We have been following the bizarre case of the once leading national Orthodox rabbi and powerful local figure, Barry Freundel. Freundel (shown above from a YouTube clip), is now criminally charged with using a secret camera to film Jewish women engaged in the ritual bath known as a Mikva. There is now new details in the case and they are shocking even in this notorious case. Freundel is now accused of photographing more than 150 women in the ritual bath.
He is viewed as one of the leading experts on Jewish law and ethics and “an intellectual giant” in the Jewish intellectual circles. Freundel headed the conversion committee of the Rabbinical Council of America and is vice president of the region’s Vaad, overseeing kosher dietary laws at Jewish institutions. He has a law degree and a doctorate and is affiliated with several area universities, including Georgetown University’s law school, the University of Maryland and Towson University, north of the Baltimore. He was part of a power couple within the Jewish community with his wife Sharon Freundel is the leader of Kesher’s monthly women’s study and prayer group as well as the director of Hebrew and Judaic studies at the Jewish Primary Day School. Sharon Freundel was in the courtroom with one of their three children for his arraignment but has since filed for divorce. Some members of the Kesher Israel synagogue called Freundel intimidating and dismissive as a Rabbi.
The prosecutors proceeded on the basis of six women but indicated that they believed that there were more alleged victims. It appears that there might be a lot more. The question is whether the Kesher Israel synagogue might be liable to such a large number of women given the complaints about Freundel in the past though those complaints appear to be more about his treatment of people at Kesher generally. If there were an action against the synagogue, it could be devastating in terms of damages and restitution claims. Torts claims could be based not only as respondent superior (which would be challenged on the basis that this is a crime, concealed from the congregation, and outside the scope of his duties) but also on the failure to supervise their employee and secure the area for the ritual bathing.
Reminds me of that joke with the two nuns talking about a Catholic intellectual giant of a bishop. “Is that what he told you? He told me it was Gabriel’s horn and I blew it for forty years.”
The Rabbi could start his reform with a 1965 Mustang. And, a gal named Mustang Sally. There is a song out there about her and I will look for it. Then we could send the Rabbi this blog and he might find the Light and be Delivered on His Way. I could also send him some literature on Eighth Day Dog Adventism and suggest that he get a dog. They will need to bathe. Maybe he could delegate the dog bath to someone else. We don’t want a Dog Pedophile being outted on the blog here. Woff.
There was a topic on another blog entitled Confessions of a Pedophile Priest. The guy related how it was that he got to the priesthood and how he went pedophile and how he got reformed.
In phase one he was a teenager and went to the Drive In Movie Theatre in his home town in New York near Albany with a high school sweetheart. They got in the back seat of a 1965 Mustang and he could not do his thing. He went to the same Drive In a week later and the ex girlfriend was in the back seat of the car next to him with another guy. So he went in the Seminary.
Seminary. He found that the word did have something related to semen. One of the Brothers talked, in a confession no less, of a trist with a teen. One thing led to another.
Priesthood. He was rolling along saying the Eulogy and Hail Marys and all that and one of his alter boys accused him of some foul play. The Diocese sent him out of the country to France. He was in therapy. He went on a trip to Paris and the rest is history. Another Franciscan Brother took him to the cathouse in Paris and he learned he could do what he could not do years before in the backseat of a 1965 Mustang. He learned that it was all about position and enticing looks.
Cured. He left the Priesthood but not the Catholic Faith and opened a store in Georgia which sells fried chicken. He has a wife, two kinds and a ’65 Mustang. He is living happily ever after.
After reading what he did, now I need a bath.
What a betrayal.
I think that The Grateful Dead had this guy in mind when they wrote this song:
“Friend Of The Devil”
I lit out from Reno, I was trailed by twenty hounds
Didn’t get to sleep last night ’till the morning came around.
Set out runnin’ but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.
Ran into the devil, babe, he loaned me twenty bills
I spent the night in Utah in a cave up in the hills.
Set out runnin’ but I take my time, a friend of the devil is a friend of mine,
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.
I ran down to the levee but the devil caught me there
He took my twenty dollar bill and vanished in the air.
