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One tenant of the ritzy Williamsburg apartment building that was vacated this week — thanks to shoddy construction work ordered by notorious murdered landlord Menachem Stark — chose to ignore the city’s orders to stay away as he held a Thanksgiving feast at his residence on Thursday.

“The gas is turned off, [so] we ordered from Peter’s Since 1969,” said Victor Bill, a 27-year-old who lives on the second floor of the five-story residence at 120 S. Fourth St. “We had turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mac n’ cheese, mashed sweet potatoes and boiled spinach.”

http://nypost.com/2015/11/28/tenant-in-haunted-apartment-hosted-thanksgiving-dinner/
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He’s dead and buried, but landlord Menachem Stark — whose list of enemies was so long that cops were scratching their heads to find a prime suspect in his 2014 murder — is still making life hell for tenants, The Post has learned.

Occupants of all 20 units in a pricey Williamsburg apartment building have been left homeless for the holidays because Stark had hired contractors who did a shoddy job, causing the Buildings Department to issue an immediate vacate order Tuesday, records show.

the front door of 120 S. Fourth St. warned residents that the five-story building “has questionable structural integrity [because of] the installation of substandard structural steel columns, trusses, beams, welds.”

One of around 50 displaced renters, Cristal Ledesma, 25, lamented the awful timing on Thursday.

Units range from studios to three-bedrooms and go for $4,200 to $5,300 a month, listings show.

“We all have stuff trapped in there, textbooks and computers and everything else,” said another tenant, Melissa Yamamoto.

“I’m staying with my boyfriend. One of my roommates wasn’t so lucky. He left before we knew, so he’s going to come back and has no work clothes.”

There was no word on when the tenants could return.

Stark, whose suffocated and burned body was found in a dumpster in Long Island in January 2014, had many foes, a law enforcement source said.

“Any number of people wanted to kill this guy,” the source said.

Among them, according to those who knew Stark, were people to whom he owed money, business associates, tenants and stiffed contractors.

Police arrested construction worker Kendall Felix, 26, who claimed Stark owed him money.

The millionaire landlord and a partner bought the vacant lot at South Fourth Street and Bedford Avenue in 2006, records show.

They were forced to sell the nearly completed building — which had more than 50 violations — in 2013 to Stark’s brother-in-law Abraham Bernat during a bankruptcy proceeding, records show.

Bernat, 28, hung up on a reporter, and his management firm did not return calls.

One resident said he wasn’t surprised that a building tied to Stark would be given a vacate order.

“Every project he was involved with seemed to end up in the hole one way or another,” he said, declining to give his name. “Now it’s our turn to pay the price for his shady business practices.”

The Red Cross has offered temporary assistance to the residents.

Former resident Lindsay Freeman said management was disorganized, noting she got an evacuation notice even though she moved out a year ago.

“It’s disgusting. New York is a hard enough place to get by, especially when you’re young and just starting out,” she said. “The building looks beautiful, but it’s all held together with paper clips and gum.

“To exploit people like this you must literally have no soul.”

http://nypost.com/2015/11/26/dead-landlord-still-haunting-his-tenants-from-the-grave/
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A group of Hasidic Jews surrounded and tackled a man screaming epithets outside an Australian synagogue.

Police charged the man, who was said to be intoxicated, with one count of theft, one count of criminal damage and two counts of assault after the incident outside the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Thursday.

In several videos posted to the Facebook page of the Australian Jewish News, the man can be seen screaming at several Hasidic Jews. After a scuffle, he was pinned to the ground.

Senior Constable Anthony Myers, who arrested the man at the scene, praised the way the synagogue members had handled the incident.

“They were very calm and dealt with him very well,” Myers told the AJN.

http://www.jta.org/2015/11/27/news-opinion/world/hasidic-jews-tackle-drunk-man-outside-australian-synagogue
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State Police authorities in Monroe arrested Matthew Bauman, age 25 of Harriman, NY following an investigation into the shooting of a Hasidic man on November 24th near the Quick Shop Deli on River Road in the Village of Harriman.

According to police, their investigation revealed Bauman allegedly stole a firearm from a family member and planned on using it to commit a robbery at the deli in order to acquire money to fund his drug addiction.

