OBDSM: The Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Domination Sado-Masochism Connection
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Who are we?
We are women and men, Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Hasidim, Europeans, Americans, Asians, Lithuanians, yeshiva educated and university graduates, old and young, passionate and cool. We share a fetish or kink in our makeup or proclivity. I.e. our appetites, leanings or tendencies require/desire Bondage or Domination or Submission or Sadism or Masochism or any permutation of the above for sexual function.
What are we OBDSMs doing?
We are practicing the following kinky/fetish/perverted behaviors in our personal sexual activities. Some of us, (lucky ones?) with consensual spouses, others look for it outside the home.
Age Play
Acucullophallia (being cut)
Algolagnia (love of pain)
Altocalciphilia (high heels)
Amputees
Arse – ass play
Asphyxiaphillia (breath play)
Autoerotica (masturbation)
Blindfolds
Blood
Body hair
Bondage
Branding
Breast and nipple torture
Caging
Candle wax
Chastity devices
Chinese balls
Cling film
Cock and ball torture
Coprophilia (shit play)
Collar and lead
Cupping (suction of the skin)
Dacryphilia (arousal from tears)
Denim
Depilation (shaving)
Diaper fetishes
Discipline
Dildos
Domination
Ears
Exhibitionism
Electro-torture (EMS TENS units)
Feathers
Fisting
Gangbangs
Handcuffs/shackles
Hair pulling
Klismaphilia (douching/enema)
Lace
Latex
Leather
Masks
Nipples
Nurse/doctor fetish
Oral fixation
Paddling/spanking
Play piercing
Play rape
Piercings
Power exchange
The rack
Religious (Rebbe – rebbetzin play)
Retifism (shoes or boots)
Rimming
Role-playing
Rubber
Scent
slave/Master
Tatooing
Tongue fetish
Total power exchange (24/7)
“Toys”
Transvestitism (cross-gender dressing)
Urolagnia (piss-play)
Vibrators
Voyeurism
Whips
If you are wondering why so many of the hitherto anonymous activities you have been enjoying have weird Pseudo-Latin-Scientific names? It has been suggested that their purpose is simply to remind you that nothing you have done is so unique it has not already been named.
What could possibly be Orthodox Jewish in this context?
Orthodox Jewish describes you if you are trying to be Shomer Shabbat, Kashrut, Taharat HaMishpacha, and you don’t consider the UJA Kol Nidre appeal your first and only Tzedaka obligation.
Obviously, some of the activities mentioned above are explicitly forbidden Torah prohibitions. Some, such as those posing a risk to health, are covered by blanket prohibitions against dangerous activities, (V’Nishmartem M’Od L’Nafshoteichem). Others by prohibitions against disgusting behaviors, (B’Al Teshakatzu et Nafshoteichem) Most are prohibited even if they are permissible technically, (Naval Bi’Rishut HaTorah).
We do them anyway, and that is the reason for this List.
Many of us have felt internally self- exiled from the mainstream of Jewish life by our kinks. As practicing members of the Orthodox Jewish Community, our own synagogue society and Torah culture has prevented us from identifying and/or corresponding with one another. Many OBDSMs have expressed the sentiment that while they can imagine never having sex again, they cannot imagine surviving in the closet another day. This list attempts to provide safe place to chat and be heard.
What is OBDSM not?
This forum is not a place for mental health professionals to solicit business. It is not sex-therapy or group therapy. It is not a place to pick up sex-partners or exchange pictures. It is not Hefker!
Did I actually write that?
What is encouraged or discouraged on the OBDSM list?
Well, e.g. writing and asking about the Halachic controversy over anal-sex is ok. Ditto for writing and asking about body piercing or where to find a doctor who is sensitive to the concerns of Orthodox Jewish gay women and men, or how to address safety issues. Writing and telling people on this list what they may or may not do about anal-sex, body piercing or anything else is a no-no.
Also not ok is posting political screeds from either Peace-Now or YESHA. Announcements are ok. Advice is ok. Boring, repetitious posts concerning new virus alerts are not.
Talking about a compulsion to use a burning Shabbat candle in order to obey some extreme kinky desire is ok. Telling someone they are a Sheygetz/Shiksa because they use a particular brand of cling film that does not have an OU Hechsher is not ok.
Do you get the picture?
Is there an OBDSM bottom line?
Disrespectful posts about another member of this list will earn instant and permanent exclusion from the list, without warnings.
Must I write into the list?
Well, it would be nice hear from you once in a while. Especially when you first arrive. We’d like to know something, anything about you. Where you are, e.g. Williamsburg-Brooklyn, or Bondi-Beach- New South Wales. Tell us please what gender you are, and whatever information about yourself you feel safe telling other anonymous people. It’s ok to “lurk” on the list and not contribute anything, preferring to remain an observer. Feel free to jump in and say something about something you think is important.
What are OBDSM Munches?
Munches are monthly or occasional get-togethers, usually in a café or restaurant outside your local Jewish neighborhood where we meet for an hour or two of chat and non-cholov-yisroel coffee. Their purpose, like this list, is to break out of our isolation and help develop some type of network of like-minded people.
Enjoy, enjoy!
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Spiritual Leader, Molester
Protect Our Children writes:
It has come to my attention that Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks who has had serious allegations involving the sexual molestation of young children (see website below) will again be speaking again at Young Israel of Briarwood, Thursday, October 14, 8:30 pm at 84-75 Daniels St., Briarwood, NY 11435 - Topic: 'Beginings -- How They Impact Our Daily Lives.'
1) I call upon the OU and the Young Israel organization to take immediate action to cancel the program scheduled Thursday, October 14, 8:30 pm at Young Israel of Briarwood featuring speaker Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks.
Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks has a long documented history of serious allegations of sexual abuse of young children and sexual exploitation of women he counsels.
See: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/bryks_ephraim.html
News video: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/offender/brykslq.rm
This is not the first time Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks has spoken at this Young Israel. Mere weeks ago officials at Young Israel of Briarwood were informed of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks' scheduled program September 2, 2004 and failed to take any steps to cancel the program.
2) I call on the OU, Young Israel and the RCA to fully investigate this situation and take immediate steps to prevent further occurrence.
3) I call on the OU, Young Israel, RCA and youth organizations such as Hillel and NCSY to ban any programs involving the Bukharian Jewish Organization of Youth and all related Bukharian student organizations. The Bukharian Jewish Organization of Youth has been promoting Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks for the past years see:
http://www.bukharian.com/
http://www.bukharian.com/shiurim.php
One of the leaders of this organization is Shlomo Fuzaylov. Fuzaylov is a student of Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks from his days as principal at Queens Torah Academy. Fuzaylov was one of the leaders of student protests in support of Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks as administrators considered removing him from the school (which they ultimately did).
The Bukharian Jewish Organization of Youth has received funding and sponsorship from Astor Brokerage Limited, which I am told is associated with Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks' in-laws (he worked there in the 1990s).
4) Further, I call upon the Orthodox community and its leadership to end their tolerance and silence regarding Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks and his continuing activities in the Orthodox Jewish community.
a. Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks has a mikvah operated out of his home:
see:
http://www.queensvaad.org/mikvah/
Name: Mikvah of Kew Gardens
Address: 84-33 116th St. Kew
http://www.google.com/search?sa=X&oi=fwp&pb=f&q=%22(718)+849-0065%22+ny
and
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&pb=f&q=%22ephraim+bryks%22+ny&pb=f
b. Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks' Hachnosas Kallah G'mach is promoted by the
Vaad Harabonim of Queens website.
http://www.queensvaad.org/articles/article.cfm?Art_ID=25
c. Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks' continues to counsel women.
1994 - Documentary Transcript - CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
Program Prime Time News, Network CBC
Investigative documentary: "Unorthodox Conduct"
Date February 28, 1994 - Time 21:00:00 ET - End 22:00:00 ET
Guest Sara and Mortin Leven, parents; Kristen Balmer, Pychotherapist; Dr.Adrian Fein, friend of Bryks; Judy Silver, fmr. synagogue board member; Ephraim Bryks, rabbi; Kovi Smolak, fmr.student; Patti Cohen, teacher; Nathan Kabrinski, synagogue board member; Keith Cooper, director, Child and Family Services; 5 unidentified persons.
Host Peter Mansbridge and Pamela Wallin
Mansbridge: This is the story of a powerful man, and the shocking accusations that he abused that power with children he was supposed to protect. For more than 10 years, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks was the spiritual leader of a small synagogue in Winnipeg and principal of its school.
But now, in a joint investigation, Prime Time News and CBC Winnipeg have
uncovered some disturbing stories.
Four former students who accuse Rabbi Bryks of sexual abuse. A warning now, this documentary contains graphic language and its content may offend some viewers. You will also see some home video of school concerts, we want to stress that none of the children in those videos is the subject of our documentary.
Here's Danielle Keefler.
Judy Silver: We could not believe, it was hard to believe that this man would do anything wrong.
Mortin Leven: I think he's not just a fraud and -- not a charlatan, but really wicked. And I know how many people he's hurt.
Sara Leven: I was tremendously angry and so deeply hurt that someone should do that to a small child.
Danielle Keefler: The sounds of innocence that once filled the Torah Academy in Winnipeg are no more. The Orthodox Jewish day school closed its doors in 1991, more than 10 years after it was built from scratch by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. But some former students say what happened to them at his hands has left haunting memories, and scarred lives.
Sara: He was a kid who always had a smile on his face.
Mortin: He was also very vivid and fun-loving.
Keefler: Innocent and trusting. Daniel Leven grew up in a close-kit Jewish Orthodox family; two brothers, two sister, parents Sara and Mortin, who wanted tradition, values instilled in their children. They enroled five-year-old Daniel in the Torah Academy.
Sara: Education is almost everything. It -- Jewish education teaches a person how to live for the rest of their life.
Keefler: Daniel went to the school from kindergarten to Grade 2. Then the Levens moved away to Montreal, later to Toronto. As a teenager, Daniel's smile masked his pain. His parents had separated. The boy was in distress, unable to concentrate in school, prone to explosive fits of rage. At 14, he started therapy. Three years later, he stunned his mother and father.
Sara: Last May, he started having -- May '93, he started having memories of being sexually abused by the rabbi and principal at Torah Academy. He was sitting on his lap, and the rabbi -- in his office in the rabbi's office, and the rabbi was -- it's so hard for me to say this --
Mortin: He was fondling.
Sara: He was fondling his genitals first over his clothes, and then he opened his pants. And afterwards, he gave him a candy. It was a peppermint one, with the blue wrapper, I think it says "Elite" on it. He even remembered the candy.
Mortin: The internal mechanism for a flash second said, "It's got to be a mistake here, I'm not hearing this." But instantly, I knew that he was telling me the truth.
Sara: And then he said he had a memory, and he started coughing and spitting out mucous, and he sat up, and we got tissues for him. And he was coughing and spitting up and spitting up, and he started crying. And he said that he was in the office, and Rabbi Bryks put his penis in Daniel's mouth. And he kept coughing, and I encouraged him to spit it up, spit everything up. That was another memory.
Mortin: He did say that Bryks said things. I wondered why he kept quiet. And then he said, "Well, Bryks said to me, God will punish you if you speak."
Keefler: After 10 years, Daniel's silence was broken. His childhood torment revealed. Last June, he went to the Toronto Police. He gave a statement on tape. His psychotherapist, Kristen Balmer was there.
Kristen Balmer: He said, "I don't want this to continue any more." He said, "I don't want any other person to have to go through what I went through," and I watched him cry, and there's no question he was telling the truth.
Keefler: Daniel tucked away his trauma, spoke of it rarely. But with paint, he let memories, images flow on to paper. In mid-September, Daniel's mother got an unexpected phone call, it was the Toronto Police, their tape machine was faulty, it hadn't recorded Daniel's statement.They wanted him to do it all over again.
Sara: The interview was supposed to take place, I guess, about a week later. A week -- I'm sorry, I can't say it. He never lived to make another interview.
Mortin: He took his own life on Yom Kippur in the afternoon.
Keefler: On the day of atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Daniel hanged himself. Toronto Police had to drop the case, the complainant was dead. A month after Daniel's suicide, a memorial service in Winnipeg. A family friend delivered a message from Daniel's father, a message that hinted at what may have caused Daniel to take his own life.
Rabbi: Most of you here today didn't really know our son and brother Daniel, or at least not since he was very young. You're here to show concern for his family. Some of you may even be here because his death is a grim reminder of a bleakly sinister stain on the Jewish community.
Keefler: Ephraim Bryks grew up in Denver, Colorado. His father, Lejzor, was a respected Orthodox rabbi, a renowned scholar. In 1971, Lejzor Bryks hanged himself amid rumours of financial scandal. That same year, Ephraim began rabbinical studies. In 1978, he looked for work. The Herzalia Adas Yeshurun Synagogue in Winnipeg needed a rabbi --24-year-old Bryks got the job.
Dr. Adrian Fein: He's one of the most exceptional human beings I known.
Keefler: Dr. Adrian Fein became a close friend of the rabbi in Winnipeg.
Fein: An unbelievably hard worker, a person with tremendous interpersonal skills, and an ability to be quite exceptional with either young children or 90-year-old congregants.
Keefler: Bryks injected new life to the small orthodox congregation, new members flocked to synagogue, drawn in by his aura. Judy Silver was a synagogue board member.
Silver: I'd almost call it a cult, a cultish personality, where he was very
charismatic.
Home videotape of Ephraim Bryks: and now for the final moment to see who graduates and goes on to Grade 1.
Keefler: Within two years, Bryks started a Jewish say school. To many, he became a hero.
Home videotape of child: Without further delay, our very own Rabbi Bryks.
Home videotape of Bryks: I would like to express my thanks.
Keefler: Bryks had more than charisma. He had his own rules. Local orthodox practice wasn't good enough. He alone set the standard for his own followers -- what was kosher, what wasn't. He even set up his own religious court.
Fein: He made a stance on issues that he felt there was no compromise that could be allowed. So his critics, of course, could say he was a megalomania, or this is him wanting to set himself up. I don't think that was his agenda.
Keefler: To some, a visionary, to others, a man obsessed with power. The clash polarized the community. Bryks questioned other rabbi's Jewishness. The questioned his credibility.
Keefler: In a community journal, Bryks boasted a degree there of law from the state of Israel, that he sat as a member of a religious court in Israel, and had a court room. The truth is, he was a rabbinical student, not a judge. And the state doesn't give out law degrees. In "The Jewish Post and News," Bryks plagiarized newspaper columns copied word for word from another rabbi's book. No permission, no credit. In November 1987, Winnipeg's council of Rabbis wrote a scathing letter to the editor. They accused Bryks of simple "plagiarism," "theft." Bryks' lawyer threatened the newspaper with a lawsuit if the letter were published. It was never printed.
videotape of Bryks: You should all have a program in front of you.
Keefler: That was just the first time lawyers would jump to Bryks' defence. Within weeks, the rabbi again faced serious accusations, his reputation on the line; spiritual leader, school principal, suspected of questionable behaviour with students.
Kovi Smolak: He would be sitting on the bench, and he'd be saying hello to kids, saying good morning, and he'd pick one kid out of the group coming in, and he would say hello and put them on his lap, and tickle them, and you know -- and he's laugh, and be very extra friendly towards them, including me sometimes. And he would tickle them along the whole-- along their bodies.
Keefler: Former student Kovi Smolak says Bryks also played games with boys in their bathing suits at the swimming pool.
Smolak: He would kind of like make a cracking noise, and then he would run his fingers like that, like along here, or shoulders or here, down -- sometimes he would stop here, or sometimes he would just continue going on just down the legs, like that. Like moving his fingers around.
Keefler: For the eight years Smolak was a Torah Academy student. He saw nothing wrong with Bryks' incessant touching. And many teachers and parents welcomed his warm, demonstrative style. When teacher Patti Cohen saw Bryks with a girl on his lap in the school hallway, she didn't like it.
Patti Cohen: I felt uncomfortable with it. I mentioned it to one or two people at the time. And they thought I was being too uptight about it.
Keefler: What people didn't see, many didn't believe. Bryks counselled women, studied with teenage girls, all behind his closed office door. Orthodox Jewish law forbids men from touching or even being alone with a female over the age of three who isn't family. A 14-year-old complained the rabbi often sat on her lap, touch her, tickled her, and talked about sex.
Once, she says, he even licked her face. Synagogue board member Nathan Kabrinski heard the girl's story.
Nathan Kabrinski: This struck me as very inappropriate, and I felt that it should be dealt with.
Keefler: The board didn't go to the police. Didn't contact child welfare agencies. Instead, board members set up their own private inquiry.
Judy Silver.
Silver: We were trying to try him without it going public. We were trying to protect the synagogue.
Keefler: That December 1987, the board, Bryks and his lawyer heard the evidence. The teenager repeated her story. Two women also came forward, accused Bryks of making unwanted sexual advances. They weren't believed.
Kabrinski: The people who brought forth these concerns against the rabbi were publicly humiliated and insulted and called liars. It was at this point that I felt that the whole process that I was participating in was a sham.
Keefler: For three nights, accusations, legal threats, personal attacks.
Kabrinski: We were being threatened collectively for taking a position against the rabbi, that would result in a legal suit. And second of all, we were being threatened individually, because of information that the rabbi had about us and our personal lives, that would be used against us.
Silver: He said quite clearly, I have secrets on all of you.
Keefler: On New Years Day 1988, a final board meeting. Word got out, more than a hundred people rushed to the synagogue. They feared Bryks would be fired.
Kabrinski: The whole auditorium of the synagogue was filled with people shouting and screaming.
Keefler: Board members cast their ballots. The rabbi wasn't fired. Judy Silver and eight other members quit in protest. They paid a price.
Silver: The community at large was incensed. His supporters were even more incensed, and I and my children were shunned. My child was spat on in the synagogue.
Keefler: Dr. Adrian Fein says Bryks' opponents were on a witch hunt.
Fein: Rational, sane, friendly, good people, "God-fearing people" became rabid seekers of the destruction of the rabbi, thinking that he had done these terrible things.
