German youth are experiencing "Holocaust fatigue," the head of the German delegation to an international organization of Holocaust education and remembrance said Monday.
"German children tend to show Holocaust fatigue," said Dr. Benedikt Haller, the German Foreign Ministry official who serves as special representative for relations with Jewish organizations and issues relating to anti-Semitism.
The remarks came just a day before the official opening in Berlin of the office of the Task Force on International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research, a group intended to foster cooperation on Holocaust remembrance activities throughout Europe. The organization, which was conceived a decade ago and has thus far operated informally, will comprise 25 countries around the world, including EU states, the US, Argentina and Israel.
In remarks to a group of Israeli journalists, Holocaust instructors and American Jewish leaders, Haller, who will serve as the head of the German delegation to the international Holocaust body, stressed that "Holocaust fatigue" was not a reason to stop teaching the Holocaust in German schools.
"The Holocaust has a very strong place in our national curriculum and it is not going away or [being taken] out," he said. "This is not a reason to take it out of our curriculum."
Haller attributed the "over-infusion" of Holocaust education to a new generation of German educators who revolted against the generation of their parents and grandparents who had kept silent about the mass murder of six million Jews.
"A whole generation of teachers were interested in refuting their parents and telling people the truth," he said.
"It's quite natural that the commitment was not the same with their students [which] for them was a strange and brutal story of [their] grandparents," he said.
The German official suggested that in their zeal to teach the story of the Holocaust, some teachers of the "committed" generation "overdid it a little." Haller made his frank statements after noting the "tremendous amount" of Holocaust literature and research in Germany which, he said, he has long given up trying to keep up with.
He cited a German newspaper caricature published on the 60th anniversary of Hitler's rise to power that depicted a German in a bookstore, surrounded and oversaturated with books about the Holocaust.
The official's remarks were later criticized by American educators as inappropriate.
"As spokesman for such an elite group in Europe as the task force, he has to be at the forefront of encouraging Holocaust remembrance, and not discouraging it," said Bernita M. King, history professor at Miami Dade College. "He should be the biggest cheerleader of Holocaust remembrance," King said.
"This is the wrong message to send out when there is so much more work that needs to be done," said Susan Myers, the executive director of the Holocaust Museum Houston. "With anti-Semitism on the rise, this is not the time to slow down," she said.
Haller's remarks come as the number of elderly Holocaust survivors continues to dwindle.
"This is not the message that you want survivors to hear as they are in their twilight years," Myers said.
"As the child of a survivor, it is perplexing to hear that there is a fatigue not only about the Holocaust but about anti-Semitism," said Sylvia Wygoda, executive director of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust.
A representative of the New York-based American Jewish Committee, Los Angeles Chapter Executive Director Seth Brysk, said that Haller was "reporting on a phenomenon that exists in the country."
"There is evidence... which indicates that there is Holocaust fatigue in Germany, but it's unclear to what extent," William Shulman, president of the New York-based Association of Holocaust Organizations and a member of the US delegation to the task force, said in a telephone interview.
Other German educators said that German teens were highly informed about the Holocaust, but stopped short of saying they were "oversaturated" with Holocaust education.
"Many come with the attitude 'we know already everything,'" said Dr. Norbert Kampe, director of the Memorial and Educational Site at the House of the Wannsee Conference, a lavish villa in suburban Berlin where top SS officials met in January 1942 to discuss the extermination of the Jews.
The inauguration of the new Holocaust memorial office on Tuesday will be marked by an address by German Federal Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"It is quite fitting that the office should open in Berlin, the place where the Holocaust was planned and executed," Haller said. "This is an important step for Holocaust commemoration in the future."
Showing posts with label Zionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zionism. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Myth Of Gun Control In Germany
A common belief among defenders of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is that the National Socialist government of Germany under Adolf Hitler did not permit the private ownership of firearms. Totalitarian governments, they have been taught in their high school civics classes, do not trust their citizens and do not dare permit them to keep firearms. Thus, one often hears the statement, "You know, the first thing the Nazis did when they came to power was outlaw firearms," or, "The first thing Hitler did in Germany was round up all the guns."
One can understand why many American gun owners want to believe this. They see in the current effort of their own government to take away their right to keep and bear arms a limitation of an essential element of their freedom and a move toward tyranny, and they want to characterize the gun-grabbers in the most negative way they can. Adolf Hitler has been vilified continuously for the past 60 years or so by the mass media in America, and certainly no politician or officeholder wants to be compared with him. If the gun-confiscation effort can be portrayed convincingly as something of which Hitler would have approved, it will have been effectively tarred.
This identification of the inclination to deny citizens the right to keep and bear arms with National Socialism and Adolf Hitler has been strengthened recently by clever magazine advertisements which show Hitler with his arm outstretched in a Roman salute under a heading: "All in favor of gun control raise your right hand." A Jewish group, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), quite noisy for its size, has been especially zealous in promoting the idea that the current gun-control effort in America has its roots in Germany during the Hitler period. This group has gone so far as to claim in several articles published in popular magazines read by firearms enthusiasts that the current restrictive legislation being proposed by the U.S. government is modeled on a gun-control statute enacted by Germany's National Socialist government: the German Weapons Law (Waffengesetz) of March 18, 1938.
Again, one can understand the motivation of the JPFO. Many non-Jewish firearms owners are well aware that the movement to restrict their rights is led and promoted primarily by Jews, and anti-Jewish feeling has been growing among them. They know that the controlled news media, which are almost unanimously in favor of abridging or abolishing the Second Amendment, are very much under the influence of Jews, and they know that the most vocal anti-gun legislators in the Congress also are Jews. It is natural for a group such as the JPFO to mount a damage- control effort and attempt to prevent anti-Jewish feeling from becoming even stronger among gun owners. Their strategy is to deflect the blame from their kinsmen in the media and the government and direct it onto their most hated enemies, the National Socialists -- or at least to create enough smoke to obscure the facts and keep the gun-owning public confused.
Unfortunately for those who would like to link Hitler and the National Socialists with gun control, the entire premise for such an effort is false. German firearms legislation under Hitler, far from banning private ownership, actually facilitated the keeping and bearing of arms by German citizens by eliminating or ameliorating restrictive laws which had been enacted by the government preceding his: a left-center government which had contained a number of Jews.
It is not just that the National Socialist firearms legislation was the opposite of what it has been claimed to have been by persons who want to tar modern gun-grabbers with the "Nazi" brush: the whole spirit of Hitler's government was starkly different from its portrayal by America's mass media. The facts, in brief, are these:
* The National Socialist government of Germany, unlike the government in Washington today, did not fear its citizens. Adolf Hitler was the most popular leader Germany has ever had. Unlike American presidents, he did not have to wear body armor and have shields of bulletproof glass in front of him whenever he spoke in public. At public celebrations he rode standing in an open car as it moved slowly through cheering crowds. Communists made several attempts to assassinate him, and his government stamped down hard on communism, virtually wiping it out in Germany. Between upright, law-abiding German citizens and Adolf Hitler, however, there was a real love affair, with mutual trust and respect.
* The spirit of National Socialism was one of manliness, and individual self-defense and self- reliance were central to the National Socialist view of the way a citizen should behave. The notion of banning firearms ownership was utterly alien to National Socialism. In the German universities, where National Socialism gained its earliest footholds and which later became its strongest bastions, dueling was an accepted practice. Although the liberal-Jewish governments in Germany after the First World War attempted to ban dueling, it persisted illegally until it was again legalized by the National Socialists. Fencing, target shooting, and other martial arts were immensely popular in Germany, and the National Socialists encouraged young Germans to become proficient in these activities, believing that they were important for the development of a man's character.
* Gun registration and licensing (for long guns as well as for handguns) were legislated by an anti-National Socialist government in Germany in 1928, five years before the National Socialists gained power. Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Five years later his government got around to rewriting the gun law enacted a decade earlier by his predecessors, substantially amel ior a ting it in the process (for example, long guns were exempted from the requirement for a purchase permit; the legal age for gun ownership was lowered from 20 to 18 years; the period of validity of a permit to carry weapons was extended from one to three years; and provisions restricting the amount of ammunition or the number of firearms an individual could own were dropped). Hitler's government may be criticized for leaving certain restrictions and licensing requirements in the law, but the National Socialists had no intention of preventing law-abiding Germans from keeping or bearing arms. Again, the firearms law enacted by Hitler's government enhanced the rights of Germans to keep and bear arms; no new restrictions were added, and many pre-existing restrictions were relaxed or eliminated.
* At the end of the Second World War, American GIs in the occupying force were astounded to discover how many German civilians owned private firearms. Tens of thousands of pistols looted from German homes by GIs were brought back to the United States after the war. In 1945 General Eisenhower ordered all privately owned firearms in the American occupation zone of Germany confiscated, and Germans were required to hand in their shotguns and rifles as well as any handguns which had not already been stolen. In the Soviet occupation zone German civilians were summarily shot if they were found in possession of even a single cartridge.
* Jews, it should be noted, were not Germans, even if they had been born in Germany. The National Socialists defined citizenship in ethnic terms, and under Hitler Jews were not accorded full rights of citizenship. National Socialist legislation progressively excluded Jews from key professions: teaching, the media, the practice of law, etc. The aim was not only to free German life from an oppressive and degenerative Jewish influence, but to persuade Jews to emigrate. The German Weapons Law of March 18, 1938, specifically excluded Jews from manufacturing or dealing in firearms or munitions, but it did not exclude them from owning or bearing personal firearms. The exclusion of Jews from the firearms business rankled them as much as any other exclusion, and in their typically ethnocentric fashion they have misrepresented the law involved as an anti-gun law in an effort to cast their enemies in a bad light.
It should be noted in passing that the restrictions placed on Jews by the National Socialists had the intended effect: between 1933 and 1939 two-thirds of the Jews residing in Germany emigrated, reducing the Jewish population of the country from 600,000 when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 to 200,000 at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Jews in the United States, looking at this period from their own narrowly focused viewpoint, have described these peacetime years of the National Socialist government as a time of darkness, terror, and regression, whereas for the German people it was a time of hope, joy, and spiritual and material renewal.