The victim, Aron Weiss, age 18, of Kiryas Joel, was in the area of the deli using his cell phone when it is alleged he was accosted by Bauman said police.

Police then said Bauman attempted to take money from Weiss but was unsuccessful.

As Weiss was fleeing, he was shot one time in the upper shoulder by Bauman.

Bauman was charged with Assault in the First Degree, Attempted Robbery in the Second Degree and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree (all felony charges).

Bauman was arraigned at the Village of Harriman Court and remanded to Orange County Jail without bail.

The State Police were assisted in this investigation by the Village of Harriman Police Department and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

The charges described above are merely accusations and Mr. Bauman is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

http://hudsonvalleynewsnetwork.com/2015/11/26/kiryas-joel-man-shot-harriman/
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Fashionistas everywhere are are trading mini skirts for midi ones, and are choosing billowy jersey tunics over bodycon dresses. That's because dressing modestly is slowly becoming a more mainstream fashion trend, thanks in large part to religious Jewish and Muslim women who are bridging the gap between honoring their traditions while expressing their style.

Sisters-in-law Mimi Hecht and Mushky Notik, the founders of MIMU MAXI, will be the first to tell you that modest fashion isn't about looking "dowdy." The women, who are also Hasidic Jews, say dressing modestly is all about "ease, comfort [and] drama." Many women, regardless of their religious affiliations, would cite ease and comfort as top priorities when choosing what to wear.

The inspiration for MIMU MAXI, a brand known for its comfortable and minimalist aesthetic, came from a very real need.

"We both believe in the beauty of a more covered up, conservative look, but that doesn't mean it was easy... We're also busy mothers so we needed pieces that were comfortable, but can be easily dressed up or down," Notik told HuffPost. "Sometimes, I would often buy things that I did love, but I would have to add material to the bottom or play around with it to make it work modestly. Dressing was more complicated. And it shouldn't have to be."

So the two women joined forces to bring their shared taste to life in the form of an online fashion brand, which ships to women around the world.

MIMU MAXI follow the requirements of Jewish law and modest dressing, which include higher necklines, sleeves past the elbow and longer lengths, but it's not just about religious obligation, Hecht told HuffPost.

"On a deeper level, our designs really do say that the way you dress is important, and when you love what you wear, and you're comfortable and able to express yourself, you are a happier and more productive, even healthier person," she said.

"We didn't feel comfortable and 'in sync' with the clothes we were wearing, which took up brain space. So we had to make the clothes we wanted to wear,"  she continued. "And apparently, what started with something we wanted to do for ourselves, has really taken off; women of all ages and backgrounds identify with this need."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mimu-maxi-hasidic-jewish-women-dressing-modestly_5654b4b1e4b0d4093a5973bd
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A counselor at a Michigan Jewish day camp who is accused of distributing child pornography has been released on $10,000 bond as he awaits trial.

Matthew Kuppe, 21, who was arrested in August, is not dangerous and deserves to be presumed innocent, a federal judge said Tuesday, the Detroit Free Press reported.

In issuing the order to release Kuppe, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said, “Pretrial release is the norm, not the exception.”

Under the terms of his bond, Kuppe was released into home detention, with a responsible adult present at all times, WXYZ-TV reported. Also, he was put on a GPS tether and his travel was restricted. Kuppe may not have contact with anyone under the age of 18 and cannot use the Internet.
Kuppe, a former counselor at the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit day camp and student at Michigan State University, allegedly took nude pictures of three 5-year-old boys in the JCC locker room and posted the photos, along with other child porn, on a Russian website.

In his ruling, Cohn said the charges against Kuppe are “extremely serious,” but not violent. He said the children photographed “were not engaged with other persons and … did not know they were being photographed.”

 Kuppe’s arrest came in response to a Department of Homeland Security investigation.

Although the assistant U.S. attorney argued against Kuppe’s release, Cohn said psychologists who examined him concluded it was unlikely he would pose a threat. In addition, he said, Kuppe’s “universe has been completely upended since his arrest. The same goes for his parents.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward, saying she has “a duty to the victims in this case,” urged Cohn in court not to release Kuppe, arguing there is no condition that could guarantee Kuppe would not harm the community. Cohn, however, sided with the defense, which argued that the government was creating a “scare scenario.”