Keefler: The board backed Bryks, but finally asked Winnipeg child and family services to investigate. For two months, social workers talked to 45 people, students, teachers and parents. When the agency issued its report in March 1988, the rabbi supporters called it an exoneration. The board considered the case closed. Bryks kept his job.
Kabrinski: He created the community and he could do no wrong. And so calling him into question was really calling the community into question. It was just not acceptable to do that.
Keefler: The report found Bryks hadn't broken any criminal law. But it did find his tickling and touching "neither appropriate nor professional." And it warned, "If there is a child in the school that is currently being abused, the dynamics of the reaction of staff, fellow students and other adults over the past couple of months might prevent any child from coming forth with disclosure." That's exactly what happened to one girl, who didn't want to be interviewed on camera. A former student told us what she didn't tell Child and Family Services, that Rabbi Bryks fondled her breasts, once laid completely on top of her, touched her, tickled her all the time. When a social worker asked questions, the girl kept quiet. She wasn't the only student who kept a secret. We found another child who claimed he was victimized. In 1989, a year after the Child and Family Services investigation, a seven-year-old boy went to the Winnipeg Police. His parents watched from the next room, listened, as the boy using a doll, alleged Rabbi Bryks molested him in Grade 1. The couple is disguised to protect their son's identity.
Unidentified Parent 1: He showed on the dolls that he had been basically --
I guess, fondled, masturbated --
Unidentified Parent 2: Rubbed.
Unidentified Parent 1: Rubbed, rubbed would be the word. He used the word
"tickled."
Unidentified Parent 2: The rabbi would comment -- get him out of the classroom during a session of class, take him up to the office.
Unidentified Parent 1: And he threatened him.
Unidentified Parent 2: He threatened him that if he were to say this to anyone, the big boys would come and beat him up.
Keefler: Bryks was brought in for questioning by the police. Then let go. Police asked Manitoba's senior crown attorney for an opinion. The word came back, no charges.
Unidentified Parent 1: We were called one day and told that the crown wasn't going to prosecute.
Father: Because they felt that it would be a child's word against the rabbi's word.
Keefler: We asked Child and Family Services why it didn't reopen its investigation into the Torah Academy after the boy went to the police.
CFS director Keith Cooper.
Keith Cooper: It was decided that it would not be productive to try and go in and talk to all the children in the school because of the highly charged atmosphere. That just sort of blocked off children's ability to respond and so on.
Keefler: That atmosphere took its toll on the school, children were pulled out. Bryks stayed on until 1990. Then left Winnipeg. The Torah Academy closed. But we found another child who can't close that chapter of her life. A fourth student, this couple's daughter claims she was molested.
Unidentified Parent 3: It's horrifying, and it's unbelievable.
Keefler: When we come back, we'll have that girl's story, and where Rabbi
Bryksis today.
(Commercial Break)
Keefler: The name of the school has been wiped from the building, but memories are etched in the mind of a 14-year-old girl.
Unidentified Parent 3: I felt unbelievably numb.
Keefler: Last November, this couple's daughter told them she was molested by
Rabbi Bryks in Grade 2. They're disguised to protect the girl's identity.
Unidentified Parent 3: Rabbi Bryks would take her out of class and would take her into his office during school time, and he would make her take off her underwear and -- her stockings, and then he would fondle, her genitalia. She remembers it happening many times. She told me that he told her that if she ever told anybody, that God would punish her.
Unidentified Parent 4: The most painful recent event since her disclosure for me was going up to see how she was in her bedroom. It was just quiet, and I just wanted to see how she was. Going into her bedroom, she was sitting in her closet curled up in a fetal ball listening to Barney tapes with a little Barney book in her hand. I couldn't deal with that.
Keefler: The 14-year-old is in counselling. Her parents say she isn't ready to go to the police.
Unidentified Parent 3: I mean, she's so fragile that this has to be on her own time.
Unidentified Parent 4: She also knows about another boy who did go to the police and nothing happened. Rabbi Bryks is still out there, still teaching school.
Keefler: After Bryks left Winnipeg, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Montreal planned to hire him as principal. A group of parents protested. They'd learned of the investigations by police and Child and Family Services in Winnipeg. The Rabbi wasn't hired. Rabbi Bryks' job search took him across the border to New York City. In 1990, a new Jewish high school also called the Torah Academy opened in Queens. It offers Grade 7 to 12 for both young men and women, most of whom are recent immigrants. In spite of the controversy that followed Bryks from Winnipeg to Montreal, he was hired as the high school's principal. Today, Rabbi Bryks is a success story in Queens' Orthodox community. The school was desperate for a principal, desperate to give young Russian Jews a place to study. Bryks started with an empty building. He now has 400 students, a familiar story, a story we wanted
to talk to him about. Over the phone, he said that "Winnipeg is a part of my life that's behind me" and refused to be interviewed. W
e went to see him in person. Rabbi Bryks, I'm Danielle Keefler with CBC Television. I just wanted to have a moment of your time, Sir, to give you some information on some very serious allegations that have come to our attention.
Bryks: Thank you, but as I mentioned to you yesterday, I really prefer not to discuss this.
Keefler: Daniel Levin, a boy who was at your school, Torah Academy --
Bryks: Thank you very much. I wish you a lot of success.
Keefler: He alleges that you sexually abused him, sir. Did you sexually abuse Daniel Levin?
Bryks: I do not wish to discuss this. Thank you.
Keefler: Did you sexually abuse any children at the Torah Academy?
Bryks: I really have no comment, thank you.
Keefler: Sir, we've spoken to a number of families. A number of their children have come forward and, in great detail, have alleged that you sexually abused them. How do you explain that?
Bryks: I really have no comment.
Keefler: These are very serious allegations, and they're coming forward in
great detail. Are you saying these children are lying?
Bryks: I have no comment.
Keefler: Is there anything you'd like to say also?
Bryks: No. Thank you.
Keefler: Bryks' employers in New York say they checked out his past, and all
they dug up was unsubstantiated rumour, but they knew Child and Family Services investigated the man in Winnipeg, knew he wasn't hired in Montreal. The national body that services all Jewish day schools in North America has no authority over who is hired. The schools are on their own. In Winnipeg, the school's ward, the community, stood by Rabbi Bryks. Many people still do. Joel Mislovski, the board's president at the time, and other board members refused to be interviewed. In a letter, the board defended its decision to keep Bryks on, saying "There were no further occurrences." Many in the Jewish community want the door on the Bryks' affair kept shut, but not the victims' parents.
Unidentified Parent 1: It's time for the community to stop covering it up.
I think there's a -- great fear in the Jewish community because of anti-Semitism that we can't air our dirty laundry, and it's time -- and the Jewish community really has a lot to answer for here.
Keefler: Former board member Judy Silver has many regrets.
Silver: We thought we could keep it among ourselves, keep it a secret, that
no one ever has to know that this happened in our synagogue. Yes, we were ashamed. We were ashamed that we hired this man and let this happen.
Mortin: The irony is you send your child to a school where you think, this of all places, he will be safe.
Sara: We have lost a child through this and nothing, nothing that is ever done to Rabbi Bryks could ever bring him back. Daniel can never come back. His life was destroyed by this.
Keefler: Mortin Levin reaches out to his son every day, a prayer to help guide Daniel's departed soul. Sara Levin mourns through paint therapy.
After a year of mourning, a headstone will replace a simple marker in a Toronto cemetery, Daniel Levin's final resting place. For Prime Time News, I'm Danielle Keefler.
Copyright Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1994. All rights reserved. For
duplication, distribution or exhibition rights to any material contained
herein, copyright release must be received from the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation.
It has come to my attention that Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks who has had serious allegations involving the sexual molestation of young children (see website below) will again be speaking again at Young Israel of Briarwood, Thursday, October 14, 8:30 pm at 84-75 Daniels St., Briarwood, NY 11435 - Topic: 'Beginings -- How They Impact Our Daily Lives.'
1) I call upon the OU and the Young Israel organization to take immediate action to cancel the program scheduled Thursday, October 14, 8:30 pm at Young Israel of Briarwood featuring speaker Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks.
Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks has a long documented history of serious allegations of sexual abuse of young children and sexual exploitation of women he counsels.
See: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/bryks_ephraim.html
News video: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/offender/brykslq.rm
This is not the first time Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks has spoken at this Young Israel. Mere weeks ago officials at Young Israel of Briarwood were informed of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks' scheduled program September 2, 2004 and failed to take any steps to cancel the program.
2) I call on the OU, Young Israel and the RCA to fully investigate this situation and take immediate steps to prevent further occurrence.
3) I call on the OU, Young Israel, RCA and youth organizations such as Hillel and NCSY to ban any programs involving the Bukharian Jewish Organization of Youth and all related Bukharian student organizations. The Bukharian Jewish Organization of Youth has been promoting Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks for the past years see:
http://www.bukharian.com/
http://www.bukharian.com/shiurim.php
One of the leaders of this organization is Shlomo Fuzaylov. Fuzaylov is a student of Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks from his days as principal at Queens Torah Academy. Fuzaylov was one of the leaders of student protests in support of Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks as administrators considered removing him from the school (which they ultimately did).
The Bukharian Jewish Organization of Youth has received funding and sponsorship from Astor Brokerage Limited, which I am told is associated with Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks' in-laws (he worked there in the 1990s).
4) Further, I call upon the Orthodox community and its leadership to end their tolerance and silence regarding Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks and his continuing activities in the Orthodox Jewish community.
a. Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks has a mikvah operated out of his home:
see:
http://www.queensvaad.org/mikvah/
Name: Mikvah of Kew Gardens
Address: 84-33 116th St. Kew
http://www.google.com/search?sa=X&oi=fwp&pb=f&q=%22(718)+849-0065%22+ny
and
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&pb=f&q=%22ephraim+bryks%22+ny&pb=f
b. Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks' Hachnosas Kallah G'mach is promoted by the
Vaad Harabonim of Queens website.
http://www.queensvaad.org/articles/article.cfm?Art_ID=25
c. Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks' continues to counsel women.
1994 - Documentary Transcript - CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
Program Prime Time News, Network CBC
Investigative documentary: "Unorthodox Conduct"
Date February 28, 1994 - Time 21:00:00 ET - End 22:00:00 ET
Guest Sara and Mortin Leven, parents; Kristen Balmer, Pychotherapist; Dr.Adrian Fein, friend of Bryks; Judy Silver, fmr. synagogue board member; Ephraim Bryks, rabbi; Kovi Smolak, fmr.student; Patti Cohen, teacher; Nathan Kabrinski, synagogue board member; Keith Cooper, director, Child and Family Services; 5 unidentified persons.
Host Peter Mansbridge and Pamela Wallin
Mansbridge: This is the story of a powerful man, and the shocking accusations that he abused that power with children he was supposed to protect. For more than 10 years, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks was the spiritual leader of a small synagogue in Winnipeg and principal of its school.
But now, in a joint investigation, Prime Time News and CBC Winnipeg have
uncovered some disturbing stories.
Four former students who accuse Rabbi Bryks of sexual abuse. A warning now, this documentary contains graphic language and its content may offend some viewers. You will also see some home video of school concerts, we want to stress that none of the children in those videos is the subject of our documentary.
Here's Danielle Keefler.
Judy Silver: We could not believe, it was hard to believe that this man would do anything wrong.
Mortin Leven: I think he's not just a fraud and -- not a charlatan, but really wicked. And I know how many people he's hurt.
Sara Leven: I was tremendously angry and so deeply hurt that someone should do that to a small child.
Danielle Keefler: The sounds of innocence that once filled the Torah Academy in Winnipeg are no more. The Orthodox Jewish day school closed its doors in 1991, more than 10 years after it was built from scratch by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. But some former students say what happened to them at his hands has left haunting memories, and scarred lives.
Sara: He was a kid who always had a smile on his face.
Mortin: He was also very vivid and fun-loving.
Keefler: Innocent and trusting. Daniel Leven grew up in a close-kit Jewish Orthodox family; two brothers, two sister, parents Sara and Mortin, who wanted tradition, values instilled in their children. They enroled five-year-old Daniel in the Torah Academy.
Sara: Education is almost everything. It -- Jewish education teaches a person how to live for the rest of their life.
Keefler: Daniel went to the school from kindergarten to Grade 2. Then the Levens moved away to Montreal, later to Toronto. As a teenager, Daniel's smile masked his pain. His parents had separated. The boy was in distress, unable to concentrate in school, prone to explosive fits of rage. At 14, he started therapy. Three years later, he stunned his mother and father.
Sara: Last May, he started having -- May '93, he started having memories of being sexually abused by the rabbi and principal at Torah Academy. He was sitting on his lap, and the rabbi -- in his office in the rabbi's office, and the rabbi was -- it's so hard for me to say this --
Mortin: He was fondling.
Sara: He was fondling his genitals first over his clothes, and then he opened his pants. And afterwards, he gave him a candy. It was a peppermint one, with the blue wrapper, I think it says "Elite" on it. He even remembered the candy.
Mortin: The internal mechanism for a flash second said, "It's got to be a mistake here, I'm not hearing this." But instantly, I knew that he was telling me the truth.
Sara: And then he said he had a memory, and he started coughing and spitting out mucous, and he sat up, and we got tissues for him. And he was coughing and spitting up and spitting up, and he started crying. And he said that he was in the office, and Rabbi Bryks put his penis in Daniel's mouth. And he kept coughing, and I encouraged him to spit it up, spit everything up. That was another memory.
Mortin: He did say that Bryks said things. I wondered why he kept quiet. And then he said, "Well, Bryks said to me, God will punish you if you speak."
Keefler: After 10 years, Daniel's silence was broken. His childhood torment revealed. Last June, he went to the Toronto Police. He gave a statement on tape. His psychotherapist, Kristen Balmer was there.
Kristen Balmer: He said, "I don't want this to continue any more." He said, "I don't want any other person to have to go through what I went through," and I watched him cry, and there's no question he was telling the truth.
Keefler: Daniel tucked away his trauma, spoke of it rarely. But with paint, he let memories, images flow on to paper. In mid-September, Daniel's mother got an unexpected phone call, it was the Toronto Police, their tape machine was faulty, it hadn't recorded Daniel's statement.They wanted him to do it all over again.
Sara: The interview was supposed to take place, I guess, about a week later. A week -- I'm sorry, I can't say it. He never lived to make another interview.
Mortin: He took his own life on Yom Kippur in the afternoon.
Keefler: On the day of atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Daniel hanged himself. Toronto Police had to drop the case, the complainant was dead. A month after Daniel's suicide, a memorial service in Winnipeg. A family friend delivered a message from Daniel's father, a message that hinted at what may have caused Daniel to take his own life.
Rabbi: Most of you here today didn't really know our son and brother Daniel, or at least not since he was very young. You're here to show concern for his family. Some of you may even be here because his death is a grim reminder of a bleakly sinister stain on the Jewish community.
Keefler: Ephraim Bryks grew up in Denver, Colorado. His father, Lejzor, was a respected Orthodox rabbi, a renowned scholar. In 1971, Lejzor Bryks hanged himself amid rumours of financial scandal. That same year, Ephraim began rabbinical studies. In 1978, he looked for work. The Herzalia Adas Yeshurun Synagogue in Winnipeg needed a rabbi --24-year-old Bryks got the job.
Dr. Adrian Fein: He's one of the most exceptional human beings I known.
Keefler: Dr. Adrian Fein became a close friend of the rabbi in Winnipeg.
Fein: An unbelievably hard worker, a person with tremendous interpersonal skills, and an ability to be quite exceptional with either young children or 90-year-old congregants.
Keefler: Bryks injected new life to the small orthodox congregation, new members flocked to synagogue, drawn in by his aura. Judy Silver was a synagogue board member.
Silver: I'd almost call it a cult, a cultish personality, where he was very
charismatic.
Home videotape of Ephraim Bryks: and now for the final moment to see who graduates and goes on to Grade 1.
Keefler: Within two years, Bryks started a Jewish say school. To many, he became a hero.
Home videotape of child: Without further delay, our very own Rabbi Bryks.
Home videotape of Bryks: I would like to express my thanks.
Keefler: Bryks had more than charisma. He had his own rules. Local orthodox practice wasn't good enough. He alone set the standard for his own followers -- what was kosher, what wasn't. He even set up his own religious court.
Fein: He made a stance on issues that he felt there was no compromise that could be allowed. So his critics, of course, could say he was a megalomania, or this is him wanting to set himself up. I don't think that was his agenda.
Keefler: To some, a visionary, to others, a man obsessed with power. The clash polarized the community. Bryks questioned other rabbi's Jewishness. The questioned his credibility.
Keefler: In a community journal, Bryks boasted a degree there of law from the state of Israel, that he sat as a member of a religious court in Israel, and had a court room. The truth is, he was a rabbinical student, not a judge. And the state doesn't give out law degrees. In "The Jewish Post and News," Bryks plagiarized newspaper columns copied word for word from another rabbi's book. No permission, no credit. In November 1987, Winnipeg's council of Rabbis wrote a scathing letter to the editor. They accused Bryks of simple "plagiarism," "theft." Bryks' lawyer threatened the newspaper with a lawsuit if the letter were published. It was never printed.
videotape of Bryks: You should all have a program in front of you.
Keefler: That was just the first time lawyers would jump to Bryks' defence. Within weeks, the rabbi again faced serious accusations, his reputation on the line; spiritual leader, school principal, suspected of questionable behaviour with students.
Kovi Smolak: He would be sitting on the bench, and he'd be saying hello to kids, saying good morning, and he'd pick one kid out of the group coming in, and he would say hello and put them on his lap, and tickle them, and you know -- and he's laugh, and be very extra friendly towards them, including me sometimes. And he would tickle them along the whole-- along their bodies.
Keefler: Former student Kovi Smolak says Bryks also played games with boys in their bathing suits at the swimming pool.
Smolak: He would kind of like make a cracking noise, and then he would run his fingers like that, like along here, or shoulders or here, down -- sometimes he would stop here, or sometimes he would just continue going on just down the legs, like that. Like moving his fingers around.
