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An investigation has been launched after women in Stamford Hill were told they are not allowed to drive their children to school.

The strict ruling came from rabbis in an orthodox Jewish sect in Stamford Hill, north London which runs the school.

Mothers were told if they did drive, then their children would be barred from the classroom as punishment.

The Department of Education has confirmed that the matter is being investigated.

The school said its choice of words was "unfortunate" but it had a duty to provide an education in line with its religious traditions.
This is completely unacceptable in modern Britain.

If schools do not actively promote the principle of respect for other people they are breaching the independent school standards.

Where we are made aware of such breaches we will investigate and take any necessary action to address the situation.

– NICKY MORGAN, EDUCATION SECRETARY AND MINISTER FOR WOMEN AND EQUALITIES

In a letter published on Jewish websites, the Hasidic Belz rabbis say women drivers are 'contrary to the rules of religious modesty'.

The letter warns pupils will be barred from lessons unless there are medical reasons for their mother to behind the wheel of a car.
This is so out of line with any Jewish values. It doesn't represent our religion and it's draconian. It's a terrible, terrible thing.' Dina Brawer, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance

The only other place you hear of things like that is Saudi Arabia, so it's completely shocking that women would be told they can't drive their children to school. It is a worrying threat.

– – ROSA DOHERTY, JEWISH CHRONICLE

As a repercussion for a woman who drives in a car, she cannot send her children to be educated at institutions of the Belz Chasidim.

We therefore announce that as of Rosh Chodesh Elul (Aug 14th), a student whose mother drives will not be allowed to study in our institutions.

If a mother has no other choice and has to drive for extenuating reasons (for example medical), she should submit a request to the special committee to this effect and the committee shall consider her request.

http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-05-31/government-investigation-after-hasidic-jewish-sect-in-stamford-hill-bans-women-from-driving-children-to-school/
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Below is a form email that you can send to your Assembly members while CC'ing Speaker Heastie at speaker@assembly.state.ny.us

Email addresses for Boro-Park Assemblymen:

Dov Hikind - hikindd@assembly.state.ny.us
James Brennan - brennanj@assembly.state.ny.us
Peter Abbate - abbatep@assembly.state.ny.us


Dear Assemblyman [assemblyman name here],

I urge you to support the Governor's Parental Choice in Education Act and Education Tax Credit and urge Speaker Heastie to bring the bill to the floor. I believe it is critical that my local representatives support and protect alternative school options for parents and students across New York State and increase investment in education.

Please take action today so the Education Tax Credit becomes law and all children across New York will have greater access to quality education.

Can I count on you for your support of the Governor's Parental Choice in Education Act and Education Tax Credit?

Sincerely,
[your name here]
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Most people go to Jamaica to relax, but Rabbi Yaakov Raskin and his wife Mushkee aren’t there to take it easy. As the first-ever permanent Chabad emissaries to the island nation famous for rum, reggae, and runners, they have been hard at work since last fall, serving the Jews who live and vacation there.

Like other Chabad emissaries sent to remote locations with few permanent Jewish residents but many Jewish tourists passing through (such as Kathmandu, Nepal, recently in the news following the devastating earthquake there), the Raskins are challenged with the task of catering—not only spiritually, but also literally in terms of kosher food— to a varied, far-flung community with few existing Jewish institutions.

The young couple, expecting their first child this summer, arrived in Montego Bay right before last Rosh Hashanah, in September 2014. Montego Bay is the city most tourists fly into, and it is also relatively close to island’s other major vacation destinations, such as Negril and Ocho Rios, where the large cruise ships dock. They are across the island from the capital of Kingston, where most of Jamaica’s approximately 200 permanent Jewish residents live.

Despite Rabbi Raskin’s being based in Montego Bay and busy with what he estimates to be the 100,000 Jewish vacationers passing through annually, he travels regularly all over the island seeking Jews to meet and try to bring closer to Judaism.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/at-long-last-chabad-puts-down-roots-in-laid-back-jamaica/
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According to reports the NY Supreme Court settlement and pre-trial court parts, among others, formerly run by Supreme Court Justice David I Schmidt have now been divided among eleven other Supreme Court Justices in order to be able to cover such a large caseload. Judge Schmidt, also known as 'The Great Settler', handled hundreds of cases daily in the five court parts that he oversaw (more than any other judge ever). Over the years Judge Schmidt has settled thousands of cases using his own unique empathic and just settlement style. Judge Schmidt had for years single-handedly settled thousands of court cases in his court room, effectively keeping thousands of cases from unnecessarily costing parties and regular citizens thousands of dollars in unnecessary expense by going to trial and thus helping to keep clear the busy court calendars for cases that needed a trial for resolution.