If convicted, Kuppe, who worked at the JCC day camp for two summers, faces up to 30 years in prison.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.688291 
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At its root, the federal lawsuit filed last week against several East Ramapo yeshivas and education leaders asks a religious community that venerates tradition to radically change one of the foundations of its communal life.

Filed by a public interest law firm on behalf of seven unnamed plaintiffs who fear retaliation from their communities if they go public, the complaint takes aim at the state, the East Ramapo school district and four Hasidic yeshivas for failing to provide male students with basic secular studies such as English and mathematics.

The suit — a rare legal action for Hasidim, who have their own religious courts — delves into the inner workings of the private religious schools and calls for a number of changes that would fundamentally alter their traditional approach to education.

Among the demands named in the lawsuit are the introduction of secular coursework for up to one-third of the school day, the hiring of "competent" instructors who teach in English; a monitoring and enforcement mechanism; accurate enrollment figures to help determine accountability for taxpayer funds; and an implementation date as soon as September 2016.

Rabbi Mayer Schiller, a Monsey resident and lifelong educator, said that such changes would result in a profound shift.

"They want to have a certain pure limited vision of life. They feel that exposure to these (secular) subjects would hurt that," he said. "Their fears are not unfounded. What would emerge would be something different (than what they are now)."

Schiller believes that change can only come about slowly and from the inside of the community. "I believe there are changes that could be made that would not change the very fabric of the community," Schiller said.

Plaintiffs in the case include families whose children attend yeshivas in the district and former yeshiva students who are now over 18. It comes after various members of the Hasidic community spoke against a lack of secular education in recent months.

"Ultra-Orthodox/Hasidic parents should not have to choose between a religious education and one that will teach their children how to read and write,' said Laura Barbieri of the public interest law firm Advocates for Justice, which filed the suit. "They are entitled to both and the State is obligated to ensure that they receive it."

The complaint alleges that four Hasidic yeshivas in Monsey, Spring Valley and New Square do not teach English, "basic literacy, calculating, and verbal skills necessary to enable children to eventually function productively as civil participants."

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/investigations/2015/11/21/e-ramapo-yeshiva-lawsuit-seeks-epic-changes/76105708/
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The participants of the rally shouted “United Catholic Poland! National radicalism! Down with the European Union!” They then went on to set fire to an effigy of a Hasidic Jew dressed in traditional clothing, peot (side curls) and cap. “Recalling anti-Jewish stereotypes proves that we are still divided and that cooperation is not possible,” Piotr Kadlcik, a Polish-Jewish activist, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Hatred for migrants comes from the same place as the classic hatred for Jews,” Chief Rabbi in Poland, Michael Schudrich, told the Jerusalem Post. The previous Polish government pledged to take on some 7,000 asylum seekers as part of an EU plan to resettle refugees from Syria and Eritrea. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the newly appointed Law and Justice (PiS) government has voiced its concern that these immigrants could include terrorists. Several ministers have said that Poland should rethink its pledge, and, if need be, withdraw from it completely.

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/229645,Polish-demonstrators-burns-Jewish-effigy
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Nordstrom became the latest retailer to land in hot water with customers over a piece of clothing intended to be humorous but instead offended some shoppers.

The upscale department store stopped selling Faux Real’s ‘Chai Maintenance’ Hanukkah sweater last week after angering some customers who saw it as playing on clichés about Jewish women and promptly took to Facebook to complain. ‘Chai’ in Hebrew means life and sounds very much like the English word “high.” The sweater, as seen below, also included the term “JAP,” short for “Jewish American Princess.”

“I’m disappointed to see that Nordstrom is selling such an offensive item that perpetuates negative stereotypes of Jewish women,” one user wrote on Nordstrom’s Facebook page. Many other posts echoed those sentiments.

http://fortune.com/2015/11/15/nordstrom-sweater-jewish/
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The world of contemporary art may be a fractious place, but there’s one thing that almost everyone involved agrees about: Orthodoxy is bad. Slavish obedience to any dogma — aesthetic, academic, political, religious and otherwise — is anathema to Modern and contemporary art. Independence, freedom, originality, authenticity, critical thinking, defiance of authority and so forth: These are the prevailing values of art today, and they are what most progressive art schools try to teach. Unorthodoxy is today’s orthodoxy. That’s a paradoxical problem for “Unorthodox,” the Jewish Museum’s new exhibition of putatively unorthodox works by 55 artists from around the world.

