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Does Los Angeles Orthodox Life Have Its Own Jerry Sandusky?

Levi Ben Avraham — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 06:07:18 +0000

You've heard about the "former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who was arrested over the weekend on more than 40 counts of child sexual abuse."

What if we had a Jerry Sandusky-type in LA's Orthodox community? Could we have a powerful man who's able to isolate underage teen boys, invite them over for Shabbos, ply them with alcohol, molest them, and then have the rabbis orchestrate a cover-up for the good of the community?

That's the exact story I heard about in 2008 but the boy in question was told not to talk to me. The rabbis covered things up. The family of the boy did not go to the secular authorities. They did not press criminal charges or file a civil lawsuit or even go to a Beit Din (Jewish law court). The powerful man was protected.

In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky story, I tried again this week to get the boy to talk to me but found out he had committed suicide.

Three Hebrew Boys To Spend The Rest Of Their Lives In Prison For Investment Fraud

Levi Ben Avraham — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 04:35:45 +0000

The so-called "three Hebrew boys" were not even Hebrews. They were Colombians and they perpetuated their frauds on goyim.

Oy! Goyim bilk goyim but Jews will be blamed.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

Prosecutors said the three men traveled to churches and other gatherings across the Southeast several years ago and spoke to soldiers near military outposts, preaching how faith and an investment in what they said were foreign currencies would at least double their money, wipe out credit card debt and pay off mortgages in months.

Read On

December 13, 2010

Modern Orthodox Rabbis In Los Angeles Seek To Certify Business Ethics

Levi Ben Avraham — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:19:32 +0000

My first thoughts when I heard about this plan.

I hope the execution of this plan is more effective than some of the spelling in this new letter: "PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL INFORMATION SHARED WITH THE PEULAT SACHIROR ANY OF ITS REPRSENTATIVES WILL BE HELD IN THE STRCTEST OF CONFIDENCE. THE CERTIFRICATION AGREEMENT WILL RFLECT THIS IN WRITING."

Here's the letter going out to Jewish business owners in Pico-Robertson in particular and then to the wider city:

Dear Business Owner:

We are writing to invite to join us in an inspiring new project that we have undertaken for the benefit of our community.

As you know, Judaism has a rich tradition and volumes of treatises on business ethics, particularly in the area of ethical labor standards and practices. In an effort to raise awareness of this area of Jewish law and ethics, we have recently formed an organization that will offer local establishments the opportunity to promote and publicize their compliance with labor standards and practices. We are calling this organization Peulat Sachir: The Ethical Labor Initiative .

Peulat Sachir is offering – at no charge – a Covenant Document, to be signed by you and a representative of Peulat Sachir that will hang in your window and will favorably promote your business as being in compliance with proper labor practices. In addition, all “covenanted” businesses, restaurants and markets will be publicized free of charge in the printed bulletins of Beth Jacob Cong., Bnai David – Judea Cong., Kehillat Yavneh, and Young Israel of Century City, who will also take your participation into favorable account whenever choosing vendors for synagogue events. On the enclosed page you will find all of the details as to how you can qualify for the Covenant Document. Peulat Sachir’s ultimate goals are to elevate the level of communal awareness concerning the importance of labor law, and to raise the standards of labor law compliance throughout the Jewish community, focusing initially on the Pico Blvd. strip. We are hoping that you will be excited about being among the pioneers who will work with us to launch this groundbreaking project.

The areas that Peulat Sachir will certify are:

1. Minimum Wage – The current minimum wage for employees in the state of California is $8 an hour.

2. Overtime – Non-exempt employees must be compensated at one-and-a-half times their regular rate of pay for any hours worked over 8 in one day or 40 in one week. Non-exempt employees must be compensated at double their regular rate of pay for any hours worked over 12 in one day.

3. Meal and Rest Breaks – Employers must provide a 30-minute off-duty lunch break on or before the fifth hour of each employee’s shift. A second 30-minute off-duty meal period must be provided on before the tenth hour of each employee’s shift. In addition, employers must provide a paid 10-minute rest break for every four hours worked by an employee.

4. Workers’ Compensation Insurance – Employers must carry appropriate workers’ compensation insurance.

5. Leave Policies – Employers with over 50 employees must give employees who have been with the company for over one year required leaves for caring for a newborn child, caring for a seriously ill family member or for recuperating from a serious health condition in accordance with the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and California Family Rights Act. FMLA also requires that the employee return at a level of pay equal to what he/she was making before taking leave.

6. Discrimination/Harassment Policies: Employers must have policies to discourage and deal with illegal discrimination (e.g., based on age, sex, gender, race, etc.) and harassment. Employers must make employees aware of a mechanism within the company to complain about discrimination and harassment.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL INFORMATION SHARED WITH THE PEULAT SACHIROR ANY OF ITS REPRSENTATIVES WILL BE HELD IN THE STRCTEST OF CONFIDENCE. THE CERTIFRICATION AGREEMENT WILL RFLECT THIS IN WRITING.