Judge Schmidt is now taking on cases for arbitration and can be contacted by clicking here.
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This is how you launch a Hasidic shtetl in 21st-century America.

Step 1. Find a place within reasonable distance of Brooklyn where the land is cheap and underdeveloped.

Step 2. Buy as much property as you can in your target area – if possible, without tipping off locals that you plan to turn it into a Hasidic enclave.

Step 3. Ensure the zoning is suited to Hasidic living: densely clustered homes big enough for large families and within walking distance of the community’s vital infrastructure.

Step 4. Build the infrastructure: Houses, a synagogue and beit midrash study hall, kosher establishments, a mikvah ritual bath. Lay the groundwork for a school. Launch a shuttle service so Hasidim who don’t drive or don’t own cars can get from the new shtetl to shopping outlets and other Hasidic communities in the region.

Step 5. Market to the Hasidic community and turn on the lights.

That, essentially, is the playbook developer Shalom Lamm is following for what is shaping up to be America’s newest Hasidic shtetl — the town of Bloomingburg in upstate New York.

Located in Sullivan County about 80 miles north of Brooklyn, Bloomingburg is a tiny village of 400 people dotted with small farms, run-down homes and a couple of old churches. There’s just one stoplight, and there’s not much to the small businesses clustered around it: a hardware store, bank, tattoo parlor, barbershop and thrift shop.

This is the way things were for decades until Lamm — son of Rabbi Norman Lamm, Yeshiva University’s president from 1976 to 2003 — came to town a few years ago and started snapping up properties like they were sample-sale sweaters.

He bought the white house with blue shutters and a front porch just across from the barbershop. He bought the Hickory apartments just off Main Street, adjacent to a trailer park. He bought the hardware store and a pizza shop. He bought a large warehouse built to house antique cars with the idea of turning it into a girls school.

Lamm didn’t stop there. He bought a group of farms on 200 acres of unincorporated land about half a mile from the stoplight and in 2006 got the village to annex it and rezone it for residential development in exchange for building a new $5 million sewage treatment plant for the area. He bought the airport in the nearby village of Wurtsboro. He bought 635 acres five miles away. He also bought a house for himself in Bloomingburg and moved in (Lamm also lives in West Hempstead, on Long Island).

Soon, changes started happening in the village.

Homes were fixed up and repainted. The Hickory apartments, originally built as a senior housing development, were renovated and turned into 12 units, with a synagogue and study hall built in a basement. Most notably, in 2012 rows of attached five-bedroom townhomes began going up on the 200 acres he had gotten rezoned from agricultural — the first of at least 396 units planned for construction in a development Lamm dubbed Chestnut Ridge.

Meanwhile in Brooklyn, a two-hour drive away, Yiddish-language newspapers began to run advertisements touting a new Hasidic housing development going up in Bloomingburg. The ads noted its location near the Catskill Mountains and just 30 minutes north of the Satmar village of Kiryas Joel, home to more than 20,000 Hasidim.

Once the locals upstate caught onto what was happening — when Chestnut Ridge broke ground in 2012 — opposition materialized almost immediately. Village meetings were organized, accusations flew, angry protesters took to the streets and lawsuits were filed. The Town of Mamakating (pop. 12,000), in which the village of Bloomingburg is located, tried to annex the village so that it could gain zoning power over Bloomingburg and thwart the Hasidic-friendly construction, but the bid failed.

Lamm and his defenders, including the public relations consultant he eventually hired, cast their opponents as anti-Semites or anti-Hasidic, and for some that characterization seemed apt. The window of the kosher grocery was repeatedly shattered, and some early protests outside Shabbat prayer services included anti-Jewish epithets.

But for many locals, it was a case of not-in-my-backyard syndrome: They lived in a quiet, albeit poor, country village, and the dense housing and Hasidic influx would indelibly alter Bloomingburg’s character. They believed Lamm and his investment partner, Kenneth Nakdimen, had hoodwinked the village into annexing and rezoning the agricultural land he was turning into a dense residential development.

Last month, Mamakating and Bloomingburg filed a federal lawsuit against Lamm, accusing him of fraud, bribery, racketeering, voter fraud and corruption of public officials — saying he bribed a former mayor, used a frontman to help mislead the village about his intentions for Chestnut Ridge and engaged in racketeering by promoting an enterprise that was corrupt on multiple levels. Lamm denies the accusations and has filed lawsuits of his own against the town.