Keefler: For the eight years Smolak was a Torah Academy student. He saw nothing wrong with Bryks' incessant touching. And many teachers and parents welcomed his warm, demonstrative style. When teacher Patti Cohen saw Bryks with a girl on his lap in the school hallway, she didn't like it.
Patti Cohen: I felt uncomfortable with it. I mentioned it to one or two people at the time. And they thought I was being too uptight about it.
Keefler: What people didn't see, many didn't believe. Bryks counselled women, studied with teenage girls, all behind his closed office door. Orthodox Jewish law forbids men from touching or even being alone with a female over the age of three who isn't family. A 14-year-old complained the rabbi often sat on her lap, touch her, tickled her, and talked about sex.
Once, she says, he even licked her face. Synagogue board member Nathan Kabrinski heard the girl's story.
Nathan Kabrinski: This struck me as very inappropriate, and I felt that it should be dealt with.
Keefler: The board didn't go to the police. Didn't contact child welfare agencies. Instead, board members set up their own private inquiry.
Judy Silver.
Silver: We were trying to try him without it going public. We were trying to protect the synagogue.
Keefler: That December 1987, the board, Bryks and his lawyer heard the evidence. The teenager repeated her story. Two women also came forward, accused Bryks of making unwanted sexual advances. They weren't believed.
Kabrinski: The people who brought forth these concerns against the rabbi were publicly humiliated and insulted and called liars. It was at this point that I felt that the whole process that I was participating in was a sham.
Keefler: For three nights, accusations, legal threats, personal attacks.
Kabrinski: We were being threatened collectively for taking a position against the rabbi, that would result in a legal suit. And second of all, we were being threatened individually, because of information that the rabbi had about us and our personal lives, that would be used against us.
Silver: He said quite clearly, I have secrets on all of you.
Keefler: On New Years Day 1988, a final board meeting. Word got out, more than a hundred people rushed to the synagogue. They feared Bryks would be fired.
Kabrinski: The whole auditorium of the synagogue was filled with people shouting and screaming.
Keefler: Board members cast their ballots. The rabbi wasn't fired. Judy Silver and eight other members quit in protest. They paid a price.
Silver: The community at large was incensed. His supporters were even more incensed, and I and my children were shunned. My child was spat on in the synagogue.
Keefler: Dr. Adrian Fein says Bryks' opponents were on a witch hunt.
Fein: Rational, sane, friendly, good people, "God-fearing people" became rabid seekers of the destruction of the rabbi, thinking that he had done these terrible things.
Keefler: The board backed Bryks, but finally asked Winnipeg child and family services to investigate. For two months, social workers talked to 45 people, students, teachers and parents. When the agency issued its report in March 1988, the rabbi supporters called it an exoneration. The board considered the case closed. Bryks kept his job.
Kabrinski: He created the community and he could do no wrong. And so calling him into question was really calling the community into question. It was just not acceptable to do that.
Keefler: The report found Bryks hadn't broken any criminal law. But it did find his tickling and touching "neither appropriate nor professional." And it warned, "If there is a child in the school that is currently being abused, the dynamics of the reaction of staff, fellow students and other adults over the past couple of months might prevent any child from coming forth with disclosure." That's exactly what happened to one girl, who didn't want to be interviewed on camera. A former student told us what she didn't tell Child and Family Services, that Rabbi Bryks fondled her breasts, once laid completely on top of her, touched her, tickled her all the time. When a social worker asked questions, the girl kept quiet. She wasn't the only student who kept a secret. We found another child who claimed he was victimized. In 1989, a year after the Child and Family Services investigation, a seven-year-old boy went to the Winnipeg Police. His parents watched from the next room, listened, as the boy using a doll, alleged Rabbi Bryks molested him in Grade 1. The couple is disguised to protect their son's identity.
Unidentified Parent 1: He showed on the dolls that he had been basically --
I guess, fondled, masturbated --
Unidentified Parent 2: Rubbed.
Unidentified Parent 1: Rubbed, rubbed would be the word. He used the word
"tickled."
Unidentified Parent 2: The rabbi would comment -- get him out of the classroom during a session of class, take him up to the office.
Unidentified Parent 1: And he threatened him.
Unidentified Parent 2: He threatened him that if he were to say this to anyone, the big boys would come and beat him up.
Keefler: Bryks was brought in for questioning by the police. Then let go. Police asked Manitoba's senior crown attorney for an opinion. The word came back, no charges.
Unidentified Parent 1: We were called one day and told that the crown wasn't going to prosecute.
Father: Because they felt that it would be a child's word against the rabbi's word.
Keefler: We asked Child and Family Services why it didn't reopen its investigation into the Torah Academy after the boy went to the police.
CFS director Keith Cooper.
Keith Cooper: It was decided that it would not be productive to try and go in and talk to all the children in the school because of the highly charged atmosphere. That just sort of blocked off children's ability to respond and so on.
Keefler: That atmosphere took its toll on the school, children were pulled out. Bryks stayed on until 1990. Then left Winnipeg. The Torah Academy closed. But we found another child who can't close that chapter of her life. A fourth student, this couple's daughter claims she was molested.
Unidentified Parent 3: It's horrifying, and it's unbelievable.
Keefler: When we come back, we'll have that girl's story, and where Rabbi
Bryksis today.
(Commercial Break)
Keefler: The name of the school has been wiped from the building, but memories are etched in the mind of a 14-year-old girl.
Unidentified Parent 3: I felt unbelievably numb.
Keefler: Last November, this couple's daughter told them she was molested by
Rabbi Bryks in Grade 2. They're disguised to protect the girl's identity.
Unidentified Parent 3: Rabbi Bryks would take her out of class and would take her into his office during school time, and he would make her take off her underwear and -- her stockings, and then he would fondle, her genitalia. She remembers it happening many times. She told me that he told her that if she ever told anybody, that God would punish her.
Unidentified Parent 4: The most painful recent event since her disclosure for me was going up to see how she was in her bedroom. It was just quiet, and I just wanted to see how she was. Going into her bedroom, she was sitting in her closet curled up in a fetal ball listening to Barney tapes with a little Barney book in her hand. I couldn't deal with that.
Keefler: The 14-year-old is in counselling. Her parents say she isn't ready to go to the police.
Unidentified Parent 3: I mean, she's so fragile that this has to be on her own time.
Unidentified Parent 4: She also knows about another boy who did go to the police and nothing happened. Rabbi Bryks is still out there, still teaching school.
Keefler: After Bryks left Winnipeg, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Montreal planned to hire him as principal. A group of parents protested. They'd learned of the investigations by police and Child and Family Services in Winnipeg. The Rabbi wasn't hired. Rabbi Bryks' job search took him across the border to New York City. In 1990, a new Jewish high school also called the Torah Academy opened in Queens. It offers Grade 7 to 12 for both young men and women, most of whom are recent immigrants. In spite of the controversy that followed Bryks from Winnipeg to Montreal, he was hired as the high school's principal. Today, Rabbi Bryks is a success story in Queens' Orthodox community. The school was desperate for a principal, desperate to give young Russian Jews a place to study. Bryks started with an empty building. He now has 400 students, a familiar story, a story we wanted
to talk to him about. Over the phone, he said that "Winnipeg is a part of my life that's behind me" and refused to be interviewed. W
e went to see him in person. Rabbi Bryks, I'm Danielle Keefler with CBC Television. I just wanted to have a moment of your time, Sir, to give you some information on some very serious allegations that have come to our attention.
Bryks: Thank you, but as I mentioned to you yesterday, I really prefer not to discuss this.
Keefler: Daniel Levin, a boy who was at your school, Torah Academy --
Bryks: Thank you very much. I wish you a lot of success.
Keefler: He alleges that you sexually abused him, sir. Did you sexually abuse Daniel Levin?
Bryks: I do not wish to discuss this. Thank you.
Keefler: Did you sexually abuse any children at the Torah Academy?
Bryks: I really have no comment, thank you.
Keefler: Sir, we've spoken to a number of families. A number of their children have come forward and, in great detail, have alleged that you sexually abused them. How do you explain that?
Bryks: I really have no comment.
Keefler: These are very serious allegations, and they're coming forward in
great detail. Are you saying these children are lying?
Bryks: I have no comment.
Keefler: Is there anything you'd like to say also?
Bryks: No. Thank you.
Keefler: Bryks' employers in New York say they checked out his past, and all
they dug up was unsubstantiated rumour, but they knew Child and Family Services investigated the man in Winnipeg, knew he wasn't hired in Montreal. The national body that services all Jewish day schools in North America has no authority over who is hired. The schools are on their own. In Winnipeg, the school's ward, the community, stood by Rabbi Bryks. Many people still do. Joel Mislovski, the board's president at the time, and other board members refused to be interviewed. In a letter, the board defended its decision to keep Bryks on, saying "There were no further occurrences." Many in the Jewish community want the door on the Bryks' affair kept shut, but not the victims' parents.
Unidentified Parent 1: It's time for the community to stop covering it up.
I think there's a -- great fear in the Jewish community because of anti-Semitism that we can't air our dirty laundry, and it's time -- and the Jewish community really has a lot to answer for here.
Keefler: Former board member Judy Silver has many regrets.
Silver: We thought we could keep it among ourselves, keep it a secret, that
no one ever has to know that this happened in our synagogue. Yes, we were ashamed. We were ashamed that we hired this man and let this happen.
Mortin: The irony is you send your child to a school where you think, this of all places, he will be safe.
Sara: We have lost a child through this and nothing, nothing that is ever done to Rabbi Bryks could ever bring him back. Daniel can never come back. His life was destroyed by this.
Keefler: Mortin Levin reaches out to his son every day, a prayer to help guide Daniel's departed soul. Sara Levin mourns through paint therapy.
After a year of mourning, a headstone will replace a simple marker in a Toronto cemetery, Daniel Levin's final resting place. For Prime Time News, I'm Danielle Keefler.
Copyright Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1994. All rights reserved. For
duplication, distribution or exhibition rights to any material contained
herein, copyright release must be received from the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation.
Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Domination Expert Hershie Worch
Rabbi Hershie Worch based in Chicago is an interesting man with an interesting following. I believe he may have been ordained by R. Shlomo Carlebach but in some ways he outdoes his mentor. Any and all information on this rabbi is welcome. His ability to put people into a trance is amazing and the places he takes them -- is it into or out of the land of bondage?
R. Worch tranlsated the sefer Aish Kodesh by Kalman Kolonymous Shapira, the Piaczezna Rebbe (a series of discources given by the Rebbe in the Warsaw Ghetto), called 'Sacred Fire'.
Here's R. Worch's Yahoo group for Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Domination Sado-Masochism Connection.
His Livejournal "hypnoeroticism" community
His Livejournal "kaballah_101" community
"Moonish" and "Chapt Schleck"/"The Chief" are J. Hershy Worch
His Livejournal profile has been deleted, but luckily I saved it last night:
Volkischer Beobachter
tagbuch der oberabiner
Name: Moonish Lunar
Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OBDSM/
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Birthdate: 05-20
Bio: I'm an out-of-the-closet-Jewish man; (no, not gay, dummy, out-of-the-closet-Jewish!) single, unattached, available and not currently cheating on anyone, even myself.
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I am easily distracted and have the attention span of a common or garden butterfly. I have a soul from the Olam HaTohu World of Chaos, and I hate rules, on principle.
I'm a musician and singer and I'm trying to assemble a band interested in developing music performances on BDSM themes, in Chicago.
What else?
I aspire to kewl, to sardonic, to couldn't-care-lessness, but it's all a facade. Don't be fooled. Inside it's all slave.
Interests: 55: abayudaya, bashert, body modification and halacha, cabala, chassidism, d/s, discworld, dried frog pills, erotic mind control, face slapping, feminist kabbalah, frum sadism, georgette heyer, golem making, hebrew, hypnoeroticism, i am lonely, izbicy, jpex, judaism, kabala, kabalah, kabbala, kabbalah, kulanu, merkaba, mysticism, nachman of breslov, nashga"z, niddah, obdsm, onemorealias, orangutans, pashtu, qabalah, qabbalah, rincewind, rogers park, ruach, s&m, sefer yetzirah, sepher yetzirah, sonnets, strathnairn, susan death, talmud, terry pratchett, torah, trance, tree of life, wooden boats, writing, zawel kwartin, zohar, ????.
R. Worch tranlsated the sefer Aish Kodesh by Kalman Kolonymous Shapira, the Piaczezna Rebbe (a series of discources given by the Rebbe in the Warsaw Ghetto), called 'Sacred Fire'.
Here's R. Worch's Yahoo group for Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Domination Sado-Masochism Connection.
His Livejournal "hypnoeroticism" community
His Livejournal "kaballah_101" community
"Moonish" and "Chapt Schleck"/"The Chief" are J. Hershy Worch
His Livejournal profile has been deleted, but luckily I saved it last night:
Volkischer Beobachter
tagbuch der oberabiner
Name: Moonish Lunar
Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OBDSM/
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Birthdate: 05-20
Bio: I'm an out-of-the-closet-Jewish man; (no, not gay, dummy, out-of-the-closet-Jewish!) single, unattached, available and not currently cheating on anyone, even myself.
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I am easily distracted and have the attention span of a common or garden butterfly. I have a soul from the Olam HaTohu World of Chaos, and I hate rules, on principle.
I'm a musician and singer and I'm trying to assemble a band interested in developing music performances on BDSM themes, in Chicago.
What else?
I aspire to kewl, to sardonic, to couldn't-care-lessness, but it's all a facade. Don't be fooled. Inside it's all slave.
Interests: 55: abayudaya, bashert, body modification and halacha, cabala, chassidism, d/s, discworld, dried frog pills, erotic mind control, face slapping, feminist kabbalah, frum sadism, georgette heyer, golem making, hebrew, hypnoeroticism, i am lonely, izbicy, jpex, judaism, kabala, kabalah, kabbala, kabbalah, kulanu, merkaba, mysticism, nachman of breslov, nashga"z, niddah, obdsm, onemorealias, orangutans, pashtu, qabalah, qabbalah, rincewind, rogers park, ruach, s&m, sefer yetzirah, sepher yetzirah, sonnets, strathnairn, susan death, talmud, terry pratchett, torah, trance, tree of life, wooden boats, writing, zawel kwartin, zohar, ????.
Rabbi Gafni to 21 yo Susan: 'Male Sexual Health. I bet there's a lot you could teach me about that.'
I talk by phone October 10, 2004 to the Susan in Gary Rosenblatt's article about rabbi Mordecai Gafni:
A woman named Susan, who at the time was a 22-year-old adviser in JPSY, said she believed Judy’s account. She said that when she took Judy’s side, Gafni made harassing phone calls and threats against her.
“He told me I would regret it,” Susan said, adding that the rabbi made inappropriate advances to her, as well.
............
Susan: "I became an advisor for JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth) in 1985. I was 21. I was responsible for a club at a high school in Queens, NY. Mordecai Winiarz was the head of JPSY. There were Shabbatonim -- weekends when all the Jewish public school kids were invited to experience a Shabbat together.... The goal was to help these young adults become connected with Judaism.
"My initial impression of Mordecai Winiarz was that he was charismatic, appealing to kids, and successful as a speaker. He's engaging. These characteristics are typical of people who have been accused of the things he has been accused of. He knows how to capture people's attention. The kids were enthralled by him.
"I developed a relationship with one of the kids quoted in the [Gary Rosenblatt] article named Judy."
Gary writes:
The second woman, Judy, said that when she was 16 and deeply unhappy at home, she joined a popular Orthodox outreach group for teens that Gafni was leading called JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth), and was drawn to his charisma and concern for her.
During a two-week period when she ran away from home and was staying with Rabbi Gafni, who was then 25 and married, Judy said he abused her sexually on two occasions. Even more upsetting, she said, was that afterward, the rabbi tried to convince her the encounter did not happen, and then harassed her for many months. He threatened to keep her out of Jewish schools (she was seeking to transfer from public school to a yeshiva), called her home at all hours of the night and then hung up, mailed pictures to her home of naked men and had her followed.
“He attempted to destroy my life for a year and a half,” she said.
Gafni said that Judy was a troubled, unstable teenager who fabricated the story after he rebuffed her advances.
Susan: "She came from a troubled home, so she was excited about JPSY. Mordecai took a great interest in reaching out to her.
"At that time, Mordecai had married his second wife. They lived in Brooklyn and they took Judy into their home. Judy was happy living in their basement. It gave her a feeling of worth. Wow, she was living with Mordecai.
"I remember once hearing Mordecai speak [Susan was in her teens] and I remember thinking of him then what you wrote in one of your articles. Yes, he was charismatic, but there was something about him that cult-like.
"When I started working at JPSY, I heard from people that he was peculiar. When you wrote that he's a creep, I thought wow, I've also heard that word [applied to Gafni] several times.
"[Gafni's second wife] had been a JPSY adviser. Mordecai was single. So many people were warning her to stay away from him because there were so many questions about his character -- That he was a dangerous person. That he had a dark side. That he had a sordid past. It was something that some of the JPSY advisers were talking about. People were taking her aside and warning her not to marry the guy.
"They married November 13, 1985. They invited all the JPSY kids to the wedding. I was asked to take a group of kids to the wedding. It was on Long Island. I remember the aura of disbelief among the advisors. People were worried for his wife-to-be..
"I didn't have that much to do with him. He was always very warm and friendly. He always had a way of looking at people and making them feel important. He would joke around a lot with me. He's witty and I can be witty. We would have our repartee. I was never interested in him. It was never an issue.
"We were having a meeting at my home at 6 p.m. one Sunday in May 1986. Mordecai was supposed to be there as the head of JPSY along with several other advisers and me. About 4:30 p.m., I was the only one at home. I hadn't gotten ready yet. I was wearing a robe. Just a regular robe. And the doorbell rang. I got the door. Mordecai was standing at my front door in a dark suit with a yarmulke on his head, holding a large gemara in his hand. I just looked at him, 'Mordecai, what are you doing here? Our meeting is at six o'clock.' He said, 'Oh, I was the neighborhood. I figured I'd stop by early. Don't mind me. I have my gemara. I'll just learn while you're getting ready.'