The titular theme aside, it’s an engaging, often entertaining and intermittently exhilarating show. With about 200 works crowded into tight spaces walled in by temporary partitions, it has the feel of an Outsider Art fair — in a good way. The paintings, drawings, collages, assemblages, ceramics, weavings and videos on view are variously funny, funky, quirky, eccentric, idiosyncratic and visionary. It’s a plus, too, that few if any of the artists are widely known beyond the places where they live. Probably the most famous participant is the writer William T. Vollmann, here represented by juicy, expressionist paintings of women said to portray his female alter ego.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/arts/design/unorthodox-faces-paradox-at-the-jewish-museum.html?_r=0
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A rabbinical court in Jerusalem has awarded permanent custody to a father whose two children had been removed from his home by the welfare services because the mother of the children, who lives in the United States, “lives with a non-Jew and isn’t interested in the Jewish religion.”

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.684911 
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It was recently revealed that Israeli special forces carried out a daring operation to rescue the last Jewish family in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The Jewish Chronicle reports that preparation for the mission began months in advance. First an Israeli-American businessman named Moti Kahana sent a message to the family, whose name has not been released, that he wanted to get them out of the war-torn country. Despite the constant dangers in Syria, though, the family was too afraid to even take the chance on escaping.

Kahana, who has a number of connections with rebel forces, soon heard reports that ISIS was closing in on the family and decided to get them out, whether they liked it or not.

Without revealing precisely how or with whom he coordinated his plans, Kahana set the wheels in motion for the IDF to make another tally in its history of saving stranded Jews, a list that already made its mark in Yemen and Ethiopia.

Once the time came, three soldiers knocked on the family's front door. The 88-year-old matriarch answered, fearing that Assad's soldiers had come to take them all away. Instead, the soldiers ordered the seven people present that they could each take one bag and that they must get into a waiting minibus.

After the minibus began moving, the soldiers handed out Syrian passports and said that they would soon be free.

The vehicle was stopped at an ISIS checkpoint, but the family was able to convince the guard that they were refugees trying to escape from Assad. The guard was so impressed by their claims that he even called other checkpoints, instructing them to let the minibus through.

It took them 36 hours to cross the hundred kilometers to the Turkish border. Once out of Syria, they drove to a rented home in Istanbul, where Kahana was waiting.

However, their problems were not yet over.

One woman, who is referred to as Gilda, was married to a Muslim man and had converted to Islam. While the rest of the family quickly received Israeli identity cards and resettled in Ashkelon, the Jewish Agency informed Gilda that people who voluntarily convert to a religion other than Judaism lose their right of return.

According to Kahana, the two chose to return to Syria rather than remain in a Syrian refugee camp inside of Turkey. He says that he is still working to get them out again, but he is less optimistic about a second operation.

"I am so frustrated with the Sochnut," he told the Jewish Chronicle. "They said she is not Jewish enough for us. The Israelis have been trying to hide this story. They screwed up."

A representative of the Jewish Agency confirmed that Gilda and her husband could not make aliyah because she had converted to Islam, and that the Interior Ministry gave the final order on the case.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203045#.VkFr8rerTs1
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Each year, when registering their children for private school, parents in the all-Hasidic village of New Square must agree in writing to follow a detailed list of very specific rules — or risk the expulsion of their children from the only school in town.

For example, mothers are banned from driving, and they must shave their heads and wear only clothing that extends at least five or six inches below the knee. The far more abbreviated list of rules for fathers requires them to pray regularly with a quorum and refrain from cutting their beards.

This fall, however, New Square authorities introduced several new rules that reflect the community’s fears about the dangers of the Internet. The changes have renewed critics’ condemnation of the Skverer sect’s attempts to control its followers — particularly women.

The new rules include:

Mothers are prohibited from using smartphones — even for business purposes.
Mothers and fathers must cease using WhatsApp, a popular smartphone messaging application.
As announced last month on a large flier taped to the village's synagogue wall — no one may use cellphones without web filters.
Authorities posted the notice after it was discovered that some adults were keeping second, unfiltered phones in addition to their approved “kosher” ones.

