Latest news with #OrthodoxJew
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Businessman Morris Talansky, witness in Ehud Olmert trial, passes away at 92
According to the verdict, Talansky transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to former prime minister Olmert over several years. Jewish-American businessman Morris Talansky passed away on Monday evening at the age of 92. Talansky, who also goes by "Moshe," was known for serving as a key witness in the "Cash Envelopes" affair, in which former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was convicted of receiving money illegally while serving as mayor of Jerusalem. According to the verdict, Talansky transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to Olmert over several years. At the trial, Olmert said in 2011 that he denied ever demanding cash bribes from Talansky, and added that the Jewish-American philanthropist's testimony at the trial claiming he lent Olmert tens of thousands of dollars was nothing but a made-up fantasy. Olmert responded by saying he received money from Talansky in the form of campaign donations. Olmert's defense later said in September of that year that the donations from Talansky were legal, after prosecutors alleged that the former prime minister failed to report the donations to the State Comptroller. The indictment said that Talansky gave Olmert the money as a personal loan, which the Israeli leader allegedly stashed away unreported to the tax authority. He was laid to rest in a cemetery in Beit Shemesh, according to Ynet. He was an Orthodox Jew from Long Island, New York. Both he and Olmert jointly founded the New Jerusalem Fund, a charity aimed at raising money for projects in Israel's capital. Yaakov Lappin, Ron Friedman, and Joanna Paraszczuk contributed to this report.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Protesters call for Cleveland Heights mayor to resign as wife is accused of sending antisemitic text messages
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio (WJW) — Dozens of protesters made their voices heard, calling for Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren to resign, while holding signs against Jewish hatred. The protest took place before Monday night's city council meeting. Inside, accusations against the mayor's wife Natalie McDaniel grew louder as the mayor sat silent. 'You are a public servant. We trusted you when we elected you,' said one resident. 'Saw a little purple jacket': Teen rescued child from river after deadly Fremont train accident Another said, 'These are serious allegations that reflect a growing and dangerous trend of casual antisemitism being brushed aside.' In a complaint filed on May 14 with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission against the city of Cleveland Heights, the mayor's wife is accused of sending antisemitic text messages targeting Jewish colleagues and residents. In one text message, targeting Planning Commission Chair Jessica Cohen, who is an Orthodox Jew, McDaniels references her as a 'brood mare who is destined for the glue factory — a derogatory statement referencing Jewish women having many children. The complaint also details other comments about other Jewish city officials, accusing Orthodox colleagues of nepotism and for having inappropriate relationships. 'For some saying that this is your wife's problem: You are the mayor,' said one resident. 'You could have turned off access to keys, you could have not granted permission to areas of the building that are not public access.' Road closed! How busy construction season is affecting Cuyahoga County highways City council members also spoke out. 'Her words have created personal anxiety, anxiety amongst staff and most recently anxiety among our Jewish community and those who support the statement,' said Gail Larson. Anthony Mattox Jr. said, 'It's extremely dangerous to remove all accountability from this council and anything that has happened in this city and place it solely on one person.' FOX 8 News reached out for a comment to the city. Officials said they will send a statement to the press once it is prepared. This November, Cleveland Heights will have its second mayoral election in the city's history. It's unclear if Seren will seek reelection. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
04-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Jewish Student Who Took On Harvard
Shabbos Kestenbaum moved through the crowd that came to hear him speak early last month, shaking hands and trying to mask his shyness. He looked collegiate in tortoiseshell glasses and a barely there ginger beard. But to the more than 300 people in attendance, who were mostly Jewish, he was a rock star. He was the kid who got into Harvard, made his parents proud and then exposed antisemitism from inside the ivory tower. At the event, a scholarship ceremony in Lake Success, N.Y., for high school students fighting injustice, Mr. Kestenbaum would be speaking about antisemitism at Harvard, next to a survivor of genocide in Rwanda. 'You're the Harvard guy?' a rabbi asked him. 