"I was shocked. I was uncomfortable. I had no idea what it would be like to have him waiting in the living room while I was getting ready for the meeting. It seemed very odd (and somewhat rude) to me that he had come by so early, but. I didn't know how to say that his presence made me feel uncomfortable and that I would have preferred that he leave. Afterall, he I worked for him, and he was 'the rabbi,' so I said, ok, Mordecai. Please stay in the living room. I didn't know you were coming this early, so I need you to stay put here.
"I ushered him into the living room. I closed the french doors .I went back to my room to get dressed. No sooner did I get to my room than I turned around because he had left the living room and walked all the way to my bedroom , opened the door and said, 'Susan, Male Sexual Health,' as he pointed to a book he had taken from a shelf in in the corridor near my room.
"He had taken a book off the shelf right near my room. My father is a psychologist and had many books in the hallway right near my room. Mordecai had taken a book off the shelf entitled, Male Sexual Health. He held it in front of me and said, 'Male Sexual Health. I bet there's a lot you could teach me about that.'
"I was shocked. There he was standing so inappropriately and looking at me with what seemed to me to be a suggestive stare. I didn't know how to handle it. I felt scared but felt I needed to remain calm. I just looked at him and said, 'Mordecai, what are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the living room. I'm trying to get ready.' Please leave. I purposely didn't even respond directly to his crass comment.
"So he put the book back on the shelf and walked a few steps closer to me. He said, 'You really shouldn't be wearing that robe because it shows me your shape.'
"I just felt this shudder go through me. I said, 'Mordecai, please leave right now.' He was just trying to get a response from me to see if there was any interest. It was clear that he realized that there was none.
"I was shocked and frightened.
"He ended up returning to the living room. I closed the door. I threw on my clothes.
"I was uncomfortable throughout the meeting. Did I approach Mordecai afterwards about it? No. Because nothing happened. And I was scared of the look he had given me during the incident. He had given me a look that terrified me.
"Soon after that, Judy called me. 'I'm shocked. Mordecai came downstairs to the basement and he started touching me.' She ended up crying to me about the two experience she had had with Mordecai. Soon she started telling me the details about what happened to her, which did involve a lot of sexual contact [but no intercourse]. I think he was smart enough to know that she was 16. She told me that he asked her when she had last gotten her period at a point when he seemed positioned for intercourse.
"It immediately clicked with me that this guy is so capable of that because I knew how he had been with me. I knew that so many people talked about his past. The rumors I had heard began to make sense. I realized what could have happened had I not made it clear to Mordechai that he was to stay away from me.
"It was totally unacceptable and immoral behavior Although she was enthralled by the guy and enamoured by his charm, what made her incredibly angry and hurt and terrified was the way he planned the subsequent mind games.
"He came back downstairs and said to her, Judy, I'm worried about you. I think you're imagining that something happened between us.
"When he began playing mind games with her--making her think that she was crazy--fabricating everything, everything started to fall apart for her. Mordechai and (Wife #2) had been parenting her. She had placed her trust in him. She could not believe what had occurred. He made her think that she was crazy and fabricating the whole thing. That, in addition to destroying her trust in him, frightened her. He started to threaten her. 'I don't know what you think happened here, but you will be sorry and I will destroy you if you tell anyone stories about what you think happened. I will make sure that you will never get into any Jewish school. Your reputation will be destroyed.'
"Of course I wasn't in the room when this happened. People in his position do not invite witnesses to observe their behavior. They don't sell tickets for the event. But as an intelligent person who had experienced Mordecai's inappropriate behavior and had heard a lot allusions to his past, I believed that this guy was capable of what Judy described.
"To validate my thoughts, Mordecai called me. 'Susan, it's Mordecai. I need to talk to you. It's really important.' This was right after I had hung up with Judy. 'Susan, you're one of my top advisers. You're terrific. I'm really worried about Judy. My wife and I took her in.... I'm a friendly guy. I went downstairs to say goodnight to her one night. She thinks that something happened. Something physical. Some sort of a relationship. If she says anything to you, please let me know.'
"I began to plead with other rabbis in the Jewish community [to do something about Mordecai]. His position enabled him to be in constant contact with young women and kids, and what I knew firsthand and, as a confidante of Judy was enough to make me feel that rabbis in the Jewish community needed to do something. Rabbi Kenneth Hain is a friend of Mordecai's. It was clear that Mordecai was dangerous and needed to be stopped based on what I knew at that point. (At this time I did not know about his repeated sexual assaults on the thirteen year old girl- over nine months earlier in his life--sexual contact to which Winiarz/Gafni admitted in Gary's article. He [Mordecai] needed to be stopped in his tracks.
"Rabbi Hain called me to to tell stop what I was doing, which was taking Judy's and my experiences to the appropriate people at Yeshiva University, the main group supporting JPSY. I cried on the phone to Rabbi Hain.. I told him exactly what had happened to me, and I told him how Mordechai had been threatening both Judy and me.
"Rabbi Hain knew me. There was no reason for me to fabricate a story. I had heard of all these other stories of people who had various negative experiences with Mordecai. Rabbi Hain said to me in his deep voice, 'Sometimes the bigger person is the one who can just let things go.' He kept telling me to move on.
"I was shocked and disgusted. He knew I was trying to reach the right people [to do something about Mordecai]. I did not have a lot of support. People were telling me be quiet. How dare rabbinic leaders turn their eyes and ears away from crying victims! How dare anyone say that Mordecai was exonerated! There was never any Bet Din nor were there any attempts to contact me or us to do "teshuvah" as (Mordecai) claims he did. And it is not for Rabbis Berman and Telushkin and the others to claim to know who has done teshuva. They are not G-d. G-d handles exoneration of sins, and we women were never contacted by anyone supposedly exploring this case.
"There was a rabbi in Jamaica Estates, Rabbi Yitzchak Adler, who also told me to move on. Since I wasn't there, [when Judy says Mordecai got sexual with her]. I had no right to spread lashon hara.
"I am learned. I have a strong Judaic background. I went to yeshiva. I know the laws of lashon hara. I know when it is permitted and not permitted to speak ill of someone. There are certain situations when it is required [to bring up harmful details about somebody's past to protect innocent people in the present].
"[In the summer of 1986] I was on an Israel program. I went to Efrat, where rabbi [Shlomo] Riskin was rabbi. He ultimately revoked [in 2004] Mordecai's ordination [after earlier being a big supporter of Mordecai]. I told rabbi Riskin everything. He was extremely unsupportive. I think that these rabbis were afraid of what a scandal might mean for the Orthodox rabbinate. He listened to me and I think he believed what I told him, but for some reason he didn't want to do anything about it.
"I met with JPSY advisers and filled them in on what I knew. There was a meeting at YU [not a Beit Din]. Shalom Lamm, the son of the president of YU, Norman Lamm, was there. Judy and I told of our experiences. Soon after that, Mordecai was ousted from JPSY. Throughout the process, as soon as he knew that I was making known to the appropriate people what he had done, I received harassing and threatening phone calls at my phone at home. One was traced by the Annoyance Call Bureau (which had put a tap on my phone) to Mordecai's home. The others came from pay phones. I would get heavy breathing. I would get the sounds of someone smashing a hammer into something. I couldn't press charges since the Annoyance Call Bureau needed three phonecalls traced to the same number. The calls I received were traced to different numbers. It was almost as if Mordecai knew how to make harrassing phone calls without being caught.
"He would also call me and say that he was going to make sure that I was sorry. That he was going to sue me for libel. I remember thinking, for an intelligent guy, why are you using the word 'libel'? I haven't written anything.
"He said I was trying to destroy his marriage. That I had no basis. That I was making everything up."
A woman named Susan, who at the time was a 22-year-old adviser in JPSY, said she believed Judy’s account. She said that when she took Judy’s side, Gafni made harassing phone calls and threats against her.
“He told me I would regret it,” Susan said, adding that the rabbi made inappropriate advances to her, as well.
............
Susan: "I became an advisor for JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth) in 1985. I was 21. I was responsible for a club at a high school in Queens, NY. Mordecai Winiarz was the head of JPSY. There were Shabbatonim -- weekends when all the Jewish public school kids were invited to experience a Shabbat together.... The goal was to help these young adults become connected with Judaism.
"My initial impression of Mordecai Winiarz was that he was charismatic, appealing to kids, and successful as a speaker. He's engaging. These characteristics are typical of people who have been accused of the things he has been accused of. He knows how to capture people's attention. The kids were enthralled by him.
"I developed a relationship with one of the kids quoted in the [Gary Rosenblatt] article named Judy."
Gary writes:
The second woman, Judy, said that when she was 16 and deeply unhappy at home, she joined a popular Orthodox outreach group for teens that Gafni was leading called JPSY (Jewish Public School Youth), and was drawn to his charisma and concern for her.
During a two-week period when she ran away from home and was staying with Rabbi Gafni, who was then 25 and married, Judy said he abused her sexually on two occasions. Even more upsetting, she said, was that afterward, the rabbi tried to convince her the encounter did not happen, and then harassed her for many months. He threatened to keep her out of Jewish schools (she was seeking to transfer from public school to a yeshiva), called her home at all hours of the night and then hung up, mailed pictures to her home of naked men and had her followed.
“He attempted to destroy my life for a year and a half,” she said.
Gafni said that Judy was a troubled, unstable teenager who fabricated the story after he rebuffed her advances.
Susan: "She came from a troubled home, so she was excited about JPSY. Mordecai took a great interest in reaching out to her.
"At that time, Mordecai had married his second wife. They lived in Brooklyn and they took Judy into their home. Judy was happy living in their basement. It gave her a feeling of worth. Wow, she was living with Mordecai.
"I remember once hearing Mordecai speak [Susan was in her teens] and I remember thinking of him then what you wrote in one of your articles. Yes, he was charismatic, but there was something about him that cult-like.
"When I started working at JPSY, I heard from people that he was peculiar. When you wrote that he's a creep, I thought wow, I've also heard that word [applied to Gafni] several times.
"[Gafni's second wife] had been a JPSY adviser. Mordecai was single. So many people were warning her to stay away from him because there were so many questions about his character -- That he was a dangerous person. That he had a dark side. That he had a sordid past. It was something that some of the JPSY advisers were talking about. People were taking her aside and warning her not to marry the guy.
"They married November 13, 1985. They invited all the JPSY kids to the wedding. I was asked to take a group of kids to the wedding. It was on Long Island. I remember the aura of disbelief among the advisors. People were worried for his wife-to-be..
"I didn't have that much to do with him. He was always very warm and friendly. He always had a way of looking at people and making them feel important. He would joke around a lot with me. He's witty and I can be witty. We would have our repartee. I was never interested in him. It was never an issue.
"We were having a meeting at my home at 6 p.m. one Sunday in May 1986. Mordecai was supposed to be there as the head of JPSY along with several other advisers and me. About 4:30 p.m., I was the only one at home. I hadn't gotten ready yet. I was wearing a robe. Just a regular robe. And the doorbell rang. I got the door. Mordecai was standing at my front door in a dark suit with a yarmulke on his head, holding a large gemara in his hand. I just looked at him, 'Mordecai, what are you doing here? Our meeting is at six o'clock.' He said, 'Oh, I was the neighborhood. I figured I'd stop by early. Don't mind me. I have my gemara. I'll just learn while you're getting ready.'
"I was shocked. I was uncomfortable. I had no idea what it would be like to have him waiting in the living room while I was getting ready for the meeting. It seemed very odd (and somewhat rude) to me that he had come by so early, but. I didn't know how to say that his presence made me feel uncomfortable and that I would have preferred that he leave. Afterall, he I worked for him, and he was 'the rabbi,' so I said, ok, Mordecai. Please stay in the living room. I didn't know you were coming this early, so I need you to stay put here.
"I ushered him into the living room. I closed the french doors .I went back to my room to get dressed. No sooner did I get to my room than I turned around because he had left the living room and walked all the way to my bedroom , opened the door and said, 'Susan, Male Sexual Health,' as he pointed to a book he had taken from a shelf in in the corridor near my room.
"He had taken a book off the shelf right near my room. My father is a psychologist and had many books in the hallway right near my room. Mordecai had taken a book off the shelf entitled, Male Sexual Health. He held it in front of me and said, 'Male Sexual Health. I bet there's a lot you could teach me about that.'
"I was shocked. There he was standing so inappropriately and looking at me with what seemed to me to be a suggestive stare. I didn't know how to handle it. I felt scared but felt I needed to remain calm. I just looked at him and said, 'Mordecai, what are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the living room. I'm trying to get ready.' Please leave. I purposely didn't even respond directly to his crass comment.
"So he put the book back on the shelf and walked a few steps closer to me. He said, 'You really shouldn't be wearing that robe because it shows me your shape.'
"I just felt this shudder go through me. I said, 'Mordecai, please leave right now.' He was just trying to get a response from me to see if there was any interest. It was clear that he realized that there was none.
"I was shocked and frightened.
"He ended up returning to the living room. I closed the door. I threw on my clothes.
"I was uncomfortable throughout the meeting. Did I approach Mordecai afterwards about it? No. Because nothing happened. And I was scared of the look he had given me during the incident. He had given me a look that terrified me.
"Soon after that, Judy called me. 'I'm shocked. Mordecai came downstairs to the basement and he started touching me.' She ended up crying to me about the two experience she had had with Mordecai. Soon she started telling me the details about what happened to her, which did involve a lot of sexual contact [but no intercourse]. I think he was smart enough to know that she was 16. She told me that he asked her when she had last gotten her period at a point when he seemed positioned for intercourse.
"It immediately clicked with me that this guy is so capable of that because I knew how he had been with me. I knew that so many people talked about his past. The rumors I had heard began to make sense. I realized what could have happened had I not made it clear to Mordechai that he was to stay away from me.
"It was totally unacceptable and immoral behavior Although she was enthralled by the guy and enamoured by his charm, what made her incredibly angry and hurt and terrified was the way he planned the subsequent mind games.
"He came back downstairs and said to her, Judy, I'm worried about you. I think you're imagining that something happened between us.
"When he began playing mind games with her--making her think that she was crazy--fabricating everything, everything started to fall apart for her. Mordechai and (Wife #2) had been parenting her. She had placed her trust in him. She could not believe what had occurred. He made her think that she was crazy and fabricating the whole thing. That, in addition to destroying her trust in him, frightened her. He started to threaten her. 'I don't know what you think happened here, but you will be sorry and I will destroy you if you tell anyone stories about what you think happened. I will make sure that you will never get into any Jewish school. Your reputation will be destroyed.'
"Of course I wasn't in the room when this happened. People in his position do not invite witnesses to observe their behavior. They don't sell tickets for the event. But as an intelligent person who had experienced Mordecai's inappropriate behavior and had heard a lot allusions to his past, I believed that this guy was capable of what Judy described.
"To validate my thoughts, Mordecai called me. 'Susan, it's Mordecai. I need to talk to you. It's really important.' This was right after I had hung up with Judy. 'Susan, you're one of my top advisers. You're terrific. I'm really worried about Judy. My wife and I took her in.... I'm a friendly guy. I went downstairs to say goodnight to her one night. She thinks that something happened. Something physical. Some sort of a relationship. If she says anything to you, please let me know.'
"I began to plead with other rabbis in the Jewish community [to do something about Mordecai]. His position enabled him to be in constant contact with young women and kids, and what I knew firsthand and, as a confidante of Judy was enough to make me feel that rabbis in the Jewish community needed to do something. Rabbi Kenneth Hain is a friend of Mordecai's. It was clear that Mordecai was dangerous and needed to be stopped based on what I knew at that point. (At this time I did not know about his repeated sexual assaults on the thirteen year old girl- over nine months earlier in his life--sexual contact to which Winiarz/Gafni admitted in Gary's article. He [Mordecai] needed to be stopped in his tracks.
"Rabbi Hain called me to to tell stop what I was doing, which was taking Judy's and my experiences to the appropriate people at Yeshiva University, the main group supporting JPSY. I cried on the phone to Rabbi Hain.. I told him exactly what had happened to me, and I told him how Mordechai had been threatening both Judy and me.
"Rabbi Hain knew me. There was no reason for me to fabricate a story. I had heard of all these other stories of people who had various negative experiences with Mordecai. Rabbi Hain said to me in his deep voice, 'Sometimes the bigger person is the one who can just let things go.' He kept telling me to move on.
"I was shocked and disgusted. He knew I was trying to reach the right people [to do something about Mordecai]. I did not have a lot of support. People were telling me be quiet. How dare rabbinic leaders turn their eyes and ears away from crying victims! How dare anyone say that Mordecai was exonerated! There was never any Bet Din nor were there any attempts to contact me or us to do "teshuvah" as (Mordecai) claims he did. And it is not for Rabbis Berman and Telushkin and the others to claim to know who has done teshuva. They are not G-d. G-d handles exoneration of sins, and we women were never contacted by anyone supposedly exploring this case.
"There was a rabbi in Jamaica Estates, Rabbi Yitzchak Adler, who also told me to move on. Since I wasn't there, [when Judy says Mordecai got sexual with her]. I had no right to spread lashon hara.
"I am learned. I have a strong Judaic background. I went to yeshiva. I know the laws of lashon hara. I know when it is permitted and not permitted to speak ill of someone. There are certain situations when it is required [to bring up harmful details about somebody's past to protect innocent people in the present].
"[In the summer of 1986] I was on an Israel program. I went to Efrat, where rabbi [Shlomo] Riskin was rabbi. He ultimately revoked [in 2004] Mordecai's ordination [after earlier being a big supporter of Mordecai]. I told rabbi Riskin everything. He was extremely unsupportive. I think that these rabbis were afraid of what a scandal might mean for the Orthodox rabbinate. He listened to me and I think he believed what I told him, but for some reason he didn't want to do anything about it.