If Bloomingburg was going to look like any of the other Hasidic communities north of New York City – New Square, Kiryas Joel, or the hamlet of Monsey in Ramapo – there were plenty of cautionary tales to give local residents pause. Overcrowding in those places was taxing local infrastructure to the breaking point, and in Ramapo the school board had been taken over by a Hasidic majority that was stripping local public school budgets and selling off public school buildings to yeshivas at cut-rate prices.

For the Hasidim, the appeal of Bloomingburg over Brooklyn was clear. It offered much cheaper living, less congestion and fewer of the sorts of urban temptations that could ensnare a devout Jew. With so few residents, the village also offered the prospect of something else: political power that could give local Hasidim nearly unfettered control over their own destiny.

It wasn’t long before the first Hasidic families began to arrive.

Some were older couples from points south looking for a quiet place near the mountains in which to spend summers or weekends. But soon full-timers started coming, too — mostly young families from Satmar and other Hungarian Hasidic sects looking for more affordable alternatives to Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood and a quieter lifestyle than that available in Kiryas Joel or in Monsey, the sprawling Orthodox stronghold in Rockland County an hour to the south.

Bloomingburg’s first Hasidic pioneers arrived with almost no Orthodox infrastructure in place. There wasn’t much suitable food available locally — one early newcomer quipped that the only produce available at the local grocery store was two-week-old tomatoes — and kosher food had to be delivered by special order from Kiryas Joel or nearby Middletown. There was no weekday minyan. There was no women’s mikvah (and still isn’t — the zoning appeals board has rejected Lamm’s site for one).

Then, last summer, the city got its first kollel – a Jewish study collective where men learn Torah full time and receive stipends in return from community supporters (in this case, apparently, Lamm). Lamm also bought a 22-seat minibus and a passenger van and began running shuttles to large shopping areas and to Kiryas Joel, where some of Bloomingburg’s adults work and kids go to school.

By fall, there were enough Orthodox families in Bloomingburg to support a daily minyan — the quorum of 10 men needed for public prayer. Weekday services start at 9 a.m.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/how-to-build-an-american-shtetl-see-bloomingburg-ny/
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The NYPD is investigating a possible hate crime after several swastikas were discovered in Borough Park Tuesday afternoon.

A total of six swastikas were drawn onto a metal railing on 49th Street with what appears to be a black marker. Neighbors say the hate symbols are especially unsettling because there are many Jews and even Holocaust survivors living in the quiet residential area.

State Assemblyman Dov Hikind released a statement saying in part, "These things happen way too often and it's a sad commentary."

http://www.amny.com/news/nypd-investigates-possible-hate-crime-after-swastikas-found-in-borough-park-1.10454978
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A Union City man was sentenced to 27 months in prison on Tuesday for using a fake charity tied to a massive corruption sting to hide millions of dollars from federal and state regulation.

Moshe "David" Schwartz, 34, headed the Gemach Shefa Chaim, a bogus charity caught up in the largest federal money laundering and corruption sting in state history. Schwartz used the organization as an unchartered bank to deposit millions of dollars from more than 350 clients, as well as nearly $1 million of his own money, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said in a release.

The charity purported to provide interest-free loans to needy members of the Sanz Hasidic community in Union City.

Schwartz pleaded guilty in April 2014 to operating an unchartered bank, which allowed clients to evade federal taxes and launder money. He also admitted to lying about his income, reporting that he only made $24,475 in 2007 when he actually made $208, 845, Fishman said.

Authorities seized the charity's bank accounts, along with $500,000, in July 2009. The accounts had been used by three others—Moshe Altman, Itzak Friedlander and Shimon Haber— to launder funds on the behalf of Solomon Dwek, the government informant at the center of the Operation Bid Rig III corruption sting, prosecutors said. More than 40 public officials and other were arrested in the sting, which all connected back to Dwek, who posed as a corrupt developer who offered to pay off politicians in order to get projects speedily approved.

Haber, Friedlander and Altman have already pleaded guilty to various charges, including conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, and have been sentenced, respectively, to five-month, 24-month and 41-month prison terms, Fishman said.

In addition to his prison sentence, Schwartz has to serve two year of supervised release and must pay $74,889 in restitution for what the IRS lost from his 2007 taxes and a $60,000 fee.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/05/union_city_man_sentenced_to_2_years_in_prison_for.html
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After over 45 years of marriage, a Hasidic woman gave birth to her first child on Monday morning at the age of 65.

Chaya Sarah Shachar became the delighted mother of a baby boy at the Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba.

The baby boy is in good health, relatives said.

Shachar and her husband Shmuel had unsuccessfully tried to have kids since they got married at the ages of 19 and 21 respectively. The couple had sought fertility treatments as well as blessings from religious figures.