'Don't hold it against me,' Mr. Kestenbaum replied. Over the last year and a half, Mr. Kestenbaum, a 26-year-old Orthodox Jew from the Bronx, has become the face of the Republican-led campaign against antisemitism in America's top universities. His determination to battle his alma mater in court helped build momentum for the Trump administration to challenge what it calls the 'ideological capture' driving college campuses to the political left. Mr. Kestenbaum has documented his unlikely trajectory on social media, with photos of himself with President Trump and other politicians. He was a second-year student at Harvard Divinity School when protests over the war in Gaza broke out on campus. A former high school debate captain, he took naturally to appearing in news reports as a conservative student voice and joined a round table of students in Washington to discuss antisemitism at universities. In May 2024, he graduated from the divinity school. And then in July, he was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention. In the months since, Mr. Kestenbaum's agenda for higher education has become nearly identical to Mr. Trump's. To root out antisemitism, Mr. Kestenbaum believes schools should have, among other things, stronger disciplinary measures against protesters who violate the law or university policy; reform of curriculum that he says amounts to left-wing indoctrination; and the deportation of international students who have broken the law. Mr. Kestenbaum said he had wealthy patrons who were helping finance his litigation, though he would not reveal their identities. He casually mentioned that he spoke 'with the guys on DOGE,' or the Department of Government Efficiency, a group that Elon Musk has led to reduce the size and spending of the federal government. 'They reached out to me, and I'm going to sound braggadocious, but I'm active in this space,' he said in one of several conversations with The New York Times. 'I was more than happy to help.' In January 2024, he was among six Jewish students at Harvard who sued the university, accusing it of becoming 'a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment.' The case was settled, the day after Mr. Trump's inauguration, but Mr. Kestenbaum refused to join the settlement. He broke off on his own and continued to litigate. His lawsuit describes a poisonous atmosphere at Harvard. As an example, he cited in court papers a social media message that taunted a 'pro-genocide sophomore' who 'looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked.' His complaint said that Harvard ignored his many, increasingly angry reports that pro-Palestinian activists were harassing Jewish students. It also said that he was stalked on campus by protesters who were trying to intimidate him, and that he was kicked off a divinity school WhatsApp group chat for his views. Harvard declined to comment on Mr. Kestenbaum's claims. But its lawyers said in court documents that the university 'has not been, nor will it ever be, deliberately indifferent' to complaints of antisemitism. On Tuesday, the school published two reports, totaling about 500 pages, documenting widespread antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus and proposing reforms. The report on Islamophobia said that Arab, Muslim and Palestinian students had also reported experiencing harassment, such as being called slurs like 'terrorist' and 'towelhead.' These students and faculty members said they felt they could not freely express their political opinions on campus, according to the report. The two reports were accompanied by a letter from Harvard's president, Alan Garber, apologizing for not having done more to protect students. But protesters and free speech advocates have said that efforts to stop antisemitism on campuses have often been too heavy-handed. They argue that the definition of antisemitism that Harvard uses, which it recently adopted as part of the settlement of the first lawsuit that Mr. Kestenbaum was a part of, is so broad that it has been used to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech. Mr. Kestenbaum has not always identified with conservative causes. He registered as a Democrat when he turned 18 and supported Bernie Sanders. But like some other lifelong Democrats who are Jews, he shifted right after the campus protests. While some Democrats view Republican calls to fight antisemitism skeptically, Mr. Kestenbaum said that this was not the time to shrink from 'making a fuss,' and that he was willing to speak aloud what many Jews believe but keep to themselves. 'Shabbos Kestenbaum has given voice to the anger, horror and indignation that is felt by a large number of people,' said Kenneth Marcus, the chief executive of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which fights antisemitism on campuses. The group had separately sued Harvard and settled. His popularity reflects a deepening fear among Jews that they are no longer entirely welcome on American campuses, his supporters say. 'Yesterday I was in Dallas,' Mr. Kestenbaum said recently. 'Tomorrow I go to Miami.' Not long ago, he spoke in Jerusalem, where he was a guest in the home of Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel. In two weeks, he will speak in Amsterdam. And on Thursday, he was at the White House, in the Rose Garden, as Mr. Trump signed an executive order establishing the Religious Liberty Commission during a National Day of Prayer event. Mr. Kestenbaum said he spoke to Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, about expediting the deportation of international students who broke the law and took a selfie. Some believe his activism is both sincere and opportunistic. After the Republican convention, Shaul Magid, a visiting professor of modern Judaism at the divinity school, wrote a gentle rebuke of Mr. Kestenbaum in The Crimson, the student paper at Harvard. 'The fact that Kestenbaum, who knows my leftist views on Israel, chose to speak at the R.N.C. after sitting in my classroom for a year, demonstrates that professors don't indoctrinate,' Dr. Magid wrote. 'They encourage independent thought.' In an interview, Dr. Magid said that he and Mr. Kestenbaum had been 'pretty close.' He agreed that there were problems with how the divinity school and the university dealt with the protests. 