"I met with JPSY advisers and filled them in on what I knew. There was a meeting at YU [not a Beit Din]. Shalom Lamm, the son of the president of YU, Norman Lamm, was there. Judy and I told of our experiences. Soon after that, Mordecai was ousted from JPSY. Throughout the process, as soon as he knew that I was making known to the appropriate people what he had done, I received harassing and threatening phone calls at my phone at home. One was traced by the Annoyance Call Bureau (which had put a tap on my phone) to Mordecai's home. The others came from pay phones. I would get heavy breathing. I would get the sounds of someone smashing a hammer into something. I couldn't press charges since the Annoyance Call Bureau needed three phonecalls traced to the same number. The calls I received were traced to different numbers. It was almost as if Mordecai knew how to make harrassing phone calls without being caught.
"He would also call me and say that he was going to make sure that I was sorry. That he was going to sue me for libel. I remember thinking, for an intelligent guy, why are you using the word 'libel'? I haven't written anything.
"He said I was trying to destroy his marriage. That I had no basis. That I was making everything up."
Monday, October 11, 2004
Dennis Prager Debates J.J. Goldberg
Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman moderated a debate Monday night at Temple Sinai (C) between conservative talkshow host Dennis Prager and the leftist editor of the Forward, J.J. Goldberg.
It was a polite civil discussion that lacked drama and verbal fireworks.
Near the end, Eshman ask people to raise their hand if their mind had been changed by the debate. Nobody raised their hand.
The responses by Prager were completely predictable to anyone who listens regularly to his radio show. J.J., a journalist, was more empirical. He cited facts and figures while Prager spent more time elaborating on ideas.
I walk in at 6:40 p.m., 20 minutes before the debate is due to start. Eshman and Prager walk in together ten minutes later.
Eshman is moderating a ton of political debates over the next month and Prager is flying all over America to rally Jews for Bush. Dennis says that it if a Jew's primary concern is the well being of Israel, he must vote for Bush.
There are 100 chairs set out. Most are occupied. There's a long line of people waiting to pay $10 to get in.
J.J. Goldberg arrives at 7:15. The debate begins ten minutes later. There are now about 400 people on hand.
Eshman asks people to raise their hands if they are voting for Bush. About 40% do. For Kerry, about 40% do. The average age of the audience seems to be early 30s. This is primarily a young adults event.
J.J. makes these disturbing lizard-like movements with his tongue, bulging out his lips and cheeks. Prager is a more polished public speaker.
The two seem to like each other. They share a best friend - rabbi Joseph Telushkin, who's going to end up eating his words of support for rabbi Marc Gafni in the weeks ahead. I've got enough information to bury Gafni and all the rabbis like Telushkin who've enabled him.
Rob Eshman has this weird fixation with stem cell research (which most if not all Jewish organizations support while the president has drawn strict limits, probably because messing with embryos freaks out the Christian right as playing with life) as a major problem for Jews who would otherwise vote for Bush. I have never heard a Jew say he could not vote for Bush based on the president's stem cell research position.
Dennis says he is ambivalent on the stem cell research question but he didn't think it would be a dealbreaker for Jews who'd otherwise vote for Bush (about 25% of American Jewry who can vote).
Dennis said he does not believe that Kerry's more aggressive views on stem cell research will diminish the sanctity of life in America if Kerry is elected.
J.J. said he lives his life by Torah. (He davens at a Conservative minyan. I think he's agnostic about the existence of God.) J.J. says he does not drive on Shabbos (but he lives with his girlfriend of many years).
DP: "You live in Manhattan, right?"
J.J.: "Yes."
DP: "Do you drive on Wednesdays?"
J.J. and everyone seemed to get the point that J.J. did not drive seven days a week.
DP admitted he drove on Shabbos (a violation of Jewish law).
This is the first time J.J. and Dennis have debated each other. J.J. debates a lot with right-wing Jewish Exponent editor Jonathan Tobin.
DP claims that the secular Jewish creator of PETA is the only guest he's had on his radio show in 22 years that he has yelled at. DP thought the guy inhuman for comparing the slaughter of six million chickens in America to the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
J.J. several times agrees with Dennis. He agrees that liberal have to get over their instinctive fear of the Christian right. DP says he subscribes to the Forward and reads it every week. He describes it as a fascinating publication. He's done radio shows based on information he learned in the Forward.
J.J. brought up several times that China is lending the U.S. federal government money to support its debt and J.J. worried what would happen if China called in its debts.
Rob Eshman is a courteous thoughtful moderator but the event was not spellbinding. J.J. and Dennis made their mini speeches and there wasn't much cut-and-thrust. I sensed a restlessness in much of the crowd.
The crowd was courteous. Their applause was scattered and brief. Nobody yelled.
The debate ended after 90-minutes. The crowd tore through the meager dessert offerings in ten minutes.
Frequent Prager radio show guest Dr. Steven Marmer and his wife were in the audience as was Prager's male intern and Prager's radio producer Alan Estrin.
Following the debate, Prager, Goldberg and Estrin had a chat (something about getting their voices into the Forward).
Rob Eshman introduces me to his former assistant who just quit last week to pursue her dream - make-up. She only has good things to say about Rob, who doesn't like anyone to bring him coffee. But his new assistant, Mary, comes to his door every morning with coffee.
Rob has this nasty open sore on his hand from a climbing accident.
It was a polite civil discussion that lacked drama and verbal fireworks.
Near the end, Eshman ask people to raise their hand if their mind had been changed by the debate. Nobody raised their hand.
The responses by Prager were completely predictable to anyone who listens regularly to his radio show. J.J., a journalist, was more empirical. He cited facts and figures while Prager spent more time elaborating on ideas.
I walk in at 6:40 p.m., 20 minutes before the debate is due to start. Eshman and Prager walk in together ten minutes later.
Eshman is moderating a ton of political debates over the next month and Prager is flying all over America to rally Jews for Bush. Dennis says that it if a Jew's primary concern is the well being of Israel, he must vote for Bush.
There are 100 chairs set out. Most are occupied. There's a long line of people waiting to pay $10 to get in.
J.J. Goldberg arrives at 7:15. The debate begins ten minutes later. There are now about 400 people on hand.
Eshman asks people to raise their hands if they are voting for Bush. About 40% do. For Kerry, about 40% do. The average age of the audience seems to be early 30s. This is primarily a young adults event.
J.J. makes these disturbing lizard-like movements with his tongue, bulging out his lips and cheeks. Prager is a more polished public speaker.
The two seem to like each other. They share a best friend - rabbi Joseph Telushkin, who's going to end up eating his words of support for rabbi Marc Gafni in the weeks ahead. I've got enough information to bury Gafni and all the rabbis like Telushkin who've enabled him.
Rob Eshman has this weird fixation with stem cell research (which most if not all Jewish organizations support while the president has drawn strict limits, probably because messing with embryos freaks out the Christian right as playing with life) as a major problem for Jews who would otherwise vote for Bush. I have never heard a Jew say he could not vote for Bush based on the president's stem cell research position.
Dennis says he is ambivalent on the stem cell research question but he didn't think it would be a dealbreaker for Jews who'd otherwise vote for Bush (about 25% of American Jewry who can vote).
Dennis said he does not believe that Kerry's more aggressive views on stem cell research will diminish the sanctity of life in America if Kerry is elected.
J.J. said he lives his life by Torah. (He davens at a Conservative minyan. I think he's agnostic about the existence of God.) J.J. says he does not drive on Shabbos (but he lives with his girlfriend of many years).
DP: "You live in Manhattan, right?"
J.J.: "Yes."
DP: "Do you drive on Wednesdays?"
J.J. and everyone seemed to get the point that J.J. did not drive seven days a week.
DP admitted he drove on Shabbos (a violation of Jewish law).
This is the first time J.J. and Dennis have debated each other. J.J. debates a lot with right-wing Jewish Exponent editor Jonathan Tobin.
DP claims that the secular Jewish creator of PETA is the only guest he's had on his radio show in 22 years that he has yelled at. DP thought the guy inhuman for comparing the slaughter of six million chickens in America to the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
J.J. several times agrees with Dennis. He agrees that liberal have to get over their instinctive fear of the Christian right. DP says he subscribes to the Forward and reads it every week. He describes it as a fascinating publication. He's done radio shows based on information he learned in the Forward.
J.J. brought up several times that China is lending the U.S. federal government money to support its debt and J.J. worried what would happen if China called in its debts.
Rob Eshman is a courteous thoughtful moderator but the event was not spellbinding. J.J. and Dennis made their mini speeches and there wasn't much cut-and-thrust. I sensed a restlessness in much of the crowd.
The crowd was courteous. Their applause was scattered and brief. Nobody yelled.
The debate ended after 90-minutes. The crowd tore through the meager dessert offerings in ten minutes.
Frequent Prager radio show guest Dr. Steven Marmer and his wife were in the audience as was Prager's male intern and Prager's radio producer Alan Estrin.
Following the debate, Prager, Goldberg and Estrin had a chat (something about getting their voices into the Forward).
Rob Eshman introduces me to his former assistant who just quit last week to pursue her dream - make-up. She only has good things to say about Rob, who doesn't like anyone to bring him coffee. But his new assistant, Mary, comes to his door every morning with coffee.
Rob has this nasty open sore on his hand from a climbing accident.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Saturday, October 09, 2004
The Enemy
I'm reading The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis by Jeffrey Meyers. I feel like I've found a soulmate. Wyndham says (in words that could be my credo): "I am all in favor of a young man behaving rudely to everyone in sight. This may not be good for the young man, but it's good for everyone else."
Robert L. replies: Luke -- wasn't it I who brought Wyndham Lewis to your attention? Now that I reflect upon it, indeed, I'm quite certain it was I. Lewis, after all, made delicously scathing remarks about that preening effete little pack of blowhards known as the Bloomsbury Group (Virginia Woolf, member Exhibit A).
In any event -- speaking of spirits kidred to Lewis -- I think this is my all-time favorite John Derbyshire weblog statement. Laconic -- and so Derb:
TRASHING VIRGINIA WOOLF [John Derbyshire]
It's a dirty job, but needs doing.
Posted at 10:32 AM
Robert L. replies: Luke -- wasn't it I who brought Wyndham Lewis to your attention? Now that I reflect upon it, indeed, I'm quite certain it was I. Lewis, after all, made delicously scathing remarks about that preening effete little pack of blowhards known as the Bloomsbury Group (Virginia Woolf, member Exhibit A).
In any event -- speaking of spirits kidred to Lewis -- I think this is my all-time favorite John Derbyshire weblog statement. Laconic -- and so Derb:
TRASHING VIRGINIA WOOLF [John Derbyshire]
It's a dirty job, but needs doing.
Posted at 10:32 AM
I Plead Guilty To Sins Of The Flesh...
Because to plead guilty to sins of sloth, selfishness and narcissism are too painful.
Wise Sarah writes: I'm writing because I'm confused about some of your most recent postings on your Protocols blog. My confusion stems from your admission to me that you do not write about your dating life because it is holy and highly personal. Yet you so freely write about your hormonal lustings! What confuses me is why you see dating and relationships as private, yet you make your primitive desires so easily public. In Judaism, one's primitive desires are actually meant to be more private than one's thoughts and words.
Your hashkafa, I suspect, may be due to your prolonged exposure and involvement in the p--nography business, where hormonal lustings and sex are freely protrayed in the absence of any emotional intimacy or communication. You continue to support this hashkafa (not really the best term, but applicable-enough here) when you only post about your physical lustings for various women you encounter. This does not support a picture of you as a thoughtful and spiritual man who appreciates relationships with others, especially women. You instead come off as a horny intellectual-elitist who views women solely as objects of physical desire.
A good counter-balance might be to post some of your actual conversations with women so that we can get a picture of your interest in women outside of the physical.
Luke replies: I think it is easier for me to confess to desires of the flesh than to write about my unfulfilled desires for the quality Orthodox women I meet who awake so many yearning in me on a soul and intellectual and social level... To confess this neediness would be too humiliating. It is one thing to confess to seeing beautiful women I want to sleep with and to know that they reject me, but to confess to meeting Orthodox Jewish women that I want to marry and to know that they would not date me, this is a humiliation too painful to publish.
My last three days of the hagim were more socially fulfilling for me than the lonely first three days.
Wise Sarah writes: I'm writing because I'm confused about some of your most recent postings on your Protocols blog. My confusion stems from your admission to me that you do not write about your dating life because it is holy and highly personal. Yet you so freely write about your hormonal lustings! What confuses me is why you see dating and relationships as private, yet you make your primitive desires so easily public. In Judaism, one's primitive desires are actually meant to be more private than one's thoughts and words.
Your hashkafa, I suspect, may be due to your prolonged exposure and involvement in the p--nography business, where hormonal lustings and sex are freely protrayed in the absence of any emotional intimacy or communication. You continue to support this hashkafa (not really the best term, but applicable-enough here) when you only post about your physical lustings for various women you encounter. This does not support a picture of you as a thoughtful and spiritual man who appreciates relationships with others, especially women. You instead come off as a horny intellectual-elitist who views women solely as objects of physical desire.
A good counter-balance might be to post some of your actual conversations with women so that we can get a picture of your interest in women outside of the physical.
Luke replies: I think it is easier for me to confess to desires of the flesh than to write about my unfulfilled desires for the quality Orthodox women I meet who awake so many yearning in me on a soul and intellectual and social level... To confess this neediness would be too humiliating. It is one thing to confess to seeing beautiful women I want to sleep with and to know that they reject me, but to confess to meeting Orthodox Jewish women that I want to marry and to know that they would not date me, this is a humiliation too painful to publish.
My last three days of the hagim were more socially fulfilling for me than the lonely first three days.
Sin Never Felt So Good
Simchat Torah night. 6-9 pm. Modern Orthodox shul. Women dancing with Torah scrolls. They don't hold them right. They cradle them like they are babies.
I spot the NYT Hollywood correspondent and family.
Alcohol is banned.
At 9pm, I wander over to the shtible minyan at Workman's Circle. It's jammed. Average age is about 30. About half the crowd is from the University of Judaism and Hebrew Union College Los Angeles (mainly rabbinical students). Mixed dancing. I leave my shomer negiya status at the door and hold hands with fertile chicks and twirl around.
I see History prof Dr. David Myers from UCLA. A philosophy professor from UCI. The beautiful female rabbi of Ikar. About 20% of the crowd was at my Orthodox shul earlier. Lots of drinking. Finishes at midnight. Sin never felt so good.
I spot the NYT Hollywood correspondent and family.
Alcohol is banned.
At 9pm, I wander over to the shtible minyan at Workman's Circle. It's jammed. Average age is about 30. About half the crowd is from the University of Judaism and Hebrew Union College Los Angeles (mainly rabbinical students). Mixed dancing. I leave my shomer negiya status at the door and hold hands with fertile chicks and twirl around.
I see History prof Dr. David Myers from UCLA. A philosophy professor from UCI. The beautiful female rabbi of Ikar. About 20% of the crowd was at my Orthodox shul earlier. Lots of drinking. Finishes at midnight. Sin never felt so good.
The Price Of Oratory
I was at temple the other day. I got into a conversation with a woman. A few minutes in, she said she had been warned about me. Nothing new. Except that she was warned about me by a guy I was friendly with. Then I thought about it. That's not new either.
I was at Temple Sinai (C) in Westwood the other day talking to two women. They were disappointed that rabbi David Wolpe had not stopped by the room so they could talk to him.
Rabbi Wolpe is such a great orator that he can't help but go through life disappointing people. There were over 1000 Jews in the house and I bet half of them would've enjoyed talking to him.
My father is a great orator. When some people listen to him, they feel like they can close their eyes and think they are listening to the voice of God. They feel like he is speaking to them individually even when he is addressing a thousand people at once. They feel like he truly understands them and holds the keys to their salvation.
Jewish speakers in Los Angeles who have this similar star quality include rabbi Mordecai Finley, rabbi Yitzhok Adlerstein, Dennis Prager and Wolpe. Prager and R. Adlerstein are pretty much the same in one-on-one interaction as they are from the pulpit.
Still, their oratorical abilities stimulate such enormous longings for wholeness and healing in people that they raise impossible expectations. Thus, a certain type of follower of their's is always disappointed. People wrongly expect that because somebody is a great speaker, he is the answer to their problems. That he truly understands them. That he has the time to listen to their problems. That he truly cares what they have to say.
Now, almost everybody appreciates appreciation. But unless you are on the level of rabbis Finley and Adlerstein and Wolpe, as well as Prager, in their chosen fields, you should not expect these speakers to be as interested in what you have to say as you are in what they have to say. Yet I sense that many people, including myself, sometimes get so excited about learning from these teachers, that they want to give something back by instructing their teachers in some narrow area to prove to themselves that they can "give" too. This is setting oneself up for disappointment.
I saw a troubled woman I used to date dissolve in tears in front of R. Wolpe and dozens of other people at Friday Night Live. His sermon had obviously touched the deepest recesses of her soul. He was gracious and told her to call him during the week. But I doubt that he's going to be able to solve her problems. Just by giving her a few minutes of his time, however, I'm sure he could give her a great gift.
I used to ask my father why he took so much time counseling individuals. Why not just concentrate on his speeches to a wider audience? He answered with a metaphor. Speaking before a thousand people is like pouring a jug of water into one thousand glasses. Each glass only gets a few drops. Counseling someone individually is like pouring the water into one glass.
I was at Temple Sinai (C) in Westwood the other day talking to two women. They were disappointed that rabbi David Wolpe had not stopped by the room so they could talk to him.
Rabbi Wolpe is such a great orator that he can't help but go through life disappointing people. There were over 1000 Jews in the house and I bet half of them would've enjoyed talking to him.
My father is a great orator. When some people listen to him, they feel like they can close their eyes and think they are listening to the voice of God. They feel like he is speaking to them individually even when he is addressing a thousand people at once. They feel like he truly understands them and holds the keys to their salvation.
Jewish speakers in Los Angeles who have this similar star quality include rabbi Mordecai Finley, rabbi Yitzhok Adlerstein, Dennis Prager and Wolpe. Prager and R. Adlerstein are pretty much the same in one-on-one interaction as they are from the pulpit.
