house, said goodbye to his family and headed east on Northeast 175th Street to a nearby temple, wearing the traditional Orthodox black hat and long coat.

Witnesses said he was approached by two men at Eighth Court, and was shot.

A neighbor called police, and someone in the community called Hatzalah, which is allowed to operate even on the Sabbath for emergency reasons. Raksin was airlifted to the Ryder Trauma Center, where he died.

When word spread, the community cried and prayed. After sundown, a Star of David fashioned from candles appeared at the spot where Raksin was gunned down.

The next day, many people in the community — already on edge from an incident July 28 in which a swastika and the word Hamas appeared on the pillars of a temple — wondered whether Raksin was targeted because he was Jewish. That belief was further fueled by an incident the day of Raksin’s memorial service: A couple who attended the service reported that someone had scratched a swastika and iron cross on their BMW.

“We are peace-loving people,” said Rabbi Lehrfield’s daughter, Jennifer. “We don’t bother you. Why bother us?”

Ira Sheskin, director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami, said the Jewish community has a “heightened awareness of anti-Semitism because of what is going on in the world.”

Sheskin, who is completing the 2014 Jewish Population Study, said that the Orthodox community, which in 2004 represented about 9 percent of the Jews in Miami-Dade County, lives by the tradition of watching out for one another.

“As Jews, we have a responsibility to take care of other Jews,” he said.

Earlier this week, police said they had not ruled out the possibility that Raksin’s slaying was a hate crime, but had no indication that it was. They said the motive may have been robbery.

“We are here to make the community feel safe,” said police Maj. Saima Plasencia, who heads the Miami-Dade County Police Department’s Intracoastal District. Plasencia joined several patrol cars Tuesday that were monitoring the area. A large mobile patrol van was parked on a swale with a poster that had Raksin’s photo and a telephone number to call if someone has information.

The county is working closely with nearby North Miami Beach, where crimes generally are limited to burglary, petty theft and occasional robberies.

“I have confidence in our homicide bureau that they are going to make an arrest in this case,” said Placensia. “There is no doubt in my mind. It’s just a matter of time.”

As Lunger drove through the community as a Shmira patrol volunteer, he pointed out symbols tied to traditional practices. A line made by wire that can be seen on the streets, for example, is known as a Eruv, and marks where Jews can carry items on the Sabbath.

There are also several business in the community that cater to Orthodox beliefs, such as wig stores for women who can show their real hair only to their husbands, modest clothing stores, and dental and doctor’s offices that offer kosher prescriptions. At Jerusalem Pizza, 761 NE 167th St., there is a sink in the back so diners can wash their hands according to tradition before eating.

A family visiting from Brooklyn said they almost didn’t travel to South Florida after hearing about the shooting.

“We were afraid,” said Miri Moskowitz, as she munched on her kosher Greek salad. Her husband, Saul, said his wife and mother-in-law will let him go to services only if he walks with someone else.

“We never thought it would come to this,” he said.

Yitzie Spalter, co-owner of South Florida Kosher Meats, which has been around for more than 30 years, said the community is hardworking and is simply trying to provide for their families.

“We are all grieving together, he said. “We have to unite as a community to get through this.”

Investigators asked anyone with information to call the Miami-Dade Police Department at 305-471-2400 or Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at 305-471-8477.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/14/4289365/rabbis-slaying-rocks-orthodox.html
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Anti-Semitic behaviour continues to increase in Europe and around the world since the start of the conflict in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people have taken part in demonstrations in Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels, Rome, Boston and New York. Many have complained that the nature of these protests have resulted in violent and hateful signs and slogans against Jewish people with some even saying:

“Hitler was right.” “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas”

Two men were arrested in Germany for attacking a Synagogue with firebombs, there have also been increasing reports of Jewish people getting beaten in the streets. A British member of Parliament even shockingly declared that his city was “an Israel-free zone.” In Berlin, an Islamic radical Imam was quoted in saying: “Destroy the Zionist Jews...Count them and kill them to the very last one.”

The Guardian recently ran an article titled: “Anti-Semitism on the rise across Europe ‘in worst times since the Nazis,’ including an editorial piece called, ‘anti-Semitism inexcusable.’

Many argue that the protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza have not been legitimate in some cases attended by only a few well-meaning individuals who want to express their objection to the death of children and civilians.  It is shocking to see that anti-Semitic behaviour has somehow become fashionable in Europe with many forgetting that this was how Hitler brainwashed Germany into World War II.

Dieter Graumann, the president of the central council of Jews in Germany was quoted in saying:

“When calls for Jews to be gassed, burned and murdered are bawled on the streets of Germany,that no longer has anything to do with Israel’s politics and Gaza. It is the most abhorrent form of anti-Semitism.”

http://www.theway.co.uk/news-9664-anti-semitic-behaviour-continues-to-rise-in-europe
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Brooklyn’s Central United Talmudical Academy has filed its plans for the building of a new girls’ Torah academy in the northwestern area of the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The plans were revealed by New York Yimby.

To be constructed at 401 Park Ave, at the corner of Taaffe Place, the new school building will have a total of 196,450 square feet and have more than five stories. The neighborhood has recently brought in many new residents from the Satmar Hasidic sect from neighboring Williamsburg which has run out of room for the every growing Hasidic population with its large families.

The new girl’s school will be affiliated with the men’s yeshiva college UTA Central which is affiliated with the Aronis sub sect of the Stamars. They are followers of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum.

The location currently holds a two story industrial building that was constructed in 1930. The lot has a total of 44,276 square feet. Rabbi Mordechai Hirsch, the school’s leader, bought the property earlier in the year for $3 million.

That was a relatively cheap price, even for Bedford Stuyvesant. The reason was the low cost of the property was that it is zoned by the City of New York as M1-2. This means that a more expensive residential development could not be built there.

Also, under local regulations, the building density can be much higher for a school than a commercial property, such as new retail space, so the new owners can get much more use out of it than a private developer could have.

http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/08/13/central-united-talmudical-academy-building-school-for-girls-in-bedford-stuyvesant/
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A rabbi in Rockland County was arraigned Tuesday on charges of sex crimes involving children.

Gabriel Bodenheimer, 71, of Monsey, is facing three counts of criminal sexual acts and one count of sex abuse relating to the repeated abuse of a child, according to the Rockland County District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe.

Bodenheimer, a rabbi, was arrested Monday by Ramapo police after an investigation. Bodenheimer is the principal of Yeshiva Bais Mikroh, a boys' school in Monsey.

According to the charges, Bodenheimer, while at Bais Mikroh, sexually abused a student between Aug. 1, 2009 and July 31, 2010, starting when the boy was 7, said Zugibe.

According to the charges, the sex acts were performed in the defendant's office at the school.

Bodenheimer's bail was set at $25,000. His next court date is scheduled for Aug. 26.

http://7online.com/news/monsey-rabbi-arraigned-in-child-sex-crimes-case/253943/
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