'But I think that he was exaggerating the situation,' he said. Mr. Kestenbaum, the sixth of seven children, said he comes from an outsider background. His parents, a rare book dealer and an early childhood educator, are British immigrants, and at the divinity school, he said, he stood out for being an Orthodox Jew. The school held community tea once a week, he said, 'and there was never any kosher food.' 'Being an Orthodox Jew who supported the land of Israel as a religious mandate was something that was never once accepted,' he added. One of his favorite professors was David Wolpe, a prominent rabbi from Los Angeles who was a visiting scholar. Rabbi Wolpe caused a stir by resigning from a Harvard advisory panel on antisemitism, saying he did not feel he could make a difference. He applauded his former student for sticking to his cause. 'He was uncompromising and unstinting in calling out what was going on,' Rabbi Wolpe said in an interview. Mr. Kestenbaum relishes his new role — the travel, the people, the sense of higher purpose. He says he wants to be seen as inspirational, not oppositional. As far as he knows, he is the only Trump supporter in his extended family, he said recently, sitting in the book-filled living room of his childhood home. Growing up, he said, the Friday night dinner table was open to everyone — Jews and non-Jews, Biden and Trump supporters. A doormat is inscribed 'Welcome to Joe and Kami's House,' referring to the family's cats, Joe and Kamala. The family adopted and named them as 'good luck charms' before the 2020 election, Mr. Kestenbaum said. Asked what kind of career his advocacy might lead to, he suggested perhaps a role in public policy. For now, he is planning to move to Los Angeles for a job at PragerU, a nonprofit 'hub for pro-American content online,' according to its website. In the role, he said he will preach ideas like 'the importance of religion, the importance of free market capitalism, the importance of holding institutions of higher learning accountable.' He hopes to reach the next generation of conservatives.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Yahoo
NYC man accused of violently shoving wheelchair-bound neighbor to the ground in spat over dogs: ‘How dare you?'
A Brooklyn man allegedly violently shoved a wheelchair-bound neighbor onto the pavement during a shocking caught-on-video squabble that some fear could stoke racial tensions in Crown Heights. The incident erupted March 29 along Lincoln Place between Levi Kabakov and Troy McLeod, who was walking his two muzzled German Shepherds without leashes. McLeod, 50, told News12 that Kabakov, 30, urged him to cross to the other side of the street with his dogs. Kabakov, who is an Orthodox Jew, allegedly rushed out to the street, telling McLeod, who is black, he did not want the German Shepherds to scare his small children, McLeod explained to News12. But before he could, Kabakov allegedly struck McLeod twice with a wooden bench from his yard before pushing him out of his wheelchair and into a parked car, the video — posted to Reddit — showed. The wooden bench is visible in the 67-second-long clip. Kabakov and McLeod talk over each other as a second Orthodox man tries calming the irate dad. The woman filming the video repeatedly called out for someone to call 911, and yelled at Kabakov to stop touching McLeod. The video caught Kabakov pushing McLeod hard, and overturning his chair. McLeod's head is seen slamming against the side of the parked vehicle. 'How can you do that to a man in a wheelchair? The children were fine,' said the woman recording, as other neighbors come to McLeod's defense, yelling, 'How dare you?' at Kabakov. Police said Kabakov then threw a wooden block at McLeod while he was still on the ground. 'I was scared, I was trying to get back up, I was in shock and thank God someone was there,' McLeod told the station. 'It felt like a vengeful vibe to me. . . There was no need for it.' McLeod told News12 his dogs were muzzled the entire walk, and noted they're so well-trained, they stood in place, even as he was being attacked. McLeod told cops he sustained injuries to his hands, shoulders, and torso. Kabakov was arrested the next day and charged with two counts each of assault, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated menacing, and attempted assault. He was arraigned that same day and released without bail pending a July 17 court appearance. Kabakov did not respond to calls seeking comment. McLeod could not be reached for comment. Crown Heights was the setting for one of the city's ugliest periods in August 1991 after a motorcade carrying Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad Jewish religious movement, unintentionally struck and killed 7-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. The boy's death led to a mob of black teens chanting 'Let's go get a Jew' to surround and kill 29-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish graduate student from Australia. Three days of rioting damaged scores of Jewish businesses and homes. District Leader Anthony Beckford condemned the attack on McLeod, and called on members of the community 'to not allow their anger about this situation manifest into hatred or resentment.' He said he'll be urging District Attorney Eric Gonzalez's office 'to prosecute this case to the fullest extent, to make a clear example that behavior like this will not be tolerated by anyone.' Rabbi Yaacov Behrman of the Jewish Future Alliance and Rabbi Shmuel Rosenstein and Rabbi Zalman Friedman from the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council issued a joint statement, reading, 'There is absolutely no justification for assaulting someone in a wheelchair — ever. The perpetrator has been arrested and charged.'