The proud parents, who are affiliated with the Nadvorna Hasidic dynasty, on Monday attributed the “miracle” to a blessing from their rabbi, who died three years ago.

Last year, a 61-year-old woman gave birth to her first son in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital. The woman, who had been pregnant with twins but lost the baby girl, at the time similarly attributed the rare occurrence to a blessing by the late rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/hasidic-woman-has-first-kid-at-65/
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The Satmar rebbe, one of the prominent Jewish Orthodox leaders in the world, slammed the central haredi factions in Israel and their rabbis for joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fourth government and accused them of "selling the Torah for lucre."

He added that Shas and United Torah Judaism's faith in the state's leadership was like "trusting a dog not to bite you."

Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum heads one of the two rival factions in Satmar, the world's largest Hasidic dynasty, which is famous for its opposition to secular Zionism and the State of Israel. Hours after the new government was sworn in, he delivered a firm speech at a special fundraiser in New York for Satmar's institutions in Israel, which refuse to be funded by the state.

The rebbe ruled that even those who don't study Torah are not allowed to join the IDF because "whoever arrives at the army as a haredi leaves half secular."

He added that the Equal Share of the Burden Law was enacted by seculars while the haredim fought it, but that the amendment planned at Shas and UTJ's request would allegedly make it "kosher," thereby preventing a haredi protests against it.

The land owner's dog
"The haredim are ready to sell all this for the money they receive, and in return for that they are selling the entire Torah," the rebbe argued.

He said he believed the move to soften the law would not succeed, as the High Court of Justice would not approve the removal of the criminal sanctions, and then "the haredim, who will have already tasted the taste of money, won't leave the government but will legitimize the draft law."

"They are now trying to explain that it will be handed over to the defense minister, who will decided who to draft and who not to draft," he said about the haredi parties. "But this is a law for generations, not just a law for the current defense minister's terms, and now they are enacting a law and the haredi MKs are handing over the key of the yeshiva students' draft to the defense minister. Who promises them that the defense minister in the next government will not want to draft everyone?

"It's like the famous story about the Jew who arrived at the land owner's home, and the land owner's dog began barking at him. The Jew escaped for fear of the dog. The land owner said to him: 'Don't worry, this dog doesn’t bite, he's a good dog.' The Jews replied: 'Should I trust the dog's integrity that he won't bite me?'

"I am saying the same thing: Can we trust the integrity of the dog, the defense minister, that he won't draft everyone? What if a defense minister with teeth arrives, who is capable of biting?

"We will insist that the agreements won't be implemented, and we won't compromise over any Jews – regardless of whether he studies Torah or not," the Satmar rebbe declared. "As long as he is Jewish, as long as his forefathers' feet stood on Mount Sinai, he must not go to the army, no matter how much money the yeshivot receive out of it."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4658225,00.html
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A Hasidic-owned bus company has been slammed with a class-action lawsuit from female bus drivers who claim the firm refuses to hire women.

Brooklyn-based Monsey Trails ferries Hasidic Jews from New York City to Rockland County.

A case led by licensed Staten Island bus driver ­Diana Luckey claims the company has never hired a female driver.

A call to the company was not returned.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/16/bus-company-sued-over-refusal-to-hire-female-drivers/
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Jewish reggae rapper Matisyahu let his fans know on Tuesday that his infant daughter was to undergo heart surgery. He asked for people to say a prayer for her, mentioning that her name was Sasha Lil.

Early on Wednesday the singer posted on social media that the operation was successful, writing, “Sasha Lil’s surgery went well. Thank you everyone for your prayers. Amazing!”

While some may have been taken by surprise to know that the little girl had health problems, others may have been taken aback to know that Matisyahu, 35, even has a daughter.

The singer has three sons, Shalom, Menachem Mendel and Laivy, from his marriage to his ex-wife Talia. Matisyahu and Talia divorced after he began to move away from Hasidic Judaism in 2011. The formerly bearded Matisyahu announced this shift by posting a photo of his clean-shaven face on Instagram. He and his ex-wife reportedly remain on good terms and are co-parenting their boys, who attend Chabad schools in Los Angeles.

Sasha was born a little over a year ago from a relationship the singer had with a woman named Toma Danley, a friend living in Bend, Oregon, whom he met when he was a teenager participating in a wilderness therapy program there.

It would seem that Matisyahu and Danley are no longer together, as a man from Bend named Alex C. Meyer recently posted on Facebook—with Danley’s permission—that he and Danley are engaged to be married.