Businesses interested in receiving a Peulat Sachir Covenant Document should contact Peulat Sachirat info@peulatsachir.com about applying. (A member of the Peulat Sachir board may also follow up on this letter with a phone call, inviting your participation.)

We would like to emphasize that Peulat Sachir’s goal is not to hurt businesses which may be in non-compliance with federal or state labor laws, but to encourage the patronage of those with proper labor practices. We hope that by increasing awareness of these issues within our community, we and the rest of the world will be able to look at our local businesses as examples of how to treat employees fairly and legally.

Sincerely,

# of lay leaders from among the group

[Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky

Rabbi Daniel Korobkin

Rabbi Elazar Muskin

Rabbi Steven Weil]

HERE'S THE COVENANT:

The Worker’s Wage: Our Community’s Labor Ethics Covenant

Whereas:

The Torah commands us to pay our workers promptly and accurately, and asks us to recognize that their lives are in our hands (Devarim 24:15).

The Halacha requires us, as members of a larger society, to observe all of the civil “laws of the land” (dina d’malchuta) (Choshen Mishpat, 369:11).

Our patrons are entitled to know that the employees working in the establishments they patronize are being treated fairly and in accordance with halacha.

Therefore, {Name of business}, represented by the undersigned, hereby affirms that it is in compliance with all local, state, and federal laws enacted to ensure that we treat our employees appropriately, as is consistent with our spiritual commitments toward them.

These laws include the following:

Payment of Minimum Wage
*

Payment of Overtime Wages
*

Provision of Meal and Rest Periods
*

Granting of Family and Personal Leave
*

Maintenance of Worker’s Compensation Insurance
*

Institution and Upholding of Anti-Discrimination/Anti-Harassment/Anti-Retaliation Policies

We further commit to comply with all laws relating to mandatory training, including attending, and having our employees attend, educational seminars reviewing our respective rights and responsibilities to each other. These seminars will be conducted by the volunteers of Peulat Sachir, our partners in this community covenant, or by other qualified advisors.

This covenant is subject to renewal on an annual basis and may be revoked at any time by Peulat Sachir, in its sole discretion. We further hereby agree to welcome the volunteers of Peulat Sachir to inspect a random sampling of our relevant business records on a semi-annual basis, and to interview our employees to confirm our compliance herewith.

Signed this _______ day of ________, 57__, corresponding to the ________ day of ___________, 20__.

Signed: Business owner

Signed: Representative of Peulat Sachir

Chief Rabbi Is One Of The Boys

Levi Ben Avraham — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:54:18 +0000

From Haaretz:

Maariv's report last week that Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger had propositioned a young French cameraman during an interfaith conference in Spain a couple of years ago barely caused a ripple on the surface of the religious establishment swamp. This weekend's part two, which will detail Metzger's oligarch-sponsored trips around the world and the way he has enlisted himself in the service of Chabad interests, will most likely sink out of sight just as quickly. A controversial chief rabbi of Israel is not rare – certainly not all of Metzger's predecessors were paragons of virtue – but it is hard to imagine such allegations being raised against any of them without some kind of public response.

One obvious reason for this indifference is that nobody really has any expectations of Metzger. No list of the hundred most influential Ashkenazi rabbis in Israel would include his name, and he probably wouldn't even get into the second hundred. And besides, this isn't the first time his name had been dragged through the mud. Similar sexual accusations were leveled against him on the eve of his appointment five years ago, and he only managed to extricate himself from a bribe-taking indictment by the skin of his teeth. The few who still regard the institution of the Chief Rabbinate with any degree of respect find comfort, at least, in the fact that Metzger's Sephardi counterpart, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, is considered a formidable halachic authority – but even he is extra-careful not to cross swords with the much more powerful ultra-Orthodox leaders, and also had his own brush with the police a few years ago when his son and wife were arrested for abducting his daughter's "unsuitable" suitor.

As it is, the concept of a chief rabbi is pretty outlandish. Originating from the days when Jewish communities needed a religious leader to represent them in the corridors of power, it has little place in a democracy – in Israel or the Diaspora. For secular Jews, the Chief Rabbi is meaningless, if not a nuisance, but for most religious Jews he is just as superfluous, since they don't need anyone to choose a rabbi for them. Their spiritual allegiances are determined by birth, family, geography and personal preference, not by the electors who choose a new pair of chief rabbis every ten years.

But while being an irrelevancy, the various chief rabbis serve as useful keys to the psyche, collective aspirations and neuroses of the communities they purport to serve. Instead of being shining and exalted beacons of probity, the chief rabbis are a lot more like the rest of us than we think.