Set out runnin’ but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.
Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night,
The first one’s named Sweet Anne Marie, and she’s my hearts delight.
The second one is prison, babe, the sheriff’s on my trail,
And if he catches up with me, I’ll spend my life in jail.
Got a wife in Chino, babe, and one in Cherokee
The first one says she’s got my child, but it don’t look like me.
Set out runnin’ but I take my time,
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine,
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.
“Dorothy Parker said a lot of things best.” (earlier)
As in the poem “Men”, which ends like this:
“They make me sick, they make me tired.”
Isaac, Great point. When the nerds obtain money/status/power they seem to have not had the natural evolution of experience w/ women in their early years. I have mentioned here my plan, Hookers for Hackers. As we know, most all hackers are men. They are nerds. They don’t get laid so they spend countless hours trying to hack into computers from mom’s basement. A fund wherein we buy hookers for these guys might make hacking less of a problem.
The ubiquity of small, concealed cameras has opened up a brave new world for perverts. When these cameras first came on the market 20 or so years ago they were expensive, crude[black and white] and cumbersome. You had to hook up your own recording device, Hi-8 was the format back then. But, when they got smaller and digital I knew there were going to be major problems. They are now cheap[~$150] and high quality picture. Just like the ubiquity of cameras, particularly cell phone video, has changed the world for cops, these cameras have opened new horizons for pigs like this.
Sometimes, in fact quite often, it goes with the territory. Intellectual giant, economic superstar, President of the US, huge ego, missed the introduction to the world of women during puberty due to all that high achieving, huge ego, lots of attention, huge ego…….or perhaps just one uncontrollable horn dog with a huge ego.
david
It doesn’t leave me speechless and it is not hard to believe at all.
I’m waiting for the connections to Straus-Kahn and Epstein to come out. I’d love to be a fly on the wall watching that poker game.
Pogo – Dorothy Parker said a lot of things best. 😉
I think he has too much stuff to move and no place to move it to. I wouldn’t want to move either. 🙂 He is just making it hard on them and buying himself time to pack and put stuff in storage before he does his prison time.
Does anyone still believe our human nature has improved since the dawn of man?
“This raises the question of whether the contributors to this American classic believe that man can be improved. The answer is in the negative. No millennium is foreseen in which human selfishness would disappear and in which it would be possible to live happily without the restraints of government. All kinds of men, whether poor or rich, whether of common or aristocratic stock, are selfish and always will be.” Gottfried Dietze
This rampant corruption in all institutions of the West is probably leading to the downfall of Western civilization and the rise of worldwide Islamic theocracy. Perhaps, in its standards of morality and responsibility, Islamism has something to offer, after all. Modern civilizational standards must be pretty low for me to even say that. Welcome to Hell. Have a nice day.
Solution. Send rabbi Barry on sabbatical. Embed him with expedition team consisting of anthropological, medical and physiological professionals.
Do first contact with naked isolated Indians. Develop communication, diplomatic strategy, desires, wants and needs. Implement plan for contact and move forward with robust results.
High profile rabbi Barry like this should know places where name, Jehovah or Yahweh is not yet known. Only 3 places left on planet earth. Peru, Brazil and New Guinea. Everyone else in world knows names at least 1 time.
http://globotv.globo.com/rede-globo/profissao-reporter/v/indios-isolados-na-amazonia-peruana-fazem-contato-parte-2/3680579/
“The synagogue’s board fired Freundel in November and told him to leave the synagogue-owned home by Jan. 1, which he hasn’t, leading to another dispute.”
Hoo boy.
Dorothy Parker said it best: “Don’t let that little frankfurter tell you what to do.“
We live in an age where everything is corrupt: The President, Congress, Attorney General, immigration, welfare, TV news, businesses, science, medicine, churches, the Girl Scouts, and little league.
The loss of trust this engenders spreads over time. Low-trust economies do more poorly, to be sure. But there is a degradation of social interaction as well.
We’re becoming Russians.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.“
It kind of leaves one speechless. Wow. Hard to believe.