Matisyahu is currently promoting his new album, “Akeda,” which came out a decade after his 2005 breakthrough album, “Live at Stubb’s.” While his relationship with Judaism is reportedly complicated at the moment, the songs on the new album are full of biblical references. They also deal with the frustrations he feels regarding fans’ expectations of him since his leaving Hasidism.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/matisyahus-baby-gets-heart-surgery/
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Ashkenazi Jewish food may be undergoing somewhat of a revival within the American culinary scene, but this isn't exactly your bagels and lox: Meir Kalmanson, 25, a director based in Brooklyn, pulled together six friends of friends to try a handful of less well known, traditional Ashkenazi foods, and filmed their responses.

The result? "The Ultimate Chassidic Food Taste Test," a short video released on YouTube late last week.

The foods range from relatively familiar dishes such as herring with crackers ("You could take a girl out for this stuff, they like shiny things") to jiggly calves' foot jelly ("This looks like what I find inside my boot on a rainy day") and two types of cholent ("It looks like the cake your uncle tried to make but put in the oven for too long").

Kalmanson, a member of the Chabad Hassidic sect, says he was inspired by the internet video genre made popular by Buzzfeed that features people tasting foods from different countries or ethnic traditions.

In order to choose the menu, he asked a friend from the Satmar Hassidic sect to draw up a list of traditional foods that wouldn't be typically found in your average Kosher Jewish supermarket. While some of the foods such as cholent and herring were familiar from his childhood, while others were entirely new to him, he says.

He also intentionally chose taste testers who were unlikely to have heard of any of the foods.

The calves' foot jelly, which Kalmanson says his grandmother recalled from her childhood in Russia, proved not so popular. Jerusalem kugel and cholent, however, turned out to be easy sells.

Some of Kalmanson's previous videos have received considerable attention. One video, in which the production team turns a New York subway car into a dance club, pulled in 1 million views over the past month. Another video, in which Kalmanson walks down a New York City street giving high-fives to people trying to hail cabs, racked up 2 million views and was featured in a commercial for Android, Google's cell phone.

http://www.haaretz.com/life/culture/food-wine/1.655865
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A Roman-era, 2,000-year-old synagogue in the Mount Meron nature reserve has been desecrated, with its walls spray-painted with “Nachman of Uman” lettering. A group of hikers discovered the graffiti, and notified the Israel Antiquities Authority. When the authority’s inspectors arrived they discovered graffiti on other historic buildings in the area as well.

Uri Berger, the northern region’s chief archaeologist at the antiquities authority, said that over the last year the authority had invested a major effort in conserving and reconstructing the ancient synagogue in Meron, including erasing previous graffiti that was sprayed on the walls.

“This is the second time in recent years that ‘Nachman of Uman’ has been sprayed on the walls of this synagogue which dates back to Roman, Mishna and Talmudic eras,” said Berger. “Only a month and a half ago we finished conservation work at the site.” At a site further south called Hurvat Shama, where there is a tomb attributed to Mishna sage Shammai, who was Hillel’s adversary, further graffiti was discovered. “It’s sad that these sites were desecrated by people who call themselves believers.”

Nachman of Uman refers to the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, Rebbe Nachman, who is buried in Uman, Ukraine. A group of his followers in Israel regularly paint a slogan with his name in public places.

Berger said that spraying paint “causes irreversible damage to the stones – erasing it causes further damage. The cleaning process demands resources and manpower that could be devoted to other sites, and are now wasted because of this unnecessary vandalism.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.655664
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I was raised in a Jewish modern Orthodox community in the United States. I wear pants and sleeveless shirts, and to the average passerby, look like a secular woman. But I also keep the Sabbath, and I pray at least once a day. I make blessings before consuming food, as well as after. I consider myself religious, even though I may not look it.

While attending university in Canada, I traveled quite a bit between home and school. There was a direct Hasidic bus line servicing the communities of each place. Each time I had to travel, I would weigh the pros and cons of the Hasidic bus over Greyhound.

Pros: The Hasidic bus takes half the time the Greyhound does, and border control is fast. Cons: There are usually crying babies, women sit in the back, and there is a dress code. To travel you need to be dressed modestly and cover your body (women as well as men). I abided by these rules, but I usually wore pants or leggings, technically covering myself but not fully adhering to the dress code.

One time, as I dropped my sister off at the bus after a visit. I was wearing a sleeveless dress without a bra. When I got on to the bus to help my sister find a seat, the woman who oversees payment and seating asked me sternly, “Are you traveling tonight?”

I told her I wasn’t.

“Please don’t ever come back on this bus dressed like that,” she snapped.