Much the same type of distortion is seen in the portrayal of the United States in the early 1950s: the so-called "McCarthy Era." Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin) used his position as chairman of the Senate's Government Operations Committee to expose the widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government and other U.S. institutions which had taken place during the Second World War. A substantial majority of the communists who were dragged reluctantly out into the light of day by his efforts were Jews. As a result, the controlled media always have portrayed the period as one of terror and repression, when everyone was frightened of Senator McCarthy's "witch-hunt." Of course, it was nothing of the sort to non-Jewish Americans, who were not intimidated in the least. History viewed through a Jewish lens -- i.e., through media controlled by Jews -- always is distorted in a way corresponding to Jewish interests and concerns.
Both the German Weapons Law of March 18, 1938, enacted by the National Socialists, and the Law on Firearms and Ammunition of April 12, 1928, which was enacted by an anti-National Socialist government, are given below in full, first in facsimile and then in English translation. A little background information first, however, may help the reader to understand their significance.
After Germany's defeat in the First World War (a defeat in which Germany's Jews played no small part, demoralizing the home front with demonstrations and other subversive activity much as they did in America during the Vietnam war), the Kaiser abdicated, and liberals and leftists seized control of the government in 1918. Hitler, recovering in a military hospital from a British poison-gas attack which had blinded him temporarily, made the decision to go into politics and fight against the traitors he felt were responsible for Germany's distress.
The tendency of Germany's new rulers after the First World War was much the same as it is for the liberals in America today: they promoted cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and egalitarianism. By 1923 economic conditions in Germany had become catastrophic, and there was much public unrest. The communists had made major inroads into the labor movement and were a growing threat to the country.
Hitler had indeed gone into politics, and his National Socialists battled the communists in the streets of Germany's cities and gradually came to be seen by many patriotic Germans in the working class and the middle class as the only force which could save Germany from a communist takeover and total ruin. Hitler's National Socialists continued to win recruits and gain strength during the 1920s. The communists, with aid from the Soviet Union, also continued to grow. The political situation became increasingly unstable as the government lost popular support.
The government's response was to substantially tighten up restrictions on the rights of German citizens to keep and bear arms. The Law on Firearms and Ammunition of April 12, 1928, was the most substantial effort in this regard. This law was enacted by a left-center government hostile to the National Socialists (the government was headed by Chancellor Wilhelm Marx and consisted of a coalition of Socialists, including many Jews, and Catholic Centrists).
Five years later, in 1933, the National Socialists were in power, Hitler headed the government, and the communist threat was crushed decisively. The National Socialists began undoing the social and economic damage done by their predecessors. Germany was restored to full employment, degeneracy and corruption were rooted out, Jews and their collaborators were removed from one facet of national life after another, and the German people entered a new era of national freedom, health, and prosperity.
Finally, in 1938, the National Socialist government got around to enacting a new firearms law to replace the one enacted by their opponents ten years earlier. The highlights of the 1938 law, especially as it applied to ordinary citizens rather than manufacturers or dealers, follow:
* Handguns may be purchased only on submission of a Weapons Acquisition Permit (Waffenerwerbschein), which must be used within one year from the date of issue. Muzzle- loading handguns are exempted from the permit requirement. [The 1928 law had required a permit for the purchase of long guns as well, but the National Socialists dropped this requirement.]
* Holders of a permit to carry weapons (Waffenschein) or of a hunting license do not need a Weapons Acquisition Permit in order to acquire a handgun.
* A hunting license authorizes its bearer to carry hunting weapons and handguns.
* Firearms and ammunition, as well as swords and knives, may not be sold to minors under the age of 18 years. [The age limit had been 20 years in the 1928 law.]
* Whoever carries a firearm outside of his dwelling, his place of employment, his place of business, or his fenced property must have on his person a Weapons Permit (Waffenschein). A permit is not required, however, for carrying a firearm for use at a police-approved shooting range.
* A permit to acquire a handgun or to carry firearms may only be issued to persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a permit. In particular, a permit may not be issued to:
1. persons under the age of 18 years;
2. legally incompetent or mentally retarded persons;
3. Gypsies or vagabonds;
4. persons under mandatory police supervision [i.e., on parole] or otherwise temporarily without civil rights;
5. persons convicted of treason or high treason or known to be engaged in activities hostile to the state;
6. persons who for assault, trespass, a breach of the peace, resistance to authority, a criminal offense or misdemeanor, or a hunting or fishing violation were legally sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than two weeks, if three years have not passed since the term of imprisonment.
* The manufacture, sale, carrying, possession, and import of the following are prohibited:
1. "trick" firearms, designed so as to conceal their function (e.g., cane guns and belt-buckle pistols);
2. any firearm equipped with a silencer and any rifle equipped with a spotlight;
3. cartridges with .22 caliber, hollow-point bullets.
That is the essence. Numerous other provisions of the law relate to firearms manufacturers, importers, and dealers; to acquisition and carrying of firearms by police, military, and other official personnel; to the maximum fees which can be charged for permits (3 Reichsmark); to tourists bringing firearms into Germany; and to the fines and other penalties to be levied for violations.
The requirements of "trustworthiness" and of proof of need when obtaining a permit are troubling, but it should be noted that they were simply carried over from the 1928 law: they were not formulated by the National Socialists. Under the National Socialists these requirements were interpreted liberally: a person who did not fall into one of the prohibited categories listed above was considered trustworthy, and a statement such as, "I often carry sums of money," was accepted as proof of need.
The prohibitions of spotlight-equipped rifles and hollow-point .22 caliber ammunition were based on considerations that the former were unsporting when used for hunting, and the latter were inhumane.
Now read the German firearms laws for yourself, either in the original German exactly as they were published by the German government in the Reichsgesetzblatt or in the complete English translations which are provided here. If you want to skip over most of the legal gobbledygook and go directly to the most pertinent part of the National Socialist Firearms Law -- the part pertaining to the purchase, ownership, and carrying of firearms by private citizens -- turn to page 35 (Part IV of the Law). Note, as already mentioned above, that two separate and distinct types of permits are referred to: a Weapons Acquisition Permit (Waffenerwerbschein), required only for purchasing a handgun; and a Weapons Permit (Waffenschein), required for carrying any firearm in public. Interestingly enough, as also mentioned above, a hunting license could take the place of both these permits.
When you have read the two laws reproduced here, you will understand that it was Hitler's enemies, not Hitler, who should be compared with the gun-control advocates in America today. Then as now it was the Jews, not the National Socialists, who wanted the people's right of self- defense restricted. You will understand that those who continue to make the claim that Hitler was a gun-grabber are either ignorant or dishonest. And you will understand that it was not until 1945, when the communist and democratic victors of the Second World War had installed occupation governments to rule over the conquered Germans that German citizens were finally and completely denied the right to armed self-defense.
One can understand why many American gun owners want to believe this. They see in the current effort of their own government to take away their right to keep and bear arms a limitation of an essential element of their freedom and a move toward tyranny, and they want to characterize the gun-grabbers in the most negative way they can. Adolf Hitler has been vilified continuously for the past 60 years or so by the mass media in America, and certainly no politician or officeholder wants to be compared with him. If the gun-confiscation effort can be portrayed convincingly as something of which Hitler would have approved, it will have been effectively tarred.
This identification of the inclination to deny citizens the right to keep and bear arms with National Socialism and Adolf Hitler has been strengthened recently by clever magazine advertisements which show Hitler with his arm outstretched in a Roman salute under a heading: "All in favor of gun control raise your right hand." A Jewish group, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), quite noisy for its size, has been especially zealous in promoting the idea that the current gun-control effort in America has its roots in Germany during the Hitler period. This group has gone so far as to claim in several articles published in popular magazines read by firearms enthusiasts that the current restrictive legislation being proposed by the U.S. government is modeled on a gun-control statute enacted by Germany's National Socialist government: the German Weapons Law (Waffengesetz) of March 18, 1938.
Again, one can understand the motivation of the JPFO. Many non-Jewish firearms owners are well aware that the movement to restrict their rights is led and promoted primarily by Jews, and anti-Jewish feeling has been growing among them. They know that the controlled news media, which are almost unanimously in favor of abridging or abolishing the Second Amendment, are very much under the influence of Jews, and they know that the most vocal anti-gun legislators in the Congress also are Jews. It is natural for a group such as the JPFO to mount a damage- control effort and attempt to prevent anti-Jewish feeling from becoming even stronger among gun owners. Their strategy is to deflect the blame from their kinsmen in the media and the government and direct it onto their most hated enemies, the National Socialists -- or at least to create enough smoke to obscure the facts and keep the gun-owning public confused.
Unfortunately for those who would like to link Hitler and the National Socialists with gun control, the entire premise for such an effort is false. German firearms legislation under Hitler, far from banning private ownership, actually facilitated the keeping and bearing of arms by German citizens by eliminating or ameliorating restrictive laws which had been enacted by the government preceding his: a left-center government which had contained a number of Jews.
It is not just that the National Socialist firearms legislation was the opposite of what it has been claimed to have been by persons who want to tar modern gun-grabbers with the "Nazi" brush: the whole spirit of Hitler's government was starkly different from its portrayal by America's mass media. The facts, in brief, are these:
* The National Socialist government of Germany, unlike the government in Washington today, did not fear its citizens. Adolf Hitler was the most popular leader Germany has ever had. Unlike American presidents, he did not have to wear body armor and have shields of bulletproof glass in front of him whenever he spoke in public. At public celebrations he rode standing in an open car as it moved slowly through cheering crowds. Communists made several attempts to assassinate him, and his government stamped down hard on communism, virtually wiping it out in Germany. Between upright, law-abiding German citizens and Adolf Hitler, however, there was a real love affair, with mutual trust and respect.
* The spirit of National Socialism was one of manliness, and individual self-defense and self- reliance were central to the National Socialist view of the way a citizen should behave. The notion of banning firearms ownership was utterly alien to National Socialism. In the German universities, where National Socialism gained its earliest footholds and which later became its strongest bastions, dueling was an accepted practice. Although the liberal-Jewish governments in Germany after the First World War attempted to ban dueling, it persisted illegally until it was again legalized by the National Socialists. Fencing, target shooting, and other martial arts were immensely popular in Germany, and the National Socialists encouraged young Germans to become proficient in these activities, believing that they were important for the development of a man's character.