New York Post
26-04-2025
- New York Post
Arrest made after NYC man hurt while being forced from wheelchair during wild melee
A Brooklyn man allegedly violently shoved a wheelchair-bound neighbor onto the pavement during a shocking caught-on-video squabble that some fear could stoke racial tensions in Crown Heights. The incident erupted March 29 along Lincoln Place between Levi Kabakov and Troy McLeod, who was walking his two muzzled German Shepherds without leashes. McLeod, 50, told News12 that Kabakov, 30, urged him to cross to the other side of the street with his dogs. Kabakov, who is an Orthodox Jew, allegedly rushed out to the street, telling McLeod, who is black, he did not want the German Shepherds to scare his small children, McLeod explained to News12. 4 Levi Kabakov was arrested on March 30. News 12 But before he could, Kabakov allegedly struck McLeod twice with a wooden bench from his yard before pushing him out of his wheelchair and into a parked car, the video — posted to Reddit — showed. The wooden bench is visible in the 67-second-long clip. Kabakov and McLeod talk over each other as a second Orthodox man tries calming the irate dad. The woman filming the video repeatedly called out for someone to call 911, and yelled at Kabakov to stop touching McLeod. The video caught Kabakov pushing McLeod hard, and overturning his chair. McLeod's head is seen slamming against the side of the parked vehicle. 'How can you do that to a man in a wheelchair? The children were fine,' said the woman recording, as other neighbors come to McLeod's defense, yelling, 'How dare you?' at Kabakov. 4 Troy McLeod told News12 he was 'scared' during the assault. News 12 Police said Kabakov then threw a wooden block at McLeod while he was still on the ground. 'I was scared, I was trying to get back up, I was in shock and thank God someone was there,' McLeod told the station. 'It felt like a vengeful vibe to me. . . There was no need for it.' McLeod told News12 his dogs were muzzled the entire walk, and noted they're so well-trained, they stood in place, even as he was being attacked. McLeod told cops he sustained injuries to his hands, shoulders, and torso. 4 Kabakov is due in court in July. News 12 Kabakov was arrested the next day and charged with two counts each of assault, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated menacing, and attempted assault. He was arraigned that same day and released without bail pending a July 17 court appearance. Kabakov did not respond to calls seeking comment. McLeod could not be reached for comment. Crown Heights was the setting for one of the city's ugliest periods in August 1991 after a motorcade carrying Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad Jewish religious movement, unintentionally struck and killed 7-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. 4 Both of McLeod's dogs are well-trained, and muzzled when they walk off-leash, he said. News 12 The boy's death led to a mob of black teens chanting 'Let's go get a Jew' to surround and kill 29-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish graduate student from Australia. Three days of rioting damaged scores of Jewish businesses and homes. District Leader Anthony Beckford condemned the attack on McLeod, and called on members of the community 'to not allow their anger about this situation manifest into hatred or resentment.' He said he'll be urging District Attorney Eric Gonzalez's office 'to prosecute this case to the fullest extent, to make a clear example that behavior like this will not be tolerated by anyone.' Rabbi Yaacov Behrman of the Jewish Future Alliance and Rabbi Shmuel Rosenstein and Rabbi Zalman Friedman from the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council issued a joint statement, reading, 'There is absolutely no justification for assaulting someone in a wheelchair — ever. The perpetrator has been arrested and charged.'