At first, I was enraged. Who was she to dictate my clothing choices when I wasn’t even a ticketed passenger? Over time, however, I’ve come to realize that I was in the wrong. I knew that interacting with this Hasidic bus entails dressing modestly, and I should have at least put a cardigan over my dress when I dropped off my sister.

This experience comes to mind whenever I read or hear stories about ultra-Orthodox men asking and even forcing women—both Jewish and gentile—to change seats on airplanes. Orthodox doctrine stipulates that men and women cannot exchange physical contact unless married—a law known as negiah.

When purchasing a ticket for a flight, or a bus ride, you need to respect the rules of the space, which in this case means sitting in the seat printed on your ticket. Just like I needed to follow the rules in the Hasidic bus setting when I chose to travel that way, the ultra-Orthodox men boarding planes owned by secular companies, with tickets they consciously reserved, must respect the rules of the airline and the communities it serves.

According to Jewish law, when one is living in a country, it is a mitzvah (commandment) to follow its laws (“dina demalchuta dina” translated as “the law of the land is the law”). By extension, when purchasing an airline ticket, one is required to follow the rules of the airline.

In order to contextualize the refusal of ultra-Orthodox men to sit next to women we need to acknowledge that they are coming from communities where an intense and all-encompassing gender separation starts at a very early age. It is likely that men who try to switch seats are doing so in order to match the high standard of modesty that is practiced in their home environments and communities. This makes sense when you hear of stories where ultra-Orthodox men are frantically and nervously trying to make seat rearrangements. If this is where it’s coming from, then this issue should not be confused as an issue of the denigration of women.

http://qz.com/400840/refusing-to-sit-next-to-a-woman-on-a-plane-isnt-devout-its-disgraceful/
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IDT Corp. plans to begin a cybersecurity “yeshiva” in September where 40 students will study computer science and the Torah, the central text of the Jewish religion. A yeshiva is a Jewish school that focuses on the study of the Torah and other texts.

The program is aimed at solving two problems: creating more cybersecurity professionals to fill vacant jobs industry-wide and generating a career path for people who live in economically disadvantaged communities. The school will be held at IDT corporate headquarters in Newark, New Jersey. Many of the first students will likely come from the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn and the Chabad-Lubavitch community – among the world’s largest Hasidic Jewish groups — where IDT Chief Security Officer and program co-founder Golan Ben-Oni lives.

The industry is lacking cybersecurity expertise and it’s become a problem for companies who are the victims of data breaches, said Nir Zuk, the co-founder and chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks Inc. Whoever gets breached tries to position it as a sophisticated cyberattack that nobody could have prevented, he said. “In reality, at least half of these data breaches are not about the sophistication of the attacker, they’re about the incompetency of the defender,” he said. Mr. Ben-Oni is trying to create a pool of experts that can deal with the really sophisticated attacks, he added. Palo Alto Networks plans to contribute funds to the program but it has not yet revealed the amount, he said.

In addition to housing the program, IDT is contributing its human resources, payroll and secretarial workforce. IDT Chairman Howard Jonas has championed the effort and IDT plans to donate about $500,000, said Mr. Ben-Oni.

“In our culture, during the first year of marriage, generally the men take a year to study the Torah,” said Mr. Ben-Oni.  The Lubavitch rebbe or rabbi wanted the men to do something after that first year such as going out and becoming a Lubavitch emissary to run community programs or to get a job, he said. By combining obligatory Torah study with a much-demanded skill, the cyber-yeshiva improves employment prospects for community members who have had trouble finding jobs. “There are a lot of people who don’t know what to do with themselves – they’re the perfect candidates,” said Mr. Ben-Oni.

At IDT, Mr. Ben-Oni had already helped start a technical program called IDT Yeshiva about 15 years ago to train students to become Cisco Systems Inc. networking engineers. After the dot com bubble burst in 2001, though, that program changed focus and atrophied. IDT’s Mr. Jonas asked Mr. Ben-Oni to get involved to reinvigorate the program. So, over the last year, Mr. Ben-Oni has been working to reset the program with a focus on producing cybersecurity professionals through two-year and four-year programs. Essex County College is providing the new program with the accreditation needed.

Over the years, Mr. Ben-Oni has also taught some of his fellow community members about cybersecurity. He’s discovered that the analytical skills taught to those studying the Torah are a good match for work in the security field. Already, other companies have begun to contact him about hiring graduates, he said. In the future, he’d like to expand the program to women and to target other communities in need. Already, companies have begun to contact him about hiring graduates, he said.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/05/05/idt-to-start-a-cybersecurity-yeshiva/
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The ex-Latin Kings gang member who converted to ultra-Orthodox Judaism after serving time in ​prison was sentenced Tuesday to another 2 1/2 to 5 years for impersonating a cop.