Still, their oratorical abilities stimulate such enormous longings for wholeness and healing in people that they raise impossible expectations. Thus, a certain type of follower of their's is always disappointed. People wrongly expect that because somebody is a great speaker, he is the answer to their problems. That he truly understands them. That he has the time to listen to their problems. That he truly cares what they have to say.
Now, almost everybody appreciates appreciation. But unless you are on the level of rabbis Finley and Adlerstein and Wolpe, as well as Prager, in their chosen fields, you should not expect these speakers to be as interested in what you have to say as you are in what they have to say. Yet I sense that many people, including myself, sometimes get so excited about learning from these teachers, that they want to give something back by instructing their teachers in some narrow area to prove to themselves that they can "give" too. This is setting oneself up for disappointment.
I saw a troubled woman I used to date dissolve in tears in front of R. Wolpe and dozens of other people at Friday Night Live. His sermon had obviously touched the deepest recesses of her soul. He was gracious and told her to call him during the week. But I doubt that he's going to be able to solve her problems. Just by giving her a few minutes of his time, however, I'm sure he could give her a great gift.
I used to ask my father why he took so much time counseling individuals. Why not just concentrate on his speeches to a wider audience? He answered with a metaphor. Speaking before a thousand people is like pouring a jug of water into one thousand glasses. Each glass only gets a few drops. Counseling someone individually is like pouring the water into one glass.
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Fan Group Infiltrated By Neo-Nazi?
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez writes to her Yahoo group: It has come to my attention that a hostile entity has somehow infiltrated our little group. I believe he joined, took everyone's email addresses, and is now sending you personal, nasty email.
I apologize for this. If someone has sent a kind email to my web site, they get an invitation. This person apparently had nothing better to do than pretend to be a fan. From his email, I get the sense he is a bitter journalist. No surprise there. Lots of them are bitter and nuts about the fact that I escaped newspapers. Not to
generalize, but that's my sense about it. Probably a frustrated
novelist, or a neo nazi.
Just delete his email and ignore him. Incidentally, I personally
hear from this kind of lunatic all the time.
I apologize for this. If someone has sent a kind email to my web site, they get an invitation. This person apparently had nothing better to do than pretend to be a fan. From his email, I get the sense he is a bitter journalist. No surprise there. Lots of them are bitter and nuts about the fact that I escaped newspapers. Not to
generalize, but that's my sense about it. Probably a frustrated
novelist, or a neo nazi.
Just delete his email and ignore him. Incidentally, I personally
hear from this kind of lunatic all the time.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
The Tao Of Robert
While I have always believed in saving physical intimacy for marriage, and have long sought in my potential mate a true fervor for God and goodness and Torah, I have come to realize over the years that the desires of many men, such as my friend Robert, are for baser things.
Robert writes: "Given the "relationship troubles" concerning this girl I'm madly in love with* -- unrequited, I might add (thus, leaving me most days to feel emotionally wasted, gouged, and eviscerated) -- I was reminded of this amusing, diverting little flick. Perhaps something I ought see again."
Memorable Quotes from The Tao of Steve (2000)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Do you want to have sex with this woman?
Dave : Definitely.
Dex : Okay, then you're violating the first rule of being Steve.
Dave : Who?
Dex : You must learn to eliminate your desire.
Rick : It's Buddhist.
Dex : I think the Taoists said it first.
Rick : Hey, are we gonna have a seminar or are we gonna play golf?
Dex : Just a short seminar on the elimination of desire, okay? If you're out with this girl and even THINKING about getting laid, you're finished, cuz women can smell an agenda like shit on a shoe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : What do you look for in a woman?
Dex : Uh,... Low Standards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : Okay, so if I'm not a Steve, then what am I?
Dex : You... You're ... a Stu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Look at me. Look at me, okay? Technically, I shouldn't be getting laid, but I do. And do you know why, Dave? Because when I'm hanging out with a woman, that's all I'm doing is hanging out, talking, listening. I'm not sitting there thinking about how to get in bed with her. And this completely confuses them because they're saying "Wait a minute. I'm so much better looking than this guy. Isn't he attracted to me?" The basic principle: We pursue that which retreats from us.
Rick : It's from Heidegger.
Unnamed Guy Playing Poker: Groucho Marks said the same thing. "Act like a woman can't join your club, and she'll do almost anything to get in."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julie : You have so many great books.
Dex : [Mumbling] The better to seduce you with.
Julie : What?
Dex : The better to deduce the truth with.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Dating's so tricky, that's all. And you're really cool. You have a great personality. I just don't wanna... I just don't wanna mess up our friendship.
Julie : Friendship? We just met!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : I made a schedule on my computer.
Dex : How Marcia Brady of you!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : How can you not love a British rock band consisting of four teenage bumble bees.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : Can I talk to you second?
Dex : I'm blanching the butter.
Rick : Okay, Martha Stewart. When you're done?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : But I think seriously that most people want a composite of the opposite sex. Ya know, cuz you gals aren't ever going to find Antonio Banderas with the personality of Fred MacMurray. And I'm never going to get Rachel Welch with the personality of Lucille Ball.
Syd : What's wrong with just Lucille Ball?
Rick : What's wrong with just Rachel Welch?
Dex : Amen! I mean my biggest fear is that I'm gonna marry the woman that I want to hang out with and talk to in my golden years and then die in a fiery car crash when I'm forty and I miss all those years of having sex.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maggie : [to Dex] But you've never been happy with any women you've dated.
Dex : Well, that's Male Insanity Syndrome. Ya know, that is just you're with a woman and no matter how cool she is, you're always thinking "Maybe I could do a little better or I could trade up somehow.
Syd : "Trade up?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : Dex is just bitter because he's never been in love.
Dex : [Offended] I love my dog.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Dex takes a substantial hit off a bong at 7:30am]
Syd : Would you describe this as a typical morning for you?
Dex : [Trying not to exhale] Hell no. Usually I spend this time cross-training.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : So, you smoke pot for breakfast, you work part time, and you ...
Dex : ... have limited potential.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Doing stuff is overrated. Like Hitler. He did a lot. But don't we all wish he woulda just stayed home and gotten stoned?
Syd : Oh, I see. So you're only options are to get stoned or commit genocide?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : I'm serious. If you're hanging out with women as friends, your doing your research in the wrong library.
Dave : What's wrong with being friends with women?
Dex : Nothing, but getting out of that category of 'friend' is harder than like getting out of Alcatraz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : And this takes us to the second rule of Being Steve: You have to do something excellent in her presence, thus demonstrating your sexual worthiness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : Don Giovanni slept with thousands of women because he was afraid he wouldn't be loved by one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Steve is the prototypical cool American male. Y'know, I'm talking about Steve McGarrett, alright? Steve Austin, Steve McQueen. Y'know, he's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living, man. He never, ever tries to impress the women but he always gets the girl.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : F--- you, man. You're all Steve's and I'm Gomer F---ing Pyle, man? F--- that. Screw you guys.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Awwww, dude, there's a certain order you're supposed to do things in, and telling someone you love them is definitely last in that order.
Dave : Well, when are you supposed to tell 'em?
Dex : I dunno. Maybe your 40th wedding anniversary or something?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : I'm gonna tell you this one last time and maybe you should tattoo it on your dick so you don't forget, okay? "We pursue that which retreats from us."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : And that takes us to Part III of the Tao of Steve, okay? Alright, after you've eliminated your desire, and after you've been excellent in her presence, then you must retreat. Okay?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You couldn't resist my powerful penetrating stare, could you?
Syd : No, I wanted to tell you, you had a huge glob of guacamole on your shirt.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : Okay, so, if you're falling in love with me, then why are you with all these other women?
Dex : Oh, come on. Am I supposed to remain celibate while I bask in like the warm glow of your annihilating contempt?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You think it's more honest to pretend to listen to a woman when you're just thinking about getting laid.
Dave : I think it's more honest than pretending I don't wanna get laid, ya know?
Dex : That's the whole point. Don't pretend, man. Just really let go of your desire.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : I'm not looking for enlightenment, Dex. I'm looking for a girlfriend.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : There'll be walking.
Dex : [Unimpressed] Yeah?
Rick : And climbing.
Dex : I know.
Rick : Outdoors.
Dex : Shut the f--- up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[At night, in their tents]
Dex : Good night, Rick!
Rick : Good night, Dex.
Dex : Good night, Maggie!
Maggie : Good night, John Boy.
Dex : Goodnight, Syd.
Syd : MY GOD DO YOU EVER STOP TALKING!?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : This is almost as ridiculous as your sleeping diet.
Dex : That time I lost 30 pounds.
Rick : You also lost your job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : I'M A TAOIST!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : [Paraphrasing the Tao of Steve] "Be desireless. Be excellent. Be gone."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : The Tao of Steve isn't about picking up lots of women. It's about being the best person you can be, and I'm not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You think all Buddhist monks are like the Dalai Lama? I mean, you don't there are guys in Nepal, right, who are like, "What should I do? Should I carry packs of heavy shit for Westerners up to the top of the base camp on Mt. Everest, or should I stay down here in Katmandu and maybe just chant all day and check out chicks and pretend to be holy?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Both men and women want to have sex. It's natural, except we're on different timetables. Women want to have sex, like, y'know, fifteen minutes after us, so alright, if you hold out for twenty she'll be chasing you for five.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Y'know, no one ever says, "Hey, God, how was your day? What can I do for you, God?" Or, "Hey, God, did you catch Letterman last night?"
Syd : Oh, and I suppose you talk to God like that?
Dex : Always. All the time.
Syd : And what does God say?
Dex : He says, "You know what? I saw Letterman and it sucked."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You can't just go up to a woman and say, 'Hi! I'm Dave! I like smoking pot, reading the sports page on the john...wanna have sex with me?'
Robert writes: "Given the "relationship troubles" concerning this girl I'm madly in love with* -- unrequited, I might add (thus, leaving me most days to feel emotionally wasted, gouged, and eviscerated) -- I was reminded of this amusing, diverting little flick. Perhaps something I ought see again."
Memorable Quotes from The Tao of Steve (2000)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Do you want to have sex with this woman?
Dave : Definitely.
Dex : Okay, then you're violating the first rule of being Steve.
Dave : Who?
Dex : You must learn to eliminate your desire.
Rick : It's Buddhist.
Dex : I think the Taoists said it first.
Rick : Hey, are we gonna have a seminar or are we gonna play golf?
Dex : Just a short seminar on the elimination of desire, okay? If you're out with this girl and even THINKING about getting laid, you're finished, cuz women can smell an agenda like shit on a shoe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : What do you look for in a woman?
Dex : Uh,... Low Standards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : Okay, so if I'm not a Steve, then what am I?
Dex : You... You're ... a Stu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Look at me. Look at me, okay? Technically, I shouldn't be getting laid, but I do. And do you know why, Dave? Because when I'm hanging out with a woman, that's all I'm doing is hanging out, talking, listening. I'm not sitting there thinking about how to get in bed with her. And this completely confuses them because they're saying "Wait a minute. I'm so much better looking than this guy. Isn't he attracted to me?" The basic principle: We pursue that which retreats from us.
Rick : It's from Heidegger.
Unnamed Guy Playing Poker: Groucho Marks said the same thing. "Act like a woman can't join your club, and she'll do almost anything to get in."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julie : You have so many great books.
Dex : [Mumbling] The better to seduce you with.
Julie : What?
Dex : The better to deduce the truth with.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Dating's so tricky, that's all. And you're really cool. You have a great personality. I just don't wanna... I just don't wanna mess up our friendship.
Julie : Friendship? We just met!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : I made a schedule on my computer.
Dex : How Marcia Brady of you!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : How can you not love a British rock band consisting of four teenage bumble bees.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : Can I talk to you second?
Dex : I'm blanching the butter.
Rick : Okay, Martha Stewart. When you're done?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : But I think seriously that most people want a composite of the opposite sex. Ya know, cuz you gals aren't ever going to find Antonio Banderas with the personality of Fred MacMurray. And I'm never going to get Rachel Welch with the personality of Lucille Ball.
Syd : What's wrong with just Lucille Ball?
Rick : What's wrong with just Rachel Welch?
Dex : Amen! I mean my biggest fear is that I'm gonna marry the woman that I want to hang out with and talk to in my golden years and then die in a fiery car crash when I'm forty and I miss all those years of having sex.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maggie : [to Dex] But you've never been happy with any women you've dated.
Dex : Well, that's Male Insanity Syndrome. Ya know, that is just you're with a woman and no matter how cool she is, you're always thinking "Maybe I could do a little better or I could trade up somehow.
Syd : "Trade up?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : Dex is just bitter because he's never been in love.
Dex : [Offended] I love my dog.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Dex takes a substantial hit off a bong at 7:30am]
Syd : Would you describe this as a typical morning for you?
Dex : [Trying not to exhale] Hell no. Usually I spend this time cross-training.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : So, you smoke pot for breakfast, you work part time, and you ...
Dex : ... have limited potential.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Doing stuff is overrated. Like Hitler. He did a lot. But don't we all wish he woulda just stayed home and gotten stoned?
Syd : Oh, I see. So you're only options are to get stoned or commit genocide?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : I'm serious. If you're hanging out with women as friends, your doing your research in the wrong library.
Dave : What's wrong with being friends with women?
Dex : Nothing, but getting out of that category of 'friend' is harder than like getting out of Alcatraz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : And this takes us to the second rule of Being Steve: You have to do something excellent in her presence, thus demonstrating your sexual worthiness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : Don Giovanni slept with thousands of women because he was afraid he wouldn't be loved by one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Steve is the prototypical cool American male. Y'know, I'm talking about Steve McGarrett, alright? Steve Austin, Steve McQueen. Y'know, he's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living, man. He never, ever tries to impress the women but he always gets the girl.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : F--- you, man. You're all Steve's and I'm Gomer F---ing Pyle, man? F--- that. Screw you guys.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Awwww, dude, there's a certain order you're supposed to do things in, and telling someone you love them is definitely last in that order.
Dave : Well, when are you supposed to tell 'em?
Dex : I dunno. Maybe your 40th wedding anniversary or something?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : I'm gonna tell you this one last time and maybe you should tattoo it on your dick so you don't forget, okay? "We pursue that which retreats from us."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : And that takes us to Part III of the Tao of Steve, okay? Alright, after you've eliminated your desire, and after you've been excellent in her presence, then you must retreat. Okay?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You couldn't resist my powerful penetrating stare, could you?
Syd : No, I wanted to tell you, you had a huge glob of guacamole on your shirt.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syd : Okay, so, if you're falling in love with me, then why are you with all these other women?
Dex : Oh, come on. Am I supposed to remain celibate while I bask in like the warm glow of your annihilating contempt?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You think it's more honest to pretend to listen to a woman when you're just thinking about getting laid.
Dave : I think it's more honest than pretending I don't wanna get laid, ya know?
Dex : That's the whole point. Don't pretend, man. Just really let go of your desire.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : I'm not looking for enlightenment, Dex. I'm looking for a girlfriend.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : There'll be walking.
Dex : [Unimpressed] Yeah?
Rick : And climbing.
Dex : I know.
Rick : Outdoors.
Dex : Shut the f--- up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[At night, in their tents]
Dex : Good night, Rick!
Rick : Good night, Dex.
Dex : Good night, Maggie!
Maggie : Good night, John Boy.
Dex : Goodnight, Syd.
Syd : MY GOD DO YOU EVER STOP TALKING!?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick : This is almost as ridiculous as your sleeping diet.
Dex : That time I lost 30 pounds.
Rick : You also lost your job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : I'M A TAOIST!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave : [Paraphrasing the Tao of Steve] "Be desireless. Be excellent. Be gone."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : The Tao of Steve isn't about picking up lots of women. It's about being the best person you can be, and I'm not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You think all Buddhist monks are like the Dalai Lama? I mean, you don't there are guys in Nepal, right, who are like, "What should I do? Should I carry packs of heavy shit for Westerners up to the top of the base camp on Mt. Everest, or should I stay down here in Katmandu and maybe just chant all day and check out chicks and pretend to be holy?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Both men and women want to have sex. It's natural, except we're on different timetables. Women want to have sex, like, y'know, fifteen minutes after us, so alright, if you hold out for twenty she'll be chasing you for five.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : Y'know, no one ever says, "Hey, God, how was your day? What can I do for you, God?" Or, "Hey, God, did you catch Letterman last night?"
Syd : Oh, and I suppose you talk to God like that?
Dex : Always. All the time.
Syd : And what does God say?
Dex : He says, "You know what? I saw Letterman and it sucked."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dex : You can't just go up to a woman and say, 'Hi! I'm Dave! I like smoking pot, reading the sports page on the john...wanna have sex with me?'
Stick Figure: A Diary Of My Former Self
Normally I never read books about suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, eating disorders and other such self-destructive behavior.
I suspect that these are primarily secular problems. I find it hard to believe that religious homes that do not have a television have the same percentage of daughters with eating disorders (I understand that anorexia nervosa and the like is primarily a white disease).
I heard Dennis Prager citing his wife Fran as saying that anorexia nervosa and the like are primarily attempts to avoid growing up and taking on adult responsibility.
For months now, I've been enjoying Lori Gottlieb's columns in the Jewish Journal. It's the best stuff these days in the Journal.
I had the privilege of meeting Lori last week. So when I was at the library this week and saw her memoir unabridged and on tape, Stick Figure: A Diary Of My Former Self, I checked it out.
One night when I couldn't sleep, I began listening.
It starts out thus: "I'm Lori Gottlieb and what you are about to hear are entries from my diaries when I was eleven years old."
I immediately thought, "No way!" No way could this book be entries from her diaries when she was eleven years old.
As I got caught up in the book's vivid scene-by-scene construction, I was renewed in my belief that there is no way that there is more than a paragraph or two in what I had heard that was unchanged from her diary. This book, as many reviewers point out, reads like a novel. As many of the customer reviews on Amazon put it, it reads like the sensibility of an accomplished woman in her twenties writing a novel.
So I arose at about 3 a.m. and Googled the book. In all the press about the book, I couldn't find any examples of a reporter looking at Gottlieb's original diary and comparing it the published book. Instead, in every interview on this, Gottlieb sticks to her claim that the writing is from when she was 11. It was then edited by her to form a narrative.