* Gun registration and licensing (for long guns as well as for handguns) were legislated by an anti-National Socialist government in Germany in 1928, five years before the National Socialists gained power. Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Five years later his government got around to rewriting the gun law enacted a decade earlier by his predecessors, substantially amel ior a ting it in the process (for example, long guns were exempted from the requirement for a purchase permit; the legal age for gun ownership was lowered from 20 to 18 years; the period of validity of a permit to carry weapons was extended from one to three years; and provisions restricting the amount of ammunition or the number of firearms an individual could own were dropped). Hitler's government may be criticized for leaving certain restrictions and licensing requirements in the law, but the National Socialists had no intention of preventing law-abiding Germans from keeping or bearing arms. Again, the firearms law enacted by Hitler's government enhanced the rights of Germans to keep and bear arms; no new restrictions were added, and many pre-existing restrictions were relaxed or eliminated.
* At the end of the Second World War, American GIs in the occupying force were astounded to discover how many German civilians owned private firearms. Tens of thousands of pistols looted from German homes by GIs were brought back to the United States after the war. In 1945 General Eisenhower ordered all privately owned firearms in the American occupation zone of Germany confiscated, and Germans were required to hand in their shotguns and rifles as well as any handguns which had not already been stolen. In the Soviet occupation zone German civilians were summarily shot if they were found in possession of even a single cartridge.
* Jews, it should be noted, were not Germans, even if they had been born in Germany. The National Socialists defined citizenship in ethnic terms, and under Hitler Jews were not accorded full rights of citizenship. National Socialist legislation progressively excluded Jews from key professions: teaching, the media, the practice of law, etc. The aim was not only to free German life from an oppressive and degenerative Jewish influence, but to persuade Jews to emigrate. The German Weapons Law of March 18, 1938, specifically excluded Jews from manufacturing or dealing in firearms or munitions, but it did not exclude them from owning or bearing personal firearms. The exclusion of Jews from the firearms business rankled them as much as any other exclusion, and in their typically ethnocentric fashion they have misrepresented the law involved as an anti-gun law in an effort to cast their enemies in a bad light.
It should be noted in passing that the restrictions placed on Jews by the National Socialists had the intended effect: between 1933 and 1939 two-thirds of the Jews residing in Germany emigrated, reducing the Jewish population of the country from 600,000 when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 to 200,000 at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Jews in the United States, looking at this period from their own narrowly focused viewpoint, have described these peacetime years of the National Socialist government as a time of darkness, terror, and regression, whereas for the German people it was a time of hope, joy, and spiritual and material renewal.
Much the same type of distortion is seen in the portrayal of the United States in the early 1950s: the so-called "McCarthy Era." Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin) used his position as chairman of the Senate's Government Operations Committee to expose the widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government and other U.S. institutions which had taken place during the Second World War. A substantial majority of the communists who were dragged reluctantly out into the light of day by his efforts were Jews. As a result, the controlled media always have portrayed the period as one of terror and repression, when everyone was frightened of Senator McCarthy's "witch-hunt." Of course, it was nothing of the sort to non-Jewish Americans, who were not intimidated in the least. History viewed through a Jewish lens -- i.e., through media controlled by Jews -- always is distorted in a way corresponding to Jewish interests and concerns.
Both the German Weapons Law of March 18, 1938, enacted by the National Socialists, and the Law on Firearms and Ammunition of April 12, 1928, which was enacted by an anti-National Socialist government, are given below in full, first in facsimile and then in English translation. A little background information first, however, may help the reader to understand their significance.
After Germany's defeat in the First World War (a defeat in which Germany's Jews played no small part, demoralizing the home front with demonstrations and other subversive activity much as they did in America during the Vietnam war), the Kaiser abdicated, and liberals and leftists seized control of the government in 1918. Hitler, recovering in a military hospital from a British poison-gas attack which had blinded him temporarily, made the decision to go into politics and fight against the traitors he felt were responsible for Germany's distress.
The tendency of Germany's new rulers after the First World War was much the same as it is for the liberals in America today: they promoted cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and egalitarianism. By 1923 economic conditions in Germany had become catastrophic, and there was much public unrest. The communists had made major inroads into the labor movement and were a growing threat to the country.
Hitler had indeed gone into politics, and his National Socialists battled the communists in the streets of Germany's cities and gradually came to be seen by many patriotic Germans in the working class and the middle class as the only force which could save Germany from a communist takeover and total ruin. Hitler's National Socialists continued to win recruits and gain strength during the 1920s. The communists, with aid from the Soviet Union, also continued to grow. The political situation became increasingly unstable as the government lost popular support.
The government's response was to substantially tighten up restrictions on the rights of German citizens to keep and bear arms. The Law on Firearms and Ammunition of April 12, 1928, was the most substantial effort in this regard. This law was enacted by a left-center government hostile to the National Socialists (the government was headed by Chancellor Wilhelm Marx and consisted of a coalition of Socialists, including many Jews, and Catholic Centrists).
Five years later, in 1933, the National Socialists were in power, Hitler headed the government, and the communist threat was crushed decisively. The National Socialists began undoing the social and economic damage done by their predecessors. Germany was restored to full employment, degeneracy and corruption were rooted out, Jews and their collaborators were removed from one facet of national life after another, and the German people entered a new era of national freedom, health, and prosperity.
Finally, in 1938, the National Socialist government got around to enacting a new firearms law to replace the one enacted by their opponents ten years earlier. The highlights of the 1938 law, especially as it applied to ordinary citizens rather than manufacturers or dealers, follow:
* Handguns may be purchased only on submission of a Weapons Acquisition Permit (Waffenerwerbschein), which must be used within one year from the date of issue. Muzzle- loading handguns are exempted from the permit requirement. [The 1928 law had required a permit for the purchase of long guns as well, but the National Socialists dropped this requirement.]
* Holders of a permit to carry weapons (Waffenschein) or of a hunting license do not need a Weapons Acquisition Permit in order to acquire a handgun.
* A hunting license authorizes its bearer to carry hunting weapons and handguns.
* Firearms and ammunition, as well as swords and knives, may not be sold to minors under the age of 18 years. [The age limit had been 20 years in the 1928 law.]
* Whoever carries a firearm outside of his dwelling, his place of employment, his place of business, or his fenced property must have on his person a Weapons Permit (Waffenschein). A permit is not required, however, for carrying a firearm for use at a police-approved shooting range.
* A permit to acquire a handgun or to carry firearms may only be issued to persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a permit. In particular, a permit may not be issued to:
1. persons under the age of 18 years;
2. legally incompetent or mentally retarded persons;
3. Gypsies or vagabonds;
4. persons under mandatory police supervision [i.e., on parole] or otherwise temporarily without civil rights;
5. persons convicted of treason or high treason or known to be engaged in activities hostile to the state;
6. persons who for assault, trespass, a breach of the peace, resistance to authority, a criminal offense or misdemeanor, or a hunting or fishing violation were legally sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than two weeks, if three years have not passed since the term of imprisonment.
* The manufacture, sale, carrying, possession, and import of the following are prohibited:
1. "trick" firearms, designed so as to conceal their function (e.g., cane guns and belt-buckle pistols);
2. any firearm equipped with a silencer and any rifle equipped with a spotlight;
3. cartridges with .22 caliber, hollow-point bullets.
That is the essence. Numerous other provisions of the law relate to firearms manufacturers, importers, and dealers; to acquisition and carrying of firearms by police, military, and other official personnel; to the maximum fees which can be charged for permits (3 Reichsmark); to tourists bringing firearms into Germany; and to the fines and other penalties to be levied for violations.
The requirements of "trustworthiness" and of proof of need when obtaining a permit are troubling, but it should be noted that they were simply carried over from the 1928 law: they were not formulated by the National Socialists. Under the National Socialists these requirements were interpreted liberally: a person who did not fall into one of the prohibited categories listed above was considered trustworthy, and a statement such as, "I often carry sums of money," was accepted as proof of need.
The prohibitions of spotlight-equipped rifles and hollow-point .22 caliber ammunition were based on considerations that the former were unsporting when used for hunting, and the latter were inhumane.
Now read the German firearms laws for yourself, either in the original German exactly as they were published by the German government in the Reichsgesetzblatt or in the complete English translations which are provided here. If you want to skip over most of the legal gobbledygook and go directly to the most pertinent part of the National Socialist Firearms Law -- the part pertaining to the purchase, ownership, and carrying of firearms by private citizens -- turn to page 35 (Part IV of the Law). Note, as already mentioned above, that two separate and distinct types of permits are referred to: a Weapons Acquisition Permit (Waffenerwerbschein), required only for purchasing a handgun; and a Weapons Permit (Waffenschein), required for carrying any firearm in public. Interestingly enough, as also mentioned above, a hunting license could take the place of both these permits.
When you have read the two laws reproduced here, you will understand that it was Hitler's enemies, not Hitler, who should be compared with the gun-control advocates in America today. Then as now it was the Jews, not the National Socialists, who wanted the people's right of self- defense restricted. You will understand that those who continue to make the claim that Hitler was a gun-grabber are either ignorant or dishonest. And you will understand that it was not until 1945, when the communist and democratic victors of the Second World War had installed occupation governments to rule over the conquered Germans that German citizens were finally and completely denied the right to armed self-defense.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Jewish Cartoon: How To Cook A Gentile
That's pretty funny. Here is my recipe for cooking a jew.