Roberto Eddy Santos – who legally changed his name to Avorham Gross after being locked up for a string of violent robberies in the ’90s – had pleaded guilty last month in Brooklyn Supreme Court to four charges, varying from possession of a forged device and criminal impersonation.

As part of his plea deal, Gross, 42, admitted to decking his wife’s car out with police lights and sirens and creating bogus Department of Transportation placards over the course of five years, from 2009 to 2014, prosecutors said Tuesday.

He also impersonated a cop several times between January 2013 and September 2014 by signing an official logbook in order to bypass security line at Kings County Family Court, according to court papers.

Gross was charged ​for posing as a cop with the “Child Abuse Task Force of New York City” — a sham organization that his attorney contends is authentic — and using his phony badge to arrest a person, court documents said.

He pleaded guilty to tampering with public records for signing the book, possession of forged devices for creating the DOT placards and criminal impersonation and received two sentences of 2 1/2 to five years and one of 1 1/2 to 3 years, all to run concurrently.

Gross, sporting a thick greying beard and yarmulke in court, did not speak before Judge Danny Chun handed down the sentence.

His attorney, Isaac Tamir, asked the judge to grant him permission to keep his beard when he is transferred to a prison upstate.

“He should make an application [to keep his beard] on arrival [at the prison] to be heard there,” said Chun.

Authorities were investigating whether Gross had genuinely converted to become a member of the Satmar sect but Tamir confirmed that he indeed had.

“It’s very, very hard to get a conversion … it’s a very long, hard process,” said Tamir outside the courtroom.

The attorney added that Gross didn’t pose as a cop for nefarious reasons — that he truly was an anti-child abuse advocate.

“Everybody I spoke to who knows him has good things to say to him. This is an unfortunate circumstance. He’s going to pay his dues and hopefully come out a fresh, new person,” the attorney said.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/05/gangbanger-turned-hasidic-jew-gets-2-5-years-for-cop-ruse/
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A long-awaited environmental impact study on a proposal to double the Hasidic Village of Kiryas Joel has been released.

Kiryas Joel  released the study on Friday, reporting the village will double to 42,000 people by 2025 with or without an annexation.

John Allegro, who lives right on the Kiryas Joel border, says he is against the village's expansion plans to take 507 acres.

http://hudsonvalley.news12.com/news/kiryas-joel-environmental-impact-study-released-1.10382034
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Ramapo police arrested four teenagers for allegedly throwing eggs at residents and shouting a curse word at Jews during an early morning drive through the Hasidic Jewish village.

Those arrested - three males and a female from Nanuet and Pearl River - were detained by more than 100 residents who packed the street and formed a wall around a black 2014 Toyota Corolla until Ramapo police arrived after 2:38 a.m. Sunday, Lt. Rob Lancia said.

"New Square has active volunteers who secure the village and there were hundreds of residents surrounding this vehicle," Lancia said. "They just formed a human wall and prevented them from leaving."

All four were charged with a misdemeanor count of second-degree aggravated harassment, Ramapo police Sgt. Chris Franklin said.

Lancia said the charge references harassing people based on their religion, gender, race and sexual preference. The egg throwing didn't fall under the state's hate crime law, which would rise to a felony.

"The crime was done with hate involved," especially with the shouted comment, Lancia said.

There were no injuries or property damage, he said.

Police only identified the two 19-year-olds: The driver, Daniel Brophy of Pearl River and Catherine Donnelly of Nanuet.

The others - a Nanuet 16-year-old and a Pearl River 18-year-old - are automatically eligible for youthful offender status on a misdemeanor charge and their names would be sealed, Lancia said.

The officers found the four sitting in a car at 2:38 a.m. along Washington Avenue, the village's main road to enter and exit the community.

The four were being held Sunday in the Ramapo police lock up pending arraignment.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/crime/2015/05/03/new-square-egging-teens-arrests/26828333/
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Kiryas Joel and its planning consultants released a 600-page environmental review on Friday that contends the Satmar Hasidic community will grow by 20,000 in the village and surrounding areas over the next decade regardless of whether the village annexes 507 acres from the Town of Monroe.
The draft generic environmental impact statement prepared by Tim Miller Associates, which is meant to analyze the potential impact of the annexation proposal, is built on an assumption that Kiryas Joel's leaders have long promoted and that their opponents reject: that the community's rapid and continued growth is inevitable. Using that premise, the study looks at the difference in how an anticipated 3,825 new households would be divided between Kiryas Joel and the annexation area, depending on whether the adjacent land is developed under current Monroe zoning or the higher densities that Kiryas Joel would allow if it gained control.