The rules are the ultra-Orthodox sect’s latest attempt to keep the Internet out of the hands and minds of its followers for fear that exposure to the secular world will lead to moral decay and community disintegration. Radios, televisions, Internet connections and newspapers are also banned in the small Rockland County village. Guided by the community’s spiritual leader, Rebbe David Twersky, followers, known as Skverers, strive toward the Hasidic ideal of living a hallowed life, in which even the most mundane action is sanctified.

“We are human beings. We also have families and we live the way life was given to us,” said Yenti Holczler, a New Square grandmother of more than 50. “Our way of doing things is trying to do it spiritually, the way the Torah brings it for us."

The sect originated in 19th century Ukraine but the Rockland County village was founded in 1954. Former Skverer Hasid Shulem Deen said the rebbe and his advisors “are really afraid that people are undermining the insular nature of this community that they have worked for decades and decades and decades to maintain. They only way they can maintain that is to clamp down hard on the rules.”

As the home of the Skverer rebbe, New Square is the epicenter of the Skverer sect which Deen estimates may number 15,000 followers worldwide. The Skverers of New Square — with 7,700 people occupying less than half a square mile — are extreme, even among highly observant Jews, said Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox umbrella organization, Agudath Israel of America.

'Recipe' for rules

"You have more than 7,500 people who eat the same foods, go to same institutions, get the same kind of education and all look to the rebbe as paramount leader ... and are really dependent economically on being in this community," said Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queens College CUNY and expert in contemporary orthodox Jewish communities. "That’s a recipe for a lot of rules.”

Though the community is small, it is growing very fast and contributes thousands of private-school students to the cash-strapped East Ramapo school district, which has struggled to balance the needs of public and private schools. And New Square's extremism —- particularly when it comes to cutting off women's access to information and transportation —- is troubling to defenders of civil liberties.

“If private citizens are asking people to voluntarily pledge to this kind of commitment, it would, in my opinion, be antithetical to principles and values of America," said Norman Siegel, the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "There should be an open, robust debate about whether this approach is consistent with what America and New York state are supposed to be about.”

Agudath's Shafran said followers find deep meaning in the rules.

“One way the community's religious leaders have of stating the standards they believe to be best for the community is to spell out requirements like those (cited) for enrollment in the community's private schools," he said.

The ban on women driving exists only in a few of the strictest Hasidic enclaves. And its requirement that men and women walk on opposite sides of the street to preserve modesty is also rare. The village's lack of interaction with outside communities and its use of Yiddish for nearly all communication contributes to its insularity.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/investigations/2015/11/04/new-square-rules/74471378/
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A community board in New York voted 38-0 against a Chabad plan to build a four-story school and community center in its neighborhood.

Community Board 13 in Cambria Heights, Queens, a middle-class, predominately African-American neighborhood where the last Chabad rebbe is buried, rejected the proposal on Monday, the Queens Chronicle reported.

An organization affiliated with the Hasidic sect is seeking permission to demolish three houses and build a four-story facility with dormitory space for up to 62 students near the site where Rabbi Menachem Schneerson is buried. The plan requires special approval because it is in a neighborhood zoned for single-family homes.The proposed building would be located 259 feet from the Ohel Chabad Lubavitch complex on the border with Montefiore Cemetery, where Schneerson is buried.

The complex, which hosts tens of thousands of visitors to Schneerson’s gravesite each year, has long been a source of friction, according to the Queens Chronicle, with residents complaining that the visitors block traffic, block driveways and even relieve themselves on private lawns.

At the meeting, attorney Sheldon Lobel defended Keren Peulos, the Chabad group seeking to erect the building, noting that it is a different entity from the one that runs Ohel Chabad.

The rebbe “dedicated his life to educating children,” Lobel said. “There are children from India, Africa, who need to go to school. Hopefully, this will be the site of the school where they can send them.”

Lobel also said that the federal and New York State constitutions grant great latitude to religious institutions for zoning regulations.
However, state Sen. Leroy Comrie, whose district includes Cambria Heights, responded that the institution should instead be built in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the location of Chabad world headquarters. He also said that a dorm does not qualify as a religious institution.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.683518
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