1. Find a suitable jew [any jew will do]
2. Tenderize jew [baseball bat]
3. Season jew [gasoline]
4. Begin cooking jew [bic lighter]
5. Extinguish jew [urine]
6. Garnish jew [dog excrement]
7. Serve jew [to a mud]
8. Never consume a jew yourself [food poisoning]
9. Sit back and enjoy watching your jew being eatin by a feral nigger]
10. Final step [shoot nigger]
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Another Protestant church shuns Israel
Tensions are re-emerging between Jewish organizations and some mainline Protestant churches in the wake of a renewed drive for churches to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
The United Methodist Church opened discussions last Friday on a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, the tractor manufacturer, because the company supplies Israel with bulldozers used in building the separation barrier and in demolishing Palestinian homes. The divestment resolution comes only months after the publication of a church-sponsored report referring to the creation of the State of Israel as the "original sin."
Relations with the Presbyterian Church (USA) are also strained, following remarks by church officials criticizing Israel because of the Gaza closure. A recent study by an affiliate of the Presbyterian Church called on American Jews to "get a life" instead of focusing on defending Israeli policies.
"This reflects a very disturbing trend in these churches," said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "These developments are a result of work of several very wicked forces that play in the church."
The divestment campaign, thought by many in the Jewish community to be dormant, is still active among mainline Protestant churches and is re-emerging as a main issue on the agenda of Jewish groups. Attempts to block the divestment drive, which began four years ago, have proved only partially successful. Interreligious dialogue efforts and public pressure managed to mute some churchwide calls for divestment, but other initiatives are still gaining support.
The Methodist meeting, held on January 25 in Fort Worth, Texas, was an initial orientation meeting for delegation heads who will lead their groups at the church's quadrennial conference in April. Delegation leaders were presented with speakers both supportive and opposed to the draft divestment resolution, which calls for removing all Methodist pension fund holdings from Caterpillar.
"The United Methodist Church holds $141 million of pension funds in companies that sustain the occupation," said Susan Hoder, a member of the church's Interfaith Peace Initiative. "This has to stop. We have to cut our ties to the occupation."
Hoder, who strongly favors passage of divestment measures, went on to claim that American taxpayer dollars are used to fund Israeli military. "A lot of this money goes into the pockets of Israeli military leaders and politicians who get rich while the population of Israel suffers," she said.
With 11 million members, The United Methodist Church is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. The upcoming April general conference, the church's main forum for making policy decisions, will first discuss the divestment resolution in a subcommittee. Afterward, the panel's recommendations will be put to a general vote to make them official policy.
A spokesman for the United Methodist Church did not return calls from the Forward seeking comments on the divestment drive.
Arrangers of the pre-conference meeting last Friday in Fort Worth allowed a representative of the organized Jewish community to speak on the issue. Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the American Jewish Committee's director of interreligious affairs, told the Methodist delegates that the Jewish community was concerned about the resolution. "I told them that while they may think it is not anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish, for us it feels anti-Israel and feels anti-Jewish," Greenebaum told the Forward after the meeting.
At the same time, Greenebaum warned the Jewish community against overreacting to anti-Israel sentiments in the church. Protestant churches, he said, "care very deeply about their relations with the Jewish community."
What prompted Jewish activists to take action was not only the renewed divestment drive but also a report from the women's division of the Methodist church, which addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 225-page report, compiled by the Rev. Stephen Goldstein, attempts to outline the historical and current contours of the conflict, but according to Felson, the report amounts to "the most egregious thing that has crossed my desk that was not put out by an overt hate group."
Among the statements in the report that irked Jewish community activists are a reference to the founding of the State of Israel as "the original sin," a passage calling Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion an "extremist" and a passage defining Israeli actions as acts of "terror." Discussing the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli society, the Methodist report claims it has been the cause for "hysteria" and "paranoiac sense" among Israelis.
"Are we not called to testify when oppressors use their identity as the
oppressed with stories of sixty years ago but through some failure of perception cannot see what transpires now in the shadow of the Holocaust?" the report goes on to ask.
After letting four months pass without a formal response, last week four Jewish women's groups sent a letter to heads of the Methodist church, calling the report "inflammatory, inaccurate, and polemical." Hadassah and women's groups affiliated with Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism and United Jewish Communities signed the letter.
Another expected step by Jewish organizations is the launching of a new Web site that will call for a "return to civility" and condemn anti-Israeli voices among Protestant churches.
The Presbyterian Church, the first to come up with resolutions calling for divestment, has so far avoided taking action on this issue, but it still supports a line seen by Jewish activists as anti-Israel. In recent weeks, a heated exchange of letters took place between Jewish community leaders and heads of the Presbyterian Church, following the church?s criticism of Israel over the situation in Gaza. In a letter to the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, head of the church's general assembly, 12 Jewish organizational leaders complained that "the anti-Israel tone of your statement calls into serious question whether the season of mutual understanding we welcomed in July 2006 has yet arrived."
The United Methodist Church opened discussions last Friday on a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, the tractor manufacturer, because the company supplies Israel with bulldozers used in building the separation barrier and in demolishing Palestinian homes. The divestment resolution comes only months after the publication of a church-sponsored report referring to the creation of the State of Israel as the "original sin."
Relations with the Presbyterian Church (USA) are also strained, following remarks by church officials criticizing Israel because of the Gaza closure. A recent study by an affiliate of the Presbyterian Church called on American Jews to "get a life" instead of focusing on defending Israeli policies.
"This reflects a very disturbing trend in these churches," said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "These developments are a result of work of several very wicked forces that play in the church."
The divestment campaign, thought by many in the Jewish community to be dormant, is still active among mainline Protestant churches and is re-emerging as a main issue on the agenda of Jewish groups. Attempts to block the divestment drive, which began four years ago, have proved only partially successful. Interreligious dialogue efforts and public pressure managed to mute some churchwide calls for divestment, but other initiatives are still gaining support.
The Methodist meeting, held on January 25 in Fort Worth, Texas, was an initial orientation meeting for delegation heads who will lead their groups at the church's quadrennial conference in April. Delegation leaders were presented with speakers both supportive and opposed to the draft divestment resolution, which calls for removing all Methodist pension fund holdings from Caterpillar.
"The United Methodist Church holds $141 million of pension funds in companies that sustain the occupation," said Susan Hoder, a member of the church's Interfaith Peace Initiative. "This has to stop. We have to cut our ties to the occupation."
Hoder, who strongly favors passage of divestment measures, went on to claim that American taxpayer dollars are used to fund Israeli military. "A lot of this money goes into the pockets of Israeli military leaders and politicians who get rich while the population of Israel suffers," she said.
With 11 million members, The United Methodist Church is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. The upcoming April general conference, the church's main forum for making policy decisions, will first discuss the divestment resolution in a subcommittee. Afterward, the panel's recommendations will be put to a general vote to make them official policy.
A spokesman for the United Methodist Church did not return calls from the Forward seeking comments on the divestment drive.
Arrangers of the pre-conference meeting last Friday in Fort Worth allowed a representative of the organized Jewish community to speak on the issue. Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the American Jewish Committee's director of interreligious affairs, told the Methodist delegates that the Jewish community was concerned about the resolution. "I told them that while they may think it is not anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish, for us it feels anti-Israel and feels anti-Jewish," Greenebaum told the Forward after the meeting.
At the same time, Greenebaum warned the Jewish community against overreacting to anti-Israel sentiments in the church. Protestant churches, he said, "care very deeply about their relations with the Jewish community."
What prompted Jewish activists to take action was not only the renewed divestment drive but also a report from the women's division of the Methodist church, which addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 225-page report, compiled by the Rev. Stephen Goldstein, attempts to outline the historical and current contours of the conflict, but according to Felson, the report amounts to "the most egregious thing that has crossed my desk that was not put out by an overt hate group."
Among the statements in the report that irked Jewish community activists are a reference to the founding of the State of Israel as "the original sin," a passage calling Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion an "extremist" and a passage defining Israeli actions as acts of "terror." Discussing the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli society, the Methodist report claims it has been the cause for "hysteria" and "paranoiac sense" among Israelis.
"Are we not called to testify when oppressors use their identity as the
oppressed with stories of sixty years ago but through some failure of perception cannot see what transpires now in the shadow of the Holocaust?" the report goes on to ask.
After letting four months pass without a formal response, last week four Jewish women's groups sent a letter to heads of the Methodist church, calling the report "inflammatory, inaccurate, and polemical." Hadassah and women's groups affiliated with Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism and United Jewish Communities signed the letter.
Another expected step by Jewish organizations is the launching of a new Web site that will call for a "return to civility" and condemn anti-Israeli voices among Protestant churches.
The Presbyterian Church, the first to come up with resolutions calling for divestment, has so far avoided taking action on this issue, but it still supports a line seen by Jewish activists as anti-Israel. In recent weeks, a heated exchange of letters took place between Jewish community leaders and heads of the Presbyterian Church, following the church?s criticism of Israel over the situation in Gaza. In a letter to the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, head of the church's general assembly, 12 Jewish organizational leaders complained that "the anti-Israel tone of your statement calls into serious question whether the season of mutual understanding we welcomed in July 2006 has yet arrived."
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Jewish Rabbi Resigns Amid Sex Scandal
The rabbi of the largest Conservative congregation in Buffalo, N.Y., is stepping down in the face of an allegation that he had an inappropriate relationship with a congregant. His resignation comes nine years after the same congregation voted to retain him despite findings of sexual misconduct.
Rabbi Arthur Charles Shalman submitted a letter of resignation last week as rabbi of Temple Shaarey Zedek, a Conservative congregation just outside Buffalo. The resignation came after one of Shalman’s male congregants filed a complaint with the Rabbinical Assembly, the international union of Conservative rabbis, alleging that Shalman had an inappropriate relationship with the man’s wife.
The R.A. investigated Shalman in 1999, and its ethics committee found that Shalman had violated principles of rabbinic conduct on several counts, including “improper touching” and “improper suggestions.” But both the synagogue’s board and its membership at large voted overwhelmingly to keep Shalman. As the Forward reported at the time, the assembly deferred to the synagogue and agreed to Shalman remaining in his post, subject to certain restrictions.
Now, it appears that this decision has come back to haunt both the synagogue and the R.A. The scandal has been an emotional blow for the congregation, which has been aging and shrinking in the face of Buffalo’s decades of demographic decline.
“It’s a shock to most people in the congregation,” said Shaarey Zedek’s president, Iris Zackheim. “A lot of people are devastated.”