The consultants argue "the potential impacts of annexation relate not to population growth, but to the difference in population distribution" under one development scenario or the other.
The document is posted on a web site created for the annexation proposal (www.kj-seqra.com/507Acres). Paper copies are available for inspection at the Monroe Free Library and at Monroe Town Hall. Village officials said they plan to hold a public hearing on the impact statement in the village on June 10.

The addition of 507 acres of mostly undeveloped land would enlarge Kiryas Joel by nearly 75 percent. The consultants calculate that 3,825 housing units could be built on that land to keep pace with projected growth by 2025, at a density of 6.6 units per acre. By comparison, 1,431 units could be built there under Monroe zoning, leaving 2,394 additional homes that they say would be created inside a 691-acre village that currently has little land available for development.

The analysis attempts to counter strong opposition to the annexation proposal by suggesting that inevitable population growth means the border shift will have no effect in itself on two of the most controversial issues: the cost of social services in the Satmar community and the limited sewage treatment capacity in southern Orange County. Kiryas Joel expects population growth in the village and annexation area to generate an additional 1.3 million gallons per day of wastewater by 2025, regardless of whether annexation occurs. It projects a population of 42,297 by then.

The report calculates that future development of the annexation area ultimately would create a net tax benefit of either $1.7 million a year or $10.4 million a year for the Monroe-Woodbury School District, since households there would pay Monroe-Woodbury taxes while the students attend religious schools. The higher amount would come if annexation occurs, although that also would mean 3,825 Hasidic households "with voting rights" living in the district, according to the document. Monroe-Woodbury officials might prefer in that scenario to cede the land to Kiryas Joel school district, the consultants noted.

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20150501/NEWS/150509902/-1/RSS777
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At 12 years old, Elana Simon was diagnosed with fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a rare form of liver cancer that largely affects adolescents and young adults.

“I didn’t know much about [fibrolamellar] and it was pretty scary,” said Simon, now 19. “But I was extremely fortunate to have an incredible surgeon.”

After having her tumor removed, Simon, who grew up in New York, where her family remains active members of Temple Shaaray Tefila on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, has been “totally fine ever since.” Currently a freshman at Harvard University, Simon is majoring in computer science.

During her sophomore year of high school, while interning at a lab working on cancer research, she had the idea to genetically sequence fibrolamellar.

Simon sought the advice of her former surgeon, Dr. Michael LaQuaglia, chief of the pediatric surgical service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and learned that due to the rarity of the disease, not much research had been done.

“Just because no one had done this before didn’t mean it couldn’t be done,” Simon said. “And as someone who had this type of cancer, who better than a patient with a specific interest in this disease?”

Her father, Sandy, a biophysicist, made space in his lab at Rockefeller University, and Simon set about collecting tumor samples from other fibrolamellar patients and survivors.

Fifteen samples were ultimately sequenced by a team at the New York Genome Center, where it was discovered that they all shared the same genetic mutation.

“We were lucky that we found something weird and different,” Simon said of the discovery. While additional research is still needed, she said, interest in the disease has piqued and could lead to improved diagnostic testing and drug treatments.

In February, Simon co-authored a study, published in Science magazine, about the discovered genetic mutation.

Of the research, she said, “I kept asking why. I was willing to ask questions, and we were able to try something different and it was successful.”

JTA spoke recently to Simon about her heroes, her favorite Jewish food and what she hopes to do professionally in a few years.

JTA: What do you think are the important qualities of a hero?

Simon: I think it’s important for a hero to be both brave and determined. A hero needs to care about something, and be bold and willing to work towards their goal.

Who are your heroes?

My father and my surgeon. They are the smartest people I know and dedicate their lives to helping others unconditionally. They are humble and work as hard as they can.

Can you share with us a meaningful Jewish experience that you’ve had?

A meaningful Jewish experience for me was my involvement with Camp Simcha. This is a Jewish camp for young cancer survivors and patients, and it was one of the most fun and uplifting places I’ve ever been to. It was beautiful to see how much joy and hope everyone had, and to see how much strength people derived from their religion.

Do you have a favorite Jewish food?

I do have an addiction to egg challah.

What kind of things do you like to do for fun?

I like performing. I sing, dance and act, do theater and acrobatics. I play with my dog and hang out with my friends.

What do you think you want to do professionally in a few years?

I’m not sure, but I am definitely interested in studying computer science. It’s a powerful tool. Whether it’s doing research using computer science to study diseases or whatever I do, I want to help people.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.654475
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