Then I thought - what's the big deal? Memoir is a genre that exists between fact and fiction.
But it still bothers me that the book presents itself as the diary of an eleven year old girl when it reads like the novel of an accomplished writer of, say, 27.
Maybe I am so bothered because I'm jealous. Because I still can't write as well as Lori does in this book, let alone when when I was eleven.
Lori writes on Salon.com: "Does writing a memoir give people carte blanche to analyze your life?"
She relates this comment from somebody looking at her book: "Wow, this picture's so glamorous. It doesn't look like you at all."
While that remark was rude and I don't think I would ever say something like that, Lori does look completely different in person from her press photos. In her press picture, she has chubby cheeks. In person, she's slender (which is why she still gets bothered by boors asking if she's eating enough).
The pictures I use on the top of this blog and in my books are all from 1994-95 (the last time I was professionally photographed (for my acting head shots) and got a copy). When you put yourself out there as much as I do, and Lori does, one has to expect comments on one's looks and if one's pictures are misrepresenting one's reality.
I wholeheartedly agree with Lori that just because one publishes intimate and touchy information about oneself, that does not make it ok for others to throw it in your face. Publishing sensitive information about oneself does not make it significantly less sensitive for oneself. Good manners requires that you use the same tact in dealing with a person's personal stuff whether it is published or not.
Now I'm off to read Lori's latest book -- Inside the Cult of Kibu.
I suspect that these are primarily secular problems. I find it hard to believe that religious homes that do not have a television have the same percentage of daughters with eating disorders (I understand that anorexia nervosa and the like is primarily a white disease).
I heard Dennis Prager citing his wife Fran as saying that anorexia nervosa and the like are primarily attempts to avoid growing up and taking on adult responsibility.
For months now, I've been enjoying Lori Gottlieb's columns in the Jewish Journal. It's the best stuff these days in the Journal.
I had the privilege of meeting Lori last week. So when I was at the library this week and saw her memoir unabridged and on tape, Stick Figure: A Diary Of My Former Self, I checked it out.
One night when I couldn't sleep, I began listening.
It starts out thus: "I'm Lori Gottlieb and what you are about to hear are entries from my diaries when I was eleven years old."
I immediately thought, "No way!" No way could this book be entries from her diaries when she was eleven years old.
As I got caught up in the book's vivid scene-by-scene construction, I was renewed in my belief that there is no way that there is more than a paragraph or two in what I had heard that was unchanged from her diary. This book, as many reviewers point out, reads like a novel. As many of the customer reviews on Amazon put it, it reads like the sensibility of an accomplished woman in her twenties writing a novel.
So I arose at about 3 a.m. and Googled the book. In all the press about the book, I couldn't find any examples of a reporter looking at Gottlieb's original diary and comparing it the published book. Instead, in every interview on this, Gottlieb sticks to her claim that the writing is from when she was 11. It was then edited by her to form a narrative.
Then I thought - what's the big deal? Memoir is a genre that exists between fact and fiction.
But it still bothers me that the book presents itself as the diary of an eleven year old girl when it reads like the novel of an accomplished writer of, say, 27.
Maybe I am so bothered because I'm jealous. Because I still can't write as well as Lori does in this book, let alone when when I was eleven.
Lori writes on Salon.com: "Does writing a memoir give people carte blanche to analyze your life?"
She relates this comment from somebody looking at her book: "Wow, this picture's so glamorous. It doesn't look like you at all."
While that remark was rude and I don't think I would ever say something like that, Lori does look completely different in person from her press photos. In her press picture, she has chubby cheeks. In person, she's slender (which is why she still gets bothered by boors asking if she's eating enough).
The pictures I use on the top of this blog and in my books are all from 1994-95 (the last time I was professionally photographed (for my acting head shots) and got a copy). When you put yourself out there as much as I do, and Lori does, one has to expect comments on one's looks and if one's pictures are misrepresenting one's reality.
I wholeheartedly agree with Lori that just because one publishes intimate and touchy information about oneself, that does not make it ok for others to throw it in your face. Publishing sensitive information about oneself does not make it significantly less sensitive for oneself. Good manners requires that you use the same tact in dealing with a person's personal stuff whether it is published or not.
Now I'm off to read Lori's latest book -- Inside the Cult of Kibu.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Luke's Books - The People Have Spoken
Nine copies of The Producers: Profiles in Frustration sold in August and three copies of XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul. My total royalties are $135:65 plus the approximately $300 I made from buying 80 copies at a 45% discount and selling them direct.
JMT advises: "Don't let these lofty sales figures go to your head. Your forthcoming Jewish journalism book will probably not sell quite so well, since it is aimed at a narrower market niche.
"Another thing you should think about is trying to leverage the iUniverse vanity press stable. Amazon.com offers package deals, so why shouldn't you? You know, buy the new Amy Fisher autobiography, or William F. Buckley Jr.'s spy stories book, and get The Producers for an additional $3. Or buy The Magician by Sol Stein (that's probably a Jew, right?), and get A Rebel Without A Shul for $1 ($1.25 for author-autographed copy)."
Chaim Amalek writes: "You really ought to hire some street vendors to hawk your books. Have them set up shop in the Farmers Markets. You should have a book hawking the Luke Ford Library at every shul event where such would be tolerated. Finally, why not lecture to the wannabe masses on all that you've learned in the course of writing these fine books? I'll be there is something like a Gotham Writer's Workshop or an Open University where you could do this."
Tika Massala of Bangalore writes: "I think you take perverse pride in failure. You spend too much time onanisticly looking over your life (the latter book), and not enough time pushing projects (like the former book) that might actually make a success of that life. The clock is ticking on you, Luke. I suggest that you accept the dining invitations that you have recently received from those with whom you might yet have a full social relationship, and stop begging for them from those who want little social intercourse with you."
JMT advises: "Don't let these lofty sales figures go to your head. Your forthcoming Jewish journalism book will probably not sell quite so well, since it is aimed at a narrower market niche.
"Another thing you should think about is trying to leverage the iUniverse vanity press stable. Amazon.com offers package deals, so why shouldn't you? You know, buy the new Amy Fisher autobiography, or William F. Buckley Jr.'s spy stories book, and get The Producers for an additional $3. Or buy The Magician by Sol Stein (that's probably a Jew, right?), and get A Rebel Without A Shul for $1 ($1.25 for author-autographed copy)."
Chaim Amalek writes: "You really ought to hire some street vendors to hawk your books. Have them set up shop in the Farmers Markets. You should have a book hawking the Luke Ford Library at every shul event where such would be tolerated. Finally, why not lecture to the wannabe masses on all that you've learned in the course of writing these fine books? I'll be there is something like a Gotham Writer's Workshop or an Open University where you could do this."
Tika Massala of Bangalore writes: "I think you take perverse pride in failure. You spend too much time onanisticly looking over your life (the latter book), and not enough time pushing projects (like the former book) that might actually make a success of that life. The clock is ticking on you, Luke. I suggest that you accept the dining invitations that you have recently received from those with whom you might yet have a full social relationship, and stop begging for them from those who want little social intercourse with you."
'Worse case scenario is I'll have one less friend'
A friend on the East Coast is trying to set me up for Shabbos meals in my community. He writes: "Okay, I'll e-mail my friend...pretty open minded. Worse case scenario is I'll have one less friend."
Beth Jacob Is Where The Babes Are
The number one place to meet single young Orthodox women in Los Angeles is Beth Jacob. Too bad I'm banned.
There's a new single woman in Young Israel of Century City who has all the single men ga-ga. She's beautiful, dresses invariably in hot pink and is so religious that she even comes to mincha and shalosh seudos on Shabbos. This woman is the Jewish Cameron Diaz and only 22 or so.
Due to an expansion in its membership, Beth Jacob had to move the Happy Minyan on and out. The HM now meets at Magen David, which became Orthodox about four years ago.
The ultimate guide to Los Angeles synagogues.
There's a new single woman in Young Israel of Century City who has all the single men ga-ga. She's beautiful, dresses invariably in hot pink and is so religious that she even comes to mincha and shalosh seudos on Shabbos. This woman is the Jewish Cameron Diaz and only 22 or so.
Due to an expansion in its membership, Beth Jacob had to move the Happy Minyan on and out. The HM now meets at Magen David, which became Orthodox about four years ago.
The ultimate guide to Los Angeles synagogues.
Monday, October 04, 2004
In Defense Of Rabbi Mordecai Gafni
Jacob Ner-David, Avraham Leader, Neil Markowitz -- board members of Bayit Chadash -- emailed board members of American Friends of Bayit Chadash:
Here's the letter from rabbis Telushkin, Berman and Firestone:
As we shared with you recently a group of people -who for the past twenty years have been sadly but determinedly antagonistic to Rabbi Gafni and all he represents - viewing him as a threat to the future of Orthodoxy - have done all they could to remove him from public discourse. Their accusations are simply not true; they have been looked at carefully and dismissed by every fair minded person who has encountered them.
Attached please find a letter to the Editor written by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Rabbi Saul Berman and Rabbi Tirzah Firestone which summarized and rebuffs the false accusations leveled in the Jewish Week article.
We are in fully constructive Bayit Chadash mode...engaging in all of our forms of teaching; television production, student classes, book projects, public festivals and events and of course funding raising as well.
As you can imagine - in this trying time your support of Bayit Chadash in general and of Rabbi Gafni personally is essential. We will walk past this break in the road, gently and confidently and with God’s help reach heights we never dreamed were possible.
Here's the letter from rabbis Telushkin, Berman and Firestone:
To the Editor,
Words can elevate and words can destroy.
There was a time when the Jewish community too glibly and carelessly disregarded words of accusation of sexual abuse against clergy. That was clearly wrong, and Gary Rosenblatt of The Jewish Week helped to correct that. The pendulum has now
swung to the opposite extreme, as evidenced in Rosenblatt’s column (The Re-Invented Rabbi, 9/24/04).
The column reports an allegation concerning a relationship from twenty-five years ago – when Rabbi Mordechai Gafni was 19 and 20 and not yet a rabbi – in a situation where he had no pastoral relationship with the person in question. Rabbi Gafni has a completely different account of what happened which was not clearly related in the article (including the fact that nothing even vaguely resembling sexual relations took place).
Furthermore, we can attest first hand that several years ago Rabbi Gafni made serious attempts to contact this woman in a therapeutically-mediated context—to clarify the huge gulf in their understandings of what happened and, if necessary, to apologize for any way in which she felt hurt. This offer was rejected and the decision was apparently made that the press was a more appropriate vehicle for conversation.
The story also reports unsubstantiated allegations which are twenty-years old. The story critically omits the fact that the professional to whom Rabbi Gafni (then Winiarz) was responsible at the time conducted an investigation, and drew the following conclusions in a formal report which was accepted by his superiors:
“I’ve known Rabbi Winiarz for the past six years, and I believe I speak of his character from a position of knowledge and reliability… In his work as director of Jewish Public School Youth, allegations were made as to his improper conduct with a teenage girl and a young female adult [referred to in the article as Judy and Susan]… For several months, in the spring and summer of 1986, I delved into the accusations and had numerous conversations with a number of people who were associated with Rabbi Winiarz both professionally and personally. I also talked to the accusing parties as well as members of their families, rabbis close to them and agency personnel involved in the work of JPSY. I also, of course, spoke at length to Rabbi Winiarz about these matters. It was my conclusion, based on clear and compelling reasons, that the accusations were not true and were not substantiated. I might add that this was also the view of a clinical psychologist who interviewed Rabbi Winiarz and the teenager after the alleged incident.”
We have collectively looked at this issue again in the last six months, and come to a similar conclusion. Further, Rabbi Gafni has long expressed his desire to meet with any of the parties who feel he has wronged them—even when he has a completely different account of the situation.
We, like Gary Rosenblatt, have struggled with the question of what gravity to assign to persistent rumors. Our conclusion differs from that of Mr. Rosenblatt. We have collectively, over many years, spoken to virtually everyone who would speak to us who was directly involved in order to examine the accusations against Rabbi Gafni. We have found them totally not convincing. Further, there is simply no evidence that Rabbi Gafni’s public role constitutes a risk to Jewish women, or to anyone for that matter.
We pray that this unfair scandalous moment will soon be forgotten and that Rabbi Gafni will be able to free his spiritual energy and formidable intellect in order to help build Jewish consciousness and commitment.
Rabbi Saul J. Berman, Director of Edah
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Jewish Literacy and The Book of Jewish Values
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Congregation Nevei Kodesh, author of With Roots in Heaven and
The Receiving
Mordecai Gafni At Oxford
More on rabbi Mordecai Gafni.
I got an email from Dr. Norman Solomon, a retired professor in Oxford's Oriental Studies department, in reply to my questions:
Dear Luke:
Re Gafni's claims:
1) teaching graduate seminars on mysticism at Oxford University in England
Gafni has spoken on mysticism at my seminar, at my invitation. It could be misleading to describe this as "teaching graduate seminars", since this might be taken to imply that he is or has been a member of staff here, which is incorrect.
2) a fellow at the Oriental Institute of Oxford University
Gafni is not and never has been a fellow at the Oriental Institute (in fact there is no such category).
3) an Oxford-trained scholar
He has worked towards a D.Phil (we have no degree of Ph.D.) under my supervision, but has not not submitted.
4) he also holds a Ph.D. from Oxford
He does not hold a Ph.D. from Oxford. Should it be confirmed that he has made such a spurious claim it would be regarded here as an extremely serious breach of discipline.
................
Oxford professor Joanna Weinberg emails me back: "Gafni taught a seminar which was not part of the university curriculum - he simply used the premises of the Oriental Institute. He is not a fellow at the Oriental Institute - we don't have fellows.
He is writing his Ph. D at Oxford under the supervision of Rabbi Norman Solomon. As far as I know, he has not yet received his doctorate."
PS 2008 Update: Marc Gafni has received his PhD from Oxford.
I got an email from Dr. Norman Solomon, a retired professor in Oxford's Oriental Studies department, in reply to my questions:
Dear Luke:
Re Gafni's claims:
1) teaching graduate seminars on mysticism at Oxford University in England
Gafni has spoken on mysticism at my seminar, at my invitation. It could be misleading to describe this as "teaching graduate seminars", since this might be taken to imply that he is or has been a member of staff here, which is incorrect.
2) a fellow at the Oriental Institute of Oxford University
Gafni is not and never has been a fellow at the Oriental Institute (in fact there is no such category).
3) an Oxford-trained scholar
He has worked towards a D.Phil (we have no degree of Ph.D.) under my supervision, but has not not submitted.
4) he also holds a Ph.D. from Oxford
He does not hold a Ph.D. from Oxford. Should it be confirmed that he has made such a spurious claim it would be regarded here as an extremely serious breach of discipline.
................
Oxford professor Joanna Weinberg emails me back: "Gafni taught a seminar which was not part of the university curriculum - he simply used the premises of the Oriental Institute. He is not a fellow at the Oriental Institute - we don't have fellows.
He is writing his Ph. D at Oxford under the supervision of Rabbi Norman Solomon. As far as I know, he has not yet received his doctorate."
PS 2008 Update: Marc Gafni has received his PhD from Oxford.
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Ignites My Writer Within
Sunday, October 3. WEST HOLLYWOOD BOOK FAIR:
The 3 p.m. panel discussion is titled: Pen on Fire: Women Authors On Igniting The Writer Within.
I set eyes on Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez for the first time. She's cute and chubby. She wears blue jeans and a lacy black top. She seems smart and charming.
The moderator is Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. She sits on the left. Then L-R it's Gayle Brandeis, Alisa, Barbara Seranella and Nina Revoyr.
Barbara asks the panelists to tell what keeps their pen moving and to read a paragraph or two from their latest book.
Gayle speaks for five minutes.
Alisa speaks for fifteen minutes: "I've been wanting to write a novel since I was 14. I fell into newspapers because it was somewhere you could get paid to write. It was an education to see the way people were categorized in the mainstream media and the labels that were used the impacts that words had to create social realities in a way that I didn't like. In my case, it was that anybody would be predictable by virtue of their belonging to a group. With Hispanic and Latino, we didn't use the word Hispanic in the United States until the late 1970s. I had ten years of my life where I wasn't Hispanic. I was just Alisa Valdes with a Cuban dad and a weird mom. It was interesting to me to be in newspapers and to have all these assumptions about who I was and what I could cover and how I could cover it based on my name. Hearing things like a suspect being described as a latino man and wondering what that meant.
"With my first novel, I wanted to describe a little bit of the diversity that Latino America is. Racial diversity. Gender diversity. Language diversity. Religious diversity. I sat down with a census. It was a world I was trying to write at newspapers and getting my wrists slapped down at every turn. You're bad, you're bad, you're bad. You don't know what you're talking about and furthermore, you're crazy. That is what I was hearing. There is a Latino community and they all share a brain [LF wonders if that mythical brain is Frank del Olmo's?]. They all have the same opinions. There's a Latino vote and it's exactly the same. That's dumb.
"I looked at the census at how the pie broke down. The largest percentage was Mexican-American. I had two Mexican-Americans. One identified as Spanish. The other thought she was Aztec. They kinda looked alike. I had my black Colombian lesbian.
"I had been buying Latino novels in English [Alisa is not literate in Spanish] and not finding experiences like mine -- college educated and professional. I was finding beautiful writing that was about a miserable experience.
"I wrote the book I wanted to read and couldn't find -- The Dirty Girls Social Club.
"The second book (Playing With Boys) explores more of that diversity. I feel like I could write about Latinos for the rest of my life and never duplicate a culture.
"Dean Koontz, my favorite writer, can write about white men for all his career and he is just assumed to be writing about individuals and someone like me is assumed to be representative of a group, which is totally wrong.
"Within the book, I talk about stereotypes a lot. I set out to explore my own stereotypes and create a lead character who was the kind of person I'd be afraid of. By virtue of my upbringing, the people I was afraid of were Republican right-wing Christian Bible-thumping NRA members. On my first book tour, I had quite a few fans who would fit into that category, particularly in Texas. My lead character is a Mexican-American from Dallas, a sorority girl and debutante, a right-wing Christian who's been transplanted to LA.