Zackheim released a statement saying that Shalman was resigning for “personal reasons” and that neither the officers nor the board asked him to resign. She told the Forward, however, that the resignation came after she and Shalman learned of the complaint that was filed with the assembly.
The R.A. did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
According to Zackheim, who, as synagogue president, was informed of the complaint, an inappropriate emotional relationship had been alleged. She said she did not know of Shalman engaging in any sexual misconduct.
At least some see the current scandal as fallout from the congregation’s failure to fire Shalman nine years ago, when a number of women in the congregation came forward and accused him of touching them inappropriately and of making inappropriate suggestions.
“I thought it was not handled at all; it was very badly handled,” said Charlotte Schwab, a psychotherapist who has written and lectured about rabbinic abuse, including her own experiences.
“The women who called me for help were despondent,” Schwab added. “They were the ones who were vilified and blamed and ostracized.” Schwab, though not a member of the synagogue, was in contact with several congregants from Shaarey Zedek when the first set of allegations was brought against Shalman.
The allegations led to an emotional and public dispute that made its way into the local newspapers and onto television stations.
The assembly’s ethics committee investigated and found Shalman guilty of wrongdoing. In a letter to Shalman summarizing its findings, the ethics committee wrote, “[I]t is painfully clear that you have violated several principles of rabbinic conduct which have caused harm to certain of the women counseled or taught by you.” The R.A. ordered Shalman to work with a therapist and a rabbinical mentor, and told him that it would not place him in a position to teach or counsel women without the ethics committee’s written consent.
But the R.A. did not expel Shalman from its ranks, nor attempt to remove him from his pulpit. Both the synagogue’s board and the members at large voted overwhelmingly to retain Shalman, and the assembly said it would defer to the congregation.
Schwab said that because of their emotional attachment to their rabbis, congregants are often reluctant to fire them, even in the face of serious allegations of misconduct.
“People are very misguided,” Schwab said. “They think that because — people told me that, oh, he buried my mother, he married my daughter. Because of these things, they seem to give total allegiance to these men. And so, they keep them.”
Dozens of congregants subsequently left Shaarey Zedek, including the president. Others stayed but remained bitter.
Despite the ethical allegations against him, Shalman was an accomplished and popular rabbi. He led outreach programs for the elderly and disabled, taught services for major holidays and helped start a minyan café. Shalman was also prominent in the Buffalo community, He taught at the local Kadimah day school, once served as president of the Buffalo Board of Rabbis and gave public talks on Jewish topics. (He has since resigned from the day school, at the school’s request, according to Zackheim. The school did not respond to a request for comment.)
“Rabbi Shalman is probably one of the best pulpit rabbis that you could ever imagine,” said Ed Drozen, president of Temple Beth El and a former president of Shaarey Zedek. “He was very charismatic, he was very caring, he helped a lot of people through crises. He did a great deal in that regard, and many people were willing to give him another chance.”
Board Chairman Mark Richheimer, who joined Shaarey Zedek after the dispute had passed, said that Shalman had proved himself as a rabbi and that but for the after-effects of the previous allegations, Shalman might have weathered the current storm.
Now that Shalman is leaving, congregants said that reactions in the synagogue have ranged from anger and betrayal to sadness and even sympathy for the rabbi. Shalman is married and a father of four children.
“I’m disappointed in him,” Zackheim said. “I’m not sorry I voted for him. I’m just so disappointed it’s come to this.
Rabbi Arthur Charles Shalman submitted a letter of resignation last week as rabbi of Temple Shaarey Zedek, a Conservative congregation just outside Buffalo. The resignation came after one of Shalman’s male congregants filed a complaint with the Rabbinical Assembly, the international union of Conservative rabbis, alleging that Shalman had an inappropriate relationship with the man’s wife.
The R.A. investigated Shalman in 1999, and its ethics committee found that Shalman had violated principles of rabbinic conduct on several counts, including “improper touching” and “improper suggestions.” But both the synagogue’s board and its membership at large voted overwhelmingly to keep Shalman. As the Forward reported at the time, the assembly deferred to the synagogue and agreed to Shalman remaining in his post, subject to certain restrictions.
Now, it appears that this decision has come back to haunt both the synagogue and the R.A. The scandal has been an emotional blow for the congregation, which has been aging and shrinking in the face of Buffalo’s decades of demographic decline.
“It’s a shock to most people in the congregation,” said Shaarey Zedek’s president, Iris Zackheim. “A lot of people are devastated.”
Zackheim released a statement saying that Shalman was resigning for “personal reasons” and that neither the officers nor the board asked him to resign. She told the Forward, however, that the resignation came after she and Shalman learned of the complaint that was filed with the assembly.
The R.A. did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
According to Zackheim, who, as synagogue president, was informed of the complaint, an inappropriate emotional relationship had been alleged. She said she did not know of Shalman engaging in any sexual misconduct.
At least some see the current scandal as fallout from the congregation’s failure to fire Shalman nine years ago, when a number of women in the congregation came forward and accused him of touching them inappropriately and of making inappropriate suggestions.
“I thought it was not handled at all; it was very badly handled,” said Charlotte Schwab, a psychotherapist who has written and lectured about rabbinic abuse, including her own experiences.
“The women who called me for help were despondent,” Schwab added. “They were the ones who were vilified and blamed and ostracized.” Schwab, though not a member of the synagogue, was in contact with several congregants from Shaarey Zedek when the first set of allegations was brought against Shalman.
The allegations led to an emotional and public dispute that made its way into the local newspapers and onto television stations.
The assembly’s ethics committee investigated and found Shalman guilty of wrongdoing. In a letter to Shalman summarizing its findings, the ethics committee wrote, “[I]t is painfully clear that you have violated several principles of rabbinic conduct which have caused harm to certain of the women counseled or taught by you.” The R.A. ordered Shalman to work with a therapist and a rabbinical mentor, and told him that it would not place him in a position to teach or counsel women without the ethics committee’s written consent.
But the R.A. did not expel Shalman from its ranks, nor attempt to remove him from his pulpit. Both the synagogue’s board and the members at large voted overwhelmingly to retain Shalman, and the assembly said it would defer to the congregation.
Schwab said that because of their emotional attachment to their rabbis, congregants are often reluctant to fire them, even in the face of serious allegations of misconduct.
“People are very misguided,” Schwab said. “They think that because — people told me that, oh, he buried my mother, he married my daughter. Because of these things, they seem to give total allegiance to these men. And so, they keep them.”
Dozens of congregants subsequently left Shaarey Zedek, including the president. Others stayed but remained bitter.
Despite the ethical allegations against him, Shalman was an accomplished and popular rabbi. He led outreach programs for the elderly and disabled, taught services for major holidays and helped start a minyan café. Shalman was also prominent in the Buffalo community, He taught at the local Kadimah day school, once served as president of the Buffalo Board of Rabbis and gave public talks on Jewish topics. (He has since resigned from the day school, at the school’s request, according to Zackheim. The school did not respond to a request for comment.)
“Rabbi Shalman is probably one of the best pulpit rabbis that you could ever imagine,” said Ed Drozen, president of Temple Beth El and a former president of Shaarey Zedek. “He was very charismatic, he was very caring, he helped a lot of people through crises. He did a great deal in that regard, and many people were willing to give him another chance.”
Board Chairman Mark Richheimer, who joined Shaarey Zedek after the dispute had passed, said that Shalman had proved himself as a rabbi and that but for the after-effects of the previous allegations, Shalman might have weathered the current storm.
Now that Shalman is leaving, congregants said that reactions in the synagogue have ranged from anger and betrayal to sadness and even sympathy for the rabbi. Shalman is married and a father of four children.
“I’m disappointed in him,” Zackheim said. “I’m not sorry I voted for him. I’m just so disappointed it’s come to this.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Iran squares off with US & Israel
DAVOS, Switzerland - Iran's foreign minister on Friday urged the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to "correct their past mistakes" and draw up a a resolution ending council involvement in his country's nuclear affairs.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also said that — while it makes sense to talk with Washington over common interests such as Iraq — he could not imagine substantially improved ties with the United States even after a change in U.S. administrations.
Mottaki spoke to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, the Davos gathering of world political and economic leaders, whose focus on areas of international concern include the Mideast.
Earlier in the week, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged Davos attendees to take a personal stand against Iran's leadership by ending business ties with the country.
"Iran exports terrorism, destabilizes the region, denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel, my home, off the map," said Livni, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's frequent calls for the elimination of Jewish state.
Mottaki's call for an end to a Security Council role in trying to pressure Iran comes amid indications that the council is moving precisely in the other direction and is ready to pass a third round of sanctions for Tehran's refusal to mothball uranium enrichment and meet related demands.
Elements of a new U.N. resolution obtained Friday by the AP outlined new sanction proposals against Iran, including bans on travel, and stepped up monitoring of Tehran's financial institutions.
Asked what his message to the council was, Mottaki said, "it was time now to correct their previous mistakes" — involving itself in Tehran's nuclear program and passing the two sanctions resolutions.
At the minimum, said Mottaki, the council should wait until the International Atomic Energy Agency completes its probe of Iran's past nuclear activities, at the latest in early March.
If that report shows no attempt by Iran to make nuclear weapons — as claimed by the U.S. — council members "should ... pass a new resolution" formally washing their hands of Iran's nuclear activities, he said.
The investigation of the Islamic Republic's former nuclear program that started last year is in its final stage, with diplomats telling the AP that Tehran has started providing some information about activities that the Americans say appear to make sense only in the context of an attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
A U.S. intelligence estimate published last month said that Iran stopped efforts to make such arms four years ago. But American officials have demanded that Tehran "confess" to such past attempts to make their cooperation with the IAEA probe credible. And Washington and its allies say that — if Iran continues to develop its enrichment program, a possible pathway to nuclear arms — even such an admission will not be enough to prevent further U.N. sanctions.
But Mottaki said such a confession would not be forthcoming, asserting there was neither "political will" nor "any practical step for nuclear weapons in my country" even before 2003.