"It's funny now when people come up to me and say, how could you be a Republican? I feel like I did my job.
"I'll just read one or two paragraphs of each character [every other author on the panel only read one paragraph from their work]. I write in the first-person from each point of view.
"I realized that the only stories I wrote that impacted people were first-person essays. They were the only ones I was getting calls on. I am so pleased to read reviews of my work that call it light and fluffy and beach reading."
Seranella is about to clap but Alisa won't stop reading.
Finally, Seranell and Revoyr speak for five minutes each.
Alisa writes in her online diary for September 27:
So I get to Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, and find out that not only have they spelled my name wrong on the store web site and in the local newspaper, I've been billed as a "bi-lingual" event....
This comes a little more than a week after the NY Press billed my New York reading as "bilingual," saying that I was "bringing the third world just what it needs - chick lit!" I should say that I called the reporter on that particular piece of stupidity, to ask her what, exactly, about me was "third world", and she defended herself by saying it was "a joke."
The 3 p.m. panel discussion is titled: Pen on Fire: Women Authors On Igniting The Writer Within.
I set eyes on Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez for the first time. She's cute and chubby. She wears blue jeans and a lacy black top. She seems smart and charming.
The moderator is Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. She sits on the left. Then L-R it's Gayle Brandeis, Alisa, Barbara Seranella and Nina Revoyr.
Barbara asks the panelists to tell what keeps their pen moving and to read a paragraph or two from their latest book.
Gayle speaks for five minutes.
Alisa speaks for fifteen minutes: "I've been wanting to write a novel since I was 14. I fell into newspapers because it was somewhere you could get paid to write. It was an education to see the way people were categorized in the mainstream media and the labels that were used the impacts that words had to create social realities in a way that I didn't like. In my case, it was that anybody would be predictable by virtue of their belonging to a group. With Hispanic and Latino, we didn't use the word Hispanic in the United States until the late 1970s. I had ten years of my life where I wasn't Hispanic. I was just Alisa Valdes with a Cuban dad and a weird mom. It was interesting to me to be in newspapers and to have all these assumptions about who I was and what I could cover and how I could cover it based on my name. Hearing things like a suspect being described as a latino man and wondering what that meant.
"With my first novel, I wanted to describe a little bit of the diversity that Latino America is. Racial diversity. Gender diversity. Language diversity. Religious diversity. I sat down with a census. It was a world I was trying to write at newspapers and getting my wrists slapped down at every turn. You're bad, you're bad, you're bad. You don't know what you're talking about and furthermore, you're crazy. That is what I was hearing. There is a Latino community and they all share a brain [LF wonders if that mythical brain is Frank del Olmo's?]. They all have the same opinions. There's a Latino vote and it's exactly the same. That's dumb.
"I looked at the census at how the pie broke down. The largest percentage was Mexican-American. I had two Mexican-Americans. One identified as Spanish. The other thought she was Aztec. They kinda looked alike. I had my black Colombian lesbian.
"I had been buying Latino novels in English [Alisa is not literate in Spanish] and not finding experiences like mine -- college educated and professional. I was finding beautiful writing that was about a miserable experience.
"I wrote the book I wanted to read and couldn't find -- The Dirty Girls Social Club.
"The second book (Playing With Boys) explores more of that diversity. I feel like I could write about Latinos for the rest of my life and never duplicate a culture.
"Dean Koontz, my favorite writer, can write about white men for all his career and he is just assumed to be writing about individuals and someone like me is assumed to be representative of a group, which is totally wrong.
"Within the book, I talk about stereotypes a lot. I set out to explore my own stereotypes and create a lead character who was the kind of person I'd be afraid of. By virtue of my upbringing, the people I was afraid of were Republican right-wing Christian Bible-thumping NRA members. On my first book tour, I had quite a few fans who would fit into that category, particularly in Texas. My lead character is a Mexican-American from Dallas, a sorority girl and debutante, a right-wing Christian who's been transplanted to LA.
"It's funny now when people come up to me and say, how could you be a Republican? I feel like I did my job.
"I'll just read one or two paragraphs of each character [every other author on the panel only read one paragraph from their work]. I write in the first-person from each point of view.
"I realized that the only stories I wrote that impacted people were first-person essays. They were the only ones I was getting calls on. I am so pleased to read reviews of my work that call it light and fluffy and beach reading."
Seranella is about to clap but Alisa won't stop reading.
Finally, Seranell and Revoyr speak for five minutes each.
Alisa writes in her online diary for September 27:
So I get to Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, and find out that not only have they spelled my name wrong on the store web site and in the local newspaper, I've been billed as a "bi-lingual" event....
This comes a little more than a week after the NY Press billed my New York reading as "bilingual," saying that I was "bringing the third world just what it needs - chick lit!" I should say that I called the reporter on that particular piece of stupidity, to ask her what, exactly, about me was "third world", and she defended herself by saying it was "a joke."
Sunday, October 03, 2004
My Life Is At Stake
I am so powerfully attracted to a girl that it hurts me. It hurts me in such a tender spot that I am embarrassed to talk about it. I can only write about it. Unfortunately for my health (mental and physical), my Torah observance does not allow me to do anything about my attraction for this woman as we are not yet married. I had to take two Advils today just to be able to walk. I wonder if my life is at stake, pikuah nefesh, and if so, if that would sanction a little fooling with her around short of biah (penetration)? Your help urgently needed. I feel like I am about to explode. May God have mercy on me and bring the redemption soon.
Problems in Mideast - Solved?
There might well be a fair solution to the problems between Palestinian and Jew right here in an essay that Chaim Amalek assures me is Rabbi Gadol at his best. What I, as a Jew who aspires to be a Torah Jew, like most about it, is that it would restore the situation to what most of the Gedolim of a hundred years back felt it ought to be, while reserving for Jews a place of refuge for when they need it. And it would greatly lessen tensions in the mideast (but not completely eliminate them).
Sages and Gedolim of Los Angeles - what say you?
Sages and Gedolim of Los Angeles - what say you?
Would They Ask Such Things Of Samuel Pepys?
A friend writes: You don’t need such boring details in a book about YOU. You can just leave it at the fact that you have [a friend]!
seriously luke please leave me out of your book out except for non specific references to... Also I think it would be very considerate of you to just refer to your .... as ‘my .....’ – it doesn’t add anything to your story to identify him by name or go into his autobiographical details. Otherwise you book will be seized upon by .....’s enemies and be used against him. We are all such tiny little fish in the scheme of things it seems quite funny to be going to print at all - raises the question ‘why’? What would you think if you learned I was writing a book about my life? My life has been very interesting for me but I doubt it would interest others except for the wrong reasons. Is it a symptom of narcissism? If so, should it be resisted rather than indulged? Is it the best use of time and energy?
seriously luke please leave me out of your book out except for non specific references to... Also I think it would be very considerate of you to just refer to your .... as ‘my .....’ – it doesn’t add anything to your story to identify him by name or go into his autobiographical details. Otherwise you book will be seized upon by .....’s enemies and be used against him. We are all such tiny little fish in the scheme of things it seems quite funny to be going to print at all - raises the question ‘why’? What would you think if you learned I was writing a book about my life? My life has been very interesting for me but I doubt it would interest others except for the wrong reasons. Is it a symptom of narcissism? If so, should it be resisted rather than indulged? Is it the best use of time and energy?
Saturday, October 02, 2004
Succoth Reading List
Patrick O'Brian: Master and Commander: B
Tom Landry: Tom Landry: F
Skip Bayless: God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys: A
Bob St. John: Landry: The Legacy, The Legend: F
Mordecai Richler: Barney's Version: B
I want to read Lori Gottlieb's memoir Stick Figure and I tried to read Jonathan Rosen's novel Eve's Apple but I just can't enjoy stuff that centers of vomiting (eating disorders).
I am often asked by people to be kept out of my writing. Would they say the same thing to Samuel Pepys or Jean-Jacques Rousseau? (Barney's Version)
Pinchus writes: "I never get any invitations, either. But rather than whine, why didn't YOU invite some of your betters to your hovel? Either you'd have had the pleasure of their complany, or you would have guilt-tripped them into not inviting you over for a meal. You need to think like a Jew here, Luke."
I was walking home from shul Friday night with a new friend. He asked me if I was set up for all my holiday meals. It took me about 30 seconds to choke out no. It was supremely embarrassing. So I had lunch at his place today. Then I lent him my memoir.
Tom Landry: Tom Landry: F
Skip Bayless: God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys: A
Bob St. John: Landry: The Legacy, The Legend: F
Mordecai Richler: Barney's Version: B
I want to read Lori Gottlieb's memoir Stick Figure and I tried to read Jonathan Rosen's novel Eve's Apple but I just can't enjoy stuff that centers of vomiting (eating disorders).
I am often asked by people to be kept out of my writing. Would they say the same thing to Samuel Pepys or Jean-Jacques Rousseau? (Barney's Version)
Pinchus writes: "I never get any invitations, either. But rather than whine, why didn't YOU invite some of your betters to your hovel? Either you'd have had the pleasure of their complany, or you would have guilt-tripped them into not inviting you over for a meal. You need to think like a Jew here, Luke."
I was walking home from shul Friday night with a new friend. He asked me if I was set up for all my holiday meals. It took me about 30 seconds to choke out no. It was supremely embarrassing. So I had lunch at his place today. Then I lent him my memoir.
Ladies Never Move
My blogger friend Matt tells himself and the world that he’s an Orthodox Jew. He doesn’t blog on Shabbos. He walks to his Orthodox shul. He’s a member in good standing. He tries to keep his sins quiet.
Unfortunately for Matt, not many people buy his “Orthodox” act. Certainly not his Orthodox community (what there is left of it).
So when Wednesday, September 29, came around, Matt faced a dilemma. He faced three holy days in a row (the first two days of Succoth, and then the Sabbath) without any invitations for meals. Matt doesn’t get invited out much because he’s an ass. At his last meal, the hosts put him on time-out with the kids because he was telling stories about marching with Martin Luther King that struck some of listeners as patronizing at best and racist at worst.
Wednesday night, Matt faced a choice. He could sit at home and celebrate Succot by read the Mordecai Richler novel Barney’s Version. Or he could live Barney’s Version by sneaking out to the LA Press Club/Reason magazine party in Beverly Hills.
Given his empty social calendar, Matt really wanted to go to the party. But he felt like he would be betraying his religion if he did.
Matt has been in this situation many times in the past. What usually happens is that Matt decides to do what he wants, and then thinks up ingenious excuses for his misbehavior.
Matt faced the problem that he had already piously emailed his LAPC friends that his religious obligations would preclude him from attending the party. So what’s a Jew to do?
Well, it’s only three miles away from where Matt lives. He could plausibly say he was just stopping by the party (which began at 6 p.m., while Succoth began at 6:25 p.m.) for a few minutes on his way to a mythical Succot dinner just up the street where he would follow in the 4000-year-old tradition of his ancestors.
Then Matt remembered how the presence of God accompanied him everywhere he went, and that he could conceive of this presence as a Succah, a booth, and therefore he wouldn’t be lying if he said he was on his way to a Succah.
The party proceeded swimmingly. Matt looked around for some chicks to hit on. Melissa from Reason pointed across the party to a woman called Mary, who was the Reason receptionist. And single.
Matt ambled over and interrupted the conversation between Mary and Kevin Bleyer, a writer for the Dennis Miller show. They were finishing off a book on relationships for St. Martins Press.
Matt launched into a graphic lecture on why he didn’t like to go down on women and followed it up with an elaborate complaint that American women move too much in bed. He said what he was really looking for in a woman was good values.
“You should meet Lori Gottlieb,” said Kevin.
“Lori Gottlieb?” said Matt. “I’ve got a crush on her. She’s a great writer. I read her columns in the Jewish Journal.”
And then Matt returned to detailing his sexual obsessions. When he paused to take a breath, he let his eyes travel down Mary’s neck, below her chest, to her name tag, which read, “Lori Gottlieb.”
Matt flushed bright red. While talking filth to a receptionist was perfectly ok in Matt’s morality, it was not the way he wanted to introduce himself to author Lori Gottlieb.
“I think I might get a column out of this,” said Lori (who doesn’t look anything like her picture), walking off.
Rabbi Gadol writes: "Both the CDC and the helpful lesbians at Toys in Babeland agree: oral sex is not safe sex. When you go down on a woman and satisfy her carnal urges not with your penis, as God intended, but in the manner of a Frenchman - with your mouth - you are exposing your mouth to every kind of bacteria and virus that the "Sex in the City"-watching woman has to offer. And yes, they can infect you. Unlike torah sex, there is no condom that you can slip on the organs in questions to protect yourself. No my friends, oral sex is not safe sex, and the wise man avoids it at all costs. In fact, I am pretty sure that oral sex has sickened more men than has eating at Taco Bell. (Don't give me any lectures on the use of dental dams - it's one thing to slip a tube of rubber on something that we cannot see - our penis - and quite another to be staring at a sheet of plastic during sex, and tasting same. Blech. It's like looking at a brochure from the CDC warning you not to have oral sex while having oral sex.) So ladies, stop whining for us to do that to you, unless we are married to you or set to get married to you. And even then, most men hate doing this for most women."
Unfortunately for Matt, not many people buy his “Orthodox” act. Certainly not his Orthodox community (what there is left of it).
So when Wednesday, September 29, came around, Matt faced a dilemma. He faced three holy days in a row (the first two days of Succoth, and then the Sabbath) without any invitations for meals. Matt doesn’t get invited out much because he’s an ass. At his last meal, the hosts put him on time-out with the kids because he was telling stories about marching with Martin Luther King that struck some of listeners as patronizing at best and racist at worst.
Wednesday night, Matt faced a choice. He could sit at home and celebrate Succot by read the Mordecai Richler novel Barney’s Version. Or he could live Barney’s Version by sneaking out to the LA Press Club/Reason magazine party in Beverly Hills.
Given his empty social calendar, Matt really wanted to go to the party. But he felt like he would be betraying his religion if he did.
Matt has been in this situation many times in the past. What usually happens is that Matt decides to do what he wants, and then thinks up ingenious excuses for his misbehavior.
Matt faced the problem that he had already piously emailed his LAPC friends that his religious obligations would preclude him from attending the party. So what’s a Jew to do?
Well, it’s only three miles away from where Matt lives. He could plausibly say he was just stopping by the party (which began at 6 p.m., while Succoth began at 6:25 p.m.) for a few minutes on his way to a mythical Succot dinner just up the street where he would follow in the 4000-year-old tradition of his ancestors.
Then Matt remembered how the presence of God accompanied him everywhere he went, and that he could conceive of this presence as a Succah, a booth, and therefore he wouldn’t be lying if he said he was on his way to a Succah.
The party proceeded swimmingly. Matt looked around for some chicks to hit on. Melissa from Reason pointed across the party to a woman called Mary, who was the Reason receptionist. And single.
Matt ambled over and interrupted the conversation between Mary and Kevin Bleyer, a writer for the Dennis Miller show. They were finishing off a book on relationships for St. Martins Press.
Matt launched into a graphic lecture on why he didn’t like to go down on women and followed it up with an elaborate complaint that American women move too much in bed. He said what he was really looking for in a woman was good values.
“You should meet Lori Gottlieb,” said Kevin.
“Lori Gottlieb?” said Matt. “I’ve got a crush on her. She’s a great writer. I read her columns in the Jewish Journal.”
And then Matt returned to detailing his sexual obsessions. When he paused to take a breath, he let his eyes travel down Mary’s neck, below her chest, to her name tag, which read, “Lori Gottlieb.”
Matt flushed bright red. While talking filth to a receptionist was perfectly ok in Matt’s morality, it was not the way he wanted to introduce himself to author Lori Gottlieb.
“I think I might get a column out of this,” said Lori (who doesn’t look anything like her picture), walking off.
Rabbi Gadol writes: "Both the CDC and the helpful lesbians at Toys in Babeland agree: oral sex is not safe sex. When you go down on a woman and satisfy her carnal urges not with your penis, as God intended, but in the manner of a Frenchman - with your mouth - you are exposing your mouth to every kind of bacteria and virus that the "Sex in the City"-watching woman has to offer. And yes, they can infect you. Unlike torah sex, there is no condom that you can slip on the organs in questions to protect yourself. No my friends, oral sex is not safe sex, and the wise man avoids it at all costs. In fact, I am pretty sure that oral sex has sickened more men than has eating at Taco Bell. (Don't give me any lectures on the use of dental dams - it's one thing to slip a tube of rubber on something that we cannot see - our penis - and quite another to be staring at a sheet of plastic during sex, and tasting same. Blech. It's like looking at a brochure from the CDC warning you not to have oral sex while having oral sex.) So ladies, stop whining for us to do that to you, unless we are married to you or set to get married to you. And even then, most men hate doing this for most women."
Amalek Sees Me as the Fulcrum of Power
Chaim Amalek writes:
Archimedes once said "give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the Earth."
He left out the fulcrum, but no matter - this web site is my fulcrum, the internet is my place to stand, and here is the lever with which I shall move the world. I have articulated a sensible platform for America that most decent people can support, be they liberal or conservative. No, not your obnoxious friends who would rather be witty than be right, but the rest of us Christian folk who eat much of our meat at McDonald's and who struggle with paying our bills and who don't want to be crushed into latter-day Chinese coolies by the Iron Heel of big business interests. The politician who gets behind this platform today is destined to become the leader who has power tomorrow.
Archimedes once said "give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the Earth."
He left out the fulcrum, but no matter - this web site is my fulcrum, the internet is my place to stand, and here is the lever with which I shall move the world. I have articulated a sensible platform for America that most decent people can support, be they liberal or conservative. No, not your obnoxious friends who would rather be witty than be right, but the rest of us Christian folk who eat much of our meat at McDonald's and who struggle with paying our bills and who don't want to be crushed into latter-day Chinese coolies by the Iron Heel of big business interests. The politician who gets behind this platform today is destined to become the leader who has power tomorrow.
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