And he said he saw no room for improved relations between Tehran and Washington, even past the approaching change of U.S. administrations. Formal bilateral ties were cut in the wake of the 1979 Iranian hostage taking of U.S. Embassy personnel.
"Usually we do not look to the individuals in the United States or even to the (political) parties — we look to policies," he said.
"Being a realist ... I have to say that I do not see room for the time being for the (establishment) of relations between the Iran and the United States," he added, while acknowledging the sense of bilateral talks on the situation in Iraq.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also said that — while it makes sense to talk with Washington over common interests such as Iraq — he could not imagine substantially improved ties with the United States even after a change in U.S. administrations.
Mottaki spoke to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, the Davos gathering of world political and economic leaders, whose focus on areas of international concern include the Mideast.
Earlier in the week, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged Davos attendees to take a personal stand against Iran's leadership by ending business ties with the country.
"Iran exports terrorism, destabilizes the region, denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel, my home, off the map," said Livni, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's frequent calls for the elimination of Jewish state.
Mottaki's call for an end to a Security Council role in trying to pressure Iran comes amid indications that the council is moving precisely in the other direction and is ready to pass a third round of sanctions for Tehran's refusal to mothball uranium enrichment and meet related demands.
Elements of a new U.N. resolution obtained Friday by the AP outlined new sanction proposals against Iran, including bans on travel, and stepped up monitoring of Tehran's financial institutions.
Asked what his message to the council was, Mottaki said, "it was time now to correct their previous mistakes" — involving itself in Tehran's nuclear program and passing the two sanctions resolutions.
At the minimum, said Mottaki, the council should wait until the International Atomic Energy Agency completes its probe of Iran's past nuclear activities, at the latest in early March.
If that report shows no attempt by Iran to make nuclear weapons — as claimed by the U.S. — council members "should ... pass a new resolution" formally washing their hands of Iran's nuclear activities, he said.
The investigation of the Islamic Republic's former nuclear program that started last year is in its final stage, with diplomats telling the AP that Tehran has started providing some information about activities that the Americans say appear to make sense only in the context of an attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
A U.S. intelligence estimate published last month said that Iran stopped efforts to make such arms four years ago. But American officials have demanded that Tehran "confess" to such past attempts to make their cooperation with the IAEA probe credible. And Washington and its allies say that — if Iran continues to develop its enrichment program, a possible pathway to nuclear arms — even such an admission will not be enough to prevent further U.N. sanctions.
But Mottaki said such a confession would not be forthcoming, asserting there was neither "political will" nor "any practical step for nuclear weapons in my country" even before 2003.
And he said he saw no room for improved relations between Tehran and Washington, even past the approaching change of U.S. administrations. Formal bilateral ties were cut in the wake of the 1979 Iranian hostage taking of U.S. Embassy personnel.
"Usually we do not look to the individuals in the United States or even to the (political) parties — we look to policies," he said.
"Being a realist ... I have to say that I do not see room for the time being for the (establishment) of relations between the Iran and the United States," he added, while acknowledging the sense of bilateral talks on the situation in Iraq.
Jewish Sex Criminals
Case of Shlomo Aviner (Rosh Yeshiva, Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva, Rabbi of Beit El, Israel)
Case of Rabbi Lewis Brenner (Convicted of child molestation. The original charges included 14 counts of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of sodomy in the third degree, a Class E felony, in exchange for a sentence of five years' probation.)
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks (Accusations about sexual inappropriate behavior with children started surfacing in the 1980's. Rabbi Bryks is currently a member of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. The Vaad is a Rabbinical committee that makes important decisions within an orthodox community.)
Case of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (Accused of several cases of child molestation, and sexual assault of young women)
Case Rabbi Perry Ian Cohen - Montreal and Toronto Canada (Accused of sexual abuse of a seventeen year old. Fired for sexual impropriety with congregants)
Case of Rabbi Yitzchak Cohen (Accused of sexually harassing students at Bar-Ilan University)
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Goldberg - Boca Raton, Flordia (Pled guilty to one misdemeanor count of exposure of sexual organs in a washroom at a Palm Beach Mall.)
Case of Rabbi/Cantor Sidney Goldenberg (Convicted of molesting children. The first complaints came in 1971. He was finally convicted in 1997.)
Case of Cantor Joel Gordon (Convicted of having keeping a house of prostitution and involvement in a prostitution ring.)
Case of Rabbi Israel Grunwald (Accused of molesting a 15 year old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia to LA. The charge against him were dropped after agreeing to perform 500 hours of community service and to seek counseling. Grunwald was the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas).
Case of The State of Israel Vs. Sex Offender (Convicted of repeated rape and forced molestation of his graddaughter.)
Case of Yehudah Friedlander - Rabbi 's Assistant (Accused of molesting a 15 year old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia to LA. Friedlander was the assistant to the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas)
Case of the Rabbi at Hillel Torah, Chicago, IL (A teacher at the Chicago school was accused of child molestation. His name was not released. The school did everything correctly in attempting to keep the children safe once accusations were made.)
Case of Rabbi Solomon Hafner (Accused of sexually abusing a developmentally disabled boy)
Case of Rabbi (Alan J.) Shneur Horowitz (Convicted and sentenced to 10 - 20 years in prison for sodomizing a nine-year-old psychiatric patient. Allegedly, he has assaulted a string of children from California to Israel to New York in the past twenty years. Alan J. Horowitz is an Orthodox rabbi, magna cum laude, M.D., Ph.D. A graduate of Duke University, and was a writer for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association).
Case of Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum (Accused of child pornography on the internet)
Case of Rabbi Robert Kirschner (Accused of sexually exploited or harassing three congregants and a synagogue employee)
Case of Rabbi Ze'ev Kopolevitch (Convicted of molesting students at Rosh Yeshiva, Netiv Meir yeshiva high school)
Case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner (Convicted - child molestation.)
Case of Rabbi Jerrold Martin Levy (Convicted of two counts of soliciting sex through the Internet and two counts of child pornography. He was sentenced to six years and sex in prison. He was caught in the "Candyman" year-long sting operation by the US government.)
Case of Rabbi Pinchas Lew (Accused of exposed himself to a woman.)
Case of Rabbi/Psychologist Mordecai Magencey (lost his license to practice in the State of Missouri because of his sexual misconduct with his patients.)
Case of Rabbi Richard Marcovitz (Convicted of indecent or lewd acts with a child, and sexual battery)
Case of Rabbi Juda Mintz (Convicted - internet sting on child pornography)
Rabbi Yona Metzger (Accused of sexually misconduct with four men)
Case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz (Accused of two counts of sex abuse with boys at a special education school in New York)
Case of Cantor Howard Nevison (Accused of molesting his nephew)
Case of Rabbi Michael Ozair (Accused of sexual molestation of a then-14-year-old girl)
Case of Cantor Stanley Rosenfeld (Convicted of molesting a 12-year-old boy he was tutoring.)
Case of Rabbi Charles Shalman (Accused of sexual misconduct toward female congregational members)
Case of Cantor Robert Shapiro (Accused of three counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault and battery to a mentally retarded woman)
Case of Cantor Michael Segelstein (Accused of attempted rape; Chabad - Las Vegas, Nevada)
Case of Rabbi Ze'ev Sultanovitch (Accused of sexually molesting a number of adult yeshiva students at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva)
Case of Rabbi Melvin Teitelbaum (Accused of three counts of sex crimes against two boys under the age of 14, and one count of assault with intent to commit rape against one boy's mother. The charges were dropped for lack of evidenced)
Case of Rabbi Isadore Trachtman (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Hirsch Travis (Rabbi in Monsey, accused of posing as a Brooklyn doctor specializing in infertility problems, and allegedly sexually abusing and assaulting a patient.)
Case of Rabbi Matis Weinberg (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Yaakov Weiner (Accused of molesting boy at Camp Mogen Avraham, New York)
Case of Rabbi Don Well
Case of Cantor Phillip Wittlin (Convicted of molesting two girls)
Case of Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov (Convicted of sexual abuse and committing lewd acts against three boys)
Case of Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman (Violated guidelines concerning "sexual ethics and sexual boundaries," )
Case of Rabbi Max Zucker (Accused by three women of improperly touching)
And Other Trusted Officals (Parents, Teachers, Camp Counselors, etc.)
Case of Arie Adler and Marisa Rimland, NY (Arie Adler was accused of molesting his daughter. Marisa Rimland murdered her daughter, and then committed suicide).
Case of Simcha Adler - Ohel Counselor, NY (Plea-bargained charges of sodomy, sexual abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child down to attempted sodomy.)
Case of Eugene Loub Aronin - School Counselor, TX (Convicted in 1984 of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy)
Case of B'Nai Torah Congegation - Hillel Community Day School janitor, Boca Raton, FL (Accused of child molestation)
Case of Chaim Ciment (Accused and charged with first-degree sexual abuse, after allegations were made that he fondled a 17 year old girl in an elevator).
Case of James A. Cohen - Jewish Youth Group Leader (Convicted child molester, sentenced to 9 years for assaulting 4 boys)
Case of Larry Cohen - Soccer Coach, Lake Oswego, OR (Accused of molesting two individuals.)
Case of Lawrence Cohen - School Teacher, NJ (Convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for transmitting child pornography through his home computer).
Case of Phillip "Eli" Cohen, London, England (Accused of 13 charges of indecently assaulting a boy and four offences of indecently assaulting a girl)
Case of Stuart Cooperman, MD - Pediatrican, Merrick, New York (Accused of molesting six female patience).
Case of Delaware Family (Father accused of alleged child molestation)
Case of Mordechai (Morton) Ehrman - Simcha's Play Group, Brooklyn, NY (Accused of molesting dozens of students).
Case of Hbrandon Lee Flagner (Convicted of the kidnapping and aggravated murder of Tiffany Jennifer Papesh a 8-year-old girl. Flagner also claimed to have molested hundreds of girls during his life. While in prison, Flagner convert to Judaism by an Chasidic rabbi.)
Case of Arnold and Jesse Friedman (Capturing the Friedmans) (Convicted sex offender)
Case of Richard "Steve" Goldberg (Allegedly engaging in sex acts with several girls under 10 in California. He is on the FBI's ten most wanted fugitives list)
Case of Ross Goldstein (Convicting of sodomy in the first degree (three counts) and use of a child in a sexual performance. He was Sentenced to four concurrent indeterminated terms of 2 to 6 years imprisonment. Also see: Case of Arnold and Jesse Friedman)
Case of Several Child Sex Offenders in Har Nof 0 Jerusalem, Israel (Outlines several cases of alleged child sex offenders in the charedi town of Har Nof)
Case of David B. Harrington - School Principal / Big Brother, Rockville, MD (Convicted sex offender. Cases from the 1960's - 1980's.)
Case of State of Israel Vs. a Sex Offender (Convicted - 68 year old Israeli religious man pled guilty to repeated molestation of his granddaughter, was sentenced to 19 years in jail.
Case of Eric Hindin - Jewish Big Brother Volunteer, Newton, MA (Convicted of 35 counts of child rape. He was sentenced to 20-22 years in prison).
Case of Judge Ronald Kline, CA (Accused of possessing child pornography and for allegedly molesting a neighborhood boy 25 years ago).
Case of the Kosher Butcher in Chicago (Accused of molesting children for over 30 years)
Case of Lawrence Nevison - (Convicted of molesting his nephew. He is the brother of Cantor Howard Nevison)
Case of Stuart Nevison - (Convicted of molesting his cousin. He is the brother of Cantor Howard Nevison)
The Case of the Students of Ner Israel Yeshiva in the 1950's (Students accused of sexually molesting a younger student)
Case of the New York Society for the Deaf's Home (Accused of treating disabled patients ``like animals,'' beaten, drugged and robbed of their government checks).
Case of Ozzie Orbach, M.D. (Accused of molesting his daughter)
Case of the Rogers Park JCC, Chicago Illinois (This was the first case of alleged mass molestation recorded in Illinois to involve accusations of sexual abuse by a group of adults, consists of 246 allegations that staff members abused children enrolled at the center, according to the Illinois Department of children and Family Services).
Case of Jonathan Rosenthal - Community Police Liason, London, England (Acquitted of sexually assaulting a few children, after a jury used ancient common law right, deciding evidence wasn't strong enough.)
Case of Adam Theodore Rubin - Teacher, Coach and Girl Scout Coordinator (Accused of using a computer to solicit sex with a minor, possession of a controlled dangerous substance and possession of drug paraphernalia).
Case of Georges Schteinberg - Teacher, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Accused of possession of child pornography. Charges dropped when Schteinberg fled the country).
Case of Aryeh Scher - Israeli vice-consul, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Accused of possession of child pornography. Charges dropped when Scher fled the country).
Case of David Schwartz - Camp Counselor, Culver City, CA (Convicted and sentenced to one year in residential treatment and five years' probation for molesting a 4-year-old boy in his care at summer camp. A six-year prison sentence was suspended).
Case of Jerrold Schwartz - Scoutmaster, NY (Convicted and sentanced to 8 years in prison for multiple counts of sodomizing his former scout ).
Case of Irwin Silverman - Chief Counsel to U.S. secretary of interior 1933-53 (Accused of molesting his daughter Sue William Silverman. )
Case of Paul Slifer - Teacher (Accused of sexually assaulting a several students, and impersonating a doctor. )
Case of Ari Sorkin - Synagogue Youth Worker, Elkins Park, PA (Accused of molesting a 16 yr. old girl)
Case of Tel Aviv Arts School, Tel Aviv, Israel
Case of Dr. Saul and Judith Wasserman (Accused of molesting their daughter)
Case of David Douglas Webber - Mashgiach (Kashrut Supervisor), Canada (Convicted and sentenced to six years for possessing child pornography and molesting seven boys over the past eight years).
Case of Rabbi Lewis Brenner (Convicted of child molestation. The original charges included 14 counts of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. He agreed to plead guilty to one count of sodomy in the third degree, a Class E felony, in exchange for a sentence of five years' probation.)
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks (Accusations about sexual inappropriate behavior with children started surfacing in the 1980's. Rabbi Bryks is currently a member of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. The Vaad is a Rabbinical committee that makes important decisions within an orthodox community.)
Case of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (Accused of several cases of child molestation, and sexual assault of young women)
Case Rabbi Perry Ian Cohen - Montreal and Toronto Canada (Accused of sexual abuse of a seventeen year old. Fired for sexual impropriety with congregants)
Case of Rabbi Yitzchak Cohen (Accused of sexually harassing students at Bar-Ilan University)
Case of Rabbi Ephraim Goldberg - Boca Raton, Flordia (Pled guilty to one misdemeanor count of exposure of sexual organs in a washroom at a Palm Beach Mall.)
Case of Rabbi/Cantor Sidney Goldenberg (Convicted of molesting children. The first complaints came in 1971. He was finally convicted in 1997.)
Case of Cantor Joel Gordon (Convicted of having keeping a house of prostitution and involvement in a prostitution ring.)
Case of Rabbi Israel Grunwald (Accused of molesting a 15 year old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia to LA. The charge against him were dropped after agreeing to perform 500 hours of community service and to seek counseling. Grunwald was the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas).
Case of The State of Israel Vs. Sex Offender (Convicted of repeated rape and forced molestation of his graddaughter.)
Case of Yehudah Friedlander - Rabbi 's Assistant (Accused of molesting a 15 year old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia to LA. Friedlander was the assistant to the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas)
Case of the Rabbi at Hillel Torah, Chicago, IL (A teacher at the Chicago school was accused of child molestation. His name was not released. The school did everything correctly in attempting to keep the children safe once accusations were made.)
Case of Rabbi Solomon Hafner (Accused of sexually abusing a developmentally disabled boy)
Case of Rabbi (Alan J.) Shneur Horowitz (Convicted and sentenced to 10 - 20 years in prison for sodomizing a nine-year-old psychiatric patient. Allegedly, he has assaulted a string of children from California to Israel to New York in the past twenty years. Alan J. Horowitz is an Orthodox rabbi, magna cum laude, M.D., Ph.D. A graduate of Duke University, and was a writer for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association).
Case of Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum (Accused of child pornography on the internet)
Case of Rabbi Robert Kirschner (Accused of sexually exploited or harassing three congregants and a synagogue employee)
Case of Rabbi Ze'ev Kopolevitch (Convicted of molesting students at Rosh Yeshiva, Netiv Meir yeshiva high school)
Case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner (Convicted - child molestation.)
Case of Rabbi Jerrold Martin Levy (Convicted of two counts of soliciting sex through the Internet and two counts of child pornography. He was sentenced to six years and sex in prison. He was caught in the "Candyman" year-long sting operation by the US government.)
Case of Rabbi Pinchas Lew (Accused of exposed himself to a woman.)
Case of Rabbi/Psychologist Mordecai Magencey (lost his license to practice in the State of Missouri because of his sexual misconduct with his patients.)
Case of Rabbi Richard Marcovitz (Convicted of indecent or lewd acts with a child, and sexual battery)
Case of Rabbi Juda Mintz (Convicted - internet sting on child pornography)
Rabbi Yona Metzger (Accused of sexually misconduct with four men)
Case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz (Accused of two counts of sex abuse with boys at a special education school in New York)
Case of Cantor Howard Nevison (Accused of molesting his nephew)
Case of Rabbi Michael Ozair (Accused of sexual molestation of a then-14-year-old girl)
Case of Cantor Stanley Rosenfeld (Convicted of molesting a 12-year-old boy he was tutoring.)
Case of Rabbi Charles Shalman (Accused of sexual misconduct toward female congregational members)
Case of Cantor Robert Shapiro (Accused of three counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault and battery to a mentally retarded woman)
Case of Cantor Michael Segelstein (Accused of attempted rape; Chabad - Las Vegas, Nevada)
Case of Rabbi Ze'ev Sultanovitch (Accused of sexually molesting a number of adult yeshiva students at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva)
Case of Rabbi Melvin Teitelbaum (Accused of three counts of sex crimes against two boys under the age of 14, and one count of assault with intent to commit rape against one boy's mother. The charges were dropped for lack of evidenced)
Case of Rabbi Isadore Trachtman (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Hirsch Travis (Rabbi in Monsey, accused of posing as a Brooklyn doctor specializing in infertility problems, and allegedly sexually abusing and assaulting a patient.)
Case of Rabbi Matis Weinberg (Accused of cultic type practices and sexual offenses)
Case of Rabbi Yaakov Weiner (Accused of molesting boy at Camp Mogen Avraham, New York)
Case of Rabbi Don Well
Case of Cantor Phillip Wittlin (Convicted of molesting two girls)
Case of Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov (Convicted of sexual abuse and committing lewd acts against three boys)
Case of Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman (Violated guidelines concerning "sexual ethics and sexual boundaries," )
Case of Rabbi Max Zucker (Accused by three women of improperly touching)
And Other Trusted Officals (Parents, Teachers, Camp Counselors, etc.)
Case of Arie Adler and Marisa Rimland, NY (Arie Adler was accused of molesting his daughter. Marisa Rimland murdered her daughter, and then committed suicide).
Case of Simcha Adler - Ohel Counselor, NY (Plea-bargained charges of sodomy, sexual abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child down to attempted sodomy.)
Case of Eugene Loub Aronin - School Counselor, TX (Convicted in 1984 of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy)
Case of B'Nai Torah Congegation - Hillel Community Day School janitor, Boca Raton, FL (Accused of child molestation)
Case of Chaim Ciment (Accused and charged with first-degree sexual abuse, after allegations were made that he fondled a 17 year old girl in an elevator).
Case of James A. Cohen - Jewish Youth Group Leader (Convicted child molester, sentenced to 9 years for assaulting 4 boys)
Case of Larry Cohen - Soccer Coach, Lake Oswego, OR (Accused of molesting two individuals.)
Case of Lawrence Cohen - School Teacher, NJ (Convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for transmitting child pornography through his home computer).
Case of Phillip "Eli" Cohen, London, England (Accused of 13 charges of indecently assaulting a boy and four offences of indecently assaulting a girl)
Case of Stuart Cooperman, MD - Pediatrican, Merrick, New York (Accused of molesting six female patience).
Case of Delaware Family (Father accused of alleged child molestation)
Case of Mordechai (Morton) Ehrman - Simcha's Play Group, Brooklyn, NY (Accused of molesting dozens of students).
Case of Hbrandon Lee Flagner (Convicted of the kidnapping and aggravated murder of Tiffany Jennifer Papesh a 8-year-old girl. Flagner also claimed to have molested hundreds of girls during his life. While in prison, Flagner convert to Judaism by an Chasidic rabbi.)
Case of Arnold and Jesse Friedman (Capturing the Friedmans) (Convicted sex offender)
Case of Richard "Steve" Goldberg (Allegedly engaging in sex acts with several girls under 10 in California. He is on the FBI's ten most wanted fugitives list)
Case of Ross Goldstein (Convicting of sodomy in the first degree (three counts) and use of a child in a sexual performance. He was Sentenced to four concurrent indeterminated terms of 2 to 6 years imprisonment. Also see: Case of Arnold and Jesse Friedman)
Case of Several Child Sex Offenders in Har Nof 0 Jerusalem, Israel (Outlines several cases of alleged child sex offenders in the charedi town of Har Nof)
Case of David B. Harrington - School Principal / Big Brother, Rockville, MD (Convicted sex offender. Cases from the 1960's - 1980's.)
Case of State of Israel Vs. a Sex Offender (Convicted - 68 year old Israeli religious man pled guilty to repeated molestation of his granddaughter, was sentenced to 19 years in jail.
Case of Eric Hindin - Jewish Big Brother Volunteer, Newton, MA (Convicted of 35 counts of child rape. He was sentenced to 20-22 years in prison).
Case of Judge Ronald Kline, CA (Accused of possessing child pornography and for allegedly molesting a neighborhood boy 25 years ago).
Case of the Kosher Butcher in Chicago (Accused of molesting children for over 30 years)
Case of Lawrence Nevison - (Convicted of molesting his nephew. He is the brother of Cantor Howard Nevison)
Case of Stuart Nevison - (Convicted of molesting his cousin. He is the brother of Cantor Howard Nevison)
The Case of the Students of Ner Israel Yeshiva in the 1950's (Students accused of sexually molesting a younger student)
Case of the New York Society for the Deaf's Home (Accused of treating disabled patients ``like animals,'' beaten, drugged and robbed of their government checks).
Case of Ozzie Orbach, M.D. (Accused of molesting his daughter)
Case of the Rogers Park JCC, Chicago Illinois (This was the first case of alleged mass molestation recorded in Illinois to involve accusations of sexual abuse by a group of adults, consists of 246 allegations that staff members abused children enrolled at the center, according to the Illinois Department of children and Family Services).
Case of Jonathan Rosenthal - Community Police Liason, London, England (Acquitted of sexually assaulting a few children, after a jury used ancient common law right, deciding evidence wasn't strong enough.)
Case of Adam Theodore Rubin - Teacher, Coach and Girl Scout Coordinator (Accused of using a computer to solicit sex with a minor, possession of a controlled dangerous substance and possession of drug paraphernalia).
Case of Georges Schteinberg - Teacher, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Accused of possession of child pornography. Charges dropped when Schteinberg fled the country).
Case of Aryeh Scher - Israeli vice-consul, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Accused of possession of child pornography. Charges dropped when Scher fled the country).
Case of David Schwartz - Camp Counselor, Culver City, CA (Convicted and sentenced to one year in residential treatment and five years' probation for molesting a 4-year-old boy in his care at summer camp. A six-year prison sentence was suspended).
Case of Jerrold Schwartz - Scoutmaster, NY (Convicted and sentanced to 8 years in prison for multiple counts of sodomizing his former scout ).
Case of Irwin Silverman - Chief Counsel to U.S. secretary of interior 1933-53 (Accused of molesting his daughter Sue William Silverman. )
Case of Paul Slifer - Teacher (Accused of sexually assaulting a several students, and impersonating a doctor. )
Case of Ari Sorkin - Synagogue Youth Worker, Elkins Park, PA (Accused of molesting a 16 yr. old girl)
Case of Tel Aviv Arts School, Tel Aviv, Israel
Case of Dr. Saul and Judith Wasserman (Accused of molesting their daughter)
Case of David Douglas Webber - Mashgiach (Kashrut Supervisor), Canada (Convicted and sentenced to six years for possessing child pornography and molesting seven boys over the past eight years).
Monday, January 14, 2008
ADL To Supreme Court: States Should Regulate Firearms
I Guess the ADL isn't concerned so much about keeping guns out of the hands of black criminals and illegal immigrants.
New York, NY, January 11, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on the United States Supreme Court to continue to allow states to protect their citizens' lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms. The League urged the Court to ensure that states retain the ability to keep guns out of the hands of "violent bigots."
Glen S. Lewy, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
This case is about allowing states to protect their citizens' lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms.
Gun violence and the caching of dangerous weapons are commonplace among extremists. If states lose the right to regulate firearm ownership, it would help violent bigots in their efforts to create an America based on hate and intolerance. We urge the Supreme Court to ensure that states have the tools to counter these agents of hate.
We are also deeply concerned about the possession and use of firearms by children. The Court must permit states to keep guns out of the hands of those who would bring violence to our schools.
The regulation of firearms is a rational response to these twin evils and is consistent with the Second Amendment's call for a well-regulated militia.
This case, District of Columbia v Heller, will determine – for the first time in over 60 years – whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to firearms for private use.
ADL joined a coalition in filing a "friend-of-the-court" brief (.pdf) to the Court, contending that the Second Amendment should not be interpreted as limiting a state's authority to regulate firearms when it seeks to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Rather, the brief argues, the language of the Amendment can only be reasonably read to prohibit the federal government from interfering with such state regulation.
Jeffrey A. Lamken of Baker Botts L.L.P was the principal author of the coalition brief.
New York, NY, January 11, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on the United States Supreme Court to continue to allow states to protect their citizens' lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms. The League urged the Court to ensure that states retain the ability to keep guns out of the hands of "violent bigots."
Glen S. Lewy, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
This case is about allowing states to protect their citizens' lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms.
Gun violence and the caching of dangerous weapons are commonplace among extremists. If states lose the right to regulate firearm ownership, it would help violent bigots in their efforts to create an America based on hate and intolerance. We urge the Supreme Court to ensure that states have the tools to counter these agents of hate.
We are also deeply concerned about the possession and use of firearms by children. The Court must permit states to keep guns out of the hands of those who would bring violence to our schools.
The regulation of firearms is a rational response to these twin evils and is consistent with the Second Amendment's call for a well-regulated militia.
This case, District of Columbia v Heller, will determine – for the first time in over 60 years – whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to firearms for private use.
ADL joined a coalition in filing a "friend-of-the-court" brief (.pdf) to the Court, contending that the Second Amendment should not be interpreted as limiting a state's authority to regulate firearms when it seeks to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Rather, the brief argues, the language of the Amendment can only be reasonably read to prohibit the federal government from interfering with such state regulation.
Jeffrey A. Lamken of Baker Botts L.L.P was the principal author of the coalition brief.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Bush Shakes Hand With An Enemy Of America
JERUSALEM (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Thursday shook the hand of an Israeli minister barred from entering the United States over his role in a high-profile spy case at an official dinner party.
Bush, together with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and top White House officials all met with Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan at a dinner party hosted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in his Jerusalem residence, according to TV footage.
All the top ministers in Olmert's coalition government were also present at the event.
Olmert introduced Eitan to the president, although they were not shown talking. Eitan was then seen shaking hands with Rice alongside Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
The president will on Thursday end a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories aimed at boosting the Middle East peace talks that were relaunched last November.
Eitan, a member of Israel's security cabinet, was the old Mossad handler for Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew sentenced to life in prison for spying on Israel.
Pollard had passed thousands of secret documents about US spy activities in the Arab world to Israel between May 1984 and his arrest in November 1985.
The issue of Pollard, a US-born Jew who has taken Israeli citizenship while in prison, has been a thorn in the side of relations between Israel and its main ally Washington for years.
At the time of the affair, Eitan was head of the Bureau of Scientific Relations, an Israeli secret service which was later broken up.
When he was found out, Pollard sought the protection of the Israeli embassy in Washington, but was refused access and later arrested by the FBI.
Israel's Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai said he intended to petition Bush during his visit for the release of Pollard, considered a national hero by most Israelis.
Israel has repeatedly tried in vain to secure Pollard's release.
Pollard's wife Esther told the Jerusalem Post that her husband was "shocked and disgusted" by the fact that Eitan was invited to the president's dinner while he sat in jail.
Bush, together with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and top White House officials all met with Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan at a dinner party hosted by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in his Jerusalem residence, according to TV footage.
All the top ministers in Olmert's coalition government were also present at the event.
Olmert introduced Eitan to the president, although they were not shown talking. Eitan was then seen shaking hands with Rice alongside Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
The president will on Thursday end a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories aimed at boosting the Middle East peace talks that were relaunched last November.
Eitan, a member of Israel's security cabinet, was the old Mossad handler for Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew sentenced to life in prison for spying on Israel.
Pollard had passed thousands of secret documents about US spy activities in the Arab world to Israel between May 1984 and his arrest in November 1985.
The issue of Pollard, a US-born Jew who has taken Israeli citizenship while in prison, has been a thorn in the side of relations between Israel and its main ally Washington for years.
At the time of the affair, Eitan was head of the Bureau of Scientific Relations, an Israeli secret service which was later broken up.
When he was found out, Pollard sought the protection of the Israeli embassy in Washington, but was refused access and later arrested by the FBI.
Israel's Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai said he intended to petition Bush during his visit for the release of Pollard, considered a national hero by most Israelis.
Israel has repeatedly tried in vain to secure Pollard's release.
Pollard's wife Esther told the Jerusalem Post that her husband was "shocked and disgusted" by the fact that Eitan was invited to the president's dinner while he sat in jail.
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